All that I have, of what 6,000,000 Jewish means to me, are presented to a World in those Books in which I deliver for them, all my words adding to their Memory. This is a body of work which recalls the Jewish loss to all of Civilisation, and it is not so carefully written as to dismiss the accusation to face the World. The civilised World did little in acknowledging the purge of human beings, and simply because they were Jews. It may seem a rather vague hope, but given the misplaced anger my work elicits from all too many, and there are too many of those who seek to distort the overriding truth, I persevere in 6,000,000 losses. The factual integrity of my work, which is recognising that 6,000,000 Jewish People were Slaughtered, and at the hands of those non-Jews who stood against all that humanity should have meant. My work is an amalgam of effort to be read in History, and to write it further into all of History, and without it being driven by the bias of distortion sought by so many. For all of those who would seek to shield their own nations from their lack of effort, or indeed protect their own people’s involvement in what is the vilest of human atrocities, History will not be swayed from its revealing truths. The broader accusation of course, are those levels of indifference and acceptance which was given over to the deadly plight of the Jews of Europe. All of this is mindful of that definite awareness such a reality has upon a devastatingly deadly excursion for those Jewish People into oblivion, which such silence has pronounced.
“..One day a special transport arrived at ..Camp. ..People were not wearing regular clothes. Those prisoners wore striped pyjamas. They were so skinny and bony ..collapsing from hunger induced weakness. Their heads were shaved and you could not tell ..difference between Men and Women. A rumour was spread in ..Camp that those people ..about 300 hundred of them ..arrived from ..Majdanek Death Camp ..where ..gas chambers ceased to operate. ..Germans ordered them to lay down on ..ground ..and they simply collapsed. Frenzel ..an SS ..came over and poured a chlorine solution on their heads ..as if they were already corpses. ..screaming and groaning that came out of their throats were like wounded animal’s howls. It seems that there are no limits to human cruelty.” Hela Felenbaum-Weiss.
From the very moment I considered writing on The Holocaust, I delved into the basest of human cruelty and brutality. Here, where all powerful beings took out every savage act against innocent and defenceless human beings, because they happened to be Jews. The truth of such atrocity, and this one pertinent fact, proved the theme that had to be my first consideration, and this was to be gained while we could, from those Jewish Survivors who knew the horrifying details. It was clear that what we were fast approaching, was the growing loss to such testimonies of these clear and discernible truths. The disappearance from view of those first-hand evidence’s, from those who are continually getting older, and are aging further from the terrible atrocity we clearly must learn from. With such reality biting at me, the truth is, and having decided not to write on ‘The Irish Situation’, I knew I could write with such distaste for such inhuman behaviour. I also assumed I could avoid all accusations of bias, and perhaps too I could even avoid a threat of prejudice that any subjective influences in my early education might be present. In all of this, the title to my First Book:
Testimony and Fading Memory in The Holocaust
Preface.
“..the treatment of the civilian population ..presented the highest political and military leaders with a welcomed opportunity for carrying out their plans ..the systematic extermination of ..Jewry.” 1:1
This Book is not just about the Holocaust and the destruction of the Jewish People, though perceptibly it is very much an account of it. This Book is the very detail of the Holocaust, in extraction! In all of its words and meanings, this Book embodies all that the Holocaust means to me and should, hopefully, mean to you. It is, however, not my Holocaust nor is it the property of other than those who suffered, endured and were silenced by the effects of a cold blooded attempt at complete annihilation! It is the Holocaust of those who were selectively Murdered, of some of those who Survived the attempts to annihilate them and even of those who witnessed the crimes. Those, who perpetrated the worst crimes in our History, have more than a word to say about the Holocaust and are included alongside those, more deserving of a voice. This Book, more rightly, belongs to some 6,000,000 People, who owe their destruction to an almost immeasurable Religious heritage, and an even more immeasurable trust in their fellow Man.” Patrick Dempsey.
came into being. This, my first Book, resonates with what I consider is that clear demand to learn now from those Jewish Survivors who will not all be here for all our tomorrows to come. With all of that as my initial idea, this is where the genesis of my journey begins, and I immerse myself fully into the destructive capacity, which every detail of The Holocaust delivers. This for me all began more than 30 years ago, and I am still plying my way through the debris of memory so as to resurrect some aspect of all that has been lost. In order for us to remember what must never be forgotten, we cannot ever afford to be selective in relation to what we research and seek to present to posterity. Firstly, in the beginning I was presented with the image of a 4 year old Child, a Jewish Child Survivor, Tovah ‘Tokele’ Olshak, who deserved more than to have her Survival destroyed by a still persisting, and rancid Polish hatred that was continuing. I knew full well I could draw upon my own personal losses, a long position unable to process what loss meant to me so I transposed this to fit how I felt about the murder of a very young Child, who happened to be a Jewish Child
“..But I refresh myself from day to day at ..original source ..life itself ..and I rest from time to time. And what those who say ..you live too intensely ..do not know ..is that one can withdraw ..and leave again with renewed strength and with peace regained.” Etty Hillesum.
Secondly, and during my period of World War II research, I came to appreciate an aspect of that very search which delivered another image. The persistence of so many was one I could barely comprehend, but I had to believe they were well informed and objective, but I drove a train through their failed perception of Hitler as a commanding military mind. For me, any thesis leading to a book on the Second World War, would have been stalled upon the depth of this bias, its very distortion and the untruths it sourced to unfold. Somewhere in this research, I came across what was Stahlecker’s murderous coffin imagery, and with his report emphasising those Jewish Executions were carried out by Einsatzgruppen A. This ‘Von der Einsatzgruppe A Durchgefurte Judenexekutionen’, struck deeply, and it gradually dawned upon me, that the Jews were being sidelined. Somewhat submerged in those very terms that The Holocaust was meant to define them, the Jews were being lost in favour of reflecting upon those who only see in the compunction in war, is to revel in war itself.
“..Today is my birthday ..I am 18. One idea occupies me continually ..Eretz Israel. There is but one place on earth in which we are not refugees ..not emigrants ..where we are returning home ..Eretz Israel.” Hannah Senesh.
Somewhere in the depths of the very exposed details of a War in the World, there was a dismissive approach to the Jewish presence. All too many others were being considered more relevant than the Jewish detail of a burgeoning atrocity all too clearly observed. Those like Hannah Senesh though knew quite well, that only nationhood would afford the Jewish People a space where they could belong, where they could fight back on their own terms. For me, it was becoming perfectly clear too, and it is a shocking realisation which I could not contend with, that bias was a pervasive intrusion into the very science of all of History which could not be countenanced. I was very concerned too with the growing contention that saw Hitler as some form of mythic warlord, or even a military genius. The idea that he existed even in the vein of an Alexander the Great, or as an exponent of the Military Strategist which someone like Sun Tzu is credited with, misjudged his presence in military matters. This is how so many people have sought to resemble this Austrian corporal in comparisons. What I recognized through all of my study of Warfare, and as it was pursuant of a second War to involve the World, was that Hitler merely commanded some of the greatest military minds available to him at the time.
“..First a human being ..then a Christian ..this alone is life’s order. People are bound to one another with ties more profound than any of ..barriers of human history ..including ..history of religion may have constructed.” Nikolai F. S. Grundtvig.
What this certainly assured for Hitler was to be those victories which proved catastrophic against an enemy he had always envisaged was within his Weltanschauung. In that particular Worldview though, we were to recognise a globe that would be without any Jewish presence in it. From here, I abandoned much which suggested that bias could fill in spaces where the rationale of integrity could be overlayed. It occurred to me too, that all too many favoured one man over any respect for 6,000,000 Jews, a Jewish People who were so ritually Slaughtered, and at this Austrian miscreant’s insistence. What is also recognised, while millions became both complicit, and duplicitous in commissioning of this genocide, Hitler stood at the top of the pile directing the Slaughter from the comfort of his desk. It was becoming apparent to me that the very detail of The Holocaust, and its remit, might not even become a post-script to this cataclysmic World event if we are to concentrate on the absence of Hitler from the scene. Hitler openly declared his want of War and then invented a means to destroy All of World Jewry, while supposedly shielded from view. That clearly vocal intention, which Hitler never fully sought to conceal, was fed through his deeply utilised hatred for the presence of the Jewish People. So in the first place with my initial attempt and back then once I sought to move forward, was to present you with a Book which shared my understanding of the deeply moral dilemma, and those ramifications that The Holocaust incurs. However, in the title itself:
Testimony and Fading Memory in The Holocaust.
this Book seeks to confirm, and in the entire passage of time, my own need to add to the Jewish Memory. In words to contain a homage to Jewish memory, and from those Jewish Survivors who knew so many of these 6,000,000 Slaughtered Jews. It is impossible to recognise the legacy of these Jewish losses unless we engage with a lasting legacy for all of their future memory being guarded against loss and unconcern. All of a sudden, and at an alarming rate, these surviving Jews were fast fading from view, passing on to meet with those they finally saw, in the depths of the horror which has detained them. Here too, and I seek to find where all of this hate for the Jewish People resides, and I find a 2,000 year old hatred which serves small minded bigots like Hitler all too well. Then, as I took that deliberate route toward recognising those mass killers who fully engaged in what Hitler demanded, I found a reasoned effort to take my work forward.
Of course, the sheer acceptance of the role played out in the Killing Sites by these Einsatz foot soldiers, and as many of them were to witness in the Death Camps, becomes my accusation of all those who placed them there. Also, all of those who knew the Einsatz were in operation, and those who supported and supplied them, are to be held to same shameful account which judges them before the bar of all of History. This fact of the murderous plunder of Jewish existence is written with a note of caution, and for us to be clear in seeing it, and that in this past, theirs is an identification, as a cadre of mass murderers, and not just the 3,000 Einsatz who are but a tiny representative parcel of those who murdered the Jews with such disdain, and killed Jews with impunity. Each operative, whether Civilian, Police, SD, SS, Waffen SS, Wehrmacht, all 100,000 or these and more are mass murderers. They are all equally confronted, and this is where my approaches to that particular aspect of The Holocaust past, becomes visibly written into my Second Book:
der Einsatzgruppe and The Destruction of European Jewry.
Preface.
“..Conquest ..gives no title ..if it exists over the body ..it fails over the mind. It can exert no empire over men’s reason ..judgment ..affections.” Roger Casement.
“..To hurt a fellow human being; to have the capacity to inflict pain upon another person is a terrible indictment which we have inflicted upon mankind. To threaten to inflict pain on another person, and then to carry it out to its most horrendous, murderous and destructive conclusion, is an even more vicious and pernicious evil. In politics there is this belief that he who governs decides, and that is even more so in a totalitarian, rightist, Nazi or fascist state. We must always remember that this threat of violence, is just as fundamental a principle in democratic rule, but perhaps less obvious than with dictatorial governance! In terms of right wing politics, and fascism in particular, what is always tolerated is an infusion of hatreds, a blend of petty squabbles and a stern refusal to accept the sanctity, to live as we are, as happens in Ireland today. The antiquity of Jewish antecedence had not been blunted throughout the History of civilization, even by the many pogroms of days much more troubled than we had yet known.” Patrick Dempsey.
For me, this Book formed, and in my search for answers and ever more questions, where these mobile killing units came fully into view. From within my search through the pages of my first book, I found a piece I had written about the presence of these Killers, and it was certainly one that I wanted to expand upon. The terrifying detail of their murderous effort, clearly worded in their own Operational Situation Reports, were such that their documented evidence’s prosecuted them, even if far too few of them were ever to be indicted, judged or even hanged. This immersive section proved an investment in the accusation of nations directly implicated in the wrongs done against their own Jewish community’s and for me it was worth pursuing. What then finally emerged, and in words formed from my own burgeoning understanding of each piece of the very narrative of The Holocaust as a whole, could not be limited to what so much in history was seeking to disregard, or even ignore. I am certain also, having gone back through every aspect of my previous research, der Einsatzgruppe were a greater detail than we had ever been keen to investigate. Of course, it was simple to limit the search to just 3,000 mass Murderer’s, but that would exclude all of those we can identify in the midst of the horror inflicted upon the Jewish People. That is what I had now sought to bring together and is:
der Einsatzgruppe and the Destruction of World Jewry.
This Book, which delivers toward the very fact that some 2,000,000 Jews alone were shot to death, or they were gassed in specially constructed vans, and they were even hanged, and were otherwise butchered, or they were slaughtered and tortured into oblivion by the very devices of annihilation these Einsatz employed. Such then was the ‘Aktionen’, as it was directed by these four units, Einsatzgruppe A, B, C, D, each one of these formed parts of Hitler’s machinery of destruction. That we clearly recognise their ilk is due in no small part to their own identification with the acts they undertook to deliver for Hitler what he has expressly wished for. Their sheer indulgence, and their murderous effort was fully complimentary with all that Rafael Lemkin designed the term Genocide to recognise. These Einsatzgruppe structures used a well formed, seemingly splintered set of Einsatzkommandos and Sonderkommandos who were to sweep all and any Jewish presence into eternity. And while it is not enough to merely detail the exploits of these 3,000 or so murderous individuals, we must still deliver the facts of their barbarity. Their individual brutality is delivered to a posterity that is for us to condemn for an eternity wreaking of the monstrous deeds. It is incumbent also, and upon all of History, that we clearly recognize that all of these 3,000 aktionkommandos are not all of those who are clearly implicated participants and perpetrators in this Slaughter.
“..There was an inner sense to ..Nazi persecution and Extermination of ..Jews ..for ..progressive removal of ..Jews meant ..conquering of time ..of ..present in 1933 through their exclusion from German society ..of a moral past in 1938 ..and ultimately of history ..and therefore of ..future ..in 1941 through ..Extermination from ..face of ..Earth of all ..Jews as ..source of all historical evil.” Alon Confino.
This formative effort was an extermination program whose effort is owed to Hitler in the first place, and it is an effort which commenced in Poland in 1939. But such is this aktionen that it can be traced back to the early 30’s when power afforded Hitler the route towards the violation of those very human rights in civilisation he sought to purge and ignore. What has never been envisaged in any history ever compiled, sets this Jewish Slaughter apart from any measurable outrage that has ever been recognised in civilising terms. The Holocaust is a uniquely, unparalleled and unprecedented slaughter of any People, and simply because these People happen to be Jews spells out Hitler’s pernicious hate. For that very reason, The Holocaust term belongs to these Jewish People, emerging as they did from what The Final Solution was, the answer to The Jewish Question. For me, it was more important to record the involvement of as many of the 100,000 Germans who officiated in the mass murder of as many as 2,000,000 Jewish People. It is also a fact, that countless others were brought to non-existence, and rather than remaining negligent in the acceptance of just 3,000 operational operatives managing such an atrocious Jewish catastrophe, I point to the accused who were truly involved. We simply cannot hold exclusively, within our total disdain for just those 3,000, these founding members of the Aktion cohort, who did not stand alone. This would allow for 97,000 and more other monstrous Germans, Austrians, Balts and many others, their fellow collaborators, to escape the testimony of their deeds.
“..In utter loneliness a writer tries to explain ..inexplicable.” John Steinbeck.
From the very scrutiny of us all as human beings, the truth cannot simply be parcelled into digestible pieces while we recognise the indefensible nature of mass murderers were acting at will. I have sat in secluded isolation for hours, days and even weeks looking into a devastation which sought to void so many People, and all because they were Jews. If we needed ever to add a meaning to what hatred is, I found it here looking into an abyss where humanity deposited its more and ethical probity. For those very levels of degrading inhumanity, which 100,000 or so human perpetrators sought out, and who willingly undertook to deliver, such is their murderous atrocity. This atrocity too was delivered, and on such a grand scale, that our future recollection must ensure never to allow the murderers to be detained by any inaccuracy which does not recognise their fuller participation. We must recognise all of those who wilfully destroyed Jewish People for being Jews. Such too was the detail in that second Book that I formed in my own realisation, a deeper schism was presented to all of humanity. With humanity’s related links to all of civilisation, it became clear that when I stared down the road to discovering the essential in comprehending this atrocity, I headed toward my Third Book:
Babi-Yar – A Jewish Catastrophe.
Preface.
“..These are true and just words ..they contain a moral appreciation of ethical understanding ..and that ..in ..Intolerance shown to ..Jews of ..Holocaust ..we have clearly shown an Indifference to ..struggle for mankind’s own relevance in a caring World?” Annals of the Holocaust.
“..I want my work to have validity, and I do not simply want to communicate the condemnation, of all that was done against the Jewish People, but I roundly condemn all those who perpetrated these crimes, without us learning from the process. Those who were supposedly Christian in nature, who failed significantly in their moral duty to that ‘christian’ ethos, and should have alleviated the Jewish suffering, have only their consciences to save them. Personally, I would wish to afford a more acceptable apology, for all that was done in the name of anti-Semitic hatred, than has been forthcoming. I can never hope to emulate the eloquently significant, and reflective responses, given to this search, by those who are best equipped to inform us.” Patrick Dempsey.
From such a standpoint, I could see all the way back to where many nations, whose own territory has been escorted to the levels of bestiality their own community became involved in, they delivered a murderous outrage to all human endeavour. From the very confines of that second Book, as I followed along on the rampage of these members of Hitler’s Aktion squads, one Killing Site stands out, and is measured above the Colossus of all murderous effort, and that site is at Babi-Yar, just outside Kiev, Ukraine. It became a simple matter then, of writing a care worn piece that was recognizing the necessity for that emerging Book, which is based upon a single effort to establish one killing site as the single arbiter of such a murderous atrocity, its detail torments the human soul. What is always my hope is that the words contained in any of my Books can bring forward a truth which offers us a hope that brings us all together. As the words which elicit from any of my Books its attention is roaming along to the essential necessity of reminding us of the tragedy that is:
Babi-Yar A Jewish Catastrophe.
Today we recognise in Babi-Yar, what is more than just a Slaughter beyond comparison, it is a template for all future efforts in destroying the Jewish People. The actions of Blobel’s Sonderkommando 4a here at this ravine, has secured for infamy, an indelible damning of humanity, with the ritual Slaughter of these 33,771 Jews entails. Over a two day period, in less than 48 hour’s, there remains to history a desolation which Hitler’s minions have sought to replicate, over and over again. Here though, and between September 29th 1941 and September 30th 1941, the Jews of Kiev were marched toward their destruction at a space that had once been their recreational ground. Here, as the killers took their tally to such a hideous height, no other killing operation or facility matched the ferocity of this murderous intensity, though many then tried. Even The Death Camps, numbering in their 1,000,000’s those Jews who were systematically slaughtered, and on an industrial scale, was spread over a period of many more days, even weeks, months, and certainly years. For these yet to be created as the amassed killings in the Death Camps, what will emerge has so established the terminology of industrial slaughter, they are defined individually in each of 6 Killing Centres in Poland. From here, in words I had been exploring since my visits to all 6 of these Death Camps, I moved onto what was to be my Fourth Book:
Hitler’s Belzec.
Preface.
“..Przemysl. ..All ..deportations were to Belzec. From ..first deportation ..a few who had jumped from ..train returned and they warned people in ..second operation that ..same thing awaited them. People began to hide themselves. But many went to ..square in ..normal manner. ..they obeyed ..order.” Dr. Josef Buzminsky.
“..Belzec was born out of Kozielsk Hill and Hitler’s desperation to rid Europe of its Jews. This place was to be Hitler’s Endlosung. The locals referred to the formative Death Camp established formerly as a Labour Camp situated just outside the Village of Belzec as the Camp on the Hill or Kozielsk Camp. But infamy had a judgement to make and History records that within a tight and confined space in a wooded clearing atop a hill, some 884,700 Jews of Poland, and many other Jews from a wider Europe were murdered, annihilated and totally destroyed here. I am certain too that while the local population would rather not have their Village linked to such terror and the horror of such an immense atrocity, it is a part of history embellished with the blood of the Jews who never emerged from there. But fate too has conspired to terminate the existence of all of Jewish Poland within an elaborate Death Camp system, least of which was Belzec.” Patrick Dempsey.
Here though, and while this is not the 4th Book I had wished to write next, given the prevailing winds of denial and distortion infecting much of Eastern Europe, The Baltic States, and indeed the World, it was a Book I was directed toward, as it was meant to be. With an accumulation of factors, which had drawn my attention over the Years, I delivered to memory what I thought so many Survivors sought. The naming of the unknown, or less well-known spaces within which Jews were continually Slaughtered, I realised that the Death Camp at Belzec was just such a space. Also, and there is this common theme of Hitler’s absence from the role of dishonour, we could easily place millions of Germans upon, why then seek to exclude Hitler from this monstrous deed. Also, there was the growing trend from within Poland, that was consistently moving denial toward its distortion, and over its own place within the Slaughter of 3,400,000 Polish Jews. The Death Camps were firmly placed within Poland, and by Hitler, and for the very specific reason that 3,650,000 Polish Jews lived there. Also, Polish Jews lived in their own homes, were resident in their own homeland, for which they considered was Poland at the time, and were on hand for what Hitler proposed for them. The sad fact is true though, and that Polish Jewry was clearly betrayed for having thought of Poland as its homeland. So I combined both affronts to History, Polish wishes not to be recognised for its lack of effort in trying to save its Polish Community. Even with the active participation by many Poles in destroying their former Neighbours, we relate this alongside Hitler’s clear omission from the overall Jewish Catastrophe, and here my title for this Book was borne:
Hitler’s Belzec.
It was evident to me, and upon my own visit to the Death Camp at Belzec, that I clearly recognized the wrongs been done to all of History. Here, it was not possible to keep secret the fact of the removal of 884,700 of Polish Jewry from existence in such a tiny space. We simply cannot accept the ignorant assumption of any lack of knowledge while the destructive processes permeated the entire area for a range extending to 20 or even 30 miles, and beyond, and the windows and doors of the Polish Village opened out into so murderous a scene. The railroad and road which separates the Village from this Death Camp, would have exploded with sounds, sights, and the debris and stench of destruction. While History appears content in accepting less than the given estimate of the Jews Slaughtered throughout The Holocaust, here there is evidenced testimony which exists that states 1,600,000 Polish Jews were consigned to their fate, and here at Hitler’s Belzec.
Yet still we are reminded to ignore that relevant fact, its pertinence to testimony, seemingly consigned to an unacceptable purge upon its authenticity. So I move on and ever since I came across the image of Tovah ‘Tokele’ Olshak, the destruction of more than 1,500,000 Jewish Children has pressed hard against me. In this small human form, civilisation has been convulsed into almost disregarding their presence in an effort, somehow, to salve a huge portion of its own guilt in how The Holocaust was formulated and progressed. As I was misdirected toward Belzec, I walked knee high in snow, in temperatures of minus 18 and was saddened to think of the progression of the living through such conditions toward such devastation as I was reminded of, every step of the way. It occurred to me too, that below my knee height would have stood Jewish Children, totally immersed in the bitter snow, and freezing cold, unable to lift their tiny legs to avoid the drifts which many would have been neck deep in. With such burden of emotion, and with that all in mind my next work Book Five had to be:
The Child in The Holocaust
Preface.
“..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.
“..Throughout this further search for meaning, you will be intercepted by those who seek to light our way. These, who provide the evidences of those who are detained within the detail of The Holocaust, are essential to us. There are also the testimonies of those who survived Hitler’s brutal and deadly intention for them. There is also the witnessing from history, to point us to a catastrophe that was systematically sought out exclusively, for the Jewish People. These are the very reasons why we must learn from this catastrophe, and why Never Again cannot be just a catch phrase. This is very much a Book for the Jewish Children of The Holocaust. and though it will be about them as Jews, and not all as Children, we barely know 1,500,000 of their lives that were dredged from amongst us. That these Jewish Children were so callously and systematically destroyed is shocking enough but it is also tantamount to a moral failing on a Worlds part placating Hitler. While we are perhaps closer now to an understanding of the Jewish Child’s eradication, without comprehending the brutal fact, we can still at least be looking for them. In knowing many more of them, each effort delivers a memory of some we will now recognize, recalling their former existence. Now, while we must gain from those 1,500,000 Jews we have chosen Always to Remember, Never to Forget, we move the tenets of civilized society back into focus.” Patrick Dempsey.
This latest Book clearly pin-points the Jewish Childs presence in the carnage of civilisations own disintegration, as it serves up these Jewish Children to the mantle of a horror still so infinitely unwritten. The deeds of monstrous individuals, who cannot allow even for any Jewish Child to escape its murderous grasp, points the way toward an ever more despicable crime. Here, murderous people were drilling deeper into the psyche of terror inflicted upon an innocence as yet not fully formed. The cover of this Book is not as I had envisaged though as it is all White, it keeps with it a respect for the fact that these are Jewish Children. With the blood Red seeking to conceal their very existence, a cover emerged which exemplified the many ideas these Jewish Children demand from us. But I wish to recognise also, that the Jewish Child’s presence is from amongst the gravest atrocity to ever face the entirety of humanity. In its single image, we cannot yet see the totality of these 1,500,000 very accusing Jewish Children hidden details. While we cannot even begin to record the devastation any of the Jewish Children faced, either in the Killing Sites, or even within the Death Camp system, disbelief is augmented by an incomprehensibility we are incapable of understanding, let alone appreciating. But, and that is what we must also recognise, we simply cannot ever escape the very fact that over 1,500,000 Jewish Children were ritually Slaughtered, and all because they belonged to Parents who were also Jews.
“..Dear friends. On ..sea ..land ..in ..air ..during war and during peace ..We all have but one goal. Each and every one of us must stand his place ..There is no here ..no difference between ..one duty and another. You are always in my thoughts. Because that’s what gives me strength.” Hannah Senesh.
The strength of individuals, whose escape from the cauldron of the horror, did not sway them from re-entering the crucible of Hitler’s War Against the Jews, for various reasons. For me too, all of these Books are written for those Survivors who did not know there were more people like me, who would have done otherwise than resort to such an atrocity against them. Time and years however, did not allow for me to intercede on their behalf, and at a time of their greatest need when they could have done with ever more responses in their favour. But know this! I would not have casually stood by and I would not have looked on with any form of indifference that scolded these Jews as they passed by. Also, I would not have betrayed the deeply ingrained morality which fully demands we act in obeyance of our own ethical duty to do act with compassion. In all honesty, I cannot know what I would have done at the time, but I certainly know what I would not have done in either perpetration, participation or betrayal. My words clearly and continually state this, and My Books Certainly Share This. Back in time, there was an element of an idea I had to write what would have become my fourth Book, and I sought the opinion of those Writer’s I consider who knew specifically what all of this meant in the annals of The Holocaust.
“..we’re Jews in chains chained to one spot ..without ..rights ..with a thousand obligations. ..put our feelings aside ..be brave ..strong ..bear discomfort without complaint .. do whatever is in our power ..trust in God. One day this terrible war will be over. ..time will come when we’ll be people again and not just Jews.” Anne Frank.
Babi-Yar still stood alone before me, as a chasm of such immense despair, and all of that ensured I knew I had not yet completed that work in the detail of Babi-Yar A Jewish Catastrophe. As the defining, almost singularly atrocious and murderous scene that was ever to regulate our incomprehension of The Holocaust, Babi-Yar stands aloft. For all too many who formed this thesis of what terror is, as established by the likes of Anne Frank, so many just like Anne could not have known of this place. Also, and for those who remained sadly unaware of what was being delivered toward Jewish extermination, Anne too would not escape the gravitational pull of sites like this, or Death Camps for the consumption of Jews just like her. This then was to become my latest Book, and it is meant to be an extension of my initial work on the Killing Site of Babi-Yar itself. This signifies its importance within the annals of The Holocaust, and this eventual title though was held off as a mark of respect to Elie Wiesel, who communicated certain concerns he had for sections of the work. So it would appear that I am not quite finished at Babi-Yar, or in fact, have these 33,771 Jews of Babi-Yar quite finished with me. For the World, which has to recognise all that is presented here as a Catastrophe for the Jewish People, and in turn all that should civilise us, is an atrocity itself beyond compare and what becomes Book Six is:
The Jews of Babi-Yar
Preface.
“..if they ..really decided to deport ..Jews as a reprisal for ..Kreshchatyk affair ..why ..all of them.” Anatoli Kuznetsov.
“..There is no need to trust the status of any nation whose own Jews were impacted within all terms associated with, The Holocaust. So I carefully follow the many examples set by scholars of History, many of them Jewish Survivors, who find the space necessary to impress upon all of History, the debt we owe to The Holocaust. For whatever reason, sovereignty provides the best excuse for deniability, a certain complicity and even the duplicitous deceit in covering this all up from historical view. Even though the very proof of the slaughter at Babi-Yar is written in Nazi forms, it is as ignored as it is deeply wounded by the depth of the Jewish blood shed there. We are all aware of what States like Denmark was capable of, and what other states should have sought to achieve.” Patrick Dempsey.
This is not only a Book which confirms the status of its own particular atrocity, but clearly recognizes, and more closely, the individuality of all 33,771 of these Kiev Jews. Though we personally don’t, nor can we know them individually, we cannot allow them to be merely assessed as a collective of Jews. That they were sought out for Slaughter, and even though that is what they were targeted as, I recognise what Simon Wiesenthal had once declared, in appreciation of them as People, and not as a statistic. It is an imperative then that we seek to define the fullest intention of those like Blobel, amongst the legion of murderer’s and their leadership. While going up the ranks toward Hitler at the helm of this slaughter, we recognise this is another detail in evidenced based acknowledgement of The Final Solution’s place within Hitler’s Worldview. All too often we look to this Jewish position, as some sort of divide in which the Destruction of the Jews was carried out. However, the slaughter did not operate in some sort of void, and the Wehrmacht Blitzkrieg rolled straight past every event perpetrated against the Jews, including here where:
The Jews of Babi-Yar
were being exterminated. War itself cannot be conducted in a vacuum, and whether we are seeking to disguise the lines of communication, or even the supply lines, the logistics of ensuring the operational capacity of the Wehrmacht, which fed der Einsatzgruppe all it required, opened the gaze to more than this World War was conducting. Hitler’s expression of a Worldview, his Weltanschauung, has been exacted to ensure the widest, deepest and most certain border is kept between perpetrating The Final Solution of The Jewish Question, and what the German’s were supposed to remain oblivious to. However, the reality of that view was meanwhile undermined by elements of those German’s, so content with their role, that their boasts were recorded, intercepted and keep from the wider World by an intention hard to comprehend.
“..We still don’t know what they did to ..Jews. There are terrifying rumours coming from ..Lukianivka Cemetery. ..impossible to believe. ..Jews are being shot. ..Jews are being shot with machine guns ..all of them. ..one thing ..clear ..all their documents ..things ..food ..confiscated. ..chased into Babi Yar and there. ..something terrible ..horrible ..inconceivable ..cannot be understood ..grasped ..explained. ..We know ..we already know for certain ..blood from Babi Yar flew ..was flowing at a distance of kilometers from ..cemetery.” Iryna Khoroshunova.
