The Holocaust

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European history

Holocaust, Hebrew Shoʾah (“Catastrophe”), Yiddish and Hebrew Ḥurban (“Destruction”), the systematic state-sponsored killing of six million Jewish men, women, and children and millions of others by Nazi Germany and its collaborators during World War II.

https://www.britannica.com/event/Holocaust

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Holocaust survivors offered DNA tests to help find family

NEW YORK (AP) — For decades, Jackie Young had been searching.

https://apnews.com/article/science-religion-new-york-jackie-young-72fa155592403e01958cbcff1de9f1cf?

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Nazi Racism

Nazi beliefs and ideas about race shaped all aspects of everyday life and politics in Nazi Germany. In particular, the Nazis embraced the false idea that Jews were a separate and inferior race. This belief is known as racial antisemitism.

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/nazi-racism?

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How the Nazis manipulated the Masses

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnOL7_-mGvM

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Origins of Neo-Nazi and White Supremacist Terms and Symbols

The eruption of neo-Nazism and White Supremacy across the country has exposed the public to symbols, terms, and ideology drawn directly from Nazi Germany and Holocaust-era fascist movements. 

https://www.ushmm.org/antisemitism/what-is-antisemitism/origins-of-neo-nazi-and-white-supremacist-terms-and-symbols?

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A Ukrainian Jewish Lens on World War II

Yevgeny Khaldei was born to Jewish parents in 1917 in what is now Donetsk, Ukraine. His mother died during a pogrom when he was one year old.

https://medium.com/memory-action/a-ukrainian-jewish-lens-on-world-war-ii-92fb6959622a

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Rare Color Photos Show Ghetto in Different Light

Most of the photography we see from the Holocaust era is in black and white. Imagery from that period, 1933–1945, shows people in a different time, seemingly far from our own. While color film was available in the mid-1930s, it was not widely used until the 1960s and ’70s.

https://medium.com/memory-action/rare-color-photos-show-ghetto-in-different-light-caa6c9bf6440

ps:This is the town in Poland that my Father is from!!

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Liberation of Buchenwald and Dachau

Narration begins before image. Introduces narrator, Norman Krasna, and the film crew, Capt. Ellis Carter and Lt. William Graf, from the Air Force Film Unit. Entrance to Buchenwald. Crowd of former inmates with a band playing. Inmates preparing food. CU of prisoners, some talking - narration lists different nationalities of Russian, Polish, Hungarian, Belgian, French, Norwegian, Czech, English and American. More shots of inmates cooking, looking out windows. Group shot of young male inmates, plus CU, including Henry Kinast. Four year old prisoner boy is Joseph Schleifstein, born 7 March 1941 in Poland. [See USHMM Photo Archive #85913, #07230]. Dead bodies, laid out and piled. Several shots of starved inmates. 01:59, At Dachau camp, inmates load bodies onto a cart. Two U.S. Army men surveying the Buchenwald camp. More CUs of starved inmates. Soup line feeding former inmates. Image of a loudspeaker used in the camp. Crowd of inmates. CU of a grateful inmate.

https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn1004371?

ps:Buchenwald was one of the 3 concentration camps that my Father was in, in his 5 yrs , also I believe it was this camp that he was liberated from??

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The Foot Soldiers of White Supremacy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOz1Bdq1t2M

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The Deadly Power of Antisemitic Conspiracy Theories

Our nation is getting a crash course in conspiracy theories. With the rise of social media, the messenger may be new, but the message is not. Conspiracy theories have been around for centuries, well before mass communications amplified their potency. The human desire to explain complicated events in simplistic ways often leads to blaming minorities for them, sometimes with deadly consequences.

https://medium.com/memory-action/the-deadly-power-of-antisemitic-conspiracy-theories-f3b4418d333

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How the War in Ukraine is Shaped by Its Past

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXV2wsaGmJo

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Americans and the Holocaust Initiative

The Museum's Americans and the Holocaust initiative focuses on Americans' responses to the rise of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. The initiative is anchored in an exhibition of the same name currently on display in the Museum. In partnership with the American Library Association, a traveling version is touring public and university libraries nationwide.

https://www.ushmm.org/support/why-support/americans?

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Antisemitism Explained

These short videos explore antisemitism today and how it has persisted for thousands of years.

https://www.ushmm.org/antisemitism/what-is-antisemitism/explained?

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Wolf Blitzer, the son of Holocaust survivors, discusses his new CNN special on the US Holocaust Memorial Museum

(JTA) – Growing up in Buffalo, CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer always knew he was the child of Holocaust survivors. His parents, both Polish Jews, told him often about their experiences surviving the concentration camps.

https://www.jta.org/2022/08/26/united-states/wolf-blitzer-the-son-of-holocaust-survivors-discusses-his-new-cnn-special-on-the-us-holocaust-memorial-museum?

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Massive trove of prewar Jewish artifacts unearthed by construction workers in Poland

(JTA) — Construction workers renovating an old tenement house in Lodz, Poland, unearthed a surprising find: an untouched cache of hundreds of Jewish artifacts believed to have been hidden in advance of the Nazi occupation of the city.

https://www.jta.org/2023/01/09/global/massive-trove-of-prewar-jewish-artifacts-unearthed-by-construction-workers-in-poland?

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The great unpunishment’: How, why so many Holocaust perpetrators got away with it

Fewer than 600 of those who enacted the Holocaust received heavy sentences after WWII. David Wilkinson’s docu explores how the mass of Nazi criminals, collaborators escaped justice

https://www.timesofisrael.com/lack-of-punishment-for-holocaust-perpetrators-examined-in-british-made-documentary/

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A new film brings to life ‘the largest single work of art created by a Jew during the Holocaust’

While hiding from the Nazis, the German Jewish artist Charlotte Salomon began a series of autobiographical paintings and texts with a painfully simple description of her aunt, and namesake’s, suicide: “Scene 1: 1913. One November day, a young girl named Charlotte Knarre leaves her parents’ home and jumps into the water.” 

https://www.jta.org/2023/01/17/ny/a-new-film-brings-to-life-the-largest-single-work-of-art-created-by-a-jew-during-the-holocaust?

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New images discovered in Poland offer a never-before-seen perspective on the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

For the last 80 years, the only way to see images of Jews rising up against their captors in the Warsaw Ghetto has been from the perspective of Germans, who took the only known photographs of the seminal event of Jewish resistance during the Holocaust.

https://www.jta.org/2023/01/20/global/new-images-discovered-in-poland-offer-a-never-before-seen-perspective-on-the-warsaw-ghetto-uprising?

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Auschwitz: few prisoners who entered the gate of this Nazi extermination camp survived.

 

 

"The LORD comforts His people and will have compassion on His afflicted ones."  (Isaiah 49:13)

 

 

Shalom All,

 

Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day

 

It is also the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camps at the end of World War II.

 

A group of youth draped in the Israeli flag visit Auschwitz.

 

On January 27, 1945, the Soviets entered this complex of camps, which included a concentration, extermination, and forced labor camp, liberating more than 7,000 prisoners, most of whom were sick or dying.

 

Only 7,000 were left in the camp because the Nazis killed thousands in a fevered frenzy as the Soviets approached.

 

Then they began evacuating Auschwitz, forcing nearly 60,000 prisoners, mostly Jews, on a Death March in the cold of winter.  The marching prisoners suffered from starvation and exposure, and anyone who fell behind was shot. Over half died.

 

Many family members of our ministry staff were put to death in Auschwitz.  So this email is also in memory to them.

 

Of the estimated 1.3 million people - at minimum - who were deported to Auschwitz between 1940 and 1945, at least 1.1 million were murdered.  

 

Russian Jewish men await selection at Auschwitz, the largest camp 
established by the Germans.  After disembarking from the trains, being 
sent to the right meant forced labor.  Being sent to the left meant death in 
the gas chambers.  This camp was located 37 miles (60 km) west of 
Krakow, near the prewar German-Polish border.

 

 

Remembering Holocaust Victims

 

"The LORD will surely comfort Zion and will look with compassion on all her ruins."  (Isaiah 51:3)

 

Today, Auschwitz remains a memorial to the millions whose lives were lost there.

 

A Holocaust survivor lights a torch at Yad Vashem (The Holocaust 
Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority).  Six torches are lit on 
Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Day in memory of the six million Jews
who were murdered in the Holocaust.

 

Auschwitz was an industrialized killing machine that took the lives of nearly 6,000 people a day, and the camp claimed the lives of over a million Jews through mass exterminations, starvation, infectious diseases, individual executions, and medical experiments.

 

Half of the symbol appears as the star worn by Jews during the Holocaust. The other half reflects the strong lines of the star on Israel's national flag.

 

In November 1939, the Nazi government first introduced mandatory ID 
badges for Jews in Poland.  The yellow badge was considered to be one 
step in the Final Solution as it enabled them to isolate the Jews.  To
enforce compliance, they announced, "Severe punishment is in store for 
Jews who do not wear the yellow badge on back and front."  (Jewish 
Virtual Library)

 

 

Holocaust Survivors in Israel

 

About 160,000 Holocaust survivors live in the state of Israel today.

 

They were children during the Second World War, who experienced persecution, deportation, selection, forced labor, hunger, torture, and the loss of families.

 

Following the war, they came to Israel IN FULFILLMENT OF BIBLICAL PROPHECY (Ezekiel 37's vision of Dry Bones), and tried to live normal lives. However, not all were able to.

 

For many, even more than 70 years after the war, the emotional scars are unmistakable.

 

People were stripped of their identity when they entered the camps, and a 
number was tattooed on their arm.

 

A significant number of survivors still suffer the effects of the trauma they experienced during the Holocaust.

 

The result can be anxiety, depression, and other disorders.

 

As well, Holocaust survivors tend to be more vulnerable to the Arab-Israeli military tensions, that exist in Israel.

 

At least one Holocaust survivor an hour is dying in Israel, and we are getting very close to the point where there will be no more first-hand accounts left.

 

 

To show your love and support toward Holocaust survivors and children of the Holocaust who survived, click now

 

 

Former prisoners of the Wobbelin Concentration Camp in 
Germany are taken to a hospital for medical attention, after 
being rescued by troops of the 82nd Airborne Division.
Many prisoners were found almost starved to death.

 

 

How the Nazi Killing Machines Developed

 

Typically, victims were forced from their homes and herded into railway cattle cars.

 

Initially, however, the Germans used killing groups called Einsatzgruppen (task forces) to round up and massacre entire Jewish communities.

 

Rivka Yosselevska, who testified at the trial of Adolph Eichmann in 1961, was one of a few who survived the Nazi massacre of 500 Zagrodzki ghetto Jews (near Pinsk in Belarus) in August 1942.

 

Yosselevska lost her daughter, mother, father, and sister, as well as other relatives in the slaughter.

 

She said her daughter had asked her when they we were lined up in the ghetto, "Mother, why did you make me wear the Shabbat dress; we are being taken to be shot."

 

At the mass grave, she asked, "Mother, why are we waiting?  Let us run!"

 

Yosselevska said, "Some of the young people tried to run, but they were caught immediately, and they were shot right there.  It was difficult to hold on to the children.  ... The suffering of the children was difficult; we all trudged along to come nearer to the place and to come nearer to the end of the torture of the children."  (Jewishcurrents)

 

Adolph Eichmann showed no remorse during 
his trial and said he was simply following orders.
"The world now understands the concept of 
'desk murderer.'  We know that one doesn't 
need to be fanatical, sadistic, or mentally ill to 
murder millions; that it is enough to be a loyal 
follower eager to do one's duty," wrote Simon 
Wiesenthal in Justice, Not Vengeance.

 

Although Yosselevska was shot in the head, she lived.  For three days, she lay among the dead.

 

The farmer who found her, hid and fed her.

 

He also helped her to join a group of Jews hiding in the forest where she managed to survive until the Soviet army arrived in 1944.

 

Eventually, the Nazis decided that shooting as a method of mass killing was too expensive and inefficient.  It required killing to be done one bullet at a time.  And it demoralized the troops.

 

A visitor to Auschwitz carries the Israeli flag as a group examines a 
boxcar used to transport Jews to extermination and concentration camps.

 

 

The Wannsee Conference Decides the Final Solution

 

In 1942, Nazi Party officials met near Berlin at the Wannsee Conference to discuss the "Final Solution" for the destruction of European Jewry.

 

There they coordinated the deportation of Europe's Jews to extermination camps that were already operating or were under construction in German-occupied Poland.

 

As many as 11 million Jews were to be transported to these killing centers, including residents of countries not then under Nazi control, such as Ireland, Sweden, Turkey, and Great Britain.  (ushmm)

 

They decided that the mass transportation of these populations would be accomplished by train.

 

Selection of Jews at the Judenrampe (Jewish ramp) in Auschwitz-II 
(Birkenau) German Nazi death camp, May/June 1944.

 

The SS and the police coordinated with local auxiliaries or collaborators in occupied territories to round up the victims and transport them to the death centers.

 

In charge of all this was SS Lieutenant Colonel Adolf Eichmann, who was later to meet his demise at the end of a rope in an Israeli prison.

 

To disguise their intentions, Nazi authorities referred to these deportations as "resettlements" to labor camps in the "East."  In reality, they were killing centers for mass murder.

 

During 1943 and 1944, the killing center at Auschwitz-Birkenau played a 
central role in the planned destruction of European Jewry.  Transports 
arrived on a regular schedule from every German-occupied country of 
Europe.  (ushmm)

 

Maus:  Journeys Through the Holocaust

 

In his comic book, "Maus II," Art Spiegelman described his father's experiences during the Holocaust.

 

Spiegelman depicted how his father and hundreds of other prisoners were loaded onto a Nazi train.

 

"It was such a train for horses, for cows," his father says.  "They pushed until it was no room left.  We lay one on top of the other, like matches, like herrings.  I pushed to a corner not to get crushed."

 

Spiegelman's father used the thin blanket he had received as a prisoner to create a hammock using hooks in the ceiling, climbing up on the shoulders of other inmates to reach it.

 

"In this way I can rest and breathe a little.  This saved me.  Maybe 25 people came out alive from this car of 200," he states.

 

 

He goes on to describe how the train suddenly stopped.  They stood sealed in the boxcars for days and nights on end without food or water.

 

There was no room to fall.  And if someone did, the others stood on them.  One inmate used a knife to try to free himself from those standing on him, but died anyway.

 

Spiegelman's father survived by reaching through the window and grabbing snow from the roof.  He traded it for sugar, saving his life and theirs.

 

The train remained sealed for a week.

 

When his boxcar was finally opened, he saw that they were surrounded by other trains with boxcars that were never opened, everyone inside dying.

 

Then the car was resealed and continued on toward the Dachau concentration death camp.  Those who were inside continued to die, and many went mad.

 

Most Jews who were deported to the death camps were executed upon 
arrival.  A small number of prisoners were selected and kept alive to
perform the necessary work in the camps.  Killing centers were set up 
in German-occupied Poland at Chelmno, Belzec, Sobibor, and 
Auschwitz-Birkenau (left side of the map).  This map does not show all
extermination and concentration camps.  The drops of red on the map 
are places where Jews were massacred, and the stars indicate cities
where the Jewish People were confined to tightly packed ghettos.

 

 

Blaming Those We Harm: When Will Jews Be Forgiven for the Holocaust?

 

In spite of the numerous eyewitness accounts to the horrendous events that took place during the Holocaust, many today still deny its very existence.

 

The loss of six million Jewish people in the Holocaust confirms that when anti-Semitism festers, the ultimate result can be catastrophic.

 

Today, as global anti-Semitism rises, we must go beyond solemn moments of remembrance and speak out against anti-Semitism (hatred toward the Jewish people and Israel).

 

We must never forget those who suffered during the Holocaust.

 

For the sake of the Jewish People and all people everywhere, we must never forget what happened so that it will never happen again.

 

 

"Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the LORD's hand double for all her sins."  (Isaiah 40:2)

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78 years on, Jewish Holocaust rescuers want their story told

KIBBUTZ HAZOREA, Israel (AP) — Just before Nazi Germany invaded Hungary in March 1944, Jewish youth leaders in the eastern European country jumped into action: They formed an underground network that in the coming months would save tens of thousands of fellow Jews from the gas chambers.

https://apnews.com/article/judaism-homicide-genocide-germany-israel-0f519aea5a75c540ccc839d408635737?

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How the Holocaust is remembered in the land of Anne Frank

(JTA) — You’d think that in a country so closely identified with Anne Frank — perhaps the Holocaust’s best-known victim — cultivating memory of the genocide wouldn’t be a steep challenge.

https://www.jta.org/2023/01/27/opinion/how-the-holocaust-is-remembered-in-the-land-of-anne-frank?

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We’re visiting Auschwitz because the fight against antisemitism didn’t end with liberation

(JTA) — Today, we will visit Auschwitz-Birkenau to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day. We will represent the United States and honor the lives of 6 million Jews and millions of others murdered. While at Auschwitz, we will also express gratitude to the survivors and speak of the lessons learned in that era of terror.

https://www.jta.org/2023/01/27/opinion/were-visiting-auschwitz-because-the-fight-against-antisemitism-didnt-end-with-liberation?

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King Charles honors 99-year-old survivor for her role in UK Holocaust education

Jewish News — A 99-year-old great-grandmother who survived the Holocaust and became a founding member of the UK’s Holocaust Survivor Centre told the PA news agency that “words cannot explain how much this means to me” after being made a Member of the Order of the British Empire by King Charles III.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/king-charles-honors-99-year-old-survivor-in-uk-for-her-role-in-holocaust-education/

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Forgotten graves of the Holocaust

The horrors of the Holocaust didn’t just happen at camps, but were perpetrated by the Nazis in sites across Europe. On Holocaust Remembrance Day, it’s our duty and responsibility to remember all victims, including those who were murdered and lay in these forgotten graves.

https://www.worldjewishcongress.org/en/videos/holocaust-legacy/forgotten-graves-of-the-holocaust

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Americans and the Holocaust

Holocaust history raises important questions about what Europeans could have done to stop the rise of Nazism in Germany and its assault on Europe’s Jews. Questions also must be asked of the international community, including the United States.

https://exhibitions.ushmm.org/americans-and-the-holocaust/main/fort-ontario-refugee-camp?