Day 23: World War Once More?
1939 September 1st. Germany invades Poland and World War Two commences. German troops enter Danzig.
5,000 Jews are trapped in the City of Danzig and a Jewish curfew now operates in both Germany and Austria. Wehrmacht and SS Mobile Murder Groups, the fledgling ‘der Einsatzgruppe,’ set about murdering Jews, burning Synagogues and attacking the Catholic intelligentsia in ‘Operation Tannenberg.’ The German General Staff do not protest this newer role for its forces though General Johannes Blaskowitz does protest such a murderous crime.
“..attitude of ..troops toward SD and police alternates between abhorrence and hatred. Every soldier ..disgusted by ..crimes committed in Poland by ..Reich ..representatives of our state.” Johannes von Blaskowitz.
1940 September 1st. Kovno Jews are issued 3,500 visas by Japanese Consul Sempo Sugihara.
Isolated incidences of intervention make a massive difference to some 3,500 Jews of Kovno. We can only begin to imagine if there had been such widespread an intervention by 3,500 other individuals. The prospect of what might have been achieved is incalculable and a World entire would have been more complete!
1941 September 1st. A further 9,000 Hungarian Jews are murdered at Kamanets-Podolsk while 5,090 Mariampole Jewish Men, Women and Their Children are also murdered. Over a 2 week period, 440 of Vilna’s Jewish Men and Women are murdered. This date marks the end of Hitler’s ‘Euthanasia Program’ ends, officially.
More than 120,000 German and Austrian Citizens have been murdered in the program of Eugenics conducted by Hitler. No one escaped Hitler’s attention. The Woman after giving Birth feels a little down! German deformity is un-Aryan! Germans with learning difficulties! The list is endless in Hitler’s pursuit of perfection? Hitler now proposes that all Jews leave the Reich and it becomes a tiny reminder of what might await all Jews should they ignore what under scores Hitler’s full intention. The Janowska Camp opens and the Jews in Bohemia and Moravia and Slovakia must now wear ‘The Yellow Star.’
“..September 1942 I reported to Dr. Thomas in Kiev.” Paul Blobel.
Blobel will set about his task obliterating every trace of what he, and his SK4a force achieved at Babi Yar. The Sonder ‘Aktion’ 1005 will move steadily though the system of destruction and attempt further to conceal all that The Death Camps could not conceal, or the countless Killing Sites secrete from History. With amazement I hear that same hackneyed argument for the less gifted, where are the traces of Destruction. Well if they look to what Birkenau could accomplish there is a massive clue. When we look to the embryonic state of Belzec, Chelmno, Sobibor and Treblinka, we see why Blobel was required to mask the stench of an illicit policy of Mass Murder.
1942 September 1st. 13,500 of Wlodzimierz Wolynski’s Jews are murdered at the Piatydni gravel pits. Elsewhere, 3,000 Stryj Jews murdered.
There is no let up in the murderous undertaking, as newer sites are sought and found for the disposal of The Jews of Europe. Even now, when most are aware that the German plan for victory has been over calculated, every means at Hitler’s disposal for the conduct of War, must hold until the prerequisite demands for The Final Solution are fully met.
1943 September 1st. Vilna Ghetto Uprising fails.
The Jewish Resistance during the period of The Holocaust is a very broad area of research that doesn’t give enough credit to those Jews who stood against the tide of Annihilation which overwhelmed them. True, in relation to the 6,000,000 Murdered Jews in The Holocaust, those who fought back were a very tiny percentage of that overall Catastrophe. But fight back many did. We are aware that Jews converted in order to hide their status as Jews. We know that Parents gave up their Children in order for them to be saved. We know too of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the Bialystok Revolt, Revolution in Auschwitz, Sobibor and Treblinka. But what could a Jew achieve when they were in harm’s way and the resulting shove would see their entire Families further brutalised, pushed headlong into the Abyss and without their consoling arm of comfort for Their Children? The question should not be about Revolt! It should be about the need to?
A Book a Day, or so of suggested reading!
26. Sternberg-Newman, Judith In the Hell of Auschwitz.
