Day 9: Would We deny them Entry?
Here they are! Dejected and alone! Some are to be transported East, with no Family to keep them from fear. They will be ‘resettled’ in some Eastern Camp, Belzec, Auschwitz or Birkenau, Sobibor or Treblinka. Who will assist them in their final hours. Only God knows the tragedy of what feelings gripped them as they were sorted for killing.
1938 August 18th. The Swiss Government denies entry to refugee Jews.
When the door to safety is firmly closed, and for these Jews of the Transport, it is already too late. The only option for those free to do so is to make entry through all other means and having the opportunity. The problem for the Jews of Europe, for those who could not afford the levies applied to seeking entry into other Countries, the Doors, or the Borders were firmly closed. However, through illicit means, many Jews, their Families included, could exit out of harms way with the aid of Funds provided by relatives, their own Wealth and Property or by sheer luck. Tragically, all too often there was a profit to be made by smugglers which was enhanced by selling the Jews they were supposed to be leading to safety. To the Nazis payment was gained either way this all worked!
1940 August 18th. The German authorities allow Adam Czerniakow, Chairman of the Warsaw Ghetto, to establish a vocational education program inside the Ghetto.
Essential to the Growth of a People is that need to educate and ensure knowledge is to be had by all. Jewish antecedence is enhanced by that Educational demand which has imparted to all of Christianity, and even Islam, a need for learning. Judaism has gifted to the World, and the gift of a Monotheist belief System and a God of the People known by Mankind, is held by Billions of us. Much then is owed to the learning from Judaism that has furthered our own Belief in a God system. That God, whose Tolerance has been categorically ignored throughout all of History, has not presented us with Free will to simply choose what is wrong! Conscience must decide what is worthy of that belief system and we must choose to accommodate what is best for all in place of accepting what is only good for one!
1941 August 18th. Over 1,811 of Kovno’s Jewish Men and Women are murdered at the IV Fort. Elsewhere over 160 Jewish Men and Women of Bjala-Zerkow are murdered by units of the Wehrmacht, members of the Waffen SS and units of SonderKommando 4a. As Romania deports Jews across the River Dniester, the remnants of Berlin’s Jews are to be murdered as Hitler promises Goebbels. Hitler halts his progress on Moscow.
A moment of grave indecision occurs on the War front as Hitler orders a strategic move away from the prime Russian target, that is Moscow. This newer deflection toward Kiev and the Caucausus Oil, is both strategic, but miscalculates the progress that has already been made. The fall of Moscow, a completely Political target would have been a psychological blow to Stalin and the Russian People. But this move away from what had been an obvious target will also ensure that Hitler is vanquished from the Russian lands ahead of all previous expectations.
1942 August 18th. 2,500 of Drogobych’s Jews are murdered at Belzec while SS Obersturmfuhrer Kurt Gerstein arrives at Belzec
“..Himmler visited ..gassing installation in Camp III.” Karl Frenzel.
Here, where the examples and practices of mass murder are experienced, Gerstein, this Gas and Disinfection specialist sees for himself the wrongs been done in Germany’s name. Gerstein’s testimony is a crucial piece of evidence in the knowledge we have of the gassing process. It is somewhat difficult in the final analysis to suggest that Gerstein acted out of conscience, but we have the testimony from those who knew Gerstein that he could not live with the knowledge of what he witnessed at Belzec, Majdanek, Sobibor and then Treblinka. This was all to lead eventually, to him taking his own life.
1943 August 18th. Blobel returns to Kiev and ‘Sonderkommando 1005’ exhumes and disposes of much of the evidence of mass murder.
“..instructions were ..Jews ..as well as ..Soviet political commissars ..to be liquidated. ..I mean “killed”.” Otto Ohlendorf.
There are over 100,000 Jewish Murdered, and others, at the ravine in Babi-Yar. Their remains, which are disinterred and cremated, are finally obliterated from any future effort at testifying what occurred here. Those exhumed, and further destroyed, would be amongst those of Blobel’s own achievement in the Mass Murders of 33,771 Jewish Men, Women and Their Children of Kiev. That two day period, September 29th. to September 30th. 1941, saw a murderous momentum over a sustained 2 day assault upon the integrity of an Innocent Jewish Community of People, achieve what the Industrialised killing centres could not, over a similar time frame.
A Book a Day, or so of suggested reading!
11. Kulka, Erich Five Escape from Auschwitz.
