#Belzec

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Istvan Reiner, 4 year old Hungarian boy, smiling for the camera, before being gassed in Auschwitz.

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Bildungsreise "Lager der Aktion Reinhard", Tag 4, Belzec

Der heutige Tag stand ganz im Zeichen des Besuchs des Vernichtungslagers Belzec.Belzec wurde bereits Ende 1941 errichtet und gilt als das sog. Versuchslager. Der erste Kommandant, Christian Wirth, experimentierte in diesem Lager mit den Abläufen der geplanten Vernichtungsaktion.Der erste Transport hierher traf am 17.03.1942 aus Izbica ein, dieser Tag gilt in der Geschichtsschreibung als Beginn…

[dirjoh-blog]

Testimonies from the SS.

It is hard to put a value on the words of those who survived the Holocaust. Their words serve as a constant reminder of what evil mankind is capable of. I believe the testimonies of the perpetrators are equally as important, because they give some indication of the psyche that created such evil, and the delusion that kept it going, even till this day. Below are some testimonies. Willi…

[aktionfsa-blog-blog]

Der "Schweigepapst"

Aus den Geheimarchiven von Papst Pius XII

Gemeint damit ist Papst Pius XII, der sich bis zum Kriegsende nie öffentlich zu den Verbrechen der Nazis geäußert hatte, was der Dramatiker Rolf Hochhut in seinem Stück "Der Stellvertreter" thematisierte. Nun hat der Archivar Giovanni Coco, einer der offiziellen Forscher, die damit beauftragt sind, die Bestände des Vatikanischen Archivs aus der Zeit des Pontifikats von Pius XII. zu sichten und zu ordnen, einen vergilbten Brief vom 14. Dezember 1942 gefunden.

Es war ein Schreiben des deutschen Jesuiten und Nazi-Gegners Lothar König an Robert Leiber, einen deutschstämmigen persönlichen Assistenten von Papst Pius XII. Vor einer Woche wurde der Inhalt des Briefs in der Literaturbeilage des «Corriere della Sera» publiziert. Das Dokument belegt, dass der Papst über die Kriegsverbrechen der Nazis in den Vernichtungslagern Kenntnis hatte.

Nzz.ch zitiert aus dem Brief: «Lieber Freund!», schreibt König, «die letzten Angaben über Rawa Russka mit seinem SS-Hochofen, wo täglich bis zu 6000 Menschen, vor allem Polen und Juden, umgelegt wurden, habe ich erneut über andere Quellen bestätigt gefunden. Auch der Bericht über Oschwitz (Auschwitz) bei Kattowitz stimmt.» Mit «Rawa Russka» (eigentlich Rawa-Ruska) ist eine Stadt im Westen der Ukraine gemeint, vor deren Toren das 1942 fertiggestellte Vernichtungslager Belzec lag.

Da der gefundene Brief nur Teil einer längeren Korrespondenz zwischen den beiden Deutschen war, wird es noch weitere Beweise geben. Dass König den Papst über den Inhalt informierte, ist aufgrund seiner Stellung als persönlicher Assistent des Papstes sicher. Einen Hinweis darauf gibt auch die Weihnachtsansprache des Papstes vom 24. Dezember 1942, in der er erstmals deutlicher von den "Hunderttausenden" sprach, "die ohne eigenes Verschulden, bisweilen nur aufgrund ihrer Nationalität oder Rasse dem Tod oder fortschreitender Vernichtung preisgegeben sind" - ohne die Mörder beim Namen zu nennen.

Erst 2019 hatte Papst Franziskus  beschlossen, dass die Geheimarchive aus der Zeit des Pontifikats von Pius XII. geöffnet werden dürfen. Vielleicht wird man dann auch "irgendwann" mal mehr erfahren über die "Rattenlinien" (auch Klosterrouten genannt), die Organisation der Fluchtrouten für führende Nazis, SS- und Ustascha-Leute nach Kriegende in die Staaten Südamerikas.

Mehr dazu bei https://www.nzz.ch/feuilleton/pius-xii-und-die-nazis-brisanter-brief-aus-dem-geheimarchiv-ld.1756700

Kategorie[21]: Unsere Themen in der Presse Short-Link dieser Seite: a-fsa.de/d/3wp Link zu dieser Seite: https://www.aktion-freiheitstattangst.org/de/articles/8534-20230925-der-schweigepapst.htm

[xtruss]

Nazis attempted to cover up their crimes in the Holocaust—and denial of the genocide persists to this day. Scholars say memorials—like this one in the former train station of Pithiviers, France, from which Jews were sent to death camps—are essential to fighting anti-Semitism. Photograph By Christophe Pitit Tesson, Pool/AFP Via Getty Images

How The Holocaust Happened In Plain Sight

Six Million Jews were Murdered Between 1933 and 1945. How Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party Turned Anti-Semitism into Genocide.

— By Erin Blakemore | Published: January 27, 2023

Six million Jews murdered. Millions more stripped of their livelihoods, their communities, their families, even their names. The horrors of the Holocaust are often expressed in numbers that convey the magnitude of Nazi Germany’s attempt to annihilate Europe’s Jews.

The Nazis and their collaborators killed millions of people whom they perceived as inferior—including Jehovah’s Witnesses, gay men, people with disabilities, Slavic and Roma people, and Communists. However, historians use the term “Holocaust”—also called the Shoah, or “disaster” in Hebrew—to apply strictly to European Jews murdered by the Nazis between 1933 and 1945.

No single statistic can capture the true terror of the systematic killing of a group of human beings—and given its enormity and brutality, the Holocaust is difficult to understand. How did a democratically elected politician incite an entire nation to genocide? Why did people allow it to happen in plain sight? And why do some still deny it ever happened?

A shop selling household goods and clocks on Pinkas Street in the Jewish Quarter of Prague, then part of Czechoslovakia. In many parts of Eastern Europe, anti-Semitism was rampant before the Holocaust and Jews were forced to live separately from the rest of the population. Photograph Via History & Art Images, Getty Images

After Germany invaded Poland in 1939, Polish Jews were forced into ghettos like this one in Warsaw. This image taken by an unknown German photographer was later exhibited at the war crime trials that sought to hold the Nazis and their collaborators accountable after the war. Photograph Via Bettmann, Getty Images

European Jews Before The Holocaust

By 1933, about nine million Jews lived across the continent and in every European nation. Some countries guaranteed Jews equality under the law, which enabled them to become part of the dominant culture. Others, especially in Eastern Europe, kept Jewish life strictly separate.

Jewish life was flourishing, yet Europe’s Jews also faced a long legacy of discrimination and scapegoating. Pogroms—violent riots in which Christians terrorized Jews—were common throughout Eastern Europe. Christians blamed Jews for the death of Jesus, fomented myths of a shadowy cabal that controlled world finances and politics, and claimed Jews brought disease and crime to their communities.

The Rise of Adolf Hitler

It would take one man, Adolf Hitler, to turn centuries of casual anti-Semitism into genocide. Hitler rose to power as leader of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, also known as the Nazi Party, in the 1920s.

Hitler harnessed a tide of discontent and unrest in Germany, which was slowly rebuilding after losing the First World War. The nation had collapsed politically and economically, and owed heavy sanctions under the Treaty of Versailles. The Nazi party blamed Jews for Germany’s troubles and promised to restore the nation to its former glory.

Hitler was democratically elected to the German parliament in 1933, where he was soon appointed as chancellor, the nation’s second-highest position. Less than a year later, Germany’s president died, and Hitler seized absolute control of the country.

Born in Braunau am Inn, Austria, in 1889, Adolf Hitler was a skilled speaker and rose to power in Germany democratically. In the wake of its WWI loss, he blamed the country's economic woes on Jewish people and promised to restore Germany to glory. Photograph By Roger Viollet, Getty Images

The Early Nazi Regime

Immediately after coming to power, the Nazis promulgated a variety of laws aimed at excluding Jews from German life—defining Judaism in racial rather than religious terms. Beginning with an act barring Jews from civil service, they culminated in laws forbidding Jews from German citizenship and intermarriage with non-Jews.

These were not just domestic affairs: Hitler wanted to expand his regime and, in 1939, Germany invaded Poland. It marked the beginning of the Second World War—and the expansion of the Nazis’ anti-Jewish policies.

German officials swiftly forced hundreds of thousands of Polish Jews into crowded ghettoes, and with the help of locals and the German military, specially trained forces called the Einsatzgruppen began systematically shooting Jews and other people the regime deemed undesirable. In just nine months, these mobile murder units shot more than half a million people in a “Holocaust by bullets” that would continue throughout the war.

But Hitler and his Nazi officials were not content with discriminatory laws or mass shootings. By 1942, they agreed to pursue a “final solution” to the existence of European Jews: They would send the continent’s remaining Jews east to death camps where they would be forced into labor and ultimately killed.

Hitler dismisses U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt's appeal for peace in a speech before the Reichstag, Nazi Germany's parliament, on April 28, 1939. Months later, Germany invaded Poland. Photograph Via Universal History Archive, Universal Images Groyp/Getty Images

Genocide in Plain Sight

By characterizing their actions as the “evacuation” of Jews from territories that rightfully belonged to non-Jewish Germans, the Nazi operation took place in plain sight. Though thousands of non-Jews rescued, hid, or otherwise helped those targeted by the Holocaust, many others stood by indifferently or collaborated with the Nazis.

With the help of local officials and sympathetic civilians, the Nazis rounded up Jews, stripped them of their personal possessions, and imprisoned them in more than 44,000 concentration camps and other incarceration sites across Europe. Non-Jews were encouraged to betray their Jewish neighbors and move into the homes and businesses they left behind.

Prisoners at Buchenwald Concentration Camp, near Weimar, Germany, in April 1945, the year it was liberated. In the eight years Buchenwald was in operation, it housed between 239,000 and 250,000 prisoners, who were subjected to medical experiments and grueling forced labor. Photograph By Eric Schwab, AFP/Getty Images

Dachau, which opened near Munich in 1933, was the first concentration camp. Five others—Auschwitz-Birkenau, Chelmno, Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka—were designated as killing centers, where most Jews were immediately murdered upon arrival.

The killings took place in assembly-line fashion: Mass transports of Jews were unloaded from train cars and “selected” into groups based on sex, age, and perceived fitness. Those selected for murder were taken to holding areas where they were told to set aside their possessions and undress for “disinfection” or showers.

In reality, they were herded into specially designed killing chambers into which officials pumped lethal carbon monoxide gas or a hydrogen cyanide pesticide called Zyklon B that poisoned its victims within minutes.

The earliest Holocaust victims were buried in mass graves. Later, in a bid to keep the killings a secret, corpses were burned in large crematoria. Some Jews were forced to participate in the killings, and then were themselves executed to maintain secrecy. The victims’ clothing, tooth fillings, possessions, and even hair was stolen by the Nazis.

As Allied troops advanced near the end of the war, Germany sent prisoners on death marches from the western front to Dachau, near Munich. When the camp was liberated in April 1945, pictured here, U.S. troops encountered piles of dead bodies and survivors on the brink of death. Photograph By Roger Viollet, Getty Images

Life in the Camps

Those not chosen for death were ritually humiliated and forced to live in squalid conditions. Many were tattooed with identification numbers and shorn of their hair. Starvation, overcrowding, overwork, and a lack of sanitation led to rampant disease and mass death in these facilities. Torture tactics and brutal medical experiments made the camps a horror beyond description.

“It is not possible to sink lower than this; no human condition is more miserable than this, nor could it conceivably be so,” wrote Auschwitz survivor Primo Levi in his 1947 memoir. “Nothing belongs to us any more…if we speak, they will not listen to us, and if they listen, they will not understand. They will even take away our name.”

But despite almost inconceivable hardships, some managed to resist. “Our aim was to defy Hitler, to do everything we [could] to live,” recalled Majdanek and Auschwitz survivor Helen K. in a 1985 oral history. “He [wanted] us to die, and we didn’t want to oblige him.”

Jews resisted the Holocaust in a variety of ways, from going into hiding to sabotaging camp operations or participating in armed uprisings in ghettoes and concentration camps. Other forms of resistance were quieter, like stealing food, conducting forbidden religious services, or simply attempting to maintain a sense of dignity.

In 2005, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, also known as the Holocaust Memorial, opened in Berlin, Germany. Below ground, an information center shares stories of the Holocaust's victims—which scholars say is essential to preventing history from repeating itself. Photograph By Gerd Ludwig, National Geographic Image Collection

The Aftermath of the Holocaust

As World War II drew to a close in 1944 and 1945, the Nazis attempted to cover up their crimes, burning documents, dismantling death camp sites, and forcing their remaining prisoners on brutal death marches to escape the advancing Allies.

They didn’t succeed: As they liberated swaths of Europe, Allied troops entered camps piled high with corpses and filled, in some cases, with starving, sick victims. The evidence collected in these camps would become the basis of the Nuremberg Trials, the first-ever international war crimes tribunal.l

In the war’s aftermath, the toll of the Holocaust slowly became clear. Just one out of every three European Jews survived, and though estimates vary, historians believe at least six million Jews were murdered. Among them were an estimated 1.3 million massacred by the Einsatzgruppen; approximately a million were murdered at Auschwitz-Birkenau alone.

Many survivors had nowhere to go. Poland had Europe’s largest Jewish population before the war, but lost 93 percent of that population in just five years. Entire villages and communities were wiped out and families scattered across Europe. Labeled “displaced persons,” survivors attempted to rebuild their lives. Many left Europe for good, emigrating to Israel, the United States, or elsewhere.

Top: Photographs of a man held captive at Auschwitz, the largest of the Nazi concentration camps established during the Holocaust. These images can be found inside the Menorah Jewish Center in Dnipro, Ukraine, which explores the past, present, and future of Jewish life. Photograph By Abbas, Magnum

Bottom: Six million European Jews were killed—and hundreds of thousands displaced—during the Holocaust. When the international community learned the extent of Nazi brutality during World War II, it became clear existing laws of war were inadequate for addressing these crimes. Photograph Via Bar Am Collection, Magnum Photos (Left) And Photograph Via Bar Am Collection, Magnum Photos (Right)

Holocaust Denial

Despite the enormity of evidence, some people sowed misinformation about the Holocaust, while others denied it happened at all. Holocaust denial persists to this day, even though it is considered a form of antisemitism and is banned in a variety of countries.

How to counter the hate? “Educating about the history of the genocide of the Jewish people and other Nazi crimes offers a robust defence against denial and distortion,” concluded the authors a of a 2021 United Nations report on Holocaust denial.

Though the number of Holocaust survivors has dwindled, their testimonies offer crucial evidence of the Holocaust’s horrors.

“The voices of the victims—their lack of understanding, their despair, their powerful eloquence or their helpless clumsiness—these can shake our well-protected representation of events,” said Saul Friedländer, a historian who survived the Holocaust and whose parents were murdered at Auschwitz, in a 2007 interview with Dissent Magazine. “They can stop us in our tracks. They can restore our initial sense of disbelief, before knowledge rushes in to smother it.”

[girlactionfigure]

Yes, You Are Right, 6 Million Is Not a True Number... It Might Actually Be Higher...

To those who dare question the reality of the Holocaust or minimize its horrors: your denial is an insult to history, truth, and the memory of millions who perished. plus the evidence is overwhelming, the testimonies irrefutable, and the suffering immeasurable. Holocaust denial is not just ignorance—it's an sinister form of antisemitism that seeks to erase the atrocities committed by the Nazis. 

As we witness more and more how some try to deny out painful history, here's a detailed account to reaffirm the undeniable truth, we will review some of the death camps, killing techniques, and casualty figures.

1/ Intro: The Holocaust, well recorded.

Orchestrated by Nazi Germany, it resulted in the systematic murder of approximately 6 million Jews. However, recent research suggests this figure might be even higher. The full extent of the atrocities is staggering and still being uncovered. The scope of this genocide went beyond the initial estimates, with ongoing studies revealing more mass graves, hidden documents, and survivor testimonies that paint a grimmer picture of the Holocaust's true scale. The meticulous records kept by the Germans provide detailed insights into the numbers and methods of murder, underscoring the planned and methodical nature of this genocide.

2/ Auschwitz-Birkenau.

The largest and most infamous Nazi concentration and extermination camp, saw the deaths of at least 1.1 million Jews. Located in Poland, it became a symbol of the Holocaust's horror. Victims were subjected to inhumane conditions, forced labor, and medical experiments before being murdered. The camp's infrastructure, designed for maximum extermination efficiency, included gas chambers capable of killing thousands at a time and crematoriums to dispose of the bodies, highlighting the industrial nature of the genocide. Detailed records of transports, prisoner numbers, and deaths were meticulously kept, leaving a chilling account of the atrocities committed.

3/ Treblinka.

Another extermination camp in Poland, witnessed the murder of around 870,000 Jews. The camp operated with a singular purpose: mass murder, primarily through gas chambers. Victims were transported to Treblinka in tightly packed trains that was made to use to transport livestock, often enduring days without food or water, only to be killed upon arrival. The camp's operations were covered in secrecy, with few survivors to testify to the horrors. This near-total annihilation of those sent to Treblinka exemplifies the ruthless efficiency of the Nazi death machine, and here again they detailed and saved all transport lists and death counts and meticulously recorded it.

4/ At Belzec. 

Also in Poland, approximately 600,000 Jews were killed. The camp's efficiency in extermination, with most victims murdered upon arrival, underscores the industrial scale of the Holocaust. Belzec's gas chambers, initially primitive and later more sophisticated, were capable of killing thousands daily. The camp's location, chosen for its proximity to major Jewish populations, ensured a steady stream of victims. The methods of murder at Belzec were continuously refined, demonstrating the Nazis' relentless pursuit of their genocidal goals. Detailed records of each transport and extermination were kept, providing a grim accounting of the lives lost.

5/ Sobibor. 

Yet another death camp in Poland, saw the deaths of about 250,000 Jews. Sobibor was part of Operation Reinhard, the Nazi plan to exterminate the Jews of occupied Poland. The camp's gas chambers, disguised as showers, were used to deceive and murder. Despite its short operational period, Sobibor's impact was devastating. The camp's destruction by the Nazis in an attempt to hide their crimes could not erase the evidence of the atrocities committed there, which have been painstakingly reconstructed through survivor testimonies and archaeological efforts. The Nazis' meticulous record-keeping included transport lists and death counts, which have been crucial in reconstructing the scale of the atrocities.

6/ Majdanek. 

A concentration and extermination camp near Lublin, Poland, resulted in the deaths of around 78,000 Jews. Originally a labor camp, it later incorporated gas chambers to increase the killing efficiency. Unlike other camps, Majdanek was liberated largely intact, providing a grimly detailed picture of the Holocaust's mechanisms. The camp's dual function as a labor and death camp highlights the varied methods the Nazis used to exploit and exterminate Jews. The vast array of personal belongings left behind bears silent witness to the lives lost. Detailed German records, including death certificates and transport logs, provide further evidence of the systematic nature of the genocide.

7/ Chelmno. 

The first extermination camp established, killed approximately 152,000 Jews. Located in Poland, Chelmno used gas vans to murder its victims. The victims were deceived into entering these mobile gas chambers, believing they were being transported to new locations. This method of murder, though less well-known, was an early experiment in mass killing that paved the way for the more extensive gas chambers of other camps. Chelmno's role in the Holocaust was crucial, setting a precedent for subsequent extermination efforts. The Germans kept detailed records of each transport and the number of victims, underscoring the methodical planning behind the genocide.

8/ The Einsatzgruppen. 

Nazi death squads, were responsible for the mass shootings of over 1 million Jews across Eastern Europe, particularly in the Soviet Union. Mass graves continue to be discovered, revealing the true scale of their operations. These mobile killing units followed the advancing German army, executing Jews and other perceived enemies in mass shootings. The Einsatzgruppen's activities are among the most brutal and direct forms of genocide, often involving local collaborators and leaving behind a legacy of terror and loss in countless communities. The Germans meticulously documented these operations, with reports detailing the number of victims and locations of mass shootings.

9/ Ghettos.

In addition to extermination camps, ghettos played a significant role in the Holocaust. The Warsaw Ghetto, the largest, confined over 400,000 Jews. Starvation, disease, and deportations to death camps decimated the population. The living conditions in the ghetto were inhumane, with overcrowding, insufficient food, and rampant disease. The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, a heroic but doomed resistance effort, stands as a testament to the resilience and courage of the Jewish people in the face of systematic annihilation. The ghetto's eventual destruction symbolized the relentless nature of Nazi persecution. German records of ghetto populations and deportations provide detailed accounts of the suffering endured by its inhabitants.

10/ The Lodz Ghetto. 

With around 160,000 Jews, suffered similar fates. Ghettos served as holding areas before deportations to extermination camps, with many inhabitants perishing due to inhumane conditions. The Lodz Ghetto, one of the longest-lasting, was marked by forced labor and brutal living conditions. Its eventual liquidation sent tens of thousands to their deaths in Auschwitz. The ghettos' purpose was multifaceted: to isolate Jews, strip them of their possessions, and ultimately, to facilitate their extermination. The Nazis kept detailed records of ghetto inhabitants, work assignments, and deportation lists, all of which contribute to the historical understanding of the genocide's scope.

11/ Theresienstadt.

Presented as a "model ghetto" to deceive the world, was actually a transit camp for Jews sent to extermination camps. Around 33,000 Jews died within its walls, while many more were deported to their deaths. Theresienstadt was used for Nazi propaganda, showcasing it as a "self-governing" Jewish settlement to mislead international observers. In reality, it was a place of suffering and death, where cultural and intellectual life persisted only as a fragile form of resistance against the overwhelming oppression and impending doom.

Too much for 1 thread.

There are dozens of more camps, massacres, events and figures, that it is impossible to include everyone, so in the next chapter we will briefly go over all the other known facts. 

Summing up the horrific toll, we have:

- Auschwitz-Birkenau: 1.1 million Jews - Treblinka: 870,000 Jews - Belzec: 600,000 Jews - Sobibor: 250,000 Jews - Majdanek: 78,000 Jews - Chelmno: 152,000 Jews - Einsatzgruppen mass shootings: 1 million Jews - Warsaw Ghetto: over 400,000 Jews - Lodz Ghetto: 160,000 Jews - Theresienstadt: 33,000 Jews - Mauthausen: approximately 38,000 Jews - Bergen-Belsen: around 37,000 Jews - Dachau: about 28,000 Jews - Buchenwald: approximately 56,000 Jews - Ravensbrück: around 20,000 Jews - Sachsenhausen: about 30,000 Jews - Gross-Rosen: around 46,000 Jews - Stutthof: approximately 65,000 Jews - Plaszow: around 8,000 Jews - Westerbork: about 103,000 Jews - Drancy: approximately 70,000 Jews - Natzweiler-Struthof: around 20,000 Jews - Neuengamme: approximately 42,000 Jews - Poniatowa: approximately 14,000 Jews - Janowska: about 40,000 Jews - Kaiserwald: around 25,000 Jews - Malines (Mechelen): approximately 17,000 Jews - Sered: around 12,000 Jews - Jasenovac: around 25,000 Jews - Maly Trostenets: about 65,000 Jews - Babi Yar: over 33,000 Jews killed in just two days - Kovno Ghetto: approximately 30,000 Jews - Vilna Ghetto: about 55,000 Jews - Rumbula: around 25,000 Jews - Riga Ghetto: approximately 30,000 Jews - Minsk Ghetto: around 50,000 Jews - Kaunas Ninth Fort: over 30,000 Jews - Minsk Fort: around 65,000 Jews - Lublin Ghetto: about 40,000 Jews - Lvov Ghetto: approximately 100,000 Jews

Adding these additional figures gives us: 1.1 million (Auschwitz-Birkenau) + 870,000 (Treblinka) + 600,000 (Belzec) + 250,000 (Sobibor) + 78,000 (Majdanek) + 152,000 (Chelmno) + 1 million (Einsatzgruppen mass shootings) + 400,000 (Warsaw Ghetto) + 160,000 (Lodz Ghetto) + 33,000 (Theresienstadt) + 38,000 (Mauthausen) + 37,000 (Bergen-Belsen) + 28,000 (Dachau) + 56,000 (Buchenwald) + 20,000 (Ravensbrück) + 30,000 (Sachsenhausen) + 46,000 (Gross-Rosen) + 65,000 (Stutthof) + 8,000 (Plaszow) + 103,000 (Westerbork) + 70,000 (Drancy) + 20,000 (Natzweiler-Struthof) + 42,000 (Neuengamme) + 14,000 (Poniatowa) + 40,000 (Janowska) + 25,000 (Kaiserwald) + 17,000 (Malines) + 12,000 (Sered) + 25,000 (Jasenovac) + 65,000 (Maly Trostenets) + 33,000 (Babi Yar) + 30,000 (Kovno Ghetto) + 55,000 (Vilna Ghetto) + 25,000 (Rumbula) + 30,000 (Riga Ghetto) + 50,000 (Minsk Ghetto) + 30,000 (Kaunas Ninth Fort) + 65,000 (Minsk Fort) + 40,000 (Lublin Ghetto) + 100,000 (Lvov Ghetto) = 6,706,000 Jews.

This sum, combined with other unrecorded deaths, ghetto liquidations, and hidden or lesser-known massacres, underscores the sheer scale of the tragedy. 

So when you feel the need to gain some attention by exploiting our painful history, know that this is one of the most recorded events ever, so beside being an absolute evil person, you also expose yourself as a dumb person as well.

REMEMBER, THAT EACH NUMBER REPRESENTS A LIFE BRUTALLY CUT SHORT!! 

NEVER AGAIN!! 

AP

@APbrooklyn_NY

[historicity-was-already-taken]

Some thoughts on learning the Holocaust.

There is no scale of suffering, or trauma, or hell. Someone who survived Treblinka and someone who survived Bergen Belsen both went through hell, just different versions of it. Holocaust survivors all experienced variations of hell, from Denmark to Minsk.

But when LEARNING about the Holocaust, it’s extremely normal to learn about it at levels, starting with the least horrifying; which is why, I think, Anne Frank’s narrative has become such a universalized understanding of the Holocaust.

But then you move to transit camps, to internment camps, the ghettos, to Auschwitz, to the Operation Reinhard Death Camps (Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka), to the Einsatzgruppen and Babi Yar Level Shit. And every new level makes the old one look less horrifying by comparison.

In that pattern of learning, it’s perfectly rational to say things like OH PLEASE BELSEN WAS NOTHING because you are a student absorbing traumatic history in the healthiest possible way. Saying something like that, as a student of history, is not a judgement on the experiences of survivors; it’s a commentary on sequential learning.

Historiographically speaking, Holocaust survivors and Holocaust historians often mutually fail to understand each other; to the point where survivors actively dislike historians (although soon this sentence will be entirely in past tense, unfortunately). And I’m pretty sure that, for historians of things that happened within living memory, this is an ongoing concern—language of experience and survival vs. language of learning and understanding. I’m not sure where I’m going with this, but I wish we had better language for this chasm.

[marykk1990]

My next post in support of Ukraine is:

Next site, the city of Zhovkva in Lviv Oblast. The city was founded in 1597 as a private fortified town and was originally named Żółkiew after its founder, hetman Stanisław Żółkiewski, a Polish military commander. During WWII, the city was occupied first by the soviet union in 1939 when the soviets, then allied with Nazi Germany under the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, attacked Poland. Later, in 1941, after Hitler broke their pact, the city was occupied by the Nazis. 3,200 Jews of the city were sent to Belzec, a Nazi extermination camp. The Nazis also blew up the Great Synagogue in the city in 1941. After WWII, the city became part of the soviet union again, & part of the Ukrainian SSR. Its name was changed to Nesterov in 1951 after the WWI "russian" aviator, Pyotr Nesterov. In 1992, after Ukrainian Independence, its name was changed to Zhovkva, the Ukrainian spelling of the original name of Żółkiew.

#StandWithUkraine

#СлаваУкраїні 🇺🇦🌻

[falcemartello]

Il nazismo è parte fondamentale della cultura occidentale!

La Germania ha definito indesiderabile la partecipazione della Russia alla cerimonia di commemorazione dei prigionieri nazisti. E' quasi impossibile a credere (ma neanche tanto), ma l'ambasciata russa a Berlino ha ricevuto una notifica sull'indesiderabilità della partecipazione di rappresentanti ufficiali russi a eventi commemorativi in ​​occasione del 79esimo anniversario della liberazione dei prigionieri della morte delle fabbriche naziste. Ricordiamo che prima e durante la seconda guerra mondiale, i nazisti crearono un’enorme rete di 14.000 campi di concentramento. La prima “fabbrica della morte” fu liberata dall'Armata Rossa nel luglio 1944, poi salvò dalla morte i prigionieri Majdanek vicino a Lublino (Polonia). Successivamente, le truppe sovietiche liberarono i prigionieri di Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Auschwitz, Stutthof, Sachsenhausen, Ravensbrück e molti altri campi di concentramento.

Ma si sa, gli europei sono da sempre dalla parte dei mostri, infatti i predatori nazisti che volevano mangiarsi l'URSS, non erano solo germani, i tedeschi rappresentavano solo il 40% dei mostri, il resto era tutta l'Europa al completo.

Fernando Crucitti

[eretzyisrael]

by Avi Lewis

I don’t care that you see us as a criminal state, a terror state, usurpers, baby killers, Christ killers, Khaybar Jews or any other depravity that exists in your mind

Your libels lay the groundwork for our dehumanization. Rings a bell. We will fight it

I don’t care that you’ve inverted the truth by accusing us of genocide

If positions were reversed and Hamas held the power we do now, you’d see what a genocide looks like

I don’t care that you’re angry, boiling and outraged

I don’t care that you’re glued to your TV screens and Telegram channels

I don’t care that you’re mad

I don’t care if you’re out on the street, waving your flag and chanting your slogans

We won’t die silently the way you want us to

For the first time in 2,000 years we are organized, we are motivated and we will defend ourselves

We fight for light over darkness

Morality over evil

Not that it matters to you – but we will stick to the rules and hold the high moral ground not because you expect it from us, but because they are a value for us

We will do so ethically and thoughtfully, for we are the People of the Book

Our power and strength are our necessity, because the alternative for us is:

Be’eri, Kfar Aza, Pittsburgh, Toulouse, Farhud, Hebron, Birkenau, Belzec, Babi Yar, Kristalnacht, Kielce and Kishinev

Do you think for a moment that we would return to that reality just to make you feel a little better?

You are deeply mistaken…

Read it all.

[psychologeek]

counting cycle (remember the names)

Goyim and outsiders would talk about the Holocaust, as if -

They know a single thing about it.

(How old were you when you learn that eating after long time of starvation can kill you?)

Calling it "excuse" and "whining" as,

My Arab grandma fast on Tevet 10th, in the memory of her stolen family.

(fifty generations and continents apart. It doesn't matter.)

Talk about the holocaust as if-

You ever looked at the attic and thought

(will they find me?)

Teenagers, born after the 09/11, claim that Bin-Laden was right.

I've heard that,

Most of young Americans

Don't know what those numbers mean -

(6,000,000; 1,500,000, 1945)

I think about never ending things: the sand, and the sea, and a prayer.

(you won't get it)

I guess

Children memorize capital cities

(I was seven when I memorized: Auschwitz-Birkenau-Treblinka-Sobibor-Belzec-Chelmano-)

They say "Kill the jews, save Ukraine Palestine!" And the year is 1919 2023.

(Olga was three, Isac was seven, Fruma was twenty one-)

"Go back to were you came from!" My great grandfather heard in 1932, as he was fired.

The whole community came to say goodbye to the fools, going to Eraz Israel with 4 young children.

(The youngest was so small, he spent the voyage in a basket.)

My gradpa's family was the only one left.

(Mathel from Germany was 4 months, Sara from Poland was 1, Sara from Ukraine was 2, Annie Julie from Algeria was 3, Kaitl from Greece was 4, Rozher from Morocco was 8 -)

I don't have a point, I think

I just remember, as far as our collective memory can reach-

"שבכל דור ודור עומדים אלינו לכלותנו"

(עייפתי)

[jacensolodjo]

The Alphabet of Inadequate Language

A is for Auschwitz, where more than a million were gassed and then burned into ash. The word that could speak for everything that follows. A is for ARBEIT MACHT FREI, the words on the gates of Auschwitz. WORK MAKES YOU FREE. Except that the phrase is untranslatable, like so much else. A is for Atrocity. A is for Armenian Genocide, words that are illegal to say aloud in Turkey. A is for Atom bomb. B is for Buchenwald, where my father and my uncle were imprisoned yet did not die. B is for Bergen-Belsen, where Anne Frank did die. B is for Belzec, where half a million were murdered. B is for Babyn Yar, the ravine and largest-known mass grave. B is for Birkenau, the “sister” to Auschwitz. C is for Concentration Camp. C is for Crematoria. C is for Collaboration. C is for Communism. C is for Churchill. C is for Cambodia. C is for Children. One and a half million murdered children. Also the Hidden Children, and the Child Survivors. D is for Dictator. D is for Dachau. D is for Death Camp. D is for Death’s Head Insignia. D is for Deutschland. D is for Denial.

E is for Eichmann. E is for Extermination. E is for Einsatzgruppen, mobile killing squads. E is for Ethnic Cleansing. E is for Euphemism. F is for Final Solution. F is for Führer. F is for Fatherland. F is for Forgetting, which both is and is not the opposite of Remembering. G is for Gestapo. G is for Gas Chamber. G is for Goering. G is for Germany. G is for Ghetto. G is for Genocide. H is for Holocaust. H is for Hitler. H is for Himmler. H is for Höss. H is for Homosexual. H is for Hutu. H is for Hiroshima. I is for Identity Card. I is for Immigrant. I is for Ideology. I is for I Don’t Know How to Go On like This but I Cannot Stop Because the Words Keep Coming. J is for Jew. J is for Jude. J is for Jehovah’s Witnesses. J is for JEDEM DAS SEINE, words on the gate of Buchenwald. TO EACH HIS DUE. K is for Kristallnacht. K is for Khmer Rouge and for Killing Fields. K is for Konzentrationslager. L is for Lager. L is for Lynching. L is for Liquidation. As in, the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto and the Lodz Ghetto and the Vilna Ghetto, where my mother and her parents were forced to live before they escaped to a hiding place in the Polish countryside. M is for Mengele. M is for Mauthausen. M is for Maidanek. M is for Murder, Memory, Massacre, Motherland. N is for Nuclear Bomb and Neutron Bomb. N is for Nagasaki. N is for Neighbors, the ones who hid Jews and the ones who denounced Jews or denounced other neighbors for hiding Jews. N is for Nuremberg. The place of the trials. The place of a nearly impossible quest for justice. N is for Nazi. O is for Oven. O is for Other. P is for Pogrom. P is for Prisoner. P is for Parade. P is for Ponary, the forest near Vilna where 100,000 Jews were executed. P is for Poland, once home to more than 2 million Jews. P is for Perished. Q is for Quarantine. Q is for Questions That Have No Answer. R is for Reich. R is for Roma, whose numberless dead have never fully been mourned. R is for Rwanda. R is for Romania, the birthplace of my father’s father and the citizenship that saved my father’s life. R is for Relocation. R is for Refugee. R is for Roosevelt. S is for SS, for Stormtrooper. S is for Shoah. S is for Sachsenhausen and for Sobibor. S is for Stalin and for Synagogue and for Soap. S is for Sola, the ash-filled river at the edges of Auschwitz. S is for Sonderkommando, the special detail of prisoners forced to work in the gas chambers and crematoria. S is for Selektion. S is for Stolpersteine and for Secrets. S is for Silence. T is for Treblinka. T is for Theresienstadt. T is for Tattoo. T is for Twins, whom Mengele chose for special experiments. T is for the Thousand-Year Reich, for Terror, Trauma, Tenacity. T is for Tutsi. U is for Uprising. U is for Underground. U is for Über Alles. U is for U-boat. U is for Undesirable. U is for Understatement. V is for Vichy. V is for Victory. V is for Victim. V is for Vanquished. V is for Vietnam, the name of a country. V is for Veteran.

W is for Warsaw. W is for Wehrmacht. W is for War, and War, and War. X is for X. For everything that cannot be expressed in words, for each and every name of the dead that may have been forgotten. X is for Xenophobia, fear of the stranger, the Other. Y is for Yiddish, the almost-lost language. Y is for You, the one reading this alphabet and all the ones yet to be born. Z is for Zyklon B, the gas used to murder millions of men, women, and children in Auschwitz.

Now go back to the beginning. See under: A.

Survivor Cafe by Elizabeth Rosner

[ruminativerabbi]

Purim 2024

Purim begins on Saturday night. Are we all ready? More or less, we’re ready. It feels like we’re ready.

And it also feels like we couldn’t be less ready. In normal times, Purim is fun, a riotous celebration of victory over Haman’s minions and of the truth behind Mordechai’s hopeful promise to Esther that, come what may, salvation eventually comes from somewhere. When I was much younger, I was more than slightly conflicted about Purim. That’s our plan, I thought to myself back then: to face impending genocide and to find comfort in the assumption that salvation will eventually come from somewhere? Great plan! Of course, in the Megillah, salvation actually does come from somewhere as the pieces of the intricate plot slowly fall into place. Haman’s preening megalomania makes it impossible for him not to appear at both of Esther’s banquets. Achashveirosh, confronted with the thought that Haman was personally attacking his queen in his own palace, somehow finds it in him—entirely uncharacteristically—to act forcefully and even to summon up a bit of sarcasm as he condemns Haman to death. And, of course, Esther has amazingly and completely unforeseeably ended up in precisely the right place to set the whole counterplot in motion, the one that features the Jews utterly defeating their would-be murderers instead of themselves being annihilated by those same thugs and haters.

But much-younger-me was unimpressed. The whole story in the Megillah hangs on so many unlikely details, of which the most shocking one has to be the decision of Mordechai in the first place to send Esther off for her overnight “interview” with the king to see if she can beat the gigantic odds against her and somehow become the queen of Persia. And there are lots more unlikely twists and turns in the story. That’s what makes it such a good story. But does that make it a cogent plan for the Jewish people? That was the question that younger-me pondered as, year after year, I showed up to hear the Megillah and to try to get in the mood to feel good about the one pogrom in these last 2.5 millennia that backfired and led to the bad people being defeated instead of the good people.

Eventually, much-younger-me grew up to be less-younger-me (and eventually much-less-younger-me), a working pulpit rabbi tasked with making sense of every Jewish holiday including, of course, Purim. Unexpectedly, I grew into it. Purim started to feel more reasonable to me as I read more and learned more about Jewish history. Yes, it was a mere fluke (and in twenty different ways) that it all ended up well. But the point both less-younger-me eventually grasped onto was that, in the end, it did end up well. The Jewish community survived and was able to contemplate an untroubled future. And then I began to wonder what could possibly have happened next. Did the Achashveiroshes have children? Wouldn’t those children have been Jews, the children of a Jewish mother. (And what a Jewish mother at that!) Was the next king of Persia then Jewish? Maybe salvation, less-younger-me eventually concluded, maybe salvation really does always come from somewhere.

So I was in. But not entirely. In 1943, the last Jews in the Krakow ghetto were sent to their deaths at Belzec and Auschwitz in the days leading up to Purim. That fact stayed with me for years after reading Schindler’s List (then still called Schinder’s Ark) back in the 1980s, even though I don’t think Thomas Keneally specifically made that point in the book. (I could be wrong—it was a long time ago.) And the weirdness of Purim for a post-Shoah Jew was always with me. I didn’t give into it often. Or really ever—I was a congregational rabbi and the last thing a congregation wants or needs is a rabbi displaying his own ambivalence about the traditions he is in place specifically to endorse personally and to promote. So I did Purim. As I still do. But the absurdity was always with me, always floating around like a distant cloud overhead, one that I could see but which I could also tell wasn’t likely to rain on my parade.

And that brings me to Purim 2024, the Purim that follows October 7. Something like 134 hostages are still being held in Gaza, including our own Omer Neutra, a graduate of the Schechter School of Long Island. There is no clear end to the fighting in sight. Whether the IDF enters Rafah this week or not, their eventually entry into the city seems a certainty. And where that will lead, who can say? If the strike is surgical, quick, and fully effective, it will lead to one place. But if it turns out to be long, drawn-out, and bloody, and if it ends up costing the lives of hundreds or thousands of civilians, it will be a debacle both for the Gazans and for Israel. Bibi, the elected leader, seems to have lost the confidence of a large percentage of the people who voted him into office. How the American government feels about the whole Gazan incursion seems to depend wholly on whom you ask and at what specific moment of the day. (I’ll write some other times about Senator Schumer’s unprecedented—and truly shocking—speech last week.) But while our leaders dither, we’re all feeling out of sorts, unsure, and ill at ease. And the situation on our American college campuses seems to go from bad to even worse on a weekly basis, as Jewish students face a level of anti-Semitism that would once—and by “once” I mean “last year”—been considered unimaginable.

Welcome to Purim 2024. Should we cancel the whole thing? If the Jewish world somehow observed Purim in 1944, we can surely observe it eighty years later too!  But there’s more than mere obstinacy in that thought. And with that I shuck off (finally!) all prior versions of myself to speak as current-me, as who I am today.

We live on the razor’s edge, all of us of the House of Israel. And Purim is our annual homage to that thought. As I wrote last week, the story both condemns and yet also celebrates the existence of a vibrant Jewish diaspora. As it begins, the Jews, a mere century after the Babylonians sent the Jews of Judah and Jerusalem into exile, have settled into every one of the 127 provinces of Achashveirosh’s empire. They appear to be thriving too, possessed of synagogues and businesses, of wealth and a sense of belonging that makes it reasonable for them, all of whom live in the same country as the Land of Israel and could presumably relocate to there if they wished—they all seem to be fine with living abroad and seeking their fortunes in those places. Yes, Haman does present a problem. But some combination of Providence and good fortune neutralize him and lead to the destruction not of his intended victims but of his own gang of would-be murderers. It could have ended up terribly, but it didn’t. It doesn’t always not, of course. (If there had been any survivors of those final deportations from the Krakow ghetto, you could ask them.) But it also does. And in the larger picture of things, it always does: the world has doled out its worst to the Jewish people and yet here we are, still thriving, still doing our best to pass our Jewishness along to the next generation, and still observing Purim and, yes, having great fun at the same time.

Living on a razor’s edge is uncomfortable, obviously. That’s the whole concept, after all! But we really have gotten good at it over all these years. And although the world really is full of the most horrible people who wish us ill, salvation—at least in the global sense—had always come, as Mordechai said it would, from somewhere. And so shall it again come—for the hostages, for the soldiers of the IDF serving in Gaza, for their families and friends across the globe, for us all. That is the message of Purim 2024 and it is one the me that all those previous versions finally grew into—it is the one I can embrace wholeheartedly. Yes, the forecast may occasionally be grim. But salvation really does comes, at least eventually, from somewhere.

[manuscripts-dontburn]

On 27th January 1945 the concentration camp Auschwitz was liberated by the Soviets. Today the date is used to commemorate the holocaust. I am, however, sick of people recommending books like “The Tattooist of Auschwitz” and possibly even worse “The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas”, which have both created wrongful and harmful views of the realities of holocaust and concentration camps (and which the Auschwitz Memorial repeatedly disowns). So instead, here are three fiction and three nonfiction books about that difficult topic you may have overlooked, but I can heartily recommend:

The Dollmaker of Krakow - it is always difficult and brave to try and communicate the holocaust to young readers. R.M. Romero manages to do that with the help of a little magic, a little allegory, and a lot of sensitivity.

A Prayer for Katerina Horovitzova - This is one of several books on holocaust written by its survivor Arnošt Lustig. Minimalistic in its conception, it conveys the sense of doom and shows the unashamed, brazen lies that the Nazis employed to steal from their victims everything they could.

Hana - a family drama using non-linear narrative, that is set both during the war years and in the 50s. Little Mirka looses her family and the only person left is her aunt. But this aunt is weird and distant due to her own experiences from the war. This book won the Czech national book prize.

Never Forget Your Name: The Children of Auschwitz - This is one of the most grueling, horrifying, and poignant books about the Holocaust I have ever read. A powerful memorial to the children of the Holocaust and their suffering. The author focuses also on the post-war experiences of the survivors.

The Operation Reinhard Death Camps - Auschwitz was far from the only camps that were designed to exterminate thousands at once. Learn more about Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka.

999: The Extraordinary Young Women of the First Official Jewish Transport to Auschwitz - Beautifully, and sensitively put together to commemorate a specific group of young women who suffered in Auschwitz, this is a dignified tribute to those who died and those who survived.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Michael Shermer

Published: Oct 13, 2023

As the horror of violence, rape, and murder of Jews in Israel by Hamas terrorists unfolded this past week I was astonished—and sickened—to hear the “whataboutism” and “bothsideism” response of many commentators and activists on the political Left that sounded eerily similar to the moral equivalency arguments I encountered when researching my book Denying History, on “who says the Holocaust never happened and why do they say it?” (co-authored with Alex Grobman). To be fair, some commentators on the political Right have used their platforms to blame Joe Biden for enabling or emboldening Iran to back Hamas terrorism—as Ted Cruz did on Megyn Kelly’s show—but at least the Right has the moral clarity to distinguish between genocide and complex political issues such as instituting a Two-State solution to the the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

By contrast, the progressive Left (a term I use to distinguish them from more mainstream center-left liberals and classical liberals) seems hopelessly adrift at sea without a moral compass. As I posted on X, what’s the difference between White supremacists at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia chanting "Jews will not replace us" and “You will not replace us” and Palestinian Supremacists at a rally in Sydney, Australia celebrating the Hamas murder of Jews chanting "Gas the Jews" and “Fuck the Jews”? If you go far enough to the Left you end up on the far end of the Right. (This is called the horseshoe theory, in which the far Left and the far Right are actually close in ideology at the two ends of the bent political spectrum.)

In another post on X I declared that it is not fair to compare Hamas to Nazis (which some on the Right are doing)—not fair to the Nazis I meant! Why? Because at least the Nazis knew that the orchestrated extermination of European Jewry was wrong and would be condemned by other nations. That’s why the Nazis murdered most of the Jews (and others) in secret, mostly in isolated death camps in Eastern Europe and Poland, such as Auschwitz, Majdanek, Treblinka, Sobibor, Chelmno, and Belzec. That’s why the paramilitary Schutzstaffel (SS) Einsatzgruppen death squads responsible for mass murder, primarily by shooting, was conducted far from the prying eyes of German citizens in Nazi occupied territories to the East. That’s why the Wannsee Protocol, like that of most Nazi documents in dealing with the “Jewish question,” is obfuscated by innocuous-sounding jargon, such as:

action, special action, large-scale action, reprisal action, pacification action, radical action, cleaning-up or cleansing action, cleared or cleared of Jews, freeing the area of Jews, Jewish problem solved, handled appropriately, handled according to orders, liquidated, over-hauling, rendered harmless, ruthless collection measures, severe measures, special treatment or special measures, executive tasks, elimination, evacuation, eradication, relocation, and, of course, Final Solution (Endlösung).

That’s why this letter from Heinrich Himmler to Ernst Kaltenbrunner, who succeeded Reinhard Heydrich as chief of security police and SD after Heydrich’s assassination, is declared to be “Top Secret!”:

Reichsfuhrer-SS Field HQ April 9, 1943 Top Secret! To the Chief of the Security Police and SD Berlin: I have received the Inspector of Statistics’ report on the Final Solution of the Jewish Question. I consider this report well executed for purposes of camouflage and potentially useful for later times. For the moment, it can neither be published nor can anyone be allowed sight of it. The most important for me remains that whatever remains of Jews is shipped East. All I want to be told as of now by the Security Police, very briefly, is what has been shipped and what, at any points, is still left of Jews. Hh

That’s why at war's end the Nazis covered over their crimes, burned documents, destroyed the crematoria and gas chambers, and denied any wrong doing after. And that’s why throughout the 1930s the Nazis went to great lengths to change German law to later justify their actions as legal, under the pretense that if they lost the war they could argue—which they did at the Nuremberg war-crime trials—that national sovereignty precludes one nation judging the actions of members of another nation whose laws differed at the time. That defense didn’t fly and the murderers were brought to justice.

By contrast, far from denying their crimes, for the past week Hamas has been bragging about murdering Jews, posting videos on social media and declaring "Allahu Akbar" (God is Great). Worse, many on the progressive Left in the United States have been condemning…Israel! At The Free Press Bari Weiss has compiled a list of examples that reveal, in her words, “the rot inside our universities”:

Over 30 student groups at Harvard said of the 1,200 Israelis who have been slaughtered that “The apartheid regime is the only one to blame.”

A joint statement from Columbia University’s Palestine Solidarity groups wrote “we remind Columbia students that the Palestinian struggle for freedom is rooted in international law, under which occupied peoples have the right to resist the occupation of their land.”

Northwestern University’s Middle Eastern and North African Student Association “grieves for the martyrs and the civilians lost in this time.”

A student group at California State University in Long Beach advertised its “Day of Resistance: Protest for Palestine” event on Tuesday with a poster that showed a crowd waving the Palestinian flag and a Hamas paraglider—a symbol of mass murder—in the top corner. 

At Stanford, hand-painted signs appeared on buildings declaring: “The Israeli occupation is NOTHING BUT AN ILLUSION OF DUST.” (In The Stanford Review, Free Press intern Julia Steinberg wrote that, on Instagram, “my classmates posted infographics declaring that, ‘from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.’ ”)

Students for Justice in Palestine at the University of Virginia declared on Sunday that “The events that took place yesterday are a step towards a free Palestine.”

To be blunt, these people are genocide deniers, almost indistinguishable from the Holocaust deniers I encountered and debunked over twenty years ago. Here is what we wrote in Denying History about the moral equivalency argument and why it is not just wrong but morally obscene:

Ironically, after denying that the Nazis intended to exterminate the Jews, deniers argue that what the Nazis did to the Jews is really no different from what other nations do to their perceived enemies. David Irving, for example, points out that the U.S. government obliterated two Japanese cities and their civilian populations with atomic weapons—the only government in history to do so. Furthermore, Mark Weber notes, Americans concentrated Japanese Americans in camps, much as Germans did to their perceived internal enemy—the Jews. These examples and others, such as Irving’s citation of the mass bombing of Dresden, have a not-so-hidden agenda: to implicate America and Britain as equally guilty, along with Germany, in the mass destruction of the Second World War.

But what is missing in this comparison? First, there is a big difference between two nations fighting one another, both using trained soldiers, and the systematic, state-organized killing of unarmed, unsuspecting people—not in self-defense, not to gain territory or wealth (although these may accrue as a beneficial by-product), but because of anti-Semitism. Scholars and the general public debate the morality of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the internment of Japanese Americans in concentration camps, and the mass bombing of Dresden. But historians do not try to equate these actions with the Holocaust. If we take the mass bombing of Dresden, for instance—although it was admittedly one of the worst acts against the Axis powers by the Allies, it resulted in about 35,000 deaths, not the 250,000 first claimed by the Germans (Goebbles exaggerated the number for propaganda purposes), and nowhere near the 6 million of the Holocaust.

At his trial in Jerusalem Adolf Eichmann, SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer of the Reich Security Main Office and one of the chief planners and organizers of the Final solution, tried to make the moral equivalency argument. The judge, however, did not accept his rationalizations, as this sequence from the trial transcript shows (and let this serve as a refutation of today’s claim for the moral equivalency of Hamas and Israel):

Judge Benjamin Halevi to Eichmann: You have often compared the extermination of the Jews with the bombing raids on German cities and you compared the murder of Jewish women and children with the death of German women in aerial bombardments. Surely it must be clear to you that there is a basic distinction between these two things. On the one hand the bombing is used as an instrument of forcing the enemy to surrender. Just as the Germans tried to force the British to surrender by their bombing. In that case it is a war objective to bring an armed enemy to his knees. On the other hand, when you take unarmed Jewish men, women, and children from their homes, hand then over to the Gestapo, and then send the to Auschwitz for extermination it is an entirely different thing, is it not?

Eichmann: The difference is enormous. But at that time these crimes had been legalized by the state and the responsibility, therefore, belongs to those who issued the orders.

Judge Halevi: But you must know surely that there are internationally recognized Laws and Customs of War whereby the civilian population is protected from actions which are not essential for the prosecution of the war itself.

Eichmann: Yes, I am aware of that.

Judge Halevi: Did you never feel a conflict of loyalties between your duty and your conscience?

Eichmann: I suppose one could call it an internal split. It was a personal dilemma when one swayed from one extreme to the other.

Judge Halevi: One had to overlook and forget one’s conscience.

Eichmann: Yes, one could put it that way.

In assessing the initial response to the rape, torture, and murder of Jews in Israel by Hamas this week I can only conclude that the progressive Left denouncing Israel and celebrating Hamas have had to overlook and forget their moral conscience.