Blood of the Jews

Knowledge is Power

2008-03-29T00:52:00.003-04:00

The Origins of Nazi Violence by Enzo Traverso is a great way to end this blog because it summarizes the theme of “Why’d you do that Hitler?!” The Nazis had believed in the idea of Darwinism, where it is the survival of the fittest. Hitler believed that the superior race was blond hair and blue eyes, while the inferior race was the ideal “Jew” person. During the time period before the holocaust, Jews were the richer race among Germany. This caused a shift by causing inferiority of the German race. The Germans believed that the Jews were bad luck and they were the cause of their declination of money.

Adolf Hitler soon assembled the Nazis which silently worked towards their creation of genocide. They were primarily very successful. However, as the world soon acknowledges their actions, it was evident that their plan must come to an end.

Everything that Hitler has done to the Jews and the other minorities during the Holocaust has and will forevermore be carved in the world’s history. The Holocaust will always be taught and acknowledged as it is the prefect representation of what could result from thoughts of superiority and racism.

The Origins of Nazi Violence

2008-03-28T03:15:00.002-04:00

"The Origins of Nazi Violence" by Enzo Traverso

"INTRODUCTION: Over the past twenty years, Nazi violence has invaded our collective memory and our representations of the twentieth century. Because of the place that is occupies in out historical consciousness, Auschwitz, its emblematic topos, has acquired a prominence comparable to that of the fall of the Roman Empire, the Reformation, or the French Revolution, although from the point of view of the diachronic unfolding of the past, it is not possible to confer upon it a significance analogous to that of those temporal caesuras. The fall of the Roman Empire marked the end of antiquity. The Reformation altered the relationship between God and humans by laying the foundations for the secularization of their ways of life and their vision of the world. As for the French Revolution, it upset the relations between individuals and the authorities in power by changing the former from subjects into citizens. Those events have taken on the dimension of major historical turning points that stand out as reference marks in the development of the West. World War II constituted one of the great watersheds of the twentieth century, and the genocide of the Jews took place within that context..."

Pink Triangles

2008-03-27T22:10:00.000-04:00

During World War II, the Jews were the main victims in the Holocaust. However, a group that has long since been forgotten was the homosexuals. The Pink Triangle: The Nazi War Against Homosexuals, explores and reveals the stories about the “men with the pink triangle” during their life in the concentration camps. The sign of a pink triangle represents the person with who carries the logo as a homosexual. Therefore, it singles the homosexuals out from the crowd. This book follows the six year span (1939-1945) of a Viennese student’s life in the concentration camp under the rule of the Nazis. It was not until the 1970s that homosexuals gained their liberation, and before that, the gays were not even acknowledged as the extermination of the Jews was the main atrocity.

“Researchers learned that the gays, marked by pink triangles, were a relatively small minority in the camps but had a proportionately higher mortality rate than, for example, the more numerous political prisoners, who wore red patches.” (14)

Exactly why the homosexuals were a target during the Holocaust is still a mystery. Some historians say that “Himmler’s storm troopers were as eager to get rid of the gays as they were to expunge other contragenics.” (15) While other writers, such Konrad Heiden, “offered hints that Hitler himself might have been a homosexual or at least some kind of sexual deviant.” (15) However, in the movie, The Damned (1969), “the film promoted the theory, believed by many intellectuals, that the incomprehensible Nazi crimes could be easily explained: the Nazis were simply homosexual perverts.” (16)

The Pink Triangle

2008-03-02T13:27:00.002-05:00

"The Pink Triangle: The Nazi War Against Homosexuals" by Richard Plant

This is the first comprehensive book to appear in English on the fate of homosexuals in Nazi Germany. The author, a refugee from Nazi Germany, examines the climate and conditions that gave rise to a vicious campaign against Germany's gays, directed by Himmlet and his SS - a war that resulted in tens of thousands of arrests and thousands of deaths.

In this Nazi crusade, homosexual prisoners were confined to death camps where, forced to wear pink triangles, they constituted the lowest rung in the camp hierarchy. The horror of camp life is revealed through diaries, documents never before translated from the German, and interviews with and letters from survivors.

Revealing how the anti-homosexual campaign was conducted, the crackpot homophobic fantasies that fueled it, the men who made it possible, and the men who wer its victims, this chilling book sheds light on a corner of contemporary history that has remained hidden in the shadows much too long.*

*from the back of the book

The Dead Angel of Death

2008-02-14T23:45:00.004-05:00

You may be wondering what the outcome of Josef Mengele is now that the Holocaust has been destroyed. After the stories of the twins’ life were expressed to the world, “…government and individual Nazi-hunters competed to find him.” (250) There were reward pensions out all over the world ranging from 300,000 to 4 million dollars for Mengele. This sparked millions of fortune-hunters to search for Mengele. However, it was extremely difficult to find him because they had not known what he looked like and the most recent photograph they had of him was from twenty years ago.

“In June 1985, an international team of forensic experts gathered around the unkempt gravesite in Embu, Brazil, marking the remains of Wolfgang Gerhard. As hundreds of reporters and cameraman watched intently, the experts broke open the casket lid to reveal a grisly heap of bones. The scientists pulled out a pile of bones, some teeth, a few clumps of hair, and a pair of faded, rotting trousers.” (251-252)
There it was, with "scientific certainity" (252) was the bones of Josef Mengele. However, his remains never had a submitted final report and the case was left unclosed.

"Mengele's twins do not for a moment believe their nemesis has died. They are sure the Auschwitz doctor has succeeded in tricking the world yet another time. Bewildered and betrayed, they cannot understand why the hunt for him has been abandoned.” (254) In 1987, the German government presented the twins with restitution. They wanted to take a chance in erasing the past from the twins’ memories. “Images of the Auschwitz death doctor are still vivid and terrifying as decades earlier. But thanks to Germany’s action, as well as the attention afforded to their plight during the mock trial and manhunt, a few of them have begun to find it in their hearts to forgive.” (255)

Moshe Offer Aftermath

2008-02-14T23:12:00.006-05:00

"With the years, I found myself thinking more and more about my brother, Tibi. I pictured Mengele taking him away for the experiments. I remembered how sad he was at the end, when he could no longer walk. I would ask myself, “Why did I stay alive while he died?”
A twin brother is something very special. I have a very nice family, wonderful children. But I have no one to confide in. I feel that I want to say things I could only tell my twin. Instead, I keep a lot bottled inside of me.
With the years, I missed Tibi more and more. I kept wishing he were alive so I could show off my children to him. I liked to fantasize about the wedding he would have had; I wanted very much to see him happily married. I thought about the children he would have had.
Most of all, I wanted to introduce him to Shai, my son who is so much like him.
I would fantasize about this all the time.” (215)

"I sleep very little - two-and-a-half, three hours is a lot for me. I often find myself pacing the house in the middle of the night, while everyone else is sleeping.
I get up and go to another room so I won’t disturb my wife. I get up at four o’clock in the morning, to be at work by five o’clock. I work very hard – twelve, thirteen, fourteen hours a day. I like to work hard – because then I can drive myself to a point of such exhaustion that I simply collapse and sleep a little bit.
I have terrible problems with my nerves. If I have the slightest problem at work, I can’t sleep at all. I can only sleep when I am absolutely exhausted.” (234-235)

Through these passages from the book, I wanted to point out the aftermath of the Holocaust concentration camps. Even after the war has past so long ago, the people that were involved and affected by it still remain to keep the horrid memories within their mind. People walk away from the camps thinking about what had happened to their family, and questioning why it was them that were still alive. They have to find ways to escape from their history and this consistently interrupts with their lives.

Most, if not all of these people, are suffering from psychology issues that definitely affect their daily lives. In this case, Moshe can’t seem to sleep well at night. He would sleep for only a couple of hours a day and then bury himself in work. He doesn’t spend much time with the family because it’ll only bring him more memories of the family that he lost. The Holocaust played such an enormous part on the people that it had touched upon. Not only did these people lost their early life, their life afterwards was also lost to the Holocaust.

The Angel Vanishes

2008-02-07T23:53:00.000-05:00

As the Russian Army neared Auschwitz, Dr. Mengele began to pack up his experimental specimens. He was determined not to lose any of his equipments. He "...didn't want the results from a single experiment to be destroyed, or worse, to fall into the hands of the depised Russians... Key slides and specimens were carefully packed and sent to Gunzburg for safekeeping." (89)

Then one night, Josef Mengele escaped the camp without anyone's knowledge. He relocated to a different concentration camp. In Gross Rosen, Mengele did not perform any experiments. When the Russians neared the camp Mengele began to disappear again.

Josef Mengele was then spotted in a German field hospital, where there were a "...sea of embittered soldiers of the defeated army." (102) The unit finally surrendered to the American Army and Mengele became a prisoner of the war.

As Mengele was confined to a POW camp near Munich, he was able to obtain a fake set of ID papers. When Mengele was released, he "...returned to his parents' home in Gunzburg..."(103) However, thinking that he would bring danger to his family, he instead lived out in the woods.

Josef Mengele could be seen as a man that was very much afraid of having to end up getting what he deserves. He believed that he could sneak his way out of the pains that he caused the twins and their families. However, karma takes a bite in Mengele's behind as all of his twins were able to vividly recall the memories that he left in their life, causing his faults to be known to the world.

Moshe Offer III

2008-02-07T22:13:00.001-05:00

"When I arrived in Israel, all the children I had traveled with had someone they could go to - a cousin, an uncle, a friend. I had nobody.
I was placed in an orphanage. I was the only Holocaust victim there, and it was very hard for me. On the weekends, the children went home to their relatives. I was left all by myself.
I was very jealous of the other children. When the weekend was over, they returned with care packages and pocket money given to them by their families. They could buy themselves little treats, go to the movies. But I had no money at all.
I lived from hand to mouth. Sometimes, I would sneak into the cinema. If I was caught, the ushers or the owener would beat me up and throw me out.
There were very hard times, and I was extremely depressed. I felt completely alone.
Sometimes, they would close the kitchens. Since I always felt hungry, I picked through the garbage for food to eat." (151)

As Moshe's life continued after the Holocaust, she still had to undergo sufferings. Because the Holocaust took away her family and her happiness, she had no one to turn to. Moshe was very jealous at what the other kids had, and how lucky they were not to have been in the concentration camps. She longed for someone that was in a similiar sitution as she was, but no child ever came that went through what she went through in the camps.

If it wasn't for the Nazis, Moshe would have been able to lead a joyful life, alongside with her family. But, everything was taken away from her as she was the only surviving member. She hated Dr. Mengele for taking away her other half, her twin.

As we are able to see what Moshe went through, all over Europe the surviving children were are feeling the same way. The Holocaust left them with nothing and no meaning to live. Even when the Holocaust was over, it still was affective in their lives.

You Made Me, Me

2008-01-31T23:02:00.000-05:00

So far we have been introduced to Josef Mengele's mother and how his childhood life was influenced by her. When reading about his mother, it is evident that he took on his mother's quality of a two-faced person. In front of the younger twins, he was "Uncle Mengele", a person that cares for them and present them with candy. However, his other half was the person that performed experiments on the older twins. Similiar to his mother, whose dark side was evident to only the workers at the factory; Mengele's cruelty was only viewed by the "older twins,...adults, such as the twins' mothers and Jewish doctors" (69)

Being just a little boy, Mengele was the only person that could soften his mother's heart. He was always a mommy's boy, "loyally siding with her, whatever the issue." (37). Even after his two failed marriages, the only woman that had his heart was his mother. Mengele's mother had such a large impact on his life. She became a role model to Mengele, and her actions became his own.

Moshe Offer II

2008-01-24T19:02:00.001-05:00

"One day, my twin brother, Tibi, was taken away for some special experiments. Dr. Mengele had always been more interested in Tibi. I am not sure why - perhaps because he was the older twin.
Mengele made several operations on Tibi.
One surgery on his spine left my brother paralyzed. He could not walk anymore.
Then they took out his sexual organs.
After the fourth operation, I did not see Tibi anymore.
I cannot tell you how I felt. It is impossible to put into words how I felt.
They had taken away my father, my mother, my two older brothers - and now, my twin." (71)

Following up on one of the twins' journal, we are able to see how their lives are turning out in the camps. As Mengele worked on the twins, they become acknowledged on the reason why they are where they are in the first place. They come to realized that they were just lab rats and that their sole existence was to allow Mengele to perform his laboratory experiments.

After realizing that Mengele was actually an evil and cruel person, it was already too late. Their lives were already ruined, and the people that they loved was no longer there. The camps took away their parents and relatives, while Dr. Mengele took away their other half.

Hedvah and Leah Stern

2008-01-18T18:02:00.001-05:00

"When they opened the door to our cattle car, our mother became very frightened. "Stay with me, children," she told us, refusing to let go of our hands.
But then some prisoners told her in Yiddish, "Tell them you have twins. There is a Dr. Mengele here who wants twins. Only twins are being kept alive."
But our mother didn't want to be separated from us. She said, "No, you are coming with me," and continued walking toward the crematorium.
We were thirteen-and-a-half years old when our family was sent to Auschwitz from our small town in Hungary. There were a lot of Jews living in that town before the war.
Our mother was a widow. Father died when we were only six years old, and mother never remarried. She decided to raise us by herself because she feared that a second husband might mistreat us.
We were very close to our mother. She was a seamstress, and after our father died, she had to work hard to support us. Yet she never let us feel like orphans. She gave us whatever we wanted. We lacked for nothing.
We adored her. We fought with each other to get her attention. We dreamt of the day we would be old enough to work and help her.
We hoped to open up our own seamstress shop. Whatever we earned, we planned to give it to our mother. We wanted to call it "The Stern Sisters."
At Auschwitz, mother was determined to hold on to us. She hid us under her skirt." (36-37)

Stories like these make us all wonder why and how someone as evil as Hitler could do something as evil as the Holocaust. Not only did he tear families apart but for the ones that survived, they will always have nightmares of the time that they were in the camps.

"Wally" Mengele, Larger Than Life

2008-01-11T19:18:00.000-05:00

The family of Josef Mengele were very close and devoted. They were raised up as a regular churchgoer. Together, the family of five went each sunday to the church near the marketplace. Frequently, Karl and Walburga, the parents of Josef, would hold skating parties for their children at the pond near their house.

Mengele's mother's life revolved around her children. She was a "heavyset woman with a stern, homely face and dark, scowling eyes" (35). "Wally" Mengele had an awful weight problem. The thing she loved most was to eat. As the Mengele became more and more wealthy; Wally grew more enormous. "She ate constantly, compulsively. She became so obese, she could hardly walk. She was so massivem, she looked almost pregnant. She was so hungry she devoured everything in sight." (35-36)

However, Walburga had another side to herself; a terrifying side that was only known to a few people. Whenever Walburga came to visit her husband's factory, the employees "fretted". (36) "She had no compunctions about yelling at them and embarrassing them before the others,... and was inclined to fly into rages at the slightest provocation. They nicknamed her "the Matador." and instinctively stayed out of her way." (36)

Mengele's mother "loomed as a gigantic figure in Josef's life - impossible to escape..." "She could be warm and maternal, or she could behave like a raging bull. Her reactions were impossible to predict." (36) Does this sound similar to what I wrote about Josef Mengele previously on his treatment towards twins?

Vera and Olga

2008-01-04T19:14:00.002-05:00

Vera Grossman
I was born in Czechoslovakia in 1938 to a very wealthy family. My father, who was twenty years older than my mother, owned many fields and plantations. More than two hundred laborers worked for him, tilling the soil and helping to pick and package the fruits and vegetables.
He fell in love with my mother when she was just a young girl. Before the war, Mother was extremely beautiful. She had jet-black hair and blue eyes.
When they married, he brought her to live on his estate and lavished her with clothes, servants, jewels. All her dresses were hand-made in Prague.
Once, a dress she had ordered for a wedding didn’t arrive on time. My father sent his chauffeur all the way to Prague – hundreds of kilometers away – to fetch it.
My father was delighted when Olga and I were born. At his age, he considered twins a double blessing. We were spoiled and given everything children could want.
Of course, this lifestyle came to an end when the Germans invaded Czechoslovakia. Jews could no longer live openly. Even though my father was very rich, and had connections with the government, we still had to go into hiding. We had to abandon everything.
First, my father bribed a Christian family to let us live in their attic. It was a terrifying period. I was only four years old, but I remember how we were constantly admonished not to make any noise. Even to cry was forbidden, because it would endanger the family.
And to this day, I am haunted by this feeling – that if I do something wrong, my whole family will die.
Eventually, it became so dangerous to hide Jews in Czechoslovakia that no one wanted to shelter us – no matter what my father was willing to pay. We lived like animals, lying low during the day, foraging for food at night. I can recall eating raw potatoes, when that was all my parents could find.
But eventually the Germans found us there. We were sent to a series of concentration camps, until we arrived finally at Auschwitz, in the spring of 1944. (33-34)

From this passage, you could clearly see another family struggling with the Nazi invasion. Once the Nazis took over, the lives of everyone that they affected changed in an 180deg. Such as this particular family, before the invasion they were extremely weathly, and lived a carefree life. They could have anything they wanted and life was just a dream. However, as the Nazis invaded, they took everything from the family. Their security was no longer in sight. They had to pay others to allow them to hide. But as people became more and more afraid of being caught hiding a Jew in their houses, no one took them into hiding. The family tried giving the people money, but money was nothing compared to their life.

This book is set up in a style where a set of twin is explored through a small "life clip" and then it flashes back to the life of Dr. Josef Mengele.

I, personally, love the way the book is set up, and I hope you do to as I incorporate a part of the book in my posts.

The Angel and the Monster

2007-12-26T17:59:00.000-05:00

Josef Mengele born on March 16, 1911, in Gunzburg, was a charming and carefree child. Josef grew up oblivious to the people around him as a person that would ultimately turn into a killer. “There was an innocence and a sweetness to young Josef that would lead Gunzburg’s citizens to shake their heads in disbelief when they heard, years later, of his savage deeds at Auschwitz. The fiendish death-camp physician had nothing in common with the lovable youngster they all had known.” (31)

Mengele belonged to a wealthy family that manufactured military goods for profits. After World War I, the Mengele farm-equipment business prospered.

At Auschwitz, no one could see Mengele for the murderer that he is. Everyone that saw him thought of him as a “polite young SS doctor” (32). However, “Mengele would decide who lived and who died with a smile and an airy wave of his elegant white-gloved hand.” (32)

As for the twins that he selected for his medical experiment, he showed affection and warmth towards them like when he was a child growing up. “Did he see something of his old self in these children, innocent and doomed?” (32)

What do you think are the reasons behind Dr. Mengele’s murders?

Moshe Offer - "Miki and Tibi"

2007-12-21T19:19:00.001-05:00

Moshe Offer:I was born in 1932 in a small town in what is now a part of Russia. My twin brother and I were the youngest of four brothers. We were nicknamed “Miki and Tibi.”
My family was very wealthy. Father owned a large estate with two plants that manufactured liquor. We grew potatoes and fruit on our farm, and made sweet liqueurs from them.
It was a wonderful life. Each morning, Tibi and I were taken to school by a horse-drawn carriage. We owned two horses!
Then the Germans came in 1944. They took everything from us. They confiscated our gold, our jewelry, our furniture – all our possessions. We were no longer permitted to live on the farm. Instead, we were ordered to take two suitcases and report to the village synagogue, where we were jammed along with all the other Jews in our town.
From there, we were moved to a ghetto in a big city. The conditions were terrible. We had no clothes. We were forced to wear – literally – the shirt on our back. We weren’t given food, either, and we were constantly hungry. Dead people littered the streets; they had starved to death.
One day, the Germans returned. We were taken out of the ghetto and placed in cattle cars. The journey took eight days – eight days without water, without food. It is painful for me to remember what went on there. It is too horrible to describe.
We arrived at Auschwitz in May 1944. I can even tell you the exact time: ten o’clock in the morning.
When they opened the doors to our cattle cars, there were a lot of dead children. During the trip, some mothers couldn’t bear to hear the cries of their hungry babies – and so they killed them. I remember two blond, very beautiful children in my car whose mother had choked them to death because she could not stand to watch them suffer.
When we stepped off the trains, we could hear soldiers yelling, “Men on one side, women on the other side.” Some German SS guards were also shouting, “We want twins – bring us the twins!”
Dr. Mengele was making the selections. He stood there, tall, nice-looking, and he was dressed very well, as if he wanted to make a good impression.
He had very soft hands, and he made fast decisions.
I heard my father cry out to them he had twins. He went over personally to Dr. Mengele, and told him, “I have a pair of twin boys.” Mengele sent some SS guards over to us. My twin, Tibi, and I were ordered to leave our parents and brothers and follow him.
But we didn’t want to be separated from our mother, and so the Nazis separated us by force. My father begged Mengele to give us some food and water. But Mengele motioned to an SS guard, who beat him up on the spot.
As we were led away, I saw my father fall to the ground. (29-30)

This book starts off with a set of twin, Miki and Tibi, re-telling the story of their lives and how the had Holocaust affected them. As Miki tells the reader what had happened in his life, he reveals the cruelty of the Nazis. This true story has parallel information about the Holocaust from the ‘history book-like” story that I had read previously.

From this excerpt, you can start to see Dr. Mengele’s yearning for twins and the brutality that he causes if something was to stand in his way.

Children of the Flames

2007-12-14T19:49:00.000-05:00

Children of the Flames: Dr. Josef Mengele and the Untold Story of the Twins of Auschwitz, by Lucette Matalon Lagnado and Sheila Cohn Dekel

*During World War ll, Dr. Joseph Mengele subjected some 3,000 twins to medical experiments of unspeakable horror; only 160 survived. In this remarkable, evocative narrative, the life of Auschwitz’s Angel of Death is told in counterpoint to the lives of the survivors, who until now have keep silent about their death camp ordeals.

We follow the twins first as children, beginning their descent into Auschwitz by witnessing their entire families being led away to be killed, and focus on the years after the Liberation, as they struggle to rebuild their lives. Many are tormented by the gruesome deaths of their siblings, and all are condemned to live with a terrible double-edged sword: the hell they suffered because of Mengele, and the life they owe him as “his” children.

Here is an entirely new story about the Holocaust and its aftermath – and of the men and women who have achieved a fragile and hard-won triumph over the past.

*taken from the back cover.

The Men Behind the Acts

2007-12-13T19:47:00.000-05:00

Auschwitz: A History, by Sybille Steinbacher, sets the Holocaust based around Auschwitz. As most people already know, the Auschwitz concentration camp was of the largest and had the greatest amount of deaths. Due to this reason, one would want to know how Auschwitz came to be what it did.

In all history books, the Holocaust was blamed on Adolf Hitler; but without his SS, would he have been able to do all that was accomplished?
Further exploring the concept: Is Hitler truly the most 'evil' person of all, or would it had been his SS men?

During and before the Holocaust, Adolf Hitler seeks out the people that are greedy for power. He distinguishes the people with ‘good intentions’ and the ones with ‘bad intentions’. By using the people with the ‘bad intentions’ to become his SS men, he knew those people would do all they can to gain benefit from others. By seeking out there kinds of people, it allowed his concept of an ‘aryan race’ a success.

Why would the SS men commit such heinous, cruel offenses?
As my later posts had already set out, the SS men benefited from the Holocaust through every aspect. Their greed solely took over their conscience. Since the benefits were so great, the SS were extremely reluctant to withdraw from their crimes. They knew that there was no way back to redeem their innocence, and therefore, they continued on with their crimes.

A question to wonder about: What are some qualities in a person that would make them want to kill/rape/hurt others?

Mutilated, Murdered and Dissected

2007-12-11T18:17:00.000-05:00

Through the hands of scientists, the Holocaust opened a pathway for them to "mutilated, murdered and dissected the prisoners." (112) The scientists would use the prisoners to investigate and venture into the bodies of human for further knowledge. Gynaecologist Carl Claubergused "used hundreds of women to study methods of mass sterilization and artificial fertilization." The institutes of Grafeneck and Sonnenstein murdered "mentally and physically handicapped people" for their "'enthanasia' programme". Johann Paul Kremer studied the "consequences of food withdrawal for the human organism. The "so-called" research were focused upon infections such as spotted fever, malaria and syphilis. "experiments were performed on dead and living prisoners: body-parts from murdered prisoner were used for bacteriological studies, and for haematological investigations living prisoners were employed, many of whom bled to death. (113)

The benefits of the Holocaust became an excuse to kill so many minorities. For Adolf Hitler, he started the Holocaust to make sure that the 'aryan race' will be the most inferior population. As for the SS, they profited so much from the victims' body that they were reluctant to stop their evil actions. The scientists and doctors at that time did not lose their opportunity to examine bodies that they felt could be the key to knowledge of the human body. Every person that participated in the Holocaust knew that it was very beneficial for themselves.

Is it possible to say that as long as someone benefits from something, they don't care about the consequences. Does greed cloud the moralities of a person?

'Through cleanliness to freedom'

2007-11-21T20:37:00.000-05:00

You, line up over there. You, over here. One line was towards something unknown; the other line faced panels on a door indicating that is was the “Bath and disinfection room”. From the bath and disinfection room’s ceiling were something that seemed to be shower heads.

SS men stood along the line handing out soap and towels. Everyone was relieved to finally be able to take a nice hot shower. As 2,000 people filled up the shower, the chamber doors were shut behind them. “SS men poured in the poison from the roof, and sealed the openings with concrete plates.” (100) The men looked inside at the chamber through a peephole. They watched as the innocent died. Twenty minutes later, everyone inside was dead. The bodies were then transferred to the mortuaries. Golden teeth had to broken out of the jaws of the dead, rings were pulled off their fingers and women’s long hair was cut off.

The German Reich profited from the corpses. Through the golden teeth, the gold was melted down into bricks and given to the banks. “Human hair was spun into thread and turned into felt for the war industry, and presumably it was also used in the manufacture of mattresses and ropes…” (103) Ash was not only fertilizer, but it was also an insulation for the camp buildings. As the SS men obtained huge amounts of money and valuables, none of them cared about the death penalties that they would be guilty of.

Imagine the SS men were splitting up your family: your mom and baby sisters are chosen to go in the other line, while you, your dad, and your brothers were together in a different line. Your mother is in the line that led to the Bath and disinfection room. What are your thoughts at this moment?

Targeting Troubles

2007-11-14T21:16:00.000-05:00

Last Saturday, I had an on-hand experience towards racism. There's a high rate of theft where I work, so every product with value will be locked up in glass cases and will have to be held behind the counter while the customer shops. Well, a lady comes in, asking me to let her smell the perfume. After smelling the perfume, she claims that she'll buy it. So I locked up the glass case and told her I had to hold the perfume behind the counter. That was when she went crazy. She started to say that I was targeting her, and that I should not be targeting a minority. I told her it was store policy and that's just what I have to do. To make matters worse, she persistently insist that I was "targeting" her and claimed to report me. In short, she left the store, thinking I was targeting her. However, obviously, I was not; but, what can you say, there are so many ignorant people.

Relating back to the Holocaust, if only the Jews had realized that they were in fact being "targeted" as this lady had falsely believed; they could possibly react faster to save their lives. During the Holocaust, the Jews were very naive. They couldn't believe or realize that something as awful as concentration camps was set up for them to meet their deaths. As people come to warn the Jews, most of them just thought of their forewarning as an awful rumor that is spreading. The majority of the Jews that did not escape to other countries stayed in the towns. They couldn’t believe that due to their resistance to migrate, it would then cause them to be transferred to concentration camps; where family members were split apart and never to be seen again.

If you had been a Jew living during the Holocaust age, would you have or have not believed the people that forewarns you with stories about the concentration camps?
If you did believe the stories, what would you have done next?
If you did not believe the stories, why didn’t you?

Lebensraum in the East

2007-11-08T23:25:00.000-05:00

Adolf Hitler's famous Mein Kampf became the announcement of his Lebensraum policy. It claimed that "the taking of 'the East' was nothing but the taking of a legitimate inheritance to which Germany had always been entitled." (13) Hitler wanted 'Germanization', which was his goal to have complete destruction in the existing order. He wanted a victory of the 'Aryan race'. To the Nazis, "'Germanization' meant a ruthless 'racial restructuring'." (14) In other words, they simply wanted total suppression of natives.

As Reichsfuhrer-SS searched for a suitable location for the building of a concentration camp, he came across the area of Auschwitz. Auschwitz's "buildings and barracks were dilapidated, ... on swampy ground and afflicted by malaria, and ground-water resources were atrocious." (22) Auschwitz's location was far from the SS experts' expectation.

June 1940 was the beginning of the first deportation of Poland political enemies. Prisoners at the camp was not yet systematically murdered, however, the working conditions were intolerable and most died of hunger. Upon arrival of Auschwitz, "each prisoner was given a number, which from that point onwards replaced his or her name. The prisoners had to undress, their heads and bodies were shaved, and they were beaten all the way to the showers." (31)

Searching for a way out, Tadeusz Wiejowski, was the first prisoner to successfully escape the camp. Immediately, the surrounding Polish population were accused of aiding Wiejowski in his escape. "Houses were torn down and their inhabitants transported to the Old Reich to form forced-labour units." (36)

What would you do if you were one of the prisoners? Would you have the guts to escape? Or would you accept to die in the concentration camp?

Behind the Unthinkable

2007-10-28T20:16:00.000-04:00

Auschwitz was not always known as the most horrific concentration camp. As a matter of fact, Auschwitz was originally a town that was flourishing in trade due to its greatly centered location. As the town continuously switched political allegiances, the people who lived there were troubled due to all the confusion that occurred. Their lives were constantly changing and none of them could guess which nation would ultimately possess their little town. Finally, Auschwitz became uninterrupted in 1772, falling into the hands of Austrian possession and was taken upon the official language of German. It was then that Jews began to migrate into Auschwitz. Jews were lured into Auschwitz through stories that promised them equality and jobs. Auschwitz allowed Jews to be "able to abandon their uncertain legal position, achieve complete equality as citizens, and exert considerable influence on culture and politics." (Auschwitz; A History, Steinbacher 8)

As the years led up to the rise of World War II, the Catholics and Jews were faced with misery due to the declination of the economy conditions. It was then that the Jews felt that their freedom was being challenged. Jews were "forbidden to use the bathing-place on the Sola, and access to the town park was closed to them. Jewish craftsmen received fewer commissions, and many of them were put out of work." (13) Who could guess what kinds of horrors were happening behind their backs and ultimately shatter their near perfect lives.