Tag Archives: Buchenwald

Dutch East Indies Hostages and the Death Candidates

Between 1816 and 1949, the Dutch East Indies, now Indonesia, was a Dutch colony. Between 1941 and 1945 it was occupied by Japan.

On 19 and 20 July 1940, 231 people who were on leave from the Dutch East Indies in the Netherlands were arrested by the Germans. They were called ‘Indian hostages’. It was in retaliation for the arrest of nearly 2,400 Germans by the Dutch governor-general in the Dutch East Indies in May 1940. The 15 female hostages went to Ravensbrück, the men to Camp Buchenwald. On October 7, 116 Indian hostages arrived in Buchenwald, but they did not come from the Dutch East Indies. The women were released again in early November 1940, and the men who survived were released more than 4 years later.

On October 7, another 116 men arrive in Buchenwald, who have been taken prisoner as ‘Indian hostages’. They do not originate from the Dutch East Indies and all hold prominent positions, including in the academic world. The women are released in early November 1940. In November 1941, after a difficult year in Camp Buchenwald, the men go to Camp Haaren. From there they are merged with the ‘notable hostages’ in Beekvliet in May 1942. There are frictions between the 2 groups. Because they have been held hostage for over a year longer, the Indian hostages feel a bit elevated, a bit more ‘hostage’.

Moreover, the food packages, which the Indian hostages received and the other hostages did not, created division. At their request, the Indian hostages were transferred in July 1943 to the boarding school De Ruwenberg, located further away.

Due to several deaths in Camp Buchenwald and some releases, about 150 hostages remain. Among them also, four Jews. They are transferred to Camp Westerbork at the end of July 1943.

The men were under the protection of the International Red Cross. The Germans agreed to this so that the German hostages in the Dutch East Indies would also receive decent treatment. In practice, this meant that the Swedish and Swiss Red Cross provided them with food packages as much as possible.

This group of hostages was treated very differently in Buchenwald from the other prisoners, their designation, ‘Das goldene Block’, says enough. They were the goldcrests in the camp, but they had a rough time nonetheless. Goldcrests in various respects: they did not have to work, were not mistreated and were allowed to receive parcels. So there was very limited contact with the outside world: they were allowed to write a letter once a month, in German! During the day they were free to do as they pleased.

The hygiene left much to be desired. In the winter of 1940-1941, twelve (or fourteen) hostages died of malnutrition and pneumonia, despite the food parcels and protection of the Red Cross.

Yet camp life was a heavy psychological burden, there was a constant fear, the sword of Damocles, of which they were constantly aware. The protection of the Red Cross didn’t mean much either, the Germans were masters at circumventing the controls!

Arthur Seyss-Inquart was the Reich commissioner for the Nazi-occupied Netherlands. In the latter capacity, Seyss-Inquart shared responsibility for the deportation of Dutch Jews and the shooting of hostages.

On 9 September 1940 he issued the following statement:

The Hague, September 9, 1940

In the foreign possessions of the Netherlands, a large number of Reich Germans resident there were arrested by the Dutch authorities and interned under undignified and extremely unhealthy conditions.
These measures by the Dutch authorities are in stark contrast to the loyal and generous treatment accorded to the Dutch people by the occupying powers.

To my regret, I feel compelled to leave several Dutch nationals—including you—in custody until this situation, which is intolerable for the German sense of honour, is remedied.

The Reich Commissioner for the Occupied Dutch Territories
signed Dr Seyss-Inquart”

In the context of these hostage internments, lists were also drawn up for hostage-taking on occasion; these concerned more or less well-known Dutch people who had played an opinion-forming, political or economic role. Incidentally, Seyss-Inquart exercised the necessary caution in this respect, as he did not wish to thwart his strategy of gradual Nazification.

On May 4, 1942, 460 persons on these lists were forcibly taken from their homes. These included some top people of the Dutch Union and former MPs; in addition, professors, journalists and various well-known ministers such as Willem Banning and Rev. Gravemeijer. There was no direct reason for this action. However, German repression was noticeably hardening during this period: shortly before, 72 members of the Ordedienst had been executed; 2,000 professional officers had also been called up and taken prisoner of war. Not much later, the first Jewish deportations would begin.

In a second wave of hostages in mid-July 1942, 600 people were arrested. These groups were imprisoned resp. in the minor seminary in Sint-Michielsgestel and the major seminary in Haaren, both in Brabant.

The express intention was to have these hostages serve as “guarantors” against acts of sabotage and resistance; in some cases, therefore, hostages would be put to death; they served as Todeskandidat, death candidates.

In order to crush the resistance, in 1942 Sint-Michielsgestel the minor seminary Beekvliet, as well as the major seminary Haarendael in Haaren, was requisitioned to house prominent Dutchmen as hostages as Todeskandidaten, Death Candidates. One or more of them could be designated as reprisal for any act of resistance to be executed. The first of these executions took place on 15 August 1942, in the woods of Gorp and Rovert, Goirle, where five Todeskandidaten were shot: Willem Ruys (director of the Rotterdamsche Lloyd), Mr Robert Baelde (social worker), Otto Ernst Gelder, Count of Limburg-Stirum (judge and public prosecutor), and Christoffel Bennekers (superintendent of police) and Alexander baron Schimmelpenninck van der Oye (landowner).

On 11 September 1944, a Niedermachungsbefehl [put down order] was issued in the Netherlands by Karl Eberhard Schöngarth. From then on, persons found at a meeting of a resistance group could be shot. In addition, resistance fighters were arrested for interrogation. The female persons were sent to camps, the male persons were placed on a death list. The number of those executed in retaliation was determined per attack by the national leader of the Sicherheitsdienst (SD—Security Service) and Sicherheitspolizei (Sipo—Security Police). The Todeskandidaten [death row inmates] were initially supplied by the regional SD, possibly supplemented by prisoners from other districts.

After the war, many execution sites were provided with a resistance monument where the victims are commemorated on National Remembrance Day.

sources

Indische gijzelaars
Indische Gijzelaars Buchenwald Haaren Beekvliet Ruwenberg Vught
Indische gijzelaars
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/arthur-seyss-inquart

https://www.oorlogsbronnen.nl/thema/Indische%20gijzelaars

Todeskandidaten

Edward R. Murrow—Reporting the Horrors

Edward R. Murrow was born on 25 April 1908. Although he is in uniform in the picture above, he was a journalist and broadcaster. I am not going to do a piece on his life as such. I will only go into one report.

He was one of the first reporters to go into Buchenwald as it was liberated in April 1945, Before I post the manuscript of his report I want to pick out one line because it is so relevant today.

“I pray you to believe what I have said about Buchenwald. I have reported what I saw and heard, but only part of it. For most of it, I have no words…. If I’ve offended you by this rather mild account of Buchenwald, I’m not in the least sorry.”

Some people nowadays get so easily offended by the truth.

The manuscript of the report:

“Permit me to tell you what you would have seen and heard had you been with me on Thursday. It will not be pleasant listening. If you are at lunch, or if you have no appetite to hear what Germans have done, now is a good time to switch off the radio for I propose to tell you of Buchenwald. It is on a small hill about four miles outside Weimar, and it was one of the largest concentration camps in Germany, and it was built to last.

As we approached it, we saw about a hundred men in civilian clothes with rifles advancing in open order across the field. There were a few shots. We stopped to inquire. We’re told that some of the prisoners have a couple of SS men cornered in there. We drove on, reached the main gate. The prisoners crowd up behind the wire. We entered. And now, let me tell this in the first person, for I was the least important person there, as you can hear.

There surged around me an evil-smelling stink. Men and boys reached out to touch me. They were in rags and the remnants of uniforms. Death had already marked many of them, but they were smiling with their eyes. I looked out over that mass of men to the green fields beyond, where well-fed Germans were ploughing. A German, Fritz Kersheimer, came up and said, ‘May I show you around the camp? I’ve been here for ten years.’

An Englishman stood to attention saying, ‘May I introduce myself? Delighted to see you. And can you tell me when some of our folks will be along?’

I told him, ‘Soon,’ and asked to see one of the barracks. It happened to be occupied by Czechoslovakians. When I entered, men crowded around tried to lift me to their shoulders. They were too weak. Many of them could not get out of bed. I was told that this building had once stabled 80 horses. There were 1200 men in it, five to a bunk. The stink was beyond all description. When I reached the centre of the barracks, a man came up and said, ‘You remember me, I am Petr Zenkl, one-time mayor of Prague.’ I remembered him but did not recognize him. He asked about Benes and Jan Masaryk. I asked how many men had died in that building during the last month. They called the doctor; we inspected his records. There were only names in the little black book, nothing more—nothing of who had been where what they had done or hoped. Behind the names of those who had died, there was a cross. I counted them. They totaled 242, two hundred and forty-two out of 1200 in one month.

As I walked down to the end of the barracks, there was applause from the men too weak to get out of bed. It sounded like the hand-clapping of babies, they were so weak. The doctor’s name was Paul Heller. He had been there since ’38. As we walked out into the courtyard, a man fell dead. Two others–they must have been over 60–were crawling toward the latrine. I saw it, but will not describe it.

In another part of the camp, they showed me the children, hundreds of them. Some were only six. One rolled up his sleeve, showed me his number. It was tattooed on his arm. B-6030, it was. The others showed me their numbers. They will carry them till they die. An elderly man standing beside me said, ‘The children–enemies of the state!’ I could see their ribs through their thin shirts. The old man said, ‘I am Professor Charles Richer of the Sorbonne.’ The children clung to my hands and stared. We crossed to the courtyard. Men kept coming up to me to speak to me and touch me, professors from Poland, doctors from Vienna, men from all of Europe. Men from the countries that made America.

We went to the hospital; it was full. The doctor told me that two hundred had died the day before. I asked the cause of death. He shrugged and said: ‘Tuberculosis, starvation, fatigue, and there are many who have no desire to live. It is very difficult.’ Dr Heller pulled back the blanket from a man’s feet to show me how swollen they were. The man was dead. Most of the patients could not move.

As we left the hospital, I drew out a leather billfold, hoping that I had some money which would help those who lived to get home. Professor Richer from the Sorbonne said, ‘I should be careful of my wallet if I were you. You know there are criminals in this camp, too.’ A small man tottered up, saying, ‘May I feel the leather, please? You see, I used to make good things of leather in Vienna.’

Another man said, ‘My name is Walter Roeder. For many years I lived in Joliet. Came back to Germany for a visit and Hitler grabbed me.’

I asked to see the kitchen; it was clean. The German in charge had been a Communist, had been at Buchenwald for nine years, had a picture of his daughter in Hamburg. He hadn’t seen her in twelve years, and if I got to Hamburg, would I look her up? He showed me the daily ration: one piece of brown bread about as thick as your thumb, on top of it a piece of margarine as big as three sticks of chewing gum. That, and a little stew, was what they received every twenty-four hours. He had a chart on the wall; very complicated it was. There were little red tabs scattered through it. He said that was to indicate each ten men who died. He had to account for the rations, and he added, ‘We’re very efficient here.’

We went again into the courtyard, and as we walked, we talked. The two doctors, the Frenchman and the Czech agreed that about six thousand had died during March. Kershenheimer, the German, added that back in the winter of 1939 when the Poles began to arrive without winter clothing, they died at the rate of approximately 900 a day. Five different men asserted that Buchenwald was the best concentration camp in Germany; they had had some experience of the others.

Dr Heller, the Czech, asked if I would care to see the crematorium. He said it wouldn’t be very interesting because the Germans had run out of coke some days ago, and had taken to dumping the bodies into a great hole nearby. Professor Richer said perhaps I would care to see the small courtyard. I said yes. He turned and told the children to stay behind. As we walked across the square, I noticed that the professor had a hole in his left shoe and a toe sticking out of the right one. He followed my eyes and said, ‘I regret that I am so little presentable, but what can one do?’ At that point, another Frenchman came up to announce that three of his fellow countrymen outside had killed three SS men and taken one prisoner.

We proceeded to the small courtyard. The wall was about eight feet high. It adjoined what had been a stable or garage. We entered. It was floored with concrete. There were two rows of bodies stacked up like cordwood. They were thin and very white. Some of the bodies were terribly bruised, though there seemed to be little flesh to bruise. Some had been shot through the head, but they bled but little. All except two were naked. I tried to count them as best I could, and arrived at the conclusion that all that was mortal of more than five hundred men and boys lay there in two neat piles.

There was a German trailer, which must have contained another fifty, but it wasn’t possible to count them. The clothing was piled in a heap against the wall. It appeared that most of the men and boys had died of starvation; they had not been executed. But the manner of death seemed unimportant. Murder had been done at Buchenwald. God alone knows how many men and boys have died there during the last twelve years. Thursday, I was told that there were more than twenty thousand in the camp. There had been as many as sixty thousand. Where are they now? As I left the camp, a Frenchman who used to work for Havas in Paris came up to me and said, ‘You will write something about this, perhaps?’ And he added, ‘To write about this, you must have been here at least two years, and after that–you don’t want to write any more.”

sources

https://cssh.northeastern.edu/jewishstudies/edward-r-murrow-and-the-holocaust/

https://perspectives.ushmm.org/item/edward-r-murrow-broadcast-from-buchenwald-april-15-1945

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/edward-r-murrow

Buchenwald Liberated

In general, I try to avoid using graphic images as much as possible. Not because I think they are not important, but because they are. and solely because I find it difficult to erase them from my memories.

However, it is important every now and then to be reminded of the unfathomable horrors.

Buchenwald was liberated on 11 April 1945. This was really only a physical liberation because, for most of the survivors, the horrors remained with them in their memories and sometimes in their dreams. Also, those who liberated the camp were never freed from the horrors they encountered.

Below is the testimony of Edward R. Murrow, a journalist and one of the men who was there for the liberation.

This is Buchenwald, 11 April 1945
Permit me to tell you what you would have seen and heard if you were with me on Thursday. It will not be pleasant listening. If you’re at lunch, or if you have no appetite to hear what Germans have done, now is a good time to switch off the radio for I propose to tell you about Buchenwald. It is on a small hill about four miles outside Weimar and it was one of the largest concentration camps in Germany. And it was built to last. As we approached it we saw about a hundred men in civilian clothes with rifles, but dancing in open order across the fields. There were a few shots. We stopped to enquire. We were told that some of the prisoners had a couple of SS men cornered in there. We drove on, reached the main gate. The prisoners crowded up behind the wire. We entered. And now let me tell this in the first person for I was the least important person there as you shall hear.

There surged around me an evil smelling of horrors. Men and boys reached out to touch me. They were in rags and the remnants of uniforms. Death had already marked many of them, but they were smiling with their eyes. I looked out over that mass of men to the green fields beyond where well-fed Germans were plowing. A German, Fritz Gersheimer, came up and said, “May I show you around the camp? I’ve been here ten years.”

An Englishman stood to attention saying, “May I introduce myself?

Delighted to see you.

And can you tell me when some of our blokes will be along?”

I told him, “Soon,” and asked to see one of the barracks. It happened to be occupied by Czechoslovakians. When I entered men crowded around, tried to lift me to their shoulders. They were too weak. Many of them could not get out of bed. I was told that this building had once stabled eighty horses. There were twelve hundred men in it, five to a bunk.

The stink was beyond all description. When I reached the center of the
barracks a man came up and said, “You remember me. I’m Pieter Zinko, onetime mayor of Prague.” I remembered him, but did not recognize him. He
asked about Benish and Jan Mastericht.

I asked, “How many men had died in that building during the last month?” They called the doctor. We inspected his records. There were only names in a little black book, nothing more. Nothing about where, what they had done or hoped. Behind the names of those who had died there was a cross. I counted them. They totaled two hundred and forty-two. Two hundred and forty-two out of twelve hundred in one month. As I walked down to the end of the barracks there was applause from the men too weak to get out of bed. It sounded like the hand-clapping of babies—they were so weak.

The doctor’s name was Paul Heller. He had been there since ’38. As we walked out into the courtyard a man fell dead. Two others—they must have been over sixty—were crawling towards the latrine. I saw it, but will not describe it. In another part of the camp they showed me the children, hundreds of them. Some were only six. One rolled up his sleeve, showed me his number. It was tattooed on his arm—B6030 it was. The others showed me their numbers. They will carry them till they die. An elderly man standing beside me said, “The children—enemies of the state.” I could see their ribs through their thin shirts.

The old man said: “I am Professor Charles Richa of the Sorbonne.” The children clung to my hands and stared.

We crossed to the courtyard. Men kept coming up to speak to me and to touch me. Professors from Poland, doctors from Vienna, men from all Europe. Men from the countries that made America. We went to the hospital—it was full. The doctor told me that two hundred had died the day before. I asked the cause of death. He shrugged and said, “Tuberculosis, starvation, fatigue, and there are many who have no desire to live. It is very difficult.” Dr. Heller pulled back the blankets from a man’s feet to show me how swollen they were. The man was dead. Most of the patients could not move.

As we left the hospital I drew out a leather billfold hoping that I had some money which would help those who lived to get home. Professor Richa from the Sorbonne said, “I should be careful of my wallet if I were you. You know, there are criminals in this camp, too.”

A small man tottered up saying, “May I feel the leather please? You see, I used to make good things of leather in Vienna.”

Another man said, “My name is Walter Reuder. For many years I lived in Joliette. Came back to Germany for a visit and Hitler grabbed me.”

I asked to see the kitchen. It was clean. The German in charge had been a Communist, had been at Buchenwald for nine years. Had a picture of his daughter in Hamburg, hadn’t seen her for almost twelve years, and if I got to Hamburg would I look her up. He showed me the daily ration—one piece of brown bread about as thick as your thumb. On top of it a piece of margarine as big as three sticks of chewing gum. That, and a little stew was what they received every twenty-four hours. He had a chart on the wall, very complicated it was. There were little red tabs scattered through it. He said that was to indicate each ten men who died. He had to account for the rations and he added, “We’re very efficient here.”

We went again into the courtyard and as we walked, we talked. The two
doctors, the Frenchman and the Czech, agreed that about six thousand had
died during March. Kirshenheimer, the German, added that back in the winter of ’39 when the Poles began to arrive without winter clothing, they died at the rate of approximately nine hundred a day. Five different men asserted that Buchenwald was the best concentration camp in Germany. They had had some experience of the others.

Dr. Heller, the Czech, asked if I would care to see the crematorium. He said it
wouldn’t be very interesting because the Germans had run out of coal some
days ago and had taken to dumping the bodies into a great hole nearby.

Professor Richa said, “Perhaps I would care to see the small courtyard.

I said, “Yes.” He turned and told the children to stay behind. As we walked across the square I noticed that the professor had a hole in his left shoe and a toe sticking out of the right one.

He followed my eyes and said, “I regret that I am so little presentable, but what can one do?” At that point another Frenchman came up to announce that three of his fellow countrymen outside had killed three SS men and taken one prisoner.

We proceeded to the small courtyard. The wall was about eight feet high. It
adjoined what had been a stable or garage. We entered. It was floored with
concrete. There were two rows of bodies stacked up like cordwood. They
were thin and very white. Some of the bodies were terribly bruised though
there seemed to be little flesh to bruise. Some had been shot through the
head, but they bled but little. All except two were naked. I tried to count them as best I could and arrived at the conclusion that all that was mortal of more than five hundred men and boys lay there in two neat piles. There was a German trailer, which must have contained another fifty, but it wasn’t possible to count them. The clothing was piled in a heap against the wall. It appeared that most of the men and boys had died of starvation. They had not been executed, but the manner of death seemed unimportant. Murder had been done at Buchenwald.

G-d alone knows how many men and boys have died there during the last twelve years. Thursday I was told that there were more than twenty thousand in the camp. There had been as many as sixty thousand. Where are they now?

As I left that camp, a Frenchman who used to work for Havas in Paris came
up to me and said, “You will write something about this perhaps?” And he
added: “To write about this you must have been here at least two years and
after that—you don’t want to write anymore.”

I pray you to believe what I have said about Buchenwald. I have reported what I saw and heard, but only part of it. For most of it I have no words. Dead men are plentiful in war, but the living dead, more than twenty thousand of them in one camp, and the country round about was pleasing to the eye. And the Germans were well fed and well dressed. American trucks were rolling towards the rear filled with prisoners. Soon they would be eating American rations, as much for a meal as the men at Buchenwald received in four days.

If I have offended you by this rather mild account of Buchenwald, I am not in the least sorry. I was there on Thursday and many men in many tongues blessed the name of Roosevelt. For long years his name had meant the full measure of their hope. These men who had kept close company with death for many years did not know that Mr. Roosevelt would within hours join their comrades who had laid their lives on the scales of freedom. Back in ’41 Mr. Churchill said to me, with tears in his eyes, “One day the world and history will recognize and acknowledge what it owes to your president.”

I saw and heard the first installment of that at Buchenwald on Thursday. It came from men from all over Europe. Their faces, with more flesh on them, might have been found anywhere at home. To them the name Roosevelt was a symbol, the code word for a lot of guys named Joe who were somewhere out in the blue with the armor heading East. At Buchenwald they spoke of the president just before he died. If there be a better epitaph, history does not record it.

sources

Click to access Microsoft%20Word%20-%203978.pdf

https://ww2ondeadline.com/2020/04/11/edward-r-murrow-cbs-berlin-orchestrated-hell/

Hate is Mankind’s Worst Disease!

Ever since I was 13 or 14, I have played the guitar. Over the years, I have bought hundreds of songbooks. In one of those books, they put words to Beethoven’s 9th Symphony or more precisely, the bit commonly known as Ode to Joy. In the book, they renamed it, Hate is Mankind’s Worst Disease.

The first few lines are as follows:
What’s the use of killing and fighting?
What’s the use of any war?
Oh, did history still did not show us,
nothing is worth dying for.

As the title suggests, the song deals with war and the hate it creates, or rather war created by hate. I could give examples of so many wars, but I am focusing on the war, which had an unprecedented level of hate, and the period before it, World War II.

Below are some examples of the hate that triggered the Holocaust, and pictures of the Holocaust itself.

Nazi Propaganda Used in Education

A Jewish woman concealing her face sits on a park bench marked “For Jews Only,” 1938, Austria
In the early 1930s, Jewish hatred had spread to countries outside of Germany

Newspaper clipping with a pre-war caricature from the Dutch Press, but taken from the French satirical newspaper Le Canard Enchaîné. The caption translates as, “The Berlin Chief Rabbi speaks with full independence and freedom on the radio” The article issued in 1933 or 1934 indicates that the world knew the fate of the German Jews several years before the war.

The Holocaust

12 April 1945—Dwight D. Eisenhower, Omar Bradley, and George Patton were given a tour of the Ohrdruf Concentration Camp. Here they were visiting a burial pit containing the charred remains of prisoners.

April 12, 1945—Dwight D. Eisenhower views the charred bodies of prisoners at Ohrdruf.

23 April 1945—Tattoo that was part of a man’s body. It was removed by Nazi SS men and then used as a decoration on the wall of their quarters at Buchenwald Concentration Camp.

The bodies of former prisoners were piled outside the crematorium at the newly liberated Dachau concentration camp. Dachau, Germany, April-May 1945. —US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Marcy Haupsman

A survivor stokes smouldering human remains in a still-lit crematorium oven. Dachau, Germany, 29 April—1 May 1945.
—US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Merle Spiegel

Corpses lie in one of the open railcars of the Dachau death train. The Dachau death train consisted of nearly forty cars containing the bodies of between two and three thousand prisoners transported to Dachau in the last days of the war.

What is of great concern and worry to me is that this hate has not gone away. It was dormant for a short time, but that monster called hate is waking up again. We can still stop it, as it’s not too late yet.

sources

https://www.ushmm.org/collections/the-museums-collections/about/photo-archives/world-war-ii-liberation-photography

https://www.eisenhowerlibrary.gov/research/photographs/world-war-ii-holocaust-images

https://beeldbankwo2.nl/nl/beelden/?mode=gallery&view=horizontal&q=jodenvervolging&rows=25&page=2

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Holocaust in Colour

Two prisoners of the Buchenwald concentration camp. 1945

Generally, I don’t care for colourized photographs, especially not those from the Holocaust. However, I did come across a few striking depictions of that dark era.

A former prisoner holds a human bone from a large pile of other bones from the Buchenwald concentration camp’s crematory. 1945.

An emaciated 18-year-old female Russian prisoner stares into the camera during the liberation of the Dachau Concentration Camp in 1945, her face hollow from hunger.

Above is a young woman whose face has scars and plasters because of a beating by the SS guards. But despite being unable to open her eyes fully from the swelling, she is photographed smiling two days after the British military entered the Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp in April 1945.

After the liberation, SS guards are lined-up for execution by American troops at Dachau.

sources

Rare color photos from the Second World War, 1941-1945

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10448283/Haunting-colourised-pictures-Nazi-concentration-camp-victims-reveal-horror-Holocaust.html

Dietrich Bonhoeffer— Defying Hitler

The picture is a still from a behind-the-scenes shot of the movie God’s Spy. The film was shot in Limerick and is now in the post-production stage. It tells the story of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran pastor, theologian and anti-Nazi dissident who was a key founding member of the Confessing Church—a movement within German Protestantism during Nazi Germany that arose in opposition to government-sponsored efforts to unify all Protestant churches into a single pro-Nazi German Evangelical Church.

Bonhoeffer’s name is mentioned quite a bit in a book I am reading at this moment. titled, Defying Hitler: The Germans Who Resisted Nazi Rule.

Born in Breslau on 4 February 1906, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was the sixth child of Karl and Paula Bonhoeffer. His father was a neurologist and one with plans to stop Hitler. First, arrest Hitler, next have him examined by Bonhoeffer. This would be to determine if Hitler had brain damage. That plan, unfortunately, never came to fruition.

Two days after Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, then lecturer at Berlin University, took to the radio and denounced the Nazi Fuhrerprinzip, the leadership principle, that was merely a synonym for dictatorship. Bonhoeffer’s broadcast was cut off before he could finish. Shortly thereafter, he moved to London to pastor a German congregation while supporting the Confessing Church movement in Germany, a declaration by Lutheran and evangelical pastors and theologians that they would not have their churches co-opted by the Nazi government for propagandistic purposes. Bonhoeffer returned to Germany in 1935 to run a seminary for the Confessing Church; the government closed it in 1937.

Bonhoeffer’s outspoken political opinions isolated him within his church. Throughout the 1930s many of his activities were focused abroad.

He regularly reported on events in Nazi Germany to ecumenical Protestant leaders in Europe and the United States. In September 1933, he attended the ecumenical World Alliance meeting in Sofia, Bulgaria, where he spoke about the Jewish question, and the delegates passed a resolution condemning Nazi actions against Jews. Bonhoeffer took a copy of the resolution to the German consul in Sofia to prove that Nazi policies were damaging to Germany’s image abroad. The leaders of the German Evangelical Church in Berlin demanded that he withdraw from ecumenical activities; Bonhoeffer refused.

From September 1933 to April 1935, Bonhoeffer served as pastor to several German-speaking congregations in London, leading them to break with the official German church and join the Confessing Church. In April 1935, Bonhoeffer returned to Germany, where the Confessing Church was under increasing pressure from the Gestapo. Most church leaders refused to openly oppose the Nazi regime and criticized their colleagues who did. As a result, more radical Confessing Christians found themselves embattled on all sides.

Bonhoeffer began to train young clergy at an illegal Confessing Church seminary, Finkenwalde, which was closed by the Gestapo View This Term in the Glossary in September 1937. Bonhoeffer spent the next two years secretly travelling throughout Eastern Germany to supervise his students, most of whom were working illegally in small parishes. The Gestapo banned him from Berlin in January 1938 and issued an order forbidding him from public speaking in September 1940.

Pressed into service in the Office for Foreign Affairs/Counter Intelligence of the Armed Forces High Command in 1940, Bonhoeffer repeatedly travelled abroad to contact the Allied governments. His brother-in-law, Hans von Dohnanyi—son of the Hungarian composer Ernő Dohnányi, also was an officer at the Abwehr, the German intelligence service. Dohananyi used his position in the Abwehr to help Jews escape from Germany and worked with German resistance against the Nazi régime.

The first deportations of Berlin Jews to the East occurred on 15 October 1941.

A few days later, Bonhoeffer and Friedrich Perels, a Confessing Church lawyer, wrote a memo giving details of the deportations. The memo was sent to foreign contacts, as well as, trusted German military officials in the hope that it might move them to action. Bonhoeffer also became peripherally involved in “Operation Seven.” It was a plan to help Jews escape Germany by giving them papers as foreign agents. After the Gestapo uncovered the “Operation Seven” funds that had been sent abroad for the emigrants, Bonhoeffer and his brother-in-law Hans von Dohnanyi were arrested in April 1943.

For one and a half years, Bonhoeffer was imprisoned at Tegel Prison and was awaiting trial. There he continued his work in religious outreach among his fellow prisoners and guards. Sympathetic guards helped smuggle his letters out of prison to Eberhard Bethge and others. The uncensored letters were posthumously published in Letters and Papers from Prison. One of those guards, a corporal named Knobloch, even offered to help him escape from the prison and disappear with him. Plans were made for the disappearance, but in the end, Bonhoeffer declined it, fearing Nazi retribution against his family, especially his brother Klaus and brother-in-law Hans von Dohnányi, who was also imprisoned.

After the failure of the 20 July Plot on Hitler’s life in 1944 and the discovery in September 1944 of secret Abwehr documents relating to the conspiracy, Bonhoeffer was accused of association with the conspirators, although he had been in prison when the attempt happened. He was transferred from the military prison Tegel in Berlin, where he had been held for 18 months, to the detention cellar of the house prison of the Reich Security Main Office, the Gestapo’s high-security prison. In February 1945, he was secretly moved to Buchenwald Concentration Camp, and finally to Flossenbürg Concentration Camp.

The following hymn was written by him in the concentration camp, shortly before his death.

By gracious powers so wonderfully sheltered,
And confidently waiting, come what may,
we know that God is with us night and morning,
and never fails to greet us each new day.

Yet is this heart by its old foe tormented,
Still, evil days bring burdens hard to bear;
Oh, give our frightened souls the sure salvation
for which, O Lord, You taught us to prepare.

And when this cup You give is filled to brimming
With bitter suffering, hard to understand,
we take it thankfully and without trembling,
out of so good and so beloved a hand.

Yet when again in this same world You give us
The joy we had, the brightness of Your Sun,
we shall remember all the days we lived through,
and our whole life shall then be Yours alone.”

On 9 April 1945, he was hanged with other conspirators. His brother Klaus Bonhoeffer was also executed for resistance activities, as were his brothers-in-law Hans von Dohnanyi and Rüdiger Schleicher.

There is so much more that could be said about this man. So many books have been written about him and now a movie had been made about this Hero. All that is left for me to say is happy birthday, Herr Bonhoeffer.

sources

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Dietrich-Bonhoeffer/Ethical-and-religious-thought

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/dietrich-bonhoeffer

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/defiant-theologian-dietrich-bonhoeffer-is-hanged

https://www.gdw-berlin.de/en/recess/biographies/index_of_persons/biographie/view-bio/dietrich-bonhoeffer/?no_cache=1

http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bio/133.html

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt26237514/?ref_=tt_mv_close

“Blanche, if it’s a boy, name him Jacob Ben Meier. If it’s a girl, name her Rachel.”

Mail was allowed to be sent from the concentration camps under strict censorship. It had to be written in the German language and the number of lines was limited. Only simple information about health and daily life was allowed. The Blockführer had to read and sign the mail and then it went to the censorship office. Jews were forced to write that they were in a labour camp to reassure those left behind. This mail was collected in bulk and sent to Berlin.

Meier Vieijra was born on 26 December 1918 in Nieuwe Kerkstraat in Amsterdam. He was the son of Jacob Vieijra and Rachel Simons and had two brothers, Joop (Joseph) and Piet (Louis), and three sisters Elisabeth, Clara and Branca. Like his father and his brothers, Meier was a tailor by trade. They all worked together in his father’s company.

• On 9 August 1939, he married Blanche Nabarro.
• On Saturday afternoon, 22 February 1941, a convoy of German trucks arrived near Waterlooplein. Meier was one of the men who were arrested during the raid in Amsterdam.
• On 28 February 1941, he arrived in Buchenwald (prisoner no. 4754).
• Then he was deported to Mauthausen on 22 May 1941.

Meier sent six letters and postcards to his wife Blanche from Buchenwald.

Below is the translated text of one of those letters

31 August 1941

Dear Blanche,

Thank you for your letters and money orders. Today I have the opportunity to write to you. Blanche, please thank Aunt Aggelen for the money order. You ask in your letter if you can send me 15 RM weekly. It is probably allowed. Blanche, if it will be a boy, name him Jacob Ben Meier. If it is a girl, name her Rachel…

Please send regards to the entire family and especially to Clara and Chellie, and consider yourself warmly greeted and kissed by your loving Meier Vieijra.

Dear Parents and Mother-in-Law! How are you? Well, I hope. Please write to me sometimes.

Regards,
Meier Vieijr


The handwriting in the letter was not Meier’s. It had been re-written and was also censored. The text that was censored apparently expressed condolences on the death of Samuel Vieijra. Samuel, Meier’s uncle, his father’s brother, was murdered on 7 August 1941 in Mauthausen. Only the signature was original.

Even the written word was controlled, monitored and silenced by the Nazis.

On 17 September 1941, Meier Vieijra died from the consequences of his hard life in Mauthausen. He may not have been gassed or shot but he was murdered nonetheless.

Blanche gave birth to a baby daughter on 2 October 1941 and called her Rachel. In May 1943, Blanche and her daughter went into hiding in Oldebroek with the Flier family. Both Blanche and Rachel survived the Holocaust.

sources

https://www.joodsmonument.nl/en/page/205236/meier-vieijra

https://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/last-letters/1941/vieijra.asp

Holocaust–Shoah–Genocide

Warning contains graphic images

Holocaust, Shoah, and Genocide are words that describe something that isn’t describable. The horrors are unfathomable.

Generally, I try to avoid horrific images and focus on personal stories. However, over time we need to be reminded, in graphic detail, of what humanity is capable of doing.

The Nazis murdered on an industrial scale between 1933 and 1945. It was in 1942 they ramped up the operation. It is easy for us to judge what happened then, and yes, we should seek justice. But in 2023, we still haven’t learned the lessons despite knowing the history. Antisemitism is rising again, and far-right and far-left political views are gaining popularity.

The Holocaust was the greatest scale of genocide ever to have been committed, but it is not the only one.

Sometimes we have to be confronted with the results of listening to learn what is the wrong message.

We have no excuse. We have all the tools to our disposal to determine what a good or bad message is.

sources

https://beeldbankwo2.nl/nl/beelden/?mode=gallery&view=horizontal&q=massamoorden&rows=25&page=3
https://beeldbankwo2.nl/nl/beelden/?mode=gallery&view=horizontal&q=massamoord&rows=25&page=1

My Interview with Racheli Kreisberg—Granddaughter of Simon Wiesenthal

On 18 December, I had the privilege to interview Racheli Kreisberg, the granddaughter of Simon Wiesenthal.

Anyone who has an interest in history, specifically Holocaust history, will know who Simon Wiesenthal is, but in case there are a few people who don’t know.

Simon Wiesenthal was born on the 31st of December 1908, in Buczacz (nowadays in Ukraine). He graduated from the gymnasium in 1928 and completed his architecture studies at the Czech Technical University in Prague in 1932.

He survived the Janowska concentration camp, the Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp, the Gross-Rosen concentration camp, a death march to Chemnitz, Buchenwald, and the Mauthausen concentration camp.

In May 1945, Wiesenthal, just barely having survived the hardships, was liberated by a US Army unit. Severely malnourished, he weighed less than 45kg by this time. He recovered and was reunited with his wife Cyla by the end of 1945. 89 members of both their extended families were murdered during the Holocaust.

Immediately after the liberation, Simon Wiesenthal started to assist the War Crimes Section of the US Army and later worked for the Army’s Office of Strategic Services and Counter-Intelligence Corps. He headed the Jewish Central Committee of the US Zone of Austria and was also involved with the Bricha, the clandestine immigration of Holocaust survivors from Europe to Mandate Palestine.

Simon Wiesenthal dedicated his life to tracking down former Nazis and their collaborators. He established the Jewish Documentation Center in Linz (1947–1954), with the purpose to assemble evidence of Nazi war crimes.

Simon Wiesenthal started searching for Adolf Eichmann shortly after the war when it had become clear that he was the architect of the final solution, i.e. to annihilate the Jewish People. Simon Wiesenthal was several times very close to catching Adolf Eichmann; however, the latter managed to escape or avoid attending events at which he was expected. In the mid-1950s, Simon Wiesenthal donated his entire archive to Yad Vashem, except for the Eichmann file. He was instrumental in providing the Israeli Mossad with an early picture of Adolf Eichmann. In addition, Simon Wiesenthal provided evidence that Adolf Eichmann lived in Buenos Aires under the name of Ricardo Clement. Eichmann was captured by Mossad on the 11th of May 1960. He was sentenced to death and hung on the night of the 1st of June 1962; his body was incinerated and his ashes were scattered outside Israel’s territorial seawater.

In the interview with Racheli, we briefly discussed her grandfather but focused more on her work for The Simon Wiesenthal Genealogy Geolocation Initiative (SWIGGI). It links genealogy and geolocation data in a novel way. They currently have the country of the Netherlands, the cities Lodz and Vienna and the Shtetls Skala Podolska, Nadworna and Solotwina. SWIGGI shows all the residents of a given house and links residents to their family trees. Simon Wiesenthal’s Holocaust Memorial pages are developed for Holocaust victims.

There are links below, and I urge you to look at them. If possible, please consider givIng a donation to this very noble and well-worthy cause.

https://simonwiesenthal-galicia-ai.com/swiggi/index.php

https://simonwiesenthal-galicia-ai.com/bs/index.php

Life story

If Anyone Would Have Told Us In 1945 That Certain Battles We Would Have To Fight Again, I Wouldn’t Have Believed It

I don’t think I have to tell anyone who Elie Wiesel is, but for those who don’t know him, I’ll provide a brief overview.

Elie Wiesel was born in Sighet (in Transylvania, now a part of Romania, but part of Hungary between 1940 and 1945) on 30 September 1928 and grew up in a Chassidic (and thus Orthodox Jewish) family.

After the Nazis had occupied Hungary in 1944, the Wiesel family was deported to the Auschwitz extermination camp. Elie Wiesel’s mother and younger sister were murdered in the gas chamber there. In 1945, Elie and his father were sent on to Buchenwald, where his father died of starvation and dysentery. Seventeen-year-old Elie was still alive when American soldiers opened the camp.

Elie is the 7th on the 2 row of bunkbeds, I believe

After World War II, Wiesel became a journalist, prolific author, professor, and human rights activist. He was a Distinguished Professor of Judaic Studies at the City University of New York (1972–1976). In 1976, he became the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Boston University, where he also held the title of University Professor. During the 1982–83 academic year, Wiesel was the first Henry Luce Visiting Scholar in the Humanities and Social Thought at Yale University.

For any further information on Elie Wiesel, I will give you an assignment. We live in an era where nearly any information you want to get is at the reach of your fingertips. Do some research on Elie Wiesel on the internet or go into a library and find one of his books.

The title of this post is a quote from Elie Wiesel of an interview he had with Georg Klein, a fellow Holocaust survivor, in 1986. The clip below is appropriately titled “The world is not learning anything.”

It shames me to admit that Elie was so right, the world isn’t learning from its mistakes and history.

On this day, his birthday, I hope we all pause for a moment and contemplate what world we want to live in. Do we want hate to rule once more? Or do we want love to conquer? I know what I want.

Leaving you with some of Elie’s quotes:
The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.

Human suffering anywhere concerns men and women everywhere.

We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must—at that moment—become the centre of the universe.

SOURCES

https://www.buchenwald.de/en/919/

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/elie-wiesel

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1986/wiesel/facts/