#Bergen Belsen 1945

[whencyclopedia]

Eyewitness Accounts of the Holocaust

The Holocaust was the murder of 6 million Jewish people by the SS, Gestapo, and other organisations of Nazi Germany and its allies in the years prior to and through the Second World War (1939-45). Innocent men, women, and children were shot in mass executions, or, if not too young or too old, they were sent to labour camps where they worked until they could do so no longer. The ultimate fate of millions was to die in the gas chambers of extermination camps like Auschwitz in occupied Poland.

In this article, accounts are presented by those who witnessed the Holocaust genocide firsthand, both its victims and those involved in its execution who were obliged to give evidence in, for example, the post-war Nuremberg trials of 1945-6.

Unburied Corpses, Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp

Wislon-Oakes - Imperial War Museums (CC BY-NC-SA)

The Nazis & the Jews

Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) established himself as the dictator of Nazi Germany in 1933, and he identified Jewish people as the main enemy of the state. Based on dubious and inconsistent racial theory as propounded by such Nazi figures as Alfred Rosenberg (1893-1946), Hitler and the Nazi Party began a propaganda campaign against German Jews, which presented them as an inferior race who were holding Germany back from achieving its full economic potential.

Hitler wanted to remove all Jews from German territory, but the first step was to identify who exactly was a Jew. The 1935 Nuremberg Laws loosely identified Jews since even having a single Jewish grandparent placed an individual in that category. A series of 'solutions' to what Hitler called the "Jewish problem" were rolled out, such as encouraging emigration and persecuting Jewish business owners. Jews were then attacked in such pogroms as the Kristallnacht of November 1938. Next, Jews were rounded up and obliged to live in segregated areas such as ghettos in cities or in concentration camps. Jews were deprived of citizenship and other basic rights.

From 1942, the Nazis began what was secretly described as the 'Final Solution', that is the plan to murder all European Jews. Jews were transported to labour camps where they worked on state projects until they died from disease, extreme malnutrition, or physical exhaustion. Other Jews, and those who could no longer work or were too young or too old to work, were transported directly to death camps like the Auschwitz-Birkenau complex in occupied Poland where they were killed in gas chambers and their remains were communally cremated. Jews were not the only victims since the Nazis also targeted Romani people, Communists, Jehovah's Witnesses, Freemasons, homosexuals, political rivals, prisoners of war, and those with physical or mental disabilities, amongst others. In addition, hundreds of thousands more victims were murdered in mass executions in occupied territories during the Second World War by mobile killing squads known as Einsatzgruppen. The Jews made up by far the majority of those killed, and it is estimated that 6 million died in what is today called the Holocaust. The sheer scale of the Nazis' programme means that determining the precise number of victims is not possible.

Arrested Jews, Baden-Baden

Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-86686-0008 (CC BY-SA)

Hugh Greene, a British newspaper journalist, recalls what he saw of the Kristallnacht in 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.

(Holmes, 42)

Avraham Aviel, a Polish Jew and survivor of a mass execution, gives the following account of his experience in May 1942:

We were all brought close to the cemetery at a distance of eighty to a hundred metres from a long, deep pit. Once again everybody was made to kneel. There was no possibility of lifting one's head. I sat more or less in the centre of the town people. I looked in front of me and saw the long pit then maybe groups of twenty, thirty people led to the edge of the pit, undressed probably so that they should not take their valuables with them. They were brought to the edge of the pit where they were shot and fell into the pit, one on top of another.

(Holmes, 319)

An anonymous survivor from a ghetto massacre in Lviv, Ukraine, in August 1942 gives the following description of its aftermath:

I went with my mother to the office of the Jewish community regarding an apartment and there in the light breeze, dangled the corpses of the hanged, their faces blue, their heads tilted backward, their tongues blackened and stretched out. Luxury cars raced in from the center of the city, German civilians with their wives and children came to see the sensational spectacle, and, as was their custom, the visitors enthusiastically photographed the scene. Afterwards the Ukrainians and Poles arrived by with greater modesty.

(Fiedländer, 436)

Nazi Classification of Jewish People

VolksVeritas (CC BY-SA)

Rivka Yoselevska, a Polish Jew, describes her experience and that of her family in the Hansovic ghetto massacre in August 1943:

Some of the younger ones I got out naked covered with blood…I was still alive. Where should I go? What should I do?

(Holmes, 320-1)

The SS lieutenant-colonel Adolf Eichmann (1906-1962), in charge of the Final Solution's transportation requirements, here lies to Jews to make sure they do not create trouble as they are transported by train from a ghetto to the concentration camps:

Jews: You have nothing to worry about. We want only the best for you. You'll leave here shortly and be sent to very fine places indeed. You will work there, your wives will stay at home, and your children will go to school. You will have wonderful lives.

(Bascomb, 6)

The death camps were deliberately located in remote Poland to provide the Final Solution project more secrecy. Rudolf Höss (1901-1947), a camp commandant at Auschwitz, stated:

We were required to carry out these exterminations in secrecy, but of course the foul and nauseating stench from the continuous burning of bodies permeated the entire area and all of the people living in the surrounding communities knew that exterminations were going on at Auschwitz.

(Neville, 49)

New Arrivals at Auschwitz

Bernard Walter (Public Domain)

The typical conditions of the train journeys to the camps are described here by Avraham Kochav, an Auschwitz survivor:

There were twenty to twenty-five cars in every train…I heard terrible cries. I saw how people attack other people so as to have a place to stand, how people push each other so that they could stand somewhere or so that they could have air for breathing. It was terribly, terribly stifling. The first to faint were the children, women, old men, they all fell down like flies.

(Holmes, 332)

Zygmunt Klukowski, a Polish hospital director, describes the train journeys for Jewish people sent to the Belzec extermination camp in occupied Poland:

On the way to Belzec the Jews experience many terrible things. They are aware of what will happen to them. Some try to fight back. At the railroad station in Szczebrzeszyn a young woman gave away a gold ring in exchange for a glass of water for her dying child. In Lublin people witnessed small children being thrown through windows of speeding trains. Many people are shot before reaching Belzec.

(Friedländer, 358)

Yaacov Silberstein, a Jewish teenager, describes his arrival at Auschwitz in October 1942:

When we arrived we saw how the Jews were running to the electrified fence. There they stuck. They were tired of life; they could not continue in this fashion.

(Holmes, 330)

Dr Lucie Adelsberger, a prisoner of Auschwitz, describes the processing of new arrivals destined for the labour camps:

We undressed, had our hair cut – no actually our heads were shaved to stubble; then came the showers and finally the tattoos. This was where they confiscated the very last vestiges of our belongings; nothing remained…no written document that could have identified us, no picture, no written message from a loved one. Our past was cut off, erased…

(Cesarini, 656)

Aerial View of Auschwitz

South African Air Force (Public Domain)

Bernd Naumann, a survivor from the Birkenau camp, describes the prevalence of rats in the camp:

They gnawed not only at corpses but also at the seriously sick. I have pictures showing women near death being bitten by rats.

(Neville, 50)

Seweryna Smaglewska, a prisoner in the Birkenau women's camp, describes the living conditions there:

There were no roads, no paths between the blocks. In the depths of these dark dens, in bunks like multi-storied cages, the feeble light of a candle burning here or there flickered over naked, emaciated figures curled up, blue from the cold, bent over a pile of filthy rags, holding their shaved heads in their hands, picking out an insect with their scraggly fingers and smashing it on the edge of the bunk – that is what the barracks looked like in 1942.

(Cesarini, 528)

The SS, which managed the camps, made sure there was a hierarchy amongst the prisoners such as trustees who survived a little longer than the rest by being 'favoured' with certain duties such as burning the bodies in the crematoriums or beating other prisoners. SS Lance Corporal Richard Bock, a guard at Auschwitz-Birkenau, recalls:

A block chief would call out the kapo very fiercely, 'Kapo, come here.' The kapo came over and – boom – he hit the kapo in the face so hard that he fell over…And then he said, 'Kapo, can't you beat them any better than that?' And the kapo ran off and grabbed a club to beat up the prisoner squad quite indiscriminately. 'Kapo, come over here,' he shouted again. The kapo came and he said, 'Finish them off,' and then he went off again and he finished the prisoners off, he beat them to death…a kapo had to beat and club to save his own life.

(Holmes, 325)

Luggage of Auschwitz Victims

Jorge Láscar (CC BY)

Those meant for the gas chambers were often unaware of their fate. Bock describes the procedure that he witnessed with a colleague called Holbinger who was responsible for the Zyklon B tins that would produce the lethal gas:

…the new arrivals had to get undressed, and then the order came, 'Prepare for disinfection'. There were enormous piles of clothing…Lots of them hid their children under the clothes and covered them up and then they shouted, 'Get ready' and they all went out, they had to run naked approximately twenty yards from the hall across to Bunker One. There were two doors standing open and they went in there and when a certain number had gone inside they shut the doors. That happened about three times, and every time Holbinger had to go out to his ambulance and they took out a sort of tin – he and one of his block chiefs – and then he climbed up the ladder and at the top there was a round hole and he opened the little round door and held the tin there and shook it and then he shut the little door again. Then a fearful screaming started up and approximately after about ten minutes it slowly went quiet…They opened the door…then a blue haze came out. I looked in and I saw a pyramid. They had all climbed up on top of each other…They were all tangled, they had to tug and pull very hard to disentangle all these people.

(Holmes, 334-5)

Dov Paisikowic, a Russian-Jewish survivor of Auschwitz, was part of the team responsible for taking bodies out of the chambers, removing valuables such as rings and gold teeth, and then taking the corpses to the crematoria. He recalls:

…the doors were suddenly opened to the gas chambers. People, naked people, started falling out. We were all frightened, no one dared ask what it all was. We were immediately taken to the other side of this house and there we saw hell on this earth – large piles of dead people, and people dragging these dead to a long pit, about thirty metres in length and ten metres in width. There was a huge fire there, with tree trunks. On the other side fat was being taken out of this pit with a bucket.

(Holmes, 335)

Thousands of detainees in the camps were subjected to unnecessary and often horrific medical operations and experiments. One of the most infamous SS doctors was Josef Mengele (1911-1979), who performed all kinds of macabre operations at Auschwitz. Mengele was, though, only one part of a large SS medical team, which operated in many different camps. Dr Franz Blaha, a Czech detainee at the Dachau concentration camp, was obliged to work in this area of Nazi terror, specifically performing autopsies. Blaha reported:

From the middle of 1941 to the end of 1942 some 500 operations on healthy prisoners were performed. These were for the instructions of the SS medical students and doctors and included operations on the stomach, gall bladder and throat. These were performed by students and doctors of only two years' training, although they were very dangerous and difficult….Many prisoners died on the operating table and many others from later complications…These persons were never volunteers but were forced to submit to such acts.

(MacDonald, 59)

Auschwitz Bunks

Bookofblue (CC BY-SA)

Hertha Beese, a Berlin housewife and underground resistance worker, recalls that, unlike the general public, the resistance network was more informed about the camps. She states:

We knew that the concentration camps existed. We also knew where they existed, for example Oranienburg just outside Berlin. We sometimes knew which of our friends were there and we also knew of the cruelties in them right from the beginning.

(Holmes, 315)

Anthony Eden (1897-1977), British Foreign Secretary during WWII, notes:

…as the war progressed some horrifying reports began to come out. At first it was very difficult to assess their accuracy and they were so horrible it was hard to believe they could be true.

(Holmes, 314)

Wynford Vaughn-Thomas, a British journalist, recalls the conditions of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany when it was liberated in 1945:

In the huts typhoid, everything, had broken out and you couldn't hear yourself speak for the death rattle. There were people lying on top of each other, sick, vomiting, withered bodies crawling on their hands and knees…It was sealed off in this dark north German plain and you felt you'd reached the cesspit of the human mind.

(Holmes, 337)

Mass Grave, Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp

H. Oakes-Imperial War Museums (Public Domain)

The British Lieutenant Colonel J. A. D. Johnson described what he saw when he arrived at Bergen-Belsen:

The prisoners were a dense mass of emaciated apathetic scarecrows huddled together in wooden huts, and in many cases without beds or blankets, and in some cases without any clothing whatsoever…There were thousands of emaciated corpses in various stages of decomposition lying unburied. Sanitation was to all intents and purposes nonexistent.

(Cesarini, 759)

Hans Stark, Gestapo staff member at Auschwitz, stated, like so many others, that he had merely been following orders:

I took part in the murder of many people…I believed in the Führer, I wanted to serve my people. Today I know that this idea was false. I regret the mistakes of my past, but I cannot undo them.

(Neville, 57)

Rabbi Frankforter, who died in the Holocaust, which Jewish people often call the Shoah or Ha-Shoah in Hebrew, gave this last wish to survivor Yaacov Silberstein:

You are still young and you will remain alive. I have only one request for you that you should never let people forget. Tell everyone what they did to us at this small camp, in Buchenwald. Wherever you go tell this, also to your children so that they should pass it on. To remember and not to forget.

(Holmes, 339)

Continue reading...

[camillasgirl]

Queen Camilla's speech to mark Holocaust Memorial Day, 23.01.2025

Survivors of the Holocaust, Survivors of Genocide, Ladies and Gentlemen. As Patron of the Anne Frank Trust UK, it is an honour and a privilege to join you to remember the victims of the Shoah and of genocides since the end of the Second World War. It is also an opportunity to renew our commitment to two simple, but powerful, words: “Never Forget”.

This year we commemorate the 80th anniversary of the death of Anne Frank in Bergen Belsen, at the age of 15. Had she lived, she would be 95. Miraculously, her father, Otto, survived. He had been one of the 7,000 people freed on 27th January 1945, when the Soviet Army marched under the gates of Auschwitz that bore the sign, “Arbeit macht frei”, “Work makes one free”.

Words, as I said just now, have power. Those over the gates of Auschwitz represent one of history’s greatest, and most evil, lies. But Anne knew that they were always there to offer truth, comfort and hope. A year before she died, she wrote a promise in her diary: “I’ll make my voice heard, I’ll go out into the world and work for mankind!”. She was never to do so in person. However, over subsequent decades, and thanks to Otto’s tireless efforts, Anne’s diary has become the enduring embodiment of that promise. We can only guess at what she would have made of her legacy. Yet her story demonstrates that even the quietest, loneliest voice in the wilderness can change the world. That is the true power of words.

Anne’s life and death continue to inspire an anti-prejudice movement across the globe, including the Anne Frank Trust here in Britain. Last year, you reached 126,000 young people in this country alone, with your distinctive combination of Holocaust history, education about discrimination and youth empowerment. I am proud to be your Patron and grateful to all of you who support the Trust in its vital work – thank you.

Five years ago, I heard another survivor, Marian Turski, a Polish Jew, speak at a ceremony to mark the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. During his testimony, Marian said this:

I shall not be telling you about the very worst experience, the tragedy of being separated from my nearest loved ones and sensing what awaited them after the selection. I want to talk with the generation of my daughter and the generation of my grandchildren about themselves…. Don’t be complacent, whenever you see the past being misused for current political purposes. Don’t be complacent, whenever any kind of minority is discriminated against. Democracy itself lies in the fact that the rights of minorities must be protected. Don’t be complacent… Because if you become complacent, before you know it, some kind of Auschwitz will suddenly appear from nowhere and befall you and your descendants.'

Today, more than ever, with levels of antisemitism at their highest level for a generation; and disturbing rises in Islamophobia and other forms of racism and prejudice, we must heed this warning. The deadly seeds of the Holocaust were sown at first in small acts of exclusion, of aggression and of discrimination towards those who had previously been neighbours and friends. Over a terrifying short period of time, those seeds took root through the complacency of which we can all be guilty: of turning away from injustice, of ignoring that which we know to be wrong, of thinking that someone else will do what’s needed – and of remaining silent.

Let’s unite in our commitment to take action, to speak up and to ensure that the words “Never Forget” are a guiding light that charts a path towards a better, brighter, and more tolerant future for us all.

As Anne wrote in her diary on 7th May 1944:

"What is done cannot be undone, but at least one can prevent it from happening again."

Thank you.

[theworldatwar]

Bergen-Belsen camp is destroyed by British forces from the 11th Armoured Division after being liberated - April / May 1945

[yaoi-priestess]

I think about Holland 1945 a lot

Pretty long post under the cut

The only girl I've ever loved

Was born with roses in her eyes

This is a great opening for the song, and as can be seen by the rest of the album, it's referencing Anne Frank. What he means by roses in her eyes is innocence, I think. Like viewing the wor d through rose colored glasses, she sees it innocently.

But then they buried her alive

One evening, 1945

With just her sister at her side

This really seals the point that it's Anne Frank. "Burying alive" in this sense is talking about how the holocaust came so quickly and took away so much. She had "died" as soon as the holocaust started, many people had, because of lost opportunity. The sister verse is talking about how Anne and her sister Margot lived together in the Bergen-Belsen camp.

And only weeks before the guns

All came and rained on everyone

This talks about when they actually died, in 1945. Only weeks is talking about how close the holocaust was to ending when they died.

Now she's a little boy in Spain

Playing pianos filled with flames

This line is about reincarnation, saying after her death she became someone else. I think the little boy in Spain is referencing Pepito Arriola, a piano prodigy. That makes it line up with the piano line. Arriola was also seen as a reincarnation of talent, and music, which explains why he's a prodigy.

On empty rings around the sun

All sing to say my dream has come

I never figured out what the second verse of this means, but im pretty sure empty rings around the sun is about hopelessness during the holocaust, and with every year or birthday (ring around the sun??) There was not much hope.

But now we must pick up every piece

Of the life we used to love

Just to keep ourselves

At least enough to carry on

This is again about reincarnation, but I think its relates to a later point in the song where he talks about his friend that committed suicide. How he just kind of needs to move on I guess? But not really, he's just trying to remember their lives so that he can live a happy life

And now we ride this circus wheel

Wheel!!! Reincarnation, again I think. The cycle of life of Anne Frank, like earlier in the song

With your dark brother wrapped in white

Says it was good to be alive

But now he rides a comet's flame

And won't be coming back again

Ok ok this is the part I was talking about about his friends suicide. He's riding a comets flame, knowing it'll crash and kill him. And obviously he won't be coming back from the dead. The dressed in white part is i think talking about how angels are dressed. This verse really always gets me sad

The Earth looks better from a star

That's right above from where you are

This is bringing it back to the holocaust. From space, you cant see the terrors of the world, I think that's what this is talking about. How from far away, the tragedies of the holocaust and humanity are unseen, even if you look straight in their direction.

He didn't mean to make you cry

With sparks that ring and bullets fly

Maybe this is about God possibly? Like asking God why the world is so terrible. Especially during the holocaust, which makes sense with the second verse of this. The warfare and belligerence is definitely enough to make someone cry.

On empty rings around your heart

The world just screams and falls apart

I dunno what the first line means, maybe about how much being in hiding or living through war hollows out a person. War is hell

But now we must pick up every piece

Of the life we used to love

Just to keep ourselves

At least enough to carry on

Just da chorus again

And here's where your mother sleeps

And here is the room where your brothers were born

Indentions in the sheets

Where their bodies once moved but don't move anymore

I hate to admit i really don't understand these verses well. I just thought they were talking about the deaths during the holocaust, especially of children, how their lives were taken from them so quickly

And it's so sad to see the world agree

That they'd rather see their faces filled with flies

All when I'd want to keep white roses in their eyes

Ok so this is definitely about the holocaust. How Jews were seen as less, and that somehow gave reason for killing so many of them. The white roses part does also mean innocence, like in the beginning of the song, but we can also see it as referencing The White Rose during the holocaust. They were a group of non violent resistance fighters who were anti-nazi.

That's about it for the song I guess?? Listen to it

[ginandoldlace]

On 15th April 1945, soldiers from the British 11th Armoured Division liberated Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

In this photograph, soldiers and civilians watch on as the camp's final hut is destroyed as the Union Flag flies, marking freedom. 1945

[uss-edsall]

Brigadier General Derek Mills-Roberts (on the left), a British commando with the 1st Commando Brigade, accepted the surrender of German Luftwaffe Field Marshal Erhard Milch (on the right) on 4 May, 1945, apprehending Milch on the Baltic Coast. Milch handed over his staff-of-office, a command baton, to the British officer.

Mills-Roberts had been present for the liberation of Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Horrified and disgusted by the vulgarities of the concentration camp, Mill-Roberts demanded an explanation of what he saw there from the field marshal. Milch was the son of a Jewish father and was considered 'mixed-race' under Nazi racial laws; he was the only field marshal in the Nazi military of any Jewish descent.

Milch's response was, "These people are not human beings like you or I."

Mills-Robert's response was to beat Milch over the head with Milch's own baton until it broke, fracturing Milch's skull.

The next day, Mills-Roberts reported to Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery and apologised for losing his temper with a senior German prisoner. It broke the laws of war, despite what Milch had said. Montgomery merely covered his head and joked, "I hear you've got a thing for field marshals!" Nothing more was said about the incident.

Milch was convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity at the Nuremberg Trials. Sentenced to life imprisonment in 1947, it was commuted to 15 years in 1951, and he was paroled in 1954 having been imprisoned for only seven years.

[thesobsister]

“Irma Grese (center), an SS officer at Ravensbrück, Auschwitz II-Birkenau, and Bergen-Belsen, at her trial for war crimes, Lüneburg, Germany, September 1945”

“The young camp guard Irma Grese was still there when the British arrived. She was ‘seemingly unaware that she had anything to fear from the representatives of the Allies.’ The press went wild about her during her trial, creating a monster of sadistic sexuality that went far beyond her provable crimes of revolting cruelty and murder. But Evans doesn’t diagnose her as a monster: ‘Grese came across…as a rather immature, simple young woman who had little idea of why she was being demonized’—an unquestioning Nazi to the end. They hanged her eight months later.”

via The New York Review of Books

[fabriche]

Prisoners of Bergen-Belsen cheerfully collect bread rations after their liberation by British forces in April 1945.

[captain-price-unofficially]

Before the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in April 1945, the Nazis killed 50,000 people there. The photo shows Mass Grave No. 3. The man standing among the countless bodies is the camp physician Fritz Klein, who was hanged for his role in the December 1944 massacres. Klein's job was to decide which of the prisoners was still fit for work.

[irregularincidents]

Over the course of 25 years, Albert Pierrepoint killed between 435 and 600 people, with his last being in 1956. He was Britain's most prolific hangman, and in late 1945 he was brought to Germany with a specific task: Executing Nazis.

A private man, both Albert's father and uncle had been hangmen before him, and over the course of his career he killed a variety of people, conventional criminals, serial killers (plus an innocent man a serial killer had framed for his crimes), and spies.

He didn't particularly like advertising his side-gig as someone who killed people on behalf of the state (for obvious reasons), but due to his reputation for efficiency (anecdotally he would figure out in his head the length of rope required to kill someone as quickly and relatively as possible just by eye) General Sir Bernard Montgomery, one of the senior figures in the British armed forces during WWII announced his involvement to the press.

Arriving in Germany, Albert was first assigned the task of executing the captured Nazi war criminals that had been operating the Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camps, including such people as the 22 year old Irma Grese, nicknamed Hyena of Auschwitz by her victims. He hanged the women individually, the men he hanged in pairs. Reportedly starting with the younger criminals first, under the reasoning that they would be the most scared.

Pierrepoint travelled several times to Hamelin, and between December 1948 and October 1949 he executed 226 people, often over 10 a day, and on several occasions groups of up to 17 over 2 days. After the Belsen executions, he was moved on to Nazi sympathisers, including the American-born fascist William Joyce, who had been granted the nickname Lord Haw-Haw due to his broadcasts across the English Channel in a fake posh accent trying to convince the British to surrender. He died 3 January 1946.

It is notable, however, that despite some claims to the contrary, Pierrepoint was not the hangman assigned to the war crime trials at Nuremberg (which fell under the jurisdiction of the Americans). It's notable in contrast to Pierrepoint, whose grim expertise in killing people with rope was such that he was hired to teach his methods to hangmen in Austria (reportedly their method was to let people strangle to death rather than their body weight breaking their necks like they did with his way), the American hire... err... wasn't that?

In fact, in contrast with Pierrepoint's... for lack for a better word consideration for the people he was killing, the American's choice, John C. Woods, had no prior experience as a hangman (reportedly lying that he had served as one as back in the US... in states where state-backed hangings had been phased out decades prior), and was notably at being kind of terrible at it? While Pierrepoint was all about killing people as quickly, painlessly and quietly as possible (both for the benefit of the prison staff as well as the victim), Woods deliberately botched executions to make the Nazis suffer as much as possible. Under the gallows operated by Woods, Nazis would dangle for minutes as they slowly strangled to death. Which considering the crimes that they had been convicted of, fair, but the contrast between the two men is fascinating.

Not least due to their later perspectives of their careers, with Albert returning to Britain and operating as a hangman for a further decade or so to retire to the pub in Preston that he had bought with the money from his executions back in the 1940s which he ran with his wife, Annie Fletcher.

It's notable that in the years following his retirement, he became opposed to the death penalty in Britain, and his obituary would quote his option opposed to the idea that capital punishment deterred crime,

'If death were a deterrent,' he wrote, 'I might be expected to know. It is I who have faced them at the last, young lads and girls, working men, grandmothers. I have been amazed to see the courage with which they take that walk into the unknown. 'It did not deter them then, and it had not deterred them when they committed what they were convicted for. All the men and women whom I have faced at that final moment convince me that in what I have done I have not prevented a single murder.'

Albert passed away in a nursing home in 1992 at the age of 87.... while with his former colleague John, his own view of his time as a hangman was a lot more glib.

I hanged those ten Nazis … and I am proud of it … I wasn't nervous. … A fellow can't afford to have nerves in this business. … I want to put in a good word for those G.I.s who helped me … they all did swell. … I am trying to get [them] a promotion. … The way I look at this hanging job, somebody has to do it. I got into it kind of by accident, years ago in the States …

For his part, John would himself die in 1950 at the age of 39, when he accidentally electrocuted himself to death while stationed in the Marshall Islands.

[cursedreverie1945]

World War Two: Nazi War Crimes Belsen Trial 1945

SS-Schutzhaftlagerführer Franz Hössler#5 (1906 - 1945), deputy camp commandant at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp sits alongside SS Aufseherin (female overseer guard) Juana Bormann #6 (1893 - 1945), SS Oberaufseherin (supervising overseer guard) Elisabeth Volkenrath #7 (1919 - 1945), SS Aufseherin Herta Ehlert #8 (1905 - 1997) and SS Aufseherin Irma Grese #9 (1923 - 1945) together with other accused former officials and functionaries from the Bergen-Belsen, Ravensbrück and Auschwitz Nazi concentration camps including Ilse Lothe #10, Hilde Löbauer#11, Josef Klippel #12, Oscar Schmitz #14 and Erich Zoddel #29 (1913 - 1945) during the Nazi War Crimes Belsen Trial on 17th September 1945 at Lüneburg, Lower Saxony, Germany. Irma Grese, Juana Bormann, Elisabeth Volkenrath and Franz Hössler were found guilty of war crimes, sentenced to death by a British military court and executed by hanging on 13th December 1945 at Hamelin prison by British executioner Albert Pierrepoint.

The thing with hanging? It's not always quick. The neck isn't always broken right away. Depending on how they are hung, many hit the trap door on the way down. Hopefully, it was slow and painful for these fuckers.

[popclture]

Otto Frank visits the attic where the Frank family hid from the Germans troops during World War II (1960)

The family was discovered in August 1944, after spending 761 days in hiding. It is widely believed they were betrayed by someone familiar with their hiding place, though the identity of the betrayer remains unknown. The entrance to their secret annex was concealed behind a movable bookcase but how the Nazis were alerted to or uncovered the hidden door is still unclear.

Following their arrest, Otto’s daughters, Anne and Margot, were sent to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. In March 1945, both tragically succumbed to typhus during a massive outbreak, just weeks before British forces liberated the camp. Anne was 15 years old and Margot was 19. They were buried in a mass grave at Bergen-Belsen and their remains were never individually identified.

Otto Frank and his wife, Edith, were sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau, one of the most notorious concentration camps. Edith died of starvation in January 1945, only weeks before the camp was liberated by Soviet troops. Otto survived and dedicated his life to preserving Anne’s diary, ensuring her voice and story would reach the world.

Otto Frank was the only member of his family to survive the Holocaust. He passed away in 1980 at the age of 91. While he is buried in Switzerland, where he settled after the war, Edith’s body was never recovered, as she perished in Auschwitz.

[notasfilosoficas]

“Aquel que es feliz puede hacer dichoso a los demás. Quien no pierde ni el valor ni la confianza, jamás perecerá por la miseria”

Ana Frank

Annelies Marie Frank, mejor conocida como Ana Frank, fue una niña alemana de ascendencia judía nacida en Fráncfort del Meno en junio de 1929.

Es conocida mundialmente gracias al Diario de Ana Frank, una edición de su diario íntimo en donde deja constancia de su ocultamiento junto con su familia por casi dos años y medio de la persecución nazi en Amsterdam durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial.

Fue la segunda hija de Otto Heinrich Frank y de Edith Hollander quienes vivían en una comunidad asimilada de ciudadanos judíos y otros que no lo eran, pues la comunidad albergaba familias judías católicas y protestantes.

Los Frank eran judíos reformistas, es decir que mantenían muchas tradiciones de la fe judía pero no se alineaban demasiado a sus preceptos.

Su padre había participado como teniente del Ejercito Alemán durante la Primera Guerra Mundial y después se volvió empresario.

La hermana de Ana, Margot, era tres años mayor que Ana y se le tenia por bondadosa, ejemplar y discreta, en tanto que a Ana, era extrovertida e impulsiva.

En marzo de 1933, antes de la toma del poder de Adolf Hitler, se mudaron Aquisgrán, la casa de la abuela de Ana, y posteriormente en 1934 se mudaron a Amsterdam en donde Otto Frank llevaba ya varios meses preparando su futura vida familiar, siendo encargado de la sucursal holandesa de la empresa alemana Opekta.

Ana y su hermana estudiaron en escuelas publicas y una de sus mejores amigas Hannah Goslar, a quien llamaban Hanneli contó posteriormente que Ana a menudo escribía en secreto y no quería decir nada del contenido de sus escritos.

A los judíos exiliados les preocupaba la posible expansion de Hitler a los Países Bajos, los cuales intentaban mantenerse neutrales, pero en mayo de 1940, el ejercito aleman atacó y ocupó el país.

Con el paso del tiempo cada día se publicaban más leyes anti-judías que les quitaban sus derechos, se les excluía de la vida social y se les expulsaba de todas las instituciones públicas.

La empresa que llevaba Otto Frank tuvo que ser cedida a dos colaboradores suyos que eran arios. Para entonces, Otto Frank ya había preparado un escondite en la parte trasera de la empresa, compuesta de tres plantas unidas a la fachada posterior del edificio principal, el primer piso, contaba con dos habitaciones pequeñas con baño y WC y por encima una habitación grande y una pequeña, que en total ocupaba 50 metros cuadrados.

El 5 de julio de 1942, Margot Frank fue requerida para ser deportada a un campo de trabajo, por lo que la familia Frank decidió huir al refugio antes de lo esperado llevando toda la ropa que pudieron y caminando varios kilómetros pues les estaba prohibido utilizar el servicio de transporte público.

Miep Gies, quien había sido secretaria de Otto Frank era la encargada de suministrarles víveres y noticias de la guerra. Ana leyó muchos libros durante ese tiempo lo que le sirvió para mejorar su estilo y convertirse en escritora autónoma. Ana escribía sobre sus sentimientos, creencias y ambiciones, así como de los hechos transcurridos. Su anotación final fue el 1 de agosto de 1944.

Ana, su familia y acompañantes fueron arrestados el 4 de agosto de 1944, (se dice que un empleado de la compañía los delató por miedo a sufrir represalias contra su familia), siendo Margot y Ana deportados un mes en Auschwitz II-Birkenau y luego fueron enviadas al campo de concentración de Bergen-Belsen en donde murieron ambas de tifus en marzo de 1945, poco antes de la liberación. 

Solo Otto Frank logró sobrevivir del Holocausto. Su ex-secretaria Miep Gies, quienes habían protegido y escondido el diario de Ana, le entregaron el diario a Otto, con el fin de publicarlo con el titulo “Diario de Ana Frank” el cual ha sido publicado en mas de 70 idiomas.

Fuente: Wikipedia.

[girlactionfigure]

15th April 1945 - despite being badly beaten by guards, this Jewish woman somehow manages a smile on being liberated from Bergen-Belsen by allied forces. Our thanks to Tom Marshall, who colourised the photograph in 2020.

Likud Herut UK

[mightyflamethrower]

Germans Cancel Anne Frank for Diversity

As a group that has been genuinely victimized by race hate and that leans left politically, Jews have been beloved by progressives. But just as liberals dumped women in favor of more politically fashionable transsexuals, many of them now reject Jews in the aftermath of the most recent Muslim terror atrocity. They are even canceling Anne Frank:

A German kindergarten has said it will drop Anne Frank from its name in favour of a “more diverse” alternative, adding fuel to the national debate over anti-Semitism amid the Israel-Hamas war. The kindergarten in the village of Tangerhütte, in eastern Germany, said it was rebranding itself “world explorer kindergarten” in order to be more inclusive.

At least they aren’t going to name the school after Ahed Tamimi.

The name change ends half a century of association with the Jewish 15-year-old who died in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945.

The kindergarten’s director Linda Schichor says it is okay to cancel Anne Frank because…

… immigrant families had “often never heard of her” or her diary about her family’s attempt to remain hidden from the Nazis in occupied Amsterdam.

They certainly will have never heard of her after she has been cast aside and forgotten.

Attempting to assimilate the overwhelmingly Muslim immigrant families by teaching them local history is not on the agenda.

When they reopen Bergen-Belsen, it will be under a star and crescent moon instead of a swastika.

On a tip from Franco.

The people who are marching against the Jews are essentially Neo-Nazis. Not only can the Nazi thing happen again......it is happening again right now. Progressives should be shamed out of existence.

[mybeingthere]

Josef Čapek (1887 – 1945) was a Czech artist who was best known as a painter, but who was also noted as a writer and a poet. He invented the word robot, which was introduced into literature by his brother, Karel Čapek.Čapek was born in Hronov, Bohemia (Austria-Hungary, later Czechoslovakia, now the Czech Republic) in 1887. First a painter of the Cubist school, he later developed his own playful, minimalist style. 

He collaborated with his brother Karel on a number of plays and short stories; on his own, he wrote the utopian play Land of Many Names and several novels, as well as critical essays in which he argued for the art of the unconscious, of children, and of 'savages'. He was named by his brother as the true inventor of the term robot. As a cartoonist, he worked for Lidové Noviny, a newspaper based in Prague.

Due to his critical attitude towards national socialism and Adolf Hitler, he was arrested after the German invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1939. He wrote Poems from a Concentration Camp in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where he died in 1945. In June 1945 Rudolf Margolius, accompanied by Čapek's wife Jarmila Čapková, went to Bergen-Belsen to search for him. His remains were never found. (wiki)