“..task of history is to stand above ..laws of nature and above human weakness and pass on ..truth to ..future.” Maria Hochberg-Marianska.
There was no liberation of the Jews from The Holocaust, as their destruction continued and did not end at the Victory in Europe or even Victory over Japan day celebrations they could not fully endorse. As the World came to terms with the less than fuller extent of World War II’s cost, the Jewish Survivor found themselves cut off from former homes. Surviving Jews were exempted from any semblance of normality that the existence they had previously enjoyed might have suggested. In Poland especially, the very term Pogrom did not disappear from the vicinity of that great hatred, so clearly expressed from within Poland even prior to Hitler’s assault upon Polish sovereignty.
“..Let me explain that even though I had been in Auschwitz I did not know about ..gas chambers. Can you imagine that. We thought ..when we were there ..that our parents and ..children were taken to camps which were much better. We assumed that they couldn’t live through ..camp we were in. It was not until a large contingent from Auschwitz came to Belsen that I had to give up that idea that they were safe. I met 2 women in their 30’s who spoke Hungarian and they asked if it was true that ..Hungarian transports were so severely selected people to ..camps and ..others to be gassed. I said ..What are you saying. ..And they looked at me as if I were foolish ..but they didn’t want to destroy my hope and so didn’t try to explain. I ran back to ..tent and collapsed. I think I cried for weeks. I finally realized that everybody was killed.” Maria Frank Abrams.
In places like Dabrowa-Tarnowska, Grodno, Przemysl and Przytyk local Jews were set upon, beaten and Murdered by their erstwhile non-Jewish but Polish neighbours. For Polish Jewry especially, hatred was still held out to all of those Polish Jews who had deemed it prudent to have Survived Hitler’s intention for them. While we can remember Chelm, Cracow, Kielce, Lublin, Radom and though we might forget to recall the name of Sokoly, I am influenced to ensure Sokoly is never forgotten. From the very moment I commenced this particular journey, and in the name of a 4 year old Jewish Child, Sokoly has become central to the remembrance of all too many extinguished Jewish Communities.
“..long lines of good ..innocent people ..accompanied by crying children ..walking on and on ..ordered about by a handful of men who bully and beat them until they nearly drop. No one is spared. ..sick ..elderly ..children ..babies ..pregnant women ..all ..marched to their death. ” Anne Frank.
For 6,000,000 Jews, thrown to oblivion as the vestiges of a hatred we recognise still to this day, Hitler dismembered what was a vibrant Jewish World and afterwards, what remained of Polish Jewry was not considered worthy of saving. For an innocent Jewish Girl, Tovah ‘Tokele’ Olshak, I have always felt personally concerned that her loss should be so gravely undermined by the terms denial seeks to present to the World. I have concentrated those efforts that are necessary, in order to add to the memory of the 6,000,000 Jews lost to us, whether we consider it our concern or not. While combating the spuriously directed hatred, so engraved into the minds of deniers, the hatred is still unwilling to deliver some peace to the memory of these 6,000,000 Slaughtered Jews of Europe, of which Tovah is one.
“..rest of ..women ..children ..old people ..700 of them ..taken to ..wooden barn. ..forced inside. ..Nazis opened gasoline cans ..spread gas all around ..barn ..and set it on fire. Flames soon gutted ..entire structure.” Yehuda Adelman.
My birth place of Ireland has taught me at least, that the island of Ireland belongs to the Irish People and any nation is always built upon the needs of those People it seeks to represent. But that is Not to say that any national status can be gained at any or all costs. Nor by any means, which would demonstrate a lack of the essential needs for those who seek a state that presents for them their desire for peaceful coexistence, can peace be ignored. For 4,000 years of Israeli History, what informs us of their right of return is the same ideal that must be used to settle all issues of Home, Status and a belonging to ones own.
“..About 2,000 Jewish Men ..Women ..Children murdered in ..first aktion. ..shot ..buried in a mass grave on ..Fedor Hill. Some ..buried in ..Jewish cemetery.” Alicia Appleman-Jurman.
Again, that is Not to say status can come at any or all costs and while Israel has been assailed for all 72 years of its existence as a State, it is duty bound by its own Historical legacy to act in accordance with those principles it has adopted for all of its People. However, and in the place of Israel, and I openly admit that I am a supporter of Jewish existence, the Jews are a Race of People worthier of a World that has remained indifferent to them. For more than the 2,000 years expressed in no christian ideology of concern, where no moral adherence to their struggle to persist has been audible above a whisper, Israel has furrowed a lonely path.
“..And 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.
As an historian, what I hope I am at all times is honest and truthful, ever searching for why hatred is all too easily adopted. It is evident in all the years of our own History that, in order to subjugate People, oppress People or in the case of the Jewish People, extinguish their very existence, we have left our conscience at the doors to destructive spaces. For me, pressed by a publisher to consider writing on the Irish struggle for a solution that would be whole on the island of Ireland, I deferred. It was apparent to me, while not wanting to be accused of any form of bias, that an Irish former catholic could not navigate himself away sufficiently from that accusation of bias to allow my words to be honestly read.
“..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.
The essential in writing for me, and it is my only aim to write with integrity, and as such I will respond honestly, could not be left open to the vexation of such as the accusation that bias would infer. To what I consider is factually incorrect, either historically biased or indeed a lie, I will not consider other than what is essential in what I write and that is the Truth. I have no wish ever to conflate my work with the perception others might see, as they do in their antagonism for the State of Israel. A moral vacuum was created after The Holocaust, due both the intolerable atrocity and the indifference shared along the margins of the overall annihilation of 6,000,000 Jews of Europe.
“..As our Children cried underneath ..gallows ..wrath of ..world we did not hear.” Natan Alterman.
As an earlier student historian of military conflict, I could no longer allow World War II to detain my search, as our very humanity had been obliterated in the midst of what I would consider was a camouflage to Hitler’s larger aim in The Final Solution of the Jewish Question. Then, as I moved searchingly toward The Holocaust, which threatened the very basis of all civilisation, I found myself both as a writer and as a human being. Of course today there are all too many who would use the precepts of The Holocaust to formulate their own analogy toward these courses of human events. With the sheer weight of the denier lobby, a virus is putting us under fire, a continuance of the very hatred that consumed these Jews.
“..There was also resistance of ..spirit. Some children in ..ghettoes and camps were taught ..in illegal classes. Just to stay alive one more day was an immense struggle for ..humans.” Inge Auerbacher.
In the midst of this Second World War, there is the analogy of such a hatred that was enveloping 6,000,000 Jews, and in a newer conflagration, that it is to be recognised as more than the biblical proportions which could identify it. What brings about the discipline of the historical scientist is the surety of the factual integrity being maintained so that only the truth brings us forward into certainty. Regardless of how we perceive history or regard The Holocaust, any lie against what rages to threaten us, this virus of such a rancid hatred, all too recognisable to the term antisemitism, causes much for us to be very concerned with.
“..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. Violence has always been extorted by various nations in exerting conflicts into becoming wars that the ordinary citizen will undoubtedly pay for, and with their lives. Today is clear, that for us to learn from this regressive history, it must teach us the value of shared community and the humanity we are concerned with. For far too long, regarded as indigent, the paucity of our learning ensured, in the ignorance expected, there has always been a certainty for the elitist route of progression that will deliver us to painful struggles and death. Whether we see it or not, we are a World People or we contort to the narrowest view which benefits only the narrow minded.
“..I shall never forget this scene. ..this was no march to ..carriages ..but rather a mute protest ..against this murderous regime. ..a procession ..no human eye has ever witnessed. ..They were going to their death with eyes full of contempt for ..murderers. Seeing Korczak. ..Germans asked ..who is this man. ..I could no longer contain myself. I tried to hide ..stream of tears running from my eyes.” Nachum Remba.
So for those, totally fixated on the gains that are established, so as to maintain the not so common good, these leadership miscreants are the custodians of a self interest at an elitist core. I recall, that whilst the ordinary human being, who sought to admonish the ruling bourgeois, and it was the ordinary human being who had fallen, it was those who had already decided and had defined their petty nature in our demise. For me, and on confronting what Hitler attempted for all the Jews of Europe, I have encountered a similar form of hatred which spells out the antisemitism of hatred that the Jews of Europe faced.
“..Reminiscences make a sad ..depressing ..literature.” Januscz Korczak.
Tragically too, what the World remained indifferent to, and as the Surviving Jews were incarcerated in former camps or deprived of any right to return to former home, once more the World was found lacking. Today, marking what for Surviving Jews must have given them the only hope Europe had not presented to them, is spelled out in a further 72 years of continued assault against their integrity. With the creation of the State of Israel, a Homeland that the Surviving Jews and World Jewry could call their own, the escalation of attacks upon all Jewish integrity has grown. Once more, and here, the historian must defend his position, and I will resolutely.
“..My dear ..we are well. I work a little at ..orphanage while Korczak is doing a great deal. I have not arrived because I do not want to leave without Children. Yours ..Stefa.” Stefania Wilczynska.
As a being of human contention, I cannot simply resort to the abuse and accusation, as some do, to avoid any articulation of the promotion of personal concerns against biased positions. Honestly, I do not have an opinion in history and use merely the factual truth to add any form of discourse necessary to convey what has been done, achieved and was wrongly conducted against these 6,000,000 Jews of Europe. Don’t get me wrong. Where I disagree is in the treatment of The Holocaust narrative by those whose agenda is both self serving and concealing of any part of the integrity already brought to the table.
“..There are 2 Billion People in ..World ..and I constitute a community many 1,000,000 times greater ..therefore I have ..right ..I have ..duty to look after my own trillions toward which I have certain responsibilities. Januscz Korczak.
The Holocaust is a unique atrocity in all of History and it does not warrant any comparison with any other genocides, perceived or otherwise in all of our history together. However, I see the evil than mankind does and what is an absent in all such expression is the empty rhetoric of the hater. One cannot measure loss of human life nor existence in any way that detains loss within figures, to contain human expressions of loss statistically. Humans are not so easily confined. For me, I see the good in people, and while I suggest that no evil cannot be brought forward without the willingness of those who engage in it to do so, we allow humanity to emerge as a necessary conduit to what will civilise more of us.
“..After my Mother was Murdered ..I was deported together with my Father to Transnistria. We have spent many weeks on a penal trek of sorts. For days we have been slogging along roads deep in mud ..a lengthy convoy surrounded by Romanian and Ukrainian soldiers who flog and shoot at us. Father holds my hand tight ..my feet no longer touch ..ground. ..sound of ..water slices at my legs and my hips. It’s dark all around ..apart from Father’s hand I don’t feel a thing. Truth to tell ..I don’t feel his hand either ..since my hand is already partly numb. If I move just a little I’ll surely drown. Even Father won’t be able to pull me out. Lots of Children have already drowned this way. I fall asleep ..still clutching his hand. But not for long. While the sky is still dark ..soldiers light up ..convoy with sniping and gunfire. Father holds my hand and tugs me. ..mud is deep and I can’t feel ..bottom. I’m still half asleep and tremendously afraid. It hurts. I call out. Father hears my call and answers at once.” Aharon Appelfeld.
It is also essential that there can be no parallels with drawn with terms of The Holocaust, as that which has confiscated 6,000,000 Jewish lives remains incomparable. I have learned My lessons from history and how to treat people respectfully has its own skill set. The historian must defend his position, and I will do so with a respect which such science demands, and which is expected of all of those of any being of human contention. For all human beings, historian or otherwise, we cannot simply resort to abuse and accusation, as some deniers do, so as to avoid the articulation of a promotion of personal positions.
“..For long months we had been suffering because ..world was deaf and dumb to our unparalleled tragedy. We complained about Polish public opinion ..about ..liaison men in contact with ..Polish government in exile. ..why weren’t they reporting to ..world ..story of ..slaughter of Polish Jewry. We accused Polish liaison men of deliberately keeping our tragedy quiet ..so that their tragedy might not be thrown into ..shade. ..now it seems that all our interventions have finally achieved their purpose. There have been regular broadcasts over ..English radio ..last few weeks ..treating of ..cruelties perpetrated on Polish Jews ..Belzec. Today ..a broadcast summarizing situation ..700,000 ..number of Jews killed in Poland was mentioned. ..broadcast vowed revenge ..a final accounting for all these deeds of violence. Oyneg Shabes has fulfilled a great historical mission. It has alarmed ..world to our fate ..and perhaps saved 100’s of 1,000’s of Polish Jews from extermination. ..I do not know who of our group will survive ..to work through our collected material. ..one thing is clear to all of us. Our toils ..tribulations ..devotion and constant terror ..have not been in vain. We have struck ..enemy ..hard blow. ..not important ..revelation of ..incredible slaughter of Jews will have ..desired effect ..whether or not ..methodical liquidation of entire Jewish communities will stop.” Emanuel Ringelblum.
I honestly do not have an opinion in history, as I keep stressing, but all too often, while merely advancing the factual truth, that this might suggest there is an emotion missing. The weight of 6,000,000 losses deeply affects me, and I realised that in such an immense and overwhelming response in each of the 6 Death Camps I visited. With any responsibility for memory comes a concern, and we have to know that it is focused upon the very People we seek to remember. In the case of the Jewish People, who are The Holocaust, Holocaust denial is a hatred that adds to the treachery of the humanity already confronted by the catastrophe for the Jews.
“..I saw a flood once in ..mountains. Wooden huts ..torn from their foundations were carried above ..raging waters. One could still see lighted lamps in them ..Men ..Women ..Children in their cradles were tied to ..ceiling beams. Other huts were empty inside ..but one could see a tangle of arms waving from ..roof ..like branches blowing in ..wind waving desperately toward heaven ..toward ..river banks for help. At a distance ..one could see mouths gaping ..but one could not hear ..cries because ..roar of ..waters drowned out everything. And that’s how ..Jewish masses flowed to their destruction at ..time of ..deportations. Sinking as helplessly into ..deluge of destruction. And if ..for even one of ..days of my life ..I should forget how I saw you then ..my people ..desperate and confused ..delivered over to extinction ..may all knowledge of me be forgotten and my name be cursed like that of those traitors who are unworthy to share your pain.” Rachel Auerbach.
That denial makes a liar of all of those Allied troops who fought and died to inform us, does not matter a jot to those whose hatred transcends all human concern. That so many Allied troops died to defeat such a tyranny, The Holocaust itself becomes an immense meaning in why they fought and died against such hatred. So as we arrive up to a date we are presented with, are we to then deny to history that the State of Israel has been assigned by a Covenant that is 4,000 years older than their abandonment by us in The Holocaust. We know all too well why the present day State has been afforded its mandate to a return and it is on the backs of these 6,000,000 Jews of Europe, Slaughtered as we dithered, as we neglected and stood aside as they were obliterated.
“..One of our companies held out for 40 minutes and another ..for more than 6 hours. ..mine set in ..brush makers area exploded. Several of our companies attacked the dispersing Germans. Our losses in manpower are minimal. That is also an achievement. Yechiel fell. He fell a hero ..at ..machine gun. I feel that great things are happening and what we dared do is of great ..enormous importance. Beginning from today we shall shift over to ..partisan tactic. Three battle companies will move out tonight ..with two tasks ..reconnaissance and obtaining arms. Do you remember ..short range weapons are of no use to us. We use such weapons only rarely. What we need urgently ..grenades ..rifles ..machine guns ..explosives. It is impossible to describe ..conditions under which the Jews of the ghetto are now living. Only a few will be able to hold out. ..remainder will die sooner or later. Their fate is decided. In almost all ..hiding places in which 1,000’s are concealing themselves it is not possible to light a candle for lack of air. With ..aid of our transmitter we heard ..marvellous report on our fighting by ..Shavit radio station. ..fact that we are remembered beyond ..Ghetto walls encourages us in our struggle. Peace go with you ..my friend. Perhaps we may still meet again. ..dream of my life has risen to become fact. Self defence in ..Ghetto will have been a reality. Jewish armed resistance and revenge are facts. I have been a witness to ..magnificent ..heroic fighting of Jewish men in battle.” Mordechai Anielewicz.
It is an intolerable hatred that any form of racism presents to us and we do not draw ethical nor moral conclusions from history without the efficacy which restores principles to the narrative debate responding to all hatreds. In 1948, that Jewish Covenant, a well defined Christian surety, enable all Jews, and not just Survivoral Jews, to have a home that had been there’s since many forms of civilising influence had already pointed them toward it. I took a risk with my choice to comment, to write and accuse and I gambled that the World had not become jaded by what I have to say. Health has impacted upon my ability, so to now do other than write ensures my time is representative more fully of what I initially assumed would be a witness phase with 3 Books to write.
“..As long as we live ..they too will live ..for they are now a part of us. As we remember them.” Felicia Carmelly.
It has been a rather nuanced journey, interspersed with many accusations, threats and devious methods to undermine the effort I see that is necessary in memory. Why would so many miscreants object to naming an austrian corporal in the title of my 4th. Book. Unless it is due to an accusation of his inhuman treatment and Slaughter of these 6,000,000 Jews of Europe. Or is the name of Belzec so shocking in terms of The Holocaust which confined so many more Jews. This miniscule hater, with a well known forgery for a War causing 50/70 million deaths in WWII, deserves nothing but our contempt a despising of his very presence in our World.
“..On ..October 5th. 1942 ..I visited ..building office at Dubno ..my foreman told me that in ..vicinity of ..site Jews from Dubno ..had been shot in 3 large pits ..each about 30 metres long ..3 metres deep. About 1,500 persons ..killed daily. All ..to be liquidated. As ..shootings had taken place in his presence he was still very upset. Moennikes and I went straight to .. pits. Nobody prevented us. I heard a quick succession of shots from behind one of ..mounds of earth. ..people ..got off .. lorries ..men ..women ..children ..all ages ..undress upon ..order of ..SS man ..who carried ..whip. They had to put their clothes on separate piles ..shoes ..top clothing ..underclothing. I saw ..heap of shoes ..800 to 1,000 pairs ..great piles of clothes and undergarments. Without screaming or weeping these people undressed ..stood in family groups ..kissed each other ..said their farewells ..waited for a sign from another SS man ..who stood near ..pit ..also with ..whip in ..hand. During ..15 minutes that I stood near ..pit ..I did not hear anyone complain or beg for mercy. I watched a family of about 8 ..man ..woman ..both about 50 ..with their children ..aged about 1 ..8 ..10 ..and 2 grown up daughters ..about 20 to 24. An old woman with snow white hair was holding ..1 year old child in her arms ..singing something to it ..tickling it. ..child was crowing with delight. ..man and wife were looking on with tears in their eyes. ..father was holding ..hand of a boy about 10 ..speaking to him softly. ..boy was fighting back his tears. ..father pointed to ..sky ..stroked ..boy’s head and seemed to explain something to him. At that moment ..SS man at ..pit shouted something to his comrade ..who separated off about 20 persons and ordered them to go behind ..mound of earth. Among them .. family I have mentioned. I still clearly remember a dark haired ..slim girl who pointed to herself as she passed close to me and said ..’23’ I walked to ..other side of ..mound and found myself standing before an enormous grave. ..people lay so closely packed ..one on top of ..other ..only their heads ..visible. Nearly all had blood running over their shoulders from their heads. Some ..still moving. Some lifted an arm and turned a head to show that they were still alive. ..pit was already two-thirds full. I estimated that it already contained about 1,000 people. I looked round for ..man who had shot them. He was ..SS man ..sitting on ..edge of ..pit ..legs dangling into it. He had a sub machine gun ..smoking a cigarette. ..people ..completely naked ..went down ..steps ..cut in .. clay wall of ..pit ..climbed over ..heads of those already lying there ..to ..place indicated by ..SS man. They laid down in front of ..dead or injured people. Some of them caressed those who were still alive and spoke to them softly. Then I heard a series of shots. I looked into ..pit and saw ..bodies were twitching or ..heads lay motionless on top of ..bodies which lay before them. Blood was pouring from their necks. I was surprised I was not ordered away ..but saw there were also 2 or 3 uniformed policemen standing nearby. ..next batch was already approaching. They climbed into ..pit lined up against ..previous victims and were shot. When I walked back round ..mound I noticed another lorry load of people ..had just arrived. ..it included sick ..infirm people. A very thin old woman ..with terribly thin legs ..was undressed by others who were already naked ..while 2 people supported her. ..woman appeared to be paralysed. ..naked people carried ..woman around ..mound. I left with Moennikes ..drove back to Dubno. ..morning of ..next day ..I visited ..site ..saw about 30 naked people lying near ..pit ..about 30 to 50 metres ..from it. Some ..still alive ..looked straight in front of them with a fixed stare ..seemed not to notice ..chillness nor ..workers of my firm who stood around. A girl of about 20 spoke to me and asked me to give her clothes and help her escape. At that moment we heard a fast car approach and I noticed it was an SS detail. I moved away to my site. 10 minutes later we heard shots from ..vicinity of ..pit. Those Jews who were still alive had been ordered to throw ..corpses into ..pit then they themselves had to lie down in ..pit to be shot in ..neck.” Hermann Graebe.
I require your assistance more and more, and will judge where I belong in these Community’s I am attached to by the response to that need. There has Never been any other demand than to see in my work a very passionate response to a graver wrong no man has done against their fellow man. It is difficult at times to navigate the personal attacks as how else am I to be recorded, as I criticised for writing the words of concern for so many People abandoned with little or no concern for them. For me, unless the words I write are read, they remain isolated from those who might be otherwise critical of their content. I am not a Jew. There is No reason I should be.
“..In ..second chamber ..an army of teenage girls sheared ..newcomers’ body hair with scissors and razors. Some left their ‘clients’ cut and bruised ..others tugged while cutting our hair. ..girl who attended to me was by no means an expert hairdresser ..but it appears she wanted me to look dignified. She did not seem to remember how mercilessly her hair had been shorn. I smiled and whispered ..Bog zaplac May God reward you. It came naturally ..expressing all my appreciation for a human being who had appeared at ..bottom of ..pit and shone a bright light in ..darkness.” Pearl Benisch.
But the violence that was state sponsored is an affront to all of humanity and as it contorts to suppress newer dissent, what Hitler sought from violence, as he used it to fight a World War. This premise in conflict was as a camouflage to cover his more directed aim, The Final Solution of The Jewish Question. The World recognises that differences are best resolved when nations require the written word to end the act of conflict. But while the strife continues, the attention of any Peoples is diffused and distracted by government hoping control will be maintained, even if truth concerning past endeavours seals the pact we have with the truth we must see as essential.
“..Salaspils ..largest of ..Camps. ..authorities do not encourage remembering. No where on monuments ..is it mentioned that Jews died there.” Maja Abramowitch.
I do Not seek to waste my words but they can be wasted. People who do not understand the loss to humanity involved in 6,000,000 Jews being Slaughtered, are not my readers. They will never appreciate why I endeavour to recall, remember and accuse in the name of all humanity thrown aside as these Jews are thrown headlong into oblivion. If, or when I compose 6,000,000 words on such an atrocity, I will Never come to terms with the bitter sadness such inhumanity will undoubtedly present. I expect you all to be mortally offended by what I place before you but please see past the word or the image to know the gravity of intolerance that lays unhidden behind the scene.
“..anyone ..attempting to write ..on ..nature of Nazism ..will not be able to express ..truth ..Nazism’s cruelty and barbarism. ..no writer among ..gentiles is qualified for this task. ..a Jewish writer who lives ..life of his people ..who feels ..suffers their agony ..cannot find a true path here. Only one who feels ..taste of Nazi rule ..only one who ..bared his back to ..lashes ..only ..a writer ..if he is a man of sensitivity ..might be able to.” Chaim Aron Kaplan.
Know too that my words alone cannot offend the sensitivity of anyone who knows their effect is meant to remind us of all that is lost. I recall reading from Maria Marianska, one of the earliest chroniclers of the Jewish Children in The Holocaust. Her pains taking and evidential collection of Children’s experience ensured I know why my effort is essential to the Jewish life that was lived and that it is not further degraded. What comes of the wasted energy of those who seek to secure any reason for us not to remember that there was once many more Jewish People amongst us and we choose to recall them to both honour them and accuse their abuser’s.
“..a powerful ..pitiless fact ..thick grass is growing over ..mounds ..ditches ..pits that are ..common graves of ..murdered Jewish Children.” Maria Hochberg-Marianska.
It is impossible for me to consider that anyone, knowing Hitler’s mein kampf existed in this world, that a World could not know the hatred of Hitler’s intention. I have perhaps given all, and all too often at times, and sometimes that is without respite, but I would not change the course of any part of that. While it still amazes me though that my work does continually add confusion to the essential of remembering, there is in those asking why I continue in such past memory, that 6,000,000 Jews are no more speaks more volumes than my words have yet to do. My very effort to recall as many of these 6,000,000 human beings cannot be diminished by anyone questioning any part of my commitment.
“..In spite of everything I still believe ..people are really good at heart.” Anne Frank.
True, I am having to slow things down, but I am none the less committed, and wholly fixed to the cause which 6,000,000 Slaughtered Jews have presented to me. For me too, cutting back on the essential that has always driven me toward too many sites that are seeking to destroy the memory essential in recalling all we have lost, with the same or similar seeming vindication for their hatred, I am assured my words remain essential. I not here merely judging that the tutoring of our compassionate concern must be raised above the clamour to silence a charitable duty. I have stood up to so much and even those who still see the atrocity is the pictures I present, have simply not looked at the progress of their delivery, the rounding up, the hounding, the accumulation of hatred that so destroyed 6,000,000 Jews of Europe.
Always to Remember, Never to Forget.
“..If there were only one decent German ..then he should be cherished despite that whole barbaric gang ..and because of that one decent German it is wrong to pour hatred over an entire people.” Etty Hillesum.
The Proclamation of Independence on behalf of the Provisional Government of Israel Tel Aviv, Israel May 14th. 1948, 5th. Iyar 5708.
The Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel
The Land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious and political identity was shaped. Here they first attained to statehood, created cultural values of national and universal significance and gave to the world the eternal Book of Books. After being forcibly exiled from their land, the people kept faith with it throughout their Dispersion and never ceased to pray and hope for their return to it and for the restoration in it of their political freedom. Impelled by this historic and traditional attachment, Jews strove in every successive generation to re-establish themselves in their ancient homeland.
In recent decades they returned in their masses. Pioneers, defiant returnees, and defenders, they made deserts bloom, revived the Hebrew language, built villages and towns, and created a thriving community controlling its own economy and culture, loving peace but knowing how to defend itself, bringing the blessings of progress to all the country’s inhabitants, and aspiring towards independent nationhood. In the year 5657 (1897), at the summons of the spiritual father of the Jewish State, Theodore Herzl, the First Zionist Congress convened and proclaimed the right of the Jewish people to national rebirth in its own country.
This right was recognized in the Balfour Declaration of the 2nd November, 1917, and re-affirmed in the Mandate of the League of Nations which, in particular, gave international sanction to the historic connection between the Jewish people and Eretz-Israel and to the right of the Jewish people to rebuild its National Home. The catastrophe which recently befell the Jewish people – the massacre of millions of Jews in Europe – was another clear demonstration of the urgency of solving the problem of its homelessness by re-establishing in Eretz-Israel the Jewish State, which would open the gates of the homeland wide to every Jew and confer upon the Jewish people the status of a fully privileged member of the community of nations. Survivors of the Nazi holocaust in Europe, as well as Jews from other parts of the world, continued to migrate to Eretz-Israel, undaunted by difficulties, restrictions and dangers, and never ceased to assert their right to a life of dignity, freedom and honest toil in their national homeland.
In the Second World War, the Jewish community of this country contributed its full share to the struggle of the freedom- and peace-loving nations against the forces of Nazi wickedness and, by the blood of its soldiers and its war effort, gained the right to be reckoned among the peoples who founded the United Nations. On the 29th November, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution calling for the establishment of a Jewish State in Eretz-Israel; the General Assembly required the inhabitants of Eretz-Israel to take such steps as were necessary on their part for the implementation of that resolution. This recognition by the United Nations of the right of the Jewish people to establish their State is irrevocable.
This right is the natural right of the Jewish people to be masters of their own fate, like all other nations, in their own sovereign State. Accordingly we, members of the People’s Council, representatives of the Jewish Community of Eretz-Israel and of the Zionist Movement, are here assembled on the day of the termination of the British Mandate over Eretz-Israel and, by virtue of our natural and historic right and on the strength of the resolution of the United Nations General Assembly, hereby declare the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz-Israel, to be known as the State of Israel. We declare that, with effect from the moment of the termination of the Mandate being tonight, the eve of Sabbath, the 6th Iyar, 5708 (15th May, 1948), until the establishment of the elected, regular authorities of the State in accordance with the Constitution which shall be adopted by the Elected Constituent Assembly not later than the 1st October 1948, the People’s Council shall act as a Provisional Council of State, and its executive organ, the People’s Administration, shall be the Provisional Government of the Jewish State, to be called “Israel.”
The State of Israel will be open for Jewish immigration and for the Ingathering of the Exiles; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations. The State of Israel is prepared to cooperate with the agencies and representatives of the United Nations in implementing the resolution of the General Assembly of the 29th November, 1947, and will take steps to bring about the economic union of the whole of Eretz-Israel.
We appeal to the United Nations to assist the Jewish people in the building-up of its State and to receive the State of Israel into the community of nations. We appeal – in the very midst of the onslaught launched against us now for months – to the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to preserve peace and participate in the up building of the State on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its provisional and permanent institutions.
We extend our hand to all neighbouring states and their peoples in an offer of peace and good neighbourliness, and appeal to them to establish bonds of cooperation and mutual help with the sovereign Jewish people settled in its own land. The State of Israel is prepared to do its share in a common effort for the advancement of the entire Middle East. We appeal to the Jewish people throughout the Diaspora to rally round the Jews of Eretz-Israel in the tasks of immigration and up building and to stand by them in the great struggle for the realization of the age-old dream – the redemption of Israel. Placing our trust in the Almighty, we affix our signatures to this proclamation at this session of the provisional Council of State, on the soil of the Homeland, in the city of Tel-Aviv, on this Sabbath eve, the 5th day of Iyar, 5708 May 14th. 1948.
David Ben-Gurion, Daniel Auster, Mordekhai Bentov, Yitzchak Ben Zvi, Eliyahu Berligne, Fritz Bernstein, Rabbi Wolf Gold, Meir Grabovsky, Yitzchak Gruenbaum, Dr. Abraham Granovsky, Eliyahu Dobkin, Meir Wilner-Kovner, Zerach Wahrhaftig, Herzl Vardi, Rachel Cohen, Rabbi Kalman Kahana, Saadia Kobashi, Rabbi Yitzchak Meir Levin, Meir David Loewenstein, Zvi Luria, Golda Meir Myerson, Nachum Nir, Zvi Segal, Rabbi Yehuda Leib Hacohen Fishman, David Zvi Pinkas, Aharon Zisling, Moshe Kolodny, Eliezer Kaplan, Abraham Katznelson, Felix Rosenblueth, David Remez, Berl Repetur, Mordekhai Shattner, Ben Zion Sternberg, Bekhor Shitreet, Moshe Shapira and Moshe Shertok.
