I started down this track tonight after seeing a piece somewhere about the "holocaust" -- not an entirely new subject for a writer with 50 years of news coverage under my belt. The subject has always riveted my attention.
It is the quintessential example of "man's inhumanity to man" -- so audacious, horrid and cruel as to be even be doubted -- even though there is massive evidence of its existence. The first photos I saw of the holocaust came from World War II "Life" magazine coverage. My father was subscriber to a number of news, human events, geography and nature publications, all of which I devoured. I'm certain this exposure to the leading news journals of the day directed my path into writing, photography, broadcasting and journalism. And so came the holocaust into my world.
Resource: Wikipedia
The
Holocaust is generally regarded as the systematic, state-sponsored
persecution and slaughter of approximately 6 million Jews u0097 two
thirds of the total European Jewish population, and two-fifths of the
Jews in the entire world u0097 but also millions of other victims, by
the Nazi regime and its collaborators under
Adolf Hitler.
While
the Jews were the primary target, there were many other ethnic,
secular, religious, and national groups that suffered during the
Holocaust, including Poles, Czechs, Greeks, Gypsies, Serbs, Ukranians,
and Russians, as well as homosexuals, mentally and physically
handicapped persons, trade unionists, prisoners of war, Jehovah's
Witnesses, and uncounted others. All were targeted because of their
perceived "racial inferiority."
The roots of Hitler's hatred
Disagreements
persist about the precise origins of Hitler's anti-semitism. His hatred
of the Jews was so unrelenting that the political testament he signed
on April 29, 1945 u0097 just one day before his suicide and fewer than
10 days before German surrender u0097 ended by ordering "the government
and the people to uphold the race laws ... and to resist mercilessly the
poisoner of all nations, international Jewry." As early as 1919, in his
first definite anti-Jewish writing, Hitler stated that "rational
anti-semitism must lead to a systematic legal opposition and elimination
of the special privileges which Jews hold... Its final objective must
unswervingly be the removal of the Jews altogether."
Modern
anti-semitism in Germany was boosted in the 1880s when an influential
nationalist historian, Heinrich von Trietschke, published a series of
articles in which he wrote, "The Jews are our misfortune." That slogan
would later be written on banners at Nazi rallies. Another anti-Jewish
German writer, Wilhelm Marr, coined the term anti-semitism.
Anti-semitism
was not unique to Germany. Hitler was only exploiting anti-semitic
feelings that had been endemic in Europe for centuries. Germany was in
terrible shape economically after
World War I,
and Hitler and his ideals made it easy for the German people to lay the
blame on one particular group. Hitler led many to believe that the Jews
had been the source of defeat during the war, as well as for the
economic depression during the 1930s.
At
the heart of Hitler's political creed stood the ideal of racial purity.
Above all else, German, or "Aryan," blood must be kept vital and
strong. Neither Hitler nor any of his contemporaries was the first to
practice what has sometimes been called "the longest hatred." Hitler was
born into a world, and into an environment, in which anti-semitism was
already present. His time spent in Vienna, Austria, as a young man,
fueled his notions of racial superiority.
Hitler
joined, and soon became the leader of, a small right-wing political
group that called itself the National Socialist German Workers Party
(Nazi). The Nazis attempted to take over the German government in
November 1923, but were unsuccessful, and Hitler received a five-year
prison sentence for his involvement in the uprising. He served nine
months of his sentence in a suite of rooms at the prison, during which
time he wrote Mein Kampf (My
Struggle), which declared that some races create civilization and
others corrupt it. By 1945, his book had sold more than 6,000,000
copies.
The
Nazis gained in popularity as Hitler promised a better life for the
German people. By 1932 the Nazis were the largest political party in
Germany. They soon gained total control, and called their state the
Third Reich. Hitler's speeches u0097 typically delivered from rough
notes and sometimes lasting two hours u0097 drew crowds that often
numbered in the tens of thousands.
Hell on Earth
In
1933, the Jewish population of Europe was more than 9 million. Most
European Jews lived in countries that the Third Reich would occupy, or
at least influence, during World War II. By 1945, close to two out of
every three European Jews had been killed as part of the "Final
Solution," or the policy to slay all the Jews of Europe.
The
Holocaust had essentially been underway since the enactment of the 1935
Nuremberg Race Laws, which proclaimed Jews to be second-class citizens
and excluded German Jews from Reich citizenship, as well as prohibited
them from marrying or having sexual relations with persons of "German or
related blood." German Jewish athletes were not allowed to participate
in the 1936 Olympics.
As
soon as Hitler became chancellor of Germany in 1933, he implemented his
scheme to conclude the struggle between the "master race" and the
"inferior races." Anything in the media that opposed the Nazi Party was
censored and removed. All forms of communication, whether newspapers,
magazines, books, art, music, or radio, were controlled by the Nazis.
Soon,
laws were instituted against Jews that forced them out of public life
u0097 civil service jobs, university positions, and numerous others.
Jewish businesses were boycotted, and all Jews were compelled to label
their exterior clothing with a yellow Star of David with the word
"Juden" (Jew).
Eventually,
Jews were more and more segregated, until finally, they couldn't go to
public schools, theaters, or resorts, and were even banned from walking
in certain parts of Germany.
When
World War II
erupted on September 1, 1939 and Germany gained victory over Poland,
the Nazis began to enslave the Poles and destroy their culture. The
first step was to eliminate the leaders and intelligensia. Many
university professors, politicians, writers, and Catholic priests were
murdered. Polish people were dislocated to make room for the "superior"
Germans.
Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, Einsatzgruppen,
or mobile killing units, carried out mass-murder operations. On
September 29 and 30, 1941, for example, more than half of the 60,000
Jews living in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev were marched into a ravine
and shot.
More
than 1.3 million men, women, and children were murdered in such outdoor
massacres. Hitler also authorized an order to exterminate
institutionalized, handicapped patients deemed incurable. The practice
went on throughout the war.
During
the war, the Nazis created ghettos, or city districts (often enclosed),
in which the Germans forced the Jewish population to live under
miserable conditions. More than 400 ghettos were established, the
largest of which was the one in Warsaw, Poland, where approximately
450,000 Jews were crowded into an area of 1.3 square miles.
By
the middle of 1941, 4-5,000 Warsaw Jews perished every month from
hunger and disease brought on by malnutrition. Between 1942 and 1944,
Germans decided to eliminate the ghettos and deport their populations to
"extermination camps," or killing centers equipped with gassing
facilities, in Poland. That was known as the "Final Solution to the
Jewish Question" u0097 implemented after a meeting with senior Nazi
officials in January 1942.
Between
September 1939, when Nazi troops invaded Poland, and Germany's
surrender in May 1945, Hitler and his army essentially waged two wars.
One was against Allied forces on three continents and the other was
against the Jews and other unfortunate civilians.
Extermination
Deportations
of Jews from the ghettos commenced from west to east. Jews by the
trainloads arrived in Poland from Germany, Holland, and Belgium. A lucky
few managed to jump from the "death trains." People were deposited
directly into the death camps, and one ghetto after another was
destroyed. By the beginning of 1945, Jewish communities, in continuous
existence for nearly a thousand years, ceased to exist.
Six
"killing centers," or extermination camps, were organized in Poland:
Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibor, Treblinka, and the most infamous,
Auschwitz. The camps were chosen according to their proximity to rail
lines, which was essential for transporting the victims.
Railroad
freight cars and passenger trains brought in the victims. Upon arrival,
men and women were immediately separated. Prisoners were stripped of
their clothing and valuables, then they were divided into two groups.
Those too weak for work were forced naked into the gas chambers,
disguised as showers, where carbon monoxide or hydrogen cyanide
asphyxiated them.
The
bodies were then stripped of hair (used for rugs, socks, and
mattresses), gold fillings, and teeth, and burned in crematoriums or
buried in mass graves. Those who were allowed to live were chosen for
medical experiments or slave labor.
Camp
living conditions were wretched. Inmates were crammed into windowless,
non-insulated barracks u0097 up to 55 in one building. There were no
bathrooms available u0097 a bucket served as the only waste control.
Food was scarce, malnutrition made prisoners easy targets of disease and
dehydration.
Besides
the "extermination camps", whose sole purpose was to annihilate the
Jewish population and all other enemies of the Nazis, there also were
"concentration camps" established throughout Germany, where inmates were
placed under harsh working conditions and starvation.
An end to the nightmare
In
late 1944, the tide of war had turned and Allied forces moved across
Europe in a series of offensives on Germany. The Nazis decided to
evacuate outlying concentration camps. In the final months of the war,
SS guards forced inmates on death marches in an attempt to prevent the
Allied liberation of large numbers of prisoners.
Those
death marches passed directly through many towns, and many died
literally at the front doors of townspeople. Many died from starvation,
disease, exhaustion, and cold, and thousands more were shot along the
way. It is estimated that 250,000 concentration camp prisoners were
murdered or died in the forced death marches that were conducted during
the last 10 months of World War II.
Allied
forces began to encounter and liberate concentration camp prisoners in
the late spring and early summer of 1945. Many of the freed prisoners
were so weak that they couldn't eat or digest the food they were given
and died shortly after liberation.
The
Third Reich collapsed in May 1945. SS guards fled and many of the
concentration camps were turned into displaced person camps. Between
1948 and 1951, nearly 700,000 Jews emigrated to the new state of
Israel. Approximately 140,000 Holocaust survivors came to America after 1948, most settling in
New York.
Many
Nazis were put on trial at Nuremberg, and found guilty of war crimes
and crimes against humanity. Nazi medical doctors were accused of
involvement in the horrors of human experimentation. One such doctor was
Karl Brandt, Hitler's personal physician. He was sentenced to death,
along with dozens of other Nazi leaders.
Current
estimates, based on Nazi war records and official government documents
from various countries, place the death toll of the Holocaust at
anywhere from 10 million (a conservative figure) to 26 million people.
The
sobering fact about the Holocaust is how close the Nazis came to total
victory. In such countries as Poland, which, before World War II, still
included parts of the Ukraine and Belarus, the Jewish death toll
surpassed 90 percent.
It
is important to note, however, when looking at this atrocious event in
world history, that the Jews were by no means the only victims of the
Holocaust. Other ethnic groups suffered heavy losses. For instance,
there were nearly as many non-Jewish Poles killed (approximately 3 million) as there were Jewish Poles.
Many survivors have expressed disgust that the Holocaust happened in
full public view, and reached its awful results because people were
content to be bystanders and look the other way. Although the full
extent of what was happening in German-controlled areas was not known
until after the war, there were many rumors and eye-witness accounts
throughout Europe that indicated that a great number of Jews were being
killed.
The
German Rail Company, which was used to transport prisoners to various
concentration camps, had more than 1 million employees, and had to be
fully aware of the reality of life in the camps. British historian Ian
Kershaw has written: "The road to Auschwitz was built by hate, and paved
by indifference."
Some
also have questioned why the prisoners didn't revolt, since the inmates
vastly outnumbered the soldiers stationed at the camps. There were
uprisings, but one has to remember that the prisoners, for the most
part, lacked any kind of organizational or military experience. They
came from various European countries and therefore spoke different
languages. Most importantly, they were extremely weak because of their
living conditions.
The
1961 trial in Jerusalem of Adolf Eichmann, the coordinator of the Final
Solution, set off an angry debate about Jewish honor and resistance.
Why didn't victims put up more of a fight? The real mystery is not why
the Jews failed to resist, but how anyone managed to survive at all.
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