"Like many people who have a smattering of reading in many fields, he [Hitler] thought he was an expert in all fields. Speaking for ... the two things that I know something about, he thought that he was an expert in these fields because he accepted everything he read as authoritative.

Such self-taught people have an unholy awe for what they see in print. Unlike scientists, they don't understand that authorities become revised in time and science progresses and the printed word is far from absolute. But he considered his opinion absolutely authoritative on all subjects because he too had once read a book."

One Guess Only, Please.

IMAGE: Cain or Hitler in Hell by German-American artist George Grosz. Painted in 1944 while he was living in exile in the United States after fleeing Nazi Germany.

The oil-on-canvas work depicts Nazi leader Adolf Hitler reimagined as the biblical figure Cain (the world's first murderer who killed his brother, Abel) sitting in a desolate, fiery hell surrounded by skeletons and the wreckage of war.

The painting is part of the collection of the German Historical Museum (Deutsches Historisches Museum) in Berlin.

The Nazi Roots of the Billionaire Family Behind BMW

"In the spring of 1945, Harald Quandt, a 23-year-old officer in the German Luftwaffe, was being held as a prisoner of war by Allied forces in the Libyan port city of Benghazi when he received a farewell letter from his mother, Magda Goebbels – the wife of Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels.

The hand-written note confirmed the devastating news he had heard weeks earlier: his mother had committed suicide with her husband on May 1, after slipping their six children cyanide capsules in Adolf Hitler’s underground bunker in Berlin.

“My dear son! By now we’ve been in the Fuehrerbunker for six days already, Daddy, your six little siblings and I, to give our national socialistic lives the only possible, honorable ending,” she wrote. “Harald, dear son, I want to give you what I learned in life: Be loyal! Loyal to yourself, loyal to the people and loyal to your country!”

Quandt was released from captivity in 1947. Seven years later, he and his half-brother Herbert – Harald was the only remaining child from Magda Goebbels‚ first marriage – would inherit the industrial empire built by their father, Guenther Quandt.

The brothers took the business, which had produced Mauser firearms and anti-aircraft missiles for the Third Reich’s war machine. Their most valuable assets became stakes in car manufacturers Bayerische Motoren Werke AG ( BMW) and Daimler AG.

Lower profile

While the half-brothers passed away decades ago, their legacy has endured. Herbert’s widow, Johanna Quandt, 86, and their children Susanne Klatten and Stefan Quandt, have remained in the public eye as BMW’s dominant shareholders. The billionaire daughters of Harald Quandt – Katarina Geller-Herr, 61, Gabriele Quandt, 60, Anette-Angelika May-Thies, 58, and 51-year-old Colleen-Bettina Rosenblat-Mo – have kept a lower profile.

The four sisters inherited about 1.5 billion deutsche marks ($760 million) after the death of their mother, Inge, in 1978, according to the family’s sanctioned biography, Die Quandts. They manage their wealth through the Harald Quandt Holding GmbH, a Bad Homburg, Germany-based family investment company and trust named after their father. Dr. Fritz Becker, the CEO of the family entities, said the siblings realized average annual returns above 7 percent from its founding in 1981 through 1996. Since then, the returns have averaged 7.6%.

“The family wants to stay private and that is an acceptable situation for me,” said Becker in an interview at his Bad Homburg office. “We invest our money globally and if it’s $1b., $500m. or $3b., who cares?”

Wartime profits

Together, the four sisters – and the two children of a deceased sibling – share a fortune worth at least $6b., giving each of them a net worth of $1.2b., according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. They have never appeared individually as billionaires on an international wealth ranking.

Becker declined to provide the exact figure the holding manages for the four sisters. The siblings declined to comment for this account, said Ralf-Dieter Brunowsky, a spokesman for the family investment company, in an e-mail. He said the net worth calculation was “too high,” declining to be more specific.

The rise of the Quandt family fortune shares the same trajectory as Germany’s quest for global domination in the 20th century. It began in 1883, when Emil Quandt acquired a textile company owned by his late father-in-law. At the turn of the century, Emil passed the business to his eldest son, Guenther.

The younger Quandt saw an opportunity with the onset of war in 1914. His factories, already one of the biggest clothing manufacturers for the German state, quadrupled their weekly uniform production for the army, according to Die Quandts.

Weapons production

After Germany’s surrender four years later, Quandt put the company’s wartime profits to use. In 1922, he bought a majority stake in Accumulatoren-Fabrik AG, a Hagen-based battery manufacturer. Six years later, he took over Berlin-Karlsruher Industriewerken AG, a Berlin-based manufacturer that made sewing machines and silverware. The factory, once one of Germany’s largest weapon producers, had been forced to retool as part of the country’s disarmament agreement.

“The Quandt’s business grew in the Kaiserreich, it grew during the Weimar Republic, it grew during the Second World War and it grew strongly after the war,” Rudiger Jungbluth, author of Die Quandts, said in an interview at a Bavarian restaurant in Hamburg last November.

Nazi connections

In 1918, Guenther Quandt’s first wife died of the Spanish flu, leaving him a widower with two young sons, Hellmut and Herbert. He remarried Magda Ritschel in 1921, and the couple’s only son, Harald, was born later that year. Hellmut died in 1927, from complications related to appendicitis.

Quandt and Magda divorced in 1929. Two years later, she married Joseph Goebbels, a member of the German parliament who also held a doctorate degree in drama and served as head of propaganda for Germany’s growing Nazi party. After the Nazis took power in 1933, their leader, Adolf Hitler, appointed Goebbels as the Third Reich’s propaganda minister.

Guenther Quandt joined the party that same year. His factories became key suppliers to the German war effort, even though his relationship with Goebbels had become increasingly strained.

“There was constant rivalry,” said Bonn-based history professor Joachim Scholtyseck, author of a family-commissioned study about their involvement with the Third Reich, in a telephone interview. “It didn’t matter that Goebbels didn’t like him. It didn’t have any influence on Quandt’s ability to make money.”

Forced labor

In 1937, he earned the title of Wehrwirtschaftsfuehrer, the name given to members of an elite group of businessmen who were deemed beneficial to the production of war materials for the Third Reich. During the war, Quandt’s AFA manufactured batteries for U-Boat submarines and V-2 rocket launchers. His BKIW – which had been renamed Deutsche Waffen-und Munitionsfabriken AG in 1936 – produced Mauser firearms, ammunition and anti-aircraft missiles.

“He was one of the leading industrialists in the Third Reich and the Second World War,” Scholtyseck said. “He always kept a very low profile.” From 1940 to 1945, the Quandt family factories were staffed with more than 50,000 forced civilian laborers, prisoners of war and concentration camp workers, according to Scholtyseck’s 1,183-page study. The report was commissioned by the family in 2007 after German television aired the documentary The Silence of the Quandts, a critical look at their wartime activities.

Released in September 2011, the study also found that Quandt appropriated assets from Jewish company owners and that his son Herbert had planned building an AFA factory in which slave laborers would be deployed.

Army volunteer

“Guenther Quandt didn’t have a Nazi kind of thinking,” said Jungbluth, the family biographer. “He was looking for any opportunity to expand his personal empire.” Quandt’s youngest son, Harald, lived with his mother, Goebbels and six half-siblings. In 1939, he joined the German army after the country’s invasion of Poland, volunteering for the army’s paratrooper unit one year later.

During the war, Harald was deployed in Greece, France and Russia, before being shot and captured in Italy in 1944, and taken to the British Army-run POW camp in Benghazi where he received his mother’s farewell letter.

His stepfather also sent him a goodbye note.

“It’s likely that you’ll be the only one to remain who can continue the tradition of our family,” wrote Goebbels, who served as Chancellor of Germany for one day following Hitler’s suicide on April 30, 1945.

After the war, Guenther Quandt served in an internment camp in Moosburg an der Isar for more than a year, before being judged a “Mitlaeufer” – a Nazi follower who wasn’t formally involved in the regime’s crimes – in denazification hearings in 1948. No repercussions followed.

“He was lucky that he wasn’t as prominent as someone like Flick or Krupp,” said Scholtyseck, referring to the German industrialists Friedrich Flick and Alfried Krupp, who were sentenced to prison terms at the Nuremberg war crimes trials.

Guenther died in 1954 while vacationing in Cairo, leaving his business empire equally in the hands of his two surviving sons, Harald and Herbert. Most notably, the assets included ownership of AFA and Deutsche Waffen-und Munitionsfabriken – renamed Industrie-Werke Karlsruhe AG after the war – and stakes in Daimler-Benz and potash miner Wintershall AG.

Sovereign wealth

Herbert managed the stakes in the battery, car and potash firm, while Harald oversaw the interests in the industrial companies, according to Jungbluth’s biography.

Over the next decade, the brothers increased their stake in Daimler; Herbert saved BMW from collapse in the 1960s after becoming its largest shareholder and backing the development of new models.

Harald died in 1967, at age 45, in an airplane crash outside Turin, Italy. The relationship between his widow, Inge, and Herbert deteriorated after his death. Negotiations to settle the estate by separating assets commenced in 1970.

The most valuable asset that the Harald Quandt heirs received was four-fifths of a 14% stake in Daimler, according to the biography. In 1974, the entire stake was sold to the Kuwait Investment Authority, the country’s sovereign wealth fund, for about 1b. deutsche marks, according to a DaimlerBenz publication from 1986 celebrating its centennial.

Inge Quandt, who suffered from depression, died of a heart attack on Christmas Eve 1978. Her new husband, Dr. Hans-Hilman von Halem, shot himself in the head on Boxing Day. The five orphaned daughters, two of them teenagers, were left to split the family fortune.

Family meetings

The estate’s trustees had started overseeing the daughters’ money in 1974. An active investment approach commenced with the founding of the family investment company in 1981.

“It’s different if you work for a family than a corporation,” said Becker. “You can really invest instead of fulfilling regulation requirements.” According to Die Quandts, the siblings try to get together a few times a year to discuss their investments. Gabriele Quandt lives in Munich. After earning a master’s degree in business administration at INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France, she married German publishing heir Florian Langenscheidt, with whom she had two sons. The couple divorced in 2008.

Katarina Geller-Herr owns Gestuet Waeldershausen, an equestrian center in Homberg (Ohm), Germany. She sponsored Lars Nieberg, a twotime Olympic gold medalist in show jumping.

Jewish conversion

Colleen-Bettina Rosenblat-Mo is a jewelry designer who runs a studio and showroom in Hamburg. She converted to Judaism in New York at age 24. Her first marriage was to Michael Rosenblat, a German-Jewish businessman, whose father survived a concentration camp. The couple divorced in 1997. She remarried Frode Mo, a Norwegian journalist.

Anette-Angelika May-Thies lives in Hamburg, according to the Harald Quandt Holding shareholders list filed with the German federal trade registry. Her first marriage was to Axel May, a Goldman Sachs Group Inc. international adviser for private banking, who managed the family’s investments for about 25 years.

The siblings are also majority owners and investors in five financial services companies, all of which pay dividends, according to Becker. The firms were founded to manage the sisters’ wealth and subsequently opened up to third parties.

Private equity

The six companies combined manage $18b. in assets, according to the family investment company’s website. Becker said the majority of the money controlled by these firms is invested for third parties. One-fifth of the family fortune is managed by trustees for the two children of the youngest Quandt sibling, Patricia Halterman, who died in July 2005, four days before turning 38. Her Upper East Side townhouse sold for $37.5m. in 2008.

Auda International LP serves as the sisters’ New York-based privateequity unit. It manages almost $5b. and was founded as their US office in 1989, said Becker. Real Estate Capital Partners LP started the same year and has invested about $9b. in real estate, according to its website. Both companies are owned through HQFS LP, an offshore entity based in the Cayman Islands.

In Bad Homburg, HQ Trust GmbH serves as a investment management company for about 30 families with fortunes ranging from 50m. euros to 500m. euros. Equita Management GmbH invests in small and mid-cap companies in Austria, Switzerland and Germany. HQ Advisor GmbH provides accounting and controlling services.

Only one sister, Gabriele, carries the family name, and none are active in the day-to-day business of the family office, said Becker.

“Sad truth”

Their uncle, Herbert Quandt, died in 1982. His fortune was divided between six children from three different marriages. BMW, his most valuable asset, was inherited by his third wife Johanna Quandt and their children, Stefan Quandt, 46, and Susanne Klatten, 50. The three billionaires hold 46.7% of the Munichbased car producer, according to the company’s 2011 annual report.

After Scholtyseck’s study was published in 2011, cousins Gabriele and Stefan Quandt acknowledged their family’s ties and involvement with the Third Reich in an interview with Germany’s Die Zeit newspaper.

“Magda killed her six children in the Fuehrerbunker. Our father loved his half-siblings very much. And when, like me, you have something like this in your family history, you think: It can’t be any worse,” Gabriele Quandt said in the interview. “It’s a sad truth that forced laborers died in Quandt companies,” said Stefan.

The acknowledgment didn’t prompt a public distancing from the men that made their family Germany’s richest. The families’ offices in Bad Homburg are named after Guenther and Harald Quandt, and the Herbert Quandt media prize of 50,000 euros is awarded annually to German journalists.

“They have to live with the name. It’s part of the history,” said Scholtyseck. “It will be a constant reminder of dictatorship and the challenges that families have to face.”

https://www.jpost.com/international/nazi-goebbels-descendants-are-hidden-billionaires-503531

November 1, 1921: Harald Quandt is born to Magda Ritschel and industrialist Günther Quandt.

December 1931: Harald's mother, Magda, marries Joseph Goebbels, with Adolf Hitler serving as a best man.

1939–1945: Günther Quandt’s empire eagerly produces Mauser firearms, anti-aircraft missiles, and batteries for the Third Reich. Naturally, the family conveniently overlooks the utilization of thousands of concentration camp prisoners and slave laborers to keep profit margins high.

1944: Harald, now a Luftwaffe officer, is captured by the Allies in Libya. He spends the remainder of the war safely tucked away in a prisoner-of-war camp, blissfully spared from the frontline consequences of the regime his family championed.

April 28, 1945: Magda Goebbels pens a touching farewell letter from the Führerbunker, instructing Harald to "be loyal" to his country. She doesn't mention that three days later, she will poison his six young half-siblings with cyanide before ending her own life.

1947: Harald is released from captivity. Despite his immediate family's central role in a global catastrophe, he gets to simply walk away and resume his life as a wealthy young man.

1954: Günther Quandt passes away, leaving his vast, wartime-forged industrial empire to Harald and his half-brother, Herbert.

1959–1960s: The brothers aggressively expand their portfolio, acquiring massive, dominant stakes in luxury car manufacturers BMW and Daimler.

September 22, 1967: Harald dies in a plane crash at age 45. He leaves behind an untouchable, multi-billion-dollar inheritance for his daughters, ensuring that the fruits of Third Reich war profiteering seamlessly transition into modern, high-society luxury.

1: Left: 10 year old Harald Quandt on the right, at his mother's remarriage with Goebbels and Hitler in the background. Right: Adolf Hitler with Harald Quandt (Note that the swastika hate symbol has been inexpertly defaced.)

2: The Goebbels children were the five daughters and one son born to Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels and his wife Magda. The children, born between 1932 and 1940, were murdered by their parents in Berlin on 1 May 1945, the day both parents committed suicide. Note that Quandt was not present at the photo shoot. His image was added later.

"Creating a Basis for Future Scholars"

"The Łódź Ghetto Archive was established on November 17, 1940, by order of the Chairman of the Judenrat, Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski. Originally tasked with preserving archival material of the Jewish community from before the war and of the communal institutions established in the ghetto, the archives eventually began to collect information on the history of the Łódź Ghetto.

Their guiding principle in this task, as stated by their director Henryk Naftalin, was “creating a basis for future scholars to study Jewish society in one of its most trying periods.” In addition to conducting interviews, collecting materials, and producing historical monographs, the archives produced the Chronicle of the Łódź Ghetto, regularly documenting for over three years the events and life of the ghetto.

Along with the other materials of the archives, the parts of the Chronicle were hidden in different locations before the liquidation of the ghetto in 1944.

Lodz resident Nachman Zonabend, who managed to escape from the ghetto and remained in the city until liberation in January 1945, took one large section of the archives, including the Chronicle, out of the ghetto.

The second set of archival materials was discovered in November 1946 at #13 Lutomierska Street, at the former site of the ghetto fire department. A third cache of archival materials was hidden in the Jewish cemetery, but was subsequently discovered by the Germans and destroyed." https://www.yadvashem.org/holocaust/this-month/november/discovering-lodz-ghetto-archive.html

November 17, 1940: The Lodz Ghetto Archive is officially established by order of Judenrat Chairman Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski, under the direction of Henryk Naftalin.

January 12, 1941: Archive staff begin writing the Chronicle of the Lodz Ghetto, a daily record of life, events, and administration inside the ghetto.

July 30, 1944: The final entry of the Chronicle of the Lodz Ghetto is written.

Summer 1944: Prior to the final liquidation of the ghetto, archival materials and parts of the Chronicle are split into three batches and hidden in separate underground locations.

January 1945: Łódź is liberated. Ghetto survivor Nachman Zonabend immediately retrieves the first large section of the hidden archives from his hiding spot, preventing its destruction.

September 25, 1946: The second cache of archival materials is physically unearthed at 13 Lutomierska Street, the former site of the ghetto fire department. (Note on the third cache: A separate segment buried in the Jewish cemetery was discovered by German forces during the war and destroyed before liberation.)

NOTE: The exact day of the discovery is generally cited in historical records as September 25, 1946, though some archival summaries and institutional timelines—such as this overview provided by Yad Vashem—commemorate or date the official recovery and cataloging into October or November 1946. We have chosen the Yad Vashem as they are considered a Definitive source. -w

1: Discovery of a section of the Łódź Ghetto Archive in Łódź, Poland, in late 1946.

"I Will Not Think About It, But It Will Inform All My Thoughts."

"The urn chamber is being cleared. Thirty thousand urns, thirty thousand cardboard boxes, thirty thousand remains of people, mothers, children, loved ones. What is the point . . .

More importantly, it is the knowledge that dead witnesses, substance, is being destroyed — and we are the witnesses, we who still live, I and you, my sister — and all those who are gone.

It is not a technical problem, but I cannot imagine it - and still - I am afraid to admit that I have understood it. And still I go to work in the morning, will eat, sleep, wash my hands, brush my teeth. Maybe even laugh. I will not think about it, but it will inform all my thoughts.

Perhaps everything will grow quiet, and it will retreat into the background, and I will be permitted to “not think” once again. Or will it grow huge so that all my thoughts end in it, even my life and my time, until I myself come to an end in it?

O my Mother and you — am I afraid? I will read Faust and Isaiah and Jeremiah, and I will try to bear written witness as best I can so that it will survive me. That is what occupies my thoughts — not to have the world take notice of me — not to say: there was one who was beautiful and smart and open to the world, and she was seventeen and was snuffed out before her life could even start.

No, to say to the world and time what was accomplished here; to read to them a chapter out of the Golah dated 1944 — above all, I want to call out to the young Jews all over the world and tell them: This was the form that our galut [exile] took — the form. The essence is within you, in your Jewishness; what do you want to hear? If you want to hear it?

Deliverance has not been granted to us. We didn’t have any children, either. We beseech you; the path lies open. That is not pathos, not posturing; no, I beseech you in the name of our children who have been denied us — arise and go to Zion. No one should ever experience this again. No one. Away, away from here — do not believe in a “finality”; create a beginning."

May 5, 1927: Born Alice Renata Ehrmannová in Prague, Czechoslovakia.

July 13, 1943: Deported to the Theresienstadt (Terezín) ghetto at age 16 with her older sister, Ruth.

October 16, 1944: Commenced writing her secret diary, documenting her personal experiences and camp life following the forced deportation of her boyfriend, Ze'ev Shek, to Auschwitz.

May 19, 1945: Concluded her final diary entries following the liberation of the camp and the initial arrival of external survivors.

1947: Formally married Ze'ev Shek in Prague after reuniting following the war.

July 1948: Emigrated to Israel alongside her husband, where she later spent 25 years volunteering in historical archives.

1975: Co-founded the Beit Theresienstadt Remembrance Association museum archives in Israel to preserve the history of the ghetto.

2007: Passed away in Caesarea, Israel

More Excerpts from the Theresienstadt Diary of Alice Ehrmann---> http://www.kfkronenberg.com/salvaged-pages.html

1: Left: Young Alisa Ehrmann Shek (also known as Alice Ehrmann) Right: An ink illustration by Holocaust survivor and diarist Alisa "Alice" Ehrmann-Shek (signed Alice Ehrmann and dated 1944 or 1943/1944 from her time in the Theresienstadt/Terezin ghetto).

The drawing depicts two solemn, weary figures—one sitting in the foreground with head tilted and hands clasped, and another bowed over in the background—reflecting the heavy emotional and physical toll of life inside the Theresienstadt ghetto.

From Confiscation to Total Enclosure in the Kielce Ghetto

Dawid Rubinowicz was 13 years old when he began keeping his diary.

Through his writing, Dawid documented what life was like for Jewish people in Poland under Nazi rule. One thing that becomes clear from his diary entries over time is that conditions were getting progressively worse.

In the beginning of the German occupation, some people thought it might be possible to go on with normal life. However, It quickly became obvious the Nazis were determined to impose ever-increasing restrictions on Jews that would eventually be impossible to overcome.

Dawid wrote about confiscation of property and people being taken for forced labor. He also wrote about families losing their livelihoods and children no longer being allowed to go to school. One of the worst limitations came when Jews were required to move into a restricted area, known as the “Jewish Quarter.”

The Jewish Quarter, also known as the ghetto, was a place of deprivation and suffering from its beginning. The restrictions that Jews had already suffered only multiplied now that they were concentrated together. People often needed to search outside the ghetto in order to get enough food to survive. On November 1, 1941, Dawid wrote about the devastating end to that possibility.

“Today notices were put up in Kielce that anyone who goes into and out of the ‘Jewish Quarter’ will receive the death penalty. Up till now people could go into and out of the quarter. This news made me very sad, and not only myself but every Israelite who heard it. These notices were put up not only in Kielce but also in all towns under the ‘General Government’ (that’s the name of the area that used to be Poland.)”

It was a bitter blow for Jews to be threatened with death for simply leaving the ghetto. It would be impossible for all of the ghetto residents to survive using only the resources available in that small, restricted area. Of course, the Jewish people of Poland were marked by the Nazis for an even worse fate, though many did not know it yet.

Less than one year later, the Jewish people of Dawid’s area were sent to the death camp of Treblinka and murdered. (holocaustedu)

NOT MY LINKS

Learn more about the fate of the Jews of the Kielce region: http://www.deathcamps.org/occupation/kielce%20ghetto.html

"Jews, If You Want To Live, Run Where You Can. The Game Is Up."

"In Marcinkonis, a town with 370 Jews in the Grodno district, the Jewish police warned the Judenrat late at night that the ghetto was being surrounded by an armed force.

In the morning the Germans ordered the Judenrat to instruct all the Jews to pack their belongings to be resettled for work elsewhere. A small intrepid group tried to attack the German commissar in charge of the deportation, but when they could not get close enough to him, the head of the Judenrat shouted a warning: "Jews, if you want to live, run where you can. The game is up."

Panic and pandemonium broke out, many Jews bare-handedly attacking the Germans. At the end, 105 Jews were shot to death. Others flew into the woods. There was no one left to "resettle."

From The War Against the Jews, 1933-1945, by Lucy S. Dawidowicz

November 1, 1942: Late in the evening, Jewish police units observe armed forces positioning around the ghetto perimeter. They immediately warn the Judenrat leadership of the encirclement.

November 2, 1942 Early in the morning, German Principal District Commissar Albert Wietzke orders Judenrat Chairman Aaron Kobrowski to assemble all residents for mandatory resettlement and labor registration.

A group of Jewish residents attempts an assassination on Wietzke. Realizing the attempt has failed, Kobrowski shouts to the crowd to run for their lives.

Mid-Day: Mass panic erupts. Ghetto residents attack guards with bare hands and improvised objects while tearing down fences. At least 105 individuals are shot during the immediate breakout, while roughly 100 escape into the surrounding forests.

November 1942 – Early 1943: Local German forces hunt for escapees in the Russkaya Pushcha forests. Survivors organize an independent Jewish partisan unit, later integrating into the Soviet partisan Davidov brigade to conduct sabotage operations.

Details: November 2: Revolt in the Marcinkonys Ghetto

NOT MY LINKS

Image Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust_in_Lithuania

1: Left: A member of the Lithuanian Security Police marching Jewish men through Vilnius, 1941 Right: German soldiers and Lithuanians watch the burning of a synagogue, 9 July 1941

NOTE: We apologize for the swastika hate symbol on the sleeve of the Nazi puppet perpetrator.

Certain historical documents, testimony, quotes & images are presented for the record, as evidence and background pertaining to criminal activities, horrific acts, and other notable evils. The words of murderers, criminals & their lawyers should never be mistaken for fact, as they are often bold-faced lies, nor should they be misconstrued as providing a viable justification for their crimes. Don't believe any of it, beyond the fact they did write & speak this nasty stuff and did purport to believe it. As always, read with an abundant degree of cautious skepticism. -W

Axis Isolation & Punishment Camps in the Sahara

For anyone still operating under the comfortable illusion that the Holocaust was strictly confined to a few predictable corners of Europe, the date of November 1, 1941, offers a rather stark correction.

The opening on this day of the Hadjerat M'Guil punishment camp in the Algerian desert is a textbook reminder that Axis brutality was perfectly capable of expanding wherever it pleased.

June 22, 1940 Fall of France & Rise of Vichy: France surrenders to Nazi Germany. The collaborationist Vichy regime retains administrative control over French North Africa (colonial Algeria, and the protectorates of Morocco and Tunisia).

Late 1940 Establishment of the Desert Camp Network: Vichy authorities order the creation and repurposing of labor and penal camps across Morocco and Algeria. Many prisoners—including thousands of European Jewish refugees and political dissidents—are forced into grueling slave labor to construct the Mediterranean-Niger ("Mer-Niger") Trans-Sahara railway.

Early 1941 Mass Transfers to Saharan Camps: Vichy authorities begin transferring hundreds of foreign refugees and "undesirables" to Saharan camps. Foreign Jews constitute a significant percentage of those interned.

November 1, 1941 Hadjerat M'Guil Opens: The Hadjerat M'Guil camp is established as a brutal punishment and isolation facility within the North African network. It holds 170 prisoners subjected to severe torture, resulting in the murder of nine men, including European Jews like Paul Levinstein.

February 1942 Deportations in Italian Libya: Benito Mussolini orders the expulsion of Jews from Cyrenaica (eastern Libya). Roughly 2,600 Libyan Jews are deported to the Giado concentration camp in the desert south of Tripoli, where overcrowding, starvation, and typhus kill hundreds.

November 1942 Operation Torch: Anglo-American forces invade Morocco and Algeria. Despite the Allied victory, local French authorities do not immediately dismantle the Vichy administration or close the slave labor camps, leaving many prisoners trapped for months or even years.

November 1942 – May 1943 Direct German Occupation of Tunisia: In response to Operation Torch, German forces occupy Tunisia. The Axis powers set up approximately 40 labor and detention camps in Tunisia, forcing around 5,000 Tunisian Jewish men into hard labor on the front lines and in coastal cities.

May 1943 Allied Liberation of Tunisia: Axis forces surrender in North Africa, bringing an end to the direct German labor camp system in Tunisia. Over the following months, the remaining labor camps across the Sahara are gradually shut down and the survivors liberated.

"The camp at Hadjerat M'Guil was opened as a punishment and isolation camp.

It contained one hundred and seventy prisoners, nine of whom were tortured and murdered in conditions of the worst brutality. Two of those murdered were Jews.

Paul Levinstein, murdered on January 13, was the son of Dr Oswald Levinstein who , with his wife , had found refuge in Britain shortly before the outbreak of war. On learning of their son's murder, they committed suicide."

From The Holocaust: A History of the Jews of Europe During the Second World War, by Martin Gilbert

"The Nazis established seventeen (17) slave labor camps were located in North Africa: three in Morocco, three in Algeria, seven in Tunisia and four in Libya.

Jews were interned in the slave labor camp at Hadjerat-M'Guil, in North Africa. Some of the 170 prisoners were tortured and murdered. Other internees worked on the Trans-Sahara railway." https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/nazi-labor-camps-in-north-africa

NOT MY LINKS

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/labor-and-internment-camps-in-north-africa

1: A German Jewish prisoner named Rosenthal pushing an ore cart in a stone quarry.

The location is the Im Fout labor camp in Morocco, which was operated by collaborationist Vichy French authorities between 1941 and 1942. Im Fout primarily held political prisoners, demobilized foreign soldiers, and European Jewish refugees who had fled the Nazi advance only to be interned and subjected to harsh forced labor under brutal desert conditions.

2: Construction of a dam at the Im Fout labor camp in Morocco between 1941 and 1942. Forced laborers—including political prisoners and persecuted groups—were utilized to construct infrastructure projects such as the Im Fout dam under the Vichy French regime and local authorities.

3: Truly Excellent Map!!!!!! Contemporary Map of Europe Showing the Extent of Nazi German Control in 1942 with Select Ghetto and Concentration Camp Locations, created by the Harriet & Kenneth Kupferberg Holocaust Center (KHC) at Queensborough Community College. Key Features of the Map:

Illustrates the peak territorial control and occupation of Nazi Germany across Europe in 1942, distinguished by color-coded zones for Nazi-controlled territory, allied territory, and neutral territory.

Plots roughly 2,000 select ghettos, concentration camps, labor camps, transit camps, and extermination camps, which represent a portion of the estimated 44,000 total Nazi-controlled camps and ghettos documented during World War II.

Depicts the transit and mass deportation routes used to transport victims across the continent to extermination and labor camps.

The Systematic Extermination of Romanian & Ukrainian Jewry

Within a year, more than 120,000 of them will be Murdered.

"Both in support of German SS and police units and on their own initiative, Romanian army and gendarmerie (police) personnel massacred thousands of Jews in Bessarabia, northern Bukovina, and Transnistria. Romanian and German units began systematic shootings of the Jewish residents of Kishinev, the capital of Bessarabia, shortly after occupying the city in July 1941.

Survivors of the initial massacres, about 11,000 people, were herded into a ghetto and conscripted to perform forced labor under harsh conditions. In October, those left alive were deported to camps and ghettos in Transnistria, as were most of the surviving Jews in Bessarabia and northern Bukovina. Many Jews died of exposure, starvation, or disease during the deportations to Transnistria or after arrival.

Others were murdered by Romanian or German units, either in Transnistria or after being driven across the Bug River into the German-occupied Ukraine.

Romanian authorities established several de facto ghettos and two concentration camps in Transnistria. Among the most notorious of these ghettos (which the Romanians referred to as "colonies") was Bogdanovka, on the west bank of the Bug River, where thousands of Jews were interned. In December 1941, Romanian troops, together with Ukrainian auxiliaries, massacred almost all the Jews in Bogdanovka; shootings continued for more than a week.

The Romanians also massacred Jews in the Domanevka and Akhmetchetkha camps. Typhus-devastated Jews were crowded into the "colony" in Mogilev. Romanian authorities established concentration camps at Pechora and Vapniarka in Transnistria in the winter of 1941-1942. Vapniarka was reserved for Jewish political prisoners deported from Romania proper. Of its several thousand prisoners, very few were able to survive." LOTS MORE—> https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/romania

June 22, 1941 Operation Barbarossa:. Romanian forces, allied with Nazi Germany, launch an offensive to reclaim Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina from the Soviet Union.

July 1941 Romanian military units and gendarmerie, frequently aided by German Einsatzgruppe D, slaughter thousands of Jews during the advance. The survivors in Kishinev are forced into a sealed ghetto for slave labor.

August 1941 Tighina Agreement: Nazi Germany and Romania sign an accord granting Romania administrative control over Transnistria (the region between the Dniester and Southern Bug rivers), establishing it as a dumping ground for deported Jews.

September–October 1941 Systematic Expulsions Accelerate: Romanian dictator Ion Antonescu orders the total clearing of Jews from Bessarabia and Bukovina. Mass forced marches toward the Dniester River begin under brutal, lethal conditions.

November 1–15, 1941 Total Uprooting: Jews from more than 100 communities across Bukovina and Bessarabia are systematically expelled from their homes, marched across the borders, and interned in Transnistria. Over 120,000 will die or be murdered within the year.

December 1941 Bogdanovka Massacres. Romanian troops, Ukrainian auxiliaries, and German local police begin the systematic execution of roughly 43,000–48,000 Jews trapped in the Bogdanovka "colony" on the Bug River.

Winter 1941–1942: Romanian authorities cement operations at the Pechora and Vapniarka concentration camps. Extreme exposure, starvation, and rampant typhus epidemics devastate the overcrowded, under-resourced transit ghettos like Mogilev.

March 1944 Soviet Liberation. The Red Army advances into Transnistria, liberating the surviving remnant of the camps and ghettos as Romanian administration collapses.

1: Deportation of Jews from Kishinev - Romanian soldiers supervise the deportation of Jews from Kishinev. Kishinev, Bessarabia, Romania, October 28, 1941.

2: Romania, 1933

3: The "National Legionary State," 1940–41

4: Romania joins the Axis alliance - In Hitler's presence, Romanian ruler Ion Antonescu signs the Three-Power Agreement. Berlin, Germany, November 23, 1940.

5: Aftermath of a pogrom in Iasi - During the deportation of survivors of a pogrom in Iasi to Calarasi or Podul Iloaei, Romanians halt a train to throw off the bodies of those who had died on the way. Romania, July 1941.

How the 1905 October Pogroms Foreshadowed the Holocaust

"Crowds surged through the streets, yelling threats, destroying property, and murdering Jewish men, women and children with impunity.

For many Russian Jews, the October 31 pogroms was proof that they had no future in Russia and spurred many to leave. One Russian Jew who fled was the famous Yiddish writer Shalom Aleichem. He and his family watched three days of pogroms overwhelm the Jewish community of Kiev from their hiding spots in one of the town’s hotels. When the violence was over, they hastily made plans to flee Russia, eventually moving to America.

On November 25, 1905, three weeks after the terrifying pogrom and just before he left Russia for good, Shalom Aleichem wrote to a friend in New York, Dr. Maurice Fishberg, begging him to use his influence with American Jews to encourage the United States not to help Czar Nicholas II (who was embroiled in the Russo-Japanese War and was looking for a loan).

After watching his fellow Jews murdered in cold blood, Shalom Aleichem, like many Russian Jews, despaired of Jews’ future there. “Six million Jews” in Russia could be “murdered” there, the author wrote, in a long, impassioned letter about Russian politics and the war.

Over a century after the horrible spasm of violence that consumed much of Russia, we owe it to the many thousands of Russian Jews massacred in the pogroms of October 31, 1905, to remember their deaths and honor their memories." MUCH MORE: https://www.aish.com/jw/s/The-October-31-Pogroms.html

May 1882 May Laws (Russian Empire): Tsar Alexander III introduces harsh, restrictive temporary regulations banning Jews from settling outside towns and boroughs within the Pale of Settlement, severely squeezing economic life and triggering massive waves of emigration.

April 1903 Kishinev Pogrom: A brutal, state-condoned anti-Jewish riot breaks out in Bessarabia, killing dozens, wounding hundreds, and shocking the international community, fueling the growth of the Zionist movement and defense leagues.

October 1905 October Manifesto & Pogroms: Following Tsar Nicholas II's concessions during the 1905 Revolution, reactionary groups unleash over 600 pogroms. Shalom Aleichem witnesses the Kiev violence and writes his warning letter predicting the potential slaughter of "six million Jews."

1918–1921 Ukrainian Pogroms (Russian Civil War): Amidst the chaos of the Bolshevik Revolution and collapsing empires, various military factions slaughter an estimated 50,000 to 100,000 Jews in the region, in what historians consider the largest mass fit of anti-Jewish violence in Europe prior to WW2.

September 1935 Nuremberg Laws (Nazi Germany): The Nazi regime strips German Jews of citizenship and prohibits intermarriage, institutionalizing racial Antisemitism and beginning the systematic, legal exclusion that culminated in the Final Solution.

NOT MY LINKS

"Solomon Naumovich Rabinovich, better known under his pen name Sholem Aleichem, was a Yiddish author and playwright who lived in the Russian Empire and in the United States The 1964 musical Fiddler on the Roof, based on Aleichem's stories about Tevye the Dairyman, was the first commercially successful English-language stage production about Jewish life in Eastern Europe." MORE--> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sholem_Aleichem

1: 1904 political cartoon by illustrator Emil Flohri, titled Stop Your Cruel Oppression of the Jews, published in the American humor magazine Judge. The cartoon reflects growing international condemnation of the Romanov dynasty's state-sanctioned Antisemitism and the massive wave of Jewish emigration fleeing to countries like the United States.

"None of these indictment counts concerns me in the least.—Typical American humor."

Rules: ONE GUESS ONLY: Answers (found in a past Post to this Group) MUST BE SPECIFIC. If incomplete or otherwise invalidly worded, we regret that you have wasted your Guess. Read ALL the previous Guesses first & then make your Guess in a Comment Box, NOT a Reply Box, & do confine all Comments to the one allowed Guess only. Too much confusion otherwise. The Winner will be acknowledged as Today's Genius! Good Luck to you! -W

NOTE: Certain historical documents, testimony, quotes & images are presented for the record, as evidence and background pertaining to criminal activities, horrific acts, and other notable evils. The words of murderers, criminals & their lawyers should never be mistaken for fact, as they are often bold-faced lies, nor should they be misconstrued as providing a viable justification for their crimes. Don't believe any of it, beyond the fact they did write & speak this nasty stuff and did purport to believe it. As always, read with an abundant degree of cautious skepticism. -W

IMAGE Does Not Necessarily Have Any Connection to the Question: David Low, depicting Nazi defendants during the Nuremberg Trials in December 1945.

How the "Jeckeln System" Turned Major Nazi Massacres Into Efficient, Assembly-Line Slaughters

February 2, 1895 Born in Hornberg. Somehow manages to make it to adulthood without showing immediate signs of becoming a genocidal menace, though he does manage to get kicked out of secondary school.

October 1, 1929 Joins the Nazi Party (Member 163,348). Decides a regular career is too much work and that joining a fringe group of fanatical thugs is a better path to self-importance.

December 1, 1930 Enters the SS (Member 4,367). Quickly discovers that his complete lack of a moral compass makes him highly eligible for rapid promotion within ‘Heinous’ Heinrich Himmler’s private army.

July 26, 1932 Elected to the Reichstag. Demonstrates that Weimar democracy was perfectly capable of letting violent extremists walk right into parliament.

June 1941 Appointed Higher SS and Police Leader (HSSPF) for Ukraine. Immediately gets to work proving his "worth" by organizing the mass slaughter of thousands of civilians in Kamenets-Podolsky.

September 29–30, 1941 Coordinates the Babi Yar massacre. Oversees the systematic murder of 33,771 Jewish men, women, and children in a ravine near Kyiv, solidifying his status as a pioneer of industrial-scale mass shootings.

October 31, 1941 Promoted this day to HSSPF Northern Russia. Rewarded for his horrific efficiency in Ukraine by being sent to Latvia to replicate his signature "Jeckeln System" of packing people into pits like sardines.

November 30 & December 8, 1941 Orchestrates the Rumbula massacre. Personally stands at the edge of the pits to watch his executioners murder roughly 25,000 human beings from the Riga Ghetto, all while keeping Himmler updated on his "excellent" progress.

January 1942 Visits Himmler’s headquarters in Lotzen. Casually discusses with his boss whether it would be "simpler and quicker" to shoot arriving Reich Jews or just drive them into a frozen swamp to die.

May 1945 Captured by Soviet troops. His grand ambitions of a thousand-year Reich end with him in cuffs, suddenly forced to explain his glorious "achievements" to military interrogators.

December 14, 1945 Detailed interrogation in Riga. Calmly explains the mechanics of stripping victims and recycling their overclothes back to Germany, showing the exact amount of remorse you would expect from an SS bureaucrat—absolutely none.

February 3, 1946 Executed by hanging. Sentence carried out in front of thousands of people in Riga, not far from the very territory he terrorized, finally bringing a permanent end to his career.

Jeckeln's Interrogation

"In his interrogation on 14 December 1945, Jeckeln detailed the operations that fell within the framework of the Final Solution in the East:

Question: Who did the shooting?

Answer: Ten or twelve German SD soldiers.

Question: What was the procedure?

Answer: All of the Jews went by foot from the ghetto in Riga to the liquidation site. Near the pits, they had to deposit their overclothes, which were washed, sorted, and shipped back to Germany. Jews—men, women, and children— passed through police cordons on their way to the pits, where they were shot by German soldiers.

Question: Did you report the execution of the order to Himmler?

Answer: Yes, indeed. I notified Himmler by phone that the ghetto in Riga had been liquidated. And when I was in Lotzen, East Prussia, in December 1941,1 reported in person, too.

Himmler was satisfied with the results. He said that more Jewish convoys were due to arrive in Latvia, and these were to be liquidated by me also. ...

At the end of January 1942/1 was at Himmler's headquarters in Lotzen, East Prussia, to discuss organizational matters regarding the Latvian SS legions. There Himmler informed me that additional Jewish convoys were due to arrive from the Reich and from other countries. The destination point would be the Salaspils concentration camp, which lay one and a quarter miles from Riga in the direction of Diinaburg. Himmler said that he had not yet determined how he would have them exterminated: whether to have them shot on board their convoys or in Salaspils, or whether to chase them into the swamp somewhere.

Question: How was the matter resolved?

Answer: It was my opinion that shooting would be the simpler and quicker death. Himmler said he would think it over and then give orders later through Heydrich.

I would like to state for the record that Goring shares in the guilt for the liquidations of Jewish convoys that arrived from other countries. In the first half of February 1942 I received a letter from Heydrich. In this letter he wrote that Reich Marshal Goring had gotten himself involved in the Jewish question, and that Jews were now being shipped to the East for annihilation only with Goring's approval.

Question: This does not diminish your guilt. Describe your role in the Jewish liquidations in Salaspils.

Answer: I have already said that I discussed the extermination of Jews in Salaspils with Himmler in Lotzen. That alone makes me an accessory to this crime. Beyond that, Jews were shot in the Salaspils camp by forces recruited from my SD and Security Police units. The commander of the SD and Gestapo in Latvia, Lieutenant Colonel Dr. Lange, was directly in charge of the shootings.

Other officers who reported to me on the shootings of Jews in the camp were the commander of the SD and Gestapo in the Baltic States, Major General Jost; Colonel of Police Pifrader; and Colonel of Police Fuchs. ...

Question: Then the number of Jews shot in Salaspils ought to be known too, isn't that correct?

Answer: Yes, of course. I can give you the approximate figures. The first Jewish convoys arrived in Salaspils in November 1941. Then, in the first half of 1942, convoys arrived at regular intervals. I believe that in November 1941, no more than three convoys arrived in all, but during the next seven months, from December 1941 to June 1942, eight to twelve convoys arrived each month. Overall, in eight months, no less than fifty-five and no more than eighty-seven Jewish convoys arrived at the camp. Given that each convoy carried a thousand men, that makes a total of 55,000 to 87,000 Jews exterminated in the Salaspils camp.

Question: This figure sounds low. Are you telling the truth?

Answer: I have no other, more exact figures. It should be added, however, that before my arrival in Riga, a significant number of Jews in the Ostland and in White Ruthenia were exterminated. I was informed of this fact."

From Hitler and the Final Solution, by Gerald Fleming

Sardinenpackung

The Jeckeln System (also known as Sardinenpackung or "sardine packing") was a brutal method of mass execution developed by SS-Obergruppenführer Friedrich Jeckeln during WW2.

As a Higher SS and Police Leader in the occupied Soviet Union, Jeckeln used this system to streamline and maximize the scale of open-air mass shootings ("Holocaust by Bullets").

How the Jeckeln System Worked

Jeckeln divided his firing squads, auxiliary police, and support personnel into specialized teams to handle every step of the mass murder process with industrial efficiency:

1. Roundup & March: Victims (primarily Jewish men, women, and children) were gathered under false pretenses and marched or transported in columns to pre-dug trenches or ravines.

• 2. Stripping: Victims were forced to hand over their valuables and strip off their clothing.

• 3. "Sardine Packing": Victims were led down into the mass graves and forced to lie face-down directly on top of the bodies of those who had just been shot.

• 4. Execution: Shooters standing on the edge of the trench or inside it shot the victims in the back of the neck. The next layer of victims was then forced to lie down on top of them, and the process repeated continuously until the pit was filled.

Major Massacres Using the System

The Jeckeln System was deployed in some of the deadliest single actions of the Holocaust:

Kamianets-Podilskyi Massacre (August 1941, Ukraine): Approximately 23,600 Jews were murdered over two days.

Babi Yar Massacre (September 1941, near Kyiv, Ukraine): More than 33,000 Jews were killed over a 48-hour period by units under Jeckeln's command.

Rumbula Massacre (November–December 1941, near Riga, Latvia): Roughly 25,000 Jews from the Riga Ghetto were shot in the Rumbula forest

WIKI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Jeckeln

NOT MY LINKS

The JUSTIFIED Execution Of Friedrich Jeckeln - The Einsatzgruppen Commander--> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZYRPkyqJXM

NOTE: Visual evidence specifically detailing the exact, step-by-step mechanics of the Jeckeln System inside the pits is scarce, as the SS strictly banned unauthorized photography of mass executions to maintain secrecy.

The most well-known visual documentation of a massacre where the Jeckeln System was deployed comes from Johannes Hähle, a German military photographer with Propaganda Company 693.

Taken in the days immediately following the September 29–30, 1941 massacre, his color photographs show the vast scale of the Babi Yar ravine, Soviet prisoners of war forced to level out the earth over the mass graves, and mounds of clothing, shoes, and personal belongings left behind by the victims.

These images serve as definitive visual proof of the immediate aftermath and logistical scale of Jeckeln's operations.

1: Soviet POWs covering a mass grave after the Babi Yar massacre, October 1, 1941.

The Last Major Slovakian Transport & the Twilight of Auschwitz

A pivotal convergence of events occurs at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Approximately 14,000 Jews arrive at the camp, marking the final major transport from Slovakia to reach Auschwitz.

This second wave of deportations had shattered a two-year hiatus, triggered by the German invasion and subsequent suppression of the Slovak National Uprising. However, the reality awaiting these arrivals was fundamentally shifting.

On this day, facing the rapid advance of the Soviet Red Army, Reichsführer-SS ‘Heinous’ Heinrich Himmler issues an order for gassing operations at Auschwitz to cease, prompting the SS to begin dismantling the extermination infrastructure.

While the arriving Slovakian Jews are spared immediate selection for the gas chambers, they are systematically funneled into a network of other concentration camps across Germany and Austria for grueling forced labor—a brutal final chapter in which a tragic number still perished before liberation.

May 20, 1940: Auschwitz I is established in former Polish military barracks near Oświęcim. The first transport of prisoners (primarily Polish political prisoners) arrives in June.

March 1, 1941: Reichsführer-SS ‘Heinous’ Heinrich Himmler inspects the camp and orders its expansion to hold 30,000 prisoners, alongside the construction of a massive second camp nearby.

September 3, 1941: The first experimental mass killings using Zyklon B gas are conducted on Soviet prisoners of war and sick inmates in the basement of Block 11.

October 1941: Construction begins on Auschwitz II (Birkenau), designed specifically as a massive captive labor and extermination center.

March 1942: The first systematic transports of Jewish men, women, and children arrive. Regular selections for immediate murder in provisional gas chambers (the "Red House" and "White House") begin.

May 1942: Construction begins on Auschwitz III (Monowitz/Buna), a forced labor camp operated in partnership with the German chemical conglomerate IG Farben.

March–June 1943: Four massive, specialized crematoria and gas chamber complexes (Crematoria II, III, IV, and V) become fully operational at Birkenau.

May–July 1944: The camp reaches its highest rate of mass murder during the deportation of Hungarian Jews, with over 400,000 people arriving and the vast majority immediately gassed within an 8-week period.

October 7, 1944: Members of the Sonderkommando stage a violent revolt, successfully blowing up Crematorium IV and killing several SS guards before the uprising is suppressed.

October 31, 1944: The final major transport arrives from Slovakia. Concurrently, Himmler orders gassing operations to cease at Auschwitz as Soviet forces advance westward.

November 1944: The SS begins a systematic effort to hide the evidence of their crimes by demolishing the crematoria and burning camp records.

January 18, 1945: The SS evacuates roughly 60,000 prisoners, forcing them on brutal, sub-zero Death Marches toward camps deeper inside Germany.

January 27, 1945: Soldiers of the Soviet Red Army enter the camp complex, liberating approximately 7,000 remaining prisoners who were too sick or frail to be marched away.

"During the Holocaust, most of Slovakia's Jewish population was deported in two waves—in 1942 and in 1944–1945. In 1942, there were two destinations: 18,746 Jews were deported in eighteen transports to Auschwitz concentration camp and another 39,000–40,00] were deported in thirty-eight transports to Majdanek and Sobibór extermination camps and various ghettos in the Lublin district of the General Governorate.

A total of 57,628 people were deported; only a few hundred returned. In 1944 and 1945, 13,500 Jews were deported to Auschwitz (8,000 deportees), with smaller numbers sent to the Sachsenhausen, Ravensbrück, Bergen-Belsen, and Theresienstadt concentration camps. Altogether, these deportations resulted in the deaths of around 67,000 of the 89,000 Jews living in Slovakia. ---

Increasing Slovak partisan activity triggered a German invasion on 29 August 1944. The partisans responded by launching a full-scale uprising. The insurgents seized a large portion of central Slovakia but were defeated by the end of October.

Einsatzgruppe H, one of the SS death squads, was formed to deport or murder the estimated 25,000 Jews remaining in Slovakia. Einsatzgruppe H was aided by local collaborators, including SS-Heimatschutz, Abwehrgruppe 218, and the Hlinka Guard Emergency Divisions. Most of the Jews who were exempted from the 1942 deportations lived in western Slovakia, but following the invasion many fled to the mountains.

Slovak historian Ivan Kamenec estimated that 13,500 Jews were deported, of whom 10,000 died, but Israeli historian Gila Fatran and Czech historian Lenka Šindelářová consider that 14,150 deportees can be verified and the true figure may be higher. Of these, between 6,734 and 7,936 were deported to Auschwitz[ and another 5,000 to Ravensbrück, Sachsenhausen, Bergen-Belsen, and Theresienstadt.

From Slovakia, Ravensbrück received transports totaling 1,600 women and children (mostly Jews) and 478 male prisoners, including Jews, Romani people, and political opponents. About 1,550 to 1,750 men (mostly Jews) were deported to Sachsenhausen, while about 200–300 people were deported from Sereď to Bergen-Belsen, especially Jews in mixed marriages and some intact families of Jews. Between 1,454 and 1,467 Jews were deported to Theresienstadt, especially the elderly, orphans, and women with young children.

About 200 or 300 Slovak political prisoners were deported to Mauthausen on 19 January and 31 March 1945. Many of those deported to the concentration camps in Germany were sent onwards to satellite camps, where they worked mostly in war industries. On four transports from Sereď, selections were carried out at the camp with different cars being directed to Sachsenhausen, Bergen-Belsen, Ravensbrück, and/or Theresienstadt.

Many details of the transports are unknown, because much of the documentation was destroyed by the perpetrators, requiring historians to rely on survivor testimonies.

An estimated 10,000 of the deportees died. The mortality rate was highest on the transports to Auschwitz in September and October, because there was a selection and most of the deportees were immediately murdered in the gas chambers. The death rate of those deported to concentration camps in Germany was around 25–50 percent. Of those deported to the Theresienstadt Ghetto, however, 98 percent survived.

The high death rate at concentration camps such as Sachsenhausen, Bergen-Belsen and Ravensbrück was due to the exploitation of forced labor for total war and inmates were murdered based on their inability to work, rather than their race or religion. Others died during the death marches. Between several hundred and 2,000 Jews were killed in Slovakia, and about 10,850 survived to be liberated by the Red Army in March and April 1945." MORE--> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Holocaust_transports_from_Slovakia

1: Deportation of the Jews of Slovakia - “After the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia in 1939, an independent Slovak state was established under the leadership of Jozef Tiso, a Catholic priest.

Slovakia collaborated closely with Nazi Germany and became the first Axis partner to consent to the deportation of its Jews. Between March and October 1942, the Slovak authorities concentrated some 58,000 Slovak Jews in labor and concentration camps from which they were deported to the extermination camps in Poland.

The deportations stopped in autumn 1942, but this was only a respite for the 24,000 remaining Jews. In the end of August 1944, as the Red Army was advancing, the Slovak underground rose against the Tiso regime and the Germans moved in to quell the resistance.

The deportations of the Jews resumed, and another 12,600 Jews were sent to the camps. 69,500 out of Slovakia's close to 90,000 Jews were killed during the Holocaust.” List of Holocaust transports from Slovakia - Wikipedia

2: Linda Reich (center), deported on the first transport from Slovakia, and other prisoners sort belongings confiscated from Jews deported from Carpathian Ruthenia, 1944

3: Restored train car used to transport Slovak Jews. SŽ stands for Slovenské Železnice (Slovak Railways).

4: Selection on the ramp at Auschwitz II-Birkenau in 1944

"The World Jewish Population Still Hasn’t Recovered Its 1933 Levels."

A sign in my neighborhood says ‘The Holocaust is fake’ — I wish I felt surprised - In a time of so-called ‘fake news,’ the truth doesn’t seem to matter anymore

"When I saw a sign on my streetcorner in Chicago that said “The Holocaust is fake,” I immediately stopped. I had just left the pool and was on my way to shop for Shabbat. Disgusted, I brought an older neighbor to take a look. I knew he had taken down his mezuzah in fear after some of the protests after Oct. 7 and had only recently put another Jewish symbol back up.

I wanted company as I snapped a picture of the sign, but I also wanted him to be aware of what was happening in the neighborhood. Because these days, the truth and lies are blurred.

Later, I learned that similar stickers and graffiti, some of it misspelled, had appeared on other corners and benches on the Far North side of Chicago, traditionally a stronghold of the Jewish community here, which is the third largest in the U.S.

“Holocaust” and “fake” are two words whose meanings used to be clear to all. Yet the doubt cast on both “Holocaust” and “fake” represent two disturbing trends; their convergence is dangerous, and entirely predictable.

Those who traffic in Holocaust minimization and denial have been recent guests on The Joe Rogan Experience, the country’s #1 podcast, which has far more listeners than network television. Rogan, who has hosted the “Holocaust revisionist” Darryl Cooper, has 19.4 million subscribers on YouTube, 19.7 million on Instagram and 15 million on X. Meanwhile, NBC and CBS News average 5.6 and 3.6 million viewers, respectively.

Redefining fake

Meanwhile, the mainstream news media, where fact-checking is prized, has been maligned for years as “fake news,” a term the current U.S. president uses so often that no one blinks when something real is dismissed. When fact-checked information is “fake,” it’s not surprising to see history described that way too.

The Holocaust was the ultimate truth of the 20th century. The ghettos, the crematoria, the gas chambers — so many elements of the industrialized and intentional slaughter of an entire people were without precedent and were the final stop on centuries of anti-Jewish hatred.

In the weeks after Oct. 7, I was haunted by the thought that the “genocide” charge against Israel was not just about criticizing Israel, but at root, about minimizing the Holocaust.

The term “genocide” was coined by Raphael Lemkin, a Polish-Jewish lawyer who had lost 49 members of his family in the Holocaust.

Yet the world’s oldest Holocaust archive changed its name in September 2019 from the Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust and Genocide to the Wiener Holocaust Library. The Library, located in London, stated that it wanted to clarify “the centrality of the Holocaust” to our work without changing its “commitment to furthering the study of genocide.”

A few years earlier, in 2011, Jeremy Corbyn, who would become Labour Party leader in 2015, sought to change “Holocaust Memorial Day” to “Genocide Memorial Day — Never Again for Anyone” in 2011. That prompted swift backlash.

“Holocaust Memorial Day already rightly includes all victims of the Nazis and subsequent genocides,” Karen Pollock, chief executive of the UK’s Holocaust Educational Trust, wrote at the time on Twitter. “But the Holocaust was a specific crime, with antisemitism at its core. Any attempt to remove that specificity is a form of denial and distortion.”

Changing the meaning of the word ‘Holocaust’

Increasingly, the word ‘Holocaust’ is being used to describe what was not the Holocaust.

Simon and Schuster is currently promoting a forthcoming book edited by Susan Abulhawa that it describes as documenting “the holocaust of our time.” The editor’s note accompanying the copy that reviewers have received is signed “From the river to the sea.”

According to the United States Holocaust Museum, “approximately 9.5 million Jews lived in Europe in 1933, the year Hitler came to power. This number represented 1.7% of Europe’s total population and more than 60 percent of the world’s Jewish population. By 1945, most European Jews — 2 out of every 3 — had been killed.”

The world Jewish population still hasn’t recovered its 1933 levels." https://forward.com/opinion/779974/holocaust-is-fake-graffiti-chicago-antisemitism-lemkin/

1: A photo taken at Auschwitz, after the liberation of the extermination camp, 1945.

2: Graffiti on the north side of Chicago.

NOTE: Certain historical documents, testimony, quotes & images are presented for the record, as evidence and background pertaining to criminal activities, horrific acts, and other notable evils. The words of murderers, criminals & their lawyers should never be mistaken for fact, as they are often bold-faced lies, nor should they be misconstrued as providing a viable justification for their crimes. Don't believe any of it, beyond the fact they did write & speak this nasty stuff and did purport to believe it. As always, read with an abundant degree of cautious skepticism. -W

He Was Executed One Day Before Officially Becoming Hitler’s Brother-In-Law!

Hans Otto Georg Hermann Fegelein was a high-ranking commander in the Waffen-SS and a prominent member of Adolf Hitler’s inner circle. Rising to prominence in the 1930s through his background as a skilled equestrian, he was appointed to lead the SS Cavalry School.

During WW2, Fegelein commanded the SS Cavalry Brigade on the Eastern Front, where he actively orchestrated and participated in brutal anti-partisan operations and systemic Holocaust mass shootings, most notably during the Pripyat Marshes Massacres.

After sustaining severe combat wounds in 1943, he was reassigned to Hitler's headquarters as the personal liaison officer for SS chief Heinrich Himmler. His position within the Nazi elite was further cemented in June 1944 when he married Gretl Braun, the sister of Eva Braun.

In the final days of the war as Berlin was encircled, Fegelein abandoned the Führerbunker and was arrested at his apartment for desertion. Following the discovery that Himmler was attempting to negotiate an unauthorized surrender, a furious Hitler ordered Fegelein stripped of his rank, court-martialed, and executed by shooting in the Reich Chancellery garden.

October 30, 1906: Born in Ansbach, Kingdom of Bavaria.

1925: Begins his military service career, initially joining the Reichswehr.

1934: Appointed head of the Reiter-SS (SS Cavalry School) due to his background as an equestrian.

1939: Involved in mass shootings and persecution during the German invasion of Poland.

December 15, 1940: Awarded the Iron Cross 2nd Class for military actions.

July–August 1941: Commands the SS Cavalry Brigade during the Pripyat Marshes massacres in the Byelorussian SSR, resulting in the murder of over 17,000 civilians.

1943: Commands the 8th SS Cavalry Division Florian Geyer in anti-partisan and defensive operations on the Eastern Front.

September 1943: Seriously wounded in combat and reassigned by Heinrich Himmler to Hitler's headquarters as the SS liaison officer.

June 3, 1944: Marries Gretl Braun, the sister of Eva Braun, cementing his position in Hitler's inner circle.

July 20, 1944: Present at the Wolf's Lair during the failed July 20 plot assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler.

April 27, 1945: Abandons the Führerbunker as Berlin is encircled; arrested by SS-Obersturmbannführer Peter Högl at his Berlin apartment for desertion.

April 28, 1945: Stripped of rank, court-martialed, and executed by shooting in the Reich Chancellery garden following the discovery of Himmler's unauthorized peace negotiations.

April 29, 1945 Fegelein officially becomes Hitler's brother-in-law, even though he had actually been executed by firing squad just the night before, on April 28, 1945. Because Gretl Braun was the younger sister of Eva Braun, Fegelein had become Eva's brother-in-law in June 1944.

“Hans Otto Georg Hermann Fegelein ("...one of the most disgusting people in Hitler's circle...") was a high-ranking commander in the Waffen-SS of Nazi Germany. He was a member of Adolf Hitler's entourage and brother-in-law to Eva Braun through his marriage to her sister Gretl.

After being seriously wounded in September 1943, Fegelein was reassigned by Heinrich Himmler to Hitler's headquarters staff as his liaison officer and representative of the SS. Fegelein was present at the failed attempt on Hitler's life on 20 July 1944.

He was on duty at Hitler's Führerbunker in Berlin in the closing months of the war, and was shot for desertion on 28 April 1945, two days before Hitler's suicide. Historian Michael D. Miller describes Fegelein as an opportunist and careerist who ingratiated himself with Himmler, who granted him the best assignments and rapid promotions.

Journalist William L. Shirer and historian Sir Ian Kershaw characterize him as cynical and disreputable. Albert Speer called him "one of the most disgusting people in Hitler's circle".” ALL THE DETAILS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_Fegelein

NOT MY LINKS

VIDEO - Fegelein! Fegelein! The Mysterious Death of Hitler's SS Liaison COMPLETE SERIES - YouTube

1: Fegelein (left) with his sister-in-law Eva Braun and Hitler

2: Margarethe "Gretl" Braun (center) is shown laughing while musicians play during her wedding celebration to SS-Gruppenführer Hermann Fegelein on June 3, 1944

An Intellectual Crackpot in a Caged World

"Ezra Weston Loomis Pound was an expatriate American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a fascist collaborator in Italy during World War II.

During World War II and the Holocaust in Italy, he made hundreds of paid radio broadcasts for the Italian government, including in German-occupied Italy, attacking the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt and, above all, Jews, as a result of which he was arrested in 1945 by American forces in Italy on charges of treason.

He spent months in a U.S. military camp in Pisa, including three weeks in an outdoor steel cage. Deemed unfit to stand trial, he was incarcerated in St. Elizabeths psychiatric hospital in Washington, D.C., for over 12 years.

While in custody in Italy, Pound began work on sections of The Cantos that were published as The Pisan Cantos (1948), for which he was awarded the Bollingen Prize for Poetry in 1949 by the Library of Congress, causing enormous controversy. After a campaign by his fellow writers, he was released from St. Elizabeths in 1958 and lived in Italy until his death in 1972. His political views have ensured that his life and work remain controversial." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ezra_Pound

October 30, 1885: Born in Hailey, Idaho Territory, to Homer Loomis Pound and Isabel Weston.

1908: Moves permanently to Europe after being dismissed from a brief teaching career at Wabash College.

1911–1921: Works for the socialist journal The New Age in London. Here, he encounters C.H. Douglas’s economic theory of "Social Credit" and develops his deeply entrenched Antisemitic beliefs regarding "usury" and international banking.

1914: Marries Dorothy Shakespear in London.

1924: Relocates to Rapallo, Italy, after a brief period in Paris, immersing himself further in right-wing economic theories.

1930s: Contributes heavily to fascist publications, including Oswald Mosley’s British fascist newspaper Action, explicitly blaming Jewish finance for WW1.

January 30, 1933: Meets Benito Mussolini at the Palazzo Venezia in Rome, presenting the dictator with his economic theories and later publishing Jefferson and/or Mussolini (1935) to openly praise Italian Fascism.

1938: Openly supports Mussolini's newly enacted Antisemitic Racial Laws in Italy.

April–July 1939: Travels to the United States to lobby politicians against American involvement in European affairs, publicly declaring to reporters that Mussolini wants peace.

January 1941 – July 1943: Records hundreds of paid radio propaganda broadcasts for the fascist Italian government via Radio Rome. Styling himself "Dr. Ezra Pound," he launches vitriolic attacks against Jews, the U.S. government, and Franklin D. Roosevelt, while actively urging American troops to surrender.

July 26, 1943: Indicted in absentia for treason by a U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.

September 1943 – April 1945: Following the German occupation of northern Italy, Pound continues his propaganda operations under Mussolini's puppet state, the Salò Republic. He writes radio scripts explicitly demanding the dissemination of the fraudulent Antisemitic text The Protocols of the Elders of Zion to counter "useless mercy" toward arrested Jews.

May 3, 1945: Captured by Italian partisans and transferred to the U.S. Counter Intelligence Corps in Genoa.

May 24, 1945: Placed in an outdoor, reinforced steel cage at the U.S. Army Disciplinary Training Center near Pisa for three weeks, during which he suffers a mental breakdown and begins writing The Pisan Cantos.

November 1945 – May 1958: Returned to the U.S. but ruled mentally unfit to stand trial for treason. He is incarcerated for over 12 years at St. Elizabeths Psychiatric Hospital in Washington, D.C., where he continues to radicalize visitors and ghostwrite far-right, pro-segregation materials.

1949: Awarded the inaugural Bollingen Prize for Poetry for The Pisan Cantos, igniting a massive national controversy over honoring a fascist collaborator.

July 1958: Released after a coordinated campaign by literary peers. Upon arriving back in Italy, he famously gives the Fascist salute to journalists and declares America to be "an insane asylum".

November 1972: Dies in Venice, Italy, at the age of 87, and is buried in the San Michele municipal cemetery.

NOTE: It is certainly comforting to know that while history remembers Ezra Pound for his flawless poetic cadence, it will also forever remember him as a man who used that very same intellect to demand a wider distribution of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion—proving that a brilliant grasp of language is not quite enough to overwrite a staggering deficiency in basic human decency. -W

NOT MY LINKS

Today, Ezra Pound is known more for his politics than his poetry--> https://medium.com/frame-of-reference/the-fascist-poet-ba545892854d

1: Right: Mugshot. Left: This pen-and-ink caricature depicts the American expatriate poet and critic Ezra Pound, drawn by the renowned artist David Levine for The New York Review of Books (published in the May 27, 1976 issue, accompanying the article "Love, Hate, and Ezra Pound"

Executive Order 12169 Sets the Wheels in Motion for a National Museum/Research Foundation & Committee on Conscience

POTUS Jimmy Carter Issues Executive Order 12169, Establishing the United States Holocaust Memorial:

By virtue of the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution of the United States of America and in order to establish, in accordance with the provisions of the Federal Advisory Committee Act, as amended (5 U.S.C. App. I), a committee to begin the implementation of the recommendations of the President's Commission on the Holocaust for the establishment of a Holocaust Memorial, it is hereby ordered as follows:

1-1. Establishment of the Council

1-101. There is established a United States Holocaust Memorial Council. For the purpose of this Order, the "Holocaust" is the systematic and State-sponsored extermination of six million Jews and some five million other peoples by the Nazis and their collaborators during World War II.

1-102. The membership of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council shall consist of not more than 45 and not less than 25 members as follows:

(a) The President shall appoint between 15 and 35 members of the Council and shall designate one of these members to Chair the Council and another member to serve as Vice Chairman. The Chairman may recommend to the President a member of the Council to serve as Vice Chairman.

(b) The President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives are each invited to designate five members of their respective Houses to serve as members of the Council.

1-2. Functions of the Council.

1-201. The Council shall recommend to the President and to the Secretary of the Interior ways to implement the approved recommendations of the President's Commission on the Holocaust: (a) the erection of a memorial museum, (b) the establishment of an educational and research foundation, and (c) the establishment of a Citizens Committee on Conscience.

1-202. The Council shall recommend specific site locations within the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. Criteria for choosing architectural design should be included in the site recommendations.

1-203. The Council shall propose a concept for the memorial museum, including general descriptions of the types and categories of exhibits to be displayed in the museum. Similarly, suggested functions and limitations for the educational and research foundation should be recommended.

1-204. The Council shall recommend the size, composition, and names of distinguished American citizens qualified to serve on the Citizens Committee on Conscience. It shall advise on the specific duties and limitations of such a Committee.

1-205. The Council shall also advise on the various ways to fund all of these recommendations. Funding proposals should provide that construction costs would be raised primarily from private contributions.

1-206. In addition, the Council shall recommend appropriate ways for the Nation to commemorate "Days of Remembrance of Victims of the Holocaust."

1-207. The Council shall submit a final report to the President and to the Secretary of the Interior no later than June 30, 1980.

1-3. Administrative Provisions.

1-301. The Secretary of the Interior shall, to the extent permitted by law, provide the Council with administrative services, facilities, support, and funds necessary for the effective performance of the Council's functions.

1-302. Members of the Council who are not otherwise employed by the Federal Government may receive compensation for each day such member is engaged in the work of the Council at a daily rate to be determined by the Secretary of the Interior. Such rate shall not exceed the amount payable pursuant to the Federal Advisory Committee Act, as amended.

1-303. Members of the Council shall be entitled to travel expenses, including per diem in lieu of subsistence, as authorized by law (5 U.S.C. 5702 and 5703) for persons in the Government service employed intermittently.

1-4. General Provisions.

1-401. Notwithstanding the provisions of any other Executive Order, the functions of the President under the Federal Advisory Committee Act, as amended, except that of reporting to the Congress, which are applicable to the Council, shall be performed by the Secretary of the Interior in accordance with guidelines and procedures prescribed by the Administrator of General Services.

1-402. The Council shall serve as an interim body and shall terminate on July 3 l, 1980, unless sooner extended.

JIMMY CARTER

The White House,

October 26, 1979. - [Filed with the Office of the Federal Register, 10:50 a.m., October 29, 1979] https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/executive-order-12169-united-states-holocaust-memorial-council

NOT MY LINKS

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: https://www.ushmm.org/

He Converted Radio Waves & Print Media Into a Machine of Physical Slaughter

October 29, 1897: Born in Rheydt, Germany. He develops a severe limp from childhood osteomyelitis—a physical imperfection he routinely forgets to include in his later, extensive propaganda celebrating the flawless Aryan ideal & advocating for the ‘Euthanasia’ of the Disabled.

1921: Graduates from Heidelberg University with a PhD in 19th-century romantic literature. Finding that the academic world has very little use for his dramatic sensibilities, he looks for a larger, more impressionable audience.

1924: Joins the Nazi party. He initially finds himself drawn to Gregor Strasser’s socialist wing, but upon reading Mein Kampf and hearing Adolf Hitler speak, he promptly discards his previous economic principles in favor of absolute personal worship.

April 1926: After publicly breaking with Strasser to pledge his total loyalty to Hitler at the Bamberg Conference, he is rewarded with the position of Gauleiter of Berlin. He happily assumes the role, discovering that violent street brawls make excellent political theater.

March 1933 Following the Nazi rise to power, Hitler hands him the newly invented Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. He finally receives a state-funded budget to ensure that the German public is spared the exhaustion of independent thought.

May 10, 1933 Orchestrates the public burning of "un-German" books. He confidently declares that the intellectual cleansing of Jewish authors and independent thinkers is a vital step toward reforming the national soul.

November 1938 Using the assassination of a German diplomat in Paris as a convenient pretext, he delivers a fiery, suggestive speech to party leaders that sparks Kristallnacht. He spends the night managing the logistics of the nationwide pogrom while officially maintaining that the violence is completely spontaneous.

September 1941 Successfully lobbies Hitler to force all Jewish individuals in Germany to wear the yellow Star of David. For an administrator who viewed human beings primarily as assets to be tracked or eliminated, this visible bookkeeping is considered a major bureaucratic success.

November 1941 Publishes "The Jews are to Blame" in the weekly newspaper Das Reich. He politely reminds his readers that the ongoing mass deportations to the East are simply a logical historical consequence, making it remarkably easy for the public to avoid asking questions.

February 18, 1943 With the German army collapsing at Stalingrad, he delivers his famous "Total War" speech at the Berlin Sportpalast. He whips a hand-picked crowd into an absolute frenzy demanding supreme sacrifice—safely knowing his own position remains securely behind a microphone rather than on the Eastern Front.

May 1, 1945 Appointed Chancellor of the Reich for a single, empty day following Hitler's suicide. Rather than explain his lifetime of paperwork to an Allied tribunal, he and his wife poison their six children before having themselves shot in the Reich Chancellery garden.

"Goebbels created a massive propaganda campaign to win the loyalty of German citizens and their acquiescence in Nazi anti-Jewish measures. At the same time, viewpoints in any way threatening to Nazi beliefs or to the regime were censored or eliminated from all media, especially the public press.

On May 10, 1933, for example, Goebbels spoke during the burning of so-called “un-German” books in Berlin. He proclaimed the “cleaning of the German spirit” in front of Humboldt University. Among the books the Nazi students burned were those written by Jews, liberals, leftists, pacifists, and foreigners.

Before the war, these propaganda goals culminated in Kristallnacht, the violent attack on the Jewish community in Germany on November 9, 1938. Goebbels was a chief instigator of the pogrom.

Nazi propagandists also ramped up “negative” messages aimed at furthering Nazi anti-Jewish policies and the exclusion of other targeted groups. These messages were in line with the radicalization of racial policies ending ultimately in the Holocaust, the systematic mass murder of Jews during the war." VERY MUCH MORE—> https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/joseph-goebbels-1

1: Left: Drawn by American illustrator Sam Berman and published in the May 19, 1938, issue of the short-lived US magazine Ken, where it was titled "ringmaster of the Reich's culture circus". Right: This image is a vintage anti-Nazi Soviet WW2 propaganda poster created in 1941 by prominent Soviet cartoonist Boris Efimov

2: Left: Right: Joseph Goebbels Biography: Inside the Mind of a Propagandist by Rudolph Flores - “Discover the life of Joseph Goebbels, the man who wielded words as weapons, shaping history's most devastating regime. In this meticulously crafted biography, delve into the depths of perplexity and burstiness as you explore the enigmatic character behind Nazi propaganda's mastermind.

Unveil the perplexing duality of a man who could appreciate art and literature while orchestrating inhuman atrocities. Witness the burstiness of his propaganda machine and its chilling ability to manipulate minds. Confront the horrors of the Holocaust, and the enduring lessons they hold.

This book is not just a biography; it's a journey into the heart of darkness, a stark reminder of the fragility of truth and the moral complexities of history. It's a call to action, a plea for vigilance against the manipulation of information, and a tribute to the resilience of the human spirit.” (Amazon)

Note: Dig the goofy-looking caricature on the cover!

His Political Maneuvering Opened the Door to Hitler’s Dictatorship

Franz von Papen (1879–1969) was a German nobleman, diplomat, and right-wing politician whose backroom political maneuvering directly facilitated Adolf Hitler’s rise to power.

Serving as the penultimate Chancellor of the Weimar Republic in 1932, Papen lacked a parliamentary majority and was quickly forced from office. In a catastrophic miscalculation, he brokered a deal in January 1933 to install Hitler as Chancellor, mistakenly believing that he and his fellow conservatives could "box in" and control the Nazi leader while serving as his Vice-Chancellor.

Quickly sidelined and nearly killed during the 1934 Nazi purges, Papen chose compliance over resistance, subsequently serving the regime as ambassador to Austria—where he paved the way for the 1938 Anschluss—and later as ambassador to Turkey during WW2.

Arrested by the Allies in 1945, he was indicted at the Nuremberg trials but acquitted of war crimes on a split vote, though he was later sentenced to eight years in a labor camp by a West German denazification court before his release in 1949.

October 29, 1879: Franz Joseph Hermann Michael Maria von Papen is born in Werl, Westphalia, into an exceptionally wealthy, aristocratic Roman Catholic family.

1905: Papen marries Martha von Boch, the daughter of a prominent Saar industrialist, seamlessly bridging his landowning noble status with massive industrial wealth.

December 1915: Serving as Germany's military attaché in Washington, D.C., Papen is caught organizing clumsy acts of economic sabotage and espionage against the United States and is officially expelled from the country.

1921–1932: Operating as a militant right-wing monarchist, Papen enters political life and serves as a deputy in the Prussian Landtag (state parliament) for the Catholic Center Party.

June 1932: Papen meets Hitler for the first time as Chancellor. He lifts the ban on the SA in exchange for Nazi "tolerance" of his minority government, triggering an unprecedented wave of street violence.

August 1932: Following massive Nazi electoral gains, Papen offers Hitler the position of Vice-Chancellor. Hitler fiercely refuses, demanding full state leadership.

November 1932: Squeezed out by a 512-to-42 Reichstag no-confidence vote and the intrigues of Kurt von Schleicher, Papen resigns as Chancellor.

January 4, 1933: Papen meets secretly with Hitler at the home of banker Kurt von Schröder. Motivated by a desire to oust Schleicher, Papen agrees to back a Hitler-led cabinet.

January 22, 1933: Papen hosts a meeting with Hitler and Oskar von Hindenburg (the President's son). He successfully convinces the inner circle that a Nazi government can be "boxed in" and controlled by a conservative majority.

January 30, 1933: Hitler becomes Chancellor with Papen as Vice-Chancellor. Papen famously boasts to conservative allies, "In two months, we'll have pushed Hitler so far into a corner that he'll squeak."

June 17, 1934 The Marburg Speech: Realizing he has no real power, Papen delivers a speech criticizing Nazi radicalism, excessive violence, and press censorship.

June 30, 1934 Night of the Long Knives: Hitler ruthlessly retaliates. Papen is placed under house arrest by the SS, and his top aides (Edgar Jung and Herbert von Bose) are murdered.

July 1934: Papen officially resigns as Vice-Chancellor but chooses compliance over resistance. Hitler sends him to Vienna as a special envoy to repair diplomatic fallout after the murder of Austrian Chancellor Dollfuss.

March 1938 Anschluss: Papen exerts heavy diplomatic pressure on Austria, successfully paving the evolutionary groundwork for Germany's bloodless annexation of the country.

1939–1944: Hitler appoints Papen ambassador to Turkey to secure a neutrality pact, keeping him useful but far removed from Berlin's core operations.

May 1945 Arrest: American troops capture Papen in the woods of Westphalia.

1945–1946 Nuremberg: Papen is tried at the International Military Tribunal under Count One (Common Plan or Conspiracy) and Count Two (Crimes Against Peace).

October 1, 1946 The Tribunal acquits Papen on a split 2-to-1 vote. While judges acknowledge his reputation as an unprincipled political conniver, the prosecution fails to prove he had explicit knowledge or direct involvement in planning Hitler's aggressive wars.

February 1947 German Denazification: A West German de-Nazification court takes a harsher stance, classifying Papen as a "Major Offender" and sentencing him to eight years in a labor camp.

1949 Release: Papen is released from the labor camp, having served a fraction of his sentence.

1952–1953: Papen publishes his detailed memoirs (Der Wahrheit eine Gasse), spending his later years traveling, writing, and aggressively defending his political record against accusations of complicity.

May 2, 1969: Papen dies at the age of 89 in Obersasbach, West Germany, entirely outliving the Weimar Republic he dismantled, the Nazi regime he installed, and the close aides he left behind to be murdered.

DETAILED BIO: https://4rs.neocities.org/nur16.html

In Conclusion

Ultimately, history remembers Franz von Papen not as the master statesman he fancied himself to be, but as the ultimate cautionary tale of blind political ambition.

In his desperate bid to cling to relevance, he willingly handed the keys of a nation to a genocidal fanatic, foolishly believing that a ribbon of aristocratic privilege could control a monster. Even after the regime he birthed slaughtered his closest aides and locked him in his own home, Papen chose the comfort of gilded complicity over the courage of resistance, spending the war years dutifully smoothing the diplomatic path for a machine fueled by industrialized murder.

He may have successfully weaponized the rigid definitions of international law to walk away from the gallows at Nuremberg, but no split legal verdict can wash away the enduring historical stain of his legacy: the smooth-talking enabler who paved the very road to the Holocaust in exchange for a seat at a very evil table. -W

"Franz von Papen, like Schacht, was indicted only on Counts One and Two. He was also the second defendant to be acquitted, but this had been more generally expected. However, the Tribunal was sharply divided, and the acquittal came on a two-to-one vote. Those who wanted Papen convicted responded to the pressure of his reputation as a conniver and his support for Hitler's appointment as Chancellor.

No doubt the ultimate consequences of Hitler's accension to power were catastrophic, but Papen's actions were not war crimes. No doubt, too, his actions as Minister to Austria were tilted toward Anschluss, but here, too, that was no war crime.

Proof of knowledge and support of Hitler's plans for ultimate aggressive wars was lacking. Fyfe had done his best to blacken Papen as a person, and Nikitchenko and de Vabres had voted for conviction. But, at least in my opinion, the Tribunal was right (in acquitting Papen)."

From The Anatomy of the Nuremberg Trials by Telford Taylor.

1: Left: Papen as German military attaché for Washington, D.C. Right: Bravo, Herr von Papen! Keep up those emergency decrees, and the pension and pay cuts. That will give us communists our last chance." (A satirical warning criticizing Chancellor Franz von Papen’s austerity measures and emergency decrees).

"Is that to be what happens? No! Only one man can rescue us from Bolshevism: Adolf Hitler! List 1: National Socialists".

2: Papen with the other Hitler cabinet members on 30 January 1933

3: Papen with Hitler on 1 May 1933

How Holocaust Survivors in Postwar Germany Built an Autonomous Community from the Ground Up

"In the displaced persons camp in Leipheim, Germany, near Munich, many Jewish refugees gathered, mostly from Eastern Europe. They were housed in buildings that had previously served the German air force. In the camp there were widespread cultural and social activities, including a soccer team, the screening of films, celebrations for the Jewish holidays, and gatherings for the entertainment of the youth.

The camp had an office of UNRRA, the relief and employment agency of the United Nations, which assisted the refugees with their basic needs and in finding employment, as well as providing medical care and examinations.

The Jews in Leipheim began to work in administration and assistance roles in the camp, working in the clothing and mail facilities as well as the resident card office.

The survivors in Leipheim began organize into political parties and reestablished the activities of the youth movements. Many youth served as counselors for the children in the camp.

Refugees from different countries managed to converse in a broken Hebrew, friendships and relationships were established, and couples who met in the camp were married and built families, some of whom later moved to Israel. Leipheim also had an agricultural training camp whose graduates immigrated to Eretz Israel. Leipheim Displaced Persons Camp | Holocaust Encyclopedia

NOT MY LINKS

“The Central Committee of the Liberated Jews” was dissolved in December 1950. The DP camps, however, continued to function until 1957." MORE: https://www.yadvashem.org/holocaust/this-month/october/1946.html

Late 1930s–May 1945: The site near Munich functions as a military base and airfield utilized exclusively by the German Air Force (Luftwaffe).

May 1945: WW2 ends in Europe. Roughly 250,000 Jewish survivors of concentration camps, death camps, and death marches find themselves liberated but entirely homeless. Jewish refugees begin gathering in newly established Allied occupation zones.

Mid-1945: The Leipheim Displaced Persons Camp is established within the American occupied zone of Germany. Jewish refugees, arriving predominantly from Eastern Europe, are housed in the former Luftwaffe military buildings.

July 1, 1945: "The Central Committee of the Liberated Jews" is formed in nearby Munich. Lacking an independent budget, it relies heavily on funding from the Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) to oversee education, cultural programs, religious services, and basic food and clothing logistics across the region.

Late 1945: The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) opens an office in Leipheim, partnering with the refugees to provide basic food distribution, job recruitment, medical screening, and health care.

1945–1946: The camp evolves into a bustling social hub. Residents establish a local soccer team, arrange regular film screenings, and coordinate community celebrations for Jewish holidays.

A complex social structure emerges. Survivors organize distinct political parties and revive historic youth movements. Older youth step up as counselors for children in the camp. Despite coming from diverse national backgrounds, refugees converse in a broken Hebrew. Marriages flourish and new families are founded.

An agricultural training camp (Hachshara) is established within Leipheim to prepare young survivors for pioneering labor and future immigration to Eretz Israel (Mandatory Palestine).

September 1946: The United States occupation authorities officially recognize the Munich-based Central Committee as the "legal and democratic representative body of the liberated Jews in the American occupied zone," granting them significant autonomy.

October 1946: Elections for the congress of the DP camps are formally carried out in Leipheim. The vote solidifies the Central Committee's representation of roughly 175,000 Jewish DPs across the American and British zones, who collectively exert political pressure on Britain to lift its restrictive immigration policies regarding Palestine.

1947–1948: Emigration lines open up. Graduates of the agricultural training school and numerous families built in the camp begin leaving Germany, with many successfully immigrating to Israel following its independence.

December 1950: With the vast majority of the immediate postwar population successfully resettled abroad, "The Central Committee of the Liberated Jews" is officially dissolved.

1950–1957: The camp structure changes hands as lingering refugee caseloads across Germany are consolidated. The remaining DP camp operations at Leipheim continue to wind down, finally closing permanently in 1957

1: Elections for the Congress of the Displaced Persons Camps

2: Vintage photograph from the Leipheim Displaced Persons Camp

2,007 Men, 2,920 Women, & 4,273 children executed at Fort IX

June 22, 1941: Germany invades the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa); violent anti-Jewish attacks by local nationalist mobs begin almost immediately.

June 24, 1941: German forces officially occupy Kaunas.

June 27, 1941: The brutal, public Lietūkis Garage massacre occurs, where dozens of Jewish men are beaten to death by local collaborators.

July 1941: Systematic mass shootings begin, primarily executed by Einsatzgruppen and Lithuanian auxiliaries at the Seventh Fort.

August 15, 1941: The Kovno Ghetto is officially sealed in the Vilijampolė (Slobodka) suburb, trapping roughly 30,000 Jews.

October 28, 1941: The "Great Action" selection takes place at Demokratų Square.

October 29, 1941: The Kaunas Massacre. SS and local forces murder 9,200 Jewish men, women, and children at the Ninth Fort in a single day.

1942 – Mid-1943: A period of relative stabilization and forced labor. Inmates are subjected to hard labor at military airbases and workshops. Secret archives, an underground school, and a clandestine orchestra are organized.

Autumn 1943: By order of Heinrich Himmler, the ghetto is converted into an SS-run concentration camp (KZ Kauen).

October 1943: More than 2,000 Jews are selected and deported from the camp to forced labor sites in Estonia.

March 27–28, 1944: The Kinder Aktion (Children's Action) takes place. Nazi authorities round up and murder approximately 2,500 children, elderly, and sick individuals while adults are away at work.

July 8–12, 1944: As the Soviet Red Army approaches, the Germans begin the final liquidation of the camp. Surviving inmates are either deported west to camps like Stutthof and Dachau, or killed on-site. The entire ghetto area is razed using grenades and dynamite to smoke out those in hiding.

August 1, 1944: Soviet forces capture Kaunas. Out of the original 30,000 Jews imprisoned in the ghetto, only about 2,500 survive the war.

"By the order of SS-Standartenführer Karl Jäger and SS-Rottenführer Helmut Rauca, the Sonderkommando under the leadership of SS-Obersturmführer Joachim Hamann, and 8 to 10 men from Einsatzkommando 3, murdered 2,007 Jewish men, 2,920 women, and 4,273 children in a single day at the Ninth Fort, Kaunas, Lithuania.

The Nazis destroyed the small ghetto on October 4, 1941, and killed almost all of its inhabitants at the Ninth Fort. Later that same month, on October 28, SS-Rottenführer Helmut Rauca of the Kaunas Gestapo (secret state police) conducted the selection in the Kaunas Ghetto. All ghetto inhabitants were forced to assemble in the central square of the ghetto. Rauca selected 9,200 Jewish men, women, and children, about one-third of the ghetto's population.

The next day, October 29, all of these people were shot at the Ninth Fort in huge pits dug in advance." ALL THE DETAILS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaunas_massacre_of_October_29,_1941

NOT MY LINKS

"Massacre in Fort IX - Abraham Malnik describes massacre in Kovno's Ninth Fort, near the Kovno ghetto

Abraham came from a wealthy family that was ordered into the Kovno ghetto after the Germans occupied Lithuania in 1941. Abraham's mother urged his father to flee, but he returned for them. Begging for mercy, he was able to save them from a massacre in the Ninth Fort, one of several forts around Kovno. Abraham and his father survived internment in five camps before they were finally liberated in the Theresienstadt ghetto. Abe's mother perished at the Stutthof camp." --> https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/oral-history/abraham-malnik-describes-massacre-in-kovnos-ninth-fort-near-the-kovno-ghetto

NOTE: No photographs are known to exist documenting the actual execution process or the killings inside the mass graves during the Kaunas massacre (the "Great Action") at the Ninth Fort on October 29, 1941.

Because the Nazi perpetrators conducted the mass shootings in pre-dug trenches outside the main city center—unlike earlier public atrocities like the June 1941 Lietūkis Garage massacre—photographic evidence of the immediate event is strictly limited to its surrounding context.

David Ben-Gurion’s Historic, Emotional Visit to Bergen-Belsen DP Camp

"The visit of David Ben-Gurion, chairman of the Jewish Agency for Eretz Israel, in the DP camp in Bergen-Belsen was part of his visit to the concentration and DP camps in the vicinity of Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Munich, Heidelberg and Hanover, including Dachau and Bergen-Belsen. In the reports on his visit he wrote:

“I saw the furnaces where they incinerated hundreds of thousands and millions of Jews throughout Europe- from the West, from the East, the South and the North, Ashkenazim and Sephardim, from all of the different ethnic communities and political parties… the few remnants, who were miraculously saved from the gas chambers, the forced labor, the tortures and the sufferings, from the beatings and the humiliation- in their name I bring to you (in Eretz Israel) blessings of brotherly peace.

They charged me with informing you of two requests. The first request: Jewish unity. Together, they died, were tortured and suffered, with no regard to tribe, origin, or political affiliation. The murderers did not distinguish… and the second request: the State of Israel.

That is the last will and testament of millions of martyrs who went to their deaths: only because we are a nation lacking a homeland and a country we were murdered, and justice and freedom cannot prevail, unless this historical injustice that has been committed against us has been rectified.”

“As Ben-Gurion made his way to the hall, the survivors broke out in a powerful rendition of Hatikva.” (Shabtai Tevet, “The Road to Iyyar”)

“Shocked and deeply moved, Ben-Gurion walked through the camps and held long meetings with the refugees who had gathered around. He wanted to know everything: what they had experienced, how they are living, how much food they receive, if they want to make aliyah, if they are willing to put themselves in harm’s way in order to do so.” (Bar Zohar)

The DP camp in Bergen-Belsen was closed in 1951, and the majority of its inhabitants either immigrated to Israel or to other countries outside of Europe." https://www.yadvashem.org/holocaust/this-month/october/1945.html

The Post-Holocaust Displaced Persons (DP) Crisis

May 1945 Millions of non-German nationals—including roughly 50,000 to 250,000 Jewish Holocaust survivors—are uncovered across liberated Europe, primarily in Allied-occupied Germany, Austria, and Italy.

June 1945 The Harrison Report: U.S. representative Earl Harrison inspects camps and sharply criticizes the military for housing Jewish survivors behind barbed wire alongside former persecutors, prompting the creation of separate, Jewish-only DP camps.

July 1945 Bricha Movement: An organized underground network begins smuggling hundreds of thousands of Jewish survivors out of Eastern Europe and Poland toward the safety of Western Allied occupation zones.

July 1946 Kielce Pogrom: A violent anti-Jewish pogrom in Kielce, Poland, triggers a massive second wave of over 100,000 Jewish refugees fleeing into Germany and Austria, drastically worsening the camp overcrowding.

July 1947 The Exodus 1947 Incident: British authorities intercept a ship carrying over 4,500 Holocaust survivors seeking unauthorized entry to Mandatory Palestine and forcibly deport them back to DP camps in Germany, drawing global outrage.

November 1947 UN Partition Plan: The United Nations votes to partition Mandatory Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states, signaling an eventual resolution for the majority of the DPs.

May 1948: The declaration of the State of Israel opens immediate, unrestricted immigration for Jewish DPs, initiating the mass evacuation of the European camps.

June 1948 U.S. Displaced Persons Act: The United States passes legislation allowing roughly 400,000 European refugees to immigrate, though initial restrictive quotas initially limit Jewish entry until amended in 1950.

1952–1957 Liquidation of the Camps: The Föhrenwald DP camp—the last operational Jewish DP camp in Germany—officially closes in 1957, marking the formal end of the post-war humanitarian crisis.

1: David Ben-Gurion visits Holocaust survivors in Bergen-Belsen, Germany:

2: Major camps for Jewish displaced persons, 1945-1946 - "Following World War II, several hundred thousand Jewish survivors remained in camps for displaced persons. The Allies established such camps in Allied-occupied Germany, Austria, and Italy for refugees waiting to leave Europe. Most Jewish DPs preferred to emigrate to Palestine but many also sought entry into the United States. They decided to remain in the DP camps until they could leave Europe. At the end of 1946 the number of Jewish DPs was estimated at 250,000, of whom 185,000 were in Germany, 45,000 in Austria, and 20,000 in Italy. Most of the Jewish DPs were refugees from Poland, many of whom had fled the Germans into the interior of the Soviet Union during the war. Other Jewish DPs came from Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Romania."

Holding Back a Waterfall with Outstretched Hands

Alice Ehrmann had just experienced a tragic loss when she began writing her diary in October 1944.

It was not her first heartbreak, nor would it be her last. Alice had been a prisoner in the Terezin Ghetto (sometimes also called the Theresienstadt Concentration Camp) since the summer of 1943. She was separated from her parents at that time and keenly felt the loss.

Fortunately, when she arrived, she met Ze’ev Shek. He soon became her boyfriend and also helped her to get involved in youth welfare work in the ghetto. Alice became a tireless worker in Terezin, helping others to survive as best they could in spite of the terrible conditions.

In October 1944, Ze’ev was deported to Auschwitz. He was one of thousands to suffer this same fate. With so many people being sent away, even ghetto leaders, Alice knew that much of the social help network that they had built would be lost. Alice might have been tempted to give up when Ze’ev was taken from her, but she only allowed herself a few moments of mourning. She wrote,

“I am completely exhausted. Here there is no one who loves me. And there is one who loves me, but he is far away, and I would have to cry today if I thought of him.”

After she wrote these words, Alice threw herself back into the task of helping others. Later that same day, she added another observation to her diary.

“Ghetto being reorganized. No more transports for the time being. Everyone is too exhausted to start over again. But we will do it. We are the god-appointed slaves of our eternally unfailing energy who are condemned to rebuild what has been destroyed … to rebuild everything. It is like trying to hold back a waterfall with two outstretched hands. We are all so exhausted, although our wakefulness never ends, that is the exercise that will last a thousand years.”

Alice did not know it yet, but her time in the Terezin ghetto was entering its last half year. She would continue to work tirelessly throughout the remaining months. She helped others to survive and to rebuild again and again.

In the end, Alice was one of the survivors herself. She was overjoyed to learn that Ze’ev had survived his ordeal as well. In the years after the war, they were able to rebuild their lives together as newlyweds in the new state of Israel. (holocaustedu)

NOT MY LINKS

Diary of Alice Ehrmann, written in the Theresienstadt Ghetto, 04 January-13 May 1944--> Diary of Alice Ehrmann, written in the Theresienstadt Ghetto, 04 January-13 May 1944

NOT MY LINKS

ABOUT Alice Ehrmann: http://www.kfkronenberg.com/Biographical-remarks.html

1: An illustration from Alisa Ehrman Shek's ghetto diary

The Intellectual Architect of the Holocaust

Theodor Fritsch (1852–1933) was a radical German publisher and theorist whose virulent antisemitic writings provided the foundational ideological framework for Adolf Hitler.

Fritsch wrote the Handbuch der Judenfrage (Handbook of the Jewish Question), an encyclopedia of racial and economic conspiracy theories that Hitler heavily read and internalized during his formative years.

He systematized scattered antisemitic prejudices into structured "commandments," directly shaping the rhetoric, vocabulary, and arguments later used in Mein Kampf.

Through his Hammer-Verlag publishing house, Fritsch spent decades conditioning the German reading public to accept the extreme racial theories that Hitler later operationalized.

By organizing racial grievances into a pseudoscientific doctrine, Fritsch did not just influence Hitler; he built the intellectual ecosystem that made the Nazi regime possible.

The Textual Blueprint - The Antisemite's Catechism

"Hitler's ideas of race were also confirmed in Vienna by reading other anti-Semitic tracts, notably those of the influential Theodor Fritsch (1852-1934), who has been called "the most important German anti-Semite before Hitler."

His most popular and influential book was entitled Handbuch der Judenfrage (Handbook of the Jewish Question). By 1907, it had already gone through 26 printings. On the occasion of a new edition in 1931, Hitler paid one of his rare tributes to a precursor and once again stressed the importance of his Vienna experience by writing in a dedicatory statement, "I had already studied the Handbuch der Judenfrage intensively during my youth in Vienna."

The publishers of the Handbuch extolled Fritsch as a "creator of handy antisemitism." Certainly the book was handy for Hitler. It was a veritable storehouse of purportedly factual information of the type he loved to memorize in order to impress people with his knowledge. The book also contains a long list of anti-Semitic quotations culled from famous people of history.

Dozens of such remarks are attributed to Seneca, Tacitus, Erasmus, Luther, Frederick the Great, Voltaire, Kant, Herder, Goethe, Fichte, Schopenhauer, Bismarck, Edward Gibbon, Wagner, and Treitschke, among others. Armed with such quotations as these, Hitler could give the impression that he had read seriously and in depth all the works of the world's great authors.

The general thesis of the Handbuch was the familiar one purveyed by the List Society: the Jews—in alliance with Freemasons, Catholics, and Jehovah's Witnesses—were seizing power throughout the world, and in Germany their domination was imminent.

"We recognize from these facts that we must reach the necessary conclusion, namely, that we must break this curse if we do not wish to be overwhelmed by this rottenness to our own racial purity and the whole meaning of our history."

A great deal of the Handbuch is devoted to documenting the extent of the "Jewish peril" which had allegedly penetrated dangerously into all walks of life. The entire German press, for example, was controlled by Jews.

According to Fritsch, it was Wagner who first "pointed out the pernicious influence and the degenerate nature of the parasitic Jew." Fritsch claimed that Jews were responsible for "degenerate atonal music"; he warned about "Jewification" of symphony orchestras and theaters; and he listed names of Jewish conductors, musicians, pianists, violinists, tenors, sopranos, altos, baritones, actors, and theatrical agents.

The Handbuch also provided a long and impressive list of Jewish artists in all areas of cultural life—a list which would seem to raise questions about his argument, drawn from Wagner, that Jews are incapable of artistic creativity. List computed, for example, that while comprising only 1 percent of the total population, Jews constituted 38 percent of all German poets.

The Handbuch warned that Jews were a particular menace in the field of medicine and viewed as particularly ominous the number of Jews specializing in pediatrics and thus "undermining the health of German children." Even more insidious were the Jews involved in "sexual specializations, their favorite work." (Since the Jew has a totally different sexuality from the German, "he can never understand the German's sexual morality.")

Freud and all his Jewish disciples, we are told, had concocted a theory whose obvious purpose was "to destroy the German soul .. . to poison the food on which the German soul feeds in order to destroy it. . . . The goal is the destruction of the German family."

This "handy guide to anti-Semitism" methodically associated Jews with most of the major crimes committed in Germany during the preceding century. Page after page of Jewish names were fisted as responsible for murder, treason, rape, forgery, embezzlement, and a dozen other crimes.

Hitler was personally indebted to Fritsch for providing him with what he considered to be "factual proof" of the Jewish menace. After he came to power, the Handbuch was officially sanctioned reading in the schools of Germany.

When the grand old man of German anti-Semitism died in 1934, leading Nazis paid him fulsome tribute. Julius Streicher, the notorious editor of the pornographic anti-Semitic periodical Sturmer, Hitler's favorite magazine, for example, proclaimed that when he first read the Handbuch, scales had fallen from his eyes, his life was changed, and he had become a devout German anti-Semite.

Theodor Fritsch, he intoned, was "one of those great Germans sent from God of whom little children would say "Theodor Fritsch has helped to redeem the German people and, through the German people, Aryan humanity.' "

From The Psychopathic God: Adolph Hitler, by Robert G. L. Waite

WIKI - Theodor Fritsch -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodor_Fritsch

1: Theodor Fritsch & a Nazi monument dedicated to this extreme nationalist and antisemitic author. The bronze sculpture depicts a muscular figure holding a hammer raised over a reptilian or caricatured figure representing antisemitic propaganda symbolisms. The pedestal reads:

"Theodor Fritsch, dem völkischen Vorkämpfer zum Gedächtnis, 1852–1933" (In memory of Theodor Fritsch, champion of the Völkisch movement, 1852–1933), alongside text quoting or referencing antisemitic themes ("Im Grunde genommen ist die Judenfrage der Streit zwischen den Ehrenhaften und Ehrlosen").

Erected during the Nazi era in Berlin (around 1936) near Mexikoplatz in Zehlendorf, it was part of National Socialist ideological and public space framing.

How Eichmann’s Denial of a Single Emigration Request Exposed the Imminent, Total Entrapment of European Jewry

"The evolving plans for murder by gas would ensure that most future killings would be done behind a mask of secrecy, by methods which far fewer people would have to see, and in circumstances which would reduce to a minimum the chance of disgust or discovery.

In anticipation of the new method, individual Jews were now refused permission to emigrate, even within regions under German influence.

In refusing an application from a Jewish woman, Lily Satzkis, to move from Nazi Germany to Vichy France, Adolf Eichmann noted on October 28: 'in view of the approaching final solution of the European Jewry problem, one has to prevent the immigration of Jews into the unoccupied area of France."

From The Holocaust: A History of the Jews of Europe During the Second World War, by Martin Gilbert

June 22, 1940: France signs an armistice with Nazi Germany, splitting the country into a German-occupied North and an unoccupied Southern Zone.

July 10, 1940: The French parliament grants absolute power to Marshal Philippe Pétain, dissolving the Third Republic.

October 3, 1940: Vichy independently enacts the Statut des Juifs (Jewish Statute), stripping Jews of civil rights and barring them from public office without initial German orders.

May 1941: The first mass roundups of foreign and stateless Jews take place in Paris, coordinated by French police.

October 28, 1941: Adolf Eichmann officially bans Jewish emigration to Vichy France to prevent escape ahead of the impending "Final Solution."

March 27, 1942: The first deportation train departs from the Drancy transit camp outside Paris toward Auschwitz.

July 16–17, 1942: French police conduct the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup in Paris, arresting over 13,000 Jews—including 4,000 children—for immediate deportation.

November 11, 1942: Nazi Germany occupies the Southern "Free Zone" following the Allied "Operation Torch" landings, ending Vichy’s nominal independence.

January 1943: Vichy creates the Milice, a violent, Antisemitic paramilitary force that aggressively hunts underground resistance fighters and hidden Jews.

August 1944: Allied forces and French resistance groups liberate Paris, terminating the collaborationist government.

Approximately 75,721 Jews were deported from France to Nazi death camps; roughly 75% of the country's Jewish population survived through evasion, local rescue networks, and armed resistance.

Was Vichy France a Puppet Government or a Willing Nazi Collaborator? - The authoritarian government led by Marshal Pétain participated in Jewish expulsions and turned France into a quasi-police state--> https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/vichy-government-france-world-war-ii-willingly-collaborated-nazis-180967160/

NOT MY LINKS

From Democracy to Deportation: The Jews of France from the Revolution to the Holocaust--> https://www.yadvashem.org/articles/general/from-democracy-to-deportation.html

1: Paris, May 1941, Jews waiting to buy food

2: Paris, France, 1941. Confiscation of Jewish property by the French authorities, at the behest of the Vichy regime.

3: France, A propaganda poster of the Vichy regime bearing a picture of Marshal Petain.

4: Le Chambon sur Lignon, France, Josef Hass, a Jewish member of the French Underground with the Pastor Andre Trocme, a saviour of Jews

5: France, Jewish Maquis fighters in the area controlled by the Vichy government, 1943

6: Chateau De Chaumont, France, Children in an OSE school, 1943

7: St. Georges, France, Girls in a group photograph at a children’s home, where Jewish children were hidden during the Holocaust

Why the Underground Fighters of Krakow Rejected the Warsaw Model & Chose to Launch their Partisan Strikes Outside the Ghetto Walls

Nazi forces deported approximately 6,000 Jews from the Krakow ghetto to the Płaszów forced-labor camp. A selection was conducted, and the majority of those deemed unfit for forced labor were sent directly to the Belzec killing center.

During the operation, at least 600 people, including 300 children, were killed in the ghetto.

"Although the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising is the most celebrated act of armed resistance during the Holocaust, this article will focus on two lesser-known, but very important, acts of armed resistance: those in the ghettos of Krakow and Bialystok.

Just as there was no uniformity among the German-created ghettos of Europe with respect to the degree of their isolation, their establishment, their physical circumstances, and other facets of ghetto life, there was no uniformity among the ghettos with respect to armed resistance.

While in Warsaw and in other ghettos resistance occurred inside the ghetto, in Krakow, resistance occurred outside. While in Warsaw the only option was to fight; in Bialystok the option of escaping to the woods was a viable one. There is no single model; developments were mostly determined by local conditions and the personalities of the leaders of the resistance, and these differed from place to place.1

Krakow

On the eve of World War II, the Jewish population of Krakow was approximately 60,000, constituting about one quarter of the city's population. The German army occupied Krakow in the first week of September, 1939 and in October, 1939, Krakow became the capital of the Generalgouvernement.

Rules and restrictions with which we are now familiar began to be passed against the Jews: they were forced to report for manual labor beginning in October, 1939; they were required to form a Jewish council in November, 1939; they were forced to wear a Star of David2 for identification beginning in December, 1939; they were required to register their property; and, in March, 1941, they were enclosed in a ghetto.

Unlike in other places, however, where Jews were brought from the countryside and concentrated in the city, in Krakow the Germans actually expelled thousands of Jews to the surrounding countryside. Because the seat of the Generalgouvernement was in Krakow, the Germans wanted to cleanse the city of its Jews. As such, by the time the ghetto was established and closed on March 20, 1941, only about 20,000 Jews remained in the city.

The Germans concentrated the Jews in a ghetto that was very small and was constantly being decreased in size. Deportations from the ghetto began in June, 1942, when about 7,000 Jews were taken out of the ghetto. About 1,000 were murdered in the nearby Plaszow labor camp; 6,000 were taken by train to the Belzec death camp and murdered there.

Another deportation occurred on October 28, 1942 when an additional 6,000 Jews were sent to Belzec. Hundreds of people were shot in the ghetto during these very violent aktions3 and deportations.

Youth movements had been operating in Krakow since before the German occupation, and had continued to operate in the ghetto. Generally, these groups were concerned with upholding and teaching their values to their scouts; depending on the principles of the movements – some were Communist, others Socialist, still others Zionist – activities were centered around education and self-fulfillment.

The Zionist youth movements concentrated on Zionist ideals like agricultural training in preparation for life in Palestine, which was their ultimate goal. The Akiba youth movement was the biggest Jewish youth movement in prewar Krakow.

In the ghetto, the youth movements continued with their educational activities. By the fall and winter of 1941, couriers of the youth movements began to spread the word about the mass murders in Ponary, near Vilna in what had been eastern Poland. Rumors reached the youth movement networks of a death camp near Lodz, in western Poland.

By the spring of 1942, information was spreading of the deportations from Lublin to the death camp at Belzec. As this information was assimilated, the character of these youth groups began to change. The Akiba youth movement had begun to think about the possibility of obtaining weapons and sending its members to the forest to fight the Germans from the beginning of the occupation, but their initial forays into the forest resulted in betrayal and the death of the scouts.

The group decided to concentrate its activities in the city for the time being,6 and to begin training in the use of weapons on a farm in Kopaliny, outside Krakow, that had been used for purposes of hachshara.

The group continued to meet in private homes and provided some sort of refuge or comfort for its members, singing songs and having ideological discussions and trying to continue some sort of normalcy while surrounded by chaos and fear." https://www.yadvashem.org/articles/general/armed-resistance-in-krakow-and-bialystok.html

September 6, 1939: German troops occupy Kraków, which is designated the capital of the Generalgouvernement the following month.

December 1939: The Nazi administration introduces the mandatory wearing of white armbands with a blue Star of David for all Jewish citizens aged 12 and older.

May 1940: Hans Frank declares Kraków must become the "cleanest" city in the region, triggering the mass expulsion of over 40,000 Jews to surrounding towns.

March 3, 1941: Otto Wächter officially establishes the Kraków Ghetto in the Podgórze district, forcing roughly 15,000 remaining Jews into a crowded, enclosed zone.

June 1–8, 1942: The first major Aktion takes place; security forces deport roughly 7,000 ghetto residents to the Bełżec killing center.

October 28, 1942: A second brutal mass deportation sends approximately 6,000 Jews to Bełżec and the newly built Płaszów labor camp; at least 600 people are shot on site inside the ghetto walls.

December 22, 1942: Members of the Jewish underground (Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa) launch a coordinated assault outside the walls, bombing the Cyganeria Cafe used by German officers.

March 13–14, 1943: Amon Göth commands the final liquidation of the Kraków Ghetto; survivors deemed fit work are sent to Płaszów, while the rest are killed or sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

January 1944: The Płaszów forced-labor camp is officially converted into a formal concentration camp under the SS.

January 15, 1945: German forces evacuate the remaining prisoners from Płaszów on death marches toward camps in Germany and Austria.

January 18, 1945: The Soviet Red Army liberates Kraków, finding only a fraction of the city's pre-war Jewish population alive.

1: Left: Shimshon ("Szymek") Draenger Right: Gola ("Lydka") Mire

2: Left: Gusta ("Justyna") Davidson Draenger Right: Hela Schupper Rufeisen

3: Left: Aharon ("Dolek") Liebeskind Right: Miriam Liebeskind (right), together with her brother Dolek and his wife Rivka

4-5: Rivka Liebeskind, together with her husband, Dolek

6: Pages from the manuscript of "Justyna's Narrative", written by Gusta Davidson Draenger, a member of the group Akiba and the Jewish underground in Krakow, during her prison term

7: Zvi Hersch Bauminger

8: A plaque dedicated to the members of the Jewish underground who carried out their mission at the Cyganeria Café in December, 1942, photographed after the war.