Posted on 07/23/2010 8:53:29 AM PDT by Argentine-Firecracker
Roughly 50 men and women in the Warsaw Ghetto chose a special form of resistance. In a secret archive, they documented their path to doom for future generations, chronicling the Nazis' crimes as they were being perpetrated.
David Graber was 19 when he hurriedly scribbled his farewell letter. "I would be overjoyed to experience the moment when this great treasure is unearthed and the world is confronted with the truth," he wrote.
While German soldiers combed the streets outside, Graber and his friend Nahum Grzywacz buried 10 metal boxes in the basement of an elementary school on Nowolipki Street in Warsaw's Jewish ghetto. It was Aug. 2, 1942.
(Excerpt) Read more at spiegel.de ...
Adding that eventually Miss Sendler was caught by the Nazi’s and beaten and both legs broken for her efforts in saving children. I’m only pointing out that all this horror perpetrated by the Nazies wasn’t occurring in a vacuum. There were many, like Miss Sendler and Cora Ten Boom and those who sheltered Ann Franks’ family and Herr Schindler, in Holland, who tried to help the situation and protect their Jewish neighbors.
You wrote:
“I posted the article because, despite the horror of it, I thought it was quite unique that the author referred to the Germans as perpetrators, and not the historically convenient catch-all description of “Nazis”.”
I don’t think I ever questioned why you posted the article. But when you say, “I thought it was quite unique that the author referred to the Germans as perpetrators, and not the historically convenient catch-all description of “Nazis”,” I have to ask who else is well known to have been Nazis other than the Germans? Yes, I know about the Dutch, Croatians, Slovaks, Ukrainians, etc. but “unique”? And wouldn’t “Nazis” make more sense than “Germans” since not all Germans were Nazis, but all Nazis were Germans or were people who worked for them?
I’m just saying...
Hitler was Austrian, but then again Stalin was Georgian, not Russian.
Well... having lived in Central Europe for many years, I have found that there is a trend to refer to the culprits of the Holocaust and other atrocities as “Nazis”, as if they were a separate category of people, and the most infamous of death camps (Auschwitz) as a “Polish concentration camp”. I thought Freepers would find the article as sad (and revealing) as I did.
That did not come out right. I meant that there were many, like Miss Sendler, Cora Ten Boom in Holland, the people who sheltered Ann Franks' family for a while, and Herr Schindler (Austria?), who tried to help the situation and protect their Jewish neighbors. To do so put their own lives and the welfare of their families in grave risk, but they did so anyway.
You wrote:
“Hitler was Austrian,”
true, but the Austrians are Germans in ethnicity, Hitler was a German citizen and Austria was part of Germany from 1938 to 1945.
My German grandmother’s brother spent time in a concentration camp for a casual comment about that “damned Nazi uniform” that was heard by a snitch.
What was the first thing he did when he got home? Hid a family of Jews in their summer cabin in the forest. Shared their ration cards to feed them. He and his whole family could have been executed for it. Neighbors knew and didn’t tell a soul.
Individual resistance is the only answer to tyranny.
I prefer “Nazi”, because as I pointed out, it’s not fair to just single out Germans, when in fact, Austrians made up a significant number of Nazis.
Just as (and I am guilty of this myself sometimes), to refer to the Soviet Union as “Russia”, or those who committed horrible crimes under the banner of the Soviet Union as “Russians”, when in fact, Stalin was Georgian.
Thank you for posting the article. I had never heard of these archives before. Very sad.
Again, I pointed out the behavior of Austrian Nazis that took place even before the Anschluss. The overseer of Poland during the war was Hans Frank, an Austrian.
I know you did not question me re posting article! Yes, maybe the association between Nazis and Germans is still strong. However, I have found that with the passage of time, and talking to youngsters, both here and abroad, there seems to be a disconnect, so much so that some of the death camps and concentration camps in Poland are seen as “Polish” camps, when they were not.
Thanks for the additional information. I can’t imagine why the Nobel Committee would choose Algore over Ms Sendler. And did you note in the info I posted that dismissive phrase **Regardless of its legitimacy** when discussing her nomination for the Nobel? That was straight from Wikipedia.
Fie on them!
You wrote:
“Again, I pointed out the behavior of Austrian Nazis that took place even before the Anschluss. The overseer of Poland during the war was Hans Frank, an Austrian.”
I understand. And again, I have to point out that the Austrians are German. Austrian is not an ethnicity. It is a nation-state, and as history shows, it can be here today and gone tomorrow (subsummed into a “Greater Germany”). Hans Frank was a citizen of Germany when he committed his crimes. There was no Austria. It was Ostmark. I’m just saying...
Completely illogical, but who said that being irate has anything to do with logic, right? You and dwfgator are arguing against straw men. Nobody said that it was easy for the Gentile Poles --- or Russians, or Ukrainians, or Brits for that matter. It is also not true that "only Jewish suffering is really to be discussed:" it seems only to you 'cause it irritates you. Otherwise you'd notice volumes and volumes of literature in Russia alone that is devoted to the reexamination of the WW II period.
The situation is quite simple, really: (i) in modern history, only Jews and Roma (Gypsies) were singled out for complete annihilation, and (ii) that task was successfully completed or mostly completed. The reason the issue is frequently revisited is that illuminates the dark places in human souls. You may want to ask, for instance, why do these facts irritate you so?
With the exception of a few, mostly recent arrivals, there are no Jews in Poland. As much as Gentile Poles suffered (and 5,000 of Catholics there were killed by their Polish neighbors and the Nazis for hiding Jewish countrymen), there are plenty of Gentile Poles in Poland. As a group, Catholic Poland is is alive, well and, thank G-d, now free from the Russians. Jewish Poland, which constituted a large proportion of the country, is completely dead. I guess, you just cannot stomach that, can you? You just have to make the differences disappear. Well:
"There is no greater injustice than to try to make unequal things equal." --- Aristotle. Finally, who prohibits you from speaking out about suffering. If you think that some aspect of Gentile Poles' suffering has not been sufficiently brought out, by all means speak. Right a book. Raise money for a film. Do something.
It's much easier to be irate, of course.
P.S. Seems like you are well versed in Russian history: your name Vladimir and the year 998 point to the events surrounding Christianization of Kievan Rus. Since you are so versed with that history, are you also irritated by the hero Bogdan Khmelnitzky who, while "liberating" Ukraine from Poland also "liberated" it from fellow Jewish Ukrainians, killing 180,000 of them with unimaginable cruelty? Are you equally appalled by the rampant anti-Semitism in the modern Kievan Rus, even after WW II? Or is it just speaking about the victims that bothers you?
You are so right! As well at the guilt shared by other nations, are those that were not Nazis but refused to give refuge to Jews including the US gov’t.
The article is larger than the Jews. It is man's inhumanity to man. The suffering includes everyone who was affected by the war. Consider the history and memories the progeny of the perpetrators have to reconcile...it impacts Germany, especially, to this day.
And as we saw in Rwanda in 1994, we learned nothing.
I do not want to diminish this story, but I wish there would be as much coverage about the Soviet atrocities. It seems that for every ten Nazi horror stories, we might get one Soviet horror story. IMO.
There are hardly any documents left on the armed resistance that eventually did erupt, in April 1943. The Germans brutally suppressed the uprising. SS brigade leader Jürgen Stroop had the buildings burned down, one after another, and the main synagogue blown up. On May 16, 1943, he reported: "The former Jewish residential area of Warsaw no longer exists."
I'm always stunned people forgave the Germans so quickly...
(iii) The Nazis had the audacity to document and film their atrocities and leave us with indelible images that cannot ever be forgotten.
If they had performed their crimes in secret, who would have believed it? Even with all of the documentation, somehow there are those who think that it didn't happen.
Mila 18. good read. I read many Leon Uris’s books. I recommend “Haj”. That will shed a light on the ME of today by expoloring the Pre-Israel ME.
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