Leni Riefenstahl

Helene Bertha Amalie “Leni” Riefenstahl was born in Berlin on the 22 August 1902 and began her career as a ballet dancer, employed by Max Reinhardt among others, for dance performances in the early 1920’s.

Her father Alfred Riefenstahl  was said to have wanted his first child to be a son so that he could carry on the firm that had provided a secure amount of wealth to the Riefenstahl family. However, as the young girl Leni grew into young adulthood, she felt her passions grow in the artistic direction that had been a staple of her mother’s life.

At the age of 4, Leni began to write poetry and paint. Along with this, Leni felt that from a very early age she was an athletic child, due to the behest of her father. At age twelve, she recalled joining a local gymnastics and swim club called "Nixe". It was her mother that noticed that Leni had quite the artistic bent. She perceived that Leni had the ability to paint with a natural understanding of composition and balance, which were two of the profound qualities in the later films of Leni Riefenstahl.

In 1925 she made her film debut as an actress in Der Heilige Berg the first of a series of well photographed movies about the Alps, made by Arnold Franck, the father of the mountain cult in the Wiemar cinema.

Riefenstahl became a leading figure of this cult, starring in Franck’s Der Grosse Sprung (1927), Die Weisse Holle vom Piz Palu (1929), Sturm uber dem Mont Blanc (1930) and Das Blau Licht in 1932, which she co-authored and directed for the first time, produced and played the leading role in, winning a gold medal at the Venice Biennale.

Riefenstahl first remembered hearing of the political name of Adolf Hitler around the filming of Das Blaue Licht. However, at this time, Hitler was a large political force in German politics. Riefenstahl attests to a naivety about the political world due to her rigorous and involving filmmaking during Hitler’s political rise that his name had sadly no recognition for her. Yet, Hitler had noticed Leni and her work in Das Blaue Licht along with the earlier Arnold Fanck films and would later call on her and her talents for the Party.

In late February of 1932, she attended one of his election speeches at the excited and overcrowded Berlin Sports Palace. Once again, like at the films, she was struck by the power of this moment that she had to make up her own mind and meet the speaker. She quickly wrote a letter to the Nazi paper "Völkischer Beobachter", in which she requested a meeting with Hitler before she had to leave Germany for a Arnold Fanck shoot in Greenland.

In 1933 she made her last film for Franck titled SOS Eisberg, before being appointed by Hitler as the top film executive of the Nazi Party. Hitler saw Leni Rifenstahl as a director who could use aesthetics to produce an image of a strong Germany imbued with Wagnerian motifs of power and beauty.

In 1933 he invited Reifenstahl to direct a short film, Der Sieg des Glaubens (The Victory of Faith), which was filmed at that year’s Nuremburg Party Rally. This film was the template for her most famous work, Triumph des Willens (Triumph of the Will), shot at the Nuremburg Party Rally of 1934.

Reifenstahl initially refused Hitler’s commission for the film, but relented when she received unlimited resources and full artistic control for the film. Triumph of the Will, with its evocative images and innovative film technique, ranked as an epic work of documentary film making, and is widely regarded as one of the most masterful propaganda films ever produced.

It won several awards, but forever linked the artist Leni Reifenstahl with National Socialism.

Equally stunning were Reifenstahl’s directorial efforts in Olympia, which captured with haunting effectiveness the images of the 1936 Summer Olympic Games in Berlin. It was for Olympia that Reifenstahl pioneered numerous cinematographic techniques, such as filming footage with cameras mounted on rails. Olympia’s forceful blend of aesthetics, sports, and propaganda again won Rifenstahl accolades and awards, including Best Foreign Film honours at the Venice Film Festival and a special award from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for depicting the joy of sport.

By her own account, the advent of the Second World War and the rapid escalation of violence under the Nazi regime had an unfavourable effect on both Reifenstahl and her career. Early in the German invasion of Poland, she witnessed an incident that seemed to shake her confidence in the movement she had glorified in her films.

During the Invasion of Poland, Riefenstahl was photographed wearing a military uniform and a pistol on her belt in the company of German soldiers. she had gone to the site of the battle as a war correspondent. On 12 September 1939 she was in the town of Końskie when 30 civilians were executed there, in retaliation for an alleged attack on German soldiers.

While accompanying German troops near Konskie, the filmmaker witnessed the execution of Polish Jews and this upset her so much, she halted filming and went to Berlin, to seek an audience with Adolf Hitler.

Her distress was short-lived, she was back in the General Gouvernment and filmed the victory parade along the Ujazdowsskie Avenue on the 5 October 1939. The podium where Hitler took the salute was located in front of the Ujazdowski Park near Chopin Strasse.

In 1940 Riefenstahl commenced filming on Tiefland (Lowlands), a story set in the Spanish Pyrenees, this was a project she had earlier shelved when persuaded by Hitler to film Triumph of the Will.

Tiefland was filmed on location near Kitzbuhl, Austria, the filming dragged on for nearly four years, in order to enhance the films “gypsy” flavour, 51 young Roma inmates from the nearby labour camp at Maxglan – Leopoldskron were hired as extras by Reifenstahl’s staff.
 
For the indoor scenes, filmed in Berlin- Babelsberg in 1942, Riefenstahl used as extras at least 66 Roma and Sinti inmates from the Berlin – Marzahn camp for gypsies. Allegations that the German Police returned the gypsies after fulfilling their filming roles, to the Maxglan and Marzahn Gypsy camps, and subsequently deported them to the Auschwitz death camp, were serious enough to involve Reifenstahl in a civil suit.
  
That legal suit was dropped in 2002 only after her production company retracted a public statement Reifenstahl had made in which she claimed that all of the extras had survived the war. Tiefland eventually was shown in 1954.
 

In 1944 she married Wehrmacht Major Peter Jacob, but this marriage ended in divorce, and during the 1960’s she developed a life-long relationship with Horst Kettner, who was forty years her junior.  

Read more here: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/holoprelude/riefenstahl.html

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Copyright Carmelo Lisciotto H.E.A.R.T 2010

Jacob Gens

The Holocaust in the Vilna Ghetto

Jacob Gens was appointed by the Germans in 1941 to head the Judenrat (Jewish Council) in the Vilna Ghetto. He held this post until Sept 14th, 1943 when  he was summoned to the Gestapo headquarters and shot. The Vilna ghetto was completely liquidated 10 days later, this is his story.

Jacob Gens was born in 1903 at the village of Illovieciai in the Siauliai district of Lithuania. to a middle-class Jewish family, the eldest of four brothers.
 

In 1919, when Lithuania was fighting for its independence, he volunteered to serve in the Lithuanian army, and three years later In 1922 married a non-Jewish Lithuanian woman, and became the father of a daughter. Gens  had hoped to transfer to the fledgling Lithuanian air force, but that branch of the armed forces only accepted bachelors. Instead he was sent to the front, joining an infantry regiment in the war against Poland, was promoted to the rank of lieutenant and won a decoration.

He served in the army until 1924, and in the same year he enrolled in Kovno University, earning his living as a teacher of Lithuanian and of physical education in the Jewish schools of Ukmerge and Jurbarkas. Three years later he became an accountant in the Ministry of Justice in Kovno, he completed his university studies in law and economics in 1935.

In July 1940 when Lithuania became a Soviet Republic, he was dismissed from his post. As a Zionist who was close to the Revisionists, Gens feared that he was in danger of being arrested in a campaign that was being waged against anti-Soviet elements, and he moved to Vilna, where he was generally unknown. A Lithuanian friend who headed the municipal health department there helped him obtain work as an accountant in the department.

When the Germans occupied Vilna in late June 1941, his Lithuanian friend appointed Gens director of the Jewish hospital. In the beginning of September 1941, two ghettos were established in Vilna in early September 1941. At first, people were moved into either ghetto at random. 29,000 people were incarcerated in Ghetto 1 and 9,000-11,000 in Ghetto 2. Several days after the Jews had moved in, Ghetto 1 was designated for craftsmen and workers with permits, and Ghetto 2 was to be for all others.

The transfer of orphans, the sick, and the elderly from Ghetto 1 to Ghetto 2 began. Those with work permits moved with their families into Ghetto 1. On 7 September 1941, the day after the ghetto relocation began, a new separate Judenrat was established in each of the two ghettos. Anatol Fried, a former director of the community bank, assembled the new Judenrat for Ghetto 1. 

The Judenrat for Ghetto 2 was appointed by SD and Security Police in Vilna and was led by Eisik Lejbowicz. Fried, who had been a patient in the Jewish hospital and thus became acquainted with Gens, appointed him as head of the ghetto police.

Gens established the Ghetto police force, and made it into an orderly and disciplined body, and the Germans used this force to assist in the Aktionen that took place in the Ghetto from September to December 1941, in which tens of thousands of Jews were murdered. Gens and his police force  had participated in the deportation of Jews to Ponary.

Ghetto chronicler Mendel Balberyszski recorded that Gens told him after the so-called "Old People's Aktion" in July 1942, in which some 84 elderly people were murdered:

"I have no connection with the purge of the elderly. It was an old debt which the Judenrat owed them. They wanted several hundred people, and it was with great difficulty that the `price' was reduced to 100 aged…"

On occasions he had stood at the ghetto gate and personally selected those who were to live and those who were to die. In the Gelbschein Aktionen that took place between 24 October 1941 and 3 November 1941, Gens himself had checked the papers of the Jews as they passed before him, three blue cards to one yellow card.

According to other available evidence, Gens, within the framework of his role, did his best to aid the Jews. He became the predominant personality in the Ghetto and its de facto Governor. His direct contact with the German authorities, bypassing the Judenrat, added to his prestige among the Jews in the Ghetto. Gens involved himself in affairs that had nothing to do with the police, employment, cultural activities and other aspects of Ghetto life.

Gens did not easily tolerate autonomous activity within the ghetto. He was especially eager to receive the approval of the intelligentsia for his policies, even when this involved the sacrifice of thousands of Jewish lives. He eagerly accepted the appointment of intellectuals to positions on the Judenrat staff in order to ensure them some sort of livelihood and a modicum of security.

In an attempt to appear not simply a policeman, but an enlightened intellectual, Gens formed a "club" in his home for discussion and debate between a select group of invited guests. Gens' desire to emerge from the war not only as the saviour of the remnant of Vilna Jewry but as custodian of its cultural heritage, continued to the end.

On 15 January 1943, the first anniversary of the theatre's initial performance, Gens said:

"Last year they said that the theatre was just a fad of mine. `Gens is amusing himself.' A year has passed and what do we see? It was not just a fad of Gens. It was a vital necessity… For the first time in the history of Vilna we were able to get a curriculum of studies that was all Jewish… Our care for children has reached a level never seen before in the Jewish life of Vilna. Our spiritual life reaches high…

Read more here: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/ghettos/gens.html

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Copyright Carmelo Lisciotto H.E.A.R.T 2010

The Trial of Amon Goeth

The Indictment -Part 1

POLISH FORT-NIGHTLY REVIEW

London, Thursday, July 1st 1943 Issue No. 71

"Slaughter of the Jews in Poland "

Protocol A

Agony of the people condemned to death!

The day the war began I was in Katowice, one of the first towns to fall to the German conquest. In the first few days of the war my parents were left homeless. Flight proved useless, for Sosnowiec, to which we escaped was also besieged by the Germans. My parents took with them a large sum of money and jewelry, which enabled them to support the family. When the Germans proclaimed that Sosnowiec was "incorporated" with the Reich and began to persecute the Jews, my father went to Bendzin, where we remained until the middle of 1940.

Meantime my father heard from his cousin at the little spa of Busk that the situation there was not too bad and it would be worth while shifting to that place. In order to get there we had to cross the newly formed frontier line between the "Reich" and the "General Gouvernement." My father found a German acquaintance who for 1,000 zlotys conveyed us all together with our belongings and jewelry, across the frontier in a military car flying a swastika flag. Naturally, no one at the frontier ventured to look inside the car. Thus with my children I arrived as Busk.

Fortunate Busk

We lived in Busk until June, 1942, when the Germans began their terrible persecution of the Jews. But for the time being the situation was tolerable. Our worst experiences were being pillaged by German soldiers and members of the Gestapo and the forced labor instituted for the Jews. But the Jews managed to get through it one way or another.

Everyone in the town knew that the Germans took bribes. The representative of the Jewish population was the former chairman of the town's Jewish community. He was given the position of Hauptmann and became director of all the Jewish councils in the entire district of  of Busk in Chmielnik, Dzialoszyce, Pinczow, Wislica, Pacanow, Nowy Czorsztyn, Staszew, Stopnica and other places. He had a· special office in Busk, where he was visited by the members of the various Jewish councils, and he acted as the intermediary to settle all questions with the Landrat and his assistants. I remember him one day feverishly searching for a woman's caraculs coat, which one of the German officials wanted to take with him when he went on holiday to Germany.

The Landrat did not intervene at all in Jewish questions. A special department of the Gestapo, and the Sonderdienst; which consisted of S.S. men, issued all regulations concerning forced labor. The regulations came to the Jewish Council, at the head of which was the grey-haired shopkeeper (name withheld). The council consisted of twelve members. We knew three Gestapo officials: Lieutenant Weiss, Dietrich, and another whose Christian name was Hans (I can't recall his surname). This last man was the greatest rogue of all the three. In addition, the head of the Sonderdienst was the gendarme Schwenker. The Gestapo-men and gendarmes I have mentioned were regularly engaged in despoiling the Jews, usually accompanying their acts with a ruthless flogging.

Every Jewish craftsman was forced to carry out work to all kinds of German orders. I knew a bookmaker who was famous in the district as a good craftsman. Although there were good Christian bookmakers in Busk the Gestapo-men always made the Jewish cobbler do their boots. They did not pay for the work, but the Jewish Council settled their accounts. The Germans were delighted with the man's work and were liberal in their praise. When once he faked to get an order finished in time one of his German clients beat him with his riding whip till the blood came. For a long time after the cobbler lay in bed, unable to work.

Every Jew was obliged to report for forced labor. Before the war there were 3,000 Jews in Busk. As the Germans had opened a large military hospital in the town, no refugees were allowed to enter it. Only a few Jewish families from Lodz got into the town illegally. Throughout the entire period there was no ghetto in Busk. The Jews were only turned out of two streets in the centre of the town, and notice boards were set up in these streets:

Jews strictly forbidden to pass through

Often it was necessary to take a roundabout route of nearly a mile in order to avoid these streets, which were renamed after Hitler and Goering. Only the Jewish militia and Jews going to forced, labor had Special passes authorizing them to enter these streets. At first the Gestapo men themselves organized round-ups of Jews, seizing them for forced labor.

But Hauptmann T. endeavored to arrange for 'the Jewish Council itself to provide the necessary number of people each day for labor. Every Jew had to present him or her self for labor at least once a week The rule applied equally to men and women. At first 300 persons were taken each day, but later, when many Jews were sent to camps in Wislica and Biala Podlaska, the quota required was increased to 600. In the winter-time they were employed in sweeping away the snow, in the summer they worked in the fields and gardens.

A special squad was sent to clean the closets in the villas occupied by German civil and military officials. Jewish girls were sent to, wash the floors and clean the villas. In the hospital, where there were several thousand wounded from the Russian front, Jews were used for all the heavy work. Jewish militia-men were entrusted with the maintenance of order. It. was difficult to get this position.

Chelmno Diary

"Szlamek Bajler recounts his time at Chelmno"

Szlamek Bajler was a young Jew from the village of Izbica Kujawska, north of Kolo (German: Warthbrücken) and Chelmno (German: Kulmhof), in the annexed "Warthegau". Bajler was arrested in a round-up in Izbica in early January 1942, and forced to work in the Chelmno “Waldlager.”

He witnessed the destruction of most of the 1,600 Jews of his native village, included his own family, about a week later. Five days after the massacre Bajler escaped from the Waldlager. He managed to get to the Warsaw Ghetto where he told his story to Emanuel Ringelblum who urged him to write it down. Bajler did so under the pseudonym Yakov Grojanowski.

It should be noted that there is much confusion about his correct name, some sources claim it was Szlojme Fajner. We have used the name Bajler throughout this account, and in other places on the website.
 

This is an extract of his account, as contained in the Ringelblum archive:  

Bajler and his 28 fellow prisoners were taken in a truck, firstly in the direction of Kolo, it then took the road to Chelmno death camp. In Chelmno the truck waited on the road for about half an hour, then it drove into the palace grounds:
 

Tuesday, 6 January 1942:

“We arrived at 12:30 p.m. We were pushed out of the lorry. From here onwards we were in the hands of black-uniformed SS men, all of them high-ranking Reich Germans. We were ordered to hand over all our money and valuables. After this fifteen men were selected, I among them, and taken down to the cellar rooms of the Schloss (castle).

We fifteen were confined in one room, the remaining fourteen in another. Down in the cellar it was pitch dark. Some Ethnic Germans on the domestic staff provided us with straw. Later a lantern was brought. At around eight in the evening we received unsweetened black coffee and nothing else. We were all in a depressed mood.

One could only think of the worst, some were close to tears. We kissed and took leave of each other. It was unimaginably cold and we lay down close together. We spent the whole night without shutting our eyes. We only talked about the deportation of Jews, particularly from Kolo and Dabie. The way it looked, we had no prospect of ever getting out again."

Wednesday, 7 January 1942:

"At seven in the morning, the gendarme on duty knocked and ordered us to get up. It took half an hour till they brought us black coffee and bread from our provisions. We drew some meagre consolation from this and told each other there was a God in heaven; we would, after all, be going to work.
 

At about 8:30 we were led into the courtyard. Six of us had to go into the second cellar room to bring out two corpses. The dead were from Klodawa, and had hanged themselves. They were conscript grave-diggers. Their corpses were thrown on a lorry.

We met the other fourteen enforced grave-diggers from Izbica. As soon as we came out of the cellar we were surrounded by twelve gendarmes and Gestapo men with machine guns. We got on the lorry. Our escorts were six gendarmes with machine guns.

Behind us came another vehicle with 10 gendarmes and two civilians. We drove in the direction of Kolo for about 7 km’s till turning left into the forest; after half a kilometre we halted at a clear path. We were ordered to get down and line up in double file.
 

An SS man ordered us to fall in with our shovels, dressed, despite the frost, only in shoes, underwear, trousers and shirts. Our coats, hats, gloves, etc., had to remain in a pile on the ground. The two civilians took all the shovels and pick-axes down from the lorry. Eight of us who weren’t handed any tools had to take down the corpses.

Already on our way into the forest we saw about fourteen men, enforced grave-diggers from Klodawa, who had arrived before us. The eight men   
without tools carried the two corpses to the ditch and threw them in. We didn’t have to wait long before the next lorry arrived with fresh victims.

It was specially constructed. It looked like a normal large lorry, in grey paint, with two hermetically closed rear doors. The inner walls were of steel metal. There weren’t any seats. The floor was covered by a wooden grating, as in public baths, with straw mats on top. Between the driver’s cab and the rear part were two peepholes. With a torch one could observe through these peepholes if the victims were already dead.

Read more here: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/othercamps/chelmnodiaries.html

A document about the preparation of operation Anthropoid 409 X 623 101 KB	A photo of Heydrichs car where it came to a stop during the ambush 448 X 315 27 KB	Another view inside the crypt 400 X 394 52 KB	British communication regarding the success of Silver A mission 686 X 800 77 KB
British Pencil fuses, that had different delay times. 203 X 300 10 KB	British Transport order regarding the flight to drop the parachutists into Czechoslovakia 324 X 448 32 KB	Church of St. Cyril and Methodius 261 X 327 26 KB	Czech Gen. Josef Bily Commander of the Bohemian Provincial Headquarters execution order 262 X 378 22 KB
Czech Military officers University of War Studies half of these men were killed by the Nazis 343 X 236 26 KB	Czech news announcing the arrival of Heydrich as Reichsprotektor 254 X 371 33 KB	Czech parchutists being trained by members of the Scottish Guard 342 X 213 23 KB	Czechoslovak soldiers being inspected by a British General Jan Kubis -1st row,to the left of the British General- and Josef Gabcik -1st row, to the General’s right- 520 X 298 55 KB

See the full image gallery here: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/nazioccupation/anthropoidgal/index.html

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Copyright Carmelo Lisciotto H.E.A.R.T 2009

The Richard Korherr Report

On the 18 January 1943 Heinrich Himmler the Reichsfuhrer SS ordered Richard Korherr who was “Inspekteur fur Statiskik” of the SS to produce a report on the Final Solution of the “Jewish Question in Europe.” up to the period of the 31 December 1942.

Richard Korrher undertook this work and on the 23 March 1943 sent a sixteen page report to SS- Obersturmbannfuhrer Dr. Rudolf Brandt, who was on the personal staff of the RF-SS Heinrich Himmler.

On the 9 April 1943 Heinrich Himmler wrote to Ernst Kaltenbrunner the Chief of the SIPO and SD that he found Korherr’s report to be excellent because it could later serve as camouflage, but for the moment he forbade circulation. Himmler wanted in the future to receive short monthly reports concerning the number of Jews evacuated and how many remained.

The next day the 10 April 1943 Rudolf Brandt informed Korherr that his report had been received by Himmler who wished that “nowhere it be spoken of the ‘special action applied to the Jews.’ In the meantime Himmler ordered Korherr to draft a summary of his report “to be presented to Hitler.”  

The result was a summary report of six and one half pages addressed to Dr Brandt on the 19 April 1943, which covered the period up to the 31 March 1943

The report produced by Korherr is one of the most damming documents of the whole Nazi period and their brutal policy in pursuit of the destruction of the Jews of Europe. Of particular noteworthy consideration is the figure of 1274166 for the number of Jews passing through the camps in the General Government.

This is the figure quoted by Hans Hofle, the Chief of Staff for Aktion Reinhard controlled by Odilo Globocnik in Lublin. The message sent to SS- Obersturmbannfuhrer Heim, of the BdS office in Krakow dated 11 January 1943 was intercepted by British Intelligence using the replica enigma machine, supplied by the Poles, at Bletchley Park, Buckinghamshire.

Korherr was employed by the West German Ministry of Finance but was dismissed from this post in 1961 following the publicity generated by the book written by Gerald Reitlinger, the “Final Solution” which heavily covered the wartime report drawn up by Korherr.

 ______________________________________________________________________________________________

The First Korherr Report

Secret Reich Material

-The Inspector of Statistics for the Reichsfuhrer SS 

                                  The Final Solution of the European Jewish Problem

                              Statistical Report

Contents

l   Preface  

ll. Jewish Statistics for Germany  

III. The Weakness of the Jewish Race  

IV. Jewish Emigration from Germany  

V.  The Evacuation of the Jews 

VI. The Jews in the Ghetto 

VII. The Jews in the Concentration Camps  

VIII. The Jews in Penal Institutions  

IX. The Jews involved in Work Projects 

X. European Jewish Statistics

I. Preface

The numerical recording of Jewry and its development are necessary for setting up a statistic representation of the results on the way to the solution of the Jewish problem. The contradictions in Jewish figures make preliminary remarks necessary to the effect that the numerical data of Jewry are always to be accepted only with reservations and that lack of knowledge about the origin and source of these data can lead to false conclusions.

The sources of error are above all to be found in the nature of Jewry and its historical development, the many thousands of years of restless wandering, the numerous conversions to and from Judaism, the efforts of the Jews to integrate, the interbreeding with the native populations, the efforts of the Jews to avoid registration and lastly in erroneous or falsely interpreted statistics of Jewry.

However, up to now, partly due to the large degree of overlap between the Jewish religion and the Jewish race, ignorance of racial theory, and partly due to being caught up in the religious thought of the times, Jewish statistics have never been compiled on the basis of race but rather on the basis of religion.

The classification of the race pre-supposes many years of training and knowledge of genealogy. It was also difficult, particularly in southern and eastern countries, despite this overlap, to isolate a homogeneous Jewish race statistically. The avowal of Mosaic or Jewish faith is also no foolproof evidence, because as a result of the former Jewish missionary movement with its conversion of masses of heathens and Christians, also because of changes of faith in modern times via mixed marriages and conversions, there are more than a few people of Jewish faith who are not racially Jewish.

On the other hand compulsory Christianity in the last century and the increase in baptised Jews and non-practising Jews have reduced their number. Thus in 1893 Leroy- Beulieu estimated the loss of Judaism to Christianity to be between four and ten times as great as the present number of adherents to the Jewish religion.

Read more here: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/holoprelude/korherr.html

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Copyright Carmelo Lisciotto H.E.A.R.T 2009

Men Record their Experiences of the Holocaust

Hugh Greene

Daily Telegraph correspondent in Berlin during 1938

“I was in Berlin at that time and saw some pretty revolting sights – the destruction of Jewish shops, Jews being arrested and led away, the police standing by while the gangs destroyed the shops and even groups of well-dressed women cheering.

Maybe those women had a hangover next morning, as they were intoxicated all right when this was taking place. I found it, you know, really utterly revolting. In fact to a German journalist who saw me on that day and asked me what I was doing there, I remember I just said very coldly, “I’m studying German culture.”

Sigmund Weltlinger

Member of the Berlin Jewish Council  

Sachsenhausen – Oranienburg 1938

“But when I came to Sachsenhausen – Oranienburg camp outside Berlin I was immediately taught different. We were all shoved together with clubs and blows and had to stand in even ranks to be counted. Because I had been a soldier I didn’t find that all very difficult but the others who didn’t fall in quickly were beaten immediately.

The most terrible thing was when somebody grabbed hold of a big, strong man and he said, ‘Don’t grab me.’ The guard said, ‘What I shouldn’t grab you?’ and he gave him a blow and this man was immediately over-powered by three SS people.

A block was brought and he was bound fast to it, and the camp commandant said he was sentenced to twenty-five lashes. Then a giant man came, an SS man with a huge ox-whip, and started to beat him. At first the man only groaned a bit but then he begged them to stop.

The commandant said, ‘What do you mean, stop? We’ll start all over again from the beginning.’ But after three more lashes the blood was spurting already and salt was rubbed in the wounds or pepper, I don’t know anymore.

The man was dragged away, unconscious or dead. We never saw him again.”  

Dawid Sierakowiak 

Lodz Ghetto

September 10 1939

“The first manifestation of the German presence: Jews are being seized to do digging. An elderly retired professor, a Christian who lives in no.11, warned me about going into town, a decent man. What should I do now?

Tomorrow is the first day of school; who knows what’s happening to our beloved school. My friends are all going to attend, just to see what’s going on. But I have to stay home. I must. My parents feel they don’t want to lose me yet. Oh, my beloved school. Curse the times I complained about getting up early or about tests. If only those times could return!”

Avraham Kochavi

Lodz ghetto and Auschwitz survivor

“We ran out of food in the house and one day my mother, may her soul rest in peace, asked me to go down to the bakery and stand there the whole night in order to get a loaf of bread the next day.

I got up in the middle of the night and went down to get in the queue. When I arrived there were already masses of people standing in line. At dawn a Pole, who was volksdeutsche – ethnic German arrived with a rifle slung over his right shoulder, a band with a swastika on his left arm.

He was supposed to keep order so that everyone should receive bread. Among us there were children, non-Jews, Poles, running around. They dragged that same volksdeutsche over and pointed at each person saying, “That’s a Jew, that’s a Jew – Das Jude, das Jude, Jude” – so that these people would be taken out of the line and not get bread.

My turn came. I turned and saw that the boy was a friend with whom I played. I said to him in Polish, “What are you doing?” His answer was, “I am not your friend, you are a Jew, I don’t know you.”

That same German with the swastika band was standing before me. I saw that he was a neighbour of ours and I spoke to him in Polish. His answer was in German: “I don’t know Polish, I don’t know you.”

He forcefully took me out of the line where I was waiting for bread and slapped me.”

Dr Zygmunt Klukowski

Forced Labour Conditions

Szczebrzeszyn

23 July 1940

“The worst consists of digging ditches to drain the marshes. They have to work standing in water. They are really badly fed because their families can rarely afford to send them food.

They sleep in terrible barracks amidst filth – with a complete lack of space. The barracks are several kilometres from the places of work, and they have to walk this distance every day, and are continuously beaten.

Read more here: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/survivor/men.html

The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team

www.HolocaustResearchProject.org

Copyright Carmelo Lisciotto H.E.A.R.T 2009