This Holocaust Author's Auschwitz Blog

Day 10: Paid to Leave!

The struggle to feed himself does not take precedence. This Young Jewish Man has learned the Charitable nature from within and secures a further moment from Hunger for His Little Sister is gained. We will know their suffering only when Hunger and Torment touch us on an individual level. Can we ever know its potency on such a personal level?

1931 August 19th. German Agreement is reached in Basle, between Hitler’s regime represented by Heinrich Bruening and a grouping of Allied Finance Ministers. A sum of 2,000 Reichsmarks will be paid to those Jews emigrating to Palestine.

This ‘agreement’ would lead to The Ha’avarah Agreement which would allow for German Jewry to transfer personal funds to Palestine. Also agreed was, that between 12,500 Reichsmarks and 15,000 Reichsmarks would be payable to those Families who chose to leave for Palestine as a Family unit! The Agreement was not rescinded immediately upon Hitler’s accession of Power, but persisted until 1935. The agreement did not take into account, the struggle that would be left behind.

1939 August 19th. the Romanian Jewish refugee ship Rim runs aground.

All routes out of harms way for the Jews under direct German threat have their own hazards as the 600 Jews aboard this refugee ship have found out. Escape for many is impossible, Family ties, commitments of all sorts, and while borders are continually being closed to the Jews within Europe, Palestine is an option much nearer than the Americas.

1940 August 19th. Otto Abetz proposes deportation of stateless Jews to Vichy.

The German Ambassador to Paris has his finger on the pulse of Hitler’s demands for the Jews of France. While all efforts to remove the Jews of France are made, and this is toward an eventual destruction, they have not been finalised. However, it is the preferred option to have the Jews of France removed from German control, until that need to destroy them is met!

1941 August 19th. With over 3,000 Mogilev Jews murdered this day, this will all add toward a total of more than 18,000 of Mogilev’s Jews eventually murdered. Elsewhere more than 640 of Ukmerge’s Jewish Men, Women and Their Children are murdered while almost 100 Jewish Children of Bjala-Zerkow are murdered. Don’t allow these accounts to confound You. They are meant to attribute a concern that was so clearly missing from their presence as they were being led toward Destruction. As the War in the East progresses, the Wehrmacht, with der Einsatzgruppe close on their heels, defeats Russian forces before the gates of Kiev.

“..officer personnel was furnished by ..State Police ..Kripo ..SD. ..Waffen SS ..Ordnungspolizie. ..State Police ..Kripo furnished most of ..experts ..troops were furnished by ..Waffen SS and ..Ordungspolzei. ..Waffen SS and ..Ordungspolzei were each supposed to supply ..Einsatzgruppe with one company.” Otto Ohlendorf.

The progress of the Slaughter takes on newer excesses as Children are brought into the equation. German cohorts, whether they be SS, Waffen SS, Wehrmacht or der Einsatzgruppe, balked at the idea of Murdering Children, but that was merely a logistical consideration, and only initially. The momentum of the Slaughter was soon escalated and brought to bear upon all Jewish Children, no matter what their Age might be!

1942 August 19th. Jewish Resistance occurs in Otwock where 14,000 Jews will be murdered. Elsewhere 1,000 of Rembertow’s Jews are murdered. 6,000 of Lvov’s Jews are transported in 45 Cattle Cars to Belzec.

Kurt Gerstein is on hand with his Gassing and Cleansing expertise and affords the world the first evidence of the Belzec Murder operation. As he witnesses the arrival of Lvov’s Jews, he is seemingly thrown into doubt over Hitler’s policy as it pertains to ritual slaughter of human beings. These Lvov Jews are soon gassed, dispatched in great haste and all to prove the growing effectiveness of the mechanisation of The Murder Process!

“..between June 1941 to June 1942 ..Einsatzkommandos reported ninety thousand people liquidated.” Otto Ohlendorf.

A Book a Day, or so of suggested reading!

12. Lengyel, Olga Five Chimneys: The Story of Auschwitz.

Day 9: Would We deny them Entry?

Here they are! Dejected and alone! Some are to be transported East, with no Family to keep them from fear. They will be ‘resettled’ in some Eastern Camp, Belzec, Auschwitz or Birkenau, Sobibor or Treblinka. Who will assist them in their final hours. Only God knows the tragedy of what feelings gripped them as they were sorted for killing.

1938 August 18th. The Swiss Government denies entry to refugee Jews.

When the door to safety is firmly closed, and for these Jews of the Transport, it is already too late. The only option for those free to do so is to make entry through all other means and having the opportunity. The problem for the Jews of Europe, for those who could not afford the levies applied to seeking entry into other Countries, the Doors, or the Borders were firmly closed. However, through illicit means, many Jews, their Families included, could exit out of harms way with the aid of Funds provided by relatives, their own Wealth and Property or by sheer luck. Tragically, all too often there was a profit to be made by smugglers which was enhanced by selling the Jews they were supposed to be leading to safety. To the Nazis payment was gained either way this all worked!

1940 August 18th. The German authorities allow Adam Czerniakow, Chairman of the Warsaw Ghetto, to establish a vocational education program inside the Ghetto.

Essential to the Growth of a People is that need to educate and ensure knowledge is to be had by all. Jewish antecedence is enhanced by that Educational demand which has imparted to all of Christianity, and even Islam, a need for learning. Judaism has gifted to the World, and the gift of a Monotheist belief System and a God of the People known by Mankind, is held by Billions of us. Much then is owed to the learning from Judaism that has furthered our own Belief in a God system. That God, whose Tolerance has been categorically ignored throughout all of History, has not presented us with Free will to simply choose what is wrong! Conscience must decide what is worthy of that belief system and we must choose to accommodate what is best for all in place of accepting what is only good for one!

1941 August 18th. Over 1,811 of Kovno’s Jewish Men and Women are murdered at the IV Fort. Elsewhere over 160 Jewish Men and Women of Bjala-Zerkow are murdered by units of the Wehrmacht, members of the Waffen SS and units of SonderKommando 4a. As Romania deports Jews across the River Dniester, the remnants of Berlin’s Jews are to be murdered as Hitler promises Goebbels. Hitler halts his progress on Moscow.

A moment of grave indecision occurs on the War front as Hitler orders a strategic move away from the prime Russian target, that is Moscow. This newer deflection toward Kiev and the Caucausus Oil, is both strategic, but miscalculates the progress that has already been made. The fall of Moscow, a completely Political target would have been a psychological blow to Stalin and the Russian People. But this move away from what had been an obvious target will also ensure that Hitler is vanquished from the Russian lands ahead of all previous expectations.

1942 August 18th. 2,500 of Drogobych’s Jews are murdered at Belzec while SS Obersturmfuhrer Kurt Gerstein arrives at Belzec

“..Himmler visited ..gassing installation in Camp III.” Karl Frenzel.

Here, where the examples and practices of mass murder are experienced, Gerstein, this Gas and Disinfection specialist sees for himself the wrongs been done in Germany’s name. Gerstein’s testimony is a crucial piece of evidence in the knowledge we have of the gassing process. It is somewhat difficult in the final analysis to suggest that Gerstein acted out of conscience, but we have the testimony from those who knew Gerstein that he could not live with the knowledge of what he witnessed at Belzec, Majdanek, Sobibor and then Treblinka. This was all to lead eventually, to him taking his own life.

1943 August 18th. Blobel returns to Kiev and ‘Sonderkommando 1005’ exhumes and disposes of much of the evidence of mass murder.

“..instructions were ..Jews ..as well as ..Soviet political commissars ..to be liquidated. ..I mean “killed”.” Otto Ohlendorf.

There are over 100,000 Jewish Murdered, and others, at the ravine in Babi-Yar. Their remains, which are disinterred and cremated, are finally obliterated from any future effort at testifying what occurred here. Those exhumed, and further destroyed, would be amongst those of Blobel’s own achievement in the Mass Murders of 33,771 Jewish Men, Women and Their Children of Kiev. That two day period, September 29th. to September 30th. 1941, saw a murderous momentum over a sustained 2 day assault upon the integrity of an Innocent Jewish Community of People, achieve what the Industrialised killing centres could not, over a similar time frame.

A Book a Day, or so of suggested reading!

11. Kulka, Erich Five Escape from Auschwitz.

Day 8: Can our Words make The Difference?

This is a scene which grabs the observer as a poignant moment in the process toward the Destruction of The Jewish People. They have been Ghettoised! They have been segregated! They have been beaten and they have been starved. Missing from the ramps are those who were Shot, Hanged, Starved to add to that final accounting which results once the Transports have been ‘resettled’ East.

1938 August 17th. Decree demands all Jews carry Israel or Sarah as first names.

All documentation will recognise that this Named imposition as merely a realisation of one of Hitler’s demands. The Jews are further labelled, categorised and to be easily recognised! The process toward their complete isolation is a step closer. As with any intrusion of this sort, it marks the final task of the segregation of the Jews en-route toward the Ghettoization stage and before Destruction!

1942 August 17th. 30,000 Radom Jews have been murdered at Treblinka while over 600 French Jewish Children are murdered in Birkenau.

Nothing reads more harrowing than the endless list of that assault upon the Children of Jewish Families. Though the figure for the onslaught against the Jews of Radom is a massive body blow to World Jewry, the French Jewish Children so murdered at Birkenau is a future blow to all of Us. If the Youth can be removed this day, there can be no future for a World entire!

1943 August 17th. American daylight Bomber raids rain down on Regensburg and Schweinfurt and as the Allies take Messina, resistance ends in Sicily. Elsewhere, Nikolas Kallay’s Hungarian Government puts out peace feelers as Hitler’s influence, on the European stage at least, begins to wane.

The obvious concern for the last Great Jewish Community of Europe mounts. The Hungarian Jews have been largely unaffected by Hitler’s Final Solution. Given the alliance between Hungary and Germany, and while there has been somewhat of an internal adoption of antisemitic pogroms, this limited the German model of immediate Slaughter. The Jews of Hungary had not gone unnoticed though and once the position in France had been resolved, and as Russian Forces maintained their push West, the opportunity to assail the Hungarian Jewish Community with widespread and murderous certainty approached.

A Book a Day, or so of suggested reading!

10. Kessel, Sim Hanged At Auschwitz.

Day 7: Not as The Jews had Waited.

These Jews are en-route toward Chelmno and its Gassing facility. They are the Jews of Lodz and they are, hopefully, unaware of what is about to greet them. True! There were stories of excess and killing, but the Jewish World could not have considered such systematic a Genocide was planned for their People. How could Civilisation be awake to such a Catastrophe?

1935 August 16th. Friday “..solution of ..Jewish question ..is ..business of ..Fuhrer ..not ..individuals.” Heinrich Himmler.

In the words of the man who knew what Hitler had planned, and which Himmler himself had augmented in line with Hitler’s demands, the World is given evidence of that Truth. What Himmler proposed would be an un-written page in our History had been underscored by Hitler’s demand to shield The Final Solution from view, screened from the German people, and then the World ostensibly.

1941 August 16th. 298 Rassainiai Jewish Women and Their Children are murdered.

It is a daily procession of figures, numbers crunching the senses relating to the Slaughter of innocent Jews in The Holocaust. The task for all Historians has been to assess the impact this was having at a time when knowledge was perhaps scant but available. Information about isolated incidents were all adding to a credible evidence of an assault upon the integrity and the entirety of The Jewish People. From the margins as we look in, it might appear easy to accept that Hitler had got his wish and could bury the Community of Judaism amidst the conflagration that is War.

“..For a Catholic ..anti-Semitism is ..an offense against charity. We are bound to Israel ..tied to it.” Francois Mauriac.

He was immensely wrong given the proximity of the Slaughter to People who witnessed it all, the Intelligence gathering network of the Allied powers who had gathered it all and of course the Church whose confessionals rang with the truth of it all! What a Catholic Priest did not know, within earshot of the all the Churches of Europe, would have been very little!

1943 August 16th. The Bialystok Ghetto Liquidation has commenced.

Barely 300 Ghetto fighters, who had held out for several weeks, are finally captured and are sent to the Majdanek Death Camp. Amongst those who refused to surrender was Mordechai Tenenbaum who committed suicide. The Judenrate Chairman, Ephraim Barasz is sent to the Treblinka Death Camp. Wherever Resistance might persist, the Nazi machinery of terror is on hand to stamp it out with all means necessary, both swiftly and with merciless brutality.

A Book a Day, or so of suggested reading!

9. Hoess, Rudolf Kommandant at Auschwitz.

Day 6: A Step Closer

Can the World have truly looked the other way? These 6 year olds, all Jews, should have expected more than being abandoned to the whim of a resolve that would consume them.

1940 August 15th. Adolf Eichmann adds a huge Jewish Ghetto dimension to muted efforts of a ‘Madagascar Plan.’

It is hard to imagine that discussions were still ongoing about a Territorial Solution to the Jewish Problem, when movement was underway to exact an annihilator’s response to the resolve!

1941 August 15th Riga Ghetto is established where 60,000 Jews will become enclosed and is one of the Nine Major Ghettos Established. Meanwhile the Surviving 26,000 Jews of Kovno are moved to Ghetto at Viliampole. In the coming 2 day period 3,200 of Rokiskis’s Jewish Men, Women and Their Children will be murdered. Hitler is clearly midstream with The Final solution when he decrees that ALL Reich Jews must be clearly identifiable and the Jewish Badge Decree is born.

“..executions at Litzmannstadt ..Minsk were a deep shock to me. Certainly I too had been aiming at a solution of ..Jewish problem ..not like this.” Adolf Eichmann.

Himmler all but faints at the site of an Extermination of Jews at Minsk. Heinrich Lohse, Reich Commissioner Eastern Territories, ‘Ostland’ orders that ALL Jews must now wear ‘Two Jew Badges.’ All Jews under German sphere of influence will be ghettoised as Hungary deports the Jews of Bachka to Serbia and the Slovak Government disperses the Bratislava Ghetto.

“..At ..end of this Jewish war ..extermination of ..Jewish people will have been brought about.” Julius Streicher.

Identification of the Jews as targets for future operations goes hand in hand with the Ghettoization of All Jews. Hitler has clearly countenanced all such measures and fully endorses his own demands for The Final Solution. Mass Murder takes place at a time when it is clearly intended and is seen at Rokiskis and even witnessed by Himmler at Minsk. The link is established between what Hitler demands, what we know and what Himmler witnessed!

1943 August 15th. A further Bialystok Ghetto Revolt commences and 3,000 Wehrmacht troops, SS and Ukrainian auxiliary forces surround the remaining 30,000 Jews of Bialystok.

Resistance is met at varying stages of The Holocaust and the weight of Hitler’s armoury is thrown relentlessly at ill-equipped, isolated and devastated Jewish People

1944 August 15th. the Allies land in the South of France and the War moves a stage closer to enclosing all Hitler’s ambitions!

A Book a Day, or so of suggested reading!

8. Jacob, Lili The Auschwitz Album.

Day 5: Still not There!

1941 August 14th. 552 of Jonava’s Jewish Men and Women were murdered whilst, elsewhere, 493 Rokiskis Jews were also murdered. The entire Lesko Jewish Community is murdered at Zaslaw on the same day. Politically, The Atlantic Charter is signed between the US and Britain and agrees to the defeat of the Axis Powers.

Amidst the brutality of the increasing onslaught upon Jewish existence, Allied powers are locked into an agreement which should, seemingly, secure the future safety of all Citizens from Nazi aggression! The tragedy however is, that the Jewish People are considered, and not just even a secondary regard, but as an expedient wholly dependent upon a War-winning timeframe as yet defined!

1942 August 14th. In France 7,000 non-French Jews are detained and as the Allied troops march on through Italy Rome is declared an Open City.

The progress of the War is gaining in momentum but the suffering of the Jewish People of Europe has not abated in line with the increased Allied effort. The one defining factor of the seeming rush toward victory is the expendable nature of an entire People under the yoke of Hitler’s hatred and suffering the eradicating abuses of Starvation, Privation and Murder!

A Book a Day, or so of suggested reading!

7. Hart, Kitty Return to Auschwitz.

Day 4: Still so many Days to Go!

1941 August 13th. 717 Alytus Jewish Men and Women are murdered.

There is a momentum to the Slaughter which is gaining pace. As Hitler’s minions grind a relentless swathe of Warring gains, the Jews are under immediate threat of being put to the sword. Wherever they are found, whatever their Age, whatever their necessity to the Humanising terms of our own Humanity, the Jews of Europe and Russia are increasingly abandoned, sidelined and left to their fate.

1941 August 13th. Eichmann meets with members of the Ministry of Interior, with the Representatives of Goering’s Four Year Plan and those of the Reich Chancellery.

Following on from the Nuremberg Laws, there is the continuing requirement of the need for a defining term for the classification of the Jewish People. The sheer weight of the bureaucracy of Germany is being brought to bear in relation to all matters Jewish! In defining who is a Jew, Hitler has had, since 1935, teams of Lawyers, Racial experts, pseudo-Scientists, Theologians and Academics exploring any such theories as would categorise a People. However, this pseudo Socio-political exploration must be considered in light of the expropriation of Jewish Homes, Jewish Property, Jewish Wealth and Jewish Goods, all of which is to become the by-product of a supposed Nazi ideology. Whatever mealy mouthed words are being considered, it is an evil undertaking, and it is an understanding amongst these higher echelons of power, couched in euphemistic terms, that a larceny far greater than was ever conceived of is a primary motivation in what is to be considered for the Jews.

1942 August 13th. the Gorodok Ghetto is liquidated as is the Mir Ghetto.

As each and every Ghetto, established by Hitler to contain Jews in a transitory position, along a staging post toward Destruction, and these were being dismantled, the gradual liquidation begins. As evictions from housing for Jews now signals the final removal of those Jews to that place of Destruction. That demise, be it in a Death Camp or at a place in some Woods where the Jews themselves had been forced to dig the Pits, would consign them to an oblivion as inevitable as Hitler intended!

1942 August 13th. Switzerland ejects refugee Jews back to France.

It is deeply saddening for those Jews of Europe, who could so easily escape to the neutrality of States like Switzerland, only to find their route blocked by a seeming lack of desire to assist those Jews, destitute and without a safe haven. Switzerland does not stand alone amongst States who would deny sanctuary to the Jewish People, even when it became evident that Jewish existence was under direct threat of being compromised first and then eradicated!

1942 August 13th. America and Britain continue to sit on Riegner’s Report.

The content of Riegner’s Telegram to the World Jewish Congress, and the Western World is a chilling warning, and should have been an awakening, a clarion call to the plight of the Jews of Europe! That far too little heed was taken of the warning within the text of the message, further consigned those Jews of Europe, who still remained alive, to losing any chance that they might Survive.

“..Received alarming report stating ..in ..Fuhrer’s Headquarters ..plan ..discussed ..to which all Jews in countries occupied or controlled by Germany numbering 3,500,000 to 4,000,000 ..after deportation and concentration ..East ..at one blow exterminated ..to resolve ..Jewish Question ..Europe. Action ..planned for .. Autumn. Ways of execution ..being discussed ..use of Prussic Acid. ..informant ..close connexions ..highest German authorities ..generally reliable. Please inform and consult New York.” Gerhart Riegner.

There can be little ambiguity here! While it all might seem incredible that the Germans should contemplate the Extermination of an entire Race of People, the Jewish People, who were already in the line of fire. With what information is already emerging, and let us not forget, the Operational Situation Reports of der Einsatzgruppe, coded Accounts of the Mass Slaughter of Jewish People behind the German lines of assault within Russia, were being intercepted by Intelligence agencies in the West, there can be little doubt there is an extermination programme aimed at The Jewish People. Now we also have the words of that murderous process being spelled out in a cable, and it is related directly to The Death Camp system. Why would the West not now act?

“..I should like to thank you personally and on behalf ..Reichsfuhrer ..your memorandum July 28. ..particularly gratified ..that for ..past two weeks 5,000 members of ..chosen people ..to Treblinka.” Karl Wolff.

1942 August 13th. Karl Wolff responds to Albert Ganzenmueller’s memo on the departures of Jews to both Treblinka and Belzec. What cannot be read in these words doesn’t hide the fact that these Jews were never to return. In terms cloaked in that very open secret, this ‘resettlement’ of the Jews meant an extermination for a People who were indeed a newly defined ‘Chosen People.’ Here, outside that biblical context of the term, the Jews were chosen for annihilation. Wolff, for all that he knew, then proclaimed a total lack of any such knowledge once History asked him the relevant question.

Honour has been stained by these who were knowledgeable. Those others too, who proclaim such untruths as to the hidden meanings to such covert terms, they too also deny History an essential veracity that we are left to pick over. To be further disguised in other than the programme of slaughter that they had established for the Destruction of The Jews, and where it is intended to disguise, it hides little. We follow such euphemism that has been carefully chosen so as not only to detract from the truth, but to attempt to obliterate it fully from our understanding and comprehension!

A Book a Day, or so of suggested reading!

6 Gilbert, Martin Auschwitz and the Allies.

Day 3: Words are Amassing and Days are Counting Down!

1941 August 12th. Hitler issues War Directive No. 34a for the conduct of operations in Russia as Army Group North moves in on Leningrad.

It is perhaps worth noting, in timing and in the escalating terms of the Destructive capacity for Hitler’s Final Solution, a further 5,00,000 Russian Jews came under direct attack as Hitler’s echelons move deeper into the East. The tentacles of that final resolve, which would spread the length and breadth of Europe and Western Russia, bear with it the culmination and correlating efforts of a Final Solution to The Jewish Question, die Endlosung der Judenfrage. The first wave of attacks, from roving bands of Einsatzgruppen, Waffen SS, Police Battalions and Auxiliary Forces would be replaced by the increased dependence upon Technical and Industrialised Killing in the Death Camps. The Murder pits would continuously deliver Death on an enormous scale, but would now become dwarfed by the Murder Mills with their Industrial Capacity to Kill! The price of efficiency would be in saving bullets too and in the midst of the World’s most devastating War, the question of logistically supplying those German forces became secondary in nature to the transporting need for supplying the Death Mills with their Jewish Cargo!

1942 August 12th. Allied goal ‘destruction of Nazism.’

Here we can find a deflection from the requirement to remove Hitler from expanding further his territorial demands from the Humanistic Need to ensure an entire People could be saved from Hitler’s Final Solution. Whilst one could not be achieved without the eventual goal of defeating Hitler, the Jewish People’s plight should have been moved centre stage and so depriving Hitler of his ultimate goal, the Destruction of All of World Jewry. Here was the acknowledgement, in the burgeoning awareness of what Hitler fully intended for World Jewry, an acquiescence to the Destruction of The Jewish People. Within that accomplishment, which resulted in 6,000,000 Murdered Jews, we have to appraise this failing, albeit from a distance, as far too costly in Human terms. While it might have appeared a feature of a World wide effort to continually adhere to its goal to defeat Hitler, this cannot ever ensure Humanity’s greatest need is always to ensure the lives of All People is raised above all other considerations!

1945 August 12th. those Major war criminals who had been housed in Luxembourg are flown to Nuremberg, where they are incarcerated in a prison adjacent to the Palace of Justice.

“..Murder remains Murder even when ..law shows itself to be impotent and ..courts are unable to punish even one single person for ..genocide.” Benno Mueller-Hill.

We might be talking about the Parajmos, the Gypsy Genocide, but in relation to the 6,000,000 Murdered Jews of The Holocaust, where was the Justice, who were the punished? It is an unfortunate assessment in History that of all the War Crimes Trials collectively administering justice, too few Instigators, Perpetrators or even Participators in the Crimes Against Humanity, against the Jews of The Holocaust, ever stood Trial in the first place. Those that did, paid too scant a penalty for the most horrendous of Crimes ever committed against a People. Such too was the measure of The Holocaust Crime, that an advocate, Raphael Lemkin devised a term, ‘Genocide’, in an attempt that the World would acknowledge the sheer magnitude of what was now being fully realised!

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

A Book a Day, or so of suggested reading!

5. Friedrich, Otto The Auschwitz Kingdom.

Day 2: Less Than a Month to Go!

Today is August 11th and as you will find, varying events occurred throughout the period that will link you to places unheard of, places that now exist without their former Jewish inhabitants, places decimated by the deeds of Hitlerite hatred. To Communities, where Jews no longer reside, all removed from their surroundings and deposited like so much ballast to a machine, a Murderous Machine in need of its prey, a particular victim, one more Jew to add to Hitler’s Account as the Catastrophe now begins to escalate.

1941 August 11th. 498 Panevezys Jewish Men and Women are murdered.

Hitler’s campaign in Russian is gaining momentum. Victory all but seems assured and the delivery of a further 5,000,000 Jews for Destruction will require further emphasis and direction. All arms of Hitler’s Reich will become engaged in that final resolve to bring about The Final Solution and the World will have The Holocaust!

1942 August 11th. 1,000 Belgian Jews are murdered.

While the murder process ground on and on, there was a glimmer of hope for some Jews that they might just Survive. Resistance was played out in many ways throughout the terms of The Holocaust. Simple defiances! Suicides! Retaliation! A Parent delivers their Child to a Christian Neighbour who knows the meaning of Charity. One Jewish Child is saved! But here at Kremenets 1942 August 11th. where Jews physically resist there is the chance for more Survival. It is a limited one, given that flight is not guaranteed by those Jews 100’s of miles from safety. The enemy of the Jew is not merely the Nazi. Financial reward, afforded those who captured Jews seeking Survival, is a means to add to an end. If antisemitic hatred could be bolstered by financial reward, all the better to betray ones Moral, Christian, Charitable or Ethical code!

1944 August 11th. over 650 Jews from Lyon are ‘resettled’ to Auschwitz.

Such euphemism as ‘resettled’ is employed by Hitler and his Nazi’s throughout the entire period of The Holocaust to disguise the very nature of the Slaughter of Jewish Innocents! With such ideology as Hitler empowered the German people to employ, the secretive nature of The Final Solution might suggest Hitler’s intention was not at all ideological, more a hate filled antisemitism, that was morally corrupt and ethically debased and of course profiting of such larceny as is incomprehensible!

A Book a Day, or so of suggested reading!

4. Bezwinska, Jadwiga KL Auschwitz.

For Tokele, aged 4 years old, Murdered in Sokoly on February 17th. 1945.

Day 1: A Month to Go.

In a month’s time I will make a journey that I have been anticipating, perhaps even dreading, but I am still looking forward to the venture in equal measure? For some years now I have written and spoken of the terrible Catastrophe which faced the Jews of Europe, secreted beneath a devastating 2nd. World War which consumed between 50 and 70 Million lives! What should not be lost within this Conflicting particular tragedy is the cold, calculated and ruthless isolation, segregation, selection and resolve of Hitler to Destroy an entire People, those 6,000,000 Jewish People Slaughtered in The Holocaust. War ravages People, yet the systematic Genocide of 6,000,000 Jews denigrates the very Humanity we espouse toward!

I guess, with the measure of any such Catastrophe, I will see for myself now, the close proximity of that Destructive process to the approximately 1,100,000 Jewish Men, Women and Their Children, all Gassed and Murdered at Auschwitz/Birkenau! I will be standing upon the graves of these Innocent People and reflecting further on those words I have used to capture some semblance of a comprehension beyond imagining. For those of us who choose to, but cannot know, we seek to understand and take from those who do know what it was like for those Jews who Encountered or even Survived Hitler’s intention for them. In that way, through choice, we can perhaps know of a little of what Terror was and maybe even a measure of the Horror the Jews of Europe faced back then!

Today is August 10th. but this is 2014! The Cattle Cars no longer roll with their Jewish Cargo! The Jews today have another fight for their very existence! But much of the World is no longer Indifferent to the plight of a People under direct threat of extinction? Much of the World knows the debt of Conscience that is owed to the Jewish People of Europe? For those who emerged from the terms of The Final Solution, and especially for those who remain confined within the selection process that has delivered to the World, the terms of The Holocaust, I am here, I hope, with those reading this, expressing the essential need to Remember and acting in accordance with the lessons learned!

1938 August 10th. the Great Synagogue in Nuremberg is destroyed.

The right to profess one’s Faith is sacrosanct. It is given by God and can only be taken away by that same God who has gifted this Belief system to Us. For those of a fundamentalist bent, God does not command anyone to enforce a belief, that is not belief, that is subjugation! The Freedom to choose is a God given right which Human Laws must enshrine if Ethics and Morality are to be protected and Protect!

1940 August 10th. Romania enacts anti-­Jewish Laws amidst anti-Jewish riots which erupt in the Country.

Nation upon nation of those who sought the swirl of all that Hitler proposed, used the very same racist elements in antisemitism to cower before a system which would otherwise have devoured it! Hitler and his Nazis spread fear and hatred. Those who stood against this were Imprisoned, Incarcerated in Camps and Murdered. Though the Jews of Europe were a benign force, Hitler saw fit to designate them, enemies, ‘Untermenschen’ and set forth for them a Destructive path which led to Death in Camps and Killing Sites throughout Poland, Russia and too many Countries to mention! Their Tragedy is the work I have chosen to add my voice to!

1942 August 10th. the first Deportations of Jews from Lvov to Belzec.

A Total of some 50,000 Jews of Lvov were murdered during the term of The Holocaust. A place of distinction amongst Jews and those who resided peaceably alongside Jews. But Hitler had other ideas for the Jews of 1,000’s of Cities, Towns, Villages and Shtetls, wherever Jews came to rest!

1942 August 10th. Camp Kommandant SS Standartenfuhrer Christian Wirth adopts Diesel engine for gassing.

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

The indisputable truth, that through the learning process for the Destruction of the Jewish people, methods were adapted, adopted which suited the environment for Killing! With the move from T4, the Euthanasia Programme, to the usage of cellars for ‘Gassing’, to the Gassing Vans and onto the Industrialised nature of the Slaughter in The Death Camps, much was learned and advanced in the killing process, as with Wirth at Belzec! When der Einsatzgruppe proved costly in terms of bullets, it became expedient for Hitler to have his best minds think up the unthinkable, the Mass Murder of Millions!

1942 August 10th. 1,000 Theresienstadt Jews were transported toward Minsk and were murdered in gassing vans at the nearby killing site of Maly Trostinets.

More than 35,000 Jews were murdered here at Maly Trostinets to all add weight to the Statistical analysis of the Slaughter which confounds us. Elsewhere the killing progressed and at Brzozow 1942 August 10th. 800 Jews were murdered.

A Book a Day, or so of suggested reading!

1. Adelsberger, Lucie Auschwitz, A Doctor’s Story.

2. Czech, Danuta Auschwitz Chronicle.

3. Klarsfeld, Serge French Children of The Holocaust.

Two of these Books will define a particular need in Remembering the Jews of The Holocaust. Danuta Czech’s Book, in Chronicling the arrival and ‘resettlement’ of those Transports at Auschwitz Birkenau, and Serge Klarsfeld’s monumental and significant study of the French Deportation of The Jewish Children to Auschwitz, from within France! Each Book has a poignancy in relation to the overall Catastrophe for the Jews of Europe. Read them all and know the depth of despair reached and the humbling Survivor’s search for Peace and Justice, none tinged with any hint of vengeful retribution!