“..For a variety of reasons ..women’s situation was a good deal worse than that of ..men ..physical endurance ..coupled with work more arduous and degrading ..agonies of disrupted families ..and ..haunting presence of ..crematoria ..located right in ..middle of ..women’s camp ..inescapable ..undeniable ..ungodly smoke rising ..to contaminate every day ..every night ..every moment of respite or illusion ..every dream and timorous hope.” Primo Levi.
Two very striking books, amongst the many 1,000’s which have been written on the subject of The Holocaust resonate with what I wish to state here. While both are titled Smoke Over Birkenau, by Liana Millu and Seweryna Szmaglewska, they both have a wider exposition than just that for Birkenau. While I have no negative contention with either of these Books, well written discourses on the horror of Birkenau, I profess much more emphasis should be placed upon the smoke which permeated the areas surrounding all 6 of the Death Camps in Poland. While outside the front doors of the non-Jewish Polish population, the smell of burning of Jewish existence, the scent of the destruction of Jewish life and the visible signs of the cremation process for possibly 4,500,000 Jews of Europe was all too obvious to resident, traveller or passing observer to have been borne in such silence.
“..long believed that much of Jewish history ought to be rewritten in terms of ..pioneering services ..Jews ..forced to render by ..circumstances of their history.” Salo W. Baron.
While whole community’s would automatically qualify what they saw, what they smelled and what they even heard, and these community’s would then relay this evidence to anyone capable of listening, the lack of such testimony gives scant regard to the human despair being so callously ignored. While the information route certainly extended to the catholic church in Poland, knowing everything the local catholic population knew was a priestly business, this would then be relayed from parish to bishopric and on into the vatican itself. What is obvious however, and from this juncture alone, is that christian morality had declined to counter the atrocity on the very doorstep where faith professed all allegiance to christian charity. For what a failed ethics had sought to ignore in their midst, humanity bears a burden of having to reconcile the degeneracy of faith with the hatred laid before it.
“..For all I knew ..I could be out ..back door ..they out ..front ..running to ..police ..to tell them ..Jews had returned to Buczacz. You never knew if a neighbour was about to turn on you ..plenty had.” Alicia Appleman-Jurman.
But just as history is refuted by some, over the very usage of the varying terms employed, it is essential to maintain a position which does not allow for the alteration of any of the proven facts which history has delivered direct to our own front door. For me, that essential, which ensures I will never unuse a term, either to refute the history I know to be true, or to allow my own words to detract from that historical integrity, is accusing of the massive loss to humanity of 6,000,000 Jews rendered lifeless in this uniquely engineered Slaughter. It would appear, from much that is emerging in many Eastern European countries, is the tendency today to simply seek to alter what has been an historical truth, all because of its less accepting tone or its confrontation with the reality it presents. For those said countries, who wish to now negate the very narrative of The Holocaust search we are engaged in, they cannot simply alter history’s course.
“..Auschwitz may be 100’s of kilometers 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.
Any effort, to take away responsibility from the very integrity of the truth it presents will relegate all history to a slurry of infertile words and misdirected occasions. The safeguarding of The Holocaust must therefore assure that we can and should not allow any form of bias, or more especially discrimination, against any proven fact which is disagreeable to those seeking to subvert it. Lies must not be enabled to gain ground ahead of the implicit intention to record what is therefore true. It is exactly the case, as with Lord Russell in his Book, Scourge of the Swastika, that his wording is an identification with the ‘Polish Death Camps’ as they were clearly an identified positioning of a geographical placing. So while these written words exist, they must be upheld as they were conceived and nothing must ever be allowed to distract from that truth as it was then presented.
“..on ..Umschlagplatz ..history of Polish Jews came to an end ..arrested and seemingly terminated.” Jaroslaw Marek Rymkiewicz.
No one in History attributes the intention of the Death Camps, or the entire killing apparatus in The Holocaust for that matter, to other than Hitler, his lackey’s and those who collaborated their wish to gain in power or wealth from the destruction of European Jewry. It is perfectly clear that today’s clamour, for what should wholly transfix the truth, cannot move the placement of the atrocity that took place in Poland elsewhere. What seeks to catapult the Jews, perhaps 4,500,000 of them, including 3,000,000 of whom were Polish Jews, away from where they were murdered, within the confines of the Polish borders, is an effort aimed at not recognising that all of these Jews were murdered in Poland. This apparent intention not only corrupts the very destruction of these Jewish People but places their presence into some form of an abstraction which will slowly disguise their actual and final space of confinement.
“..Recognition of ..truth ..whole truth and opening ones heart and sharing ..experiences is necessary to stop ..evil ..to gel rid of ..aggression ..hate and ..prejudice. To convey ..Auschwitz truth is a great lesson. ” Halina Birenbaum.
This will only disadvantage any historical perspective that is to be gained from what truth must always know it corroborates. However, and from comments that are being made to distort facts and bend them to a bias we must not recognise, we simply cannot alter this statement by Lord Russell so as to facilitate a polish governments frenzy for the revision of the factual truth. The very fact that all x6 Death Camps were established in Poland does not conspire to make history adopt other than the truth, nor that these are other than Hitler constructs, manned by Hitler’s forces, and their collaborator’s, and intended to destroy all of European Jewry. This does nor preclude any other people’s from the atrocity, merely that they exist outside The Holocaust that was clearly designd strategically for the Slaughter of European Jewry.
“..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.
Of course there were others who were killed alongide the Jewish intended, though they remain devolved from The Final Solution of the Jewish Question because they were not Jews. Also, and more specifically, history does not suggest other than these 6 Death Camps were fully established by Hitler for his hate filled intentions for the Jewish People. While Hitler’s cronies administered all of these death facility’s, and admittedly profitted greatly from them, all too many non-Jewish Polish locals profitted also. There is no way of judging the complexion of all of this without stating that all of the Death Camps were built within the confines of Poland. None the less, what cannot be altered by the semantics of want for change, is now measured in the destructive capacity of these industrial murder factory’s. That very truth must remain central to the integrity of all historical accuracy in the search for comprehending the entire catastrophe.
“..There have been Hitlers everywhere and at all times ..it is Germany’s shame that so miserable a figure could become her leader. In order to germinate ..seed of Nazism had to find a favourable soil ..it found it in ..German Reich and ..Germans ..such as they had become in their political ..spiritual economic and social history.” Wilhelm Roepke.
What then forced the Jews into the pathway which led directly to their annihilation, or even directed the perpetrator’s to act with such disregard for all of humanity, is both contentious and problematic. Also, and when it is not totally accurate to relate the loss in human terms to the very capacity of the Death Camps to deal in their murderous effort, we step aside from statistical awareness to take a glimpse at the human tragedy to be witnessed. Also, and while the very terms of any fact must never be dulled by an over sensitivity to what was measured out to these 6,000,000 Jews of Europe, the veracity of this truth must be borne and worn by those who study and research History. We bolster our remembrance too, of all of these Jews by acknowledging that we become witnesses to what testimony has been left on our pages and as such, we must take up from where the Survivor leaves off and requires us to continue in their name.
“..Ponar is not a ..Camp. Jews ..shot there. Hitler plans to destroy all ..Jews of Europe ..Jews of Lithuania ..first in line. ..We must not go like sheep to ..slaughter!” Abba Kovner.
Here, that very assertion for remembrance so easily applies to Abba Kovner as he made his resistance cry, and toward the Jews of Vilna who should not go like sheep to the slaughter to a place like Ponar. What was known then of Ponar was known throughout the World of intelligence gathering, and still nothing was applied either to assist the Jews nor stem the blood flow of Jewish loss. For me, and it is patently obvious that the Jews, educated, polished, naieve in many senses, could not know what had been building in Hitler’s warped view was their annihilation. Even though a Ponary Woods stood outside the Towns and Villages of Jewish existence, what would eventually result in their being 6,000,000 less Jews at the end of World War II, could not be imagined. How could it considered then when we have difficulty coming to terms with the knowledge of its very enactment.
“..present destruction of Europe would not be complete and thorough had ..German people not accepted freely ..Nazi plan ..participated voluntarily in its execution and ..profited greatly therefrom” Raphael Lemkin.
While it is true that the World knew that Hitler was gaining ground politically, they also sensed his hatred for the Jewish People was growing commensurate with that. Yet the World failed to both acknowledge Hitler’s latent and brutal nature, telegraphed and evidenced on so many occasions, but the World also ignored its causal effects when it fell upon the very Jews he fully sought to annihilate. Not even Hitler himself envisaged that this capacity of destruction, from way back in the 1900’s was ever to become achievable. Nor am I alone in considering that in the early 1930’s, when he was gaining the power necessary where he could offer up his final solution, would the depth of the purge reach out and slaughter 6,000,000 Jews. However, as Hitler’s rise to power gained ground, and his ability to derail much of humanity from its moral and ethical base, as he struck deeper and deeeper at Jewish existence, Jewish life now begins to recede toward oblivion.
“..Night was falling. ..shadows softly settling on ..Earth promised rest and oblivion. We had gotten through another day. ..what would ..next one bring.” Liana Millu.
If we are then to proscribe to Hitler, what he finally managed to achieve, then during his race toward The Final Solution, the Jewish abandonment at Evian becomes pivotal. On July 6th. 1938, when 29 of the 33 Nations who were invited to this conference, and who actually turned up, each nation sought to evade their human responsibility in the approaching storm. As 250,000 Germans are continuously abused for being Jews, the World of nations took no steps to alleviate Jewish concerns which in turn bolstered Hitler’s resolve to act with apparent impunity. What we meet here and discuss, as the growing crisis for Jews under Hitlers yoke strangles further the Jewish ability to manouvre, and while Hitler was well along that measured route and toward the enormous atrocity that will be exhibited before history, we abandoned the Jewish People.
“..I remember sort of being yanked out of our flat and being ordered to march to ..space in ..open in ..town and there we were separated ..Men ..Women ..Children ..stood there in ..bitter cold November night ..me wearing short trousers.” Bernd Koschland.
Here is the human failure to act, aligned as it becomes to the inhuman action which progressed toward its final conclusion and 6,000,000 Jews of Europe will be consigned to their fate. What is most explicit as a final solution for 6,000,000 of Europe’s Jews emerges is what we now see in the Jewish murdered at Kristallnacht, and what amounts to a seeming World acquiesence. As Hitler surveys the remnants of burned out Synagogues as he himself evidenced it, then a steady progression away from the rhetoric of hatred and toward the savage brutality of its enactment is being fully orchestrated by Hitler. Tragically, at this moment in time, the World is more prepared for what is yet to emerge than even the Jews of Germany are aware of. As the Jews then, of both Germany and Austria, and finally all of Europe belatedly awake to realise, we now survey the land where hatred is feeding into a clamour for such widespread Slaughter.
“..German authorities ..now carrying into effect Hitler’s ..intention to exterminate ..Jewish people in Europe.” American State Department.
That the horrifying reality is descending upon the Jewish People, many of whom are slowly awakening to the dire situation they find themselves, all too many are powerless to do anything about it. Who could ever adjudge the barbarity that was to come, let alone the fuller extent to the open genocidal intention that was released. True, those Jews who suffered at the hands of the Nazi’s at this period, all of whom are left with Family’s so traumatised by the Murder’s, are more significant in number immediately after Kristallnacht. It is becoming clear, and how could the sensibly reasoned Jews believe this was anything other than isolated assaults upon individuals, and it not necessarily raged against them for being Jews. Though the night of ‘Broken Glass’ brought about what was evidently an enactment of brutal assault and murder aimed solely at People because they were Jews, this cannot be taken in isolation.
“..There are some important things to keep in mind. Our Rabbi ..who played a great role in my growth and development ..refused to leave Germany ..but ..knew exactly what was going on. Much like a captain refusing to abandon ship ..he stayed. Also ..Hamburg was not at this time antisemitic. ..Nazis had to import people from southern Germany to do their dirty work in destroying Hamburg’s synagogues. ..people in Hamburg would not destroy anything ..not lay a finger on ..Jewish buildings. ..After Kristallnacht ..we moved to a Spanish ..Portuguese synagogue. It was not completely orthodox but we were able to make changes to make it work for us. We were ..only place in Germany that was still able to worship in a synagogue after Kristallnacht took place.” Hugo Eichelberg.
For the murdered Jews of Berlin, Cologne, Dresden, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Kiel, Munich, Nuremberg, why would we not see and compare these murders with all the other murders elsewhere in the Reich at this precise moment and that were attached to the Jewish presence, and who had fully succumbed to such an assault. For me, for History for all other historians, the benefit of hindsight open the eyes to what now appears obvious but would seem so out of character for civilised humanity. Perhaps though, with some 50,000 Jewish Men, who are now taken in Germany and deported to a number of Concentration Camps, the like of Buchenwald, Dachau, Flossenburg and Sachsenhausen, these become synonymous with what will eventually emerge as industrialised killing sites, the Death Camps. Maybe too the Jewish People are awakening to the fact that is so evident to the World, that they might begin to consider there is now a concerted effort that Hitler has ranged against them.
“..fact that certain attempts may have miscaried does not justify abandoning effort. It is ..business of research to introduce more accuracy and exactness into these distinctions.” Marc Bloch.
So when we arrive at the these places for the murdered Jews in Poland, and this occured immediately as Hitler crosses his forces into Poland, September 1st. 1939, the progress is escalating. This initial assault upon the integrity of a Polish Jewish presence, was not merely prepatory for the final annihilation of all of European Jewry, it was a preparation for the Jewish consciousness to get to grips with their immediate dillema. Time harbours so many forms of identification that we perhaps too easily see what was not evident at the time. We react toward what overcame the Jewish People with a mixture of disbelief and evn incredulity when we cannot know what sanctioned their apparent inaction. As to what any of these formative conditionings had as yet prepared the Jews for, it is at least certain that what was later to emerge as the Final Solution could never have been envisaged by them.
“..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 grdually 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.” Auschwitz State Museum.
While it is always truer to categorically state, that the World watched and sat idly by as the unprecedented nature of the assault escalated into total annihilation for 6,000,000 Jews of Europe, the Jews of Denmark could not as yet see the ravine at BabiYar being infilled with their fellow Jews. Nor could the belief system which has sustained the Jews of existence identify with the truth which was now fast approaching. I am sorry to add my disdain to any belief system here, as my belief in anything to do with a god has been severely questioned, and as I recall what Elie Wiesel said about a god and particularly a god for the Jews, was that that particular Jewish god was ritually hanged in Auschwitz. That very precise god, in the form of a Jewish Child, sustained a longer and more painful death than those alongisde him, because of he was a Child and his body weighed lighter than the rope was intended for.
“..One day ..we saw 3 gallows ..3 black ravens ..erected on ..Applepaltz. Roll call. ..SS surrounding us ..machine guns aimed at us ..usual ritual. 3 prisoners in chains ..among them ..little pipel ..sad eyed angel. ..SS seem more preoccupied ..more worried than usual. To hang a child in front of 1,000’s of onlookers was not a small matter. ..head of ..camp read ..verdict. All eyes were on ..child. He was pale ..almost calm ..but he was biting his lips as he stood in ..shadow of ..gallows. This time ..Lagerkapo refused to act as an executioner. 3 SS took his place. ..3 condemned prisoners together stepped onto ..chairs. In unison ..nooses were placed around their necks. Long live liberty. ..Shouted 2 men. ..boy was silent. ..Where is merciful God ..where is He ..someone behind me was asking. At ..signal ..3 chairs were tipped over. Total silence in ..camp. On ..horizon ..sun was setting. Caps off. Screamed ..Lageralteste. His voice quivered. As for ..rest of us ..we were weeping. Cover your heads. Then came ..march past ..victims. ..2 men were no longer alive. Their tongues were hanging out ..swollen ..bluish. ..third rope was still moving ..Child ..too light ..was still breathing. And so he remained for more than half an hour ..lingering between life and death ..writhing before our eyes. And we were forced to look at him at close range. He was still alive when I passed him. His tongue was still red ..his eyes not yet extinguished. Behind me ..I heard ..same man asking ..For God’s sake ..where is God. ..from within me ..I heard a voice answer ..Where is he. This is where ..hanging here from this gallows.” Elie Wiesel.
For what Elie Wiesel here remarks, the camp system and more especially the Death Camp’s purpose, all must have seen the dissolution of hope, matched with the same fate which awaited all too many Children, both Jewish and non-Jewish, whose god remained on the sidelines looking in with total abandon. As inmates and perpetrators witnessed these awful scenes, and as they glared and watched humanity destroying itself, the question of god here resolves itself fully for my own personal take on what make a god. While we are deliberately awaiting the conscience of the World, while we are continuously seeing the ethical morality of a World caught in the morass of inaction, many of the Jewish People took too much time with deliberating. For these questioning Jews, believeing that we non-Jewish onlookers, bystanders, perpetrators and participators were good and civilised, or that somehow their god would somehow save them, they were mass Murdered in the chaos of those failed belief.
“..one Woman ..overcome with ..emotion stirred ..by memories ..burst into tears. Wailing with grief ..she named all ..names of those who would not see ..sacred candles lit next year ..nor ..year after ..nor ever again ..for any holiday on Earth. One after another ..Women took up her cries ..and soon nearly everyone was sobbing in desolation.” Liana Millu.
So it is nigh on impossible for me, one who seeks to come to terms with what I have become witness to over these past 25 years, is a manifestly Jewish catastrophe perpetrated by an ostensibly christian peoples. The difficulty then for me, so as to accuse those who acted against the Jews, when I am not a Jew is always concerning for me. Nor indeed can I act as a Jew, for I am not a Jew and yet, I have acted most diligently in memory of those Jews I stand squarely alongside in condemnation of what was done to them. I do all that I can possibly do so as to ensure the words I borrow come from Jews like Liana Millu, from other Survivor’s and more especially from Jewish non-Survivor’s, in order to add further merit to a eulogy that is Jewish in concept, intonation and intent. I remain heartily angry however, that what happened to 6,000,000 Jews is not solely for Jews to remonstrate with the World but for us to damn those who acted against our own humanity in detailing the destrcution of People, for being Jews.
“..we would suddenly be overcome by fatigue and dread ..6 hours passed ..6 more to go. Our heads drooped to ..table ..our bodies pleaded for rest ..when ..bell signalled ..end of ..break ..we dragged ourselves to our feet and staggered back to work.” Liana Millu.
Even on behalf of those murdered Jews, for whom all Jews must continually stand for, and with that said, it must be clearly understood that condemantion must come from us all. For any those of us, so assured of the accusation to be put before an indifferent World at the time, 6,000,000 Jewish stilled voices command our responses on their behalf. As I write, I can usher forth words for those Jews who voices may well have been stilled, where their words have been crushed and their existence blighted by ‘fatigue and dread’ and we are left to wonder at the miracle that persuades such humanity to struggle forth, we must endure their staggering effort, in order for us to understand humanity’s greatest need to survive. Staggered, under the pressure of a hatred few can contemplate, I have immersed myself so deeply in their struggle, and for those who will not sit out another day, my understanding of human nature is further blunted.
“..granted ..right to exist by ..god of our fathers at ..glimmer of ..dawn of human civilization ..4,000 years ago. For that right ..sanctified in Jewish blood from generation to generation ..we have paid a price unexampled in ..annals of ..nations.” Menachem Begin.
I realise full well that the odius and obvious atrocity inflicted upon these Jewish lives, by those people unworthy of the term human, we know all too well that they are indeed human beings, but of an extraordinary inhuman nature. Liana Millu informs me of this fact, as does Seweryna Szmaglewska, Elie Wiesel, Haim Ginott and the multitude of Jewish Writer’s, and many other’s, who place my effort in the midst of the most terrible detail of The Holocaust in order to gain the necessary words to relay back to our time. Those many, who clearly inform me, also ensure I am continuously vexed at what is allowed to become less than commemorative. It must be said though, and by the many who use the vehicle of this catastrophe, particularly in Poland today, to excuse either their actions or their inaction, this is not history. For us to now measure out that great loss for even 3,000,000 Polish Jews, truth must reign over the bias of any preferred position.
“..I am a survivor of a concentration camp.
My eyes saw what no person should witness:
gas chambers built by learned engineers.
Children poisoned by educated physicians.
Infants killed by trained nurses.
Women and babies shot by high school and college graduates.
So, I am suspicious of education.
My request is this:
Help your children become human.
Your efforts must never produce learned monsters, skilled psychopaths or educated Eichmanns.
Reading, writing, and arithmetic are important only if they serve to make our children more humane.” Dr. Haim Ginott.
Any distraction, which seeks to move us away from the truth, or in any way distorts from the very fact that in total, some 6,000,000 Murdered Jews of Europe can be sidelined in any way, is an immoral wrong. To seemingly seek to deprive these, those Jews of European Jewry, their very existence in the first place, and from what is given them their title, The Holocaust, is a further stain on what already condemns and damns us. Education cannot afford to ignore the consequences of what The Holocaust entails, especially as the selective method adopted to ensure all Jews secumbed to Hitler’s planned destruction for them is well evidenced. I look on as an educator and see far too much that is being given over to the placation of such bias, that the very Jewish presence in The Holocaust is being undermined. For me, and this is a personal standpoint from outside the Jewish trauma, as I am looking in at the Jewish tragedy.
“..pure myth ..Jews ..merely passive. ..Jews fought back ..to a degree no other community anywhere ..would have been capable of. ..they fought against hunger ..starvation ..disease ..a deadly Nazi economic blockade. They fought against murderers and ..traitors within their own ranks ..and ..were utterly alone in their fight. ..forsaken by God and ..man ..surrounded by hatred or indifference. ..there was much heroism ..little beauty ..much toil ..suffering ..no glamour. We fought back on every front ..biological ..economic ..propaganda ..cultural ..with every weapon ..possessed. In ..end ..ruse ..deception ..cunning beyond anything ..world had ever ..seen ..accomplished what hunger ..disease ..terror ..treachery ..could not. What defeated us ..Jewry’s unconquerable optimism ..eternal faith in ..goodness of man ..even a German ..a Nazi ..could never have ..renounced ..own humanity as to murder women ..’children’ coldly ..systematically. ..when we finally took up arms ..we inscribed in ..book of history epic of ..Ghetto Uprising.” Michal Berg.
It is indeed true that the very corrosive nature of the few, which seeks to inflict itself upon the many, distorts the view on history in order to distort its truth for hatred, false ideals or any given form of hateful bigotry. That essential, in the very implicit detail of The Holocaust is so true, politically as well as fundamentally, as that which is given over to any society educated as a whole which must ensure it preserves the integrity of what History must teach us. It is certain that evidence here sets the precedence, and The Holocaust is the most evident example of the role of the educated in the assault upon the very integrity of all humanity, while it was raged against the Jews of Europe. Recently, and for obvious reasons I did not wish to announce I was travelling to Poland again, and I certainly had no wish to broadcast my stay was to be in Cracow.
Cracow. ..ghetto ..very crowded. ..beyond ..Vistula River ..Podgorze ..belonged to ..poor quarters ..ramshackle houses ..wooden houses ..ruined houses about to collapse. Three or four families ..into tiny flats ..a room ..a kitchen. .. spread very rapidly ..particularly amongst ..children. ..difficult to maintain sanitary conditions.” Rivka Kuper.
Largely, I am urged by many questions to seek my own answers to the place of the Jew today in the Poland holding out from the memory of Jewish Poland of yesterday. I had assumed I had already achieved all of what I had set out to do, and up to this point, I believe I have. But thre is much more I need to know and understand and in order for the hurt and the pain of so many, their questions ringing loudly, I had made little headway with what impressions I had gained from visiting The Polin Museum in Warsaw nor from The Marek Edelman Centre in Lodz. With regards to whether pressure could be applied from the Polish government which could compromise the efficacy of the historical narrative to emerge from such glorious centres, I am deeply concerned. The staff I met were indeed committed, and connected to the very detail which called for such places as Museums as centres of educating.
“..Not all victims were Jewish in this place ..but all Jews were victims.” Elie Wiesel.
The obvious essential, in affording us the information on the immense struggle undertaken by both Jews, and non-Jews alike, during Hitler’s reign in Poland, must only contain the truth and not any interpretation of it. Of course, my visits to all the Death Camps in Poland have thrown up many concerns to do with the unbiased nature of the interred Jews being Remembered for being Jews. That persist to this day, whether we recognise the Jewish loss in its totality, or specific to a given Death Camp, Killing Site or the place of such Remembrance or indeed, even if we choose to recall them at all. For that matter, the seeming pressure to placate a newer agenda which identifies the Polish Jewish losses with that of non-Jewish Poles is an alarming emergence. For reasons pertaining to the Jewish presence, I have written x4 Books on the subject of The Holocaust and they remain as incomplete today for want of the fullest truth.
“..records ..incomplete as they are ..reveal ..deeds of men ..women who said nay heroically. ..Were they profound believers in truth and justice. ..idealists ..basically ..religious ..humanitarians. They were all of these and more. Our surviving civilisation owes these people ..grateful recognition they so richly deserve.” Dr. Philip Friedman.
As yet, much is till to emerge of how a World was assailed by such an assault and the Jewish People were allowed to suffer its consequences. I have done little, but I have honoured a promise I made to a Jewish Survivor’s memory with my visit’s to all of these x6 Death Camps built in Poland. It is clear, Poland does not seek to have these Death Camps recognised as established in Poland. While they were admittedly established by Hitler, they were concentrated in Poland and this is clearly a statement of geographical fact. Also, as I take issue with the World, which stood idly by and allowed such a form of indifference to the Jewish Struggle, I direct a similar accusation at Poland and its role. For this atrocity to become the visited and intolerable nature of the hatred evidenced as The Final Solution of the Jewish Question, too many in the World stood aside.
“..Up to January 18th. 1945 ..a total of about 5,000,000 were burned in ..crematories of Oswiecim and Birkenau. ..more than 3,000,000 were Jews poisoned by gas or ..victims of epidemics.” Seweryna Szmaglewska.
Poland too bears a heavy responsibility with regard to its 3,000,000 Polish Jews and the central focus of the mechanised slaughter of 4,500,000 of Europe’s Jews as a whole. In view of what Elie Wiesel has stated, and even if it was with regard to the particular space Auschwitz and Birkenau holds for the Jews, and for All of European Jewry we acknowledge the scale of the atrocity is an unparalleled assault upon humanity, its integrity and what was meant to be its civilising emphasis. Here, with Seweryna’s clear assessment now overidden by time, one can only imagine the assuming nature of the entire Catastrophe as it was being detailed originally. For an obvious failure to exactly portray the total human dimnension and human cost we still seek to comprehend, the value of human life becomes lost in the incessant search for a statistical meaning.
“..Murder of 6,000,000 Jews must never be reduced to a statistic.” Simon Wiesenthal.
Take Belzec for example, where there has been an assessment made which certainly contradicts the lower estimate of 500,000 Murdered Jews. That very conservative estimate is clearly fixed against an even greater tragedy which is attached to what amounts to 884,700 Jews who were Murdered here in this rather tiny spec of land in the back woods of Poland. If we then engage in what emerged from the atrocity conducted within Birkenau, which is also recognised as Auschwitz II, we jump from the proposal of 1,100,000 Jews Murdered to a theoretically possible Slaughter of 2,500,000 Jews having been Murdered. Of course, given Hoess’s managerial mind set, what was possible here during Hoesse’s own tenure operating the largest Death Factory amongst these Death Camps, is both a shocking realisation and a capability of extraordinary ruthless thoroughness.
“..2,000,000 to 2,500,000 were killed in Auschwitz. ..might have been 5,000,000.” SS Hauptsturmfuhrer Dr. Friedrich Entress.
At Chelmno, where between 152,000 Jews and 220,000 Jews were suggested as having been Murdered, we edge toward an understanding which figures that 400,000 Jews could have been Murdered there. Tragically, we must come to an inconsiderate conclusion that does not know the full extent of the tragedy played out in all of these Death Camps. No matter what exercises we bring to bear, in our ttempt to establish the most realistic prospect of knowing the awful truth which faced European Jewry. In acknowledgeing the true consequences of Hitler’s hatred here though, the Death Camps will never deliver their truer secrets and we can barter with that failing until have resolved nothing. Of course, all of this falls into line with what early assessments made use of, and that was the Witness Testimony emerging during the immediacy of the ordeal to have Survived. Certainly, much that was gleaned from those like Liana Millu, Seweryna Szmaglewska or Elie Wiesel must have gained their access to such detail from personal knowledge.
“..Jewish Question ..Ukraine ..more difficult ..in ..cities ..Jews ..major part ..population. ..more than 50%. ..elimination ..profound ..consequences ..military economy. ..systematic shooting ..Jews ..by ..Order Police. ..in public ..assistance ..Ukrainian militia ..members ..Wehrmacht. ..Aktionen ..men ..women ..children ..all ages ..manner ..carried out ..appalling. ..executions involved. ..150,000 to 200,000 Jews ..executed in ..Ukraine.” Professor Peter Heinz Seraphim.
While it more certainly true that we have wildly inaccurate assessments of the true toll of Jewish Destruction we must deliver some assessment which approaches a loss so consequential to all understanding of what happened, and just as importantly, what was allowed to happen. Assessments, details, statisitics which, by their very nature, will never give an account that is in agreement with the facts because we are short on those who know exactly what happened to them and their community’s. It is hardly credible then, when the likes of Hoettl, Korherr and Seraphim are all clear in their accuracy of the totals of Jews alive at the time Hitler sought a catchment of their number. This grouping, gathering and ghettoisation of Jews, in order to slay them, how is it that we can doubt the actual detail of what then assailed, mutilated and murdered these Jews of Europe.
“..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.
True, the map of Jewish existence had been drawn up prior to Hitler’s actual resolve to destroy each and every Jews he could, we then become circumspect in accepting what those perpetrator’s knew. Perpetrator’s like Boger, Eichmann, Entress, Hoess and Wisliceny must surely have known, suspected or had proven to them as they worked so closely annexed to the very slaughter they were detailed to exact. When we move onto another Death Camp, a place like Majdanek, there is a great deal of controversy surrounding this Death Camp within the vicinity of Lublin. Its ability to deliver what Hitler had demanded was on the periphery of Odilo Globocnik’s Aktion Reinhard Death Camps. We must assess that from 120,000 Jews to 200,000 Jews were Murdered there, even when we know we could assess a far greater toll on Jewish existence was raged here.
“..Eichmann immediately commented that Himmler believed ..figure of 6,000,000 Jews killed could not be correct ..that ..overall figure must be higher.” SS Sturmbannfuhrer Dr. Wilhelm Hoettl.
At Sobibor, a Death Camp on the outskirts of Wlodawa, where some 225,000 Jews to 300,000 Jews were Murdered, this particular place of annihilation came closest, for my own assessment, to being a Death Camp where its secrecy could be so much better managed than any of the other’s. Then there is the extraordinary feature of Death Camp Treblinka, which is in its location along the Warsaw to Bialystock train line. As such, its capacity was to be fed from the largest concentration of Polish Jewry in all of Poland, and the largest Jewish Ghetto population in all of The Holocaust, Warsaw. Here, as many as 700,000 Jews to 1,200,000 Jews were Murdered in as complete a manner as was sought. Here, evidenced in what is becoming an archeaological dig, still attempting to find what is no longer, what emerges is still an incomplete assessment of what we know we have lost.
“..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.
However, and what is profoundly true in what the Survivor puts to the test, in the Memory they have managed to bring forth, is that that test relates to all that they have lost, all that they have Survived and all that we must now ensure we learn from. It is important too to know who it is we class as a survivor, and I will continually raise the issue of what fully consitutes The Survivor to ensure memory nor History forgets this truth. It must remain a fact, that no Jewish Survivor is required to recognise all those other’s who stood alongisde them as they too awaited extermination as other’s outside The Holocaust term. The choice of the Jewish People for the selection process is what places the Jews in the throes of an atrocity built to annihilate them. Wholly, and without exception, the Jewish People were selected for Slaughter above and beyond all those other’s who feature in the death toll brought about during World War II.
“..A Polish Woman knows that she may die here ..but also that she may escape death. ..Jewish Women ..on ..other hand ..know that they must die.” Seweryna Szmaglewska.
I make no excuses for securing for memory these 6,000,000 Murdered Jews, and it is the unpalatable fact that they were uniquely chosen for destruction and annihilated in an unprecedented assault upon their very existence. Those then, those chosen for their Jewish antecedence are therefore the bearer of the term Survivor, for what they managed to survive. I have many other Book’s to write yet, but am stayed by the pressure commercialism places upon this sought after need of mine. I am fearful that I will not achieve my final objective, 6,000,000 works to present for the Memory of 6,000,000 Slaughtered Jewish lives whose memory is now being lost to us. So here we have what must be considered the evidence of a survivor of Auschwitz and Birkenau, Seweryna Szmaglewska whose fundamental evidence must differ most candidly from that of both Elie Wiesel here, and Liana Millu later, as they both present their testimony as Jews.
“..No bird ever flies low over Birkenau ..prisoners strain their eyes to search ..skies for them. ..Guided by smell or instinct ..birds avoid ..place. Birkenau does not exist officially ..its name never appears in an address. It is Oswiecim II. ..it was not ..intended to hold people for any length of time. It is a ..precrematorium waiting room ..for 20,000 to 30,000 people.” Seweryna Szmaglewska.
True, while Seweryna is a survivor of the Death Camp system, she admits to the exclusive and radical position for the Jews within that established machinery of destruction. As is noted, Seweryna Szmaglewska was not a Jew and was not certain her fate would match that of a Jewish one, always waiting to die. In that exclusive meaning, and for what appears as somewhat of an urban myth surrounding this particualr detail of whether birds do actually fly over Birkenau, or any of the 6 Death Cmps for that matter, perhaps the memory of the near 4,500,000 murdered Jews permeates the soil that much, its evidence places a barrier around their sites of annihilation. As for my own experience, this seeming truth has aligned itself to my very own impression, for as I stood in each and everyone of the 6 Death Camps, which are still there in Poland, it is strangely true that I never saw a Bird fly over any of the places I have so often described.
“..I know. ..never in ..history of mankind ..never anywhere in ..realm of human relations did anything occur to compare with what was inflicted on ..Jewish population of Poland.” Jan Karski.
But I am much more troubled by much more that is concerning with the misrepresented words in pages and the utterances from those are are now seeking to revise the truth. From within the very terms of The Holocaust, and eminent is the very nature of The Holocaust Survivor’s narration, what must be clearly recognised is that any Jew who managed to escape the attention of Hitler and his legion’s, as they sought to deliberately annihilate them, is for me a Holocaust Survivor and as such bears an example of the truth we must recognise. Here though, while Seweryna Szmaglewska deposits her own understanding of the nature of the Jewish presence, and from within the grounds of an annihilation process targetting them more exclusively, her testimony adds to the knowledge we seek. Seweryna clearly recognises the unequal task of any formative existence let alone survival for the Jew in the Death Camp system.
“..I was in ..camp Birkenau ..part of ..Oswiecim Camp. ..a woman in ..last month of pregnancy. ..had to walk 10 kilometres to ..place of work ..toiled ..whole day ..digging trenches. ..already ill and ..asked ..German ..for permission to rest. ..refused ..laughed at her and ..together with another SS man ..started beating her. ..situation of all ..women who ..were pregnant ..only during ..very last minutes were they permitted to stay away from work. ..newly born children ..if Jewish ..were immediately put to death.” Seweryna Szmaglewska.
For the Jews to ever emerge, and as she states, articulates and enunciates it, they ‘know that they must die’ along with any and all ‘newly born Children if Jewish’ within the sphere of Hitler’s influence. Here then, in its historical analysis of the factual truth of what The Holocaust must mean, a non-Jewish Pole lays before the World the truth of what Elie Wiesel knows and states as such with the unequalled treatment meted out exclusively to the Jewish People. So what then persuades me to go back to Poland, and revisit what is a certainty for me, and that much of Poland does Not respect the Memory of their own 3,000,000 Slaughtered Polish Jews. Much of that deeply concerned certainty is in response to many more questions than I ever have the answers to with regard to Polish Jewish and non-Jewish Polish relations. Many seekers, Survivors also, had asked me if there is a financial cost to visiting Auschwitz.
“..same old routine ..one foot in front ..other. Everything is forever ..same in ..lager ..pitilessly ..hopelessly ..same ..each hour brings ..same acts ..same commands ..same everything ..until soon even your thoughts take ..same predictable track ..making ..same fixed stops ..war ..home ..getting back ..a chronic sameness that becomes a torture.” Liana Millu.
The sentiment suppressed by such a question, and as to whether the commercialism of Auschwitz is reflective of what is overtaking the necessity of All memory, is being judged in financial terms, though not completely. For what Auschwitz, and certainly Birkenau, must never countenance anything which allows its personal consideration to rise above the very detail of the Slaughter of People, for being Jews. 6,000,000 of them European Jews and of that number, 3,000,000 of those were Polish Jews. Personally, I was willing to pay to arrive there at the gates to what amounted to a Jewish hell and follow my own particular course. I knew what I wanted to see. I knew where I wanted to be. I expected an emotional trauma that went way above what I had come to expect from reading or researching and even from listening to those whose experiences brought me here, I expected a shock wave of emotion.
“..proof ..which we have no right to consider as unfeasible out of prejudice ..has been supplied ..it still remains for us by digging deeper into ..analysis to ask why ..out of all ..imaginable psychological attitudes ..these particular ones ..imposed themselves. ..as soon as we admit that a mental or emotional reaction is not self-explanatory ..we are forced ..to make a real effort to discover ..reasons for it. ..in history ..as elsewhere ..causes cannot be assumed. They are looked for.” Marc Bloch.
Once I knew what it was I wished to see I looked for the places that would bring me closer to the answers I sought and I was prepared to pay the asking price to get me to where I needed to be. Once there, I did not need the services of those they called expert in what I had fought to already know with regards to each and everyone of the 6 Death Camps. I know too, from what I was due to witness or experience, that this would enable me to add another level of personal confrontation, with everything I sought to have confirmed to come closer to a comprhension which I still maintained I would never reach. Then, when a Survivor who stood beside me at the Hair display in Auschwitz and uttered what I can never forget:
“..My Mother’s Hair could be in there.”
I was confounded. I followed this Lady in astonishment and wondered how physically draining it must have been to simply utter those words. I had spent some 25 year’s placing on paper what I found so incomprehensible, so how could I ever contemplate any understanding with these very real, deeply emotional and poignant words. But hey! This Lady is a stronger Person than I and I needed to compose myself to add to what I could Never imagine she was going through. Nor could I suggest to her, or anyone else for that matter, what the unimagineable horror that was faced by these 1,100,000 Murdered Jews of Birkenau, nor what its terror could have been remotely like. As my own journey around the many sites I would visit, it continued to strike at me how significant certain moments become. Then, as I watched the billowing smoke over Birkenau, they were burning the fallen leaves in a far off corner, I knew why I had read, re-Read and visited both these two Books, but now it was for very divergent reasons.
Liana Millu – Smoke Over Birkenau,
“..I always felt like asking why God would help us in particular and allow last year’s unfortunate souls to freeze to death.” Liana Millu. and
Seweryna Szmaglewska – Smoke over Birkenau
“..My story tells of only one fragment of ..gigantic machine of death that was Oswiecim. I will give only ..data of what I observed or what I myself endured directly.” Seweryna Szmaglewska.
I was actually listing, and from the comparisons to be made sought refuge in the words that had been so immediately been presented to me as I stood in Auschwitz. But, and this is not the sole reason for comparison of differing tomes on a similar site occupied to one who knew she could survive and one who knew she might not. I now wished to compare my visit to Auschwitz, and in particular Birkenau, with a demand to further see if there was a changing difference in attitude to the ordeal for 3,000,000 Polish Jews. More than a third of these Polish Jews were consigned to a Slaughter here, and within Birkenau itself, as Jews, Polish Jews. Time itself has not been kind to the form of Jewish Memory that exists over Poland, and the smoke which has arisen from all 6 Death Camps, which were clearly established there, has been so blatantly dishonoured recently by a slanted and biased view of the totality of Jewish death’s within Poland.
“..These are ..experiences of one person alone ..a drop in ..vast immeasurable ocean. Without doubt there will be others who return alive from Oswiecim ..who will talk. There will be others who will come back from many other camps. ..majority will never return ..will never talk.” Seweryna Szmaglewska.
It is indeed reprehensible that some 6,000,000 people of Poland suffered death at the hands of the Nazi’s, but it is to the struggle for Survival of 3,300,000 of Polish Jewry that the intention to Slaughter them was contrived, conveyed and enacted. In this I make for a comparison in the very detail which clearly differentiated between the Slaughter of 3,000,000 of Polish Jewry. As a systematic, managed, industrialised and mechanised capacity for their Annihilation was proposed, all of which separates them out and thus confines them permanetly into the confines of The Holocaust, I remark on those other’s whose lives were taken, but as keenly separated from the Jewish Murdered as Hitler wished them to be. I do not lessen the blow to those many other’s who were taken from their homes within Poland, nor the rest of Europe, as their’s too was a mortal blow.
“..more than 4,000,000 were Murdered here.” SS Unterscharfuhrer Wilhem Boger.
But, the mass extermination programme, literally The Final Solution of The Jewish Question, whether that was to be wholly conducted within Poland or not, was for all intents and purposes, die Endlosung der Judenfrage, as it was conceived uniquely, for all of European Jewry. As an incremental step, the Murders of Jews in Germany and Austria preceded this concept of the Slaughter of all of European Jewry. As the accumulation of atrocity grew in fervour, all of which would in turn proceed against all of World Jewry, at some stage, Hitler’s sights grew away from mere containment, isolation or even deportation, but toward his final resolve. Tragically, and for 6,000,000 Jewish People, these Jews of Europe, both Men and Women with Their Children, the lament has gone up and we have no other consolation from the very fact that Hitler had sought to Murder 11,293,300 of these European Jews thn those Jews who did survive his intention.
“..Monday May 17th. 1943 ..Warsaw Ghetto is free of Jews.” SS Obergruppenfuhrer Jurgen Stroop.
So what is lamentable today, and especially with regard to the disappearance of 3,000,000 Polish Jews from Polish soil, we should not be ignoring the fact that much of what these Polish Jews have left behind has been seconded to non-Jewish ownership within Poland. What is the burgeoning disrespect owed to Polish Jewry emanating from within Poland, cannot be allowed to profit from the wrongs of the past. Can we forget so easily that what Stroop was stating, much of Poland was awake to as more than 374,000 Polish Jews had been removed from Warsaw, and inextricably toward Treblinka and their destruction there. Remember also, that from Warsaw, and all too many of these Polish Jews had been embarked through the Umschalgplatz, the site itself gives no respect to what tranbspired here. So I take from these two examples of books, and from visits I now mention here, words which add meaning to what is a uniquely Jewish tragedy, The Holocaust.
“..When in ..early days of 1933 ..first civil servant wrote ..first definition of non-Aryan ..fate of European Jewry was sealed.” Raul Hilberg.
I took two photographs, the first as I was due to visit the Polin Museum in Warsaw and the second is from this weekends visit to Cracow, September 27th. till September 29th. 2019. I was mindful too that during these dates some 78 years previously, 33,771 Jews of Kiev were brought to Babi Yar and were Murdered there and I was now in a place were the assault upon the Jews too was gaining ground in terms of its magnitude of destruction. So for me, what is striking, considering the enormous impact the Umschlagplatz has had on Polish Jewry, and the Ghetto Square of Cracow had on Cracow Jewry, is the rather feeble attempt to Remember these Polish Jewish losses. I cannot mitigate the imagining we could easily conjure up, certainly while in Cracow there is a significant absense of any Memorial suficient to detail the loss of in excess of 47,000 of Cracow’s Jews.
“..Eichmann went on to explain ..concept to me. ..planned biological destruction of ..Jewish race in ..Eastern Territories was disguised by ..concept and wording final solution. In later discussions on this subject ..same words final solution re-appeared over and over again.” SS Hauptsturmfuhrer Dieter Wisliceny.
Elsewhere, the Umschlagplatz is a barren and wasted effort at attributing to Polish Jewry any reminder here in any convincing terms as to what took place. It has always been an essential for me, that one cannot be an historian and thus ignore History, which is what appears to be happening with some, as we present the very detail of The Holocaust as it struck at the heart of European Jewry here in Poland. Whether it is the full range of the assault upon the Jews, from its initial inception toward its near completion, or whether we accept its uniqueness, neither is open to debate. Nor do we allow for the promotion of The Holocaust’s dilution, the measure of its term which represents 6,000,000 Slaughtered Jews. History is seemingly provoking an alienation with such distortions, where the factual truth becomes radically altered, forever changed by an ever irregular revision which displays no merit to truth, nor are the veracity of the facts that have emerged given what those like Eichmann sought to deliver.
“..If of 10,300,000 we had killed 10,300,000 I would be satisfied and say ..Good. We have exterminated an enemy.” SS Obersturmbannfuhrer Adolf Eichmann.
“..For a variety of reasons ..women’s situation was a good deal worse than that of ..men ..physical endurance ..coupled with work more arduous and degrading ..agonies of disrupted families ..and ..haunting presence of ..crematoria ..located right in ..middle of ..women’s camp ..inescapable ..undeniable ..ungodly smoke rising ..to contaminate every day ..every night ..every moment of respite or illusion ..every dream and timorous hope.” Primo Levi.
Two very striking books, amongst the many 1,000’s which have been written on the subject of The Holocaust resonate with what I wish to state here. While both are titled Smoke Over Birkenau, by Liana Millu and Seweryna Szmaglewska, they both have a wider exposition than just that for Birkenau. While I have no negative contention with either of these Books, well written discourses on the horror of Birkenau, I profess much more emphasis should be placed upon the smoke which permeated the areas surrounding all 6 of the Death Camps in Poland. While outside the front doors of the non-Jewish Polish population, the smell of burning of Jewish existence, the scent of the destruction of Jewish life and the visible signs of the cremation process for possibly 4,500,000 Jews of Europe was all too obvious to resident, traveller or passing observer to have been borne in such silence.
“..long believed that much of Jewish history ought to be rewritten in terms of ..pioneering services ..Jews ..forced to render by ..circumstances of their history.” Salo W. Baron.
While whole community’s would automatically qualify what they saw, what they smelled and what they even heard, and these community’s would then relay this evidence to anyone capable of listening, the lack of such testimony gives scant regard to the human despair being so callously ignored. While the information route certainly extended to the catholic church in Poland, knowing everything the local catholic population knew was a priestly business, this would then be relayed from parish to bishopric and on into the vatican itself. What is obvious however, and from this juncture alone, is that christian morality had declined to counter the atrocity on the very doorstep where faith professed all allegiance to christian charity. For what a failed ethics had sought to ignore in their midst, humanity bears a burden of having to reconcile the degeneracy of faith with the hatred laid before it.
“..For all I knew ..I could be out ..back door ..they out ..front ..running to ..police ..to tell them ..Jews had returned to Buczacz. You never knew if a neighbour was about to turn on you ..plenty had.” Alicia Appleman-Jurman.
But just as history is refuted by some, over the very usage of the varying terms employed, it is essential to maintain a position which does not allow for the alteration of any of the proven facts which history has delivered direct to our own front door. For me, that essential, which ensures I will never unuse a term, either to refute the history I know to be true, or to allow my own words to detract from that historical integrity, is accusing of the massive loss to humanity of 6,000,000 Jews rendered lifeless in this uniquely engineered Slaughter. It would appear, from much that is emerging in many Eastern European countries, is the tendency today to simply seek to alter what has been an historical truth, all because of its less accepting tone or its confrontation with the reality it presents. For those said countries, who wish to now negate the very narrative of The Holocaust search we are engaged in, they cannot simply alter history’s course.
“..Auschwitz may be 100’s of kilometers 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.
Any effort, to take away responsibility from the very integrity of the truth it presents will relegate all history to a slurry of infertile words and misdirected occasions. The safeguarding of The Holocaust must therefore assure that we can and should not allow any form of bias, or more especially discrimination, against any proven fact which is disagreeable to those seeking to subvert it. Lies must not be enabled to gain ground ahead of the implicit intention to record what is therefore true. It is exactly the case, as with Lord Russell in his Book, Scourge of the Swastika, that his wording is an identification with the ‘Polish Death Camps’ as they were clearly an identified positioning of a geographical placing. So while these written words exist, they must be upheld as they were conceived and nothing must ever be allowed to distract from that truth as it was then presented.
“..on ..Umschlagplatz ..history of Polish Jews came to an end ..arrested and seemingly terminated.” Jaroslaw Marek Rymkiewicz.
No one in History attributes the intention of the Death Camps, or the entire killing apparatus in The Holocaust for that matter, to other than Hitler, his lackey’s and those who collaborated their wish to gain in power or wealth from the destruction of European Jewry. It is perfectly clear that today’s clamour, for what should wholly transfix the truth, cannot move the placement of the atrocity that took place in Poland elsewhere. What seeks to catapult the Jews, perhaps 4,500,000 of them, including 3,000,000 of whom were Polish Jews, away from where they were murdered, within the confines of the Polish borders, is an effort aimed at not recognising that all of these Jews were murdered in Poland. This apparent intention not only corrupts the very destruction of these Jewish People but places their presence into some form of an abstraction which will slowly disguise their actual and final space of confinement.
“..Recognition of ..truth ..whole truth and opening ones heart and sharing ..experiences is necessary to stop ..evil ..to gel rid of ..aggression ..hate and ..prejudice. To convey ..Auschwitz truth is a great lesson. ” Halina Birenbaum.
This will only disadvantage any historical perspective that is to be gained from what truth must always know it corroborates. However, and from comments that are being made to distort facts and bend them to a bias we must not recognise, we simply cannot alter this statement by Lord Russell so as to facilitate a polish governments frenzy for the revision of the factual truth. The very fact that all x6 Death Camps were established in Poland does not conspire to make history adopt other than the truth, nor that these are other than Hitler constructs, manned by Hitler’s forces, and their collaborator’s, and intended to destroy all of European Jewry. This does nor preclude any other people’s from the atrocity, merely that they exist outside The Holocaust that was clearly designd strategically for the Slaughter of European Jewry.
“..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.
Of course there were others who were killed alongide the Jewish intended, though they remain devolved from The Final Solution of the Jewish Question because they were not Jews. Also, and more specifically, history does not suggest other than these 6 Death Camps were fully established by Hitler for his hate filled intentions for the Jewish People. While Hitler’s cronies administered all of these death facility’s, and admittedly profitted greatly from them, all too many non-Jewish Polish locals profitted also. There is no way of judging the complexion of all of this without stating that all of the Death Camps were built within the confines of Poland. None the less, what cannot be altered by the semantics of want for change, is now measured in the destructive capacity of these industrial murder factory’s. That very truth must remain central to the integrity of all historical accuracy in the search for comprehending the entire catastrophe.
“..There have been Hitlers everywhere and at all times ..it is Germany’s shame that so miserable a figure could become her leader. In order to germinate ..seed of Nazism had to find a favourable soil ..it found it in ..German Reich and ..Germans ..such as they had become in their political ..spiritual economic and social history.” Wilhelm Roepke.
What then forced the Jews into the pathway which led directly to their annihilation, or even directed the perpetrator’s to act with such disregard for all of humanity, is both contentious and problematic. Also, and when it is not totally accurate to relate the loss in human terms to the very capacity of the Death Camps to deal in their murderous effort, we step aside from statistical awareness to take a glimpse at the human tragedy to be witnessed. Also, and while the very terms of any fact must never be dulled by an over sensitivity to what was measured out to these 6,000,000 Jews of Europe, the veracity of this truth must be borne and worn by those who study and research History. We bolster our remembrance too, of all of these Jews by acknowledging that we become witnesses to what testimony has been left on our pages and as such, we must take up from where the Survivor leaves off and requires us to continue in their name.
“..Ponar is not a ..Camp. Jews ..shot there. Hitler plans to destroy all ..Jews of Europe ..Jews of Lithuania ..first in line. ..We must not go like sheep to ..slaughter!” Abba Kovner.
Here, that very assertion for remembrance so easily applies to Abba Kovner as he made his resistance cry, and toward the Jews of Vilna who should not go like sheep to the slaughter to a place like Ponar. What was known then of Ponar was known throughout the World of intelligence gathering, and still nothing was applied either to assist the Jews nor stem the blood flow of Jewish loss. For me, and it is patently obvious that the Jews, educated, polished, naieve in many senses, could not know what had been building in Hitler’s warped view was their annihilation. Even though a Ponary Woods stood outside the Towns and Villages of Jewish existence, what would eventually result in their being 6,000,000 less Jews at the end of World War II, could not be imagined. How could it considered then when we have difficulty coming to terms with the knowledge of its very enactment.
“..present destruction of Europe would not be complete and thorough had ..German people not accepted freely ..Nazi plan ..participated voluntarily in its execution and ..profited greatly therefrom” Raphael Lemkin.
While it is true that the World knew that Hitler was gaining ground politically, they also sensed his hatred for the Jewish People was growing commensurate with that. Yet the World failed to both acknowledge Hitler’s latent and brutal nature, telegraphed and evidenced on so many occasions, but the World also ignored its causal effects when it fell upon the very Jews he fully sought to annihilate. Not even Hitler himself envisaged that this capacity of destruction, from way back in the 1900’s was ever to become achievable. Nor am I alone in considering that in the early 1930’s, when he was gaining the power necessary where he could offer up his final solution, would the depth of the purge reach out and slaughter 6,000,000 Jews. However, as Hitler’s rise to power gained ground, and his ability to derail much of humanity from its moral and ethical base, as he struck deeper and deeeper at Jewish existence, Jewish life now begins to recede toward oblivion.
“..Night was falling. ..shadows softly settling on ..Earth promised rest and oblivion. We had gotten through another day. ..what would ..next one bring.” Liana Millu.
If we are then to proscribe to Hitler, what he finally managed to achieve, then during his race toward The Final Solution, the Jewish abandonment at Evian becomes pivotal. On July 6th. 1938, when 29 of the 33 Nations who were invited to this conference, and who actually turned up, each nation sought to evade their human responsibility in the approaching storm. As 250,000 Germans are continuously abused for being Jews, the World of nations took no steps to alleviate Jewish concerns which in turn bolstered Hitler’s resolve to act with apparent impunity. What we meet here and discuss, as the growing crisis for Jews under Hitlers yoke strangles further the Jewish ability to manouvre, and while Hitler was well along that measured route and toward the enormous atrocity that will be exhibited before history, we abandoned the Jewish People.
“..I remember sort of being yanked out of our flat and being ordered to march to ..space in ..open in ..town and there we were separated ..Men ..Women ..Children ..stood there in ..bitter cold November night ..me wearing short trousers.” Bernd Koschland.
Here is the human failure to act, aligned as it becomes to the inhuman action which progressed toward its final conclusion and 6,000,000 Jews of Europe will be consigned to their fate. What is most explicit as a final solution for 6,000,000 of Europe’s Jews emerges is what we now see in the Jewish murdered at Kristallnacht, and what amounts to a seeming World acquiesence. As Hitler surveys the remnants of burned out Synagogues as he himself evidenced it, then a steady progression away from the rhetoric of hatred and toward the savage brutality of its enactment is being fully orchestrated by Hitler. Tragically, at this moment in time, the World is more prepared for what is yet to emerge than even the Jews of Germany are aware of. As the Jews then, of both Germany and Austria, and finally all of Europe belatedly awake to realise, we now survey the land where hatred is feeding into a clamour for such widespread Slaughter.
“..German authorities ..now carrying into effect Hitler’s ..intention to exterminate ..Jewish people in Europe.” American State Department.
That the horrifying reality is descending upon the Jewish People, many of whom are slowly awakening to the dire situation they find themselves, all too many are powerless to do anything about it. Who could ever adjudge the barbarity that was to come, let alone the fuller extent to the open genocidal intention that was released. True, those Jews who suffered at the hands of the Nazi’s at this period, all of whom are left with Family’s so traumatised by the Murder’s, are more significant in number immediately after Kristallnacht. It is becoming clear, and how could the sensibly reasoned Jews believe this was anything other than isolated assaults upon individuals, and it not necessarily raged against them for being Jews. Though the night of ‘Broken Glass’ brought about what was evidently an enactment of brutal assault and murder aimed solely at People because they were Jews, this cannot be taken in isolation.
“..There are some important things to keep in mind. Our Rabbi ..who played a great role in my growth and development ..refused to leave Germany ..but ..knew exactly what was going on. Much like a captain refusing to abandon ship ..he stayed. Also ..Hamburg was not at this time antisemitic. ..Nazis had to import people from southern Germany to do their dirty work in destroying Hamburg’s synagogues. ..people in Hamburg would not destroy anything ..not lay a finger on ..Jewish buildings. ..After Kristallnacht ..we moved to a Spanish ..Portuguese synagogue. It was not completely orthodox but we were able to make changes to make it work for us. We were ..only place in Germany that was still able to worship in a synagogue after Kristallnacht took place.” Hugo Eichelberg.
For the murdered Jews of Berlin, Cologne, Dresden, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Kiel, Munich, Nuremberg, why would we not see and compare these murders with all the other murders elsewhere in the Reich at this precise moment and that were attached to the Jewish presence, and who had fully succumbed to such an assault. For me, for History for all other historians, the benefit of hindsight open the eyes to what now appears obvious but would seem so out of character for civilised humanity. Perhaps though, with some 50,000 Jewish Men, who are now taken in Germany and deported to a number of Concentration Camps, the like of Buchenwald, Dachau, Flossenburg and Sachsenhausen, these become synonymous with what will eventually emerge as industrialised killing sites, the Death Camps. Maybe too the Jewish People are awakening to the fact that is so evident to the World, that they might begin to consider there is now a concerted effort that Hitler has ranged against them.
“..fact that certain attempts may have miscaried does not justify abandoning effort. It is ..business of research to introduce more accuracy and exactness into these distinctions.” Marc Bloch.
So when we arrive at the these places for the murdered Jews in Poland, and this occured immediately as Hitler crosses his forces into Poland, September 1st. 1939, the progress is escalating. This initial assault upon the integrity of a Polish Jewish presence, was not merely prepatory for the final annihilation of all of European Jewry, it was a preparation for the Jewish consciousness to get to grips with their immediate dillema. Time harbours so many forms of identification that we perhaps too easily see what was not evident at the time. We react toward what overcame the Jewish People with a mixture of disbelief and evn incredulity when we cannot know what sanctioned their apparent inaction. As to what any of these formative conditionings had as yet prepared the Jews for, it is at least certain that what was later to emerge as the Final Solution could never have been envisaged by them.
“..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 grdually 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.” Auschwitz State Museum.
While it is always truer to categorically state, that the World watched and sat idly by as the unprecedented nature of the assault escalated into total annihilation for 6,000,000 Jews of Europe, the Jews of Denmark could not as yet see the ravine at BabiYar being infilled with their fellow Jews. Nor could the belief system which has sustained the Jews of existence identify with the truth which was now fast approaching. I am sorry to add my disdain to any belief system here, as my belief in anything to do with a god has been severely questioned, and as I recall what Elie Wiesel said about a god and particularly a god for the Jews, was that that particular Jewish god was ritually hanged in Auschwitz. That very precise god, in the form of a Jewish Child, sustained a longer and more painful death than those alongisde him, because of he was a Child and his body weighed lighter than the rope was intended for.
“..One day ..we saw 3 gallows ..3 black ravens ..erected on ..Applepaltz. Roll call. ..SS surrounding us ..machine guns aimed at us ..usual ritual. 3 prisoners in chains ..among them ..little pipel ..sad eyed angel. ..SS seem more preoccupied ..more worried than usual. To hang a child in front of 1,000’s of onlookers was not a small matter. ..head of ..camp read ..verdict. All eyes were on ..child. He was pale ..almost calm ..but he was biting his lips as he stood in ..shadow of ..gallows. This time ..Lagerkapo refused to act as an executioner. 3 SS took his place. ..3 condemned prisoners together stepped onto ..chairs. In unison ..nooses were placed around their necks. Long live liberty. ..Shouted 2 men. ..boy was silent. ..Where is merciful God ..where is He ..someone behind me was asking. At ..signal ..3 chairs were tipped over. Total silence in ..camp. On ..horizon ..sun was setting. Caps off. Screamed ..Lageralteste. His voice quivered. As for ..rest of us ..we were weeping. Cover your heads. Then came ..march past ..victims. ..2 men were no longer alive. Their tongues were hanging out ..swollen ..bluish. ..third rope was still moving ..Child ..too light ..was still breathing. And so he remained for more than half an hour ..lingering between life and death ..writhing before our eyes. And we were forced to look at him at close range. He was still alive when I passed him. His tongue was still red ..his eyes not yet extinguished. Behind me ..I heard ..same man asking ..For God’s sake ..where is God. ..from within me ..I heard a voice answer ..Where is he. This is where ..hanging here from this gallows.” Elie Wiesel.
For what Elie Wiesel here remarks, the camp system and more especially the Death Camp’s purpose, all must have seen the dissolution of hope, matched with the same fate which awaited all too many Children, both Jewish and non-Jewish, whose god remained on the sidelines looking in with total abandon. As inmates and perpetrators witnessed these awful scenes, and as they glared and watched humanity destroying itself, the question of god here resolves itself fully for my own personal take on what make a god. While we are deliberately awaiting the conscience of the World, while we are continuously seeing the ethical morality of a World caught in the morass of inaction, many of the Jewish People took too much time with deliberating. For these questioning Jews, believeing that we non-Jewish onlookers, bystanders, perpetrators and participators were good and civilised, or that somehow their god would somehow save them, they were mass Murdered in the chaos of those failed belief.
“..one Woman ..overcome with ..emotion stirred ..by memories ..burst into tears. Wailing with grief ..she named all ..names of those who would not see ..sacred candles lit next year ..nor ..year after ..nor ever again ..for any holiday on Earth. One after another ..Women took up her cries ..and soon nearly everyone was sobbing in desolation.” Liana Millu.
So it is nigh on impossible for me, one who seeks to come to terms with what I have become witness to over these past 25 years, is a manifestly Jewish catastrophe perpetrated by an ostensibly christian peoples. The difficulty then for me, so as to accuse those who acted against the Jews, when I am not a Jew is always concerning for me. Nor indeed can I act as a Jew, for I am not a Jew and yet, I have acted most diligently in memory of those Jews I stand squarely alongside in condemnation of what was done to them. I do all that I can possibly do so as to ensure the words I borrow come from Jews like Liana Millu, from other Survivor’s and more especially from Jewish non-Survivor’s, in order to add further merit to a eulogy that is Jewish in concept, intonation and intent. I remain heartily angry however, that what happened to 6,000,000 Jews is not solely for Jews to remonstrate with the World but for us to damn those who acted against our own humanity in detailing the destrcution of People, for being Jews.
“..we would suddenly be overcome by fatigue and dread ..6 hours passed ..6 more to go. Our heads drooped to ..table ..our bodies pleaded for rest ..when ..bell signalled ..end of ..break ..we dragged ourselves to our feet and staggered back to work.” Liana Millu.
Even on behalf of those murdered Jews, for whom all Jews must continually stand for, and with that said, it must be clearly understood that condemantion must come from us all. For any those of us, so assured of the accusation to be put before an indifferent World at the time, 6,000,000 Jewish stilled voices command our responses on their behalf. As I write, I can usher forth words for those Jews who voices may well have been stilled, where their words have been crushed and their existence blighted by ‘fatigue and dread’ and we are left to wonder at the miracle that persuades such humanity to struggle forth, we must endure their staggering effort, in order for us to understand humanity’s greatest need to survive. Staggered, under the pressure of a hatred few can contemplate, I have immersed myself so deeply in their struggle, and for those who will not sit out another day, my understanding of human nature is further blunted.
“..granted ..right to exist by ..god of our fathers at ..glimmer of ..dawn of human civilization ..4,000 years ago. For that right ..sanctified in Jewish blood from generation to generation ..we have paid a price unexampled in ..annals of ..nations.” Menachem Begin.
I realise full well that the odius and obvious atrocity inflicted upon these Jewish lives, by those people unworthy of the term human, we know all too well that they are indeed human beings, but of an extraordinary inhuman nature. Liana Millu informs me of this fact, as does Seweryna Szmaglewska, Elie Wiesel, Haim Ginott and the multitude of Jewish Writer’s, and many other’s, who place my effort in the midst of the most terrible detail of The Holocaust in order to gain the necessary words to relay back to our time. Those many, who clearly inform me, also ensure I am continuously vexed at what is allowed to become less than commemorative. It must be said though, and by the many who use the vehicle of this catastrophe, particularly in Poland today, to excuse either their actions or their inaction, this is not history. For us to now measure out that great loss for even 3,000,000 Polish Jews, truth must reign over the bias of any preferred position.
“..I am a survivor of a concentration camp.
My eyes saw what no person should witness:
gas chambers built by learned engineers.
Children poisoned by educated physicians.
Infants killed by trained nurses.
Women and babies shot by high school and college graduates.
So, I am suspicious of education.
My request is this:
Help your children become human.
Your efforts must never produce learned monsters, skilled psychopaths or educated Eichmanns.
Reading, writing, and arithmetic are important only if they serve to make our children more humane.” Dr. Haim Ginott.
Any distraction, which seeks to move us away from the truth, or in any way distorts from the very fact that in total, some 6,000,000 Murdered Jews of Europe can be sidelined in any way, is an immoral wrong. To seemingly seek to deprive these, those Jews of European Jewry, their very existence in the first place, and from what is given them their title, The Holocaust, is a further stain on what already condemns and damns us. Education cannot afford to ignore the consequences of what The Holocaust entails, especially as the selective method adopted to ensure all Jews secumbed to Hitler’s planned destruction for them is well evidenced. I look on as an educator and see far too much that is being given over to the placation of such bias, that the very Jewish presence in The Holocaust is being undermined. For me, and this is a personal standpoint from outside the Jewish trauma, as I am looking in at the Jewish tragedy.
“..pure myth ..Jews ..merely passive. ..Jews fought back ..to a degree no other community anywhere ..would have been capable of. ..they fought against hunger ..starvation ..disease ..a deadly Nazi economic blockade. They fought against murderers and ..traitors within their own ranks ..and ..were utterly alone in their fight. ..forsaken by God and ..man ..surrounded by hatred or indifference. ..there was much heroism ..little beauty ..much toil ..suffering ..no glamour. We fought back on every front ..biological ..economic ..propaganda ..cultural ..with every weapon ..possessed. In ..end ..ruse ..deception ..cunning beyond anything ..world had ever ..seen ..accomplished what hunger ..disease ..terror ..treachery ..could not. What defeated us ..Jewry’s unconquerable optimism ..eternal faith in ..goodness of man ..even a German ..a Nazi ..could never have ..renounced ..own humanity as to murder women ..’children’ coldly ..systematically. ..when we finally took up arms ..we inscribed in ..book of history epic of ..Ghetto Uprising.” Michal Berg.
It is indeed true that the very corrosive nature of the few, which seeks to inflict itself upon the many, distorts the view on history in order to distort its truth for hatred, false ideals or any given form of hateful bigotry. That essential, in the very implicit detail of The Holocaust is so true, politically as well as fundamentally, as that which is given over to any society educated as a whole which must ensure it preserves the integrity of what History must teach us. It is certain that evidence here sets the precedence, and The Holocaust is the most evident example of the role of the educated in the assault upon the very integrity of all humanity, while it was raged against the Jews of Europe. Recently, and for obvious reasons I did not wish to announce I was travelling to Poland again, and I certainly had no wish to broadcast my stay was to be in Cracow.
Cracow. ..ghetto ..very crowded. ..beyond ..Vistula River ..Podgorze ..belonged to ..poor quarters ..ramshackle houses ..wooden houses ..ruined houses about to collapse. Three or four families ..into tiny flats ..a room ..a kitchen. .. spread very rapidly ..particularly amongst ..children. ..difficult to maintain sanitary conditions.” Rivka Kuper.
Largely, I am urged by many questions to seek my own answers to the place of the Jew today in the Poland holding out from the memory of Jewish Poland of yesterday. I had assumed I had already achieved all of what I had set out to do, and up to this point, I believe I have. But thre is much more I need to know and understand and in order for the hurt and the pain of so many, their questions ringing loudly, I had made little headway with what impressions I had gained from visiting The Polin Museum in Warsaw nor from The Marek Edelman Centre in Lodz. With regards to whether pressure could be applied from the Polish government which could compromise the efficacy of the historical narrative to emerge from such glorious centres, I am deeply concerned. The staff I met were indeed committed, and connected to the very detail which called for such places as Museums as centres of educating.
“..Not all victims were Jewish in this place ..but all Jews were victims.” Elie Wiesel.
The obvious essential, in affording us the information on the immense struggle undertaken by both Jews, and non-Jews alike, during Hitler’s reign in Poland, must only contain the truth and not any interpretation of it. Of course, my visits to all the Death Camps in Poland have thrown up many concerns to do with the unbiased nature of the interred Jews being Remembered for being Jews. That persist to this day, whether we recognise the Jewish loss in its totality, or specific to a given Death Camp, Killing Site or the place of such Remembrance or indeed, even if we choose to recall them at all. For that matter, the seeming pressure to placate a newer agenda which identifies the Polish Jewish losses with that of non-Jewish Poles is an alarming emergence. For reasons pertaining to the Jewish presence, I have written x4 Books on the subject of The Holocaust and they remain as incomplete today for want of the fullest truth.
“..records ..incomplete as they are ..reveal ..deeds of men ..women who said nay heroically. ..Were they profound believers in truth and justice. ..idealists ..basically ..religious ..humanitarians. They were all of these and more. Our surviving civilisation owes these people ..grateful recognition they so richly deserve.” Dr. Philip Friedman.
As yet, much is till to emerge of how a World was assailed by such an assault and the Jewish People were allowed to suffer its consequences. I have done little, but I have honoured a promise I made to a Jewish Survivor’s memory with my visit’s to all of these x6 Death Camps built in Poland. It is clear, Poland does not seek to have these Death Camps recognised as established in Poland. While they were admittedly established by Hitler, they were concentrated in Poland and this is clearly a statement of geographical fact. Also, as I take issue with the World, which stood idly by and allowed such a form of indifference to the Jewish Struggle, I direct a similar accusation at Poland and its role. For this atrocity to become the visited and intolerable nature of the hatred evidenced as The Final Solution of the Jewish Question, too many in the World stood aside.
“..Up to January 18th. 1945 ..a total of about 5,000,000 were burned in ..crematories of Oswiecim and Birkenau. ..more than 3,000,000 were Jews poisoned by gas or ..victims of epidemics.” Seweryna Szmaglewska.
Poland too bears a heavy responsibility with regard to its 3,000,000 Polish Jews and the central focus of the mechanised slaughter of 4,500,000 of Europe’s Jews as a whole. In view of what Elie Wiesel has stated, and even if it was with regard to the particular space Auschwitz and Birkenau holds for the Jews, and for All of European Jewry we acknowledge the scale of the atrocity is an unparalleled assault upon humanity, its integrity and what was meant to be its civilising emphasis. Here, with Seweryna’s clear assessment now overidden by time, one can only imagine the assuming nature of the entire Catastrophe as it was being detailed originally. For an obvious failure to exactly portray the total human dimnension and human cost we still seek to comprehend, the value of human life becomes lost in the incessant search for a statistical meaning.
“..Murder of 6,000,000 Jews must never be reduced to a statistic.” Simon Wiesenthal.
Take Belzec for example, where there has been an assessment made which certainly contradicts the lower estimate of 500,000 Murdered Jews. That very conservative estimate is clearly fixed against an even greater tragedy which is attached to what amounts to 884,700 Jews who were Murdered here in this rather tiny spec of land in the back woods of Poland. If we then engage in what emerged from the atrocity conducted within Birkenau, which is also recognised as Auschwitz II, we jump from the proposal of 1,100,000 Jews Murdered to a theoretically possible Slaughter of 2,500,000 Jews having been Murdered. Of course, given Hoess’s managerial mind set, what was possible here during Hoesse’s own tenure operating the largest Death Factory amongst these Death Camps, is both a shocking realisation and a capability of extraordinary ruthless thoroughness.
“..2,000,000 to 2,500,000 were killed in Auschwitz. ..might have been 5,000,000.” SS Hauptsturmfuhrer Dr. Friedrich Entress.
At Chelmno, where between 152,000 Jews and 220,000 Jews were suggested as having been Murdered, we edge toward an understanding which figures that 400,000 Jews could have been Murdered there. Tragically, we must come to an inconsiderate conclusion that does not know the full extent of the tragedy played out in all of these Death Camps. No matter what exercises we bring to bear, in our ttempt to establish the most realistic prospect of knowing the awful truth which faced European Jewry. In acknowledgeing the true consequences of Hitler’s hatred here though, the Death Camps will never deliver their truer secrets and we can barter with that failing until have resolved nothing. Of course, all of this falls into line with what early assessments made use of, and that was the Witness Testimony emerging during the immediacy of the ordeal to have Survived. Certainly, much that was gleaned from those like Liana Millu, Seweryna Szmaglewska or Elie Wiesel must have gained their access to such detail from personal knowledge.
“..Jewish Question ..Ukraine ..more difficult ..in ..cities ..Jews ..major part ..population. ..more than 50%. ..elimination ..profound ..consequences ..military economy. ..systematic shooting ..Jews ..by ..Order Police. ..in public ..assistance ..Ukrainian militia ..members ..Wehrmacht. ..Aktionen ..men ..women ..children ..all ages ..manner ..carried out ..appalling. ..executions involved. ..150,000 to 200,000 Jews ..executed in ..Ukraine.” Professor Peter Heinz Seraphim.
While it more certainly true that we have wildly inaccurate assessments of the true toll of Jewish Destruction we must deliver some assessment which approaches a loss so consequential to all understanding of what happened, and just as importantly, what was allowed to happen. Assessments, details, statisitics which, by their very nature, will never give an account that is in agreement with the facts because we are short on those who know exactly what happened to them and their community’s. It is hardly credible then, when the likes of Hoettl, Korherr and Seraphim are all clear in their accuracy of the totals of Jews alive at the time Hitler sought a catchment of their number. This grouping, gathering and ghettoisation of Jews, in order to slay them, how is it that we can doubt the actual detail of what then assailed, mutilated and murdered these Jews of Europe.
“..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.
True, the map of Jewish existence had been drawn up prior to Hitler’s actual resolve to destroy each and every Jews he could, we then become circumspect in accepting what those perpetrator’s knew. Perpetrator’s like Boger, Eichmann, Entress, Hoess and Wisliceny must surely have known, suspected or had proven to them as they worked so closely annexed to the very slaughter they were detailed to exact. When we move onto another Death Camp, a place like Majdanek, there is a great deal of controversy surrounding this Death Camp within the vicinity of Lublin. Its ability to deliver what Hitler had demanded was on the periphery of Odilo Globocnik’s Aktion Reinhard Death Camps. We must assess that from 120,000 Jews to 200,000 Jews were Murdered there, even when we know we could assess a far greater toll on Jewish existence was raged here.
“..Eichmann immediately commented that Himmler believed ..figure of 6,000,000 Jews killed could not be correct ..that ..overall figure must be higher.” SS Sturmbannfuhrer Dr. Wilhelm Hoettl.
At Sobibor, a Death Camp on the outskirts of Wlodawa, where some 225,000 Jews to 300,000 Jews were Murdered, this particular place of annihilation came closest, for my own assessment, to being a Death Camp where its secrecy could be so much better managed than any of the other’s. Then there is the extraordinary feature of Death Camp Treblinka, which is in its location along the Warsaw to Bialystock train line. As such, its capacity was to be fed from the largest concentration of Polish Jewry in all of Poland, and the largest Jewish Ghetto population in all of The Holocaust, Warsaw. Here, as many as 700,000 Jews to 1,200,000 Jews were Murdered in as complete a manner as was sought. Here, evidenced in what is becoming an archeaological dig, still attempting to find what is no longer, what emerges is still an incomplete assessment of what we know we have lost.
“..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.
However, and what is profoundly true in what the Survivor puts to the test, in the Memory they have managed to bring forth, is that that test relates to all that they have lost, all that they have Survived and all that we must now ensure we learn from. It is important too to know who it is we class as a survivor, and I will continually raise the issue of what fully consitutes The Survivor to ensure memory nor History forgets this truth. It must remain a fact, that no Jewish Survivor is required to recognise all those other’s who stood alongisde them as they too awaited extermination as other’s outside The Holocaust term. The choice of the Jewish People for the selection process is what places the Jews in the throes of an atrocity built to annihilate them. Wholly, and without exception, the Jewish People were selected for Slaughter above and beyond all those other’s who feature in the death toll brought about during World War II.
“..A Polish Woman knows that she may die here ..but also that she may escape death. ..Jewish Women ..on ..other hand ..know that they must die.” Seweryna Szmaglewska.
I make no excuses for securing for memory these 6,000,000 Murdered Jews, and it is the unpalatable fact that they were uniquely chosen for destruction and annihilated in an unprecedented assault upon their very existence. Those then, those chosen for their Jewish antecedence are therefore the bearer of the term Survivor, for what they managed to survive. I have many other Book’s to write yet, but am stayed by the pressure commercialism places upon this sought after need of mine. I am fearful that I will not achieve my final objective, 6,000,000 works to present for the Memory of 6,000,000 Slaughtered Jewish lives whose memory is now being lost to us. So here we have what must be considered the evidence of a survivor of Auschwitz and Birkenau, Seweryna Szmaglewska whose fundamental evidence must differ most candidly from that of both Elie Wiesel here, and Liana Millu later, as they both present their testimony as Jews.
“..No bird ever flies low over Birkenau ..prisoners strain their eyes to search ..skies for them. ..Guided by smell or instinct ..birds avoid ..place. Birkenau does not exist officially ..its name never appears in an address. It is Oswiecim II. ..it was not ..intended to hold people for any length of time. It is a ..precrematorium waiting room ..for 20,000 to 30,000 people.” Seweryna Szmaglewska.
True, while Seweryna is a survivor of the Death Camp system, she admits to the exclusive and radical position for the Jews within that established machinery of destruction. As is noted, Seweryna Szmaglewska was not a Jew and was not certain her fate would match that of a Jewish one, always waiting to die. In that exclusive meaning, and for what appears as somewhat of an urban myth surrounding this particualr detail of whether birds do actually fly over Birkenau, or any of the 6 Death Cmps for that matter, perhaps the memory of the near 4,500,000 murdered Jews permeates the soil that much, its evidence places a barrier around their sites of annihilation. As for my own experience, this seeming truth has aligned itself to my very own impression, for as I stood in each and everyone of the 6 Death Camps, which are still there in Poland, it is strangely true that I never saw a Bird fly over any of the places I have so often described.
“..I know. ..never in ..history of mankind ..never anywhere in ..realm of human relations did anything occur to compare with what was inflicted on ..Jewish population of Poland.” Jan Karski.
But I am much more troubled by much more that is concerning with the misrepresented words in pages and the utterances from those are are now seeking to revise the truth. From within the very terms of The Holocaust, and eminent is the very nature of The Holocaust Survivor’s narration, what must be clearly recognised is that any Jew who managed to escape the attention of Hitler and his legion’s, as they sought to deliberately annihilate them, is for me a Holocaust Survivor and as such bears an example of the truth we must recognise. Here though, while Seweryna Szmaglewska deposits her own understanding of the nature of the Jewish presence, and from within the grounds of an annihilation process targetting them more exclusively, her testimony adds to the knowledge we seek. Seweryna clearly recognises the unequal task of any formative existence let alone survival for the Jew in the Death Camp system.
“..I was in ..camp Birkenau ..part of ..Oswiecim Camp. ..a woman in ..last month of pregnancy. ..had to walk 10 kilometres to ..place of work ..toiled ..whole day ..digging trenches. ..already ill and ..asked ..German ..for permission to rest. ..refused ..laughed at her and ..together with another SS man ..started beating her. ..situation of all ..women who ..were pregnant ..only during ..very last minutes were they permitted to stay away from work. ..newly born children ..if Jewish ..were immediately put to death.” Seweryna Szmaglewska.
For the Jews to ever emerge, and as she states, articulates and enunciates it, they ‘know that they must die’ along with any and all ‘newly born Children if Jewish’ within the sphere of Hitler’s influence. Here then, in its historical analysis of the factual truth of what The Holocaust must mean, a non-Jewish Pole lays before the World the truth of what Elie Wiesel knows and states as such with the unequalled treatment meted out exclusively to the Jewish People. So what then persuades me to go back to Poland, and revisit what is a certainty for me, and that much of Poland does Not respect the Memory of their own 3,000,000 Slaughtered Polish Jews. Much of that deeply concerned certainty is in response to many more questions than I ever have the answers to with regard to Polish Jewish and non-Jewish Polish relations. Many seekers, Survivors also, had asked me if there is a financial cost to visiting Auschwitz.
“..same old routine ..one foot in front ..other. Everything is forever ..same in ..lager ..pitilessly ..hopelessly ..same ..each hour brings ..same acts ..same commands ..same everything ..until soon even your thoughts take ..same predictable track ..making ..same fixed stops ..war ..home ..getting back ..a chronic sameness that becomes a torture.” Liana Millu.
The sentiment suppressed by such a question, and as to whether the commercialism of Auschwitz is reflective of what is overtaking the necessity of All memory, is being judged in financial terms, though not completely. For what Auschwitz, and certainly Birkenau, must never countenance anything which allows its personal consideration to rise above the very detail of the Slaughter of People, for being Jews. 6,000,000 of them European Jews and of that number, 3,000,000 of those were Polish Jews. Personally, I was willing to pay to arrive there at the gates to what amounted to a Jewish hell and follow my own particular course. I knew what I wanted to see. I knew where I wanted to be. I expected an emotional trauma that went way above what I had come to expect from reading or researching and even from listening to those whose experiences brought me here, I expected a shock wave of emotion.
“..proof ..which we have no right to consider as unfeasible out of prejudice ..has been supplied ..it still remains for us by digging deeper into ..analysis to ask why ..out of all ..imaginable psychological attitudes ..these particular ones ..imposed themselves. ..as soon as we admit that a mental or emotional reaction is not self-explanatory ..we are forced ..to make a real effort to discover ..reasons for it. ..in history ..as elsewhere ..causes cannot be assumed. They are looked for.” Marc Bloch.
Once I knew what it was I wished to see I looked for the places that would bring me closer to the answers I sought and I was prepared to pay the asking price to get me to where I needed to be. Once there, I did not need the services of those they called expert in what I had fought to already know with regards to each and everyone of the 6 Death Camps. I know too, from what I was due to witness or experience, that this would enable me to add another level of personal confrontation, with everything I sought to have confirmed to come closer to a comprhension which I still maintained I would never reach. Then, when a Survivor who stood beside me at the Hair display in Auschwitz and uttered what I can never forget:
“..My Mother’s Hair could be in there.”
I was confounded. I followed this Lady in astonishment and wondered how physically draining it must have been to simply utter those words. I had spent some 25 year’s placing on paper what I found so incomprehensible, so how could I ever contemplate any understanding with these very real, deeply emotional and poignant words. But hey! This Lady is a stronger Person than I and I needed to compose myself to add to what I could Never imagine she was going through. Nor could I suggest to her, or anyone else for that matter, what the unimagineable horror that was faced by these 1,100,000 Murdered Jews of Birkenau, nor what its terror could have been remotely like. As my own journey around the many sites I would visit, it continued to strike at me how significant certain moments become. Then, as I watched the billowing smoke over Birkenau, they were burning the fallen leaves in a far off corner, I knew why I had read, re-Read and visited both these two Books, but now it was for very divergent reasons.
Liana Millu – Smoke Over Birkenau,
“..I always felt like asking why God would help us in particular and allow last year’s unfortunate souls to freeze to death.” Liana Millu. and
Seweryna Szmaglewska – Smoke over Birkenau
“..My story tells of only one fragment of ..gigantic machine of death that was Oswiecim. I will give only ..data of what I observed or what I myself endured directly.” Seweryna Szmaglewska.
I was actually listing, and from the comparisons to be made sought refuge in the words that had been so immediately been presented to me as I stood in Auschwitz. But, and this is not the sole reason for comparison of differing tomes on a similar site occupied to one who knew she could survive and one who knew she might not. I now wished to compare my visit to Auschwitz, and in particular Birkenau, with a demand to further see if there was a changing difference in attitude to the ordeal for 3,000,000 Polish Jews. More than a third of these Polish Jews were consigned to a Slaughter here, and within Birkenau itself, as Jews, Polish Jews. Time itself has not been kind to the form of Jewish Memory that exists over Poland, and the smoke which has arisen from all 6 Death Camps, which were clearly established there, has been so blatantly dishonoured recently by a slanted and biased view of the totality of Jewish death’s within Poland.
“..These are ..experiences of one person alone ..a drop in ..vast immeasurable ocean. Without doubt there will be others who return alive from Oswiecim ..who will talk. There will be others who will come back from many other camps. ..majority will never return ..will never talk.” Seweryna Szmaglewska.
It is indeed reprehensible that some 6,000,000 people of Poland suffered death at the hands of the Nazi’s, but it is to the struggle for Survival of 3,300,000 of Polish Jewry that the intention to Slaughter them was contrived, conveyed and enacted. In this I make for a comparison in the very detail which clearly differentiated between the Slaughter of 3,000,000 of Polish Jewry. As a systematic, managed, industrialised and mechanised capacity for their Annihilation was proposed, all of which separates them out and thus confines them permanetly into the confines of The Holocaust, I remark on those other’s whose lives were taken, but as keenly separated from the Jewish Murdered as Hitler wished them to be. I do not lessen the blow to those many other’s who were taken from their homes within Poland, nor the rest of Europe, as their’s too was a mortal blow.
“..more than 4,000,000 were Murdered here.” SS Unterscharfuhrer Wilhem Boger.
But, the mass extermination programme, literally The Final Solution of The Jewish Question, whether that was to be wholly conducted within Poland or not, was for all intents and purposes, die Endlosung der Judenfrage, as it was conceived uniquely, for all of European Jewry. As an incremental step, the Murders of Jews in Germany and Austria preceded this concept of the Slaughter of all of European Jewry. As the accumulation of atrocity grew in fervour, all of which would in turn proceed against all of World Jewry, at some stage, Hitler’s sights grew away from mere containment, isolation or even deportation, but toward his final resolve. Tragically, and for 6,000,000 Jewish People, these Jews of Europe, both Men and Women with Their Children, the lament has gone up and we have no other consolation from the very fact that Hitler had sought to Murder 11,293,300 of these European Jews thn those Jews who did survive his intention.
“..Monday May 17th. 1943 ..Warsaw Ghetto is free of Jews.” SS Obergruppenfuhrer Jurgen Stroop.
So what is lamentable today, and especially with regard to the disappearance of 3,000,000 Polish Jews from Polish soil, we should not be ignoring the fact that much of what these Polish Jews have left behind has been seconded to non-Jewish ownership within Poland. What is the burgeoning disrespect owed to Polish Jewry emanating from within Poland, cannot be allowed to profit from the wrongs of the past. Can we forget so easily that what Stroop was stating, much of Poland was awake to as more than 374,000 Polish Jews had been removed from Warsaw, and inextricably toward Treblinka and their destruction there. Remember also, that from Warsaw, and all too many of these Polish Jews had been embarked through the Umschalgplatz, the site itself gives no respect to what tranbspired here. So I take from these two examples of books, and from visits I now mention here, words which add meaning to what is a uniquely Jewish tragedy, The Holocaust.
“..When in ..early days of 1933 ..first civil servant wrote ..first definition of non-Aryan ..fate of European Jewry was sealed.” Raul Hilberg.
I took two photographs, the first as I was due to visit the Polin Museum in Warsaw and the second is from this weekends visit to Cracow, September 27th. till September 29th. 2019. I was mindful too that during these dates some 78 years previously, 33,771 Jews of Kiev were brought to Babi Yar and were Murdered there and I was now in a place were the assault upon the Jews too was gaining ground in terms of its magnitude of destruction. So for me, what is striking, considering the enormous impact the Umschlagplatz has had on Polish Jewry, and the Ghetto Square of Cracow had on Cracow Jewry, is the rather feeble attempt to Remember these Polish Jewish losses. I cannot mitigate the imagining we could easily conjure up, certainly while in Cracow there is a significant absense of any Memorial suficient to detail the loss of in excess of 47,000 of Cracow’s Jews.
“..Eichmann went on to explain ..concept to me. ..planned biological destruction of ..Jewish race in ..Eastern Territories was disguised by ..concept and wording final solution. In later discussions on this subject ..same words final solution re-appeared over and over again.” SS Hauptsturmfuhrer Dieter Wisliceny.
Elsewhere, the Umschlagplatz is a barren and wasted effort at attributing to Polish Jewry any reminder here in any convincing terms as to what took place. It has always been an essential for me, that one cannot be an historian and thus ignore History, which is what appears to be happening with some, as we present the very detail of The Holocaust as it struck at the heart of European Jewry here in Poland. Whether it is the full range of the assault upon the Jews, from its initial inception toward its near completion, or whether we accept its uniqueness, neither is open to debate. Nor do we allow for the promotion of The Holocaust’s dilution, the measure of its term which represents 6,000,000 Slaughtered Jews. History is seemingly provoking an alienation with such distortions, where the factual truth becomes radically altered, forever changed by an ever irregular revision which displays no merit to truth, nor are the veracity of the facts that have emerged given what those like Eichmann sought to deliver.
“..If of 10,300,000 we had killed 10,300,000 I would be satisfied and say ..Good. We have exterminated an enemy.” SS Obersturmbannfuhrer Adolf Eichmann.
