This Holocaust Author's Auschwitz Blog

The Gas Chambers!

“..I wanted to ..avoid ..persons who came into Auschwitz should know ..they were ..to be gassed.” Rudolf Hoess.

1) There was a crematorium situated within Auschwitz I, with a Gas chamber using three ovens for the ‘handling’ of 320 bodies daily, and operated between January 1942 and April 1943. The total capacity for murder, and concealment of the evidence, was in the region of 150,000 People who could be ‘handled’. All traces are therefore, clearly Eradicated.

2) Within Bunker 1, at the installation Birkenau, there were two gas chambers with a daily capacity for 800 persons. This installation operated throughout 1942. The total capacity for murder, and concealment of the evidence, was in the region of 290,000 People who could be ‘handled’. A Mass grave at this installation was also in operation.

3) Within Bunker 2, Birkenau, there were four gas chambers with a daily capacity for 1,200 persons. This installation operated throughout 1942 and parts of 1944. The burning pits were also situated within this complex. The total capacity for murder, and the concealment of the evidence, was in the region of 500,000 People who could be ‘handled’.

“..I had the misfortune of coming to Auschwitz ..an extermination camp. ..training ..at Auschwitz ..contributed to the extermination of people.” Bruno Schlage.

4) Within Krema 2, Birkenau, there were five ovens with a daily capacity for 1,400 persons. This installation operated from the beginning of 1943 till the end of 1944. The total capacity for murder, and the concealment of the evidence, was in the region of 800,000 People who could be ‘handled’.

5) Within Krema 3, Birkenau, there were five ovens with a daily capacity for 1,400 persons. This installation operated for some 16 months between June 1943 and November 1944. The total capacity for murder, and the concealment of the evidence, was in the region of 700,000 People who could be ‘handled’.

6) Within Krema 4, Birkenau, there were two ovens with a daily capacity for 770 persons. This installation operated between Spring 1943 and 7th. October 1944. Having been destroyed by a Jewish revolt it remained decommissioned. The total capacity for murder, and the concealment of the evidence, was in the region of 423,000 People who could be ‘handled’.

7) Within Krema 5, Birkenau, there were two ovens with a daily capacity for 770 persons. This operation installation operated between Spring 1943 and the end of 1944. The total capacity for murder, and the concealment of the evidence, was in the region of 490,000 People who could be ‘resettled’ and ‘handled’, a very ‘Final Solution’.

“..7,000 people at one time or another ..from ..Waffen SS served in Auschwitz.” Rudolf Hoess.

Birkenau.

“..In addition to Auschwitz there existed ..following extermination centers for Jews ..Culmhof ..Engine exhaust gases ..Treblinka ..Engine exhaust gases ..Sobibor ..Engine exhaust gases ..Belzec ..Engine exhaust gases ..Majdanek Zyklon B. I ..have ..seen Culmhof and Treblinka. ..Treblinka I saw ..whole operation. ..several chambers ..holding some hundreds of people ..built directly by ..railway track. ..Jews went straight into ..gas chambers without undressing.” Rudolf Hoess.

The hustle and bustle of modern living hides the depths of despair that once resided here. There is a growing awareness, however, from those who venture through this enormous Cemetery for the 1,100,000 Jews Murdered here, that a place of such evil exists and it has been an accomplished Genocide in out not so distant past.

“..whole complex had forty-six retorts ..each with ..capacity for three to five persons. ..burning in a retort lasted about half an hour. ..it was theoretically possible to cremate about 12,000 corpses in twenty four hours ..4,380,000 a year. ..well-constructed crematoria fell far behind at a number of camps ..especially at Auschwitz in 1944. In August ..total cremation reached a peak one day of 24,000 ..still a bottleneck occurred. Camp authorities needed an economic and fast method of corpse disposal ..dug six huge pits beside Krema V ..reopened old pits in ..wood. ..late 1944 ..pit burning became ..chief method of corpse disposal. ..pits had indentations at one end from which human fat drained off. To keep ..pits burning ..stokers poured oil ..alcohol ..large quantities of boiling human fat over ..bodies.” Filip Muller.

In 1941, on September 3rd. Zyklon ‘B’ was used at Auschwitz to murder Infirm Jews and Russian POWs. Later, in the month of October, we see the establishment of a facilty at Auschwitz Camp II, known in infamy as Birkenau, which is erected for the sole purpose of the extermination of the Jews of Europe. It must be remembered also, that Gypsies, Poles, Russians, and others from many nations were also murdered at this Death Camp, a Factory facility of Mass Murder. In 1944, on November 2nd. the last gassings at Auschwitz were undertaken. Finally, in 1945, on January 27th. the Auschwitz complex was liberated by Russian soldiers and the World became witness to what Hitler and his Nazis had resolved to commit! This is a date for the Calender and January 27th. has been written in all of History as a place in time which can now pin point that essential need to Commemorate not only all those Jews who were Destroyed here and elsewhere, but has rightly accused that inability of this World to alleviate, to comfort or even to save those 6,000,000 Jews from Annihilation!

Birkenau is enormous! It is huge. It is easy to see how 1,100,000 Murdered Jews could be consumed within its perimeter. The landscape seems to go on forever. There are Trees which bind in the outer reaches of this site of Destrcution. There is an awful connection to what we are looking at and to what was taken away. The emptiness is given over to a sense that we are isolated here. Driven by thoughts which cannot ever imagine the pain and the suffering that went on! But we put a further step forward and retrace the path etched by those went before us and will follow long after we have left. This place will stand as a Monument to Ignominy, to Mankind’s reluctance to search out Intolerance and measure a person’s worth with actual Tolerance!

“..Somann (SS Security Chief Breslau) told me ..death ..by gas poisoning was painless. ..gas van death was very quick ..but actually death came ..slowly ..accompanied by great pain. ..Somann told me about ..Auschwitz ..where ..gassing ..was carried out. ..the dead ..were burned in special furnaces ..200 bodies ..burned simultaneously.” Standartenfuhrer Heinisch.

Travel arrangements made, no comfort was afforded those Jews due for ‘resettlement’ East.

Originally known as Auschwitz II this sub camp was certainly more synonymous with the destruction of the Jewish People than her sister camp at Auschwitz I, though the collective identification of Auschwitz as a killing center has a resonance which educates to this day. Barely 4 kms from the main camp at Auschwitz I, an additional spur was added to the railway line, which delivered the Jews who now approached Auschwitz II, Birkenau, much closer to the detail of their own destruction.

We tread the same path but it is immeasurably different. At the end of our slender journey we will all make our exit and know We have traversed a Devastated land so steeped in the Blood of 1,100,000 Jewish People, it is almost a feeling of intruding upon a grief that, while it should always belong to the whole of Humanity, it is specifically a Jewish Graveyard. The Grey Ashen Path does little to remind us of what happened during the period of The Slaughter, until I arrive back at my Hotel.

I notice! My previously polished and glistening Brown Boots are covered in a Grey Film. It is reminiscent of the Ashe one would find alongside any Crematorium not able to control what exits its exhaust system. It is clearly a reminder of why I was there! To remember, and then to come away and remind the World and any of those who know my work, that life as it happened here was extracted from The Jewish People and the residue of that Destruction is a Grey ash that fertilised and covered the Countryside that sprawls before us!

“..I walk in Auschwitz ..in ..tracks of ..abandoned shoes ..of ..extracted teeth ..of ..cut off hair ..of ..misplaced baggage in order to find ..last moments of my family ..The Schneider Family.” Yossi Sarid.

This death factory nestles precariously beneath the totality of the assault on the Jews of Europe, with upward of 2,000,000 Jews, on Hoess’s earlier estimate, who could have been murdered here. We accept, however, that the likely figure is around 1,100,000 Jews of Europe, Men, Women and Their Children, Murdered here.

As I look back along the railline that brought those Jews from Auschwitz, I realise that the fading landscape which those Jews observed in their final moments, more than suggests there can be no way out for those who were forced to disembark alongside the ramp toward Destruction.

“..Standartenfuhrer Blobel ..authorized to ..obliterate all ..mass graves. His department ..’1005’. ..work ..carried out by ..Jews ..shot after each section of ..work ..completed. Auschwitz ..continuously called upon to provide Jews for ‘1005’.” Rudolf Hoess.

It is perhaps ironic, that as we were set to leave Birkenau somewhere in the far corner of The Camp, someone was Burning rubbish and once more the mind drifts back to an awful time! The Book by Seweryna Szmaglewska, Smoke Over Birkenau immediately springs to mind. But not just the title of a Book, but an experience that was presented to those of us who watched and reflected on many years ago, the billowing smoke was the product of a process which Cremated the jews who entered here, never to emerge until the Smoke brought a film of ash which is ever present in the Soil of Brezenzka and its surroundings.

ALWAYS to REMEMBER, NEVER to FORGET!

“..In spite of everything I still believe ..people are really good at heart.” Anne Frank.

This picture alone represents what it means for me as most will see that in the fullest understanding of the term, The Holocaust, she is more recognisable that Tokele would be for me. Anne represents the Loss of Innocence and then the Resurrection of Memory by a Young Jewish Girl whose Diary confronts both the Horror of The Catastrophe and the need to accept Tolerance is a better way. What it also presents to History is continually being distorted by those who see in the one image of a Young Girl, cut down in her prime, and all because she was Jewish, an ugly Truth! It marks Hitler for what he was, a tiny minded Race Hater. Revisionists, deniers and antisemites scurry round in order to resurrect the image of a rabid hater of all People. Toward the end of the War that hatred was inclusive of the German people, once his ugliness was about to be revealed.

“..We assume that most of them are murdered. ..British radio speaks of their being gassed. Perhaps that’s ..quickest way to die.” Anne Frank.

What cannot be denied is Hitler’s Weltanschauung, a World view which saw, in die Endlosung der Judenfrage, the complete Destruction of World Jewry in The Final Solution. For those who revere the mention of a Fuhrer whose capacity to hate on such a world stage, ignores the very fact that 50 – 70 Million lives were lost in an attempt to stem the flow of such a Nazi hatred. 6,000,000 of that figure were Jews, chosen for their very Jewish antecedence. So when we read what Anne says about people being ‘good at heart’, she is aware that many Germans, are included in that assessment. But those threatened by a reality which threatens a perverse reading of History do not see a redemption in the Human spirit from a Young Girl whose non crime was to be born a Jew.

“..many officers ..generals are fed up with ..war and would like to see Hitler sink into a bottomless pit ..so they can establish a military dictatorship ..make peace with ..Allies ..rearm ..and ..start a new war.” Anne Frank.

There Were No Spectators.

The Holocaust is a collective Truth, based upon a known Fact in our History that Hitler targeted, selected and systematically Destroyed 6,000,000 Jews of Europe, Men, Women and Their Children. This has become an individual assault upon the conscience of All Humanity and is a slur on the altruistic concept of moral efficacy! The Holocaust has 6,000,000 accusers, all Murdered for the simple fact of their Jewish antecedence! There are, fortunately, Survivors from The Holocaust, intended Victims who would have joined their brethren had it not been for good luck, good fortune or a simple twist of fate! These Survivors tell their remarkable tale, full of foreboding, filled with Horror, punctuated in Terror, but for us, the custodians and curators of that History, we demand that they do so, over and over again! We require that knowledge so that we too can share, perhaps even know of, what it is they Know!

The Holocaust is a destructive term which has the ability to construct for People a toleration for all, if we are prepared to learn the lessons from 6,000,000 Murdered Jews of Europe. Within that, and if ever there is a need to get back to the Catholicism, which does not allow for the crimes as were committed by so called Catholics in The Holocaust, there is a need to confront what was done, why it was done and accept an admission of guilt for allowing it to be done. I myself want answers as to why so many of us allowed so much of what happened to proceed, which infects much of our History, and we require a term like The Holocaust, to correct ourselves? Why is it there remains a nagging doubt, a resolve to honestly apologise to the Jewish People?

There is a need too to admonish those Catholics who have held onto the truth of what they Perpetrated, Concealed and still refuse to admit to. So as I attempt to confront the issue of the Intolerance shown toward the Jewish People, through the latent hatred of anti-Semitism, I question my own adherence to a belief system which is this flawed! The issue is surely a simple one for Christianity. God chose to send his Son Jesus to this Earth to redeem us from original sin. Jesus chose to die so that we could be saved. In that device of choice, we are saved. Hence, the Jewish People did not have any role in the conviction of Jesus’ acceptance to die so that we might go to Him. In antisemitism there is more than the lie of the “Christ killer” to drive on this hatred.

After They Had Laboured.

Once we have accepted there is this hatred, which is against God and all the precepts and teachings of Christ, we might afford this world a safer haven for all of its peoples. I would like to explain too, a little about why I wanted to write about The Holocaust, and after writing 3 Books on the subject, I guess I have achieved an ambition. I am grateful for the opportunity to relay to you my concerns which are centred around the subject of The Holocaust. My interest in history, and Holocaust history in particular, asks only that the truth be employed to reconstruct the facts that are pertinent to the integrity of that study. Documented proof, testimony and memory must all converge to present a living truth that does honour to those events we attempt to describe. When asked:-

What do I know about the Holocaust?

I have to earnestly reply, with honesty, and with all due deference to the memory of the 6,000,000 Jews murdered in The Holocaust, that I know only of The Holocaust through my research and study of the subject. For those that Know, and for whom I am attempting to eulogise in my work, it is in large part a study hopefully leading to that greater essential, adding toward the Jewish memory that has been lost. I thought of the 4 year old Tokele, and the 6,000,000 Jews of The Holocaust every time I began a page of that study. I could never imagine the anguish of Anne Frank, or the distraught nature of a Mother faced with the brutal murder of her Child. How then could I ever look at the picture of Tokele and not feel for the grief of the whole of the Jewish Nation? Such is that grief, which could so engulf me, I had to seek a release, and this work has been my opportunity to lament an awful catastrophe.

“..BBC has always told ..truth. ..even if ..news is slightly exaggerated ..facts are bad enough as they are. You can’t deny that Millions of peace-loving citizens in Poland and Russia have been murdered or gassed.” Anne Frank.

The reader, I do feel, will always be better served by the words of those who have survived the Holocaust. I feel morally obligated though, by certain historical omissions, which have driven me to write to attempt to redress these concerns:-

1) There was a less than generous Christian response, an Indifference to what was happening to the Jewish People,

2) There was a clear Christian duplicity, a complicity in the murders of the Jewish People,

3) There was an Irish neutrality which stands in stark relief against the destructive capacity and is an indictment within Holocaust History,

4) There is still a deceit that welds Christians to the indifference shown toward the Jews, and

5) There is a refusal, by many, to come to terms with their crimes, or with their own omissions and with their clear betrayals of what Morality should hold dear.

There is the gradual emergence of a will to suggest a way forward, to fight bigotry and racism and to make positive gains for humanity. In The Holocaust, research into a Christian failure to respond adequately, is an indictment I seek to respond to. We should not take continually from History, without giving something back. We have a responsibility toward tomorrow for what we write today. Before non-seeing eyes The Holocaust was played out and I hope my work will have a relevance today within a world still resonating with intolerant aggressions and indifferences. I am as damning of the perpetrators as those others who chose to look the other way! Are not those who stood by and witnessed the progression of disorder, toward methodical mass murder, as reprehensible?

The truth for tomorrow should not be distorted by what we know to be true today. That plain fact of truth must owe an enormous debt to those others who stood up and were counted and carried a Christian charity forward. Any reluctance to learn from these calamitous crimes will allow the future for our Children to bleed openly from the wounds of hatred. Hatred has a way of ensuring that no other perspective is given to an outlook which can only fashion turmoil, can only condone disarray and can only breed discord. I was struck, as a matter of probity, to ensure that the words of those who saw, who witnessed, who participated or who perpetrated these unfolding crimes, that these were not misrepresented.

My work is a persistent indictment of what was done, of what was allowed to be done and what has not been fully attested to. The debt which civilisation owes to The Jewish People of Europe, 6,000,000 of whom, Men, Women and Their Children will not allow us to move forward in a World which still claims lives through such an indifference to an awakened intolerance. I choose my words cautiously, and I choose the words of the Survivor and the destroyed, even more carefully. From within The Holocaust, from within the confines of Warsaw itself, Chaim Aron Kaplan reflects upon the coming destruction and the abandonment of His own People.

It is Tuesday 15th. October 1940:-

“..I gazed at ..Dantean scenes in ..streets of Warsaw ..and could not stop thinking ..Are we guiltier than any nation? Have we sinned more than any people? Will we really die? Are we doomed to total destruction? Nobody in ..world is concerned for us ..nobody shares our plight.” Chaim Aron Kaplan

Sadly, all of that was true, and all that Chaim Aron Kaplan foretold, came to pass, and maybe I am a little late but I am concerned that nobody shared His and Their plight. From such insight I chose to allow the words in my work to conduct the reader through The Holocaust without becoming caught up in interpretation. My work is, in very many ways, an apology for what was allowed to happen. It is also a celebration of the 4 year old girl, Tokele, who came this way, and who will not be forgotten. For those other 6,000,000 Jews, now lost to us, I hope my work too is a fitting tribute to their Memory. We so often see the figures, that are supposedly representative of the Slaughter, a capacity for evil which fully engulfed these Jewish People and which now seeks to disguise and hide the despicable crimes they actually depict.

Perhaps we have great difficulty in comprehending the scale of the atrocity, as it was meted out to the Jews of Treblinka or to the Jews of Auschwitz and Birkenau or to those Jews murdered by der Einsatzgruppe at Babi Yar? I would also like to suggest to you, and if we take the calamitous loss to humanity with the 2 day assault upon the Jews at Babi Yar, and attempt to appreciate that 33,771 Jewish lives were cast aside, how do we then contemplate the murders at Treblinka, where some 900,000 Jewish lives were destroyed? Or how do we contemplate the ‘Aktionen der Einsatzgruppe,’ which alone murdered 1,250,000 Jewish lives, and even more, how do we comprehend such a figure?

At Auschwitz and Birkenau, The Holocaust account could include some 1,100,000 more Jewish lives. What in our intellect will allow us to conceive of such a catastrophe or come close to comprehending their very meaning for us all? When Simon Wiesenthal points to a Map of Europe and asks us to appreciate the calamity he too faced, he begs us to look, but not as Eichmann would do, with the figures in statistical relief. Look though at the People that Wiesenthal once knew, and as the world must now mourn, as integral to a loss all humanity must face.

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

The human dimension to the crimes I have written about, only have words and intentions to fill the void created by the murders of these 6,000,000 Jews. With humanity in question, the words I continually use in that work confront the reader, and are the proving ground for the Factual Truth, the very veracity of The Holocaust. Words do indeed have a harmonising effect for what has happened and for what needs to be said, but they can also be utilised to distort. The reader, unaffected by any previous impression or even bias, is not given over to contentious argument, at least in the context of the facts which I relay. My work is certainly written with a rage against the Intolerant. But also, with what was a measure of the indifference shown, the reader will hopefully understand that The Holocaust is an outrage that was perpetrated against the Jewish People.

The Holocaust rages too against humanity, as we are the bystander to these crimes. A little understanding might point us toward an urging, which will never allow such atrocities to happen again! Sadly, that slender hope has been quashed, in the Balkans and Central Africa! So while I hope I have managed to untangle some of the distortions that are presented today, and from amongst the ‘intentionalist’ and ‘functionalist’ studies, which I believe are irrelevant in the midst of a scene, shot where 6,000,000 Jews are murdered, my study of The Holocaust is best served. I contend with what Hitler intended for the Jewish People was their eventual Destruction and toward that end, the Reich functioned toward that final commitment, with a resolve which brought about die Endlosung der Jundenfrage.

Pointedly, and by the will of one man, and with the concentrated hatred of so many more, we have to accept that this outrage was committed against the Jewish People, and against what humanises us. I am cognisant of the feelings of Elie Wiesel and he has stated in his book:

A Jew Today:-

“..We became witnesses to a huge simplification. On ..one side there were ..executioners and on ..other ..victims. What about ..onlookers ..those who remained neutral ..those who served ..executioner simply by not interfering? To be a Jew then meant to fight both ..complacency of ..neutral and ..hate of ..killers.” Elie Wiesel.

Elie Wiesel knows that we should not diminish the importance of the Jewish Survivor’s voice in The Holocaust and we must respect that position. Clearly, my personal attempt to comprehend how a small part of humanity could demonise our civilising name, is part of the endeavour to redress that imbalance. I wish also to add to that urgent need to learn from our past mistakes, in order that we do not repeat them. How tragic it all seems that Humanity can sink so low, and to such a depraved state that it has not the capacity to learn from this degeneration! There is a strata of evil which has been breached on every level when we look to The Holocaust! Human beings pored over the body of the Jewish People and consigned them to oblivion.

But not before depriving them of every possession they ever owned and even then, robbed them of their respect and dignity to the last moment of their existence. If that wasn’t enough, the vultures descended and took every morsel of what was left of that Jewish presence. It was a gain too few of the larcenous few have relinquished to this day. True, some has been returned to the rightful ownership of a Jewish Community decimated and deprived of even those whose ownership has been recognised. But this does nothing to alleviate the pain which must be felt by All Jews for what happened. Also, and for what has been done to ensure a level of Tolerance is preached with the lessons to be gained from The Holocaust, is being undone within the level of Intolerance that besieges us today.

What we find problematic in the failure to learn from what was so catastrophically wrong back then, is in the total lack of respect many have for the sanctity of all life of the very many, here and now. I am indebted to Professor Yehuda Bauer, of Yad Vashem, who reminds us in:

Jews for Sale:-

“..That our heroes were ordinary humans ..perhaps more gifted with insight and courage than ..rest of us ..they did ..correct thing at ..right time.” Yehuda Bauer.

It is a burden of History that reminds us, that far too little was done by far too many to save the 6,000,000 Jews of The Holocaust. When a World offers up platitudes to divest itself of responsibility, when the World seeks to hide behind the screen of lack of knowledge then the World really is in trouble. When we have that voice of reason, and it arrives from many angles, Professor Deborah E. Lipstadt’s commentary in:

Denying the Holocaust:-

“..All those who value truth ..particularly truths that are subject to attack by ..plague of hatred ..must remain ever vigilant.” Deborah E. Lipstadt.

is a chilling indictment of our present ambivalence to these past crimes. All of which seemingly allows for a growth in equal intolerances, from a neo-form of Nazism, from ‘religious’ fundamentalism (sic) whose intention is to add to the segregation of more communities, and once more the Jewish People are sought out almost exclusively for a renewed hatred. All of which appears to emerge and an almost apologetic acceptance that somehow The Holocaust was inevitable sweeps through a litany of works and suggestions? So I look for examples where Survivors bring to the table a level of compassion and forgiveness we could barely accommodate for ourselves.

In that, I also owe much to, Primo Levi who has an immeasurable strength and a decency which suggests a way forward that is without hatred and revenge. Levi is also aware that the account of The Holocaust is not as scientifically exact in detail as it might be and he offers the writer in:

Moments of Reprieve:-

“..It is possible that ..distance in time has accentuated ..tendency to round out ..facts or heighten ..colours. ..this tendency ..or temptation ..is an integral part of writing.” Primo Levi.

Remembering that past, and toward influencing our future is deeply reflective in all of Levi’s works. I hope I take from that lead and reflect well on what should have been. I hope also, that I have afforded the memory of so many People, a positive condemnation of our own guilt and a sense of a grief for what was done. Ostensibly, The Holocaust was enacted by Christians as Perpetrators in the forefront of the crimes and by way of an indifference or a suggested neutrality, which we should not have afforded the Nazis, we become culpable. With a clear indictment of that indifference shown by so many toward their fellow Human Beings, and by a so-called civilised people we should have expected more from, a burdensome debt must be repaid.

My work is a detailed study, and exacting account that propels toward the progression and the completion of The Holocaust. From the burning of selected Books to the systematic destruction of the 6,000,000 innocent Jewish People, I lend words to voices taken from us. Personally, I wanted an Irish expression which sought to damn those who perpetrated these crimes. I was sent a picture one day, of a young girl, Tokele, whose life was taken from us, because she was Jewish and even after The Holocaust had supposedly ended.

I was vexed into a reply which could not make sense of a world decayed by an expression of such antisemitic hatred. I wanted to condemn those ‘christians’, who sought to take the life of a 4 year old Child for the fact of her Jewishness. I wanted my work to also confront the Irish response to the tragedy of the Jewish Holocaust by its intrinsic neutrality affording Hitler a feigned sponsorship. From the terms of The Wannsee Conference, 4,000 Irish Citizens were targeted for extinction and I felt that the Irish Government should at least admit to that fact and declare its past neutrality a betrayal of Christian values. In England we have to remember that 330,000 of her Citizens would have been murdered because they were Jewish?

I feel that all neutral Countries, who I insist have the right to their own neutrality, must still stand up against what is wrong, vile or harmful to this world we all share. I am concerned at what is owed to Survivors who have already suffered Too much. I look at what was achieved by Sweden and the Danish People and I wonder why more wasn’t done by us all? Today we see too much evidence of what has leeched from these times to add further expression to a continuing genocide. The Kurds and the Bosnian Muslims are groups of People who have paid with their lives, for unaltered attitudes and an abstract of human indifference that has no place in our time. It is never easy to write, using your own words, and to apply them to that grief which is the experience of others.

My concern, for a tragedy that happened to a Jewish People I did not know, a Jewish People I had no experience of, or of whom I was not acquainted with, has been a redeeming factor in my struggle to meet the words with those concerns I have. A scythe was taken to a People, fully decapitated from the body of humanity, and it remains to the writer to suture that amputation with words of condolence. A statement of grief that is valued by its sense of remorse, and which is a true comment upon a deep sadness and is clearly attempting of empathy and compassion, will not suffice however. For one single voice that is missing from within those dark days of The Holocaust, it is ultimately necessary to add a resonance that befits the Remembrance for 6,000,000 Murdered Jews.

As with many ideas, it should be with the consent of all People that change is brought about, and People have to be willing to accept change is good for all. That the Jews of The Holocaust were murdered by an inertia which was then interpreted, in some hideous way, as compliance, is because of that very fact of all People not voicing their concern or disapproval. There is a redemption in the publication of so many books on The Holocaust, as they lend their own voice and hold true to the memory of a People who were so devoid of our concern when they needed it most.

The written word, which is gradually becoming omitted from this world, for the space of newer technologies, still has a resonance which can not be allowed to fade. The study of The Holocaust must be taken forward and if we cannot find from within the remnants of those Jewish People who were murdered, any sense of our loss, we can at least articulate our concern at that privation! Now too we must argue over what belongs to those who were destroyed? It worries me deeply that we are still debating what is owed to the Jews of The Holocaust. 80 years on, when we know what we owe, when we know what was taken, we are in their debt.

We know that and we should be aware that we continually fail, in a judicious manner, to repay for what was taken from them! After all! It is not as if we can give them their lives back. While we hold honesty and decency with high regard, we can be untouched by the hatred in the world. When we profess those qualities audibly, hatred will become limiting in its outpourings! Feeling is entwined in comprehension, so for us to comprehend the tragedy of The Holocaust, we must feel for the terrible atrocity done to the Jewish People. Finally, at the cost of 6,000,000 Jewish lives, how do we impose the penalties that are owed to their passing? I can never be satisfied that we will ever repay that debt to so many murdered People, nor can we easily regain our previously held humanity.

If we can at least learn from the past we might just learn for the Future! Finally, and I make no excuses for using the words of Primo Levi, who is one of my favourite writers from and on The Holocaust, when he reminds us:-

“..If ..world would become convinced that Auschwitz never existed ..it would be easier to build a second Auschwitz ..and there is no assurance it would devour only Jews.” Primo Levi.

For Tokele and the 6,000,000!

There is a postscript to this journey I have commenced. I received an e-mail from Israel. A cousin of my correspondent had known the girl Tokele! It was fortunate for his cousin, she was visiting elsewhere at the time, or she too would have been murdered on that night. I had managed to reach back into History and resurrect from a girl’s name, Tokele became a tangible link with the Holocaust! It is ironic that from my search, and that part of my dedication to Tokele’s name, that this should lead full circle to a person who had known her and could add substance to a Child so betrayed by history. I want the memory of Tokele to become a beacon, as Anne Frank has become, toward gaining newer tolerances and understanding. As with all that is reflected from within the Holocaust, there is a cautious note and it is for that continuing requirement to listen, and to seek out and ask about The Holocaust, and ask those who might know as to why it was allowed to occur?

I have borrowed from History this image that adorned the gate at Auschwitz at least until I could provide an Image of my own. The fraud that the Nazis presented to the Jewish People, which adorned other Camps and not just Auschwitz, mocks as it sets the Jews, who passed by this sign , toward annihilation. It is a carefully constructed propaganda piece and stands as a Testimony to the vicious nature of those who operated the Camp system and those who penned the very detail of its inception, commissioning and Murderous function. It mocks the Jews en route toward Destruction knowing full well that all that will set the Jews free is Death.

“..If ..world could become convinced ..Auschwitz never existed ..it would be easier to build ..second Auschwitz .. and ..no assurance it would devour only Jews”. Primo Levi.

There are many notable dates relating to Auschwitz’s position within The Holocaust arena! Some events are as gruesome as any Horror ever imagined! Others appear mundane, the apparent ease with which a bureaucratic immersion of a State in the act of Genocide is engaged. In 1940 on May 20th. the Concentration Camp at Auschwitz was established.

This formative Concentration Camp, and a Sister Death Camp of unparalleled statistical achievement in murder, was created in upper Silesia, Poland, some 60 kms west of Cracow, alongside the Wista River. Established in 1940 as a Concentration Camp for the containment of Russian POWs, it became an extermination camp proper in early 1942 when Birkenau was completed. Eventually, it consisted of three other sections: Auschwitz I, was the main camp; Auschwitz II at Birkenau, the Extermination Camp; Auschwitz III was at Monowitz where the Siemens and Schuckert labour camps were established and Auschwitz IV, the I.G. Farben labour camp, also known as Buna Werks.

“..when hatred and defamation quietly germinate ..we have to be alert ..on guard. ..legacy of ..victims of Auschwitz. ….dead were strong ..in their destruction they displayed a strength…Can the living ..be any weaker?” Lucie Adelsberger.

Auschwitz proper had many other sub-camps! There were in excess of 20 work and containment camps. However, Auschwitz is indelibly linked with the overall Destruction of 6,000,000 Jews. Though the majority of the Jews who entered this camp – some 1,100,000 – were murdered at Birkenau, history recognises Auschwitz was at the forefront of a mechanised Slaughter ordered by Hitler, designed by Technicians and carried through by many, like Hoess, functionaries of a Murderous System.

“..I ..never knew the 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 .” Rudolf Hoess.

These figures, which represent the Destruction of some 1,130,000 Jews within Auschwitz/Birkenau alone, are close to the accepted Account we adhere to today. The Catastrophe for the Jewish People cannot remain a Statistic and the Human cost is weighted in more than the phyisical cost to us all! The Gallows presents a limited account of the Justice that was made available to those whom Hoess himself had never known the full extent of the Slaughter he was in charge of. His account, an approximation, makes one shudder as we realise we are talking of in excess of 1,100,000 Jewish People Murdered.