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This Holocaust Author's Auschwitz Blog

This blog describes my thoughts and experiences in visiting Auschwitz, Belzec, Majdanek and Sobibor and Anne Frank's House from 2014 to 2018

I blogged my preparations for my visit, I posted daily during my visit to Poland...there are also my ongoing thoughts posted here; in the aftermath of my visit...
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Erica, Righteous and Hungary

Uncategorised Posted on Sat, June 24, 2023 13:09:59

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

It merely takes a thought and I am asking myself questions which should have been answered during the period of the Jews most direst need. A Woman I consider a very good friend, her communications to me were both inspiring and awful memories of a past she declined to leave behind. She had Survived what her Mother was not allowed to, Hitler’s intention for all Jews. I recall an apology I made for the language I used to instil into memory what the Jewish Survivor knows all too well. Intimately. Terms like Slaughtered, Liquidation, Extermination, Annihilation, Evisceration, Destruction all illicit a provocation of what horror the terror on 6,000,000 Jews must have been. Erica was quite assured though. The World cannot know these terms of intention while we ameliorate its sensitivity to what was perpetrated and what was allowed to happen.

So we reached agreement. What I continue to find difficult is in what Erica assured me was a lasting memory of the last sight of her Mom, within Birkenau’s last assault upon the Hungarian Jewish population. You see. Erica’s Mother had been Murdered on Tuesday September 8th. 1942 in Birkenau. If this wasn’t tragic enough. Erica pinned her hopes upon the memory of an image of a Woman whose extraordinary likeness kept Erica believing her Mother lived till 1944 when the Hungarian Transports arrived at Birkenau, in 1944. Who am I to dismiss should a hold the past has upon a fractured memory, an immense loss which compelled her to hope, both images were of the same Mom she knew, loved and had taken from her to be devoured within Birkenau. So I continue to write, and here in particular upon Hungarian Jewry so as to allow many other’s to know, the Jewish experience was more than Death, even Killing or Murder.

It was a more atrocious end of 6,000,000 innocent People, and all because the were Jews, Even Erica’s Mom, Olga Bock, taken too soon, and from a Child who continued to Remember her long after she had been Slaughtered. In all I wish to add to Erica’s memory, there is no need for me to ever trust the status of any nation whose Jews were impacted within all terms associated with, The Holocaust. For whatever reason, and sovereignty seemingly provides the best excuse for deniability, complicity and even the duplicitous deceit in covering this all up, the abandoned Jews were cast aside. We are all aware of what Denmark was capable of, and what other states should have sought to achieve in all manner of humanitarian concern. However, of this fact which allowed for 6,000,000 Jews, who were merely pawns in an unsavoury display of pretence, by immobile concern, and which saw their systematic Slaughter, The Holocaust accuses the World of such indifference, it stacks high amongst what antisemitism confirms. Hatred for the Jews as Jews.

There is this continuous and constantly cynical ploy, in accusing Jews of going tamely into The Final Solution. While choosing carefully to ignore the fact that those Jews were civilians, we cannot allow this to distort what confronted innocent Jewish People. If Hitler’s Wehrmacht could overrun all of Europe in weeks, and against Military trained armies what was it that the Jews could do. Back in time, while we know that from August 16th. 1941, when the Atlantic Charter sought a commonality of purpose for all People everywhere, that fact was rather mislaid. This did not include the Jews of Europe facing extinction as Death Camp after Death Camp came upon stream and the brutal efforts of der Einsatzgruppe continued. On August 25th. 1941, and with more than 15,500 Jews expelled from Hungary to Kamanets-Podolsky, we know Hungarian Jewry is now under an immediate and deadly threat. These Hungarian Jews in Kamanets are Slaughtered within days.

Once more, and on December 13th. 1941 Goebbels diary confirms again Hitler’s final solution and intention for World Jewry. This is fully endorsed when, on  December 16th. 1941 Hans Frank affirms Hitler’s resolve for Jewish extermination. Further on, The Wannsee Conference on January 20th 1942 concentrates the coordinated effort of the entire Reich upon the continued effort to the murders of a further 11,293,300 Jews of Europe. On April 16th. 1943 Hitler fully briefs Hungarian Regent, Admiral Miklos von Nagybania Horthy on the progress of The Final Solution. This murderous effort was to be relentless, and even as Hitler’s War was certain of Allied victory, Hitler’s resolve for the Jewish People never wavered, never dipped and continued toward a total solution. On January 19th. 1944, as the Germans take control of Hungary, it is more precarious than 800,000 to 900,000 Jews fully knew.

On March 15th. 1944 “..Hitler also objected to ..fact that Hungary has not yet introduced ..steps necessary to settle ..Jewish Question. We are accused, therefore ..of ..crime of not having carried out Hitler’s wishes ..and I as charged with not having permitted ..Jews to be massacred.” Miklos Horthy.

The Nazis implement its tried and tested practices of dealing with the Jews by defining them, by the confiscation of their property, by the temporary process of ghettoization, and by the final deportation to of them all death camps. This then is the implementation of the Final Solution of the Jewish Question in Hungary and will take less than four months to reach such a crescendo of Slaughter as Birkenau had not witnessed before. Remember in this also, and specifically, if we are dealing with either 800,000 or 900,000 Hungarian Jews, we cannot be accurate with the total loss to any of these Hungarian Jews, even when accepting the immense loss is an incalculable one. On March 16th. 1944 Admiral Horthy accepts Hitler’s Policing control of his country as Hungary fully accedes to the Jewish deportations.

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

On March 18th. 1944 Hitler orders more German troops into Hungary and when, on March 19th. 1944 Hitler sends his 6th. SS Panzer Army forces into Hungary, and this is purportedly to stem the flow of Russian advances, the Jewish Question is closer to being resolved here. As all of Hitler’s forces within Hungary are surely coordinated to ensure the continuance of this final resolve, the Slaughter of Hungarian Jewry reaches another unprecedented level of atrocity. This then is the precursor to ensuring all of Hungarian Jewry does not evade The Final Solution to Hitler’s Jewish Question. As many as 900,000 Hungarian Jews now stand transfixed before the delivery of them all toward Birkenau. There is a congress that was held on the 3rd and 4th of April, 1944, in Krummhuebel, and was organised by Rudolf Schleier, and this was drawn up so that nothing would distract from that final resolve.

Even whilst the personnel propping up the Death Camp gates, legions of these mass killers, divisions of them, could have better served the Axis power in shedding less quickly its young. There was no let up or easing of The Final Solution to that Jewish Question despite the blistering degrading of Germany even as an entity. Elsewhere, and away from Krummhuebel, Eichmann was busy orchestrating the final removal of the largest remaining Jewish grouping in Europe, Hungarian Jewry. On April 4th. 1944 itself, as US Reconnaissance Aircraft photograph Auschwitz and Birkenau, we are left to ponder. As the mass deportation of Hungarian Jewry has yet to begin, can we not imagine if only, and instead of Film, Bombs were dropped to prevent any further transports reaching Birkenau.

On Friday April 7th. 1944 “..Cautious estimate of ..number of ..Jews gassed ..Birkenau ..April 1942 ..April 1944 by Country of origin

..Poland ..transported by truck   300,000 Jews

..ransported by train                      600,000 Jews

Holland                                              100,000 Jews

Greece                                                 45,000 Jews

France                                               150,000 Jews

Belgium                                               50,000 Jews

Germany                                             60,000 Jews

Yugoslavia }

Italy           }

Norway     }                                         50,000 Jews

Lithuania                                             50,000 Jews

Bohemia    }

Moravia     }

Austria }                                             30,000 Jews

Slovakia                                               30,000 Jews

Camps foreign Jews in Poland     300,000 Jews

Total                                             1,765,000 Jews.”  The Auschwitz Protocols.

This Auschwitz Protocol was composed by Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler, just two more escapees from the Birkenau Death Camp wishing to inform of the truth for the Jews, disbelief met with incredulity and even hostility toward such a factual truth. Integrity only ever mattered when the truth could be somehow swallowed by disbelief and a continuing belief in the humanity within mankind. On April 16th. 1944 the Hungarian Government registers Jews as the Hungarian Government confiscates Jewish property. Hungary deported its Jews and those were all brought from surrounding Villages Botiza, Falien-Glod, Glod, Ieud, Kechnia, Rozavalea, Sacel, Salistea, Strimtura, Sieu, Slatina and a further 3 other smaller villages to the Dragomiresti Ghetto 3 days after Easter Sunday April 9th. 1944. Dragomiresti is now declared Judenrein as 40 cattle trucks with some 90 to 100 Jews to each are transported toward Birkenau.

This is the precursor to the planned extinction of some 800,000 to 900,000 Hungarian Jews and even as Hitler’s reich is in tatters, The Final Solution of The Jewish Question has still to be fully resolved and is given every resource necessary to accomplish its horrifying terror. It is clear there will be no let up in the progress to achieve Hitler’s prescient claim upon All Jewish life. On April 29th. 1944, with a transport of 1,800 Jews from Budapest, Hungary, Hungarian Jewry is being deported toward extermination at Birkenau. On April 30th. 1944, a further transport of 2,000 Jews from Backa-Topola, Hungary are deported toward Birkenau. At this time the relentless progress toward the Slaughter would feed the inferno in Birkenau without cessation. On May 2nd. 1944 two transports from Budapest and Topola, Hungary arrive at Birkenau for processing. 1,102 of these Jews are given a temporary reprieve as forced labourers, both Jewish Men and Jewish Women, the remaining 2,698 Hungarian Jews, Men, Women and Their Children are Gassed.

The mounting Slaughter of Hungarian Jewry is escalating in earnest an unprecedented atrocity within the most unprecedented, uniquely unequalled terror in all of History. As with all things such as consideration related to the 6,000,000 Slaughtered Jews, who are The Holocaust, differences and opinion constrain reasoned assertion in every biased sense against those Jews totally targeted for extermination. The truth, as evoked within the fully demanded terms of the science of History, holds sway over distortion, and especially must push back consistently against denial. Always, and as we approach those anniversary’s, be it of the threat to Hungarian Jewish existence, or all of European Jewry, dates will always alter the emphasis to be placed upon Hitler’s effort to add over 800,000 or 900,000 of Hungary’s Jews to The Final Solution.

We are barely into 1944 and tomorrows date will see the day when Wisliceny informed the Jewish leadership of the impending approach of their devastation. On May 8th. 1944 Dieter Wisliceny informs Rudolf ‘Rezso’ Kasztner that all of Hungarian Jewry is to be deported. On May 12th. 1944 at Munkacs, plans for Hungarian Jewish removal toward The Final Solution is completed. On May 15th. 1944 Eichmann, with the assistance of his own Kommando and the Hungarian Gendarmerie, begins the systematic deportation of the vast bulk Hungarian Jewry in estimates well above 50% of all Jews there. From May 15th. 1944 until July 9th. 1944, and over a 55 day period, there are 147 Transports averaging 3,419 Jewish People in each of these transports totalling 502,491 Hungarian Jews delivered to Birkenau for Destruction.

The full scale horror of the deportation of Hungarian Jewry steps up its murderous pace, and as Rabbi Dov Weissmandel is made aware that there are 10,000 Jews being Slaughtered every day within Birkenau, Hoess is fully prepared. It is yet to be recognised exactly what this transportation means for the vast majority of All Jews. What is certain though is their fate is sealed in cattle wagons en-route to the worst experience within humanity’s experience. But for these Jews, removal to some other destination is a new start, a work place for the Jews to be concentrated. How tragically such an assertion would become for all thos Jews who still believed, even moderately, in the goodness in mankind. Put on a transport on May 24th. 1944, the Jews of Bilke, from the Carpatho-Ruthenia region of Hungary, are then to be seen arriving at Birkenau Death Camp.

These Jews are those very Jews who haunt our lasting memory of the conduct of hatred which fed what is presented in The Auschwitz Album on May 26th. 1944, as a vast tragedy to humanity. It is also, and again for the Jews of Hungary, being continuously deported toward Birkenau, a more murderous wreck to humanity. On May 29th. 1944, as these next Jews arrive on May 31st. 1944, they are amongst those Jews to be witnessed alighted toward extermination as three photographs taken by the American Air Force. 3 days after the arrival of the deportation documented in the Auschwitz Album, we are now witnesses to an atrocity beyond compare. What these glimpses reveal to us also compliment the Lili Jacob’s Album as Hungarian Jewry is an image of their final moments gifted to us. On June 7th. June 1944, the completion of the removal of Carpatho-Ruthenia’s Jews is realised as Jewish Community after Jewish Community within Hungary is decimated.

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

For me, and with Erica still holding out some form of hope, but there are people who will use the definition of numbers to promote a cynical game. The instance of Poland is typical and as there were 35,100,000 of the Polish population during World War II, we recognise with the 3,650,000 of these were Polish Jews. When we are reminded that there are 7,232 Righteous of Poland, this represents just 1 in every 400 Poles who sought to save their Jews. We know this to be the extent of the Jewish abandonment within Poland of over 1,800 years of a Jewish presence with Poland’s borders. The loss of in excess of 3,000,000 Polish Jews, Slaughtered while Poland looked on, is an even greater Polish calamity than is admitted to. In comparison to this, there were 8,729,000 of the Dutch population during World War II overtaken by Nazi Germany.

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

Erica van Beek, my Friend, and her Mother Olga Bock were amongst the 140,000 or so of these Dutch Jews, pretty much unassailed by Hitler’s anti-Jewish slogans or threats. There are 5,982 Righteous  of Holland and they stand against the loss of about 1 in every 20 of the 102,000 Dutch Jews Slaughtered. Erica van Beek was one of the lucky few, and while her Mother Olga was not so fortunate, it is not clear to me how long Erica held onto the tangible hope that her Mother would some day return. Even though gifted to Erica was the hope that the image in the birch wood before Birkenau might have presented an impression which resembled her own Mother, how was there hope that she would even survive what Birkenau had in store for over 1,100,000 Jews of Europe, including Olga Bock, Erica van Beeks’ own Mother.

Jacob

I have known you- and not known you my child  

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

An image of rebellion, fury and suffering

That binds you to my past.

I have built a picture of you, my child,

That put his arms around me and held my hand.

Not the boy who destroyed his life

But one who finds life fearful and unlivable.

That scared and angry and on the run

in life never found a shelter

and disbanded from his fear by his death

I loved you, my child that we knew.

And powerless, I watched how you

have wounded yourself so deadly.

Who wants to hear how trumpeter grief

Who will not run away for my nocturnal crying.

Hear how the land shakes under my feet thumping looking crying

Screaming for my children their hunters continue to be injured

And flee for my boundless grief

About him and his name can turn around

Flights as I approach come seeking solace

I want their names not know him forget

Never love again no more do not be complicit

Do not come closer I liked you even trust

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



Grodno

Uncategorised Posted on Thu, May 18, 2023 20:15:08

“..Germans arrived from ..Lida. ..Jews from Ghetto ..Radun ..pushed toward Grodno.” Avraham Aviel.

I can state with certainty that some 50,000 Jews from Grodno were Slaughtered and within Birkenau and Treblinka. Also, and within killing sites, they were annihilated too. What we fully need to recognise though is that not all of these were Grodno Jews, those impacted by their transporting to the Ghettos there. Also! While we look back to trace those Grodno Jews missing, that unfortunate necessity recognises, their names are ever more important. But! We need to know if those Jews were simply transitory arrivers at the Grodno Ghettos, or were in fact Grodno Jews. Such is the case for names like The Vagshul Family, who are abundant in The Holocaust, but are themselves lost within competing communities and places of destruction.

“..We lived as hunted animals in ..woods ..chased by German ..Lithuanian ..Polish and Ukrainian patrols.” Rita Yelgin.

It would be impossible to relay here the Jewish presence within Grodno as it commenced, grew, gained and was nurtured. We do however recognise that a thriving community persisted ever since the first Jews began to settle here. I give a less than in depth coverage of that very dominant Jewish persistence in life as it is well recorded in History. But my effort sadly, is involved wholly in the struggle to any life the Jews were forced to relentlessly endure. The absolute disconnect between humanity, and the intolerances of those whose hatred hounded 6,000,000 Jews into non-existence, is a cause. It is imposssible too to become certain as to the entire Jewish loss within Grodno, as figures can be confused by the influx of other Jews from around the area. Jewish neighbours, some from outlying areas of Poland, who either assembled or were forced to accomodate the empty spaces created.

“..From ..beginning I was not following their orders. ..to bring home something to ease ..gnawing hunger.” Bronka Klibanski.

These Jews are a mix now of Grodno Jews and other Polish Jews settling into a transitory position they could not as yet appreciate. But, those Jews of Grodno who are forcibly transported to their deaths, or are simply shot in at least 4 Killing Sites dotted around the region, leave behind spacves for incoming Jews to fill. The Jews of Grodno, one of the oldest established Jewish Communities in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and then Poland was to perish almost entirely. Jewish merchants first settled and established themselves here in the 1100’s. These Jews went on, refined and defined their persistence through diligence, learning and a mutual economy that also served their gentile neighbours.

Founded in 1907, was the Grodno Teachers Seminary, seeing Grodno as the second largest City in the Bialystok region. Tragically, Jewish influence grew with the increase in significant pogroms. This was as regular an occurrence within Poland as history presents and occurred in Grodno going back into a 800 year History forged by political expedient, the church and Military groups, including Cossack units. The Cossacks’s, attacking the Jews of Grodno in 1915, abused and killed those Jews who got in their way. The inter war years however, saw the need for the rise of Jewish pressure groups and self defence battalions. These, who fought against the antisemitism that persisted within, and could be regularly promoted by the Polish government.

When, in July 1920, and with the Polish Army carrying out its own pogrom, it was clear, Jewish persistence was never going to be a Polish accepting principle. 250 Jews were Murdered and many more were injured as the Jewish Quarter was burned down and nearly destroyed, totally. There were News Paper articles that were wholly antiemitic, flagrantly published and Jewish Synagogues and even Cemetery’s constantly desecrated. On June 6th. 1922, and despite it not being in the least bit wealthy, Grodno’s Jewish Community raised relief funds for those Jews of Russia and Ukraine who were facing starvation. It was only in 1927 that Poland allowed for its Jewish communities to form part of a constituton that had been reserved nominally for only Polish non-Jews.

While this did not prevent resentment, as the vast majority of enterprises and businesses, more than 1,300 of them, were Jewish owned, the Jewish People conformed to an acceptance of peace prevailing. If not now, then someday. However, with this envy came a resulting boycott against the Jews of the City and another pogrom in Grodno that was initiated by their gentile neighbours. With all of this on their plate, on May 1st. 1933, the Jewish community of Grodno managed to present to the League of Nations, a petition wholly protesting over the continued persecution of Germany’s Jews. 1935, after the death of Marshal Josef Pilsudki, witnessed an unbridled series of pogroms that was raged against Polish Jewry.

On June 6th. 1935, some 300 Jewish Businesses were impacted, 50 Jews were assaulted, brutalised and 2 Jews, Gedalia Becher and Yisrael Shraga Feivel Berezovski were Murdered. Shlomo Pozniak was so seriously injured he was taken to hospital. On July 7th. 1935 there was a further Grodno pogrom, a Polish government sponsored assault upon Grodno’s Jews was initiated and carefully orchestrated with one Jew being killed. On May 24th. 1937, Grodno’s Jews responded to these growing assaults by shutting their businesses to trade. Though impacting upon their own fiscal concerns it was none the less depriving the city of much of its financial viability.

On October 20th. 1937, the Grodno Jewish Community, appalled at educational institutions insisting that Jewish Students be restricted to sitting on designated benches, ‘The Ghetto Benches’, protested vehemently. Emigration became a wished for demand for so many Jews, resources were spent establishing routes out of Poland. Sadly, all too many nations barred the way to Polish Jewry while many insisted upon strict quotas allowing only Jews, under certain criteria, financial, commercial and even educational was placed in the way so as to stem the influx into places like Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Cuba, Israel surreptiously, Mexico and Peru amongst some. All too many of these escaping Jews, at liberty to both leave and gain entry, did however refuse to leave, as their Families were excluded from such a detail.

On October 28th. 1938, with Germany expelling 17,000 Polish Jews to Poland’s border, 8,000 are stranded at Zbaszyn. This is the precursor ‘Kristallnacht’ with the Jewish Community of Grodno coming to the rescue to some of these. Offering assistance to these Jews stuck in a no man’s land with Poland not accepting them, and Germany demanding they move on offered a human concern to such an inhuman process. In fact some of these Jews, a few of them even, Grodno Jews, were taken back to Grodno, situated on the Niemen River it was a large and industrious centre. With almost half the population of Grodno Jewish, as Hitler’s forces swept in in 1939, there were some 22,000 Jews awaiting Hitler’s design for their extinction. Temporarily, the plan for The Final Solution was not immediately recognised, even though the formative Einsatz was let loose to kill more and more Polish Jews.

Some 400,000 Polish Jews sought to escape from German threats and headed out and especially for Russia. Between September 18th. and 21st. 1939 the Jews faced a further Pogrom, composed by the the local Justice Mikulsky, killing 25 Jews. When they were under Russian jurisdiction though, and after partition on September 22nd. 1939, the Murders and abuses eased. The population of Grodno grew appreciably to far more than 25,000 as Jews sought to escape from the German controlled Polish demarcation line. There were 1,000’s of Polish Jewish Soldiers, now better placed to now surrender to Russian forces rather than to German ones. With the expansion of the Jewish Community, and with the creation of the Jewish Ghetto, Jews from outlying areas, districts, Shtetl’s and Villages, more and more Jews were being confined to a deadly intention.

On June 20th. 1941 many of Grodno’s Jews, denounced as dangerous, harmful activists, they were deported to Siberia. Then, as Operation Barbarossa commenced on June 22nd. 1941, Grodno was pounded to ruins for the day and with the Jews immediately impacted, as units of Third Panzergruppe passed through the following day, Jewish existence in Grodno was fast fading. Encountering Jews fleeing East, Wehrmacht units forced the Jews back to Grodno. Many though were trapped on the road to safety and were overtaken by the forces of Hitler’s Reich. Many of these Jews were systematically Murdered before they could return to those former homes and from where their future annihilation would be enacted. On June 24th. 1941, the rolling stock deporting these Jews of Grodno away from harms way was attacked by Hitler’s Stukas just outside of Baronovichi and many of them were killed.

Those who survived here were then processed, and served with the same fate of their Family and Community they had left behind in Grodno. A Judenrate of 10 was formed on June 28th. 1941 around Noah Bass, Dr. David Brawer as the Chairman, with Izhak Grozanski, N. Sarnatzki, I. Suchowlanski, O Szulkes, Avraham Zadai, and Aharon Rubinchik in charge of the internal police. The committee was further expanded to some 24 members as the community was to be split between the emerging two ghettos demanded by the Nazis. On June 30th. 1941 Artur Nebe’s Einsatzgruppe B had jurisdiction over the killings in the region and pledged to fully accomplish his task. He ordered Einsatzkommando 9 to Grodno and at the same time it became mandatory for the Jews of Grodno to wear the identifier, the Star of David.

On July 5th. 1941″..EinsatzKommando 9 ..located at Grodno. ..party building has been requisitioned for the main office in spite of objections from commander Colonel Pickel. Documents and photographs have been secured from ..NKVD office. Pogroms are being initiated ..heavy destruction ..shops looted and demolished ..supply situation bad. Church attendance is high.” Operational Situation Report 13.

On July 7th. 1941 over 100 professional Jews from Grodno, and some from Lida, were detained and Murdered by units of SS Standartenfuhrer Alfred Filbert’s EK9, as the usual measures designed to impact brutally upon the Jews were fully implemented. German troops and Einsatz members looted at will and with complete impunity. Also, two relatively small groups of Grodno Jews were shot by German killing squads near the village of Navumavichi and in the Gory Kredowe Hills. The numbers related to these atrocities is scarce to identify, so it must be suggested that any Jew murdered was in keeping with Hitler’s plan.

“..On Friday July 17th. 1942 ..a young man of 35 befriended my father in ..Ghetto shul. His name was Tevke ..from ..Radun near Vilna. ..He told us ..about massacres of Jews and death camp deportations in all ..small towns around Vilna. We simply could not comprehend this. ..killed only because they were Jews.” Rita Yelgin.

On September 7th. 1941, the Judenrate was further expanded to include a membership of 24 and on November 1st. 1941, a Jewish Grodno was divided into two, Ghettos, A and B. All told, 30,000 Jews were segregated and placed into these compact areas. Ghetto A held 20,000 Jews in the Shulhof area, the olde part of the City and Ghetto B detained 10,000 Jews in the Slobodka district. Along with the continued influx of refugee and expelled Jews from the outlying areas, this swelled the population to more than these 30,000 Jews. The estimate of course must take into consideration we are completely short of the actual assessment needed to verify the numbers we come to use, knowing all the while, these are individual Jewish People.

“..went on food missions 15 to 20 kilometers from our camp so as not to disturb ..local peasants who might inform ..Germans.” Rita Yelgin.

It is in Grodno, with a hive of Partisan activty, that we recognise from amongst whom Chasya Blinka, Liza Czapnik, Bronka Klibanski, Ania Ruth and Rita Yelgin are known to us. There is a Jewish resistance that is all too often not recognised in the history of The Holocaust. In February 1942, Bela Hazan, a Dror kasharit, came to the Grodno ghetto to inform Bronka Klabinski that she was summoned to Bialystok for a national meeting of Dror leaders. The Jews of Grodno realised by now the predicament of their fate and began to forge ties with Bialystok, Vilna and Warsaw to establish Partisan groups. Also, there was a mass attempt to flee and even to assassinate the chief executioner of Grodno Jewry, Otto Streblow and his competing mass murderer Kurt Wiese.

“..I was not afraid ..and I would not get caught.” Bronka Klibanski.

On November 2nd. 1942 mass shootings began and both the Ghettos were sealed with 4,500 of Grodno’s Jews transported through the Kielbasin Camp and on to the Death Camp Treblinka. On November 9th. 1942, and following the liquidation of some within Ghetto B, 4,000 Jews from Ghetto A are transferred over to replace those Jews sent to the Kielbasin Labour Camp. Kielbasin was also a transit Camp for the Jews toward Birkenau and Treblinka and itself, a place of death for the Jews transported there. On November 14th. 1942 6,000 more Jews were gradually being transported to Kielbasin and onto Birkenau where they were then Murdered.

“..Kielbasin ..camp ..Jews from ..villages were taken and from where transports were assembled for Auschwitz and Treblinka.” Rita Yelgin.

On November 15th. a transport of 1,000 Grodno Jews is split between Birkenau and Treblinka and then on November 21st. a transport of 3,000 of its Jews are also transported to the Death Camps at Birkenau and Treblinka. We are thankful to Danuta Czech, who was the archivist of the destruction to face the Jews who entered into the Slaughter house that was Birkenau, for all we have learned of the process within Auschwitz and even Birkenau. Here, Danuta has detailed the arrival of these 5 RSHA Transports from Grodno and as we are made aware, and though it appears some were saved for Survival, all those 1,789 Jews who had been set aside for a work detail, were so severely impacted by the strains of their endeavour, they too succumbed to the treacherous state of existence within Auschwitz and certainly Birkenau. Tragically, it has been a fruitless search to discover of those 9,861 Jews immediately gassed, that we cannot know how many of these were Their Children.

“..On January 20th. 1943 2,000 Jewish Men ..Women and Their Children arrived from Grodno. Of these ..256 Jews were detailed for Work. ..155 Jewish Men and 101 Jewish Women. Some 1,744 of these Jews were immediately Slaughtered.” Danuta Czech.

“..On January 21st. 1943 2,000 Jewish Men ..Women and Their Children arrived from Grodno. Of these ..287 Jews were detailed for Work. ..175 Jewish Men and 112 Jewish Women. Some 1,713 of these Jews were immediately Slaughtered.” Danuta Czech.

“..On January 22nd. 1943 3,650 Jewish Men ..Women and Their Children arrived from Grodno. Of these ..594 Jews were detailed for Work. ..365 Jewish Men and 229 Jewish Women. Some 3,056 of these Jews were immediately Slaughtered.” Danuta Czech.

“..On January 23rd. 1943 2,000 Jewish Men ..Women and Their Children arrived from Grodno. Of these 426 Jews were detailed for Work. ..235 Jewish Men and 191 Jewish Women. Some 1,574 of these Jews were immediately Slaughtered.” Danuta Czech.

“..On January 24th. 1943 2,000 Jewish Men ..Women and Their Children arrived from Grodno. Of these 226 Jews were detailed for Work. ..166 Jewish Men and 60 Jewish Women. Some 1,774 of these Jews were immediately Slaughtered.” Danuta Czech.

“..A Total of 11,650 Jewish Men ..Women and Their Children arrived from Grodno. In total some 1,789 Jews were detailed for Work. ..1,096 Jewish Men ..693 Jewish Women were detailed for Work with 9,861 Jews immediately Slaughtered.” Danuta Czech.

From January 7th. to 19th. 1943, and on a daily basis, all told some 11,650 Jews from Grodno were transported away from the Ghetto. Leaving in the direction of the Kielbasin Labour and Transit Camp, this endorsed the fear that labour was to be extorted from them. Tragically, the vast majority of them were forwarded to a Death Camp where they become extinguished immediately upon arrival at Birkenau. At this moment it is thought that barely 5,000 Jews now remained behind in the Ghetto for future processing.

“..I’ve always considered myself ..a coward. Yet ..I was able to escape ..Grodno Ghetto in February 1943 even though it was surrounded by armed German soldiers. ..I then lived for almost 2 years in ..depths of ..Lithuanian Forest as a member of a Jewish partisan group until I was liberated by ..advancing Soviet army.” Rita Yelgin.

In February 1943 Liza Czapnik returned to the Ghetto of Grodno, and disguised as a worker she gained entry for a specific effort. She stole away her 10 year old Niece Alloczka, and smuggled her back to Bialystok where Alloczka’s Parents had just returned to the Ghetto there. On February 13th. 1943 though, practically all 5,000 of Grodno’s Jews were transported to their deaths in the Death Camp at Treblinka. At the same time, all members of the Judenrate were taken out from the Ghetto and were shot. On February 14th. 1943 there were still Jews of Grodno Jews being transported to Treblinka, as there was on February 16th. 1943, draining Grodno Jews away toward Treblinka.

On March 12th. 1943 the final 1,000 ‘Useful Jews’ of Grodno, now a remnant of what had been Jewish Grodno, were transported to the Bialystok Ghetto. All told, there were over 30,000 Jews of Grodno who were dispatched toward their eventual destruction in Birkenau and Treblinka. Many other Jews from the Ghettos were shot and otherwise Murdered. On top of that, there were some 20,000 other Jews from the surrounding areas of Jeziory, Krynki, Kuznica, Lida, Ostryna, Pruzhany, Radun, Sokolka, Suchowola and Wolkowysk. Of course there were many more Jews from other areas, and all were Murdered in either Birkenau or Treblinka. It goes without saying that shootings were a regular occurrence in situ, as they were being physically removed from their homes or taken to kill sites.

“..on June 16th. 1943 ..we heard gun shots and started running into ..swamps to escape. Everyone ran in different directions from panic and fright.” Rita Yelgin.

We have to remember too that of all of these Grodno Jews, there were some other Jewish People from some 22 City’s, Towns, Villages and Shtetl’s from across Poland. They either all who found their way through the 2 Ghetto of Grodnos or from the Labour and Transit Camp at Kielbasin enroute toward extermination of Hitler’s Death camps at Treblinka and Birkenau. On July 14th. 1944, Russian troops liberated Grodno, but not before the surviving 15 Jews, who had been kept alive to maintain the Nazi occupation of what was left og Grodno, were Murdered. There were though, as many as 180 Jews still in hiding who finally managed to Survive the end of the War at least. That is in thanks in part to good Poles who risked all to save some Jews, Jews who were all chosen to die, without exception and so Grodno is rightly celebrated for its Righteous few.

A gathering of some 2,000 Jews began to settle back into Grodno, and these came from many communities ccompletely decimated during The Holocaust. Some of these who returned to Grodno were Hasia Bielicka, Liza Czapnik and Ania Rud. However, Grodno was no longer the home for so many Jews, and all too many of these found it necessary to part to many corners of the earth. Signs of age old prejudices toward the Jews was never far rom the surface. By 1955, even the Jewish cemetery was plowed up and locally, 4 mass graves were left untended except by those Jews still seeking their past.

In 1960 the Soviet authorities erected a monument to the victimes of Hitler’s fascism, at the site of the Navumavichi mass grave site. The authorities completely ignored the fact that there had been a systematic effort to destroy the Jewish People. It remained too that of the 2 surviving Synagogues needed to be returned to Jewish use, neither were and were detained by gentile businesses. For Grodno Jews and many other Jews, it is apparent that with no mention of the Jews was to appear upon this monument, as any Jewish presence to be recorded, is not as acceptable as it should have been. In 1993, with a simple a plaque erected at Zamkowa Street, and near the entrance to the former Ghetto A, signs of any past presence of the Jews would be too few and would still not be detailed here.

“..To ..memory of 29,000 inmates of ..Ghetto ..victims of fascism. In this area ..in 1941 – 1943 ..a ghetto was located.”

It does not mention the very fact that the community of Grodno Jews were not only incarcerated here, they were held captive until the time of their transportation toward the Death Camps became assured. Here too, all I can do is afford memory to those few Jews, who might be already recognised, and others who are definitely lost within a forgotten status. In a question to me, and in a reference to a Jewish Family, the VAGSHUL’s, ths Family were taken away from Grodno and are now lost within The Holocaust. This Family Vagshul, from amongst the 30,000 or so Slaughtered Jews of Grodno, are still some of the missing we will not find.

We have to remember too, that even from within this list of names there will be ommissions, gaps in our essential knowledge. It is imperative though, that while we look for traces of those who have not be mentioned by full name, or without a forename, they are mentioned. There are those too in The Holocaust history, recollections of a certain Family, a Butcher, a Tailor or even a Candlestick Maker, recalled to posterity without any further identifier. In this is imperative in remembering one more Jew, a Jew who was always expected to be forgotten after destruction.

Abramovitz, Avraham; Abramovitz, Berl; Abramovitz, Dr Emil; Abramski, Bezalel; Abramski, Leon; Adin, Aharon; Adin, Michael; Adin, Shabtai; Adin-Lipnik, Moshe; and Arkin, Ashkenazi.

Bachaluski, Noah; Bachrach, Feigel; Baranchik, Rabbi Yoel; Bass, Noah; Becher, Gedalia; Berezovski, Batia; Berezovski, David; Berezovski, Noah; Berezovski, Shaul; Berezovski, Shraga Feivel; Brawer, Dr. David; and BURDA.

Chalaf, Chaim; Chapnik, Grisha; Chapnik, Liza; Chayat Etke; Chazan, Chaim Arye; Chertok, Dr. Shimshon; Chochlin, Rabbi Zvi; Cigelnitski Kalman; Cohen, Oria; and Cohen, Yaacov.

Darshan, Yitzchak; Dashevski, Misha; Dashevski, Peter Pinchas; Dimant, Asher; Dimant, Esther; Dimant, Hannah; Dimant, Kadish; Dimant, Peshe; Dimant, Shmuel; Dimant, Yitzchak; Diskin, Zerach; DRUKER; and Dzhibak, Shmuel.

Efron, Yaacov; Einstein, Yisrael; Eisenberg, Benyamin Buna; Eisenstat, Barzilai Yehoshua; Eisenstein, Barzilai Yosef; Epstein, Dr. Borke; Epstein, Guta; Epstein, Mordechai; and Epstein, Shalom.

Fainsod, Yeshayahu; Fainsod, Sukenik Chasia; Fein, Nissan; Finkel, Dr. Moshe; Fis, Arye Laibl; Fis, David; Fis, Efraim; Fis, Yisrael; Fisher, Moshe; Freilichman, Yosef; Friedberg, Avraham Shalom; Fruchterman, Yehoshua and Frumkin, Yaacov.

Gabovitz, Simcha; Galgor, Eliezer; Galgor, Yekutiel; Gan, Itzke; Gelbord, Avraham; Shalom; Gershuni, Dr. Gershon; Gershuni, Dr. Rachel; Gisser, Ruma; Gordon, Ethel; Gornitzki, Shmuel; Gozhanski, Michael; Grozanski, Izhak; and Gutmann, Dr. Shmuel.

Haber, Yitzchak Isaac; Halprin, Liuba; Halprin, Menachem; Hazan, Hirsch Yehuda; Hazan, Teresa; Helfman, Axelrod; Helfman, Peretz; Helfman, Zerach; Hepner, Gershon; Hirsch, Zvi; and Horvitz Yosef Ossip.

Iberski, Dr. Sarah; Issakovna, Bertha; Itzkovitz, Yankel; Ivri-Tikotzki, Sarah; and Izablinski, Benyamin.

Kabak, Aharon Avraham; Kabakfein, Miriam; Kaminski, Eliezer; Kaminski, Yedidya; Kaplan, Nachum; Kaplan Ben Meir, Yaacov; Kapulski, Yaacov; Karol, Zvi; Kassin, Alexander; Kichman, Sorke Moshe; Kimchi, Zecharia; Kimovitz, Rabbi Chaim Eliezer; Kleinbort, Mulke; Kliatchkovski, Arye Leib; Kobrinski, Wolf; Korngold, Benyamin; Kotovski, Moshe; Kramer, Shoshana; Kravetz, Nachum; Kulkin, Merkl; Kupinski, Meir; Kustin, Leah; and Kustin, Mordechai.

Lampert, Grandzhitzki Zalman; Landa, Yisrael; Lapidot, David; Lapin, Bezalel; Leibovitz, Daniel;
Levin, Yehoshua; Levinstein, Yitzchak; Levkovitz-Grabinska, Sinia; Lieberman, Aharon; Lifschitz, Dubin Grunia; Lipnik, Dr. Avraham Wolf; Lipnik, Dr. Chaya; and Luner, Moshe;

Maisel, Rachel; Maisel, Shohat Hannah; Maisel, Vilenski Leah; Marcus, Daniel; Marcus-Alterman, Dr. Rachel; Marder, Shalom; Margalit, Yehuda; Matos, Henia; Melamed, Yosef; Menker, Liza; Menker, Victor; Milishkovski, Nachum; Miller, Arye Leib; Miller, Yisrael David; Mirovski, Leah; and Muravski, Avraham.

Nachbi, Avraham Hillel; Neiman, Dina; Neiman, Dr. Netaniel; Neiman, Adin Zippora; Neiman-Chorgin, Nocha; Niviazheski, Bertha; Nomberg, Chaim; and Notes, Moshe.

Onas, Felix; Orenstein, Pnina; Ostrinski, Lipa; Ostrinski, Meir; Ostrinski, Moshe; Ostrinski, Shmuel; Ostrogorski, Alexander; Ostrogorski, Moshe; Ostrogorski-Malchina, Dr. Anna; and Ovseevich, Yehoshua.

Paikovitz, Reuven Yosef; Paikovitz, Shmuel; Palnitski, Eliezer; Palnitski, Nachum; Palnitzki, Shlomo; Pinchanski, Arye Lonczik; Pinski, David; Pinski, Frieda; Pinski, Shmuel; Plotkin, Shmuel Aharon; Polonski-Schluss, Nechama; Pupko, Miriam; and Purkovitz, Efraim.

Rabin, Baruch; Rapp, Nachum; Ratner, Yehezkel; Reizer, Leib; Reizner, Leizer; Reizner, Yehoshua; Reizner, Yisrael; Rip, Hannah; Rip, Lima; Rip, Zelig; Rochlin, Yentl; Rosenkranz, Yosef; Rossianski Yosef; ROZOVSKI, There were 3 sisters Rozovski; Rubinchik, Aharon Avraham; Rud, Anye; Ruten Dr. Sarah; Ruten, Yitzchak; Rutenstein, Golda; and Rybaikov, Avraham.

Sait, Dr. Yehuda; Sarbrani, Michael; Sarnatzki, N; Segal, Reuven; Serebrani, Gittel; Serebrenik, Noah; Shaiman, Yisrael Yona; Shapira, Shainke; Shebchovitz, Isaac; Shereshevski, Azriel; Shereshevski, Yosef Ossip; Shevchovitz, Ida Idina; Shiffers-Gornitski, Miriam; Soloveichik, Dora; Soloveichik, Zvi; Sorin, Arye; Sorin, Bela; Stamler, Frumke; Stantzki, Daniel Dashke; Starodov, Faitche; Steinberg, Augustin; Steinberg, Baruch; Steinberg, Dov; Steinberg, Yaacov; Stuchinski, Gedalya; Suchowlanski, I; and Szulkes, O.

Tankus, Aharon; Tankus, Eliyahu; Tankus, Hanan; Tankus, Hannah; Tankus, Moshe; Tankus, Nachman Nochke; Tankus, Yehuda; Tankus-Tanin, Shlomo; Tolkovski, Aharon; Trilling, Michael; Trop Moshe; Trop-Krinski, Bezalel; Tsharna, Shalom Yona; Tzafenet, Mordechai; Tzirolnitzki, Yehuda; and Tzirolnitzki, Zelig.

Unterman, Isser Yisrael Yehuda; Uriashzon, Michael; and Urinovski, Ben Or Aharon.

VAGSHUL, A Family; Vaiksman, Genia; Varshaver, Eliyahu; Vasilisheski, Yitzchak; Velitzker, Dr. Chaim; Vidritski, David; Vigdorovitz, Reuven; Vigdorovitz, Yosef; Vilbushevitz, Benyamin; Vilner, Asher; Voroshilski, Dr. Nahman; and Vulkovstein, Olga Golda.

Waldman, Moshe; Warshavski, Yitzchak; Weissbrom, Dr. Zecharia; Weller, Arye Leib; Weller, Benyamin; Wohlgal, Baruch; Wohlstein, Yaacov; Wolf, Shaina; Wolfson, Moshe; and Wolkin, Aharon.

Yacobson, Benyamin Vladimir; Yaffe, Avraham; Yaffe, Bezalel; Yaffe, Dov; Yaffe, Dov Ber; Yaffe Frieda; Yaffe, Hannah; Yaffe, Leib; Yaffe, Sarah; Yaffe, Yitzhak; Yanovski, Moshe; Yanovski, Zvi; Yelgin, Tzvia; Yellin, Shoshana; Yezerski, Yitzchak; Yonas, Shlomo; Yoselevitz, Avraham Eliyahu; and Yoselevitz, Meir.

Zadai, Avraham; Zakheim, Bernard; Zakheim, Clara; Zeitsel, Paula; Zhuravski Chaim David; Zilberberg, Zerach; Ziman, Natan Netta; Zimmel, Simcha; Zimmerman, Koppel; Ziskind, Alexander; Zonnenberg, Yehuda; Zupowitz and Chaim Yehuda Leib.



Assessing Loss

Uncategorised Posted on Thu, April 27, 2023 19:09:08

“..In his effects and consequences he is like a racial tuberculosis of ..nations. ..deduction from all this  ..following ..an antisemitism based on purely emotional grounds will find its ultimate expression in ..form of ..pogrom. An antisemitism based on reason ..must lead to systematic legal combating and elimination of ..privileges of ..Jews ..that which distinguishes ..Jews from ..other aliens who live among us ..an Aliens Law. ..ultimate objective ..legislation ..must ..be ..irrevocable removal of ..Jews in general.” Adolf Hitler.

The ability to assess the overall loss to the Jewish People is as immeasurable to us as it remains incomprehensible to the Jews. The sheer level of Hitler’s hatred, as it was recorded toward the Jewish People is seen here to raise it to a status above and beyond any hatred he would form toward another alien living amongst him. Of course, such hatred was only applied incrementally, both vocally and expressed, and then aggressively until being murderously adapted. Here, even back in 1919, this letter of Hitler’s to herr Gemlich lit the touch paper of such an immense atrocity, it had to be redefined as singularly vicious and without precedent. That all meant a certainty for 6,000,000 People, who were forced to die because they were of the Jewish People. 

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

Hitler saw in them too, this diverse but widespread Jewish People, a profit motive, a racial slur and a radical hatred that would deliver him to power. A destabilising War alone and that fact which would also deliver both the destruction of the Jews in enormous numbers and a wealth beyond imaginings came into being because of one man. This, and the destructive larceny that was to be further proof of those lost Jewish lives that was all the while benefitting much of the World, was Hitler’s view of the World. Posthumously too, and from all that The Holocaust would mean, the wealth og the World grew exponentially as the Jewish presence depreciated sizeably. In 1932, with Hitler’s coming to power, the emboldened rhetoric could then become a demand placed upon the German people, a degenerate proposition so eagerly adopted.

“..The Holocaust ..Shoah in Hebrew is ..most tragic era in ..history of ..Jewish People 1933 – 1945 when ..Germans and their collaborators perpetrated genocide against them.” Dr. Yitzhak Arad.

If, and from this time onwards, from 1932 and 1933, or even prior to this, one Single Jews was Murdered because Hitler gave vent to do so, is this not a founding stone to The Final Solution, which is The Jewish Question. It is essential that we, who venture to lok deeper and from th outside, cannot know the Jewish loss loss until we know what it is that we have truly lost. By merely assessing The Holocaust at 6,000,000 Jewish People, this does not, in the least, allow us to know any one of them individually, as a Community or as the homogenous grouping Hitler had labelled them. What I do not defend is the indefensible, and The Final Solution has absolutely No defence and we in history are all at fault in accepting such losses as cannot be fully measured. 

“.. November 9th. 1938 ..aktionen against …Jews ..their synagogues ..are not to be hindered. ..important archival material ..in synagogues..to be taken. Preparations ..for ..arrest of between 20,000 and 30,000 Jews. Wealthy Jews in particular. ..Jews ..found in possession of weapons ..most severe measures ..to be taken.” Heinrich Muller.

That said! Nowhere in any of my Books do I come to terms with such losses as cannot be measured by analytical assessment alone. Nor can we retrace any of these omitted or mssing losses by the ethical principles of our own moral efficacy. That ethical morality, clearly set aside was abandoned before the Gas Chamber doors and atop the ridge of an abyss filled with Jewish existence. Here, and I do damn each and every single state and nation for what they allowed to happen, for within The Holocaust that call for assistance went unheard and as such they are all complicit in what was allowed to happen to each of their own Jewish Citizens.

“..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 ..marvelous 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 defense 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.

The courage that befits such a reistance to such an inhumanity is barely written, though it has been etched upon 6,000,000 individual Jews unable to respond. The choices these Jews were not allowed to have, delivered both the Norwegian Jew to the same place as the Greek Jew and neither one of them knew why and what they were being delivered toward. It remains a cold and actual fact that, as the truth of what Hitler fully intended for the Jewish People became more widely known, it is conceivable that not all 6,000,000 Jews knew what the Western Allies and Russian intelligence services most certainly did know.

“..I went to ..10 Camps. ..scenes of death and inhumanity were identical. ..difficult to describe ..now. You carry that with you for ..rest of your life.” Benjamin Berrell Ferencz.

That each and every country within Europe lent part of its soul to implementing what Hitler sought to resolve in The Jewish Question, is no minor detail. That the murderous answer to such a question is a Hitler resolve that knew no bounds, is a truth beyond argument. It is also as immeasureable an affront to human decency, human compassion and the wiles of religious pronouncement as these innocent 6,000,000 Slaughtered Jews can be. Individually then, and within each and every nation too, these Jews are to be clearly recognised, as individually destroyed. For each then, of those of its own citizens who stand taller, and above the blood stained and ash filled abyss, they are to be further remembered from those who failed the test in time. 

“..I fought ..Nazi Germans and their Lithuanian collaborators. ..murderers of my family ..murderers of my people.” Dr. Yitzhak Arad.

There are those who would accuse me of being on the wrong side of History in protectng the memory of the more than 6,000,000 we seek to restore to their place in all of histories truth. That I am not a Jew is more defined by other’s whose hatred for Jewish existence preceds my concern for thei memory. There was the latest spat to come from a communicant in Lithuania who accused me of defaming her people. To be clear, I did not and do not accuse anyone, individual, state or nation for what those whose Testimony fully ascribes to. That truth will Not be altered by any of those who would insist its veracity remains at some distance from any of those who were witness to it, and Arad was one of those whose testimony is in knowing.

“..People cannot find a place in their consciousness ..their imagination ..or finally have ..courage to face ..to remember ..unimaginable horror. It is possible ..to live in a twilight between knowing and not knowing.” W. A. Visser ’t Hooft.

It is indeed a tragedy, that for the conduct of some in crimes of perpetration, inhuman crimes against their own Jewish People or others of European Jewry, that they cannot identify with this truth. There simply cannot be any other truth but to name the guilty and accuse those  who denounce the truth. It is incredible to think, that while it can be proven that Lithuanians acted against their own Jews, and Jews from the wider European Continent, they resist history as if it will not confront them. That they also acted against those who sought to save those few Jews that could and should have been saved is another chapter in a deeply offensive betrayal of truth and the demands of the inherent service that justice must serve all.

“..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.

There is no more truth identifiers in that brief statement by Arad than will ever need processing as Helena too adds weight to the condemnation of all that sought to destroy the Jews of Lithuania. It is for History, which must not be stained further by the denial which is now being presented as a distortion that some would wish to seek. So as not to admonish those who did not act cruelly and murderously, and ensure we are not at liberty to acquit any of those who were so guilty, we realise that in both, this also defames the memory of all of those who acted both morally, and with an ethics we should all come together to recognise.

“..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 alreadly 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.

Remembering her what Elie Wiesel has always stated, and that while it clear that not all the victims in World War II were Jews, All the Jews who now constitute the furthest reaching vagaries of The Holocaust, Were Victims. Also, and it is more abundantly clear to all in history that as a consequence of Lithuanian participation, both Lithuanian and other European Jews died and were murdered by their hand. That is without doubt a crtainty. If we are somehow then to deny the very fact of a Lithuanian Righteous, are these not to be recalled alongside a Lithuanian who murdered a fellow gentile Lithuanian for saving a Jew. With that then attached to a corruption of Lithuanian history, it is not only that Lithuanian History is corrupted, but all of History remains distorted by such a biased and unpleasant view.

“..conspiracy or common plan to exterminate ..Jew ..largely has succeeded. Only remnants of ..European Jewish population remain in Germany ..in ..countries which Germany occupied ..and in those which were her satellites or collaborators.” Robert H. Jackson.

Knowing too that the entire scientific study of History demands nothing but the factual truth, and the fullest veracity of its integrity, this ensures History will not be corrupted, and as t should not be. I have taken a leap of faith in hoping that all of you who can all assess my work on The Final Solution of the Jewish Question, recognise it as truthful and fully upholding the memory of all those Jews now in need of Remembering. Personally, and as it involves me almost exclusively in my writing world, The Holocaust has more import than what others seek to disguise or make ambiguous. In terms so monstrous, even Genocide barely covers the loss of 6,000,000 Jews so systematically sought out for Slaughter.

“..We continue to uncover German concentration camps ..in which conditions of indescribable horror prevail. ..have visited one of these ..I assure you ..whatever has been printed ..to date has been understatement. If you could see any advantage in asking about a dozen leaders of Congress and a dozen prominent editors to make a short visit to this theatre in a couple of C-54’s ..I will arrange to have them conducted to one of these places where ..evidence of bestiality and cruelty ..so overpowering as to leave no doubt in their minds about the normal practices of ..Germans in these camps. I am hopeful that some British individuals in similar categories will visit ..northern area to witness similar evidence of atrocity.” General Dwight D. Eisenhower.

It is essential therefore that we recognise, that no ordeal whatsoever can ever compare to this human atrocity that is The Holocaust. While it remains clear, and while you may not understand my non-Jewish reasoning for a human catastrophe, you can more understand the moral morass the World has descended into. It is clear too that what the World does Not know, and whether or not that amounts to the 50 or 70 are the millions dead of World War II, we look deeper to find their analysis, in scorching the memory of all 6,000,000 Jews in suspicion and doubt, a need to obfuscate the truth under terms selected to preserve their acquiescent role.

“..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.

All of that said, we are still expected to somehow accept that the World can insist no more than 6,000,000 Jews were systematically Slaughtered. In what we know of what Hitler fully set in motion, we cannot look definitively at what his atrocity fully achieved. Within that rather conservative estimation, is also the distressing fact that some 1,500,000 of these Jews are their Children. In that, between 1,250,000 and 2,000,000 of the overall Slaughtered Jews was a constructed endeavour entirely conducted by Hitler’s cohort of Einsatzgruppe. This fact alone informed the Wannsee Conference of what could be achieved in the murderous operation that had been set in motion. This included Jewish Parents, and as previously suggested, they sought to conceal their Children under their coats and between them, until the same shots hit them and catapulted them into an unaccounted abyss that buried them, unidentified.

“..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.

In that, while we cannot fully assess the loss of these 700, 1,000,000, 1,250,000, 2,000,000 or even these 6,000,000 Jews, we cannot do so without uncovering the steady progress toward this final resolve. The eventual effort to be made by all arms of Hitler’s Reich, in establishing such a slaughter, was conducted both efficiently as it was systematic. With the year 1932, Hitler’s coming to power fully assured European Jewry that his hatred merged with an access to his use is abject use of personal authority. In Germany, the German Jewish People were set along a path where such an immense hatred would consume them, it fully led toward actively seeking an annihilation of the entirety of the Jewish People within Europe.

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

We ultimately recognise, and from the many Holocaust Scholars, and other Historians, what it is we are in need of, and so as to appreciate all such losses, all loss now requires stating. I have sought to gain information from what I have searched through, but not just that. Within certain pages there are identity’s of those Jews lost, some not recognised by many in History, and in a hope we can add further to the losses the Jewish People have had forced upon them. Also, and while we are not only delving into works to find a finite position, we are searching through the testimonials for some reasoning to comprehend.

“..Hitler’s Third Reich ..1933 to 1945 ..legalized ..destruction of an entire race of People ..created a vast machine for ..purpose of human destruction ..operated it with ..cold logic of a railway timetable.” Michael Berwick.

That any limit to what we do search through will not prove substantial enough to deliver a fuller understanding of something so incomprehensible, we will remain along the margins of The Holocaust telling. It is almost with irony that we register here what it meant for someone mass murderer’s like Hitler, Himmler, Heydrich, Globocnik, Ohlendorf, Blobel, Hoess and Eichmann, and for them all to deliver such hatred in its incomprehensible nature. There are still some in history who continually seek to extract Hitler from the implementation of his most preferred demand. It is evident too, that those who were the administrators of Hitlers design acted as all like Eichmann did, administered Hitler’s final resolve.

“..On April 17th. 1943 ..In Poland ..state of affairs ..cleared up ..if Jews ..did not want to work ..they were shot. If they could not work ..they were treated like tuberculosis. ..hares ..deer when infected ..have to be killed. ..Why should ..beasts who wanted to bring us Bolshevism be spared.” Adolf Hitler.

With a level of autonomy all converging upon the end game, the mass slaughter of the Jews of Europe, Hitler prophesised and ensured his words were acted upon. Hitler, demanding the onslaught which led to the slaughter of the Jews, commanded those who were the forming architects of that very timetable. Himmler delivered the words that Heydrich messaged till Blobel led the shooting and Eichmann delivered the trains from every corner of the Reich’s reach. Eichmann proved he was no ordinary bureaucrat, administrator or civil servant as much as Blobel proved such an able technician of mass murder.

“..we were taken to a building ..known in Majdanek as ..Red House. I was with a group of Jews from Slovakia. I had a friend who slept next to me. He knew them. He also indicated a further number of names of all ..officers he had seen ..amongst them ..Eichmann.”  Ya’akov Friedman.

The administering of such Death Camp details, to deliver those many 1,000,000’s of Jews to such composite spaces, is a gigantic undertaking. That they were established deliberately in Poland, and was exercised from the top down in the leadership of his Reich, Hitler’s Reich, is clear. In each and every one of these 6 Death Camps too, purposefully built in Poland as has been detailed, ensured Hitler’s demand was exercised. Here, where the Jews arrived and were exhausted from their very existence, notice was served upon them in unequal terms. To be clear then, my own Books detain only the veracity necessary, and in their factual truth, and its very integrity to inform us, what is completely essential.

“..Jews were convinced ..things could not get worse. ..truth is that every stage ..ultimately ..was something worse and more terrible. This developmental dynamic is ..very essence of terror.”  Yisrael Gutman.

For us to know all we are in need of knowing, there is still a heavy demand placed upon the Survivor to inform us. As of yet, we have an incomplete truth permanently missing the Jewish evidences of 6,000,000 testimony’s. For that physical, terrifying and brutal certainty, which mounted and escalated after 1939, with a formative group of killer’s who acted with impunity against Polish Jewry, these forerunners of der Einsatzgruppe after Barbarossa, proved as brutal as they proved effective in mass murder. So by the time The Death Camps in Poland had come on stream, 1,250,000 Jewish Men, Women and Their Children had already been shot to Death. In all of this, the estimates are a scant regard of lost lives we have come together to memorialise.

“..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 The Holocaust.” Benjamin Jacobs.

This search for loss became the content of my 2nd. Book, delineated as such as der Einsatzgruppe were set the target of destroying all of East European Jewry. Here, and without equivocation, all elements of The Final Solution of The Jewish Question was mapped out and emerged terminally as The Holocaust. For me at the time, the most devastating effect of what Hitler had clearly intended for these Eastern Jews of Europe is played out here, outside Kiev and at the Killing Site that is the Babi Yar ravine. This then was the reasoning for my 3rd. Book which was to extrapolate from all that is known to deliver a more certain truth than can be ignored.

“..Peace is ..beauty of life. It is sunshine. It is ..smile of a Child ..love of a Mother ..joy of a Father ..togetherness of a family. It is ..advancement of man ..victory of a just cause ..triumph of truth. Peace is all of these and more and more.” Menachem Begin.

Alongside this is a knowing consensus, already evidenced from amongst allied ‘intelligence’, that was the sheer scale of the worsening atrocity of crimes impacting upon the Jewish People. Here at Babi Yar it will be recalled, where 33,771 Jewish Men, Women and Their Children were destroyed into this ravine, and in just 2 Days. Not only that, it is this fact that is so well known, as it is written into the very detail of the Slaughter conducted by the killer’s themselves, then telegraphed to Hitler, and intercepted by allied intelligence agencies so as not to escape us. The telling truth though, much in history does not seek to inform us of such major details as what was known and when.

Tuesday October 7th. 1941   ” ..apartments ..put at ..disposal of ..population. ..apartments ..available through liquidation ..36,000 Jews ..September 29 ..30 ..1941. ..Jews ..Kiev ..ordered to appear ..Monday ..September 29 by 6 o’clock. ..In co-operation ..HQ ..Einsatzgruppe C ..2 Kommandos ..police regiment South ..SK 4a executed 33,771 Jews ..September 29 ..30. ..Gold ..valuables ..linen ..clothing ..secured. army ..approved ..measures taken.” Operational Situation Report No. 106. 

What we have to remember! The killers went from mass shootings to delivering the details of the Slaughter just so that Hitler could become appraised of their effort. The fact too, that such transmissions were intercepted, gives active rise to the assertion that not only were the Jews being destroyed, they were being abandoned, and as expendables. It is safe also to assert, that when the Wehrmacht began its assault upon the Russian State, der Einsatzgruppe was in close proximity, fed by the logistics of that military need. Operating as an arm of Hitler’s effort, his Weltanschauung, a World view denied to all Jews, all of this was to be raged and logistically aligned to the overall military operation.

“..Only one thing remained reachable ..close and secure amid all losses ..language. ..In spite of everything ..it remained secure against loss. ..it had to go through ..own lack of answers ..through terrifying silence ..through ..thousand darknesses of murderous speech. It went through. It gave me no words for what was happening ..but went through it. Went through and could resurface ..’enriched’ by it all.” Paul Celan.

With the overall objective being the complete evisceration of the Jews of The Final Solution, we now recognise that the Jews from all over Europe are more clearly marked. The symbol of that identifying factor is the association of a community that was not wholly interlocked, inter-dependent or equally aware of what was emerging for the destruction they were now to encounter. Right now, and for more than 5,000,000 Jews of Byelorussia, Ukraine and Russia, they were under direct threat from a now well oiled and murderous machine sent to kill them all. These 3,000 operatives, acting without compunction, were set upon adding a 5,000,000 further darkness’s.

“..We still don’t know what they did to ..Jews. There are terrifying rumours coming from ..Lukianivka Cemetery. ..impossible to believe. ..Jews are being shot. ..Jews are being shot with machine guns ..all of them. ..one thing ..clear ..all their documents ..things ..food ..confiscated. ..chased into Babi Yar and there. ..something terrible ..horrible ..inconceivable ..cannot be understood ..grasped ..explained. ..We know ..we already know for certain ..blood from Babi Yar flew ..was flowing at a distance of kilometers from ..cemetery.” Iryna Khoroshunova.

If we then assess that many millions of all of these Russian, White Russian and Ukrainian POW’s were encircled and incarcerated, their deaths too were certain. We must surely know that the initial drive, by der Einsatzgruppe, would here encounter its Jewish prey, and in situ, destroy them at will. That said, the Russian narrative of the period of this history does not seek to include the Jewish People in any part of the Russian consideration as singled out. To Stalin, the Jews were merely targeted as enemies of Hitler’s Reich, a combining force sent to subjugate the whole of Russia. As such, the Jewish People were thus considered nothing other than the victims of the Fascist’s and their aggressive effort.

“..In Kiev ..German military authorities shot 85,000 Soviet Citizens.” Soldat Paul Schroeder.

Along with this stubborn insistence, which undoubtedly precludes the very systematic nature of the attack upon the Jews, we lose sight of those Jews systematically murdered. Far too many 1,000,000’s of Jews, who would have been adding to what we conservatively assess as 6,000,000 Jews of The Holocaust remain outside this remit. With certainty it seems, and in the assessment of loss worldwide of maybe 50 to 70 million People during World War II, there must be room to assess an even greater Jewish loss than is being admitted to. We know from the OSR’s, intercepted by Allied intelligences, that at Babi Yar 33,771 Jews were Slaughtered in a 2 day period. That is a fact which is to cement Babi Yar as the ultimate killing zone ensuring its murderous capacity would far exceed the daily excess of any of the Death Camps.

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

As Paul Schroeder admits to the overall and extended atrocity, he adds testimony in May 1942 to these 85,000 People, but does not refer to them specifically as Jews. Through knowing the Jewish Survivor, and through researching their testimony and the factual truth of what they bring to us, I have grown to know these are Jews who complied with Nazi demands to have them removed, though ostensibly to a work detail which turned out to be the ravine which detains them. Of the 6,000,000 Jews who are The Holocaust, perhaps more particularly, I have grown to know more of them through an empathy that is seeking to correct the imbalance of intolerances and even indifference shown toward them.

“..only a few hours away by air there dwells a nation of nearly 70 million of ..most educated ..industrious ..scientific ..disciplined people in ..world ..being taught from childhood to think of war as a glorious exercise ..death in battle as ..noblest fate for man. ..nation which has abandoned all ..liberties ..to augment its collective strength. ..a nation ..its collective strength and virtue is in ..grip of a group of ruthless men preaching a gospel of intolerance and racial pride unrestrained by law ..by parliament or public opinion. From their new table of commandments they have omitted ‘thou shalt not kill’.” Winston Churchill.

The whole of humanity is evidently damaged by what was done and not just by this level of atrocity  but by what was seriously not done in attempting to alleviate at least some segment of the Jewish suffering. It is evident that not even Belzec nor Birkenau struck so deeply at the Jewish presence, in such a short space of time as these two days at the Yar. The further tragedy is what we knew, and this fact was relayed to Hitler, intercepted by allied intelligence agencies there and then and as it was enacted. For that very reason, I sought to deliver to the ownership of the Death Camp Belzec, the fact of its personal incitement to Hitler. Linked by his hatred, and with all of the 6 Death Camps in Poland working in unison, that demand for a resolve to the Jewish Question clearly belongs to Hitler’s insistence. Through Hitler’s ownership, the individual Jew is delivered in such numbers, and it is cataclysmic in relation to such an immeasurable loss, we can barely contemplate assessing their loss to what remains the actual toll of Jewish losses.

“..When I first came to London ..nobody wanted to know. They all had their own problems ..loss of their own loved ones ..part of me said ..forget it. Build a new life. Move on. ..But I couldn’t forget it. What you will read ..I live with that ..every night ..every day. Every Holocaust survivor does. This is not complaining. This is not poor me. It is a simple fact.”  Sam Pivnik.



The Move to Destroy

Uncategorised Posted on Tue, March 28, 2023 23:36:11

“..Christianity ..said ..you have no right to live among us as Jews. ..secular rulers who followed ..said ..you have no right to live among us. Nazis had at last decreed ..you have no right to live.” Raul Hilberg.

As I set out upon this odyssey, an edifice over which hangs such despair, and in terms that are written as The Holocaust, it has always been my deepest concern for and about 6,000,000 Jews. My first Book, Testimony and Fading Memory in The Holocaust (2002) came into being to inform the World of how much I had still to learn and what little I knew that could all add up to the most despicable crime ever contemplated, let alone committed in times of civilised society. For me, this was a juxta position between what I knew we might and were learning and what the evidence’s to be brought forward which might as yet be lost.

“..we ..went to Piotrkow  ..Polish children shouted at us calling us Jews. ..Dad stayed in Piotrkow ..we sneaked back to Lodz. We obtained some letters from him ..then .. correspondence stopped ..I never saw my dear Father again.” Hana Svirsky.

The purpose of this first Book, and it was a 7 year endeavour, was also to share with the reader the words of many who suffered. Interspersed with these are the memories for those who could suffer no more, and their memory is infilled with the mind numbing reality that perpetration was a human device. In my wish to then inform the reader that my research was as in-depth a search as I could sustain, it was essential to find out from the Survivor, more of these lost Jews than have been already recorded.

“..The Holocaust was an unprecedented crime against humanity ..aimed at ..total annihilation of ..entire Jewish population of Europe ..down to ..last Man ..Woman ..Child. It was ..planned ..deliberate policy decision of a powerful state ..Nazi Reich ..which mobilised all its resources to destroy an entire People.” Robert S. Wistrich.

But ostensibly, my unfaltering position is in trying to find and facilitate the Jewish space that is occupying the Jewish place for them in The Holocaust. With my second Book, on der Einsatzgruppe and the Destruction of European Jewry (2003), it was essential then to point out those who Murdered in excess of 1,250,000 Jews, and as many as 2,000,000 Jews or even more. So the central focus is upon those Jews, totally removed from all existence and by the sheer brutality of scale that was wielded initially by over 3,000 Einsatz. To resolve the Jewish issue though required as many as a further 100,000 personnel fully involved in the Slaughter. All the while, the continued concern is toward recording the Jewish loss and with identifying them with that destructive removal.

“.. conventional wisdom is .. Wehrmacht soldiers were part of a gigantic apparatus of annihilation ..were participants in ..if not executioners of .. unparalleled mass murder. ..no doubt .. Wehrmacht was involved in criminal acts ..from .. killing of civilians to .. systematic murder of Jewish ..Men ..Women ..Children.” Sonke Neitzler.

When it came to my third Book, Babi-Yar A Jewish Catastrophe (2005) it was imperative to align the destructive capacity of Hitler’s legions in destroying these Jews of Kiev. The figure of 33,771 Jews Slaughtered over this two day period, September 29th. 1941 till September 30th. 1941, attests to what such hatred adapted militarily can manage against defenceless Jews. The argument to denial thus becomes not only what was done but also, what the military might of Hitler’s Reich could achieve against innocent and civilian Jews. It is certain that what was managed against these Jews of Kiev, and if this was to be replicated, 11,293,300 further Jews of Europe could become extinguished in a period of just under 2 years.

“..Final Solution of .. European Jewish Question ..willed and ordered by Adolf Hitler ..distinguishes itself from all previous recorded tides of human destruction through its unprecedented ..systematic ..and wholesale murder of ..Jews.” Gerald Fleming.

I was then persuaded by Elie Wiesel that my fourth Book should not be the one I had been researching to write, and though it was nearing completion, I stalled on it. All along in this, my proposed 4th. Book, this was to add contemporaneously to that detailed progress already maintained in assessing the overall Jewish loss at Babi-Yar. I was thus stalled in a literary wilderness, a fourth Book nearly complete and a decision to find another chapter in my search for the Jewish presence. As I set off on my journey to visit all 6 Death Camps in Poland, I set about and established My Blog space. I had begun to abandon those many media platforms which refused to restrict the open hatred displayed against both what I write and why I write it.

“..We Jews have no order to award ..we have a good and long memory. ..German Jews will not forget how often you have helped them.” Hans Friedenthal.

Personally, I sought no accolades nor awards for my effort, as I only wished for those who might read my words would know, that not all non-Jews would have stood aside. No Pasaran had become common parlance for that stand to be made while facing down the very deliberate effort of too many to dictate the terms of their own hatred. As I sought a reference point to further add to the progress of my own endeavour, words were added to fragments of those Books I felt I would write. It was not until I had visited the last of these Death Camps, that Belzec gained prominence in my thought process. 

“..While ..leaders of ..countries plotted ..pushed ..hundreds of thousands of Eastern European citizens continued their work a day lives unaware ..as pawns ..their lives were about to change forever.” Shirley Lebovitz.

It is so blindingly obvious to be True, that so many Jews were exterminated here within Belzec, and in far graver numbers than History admitted to, that the Death Camp at Belzec needed to be more widely known. The genesis of Hitler’s Belzec (2016) was borne and ownership of what was perpetrated in Poland was fully attributed to the mindset of a hate filled leader of the Nazis. Also, and there were many Survivors who looked at Poland, and gentile poles, in less than favourable terms so I sought to add to such an apparent generality. Many Survivors too were obviously filled with the vexation that betrayal by their former neighbours engenders. I was therefore looking to find if objectivity could be delivered on behalf of what Polish Jewry suffered and was made to suffer at the hands of unchristian poles.

“..I too .must walk this inner path that leads from Here towards ..untold sufferings of my people ..and gropes onwards out of ..pain.” Nelly Sachs.

So here I am. Dealing still in the death and destruction of the Jewish People and looking to secure, in memory, their unique place in The Holocaust. I remain convinced that the detail should remain specific to the awful truth of what was forced upon these Jews and the many forms of atrocity which brought about the overall catastrophe. My effort in this is now 4 Books long and with 6,000,000 words of soul searching questions to unspeakable answers. There has been a concentration of effort for over 6,000,000 of the Jews of Europe who are totally obliterated from life. Book after Book opens the gateway to newer searches and the pathway to more research that has occupied me.

“..To ..relatives who lost their lives shot in ..street or camps needlessly ..those who dug their own graves ..those who committed suicide ..you will never ever be forgotten. To my grandparents ..Siegfried ..Sophie ..Oskar ..Erna ..and to my Dad ..thanks for making me.” Sandra M. Scheller.

I only name in passing the many who perpetrated, participated and otherwise led the Jews toward their destruction to add fully to the depth of the terrifying horror inflicted upon these Jews. For those, whose words I borrow from, I can only judge the huge grief and pain of loss as an hugely incomprehensible suffering to is bound to continue. I speak here of their pain of loss as I do not wish to be drawn into conflict over the emergence of the State of Israel. For me, Israel should have been in existence some 5,000 years and brought forward to this day alongside that fact and Christianity’s acknowledgement of that truth which is 2,000 years old.

“..I owe more than it is possible to express. ..My largest debt ..is to ..Survivors ..each one ..expanded my knowledge and enabled ..work of this book to go forward.” Dorothy Rabinowitz.

Israel’s status was confirmed and then sponsored in 1948, and by some who sought to salve the conscience of a World whose unconscionable and intractable indifference led 6,000,000 Jews toward eternity without our simplest concern. I look back at realising the many criminals to escape justice and know more words must be raised against them. That Franz Six escaped his crimes, then worked for Porsche and the CIA, is both galling and an affront to our own humanity’s decency.

“..Natzweiler ..had been a tool of .. Hitler’s  Final Solution. Medical experiments ..on Jewish inmates ..to prove ..inferiority of ..Jewish race ..Untermench in Nazi speak.” Damien Lewis.

Worse too, many others, including SS, SD, Gestapo, Einsatz commanders and even Concentration Camp kommandants who flooded the ranks of allied intelligence agencies. There was the Gehlen Organisation, headed by a man steeped in the wiles of wherefores of Hitler’s needs. This was a group which also had the brief to hold onto those Nazi files that were specifically detailing the murderous efforts of other Nazi War Criminals. This evidence was including files to indict those who were accused of War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity. All the while, Allied intelligence was employing far too many of them to spread further and deeper into nation states they had formerly sought to vanquish, extinguish and destroy.

“..It reads like fiction. Surely ..real life is not so cruel ..so devastating ..so extreme. Real life does not threaten death every day ..split families ..dehumanise ..dignity of ..elderly ..make Children ..specific target of people bent on their painful ..frightening destruction ” The AJR.

It is perhaps more disturbing once we realise that even Israel was engaged with such a cohort as had extorted life from so many of the 6,000,000 Jews who are, The Holocaust. The relentless progression, of what is this pernicious evil, the very distinct nature of this Jew hatred, acclimatised itself to periods in time. The Jews though, who perpetually suffered for being Jews, are belonging to all of history, and theirs is but one damning voice. Throughout what we might consider, Our moral history, this is a shameful episode that continued for over 5,000 years and then 2,000 years of Christian and Moral probity. As we may well reflect today, and more widely upon what we accept antisemitism presents to the World, The Holocaust rises above the torment of abuse to propel all of History into a genocide beyond human comprehension.

“..Jews were hunted down with a fanatical hatred ..reserved for them alone. ..killed amounted to over half ..to more than two thirds of all European Jews ..between 5,000,000 and 6,000,000 ..not including those who died of hunger and disease in .. ghettos.” Norman Cohn.

But, and for me this is crucial, antisemitism is but a fraction of what has propelled Hitler to consider the mass murder of the Jews. That this was undertaken, and upon such a genocidal level, speaks volumes for the sadistic intention of those soon to be involved in delivering the overall atrocity for Hitler. With a broad sweep of accusation also, and against those who did so little to save any one of these Jews, my work finds newer meaning to accuse. With this as a certainty, antisemitism does not, nor can it ever define the fuller remit for what The Holocaust represents. However such is the term of this Jew hatred itself, and that forms much as is recognised as antisemitism, must stand in full accord with what Ken Stern stressed is the hatred of the Jews for being Jews.

“..There are events of such overbearing magnitude that one ought not to remember them all, ..one must not forget them either. Such an event is The Holocaust.” Rabbi Israel Spira.

But here the term  antisemitism itself merely shrouds The Holocaust in that same hatred that has persisted and lasted for more than these 2,000 years. The notion then, which would partially dissolve the unique status belonging to these 6,000,000 Jews of Europe, who are The Holocaust, does not present what is the most destructive endeavour ever contemplated in destroying a People, as a People who are Jews. Such contention, around these 6,000,000 Slaughtered Jews, and for those who are still amongst us, these Survivors are uniquely qualified to be uniquely and reverentially treated. These Jews cannot escape the fact of their terrifying position and what proves counter productive in The Holocaust meaning.

“..pages before you are segments of  contemplation and memory. Memory ..elusive ..selective ..it holds on to what it wants to hold on to. I won’t say it retains only what is good and pleasant.” Aharon Appelfeld.

That essential is to not only and amply recognise the words of those who survived to inform us, but to accept the very veracity of the truth detailed in the factual relationship they have toward them. As I initially formed the opinion that The Holocaust followed a less than rigid framework, an almost fluid delineated set of opportune moments, I recognised all who adopted or adapted to its reach, did so in an ever changing cauldron. The Final Solution of the Jewish Question emerged from the limited consideration of the expulsion of all Jews under Hitler’s gaze. The proposal to deliver untold misery to the Jewish People to be sent to Madagascar, as both France and Poland had previously proposed, was too logistically unsound.

On October 25th. 1941 “..It is good that we are preceded by an aura of terror for our plans to exterminate Jewry ” Adolf Hitler.

Eichmann too had his Jewish reservoir in the Nisko project yet none of these proposed the Slaughter that was to come. This brutality, that is Hitler’s exponents of such forms of antisemitism, forged the greatest hatred and most pernicious evil ever to be recognised. This most detestable absurdity ever envisioned by mankind though, has brought with it unrestricted comparisons to the unique position which The Holocaust holds. However much we try, antisemitism does not allow for the uniqueness, which is what The Final Solution defines as The Jewish Question. This is where the lines of historical parity, and any seemingly comparable likenesses must divest themselves. Everything I write on the atrocity, that is The Holocaust, is only inspired by the necessity to know exactly, What Happened to these 6,000,000 Individual Jews.

“..On November 11th. 1941 ..Himmler ..has just come from ..Fuhrer. ..He told me ..destruction of ..Jews is being planned. ..Final Solution of ..Jewish Question.” Felix Kersten.

In that, it is the Survivor I look to constantly to provide some answer to an incomprehensible loss that is added to all of civilization. All too often then, as I revisit those works I gained inspiration from, and that is every single Book in my, The Holocaust Library. I find newer emphasis to add ever more to what must be said. As I now pause for thought, I am looking to the testimony of those Jewish Survivors, and the Jewish Children who also managed to survive, to add their own testimony to our historical need. While I do not discount antisemitism from The Holocaust, I merely reflect upon it as a containing poison and detaining spur. This slur, this hatred, which cannot alter my persuasion as to Hitler’s unique intervention as being more extraordinarily brutal than history itself has ever conceived of, is omnipresent still.

“..I am hiding in this crate what I have written ..noted and collected ..with thrill and anxiety ..so that it may serve as material evidence ..corpus delicti ..accusing testimony when ..Day of Judgment comes.” Avraham Tory.

All of that said, the unparalleled wrong that is The Holocaust is a uniquely placed horror which must now be spaced firmly in times between 1889, and 1945 to 1946. What is pledged in memoriam, for those relatives who perished during The Holocaust, and I have come to know such an immensity of their grief, it is a borrowed pain for me to act within. Through Survivor’s, I have repeatedly placed the names of those many of their lost, these names held before time, that will last beyond time due to memory. Also, my visit the Death Camps has been done and somehow adds to the emotional connection I have gained. But! This does not release me from the urgent need to know why all of these Jews were allowed to perish, were given up upon the mantle of abandonment and left with searching for the answers to why.

“..some 2,000 of .. city’s Jews had been dispatched to ..extermination camps. ..in time Mannheim’s ..industries ..attracted ..Allied Bombers.” Damien Lewis.

Here too, when I reached a major acknowledgement of what so many family’s have registered as loss, and this amounts to a grief beyond compare, it so shocks me even still. For those we never knew and for all of those many more we are not going to know, the tally of loss is vast. There are more pages transcribed with such a detailed account, in an effort even to read of such horror, we cannot come to terms with what we read. What Auschwitz , Belzec and Sobibor can bring is matched by what Birkenau, Chelmno, Majdanek and Treblinka delivered. That these spaces resonate so loudly in the overall atrocity for so many losses is clear. What echoes through also is the great loss owed to where places unknown to too many of us and have taken those Jews we seek to recall. In all too many places, where Jewish life could be extinguished, ashes over time still dwell where these Jews were eventually destroyed.

On December 31st. 1942 “..Fuhrer ..regards campaign against gangs

 ..August                             31,246 Jews

 ..September                     165,282 Jews

 .. October                         95,735 Jews

 ..November                      70,948 Jews

 ..totals                               362,211 Jews

executed during ..period 1st. September to 1st. December 1942″ Heinrich Himmler.

For me, it is an imperative that the participants in the terrifying and inflicted horror are recognised for their crimes. Also, and as much as we cannot ignore the duplicitous nature of all of those involved in the Slaughter of the Jews, it is worthy of a more concerted search to extricate them from the obscurity they seek. It concerns me also, that while all future proprietary rights to the words I have constructed, they may not be altered from their intention. While the words I have formed are issued, they are merely to place before history what those 6,000,000 Jews could no longer endure. What the Jewish Survivor then brings forth in a lived testimony, adds to the experience that makes us the custodians of that testimony. The truth of the very detailed aspect of such an atrocity is all too often played down by many who do not wish to confront what ordinary human beings are capable of achieving in line with what hatred dictates.

“..For 5 years ..starting in 1938 ..we lived in a time without a future ..a dark present overhung by a confused .. indistinct nightmare ..which enveloped us after September 8th. 1943.” Piers Sonnino.

What should and will remain integral to my intention for both the 6,000,000 Jews and the Jewish Survivor, is intentionally formed and must ensure that any future search cannot allow for these facts to be altered. Such is my hope for all the artistic and intellectual integrity of these words, as they are firmly ensconced in any and all my Books, I wish for them to remain there. I have been aware for a long time, that the best requirement in that which we recall, has to be those vey names of their own People that they knew, and who are now testified to as the lost. I was preparing to annotate somehow, a measure of that need by naming those, which some of the formerly Child Survivors put into any particular Book we learn from to remember.

“..To ..past ..way has been barred ..And what do I need past for now. What is there. Bloodied flagstone. ..a bricked up door. ..an echo ..That still cannot die away ..However much I beg.” Nonna L. Bannister.

I expect what must retain the very integrity of memory is in fully honouring those 6,000,000 Jews to whom the memories belong to. These, and of all of my words, are wholly gifted to the memory of those 6,000,000 Jews, whose future testimony has been so sorely denied. That these Jews are the constituent parts of The Holocaust must not be diminished, diluted not denied. In our own effort, and for us to know of  whom we choose to remember, the very names which are to emerge from the Catastrophe are the one constant. When I looked through those named, at the back of those Books who credit their names, I realised the effort involved had been achieved. I could do no more than reflect back upon the depth and pain of loss that had endured. But! Could I ever add further to memory by duplicating the terrible loss the Survivor has ascribed to paper.

“..Being a member of ..Jewish community was never a problem. It was proudly claimed by my father ..for cultural reasons ..not religious ones. ..In his eyes ..if ..Jewish people were to remain ..chosen people ..it was because they were People of ..Book ..People of thinking and writing.” Simone Veil.

This position cannot ever be changed, nor altered or even be less than future proofed for those who are still to learn. It has now become evidential that certain words can be altered in editing a book so as to conform to the norms of another days acceptance. For me! There can be no diffusion of The Holocaust term particularly for a People of thought and words. Therefore, no dilution of my particular intention to confront the grave wrongs perpetrated against 6,000,000 innocent Jews can ever be considered. Here too is the very contention which deserves to stand, and which must not be altered and cannot ever be changed. Hitler led a latter day crusade of such hatred, 6,000,000 Jews are confined within its ugly reaches.

“.. Hitler .became overweeningly confident of a continued run of easy success. Even when he came to see that further ventures might entail a war he felt it would be only a small one ..and a short one. His moments of doubt ..drowned by ..cumulative effect of intoxicating success.” Basil H. Liddel-Hart.

It is in fully regarding those criminals who committed these atrocities that we add a dimension to our search which much of history has sought to dismember. Also, and for all of those crimes, and all of those who placated the very route toward a genocide that required a uniquely descriptive and structured edifice of atrocity, all of this has delivered us to The Holocaust. There is also the fact that World opinion progressed both incrementally, and with acquiescence, and toward the abandonment of the Jewish People. Steadily, and toward an eventual extinction of 6,000,000 of their People, we witnessed the stalling of any effective or firmer intervention in favour of the Jewish People. The very tenets of The Holocaust is therefore written in both the blood and destruction of these Jews. But, and it is also in the eternal shame of those who either perpetrated and participated in the crimes or stood aside to allow this all to happen.

“..Having tried for ..last 65 years to forget and erase from my memory my teenage experiences in Auschwitz and other Nazi ..camps ..I am now ..persuaded ..I owe ..to my family and others to write them.” Felix Weinberg.

There is a complicity growing in the 1930’s, that is of the future sanctioning of the Slaughter of the Jewish People. There was not to be a World wide attempt at responding positively, not an intervention to the horror that was steadily emerging. Although there was not a world’s effort, any moral compassion that drew so little positively, in containing the huge atrocity being undertaken, a systematic approach to the Slaughter was fully condoned as it was engaged. This was clearly witnessed early on within Poland in 1939, while dealing with 10’s of 1,000’s of Polish Jews being rounded up and Murdered. We cannot fail to take account of this burgeoning Slaughter let alone come to terms with the eventual tragedy written 6,000,000 times over in Jewish desperation and destruction without recognising its genesis was given over to a supplicant national community only too willing to ignore what was happening to Polish Jewry.

“..I am here in this World ..having endured ..survived The Holocaust ..remain purely alive purely by chance.” Anna Podgajecki.

It is clear also that any allowance for chance must play no part in any survival for any Jew, even though chance is credited by so many Jews who did in fact Survive. There should then be no ambiguity nor confusion over who Slaughtered these Jews nor who allowed for the slaughter to happen. For all of those others, complicit or duplicitous, we accept they fell under Hitler’s influence, and with an unnecessary cruelty they fully adopted Hitler’s vengeful gaze. But, and for those who stubbornly resisted the moral efficacy involved in intervening, so as to attempt to prevent such an immoral massacre, History stands to accuse them all. We can and do excuse those who took it upon themselves to resist the tide of hatred. We recognise their righteous nature and realise fully the cauldron in which they had to manage their humanity.

“..Polish women. ..write secret messages ..Poland has not yet perished ..even though ..it perished a long time ago. ..now there is Western Ukraine here .there is communism .. everybody is equal and that’s what hurts them. ..that they can’t say You bloody Yid. They still say it ..but in secret.” Renia Spiegel.

Today as I write, I am mindful that every single work cannot mask the accusation aimed at the level of inhumanity that is to be expressed tellingly. But those who stand as witnesses to the depravity of this voiding of morality, they are present to record what adds to our ethical descent. For the very morality which absconded, and from that place of Jewish urgent need, we now look back at the decimation such an immobile indifference caused. There were clearly those who blatantly stood aside as the Jewish People languished before the gates of those Death Camps. Within all 6 of these Camps of annihilation, all increasingly vying for the complete destruction of the Jews sent to them, atrocity expanded upon atrocity to such levels of depravity, we have never come close to comprehending what it is we are reaching to understand.

“..in Poland ..our train made a stop. ..There was another train. ..loaded with Jews heading for .. extermination camps. ..so pitiful ..dressed in rags ..not seen food for ..a long time. Some ..like human skeletons ..so thin ..they looked like death.” Nonna L. Bannister.

Also, and there are the very many, with craned necks poised as they stood atop the abyss watching what was interfering in what humanity is. Such spaces, which swallowed as many as 2,000,000 Jews wholesale, and we are at liberty today to be able to recall the scant regard reserved for such Jewish pain. For all of these innocent Jews, who are rounded up, fully detained and then driven systematically toward destruction, their sojourn was not complicated by a World’s compassion. It is with certainty that we recognise in Hitler’s world view, his Weltanschauung, that this led the charge toward the near total obliteration of all Jews under Hitler’s gaze and for whom, migration did not serve enough of the Jewish People.

“..There was a pronounced military weakness in those states which depended for their existence on foreign trade. As our foreign trade was carried on over ..sea routes dominated by Britain ..it was more a question of security of transport than one of foreign exchange ..which revealed ..in time of war ..full weakness of our food situation. ..only remedy ..and one which might appear to us as visionary ..lay in  ..acquisition of greater living space a quest which has at all times been ..origin of ..formation of states and of ..migration of peoples.” Adolf Hitler.

Along with the lean toward, War, Space and other such declarations, the evisceration of these People, for being Jews was to be advanced. Hitler was Never to relinquish his hold on the one aspect of his ultimate demands, and to the very end of his own miserable existence, this was to be The Final Solution of the Jewish Question. The very intention to extol Hitler’s clear lack of any virtue, is witness to his composite intolerance that was completely formed. Hitler would confront totally those intolerable levels of a hatred which would then devour the Jews of Europe with a qualm of a moment of conscience. For the World, conscience was abated and excuses relevant to sustaining both personal prejudice and perhaps a certain enmity toward Jewish existence led the Jews further down the track toward complete annihilation.

“..Jews were expelled. ..No foreign government protested. ..British Foreign Secretary ..Halifax ..ruled .against giving unnecessary offence to Hitler.” Peter Calvocoressi.

Readily recognised, and heavily featured in Hitler’s Weltanschauung was the formatting of a Total War that would exorcise the Jewish People. Yet to be written as a matter of more grave an urgency, a resolve to end Jewish persistence was designed, though initially it aimed toward an emphasis upon total World dominion to disguise its inception. However, what was inevitably geared toward a confrontation with the persistence of World Jewry, is not as hidden as many in History would propose. In that eventual confrontation, The Final Solution of the Jewish Question was unequivocally answered in such brutal terms we required newer meanings to understand this incomprehensible slaughter. This atrocity fully resulted in the single most dedicated accomplishment of Hitler’s most devoted aim. All of which emerged in the form of the atrocious Horror for the 6,000,000 Jewish People who were massacred.

“..10 o’clock .. morning ..May 5th. 1945. ..courtyard ..Mauthausen. ..Gone ..sweetish smell of burnt flesh. ..night before ..last SS ..had run away. .. machinery of death had come to a stop. .. crematorium no longer operated.” Simon Wiesenthal.

I find it impossible here to compensate the Jewish People for what has been done to them in an ostensibly christian name. While I offer my words in some way as a consolation for what other people allowed to happen to them, it can never prove adequate enough. I have shaken the hand of many of the Survivors and I hope in some way to have gifted them that outreaching hand of a deep sense of friendship. For that which was not offered up to them, and from so many of those of past generations who failed to do so, our eternal sorrow will be forever an accusing voice. Such however is the failing of humanity, in an ambivalence and indifference to the Jewish struggle, the whole of civilisation is weighted with a sickness we cannot repair.

“..Nazis ..have tragically demonstrated that in a large proportion of mankind ..impulse to inflict torture exists ..and requires only opportunity to display itself in all its naked horror.” Bertrand Russell.

The truth of that ailment, of the realisation that far too much was done and not enough that could have been done wasn’t, we cannot come to terms with what we now measure. So as to save any Jews from adding to the 6,000,000 of their People who are so cruelly slaughtered, we look at those who exemplified the terror of the atrocity. So for those Survivors of you who have experienced the Nazi Camp system, I offer my words now when a simple word was absent then. For those of you who have even managed to Survived the Death Camp system, and latterly, for all those who wish to understand, I lend my words so that I too may attempt appreciate all that is lost, which I am certain I will never fathom.

“.. Holocaust Survivors reaching ..end of their lives began to tell long suppressed stories and now sought a measure of justice for what had been stripped of them. People make history and a few People provided ..sparks that ignited ..kindling of unsatisfied justice.” Stuart E. Eizenstat.

Here though, and separated by more than 50 years from what Hitler and the Nazis rise delivered, Fyodor Dostoevsky recognised what was in the hearts of some of human kind. Since then, and there are a further 30 years for us to learn from, we exist in a World apart from the experiences we must bring to the fore to make sense of the insensible. My experience of visiting the 6 Death Camps in Poland have not given me more than a fearful collision with what must have been a monstrous series of events delivering innocent People to these places because they were Jews, different from us in no other way.

“..Here there is a world Apart ..unlike everything else ..with laws of its own ..house of ..living dead ..life as nowhere else and a People apart.” Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky.

That the Jews fell victim to such an enormous human failure, and with an escape from the morality which grace lends us, all of this reflects purely upon our own fight against inhumanity. For all of this, we owe far too much to the dominance of a Hitlerite mania, which squashed humanity into a degrading abyss. In as much as this hatred should be detained within the terms of The Holocaust, and while it can still be expressed, we are not learning. An historical lesson is being obscured by what we have learned of the fraught struggle, and with a philosophical uncertainty, we match its truth an immense and gaping wound. The Holocaust’s theological presentation oversees a continued bias and it is within the psychology of a recanted sociological indifference that still measures it. With a firm resolve that continues toward the persistence of that exact same hatred, there is no guarantee that it will be levelled at the Jewish People exclusively.

“..Scenes of biblical fury and transgression took place all across Germany.” Alon Contino.

Along with the rather weathered religious corruption that has been clearly exposed, what is laid bare is the conceited irrelevance it measures. What is given over to a belief system that revokes any compatibility with the tenets of any moral essential, is a belief system which must be dismissed from human following. There should be an incandescent rage to be instilled within the tenets of this, as a lessening of the Jewish tragedy, for there is the Jewish abandoned, left languishing with ignominy as it winds its course through our forgetfulness. Even our literature hones newer skills to express our utter contempt for those, whose seeming capacity is capable of every and any excess against the Jewish People. So as to render all manner of meaning to the meaningless absurdity that became The Holocaust, we reflect gravelly upon 6,000,000 losses which were preventable.

“..justification of a murderous purpose was penned by ..Hitler ..as he point by point built ..case for annihilating ..Jewish race. ..to execute a plan ..The Final Solution of the Jewish Problem.” Hal Lindsey.

However, and fully cloaked in the terms of The Final Solution, the Jewish Question remains at the epicentre of what marginalises the Historical society we seek to inhabit. I am certain too, and despite many an effort to promote The Holocaust in learning, the exclusive presence of the Jews, as the sought out and systematic victims, is not an acceptable position for all too many. These 6,000,000 Jewish People would not be allowed such a position in the overall history of the period, and simply because they are Jews. The Holocaust term itself has been so abused by those seeking to dilute it’s very meaning, and for all of those Jews it was intended to enclose. What then, for a term that must reflect the heinous nature of all hatreds, as it is exemplified by its investment against these Jews, can we allow history to ignore such a fact. Also, and with such grandiose schemes of commemoration to represent them, the Jewish presence is so begrudgingly delivered.

“..sheltered by Christian Poles without whose help my Family and I would not have survived. At ..end of ..war I resumed my former identity ..determined to put ..past behind me. I wanted to forget ..person I had tried so desperately to become ..to forget that which ..forced me to become someone else ..to forget even ..Christians who had helped me ..stay alive. ..Thirty years later my memories started to stir. They called for attention.” Nechama Tec.

However, what was designed to divest all too many Jews from life and meaning, and while the expression of that hatred for the Jews still flourishes, we realise that where such ignorance unravels the positive lessons we must learn, bitterness will swamp our every effort. The hatred for the Jewish People has henceforth become a self propagating assault upon the Jewish Survivor, and all Jews in general. With any suggestion of apology, and this is always allied to a recompense of restitution that is sourced, it is meant to benefit all of those Jews who were the intended victims. This then all becomes a disputed truth, as too many others seek to retain all that they gained in preventing all surviving Jews reclaiming anything of all that they have lost.

“..To put up with .. discrepancy between imagination and fact. Not to invent another imaginary system that will agree with a new fact. Better to say I suffer than This Landscape is ugly.” Simone Weil.

What we recognise, for any fact of restitution and reparations to add any means to such form of compensation, there is nothing that will ever repair the loss of 6,000,000 Jews. To seek a rejected ownership of all that was allowed to be taken from these Jews, it is to express such disdain for any ethical source to afford any moral efficacy. As we continually look back, we adorn memory with a hopeful conscience that is morally grounded and ethically based. While it is then apparent that what we owe, by way of alleviating anything of the pained loss the Jews suffered, this must not and cannot be weighted by any bias. In seeking to deny what is a morally bound attempt to repay even something of all that is owed, we deliver All to those Jews to which All is owed. In that certainty we will enable all of history to move forward with its integrity mindful of the truth it posits and the facts of that veracity it must maintain. For 6,000,000 Jews, the loss is terminal and for us, it is an interminable atrocity which will measure us as human beings throughout what remains of History.

“.. Every time I see my Children and Grandchildren ..I ..call out to my dear Parents. Look. ..These are your Grandchildren. Be proud ..your lifelong devotion ..your selfless love .are reflected in ..faces of your Grandchildren. Through them and your future generations ..you will ..live forever.” Mala Kacenberg.



The Weight of Injustice

Uncategorised Posted on Sun, February 19, 2023 23:13:42

“..privilege of opening ..first trial in history for crimes against ..peace of ..world imposes a grave responsibility. ..wrongs which we seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated ..so malignant ..so devastating ..that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored because it cannot survive their being repeated. That 4 great nations flushed with victory and stung with injury stay ..hand of vengeance and voluntarily submit their captive enemies to ..judgment of law is one of ..most significant tributes that Power has ever paid to Reason.” Robert Jackson.

In this, I bear reference only to penalty’s which should be equated with the atrocious detail of The Holocaust. We might argue over who amongst those indicted, in any of the trials ordered, should have been more appropriately convicted. Those, who are not the guilty are not presented in those trials, despite what acquittal might suggest. Even then we might agree who may not be the wholly innocent. In assessing those indicted at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials of the Major War Criminals, all were none the less guilty of promoting Hitler’s World View. Hitler’s Weltanschauung ran alongside The Final Solution of The Jewish Question and was promoted beyond what inhumanity would recognise.

“..I will go to Nuremberg. I feel ..crushing responsibility that I bear on this journey. I pray that ..vanished souls of ..martyrs will manifest themselves through my words. I want to speak in Yiddish ..any other language is out of ..question. I spoke about this with Ehrenburg ..prosecutor Smirnov ..and all ..others. I wish to speak in ..language of ..People whom ..accused attempted to exterminate. I wish to speak our mameloshn. May it ring out and may Alfred Rosenberg crumble. May my language triumph at Nuremberg as a symbol of perdurance.” Avrom Sutzkever.

For all of those facilitating Hitler’s charge toward infamy, or those charged with crushing Jewish existence, both are equally guilty. The differences occur though, which fully manage to contort our own view of what justice must represent. What I would suggest however is that for all of those who should be criminally charged, we ignore this demand at our own peril. We must also consider those, who brought about these Crimes Against Peace, War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity are the most heinous of beings of the human race. We must also recognise that the norms of civilised society can only be retained in favour of a leniency these criminals denied to the 6,000,000 Jews they dispatched without conscience.

“..I do not feel guilty of any War Crimes ..I have only done my duty as an intelligence organ ..and I refuse to serve as an ersatz for Himmler.” Ernst Kaltenbrunner.

It is with a deep concern that the many, like Kaltenbrunner, who are giving of no apology for what they themselves conducted, escaped all manner of conscience. Nor is it to be neglected, even if these acted in accord with Fuhrer orders, that their moral probity was left outside of the Death Camp gates or above the abyss of the Killing Ravines and other sites. What is significant though, and more so in the case of der Einsatzgruppe, those who admitted to no guilt whatsoever were treated the more leniently and invariably escaped the death sentence they so clearly deserved. Regardless of their indictment and subsequent conviction as War Criminals and for their Crimes Against Humanity, evidence was not deemed a substantial enough proof to warrant their execution alongside their fellow mass murderers.

“..conspiracy or common plan to exterminate ..Jew ..largely has succeeded. Only remnants of ..European Jewish population remain in Germany ..in ..countries which Germany occupied ..and in those which were her satellites or collaborators.” Robert H. Jackson.

All the while there is a continuing debate over what must constitute Justice and what is then presented as its essential requirement. In that certainty, we know the corrct element of justice did not exist for the Slaughtered Jews, as it was proposed to represent. When we are even expected to focus upon the Death Penalty, as other than a vengeful response, there is a disparity of issuing. So as to deliver Justice away from revenge, we must consider the crimes are proportionate to the sentence enacted. For those being hanged, the likes of

Wilhelm Frick,

“..sixth man to leave his prison cell and walk with handcuffed wrists to ..death house was 69 year old Wilhelm Frick. He entered ..execution chamber at 2.05 am ..six minutes after Rosenberg had been pronounced dead. He seemed ..least steady of any so far and stumbled on ..13th step of ..gallows. His only words were ..Long live ..Germany ..before he was hooded and dropped through ..trap.” Joseph Kingsbury-Smith.

Alfred Jodl,

“..Fuhrer exercised ..strongest influence. ..who formed an opinion whether ..expenditure of time and materiel was justified by ..tactical value and by which he decided which of ..various constructions proposed should be undertaken. .. selection of terrain was left by ..Fuhrer to ..local staffs in ..West ..but he himself decided on. ..plan was brought up to date every four weeks.” Alfred Jodl.

Wilhelm Keitel,

“..Efficient and enduring terrorization can be achieved only either by capital punishment or by measures to keep ..relatives of ..criminal and ..population in ..dark as to ..fate of ..criminal. This aim is achieved by transferring ..criminal to Germany.” Wilhelm Keitel.

and Alfred Rosenberg,

“..Prosecution contends that it is a matter of a premeditated plan for ..plundering of ..cultural treasures of other states. In reality ..following was true We were dealing with an unforeseen situation. A colleague of mine had accompanied a press delegation when ..German troops marched into Paris and noticed that ..Parisians were returning almost completely with ..exception of ..Jewish population ..so that all organizations and institutions in that category of ownership were left behind empty ..as well as ..residences ..and mansions of these leading personalities ..so to say ..ownerless. He suggested that research into property ..archives ..and correspondence should be made. I reported ..matter to ..Fuhrer and asked whether he approved of ..carrying out of this suggestion. This letter of mine to ..Fuhrer was submitted to me in ..preliminary interrogation but was not submitted to ..Tribunal by ..Prosecution. Thus ..even though ..documentary proof of ..reason for this entire transaction is at hand ..Prosecution have ..maintained ..charge of a premeditated plan. ..order of ..Fuhrer ..issued at ..beginning of July 1940 ..and since a large number of art objects ..in addition to ..archives ..was found in a dangerous position in many mansions ..safekeeping and ..transporting of these objects of art into ..German Reich was decreed by ..Fuhrer.” Alfred Rosenberg.

are their crimes any the more atrocious than that of those, also guilty, who were only given prison sentences or even reprieves.

“..I regard this trial as a god willed world court ..destined to examine and put to an end ..terrible era of suffering under Adolf Hitler ” Hans Frank.

Are these others, the likes of Karl Doenitz, Walther Funk, Erich Reader and Fritz Sauckel, are they any lesser the criminal for their crimes. We can pick over the levels of what they were involved in, War Crimes as opposed to Crimes Against Humanity, but each constitutes a level of atrocity that has been the common denominator in the acquiescence to Hitler’s demands. Some others of these too, Hans Frank, Ernst Kaltenbrunner or Julius Streicher are at the bottom of what is a lowly regard within humanity’s reach. Should all of this not be argued over in relation and with regard to the immensity of the overall catastrophe for 6,000,000 Slaughtered Jews. All the hanging’s, which took place on October 16th. 1946 barely afford the necessity that recognises the gravest wrongs ever perpetrated in History.

“..I must reject an indictment for conspiracy. ..antisemitic movement was only protective.” Alfred Rosenberg.

Are any of these few then, the imprisoned and the sanctioned War Criminals any less evil than those who also promoted the mass Slaughter of the Jews. The real truth then of the Nuremberg Trials is for me what is clearly written in terms of serving what must be more than just a composite form of justice, is clearly just enacted in tokenism. One also has to question too the efficacy of any sought out justice while some witnesses were as guilty as the accused. Following are a group of the most self serving individuals who appear as witnesses at the First Nuremberg War Crimes Trial, and for the prosecution.

There was the Higher SS Police Leader Eric von dem Bach-Zelewski, odious and guilty but only, and eventually warranting a life sentence.

“..I am ..only living witness but I must say ..truth. Contrary to ..opinion of ..National Socialists ..that ..Jews were a highly organized group ..appalling fact was that they had no organization whatsoever. ..mass of ..Jewish people were taken complete by surprise. They did not know at all what to do ..they had no directives or slogans as to how they should act. This is ..greatest lie of antisemitism because it gives ..lie to that old slogan that ..Jews are conspiring to dominate ..world and that they are so highly organized. In reality ..they had no organization of their own at all ..not even an information service. If they had had some sort of organization ..these people could have been saved by ..millions ..but instead ..they were taken completely by surprise. Never before has a people gone as unsuspectingly to its disaster. Nothing was prepared. Absolutely nothing. It was not so ..as ..antisemites say ..that they were friendly to ..Soviets. That is ..most appalling misconception of all. ..Jews in ..old Poland ..who were never communistic in their sympathies ..were ..throughout ..area of ..Bug eastward ..more afraid of Bolshevism than of ..Nazis. This was insanity. They could have been saved. There were people among them who had much to lose ..business people ..they didn’t want to leave. In addition there was love of home and their experience with pogroms in Russia. After ..first anti-Jewish actions of ..Germans ..they thought now ..wave was over and so they walked back to their undoing.” Erich von dem Bach Zelewski.

An SS Panzer Army commander, Josef (Sepp) Dietrich who directed all manner of brutality’s and retributions. There was atrocity upon atrocity as an ideological element to the following and Dietrich led his forces, those like Peiper, toward Malmedy and other atrocities.

“..I recognize that after …battle of Normandy my unit was composed mainly of young ..fanatical soldiers. A good deal of them had lost their parents ..their sisters and brothers during ..bombing. They had seen for themselves in Cologne thousands of mangled corpses after a terror raid had passed. Their hatred for ..enemy was such ..I swear it ..I could not always keep it under control.” SS Standartenfuhrer Jochen Peiper.

There was a Death Camp Commandant, Rudolf Hoess who varied his testimony from having Slaughtering 4,000,000 Jews to the lesser offense of butchering 2,500,000 Jews within Birkenau. Hoess was hanged in Auschwitz for he knew he could, would and did achieve in Hitler’s charge for The Final Solution of the Jewish Question.

“..I commanded Auschwitz until December 1943 and estimate that at least 2,500,000 victims were executed and exterminated there by gassing and burning ..while at least another 500,000  succumbed to starvation and disease ..making a total dead of about 3,000,000.” Rudolf Hoess.

There was an Einsatzgruppe D Commander, Otto Ohlendorf, who by his own admission had commanded the force which Slaughtered 90,000 Jews enroute toward Crimea.

“..I didn’t shoot them. Firing squads did that. I didn’t approve of it.” Otto Ohlendorf.

There was the man charged with the plunder from 6,000,000 Jewish lives, Oswald Pohl. Hanged June 8th. 1951.

“..Hoess ..was commandant at Auschwitz ..employed by ..Reichsfuhrer SS in the final solution of the Jewish question. ..the extermination of Jewry. ..Jews brought to Auschwitz ..were gassed there. ..I ..estimate ..I have talked to Gluecks ..we estimated ..about 3,000,000.” SS Gruppenfuhrer Oswald Pohl.

There was a Jewish expert on The Final Solution, Dieter Wisliceny of the RSHA Office AMT IV A 4 who led Eichmann’s effort in Slovakia.

“..There were 3 distinct periods of activity affecting ..Jews. ..first period covered ..time from 1937 when ..Jewish Section was founded till 1940 ..during which ..policy was to accelerate and compel Jewish emigration from Germany and Austria. Because of this ..Central Office for Jewish Emigration was founded in Vienna and later on a corresponding institution in Prague. After ..victory over France ..Madagascar was contemplated ..but never used ..as a site for ..emigration. ..second period during 1940 and 1941 covered ..concentration of Jews in Poland and eastern territories ..in Ghettos and concentration camps. ..last period ..from beginning 1942 to October 1944 ..covered ..evacuation of Jews from all Germany and German controlled territories to concentration camps and their biological annihilation.” Dieter Wisliceny.

All of whom could be witnesses to the immense atrocity they were a party to and given the voice to add to evidence what the Jewish Survivor could more readily complete. While I constantly point to my own work as a reference point, and my 2nd. Book is an objective disciple; it will inform you of all you need to know. Perhaps too though, and from within their pages, there will be much that will prove distasteful and such is the evidence that there may not be the room to avoid wanting to know about such cruel, brutal and criminal atrocity. The levels of atrocity, such has never been equalled will appear in a bold type script of words to provoke the revulsion such accusation can maintain. Here then is presented a human trash that is der Einsatzgruppe and the Destruction of European Jewry in appalling recognition. Their role is written into an inglorious page, which I define as that unique passage of terror fully inflicted upon the Jews of Europe.

“..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.

My 3rd. Book will inform you on Babi-Yar, a Jewish Catastrophe of the most immense atrocity and why in its wake any leniency is a misguided concept. Here too, and in relation to the interconnection to this singular atrocity detailing 33,771 Jews and Paul Blobel, those of his ilke are many and they forged a presence upon the Jews, so as to deliver them to destruction. All of this surely warrants all manner of rebuke, reproach and the devices of death that should have been applied to them. Now, while we are engaged in retracing the Jewish lost presence, we clearly identify all of those who created this demand. Here, and for me, there can never be any such contention over investigating them at the Nuremberg SS Einsatzgruppen Trial.

“..inspected ..executions ..by EK 11b under ..SS Obersturmbannfuhrer Dr. Werner Braune ..executions by SK 11a under SS Standartenfuhrer Paul Zapp in Nikolaiev ..a smaller execution by SK 10b under ..SS Standartenfuhrer Alois Persterer in Ananev. ..not possible to inspect all mass executions. ..Schubert inspected ..execution ..EK 11b under Braune’s direction ..December 1941 ..Simferopol. ..I ..assigned ..Schubert ..Willi Seibert ..Hans Gabel.” Otto Ohlendorf.

With commanders of individual Einsatzgruppe like Erich Naumann or Otto Ohlendorf, there were adequate Death sentences while Heinz Jost served barely his 10 year sentence. Then there are the individual Einsatz and SonderKommando, those like Paul Blobel and Werner Braune whose Death sentences did not benefit from any reprieve. But, when we recognise that those like Walter Blume, Walter Haensch, Gustav Nosske, Heinz Schubert, Willy Seibert, Franz Six and Eugene Steimle were given jail sentences, or worse still, were reprieved. So many of the very guilty were not even indicted let alone tried and convicted for the most systematic Slaughter ever envisaged by a civilised society and against a People purely because they were a Jewish People.

“..June ..Heydrich ..and Streckenbach ..lectured on ..duties of ..Einsatzgruppe. ..we were already being instructed about ..tasks of exterminating ..Jews. ..Eastern Jewry was ..intellectual reservoir of Bolshevism and ..must be exterminated. ..speech ..given before a ..select audience. ..individuals present ..Einsatzgruppe ..chiefs were present. ..I heard another speech by Heydrich in ..Prinz Albrecht Palace in Berlin ..he again emphasized these points.” Walter Blume.

Here, justice does appear to be somewhat slanted as all of these criminals were excessively engaged in the same ritual Slaughter that was applied to as many as 2,000,000 East European Jews. That this resolve was an assured and efficient aktionen, it does not wrest well with any lenient clemency that secured a future life for them. That they consistently denied a life to those Jews who fell under their murderous rage does not expect other than their complete destruction. Who then amongst these is the most guilty or more likely to have been the least innocent. In their sentencing to death or the lack of their leniency toward so many Jews, their own right to a so called clemency was most certainly undeserved. I end here with the words of the Judge Musmanno whose own conviction was a moving away from the Death Penalty.

“..Nuremberg might well have been the home of ..Nazis ..but it was also its grave.” Michael Angelo Musmanno.



My Wish to Write

Uncategorised Posted on Tue, January 31, 2023 23:19:05

“..gravest aspect they find themselves inserted in an unknown environment ..among hostile companions ..leaders whose characters they do not know. .. Man’s capacity to dig himself in ..create a shell ..a tenuous barrier of defence ..is astonishing and merits ..serious study. ..one manages to gain a certain equilibrium ..a degree of security ..a nest.” Primo Levi.

Levi, Primo. If This Is A Man. (1960)

I have always been a writer or at least I always wanted to write. My Mom was an astute and clever and wise Woman. I was in real trouble. Unable to process the grief over the personal loss of so many. An Aunt, Grandad, Dad and both Sister’s in the space of a few months. And I was still only a Child, ill equipped to understand it all.

“…silence grew oppressive SS officer had come in and ..with him ..odour if ..Angel of Death. ..A ..man ..with crime inscribed upon his brow and in ..pupils of his eyes. He looked us over as if we were a pack of leprous dogs hanging on to our lives.” Elie Wiesel.

Wiesel, Elie. Night. (1960)

But Mom gave me Books to read and distract my attention as I found solace in the works to escape with. Also, I carefully noted all those I had read, and still wished to find to read, in a little Red Notebook. Therein lay the first stirrings of a literary release. Years later, when I took up the courage to send in a manuscript of a novel, all my effort I honestly thought would produce, was merely a worthy read.

“..Traffic in ..Umschlagplatz was increasing. More and more columns of Jews ….rounded up from ..shop areas ..driven through ..gate in Gesia Street ..down Zamenhof ..to where they were loaded into ..cattle cars. ..Toward evening trucks began to line up in Niska Street ..loaded with ..contents of ..Werterfassung Waterhouse’s. ..Jews working on ..double ..prodded ..driven by SS. ..When ..last truck had gone ..two SS ..conducted ..working party to ..Umschlagplatz ..while ..remainder set fire to ..buildings. That night we were surrounded on all sides by burning buildings.” Alexander Donat.

Donat, Alexander. The Holocaust Kingdom. (1963)

Of course, too many Editors disagreed with my own assessment. There was a slight comeback though, and from one who sensed my need. From my less than fomented grief and perhaps my resolve, there was a chink of light. I was pointed toward the image of Tovah Olshak, a 4 year old Child.

“..Corpses were burned in huge incineration pits ..Old Crematory ..unequal to ..job  ..speedy construction of four large gas chambers and crematories was ordered  and on June 28th. 1943 ..Sturmbannfuhrer Bischoff ..chief of ..building section of .. Auschwitz Waffen SS reported that with ..last Crematory built ..camp had a daily capacity of 4,756 cremations. ..many more could be killed per day. Each of ..two larger gas chambers could accommodate 3,000 persons. ..human fat served as supplementary fuel. ..stench of burning flesh blanketed ..countryside for miles ..dark ..fatty smoke wafted across ..sky.” Bernd Naumann.

Neumann, Bernd. Auschwitz. (1966)

A Jewish girl, Tovah, who was already a Survivor, but for whom hate filled Poles would not let live, became my deep concern. With this sudden realisation, it was somewhat of a catalyst for me. It was also an input into my previous historical study. All of this, which proved cathartic in many ways, has given me an insight in human matters which disregards humanity.

“..question continues to oppress us ..how could a man with ..poor baggage of deranged ideas and prejudices become Chancellor of Germany. How was it possible that a state whose people and culture ranked high in ..worlds civilization should have entrusted it’s fate to this deluded man who believed ..he had been chosen to lead ..war against ..Jews. ..no single theory can ..explain Hitler’s ..success with ..German people. .. mesmerized ..they responded to his message. ..their moral sense ..with regard to ..Jews ..had become atrophied under ..effect of generations of virulent anti-Semitism. Had ..German people already become mithridatised by anti-Semitic poison ..so that they had become immune to Hitler’s deadly brand. Was it because he spoke for them.” Lucy S. Dawidowicz.

Dawidowicz, Lucy S. The War Against the Jews. (1973)

25 years later, and I add letters to words so as to string sentences together for all of 6,000,000 very and now personal reasons. I had begun my research, and studied and searched for about a further 4 years.

“..These Men ..Women ..seeing ..their fate ..shortly to be sealed ..began to make ..different preparations. No longer counting on ..mercy of ..Germans ..fought to survive in spite of them. ..A veritable underground ghetto sprang up in ..Warsaw sewer system. ..Jewish resistance gradually took shape. ..deportations continued ..only 40,000 Jews remained in ..ghetto at ..beginning of 1943. But now ..implacable SS were no longer ..only masters in ..ghetto ..another power had appeared ..Jewish Combat Organisation.” Leon Poliakov.

Poliakov, Leon. Harvest of Hate. (1979)

I read copious an amount of Books on The Holocaust theme. Contacted Survivors, Scholars, fellow historians. All the while I gathered an insatiable appetite for those words being relayed by those who knew what evidences I was searching for.

“..July 4th. 1941 ..restrictions ..decrees ..imposed upon ..Jews of Vilna. .. Simultaneously ..mass exterminations ..by Einsatsatzkommando 9 .. strengthened by Lithuanian units began. ..Wehrmacht ..assisted ..Einsatzgruppe .. extermination actions. ..Order stated ..in ..area of army operations ..SS ..assigned special missions pursuant to ..order of ..Fuhrer.” Yitzhak Arad.

Arad, Yitzhak. Ghetto in Flames. (1982)

There were those who were affected immediately by the Catastrophe. Then there were some like me, steadily adding to the incomprehensible nature of the hatred. This recurring theme of antisemitism, which so delivered 6,000,000 Jews into oblivion, wrenched at my very being. The longest of hatreds has proved a long reach and can ensure a non-Jewish response is essential.

“..commandant is annoyed. A young Jew had ..effrontery to run away. ..But ..a Jew ..may not run away. ..commandant is remorseless. As a reprisal ..scores of others ..sent on ..transport ..including quite a few who had thought they were firmly at anchor here. This system happens to believe in collective punishment. ..planes overhead couldn’t have helped ..commandants mood ..a subject in which he prefers to keep his own counsel.” Etty Hillesum.

Hillesum, Etty. Letters from Westerbork. (1983)

My Library is an exhaustive one, though hardly exhausted, as the requirement grew so has the need for more books has greatly expanded. So I have continually sought newer works to add to those I have recommended. For those writers best suited to our learning. I mention here, Alexander, Anne, Arad, Bernd, Elie, Etty, Leon, Lucy, Primo, Shmuel and Yisrael.

“..18th. May 1942. ..threat grows ever greater ..terror increases from day to day. I draw prayer round me like a dark protective wall ..withdraw inside it as one might into a convent cell and then step outside again ..calmer ..stronger ..more collected again. I can imagine times to come when I shall stay on my knees for days on end waiting until ..protective walls are strong enough to prevent my going to pieces altogether ..my being lost and utterly devastated.” Etty Hillesum.

Hillesum, Etty. A Diary 1941 – 1943. (1983)

These Books I have searched through, and all have offered me newer works to look through. My own Library’s content is for me to explore so as to lend to you all there is needed to know. I personally feel that these books are exceptional in the field of our search. I realised in those early days, there was an impassioned plea. The request went to the incongruous nature of the horror that I could all too readily envisage.

“..Jews who survived ..1942 deportations.. established armed organisations. ..resistance in ..event of ..liquidation. ..Serious armed resistance organizations ..set up in 5 major Ghetto ..Warsaw ..Wilno ..Bialystok, Cracow .. Czestochowa as well as ..45 other ghetto ..Breslaw ..Swieciany ..Lida ..Mir ..Stolpce ..Zdzieciol ..Grodno ..Nieswiecz ..Molczadz ..Kleck ..Baranowicze ..Slonim ..Dereczyn ..Krynki ..Lachwa ..Kobryn ..Brzesc ..Kamien-Koszyrski ..Poborsk ..Tuczyn ..Luck ..Zdolbunow ..Krzemieniec ..Brody ..Lwow ..Jaworow ..Brzezany ..Buczacz ..Borszczow ..Horodenka ..Rohatyn ..Miedzyrzec ..Podlaski ..Radzyn ..Zelechow ..Rzeszow ..Tarnow ..Bochnia ..Dzialoszyce ..Sandomierz ..Radom ..Pilica ..Bedzin ..Sosnowiec ..Opatow and Wlodawa. ..in ..extermination camps ..Sobibor ..Treblinka .. Auschwitz..concentration camps ..Plaszow ..Lwow-Janowska ..Jewish POW camp ..Lublin ..18 forced labour camps ..Kielce ..Skarzysko-Kamienna ..Ostriwiec ..Swietotkzryski ..Kruszyna ..Minsk ..Mazowiecki ..Budzyn ..Krasnik ..Sasow..Stryj ..Kamionka ..Hancewicze ..Koldyczewo ..Dworzec ..Swiezna ..Iwie ..Wilejka ..Kureniec and Biala-Waka.” Yisrael Gutman and Shmuel Krakowski.

Gutman, Yisrael. Unequal Victims. (with Shmuel Krakowski.) (1986)

Many of these works were established, even prior to the commencement of my research. One of these too was by Etty Hillesum. At first I couldn’t even finish her work, somehow stubbornly holding her back from the devastation that awaited and consumed her. I was well aware too that these 6,000,000 Jews were well short of an historical appreciation of their predicament. It is clear that the Jews instigated so many resistances, all contrary to many narratives and upon a wider scale than has been usually admitted to. My effort then is in ensuring All truth is truthfully given and in a more complete and rounded way.

“..Saturday 20th. June 1942 ..I want to write ..but more than that ..I want to bring out all kinds of things that lie buried deep in my heart. ..paper is more patient than man. ..there is no doubt ..paper is patient.” Anne Frank.

Frank, Anne. Diary of A Young Girl. (1995)



Auschwitz Did Not Liberate the Jewish People.

Uncategorised Posted on Fri, January 27, 2023 20:56:05
                                      The Holocaust

                                               is

                                      The Final Solution

                                                of

                                    The Jewish Question.

“.. Auschwitz ..is a monument to remind humanity ..there once was a nation full of clever ..educated ..disciplined ..methodical people. And ..these people planned and put into effect The Final Solution ..plan to systematically eliminate ..a whole people.” Erika Kounio Amariglio.

It is essential, in reading all we seek to learn, that we appreciate the human despair for the Jewish Parents. Within the confines of the Death Camps, the Jewish Children were coerced to their demise by consoling Family, seeking to ease their distress. The testimony of Filip Mueller provides evidence of exactly what SS voss sought in Birkenau.

“..do you want to make your Children’s last moments needlessly distressing. (SS peter voss).” Filip Mueller.

From 1939 until 1945 Poland existed as a suppressed nation. In that time 3,000,000 of Polish Jewry were sought out from their Nation and were ritually Slaughtered. A further 3 million other Poles were likewise killed, or were Murdered or otherwise died of neglect and hunger. All of this is as a consequence of Hitler’s intervention into Polish sovereign territory.

“..daily ..life was becoming more and more difficult. ..more we were oppressed ..more energy we Jews seemed to have ..always ..will to live found its expression.” Kitty Hart.

For all too many Poles, who escaped and sought to save their national identity, and who died for Poland, no prefix nor suffix given over to the liberation of their beloved Country, Poland, can negate the place of Poland within Europe, occupied or not. For Kitty Hart, from Bielsko, Poland, she identified with where she belonged and recognises in her statement, I am Alive, Auschwitz nor Birkenau had managed to detain her permanently.

“..I heard a baby crying. ..I couldn’t stop and look. ..it smelled ..a horrible stench. ..things in ..fire were moving ..there were babies in ..fire ” Alexander Ehrmann.

On this day January 27th. 1945, the forces of Russia liberated the Auschwitz and Birkenau Death Camp. This was not the liberation of an extermination facility, the SS had already sought to dismantle its capability as a killing centre. This was merely a military objective seeking to roll back Hitler’s long lost Weltanschauung. What had been a World view, included the extermination of All Jews within Europe.

“.at Auschwitz..we endeavoured to fool ..victims ..they were going through a delousing process. ..Women would hide their Children. ..when we found them we would send ..Children in to be exterminated ” SS rudolf hoess.

Let us be clear here, Hoess was ever boastful but accurately proud of his endeavour in delivering for Hitler what hitler expected. While we know full well the capacity to annihilate the Jews of Europe within Birkenau was hugely significant, we are aware that the will to comply and achieve all that could be managed in relation to destroying the Jews of Europe was both a capable and administrative certainty.

“”..I commanded Auschwitz until 1 December 1943 ..and estimate that at least 2,500,000 victims were executed and exterminated there by gassing and burning ..and at least another 500,000 succumbed to starvation and disease making a total dead of about 3,000,000. This figure represents about 70 % or 80 % of all persons sent to Auschwitz as prisoners ..remainder having been selected and used for slave labour in ..concentration camp industries. ..highest number of gassings in one day was 10,000. ..most that could be carried out in a day with ..available facilities.” SS rudolf hoess.

According to Hoess’s boast here, it would take merely 250 days of operation to destroy the 2,500,000 Jews he suggests here.So we are at the threshold of the liberation of all of Europe, from the tyranny imposed by Hitler. None of which had the Jews as an end goal. As we read of the horror to face the Jews at the doorway to extinction, Birkenau offered no reprieve to any hidden, or otherwise, Jewish Child. Nothing was considered by the Allies to stem the flow of Jewish blood shed here at Birkenau, nor at its parent camp, Auschwitz. The Jews were to be a distraction to the war effort

“..I lived through Birkenau without ever understanding how any members of a civilised nation could indulge in such wickedness.” Kitty Hart-Moxon.

The liberation here too was merely a military expedient, an exercise along the route toward forcing Hitler out of power. There are so many Books which open up a pathway toward an understanding we will always find infernally incomprehensible. Twenty years after it was first published, I came across Filip Mueller’s evidenced based book, Eyewitness Auschwitz. 1999 then became a crucial moment in my research of The Holocaust.

“..As ..end draws near ..I remember our dear one. If you meet them again ..tell them I kiss them a 1,000 times ..my beloved Sister ..my Brother and Olinka ..Max ..Lydia ..Danecek and Lianka. ..May they fight courageously for our freedom and revenge innocent blood of their dear ones.” Elly Kulka.

My mind screams, and all too often, and as I am echoing the sounds of a Child’s terror and immense agony, I recognise, there is nothing I can do. So I write these words to console others who must feel as we should, there is nothing we can do but feel. Others, who placed the Jewish Child in harm’s way, should have done more than crush their own moral conscience.

“..during all ..time I lived in Prague unsure if anyone ..asked ..what ..happened in Auschwitz. ..a lack of interest or ..taboo.” Rudolf Vrba.

I was continually recognising, in words written by a Survivor, that I too had an opportunity to learn of an unspeakable crime, always to be heard. Now I could relate the horror, and of that terror, bring it forward for others. I had always been troubled by the realisation that Jewish Children were so consigned to such terror, the horror impacts upon me still.

“..Children started to cry. ..Father’s ..Mother’s lifted them up to comfort them. ..People understood ..resistance was useless. hesitating ..not knowing what to do. ..there was .. SS ..there were ..dogs. ..they must submit. ..Who can tell whether they ..still ..clung to ..a ..last hope ..a miracle might happen. ..death is always inconceivable.” Filip Mueller.

I have always tried to appreciate the hope a Parent engendered in the Child of their deepest concern. I could never appreciate that there could be such terms required so as to sustain the Jewish People from extermination. But hope was eternally served up with such atrocities they were so inconceivable, until they were terminal. The Jews in Auschwitz were given no reason to hope, and yet faith was present for them.

“..Why did they not drop their bombs on that horrible tomb. ..They could have wrecked ..SS barracks ..ramps ..crematoriums ..roads ..rail track. Why didn’t they.” Alfred Wetzler.

In every sinew of what had brought the Jews through 5,000 years of calamity, they faced a finality they could not comprehend. Here though, in places unlike any other, Death Camp Birkenau was the terminating effort. It was in any event so devastating, that hope was replaced by gas and life was so diminished, because it was a Jewish life. The Holocaust now recognises that very diminished Jewish, but lost presence, is to us the detained absence of 6,000,000 Jewish lives.

“..lamentations for ..Jews in Europe has not subsided in 50 years.” Leon Weliczker-Wells.

Remember here, Leon Weliczker-Wells had been through the murder mill of Auschwitz. Leon affords us a further search for his Shattered Faith. Having lost so much, and far too many, how could any Jew, like Leon, ever restore to faith all that has been smashed, decimated and destroyed. It is against all the odds that the Surviving Jew does so. And remarkably.

“..Death Camps ..all of them erected in ..Poland ..served one purpose ..physical and total extermination of Jewish People.” Yitzhak Arad.

Arad was speaking principally here of The Aktion Reinhard Death Camps, but we recognise that within all Death Camps, they were designed as such, and within Poland specifically, for the eradication of the Jews within Poland and then Europe. Also clear after the final resolve was met by the destroyed Jews, there is then the intention to gain profitably from such a process.

On January 27th. 1945 the Russian forces from the 322nd Rifle Division liberate Auschwitz and Birkenau. The remaining Jewish prisoners, those left behind to die, amount to some 7,000 who are eventually liberated, and along with many non-Jews, suffer a debilitating death from the care and concern they were now to receive.

“..accompanied ..driver Hoeblinger. A transport ..from Holland and ..prisoners had to jump from ..wagons. ..well off Jews. ..women with Persian furs. ..arrived by express train. ..trucks ..already there ..people climbed aboard. ..In ..place Birkenau once stood ..farmhouse and ..four or five big huts. Inside ..people were standing. ..bringing children now. ..opened ..door ..threw ..children in ..closed ..door. ..a terrible cry. ..people went on crying for about ten minutes. ..prisoners opened ..doors. ..disorder ..contorted. Heat ..given off. ..bodies ..loaded on a rough wagon ..taken to a ditch. ..next batch ..already undressing in ..huts. After that I didn’t look at my wife for four weeks.” SS richard boeck.

We realise too that what the Jewish People managed to bring with them to these gates of hell, was no longer theirs. What these Jews did not realise, and who had already been removed from everyhting they had understood as life, all that was then left behind, all of their worldly goods, this too had gained newer ownership. As the extermination schedule escalated, particularly in line with what Hungarian Jewry was presented with, all was to augur well for the future prosperity of much of Europe.

“..January 27th. 2017 ..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. The President of Romania.



Auschwitz into Birkenau

Uncategorised Posted on Sat, December 10, 2022 16:23:16

Auschwitz and Birkenau.

“..I commanded Auschwitz until 1 December 1943 ..and estimate that at least 2,500,000 victims were executed and exterminated there by gassing and burning ..and at least another 500,000 succumbed to starvation and disease making a total dead of about 3,000,000. This figure represents about 70 % or 80 % of all persons sent to Auschwitz as prisoners ..remainder having been selected and used for slave labour in ..concentration camp industries.” SS Obersturmbannfuhrer Rudolf Hoess.

In my writing, the essential for me is in knowing that there are 6,000,000 Jewish People, and more Jews than we have assessed, who are The Holocaust. It is also to be recognized, in the very need to ensure balance, that we recall what was not done and should have been done to save all, more or even some of these Jews and that this is clearly recognized. All, as we will learn, was in preparation for what will be presented to the Jews as they entered the Schloss at Chelmno and the Camp at Auschwitz and its deadly Sister Death Camp at Birkenau. These, and ahead of the further 4 Death Camps to become established to deliver The Final Solution of The Jewish Question, they all marked the progression of entire Jewish Community’s toward extinction. Prior to all of this though, and their first and foremost lessons taken from the T4 operation are moved out into the field, widened in atrocity and delivered in a catastrophe for the Jewish People on an immeasurable scale. Within places like the Euthanasia institutes of Bernburg, Grafeneck, Hademar, Hartheim or Sonnenstein, where both Gassing and Cremation were to be learned, and practices were being honed to lend themselves to what Hitler deemed the Jewish Question. These murderous institutions were in operation well in advance of World War II, these institutes were then taken and opened out and into the whole Camp system.

“..2 Doctors gave ..final word whether a patient should be gassed or not.”  Pauline Kneissler.

The eugenics of lessening the concern for many Peoples was commenced, and with their sterilisation, their progeny was erased. Here in 1933, while processing the dismantling of humanity, none of this ceased while the murderous detail was to be enacted. Hitler’s physicians, and I use that term accusingly, also entered the fray and enacted the most bestial experiments upon People for no other reason than they could. Progressing these intentions, and during the Spring of 1939, plans were drawn up for a mobile oil fired crematorium for the concentration camp at Buchenwald which would lead steadily and incrementally toward the bypassing of Auschwitz for Birkenau. So I am nearing the proposition for The Death Camp system and so let me propose what we know of the escalating terms for Concentration Camp at Auschwitz leading to the extermination facility that is, the Death Camp at Birkenau. While the Concentration and Labour Camp Auschwitz was not designed as the industrial and mechanized Slaughter House for the Jews of Europe, just down the road, Birkenau was! What is clear, these two sites were sought out from the entire Camp system to ensure not just the Jews of Poland, and then Europe, would be extinguished within them, but much of civilised society and its humanity were detained within them.

“..accompanied ..driver Hoeblinger. A transport ..from Holland and ..prisoners had to jump from ..wagons. ..well off Jews. ..women with Persian furs. ..arrived by express train. ..trucks ..already there ..people climbed aboard. ..In ..place Birkenau once stood ..farmhouse and ..four or five big huts. Inside ..people were standing. ..bringing children now. ..opened ..door ..threw ..children in ..closed ..door. ..a terrible cry. ..people went on crying for about ten minutes. ..prisoners opened ..doors. ..disorder ..contorted. Heat ..given off. ..bodies ..loaded on a rough wagon ..taken to a ditch. ..next batch ..already undressing in ..huts. After that I didn’t look at my wife for four weeks.”  SS Schutze Richard Boeck.

Initially though, Auschwitz would prove to be a deadly reception centre for political opponents from within Poland and then Russian POW’s, once Hitler’s Weltanschauung had fully turned East. Here, when the Camp became an ostensibly Russian detention centre for 10’s of 1,000’s of these captured Russians, they would find existence curtailed here. All too many of them, left to die in disease and from the malnutrition imposed upon them by the Camp administration, their number expired without concern, accounting nor recognition. Also, and it would be envisioned within an extended range of sub-Camps, there was an accommodation of efforts for German industry and industrialists. In November 1939, when Topf and Sons installed a double muffle crematoria in Dachau there was a precedent being set that would catapult 1,000,000’s of Jews into a view of the past blurred by their absence. Here we are at the genesis of the Concentration Camp of Auschwitz and more particularly, the Death Camp at Birkenau. This then fed the many sub-Camps, industrial hubs and enterprises all feeding the coffers of Hitler, the Reich, the SS and the Waffen SS, and all within the vicinity of the area of Oswiecim. This burgeoning scale of atrocity all begins on January 25th. 1940 and though in containment operation since 1939, Oswiecim turns Auschwitz into a name synonymous with hatred, debauchery, brutality, excess and the atrocity of such a catastrophe Genocide rquired its newer term, The Holocaust.

“..completed furnaces have been started up in ..presence of Engineer Prufer ..Topf. ..planks cannot yet be moved from ..ceiling of ..mortuary cellar on account of frost ..but this is not important ..as ..gassing cellar can be used for that purpose. ..ventilation plant has been held up by restrictions on rail transport ..but ..installation should be ready by February 20th.” SS Sturmbannfuhrer Karl Bischoff.

This Camp system then is chosen as the site of the vast Concentration Camp complex for the business of Jewish Slaughter and to ensure the larcenous intent and immoral practices of German industry is well catered for. Of course, the ideology of race superiority is somewhat suspended by the immense demands and the lucrative nature of the vast booty to be gained from destroying the Jews from within Europe and in the Death Camps of which Birkenau proved industrially efficient. With that recognition of the status of Birkenau within the sphere of the Death Camp system, we are asked to recognise that on Saturday April 27th. 1940:

“..Jews are enemies just as ..Germans are ..but in a more insidious way ..and ..are linked together by secret and evil bonds.” H. F. Downie.

and SS Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler issues a directive which establishes Auschwitz Concentration Camp, SS Gruppenfuhrer Richard Gluecks then hands overall charge of the Camp to Hoess. What we learn from the British Foreign Office official, H.F. Downie, who argues that the Jewish People are to be treated just as the Germans should be, and as enemies, the loss to the Jewish Community is being weighted with a certain prejudice that pervaded the era. In fact, this is very much to become the prevailing state of British feelings, and all too many other nations, toward the very catastrophe awakening for the Jews of Europe. That said, and while the purpose built annihilation centre that is Birkenau did not escape the attention of those seeking to profit from the Slaughter of those Jews yet to be brought toward it, wealth added itself to many of those states degraded of their own Jewish People. The whole World became entirely blinded by what appeared outside the doors of Poland’s citizens, as at the door to each of these installations and particularly Auschwitz and Birkenau, much was to be seen that could be heard and the stench permeated and settled for miles around.

“..When somebody asks what their fate will be ..he explains that ..men will of course have to work ..building streets and houses. ..women will not have to work. If they want ..they can help in ..house or ..kitchen. A little glimmer of hope flickers once more in some of these poor people ..enough to make them march unresisting into ..death chambers. ..most of them understand what is happening ..smell reveals their fate! Then they climb up a little staircase ..see ..truth. Nursing mothers with an infant at ..breast ..naked ..many children of all ages ..naked. They hesitate ..but they enter ..death chambers ..most of them silent ..forced on by those behind them ..who are driven by ..whip lashes of ..SS men. A Jewish woman of about 40 ..with flaming eyes ..calls down ..revenge ..for ..blood of her children on ..head of ..murderers. ..Wirth in person strikes her in ..face 5 times with his whip ..she disappears into ..gas chamber.” SS Obersturmfuhrer Kurt Gerstein.

Remember too that Birkenau was one of only 6 such Death Camps erected, and purposefully so, and then with purpose specifically within Poland. Here in Birkenau, in this single factory of death, more than 17% of all Jews Slaughtered in The Holocaust are detained here. This figure rises to more than 30% if we are to accept what Hoess himself has stated, and then only if we then accept that the Slaughter of 6,000,000 Jews of Europe is as accurate an assessment as we have as yet failed to detail correctly. Here then, and within Birkenau the remains of the vast majority of those who are the 1,100,000 Jews Slaughtered have been systematically destroyed. These Jewish People in particular are all being added to The Holocaust term they have been consigned to. These Jews will be steadily degraded, fully disintegrated and wholly destroyed within the Death Factory that is Birkenau. All of this, of course, added to the collective of what The Final Solution of the Jewish Question was established for.

“..General Government would welcome it if a start were to be made on ..final solution of this question in ..General Government ..here transportation does not pose a real problem nor would ..deployment of a labor force interfere with ..process of this operation Jews should be removed from ..area of ..General Government as quickly as possible ..it is here that ..Jew represents a serious danger as a carrier of epidemics ..and in addition his incessant black marketeering constantly upsets ..country’s economic structure. Of ..approximately 2,500,000 Jews in question ..majority are anyway unfit for work.” Dr. Philipp Buhler.

As these Jews were assembled, separated and then eradicated, all that they had left in the World fed the coffers of Hitler’s ideological idea, with the larceny of intent that meant much more than has ben admitted to. It is quite compelling then, and somewhat objectionable, that the separation of the two realms, mass murder and extortionate wealth in both sites. What was then fused into one of the most lucrative and wealthy enterprises must convey us along for the purpose of illuminating the way toward the victimhood experienced. Why is it then that the Auschwitz Museum does insist upon the uneven approach to those other individuals whose place in the Camp was not as it was for the Jewish People’s. For the Jews, their complete annihilation was the only intention for their removal to Birkenau.

“..Although ..first Jews were taken to ..camp as early as ..Summer of 1940 ..at that time they could not develop a resistance movement due to ..especially brutal treatment and extreme mortality.” Adam Cyra.

As we move chronlogically through the processes, on April 29th. 1940 Hoess and his staff arrive at Auschwitz from Sachsenhausen and then, during May 1940 there was the first convoy of 300 Oswiecim Jews to the Camp. Many Jewish leaders from the surrounding areas and those of the Ausserordentliche Befriedungsaktion, Hans Franks AB Aktion, are also dispatched to Auschwitz. In June 1940 a double muffler at Auschwitz future proofed the Cremation process gleaned from the T4 process and various Camps applying themselves to the destruction of People. On June 14th. 1940 the first major transport with 728 of prisoner’s and Jewish Intelligentsia, from the Shtetl’s within Galicia, Nowy Sacz, Nowy Targ, Rzeszow, and many others including the major Town of Tarnow. Dr. Yitzhak Holzer, Dr. Maximilian Rozenbush, Yakov Schwartz and Dr. Emil Wider are amongst the many Jewish Intelligentsia who arrive at Auschwitz and are amongst the first victims of Auschwitz. The Town of Tarnow had been under German occupation since September 8th. 1939 and the Jews of the Town were under immediate threat.

“..flames could be seen from 15 or 20  kilometres ..people knew ..human beings were being burned there.”  Adolf Bartelmes. (Polish rail worker

The Polish rail worker Adolf Bartlemes fixes what Poland knew of the awareness around the Death Camps and emerges as the rail link between the Jews of Tarnow, and a myriad of other places, reach their destruction at Auschwitz. What is fully awakened, to what possibility’s arose for Hitler’s plans for the Jews of Europe is a direct line from the Centres of Jewish Existence to the Centres for Jewish extinction. The return link here too was also made, though few returned alive, and with the Tarnow Jewish Community paying for the Ashes of their murdered Relatives, Friends and Community, returned in sealed containers, everything of the Jews had a price to be paid and by the Jews themselves. Tarnow fully became Judenrein after the end of the War when it became ever more dangerous for the Survivng Polish Jew to remain in their own Community here.

On June 14th. 1940 “..You have not come to a sanitorium here but ..a German ..camp and ..only way out is through ..chimney of .. crematorium. If someone does not like it ..they can go straight to ..wires. If Jews are in ..transport ..they have ..right to live for no more than 2 weeks.” SS  Hauptsturmfuhrer Karl Fritzsch.

From August 15th. 1940 Crematorium I began it’s operation and on August 28th. 1940 Auschwitz, along with Buchenwald, Flossenburg, Majdanek, Natzweiler, Neuengamme and Stutthof are designated rehabilitation Camps, Class II. On March 1st. 1941 Himmler visits Auschwitz and outlines the plans for the expansion of the Auschwitz Camps as construction of Birkenau begins. Hoess is immediately notified of Hitler’s plans to annihilate the entire Jewish Population of Europe. On August 31st. 1941 Zyklon ‘B’ is first used in Auschwitz against 250 Jewish Infirm and 600 Russian POW’s. Zyklon ‘B’ proves the method of murder of Millions of Jews in 2 of the Death Camps, Birkenau and Majdanek and even in some of the other Concentration Camps.

“.. Blobel ..authorized to ..obliterate all ..mass graves. His department ..1005 ..work ..carried out by ..Jews ..shot after each section of ..work ..completed. Auschwitz ..continuously called upon to provide Jews for 1005.” SS Obersturmbannfuhrer Rudolf Hoess.

On July 17th. 1942 Himmler tours Auschwitz again and witnesses his first ‘Gassings’ in Birkenau and departs Auschwitz the following day. On September 21st. 1942 ‘Sonderkommando 1005’ arrived at Birkenau to dispose of the evidence of 107,000 Jewish bodies who had been previously buried in mass murders which seemingly bore no consquences. It is clear though that the evidence of such an ideological imperative cannot be foundered upon the truth. That truth, of such a genocide being clearly exposed would have opened Hitler to a truth still being argued over, as mass murderer of the worst order.

On Monday November 30th. 1942 “..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.

In batches of 10’s of 1,000’s weekly, even daily, Jews are arriving at the ramp to Birkenau and are destroyed immediately upon arrival. The list of those Community’s plundered of its Jewish Citizens is so exhaustive, their number remains incalculable, even when we are close to identifying each and every one of these pillaged community’s. On March 19th. 1944 Hitler commands his forces to occupy all of Hungary, and immediately, with some 800,000 of Hungarian Jewry facing Hitler’s immediate and Final Solution, the lines to Birkenau are expected to be targeted by the Allies to prevent all and any future transports.

On Friday April 7th. 1944 “..Cautious estimate of ..number of ..Jews gassed ..Birkenau ..April 1942 ..April 1944 by Country of origin ..Poland   

..transported by truck        300,000 Jews

..transported by train        600,000 Jews

Holland                                  100,000 Jews

Greece                                     45,000 Jews

France                                    150,000 Jews

Belgium                                   50,000 Jews

Germany                                  60,000 Jews

Yugoslavia}

Italy}

Norway}                                  50,000 Jews

Lithuania                                 50,000 Jews

Bohemia}

Moravia}

Austria}                                    30,000 Jews

Solvakia                                   30,000 Jews

Camps for foreign

Jews in Poland                     300,000 Jews

Total                                   1,765,000 Jews.”  The Auschwitz Protocols.

Here we add to a major concern and with that, the truth for both Auschwitz and Birkenau will come down to who we believe. Whether that is Hoess and his evidence, bolstered by Fritzsch, or countered by a multiple of experts, Rudolf Vrba and Alfred ‘Walter Rosenberg’ Wetzler, all competing to assert how many Jews over the 1,100,000 were actually Slaughtered here. In looking more certainly at the evidence of The Auschwitz Protocols, we still must come to terms with what the Slaughter of Hungarian Jewry adds to this. There are a further 502,491 Jews, now suggesting that 2,267,491 Jews, and this approaching somewhere to what Hoess has led us to believe was the final accounting within Birkenau. As we continue to search in earnest for the factual integrity of a truth that exists, evidences compete against each other. The truth, for both Auschwitz and Birkenau will come down to who we choose to believe despite the facts being measured by subjective reasoning.

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

Whether that assessment is Hoess and his evidence, bolstered by Fritzsch, or countered by a multiple of experts competing to assert how many Jews over the 1,100,000 were actually Slaughtered here, we continue to search in earnest for the factual integrity of a truth that exists. In order to be heard too, it is essential that all, or as much of, the truth is made available so as to discern a more accurate certainty. As we know, no certainty will avail itself of our need, and not just to know how and why but who all of these Jews are. On February 26th. 1943 the first Gypsy transport arrives at Birkenau BIIe, a fairly small group which included just a couple of Men with Women and Children. They were sectioned off from the other inmates in the Zigeunerlager. Eventually Lalleri, Medvashi, Roma and Sinti would wind their way toward this Gypsy Camp where eventually some 21,000 Gypsies died, and were even Gassed within Birkenau.

“..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. ..400,000 Slave Labourers were gradually degraded till they could persist no longer and added finally to ..total number of those Jews and others Gassed or otherwise Murdered. That stated ..we assess that of ..1,100,000 who were Murdered from all 1,300,000 deported to ..Camp ..some 900,000 Jews were Gassed immediately or otherwise murdered in ..camp. Of ..400,000 of those registered for Slave Labour ..200,000 died or were otherwise Murdered. These included some 100,000 Jews ..64,000 Poles ..21,000 Gypsies ..14,000 Russian POW’s and a further 10,000 other nationals.”  Auschwitz State Museum.

The Gypsy experience, and the difference of their treatment though, is not simply in the fact of their demise. The establishment of the Zigeunerlager Camp, within the Death Camp at Birkenau, was not conditional on the immediate extermination of those Gypsies assigned to it. The Auschwitz Museum knows this and as it became the camp within the camp, it was in existence until it was erased in July 1944. Essentially, and for a period of 17 months, during which European Jewry was being decimated here, Gypsies formed the Family group and were saved from extinction, even protected from what raged against the Jews, albeit for that 17 month period only. On Tuesday December 7th. 1943 a Convoy, Convoi 64, set out from Drancy with some 1,000 Jewish Men, Women and Their Children on board. As we progress these Jewish People toward extinction, we are clear that the fate of others was left to the vagaries of a system which has destroyed People with impunity.

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

Here though, this resettlement destination was to be Birkenau where the vast majority of these Jews were not selected for life, as well as some 1,100,000 other Jews. Aboard this particular Convoi were some 156 Jewish Children, of which there were 79 Jewish Boys and 77 were Jewish Girls. Amongst these, and accompanying the Jewish Children, were Suzanne Berenstam 20 years of age, her Brother Maurice aged 20 years, their Sister Frida and 2 other’s of their Siblings. Tauba Fischer was 35 years of age and she was transported with her 4 Children. Fanny Gutwirth was 20 years of age when she was transported with her 2 Sisters. Dora Haimowitch was 91 years of age when she was transported. Lea Itic was 20 years of age and she was transported with her 3 Siblings. Raymond Raoul Lambert aged 49 and his Wife Simone aged 39 with their 4 Children. Chaja Wiesenfeld was 30 years and departed with her young Twins.

“..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.

On Saturday December 10th. 1943, while I can state with confidence that none of these Jewish Children forming this Convoi who are named here managed to Survive the selection process. We just don’t know exactly the extent of the immediate desolation of all of the 1,000 Jews who arrived from this Convoi 64. We know that only 267 Jewish Men and 72 Jewish Women were selected for a temporary reprieve and were escorted to the main camp. Of the remaining 661 Jews who are to be Gassed, there are these 156 Jewish Children of this particular Convoi facing immediate and total extinction. We can perhaps assess though, that those who might have somehow survived the selection, with age and stature key here, so they might be included in those who are motioned toward momentary safety.

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

Charlotte Abraham was 5 years of age, Yvonne Abraham was 2 years of age, Michel Baehr was 7 years of age, Jean Claude Baehr was not yet 2 years of age, Andre Basch was just 9 Months old, Henri Berenstam was 12 years of age, Jeanne Berenstam was 10 years of age, Fanny Cogan was 6 years of age, Albert Cogan was 6 years of age, Anna Fischer was 12 years of age, Rosa Fischer was 5 years of age, Chill Fischer was 2 years of age, Israel Fischer was just 8 Months old, Albert Gelbart was 2 years of age, Marcel Gotteszman was not yet 6 years of age, and Marie Claire Gotteszman was 1 year of age.

Henri Grunfeld was 3 years of age, Tobi Grunfeld was just 10 months old, Jerome Hirsch was 13 years of age, Suzanne Hirsch was 1 year of age, Schewa Gutwirth was 17 years of age, Malka Gutwirth was 15 years of age, Suzanne Itic was 17 years of age, Paulette Itic was transported on her 16th. Birthday, Bernard Itic was 8 years of age, Bella Josefowicz was not yet 2 years of age, Albert Jungerman was 2 years of age, Charles Kramm was just 5 Months old, Lionel Lambert was 14 years of age, Marc Lambert was 11 years of age, Tony Lambert was 4 years of age, and Marie Lambert was 1 year of age,

Raymond Linder was 2 years of age, Roland Linder was just 11 Months old, Alice Lorber was 3 years of age, Evelyn Lorber was not yet 5 Months old upon arrival within Birkenau, Monique Makowski was 2 years of age, Michel Marienberg was 7 years of age, Simone Marienberg was not yet 6 Months old upon arrival within Birkenau. Maurice Panzer was 14 years of age, Bianca Panzer was 13 years of age, Suzanne Panzer was 1 year of age, Jacqueline Repper was 5 years of age, Denise Repper was 1 year of age, Maurice Sajovici was 9 years of age, and Dorothee Sajovici was 2 years of age.

Jean Saltiel was 1 year of age, Eliane Schwirtz was 2 years of age, Robert Shay was just 7 Months old upon arrival within Birkenau, Sarah Szatkownik was 17 years of age, Daniel Szatkownik was 4 Months old upon arrival within Birkenau, Rene Tarnowski was 5 years of age, Jean Tarnowski was 1 year of age, Jeannine Wiesenfeld was born on November 29th. 1943 and was just 11 days old upon arrival within Birkenau and Fernande Wiesenfeld was born on November 29th. 1943 and was just 11 days old upon arrival within Birkenau, and Valerie Wtscharbe who was just 18 Months old upon arrival within Birkenau.

“..May 1944 ..Kramer ..only recently arrived at Birkenau. ..Over ..coming 2 months he would oversee. ..arrival of close to 430,000 Hungarian Jews. ..oversee ..gassing to death  ..immediately after they arrived ..of over three quarters of these People in ..camp’s killing factories.” Magda Hellinger.

Remember too, the fate of Hungarian Jewry was heightened during this period. From May 15th 1944 until July 9th. 1944, over 55 day’s of intense and concentrated effort, 147 Transports averaging 3,419 Jewish People on each transport amounted to some 502,491 Hungarian Jews delivered direct to Birkenau for Destruction. 9,137 Hungarian Jews on a daily basis within Birkenau, Poland would then be obliterated on average. This you will remember was accomplished while the Gypsy Camp persisted, and as a result of the nearing completion of the Hungarian Jews being annihilated, space was then opened for the Gypsy Camp to be liquidated.

“..There is a difference between ..German orchestrated systems of terror against ..Poles and ..Jews. ..Germans want to ruin ..Polish state as a state. ..with regard to ..Jews ..they want to devastate ..biological substance of ..Jewish Nation. If ..Germans do not change their method of dealing with ..Jewish population ..if there is no effort at Allied intervention ..whether through reprisals or other action ..barring some unforeseen circumstance ..within 18 months of ..time I left ..Homeland ..Jewish People of Poland will cease to exist.” Jan Karski.

While 100’s and even 1,000’s of Polish criminals and political agitators, along with Russian POW’s were killed in Auschwitz, some too in Birkenau, this was not as intended as it had been for the entirety of the Jewish People. The Auschwitz Museum knows this too. In terms of the 1,100,000 Jews completely destroyed, we should expect a more appropriate and balanced presentation of that integral fact. Of course, other Nationals, non-Jews all of them, were killed, died or were even gassed within both Auschwitz and Birkenau. The Auschwitz Museum knows this all too well. Yet! It protects the coverage of such a narrative that presents these others, which further diminishes the entirety of a Jewish removed presence.

“..I didn’t want to go back to Poland. Poles were killing a lot of Jews who returned to claim property ..homes ..other possessions. My Parents were dead. There was nothing to go back to.”  Bianca Lerner.

There is an accounting that is 1,100,000 of those Jews never to escape Hitler’s intention here and the narrative is therefore, an effort in concealing the identifying criteria established to obliterate all Jews within Europe. Also, and nothing must obscure the very obvious fact of what was not done to save any of these Jews delivered toward extinction. Identifying all of those, above and beyond the Jewish presence, will not add weight to disguising what is the truth and that it was the Jewish People who were exclusively the people of the Final Solution. Without doubt, it was Hitler who chose the Jews for Slaughter and Hitler also chose Poland to ensure firstly, of the 3,650,000 Polish Jews, more than 3,000,000 of them would be destroyed and confined to a history that distorts that fact. We cannot doubt this without adding to a disservice to Jewish Memory, which history must also ensure for those 1,100,000 Jews of Birkenau.

“..There have been Hitlers everywhere and at all times ..it is Germany’s shame that so miserable a figure could become her leader. In order to germinate ..seed of Nazism had to find a favourable soil ..it found it in ..German Reich and ..Germans ..such as they had become in their political ..spiritual economic and social history.” Wilhelm Roepke.

However, as they reside amongst the 6,000,000 Jewish lost lives, they catapult Birkenau toward a hierarchy of industrial mass murder not equalled in Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibor nor Treblinka. For all of these Jews of Birkenau, who are unable to correct the wrongs still being managed against them, we must stand to the fore in order to press memory and recall everything that was done to and against them. It has always appeared unjustifiably wrong, and for me, it is distasteful to make comparisons with the Death of individuals that was incurred during the period of Hitler’s rampage through History. Unfortunately! When it comes to commemorating such losses as these 6,000,000 Jews, all too many seek to place so many others, in seeming importance, and ahead of these Jews, intentionally and systematically sought out for Slaughter. This does not detach any People’s from the consequences of Hitler’s intention.

“..goal ..was a radical solution to ..Jewish problem through ..execution of all Jews.” SS Standartenfuhrer Dr. Rudolf Lange.

While I cannot know the extent of the misery faced by anyone, certainly within the confines of the Death Camps, I know the charge of Hitler was a Jewish Question that must be responded to with a certain cruelty and atrocity. What I do know too is that no Jew was intended to emerge from any of the Death Camps, Birkenau included. The difference sought between the Slaughter intended for the Jews of Europe cannot be but unimaginable in the horrors experience. With the terror suffered and the destruction impacting the very existence of so many other People there is no comparison that can be made to justify the emphasis placed ahead of that Jewish Question being so resolved. Here too there is not to be any comparison in death, and although the intentional inflicting of it by another is more certain a cruelty, death ensures that a person otherwise alive, is indeed dead.

“..Final solution ..Jewish question. ..Jews arrived. ..Half frozen ..starved ..half dead. Old people ..children. ..hustled into 2 ..3 big rooms. ..to undress. ..run down ..steps to ..where ..gas van awaited. ..beaten. ..Jews understood. ..when ..all in ..van. ..pipe ..fed ..gas into ..van. ..started ..motor. ..it started moving. We opened ..gate ..it headed for ..woods.” SS Scharfuhrer Franz Schalling.

I do feel that the Auschwitz Museum is being disingenuous with the truth as it is seemingly padding out the extent to which other’s died, or were killed, or were gassed or indeed were murdered. This imbalance though is all being done to the detriment of 1,100,000 intentionally Slaughtered Jews, Polish Jews too, who were resettled within Birkenau, Poland and who had no other route within the Death Camp system but to die. While it was true that many Jews were also compelled to act as a Sonderkommando, their role was never meant to be but an expedient until a newer incumbent took their place stoking and burying the ash of their own Community’s. I have been on this journey for so long now, I have only a single wish that is 6,000,000 Jews long. To remember them as they should be intended while Hitler’s hatred for them ensure in terms we recall as Genocide and The Holocaust perfectly records their loss to us.

“..remembered all ..murdered ..burned ..strangled Men ..Women ..Children ..Fathers ..Mothers ..Sisters ..Brothers ..congregation choked on its tears. So few had to mourn for so many.” Joseph Schupack.



The Riga Ghetto in The Holocaust.

Uncategorised Posted on Fri, November 18, 2022 19:46:20

“..Here is ..silence of ..grave. ..Rumbula ..Riga ..Bikerniki ..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 ..1,000,000’s ..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.

The Jewish People were in existence within Riga since the 1600’s but please recognise, that while every effort is made to ensure this is but a limited look at that persistence. As to the fuller atrocity that was enacted against the Jews of both Latvia and its Capitol of Riga, I am aiming to detail, we cannot know the true detail of the overall catastrophe. However, the assessment made here, while not as definitive or as comprehensive as it should be, I am hopeful it expands the understanding of the place of Riga Jews who were integrated into most aspects of life in the City and even sat on the city council. In the depths of The Holocaust, none of this counted for anything other than what had been planned for them, annihilation.

Any eventual assessment, however, will show that somewhat in the region of 100,000 Latvian Jews, many of them Slaughtered in the Bikerniki and Rumbula Forest’s, were systematically sought out for their execution and removal from all existence. This total assessment will include practically all of those Jews who had been resident within Riga itself prior to Hitler’s eventual resolve to solve the Final Solution of the Jewish Question. Added to this overall atrocity, the entirety of those destroyed of Latvian Jewry, these would have been complimented by the arrival and presence of Reich proper Jews, as many as all of the 25,000 to 30,000 who were transported there to be resettled there also.

“..Such is ..power of wishful thinking ..we continued to perceive ..ongoing brutality perpetrated against ..Jewish community as a murderous initiative ..of ..Latvian fascists.”  Max Michelson.

By 1935 more than 43,500 Jews, of a population of nearly 400,000 people lived in Riga and this was nearing half the Latvian Jewish population at the time. Riga itself was both the political and cultural centre of Latvian Jewry, with Jewish schools that taught in Hebrew, Yiddish, Russian and even German. There were hospitals that treated all the ill, there were training courses for kindergarten teachers, there were theatres, and a number of welfare organizations. Also, there was a Yeshivah, and there were three daily Yiddish newspapers and in August 1940, Russia annexed Latvia, and Riga then became the capital of the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic. In October 1940 the Jewish People created a new Yiddish Theatre as culture kept Jewish hope high on the living agenda. On June 14th. 1941 there were 1,000’s of Riga’s Jews who were deported to Siberia by the Russian authorities, these Jews not realising their fortunate escape.

On June 22nd. 1941 and with at least 5,000 Jewish Troops leaving Riga, after Hitler sent his forces East in Operation Barbarossa, the depleted reserves of a Jewish Resistance was further eroded. After Hitler’s invasion of Russia, Riga then became the capital of the Reich Commissariat ‘Ostland’. On July 1st. 1941 Hitler’s Wehrmacht forces entered Riga, and as the Nazi’s occupied the City, there were still more than 43,000 Jews living in the City, unaware of what was to come. Following on from this there were decrees, in line with Hitler’s Nuremberg Laws, and these were weighted most heavily against Latvian Jews, and these implementations came thick and fast between July 1941 and October 1941.

“..On July 2nd. 1941 an auxiliary Latvian SS troop was formed. They wore green armbands on their sleeves with a skull on. ..first thing this auxiliary troop did was to stop Jews in ..street ..to humiliate them ..to throw Jewish Women and Children out of their apartments and to force them to work. Work was done clearing up ..where ..aim was not so much that work was done ..but much more to tyrannise ..Jews. Beards were pulled out ..Women had their hair cut off ..beaten and kicked ..stayed lying on ..floor.” Isaac Berner.

On July 2nd. 1941 during the first full day of the occupation, units of Latvian volunteers began to detain and attack and then imprison Jewish Men. For days these Jews were abused and tortured and eventually, as they found their way to the nearby Bikerniki Forest, they were Murdered there. 1,000’s of them. For many Doctors, and other professionals, and even some of the City’s Jewish craftsmen, these were initially spared and returned to Riga to service the needs of Hitler’s Reich. Many more seizures of these working Jews were conducted for the Forced Labour Units created so as to implement ever further the demands of Hitler’s Final Solution. Close on 11,000 Jewish Men from Riga had either fled the City or were subsequently murdered during those first weeks of July 1941.

“..in Latvia ..persecution of ..Jews was approved ..accepted by ..majority of ..local population.”  Max Michelson.

On July 3rd. 1941, and during these first days of Nazi occupation, the Latvian civilian population, ultra nationalists and debauched individuals all took it upon themselves to deliver savage attacks upon Riga’s Jews. Along with arresting, beating, torturing, and raping Jews, they began the burning of the City’s synagogues, and with the Jewish People inside. 1,000’s upon 1,000’s of the City’s Jews were forced toward the local beaches and Bikerniki and Rumbula Forest’s to be shot in as brutal a fashion as could be arranged. The Nazis then began the process of forcing what remained of the remaining 32,000 Riga Jews into an area that was overcrowded, ramshackle and would eventually constitute the Ghetto. All the while the local non-Jewish Latvian population, assisting the Nazi’s, began the process of looting from the vacated Jewish homes, houses, apartments and apartments. All, and any Jewish money, goods, possessions, valuables and anything of worth were looted from the Jews and were seized and stolen as will would have it.

“..many Rabbis ..Cantors ..Temple assistants ..Families that lived in ..neighbourhood of ..synagogues were forced into ..burning synagogues and suffocated and burnt alive. Shortly afterwards ..mass arrests began amongst ..Jewish population.” Isaac Berner.

On July  4th. 1941 units of the Perkonkrusts Latvian Fascist Organization set alight to 5 of the 6 Riga Synagogues, and with many of their congregations locked inside. Riga’s Central Synagogue, the Chor-Shul, the Great Choral Synagogue, on Gogol Street was where some of Riga’s Jews were first rounded up, and these were forced inside and the building was set alight. Only the Nly Peitavas Street Synagogue managed to survive and this was only thanks to the close proximity of it to non-Jewish Latvian homes. All told there were some 500 of Riga’s Jews are murdered during this escapade, and while instructions had been delivered to keep the population away from the atrocities, it was evidenced by all too many who sought to see for themselves how their former Jewish neighbours were to be excluded from life. On July 16th. 1941, we recognise that as many as 4,000 Riga Jews have been Murdered, all of this in preparation for the overall atrocity that was to befall them.

“..All citizens of ..Jewish faith must vacate their homes ..we are informed. We all live in apartments…they placed us in what we called a ghetto ..where nothing new existed and all of us lost our civil rights. They erected an electric fence ..a huge fence. I was only a child but ..adults lost their jobs and were taken on commandos on highways. That wasn’t too bad yet ..we still had ..resemblance of family life. Even before they put us into concentration camps ..we couldn’t walk on ..sidewalk. I still remember those sights. Young Women would push their strollers of their little Babies and Latvians or Germans would come and just do anything they wanted to do to us ..they could just do it. We were not protected by anybody. We felt like rebelling ..and all we would do is just get killed. Looking back now ..I was so weak ..skinny ..small ..how can you fight anybody. You suffer ..but inside you ..you have a friend saying ..You will survive. ..will to live. But in life no matter how rough things are ..adrenaline takes over. ..My goal was someday to survive. ..I thought I’ll make it and I made it. But I get tears thinking about it.” Michael Kor.

On August 15th 1941 the Riga Ghetto is established in the Letgaler District and along Moscow Street 3, and there were to be some 43,000 to 60,000 Jews Enclosed during the period of its existence, with Riga as One of the Nine Major Ghettos to be established in the Greater Reich. On Monday August 18th. 1941 SS Obersturmbannfuhrer Dr. Rudolf Lange, Commander of Einsatzkommando 2, took personal interest in the Ghetto, which measured some 50 by 180 metres.

In September 1941 Hitler gave orders for the resettlement of all the Jews from Germany and though the removal from the Greater Reich had always been an intention for Hitler, there was no clear plan at this moment on how this effort should and could be achieved. Adolf Eichmann created the organizational prerequisites for the deportations and his Department drew up the plans and their functioning guidelines to act in accord with Hitler’s demands for the Jews. Here Eichmann came into his own and the registration and deportation ran like clock work as monies were paid to the Reichsbahn for these resettlement exercises and then in dealing with the confiscation of anything of monetary worth that the Jews were to be deprived of.

“..I did not grieve ..I was numb. I had seen people killed. ..buried some of those killed in ..Large Ghetto ..obvious what lay in store for us all. My parents had disappeared. ..no burial ..no closure. ..overwhelming evidence of ..wholesale killings convinced me ..they were dead.” Max Michelson.

The bill for these transports were to be met by the Jews themselves and were allowed barely 50 Reichsmarks to with take along with them. At this time, the German Reich Association of Jews had to stand surety for those Jews who could not afford the demands made upon them and paid the costs attributed by Hitler’s Reich. The Jews were also allowed to bring along 50 kilograms of other possessions in a single suitcase, be that clothing or other items of material gain that could so distract the Jews from what this all meant. The ruse presented the Jews with a hope that eventual employment was to be found for them. The Jewish People were to be wholly divested of every piece of value right up till their very worthy lives that were forfeited.

The Jews of all and any transport destined for the ‘East’ would never return to any semblance of former existence, and those who would not see their Families, their goods, their wealth, in any description returned. Even their citizenship was forfeited, on some legal pretence, knowing full well these Jewish lives were expendable. The demands of these resettlement transports did not include the certainty of an arrival at any destination, including here at Riga for all of the Jews. The extensive length of the journey, without adequate heat, food, water ensured so many arrivals were either Dead or that infirmed by the conditions, they were the first to be Murdered. While the destination of the first transports of Reich Jews was to be Lodz, in Poland, these were to be resettled within the Chelmno Death Camp.

Also, and this was not to be the destination for the majority of the 60,000 Jews that had been initially proposed and envisaged for resettlement there. Lodz though could not manage such numbers as these and as a consequence, about 40,000 of them Jews were to be redirected to both the holding Ghetto of Minsk and Riga. Both Himmler, Heydrich, and then Eichmann made every effort to ensure Hitler’s demands were carefully massaged and Eichmann fully moved his offices to deliver on those demands.

“..At ..beginning of September 1941 ..Prefect Stieglitz a ..German who had come back to Latvia gathered ..leading Jewish men ..told them to form a Jewish committee. ..members were ..lawyer Dr. Eljachow ..Dr. Minz ..Kaugert ..Winzker ..Dr. Blumfeld. ..task was ..arranging for ..relocation of ..Jews in Riga to ..working class suburb of Letgaler ..an area where originally 3,000 – 4,000 had lived. In this cramped area ..in ..small ..low rooms ..30,000 – 40,000 people had to find accommodation. We had to give our apartments to ..people moving out of ..working ..class area without any compensation ..and were only allowed to take essentials with us that we could carry ..special permission was needed if you wanted to take ..for example ..a cupboard with you. If it was a good piece of furniture ..then ..permission wasn’t granted. ..relocation had to be carried out by October 15th. Ghetto was then fenced in ..surrounded by Latvian SS ..Jews were segregated and ..tragedy of ..Ghetto began.” Isaac Berner.

On September 7th. 1941 the Riga Ghetto barely has 30,000 Jews still enclosed, most of who had succumbed to the rigours of forced labour, starvation or out and out annihilation. Also, there was a daily workforce of 1,000 Jews who were forced into the debilitating efforts of the Labour Battalions. Then, by October 1941, with more anti-Jewish decrees being declared, life had gotten so exceedingly more impossible to survive, life expectancy for All Jews decreased exponentially. On October 25th. 1941, with some 30,000 Jews who were still confined in the Ghetto, the commandant of the Ghetto Kurt Krause established a Jewish self-administration. This Jewish Council of Elders, the Judenrate or Aeltestenrat was being chaired by the Lawyer Michael Elyashov, the lesser Ghetto, the Little Ghetto ‘Kasernierungslager’ was eventually headed by Max Leiser.

Others involved in determining the way forward for the Jews here were Dr. Vladimir Mintz also headed the Linat Zedek Hospital, there was Simon Dubnow and Rabbi Zeck and Winzker, Kaugert and the Jewish Police was led by Michael Rosenthal. With newer attempts being made to improve the lot of the Jews of the Riga Ghetto, living conditions in the Ghetto could never improve as these would wish. However, as they operated care facility’s and a hospital there was also a clinic with a pharmacy and a home for the elderly. This effort managed to provide 1,000’s of Jewish Men and Women with employment, there was a source of newer income and a form of hope that these still surviving Jews could hold onto.

“..Our community leaders ..decent ..honourable men ..believed ..dealing with ..authority ..could alleviate  our misery ..negotiate improved conditions for ..Jewish population. ..these leaders fatally misjudged ..nazi intentions of ..Final Solution.”  Max Michelson.

On October 15th. 1941 there was already the preparations in hand for the complete resettlement of the Czech, German and Austrian Jews East to the Riga Ghetto. On October 16th. 1941 the remainder of the Protectorate Jews were being ‘resettled’ in Riga with an Einsatz ‘aktionen’ awaiting most of them. At the Skirotava train station the arriving Jews were inspected and some of them selected by the rank and file murderers eager to brutalise further a totally dejected human cargo. Many of these Jews, practically frozen, certainly hungry, definitely dying of thirst, and many dead already, the violence meted out to them, as always, was out of proportion to what the Jews might have expected. The selection process afforded those forming queues for the ‘blue buses’ assumed they were being better treated.

Perhaps shocked, certainly feeling the effects of the bitter cold, both columns, those headed for the Ghetto and those for Rumbula, could not appreciate what lay ahead of them. The march to the Ghetto might have appeared the lesser of two evils, but the finality of those Elderly Jews, frail and weakened Jews and the Jewish Children, were taken directly toward the execution pits. Without ever realising it this was the last chance for these selected Jews to ever see Family, Friends, Community, Life ever again. For those Jews, brutally force marched through drifts of snow, freezing cold and getting weaker by each step, they held onto the prospect of both seeing the separated relatives, friends or Family members and settling into a newer existence.

The Ghetto itself presented them with an image from hell, the debris of the forced evacuations of the former Jewish residents, bloodied buildings and Streets were evidence enough. The Marie-Celeste presented itself to these Jews at every turn and still, they would soon be joined by those who had been waved off from Skirovka Station. It soon became apparent too that their loved ones, left at the Station had retreated into oblivion, ably informed by any of those Jews still seeking to hide from the selection process.

“..Already in ..first days ..many Jews who only got ..close to ..fence were shot attempting to escape. Shots were fired into windows ..where supposedly ..black out was not good enough ..many ..died as a result. ..Groceries and essentials were supplied by 14 shops ..but allocation got less and less every week. Security was provided by ..Jewish Police.” Isaac Berner.

On October 23rd. 1941 with the Riga Ghetto now sealed, there are still close on 30,000 Jews pressed inside. In November 1941, the order was given by Heinrich Himmler to SS ??Friedrich Jeckeln, SS and Police Leader ‘Ostland’, to liquidate the Ghetto and murder all that was left of Latvian Jewry. What this amounted to was the fully intentioned move to settle the majority of the Ghetto Jews further to the East. From the first 4 resettlement transports, arriving between November 30th. 1941 and December 6th. 1941 a total of 4,075 Jews from Berlin, Nuremberg, Stuttgart and Vienna were entrained for the new Concentration Camp in Riga, Jungfernhof and even Salaspils. The deportees had to make do with whatever accommodation was still available sheds, outhouses, and barns.

In the first weeks alone, 100’s of Jews in the Jungfernhof Camp fell victim to the vagaries of a commandant, Rudolf Seck whose arbitrary nature ensured Jewish destruction accompanied the effects of the cold, starvation and diseases. The more aware the Jews became of the precarious nature of their situation, the less resilient they had become and they succumbed more rapidly. All of this threatening and abuse spread more rapidly as these Jews fell more foul of the deprivation they had never been accustomed to.

On November 18th. 1941 ..arranged that ..Ghetto would be evacuated and everyone would be transferred to a work camp. When Dr Eljachow asked what would happen to ..old and ..sick ..SA man named Schulze answered bluntly that anyone who was unable to march would be shot. We were allowed to take 20 kg of luggage with us. We believed that were really going to be taken to a work camp.” Isaac Berner.

On November 20th. 1941 the Latvian militias threw a cordon around a section of the Ghetto and began to confine further the Jews into a more contained and smaller section. On November 23rd. 1941 a detachment of the strongest Jewish Men were then assembled and forced into the blocked off section of the Ghetto. On November 27th. 1941 more than 12,000 Riga Jews are shipped out in the infamous blue buses and are murdered in the Rumbula Forest. These Jews, and many more of their People are to make way for the first consignment of 25 transports of Jews from Austria, Czechoslovakia and Germany now being transported North. The first consignment of 1,053 Berlin Jews were all Murdered in the Rumbula Forest, as they were redirected there instead of being settled in the Riga Ghetto for any stay of their execution. On November 28th. 1941 there is the continuance of what will be recognised as the ‘Grosse Aktionen’ major action within the Riga Ghetto.

“..At 6:00 pm ..Children ..Women and old people with or without luggage were driven out of their apartments. Blows ..kicks ..shooting ..murder ..were ..tactics ..to prompt ..terrified people. People stayed on ..streets for ..whole night ..until 6:00 am ..in ..frost ..hungry ..many poorly dressed. A group of 1,000 were marched on foot along ..Moskauer Strasse 3 under ..strict supervision of the SS. Nobody was allowed to watch ..even Aryans weren’t allowed to look out of ..window as shots were immediately fired.” Isaac Berner.

On November 30th.  1941 as the Riga Ghetto is being liquidated, the large or 2nd. ‘Grosse Aktionen’ sees a further 13,000 more of Riga’s Jews are removed and are shot, murdered by Einsatz, SS, German Police Units and Latvian auxiliaries in the Rumbula Forest. Amongst these Jews of the ‘large aktionen’ are those 1,053 German Jews who had just arrived from Berlin. On December 1st. 1941 1,013 Stuttgart Jews are resettled to Riga and are detained within the Jungfernhof Concentration Camp and they too will find their way to the Killing Site in the Rumbula Forest. On December 2nd. 1941 the arrival of 1,008 Jews from Nuremberg is followed 2 days later with the arrival of the Stuttgart Jews, deported 3 days previously On December 3rd. 1941 the representative of Wehrmacht Command Ostland, General Bremer requested:

“..because of ..liquidations ..military is losing skilled Jewish workers employed in armament factories and repair shops.” General Bremer.

The 1,001 Vienna Jews deported arrived on December 6th. 1941 and they too are detained within the Jungfernhof Camp until Rumbula was prepared for them. On December 7th. 1941 the Second ‘Grosse Aktionen’, of those remaining Riga Ghetto Jews realises the near end for the Jews of Riga, as they too are murdered in the Rumbula Forest. This is the same day the Chelmno Death Camp’s Extermination operations begin.

“..when ..people got there they were told to undress ..put shoes in one pile ..clothing in another ..driven to ..edges of these mass graves ..and machine gunned. It was going on all night and ..next day. 15,000 of our People were massacred on that particular day.” Steven Springfield.

There are still some 4,000 to 5,000 Jewish Men and as many as 400 Jewish Women, acting as seamstresses, who were still alive in the small, Latvian Riga Ghetto as the Nazi’s continually brought the transports of German, Austrian and Czech, Bohemian and Moravian Jewry to supplement the empty spaces left in the now termed Large German Ghetto. The German Ghetto, ‘Reichsjudenghetto’, as it also became known, saw the German Jews establish the Cologne Shul, and this proved somewhat divisive as many within Latvian Jewry saw the other arrivals as the requirement for them to be resettled. On December 8th. 1941 the final liquidation of the Riga Ghetto is underway. Some 13,000 Jews were led from the Riga Ghetto to the Rumbula Forest and were murdered there and among them were 1,000 recently deported German Jews.

Some 964 of Hamburg’s Jews arrive at the Skirotava station on December 9th. 1941 and these are to be detained within the Jungfernhof Camp prior to their removal to the Rumbula Forest Killing Site. By now, and having Murdered practically the entire Riga Jewish Ghetto population, the Nazi’s were delivering a further 16,000 Jews from the Reich. These too added to the ranks of the Murdered Jews of Riga and all told, some 24,000 to 25,000 Reich Jews were deported toward Riga. These Jews, were contained within either the Riga Ghetto, Jungfernhof and Salaspils Camps, these staging posts to the murder pits in the Bikerniki and Rumbula Forest’s. There are some 30,000 Riga and Reich Jews who are shot during this period, the vast majority of whom are consigned within the Rumbula Forest.

Also, and in these first six months of the Nazi occupation of Latvia, the Nazi’s, the local Latvian Militia and other collaborators Slaughtered almost 90,000 of the country’s Jews. It is important to recognise too that 100’s of Riga’s Jews formed a resistance movement to combat what they were well aware of from Bikerniki and certainly Rumbula and arms found their way into the Ghetto. Of the 43,500 Jews who had been living in Riga, barely 4,800 of them were still left alive. On December 10th. 1941 1,011 of Cologne’s Jews arrived for their detaining within the Riga Ghetto.

On December 12th. 1,014 Jews from Kassel arrive at Skirotava station for the Riga Ghetto. On December 13th. 1,007 Jews from Dusseldorf are detained within the Riga Ghetto. On December 16th. 1941 there are 1,031 Jews from Munster, Osnabrueck and Bielefeld to make their way toward their incarceration within the Riga Ghetto. On December 18th. 1941 1,001 Jews from Hannover arrive at the Skirotava station and are marched to the Riga Ghetto. On January 12th. 1942 1,005 Jews arrive from the ‘model camp’ at Theresienstadt and 3 days later, on January 15th. 1942 1,000 Jews of Vienna also arrive.     

On January 16th. 1942 1,034 Jews from Berlin arrive at the Riga Ghetto after being transported North and following them, 3 days afterwards on January 19th. 1942 are 997 Jews from the Czech Ghetto at Theresienstadt, By now the evidence of the Slaughter has gained wider acknowledgement and for the situation of the Jews of Latvia, being declared ‘Judenrein’, Free of Jews, was communicated and detailed in evidence to The Wannsee Conference on January 20th. 1942. This Nazi conference was convened in order to bring into line all agencies of the Reich in the implementation of The Final Solution of the Jewish Question. By now, it must be remembered this resolve for Hitler had already see the Slaughter of more than 1,000,000 Jews, shot, hanged, brutally murdered, gassed and killed. Then, on January 23rd. 1942 some 1,002 Jews of Berlin too made the perilous journey to Riga and destruction in the pits at Bikerniki or Rumbula.     

On January 24th. 1942 with 773 Jews from Leipzig and Dresden arriving at Riga, the Reich itself was fast depleting its own community concentrations of German Jewry. On January 30th. 1942 1,044 more of Berlin’s Jews faced the same transportation route toward Riga and a day later, on January 31st. 1942 1,201 Viennese Jews also made the journey. On February 1st. 1942 938 Jews from both Gelsenkirchen and Dortmund were resettled to the Riga Ghetto.

“..Transports from Berlin arrive ..Kovno ..doubtful ..anybody ..alive. No ..news ..Minsk ..Riga. Many ..shot. ..intention ..to exterminate ..Jews entirely.”   Bishop Hermann Wilhelm Berning.

In February 1942, the Bishop knew full well what was happening to the Jewish People, and still ethical morality was subservient to Hitler’s will. On February 5th. 1942 Gerhard Mayfeld, Lange’s deputy led an aktionen against 1,500 German Jews and these were murdered in Rumbula. On February 8th. 1942 380 Jews arrived from Kovno. On February 10th. 1942 a further 1,003 of Viennese Jews too made their way toward the extermination processes awaiting them in Riga. On March 15th. 1942 some 2,500 Jews from the Ghetto, many of them Children, the Sick, the Infirm, the Elderly Jews were taken to Rumbula and Murdered there. On March 26th. 1942 some 1,272 of the remnants of Riga Jewry, a now mixed grouping of Latvian, Austrian, German and Czech Jews, are Murdered. On June 9th. 1942 a mobile gassing van, already used to murder Serbian Jews at Zemun, was sent to Riga to exterminate what then remained of the Jews of Latvia.

Along with these Latvian Jews would be 10’s of 1,000’s of surviving German Jews who had since been deported there just six months previously. These were brought from the Camps of Jungfernhof and Salaspils and on June 15th. 1942 the killing operation for the Riga Ghetto recognised the requirement for a second gassing van.

“..My Survival was ..improbable chance occurrence ..but I did not Survive at ..expense of anyone else ..I do not feel any guilt about it.” Max Michelson.

On August 18th. 1942 938 of Berlin’s Jews arrived for resettlement measures in Riga and on August 23rd. 1942 a further 1,000 Jews from the Theresienstadt Ghetto arrive. On September 3rd. 1942 there 797 Jews from Berlin Insterburg who were Murdered without being delivered to the Riga Ghetto. On October 22nd. 1942 959 of Berlin’s Jews were Murdered after their arrival, exempted from any stay at the Riga Ghetto. On October 24th. 1942 a further 300 Jews from Kovno arrived. On October 28th. 1942, the Nazi’s discovered the underground activities that had been taking place in the Ghetto. 10 Jews from the Riga were making their way toward the Partisans when they were intercepted by a Nazi squad and in the exchange, 8 of them were killed. The 2 survivors were taken prisoner and were amongst those acted against back in the Ghetto. Some 108 in total, all were shot, and this was regardless of their resistance activities.  

“..as part of ..systematic degradation ..we ..lost our names ..in Kaiserwald. I became ..10021.” Max Michelson.

The aktion against these activities saw the murders of these 108 Jewish sick, the disabled and elderly Jews also, along with all of the Jewish police. This reprisal was because of the Jewish resistance activity, and social activities which had been setting up a grocery store and a bakery, and even establishing a school and a kitchen for those few Jewish Children that were still living. On October 29th. 1942 a further 798 Jews from Berlin were transported North and were Murdered upon arrival. In January 1943, the two ghettos were consolidated and on March 15th. 1943 Himmler decided to have built the Kaiserwald Concentration Camp to the North of the City. This led to the phased dissolution of the entire ghetto and after those who had survived the first years of internment, had to leave the Ghetto. In November 1943 many of these Jews who had been interned in the Kaiserwald Concentration Camp were amongst the some 2,000 Riga Ghetto Jews then transported to Birkenau.

 “..they told us right away to line up and to get undressed. Naked. ..you are only a person as long as you have your clothes on. You can be a professor. ..a doctor. ..a scientist. ..a shoemaker. But as soon as your clothes come off and you stand naked ..you are lost.” Lily Mazur Margules.

On November 2nd. 1943 the Riga Ghetto was finally being liquidated and by December 1943 the Riga Ghetto had been emptied of its Jews and virtually all of Latvian Jews had either been Murdered or had been delivered to the ‘Gassing Vans’. As 1944 approached, and with the Russian Army moving relentlessly forward, the SK 1005 Operation descended upon the region. Here, teams of Jewish Men were sent to open up the mass graves, burn the corpses, and obliterate all traces of the Jewish Slaughter. SS Standartenfuhrer Paul Blobel’s ‘Himmelfahrtskommandos’ did not act here as swiftly as it was necessary to conceal the truth of the mass murder but still managed to further add to the terrible atrocity by Murdering the SK 1005 Kommando.

On April 28th. 1944, all the Jewish Children who had managed thus far to survive the attention of those like Eduard Krebsbach, the ??, were executed. With the steady approach of the Russian Front throughout 1944 that summer saw the Nazi’s murdering 1,000’s of those Jews still being held in Kaiserwald and the many of its subcamps. Those remaining alive were later deported to the Stutthof Concentration Camp in Germany. The selections of the Jewish People was intensified.

“..In Stutthof ..became ..96211 ..unlike ..Auschwitz ..our numbers were not tattooed.”  Max Michelson.

In July 1944, as the Russian Army reached the borders of Latvia and prior to their liberation by Russian forces, some 200 to 300 Jewish Men were taken from the Kaiserwald Concentration Camp and were led to the Rumbula Forest and executed there. The Nazi’s then began force marching and sending many other Jew’s to other Concentration Camps outside Latvia, in the main to the Camp Stutthof, near Danzig. For the remaining Jewish survivors still clinging to hope and expectation, life in the Baltic region became ever more treacherous. None of these Jews would be allowed to fall into the hands of the approaching Russians and many of these were returned to Germany and the Camps at Dachau and Neuengamme. On October 13th. 1944 the Russian Army arrived and liberated the Riga area and just after its liberation, some 150 Latvian Jews, including Children, emerged from their hiding places.

“..It is said that some Survivors feel guilty ..being ..only ones in their families to have lived through The Holocaust. I have not found that to be ..case among my fellow Survivors.” Max Michelson.

Some of those Murdered.

Amalia Meyer Bagriansky

Burl Braun

Maishe Braun

The Family Braun

though were Murdered in 1941.

Both Joshua Dicker

and Sara Selma Golda (nee Shpindel) were Murdered during 1942 in Riga.

The Family Greengut

Bluma Mendelson a Latvian Jew was Murdered in the Riga Ghetto.

Her Sister’s Freida Mendelson

and Hana Mendelson were also Murdered though we are unsure as to when or where they were Murdered. All 3 



Exclusive Does Not Mean Excluded.

Uncategorised Posted on Wed, October 19, 2022 19:48:44

“.. Not all victims were Jewish in this place but all Jews were victims.” Elie Wiesel.

My permanent motto stands for the Jews of The Holocaust and for very good reason, I ensure Always to Remember, Never to Forget. This clearly, has set me on a path where my focus remains upon 6,000,000 Jews who were so intentionally destroyed. These innocent Jews, Slaughtered solely because they were Jews has taught me well of the graver wrongs that are inherent within hatred. For me, when People stand by and allow hatred to be expressed, as they watch as it is entertained and they stand aside as it is given full vent to its pernicious and dreadful end, duplicity as such makes us all complicit in what that hatred then expresses itself as.

“..By clumping Jews together with Soviet citizens ..commemoration turned into empathy for ..Soviets at large rather than specifically for ..innocent Jews who were ..targets of ..majority of ..deliberate mass civilian killing.” Felicia Carmelly.

In this fact, and no matter how precise the exacting detail we will have, history cannot be seen shading areas of the truth so as to evade our appreciation of the facts. It is apparent that we condoned the expression of a hatred for the Jews of Europe as it converted into an outright annihilation process for 6,000,000 Jews. And while the fuller truth will always evade us, in relation to the totality of the loss, we continue our search in order to discover as many of those lost as we can find. Regardless of the evidences, despite the detailed testimony’s and given the monumental effort from eye witness accounts, we look deeper and search further than we have ever done in this science of History.

“..I follow on from what Elie Wiesel assures us and stress that while not all Nationals within Nations are guilty of ..crimes of The Holocaust ..not all nationals within those nations are innocent of ..very crimes we uncover and bear witness to.” Patrick Dempsey.

Researching a broader spectrum of that atrocity’s vista, and in order to infill any or all of those gaps, we have an urgency in those immediate and first hand recollections we seek. Of course, we come to the moments of today when we realise there are so many fewer memories that we can salvage from this obliterated past. That said, such is the overwhelming evidence of The Holocaust, it is being sanctioned as the most uniquely unparalleled and unprecedented Genocide in All of History. But for us to be concerned with all that transpired in such a negative and consistent route toward an inexorable brutality and crucially devastating destruction, our search is increasingly more important to civilised society today.

“..Gypsies had been murdered in a proportion similar to ..Jews ..about 80% of them in ..area of ..countries which were occupied by ..Nazis.” Simon Wiesenthal.

With the continuous blurring of these truths over time, the very veracity of what we have learned still cannot confiscate what it is that we now set before the bar of history. This then, the distorting attempt, moving on from what could never be advanced as denial, was my early lesson at having to counter the untruth’s facing The Holocaust lesson. The negative aspects of the frustating effort for all of History, which persuaded me to focus my intention where it belonged, on The Holocaust, and with that, these 6,000,000 Jews and even more whose extinguished voice called out for a chance to speak or be heard.

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

I had been writing for a long while, attempting to find the vehicle for the words which seemed to be parked up, waiting for that sudden flourish of any expression that I could deliver. I found that expression in both a grief and its loss which I could extract from my own experiences, but in a small way, and transfer this loss and grief to paper, and hopefully in a more focused way. I read copious amounts of works, concentrated upon the very Survivor who could deliver their message for us and was deeply touched by the words of so so many who write and have written on such an odious episode in our history. For Lucy Schildkret Dawidowicz, her words, which leapt out at me all the way back at the very beginning of this odyssey, it was a watershed moment.

“..history ..as a way of knowing ..past ..has survived ..partisanship ..ideological distortions ..attempts to extinguish its light and even to murder its practitioners ..and it will continue to do so. Its most terrible chapter ..murder of ..European Jews ..will surely remain recorded.” Lucy S. Dawidowicz.

In the pages of her Book: The War Against the Jews 1933 – 45, which she penned in 1975, this work struck a deep emotional chord. That I added to the personal grief and sense of loss I had been feeling personally, and for so long, galvanised all of a sudden into words I could identify with and recognise as empathetic and sympathetic to a Jewish struggle in their demise. For me too, fixed as I was that in History, only the factual truth can hold the integrity of its Science together, here was one of The Holocaust’s most eloquent writer’s assuring me that nothing that is History can be distorted by what is not history.

“..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.

For more than 20 years, even prior to Hitler’s intervention into Poland, the focus of all of Hitler’s vitriol and hatred was levelled at the Jews. Hitler’s very pronounced expressions of hatred were aimed at the Jewish People and that contempt for human life was concentrated upon those People of the Jewish Faith. When in 1939, with a further 3,650,000 Polish Jews on his doorstep, the clearer emphasis of that hatred moved along an expanding route and with a more widely expressed territorial demand. This would then become Hitler’s Weltanschauung, and it was a world view which would take his legions out of earshot and close proximity of a witnessing civilisation and into the realm of the gravest brutality atrocity could ever envisage.

“..I pray ..Jew ..non-Jew alike may unite in ..resolve that evil forces will never again be permitted to set one people against another.”  Alicia Appleman-Jurman.

Those expanded steps into an act of such clear brutality and grievous savagery, which was then completely unbounded by the norms of those borders that were both negated of human decency and the moral efficacy of ethical behaviour, developed exponentially. The sweep East then, while this was meant to provide a better prospect of more obscured secrecy, did not in face prove to be such a secret. That said, with the advancement of the Invasion of Poland on September 1st. 1939, this now delivered many more millions of prospective witnesses who could not be quieted. With these Polish Jews then added to the crucible of a solution that was as yet to be fully resolved, though it was more clearly recognised, Poland was a collander of views and expressions of witness testimony that informed the World. What is now secured for all of posterity is a reason to recollect and know what would be readily witnessed.

“..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.

It is clear too, that when Hitler opened up his Weltanschauung to the possibility of resolving the fuller issue of obliterating more than 12,293,300 Jewish European lives, he had moved all levels of his Reich toward achieving his ultimate aim. The Final Solution of The Jewish Question was ultimately running concurrently with that view of a World to be invested with the virus of hatred Hitler esposed, and divested of ever more Jews than can possibly be accounted for. For ever more Jews, who were brought closer to their own demise than a knowing World could countenance, an aware World looked on in cold silence. When, on June 22nd. 1941, Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa, this too would bring Hitler closer to the completion of this ultimate goal, an accosting with more of European Jewry.

“..Operational Situation Report USSR No. 10 ..Einsatzgruppe B  ..Renamed on July 11th. Einsatzgruppe C. ..17th Army Command has suggested ..use first of all of ..anti-Jewish ..anti-Communist Poles living in ..newly ..occupied areas for self ..cleansing activities. On July 1st. 1941 Chief of Security Police and SD issued ..following order to all Einsatzgruppe ..Order No. 2 ..Poles residing in ..newly ..occupied Polish territories may be expected ..to be anti-Communist and ..anti-Jewish. ..cleansing activities have to extend first of all to ..Bolsheviks and ..Jews. As for ..Polish intelligentsia and others ..decisions can be taken later. ..It is therefore obvious that such Poles need not be included in ..cleansing action ..especially as they are of great importance as elements to initiate pogroms and for obtaining information. ..This depends ..of course ..on local conditions.” der Einsatzgruppe OSR’s.

When emerging from the terms of  die Endlosung der Judenfrage, what eventually became to be fully recognisable as The Holocaust, Hitler had consumed his Jewish prey. Contracted upon such an industrial scale, the mechanics were such, and they were invented purposefully to achieve Hitler’s aim, this fully realised all that he had aimed for with regards to at least 6,000,000 Jews. It becomes clear from the many edicts issued too, be they word of mouth proclamations or physical evidences of how Hitler’s whims were transferrable into real time, the Jewish destruction moved in pace with the more extreme efforts of Hitler’s hate filled protestations. When we read such as this OSR No. 10, that Poles were not considered in the same vein as the Jews, the exclusive nature of the Jewish presence is geared toward total destruction.

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

The Jewish People, then exclusively targeted for complete annihilation, in both the first and final phase of Hitler’s plan for them, had no alternative to what had been envisioned for them as Jews targeted by Hitler’s extreme view. Of course, and while exclusivity exists in the realm of The Holocaust, by which all Jews were Victims, it is clear that not all victims of the War Hitler waged were Jewish. However, The Holocaust was an exclusive effort, and detailing as such for solely securing for the Jews, their confinement within its grasp. These intended victims of the systematic and sought out effort were always intended to be all the Jews of Europe and if that could amount to 11,293,300 People, then that would be a detail in time realised by Hitler’s plan for them.

“..no conceivable chronicle of any kind could succeed in turning 6,000,000 dead people into a political argument.” Hannah Arendt.

With that in mind, we have need to remind history that Jews have Never hidden the fact that Hitler made victims of other than the Jewish People. It is abundantly clear too, and I make reference to just a few of the foremost writers on The Holocaust, and many of whom are Jewish Survivors, to appraise you of this effort on their part. There is a picture which fully emerges still though, and it is with the Jewish People as the concerted effort for Hitler’s abject hatred, and it is for the Jews. With their systematic Slaughter, which was Hitler’s focus since he first sought to articulate his enmity for the Jewish People, words could not conceal the deeply held conviction of this hatred.

“..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.

It is apparent that only the Jewish People are then to be seen as the focus of all and every effort of Hitler’s Reich and all his future aims. No matter what it is we fail to say, no matter how we fail to say it, we cannot allow for the dilution of a genocidal term which was to treat 6,000,000 Jews with such disdain. It would appear that far more respect could be visited upon the Jewish destruction than was to be done well after we recognised their waning life was taken away. From amongst us, as we became increasingly more aware of what was being visited upon the Jewish People, our own absence from the realm of concern was growing immensely more indifferent. From every angle of moral probity, the ethics of concern was removed from where we stood, looking in upon the dissolution of Jewish existence.

“..The Holocaust ..Shoah in Hebrew is ..most tragic era in ..history of ..Jewish People 1933 – 1945 when ..Germans and their collaborators perpetrated genocide against them.” Dr. Yitzhak Arad.

It is essential too that we acknowledge that The Holocaust term itself belongs to the Jewish People in both the words acted upon and the deeds then enacted. The Holocaust is a term framed around a hatred so embedded in much of European society, it was all too easy for Hitler to inflame those who fully bought into it. Within every sphere of Hitler’s world view, and every state of Hitler’s malevolence, Hitler became an influence in what was directed against the Jews. That all too many nations and all too many of their nationals were so invested and coerced into the atrocity, it is clear that they became duplicitous in all of what Hitler demanded for the Jewish People. Far too many people, who were willing to adopt the very tenets of that hatred from Hitler, and did so with impunity, have escaped anything remotely convincing of justice.

May 23rd. 1942 “..imprisoned were some Gypsies ..Auerswald terms Gypsy Jews.” Emmanuel Ringelblum.

That Hitler and his hatred then moved an entire Continent into dealing with and placating The Final Solution of The Jewish Question, is tantamount to the surrender to their debasement and inhumanity as has ever been witnessed. Then, as we delve into the depths of a Catastrophe, which exploited a 2,000 year hatred, there lay exposed an indifference amongst non-Jews which combined to deliver these 6,000,000 Jews toward an extinction we were loathe to intervene in. We know from the History of the time that much that was being falteringly concealed, achieved what it was intended to gain. That gain was a passivity of approach that would envelop a World in the most heinous act of abandonment ever to be enacted in civilising’s history. 

“..Through a maze of time ..hitler’s decision of November 1918 led to Operation Barbarossa. There never had been any ideological deviation or wavering determination. In ..end only ..question of opportunity mattered.” Lucy S. Dawidowicz.

At a time too when the Jews were unsure of the systematic nature of what was to assail them, there were people like Emmanuel Ringelblum who was certain of the fact of an egregious wrong that was to be perpetrated. It is true also that other people’s were treated equally badly, and through their fate we recognise the effort against the Jews fully eclipsed this. Every burden and range of hatred though would fully appear and prefix the treatment of so many with the example set aside exclusively for the Jews of Europe. The treatment of the Gypsy has been no less heinous, though the systematic nature of their destruction was predicated upon the Jews serving the first and foremost position of intended victims of Hitler’s.

“..a decision was made ..to exterminate ..Jews to ..last man. ..entire Jewish people were condemned to death. No such decision was made to kill any other group in this way ..although ..Gypsies come closest of all to ..Jewish tragedy.” Elie Wiesel.

It is essentially true that while the many vestiges of a Lalleri, Medvashi, Roma or Sinti presence was to be witnessed attempting to survive even in the Death Camps, the Porajmos lends them a basis for recognition of such facts that devourd them. However, their position was subordinate always to the call for a Jewish extinction and as such cannot be considered as exclusive an intention as proscribed for the Jewish People. No one attempts to minimise the deaths of others, nor should we diminish the terrifying ordeal of anyone faced by Hitler’s threat to them. But what had assailed the Jewish People, even given the incremental stages engaged with, so as to bring the solution to it’s final resolve, cannot be compared with. The total annihilation of these 6,000,000 Jews was administered to and accomplished in accordance with the dictats of the will of Hitler who urged them upon his entire Reich.

“..War ..annihilation of ..Jews were interdependent. ..disorder of war would provide ..hitler with ..cover for ..unchecked commission of murder. He needed an arena for his operations where ..restraints of common codes of morality and accepted rules of warfare would not extend.” Lucy S. Dawidowicz.

For 100’s of years the christian World sought to have Jews conform and convert to the views held against them. This conversion, in terms of how Hitler would administer to them, proved insufficient to save any Jew from an extinguished life. As perhaps we might recognise in the case of Edith Stein, a Jew first and foremost, and despite her conversion to the same version of a belief system even held by Hitler, Edith was sacrificed upon the altar of antisemitic hatred. Not even popes nor christianity sought to assuage a guilt ridden device which did nothing to save Edith but claim her for having been abandoned by those she sought solace amongst. It is true also, that once conversion had proved insufficient to diminish the Jewish presence in over 5,000 years of adherence to a Judaic belief system, an alternative force, more malevolent, was brought to bear.

“..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.

This newer device of The Ghetto was brought to later use, and as it had in earlier effect become the very tool of many states and nations in seeking to remove both the body of the Jew from view and indeed the view of Jewish influence from them, Hitler would capitalise upon its demeanour. The Jewish People, expelled from amidst the civilisation of all of past society, became the catalyst by which Hitler, Himmler, Heydrich and Eichmann made certain of the corralling of the Jews within Europe. Such stricture was so very often, for the Jewish People in particular, an indefensible crime against all sense of morality. Even though many of the Jews had sought to enjoin and even attempted to adhere or assimilate to the constrictions of communities they were amongst, this did not preclude them from being the victims of 2,000 years of continued pogroms.

“..I lived through ..war ..Warsaw Ghetto ..Majdanek ..Auschwitz ..Ravensbrueck ..Neustadt-Glewe. ..Hope is last to die consists of recollections ..my first extensive work.” Halina Birenbaum.

Also, and with the Jewish position of being outsiders in a moral vacuum, a space that is always an uncharitable and unethical approach to humanity, this still left the Jews holding to their faith. Judaism was so steadfast and still remained as an adherence to the very morality that the Jewish People themselves were being denied during Hitler’s rampage through History. In all of their existence, the Jewish People have been the targets of what has diminished nations for such hatred they were espousing. The right to persist, at least as a human being, has all too often been denied to the Jewish People by concurrent civilisations wishing to confront, contain and detain them. For me personally, it is difficult to conform to any belief system which would sponsor such an inhumane outrage.

“..In ..Autumn of 1939 planning began for transfer of ..Austrian Jews to ..Lublin District ..Poland. ..organised by Eichmann.” Abraham Margaliot.

Here though, I do not wish to create any impression that my study of The Holocaust brought me to any conclusion relating to my disbelief. However, my own refusal to see any belief system as valid has been enlarged by the calculated destruction of 6,000,000 Jews as a World’s conscience was severely controlled, curtailed and limiting. Through discussions with Survivor’s, who held strongly to their faith, it remains difficult for me to comprehend the absence of a system which recognises any god at its head. The advocates of such systems always point to the god given right of choice for those who chose to Slaughter these 6,000,000 Jews.

“..For a variety of reasons ..women’s situation was a good deal worse than that of ..men ..physical endurance ..coupled with work more arduous and degrading ..agonies of disrupted families ..and ..haunting presence of ..crematoria ..located right in ..middle of ..women’s camp ..inescapable ..undeniable ..ungodly smoke rising ..to contaminate every day ..every night ..every moment of respite or illusion ..every dream and timorous hope.”  Primo Levi.

But what choice was there, or was even given to any of these 6,000,000 Jews that was other than a choice to conform to a fate that was clearly designed for them. The long held institutional belief that conversion, or removal, must then make way for extermination is an absence of what a godhead must mean. I so ardently reject the Slaughter of 6,000,000 Jews as much as I dismiss those who profess a faith that is capable of the most devastating pogrom in all of History. I have been brought to the altar of a History so cruel and barbaric that I see no emergence of a god nor a place for any religion which can look the other way.  I am done with all the pretence that a World in conflict could not direct an effort toward saving 6,000,000 Jews. Nor do I recognise in any religious institution or body, so transfixed by Hitlerian obsession, that they abandon their own codex of moral compassion and ethical righteousness. I do not doubt the fervour of those whose belief offers them comfort but they cannot hold onto the institutions of those beliefs who so profoundly trashed any belief in the sanctity of any life then denied to 6,000,000 Jews.

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



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