This Holocaust Author's Auschwitz Blog

“.. Not all victims were Jewish in this place but all Jews were victims.” Elie Wiesel.

Every word I write is fully mindful of the very lessons that are to be learned, and I pay due diligence in those sentences to what the Survivors have taught me. Wherever I embark upon a paragraph, always related to the insurmountable struggle 6,000,000 Jews were unable to escape from, and as they were driven along toward their destruction, words seep out which add to the reminder of our loss of them. I well remember these phrases, which emphasise both the need to learn and the understanding to know, and this idea which Elie Wiesel proposes, marks a truth which defines The Holocaust as a catastrophe for all the Jews of Europe, even for those 1,000,000’s of Jews who managed to evade Hitler’s attention.

“..You must first study ..basic subjects within your own understanding.” Elie Wiesel.

In studying to even appreciate what is was like for a Jews to attempt to persist as a Jew during this time, I falter hugely on all levels of understanding. Though I appreciate fully the terrible dilemma this present, none of this can ever convey the emotional trauma surely played out with unspeakable brutality. While adding my own considerations to this obvious truth, I would assert also that while not all non-Jews were guilty, not all non-Jews are innocent of the implementation, perpetration or even participation in the realm of The Holocaust which cascaded 6,000,000 Jews into oblivion. Also in this, I recognise the need to ensure the Jewish voice is heard way above the clamour to remember those others who fell foul of such incarceration that would ultimately deal them a deathly blow.

“..her marvelous eyes ..proved ..not even in a Vernichtungslager ..an extermination camp ..a thought ..a smile could transform number A5480 into a breathless ..at times even happy ..young girl.” Liana Millu.

This position so challenges the right of any scientific account which History brings to bear upon the sheer scale of the atrocity that was first and foremost systematic of The Final Solution of The Jewish Question. So before I continue, I would like to dispel the overused myth, and usually by those who have misappropriated the term The Holocaust, and would then misuse the term Genocide, I find their dubious resolve into equating both terms to other than the attempt to deny life to an entire group of Jewish People, is symptomatic of their obvious bias, hate and disdain for the Jewish People, or their ignorance of what the Jews of Europe were forced to endure. It is certain, and in the case of The Holocaust in particular, this term alone will relate to the very sought after slaughter of these 6,000,000 Jews of Europe.

“..An SS ..gave ..order ..Men ..left ..Women ..right. ..words spoken quietly ..indifferently ..without emotion. ..simple words. Yet that was ..moment when I parted from my Mother. I had not had time to think ..but already ..felt ..pressure of my Father’s hand ..we were alone. ..for ..part of a second I glimpsed my Mother and Sisters moving away. ..I saw them disappear. ..I did not know ..in that place ..at that moment ..I was parting from my Mother and Tzipora forever.” Elie Wiesel.

With the dilution of all that has happened to these 6,000,000 Slaughtered Jews, which is being so callously sought in much of history, we counter such obvious a threat with the bare facts which the truth relates. This contemptuous effort is not solely orchestrated by those positively seeking to further diminish the Jewish presence. But, and in highlighting the evidence apportioned to those others who were killed, and even murdered within Hitler’s diabolical system of destructive retribution, the Jewish People must not now be subjected to any further diminishing of their position within the overall catastrophe. While World War II possibly claimed 50 or even 70 million beings, that position is not as heavily questioned as the fact of more than 6,000,000 Jews of Europe having been removed from existence.

“..It’s so important to tell ..World what can happen when we are not tolerant of each other. That is ..main thing to understand. When somebody is different from you, it doesn’t mean they are worse or better. They are only different. If we can understand that ..we can live in peace with one another.” Lily Ebert.

Both the systematic and sought after extermination of those Jews, who are The Holocaust, fully delivers to posterity, the very term which Genocide demands to incorporate its usage as it delivers the Jewish People toward their carefully planned and itemised destruction. Today must look back to what the past affords us in relation to those best learned lessons we seek to bring us forward. While today, we see with Israel that they have gotten things wrong, even killing their own, the deaths of Children who are being killed is immensely wrong. We can too easily posit for the deaths of many who may or may not be exponents of the terror wave which continues to confront the Jews today. However, and while this is all within a War context, and where mistakes should not be made, these tragic deaths are not the deliberate aims of a government seeking to defend against the terms of obliteration proposed for them.

“..Jewish individuals who opened ..door to negotiation took tremendous risks ..personal ..communal ..conclusion must be ..they did ..right thing ..took ..only possible way to save lives. Contrary to all logic ..lives were saved.” Professor Yehuda Bauer.

To be clear, no one has the right to kill, to either maim or deprive innocent lives of life, as all life is sacrosanct before humanity. I have too often heard from certain groups, even large proportions of community’s, who would reference to that which those 6,000,000 Jews of The Holocaust were constantly referred to, with an indifference to their struggle. We are already well aware of the abject indifference shown to so many of these Jews, and no one has the right to both defame their right to life, nor insist upon their brutal or callous destruction being somehow lessened because they were Jews. Here, while we clearly seek to define the term itself, and as Genocide is meant in simple terms, the destruction of a national or ethnic group, as the Jews of Europe are, Genocide becomes the term for what The Holocaust has decided. It is a term generated by Rafael Lemkin so as to record those age-old hatreds, and then by formulating them toward newer constructs which, when designed to act upon such a hate, devoured these 6,000,000 Jews of Europe.

“..Generally speaking ..Genocide

(from Genos, the Greek for race, and from Cide, the Latin for killing)

..does not necessarily mean ..immediate destruction of a nation ..except when accomplished by mass killings of all members of a nation. It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at ..destruction of essential foundations of ..life of national groups ..with ..aim of annihilating ..groups themselves. Genocide is directed against ..national group as an entity ..and ..actions involved are directed against individuals ..not in their individual capacity ..but as members of ..national group.” Rafael Lemkin.

It has long been my wish to tie in to this term what emerged and one day, and from such singular a lesson, I will attribute everything I have learned from its meaning. I have personally asked of so many Jewish Survivors, and those like Yitzhak Arad, Yehuda Bauer, and Elie Wiesel who responded with kindness and direction, so that I too will lend from their experience, a testimony that will clearly belong to them. I recognise from within The Holocaust, which targeted them expressly, and I lean heavily upon all they have informed me of to ensure my dedication remains fixed to what they were subjected to. Partially, that is why I chose not to communicate with so many historians who consistently wrote about The Holocaust. Instead! I chose to hear from those Jewish Historians who clearly knew about The Holocaust, as they had managed to survive the very tenets of the grip which was meant to confine them also.

“..Jews were compelled to establish relations with an alien ..hostile government that regarded them as subhuman ..fit only for exploitation and extermination. ..human values in which they believed and on which they had built their lives tottered and collapsed. In this cruel reality ..Vilna Jewry struggled to survive and seek rescue. ..daily struggle was for life itself ..survive in ..face of hunger ..disease. Jewish Vilna embodied ..majority of hardships ..torment ..European Jewry ..underwent during The Holocaust ..its responses sum up most of ..options ..available to ..Jews during this tragic epoch. Vilna Jewry was a microcosm of ..fate of all Jewish communities in Eastern Europe.”  Dr. Yitzhak Arad.

In my research to further gain from what I was learning, places like Cracow, Kiev, Lodz, Lublin, Riga, Vilna, and Warsaw, all delivered up places which have become murderously synonymous with their geographical positioning in relation to those Jews to be consumed.

“..cherished objects ..brought with us this far were left behind in ..train ..and with them ..at last ..our illusions.” Elie Wiesel.

Today we are gaining further insight into such places, and spaces, like Babi-Yar, Belzec, Birkenau, Chelmno, Majdanek, Ponary, Rumbula, Sobibor, Treblinka, and Tuchinka, through carefully worded evidence’s of those Jews who experienced and survived them. For the Jewish Survivor therefore, and indeed more practically for the Jewish Survivor who emerges to become an historian, they all afford us their own perspective, which has long urged me forward. That said, and in search of knowing further what they knew from their own evaluation, I have borrowed heavily from an experience we are unable to add comprehension to, in other than failed words to do so.

“..I knew ..Jewish World in Eastern Europe that was alive and well and destroyed in The Holocaust. I saw with my own eyes 1,000’s of Jews being led to ..firing pits. I survived ..and fate allowed me to join ..partisans ..fighters against ..murderers of our people ..and in their ranks to blow up German trains.” Dr. Yitzhak Arad.

Gleaning all that is relevant of what is the Jewish Survivor’s Historical truth, it emerges from within them as a learned experience fraught dangers to the human intellect, as it was learned on a first-hand level. I was certain that all I needed to learn was to be gained from their own personal, well woven and interlaced experiences. I remember being struck by a visit to one of the Death Camps, as I traipsed though deep snow, in such freezing conditions I had never ever experienced before. I knew I was following in so many well worn steps of those Jewish Men, Women and Their Children made those same steps, while I could recite, I will emerge back through these gates. I was struck with the matter of Art and Artistry, as even the literature of words stretched my imaginings forward and toward a deadly experience I could not envisage. However, what I was lending a hand to, so as deliver some form of appreciation for our unskilled intellects to secure, the sheer scale of the Jewish losses would be added to in memory and remembrance.

“..Written In Pencil in the Sealed Railway Car

here in this carload

i am eve

with abel my son

if you see my other son

cain son of man

tell him that i.” Dan Pagis.

This is the title to a Poem which is written across the entrance to the Death Camp at Belzec, and it greeted me as I stood bitterly cold, but driven to add ever more words to the experience. Poetry in The Holocaust is part of a cultural emphasis to our appreciation of the lack of understanding, all of which can be described both in Books, Poems, Artworks and even deeds done by humanity to confirm its rejection of the atrocity itself. Dan Pagis designates, as the Cattle Car is the deliverer of those Jews to Belzec for destruction, words which finally end abruptly. The poem appears, and it finishes its sentence before it ends, recognising all hope had faded in this space as the lives of the Jews were cut permanently short here. For our inability at the understanding of the wrongs done, which cannot be rewritten, they can certainly be learned from if we pay proper tribute to the memory of those Jewish People who lend us their need to be heard, understood and be remembered.

“..I fought ..Nazi Germans ..their Lithuanian collaborators. ..murderers of my family ..of my people.” Dr. Yitzhak Arad.

For instance, and if we are to take learning from the Book, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka as was written by Yitzhak Arad, we would have more than an insight into these spaces of ultimate horror. Arad’s own words add an in-depth recourse to memory while adding more fully to the lexicon of words and knowledge we seek to understand. As my arrival in visiting this and the other 5 Death Camps confirms, it conveys that I would then fulfil a promise I had made to another Survivor, to visit all these establishments in Poland. Also, and now I could be guided, girded, and warned by a knowledge substantially delivered by the Survivor Historian Arad, who could still not warn nor prepare me for the almost spiritual incline I was to face. For me it was relevant that Arad, while exploring where much of his People’s devastation took place, he has afforded such insight as only such personal trauma could deliver. As such threats were likewise invoked, as could have been imposed upon him, the immediacy of his position would deliver for us a sense of the devastation he endured surviving his own People.

“..When ..occupied territories were liberated ..no single Jewish Community ..survived. Only small numbers of Jews emerged. ..Over 1,000,000 Jews had been killed in ..occupied ..Soviet Union.” Dr. Yitzhak Arad.

Not until I had reached each and everyone of these Death Camps, could I again begin to understand what Polish Jewry endured. It was patently obvious also, and despite the huge protestations to emerge from Poland, it was not too far from the truth that much of Poland itself looked on as The Final Solution was being played out on their doorstep. Safe in their own houses, and though many Poles were indeed kidnapped, for forced labour, or the fact that 3 million non-Jewish Poles either died, or were killed, it remains true that outside their own doors and windows, the flames of this Jewish hatred burned 3,200,000 Polish Jews to death.

“..perpetrators should be brought to trial ..in spite of age ..not as a vengeance ..but as a lesson and warning for ..future.” Dr. Yitzhak Arad.

What Arad brings to us, and what Dan Pagis adds to, there is this Woman, who issues a narrative that is without words, in very fine brush lines which depict the horror taken from the terror inflicted upon an innocent Jewish People. But, and while striking chords of anguish with such linear precision, we see deeply into the impact the fuller meaning of the catastrophe must display.

“..This need to document became an extraordinary force that carried me to survival ..just as painting saved my life.” Halina Olomucki.

If then we are to learn from this, another Book, Jews for Sale by Yehuda Bauer, comes into view. We are then witness to the indifference forwarded by much of what Poland knew, and what the rest of  Europe certainly learned from their intelligence services. The Holocaust of 6,000,000 European Jews has led to a fact which swamps totally the conceived of idea that societal civilisation could withhold the tenets of such hatred as was applied to these 6,000,000 of European Jewry. Her careful portraiture carefully denotes the struggle that was to beset her fellow Jews, alongside whom she recalls and eulogises in every brush stroke she puts to paint. Her work, drawing upon the daily struggle for the life of the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto were retrieved after the War. She also managed to find a few of the drawings she had hidden in Birkenau. Even as a forced labourer Halina still managed to draw, picking up the necessary supplies as she worked tirelessly to stay alive.

“..While I was in ..Birkenau someone told me ..if you live to leave this hell ..make your drawings ..tell ..World about us. We want to remain among ..living ..at least on paper.” Halina Olomucki.

Here we recognise in all that Halina attempted, what she forms is a certain spiritual resistance as she drew her experience of life in the Warsaw Ghetto, Majdanek, Birkenau, Ravensbrueck, and then finally to Neustadt-Glewe from where she was released, liberated even on May 2^nd 1945. My duty is to add words to paper and to have them printed in order to at least, remind the World why we must recall those who now exist ‘at least on paper’, and as a fulfilled memory for so many of them. At varying times throughout my journey I have looked in awe ass such images provoke the words to emerge. I listen to age old Music which Jews were listening to in their homes, and along the busy Streets which they were being continually disgorged from. I have read endless tomes of the factual truth of what The Holocaust is, its integrity languishing the fuller remit of The Final Solution and The Jewish Question.

“..Jews attempted to save Jews from ..Nazis through negotiations ..and for varying motives a few Nazis entered into such discussions. Most ..attempts failed ..some succeeded to a very limited degree. But considering them might be of importance ..because they raise a host of historical ..philosophical ..and moral issues.” Professor Yehuda Bauer.

When I look to the many Books, whose titles I must continually refer to, there are some striking examples, particularly in the title itself, which marks these Books out from the rest. With such a contemptuous Book title, Jews for Sale, there was an accusation within such syllables I felt that was fully warranted. I had generally thought, and until I came to fully understand the total indifference a World paid to a Jewish struggle, Yehuda Bauer’s Book struck a deep and meaningful chord. It troubled me greatly that such contention could be dealt with over the lives of Human Beings. So figuratively, and when we visit the Jews on board the St. Louis for instance, who could not even buy their own freedom, the seal was set upon the Jews becoming, mere pawns in a Worldly game.  By the time Eichmann taunted the very idea that Jewish Blood could and was offered for goods, too many 1,000,000’s of Jews were already consigned to a fate worse than their own deaths.

“..The Holocaust was a watershed event in human history. Attempts at rescue from The Holocaust were a sideshow ..there implications are very significant. ..discussion may throw light on human motivations ..and it ..brings us back to questions of personal and public ethics.” Professor Yehuda Bauer.

The prevailing winds of hate, and this pervasive knowledge of what it meant, secured that what these Jews either might have believed, conjectured with, or suspected, became such a stark reality. Even for these Jews who had supposedly cruised out of harm’s way, 3,000 miles of Atlantic Ocean was soon to catapult all too many of them back in the clutches of herr Hitler, himself an ‘Angel of Death’ and his entire cohort of mass murderer’s. It cannot be clearly ascertained but what Hitler allowed for the freedom of Jewish movement, foresaw the chance to gain financially from this, knowing too well that German, Austrian and even Polish Jewry would forfeit their very existence with travels to Western Europe.

“..an SS ..had come in ..with him ..odour of ..Angel of Death. ..looked us over as if we were a pack of leprous dogs hanging on to our lives.” Elie Wiesel.

Such then was the descent of civilised humanity, it practically disappeared into an abstract reality of division, darkness and destruction which overtook the Jewish light. So as to diminish way too much of Jewish existence, the Jewish lantern was finally extinguished for far too many. Here we can see from this particular lesson in History, and that Hitler had fully pledged his intention within his Weltanschauung, that World View which would subjugate all people’s to subservience and viewed the Jewish People fully decapitated. The Jews then, sent toward obliteration, were motioned forward, and toward the traffic of his fetid mind, Hitler was fixed upon owning all of Western and Eastern Europe. With that in mind, the view looked out to anywhere were there might be a Jewish presence, in order to destroy them all.

“..People seldom learn from history. Can we be an exception.” Professor Yehuda Bauer.

Amidst the consigning of this Jewish presence to such terror and horror, there is a compelling and immersive Book such as Night. This Book delivers from Elie Wiesel, a deeply strong evidence which has us transfixed, and he places us into an inhuman devastation he managed to emerge from. There are far too many books whose pretence is in delivering a narrative which is barely representative of what annihilated the Jewish People. Elie Wiesel’s Book has taught me of that grave darkness that hugely descended, and immersed the Jews in an unimaginable horror. That which surrounded them as a Jewish People, was targeting them, fully enveloping them in terror, simply because they were Jews. What then manifested itself, and within the horror of the Death Camps and Killing Sites, has shredded what was left of the human existence of 6,000,000 Jewish People, their death fully adding to the fabric of the land across the width and breadth of Continental Europe.

“..a novel about Treblinka is either not a novel or not about Treblinka.” Elie Wiesel.

From Elie Wiesel’s direction, I gained an insight into prospective works that would not be countenanced as they were not in search of the Jewish position. For me, any Book which presents itself as work on The Holocaust must always recognise the Jews are central to its commissioning. That the Jews were subjected to the most egregious and brutal atrocity ever to confront the heart of humanity, must be reflected with such works. I remember, as I sat alone in an amphitheatre in Belzec, and reasoned without comprehension, that with an ocean of despair, annihilation was visited upon these Jews, purposely. I could not then countenance such visions of grave loss without succumbing to a deep shame that this had happened. It was a personal shame too, as any human beings must sorely feel. I could no more imagine the trauma though, of Jewish People with Their Children, finally winding their way toward oblivion. Nor could I imagine the distress of Jewish Parents as the are immediate witnesses to this humanitarian downfall. So I go on, reminding us all that with such a catastrophe, hatred has no place amongst reasoned people who judge humanity, humanely.

“..first act as free men was to throw ourselves on to ..provisions. We thought only of that. Not of revenge ..not of our families. Nothing but bread.” Elie Wiesel.

                                          

All that I have, of what 6,000,000 Jewish means to me, are presented to a World in those Books in which I deliver for them, all my words adding to their Memory. This is a body of work which recalls the Jewish loss to all of Civilisation, and it is not so carefully written as to dismiss the accusation to face the World. The civilised World did little in acknowledging the purge of human beings, and simply because they were Jews. It may seem a rather vague hope, but given the misplaced anger my work elicits from all too many, and there are too many of those who seek to distort the overriding truth, I persevere in 6,000,000 losses. The factual integrity of my work, which is recognising that 6,000,000 Jewish People were Slaughtered, and at the hands of those non-Jews who stood against all that humanity should have meant. My work is an amalgam of effort to be read in History, and to write it further into all of History, and without it being driven by the bias of distortion sought by so many. For all of those who would seek to shield their own nations from their lack of effort, or indeed protect their own people’s involvement in what is the vilest of human atrocities, History will not be swayed from its revealing truths. The broader accusation of course, are those levels of indifference and acceptance which was given over to the deadly plight of the Jews of Europe. All of this is mindful of that definite awareness such a reality has upon a devastatingly deadly excursion for those Jewish People into oblivion, which such silence has pronounced.

“..One day a special transport arrived at ..Camp. ..People were not wearing regular clothes. Those prisoners wore striped pyjamas. They were so skinny and bony ..collapsing from hunger induced weakness. Their heads were shaved and you could not tell ..difference between Men and Women. A rumour was spread in ..Camp that those people ..about 300 hundred of them ..arrived from ..Majdanek Death Camp ..where ..gas chambers ceased to operate. ..Germans ordered them to lay down on ..ground ..and they simply collapsed. Frenzel ..an SS ..came over and poured a chlorine solution on their heads ..as if they were already corpses. ..screaming and groaning that came out of their throats were like wounded animal’s howls. It seems that there are no limits to human cruelty.” Hela Felenbaum-Weiss.

From the very moment I considered writing on The Holocaust, I delved into the basest of human cruelty and brutality. Here, where all powerful beings took out every savage act against innocent and defenceless human beings, because they happened to be Jews. The truth of such atrocity, and this one pertinent fact, proved the theme that had to be my first consideration, and this was to be gained while we could, from those Jewish Survivors who knew the horrifying details. It was clear that what we were fast approaching, was the growing loss to such testimonies of these clear and discernible truths. The disappearance from view of those first-hand evidence’s, from those who are continually getting older, and are aging further from the terrible atrocity we clearly must learn from. With such reality biting at me, the truth is, and having decided not to write on ‘The Irish Situation’, I knew I could write with such distaste for such inhuman behaviour. I also assumed I could avoid all accusations of bias, and perhaps too I could even avoid a threat of prejudice that any subjective influences in my early education might be present. In all of this, the title to my First Book:

Testimony and Fading Memory in The Holocaust

Preface.

“..the treatment of the civilian population ..presented the highest political and military leaders with a welcomed opportunity for carrying out their plans ..the systematic extermination of ..Jewry.” 1:1

This Book is not just about the Holocaust and the destruction of the Jewish People, though perceptibly it is very much an account of it. This Book is the very detail of the Holocaust, in extraction! In all of its words and meanings, this Book embodies all that the Holocaust means to me and should, hopefully, mean to you. It is, however, not my Holocaust nor is it the property of other than those who suffered, endured and were silenced by the effects of a cold blooded attempt at complete annihilation! It is the Holocaust of those who were selectively Murdered, of some of those who Survived the attempts to annihilate them and even of those who witnessed the crimes. Those, who perpetrated the worst crimes in our History, have more than a word to say about the Holocaust and are included alongside those, more deserving of a voice. This Book, more rightly, belongs to some 6,000,000 People, who owe their destruction to an almost immeasurable Religious heritage, and an even more immeasurable trust in their fellow Man.” Patrick Dempsey.

came into being. This, my first Book, resonates with what I consider is that clear demand to learn now from those Jewish Survivors who will not all be here for all our tomorrows to come. With all of that as my initial idea, this is where the genesis of my journey begins, and I immerse myself fully into the destructive capacity, which every detail of The Holocaust delivers. This for me all began more than 30 years ago, and I am still plying my way through the debris of memory so as to resurrect some aspect of all that has been lost. In order for us to remember what must never be forgotten, we cannot ever afford to be selective in relation to what we research and seek to present to posterity. Firstly, in the beginning I was presented with the image of a 4 year old Child, a Jewish Child Survivor, Tovah ‘Tokele’ Olshak, who deserved more than to have her Survival destroyed by a still persisting, and rancid Polish hatred that was continuing. I knew full well I could draw upon my own personal losses, a long position unable to process what loss meant to me so I transposed this to fit how I felt about the murder of a very young Child, who happened to be a Jewish Child

“..But I refresh myself from day to day at ..original source ..life itself ..and I rest from time to time. And what those who say ..you live too intensely ..do not know ..is that one can withdraw ..and leave again with renewed strength and with peace regained.” Etty Hillesum.

Secondly, and during my period of World War II research, I came to appreciate an aspect of that very search which delivered another image. The persistence of so many was one I could barely comprehend, but I had to believe they were well informed and objective, but I drove a train through their failed perception of Hitler as a commanding military mind. For me, any thesis leading to a book on the Second World War, would have been stalled upon the depth of this bias, its very distortion and the untruths it sourced to unfold. Somewhere in this research, I came across what was Stahlecker’s murderous coffin imagery, and with his report emphasising those Jewish Executions were carried out by Einsatzgruppen A. This ‘Von der Einsatzgruppe A Durchgefurte Judenexekutionen’, struck deeply, and it gradually dawned upon me, that the Jews were being sidelined. Somewhat submerged in those very terms that The Holocaust was meant to define them, the Jews were being lost in favour of reflecting upon those who only see in the compunction in war, is to revel in war itself.

“..Today is my birthday ..I am 18. One idea occupies me continually ..Eretz Israel. There is but one place on earth in which we are not refugees ..not emigrants ..where we are returning home ..Eretz Israel.” Hannah Senesh.

Somewhere in the depths of the very exposed details of a War in the World, there was a dismissive approach to the Jewish presence. All too many others were being considered more relevant than the Jewish detail of a burgeoning atrocity all too clearly observed. Those like Hannah Senesh though knew quite well, that only nationhood would afford the Jewish People a space where they could belong, where they could fight back on their own terms. For me, it was becoming perfectly clear too, and it is a shocking realisation which I could not contend with, that bias was a pervasive intrusion into the very science of all of History which could not be countenanced. I was very concerned too with the growing contention that saw Hitler as some form of mythic warlord, or even a military genius. The idea that he existed even in the vein of an Alexander the Great, or as an exponent of the Military Strategist which someone like Sun Tzu is credited with, misjudged his presence in military matters. This is how so many people have sought to resemble this Austrian corporal in comparisons. What I recognized through all of my study of Warfare, and as it was pursuant of a second War to involve the World, was that Hitler merely commanded some of the greatest military minds available to him at the time.

“..First a human being ..then a Christian ..this alone is life’s order. People are bound to one another with ties more profound than any of  ..barriers of human history ..including ..history of religion may have constructed.” Nikolai F. S. Grundtvig.

What this certainly assured for Hitler was to be those victories which proved catastrophic against an enemy he had always envisaged was within his Weltanschauung. In that particular Worldview though, we were to recognise a globe that would be without any Jewish presence in it. From here, I abandoned much which suggested that bias could fill in spaces where the rationale of integrity could be overlayed. It occurred to me too, that all too many favoured one man over any respect for 6,000,000 Jews, a Jewish People who were so ritually Slaughtered, and at this Austrian miscreant’s insistence. What is also recognised, while millions became both complicit, and duplicitous in commissioning of this genocide, Hitler stood at the top of the pile directing the Slaughter from the comfort of his desk. It was becoming apparent to me that the very detail of The Holocaust, and its remit, might not even become a post-script to this cataclysmic World event if we are to concentrate on the absence of Hitler from the scene. Hitler openly declared his want of War and then invented a means to destroy All of World Jewry, while supposedly shielded from view. That clearly vocal intention, which Hitler never fully sought to conceal, was fed through his deeply utilised hatred for the presence of the Jewish People. So in the first place with my initial attempt and back then once I sought to move forward, was to present you with a Book which shared my understanding of the deeply moral dilemma, and those ramifications that The Holocaust incurs. However, in the title itself:

Testimony and Fading Memory in The Holocaust.

this Book seeks to confirm, and in the entire passage of time, my own need to add to the Jewish Memory. In words to contain a homage to Jewish memory, and from those Jewish Survivors who knew so many of these 6,000,000 Slaughtered Jews. It is impossible to recognise the legacy of these Jewish losses unless we engage with a lasting legacy for all of their future memory being guarded against loss and unconcern. All of a sudden, and at an alarming rate, these surviving Jews were fast fading from view, passing on to meet with those they finally saw, in the depths of the horror which has detained them. Here too, and I seek to find where all of this hate for the Jewish People resides, and I find a 2,000 year old hatred which serves small minded bigots like Hitler all too well. Then, as I took that deliberate route toward recognising those mass killers who fully engaged in what Hitler demanded, I found a reasoned effort to take my work forward.

Of course, the sheer acceptance of the role played out in the Killing Sites by these Einsatz foot soldiers, and as many of them were to witness in the Death Camps, becomes my accusation of all those who placed them there. Also, all of those who knew the Einsatz were in operation, and those who supported and supplied them, are to be held to same shameful account which judges them before the bar of all of History. This fact of the murderous plunder of Jewish existence is written with a note of caution, and for us to be clear in seeing it, and that in this past, theirs is an identification, as a cadre of mass murderers, and not just the 3,000 Einsatz who are but a tiny representative parcel of those who murdered the Jews with such disdain, and killed Jews with impunity. Each operative, whether Civilian, Police, SD, SS, Waffen SS, Wehrmacht, all 100,000 or these and more are mass murderers. They are all equally confronted, and this is where my approaches to that particular aspect of The Holocaust past, becomes visibly written into my Second Book:

der Einsatzgruppe and The Destruction of European Jewry.

Preface.

“..Conquest ..gives no title ..if it exists over the body ..it fails over the mind. It can exert no empire over men’s reason ..judgment ..affections.” Roger Casement.

“..To hurt a fellow human being; to have the capacity to inflict pain upon another person is a terrible indictment which we have inflicted upon mankind. To threaten to inflict pain on another person, and then to carry it out to its most horrendous, murderous and destructive conclusion, is an even more vicious and pernicious evil. In politics there is this belief that he who governs decides, and that is even more so in a totalitarian, rightist, Nazi or fascist state. We must always remember that this threat of violence, is just as fundamental a principle in democratic rule, but perhaps less obvious than with dictatorial governance! In terms of right wing politics, and fascism in particular, what is always tolerated is an infusion of hatreds, a blend of petty squabbles and a stern refusal to accept the sanctity, to live as we are, as happens in Ireland today. The antiquity of Jewish antecedence had not been blunted throughout the History of civilization, even by the many pogroms of days much more troubled than we had yet known.” Patrick Dempsey.

For me, this Book formed, and in my search for answers and ever more questions, where these mobile killing units came fully into view. From within my search through the pages of my first book, I found a piece I had written about the presence of these Killers, and it was certainly one that I wanted to expand upon. The terrifying detail of their murderous effort, clearly worded in their own Operational Situation Reports, were such that their documented evidence’s prosecuted them, even if far too few of them were ever to be indicted, judged or even hanged. This immersive section proved an investment in the accusation of nations directly implicated in the wrongs done against their own Jewish community’s and for me it was worth pursuing. What then finally emerged, and in words formed from my own burgeoning understanding of each piece of the very narrative of The Holocaust as a whole, could not be limited to what so much in history was seeking to disregard, or even ignore. I am certain also, having gone back through every aspect of my previous research, der Einsatzgruppe were a greater detail than we had ever been keen to investigate. Of course, it was simple to limit the search to just 3,000 mass Murderer’s, but that would exclude all of those we can identify in the midst of the horror inflicted upon the Jewish People. That is what I had now sought to bring together and is:

der Einsatzgruppe and the Destruction of World Jewry.

This Book, which delivers toward the very fact that some 2,000,000 Jews alone were shot to death, or they were gassed in specially constructed vans, and they were even hanged, and were otherwise butchered, or they were slaughtered and tortured into oblivion by the very devices of annihilation these Einsatz employed. Such then was the ‘Aktionen’, as it was directed by these four units, Einsatzgruppe A, B, C, D, each one of these formed parts of Hitler’s machinery of destruction. That we clearly recognise their ilk is due in no small part to their own identification with the acts they undertook to deliver for Hitler what he has expressly wished for. Their sheer indulgence, and their murderous effort was fully complimentary with all that Rafael Lemkin designed the term Genocide to recognise. These Einsatzgruppe structures used a well formed, seemingly splintered set of Einsatzkommandos and Sonderkommandos who were to sweep all and any Jewish presence into eternity. And while it is not enough to merely detail the exploits of these 3,000 or so murderous individuals, we must still deliver the facts of their barbarity. Their individual brutality is delivered to a posterity that is for us to condemn for an eternity wreaking of the monstrous deeds. It is incumbent also, and upon all of History, that we clearly recognize that all of these 3,000 aktionkommandos are not all of those who are clearly implicated participants and perpetrators in this Slaughter.

“..There was an inner sense to ..Nazi persecution and Extermination of ..Jews ..for ..progressive removal of ..Jews meant ..conquering of time ..of ..present in 1933 through their exclusion from German society ..of a moral past in 1938 ..and ultimately of history ..and therefore of ..future ..in 1941 through ..Extermination from ..face of ..Earth of all ..Jews as ..source of all historical evil.” Alon Confino.

This formative effort was an extermination program whose effort is owed to Hitler in the first place, and it is an effort which commenced in Poland in 1939. But such is this aktionen that it can be traced back to the early 30’s when power afforded Hitler the route towards the violation of those very human rights in civilisation he sought to purge and ignore. What has never been envisaged in any history ever compiled, sets this Jewish Slaughter apart from any measurable outrage that has ever been recognised in civilising terms. The Holocaust is a uniquely, unparalleled and unprecedented slaughter of any People, and simply because these People happen to be Jews spells out Hitler’s pernicious hate. For that very reason, The Holocaust term belongs to these Jewish People, emerging as they did from what The Final Solution was, the answer to The Jewish Question.  For me, it was more important to record the involvement of as many of the 100,000 Germans who officiated in the mass murder of as many as 2,000,000 Jewish People. It is also a fact, that countless others were brought to non-existence, and rather than remaining negligent in the acceptance of just 3,000 operational operatives managing such an atrocious Jewish catastrophe, I point to the accused who were truly involved. We simply cannot hold exclusively, within our total disdain for just those 3,000, these founding members of the Aktion cohort, who did not stand alone. This would allow for 97,000 and more other monstrous Germans, Austrians, Balts and many others, their fellow collaborators, to escape the testimony of their deeds.

“..In utter loneliness a writer tries to explain ..inexplicable.” John Steinbeck.

From the very scrutiny of us all as human beings, the truth cannot simply be parcelled into digestible pieces while we recognise the indefensible nature of mass murderers were acting at will. I have sat in secluded isolation for hours, days and even weeks looking into a devastation which sought to void so many People, and all because they were Jews. If we needed ever to add a meaning to what hatred is, I found it here looking into an abyss where humanity deposited its more and ethical probity. For those very levels of degrading inhumanity, which 100,000 or so human perpetrators sought out, and who willingly undertook to deliver, such is their murderous atrocity. This atrocity too was delivered, and on such a grand scale, that our future recollection must ensure never to allow the murderers to be detained by any inaccuracy which does not recognise their fuller participation. We must recognise all of those who wilfully destroyed Jewish People for being Jews. Such too was the detail in that second Book that I formed in my own realisation, a deeper schism was presented to all of humanity. With humanity’s related links to all of civilisation, it became clear that when I stared down the road to discovering the essential in comprehending this atrocity, I headed toward my Third Book:

Babi-Yar – A Jewish Catastrophe.

Preface.

“..These are true and just words ..they contain a moral appreciation of ethical understanding ..and that ..in ..Intolerance shown to ..Jews of ..Holocaust ..we have clearly shown an Indifference to ..struggle for mankind’s own relevance in a caring World?” Annals of the Holocaust.

“..I want my work to have validity, and I do not simply want to communicate the condemnation, of all that was done against the Jewish People, but I roundly condemn all those who perpetrated these crimes, without us learning from the process. Those who were supposedly Christian in nature, who failed significantly in their moral duty to that ‘christian’ ethos, and should have alleviated the Jewish suffering, have only their consciences to save them. Personally, I would wish to afford a more acceptable apology, for all that was done in the name of anti-Semitic hatred, than has been forthcoming. I can never hope to emulate the eloquently significant, and reflective responses, given to this search, by those who are best equipped to inform us.” Patrick Dempsey.

From such a standpoint, I could see all the way back to where many nations, whose own territory has been escorted to the levels of bestiality their own community became involved in, they delivered a murderous outrage to all human endeavour. From the very confines of that second Book, as I followed along on the rampage of these members of Hitler’s Aktion squads, one Killing Site stands out, and is measured above the Colossus of all murderous effort, and that site is at Babi-Yar, just outside Kiev, Ukraine. It became a simple matter then, of writing a care worn piece that was recognizing the necessity for that emerging Book, which is based upon a single effort to establish one killing site as the single arbiter of such a murderous atrocity, its detail torments the human soul. What is always my hope is that the words contained in any of my Books can bring forward a truth which offers us a hope that brings us all together. As the words which elicit from any of my Books its attention is roaming along to the essential necessity of reminding us of the tragedy that is:

Babi-Yar A Jewish Catastrophe.

Today we recognise in Babi-Yar, what is more than just a Slaughter beyond comparison, it is a template for all future efforts in destroying the Jewish People. The actions of Blobel’s Sonderkommando 4a here at this ravine, has secured for infamy, an indelible damning of humanity, with the ritual Slaughter of these 33,771 Jews entails. Over a two day period, in less than 48 hour’s, there remains to history a desolation which Hitler’s minions have sought to replicate, over and over again. Here though, and between September 29^th 1941 and September 30^th 1941, the Jews of Kiev were marched toward their destruction at a space that had once been their recreational ground. Here, as the killers took their tally to such a hideous height, no other killing operation or facility matched the ferocity of this murderous intensity, though many then tried. Even The Death Camps, numbering in their 1,000,000’s those Jews who were systematically slaughtered, and on an industrial scale, was spread over a period of many more days, even weeks, months, and certainly years. For these yet to be created as the amassed killings in the Death Camps, what will emerge has so established the terminology of industrial slaughter, they are defined individually in each of 6 Killing Centres in Poland. From here, in words I had been exploring since my visits to all 6 of these Death Camps, I moved onto what was to be my Fourth Book:

Hitler’s Belzec.

        Preface.

“..Przemysl. ..All ..deportations were to Belzec. From ..first deportation ..a few who had jumped from ..train returned and they warned people in ..second operation that ..same thing awaited them. People began to hide themselves. But many went to ..square in ..normal manner. ..they obeyed ..order.”  Dr. Josef Buzminsky.

“..Belzec was born out of Kozielsk Hill and Hitler’s desperation to rid Europe of its Jews. This place was to be Hitler’s Endlosung. The locals referred to the formative Death Camp established formerly as a Labour Camp situated just outside the Village of Belzec as the Camp on the Hill or Kozielsk Camp. But infamy had a judgement to make and History records that within a tight and confined space in a wooded clearing atop a hill, some 884,700 Jews of Poland, and many other Jews from a wider Europe were murdered, annihilated and totally destroyed here. I am certain too that while the local population would rather not have their Village linked to such terror and the horror of such an immense atrocity, it is a part of history embellished with the blood of the Jews who never emerged from there. But fate too has conspired to terminate the existence of all of Jewish Poland within an elaborate Death Camp system, least of which was Belzec.” Patrick Dempsey.

Here though, and while this is not the 4^th Book I had wished to write next, given the prevailing winds of denial and distortion infecting much of Eastern Europe, The Baltic States, and indeed the World, it was a Book I was directed toward, as it was meant to be. With an accumulation of factors, which had drawn my attention over the Years, I delivered to memory what I thought so many Survivors sought. The naming of the unknown, or less well-known spaces within which Jews were continually Slaughtered, I realised that the Death Camp at Belzec was just such a space. Also, and there is this common theme of Hitler’s absence from the role of dishonour, we could easily place millions of Germans upon, why then seek to exclude Hitler from this monstrous deed. Also, there was the growing trend from within Poland, that was consistently moving denial toward its distortion, and over its own place within the Slaughter of 3,400,000 Polish Jews. The Death Camps were firmly placed within Poland, and by Hitler, and for the very specific reason that 3,650,000 Polish Jews lived there. Also, Polish Jews lived in their own homes, were resident in their own homeland, for which they considered was Poland at the time, and were on hand for what Hitler proposed for them. The sad fact is true though, and that Polish Jewry was clearly betrayed for having thought of Poland as its homeland. So I combined both affronts to History, Polish wishes not to be recognised for its lack of effort in trying to save its Polish Community. Even with the active participation by many Poles in destroying their former Neighbours, we relate this alongside Hitler’s clear omission from the overall Jewish Catastrophe, and here my title for this Book was borne:

Hitler’s Belzec.

It was evident to me, and upon my own visit to the Death Camp at Belzec, that I clearly recognized the wrongs been done to all of History. Here, it was not possible to keep secret the fact of the removal of 884,700 of Polish Jewry from existence in such a tiny space. We simply cannot accept the ignorant assumption of any lack of knowledge while the destructive processes permeated the entire area for a range extending to 20 or even 30 miles, and beyond, and the windows and doors of the Polish Village opened out into so murderous a scene. The railroad and road which separates the Village from this Death Camp, would have exploded with sounds, sights, and the debris and stench of destruction. While History appears content in accepting less than the given estimate of the Jews Slaughtered throughout The Holocaust, here there is evidenced testimony which exists that states 1,600,000 Polish Jews were consigned to their fate, and here at Hitler’s Belzec.

Yet still we are reminded to ignore that relevant fact, its pertinence to testimony, seemingly consigned to an unacceptable purge upon its authenticity. So I move on and ever since I came across the image of Tovah ‘Tokele’ Olshak, the destruction of more than 1,500,000 Jewish Children has pressed hard against me. In this small human form, civilisation has been convulsed into almost disregarding their presence in an effort, somehow, to salve a huge portion of its own guilt in how The Holocaust was formulated and progressed. As I was misdirected toward Belzec, I walked knee high in snow, in temperatures of minus 18 and was saddened to think of the progression of the living through such conditions toward such devastation as I was reminded of, every step of the way. It occurred to me too, that below my knee height would have stood Jewish Children, totally immersed in the bitter snow, and freezing cold, unable to lift their tiny legs to avoid the drifts which many would have been neck deep in. With such burden of emotion, and with that all in mind my next work Book Five had to be:

The Child in The Holocaust

Preface.

“..what of them ..little children. ..little ones ..and those smaller still who not long ago were to be seen in ..arms of their mothers ..smiling. ..prattling at strangers. ..waving their tiny hands. ..O ..unrecognizable world in which these children and their mothers are gone.” Rachel Auerbach.

“..Throughout this further search for meaning, you will be intercepted by those who seek to light our way. These, who provide the evidences of those who are detained within the detail of The Holocaust, are essential to us. There are also the testimonies of those who survived Hitler’s brutal and deadly intention for them. There is also the witnessing from history, to point us to a catastrophe that was systematically sought out exclusively, for the Jewish People. These are the very reasons why we must learn from this catastrophe, and why Never Again cannot be just a catch phrase. This is very much a Book for the Jewish Children of The Holocaust. and though it will be about them as Jews, and not all as Children, we barely know 1,500,000 of their lives that were dredged from amongst us. That these Jewish Children were so callously and systematically destroyed is shocking enough but it is also tantamount to a moral failing on a Worlds part placating Hitler. While we are perhaps closer now to an understanding of the Jewish Child’s eradication, without comprehending the brutal fact, we can still at least be looking for them. In knowing many more of them, each effort delivers a memory of some we will now recognize, recalling their former existence. Now, while we must gain from those 1,500,000 Jews we have chosen Always to Remember, Never to Forget, we move the tenets of civilized society back into focus.” Patrick Dempsey.

This latest Book clearly pin-points the Jewish Childs presence in the carnage of civilisations own disintegration, as it serves up these Jewish Children to the mantle of a horror still so infinitely unwritten. The deeds of monstrous individuals, who cannot allow even for any Jewish Child to escape its murderous grasp, points the way toward an ever more despicable crime. Here, murderous people were drilling deeper into the psyche of terror inflicted upon an innocence as yet not fully formed. The cover of this Book is not as I had envisaged though as it is all White, it keeps with it a respect for the fact that these are Jewish Children. With the blood Red seeking to conceal their very existence, a cover emerged which exemplified the many ideas these Jewish Children demand from us. But I wish to recognise also, that the Jewish Child’s presence is from amongst the gravest atrocity to ever face the entirety of humanity. In its single image, we cannot yet see the totality of these 1,500,000 very accusing Jewish Children hidden details. While we cannot even begin to record the devastation any of the Jewish Children faced, either in the Killing Sites, or even within the Death Camp system, disbelief is augmented by an incomprehensibility we are incapable of understanding, let alone appreciating. But, and that is what we must also recognise, we simply cannot ever escape the very fact that over 1,500,000 Jewish Children were ritually Slaughtered, and all because they belonged to Parents who were also Jews.

“..Dear friends. On ..sea ..land ..in ..air ..during war and during peace ..We all have but one goal. Each and every one of us must stand his place ..There is no here ..no difference between ..one duty and another. You are always in my thoughts. Because that’s what gives me strength.” Hannah Senesh.

The strength of individuals, whose escape from the cauldron of the horror, did not sway them from re-entering the crucible of Hitler’s War Against the Jews, for various reasons. For me too, all of these Books are written for those Survivors who did not know there were more people like me, who would have done otherwise than resort to such an atrocity against them. Time and years however, did not allow for me to intercede on their behalf, and at a time of their greatest need when they could have done with ever more responses in their favour. But know this! I would not have casually stood by and I would not have looked on with any form of indifference that scolded these Jews as they passed by. Also, I would not have betrayed the deeply ingrained morality which fully demands we act in obeyance of our own ethical duty to do act with compassion. In all honesty, I cannot know what I would have done at the time, but I certainly know what I would not have done in either perpetration, participation or betrayal. My words clearly and continually state this, and My Books Certainly Share This. Back in time, there was an element of an idea I had to write what would have become my fourth Book, and I sought the opinion of those Writer’s I consider who knew specifically what all of this meant in the annals of The Holocaust.

“..we’re Jews in chains chained to one spot ..without ..rights ..with a thousand obligations. ..put our feelings aside ..be brave ..strong ..bear discomfort without complaint .. do whatever is in our power ..trust in God. One day this terrible war will be over. ..time will come when we’ll be people again and not just Jews.” Anne Frank.

Babi-Yar still stood alone before me, as a chasm of such immense despair, and all of that ensured I knew I had not yet completed that work in the detail of Babi-Yar A Jewish Catastrophe. As the defining, almost singularly atrocious and murderous scene that was ever to regulate our incomprehension of The Holocaust, Babi-Yar stands aloft. For all too many who formed this thesis of what terror is, as established by the likes of Anne Frank, so many just like Anne could not have known of this place. Also, and for those who remained sadly unaware of what was being delivered toward Jewish extermination, Anne too would not escape the gravitational pull of sites like this, or Death Camps for the consumption of Jews just like her. This then was to become my latest Book, and it is meant to be an extension of my initial work on the Killing Site of Babi-Yar itself. This signifies its importance within the annals of The Holocaust, and this eventual title though was held off as a mark of respect to Elie Wiesel, who communicated certain concerns he had for sections of the work. So it would appear that I am not quite finished at Babi-Yar, or in fact, have these 33,771 Jews of Babi-Yar quite finished with me. For the World, which has to recognise all that is presented here as a Catastrophe for the Jewish People, and in turn all that should civilise us, is an atrocity itself beyond compare and what becomes Book Six is:

The Jews of Babi-Yar

Preface.

“..if they ..really decided to deport ..Jews as a reprisal for ..Kreshchatyk affair ..why ..all of them.” Anatoli Kuznetsov.

“..There is no need to trust the status of any nation whose own Jews were impacted within all terms associated with, The Holocaust. So I carefully follow the many examples set by scholars of History, many of them Jewish Survivors, who find the space necessary to impress upon all of History, the debt we owe to The Holocaust. For whatever reason, sovereignty provides the best excuse for deniability, a certain complicity and even the duplicitous deceit in covering this all up from historical view. Even though the very proof of the slaughter at Babi-Yar is written in Nazi forms, it is as ignored as it is deeply wounded by the depth of the Jewish blood shed there. We are all aware of what States like Denmark was capable of, and what other states should have sought to achieve.” Patrick Dempsey.

This is not only a Book which confirms the status of its own particular atrocity, but clearly recognizes, and more closely, the individuality of all 33,771 of these Kiev Jews. Though we personally don’t, nor can we know them individually, we cannot allow them to be merely assessed as a collective of Jews. That they were sought out for Slaughter, and even though that is what they were targeted as, I recognise what Simon Wiesenthal had once declared, in appreciation of them as People, and not as a statistic. It is an imperative then that we seek to define the fullest intention of those like Blobel, amongst the legion of murderer’s and their leadership. While going up the ranks toward Hitler at the helm of this slaughter, we recognise this is another detail in evidenced based acknowledgement of The Final Solution’s place within Hitler’s Worldview. All too often we look to this Jewish position, as some sort of divide in which the Destruction of the Jews was carried out. However, the slaughter did not operate in some sort of void, and the Wehrmacht Blitzkrieg rolled straight past every event perpetrated against the Jews, including here where:

The Jews of Babi-Yar

were being exterminated. War itself cannot be conducted in a vacuum, and whether we are seeking to disguise the lines of communication, or even the supply lines, the logistics of ensuring the operational capacity of the Wehrmacht, which fed der Einsatzgruppe all it required, opened the gaze to more than this World War was conducting. Hitler’s expression of a Worldview, his Weltanschauung, has been exacted to ensure the widest, deepest and most certain border is kept between perpetrating The Final Solution of The Jewish Question, and what the German’s were supposed to remain oblivious to. However, the reality of that view was meanwhile undermined by elements of those German’s, so content with their role, that their boasts were recorded, intercepted and keep from the wider World by an intention hard to comprehend.

“..We still don’t know what they did to ..Jews. There are terrifying rumours coming from ..Lukianivka Cemetery. ..impossible to believe. ..Jews are being shot. ..Jews are being shot with machine guns ..all of them. ..one thing ..clear ..all their documents ..things ..food ..confiscated. ..chased into Babi Yar and there. ..something terrible ..horrible ..inconceivable ..cannot be understood ..grasped ..explained. ..We know ..we already know for certain ..blood from Babi Yar flew ..was flowing at a distance of kilometers from ..cemetery.” Iryna Khoroshunova.

“..From now on ..do not answer by your name. ..felt like ..not ..human person anymore. ..shaved our heads ..I felt so ashamed. And also when they told us to undress and to shower ..they made us feel like ..animals. ..men were walking around ..laughing and looking at us. And you take a young girl at that age ..who had never been exposed to a person ..to a man ..and you stay there naked ..I wanted ..ground to open ..and I should go into it. We were packed like sardines. ..beds were bunks ..3 layers. I was on ..top layer. If one person wanted to turn ..we all had to turn. They gave me ..little rations of hard ..dried up bread which was half mildew ..I could hardly eat it. ..a tin can of soup ..so rotten and vile ..when I tasted it I couldn’t eat it. ..I just ate ..bread and drank a little water ..which was just rust running out from ..sink that they had over there. ..finally ..got so hungry ..knew I had to eat ..soup ..so vile. ..so terrible. I never ate anything like that in my whole life. ..If I want to survive I have to eat ..soup. ..So I started eating ..soup. And I ..forcing ..soup down my throat ..big tears coming down my face. Eating ..crying ..eating ..crying ..this is how I was in Birkenau. Every day ..I woke up and I would find 1 ..2 people who wanted to end their lives and couldn’t take it anymore. ..throw themselves to ..electric wires ..make an end of it. ..every once in a blue moon ..couldn’t take it anymore. ..try to sneak out of ..barracks late at night and I would see ..sky. ..talk to myself ..can’t believe ..stars ..looking down at us in this Hell ..this camp ..same stars ..shining at ..outside of ..world. ..other people ..looking at ..same stars ..they are free. ..to do what they want to do. ..living a good life. ..we are ..in Hell ..human beings worse than animals. ..nobody is doing anything about it.  ..young as I was ..asking myself these questions. ..Where is ..world ..Why isn’t ..world doing anything about this ..I would question god ..Where is god ..How can He let us be killed like that ..after I cried myself out real good ..I would go back to ..barracks.”  Lily Appelbaum.

Sometimes I struggle with my own prejudices and allow my preference for no-Religion to override the principles in History which are assigned to the science of its study. When I then go on to speak in a way which seems to denigrate any belief system, it is from a personal perspective, and has no wish to infringe upon the clearly held beliefs of others. But! This is where I draw the line with regard to the absence of any god in the midst of the brutalising terms of The Holocaust. For the Jewish People who have held onto their religious covenant for over 5,000 years, I sit back and am bemused when there are those, closest to the doors of the Gas Chambers, or staring directly into the abyss of the Killing Site, and they insist god will somehow save them. There are multifarious an argument why this is not so, and why it will never happen, but I regale against those who signal god as the choice giver to those who had no choice whatsoever. So allow me to amplify this! There was a choice to be made and the killers made theirs. This dismissed the choice to life of untold 1,000,000’s of Jews who were to be denied any choice whatsoever. In as much as I can, I will write this into every single Book I write, as a covenant with a memory shared, of a past all but lost and a History that must not be tainted by any form of distortion.

“..They took us away. One day they gave an order that all young People should come to ..square ..we didn’t know.  They are going to send us away ..usually grabbed People on ..Streets ..after a while ..they send them home.  In ..Morning ..I left with my little Sister ..my big Sister ..and my Brother.  It was nothing ..I knew I am going to be back home.  We didn’t even say goodbye to my Parents ..a mistake.” Sonia Garfinkel-Nothman.

Where is this divinity which allows for the wrong choices to be made by those who choose not to allow those god given choices to 6,000,000 Slaughtered Jews. Surely for the many like Sonia Garfinkel-Nothman, the choice to say their goodbyes to their Mother, Father, entire Family, was an unknown qualification, as they are taken away. But as you will hopefully see, and what you will read in relation to the uniqueness which claimed 6,000,000 Jewish lives, this is within its systematic nature. Not only that, but the very systemic approach which was in Hitler’s augmented attempt to destroy every living Jew, within Poland, then all of Europe and eventually, the World, this approached the living Jew with a death and dead struggle. Many will not ss this as Hitler’s early and conceived idea of Weltanschauung, a World view that was to emerge from a bitter World War and that was ultimately and consistently to be without Jews. What I will present is with an imagery for those like Sonia who are transported away from all that had previously mattered to them, and without ever realising it, that they would never see their Parents, Family, Friends or even former residences ever again.

“..granted ..right to exist by ..god of our fathers at ..glimmer of ..dawn of human civilization ..4,000 years ago. For that right ..sanctified in Jewish blood generation to generation ..paid a price unexampled in ..annals of ..nations.” Menachem Begin.

As Sonia is to be resettled, and toward oblivion, a destructive capacity that is by now well written into the Nazi psyche, for Sonia and too many 1,000,000’s of these Jews, they did not know what was coming for them. Though as we know, Sonia managed to survive, but she did not know at this time that it was to cost her way too much of what she has been forced to lose. I know as a non-Believer, as a non-Jew, I appear to be imposing my own set of principles above the historical adherence so many Jews have stuck with. But I would not be fulfilling the integrity I seek to bring to the very terms of my work, and its understanding of the dire situation the Jews of Europe faced, without my own objectivity proposing the full facts as they remain truthful. We must continually recognise that entire Jewish Families entered oblivion knowing they could not allow for the last moments of their relationships to be without Love, Concern, and even a future prospect of Hope. That hope for the Jews contained much a religious adherence struck with belief, and while it did so, I am not going to suggest other than hope brought them to the edge of destruction holding onto something what the killers could not take from them.

“..For a ..while I lived in ..same room with Tema Schneiderman. Under ..bed ..a suitcase containing pistols and grenades. Tema and I brought ..grenades to ..Ghetto. Each of ..girls hid a grenade in ..her undergarments. From a suburb of ..City we took a streetcar in ..direction of ..Ghetto. I recall our odd behaviour during ..ride. Tema stood at my side and asked ..What would happen if a gentleman invited us to sit beside him. We broke into laughter ..hiding our fear in this way.” Havka Folman-Raban.

We also begin to recognise much more of what betrayed the Jewish presence within Europe, and whether that was a 5,000 year adherence and hold on religion, or not, the Jewish hold upon such beliefs is a resistance beyond which Hitler’s Reich held no sway. However, and within this belief which was so firmly held, an acquaintance with the assumed goodness of mankind and the complete failure of society to police itself properly, confused such narratives as might have saved more Jews than it did. We know through time, the exploits of so many Jews like Tema Sznajderman was to be in armed resistance, and in the Ghettos of Bedzin, Bialystok, Minsk, Vilna, and Warsaw, and even within The Death Camp system, Birkenau, Sobibor and Treblinka, these must be included in what is to always be remembered. However, and while all manner of Jewish Resistance was not to become highly recognised as such, or it even proved less acceptable over the other, all resistance requires all recognition for what it means to the Jews who undertook it.

“..this is no empty phrase ..despite their power ..we knew ..ultimately we would defeat them ..we ..weak ones ..because in this lay our strength. We believed in justice ..in humanity ..in a regime different from ..one which they glorified.”  Zivia Lubetkin.

The faith in the strong Family bond brought countless numbers of Jews to the same end, whereas those like Tema, and her band of Couriers, are recognised as formidable. Of course, they are an example of Courage, Hope and Resilience, and no less than those who fought within The Jewish Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Nor are these intrepid Women to be considered less than resisting of the Nazi charge to subdue and exterminate them. When we come to recollections of the fighting bravery of those Jews of the Jewish Warsaw Ghetto Uprising , for Zivia Lubetkin is one of these who took up arms, and while Yad Vashem sought to establish an internationally recognized date for all Holocaust Remembrance, this UNIQUE day itself falls on differing days within the Jewish calendar. This date to then commemorate The Holocaust entire, corresponds to the 14^th day of Nisan, and this is taken from the Hebrew calendar. However, as it seeks to mark its significance for the anniversary of the Jewish Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, April 19^th 1943, this then presumes to establish to a single event, separating out this particular day as unique within The Holocaust setting.

“..In ..afternoon Tema and I went to ..nuns’ restaurant ..where meals were cheap and one could take food home. Tema decided to go into ..Ghetto. She insisted ..and I could not dissuade her. I had barely gotten used to this delicate girl. At first I believed that she was a spoiled Child and would not be able to hold out. I don’t know why I always thought her more fit for picking flowers than for ..underground. After a few days I was ashamed of these ideas. I realized that she was stubborn ..brave and firm in her views. ..greater ..difficulty ..greater her daring. Suddenly I saw in her innocent and gentle wide-open eyes a small flame that lit up. That was ..centre of gravity of her daring character.” Chaika Grossman.

For me, Yom HaShoah V’HaGevurah, seeks only to relate such tribulation to that single event, but it does mark, nor delineate clearly the Day of the Holocaust and Heroism. While we are more and more aware of what Jewish Resistance Constitutes, events such as Jews holding hands with their Children all the way toward extermination, must confirm a heroism above and beyond any such single event. Jewish Children were not abandoned by those Parents who feared what approached, either in the abyss of the Killing Site, or within the unknown of the Gas Chambers. Jewish Parents were not to be left alone by those of their Children whose love for them went far beyond the simple terms of what extermination was about to mean for all of them. So I struggle with this idea of focusing solely upon one presentation of what The Holocaust means, when there are clearly 6,000,000 interpretations to it. Make no mistake, The Jewish Warsaw Ghetto Uprising is the greatest assault upon the might of Hitler’s War machine by a civilian group of engaged, defiant, but all the while, a sentenced Polish Jewry still destined for total destruction.

“..No one knew then that ..Jews were destined for extermination. At ..time I thought ..I could help them by bringing them things ..they were lacking. ..real help to Jews started in 1942 ..when ..large deportation from ..Warsaw Ghetto was underway. ..Only when ..horrible extermination started ..desperately tried to establish contact with my Ghetto friends. ..I did not succeed. Poles ..Jews ..taken by surprise. My friends perished.” Roman Sadowski.

I have absolutely no wish to diminish the role of some Polish 700 Jews who stood their ground, fought for their Poland, their lives, and stood all alone in their attempt to secure what life was left to something like 60,000 remaining Polish Jews. Here, too they also shone a light here upon the indifference of Poland to all that Polish Jewry struggled to Survive. In terms of what is lost in these few days of the Uprising we recognise the loss of a further 7,000 Jews who died while fighting or were killed in the conflagration, hidden till they were torch lit by Stroop and his ranks. In all, and after the Uprising had been quelled, totally crushed, the remnant of those remnants who had one survived as 53,000 Polish Jews, some 9,000 of whom were shipped out to the Death Camp at Treblinka and were Destroyed there. Some of the remainder of these Ghetto Jews were transferred to the Death Camp at Majdanek and were Murdered there.

“..We begin to tell stories about our town. ..Gorodok. ..we lost our Parents ..we saw ..deaths of our Brothers and Sisters. After 2 ..3 years ..injured ..broken hearted we came to our devastated homes.” Yehuda Adelman.

The date for now celebrating The Holocaust, has two occasions which both separate and divide the importance of unifying every aspect of remembrance of the Slaughter. So while this date must surely matter, as it is a Jewish commemorative, the 14^th day of Nisan, which loosely falls within April or May, is not wholly recognised as a single day. I need to appreciate what this date fully means. Written in the Hebrew Calendar as 14 Nisan 5703, this was decided as the commemorative date for YomHaShoah, and as many consider Tisha B’Av more appropriate to traditional mourning, there is a conflict even for this commemorative. This call to remembrance then, of The Holocaust as a whole, was established by the Israeli Government and seeks to point toward an event more acceptable than all others. While this recognizes what is in the Gregorian Calendar, April 19^th 1943, all of History records this as the commencement date for the beginning of The Jewish Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. As I understand it, the Gregorian date is fixed, while this Hebrew date is a floating and unsettled day, and does so ranging within a 2 month period! But am I correct though, and in seeking to establish a memory of such a colossal event as would encapsulate the entirety of the Slaughter of 6,000,000 Jews, is this opposed in any way toward recognising what 700 Jews stood solidly against.

“..I don’t accuse anyone that did not hide or help a Jew. We cannot demand from other’s to sacrifice their lives. One has no right to demand such risks.” Pola Stein.

One does not wish to allow the diminishing of the other call to remembrance by some prescient hierarchy that would sully the duty in fully remembering all we must recall. Neither should there be any single event allowed to stand atop the other in any sense of the importance we place upon it. The essential however, in commemoration of such an atrocity as deeply wounding to all human civilisation as The Holocaust is, must always be served. Clearly, the cessation of what The Holocaust has presented to us, with the liberation of the Death Camps, is a good starting place to which we recall all we need to remember. For me, this brings up two issues which not only confronts me, but if you wish to commemorate, do we not simply accept that a particular date is sacrosanct. If we are to commemorate the totality of the atrocity in between two differing periods, this does not suggest the exact day to remember? It reminds me of the museum of Auschwitz pushing its agenda of such inaccuracy as to remove or dispel from the destruction of 1,100,000 Jews, their space to which they were destroyed, Birkenau.

“..Up to January 18th. 1945 ..a total of about 5,000,000 were burned in ..crematories of Oswiecim and Birkenau. ..more than 3,000,000 were Jews poisoned by gas or ..victims of epidemics.” Seweryna Szmaglewska.

Also, and perhaps the more contentious of these two competing issues, and I would not hold reverence to this one event at the expense of any of those other events which witnesses 6,000,000 Slaughtered Jews, whose resistance somewhat differed. Along with the earlier effort to strike back at the Germans in the Warsaw Ghetto itself, which was but 2 months earlier, on January 18^th 1943, do we separate this date out from remembrance. Many things are indeed UNIQUE within the tenets of The Holocaust, but dates themselves clearly define aspects of the murderous process which brings us toward memory itself. With the resumption of the resettlement of a further 6,000 of the Warsaw Ghetto’s Jews, to be murdered at Treblinka, resister’s acted. As the Warsaw Ghetto was surrounded for this 2^nd Liquidation, the Jewish fight was brought to the Nazi’s at x4 Battle Group Barricades. Here, Jewish Resistance plans were set in motion to disrupt all future ‘resettlement’ operations, and while this was being struck, it led directly to what the fuller Uprising became.

“..Liquidation ..Warsaw Ghetto ..taking place. ..all Jews ..irrespective of age ..sex ..removed ..shot. ..mass executions ..in especially prepared camps ..Belzec. ..Jews deported ..to be butchered.” Myron C. Taylor.

For 4,500 Jews who were immediately deported, and some 1,200 Jews who were Murdered in situ after Resisting, their sacrifice is our call to evidencing them. This then is the 1^st Jewish Fighting Resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto and surely it too reflects immensely, the Jewish fight back, a Jewish Resistance which lasted for 4 days. Is this initial Uprising of Warsaw Ghetto Jews not an ignition point, lighting the future fuse for those Jews to come who are refusing to die on command. Should we not seek to recognize this as a date of equal importance, and do we then disregard the dozens of other Jewish Armed Resistances, in Ghettos, City’s, Towns, and Camps. Also, do we not see in what Janusz Korczak achieved an ultimate sacrifice and heroism. When Jewish Children refused to allow their Parents to walk toward oblivion without them, do we not record this as the greatest of heroics. But let us not stop there! Without recognizing the efforts of those whose demand was to escape, and eventually attest to the savagery of the Jewish passing, do we not recognise this within The Holocaust as UNIQUE.

“..My Mother let’s go of me. We look at each other intently ..profoundly ..silently. We are separated ..I don’t see her climb into ..lorry. We did not say goodbye. ..We did not kiss. I never saw my Mother again.” Eva Tichauer.

What if we are to then recognize the very humbling effort of The Ringelblum Archive, does not the Oneg Shabbat cry out with a full measure of Jewish  defiance. We could look to the Liberation of Auschwitz and Birkenau as a memorable date in ending the Death Camp system. And what then of The Auschwitz Album which records what Hungarian Jewry could expect from amongst 1,100,000 Jews Slaughtered there. In any sort of context I can understand and appreciate, I will draw a line at what the UNIQUEness of The Holocaust presents. The Holocaust, in every detail, is an unparalleled and unprecedented hatred ever given over to mass murder on an industrial scale and given free rein in a free World. Out of each sample of the criteria which set the Jews apart, society gave way to the inhumanity to be witnessed across the length and breadth of an entire continent. If we were to look to The Irish Famine, we would see the starvation of 1 Million Irish People, on the Island of Ireland. If we even registered our disquiet at what was achieved by Turkey in The Armenian Tragedy, 1 Million Armenian People were led to die by execution, maltreatment, starvation and disease. It is not merely in the numbers of Jews the Nazis managed to destroy, but it the targeted goal to do so, its implementation and the construction of industrial killing centres to manage it all.

“..There was even humour amidst  ..danger ..as in what happened to Tema. She was standing in a crowded train with a hand grenade hidden in her underwear.” Zivia Lubetkin.

Zivia Lubetkin here is referring to those Females, Tema Schneiderman amongst them, who are preparing to resist the Germans with arms. So whenever I approach those whose interest on The Holocaust is a keenness not only reserved for myself, I seek to point them toward those whose evidence’s are key to what we are as yet incapable of understanding. I hope the interest remains, I intend it to be continually focused upon the truth, as it matters, and remain as committed as I aim to be. So when I then seek to afford some form of condolence, my own grip on grief and loss is disproportionate in terms of the massive detail of that immense Jewish loss. I wish to share though with you all a consideration I have for a Friend, going through the loss of her own Dad at present. Now this is what I have sent her, and I know in this I have a demand to calculate in such enormous terms that would commemorate the whole of this Jewish loss. But for any Parent who can prove to be the best person in the World, when they give you their own life so as to secure a few more lasting moments of all that had come to matter, then their sacrifice and love is more exceptional than resistance can record.

“..entire population of ..Kolomyja..ghetto ..ordered to gather in ..yard of ..Judenrat ..to be registered. ..5,000 people presented themselves. ..Germans ..selection ..300 ..chosen ..sent to ..right which meant life. All others ..surrounded by Ukrainian militia ..SS ..with specially trained dogs ..herded in ..direction of ..railway station. ..column moved slowly towards ..station. Apart from ..sound of ..scraping of thousands of feet ..amazingly quiet. ..time to time a Child would cry ..quickly silenced by its Mother. ..only a few Children ..elderly Men ..Women. Always ..weakest ..ghetto inmates ..youngest ..eldest ..perished earlier. ..ghetto ..closed ..early spring ..terror ..hunger ..disease ..prowled ..ceaselessly.” Ruta Wermuth.

I have written to many of these Survivors, with such wishes to those who have served us an account of such losses as we are unable to compute. But nothing will ever approach what has to be recognized is the Unparalleled, Unprecedented nature of this mechanized and industrialised Slaughter, and such a UNIQUE event that we recognize it in this single term of The Holocaust. The uniqueness itself is not just written in terms of these 6,000,000 Jews alone though it uniformly says it is so. The uniqueness is not simply the enormous cost to the Jewish People, but it is also an immense measure of the loss to All of Humanity. I have no wish to inject any religious position here, but one cannot account for the belief system which brought these Jews even a moment of hope, or comfort right up until extinction. For me, and no matter the strength of the Jewish belief, there was No god present in The Death Camps or within The Killing Sites. This does not decry any such belief which gave these Jews a hope of redemption in some after life, but the hope which carried them further than nazi extremism could ever manage against them redeems some sort of positioning with belief itself.

“..pure myth ..Jews ..merely passive. ..Jews fought back ..to a degree no other community anywhere ..would have been capable of. ..they fought against hunger ..starvation ..disease ..a deadly Nazi economic blockade. They fought against murderers and ..traitors within their own ranks ..and ..were utterly alone in their fight. ..forsaken by God and ..man ..surrounded by hatred or indifference. ..there was much heroism ..little beauty ..much toil ..suffering ..no glamour. We fought back on every front ..biological ..economic ..propaganda ..cultural ..with every weapon ..possessed. In ..end ..ruse ..deception ..cunning beyond anything ..world had ever ..seen ..accomplished what hunger ..disease ..terror ..treachery ..could not. What defeated us ..Jewry’s unconquerable optimism ..eternal faith in ..goodness of man ..even a German ..a Nazi ..could never have ..renounced ..own humanity as to murder women ..’children’ coldly ..systematically. ..when we finally took up arms ..we inscribed in ..book of history epic of ..Ghetto Uprising.” Michal Berg.

Wherever these 6,000,000 Jews were slain, assailed, or anywhere else they were assaulted, such an entity as was proposed as god, was absent and on holiday. Again, and this is a personal perspective, all of which makes belief extent, absent, and defunct as far as I can state, does not doubt the belief which carried so many Jews. Of course, and I have presented this elsewhere, and all too often, beliefs very deliberate controversy confronts rather more than it questions. Again, and in the hope that The Holocaust is more than just an appreciation of how awfully the World behaved, while these 6,000,000 Jews searched for Our assistance, I find those who stole belief in order to conjure up such a craven hatred exorcised the meaning of belief. I have known you all long enough to know that you know Me and I do not confront these issues without seeking a recourse to where we can identify with the 6,000,000 Jewish losses. I have related many times why Tovah Olshak unlocked the gateway to my journey along a pathway paved with such Jewish loss.

“..After a day’s journey ..we arrived at Belsen. This concentration camp was hopelessly overcrowded and we were not accepted. ..right hand no longer knew what ..left hand was doing ..so we were sent to an adjoining Wehrmacht compound. As ..soldiers of ..Wehrmacht marched out ..we moved in. ..confusion was unbelievable ..disorder with German perfection. We were moved into clean barracks ..equipped for human beings with excellent bathrooms and clean beds stacked three on top of each other. After all we had experienced in ..preceding year ..this was sheer luxury. There was no mention of ..usual camp rituals ..no roll calls ..no work ..no food.” Lilian Berliner.

Then, and when ever I see anything of the 1,500,000 Jewish Children who have accompanied Tovah on her hate filled exit from this World, I remark my commentary with Tovah in mind. It has proven difficult, realizing so many of you have personal experiences of all The Holocaust entails, and it saddens me. The fact that you are witnessing what is a daily trial, only UNIQUE suggests what it is you have to deal with. I then recall what Elie Wiesel insists, that when the last testifiers are no longer with us, we become the Witnesses. With that need to confront us, such imagery as we are presented with assails our very own hold upon our very own reasoning. What is clearly wrong here is when Hitler ensured that the Jews of Europe should die, and the lasting images of these Jews being herded together prepares us in some small way for what devastation these Jews faced. For those Jews separated by whatever reason compelled them to do so, none of them have ever been exempted from what must surely confront them consistently.

“..Day and night ..dragged off. ..deprived ..of ..possessions. Families ..torn apart ..all ..separated. Children coming home ..find ..their parents have disappeared. Women return ..to find ..their families gone.” Anne Frank.

I have seen so much of this evidence in images and testimony, that we recognise in this, 6,000,000 Jews have been consumed by such a hatred as has proved UNIQUE in over 2,000 years. It becomes essential for me to remember, and in any way possible, recall such supporting remembrance for these Jews confined within the gravest atrocity ever to destroy a People, and only because they were Jews. It is not just a moral duty to remember them, but an ethical certainty which ensures the lessons of this hatred is not lost to reason, to secure for the future a correction of the past which has learned the right to correct the wrongs. When Halina Birenbaum wrote her Book, Hope is the Last to Die, which she was prompted to write by the emerging detail of evidence’s during the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem, I realised a term which supported the Jewish People in their gravest hour of their greatest need. It has to be recognized, and even in faith built circles, that the saddest Day of the entire Jewish Calendar has to be The Holocaust period, for 6,000,000 very explicit reasons.

“..All sorts of things happened to my faith during The Holocaust ..although I could not have articulated it in this way ..one thing I understood ..precisely ..what happened to us was not because of what God did ..but what people did after rejecting him.. I witnessed ..destruction that follows when men try to turn themselves into Gods.” Hugo Gryn.

When Hitler first identified that the Jews were to die, and this can be perceived from around 1919, and up till the last days Jews died because of him, sadness descended upon the Jews and erased over 6,000,000 of them. History must now play it’s part in evoking all, and any concerns for remembering what is recorded in sadness, recalled in sorrow, and fully evokes what desolation is for the Jewish People. While I strive Always to Remember, Never to Forget, all of my effort is for the most excessive, brutal, and terrifying Slaughter of 6,000,000 Jews. What makes The Holocaust particularly unique too is the sheer lack of those pictorial evidence’s which would add to the isolated intention to deliver the Jews toward extinction. The murderous endeavour of course was so callously managed it voided the Nazis of any sense of shame. But, and when I first became a witness to The Auschwitz Album, for which we thank Lily Jacobs, I didn’t realize I had just 10 years to wait to explore the deepest loss a Mother incurs as a personal loss.

“..I do not think it .. particularly laudable to spend one’s life bearing witness to ..inhumanity of man to man. Even mass murder on ..scale of Nazi genocide is unfortunately not unique in ..history of man ..although ..mechanistic .. systematic way it was carried out by ..Nazi Reich is unique.” Bruno Bettelheim.

So I looked more poignantly at the images to be contained within this UNIQUE Album itself, and looked more forlornly at all that remains a human loss. This too is a UNIQUE factor in what presentation of The Holocaust delivers to us, as it is the only Photographic evidence of its kind. It is UNIQUE, and even though individual Nazis have delivered up photographs, and even Video of the Killing process, we are presented a UNIQUE sharing of the last steps of Hungarian Jewry toward the termination of their lives. Of course, UNIQUE is unlike anything else and since the full-blown discovery of what The Holocaust delivered, this too is totally UNIQUE in all of human history.

“..Monsters exist ..too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are ..common men ..functionaries ready to believe and ..act without asking questions.” Primo Levi.

So while I have been continually back and forth through these Albums pages, and I recognize their image intimately, I now look more deeply to explore the Jewish Mothers presence in the evidence. It is clear, my own loss added another dimension to my own appreciation of all that We as humans have lost. I am struck by a dialogue held with a Friend who lost her Mom to the Nazis and I see it even as I look to the little Jewish girl, who comes to the foreground in one of the pages. This young Girl is Gerti Mermelstein, and she too confronts us deeply as I go to this certain page, sharing the last moments of Hungarian Jews, and a Jewish Family from Munkacs, Mukacevo in particular. Where there once was a Jewish Community of some 11,000 Jews, Birkenau is about to devour them and spew out their very essence through the Krematoria smoke-stacks billowing out the former existence of human beings.

“..I reached ..decision with a heavy heart ..having followed ..recent developments in Hungary with great concern. ..history cleansing campaign of ..past few years calculated to whitewash ..historical record of ..Horthy era ..including ..changes ..legalised ..sinister measures that were subsequently taken to absolve Hungary from ..active role it had played in ..destruction of close to 600,000 of its citizens of ..Jewish faith.” Randolph L. Braham.

But I recognize too, in just this single image, that there is this one Woman standing to the left of Gerti who is either searching for her own Child or Children, or she has been left with no one of her own to connect to. But, as I felt so inclined to believe, she is hopefully settling amongst her own, and as a member of the same Mermelstein Family, she is amongst her own. In this image too there is a concern for a Survivor Friend, since passed from us, who saw in this one frame, her own Mother in the image of this one Lady. I never found it in me to tell her, that this could not have been her Mom, given the date that she recognised for her own Mom’s passing. I am often insistent upon the truth being the very integrity of why History matters, but kept such truth as was known, away from impeding Erica’s own solace in her own personal grief. So for whatever reason we choose to write, contemplate, observe, and add to the testimony of loss to this UNIQUE atrocity, we must always acknowledge there were 6,000,000 entirely UNIQUE Jewish People to remember, amongst them, Erica’s Mom.

“..We must always take sides. Neutrality helps ..oppressor ..never ..victim. Silence encourages ..tormentor ..never .. tormented.” Elie Wiesel.

“..In trying to bridge that abyss between past and present ..memoirist is obliged to arm himself against sentimentality ..to guard against nostalgia. I was constantly aware of ..desire to idealize that destroyed World ..but I tried to discipline myself to portray Vilna as it was ..without retouching ..without removing ..warts and blotches of historical reality. ..it was indeed possible ..in writing about one’s own people ..for a historian ..to maintain critical objectivity ..to hold fast to an inner perspective ..an empathetic understanding of their trials ..travails ..passions ..ambitions.” Lucy S. Dawidowicz.

The first lesson in writing History is its objectivity and the surety that any bias or precondition does not enter the arena. What Lucy Dawidowicz imparts to us is that very fact, and within the cauldron of The Holocaust legion of atrocity, it is essential we give guidance to those who seek the truth rather than the dismal apology of distortion, which all too often infects this chosen subject. While it is true I have concerned my search to these 6,000,000 Jews who are The Holocaust, I have not forgotten the cost in World War II to 50 or is it 70 million People in the World who lost their lives. But in concentrating my attention upon the scale of atrocity which the Slaughter of 6,000,000 individuals who happen to be Jews, I do so outside the confines of any Ethnical, Religious or even Racial predisposition. Mine is exclusively a human need to identify with an inhuman deed which was enacted by inhuman beings according to ages old hatreds in depriving People of humanity’s right to life and living.

“..Because of my great passion for subjects in ..humanities ..especially literature ..I now wish to devote myself to higher studies at ..University of Warsaw ..as a student in ..humanities section of ..Faculty of Philosophy” Henryka Lazowert.

I am perhaps fortunate to have been borne into a Family whose attitude towards others is a reminder, to not inflict upon others what we do not wish inflicted upon ourselves. I cannot say I have always upheld those principles, but I have steered a course through pages which I was not written but seemed purposely written for me. So here, and for the Jews in The Holocaust, their position as to the sanctity of their lives was roundly ignored or was totally abandoned in favour of the enlisting of an age’s old hatred, indeed it is The Greatest Hatred, antisemitism. From the vantage point of a gentile Europe, there was an eagerness for far too many to simply do nothing to assist these Jewish People. For others there was that demand which would deny them nothing from those certain gains from the plight of the Jewish People. Be that Money, Homes, Businesses, Lands or an accumulation of what had belonged to the Jews for over 5,000 Years.

“..Righteous Among ..Nations ..honoured by Yad Vashem ..are non-Jews who took great risks to save Jews during The Holocaust. Rescue took many forms and ..Righteous came from different nations ..religions and walks of life. What they had in common was that they protected their Jewish neighbours at a time when hostility and indifference prevailed.” Yad-Vashem.

The hereditary right to life has been consistently stolen from the Jewish People, and there were far too many willing to compliment this hatred, which so adorned Hitler’s nazi ideal. In this, it my unswerving demand that there should be no other condition than preserving the truth, so that memory is best bestowed upon all of these 6,000,000 Jewish People. For every single one of these Jews, none of whom have been saved by those who could have done more to save even more of them, I place them before all I have previously studied in that field of historical warfare I assumed was my direction. I hold with the contention here, of Elie Wiesel has stated and in that, while not all victims were Jews, All Jews were Victims. And I would go further still in citing the very fact that, while all of those people in Europe, who did not act in perpetrating the crimes we identify as The Holocaust, we realise that not all of those same people of Europe were innocent when it came to the eventual Slaughter of 6,000,000 Europeans who just happen to be Jews.

“..It is true that not all ..victims were Jews. But All Jews Were Victims.” Elie Wiesel.

With that in mind, and as I leave aside my ever-increasing and dedicated workload of recalling and remembering the loss of these 6,000,000 Jews, and they have become my capacity to remember those who are now my requirement to remember that they will never be forgotten. I seek here though, to pay homage to those all too few who acted with what moral efficacy is demanded by any, and all who profess their own humanity’s concern. For those who acted for the rights of all individuals to coexist as equals, and without prejudice to the very existence of those Jews they sought to save, this is but a small tribute of mine that is in the name of the 6,000,000 Jews who cannot respond. In 1953, when the State of Israel introduced the ‘Martyrs’ and ‘Heroes’ Remembrance Law, which has established the Yad-Vashem Museum, that institution has also been tasked with the creation of a Remembrance Authority.

“..destruction of ..crematorium slowed down ..killing machine at Birkenau and saved many lives.  400 Jewish and non-Jewish prisoners died in ..revolt and its aftermath.” Anna Heilman.

Incorporated into this establishment is a demand that is dedicated to documenting and honouring the sacrifices made and the heroism of those who acted in favour of saving Jewish lives. It is for those human beings who stood against the tide, and in not abandoning the Jews to the fate assigned to them, in The Final Solution, and who resolved to save at least some of them, and that these Human Beings are recognised, is a citation too in honour of 6,000,000 People who were not saved, who were Jews. The term itself, The Righteous Among the Nations, is from the Hebrew Hassidei-Umot-Haolam, and overall depicts those who acted with a pious, and virtuous intention in their act of ethical, judicious and even moral probity. The fact of the term has sourced those who displayed such human instincts, they are picked them out as ‘wiser gentiles’, and given this human honour, set them aside from those who acted with dishonour.

“..attempt to survive in illegality was before anything else a self-assertion and an act of Jewish Resistance against ..Nazi regime. Only few were successful in this resistance.” Wolfgang Benz.

Thus titled, these non-Jews are examined for inclusion as recipients of such an award, and particularly because they acted as non-Jews in saving Jews. From this point I would like to take charge and refer, looking back to some very misguided individuals who are hell bent upon pointing to Jewish Remembrance as a solely Jewish concern. There is also a long fostered, even believed contention, that the Jewish People were only interested in what was perpetrated against the Jews, who are The Holocaust. This is a much-debated format of an incorrect assessment, and toward what then finally emerges as a ritual denial of the truth. While the bitter wounds of the Jewish People, and the new Israeli State, was initially attempting to add wider content to all that was lost, it did not choose to ignore the plight of so many who did not evade death or destruction during World War II. But! The Holocaust has been clearly derived from what was intended as The Final Solution of The Jewish Question.

And, as the Jewish People attempt to resolve any, and even all lack of comprehension, we stand before the mantle of history to add credence to the fact of The Holocaust memory that belongs solely to the Jewish People. For the Jews to even attempt to somewhat come close to absolute terms, which attempt to comprehend with the incomprehensible nature of the Slaughter, they Remember well their immense loss is amongst other significant losses. While Jewish Holocaust Scholars, many Jewish Survivors amongst them, sought out the divided memory for all of those 6,000,000 Jews now deprived of any memory, they were clearly aligned along those specific scientific routes which are realising of all of history. There is an accusation levelled at me also, for ever since writing on The Holocaust, that I act with bias, as I too have been accused of concentrating solely upon the fact that 6,000,000 Jews of Europe were Slaughtered.

“..Who ..in this World ..could reply to .. terrible obstinacy of crime ..if not for ..obstinacy of witnessing.” Albert Camus.

That indeed is the nature of my effort, and I make no apology for doing so, and nor do I contend with other than what is truly and solely a Jewish catastrophe, The Holocaust. This stoic position is for me, a position within The Holocaust, that is an evocation of what is an Historical event of Monumental proportions. This is for a very detailing and disturbing aspect in my own effort to make the presence of The Holocaust more real and appreciated to all of History. But here’s the thing. The earliest writer’s on The Holocaust, Jewish Survivors themselves, and those amongst them who became renowned scholars on the subject, did so while reminding us of the Gypsy, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Homosexuals, and all manner of the Christian Clergy, and the multitude of those others who were deprived of life. The Jewish Scholar too voiced a concern that the ordinary non-Jewish Citizens, those very People who rose highest above the swirl of anti-Jewish rhetoric and hatred, they should be commemorated and remembered, so as best not be forgotten.

“..Each ..memoir adds to our knowledge  not only of The Holocaust ..but also of many aspects of ..human condition that are universal and timeless ..power of evil and ..courage of ..oppressed ..cruelty of ..bystanders and ..heroism of those who sought to help ..despite ..risks ..part played by Family and Community ..question of who knew and when ..responsibility of ..wider World for .. destructive behaviour of tyrants and their henchman.” Martin Gilbert.

The wish then was to record, from those others who perished alongside Jews, and amidst the hatred for the Jews, as stand out human beings amongst so many callous, indifferent and even intolerant beings. Even here, and amongst the Jews themselves, these Righteous have always considered as Neighbours, Friends or merely as Human Beings, and there is a tally of such goodness, that it became an act of righteousness itself to act and add their names to a scroll of honour. There are indeed human beings who resist the temptation to sit back and accept the comfortable nature of a complicity which indifference forms. Today though, there are some 28,217 People who shine out from the darkness and are presented to us as Righteous Among Nations. This is clearly a fact which conjures with the huge and immense indifference which betrayed the Jewish People but, and it is for the Jewish Survivor to know also, that they were not totally abandoned by all.

“.. Historians looking at The Holocaust inevitably take ..broad view ..attempting to see ..whole picture .. putting ..catastrophe into context. They analyse ..mechanisms ..logistics of ..destruction of European Jewry ..delve into ..pathological behaviour of ..Nazis in particular and ..German people as a whole ..search in history ..economics ..psychology ..for causes ..remote .. immediate ..which might make sense of ..senseless and explain ..inexplicable.” Gilbert Herbert.

This truth alone stands as a monument in itself and is to heighten and add to our understanding as to humanity’s darkest hours. With this appreciation of good, and even great People, what was clearly established in 1963 was a commission created within Yad-Vashem, that would become a document centre that would detail and record all that was related to the evisceration of 6,000,000 Jewish People. From within The Holocaust itself, the truth would seek to balance the need to know, from all of those who were not persuaded to act against all conscience, or to even begin to act with human intolerance, it lines up alarmingly against those all too many who acted without conscience and with malice toward former neighbours, colleagues, associates, and all because they were Jews. This momentous task of recollection, was headed by a justice of the Supreme Court of Israel, Commission Chairman Justice Moshe Landau, who was charged with ensuring all The Righteous Among the Nations were duly noted and awarded such title as becomes them.

“..And so we must know these good people who helped Jews during The Holocaust. We must learn from them ..and in gratitude and hope ..we must remember them.” Elie Wiesel.

It is but an honorary title bestowed upon these Righteous People, and upon non-Jews specifically, and by a benevolent Israel which has much to respect these People for. What we are to witness with such a process is an acclamation of human beings for acting humanely, and under great pressure not to do so. For what the some sought to achieve, against the very detail of this Hitlerite plan to eliminate all Jews of The Final Solution of The Jewish Question, accuses the many who didn’t do anything. Let us be clear here! The Righteous are not extraordinary People. But given the exacting set of circumstances to face the Jews of Europe, those who stood by their moral principles, advocated their ethical need, delivered toward a compassionate demand, and stood out from the very many who did not act accordingly, theirs is a tale of humanity being sparingly reprieved. The matter of Never Again does not fail them, as they set the seal on what should and could have been achieved by even more of their fellow human beings.

“..antisemitism was to lead Nazi Germany to Sobibor. Among ..personnel of Sobibor ..we find doctors ..musicians ..civil servants ..ordinary workers ..peasants.” Miriam Novitch.

At the commencement to some extraordinarily inhuman days for 6,000,000 Jews, who were ritually Slaughtered, there are a certain number of Human Beings who acted with proper human certainty. While all too many others did not act in this way, or who acted in accordance to greed or hatred, the Righteous defines these others as outside of humanity’s best. While we can sit in judgement upon those who acted against all morality, and we cannot know how we might have acted, we can be certain how we should not have acted. In that very truth there is this one certainty, and for so very many of us, we know exactly what it is we would not have done to act against the Jewish People. When we look to these human beings who acted so monstrously, we recognise people from every profession and walk of life whose bestial acts we record to this day. When I wrote my 2^nd Book on the very make up of der Einsatzgruppe, it is a stark reminder of what education can fail in teaching so many.

“..I believe that it was really due to Lorenzo Perrone that I am alive today ..and not so much for his material aid ..as for his having constantly reminded me by his presence ..that there still existed a just World outside our own ..something and someone still pure and whole ..for which it was worth surviving.” Primo Levi.

Here, assembled by Hitler, Himmler, Heydrich, and others, are those with doctorates who led the line of mass killers in dismantling the bedrock of human civilisation. It is clear that hatred is well learned by those with a penchant for learning, and the growing awareness that hatred fills the spaces of the powerful with those who exploit clearly what diversity must more define our uniqueness than any difference. What was the lessons learned by those who emerged into the World to administer to what can be achieved by dismissing the lessons of the past. The very nuances of society were swept aside, and into the pits and ravines of terminal devastation, went the doctorates and thesis of the teachings of civilisation, and society, and alongside 2,000,000 Jewish People the notion of a righteous being was catapulted toward oblivion. We cannot ever begin to console ourselves with such craven acts as Genocide, which we have now become witness to, without recognising the extraordinary nature of ordinary human beings who acted inhumanly.

“..sheltered by Christian Poles without whose help my Family and I would not have survived. At ..end of ..war I resumed my former identity ..determined to put ..past behind me. I wanted to forget ..person I had tried so desperately to become ..to forget that which ..forced me to become someone else ..to forget even ..Christians who had helped me ..stay alive. ..Thirty years later my memories started to stir. They called for attention.” Nechama Tec.

It is without compassion, and certainly without concern that the extraordinary and bitter hatred the Righteous readily witnessed, engulfed them as they acted. That The Holocaust is replete with horror stories, and with the terror which faced ordinary Jewish Men, Women and Their Children, recognises for us that there are at least 6,000,000 of these Jews so impacted by the hatred. As Nechama Tec has proved with her exceptional study, When Light Pierced the Darkness, there were those who were quite able, and better still, so willing to simply point the way to enlightening the path toward some of those who were still whole and even pure. The sad fact is still that all too few did act in human compassion, and so and looked on as their neighbours, even friends, were swept toward oblivion. As of January 1^st 2022, and as the Yad-Vashem Holocaust Memorial Museum has clearly recognized, there are merely 28,217 Righteous souls who saved Jews from such complacency, indifference and the ignorance of hatred.

“..Time will erase ..traces of ..abandoned objects ..human testimony will remain.” Miriam Novitch.

From among the vastness of those other people, and from states and nations who did not act decisively, these Righteous stand alone, who remain unable to come to their own terms of understanding. For these non-Jewish Men and Women, we recount events from the bleakness of the atrocity, as they emerge from some 51 different and divergent countries to be added to the worth of humanity. Each of these individuals has cooperated with their own consciences, so as to save the many thousands of Jews from the Nazi horrors they managed to. As we list these accounts, from figures that are the individual cases made available to Yad-Vashem, and these do not necessarily represent the actual number of rescuers, which is conceivably far greater, we recognise the gulf that exists between the good and the indifferent. We realise that between the honest and the intolerant and between those whose souls avoided the abyss into which humanity itself has fallen, there is a worth which all of humanity must cherish and embrace.

“..Jews were abandoned by All World governments but not by all individuals.” Jan Karski.

Albania                  75           Righteous Amongst All Nations.      

Armenia                24           Righteous Amongst All Nations.      

Austria                  115         Righteous Amongst All Nations.      

Belarus                  680         Righteous Amongst All Nations.      

Belgium                 1,787      Righteous Amongst All Nations.

Bosnia                    49           Righteous Amongst All Nations.      

Brazil                     2             Righteous Amongst All Nations.      

Britain                   22           Righteous Amongst All Nations.

Bulgaria                 20           Righteous Amongst All Nations.      

Chile                      2             Righteous Amongst All Nations.      

China                     2             Righteous Amongst All Nations.      

Croatia                  130         Righteous Amongst All Nations.      

Cuba                      1             Righteous Amongst All Nations.      

Czech Republic     125         Righteous Amongst All Nations.      

Denmark               22           Individual Righteous Amongst All Nations, and a Nation. 

Ecuador                 1             Righteous Amongst All Nations.      

Egypt                     1             Righteous Amongst All Nations.      

El Salvador            1             Righteous Amongst All Nations.

Estonia                  3             Righteous Amongst All Nations.      

France                   4,206      Righteous Amongst All Nations.      

Georgia                 1             Righteous Amongst All Nations.      

Germany               651         Righteous Amongst All Nations.

Greece                   364         Righteous Amongst All Nations.

Holland                 5,982      Righteous Amongst All Nations.

Hungary                876         Righteous Amongst All Nations.

Indonesia               3             Righteous Amongst All Nations.

Ireland                   1             Righteous Amongst All Nations.

Marie Elisabeth Jean Elmes, Mary Elmes was added to the List in 2013.

“..I had a fixed point of view and I went on with it. I was not emotional but rather clinical ..like a doctor ..or a soldier ..I suppose. Luckily ..I became hardened. It allowed me to work constantly.” Mary Elmes.

Italy                       766         Righteous Amongst All Nations.

Japan                     1             Righteous Amongst All Nations.

Latvia                    138         Righteous Amongst All Nations.

Lithuania               924         Righteous Amongst All Nations.

Luxembourg         1             Righteous Amongst All Nations.

Macedonia             10           Righteous Amongst All Nations.

Moldova                79           Righteous Amongst All Nations.

Montenegro          1             Righteous Amongst All Nations.

Norway                 68           Righteous Amongst All Nations.

Peru                       3             Righteous Amongst All Nations.

Poland                   7,232     Righteous Amongst All Nations.

Portugal                3             Righteous Amongst All Nations.

Romania                69           Righteous Amongst All Nations.

Russia                    217         Righteous Amongst All Nations.

Serbia                    139         Righteous Amongst All Nations.                      

Slovakia                 638         Righteous Amongst All Nations.

Slovenia                 16           Righteous Amongst All Nations.

Spain                     9             Righteous Amongst All Nations.

Sweden                  10           Righteous Amongst All Nations.

Switzerland           49           Righteous Amongst All Nations.

Turkey                  1             Righteous Amongst All Nations.

Ukraine                 2,691     Righteous Amongst All Nations.

USA                      5             Righteous Amongst All Nations.

Vietnam                1             Righteous Amongst All Nations.      

In Total there are 28,217    Righteous Amongst All Nations Worldwide.

To be clear then, the title of Righteous belongs to, and is awarded to those non-Jewish individuals who acted in saving Jews from Destruction. There is no design to recognise groups who might have acted collectively, but with one exception. Denmark as a whole stood, up against what was arriving for the Danish Jews and removed them, almost all of them, to safety in Sweden. Those members of the Danish resistance also, who acted as one, are now to be recognised as their organisations wished for them to be Remembered, as an entire group leading their individual members in the way of Rescuing Jews out of harm’s way. It is obvious that in teaching and educating, ethical lessons were not equally learned by all of those being taught. This imbalance ended up leaving 6,000,000 Jews completely Slaughtered within Auschwitz, Belzec, Birkenau, Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibor and Treblinka and within The Killing Sites in the East. With newer lessons to be learned, and by those Survivor’s who would need to relearn how to live amongst a World of people which denied them, it is perhaps fortunate that more than a handful of People acted to defend the Jews of Europe.

“..teachings ..about ..world ..people ..ethics ..faith ..I had to learn ..by myself in ..hell of concentration camps ..without my Mother who was put to death in ..Gas Chambers in Majdanek ..my Father ..put to death and burnt in ..crematorium in Treblinka ..my Brother ..my Sister in law ..so young ..but cared for me like my Mother ..tormented and burnt in Auschwitz.” Halina Birenbaum.

For me here, and this is a rather subjective piece pointing to an Irish Woman, Mary Elmes, who was Irish, and a Woman born in Cork, who acted according to her own conscience. Mary was positioned within such close proximity to the emerging catastrophe for the Jewish People, she acted to save some of them. Mary, who saved hundreds of Jewish Children from deportation to Birkenau during The Holocaust is forever remembered for her moral and ethical standing. It greatly impresses me too that a fellow Irish person saw so clearly the grave wrong being imposed upon the Jewish right to living was being denied. Mary worked in close proximity to the Camp near Perpignan, Rivesaltes, fighting diseases and providing Food, Clothing, and Bedding for the many Jewish Children detained here. By April 1941 there were well over 9,000 Jewish and other Peoples interned here, and the situation gradually deteriorated. Jews from the French Free Zone were detained here, in preparation for their assimilation with all Jews within France being sourced for eventual destruction.

“..Some survivors of The Holocaust cannot bear to read or hear about ..period. I have always been interested ..to see whether it is really impossible to find words to describe adequately ..behaviour of ..people ..heroism and ..bestiality.” Maja Abramowitch.

And it came to fruition that during the summer of 1942, Mary assisted with the identification of Jewish Children, those aged between 6 and 12 years of age who could be found sanctuary in America. This, under a relocation scheme, Mary acquired exit visas, safe conduct papers, and other documentation so as to facilitate the Jewish Children’s escape from Rivesaltes. This would secure them from being put on the resettlement transports going to Birkenau, that was being routed via the Drancy detention Camp. As the Jewish roundups grew in intensity during this period, and throughout occupied France, Mary recognised the need to secretly remove Jewish Children out of harm’s way, and sometimes in the boot of her car. These initial savings were amongst those very first Jewish Children clearly destined for that initial transport toward Birkenau. Between August and October 1942, Mary and her colleagues saved an estimated 427 Jewish Children from the Camp.

Across the Pyrenees and Orientales region way stations for these refugee Jewish Children emerged and Mary filled their spaces with as many Jewish Children as she could extricate from Rivesaltes. On February 5^th 1943 Mary Elmes was arrested by the SS and detained on suspicion of espionage, and though not proven, they detained her. Mary was also suspected of providing Jews with forged papers and from her initial incarceration in Toulouse, she was moved to Fresnes prison in Paris. Mary was eventually released from here on July 23^rd 1943 after many considerations were delivered by those who interceded on her behalf. It is not known quite how many Jewish Children Mary saved, though those 400’s might well be an underestimation. Mary’s modesty is on display and when she was asked as to why she risked so much during this period, her response was so self-deprecating to say the least. There was a point in time when many, who had looked to the persecution, the abuse of Jews and realised the Germans had crossed the Rubicon, and they stepped into action.

“..we all experienced inconveniences in those days ..didn’t we.” Mary Elmes.

                                    Denmark and The Holocaust.

“.. antisemitic propaganda has always taken advantage of ..psychological factor in generalisation ..if a Jew was boastful or pompous ..then all Jews were so. If a Jew was too adept in money matters ..then all Jews were usurpers. As if there are not ..same number of Christians with ..same bad characteristics. But one does not say that all Christians are ..same.” Poul Borchsenius.

By the time Hitler’s forces had crushed Danish defences in 1940, the Jewish People had lived in Denmark for over 320 years. Historically, the Jews had travelled a long way, and though initially these Jewish People were deprived of total acceptance within Denmark, and even considered on the outside of society, and with antisemitism playing only a minor role, it still took nearly 200 years for the Jews to gain full Citizenship, in 1814. Then, when the Jewish People were given full political equality after this, it was within the space of 50 years, in 1849, and by the end of the 1800’s, that it was decreed the Jews could gain an almost total acceptance amongst their peers and fellow Countrymen. Education once more epitomised the Jewish presence, they were industrious, they were learned, and they broadened the spectrum of civil society here in Denmark. Though Denmark was both politically and religiously tolerant, there was an inter-religious difference which managed to spill over at times.

Throughout the intervening years, Danish Jews were an integral part of Danish Society and we see this in 1933, when in a service attended by the Danish King, Christian X, the Jews of Copenhagen celebrated the 100^th anniversary of their synagogue’s existence. Of course, some 90% of Danes were from the Lutheran Church and during the German occupation, that Church fought against the strains of antisemitism infecting the whole Nazi incursion. The Rabbi, Dr. Marcus Melchior, was a strong advocate of countering such hatred with direct and fundamentally correct responses. While it remains true that the vast majority of the Danish People were repulsed by such terms of hatred, some Danes actually took heed of this discrimination, even joining the ranks of Nazi bitterness towards their own Jewish Citizens. In fact, and during September 1934 in Denmark, we see a collaborationist SS organization, The National Socialist Youth, ‘National Socialistike Ungdom’ being established. This small grouping would add largely to a formation of Danish Waffen SS sent to compliment Hitler’s Total War in the East, and which had its ramifications for all of European Jewry. At this time, and up until 1938, some 4,500 Jewish Refugees entered Denmark, but these were mostly transient Jews, seeking refuge away from the European Continent.

When, on May 31^st 1939 Germany signs a nonaggression pact with Denmark, and with Denmark hoping to maintain its own form of neutrality, as it had done during World War I, Germany largely adhered initially to this pact. Germany however, broke with the agreement, and on April 9^th 1940, Hitler’s Wehrmacht invaded and occupied both Denmark and Norway. With Denmark capitulating after four hours we see the Danish King, Christian X remaining as a symbol of the former monarchy, and though merely in a symbolic role, the King stayed on the throne. As the Danish State maintained a passive acceptance of the German occupation, the Nazi governing body did little to interfere in the daily lives of all of Danish Citizenry, including its Jews. All Government Ministry’s, and this included the Military and Police Force which still remained intact, they more or less became fully compliant to certain German demands. Even though the bureaucratic wheels of the Civil Service, and even the Justice Ministry stayed autonomous, and throughout the entire period of occupation, this was largely so. But, and until decreed, the Jewish presence within Denmark was not to emerge as a part of the overall Hitlerite solution until later on in the War.

“..Denmark ..represents a very special case ..conditions for ..collective rescue of Jews were favourable in virtually every regard ..and ..Danes took full advantage of them. First ..Danish Jews numbered only 8,000 ..making up a mere 0.2 percent of Denmark’s total population. Second ..this small group was highly assimilated. Third ..Nazis defined ..Danes as a superior ‘Aryan’ race. Partly because of this definition ..they were left in charge of their own political destiny retaining ..pre-war government. One effect of Denmark’s local autonomy was that ..Jews were left alone.” Nechama Tec.

The May Fourth Committee was established now so as to care for the influx of Jewish Refugees who found favour in Denmark. Even while the German annexation of Denmark was minimal, the Germans here were still considered as a well perceived and infinite threat to all of European Jewry. However, the fate of Danish Jewry was uniquely secured by a Danish Nation whose expressed Humanity exceeded those of any other state in Europe during these destructive times. At the time of this, the Jewish greatest need, there was a Jewish population of approximately 7,400 Danish and Refugees citizens. This was accounting for just 1/50^th of the country’s total population and for the very foreseeable future, there were 6,000 Danish National Jews who remained unmolested. This was an incredible demand placed upon the German administration, and at an insistence of the Danish authority. Added to these Danish Jewish Nationals, there were some 1,400 German, Austrian and Czechoslovakian Jewish Refugees, with as many as a further 1,000 other Jewish Refugees entering the Country from East European Countries. This, for the Jewish People, who were all gaining from the Danish capacity for acting ethically, has added a newer dimension to what society and even civilisation must mean.

This notion too, that the Jews could be detained within German borders, essentially opened Danish eyes to what moral status the Jewish Refugee should be afforded. Remember too, that while borders were continually shut down to Jewish Refugees across the World, some leeway was afforded the Jewish People as they sought to escape into Denmark. Of course, all of this belies Denmark’s future position with regard to their saving of practically its entire Jewish Community from Hitler. The fact too that the Danish government did not require Jews to register their property and assets, or to identify themselves as Jews, nor to give up apartments, homes, and businesses, and nor were they even expected to wear the Jewish Star, stands Denmark pretty much alone in its humanitarian approach toward Hitler’s inhumanity toward all Jews. All of this of course sets Denmark apart from the very complicit nature of the anti-Jewish regulations that had spread throughout occupied Europe.

Laudably, the Danes erred on the cautious side and sought to placate a less Nazi destructive process and with this, Denmark has received a degree of autonomy within the Greater Nazi Reich. This position establishes Denmark amongst the top ranked Nations in humanitarian concerns, and from all of those from any of the other European States of the time. While it is true that Danish relations with the German Reich were not built upon a mutual esteem, but rather upon a concern Denmark held in fear of its larger more aggressive neighbour, Hitler and his Reich had considered Denmark higher along the scale of so called aryanism. Also, any maintenance of a unified stance that was established by the Danish People, and The Jewish Question was not deemed a factor to be bothered with, protected further its Jewish population. As such, we recognise that Danish Jews were not openly molested, were not compelled to wear the Yellow Star of David. Danish Jews were not segregated nor Ghettoised. Life for Danish Jewry steered a steady course, unflinching in its understanding of what community meant to all of their Danish Neighbours. The esteemed Professor of Theology Hal Koch, and Chairman of Dansk Ungdomssamvirke, overseeing Danish Youth Movements, was a moderator within Danish circles on The Final Solution as it was becoming a concern for Danish society and he stresses:

“..we have said many a Yes and many a No which have not come from our hearts ..and that our talk has taken on a fateful hypocrisy.” Hal Koch.

Denmark forged a resilience that went beyond the pressure of occupation, was not too drastically treated and remained more conducive to seeing Germans strutting their Streets as more of an irritation. Then, as threats to Danish Jewry became more pronounced, all of Denmark mobilised in defence of Their Jews and in defiance of any German authority. Jews were taken out of harm’s way, hidden in Neighbours Homes, Businesses, Churches, Convents, Hospitals, Monasteries and Stores. Strangers became Friends in a whisper and the intention to deny Hitler a platform for his Final Solution was fully confronted and countered on Danish soil. The Capitol, Copenhagen, became a hidden City of Jews, where the vast majority of all Jews in Denmark lived. Here, as with the Danish Eastern Coastline, where fishermen’s boats, Alcoves, Bays, and Inlets, all harboured Danish Jews, and in increasing numbers, the Jews grew increasingly aware of the fate of all of European Jewry.

“..On January 7^th 1942 ..Hal Kochs article has touched off an internal political dispute concerning ..Jewish Question in Denmark ..one presumes that ..dispute will expand. In my opinion ..we would do best not to intervene in this internal political controversy ..which will bring The Jewish Problem to ..Danish public consciousness more intensively than ever before. Instead ..we should continue to follow ..line we have pursued thus far. It remains our policy of action to eradicate Jewish influence at every opportunity ..to oust ..Jews altogether. We should also take future action to inspire greater understanding of The Jewish Problem.” Cecil von Renthe-Fink.

When Renthe-Fink was replaced by Dr. Werner Best as the civil administrator of Denmark, the evocation of the very aggressive terms for The Final Solution would be signalled. It is clear here from the German Foreign Ministry that The Final Solution of The Jewish Question in Denmark is merely held in abatement until a more conducive time presents itself. It is recognised here that Hal Koch is to be considered an interference in the relationship between Denmark and Germany, particularly in its relationship to The Jewish Question What we must also recognise, as practically all of Denmark acted in a single moral accord, so too did the State Church. Here, the Lutheran Church acted with conscience and presented a religious communion which saw beyond all, or any personal interests. A lesson here, for All Churches was set, as a moral probity which should have enjoined all religious tolerance is promoted. Clearly, what lays exposed on the European Continent, is an acquiescence toward Hitler’s fuller resolve for the Jews, which has been seen in many Country’s as both complicit and duplicitous. All the while, the Danish attitude toward the German occupiers was graduating from seeming acceptance to a well-formed and growing belligerent disapproval. Then, when Nazi demands toward the Jewish People were finally raised, Danish refusal to co-operate with any German authority heightened.

“..Danish Jews are a living part of ..People ..and ..whole nation is therefore profoundly affected by ..measures which have been taken and which must be regarded as an infringement of ..Danish conception of justice.” Council of Nine Statement.

This Danish group of political leaders roundly condemned any attempt at the incarceration or deportation of Danish Jews. When, on January 20^th 1942 and The Wannsee Conference recognised just 5,600 Danish Jews for elimination, a Danish more retaliatory response was more necessary. When Martin Luther of the Foreign proposed allowing Denmark, amongst the Scandinavian Country’s, a stay of execution of the final terms of this, it is clear time was being bought for them by Eichmann’s demands for the rolling stock necessary. At this time too, the growth of The Resistance Movement within Denmark moved into a more widely accessible and coordinated approach.

On August 24th. 1942 “..Danish Foreign Minister Scavenius is convinced that ..Danes will adjust to ..New Europe of their own good will and accept all ..attendant undertakings if left alone in all other matters. Mr. Scavenius repeatedly stressed that no action should be taken against ..Jews in Denmark at ..present time because ..Danes would regard this as a negation of their ideals. Admittedly ..this will change with ..approach of ..end of ..War and ..New Order in Europe ..in ..meantime anti-Jewish measures will cause unrest. Furthermore ..one should bear in mind that ..longer ..War lasts ..more difficulties will have to be resolved in any case. It is not wise to aggravate them by making them take up The Jewish Problem now. Even Brigadefuhrer Ohlendorf agrees that a people should not be transformed overnight and that solving The Jewish Problem should be postponed until ..end of ..War. ..Foreign Minister added that we would only exacerbate ..anti-German mood if Danes are removed from their positions as a result of our pressure.” Cecil von Renthe-Fink.

We know, with the arrival of Otto Ohlendorf, in August 1942, this Einsaztgruppe Kommander and mass murderer of the Jews, was not in Denmark to expedite other than The Final Solution. It is becoming clear that the ticking bomb of The Jewish Question was being approached. By the end of 1942 there were different groups all emerging, gathering more support and garnering a more centralised coordination. Throughout the following Summer, civil unrest was more widespread as draconian measures were being imposed continually upon the entire population. Hunger was in the air as food shortages were registered by Nazi edict. As a consequence of this, acts of sabotage mounted, strike actions took place, and as German reprisals became more severe, the counter action took on a more confrontational response.

On January 3^rd 1943 “..Jewish poison in ..Danish Spirit. ..is quite impossible to understand how ..this poison has penetrated so deeply into ..Church ..nothing in any of our social institutions is fought for with such fanaticism as this cause of ..safety and freedom of ..Jews.” Frits Heide.

Here in 1943, even antisemites such as Heide recognised the Danish Church was fulfilling its moral duty to all People, recognised by their God. However, as German policies towards Denmark toughened, and the Danish Resistance movement applied itself and would form one of the most active and successful resistance campaigns against the German occupation, Jewish awareness of its own diverse predicament grew. Of course, German policies had varied from country to country, including direct and even brutal occupation and including a continuous reliance upon collaborating regimes. Until now though, the German occupation regime still took a less dictatorial approach within Denmark, a perceived kindred spirit.

On April 24^th 1943 “..The Jewish Question in Denmark ..I hereby report. ..Danish society regards ..Jewish question above all as a legal and constitutional issue. If ..German side were to demand special treatment of ..Jews ..Danes would regard this ..as an assault on their constitution ..which assures equality of all Danish citizens under ..law. ..Jewish problem would be resisted by all constitutional players in ..Danish State ..and ..Prime Minister Scavenius explained ..it would ..cause ..Government to resign. The Jewish Problem commands so little importance in Denmark ..in terms of quantity and interest ..there is no practical need to take special action for ..time being. ..total Jewish population of Denmark is estimated at 6,000 ..nearly all of whom are gathered in Copenhagen. ..small number of Jews in Denmark and their concentration in Copenhagen will facilitate at some later date a total arrangement ..which my office is preparing. There are 1,351 stateless Jews ..former German citizens in Denmark at ..present time ..845 Men ..458 Women ..and 48 children.” Dr. Werner Best.

On August 28^th 1943, when a state of emergency was declared by Denmark’s Reich Commissioner, SS Obergruppenfuhrer Dr. Werner Best, the clamp down spurred the Danes to ever more breeches of Nazi rule. Dr. Best defined acts of sabotage as warranting a death sentence and within the coming four weeks, the fuller nature of an aktionen against Danish Jews was corresponding to the implementation of Hitler’s final resolve. The impending question to the Jewish resolution now was made aware and ensured that Denmark as a whole, acted as a whole. The German legation’s attaché, Georg F. Duckwitz, who was responsible for the shipping quotas in and out of Copenhagen, briefed those around him. Dane and German alike grew aware of what terms of reference would be proffered upon Danish Jewry and Duckwitz was now instrumental in the Danes awareness.

“..hurry as much as possible .. evacuation of ..Jews from ..various countries of Europe. ..object of starting .. evacuation of ..Jews of these Countries.” Martin Luther.

As soon as was required those Danes who acted with benevolence, compassion and human solidarity toward their Jewish Neighbours, drew much of humanity out of a bulging pit of despair. In September 1943, the ‘Danish Freedom Council’ was created, and they attempted to unify the many different groups that made up the Danish resistance movement.

On September 23rd. 1943 Westfallen. ..In accordance with Fuhrer’s order to implement ..deportation of Jews from Denmark ..Dr. Best was asked first to provide precise details on ..method of implementing ..deportation and on ..number of additional police forces needed for ..action. Dr. Best reported that to carry out the action against ..Jews he will need another 50 members of SD ..Security Police. There is no need to augment ..Order Police ..because plans to do this have already been made. To remove ..Jews from Greater Copenhagen ..a ship with a capacity of at least 5,000 passengers is needed. ..remaining 2,000 Jews can be transported by rail. Dr. Best also pointed out that this action against ..Jews will greatly aggravate ..political situation in Denmark. Afterwards ..it will no longer be possible to assume that a legal Government can be formed in ..near future. Fuhrer doubts that ..action will lead to these conclusions. Riots and perhaps a General Strike may break out. ..King and ..Rigsdag may stop participating in ..State government. ..King may even abdicate his throne. Having taken into account ..considerations of ..Reich Minister in Denmark ..I hereby request an instruction. Does ..Fuhrer want ..action against ..Jews to be carried out now. If ..answer is in ..affirmative ..it would be correct to do this while ..State of emergency remains in effect.” Joachim von Ribbentrop.

On September 24^th 1942, when Martin Luther of the Reich Foreign Ministry urged movement on The Jewish Question in Bulgaria, Denmark and Hungary, that Danish Resistance fully mobilised and brought about a human miracle in terms of the Jewish escape. Germany, while still very much in its ascendency, and with the resolution of the full remit for The Final Solution at the pinnacle of all Hitler demanded, and within his Weltanschauung, this Worldview  was being re-stressed within Denmark also.

 “..We Danes know that ..whole population stands behind resistance to ..German oppressors. ..Council calls on ..Danish population to help in every way possible those Jewish fellow citizens who have not yet succeeded in escaping abroad. Every Dane who renders help to ..Germans in ..persecution of human beings is a traitor and will be punished as such when Germany is defeated.” The Danish Freedom Council.

In fact, the representative of the German Foreign Office at the Wannsee Conference, Martin Luther recommended that the Scandinavian countries could be excluded from the terms of The Final Solution of The Jewish Question until after the War is won. In truth, this unresolved issue was never going to be countenanced as Hitler’s demand was for the immediate completion of all Jews being eradicated in the least possible time scale. All was to be achieved in order to then extend the War Machine into the further reaches of the Far East. It is clear, that while the Danish government did not require Jews to register their property and assets, nor to identify themselves as Jews, even the administration of Jewish Refugees offered no differences to their status as People. Danish Jews were never ordered to give up ownership of their Lands, Business Premises nor their Homes as was common throughout the range of Hitler’s demands, When we look to this statement of support from the Danish King, Christian X sees his demands resonate throughout Denmark. What then remains consistent in relation to the refusal by the Danish People as a body, is to see the Jewish People as other than a constituent part of the Danish People.

“..Jews are a part of ..Danish nation. We have no Jewish problem in our country because we never had an inferiority complex in relation to ..Jews. If ..Jews are forced to wear ..Yellow Star ..I and my whole family shall wear it as a badge of honour.” King Christian X.

It is imperative too that when we look to the escape of Danish Jewry toward Sweden, this plight for the Jewish People was none the more concerning by the fact of all that these Jews had left behind. In Poland, we have witnessed the removal and transportation of Polish Jewry was the starting gun for non-Jewish Poles to steal and remove everything from within Jewish Homes. The plunder was on an industrial scale, the move into owned Jewish Homes was extortionate and the steal of Jewish Businesses had provided an endless stream of wealth executed away from Polish Jewish ownership. This provides History with the epitome of such larceny that has fully propped up the Polish state to this day. On the opposite end of that particular immoral spectrum, stood the Danish Nation who kept Jewish Homes locked up, Jewish belongings left entirely where they belonged, and as reminiscent of the Marie Celeste, the Jews returned to an almost pristine former position they had previously left behind. Then, when we look to what could have been done, and certainly what should have been done to attempt to save the Jews of The Holocaust, we look to Denmark as to what it did and certainly toward what it did not do against its Jewish Neighbours. As a whole, The Nation State stood as a Community of People, against a Nazi horde set about destroying its very foundation. The Yellow Badge, as we will recognise, was this so-called honour badge, the Mogen David, that was never introduced as an identifier of the Jews into Denmark. What I find most upsetting, in all that the Danes achieved in saving their Jewish Population, is that incremental pressure from some in history is to seek to downplay this achievement. It can be no coincidence that many states would decry such humanitarian an effort, to somehow disguise their own ineffectual indifference to the intolerances the Jews of these failure states fully faced.

“..It was ..natural thing to do. I would have helped any group of Danes being persecuted. ..Germans’ picking on ..Jews made as much sense to me as picking on redheads.” Dr. Karl Henry Koster.

For this Danish Surgeon at the Bispebjerg Hospital, Copenhagen, as a physician Henry Koster took his responsibility within the Hippocratic Oath to save People from harm. He urged his fellow physicians to pave the way for Danish Jews, and they were directed through the very corridors of the Hospital, to make their way toward Sweden. In addition, the eye specialist Dr. Steffen Lund garnered support from amongst his colleagues into the wider Danish community. Also, while Jews were not required to wear a yellow star or badge, it made it ever more difficult for the German authority’s to identify Danish, or even Refugee Jews. The Jewish People didn’t always fit the stereo typical image fostered by Nazi propaganda of the Hassidim, as the model of All Jewry, let alone secular Jews. Two attempts were made to set fire to the Copenhagen synagogue in 1941 and 1942, but local police intervened both times to prevent the arson and arrest the perpetrators. It is also clear that attempts at burning records from Danish Ministry’s was undertaken to ensure the Nazi administration could not identify Jews from any card indexes that might present the Germans with any additional information.

“..persecution of ..Jews has hit ..Danes in ..sorest point of their conception of justice ..even ..much too tolerant ..passive ..lukewarm can feel this meanness and shrink from it. We couldn’t yield to ..German threats when ..Jews’ well being was at stake. Nor can we yield today. We have helped them ..and we shall go on helping them by all ..means at our disposal. ..episodes of ..past two nights have to us become part of Denmark’s fate ..and if we desert ..Jews in this hour of their misery ..we desert our native country.” Danish Underground Newspaper  Editorial.

So the Jewish community continued to maintain its position, not deviating from all former practices and religious services and occasions and did so, right up until their evacuation toward Sweden. It was with the clear refusal and obstruction of the Danish authorities with a very vocal trend growing amongst Student bodies, and the preparedness of Danish Dock Workers to stall loading and unloading of goods, discrimination against the Danish Jews was further minimised and thwarted. The Media was fully behind the disruption of all German articles designed to segregate the Jewish People out of their community. They headlined the Kings approval of the Jewish status as equal amongst all Danes and worked tirelessly to counter the propaganda espoused by German demands. There was a noted effort for exchanges between Denmark and Hitler’s Nazis for Jews that did not come to much. In response to these German attempts, to get Danes to surrender those Jews who were in hiding, alarm bells were loudly peeling. In an arm-twisting exercise the Nazis offered to release Danish detained prisoners of War and easing certain constraints placed upon the Danish Community.

“..I was brought up to believe in democracy and to believe that you have to be willing to fight if you want to preserve that democracy. As for helping ..Jews ..I didn’t feel any particular responsibility for Jews. As a matter of fact ..I never thought of them as Jews or anything else. They were merely my countrymen and they needed my help.” Signe Jensen.

All arms of the Danish Civil and Civic Services answered the call, as this Danish nurse proved, and in the meantime, the tone of the German occupation changed in early 1943. With Allied victories further convincing Western Europe and even the Danish People that Germany could indeed be defeated, a certain buoyancy entered the fray. While there had been minimal direct resistance to the Germans during those initial years of the occupation, and while there had been many labour strikes and even acts of deliberate sabotage, Danish Resistance pervaded the Dano/German arena. It was clear now that all Danish responses would strain further, the very future of their relationship with Germany. As the Danish government resigned, on August 28^th 1943, it was abundantly clear that Denmark would not cow down to all aspects of German demands upon its Citizenry, its Constitution and upon its ability to act independently. In this, Danes arrested for what Germans deemed as sabotage would not be allowed to become a tool of the Nazi Reich, to be presided over by a German Military Court.

“..It was never a question of Jew or non-Jew. It was a question of People in distress. I would have helped anyone to escape from ..Gestapo.” Jorgen Knudsen.

Ordinary Danish citizens strove to oppose all occupation threats and incitements, and helped all of those People, whether Jews or not who were in distress. While we are aware of what Poland refused to do, Denmark stands to shame these other nations whose own inaction, indifferences and intolerances led 6,000,000 Jews of Europe to the Slaughter. The following night, August 29^th 1943, the German military commander, General Hermann von Hannecken, declared martial law. The German authorities now arrested Danish civilians, Jews and non-Jews alike, and Danish military personnel. Under the state of emergency German authorities took direct control over the Danish military and police forces. The approaching signature of Hitler’s Final Solution fully arrived between September and October 1943, and the Lutheran Church was ready as the Jews readied themselves. The Danish People so saw themselves as members of the same community, and it was of all People belonging to a shared humanity as human beings. On September 8^th 1943, SS Obergruppenfuhrer Dr. Werner Best, the German civilian administrator in Denmark, sent a telegram to Adolf Hitler to propose that the Germans make use of the martial law provisions to deport the Danish Jews.

From this admission from Werner Best alone we can identify the hand of Adolf Hitler in all that was related to The Final Solution to The Jewish Question, and not just here in Denmark. Hitler then approved the measure nine days later and as preparations proceeded, Werner Best, who had second thoughts about the political consequences of the deportations, informed Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz, a German naval attaché, of the impending of the deportation operation. Then, with martial law beginning to bite, the threat came for the drive to deport some 7,200 Danish Jews. When we look to what could have been done, and certainly what should have been done to attempt to save the Jews of The Holocaust, we look to Denmark. As a whole, The Nation State stood as a Community of People, against a Nazi horde set about destroying this nations very foundation. Even when we come to record the abuse in the wearing of The Yellow Badge, this so-called honour badge, the Mogen David, was never to be introduced as one of the identifier’s of the Jews in Denmark.

On September 26^th 1943 “..I will assume responsibility for everything I am going to do. I am consoled by my strong faith that good deeds can never be wrong.” Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz.

With this diary entry from Georg Duckwitz, we recognise in this single German diplomat in occupied Denmark, he then moved to inform the Danish Community of what was coming for Danish Jewry. With the burgeoning plans to deport the entire Jewish population, to the East, those Death Camps still operating within Poland were readied. Then, ahead of the resettlement of all of Denmark’s Jews, the Nazi plan for removal and destruction was totally circumvented. The entire coast of Denmark, which faced neutral Sweden was mobilised, and all arrangements were set in store for the arrival across the waters of Danish Jews within  Sweden. Before the final order for deportation came to Copenhagen, on September 28^th 1943, Duckwitz along with other German officials, warned non-Jewish Danes of the resettlement plan. In turn, the Danish People came forward and alerted the local Jewish community of what was definitely a final resolve.

On Wednesday September 29th 1943 “..situation ..is very serious. We must take action immediately. ..hide or flee.” Rabbi Dr. Marcus Melchior.

This urgency, on the eve of Rosh Hashanah was for Rabbi Melchior, who had long considered the need for any rescue action, now sought a response. Rabbi Melchior knew this could not just come from a Jewish Community alone and furthermore, it would only succeed if it were a spontaneous act. Rightly so, he premised that any forward planning might well tip off the Nazi authorities and prevent the eventual escape of any of those Danish Jews who did actually make it to Sweden. There was also the untold danger of informants getting to know what was being prepared, and we have to recognise, not all Danes were gifted with the moral nor ethical understanding of the vast majority of the Danish People. As the Rabbi told his congregation that the Germans planned a mass roundup of Jews, and this was to be the very next day, we can be sure the urgency was more evident and gravely felt. This timing was no coincidence, as the Germans rightly assessed that entire Jewish Families would all be gathered together, and around festive tables within their homes, and the holiday would serve as a collection and meeting point. While it is difficult here to accept that the wider Europe knew nothing of The Final Solution, as it was inaugurated more than 2 years previously, we accept that each nation knew the Jews were a threatened People.

“..We got this boat. It was bought by ..bookbinder Kjaer. It was a boat laying in ..harbour of Elsinore ..a very good boat. ..a wooden boat with a good engine and it was able to go rather quick. ..when it started ..first night I remember had ..2 trips to Sweden and 10 to 12 passengers every time. And then later on we had in October 700 Jews and ..totally I know that this boat brought about 1,400 People from Denmark to Sweden.” Preben Munch-Nielsen.

While der Einsatzgruppe acted with impunity, Slaughtering 100’s of 1,000’s of Jews in far off places, or closer still in The Baltic States, and after June 22^nd 1941, this truth was emerging. At Chelmno, a place which was not immediately known throughout Poland, locals knew immediately when operations commenced there on December 7^th 1941. Certainly, that myriad of Jewish Communities throughout Eastern Europe, The Baltic States and Poland knew the immediate impact such aktionen had upon its own Jews as their removal from place to place left an enormous vacuum of emptiness. With the very fact too that Belzec was Slaughtering Polish Jewry from March 17^th 1942, none of this could have escaped Polish attention. The allied powers too, gorging themselves upon intercepted Einsatzgruppe transmissions, knew the burgeoning scale of The Final Solution as it was now taking place. Preben, who was born in the fishing Village at Snekkersten, joined the Resistance as a courier when the Germans invaded Denmark in 1940. Then, when the Germans sought to detain the Jews, 3 years later, Preben was instrumental in getting Jews to the Coast and finding rooms for them in the Inns, in Homes, and in all the places owned by local Danes where they could be concealed.

“..When here in this country pogroms have been started against a special group of our fellow Countrymen ..only because they belong to a special race ..then ..Church has a right to cry out. This is breaking ..constitution of Christ’s kingdom and is abominable to ..Nordic way of thinking. ..Church must here be indefatigable. We will not limit ourselves to wearing ..yellow Star of David. ” Kaj Munk.

This Danish Church Minister was aware during October 1943, and spoke openly about resisting the efforts of the Germans to corral and even remove Danish Jews from their Country. At the same time the Resistance Movement and its sympathizers, moved stealthily in assisting the Jewish People in removing themselves out of harm’s way, as much as they could. The Danes were continually scouting for hiding places to conceal the Jews, and throughout the entire Country, this was achieved ahead of the next and more deadly stage. From the multitude of concealed chambers the Jews converged along the Eastern Coast where Boat Owners, Fishermen, and boating enthusiasts, ferried the Jews across the sound, and into a neutral Sweden that awaited and welcomed them. This rescue operation went on for about 3 to 4 weeks and brought every element of the Danish Government into its ranks. This included Police Officers, Fire Officers, Dockers, Health workers, and the full body of the Danish National identity into cooperating. Over that period of about a month, some of what History recalls for us is that across the Baelts and The Baltic Sea, 5,919 Jews, 1,301 half-Jews and 686 Christians Married to Jews, a total of 7,906 Jews, and their spouses, who were also under threat, crossed into Sweden. All of these Jews, who had travelled to seek safety in Sweden, found a Nation which gladly accepted the Danish Jews as in need of refugee status.

“..From now on there was no doubt or uncertainty possible. In ..face of these open acts of atrocity ..insanely meaningless ..it was not a question of one’s viewpoint. Action was ..word. Even under serious or desperate conditions it is often a happy feeling to be able to devote oneself to a cause that one feels convinced is both unconditionally just and absolutely binding. ..situation in Denmark at that time was precisely that simple. No honest man could possibly refrain from action after this raid ..when ..persecuted cried for help.” Aage Bertelsen.

Aage Bertelsen was a Danish Teacher, another Danish citizen focusing upon the humanitarian needs of the Jews within the single nation. What Aage Bertelsen now witnessed through the prism of that changing attitude toward Danish Jewry, proved decisive in bringing academic reasoning into academic action and achievement. The very fact that Aage’s own Home was considered a safe haven for Danish Jews was well established with some 700 Jews or so, travelling through his home enroute toward Sweden. Once the Jews of Denmark were singled out for special attention, and this was clearly recognised for its extermination policy, the passivity of so many Danes shifted. Everything that the Danes could do, so as to circumvent any or all German intentions toward the Jews was orchestrated and mobilised. Remember, this was still in October 1943, and Adolf Eichmann’s emissary Rolf Gunther couldn’t even hope to feed the Death Camps with Danish Jews. While so many other Danes were foraging for ways and methods to remove the Jews out of harm’s way, morality and ethics became enjoined.

While we know full well that The Final Solution was well under way throughout Europe, it can only be surmised that the growing awareness within Denmark too was becoming conversant with this fact. Once the Germans began the Jewish roundup, and the German police began the raids on the night of October 1^st 1943, they realised the vast majority of Danish Jewry had been spirited away. Still, German demands found these not insubstantial 500 Jews who they could move to resettle. The Nazis then loaded these discovered Jews, all of them were deported to the model Ghetto in Czechoslovakia, the fortress of Theresienstadt. Here, some 77 of these Jews were further transported away from the Theresienstadt Ghetto and towards elimination at Birkenau, sometime in October 1943. It is evident too that at least 2 more of these Danish Jews were also murdered in the Mauthausen Concentration Camp. It is becoming abundantly clear, to any of those who wish to hear what is being deliberately outlined as German Policy, the Jewish People are to be the further target of future incursions into their personal and civil rights. In the intervening days, Danish authorities, Jewish community leaders, and countless private citizens had massively facilitated an operation to get Jews into hiding or into temporary sanctuaries while the Germans were putting together their lines of transportation.

“..As a result of measures taken by ..German authorities ..Jews have been removed from public life and prevented from continuing to poison ..atmosphere for it is they who have to a considerable degree been responsible for ..deterioration of ..situation in Denmark through anti-German incitement and moral and material support for acts of terror and sabotage. In ..next few days ..in response to ..inquiries of large sections of ..Danish population ..release of ..interned Danish soldiers will begin and will continue at a rate corresponding to ..technical possibilities.” Dr. Werner Best.

In general, the Danish police authorities refused to cooperate with the German plans, thus denying the German police any right to enter Jewish homes by force. Danish Police too would simply overlook the presence of Danish Jews who they found hiding in those premises they raided. On October 2^nd 1943 SS Obergruppenfuhrer Dr. Werner Best, the Reich Commissioner in Denmark, made it perfectly clear in his released written statement that the move toward implementing Hitler’s final resolve, even for Denmark’s Jews, was now at hand. Even though the Jews had clearly bolted and Danish protests mounted as the Churches took a deliberate stand against such intrusion into humanity’s concern, the Jewish People of Denmark could breath freer. The fight back too was unrivalled and came from amongst many institutions, social and economic groups and even the Danish Royal Family. The Danish King maintained his firm commitment toward the Danish demand for an unbridled stand be sustained and for equal treatment for all of Denmark’s Citizens retained. As vehement as the Churches were toward this anti-Jewish rhetoric, the Students of University’s and even Schools were equally active in voicing their own disapproval of any, and all measures raised against the Jewish People.

“..Despite different religious views ..we shall struggle to ensure ..continued guarantee to our Jewish ..Brothers and Sisters of ..same freedom we ourselves treasure more than life itself. ..leaders of ..Danish Church have a clear understanding of ..duty to be law abiding citizens our conscience obliges us to maintain ..law and to protest against any violation of rights.” Bishop Dr. Hans Fuglsang-Damgaard.

Danish Universities, and even Schools were closed down, and as a result, Danish Students availed themselves of the opportunities to move more uniformly to save even more of Danish Jewry. Here too, the Danish Resistance Movement escalated its own terms of reference toward usurping the controlling efforts of the German Reich. 1,000’s upon 1,000’s of ordinary Danish People stood stubbornly before the Germans and began thinking in terms of an end to German occupation. Resistances were organised in spontaneous ways and many coordinated, even strike led acts were established to stall any German intentions within Denmark. The Bishop of Copenhagen, Dr. Hans Fuglsang-Damgaard had written a missal, and signed it on behalf of all the Danish Lutheran Bishops. In this understanding he urged all to further protest in upholding principles of human rights for all their Brothers and Sisters. This missal was sent to all the churches in his diocese on Saturday, October 2^nd 1943, and also to the Nazi occupation forces. On Sunday, October 3^rd it was read out in all the Lutheran Churches in Denmark. The Danish Lutheran Church had also helped in many other ways in ensuring that Danish Jews would not be abandoned.  The rallying call had gone out and the Danish People, to a whole, heeded the call in hiding the Jewish People’s possessions while they were now settling in Sweden. Also, and all through the occupation the Danes were ensuring that all Jewish artefacts, such as Torah Scrolls were sequestered safely. Jewish Books and other Religious artefacts were also secured from the ravages of German hate and confiscation. The Churches had already gathered Food stuffs, Money, and many other resources for those Jews awaiting the exit strategy and was now hidden from German hands.

“..I tell you that I would rather die with ..Jews than live with ..Nazis.” Pastor Ivar Lange.

It is clear here that what Pastor Lange extols is the obviously expressed necessity that was morally intended of a supposed virtue of Christian ethics that was so missing in the rest of Christian Europe. It would now appear that the majority of these 500 discovered Jews, who were transported on October 2^nd 1943 and October 13^th 1943, they were formerly deportees from Germany and Eastern Europe. Despite this fact, the Danish Government didn’t abandon its charge over these Jews and dispatched the Danish Red Cross to inspect their living conditions within the Theresienstadt Ghetto. Many of these Jews, detained within this antechamber to Birkenau, remained somewhat alive until liberation and survived Hitler’s resolve for them. There were many of these Jews though, who subsequently perished due to previous lack of care, compassion and particularly the loss of nourishment.

However, and for those Danish Jews who remained alive within Theresienstadt, and there had been dozens who died, hope was always extending their will and hope to live. All of this was right up until April 14^th 1945 when, at the behest of the Swedish Diplomat, Count Folke Bernadotte, 423 of these Danish Jews were repatriated to Denmark. In total, some 120 Danish Jews died during the Holocaust, either in Denmark, in Theresienstadt, within Birkenau, or Mauthausen, and otherwise elsewhere where Jews could continually die or be killed. While it is essential in naming Denmark as a whole, for what it sought to achieve, and in saving Jews, we recognise these Ports, Villages, Towns, and City’s that must be commended. Aalborg, Aarhus, Assens, Copenhagen, Elsinore, Fredericia, Haderslav, Helsingor, Hillerod, Horsens, Middlefart, Nakskov, Nestved, Nibe, Nyborg, Odense, Randers, Ringsted, Roskilde, Slagelse, Snekkersten, Svenborg, and Viborg.

Of course, and even for Danish Jewry, fear fed the anxiety of life for them, even in Sweden where they were almost categorically assured of survival. But who knew then what Hitler’s demands upon his Nazis would or could still achieve against them. However, it is in 1945 and after Hitler’s Germany had been eventually and comprehensively defeated, that 5,500 of the Danish Jews returned to their homes. Clearly, and it is evident that there are many estimates which exist, but it is certain, Survival was uniquely greater for Danish Jews than for any other Jewish Community within Europe. At least 77 Danish Jews were Murdered during the period of Hitler’s clear attempt for the Jews who are The Holocaust. As a postscript to this victory for those Danes who moved heaven and earth to save their Jews, here is a saddening narrative merging with this Danish reality. There are elements now seeking to defame an effort which is both herculean in its attempt and redemptive in its achievement. But perhaps there is a darker reasoning why the World must seek to confront us with, the Danes didn’t do enough to save All Danish Jews from the Slaughter.

True! 77, or was it 80, or even 120  Danish Jews who perished, were murdered, or slain, and were Slaughtered, and are a loss to all of humanity. But, and while nearly 8,000 Danish Jews were spirited away to Sweden and safety, we must reflect upon all loss. However, the reasoning for this seeming confrontation with the past is quite simple. 3,400,000 of 3,650,000 Polish Jews weren’t so fortunate to survive and Poland did not step up to the mark and allowed for its Jewish People to succumb to Hitler’s hatred for them. France was over cooperative in placing French Jewry onto the transports. There was a complicity within Holland which escalated the terms of destruction for Dutch Jews. The stay of execution for Hungarian Jewry proved the duplicitous nature of sections of Hungarian society. Here, within Hungary, all too many were engaged in ensuring that Birkenau exhausted its own capacity with unrivalled Jewish devastation, and in such a few short weeks. As we become aware that Greece stood somewhat taller than most, it is still while vast numbers of Greek Jewry couldn’t be saved. So all this contention arises because in a civilisation which left itself exposed to such inhumanity, 6,000,000 Jewish People were Slaughtered.

Let us be Clear. Denmark did more than any state or nation in saving its own, and other’s Jews. In that. Denmark becomes the Righteous Amongst Nations, as a Nation. Within this. The Danish People exemplify such moral probity, it exposes the lack of ethical compassion delivered by each and every other Country in Europe. We cannot confront the saving grace of Denmark and the Danish People by ignoring the ignorance, hatred and duplicitous nature of those who conformed to such hatreds as the Jewish People were destroyed by. Let us recognise too exactly what that Birkenau capacity looked like, and from May 15^th 1944 and up until July 9^th 1944 alone, and over a period of 55 days, 147 Transports with 3,419 Hungarian Jewish People on each of them, represented 502,491 Hungarian Jews delivered to Birkenau for Destruction. Such is this, formed as a statistic would mean all of Danish Jewry would have disappeared with Birkenau in just 2 days. Remember Eichmann’s Deputy, Gunther was on hand to ensure the speedy resettlement of all Jews within Denmark, but was thwarted by Danish compassion, morality, humanity, ethics and the will to do so.

“..upon return from Sweden at ..end of ..War ..home exactly as they had left it on that Rosh Hashanah. ..Even ..yom tov table was left as it was. It was expensive silverware ..I’m sure ..just left laid ..knives ..forks ..with everything else. ..Of course I feel it after 70 years. I tell my Children many times that if it wasn’t for ..Danish People we wouldn’t be around. They saved us.” Jan Gutterman.

The importance of Greece, within those terms that define The Holocaust, cannot be over stated. For more than 2 Millennia, in over 2 Centuries, for some 2,250 years, Jews struck out for Greece and made their presence felt. Prior to what we see as the dawning of Christian civilisation, Jews and Greeks shared much that neighbourliness could promote. In later years, a schism between Rome, and the Orthodox Church, offered many Jews a sanctuary away from the Christian philosophy of hatred toward them. The effect of theology within religious teaching, did nothing to dispel the discourse which placed Judaism at the centre of all that conflicts rational thinking and radical thought. The Jews had taken on the role of Christ killers, and without regard to the bible teaching that the Christian god had sent his Son to die, and Christ willingly accepted his role.

Therefore, the story of Greece in The Holocaust must be carefully written as it too belongs to a Hitlerite malignancy whose aim was to destroy all and any Jew wherever they were found. When Hitler invaded Greece on April 6th 1941 he had a further 75,000 to 82,875 Jews to add to his murderous resolve. We have to see Hitler’s Weltanschauung as subsidiary to The Final Solution when we consider here alone, 6,469 Jews were still being deported as Germany approached total defeat. We recognise, that even between March 1944 and April 1944 as the end to Hitler’s Worldview was looking ever more certain, the concentration on The Jewish Question was his concentrated effort. All told, there are 67,000 Greek Jews in total, and as many as 70,000 Greek Jews who were Slaughtered during the period of The Holocaust. We have to recognise that with barely 10,000 Greek Jews finally able to return, is as devastating as it is real. Please consider in this also, and that while any analysis of contemporary figures would suggest that more than 66% of Greek Jewry lived in Salonica, the resulting catastrophe must be swayed by such is the evidence. And in accepting this statistical appreciation of Jewish losses, we recognise there were some 82,875 Greek Jews who were also under the yoke of Nazi oppression.

Going back, Jewish life in Greece is older than Christianity itself and represents the most continuous, and earliest of all the Jewish Community’s in the whole of  Europe. Here, as The Final Solution approached them, the Jewish Community within all of Greece stood at as many as 82,875 Jewish souls. Though this was prior to, and expanding its community during World War II, both birth rate and death rates are conflicting. Hitler though, still took what he envisioned in The Final Solution to encompass Greek Jewry and their sought-after annihilation. Hitler clearly recognised, and at The Wannsee Conference on January 20^th 1942, this is made clear and that a further 69,600 of Greece’s Jews were earmarked for Destruction. The vast bulk of these, more than 69,221 Greek Jewish People, were Slaughtered within Birkenau. Estimates invariably differ as to the consequences for Jews within Hitler’s line of view, a catchment vastly expanded. Tragically we realise that in total, there were between 60,000 to 65,000 Greek Jews who were murdered during the period of The Holocaust. These included the Salonika Jews when the deportation of Salonika’s Jews toward Birkenau began on March 15^th 1943.

The Northern Greek city of Salonika had the largest Jewish population in Greece and numbered some 56,000 Jewish People. When, in April 1941 Salonika fell to the German occupiers, who along with their allies, had invaded all of Greece. Between these axis groups, the northern part of the country was occupied by Germany, the southern areas were controlled by Mussolini’s Italian forces and the region of Thrace was attached to the Bulgarian occupation. All of Salonika fell under the German zone of occupation. Within a week of the German arrival, the German authorities began to implement anti-Jewish policies and directly persecuted the Greek Jews. The Nazis arrested Jewish Greek leaders, confiscated Jewish Lands, Properties, Goods and Valuables. All significant artefacts were looted and shipped back to Germany and in July 11^th 1942, public humiliation of the Jews of Salonika was compounded when 9,000 Jewish males of ages of 18 and 45 were assembled in Liberty Square. Many were severely beaten as they were being detained and exited their Country for Labour gangs for the Reich.  Some 2,000 Greek Jews were also forcefully removed to these labour units and were engaged in activities assigned to them by the Wehrmacht.

During February 1943, the Nazis began the Ghettoization of Salonika’s Jews in readiness for their transportation to The Death Camps. These deportations began on March 15^th 1943, and between then and August 1943, over 45,000 of Salonika’s Jews were transported toward Birkenau for final treatment within the Gas Chambers. A month later, after the Italian surrender, Germany took immediate control of the whole of Greece, worsening then the predicament for all of Greek Jewry. As with many of Salonika’s Jews, some of Greek Jewry, who sought to evade capture, fled the Country, or remained to join Partisan groups, and continually struggled to Survive.

By now Thrace was under the control of the Bulgarian authorities which managed to deport more than 4,000 Jews during the Spring of 1943. On Saturday July 11^th 1942, and in Salonika, a decree ordering all Jewish Males, aged between 18 and 45 years were to gather at the Plateia Eleftheria, Liberty Place for extraction, supposedly toward enforced labour. Their registration, amidst rumour and counter rumour, did not give the Jewish People of Salonika much solace. About 2,000 of Salonika’s Jews were assigned to this enforced labour, working for the occupying German Army.

In February 1943, one of Eichmann’s aktion commanders, SS Standartenfuhrer Alois Brunner, issued orders to the German authorities to concentrate Salonika’s Jews of Salonika in two ghettos, one in the east of Salonika and the other to the western, in the Baron de Hirsch quarter. Here, the Jews were to be assembled alongside the de Hirsch railway station, for transportation to the Death Camp at Birkenau and were immediately gassed upon arrival. Others of Salonika’s Jews were deported to the Death Camps at Sobibor and Treblinka, while still other of these Jews, who had been afforded a release through the international passport exchange, were delivered toward Belsen for exchange deals.

At the end of August 1943, after more than 450 years of Jewish persistence and life, Salonika was declared free of Jews, or Judenrein, in the Nazi colloquialism of Annihilation and Destruction. Of the 56,000 Jews who had lived there, more than 80% of these had been Murdered during the period of The Holocaust. In September 1943, Germany occupied the entire territory of Greece after Italy surrendered to the Allies. They then proceeded to round up and deport the remaining Jews. For those Jews, who had found themselves in the Italian zone of occupation up until this point, and who had remained relatively safe, this all changed.

Some Jews holding identity papers or visas from neutral countries were not deported, while some hundreds of others were able to escape to the nearby mountains, where many joined partisan units. Others went into hiding for themselves and their Family’s or were given shelter by their non-Jewish neighbours. By the end of the war there were fewer than 2,000 Jews who had survived in Salonika and that was not to be the end for Salonika’s Jewish heartache. When these few survivors returned from the camps, they found their homes occupied by Greek families reluctant to return their property to the Jews.

At this time, Jews had lived on Ioannina, for approximately 2,100 years and in 1940, when Greece entered World War II, the young of Ioannina Jews and no-Jews, served valiantly. In April 1941, Ioannina came under the Italian Zone of Occupation, as part of the Nazi division of the spoils. Initially, Ioannina was occupied by the Italians, and Jews did not experience very much discrimination until Italy surrendered in September 1943. After that, and once the Germans took over, and while Jewish leaders adopted a submissive policy of responding to Nazi demands, harsh treatment of the Jews here too took on a ritual, systematic and brutal approach. In March 1944, however, the president of the Jewish community in Ioannina, Dr. Moses Koffinas, was arrested. While detained, he learned of Germany s plans to deport all Jews, and he smuggled a note out to Sabetai Kabelis, a prominent member of the Jewish Community Board, advising the Jews to flee. Unfortunately, Kabelis chose not to relay the warning to Ioannina s Jews, and on March 25^th 1944, the entire Jewish community of 1,860 people, including Kabelis himself, was transported to the Birkenau extermination centre. Of the 1,960 Jews of Ioannina deported, more than 1,800 would remain within the confines of the Death Camps.

We are thus required by the science of History, to elicit only those facts which are pertinent to our overall search. In the background, while the supposition of theories can be practiced, so as to broaden our approach, it is clear we must maintain an integrity which protects the value we place upon the honesty we seek. For us then to gather further the evidence that is to be gained, we limit to surmise actions which might have delivered differing outcomes. We arrive at conclusions which are formulated alongside that integrity which is kept intact by the study we investigate. We can suppose, in particular here with the case of Greece, that if Mussolini hadn’t ventured into taking on Greece, on October 28^th 1940, and while there are 12,000 Greek Jews who resist the Italian offensive, Greek Jewry is now to be more widely threatened.

When Hitler and his Axis allies then invaded Greece on April 6^th 1941, to bolster the Italian position, then the Greek Jews, wherever they are met, are driven from their homes, and eventually existence. Hitler now had a further 75,000 Jews in sight of his resolving solution. On April 9^th 1941, Hitler now occupies Salonika, and Bulgaria joined in occupying parts of the Greek province of Thrace, to its Eastern edge where 1,250 Jews lived. Most of these provincial Greek Jews were resettled to Treblinka. The decimation of entire Jewish Community’s and here in Thrace while the assault was extortionate, it was ameliorated in many ways by the Bulgarian presence. Here too we might surmise, that if Hitler had gone ahead with his earlier plan to invade Russia, earlier than the June imposed date he launched Operation Barbarossa, a differing scenario might have been presented. We would be writing a different story and the fate of even more of World Jewry would have been lost.

There are those historians amongst us, and in varying and diverging groups, who feel that Greek Jewry is underrepresented in the narrative of The Holocaust. That is quite possibly true, as we certainly concentrate on areas, more recognisable to whole swaths of the European Continent. But here is where an aim meets with a desire to recall and recollect, and then the progression through key dates presents us with the growing awareness and fatal dilemma for Greek Jewry. On January 20^th 1942 for instance, the Wannsee Conference was Convened which suggested that there were still some 69,600 Greeks Jews to be targeted and eliminated. On July 11^th 1942 some 9,000 of Salonika’s Jews are detained and while some 2,000 of these Jews are forced to labour for the Wehrmacht, the remainder of these Salonika Jews are eventually expelled toward Birkenau’s gas chambers.

On December 1^st 1942 the first deportations of Jews from Greece to the killing centres are to begin and on February 25^th 1943 the first transports of Jews from Salonika are dispatched to Birkenau. On March 15^th 1943 the deportations of Jews from all over Greece is underway with the deportations from Salonika continuing and over 69,000 Greek Jews will be eventually lost. The deportations also begin of Thracian Jewry. On March 20^th 1943, the first deportations of Salonika’s Jews arrive at Birkenau. There are a couple of specific time spans by which the occupying nazi forces planned to remove all Greek Jews toward Birkenau, with some arriving in Sobibor and Treblinka. These dates fall between March 3^rd 1943 and March 22^nd 1943, and for all of Greek Jewry, which had been in existence since before Christ’s passage into Jerusalem, it is a devastating blow. On June 8^th 1943 some 880 Jews of Salonika arrive at Birkenau and 572 are immediately gassed.

On March 15^th 1944 the more thorough comb through of Greece for the expelling of Jews toward Birkenau has seen some 69,221 Jews of Greece being Gassed, Murdered. Then, and as it became ever more apparent that Hitler’s Weltanschauung was shrinking, and defeat approached even more rapidly, that second timeframe between March 23^rd 1944 and April 2^nd 1944 presented the Greek Jews of The Final Solution with a resolve Hitler’s destroyers were quick to capitalise upon and exploit. As part of The Auschwitz Protocol, on Friday April 7^th 1944 we are made aware:

“..Cautious estimate of ..number of ..Jews gassed ..Birkenau ..April 1942 ..April 1944 by Country of origin Greece 45,000 Jews. ..Total 1,765,000 Jews.” The Auschwitz Protocols.

On June 6^th 1944 the Jewish population of Corfu of some 1,800 Jews are transported to Birkenau and on June 22^nd 1944 a further 435 more of these Corfu’s Jews are resettled in Birkenau, after they refused to work on the Sonderkommando. These were immediately gassed alongside 1,165 of their fellow Jews from that same Corfu transport. On July 23^rd 1944 1,700 of Rhodes Jews are resettled to Birkenau and on November 5^th 1944, when British troops land in Salonika, the very terms of The Final Solution of The Jewish Question are terminated.

On July 15^th 1947 General Hellmuth Felmy, the commander of Army Group Southern Greece is tried for War crimes before the Nuremberg Tribunal. He was sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment, but his sentence was reduced to 10 years in 1951. Major General Wilhelm Speidel the military commander in Greece between 1942 and 1944 is also tried for War Crimes before the Nuremberg Tribunal and is sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment. He is released in 1951. General Kurt Ritter von Geitner, as Chief of Staff of the military commanders in Serbia and Greece is also tried before the Nuremberg Tribunal on War Crimes but is acquitted.

“..threw us into cattle wagons with a very small window ..no water ..no food. About 13 days later we arrived in Birkenau.” Naki Bega.

Also, and in relation to all of the Greek Jewish Community’s we look to the likes of:

Aegion, we know that 1 Jew was Murdered, and we also know this is Zakhar Aser.

Arta, 320 Jews are transported toward Birkenau between March 23^rd  1944 and April 2^nd 1944.

Athens, Jews have lived in the City for 2,000 years and of the 3,500 Jewish Community 1,500 of these Jews are transported toward Birkenau between March 23^rd 1944 and April 2^nd 1944, many of them Jewish refugees from the deportation in Salonika. While many escape by boat to Turkey. Thanks in no small part to the Greek Orthodox Church’s Archbishop Damaskinos Papandreou, and the Chief of Police Angelos Evert, some 2,000 Jews were saved from extermination. The Archbishop openly opined that no difference existed between Greeks.

“..There is neither Jew nor Greek amongst us. We are all Greeks.” Archbishop Damaskinos Papandreou.

For such a statement, SS Gruppenfuhrer Jurgen Stroop threatened to have the Greek prelate and religious leader shot.

Chalcis, 155 Jews are transported toward Birkenau between March 23^rd 1944 and April 2^nd 1944.

Chios, (Kos) On July 20^th 1944, the Jews of Kos were taken by boat, alongside Jews from Rhodes and taken to the Greek mainland prior to their eventual resettlement in Birkenau.

Corfu, The Jews had lived on the Island for over 800 years. The Nazis did not take control of the island until 1943, after Italy’s capitulation. Immediately the Nazis issued laws and restrictions for the Jews, ably assisted by a collaborative mayor. Of these 2,000 Jews, 1,800 of them are transported toward Birkenau on June 6^th 1944 and 200 of Corfu’s Jews were saved by the local Corfu non-Jewish Community. This transport was to be gathered and concentrated first, in Salonica. From there, these Jews were transported North toward the Birkenau annihilation centre. On June 20^th 1944, upon arrival in Birkenau, 1,600 of these Jews of Corfu were immediately gassed upon arrival. Ironically, a further 200 of these Jews, who are finally detailed to the Sonderkommando, are given a temporary reprieve.

“..2,000 Jews lived here before The Holocaust ..today there are only 60 of us left.” Zinos Vellelis.

Corinth, Jews have lived in Corinth since the earliest days of the spread of Christianity, which battled with their Jewish Cousins for status in the Community. Prior to World War II there some 400 Jewish People here, and all of that ended with The Holocaust.

Crete, on June 6^th 1944 260 Jews were boarded on a ship that was scuttled near Polegrandos. All aboard drowned. Only 7 Jews of Crete, in hiding on the Island, survived. As many as 280 Jews did not Survive.

Cyprus, for over 2,000 years Jews have lived on the Island and maintained a haven of sorts for many Jews, those resident on the Island, and those escaping the murderous attention being paid to all of Greek Jewry.

Dedeagatch, 137 Jews are transported toward Birkenau between March 3^rd 1943 and March 22^nd 1943.

Didimoticon, 867 Jews are transported toward Birkenau between March 3^rd 1943 March 22^nd 1943.

Drama, 589 Jews are transported toward Birkenau between March 3^rd 1943 and March 22^nd 1943.

Florina, 336 Jews are transported toward Birkenau between March 23^rd 1944 and April 2^nd 1944.

Heraklion had 6 of its Jews shot here on June 6^th 1943

Ioannina or Yannina Jews are in evidence here since about the 4^th Century before Christendom and despite its losses, remains the longest and most persistent Jewish Community within Greece. Under Italian supervision, all changed once Italy surrendered in September 1943. Once the Nazis took control the Jews came under increasingly more and more penalties for living. On March 25^th 1944, the entire Jewish community of 1,870 Jews were transported toward Birkenau. Those who Survived in hiding or who returned numbered just 181 Jewish People.

Kalamata, 4 of it Jews were Murdered.

Kastoria, the Jewish Community had existed here for over 800 years and there were some 900 Jews living in Kastoria in 1940. However, between March 23^rd 1944 and April 2^nd 1944 763 Jews were transported toward Birkenau, concentrated in Salonika prior to their final resettlement. The story of their final transportation is replete with horror, detained within an abandoned school for days on end, deprived of food and water they were subject to the vagaries of bestial Nazi activity. Many of the Females, some very young Girls were raped by Wehrmacht soldiers. Barely 35 Jews finally survived from Kastoria.

Katerina, 3 Jews were shot, and other Jews were deported between March 23^rd 1944 and April 2^nd 1944.

Kavalla, 1,484 March 3^rd 1943 and March 22^nd 1943.

Komotini, 878 Jews were transported toward Birkenau between March 3^rd 1943 and March 22^nd 1943.

Lamia, 1 Jew was Murdered here.

Larisa, there were 394 Jews transported toward Birkenau between March 23^rd 1944 and April 2^nd 1944.

Neaorestea, 194 Jews were transported toward Birkenau between March 3^rd 1943 and March 22^nd 1943.

Paranestion, 19 Jews were transported toward Birkenau between March 3^rd 1943 and March 22^nd 1943.

Patras, 213 Jews were transported toward Birkenau between March 23^rd 1944 and April 2^nd 1944.

Pireas, 167 Jews were transported toward Birkenau between March 23^rd 1944 and April 2^nd 1944.

Preveza, 235 Jews were transported toward Birkenau between March 23^rd 1944 and April 2^nd 1944.

Salonika, (Thessaloniki) there were some 45,000 Jews living here, and their brutal treatment was conducted from the middle of 1942 onwards. Then, and between March 15^th 1943 and August 1943 the vast majority of both Salonika’s Jews and Jews from all over Greece, in excess of 46,000 Jews, were collected here, and every 3 days, they were transported North toward Birkenau. By the end of the war, fewer than 2,000 Jews survived in Salonika.

Rhodes, for some 2,300 years, the Jews have lived on the island and had the oldest functioning Synagogue in all of Greece. Under Italian occupation, and until the Nazis took in September 1943 life for Rhodes Jews was a picture of calm. There were some 2,000 Jews living on the island, and from July 20^th 1944 their presence was removed from the island, the last Jewish resettlement exercises from all of Greece. Only 151 from Rhodes Jews managed to survive The Holocaust.

Salamis, between March 23^rd 1944 and April 2^nd 1944 6 Jews were removed toward Birkenau and destruction there.

Samothrace 3 Jews were transported toward Birkenau between March 3^rd 1943 and March 22^nd 1943.

Sarzhshaban, 12 Jews were transported toward Birkenau between March 3^rd 1943 and March 22^nd 1943.

Souflion, 32 Jews were transported toward Birkenau between March 3^rd 1943 and March 22^nd 1943.

Thasos, 16 Jews were transported toward Birkenau between March 3^rd 1943 and March 22^nd 1943.

Thrace, in the spring of 1943, more than 4,000 Jews from Thrace were deported by the local  Bulgarian officials, in collaboration with Hitler’s plans.

Trikala, 160 Jews were transported toward Birkenau between March 23^rd 1944 and April 2^nd 1944.

Veroia, 329 Jews were transported toward Birkenau between March 23^rd 1944 and April 2^nd 1944.

Volos, had been populated by Jews for some 900 years prior to Nazi occupation. There were over 880 Jews living here and many survived due to the strong resistance movement being active here. Chief Rabbi  Moshe Pessah, assisted by the Greek Orthodox prelate Archbishop Joachim Alexopoulos and the National Liberation Front, the EAM found safety in Pelion, their mountainous villages providing adequate safety and shelter. However, some 237 Jews were still removed toward Birkenau between March 23^rd 1944 and April 2^nd 1944.

Xanthi, some 526 Jews were transported toward Birkenau between March 3^rd 1943 and March 22^nd 1943.

Xeres, (Seres) 471 Jews were transported toward Birkenau between March 3^rd 1943 and March 22^nd 1943.

Zakynthos, or (Zante), is recognised that of all the 275 of Zakynthos’s Jews, All survived The Holocaust due to the intervention of both Metropolitan Bishop Demetrius Chrysostomos and the local Mayor, Loukas Karrer. Together, they issued documentation which presented no distinction between Greek nor Jew and in 1944 they were presented with a demand to provide a list of those Jews present on the Island. Karrer produced the list, and Chrysostomos presented this to the Nazis. On that list were 2 names, Demetrius Chrysostomos and Loukas Karrer. The Bishop reiterated their position: –

“..Here are your Jews. If you choose to deport ..Jews of Zakynthos ..you must also take me ..and I will share their fate.” Bishop Demetrius Chrysostomos.

The Jews of Zakynthos took to the Mountains and hid amongst the island’s other locals in those mountainous villages till safety. The case of the Jews of Corfu, all 1,800 of them, proved significant at the time as all of these were being transported aboard a ship and towards Birkenau. The ship deporting these Jews were due to pick up all the Jews of Zante and as it was recognised that the transport was too full, the ship bypassed Zakynthos. Of course, this did not preclude the actions of those locals though who intervened on behalf of this close-knit Jewish community.

“..as long as I live ..Jews of Zakynthos will not be taken” Alfred Lueth.

Here, while the 275 Jews were to be saved by local intervention, we also recognise a Wehrmacht Colonel, Alfred Lueth, a member of Felmy’s Army Group Southern Greece whose assistance was influential. Lueth had informed the island’s Jewish Community leader Yaakov Mordo of his commitment.

“..island’s commander ..a good Austrian ..avoided following ..deportation order. ..manoeuvred ..circumvented ..found pretexts ..excuses to delay ..action ..stating to his superiors that local authorities ..Metropolitan Bishop ..Mayor ..Prefect ..Police Commissioner ..and ..entire public opinion were against deportation. Colonel Lueth himself acted decisively against ..deportation of Jews.” Jewish Greek Community ‘In Memoriam’.

Ziliahovo, between March 3^rd 1943 and March 22^nd 1943 some 18 Jews were transported to their destruction in Birkenau.

This does not conclude the destruction for the Jews of Greece as Survivor’s returned, attempted to move toward Israel and died trying.

Never Again.

“..I would like to talk about names not on behalf of ..Survivors ..as they can speak for themselves but on behalf of ..dead ..even though I was not authorized by them to do so. Firstly ..about ..name of ..day on ..eve of which we are gathered here ..Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day ..a title chosen in ..early years of ..State of Israel. This name implies that The Holocaust of 6,000,000 People ..and ..heroism of those who took up arms ..rebels ..partisans ..are two separate entities ..which they are not. ..heroism is at ..heart of The Holocaust ..an inseparable part of it. ..heroism of ..Mothers who stayed with their Children instead of saving themselves ..of ..Sons ..Daughters who refused to abandon their parents ..of ..Doctors ..Nurses who took care of ..sick despite ..terrible risk to their own lives ..heroism of every single person who tried to alleviate ..suffering of another ..of every person who struggled to stay alive till ..bitter end.” Ruth Bondi.

I have sought the recognition of all Jews, no matter their status, as victims first and last and never as other than as compelled by human nature, to be humanely responsibility for those they were charged to stand alongside. The struggle to stay alive is, for those who have a god, a demand which will secure life to the bitter end of those too close to embracing a finality at the hands of others. So please allow me to introduce myself again, to both those who know me, and those yet to understand the meaning I wish to bring forward for 6,000,000 Slaughtered Jews. I had begun this odyssey many years ago and have become enriched in so many ways by my journey. In the very beginning, there were many who accused me of seeking only to profit from the Slaughter of 6,000,000 Jews. The Publisher who took the risk explained in no uncertain terms, there is no financial profiting in The Holocaust, and through my work I had been enabled to purchase those Books, and those witnesses, the Jewish Survivor in particular, for whom I deemed it necessary to add to my search.

“..Souls afire ..like ..blazing sun ..tearing ..breaking through their pain ..for soon we’ll see that waving flag ..flag of freedom yet to come.” Joseph Wulf.

However, I am unable to give 24/7 to my research, my work or indeed those words necessary to compile my effort, as other needs are as compelling to life itself. Literally, I have met every single target I have set myself, and because of many of you, I have been allowed to ensure more of my Books are Published. My 3 Book deal has been turned into 5 Books now, because of that purchasing power which convinces business to do so. I am closing in upon my 6th. Book, and this is only possible for as long as you are willing to pledge, read and order them as a future memorial to why I continue to write on behalf of these 6,000,000 Slaughtered Jews. Since I have concentrated my research, I now know more intimately, many within the 6,000,000 who delivered up their names to Me, to You and for Us. I have gained more and more from looking back toward Tovah ‘Tokele’ Olshak, who I regard highly as an inspiration toward my efforts, at Anne Frank, for Etty Hillesum, because of Lucy S. Dawidowicz, with Yitzhak Arad, and alongside Yehuda Bauer, and so many others too numerous to mention.

“..I was put to work as ..permanent camp cook ..I took on my Son as an assistant. ..rest of ..100 who arrived that first night gradually all were killed. ..next transport came from Zolkiew and Izbica. 70 people from that transport were designated to work in Camp.” Hersz Cukierman.

On each and every media platform, upon which I have laid my own foundation to The Holocaust, I have found bitterness and hatred. Also, and there are many other People who are just like you, and who I would gladly call my Friends, who allow me to swerve past the bile, the hatred and the distortion, to continually concentrate upon an effort that is so consumed by the intolerances already shown to those 6,000,000 Jews I wish to present to all. Today, it is more important than ever to connect back to what ‘Never Again’ must mean as we search for both meaning, and the ability of some who now attest for us as to their Survival. This is what saved many Jews from the extermination process assigned to all of them, a fortuitous intervention of ability or profession which gave them a few more hours, days, weeks, and even months to procure life for themselves. With such an advantage gained, the opportunity to save another Jew was gained. Preference undoubtedly sought the life of those closest to them, as those given the opportunity to gain from a choice which did not belong to them.

“..Never Again will Jews once again meekly submit.” Meir Kahane.

I am unable to see, in certain aspects of others’ delivery, which in my search to add positively, some appear to label many of these Jews as other than victims. Of all that Hitler planned for the Jewish People, and given they had no choice but to act as directed, the life that was taken away from them, cannot thus accuse them further. I recognise in this call from a Rebbe, a dedication which is not an acceptable one for me, and which seeks further to add to an accusation of Jewish inaction during The Holocaust. For You. For me. For Jews everywhere, and for a World betrayed by forces seeking to benefit from the deaths of others, this line is indefensible. I defend the principles of my own understanding and prove there is this relentless need in my search to gain with truth and honesty, its very integrity.

“..Jews had been harbouring thoughts of revolt and escape for a long time. After long meetings of those privy to ..conspiracy ..it was decided that an uprising would be staged in mid-October ..when some ..SS ..would be on furlough.” Hersz Cukierman.

I am under constant constraint, but I will not contain my words, nor detain their meaning so as to placate the sensibility of so few. For those, who do not see that I do not enter this arena lightly, I have gained recompense from 6,000,000 very good reasons to counter every effort to either diminish their memory in my work or even prevent its going forward. If ever there was a term devised, which should have been applied, specifically for the Jewish People, and after The Holocaust, it is this term of Never Again. Unfortunately, and I have been involved in the search for the Jewish loss for so long, I have begun to recognise more clearly, a World’s indifference to the Jewish People. This intolerable position extends to any and all terms of reference which sees the Jews of The Holocaust in any positive and defining light. The term then, as it is spelled out for me, is not simply a future call to resist, and it is not even to characterise all that Jewish resistance means, but to recognise in the Jewish Catastrophe, a lesson which all of Humanity should adopt.

“..A man doesn’t realize how much he can stand until he is put to ..test. You can stand far more than you think you can. You are much stronger than you think you are. If you can laugh at yourself ..you are going to be fine. If you allow others to laugh with you ..you will be great.” Martin Niemoller

While the term itself might appear as benign, it steps out from an immense Jewish despair, and it must stand for a protection the World Never afforded these 6,000,000 Slaughtered Jews. It is to be a stand-alone history, which has been reinstated from the very Jewish struggle which took at Masada, and it clearly recognises a Jewish struggle that is physically resisting. This place of Masada is within a Jewish History of folklore proportions, and it constantly reminds all Jews of what forms of resistance must exist. But, and this does not decry any moral, spiritual nor ethical resistances which have delivered Jewry through epidemics of Pogrom’s and great hates. And what Yehuda Bauer succinctly points to, we should never stand aside for those who wish to perpetrate heinous crimes, to do so without us intervening or at least openly condemning such atrocity as becomes witnessed.

“..Thou shalt not be a victim ..thou shalt not be a perpetrator ..but ..above all ..thou shalt not be a bystander.” Yehuda Bauer.

Outside of any mutual reaction to the force that has been ranged against the Jews throughout History, it is our inaction that has been evidenced in not saving Jews from further annihilation. We are to become well aware that the abandonment of the Jews was orchestrated in full view of a World not blinded by such truths. History clearly affords us the perspective necessary to explore our past, correct the wrongs done, and usually in our name, in order to prevent that wrongful past spilling over and through today, marking tomorrow with acrimony and threat. When Yitzhak Lamdan struck his epic poem on the struggle at Masada, he came toward the enveloping fire of Jewish destruction, and in further recollection points a Jewish way out of what should not be a forced upon Jewish catastrophe.

“..Who are you that come ..stepping heavy in silence. ..remnant. Alone I remained on ..day of great slaughter. Alone ..of Father and Mother ..Sisters and Brothers. Saved in an empty cask hid in a courtyard corner. Huddled ..a Child in ..womb of an anxious Mother. I survived. Days upon days in fate’s embrace I cried and begged for mercy. Thy deed it is ..O God ..that I remain. Then answer Why. If to bear ..shame of man and ..world. To blazon it forever. Release me. ..world unashamed will flaunt this shame As honour and spotless virtue. And if to find atonement I survive Then Answer ..Where. So importuning a silent voice replied ..In Masada. And I obeyed that voice and so I came. Silent my steps will raise me to ..wall ..Silent as all ..steps filled with ..dread Of what will come. Tall ..tall is ..wall of Masada. Deep ..deep is ..pit at its feet. And if ..silent voice deceived me ..From ..high wall to ..deep pit I will fling me. And let there be no sign remaining And let no remnant survive.” Yitzhak Lamdan.

Masada too seemingly answered the essential need for much of the Jewish persistence that was to then emerge from The Holocaust, as if it was to be a Jewish presence as more than merely a remnant. The Jewish People knew the desolation of their being, and even within The Promised Land, they were subject to the mores of embattled existence which could be so readily removed from them. Never Again is now sourced to replace the many terms used to ensure The Holocaust is a part of a history, that is not to be repeated. In that, we must deal with all that has emerged from The Holocaust Slaughter of 6,000,000 Jews of Europe and know the wrongs it inveigles. I had read consistently from what those like Lucy Dawidowicz has clearly stated, and as an historian, it becomes essential to leave outside the scientific effort of our deliberation, all that can be construed as bias. It is from my own position as an Irish Writer that it is hoped, eventually, my position will give rise to the acceptance of the facts presented are as integrity must intend, both correct and truthful.

“..Some people think that ..historian’s personal commitments to his people ..his country ..his religion ..his language undermine his professional objectivity. Not so. ..as long as historians respect ..integrity of their sources and adhere strictly to ..principles of sound scholarship. Personal commitments do not distort ..but instead they enrich ..historical writing.” Lucy S. Dawidowicz.

We know too that for the Jewish Survivor who emerged from Buchenwald, the very term Never Again raised its vehemence in an invective against their captors. These words also stand as considered memorials to the fallen of Treblinka, to the 1,000,000’s of Jews of the entire Death Camp and Ghetto system, and as a response to Hitler’s overall intention in The Final Solution for the Jews. An intention is clearly driven by what die Endlosung der Judenfrage proposed, and that no living Jew should escape the dragnet of Hitler’s hatred for them, and as it spread further and further into his own Weltanschauung, more and even more Jews were dragged into the obliterating terms it manifested. We make the case clear too for recalling in all of this, and Elie Wiesel places it most succinctly, that while not all victims were Jews, All Jews Were Victims.

“..Not only have you forgotten ..horrors of that day ..you also seem to have forgotten ..horrors of many years.” Shoshana Lavan.

That very fact of The Final Solution has added to further horrors the Jews have borne ever since then, and as it was a proposal to resolve The Jewish Question, do we not see in this, its continuance. Shoshana Lavan has opened her letter to the World, which has seemingly chosen to reflect more clinically upon those others dying as a consequence of the lack of value too many place upon Jewish existence. We now attempt to take from that position of Never to allow this to happen Again, and this is not just for the Jews any longer, as we are all at risk of becoming victims, targets from what the lessons within history has failed to educate. While it is true that all people will see varying levels of resistance that meets with their own perception of what that means. In the case of the Jews, eviscerated within The Holocaust, targeted in 2,000 years of bitter hatred, many others are keen to lay fault at Jewish feet for what was clearly done to them.

“..German troops marched into Austria. I was 8 years old. As I reached ..vicinity of Helden-Platz I couldn’t go any further ..there were so many people on ..Ring Road and on ..side streets. And I stood there and heard ..yells ..roaring ..this cry ..Heil ..Heil ..Heil ..I knew ..I didn’t belong there,” Lucia Heilman.

I engage here with what Lucia Heilman clearly identified with, and it is a constant theme we meet to this day, and even for Jews living within Israel, as if Jews still don’t belong. If we then move on to what Abba Kovner ascertained, as to being the best response to what he recognised was emanating from Ponary, we have a seeming conflict among even Jews as to how best to respond to the constant threat. But let us not suggest that there was merely passivity in the Jewish acceptance of all of the Hitlerite demands. We know full well up to the doors of the Gas Chambers, and in this we must recognise Chelmno merely presented the Jews with removal vans, to evacuate them, we know all too clearly what this meant for those Jews destroyed here. Evacuation in simple terms, and here under War conditions, would never preclude any innocent People from making use of a civilised nation urging them toward safety.

“..There was a certain irony to my trip to Vilna. I went there with ..romantic belief that it might become ..World center for a self-sustaining Yiddish culture.” Lucy S. Dawidowicz.

History has informed us very well, and that the duping of the Jewish People was cleverly accomplished by an accepting Jewish People who believed in the goodness within humanity. Of this very betrayal of mankind itself, the Jewish People cannot ever be blamed for seeing in human beings, persons not dissimilar from them who should have acted in accord with all the moral probity, ethics could muster and deliver. The example we must take then, from what Abba Kovner cannot be perpetually stuck with, and as the only concept which open to too many. The very fact that any view of sheep sleep-walking into the slaughter, is a misnomer presented by too many others who wish to continue with their own bias. We know all too well, and given that we afford a flawed effort in arming the Jews with a fatal responsibility for their own destruction, we must know that the choice given to these 6,000,000 Jews of Europe, was no choice whatsoever.

“..Jewish youngster ..do not trust those that deceive you. Of 80,000 Jews in ..Jerusalem of Lithuania ..only 20,000 have survived. In front of our very eyes ..they tore our Parents ..our Brother’s ..our Sisters from us. Where are 100’s of men who were abducted for labour by ..Lithuanian kidnappers. Where are ..naked Women and ..Children who were taken away from us on ..terrible night of ..provocation. Where are ..Jews who were taken away on Yom Kippur. Where are our brethren from ..second Ghetto. Whoever was taken out of ..Ghetto gates never returned again. All ..roads of ..Gestapo lead to Ponary. And Ponary is death! Hitler is plotting to annihilate all ..Jews of Europe. It befell ..Jews of Lithuania to be ..first in line. Let us not go like sheep to ..slaughter. It’s true ..we are weak and defenceless ..but ..only response to ..enemy is resistance. Brothers. It is better to die as free fighters than to live at ..mercy of murderers. Resist. To our last breath.” Abba Kovner.

In this, Abba Kovner must be recognised for urging Jews to stand and fight, and not as an accusation of their passivity. We recognise such a demand as we would realise in those days we become witnesses to The Jewish Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Here, and the abandonment of these Polish Jews by a Polish nation who did not see in a common enemy any need to support their Jews, shirked its moral responsibility to act. We see the self determination here and with the Bielski Partisans who ran the gauntlet of Nazi swoops and Polish anti-Jewish assaults. For Jewish Resistance to be enabled to accomplish anything against Hitler’s devised plans for them, they also had to deal with the antisemitism continually presented to them throughout Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and anywhere there was sight of a financial gain to be made from the Slaughter of the Jews of Europe.

“..after he fled from ..camp in Darniza ..Father came back to our home 9 Kostelnaya Street ..observed by ..building’s superintendent she immediately informed two policemen. My Father Petr Solomonovich was killed in Babi Yar.” Vassili Mikhailovsky.

We are now perfectly well aware too that Children who managed to Survive, knowing full well the fate of their Parents, who could not cling to life, left so many of these Children isolated upon a troubled sea of disturbed life. Formerly known as Zesar Katz, here Vassili realised the betrayal of his Father and the eventual desperate realisation of what Babi-Yar presented. This ravine, which has inflicted its residence upon the future psyche of the Jews lives amongst the Jewish Survivor navigating a new World without 6,000,000 Jews. We then know only too well of the deep hurt and even anger felt as those like Otto Frank returned to the desolation wreaked upon their Family’s. We know too of the broken bond, an extinguished presence that left so many unanswered questions and too many unresolved concerned. Here it is due, in no small part to what Anne Frank has left to us we become aware of what Parents who Survived to find, their Child, Children did not have indeed lost.

“..Dear Milly ..I hope this letter will reach you ..giving you ..news that I am living. It really is a wonder. ..I have lost everything except my life. Nothing from our possessions has survived. No photo ..no letter from my Children ..nothing ..nothing.” Otto Frank.

The term itself ‘Never Again’ cannot ever be allowed as a refrain of again, and again, and still yet again, and not exclusively aimed at the Jews as it has been for over 2,000 years. The necessity then, to recognise in every detail of The Holocaust must be a lesson we have come to learn, and this cannot remain stagnant in pursuit of educating the future. It must clearly mean, and all and any atrocity must be banished from all of society, is an essential in ameliorating the wrongful effects of its attack upon what civilises us. It must include too, and that no matter what the nature of the infection, it must be made certain that atrocity will never be passed onto another Person. There should be no less an inflexion, that attacks upon any People shall not be imposed upon another People due to their diversity. I am remined too that what Pastor Niemoller came to acknowledge:

“..First they came for ..Socialists ..and I did not speak out because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for ..trade unionists ..and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for ..Jews ..and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak for me.” Pastor Martin Niemoller.

All of this feeds into what has become a fact, and that Jews are no longer the only Peoples under threat, although their threat is a consistent and singularly persistent one. Such is that truth, and ever since 1948 we have seen the evidence of such atrocity as has been squarely directed against Jews. This is not solely within Israel as an immediate point of entry, but to Jews throughout the World as a hate filled and concerted effort in continuance of The Greatest Hatred. Throughout my search on The Holocaust I have recognised the eloquence of all of those who best speak about the very atrocity they indeed emerged from and one of those is Primo Levi, an extraordinary literary testifier. When we consider from his effort that outside there are violent rages and no longer is there a guarantee that it is only aimed at Jews.

“..You who live safe In your warm houses ..You who find warm food And friendly faces when you return home. Consider if this is a man Who works in mud ..Who knows no peace ..Who fights for a crust of bread ..Who dies by a yes or no. Consider if this is a woman Without hair ..without name ..Without ..strength to remember ..Empty are her eyes ..cold her womb ..Like a frog in winter. Never forget that this has happened. Remember these words. Engrave them in your hearts ..When at home or in ..street ..When lying down ..when getting up. Repeat them to your Children. Or may your houses be destroyed ..May illness strike you down ..May your offspring turn their faces from you.” Primo Levi.

We can no longer strain the terms of such meaning so as to impose, pain, suffering, hunger and even in subjecting society to the enforced dislodgement of its People. Human Beings from varying communities, can no longer be forced to suffer on the whim of another, and yet, this is constantly happening. There is no better resolve to this than the mutual discourse that any agreement brings to all solutions. What I constantly hope is, the Jews will be left to self-determination, and for Jews to be left to decide how best to live for themselves. But absolutely nowhere in this latter assessment can the atrocity, now being visited upon anyone else, be allowed to decry the need for a recognition of what has been historically aimed at the Jewish People.

“..it’s very uncomfortable to watch a term Never Again ..used to talk about your Family and People’s own heritage and history be taken away overnight.” Lily Herman.

There are those like Joseph Wulf, who sought his own way out of the despair by being one of the first Survivor Jews to write on the Jewish presence within The Holocaust. Wulf has left behind a truth we cannot come to terms with as clearly, justice did not serve 6,000,000 Jews well, and though a burgeoning industry in ignoring that need grows, history will never be allowed to forget what was achieved against these Jews, and why. Emerging now is those many pioneering historians, and they are an ostensibly Jewish group of Survivors who placed their evidence’s before us, and who remain as the artisans of all literary appreciation of the Jewish suffering. These Holocaust Survivors whose tortured words added distinctly to the very Jewish nature of what history was yet to fully appreciate in studying The Holocaust.

“..When my Mother ..Dr. Regine Hildebrandt ..born Treister ..met my Father ..Dr. Rudy Kraus in 1927 she got also acquainted with his best friend Reinhold Duschka. They met at a Viennese youth organization where Rudy and Reinhold went mountain climbing together.” Lucia Heilman.

Both Jewish Women and Jewish Mother’s are under-represented in the narrative to emerge from the midst of what has completely diminished them. As gender-based Jews, who are hugely impacted by the nazi perversion shown toward them, we are to recognise, perhaps inaccurately, that of the 6,000,000 Jews who are The Holocaust, only some 2,000,000 of these are Jewish Females, Girls, Women. It is clear to me that everyone should have a Mother and that they could and should be heaped with praise, and upon them we recognise that when it is the Mom who heaps praise upon their Child, it is instinctive then that the Children are set upon a Road that will make them more whole. The best part of who we could be is honed from the skills we learn, pick up and are gifted. It is along that route, that there are shifting corners, turns which will define us as Human Beings.

“..Mother instinct is something of which I am completely devoid. I explain it like this to myself ..life is a vale of tears and all human beings are miserable creatures ..so I cannot take ..responsibility for bringing yet another unhappy creature into ..World.” Etty Hillesum.

We fall over, we are picked up and we seek refuge and are advised which way is the next best way for us to turn. We either accept the advice we are given, and correct the mistakes we make along the way, and we adjust to the wrongs and correct them as best we can or become corrupted in some way. The World knows very well, that so many Jewish Mother’s paid the ultimate penalty for refusing to relinquish their hold upon their Child, or Children, and this drove them toward the pits and ravines of murderous atrocity, or the assembled before the doors to the gas chambers and held tightly until that last moment when that hold was so finally obliterated. I shall retain mine to me as a Woman who best understood this need to write on matters which concern all of humanity. And to add further to those Mothers of The Holocaust, we should already know, I add to some of their memory here.

“..Mother has said that she sees us more as friends than as daughters. That’s all very nice ..of course ..except that a friend can’t take ..place of a Mother. I need my Mother to set a good example and be a person I can respect ..but in most matters ..she’s an example of what not to do.” Anne Frank.

My research of The Holocaust extends to an individual grief, and it is that which all too many just would not wish to understand but reflects a pain of grief I recognise in her loss. It became personal to me with an image of a 4-year-old Jewish Girl, Tovah Olshak, and it is even more manifestly encompassing of these 6,000,000 Slaughtered Jews I have yet to know. Many of those Jews were Jewish Mother’s with little chance to impart all of the advice their Children could use. My Mom knew very well my creative vent needed an outlet, and in words I plunder from 6,000,000 Jews whose stilled voices have been so robbed of those words, today, I choose to add for them and once again continue:

Always to Remember,  Never to Forget.

“..Auschwitz is outside of us ..but it is all around us ..in ..air. ..plague has died away ..but ..infection still lingers and it would be foolish to deny it. Rejection of human solidarity ..obtuse and cynical indifference to ..suffering of others ..abdication of ..intellect and of moral sense to ..principle of authority ..and above all ..at ..root of everything ..a sweeping tide of cowardice ..a colossal cowardice which masks itself as warring virtue ..love of country and faith in an idea.” Primo Levi.

I am made aware that Never Again was used in a Swedish documentary on The Holocaust back in 1961 when The Holocaust remained along the fringes of our understanding. Indeed, learning of the very detail of the overall Catastrophe was not detailed in any specific way, was driven deeper into the subconscious of so many Jewish Survivors, that time was beginning an allowance to forgetfulness When we then hear of its expression from an American President, Barack Obama, whose suggestion that our vigilance would resolve what ailed the World, we listened attentively enough so as to soon forget again. President Barack Obama used the phrase in its universal sense, when speaking and marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day in 2011.

“..We are reminded to remain ever vigilant against ..possibility of genocide and to ensure that Never Again is not just a phrase but a principled cause and we resolve to stand up against prejudice ..stereotyping ..violence ..including ..scourge of antisemitism around ..globe.” Barack Obama.

Here, Barack Obama pointed to the essential need to end both the scourge of antisemitism and to make a decisive move away from the very prejudices which seek to divert us. The positions obtained, so as to divert us from the one true course which any so called god must expect, and which should unify us. We fail so miserably to recognise that within the universality of human equality, there is the essential amongst all ethical and moral beings, there is a belonging within the humanity of all human kind. The recognition of each and every one of us as indivisible from nature must ensure we are all driven by the very nature that makes us equal to all, and superior to none.

“..Never Again becomes more than a slogan ..it’s a prayer ..a promise ..a vow. Never Again ..glorification of base ..ugly ..dark violence,” Elie Wiesel. 2012.

I have obliged myself to make writing on The Holocaust, for 6,000,000 Jews who have given us its meaning, in order that their meaning should not be lost to us. This does Not mean I have no opinions over the state of this World as it continues blithely along its perilous route. Nor does this loosen my condemnation of those who insist upon what Jews are continually forced to endure. But, and I do not confuse the two, nor conflate each with comparison nor ignore the enormity of the permanent Jewish need for Israel. It cannot be ignored today that Israel might have provided 6,000,000 safe havens for Jews back when they were not required to remain alive. None of this, from my own perspective, equates to the massive loss Jews must feel, nor what non-Jews must accept is a crippling assault upon humanity which happened on our watch.

“..in 1948 ..Jews were fighting for their lives for a state that had been promised to them as a safe haven ..after ..persecution and slaughter of 6,000,000 Jews in The Holocaust. One man led his country to attempt a genocide of a people where his dream and ..dream of his followers was to open a museum to teach future generations about a race they’d succeeded in obliterating ..thus saving ..rest of ..World from suffering ..Jewish nation any longer.” Roshana Lavan.

My thoughts are barely fixed, as they do not allow for what the Jewish People must consider to be a fierce struggle for the Surviving Jew. To have been enabled to escape what was the reality that existed for the Jews of Europe, all efforts in retaining a Jewish Homeland for the Jewish People must be maintained. The 6,000,000 Jews, who are The Holocaust, reside within the hearts of all of those who choose every reason to remember them. While I can state categorically, that between 50 and 70 million People died during Worl War II, it seems we are not allowed to emphasize the possibility that far more than 6,000,000 is to be the total of Slaughtered Jews of The Final Solution. A Jewish Question, which persists while Never Again continues to outrage all of humanity, is the delivery with such force of inhumanity that we are warned may rage once more, we accept it with no guarantee, that only Jews will be impacted.

“..They are never allowed to feel at home in ..communities that demand their services.” John Steinbeck.

The whole truth of The Holocaust will never be known, nor will the strength of resistance that played a hand in both saving Jews from the Catastrophe and ensuring the peaceful transition for Parents taking their Child, or Children, toward oblivion. For so many Children, who refused to abandon their Parents we recognise in what John Steinbeck realised, the Jewish People lived together amongst neighbours who did not themselves feel at home with the Jewish presence. It is reprehensible, and I have been a witness to such in a Film called Shoah, where former neighbours are teetering on the brink as they eyed with suspicion, Jews looking at what had always been theirs. Claude Lanzmann performed a devastating blow to the many assertions made by all too many, who did not see their own indifference as participatory in all that Hitler sought.

“..death ..I feel ..is very near. I could have 23 next July ..I gambled on what mattered most ..dice were cast. I lost.” Hannah ‘Senesh’ Szenes.

Let us now not make little of the heroics involved in putting Family first when behind these Jews, nothing awaited them in returning. We know the many, like Hannah Szenes, who had escaped the conflagration, only to return to the crucible of such a hatred that finally consumed her. Recognised for the Hero she truly is, it is typical of states like Hungary that she is not even considered memorable in the annals of their own history. So Hannah gambled on what mattered most and in the end, we are the losers in what should be a beacon for all our humanitarian efforts. Of course, the perpetrators who committed this atrocity have never all admitted to it, immense human beings like Hannah require of us, a better memory of what civilising society endeavours to exemplify. These 6,000,000 Slaughtered Jews are no longer available to admit to what happened to them, and neither is Hannah who fought to make a difference to what was to consume more than 560,000 of her own Hungarian Jews.

“..I’ve become a Zionist. ..word stands for a ..number of things. To me it means ..I now consciously and strongly feel I am a Jew and am proud of it. My primary aim is to go ..to work for it.” Hannah ‘Senesh’ Szenes.

The very fact of this is that we have all lost in a humanity that Hannah Szenes presents to us and toward what The Holocaust presents to us in meaning. I can no more know those 6,000,000 Slaughtered Jews than Yad-Vashem, who have incorporated Hannah into their study. What this State Museum is attempting and managing to gather to get all the names they can manage, of all of those Jews wholly consumed by such brutality. I do know that at least, Yad-Vashem has identified some 4,900,000 of those Jews torn from us and Hannah Szenes is amongst those we are aware of. Specifically, and what I can do, I hope, is to place the memory of All 6,000,000 of these Jewish People, into the Hearts, Souls and Minds of all People. This simple, in order that memory reminds the World how this can happen, if we just simply sit back and watch, I continue in my own way to add more to what is missing. 

“..Even if they catch me ..at least it will be known to ..Jews that somebody tried to get to them. At least they’ll know that they aren’t completely abandoned.” Hannah ‘Senesh’ Szenes.

Truly, memory alone will not ensure a future reason for the certainty of appreciating how wrong the Catastrophe of The Holocaust is. It is essential too to know why it matters to all, regardless of our own heritage or belief, and especially against those haters who are distorting all efforts at memory. The sheer disparity between Jews who were chosen for destruction and Jews who were not allowed any peaceful remedy for relief, cannot confuse us with what The Holocaust represents. The Slaughter of those 6,000,000 Jews is my reason to assert that the full and foremost target of Hitler’s racial plan was this slaughter of the Jews of Europe. My Books are now my continuous lifeline back to the terms of The Holocaust that remained out of my view as a researcher. They now present me with what has become the driving force in recollection, so as to deliver and retrieve such extortionate memory from its grasp and learn from it.

“..mass murderers walk around free ..live in their little houses ..and grow flowers.” Joseph Wulf.

This monumental search, into what was inflicted upon the Jewish People, literally extols a grievous need that best describes the Jewish Catastrophe being learned from. In the need to ensure Never Again must mean what it says, we must look to the terrifying ordeal presented to Jews on a daily basis as they struggled to survive against the will of an ignorant corporal from Austria. In that effort, I have explored a series of Diaries, for in their words, diarists have delivered to us the very reason we need to deliver further the learning from the terrible trade in hatred exhibited against all Jews. I have delved deep too into Memoirs that are confronting what that Jewish experience was, and how they were simply chosen for extinction without recourse to any choice whatsoever. In the midst of these Books I have and am reading, I cannot be more better placed in any such search for the Jewish loss and the truth as to why we allowed the Jews to become lost. In that, we cannot be reassured of any lessons we have learned in order for a more compassionate and caring society ensuring we do onto others as we would have them do onto us.

“..To me ..it seems as if Hitler has won. He’s changed us Jews from being compassionate and caring and do unto others as you would have them do unto you into this vicious ..genocidal nationalist nation ..pursuing and killing Women and Children.” Miriam Margolyes.

“..Auschwitz was ..turning point in my life ..end of my youth and my illusions. I hadn’t done anything special to deserve such a history lesson. I regret to say that I was one ..innocent.” Eva Tichauer.

There is a truth in everything, and the fact that some 11,293,300 Jews still faced annihilation, even after The Wannsee Conference was being convened. This fact, which secretes a huge loss still to be uncovered, also wishes to diminish the Jewish presence within the catastrophe. not wishing to acknowledge. we stood by and allowed this all to happen. That the Jewish lives were forfeit to the whim of a tyrant is as such a testimony to how destructive the capacity of inhuman behaviour from the  Nazi’s and their collaborators became.

“..Our transport was among ..last ones ..from Hungary July 8th. 1944 ..and due to ..unusual number of arrivals ..SS were forced to change their customary procedures. ..gas chambers ..crematoria could not accommodate everyone judged unfit for work ..so 100’s were piled along ..railroad tracks to be immolated. ..due to ..heartless haste ..clothed in rags ..marked with ..painted red cross ..hardly any food or water ..also due to this haste ..escaped tattooing.”  Judith Magyar Isaacson.

To have lived as a Jew at all during the period, and within this carefully nurtured and mechanised period of slaughter, is a resistance 6,000,000 Jews could not continually make. For us in history, can we then allow the unresolved issue over the numbers of Jewish Human Beings that were slaughtered at the Killing Sites and within each of the Death Camps in Poland. Can we so readily accept this failure of human tolerance to be centred around the decreasing narrative of diminishing these Jewish numbers further.

“..I am very different from how I was.  ..I carry with me after effects of my deportation ..as yet uncharted by medicine.” Eva Tichauer.

Can we all too easily ignore the very fact of all of these Jews being the same beings of the exact same Humanity applied to everyone. Can it be acceptable, ever, to allow for these Jews to become dismissed from life without a human a concern. How will history ever resolve the issue of the slaughter while ignoring the fact of the fact of humanity’s indifference to what progressed from The Final Solution to become The Holocaust resolve of The Jewish Question. It becomes all too easy to ignore, when we allow for numbers that can attempt to conceal the immense loss this presents to all of humanity.

“..First of all they were doing ..tatoos and then I was. ..sent to block C.” Barbara Stimler.

We stand before the mantle of such infamy, atop the pile of hatred’s which delivered the Jews to such spaces as Babi-Yar, Belzec and then as Birkenau industrially proposed. So we must press continuously to deter any suppression of this truth. History is being blocked from seeing the real devastation of a Jewish presence that was designed for that Jewish eviction from all existence and by all too many who do not wish to accept a World’s complicity. Make no mistake. Hitler is not the only guilty merchant of this hatred in what we recognise is his own design, a resolve which produced The Holocaust.

“..it wasn’t ..tatoo that bothered me as much as my thought ..What right do they have to do anything to me.” Eva Mozes Kor.

Wherever a Jew was taken out from the middle of a community, be that a Shtetl, Town or City, neighbours did what they always did, watched. With all they were to see, that information passed along the conduit of whispers and retelling which fed through to the Churches and their self serving organisation. There can be no reasoned debate, nor one single defence of The Holocaust, whatsoever, that can be entertained. For any of those deniers or distorters, who would seek to begin any defence with the suggestion that we look at what the Jews did 2,000 years ago, we cannot ignore them.

“..Zyklon B ..kills ..starting from ground level. ..Sonder kommando ..discovered human pyramids. ..dead at ..bottom ..succumbed first ..other ..more resilient ..stronger ..tried to hoist themselves ..to ..top where it was still possible to breathe. ..last to succumb ..after interminable minutes ..right at ..top.” Eva Tichauer.

If the statement is then followed by some failed accusation, with regard to what happened to the personage of  Jesus, we must confront this also. At the behest of these Churches, these bodies are not seeking the truth in favour of a flavour of a hatred which has served them for the 2,000 years of their existence. The Jews were so obviously a threat to the establishment of the christian churches, as Judaism and the god of the Jews stood before them, a link to where the Chosen People are not any other people but the Jewish People. 

“..tatooing was at ..end of our first day at Auschwitz. I was ..second to last person in our group of 26 people to get a tatoo. My twin sister Miriam was ..last.” Eva Mozes Kor.

For those others, who might then suggest we take a look at what that individual Jew, or that other Jew sought to achieve in either saving their Families or even themselves, we look to what else was the Jew to do but comply with a military enforced demand. The Jews might have held sticks and stones coming up against the weight of a Nazi Blitzkrieg which had devastated much of the European Continent. It is also true to this day that, and I include my self in this when I am asked, and this is consitently constant: What would I have done?

“..I hope that people nowadays here this story ..and realise that underneath we are all ..same. It could happen again and I hope that people learn from my story and see that every one person can make a difference.” Iboyla Violet Knill.

What I certainly know, and for a fact is this, I would not have betrayed my neighbour because they were Jews. What this Jew did in the Camps or what that Jew managed to do within the Ghetto setting, in a struggle to merely survive would have truly devoured me. For these people who ask such particular questions, reason dictates them. These other people have an other agenda which is biased and less than that which any historical integrity demands, honesty. When we do our research properly, we recognise that this Jewish civilian population could do little.

“.My Mother let’s go of me. We look at each other intently ..profoundly ..silently. We are separated ..I don’t see her climb into ..lorry. We did not say goodbye. ..We did not kiss. I never saw my Mother again.” Eva Tichauer.

The Jews could no more impede the ferocity of Hitler’s Reich than the countless armies of so many nations could. Certainly, and within those initial 4 years of progressing the victory celebrations, the end result was always looking ominous as Hitler’s Weltanschauung appeared unstoppable. The very fact though, that these Jews are continually assailed by the accusation that they should have done more is ridiculous when not even a World could constrain Hitler, and for a period of 6 years at War, 13 years confronting the World stage and for more than 26 years extolling the Jews toward Destruction.

“..In Stutthof ..became ..96211 ..unlike ..Auschwitz ..our numbers were not tatooed.”  Max Michelson.

For those many Jews who sought to take the fight to the Nazis, they too were limited by the choices they were never afforded by Hitler. Hitler’s Reich, and all of those who sought to emulate this genocidal hatred for the Jewish People stood between them and humanity. Despite the irrational assertion by many, it is clear, there was no tatooing of the Jews within the Camp system and anywhere else but within Auschwitz. This dehumanising tatooing effort gave rise to a Jewish hope that they were being physically saved for some future labour demand.

“..We didn’t know ..we would never again be totally like other people. ..an invisible ..intangible dividing line ..puts Survivors apart from ..rest of humanity and creates between us us indestructible bonds.” Eva Tichauer.

Though, and as we came to more fully realise in history, the tatooing of the Jewish People was only meant to catalogue those Jews who were to be retained. This was always but a temporary situation to add more deceit to the Nazi intention. True, and as Slave Labourers until their use no longer qualified them for life, they had a reprieve from annihilation. While the duty of this tatoo process, fell to an ostensibly Jewish personnel, they formed part of the administration of the Camp that was assigned to those many Jews who performed their duty, always enforced by the Nazi demands.

“..pushed in ..cattle cars like sardines. We were dirty ..buckets for ..urine ..bowel movements. ..a small ..window ..barbed wire over it ..no air except ..from that little window. ..we travelled like this ..3 ..4 days. ..dawn. ..I saw lights ..fire from far away. ..a chimney ..with fire going. ..thought they were factories. ..We will be able to work. ..told ..to leave ..luggage. packages ..we had to leave on ..ground. ..separated ..men ..from ..women. ..didn’t ..have time to say goodbye to my uncle ..my aunt. ..in front of the Germans ..guided us ..right or ..left. ..told me to go to ..right ..told my aunt to go ..left. I never saw her again. ..15 years old ..all alone in this hell. ..told us to undress ..that we were going to be showered ..that they were going to give us clothes. ..place was freezing cold. ..stayed there for hours to wait for our clothes. No towels to dry ..no food. ..finally ..gave us ..clothes ..put us in barracks. ..tatooed. ..My name is A5143.” Lily Appelbaum.

As such, there were innumerable Jews who were forced to brand their own People, according to the strictures of these Nazi irrational demands. We look more closely too and we see that these Jews who were given time to administer such Nazi demands, they too stood before time and they too were stood upon the motion toward destruction, as the expendable price of living under a Nazi threat to destroy them all them. All time, within the confines of Europe was logged by Hitler and his cohort, and in that, the Jewish People were spared but a moment in their time. Clearly, as Eva Tichauer makes us realise, the tattoo is more than a physical intrusion:

“..Auschwitz is tatooed into our bodies.” Eva Tichauer.

We take Birkenau, as the principle conductor in delivering the tattoo, was merely a status for those Jews before exterminating them. The possibility of doing so, and to all 6,000,000 Jews, even those Jews who stood before the killing sites, is worth the momentary thought, that barely saved any Jews whatsoever. The many who might use this as a criteria to suggest all Jews were being saved for some other, more fanciful ending, is both ridiculous, even laughable. Confusion was meant to reign, and we are well aware of this death dealing of this facility’s fuller capability.

“..February 1943 a new crematoria ..gas chamber ..inaugurated ..Birkenau. 9 ovens ..4 openings each ..allowing 3 corpses at a time. ..capacity of each oven ..2,000 corpses a day.” Leonardo De Benedetti.

Yet we shirk our responsibility when somehow the perhaps as many as 4,000,000 Jews beomes the suggestion for  those Jews being confined permanently within Birkenau. What we can always claim though is the very capacity of Birkenau, and from within the period of its entire existence that it could so easily have established itself at the destructive place for all the 6,000,000 Jews who were systematically destroyed. Of course there were other’s who died here too, and their story is a matter of concern, but for me, they remain outside The Holocaust remit.

“..we go back to ..registration ..tatooers are waiting for us. ..great speciality of Auschwitz ..our number ..indelible ..marked in ..flesh of our left forearm. ..I become ..20832 until ..end of my days. ..Auschwitz is tatooed into our bodies.” Eva Tichauer.

We simply cannot argue that fact of the human loss to so many who are not Jews, but for these others, who were all killed, who all died, even brutally, we cannot ignore them. For there were so many who were callously mistreated and who died wretched deaths and were even murdered, and all for various reasons, but not as Jews as fashioned by The Final Solution. Even within the other 5 Death Camps, there were those who did not fit the demands for The Jewish Question and were somehow caught up in another penchant for hatred which Hitler held for so many.

“..number tatooed on my left arm ..personal evidence from Auschwitz ..attracts ..attention of many people. ..an incomprehensible ..strange mark ..a painful souvenir of ..cruel times of Nazism ..for me ..a kind of certificate of maturity.” Halina Birenbaum.

Growing up however, within the exclusive nature of these facility’s, these were all combined and were always aimed toward the systematic and total slaughter of the Jewish People. Whether within Ghettos, Camps, Killing Sites, Death Camps, these were reserved exclusively for the Jews of The Final Solution of The Jewish Question. Even though other’s got caught up in the massacres, they were not the candidates for the very specific nature of The Final Solution. All of which perhaps reminds us as to why so many would seek to decrease the Jewish Slaughter here, even in this one space.

“..Mother. ..probably felt more than I did ..transformation which ..occurred in me ..after ..Drancy. She forgave me for having neglected her and having become an independent Woman ..an adult. I never forgave myself ..I ..carry ..burden today.” Eva Tichauer.

To the 2,000,000 Jews, or even 1,600,000 Jews, and even daring to suggest all but 1,100,000 Jews were destroyed within its confines. Of course, not all of these figures can be correct and no truth of what is hidden under the Polish soil in and around any of the 6 Death Camps placed there. It is becoming explicitly understood, the truth will never be known in its fuller more brutal and truth giving detail. When we detail the loss to some 1,000,000 Jews already destroyed by the marauding bands of der Einsatzgruppe, we add that to what then emerged as the slaughter moved toward a more mechanised and industrious process.

“..camp clerk stamped a number on ..personnel form. ..my prisoner number ..my new name D5046.” Zev Birger.

As Zev Birger was registered at Dachau, and so many other Camps had simplified their logging in procedures but what we recognise is the same principle of dehumanisation of the Jews. In registering them, and in then delivering these Jews toward obscurity, the process of administration was achieved without tattooing them. However, the necessity to even register by any means all 4,000,000 Jews or even 5,000,000 Jewish People who entered the Death Camp system proved unecessary. As we begin to recognise and as such, and given the very capacity undertaken so as to destroy all Jews who entered these spaces,

“..My Parents had chosen France in ..nazi upheavel ..they swore never again to set foot in a Country which ..betrayed them and driven them out. I will keep their oath. Germany no longer means anything to me. Hitler has exterminated All my People. I chose France once more ..for ever.” Eva Tichauer.

Be assured, it was within the bounds of these 6 death dealing facility’s that the capability to wholly destroy enormous numbers of Jews and on a daily basis, is evident. In each and every one of these Death Camps, be it Chelmno, Belzec, Majdanek, Sobibor, Treblinka or indeed Birkenau, they all could and did add multiples of Jewish lives to any of those figures of their destruction we have had so often suggested. So for the figures produced at The Wannsee Conference, we look back toward the decimation of as many as 1,000,000 Jews by der Einsatzgruppe.

“..I was tatooed at Auschwitz ..I was stunned. But it was a day when I had lost my whole family. I had lost everything I knew up to that point.” Eva Mozes Kor.

For all of those Jews who were still remaining alive, during January 1942, these now 11,293,300 Jews could have been handled, transported East, and resettled in just over 2 years. This is a clearer indication of how mass murder was to become produced to such a systematic and industrial scaled up level. When Otto Frank was admitted to the Birkenau Death Camp, and he received his tattooed number B-9174, he was entering upon a system so focused upon abolishing Jewish life, numbers became a blur within the pages of Nazi scrutiny.

“..I wasn’t allowed to sit on a bus seat for fear I would contaminate people.” Iboyla ‘Iby’ Violet Knill.

Here, it became evident that while Otto Frank was stood upon a conveyor belt toward that very same extinction, his realisation was facing toward his own Family, and their position. The faint hope, given all he had learned from the Nazi injection of pure hatred toward the Jews to make them feel alienated from the rest of society, the thought must have been persistent as to where they might be, either alive, or amongst the ashes of the space he now stood in. While he was now becoming a witness to the brutal fact that entire communities of Jews were being eviscerated at an alarming rate, he recognised too the dire position his whole Family was surely in.

“..population ..located nearby ..able to see ..chimneys of ..crematoria belching out ..smoke ..watching ..sky turn red ..impossible did not know what was happening in ..camps. ..they are all accomplices ..because of their indifference and tacit assent.” Eva Tichauer.

When Primo Levi too is admitted to Birkenau and is given tatoo number 17457, the entire Jewish presence had been so diminished in stature as to be wholly obliterated, and in ever increasing numbers. When Leonardo De Benedetti is finally admitted into the destructive realm of Birkenau, and he is given tattoo number 174489, the destruction of more than 1,000,000 Jews has been clearly defined. Within the Death Camp Birkenau itself, the capacity to do so was an achievable fact which could easily have taken but 3 months.

“..When I was about to be registered they ran out of ink and for reasons I will never understand nobody returned and I was never tatooed. I became known in ..camp as ..girl without a tatoo.” Iboyla Violet Knill.

For me, and I cannot simply write the titles to those Books by those Jewish Survivor’s who were given their numbers but I can write the sub text to those 6,000,000 Jews who are deprived of any chance to write their own Book in order to inform us of what was meant to impact them more deadly. No one should be forced to remind themselves of such branding, but we require them to remind us of its significance. For Eva Tichauer, whose Book ‘I Was No. 20832 at Auschwitz’, regales the World for such a contempt of all of humanity, but which impacts Jews in the main, as the disgn of the Death Camp system suggests.

“..human beings can become worse than beasts. Yet ..Nazi ..camp system ..unique in its kind ..failed. Humanity ..triumphed. 1,000,000’s ..died ..tortured ..assassinated ..exterminated. ..those ..lucky to survive ..Men ..Women have surpassed themselves ..thanks to ..spirit of solidarity and resistance. Today most of them are dead. A handful ..keep their memory alive and continue to demand ..human race remain for ever on guard.” Eva Tichauer.

With Felix Weinberg, his Book, ‘Boy 30529’ is a poignant reminder how far the civilisation of human society had descended. Given that the usage of numbers, within the Birkenau Death Camp system, was established to devalue their very existence. While profiteering out of all that was planned for the Jews, the killing process continued relentlessly, and without consideration of the military needs of Hitler’s collapsing Reich. We have to continually recognise, there are 6,000,000 Jews within the terms of The Holocaust, and it is reprehensible to simply see them as other than Human.

“..Murder of 6,000,000 Jews must never be reduced to a statistic.”  Simon Wiesenthal.

Others, more linked with the eloquence of Survivoral knowledge enable us appreciate that they are Not in the lease, a statistic. Those Jews, surviving Hitler’s herculean effort to destroy every one of them, bear more than their scars of memory. Some even have a Tattooed reminder that recognises the deeper sense of inhumanity that they were inflicted to enroute toward extinction. It is impossible for any human being to be given a number as an identifying symbol, as Eva Tischauer was, cannot be told without humanity failing in its principle duty.

“..not a priority train. ..ordinary passenger trains ..we shout ..most people avoid lifting their heads. Some ..a look full of pity. ..we need ..help ..there is no hope. ..going eastwards. ..I have ..idea of preparing ..notes with a message and address ..throwing them out.” Eva Tichauer.

Of course, not everything is explicable in the realm of The Final Solution of The Jewish Question, but consistenly, the systematic and sought after Slaughter of the Jews of Europe is. The Jews were at the forefront of everything which brutalised them ahead of others for whom Hitler felt threatened his view of the World. The Jewish People, as a body of People would be discarded from life, capaulted into non-existence and destroyed totall, just as Hitler had sought. It is perfectly clear too that any choice, which might have been given to any Jew, was predicated upon them dying.

“..My head was shaved and ..number 69388 was tatooed on my left arm. Anita Sara Lasker no longer existed.” Anita Lasker Wallfisch.”

The rather basic fact was glaringly obvious, and that no Jew would be given any choice whatsoever, and that choice was not clear to those Jews thought they had made any choice at all. It is all too obvious, for those who wish to see this, that Jewish choice had been exactly the same choice given to every single Jew in Europe, and that was No Choice whatsoever. We should more understand the position for the Jews of Europe for we, as human beings too, cannot have the choice to act while outside the guards and dogs run the rule over our very existence.

“..We feel ..gentle warmth of ..Spring. ..filled with hope. ..no gas chambers at Leipzig.” Eva Tichauer.

The Hitlerite enclave, all those who inhabit it or swirl around the rim of its putrid hatred, are designated as opposition to even our own very unique existence. Of course, once the Jews who enter onto the sidings at Birkenau are branded, there is to be a stay of execution which existed only until the Jewish turmoil was ended. However, only that Land, afforded the Jews in antiquity, confirmed Biblically and endorsed Historically, would prove the saviour of the future for all of Jewish persistence in the World since The Holocaust was convened.

“..By removing my tatoo ..will that remove all ..tragedy that happened to me. ..answer is no. So why should I submit myself to additional pain just so I do not have to see that tatoo. It is kind of like my badge of courage.” Eva Mozes Kor.

I am not here to defend any nation, one way or another, but to speak for the right for every one of those 6,000,000 Slaughtered Jews, is the State of Israel. For all of these Jews, who would have had a clearer choice, a better opportunity at survival, and a chance that the World did not give them, teir homeland should have been afforded them as soon as Hitler sought to remove even one Jew from this life. For what was then perpetrated, and by so many peoples who stood against the Jews, and even for what was to be denied to the Jewish People, we accuse them all.

“..At ..final nights halt our ss surround us ..in order not to lose us but also to save themselves from going to ..front.” Eva Tichauer.

The promised land as such, was to be a shelter from the storm, a State which would always provide the Jewish People a form of sanctuary, they could control. They would no longer live at the behest of guest nations, not involve themselves in pleading for tolerance in the midst of an intolerable hatred toward them. But this is more crucial, what was colluded in by those who also sought to deprive their own Jews, from homes and lands they had occupied for almost 2,000 years, is a reprehensible deed which mocks all that civilisation should stand for.

“..I will never forget what ..Vichy was responsible for. ..Petain ..Laval somany others. ..never ..called to account. ..guilty ..roaming free ..still await ..judgement of history. Indifference too ..a criminal act.” Eva Tichauer.

For what share of the spoils for any citizen or neighbour of the Jewish People, who sought to plunder what the Jews were forced to leave behind, is an abysmal crime in perpetuity. That indifference to the suffering of the Jews led so many to obtain their share of what 6,000,000 Jews, who were solely sought out from them, is a larceny beyond moral indignation. The sheer loss to all of humanity that is this Jewish extermination, is shed as so many bystanders stood aside as the Jewish People are marched toward a Slaughter they were designated for. 

“..convinced ..I wouldn’t have returned ..if ..Mother had come to ..camp. I wouldn’t have been able to bear seeing her deteriorate and die. My Love for her would have taken away all my strength ..I would have followed her. That too is one of my pieces of luck” Eva Tichauer.

The duty of any nation is to look after its own, who matter the status or definition of any labelling or classification. Society is pledged to look to itself and know what it did or did not do in protecting those of its People within its borders. There is no defence, and it is inadvisable and cannot ever become medicated by denial, obfuscation or in particular, lies. Of course, the passage of time allows for us to ask the very tired question as to what would we have done, and could we have done anything differently.

“..To be liberated on Easter Sunday 40 days after entering ..camp. Of all ..days and times to be told I would live. Easter Sunday? Well you just couldn’t make it up could you.” Iboyla Violet Knill.

My own position in this response is an assertive and obvious one, no one can be placed in that position which seeks to resolve an issue of past atrocities. But! I hold with the entire conviction that I know exactly what I would not do, nor what I would descend to. I would never have denied my neighbour consolation, support nor friendship and I would never have betrayed that position. To sit here and wite that I would have fought to the death in defence of 6,000,000 Jews, dismisses the other fact which should compel us not to act in anyway contrary to what humanity demands of us.

“..I come back richer in humanity and love of others. ..one has to struggle to change ..world .to struggle relentlessly.” Eva Tichauer.

“..The Holocaust in Hungary represented a unique chapter in ..singular history of ..Final Solution of ..The Jewish question in Europe.” Randolph L. Braham.

I cannot take you the reader, all the way back 5,000 years to where Jewish persistence proved stronger than the eliminating demands placed upon them by all too many others. These others’, those whose wish to destroy the essence of a People, has since been built upon until its expression finally became demonstrable and deadly. From this, The Greatest Hatred, what has emerged has been known and recognised as antisemitism for far too long and by the so called enlightened in civilisation. Since Hungary joined Hitler’s Worldview, on November 20th. 1940, we cannot know how many of its Jewish community were Killed, Murdered or died in the Labour Battalions. All of this is some 3 years prior to the arrival of the killing operation for Hungarian Jewry arrived in amongst 900,000 Hungarian Jews. So I gained my own perspective of this hatred and from here, when my first Book was Published some 22 years ago, and it is an accusatory historical image of what the World allowed to happen, there is much more to learn. But this Book was written, it was edited time and again and was rehearsed way before the appreciation of the Jewish loss was gained. As a Student of World War II, I had previously touched upon the very graphic detail of an Einsatz kommanders aktionen who fully sought to present his defining moments to his masters.

“..Baltic countries ..would render harmless ..enemies left behind after ..retreat of ..Red Army. ..duty of ..Security Police to set in motion ..self-cleansing movements ..direct them ..to accomplish ..cleansing operations as quickly as possible. ..important ..to establish ..unshakeable ..provable fact ..liberated populations ..took ..most severe measures against Bolshevist ..Jewish enemy ..so that ..direction by German authorities could not be found out. In Lithuania this was achieved ..in Kowno. ..not easy ..set in motion ..extensive pogrom against Jews. ..no German order or ..instigation ..noticed from ..outside. ..pogrom ..June 25 to 26  ..Lithuanian partisans did away with more than 1,500 Jews ..set fire to several Synagogues or destroyed them by other means ..burned down a Jewish dwelling district consisting of about 60 houses. During ..following nights about 2,300 Jews ..made harmless in a similar way.” SS Brigadefuhrer Franz Stahlecker.

We are now in the midst of the gravest calamity for Baltic Jewry and this is where I altered all my emphasis, study and research. Typically it is with this graphic, illuminating the Stahlecker Report, that I garnered an insight into what levels of committal to the Jewish slaughter was aligned to and is running parallel the conquest of the World. The graphic itself, which emphasised the amassed Jewish Executions that were carried out by Stahlecker’s Einsatzgruppen A, has both troubled and captured me. The imagery of the coffins alone, listing the massacres of the Jewish People has stunned my inner workings and concentrated my further search for understanding ever since. With the sheer and callous disregard for human life, all emotion has been essential for me to focus such a statistical analysis into a personal emphasis. This has prompted me into suggesting that the necessary approach which humanity must demand has been lacking in terms of what we must be recognised. Along with my own disgust for what was this Genocidal undertaking, I was drawn into the necessary study that I would now engage with, and not as a Jew but on behalf of the Jewish People.

“..There was no way we could have foreseen Hitler’s Final Solution ..but my parents did sense ..situation would likely worsen, and they tried to get us out of Hungary.” Andrew Salamon.

It is from here that I will take you from where Hitler used his own rhetoric of hatred that was fully directed toward eliminating the Jewish People. We move relentlessly on, all the way toward the near total elimination of the Jewish presence within Europe, and finally culminating in an enactment which delivered its most gravest terms. Once Hitler sought to destroy the strength of World Jewry, he found the largest Jewish population of Europe was present on his doorstep, in Poland. Here Hitler became convinced that Poland’s historic Pogroms would create the exacting terms by which his route toward The Final Solution would be resolved. The germination of an eventual solution that was to resolve Hitler’s Jewish problem, might be more fully solved with such close collaboration as Poland, The Baltic States, Romania and Hungary might present.

“..June 22 1941 ..last night German warplanes ..carried out bombing raids on Alytus ..Kedainiai ..Siauliai ..Kovno ..Riga.” Avraham Tory.

Along with the camouflaging shield of World War II, Hitler brought European Jewry to the brink of extinction. The Collective loss suffered by both Polish and Hungarian Jewry is well amplified by now, recognising that both are an immense construct within the very narrative of The Holocaust term itself. With just Poland and Hungary presenting the loss account with close on 75% of all Jews Slaughtered within The Holocaust, both these countries represent a significant step in Hitler’s wishful demand for the solution to be resolved. Taken at differing stages of the emerging catastrophe, the common denominator in both would be Adolf Hitler and his demands for the complete annihilation of all Jewish presence within Europe, wherever they could be found. Of course 1939 and 1944 were poles apart in relation to how Hitler’s conduct of the War was proceeding and how desperate would be his required legacy be in destroying every Jew within his view. While earlier on Hitler saw within Poland a position he was assured would be both compliant and cooperative, Hungary drew a differing intervention, a strategy which converted the willing axis companion into a vassal state and a husk of human concern.

“..destruction of Hungarian Jewry constitutes ..last phase in ..Nazis’ War against ..Jews.” Randolph L. Braham.

This then is where we arrive at the steady progression of The Holocaust toward what remained of the last existing reservoir of Jewish greatness, and this was Hungary. It is clear too, and up till this point in time, that all anti-Jewish sentiment, by which antisemitism has been largely systemic, gravitates us toward it’s deadliest and most lethal consequences. Within the overall culture of Europe, Poland has been infected by interhuman relationships, and for over 2,000 years, by a Jewish presence which has guided it through its cultivating lessons of Education and Industriousness. All the while, this hatred of the Jewish People has been spreading further, wider than borders so as to infect all of civilised humanity. Such has been its infestation, all ethical morality, linked with such antisemitism joined forces here upon a European stage to deliver what we recognise is, The Holocaust of the Jews of Europe.

“..Through ..gaps in ..door ..I saw Arrow Cross members leading people to ..Danube bank to be shot to death. I also witnessed that those who could no longer walk were shot dead then and there ..on ..street.” Artur Koo.

As Hitler’s lust for power expanded, the presence of the Jewish People was assailed and along with State, and the Church’s design of its own models of response and non-response, this hatred for the Jewish People has been cradled in a systematic way. It is an evidently endemic expression as it shares its likeness with severe outbursts and deadly Pogroms. While the hatred also had a solid grounding in The Baltic States, Byelorussia and Ukraine, and it was maintained as a more than populist undertaking in Hungary, it was the Jews who would succumb to its reach. There is of course the aim to ensure other than the Jews were attacked and killed and this cannot and must never be doubted, suppressed nor denied. But, and in what Hitler demands in The Jewish Question, must be recognised in The Holocaust as The Final Solution. All of this was clearly assessed, and in what Hitler rightly witnessed, it all reflected his own view of what he could gain in cooperation and collaboration with all too many. In the progress of this, we recognise what Hitler’s much touted; ‘die Endlosung der Judenfrage’ demonstrates. It is with such expression that we are a witness to what was inevitably converted from mere bluster into an outrageous demonstration of exponential, brutal and deadly atrocities.

“..It dawned on me that this was my vocation ..to tell as many people as I could about Auschwitz. It’s ..least I can do. ” Eva Fahidi.

The fact of what must be learned, of what was certainly observed, and not just from within Poland, is at least recognised in what Hitler felt he could achieve against those he sought to remove from homes, lands, and life itself. As this murderous view of the Jewish People spread further, ever wider and more brutally adapted, and adopted, even more of what was presented as Jewish persistence was further diminished. Here, and against the largest population of Jews in Europe, their own 3,650,000 Polish Jews, their near total evisceration was realised. With their expected assistance, Poland set the seal upon their own perceived and deeply wounding hatred for all Jews. So what emerged from within Poland, with Polish Jewry in situ, to be Slaughtered in 6 Death Camps placed specifically within Poland to do so, Hungary Jews would survive a seeming reprieve from the now growing awareness of what Hitler’s final resolve would be for all Jews.

When, on January 22nd. 1942 Heydrich convened The Wannsee Conference, Eichmann had recognised the fact that some 742,800 Jews were present within Greater Hungary for presentation toward The Final Solution. We are conscious here that Eichmann had to hand the detail of what had been presented to the Jews within The Baltic States and to those Jews of Lodz resettled within Chelmno. Then, on April 17th. 1943, when the Regent of Hungary, Admiral Horthy visited Hitler at Klessheim Castle, he too was appraised of what was being formulated and conducted then in Belzec, Birkenau, Majdanek, Sobibor and Treblinka also. The deadly consequences for 6,000,000 Jewish People, and from all over Europe was then fully recognised. Within Hungary, that clear genocidal intention was to be eventually recognised within the borders of Hungary, and this would be conducted right up until the War was ending.

“..On that evening ..fate of ..Jews of Hungary was sealed.” Adolf Eichmann.

Hitler’s major efficiency administrator Eichmann is now in a race to ensure Hitler’s fuller demand, as he arrives in Hungary. On March 10th. 1944 Eichmann, who had gathered his top RSHA Section IV B4 resettlement officials together in the Mauthausen Concentration Camp, is grounding all his lieutenants in what was to be expected of them. Here, the deadly groundwork for the forthcoming operation within Hungary was laid and formalised. Along with such larceny of intent, Hitler’s regime was clearly engaged with, and against the Jews of all of Europe, Hungary would prove lucrative to European monetary gains. This expectation grew proportionately greater, and with a more lucrative pursuance that was to the benefit of a Jewish detriment and deadly exercise.

“..On March 15th. 1944 ..Hitler also objected to ..fact that Hungary has not yet introduced ..steps necessary to settle ..Jewish Question. We are accused ..therefore ..of ..crime of not having carried out Hitler’s wishes ..and I as charged with not having permitted ..Jews to be massacred.” Miklos Horthy.

On March 19th. 1944, Hitler delivered an ultimatum to Admiral Horthy, so as to ensure all of Hungary’s Jews would be resettled. With German troops set to occupy all of Hungary, recognising too that these German forces were mere relics of the-all conquering and former state of the Wehrmacht, as a blitzkrieg fighting force, the pressure upon Jewish existence grew more deadly. This now also represented the changing and detrimental fortunes, and destructive fate for Hungarian Jewry. The terror changing event would now set the Jews of Hungary upon the same road to their specific realm in the overall disaster of The Holocaust. There was a combined force of 600 Einsatz and Auxiliary forces accompanying the annihilating move into Hungary. This particular Einsatz role was to be the elimination of as many of the 900,000 Hungarian Jews as would be possible. Amongst these Einsatz forces were 200 of the ablest killers from Eichmann’s Sondereinsatzkommando. This assembled grouping, of those exacting experts on The Jewish Question, who were already briefed on what was to come, Mauthausen progressed the move on to Hungary. These technicians upon the destructive Jewish processes would enact this particular, Entjudung for the Jewish People in Hungary at a more rapid and aggressive form.

It is these murderous master’s over Jewish existence and death, Franz Abromeit, Arthur Burger, Theodor Dannecker, Otto Hunsche, Hermann Krumey, Franz Novak, Siegfried Seidl, and Dieter Wisliceny, who would deliver to infamy the place of Hungary to be defined within The Holocaust. Hitler’s murder forces now occupy all of Hungary, and if there are still some 800,000 to 900,000 of Hungarian Jewry facing Hitler’s immediate and Final Solution, that immediacy is more certain. On April 29th. 1944 with a transport of 1,800 Jews from Budapest, Hungary, these Jews are deported toward Birkenau for resettlement there. The deportation of the Hungarian Jews now begins in earnest and we find ourselves further down that same road Hitler had set the catastrophe for the Jewish People upon. We have to recognise too that Hungarian Jews were being delivered to many holding centres and are shot without consideration. Local collaborators, Arrow Cross personnel were taking a lead from Hitler through their own anti-Jewish hatreds, and Hungarian leaders who cowed down to those like Eichmann and Veesenmeyer, Winklemann and Wisliceny, who were on hand to lend their expertise in removing Hungarian Jewry permanently, we more than grateful for the advice.

On March 20th. 1944 Eichmann wasted no time in mobilising his own particular intention for the coming transports. He settled well into the Astoria Hotel, regarding himself as an emperor in SS clothing, holding sway over those of his assembled legions and 900,000 Hungarian Jews. He would move his administrative empire from Pest to the Majestic Hotel in Buda, which appeared more suited to his grandiose newer and lording position. Ahead of Eichmann’s arrival though, Krumey met with the Budapest Jewish community leadership and both Wisliceny and Krumey appointed Samuel Stern, who formerly headed the Jewish Community of Pest, to lead the newly formed, and compliant, Budapest Jewish Council. These Jewish leaders, and it must always be stressed, they led in name only, as here in all of Hungary, Eichmann ruled over the Jews. The entire Jewish population was informed by Eichmann and his lieutenants that there would be:

I           German control over all Jewish affairs,

II          SS Obersturmbannfuhrer Alfred Trenker would take charge of the Budapest Jewish Community,

III         The Jewish Council must be formed by 12:00 the following day,

IV         These leaders would be certified exempt from All Jewish measures,

V          Travel restrictions would be placed upon all Jews, and

VI         Reassurances must be issued to calm all Jewish concerns.

The mitigating conditions for Hungarian Jewish ‘resettlement East’ was being surreptitiously installed and by underhand means, the euphemism for total destruction was conducted again. On March 21st. 1944, a further meeting, attended by some 200 Jewish Community Leaders was assured, life as normal would continue. Here too, the German approval for the composition of the Jewish Council was finally sanctioned.

On March 22nd. 1944, with Dome Sztojay as the Hungarian Premier, the Ghetto becomes the mainstay of Jewish concentration in the larger Towns. But these would be nothing like the Jewish Ghetto of Poland which was in situ for many years. The deadline for the wholesale destruction of the entire Community of Hungarian Jewry was being set by Russian advances upon previous Hitlerite gains in the East. Since Hitler’s failure to capture Staningrad, September 1943, the once mighty Wehrmacht was being rolled up, like a carpet and is being delivered toward Germany. This however, secured for all Jewish existence in Europe, particularly now, and here in Hungary, and explosive effort to annihilate ever more Jews ahead of an obvious and crushing defeat, militarily. Also, the Jewish Star is to become the identifier of Hungarian Jewry and this would become compulsory on April 5th. On March 23rd. 1944 Eichmann, Himmler, Kaltenbrunner, Veesenmayer and Winklemann met in Budapest to finalise the planned removal of Hungarian Jewry towards Birkenau. Meanwhile, and on March 24th. 1944, Samu Stern issued a plea to the Jewish Community:

“..Germans placed great emphasis on .. country’s Jewish population to calmly .. continue ..it’s private life ..religious ..social ..and cultural activities.” Samuel ‘Samu’ Stern.

What we can never truly know is how taken in the Jewish leadership within Hungary was, and how unwittingly it received such news. While it is true that many of these, at the head of the entire community of Jews, were aware of both the rumours, the subterfuge of atrocity stories, the detail was detained to avoid alarming further the Jewish People. On March 26th. 1944 Kaltenbrunner left Hungary and has left the Jewish Question with Laszlo Baky, Laszlo Endre, Laszlo Ferencsy and Dome Sztojay, who are taking instructions from Eichmann’s team. By the time Himmler got back to Berchtesgaden, and he met with Hitler, on March 29th. 1944, he had already informed Goering that measures were in place to secure the final victory. While Himmler and Hitler had already discussed the final details related to the coming solution to the Jewish Question in Hungary. Himmler had fully appraised Hitler of what was now facing 900,000 Hungarian Jews, and who the executioners in charge would be, his SS. On March 31st. 1944, Eichmann confers his demands upon the Budapest Jewish Council, from his headquarters at the Majestic Hotel.

“..Jews were ordered to hand over all items of value ..jewels ..coins ..foreign currency. ..Jewish presence in any business or professional activity was forbidden. ..Jews were only allowed to be outside during certain hours of ..day. We were banned from all public places ..except stores. We couldn’t use streetcars or taxis ..we weren’t allowed to attend any public performances ..movies ..theatres ..concerts ..and we were forbidden to eat in restaurants. By April 3rd. every Jew was required to wear a yellow star. Jews had to leave their homes to go to ..ghetto or into designated ..yellow star buildings.” Andrew Salamon.

Of course, the cross fertilization of antisemitism, within different and then competing states, forged a recognisable malignancy that was identifiable across every nation. This had already formed a pathway, that was so discernible throughout Europe, it tarnished human World civilisation. In places like Poland, where the Pogrom was a feature of anti-Jewish hatred for centuries, inhumanity was escalated to newer levels of bitter conflict. In all that I aim to state, I would always demand that even one Murdered Jew was far too many, even within The Holocaust. But, and I state this without any reservation whatsoever, the World needs to come to terms with what it allowed to happen to the Jews of Europe. It is an unacceptable murderous account which is indeed, the unaccountable and incomprehensible recognition that 6,000,000 is the settled for accounting of the Slaughtered Jews of Europe.

“..one thing that has puzzled me and has puzzled ..World ..Germans dedicated manpower and trains and trucks and energy towards ..destruction of ..Jews to ..last day. Had they stopped six months before ..end of ..war and dedicated that energy towards strengthening themselves ..they may have carried on ..war a little longer ..but it was more important to them to kill ..Jews than even winning ..war.” Bill Basch.

Here too, as Hitler had clearly set a precedent, which established beyond All reasonable doubt, die Endlosung der Judenfrage, no other consideration was prioritised. The targeting of the Jews for destruction was fixed ahead of even Hitler’s supposed respect for the German People. It is certain then, that no other perspective, within his vocalised Weltanschauung, and as it was his own personal worldview, there was nothing that would distract him from it. Here, The Final Solution of The Jewish Question would maintain Hitler’s fullest attention as it had kept the transportation of Jews to the Death Camps in Poland was complimented by der Einsatzgruppe killing operations. Now, and for the vast majority of those Jews of Hungary, who had survived right up until the end of the War approached, all seemed certain for them to live. The only remaining Jewish Community of substance to still be standing became the target of every attention Hitler could now focus upon. As it became essential for any Jew of Hungary, who would survive, there were few from their own Community, even from their own Family who could remain to inform us.

“..I have ..figures only for ..months of May ..June ..July ..1944. Dr. Pasche ..a French doctor of ..Sonderkommando ..in ..crematory ..was in a position to gather statistics on rate of exterminations.. provided me with these

May ..1944                                  360,000

June ..1944                                 512,000

1st. to 26th. ..July 1944             442,000

                                                  1,314,000

In less than quarter of a year ..Germans had liquidated more than 1,300,000 .. Auschwitz-Birkenau.” Olga Lengyel.

In what those like Olga Lengyel seek to bring to the fore, those testimonies which open the portal to such savagery as History has Never known, they illuminate the darkness presented. I am in no position to refute any such broad an assessment as these within the History of the time have been able to leave to us. But, and while all too many wish to reduce the whole effect upon the entirety of European Jewry, we must deplore the attempt to diminish this Jewish presence and restore the balance of truth. It is inherently essential that we explore every such distorted reasoning for the callous limiting of the Jewish presence and the calculating efforts to limit their loss to 6,000,000. However, I do not question those experts who were present during the ravages they managed to survive and for those Jewish Historians who survived to present the integrity we seek, they have given us the rising and exponential consensus that we are prone to revisit and reassess.

“.. Germany’s system of ruling  in conquered Europe varied ..as did ..persecution of Jews. ..toil of Jewish lives .. determined by ..nature and extent of German control ..by .. Fuhrer’s postwar global aims ..and ..attitude of local population.” Livia Rothkirchen.

But I would question any resolve from some whose seeming wish is to salve, and somehow soothe a less portioned blame for states or nations of their choosing who acted against their Jewish Citizens. Such is a cowardly approach to history, by those who would see their own nations capacity to act against their own Jewish population, as either nullified or forcefully rejected, is against all principles by which History is best assured. The factual truth and through it, its veracity, is the only device open to those of us who seek to present the science of history. Precisely dealing with the Slaughter of these 6,000,000 Jews of Europe, all evidences must be positively assured.

“..A person who dies continues to live in ..memory of his or her relatives ..friends .. acquaintances. But when .. victims of The Holocaust died ..people nearest and dearest to them died with them ..their entire social world .. destroyed.” Bernhard Press.

These assessments, with Lengyel’s at Birkenau, with Press reminding us why too much from memory is so permanently lost and indeed the overall tragedy, and as such are not fully accounted. Indeed, they are not even as a maximum of the overall capacity Hitler envisaged or fully managed to secure for posterity what we recognise is The Holocaust. Such capacity itself, within establishments designed to eliminate even the minutiae of Jewish existence, exposes the reality of the very fabric of humanity which has been torn to shreds. So here, and while this all ties in accurately with the assessment of what we make of the deportation of 502,491 Hungarian Jews to Birkenau, we must deliver more of the fuller evidence’s that have either, so far evaded us or are being thwarted in order to distort the fuller truth. In this, we must not ignore what the transports from Hungary, which were even arriving at Birkenau prior to these dates, deliver further to the overall tragedy for Hungarian Jewry. I can certainly assert, that while each of the 6 Death Camps within Poland was fully capable of delivering above and beyond the capacity assessment assigned to them, Birkenau was without argument fully capable of destroying 6,000,000 Jewish lives within a timeframe it was suited to.

“..Although ..ultimate fate of ..Jews under Nazi rule ..was everywhere identical ..there were some local differences in ..process and tempo of persecution and extermination.” Isaiah Trunk.

We know full well that within The Final Solution, the Jews were met with extinction wherever they were confronted by Hitler’s legions. This is true wherever the Germans set foot and while we begin our assessment of the slaughter in 1932 and 1933, it is with the Hungarian travesty in mid-May 1944 that we are focused upon. As we know, there are 3,800 Hungarian Jews to arrive upon the ramparts of Birkenau, prior to this date of mid-May 1944. Amongst these are 2,698 arriving Jews from both Budapest and Topoly who are to be immediately gassed after the selection process. This is on May 2nd. 1944 and then on May 4th. 1944, at a conference which details the removal of some 310,000 Hungarian Jews from the Carpathia and the Siebenburgen areas, Eichmann is moving swiftly to ensure these Jews are set to commence their resettlement journey around the middle of May 1944. It is proposed too that some 110 individual transports should be arranged to accommodate these vast numbers. Also, and this criteria for removal would conceivably deliver more than 550,000 Hungarian Jews within that given timeframe. This would ensure for 5,500 Hungarian Jews on each and every transport, we are faced with, on average in the region of 5,000 to 5,500 Gassed Jews taken from these trains.

“..testimonies of survivors of ..mass liquidation operations. ..history of ..Jewish people in The Holocaust cannot rely only on .. documentation left behind by ..Murderers and their accomplices.” Jean Ancel.

We know too that testimony has emerged from those Jews who have survived to add to the documentation that somehow survived intact. While this amassed deportation will proceed at the rate of 4 Transports daily, we know Birkenau is geared up to receive them. Within each of these resettlement transports, there are to be some 3,000 to 5,500 Hungarian Jews. A total of in excess of 12,000 and 22,000 Jews from Hungary deported on a daily basis. This atrocity is to be on such a murderous scale, and as has never been evidenced in any of the other Death Camps in Poland, at such a rate, we are made certain that Hungary holds a particularly brutal space in The Holocaust of terms for all of European Jewry. The formative operations, the precursor to all that Hitler demands for the initial phase of the removal of Hungary’s Jews, will persist on each and every day until the more than 310,000 Jews of Hungary have been obliterated. The conclusion to this single detail of the Hungarian transports should be completed within 4 weeks and set the seal on what was still awaiting as many as 590,000 more Jews still living in Hungary.

“..Birkenau ..Greatest City of death. Selections ..set up to receive and enslave.” David Rousset.

Following on from this commencement date will be the concluding act ranged against the still remaining 590,000 Jews of Hungary as the great City of Death awaited them. When, on May 8th. 1944, Hoess is again placed back in command of Auschwitz-Birkenau, Hoess is well placed to oversee the destructive capacity within Birkenau. To this end, he is charging Josef Kramer with authority over Birkenau, as the Reich’s remaining Extermination Centre. Hoess now speeds up the processes by which Hungarian Jewry will be handled, and resettled, and thus Destroyed. The Birkenau ramp is extended, and Krematoria V is back in operation and then, with the addition of 5 outside pits for corpse incineration, 900,000 Hungarian Jews are set for evisceration. We bear in mind also, and that Hoess himself admits to the capacity of the capability of destruction within Birkenau, which could be as many as 18,000 of these Hungarian Jews Slaughtered upon a daily basis, and that such deeds were indeed achieved. That the fate of 6 Transports every 4 hours is in the hands of a well-defined mass Murder system, and that the Jews assigned here are to be processed and their presence totally obliterated, from start to finish, this is a page in History we must Never fail to mention.

“..Hoess acknowledged ..he had been responsible for ..Slaughter of 2,500,000 ..plus another 500,000 to starvation and disease.” Otto Friedrich.

Here too, when we then look to those overall and precise dates for the coming assault upon all of Hungary’s Jews, and this is to be accomplished largely, between May 15th. 1944 and July 9th. 1944, the capacity to slaughter them is achievable for Hoess. Here, and over a period of 55 days, the presumed total annihilation of all the Jews within Hungary has to be realised or at least imagined. With these first arrivals already processed we are moved to May 16th. 1944, and we examine arrivals in Birkenau which are totalling of 3 full transports, and sometimes 4 such transports, and on a daily basis. We recognise too that each of these trains, pulling along with 40 to 50 cattle cars, are containing of some 4,000 to 5,500 Hungarian Jews upon each of them. That is consisting of on average some 70, 80 and even 150 Jewish People to each wagon. With certainty too we, are made aware that the system of annihilation is such an accomplished machinery of total destruction, no Jew can expect to live past what Hoess decrees is the necessary life span for their usefulness.

“..After we were tossed out of ..train to Auschwitz ..we tried to grab our luggage ..we were told not to bring anything ..that they would bring everything to us.” Klara Andorne-Molnar.

This destructive capacity will set the seal upon such an annihilation process of its People, that the Jewish World is still reeling from its very enactment. For each day, we can recognise or identify with 12,000 or as many as 15,500 of Hungarian Jewry who are specially treated, annihilated, and all of this is throughout this first day. We must never under estimate the very capacity for this machinery of mechanised destruction to deliver upon what ever it sought so as to ensure, in this particular component part of The Final Solution, all Jews were destroyed at Hitler’s convenience. It is true too that over capacity was made available as and when it was required and outdoor pits provided the additional capacity to not only eviscerate the remains of the Jewish People, but to murder many of them thrown alive headlong into the flames.

“..May 25th. 1944 ..number of Hungarian Jews killed already amounts to over 100,000 people.” Danuta Czech.

If we are to register with this particular kill rate assessment, detailed by Danuta Czech, we clearly realise the sonderbehandlung of in excess of 9,000 of these Hungarian Jews occurs upon a daily basis. At the same time, we have to recognise there is also arriving, and on the same daily basis, Jews from across the length and breadth of Europe, particularly Belgium, France, Greece, Holland, Italy and Yugoslavia. These Jews too are tabled for that same end result and that this final handling runs alongside their Hungarian Cousins. We must add to these dimensions the ability of Hitler’s forces and their auxiliaries to act with extreme malice and murder at will before, during and after these transports have delivered their human cargo for destruction.

“..June 13th. 1944 .. deportation ..Jews ..Carpathia ..Siebenburgen ..completed June 7th. A total of 289,357 Jews ..deported ..in 92 trains ..each of ..45 cars.” SS Brigadefuhrer Edmund Veesenmayer.

On average there were 70 of these Hungarian Jews, and in many instances, 100 or even 150 Jews assigned to each cattle car. What is also clear, is that the train timetable, is as deliberate as it has been calculated by those Eichmann has been charged with delivering to this annihilation centre at Birkenau. In a wish to avoid discussing in terms of statistical terms, we all too easily lose sight of the very human dimensions of the massacre. The Hungarian Jewish People are being consigned to the pages of history that are without the necessary concern for progressing their presence to us. We have great difficulty to this day attempting to extract the individual status of those Jews who now appear upon a spread sheet. The analysis of loss, which seeks to remove even the humanity of these Jewish People from us, has to be based upon what we know is ethical and certainly a moral way to treat People. Our ability to see beyond the details to be extracted from such calculations, as would render such Jewish lives to a balance sheet upon a ledger of annihilation which must be guarded against is an imperative.

“..procession started and we saw the line separate into two different directions. It later became clear that those who were on ..right were taken to ..gas chamber ..those who survived were taken to ..other side.” Klara Andorne-Molnar.

All the while Eichmann and his cohort are assigning Hungarian Jewry toward their eventual decimation within Birkenau. There are the trains, and the company’s which managed them, each of which are as accommodating of the very capacity to destroy these Hungarian Jews. Of course, the very detail of the arrival of these Jews within Birkenau, which Hoess has clearly outlined, and for which he has prepared for as programmed in Eichmann’s demand for the end result, is a machinery of industrial destruction never ever envisaged in all of history awaiting them. Nothing of this does anything to recognise the responsibility of Hitler in all of this and not to underscore the role Hitler plays in this very murderous detail, would be irresponsible. We assess the role of these administrators of Hitler’s annihilation, and both Eichmann and Hoess at the coal face of this murderous operation, took their orders from Heinrich Himmler. Himmler we recognise, who in turn would not have crossed the road unless he had been given permission to do so by Hitler himself adds Hitler’s signature to the edicts emanating the length and breadth of this final resolve to destroy what remained of European Jews from within Hungary.

“.. Hungarian mass transports. ..numerous ..gas chambers ..Krematoria V could not handle everyone. ..mostly shot. ..many cases ..living people into ..burning pits.” Henryk Tauber.

However, and whatever the assessment to be made, when it can be rounded down by consensus, Jewish losses can still be severely undermined, despite what Hitler clearly demanded. What is certain, and given the administrative model operated by Eichmann and Hoess within Hungary delivering Jews toward Birkenau, this had merely been an expanded, modernised and streamlined effort in destroying Jews as witnessed at Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibor and Treblinka. While I would fully choose to counter those scurrilous claims, which have sought to lessen the impact of the Jewish loss, I am mindful of its distraction to the certain Catastrophe history can ill afford to ignore. Also, any such effort, which would only distract from the memory we aim to restore, must furnish truth ahead of the speculative distraction seeking to subtract from the 6,000,000 Jewish losses.

“..June 30th. 1944 ..A total of 340,162 Jews ..deported from Zones I ..II ..III with 41,499 from Zone IV.” SS. Brigadefuhrer Edmund Veesenmayer.

All of this effort, so as to diminish the Jewish presence from within The Holocaust, would only more further sully a past we recognise as heinous. In terms of what the Jewish Catastrophe must remain so as to be maintained, we have to choose our own integrity more wisely. To do so, despite the many contentions demanding we accept lesser accounting, we look deeper to ensure No Jew is detained from Memory. It became clear to me, from my book on Hitler’s Belzec that attempts were being made to lessen such impact as the devastation of Jewish losses must present to us. We know that all, like Eichmann, Hoess and Veesenmayer had vested interests in producing heightened assessments of the killings but did Mayors or Head Teachers of Belzec have such a wish. With that in mind, we have to accept that there was a capacity which Birkenau could and would live up to in treating all Jews who disembarked from transports along its ramps.

“..July 2nd. 1944 ..400,000 Jews ..deported from Hungary ..killed in ..gas chambers. ..same fate awaits remaining 350,000 Hungarian Jews.” BBC.

It is clear that widening of information of the slaughter is reaching a broader audience in the World and can no longer be wilfully hidden from view. Here then, do we accept that the evidence the BBC Broadcasts assessed the Hungarian Jewish losses are from the reservoir of only 750,000 Jews of Hungary. The contention might then be placed twofold, and either 550,000 Hungarian Jews have already been lost or there are still 500,000 of Hungarian Jewry still to follow the same fate of their fellow Jews consumed within Birkenau. We must see the disparity reached between 750,000 and 900,000 Hungarian Jews would deliver 150,000 of these Jews to a forgetfulness we cannot afford to accept. If but one Jew is omitted from the detail of The Holocaust then we have failed in our recompense for such crimes as have been delivered to posterity which tarnishes our human consciousness.

“..scholars ..at .. Auschwitz Museum .. established ..total at 4,000,000.” Otto Friedrich.

This numbering failing would further weaken, with the need to prevent distortions, the ability of both deniers and distorters to act out their own bitter hatred toward the fact of the Jewish People. Anything denying such truths, as we acknowledge them with their factual integrity intact, would undermine all-purpose in truth and would be superfluous to all of our History together. History is a science which cannot be summoned to account which does not include all that matters to the very integrity of its scientific approach. History does not deny what Hoess assessed within Birkenau as its capacity to annihilate and should not doubt that this was indeed managed, be it 1,000,000, 2,000,000 or even 4,000,000 Jewish lives lost here.

“..world has .. learnt to know to its horror ..names of concentration and extermination camps .. Birkenau ..Belzec ..Chelmno ..Treblinka ..Sobibor ..Belsen ..Dachau. ..Yet it is not sufficiently comprehended that each and every operation of ..Nazi machinery for ..destruction of Jewish communities throughout Europe Involved .. deliberate massacre of untold numbers of Jews.” Yad Vashem.

It is more and more clear to me, and given the newer consensus all adding to this confusion, we simply cannot afford the assessment made. The World seems content upon accepting it as both accurate, even with untold numbers, and the fuller detail is constrained by just 6,000,000 Slaughtered Jews. It is as if these 6,000,000 Jews, who have been ritually removed from all existence, can ever lessen their impact upon all of humanity. How much more damning then of societal civilization would it be if that assessment recognised that 7,000,000 were the destroyed Jews. From there we can only be certain of the immense loss, for it can even be far more than we recognise, and then we can suggest even more Jews are lost we can never find, and because we cannot know how many Jews were presented to Hitler’s killing and lucrative apparatus.

“..It has ..been established ..some 4,000,000 died in .. Auschwitz alone ..3,000,000 ..perished at Majdanek ” David Rousset.

While this disparity in numbers, it all reflects with certainty the exacting capacity within Birkenau to achieve a murder rate of over 15,000 Slaughtered Jews each and every day. Over this period of the Hungarian resettlement, it does not contradict the Kommandant Hoess’s overall assessment of the Catastrophe for the Jews that was played out here. We can so easily assess that as many as 825,000 Jews, many from across Europe amongst the Hungarian Jews were annihilated during just a 55 day period. It is also important that we side with those like Simon Wiesenthal in each and every assessment and that who would demand we look past the complacency in statistics to realise real People, real Jewish People have been catapulted into oblivion.

“..Amid ..confusion ..consensus ..seems to be 1,500,000. Thus more than 2,000,000 once mourned victims have mysteriously disappeared ..another illustration of ..general ignorance.” Otto Friedrich.

Contemporary consensus then would have us imagine, that we should restrict the confinement of Jewish losses to the 6,000,000. However, we must continually evaluate and ponder over why, if we cannot ever be certain, we are expected not to assess beyond the 6,000,000 figure. Also, and on all too many death totals, particularly as they relate to these Jewish losses, they are invariably wrong on more than a marginal scale. As Hitler’s Worldview is being condensed ever further, his gaze has not shifted from his major priority, The Jewish Question. We know for a fact that there were as many as 900,000 Hungarian Jews, who were still resident within Hungary’s borders by the end of 1943. We know too that many of these Jews would be shot during the intervening period right up until, and after Eichmann arrived to coordinate the Jewish removal. What we cannot then lose sight of is the total disappearance of at least 525,000 of them.

“..After ..war ..Jews would be free to do whatever they wanted. Everything ..on ..Jewish Question ..only for ..wartime ..with ..end of ..war ..Germans would again become good natured ..as in ..past.” Adolf Eichmann.

While many European Jews did not register as practicing Jews, and were not identified as such, there were all too many willing to point them out. This too is true for Polish Jewry, as it was for Hungarian Jews and for many Jews who were betrayed, and from many other European states. Where the Jewish People had sought to integrate, there were too many of those who were eagerly seeking to denounce them. I know too from the many evidence’s of testimony, that without such betrayal, many more Jews would have survived their neighbours treachery. Here too, and within Hungary, as we are now approaching the end of World War II, and it is less than a year after Hitler sought to resolve the issue of the Hungarian Jewish Question for himself, numbers vary as to how many Jews survived. While we fluctuate between what we know and what we surmise as to this survival rate, more Jewish People are being further lost to posterity. Though of these Hungarian Jewish People, such statistic as has been drawn, makes it doubly difficult to reach a reliable assessment which would, should and must bring them toward recollection. I take here from American sources which suggest, that of the approximately 825,000 Hungarian Jews who were identified in the census of 1941, there were barely 255,000 of Hungary’s Jews who survived. It is clear too that the birth rate might add a further 247,000 more Hungarian Jews for Eichmann to attend to. Then, if we align this to what we calculate are the losses to Hungarian Jewry, some 817,000 Jews from Hungary were destroyed, rising to 892,000 of these Jews if we accept the greater and growing assessment of the Jewish presence within Hungary.

The Final Solution is not final to The Jewish Question.

“..we were traveling criss-cross Poland looking for surviving Jews ..we found them. ..sometimes these meetings were so packed with emotion that ..I lack ..words to describe it. .idea that we are really survivors couldn’t sink in yet.” Leah Hammerstein-Silverstein

For me it is quite simple. The Jewish Survivor must speak up and out so that We know why the perpetrators should feel ashamed. For me also, I feel such shame that so many of these Survivors will be the first to be buried in a place their Family may eventually visit. This, while for all too many Survivors, there was nowhere for them to visit. That is certainly true for Jews from throughout Europe, and certainly not in Hungary and especially for those Hungarian Jews with no recognisable place to visit within Birkenau. Yes. The Jews have won. But at too high a cost to all of humanity. We recognise in these names below, the loss to Community which was Jewish from all of Hungary.

Abaujszanti, Albertirsa, Baja, Budapest, Debrecen, Dregelypalank, Eger, Ersekujvar, Gado-Tanya, Gyula, Hatvan, Hejocsaba, Heves, Kiskunhalas, Kisvarda, Kosice, Kunmadaras, Mad, Marmaros, Mezobereny, Mezocsat, Miskolc, Mosonmagyarovar, Munkacs, Nagykanizsa, Nagy-Kapos, Nagy Karoly, Nagy-Varad, Nyíregyhaza, Ozd, Pincehely, Sopron, Szegi, Szentes, Sziget, Szikszo, Tab, Tatabanya, Tiszafured, Trencin, Turkeve, Ujfeherto, and Ungvar.

“..It has become increasingly clear that Hungarian authorities are encouraging ..whitewashing of tragic and criminal episodes in Hungary’s past ..namely ..wartime Hungarian governments’ involvement in ..deportation and murder of hundreds of thousands of its Jewish citizens.” Elie Wiesel.

“..Day in ..day out ..in hundreds of cities throughout Poland ..Russia 1,000’s upon 1,000’s  of Jews are ..systematically murdered according to a preconceived plan ..no one ..takes our part.” Emanuel Ringelblum.

There are places like Auschwitz, the Polin Museum in Warsaw, and the Marek Edelman Centre in Lodz, who are not autonomous. Is there a real champion for the Polish Jewish past if it is to accuse some in Poland of collaboration in the most unique, unparalleled, and unprecedented assault upon a People in all of History? This places ethical demands for the integrity of all of History, particularly with over 1,000 years of Polish Jewish History within Poland, upon institutions being seriously compromised. Any effort to restrain the truth, distort the facts or present a bias of any nature, especially where any Polish collaboration in Hitler’s aims for its Jews is being evidenced. This cannot be rejected, hidden or denied by want of any chosen distortion seeking to exonerate Polish guilt. As Hitler reached for power, Poland was becoming a state on its own, beckoning more and more assaults upon its Jewish population. Between 1918 and 1919, at the birth of the Polish nation, there were vicious Pogroms in Lvov, Pinsk and Vilna and over 100 smaller Jewish Community’s. all of these incidents, which dealt a deadly blow to the Jewish presence within this new Poland afforded Hitler a view which consoled his own hatred for the Jewish People.

“..All of Poland was rife with anti-Semitism.” Rubin Offenbach.

This fledgling State of Poland was founded on November 11th. 1918, with Gabriel Narutowicz as its first President. This leader was assassinated 2 days later. This, amidst the turmoil of the post World War I environment, ensured that the Polish rancour over the Jews grew proportionately greater. At this time there were some 31,900,000 People within Poland’s new borders, and there were approximately 2,500,000 Jews living there, or about 8 per cent of the population. All of these Jews gained Polish citizenship but were threatened immediately by Polish nationalist groups and the Catholic Church. It will be recalled that that Census figures taken throughout Poland in 1921 than recognised the integrity of 2,855,000 Jews present within Poland, a growth rate of 355,000 Jewish People in less than 3 years. All of this can be explained by Jews who saw themselves as Polish first and as non-practicing Jews secondly, and so never registered that heritage, ensuring the accuracy of numbers is misleading.

“..There is a difference between ..German orchestrated systems of terror against ..Poles and ..Jews. ..Germans want to ruin ..Polish state as a state. ..with regard to ..Jews ..they want to devastate ..biological substance of ..Jewish Nation. If ..Germans do not change their method of dealing with ..Jewish population ..if there is no effort at Allied intervention ..whether through reprisals or other action ..barring some unforeseen circumstance ..within 18 months of ..time I left ..Homeland ..Jewish People of Poland will cease to exist.” Jan Karski.

This same day, November 11th. 1918, in Kielce, 4 Jews were Murdered and 100’s were injured as looters tore though the Jewish quarter. Meanwhile, and as Hitler took hold of that version of aggressive, divisive power in German, Austria and Czechoslovakia, Poland looked to Hitler as an example of how it could promote itself as a European power. In that volatile mix, the Jewish People were to be completely torn from the very fabric of their Community’s within Poland, and then from the wider European Continent. As the Jewish People were gradually dispossessed from their homes and were brutally Slaughtered, what had begun as a rhetorical device to gain power turned into a blood thirsty purge of all Jewish presence from amongst its former neighbours. Also, and in Lvov on November 22nd. 1918 Polish Soldiers attacked the Jewish Citizens there.

“..power of ..nazis ..partly based on ..considerable support which anti-Jewish laws received among ..polish population. ..not by chance ..Poland ..chosen as ..place for ..extermination of ..Jews.” Joseph Schupack.

On November 24th. 1918, and by the time the unrest in Lvov had abated, 72 Jews of Lvov lay Dead, having been Murdered. A further 300 Jews were seriously wounded and 3 of Lvov’s Synagogues had been looted and destroyed. An international commission of inquiry was convened in the area. On April 5th. 1919 the Polish Army, under command of General Antoni Listowski Murdered 35 Pinsk Jews. On April 19th. 1919, and in a 3 day orgy of violence against the Jews of Vilna, the Polish Army succeeded in Murdering 67 Jewish Men, Women and Their Children. The looting from Jewish owned businesses continued for several weeks. During June 1919, a Pogrom took place against the Jews of Cracow where 2 Jews were Murdered in the City Market Place. On August 8th. 1919, with the Polish Army at odds with military discipline, it was responsible for the Murders of 37 Jews in Minsk and a further 160 Jews from the surrounding areas.

“..fatalist policy of ..Polish state ..led to such widespread judaization of ..country that ..Jewish population ..Poland exceeded that of ..entire rest of ..world.” Roman Stanislaw Dmowski.

There were people like Roman Stanislaw Dmowski, a founder of the right-wing Endecja, the National Democratic Party or ND, who made it very difficult, and sometimes impossible for Jews to be Polish Jews. His demand for Poland, an exclusively Polish ethnicity where Catholic’s, and only those of ethnic Polish descent were all that mattered. Dmowski looked very much to the example of Hitler to see the way forward, and this was evident in his view of Jewish lives being removed from the state. So it is clearly no exaggeration that some of these advocates of hatred for the Polish Jewish People, and within Poland, sought to administer for all of Polish antisemitism. Since the end of World War I in 1918, antisemitism had been in the ascendency across the globe.

“..I think right now they are not very well known ..mostly because they have been ..surpassed by The Holocaust. In ..interwar period ..they were very well known. 1,100 pogroms killed over 100,000 Jews in a 3 year period.” Jeffrey Veidlinger.

For some years, and even prior to Hitler’s rise to power, this formation took on the mantle of The Greatest Hatred and would provide a collaborative power base from which a total response to a final resolve could be gained. Amongst collaborative states,, armed with these two facets of hatred, antisemitism and the Pogroms that were conducted within Poland and Ukraine, all of this came together on the World stage. In a spectacle so horrifying to humanity, this Slaughter required its own title, and from within this Genocide, Hitler and Polish antisemitism were classified and tightly bound together. Clearly, with Hitler’s wish to fully and finally resolve the issue of the Jewish Question, Jewish life became a tenuous hold upon any future prospect.

On Wednesday April 12th. 1922 “..there can be no compromise ..either victory of the Aryan or annihilation of ..Aryan and ..victory of ..Jew.” Adolf Hitler.

With the removal of a Jewish presence within Germany, Austria, Poland and then all of Europe, the programme was set upon a collison course with the very life blood of Jewish existence. The crucible of hatred for the Jewish People was beginning to focus its central demand around Poland by virtue of the extent of the presence of Polish Jewry there. All of this would add weight to the solution of the final Jewish presence for any Jew within the border’s of Europe. When then added to the fact that Hitler merely saw in non-Jewish Poles a work horse, a sub-division of humanity only capable of serving the needs of the new German Reich, the Polish compliance in what was murderously intended for the Jews, did not save 3 million of these non-Jewish Poles. The tenets of Polish nationalism was bitterly proposed toward Polish Jewry, all of whom were to be seen as an existential threat to the Polish State.

“..it is easy to cope with ..Jewish problem when ..Jews are small in number ..but it is more difficult in Poland where their number is so much larger.” Jozef Pilsudski.

The Jew was to be an internal problem to so called Polish ethnic purity and would be considered for removal to Madagaskar. As such the Jews were designated the as the anti-Pole and faced eventual elimination from the Polish nation. This was being decreed as their physical removal from the state, and otherwise deported away from their former homeland. A series of Pogroms throughout Poland would not elicit any intervening response from government institutions. On September 19th. 1930 Joseph Goebbels threatens that any attempt upon Hitler s life will be met by a  pogrom  against the Jewish Population of Germany. In just these few instances of pogrom and dedications to hatred against Polish Jewry within Poland, and what was immensely troubling to Polish Jewry, all became deadly to too many of the Jews in Poland, Germany and Austria. The establishment of a clarion call to this anti-Jewish rabble was permeating back through the Polish borders and Hitler caught wind of the very deliberate nature of that exact same hatred for the Jews he had already endorsed.

“..Poles proved their deeply entrenched national tenacity ..rebelled frequently ..fought against ..conqueror in wars already lost before they began ..whereas from ..point of view of ..champions of social progress ..chaining of Poland was a sin oppressing ..conscience of Europe.” Yisrael Gutman.

Yisrael Gutman is a Polish Jewish Survivor who identified with Polish needs to raise themselves out of the oppressive demands of neighbours and former foes. However, while most Jews felt this disparity, their awareness within Poland itself was of a Polish Jewry that was an oppressed minority being ritually sanctioned, pogromed and killed. It has to be remembered from this stand point, that such is the integrity within History, its scientific significance must always be protected. We cannot allow untruths, either from bias or distortion to contaminate the arena of any History, an infection of history which will corrupt all of History. Yisrael Gutman here ensures the very soul of our search through The Holocaust is not tainted. This from a Jew, a Polish Jew, a Polish Jewish Survivor. Yisrael is fundamentally basing his place in history objectively, and while scientifically researching the correctness necessary.

“..struggle against ..Jews ..implacable  ..intensifying ..deportations ..mass executions. ..massacres of ..Jews in Ukraine ..nearly complete. In Poland and Germany they want to complete it ..with a system of mass murders.” Abbot Pirro Scavizzi.

It is clear that in all of World History, herr Hitler saw a closely held alignment with his own wishes and those of Poland’s with regards the Jewish People. Eventually, the heavily laden demands for Polish Jewry, and indeed for every Jew in Europe would prove decisive in the emergence of The Holocaust. On December 9th. 1931 Hitler reasserts his intention is a solution which will be final, die Endlosung, for the Jewish People and is revealed in The Munchener Post. Elsewhere, a welcome mat to Hitler was being layered to do all that he wanted to achieve against the Polish Jews, and from within Poland. Poland cannot own History. It must accept the good with the bad, and acknowledge the downright criminal acts conducted against its own Jewish Citizens. What emerges in The Holocaust recognises what was done to Polish Jewry by its non-Jewish citizens.

“..Jewish population in Poland is condemned to death in accordance with ..slogan ..Slaughter all Jews ..no matter how ..war ends.” General Wladyslaw Sikorski.

The act of diplomacy ensures the rights of ones own People and unfortunately Poland handed that right to Hitler to engage in how best he saw fit in destroying 3,650,000 to perhaps as many as 5,774,000 Polish Jews, given a previous assumption that 118,000 increased the growth rate per year in early 1920. On January 26th. 1934 Poland signs 10 year Hitler pact of non-Aggression and on April 14th. 1934 the Oboze Nardovo Radzykalny, a radical antisemitic group, or ONR, a strongly anti-Jewish political grouping in Poland is formed. Between 1935 -1938 Polish further measures against its Jewish Community more closely aligns itself to Hitler’s endlosung policy. However, and seemingly opposing such a nationalist anti-Jewish view was Marshal Josef Piludski, and the Second Polish Republic. This approach, which advocated a multi disciplined, diverse and tolerant society was dogged by widespread antisemitic incidences throughout Poland.

“..Polish youth ..armed with clubs ..sticks ..make pogroms against ..Jews. ..Jews ..beaten and wounded. ..Jewish quarter ..abandoned to toughs and killers.” Chaim Aron Kaplan.

It is clear though that Pilsudski was not as avid an antisemite as Dmowski but was much like all of Poland, antisemitic. On May 12th. 1935, Marshal Jozef Pilsudski died and as the defender of Jews in Poland, and a wider critic of antisemitism, it is clear after his death, the gloves of tolerance came off and Pogroms swept Poland like a torrent. Continued attacks upon Jewish integrity sweeps through Poland with State, Church coordinating their belligerence toward the Jewish Community. When Polish Church and State conform to antisemitic hatred, more than 3,450,000 Polish Jews will be forced into oblivion. The Polish Jews now felt that their major protector, who in many ways had been Pilsudski was taken from them. The military in charge then were to become complicit in all that raged against the Jews, and were unable, incapable or more accepting of the flow of virulent and violent hatred toward Polish Jewry.

“..when ..heads of ..major nations in ..world faced ..new Germany with cool reserve and considerable suspicion ..Catholic Church ..greatest moral power on earth ..through ..Concordat expressed its confidence in ..new German government.” Guenter Lewy.

The regime which emerged after Piludski, found favour with Hitler’s continuing amplification of anti-Jewish sentiment. Poland , for its part, enacted laws to refute any Jewish status within Poland and it activated statutes which limited the Jewish presence to mere subservience. Poland then restricted Jewish businesses to vassals of Polish interest and all manner of Laws, which could well have been adopted straight from the tenets of the Nuremberg Race Laws, were adapted and engineered to specifically deny any Jewish hegemony or reliance upon the state.

Polish Jewish Boycotts were as broad as they were widespread,

Polish Jewish Banks were sequestered?

Polish Jewish Students could be easily removed from Schools, Colleges, Universities,

Polish Jewish Rituals pertaining to Religious observances were outlawed,

Polish Jewish ritual slaughter was prohibited.

The corrupted values of human decency are evident wherever the Polish and European Jews are confronted by what Hitler pointed to. It is essential also to remember that what originated in Germany, was conducted throughout all of Europe, more particularly within Poland. This is all a confrontation with every fibre of humanity. That such an assault as has never been witnessed before, and in all of history, should warn us of confusing the hatred of national socialism. The strength of any Nation belongs to the body of the People and if it espouses an inward looking and selfish consideration, it goes beyond the bounds of moral efficacy. All of the People, and where this equates to the values of a Socialism which recognises an equanimity which belongs to All and not just to the few, we do not separate out any People by any measure or design.

“..more I think of it ..more it appears that ..intelligent ..just and ..really good people who come after us will find it hard to understand how this could have happened ..to comprehend how ..very idea of murder ..mass murder ..could begin in ..dark recesses and convulsions of ..brain of an ordinary human being like millions of others.” Anatoli Kuznetsov.

The Jewish People are no less a component part of any and all communities they remain equal within, and must be given their right to humanity’s civilising essential. We are all for each other and each of us uphold all the rights of the other so as not to engender a threat to anyone. We must always recognise what Hitler’s Nazism proposed for the Jewish People, and this just did not stop with the Jewish People. It did not cease with killing Jews. It recognised the removal of every facet of opposition to an elitism that served a corrupted model of what corrupts all of human nature. In line with this, and on June 8th. 1935 there was a Pogrom in Grodno, Poland against its Jewish Community. There were 3 Jews Murdered, amongst them were Gedaliah Becher and Yisrael Berzowski. Also, Shlomo Pozniak was severely injured and along with Leib Buchinsky, both were put into hospital.

“..we will destroy Jewish breed. They will disappear through hunger and want.  ..polish people will be grateful ..Jewish Question only a cemetery will remain.” Dr. Ludwig Fischer.

The future Nazi Warsaw Governor was assured by what Poland was achieving with its Jews and was confident it would be acceptable to all of Polish society what would be visited upon the Jewish People of Poland. All told, between 40 to 50 Grodno Jews were injured  and damage was done to some 300 Jewish properties. On February 29th. 1936, Cardinal Hlond, the Catholic primate of all Poland issued a pastoral letter calling for discriminatory measures against the Jewish People. This incites a series of coordinated assaults on Jews across Poland. On March 9th. 1936, a Pogrom in Przytyk sees 2 Jews Murdered and on April 30th. 1936 the ONR, the Oboze Nardovo Radzykalny, attacked 5 Jews returning from Warsaw to their homes in Minsk-Mazowiecki. Then, and on June 1st. 1936 in Minsk-Mazowiecki there was a Pogrom and on June 30th. 1936 the Pogrom in Myslenice when 2 Jews were Murdered. On March 3rd. 1937, as the Polish government seeks to revoke Citizenship of Polish Jews in Germany, on May 13th. 1937 the Jews of Brest-Litovsk were attacked by locals and police who looted, robbed and beat up the local Jews and the Jewish store owners and their workers.

On June 16th. 1937 “..No place for Jews in Poland.” General Lucjan Zieligowski.

During August 1937 there are 350 incidents of physical assaults against Jews recorded in this month within Poland. On December 14th. 1937 Poland considers its territorial solution for its Jewish Community and The Madagaskar Plan is first muted. At this time we perhaps recognise why, while in 1938 alone, 40% of all Property in Warsaw was Jewish owned with 40% of all non-Jewish Poles employed in Jewish owned industrial concerns. 80% of the skilled workforce in Poland was Jewish, and a certain non-Jewish resentment kept resurfacing.

“ ..at ..reunion ..Austria with ..German Reich ..Heydrich gave ..order ..set ..Jewish emigration in motion from Vienna.” Adolf Eichmann.

On March 5th. 1938, Adolf Eichmann, now in charge of forced Jewish emigration was given charge, by Reinhard Heydrich, of what both France and Poland had been negotiating. This concerted effort would amount to the physical removal of all Jews from both Countries and toward a foreign reservoir and this, the Madagascar Plan was given momentum. On April 5th. 1938 there were more anti-Jewish riots across Poland. On April 15th. 1938 in Dabrowa-Tarnowska, Poland sees Jews Murdered in an anti-Jewish Pogrom. On April 29th. 1938 in Vilna, again Poland’s Jews are Murdered in an anti-Jewish Pogrom. On October 6th. 1938 Poland now revokes Polish Passports for its Jews living in Germany and on October 28th. 1938 17,000 Polish Jews are placed in limbo, a stateless, pushed across the German border, and Zbaszyn becomes the holding pen for 8,000 Polish Jews in Poland, not wanted by Poland.

“..horrible sight ..I encountered during ..trip was a visit to a German internment camp near Gotha. ..things I saw beggar description. While I was touring ..camp I encountered ..3 men who had been inmates and by one ruse or another had made their escape. I interviewed them through an interpreter. ..visual evidence and ..verbal testimony of starvation ..cruelty and bestiality were so overpowering as to leave me ..sick. In one room ..where they were piled up 20 ..30 naked men ..killed by starvation ..George Patton would not even enter. He said that he would get sick if he did so. I made ..visit deliberately ..in order to be in a position to give first hand evidence of these things if ever ..in ..future ..there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to propaganda.” General Dwight David Eisenhower.

On November 9th. 1938, widespread damage, looting and Murder was delivered to the Jews of Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland. These Kristallnacht Pogroms asserted themselves upon the Jewish People, and paved the way toward what the World would assent to. This Night of Broken Glass, which delivered the term ‘Kristallnacht’, was clearly orchestrated from within Hitler’s gaze, and with some 267 synagogues that are ransacked and destroyed, with 7,500 Jewish Shops looted, with over 50,000 Jews removed to Concentration Camps at Dachau, Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen and with over 240 Jews who are Murdered. By 1939 the Polish Jewish Community had ranged between 3,650,000 and any former assessment of 5,774,000 Jewish People.

“..Government and with it ..great majority of ..German people ..are very conscious of ..appalling suffering brought to ..Jews in Germany and ..occupied territories. ..German people in their overwhelming majority ..disgusted by ..crimes perpetrated against ..Jews. ..in ..name of ..German people appalling crimes were committed ..that demand from us moral and material reparation ..not only as far as damages to ..individual ..but ..with regard to Jewish property.” Konrad Adenauer.

As Poland first became a Republic, the Jewish People were unaware of their position to be in this new state. Then, and when in August 1939, there was a mass conscription, and mobilization of the Military, so such discriminatory effort was placed before the Polish Jews, who were already serving in the Polish Military. Those Jews who then enlisted or who were conscripted, it seems, were no different from non-Jewish Poles. Here too it becomes clear, and from within Poland, that it was easy to identify the Polish Jew as neighbours knew who they were, where they lived and where they worked. This would play neatly into the hands of Hitler’s killing machinery as identification was key to success within Poland. It is clear also that all which was Jewish owned would not be retained by Polish Jews. Everything which was jealously coveted and demanded by former neighbours would not be bargained over.

“..Relief work doesn’t solve ..problem ..it only keeps people going a little while. ..people have to die anyway. It lengthens suffering ..but cannot save them. It remains a proven fact that ..people fed in ..soup kitchens will all die if they eat nothing but ..soup supplied and ..dry rationed bread. ..question thus arises whether it would not serve ..purpose better to reserve ..available money for selected individuals ..for those who are socially productive ..for ..intellectual elite ..etc. But. ..why should one pronounce judgment on artisans ..labourers and other useful persons. Only ..ghetto and ..war have turned them into non people ..into scrap ..into human dregs ..candidates for mass graves. There is left a tragic dilemma. What shall one do. Shall one ..hand out ..food ..with little spoons to everybody ..and then no one will live ..or in generous handfuls to just a few.” Emanuel Ringelblum.

Bargains with living had to be made and for some Jews, the consideration of who those Jews should be was being made. Polish Pogroms though, secured much in the way of Jewish goods, livestock, even homes and lands for any of those Poles merely willing to steal them. Whereas within Hitler’s view, he saw all Jewish property, Wealth and even impoverished possessions as Germany’s right to acquire. As the German’s planned to invade Poland, their vision of the Hasidic Jew was the image Hitler projected and protested most vociferously about. But such was not his view of a cultured way of life, and it most certainly could not insulate them from the ravages to be inflicted upon all Polish Jews. Those most easily identified, or not as the case may be, were at the mercy of all Poles who knew them as Neighbours, Colleagues, Employers, Teachers, Tutors, Legal Advisers or Medics.

“..This report tells ..story of ..victims of Auschwitz ..not with ..purpose of opening old wounds ..but of passing it on as a legacy for us Jews and for all mankind. It will fulfil its purpose only if it helps teach us ..to become better human beings ..to truly love our neighbours ..and to work toward ..eradication of brutality from ..face of ..Earth.” Lucie Adelsberger.

With 3,650,000 or 5,774,000 Polish Jews added to an equation, which amounted to total annihilation of all of these Polish Jews, Poland would become the blood stained cemetery of as few as 4,500,000 Jews of Europe, and vastly more than this. This hate filled posture became a catalyst for World War II and within that, 6,000,000 and more Jews were Slaughtered. As it became conceived of, perceived as and enacted upon, The Final Solution of The Jewish Question was most dedicated to enactment within Poland. For Poland’s 3,650,000 to 5,774,000 Polish Jews, this sets the scene for a collaborative effort which colluded in Hitlers demand for those more than 3,450,000 Polish Jews who were eventually Slaughtered. Continually, and throughout Poland, there were Pogroms in 100’s of Shtetl, Villages and Towns, targeting those Jews displaced from home, country and then life.

“..Jews await death and ..you come across people lying at ..street corner ..frozen ..begging. Almost daily people are falling dead or unconscious in ..middle of ..street. It no longer makes so direct an impression. Child in arms ..a mother begs ..Child appears dead.” Emanuel Ringelblum.

In what has been often referred to, and by such as Emanuel Ringelblum, the Jews of Poland were the dead in waiting, as Hitler clearly knew. For Jews everywhere, they were surviving in the antechamber of the extermination process. In regions throughout Poland we can know that of the over 100 Pogroms, in which Jews were murdered, all of Poland were a witness to what would emerge once Hitler’s formative Einsatz grew into its stride. In effect also, the Jews in all of Europe were under direct threat and unsafe, and throughout Poland, Polish Jews were under constant fear of Pogroms and also their denouncing. The neighbourly essence of a supposedly christian Country was abandoned in favour of so much larceny.

“..For many parts of ..Polish society it is very difficult ..since for decades they were victims themselves ..of ..Nazis. ..countries around Poland ..Ukraine ..Baltic States ..same level of public debate about their relationship with their own Jewish minority.” Jan Grabowski.

Polish locals did not always even wait for the Jews to be murdered to remove everything of any worth from them. If then we are to use such thefts as a template for a national effort, no Jew anywhere within Poland, given no right to choose, also had no right to what was still theirs up till the doors of extinction swallowed them up. The consuming threat from Hitler’s legions was clearly exacerbated by the murderous and treacherous involvement of so many former neighbours and even associates who betrayed every facet of human compassion. This all resounds with such complicit a resolve as to suggest an adherence to Hitler’s fuller intention. But even if this was not a complicitly collusive approach, it met the criteria of what Hitler sought from collaboration.

“..convinced ..better in Germany than ..Poland ..prisoners ..transported to our Ghetto had come from Poland. They told us there were extermination camps there. ..did not want to believe such a thing.” Zev Birger.

Hitler considered the Polish people as slaves and as a lesser nation than those he considered were the Aryan peoples. As such, in the context of Hitler’s racial policy,  the Jews were the ultimate target which never allowed any others to rest upon their laurels. By the time Hitler invaded Poland, September 1st. 1939, 400,000 Polish Jews had escaped Poland, leaving behind either 3,250,000 or even 5,374,000 of Poland’s Jews. As the World became reconciled once more to a World War II, some 70,000 Polish Officers and Soldiers were dead and over 130,000 lay wounded. The German’s had captured over 300,000 Polish Prisoners of War and claimed Poland as part of Hitler’s World view.

“..I had worked for 2 months and then had to flee ..because one of ..foreigners ..a Pole who knew me ..had probably struck a deal with ..Gestapo and threatened to reveal my identity.” Alter Feinsilber.

Within Poland now, the immediate enforcement of rationing saw German entitlement halved for non-Jewish poles and halved again for Jewish Poles. 2,000 calories per day for Germans became 1,000 calories per day for non-Jewish poles and 500 calories per day for Polish Jews, if that. For non-Jewish Poles, they would be the Labour force of the Reich and subsequently they die from exposure to that demand, as a matter of course. As this was being realised, all of European Jewry would be Hitler’s target for complete annihilation. While non-Jewish Poles would be murdered selectively, all of Polish Jewry would be Murdered, collectively and totally. Nazi officials were quick to pronounce sentence and the Nazi Warsaw Governor, Ludwig Fischer would procure every possible condition that would deliver as many Jews as was possible toward oblivion. This was clearly attested to in the Polish press, with the Gazeta Polska detailing the bread rations specific to a deadly intention for the Jewish People.

“..Jews receive half ..food which ..poles receive. ..poles receive grams of bread daily ..Jews receive 100 grams ..every other day.” Dr. Witold Majewski.

In these days of struggle for Polish Jewry, the most destructive prewar Pogroms, which occurred in towns like Czestochowa, Minsk-Mazowiecki, and Przytyk, these Towns were all located in central, and not to Eastern Poland. The forced belief was that most of the Pogroms, and where some would credit them being outraged, was to remove such instances and carnage away from the vastly Polish controlled areas. Also, and for those Jewish Army personnel who were captured during the first phases of World War II, they were detained separately into German controlled areas. These areas would be formed into the Ghettos, Labour Camps and way stations for the future depositing of all Polish Jews into the Death Camps.

“..In ..uniform of ..Polish policeman I visited ..sorting camp near Belzec.” Jan Karski.

This truly is what the Jewish People must content with, with regard to the losses incurred in these established extermination centres for their People. In particular, this aspect of The Holocaust is open to the conjecture of degree, capacity and even totality of the destruction within. As the World will come to know the names of:

I. Belzec where between 500,000 and 1,800,000 Jews were Slaughtered;

II. Treblinka where between 700,000 and 1,500,000 Jews were Slaughtered;

III. Sobibor where between 225,000 and 350,000 Jews were Slaughtered;

IV. Majdanek where between 120,000 and 500,000 Jews were Slaughtered;

V. Birkenau where between 1,100,000 and 3,000,000 Jews were Slaughtered, and this is including Auschwitz; and

VI. Chelmno where between 152,000 and 1,300,097 Jews were Slaughtered.

“..Bitterness ..pain fill ..Children’s recollections of those poles who hunted them ..betrayed them ..handed them to ..common enemy ..of cruelties perpetrated by other children ..of every human ignominy. ..there are few such testimonies ..reason ..simple ..painful ..children ..are not here to record their stories.” Maria Hochberg-Marianska.

This allows for the capacity of these Death Camps, which extinguished the existence of at least 2,797,000 Jews Slaughtered amongst them or 8,450,097 if all assessments are agreed to. What this ensures though, is a fundamental loss to the very scientific approach to History we demand, and an empty space that is possibly filled with 5,653,097 Slaughtered Jews, betrayed by our failing oversight. to secure their loss to posterity. Also, and for Ghettos like Baranovichi, Bedzin, Czestochowa, Kielce, Lida, Lodz, Nowy-Sacz, Piaski, Pinsk, Radom, Rzeszow, Siedliscze, Slonim, Sosnowiec, Stryj, Tarnow, Tarnopol, Tomaszow-Mazowiecki, Tuczyn, Warsaw, and Zdunska-Wola, these containment centres confined the vastness of Jewish existence within Poland. Once the Ghetto was recognised as the tool of Hitler’s grand plan, it was far too late for Jewish existence to ever fully appreciate its peril.

“..new death house provides for ..liquidation of 8,000 to 10,000 victims. If we consider ..right now 2,000,000 murdered Jews ..greater part of Polish Jewry  ..already buried in ..area of Treblinka ..disturbing question arises ..for whom do ..SS men intend that new house of death.” Jacob Apenszlak.

What we must always remember too, and from the many dozen’s of Ghettos that were in existence within Poland is the truth that the Polish People observed everything that was happening to the Jews in their vicinity. When Lodz became Poland s largest Jewish community, this is the case after Treblinka had resettled the Jewish Community of Warsaw, in such a short journey that was witnessed by all of Poland’s community’s between transportation and resettlement. This was largely true in all areas featured around all 6 Death Camps and this is whether Poland physically witnessed it or were informed through an acknowledgement made by those who had. In June 1941 the Szczuczyn Pogrom was conducted by non-Jewish Poles against their former neighbours. In Wasosz, a Pogrom was carried out by Poles on July 5th. 1941. On July 7th. 1941 in Radzilow, there was a Pogrom against local Jews made by local Poles.

“..Jews must adjust themselves to all conditions ..we shall endeavour to create such conditions for them as will make ..adjustment difficult.” Dr. Ludwig Fischer.

On July 10th. 1941, an anti-Jewish Pogrom took place in Jedwabne, and was amongst over 20 such local attacks upon Polish Jews by their Gentile neighbours. In Lvov, yet another Pogrom was instigated by the German security forces and was assisted by Ukrainians. This lasted from June 30th. until July 2nd. 1941, All told. More than 1,600 Jedwabne Jews were Murdered, most at the hands of an Einsatz kommando. Also, there were 340 Jewish Men, Women and Their Children who were Burned to Death in a local Barn at the hands of their non-Jewish neighbours. Then again a further Pogrom in Lvov was held from July 25th. until July 29th. 1941 and the Tykocin Pogrom was instigated by forces from Einsatzgruppe B on August 25th. 1941, and non-Jewish Poles were eager participants.

“..September 1941. ..most ..Jews in Romania ..knew about ..atrocities ..against Jews In Poland ..but ..no one believed anything would happen to us. ..Jews of Romania ..no different from ..Hungarian ..French ..Czechoslovak or other European Jews. Everyone was in denial.” Felicia Carmelly.

It was a sad fact that the evidences of what was being enacted within Poland was more widespread tat we imagined. True too was the very fact, which implicated all of those with Poland, Civilians, Church, those representing the Polih government in hiding, all knew of the progress of the assault upon the integrity of Polish Jewry. That the Pogrom was perpetually wielded against Polish Jews by non-Jewish Poles, all added to the efficiency of Hitler’s demands within Poland for 1,000,000’s of Polish Jewry.

“..In November and December 1941 began ..slaughter of Jews in ..Warthegau. ..slaughter ..by means of gas. ..a special gas chamber car ..used ..90 people ..loaded at one time. ..victims buried ..Lubartow Forest. ..1,000 ..gassed daily. In Chelmno ..November 1941  to March 1942 all ..Jews from Kolo ..Dab ..Bugaj  ..Izbica 5,000 in all ..with 35,000 from Lodz Ghetto and a number of Gypsies ..gassed.” Szmul Zygielbojm.

Now unless we are going to revise the words of such a distinguished witness, and a Polish scholar whose testimony is clear, Poland knew full well what places like Belzec meant for the Jews of Poland.

On Thursday October 15th. 1942 “..camp ..located near ..town ..Belzec ..well known all over Poland from ..tales of horror ..circulated about it.” Jan Karski.

On Friday November 5th. 1942 the peasants in within Siedliscze, would see to it that their Jews, still clinging to life would forfeit that effort. They gathered together and with scythes in hand, and in anticipation of the day’s roundup of their neighbours who were Jews, and for which they took their scythes to, they would be paid for each Jew caught and even Murdered. Of the many neighbours who saw in a Jewish return both surprise and incredulity, there was alarm too and even shock which bordered upon a substantial regret. For written into the refrain:

                              ‘we thought many yids would not survive’

Jews would not be allowed to survive.

Friday November 5th. 1942 “..Village of Siedliska. ..peasants were buying scythes. ..raid. ..against ..Jews.” Stanislaw Zeminski.

As 1942 faded, the majority of the Jews of the following Ghetto’s had been murdered, in excess of 80% of their Total, and that was even before all of the death camps had become fully operational:-

Cracow                37,000 Jews were transported to Belzec.

Lublin                   23,000 Jews were transported to Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka.

Lvov                      161,500 Jews were transported to Belzec.

Radom                29,000 Jews were transported to Belzec and Treblinka.

Warsaw               50,000 Jews were transported to Treblinka.

“..I didn’t want to go back to Poland. Poles were killing a lot of Jews who returned to claim property ..homes ..other possessions. My Parents were dead. There was nothing to go back to.” Bianca Lerner.

Bianca’s Father was Murdered in a Ghetto while her Mother was transported to Treblinka and resettled there. On January 18th. 1943, and with the resumption of the resettlement of 6,000 of the Warsaw Ghetto s Jews, these are all murdered at Treblinka. However, as the Warsaw Ghetto was surrounded for the 2nd. Liquidation, the Jewish fight was brought to the Nazi’s at x4 Battle Group Barricades and Jewish Resistance plans to disrupt all future ‘resettlement’ operations begins. a further 4,500 Jews were deported and some 1,200 more Jews were Murdered in situ, after Resisting. This is the 1st. Jewish Fighting Resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto and the Resistance lasts for 4 days, till the very day it had earlier proposed for an Uprising.

On January 21st. 1943, the  January Aktion  Resistance of the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto comes to a close.

“..Saturday March 13th. 1943 ..Dear Sirs ..coming days are likely to see ..end of ..Jews in Warsaw. Are we ready. From a material point of view it is very bad. Of ..49 weapons that have been allocated to us only 36 can be used ..for lack of ammunition. Our position as regards arms has worsened after ..many operations of ..past few weeks ..during which much ammunition was used. At ..present moment there are no more than 10 bullets for each weapon. This is a catastrophic situation. Please inform ..authorities in our name that if large scale help does not arrive immediately ..we shall look on it as indifference on ..part of ..representatives and ..authorities to ..fate of ..Jews of Warsaw. ..allocation of weapons without ammunition is a cynical mockery of our fate ..and confirms ..assumption that ..poison of antisemitism continues to pervade ..leading circles in Poland ..despite ..cruel and tragic experiences of ..past 3 years. It is not our intention to persuade anybody concerning our willingness and ability to fight. Since January 18th. Jews of Warsaw have been in a state of continuous struggle with ..invader and his servants. Anyone who denies this or casts doubt upon it ..is nothing but a deliberate antisemite. We do not expect only understanding from ..authorities and ..delegatura but also that they should consider ..murder of 1,000,000’s of Jews ..who are Polish Citizens ..to be ..main problem of our current life. We regret most deeply that it is not possible for us to make direct contact with ..Allied governments ..with ..Polish Government and ..Jewish organizations abroad in order to inform them about our situation and ..attitude towards us on ..part of ..Polish authorities and public. ..We request that you take ..necessary steps immediately with ..Army Authorities and Government Representatives. We request that you read them this letter and demand immediately at least 100 grenades ..50 revolvers ..10 rifles and several 1,000 bullets of various diameters. I am prepared to submit within two days accurate plans of our positions ..with maps ..so that there need be no doubt whatsoever concerning ..necessity of ..supply of arms. Commander ..Jewish Fighting Organization.” Mordechai Anielewicz.

It is an understatement for the Polish underground to not only conclude that over 3,200,000 of Poland’s Jews have been effectively Murdered, knowing too the order of that destruction in places like Auschwitz, Belzec, Birkenau, Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibor and Treblinka but who also was the Perpetrator, the Participator and the willing, complicit, duplicitous collaborator in the scale of the atrocity waged against their own Jewish Citizens.

Tuesday March 23rd. 1943 “..Insofar as ..can be ascertained ..fate of ..Jews has undergone a further deterioration. Considering barely several hundred thousand Jews have remained out of 3,500,000 one has a fair insight concerning ..scale of atrocities ..perpetrated.” Polish Underground. 

On April 17th. 1943 the fuller Jewish Warsaw Ghetto Uprising begins with many of those remnants of Warsaw’s Jews, 70,000 Jews still alive. SS Obergruppenfuhrer Jurgen Stroop arrives in the Warsaw Ghetto and the eventual destruction of all Jewish Resistance here within the Ghetto is underway! Rabbi Zusia Friedman pleads his case that God would Not allow the Jews of Warsaw, Israel and indeed of Poland to be vanquished as he still urged restraint.

“..I believe in God and in miracles. God would not permit ..decimation of Israel ..his people. We must wait and ..miracle will come.” Rabbi Zusia Friedman.

On April 22nd. 1943 The Jewish Telegraphic Agency relays the news of the Jewish Warsaw Ghetto  Revolt, it obtained from a report in Stockholm.

“..In April 1943 news reached us about ..Uprising in ..Warsaw Ghetto. How we rejoiced and how proud we were of them! How we longed to have ..opportunity to do ..same! But ..in ..Lodz Ghetto nothing could be done because of our total isolation from ..outside world ..although there was talk of it.” Esther Brunstein.

On Friday April 23rd. 1943, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency delivered the news of the Jewish Warsaw Ghetto Uprising relaying the report from Stockholm with the headline:

Nazis Start Mass Execution of Warsaw Jews on Passover. Victims Broadcast S.O.S.

On Thursday April 29th. 1943 “..strength of ..German military and police machine ..being weakened daily.  This strength broke near Stalingrad ..had to retreat from Tunis now stands powerless before a group of Jews who defend themselves in ..ghetto.” Polska Underground Newspaper.

On April 29th. 1943 it is clear from the Polish Underground Newspaper report that the struggle for the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising is a stand being made by the Jews with little assistance delivered by the Poles outside.

Wednesday May 5th. 1943 “..In Poland there were ..about 4,500,000 Jews ..there remain ..only 100,000. ..Warsaw Ghetto containing ..650,000 ..only 20,000 ..25,000 Jews there. ..majority killed. ..Special death camps at Lublin (Majdanek) ..Treblinka near Brest-Litovsk. ..several hundred ..jammed into large rooms ..where they die by gassing.” Vatican Memo.

On May 5th. 1943 it is obvious that wen the Vatican produces a Memo, which clearly acknowledges what it knows of the fate of more than 4,400,000 Jews of Poland. The acknowledgement of at least two of th Death Camps in Poland is a certainty, the rabbit line from Church to the Vatican is in operation. Here, in its failure to act more decisively is a moral abandonment of one of its key components in Christian belief.

“..In Majdanek and everywhere in Poland. They gave what is ..best in humanity. I have it all ..in my soul ..letters written to me by many. Everything is possible ..in spite of other manifestations. I ..myself have never experienced any animosity toward me and what I represent. There is always ..goodwill and hope.” Halina Birenbaum.

On May 8th. 1943, in the Warsaw Ghetto, the Headquarters of Jewish Resistance, 18 Mila Street, is surrounded and liquidated. Mordechai Anielewicz and 97 Resistance Fighters Died that Day with their refusal to succumb to the Nazi brutality. This point in time will forever show the way toward all future Jewish Persistence and Resistance! Just 2 managed to Survive while more than 50,000 Warsaw Jews having been murdered in recent months. On May 10th, 1943, the Warsaw Ghetto Jewish Uprising came to an end and The Jewish Warsaw Ghetto was reduced to a pile of rubble which stood about 3 storey’s high. It would be week before Stroop could declare Warsaw was ‘Junderein’ and we will see 22,000 of these Jews being transported to Majdanek.

On Tuesday May 11th. 1943 “..responsibility for ..crime of ..murder of ..whole Jewish nationality in Poland rests first of all on those who are carrying it out ..but indirectly it falls also upon ..whole of humanity ..peoples of ..Allied nations and on their governments ..who up to this day have not taken any real steps to halt this crime. By looking on passively upon this murder of defenceless millions tortured children ..women and men they have become partners to ..responsibility…My friends in ..Warsaw ghetto fell. ..I did not succeed in dying ..same way or ..with them. ..I  belong to them and ..mass graves there.” Shmuel Zygielbojm.

In the meantime, what we are then to learn from the tenuous position of those Polish Jews striving to survive in, the presence of each of the 6 Death Camps in Poland, is to be  underscored by those within the Polish Foreign Affairs Office, as Roman Knoll articulates. It was clear that non-Jewish Poles held with the deepest of regret the fact that the Polish Jews, albeit barely too few of them, did indeed Survive.

In August 1943 “..return of ..Jews to their jobs and workshops is ..out of ..question ..even if ..number of Jews is greatly reduced. ..non-Jewish population has filled their places in ..towns ..cities ..in much of Poland this is a fundamental change ..final in character. ..return of masses of Jews would be perceived not as an act of restitution ..but as an invasion against which they would have to defend themselves ..even by physical means.” Roman Knoll.

Throughout the period of turmoil and desolation, when 1,000,000’s of Polish Jews were being extracted from life, no year gave pause to the terrors mounted upon these by non-Jewish Poles seeking to extend their own personal influence within Poland. In 1944, as Allied victory seemed all but assured, the shift of emphasis for Hitler’s murder programme shifted away from Poland and toward Hungary, the largest Jewish Community still in existence. In the meantime, the Death Camps were closed, except Birkenau, with Majdanek and even Chelmno opening to occasion mass Slaughters of Jews, but for Poland, it was still keen to settle its debt with Jewish existence. On January 25th. 1944 there were about 100,000 Polish Jews who still remained alive in Poland. This represents 3,400,000 of the lesser estimate of Polish Jews who have been Murdered within a 3 year period.

“..I spoke with my Cousin who survived ..massacre of ..Jews in Sokoly ..Poland ..that night that Tokele was murdered. My cousin was fortunate as having gone to get some hot water to wash ..Sabbath dishes. While out fetching hot water ..Yaffe ..my Cousin ..saw her nephew Shaikie go to visit ..Gritzik house to see ..rest of ..family and that’s ..last time she saw him alive.” Avigdor Ben-Dov.

On February 17th. 1945 in Sokoly, local poles murdered 7 Jewish Survivors in a localised Pogrom and secured for Hitler a further addition to his final aim. That said, is this not a collaboration with the spirit of Hitler’s Final Solution. On August 11th. 1945 the Cracow pogrom, with the Kupa Synagogue burned down, at which point there remained 50,000 hardy souls, Jewish Survivors who floundered between a wish for their home and a need for any home. On March 8th. 1946 Poland decreed Jewish Restitution claims for Property, Homes and Possessions was to be made by those Jews who had been Slaughtered, and all of this by the end of 1947. However, at the end of this period, a year’s extension is granted for the ashes of Polish Jewish to present themselves.

“..murders of Survivors right after ..War ..intimidated many who might have sought their property back. Fearing for their lives ..many made no attempt to retrieve their assets.” Naphtali Lavie.

On July 4th. 1946 polish soldiers, polish police officers and polish non-Jewish civilians Murdered 42 Polish Jews and more than 40 other Polish Jews were wounded in Kielce. There was still the proposition of acquiring all that once was owned by 3,650,000 Polish Jews or even 5,774,000 Polish Jews. Poland was acutely aware of Hitler’s final solution for the Jews, and at an early stage, but the greed that overcame the larceny of Polish intention, removed so many rights once taken away from Polish Jewry. Such too was the clamour to secure as much of this Polish Jewish acquisition, edicts were enacted and so written that only Surviving Polish Jews, who could prove their Polish status would reclaim what the Polish State was busy acquiring.

“..One can safely assume that all ..candlesticks ..quilts found anywhere in rural Poland today were once Jewish possessions.” Joseph Schupack.

After the War, much of Poland was filled with fear for the Polish Jews and the growing option opened to the vast majority of them was to stay and fight or flee from all they had endured. For all too long, the fight for survival had worn the Jewish Spirit and they were literally frazzled by their very existence. In truth, they saw no welcome within Poland to secure them, to anchor them to the former status which was forever denying them, or even to give them some form of hope that they could cling to. On December 31st. 1948 further Polish Measures are brought to bear to ensure that the Polish Jews cannot reclaim what Polish Jews have been deprived of.

“..We can have no doubt that here in Jedwabne Polish citizens were killed at  ..hands of fellow citizens.” President Aleksander Kwasniewski.

For me, to link all the detail of History to that History, we cannot deflect from what some would be unwilling to accept in their History. Within Poland, it would be better placed, evaluating what it failed to do to save 3,450,000 of its own Jews, all Murdered because they were Jews. For Poland, which has now sought to disown everything Hitler established in Poland, and for what Polish citizens engaged in with regard to the Slaughter of its Jewish Community, this will prove both disingenuous to their own History and toward all of History. It is clear though, that except for what has proved lucrative to the non-Jewish Poles, the Destruction of 3,450,000 of their own Polish Jews delivered for them riches they could never have gained with their previous efforts.

“..I ..never knew ..total number ..I have nothing to help me make an estimate. ..I ..remember ..figure in ..larger actions ..repeated to me by Eichmann or his deputies. ..I ..no longer remember ..figures for ..smaller actions ..insignificant in comparison with ..numbers given. I regard ..total of 2,500,000 ..far too high. ..Auschwitz had limits to its destructive possibilities ..Upper Silesia ..Polish territory under German rule 250,000 Germany ..Theresienstadt 100,000 Holland 95,000 Belgium 20,000 France 110,000 Greece 65,000 Hungary 400,000 Slovakia 90,000.” SS Obersturmbannfuhrer Rudolf Hoess.

In 1973 it is clear too, that when Lucjan Dobroszycki had compiled and analysed the records of anti-Jewish post War reports, anti-Jewish hatred had not ended with Hitler’s final resolve. From amongst the clutter of news reports Lucjan Dobroszycki assessed that in the 2 year period between September 1944 and September 1946 there were 115 differing communities where more than 300 Jews had been killed by their non-Jewish Neighbours. What is certain though, and for those like Hoess who knew all too well how many Jews he had processed through the extermination machinery in Birkenau, it is clear he sought to sway and connive in History, and away from the truth.

“..I wrote ..truth. There were Poles who were involved in The Holocaust. They betrayed their Jewish neighbours and sometimes even killed them. That s a fact. It s stupid that I should have to discuss this with ..police and that someone could be offended by it. How can one be offended by ..truth.”  Katarzyna Markusz.

In 2014 the problems for the Polish Jewish Survivor, and in a greater level of Polish betrayal, their descendants, these prewar Polish Jews, looking back became an obvious demand for so many. While many of the Survivors sought to leave this past behind, Poland became a wish to explore a past that had belonged to their Parents or Family members. There has been an almost nostalgic wish for investigating what had once been, what had been lost, what could be retrieved and the investigations of why their Parents resented, even hated their Polish pasts. In many respects, Polish Jewry was being reborn, albeit from many distances and only by descendants of Jews who did not want Poland. While it might still be true that much still belonged to a wronged Polish Jewry, Poland was certainly fixed on retaining whatever it had taken from Polish Jewry

October 2020  “..Will we live to see ..day when ..Polish authorities also admit that hostility toward Jews was widespread among Poles ..and that Polish complicity in The Holocaust is an historical fact.”  Katarzyna Markusz.

In reminiscences with their past, the ugly truth was always abandoned by Poland, always in favour of washing out the blame game and in place of suppressing the fullest truth. This seemingly allowed for The Holocaust itself to be shed from the integrity of History, fully detained in the past where Poland became the necessary repository for forgetfulness. I met with some of what had become of Cracow’s Jewish Community in Kazimierz, as I sought to discern whether Poland could in fact remain objective in what we sought to learn. It was abundantly clear that some of the past prejudices against the Jews, whether still living in Poland, those who left Poland and for those Jews eternally detained in the depths of its soil, this prejudice still manifested itself. The truth of antisemitism remained embedded within much of Poland, and still spilled over into my concern as to whether Polish institutions could or would refute the tenor of Poland’s new laws pertaining to The Holocaust and Polish participation.

“..Polish prosecution does not punish those for espousing anti-Semitic attitudes ..but is willing to punish a journalist. It s crazy.” Katarzyna Markusz.

While I found many individual Poles knowledgeable enough to appreciate the awful truth of the past of some of their own, fear ensured their stillness in the face of any response. Despite the horrendous fact of the loss of 3,450,000 or way more Polish Jews, no shame was to be attributed in all too many cases against those non-Jewish Poles who enacted some of the most egregious terrors against their own Jewish Communities. Even Jewish graves had been dug up by locals who still believed Jews had buried their valuables in the cemeteries of Poland. Of course, and so as to hide the ownership the Jews had gained was not merely to keep them from the Germans. For no other reason than such hatred, Jewish individual graves, and entire Jewish Cemeteries were desecrated. It is manifestly impossible to now deny what many Polish Survivor’s have clearly stated in their affirmation of their long held belief that they were hated, and in many instances, are still hated within Poland.

“..from June 1941 to January 1942 ..I was ..Commander of Sonderkommando 4 A. ..June 1942 ..entrusted by Gruppenfuhrer Mueller with ..task ..obliterating ..traces ..executions carried out by ..Einsatzgruppe ..East. ..orders ..report in person to ..commanders of ..Security Police ..SD ..pass on Mueller’s orders verbally ..supervise ..implementation. ..order ..top secret ..there was to be no correspondence in connection with ..task. ..September 1942 ..reported to Dr. Thomas ..Kiev ..passed ..order ..to him. ..May ..June 1943 ..made additional trips to Kiev ..after conversations with Dr. Thomas and ..SS Police Leader Hennecke ..order was carried out. During ..visit ..August ..observed ..burning of bodies in ..mass grave near Kiev. ..grave was about 55 meters long ..3 meters wide and 2.5 meters deep. ..top ..removed ..bodies ..covered with inflammable material ..ignited. ..about two days until ..grave burned ..to ..bottom. ..grave was filled in ..traces ..practically obliterated. Owing to ..moving up of ..front ..not possible to destroy ..mass graves further south and east which had resulted from executions by ..Einsatzgruppe. ..my orders ..should have extended ..duties over ..entire area occupied by ..Einsatzgruppe ..owing to ..retreat from Russia ..could not carry out my orders completely.” SS Standartenfuhrer Paul Blobel.

The sheer lack of respect for Polish Jews within Poland, even after their death or destruction, would never be allowed service the needs or beliefs of the dead. These atrocity’s also secured for an eternity that was to be no resting place for Polish Jewry within Poland. What is occurring now, ensures for Jews of Poland’s past, and for far too many Jewish Survivors, who were afraid of going back to their towns, and who only sought safety in numbers, Israel became their answer. Like all too many Polish Jewish Holocaust Survivors, they never wished to return to an unwelcome place and this is a manifest truth. 3,650,000, and even 5,774,000 Polish Jews were presented to Hitler, his cohort and even Polish collaborators for Slaughter. Poland saw in this no chance for Jewish survival and therefore no return for Polish Jews to all they had previously owned.

“..I know. ..never in ..history of mankind ..never anywhere in ..realm of human relations did anything occur to compare with what was inflicted on ..Jewish population of Poland.” Jan Karski.

It is clear too, from talking to Jewish Survivor’s that they clearly identified with their former homelands, and this was particularly evident from amongst Polish Survivor’s. Even for those Polish Survivor’s who clearly resented the Poland of their antisemitic past, their offspring created a desire to look back. But, while they clearly registered with their former status as Polish Jews, and this was as distinct as say an Israeli Jew would differentiate themselves from any other European or American Jews, a former homeland somehow anchored them to their past and detained them there. Polish Jews were part of the Polish soil, and not just because of the immense capacity of Jewish losses that are buried beneath its surface. But the fact clearly remains that all of Polish Jewry belongs to the Jewish folklore of so many Centuries of Polish persistence with this Polish Country.

“..I feel ..hunger again ..it bites your insides. Concentration Camp for Jews. 1,800 of us at Beaune-la-Rolande. Where are ..my unhappy comrades. What gruesome death awaited them in ..Extermination Camps ..Poland. ..first miracle is that I am not among their number.” Moriz Scheyer.

Though the Polish Jewish presence is shrouded in many examples of a hatred which surfaced from time to time, but does not remove the ingrained dust from Polish Summers nor the dirt from under their nails which was gained digging in the Earth now containing more than 4,500,000 Jewish lives, of many Nations, all torn from existence. Poland became the Cemetery for the Jewish People, who arrived from all over Europe to be exterminated there. Regardless of their age or status, the fact that they were Jews was the only demand placed upon their extermination. For many of those Polish Jews who did manage to survive, they instilled in their Children, who in their turn informed their Children that the descendants of Polish Jewry must never return to a Poland, which despoiled them, this sits upon a reserve of a Polish soil whose foundation is now undermined by Jewish Ash and Blood.

“..It is impossible to understand and fully appreciate Polish history without knowing ..history of Polish Jews ..not only because of ..many centuries Jews lived on our soil ..but also for ..contributions of Jews to many aspects of Polish life ..economy ..culture ..and science.” Bronislaw Komorowski.

Here, a Polish President recognises all that is owed to the Jewish pre-eminence that belonged to the state and its marginally diverse People. Sadly, what is evident in these days is how soon Poland forgets that 6,000,000 Jewish Citizens can be torn from society, 3,450,000 of them because they were Polish Jews. We recognise that Germany could not forget that with the thrust toward defeat, its resolve was in order to solve The Final Solution of The Jewish Question. Germans who fought for a fatherland were thus disposed of to ail a degenerative disease that defines an antisemitic resolution. Where ever Nazism meets opposition to its perversion of humanity, it greets it with a carnage of death and destruction. The World after a Second World War recognises that 50 or 70 million dead and within that is a Genocide of 6,000,000 Jews we recognise is, The Holocaust.

“..not possible to estimate ..exact numbers of Jews who have been exterminated in Poland since ..occupation of ..country by ..armed forces of ..German Reich. But all ..reports agree that ..total number of killed runs into many hundreds of thousands of innocent victims ..men ..women ..children ..and that of ..Jews in Poland before ..outbreak of war ..over ..third have perished during ..last three years.” Edward Raczynski.

Hitler had not only recognised that Poland was to be his future centre for the annihilation of the Jews, he was well aware of the Polish antisemitism as a preparatory condition for this. It is not simply from Polish antisemitism that Hitler ensured there was the placement of all 6 of The Death Camps within Poland and not just for that specific reason. Also, and for the non-Jewish Poles, it was to be the lucrative return that was for so many who were to have from the destruction of as many of 3,650,000 Polish Jews accepted or appreciated. The Houses, Lands, Premises, Valuables and other goods to be had, purloined and stolen, fully incentivised so many within Poland. Hitler drew upon such avarice and greed and there was no moral accounting as even the Catholic Church sought to gain from the loss.

“..It is terrifying and horrifying. It takes a toll on you to write ..testimony. It takes a toll on ..reader. ..difficult ..to hear ..and ..difficult for them to tell.” Jeffrey Veidlinger.

In order to dismiss Judaism, as even a remote challenge to the hierarchy of a supposed christian community of 33 million non-Jewish people, this religious order sought silence in favour of its ethical precedent. Such dedication to the Jewish Past is being unravelled with anti-Jewish sentiment filtering through to the same antisemitic mindset of earlier Poland. I am forever mindful that while I might balk at the very sounds which express such atrocity as the Jewish Survivor witnessed and even endured, how much more difficult must it be for those Jews of Poland whose experience is called to remind us. Controversially. The use of libel to ensure History dos not repeat the accusations of what non-Jewish Poles managed against their Jewish Neighbours, must sour the product of the science of all of History. The accusation must be clear. And while we are not in doubt, and that not all non-Jewish Poles can be guilty, we are also aware that not all non-Jewish Poles are innocent.

“..When I stand before you ..to lead ..Prosecution of Adolf Eichmann ..I am not standing alone. With me are 6,000,000 accusers. ..they cannot rise ..and point an accusing finger. ..For their ashes are piled up on ..hills of Auschwitz and ..fields of Treblinka ..and are strewn in ..forests of Poland. Their graves are scattered throughout ..length and breadth of Europe. Their blood cries out ..but their voice is not heard. ..I will be their spokesman and in their name I will unfold ..awesome indictment.” Gideon Hausner.