This Holocaust Author's Auschwitz Blog

“..task of history is to stand above ..laws of nature and above human weakness and pass on ..truth to ..future.” Maria Hochberg-Marianska.

There was no liberation of the Jews from The Holocaust, as their destruction continued and did not end at the Victory in Europe or even Victory over Japan day celebrations they could not fully endorse. As the World came to terms with the less than fuller extent of World War II’s cost, the Jewish Survivor found themselves cut off from former homes. Surviving Jews were exempted from any semblance of normality that the existence they had previously enjoyed might have suggested. In Poland especially, the very term Pogrom did not disappear from the vicinity of that great hatred, so clearly expressed from within Poland even prior to Hitler’s assault upon Polish sovereignty.

“..Let me explain that even though I had been in Auschwitz I did not know about ..gas chambers. Can you imagine that. We thought ..when we were there ..that our parents and ..children were taken to camps which were much better. We assumed that they couldn’t live through ..camp we were in. It was not until a large contingent from Auschwitz came to Belsen that I had to give up that idea that they were safe. I met 2 women in their 30’s who spoke Hungarian and they asked if it was true that ..Hungarian transports were so severely selected people to ..camps and ..others to be gassed. I said ..What are you saying. ..And they looked at me as if I were foolish ..but they didn’t want to destroy my hope and so didn’t try to explain. I ran back to ..tent and collapsed. I think I cried for weeks. I finally realized that everybody was killed.” Maria Frank Abrams.

In places like Dabrowa-Tarnowska, Grodno, Przemysl and Przytyk local Jews were set upon, beaten and Murdered by their erstwhile non-Jewish but Polish neighbours. For Polish Jewry especially, hatred was still held out to all of those Polish Jews who had deemed it prudent to have Survived Hitler’s intention for them. While we can remember Chelm, Cracow, Kielce, Lublin, Radom and though we might forget to recall the name of Sokoly, I am influenced to ensure Sokoly is never forgotten. From the very moment I commenced this particular journey, and in the name of a 4 year old Jewish Child, Sokoly has become central to the remembrance of all too many extinguished Jewish Communities.

“..long lines of good ..innocent people ..accompanied by crying children ..walking on and on ..ordered about by a handful of men who bully and beat them until they nearly drop. No one is spared. ..sick ..elderly ..children ..babies ..pregnant women ..all ..marched to their death. ” Anne Frank.

For 6,000,000 Jews, thrown to oblivion as the vestiges of a hatred we recognise still to this day, Hitler dismembered what was a vibrant Jewish World and afterwards, what remained of Polish Jewry was not considered worthy of saving. For an innocent Jewish Girl, Tovah ‘Tokele’ Olshak, I have always felt personally concerned that her loss should be so gravely undermined by the terms denial seeks to present to the World. I have concentrated those efforts that are necessary, in order to add to the memory of the 6,000,000 Jews lost to us, whether we consider it our concern or not. While combating the spuriously directed hatred, so engraved into the minds of deniers, the hatred is still unwilling to deliver some peace to the memory of these 6,000,000 Slaughtered Jews of Europe, of which Tovah is one.

“..rest of ..women ..children ..old people ..700 of them ..taken to ..wooden barn. ..forced inside. ..Nazis opened gasoline cans ..spread gas all around ..barn ..and set it on fire. Flames soon gutted ..entire structure.” Yehuda Adelman.

My birth place of Ireland has taught me at least, that the island of Ireland belongs to the Irish People and any nation is always built upon the needs of those People it seeks to represent. But that is Not to say that any national status can be gained at any or all costs. Nor by any means, which would demonstrate a lack of the essential needs for those who seek a state that presents for them their desire for peaceful coexistence, can peace be ignored. For 4,000 years of Israeli History, what informs us of their right of return is the same ideal that must be used to settle all issues of Home, Status and a belonging to ones own.

“..About 2,000 Jewish Men ..Women ..Children murdered in ..first aktion. ..shot ..buried in a mass grave on ..Fedor Hill. Some ..buried in ..Jewish cemetery.” Alicia Appleman-Jurman.

Again, that is Not to say status can come at any or all costs and while Israel has been assailed for all 72 years of its existence as a State, it is duty bound by its own Historical legacy to act in accordance with those principles it has adopted for all of its People. However, and in the place of Israel, and I openly admit that I am a supporter of Jewish existence, the Jews are a Race of People worthier of a World that has remained indifferent to them. For more than the 2,000 years expressed in no christian ideology of concern, where no moral adherence to their struggle to persist has been audible above a whisper, Israel has furrowed a lonely path.

“..And what of them ..little children. ..little ones ..and those smaller still who not long ago were to be seen in ..arms of their mothers ..smiling. ..prattling at strangers. ..waving their tiny hands. ..O ..unrecognizable world in which these children and their mothers are gone.” Rachel Auerbach.

As an historian, what I hope I am at all times is honest and truthful, ever searching for why hatred is all too easily adopted. It is evident in all the years of our own History that, in order to subjugate People, oppress People or in the case of the Jewish People, extinguish their very existence, we have left our conscience at the doors to destructive spaces. For me, pressed by a publisher to consider writing on the Irish struggle for a solution that would be whole on the island of Ireland, I deferred. It was apparent to me, while not wanting to be accused of any form of bias, that an Irish former catholic could not navigate himself away sufficiently from that accusation of bias to allow my words to be honestly read.

“..Bitterness ..pain fill ..Children’s recollections of those poles who hunted them ..betrayed them ..handed them to ..common enemy ..of cruelties perpetrated by other children ..of every human ignominy. ..there are few such testimonies ..reason ..simple ..painful ..children ..are not here to record their stories.” Maria Hochberg-Marianska.

The essential in writing for me, and it is my only aim to write with integrity, and as such I will respond honestly, could not be left open to the vexation of such as the accusation that bias would infer. To what I consider is factually incorrect, either historically biased or indeed a lie, I will not consider other than what is essential in what I write and that is the Truth. I have no wish ever to conflate my work with the perception others might see, as they do in their antagonism for the State of Israel. A moral vacuum was created after The Holocaust, due both the intolerable atrocity and the indifference shared along the margins of the overall annihilation of 6,000,000 Jews of Europe.

“..As our Children cried underneath ..gallows ..wrath of ..world we did not hear.” Natan Alterman.

As an earlier student historian of military conflict, I could no longer allow World War II to detain my search, as our very humanity had been obliterated in the midst of what I would consider was a camouflage to Hitler’s larger aim in The Final Solution of the Jewish Question. Then, as I moved searchingly toward The Holocaust, which threatened the very basis of all civilisation, I found myself both as a writer and as a human being. Of course today there are all too many who would use the precepts of The Holocaust to formulate their own analogy toward these courses of human events. With the sheer weight of the denier lobby, a virus is putting us under fire, a continuance of the very hatred that consumed these Jews.

“..There was also resistance of ..spirit. Some children in ..ghettoes and camps were taught ..in illegal classes. Just to stay alive one more day was an immense struggle for ..humans.” Inge Auerbacher.

In the midst of this Second World War, there is the analogy of such a hatred that was enveloping 6,000,000 Jews, and in a newer conflagration, that it is to be recognised as more than the biblical proportions which could identify it. What brings about the discipline of the historical scientist is the surety of the factual integrity being maintained so that only the truth brings us forward into certainty. Regardless of how we perceive history or regard The Holocaust, any lie against what rages to threaten us, this virus of such a rancid hatred, all too recognisable to the term antisemitism, causes much for us to be very concerned with.

“..Day and night ..dragged off. ..deprived ..of ..possessions. Families ..torn apart ..all ..separated. Children coming home ..find ..their parents have disappeared. Women return ..to find ..their families gone.” Anne Frank. Violence has always been extorted by various nations in exerting conflicts into becoming wars that the ordinary citizen will undoubtedly pay for, and with their lives. Today is clear, that for us to learn from this regressive history, it must teach us the value of shared community and the humanity we are concerned with. For far too long, regarded as indigent, the paucity of our learning ensured, in the ignorance expected, there has always been a certainty for the elitist route of progression that will deliver us to painful struggles and death. Whether we see it or not, we are a World People or we contort to the narrowest view which benefits only the narrow minded.

“..I shall never forget this scene. ..this was no march to ..carriages ..but rather a mute protest ..against this murderous regime. ..a procession ..no human eye has ever witnessed. ..They were going to their death with eyes full of contempt for ..murderers. Seeing Korczak. ..Germans asked ..who is this man. ..I could no longer contain myself. I tried to hide ..stream of tears running from my eyes.” Nachum Remba.

So for those, totally fixated on the gains that are established, so as to maintain the not so common good, these leadership miscreants are the custodians of a self interest at an elitist core. I recall, that whilst the ordinary human being, who sought to admonish the ruling bourgeois, and it was the ordinary human being who had fallen, it was those who had already decided and had defined their petty nature in our demise. For me, and on confronting what Hitler attempted for all the Jews of Europe, I have encountered a similar form of hatred which spells out the antisemitism of hatred that the Jews of Europe faced.

“..Reminiscences make a sad ..depressing ..literature.” Januscz Korczak.

Tragically too, what the World remained indifferent to, and as the Surviving Jews were incarcerated in former camps or deprived of any right to return to former home, once more the World was found lacking. Today, marking what for Surviving Jews must have given them the only hope Europe had not presented to them, is spelled out in a further 72 years of continued assault against their integrity. With the creation of the State of Israel, a Homeland that the Surviving Jews and World Jewry could call their own, the escalation of attacks upon all Jewish integrity has grown. Once more, and here, the historian must defend his position, and I will resolutely.

“..My dear ..we are well. I work a little at ..orphanage while Korczak is doing a great deal. I have not arrived because I do not want to leave without Children. Yours ..Stefa.” Stefania Wilczynska.

As a being of human contention, I cannot simply resort to the abuse and accusation, as some do, to avoid any articulation of the promotion of personal concerns against biased positions. Honestly, I do not have an opinion in history and use merely the factual truth to add any form of discourse necessary to convey what has been done, achieved and was wrongly conducted against these 6,000,000 Jews of Europe. Don’t get me wrong. Where I disagree is in the treatment of The Holocaust narrative by those whose agenda is both self serving and concealing of any part of the integrity already brought to the table.

“..There are 2 Billion People in ..World ..and I constitute a community many 1,000,000 times greater ..therefore I have ..right ..I have ..duty to look after my own trillions toward which I have certain responsibilities. Januscz Korczak.

The Holocaust is a unique atrocity in all of History and it does not warrant any comparison with any other genocides, perceived or otherwise in all of our history together. However, I see the evil than mankind does and what is an absent in all such expression is the empty rhetoric of the hater. One cannot measure loss of human life nor existence in any way that detains loss within figures, to contain human expressions of loss statistically. Humans are not so easily confined. For me, I see the good in people, and while I suggest that no evil cannot be brought forward without the willingness of those who engage in it to do so, we allow humanity to emerge as a necessary conduit to what will civilise more of us.

“..After my Mother was Murdered ..I was deported together with my Father to Transnistria. We have spent many weeks on a penal trek of sorts. For days we have been slogging along roads deep in mud ..a lengthy convoy surrounded by Romanian and Ukrainian soldiers who flog and shoot at us. Father holds my hand tight ..my feet no longer touch ..ground. ..sound of ..water slices at my legs and my hips. It’s dark all around ..apart from Father’s hand I don’t feel a thing. Truth to tell ..I don’t feel his hand either ..since my hand is already partly numb. If I move just a little I’ll surely drown. Even Father won’t be able to pull me out. Lots of Children have already drowned this way. I fall asleep ..still clutching his hand. But not for long. While the sky is still dark ..soldiers light up ..convoy with sniping and gunfire. Father holds my hand and tugs me. ..mud is deep and I can’t feel ..bottom. I’m still half asleep and tremendously afraid. It hurts. I call out. Father hears my call and answers at once.” Aharon Appelfeld.

It is also essential that there can be no parallels with drawn with terms of The Holocaust, as that which has confiscated 6,000,000 Jewish lives remains incomparable. I have learned My lessons from history and how to treat people respectfully has its own skill set. The historian must defend his position, and I will do so with a respect which such science demands, and which is expected of all of those of any being of human contention. For all human beings, historian or otherwise, we cannot simply resort to abuse and accusation, as some deniers do, so as to avoid the articulation of a promotion of personal positions.

“..For long months we had been suffering because ..world was deaf and dumb to our unparalleled tragedy. We complained about Polish public opinion ..about ..liaison men in contact with ..Polish government in exile. ..why weren’t they reporting to ..world ..story of ..slaughter of Polish Jewry. We accused Polish liaison men of deliberately keeping our tragedy quiet ..so that their tragedy might not be thrown into ..shade. ..now it seems that all our interventions have finally achieved their purpose. There have been regular broadcasts over ..English radio ..last few weeks ..treating of ..cruelties perpetrated on Polish Jews ..Belzec. Today ..a broadcast summarizing situation ..700,000 ..number of Jews killed in Poland was mentioned. ..broadcast vowed revenge ..a final accounting for all these deeds of violence. Oyneg Shabes has fulfilled a great historical mission. It has alarmed ..world to our fate ..and perhaps saved 100’s of 1,000’s of Polish Jews from extermination. ..I do not know who of our group will survive ..to work through our collected material. ..one thing is clear to all of us. Our toils ..tribulations ..devotion and constant terror ..have not been in vain. We have struck ..enemy ..hard blow. ..not important ..revelation of ..incredible slaughter of Jews will have ..desired effect ..whether or not ..methodical liquidation of entire Jewish communities will stop.” Emanuel Ringelblum.

I honestly do not have an opinion in history, as I keep stressing, but all too often, while merely advancing the factual truth, that this might suggest there is an emotion missing. The weight of 6,000,000 losses deeply affects me, and I realised that in such an immense and overwhelming response in each of the 6 Death Camps I visited. With any responsibility for memory comes a concern, and we have to know that it is focused upon the very People we seek to remember. In the case of the Jewish People, who are The Holocaust, Holocaust denial is a hatred that adds to the treachery of the humanity already confronted by the catastrophe for the Jews.

“..I saw a flood once in ..mountains. Wooden huts ..torn from their foundations were carried above ..raging waters. One could still see lighted lamps in them ..Men ..Women ..Children in their cradles were tied to ..ceiling beams. Other huts were empty inside ..but one could see a tangle of arms waving from ..roof ..like branches blowing in ..wind waving desperately toward heaven ..toward ..river banks for help. At a distance ..one could see mouths gaping ..but one could not hear ..cries because ..roar of ..waters drowned out everything. And that’s how ..Jewish masses flowed to their destruction at ..time of ..deportations. Sinking as helplessly into ..deluge of destruction. And if ..for even one of ..days of my life ..I should forget how I saw you then ..my people ..desperate and confused ..delivered over to extinction ..may all knowledge of me be forgotten and my name be cursed like that of those traitors who are unworthy to share your pain.” Rachel Auerbach.

That denial makes a liar of all of those Allied troops who fought and died to inform us, does not matter a jot to those whose hatred transcends all human concern. That so many Allied troops died to defeat such a tyranny, The Holocaust itself becomes an immense meaning in why they fought and died against such hatred. So as we arrive up to a date we are presented with, are we to then deny to history that the State of Israel has been assigned by a Covenant that is 4,000 years older than their abandonment by us in The Holocaust. We know all too well why the present day State has been afforded its mandate to a return and it is on the backs of these 6,000,000 Jews of Europe, Slaughtered as we dithered, as we neglected and stood aside as they were obliterated.

“..One of our companies held out for 40 minutes and another ..for more than 6 hours. ..mine set in ..brush makers area exploded. Several of our companies attacked the dispersing Germans. Our losses in manpower are minimal. That is also an achievement. Yechiel fell. He fell a hero ..at ..machine gun. I feel that great things are happening and what we dared do is of great ..enormous importance. Beginning from today we shall shift over to ..partisan tactic. Three battle companies will move out tonight ..with two tasks ..reconnaissance and obtaining arms. Do you remember ..short range weapons are of no use to us. We use such weapons only rarely. What we need urgently ..grenades ..rifles ..machine guns ..explosives. It is impossible to describe ..conditions under which the Jews of the ghetto are now living. Only a few will be able to hold out. ..remainder will die sooner or later. Their fate is decided. In almost all ..hiding places in which 1,000’s are concealing themselves it is not possible to light a candle for lack of air. With ..aid of our transmitter we heard ..marvellous report on our fighting by ..Shavit radio station. ..fact that we are remembered beyond ..Ghetto walls encourages us in our struggle. Peace go with you ..my friend. Perhaps we may still meet again. ..dream of my life has risen to become fact. Self defence in ..Ghetto will have been a reality. Jewish armed resistance and revenge are facts. I have been a witness to ..magnificent ..heroic fighting of Jewish men in battle.” Mordechai Anielewicz.

It is an intolerable hatred that any form of racism presents to us and we do not draw ethical nor moral conclusions from history without the efficacy which restores principles to the narrative debate responding to all hatreds. In 1948, that Jewish Covenant, a well defined Christian surety, enable all Jews, and not just Survivoral Jews, to have a home that had been there’s since many forms of civilising influence had already pointed them toward it. I took a risk with my choice to comment, to write and accuse and I gambled that the World had not become jaded by what I have to say. Health has impacted upon my ability, so to now do other than write ensures my time is representative more fully of what I initially assumed would be a witness phase with 3 Books to write.

“..As long as we live ..they too will live ..for they are now a part of us. As we remember them.” Felicia Carmelly.

It has been a rather nuanced journey, interspersed with many accusations, threats and devious methods to undermine the effort I see that is necessary in memory. Why would so many miscreants object to naming an austrian corporal in the title of my 4th. Book. Unless it is due to an accusation of his inhuman treatment and Slaughter of these 6,000,000 Jews of Europe. Or is the name of Belzec so shocking in terms of The Holocaust which confined so many more Jews. This miniscule hater, with a well known forgery for a War causing 50/70 million deaths in WWII, deserves nothing but our contempt a despising of his very presence in our World.

“..On ..October 5th. 1942 ..I visited ..building office at Dubno ..my foreman told me that in ..vicinity of ..site Jews from Dubno ..had been shot in 3 large pits ..each about 30 metres long ..3 metres deep. About 1,500 persons ..killed daily. All ..to be liquidated. As ..shootings had taken place in his presence he was still very upset. Moennikes and I went straight to .. pits. Nobody prevented us. I heard a quick succession of shots from behind one of ..mounds of earth. ..people ..got off .. lorries ..men ..women ..children ..all ages ..undress upon ..order of ..SS man ..who carried ..whip. They had to put their clothes on separate piles ..shoes ..top clothing ..underclothing. I saw ..heap of shoes ..800 to 1,000 pairs ..great piles of clothes and undergarments. Without screaming or weeping these people undressed ..stood in family groups ..kissed each other ..said their farewells ..waited for a sign from another SS man ..who stood near ..pit ..also with ..whip in ..hand. During ..15 minutes that I stood near ..pit ..I did not hear anyone complain or beg for mercy. I watched a family of about 8 ..man ..woman ..both about 50 ..with their children ..aged about 1 ..8 ..10 ..and 2 grown up daughters ..about 20 to 24. An old woman with snow white hair was holding ..1 year old child in her arms ..singing something to it ..tickling it. ..child was crowing with delight. ..man and wife were looking on with tears in their eyes. ..father was holding ..hand of a boy about 10 ..speaking to him softly. ..boy was fighting back his tears. ..father pointed to ..sky ..stroked ..boy’s head and seemed to explain something to him. At that moment ..SS man at ..pit shouted something to his comrade ..who separated off about 20 persons and ordered them to go behind ..mound of earth. Among them .. family I have mentioned. I still clearly remember a dark haired ..slim girl who pointed to herself as she passed close to me and said ..’23’ I walked to ..other side of ..mound and found myself standing before an enormous grave. ..people lay so closely packed ..one on top of ..other ..only their heads ..visible. Nearly all had blood running over their shoulders from their heads. Some ..still moving. Some lifted an arm and turned a head to show that they were still alive. ..pit was already two-thirds full. I estimated that it already contained about 1,000 people. I looked round for ..man who had shot them. He was ..SS man ..sitting on ..edge of ..pit ..legs dangling into it. He had a sub machine gun ..smoking a cigarette. ..people ..completely naked ..went down ..steps ..cut in .. clay wall of ..pit ..climbed over ..heads of those already lying there ..to ..place indicated by ..SS man. They laid down in front of ..dead or injured people. Some of them caressed those who were still alive and spoke to them softly. Then I heard a series of shots. I looked into ..pit and saw ..bodies were twitching or ..heads lay motionless on top of ..bodies which lay before them. Blood was pouring from their necks. I was surprised I was not ordered away ..but saw there were also 2 or 3 uniformed policemen standing nearby. ..next batch was already approaching. They climbed into ..pit lined up against ..previous victims and were shot. When I walked back round ..mound I noticed another lorry load of people ..had just arrived. ..it included sick ..infirm people. A very thin old woman ..with terribly thin legs ..was undressed by others who were already naked ..while 2 people supported her. ..woman appeared to be paralysed. ..naked people carried ..woman around ..mound. I left with Moennikes ..drove back to Dubno. ..morning of ..next day ..I visited ..site ..saw about 30 naked people lying near ..pit ..about 30 to 50 metres ..from it. Some ..still alive ..looked straight in front of them with a fixed stare ..seemed not to notice ..chillness nor ..workers of my firm who stood around. A girl of about 20 spoke to me and asked me to give her clothes and help her escape. At that moment we heard a fast car approach and I noticed it was an SS detail. I moved away to my site. 10 minutes later we heard shots from ..vicinity of ..pit. Those Jews who were still alive had been ordered to throw ..corpses into ..pit then they themselves had to lie down in ..pit to be shot in ..neck.” Hermann Graebe.

I require your assistance more and more, and will judge where I belong in these Community’s I am attached to by the response to that need. There has Never been any other demand than to see in my work a very passionate response to a graver wrong no man has done against their fellow man. It is difficult at times to navigate the personal attacks as how else am I to be recorded, as I criticised for writing the words of concern for so many People abandoned with little or no concern for them. For me, unless the words I write are read, they remain isolated from those who might be otherwise critical of their content. I am not a Jew. There is No reason I should be.

“..In ..second chamber ..an army of teenage girls sheared ..newcomers’ body hair with scissors and razors. Some left their ‘clients’ cut and bruised ..others tugged while cutting our hair. ..girl who attended to me was by no means an expert hairdresser ..but it appears she wanted me to look dignified. She did not seem to remember how mercilessly her hair had been shorn. I smiled and whispered ..Bog zaplac May God reward you. It came naturally ..expressing all my appreciation for a human being who had appeared at ..bottom of ..pit and shone a bright light in ..darkness.” Pearl Benisch.

But the violence that was state sponsored is an affront to all of humanity and as it contorts to suppress newer dissent, what Hitler sought from violence, as he used it to fight a World War. This premise in conflict was as a camouflage to cover his more directed aim, The Final Solution of The Jewish Question. The World recognises that differences are best resolved when nations require the written word to end the act of conflict. But while the strife continues, the attention of any Peoples is diffused and distracted by government hoping control will be maintained, even if truth concerning past endeavours seals the pact we have with the truth we must see as essential.

“..Salaspils ..largest of ..Camps. ..authorities do not encourage remembering. No where on monuments ..is it mentioned that Jews died there.” Maja Abramowitch.

I do Not seek to waste my words but they can be wasted. People who do not understand the loss to humanity involved in 6,000,000 Jews being Slaughtered, are not my readers. They will never appreciate why I endeavour to recall, remember and accuse in the name of all humanity thrown aside as these Jews are thrown headlong into oblivion. If, or when I compose 6,000,000 words on such an atrocity, I will Never come to terms with the bitter sadness such inhumanity will undoubtedly present. I expect you all to be mortally offended by what I place before you but please see past the word or the image to know the gravity of intolerance that lays unhidden behind the scene.

“..anyone ..attempting to write ..on ..nature of Nazism ..will not be able to express ..truth ..Nazism’s cruelty and barbarism. ..no writer among ..gentiles is qualified for this task. ..a Jewish writer who lives ..life of his people ..who feels ..suffers their agony ..cannot find a true path here. Only one who feels ..taste of Nazi rule ..only one who ..bared his back to ..lashes ..only ..a writer ..if he is a man of sensitivity ..might be able to.” Chaim Aron Kaplan.

Know too that my words alone cannot offend the sensitivity of anyone who knows their effect is meant to remind us of all that is lost. I recall reading from Maria Marianska, one of the earliest chroniclers of the Jewish Children in The Holocaust. Her pains taking and evidential collection of Children’s experience ensured I know why my effort is essential to the Jewish life that was lived and that it is not further degraded. What comes of the wasted energy of those who seek to secure any reason for us not to remember that there was once many more Jewish People amongst us and we choose to recall them to both honour them and accuse their abuser’s.

“..a powerful ..pitiless fact ..thick grass is growing over ..mounds ..ditches ..pits that are ..common graves of ..murdered Jewish Children.” Maria Hochberg-Marianska.

It is impossible for me to consider that anyone, knowing Hitler’s mein kampf existed in this world, that a World could not know the hatred of Hitler’s intention. I have perhaps given all, and all too often at times, and sometimes that is without respite, but I would not change the course of any part of that. While it still amazes me though that my work does continually add confusion to the essential of remembering, there is in those asking why I continue in such past memory, that 6,000,000 Jews are no more speaks more volumes than my words have yet to do. My very effort to recall as many of these 6,000,000 human beings cannot be diminished by anyone questioning any part of my commitment.

“..In spite of everything I still believe ..people are really good at heart.” Anne Frank.

True, I am having to slow things down, but I am none the less committed, and wholly fixed to the cause which 6,000,000 Slaughtered Jews have presented to me. For me too, cutting back on the essential that has always driven me toward too many sites that are seeking to destroy the memory essential in recalling all we have lost, with the same or similar seeming vindication for their hatred, I am assured my words remain essential. I not here merely judging that the tutoring of our compassionate concern must be raised above the clamour to silence a charitable duty. I have stood up to so much and even those who still see the atrocity is the pictures I present, have simply not looked at the progress of their delivery, the rounding up, the hounding, the accumulation of hatred that so destroyed 6,000,000 Jews of Europe.

Always to Remember, Never to Forget.

“..If there were only one decent German ..then he should be cherished despite that whole barbaric gang ..and because of that one decent German it is wrong to pour hatred over an entire people.” Etty Hillesum.

The Proclamation of Independence on behalf of the Provisional Government of Israel Tel Aviv, Israel May 14th. 1948, 5th. Iyar 5708.

The Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel

The Land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious and political identity was shaped. Here they first attained to statehood, created cultural values of national and universal significance and gave to the world the eternal Book of Books. After being forcibly exiled from their land, the people kept faith with it throughout their Dispersion and never ceased to pray and hope for their return to it and for the restoration in it of their political freedom. Impelled by this historic and traditional attachment, Jews strove in every successive generation to re-establish themselves in their ancient homeland.

In recent decades they returned in their masses. Pioneers, defiant returnees, and defenders, they made deserts bloom, revived the Hebrew language, built villages and towns, and created a thriving community controlling its own economy and culture, loving peace but knowing how to defend itself, bringing the blessings of progress to all the country’s inhabitants, and aspiring towards independent nationhood. In the year 5657 (1897), at the summons of the spiritual father of the Jewish State, Theodore Herzl, the First Zionist Congress convened and proclaimed the right of the Jewish people to national rebirth in its own country.

This right was recognized in the Balfour Declaration of the 2nd November, 1917, and re-affirmed in the Mandate of the League of Nations which, in particular, gave international sanction to the historic connection between the Jewish people and Eretz-Israel and to the right of the Jewish people to rebuild its National Home. The catastrophe which recently befell the Jewish people – the massacre of millions of Jews in Europe – was another clear demonstration of the urgency of solving the problem of its homelessness by re-establishing in Eretz-Israel the Jewish State, which would open the gates of the homeland wide to every Jew and confer upon the Jewish people the status of a fully privileged member of the community of nations. Survivors of the Nazi holocaust in Europe, as well as Jews from other parts of the world, continued to migrate to Eretz-Israel, undaunted by difficulties, restrictions and dangers, and never ceased to assert their right to a life of dignity, freedom and honest toil in their national homeland.

In the Second World War, the Jewish community of this country contributed its full share to the struggle of the freedom- and peace-loving nations against the forces of Nazi wickedness and, by the blood of its soldiers and its war effort, gained the right to be reckoned among the peoples who founded the United Nations. On the 29th November, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution calling for the establishment of a Jewish State in Eretz-Israel; the General Assembly required the inhabitants of Eretz-Israel to take such steps as were necessary on their part for the implementation of that resolution. This recognition by the United Nations of the right of the Jewish people to establish their State is irrevocable.

This right is the natural right of the Jewish people to be masters of their own fate, like all other nations, in their own sovereign State. Accordingly we, members of the People’s Council, representatives of the Jewish Community of Eretz-Israel and of the Zionist Movement, are here assembled on the day of the termination of the British Mandate over Eretz-Israel and, by virtue of our natural and historic right and on the strength of the resolution of the United Nations General Assembly, hereby declare the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz-Israel, to be known as the State of Israel. We declare that, with effect from the moment of the termination of the Mandate being tonight, the eve of Sabbath, the 6th Iyar, 5708 (15th May, 1948), until the establishment of the elected, regular authorities of the State in accordance with the Constitution which shall be adopted by the Elected Constituent Assembly not later than the 1st October 1948, the People’s Council shall act as a Provisional Council of State, and its executive organ, the People’s Administration, shall be the Provisional Government of the Jewish State, to be called “Israel.”

The State of Israel will be open for Jewish immigration and for the Ingathering of the Exiles; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations. The State of Israel is prepared to cooperate with the agencies and representatives of the United Nations in implementing the resolution of the General Assembly of the 29th November, 1947, and will take steps to bring about the economic union of the whole of Eretz-Israel.

We appeal to the United Nations to assist the Jewish people in the building-up of its State and to receive the State of Israel into the community of nations. We appeal – in the very midst of the onslaught launched against us now for months – to the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to preserve peace and participate in the up building of the State on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its provisional and permanent institutions.

We extend our hand to all neighbouring states and their peoples in an offer of peace and good neighbourliness, and appeal to them to establish bonds of cooperation and mutual help with the sovereign Jewish people settled in its own land. The State of Israel is prepared to do its share in a common effort for the advancement of the entire Middle East. We appeal to the Jewish people throughout the Diaspora to rally round the Jews of Eretz-Israel in the tasks of immigration and up building and to stand by them in the great struggle for the realization of the age-old dream – the redemption of Israel. Placing our trust in the Almighty, we affix our signatures to this proclamation at this session of the provisional Council of State, on the soil of the Homeland, in the city of Tel-Aviv, on this Sabbath eve, the 5th day of Iyar, 5708 May 14th. 1948.

David Ben-Gurion, Daniel Auster, Mordekhai Bentov, Yitzchak Ben Zvi, Eliyahu Berligne, Fritz Bernstein, Rabbi Wolf Gold, Meir Grabovsky, Yitzchak Gruenbaum, Dr. Abraham Granovsky, Eliyahu Dobkin, Meir Wilner-Kovner, Zerach Wahrhaftig, Herzl Vardi, Rachel Cohen, Rabbi Kalman Kahana, Saadia Kobashi, Rabbi Yitzchak Meir Levin, Meir David Loewenstein, Zvi Luria, Golda Meir Myerson, Nachum Nir, Zvi Segal, Rabbi Yehuda Leib Hacohen Fishman, David Zvi Pinkas, Aharon Zisling, Moshe Kolodny, Eliezer Kaplan, Abraham Katznelson, Felix Rosenblueth, David Remez, Berl Repetur, Mordekhai Shattner, Ben Zion Sternberg, Bekhor Shitreet, Moshe Shapira and Moshe Shertok.

“..I could write ..hundred’s ..thousands of pages ..and I would never manage to exhaust all ..misery ..to bring out all ..bitter details of our existence. Especially if I were to begin to enumerate all ..cases of personal disaster ..tragedy of former lives ..great individual sufferings that came before this ..collective misery ..it would be endless. ..volume of man’s pain is immense ..impossible to measure this ocean of suffering ..abyss of ..human soul under terror and torture is unfathomable. To try to describe all this ..a useless endeavor. ..far exceeds my capabilities.” Hanna Levy-Hass.

I promised a Survivor of Belsen I would visit all x6 Death Camps within Poland, assured that these were the Death Camps intended solely for the Slaughter of all Jews. This does not mean in the slightest that the Concentration and Labour Camp system did not also mean death and destruction to those Jews who entered them. However, that was the difference I placed before all considerations of what was and remains these x6 Death Camps in Poland. It remains an unequivocal resolve by Hitler and his legions that wherever the Jew was found, the Jew would remain, deceased.

“..We travelled by train in 3rd. class passenger coaches ..arrived early in ..morning at another camp ..Belsen. ..We had never heard this name before and had no idea what it was like. ..as soon as we marched into ..camp ..we could see that it was even larger than Westerbork ..and much worse. ..barbed wire ..guard towers ..electrified fences ..SS ..with bloodhounds ..machine guns ..searchlights. ..a real concentration camp.” Paul Oppenheimer.

While the ultimate intention was always the destruction of all the Jewish People, these x6 industrial complexes were soley erected to ensure every ounce of Jewish existence would be obliterated within them. Once ready to make the journeys, and while it was much more than preparedness allows, I was not at all prepared for what over comes one human being in places were 1,000,000’s of other human beings will no longer leave. That was the overriding memory as I stood at the gates of each of these places, known to ignominy as Auschwitz, Belzec, Birkenau, Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibor and Treblinka.

“..German people could have tried to save those people ..but maybe they were afraid for themselves. I feel afraid when I hear people say The Holocaust never happened. I feel nothing but pity for ..ignorance of such people ..shame on them ..they should know better. ..1,500,000 ..Jewish Children were murdered by ..Nazis 1,000’s of other innocent children perished because they were considered not worthy of a life. Why would I hate these people? That would make me ..same as them and I will never be that.” Tomi Reichental.

While No Jew was ever meant to escape the clutches of the industrialised process of annihilation in each of any of the Camps, Death Camps and otherwise, some did, far too many did not. I would suggest the burden of being able to present myself before them all, knowing full well they would remain as I walked back out at the end of my visits, was deeply overwhelming. But this is not my journey through the Jewish hell on earth as just these x6 Death Camps represent. It is to add to what I know all added to the destructive process which added to at least 6,000,000 Slaughtered Jews, and Belsen was an able assistant in this atrocity we know is The Holocaust.

“..during ..German occupation of Holland ..Germans decided to concentrate ..Jewish population in Amsterdam East. I was 11 years old. ..We saw families dragged from their homes ..never to be heard of again. ..God only knew what was happening to them.” Hetty Verolme.

On October 25th. 1943, some 1,700 Jews who were being detained within Belsen, held as exchane hostages to a World’s indifference toward them, were deported to Auschwitz and oblivion within Birkenau. Then, on October 28th. 1944 as Hitler’s 1,000 year reich was nearing its end, 988 years short of that aspiration, a major selection from amongst the Jews of Birkenau sees 8,000 deported toward the Concentration Camp at Belsen. Amongst these are Anne Frank and her Sister Margot Frank who had both been transported to Auschwitz at the end of October 1944. Wednesday August 30th. 1944

“..children who know no joy. Fear ..nothing but fear ..these poor little mortified creatures ..standing ..hours ..bodies filled with terror ..gazefixed ..awaiting whatever might happen. They bury their heads in an old rag ..press up against ..adults ..seeking shelter from ..cold and ..fear. ..their eyes remain wide open ..alarmed ..like those of a hunted animal.” Hanna Levy-Hass.

They were now brought to Belsen Concentration Camp near Hannover in Germany and where already there was a typhus epidemic ready to take them. The outbreak, which broke out shortly thereafter, as the lack of any humanitarian concern for those interned there, would see many more 1,000’s of lives ravaged by disease, hunger and always the starvation. Death for so many, including Margot, just a few short days before Anne herself, and who both succumbed to their same debillitating effects, were merely weeks away from freedom.

“..My Sister Margot was born in Frankfurt am Main ..Germany ..1926. I was born ..June 12th. 1929. I lived in Frankfurt until I was 4. Because we are Jewish ..my father immigrated to Holland in 1933.” Anne Frank.

It is uncertain when Anne actually died though this is more likely to have been sometime toward the end of February or the beginning of March. However, the liberation of Belsen should have been effected on April 12th. 1945 whilst the stench of the destruction was filtered through to Allied High Command. The forces of General Miles Dempsey, CO British 2nd. Army had driven the German Army back to Germany. The ring of allied fire had signalled its arrival for quite a number of days around Luneberg Heath and for the SS contingent of Belsen, they were fully aware of what approached them.

“..This human mass is heterogeneous. It is piled together here ..by force ..by violence ..in this small patch of dirty ..humid ground ..forced to live in ..most humiliating conditions and to endure ..most brutal deprivations ..that all human passions ..weaknesses have unleashed themselves ..taking on beastly forms.” Hanna Levy-Hass.

Lead units of the 11th. Armoured Division, had sought in the intervening period, allowed for the SS to relinquish its tenuous hold and from April 12th. till the command post at Belsen was handed over, April 15th., this short period secured more Jews would die. Of course, the certainty that more Nazi evidence was consigned to the inferno and, the future prospect for any Jewish Survivor of Belsen was weakened, indefensibly. Both Anne and Margot’s bodies are interred some where in a mass grave, no marker to show exactly where! Belsen was liberated on April 15th. 1945 by the British Army.

“..Conentration Camp is not more and only ..silent mass graves tell ..terrible story of what took place there during ..barbaric regime of ..Nazis. I had great resrvations about entering Belsen once again ..but ..it did not rekindle ..horrors. ..it was as if those mass graves were telling me ..We are at peace now.” Hetty Verolme.

On April 15th. 1945 the British Army liberated Belsen as 13,000 Dead Jews lay as they fell and History records tht both Anne and Margot Frank are amongst them. It is now believed that Anne succumbed to the appalling conditions sometime prior to the end of March, though exactness is not as reliable as it should be. Some 50,000 Jews and others were murdered here. While 40,000 inmates are freed, the Jewish Survivor is still dying at the rate of 600 or 700 per day. The toll for all who died here, is incalculable! On April 17th. 1945, this is what Richard Dimbleby saw and recorded:

“..Here over an acre of ground lay dead and dying people. You could not see which was which except perhaps by a convulsive movement or ..last quiver of a sigh from a living skeleton too weak to move. ..living lay with their heads against ..corpses and around them moved ..awful ghostly procession of emaciated ..aimless people with nothing to do and no hope of life. Unable to move out of your way ..unable to look at ..terrible sights around them. There was no privacy ..nor did men or women ask it any longer. Women stood and squatted stark naked in ..dust trying to wash themselves and to catch ..lice on their bodies. Babies had been born here ..tiny wizened things that could not live. A mother driven mad screamed at a British sentry to give her milk for her child and thrust ..tiny mite into his arms and ran off crying terribly. He opened the bundle and found ..baby had been dead for days. This day at Belsen was ..most horrible of my life.” Richard Dimbleby.

Bibliography:

Diary of a Young Girl Anne Frank.

Diary of Bergen-Belsen 1944-1945 Hanna Levy-Hass.

From Belsen to Buckingham Palace Paul Oppenheimer.

I Was a Boy in Belsen Tomi Reichental.

The Children’s House of Belsen Hetty Verolme.

“..Nothing is left of ..stench of rotting corpses. Now only ..memory remains ..and we who bear it.” Paul Oppenheimer.

One of the most gruelling, if not compelling Testimony’s on the human disregard for another human life which has ever been delivered anywhere by anyone, has been afforded to us all by a Woman, and not just any Woman. For Rivka Yosselevska is a Jew, a Mother, a Daughter and a Grandchild, and such is the delivery of the atrocity she describes, the suggestion of any humanity that supposedly civilises us is put into question.

Her vivid memory, of the scene in a ravine close by to her home, delivers her terrifying account and shakes the very bedrock of the term humanity. For me, nothing accosts my sense of humanity more than the thought that any human being can so disregard another Human Beings life, they steal it, take it away from them or destroy it. Given the gravest depravity ever witnessed in all of History, The Holocaust provides ample proof that humanity has been mortally scarred by what we have come to learn of its passage through our time.

So while I relay barely an essence of what Rivka has borne through her life as a Survivor, No one, and I mean absolutely No one must see in The Holocaust other than the condemnation for those who committed these crimes. That the very shameful display of disregard, intolerance and even indifference to the Jewish struggle, and not just for life, but for the entirety of Jewish existence itself, marks this single episode as one amongst the many we have even as yet failed to identify.

Here I stand before History though, to attest to what the shameful disregard for human life must look like and what the 6,000,000 Slaughtered Jews would resemble on any given day and within any place of extermination and annihilation. We should have no place within that shameful delivery of atrocity upon atrocity, other than as the final witnesses to the descent of all humanity into that abyss, as accusers of the perpetrator’s. What I present here, the evidence of just one dark scene, so despairing, is present at Babi Yar, through Misosz, in Idessa, to Ukmerge and on into Zagrodzki. What Rivka describes and testifies to for us is hugely amplified in these places amongst 1,000’s of such spaces.

This depiction though is merely a fraction of what is contained within that overall abyss which swallowed not just 6,000,000 Jews but what civilisation represents and culture here denegrates. Zagrodzki is a town of some 500 Jewish Families, in existence as a Town for Jews for Century’s and which soon became wholly deprived of its Jew. As with the arrival of the Germans many Jews sought escape to the Russia side of the border. Life for the Jews here was not to be a pleasant one and accounts of atrocity are as similar as they were to be found, wherever the Germans entered into a Shtetl, Village, Town or City where the Jewish People sought to reside.

The Hitlerite search for Lebensraum was the camouflage by which The Final Solution of The Jewish Question would be led. There were pockets of Jewish resistance in the Town and its Ghetto and these were continuous, and depending on the application of its interpretive meaning, or which one wishes to give to it, set these Jews on a headlong confrontation with the German capacity for cruelty, bitterness, assault and Jewish death. But, what flared in the Ghetto on August 15th. 1942 was open and direct and was swiftly dealt with by an Einsatz detachment which left Jews Dead in the streets as trucks arrived to deliver them to the Killing Site.

The remainder of the Jewish People of mostly Women and Children and the Elderly were taken to be Slaughtered in a ravine that was close by. Here the remains were destroyed outside of the town. Here too, and in the depths of deep despair, Rivka Yosselevska holds out a human hand to assist a fellow human being who is almost crushed by the weight of the crimes that have been cascading down upon her. But please, while you must be prepared to be disgusted or repelled by what Rivka has to inform us of, kindly save all that will disgust us for those who stood over the Jews and perpetrated these most despicable crimes.

What history has taught us, in what has been our civilising influence for more than 10,000 years, stands before us now in this ravine. It is a crime which desecrates the very terms of any humanity, and in the most vicious, callous and depraved atrocity ever to be recorded, it is presented. Its very record, which Rivka delivered for posterity, remains as a warning that has been little heeded over these past 80 years or so. However, that the very atrocity was delivered by human beings against fellow Human Beings, which is striking enough, in its retelling here, the requirement of Jewish Survival is met.

That is what is deserving, in that it is a Jewish Surviving Human Being who recognised the ultimate importance in informing us. That the Testimony to human endurance and capacity to Survive, which belongs to Rivka Yosselvska, is not only to credit a Woman, a Mother, a Daughter and a Grandchild who is also a Jew who Survived, but for any Jew who Survived at all against all odds and intentions.

“..We were told to leave ..houses ..to take with us only ..Children. We were always used to leaving Ghetto at short order ..because very often they would take us all out for a roll call. Then we would all appear. But we felt and realised that this was not an ordinary roll call ..but something very special. As if ..Angel of Death was in charge. ..place was swarming with Germans. Some 4 to 5 Germans to every Jew. ..They already took all we had. ..And thus ..Children screamed. They wanted food ..water. This was not ..first time. But we took nothing with us. We had no food ..no water ..and we did not know ..reason. ..Children were hungry and thirsty. We were held this way for 24 hours while they were searching ..houses all ..time ..searching for valuables. In ..meantime ..gates of ..Ghetto were opened. A large truck appeared and all of us were put on to ..truck ..either thrown ..or went up. ..they were counted. They entered ..Ghetto again ..and searched for every missing person. We were tortured until late in ..evening. Those for whom there was no room in ..truck were ordered to run after ..truck. l had my daughter in my arms and ran after ..truck. There were mothers who had 2 or 3 Children and held them in their arms ..running after ..truck. We ran all ..way. There were those who fell ..we were not allowed to help them rise. They were shot ..right there ..wherever they fell. When we reached ..destination ..People from ..truck were already down and they were undressed ..all lined up. All my family was there ..undressed ..lined up. ..People from ..truck ..those who arrived before us. There was a kind of hillock. At ..foot of this little hill ..there was a dugout. We were ordered to stand at ..top of ..hillock and ..4 devils shot us ..each one of us separately. ..They were SS men ..four of them. They were armed to ..teeth. They were real messengers of ..Devil and ..Angel of Death. ..When I came up to ..place ..we saw People ..naked ..lined up. But we were still hoping that this was only torture. Maybe there is hope ..hope of living. One could not leave ..line ..but I wished to see ..what are they doing on ..hillock. Is there anyone down below. I turned my head and saw that some 3 or 4 rows were already killed ..on ..ground. There were some 12 People among ..dead. I also want to mention what my child said while we were lined up in ..Ghetto ..she said ..Mother ..why did you make me wear ..Shabbat dress ..we are being taken to be shot. and when we stood near ..dug out near ..grave ..she said ..Mother ..why are we waiting ..let us run. Some of ..young people tried to run ..but they were caught immediately ..and they were shot right there. It was difficult to hold on to ..Children. We took all Children not ours ..and we carried them ..we were anxious to get it all over ..suffering of ..Children was difficult ..we all trudged along to come nearer to ..place and to come nearer to ..end of ..torture of ..Children. ..Children were taking leave of their Parents and Parents of their elder People. We were driven ..we were already undressed ..clothes were removed and taken away ..our Father did not want to undress ..he remained in his underwear. We were driven up to ..grave ..this shallow. When it came to our turn ..our Father was beaten. We prayed ..we begged with my Father to undress ..but he would not undress ..he wanted to keep his underclothes. He did not want to stand naked. ..Then they tore off ..clothing off ..old man and he was shot. I saw it with my own eyes. And then they took my Mother ..and we said ..let us go before her ..but they caught Mother and shot her too ..and then there was my Grandmother ..my Father’s Mother ..standing there ..she was 80 years old and ..had 2 Children in her arms. And then there was my Father’s Sister. She also had Children in her arms and she was shot on ..spot with ..babies in her arms. And finally my turn came. There was my younger Sister ..and she wanted to leave ..she prayed with ..Germans ..she asked to run ..naked ..she went up to ..Germans with one of her friends ..they were embracing each other ..and she asked to be spared ..standing there naked. He looked into her eyes and shot the 2 of them. They fell together in their embrace ..2 young girls ..my Sister and her young friend. Then my second Sister was shot and then my turn did come. We turned towards ..grave and then he turned around and asked ..Whom shall I shoot first. We were already facing ..grave. ..German asked ..Whom do you want me to shoot first. I did not answer. I felt him take ..Child from my arms. ..Child cried out and was shot immediately. And then he aimed at me. First he held on to my hair and turned my head around ..I stayed standing ..I heard a shot ..but I continued to stand and then he turned my head again and he aimed ..revolver at me and ordered me to watch and then turned my head around and shot at me. Then I fell to ..ground into ..pit amongst ..bodies ..but I felt nothing. ..moment I did feel I felt a sort of heaviness and then I thought maybe I am not alive any more ..but I feel something after I died. I thought I was dead ..that this was ..feeling which comes after death. Then I felt that I was choking ..people falling over me. I tried to move and felt that I was alive and that I could rise. I was strangling. I heard ..shots and I was praying for another bullet to put an end to my suffering ..but I continued to move about. I felt that I was choking ..strangling ..but I tried to save myself ..to find some air to breathe ..and then I felt that I was climbing towards ..top of ..grave above ..bodies. I rose ..and I felt bodies pulling at me with their hands ..biting at my legs ..pulling me down ..down. And yet with my last strength I came up on top of ..grave ..and when I did ..I did not know ..place ..so many bodies were lying all over ..dead people ..I wanted to see ..end of this stretch of dead bodies but I could not. It was impossible. They were lying ..all dying ..suffering ..not all of them dead ..but in their last sufferings ..naked ..shot ..but not dead. Children crying

..Mother.

..Father.

..I could not stand on my feet. Germans were gone. There was nobody there. No one standing up. I was naked ..covered with blood ..dirty from ..other bodies ..with ..excrement from other bodies which was poured on to me. When I was shot I was wounded in ..head. I have a scar to this day from ..shot by ..Germans ..and yet ..somehow I did come out of ..grave. This was something I thought I would never live to recount. I was searching among ..dead for my little girl ..and I cried for her ..Merkele was her name ..Merkele. There were Children crying

..Mother.

..Father.

but they were all smeared with blood and one could not recognize ..Children. I cried for my daughter. From afar I saw 2 women standing. I went up to them. They did not know me ..I did not know them ..and then I said who I was ..and then they said

..So you survived. And there was another woman crying ..Pull me out from amongst ..corpses ..I am alive ..help.

We were thinking how could we escape from ..place. ..cries of ..Woman ..Help ..pull me out from ..corpses. We pulled her out ..her name was Mikhlya Rozenberg. We removed ..corpses and ..dying people who held on to her and continued to bite. She asked us to take her out ..to free her ..but we did not have ..strength. And thus we were there all night ..fighting for our lives ..listening to ..cries and ..screams and all of a sudden we saw ..mounted Germans. We did not notice them coming in because of ..screamings and ..shootings from ..bodies around us. ..Germans ordered that all ..corpses be heaped together into one big heap and with shovels they were heaped together ..all ..corpses ..among them many still alive ..Children running about ..place. I saw them. I saw ..Children. They were running after me ..hanging on to me. Then I sat down in ..field and remained sitting with ..Children around me. ..Children who got up from ..heap of corpses. Then Germans came and were going around ..place. We were ordered to collect all ..Children ..but they did not approach me ..and I sat there watching how they collected ..Children. They gave a few shots and ..Children were dead. They did not need many shots. ..Children were almost dead ..and this Rozenberg woman pleaded with ..Germans to be spared ..but they shot her. They all left ..Germans and ..nonJews from around ..place. They removed ..machine guns and they took ..trucks. I saw that they all left ..and ..four of us ..we went on to ..grave ..praying to fall into ..grave ..even alive ..envying those who were dead already and thinking what to do now. I was praying for death to come. I was praying for ..grave to be opened and to swallow me alive. Blood was spurting from ..grave in many places ..like a well of water ..and whenever I pass a spring now ..I remember ..blood which spurted from ..ground ..from that grave. I was digging with my fingernails ..trying to join ..dead in that grave. I dug with my fingernails ..but ..grave would not open. I did not have enough strength. I cried out to my Mother ..to my Father. Why did they not kill me. What was my sin. I have no one to go to. I saw them all being killed. Why was I spared. Why was I not killed. And I remained there ..stretched out on ..grave ..3 days and 3 nights. l saw no one. I heard no one. Not a farmer passed by. After 3 days ..shepherds drove their herd on to ..field ..and they began throwing stones at me ..but I did not move. At night ..herds were taken back and during ..day they threw stones believing that either it was a dead woman or a mad woman. They wanted me to rise ..to answer. But I did not move. ..shepherds were throwing stones at me until I had to leave ..place. I hid near ..grave. A farmer passed by ..after a number of weeks. l was with them until ..very end.” Rivka Yosselevska.

“..Behold ..historian called to render his accounts. He does so without an inner tremor. What craftsman ..has not asked himself ..whether he has spent his life wisely. ..question far transcends ..minor scruples of a professional conscience. ..our entire Western civilisation is concerned in it.” Marc Bloch.

The Jewish People were ideologically opposed to the notion that civilisation could and would betray them and I take that forward as a personal accusation of what is an unfathomable atrocity identified as The Holocaust. The Jewish People too resisted the temptation to believe, even as the incremental details of what was emerging rendered them both incredulous and aghast, they went toward destruction, at least in those formative days, both not knowing what awaited them, and then, what was inexplicably presented to them. Hope indeed had been the last to die, and in the killing sites and death camps, all hope of redeeming a credible civilisation from outside their position was irretrievably consumed in a hail of bullets, poison gas and indiscriminate but systematic slaughter.

“..Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race ..religion ..political views ..that place must ..at that moment ..become ..centre of ..universe.” Elie Wiesel.

I move with words that seek to describe The Holocaust, which must be deliberate in order to both inform and come closer to our failing attempts to explain the full horror, for what many more than the 6,000,000 slaughtered Jews fully endured. This is personal for me and what must not happen in regaling the appalling lack of effort to even alleviate the Jewish suffering is for me to enlist a failed eulogy which meets this confrontation with that past that cannot ever be compromised or comprehended. However, the fully exposed, unbridled and factual truth, which the Survivor will identify with, must not find in our effort a position so uncomfortable that it appears at all salacious, though its truth is coarse and even abusing the reality of the very atrocity we seek to describe.

“..Of ..500,000 Jews whom ..Nazis attempted to destroy in Warsaw ..there were but a few 1,000 Survivors who are now scattered ..world over.” Jonas Turkow.

Of course numbers enter the word exercise in order to expand that understanding of consuming humanity in the grip of a wider spread hatred forged by human beings. I have studied The Art of War all the way through World War Two and beyond, and its thesis has always focused on the contrivance of humanity to survive in all manner of conflict. But, and in an earlier search I had considered, there was a narrower field of research which centred upon an essay on the actions of der Einsatzgruppe. Though this sought to qualify the inhuman actions of some 3,000 human beings, it was not about the Jews as such, nor of the few Survivor’s of these actions who inform us. But, it was more to do with how low humanity can sink in the mass murdering People for who they are. Remember too, that here in this final resolve catered for by many millions of so called christians confronting the Jewish People, there was the enactment of The Final Solution of The Jewish Question.

“..Solution of ..Jewish Question in Poland ..perhaps ..only bridge on which ..German occupier could meet ..majority of Polish society.” Jan Karski.

All Jews, organically linked to The Holocaust, and not through any choice that they had made in The Holocaust history, but an enforced term of atrocity unprecedented, unparalleled and unique in all of history. Here, and through the Survivor, these remnants of the 11,283,300 Jews of Europe targeted for Destruction, these Jews we expect and hope will bridge the divide between their knowledge and what We all are required to know. We continually deliver the trauma, me in the words I use and others, in various forms of the Arts chosen to deliver their truths. I fully acknowledge the pain and suffering, which we might exacerbate in the telling, is a necessary detail in ensuring the full horror is wholly known.

“..first and foremost perpetrator was Adolf Hitler. ..without him it would have been inconceivable.” Raul Hilberg.

This eventual solution at first, and as and where the Jews were to be met, was as yet not considered to be a genocidal assault. My own personal view of The Holocaust considers what is and was endured by 6,000,000 Jews and the evisceration of them as a body of People, for being Jews. That particular assessment is as wide as it is broadly inclusive of 11,293,300 Jews of Europe and their discerning space amongst us. There are 4 degrees in all of history towards and from which The Holocaust finally emerged and this emergence has consistently struck more deeply at the core values civilisation has purportedly delivered toward our own humanity. Here in this evaluation I learned from Raul Hilberg, who became a foremost authority on The Holocaust and its destructive capacity, that the incremental stages toward the evidence of the hatred had spread through all of history for more than 2,000 years.

1 You may not live among us as Jews as christianity sought to convert the Jews away from Judaism.

2 You may not live among us at all and this saw the Jewish expulsion into the terms of the Ghetto we have learned from.

3 You may not live stemmed from the failure to come up with a territorial resolution and as such, The Final Solution became the catastrophe we have evidenced as 6,000,000 Jews of Europe were Slaughtered, The Holocaust.

4 You may not be remembered within The Holocaust as the very denial, which seeks to remove these Jewish People from all that was raged against them also seeks to resurrect the despicable nature of Hitler.

Ostensibly, that burgeoning threat to Jewish existence would be met in a far ranging assault upon the very integrity of 3,650,000 Polish Jews, rooted to Poland, fixed to their homeland. Here, I remember at the time of my first writing that essay, how a map of coffins could betray humanity with such symbols. Clearly, and forever signifying the mass Murder of the Jews they portrayed, it becomes obvious that denial does not look too closely at all the evidence and testimony that is laid before it. For me though, these first stumblings across the tragedy for the Jewish People is significant in that my further search would consume more than any simple interest could qualify.

“..when ..heads of ..major nations in ..world faced ..new Germany with cool reserve and considerable suspicion ..Catholic Church ..greatest moral power on earth ..through ..Concordat expressed its confidence in ..new German government.” Guenter Lewy.

Since that initial study, I have gone on to write a Book that did not suit a particular publisher’s remit and then complete x4 Books which regale against the connivance of humanity to be inhumane. To this day, my work proves a powerful affront to those who would both deny and denounce the accusation contained in my work. Those who merely see my effort as a Jewish response, or even as propaganda fail as human beings. That there is that other accusation, which comes with that rather insidious shout as to some profiteering motive does not appreciate a human concern for the assault upon humanity. The fact that 6,000,000 Jewish People were assailed, systematically sought out for Slaughter and indiscriminately brought toward Destruction, is an accusation against all of Humanity.

“..I asked Wanda ..if she would like to be listed among ..Righteous Among Nations and she replied ‘no’ because she feared that ..Jew-haters in ..area would find out and her sons would suffer”. Frank Blaichman.

True, that accusation comes to the fore from Jews in particular, as those who were most affected by their People’s destruction, but also by those of us who hold humanity with any esteem at all. I know exactly the concern of civilisation and in knowing what needs to be learned, my conscience is perfectly clear. Here, and for where Poland is geographically, I render my account with scruples, knowing full well civilisation depends upon its concerns as it is crafted and with its artistry, with integrity. On my many visits to Poland, I have met plenty of wonderful Polish People, some Jewish, some not. For me though, it is crucial for All Polish People to accept that if Poland cannot live with the truth of its past it should stay out of History.

“..For long months we had been suffering because ..world was deaf and dumb to our unparalleled tragedy. We complained about Polish public opinion ..about ..liaison men in contact with ..Polish government in exile. ..why weren’t they reporting to ..world ..story of ..slaughter of Polish Jewry. We accused Polish liaison men of deliberately keeping our tragedy quiet ..so that their tragedy might not be thrown into ..shade. ..now it seems that all our interventions have finally achieved their purpose. There have been regular broadcasts over ..English radio ..last few weeks ..treating of ..cruelties perpetrated on Polish Jews ..Belzec. Today ..a broadcast summarizing situation ..700,000 ..number of Jews killed in Poland was mentioned. ..broadcast vowed revenge ..a final accounting for all these deeds of violence. Oyneg Shabes has fulfilled a great historical mission. It has alarmed ..world to our fate ..and perhaps saved 100’s of 1,000’s of Polish Jews from extermination. ..I do not know who of our group will survive ..to work through our collected material. ..one thing is clear to all of us. Our toils ..tribulations ..devotion and constant terror ..have not been in vain. We have struck ..enemy ..hard blow. ..not important ..revelation of ..incredible slaughter of Jews will have ..desired effect ..whether or not ..methodical liquidation of entire Jewish communities will stop.” Emanuel Ringelblum.

It is starkly obvious that in history The Holocaust has identified this grave fall from grace and where 6,000,000 Jews were marked for destruction they were so abandoned by the World that they were annihilated. I have been reflecting, researching and writing upon this catastrophe for the Jewish People of Europe for more than 25 years. So while we seemingly stand in judgement, history cannot be altered so as to trivialise the truth that confronts it. With some bias, inactivity or indifference, this polish government does damage to the reputation of All Poles who have studied the integrity of History and for those Poles who have honoured its past. In many places in Poland, there were non-Jewish Poles who became fearful of what would target them after all the Jews were removed for destruction.

“..destiny of humankind ..between Fall and ..Judgement appears to its eyes as a long adventure ..of which each life ..each individual pilgrimage ..is in its turn a reflection. ..in time ..in history ..great drama of Sin and Redemption ..central axis of all Christian thought is unfolded.” Marc Bloch.

Why should this be the case if Polish Jewry had not been targeted and so ritually slaughtered in the first place and it is obvious that lies cannot compete with the facts. To dismiss this truth, so as to conceal the intolerances clearly expressed as they echo to us, and when during The Final Solution of The Jewish Question, we recognise that the truth was not switched off. That sort after and flawed revisioning that this right wing polish government is now seeking, so as to deliver the wanton vandalism of factual integrity, must be confronted. I am all too well aware that many nations wish to revisit their past in relation to what they allowed happen to their own Jewish Community. They too must be remonstrated with and brought back into line where historical integrity is countenanced only by what truth reveals.

“..Polish people in general were sympathetic to ..problems of Jews ..many Polish ..rob ..blackmail ..denounce or ..murder Jews in hiding.” Jan Karski.

There are heroes of Poland who are clearly recognised by the World as such who still state the case for a collaborative effort within Poland, by non-Jewish poles who sought to add toward what Hitler demanded is exactly as Jan Karski noted for us here. What is forever meant to uphold the values of historical probity, cannot be bartered over or be abandoned to alter the truth. History brought into disrepute is corrupted beyond recognition and distorts the view of all of history. The unedifying spectacle of seeking to alter all that we know of what happened to the Jews of Europe, thus becomes the severing of an intellectual tradition that has stood good for more than 10,000 years. This is what the present day polish government pressures us with and we, the advocates of Historical correctness resist with every intellectual value worthy of humanities civilising influence.

“..transport ..largest ..due to leave Prague September 1st. 1939. Hitler invaded Poland ..borders closed 250 Children ..not allowed ..depart. ..all later deported to ..camps ..perished with my 2 young Cousins.” Vera Gissing.

We become aware in the midst of the spectre of War that the Jewish People are seeking to escape what is imminent, particularly in Poland and with Hitler seemingly marching across Europe at will, the Jews are being too readily sacrificed by those nations under Hitlerite threat. People like Vera Gissing, whose luck ensured she was finally saved for Survive, to have escaped all that she is still so gravely tortured by, for what was left behind and is lost. Of course, while a human altruism exists throughout all of humanity, here in the darkest recesses of The Holocaust what has emerged is the worst of humanity. This surety is barely countered by the placement of The Righteous Amongst the Gentiles in the midst of the turmoil of hatred which led so distinctly toward the eventual catastrophe of 6,000,000 Slaughtered Jews of Europe.

“..going to ..gas chambers was easier than being exposed to all ..horror.” Esther Raab.

But these righteous human beings did not merely see the emerging horror and ignore the consequences, personally threatening to them in order to act. What they declared, as the terror industry raged against their Jewish Cousins, Friends, Neighbours and fellow Countrymen, Women and Children was to act in accord with a conscience borne out of civilisings demand and for the Righteous, they acted in good conscience. Because the human spirit is always free to make its own choices, it should none the less. and should always be made, with a fuller moral content and an ethical extension conforming to the best of human intentions. For the many who Survived though, the right to Survival did not belong to them and the choices they were given was to die or accept the easier option to go to the gas chamber.

“..Our art ..our literary monuments ..resound with echoes of ..past.” Marc Bloch.

I have made it perfectly clear in my writing who I am to all those I have spoken with and in doing so what my final aim is in recalling The Holocaust. I have a demand to learn rightly to add to the missing memory for 6,000,000 Slaughtered Jews, who are The Holocaust. Amongst this offending human Catastrophe are amongst them some 3,000,000 Polish Jews whose protection now demands an undoing of the bad lessons being proposed in Poland today. Although my work is contained within strict Historical disciplines, those parameters I observe are established and are here set by an establishment of a World conflict so as to camouflage Hitler’s more prescient demand, The Final Solution of the Jewish Question. For me though, World War II is a separated discipline, as the conflict itself is defined by millennia of factional infighting.

“..mein kampf ..with absolute correctness contains 139,900 mistakes. ..in ..earliest editions ..there were about 100 words ..quite correct ..as to subject and form.” Lion Feuchtwanger.

What we have in The Holocaust is other than such principles of warfare, as has emerged through treaty and appeasement but by a term of genocide which Raphael Lemkin had to construct to contain it. Many people, informed, academic and well intentioned realised the prospect of what Hitler’s final resolve would be, and these spoke out, uttered words that confronted Hitler and his Nazi’s and placed themselves in final jeopardy. This made Feuchtwanger a fugitive, a very popular target for the Nazis who sought to first curtail his language and then detain and ensure his eradication. But, from within his eponymous work, Jud Suss, the power of Feuchtwanger’s words, which stood as a bastion against Hitler’s Nazism, and was a beacon that was increasingly adding its light and shedding the shade slowly emerging from the deep darkness that is to become, The Holocaust.

“..Jews in Poland are helpless. They cannot rely on ..Polish underground or ..general population.” Jan Karski.

Of course, such was the many angles from which we approach the subject that we recognise the many heroes who sought to assuage the complicit nature of doing too little. Jan Karski, in relating to this period, will forever add honour to those dead, killed and murdered, and all of those deserving of honour. It is without question that the innocents, these 6,000,000 Jews of Europe must be honoured as their Slaughter proves unequal, unparalleled and unprecedented in all of history. I recognise too, and from within Poland, some acted against Polish Jewish interests and these I castigate and will not give definition to. For them, to merely call them out as non-Jewish poles is not enough as Poland seeks to bury such accusations in denial of their existence. There, in that assessment, is a minor protest which differentiates these from other non-Jewish Poles who acted with a sense of compassion or with christian concern. It is a small protest in the omitted capital letters but then, it separates Good from bad and all of Humanity from the evil mankind is capable of.

“..For many parts of ..Polish society it is very difficult ..since for decades they were victims themselves ..of ..Nazis. ..countries around Poland ..Ukraine ..Baltic States ..same level of public debate about their relationship with their own Jewish minority.” Jan Grabowski.

Are we to believe that History will betray us for the want of man to conceal the truth in favour of fashioning out a lie that better suits. I have Never gained anything from allowing this study of mine to become other than the search for truth of all that happened to 6,000,000 Jews on their way toward destruction. But, and what the polish government of the moment is pursuing is both vengeful, wrong and against every precept of human decency. For an essential to be accorded to the memory of 6,000,000 People for being Jews, it is necessary to accuse all of those who betrayed their own humanity to gain anything from the betrayal of their Jewish Community’s. I am Not for forgetting the very fact that, of that total of 3,000,000 of Polish Jewry that has been consumed, all of Poland treads heavily upon a Jewish graveyard of such immensity, the Jewish People have need of that recognition. There are so many specific sites to attend to within and outside Poland that Poland and many other nations must do more to honour all they have lost.

“..civilisations may change. It is not In itself inconceivable that ours may ..turn away from history ..historians would do well to reflect on ..possibility. .there is danger that badly understood history could involve good history in its disrepute. But should we come to this ..it would be at ..cost of a serious rupture with our most unvarying intellectual traditions.” Marc Bloch.

To be honest! Those who propose in any study of The Holocaust, so as to totally undermine the reasoning for such a study are both shameful and disingenuous. The truth will never be altered by those who seek to revise the fact that many non-Jewish poles acted against the best interests of Polish Jewry. As a consequence of such collusive actions, Poland’s national sovereignty during Hitler’s rampage against all of Poland has been defaced by lies, deceit and untruths. The agenda of a populist government does not invoke nor engender a proper research of History. That which is mandatory in understanding the lessens of history, and for them to be driven forward, must acknowledge all that is within history, both Good and bad. It is clear from the small minded amongst us, and their only response is hardly credible, and if all they have is to blight further the memory of the truth, their ignorance will serve that polish History will become so distorted, it will not be history.

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

I will place the truth constantly before you and you must decide why ignorance is used to counter the factual truth of The Holocaust and its overriding principles conveying its integrity. I will be honest with you all here. I am angry and I always feel I have no right to be. I have put myself out there to ensure memory is not only continuous in Remembering what happened to 6,000,000 Jews of Europe, but it is consistent. I am not sure if there is any particular platform which informs us more correctly than those written into Books words. For all those who otherwise are uninterested in what amounts to the singular assault upon Jewish integrity, and that is The Holocaust, they must leave the arena of research to those who see in their search a need to comprehend the incomprehensible. For my part, I will call out all those seeking to undermine The Holocaust relevance, for them to seek to bury the truth. For me, in more than 25 years, this is not the first time there has been this persistent and sought after revision of the truth on these pages of all of history.

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

But! I will not bow to the denial that seems to precipitate what my aim is, and that is in Memory of 6,000,000 Slaughtered Jews. I have never Ever stated that only Jews were Victims but stick consistently to what Elie Wiesel tells us, All Jews Were Victims. While it is always a fact that my work, Books especially, are attacked, it is not their content that is only assailed but it is the very detail of why a non-Jew would choose to write on The Holocaust. How that confronts the issues of denial is written in a 3,000 year old hatred still fomenting discord amongst like minded bigots and malcontents. I have it on good authority too that any commercial success will Not come from writing about The Holocaust, so my reasoning has Never been commercially based. Publisher’s have insisted on that certainty with my choice of words to use. Elie Wiesel pointed me too to so few who would choose to place themselves in the firing line for a uniquely Jewish aspect of History that is the Slaughter of 6,000,000 Jews for being Jews.

“..Whenever our exacting Western society .in ..continuing crisis of growth ..begins to doubt itself ..it asks ..whether it has done well in trying to learn from ..past ..and ..learned rightly.” Marc Bloch.

But I am not deterred and once, when I met with a Survivor more than 20 years ago and his incredulity over why I would choose such a ‘twisted’ route toward putting my words into Book form, his words touched me deeply. For him, it was simply a regular confrontation with those that he found all too willing to deny and doubt with far too many wishing to criticise him for being a Jew. For him too, he was criticised for supporting a proposed biased Jewish narrative and for him specifically trying to live off of the backs of such destruction. He was right of course to see in the hatred a semblance of what he faced in his days in The Holocaust. For me, I have been criticised for being a Jew. I often wish I was as I too support the factual truth of The Holocaust and its integrity in all of History. The veritable bias raged against my work, a work which only seeks the truth ahead of the distortion being brought to it by denial, deceit and the desire to exculpate nation’s who were complicit, duplicitous, indifferent and even intolerant, takes me forward.

“..During ..tenure of office of defendant Wilhelm Frick as Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia ..from August ..1943 ..until ..liberation of Czechoslovakia in 1945 ..many thousands of Czechoslovak Jews were transported from ..Terezin Ghetto ..Czechoslovakia to ..Camp at Oswiecziem ..Auschwitz ..in Poland and were there killed in ..gas chambers.” Dr. Robert Max Wasilii Kempner.

For all too many nations, in face of the very reality we now recognise is, the Slaughter of 6,000,000 Jews of Europe, The Holocaust, they did far too little or even nothing whatsoever to prevent what they were witnessing. For what they were being informed was taking place from the ranks of an intelligence service employed to engage with the truth, the truth was shaded until it obscured what was known. I guess I must attach some response to the lack of commercial success of writing on The Holocaust. It is just not possible to eke out any sort of living on such work as it is a source of deep wounding and hurt to moral humanity and an accusation that has cursed the immoral who struck at the Jewish presence amongst us. For me, the commitment is too grave, the contribution is too personal and the overwhelming desire for this effort is in being acknowledged for what I seek to give back to those who have been taken from us. For any people who seek to insult any part of this endeavour, they can always achieve their aim.

“..Nazis were responsible for this tragedy it is they who murdered most of 3,000,000 Jews who lived in Poland before World War II. ..Germans were able to mobilize segments of ..Polish society to take part in their plan to hunt down ..Jews and help them carry out their Final Solution.” Jan Grabowski.

As far back as September 4th. 1939, as the French government stood ready to confront Hitler and his continuing march on Europe, there began a round up and internment of Polish and German Jewish nationals. Many of the Jewish and non-Jewish nationals were deposited in detention centres at Les-Mille and after the Nazi invasion of France, May 10th. 1940, more Jews were interred at Gurs. Here, with a consideration with regards to what Jewish Resistance means during the period of The Holocaust, we must look deeply at the collusion of so many nations and their non-Jewish nationals. If then we give thought to perhaps what is the grandest resistance, we will find more to credit the Jewish struggle than perhaps we have done. This is quoted in what Yehuda Bauer reveals as the gravest sacrifice that a Jewish Parent makes in ensuring that their Children’s future lives on, and in many Country’s Jewish Children were given safety ahead of their own Parents destruction .

“..Heartbreaking as it was for ..Parents ..they wanted to rescue their Children first and foremost so ..handed them over to strangers.” Yehuda Bauer.

In nothing that I state or have written will ever defeat the fundamental fact that my Books counter the denial attempt to revise History. As Books, they seek to certainly restrain the lamentable abuse centred around what we know happened to 6,000,000 Jewish People. I want People to buy my Books to place them before the altar of History as a fact of their counter balance to denial, but equally, to inform the Jewish People that they are Never alone amongst those whose desire has always been to correct the wrongs done and establish the truth beyond denial. What is obvious to me, and as I was looking toward the outside of each and everyone of the x6 Death Camps in Poland, it could not escape local attention as to what was happening to the Jewish People alighting from all too many transports.

“..Read what was written before ..or what might be written today. Among ..confused murmurings of ..present ..complaint mingling its voice with ..others.” Marc Bloch.

What the local non-Jewish Poles knew, what they should and could have known, did Not establish a protective route of safety for some 4,000,000 Slaughtered Polish and other European Jews. As we research and recognise in the historian, and the historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it, we all must display an integrity which is objective and truthful. Historians too are only concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race. In the context of The Holocaust it is surely true that if the World is not yet convinced that the Death Camps are an abhorrence, and if antisemitism best survives where those who pledge an allegiance to an us or a them and are allowed prosper, we will have further failed 6,000,000 Slaughtered Jews.

“..if World could become convinced Auschwitz never existed it would be easier to build a second Auschwitz and no certainty it would devour only Jews.” Primo Levi.

It is as a right wing advocate of the curtailing of free speech, so as to lend a discourse which is divisive and is hurtful to All that antisemitism continually emerges. Such latent hatred is latterly adapted and it remains for us to ensure that No people is criticised for their uniqueness amongst us. As well as that, the study of all history in our time establishes that it is not simply enough to learn about history but it is an imperative that we learn to pass along what we must learn from its lessons. To become, even remotely, dedicated to the study of The Holocaust, is an achievement in human understanding if we even slightly comprehend the gravity of the loss we all share. Therefore, and it is necessary for us all, so as to form the expertise of words adding further to memory, that we not only articulate our concern but set in stone a deeply disturbing realising of the inhumanity in The Holocaust.

“..Book ..yes ..their Book. They had no state ..holding them together ..no country ..no soil ..no king ..no form of life in common. If ..in spite of this ..they were one ..more one than all ..other peoples of ..world ..it was ..Book that sweated them into unity. Brown ..white ..black ..yellow Jews ..large and small ..splendid and in rags ..godless and pious ..they might crouch and dream all their lives in a quiet room ..or fare splendidly in a radiant ..golden whirlwind over ..earth ..but sunk deep in all of them was ..lesson of ..Book. Manifold is ..world ..but it is vain and fleeting as wind ..but one and only is ..God of Israel ..everlasting ..infinite ..Jehovah.” Lion Feuchtwanger.

The catastrophe itself is of such an immense and horrifying proportions, a past whose events marks out the inhuman responses of human beings toward other’s. If one seeks to respond as an artisan of words, as a commentator, as a testifier, or as a witness and even a scribe of the next Book, the words must be carefully chosen. It is patently obvious, and for me a scurrilous effort, that for anyone who identifies with the form of national socialism Hitler proposed, this obscenity has taught humanity everything it needs to know of the bestiality of the Human spirit. As I see it, there is nothing inherently wrong in the ideals of Communism, Socialism or even the proponent parts of Marxism which are designed to serve us all as People. 

“..Everyone knows ..what happened in Warsaw ..Slonim ..it is already time to count ..cities where ..catastrophies did not occur. ..understand ..better to be sent to Wolkowsk than ..Treblinka.” Ephraim Barash.

However, just as in their ideological and eventual corruption, an example is set which contributes toward excess and similarity’s of abuse we all too easily see in places like Treblinka. For Hitler’s assault upon the Jewish People, places such as the Death Camps were positioned first and foremost within Poland’s border’s to ensure 3,650,000 Polish Jews could be extinguished first. But, and it is in the interpretation of beings seeking power, that this is where the corruption occurs and in the case of the Death Camps and the Killing Sites of The Holocaust, it attempts still to corrupt this truth in our history most profoundly. For all three of these ideological bases, from which mutual community should be sourced, the Jews were merely separated out from the social norms by an accusation that the Jews were issued from the search for equality as its proponent part.

“..There are visions that a normal man cannot conceive of.” Ber Freiberg.

So as to ensure equality is gained for all people, these ideals all should form the basis of community, those best served with all People equal together. Therefore, in a history too readily corrupted in which The Holocaust seeks to Survive, the ugliness of antisemitism has not strayed too far from the World stage. There are varying positions which I sit alongside, each competing, legitimately, for what differing views would consider are the rights and wrongs of history. The Holocaust is no exception and the rights and wrongs belong to those Jews treated so abysmally, and by those who are not ever to be considered justifiable nor right. My vision of this overwhelming atrocity has been shaped by life’s experience but even this cannot compete with the knowledge of those like Ber Freiberg who know fully what Sobibor meant.

“..We Jews ..most unfortunate People in ..World ..have beheaded murderers of Children ..have put bullets into ..heads of scoundrels ..into their sadistic heads.” Haim Treger.

For me then, what response that comes from that place of degradation, and Sobibor is but a Death Camp amongst the machinery of extermination, that we must aim all effort at accusing those who pushed the Jews there and left them to a fate they did not deserve. I will never accept therefore, that the Survivor is not entitled to any view they wish to present as an entitlement they have been forced to live with. I will not disagree with the Survivor, and though often I have hopefully shown that where our differences might divert, and there is to be an acceptance of another point of view, it is subordinate to what only the Survivor truly knows. For instance, and in the realm of the Death Camps, those who have Survived them know that these Death Camps are clearly distinguishable from the camps of death for all Jews who entered them.

“..Jews ..you are going to burn.” Itzhak Lichtman.

Also, and while knowledge of the Death Camps in Poland was known in intricate detail by those outside their gates, be that here at Sobibor or anywhere else from amongst these 6 purpose built Death Camps, all erected in Poland, truth has been fashioned to suggest none too many knew anything at all. However, and I will inherently agree always with the Survivor, simply because I cannot know from mere research what they intrinsically know all too well, that their knowledge surpasses my own. Where the Survivor might identify the non-Jewish poles as guilty of every conceivable crime against them, these Jews know exactly what was done against them and by those very non-Jewish poles who committed the crimes.

“..deported to ..Belzec ..extermination camp. ..unloaded ..had to strip naked. ..about 4,500 people on ..transport. ..women had ..heads shaved. ..driven into ..corridor. ..building was low ..long ..broad. ..built of grey concrete ..a flat roof made of roofing felt ..with a net over it ..covered with branches. Three steps ..led into ..building. ..front of ..building stood a large flowerpot with colourful flowers ..placard ..‘Bath and inhalation Rooms.’ ..steps led into a dark ..empty corridor which was very long ..only 1.5 m. wide. To ..left and right of it were ..doors to ..6 gas chambers. Each chamber could hold 750 people. ..building was ..concrete. Gassing took ..20 minutes. Gas ..fed through pipes from ..engine in ..small hut a 2 x 2 m. shed which housed ..gas machine.. ..operated machine which dug ..earth out of pits which served as graves for ..gassed. ..In ..opposite wall of every chamber was a removable door through which ..bodies of ..gassed were thrown out. ..I ..had to drag ..corpses out of ..gas chambers ..to ..pits. ..30 graves ..100 metres long ..25 metres wide 15 metres deep. 100,000 corpses could be buried. ..corpses ..stacked up to ..50 centimetres above ..edge of ..pit ..because ..corpses later settled.” Rudolf Reder.

In all that I have presented, it is imperative that only the facts, as I know them, and as they can only touch upon what I cannot begin to appreciate, it is what the Survivor fully understood. For the Jews, in the midst of the conflagration, what it is I have to pass on to history is toward the memory of what these Jewish People were forced to endure. I have yet to come up with a set of words that might deal adequately with the betrayal of the Jewish People, and by an ostensibly civilised and christian peoples. Human civilisation allowed for the Jews of Europe to be earmarked for destruction. How could I countenance other than an accusation as wide ranging as it is evident of the gravest wrong ever perpetrated against any People anywhere in time. The truth is clear also, and for 6,000,000 Slaughtered Jews who took those steps along the route toward extinction, it was while knowing full well that their World stood along the sidelines and allowed for them to perish.

“..To Survive Sobibor does not mean to continue living.” Herszel Zukerman.

There Is a Last Solitary Coach

There is a last, solitary coach about to leave.

Let us get in and go, For it won’t wait.

I have seen young girls going softly

With sad faces

That looked ashamed and sorry

Like purple sunsets,

And chubby, pink children

Who went simply

Because they were called.

And I’ve seen men

Who stepped proud and straight through the world’s streets,

Whose large eyes went ranging Far and wide,

They too got in calmly And left.

And we are the last.

Day is declining.

The last, solitary coach is about to leave.

Let us too get in quietly And go,

For it won’t wait.” David Vogel.

By January 27th. 1920 The Versailles Treaty had been signed and this armed Hitler with a pretence to act against Europe and suggests a move from rhetoric toward sponsored attacks on Jewish existence will be made.

“..Herr Gemlich. ..antisemitism based on purely emotional grounds will find its ultimate expression in ..form of ..pogrom. ..ultimate objective must ..be ..irrevocable removal of ..Jews.” Adolf Hitler.

By January 27th. 1935 Poland is more aligned toward Hitler as an anti-Jewish political wing is formed in Poland. By January 27th. 1936 sponsored by cardinal hlond, pogroms and assaults upon Polish Jewry escalates. By January 27th. 1937 Pogroms are a continuing threat to Jewish life. By January 27th. 1938 as the Polish government seeks to revoke Citizenship of Polish Jews in Germany, Poland decides upon a territorial solution for all of its Jewish People, The Madagaskar Plan and:

“..No place for Jews in Poland.” General Lucjan Zieligowski.

By January 27th. 1939 with 40% of all Property in Warsaw being Jewish owned, and with 40% of all non-Jewish poles employed in Jewish owned industrial concerns, a territorial solution would be a gain for Poland from their Jewish People. 80% of skilled workforce in Poland were Jews. As anti-Jewish riots rage across Poland, Jews are Murdered and with the Polish Jewish Community having grown to some 3,650,000 People, Hitler will see his solution for the Jews of Europe more immediately resolved within Poland.

By January 27th. 1942 the Death Camp at Chelmno begins its operations and immediately Polish Jews from the Towns of Dabie, Klodawa, Kolo and Sompolno are brought to be gassed. In the 30 odd operational days prior to Wannsee, some 20,000 Jews were Murdered here. On January 27th. 1943 1,300 Grodek Jagiellonski Jews murdered and the first American bombing of Germany begins. On January 27th. 1944 over 680 Dutch Jews from Westerbork are transported to Auschwitz as the Russians retake Leningrad after a 900 day siege.

On January 27th. 1945 the Russian 322nd Rifle Division liberates Auschwitz and Birkenau and with any remaining Jewish prisoners now liberated, along with many non-Jews. There are estimates as high as 2,500,000 to 4,000,000 Jews having been murdered at Auschwitz and Birkenau. Also, the Russian forces liberate Memel.

#1 Abecassis, Prosper b. September 3rd. 1925, Murdered in Birkenau at 16 years of age.

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“..If world could become convinced ..Auschwitz never existed ..it would be easier to build ..second Auschwitz .. and ..no assurance it would devour only Jews”. Primo Levi.

What we seek to Remember, 75 years after the liberation of Auschwitz and Birkenau, January 27th. 1945, The Holocaust comes under closer scrutiny as more nations seek to expunge their part in the atrocity that is The Holocaust. Poland, at the centre of the storm, can never extinguish the flames of a conflagration which consumed 3,000,000 of its own Jewish Citizens. Also, and in the midst of this greatest industrial and mechanised killing operation, some 4,500,000 Jews of Europe are no more, interred also within Polish borders.

#2 Abraham, Marion b. January 15th. 1925 in Freibourg, Murdered in Birkenau at 17 years of age.

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02) “..There is a place on Earth ..a desolate heath ..where ..shadows of ..dead are multitudes ..where ..living are dead ..where there is only death ..hate ..pain.” Giuliana Tedeschi.

All told, what emerged as smoke in the pits and furnaces of destruction, and all Death Camps are fitted for that purpose, with the detail of these x6 Death Camps erected in Poland, their industrial capacity is assigned to deal directly with the fountain of Polish Jewry on its very doorstep. Hitler had now begun to achieve an objective that he had fully set about achieving. Here in Poland, and alongside the Town of Oswiecim, stands the Camp of Auschwitz, but it is in the Death Camp facility that is Birkenau where Jewish Destruction is practised on an such immense scale.

#3 Angel, Esther b. November 6th. 1926 in Paris, Murdered in Birkenau at 16 years of age.

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03) “..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.

To see this as an all consuming truth, European Jewry has been decimated from the midst of Europe on a scale of incalculable evil, atrocity and dedicated hatred. 6,000,000 Jews, as estimates abound, are the result of both the active mechanism for the slaughter and this includes all of its components placed within Poland for ease of access to 3,650,000 Polish Jews. The constituent and proponent parts, from the participants and infrastructure of der Einsatzgruppe and The Death Camps will lay to waste more than 1,500,000 Jewish Children.

#4Angel, Isak b. August 29th. 1925 in Lille, Murdered in Birkenau at 16 years of age.

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04) “..Apart from ..gassings in Auschwitz and ..Polish death camps ..more than 1,000,000 Jews must have died by ..firing squads or during round ups in ..ghettoes. Auschwitz ..in spite of its immense symbolic significance ..probably contributed less that 1/5th. of ..victims.” Gerald Reitlinger.

Also, and 4,500,000 other’s of their Parents, Relations, Friends and Neighbours have been ritually Slaughtered for the simple fact of their Jewish antecedence But, and this is ranged alongside the seeming apathy and glaring indifference of those who witnessed this catastrophe, and on a daily basis within Poland, that we recognise how abandoned the Jewish People were. Whether through moral neglect, duplicity, complicty or through participation and perpetration, the World recognises much too much was achieved in abadoning the Jews.

#5Angel, Iwan b. February 23rd. 1940 in St-Nazaire, Murdered at 2 years of age.

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05) “..Auschwitz is ..deeply etched in my memory ..I cannot forget one moment of it. ..I live next to it. Auschwitz is there ..unalterable ..precise ..enveloped in ..skin of memory an impermeable skin that isolates it from my present self.” Charlotte Delbo.

Of course, not enough was done to foster hope for the Jews of Europe that would be saved and this is a legacy for all of humanity and which is a hatred beyond compare. Here though, we have the experiences of Primo Levi, Giuliana Tedeschi and Charlotte Delbo mixed with the dedication of Gerald Reitlinger who lead us toward an expanding knowledge of what we need to know of the catastrophe. For Primo Levi, Giuliana Tedeschi and Charlotte Delbo, who were interned in the sister camp at Birkenau, their evidence ties in with what the state Museum at Auschwitz relates to.

#6Appel, Meier b. September 5th. 1924 in Lodz, Murdered in Birkenau at 17 years of age.

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6) “..From now on ..do not answer by your name. ..felt like ..not ..human person anymore. ..shaved our heads ..I felt so ashamed. And also when they told us to undress and to shower ..they made us feel like ..animals. ..men were walking around ..laughing and looking at us. And you take a young girl at that age ..who had never been exposed to a person ..to a man ..and you stay there naked ..I wanted ..ground to open ..and I should go into it. We were packed like sardines. ..beds were bunks ..3 layers. I was on ..top layer. If one person wanted to turn ..we all had to turn. They gave me ..little rations of hard ..dried up bread which was half mildew ..I could hardly eat it. ..a tin can of soup ..so rotten and vile ..when I tasted it I couldn’t eat it. .. I just ate ..bread and drank a little water ..which was just rust running out from ..sink that they had over there. ..finally ..got so hungry ..knew I had to eat ..soup ..so vile. ..so terrible. I never ate anything like that in my whole life. ..If I want to survive I have to eat ..soup. ..So I started eating ..soup. And I ..forcing ..soup down my throat ..big tears coming down my face. Eating ..crying ..eating ..crying ..this is how I was in Birkenau. Every day ..I woke up and I would find 1 ..2 people who wanted to end their lives and couldn’t take it anymore. ..throw themselves to ..electric wires ..make an end of it. ..every once in a blue moon ..couldn’t take it anymore. ..try to sneak out of ..barracks late at night and I would see ..sky. ..talk to myself ..can’t believe ..stars ..looking down at us in this Hell ..this camp ..same stars ..shining at ..outside of ..world. ..other people ..looking at ..same stars ..they are free. ..to do what they want to do. ..living a good life. ..we are ..in Hell ..human beings worse than animals. ..nobody is doing anything about it. ..young as I was ..asking myself these questions. ..Where is ..world ..Why isn’t ..world doing anything about this ..I would question God ..Where is God ..How can He let us be killed like that ..after I cried myself out real good ..I would go back to ..barracks.” Lily Appelbaum.

But, in a much less clinically and sanitised detail of the very narrative of such brutality, the emerging Survivor displays for History, that we are required to confront the past and all its unpalatable truths. With the delivery of all testimony however, to not only present what humanity demands, but what must always add to an honourable discourse for what Humanity has so severely lost, we edge toward a comprehension we will never fully understand. The complexities of this loss, and this is what truly confronts us as Lily Appelbaum cries, will not desist for us as we share the tears for what is a crime beyond compare.

#7Babeline, Raymond b. July 17th. 1925 in Paris, Murdered in Birkenau at 16 years of age.

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07) “..Let me explain that even though I had been in Auschwitz I did not know about ..gas chambers. Can you imagine that. We thought ..when we were there ..that our parents and ..children were taken to camps which were much better. We assumed that they couldn’t live through ..camp we were in. It was not until a large contingent from Auschwitz came to Belsen that I had to give up that idea that they were safe. I met 2 women in their 30’s who spoke Hungarian and they asked if it was true that ..Hungarian transports were so severely selected people to ..camps and ..others to be gassed. I said ..What are you saying. ..And they looked at me as if I were foolish ..but they didn’t want to destroy my hope and so didn’t try to explain. I ran back to ..tent and collapsed. I think I cried for weeks. I finally realized that everybody was killed.” Maria Frank Abrams.

Questions abound. How then could this happen? How did it happen? Why did we allow it to happen? As we truly seek to answer such disparite questions of uniqueness and their unparalleled scale of atrocity, we recognise that there were places on earth which we allowed into existence that were not belonging to the progress nor the promotion of human life. As we seek to Remember the Catastrophe, that is The Holocaust, we have entered this period of reflection where we recognise that survival was almost impossible during the Jewish sojourn within Hitler’s reach.

#8Balin, Kurt b. January 6th. 1926 in Vienna, Murdered in Birkenau at 16 years of age.

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

However, and from a place on Earth that was constructed for Jewish destruction, annihilation, decimation and erasure, other’s too were obliterated in that time. But such were the historical cruelties, as they pale into an almost insignificant marker in the vile history of abuse and bestial atrocity, and toward any People for who they are, such was the precedence which was established against the Jewish People we have termed it The Holocaust. For me, that there was ever a person called Adolf Hitler, who then invented a demand for the Death Camp system, and the Einsatzgruppe killing machine, creates the term which becomes exclusively a Jewish continment.

#9Bandler, Nathan b. February 9th. 1925 in Kolomea, Murdered in Birkenau at 17 years of age.

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09) “..Twisted Road to Auschwitz ..published 1970 ..Nazi decision.making ..Jewish policy in particular . ..Nazi persecution of ..Jews during ..1930’s underwent an incremental radicalisation ..a product of dynamics ..stresses ..tensions ..conscious planning ..design ..of ..Nazi leadership.” Karl A. Schleunes.

In history too though, it must be completely recognised and recognisable that in Hitler, not only had he sought to exaserbate the requirement for a more intensive hatred against the Jews, he promoted it. Hitler utilised a World’s latent antisemitism, an undercurrent promoted politically and religiously to radically embolden acts of sheer brutality against all living Jews as the road twisted all the way to Auschwitz and then Birkenau. Here, as we seek to measure the atrocity with Birkenau, there are 1,100,000 Jews and 200,000 other’s, and maybe more fixed to that space.

#10Baum, Pierre b. November 23rd. 1926 in Berlin, Murdered in Birkenau at 15 years of age.

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10) “..daytime ..arrived ..Judenrampe ..my group reached Auschwitz I. ..walked ..distance while ..others unsuspectingly headed ..for ..gas chambers ..Birkenau.” Shlomo Venezia.

Of course the unparalled nature of the assault upon Jewish existence, and the unrelenting tenure of the avalanche of the destruction of these Jewish People, has established a clear route to this resolve. This is a precedent of atrocity that is motivated by hatred and the rhetoric of Hitler led incrementally to where we stand to this day. Armed with an impunity for future generations, The Holocaust is used to this day for the murder of differing People’s, in differing places but for ostensibly the same reasoning, hatred. Clearly, and for the fact that it can be achieved, humanity has learned nothing from the sheer slaughter of 6,000,000 Jewish People, be they Men, Women or even Their Children.

#11Behar, Beatrice b. November 6th. 1924 in Paris, Murdered in Birkenau at 17 years of age.

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11) “..when hatred and defamation quietly germinate ..we have to be alert ..on guard. ..legacy of ..victims of Auschwitz. ..dead were strong ..in their destruction they displayed a strength…Can ..living ..be any weaker.” Lucie Adelsberger.

I know all too well that the Jewish People, who suffered most, and from amidst the carnage inflicted upon them, for the 6,000,000 who reeled under the most abundant duress and atrocity ever proposed against any human being, we are still reeling from and coming to terms with the Catastrophe. It is an overwhelming calamity which saw 6,000,000 of the Jewish People Slaughtered wholesale for the single act of being born as Jews. However, the very accuracy of the accounting, which recognises this exists upon an unprecedented scale, and that the treatment of the Jewish People was clinically managed and resolved with precision, will not deliver such an incisive accounting as an Einsatz bullet, or a molecule of Zyklon ‘B’ would deliver.

#12Behar, Nissim b. November 16th. 1927 in Paris, Murdered in Birkenau at 14 years of age.

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12) “..I saw an iron gate ..Arbeit Macht Frei. ..Auschwitz. ..we passed by ..carried on for some distance. .. ..Women only ..passed through a gate. ..Birkenau.” Kitty Hart.

Arriving at Hitler’s blood letting, and from more than 2,000 years of an unbridled fear, envy, and with an animosity beyond reason, the Jewish People are continually seeking to gain back what has always been taken from them. Such a calamitous destruction, and waged not solely by Hitler and his minions, has not freed the Jews from this hatred. So far, the Jews of antiquity have not been allowed to bring about any modicum of their full acceptance amongst us, in a still very much an intolerant World toward a Jewish presence. Even with the Jewish annihilation, that is The Holocaust, there has not been any fully committed nor respectful confrontation with how gravely we have abandoned them.

#13Beiser-Thau, Andre b. April 19th. 1926 in Metz, Murdered in Birkenau at 16 years of age.

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13) “..flames could be seen from 15 or 20 kilometres ..people knew ..human beings were being burned there.” Adolf Bartelmes.

Let me remind you that even The Holocaust term too, which is being terribly diluted, aims to remove the Jewish presence from its title. Originally, as it was conceived of and deliberately delivered as The Final Solution of The Jewish Question, die Endlosung der Judenfrage delivers 6,000,000 Jews of Europe toward must be fully recognised as a uniquely and unpalatable term resonating with 6,000,000 Jewish voices that are lost to us, and it is The Holocaust. As there is a sought after imbalance of comparison, the unprecedented and unparalleled nature of the atrocty that is never to be allowed to be taken away from these Jews, we must protect the memory of the Jews so encapsulated within The Holocaust term itself.

#14Beiser-Thau, Samuel b. September 29th. 1924 in Metz, Murdered in Birkenau at 17 years of age.

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14) “.. A whole generation of Germans ..children and grandchildren of ..perpetrators of ..Nazi genocide ..have heard nothing from their parents and grandparents about what they saw ..and what they did ..in Auschwitz and ..other factories of death. It is time ..at long last ..to stop forgetting and suppressing.” Irene Weiss.

Such conformity to a term of reference has taken, both methodically delivered and mechanically imposed upon these Jews, and on such an industrial and industrious scale, has been clearly acknowledged in so many works dedicated todrawing any sense from the incomprehensible detail they describe. However, and by far too few of those who knew the depths of the terror inflicted upon the Jews and the horror that must confront humanity for an eternity, words today are seeking to revise and corrupt the factual truth of what History knows. Of course, what was presented to the Jewish People was many steps toward an annihilatory road, and it was driven by an ideology of a superiority which does not exist, but persists to this day.

#15Bienenstock, Germaine b. November 23rd. 1924 in Strasbourg, Murdered in Birkenau at 17 years of age.

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15) “..teachings ..about ..world ..people ..ethics ..faith ..I had to learn ..by myself in ..hell of concentration camps ..without my Mother who was put to death in ..Gas Chambers in Majdanek ..my Father ..put to death and burnt in ..crematorium in Treblinka ..my Brother ..my Sister in law ..so young ..but cared for me like my Mother ..tormented and burnt in Auschwitz. ” Halina Birenbaum.

That failed racist ideology still amazes me in that, over the very lack of human admission as to what was known and what has not therefore been transmitted, there is nothing to be proud of in what they managed. In the very concealment they sought, this all hides the fact of an abomination that has no moral equivalence nor an ethical probity that might be sourced from other than despotism. History too it seems, is now being distorted for the devaluating terms of race and theory and by the time the varying routes toward the decimation of Jewish Europe had been decided, Jewish existence had been consigned to the past. With Auschwitz, of which Birkenau was its Death Camp proponent, and while we had moved toward industrialised annihilation, the failed ideologue is submerged in a sea of blood.

#16Borland, Bernard b. March 31st. 1925 in Paris, Murdered in Birkenau at 17 years of age.

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16) “..Our captors started hitting People as soon as we arrived ..to vent their hatred ..out of cruelty ..so that we’d lose our bearings and obey out of fear.” Shlomo Venezia.

Meanwhile, and some in history would continually seek to lay the blame away from Hitler for the failure by them, to convert the World to such a rancid idea as antisemitism was converted to, the destruction of the Jewish People. But, as some form of abrogation was sought and was carried out by the many who willingly followe this evil incarnate, cruelty was displayed in all of its ideological forms, none of which were benign. But, and by the time the Jews of Poland and the rest of Europe had walked through these x6 Death Camp gates, where work would set them free from life, they were already assigned to a death they could not escape.

#17Borland, Hirsch b. June 5th. 1927 in Paris, Murdered in Birkenau at 15 years of age.

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17) “..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.

For those who chose to ignore the Jewish plight, and we recognise their position just outside the Death Camp gates, mny in the World have avoided the truth as an ugly accusation emerges because all too many Jewish People were being Slaughtered. Those who chose inaction must now all share a responsibility in complying with such indifference as it surely led toward Hitler’s demand for Jewish destruction. Such then is the guilt, that can never expunge the inter relationships of complicity and perpetration, but must somehow resolve the issue of what History must now demand in the construction of any defence. What is now to be gained between what has emerged as competing evidences as truth is being stifled by personal bias, must not now fail the 6,000,000 Jews already failed by us.

#18Borower, Adeline b. October 6th. 1925 in Nancy, Murdered in Birkenau at 16 years of age.

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18) “..mass murder in Auschwitz ..characterized by its ..duration and ..considerable number of its victims. ..number of ..children ..babies killed there is in 100’s of 1,000’s.” Desire Haffner.

Nor can there be found, and all too often there is this absence of any admission, particularly from those in close proximity to what they observed, what they sensed, what they knew or even saw, a failure that becomes acceptable. This is tantamount to the facts being denied to all of history and as such, both distorts the truth and corrupts the evidecne available. While the local populace, who stood befors the gates of these Death Camps, Concentration camps, and even those who witnessed the Slaughter into the killing pits by der Einsatzgruppe, time will not expunge their guilt, nor their failure to acknowledge what they knew, know and witnessed. For all too many miles away, the World could clearly smell the extirpation of a vastly Jewish presence, so where indeed was non=Jewish humanity parked.

#19Borowka, Margot b. April 4th. 1927 in Berlin, Murdered in Birkenau at 15 years of age.

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19) “..whole complex had forty-six retorts ..each with ..capacity for three to five persons. ..burning in a retort lasted about half an hour. ..it was theoretically possible to cremate about 12,000 corpses in twenty four hours ..4,380,000 a year. ..well-constructed crematoria fell far behind at a number of camps ..especially at Auschwitz in 1944. In August ..total cremation reached a peak one day of 24,000 ..still a bottleneck occurred. Camp authorities needed an economic and fast method of corpse disposal ..dug six huge pits beside Krema V ..reopened old pits in ..wood. ..late 1944 ..pit burning became ..chief method of corpse disposal. ..pits had indentations at one end from which human fat drained off. To keep ..pits burning ..stokers poured oil ..alcohol ..large quantities of boiling human fat over ..bodies.” Filip Muller.

Little heard was the voice of condemnation, and even less present was the physical protest which would emanate from ethically moral human beings established in the humanity which sought to civilise us. Of course, part of that failure of acknowledgement of the very evidence outside their doors, or at least for the many who would be available to testify later on, much to much of this reluctance owes far too much to a predisposition toward the antisemitism which was clearly present in Poland, and other Country’s at the time.

#20Braun, Jacqueline b. July 11th. 1926 in Paris, Murdered in Birkenau at 16 years of age.

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20) “..In Auschwitz I took leave of my skin ..it had a bad smell .that skin ..worn from all ..blows it had received.” Charlotte Delbo.

In Poland in particular, where the establishment of the Death Camps was clearly envisaged to assault and destroy the 3,650,000 of Polish Jewry, available to Hitler after invading Poland. It is also very much an intolerable indifference, which is abundantly clear, that all led to a particularly Jewish fate that we recognise. It is sadly true, that what was Not done to prevent all of what transpired here as The Holocaust spread its tentacles far and wide, shares with this history an intolerance and indifference we are clearly able to quantify.

#21Bretmel, Golda b. December 1st. 1926 in Zachelow, Murdered in Birkenau at 15 years of age.

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21) “..number tatooed on my left arm ..personal evidence from Auschwitz ..attracts ..attention of many people. ..an incomprehensible ..strange mark ….a painful souvenir of ..cruel times of Nazism ..for me ..a kind of certificate of maturity.” Halina Birenbaum.

But, and throughout the fuller range of what was inflicted upon 6,000,000 Jews of Europe, cruelty indeed became a hell on Earth, a tattooed mark en-route toward the extinction of a People for being Jews. Recognition of this fact was available to all local people who could see, hear or smell for themselves as transport after transport passed their front door and its human cargo emptied into oblivion. If even a Polish rail worker like Adolf Bartelmes, a direct witness to what was happeneing in Auschwitz and Birkenau, if he could see the evidence for himself some 10 miles and even 15 miles away, how many more non-Jewish Poles are we speaking of who must have seen all this evidence across the road from their own front doors.

#22Bronzstein, Anna b. November 11th. 1925, Murdered in Birkenau at 16 years of age.

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22) “..Everything is Auschwitz. Auschwitz is everywhere. People eat meat. Life feeds off life. After ..optimism of liberation all ..optimisms fail. ..impossibility of communicating what happened so it could make difference. ..anger. Who can you get angry at 40 years later. ..protest ..but to who.” Paul Pavel.

How is it possible then that Poland cannot fully admit to what was known, and from directly outside of all the x6 Death Camps established within its borders. I have stood at the gates of these former Death Camps, some no longer evidenced as an entry point to hell itself, but they persist in delivering their testimony to us. I have witnessed a World go driving by, transported elsewhere, as neighbours whittle away their time, much as they did during the colossal transports of destruction as they arrived in front of them.

#23Bronzstein, Fanny b. March 22nd. 1927, Murdered in Birkenau at 15 years of age.

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23) “..This is where they load freight for Birkenau ..supplies for ..construction of ..camp ..and People for ..gas chambers.” Tadeusz Borowski.

So I am literally shocked too that within such close proximity to the Slaughter as it was conducted, and in all x6 of these Death Camps, it still managed to evade the testimony so many witnesses. Remember, whatever restrictions Poland wishes to place befoire us today, the evidence of smoke, smell and other evidences cannot have escaped anyone willling to know. Witnesses to it stood beside Auschwitz and Birkenau, they lingered outside Belzec, were near enough to Chelmno to watch the progress from killing centre to burial ground. A city like Lublin, surrounding the outside perimeter of Majdanek cannot have failed to evade recognising Hitler’s plan. Alongside Sobibor and adjacent to Treblinka the truth was evident to even the casual visitor to the area.

#24Bruck, Helene b. October 2nd. 1926 in Coblence, Murdered in Birkenau at 15 years of age.

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24) “..Along with my old skin went ..visible traces of Auschwitz ..leaden stare out of sunken eyes ..tottering gait ..frightened gestures.” Charlotte Delbo.

It is no secret that the Death Camps were Not a secret and I have seen for myself that evidence as I looked from within the boundaries of all of them. It is not that I have found evidences that were not available to all of Poland, but newer words to inform you all of what those like Charlotte Delbo knew, are words so instinctively borne by her very presence in the atrocity against her. Surely that alone compels us that we must listen intently and judge the evidence without bias or even a prejudice which finally confined so many of these Jewish People. So I will continually gather the words I feel sure remain a resonant force for the Jewish loss and I offer them forward in a newer light of remembrance and condemnation of those who stood aside.

#25Bulka, Esther b. February 8th. 1926 in Nancy, Murdered in Birkenau at 16 years of age.

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25) “..Jewish population ..living under ..impact of news from London. ..world has been stirred by ..reports of ..slaughter in Poland ..aroused ..deepest emotions in all of us. For many ..many months ..endured ..most terrible sufferings ..asking ourselves ..Does ..world know about our sufferings ..if it knows ..why is it silent. Why was ..world not outraged 10’s of 1,000’s of Jews ..shot ..at Ponary. ..10’s of 1,000’s of Jews poisoned in Chelmno. 100’s of 1,000’s of Jews ..slaughtered in Galicia ..Auschwitz. ..slaughter in Vilna ..180,000 ..in Rostov ..Jews ..murdered ..in Kiev ..BabiYar…blood is flowing in rivers. Is ..blood of ..Jews more precious. ..Only now have we come to understand ..cause of this silence. ..Polish government ..its own radio station ..knew nothing about it. ..if London knew ..next day 100 people ..shot ..Pawiak prison ..why ..did it take many months before they learned of ..100’s of 1,000’s murdered Jews…a question which cannot be turned away by excuses!” Emanuel Ringelblum.

With that illumination, which depicts the full horror of that very Jewish experience, all of this is being gained by me without ever knowing what it must have been to be a Jew. For me, as an historian, I struggle to commend enough those Jews for having managed and Survived a catastrophe of such magnititude they were never meant to Survive. Within me, my words must remain incomprehensible though they must never remain mute to the terrible wrongs witnessed and endured by these Jews. What was and has been ignored, by those who could have done so much more to assist one more Jew accuses ever more of us for our acceptance of a wrong that will never be corrected. Words of course are issued with intention, but they are nearing their redundancy when they cannot compete with the known terms of The Holocaust atrocity.

#26Bursztynski, Suzanne b. June 3rd. 1925 in Paris, Murdered in Birkenau at 17 years of age.

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26) “..Since ..campaigns of murder were conducted with ..strictest secrecy ..there was considerable temptation to delude one’s conscience into believing that ..deeds committed outside any social control never happened. Who was ..to ask at home ..what was done to ..unknown Jew in ..forest near Minsk or behind ..barbed wire of Auschwitz.” Hans Buckheim.

Can we possibly ever mirror the image of what Emanuel Ringelblum described, and which is readily added to by those Jews who are detained within the atrocity itself. For the far fewer Jews who emerged from within the terms of The Holocaust, we must lend a more appreciating ear to what they wish to say to us. From them will come the future of our own humanity, a lessone we must learn so as to aavoid the pitfalls of such hatreds. Hans Buckheim begs the question as to what might the perpetrator relay on trips home, as community’s recognised the disappearances of their Jewish neighbours from Czechoslovakia to Poland, or the remainder of Europe, can we be less exhaustive in our search for that truth.

#27Buschbaum, Charlotte b. February 5th. 1925 in Stelingen, Murdered in Birkenau at 17 years of age.

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27) “..During ..tenure of office of defendant Wilhelm Frick as Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia ..from August ..1943 ..until ..liberation of Czechoslovakia in 1945 ..many thousands of Czechoslovak Jews were transported from ..Terezin Ghetto ..Czechoslovakia to ..Camp at Oswiecziem ..Auschwitz ..in Poland and were there killed in ..gas chambers.” Dr. Robert Max Wasilii Kempner.

Truth, its factual integrity cannot give way to the ownership of an agenda which seeks to distance itself from what it allowed or even participated in. So I do not simply wish to relate to you the dates of the crimes, the facts nor even the figures as they relate to the terrible detail of the atrocity. What I do wish for is to continually emerge from each page of this unfolding and horrifying era with a newer impetus to relate more the struggles that each and everyone of the 6,000,000 Slaughtered Jews met. With a Jewish concern for each other, unmatched by a non-Jewish willingness to deliver them to Hitler’s demands, we stumble to understand both capacity’s, for Jews to have live being dependent upon those who did not resist the will to take their lives.

#28Cahn, Raymond b. October 12th. 1924 in Lanegienu, Murdered in Birkenau at 17 years of age.

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28) “..Flora ..our ss ..was to accompany us to Birkenau. Just ..name Birkenau filled us with trepidation. What reassured us was ..sight of a cart waiting for us. We would never have climbed into a truck. ..Trucks took people straight to ..gas chambers.” Charlotte Delbo.

Though as one can see, Emanuel Ringelblum does exactly that delivery of honesty with his presentation of truth and from the near centre of the storm. Emanuel’s very words captivate us as Charlotte Delbo’s iterations fills the void with trepidation. So how does an historian compete, when all he can deliver are the words so factually engrained, they become an almost sterile truth. With little, or even a failed sense of enough compassion, it is impossible to relay any sense of the horror that was visited on so many Jewish People. I have stood in the shadow of those Survivor’s who have relayed their truth and I cannot possibly come to terms with what they relay in order to present my own words with a meaning so gravely meaningful.

#29Caron, Louise b. December 3rd. 1926 in Mertzweillen, Murdered in Birkenau at 15 years of age.

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29) “..when I think about our arrival ..cars of our train appear to me as so many coffins. ..a funeral train. ss ..gestapo ..our undertakers ..officers ..evaluated our riches were our greedy ..impatient heirs.” Olga Lengyel.

“..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.

For that reason we have adopted the meaningless words of an accounting of the Slaughter of 6,000,000 of these Jewish People, which cannot console their loss to us all. To even suggest, and for whom I have to guess to the Survivor that this is my route toward comprehending what no one, other than you the Survivor can ever appreciate. What the passage of time has delivered thus far, both in the magnitude of the crime against you as Jews, and it is being measured by the weight of the atrocity, in 6,000,000 converging Jewish names lost to us all, words alone cannot ever compare to the depth of the tragedy we are short in comprehending.

#30Caron, Lucien b. December 8th. 1924 in Mertzweillen, Murdered in Birkenau at 17 years of age.

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30) “..Auschwitz obliges us to keep ..memory alive. We must remember ..crimes that were committed here and name them clearly. ..I feel deep shame given ..barbaric crimes that were committed here by Germans.” Angela Merkel.

Of course, the sheer myth of secrecy lies, and it obliges us to nothing and it has thus exposed us before the consensus of time to continually search and research for what we are left with, which must be under no illusion other than what the truth presents to us. We have then to wade through what is being often times presented from that space in time and it unfolds before us as a conspiracy of silence. These effecting deceits, that construct an absurdly corrupted historical barrier to the truthful documentation we have, must not corrupt what we know. That Oswiecim is a place in Poland, that has delivered Auschwitz and even Birkenau to our recollection, must not be sounded out as the killing centre above and beyond all other Death Camps in Poland. One Death Camp, cannot ever disguise this fact that all x6 Death Camps delivered to Hitler all that he set in motion.

#31Cola, Gerszon b. December 31st. 1926 in Pabjanice, Murdered in Birkenau at 15 years of age.

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31) “..I walk in Auschwitz ..in ..tracks of ..abandoned shoes ..of ..extracted teeth ..of ..cut off hair ..of ..misplaced baggage in order to find ..last moments of my family ..The Schneider Family.” Yossi Sarid.

Also, there are the deluded ones who still seek to deny their truth, which has been laid bare against the cold calculated facts that the actions of all too many, acted with barbarism. Indeed, what Charlotte Delbo clearly recognises and Olga Lengyel further evaluates in the meaning of what transports meant, and we have those last moments Yossi Sarid is searching for. Of course, the difference between a cart and a truck, those that took Jews within Birkenau either toward trepidation or the gas is recognising what was evident to all too many. But we simply cannot pierce the searing fear, terror and horror that is presented, even when the words portray a mosaic of such murderous precision, we cannot but understand what is evident.

#32Cukierman, Charles b. April 1st. 1926 in Paris, Murdered in Birkenau at 16 years of age.

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32) “..By ..time we reach ..75th anniversary ..liberation of Auschwitz ..there may be almost no survivors left. But they are coming now ..because they want to bear witness ..to stand there and say ..we outlasted Hitler. We made it.” Ronald Lauder.

Even though as detailed an account as this has been, more column miles have been attributed to The Holocaust search, that we recognise for Birkenau, and those taken away from Auschwitz to feed Birkenau’s capacity for destruction, that nothing can bring us close enough to the tragedy so as to completely understand its searing hostility or the vexed hatred we have come to recognise. The World has since experienced many similar catastrophies and the progresses in killing continues relentlessly, even with greater expedience and alarm. But, the World must recognise the entirety of The Holocaust for what it is, a Jewish resting place unequalled in all of history for a Jewish People who had no wish to be consigned within its terms.

#33Dzyalszynska, Masza b. August 20th. 1925 in Lowisc, Murdered in Birkenau at 16 years of age.

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33) “..I have returned from a world beyond knowledge and ..must unlearn for otherwise I clearly see I can no longer live.” Charlotte Delbo. It is also true that so many others, non-Jews who could not withstand the sheer hatred and physical rebuke of Hitler, nor his cronies, and who entered their captive space in any of the Camps, suffered similar consequences. But it for the Jewish People that we recognise the very systematic and sought after nature of the resolve by Hitler to solove his own Jewish Question. Though many others are no less dead, killed or murdered, and it is no less reprehensible due to the fact that Hitler could and did demand their deaths, the betrayal of the terms of reference still confines the Jews of Europe to a more exclusive resolution of Hitler’s hatred for them. Therefore, and in these 75 years since Auschwitz was liberated, the World beyond such knowledge, which seeks to omit Birkenau from its pages, in favour of an Auschwitz not responsible for all the destruction, must learn from those who sought to unlearn.

#34Eilstein, Theodore b. September 22nd. 1926 in Paris, Murdered in Birkenau at 15 years of age.

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34) “..Anne Frank wrote at ..end of her Diary ..she still believed people were good at heart ..I wonder what she would have thought if she had Survived ..Auschwitz and ..Belsen. ..people have a unique capacity for cruelty ..brutality ..indiffernce to human suffering. ..I have seen ..unedifying evidence of that at close hand ..it has led me to a lifetime of wondering about ..human soul.” Eva Schloss.

As we can now testify to, much has failed to be learned from the destructive forces of such a hatred that emantes from all the Death Camps established in Poland, and not just Auschwitz. For the fullest remit of guilt, in what transformed our humanity into an abyss of visual hatred’s, these must be confronted, and continuously in mentioning all that emerged by way of the destructive processes aimed at the Jews. For me, to live with each other, in some form of harmony, has been a long sought after effort which would supposedly lift Humanity above the existing primevil malaise. For that which has subjected so many People’s to such cruelties, and the hateful vagaries of mankind, we have been delivered as witnesses to what Anne Frank assumed was the goodness in People that can be so missing from all too many human beings.

#35Ellert, Henri b. May 24th. 1926 in Metz, Murdered in Birkenau at 16 years of age.

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35) “..Our family was sent to Auschwitz. ..My sister and I ..sent to one side ..my mother ..my little brother to ..other. ..it all happened so fast ..I looked around ..they were already gone. To Birkenau. ..where gas chambers where. My little brother was 15.” Fela Drybus.

In many places other than here at Auschwitz and Birkenau, but names which resonate with the history of such an enormous catastrophe, BabiYar, Belzec, Chelmno, Derechin, Majdanek, Mogilev-Podolski, Ponary, Rumbuli, Sobibor, Treblinka and Tuchinka, the resolve of Hitler’s end solution is graphically met. I could spend the days in searching for some form of comprehension that could be understood, and for those like me still seeking to understand how humanity stooped so low, but I doubt I will ever find those words. In delivering names of sites and facility’s which dealt in the destruction of the Jews of The Holocaust, we have a never ending catalogue of human grief informed by Auschwitz, Belzec, Birkenau and a multitude of places where the Jews of Europe were wholly consumed on the grates of a hatred inflamed by the demands of a man like Hitler.

#36Felzenstajn, Mina b. August 20th. 1926 in Metz, Murdered in Birkenau at 15 years of age.

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36) “..Here is ..silence of ..grave. ..Rumbuli ..Riga ..Bikernieki ..Salaspils ..Klooga ..Ponary ..Babi Yar ..Majdanek ..Treblinka ..Auschwitz. Thousands and thousands of cities and towns stained with blood. I rise from among you ..my silent martyrs ..old men ..babies ..fathers ..mothers ..husbands ..wives ..brothers ..sisters ..brides ..grooms ..children ..youths. ..slaughtered by ..millions ..you ordered me to tell ..living of what happened. I hear your cries ..screams ..thousands strong thunder of your feet running to ..grave ..your last word ..’Remember’. I swear by ..memory of you ..by your blood which slaked cruel spaces ..by your ashes scattered over ..world ..by ..smoke of your bodies rising from ..crematoriums ..I swear to you ..I will tell them ..living ..everything that I saw ..who killed you ..who betrayed you. I will not permit anyone to slander you or say it was someone else. I was with you at ..executioner’s block till ..last minute. Your blood flows in my veins ..your ashes throb in my heart. I swear to tell ..Truth ..nothing but ..Truth.” Frida Michelson.

For that very reason, to recognise where hatred leads so that we continue to guard against the hatred which releases its mockery of human civilisation, we choose Always to Remember, Never to Forget. While my own vocal response, as much as my written reply, adds newer volumes to provoking a meaningful response, 6,000,000 words will never satiate the desire to honour these 6,000,000 Jews with other than fading words and memory bolstered by testimony. My work, which is of course an accusing articulation of my raised voice, and while both are detailing of the very directed nature of this hatred against the Jewish People, their resonance echoes 6,000,000 times further, faster and longer than mere endeavour alone will allow.

#37Feuer, Arthur b. June 28th. 1926 in Vienna, Murdered in Birkenau at 16 years of age.

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37) “..I’ve come back from another world to this world I had not left and I know not which one is real. ..As far as I’m concerned I’m still there dying there a little more each day dying over again ..death of those who died.” Charlotte Delbo.

As it stands though, and before the rostrum of history, I restate each and every word and seek to accuse all that still might, and should litigate more heavily, those who are still alive to be indicted for their crimes against the Jews of Humanity. If I could, I would hurry the process along as the very ones who must see that Justice will prevail, those who did Survive and did not die, they are dying the death of those who perished through annihilation. I would strongly word more accutely our human failure to act more positively as the truth emerged. I will forever stand more resolutely for the forced losses of 6,000,000 Jews we abandoned as a World. It is simply not enough that I am always against the enforcers and while they are my focus in my major concern, it has always been the atrocity I search through.

#38Fischer, Jacques b. May 19th. 1925 in Saint-Michel, Murdered in Birkenau at 17 years of age.

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

I research how it must dive into the hearts of those who read these words and for those readers, be they the Survivor who knows more than I what these words spell out, or simply the truth seeker, I enter words that are the grimmest eloquence of the destruction I can resurrect. While they could Never come close to what was experienced or inform you more than a Survivor can, I am aligned to much that the Survivor tells us, to add a newer depth to their need to tell. Also, for the Children of Survivor’s who have had an interruped life due to the effects our abandonment has had upon their Jewish People, it must weigh as heavily upon them to have to continually confront our abandonment of all of those we all have lost.

#39Fischer, Pierre b. March 26th. 1928 in Saint-Michel, Murdered in Birkenau at 14 years of age.

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39) “..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.

It is evident in all my work, whtether that is in my Books or the platforms I use to spread these words, that all or any accusation, which must lay, outside, even beyond the very pertinent Jewish one, but alongisde the very intention to remember them all. As the atrocity is directed from within Auschwitz, and particularly Birkenau, as it is condensed and from within Majdanek, as it scorches our reason in Treblinka or indeed approaches us as an example from any of these Death Camps established in Poland, we have to learn respect for all and tolerance of each of us. Many of the Jews of Europe also, who were sent to hell before ever leaving Polish soil, as transport upon transport of Jewish Community’s descended upon Poland, and were laid to waste there, they raise their very obviouis accusation.

#40Fiszbin, Lolec b. April 20th. 1926 in Varsovie, Murdered in Birkenau at 16 years of age.

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40) “..I revisited Auschwitz. ..Our transport was among ..last ones ..from Hungary July 8th. 1944 ..and due to ..unusual number of arrivals ..SS were forced to change their customary procedures. ..gas chambers ..crematoria could not accommodate everyone judged unfit for work ..so 100’s were piled along ..railroad tracks to be immolated. ..due to ..heartless haste ..clothed in rags ..marked with ..painted red cross ..hardly any food or water ..also due to this haste ..escaped tattooing.” Judith Magyar Isaacson.

For me too, with this systematic approach Hitler that had established, which has ensured that the most enormous Jewish graveyard remains Poland, we build memory to add a monument that is more lasting than Country’s, border’s or the perceptions of belonging. Even while we recognise the Jewish presence that remains in the multitude of killing sites around Eastern Europe, Babi Yar, Bikernieki, Klooga, Ponary, Riga, Rumbuli and Salaspils, Poland’s saturation with the blood of Polish Jews, and other’s of European Jewry is heaviest, and it is the most intolerable fact that Poland must bear a larger responsibility for the death and destruction detained there.

#41Flajszakier, Rosetta b. January 25th. 1925 in Szydlow, Murdered in Birkenau at 17 years of age.

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41) “..If we consider ..entire Auschwitz universe ..as a youth I did not feel ..acute ..murderous ..destructive discord ..torment felt by every adult ..uprooted ..wrenched from ..cultural world ..its norms ..hurled into ..confrontation with norms of cruelty ..of death.” Otto ‘Dov’ Kulka.

For all of Jewish Polish blood, spilled in the backyard of a former Jewish Homeland, whose existence was assured for 100’s of years, that all changed the moment Hitler gave the World the idea, he could act with genocidal intent. The very nature and essence of Polish Jewry, which has all but perished, has not attributed the form of reverential response a nation with such losses must command. Denmark, amongst other European Jews, has formed a more proven, exacting and liberating detail of what should be a redeeming factor in all other nation’s. For half the struggle of the Jews in The Holocaust, the sheer weight of Polish Jewish struggle was a forlorn hopelessness. For all the 3,650,000 Jews of Poland what emanted as they were engulfed in the conflagration was purely because they were physically trapped on their own Polish soil.

#42Frankfurt, Nelly b. September 19th. 1925 in Varsovie, Murdered in Birkenau at 16 years of age.

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42) “..When 4,000,000 have died in Auschwitz ..I shall know how to die as well.” Hermann Langbein.

Of course the contest to explore the very detail of the atrocity, and not just here within Auschwitz or Birkenau confronts us with the reality of what hatred can now accomplish. Yet, much that has been reserched does not now take account of the first hand evidences of those who witnessed 4,000,000 die in Auschwitz alone, if we accept the eye witness account of one who knows. So we accept a very condenced version of that detail and while we are forever dwelling on this past, we look for more answers than have ever been or will be resolved. From the evidence gained of places like Auschwitz, and gathered from the debris of Birkenau and all the other x5 Death Camps, we are not to be enveloped by competing terms and details of accounts which can never be fully accurate.

#43Freymann, Heinrich b. February 20th. 1927 in Esch-Sur-A, Murdered in Birkenau at 15 years of age

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43) “..When we emerged from ..camps ..run down to ..point of stupor ..not even ..strength to feel joy. Just to rest ..to ..sleep our fill. Never ..it seemed ..would our tiredness go away. Nor our sadness. Upon us lay ..weight of all those who were notreturning. A few 1,000 survivor’s ..against 1,000,000’s of dead ..a sum of suffering that will never be reckoned ..by anyone.” Charlotte Delbo.

Therefore, we simply cannot evolve away from the Catastrophe for the Jewish People until we alter the course this History has gained, in relation to these 6,000,000 unspeakable crimes. Their Jewish number alone, carry’s with it a detail so heinous, the World had need of an invented name for genocide to evolve into The Holocaust term. For its enactment, and what is still being permitted in the World to this day, all has a direct correlation as to what Hitler managed to achieve in Slaughtering 6,000,000 Jews of Europe. We reach a remembrance now which has to recall other grave injustices perpetrated against other Peoples, and simply because history has taught them what Hitler accomplished through the hate he was infected with.

#44Freymann, Minna b. July 16th. 1925 in Esch-Sur-A, Murdered in Birkenau at 16 years of age.

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44) “..children were taken. ..All ..women ..not just ..mothers ..sensed in ..welling rebellion in their guts that something had been violently torn from ..maternal instinct that lay at ..very core of their being.” Giuliana Tedeschi.

Tragically, for all of those annihilated Jews, torn from all maternal security, its instinct of protection trampled upon and where paternal care and human compassion was not allowed to Jews in the midst of the cauldron of hate. Those erstwhile Hitler advocates, whose mere mention of such inhumanity, as it was displayed against the Jewish People, are today becoming the adopting voice of those who see in Hitler’s target their own hatred’s. Their latter day call for some form of justification for the Slaughter is matched in denial of the truthful facts which is the integrity of what we speak and relate to, in regards to 6,000,000 Slaughtered Jews. History cannot ever ignore the element of hatred which The Holocaust truth informs us of and continually delivers to posterity its stinging rebuke.

#45Frydmann, Salomon b. February 25th. 1927 in Radom, Murdered in Birkenau at 15 years of age.

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45) “..One could not indulge in too many illusions. ..Germans undoubtedly planned to exterminate our Parents.” Olga Lengyel.

Here in Birkenau, with Giuliana Tedeschi, the formerly 76847, but previously Giuliana Tedeschi, a Human Being way before Hitler considered the concept, and certainly before he sought to destroy her’s and all of the Jewish People’s very existence, Survived. Thankfully, Giuliana walked amongst us again and delivered an eloquence of such dark despair, it tore the force of maternal instinct away from Mother’s. Humanity though is resurrected here, and it is converted into a human spirit which she, Olga Lengyel and many others recognised as they share of their presence in midst of the very inhuman atrocity which is The Holocaust.

#46Gerszonowiez, Joseph b. May 28th. 1927 in Szerzercow, Murdered in Birkenau at 15 years of age.

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46) “..As one who survived ..infernos of Auschwitz Birkenau ..Buchenwald ..my eyes are still burning from ..vision of that nightmare ..my ears ..still ringing with ..agonizing sounds of Men ..Women ..little children ..lured ..driven into ..gas chambers ..solely ..exclusively because they were Jewish.” Mel Mermelstein.

Clearly, and what has not been destroyed in the Survivor as such, is the spirit to endure, to live, to Survive so as to add testimony of what they know to the evidence of what we have gained. What they Survivor now delivers to us, of what the World has sought to detain in the pages of works being purged of their relevance, is a ressurection of a humanity that was all but lost amongst the perpetrators but remains a signature of the Survivor. However, what is now being sought out from so many pages identifying with the tragedy, is not always about those who suffered most from the tragic consequences of inhuman deeds. The veritable truth, the reality of what was imposed upon the Jewish People would appear as a distraction sought by those seeking to submit these Destroyed Jews to the crimes against them as somehow self perpetuating. This is a revisionism borne of hatred and a sought after redemption of the illicit charcter that is Adolf Hitler..

#47Gerszonowiez, Junna b. November 3rd. 1924 in Szerzercow, Murdered in Birkenau at 17 years of age.

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47) “..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.

While The Holocaust, in its graduated evolution, is even to be denied the very Jewish presence, The Holocaust must remain the tem of focus that has been driven directly from the oratory of The Final Solution of The Jewish Question and into the Killing Sites and Death camps designed to extract all of any Jewish presence. It is at the very twisted yet constructed route which finally delivers on Hitler’s wish for die Endlosung der Judenfrage that The Holocaust is born. Clearly, we cannot meet with such conformity to a hatred for the Jewish People that they are then not to be allowed a term which is exclusively theirs, after all that was denied them.

#48Goldenberg, Andre b. April 26th. 1925 in Bucarest, Murdered in Birkenau at 17 years of age.

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48) “..I do not ..cannot know what I would be today if I had not been in ..Camp. No man knows his future. ..a man sets out ..almost never are our choices between ..two alternatives. ..every choice is followed by others. ..if I had not lived ..Auschwitz experience ..I probably would never have written. ..years have passed ..interposed ..artificial memory ..a defensive barrier ..between my ..normal present and ..dramatic past. ..I survived ..due ..to good luck. ..to survive with ..precise purpose of recounting. ..helped by ..determination ..to recognize always ..my companions ..myself ..men ..not things. ..to avoid ..total humiliation and demoralization which led so many to spiritual shipwreck.” Primo Levi.

I would suggest, that as The Holocaust was borne by the tenets of Hitler’s final resolve, the term stems from what die Endlosung der Judenfrage engages us with, an annihilation process designed to destroy all Jews. Make no mistake, in this resolve to fix the Jews of Europe into oblivion, it is clearly that many other’s, the Gypsy Lalleri, Medvashi, Roma and Sinti, the Jehovah Witnesses and any one else who stood against Hitler’s culling of Humanity, would meet a similar fate along the route toward Auschwitz and Birkenau. No Death Camp in Poland is exclusively detaining of Jews, as all too many other’s were sucked up into the transportations East. But, the very transient nature of what Hitler intended for European Jewry is so wound into the terms of reference that is The Holocaust, all Jewish persistence is uniquely delivered toward extinction.

#49Gumbacher, Sedz b. April 20th. 1925 in Rust, Murdered in Birkenau at 17 years of age.

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49) “..deprived of ..relaxation that night should bring ..stars seemed to belong to a different world ..where our infinite misery was unknown. ..in ..abandon of ..sleeping camp you saw that misery more clearly and sharply than during ..gigantic struggle for existence that went on in ..light of day.” Giuliana Tedeschi.

History has clearly abridged the religious divide and the historical narrative to expand the massive catastrophe into a single term recognised from within the midst of the atrocity itself. Here too though, while we are troubled by what reverence the position of 6,000,000 Slaughtered Jews are to be warranted, or are even to be allowed to posthumously own, History stalls before the bench of a critical shame of their abandonment. That many still question the uniqueness of what was inflicted upon the Jewish People is a sickening indictment of what has passed into our history. While episodes, within the early stages of the assault itself, as was unleashed upon the integrity of the Jewish People, we can barely surmise their impact.

#50Grunfogel, Berthe b. February 8th. 1926 in Nancy, Murdered in Birkenau at 16 years of age.

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50) “..In Stutthof ..became ..96211 ..unlike ..Auschwitz ..our numbers were not tatooed.” Max Michelson.

What we clearly afford in our need for understanding anything in an escalating term, is to be seen through the vista of a World community which simply stood aside. What will more than savage, an already brutalised Jewish People of differing nations, is to further allow for Hitler to continually reinvent the measures applied to this Jewish solution. For us to this day, to either portray the Jewish Catastrophe with less than with the integrity it demands or with any dishonesty seeking to exonerate any of those who forced this upon 6,000,000 Jews of Europe. The ramifications of our inability to act with any form of compassion, which then proved that the inaction would prove catastrophic for the Jews, is a glaring example of our own inhumanity to mankind.

#51Gurwitch, Jacques b. September 19th. 1926 in Metz, Murdered in Birkenau at 15 years of age.

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51) “..What Auschwitz was is known only to its inmates and ..no one else.” Martin Walser.

What was to turn indifference outward and toward the intolerances which go way beyond what history has ever experienced, decimated Jewish Community’s throughout all of Europe. Perhaps then, as we survey the devastation of Jewish antecedence, literally as we sit here, we will forever be deprived of such comprehension as Giuliana Tedeschi testifies to. Our physical absense from the immediacy of what the Jewish People were forced to endure, will not arm us enough to narrate fully the loss we wish to comprehend. I fully acknowledge clearly, that I cannot know what those like Giuliana, Martin Walser, Elie Wiesel, Max Michelson and Primo Levi illustrate for us.

#52Hanen, Frida b. February 6th. 1925 in Salonique, Murdered in Birkenau at 17 years of age.

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52) ” ..How is one to explain ..Hitler nor Himmler was ever excommunicated. ..Pius XII never thought ..to condemn Auschwitz ..Treblinka. ..among the SS a large portion ..remained faithful to their Christian ties. ..killers who went to confession.” Elie Wiesel.

As Survivor’s, who convey to us a barely temperate idea of what atrocity truly is, they do so from what they experienced within an Auschwitz, a Birkenau, a Death Camp where their own experiences can merely hint at the overall cost to the 6,000,000 Jews of Europe. I recognise precisely that all of these Murdered Jews are contained within The Holocaust, the living too as the Survivor’s and the destroyed alike as they shared the same intention to destroy them. I am all too clearly aware as to why many Jews, scholar’s included, would rather remove the 6,000,000 perished Jews from a term with such deeply religious connotations.

#53Heinik, Georges b. January 9th. 1926 in Paris, Murdered in Birkenau at 16 years of age.

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53) “..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.

But history itself has recognised the genocide of these Jews and it is to be the very expression of The Holocaust and for which these 6,000,000 Jews have been detained. The suggestion gradually emerging today, and though these Jews have been silenced forever, as Olga narrates, there are far too many of us who will never allow for these 6,000,000 Jews ever to be ignored. It is a simple truth that must ensure these Jews are remembered and just as certain it cannot be the Jews alone who seek to be sure they are mostly unforgotten. While other’s might seek to dilute their memory, or forget their past, history charges us with preserving the truth of who they are, where they came from and why they never came back from where they were detained.

#54Herschlikowtz, Julienne b. July 30th. 1926 in Charleville, Murdered in Birkenau at 15 years of age.

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54) “..Arrived ..Auschwitz ..July 2nd. or 3rd. 1944. ..about 200 men. ..women 70 or 80 seventy or eighty. ..rest I saw ..getting into ..a number of trucks. ..also a closed vehicle with ..sign of ..Red Cross. I saw them all go off. ..to ..gas chambers.” Georges Wellers.

Here too, as the sphere of grave atrocity, which we must consider as the entire universe that is not simply Auschwitz, nor even Birkenau, we must consider the position of all of the Death Camps in Poland, all of the Concentration Camps and Killing Sites throughout Europe that are now designated as Jewish Cemetery’s. What is now presented and offered up on the altar of a revisionist hatred, and by these latent threats to truth and honesty, so as to ignore memory and stifle remembrance, cannot be allowed to hold sway over what matters in the truthful discourse that must be history. Here, with these massive graveyards, fashioned from within the heart of Europe, all earmarked for the Jews from all over Europe, Jewish memory is firmly fixed.

#55Isakow, Paulette b. November 26th. 1925 in Chaumont, Murdered in Birkenau at 16 years of age.

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55) “..we cannot empathise with ..situation of ..prisoners ..because their suffering exceeded any previous measure and we cannot ..form a human impression of ..immediate perpetrators ..we call Auschwitz a hell and ..evildoers devils. This might be an explanation for ..fact that when we talk about Auschwitz ..we use words that point ..way beyond our World.” Martin Walser.

More especially, as with Polish Jewry within Poland itself, the Jewish interred are being eulogised by a growing awareness in this World that we have left so much of our own humanity in these irredeemable spaces. Also, and for so many who could not even hope to escape the clutches of such hatred, my effort is centred on these 6,000,000 Jews we owe more to than we can ever repay. While recognising, of course, that there are more other millions dead than I can detail, in a World of War where my search began, the Jews have always been my personal search. My very confrontation with the fuller detail of those 6,000,000 Jews who are deprived of all existence, does not look favourably on those who stood rigid as the body of Jewish existence was catapulted into oblivion.

#56Kahn, Marylise b. April 28th. 1925 in Lingolsheim, Murdered in Birkenau at 17 years of age.

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56 ) “..I was in ..camp Birkenau ..part of ..Oswiecim Camp. ..a woman in ..last month of pregnancy. ..had to walk ten 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.

What must be always honoured though, and by honourable people who must be certain in ensuring honourable deeds are done in recalling their past presence, is the worth of ensuring their memory. That which has been extracted from the dishonour and dishonourable, that was enacted and witnessed where ever a Jew had lived and was fully met with hatred, must be added to our need to know the gravest wrong done to the Jewish People is contained within The Holocaust. Can it be then that we readily accept the denial that comes from the hatred spewed forth from those whose hatred is fixed once again.

#57Kaplan, Jean b. July 24th. 1925 in Metz, Murdered in Birkenau at 16 years of age.

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57) “..I will never cease to rebel against those who committed or permitted Auschwitz ..including God. ..questions I once asked myself about God’s silence remain open. If they have an answer ..I do not know it. More than that ..I refuse to know it. ..I maintain that ..death of 6,000,000 human beings poses a question to which no answer will ever be forthcoming.” Elie Wiesel.

Do we simply pass up the opportunity to learn from what will save all humanity as we concentrate on what those like Elie Wiesel or Primo Levi and 6,000,000 other Jews experienced. It is deeply affecting to me, as I constantly read through the trauma of Jewish Survival, and then concern myself with ensuring I do not trivialise their concerns, how then can I not show the full horror and terror to all without further wounding the already distraught and impacted senses of those Jews who know more than I could ever suggest. The truth I wish to narrate has so many words that are already riven with the excess of hatred delivered to the Jews, that it is almost impossible to avoid inflicting ever more pain upon an already raw Jewish wound.

#58Kempinski, Jacob b. August 13th. 1924 in Nancy, Murdered in Birkenau at 17 years of age.

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58) “..how can I help not looking back to remember.” Kitty Hart.

For many people, for whom the hatred of the Jewish People could be harnessed and delivered toward an innocent Jewry, the Jewish blood cries as their Jewish voice is sought out to be ignored. Also, and in what we as human beings failed to achieve to prevent much more of this than we did, history screams its relentless accusation. How can we help but look back and in seeing the devastation and brutality not see the inability of all too many to act more favourably toward the Jewish People and at least afford some form of assistance to more than those we held our hand out to. The simple act of compassion, so removed from within each and every contextual enactment of the hatred cannot fail to show how low we descended.

#59Kirzbaum, Celine b. April 23rd. 1926 in Longwy, Murdered in Birkenau at 16 years of age.

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59) “..first shipment ..inmates arrived ..June 14th. 1940. 12 months later ..Hitler decided on ..Final Solution of ..Jewish Problem. Auschwitz ..chosen centre of ..planned mass extermination.” Bernd Naumann.

The ommision of so much concern, and it is so evident that today, those 6,000,000 Slaughtered Jews have become a focus of newer hatred’s enacted against their memory. Jews today, and not simply those Jews who Survied as witnesses to the human lack of compassion, they all bear the scars of what was enacted and what was not fully acted against. What Hitler espoused, and brought to bear upon 6,000,000 innocent Jewish Men, Women and Their Children, was the unprecedented Slaughter to be our legacy. What we have come to recognise in the atrocity itself, and the unbridled contempt humanity showed for all human life, labels our unconcern.

#60Kormann, Esther b. October 3rd. 1925 in Sedan, Murdered in Birkenau at 16 years of age.

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60) “..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.

In these x6 Death Camps established by Hitler and his regime in Poland, that impossibility became an ever more refined certainty, delivered with capacity to murder on a massive scale. Now, after 75 years have passed since the liberation of Auschwitz and Birkenau, we must continually consider those Jews specifically, who did not emerge as we specifically recognise the Jews, as they were the chosen People of Hitler’s feverish attempt for a Final Solution of The Jewish Question. For the very people, non-Jewish Poles and Ukrainians, who lived in such close proximity to the atrocity, their consciences have conspicuously failed to acknowledge this detailed atrocity.

#61Kormoner, Helena b. August 30th. 1925 in Vienna, Murdered in Birkenau at 16 years of age.

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61) “..whole complex had forty-six retorts ..each with ..capacity for three to five persons. ..burning in a retort lasted about half an hour. ..it was theoretically possible to cremate about 12,000 corpses in twenty four hours ..4,380,000 a year. ..well-constructed crematoria fell far behind at a number of camps ..especially at Auschwitz in 1944. In August ..total cremation reached a peak one day of 24,000 ..still a bottleneck occurred. Camp authorities needed an economic and fast method of corpse disposal ..dug six huge pits beside Krema V ..reopened old pits in ..wood. ..late 1944 ..pit burning became ..chief method of corpse disposal. ..pits had indentations at one end from which human fat drained off. To keep ..pits burning ..stokers poured oil ..alcohol ..large quantities of boiling human fat over ..bodies.” Filip Muller.

Purely, and from the sheer scale of the cremation of these Jewish human beings across the road from where the non-Jewish Poles lived, these very people who lived in such close proximity to the atrocity failed to acknowledge this detailed atrocity in any coherent nor affirmative way. Whether that is the continuance of antisemitsm toward the Jews in Polqand or the collective response of Europe, that lack of judicious resolve, which now emanates forward, has emboldened newer atrocity. As we look to those who breached the impossible and then Survived, so as to testify for us to know what we have learned and we gain a further insight into what is hell. But, and for all of these 6,000,000 annihilated Jews, they must be recalled and added to by the efforts of historians ensuring memory returns them to us.

#62Kravetz, Simon b. March 16th. 1926 in Nantes, Murdered in Birkenau at 16 years of age.

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62) “..when we get back ..we shall be different ..people who haven’t been through this hell won’t understand us. Something had changed deep inside us. Sensitivity ..numbed ..capacity to be moved ..gone ..habit of reducing life to a few bare essentials and there arose ..need to hate. ..if ever we returned ..transformation would condemn us to solitude ..incomprehension. ” Giuliana Tedeschi.

For a wholly innocent Jewish People, for being Jews, such was the constant reminder of their rather limited options within Hitler’s sphere of influence. After Auschwitz and Birkenau, and especially after the emerging evidence of all the x6 Death Camps Hitler had placed in Poland, the testified truth has since harboured a denial prelocated by all too many nations not standing against this. For Hitler, so as to supplement the industrial capacity for mass murder, starvation, pestilence and all manner of bestial treatment that was raged against the Jews of Europe, this is all recognised in the very fact of the barbarous enactment of the atrocity against the 6,000,000 Jewish People who are the Holocaust.

#63Laub, Anatole b. April 5th. 1926 in Anvers, Murdered in Birkenau at 16 years of age.

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63) “..The Holocaust still horrifies us not because some Jews were Murdered ..that happens almost every week in New York City ..but because ..incredibile total of 6,000,000 murders represents ..attempt to kill ALL Jews ..genocide. And Auschwitz represents The Holocaust ..because more People died here than anywhere else.” Otto Friedrich.

I can be as selective as I wish in attributing to those Jews who Survived and even those who saved them, a mocking of the humanity which should have saved all 6,000,000 of them. In that, have we not learned a single thing that those Survivor’s of Auschwitz and Birkenau, and the other Death Camps, have sought to teach us. Do we still think that 6,000,000 Jews were Slaughtered so that we can ignore the lessons that this spell out in their destruction. It is to our loss of humanity that we recognise our failure to act more resolutely once Hitler’s attention had turned from words against the Jews to the annihilation process he so often spoke of.

#64Laufbaum, Lazare b. May 31st. 1925 in Metz, Murdered in Birkenau at 17 years of age.

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64) “..I looked at that sweet ..likeable young face ..which ..appeared to be almost not of this Earth. Auschwitz predisposed you to mystical comparisons. ..she was an angel who ..snatched me from a terrible death. I ..stood there speechless. ..She had been brought to Auschwitz in 1942 ..from Radom. 16 years at ..time. Her Parents ..sent to ..gas immediately.” Sara Nomberg-Przytyk.

But mixed in here is the very expression of Death Camp system itself, and here too, as we recall those who did Survive, we seek further to pay tribute to those who remained behind. I cannot paint this any other way but as a picture of the hatred vehemently shown by us as human beings toward Jewish Humanity. I simply ignore the fact that we other humans, who took a more superior air sought to deny all life to those that humanity cannot consider other than equal to the lives we share. From the words I use, I recognise clearly the depth of pain added to those dying over and over as those words used, and for those Jews who died how they must have died. But for those interred, in the ash from the embers of the murderous extinction of more than 6,000,000 Jews, not only is Poland a graveyard for Polish Jewry, but for the Jews of Europe also.

#65Lehrer, Jacques b. June 12th. 1925 in Wielka, Murdered in Birkenau at 17 years of age.

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65) “..Written by ..Sonderkommando ..Crematorium II August 5th. 1944 ..Zalman Lewental ..Ciechanow ..Poland. No one can imagine exactly how things happened ..for it is unimaginable that a precise account of our experiences can be given. ..We ..a small group of grey people ..will give historians a ..hard time ..also ..psychologists who want to know ..investigate ..mental condition of ..people who tackled this dismal ..dirty work. ..who knows whether these investigators will fathom ..truth ..wheter anyone will be able to thoroughly.” Zalman Lewental.

Europe itself holds on to many of these Jewish dead, in City’s and Towns all across Europe and these very Jews are never to be revivied from the deeds of so many. I have met this hatred along my own route back to the x6 Death Camps, many hating the fact that recognises the grave wrong done against the Jewish People. In the processions of hatred’s gripped by the World though, none can compare to the Jewish unique detail within The Holocaust’s systematic nature. All of this certain inaction has remained in history so as to chastise the inaction of a so called chritian society for its rather un=Christian responses along the way. Also, with the constant pain that emerges in human life, and ever since Hitler taught the World that pain can be inflicted, it it recognised now that it can be achieved with impunity

#66Levinski, Paulette b. October 22nd. 1924 in Paris, Murdered in Birkenau at 17 years of age.

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66) “..This wretched piece of land ..Polish town Oswiecime ..was under ..sway of ..ss whose members regarded themselves as ..elite of ..German nation.” Filip Muller.

What we have sought to and must have learned is what could be done with hatred to guide it, to control and release it along a desolate heath to where there is only death as Giuliana Tedeschi recognised it. Of course, these nation’s, whose own Jews make up the salutory lesson of terror and horror, must pledge to do more to add to memory and stem the surge which seeks to expel that remembrance. Here in Europe, where atrocity was so emboldened in figures of such losses, we have not as yet gained a comprehension worthy of coming to terms with them.

#67Levy, Andre b. March 14th. 1926 in Metz, Murdered in Birkenau at 16 years of age.

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67) “..This report tells ..story of ..victims of Auschwitz ..not with ..purpose of opening old wounds ..but of passing it on as a legacy for us Jews and for all mankind. It will fulfill its purpose only if it helps teach us ..to become better human beings ..to truly love our neighbours ..and to work toward ..eradication of brutality from ..face of ..Earth.” Lucie Adelsberger.

For the all too many Jewish lives extinguished withn these structures of annihilation, our placation of the intolerances we were listening to, added fuel to the flames which consumed these Jewish People. What continually confronts us, and what humanity requires, is a response which has judiciously laboured to deliver to those Jews who Survived against the backdrop of what 6,000,000 other Jews could not in justice. Also, and of the many Country’s of Europe at the time, that had previously housed their own Jewish Community’s, each has a price to pay that will never now be met as they survey the little they did to allay the fear or stem the flow of this Jewish blood.

#68Levy, Jacques b. April 2nd. 1925 in Saarburg, Murdered in Birkenau at 17 years of age.

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68) “..Auschwitz kommandant Hoess testified ..Nuremberg April 15th. 1946 ..number was 2,500,000 ..not based on his personal knowledge but was one mentioned by Eichmann. ..estimates of historians ranger from 1,000,000 to 4,000,000.” Bernd Naumann.

So instead of confronting rigorously this brutal hatred, as it was clearly recognised at the time, all too many Country’s would now seek to further alter the narrative so as to expunge even their own guilt. Whether this is through an historical acquiesence to ignoring the truth, or of a total indifference to the Jewish struggle as it emerged, nothing should alter the words of those like Gerald Reitlinger. While Reitlinger, who placed the Death Camps geographically within Poland, would be confronted by newer Polish legislation, words written cannot be undone by newer meaniongs. For anyone else seeking to avoid History recognising what emerged in Poland in particular, 3,000,000 Polish Jews must retain their place in our History.

#69Meier, Ernst b. October 12th. 1924 in Rust, Murdered in Birkenau at 17 years of age.

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69) “..Birkenau existed to suffocate hope ..annihilate logic ..provoke madness and death.” Giuliana Tedeschi.

Given that proposition of the very real threat to what the integrity of all History must contain, we must be resolute in confrontation the altering, the doctoring and the down right lies being imposed upon the truth. For us, our own consciences have been permanently stained with an inaction toward an intolerable indifference that has been marked so clearly in all of this. Within Poland, such massive betrayals of moral and ethical codes, the efficacies which abandoned all humanity, even after we were made fully aware of the exacting details of The Holocaust, is a dereliction of human compassion. What is left standing trial over a judicious system devoid of Justice for 6,000,000 Slaughtered Jews, 3,000,000 of whom were Polish Jews, murdered in their own lands, is an indictment against civilisation which Gideon Hausner points to.

#70Meier, Janette b. January 24th. 1927 in Tiengen, Murdered in Birkenau at 15 years of age.

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70) “..Dear finder of these notes ..I have one request of you ..which is ..in fact ..practical objective for my writing ..that my days of Hell ..that my hopeless tomorrow will find a purpose in ..future. I am transmitting only a part of what happened in ..Birkenau ..Auschwitz Hell. You will realize what reality looked like. ..From all this you will have a picture of how our people perished.” Zalman Gradowski.

But, both as abhorrent as it was for the Jewish People to have to realise it, it has to be recognised also that it was systematically selective of the Jewish People in the first instance. Every single one of these 6,000,000 Slaughtered Jews of Europe, these Jewish Men, Women and Their Children then, so abandoned and then brutally slain, what we now face in history on their behalf is an awesome indictment of such intolerances and our indifference. Indeed, of the still very prevalent evil that has antisemitism borne along with it, the World is being submerged in a similar if not the very same hatred.

#71Meyer-Udewalt, Nora b. May 8th. 1925 in Hamburg, Murdered in Birkenau at 17 years of age.

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71) “..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.”

Also, and at the core of the immense indusitrial Slaughter centre that is Birkenau, we place Oswiecim in close proximity to Auschwitz, and all three are in Poland. That geographical fact cannot be altered by want of a revision of that truth, given the truthful fact that Hitler invaded Poland and carved it up for himself. Here, though, and it is to Birkenau that we should look at a time of such reflection, and ahead of these two other places, to identify and recognise that Birkenau is where the vast majority of 1,100,000 Jews of Europe were obliterated. Here, 75 years years after, where there was only hate, pain and ultimately death for the Jewish People, we cannot superimpose Auschwitz over Birkenau for that fact and simply mention Birkenau, or Belzec, or Chemno, Majdanek, Sobibor or Treblinka as an aside.

#72Minc, David b. October 20th. 1924 in Lodz, Murdered in Birkenau at 17 years of age.

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72) “..Sometimes I am asked if I know ..response to Auschwitz ..I answer that not only do I not know it ..but that I don’t even know if a tragedy of this magnitude HAS a response. What I do know is that there is response in responsibility. When we speak of this era of evil and darkness ..so close and yet so distant ..responsibility is ..key word. ..witness has forced himself to testify. For ..youth of today ..for ..children who will be born tomorrow. He does not want his past to become their future.” Elie Wiesel.

I have re-read and re-read, in a monumental tome, which deliver’s some 11,000 French Children of The Holocaust to Memory, a work by Serge Klarsfeld, A Memorial to French Children of The Holocaust. This fully adds to the dimensions of the atrocity, an atrocity still without comprehension but with growing awareness of what we need to know. For the Jewish People, taken from life within this place called Birkenau, who arrived from Auschwitz, a place a mere stones throw from the town of Oswiecim, Poland, the Jews of Poland and Europe have been recalled in the plumes of smoke which inhabited the entire area. So while we recall today and secure in that memory exactly why we celebrate the miracle of Jewish Survival at all, their Memory bst serves our need to know. Also, and for the duration of the Slaughter Auschwitz is renowned for, Birkenau must Not be forgotten, for here the vast majority of these 1,100,000 Murdered Jews still reside.

#73Minc, Salomon b. October 7th. 1926 in Tomaszow, Murdered in Birkenau at 15 years of age.

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73) “..testimony at ..trial will tell of unfathonable suffering at Auschwitz ..although any attempt to depict that site of mass murder mjust inevitably remain pale and inadequate.” Bernd Naumann.

What Bernd Naumann wishes to inform us, as the trial of some of those who ran the most mechanised and industrial scale Human Slaughter house in all of history is conducted, the exercise must pale into insignifcance as we fail abjectly to construct any form of a judicious response that would be credible. What amounts to an immense calamity of a recognisable inhumanity, serves clearly to point future history toward Hitler’s actions and not away from them. Here, at least, of the more than 8,500 personel who operated this Factory of Jewish Destruction that was Auschwitz and particualrly Birkenau, not even the remotest sense of justice can be figured out for those many guilty who have never been indicted, let alone prosecuted or dealt with.

#74Moskowicz, Margot b. July 9th. 1926 in Turek Lodz, Murdered in Birkenau at 16 years of age.

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74) “..During 20 months of this trial ..court had to relive ..suffering and tortures ..people were subjected to ..forever coupled with ..name of Auschwitz. There will be some among us who ..will not be able to look into ..happy ..trusting eyes of a child without seeing ..hollow ..questioning uncomprehending ..fear filled eyes of ..chilkdren who went their last way there in Auschwitz.” Judge Hans Hofmeyer.

That said, and as the presiding Judge at the Auschwitz trial, of this token few taken from those 8,500 and more who operated the Death Camp at Auschwitz, the pretense of justice is laid bare. Between December 20th. 1963 and August 20th. 1965, the trial was conducted into those who ran this facility, which was wholly erected and equipped at Birkenau for the purpose of the mass destruction of between 1,000,000 and 4,000,000 Jews. As history clearly informs us, 22 mass murderer’s stood trial here, at this particular Auschwitz Trial and secured nothing more than a cursory or stiff rebuke. Though Giuliana Tedeschi envisages a period at liberty, for the years following the liberation of Auschwitz itself on January 27th. 1945, history clearly informs the Jews, who have been forced to add to their evidence a rebuttal of every cynical assault upon their very integrity, a knowledge than in their abandonment, Justice will not prevail for them.

#75Naman, Marjem b. September 20th. 1926 Murdered in Birkenau at 15 years of age.

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75) “..It was then that something broke inside us. ..emotion ..at first anesthetized ..then held back ..put off ..mixed with fear ..erupted in tears ..moans of joy. We all embraced ..at last convinced of our liberty.” Giuliana Tedeschi.

By January 27th. 1947 Poland has decreed that Jewish Restitution claims for Property, Homes and Possessions must be made by end of 1947. At the end of this period, a year’s extension is granted. By January 27th. 1949 Polish Measures are brought to bear to ensure Jews cannot reclaim what Jews have been deprived of. On January 27th. 1951, what have we learned from The Holocaust is how to kill more efficiently as Nuclear tests in Nevada commence. January 27th. 1996 Germany first observes the International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

January 27th. 2017 “..January 27th. ..day when 72 years ago ..Auschwitz-Birkenau death camps were liberated ..became one of ..saddest reminders in ..history of humanity. It also represents ..beginning of hope for those who .. on January 27th. 1945 were still alive. We are very fortunate to still have some of them among us. These survivors remind us all about ..need to never forget ..mistakes of ..past. It is a day which carries along a double meaning and responsibility.” Klaus Iohannis. President of Romania.

There is the factual truth of what 11,293,300 Jews of Europe, according to a composed minuting of the Wannsee Protocol proposed and which all of these Jews might be forced to face. This consensus arrived at by statisiticans of Hitler’s demands, for which 6,000,000 Jews paid an interminable penalty, speaks all too well of German efficiency in mass murder. Also, we have come little distance from the exacting of such intolerance, for as much as indifference suggests, while we continually deal with antisemitism in the modern World. What we note here too, and for what Primo Levi identifies as a man, was the detail of the horror as it was experienced by a man who was Primo Levi.

“..If This Is a Man

You who live safe

In your warm houses,

You who find on returning in the evening,

Hot food and friendly faces:

Consider if this is a man

Who works in the mud

Who does not know peace

Who fights for a scrap of bread

Who dies because of a yes or a no.

Consider if this is a woman,

Without hair and without name

With no more strength to remember,

Her eyes empty and her womb cold

Like a frog in winter.

Meditate that this came about:

I commend these words to you.

Carve them in your hearts

At home, in the street,

Going to bed, rising;

Repeat them to your children,

Or may your house fall apart,

May illness impede you,

May your children turn their faces from you.” Primo Levi.

On January 20th. 1939 Hitler sacks Hjalmar Schacht from Reichsbank Presidency.

On January 20th. 1941 Cardinal Theodor Innitzer, Archbishop of Vienna, informed Pope Pius XII of the looming threat to 60,000 Vienna Jews facing deportation.

On January 20th. 1942 The Wannsee Conference is convened and Hitler now ensures all arms of the Reich, all Government Agency’s and the wider German public are signed up to The Final Solution. This saw Hitler’s despicable plan, which Heydrich will outline as a resolve to Annihilate 11,293,300 Jews!

The Wannsee Conference it has to be remembered is convened and Hitler now ensures that all arms of the Reich, all Government Agency’s and the wider German public are signed up to The Final Solution. His spokesman for the occasion, SS Obergruppenfuhrer Reinhard Heydrich will outline those Plans which will seek to Annihilate 11,293,300 Jews of Europe!

Below, and what is known as The Wannsee Protocol, must never be assessed as other than the bringing together of all arms of the Reich in order to implement what is already in operation, The Final Solution of The Jewish Question. Those like Lange and Schoengarth are brought to the Conference to detail the efforts undertaken in expelling Jews and creating Free of Jew zones. This is NOT the commencement of The Holocaust, more than 1,000,000 Jews had already been Slaughtered. ======================================================================================= The Wannsee Protocol January 20th. 1942

* * * * * *

Stamp: Top Secret 30 copies 16th copy

Minutes of discussion. I. he following persons took part in the discussion about the final solution of the Jewish question which took place in Berlin, am Grossen Wannsee No. 56/58 on 20 January 1942.

#1 Gauleiter Dr. Meyer Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern territories and

#2 Reichsamtleiter Dr. Leibbrandt #3 Secretary of State Dr. Stuckart Reich Ministry for the Interior

#4 Secretary of State Neumann Plenipotentiary for the Four Year Plan

#5 Secretary of State Dr. Freisler Reich Ministry of Justice

#6 Secretary of State Dr. Buhler Office of the Government General

#7 Under Secretary of State Dr. Luther Foreign Office

#8 SS Oberfuhrer Klopfer Party Chancellery #9 Ministerialdirektor Kritzinger Reich Chancellery

#10 SS Gruppenfuhrer Hofmann Race and Settlement Main Office

#11 SS Gruppenfuhrer Muller Reich Main Security Office

#12 SS Obersturmbannfuhrer Eichmann

#13 SS Oberfuhrer Dr. Schoengarth Security Police and SD Commander of the Security Police and the SD in the Government General

#14 SS Sturmbannfuhrer Dr. Lange Security Police and SD Commander of the Security Police and the SD for the General District Latvia, as deputy of the Commander of the Security Police and the SD for the Reich Commissariat ‘Eastland’.

II. At the beginning of the discussion Chief of the Security Police and of the SD, SS Obergruppenfuhrer Heydrich, reported that the Reich Marshal had appointed him delegate for the preparations for the final solution of the Jewish question in Europe and pointed out that this discussion had been called for the purpose of clarifying fundamental questions. The wish of the Reich Marshal to have a draft sent to him concerning organizational, factual and material interests in relation to the final solution of the Jewish question in Europe makes necessary an initial common action of all central offices immediately concerned with these questions in order to bring their general activities into line. The Reichsführer-SS and the Chief of the German Police (Chief of the Security Police and the SD) was entrusted with the official central handling of the final solution of the Jewish question without regard to geographic borders. The Chief of the Security Police and the SD then gave a short report of the struggle which has been carried on thus far against this enemy, the essential points being the following:

a) the expulsion of the Jews from every sphere of life of the German people,

b) the expulsion of the Jews from the living space of the German people. In carrying out these efforts, an increased and planned acceleration of the emigration of the Jews from Reich territory was started, as the only possible present solution. By order of the Reich Marshal, a Reich Central Office for Jewish Emigration was set up in January 1939 and the Chief of the Security Police and SD was entrusted with the management. Its most important tasks were

a) to make all necessary arrangements for the preparation for an increased emigration of the Jews,

b) to direct the flow of emigration,

c) to speed the procedure of emigration in each individual case. The aim of all this was to cleanse German living space of Jews in a legal manner. All the offices realized the drawbacks of such enforced accelerated emigration. For the time being they had, however, tolerated it on account of the lack of other possible solutions of the problem. The work concerned with emigration was, later on, not only a German problem, but also a problem with which the authorities of the countries to which the flow of emigrants was being directed would have to deal. Financial difficulties, such as the demand by various foreign governments for increasing sums of money to be presented at the time of the landing, the lack of shipping space, increasing restriction of entry permits, or the cancelling of such, increased extraordinarily the difficulties of emigration.

In spite of these difficulties, 537,000 Jews were sent out of the country between the takeover of power and the deadline of 31 October 1941. Of these approximately 360,000 were in Germany proper on 30 January 1933 approximately 147,000 were in Austria (Ostmark) on 15 March 1939 approximately 30,000 were in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia on 15 March 1939. The Jews themselves, or their Jewish political organizations, financed the emigration. In order to avoid impoverished Jews’ remaining behind, the principle was followed that wealthy Jews have to finance the emigration of poor Jews; this was arranged by imposing a suitable tax, i.e., an emigration tax, which was used for financial arrangements in connection with the emigration of poor Jews and was imposed according to income. Apart from the necessary Reichsmark exchange, foreign currency had to presented at the time of landing. In order to save foreign exchange held by Germany, the foreign Jewish financial organizations were – with the help of Jewish organizations in Germany – made responsible for arranging an adequate amount of foreign currency.

Up to 30 October 1941, these foreign Jews donated a total of around 9,500,000 dollars. In the meantime the Reichsführer-SS and Chief of the German Police had prohibited emigration of Jews due to the dangers of an emigration in wartime and due to the possibilities of the East. III. Another possible solution of the problem has now taken the place of emigration, i.e. the evacuation of the Jews to the East, provided that the Führer gives the appropriate approval in advance. These actions are, however, only to be considered provisional, but practical experience is already being collected which is of the greatest importance in relation to the future final solution of the Jewish question. Approximately 11 million Jews will be involved in the final solution of the European Jewish question, distributed as follows among the individual countries:

Country Number

A. Germany proper 131,800

Austria 43,700

Eastern territories 420,000

General Government 2,284,000

Bialystok 400,000

Protectorate Bohemia and Moravia 74,200 Estonia Free of Jews

Latvia 3,500

Lithuania 34,000

Belgium 43,000

Denmark 5,600

France occupied territory 165,000 unoccupied territory 700,000

Greece 69,600

Netherlands 160,800

Norway 1,300

B. Bulgaria 48,000

England 330,000

Finland 2,300

Ireland 4,000

Italy including Sardinia 58,000

Albania 200

Croatia 40,000

Portugal 3,000

Rumania including Bessarabia 342,000 Sweden 8,000

Switzerland 18,000

Serbia 10,000

Slovakia 88,000

Spain 6,000

Turkey European portion 55,500

Hungary 742,800

USSR 5,000,000 Ukraine and White Russia 2,994,684

Excluding Bialystok 446,484

Total 11,293,300

The number of Jews given here for foreign countries includes, however, only those Jews who still adhere to the Jewish faith, since some countries still do not have a definition of the term “Jew” according to racial principles. The handling of the problem in the individual countries will meet with difficulties due to the attitude and outlook of the people there, especially in Hungary and Rumania. Thus, for example, even today the Jew can buy documents in Rumania that will officially prove his foreign citizenship. The influence of the Jews in all walks of life in the USSR is well known. Approximately 5,000,000 Jews live in the European part of the USSR, in the Asian part scarcely 250,000. The breakdown of Jews residing in the European part of the USSR according to trades was approximately as follows:

Agriculture 9.1 %

Urban workers 14.8 %

In trade 20.0 %

Employed by the state 23.4 %

In private occupations such as medical profession, press, theater, etc. 32. 7%

Under proper guidance, in the course of the final solution the Jews are to be allocated for appropriate labor in the East. Able-bodied Jews, separated according to sex, will be taken in large work columns to these areas for work on roads, in the course of which action doubtless a large portion will be eliminated by natural causes. The possible final remnant will, since it will undoubtedly consist of the most resistant portion, have to be treated accordingly, because it is the product of natural selection and would, if released, act as a the seed of a new Jewish revival (see the experience of history.)

In the course of the practical execution of the final solution, Europe will be combed through from west to east. Germany proper, including the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, will have to be handled first due to the housing problem and additional social and political necessities. The evacuated Jews will first be sent, group by group, to so-called transit ghettos, from which they will be transported to the East.

SS Obergruppenfuhrer Heydrich went on to say that an important prerequisite for the evacuation as such is the exact definition of the persons involved. It is not intended to evacuate Jews over 65 years old, but to send them to an old-age ghetto – Theresienstadt is being considered for this purpose. In addition to these age groups – of the approximately 280,000 Jews in Germany proper and Austria on 31 October 1941, approximately 30% are over 65 years old – severely wounded veterans and Jews with war decorations (Iron Cross I) will be accepted in the old-age ghettos. With this expedient solution, in one fell swoop many interventions will be prevented. The beginning of the individual larger evacuation actions will largely depend on military developments. Regarding the handling of the final solution in those European countries occupied and influenced by us, it was proposed that the appropriate expert of the Foreign Office discuss the matter with the responsible official of the Security Police and SD. In Slovakia and Croatia the matter is no longer so difficult, since the most substantial problems in this respect have already been brought near a solution. In Rumania the government has in the meantime also appointed a commissioner for Jewish affairs.

In order to settle the question in Hungary, it will soon be necessary to force an adviser for Jewish questions onto the Hungarian government. With regard to taking up preparations for dealing with the problem in Italy, SS Obergruppenfuhrer Heydrich considers it opportune to contact the chief of police with a view to these problems. In occupied and unoccupied France, the registration of Jews for evacuation will in all probability proceed without great difficulty. Under Secretary of State Luther calls attention in this matter to the fact that in some countries, such as the Scandinavian states, difficulties will arise if this problem is dealt with thoroughly and that it will therefore be advisable to defer actions in these countries. Besides, in view of the small numbers of Jews affected, this deferral will not cause any substantial limitation. The Foreign Office sees no great difficulties for southeast and western Europe. SS Gruppenfuhrer Hofmann plans to send an expert to Hungary from the Race and Settlement Main Office for general orientation at the time when the Chief of the Security Police and SD takes up the matter there. It was decided to assign this expert from the Race and Settlement Main Office, who will not work actively, as an assistant to the police attaché.

IV.

In the course of the final solution plans, the Nuremberg Laws should provide a certain foundation, in which a prerequisite for the absolute solution of the problem is also the solution to the problem of mixed marriages and persons of mixed blood. The Chief of the Security Police and the SD discusses the following points, at first theoretically, in regard to a letter from the chief of the Reich chancellery:

1) Treatment of Persons of Mixed Blood of the First Degree Persons of mixed blood of the first degree will, as regards the final solution of the Jewish question, be treated as Jews. From this treatment the following exceptions will be made:

a) Persons of mixed blood of the first degree married to persons of German blood if their marriage has resulted in children (persons of mixed blood of the second degree). These persons of mixed blood of the second degree are to be treated essentially as Germans.

b) Persons of mixed blood of the first degree, for whom the highest offices of the Party and State have already issued exemption permits in any sphere of life. Each individual case must be examined, and it is not ruled out that the decision may be made to the detriment of the person of mixed blood. The prerequisite for any exemption must always be the personal merit of the person of mixed blood. (Not the merit of the parent or spouse of German blood.)

Persons of mixed blood of the first degree who are exempted from evacuation will be sterilized in order to prevent any offspring and to eliminate the problem of persons of mixed blood once and for all. Such sterilization will be voluntary. But it is required to remain in the Reich. The sterilized “person of mixed blood” is thereafter free of all restrictions to which he was previously subjected.

2) Treatment of Persons of Mixed Blood of the Second Degree Persons of mixed blood of the second degree will be treated fundamentally as persons of German blood, with the exception of the following cases, in which the persons of mixed blood of the second degree will be considered as Jews:

a) The person of mixed blood of the second degree was born of a marriage in which both parents are persons of mixed blood.

b) The person of mixed blood of the second degree has a racially especially undesirable appearance that marks him outwardly as a Jew.

c) The person of mixed blood of the second degree has a particularly bad police and political record that shows that he feels and behaves like a Jew. Also in these cases exemptions should not be made if the person of mixed blood of the second degree has married a person of German blood.

3) Marriages between Full Jews and Persons of German Blood. Here it must be decided from case to case whether the Jewish partner will be evacuated or whether, with regard to the effects of such a step on the German relatives, [this mixed marriage] should be sent to an old-age ghetto.

4) Marriages between Persons of Mixed Blood of the First Degree and Persons of German Blood.

a) Without Children. If no children have resulted from the marriage, the person of mixed blood of the first degree will be evacuated or sent to an old-age ghetto (same treatment as in the case of marriages between full Jews and persons of German blood, point 3.)

b) With Children. If children have resulted from the marriage (persons of mixed blood of the second degree), they will, if they are to be treated as Jews, be evacuated or sent to a ghetto along with the parent of mixed blood of the first degree. If these children are to be treated as Germans (regular cases), they are exempted from evacuation as is therefore the parent of mixed blood of the first degree.

5) Marriages between Persons of Mixed Blood of the First Degree and Persons of Mixed Blood of the First Degree or Jews. In these marriages (including the children) all members of the family will be treated as Jews and therefore be evacuated or sent to an old-age ghetto.

6) Marriages between Persons of Mixed Blood of the First Degree and Persons of Mixed Blood of the Second Degree. In these marriages both partners will be evacuated or sent to an old-age ghetto without consideration of whether the marriage has produced children, since possible children will as a rule have stronger Jewish blood than the Jewish person of mixed blood of the second degree.

SS Gruppenfuhrer Hofmann advocates the opinion that sterilization will have to be widely used, since the person of mixed blood who is given the choice whether he will be evacuated or sterilized would rather undergo sterilization. State Secretary Dr. Stuckart maintains that carrying out in practice of the just mentioned possibilities for solving the problem of mixed marriages and persons of mixed blood will create endless administrative work. In the second place, as the biological facts cannot be disregarded in any case, State Secretary Dr. Stuckart proposed proceeding to forced sterilization. Furthermore, to simplify the problem of mixed marriages possibilities must be considered with the goal of the legislator saying something like:

‘These marriages have been dissolved.’ With regard to the issue of the effect of the evacuation of Jews on the economy, State Secretary Neumann stated that Jews who are working in industries vital to the war effort, provided that no replacements are available, cannot be evacuated. SS Obergruppenfuhrer Heydrich indicated that these Jews would not be evacuated according to the rules he had approved for carrying out the evacuations then underway. State Secretary Dr. Buhler stated that the General Government would welcome it if the final solution of this problem could be begun in the General Government, since on the one hand transportation does not play such a large role here nor would problems of labor supply hamper this action. Jews must be removed from the territory of the General Government as quickly as possible, since it is especially here that the Jew as an epidemic carrier represents an extreme danger and on the other hand he is causing permanent chaos in the economic structure of the country through continued black market dealings. Moreover, of the approximately 2,500,000 Jews concerned, the majority is unfit for work. State Secretary Dr. Buhler stated further that the solution to the Jewish question in the General Government is the responsibility of the Chief of the Security Police and the SD and that his efforts would be supported by the officials of the General Government. He had only one request, to solve the Jewish question in this area as quickly as possible. In conclusion the different types of possible solutions were discussed, during which discussion both Gauleiter Dr. Meyer and State Secretary Dr. Buhler took the position that certain preparatory activities for the final solution should be carried out immediately in the territories in question, in which process alarming the populace must be avoided. The meeting was closed with the request of the Chief of the Security Police and the SD to the participants that they afford him appropriate support during the carrying out of the tasks involved in the solution. ======================================================================================= On January 20th. 1943 Jews from Theresienstadt are expelled to Auschwitz.

On January 20th. 1944 over 1,000 Parisian Jews are transported from Drancy to Auschwitz.

On January 20th. 1945 with 4,200 Jews shot in Birkenau, the SS Dynamite the remaining Krematoria in Birkenau and the Hungarian Provisional Government signs an Armistice.

Christmas in The Holocaust

By the Christmas of 1932 Sunday December 25th. Hitler had gained power and began the rhetorical reform of his words for hatred for th Jewish People into an empirical assault, an illogical hatred for and toward, imitially, the Jews of Germany. Truth be known, though the Jews were his exclusive target, it was well known that anyone who even looked at Hitler sideways faced his unbounded despise. By the Christmas of 1933 Monday December 25th. Monday, the Jews of Germany had been further wealened by the very assault which manifested itself in too many ways. They were further assaulted, targeted with intent and continuously victimised. Hitler and the Nazi’s had brought forward a set of edicts which would singularly affect the Jews of Germany, in a hostile and virulent antisemitism. On December 1st. the Jewish Social Democratic politician Ernst Heilmann is arrested and the antisemitic Glaubensbewegung deutscher Christen, the Movement of German Christian Believers becomes the semi-official religious organization of Germany. Also, an antisemitic, anti-Communist organization, Gesamtverband deutscher anti-kommunistischer Vereinigungen, the General Association of German Anti-Communist Societies, is founded. As the German-Jewish physicist Albert Einstein criticizes the new Nazi regime.

So much had been conducted against the Jewish position within Germany that by the Christmas of 1934 Tuesday, German Jews were assaulted, targeted, victimised and abused. By Christmas of 1935 Wednesday, Jews were regularly assaulted, targeted, victimised and assailed and it was speading further afield. With anti-Jewish riots erupting in Polish universities, all Jewish students are restricted to special seats and with December 31st. arriving we see all remaining Jews in Germany’s Civil Service being dismissed.

In the coming years, Poland models its policy regarding its own Jewish Citizens on that of Nazi Germany. As Jews are attacked throughout Poland, 10’s of 1,000’s of Polish Jews emigrate to Holland, France, Belgium, and toward their biblical homeland of Palestine. As University quotas for Jews begin to bite, as they exist at this time in United States universities, America seeks to restrict further Jewish migration from harm. Such American discrimination restricts the Jewish presence also in education, jobs, and housing. Just as it moves to keep Eastern European Jews out of the United States, the first issue of the antisemitic Deutsche Wochenschau für Politik, Wirtschaft, Kultur und Technik, the German Weekly for Politics, Economy, Culture and Technology is published in Germany and the first issue of the pseudoscientific, antisemitic Zeitschrift für Rassenkunde, the Journal for Racial Science is also published. The American Jewish Congress joins with the Jewish Labor Committee to form the Joint Boycott Council, aimed at German purveyors of goods and services as Anti-Jewish riots occur across Romania.

The German government permits the publication of Martin Luther’s On the Jews and Their Lies, in which Luther advocates a program to arrest Jews, expropriate them, force them into the kind of labour the government determines, and, finally, to exile or murder them. By the Christmas of 1936 Friday, Jews assaulted, targeted, victimised, assailed and abused and in a 2 year period up until the end of the year, over 47,000 Polish Jews have fled their former Country. Meanwhile, in Poland, on account of some unsavoury anti-Jewish measures and pogromatic responses to their presence, the escalation toward emigration increases with over 35,000 Polish Jews reaching Palestine.

On December 14th. as the 1,000 year Reich is announced at the Nuremberg Rally, the first issue of The Jewish Question ‘Die Judenfrage’ is published in Germany and is edited by Georg Haller. As Poland investigates the possibility of deporting resident Jews to Madagascar, the first soundings of ‘The Madagascar Plan’ are muted. Of the over 8,800 Jews who managed to flee Poland this year alone, over 2,800 of them finally managed to reach Palestine. Here, by the Christmas of 1937 Saturday, and with December 28th. arriving, the Romanian Government of Goga-Cuza is the first government that introduced anti-Semites as state policy.

During December 1938 Jews are assaulted, targeted, victimised, assailed, abused and even killed. There are transports of some 10,000 Jewish Children, forming the ‘Kindertransport’ which are allowed into Britain. On December 3rd. Jews in Germany lose their Driving Licenses as Jewish industrial enterprises and businesses, expropriated under compulsory purchase orders with Jews being wholly diminished in the German economy. On December 12th. the Neuengamme Concentration Camp opens as a $400,000,000 fine is levied against German Jews for the nazi Kristallnacht destruction.

On December 14th. Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering is given charge of die Endlosung der Judenfrage, ‘The Final Solution of The Jewish Question,’ and any such euphemism now employed will never hide from truth the intention of Hitler’s resolve to murder, with impunity all Jews he can reach.

We clearly cannot rely upon this continuing formation of words to establish the exact date at which Hitler arrived at the overall Jewish kill policy, but it was fomenting and being formulated at these moments in history. It is clear too, that with the coming Invasion of Poland, this war was merely a staging post upon that traversed ground toward the annihilation process for All the Jews of Europe.

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

On the eve of Christmas, December 24th. Saturday, leading American clergy come together to issue a resolution protesting at ‘Kristallnacht’ and by the Christmas of 1938, Sunday, Jews are assaulted, targeted, victimised, assailed, abused, killed and many murdered. By the end of the year more than 200,000 of the 500,000 Jews who had been listed in the German 1933 Census had emigrated with over 9,000 Jews fleeing to Poland. Over 2,000 of Jews are reaching Palestine bringing about a sea change in European Jewish relations and worsen considerably in Germany and Poland.

Some 400,000 Jews had left Poland for Palestine, at a time when 3,250,000 Jews were recorded in census as Polish Citizenry. This would not afford the Jews of Poland any more sanctuary than was deserving of their Citizen status, and history records this as an intolerable mark of Polish history. On December 1st. 1939 some 1,800 Chelm Jews are expelled toward Luck with 1,400 of these Chelm Jews murdered by Wehrmacht troops. Also, while 200 Hrubieszow Jews are force marched to Sokal, many die enroute. Then, just one week after the Hans Frank’s decree was promulgated, in Opoczno, 4,200 Jews were foced to wear the Mogen Dawid by the Polish police.

On December 2nd. the first use of gas vans to eliminate mental patients sets a worrying precedent. On December 5th. Jewish property in Poland seized. On December 6th. Britain admonishes Bulgarian Government over its transit policy for Jews fleeing to Palestine. On December 11th. all Jews in Poland must seek permission to change address. On December 12th. Jewish males aged 14 to 60 subject forced labour and to do 2 years service in Eastern Germany as Jews are expelled from Kalisz.

On December 15th. it is Decreed that Jewish Forced Labour is to be made ‘free’ to German interests. On December 18th., all Jewish valuables are to be declared in Poland and on December 20th. the Radomsko Ghetto in Poland is now established. There are 18,500 Jews enclosed in the Ghetto and all of this accomplished by the Christmas of 1939 Monday, as Jews are assaulted, targeted, victimised, assailed, abused, killed, murdered. There is now being witnessed the orchestrated mass executions shootings occur.

On December 30th. 1,210 refugee Jews aboard the Uranus are prevented from going on to Palestine and over the past 6 years, more than 1,400 individual anti-Jewish measures are enacted in Germany alone.

“..end ..November 1940 ..8,000 ..were at ..Oswiecim camps. ..political prisoners ..criminals ..Jews. This last group ..persecuted most of all. Scarcely any of them came out alive. ..death notices. ..received. ..December 20,260 ..were sent. ..200 bodies ..being burned in ..crematorium each week.” Polish Fortnightly Review.

On December 12th. The Salvador sinks killing 200 Jewish refugees with 70 of them being Children and on December 17th. Piotrkow Ghetto struck by typhus. On December 29th. the Glowno Ghetto in Poland is established with 3,000 Jews Enclosed. By the end of year 8,200 Jews of Lodz had died of starvation as Lange moves his Sonderkommando to Chelmno. Here, with the completion of the Camp, Chelmno would be at the centre of the storm for Lodz Jews while 27,000 Polish Jews managed to emigrate to Palestine, illegally!

By the Christmas of 1940 Wednesday, Jews are assaulted, targeted, victimised, assailed, abused, killed, murdered, executed, destroyed. Jews are assaulted, targeted, victimised, assailed, abused, killed, murdered, executed, destroyed.

“..Complete list of executions carried out ..Einsatzkommando 3 area up to 1 December 1941. Security police duties in Lithuania taken over by Einsatzkommando 3 on 2 July 1941.” SS Standartenfuhrer Karl Jaeger.

Throughout December 1941 Moscow Radio is keen to alert the World that der Einsatzgruppe are Murdering Jews on a massive scale. In France, a leafleting exercise is saying exactly the same thing.

“..Today I can confirm that our objective ..to solve ..Jewish problem for Lithuania ..has been achieved by EK 3. In Lithuania there are no more Jews ..apart from Jewish workers and their families. ..distance between ..assembly point to ..graves ..on average 4 to 5 Km.” SS Standartenfuhrer Karl Jaeger.

December 1st. 1,200 Stuttgart Jews to Riga. They too will find their way to Rumbuli with the Jaeger Report stating that 85% of all Lithuanian Jews have already been murdered, this means that some 137,366 individual Lithuanian Jews are dead. On December 3rd. 1941 members of the Birkenau Sonderkommano are shot as a reprisal for a planned revolt. Thursday December 4th. 1941

“..10’s of 1,000’s of Jews from abroad were brought here. I saw them walking with their suitcases ..many of them well dressed. Young men and women in good spirits ..relaxed. They observe everything around them. They look at our city with curiosity. They were told that they were brought to work and were ordered to bring their best clothing with them. Afterwards they were murdered at ..Ninth Fort. It was said that these young people had no suspicions of anything bad happening to them and they even danced in ..evenings. On ..following day ..they were taken in groups of 50 and shot. Lithuania earned ..label ‘cemetery of ..European Jews’.” Helena Kutergiene-Buividaite.

On December 4th. 2,500 Gorodenka Jews murdered and on December 5th. the first truck transports of Jews are delivered to Chelmno Death Camp. The Daugavpils Ghetto still had 962 Jews and on December 7th. Chelmno Death Camp’s Extermination operations begin.700 Kolo Jews are 1st. Victims at Chelmno as they are gassed and confined to eternity here at Chelmno. There is the second aktionen of the remaining Riga Ghetto Jews and they are murdered in Rumbuli Forest. On December 8th. 4,000 Novogrudok Jews murdered and 2,300 Jews are murdered at Chelmno which introduces ‘gassing vans’ to murder the Jews expelled here.

The remaining Jews of Belgrade are ordered to report for ‘resettlement’ as the final stages of Riga Jewish murders in Rumbuli is reached. On December 9th. 25,000 Latvian Jews murdered in the Rumbuli Forest in a 3 day operation with more than 38,000 Jews will be murdered here. On December 10th. 1,757 Jews of Turek Murdered at Chelmno and on December 11th. the Lutsk Ghetto is established with 18,000 Jews Enclosed.

On December 12th. Hitler now discusses the complete annihilation of European Jewry with some fifty of his Reich leadership. In his private rooms, Hitler spoke in lieu of The Wannsee Conference of what he expected would inmplicate all levels of Reich Admisistration in the completion of The Holocaust:

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

The Baranovichi Ghetto in Poland is established with 10,000 Jews Enclosed.

“..I once spoke about ..Commander-in-Chief in ..case of Nikolaiev ..that ..order given at that time ..for ..liquidations to take place 200 kilometers away from ..headquarters of ..11th. Army. On ..second occasion ..I did not speak about ..Commander-in-Chief of ..Army ..but about ..High Command of ..Army at Simferopol ..because I cannot say ..with any certainty ..who had requested ..competent Einsatzkommando at Simferopol to speed up ..liquidation. ..when ..march was discussed there were oral consultations with ..Manstein ..Chief of Staff and myself.” SS Gruppenfuhrer Professor Dr. Otto Ohlendorf.

On December 13th. 14,000 Simferopol Jews murdered in 3 day period and the remaining 6 Jews of Warendorf are deported to Riga and murdered. On December 15th. Jews to receive no inducement for extra hours work demanded as the Polish Blue Police conduct the second mass execution of prisoner’s in Gesia Prison. On December 16th. some 3,000 of Liepaja’s (Libau) Jews were murdered in a 2 day operation on the beaches of Skeden.

This ‘Dezember-Aktionen’ (December Action) watched by scores of Wehrmacht personnel, Civilians and a motley crew of mawkish observers as the entire action was filmed and photographed. There are 3,500,000 Jews now governed by Hans Frank, according to his own diary entry and Frank fully informs his associates of Hitler’s intentions for the Jewish People. The Federation of the Union of the Jewish Communities in Romania is disolved as the Jewish Central Committee, Romania is established.

Wednesday December 17th. 1941 “..Jews..on ..point of being sent from Vienna to die in a concentration camp in Poland.” Father Pietro Venturi.

On December 17th. Father Pietro Venturi notified the Papal Secretary of State, Cardinal Luigi Maglione concerning the fate of Austrian Jewry. On December 21st., and over the coming 4 weeks, the Massacre of the Jews from Bogdanovka Camp, Transnistria begins. On December 22nd. over 32,000 of Vilna’s Jews have been murdered as have 1,000 of Zablotov’s Jews are murdered.

This day, SS Sturmbannfuhrer Christian Wirth arrived in Belzec to inspect the continuing construction of the Death Camp. Preparations for the greatest Christian Festival could not deter Hitler’s Final Solution from its rapidly progressive atrocity! By the Christmas of 1941 December 25th. Thursday,Jews assaulted, targeted, victimised, assailed, abused, killed, murdered, executed, destroyed, annihilated. On December 27th. the knowledge of ‘gassing van’ operations at Chelmno reaches Izbica Lubelska as the Christian World has feasted and bloated itself upon the celebration of the coming of its Lord and the endless sweep of Jewish Community’s continues.

The swathe of destruction, now measured in the 100’s of 1,000’s already, will sweep aside 1,000’s more of entire Jewish Community’s until the resulting devastation will total 6,000,000 Murdered Jews of Europe, to be lost to us all. On December 29th. the initial T4 team arrive for duty at Belzec and on December 30th. over 50,000 Jews at Bogdanovka murdered in 10 day period as 10,000 Jews in Simferopol are murdered.

Eichmann with a team of SS officials, Hermann Hofle incuded, inspected the area of Belzec with Christian Wirth and this is significant in that it is just prior to The Wannsee Conference. On December 31st. Abba Kovner urges a revolt as Jewish Armed Resistance is being prepared in Vilna. There is a report sent to SS Obersturmbannfuhrer Dr. Fritz Dietrich, Police commander for Libau area, that 2,731 Jews of Libau have been murdered on the beaches of Skeden.

Wednesday December 31st. 1941 “..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.

By end of year, 16,000 German Jews have been deported to Riga and over the Winter period, 1,000’s of Jews interned in Transnistria are Killed. Starvation, the bitter cold, sickness all add to the Transnistrian devastation for the Jews there. During the coming December of 1942 there are Jewish Resistances at Brody, a Jewish Resistances at Chortkov, a Jewish Resistances at Czestochowa and a Jewish Resistances at Kielce. Elsewhere the Lvov Ghetto is liquidated as is the Makow, Pinsk, Plonsk and Slonim Ghetto’s, all Liquidated.

“..German authorities ..now carrying into effect Hitler’s ..intention to exterminate ..Jewish people in Europe.” American State Department.

On December 1st. 400 of Karczew’s Jews murdered and on December 2nd. 1,000 Plonsk Jews are murdered at Birkenau, and on December 3rd. Birkenau Sonderkommano shot as a reprisal for planned revolt. On December 5th. 1942

“..Holocaust ..Nothing else in Hitler’s record is comparable to his treatment of the Jews . . . The word has gone forth that . . . the Jewish peoples are to be exterminated . . . The conscience of humanity stands aghast.” London News Chronicle.

On December 8th. 1,250 Rohatyn Jews are murdered while Herzl Kawa, Hersch Liverant and Moschk Nelkenbaum escape a Treblinka Transport from Siedlce. They escaped toward Brenner and were caught and interned in Ferramonti Camp, Italy. Rabbi Wise meets with President Roosevelt to discuss plight of European Jewry. On December 10th. 1st. Transport of German Jews arrives at Auschwitz as the Polish Government in Exile asks Allies to retaliate for Nazi murders.

Thursday December 10th. 1942. “..For those in Germany who let themselves be misused as tools of ..systematic extermination of another race with full awareness of of what they are doing ..there will be no room in ..new postwar world. For such people there can be nothing but extermination. ..members of ..SS and all others ..participating in ..planning ..implementation of ..Nazi policy of exterminating ..Jews should take note of this.” The BBC.

On December 11th. The last transport of Jews arrived at Belzec as the Belzec Death Camp is now officially Closed with estimates as high as 1,250,000 Jews who were murdered here at Belzec. This is an Aktion Reinhard Death Camp. On December 12th. 2,000 Czerwinsk Jews are murdered and Jewish Resistance at Lutsk crushed with more than 15,000 Lutsk Jews eventually murdered.

Thursday December 17th. 1942. “..following declaration which is being made public today at this hour in London ..Moscow and Washington: “..The attention of the Governments of Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Greece, Luxemberg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, the United States of America, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and Yugoslavia, and of the French National Committee has been drawn to numerous reports from Europe that the German authorities, not content with denying to persons of Jewish race in all the territories over which their barbarous rule has been extended the most elementary human rights, are now carrying into effect Hitler’s oft repeated intention to exterminate the Jewish people in Europe. From all the occupied countries Jews are being transported, in conditions of appalling horror and brutality, to Eastern Europe. In Poland, which has been made the principal Nazi slaughterhouse, the ghettoes established by the German invaders are being systematically emptied of all Jews except a few highly skilled workers required for war industries. None of those taken away are ever heard of again. The able-bodied are slowly worked to death in labour camps. The infirm are left to die of exposure and starvation or are deliberately massacred in mass executions. The number of victims of these bloody cruelties is reckoned in many hundreds of thousands of entirely innocent men, women and children. The above mentioned Governments and the French National Committee condemn in the strongest possible terms this bestial policy of cold-blooded extermination. They declare that such events can only strengthen the resolve of all freedom loving peoples to overthrow the barbarous Hitlerite tyranny. They re-affirm their solemn resolution to ensure that those responsible for these crimes shall not escape retribution, and to press on with the necessary practical measures to this end.?

Thursday December 17th. 1942 “..ocean of blood in which ..Jewish population of Poland is being drowned still has not washed away ..existing antisemitic poison.” Mary Berg.

Elsewhere the Jews of Europe are being systematically Slaughtered and it is clearly recognised in Poland where the mechansised and industrial capacity to kill 6,000,000 Jews has been enhanced in x6 Death Camps established there. Estimates will vary but history lends us an assessment which suggests that of the near 30,000 Jews hiding in Warsaw, barely 11,500 of them Survived. For varying reasons we cannot know why such is this fact but perhaps Mary Berg lends us her insight. This subjective view might suggest some 18,000 hidden Warsaw Jews alone were betrayed.

Thursday December 17th. 1942 “..Aryan side. ..a number of Jews hiding there ..live in constant terror. Many ..blackmailed by ..Poles with whom they are staying. After ..money ..jewels ..are ..gone ..hosts deliver them to ..Germans. ..in spite of ..fact Polish population ..is bitterly persecuted by ..invaders.” Mary Berg.

On December 17th. Baranovichi Ghetto Liquidated and 3,000 Jews are murdered as the Allies condemn extermination of the Jews. There is a pledge by America, Belgium, Britain, Czechoslovakia, French National Committee, Greece, Holland, Luxembourg, Norway, Poland, Russia and Yugoslavia to officially condemn and punish the Nazi’s. There is no similar call from Pope Pius II. On December 18th. Pope Pius XII does not see that his silence is highly damning to the Holy See.

On December 19th. 3,000 Dworzec Jews murdered after Resisting and over 560 Jews are murdered in Rakow Forest. The Jews of Piotrkow-Trybunalski attacked their German captors and many died in the attempt. On December 23rd. there is a Jewish Resistance in Cracow.

Thursday December 24th. 1942 “..a time of great tragedy for our people. ..for those who will survive this Holocaust ..we must go forward.” Chaim Weizmann.

By the Christmas of 1942 Friday, Jews are assaulted, targeted, victimised, assailed, abused, killed, murdered, executed, destroyed, annihilated, obliterated. Zelig Kalmanovich writes from the depths of the Vilna Ghetto, which is still struggling to remain viable. In the midst of this particular maelstrom, the Germans are determined to ensure that the Jews from here are totally obliterated and their presence is no longer to be felt in the World.

Sunday December 27th. 1942 “..here ..where comfort lures people into ..camp of ..mighty ..it is of no interest to history. ..Holocaust will steal its way into world history.” Zelig Kalmanovich.

But history has been told of these events and The Holocaust has presented to the World the worst of what Man can do to his fellow Man. To this day the Jews prevail and we make strenuous efforts to Remember them and stand stoicly to accuse those who perpetrated these crimes!

Sunday December 27th. 1942 “..History will cherish your memory ..people of ..ghetto. Your last expression will be studied ..your struggle for human dignity will inspire.” Zelig Kalmanovich.

On December 28th. Dr. Carl Clauberg begins his sterilization ‘experiments’ at Auschwitz and on December 30th. Pope Pius XII remarks upon atrocity’s against Jews as ‘propaganda exaggerations.’ On December 31st. more than 2,000,000 Jews already murdered in Death Camps. Einsatzgruppe and Police Battalions have added more to this figure as Dachau Concentration Camp have Gas Chamber and Crematorium installed. A concentration camp is established at Riga and a Labor Camp is attached to the Vilna Ghetto and by the end of the year, and within 9 months of operating, at least 600,000 Jews and as many as 1,250,000 Jews have been murdered at Belzec.

During December 1943 the Chortkov Ghetto will be Liquidated as on December 1st. 1943 all native and foreign Jews in Italy to be treated equally and detained under Police order. On December 6th. Over 200 Jews from Milan and Verona to Auschwitz.

Tuesday December 7th. 1943 “..people tell me ..your children are still young ..they?ll cope ..they?ll stand up to it. ..I told them ..They wont stand up to a bullet in ..neck. ..In Kiev they massacred 20,000 Jews. Feodosia ..Crimea ..12,000 in a single night.” Helene Berr.

On December 10th. Jews of Lippstadt are ordered out of their homes and on December 11th. Red Cross visits Romanian Jews deported to Transniestria.

Monday December 13th. 1943 “..Objectively ..it seems to me we are ..last shovelful ..we won’t slip through ..net. ..not many Jews left in Paris ..we don’t have much prospect of keeping out of ..way ..we won’t be tipped off. Subjectively ..time had finally come for each of us to look for our places of safety. ..I stay on in full awareness of what may happen ..it is a conscious choice. ..why did I make that choice. ..if I ..abandoned my official life ..it would feel like ..defecting. ..I’m well aware that nobody in ..family if left behind ..would have ..resolve in ..face of danger. ..seperation will be atrociously painful for all of us ..above and beyond ..fact of being deported. ..If anyone reads these words after it has happened ..will be struck ..and ..ask ..How could you have done nothing. ..my worries are not about me. ..Should we abandon everything ..when it’s quite possible ..nothing will happen at all.? Helene Berr.

December 13th. Jews of Lippstadt are ‘resettled’ to Riga. Rumbuli awaits them. On December 14th. 200 Drohobycz Jews are murdered and on December 15th. over 2,500 Jews are transported from Theresienstadt to Auschwitz as the first trial of German war criminals in Kharkov. On Friday December 17th. Convoy 63 is destined for Auschwitz from the Drancy Concentration Camp. Aboard are the Baur Family, along with 844 other Jewish Men, Women and Their Children. The Baur Family is later referred to in Helene Berr’s Journal On December 18th.

Over 2,500 Jews from Theresienstadt to Auschwitz and on December 19th. First trial of German war criminals in Kharkov ends. Monday December 20th. 850 Jewish Men, Women and Their Children arrive at Auschwitz from the Drancy Concentration Camp. Amongst these arrivals are the Baur Family which Helene Berr writes of in Her Journal. Immediate selection sees 505 of these deportees Gassed. None of the Baur Family ever returned.

Wednesday 22nd. December 1943 “..Maman told me ..Andre Baur ..his Wife ..deported ..with their four small Children. It haunts me. ..so certain they would not be taken ..at Christmas ..making trees for what is a Children’s holiday ..made me grieve so much.” Helene Berr.

History here adds to what Helene informs us of. WE know from Serge Klarsfeld that Andre, his Wife Odette and their x4 Children, Pierre who was 10 years old, Myriam who was 9 years old, Antoine who was 6 years old and Francine their 3 year old Youngest Child. They were deported toward Auschwitz on December 17th. 1943 on Convoy 63. None Survived. On December 23rd. End of Red Cross mission to Transniestria. By the Christmas of 1943 Saturday, Jews are assaulted, targeted, victimised, assailed, abused, killed, murdered, executed, destroyed, annihilated, obliterated.

Wednesday 29th. December 1943. “..I have not enough faith in God. ..only thing to do is to pray that God will ..save some of them.” Anne Frank. Buchenwald Concentration Camp holds over 37,000 inmates by the end of the year.

Friday December 31st. 1943 “..When I write ..word Jew ..I am not saying exactly what I mean ..for me that distinction does not exist ..I do not feel different from other people ..I will never think of myself as a member of a separate human group. ..I suffer from ..sight of evil falling upon humanity.” Helene Berr.

Fritz Pfeffer died on December 20th. 1944, in the Neuengamme concentration camp, where he had been transferred from either Buchenwald or Sachsenhausen. On December 6th. The Kasztner Jews reach Switzerland and Buchenwald Concentration Camp holds more than 63,000 by end of year. Some 90,000 Jews from France have been murdered. By the Christmas of 1944 Monday, Jews are assaulted, targeted, victimised, assailed, abused, killed, murdered, executed, destroyed, annihilated, obliterated, slaughtered.

On December 13th. 1945 Joseph Kramer The Beast of Belsen is Hanged and on December 18th. 1945 the prosecution begin introducing evidence to prove the criminality of seven German organizations: the Nazi party leadership, the German High Command, the SS, the SA, the SD, the Reich Cabinet, and the Gestapo. By the Christmas of 1945, Tuesday December 25th. Jews are assaulted, targeted, victimised, assailed, abused, killed, murdered, executed, destroyed, annihilated, obliterated, slaughtered and eviscerated as the War in Europe has ended, the War in the Pacific has ended but the machinery of destruction designed to destroy every living Jew, Man, Woman and Their Children has not been ground out of existence.

The apopleptic response to the Catastrophe of 6,000,000 shows little regard for the enormity of The Holocaust.

“..you were saved not ..to live ..you must give testimony ..be courageous when ..mind deceives you be courageous in ..final account only this is important.” Zbigniew Herbert.

There is not enough justice in this World to come to terms with the outrage related to the Slaughter of 6,000,000 Jews of Europe, The Holocaust. Given that there were 7,000,000 card carrying Nazi’s, Germans who followed the bitter hatred of Hitler and his mockery of both eugenics and superiority, there should be evidence enough to convict all of those. But, and whether for their complicity, both active and or sponsored, contrived to deliver the most heinous crimes ever perpetrated in all of our History, Justice must always be seen, and to be served.

“..10 years old when ..Nazis marched into Warsaw. My sister was in ..hospital having her first baby. I was about to be an uncle. That night we went to ..hospital to visit my sister. Soldiers throwing bundles out of windows and catching them on their bayonets surrounded .. hospital. Blood was everywhere. We never saw ..baby or my sister. ..Nazis put my family in ..camps. My father and I were together. We never saw my mother and sisters again. My father died. I promised him I would write our story.” Ben Edelbaum.

However, the burgeoning truth, in any search for this integrity so omitted from any Justice for an eviscerated Jewish Community, must weigh heavily with accusation as to why. Justice performed must be witnessed in how it is served up and we cannot simply assume, because we have had International Military Tribunals to attach some form of justice to the Nazi hierarchy, that any appreciable Justice has been served. We cannot then allow for History to simply accept, beings as have held a few derisory we have held trials and therefore justice has been seen to

“..this is no empty phrase ..despite their power ..we knew ..ultimately we would defeat them ..we ..weak ones ..because in this lay our strength. We believed in justice ..in humanity ..in a regime different from ..one which they glorified.” Zivia Lubetkin.

Everyone will have an opinion on who is and what makes a Nazi and in the case of The Holocaust, what then propelled these ordinary human beings into an extraordinary inhuman atrocity toward 6,000,000 Jews of Europe. Of course, in the case of Hitler, Himmler, Heydrich, Eichmann and Hoess, we know full well the terrible stain they have placed upon humanity. History, the World nor its supposed humanity will ever recover however, and very much like Himmler and his expression of the decent Jew an A1 Jew:

“..Jewish race is being exterminated ..that’s quite clear ..it’s in our program ..elimination of ..Jews ..we’re doing it exterminating them. ..then they come ..80 million worthy Germans ..and each one has his decent Jew. Of course ..others are vermin ..but this one is an A1 Jew. Not one of all those who talk this way has witnessed it ..not one of them has been through it. Most of you must know what it means when 100 corpses are lying side by side ..or 500 or 1,000. To have stuck it out and at ..same time ..apart from exceptions caused by human weakness ..to have remained decent fellows ..that is what has made us hard. This is a page of glory in our history which has never been written and is never to be written.” Heinrich Himmler.

This, all being processed as to how we can judge theses Nazi’s all simply complicates our own humanity in dealing humanely with such an atrocity. Do we simply accept all Nazi’s are as guilty as the other or is there a hierarchy of evil which places Hitler above Himmler. Then, ever flowing downward from the top of the pyramid until we are at the bottom and we are assessing the scale of the atrocity meted out by the foot soldier who knows full well what it means to see 1,000’s upon 1,000’s of Jewish dead laying side by side.

“..Belzec ..Treblinka ..Majdanek I have visited personally in detail ..together with ..leader of these facilities ..Polizeihauptmann Wirth.” Kurt Gerstein.

I have no wish to complicate this issue as each remains as guilty as the next in perpetration, participation, complicity or duplicitous in their conduct to outrage our human sensitivity. But herein lies the rub as we approach the likes of Oscar Schindler and perhaps more importantly, SS Obersturmfuhrer Kurt Gerstein. I sought many ways, in my research for Hitler’s Belzec, to come to terms with the enigma that appears to be this erstwhile gassing stroke disinfection specialist who penetrates the very narrative of hatred in Belzec, amongst other’s of the Death Camp’s in Poland he visited.

“..Anyone who spoke to ..enemy about ..extermination program ..like Kurt Gerstein ..is a shit with ears.” Adolf Eichmann.

In fact we have the very detailed report he set before us which might suggest that Hitler had 25 million people extinguished from existence. How many of these were Jews is an arguable confrontation with the very conservative estimate we have of 6,000,000 Jews of Europe, Slaughtered, The Holocaust. So where does Gerstein reside alongside those like Stangl or Wirth in officiating the very detail of the Slaughter. It remains difficult to see in other than his effort, a nazi who aspired to betray the very detail of The Holocaust he was meant to bring to fruition.

“..I used all these negotiations to make known in a skilful way or at least to intimate ..fact of ..killing of ..Jews.” Kurt Gerstein.

History might well prove that Gerstein’s assessment is more accurate than history will allow, while his application of the Zyklon ‘B’ insecticide in disinfecting 40 million kilograms of what Jewish Clothing remained after the killing exercise, had thus proved how lethal Zyklon ‘B’ had become to Jewish existence. All of this might prove mere conjecture or yet, it might prove that Gerstein was not as bad a nazi as some other’s where?

“..Surviving as a prisoner of ..Nazis was a hard and bitter struggle. In ..face of ..generous freedoms ..our persecution was even more difficult to translate. I felt pain ..lots of pain ..but I had to suppress it. I envied everyone everywhere who had escaped this terrible ordeal. ..in 1949 people had already heard of Hitler and his deeds and were not eager to hear more. Only later generations wanted to know what had happened to ..European Jewry. By this time a new term had arisen to identify ..Nazis’ mass murder and torture of millions of European Jews ..Holocaust.” Benjamin Jacobs.

It is important, given the detail that Gerstein wishes to pass on to posterity that we look consciously at what Gerstein not only reports, but the reasoning behind why he chose to report it. Gerstein has been in search of the truth as to why Hitler saw fit to kill those Hitler personally saw as ‘undesirable’. Amongst those for whom Hitler saw there was no room on Earth for was Kurt Gerstein’s Sister-in-Law, Bertha Ebeling. Bertha was Murdered at the Hadamar Euthanasia Institute and Gerstein set about exposing the racial hatred bred from eugenics toward The Final Solution of The Jewish Question.

“..Behold ..historian called to render his account. He does so not without an inner tremor. What craftsman ..grown old in his trade ..has not asked himself with a sudden qualm whether he has spent his life wisely. ..question far transcends ..minor scruples of a professional conscience. ..our entire Western civilisation is concerned in it.” Marc Bloch.

The resolve for die Endlosung der Judenfrage meant that every camp in the third Reich proved the potential to eliminate all opposition. Of that proposed opposition Hitler saw to it that the Jewish People were at the forefront of that aim and hence, the eventual construction of The Death Camp. To facilitate the systematic destruction of the Jews of Europe, and it is by no means unconnected that Poland was chosen as the site of this devastation as all methodology was evolved to ensure, as The Wannsee Conference protocol would demand, the destruction of 11,293,300 Jews.

“..Nazis were responsible for this tragedy it is they who murdered most of 3,000,000 Jews who lived in Poland before World War II. ..Germans were able to mobilize segments of ..Polish society to take part in their plan to hunt down ..Jews and help them carry out their Final Solution.” Jan Grabowski.

These Jews of all of Europe would be systematically sought for Slaughter and already this conference was too late as the level of atrocity heaped upon the Jews in Poland escalated post 1939. Now while every camp proved costly to Jewish life, The Death Camp was further enhanced and that demand to annihilate the Jews in all of Poland and then throughout the entirety of Europe, would take on an industrial process of such mechanised Slaughter, Hitler unhinged all those who served his purpose from all human morality.

“..Survival without renunciation of any part of one’s moral world apart from powerful and direct interventions by fortune was conceded only to very few superior individuals ..made of ..stuff of martyrs and saints.” Primo Levi.

Here too is where someone like Kurt Gerstein would emerge to deliver to History much of what he observed and then knew of. Already, while the Polish soil is saturated with the blood of too many of Polish Jewry, and eventually there would be some 4,500,000 Jews, 3,000,000 of whom would be Polish Jews, are strewn across what is now Judaism’s largest ever cemetery. This fact is of course, unless the correctional voice of polish history demands that, if all of Poland was a German satellite, were all of these Jews thus Murdered on German soil.

“..Written by ..Sonderkommando ..Crematorium II August 5th. 1944 ..Zalman Lewental ..Ciechanow ..Poland. No one can imagine exactly how things happened ..for it is unimaginable that a precise account of our experiences can be given. ..We ..a small group of grey people ..will give historians a ..hard time ..also ..psychologists who want to know ..investigate ..mental condition of ..people who tackled this dismal ..dirty work. ..who knows whether these investigators will fathom ..truth ..whether anyone will be able to thoroughly.” Zalman Lewental.

With that being the case, would all those Jews murdered who were murdered on this supposed German soil, would these Jews, including the Polish Jews, be asked to relinquish their former national status and then become German Jews. If the majority are no longer to be Polish Jewry, as History must remember them, who will claim them, own them and remember them. For me it a single matter! Poland either fights for the status of Poland, albeit it an occupied state, or it must relinquish its right to be Poland and subject the Slaughter of more than 3,000,000 Polish Jews to stateless ignominy.

“..Whoever exalts race ..or ..people ..or ..State ..or a particular form of State ..or ..depositories of power ..or any other fundamental value of ..human community ..however necessary and honourable be their function in worldly things ..whoever raises these notions above their standard value and divinizes them to an idolatrous level ..distorts and perverts an order of ..world planned and created by God ..he is far from ..true faith in God and from ..concept of life which that faith upholds.” Achille Ratti.

Here, alongside the hatred of a Jew is not yet antisemitism until it becomes the hatred of the Jew for being a Jew, and this is securely fixed to Hitler’s every utterance. Here though, and the use of this form of hatred which we are talking about is an illogical barrier to reason and was used by Hitler for personal, political and power seeking ideas. What then emerged as The Final Solution was later recalled to be The Holocaust. I am all too well aware of the controversy over the term but I stand by what was emerging as the dust was settling over the lifeless body of 6,000,000 Jews of Europe.

“..Jews were compelled to establish relations with an alien ..hostile government that regarded them as subhuman ..fit only for exploitation and extermination. ..human values in which they believed and on which they had built their lives tottered and collapsed. In this cruel reality ..Vilna Jewry struggled to survive and seek rescue. ..daily struggle was for life itself ..survive in ..face of hunger ..disease. Jewish Vilna embodied ..majority of hardships ..torment ..European Jewry ..underwent during The Holocaust ..its responses sum up most of ..options ..available to ..Jews during this tragic epoch. Vilna Jewry was a microcosm of ..fate of all Jewish communities in Eastern Europe.” Yitzhak Arad.

The very term The Holocaust, taken from the Greek original ‘holos’ meaning completely, and its borrowing from the Hebrew ‘olah’ is added to ‘kaustos’ to ensure the sacrificial offering, that the Jews became, was offered on the Death Camp, Concentration Camp, Ghetto and Killing Site altar to Hitler. For me, no part of this historical translation conceives of it being other than what Hitler demanded and what his cronies, acolytes and collaborator’s offered up for him and to him as so many wholly burned Jewish offerings as the Krematoria provided and Sk1005 would demand.

“..Everywhere I go ..I want people to know where I’m from ..my background ..where my family came from because of ..struggle they had to go through. Every week when I play and I see ..Israeli flag ..it brings me a lot of pride and I think it’s because of what my grandparents had to go through. Not just them but everybody during World War II and The Holocaust. That brings me anger but what I’m trying to do is bring ..anger and do something meaningful.” Laetitia Beck.

But before we arrive at the atrocity of The Holocaust, which Hitler fully adopted and adapted, the varying stages of both isolating and abusing German and Austrian Jewish Citizens was taken well before the decision to murder them all was made. Always, and it is impossible to come to terms with what translates as The Holocaust murder of 6,000,000 Jews of Europe, I resist the call to both dilute the term and move it away from what history has already established. The fact of enactment recognises in these 6,000,000 Murdered Jews a term that is used as their erstwhile resting place.

“..We could see a machine that took out ..corpses from ..graves and threw them into ..fire. There were a few such fires going simultaneously. At that time a dreadful smell dominated ..whole area ..a smell of burned human bones and bodies. From ..moment they began burning ..corpses ..from all directions of ..camp came ..smell of ..corpses. When ..Germans completed ..burning of ..corpses ..they dismantled ..camp.” Maria Daniel.

Even as Gerstein begins his search and as we go back to when the eventual slaughter was first formed in the minds of Hitler and his Nazified Germany, Gerstein was merely answering a humanitarian call for himself. There can be no understanding which can be reached that lays before history what Gerstein truly witnessed as these murdered Human Beings, sought out for being Jews, are then dismissed from life. The role for me is simple, and in ensuring not one single Jew is lost within the confinement of The Final Solution of The Jewish Question (die Endlosung der Judenfrage), The Holocaust recognises all of them.

“..On ..site where for 400 ghastly days ..blasphemy of Treblinka tormented human history there is now a monument. It shows in ..centre an enormous rock topped by a menorah to symbolise ..300,000 martyred Jews of Warsaw. ..rock is surrounded by huge slabs of concrete from which rises a forest of 1,000’s of granite pillars of varying shapes and sizes ..representing cities ..villages ..and shtetlach los in ..Holocaust. On 150 of them are carved ..names of ..localities from which ..murdered Jews came. ..massive pillars bear ..names of ..Country’s of ..victims origin.” Alexander Donat.

If these Jews of Europe are remembered, as those who are contained in The Holocaust, their Destruction will teach us better what tolerance must mean. All of this has proven, that in the past, an attempt to diminish and dilute the Jewish presence in the worst assault upon human civilisation Ever, cannot continue with the dissolving of their presence from the term which lends itself to their Slaughter, Extinction, Extirpation and Evisceration. To remove the term has failed on every level of unique, unparalleled, unprecedented and calculated effort Hitler invited to measure their passing.

“..Anne Frank wrote at ..end of her Diary ..she still believed people were good at heart ..I wonder what she would have thought if she had Survived ..Auschwitz and ..Belsen. ..people have a unique capacity for cruelty ..brutality ..indifference to human suffering. ..I have seen ..unedifying evidence of that at close hand ..it has led me to a lifetime of wondering about ..human soul.” Eva Schloss.

The systematic and planned governmental sponsorship of the Slaughter was so complete, when after Wannsee, Gerstein set about exposing the very detail of the Slaughter. So here is, presented to us a while before his life too was extinguished is a report of such revelation, even Eichmann sought to discredit its validity and suggest of the purveyor, Kurt Gerstein ‘is a shit with ears’. For me though, the truth is all that matters in this discourse we see in testimony for the remembrance of a vastness of loss as I maintain

Always to Remember, Never to Forget.

The Gerstein Report

May 4th. 1945

Personal History

Kurt Gerstein, retired mining civil servant, graduate engineer, on 27 September 1936 released from the Höheren Preußischen Bergdienst because of subversive activity.
Born on 11 August 1905 in Münster (Westfalen), associate of the engineering works De Limon Fluhme & Co. in Düsseldorf, Industriestraße 1 – 17. Special factory for automatic grease systems for engines, Knorr- and Westinghouse brakes.

Personnel record

1905-1910 in Münster (Westfalen). 1910-1919 Saarbrücken. 1919 until 1921 Halberstadt. 1921-1925 Neuruppin near Berlin. There in 1925 school-leaving examination at the humanistic grammar school. Studies: University Marburg a. Lahn 1925-1927. Berlin 1927-1931, college of technology Aachen 1927. Graduate engineer examination 1931 in Berlin-Charlottenburg. Since 1925 active member of the organized Protestant Youth (CVJM-YMCA) and the bible circles at secondary schools.

Political activity

Active follower of Brüning and Stresemann. – Since June 1933 persecuted by the Gestapo because of Christian activity against the Nazi State. On 2 May 1933 joined the NSDAP, on 2 October 1936 expulsion from the NSDAP because of subversive (religious) activity for the denominational church. At the same time expulsion as official from the civil service because of disturbing a party solemnity ceremony at the state theatre in Hagen (Westfalen) on 30 January 1935 – a performance of the drama “Wittekind” – thrashed in public and injured.

On 27 November 1935 mining service examination at the economics ministry in Berlin, all examinations passed with distinction. Until arrest on 27 September 1936 civil servant at the Saarland mines administration in Saarbrücken. This first arrest happened because of sending 8,500 subversive (re the Nazis) pamphlets to all heads of ministerial departments and high judicial officers in Germany. In accordance with a life-long wish I then studied medicine in Tübingen at the Deutsches Institut für Ärztliche Mission. This was possible because of my economic independence. As an associate of the De Limon Fluhme & Co. in Düsseldorf I earned an average income of 10,000 Reichsmark yearly. I used to spend approximately one third of this income for my religious ideals. In particular, I had 230,000 religious and anti-Nazi pamphlets printed and distributed at my own cost.

On 14 July 1938 my second arrest occurred, and I was committed to the Konzentrationslager Welzheim because of subversive activity. Before that I was frequently warned and interrogated by the Gestapo, and received a ban on speaking throughout the whole Reich area.

When I heard about the beginning of the killing of mentally ill persons at Grafeneck and Hadamar and other sites, I decided to make every effort to look into the matter of these ovens and chambers in order to learn what happened there. This was all the more relevant as a sister-in-law by marriage – Bertha Ebeling – was compulsorily killed in Hadamar. With two references from Gestapo officers who had worked on my case, I easily succeeded in joining the SS. The gentlemen took the view that my idealism, which they probably admired, must be of advantage to the Nazi cause. On 10 March 1941 I joined the SS. I received my basic training in Hamburg-Langenhorn, in Arnhem (Holland), and in Oranienburg. In Holland I immediately contacted the Dutch resistance movement (graduate engineer Ubbink, Doesburg).

Because of my dual studies I was soon taken over by the technical-medical service and allotted to the SS-Führungshauptamt, Amtsgruppe D, Sanitätswesen der Waffen-SS Abteilung Hygiene. I completed the training in a course together with 40 physicians. At the Hygienedienst I could determine my activities for myself. I constructed mobile and stationary disinfection facilities for the troops, for prisoner-of-war camps, and concentration camps. With this I had great success and was from then on undeservedly considered as a kind of technical genius. Indeed it turned out well at least to some extent, by getting the horrible epidemic typhus wave in 1941 in the camps under control. Because of my successes I soon became Leutnant and then Oberleutnant.

At Christmas 1941 the court which had ordered my expulsion from the NSDAP was informed about my joining the SS in a leading position. The result was a severe witch hunt against me. But because of my great successes and my personality I was protected and kept in office. In January 1942 I became head of the department of health engineering and in addition in a double function for the same sector I was taken over by the Reichsarzt SS und Polizei. In this function I took over the whole technical disinfection service including disinfection with highly toxic gases.

In this capacity I was visited on 8 June 1942 by the until then unknown to me SS-Sturmführer Günther from Reichssicherheitshauptamt Berlin W, Kurfürstenstraße. Günther arrived in civil clothing. He gave me the order to immediately obtain 100 kg prussic acid for a very secret Reichs order, and to drive with it by car to an undisclosed location which would be only known by the driver. Then some weeks later we drove to Prague. I understood little of the nature of the order but accepted it because here was an accidental opportunity to do something which I had longed for a long time – to be able to view inside these objects.

In addition I was recognized as such an authority and considered so competent as an expert on prussic acid, that in every case it would have been very easy for me to declare on some pretext that the prussic acid was unsuitable – because of decomposition or the like – in order to prevent its use for the real killing purpose. Together with us travelled – merely by chance – Professor Dr. med. Pfannenstiel, SS-Obersturmbannführer, full Professor of Hygienics at the University of Marburg/Lahn.

Then we drove by car to Lublin where the SS-Gruppenführer Globocnik awaited us. In the factory in Collin I had intentionally intimated that the acid was destined for the killing of human beings. A man appeared in the afternoon who was very interested in the vehicle and, after being noticed, promptly fled at a breakneck tempo. Globocnik said: “This whole affair is one of the most secret things of all in this time, one can say the most secret of all. Whoever talks about it will be shot on the spot. Only yesterday two blabbers have been shot.” Then he explained to us:

“Actually” – that was on 17 August 1942 – “we are running three facilities,” namely:

1) Belzec, at the country road and railway line Lublin – Lemberg, at the demarcation line with Russia. Maximum output 15,000 persons daily. (I saw it!).

2) Treblinka, 120 km northeast of Warsaw. Maximum output 25,000 persons daily. (I saw it!).

3) Sobibor, also in Poland, I don’t know exactly where. I am not familiar with the exact situation, I did not visit it. 20,000 persons maximum output daily.

4) Then in preparation – Majdanek near Lublin.

Belzec, Treblinka, and Majdanek I have visited personally in detail, together with the leader of these facilities, Polizeihauptmann Wirth.

Globocnik consulted me alone and said: “It is your task in particular to disinfect the extensive amounts of textiles. The whole Spinnstoffsammlung [= Collection of spun material in Germany] has only been gathered in order to explain the origin of the clothing material for the Ostarbeiter [eastern workers] etc, and to present it as an offering of the German nation. In reality the yield of our facilities is 10 – 20 times larger than that of the whole Spinnstoffsammlung.”

Thereafter I discussed with the most efficient companies the possibility of disinfecting such amounts of textiles – it consisted of an accumulated stock of approximately 40 million kgs = 60 complete freight trains – in the existing laundries and disinfection facilities. However it was absolutely impossible to place such huge orders. I used all these negotiations to make known in a skilful way or at least to intimate, the fact of the killing of the Jews. In the end it was sufficient for Globocnik that everything was sprinkled with a bit of Detenolin so that it at least smelled of disinfection. That was then carried out.

“Your other and far more important task is the changeover of our gas chambers which actually work with diesel exhaust fumes into a better and quicker system. I think especially of prussic acid. The day before yesterday the Führer and Himmler were here. On their order I have to personally take you there, I am not to issue written certificates and admittance cards to anybody!”

Then Pfannenstiel asked: “What did the Führer say?” Glob.: “Quicker, carry out the whole action quicker.” Pfannenstiel’s attendant, Ministerialrat Dr. Herbert Lindner, then asked: “Mr. Globocnik, do you think it is good and proper to bury all the corpses instead of cremating them? A generation could come after us which doesn’t understand all this!”

Then Globocnik said: “Gentlemen, if ever a generation will come after us which is so weak and soft-hearted that it doesn’t understand our task, then indeed the whole of National Socialism has been in vain. To the contrary, in my opinion one should bury bronze plates on which it is recorded that we have had the courage to carry out this great and so necessary work.”

The Führer: “Good, Globocnik, this is indeed also my opinion!” Later the alternative option was accepted. Then the corpses were cremated on large roasts, improvised from rails, with the aid of petrol and diesel oil.

The next day we drove to Belzec. A small special station had been created for this purpose at a hill, hard north of the road Lublin-Lemberg, in the left angle of the demarcation line. South of the road some houses with the inscription “Sonderkommando Belzec der Waffen-SS”. Because the actual chief of the whole killing facilities, Polizeihauptmann Wirth, was not yet there, Globocnik introduced me to SS-Hauptsturmführer Obermeyer (from Pirmasens). That afternoon he let me see only that which he simply had to show me. That day I didn’t see any corpses, just the smell of the whole region was stinking to high heaven in a hot August, and millions of flies were everywhere.

Near to the small double-track station was a large barrack, the so-called ‘cloakroom’, with a large counter for valuables. Then followed the barber’s room with approximately 100 chairs, the barber room. Then an alley in the open air, below birches, fenced in to the right and left by double barbed wire with inscriptions: ‘To the inhalation- and bath rooms!’. In front of us a sort of bath house with geraniums, then a small staircase, and then to the right and left 3 rooms each, 5 x 5 meters, 1.90 meters high, with wooden doors like garages. At the back wall, not quite visible in the dark, larger wooden ramp doors. On the roof as a “clever, little joke” the Star of David. In front of the building an inscription: Hackenholt-Foundation. More I couldn’t see that afternoon.

The next morning, shortly before 7 a.m. someone announced to me: “In ten minutes the first transport will come!” In fact the first train arrived after some minutes, from the direction of Lemberg. 45 wagons with 6,700 people of whom 1,450 were already dead on arrival. Behind the barred hatches children as well as men and women looked out, terribly pale and nervous, their eyes full of the fear of death. The train comes in: 200 Ukrainians fling open the doors and whip the people out of the wagons with their leather whips.

A large loudspeaker gives the further orders: ‘Undress completely, also remove artificial limbs, spectacles etc. Handing over valuables at the counter, without receiving a voucher or a receipt. The shoes carefully bound together (because of the Spinnstoffsammlung), because on the almost 25 metre high heap nobody would have been able to find the matching shoes again. Then the women and girls to the barber who, with two, three scissor strokes is cutting off all hair and collecting it in potato sacks. “That is for special purposes in the submarines, for seals or the like!” the SS-Unterscharführer who is on duty there says to me.

Then the procession starts moving. In front a very lovely young girl; so all of them go along the alley, all naked, men, women, children, without artificial limbs. I myself stand together with Hauptmann Wirth on top of the ramp between the gas chambers. Mothers with babies at their breast, they come onward, hesitate, enter the death chambers! At the corner a strong SS man stands who, with a voice like a pastor, says to the poor people: “There is not the least chance that something will happen to you! You must only take a deep breath in the chamber, that widens the lungs; this inhalation is necessary because of the illnesses and epidemics.” On the question of what would happen to them he answered: “Yes, of course, the men have to work, building houses and roads but the women don’t need to work. Only if they wish they can help in housekeeping or in the kitchen.”

For some of these poor people this gave a little glimmer of hope, enough to go the few steps to the chambers without resistance. The majority are aware, the smell tells them of their fate! So they climb the small staircase, and then they see everything. Mothers with little children at the breast, little naked children, adults, men, women, all naked – they hesitate but they enter the death chambers, pushed forward by those behind them or driven by the leather whips of the SS.

The majority without saying a word. A Jewess of about 40 years of age, with flaming eyes, calls down vengeance on the head of the murderers for the blood which is shed here. She gets 5 or 6 slashes with the riding crop into her face from Hauptmann Wirth personally, then she also disappears into the chamber. Many people pray. I pray with them, I press myself in a corner and shout loudly to my and their God. How gladly I would have entered the chamber together with them, how gladly I would have died the same death as them. Then they would have found a uniformed SS man in their chambers – the case would have been understood and treated as an accident, one man quietly missing. Still I am not allowed to do this. First I must tell what I am experiencing here!

The chambers fill. “Pack well!” – Hauptmann Wirth has ordered. The people stand on each other’s feet. 700 – 800 on 25 square meters, in 45 cubic meters! The SS physically squeezes them together, as far as is possible.

The doors close. At the same time the others are waiting outside in the open air, naked. Someone tells me: “The same in winter!” “Yes, but they could catch their death of cold,” I say. “Yes, exactly what they are here for!” says an SS man to me in his Low German. Now I finally understand why the whole installation is called the Hackenholt-Foundation. Hackenholt is the driver of the diesel engine, a little technician, also the builder of the facility.

The people are brought to death with the diesel exhaust fumes. But the diesel doesn’t work! Hauptmann Wirth comes. One can see that he feels embarrassed that that happens just today, when I am here. That’s right, I see everything! And I wait. My stop watch has honestly registered everything. 50 minutes, 70 minutes [?] – the diesel doesn’t start! The people are waiting in their gas chambers. In vain! One can hear them crying, sobbing… Hauptmann Wirth hits the Ukrainian who is helping Unterscharführer Hackenholt 12, 13 times in the face.

After two hours and 49 minutes – the stop watch has registered everything well – the diesel starts. Until this moment the people live in these 4 chambers, four times 750 people in 4 times 45 cubic meters! Again 25 minutes pass. Right, many are dead now. One can see that through the small window in which the electric light illuminates the chambers for a moment. After 28 minutes only a few are still alive. Finally, after 32 minutes, everyone is dead!

From the other side men from the work command open the wooden doors. They have been promised – even Jews – freedom, and some one-thousandth of all valuables found, for their terrible service. Like basalt pillars the dead stand inside, pressed together in the chambers. In any event there was no space to fall down or even bend forward. Even in death one can still tell the families. They still hold hands, tensed in death, so that one can barely tear them apart in order to empty the chamber for the next batch. The corpses are thrown out, wet from sweat and urine, soiled by excrement, menstrual blood on their legs.

Children’s’ corpses fly through the air. There is no time. The riding crops of the Ukrainians lash down on the work commands. Two dozen dentists open mouths with hooks and look for gold. Gold to the left, without gold to the right. Other dentists break gold teeth and crowns out of jaws with pliers and hammers.

Among all this Hauptmann Wirth is running around. He is in his element. Some workers search the genitals and anus of the corpses for gold, diamonds, and valuables. Wirth calls me to him: “Lift this can full of gold teeth, that is only from yesterday and the day before yesterday!” In an incredibly vulgar and incorrect diction he said to me: “You won’t believe what we find in gold and diamonds every day” – he pronounced it (in German Brillanten) with two L – “and in dollars. But see for yourself!” And now he led me to a jeweller who managed all these treasures, and let me see all this. Then someone showed me a former head of the Kaufhaus des Westens in Berlin, and a violinist:

“That was a Hauptmann of the Austrian Army, knight of the Iron Cross 1st class who is now camp elder of the Jewish work command!”

The naked corpses were carried on wooden stretchers to pits only a few meters away, measuring 100 x 20 x 12 meters. After a few days the corpses welled up and a short time later they collapsed, so that one could throw a new layer of bodies upon them. Then ten centimetres of sand were spread over the pit, so that a few heads and arms still rose from it here and there. At such a place I saw Jews climbing over the corpses and working. One told me that by mistake those who arrived dead had not been stripped. Of course this has to be done later because of the Spinnstoffsammlung and valuables which otherwise they would take with them into the grave.

Neither in Belzec nor in Treblinka was any trouble taken over registering or counting the dead. The numbers were only estimates of a wagon’s content… Hauptmann Wirth asked me not to propose changes in Berlin re his facilities, and to let it remain as it is, being well established and well-tried. I supervised the burial of the prussic acid because it allegedly had decomposed.

The next day – 19 August 1942 – we drove in the car of Hauptmann Wirth to Treblinka, 120 km north northeast of Warsaw. The equipment was nearly the same as, but much larger than in Belzec. Eight gas chambers and real mountains of suitcases, textiles, and clothes. In our honour a banquet was given in old German style in the communal room. The meal was simple but everything was available in sufficient quantity. Himmler himself had ordered that the men of these commandos received as much meat, butter and other things, especially alcohol, as they wanted.

Then we drove in the car to Warsaw. I met the secretary of the Swedish legation in Berlin, Baron von Otter in the train when I tried in vain to get a bed in a sleeping car. Still under the immediate impression of the terrible events, I told him everything with the entreaty to inform his government and the Allies of all of this immediately because each day’s delay must cost the lives of further thousands and tens of thousands.

He asked me for a reference, as to which I specified Generalsuperintendent Dr. Otto Dibelius, Berlin, Brüderweg 2, Lichterfelde-West, an intimate friend of the pastor Martin Niemöller and member of the church resistance movement against Nazism. I met Mr. von Otter twice again in the Swedish legation. Meanwhile he had reported to Stockholm and informed me that this report has had considerable influence on Swedish-German relations. At the same time I tried to report to the Papal Nuncio in Berlin. There I was asked if I am a soldier. Then any further conversation with me was refused and I was asked to leave the embassy of His Holiness. While leaving the embassy, I was shadowed by a policeman on a bicycle who shortly passed me, got off, and then absolutely incomprehensibly, let me go.

Then I reported all this to hundreds of personages, among others the company lawyer of the Catholic bishop of Berlin, Dr. Winter, with the special entreaty to forward it to the Holy See. I must also add that SS-Sturmbannführer Günther from the Reichssicherheitshauptamt – I think he is the son of the Race-Günther – again demanded from me very large amounts of prussic acid in early 1944 for a very sinister purpose. On the Kurfürsten-Street in Berlin he showed me a shed in which he intended to store the prussic acid. I consequently explained him that I cannot take sole responsibility. It was approximately several wagon loads, enough to kill millions of people. He told me that he himself doesn’t know whether the poison would still be needed; when, for whom, in which way etc. But it has to be permanently kept available.

Later I often thought about the words of Goebbels. I can believe that they wanted to kill a majority of the German nation, surely including the clergy or the unpopular officers. It should happen in a kind of reading rooms or club rooms, so far as I gathered from the questions re the technical realization that Günther asked me. It could also be that he intended to kill the foreign workers or prisoners of war – I don’t know. In every case I managed to ensure that the prussic acid disappeared for some purpose of disinfection after arrival in the two concentration camps Oranienburg and Auschwitz.

That was somewhat dangerous for me but I could have easily said that the poison had already been in a dangerous condition of decomposition. I am sure that Günther tried to get the poison in order to probably kill millions of persons. It was sufficient for approximately 8 million people, 8,500 kgs. I have authorized invoices for 2,175 kgs. I always allowed the invoices to be authorised in my name, allegedly for the sake of discretion, but in truth because of being free to dispose of the poison and being able to allow it to disappear. Above all I avoided presentation of invoices again and again, delaying payment and putting off companies until later.”

As for the rest I avoided appearing in concentration camps too often because it was sometimes usual to hang people or to carry out executions in honour of the visitors.

All my statements are true, word-for-word. I am fully aware of the extraordinary tragedy of my record before God and the whole of mankind, and take it on my oath that nothing of all this that I have registered has been made-up or invented but everything is exactly the truth.

Kurt Gerstein.

“..One of our companies held out for 40 minutes and another ..for more than 6 hours. ..mine set in ..brushmakers area exploded. Several of our companies attacked the dispersing Germans. Our losses in manpower are minimal. That is also an achievement. Yechiel fell. He fell a hero ..at ..machine gun. I feel that great things are happening and what we dared do is of great ..enormous importance. Beginning from today we shall shift over to ..partisan tactic. Three battle companies will move out tonight ..with two tasks ..reconnaissance and obtaining arms. Do you remember ..short range weapons are of no use to us. We use such weapons only rarely. What we need urgently ..grenades ..rifles ..machine guns ..explosives. It is impossible to describe ..conditions under which the Jews of the ghetto are now living. Only a few will be able to hold out. ..remainder will die sooner or later. Their fate is decided. In almost all ..hiding places in which 1,000’s are concealing themselves it is not possible to light a candle for lack of air. With ..aid of our transmitter we heard ..marvellous report on our fighting by ..Shavit radio station. ..fact that we are remembered beyond ..Ghetto walls encourages us in our struggle. Peace go with you ..my friend. Perhaps we may still meet again. ..dream of my life has risen to become fact. Self defence in ..Ghetto will have been a reality. Jewish armed resistance and revenge are facts. I have been a witness to ..magnificent ..heroic fighting of Jewish men in battle.” Mordechai Anielewicz.

I know many might consider me a Jew, either in consideration of what I say or what I might accuse those perpetrators, bystanders, intolerant or indifferent individuals in relation to The Holocaust. To be honest. You do me a great service when I consider those Jews whose exemplary effort has never waned nor allowed for 6,000,000 Slaughtered Jews to be ignored or become marginalised or become forgotten. In many ways, my work and the very effort to denounce the ability of human beings to commit to such crimes, is in part an appropriate reason why so many suggest I must be a Jew, otherwise why would I bother to write on the subject of The Holocaust of 6,000,000 Jews of Europe.

“..I had no wish to know these defendants as human beings. I did not want to know their Family history or ideology. My evidence of their mass murder would make them answer for their crimes.” Benjamin Berell Ferencz.

Well Humanity has taught me well and that all of human life is worthy and 6,000,000 Jewish extinguished lives are no less worthy than that of any other, persecuted Being, for who they are. While history is forever looking back, and in the case of The Holocaust especially so, and given the magnitude of the atrocity the World came to witness, it would be calamitous for us not to do so. We are right to do so. Many of the questions though, which deal with the fundamental wrongs perpetrated against 6,000,000 Jews, and then with the near total lack of prosecuting terms relating to this, will focus upon what Ben Ferencz encountered as a severe authorative unwillingness to prosecute.

“..authorities do not encourage remembering.” Maja Abramowitch.

In this I have seen in Ben Ferencz that determined willingness to prosecute undermined, and if he was not allowed to indict the many 100,000′ s of Nazi’s, then at least he should have been allowed to proceed against the 3,000 Einsatzgruppe. However, he was instrumental in recognising that these roving bands of killer’s, these mobile killing squads had pretty much signed their own indictment and were for certain prosecution. Sadly though, while many more of those involved in the historical search of the narrative, they merely seem content to control the course of these events and block the very routes to their causes.

“..I feel that I will be able to write much more now because I have come to understand humanity.” Hinde Bergner.

History owes its integrity only to the factual truth and not to those who might inflate, by infusing the false illusion of any Jew being able to rectify the very entrenched position they were in, attempting to remove Hitler from the centre of the narrative itself. There are far too many of these, given over as they are to attaching any of the wrongs still being apportioned, but wrongly toward the Jews of The Holocaust. We need to correct such falsehoods and allow the true state of the atrocity to be firmly fixed at its central core, be that Adolf Hitler, Adolf Hitler and his henchmen or Adolf Hitler and the full collaborative effort that went into ensuring his solution for the Jewish People was fully resolved.

“..Seventy years ago ..after our nation’s German occupation ..Nazi overlords and ..Hungarian authorities that collaborated with them seemed to fulfil ..will of Hitler’s Nazi Germany.” Janos Ader.

Of course there were many Nazi’s who would have assisted certain Jews over a given time and for a given token of profit and gain. But, there can be no doubt here that of 11,293,300 Jews to be identified at The Wannsee Conference, these Jews had no hope of ever gaining a way out from what Hitler had put in place. For them all, The Final Solution of the Jewish Question was what Hitler called for, and it was meant for the complete extinction of Jewish life, wherever any or all of these Jews were met. The call for Justice still calls out from where these Jews were met with their destruction and Ben Ferencz understood that need.

“..In Majdanek and everywhere in Poland. They gave what is ..best in humanity. I have it all ..in my soul ..letters written to me by many. Everything is possible ..in spite of other manifestations. I ..myself have never experienced any animosity toward me and what I represent. There is always ..goodwill and hope.” Halina Birenbaum.

Here, there will be many who will still argue that Poland was merely an integral part of Hitler’s Worldview which saw in War, the expansion of ideals only Hitler proposed. Instead though, Poland was the most vivid embodiment of Jewish life that had ever been recorded, 3,300,000 Polish Jews suggesting that this is so. Then, when the discourse of the continuing World War deflects Hitler’s main efforts away from Moscow and toward Kiev, this is where 150,000 of Kiev’s Jews will be Slaughtered, and in a place called BabiYar. But, are we not accepting that here, Hitler saw the chance to further annihilate at Kiev, ever more Jews linked exclusively to his final resolve to do so.  

“.. first foreign witnesses this week returned to Moscow from what are ..most terrible two acres on earth ..series of ..ravines in ..Lukyanovka district 3 miles northwest of Kiev. ..name Babi Yar ..is going to stink in history. ..name of ..main ravine where ..Russians estimate between 50,000 to 80,000 people were killed and buried during ..25 months of ..German occupation. From what I saw ..convinced that one ..most horrible tragedies in this Nazi era occurred there ..between September 1941 and November 1943.” Bill Downs.

It is not beyond reason to question the continual shifting of emphasis in War, but throughout the entire thrust of battle, the World War II campaign on Continental Europe saw to it that the Jewish People were centre stage. Uppermost in Hitler’s thought processes’, and without exception, was the idea he had set in motion and that was of a programme upon which a destructive course was established for all Jews, and without exception. For that certain reason, we could not have dealt with Hitler on the subject of the Jews, as they remained the sole focus of his entire hatred. There was only one course that steered straight through all that Hitler perceived of while in search of and gaining total power.

“..victory of morality is ..issue in this war. Should we succeed in no more than mitigating ..enemy’s foul design against his most hated victim ..it would amount to partial victory. ..we have arrived at a juncture when we are threatened by grave omission. ..it is a case of putting a stop to boundless ..unscrupulous destruction.” Ernest Frischer.

Hitler’s quest for power was steadied by The Final Solution that would render all Jews destroyed and 6,000,000 Jews of Europe actually were annihilated. Of course there were always those Nazi’s who saw a net gain in tempting the Jews with the seeming lifting of the spectre of total destruction. From the Jews own immediate perspective, and albeit this breathing space could only ever be on a temporary basis for any of them, no Jew knew precisely the time limit given over to their lives. This too is true of the likes of vehement antisemites like Eichmann, whose ‘Blood for Goods’ has pock marked the latter days of The Holocaust.

“..Somewhere near Lublin ..buildings ..constructed. ..thousands ..killed ..in a day ..saving ..trouble ..shooting ..digging mass graves ..filling them in.” Wilm Hosenfeld.

Sickeningly, with every accusation ranged against the Jews that is imaginable, the crime is being forced, in many cases, upon the Jews themselves. But I would put it to any Jew, whilst looking back, would they not deal with the devil himself, and perhaps excluding Hitler, enter into a pact in saving 1, 2 or perhaps a few Jews from extinction. I know, through my time studying and researching our loss of 6,000,000 Jews, improper questions are thrown at the narrative of The Holocaust to accuse the Jews of what the Jews could not stop. That would have been the essential to countering in any trial, established to fight for the memory of the 6,000,000 Jews of The Holocaust, which Ben would bring forth.

“..It will be a disgrace to go on living ..to belong to ..what was known ..what was done by ..Allies human race ..unless immediate steps are taken to put a stop to this crime ..greatest that history has known.” Shmuel Artur Zygielbojm.

The Jews could barely alleviate their own position and while the Jews could no more prevent what was set against them than a World appeared incapable of trying to prevent, Jews are being accused. But here, and it is not for me to remind the Jewish People who are, or who should be their heroes, especially from within or even outside the remit of The Holocaust, but I suggest to them some of those I have encountered along my way. However, I aim merely to inform those of whom I consider are in need of the searches I have made and not those Survivor Jews who know too well who are overlooked or who are and might be the unconsidered heroes.

“..Day in ..day out ..in hundreds of cities throughout Poland ..Russia 1,000’s upon 1,000’s of Jews are ..systematically murdered according to a preconceived plan ..no one .takes our part.” Emanuel Ringelblum.

Some Jews though are the suggested heroes by sheer weight of their effort and for that reason, I look at the efforts of so many in order to relate back to a time where all too many of these Jewish Heroes remained unaware of the fate that had been allocated them. For most of these Jews, and right up to the point of their destruction, their love and sense of Family proved heroic in a compassionate and humanitarian way. More especially for me though, and from amongst the Survivor, who knows who these true heroes are, I have no need in informing them. I reckon by now though, that the Survivor’s are heartily sick of the World bleating about what this Jew did or what that Jew did not do so here I am informing on what Ben Ferencz did do.

“..Survival is a privilege which entails obligations. I am forever asking myself what I can do for those who have not survived. ..answer I have found for myself ..which need not ..be ..answer for every survivor is ..I want to be their mouthpiece ..I want to keep their memory alive ..to make sure ..dead live on in that memory.” Simon Wiesenthal.

For 11,293,300 Jews, these Wannsee Jews, 6,000,000 of whom, at the point of a gun, fully succumbed, we are left to acknowledge, theirs was a unequal task for Survival. Ben Ferencz’s search for truth and through that, a limited aspect of Justice that was to be inadequately provided, leaves the door open to deliver an eventual Justice. Here, and even by the open written admissions of guilt of those 24 Einsatzgruppe kommanders, for whom Ben finally managed to establish his prosecution evidence, a mix of denial and abeyance could not seriously defend them. For Ben though, written into the pages of these Operational Situation Report’s, these memo’s despatched directly to the Hitler desk, calibrated and sketched by those very criminals sitting to the side of Ben, was the damning evidence he required.

“..It is with sorrow ..with hope that we ..disclose ..deliberate slaughter of more than 1,000,000 innocent ..defenceless men ..women ..children. ..tragic fulfilment of a program of intolerance and arrogance. Vengeance is not our goal ..nor do we seek merely a just retribution. We ask this Court to affirm by international penal action man’s right to live in peace and dignity regardless of his race or creed. case we present is a plea of humanity to law.” Benjamin Berell Ferencz.

For as Ben prosecuted these mass Murderer’s for their crimes, their own admission was written in an unconcealed and detailed accounting of those Jews and other’s that they had ritually Slaughtered. As a young prosecutor, Ben was only 26 years old when he first arrived in Nuremberg, May 1946, to become Berlin Director at the Office of the Chief Counsel for War Crimes, and 27 as he stood before the dock of Case 9. Formerly, as Chief of an investigative centre for the International Military Tribunal, the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials, Ben matched his youthful enthusiasm with an unmatched and unwavering dedication. For Ben, he stuck to a duty which yielded more than the justice at the time was meant to deliver.

“..We ourselves decide whether to make ourselves learned or ignorant ..compassionate or cruel ..generous or miserly.” Maimonides.

There were to be 12 subsequent War Crimes Trials after the arraignment of Hitler’s top officials, of which The Einsatz Trial would be subsequent to them. From Concentration Camp to Concentration Camp this Romanian Jewish investigator, born on March 11th. 1920 in the Carpathian Mountains of Transylvania, which then belonged to Romania at the time, was saved from the same fate of the 6,000,000 of his fellow European Jews of The Holocaust. Such a realisation, which must have been unleashed upon his senses, would not allow this rather small Jewish Man to be intimidated by these insignificant aryan masters of life and death over Jews.

“..we travelled 3rd. class because there was no 4th. class.” Benjamin Berell Ferencz.

Already, when Ben and his Family had been forced to move to America, at that time Jews were being caught up in a tug of war with Romania and Hungary, both vying for the territory Ben resided in. The one constant in both of these belligerent countries was their explicit assaults upon Jewish integrity. For this express reason it had forced the hand of Ben’s Family, and without resource they took a ship bound for America in January 1921. Ben, at the age 10 months old, and with his family in tow, moved toward a land that might give them more hope. With Ben, who must have eventually felt the pressure of having been brought out of harm’s way, must have been looking at defendants, who would surely have had him Murdered for being a Jew with an immense sense of vindication.

“..civilisations may change. ..not ..inconceivable that ours may ..turn away from history ..and historians would do well to reflect upon this possibility. If they do not take care ..danger that badly understood history could involve good history in its disrepute. ..should we come to this ..it would be at ..cost of a serious rupture with our most unvarying intellectual traditions.” Marc Bloch.

Money at the time though was an issue for the migrating Ferencz family as they arrived in America, and as Ben records, money became an issue which also faced many in New York. However, after educating himself, there would be an approaching storm to submerge all of Europe in what Hitler intended for the Jews. There would also be a World of War, set to conceal that attempt at mass murder, a screen to divide atrocity from the systematic and sought after destruction armed against Jewish humanity. What would then destroy some 50 to 70 million People would not secrete the 6,000,000 Jews independently targeted.

“..Only after I left Germany was it clear to me that we ..Jews of Germany had been living until 1933 in a fools paradise.” Professor Hermann Zondek.

War though, which would bring Ben back to Europe, would secure for him a clash with such a monstrous deed against his own People, that it appears an alignment of sorts came about which saw to it that he was in the right place at the correct time in History. Here, a morally ethical idealist Ben avowed to end the blight of War while he fully sought to know, what was then emerging as the greatest atrocity ever conceived, how far mankind has tumbled down the table of civilising influence. Ben clearly saw the evidence of such a diabolical atrocity for himself, and in the pages directly in front of him, it was clarified.

“..horrible sight ..I encountered during ..trip was a visit to a German internment camp near Gotha. ..things I saw beggar description. While I was touring ..camp I encountered ..3 men who had been inmates and by one ruse or another had made their escape. I interviewed them through an interpreter. ..visual evidence and ..verbal testimony of starvation ..cruelty and bestiality were so overpowering as to leave me ..sick. In one room ..where they were piled up 20 ..30 naked men ..killed by starvation ..George Patton would not even enter. He said that he would get sick if he did so. I made ..visit deliberately ..in order to be in a position to give first hand evidence of these things if ever ..in ..future ..there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to propaganda.” General Dwight David Eisenhower.

For Ben, as he was fully dedicated to unravelling the atrocity’s targeted against all opponents of Hitler’s, and while not realising the full extent of The Holocaust catastrophe, 6,000,000 stilled voices must have raged out at him from their final resting place. Through the full extent of the carnage, as the undiluted atrocity was as yet to fully emerge, humanity was being confronted with the graven image of man’s inhumanity to mankind. Today, and while we are aware that such is the enormous level of this catastrophe, which could never be prosecuted, Ben set about his arduous task with purpose and a driven desire to see to it that the very level of the catastrophe was prosecuted enormously.

“..Someone who was not there could never really grasp how unreal ..situation was. I once saw Displaced Persons beat an SS man and then strap him to ..steel gurney of a crematorium. They slid him in ..oven ..turned on ..heat and took him back out. Beat him again ..and put him back in until he was burnt alive. I did nothing to stop it. I suppose I could have brandished my weapon or shot in ..air ..but I was not inclined to do so. Does that make me an accomplice to murder. ” Benjamin Berell Ferencz.

Meanwhile, there began a sequence of newsreel footage that was appearing with a glimpse into what hell must have been for so many Jews of Europe. For those General’s like Eisenhower, Bradley and Patton, all wanting not only to inform the World of what Hitler’s Germany had infested humanity with, but set about ensuring that no future doubt could ever be cast over what had been perpetrated in what amounted to Crimes Against Humanity. As these Hitler led atrocities were continually uncovered, the serving Ben Ferencz was being transferred to the formative investigative office of the US Armies own War Crimes Branch.

“..murders ..committed ..rights ..defendants violated belong to all men everywhere. ..nationality of ..victim ..time and place of crime do not impugn this jurisdiction. ..Where conduct menaces ..universal social order ..there can be ..no prohibition on ..right of courts to act. No law has ever prohibited ..trial by any court of crimes such as we shall here disclose. Piracy and brigandage were ..forerunners of modern international crimes. International jurisprudence soon gave states ..right to punish these violators regardless of ..victim’s nationality or ..location of ..crime. ..applied in time of war or peace. ..long ..accepted ..belligerent may punish ..enemy forces in its custody who have violated ..laws ..customs of war.” Benjamin Berell Ferencz.

Ben was merely 3 years out of graduating from Harvard Law School, and here he was assessing his inexperience as a learning curve he could never have thought possible. But here he was, before the most cruel and vindictive, murderous genocidal force in all of history, and he was ready to lead 50 other’s from his team with the sole effort of the direct condemnation of all our humanity that could be aimed against just 24 of these mass Murderer’s. In seeking to prosecute as many of the guilty as he could, and for the sake of the nameless Jews who could no longer seek the Justice they deserved, barely a modicum of some form of justice did emerge.

“..seared into my memory are ..scenes I witnessed while liberating these centres of death and destruction. Camps like Buchenwald ..Mauthausen ..Dachau ..vividly imprinted in my mind’s eye. Even today ..when I close my eyes ..I witness a deadly vision I can never forget ..crematoria aglow with ..fire of burning flesh ..mounds of emaciated corpses stacked like cordwood waiting to be burned. ..I had peered into Hell.” Benjamin Berell Ferencz.

For his pains Ben interviewed some of the most despicable people in all of history in his attempt to Prosecute their obvious inhumanity toward their fellow man. Before him lay the biggest murder trial in all of history and this young prosecutor, charged with indicting and then prosecuting 24 mass murderer’s was not overawed by the prospect. Here before History, stood a form of human being who would, eventually, be charged with the most systematic Slaughter of 1,250,000 Jewish People ever conceived of. Even though the number of Murdered Jews was and will never be known, the daunting detail of the atrocity before Ben, written into the osr pages, stifled all appreciation of the immense scale of the Slaughter.

“..you can die once ..twice ..even 7 times ..but you can’t die a 1,000 times. I can. My underground cells reach everywhere.” Dan Pagis.

Ben, who was still only 27 years old as he stood at the prosecuting podium at this trial, and remembering this was Ben’s first criminal case, no one could imagine that the pressure did not unduly affect Ben at work. Of course, there was a great expectation from World Jewry, a hope for Humanity and the search within far reaches of a justice system that would fail to ever meet with 6,000,000 Jewish losses, would still deliver an exemplary prosecution. I remember too that what Dan Pagis recorded, seared into his own memory, would be what is the actual experience of being gripped by The Holocaust that Ben, nor I could fully appreciate.

“..witnesses might prove unreliable. Those who would testify against any of these defendants would be blinded by pain and rage. I would not need them. I would hang this murderous gang by their own documents.” Benjamin Berell Ferencz.

Dan Pagis, as another transported Romanian Jew, and though this particular Jew had Survived the Camp system and with that The Holocaust itself, for me, his memory adds deeper to the accusation of what these defendants were never going to admit to. Anyway, I am never quite certain whether any Jew could truly survive such an experience without its lasting effects tormenting them. So, as we take the lesson’s of ‘Never Again’ from out of a hell on Earth so as to teach us, it is imperative that we listen, learn and act from the words of Dan Pagis and the Script of Ben Ferencz. In any assessment then, if 6,000,000 Jews could die a 1,000 times, I would assess Jewish pain and suffering will never dissipate, will never become resolved and will never be forgotten.

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

In the approaching 1,000 millennia, in any attempt at coming to terms with what can never ever be comprehended, History will look as crucially at what was done to the Jews of The Holocaust in as much the same way as with what was not done to assist these Jewish People. For Ben though, the legal objective had always been to ensure the conviction of these mass murderer’s. Alongside that commitment too, it was Ben’s personal demands to secure a better future for all that drove his humanitarian grasp for change forward. That which he placed ahead of his own personal enmity, and toward these educated killer’s, was a humanity the Einsatz kommanders had not recognised in their assault upon the integrity of 1,250,000 Jews.

“..I was reprimanded because I could not comply with various restrictions. ..Here ..there were enormous crimes committed against humanity and no punishment for it. People being killed ..burned and ..voice of God kept silent. ..I in view of ..atrocities against mass murderers. No illusion was left. Nothing happened that would shudder ..world to ..core.” Halina Birenbaum.

For Ben to establish a legal precedent that would encourage a more humane and secure world for the future, he had to overcome the scent of evil permeating the legal process ahead of him. Ben, who worked tirelessly with the prospect of these vastly well educated men demanding more questions than he had answers for, could not be convinced that he would secure the level of punishment they deserved. The discomfort for him, dealing with those who acted without humanity, always demanded their treatment with his humanity. For these who acted illegally, and expected every inch of the legal process to treat them somewhat regally, they received every legal process afforded them.

“..charge of purposeful homicide in which this case reaches such fantastic proportions and surpasses such credible limits that believability must be bolstered with assurance a 100 times over.” Nuremberg Tribunal.

While Ben had always felt that the immediate death sentence of all these Murderer’s would satiate an immediate demand, it would never serve the legal process in civilising terms. Though Ben was morally conflicted by the dilemma before him, it drove him forward in the hope of understanding how educated people can act outside those moral and ethical thought processes. The foundation of all understanding, which education must deliver to a normal person’s intellectual grasp, was cast aside in a fit of hate and atrocity. But Ben drove this prosecution forward knowing the World was watching with a mixture of doubt as to such a capacity to kill and a despair that indeed such mass Murder was accomplished.

“..decided that of 3,000 Einsatzgruppe they were aware of ..just 24 ..highest ranking commanders would be indicted simply because there was not enough room in ..dock.” Benjamin Berell Ferencz.

What 6,000,000 Jews had faced, doubting what would be a final encounter with all existence, the World was now asking how this could have happened. A World which pretty much knew, for the entire period of the genesis forming, graduating and escalating terms of The Holocaust, what was emerging for 6,000,000 Jews of Europe was utter devastation. What had emerged at the earlier International Nuremberg Tribunal adjudged that those who perpetrated the most heinous crimes in all of history must, without equivocation, face such punitive measures that their fullest extinction must be ratified into law.

“..These four Einsatzgruppe ..as they would exist in Russia ..or as they would operate in ..Balkans and certainly as they scourged ..Baltic States ..amounted to some 3,000 ethnic Germans. Each Einsatz or Sonder unit operating with a central core of between 500 – 900 members ..overriding need for local assistance ..support from ..Militia ..Field Gendarmerie ..Wehrmacht compliance and Waffen SS participation ..destruction of ..Jewish Race was almost assured.” Patrick Dempsey.

When I contrast this statement of Ben’s, with what I would refer to in my own book, der Einsatzgruppe and the Destruction of European Jewry, that as we witness the close cooperation between Hitler’s cohorts, an assurance of The Final Solution would deliver toward The Jewish Question, the complete evisceration of 6,000,000 Jews. So as to bolster the demands placed upon 3,000 murderous Einsatz individuals, every cog in the wheel of The Third Reich turned with a single motion, a motive Hitler allowed for the German people to adopt, adapt and exercise with mass murder. Perhaps here too, Ben Ferencz was right, in that space played a hand in indicting merely 24 Mass Murderer’s instead of the 3,000 protagonist murderer’s and their assisting killer squads.

“..I got witness statements ..going into a village where ..an American pilot had parachuted ..been beaten to death ..line everyone ..against ..wall and inform anyone who lied would be shot. ..never occurred to me that statements taken under duress would be invalid.” Benjamin Berell Ferencz.

While we measure the space capable of holding 3,000 Murderer’s to account, we cannot even define the space which has detained 6,000,000 Human Beings, Murdered because they were Jews. Literally, the court room space which was needed to be large enough to confront all 3,000 mass murderer’s, could not be arranged. So one can sense the immediate frustration of Ben as he tackled the need for Justice with what seemed to him an emptying gesture. Think too of the number that will be presented to you in this short piece, those who faced Ben, and know this as a huge missed opportunity to prosecute all who were guilty. This clearly leaves us empty so as to know the failure of justice as it is perceived here.

“..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.

Only 22 of the defendants stood before the scales and rigors of justice as both Rasch, unfit and Graf was released having served time. The remainder were all found guilty to varying degrees with 13 of these sentenced to death, 2 were sentenced to life terms, and 5 received sentences that ranged from 10 to 20 years. One of the guilty was immediately released with time served. Ultimately, only 4 of these 13 death sentences were carried out. One other death sentence was delivered by a Belgian Court. The varying sentences of all of the other defendants, all convicted mass murderers, were later commuted or reduced and mostly exonerated by this travesty.

“..She never grew up. She will be a 6 year child forever. A talented girl who taught herself to read. She was gassed 75 days after her 6th. Birthday ..June 3rd. 1944. ..there can be no justification. I will be there for Evika ..for all ..others who were murdered. I want to understand.” Judith Kalman.

The sheer scale of atrocity being investigated, becoming unveiled and still allowed to remain detached from the weight of World War II, exposed the entire World to an intolerable indifference that still is troubling to this day. But for the here and now at a Court sitting, it is largely down to a pugnacious Benjamin Ferencz, who found and deciphered the importance of the Operational Situation Reports, of these Murder squads, that was to lead to the prosecution of these 24 der Einsatzgruppe Kommanders. These peculiar osr’s, an accounting detail of mass Slaughter were discovered by Ben at the Gestapo Headquarters in Berlin on September 3rd. 1945.

“..perpetrators should be brought to trial ..in spite of age ..not as a vengeance ..but as a lesson and warning for ..future.” Yitzhak Arad.

#01) SS Gruppenfuhrer Dr. Professor Otto Ohlendorf, Kommander Einsatzgruppe D, Death sentence, ‘Red Jacket Murderer,’ Hanged June 8th. 1951.

02) SS Brigadefuhrer Heinz Jost, Kommander Einsatzgruppe A, Life sentence, released 1951.

#03) SS Brigadefuhrer Erich Naumann, Kommander Einsatzgruppe B, Death sentence, ‘Red Jacket Murderer,’ Hanged June 8th. 1951.

04) SS Brigadefuhrer Otto Rasch, Kommander Einsatzgruppe C, unfit for Trial.

05) SS Brigadefuhrer Erwin Schulz, Kommander Ek5, Einsatzgruppe C, sentence 20 years, released 1955.

06) SS Brigadefuhrer Professor Franz Six, Kommander Ek7e, Vorkommando Moscow, Einsatzgruppe B, 20 years, released 1952.

#07) SS Standartenfuhrer Paul Blobel, Kommander Sk4a, Einsatzgruppe C, Death sentence, ‘Red Jacket Murderer,’ Hanged June 8th. 1951.

08) SS Standartenfuhrer Dr. Walter Blume, Kommander Sk7a, Trupp Smolensk, Einsatzgruppe B, Death sentence, released 1955.

09) SS Standartenfuhrer Martin Sandberger, Kommander Sk1a, Einsatzgruppe A, Death sentence, released 1957.

10) SS Standartenfuhrer Willi Seibert, Ohlendorf’s Deputy then Kommander Einsatzgruppe D, Death sentence, released 1955.

11) SS Standartenfuhrer Eugen Steimle, Kommanded both Sk7a, Einsatzgruppe B and Sk4a, Einsatzgruppe C, Death sentence, released 1954.

12) SS Obersturmbannfuhrer Pastor Ernst Bieberstein, Kommander Ek6, Einsatzgruppe C, Death sentence, released 1958.

#13) SS Obersturmbannfuhrer Werner Braune, Kommander Sk11b, Einsatzgruppe D, Death sentence, ‘Red Jacket Murderer,’ Hanged June 8th. 1951.

14) SS Obersturmbannfuhrer Walter Haensch, Kommander Sk4b, Einsatzgruppe C, Death sentence, released 1955.

15) SS Obersturmbannfuhrer Gustav Adolf Nosske, Kommander Ek12, Einsatzgruppe D, Life sentence, released 1951.

16) SS Obersturmbannfuhrer Adolf Ott, Kommander Sk7b, Einsatzgruppe B, Death sentence, released 1958.

17) SS Obersturmbannfuhrer Eduard Strauch, Kommander each of Sk1b, Sk1c and Ek2, Einsatzgruppe A, Death sentence, Butcher of Minsk, died a lunatic, 1955.

18) SS Sturmbannfuhrer Emil Haussmann, Kommander Ek12, Einsatzgruppe D, suicide 1947.

19) SS Sturmbannfuhrer Waldemar Klingelhoefer, Kommander Einsatzgruppe B, Kommander of both Sk7b and Ek7e, Einsatzgruppe B, Death sentence, released 1956.

20) SS Sturmbannfuhrer Lothar Fendler, Deputy Kommander Sk4b, Einsatzgruppe C, sentence 10 years, released 1951.

21) SS Sturmbannfuhrer Waldemar von Radetzky, Deputy Kommander Sk4a, Einsatzgruppe C, sentence 20 years, released 1951.

22) SS Hauptsturmfuhrer Felix Ruehl, Deputy Kommander Sk10b, Einsatzgruppe D, sentence 10 years, released 1951.

23) SS Obersturmfuhrer Heinz Schubert, Kommander Einsatzgruppe D, Death sentence, released 1951.

24) SS Oberscharfuhrer Matthias Graf, Deputy Kommander Einsatzgruppe C, served Ek6, Einsatzgruppe C, released 1948.

“..if we had wanted an injustice we simply would have killed them in ..beginning.” Benjamin Berell Ferencz.

Sadly, as the days have now turned into decades since the guilty have faced the humanitarian concerns of a World, now removed from the immediacy of some of the most despicable crimes ever recorded, lessons have yet to be learned. Along with the sheer significance of Ben’s find, a paper trail which became evidently apparent to Ben and his team of 50, what then led to the only War Crimes Trial dedicated to the Slaughter of 6,000,000 Jews in their Final Solution, should never allow for Justice to ever end. Also, while it cannot ever be underestimated what any evidence the Russians might have then withheld, we know from the osr’s alone the sheer scale of the Murderous undertaking. If these osr’s had only been any or every part of the documentation being discovered, Ben Ferencz and his Team have laid down the foundation stone for World Justice, still to be maintained.

“..In ohlendorfs’s case I am completely convinced ..he believed in necessity and rightness of what he was doing. ohlendorf did not picture himself as a ruthless killer. Nor should he be made to appear as an ordinary felon or madman. He was a man of great intellect and dedication. He was one of ..very few tried at Nuremberg who appeared to be telling ..truth.” Benjamin Berell Ferencz.

This is My page. These are the pages which I am solely responsible for. From time to time I extract from those who know better than I, what The Holocaust truly means. For me, that is the Survivor, or just as importantly, those Jews wholly consumed within the Catastrophe for the 6,000,000 Jews of Europe. Other than that, I have given my all, without consideration to myself while not realising I have given more than I thought.

I have accepted the abuse, rolled with the accusations and sought to ignore the serious threats made against me because this work is far more important. All is truly worth its risk, given what 6,000,000 Jewish People and their dismissal from life no longer enables them to enjoy. But! And when we arrive at a point where I am being called an antisemite, and a defender of nazis’s, and by Jews here, I am so worn down by this, I am shocked, hurt and very much deflated.

This really is Not me though. I cannot be worn down by others whose own opinion, knowledge or even awareness differs from my own. For me, it is essential that you all know why I am here, and these are the 6,000,000 very distinct Jewish reasons I explore and research. As I attempt to bring out of the past and into our future any of those still unnamed though I am mindful of, that there are perhaps 4,500,000 Jews who are names and who are known.

One of these Murdered, and known of course, is a 4 year old Jewish Girl, Tovah ‘Tokele’ Olshak, Murdered in Sokoly by local antisemites. Tokele, for whom I have once sought an emotional detachment, that will not materialise, and this is due in no small part to the sheer empathy and attachment I have for her. For that very reason I have always sought out from so many questions, and from those Survivor’s who I would ask to reach back and, if given any opportunity, retrieve but one from the past to stand before us.

Simple enough for me as this would be Tokele every time. But when I ask of any Jew to consider this, I am very troubled. While I accept that the Survivor would bring back one of their own back, there are some who would balk at the very fact of a Jew managing to save any one of their own. There is enough hatred in this World for the Jewish People without any Jew seeking to differ in disagreement with another Jew over any issue.

For me, I have thrown my own sense of grief, through loss, into this to approach for an empathy with such a collosal loss which no one can ever understand what this, The Holocaust grief must surely mean. From my introduction to Tokele’s story, I was reached by a Survivor who actually knew her and a more immediate connenction was made for me with the past I have been searching for. Imagine then as I reached Treblinka and without prior awareness, a stone stood in front of me with Sokoly, the Town where Tokele had been Murdered, was written on in Remembrance.

Some might see in this a fate that somehow set me toward meeting with Tokele’s past in order to deliver much of the accusation that is 6,000,000 Murdered Jews strong. As I look, as I search and as I take in the fuller catastrophe that confronts every Jew to this day, I reflect heavily upon its effect on my person. Seriously, I measure myself in such terms as would defie anyone not to sink, but I am neither depressed nor a depressive.

When I was diagnosed with Cancer, it was quite simple and that it was a Surgeon’s skill, and not really a problem for him to cut it out, and he did. I knew me! But work impacts on how such things are perceived and while I got through recovery, knowing depression was Never a part of my make up, other’s wondered if I had simply submerged it with other’s scale of grief?

Then, when I entered a study as to why I then contracted Diabetes, there was no way they were going to convince me that depression had gotten to me. I guess though, immersed in the struggle to search for so many answers, has clearly marked me in ways I had never imagined. So today. I cannot work in any professional capacity as reading, and even writing, is proving problematic in an attention span of demands.

Here I am then, in a race against time to get everything I want to do and achieve and I cannot envisage yet another struggle responding to accusations from those who truly should know my only, sincere and focused intention is with 6,000,000 stilled Jewish voices calling out from a past still wishing to leave them behind. Originally, I know I had 6 Books to be written which could represent 6,000,000 Slaughtered if each one of those Books represented 1,000,000 sales each. Oh the flush of youth.

I realise now that not even 6,000 Books could reach that particualr milestone of a simple Book representing the life of every single Jew now lost to humanity. But here and now I am presented with an ultimatum, and I am not prepared to desist nor give in to what remains still visible to me, the words yet to emanate for 6,000,000 still expecting. I merely have tired eyes and my mind is more than filled with all the Books I need to complete, and in as quick a time as I can.

There remains 6,000,000 Jews who expect nothing less from my promise to commit to their memory than I will deliver. So I need your help. This will be my work, both professionally and intentionally from here on in. It is hoped that you can remind anyone with an interest, that as I write I will need to continually sell all my work to get closer to where I always hoped to be.

What would represent the memory and accusation I have spent more than 25 years delivering needs to come sooner rather than later. I will never tire, never concede and never give up on what 6,000,000 Murdered Jews call on me to present. What I hope also is, in being able to respond to serious questions without having to defend why I have given Everything to help you learn what I am learning, you appreciate I am merely acting as a conduit for what I would imagine 6,000,000 voices might say.

The Truth of what happened to 6,000,000 Jews of Europe, why the World allowed this all to happen, and how we need to come to terms with the incomprehensible, spurs me on. I need to explore the certain hatred that is measured out against some Jews within the Catastrophe for what was out of their full remit to alter. We can all see too many demons when the first and original demon was a man hell bent on supplying History with a term such as The Holocaust. A term we must recognise was originally classified as The Final Solution of the Jewish Question, die Endlosung der Judenfrage, an annihilation process for the Jewish People.