“..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.