Archive for the ‘Holocaust’ Tag
Image by State Library of New South Wales collection via Flickr
“And so, within seven months, I lost my father, my brother, and my mother. I am the only one who survived. This is what the Germans did to us, and these are things that should never be forgotten. On the other hand, we had our revenge: the survivors were able to raise magnificent families – among them myself. This is the revenge and the consolation.”
Zvi Kopolovich
The Holocaust was the murder by Nazi Germany of six million Jews. While the Nazi persecution of the Jews began in 1933, the mass murder was committed during World War II. It took the Germans and their accomplices four and a half years to murder six million Jews. They were at their most efficient from April to November 1942 – 250 days in which they murdered some two and a half million Jews. They never showed any restraint, they slowed down only when they began to run out of Jews to kill, and they only stopped when the Allies defeated them.
There was no escape. The murderers were not content with destroying the communities; they also traced each hidden Jew and hunted down each fugitive. The crime of being a Jew was so great, that every single one had to be put to death – the men, the women, the children; the committed, the disinterested, the apostates; the healthy and creative, the sickly and the lazy – all were meant to suffer and die, with no reprieve, no hope, no possible amnesty, nor chance for alleviation.
Most of the Jews of Europe were dead by 1945. A civilization that had flourished for almost 2,000 years was no more. The survivors – one from a town, two from a host – dazed, emaciated, bereaved beyond measure, gathered the remnants of their vitality and the remaining sparks of their humanity, and rebuilt. They never meted out justice to their tormentors – for what justice could ever be achieved after such a crime? Rather, they turned to rebuilding: new families forever under the shadow of those absent; new life stories, forever warped by the wounds; new communities, forever haunted by the loss.
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The day is also the time at which mourning prayers are said for Holocaust victims whose date of death is not known. Many religious Jews mourn the Holocaust on the 10th of Tevet rather than on the date chosen by the Israeli government in the Hebrew month of Nissan.
The tenth of Tevet is observed as a fast from morning until nightfall. It is the only day-long fast day that can fall on a Friday.
Another event that is mourned on the 10th of Tevet is the day on which King Ptolemy of Egypt forced Jewish scholars to translate the Hebrew Bible into Greek. Their translation was used by those who sought to assimilate Jews into Greek culture, and later formed the basis of the Christian Bible, which for many centuries was used to promote persecution of Jews.
via Israel Remembers the Holy Temple and the Holocaust on Tevet 10 – Jewish World – Israel News – Israel National News.
Image via Wikipedia Joseph Stalin
Stephen F. Cohen wrote his new book, The Victims Return, which tells the stories of survivors of Stalin’s Terror, more than two decades after he first outlined it. He began research in the 1970s, while living in Russia and befriending former Gulag inmates, but then put the project aside. In 2007, the year his friend the historian Robert Conquest turned 90, Cohen picked up where he left off. In the opinion of Anna Larina, the widow of the prominent Stalin victim Nikolai Bukharin, recounting this history was Cohen’s “fate.”
“It was a duty unfulfilled, a debt unpaid,” Cohen told HuffPost. “People had taken risks for me, and I hadn’t done what I said I was going to do. And then I did it — late, but I did it.”
via The Other Holocaust: Stories From Victims Of Stalin’s Terror.
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Image via Wikipedia Muslim Gypsies from Bosnia
Gypsies in the Holocaust.
via Gypsies in the Holocaust.
“For Nazi Germany the Gypsies became a racist dilemma. The Gypsies were Aryans, but in the Nazi mind there were contradictions between what they regarded as the superiority of the Aryan race and their image of the Gypsies…
At a conference held in Berlin on January 30, 1940, a decision was taken to expel 30,000 Gypsies from Germany to the territories of occupied Poland…
The reports of the SS Einsatzgruppen [special task forces] which operated in the occupied territories of the Soviet Union mention the murder of thousands of Gypsies along with the massive extermination of the Jews in these areas.
The deportations and executions of the Gypsies came under Himmler’s authority. On December 16, 1942, Himmler issued an order to send all Gypsies to the concentration camps, with a few exceptions…
The deported Gypsies were sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where a special Gypsy camp was erected. Over 20,000 Gypsies from Germany and some other parts of Europe were sent to this camp, and most of them were gassed there…
Wiernik described the arrival of the largest Gypsy group brought to Treblinka, in the spring of 1943:
One day, while I was working near the gate, I noticed the Germans and Ukrainians making special preparations…meanwhile the gate opened, and about 1,000 Gypsies were brought in (this was the third transport of Gypsies). About 200 of them were men, and the rest women and children…all the Gypsies were taken to the gas chambers and then burned…
Gypsies from the General Government [Poland] who were not sent to Auschwitz and to the operation Reinhard camps were shot on spot by the local police or gendarmes. In the eastern region of the Cracow district, in the counties of Sanok, Jaslo, and Rzeszow, close to 1,000 Gypsies were shot…”
[Excerpted from Arad, Yitzhak. Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka—The Operation Reinhard Death Camps. IN: Indiana University Press, 1987, pp. 150153.]
According to The Institut Fuer Zeitgeschicthe in Munich, at least 4,000 gypsies were murdered by gas at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
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German foreign ministry helped Nazis flee country after the war had ended – Europe, World – The Independent.
The young man’s monochrome portrait is at least 70 years old, the whites all faded to yellow, but it is still clear he had style. His hair is slicked down, eye arched, suit perfect with matching tie and handkerchief.
He also had the good fortune to escape Europe in the early days of World War II. The photo, a gift to the man who helped him escape, is one of seven recently discovered snapshots that cast light on a little known subplot of the war – even as Germany sought to seal Jewish Europeans in, a small army of tourism officials from its main ally, Japan, helped shepherd thousands away to safety.
“My best regards to my friend Tatsuo Osako,” is scrawled in French on the back of the picture, which is signed “I. Segaloff” and dated March 4, 1941. His fate is unknown.
An effort is under way to find the people in these portraits or their descendants, all of whom are assumed to be Jewish. Personal photos of such refugees, who often fled with few possessions, are rare. The photos were found in an old diary owned by Osako, who was a young employee of the Japan Tourist Bureau at the time, and died in 2003. Akira Kitade, who worked under Osako and is researching a book about him, has contacted Israeli officials for help and visited the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. The museum said he gave it about 30 photographs that he is trying to identify, and received a list of over 2,000 Jews who received travel papers that enabled them to reach Japan.
Nissim Ben Shitrit, the Israeli ambassador to Japan, says he has passed on the information to Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, which tracks and honors victims of the
Holocaust, and is optimistic some of the individuals can be tracked down. “I thought that we discovered almost everything about the horror of the Holocaust,”
Shitrit said. “And yet there is more to discover.”
The photos shed further light on the story of Chiune Sugihara, a Japanese diplomat stationed in Lithuania who granted transit visas to several thousand Jews in the early days of the war. In doing so, he defied strict stipulations from Tokyo that such recipients have proper funds and a clear final destination after Japan.
This undated photo found in a diary owned by Japanese tourism official Tatsuo Osako and released on July 26, 2010 by Akira Kitade who worked under Osako, shows Osako with a woman on a ship. The photo is part of a recently discovered group of prints which throws more light on a subplot of the Holocaust: the small army of Japanese bureaucrats who helped shepherd thousands of Jews to safety. (AP Photo/Tatsuo Osako)
This undated photo given to Japanese tourism official Tatsuo Osako shows a woman and a brief message written on the back. (AP Photo/Tatsuo Osako)
An old photo shows a woman and a brief message written on the back of the picture. An effort is under way to find the people in these portraits or their descendants, all of whom are assumed to be Jewish. Personal photos of such refugees, who often fled with few possessions, are rare. (AP Photo/Tatsuo Osako)
This undated photo given to Japanese tourism official Tatsuo Osako and released on July 26, 2010 by Akira Kitade who worked under Osako, shows a woman and a brief message written on the back of the picture. The message written in French translates as, “With warm regards,” and signed “Marie.” (AP Photo/Tatsuo Osako)
An effort is under way to find the people in these portraits or their descendants, all of whom are assumed to be Jewish. Personal photos of such refugees, who often fled with few possessions, are rare. The photos were found in an old diary owned by Osako, who was a young employee of the Japan Tourist Bureau at the time, and died in 2003. Akira Kitade, who worked under Osako and is researching a book about him, has contacted Israeli officials for help and visited the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. The museum said he gave it about 30 photographs that he is trying to identify, and received a list of over 2,000 Jews who received travel papers that enabled them to reach Japan. (AP Photo/Tatsuo Osako)
This photo is one of seven recently discovered snapshots that cast light on a little known subplot of the war – even as Germany sought to seal Jewish Europeans in, a small army of tourism officials from its main ally, Japan, helped shepherd thousands away to safety. (AP Photo/Tatsuo Osako)
The message written in Polish translates as, “A souvenir to a very nice Japanese man,” and signed what looks to be “Rozla.” The photograph is part of a recently discovered group of prints which throws more light on a subplot of the Holocaust: the small army of Japanese bureaucrats who helped shepherd thousands of Jews to safety. (AP Photo/Tatsuo Osako) EDITORIAL USE ONLY
The note written in French translates as, “My best regards to my friend Tatsuo Osako,” signed “I. Segaloff” and dated March 4, 1941. The photograph is part of a recently discovered group of prints which throws more light on a subplot of the Holocaust: the small army of Japanese bureaucrats who helped shepherd thousands of Jews to safety. (AP Photo/Tatsuo Osako) EDITORIAL USE ONLY
This undated photo kept in a diary owned by Tatsuo Osako of the Japan Tourist Bureau and released on July 26, 2010 by Akira Kitade, shows Osako. This photo was in the diary with seven photos given to him by people whom Osako helped escape from Europe in the early days of World War II. The recently discovered group of prints throws more light on a subplot of the Holocaust: the small army of Japanese bureaucrats who helped shepherd thousands of Jews to safety. (AP Photo/Tatsuo Osako)
The photos shed further light on the story of Chiune Sugihara, a Japanese diplomat stationed in Lithuania who granted transit visas to several thousand Jews in the early days of the war. In doing so, he defied strict stipulations from Tokyo that such recipients have proper funds and a clear final destination after Japan. Photo courtesy Chiune Sugihara web site
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