Holocaust Memorial Day marks the 63rd anniversary of one of the greatest crimes ever committed against humanity.
Nazi occupation of much of Europe from 1941 onwards resulted in the widespread deportation of European Jewry to ghettos and concentration camps across Poland and Germany, among others.
That close to 300 000 Jews were able to leave Germany and Austria between 1933 and 1939 allowed for an even greater tragedy to be averted. The countless millions who perished were often taken by complete surprise at the hands of Einzatzgruppen – Nazi mobile killing units – while the Nazis plundered one country after another.
The Jews were being systematically slaughtered and removed from every sector of society, until nothing more than a homeless, faceless, wandering soul remained – awaiting deportation to death chambers or slave labor camps. The vehement anti-Jew propaganda, perpetrated by Goebels’ mastery of the genre, resulted in a German society that was complacent and accepting of the miserable fate of the Jews.
Following the horrific pogroms of Kristalnacht on November 9 and 10 1938, masses of Jews were rounded up and sent to camps. Jewish businesses; synagogues and homes were ransacked and plundered, while the German populace stood by and did nothing. The world – informed by various emissaries; diplomats; correspondents and public officials likewise witnessed the horrors of that night.
While Britain and the USA allowed for greater Jewish emigration, their tolerance was being severely tested by stringent immigration laws and intolerance toward large Jewish influxes. After war was declared, Germany’s borders were sealed and so too was the fate of European Jewry. What few could escape to Palestine; Britain and China did, but they represented a pittance of the estimated 9 million stuck in Europe.
Adolph Hitler and his henchmen were eager to rid the world of the Jew. Goering – a former asylum patient – was given the go-ahead to expedite Jewish movement out of Germany. When this was taking too long, deportations to camps became the order of the day. German annexation of foreign territory resulted in their acquisition of large numbers of Jews to add to their extermination lists.
That the Germans were accurate and precise with their lists; documents and records was proof enough to corroborate the unbelievable; the unthinkable horrors that were to follow. German admission of such atrocities flies in the face of Holocaust denial. That a society was complacent while their fellow Germans were being slaughtered baffles the mind; that a supposedly advanced and civilized people were capable of such barbarism defies logic. That a cultured and educated people could resort to such vitriol smacks of bigotry of the highest order.
By doing nothing all are guilty; by failing to stand up to such inhumanity all bare responsibility. Thus while the Allies trumpeted their victory over Nazism; what was Nazism was merely a thinly veiled guise for all of Germany of yesteryear. A few brave men and women stood up to the iniquitous regime, often to their own detriment. It is to these heroes that the world owes an incredible debt of gratitude.
To them we say: we salute you. To the rest, there is no fate worse than having to live with an uneasy conscience. The true horrors of that time will never be forgotten and as such they will never be repeated.
