This Holocaust Author's Auschwitz Blog

My Boulder for Erica.

In keeping with Jewish tradition, and due to the fact that I cannot be there in person, here is a pebble, a stone, a boulder of words for Erica’ s worth to us all. The stones, when we see them at places like Treblinka, these Boulders, Rocks, Stones and the tiny individual Pebbles, a collective alongside these Monoliths to Memory, we share in their purpose to Remember. The very intricate gathering of the display always urging us to take the memories back from these dark places and shed light upon what it meant for those Jews Murdered here. From all too many Community’s of Europe, these Jews who are eternally confined to spaces not of their choosing, speak to Erica of past memories she has enjoined with those she herself has brought forward. These Stones and Pebbles whether small, tiny or large, they are all piled in such a way that seems without form but always with a sense that a Community has come together to pay tribute to the best of us all and for us Always to Remember, Never to Forget.

“..power that comes from daring to continue to be vulnerable.” Erica van Beek.

Erica was a vulnerable human being as some of us know her, and even while many have yet to experience the great loss of a Mother, what Erica deliver’s to us is an acute pain of loss and deprivation. There are certain people, just like Erica, who need to be Remembered for what they stand for and in her search for a Mother who was so cruelly taken from her, she offers up her vulnerability. Erica van Beek also stands for the Survival of World Jewry, as it is to be presented by her and on from her to us all. Erica presents her memory also for The Jews of all of Europe as she is a testifier to what happened, not only to her but to her Mother Olga also. Erica also relates to those of Jewish Holland, and even an Austrian Jewry no longer able to urge us forward, as she emerged from Austria to Survive in Holland.

“..at ..time. At each address it must look as if I belonged. And a child who complains about when Mutti was returning ..was a danger for her surroundings. ..questions and even ..memory was so very quickly suppressed and eliminated by ..mental and physical coercion from outside. And ..multitude of impressions ..all relocations and new environments and ..induced fears ..memories indeed disappeared. Nobody ..apart from my Father ..had ever talked with me about my Mother.” Erica van Beek.

Erica’s Mother, Olga Bock, was born in Vienna on Tuesday November 19th. 1907 to Erica’s Grandmother, Jozsefa, nee Karpfen, and her Grandfather, Armin Bock and these are Erica’s Fraternal Grandparents. Here, Erica entrusted me with the very intimate detail of this revisited portion of her life and her lifelong and painful coming to terms with the deeply embedded trauma over her Mother’s destruction. For Erica clearly, she never gave up hope of that reunion with her Mother, even though she knew that hope had been dwindled so far down, it was barely flickering. There is such a loss for her that is so overwhelming, which lesser beings would not have been able to continue to function let alone would they have endured. Erica would not have Survived all that she was put through without the resilience of a Woman who had been imparted with the values of conviction and strength.

“..I am aware that ..where this story began as a personal process ..it is now my Mother’s story. I think it is ..fact that I want to know these things ..she could have told me if she had not ..been killed.” Erica van Beek.

Erica was simply born to Survive and was driven relentlessly forward so as to ensure her course met ours. She proved tireless in reminding me of what was required Remembering, and she sent me details of the struggle History should not be having with The Holocaust on a constant basis. It seemed to us both that we have moved too far away from learning what should be learned toward adapting the lessons we should not now use against an other. I wish I now had the time to say to Erica, you have touched the soul of another so deeply, it has moved a colossal space to become more filled. There is all too often times when more should have been said and they were not said, but I am certain Erica grew to know the esteem in which I held her. Between 1935 when Erica was born, Thursday August 1st. 1935 and the intervening years till 1938, there was such an influx of Jews, escaping persecution within Poland, that Holland resounded to a differing air of Jewish sounds.

“..If I have ever had ..illusion that humanity has become wiser and better ..it is now absolutely over. ..I still had hope. Ethnic ..Nationalist wars ..in ..civilized ..Europe have broken out ..make me realize ..humanity has learned nothing.” Erica van Beek.

Such was the influx of Polish, German, Austrian and other Jews, the diversity of Amsterdam, previously a metropolis for most European Jews, extended its cosmopolitan status. In all the moments of shared communication, I found Erica’s long search, for the answers she clearly sought, to give me continued reason to hope I would find the form of comprehension to this travesty for the Jewish People I had always sought. Erica’s never failing desire to greet us with a Mother she longed to embrace, held her in a perpetual drive to remind us of what loss truly means. We now find loss has moved her on toward a reunion I hope in all earnestness, greets her well. I know her growing disillusionment with the failures to learn left a bitter taste for her. Considering what she has Survived, it is completely understandable that she was irritated by the World we still inhabit.

“..From Vienna I remember little or nothing. A large ..gray ..barrack like building where all voices sound very hard. A big garden like a park. ..There I also have an Omama ..that in my memory is very big and stately. ..As I dive into ..past again without clear memories ..without images. ..feeling of very fine porcelain. ..scents of earl grey tea ..bergamot ..roses ..scent of certain perfumes ..from freesia’s. ..scents of Mutti.” Erica van Beek.

But for Erica, her resolution and positive mindset was such, that she fully hoped to find that goodness in the World and in more and more of us. Slowly, as she limited more and more of her own accusation to fewer and fewer of those who were actually responsible for the rise of more and more hatred’s, she recognised she could learn to relax more. But she never quite adjusted to what The Holocaust had been responsible for, and so back in history, we sought meaning from answers that had no resolution. As the devastating effects of a World’s inability to resolve a Jewish Refugee crisis, the Cruise ship St. Louis landed in Antwerp on Saturday June 17th. 1939 after its failed bid to land in America or Cuba. But nations of Europe did respond, with Britain taking 287 of these Jewish passengers, France taking 224 of these Jewish passengers, Belgium taking 214 Jewish passengers and Holland taking 181 of these stranded Jewish passengers.

“..I feel again at one with ..persecuted ..oppressed ..that is where I belong. Among ..Jews ..Jewish Marx ..as well ..all oppressed peoples that come up in revolt who flash through my mind.” Erica van Beek.

The plight of these Jews, having left Hamburg for Cuba a month earlier, these 934 Jewish passenger refugees were physically stranded between unconcern for their well being and a total indifference to their plight. A whole Month, 4 weeks on the open Seas, abandoned by Nations of the World and while 6 of these Jews did land in Cuba, having jumped overboard, the fate of a further 22 of these Jewish People is unknown. On Saturday August 26th. 1939 and while The Times of London’s Literary Supplement alighted the entire World to Hitler’s intention of an impending Holocaust for its Jews, and we recognise what could have been done to alleviate a small portion of the plight of these Jews, Hitler guarantees the neutrality of Holland. Of course, history has taught the World already that words spoken by herr Hitler have no equivalence in truth or honesty.

“..What else do I need to get past ..letting myself be. Not everything has been worked out ..on paper or in my head.” Erica van Beek.

From the remnants of Jewish Europe, the people who are these Jewish Survivor’s, they will continually beat themselves up about the reason why they are the ones to have Survived and why 6,000,000 other’s were forced to die. At the time when Anne Frank was in hiding and Etty Hillesum was still in full view, all Jews in Holland were being monitored, identified for transportation East and for many of them, with a knowledge in some degree as to what was coming for them. Etty Hillesum, by no means a victim, though victimised sees in affording assistance to her fellow Jews in Westerbork, a gift which gives us the very taste of what Olga herself would soon experience. Anne Frank’s Diary, which would offer Erica clues as to what life in hiding was like for the Jews in fear for their lives, is a monument to what Jews feared and fretted over, Survival.

“..victims Jews ..in ..Netherlands ..mounted to 100,000 less than 2% of ..Final Solution of ..Jewish problem. In ..process ..Dutch Jewry was put outside ..law ..isolated ..robbed of all ..possessions ..deported ..cut down with near scientific precision.” Dr. Jacob Presser.

For this transit Camp at Westerbork, identified all too often with Dutch Jewry, was the common denominator for any of those Jews found in Holland. Westerbork was the transit hub toward which they were directed and either Birkenau or Sobibor was where annihilation awaited the vast majority of them there. Around 140,000 Jewish People, according to census figures, lived in Holland as Hitler’s forces poured across the Dutch border on Friday May 10th. 1940. It is no coincidence therefore, given that some 2 years later when Hitler’s statisticians came up with the figure for The Wannsee Protocol, as 160,800 Jews within Holland’s border’s, accuracy is obviously endorsed by Hitler’s clear demands to know where his resolve for these Jews would be met. Of course, some of these Jews were from the St. Louis, and while many of these had crossed many borders to reach comparative safety from Poland and Austria, Olga indeed was amongst them.

“..2 issues from my earliest childhood are still ..flight from Vienna to Amsterdam ..and ..abrupt divorce of my Mother. From ..time ..to ..end of ..hiding I can figure out ..facts ..a predominant feeling of darkness and cold. Except for a few sunny memories from Hoorn.” Erica van Beek.

The sense of a guaranteed safety did not last long for any Jews in Europe, let alone in Poland after 1939 or in Holland after Wednesday May 15th. 1940. Holland had fully capitulated within 5 days and had surrendered its ability to protect its Jewish Community for what now loomed. Four days later, on Sunday May 19th. 1940 Arthur Seyss Inquart is appointed Reich Commissioner over Holland and following on from that on Tuesday October 22nd. 1940, all Jewish businesses in Holland are to be registered. A deep and penetrating darkness has descended upon the Jews of Europe, and here in Holland as elsewhere, the escalating terms of the anti-Jewish bias, bigotry and hatred is mounting. On Monday November 4th. 1940 all Jewish Civil Servants are dismissed from their positions in Holland. Then, on Friday January 10th. 1941 the closer identification of the Jewish People is brought to bear as all Jews in Holland are to be clearly identified and registered.

“..my own traumatic life ..has made me aware of and empathetic to ..trauma ..fears ..and ..world of others. ..if I can do something with it ..surely that is a bonus. ..I sometimes get ..feeling I am found to be ..a voice in ..wilderness. ..if I keep quiet ..I feel ..responsible. ..I have my own way to express my dismay about ..horrors of our time. ..maybe too emotional ..but that is ..way I happen to be.” Erica van Beek.

During the months of February, June and September 1941, a number of Dutch Jews are rounded up and transported to both Buchenwald and Mauthausen Concentration camps and are to be Murdered there. Following on from The Wannsee Conference Tuesday January 20th. 1942, while the escalating terms of The Final Solution had been underway, we see on Tuesday February 3rd. 1942, in Holland these terms binding all of German Society in Hitler’s fatal resolve for the Jewish People, delivered by SS Gruppenfuhrer Dr. Wilhelm Harster to his officials dealing with The Final Solution in Holland. If ever there seemed a moment of safety for Erica and her Mother Olga, that moment of safety for all Jews remaining in Holland had come to an end. By Monday June 1st. 1942, with all Jews forced to wear ‘The Jewish Star,’ the Mogen Dawid, throughout Holland, the brutalising of the Jewish People intensifies.

“..Friday July 3rd. 1942 ..this new certainty ..that what they are after is our total destruction ..I accept it. I know it now ..I shall not burden other’s with my fears. I shall not be bitter if other’s fail to grasp what is happening to us Jews.” Etty Hillesum.

Most of the Jewish People arrested in Amsterdam were first taken to the former theatre Hollandse Schouwburg. Here they were assembled alongside those Jews brought in on transports from the remainder of Holland proper. Some 400 Jews were detained in the Theatre and this became the eventual assembly point in Amsterdam for the transports East, beginning in July 1942. Sadly this is the fate that awaited Olga and while I never got to meet any of these Jewish Women of Holland, either Anne or Etty, nor those like Erica van Beek who convinced me of her great resilience and resolve, they had this dreadful trauma in common, though Erica was spared the final detail. I did learn to know Erica as an extraordinary Warm, Cultured and Understanding Human Being. I had planned to meet up with Erica, the next time I was in Amsterdam, Holland yet this was not to be.

“..Friday August 21st. 1942 ..so many houses are being searched for hidden bicycles ..Mr. Kugler thought it ..better to have a bookcase built in front of ..entrance to our hiding place.” Anne Frank.

That hoped for meeting was very important to me as I sought to learn everything from Erica and those whose anguish would mark my opinion of the very culprits who forced Survival upon Erica and the other Survivor’s. It is clear from what Etty knew, and what Anne would learn from Radio Broadcasts, these Jews in Holland, those like Olga and a further 106,000 Jewish Men, Women and Their Children would all add to the Slaughter in Hitler’s resolve to end all Jewish existence on the Continent of Europe. So far, I have been introduced to Olga Bock, the Mother Erica lost, for whom no amount of words could console her, and through that pain, I gained an impression of the Person Erica was and the humanitarian he is. Back then, when Olga was picked up by a Dutch policeman and detained in a Dutch house on the Amstelveenseweg, we can barely speculate Erica’s deeply emotional loss.

“..I have never taken leave or said goodbye. ..Mutti was gone.” Erica van Beek.

In what was eventually seen by Erica as part of an on-going quota system of search and detention of all Jews, for a 7 year old Child there could be no figuring out why Olga had not returned, nor come home and was no longer there for her. As the inevitable street raids on individual Jews was common, this however was before the systematic scouring operations of entire Streets and Areas came into being. The timing of this was in August 1942 and we learn that it was assumed by Olga that her Sister Hilda was looking after Erica. This was clearly borne out in the letter dispatched just before Olga had reached camp Westerbork. Erica has informed us that, from an almost illegible note which her Mother wrote as she was transported toward Westerbork, of Olga’s permanent concern for Erica. Though the letter is addressed to her Sister Hilda, it is full of Olga’s concern over her removal to Westerbork and for Erica’s newer predicament.

“..Mama’s love had always been ..kind that acted itself out with soup pot and sewing basket. But now that these things were taken away. ..She loved ..people she saw in ..street ..and beyond ..her love took in ..City ..land of Holland ..World. And so I learned that love is larger than ..walls which shut it in.” Corrie Ten Boom.

With this emotive scrap of paper too, Erica learned not to be closed in by walls and while the note itself remains a last personal attachment, which Erica eventually obtained from her Aunt, Erica had embraced a World which had sought her out. That actual document, an artefact, is in the Resistance Museum in Amsterdam. Erica can now identify with what I find in Emmanuel Halverstadt’s description. It is his vision of a Westerbork all Dutch Jews who travelled through it and Survived would recognise. For Erica to know a little more of what Olga was forced to endure, the description will not lessen the pain. Nothing would. Nothing ever did. However, the process as it would greet every Jewish Person within Holland, forced to remain in Westerbork Camp until final Deportation, would be similar to this in every detail and would alert Erica to what her Mother met along the way. Of course, that final capture for Olga, which brought her hiding to an abrupt end, suggests she too was possibly taken, eventually, from within the theater Hollandse Schouwburg, Amsterdam to Westerbork.

“..Westerbork ..Barrack 60. ..military police entered ..barrack was sealed off. We had to pack everything ..put on transport to Auschwitz. ..We travelled 2 days and 3 nights. One night we stopped at a train station. ..next morning we left in daylight. ..stopped once more during ..day ..we could leave ..train under heavy escort. ..Gruenen polizei ..tried to take our watches gold jewellery. I did not give it to them. When we arrived at Auschwitz we stopped some 5 kilometres before ..Camp. We had to throw all ..luggage off ..train. After this ..SS came and beat us out of ..train wagons.” Emmanuel Halverstadt.

From Westerbork, for the eventual transport to Birkenau there were some 57,800 Jews on 65 transports who went directly there, the vast majority to the Gas Chambers. For the removal Westerbork to Sobibor, there were some 34,313 Jews on 19 transports. This final stage on Olga’s delivery to Birkenau was on Tuesday September 8th. 1942 when she was taken from Westerbork and on toward extinction. As with all the Murdered Jews of The Holocaust, though we may know the exact name of and even the place of Death, all too few of these Jews of Europe will have been availed of a personal grave site. It is evident that all such Killing Sites and Death Camps had open mass graves solely for the interring of those Jews delivered to them. The vast majority of these 6,000,000 Murdered Jews are to be recognised as Murdered, Interred, Exhumed and then their traces Obliterated.

“..Olga ..died in Auschwitz. .. journey lasted 3 days. This is true according to all ..information that I have ..official and informal. So that should be accepted. She fortunately only suffered for a short time. And now I am able to bury her ..to give her a grave and a Page of Testimony ..YadVashem in ..Hall of Names ..Jerusalem.” Erica van Beek.

From all x6 Death Camps Hitler had built in Poland, in the containment Ghetto’s of Poland and Eastern Europe and from amongst a multitude of places all too numerous to recount, the evisceration of the Jews of Europe took place. There are no records which specifically recognise accurately enough to know where the 6,000,000 Murdered Jews are. In each grave yard though, in every killing site or Death Camp, whether they are Dutch Jews, or the Jews from every nation within Europe, Hitler’s resolve to destroy them all has filled an enormous space with the loss of human existence. Constantly, there is this exact same disregard for the humanity that was all too clearly abandoned there, resurfacing to deny them their final, though ambiguous resting place. It is for Erica, with the continuous saga of her tragedy sees her inability to lay to rest the memory of a Mother she did not have the time to say goodbye to. Added to that, and though Olga’s final resting place is in Birkenau, amongst 1,100,000 other Jews, the space for her interring is both communal and unidentified.

“..National Institute for War Documentation. When Olga was arrested and held prisoner and deported to Westerbork ..I can maybe find something about it there.” Erica van Beek.

On Thursday September 10th. 1942 the Transport from Westerbork arrived at the siding inside the Extermination Centre Birkenau, Poland. The ramp had been established to take the weight of numbers and to place them immediately before the Gas Chambers. Here, from this Transport, 874 Jewish Men, Women and Their Children, were disembarked and 614 of these Dutch Jews are immediately selected to be Murdered. Olga’s fate is not immediately sealed, though it was to be confirmed within Birkenau only a matter of days later. It is uncertain why, but while Olga Survived till Monday September 14th. 1942, she too was subsequently Murdered here within Birkenau. For Erica, the continued search is an endless array of places and institutions to contact for the next snippet of information. Though, as we approach the end of the Year and as 1942 rolls relentlessly on, Wednesday October 14th. 1942 strikes more indelibly at the Jews in Holland as they are virtually outlawed from amongst their former neighbours and community.

“..white ceramic jar with lid, wherein sits a packed piece of stone from Auschwitz, that a friend of Renco, my ex-husband, specially brought for me. That now can get an honorary place. Will I be able once again to visit there, as in Vienna, or at Yad Vashem, there to find my mother’s name. First search in Westerbork barracks 41/0.” Erica van Beek.

Then, on Thursday December 17th. 1942, as the Allied nations seek to condemn Hitler’s Extermination of the Jews, and there is a pledge that is made by America, Belgium, Britain, Czechoslovakia, French National Committee, Greece, Holland, Luxembourg, Norway, Poland, Russia and Yugoslavia as the transports roll relentlessly on, pushing East. Here, with an officially termed condemnation of Hitler’s aktionen, retribution will still not deliver all those guilty to any future meaningful punishment. Hitler’s Nazi’s, in the meanwhile, accumulate their assortment of rolling stock and as these Transport’s continue to roll on and into Birkenau, there is no similar call to stem the flow of Jewish loss from Pope Pius II. There is no call from the Pope to cease the Murderous activity against Europe’s Jews. As a ‘christian’ of sorts it is with deep sadness that I am writing for Erica, who will be a massive Loss to me, to You all and to what the World will now be deprived of, as her life has been so dealt a blow at the hands of an ostensibly christian people. I am truly sad. I am completely shocked and I am so sorry I missed an opportunity to finally meet up with her!

“..Monday May 29th. 1944 ..Do you know where ..Jews of Austria ..and of Germany ..Holland ..Czechoslovakia and France. ..in Poland ..taken in cattle cars ..70 into each car. What happened to them I do not know ..I can only guess.” Eva Heyman.

My loss is a great tragedy, as Erica was one of those People who could inspire anyone to make a difference. As Eva Heyman was scribing these words, as 106,000 of Dutch Jewry, all Men, Women and Children of them, including Erica’s Mother Olga, were Murdered in one of x2 Death Camps in Poland and other camps throughout Hitler’s greater Reich, the staggering assessment of loss requires measuring. For more than 34,000 Murdered Dutch Jews in Sobibor or the 60,000 Murdered Dutch Jews in Birkenau, Erica had a special space in her heart for them all. They were a part of her continued search for Olga which never ended. For those 12,000 other Dutch Jews who were Murdered either in Situ, Amsterdam, Westerbork, various Camps across the Reich and Greater Reich or in the many of the Dutch areas still attempting to conceal Jews from the Transports, Erica contemplated the what if’s?. Unfortunately for Erica, Olga’s fate was finally sealed within Birkenau and it would take Erica years to discover the whole truth. As Erica forms part of that Viennese Jewry which fared little better, with as many as 43,000 Jewish Men, Women and Their Children being Murdered, it is essential to recognise where Erica had fled from.

“..after 1945 ..every Jew stood alone ..bereaved of ..Parents ..Children ..Family ..Friends ..Acquaintances ..deprived of everything that once made up ..life.” Dr. Jacob Presser.

As the World woke up to find that 6,000,000 Jews were expendable, we recognise so pervasively that what ended is a humanity which could not civilise us. As the world focused its attention on the War, 6,000,000 Jewish People had been routinely slaughtered, under the gaze of free standing powers. Entire nations, a World of indifference remained so unconvinced of the Jewish tragedy, there became no need to save a single one of these 6,000,000 Jews. On Saturday May 5th. 1945, as Hitler’s forces surrender in Holland, and as this brings Erica so little relief, her search enters a new phase. It is to be sometime later, 18 years, that Erica is reconciled with the fact that her Mother will never return and will remain lost to her. Olga’s was Murdered while War distracted attention away from Hitler’s personal aim, die Endlosung der Judenfrage, The Final Solution of The Jewish Question, The Holocaust of 6,000,000 Jews of Europe, Olga’s amongst them.

“..Only in 1963 was I ..suddenly ..confronted with my past. I received from ..Red Cross proof of her death. A Wiedergutmachungsgeld from Germany.” Erica van Beek.

Erica’s Father, Jacob (Jaap) died on Sunday November 28th. 1976 and this ended a passage for Erica which had been temporarily filled with at least one Parent she could look to. Regardless as to how a Jew in Europe felt themselves to be, secular, Hassidic, Orthodox and apathetic to all, the tenets of a 3,000 year old hatred was extracted and enacted upon every single one of them so as to define a person for Slaughter. The clothing of a Carmelite Nun could not prevent Edith Stein from being Murdered as a Jew, no matter how convinced she had been of her conversion. This status too would have applied to Erica, as she would have suffered the same fate, even as a Child of a non-Jewish Father. Olga would have been the defining Parent in the muddled legislation which affixed the sentence of death to all Jews. This of course would only have availed Hitler of a further victim if Erica had been discovered and history has given much to us to be thankful for Erica.

“..life of Jews in ..Netherlands. ..A book. ..All ..pages reveal ..this history is also mine. ..despite my not ..believing but still a real Jew. ..biological provability ..to be a child of a Jewish Mother still being Jewish.” Erica van Beek.

Tragically, Erica passed from us this year 2019, a Saturday May 4th. and she will be sorely missed by those who knew her, those touched by her and by those yet to experience what Erica had so much to deliver. For me, it is reprehensible to be delivering this in the past tense. I have informed Erica that I considered her a Friend above everything else we sought to share. I come to the table with nothing to offer but the words I hope to make a difference with. My Books intrigued her, and I was to deliver a Book to her when I eventually saw her. What is there for me to say now that she has passed, and we are left bereft of a word that might make the difference to all those now lost moments. Erica, you have become a treasure to many. I will ensure that Treasure is spread far and wide. This World, which might not have known you too well, will know You more than it deserves.

“..knowledge of ..past ..of all that misery ..leading to fear ..significant uncertainty ..anxiety ..that leads to depression does not help. ..realized that again today. Will that also get better. It hinders my real development ..it keeps me in 2nd. or 3rd. place. Not that I’m ambitious. But it’s a false modesty ..and resulting from fear to really stand out. It’s something from ..hiding.” Erica van Beek.

For those Survivors who emerged from the gravest tragedy ever to infect this world, how can a person be not wounded by such an experience. To suddenly be thrust into a World alone, fearful of being found out for who you are, as opposed to what some might consider what you are. To then place a blank page across ones memory so as to forget the past, so that it should not hinder the growth toward a future, was an obstacle to knowing. And then to measure this all with Erica’s profound sense of loss for what happened to Olga, her Mother, I have only my own personal experience to suggest, I have insufficient suffering to suggest Erica’s. Erica was one amongst some 35,000 Jews of Holland who managed to Survive so how can we detail, Ever, the understanding that should come from an atrocity so immense, we title it The Holocaust.

Jacob

I have known you- and not known you my child

I have a picture of you, that is called Jacob;

An image of rebellion, fury and suffering

That binds you to my past.

I have built a picture of you, my child,

That put his arms around me and held my hand.

Not the boy who destroyed his life

But one who finds life fearful and unliveable.

That scared and angry and on the run

in life never found a shelter

and disbanded from his fear by his death

I loved you, my child that we knew.

And powerless, I watched how you

have wounded yourself so deadly.

Who wants to hear how trumpeter grief

Who will not run away for my nocturnal crying.

Hear how the land shakes under my feet thumping looking crying

Screaming for my children their hunters continue to be injured

And flee for my boundless grief

About him and his name can turn around

Flights as I approach come seeking solace

I want their names not know him forget

Never love again no more do not be complicit

Do not come closer I liked you even trust

Again memories should be to what was.” Erica van Beek.

Message from Yessica Erica’s Daughter.

First of all, I have to lose a bit How lame. I believe I have called that the funeral is coming and where it is, but I think I ended up completely forgetting to pass the date and time. Have E-mailed a lot of you, who were in Erica’s address book. So it was mistakenly the assumption that I would have reached all of you. Apologies!

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Monday, May 13th. 13:30 pm In the Aula of Crematory the New Ooster Kruislaan 126 Amsterdam.

After the end, there is an opportunity to pay condolences in the salon of the crematorium. To stay close to the Jewish tradition, we ask you to take one small pebble to put it on the chest.

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I have an urgent request: If you want to come, do you want to let it know as soon as possible via:

dag.erica.dag@gmail.com That is necessary due to the space, catering, etc. If you have already e-mailed that you are coming, then don’t want to e-mail again, I’ll count you double

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And then a personal note: I see in the rushing a lot of fine, beautiful, heart warming messages pass by. I haven’t gotten to it myself yet to sit down to read them and react. But know that I will do that at a later and calmer moment.

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Finally from ME! My past has always been willing to accept the many wrongs in People, but I see the gravest wrong against an innocent People for being Jewish continually perpetuated, so I have always made it a point, when I meet with Survivors, to apologise to them on behalf of what an ostensibly ‘christian’ body of people has done. For the whole of Humanity that Sin of Perpetration, Intolerance or Indifference is a stain upon our own legitimacy as human beings. So just in case I do not get the opportunity to greet you in person, I apologise to You for the inability of those 6,000,000 Murdered Jews of The Holocaust, who cannot direct their appreciation and respect for what you have done and what you have achieved. In each of you the World entire has been saved.

Patrick Dempsey – Erica’s Friend.

August 13th. 1943 “..In view of the tragic existence of the Jews, where the life of the individual depends on chance, and the life of the community as a whole has long been on the brink of cessation, one must, more than ever, see the situation comprehensively. An individual point of view – everyone will surely understand that now – is of no significance today. As individuals, we are all lost. The likelihood of staying alive is minute. Broken and alone there is not much we can expect of life. Dying together with Polish Jewry we must clearly visualize for ourselves the historic character of this time and tell ourselves with courage that our death does not spell the end of the world. The record of humanity and of the Jewish people will continue at its own speedin the future, even after we are safely under the ground. The numerical balance-sheet of the Jews will be sad when peace finally comes to the world after the historical blood-bath. This is indeed not the first defeat of a defenseless people scattered over the face of the earth. Slaughter, murders, confiscation of property, and the burning alive of people all these have been known to us for generations as the essential elements of our martyrology. But there has never been such wholesale extermination. Never did a situation develop like this, where there is no way out. Never before did great numbers of people armed with the most modern technology move against the Jews. Of 16 million Jews in the world, we shall scarcely reach 9 million after the war. And, most important of all, the Jews of Europe will no longer be there, those who up to now made up the healthiest part of the nation. Nobody held out a helping hand to the Jews who were being destroyed, nobody made any effort to helpthem to the extent that they could escape from the danger of extermination. They looked on our destruction as on the death of maggots, and not as the loss of a nation with high cultural values. When the question of the Jews came up even the hatred towards the Germans lessened. There was a solidarity with the enemy in the joy over the fall of the Jews. Only a few retained any degree of humanity, and even theydid not dare to give this public expression. The truth of aloneness was again confirmed. We shall carry the heavy burden of this isolation until the end of our days, and it points to the fact that the only proper approach is that of self-liberation: We have nobody on whom to depend except ourselves. All other political concepts will lead us astray. We have paid the highest possible price because we were lulled asleep by the prosperity of Europe, or guided by false hopes of rescue that would come from outside. We lost our sense of reality and instead of planning our independence we scattered invaluable forces in alien fields. Who knows what would have been the future of the Jewish people if there were no Yishuv (Community) of half a million in Palestine, that built its foundations before the war broke out and which has now reached a million souls? Only this nucleus of a Jewish State now offers assurance for thesurvival of the people. It makes us believe that an independent Jewish nation will rise again, a wellspring of profound spiritual values, as always. It is easier to die, therefore, in the knowledge that a genuine Jewish life still throbs there, that in that one small corner of the wide world we were not undesirables, lonely victims. There would be no sense in our death but for the feeling that, after we have gone, they will be the only ones who will think about us with genuine emotion. Therefore, despite certain death, we join them in their struggle for the future. Every one of our deeds paved the way for freedom, and furthers the building of an independent homeland. Our revolt is a protest against the evil that is engulfing the world. To counter the terror that has crushed our people, we shall stand prepared for the struggle for justice and freedom that should light up the life of humanity as a whole. We are willing to die in order that the shame of death in slavery shall not burden the future of the Jews, and that these Jews shall not have to recall the Jews of Europe with shame because they allowed themselves to be led unresisting to slaughter, and they had not the spirit and courage to defend themselves against destruction. As we had not been allowed to make our contribution to the creative work of building, we shall at least fulfill our historic duty here: it is we who must raise up the name of the lost people, to wipe away the mark of shame of slavery, and to place it among the ranks of people free in spirit.

Cracow Fighting Pioneer Underground Newspaper.

“..All around ..submerged sounds ..groaning ..choking ..sobbing of ..people not dead yet.” Dina Mironova Pronicheva.

All passages used here are from Babi Yar – A Jewish Catastrophe and they formed part of those presentations to Students, Tutors, Educator’s and School Groups who shared an interest in the work I was doing. As each book has been Published I have written a draft presentation for those I will then speak to as to why I write. Contrary to what many see, as the need to write, mine is of that effort which is affixed to a more important element in my work, Remembering those I care to write about.

“..If ..statistic of atrocity at Babi-Yar is as true as it is accurate ..and Dina Mironova Pronicheva was ..only survivor ..fact that ..statistic at
Babi-Yar was not 33,772 must be considered.” Patrick Dempsey.

Back in 2005, when Babi Yar came out, I did what I had done previously and written what it was I wished to state to all those who were prepared to listen. That drafting was so constantly tweaked, as I wished there to be differences for each and every presentation, delivering words which were constantly overlapping of course, but finding subtlety’s to deliver individual presentations to each and every audience. I started writing on The Holocaust some 5 or 6 years previously and could so easily have written Babi Yar prior to this. But I could not forgoe the need to ensure what those Survivor’s I had been talking to were lamenting, us allowing for them to be forgotten.

“..soldiers came ..firing bullets ..into any which appeared to be still living.” Dina Mironova Pronicheva.

The tragic fact, and it is a truth direct from those Survivor’s who supplied me with the essential title to my first Book, that it was indeed the grave loss of those whose Memory was crucial to our search that required securing and a continued emphasis. That guarantee to secure their memory, while their own memory was continually fading, rang all too true every time I was informed that a Survivor had passed on. So I was in a constant race against time, a rush for that comprehension of the bestial atrocity that still eluded us, and as we were still coming to terms with its detail.

“..I use ..word hate very advisedly ..to counter ..feeling of horror that wrenches at my own understanding of ..lost meaning of humanity. Truly
..when I read passages as Dina Mironova Pronicheva describes ..can I know that humanity was lost.” Patrick Dempsey.

Therefore, I could not arrive at the gates of Babi Yar without acknowledging the immensity of loss that the 6,000,000 Murdered Jews of Europe presents to us all. These many Jewish People, who are The Holocaust, are now being contained in a term being continuously diluted of them and for whom must never become lost within the vagaries of that fading memory. This Book then would provide me with a need to express, for the terror of an atrocity contained within the horror of an atrocity, a passage which fully secured for posterity a glimpse of what 33,771 Murdered Jewish losses presents.

“..after ..massacre of ..Jews ..Germans combed apartments ..houses. If they found children of ..Jewish mother they killed them.” Dina Mironova Pronicheva.

Nor could I realise, that I would not reach the outskirts of this particular atrocity, which is Babi Yar, without expanding on the vile force, der Einsatzgruppe, that would become established to ensure 1,250,000 Jews of Europe would be Murdered, and amongst these, the 33,771 Jews of Kiev. Here then in Babi Yar, these Jew of Kieve would be Murdered in that x2 day orgy of destruction, September 29th. till September 30th. 1941. It became essential then to ensure, that as much first hand evidence as could be found would deliver a more rounded and truthful detail as my search demanded. Dina Pronicheva formed an immense part of that demand.

“..Dina Mironova Pronicheva is reputed to be amongst ..only Survivors of ..two day atrocity to meet ..Jews of Kiev in Babi-Yar. And while we look to ..example and expression of such heroics that she exemplifies ..we are also witness to ..cowardly action against ..Jews of Kiev that was enacted.” Patrick Dempsey.

I mention here Dina Pronicheva quite deliberately for it was her testimony which gave her the evidence as having survived, and this is a reminder of that draft I had written some 14 years ago which is lost in a Computer which blew up and a back up LapTop which I had not the sense to back that up also. I have rewritten many drafts of those presentations and still never conclude what is in essence the missing piece from the overall requirement. Forever missing will be the 6,000,000 Jewish souls whose vibrant and essential being has been torn from our own humanity.

“..scraping ..sand off ..scarcely daring to breathe ..used what strength ..left. ..got ..out from under ..earth.” Dina Mironova Pronicheva.

Sometimes, I do feel I tarnish the memory I wish to preserve by the mere mention of those whose perptration has delivered the very need to describe the atrocity. But such is the name of Paul Blobel, an SS Standartenfuhrer who was Kommander of Sk4a which delivered the full spectrum of this atrocity to us. But his name cannot be removed from identifying with what remains after he sought to destroy the very existence of these Jewish People. Here at Babi Yar, what still stands as the single most, individually encountered atrocity conceived against the Jews in The Holocaust, is to tarnish our History in perpetuity.

“..Blobel does not stand tall alongside ..likes of People like Dina Mironova Pronicheva ..or next to ..33,771 Jews of Kiev ..most of whom are as yet unnamed.” Patrick Dempsey.

When we look to excesses completed in Auschwitz/Birkenau, Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibor or Treblinka and when based upon the Murders of 16,885 Jewish Men, Women and Their Children on any one given day, we find no comparison with Babi Yar. It was never my intention to seek comparison’s, though within the period allocated to The Holocaust many such comparison’s are indeed consistent, the Jewish People were Murdered here at Babi Yar in the most unpallatable, unique, unprecedented and unparalledled atrocity ever accomplished in all of our History. But I leave you with the words of such majesty, the sheer essence of Jewish Resistance, from a Daughter who was unable to leave the side of her Mother until it almost added her, Dina Mironova Pronicheva, to the Catastrophe that is Baby Yar.

“..I could not leave my mother alone. I embraced her ..burst into tears but was unable to leave her.” Dina Mironova Pronicheva.

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The Full Transcript of her evidential Testimony is presented here.

My name is Dina. Dina Mironovna Vasserman. I grew up in a poor Jewish family. I was brought up under the Soviet regime in the spirit of internationalism. Thus, it is not surprising that I fell in love with a Russian guy, Nikolai Pronichev, married him and lived with him in love and happiness. That is how I became Dina Mikhailovna Pronicheva. My passport said I was Russian. We had two children: a boy and a girl. Before the war I worked as an actress at the Kiev Children’s Theater. On the second day of the way my husband joined the Soviet Army, and I was left with two children and my old sick mother.

Hitler’s troops seized Kiev on September 19, 1941, and from the very first day they started plundering and killing Jews. Terrible stories about the treatment of Jews were circulating in the city. We lived in terror. When I saw announcements posted in the streets, ordering “all the Jews of the city of Kiev to gather at Babi Yar” (a place we had no idea about), I felt trouble was coming. I started shivering. I say that nothing good was awaiting us there. That is why I dressed my children, three and five years old, packed their stuff in a small bag and took them to my Russian mother-in-law. Then, following the order, my sick mother and I went along the road to Babi Yar.

“..Jews were walking in hundreds and thousands. Besides me there was an old Jew with a long white beard. He had on a tallis ..and teffilin. He was mumbling. He prayed exactly as my father did when I was a child. A woman was walking ahead of me. She was carrying two children and a third one was walking alongside ..holding her skirt. Sick women and elderly were riding in carts among piled up bags and suitcases. Small children were crying. Old people ..having trouble walking ..sighed and trudged on in their mournful journey. Russian husbands were walking with their Jewish wives. Russian wives were walking with their Jewish husbands. When we approached Babi Yar I heard shooting and inhuman shouting. I started to grasp what was going on but did not say anything to my mother. When we entered through ..gates we were ordered to turn in our papers and valuables and undress. A German came over to my mother and tore a gold ring off her finger.

Only then mother said ..Dinochka ..you are Pronicheva ..you are Russian. You should survive. Rush to your children. You should live for them. But I could not flee. We were surrounded by fascists with submachine guns ..Ukrainian policemen ..and ferocious dogs who were ready to tear a human being to pieces. And then ..I could not leave my mother alone. I embraced her ..burst into tears but was unable to leave her.
Mother pushed me away and yelled ..Hurry! I went to a table at which a fat officer was seated ..showed him my passport and said quietly ..I am Russian. He was contemplating my passport when a policeman came over and barked ..Don’t believe her.. she’s a Kike. We know her. ..German told me to step aside and wait. I saw groups of men ..women ..children ..elderly undress. They were taken to an open pit and shot by soldiers.

Then another group would come. I saw this horror with my own eyes. Even though I was not standing close to ..pit ..I could hear awful shrieks of terrified people ..weak voices of children ..crying ..Mother ..mother. I saw all that and was unable to understand how people could kill others because they are Jewish. And I concluded that ..fascists were not humans ..they were beasts. I saw a young completely naked woman feed her naked baby with ..breast when a policeman came to her ..took ..baby ..and thrust it into ..pit. ..mother rushed after ..child. A fascist shot her dead ..she fell into ..pit. Had someone told me this ..I would not believe it. It is impossible to believe. ..German who had ordered me to wait took me to his superior ..gave him my passport and said ..This woman says she is Russian ..but a policeman says she is Jewish. ..officer studied my passport for a while and then said ..Dina is not a Russian name.

You are Jewish. Take her! ..A policeman told me to undress and pushed me to ..edge of ..pit where another group was waiting for its fate. ..It was getting dark. ..They lined us up on a ledge which was so small that we couldn’t get much of a footing on it. They began shooting us. I shut my eyes ..clenched my fists ..tensed all my muscles and took a plunge down before ..bullets hit me. ..before ..shooting started ..I driven by terror ..fell into ..pit. It seemed I was flying forever. But I landed safely on ..bodies. fell on dead bodies. At first ..I could not understand anything ..where was I ..How did I get there ..I thought I had gone mad. But when people started falling on me ..I came to my senses and understood everything. I started checking my arms ..legs ..abdomen ..head. It turned out I was not even wounded. I pretended to be dead.
Under me and above me there lay ..killed and wounded. Some of them breathed ..others moaned. Suddenly ..I heard a child cry ..Mommy! It seemed like it was my little daughter. I burst into tears. ..execution went on ..and people kept falling. I was pushing corpses away in fear of being buried alive. But I did this in a way so that ..policemen would not notice. All of a sudden everything was quiet. After I a while ..when ..shooting stopped ..I heard ..Germans with submachine guns were ..climbing into ..ravine ..killing those who had been wounded. They started finishing off all those who were not dead yet ..those who were moaning ..hiccuping ..tossing ..writhing in agony. They ran their flashlights over ..bodies and finished off all who moved. I was lying so still without stirring ..terrified of giving myself away.

I felt someone was standing above me ..pretended to be dead, no matter how hard it was. I felt I was done for. I decided to keep quiet. They started covering ..corpses over with earth. I closed my eyes to protect them. They must have put quite a lot over me because I felt I was beginning to suffocate. But I was afraid to move. I was gasping for breath. I knew I would suffocate. Then I decided it was better to be shot than buried alive. I stirred but I didn’t know that it it became completely dark and quite deadly quiet in literal sense I opened my eyes and, having made sure no one was around and watching me. ..Using my left arm I managed to move a little way up. I dug myself out of sand that was covering me. Then I took a deep breath ..summoned up my waning strength and crawled out from under ..cover of earth. It was dark.
But all ..same it was dangerous to crawl because of ..searching beams of flashlight and they continued shooting at those who moaned. They might hit me. So I had to be careful. ..I saw the ditch filling with thousands of killed. I got scared. Here and there earth was moving ..half alive people were breathing ..I looked at myself and got scared. ..undershirt that was covering my body was all bloody. I tried to get up and could not. ..I said to myself..Dina ..get up ..leave ..run from here ..our children are waiting for you. Suddenly ..I felt something was stirring behind me. First I got scared and decided to wait for a while. I turned quietly and asked ..Who are you. A delicate ..scared child’s voice answered ..Don’t be afraid. It’s me.

My first name is Fina. My last name is Shneiderman. I am 11 years old. Take me with you. I am very afraid of ..dark. I moved closer to ..boy ..embraced him and started crying. ..boy said ..Don’t cry. We both started to move quietly. We reached ..edge of ..pit ..got some rest and continued climbing ..helping each other. We had already reached ..top of ..pit ..stood up to run away when ..suddenly ..I head a shot and understood that they noticed me. a shot was fired. We fell on ..ground instinctively and waited.. For some time we were quiet ..being afraid to speak. Having calmed down ..I moved closer to Fimochka ..touched him and asked in a whisper ..How are you doing ..Fimochka. There was no answer.

In ..dark I could feel his legs and arms. He did not stir. No signs of life. I got up a bit and looked in his face. He was lying with his eyes closed. I tried to open them but understood that ..boy was dead. Probably ..shot we heard had taken his life. I caressed his cold face ..said good bye to him. Without getting up ..I started moving toward ..high hill that surrounded ..pit. ..I was lucky enough to crawl up one of ..high walls of ..ravine ..and straining every nerve and muscle ..got out of it. I got up ..on my feet ..and ran. All was quiet. Having made sure that I was far from ..terrible place called Babi Yar .”

I decided to approach a house that could just about be seen in the dark. Shivering, I came to a window and knocked. In a few minutes a sleepy woman lifted up a curtain and asked:

“..Who is it? What do you want?”

I answered her:

“..I escaped from Babi Yar”

And then I heard her angry voice:

“..Go away. I don’t have anything to do with you.”

I left. I ran, because the day was breaking and I knew that they should not see me there. But there was no place to go, so I approached a second house and knocked. The door opened, and an elderly woman appeared on the porch. When she saw me in the undershirt she crossed herself and recoiled.

“..Who are you? Where have you come from?” she asked.

I replied:

“..Don’t be afraid ..dear. I am not a devil. I’m human.”

And then I lied for the first time in my life.

“..I’m Ukrainian. I saw my friend to Babi Yar and barely escaped.”

The old lady took my hand and let me in. Then she told me to wash myself, gave me a clean shirt, a blouse, a skirt, and old shoes. I looked at myself and got a shock: a real Ukrainian! My hostess gave me a glass of hot milk with home made bread and told me to get some rest. I ate with gust, went over the old lady, embraced her, kissed her, and burst into tears. My saviour also cried. But having wiped her tears with an apron, she said,

“..Daughter ..I know who you really are. But we are all alike for God. We have one God. Because I have helped you ..my two sons will come back from ..war alive. But my place is not safe for you. Police hounds search here every day. They are looking for Jews. These beasts pay money for Jews. Now ..go get some sleep. I’ll give you some provisions and try to get to our people. May God help you.”

I felt relieved because there were good people on earth who were ready to help others. The old lady made my bed and left. I slept for a while but could not sleep long. The images of the previous day were passing in from of my eyes. I believed I heard shots, shouting, and children crying somewhere. Who knows where my children are? Did my mother-in-law manage to save them? I did not have time to think. I was aware that the old lady could suffer because of me. And I decided to go. I looked in a mirror and was terrified to see my hair grey.

“..This is from last night” I thought.

I put some soot on the face to seem older, wrapped my head in a kerchief, as was done by old Ukrainian women, and said goodbye to my dear hostess and set out for the Daritsa. My friend Natalia, with whom I had played in the theatre, lived there. At first glance Natasha did not recognise me. When she did , she got scared. She told me take off my clothes and get some rest. But I felt something unnatural in her attitude toward me. There was some alienation. Once we had eaten, she said to me:

“..Dina ..I should tell you ..truth. You can’t stay here for a long time. My husband Andrei deserted from ..Red Army. He hates ..Soviet power and ..Jews who invented it. I’m afraid he’ll inform on you. You’d better leave.”

And I left.

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Do we insist, in the case of a single Jewish Woman, raped continuously till death by a horde of wehrmacht and ss, that not all are guilty? Not all should be indicted? Not all should be tried? Or not All should have been executed! That incidence of Rape is not limited to just one single Jewish Woman, but to 1,000’s of Jewish Women and Young Girl’s so abused, that Death awaited them like a comforting blanket. I do not in any sense imply nor believe that Death was other than imposed, forced upon them, but it stalked the Jewish People and awaited them all, because they were Jews.

“..Americans ..British ..fly in these regions. ..Why did they not drop ..bombs on ..horrible tomb ..sixty kilometres from their Northern Frontier. They could have wrecked SS barracks ..ramps ..crematoriums ..roads ..rail track. Why didn’t they.” Alfred Wetzler.

In Escape from Hell, Wetzler lets us know from inside Auschwitz and Birkenau what was minutely detailed by those outside all Death Camps in Poland, all Ghettoes, Killing Sites and places were Jewish life was being extinguished clearly knew. So within my own Book, Babi Yar – A Jewish Catastrophe, which records the single most devastating Slaughter of 33,771 Jews of Kiev, that knowledge was known immediately to Allied powers. This incident then illicit’s in the Einsatzgruppen Trial, though not exclusively for these Jews Murdered in a Ravine, the crime of not punishing the Crime. How do we then measure the Justice abstained here, by indictment of a force capable of Murdering 1,250,000 Jews from Europe? You might not want to own them, these Books of mine, which are for the Jewish Remembrance Never to be Forgotten, but if you read them carefully and know why I transpose such words to mean the Jewish People, you will know why 6,000,000 Murdered Jews, who are The Holocaust, must Never be Forgotten.

“..I hope I do not lack ..valid compassion ..proportional to ..Survivors ..for my words to offer an apology which has been so lacking in ..years preceding all that I describe.” Patrick Dempsey.

In my Book, der Einsatzgruppe and The Destruction of European Jewry, which barely weaves through the trial of those all too few Einsatz indicted in Nuremberg Case No. 9, room is not immense enough. In what I acknowledge as a ‘very short chapter’, and because I am so disgusted with the term trial, the case against the Einsatzgruppe, auxilliaries and waffen ss and wehrmacht participants, requires a more expansive response. But that said, the entire Book is an indictment of a Worlds abject indifference to the whole sale Slaughter of more than 1,250,000 Jews, if truth breaches the dsarkness. In that way, all my Books are, in part, an accusation of a judicious system all too swift to ameliorate the toleration of such a catastrophe by those who perpetrated this, The Holocaust.

“..Many of ..personnel of ..Einsatzgruppe are well known to scholarly disciplines ..but ..make up of these formations has been lost to us due to ..cross over exploitation of other personnel ..and ..inclusion of various militia in ..detail of ..slaughter. It was only with a hollow victory ..once ..War had been lost ..and once ..trials of ..main protagonists and murderers was undertaken ..could ..wider world piece together ..exact nature of ..crimes we were then forced to at least attempt to comprehend.” Patrick Dempsey.

All of my Books, and der Einsatzgruppe as it stands, explore the reaches of a an atrocity which becomes a travesty of missed intervention and reasoning. To stem the flow of Jewish Blood, war was provoked as the only reason to move forward ahead of the catastrophe clearly unfolding as the World watched on. All of my Books likewise, accuse all in the World whose clear and unequivocal knowledge bears down heavily on the indifference shown. What is seen over the immeasurable intolerance wreaked upon European Jewry, is that the Allied and Axis nations are a witness to this atrocity from day one.

“..Jews were compelled to establish relations with an alien ..hostile government that regarded them as subhuman ..fit only for exploitation and extermination. ..human values in which they believed and on which they had built their lives tottered and collapsed. In this cruel reality ..Vilna Jewry struggled to survive and seek rescue. ..daily struggle was for life itself ..survive in ..face of hunger ..disease. Jewish Vilna embodied

..majority of hardships ..torment ..European Jewry ..underwent during The Holocaust ..its responses sum up most of ..options ..available to ..Jews during this tragic epoch. Vilna Jewry was a microcosm of ..fate of all Jewish communities in Eastern Europe.” Yitzhak Arad.

While Arad has delivered some of the most brilliant exposing tomes on what we know of The Holocaust, Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka and Ghetto in Flames in particular, to have Survived to write with such acclamation is beyond the capacity of mere historians to write. While Bauer was writing his Book, Jews for Sale, we recognise that it was not termed so that he sought to sell the Jews but clearly acknowledge and admonish the World for allowing Jews to be sold toward extinction.

“..People seldom learn from history. Can we be an exception.” Yehuda Bauer.

For Raul Hilberg, who is a pre-eminent in the field of The Holocaust, his x3 Volume set on The Destruction of the European Jews is an art in research and deliverance. For my own search, I have spoken to some of the finest minds on The Holocaust who know and accept this fact attributed to Hilberg. But there are Survivor’s who have written what I could never approach in detail, let alone deliver to posterity the intensity of one single incident in which the Survivor has a personal knowledge of. Now I will not bore you with the details of all the names of those I have written to, spoke to and acknlowedge with respect, for they are already detailed in all I seek to do, but they have not found my own effort unworthy of the remembrance for the 6,000,000 Jewish Murdered I present.

“..When in ..early days of 1933 ..first civil servant wrote ..first definition of non-Aryan ..fate of European Jewry was sealed.” Raul Hilberg.

Like them all, it is for me too that we become the witnesses, the custodians and the testifiers to what those like Arad, Bauer, Hilberg, Losinski, Lanzmann and Wetzler have articulated, researched and amplified. Their pathway through the most unparalleled and unprecedentedly unique atrocity ever perpetrated against a People is for us to acknowledge and learn from. I note here too that a preference for the use of the term Shoah is widely referenced, so I will give you an idea of who I am by informing You of a salient point I am consistent with in relation to The Holocaust term.

“..Had I foreseen what it would become ..I might not have written The Painted Bird. But ..book ..like ..boy ..has weathered ..assaults. ..urge to Survive is inherently unfettered. Can ..imagination ..any more than ..boy ..be held Prisoner.” Jerzy Kosinski.

I will not accept the further degrading of The Holocaust term. I know full well the narrative being driven is to deny these Jews their presence in the term. Emerging from The Final Solution of The Jewish Question, the term itself gave an original residence to the Jewish displacement. Its dilution, which is a further intolerance toward the residing principle given over to 6,000,000 Murdered Jews of Europe, is not acceptable for the 6,000,000 Murdered Jews and is not acceptable to me, personally. That personal approach could not be made without having understood the relevance of Kosinski’s The Painted Bird, whose ‘weathered assaults’ did not save him from eventual collapse, before a still seemingly indifferent world, I extol the virtue of those who know exactly what it is I seek too to know of.

“..Incredulous ..I read ..reread this naked ..bloodless text. A strange force seems to have filled it through and through ..it resists ..it lives its own life. It is ..writing of ..disaster ..for me ..another mystery.” Claude Lanzmann.

Here, with Lanzmann’s Shoah in support, the art of the narrator is clearly not just in what is known but in how he allows a ‘bloodless text’ to elaborate what was and is the most disastrous and bloodied path through our times. It is an essential for those of You to know my work and for any of you to go out and find any one of my Books, marks my achievement before 6,000,000 plundered lives. For me to then find out what I know of the Jewish pain, and the suffering of their 6,000,000 People, has not stifled my own contempt for those who allowed this all to happen. There, in each and every passage of those Books to be read are the signals to where my Heart and Soul is etched across what 6,000,000 Murdered Jews have lost. For what we have subsequently lost, and it is my concern for the loss to Their Memory that is contained in each and every page of those works and for which I deliver here.

Anita Lasker-Wallfisch MBE is a Survivor of both Auschwitz, from 1943 and Belsen from November 1944 and was born in Breslau in 1925. She came to Britain in 1946 and has inspired many to look more deeply at themselves for what those, like Anita suffered to Survive. I have none of the insite nor trauma from which I build a very disheartening narrative within a framework of words.

There are sentences that can be borrowed, that are regularly conveyed and are infinitely concerned with the lessons Anita and other Survivor’s deliver. We are afforded a testimony that is in favour of all of those who were so systematically denied even the slightest of care or compassion. I hope, in all of this, the words I use are meaningfully constructed and which must always deliver the factual truth of what is The Holocaust.

Its very integrity and its remembrance of the 6,000,000 Jews destroyed within its reach is an imperative which cannot be allowed ever to be forgotten. What I do not do, and for those seeking to afford forgiveness on behalf of the Jewish People, for all those who were so totally destroyed, I do not offer any forgiveness. It is neither my place to do so, nor is it right to consider it so.

For the 6,000,000 Murdered Jewish Men, Women and Their Children, they have no opportunity to now deliver any fragment of that anticipated forgiveness. I am equally certain, that for those seeking to reconcile with the past, no part of this reconciliation can be achieved without forgiveness for the grave wrongs done to those of that past. For these 6,000,000 Murdered Jews of Europe, ill disposed to ever Forgive, The Holocaust will be an unforgivable stain upon us all for an eternity.

Survivors too, who have the right to forgive what was done to them during this period, must do so if that is their wish. But! Neither they nor I have the right to forgive for what was achieved against any one of those Jews who did not Survive. I, detached from incidence, immediacy or the reality of The Holocaust, clearly have not be personally touched by The Holocaust and those certainly desttroyed.
Such immediacy as a Survivor would have, or a relative should have, even they have no right to afford any forgiveness for other than the hatred that was conducted against them. What transpired against the 6,000,000 Murdered Jews, will stay with their remains. There are many Survivor’s too who could not address their Survival without the guilt for having done so.

Whatever it was that mapped out their Survival, be it Luck or Fate, they hav secured a World entire for having done so. Whatever trick life played upon them to allow them their Survival, they owe it to themselves to fully recognise that they defeated the greatest technological slaughter house in history, be that Auschwitz, Belzec, Birkenau, Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibor, Treblinka or where ever Hitler’s reach sought them.

“..I swore that I would never set foot on German soil again. I was consumed by a boundless hatred of anything German.” Anita Lasker-Wallfisch.

But Anita, who afforded us an Inherited Truth, did return, and in some way went toward reconciling her own feelings for what an ostensibly German nation did to her and 6,000,000 others of her fellow Jews. On Wednesday January 31st. 2018 Anita was once more in Germany and, before the Deutscher Bundestag, she gave an imassioned plea to the World. This is the body of that speech given by The Holocaust Survivor, Anita Lasker-Wallfisch.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Dear Friends and Family,

Thank you for inviting me to say a few words here in the Bundestag. I am one of the rapidly dwindling number of eyewitnesses to the catastrophe which befell us all those years ago.

No other genocide is as comprehensively documented as the Holocaust. There are hours of interviews with survivors, countless reports that you can read, should you wish to. And yet there are still the deniers, people who claim that all the accounts are fabricated and that the Holocaust never happened. They even send someone to Birkenau to scratch at the walls in the ruins of the gas chambers in order to produce proof that none of this is true. The reality is different. In January, 73 years ago, Auschwitz was liberated and the crimes against innocent people way beyond imagination gradually came to light. The scale of the catastrophe simply defied comprehension.

Six million is a number too big to grasp. it is easier to identify with an individual fate. So if I may, I would like to describe, in a few key words, our career as survivors of Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. Renate and I were born in this country, so we are German. Our father was a lawyer and notary at the Oberlandesgericht the Higher Regional Court and our mother was a gifted violinist. We were three daughters, and we all learned to play a musical instrument. I played the cello with great enthusiasm. My sister Renate with somewhat less enthusiasm the violin.

There were some family rules which, as a child, I did not understand at all and, to be honest, found rather stupid. On Sundays, for example, we would only speak French. On Saturday afternoons, my family would come together to read the classics and my father would recount his experiences of fighting at the front in the First World War, when he was awarded the Iron Cross, and we would play chess. We owed it to our family name, for my uncle Edward Lasker was a Grand Master in America.

And then it all came to an abrupt end. Radical exclusion. There were notices everywhere:

“.Jews not welcome”.

We were no longer allowed to use the swimming baths or sit on park benches, and we had to hand in our bicycles. Jewish men were required to add the name “Israel”, and women “Sarah”, to their names. We were forced out of our home. Then, into the Middle Ages: we had to wear a yellow star, and I was spat at in the street and called a dirty Jew. Our father, an incurable optimist, could not believe what was happening. Surely the Germans cannot go along with this madness?

In the museum at Auschwitz, there are vast glass cabinets full of human hair, toothbrushes, eye glasses and even prosthetic limbs. Where did they come from? From Jewish soldiers who had fought at the front. This was the thanks they got from the Fatherland.

Then in 1938, there was Kristallnacht and one knew that one cannot stay here.

But it was too late. We were trapped. The mass shootings of Jews began soon afterwards, in 1939, with the occupation of Poland; then in 1942, the infamous Wannsee Conference took place. Supposedly cultured men sat around the table and discussed, in earnest, how best to rid the world of millions of people 1,000,000’s of Jews. The only problem apparently concerned those of mixed blood what to do with those who were only half Jewish? Should they be murdered too?

By now, there were regular deportations of Jews from all the territories under German occupation. People were being sent to Auschwitz from as far away as Greece. Our parents were deported on 9 April 1942. Of course, we wanted to stay together, go with them. But our father wisely said no. “Where we are going, one gets there soon enough.”

Needless to say, we never saw them again. I was 16 years old.

So, my sister and I were now alone. We were sent to an orphanage, absolutely determined not to let it break our spirit, not to wait for somebody to take us away to be murdered simply because we were Jews. We were conscripted to work in a paper factory. There were French prisoners of war working there as well. We soon made contact and that’s how our career as forgers began, making counterfeit papers that the French POWs used to escape.

When we realised that we were being watched, we decided to try to escape as well. Our aim was to reach the unoccupied zone in France, travelling on forged papers – an absolutely absurd idea when I look back now. But what had we got to lose? Nothing at all.

Of course, this last desperate attempt was bound to fail. We made it as far as Breslau railway station but were arrested by the Gestapo as we attempted to board the train. I’ll be brief. We spent an entire year in prison. It was extremely lucky not to be sent straight to Auschwitz. We were to be tried in a Sondergericht – a special court. I think we have one of my father’s former colleagues to thank for that, a certain Dr Lukaschek, if I remember right. By then, the Buergerliches Gesetzbuch, the Civil Code, no longer applied and under the new rules, it was better to be classed as a criminal than a Jew. Because criminals were given a trial; Jews were fair game.

We were tried on charges of attempted escape, helping the enemy and forgery. The public defence lawyer didn’t show up and as strange as it might sound today, we didn’t want anyone to defend us anyway. The longer the sentence, the better. We already knew that prison would be preferable to a concentration camp.

It wasn’t very pleasant, it’s true: we were locked in our cells 24 hours a day, the only break from the monotony a half-hour shuffle round the prison yard in total silence, hands behind our backs, but prisoners were not murdered, at least not as a rule.

The sentence was three and a half years of hard labour for Renate and eighteen months in prison for me. We didn’t serve out our sentences. After a while, we were sent to Auschwitz separately. It’s hard to believe, but I was required to sign a document saying that I was going to Auschwitz voluntarily!

By then, people were aware of what was going on in Auschwitz but one simply did not want to believe it. Alas it was true.

So when I arrived in Auschwitz, I tried to prepare for the worst an almost impossible task.

But events took a different turn. I was not sent to Auschwitz on one of the mass transports of Jews, who were sentenced to live or die on arrival at the ramp. I arrived in Auschwitz as a convicted criminal. And it was better to be a criminal than a Jew. We were Karteihäftlinge we had criminal records. My head was shaved and the number 69388 was tattooed on my left arm. Anita Sara Lasker no longer existed.

It is hard to believe, but there was music in Auschwitz and it was urgently needed to find someone who could play the cello. So I became a member of the camp orchestra in Birkenau. The director was Alma Rosé, the niece of Gustav Mahler and daughter of Arnold Rosé, the leader of the Vienna Philharmonic for many years until he was “dismissed”. Why? Because he was a Jew.

The orchestra was based in Block 12, close to the end of the road into the camp, just a few metres from Crematorium I and with an unobstructed view of the ramp. We could see everything: the arrival ceremonies, the selections, the columns of people walking towards the gas chambers, soon to be transformed into smoke.

In 1944, the transports from Hungary arrived and the gas chambers could no longer keep pace. As Danuta Czech describes in her remarkable book Auschwitz Chronicle, 1939-1945: ‘The camp commandant Höß ordered 5 pits to be dug for the burning of corpses. So many transports arrived that sometimes, there was no space in Crematorium V for all the bodies. If there was no room in the gas chambers, people were shot instead. Many were thrown alive into the burning pits. This I also saw with my own eyes.

Even if you were not sent straight to the gas chamber, no one survived in Auschwitz for long – the most you could expect was about three months. But if they needed you for some reason, you had a tiny chance of survival. I had that chance I was “needed”.

We played marches at the camp gate for the prisoners who worked in the nearby factories IG Farben, Buna, Krupp etc. and we gave Sunday concerts around the camp for the people who worked there or anyone else who wanted to hear us play. For many, hearing music being performed in this living hell was the ultimate insult. But for others, perhaps, it was a chance to dream of another world, if only for a few moments.

Renate had been sentenced to hard labour and arrived in Auschwitz later than I did. We managed to find each other, completely by chance and against all the odds: Birkenau is unbelievably big. I can hardly describe the state my sister was in: a skeleton with open wounds on her legs, which simply never healed. Of course, we all had typhus. There was no escaping the lice. I will not even talk about the hunger. In some ways, a quiet death would have been a merciful release. Amazingly, she survived.

Suddenly, we were told: “Line up!” Jews on one side, Aryans on the other. That could only mean one thing – the gas chamber. But we were mistaken. We were loaded into a cattle truck. Renate quite simply came with us. We were determined not to be separated again. We were driven west to Bergen-Belsen.

Auschwitz was cleaned up and the gas chambers were dynamited, albeit not entirely successfully. Who would have believed that we would ever leave Auschwitz alive and not as smoke?

Was it any better in Belsen? Well, all I can say is that it was different. In Auschwitz, people were murdered in the most sophisticated ways; in Belsen, people simply perished. We existed, surrounded by rotting corpses, and waited for it all to end. And then on 15 April 1945, the British arrived and we were liberated. I was 19 years old.

I often talk about my experiences to young people in schools here and not only the young. One of the best questions that I’m always asked is, what happened next? Did you go home? No! Home no longer existed. We were that new species Displaced Persons, with all the problems that this entails. What was to be done with all these people? I don’t need to spell out the answer.

In 2000, the international conference was held in Stockholm and a decision was taken to make 27 January the official Holocaust Memorial Day and provide mandatory Holocaust education in schools. The mood was one of great hope for a better future.

It is now more than seventy years since the Holocaust, and the perpetrators’ generation is no longer alive. We cannot really take it amiss if today’s young people refuse to identify with these crimes. But to deny that this is part of German history as well?

That must not happen.

More to the point, cannot happen. And as for talk of drawing a line: what are we meant to draw the line under? What happened, happened, and it cannot be expunged by drawing a line. And it is not about feelings of guilt; they are quite out of place. It is about making certain that it can never never ever happen again here.

The eminent historian Professor Yehuda Bauer said in his address to the Bundestag that people seldom learn from history and that the Holocaust is no exception but that the Holocaust introduced a new dimension that had never been seen before: industrial mass murder. Human beings were, quite literally, recycled.

After the cataclysm that was the Holocaust, Germany’s conduct was exemplary. There was no denial. Anti-Semitism was no longer in vogue. Now, times have changed and today’s world is a world of refugees. For us, all those years ago, the borders were hermetically sealed, whereas now, they have been opened thanks to an incredibly generous and courageous humanitarian gesture made here.

Today, we remember the millions of innocent victims. But we should also remember the courageous helpers. There were some not enough but there were some: people who put their own lives at risk by helping others. We should not forget that either.

Anti-Semitism is a virus which is two thousand years old and apparently incurable. It mutates to take on new forms: religion, race. Only today, one does not necessarily say ‘Jews.’ Today it is the Israelis, without really understanding the context or knowing what is going on behind the scenes.

Jews are criticised for not having defended themselves, which simply confirms how impossible it is to imagine what it was like for us back then. And then the Jews are criticised for defending themselves. It’s scandalous that Jewish schools, even Jewish kindergartens have to have a police guard.

We should be asking why.

There are no excuses and no explanations for what happened all those years ago. All that remains is hope: the hope that ultimately, one day, reason will prevail.

I have been invited to come to Germany many times over the years and have very positive contact with young people. On my last visit, I had a less positive experience. I was in Bavaria, in Rosenheim. Two truly admirable history teachers, both women, had organised a reading tour to schools in Traunstein, doing so with great enthusiasm and no official funding at all. The plan was for two very different eye-witnesses to speak. One was Niklas Frank, son of Hans Frank, Governor-General of occupied Poland, also known as the Jew butcher, and myself.

We met in the restaurant at my hotel and talked about the forthcoming visits. A man nearby had obviously been listening and was furious. He came over to our table and complained that we were spoiling the pleasant atmosphere with all this talk of Auschwitz. And so on. Something like this would maybe not have been possible, five years ago, let’s say so be careful.

Sometimes, I think that the orchestra in Auschwitz was a kind of microcosm, a society in miniature that we can learn from. All the nationalities were represented. It was a Tower of Babel. Who can I talk to? Only to people who speak German or French. I can’t speak Russian or Polish, so I won’t talk to them. So instead, we eye each other mistrustfully and automatically assume that the other person is hostile; we don’t think to ask why the other person has ended up in Auschwitz as well.

Many years after these events, I am in close contact with one of these other prisoners, a Polish woman, a pure Aryan who played the violin in the orchestra. We never spoke to each other at the time. But thanks to an incredibly badly written book about the Women’s Orchestra, we came into contact again and met up in Krakow. We still have problems finding a common language but we talk and write to each other in English. In short, we have become friends and have found that we have far more in common than that which divides us. Perhaps this can serve as an example for today’s problems. Talk to each other. Build bridges.

And as for the resurgent anti-Semitism: ask yourselves who are the Jews? Why do we come across them everywhere? Is it perhaps because they were driven out of their homeland two thousand years ago and dispersed across the world, and have been searching ever since for a place where they hoped to live in peace and not to be murdered? “Jews” does not work as a collective term. Jews are just people people with a very unusual history, it’s true so often the scapegoat, persecuted, murdered, defamed.

What is positive is that on the 18th of this month, this House unanimously adopted a resolution stating that anti-Semitism must be combated resolutely. We can only hope that you win this fight. The future lies in your hands.

Eight years ago, Shimon Peres, the then President of the State of Israel, gave an address to this House in which he said this:

“..While my heart is breaking at the memory of the atrocious past my eyes envision a common future for a world that is young, a world free of all hatred. A world in which the words ‘war’ and ‘anti-Semitism’ will be dead words.” Utopia?

There were endless difficulties to overcome before we could leave Germany; it took almost a year, and I swore that I would never set foot on German soil again. I was consumed by a boundless hatred of anything German. As you see, I broke my oath many, many years ago and I have no regrets. It’s quite simple: hate is poison and ultimately, you poison yourself.

I shall take my leave of you now, with many thanks for your invitation and appreciation for the dignity and openness with which you mark this day of remembrance every year.

Thank you.”

Anita Lasker-Wallfisch.

Somewhere, now perhaops it is in her book

Anita Lasker-Wallfisch – Inherit the Truth,

I recall her stating that soon there will be none of the Survivors left, and that what will remain will be books and history. Well I am here to ‘Inherit her Truth’ and I will add to History the Remembrance of those like Anita, who brought her story forward, fought her demons and managed a little reconcilliation with her past?

SS Standartenfuhrer Karl Jaeger at The Wannsee Conference.

“..Kovno June 27th. 1941. ..not easy at first to set ..extensive pogrom against ..Jews. Klimatis ..leader of ..partisan unit ..succeeded in starting pogroms on ..basis of advice given ..by ..Vorkommando ..Kovno ..no German order or German instigation was noticed from ..outside. During ..first pogrom ..June 26th. ..Lithuanian partisans did away with more than 1,500 Jews ..set fire to several synagogues ..burned down a Jewish ..district consisting ..60 houses. ..approximately 2,300 Jews ..rendered harmless in a similar way.” SS Brigadefuhrer Dr. Franz Walther Stahlecker.

Perhaps I should have stated this headline more accurately. History knows that the mass Murderer SS Standartenfuhrer Karl Jaeger was not present at The Wannsee Conference. On the other hand, those like SS Brigadefuhrer Dr. Georg Karl Eberhard Schongarth and SS Sturmbannfuhrer Dr. Rudolf Lange, both these mass murderer’s were conspicuously present. Lange, for his part, had become expert in mass shooting as witnessed by all too many Jews of Latvia, from its capital Riga and on into Rumbuli. Schongarth too brought similar expertise of his own mass killing operations from Poland, Byelorussia and from within Russia itself. What both these mass murderers brought to the table was what they clearly afforded as their personal advice based on their own intimate experience.

“..things I’ve experienced. In Latvia ..near Dvinsk ..there were mass executions of Jews carried out by ..ss. ..about 15 ss men ..perhaps 60 Latvians ..known to be ..most brutal people in ..world. ..one Sunday morning ..kept hearing ..salvos followed by small arms fire. ..Men ..Women Children ..counted off ..stripped naked. ..executioners first laid all ..clothes in one pile. Then 20 women had to take up their position ..naked ..on ..edge of ..trench. ..shot ..fell ..into it.” Lieutenant General Heinrich Kittel.

What this achieved was in the delivery of that very evidence that clearly corroborated what an SS Standartenfuhrer like Jaeger could also boast. Jaeger, in a very detailed article called The Jaeger Report, which was forwarded through the command structure of the SS toward Hitler and Himmler’s desk, would not be at all repellent to those now seeking to expand further and wider the killing spree. Some in History though, who seek now to abandon the evidence of The Holocaust commencement to a Wannsee date which is chronologically placed after the killing process had long become established, in both factually incorrect and wrong. For the document itself, I have no need to add any further to the dimension of atrocity associated with this Historical Artefact.

“..At ..latest in early July 1941 ..order was issued to wear yellow stars ..Jews ..no longer allowed to use sidewalks ..public transportation ..enter public buildings and other public installations. Soon ..Gestapo required ..Jewish elders to present themselves in their office. 4 ..5 persons went there ..Dr. Elchanan Elkes ..Rabbi Yakov Moshe Shmukler ..Rabbi Samuel Abba Snieg ..latter because ..Chief Rabbi of Kovno ..Mr. Avraham Duber Kahana Shapiro ..could excuse himself on grounds of age and infirmity.” Jehoshua Rosenfeld.

It is a conscientious detail with the sheer rendition of the extreme and callous nature of Hitler and his regime’s acceptance of the rights Hitler would choose to have over the life and death of the Jewish People. Anyone else Hitler took a supreme dislike to faced a similar end, and that is recognised within the framework of some 50/70 million killed during World War II. For those of you who have previously come across this detailed accounting of the Destructive Process in relation to the Lithuanian Baltic region, and as it pertains to this report, it is a shocking enough indictment to have to study and research further without recognising the human consequences of what we are scrutinising. One issue I have though is with the countenance given over to the position of The Wannsee Conference itself.

“..first day of my stay in Kaunus Lithuanian Lieutenant Bronius Norkus with his detachment had ..shot ..3,000 Jewish Men in Kaunus’ VII Fort. ..following day. ..Jews ..were still lying in ..yard. ..a horrible sight. ..3,000 persons.” SS Standartenfuhrer Karl Jaeger.

There is an identification with the many who insist that The Holocaust only became mobilised after this conference. This will somehow allow for a superficially suspension of The Holocaust term to the subsidiary context of a Second World War. This war was fought and conducted regardless of the Jewish existence that was being systematically destroyed. Also, and it is rather disingenuous for anyone to even consider that The Holocaust itself commenced at the behest of The Wannsee Conference when it did not. Clearly, when such a document actively disputes this, we must more carefully align The Holocaust to when it first established the conducted Murders of the Jews of Europe to a date that is pertinent to its enacting. As each and every strand of Hitler’s Reich was to become further embroiled in the tenets of this destruction, we are exposed to the catastrophe from an earlier date than many would wish to calculate from.

“..After returning to my office I had Norkus come to me and told him that he was to refrain from such independent shootings. ..he was to contact ..head of ..Stapo ..SS Hauptsturmfuhrer Schmitt ..or Obersturmfuhrer Joachim Hamann regarding ..execution of any measures ..also ..shootings. ..he was to take care of burying ..Jews previously shot.” SS Standartenfuhrer Karl Jaeger.

As all strands of the Reich steeped itself into the Catastrophe that had been falling upon the Jews of Poland since 1939, timing is a necessary tool in enabling the fullest truth to become recognised. It is clear also that from Jaeger’s own efforts in inciting these attacks, these were further augmented by his very presence in Kaunus on July 2nd. 1941. From then on, this documented evidence from before Wannsee, and from July 4th. 1941 in fact, Jewish Lithuania was being obliterated. When in the proximity of the VII Fort in Kaunus, known also as Kovno and Kowno, this was evidence of Hitler’s ultimate plan for the Jewish People, annihilation. What was conducted almost immediately upon Hitler’s venture further East, after Barbarossa, was also a highly enacted and murderous assault upon the Jews already being slaughtered in Poland since 1939. SS Standartenfuhrer Karl Jaeger, who as Kommander of Einsatzkommando 3 of the Einsatzgruppe A, has clearly composed this detailed analysis of the very Slaughter he had accomplished.

“..final solution of ..Jewish question in ..area of ..Reichskommissariat Ostland will be in accordance with ..instructions ..my address of July 27th. 1941 in Kovno.” Heinrich Lohse.

Jaeger brought the massed extermination of the Jews here in the Baltic region above and beyond what Polish Jewry had previously been subjected to. Jaeger clearly evidenced the essential demands Hitler placed upon him and his cohorts and all of this brought killing to a newer level of extermination. Exceeding some 138,000 Lithuanian and other Jews, all brutally Murdered, the excruciating detail marked humanity with a very deep laceration, if not the complete decapitation of its moral grounding. But this was not the only report filed by Jaeger, for which Hitler surely was aware of. The mechanics of mass murder always required that there be copious amounts of written accounting, despite the famed page in history that must not be written. It must be noted that Jaeger turned up in Lithuania and in Kaunus in particular, when local antisemitic collaborationists were conducting their own series of pogroms against their own Jewish Citizens.

“..on Thursday August 14th. 1941 ..at 6:00 in ..morning ..trucks with German SS ..drove into ..City and apprehended ..1,000 Jews ..brought to ..yellow jail ..and in ..afternoon ..shot in ..IV Fort. ..this operation ..Action of ..1,000 ..Thursday Action.” Jehoshua Rosenfeld.

It then becomes clear that when any church is heavily involved in the activities raged against the Jewish People, it is incumbent upon all churches, which professes its humanitarian or charitable status, it is inherent upon their own dogma that they are obliged to assist. Here in Kovno, Lithuania, a particular Bishop, Vincentas Brizgys, the preliminary head of the Catholic Church of Lithuania refused openly to assist the Jews of his own community. True there are some who will point to those Jews who were saved by some intervention but on the other hand, while Lithuanian Police Battalions roamed amongst their Jewish Citizens killing them willingly, many of these individuals were active priests of that same catholic church, no doubt reflecting heavily upon the bishop’s words of encouragement.

“..The Chief of the Security Police and the SD

Berlin

August 16th. 1941

46 copies

(40th. copy)

Operational Situation Report USSR No. 54

Location: Rokiskis.

The attitude of the Church regarding the Jewish Question is, in general, clear. In addition, Bishop Brisgys has forbidden all clergymen to help Jews in any form whatsoever. He rejected several Jewish delegations who approached him personally and asked for his intervention with the German authorities. In the future he will not meet with any Jews at all. Conversion of Jews to the Catholic faith has not taken place so far. The Church would also object to this type of conversion. It is convinced that the Jews would not come to be converted out of conviction but because of the possible advantages connected with it.”

It is clear, even if the German pronouncement which was afforded it was merely a rhetoric from this church, it dealt a deadly blow to Jewish hopes. Whole swathes of Jewish existence could not look to any church to seek shelter, let alone a catholic one which had filtered out its own christian compassion. At this time, for Rabbi S. Snaig, formerly Chief Rabbi to the Lithuanian Army, and many other Rabbi’s with the same zeal to save their own flock, they too attempted to extract some form of that very human compassion from a fellow of god. For Rabbi Snaig however, he was clearly denied and his delegation rebuffed as the procession of Jewish Lithuania was catapulted into oblivion as the words of a catholic bishop must have sounded with apoplexy, the wrongs that were to be done as the church stood aside and witnessed with complicit acquiescence.

“..With all my regrets. I cannot do it. ..this may endanger ..position of ..catholic church in Lithuania. ..a responsibility I cannot take.” Bishop Vincentas Brizgys.

That all too many within these local Baltic States dealt with such regrets, the Jews of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were victimised by their own neighbours who conducted these outrages with little provocation nor inducement. All of course ensured for those now enacting Hitler’s expressed wish, that complicity would become duplicitous for so many who were unrestrained by a church they professed to have communion with. In case of any future prosecution of the Hitlerian attempt to Murder all the Jews of Europe, all too easily the shrouded indictment of church and state collusion would join forces to deny their fullest implications in the mass murder of their fellow nationals, on the basis of their Jewish status. With this physical incitement to procure a final settlement of the Jewish People led or collaborated with by nationalist elements of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, they simply formed into murdering their Jewish neighbours with far too much ease.

“..citizens in ..occupied zones ..including 1,000’s of Ukrainians and Balts ..not only colluded in ..genocide but welcomed and abetted it.” Catherine Anne Merridale.

Here too, and in Kovno in particular, more than 4,000 local Jewish People were rounded up and beaten to death prior to der Einsatz aktionen. The visible excitement of those on-lookers, many of them Einsatz killer’s of the future or Police Battalion Murderer’s, were witnesses to the horror that is gut wrenching. As it is shown in cold relief, its photographed form is an accusation of an open wound which cannot be healed. Back with this official document however, which shockingly affords itself a clearer affront to us all as it adds to the exclusive nature of The Final Solution for the Jews, we are never spared the nausea of such cold and calculating atrocity. From here, in a typed script we can see its measured progress as it leads relentlessly toward The Holocaust.

“..my turn came. Naked ..I approached ..pit ..I could hear ..screams of people ..still alive. ..a shot. ..thought I was dead. ..I fell a split second before he fired ..and ..bullet missed me. I could hear Schweinberger. ..I tore myself out of ..grave.” Motel Gdud.

This troubling document is, for these Jews who are detailed in its ledger, their’s is a lasting and final legacy that was not to be written. As these Jews had been clinically removed from existence, the document itself is the exacting detail of what the many 1,000’s of German Einsatzkommando were involved in. Along the length and breadth of Hitler’s advances into the North, South and East of his proposed worldview venture, mass murder was enacted that would set the seal on The Wannsee Conference and would not be the stage from which to begin what had already commenced as The Final Solution of The Jewish Question, The Holocaust.

“..implementation of ..Aktionen ..an organizational problem. ..Jews ..site ..selected ..pits dug. ..distance from ..concentration points to ..pits ..4 – 5 klms. ..Jews ..brought to ..place of execution in groups of 500 ..with a distance of at least 2 klms between groups” SS Standartenfuhrer Karl Jaeger.

Here in Lithuania, as in Estonia and Latvia also, local auxiliaries stepped up to the plate and were heavily involved in the shootings. As the escalation of numbers grew these auxiliary groups were augmented by various Waffen SS, Einsatz, Police and Wehrmacht personnel whose mechanisms, controls and coercions to further violence were clearly in operation for some 6 months before Wannsee. Notwithstanding, as an Historical document too, The Jaeger Report, which highlights the systematic nature of the assault upon the Jews of the entire region, it is written in such cold blood, that its depiction is in the form of an accounting which takes no notice of the very human fracture of decency, morality or ethical concern. The document is indeed reprehensible as the strictures of efficacy were so overlaid with a hatred by those who accomplished what Hitler had so vocally demanded. That these legions excelled in bestiality, brutality and excess is clearly identifying the inhumanity deeply rooted in populations.

“..At ..meeting ..order was issued that all Jews were to move to a part of ..Viljampole city district until August 15th. 1941. Thus 4 to 5 weeks were available for resettlement. ..resettlement of 30,000 to 35,000 Jews in such short time without ..necessary means of transportation ..without sufficient organization was ..confusing. ..On Friday August 15th.1941 ..Ghetto was hermetically sealed by barbed wire and guards.” Jehoshua Rosenfeld.

All of this lack of human concern, which is clearly abandoned here in a document so vivid with depiction of the terms of reference, it is so obviously an exercise aimed singularly against the entire presence of Jewish existence that was still at large. The question arises too as to how we assess this Slaughter by a single Einsatz detachment, when the numbers detailed are so catastrophic to the Jewish eminence that once resided in The Baltic States and before this carnage was played out. Here alone, and while millions of Russian POW’s were left starving to death in hastily erected cages, estimates suggest that aligned to this Jaeger effort, some 2,600,000 Jewish Men, Women and Their Children were shot and Murdered by der Einsatzgruppe. Bands of EinsatzKommando, Police Battalions, Waffen SS and Wehrmacht troops were roaming freely in Russia, Byelorussia, the Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia and as detailed, here in Lithuania, were murdering Jews and other’s with impunity.

“..shootings were carried out under ..direction of Sturmbannfuhrer Dr. Lange ..Commander ..SD and Gestapo ..Latvia.” SS Obergruppenfuhrer Friedrich Jeckeln.

These roving bands of killers could ably rely upon the logistic effort of a German military machine that was supposedly detailed to engage only on a War footing. But before we finally arrive at such an unprecedented horror as Jaeger will detail, we recognise that by Saturday 25th. October 1941, conditions for the Jews swelled so exponentially and to an extreme of defined horrors, their presence in the entire region would be nearly obliterated. Under the supervision of SS Sturmbannfuhrer Dr.Rudolf Lange, the Concentration Camp at Riga, which was originally planned to contain 25,000 Jews, had a population of more than 30,000 Jews from Hitler’s Reich and his Greater Reich. Hitler, if we care to recognise what he clearly recorded as evidenced, was moving gradually both internally and externally from the rhetoric of destruction to the removal of all Jews from any presence whatsoever in an annihilatory capacity.

“..goal of making Lithuania free of Jews could only be attained through ..deployment of a raiding commando with selected men under ..leadership of SS Obersturmfuhrer Hamann ..who completely and entirely adopted my goals and understood ..importance of ensuring ..cooperation of ..Lithuanian partisans and ..competent civilian positions.” SS Standartenfuhrer Karl Jaeger.

The Riga camp itself was similar in every aspect as any Concentration Camp that had existed in Germany. From their first inception as containment centre’s, and on into Hitler’s terror apparatus, they emerged as camp’s that would deal a deadly blow to all the Jews they encountered. Here though, and while we clearly acknowledge that all Camps were a place of death and destruction for those Jews sent to them, they were not specifically The Death Camps. These particular factory’s of destruction, that were erected in Poland, are exclusively designed for the eradication of all the Jews of Europe. It is not all that obvious to the onlooker though, that while Jews were systematically sought out for Slaughter, it was within Auschwitz/Birkenau, Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibor and Treblinka that it manifested itself into a mechanised destruction and upon an industrial scale that is unprecedented and unparalleled in all of history.

“..several high ranking SS Kommanders from ..Himmler’s RSHA ..arrived. ..one ..a doctor. ..I described to them ..site with 1,000’s ..dead. ..an SS Oberfuhrer ..as well as ..others were in agreement with these shootings.” SS Standartenfuhrer Karl Jaeger.

Also, and while some 5% of those Jews Murdered in The Holocaust, and by bullet decree, this singular atrocity had been conducted and was therefore attributable to both Jaeger and his EinsatzKommando 3, a matter of some 300,000 Murdered Jews. That the paring of Kommander and Kommando form part of this Jaeger document, it is not to be the end of the very detail of what both Jaeger and his command achieved. Also, what we cannot ever witness nor envisage in the sum total of this documents detail, is the very horror that is being clearly measured and collated in this document. Nor do we gain any insight into the further excesses of both Jaeger and his killers from it, who then went on to murder even more Jewish People as they moved on from the Baltic’s and into Byelorussia.

“..November 30th. 1941 ..10,600 Jews ..shot ..Riga. ..HSSPF. ..EK took part.” OSR No. 156.

When that role of the Einsatzgruppe was all but running its course, and The Final Solution of The Jewish Solution would continue, it would be superseded by the role of The Death Camps in an ever more catastrophic way. While the earliest experiment with the lethal effects of the death Camps was being explored, and here Chelmno was in operation prior to Wannsee, the gassing of the Jewish People sent there makes it clear that the fullest ramifications of The Holocaust, and for the Jewish People of Europe had a much earlier definition than what any conference would latterly issue or convey. The Holocaust itself was in full swing, the mass murder of the Jews of Europe was well under way, and Wannsee simply set the seal on what had been explored and what would be fully enhanced.

“..group that faced ..Nazis’ most concentrated violence ..a cruelty unparalleled even in this most vicious war ..was ..Jews.” Catherine Anne Merridale.

An unrepentant Hitler would merely seek to secure, with Wannsee, the fullest duplicity of every facet of German society in the most cataclysmic and seismic event ever to be perpetrated against the civilising influence of humanity. By definition then, The Holocaust of the 6,000,000 Murdered Jews of Europe had commenced, not with The Wannsee Conference as some might suggest, but at the very moment a Jew was Murdered because Hitler had demanded it. Of course, with the presence of both Schongarth and Lange, the fuller credentials of the ability of Hitler’s legions to deliver, on The Final Solution of that Jewish Question, were roundly evidenced before this audience. It was a meeting of similar minds that was both dutifully pliant and well aware of what had been striking at Jewish persistence since the 1930’s.

“..December 22nd. 1941 ..English radio broadcasts ..during Russian offensive ..1,600 cities and towns ..taken back from ..Germans ..Germans flee 2o kilometres a day ..now 400 miles from Rostov. ..Will we hold out. Will we endure. our fate.” Herman Kruk.

Here, around a table at Wannsee, we too are made aware that the enforced emigration of the Jews of Germany, Austria and the wider European Continent was to be the bloodiest murder for the Jews in the East. Here too, it is clear that the World would come to know of these events immediately, as they were played out cloaked by the field of battle. All of this was not simply common knowledge amongst these protagonists at the conference table, but was deeply imbedded within the intelligence services of the allied nations. Intercepts of these OSR’s, the active Operational Situation Reports of the Einsatzgruppe in the occupied territory’s, filed past officer’s of the Army and then onto their respective commander’s in chief’s, president’s and prime minister’s of the Allied Nations of Europe. The scale of duplicity is conspicuous by its very absence from the exploratory nature of the research we undertake to establish the fullest truth and its ramifications.

“..Some ..dear and close to us ..are no longer with us. Your Aunt Hannah and Uncle Arieh were killed with 1,500 souls of ..Ghetto on October 4th. 1941.” Dr. Elchanan Elkes.

We also have to consider too, that amongst the multifarious enterprises involved in the killing process thus far, it was essential to separate out the Systematic Slaughter from the capacity to gain financially from the end result. For that reason, Hitler, and through his various agencies, sought to legislate both the essential Murder process and the secondary consideration, the wealth to be gained from the mass Murder of European Jewry. Hence the fullest emphasis is placed on not only considering the economic account ahead of the final settlement, but The Final Solution of The Jewish Question also became an economy on its own. Though the document itself was type written on December 1st. 1941., such was the view of the witness onlookers, that the Jewish diminishing presence did not hold sway and especially with Stalin nor Russia, the Jews as a whole were not recognised as a particular group being significantly targeted.

“..December 18th.1941

Berlin Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories To:

Reichskommissar for Ostland re:

Jewish question The Jewish Question has presumably been clarified meanwhile by means of verbal discussion. In principle, economic considerations are not to be taken into account in the settlement of the problem. It is further requested that any questions that arise be settled directly with the Higher SS and Police Leader.

Otto Braeutigam.”

In effect, the Jewish People, who are fundamentally the root and branch of The Holocaust had become marginalised as more routinely the secondary victims than their ‘special status’ must certainly dictate. In truth, while the fuller evidence was made aware to allied leader’s, who then chose to ignore the principle of humanity, their concentration was fixed on engaging Hitler only on the battlefield. Here though Braeutigam, proved the battle field for the Jewish People was to be their very existence, a systematic assailing of their integrity as human beings, being fully removed from our presence. Braeutigam, who was a lawyer and served and worked for Alfred Rosenberg’s Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories, was well placed to fashion decrees subservient to Hitler’s needs for The Final Solution. As a German career diplomat too, Braeutigam was a representative of the German Foreign Office, Auswaertiges Amt.

“..January 17th. 1942. Today I received a formal invitation from Jewish artists in ..Ghetto ..first evening of ..local artistic circle will be held ..on Sunday 18th January in ..auditorium of ..Real Gymnasium ..Rudnicka 6. I felt offended. ..cultivating art is ..a good deed. But here in ..doleful situation of ..Vilna Ghetto ..in ..shadow of Ponar ..where of ..76,000 of Vilna Jews only 15,000 remain ..here ..at this moment ..this is a disgrace.” Hermann Kruk.

Braeutigam mirrored what was Hitler’s intention in inveigling all ministry’s in the deeds of mass murdering the 6,000,000 Jews of Europe, be they Men, Women or Their Children. The darkest deed was being done, it was being morphed from continuous intimidation through to assault and on to euthanizing and from that premise, of what could be achieved, the Jewish People were led all the way to mass murder of as many of these Jews as would be achieved. Here, in places like Vilna it remains an incredible success, that any form of culture could be maintained. But not only was a formative culture maintained, it actually enhanced the living spirit of the Jews in the midst of a cultural collapse that existed for them inside and outside the Ghetto. Each Ghetto they were sanctioned into, could not languish in despair for too long without jeopardising the hope that remained a constant for them. With any such cultural an event, this proved to lift the spirits of what remained of Vilna Jewry and as we see later, Hermann Kruk became an indelible part of that Cultural basis for extending Jewish Resistance to German insistence that they simply perish.

“..20 writers ..22 stage artists ..16 musicians and singers ..6 painters ..have joined ..association. ..purpose ..to provide mutual aid and an inducement to artistic creation in ..context of ,,Ghetto.” Hermann Kruk.

Then, and when on Tuesday 20th. January 1942 with what became known as ‘The Wannsee Conference’, we recognise that the murder toll was already in an ascendancy. Here at this time, and beyond what humanity should have been incapable of, the telegraph wires were replete with mass murder and the pages of dissertations were written in clearly monstrous detail. Here before the mantle of history was a thesis of such enormous destruction, their pages weigh heavily upon all of humanity to this day. So, as we consider what this Conference is to be representative of, it is from a position as responsive to the aktionen that was taking place widely, and against all of European Jewry. Wannsee proves nothing but the embroiling of the entire administration of the Reich in the Slaughter with 1,000,000 Slaughtered Jews, and more, already confined. This conference is not linked then with the commencement of the slaughter at all.

“..extermination ..Jews ..Salaspils. ..makes me ..accessory to ..crime. ..Jews ..shot ..by ..my SD ..Security Police. ..Dr. Lange ..directly in charge of ..shootings. Other officers ..reported to me on ..shooting of Jews ..were ..Jost ..Pifrader ..Fuchs.” SS Obergruppenfuhrer Friedrich Jeckeln.

We see here too though, that in Hermann Kruk’s Vilna, and in full view of the Nazi aim to destroy them, the Jews stood before The Holocaust, ahead of The Wannsee Conference and all that Hitler would direct against them and were bled dry before execution. Not withstanding this, many Jews established a resistance to the bleak and clearly pessimistic outlook. Here too, while I remonstrate with history and suggest that the Conference itself should not be, as some would have, the commencement of that very exacting and establishing killing process, the commencement date will be consigning Jews to the riches of The Holocaust for eternity. Clearly, what Jaeger had set before the desk for Hitler to pore over, Lange and Schongarth would be able to deliver to the table. As their evidence of the detailed destruction that was then to be set before the Heydrich and Eichmann agenda here at Wannsee, history must move the Jews Murdered prior to this out of The Holocaust term.

“..goal ..EK 2 ..radical solution ..Jewish problem ..execution of all Jews.” SS Sturmbannfuhrer Dr. Rudolf Lange.

This conference, which is to be a pivotal moment in The Holocaust, does not wholly define the method nor means of the slaughter already in motion. Then, while the Vilna Ghetto at this exact time was being represented artistically, and from amongst its own, these included Shabse Shabtai Blacher, Yankev Gerstein, Hirsh Gutgestalt, Hermann Kruk, Zelig Kalmanowicz, Yankev Sher and Abraham Sutzkever, we are stretched to comprehend further the Jewish resilience. We realize also that while der Einsatzgruppe intervention would go on to Slaughter more than 1,250,000 Jews, it was only a provisional solution and was not yet ‘The Final Solution!’ An emerging declaration, toward a final Jewish ‘resettlement’, which had taken the Jewish People toward their mass murder by der Einsatzgruppe had been superseded by the murderous deeds of other’s of Hitler’s fledgling killers. The killing was no less accumulative nor brutal throughout the entire Baltic region but would significantly fail to reach the killing immensity of Hitler’s Death Camp’s.

“..all our family ..10 people all together ..except my 2 older Brothers and myself ..remained in Riga. ..in October 1941 ..all were taken to ..Riga Ghetto and killed during ..actions in ..Rumbula forest by ..German Nazis and their Latvian collaborators.” Michael Genchik.

That this testimony has been replicated the length and breadth of Hitler’s reach, brings forth the calamitous assault upon the very Jewish integrity in the World. That 6,000,000 of World Jewry who were consigned to such a destruction is tantamount to signalling the end of all civilisation. Here at Wannsee though, the deceleration of der Einsatzgruppe ‘Aktionen’ would follow, and in its wake, there would be a newer expectation from Hitler to achieve a more intense resolve. The correlated and corporate figures that were presented and assessed here at Wannsee, arrive as they acknowledge the achievements of der Einsatzgruppe in their murderous six month charge. Both Schongarth and Lange can vouch for the exactness and the magnitude of the murders already committed. Their inventory of destruction, was a prefixed scroll that would finally tabulate the murders of 6,000,000 Jewish People, and deliver The Holocaust away from the fledgling term of ‘The Final Solution of The Jewish Question’.

“..EK 3 ..achieved ..goal ..solving ..Jewish problem ..in Lithuania ..apart from working Jews ..their families. I wanted to eliminate ..working Jews ..their families as well.” SS Standartenfuhrer Karl Jaeger.

The much used euphemisms of emigration and ‘resettlement’, which remained even after Wannsee, now lay in their past tense of intention. Also, in as much as the bullet decree or the gassing van would be superseded by the static Gassing facility housed at 5 of the Death Camps, and whilst Chelmno was utilised wholly as a Gassing Van exercise, the learning progress gained by the Gassing Vans in the field would add weight to the emergence of the fully functioning Death Camps in Poland. As far as the efforts of der Einsatzgruppe was concerned now, as they continued with their ‘Aktionen’ through much of Eastern Europe, The Baltic States, Byelorussia, Russia and the Ukraine, and at least until expedience had made the depopulated action in the Countryside redundant, a bullet decree was never rescinded. However, inertia alone would not drive der Einsatzgruppe forces further East, though sweep after sweep of suppressed areas and clinical butchery of its Jewish presence was evidenced in intention as well as a desired demand.

“..It is true ..we are weak and helpless ..only answer to ..enemy is resistance. ..Better to die as ..fighters than to live at ..murderers’ mercy. ..Resistance to ..last breath.” Abba Kovner.

Toward bolstering the faltering empirical claims that Hitler had made, der Einsatzgruppe accompanied by Waffen SS, Wehrmacht and Police Battalions cut a swathe through Jewish existence that Jewry has not recovered from. Of course, Hitler and his propaganda machinery’s dissemination, offered much that could become interpreted so very differently. We know, however, that the truth of mass murder could not be stilled amidst the escalation of terms demonstrated in ‘The Final Solution of that Jewish Question’. As the Wannsee Conference got under way, there were fewer than 45,000 of Lithuania’s Jews left alive. The Wannsee figure itself added to this understanding while recording that 34,000 more of Lithuania’s Jews were due to be dispatched in the coming months.

“..I have many blank spots in ..life of my Parents ..but now ..unfortunately ..there is no one I can ask. ..war parted us when I was only 17 years old ..and our destiny never brought us back together.” Michael Genchik.

These Jews of Lithuania were already centred around holding areas, conurbations established within large urban ghettos. Vilna still held onto some 20,000 Jewish Lives. Kovno still had some 18,000 Jewish Lives within its confines. Siaulaii’s Jews amounted to no more than 5,500 souls left alive. In Oszmiana there was little more than 3,500 Jews left alive, while in Svencionys, there were a little over 500 Jews left alive in the whole of that Ghetto. So we can see that the momentum of annihilation had ground down Jewish persistence and this cannot be hidden beneath the paper exercise that was being confirmed in Wannsee. Added to these exacting confrontations with the annihilation proceeding against all of Jewry, what Michael Genchik delivers for us as he emerged from a Latvia he was born into, Eichmann could now confirm to Heydrich that barely 3,500 Latvian Jews were left alive.

“..an average 1,000 Jews were gassed daily. ..In many places Jews were deported to ‘unknown destinations’ and killed in neighbouring woods. In Vilna 50,000 Jews were murdered in November. ..total number slaughtered in this district and around Lithuanian Kovno is 300,000. Rovne ..murders began early in November. In three days and nights nearly 15,000 Men ..Women .. Children were shot. ..greatest massacre in ..world’s history.” The Daily Telegraph.

The need then, to continue whole scale murder operations and within Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania would now see the expressed arrival of Reich Jews to be Murdered there. So as to fill the void left by the near extinction of Baltic Jewry, in the coming months the tempo of expulsions, for the Jews of Austria, Germany and Bohemia and Moravia increased, alarmingly. Of interest in this we must further highlight that both these two officers of the SS and SD, whose appearance at The Wannsee Conference, was confirmed so as to bolster their own glorification of their accomplishment along with der Einsatzgruppe in the areas of both Latvia and Lithuania. Beneath the fauna and flora of the widest expanses of Europe, much is still hidden the very truth of what was accomplished by Hitler and his accomplices.

“..executions through 1 February 1942 ..by EK 3 ..136,421 Jews ..55,556 women ..34,464 children ..Total: 138,272.” SS Standartenfuhrer Karl Jaeger.

However, the enormity of this atrocity cannot remain hidden from view and the search of History wreaks with the accusations against those who sought to achieve that final goal. But also, we must search for all of those who achieved far too much in this and still leave a repository of like minded hater’s who constantly seek to deny the very Jewish presence which is that Final Solution of a very Jewish Question, The Holocaust. What is manifestly clear in this Jaeger document, and is pertinent in that resolve to solve The Final Solution is that while not all the victims named were Jews, All Jews Were Indeed meant to be the Victims. Taking the exacting detail of the slaughter to the table at Wannsee, the very presence of both SS Brigadefuhrer Dr. Georg Karl Eberhard Schongarth SD Commander Security Police & Security Service in the Government General.

“..taken from Vilna to ..camp in Estonia. ..then camps across Europe. ..I realised ..I was somewhere in Germany. ..didn’t know what had happened to my family. ..a very ..very sad feeling.” Phillip Maisel.

SS Obersturmbannfuhrer Dr. Rudolf Lange on the other hand, Kommander EinsatzKommando 2 of Einsatzgruppe A was very different being. As the Security Policy Commander of the Security Police and SD in the Generalbezirk Latvia, and the representative of the Commander of the Security Police and the SD for the Reichskommissariat Ostland, a clear message has been established. Both knowledge of what had been already accomplished and what then could manifestly become resolved would now inveigle more arms of the Reich than had previously been countenanced with a clearer picture of what Hitler had fully demanded. The influence then of such a document as The Jaeger Report cannot be underestimated and would have had a directional influence upon the conference proceedings. For SS Standartenfuhrer Karl Jaeger, who Kommanded Einsatzkommando 3 at Kovno, Lithuania and then into Byelorussia under Einsatzgruppe A’s jurisdiction, the infamy which Jaeger has gained has been pronounced. Jaeger however failed to live up to his idealistic performance and committed suicide at Hohensperg on June 22nd. 1959 rather than accept any supposed ideological responsibility he so roundly achieved.

“..We are left ..a few ..of many. ..of ..35,000 Jews of Kovno ..approximately 17,000 remain ..out of a 250,000 Jews in Lithuania ..only 25,000 live also ..5,000 ..were deported to hard labour in Latvia.” Dr. Elchanan Elkes.

=========================================================================

The Commander of the Security Police and the SD Einsatzkommando 3

Kauen [Kaunas, Kovno]

December 1st. 1941

Secret Reich Business

5 copies

4th copy

Complete list of executions carried out in the EK 3 area up to 1 December 1941.

Security police duties in Lithuania taken over by Einsatzkommando 3 on 2 July 1941. (The Wilna [Vilnius] area was taken over by EK 3 on 9 Aug. 1941, the Schaulen area on 2 Oct. 1941. Up until these dates EK 9 operated in Wilna and EK 2 in Schaulen.) On my instructions and orders the following executions were conducted by Lithuanian partisans:

Date Location Totals

4.7.41 Kauen-Fort VII 416 Jews, 47 Jewesses 463

6.7.41 Kauen-Fort VII Jews 2,514

Following the formation of a raiding squad under the command of SS-Obersturmfuhrer Hamman and 8-10 reliable men from the Einsatzkommando the following actions were conducted in cooperation with Lithuanian partisans:

Date Location Totals

7.7.41 Mariampole 32 Jews 32

8.7.41 Mariampole 14 Jews, 5 Comm. officials 19

8.7.41 Girkalinei Comm. Officials 6

9.7.41 Wendziogala 32 Jews, 2 Jewesses, 1 Lithuanian, (f.), 2 Lithuanian Comm., 1 Russian Comm. 38

9.7.41 Kauen-Fort VII 21 Jews, 3 Jewesses 24

14.7.41 Mariampole 21 Jews, 1 Russ., 9 Lith. Comm. 31

17.7.41 Babtei 8 Comm. officals (inc. 6 Jews) 8

18.7.41 Mariampole 39 Jews, 14 Jewesses 53

19.7.41 Kauen-Fort VII 17 Jews, 2 Jewesses, 4 Lith. Comm., 2 Comm. Lithuanians (f.), 1 German Comm. 26

21.7.41 Panevezys 59 Jews, 11 Jewesses, 1 Lithuanian (f.), 1 Pole, 22 Lith. Comm., 9 Russ. Comm. 103

22.7.41 Panevezys 1 Jew 1

23.7.41 Kedainiai 83 Jews, 12 Jewesses, 14 Russ.Comm., 15 Lith. Comm., 1 Russ. O-Politruk 125

25.7.41 Mariampole 90 Jews, 13 Jewesses 103

28.7.41 Panevezys 234 Jews, 15 Jewesses, 19 Russ. Comm., 20 Lith. Comm. 288

29.7.41 Rasainiai 254 Jews, 3 Lith. Comm. 257

30.7.41 Ariogala 27 Jews, 11 Lith. Comm. 38

31.7.41 Utena 235 Jews, 16 Jewesses, 4 Lith. Comm., 1 robber/murderer 256

31.7.41 Wendziogala 13 Jews, 2 murderers 15

1.8.41 Ukmerge 254 Jews, 42 Jewesses, 1 Pol.Comm., 2 Lith. NKVD agents, 1 mayor of Jonava who gave order to set fire to Jonava 300

2.8.41 Kauen-Fort IV 170 Jews, 1 US Jewess, 33 Jewesses, 4 Lith. Comm. 209

4.8.41 Panevezys 362 Jews, 41 Jewesses, 5 Russ. Comm., 14 Lith. Comm. 422

5.8.41 Rasainiai 213 Jews, 66 Jewesses 279

7.8.41 Uteba 483 Jews, 87 Jewesses, 1 Lithuanian (robber of corpses of German soldiers) 571 8.8.41 Ukmerge 620 Jews, 82 Jewesses 702

9.8.41 Kauen-Fort IV 484 Jews, 50 Jewesses 534

11.8.41 Panevezys 450 Jews, 48 Jewesses, 1 Lith. 1 Russ. 500

13.8.41 Alytus 617 Jews, 100 Jewesses, 1 criminal 718

14.8.41 Jonava 497 Jews, 55 Jewesses 552

15-16.8.41 Rokiskis 3,200 Jews, Jewesses, and Jewish Children, 5 Lith. Comm., 1 Pole, 1 partisan 3207

9-16.8.41 Rassainiai 294 Jewesses, 4 Jewish children 298

27.6-14.8.41 Rokiskis 493 Jews, 432 Russians, 56 Lithuanians (all active communists) 981

18.8.41 Kauen-Fort IV 689 Jews, 402 Jewesses, 1 Pole (female), 711 Jewish intellectuals from Ghetto in reprisal for sabotage action 1,812

19.8.41 Ukmerge 298 Jews, 255 Jewesses, 1 Politruk, 88 Jewish children, 1 Russ. Comm. 643

22.8.41 Dunaburg 3 Russ. Comm., 5 Latvian, incl. 1 murderer, 1 Russ. Guardsman, 3 Poles, 3 gypsies (m.), 1 gypsy (f.), 1 gypsy child, 1 Jew, 1 Jewess, 1 Armenian (m.), 2 Politruks (prison inspection in Dunanburg 21

22.8.41 Aglona Mentally sick: 269 men, 227 women, 48 children 544

23.8.41 Panevezys 1,312 Jews, 4,602 Jewesses, 1,609 Jewish children 7,523

18-22.8.41 Kreis Rasainiai 466 Jews,440 Jewesses, 1020 Jewish children 1,926

25.8.41 Obeliai 112 Jews, 627 Jewesses, 421 Jewish children 1,160

25-26.8.41 Seduva 230 Jews, 275 Jewesses, 159 Jewish children 664

26.8.41 Zarasai 767 Jews, 1,113 Jewesses, 1 Lith. Comm., 687 Jewish children, 1 Russ.Comm. (f.) 2,569 Comm., 687 Jewish children, 1 Russ.Comm. (f.)

28.8.41 Pasvalys 402 Jews, 738 Jewesses, 209 Jewish children 1,349

26.8.41 Kaisiadorys All Jews, Jewesses, and Jewish children 1,911

27.8.41 Prienai All Jews, Jewesses, and Jewish Children 1,078

27.8.41 Dagda and Kraslawa 212 Jews, 4 Russ. POW’s 216

27.8.41 Joniskia 47 Jews, 165 Jewesses, 143 Jewish children 355

28.8.41 Wilkia 76 Jews, 192 Jewesses, 134 Jewish children 402

28.8.41 Kedainiai 710 Jews, 767 Jewesses, 599 Jewish children 2,076

29.8.41 Rumsiskis undZiezmariai 20 Jews, 567 Jewesses, 197 Jewish children 784

29.8.41 Utena and Moletai 582 Jews, 1,731 Jewesses, 1,469 Jewish children 3,782

13-31.8.41 Alytus and environs 233 Jews 233

1.9.41 Mariampole 1,763 Jews, 1,812 Jewesses, 1,404 Jewish children, 109 mentally sick, 1 German subject (f.), married to a Jew, 1 Russian (f.) 5090

28.8-2.9.41 Darsuniskis 10 Jews, 69 Jewesses, 20 Jewish children 99

Carliava 73 Jews, 113 Jewesses, 61 Jewish children 247

Jonava 112 Jews, 1,200 Jewesses, 244 Jewish children 1,556

Petrasiunai 30 Jews, 72 Jewesses, 23 Jewish children 125

Jesuas 26 Jews, 72 Jewesses, 46 Jewish children 144

Ariogala 207 Jews, 260 Jewesses, 195 Jewish children 662

Jasvainai 86 Jews, 110 Jewesses, 86 Jewish children 282

Babtei 20 Jews, 41 Jewesses, 22 Jewish children 83

Wenziogala 42 Jews, 113 Jewesses, 97 Jewish children 252

Krakes 448 Jews, 476 Jewesses, 97 Jewish children 1,125

4.9.41 Pravenischkis 247 Jews, 6 Jewesses 253

Cekiske 22 Jews, 64 Jewesses, 60 Jewish children 146

Seredzius 6 Jews, 61 Jewesses, 126 Jewish children 193

Veliuona 2 Jews, 71 Jewesses, 86 Jewish children 159

Zapiskis 47 Jews, 118 Jewesses, 13 Jewish children 178

5.9.41 Ukmerge 1,23 Jews, 1849 Jewesses, 1737 Jewish children 4,709

25.8-6.9.41 Mopping up in:

Rasainiai 16 Jews, 412 Jewesses, 415 Jewish children 843

Georgenburg (Yurburg) All Jews, all Jewesses, all Jewish children 412

9.9.41 Alytus 287 Jews, 640 Jewesses, 352 Jewish children 1,279

9.9.41 Butrimonys 67 Jews, 370 Jewesses, 303 Jewish children 740

10.9.41 Merkine 223 Jews, 640 Jewesses, 276 Jewish children 854

10.9.41 Varena 541 Jews, 141 Jewesses, 149 Jewish children 831

11.9.41 Leipalingis 60 Jews, 70 Jewesses, 25 Jewish children 155

11.9.41 Seirijai 229 Jews, 384 Jewesses, 340 Jewish children 953

12.9.41 Simnas 68 Jews, 197 Jewesses, 149 Jewish children 414

11-12.9.41 Uzusalis Reprisal against inhabitants who fed Russ. partisans; some in possesion of weapons 43

26.9.41 Kauen-F.IV 412 Jews, 615 Jewesses, 581 Jewish children (sick and suspected epidemic cases) 1,608

2.10.41 Zagare 633 Jews, 1,107 Jewesses, 496 Jewish children (as these Jews were being led away a mutiny rose, which was however immediately put down; 150 Jews were shot immediately; 7 partisans wounded) 2,236

4.10.41 Kauen-F.IX 315 Jews, 712 Jewesses, 818 Jewish children (reprisal after German police officer shot in ghetto) 1,845

29.10.41 Kauen-F.IX 2,007 Jews, 2,920 Jewesses, 4,273 Jewish children (mopping up ghetto of superfluous Jews) 9,200

3.11.41 Lazdijai 485 Jews, 511 Jewesses, 539 Jewish children 1,535

15.11.41 Wilkowiski 36 Jews, 48 Jewesses, 31 Jewish children 115

25.11.41 Kauen-F.IX 1,159 Jews, 1,600 Jewesses, 175 Jewish children (resettlers from Berlin, Munich and Frankfurt am main) 2,934

29.11.41 Kauen-F.IX 693 Jews, 1,155 Jewesses, 152 Jewish children (resettlers from from Vienna and Breslau) 2,000

29.11.41 Kauen-F.IX 17 Jews, 1 Jewess, for contravention of ghetto law, 1 Reichs German who converted to the Jewish faith and attended rabbinical school, then 15 terrorists from the Kalinin group 34

EK 3 detachment in Dunanberg

13.7-21.8.41: 9,012 Jews, Jewesses and Jewish children, 573 active Comm. 9,585

EK 3 detachment in Wilna:

12.8-1.9.41 City of Wilna 425 Jews, 19 Jewesses, 8 Comm. (m.), 9 Comm. (f.) 461

2.9.41 City of Wilna 864 Jews, 2,019 Jewesses, 817 Jewish children (sonderaktion because German soldiers shot at by Jews) 3,700

12.9.41 City of Wilna 993 Jews, 1,670 Jewesses, 771 Jewish children 3,434

17.9.41 City of Wilna 337 Jews, 687 Jewesses, 247 Jewish children and 4 Lith. Comm. 1,271

20.9.41 Nemencing 128 Jews, 176 Jewesses, 99 Jewish children 403

22.9.41 Novo-Wilejka 468 Jews, 495 Jewesses, 196 Jewish children 1,159

24.9.41 Riesa 512 Jews, 744 Jewesses, 511 Jewish children 1,767

25.9.41 Jahiunai 215 Jews, 229 Jewesses, 131 Jewish children 575

27.9.41 Eysisky 989 Jews, 1,636 Jewesses, 821 Jewish children 3,446

30.9.41 Trakai 366 Jews, 483 Jewesses, 597 Jewish children 1,446

4.10.41 City of Wilna 432 Jews, 1,115 Jewesses, 436 Jewish children 1,983

6.10.41 Semiliski 213 Jews, 359 Jewesses, 390 Jewish children 962

9.10.41 Svenciany 1,169 Jews, 1,840 Jewesses, 717 Jewish children 3,726

16.10.41 City of Wilna 382 Jews, 507 Jewesses, 257 Jewish children 1,146

21.10.41 City of Wilna 718 Jews, 1,063 Jewesses, 586 Jewish children 2,367

25.10.41 City of Wilna 1,776 Jewesses, 812 Jewish children 2,578

27.10.41 City of Wilna 946 Jews, 184 Jewesses, 73 Jewish children 1,203

30.10.41 City of Wilna 382 Jews, 789 Jewesses, 36 Jewish children 1,553

6.11.41 City of Wilna 340 Jews, 749 Jewesses, 252 Jewish children 1,341

19.11.41 City of Wilna 76 Jews, 77 Jewesses, 18 Jewish children 171

19.11.41 City of Wilna 6 POW’s, 8 Poles 14

20.11.41 City of Wilna 3 POW’s 3

25.11.41 City of Wilna 9 Jews, 46 Jewesses, 8 Jewish children, 1 Pole for possesion of arms and other military equipment 64

EK 3 detachment in Minsk

28.9-17.10.41: Pleschnitza 620 Jews, 1,285 Jewesses,

Bischolin 1,126 Jewish children and 19 Scak Comm.

Bober Uzda 3,050

Prior to EK 3 taking over security police duties, Jews liquidated by pogroms and executions (including partisans) 4,000

Total 137,346

Today I can confirm that our objective, to solve the Jewish problem for Lithuania, has been achieved by EK 3. In Lithuania there are no more Jews, apart from Jewish workers and their families. The distance between from the assembly point to the graves was on average 4 to 5 Km. I consider the Jewish action more or less terminated as far as Einsatzkommando 3 is concerned. Those working Jews and Jewesses still available are needed urgently and I can envisage that after the winter this workforce will be required even more urgently. I am of the view that the sterilization programme of the male worker Jews should be started immediately so that reproduction is prevented. If despite sterilization a Jewess becomes pregnant she will be liquidated.

(signed)

Jaeger

SS-Standartenfuhrer

=========================================================================

Jaeger’s accuracy is clearly documented and as we see, accounted in detail. For those Jaeger Murdered, we deal with losses so extraordinary, it is difficult for many to see the true cost to all of humanity, if the document is taken purely in its extraction. From here, and when the places of the mass murder which he names with systematic thoroughness we are dealt a heavy blow, acknowledging what is adding to in the report, the complete annihilation of entire Jewish Community’s, totalling some 137,346 Jewish Men, Women and Their Children. In this, it is important not only that

#WeRemember

Always to Remember, Never to Forget

Aglona, Ariogala, Alytus, Babtei, Bischolin, Bober Uzda, Butrimonys, Carliava, Cekiske, Dagda, Darsuniskis, Dunaburg, Dunanberg, Eyisky, Girkalinei, Jahiunai, Jasvainai, Jesuas, Jonava, Joniskia, Kaisiadorys, Kedainiai, Kovno, Krakes, Kraslawa, Kreis Rasainai, Lazdijai, Leipalingis, Mariampole, Merkine, Minsk, Moletai, Nemencing, Novo-Wilejka, Obeliai, Panevezys, Pasvalys, Petrasiunai, Pleschnitza, Pravenicshkis, Prienai, Rasainai, Riesa, Rokiskis, Rumsiskis, Seduva, Seirijai, Semiliski, Seredzius, Simnas, Svenciany, Trakai, Ukmerge, Uteba, Utena, Uzusalis, Varena, Veliuona, Vilna, Wendziogala, Wilkia, Wilkowiski, Yurburg, Zagare, Zapiskis, Zarasai and Ziezmariai.

It is clear also that within this remit to be exacting in the excrutiating detail of the Slaughter, many places were not confirmed as centres for Jaeger’s killing operations. That said, it is realistic enough to assess that a greater capacity to mass murder might well have been concealed and hidden amongst the many Jews taken from the Shtetl’s of Lithuania. It for these Jewish People, for whom, there now remains few records of all who have been taken from us. Those places following, which are marked with an *, have been dutifully presented into what Jaeger fully details is The Jaeger Report. It is essential too to fully appreciate that while Jaeger transposed the names of those Villages and Towns he sought to obliterate, with a certain Nazi arrogance so as not to conform to proper titles, he may well have used his own versions of local dilaects to name what these Shtetl’s might otherwise have been pronounced. And while it is indeed tragic that these Shtetl’s are mentioned, it is with a deep sadness that not only where their Jews taken from these Homes, but their names, many of whom will never be recalled, are written into pages of Books instead of life.

#WeRemember also:

Abelnikas, Azvinsz, Azventis, Akmene, Akunik, Aleksandrobolis, Alkiskiai, Alove, Alsedziai, Alshishok, Alunta, Alvitas, *Alytus, Andriejava, Antaliepte, Antanavas, Antnemunis, Antuzava, Anyksciai, *Ariogala, Asminte, Aukstadvaris, Aukstoji, Avanaste and Azuolu-Buda.

*Babtai, Backininkeliai, Bagaslaviskis, Baisogala, Balbieriskis, Balninkai, Balsiai, Balsh, Baltiskis, Baltmiskis, Baltusova, Baranas, Bariunai, Barova, Barsenai, Barshon, Barstyciai, Bartininkai, Baruvke, Batakiai, Batshkinikel, Batshishok, Bazilionai, Belenarni, Bendzingai, Berezinsk, Berezovke, Berzina, Bentzingai, Berzai, Berzgainiai, Berzininkai, Berzole, Betygala, Birstonas, Birzai, Bitsun, Bobri, Bubeliai, Buckunai, Buda, Budavone, Budevoni, Budvietis, Buginiai, Bukants, Bulavenai, Burakova, Burbiskis, Burgiani, Burzshevits, Butkunai, Butskun, Bukonys, Bukta, Burginiai, Butkunai, Butkunai and *Butrimonys.

*Cekiske.

Dabeikiai, Dabikine, Darbenai, Darsuniskis, Daugai, Daugailiai, Daujenai, Dauksiskis, Deltuva, Dembove-Buda, Devangole, Didkiemis, Dikshne, Dilan, Dirvinishok, Dirviniskis, Dotnuva, Dovin, Dubingiai, Dubininkus, Dubinove, Dubrava, Dubrovitse, Dusetos, Dutkeme, Dvornova and Dvoruka,

Erzvilkas.

Fertshan and Freda.

Gadunavas, Galgaudiskis, Gargzdai, Garliava, Gastinai, Gaudeliske, Gaure, Geguzine, Geleziai, Gelgaudiskis, Geltsin, Gelvonai, Giedraiciai, Gintaliske, Girkalnis, Gitelishke, Givai-Skrudzhai, Gliun, Goriskis, Graziskiai, Gribkele, Grimz, Grimzdai, Grinkiskis, Griskabudis, Grudzuniai, Gruslauke, Gruzdzia, Gudeleve, Gudeliaia, Gudiniskiai, Gudnove and Gudziunai.

Igliauka, Ilguva, Imbradas, Indrioniskis and Inkturke.

Jakubents, Janapole, Janishok, Jankai, Jashtaik, Jastanik, Javaravas, Jegliskis, Jenits, Jentsikes, Jieznas, Jokubaiciai, Jokubavas, *Jonava, Joniskelis, Joniskis-Siauliai, Joniskis-Utena, Josvainiai, Jovaravas, Jozda, Juknishki, Julinove, Juodkaimis, Juodupe, Juodupis, Jurbarkas, Jurdzike, Justinik and Juzintai.

Kaimelis, *Kaisiadorys, Kalian, Kalelishok, Kalinova, Kaltinenai, Kalvarija, Kamaja, Kamian, Kamirintse, Kapciamiestis, Karklenai, Kartena, Katautiske, Katiliske, Kaloverne, Karklenai, Kartena, Kartsi, *Kaunas, Kaunotavas, Kautvishok, Kavarskas, Kazlu-Ruda, Kazokiskes, Kazyliai, *Kedainiai, Kelme, Kernava, Keturvalakiai, Khavodki, Kiduliai, Kietaviskes, Kinderishki, Kirsne, Klaipeda, Klebiskis, Klovainiai, Klubianis, Klykuoliai, Koplitse, Kortsion, Kovli, Kozlova, *Krakes, Krasne-Selik, Kraziai, Krekenava, Kretinga, Kreve, Kriauniai, Kriaunos, Krincinas, Kriukai-Sakiai, Kriukai-Siauliai, Krivelian, Kruonis, Kruopiai, Kubilun, Kubiliunai, Kuciunai, Kudirkos Naumiestis, Kulautuva, Kulbes, Kuliai, Kuprelishik, Kupreliskis, Kupiskis, Kurdimkstai, Kurklets, Kurkliai, Kursenai, Kurtuvenai, Kutkiskes, Kutkiskiai, Kuziai, Kvedarna, Kvetkai, Kvietiskis and Kybartai.

Labanoras, Labinava, Labinak, Laibiskes, Laibushok, Laizuva, Lal, Lampedziai, Lanciunava, Lapiai, Laukeliskiai, Laukuva, Laukzeme, Laukzemis, Lazdena, *Lazdijai, Leckava, *Leipalingis, Lekeciai, Leliunai, Lents, Lieplauke, Lieponiai, Liksel, Linkmenys, Linksmadvaris, Linkuva, Lioliai, Liskiava, Liubavas, Liudvinavas, Lotava, Lucinava-Marijampole, Lucinava-Raseiniai, Lukodeme, Luksiai, Luoke, Lyduvenai and Lygumai.

Madziunai, Mantevidave, Marevianki,*Marijampole, Marsaiki, Marvele, Maurlishok, Mauruciai, Mazeikiai, Mazan, Mazonai, Medingenai, Mergalaukis, Mergelupke, *Merkine, Meskai, Meskuiciai, Meteliai, Mikalina, Mikaliskis, Mikhalen, Mikhelmant, Milinover Hauf, Miluntse, Minatsa, Mincia, Miroslavas, Misniunenai, Mitsintskas, Mishnun, Mizshuk, *Moletai, Mosedis, Muravani Panemun and Musninkai.

Nacioniskis, Nakan, Namaun, Natsianishok, Naujamiestis, Naujazeris, Naujokai, Nedinge, Nedzinge, Nekinishki, Nemaksciai, Nemaniunai, Nemajunai, Nemunaitis, Nemunelio-Radviliskis, Netshini, Nevarenai, Nevieriai, Niklisik, Nirak, Nociunai and Noraikishok.

*Obeliai, Olova, Olinova, Olite and Onuskis.

Pabaiskas, Paberze, Pabirze, Pacinelis, Padubysis, Padushe, Paduvise, Paezereliai, Paerzeriai, Pagegiai, Pagiriai, Pagramantis, Pajevonys, Pajuris, Pakalniskis, Pakelnishok, Pakesne, Pakriaunis, Pakruojus, Pakuonis, Palacionys, Palanga, Palevene, Paliuniskis, Palonai, Palova, Paluobiai, Palutsi, Pamerkiai, Pamuse, Pamusis, Pandelys, Panemune, Panemunelis, Panemunis, *Panevezys, Panosiskes, Panoteriai, Paobeliai, Paparciai, Papile, Papilys, Paportshe, Papyvesiai, Parozshnie, Parupe, Pasasva, Pasavona, Pasela, Paseyk, Pashela, Pasiause, Pasoirishok, Pasusvys, Pasvalys, Pasvitinys, Paupine, Pavandene, Pavidak, Percineliai, Perlai, Perloja, Pernava, Pestininkai, Pezinte, Pilnikali, Pilviskiai, Pikeliai, Piniava, Pivasiunai, Plateliai, Ploksciai, Plunge, Plusi, Pociuneliai, Podmeretshe, Poduve, Poduvise, Pokipine, Polevene, Popetaitsh, Popovese, Povaiguva, Povandine, Prastshi, Pratkunai, Pravieniskes, Preni, Priekule, *Prienai, Primusa, Pumpenai, Punia, Pusiauskely, Puskelniai, Purpele and Pusalotas.

Radeikiai, Radenai, Radute, Radviliskis, Rageliai, Raguva, Raguvele, Raiserad, Rakan, Rakishetsik, Ramygala, Ranishk, *Raseiniai, Raskovcizna, Raudenai, Raudenai-Raudenis, Raudondvaris, Raudone, Ribok, Ribukai, Rietavas, Rodzanai, Rogovike, Rokenai, *Rokiskis, Romanova, Rozalimas, Rudamina, Rudnia, Rumsiskes, Rusne, Rymsaniai.

Sabonis, Sakiai, Sakyna, Sateikiai, Saukenai, Saukotas, Sakalyne, Salakas, Salantai, Saldutiskis, Salociai, Salomenka, Sanesiski, Sasnava, Sateikai, Seciai, Seda, *Seduva, Seferne,*Seirijai, Semeliskes, *Seredzius Sergainiskis, Serpaits, Sestokai, Sesuoliai, Seta, Shaki, Shatkin, Shikli, Shil, Shilan, Shimak, Skrebishik, Shlashte, Shmidhan, Shnarglin, Shtaitsesik, Shtanishok, Shtarinke, Shtarkene, Shtarveniki, Shudinishki, Shvabeshik, Siaain, Siaudine, Siaudiniskiai, Siaudvige, Siaulenai, Siauliai, Siesikai, Silai, Silale, Silenai, Silute, Siluva, Simkaiciai, *Simnas, Simne, Sintautai, Sirvintos, Skaistgirys, Skapiskis, Skaudvile, Skiemonys, Skirpstauja, Skirsnemune, Skrebatiskis, Skriptave, Skudutiskis, Skuodas, Slavikai, Smalininkai, Smalvos, Smilgiai, Slobar, Solominke, Spernia, Stakliskes, Stasiunai, Stravenink, Strevininkai, Subacius, Sudargas, Sujainiai, Sukiskis, Sumskai, Sunskai, Surdegis, Surviliskis, Suvainiskis, Suvaletsek, Svaboda, Svedasai, Sventezeris, Svobiskis, Sveksna and Sventezeris.

Talon, Tarpun, Tartupis, Taubin, Taujenai, Taulkeve, Taumasheve, Taurage, Tauragenai, Tavrova, Telsiai, Teneniai, Teraskova, Terpits, Testalvitshne, Timegole, Tirksliai, Traupis, Trepkalnis, Troskunai, Truskava, Tryskiai, Tshabiski, Tshislivke, Tsikants, Tubines, Turishok, Turiskis, Turmantas, Turzenai, Tverai and Tytuvenai.

Ubila, *Ukmerge, Ulinova, Ungarine, Upyna, Upyte, *Utena, Uzdubysis, Uzpaliai, Uzuguostis and Uzventis.

Vabalninkas, Vadokliai, Vaiguva, Vainutas, Vaitkiskiai, Valeisiskis, Vandziogala, *Varena, Varestsine, Varniai, Vasiliskis, Vaskai, Vegeriai, Veidziai, Veisiejai, Veiveriai, Veivirzenai, *Veliuona, Vepriai, Verpena, Vershves, Vesulove, Vezaiciai, Videniskiai, Vidiskiai, Vidmant, Vidnishok, Vidukle, Viedziai, Vieksniai, Viesintos, Viesvenai, Vievis, Vikenai, Vikaviskis, Vikiautinis, Vilkija, Vilkiautinis, Virbalis, Virstinik, Visakio-Ruda, Visevienai, Vistytis, Vizeyts and Vyzuonos.

Ylakiai.

Zadeikiai, *Zagare, Zagrini, Zaidekan, Zaikinai, Zalants, Zalioji, Zalosia, Zapyskis, *Zarasai, Zarenai, Zasliai, Zelva, Zemaiciu-Kalvarija, Zemaiciu-Naumiestis, Zeimelis, Zeimiai, Zemaitkiemis, Zidikai, *Ziezmariai, Zshaidini, Zvirbliniai, Zydaviskis, Zydkaimis, Zydvaris, Zshving, Zshvirblants, Zudz, Zuriai, Zuvilun and Zvingiai.

#WeRemember

Always to Remember, Never to Forget.

ALWAYS!!

“..with regard to ..Jews ..I’ve found myself remaining inactive. There’s no sense in adding uselessly to ..difficulties of ..moment. One acts more shrewdly when one bides one’s time.” Adolf Hitler.

There is a terrible hatred paroling this World from only a temporary reprieve, any of which is leasing back a Humanity stolen from it. The fact of the inhumanity that is to be discussed, which will never return us to where civilisation had brought us toward, is the most horrendous crime in all of history. This, the most vitriolic hatred ever envisaged and conceived of was conducted during these times by a Hitler regime designed for the purpose to destroy, annihilate and obliterate every conceivable trace of any Jewish presence in our midst. That Hitler practicably achieved much of this resolve, die Endlosung der Judenfrage, is tantamount to the most accursed accusation that has ever been aimed at us in all of history. From Hitler’s spoken word, which always sought to articulate the literal threat to the Jews of Germany, spreading widely over all of Europe and then finally the conflagration to then be carried to the World of Jewry, and in a punitive way, is documented so well proven.

“..Poles. ..pliant ..servile to their masters ..joyously ..fervently anti-Semitic just short of advocating pogroms in ..camps ..incredibly ignorant and chauvinistic.” David Rousset.

If there was any eloquence from Hitler as to what the world heard, it was largely ignored as the expiation of 6,000,000 Jews commenced. Immediately upon Hitler’s ascendency to the power brokerage he was fixed upon, and on a World stage, with the murder’s of Jewish Citizen’s running concurrently alongside his expressions of all hatred for all Jews, the political and religious World receded from its moral and ethical substance. While many commentator’s, historians and writer’s so often refer to the hate and bile of Hitler’s words as mere word play, we simply cannot ignore the fact that his words re-framed his intentions. Not only can Hitler’s words not be seen as just the merest of his hate filled rhetoric, but when all about him the Jewish People were being subjected to ridicule, abuse, assault and murder, it is preposterous notion. We can clearly identify that under Hitler’s steely gaze and command, his wishes were carried out and to the wider German public, enacted upon.

“..total Jewish population of ..world was estimated at 17,000,000 in 1937. ..over 10,000,000 were in Europe.” Dr. Richard Korherr.

Here every edict of what Hitler clearly determined appropriate for a quickly marginalised Jewish People was enacted upon by the widest structure of German society, business and institution. Other nations too took heed of what Hitler was being enabled to achieve and those like Poland, who as a sovereign state was the first to feel the full weight of Hitler’s intentions toward the Jews of Europe, acted similarly. Poland was to be no hiding space for their Jews, 3,000,000 of whom would prove the tenacity of Hitler’s hatred. As Hitler had clearly expressed, and for more than seven years since gaining power, Jewry would be confronted totally and annihilated mercilessly. For me still, the correct response to what is The Holocaust has yet to be made judicious or commendable. As the World of brutal conflict rages on and its torn people are continually tortured by strife, Jewish existence is continually under threat. What this ensures is that not only have the lessons of The Holocaust not been clearly identified, they are as far reaching in their forming of some acceptance of its gravest wrong. But no response should EVER seek to deny the place of 6,000,000 Murdered Jews in the space of European History, which some who seek to redefine their loss to us would suggest we should do.

“..Once I really am in power ..my first ..foremost task will be ..annihilation of ..Jews. As soon as I have ..power to do so ..I will have gallows built in rows ..at ..Marienplatz in Munich ..as many as traffic allows. ..Jews will be hanged indiscriminately ..they will remain hanging until they stink ..they will hang there as long as ..principles of hygiene permit. As soon as they have been untied ..next batch will be strung up ..and so on down ..line ..until ..last Jew in Munich has been exterminated. Other cities will follow suit ..precisely in this fashion ..until all Germany has been ..cleansed of Jews.” Adolf Hitler.

The European Continent, that has been so liberally littered with the ashes of the Jewish People and has been literally marked so indelibly with such brutal inhumanity, all of this must be clearly acknowledged as such. Along with the blood soaked soil of every nation within Europe, and with that the desecration of our clutch on humanity, we clearly must attribute all of this catastrophe to Hitler’s urging. What proved such an unprecedented and unparalleled massacre, so much so that comparison of any sort will only trivialise our loss, is to be recognised in every facet of the move toward the Jews final cataclysm and affront to what we see as our civilising principles. Here, part of the denial aimed at these 6,000,000 Murdered Jews is the inability by the hate filled denial lobby to process that fact. Clearly the intention is what Hitler had dedicated statisticians pointing him toward, and this was the very presence of more than 17,000,000 Jews in the World.

“..We shall regain our health only by eliminating ..Jews.” Adolf Hitler.

Dr. Richard Korherr would come along and draw up the statistical analysis for which The Wannsee Conference would then draught its own compliance to. That The Wannsee Conference recognised that 11,293,300 Jews could be Murdered, is essential in determining what we know are the accounting for which Hitler made full use of. With that in mind, any response to any form of denial of The Holocaust must Always be unequivocal and responded to with the completed facts that are its integral truth. The narrative of The Holocaust must never moderate its stance on the truthful conveyance of each and every pertinent identification of the final course with the clearest and relevant facts pointing toward it. What cannot be denied in all that Hitler spouted, with his defining threat to annihilate the Jews would be met precisely with their extermination.

Tuesday August 22nd. 1939. “..destruction of Poland is in ..foreground. ..aim is ..elimination of living forces ..not ..arrival at a certain line. I shall give a propagandist cause for starting ..war ..never mind if it is plausible or not. ..victor will not be asked later on whether he told ..truth or not.” Adolf Hitler.

Bearing all this in mind, we must never enter into any discourse which is other than the historical truth and everything which has been gained with such historical accuracy. Its the entirety of The Holocaust, from the research of those facts which delivers to posterity its posthumous legacy that history remains truthful. The entirety of history has gained the essential proof that historically cannot be compromised, especially in the case of more than the abundantly surveyed nature of The Holocaust. Fundamentally, all of humanity must be regrouped and even reborn from the ashes of the Death Camps, from the Ghetto’s and from the Killing Sites and for the World to recognise the very flawed nature of the human fall from grace. What has been proven by Survivor’s from their witness testimony, so replete with the horror’s they too endured, has been fully corroborated by the evidence to be sought.

“..Today we must conduct ..same struggle that Pasteur and Koch had to fight. ..cause of countless ills is a bacillus ..Jew. ..We will become healthy if we eliminate ..Jew.” Adolf Hitler.

Along with the first hand knowledge of what emanated from practically day one, and with the somewhat depleted evidences of those who completed their murderous duty with relish, we have gained more than that copious awareness of the increasing move toward The Final Solution. Throughout what I will present here, facts that are emitted by all those whose knowledge of the truth of The Holocaust has been stated, Hitler’s call for the enactment of a eugenics programme was seen to be the preliminary toward marking the Jewish People more significantly for slaughter. What may be argued over, and has now been denounced has been the conflated terms then denied by lesser beings than humanity requires. But the truth holds sway over all of the inconsistency of hatred, which sweeps through community’s at the behest of those who seek to divide us along racist lines. Those who seek to diffuse the truth, to suit their own racist agenda, cannot bend the truth to those of a recognisably ignoble diminishing of the truth.

“..essential ..we do not proclaim our views ..before ..world. ..no need for that ..main thing ..we ourselves know what we want. .. Nobody must be able to recognise that it initiates a final settlement. This need not prevent our taking all necessary measures ..shooting ..resettling ..we shall take them.” Adolf Hitler.

One of the constituent preambles of the denial lobby too is the confusing issuance of the place of The State of Israel in their narrative. Israel, which truly began its existence as a regard to such Jewish losses as remain unimaginable, cannot be a bargaining chip over 6,000,000 Jewish losses. Also, Israel was delivered by the World as a purge of conscience over what led to our own human failings. Truly, as indifference to the Jewish struggles in their moments of most urgent need, raged about us, we did not stand firmly enough for what should of commanded us, our humanity. As The Holocaust emerged, and for the duplicitous and complicit nature that reigned while 6,000,000 Jewish People were being Murdered, we stand before the alter of History, fully accused. We cannot allow this factual criticism of our behaviour to escape when the incrimination of humanity for what we as human beings achieved is clearly evident. What was finally allowed to happen to 6,000,000 of our own, simply because they believed differently to us or were born with an immeasurably remarkable gene pool, is a scandal we must bear as the controversy of The Holocaust is the slaughter of 6,000,000 Human Beings who happened to be Jews.

“..Where ..Jews were left to themselves ..in Poland ..most terrible misery and decay prevailed. ..In Poland this state of affairs has been fundamentally cleared up. If ..Jews there did not want to work ..they were shot. If they could not work ..they had to succumb. ..This was not cruel ..even innocent creatures ..have to be killed ..so that no harm is caused by them. Why should ..beasts who wanted to bring us Bolshevism be spared more.” Adolf Hitler.

None of this sorry saga of indifference and slaughter does credit to what civilisation has posed for itself, let alone a supposed enlightenment that was meant to shine for other’s. For me, all of this carnage makes the deaths of anyone, even other than these Jews who are the subject of my own committed remit during the World War II, inexcusable nor can we process them as any the less significant. Nor does the lessons we should have supposedly gained explain why The Balkans exploded, the Rwanda tragedy erupted or that the My-Lai massacre did in fact occur. Nor indeed can The Holocaust explain why humanity has yet to step up to the plate to stem the flow of innocent lives still being lost and entire continents remaining awash with innocent blood. My study of such human loss is not unique in the terms of reference laid before you, and while it has been engrossed in the many facets of The Holocaust horror, there is the very detailed terror to expand upon.

“..Russian campaign ..to decimate ..Slav population by 30,000,000 ..troop of low characters would have to be formed.” SS Obergruppenfuhrer Erich von dem Bach-Zalewski.

The devastation, which struck at the heart of 11,293,300 Jews of Europe and consigned far more than 50% of these to annihilation, troubles my senses as I still seek out the detailed horror in order to add clarity to what is so clearly lucid. For any being to interpret the humanity of another with clearly such distorted a view as can deliver such purging of humanity, my own mind is then steeped in their vacant call for a vengeance, a retribution or even a response they cannot make. There has been this vastly misunderstood claim, that revenge has ever been the call of Israel. Also, such retribution as would be entirely appropriate has not emanated those Survivor’s who are burdened by the sheer loss all too many of these Survivor’s have also endured. However, the Survivor’s call for Justice echoes humanity’s own much anticipated demand and as yet this has been largely ignored. As the fate of 6,000,000 Murdered Jews has been sought out by all too many to be left to the past, we urge the memory of their presence to continue to the future.

“..Our strength is our quickness and our brutality. Jenghis Khan had millions of women and children hunted down and killed ..deliberately and with a gay heart. History sees in him only ..great founder of States. What ..weak Western European civilisation alleges about me ..does not matter. I have given ..order ..and will have everyone shot who utters but one word of criticism ..that ..aim of this war does not consist in reaching certain geographical lines ..but in ..enemies’ physical elimination. Thus ..for ..time being only in ..East ..I put ready my Death’s Head units ..with ..order to kill without pity or mercy all men ..women ..children. ..Only thus will we gain ..living space that we need.” Adolf Hitler.

Here though, and there are those who see within the vagaries of such a hatred for the Jewish People, which seeks to secure some need to retard The Holocaust memorial, we ensure that no such validation for their hatred can be gained. For some seeking to even reinterpret The Holocaust on some narrative level, this is grossly distorting of a loss we should feel more deeply. This sought after re-emphasis of the very stringent terms which The Holocaust occupies is wrong on a number of levels. The onerous fact of the slaughter, which is both factual and the realising truth which sees the memory of 6,000,000 Murdered Jews holding the integrity of history, emits its own accusation. There is no debate on The Holocaust which is clearly seeking to obscure. There is though, on a matter of fact level, that which exists as it evolved from what was expressed, then intended and finally carried out for Hitler and toward The Final Solution. The continuous arguments over the when, why and what constitutes The Holocaust narrative does not detract from the single fact that it exists in our history.

Friday December 12th. 1941 “..In respect of ..Jewish question ..make a clean sweep. ..world war is here ..annihilation of ..Jews must be ..necessary result. This question is to be regarded without sentimentalism. We are not here to have sympathy with ..Jews ..but ..with our German people. If ..German people have sacrificed 160,000 dead in ..eastern campaign ..authors of this bloody conflict will have to pay for it with their lives.” Adolf Hitler.

The Holocaust itself governs its own space in the unprecedented and unparalleled nature of its predominance over all of our own humanity. Perhaps we can recognise its lack of merciful incline and therein lies a fact which subscribes for us and toward seeking the very nature of a comprehension which will never arrive. In all of this there is no doubt as to the veracity of the very existing detail of the crimes committed, perpetrated, witnessed, established, ignored, accepted or with a complete ambivalence toward what was and did happen to these Jews of Europe. All of this is the known truth that remains The Holocaust. This certainty in no way allows for denial to enter the arena that is the proper discourse we deliver on the subject of Hitler’s intention for the Jews of Europe and to understanding what remains incomprehensible to all of humanity. That 6,000,000 Men, Women and Their Children of either the Jewish Faith or Jewish antecedence were killed in cold blood, were clearly sought out and systematically slaughtered, is not a bargaining framework in which denial will persist.

“..At ..beginning of May 1942 SS Oberfuhrer Brack from ..Fuhrer’s chancellery suddenly came to Lublin. With Globocnik he discussed resuming ..extermination of ..Jews. Globocnik said he had too few people to carry out this programme. Brack stated that ..euthanasia programme had stopped and that ..people from T4 would from now on be detailed to him on a regular basis so that ..decisions taken at ..Wannsee conference could be implemented. As it appeared that it would not be possible for ..Einsatzgruppe to clear individual areas of Jews and ..people in ..large Ghettos of Warsaw and Lemberg by shooting them ..decision had been taken to set up 2 further extermination camps which would be ready by August 1st. 1942 ..Treblinka and Sobibor. ..large scale ‘Vernichtungsaktion’ extermination programme ..due to start on August 1st. 1942.” SS Untersturmfuhrer Josef Oberhauser.

I use so often what I consider my motto over a widely entered into arena in the hope that it implants upon those reading their words, the moral intention that is both ethically sought and is furnished with truth. The integrity of what this truth as it pertains to these Jews of Europe must mean that it has to be borne factually so as not to distort nor corrupt all of human history. That essential is relevant as it gives rise to a required remembrance for the 6,000,000 Slaughtered Jews who remain as a reminder as to why hatred must never be acceptable. So with my use of these words, Always to Remember, Never to Forget, they again resonate for me as a clarion call to those who would seek to further diminish the intensity of the assault on our memory for these Jews of Europe. For this mediocre minority, whose denial seeks to deflect our attention away from those who were and are still responsible for The Holocaust enactment, their vain effort will not vandalise the truth nor betray our search and reliance upon it.

“..I saw them myself ..Chelmno ..Treblinka ..Sobibor ..Belzec.” SS Obersturmbannfuhrer Rudolf Hoess.

Mankind displays its inhumanity before the doors of the Gas Chambers and toward other’s of all humanity so as to reign above those they might perceive or consider unequal to them. Whether that is termed racially or religiously, the Jews of Europe were packed tightly into these Death Camps and so brutally driven toward annihilation. I had learned fully of these spaces and when I wrote my first book on the subject of The Holocaust, it was clearly drawn from the Testimony of all those who had been involved in even this obscene spectre of the catastrophe. It was essential at the time to make a statement, and be they the Survivor, the Witness, the Perpetrator, the Bystander or even those we consider the Participator, their evidence all added to a more complete jurisdiction over the crimes we have come to learn of. At pains to bring about an objective view of the words I used I wanted the reader to emerge at the end of the work with all evidences intertwined and without the crucial identification of that evidence not appearing in any way subjective. But also in that title was the acknowledgement that we were losing the ability to learn from those very People immediately knowledgeable of what it is we seek to know of, as it is the Survivor who knows the truth we have so far discerned and corroborated through them.

“..Wirth conducted ..Aktionen in Bernburg. Subordinate to him were ..burners ..disinfectors and drivers. He also supervised ..transportation of ..mentally ill and ..corpses. One day in ..winter of 1941 Wirth arranged a transport of euthanasia personnel ..to Poland. I was picked together with about 8 ..10 other men and transferred to Belzec. ..I don’t remember ..names of ..others. Upon our arrival in Belzec ..we met Friedel Schwarz and ..other SS men. ..They supervised ..construction of barracks that would serve as a gas chamber. Wirth told us that in Belzec all ..Jews will be struck down. For this purpose barracks were built as gas chambers. I installed shower heads in ..gas chambers. ..nozzles were not connected to any water pipes ..they would serve as camouflage for ..gas chamber. For ..Jews who were gassed it would seem as if they were being taken to baths and for disinfection.” SS Unterscharfuhrer Erich Fuchs.

That said, the title of my very first book emerged as Testimony and Fading Memory in The Holocaust which does not alter the wrenching detail nor the essential need to connect with the testimony. We take that marker from all of those evidence deliverer’s and we see them all as essential to us knowing ever more detail of their truth, no matter if that detail is the act itself from the Perpetrators themselves. It is essential, and no matter how reprehensible some of these perpetrator, participator or even these witness evidence’s continually deliver, it is more than evident that we look objectively upon each to develop the whole. Hitler knew, in the very detail of the atrocity his daily reports referred to, that there was a human failing to acknowledge fully what mankind was capable of so readily achieving. But in coming to terms with the incomprehensible nature that is The Holocaust, we clearly demand the horror that the Survivor endured. It is essentially revisited and even relived for the benefit of world history but also for some who will never accede to the truth that humanity is prone to this gravest atrocity.

“..midsummer ..early autumn 1942 ..arrived at Treblinka from Belzec. ..Malkinia station ..already dark by ..time I reached Treblinka. In ..camp there were bodies lying everywhere. ..they were all swollen. ..dragged through ..camp to ..upper section by Jews. ..working Jews were forced to keep moving by ..Ukrainian guards ..also ..Germans. ..saw them being beaten. ..tremendous confusion and a horrible din. ..went walking around ..camp. ..established ..some ..guard squads were with girls and ..put down their rifles. ..I established order. I reported to Wirth in ..dining room Wirth ..Stangl ..Oberhauser were there. ..next day ..no longer ..bodies lying around. ..about 9:00 am ..transport arrived. ..men ..already standing naked in .. reception yard.” SS Untersturmfuhrer Kurt Franz.

That we continually demand of the Survivor their return to these barren shadow lands is both a cruel and necessary concern for us that their story is still to be learned. I have looked into the eye of the Survivor and I have seen their pain. In acknowledging that this pain is both for what they witnessed and then endured, we must come to terms with that it is also for what we allowed to happen to them. We had become the bystanders to a cataclysmic catastrophe as we either looked the other way or shuffled aside to allow the fuller progress toward The Holocaust happen. The role of History therefore, is not to refute those who seek to deny the truth but to place the integrity of what we know as factually correct. We then place all we have learned to know and before the alter to posterity, we ensure that which judges our own inappropriate response is recognised. Denial is not just the threat that its illiterate and inarticulate refutation of the truth, which cannot be bargained with, seeks to suggest. We have the truth. Their argument is weakened by our relevance and the truth it contains stands before all time to accuse the inability of the world of the time to stem the flow of so much Jewish blood.

“..Between 1937 and ..beginning of 1943 ..Jewish population of Europe should have decreased by an estimated 4,000,000 ..partly due to excess mortality of ..Jews in Middle and Western Europe and partly due to ..evacuations ..mainly in ..Eastern territories.” Dr. Richard Korherr.

We have the exacting and even audited accounts of the cruellest detail and I have written the books to show my own acceptance of this very detail which 6,000,000 Jews of Europe underwent. My accusation therefore, of the guilt of the many in all of this, is also what drives the denial lobby forward. It appears a nonsense as to how these racist deniers can still adhere to any form of reverence for a criminal past so as to legitimise an illegitimate political cause. We have our own Allied fighters who fought the good fight and died as a consequence of Hitler’s rabid ambition, are they too to be denied their place in the integrity of our history. How can it be even acceptable to advocate for a distorted view of our own past that will desecrate our present and obscure our future from that past. In this political revisionist nonsense, I guess in essence they seek to alter the truth for which constituted nations and churches would not want to have itself named as either complicit in such inhumanity or have duplicity levelled at it! Which of any of these nations of Europe, responsible in part for what Hitler managed to achieve would seeks to accept it was both complicit and even active in the scale of the atrocity!

“..I ..never knew ..total number ..I have nothing to help me make an estimate. ..I ..remember ..figure in ..larger actions ..repeated to me by Eichmann or his deputies. ..I ..no longer remember ..figures for ..smaller actions ..insignificant in comparison with ..numbers given. I regard ..total of 2,500,000 ..far too high. ..Auschwitz had limits to its destructive possibilities ..Upper Silesia ..Polish territory under German rule 250,000 Germany ..Theresienstadt 100,000 Holland 95,000 Belgium 20,000 France 110,000 Greece 65,000 Hungary 400,000 Slovakia 90,000 .” SS Obersturmbannfuhrer Rudolf Hoess.

I look to Poland, and what it is trying to achieve in refashioning its past in order to shift the emphasis of The Holocaust, and am aghast that Polish historians can allow for such a Polish distortion. Poland’s attempt to move The Holocaust geographically away from their Polish lands, where The Holocaust was largely conducted, or where it became the conduit for all that Hitler wished for Poland is not to be connived over in any single way. I am constantly asked why Poland does this sought after shift from responsibility, or even its non-Jewish peoples complicity in some of what is The Holocaust, and it appears as simple. Poland is the gravest yard in all of History where some Polish collusion, certain Polish collaboration and even Polish effort all enters a minefield of Polish complicity. While there remains a dearth of duplicitous behaviours, which have scored an indelible wound on all of Polish history, and that too must be confronted, we owe it to those Jews, Polish Jews especially who were Murdered on Polish soil, to acknowledge that fact. We do not sit here to defend against denial nor promote accusation for its own sake nor can we alter the geographical spectrum to obfuscate the reality we know is the truth.

“..Lublin [read Majdanek] 24,733 ..Belzec 434,508 ..Sobibor ..101,370 ..Treblinka ..713,555.” SS Sturmbannfuhrer Hermann Hoefle.

For world history, denial is too weak and tawdry a hatred to be concerned with and any rewriting of our history cannot alter the facts as we surely know them. What we have in the infinitesimal integrity of The Holocaust is its factual truth, all of which adds to bolster our clearer and totally objective narrative. We uphold here the traditions of History with the factual truth and its integrity assigned to it. We tell it as it is! There is no debate. The puerile essential necessary for those in this denial hatred is that the Jewish People, and while their Jewish Faith has held stronger than their wanton lack of tolerance for their being, we guard against the intrusion of illegitimacy. For the Jewish People, who had felt the sting of hatred, and endured this progress toward their almost complete annihilation for more than 2,000 years, 6,000,000 Murdered Jews of Europe, these Men, Women and Their Children stand in accusation against us for the near accomplishment of such an offensive tragedy.

“..SS expert on burning bodies ..ordered us to put women ..particularly fat women ..on ..first layer of ..grill ..face down. ..second layer could consist of whatever was brought ..men ..women ..children ..and so on ..layer on top of layer. ..expert then ordered us to lay dry branches under ..grill and to light them. Within a few minutes ..fire would take so it was difficult to approach ..pyre from ..50 meters away. ..work was extremely difficult. ..stench was awful. Liquid excretions from ..corpses squirted all over ..prisoner ..workers. ..SS man operating ..excavator often dumped ..corpses directly onto ..prisoners working nearby ..wounding them seriously.” Yechiel Reichman.

Here at Treblinka the offence of annihilation and its attempt to obliterate all traces of its undertaken has been considered and will be face a forensic investigation till time ends. What is to be recognised in the unbridled, unprecedented and unparalleled accumulation of all these factors though, will never be reconciled while deceit and the attempt to hide from the truth cements such hatred. The sheer detail in hostility, bigotry and denial is the subjective tenet of a hatred still to climb out of the inhuman abyss. So while we search to deliver the most comprehensive study of each facet of The Holocaust, we must explore every factor of this atrocity to not only secure the memory of the Jewish losses, but to ensure we are aware of all that was done to the Jews of Europe and by those leading the charge. In achieving The Holocaust, and the atrocity itself is what for Hitler remains a posthumous endeavour of sheer brutal atrocity and the inhuman accomplishment above all others which Hitler sought out in his putrid life.

“..Then began ..general exhumation and burning of corpses ..it may have taken from November 1942 to March 1943. ..incineration’s went on day and night ..without interruption ..initially at one ..then at two sites. At one of ..sites it was possible to incinerate about 2,000 corpses within 24 hours. Approximately four weeks after ..start of ..incineration operation ..second site was set up. ..on an average ..a total of 300,000 corpses were burnt at one site within about five months ..and 240,000 at ..second one during a 4 month period. These are obviously estimates of averages. It would probably be correct to put ..sum total at 500,000 corpses.” SS-Scharfuhrer Heinrich Gley.

This effort to conceal too, and it was the case for Belzec and every one of the x6 Death Camps on Polish soil which I have stood upon and recognised the hollowed out essence of a disappeared Jewish People. But such is the certainty that it is an unanswerable question as to whether we will ever know the very detail that remained unexpressed outside the gates of Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibor, Treblinka or Auschwitz and Birkenau. It is a further tragedy though that we expect many of those who managed to escape the confines of these spaces, these Death Camps of Hitler’s, his Vernichtunglager, to revisit their horror so that we can come up with the impossible comprehension to this incomprehensible atrocity against these Jewish People. The very detail of The Holocaust will not be denied by the admittance that some Poles, acted better than too many Poles. In that descriptive, by the way, no accusation is aimed at All Poles, just merely at some Poles who acted in unison with Hitler’s intention to Murder those Polish Neighbours who were Jews.

“..SS Scharfuhrer Herbert Floss arrived at this time who must previously have been in another camp. He then had ..installation built for burning ..corpses. ..incineration was carried out by placing railroad rails on blocks of concrete. ..corpses were then piled up on these rails. Brush wood was placed under ..rails. ..wood was drenched with gasoline. Not only ..newly obtained corpses were burnt in this way ..but also those exhumed from ..ditches. ..burning of corpses proceeded day and night. When ..fire had died down ..whole skeletons or single bones remained behind on ..grating. Mounds of ash had accumulated underneath it. A different prisoner commando ..der Asche Bande ..Ash Gang ..had to sweep up ..ashes ..place ..remaining bones on thin metal sheets ..pound them with round wooden dowels ..and then shake them through a narrow mesh metal sieve ..whatever remained in ..sieve was crushed once more. Bones not burnt and which could not easily be split were again thrown into ..fire. ..camp leadership was faced with ..problem of how to get rid of ..huge heaps of ash and bone fragments. Experiments at mixing ..ashes with dust and sand ..in an effort to conceal them ..proved unsuccessful. Finally it was decided to pour ..ash and bone fragments back into ..empty ditches and to cover them with a thick layer of sand and garbage. Alternate layers of ash and sand were poured into ..ditches. ..top layer consisted of 2 metres of earth.” SS Oberscharfuhrer Heinrich Matthes.

Let the facts speak for themselves so that the truth is evident and it will confront denial as the truth constitutes the answer to all the lies the deniers wish to spread. Truth openly expressed further dilutes the deniers ability to fashion any argument which is not immediately rounded upon by even those unlearned in the ways of rebuttal. Floss’s arrival at Treblinka from Sobibor linked the entire operation to Blobel’s SK 1005 which was ultimately under Eichmann’s jurisdiction and we have another element of the truth. Even this Eichmann connection did not avail the operatives of SK 1005 access to any of SS Gruppenfuhrer Odilo Globocnik’s Aktion Reinhard Death Camps, a secure position he held onto tightly. Typical in this denial forgery is that The Auschwitz Museum is often accused in statements suggesting it looks purely to the mass Murder of the Jews. The Auschwitz Museum itself pays close attention to these other’s murdered within its own confines and particularly for those Poles who died within Poland and indeed within the entire Death Camp system established by Hitler within Poland.

“..of ..1,300,000 deported to ..Camp, they were from amongst 20 nationalities, and these nations gave up their Jews also. Of that total, some 400,000 were registered and kept as Slave Labour and 900,000 were immediately Gassed. While Jews constituted 85% of all those deported here, they represented more than 90% of all those who were murdered. The 400,000 Slave Labourers were gradually degraded till they could persist no longer and added finally to the total number of those Jews and others Gassed or otherwise Murdered. That stated, we assess that of the 1,100,000 who were Murdered from all 1,300,000 deported to the Camp, some 900,000 Jews were Gassed immediately or otherwise murdered in the camp. Of the 400,000 of those registered for Slave Labour, 200,000 died or were otherwise Murdered. These included some 100,000 Jews, 64,000 Poles, 21,000 Gypsies, 14,000 Russian POW’s and a further 10,000 other nationals.” The Auschwitz State Museum.

While there are those who truly knew the full detail of what they administered, there are those who from outside the confines of these detaining spaces, pieced together the sense of what was being achieved outside their own front doors. Many, who give as precise an account as can be established for history, do not rely wholly upon the evidence those like Hoess can deliver. So I shared with you the uncompromising approach history takes as it settles before you what the Museum of Auschwitz affirms to be the Truth. Clearing this out of the debit door, I have been confronting a certain narrative recently which stems from a voided argument that the Polish people are not all innocent. Realistically, they are accused of some charges levelled against them for crimes against their fellow Poles, Jews who were Murdered during the period of The Holocaust, and on their soil. All of a sudden though the questions are being shared with Poland’s Ministry of Culture, so I can only assume that the narrative is being directed along the lines of Poland’s recent desire to alter and redirect The Holocaust historical account. These questions appear to present themselves to us with a less than moderate concern for the actual truth.

“..highest number of gassings in one day was 10,000. ..most that could be carried out in a day with ..available facilities.” SS Obersturmbannfuhrer Rudolf Hoess.

But then, what equates the lies that can be attributed to all out denial of the factual truth that is The Holocaust, when 6,000,000 Murdered Jews of Europe, all ramifications are clearly a concern when the truth is being confronted. Obfuscation must not be the premise of any state, nor the deliberate obstruction by any nation to gather and harness the whole truth. All elements of Polish present day intention, which must deal with Hitler’s attention to 3,000,000 of Poland’s Jews, cannot be sequestered arbitrarily. In my 20 years of effort on the subject of The Holocaust I have never budged from that direct and unambiguous response to anyone who cites other than 6,000,000 Jews of Europe, be they Men, Women or Their Children cannot be abandoned again. It even seems that there are those who seek to promote an improper discourse in their own Country’s, and Survivor’s and Jews are being faced by the forms of abuse that denial issues forth. It is important too, that while we Remember the loss to the Jewish People, we do not allow for those other’s, to be forgotten.

“..transports to Belzec ..gassing operations ..stopped ..suddenly. ..staff members of ..Belzec camp ..informed ..place would be rebuilt completely. ..group of Jews ..in charge of ..demolition work. ..March ..April 1943 ..cremation of ..corpses ..terminated and ..graves ..levelled. ..camp ..emptied entirely and levelled. ..some planting ..done there. ..Jewish work commando ..to Sobibor. I remained in Belzec for two more days ..clearing ..loading. ..I was in Sobibor ..heard during ..transport of ..Jewish work commando ..Belzec to Sobibor ..mutiny ..shooting took place which led to some deaths.” SS Oberscharfuhrer Werner Dubois.

Though not as systematically chosen for slaughter as were the Jewish People, those who died as a result of Hitler’s Worldview are remembered, Lest We Forget. But the component parts of this Weltanschauung view of Hitler’s recognises that there are some 50 to 70 million people felled World War II who remain to reside alongside the Jews as victims of Hitler’s hatred. Hitler and his Nazi’s were unrestrained in their abuse of the power they fully exercised against the Jews of Europe. As has been recognised, and against any other’s of those who stood before Hitlerite intention in this World. Those who seek to deny the Jewish People their space also deny the efforts of so many Allied forces set to confront Hitler. For the denial arguments too, the capacity to slaughter is also to be their misguided dispute and is totally undermined by the factual truth. I am here to prove that the sheer capacity to murder all of the Jews of Europe though was not fully engaged as Hitler demanded. Hitler was clearly short of murdering these 11,293,300 Jews of Europe, as were identified in The Wannsee Conference, by sheer lack of time and not by any other factor that was his own indisputable intention for the Jewish People.

“..As soon as ..ramp had been erected in ..castle ..people started arriving in Kulmhof (Chelmno) from Litzmannstadt in lorries. ..people were told that they had to take a bath ..that their clothes had to be disinfected and ..could hand in any valuable items beforehand to be registered. When they had undressed they were sent to ..cellar of ..castle and then along a passageway on to ..ramp and from there into ..gas-van. In ..castle there were signs marked “to ..baths”. ..gas vans were large ..about 4-5 meters long ..2.2 meter wide ..2 meter high. ..interior walls ..lined with sheet metal. On ..floor ..a wooden grille. ..floor of ..van had an opening which could be connected to ..exhaust by means of a removable metal pipe. When ..lorries were full of people ..double doors at ..back were closed and ..exhaust connected to ..interior of ..van.” SS Scharfuhrer Walter Burmeister.

What we are certain of, if the application of the very detail of die Endlosung der Judenfrage had to be accommodated in any one of the x6 Death Camps, it could have been wholly achieved. While we firstly register what Hoess must have known in terms of the capacity to murder within Auschwitz and Birkenau, we acknowledge that range to do so would have achieved 3,650,000 Murdered Jews. This would have been achieved in the space of a single year on estimates liberally applied. The capacity issue therefore has been fully resolved by the lead industrial killer himself, Hoess himself. Belzec too, which murdered 884,700 of its Jews in a 10 month period, could have murdered these 6,000,000 Jews of Europe within a 6 year time frame. So while Auschwitz was in operation, and Slaughtering Jews on a mechanised and industrial scale for more than 3 years, Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibor and Treblinka were not in the least bit idle, combining totally a final resolve for Hitler’s solution.

“..You must ..guarantee that ..bodies of these ..Jews will either be burned or buried in every location ..that nowhere can anything else of any kind happen with these bodies.” Reichsfuhrer SS Heinrich Himmler.

While the killing had been continuous however for more than 5 years in Auschwitz, and prior to Birkenau, another eye became focused on the traces of the atrocity, once the end for Nazi Germany was encroaching upon the killing space. Also, as is the case for the 21 Gassing Vans which were in operation during the period of World War II, their entire capacity was aligned to what the Death Camps and Killing Sites achieved and what the Ghetto and other Camps also functioned to achieve. All the while Hitler is seeking to ensure that the truth would not be told or written as Himmler was directed to ensure. East, as each of these Gassing Vans, many with the capability to Murder 1,500 Jews in a matter of 15 hours sees the detailed atrocity for 31,500 Murdered Jews managed on any given day, let alone working on a 24 hour basis could accommodate a capacity in excess of Wannsee’s 11,293,300 target. So in under a year, the target that Hitler had fully set for The Wannsee Conference would have been completed, without the added volume of der Einsatzgruppe shootings, or the fullest emergence of all x6 of the Death Camps.

“..inside ..camp ..each member of ..permanent staff had a specific function ..commander of ..Ukrainian auxiliaries ..leader of a working group ..excavation of pits ..erection of barbed wire fences. ..when a transport with Jews arrived there was so much ‘work’ ..regular activity was interrupted ..everyone on ..permanent staff had to participate somehow in ..routine extermination process. Primarily each member ..of ..permanent staff took place in ..unloading of ..transports.” SS Oberscharfuhrer Hermann Erich Bauer.

Also, and along with the starvation which the ravaged Ghetto’s with the additionally compounded neglect of those interned within the Concentration Camps, capacity is far from being either negligible nor was it unachievable. Nor have we ventured or forgotten the impoverishment of every single Jew that was still remaining alive in Europe, so that all excess and destruction was practicably achievable by whatever means Hitler engaged his intention. I clearly do not point to the Facts here, merely to the supposition of the possibility given over to Hitler’s effort. With that annihilatory task comes the assured suppression of those denials which would suggest the capacity, nor the will to achieve all that Hitler sought from the Jew of Europe was not there. Please, and though this will wound the hearts and souls of those of You who are sickened by what the Jewish People were put through, it is essential for those who do not know yet these truths, to face this confrontation with the true reality of the hatred so audibly expressed.

“..When we were in ..Kiev district ..my CO of signals ..came back quite horrified. ..an engineer Battalion commander ..and this engineer Battalion had ..task of blowing up site ..in which were those 32,000 Jews including women and children.” Lieutenant General Otto Elfeldt.

The deliberate confrontation with our senses is NEVER my entire intention, though the capacity to achieve this is paramount in what Hitler sought to finally resolve. While you are saddened by what we, an ostensibly ‘christian’ communion of nations allowed the Jewish People to endure, my sadness is engraved upon my inner being, and though perhaps not as indelibly as yours, it sears my conscious being. My words so often emanate from a space no longer occupied by 6,000,000 Jews and I use their intention to mark my own intention for them. For those of you who are left reeling by those vagrants who seek to deny any or all of this, I stand between you and them to ensure the truth is known. Clearly, Hitler could have all too easily accomplished the wilful Slaughter of as many Jews as he so wished, and with impunity too. Certainly, Hitler acted without any restraint, and given the World’s abandonment of the Jewish People, Hitler recognised the vacuum he would operate in. For those of you touched in any way by this awful Catastrophe for the Jews of Europe, your tragedy is our loss.

“..We shot women as if they had been cattle. ..a large quarry where 10,000 men ..women ..children were shot. They were still lying in ..quarry. We drove out on purpose to see it. It was ..most bestial thing I ever saw.” Lieutenant General Fritz von Broich.

I know the many millions of other’s whose lives were also forfeit and while I have clipped some of these passages from my own study of the Einsatzgruppen, not to simply show what was managed, but that they seek to confirm what could be more speedily accomplished. If these are then added to the overall resolve for Hitler’s Final Solution, and while Hitler sought to extinguish the very existence of 11,293,300 Jews from within Europe, it was achievable and without equivocation. There are attempts to this day, even from within the passages of an enlightened history that is fully seeking to allow for the further diminishing of the space remaining to 6,000,000 Annihilated Jews. It is a matter for me, of the honest integrity for history in general that such a term as The Holocaust can only belong to the Jewish People. No other People were so confronted and so systematically sought out for their Slaughter, than these 6,000,000 Murdered Jews of Europe.

“..things I’ve experienced. In Latvia ..near Dvinsk ..there were mass executions of Jews carried out by ..SS. ..about 15 SS men ..perhaps 60 Latvians ..known to be ..most brutal people in ..world. ..one Sunday morning ..kept hearing ..salvos followed by small arms fire. ..Men ..Women Children ..counted off ..stripped naked. ..executioners first laid all ..clothes in one pile. Then 20 women had to take up their position ..naked ..on ..edge of ..trench. ..shot ..fell ..into it.” Lieutenant General Heinrich Kittel.

That even the denial of their final resting place is to be further exacerbated by any refusal to identify their uniqueness, in the terms The Holocaust provides, must not be given any space to postulate. Clearly, that even Wehrmacht General’s were both complicit and accepting of such murderous scenes and terms as they came to recognise, must not deliver to history other than the whole truth as to why we place an emphasis on the Jewish presence in The Holocaust. The assertion that many others of the 50 or even 70 million souls lost during World War II require that same space, both to be remembered as a eulogised space for them also, is a fallacy. What is fundamentally wrong in all this sought after space alongside the Jews, who are The Holocaust, is a further leaning toward excluding the Jewish People from the single most atrocious crime ever perpetrated by a human species upon Human Beings. That must not be allowed, as we recall how readily we allowed for the atrocity to occur in the first place

“..from June 1941 to January 1942 ..I was ..Commander of Sonderkommando 4 A. ..June 1942 ..entrusted by Gruppenfuhrer Mueller with ..task ..obliterating ..traces ..executions carried out by ..Einsatzgruppe ..East. ..orders ..report in person to ..commanders of ..Security Police ..SD ..pass on Mueller’s orders verbally ..supervise ..implementation. ..order ..top secret ..there was to be no correspondence in connection with ..task. ..September 1942 ..reported to Dr. Thomas ..Kiev ..passed ..order ..to him. ..May ..June 1943 ..made additional trips to Kiev ..after conversations with Dr. Thomas and ..SS Police Leader Hennecke ..order was carried out. During ..visit ..August ..observed ..burning of bodies in ..mass grave near Kiev. ..grave was about 55 meters long ..3 meters wide and 2.5 meters deep. ..top ..removed ..bodies ..covered with inflammable material ..ignited. ..about two days until ..grave burned ..to ..bottom. ..grave was filled in ..traces ..practically obliterated. Owing to ..moving up of ..front ..not possible to destroy ..mass graves further south and east which had resulted from executions by ..Einsatzgruppe. ..my orders ..should have extended ..duties over ..entire area occupied by ..Einsatzgruppe ..owing to ..retreat from Russia ..could not carry out my orders completely.” SS Standartenfuhrer Paul Blobel.

Though Hitler fully sought to wage War, this feint of War was all done to ensure the space required would exist to shield from view of the supposed German sensitivity to atrocity. Within that task, the Wehrmacht became the prime source of concealment and even participation. Those General’s, with their measured aristocracy of elite fighting precedence expose the entire rotten core of a German military echelon hell bent upon military achievement at the cost to their own humanity. The Final Solution of The Jewish Question, die Endlosung der Judenfrage crossed all boundaries. That specialist camps were designated for the purpose of this, die Endlosung der Judenfrage, which Hitler had established in Poland, we have to recognise the shedding of so much blood was to saturate the soil of Poland and not be traced back to a Germany to be unspoiled by such savagery.

“..After I had looked at everything ..I returned to Lublin ..following day. On Florstedt’s orders ..I and ..unit assigned to me began to cremate ..bodies that had been buried in ..Krepiecki forest towards Lwow. At first I excavated a pit ..but because cremation did not proceed quickly enough in this pit I devised ..following set up for cremation ..I spread old truck tarps over rocks piled to a considerable height ..ordered ..bodies placed on these ..and poured methanol over them. I had wood stacked beneath ..tarps and set on fire. In this way about 100 bodies could be burned at one time. Some of them had been dug up ..some were fresh ..just brought in from ..camp. After such a load had been reduced to ashes ..these were pounded to powder and dumped into ..pit whence we had removed ..bodies in ..first place. To pound ..ashes we used iron sheets and pounders. These tools were supplied by an SD functionary from Kommando 1005 who supervised my work. In this way I managed by ..end of October to cremate all ..bodies buried in ..forest and in ..region behind Compound V Majdanek. According to ..pertinent calculations I cremated approximately 6,000 bodies in ..forest and approximately 3,000 behind Compound V. These figures also include .. fresh corpses of inmates who died in ..camp during this time.” SS Unterscharfuhrer Erich Muhsfeldt.

Clearly then, the destruction of all of European Jewry, so roundly targeted, definitely identifies with the Jewish People as the systematic target solely sought. Why is it now that there is an effort seeking to diminish what was Hitler’s fullest remit for the entire Jewish race of People. With all due respect to these vast numbers of people either killed or even murdered during the period, Family member’s included, this was a War in which loss was an inevitable cost. None were so systematically sought out, legislated against, corralled and marched to their own destruction with such mechanised and industrialised precision. Also, and what was legislated for, which decries the very supposed ideological nature of these crimes, all future method was to be occupied to disguise, conceal and then obliterate these racist hate crimes. That was Hitler’s bequest to humanity, its perfected destruction in the detail of 6,000,000 Jewish lives and the exploitation of any and all material wealth to be pilfered. Hitler’s legacy lives on in the denial of a measly term which encapsulates all that he sought for the Jews, and as the greatest butcher in all of History whose edict was The Final Solution.

June 18th. 1947. “..During my visit in August 1943 I myself witnessed ..burning of corpses in a mass grave near Kiev. This grave was approximately 55 metres long ..3 metres wide ..2.5 metres deep. After ..cover had been removed ..corpses were covered with inflammable materials and set on fire. About 2 days passed before ..fire had burned down to ..bottom of ..trench. Afterwards ..grave was filled in and all traces thereby virtually obliterated. Because of ..advance of ..front it was not possible to destroy ..mass graves located in ..South and East which had resulted from execution by ..task groups.” SS Standartenfuhrer Paul Blobel.

Today is a celebration of the day of my Birth, but it has become more than that ever since Tovah ‘Tokele’ Olshak became a part of my commitment to that life, its values and The Holocaust. It is safe to assume I have stumbled upon a path which has led me relentlessly on, meeting trauma, horror, catastrophe and the intentional hatred which drove one man to assure History of an atrocity Humanity will never recover from. For me! It is a matter of conscience to state that when so many lives were taken and so many other’s could not muster the compelling demand to lift themselves from such apathetic indifference, I assured myself and other’s, I would not let go of this journey until I had to. It is a remarkable truth too that while we recognise the darkness in people, we can begin to see the light pouring from many who judge the wrong that is not belonging to all people, when it is rightly attributed and owned by just some.

“..would never have thought that ..man ..given very inadequate nourishment ..insufficiently clothed ..slept little ..lived in ..worst possible hygienic circumstances ..exposed to all conditions of ..weather ..would have thought it impossible ..he would go on living. ..powers of adaptation ..endurance ..so great ..body is capable of efforts ..held to be impossible in normal life. ..many broke down ..perished ..but ..miracle is ..there are still Survivors.” Elie A. Cohen.

It is in that degree of certainty that I always search fully knowing I will find, along the way, more answers that need those questions as yet to be asked. When I come across a figure, an assessment of the very detail of the atrocity, it is marked by a grave atrocity History has become aware of and it is recognised. That atrocity is then governed by the degree to which 1,000’s upon 1,000’s of Jewish Men, Women and Their Children were deliberately delivered to some killing space, be it a Death Camp or Killing Site and intentionally murdered. These 6,000,000 Jews of Europe too are the cause of my accusing words and the effort afforded a brutalised People so cruelly abandoned by us. So when it comes to researching the very degree and detail of a particular atrocity, it is important to know that within that degree of atrocity, we are discussing the mass Slaughter of Human Beings, simply because they were Jews.

“..When I stand before you ..to lead ..Prosecution of Adolf Eichmann ..I am not standing alone. With me are 6,000,000 accusers. ..they cannot rise ..and point an accusing finger. ..For their ashes are piled up on ..hills of Auschwitz and ..fields of Treblinka ..and are strewn in ..forests of Poland. Their graves are scattered throughout ..length and breadth of Europe. Their blood cries out ..but their voice is not heard. ..I will be their spokesman and in their name I will unfold ..awesome indictment.” Gideon Hausner.

With the assessment then made, it can often be brought to my attention that I have under estimated, though never under valued my effort, and recognise there is a figure far greater than the one I arrived at. When that occurs, I go in search of the higher number to ensure to posterity, we have not failed in combining those who rightly are attributable to the most unprecedented and unparalleled atrocity in all History. Personally, I do not believe that we have come to a conclusive assessment of the full assessment to be attributable to The Holocaust. I do not accept that while 6,000,000 Murdered Jews, who are The Holocaust, has been settled upon, it is not correct that this will be any final assessment. While The Wannsee Conference sought out 11,293,300 Jews of Europe for Annihilation, the Survival of 5,000,000 European Jews would suggest that we are still in a search while looking for those 6,293,300 Murdered Jews.

“..Despite ..recent outpouring of popular and scholarly books on Hitler ..no work has yet been produced that satisfactorily explains Hitler’s obsessive ideas about ..Jews ..readiness of ..German people to accept these ideas ..and Hitler’s ability to harness an enormous apparatus of men ..institutions ..facilities just in order to murder ..Jews. Hitler has proved to be an elusive and unrewarding subject for conventional biography because ..explanations for ..baffling mystique he exercised ..for ..power he came to wield ..and for his unspeakable accomplishments are not to be found in ..facts of a banal life ..but in ..ideas and feelings that created ..symbiosis between him and ..German people. Their mutuality and interdependence thrived ..as Hitler first expressed and later gratified ..Germans’ most arrogant and abominable ambitions. He relieved their deepest fears and anxieties and ..near ..end ..disburdened them both of guilt and responsibility for ..wickedness they had given him warrant to commit.” Lucy Schildkret Dawidowicz.

For these past few weeks my search has been in the very detail of those French Convoi transporting French and other Nation’s Jews to the Death Camps. These French transports alone have thrown up such anomalies as would depress the search for the fullness of that truth we search for. Clearly, we must persevere with the search in the hope that more of the numbers we wish to avail of, will release more names of those Jews still missing from this catalogue of shame. Figures are all too often transcribed wrongly and can hide the full value of loss we seek to Remember. Parents have been known to shield their youngest about their person so as not to attract the attention of those seeking to isolate the numbers into impersonal statistical analysis. So even given the meticulous nature of the German adherence to exacting numbers, and here they are presented with what French officialdom complied to provide, we can be missing some of those included in a transport from the distorted matriculation that has been entered into by competing bureaucracies.

“..I have struggled hard to overcome ..hatred of those who cruelly destroyed my early life ..my family and almost succeeded in exterminating my people. ..I have come to realise ..there are no basically evil nations or racial groups. ..There are only evil people ..seekers after wealth or power.” Maja Abramowitch.

So on each and every occasion where there is a celebration of my own birth, there is also corresponding with that date an atrocity that will fundamentally fix us to that point in History we assign our research and responsibility toward. For me, this look back into History will forever belong to 6,000,000 Jewish People of Europe, be they Man, Woman or Their Child. It is important to always remember that alongside the fact that they were Human Beings, they were chosen because the were Jewish Human Beings who were murdered because they were Jews. For me, the accusation of many has often been made and it has been all too often centred on my choice to write. I have refuted so many times as to why I have chosen this well worn path from accusation of bias and even prejudice. I simply have no bias other than to ensure the truth delivers posthumously to 6,000,000 People what would not be given to them in life, and simply because they were Jews.

“..Nuremberg taught me that creating a world of tolerance and compassion would be a long and arduous task. And I also learned that if we did not devote ourselves to developing effective world law ..same cruel mentality that made ..Holocaust possible might one day destroy ..entire human race.” Benjamin B. Ferencz.

That is also true of any attempt to confuse objectivity with a prejudice toward 6,000,000 Jews which is both ludicrous and wrong. Agreed, I have set out to write about 6,000,000 Murdered Jews, simply because of the enormous wrong this signifies for us all. My appreciation of the inherent and factual truth of all that happened is part of an integrity History must not be denied. Where truth resides, it becomes a distortion if we do not adopt its fullest detail as accurately as possible. So of course there is a slight connection to my past upbringing as a catholic, which ensured a moral and ethical grounding that would see purely the inherent wrong in the murder of a People based on anything, let alone Race of Creed. I have pursued this Holocaust course now for more than x20 years and I hope I have never deviated from that fundamental principle which defines what was wrong and what is wrong from any speculation over what is both eroding of that truth, if not strictly adhered to and illegitimate if not correct.

Wednesday June 10th. 1936 “..next generation will not belong to ..Party ..but I shall no longer be here to see ..reversal.” Victor Klemperer.

I have heard it said of Victor that he somehow emerged from the endless darkness of Hitlerite slavery into a post apocalyptic Germany fearing that outlook. Here, upon resurrecting some correlation between past and present, and where he managed to survive with his Wife Eva, we read that attempt to make sense in his Survival in diary form. He trained his sights not into some fashioned resemblance to mythic lands of fairies and ghosts, but at a landscape that was devoid of such reasoning as had devoured 6,000,000’s of his People. The truth was so much more tragic and bleaker than that sought after escape, as his soul fought to redefine what remained of his own humanity. Here, recovering into the vista of a bombed out, levelled and destroyed Dresden, which marginally saved him from his own destruction, he sought to live his life renewed. While his own nearness to death, both at Allied hands which could rein down upon him and more tangibly at Hitler’s behest, Victor still delivers for us a bibliographic landscape of words.

“..Government and with it ..great majority of ..German people ..are very conscious of ..appalling suffering brought to ..Jews in Germany and ..occupied territories. ..German people in their overwhelming majority ..disgusted by ..crimes perpetrated against ..Jews. ..in ..name of ..German people appalling crimes were committed ..that demand from us moral and material reparation ..not only as far as damages to ..individual ..but ..with regard to Jewish property.” Konrad Adenauer.

In a diary form, which was punishable by death for a Jew under Hitler’s yoke, Victor bears witness to the bitter end. We who share a gratitude in the words we select to ensure that his gift is forwarded on, do so with appreciation. At this time, and while Hitler is still in the ascendency, it is people like Victor Klemperer who view the pervasive scene of growing and mounting fear amongst the Germans and the German Jewish People in particular. While it is true at this time that the Germans have embraced fully the promises Hitler is keen to make, not everyone sees this in technicolour. Victor, though he converted to the Christian faith, was always considered as a Jew and thus, un-German. However, Victor’s own antecedent descent had ensured he fitted the Hitler agenda, which saw him in Germany not as a German but should be treated accordingly as a Jew. Victor witnessed first hand what for Jewry in the Reich amounted to, and the troubling status they were being denied, deprived of and then destroyed by. Germany would eventually grow afterwards to endorse that their own wrongs were done and make restitution in part for what was staged in its name.

Friday June 10th. 1938 “..Zurich ..Switzerland ..sanity ..civilisation.” William L. Shirer.

Another diarist, William L. Shirer, gifts to the world his first hand evidence, in his Berlin Diary, of a journey through the rise to power of Hitler. We observe the growth of Nazi Germany and the infinite threat Hitler brings to the World stage. As War again certainly looms, Hitler is the orchestrater of all that is being proposed to the World. There is one telling point in Shirer’s assessment alone, which deals a withering blow to Polish morals of the time. All told, and while there is a burgeoning apathy that is spreading throughout Europe, Poland is prepared to deal in the dissolution of Czechoslovakia. While this precipitates a failing moral correctness, Poland has not even begun to recognise that Poland itself is in Hitler’s direct line of fire. As a correspondent for CBS, Shirer opens a door to an edifice which sees German’s in Germany slipping from the civilised mantle it had once occupied. Ahead of them they plunge into an abyss of atrocity and hate with the annihilation of 6,000,000 of the Jewish People, who are the very reason we have The Holocaust term.

“..Auschwitz may be 100’s of kilometres from Hungary but it is part of Hungarian history. ..This Death Camp was ..scene of ..inhumane suffering ..humiliation and death of nearly 500,000 of our compatriots.” Janos Ader.

Amongst the many assessments to emerge from the period is also the catalogue of grief and suffering that has become witness to the 50/70 million dead of World War II. From the vantage point of Berlin and Zurich, and though Auschwitz and the assault upon the integrity of Hungarian Jewry is in the future, there is the brutal rise of Hitler’s Reich which truly assured us of that premise of the annihilation of the Jewish People would be reached. Where Jewish existence is to be crushed and World indifference toward that growing atrocity is to be exposed, Europe settled into a malaise of appeasing apathy and disregard. While Germany and the Nazi Germans motioned forward exacting what Hitler fully proposed for the Jews of Europe, we see Switzerland begin to renege upon its own duty to offer solace and sufferance, and not just to the Jewish People. All the while the Jews of Austria, Germany and then the wider European Continent were becoming refugees ahead of the destruction which then followed them toward destruction.

Monday June 10th. 1940 “..German Army closes in on Paris. ..dark for ..Allies.” William L. Shirer.

The very expression of another World War is an insanity that was so clearly evident and as the supposed German Teuton’s brought havoc to bear toward Jews, and all those other’s who opposed the will of der Fuhrer, such mayhem caused would be monumentally deadly. By now Poland had fully succumbed to satellite status, which Hitler had required for it and 3,000,000 Polish Jews were under direct threat of destruction. Almost immediately, and upon the unprovoked Invasion of Poland on September 1st. 1939, Hitler’s formative der Einsatzgruppe began its work dissolving the Jewish hold on existence. That precarious life status too was to be true of some 3 million non-Jewish Poles who would perish in work details so severe, replenishment from human stock was a relentless abuse. While it was recognised that Poland had consoled itself in abusing Czech lands, its own government resigned to exile what authority it had laced together.

Monday June 10th. 1940 “..Italy is in ..War. ..stabbed France in ..back at ..moment ..Germans are at ..gates of Paris ..and France appears ..down.” William L. Shirer.

In abandoning the Polish people to a device which Hitler fully exploited, any moral probity by a fleeing Polish administration was shelved upon the destruction, both intended and otherwise, of some 6 million Poles, 3,000,000 of those for being Poland’s Jews. Also, and as we are made fully aware of the very progress Hitler makes in his aggressor form, here from Shirer’s own entry as he has penned it into his Diary, we become aware that France is doomed. That very Monday June 10th. 1940, and by this time this has also now meant that both Denmark and Norway had been formerly defeated in another unprovoked aggression. As Hitler’s erstwhile ally, Mussolini’s Italy had declared war on both Britain and France, the stage was being set for a calamitous War that would become the vehicle by which the annihilation of the Jewish People would be sought. Impulsively, Mussolini was so quick so as to take full advantage of the swiftness of Hitler’s ‘blitzkrieg’ operations.

Tuesday June 10th. 1941 “..famous ..Igo Sym ..collaborated ..with ..Nazis ..executed recently. ..Nazis posted ..placards promising ..reward of 10,000 zlotys for ..delivery of ..traitors.” Mary Berg.

Europe was being trodden underfoot by jackboot and Italian loafer. That such alliances would devour the weak and the strong in equal measure, would judge unfavourably the route taken by those who strode the same path Hitler had urged them to take. This was to be a coldly calculated assessment written in terms so bloody, a word such as Genocide needed to be invented to harness its fullest implications. Then, from a diary of a different persuasion, we learn that Polish collaboration or collusion is equally met with a deadly response. Karol Juliusz ‘Igo’ Sym was a Polish actor who had collaborated with Hitler’s Nazi’s. After having served his Country in the Polish Army for 3 years after World War I, it is not easily explained why an obvious patriot might abandon his Nation to collude with an aggressor country?

“..Auschwitz ..world’s largest cemetery ..without a single grave. I held tight to 3 dreams. ..first living through ..nightmare ..surviving ..camp. ..second was to tell ..even though it ..cannot be explained. There was no reason whatsoever for what was done. ..I knew I had to tell ..to as many people as possible. ..third was that ..if I managed to accomplish ..first two ..I would do anything and everything to bring about ..establishment of State of Israel. ..I realised all three dreams.” Noah Klieger.

Sym was assassinated for assisting Hitler’s effort on March 7th. 1941 and this was right outside Mary Berg’s back door of Warsaw. What perhaps is unusual in the aspect of this diarist’s life, Miriam Wattenberg, better known as Mary Berg emerges from War torn Poland, a Survivor. She was a Polish Jew of Lodz who lived and then Survived in the Warsaw Ghetto. Clearly though, her status as the Child of Lena, an American Mother, is what afforded Mary what many will wrongly endorse as a privileged status. True, she was held aside from what she evidenced was the relentless tide of her fellow Jews being transported to Treblinka and destruction there, she was one lucky enough to have gained a chance against all the odds Hitler had placed before her. For 6 months in Pawiak jail this could not have been an easy comfort zone for anyone, let alone a 17 year old Jewish Child. With all that amounted to uncertainty for Polish Jewry, and while awaiting what might be the same fate of all of her fellow Jews, Mary marks her time with recalling words we still observe.

Wednesday June 10th. 1942 “..Kropotkin. ..reread his first reaction to ..prison cell in which he was to spend several years. ..that account can still teach us how to cope with ..measures by which our own freedom of movement is ..being restricted. to take what little space we are left with ..to fathom its possibilities and ..use them to ..full.” Etty Hillesum.

For more than 3 years also, Mary had witnessed what she would describe as a ‘Warsaw drowning in blood’ before being sent to a detention centre in France. I am not too sure if Etty was planning to utilise the anarchic lessons which Prince Peter Alexeievich Kropotkin enhanced in his workings though it is intriguing for me to be allowed to assess her words with hints of other’s influence. But while it is with an almost revealing sense of foreboding that she sought out such social philosophies, Etty harbours her own warmth and security in life and gifts us with certainty. However, Etty was always concerned with the inequality that life threw up for people and sought to equate those concerns in the words she used and I am keen to reread and relearn them. Meanwhile further East, Hitler’s Wehrmacht has commenced its hopeful offensive along the Don River Front as 13 Polish prisoners are shot while attempting to escape from Auschwitz.

Wednesday June 10th. 1942 “..Prague immediately after ..assassination attempt ..Heydrich ..always taken ..well known route. ..newspaper ..published ..names of ..many who had been put in front of ..firing squad with their families ..intellectuals ..professors ..doctors.” Victor Klemperer.

Also, and while a further 9 prisoner’s remain at large, we cannot begin to imagine what faces those escapees who are then caught and brought back for execution. In France the Seine Prefecture issues regulations for all Jews to be assigned to only the last carriages of the Paris Metro system. Though the tide was relentlessly moving toward a more totalitarian Europe with Hitler as its charge, and a subjugated Continent all too willing to give up its Jewish Citizens, assaults upon Hitler’s designs were being made. While Jewish existence was under duress immediately and then threatened with extinction as time went by, the open secret of what was being executed was being concealed. Though with many reservations and non-compliance’s from individuals and even Country’s, it is clear that with 1,000 Prague Jews who can be too readily murdered in the East, not enough was being done to prevent Hitler achieving his final resolve for the Jews of Europe.

“..I have mixed emotions because although ..Germans took everything from me ..my family and my home ..on ..other side of things they allowed me to survive ..war.” Marie Supikova.

There was no concerted effort or a will by any of the League of Nations to stem the growing awareness of what Hitler was achieving against the Jewish People. Elsewhere the Germans destroyed the Town of Lidice and this complete and utter destruction of Lidice was in retaliation for the assassination of SS Oberguppenfuhrer Reinhard Heydrich in Prague six days earlier. Accomplished by member’s of the Czech resistance, retaliation was swift and brutal. Hitler had previously ordered the deaths of some 30,000 Czech’s, and while the German’s rampaged through some 5,000 Villages and Towns, the number of arrests and Murder’s did not finally tally with Hitler’s expectation’s. The previous day, on June 9th. a large contingent of Heydrich’s SD personnel arrived in Lidice and by noon on June 10th., some 173 of the Men of the Town had been murdered and 200 Women were shipped to the Ravensbrueck Concentration Camp.

“..That there has been and is being considered in Hitler’s headquarters a plan to exterminate all Jews from Germany and German controlled areas in Europe after they have been concentrated in ..East. ..numbers involved is said to be between 3,500,000 and 4,000,000 and ..object to permanently settle ..Jewish Question in Europe.” Dr. Gerhart Riegner.

As more murder’s of those Jews who were saved the initial onslaught would follow in the coming days, Jewish sought to settle into some semblance of normality. Here though, with the Lidice Children removed to Lodz, their temporary reprieve was merely a delay and for their execution to take place in Chelmno along with those remaining Jews who had seen the steady progress toward destruction completely consume their entire World. For Lidice itself, which was effectively removed from the map, it is a monument now to a darker time in our human history. For some however, survival was still possible and those like Marie Supikova, puts much of this down to luck and her looks as a Blond haired Blue eyed Child. For many Children who could be stolen to order and made aryan and even German, many never regained their former identity. Meanwhile, the clean up operation was accomplished by a 30 strong contingent of Jewish forced labourer’s from Theresienstadt who had dug the graves to bury the Murdered.

Wednesday June 10th. 1942 “..noon ..circulars ..posted ..a special food allocation for working people. ..a positive effect on ..populace. ..all other topics ..cares receded. ..universal joy. ..supplemental ration ..2 kilograms ..potatoes ..50 grams ..margarine ..100 grams ..white sugar ..100 grams ..rye flakes ..100 grams ..coffee ..100 grams ..marmalade. ..ration costs 2 marks.” S. Cygielman.

As a Lodz council member, Cygielman adds a dimension to the food rationing concern that takes place in a community being starved toward extinction, and this is the Ghetto of Lodz. As it all becomes clear that the gradual erosion of Jewish existence is taking place, life makes challenges events and events become reason to cheer or at least gain a positive few moments relief from the deeply impacting despair. With the arrival of those Children from Lidice, though well treated and cared for by the Jewish community and its leadership, the food rationing would not have stretched far enough to overcome or even sustain them from the obvious starvation of the Lodz Children. For the Lodz Jews as a whole, even when it was fully certain that these Czech Children would be removed further toward liquidation, words were present which might just ameliorate the immediate anxieties they must have felt. Removed from Family, removed from Community and removed from everything recognisable, we clearly hope they were removed from the knowledge of their final journey.

Thursday June 10th. 1943 “..Have ..last Jews not in mixed marriages been deported. What will happen to us. If I go to ..night shift ..will I ever come back.” Victor Klemperer.

The whole of Europe resonated at times with the faintest echo which must surely have presented itself to all those in the darkest days as hope was held to tightly. On Thursday June 10th. 1943 20 prisoners are shot at Auschwitz and tragically this almost seems too routine when dealing with the spectre of the enormous catastrophe to confront us. As 1,000’s of Murdered Jews turned into 1,000,000’s of Murdered Jews, and as other’s faced the rigours of survival, how does one look at the figures of 20 prisoners being shot. It has always been written into the psyche of the overall atrophy of the Jewish People marching toward destruction, that what Eichmann asserts in that known fact which could present 1,000,000’s to become all too easily a statistical analysis, this must be guarded against. These 20 prisoner’s are people, as are the 6,000,000 Murdered Jewish People who are The Holocaust of individually presented Men, Women and Their Children. We must Remember them for they are Jewish People.

Saturday June 10th. 1944 “..advances in Normandy. Goebbels wrote ..he had greater fear of ..invasion not taking place than of its occurrence. ..Hitler ..day before landing ..most crushing defeat would be inflicted on it at ..decisive point. ..I am certain of German defeat ..certain ..since 1st. ..September 1939 ..but when.” Victor Klemperer.

Seemingly, even as the tide is increasingly turning against Hitler’s Reich, on Saturday June 10th. 1944 642 inhabitants of Oradour-sur-Glane, Men, Women and Children, were Murdered by a Waffen SS der Fuhrer regiment from 2nd. SS Panzer Division (Das Reich). This is merely 4 days after it must have occurred to many in the Reich that the writing was on the wall, that defeat was coming and that Hitler’s judgement would be closely scrutinised and condemned. At Oradour though, the Community was forced into the local Catholic Church and incendiary devices were placed around the building! This had nothing to do with Hitler’s Final Solution, but clearly, the SS had become immune to the humanity they had dispensed with for more than 5 years and more of War and for 10 year prior to this. The Church itself was set alight and those who sought to escape were machine gunned. In total, 190 Men, 247 Women and 205 of Their Children, all Innocent Civilians, were murdered.

“..Hungary has been occupied by German troops. ..still a million Jews living there ..they too are doomed.” Anne Frank.

Almost a universe away Hitler’s resolve to conclusively have his final solution was being met that same Saturday June 10th. 1944. In Hungary however, a deal which could not be done, was somehow concocted with Adolf Eichmann. This to release just 200 Jews from the Hungarian Ghetto of Kolozsvar (Cluj) as part of a blood for goods deal. Rapidly, as the haemorrhage of Hungarian Jewry was bleeding out in Auschwitz and Birkenau, huge numbers of Hungarian Jews were being continuously transported away from Hungary and were totally decimated in Birkenau in quick order. Having commenced the Hungarian detail of The Final Solution the previous month, the pace was extraordinarily swift. Deep within this massive rage against what was left of the remaining large pocket of European Jewry, a method of relief was approached. For to gain any sort of alleviation from the crescendo of these transports, one man, Rudolf (Reszo) Kasztner forged the Kasztner Transport. This accumulation of 1,300 Jews was to be headed eventually toward the Yishuv, Palestine through Switzerland.

“..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.

After much manipulation, 388 of these Cluj Ghetto Jews were brought toward Budapest and a much hoped for reprieve from immediate destruction. Eventually, this was to be gained for them. Meanwhile, the detail for some 16,000 Jews in the Kolozsvar Ghetto, as the gates of Birkenau awaited them, was certainly a bleak one. Destructively so as it emerged, as they were to be part of the over 425,000 Jews from Hungary Murdered in such a short space of time. The emphasis on speed and efficiency in this final round of mass murder could be highlighted by the re-emergence of Rudolf Hoess onto the Auschwitz stage. Separately, the remainder of the Kolozsvar Ghetto had been liquidated over the course of a x2 week period. From May 25th. the entire Ghetto Jewish Population had been removed to Birkenau on x6 transports averaging 2,600 Jews in each of the x20 carriage transports. This final Eichmann effort was an accomplishment of all that Hitler demanded and Hoess assisted in achieving. With these 388 Cluj Jews spared this horror, and this was such a small prize, it is a significant deal to have been done with Eichmann, known for exacting every detail of Hitler’s command, to the very letter, that 1,300 more Hungarian Jews were saved.

“..I revisited Auschwitz. ..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.

As we leave the complete, utter and devastating destruction of these 6,000,000 Jewish People, who are The Holocaust in the immediate past, with the commencing on November 20th. 1945 of The Nuremberg War Crimes of The Major German War Criminals, there is a significant hope that Justice will deliver for these failed Jews of Europe. On Monday June 10th. 1946 Arthur Seyss-Inquart testifies at his Nuremberg Trial. It might have escaped many peoples attention but Seyss-Inquart had many titles, chief of which was head of Southern Poland’s Civil Administration, Deputy to the Governor General of Occupied Poland and Holland’s Reich Commissioner. He was indicted for War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity. Clearly, the defence of following order’s, which permeates the awful tragedy that is to deny 6,000,000 Murdered Jews any form of Justice, is reprehensible, tawdry a lie. But in the stakes in which so many Jewish lives were taken from us, another lie to conceal the emerging truth is a further nail in the coffin of humanity and its ineffective response to the Catastrophe for 6,000,000 Jewish Men, Women and Their Children.

“..of ..1,300,000 deported to ..Camp ..from amongst 20 nationalities ..these nations gave up their Jews also. Of that total ..some 400,000 were registered and kept as Slave Labour and 900,000 were immediately Gassed. While Jews constituted 85% of all those deported here ..they represented more than 90% of all those who were murdered. ..400,000 Slave Labourers were gradually degraded till they could persist no longer and added finally to ..total number of those Jews and others Gassed or otherwise Murdered. That stated ..we assess that of ..1,100,000 who were Murdered from all 1,300,000 deported to ..Camp ..some 900,000 Jews were Gassed immediately or otherwise murdered in ..camp. Of ..400,000 of those registered for Slave Labour ..200,000 died or were otherwise Murdered. These included some 100,000 Jews ..64,000 Poles ..21,000 Gypsies ..14,000 Russian POW’s and a further 10,000 other nationals.” Auschwitz State Museum.

“..Some people say it is too dangerous for me to go back there now. That I’ll never be able to return. ..from time to time ..I go there in my mind. ..another family lives in that home ..another ..in my bedroom ..while I am 1,000’s of miles away. ..reminders of ..life I loved ..girl I was.” Malala Yousafzai.
Reading these words I was transported back nearly 80 years to when Jews were forced to give up their homes and their previous lives. I realise how fortunate it became for any Jew to be able to write the words which spelt loss. But also, in recognising their loss can be spelled out 6,000,000 tangible ways, and while each discourse will be different, it will be similarly unique. History has been assured we must learn, but continually we have learned that intolerance profits sooner than respect for our fellow human being. Had Gabby Sprenger, Halina Birenbaum, Inge Auerbacher, Natalie Mehlman Scharf or any Jewish Survivor penned these words, we would recognise the enormity of their loss and the magnitude of their grief.

Can it be acceptable that Jews who managed to Survive the most apocalyptic assault on Humanity, where 6,000,000 People were routinely, systematically and brutally Murdered in the most unprecedented and unparalleled assault upon the integrity of any human being, can they be allowed to fear returning to their former lives or homes. Can this be acceptable simply because of the collaborative efforts of those communities which dispelled them. Of course Hitler’s demands were met by resistance, but in many cases collaboration paid rich dividends as is clearly evidenced to this day. Jews were made very aware that it was too dangerous for them to return, in places like Biala-Podlaska, Boleslawiec, Diosgyor, Kielce, Kunmadaras, Lublin, Mordy, Parczew, Piaski, Polaniec, Sokoly, Skarzysko-Kamienna and Turek.

With more than 1,000 Jewish Survivors being Murdered after Hitler’s defeat and with some 100,000 Jews forced to flee Poland, the landscape of collaboration takes on a differing complexion. The emphasis then became an effort for local communities to hold onto what had not been theirs in the first place. Here, and where such fear persisted for the Jewish Survivor, a gain was made by community’s too busy confiscating what did not belong to them. In place of any Christian duty to their Jewish neighbours, greed overtook various communities. In each and every case that community knew what had happened to the Jews of Europe. Even if they did not know the detailed actions which had been led against 6,000,000 Jews in Death Camps, Ghetto’s and the Killing Sites throughout Hitler’s expanse into their Country’s, they knew the scale of the atrocity as it amplified itself in the failure on 6,000,000 Jews to return to their former homes, lives and freedoms.

So from 1,000’s of miles away from their former homes, from their previous existence and without the lives the Jewish Survivor assumed remained theirs, they too can revisit in their minds ALL that has been taken from them. Surely such is the collaboration with Hitler’s efforts that still today Jews are dispossessed and fearful of reclaiming ALL that is rightfully theirs. It would appear that any collaboration in the catastrophe that engulfed 6,000,000 Jews ensures a further Hitlerite demand is posthumously gained. Fear for the Jews has denied them their former lives and possessions. Clearly, and by definition, collaboration comes in many guises and there is a definite synergy between what is a hostile and aggressive effort and what remains the more muted response that is all too often recognised as resignation.

But, and this is the crucial element in all collaborating efforts, and in overseeing what is to be regarded as colluding with Hitler, his Nazi’s or especially in terms of The Final Solution of The Jewish Question especially, what we generally recognise as consorting, conspiring, co-operating, even fraternising or simply sympathising with those we should be working against, must be recognised as collaboration in its specific detail. So when it comes to the collaboration with Hitler’s efforts to destroy the Jews of Europe, and these efforts existed on the entire Continent of Europe and with every Country involved to some degree or another, we cannot disregard what some people or states might perceive and consider was their inability to act.

There are many occasions in which collaboration was quite fundamentally turned around and in the case of say an Oskar Schindler, he fully managed to recover from this collaborative effort to redeem his humanity and save more than 1,000 Jews. In contact with Polish students it has been pointed out to me that I am at odds with Polish Political efforts to sanitise Polish collaboration? The premise of my work is not simply Always to Remember, Never to Forget the 6,000,000 Jews, who are The Holocaust, but as an accusation which accounts for their loss. Without reservation I make the accusation, for all those who assisted in the Catastrophe, and this becomes a definitive assessment. My words should not offend any Jew. My statements must not cause derision to a Jew who Survived all attempts to destroy any x1 of the 6,000,000 of them.

What the Survivor must insist upon is nothing but the Truth, the entire veracity of that whole Truth and its factual status in the Fidelity of its telling. This means an acknowledgement must be given to the Survivor, by all those who assisted, by those of nations who either obliged or participated in the Catastrophe for 6,000,000 Jews of Europe, to come to terms with their co-operative stance.

1) Belgium had its own ss legions, with more than 3,500 including a Waffen SS unit and various paramilitary groups.

2) Byelorussia participation with Hitler’s efforts are to be recognised, and in Minsk, a specific charge is made of their terrifying efforts to murder Minsk Jewry.

3) Denmark, lauded as a nation of Righteous, did serve the Hitler cause too with various Nazi idealised groups and a Waffen ss contingent.

4) Estonia marshalled many of its most ardent antisemitic legions to man the Death Camps and explore the deep recesses of the Killing Sites to deliver toward Hitler’s final aim.

5) France had the Milice and other organisations ranking among the 10’s of 1,000’s, all submitting to Hitlerite rule and the collaborative effort in removing Jews toward annihilation.

6) Holland serviced the Waffen SS need and many established Nazi affiliated groups existed to round up and disgorge Jews toward the Death Camps.

7) Hungary is synonymous with the Arrow Crosses endeavours on Hitler’s behalf and the near precision exercise to abandon the last remaining Jewish Community of substance toward Auschwitz, during the last stages of Hitler’s failed thousand year Reich.

8) Latvia’s Arajs kommando swept through this Baltic State doing Hitler’s bidding. If we are to accept that Araj kept his own particular collaboration localised, the tentacles of Latvian Collaboration spread far and wide. They manned the Gates at Treblinka, Maly-Trostenets. They were occupied in the Killing Sites along with der Einsatzgruppe and rampaged throughout Byelorussia, Russia and the Ukraine. Their status amongst the Waffen SS also show’s their collaborative nature! Latvian auxiliaries were on hand to crush the Jewish Rebellion in Warsaw.

9) Lithuania was instrumental in targeting their own Jewish communities at the behest of Hitler’s protagonist agenda. They also assisted alongside German forces against the Russians.

10) Norway formed a Waffen SS Division and nazi sympathisers abetted the efforts of the Quislings to control the power brokerage in their own Country.

11) Poland’s ‘blue police’ not only assisted the Nazi effort to consume 3,000,000 Jews but wilfully participated and perpetrated Crimes against Humanity. Their presence against the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was a clear collaboration against the Jewish People and Poland’s sovereignty.

12) Russia had its own anti-Russian allegiances and this, when coupled with Nazi sympathies, enlarged Hitler’s efforts into the wider Russian field. Entire Armies of dissident Russian forces colluded with Hitler’s efforts while Russian guards patrolled the Death Camps, guarded the Killing Sites and operated the Gas Chambers.

13) Slovakian collaboration and the Hlinka Guard oversaw the disintegration of the Czechoslovakian republic and were entirely active in the deportation of their Jewish People toward the Death Camps.

14) Ukrainian Collaboration took upon itself many distinctions and a Waffen SS unit was instrumental in every anti-Jewish action throughout Eastern Europe. The Ukraine supplied a militia which could field in excess of 18 divisional strength units of some 180,000 members.

15) Yugoslavia had the Croatian Ustasia to act for the Hitlerite influence in the region and they were systematically brutal against Jews, Serbs and Gypsies alike.

So the complexion of cooperation might be varied, wherever it was met, but it held a single accord when it was dealing with The Jewish Question. It is too simplistic to recognise in the actions of the Balts or the Ukrainian’s something which did not exist in Holland or Poland. But the simple fact of the matter is, collaboration which assisted Hitler in his efforts to devour as many Jews as was conceivably possible, was articulated in each and every one of these Country’s here mentioned.