Children

Children

The one thing I find hardest to come to terms with in relation to the Holocaust is the murder of the Children, in fact it is something I will never be able to comprehend.

I know that some people will say The Nazis did not select children  because they were children, but because they were , or rather their parents,part  of dangerous racial, biological, or political groups as per Nazi ideology. But I really do not give a f*ck about that. Excuse my language but I really get angry when people start to look for a reason behind the murder of innocent lives. There is only one reason, pure evil.

There will be people who will say that those involved in the killing were following orders and were afraid of their won lives, because if they did not carry out those orders they wold be killed themselves. But there is no evidence whatsoever that there were any punitive actions taken to those who refused to kill children or even adults.

Even if that had been the case. If I had been in their place, I would have let them kill me before I would even think of killing a child, in fact I probably would have fought back first and killed those who ordered the killing, for the simple reason that I am human being and every fiber of my humanity tells me murdering a child is wrong and takes away my humanity.

The picture at the top and the picture below are both pictures if children who were put on transport to death camps, for the sole reason to be murdered. What strike me about both pictures, it they were put in a non Holocaust context they could have been pictures of children going on a school trip. There is no chaos, they are walking in an orderly line , completely trusting the adults that accompany them.

Trnsport

I know tonight I will have nightmares and the pictures will haunt me, but that is a small price to pay.

 

 

Source

USHMM

 

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A single rail track.

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I took the picture above this morning at about 11:00 am . It is a rail track just around the corner of my home. When I looked at that rail track this morning several thoughts came to mind.

Firstly I thought how the railways made such a big change in the lives of ordinary citizens. It connected cities and also countries. People were no longer bound by the location they were born in. To this day it still fuels the imagination of children. Shows like Thomas the Tank engine are immensely popular as are the books. Even my own children when they were growing up loved to read those books and watch the show. My oldest son first learned to read from a book entitled “My first book of trains”

My second thought when I looked at the tracks  and at the picture after I took it,was that it looked like a picture of a rail track to any of the concentration camps, be it Auschwitz,Treblinka, Bergen Belsen. It occurred to me that the Holocaust really could have happened any period in history. The picture could have easily been taken in 1942.

I also realized that for the survivors and their children and grandchildren the Holocaust is still a daily reality. For those who survived they still relive that train journey every day.

The one thing that was built to connect people was used to facilitate the mass murder of millions. 1.5 million of which were  children. Children who would have been in awe of the technology,

Train journeys were supposed to be pleasant but there was nothing pleasant about their journeys.Often a hundred or more people would be cramped in a cattle car with no windows , no sanitary facilities, nowhere to sit and many would not even survive the journey.

Below is a picture of some children who survived. Who they are I don’t know. All I know is that they were liberated from the Bergen Belsen concentration camp in April 1945.

survivors

They were some of the lucky ones, but I say lucky reluctantly because even though they survived their nightmare still went on in their minds for years to come,sometimes coupled with the insult by those who claimed the Holocaust never happened. The Holocaust would forever be a part of their lives.

1.5 Million were killed,although I do believe that number is higher.

Here are just some of their names

Harry Knöpfelmacher  Murdered age 9

Hedwig Zander Murdered age 12

Frederika Borstrock Murdered age 4

Ester Kwint Murdered age 12 or 13

Peter Czeisler Murdered age 2

The scary thing is that it appears we haven’t learned from our mistakes and the one thing I fear most is that a Holocaust is very likely to happen again  and it could happen to any group of people.

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Werner Catel—Deciding Who Lives

Werner Catel

One of the most disturbing aspects of the Holocaust I found is, the fact, that so many who were instrumental in so many evil deeds were allowed to continue after the war.

In February or March 1939, a farmer called Richard Kretschmar and requested Catel’s permission to euthanize one of his children. The child, now known as Gerhard Kretschmar, often referred to as Child K, was born blind and deformed.

Werner Catel deferred the matter and advised the father to write directly to Hitler for permission. Hitler subsequently sent Dr Karl Brandt to confer with Catel to decide a course of action. On 25 July 1939, the decree passed to euthanize Child K. This was the first child killed under Aktion T4 or the T-4 program. Technically, the poor boy became the pilot case.

T-4

A year later, Werner Catel set up children’s wards in Leipzig-Dösen and the University Children’s Hospital in Leipzig. He was an expert on the Reich Committee for the Scientific Registering of Serious Hereditary and Congenital Illnesses. Sometimes, he killed children with mental or physical disabilities with his own hands.

The T4 program was influenced by a popular book, Die Freigabe der Vernichtung Lebensunwerten Lebens [translation: Allowing the Destruction of Life Unworthy of Living], written in 1922 by Alfred Hoche and Karl Binding.

Book

Catel argued for the reintroduction of euthanasia. As had Binding and Hoche, Catel identified three possible types of euthanasia.

Reine Euthanasie
Real euthanasia was the killing of a person suffering from so much pain that an ever-increasing amount of pain-reducing drugs had to be administered. It consequently leads to the person’s death.

Euthanasie im engeren Sinne
The killing of a patient whose illness “according to medical experience” is so bad “that there is no hope of recovery”, but whose death is also not to be expected shortly. (See terminal sedation)

Euthanasie im weiteren Sinne
The extermination of the life of an idiot child or an adult in a similar condition. Catel defined”idiot children as being such monsterswhich are nothing but a massa carnis [translation: lump of flesh].

Basically, Werner Catel was one of the people who felt they had the right to decide who would live or die.

After the war, Catel fled from Soviet-controlled Leipzig in 1946, to West Germany. The West German authorities de-Nazified him in 1949, and classed him as »Persons Exonerated. Afterwards, he was shortlisted for several professorships. In 1954, he was appointed Professor of Paediatrics in Kiel, despite the fact his function on the Reich Committee was known. Due to public pressure and the debate about his role in National Socialism, Catel took early retirement in 1960. Catel continued to propagate in public the idea of the euthanasia of children with mental and physical disabilities.

He died on 30 April 1981 at age 88. Many of his victims did not even reach the age of 88 months.

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Sources

T4-Denkmal

Der Spiegel

All I feel now is pain

Siblings

At first I felt joy because who could not be joyful seeing those 2 beautiful smiley faces.

Then I am amazed because I see you two have the same birthday, April 4, 1932.

This is followed by bewilderment because you appear to have different last names.

Milan Herrmann and Dagmar Herrmannová. But after a bit of research I discover that it is the same surname but just a male and female version of the name.

You are twins. A whole world is open for you, The world is your oyster,you have the ability to achieve anything you want in life.

You have the ability but the opportunity was never given to you.

Evil men put you on a transport. 3 weeks after your 10th birthday. Shortly afterwards you were both killed.

Two beautiful children brutally murdered because of hate.

Knowing this hurts me.

All I feel now is pain.

 

 

Two 10 months old babies- 2 different futures.

babyy

This blog contains 2 pictures of 2 baby boys both aged 10 months. With these pictures I will be attempting to explain the Holocaust in a way that most anyone can understand it.

Having that said no one will really ever understand how it was possible to massacre so many innocent lives on such an industrial scale.

The pictures are nearly identical but were taken with a time span of 25 years between them.

The picture above is a picture of Bernhard Arend Sanders born on March 20,1943 in Schalkwijk, Houten, Utrecht, The Netherlands .

Bernhard was killed on January 28, 1944 in Auschwitz, he was barely 10 months old . He was killed because of someone’s warped ideology of how the perfect human being looked like and because a twisted sense of entitlement.

Although Bernhard was Dutch, seen by the Nazis as a pure race,he was also Jewish, Jews were subhuman, even vermin, according to the Nazi doctrine as outlined  by the Nazi leadership, Hitler, Himmler, Hess, Goebbels Goering and others.

According to these men the Aryan race was the purest form of humanity and everyone else would either be subjected to the Aryan race or eradicated altogether.

There were 3 ironies in this, Firstly none of the aforementioned leaders of the Nazi regime fulfilled the Nazi criteria of being pure Aryan. Because Aryans were meant to be tall, blonde, blue eyed, Germanic blood  and athletic.

Secondly, many of those the Nazis had deemed to be subhuman  actually fulfilled all the criteria for being Aryan

Thirdly, the actual Aryan race were Indo-Iranians from origin.

But because of this warped ideology a young beautiful boy like Bernhard Arend Sanders was murdered in a most horrible way, gassed to death.

The Nazis had this twisted sense of entitlement, they believed they were meant to rule and therefore everything belonged to them. They felt they were entitled to take anything they desired, regardless who owned it.

I deliberately mention Nazis rather then Germans, although the Nazis were able to control a great number of Germans by feeding them false promises and propaganda, there were Germans who resisted them. Also the Nazis did not only control the Germans there are very few occupied countries who did not fall for the Nazi propaganda in one way or another/ Although mostly a minority, there were a substantial number of National Socialists in other European countries and even in the UK and the USA.

Yes the Nazis also  used violence to achieve their goals but it all started off via a democratic route.

baby

Fast forward to 1968/69 and imagine an alternative history. A new  political movement, whose name we don’t know yet, has come to power in one of the smallest countries in Western Europe, the Netherlands. This new government declares that the Aryan race with blonde hair and blue eyes are subhuman, even vermin, and need to be eradicated.

Just imagine that, the little baby boy in the picture above would have been killed, and this blog would never be written, because you see that little boy was me 10 months old.

We should never ever forget the Holocaust and should always hold those responsible accountable. But we also should never forget that this could easily happen again but this time it might be the blonde blue eyed Europeans, the Asians, the Muslims or the Jews again.

Evil has no nationality or creed.Next time it could be me or you.

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A Child is born with no state of mind

1

The title is actually from a Hip Hop song but it is so true. A child is a blank canvas and is open to all experiences. He or she will listen to adults and will trust them blindly because they are innocent and don’t know better then to trust.

When their parents are taken away or killed they will turn quickly to other adults put in charge. During the Holocaust these other ‘adults’ were often indoctrinated by evil and would see the children,mainly Jewish but also others, as  parasitic vermin who needed to be destroyed.

And the children would often just follow their ‘guardians’ just to  be killed by them, for a child is born with no state of mind.

He or she knows no hate but yet experiences it. He or she trusts unconditionally but that trust is betrayed.

Children were killed when they arrived in killing centers; others  were killed immediately after birth or in institutions.The older children were sometimes worked to death or they died of starvation.

Every death during the Holocaust is terrible but the death of children is particularly sickening. Innocent and defenseless were they led to the slaughter.

And for those who survived they had to live with the horrors they had witnessed for the rest of their lives, and even with that so many were able to live without being bitter, where many of my generation complain about trivial things.

2

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Recommended reading

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The murder of the Goebbels children

Goebbels

Regardless what you think of their parents, when you analyse it the Goebbels children were victims of the same warped ideology and regime as so many other children. The only difference they may have died in less painful circumstances, at least 5 of them.

So enthralled were Joseph  and Magda Goebbels with Hitler that they gave all 6 of their children names starting with H to honor their beloved leader.

Helga Susanne.Hildegard Traudel,Helmut Christian,Holdine Kathrin,Hedwig Johanna and Heidrun Elisabeth.

Obersalzberg, Besuch Familie Goebbels bei Hitler

There also was a half brother called Harald, born in November 1921. from a previous marriage between Magda Goebbels nee Behrend Rietschel and German business man Günther Quandt,founder of several companies including BMW. Harald,He served as a lieutenant in the Luftwaffe during World War II.   he survived the war and together with his half brother Herbert Quandt, ran their father’s businesses including the aforementioned BMW after the war. The picture below is a photograph of the whole Goebbels family including the half brother Harald.Bundesarchiv_Bild_146-1978-086-03,_Joseph_Goebbels_mit_Familie

Like any child anywhere in the world a child is formed and conditioned by the environment it grows up in, as was the case with the Goebbels children. And on the surface they were loved by their parents, and  maybe even a bit deeper then the surface but not much. For any normal thinking and loving parent will do anything to safeguards their child’s life.

In the case of the Goebbels parents their love for Hitler was bigger then the love for their children. On May 1st 1945 ,a day after Hitler committed suicide, Joseph and Magda Goebbels decided to follow suit and also kill the children. Some people say they did this because of fear what the soviet army might do to the children, they imagined it a fate worse then death, Joseph Goebbels was of course well aware what this might entail, for he was one of the leaders of the regime who slaughtered millions of children in the most horrendous conditions , and he  had lost not one night sleep over it.

But I believe they killed their own kids so that could die pure Aryan, for there had been plenty of opportunities to smuggle their kids to the west of Germany where the US and UK troops had occupied the country. Many of those who had been in the bunker did just do that and could have easily taken the kids with them, if they had been asked.

Adolf Hitler [Misc.]

Joseph and Magda wrote goodbye letters to Harald, explaining their decision, calling death the “the only possible and honorable conclusion.” Magda, convinced she was sparing her children from a life of humiliation, finalized the plan to end their lives.

It isn’t entirely clear as to who helped the Goebbels poison their children. The plan was to sedate them, but it is not certain who actually administered the drugs that put the children to sleep. The most likely candidate was Helmut Kunz,Helmut Kunz a dentist who served as one of the Nazi’s chief medical officers. Supposedly, Magda had asked him to help her kill the children, but he refused to do it, saying he was “incapable” of such an act. She then told him that it was an order from Hitler, and he agreed to do it.

Kunz did give the children morphine, but it’s unclear who gave them the cyanide. Magda was unable to do it and was said to have called Dr. Ludwig Stumpfegger, one of the SS’s doctors, to administer the “candy” to the children.

He gave the children cyanide in some form of chocolate.

Rochus Misch, the bunker telephone/radio operator, stated that Werner Naumann told him that he had seen Hitler’s personal physician, Dr Stumpfegger, give the children something “sweetened” to drink.[Another account says that the children were told they would be leaving for Berchtesgaden in the morning, and Stumpfegger was said to have provided Magda with morphine to sedate them. Erna Flegel claims that Magda reassured the children about the morphine by telling them that they needed inoculations because they would be staying in the bunker for a long time.

On the same night that their children were killed, Magda and Joseph Goebbels went into the study in the Führerbunker. According to legend, the couple stood near where Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun had died and been burned as they bit into cyanide and shot themselves, perhaps at the same time. Another theory is that Günther Schwägemann, Günther SchwägemannNazi officer and object of their daughter Hedwig’s affection-Hedwig insisted, in 1944, that when she grew up she was going to marry Günther Schwägermann, having been captivated by the fact he had a fake eye.  -shot them. The bodies of Magda and Joseph Goebbels were set on fire.

On 3 May 1945, the day after Soviet troops led by Lt. Col. Ivan Klimenko had discovered the burned bodies of their parents in the courtyard above, they found the children down in the Vorbunker dressed in their nightclothes, with ribbons tied in the girls’ hair after they died.

Goebbels family

Based on autopsy findings, there was some trouble when it came to giving Helga the poison. She either woke up from her slumber and resisted taking it or the dosage was insufficient to kill her. When Russian doctors autopsied Helga’s body, they found bruises, indicating that there had been a struggle. Her jaw may have been broken as well.Helga

Helga was killed age 12,Hildegard was killed age 11.Helmut was age 9 when he was killed.Holdine was eight years old at the time of her death.Hedwig was six years old, four days shy of her seventh birthday, at the time of her death. And Heidrun was only 4 when she was killed.

children

I know some people will say”They deserved what was coming to them” and to an extend I can understand that sentiment, but these kids were not responsible for the actions of their parents, in fact they were a victim of the warped ideology their parents had subscribed to.

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No first kiss

14d20b6de80c9ed275de7e8fd0f9625fAll of us will have grown up experiencing first special occasions in our lives, like a first kiss for example. But because of the warped ideology of some evil men, these experiences were denied to so many.

The picture above is of Henriette van der Sluijs murdered in Auschwitz on October 15, 1942 at age 13 months..

Lea Benjamins murdered in Auschwitz on Nov. 19, 1942,aged 7.

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Peter Leitmann-Peter was only 7 when he was sadly murdered at Auschwitz-Birenkau in 1944.

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Samuel Jezierski age 5 was sent to Auschwitz then  murdered on March 27, 1944.

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Samuel Jezierski age 5 was sent to Auschwitz , murdered on March 27, 1944.

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No first kiss.

No first dance.

No favourite song on the radio.

No first movie in the cinema.

No first summer holiday.

No first boyfriennd

No first girlfriend

No first wedding day

No vows to say

No first college day

No first bills to pay

No more can I say because my eyes swell up, the tears impair my vision.