People must remember the Holocaust as a insult to humanity. The lives lost were not only great in number, but offered so much to mankind. How the world would have been different if the millions of souls destroyed could have lived.

Doctors have always been thought of as the [...]]]> Medical Experiments of the Holocaust and Nazi Medicine

People must remember the Holocaust as a insult to humanity. The lives lost were not only great in number, but offered so much to mankind. How the world would have been different if the millions of souls destroyed could have lived.

Doctors have always been thought of as the saviors of mankind, the healers, and caretakers of our utter existence. Even ancient civilizations revered the medicine men as having special power to protect life. The trust of a physician is sacred. This is why the practice of medicine by the doctors of the Third Reich is egregious, outrageous, and shocking. The Nazi doctors violated the trust placed in them by humanity. The most painful truth is for the most part the doctors escaped their crimes against Humanity and lived a life, unlike their victims.

The Experiments

* Freezing / Hypothermia
* Genetics
* Infectious Diseases
* Interrogation and Torture
* Killing / Genocide
* High Altitude
* Pharmacological
* Sterilization
* Surgery
* Traumatic Injuries

Freezing / Hypothermia

The freezing / hypothermia experiments were conducted for the Nazi high command. The experiments were conducted on men to simulate the conditions the armies suffered on the Eastern Front. The German forces were ill prepared for the bitter cold. Thousands of German soldiers died of freezing or were debilitated by cold injuries.

The experiments were conducted under the supervision of Dr. Sigmund Rascher at Birkenau, Dachau and Auschwitz . Dr. Rascher reported directly to Himmler. Dr. Rascher publicized the results of his freezing experiments at the 1942 medical conference entitled “Medical Problems Arising from Sea and Winter”.

The freezing experiments were divided into two parts. First, to establish how long it would take to lower the body temperature to death and second how to best resuscitate the frozen victim.

The two main methods used to freeze the victim were to put the person in a icy vat of water or to put the victim outside naked in sub-zero temperatures.

The icy vat method proved to be the fastest way to drop the body temperature. The selections were made of young healthly Jews or Russians. They were usually stripped naked and prepared for the experiment. A insulated probe which measured the drop in the body temperature was inserted into the rectum. The probe was held in place by a expandable metal ring which was adjusted to open inside the rectum to hold the probe firmly in place. The victim was then placed in the vat of cold water and started to freeze. It was learned that most victims lost consciousness and died when the body temperature dropped to 25 C.

Two Russian men were seen by a prisoner doctor in the cold vat. They were very strong men and had said a comment to the SS doctor performing the experiment. The prisoner doctor was shocked at how long the Russian men could take the cold without loosing consciousness. He asked the directing doctor to take them out of the tank. He did not allow this and increased the temperature slightly to prolong their pain. They died after a long painful stay in the tank.

The second way to freeze a victim was to strap them to a stretcher and place them outside naked. The extreme winters of Auschwitz made a natural place for this experiment.

The resuscitation or warming experiments were just as cruel and painful as the freezing experiments.

Sun Lamp

The victims were placed under sun lamps which were so hot they would burn the skin. One young homosexual victim was repeatedly cooled to unconsciousness then revived with lamps until he was pouring sweat. He died one evening after several test sessions.

Internal Irrigation

The frozen victim would have water heated to a near blistering temperature forcefully irrigated into the stomach, bladder, and intestines. All victims appeared to have died from the treatment.

Hot Bath

The victim was placed in warm water and the temperature was slowly increased. This method proved to be the best. Many victims died do to shock if they were warmed up to quickly.

Warming by Body Heat

Heinrich Himmler sugested to Dr. Rascher that he try to use women to warm the frozen men. He suggested that the victim and a women copulate. This perverted experiment occured with some success. However it was not as successful as the Warm Bath.

Genetic Experiments

The Nordic or Aryan Race was the most important goal of the Nazis. It was the largest part of the over all plan. The blonde hair, blue eye, super men were to be the only race. The Blacks, Hispanics, Jews, Gypsies, Homosexuals and anyone else that did not meet the race requirements were to by cleansed from society through genocide. Hitler and the German High command made a list rules for the fellow Nazis to follow. The new rules required all SS before marriage must submit to general testing to insure racial purity. The rules for marriage were unbelievably complex. Thousands of marriages were denied. If the laws for marriage were broken it could mean the death penalty.

Dr. Sigmund Rascher and his wife learned what not following the marriage laws would hold for their lives. Mrs. Rascher was sterile. They were not illegally married; they adopted two children. They were later investigated by the Gestapo and executed for the crime. In this case, after his medical experimentation, it seems fitting that this killer was caught up by his own party.

Early in power the National Science groups were pushed into research of the race and experiments commenced. First the party needed propaganda to prove all other races were inferior. Measurements of heads, eyes, nose, blood were required. The vast majority of the early experiments were a propaganda sham. It was determined Gypsies had different blood and were inclined to criminal behavior. The same type of findings were made of all races other than the Nazis.

After the camps were started, vast genetic experiments were undertaken. The range of the testing was broad and specialized. The two major groups of experiments were first to refine the master race and second to determine the cause of defects.

Dr. Josef Mengele research on twins and Gypsies exemplifies the quest for the genetic studies. Dr. Mengele was known as the “Angel of Death”. He would be at every selection when the new trains would arrive at Auschwitz. After the victims were unloaded off the trains and stripped naked and divided into men, women, and children, he would sort through the thousands of people. Most went straight to the gas chambers and others to hard labor in the camps. The twins, dwarfs, and unique physical specimens were selected to be assigned to the experimental blocks. In many ways the majority who where killed in the gas chambers were much better off than the survivors that had no idea what horrors awaited them.

Experiments on Twins

The twins were examined from head to toe. Measurements of every inch were taken. Dr. Mengele demanded specific and careful exams. If any detail was missed the staff, usually a prisoner doctor, would be punished. The twins were allowed to keep their hair for the first several days of the examination. After all the living data was taken the twins would be killed by a single injection of chloroform in the heart. Care was taken to insure the twins died at the same time. The twins were then dissected with the organs being sent to research centers.

Prisoner doctors tell of the fate of two Hungarian twins who arrived at Auschwitz late in 1943. Dr. Mengele was at the camp selection. The train arrived in the very early morning. Three sets of twins were found. They were taken to the experimental block. Dr. Mengele ordered the two Hungarian twins be placed in the examination room. The two Hungarian twins young men age 18 were described as “extremely athletic and handsome.” They had much body hair and were allowed to keep it for the first few weeks. The twins were showered and returned nude to the examination room. The examination started at the head . All parts of their heads were examined. The head examination took almost days. They were then completely X-rayed . The next part of the examination consisted of tubes being forced through their noses and into their lungs. They were then ventilated with a gas which caused them to cough so severely they had to be restrained. The sputum from the lungs was collected for examination.

The twins were then photographed for several days . The purpose of the photographs were to show hair patterns. They were each forced to stand, bend, and kneel in many positions to accomplish the photographs. For example, they were required to stand with their arms lifted for many hours so the under arm hair could be photographed.

After the photographs were finished they were awoken very early in the morning. They were taken into a room with tables and a hot water vat. The water in the vat was very hot. They were made to sit in the water until they were ready to pass out from the heat. They were then strapped to a table where their hair was plucked out trying to save the hair root. They were put back into the hot vat several times. After enough hair was collected, they were totally shaven of every hair on their body. The twins were then again extensively photographed without hair.

The twins then received several two liter enemas which caused them much pain and discomfort. The boys on different days were strapped over a bench table and their rectums were hyper descended after which they received an extensive lower gastric intestinal examination. This extensive procedure was performed without any anesthesia. The young men were crying so loud that Doctor Mengele ordered they be gagged. The next day they received a painful and humiliating urological examination. In this examination tissue samples were taken from the kidneys, prostate, and testicles. Several semen samples were forcefully taken over two days.

After this three weeks of tortuous medical examinations they were taken two the dissection laboratory. Using two doctors, each twin was simultaneously given an injection in the heart, taking their lives. They were dissected and their organs were sent to the Institute of Biological Racial and Evolutionary Research Berlin.

On December 9, 1946, an American military tribunal opened criminal proceedings against 23 leading German physicians and administrators for their willing participation in war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Brigadier General Telford Taylor was Chief of Counsel, during the Doctors Trial. In Taylor’s own words, from [...]]]> Holocaust Doctors Trial: The Medical Case of the Subsequent Nuremberg Proceedings

On December 9, 1946, an American military tribunal opened criminal proceedings against 23 leading German physicians and administrators for their willing participation in war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Brigadier General Telford Taylor was Chief of Counsel, during the Doctors Trial. In Taylor’s own words, from the opening statement by the prosecution: “The defendants in this case are charged with murders, tortures, and other atrocities committed in the name of medical science. The victims of these crimes are numbered in the hundreds of thousands. A handful only are still alive; a few of the survivors will appear in this courtroom. But most of these miserable victims were slaughtered outright or died in the course of the tortures to which they were subjected. For the most part they are nameless dead. To their murderers, these wretched people were not individuals at all. They came in wholesale lots and were treated worse than animals.”

In Nazi Germany, German physicians planned and enacted the “Euthanasia” Program, the systematic killing of those they deemed “unworthy of life.” The victims included the institutionalized mentally ill and physically impaired. Further, during World War II, German physicians conducted pseudoscientific medical experiments utilizing thousands of concentration camp prisoners without their consent. Most died or were permanently impaired as a result. Jews, Poles, Russians, and Roma (Gypsies) were the most common victims of experimentation.

After almost 140 days of proceedings, including the testimony of 85 witnesses and the submission of almost 1,500 documents, the American judges pronounced their verdict on August 20, 1947. Sixteen of the doctors were found guilty. Seven were sentenced to death. They were executed on June 2, 1948.

Source: USHMM

The trials were held in the city of Nuremberg, Bavaria, Germany, in 1945-46, at the Palace [...]]]> The Nuremberg Trials were a series of military tribunals, held by the main victorious Allied forces of World War II, most notable for the prosecution of prominent members of the political, military, and economic leadership of the defeated Nazi Germany.

The trials were held in the city of Nuremberg, Bavaria, Germany, in 1945-46, at the Palace of Justice. The first and best known of these trials was the Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal (IMT), which tried 22 of the most important captured leaders of Nazi Germany. It was held from November 21, 1945 to October 1, 1946. The second set of trials of lesser war criminals was conducted under Control Council Law No. 10 at the US Nuremberg Military Tribunals (NMT); among them included the Doctors’ Trial and the Judges’ Trial. This article primarily deals with the IMT; see the Subsequent Nuremberg Trials for details on those trials.

Execution video of the former Nazi leaders in Nuremberg in October 1946.

Participants
Each of the four countries provided one judge and an alternate, as well as the prosecutors.

Judges

* Major General Iona Nikitchenko (Soviet  main)
* Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Volchkov (Soviet alternate)
* Colonel Sir Geoffrey Lawrence (British main and president)
* Sir Norman Birkett (British alternate)
* Francis Biddle (American main)
* John J. Parker (American alternate)
* Professor Henri Donnedieu de Vabres (French main)
* Robert Falco (French alternate)

The chief prosecutors

* Sir Hartley Shawcross (United Kingdom)
* Robert H. Jackson (United States)
* Lieutenant-General Roman Andreyevich Rudenko (Soviet Union)
* François de Menthon (France)
* Auguste Champetier de Ribes (France)

Assisting Jackson was the lawyer Telford Taylor and a young US Army interpreter named Richard Sonnenfeldt. Assisting Shawcross were Major Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe  and Sir John Wheeler-Bennett. Mervyn Griffith-Jones, later to become famous as the chief prosecutor in the Lady Chatterley’s Lover obscenity trial, was also on Shawcross’s team. Shawcross also recruited a young barrister, Anthony Marreco, who was the son of a friend of his, to help the British team with the heavy workload. Robert Falco was an experienced judge who had tried many in court in France.

American James B. Donovan was assistant trial counsel.

The International Military Tribunal was opened on October 18, 1945, in the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg.[9]  The first session was presided over by the Soviet judge, Nikitchenko. The prosecution entered indictments against 24 major war criminals and six criminal organizations – the leadership of the Nazi party, the Schutzstaffel  (SS) and Sicherheitsdienst (SD), the Gestapo, the Sturmabteilung (SA) and the “General Staff and High Command,” comprising several categories of senior military officers.

The indictments were for:

1. Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of a crime against peace
2. Planning, initiating and waging wars of aggression and other crimes against peace
3. War crimes
4. Crimes against humanity

Throughout the trials, specifically between January and July 1946, the defendants and a number of witnesses were interviewed by American psychiatrist Leon Goldensohn. His notes detailing the demeanor and comments of the defendants survive; they were edited into book form and published in 2004.

The death sentences were carried out 16 October 1946 by hanging using the standard drop method instead of long drop. The U.S. army denied claims that the drop length was too short which caused the condemned to die slowly from strangulation instead of quickly from a broken neck.

The executioner was John C. Woods. Although the rumor has long persisted that the bodies were taken to Dachau and burned there, they were actually incinerated in a crematorium in Munich, and the ashes scattered over the river Isar. The French judges suggested the use of a firing squad for the military condemned, as is standard for military courts-martial, but this was opposed by Biddle and the Soviet judges. These argued that the military officers had violated their military ethos and were not worthy of the firing squad, which was considered to be more dignified.[citation needed] The prisoners sentenced to incarceration were transferred to Spandau Prison in 1947.

Of the 12 defendants sentenced to death by hanging, two were not hanged: Hermann Göring committed suicide the night before the execution and Martin Bormann was not present when convicted. The remaining 10 defendants sentenced to death were hanged.

The definition of what constitutes a war crime is described by the Nuremberg Principles, a set of guidelines document which was created as a result of the trial. The medical experiments conducted by German doctors and prosecuted in the so-called Doctors’ Trial led to the creation of the Nuremberg Code to control future trials involving human subjects, a set of research ethics principles for human experimentation.

Of the organizations the following were found not to be criminal:

* Reichsregierung
* “The General Staff and High Command” was found not to comprise a group or organization as defined by Article 9 of the London Charter
* Sturmabteilung

The term “ghetto” originated from the name of the Jewish quarter in Venice, established in 1516, in which the Venetian authorities compelled the city’s Jews to live. Various authorities, ranging from local municipal authorities to the Austrian Emperor Charles V, ordered the creation of other ghettos for Jews in Frankfurt, Rome, Prague, and [...]]]> Jewish Ghettos Overview

The term “ghetto” originated from the name of the Jewish quarter in Venice, established in 1516, in which the Venetian authorities compelled the city’s Jews to live. Various authorities, ranging from local municipal authorities to the Austrian Emperor Charles V, ordered the creation of other ghettos for Jews in Frankfurt, Rome, Prague, and other cities in the 16th and 17th centuries.

During World War II, ghettos were city districts (often enclosed) in which the Germans concentrated the municipal and sometimes regional Jewish population and forced them to live under miserable conditions. Ghettos isolated Jews by separating Jewish communities from the non-Jewish population and from other Jewish communities. The Germans established at least 1,000 ghettos in German-occupied and annexed Poland and the Soviet Union alone. German occupation authorities established the first ghetto in Poland in Piotrków Trybunalski in October 1939.

The Germans regarded the establishment of ghettos as a provisional measure to control and segregate Jews while the Nazi leadership in Berlin deliberated upon options to realize the goal of removing the Jewish population. In many places ghettoization lasted a relatively short time. Some ghettos existed for only a few days, others for months or years. With the implementation of the “Final Solution” (the plan to murder all European Jews) beginning in late 1941, the Germans systematically destroyed the ghettos. The Germans and their auxiliaries either shot ghetto residents in mass graves located nearby or deported them, usually by train, to killing centers where they were murdered. German SS and police authorities deported a small minority of Jews from ghettos to forced-labor camps and concentration camps.

There were three types of ghettos: closed ghettos, open ghettos, and destruction ghettos.

The largest ghetto in Poland was the Warsaw ghetto, where over 400,000 Jews were crowded into an area of 1.3 square miles. Other major ghettos were established in the cities of Lodz, Krakow, Bialystok, Lvov, Lublin, Vilna, Kovno, Czestochowa, and Minsk. Tens of thousands of western European Jews were also deported to ghettos in the east.

The Germans ordered Jews residing in ghettos to wear identifying badges or armbands and also required many Jews to perform forced labor for the German Reich. Daily life in the ghettos was administered by Nazi-appointed Jewish councils (Judenraete). A ghetto police force enforced the orders of the German authorities and the ordinances of the Jewish councils, including the facilitation of deportations to killing centers. Jewish police officials, like Jewish council members, served at the whim of the German authorities. The Germans did not hesitate to kill Jewish policemen who were perceived to have failed to carry out orders.

Jews responded to the ghetto restrictions with a variety of resistance efforts. Ghetto residents frequently engaged in so-called illegal activities, such as smuggling food, medicine, weapons or intelligence across the ghetto walls, often without the knowledge or approval of the Jewish councils. Some Jewish councils and some individual council members tolerated or encouraged the illicit trade because the goods were necessary to keep ghetto residents alive. Although the Germans generally demonstrated little concern in principle about religious worship, attendance at cultural events, or participation in youth movements inside the ghetto walls, they often perceived a “security threat” in any social gathering and would move ruthlessly to incarcerate or kill perceived ringleaders and participants. The Germans generally forbade any form of consistent schooling or education.

In some ghettos, members of Jewish resistance movements staged armed uprisings. The largest of these was the Warsaw ghetto uprising in spring 1943. There were also violent revolts in Vilna, Bialystok, Czestochowa, and several smaller ghettos. In August 1944, German SS and police completed the destruction of the last major ghetto, in Lodz.

In Hungary, ghettoization did not begin until the spring of 1944, after the Germans invaded and occupied the country. In less than three months, the Hungarian gendarmerie, in coordination with German deportation experts from the Reich Main Office for Security (Reichssicherheitshauptamt-RSHA), concentrated nearly 440,000 Jews from all over Hungary, except for the capital city, Budapest, in short-term “destruction ghettos” and deported them into German custody at the Hungarian border. The Germans deported most of the Hungarian Jews to the Auschwitz-Birkenau killing center. In Budapest, Hungarian authorities required the Jews to confine themselves to marked houses (so-called Star of David houses). A few weeks after the leaders of the fascist Arrow Cross movement seized power in a German-sponsored coup on October 15, 1944, the Arrow Cross government formally established a ghetto in Budapest, in which about 63,000 Jews lived in a 0.1 square mile area. Approximately 25,000 Jews who carried certificates that they stood under the protection of a neutral power were confined in an “international ghetto” at another location in the city. In January 1945, Soviet forces liberated that part of Budapest in which the two ghettos were, respectively, located and liberated the nearly 90,000 Jewish residents.

During the Holocaust, ghettos were a central step in the Nazi process of control, dehumanization, and mass murder of the Jews.

Resources

Corni, Gustavo. Hitler’s Ghettos: Voices from a Beleaguered Society 1939-1944. London: Arnold, 2002.

Kermish, Joseph, editor. To Live With Honor and Die with Honor!: Selected Documents from the Warsaw Ghetto Underground Archives “O.S.” (”Oneg Shabbath”). Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1986.

Sterling, Eric J., editor. Life in the Ghettos during the Holocaust. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2005.

Trunk, Isaiah. Judenrat: The Jewish Councils in Eastern Europe under Nazi Occupation. New York: Stein and Day, 1977.

Trunk, Isaiah. Lodz Ghetto: A History. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006.

April 11 – 18, 2010

From April 11 through April 18, the Museum is leading the nation’s annual Days of Remembrance commemorating the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust as well as the millions of other victims of Nazi persecution.

This year marks the 65th anniversary of the end [...]]]> WHY WE REMEMBER THE HOLOCAUST

April 11 – 18, 2010

From April 11 through April 18, the Museum is leading the nation’s annual Days of Remembrance commemorating the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust as well as the millions of other victims of Nazi persecution.

This year marks the 65th anniversary of the end of World War II, and we will pay tribute to the U.S. soldiers who helped defeat Nazi Germany and liberate Holocaust survivors from years of suffering. These stories of freedom remind us that individuals have the power to make a difference. What we do—or choose not to do—matters.

We invite you to join the nation in remembrance:

• Watch the LIVE webcast of the national Days of Remembrance ceremony from the U.S. Capitol Rotunda at 11:30 a.m. EST on April 15, 2010. General David Petraeus will be the featured speaker.
• Add your voice, either at the Museum or online, to our Names Reading Ceremony.
• Share your thoughts on our website or on our Facebook page about how you will remember the Holocaust.

Join us on Twitter for highlights and context about participants and speeches.
Share your questions or thoughts with the Museum by tagging your tweets #DOR2010.

Find out more at www.ushmm.org/remembrance/dor

Why We Remember The Holocaust

Estelle Laughlin, Holocaust Survivor:
Memory is what shapes us. Memory is what teaches us. We must understand that’s where our redemption is.

Between 1933 and 1945, the German government, led by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party, carried out the systematic persecution of and murder of Europe’s Jews. This genocide is now known as the Holocaust. The Nazi regime also persecuted and killed millions of other people it considered politically, racially, or socially unfit. The Allies’ victory ended World War II, but Nazi Germany and its collaborators had left millions dead and countless lives shattered.

Sara Bloomfield, Director, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum:
I think the important thing to understand about this cataclysmic event is that it happened in the heart of Europe. Germany was respected around the world for its leading scientists, its physicians, its theologians. It was a very civilized, advanced country. It was a young democracy, but it was a democracy. And yet it descended not only into social collapse but world war and eventually mass murder.

Margit Meissner, Holocaust Survivor:
A strong man came to power in Germany whose ideas were that Germany has to create a national community, which would include only the Aryan race, which he considered superior, and all the people who did not belong to the Aryan race could be eliminated. With planning and propaganda, he was able to convince most of the German people to go along with him, insensitive to what happened to the Jews who had basically been their former neighbors. And he managed to build concentration camps and killing centers and finally gas chambers to annihilate six million Jews and at the same time also millions of others, murdered in a systematic, government-sponsored way.

Raye Farr, Film Curator, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum:
And it’s made up of so many people who participated in different ways, who made it possible.

Rev. Dr. Chris Leighton, Institute for Christian and Jewish Studies:
People who follow orders without question, bystanders who watch and do nothing, ordinary men and women simply going with the flow.

Raye Farr, Film Curator, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum:
The events and the results of the Holocaust were so devastating. It was an extreme that we can barely imagine.

Rev. Dr. Chris Leighton, Institute for Christian and Jewish Studies:
It’s so mind-boggling that the temptations to forget and to repress, to just put it out of mind, are very real.

Raye Farr, Film Curator, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum:
But we remember. We remember because it is an unthinkable scar on humanity. We need to understand what human beings are capable of.

Barack Obama, President of the United States:
We gather today to mourn the loss of so many lives and celebrate those who saved them, honor those who survived, and contemplate the obligations of the living.

Kadian Pow, Museum Educator, Smithsonian Institution:
Days of Remembrance is our nation’s annual commemoration of the Holocaust—this time that was both a blight on the history of humanity but also a shining moment for the people who were brave enough to put an end to it.

Sara Bloomfield, Director, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum:
We are remembering, first and foremost, all the victims, and that is not only the Jewish victims, but there were many non-Jewish victims. Of course, the Jews were the primary target.

Estelle Laughlin, Holocaust Survivor:
The millions of innocent people, including my family and friends, who were killed because they were of the wrong religion, because they had no means of protecting themselves.

Sara Bloomfield, Director, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum:
It’s also important to remember the rescuers. These were people who risked not only their own lives, sometimes the lives of their family, to save a fellow human being. And we also remember our American soldiers who were fighting to win World War II and in the course of that, liberated these concentration camps.

Col. Michael Underkofler, U.S. Air Force Reserve:
Those that arrived at the camps in 1945 and were just horrified at what they saw.

Carly Gjolaj, Museum Educator, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum:
And that was a huge task for the American soldiers: to help bring humanity back to these people who had been dehumanized for years, to give them medical care.

Lt. Col. Terrance Sanders, U.S. Army:
Looking back allows us to understand how important it is for us to serve in a country where we have the strength and the might and the will to defend those that are defenseless.

Rabbi M. Bruce Lustig, Washington Hebrew Congregation:
So Days of Remembrance is an opportunity for us to remember the suffering that was and the efforts that were made to put an end to such suffering, and it’s a call to conscience today in our world to make sure that we aren’t the silent ones standing by, contributing to the suffering of others.

Margit Meissner, Holocaust Survivor:
In 1945, at the end of the war, I would have thought that there would never be another Holocaust, that the world was so shocked by what had happened that the world would not permit that. And yet you see what happened in Bosnia, what happened in Rwanda, what happened in Darfur. So there’s still millions of people being persecuted because of their ethnicity.

Sara Bloomfield, Director, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum:
It’s really a moral challenge to us to do more in our own lives when we confront injustice or hatred or genocide.

Bridget Conley-Zilkic, Genocide Prevention Educator, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum:
Those who suffered and died in the Holocaust, we can honor them today by not being silent. Remembering ties the past and the present together with a powerful, simple thread: “This is not right.”

Margit Meissner, Holocaust Survivor:
The important thing is that one should not become indifferent to the suffering of others, that one should not stand by and just raise one’s hands and say, “There’s nothing I can do, I’m just a little one person,” because I think what everyone of us does matters.

Estelle Laughlin, Holocaust Survivor:
That’s not enough to curse the darkness of the past. Above all, we have to illuminate the future. And I think that on the Day of Remembrance the most important thing is to remember the humanity that is in all of us to leave the world better for our children and for posterity.

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“When I was liberated in 1945 by the American Army, somehow many of us were convinced that at least one lesson will have been learned—that never again will there be war, that hatred is not an option, that racism is stupid…. I was so hopeful.” — Holocaust [...]]]> 2010 HOLOCAUST DAYS OF REMEMBRANCE, APRIL 11–18
Source for information USHMM

“When I was liberated in 1945 by the American Army, somehow many of us were convinced that at least one lesson will have been learned—that never again will there be war, that hatred is not an option, that racism is stupid…. I was so hopeful.”
— Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, during a June 2009 visit to the Buchenwald concentration camp with President Barack Obama, reflecting on his feelings at the moment he was freed.

The United States Congress established the Days of Remembrance as the nation’s annual commemoration of the Holocaust and created the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum as a permanent living memorial to the victims. This year, Holocaust Remembrance Day is Sunday, April 11, 2010. In commemoration of the 65th anniversary of the liberation of Nazi concentration camps, the Museum has designated Stories of Freedom: What You Do Matters as the theme for the 2010 observance.

As Allied soldiers were closing in on Germany in the spring of 1945, they encountered dozens of concentration camps and were suddenly confronted with the reality of Nazi atrocities. The few surviving victims fully experienced the depths of human evil and depravity. For the soldiers, however, even the brutality of war did not prepare them for what they encountered.

Upon seeing Buchenwald, a member of the 333rd Engineers Regiment stated, “My feeling was that this was the most shattering experience of my life.” A U.S. Army chaplain trying to make sense of the carnage wrote to his wife, “This was a hell on earth if there ever was one.” After photographing Buchenwald, Margaret Bourke-White wrote to her editor at Life magazine, “The sights I have just seen are so unbelievable that I don’t think I will believe them myself until I’ve seen the photographs.” One American journalist wrote, “Buchenwald is beyond all comprehension. You just can’t understand it, even when you’ve seen it.”

And that was the problem. Survivors and other eyewitnesses understood and believed. But would the world? General Dwight D. Eisenhower grasped this problem and, after visiting a subcamp of Buchenwald, he addressed his staff: “I want every American unit not actually in the front lines to see this place. We are told the American soldier does not know what he is fighting for. Now, at least he will know what he is fighting against.”

Eisenhower not only understood that this was a war that at its very essence was a struggle for the freedom of peoples and the ideals on which civilization is based but also that the horror was so extreme that it might not be believed. Realizing that a failure to believe would be a danger for the future of mankind, he ordered other soldiers to visit the camps, and encouraged journalists and members of Congress and the British Parliament to bear witness as well. He wanted others to be, just as he was, “in a position to give first-hand evidence of these things if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to ‘propaganda.’” And ultimately he was right.

Sixty-four years later, standing at Buchenwald with Elie Wiesel by his side, President Barack Obama acknowledged the value of bearing witness: “We are here today because this work is not finished. To this day, there are those who insist that the Holocaust never happened—a denial of fact and truth that is baseless and ignorant and hateful. This place is the ultimate rebuke to such thoughts, a reminder of our duty to confront those who would tell lies about our history.”

President Obama referred to the Holocaust as “our history,” understanding that Holocaust memory belongs to all of humanity. Because unlike the battle-hardened soldiers who liberated the camps and brought freedom to Europe, we now know that the unthinkable is thinkable. We know all too well the human capacity for evil and the catastrophic consequences of indifference in the face of evil. And we now realize that to preserve human freedom, what we do matters. Every day each of us has the potential to shape the world in which we live. By keeping these stories of freedom alive and building on Elie Wiesel’s original hope, each of us must work to promote human dignity and confront hate whenever and wherever it occurs. As the American soldiers who unwittingly became liberators 65 years ago understood, our future depends on it.

Bystanders may have remained unaware, or perhaps were aware of victimization going on around them, but, being fearful of the consequences, chose not to take risk to help Nazi victims. Cynthia Ozick writes,

Indifference is not so much a gesture of looking away–of choosing to be passive–as it is an active disinclination to feel. Indifference [...]]]> Holocaust Bystanders

Bystanders may have remained unaware, or perhaps were aware of victimization going on around them, but, being fearful of the consequences, chose not to take risk to help Nazi victims. Cynthia Ozick writes,

Indifference is not so much a gesture of looking away–of choosing to be passive–as it is an active disinclination to feel. Indifference shuts down the humane, and does it deliberately, with all the strength deliberateness demands. Indifference is as determined–and as forcefully muscular–as any blow.

Claude Lanzmann’s documentary, Shoah, provides another portrait of the bystander. At first, bystanders who were interviewed in this documentary engaged in self-deception about the murder of Jews. Only after lengthy questioning did they finally acknowledge that they chose their roles deliberately, even when they could have done otherwise.

First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out
because I was not a communist.
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out
because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the labor leaders, and I did not speak out
because I was not a labor leader.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me, and there was no one
left to speak out for me.

–The Reverend Martin Niemöller, a pastor in the German Confessing Church who spent seven years in a concentration camp.

How could they just stand there and watch? Why did they do nothing? The largest of the “groups” in the whole drama of the Holocaust were the bystanders. They were bystanders because they were ignorant, helpless and fearful or they chose to ignore what was happening around them. Some eventually became rescuers. Many became victims. The bystanders were individuals, institutions (schools, churches, local governments) and nations.

There was no on-the-spot, 24 hour cable news, with rolling pictures; and the Nazis had effectively taken over all news outlets in Germany by the mid 1930s. They even “cleaned-up” all around the site of the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, removing antisemitic posters, hiding any damage to Jewish businesses and temporarily suspending persecutions of the Jews and others, fooling many who attended the games.

The Nazi regime used tactics of fear and terror to control any resistance or rescues. By speaking up against actions, one could be placing his own family and neighborhood in jeopardy of the same or worse treatment. Often there were no means to resist or rebel, no weapons, no where to go. Some bystanders were literally paralyzed with fear or helplessness.

But those who could have done something about what they saw, often chose not to because of their own agendas and biases. The United States and other countries believed that only by winning the war could they then provide any means to stop the destruction of the Jews and others. But the United States could have opened its borders to refugees had it not been for the overwhelming sentiment, at the time, that there weren’t means to care for so many “outsiders” when the country was still recovering from the depression.

Conscience and courage would turn many bystanders into rescuers and resisters. Those attributes need to be developed to greater degrees in all of us and modeled for our children. Albert Schweitzer said, “Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.”

The Perpetrators

The perpetrators of the Holocaust were those who played some role in the formulation and implementation of destructive measures against the Jews. These perpetrators wore Nazi uniforms and brown shirts. Some wore business suits, and some even wore clerical collars, knickers and pigtails. Over 300,000 people in Germany and its satellite territories took part in the systematic decimation of the Jewish populations and the deaths of many other victims.

Adolf Hitler was, and is still considered, evil personified, because, as the extremely charismatic leader of the Third Reich, he lead Germany and its allies into the downward spiral of prejudice and hatred culminating in the mass murders of millions of Jews and others. He was bent on the total annihilation of the Jews. Through propaganda, intimidation, fear and manipulation of long held antisemitic feelings of the 1800s and early 1900s among the peoples of Europe, he found willing collaborators and few who would protest.

Perpetrators came from all walks of life. Some doctors, lawyers and other professionals participated in their professional capacities. Some clerics willingly gave up church records and preached the Nazi party line from the pulpits. Some teachers propagated the antisemitic messages in their classrooms. Some laborers spied on their employers. Magistrates in the towns and villages took part in the ordered registration of Jews and others. The police rounded up those destined for transport. The camp guards and specialized killing squads (Einsatzgruppen) killed persons en masse. Even children turned in their friends, relatives or those in hiding.

Without the cooperation of so many, even in small parts, the Third Reich could not have carried out the Holocaust. Each person had a choice.

Ravensbrück or Ravensbrueck (German pronunciation: [ʁaːfənsˈbʁʏk]) was a notorious women’s concentration camp during World War II, located in northern Germany, 90 km north of Berlin at a site near the village of Ravensbrück (part of Fürstenberg/Havel).

Construction of the camp began in November 1938 by SS leader Heinrich Himmler and was unusual [...]]]> Ravensbrück. Ravensbrueck  Woman’s Concentration Camp

Ravensbrück or Ravensbrueck (German pronunciation: [ʁaːfənsˈbʁʏk]) was a notorious women’s concentration camp during World War II, located in northern Germany, 90 km north of Berlin at a site near the village of Ravensbrück (part of Fürstenberg/Havel).

Construction of the camp began in November 1938 by SS leader Heinrich Himmler and was unusual in that it was a camp primarily for women. The camp opened in May 1939. In the spring of 1941, the SS authorities established a small men’s camp adjacent to the main camp.

Between 1939 and 1945, over 130,000 female prisoners passed through the Ravensbrück camp system; only 40,000 survived. Although the inmates came from every country in German-occupied Europe, the largest single national group incarcerated in the camp consisted of Polish women.

When a new prisoner arrived at Ravensbrück they were required to wear a color-coded triangle (a Winkel) that identified them by category, with a letter sewn within the triangle indicating the prisoner’s nationality. Polish women wore a red triangle, red denoting a political prisoner, with a letter “P”. By 1942, Polish women became the largest national component at the camp. Jewish women wore yellow triangles, but sometimes, unlike the other prisoners, they wore a second triangle for the other categories or for “race defilement”. Some transports had their hair shaved, such as from Czechoslovakia and Poland, but “Aryan” transports did not. For instance, in 1943 a group of Norwegian women came to the camp. (Norwegians/Scandinavians were ranked by the Nazis as the purest of all Aryans.) None had their hair shaved. Between 1942 and 1943 almost all Jewish women from the Ravensbrück camp were sent to Auschwitz in several transports following Nazi policy to make Germany “Judenrein” (cleansed of Jews). Common criminals wore green triangles, Soviet  prisoners of war, German and Austrian Communists had red triangles and members of the Jehovah’s Witnesses were labeled with lavender triangles. Classified separately with black triangles were prostitutes, Gypsies, lesbians, or women who refused to marry.

Based on the Nazis incomplete transport list “Zugangsliste” consisting 25,028 names of women sent by Nazis to the camp, it is estimated that inmates of Ravensbrück ethnic structure was the following: Poles 24.9%, Germans 19.9%, Jews 15.1%, Russians 15.0%, French 7.3%, Gypsies 5.4%, other 12.4%. Gestapo categorized the inmates as follows: political 83.54%, anti-social 12.35%, criminal 2.02%, Jehovah Witnesses 1.11%, racial defilement 0.78%, other 0.20%. The list is one of the most important documents, preserved in the last moments of the camp operation by courageous members of the Polish underground girl guides unit “Mury” (The Walls). The rest of the camp documents were burned by escaping SS overseers in pits or in the crematorium.

One of the forms of the resistance were underground education programs organized by prisoners for their fellow inmates. All national groups had some sort of program. The most extensive were among Polish women where various high school level classes were taught by experienced teachers.

Inmates at Ravensbrück suffered greatly. Living in subhuman conditions, thousands were shot, strangled, gassed, buried alive, or worked to death. Periodically, the SS authorities subjected prisoners in the camp to “selections” in which the Germans isolated those prisoners considered too weak or injured to work and killed them. At first, “selected” prisoners were shot. Beginning in 1942, they were transferred to “euthanasia” killing centers or to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp. The SS staff also murdered some prisoners in the camp infirmary by lethal injection.

Starting in the summer of 1942, medical experiments were conducted without consent on 86 women; 74 of them were Polish inmates. There were two types of the experiments done on the Polish political prisoners. The first type tested the efficacy of sulfonamide drugs. These experiments involved deliberate cutting into and infecting leg bones and muscles with virulent bacteria, cutting nerves, introducing substances like pieces of wood or glass into tissues, and fracturing bones. The second set of experiments studied bone, muscle and nerve regeneration, and the possibility of transplanting bones from one person to another. Out of the 74 Polish victims, called Króliki, Kaninchen, Lapins or Rabbits by the experimenters, five died as a result of the experiments, six with unhealed wounds were executed and the rest survived due to the help of other inmates in the camp, but with permanent physical damage. Four of them—Jadwiga Dzido, Maria Broel-Plater, Władysława Karolewska and Maria Kuśmierczuk—testified against Nazi doctors at the Doctors’ Trial in 1946.

Between 120 and 140 Gypsy women were sterilized in the camp in January 1945. All of them, unaware of the consequences, signed the consent form after being told by the camp overseers that the German authorities would release them if they agreed to sterilization.

All inmates were required to do heavy labor, ranging from heavy outdoor jobs to building the V-2 rocket parts for Siemens. The SS also built several factories near Ravensbrück for the production of textiles and electrical components.

The bodies of those killed in the camp were cremated in the nearby Fürstenberg crematorium until 1943. In that year, SS authorities constructed a crematorium at a site near the camp prison. In the autumn of 1944, the SS constructed a gas chamber near the crematorium. The Germans gassed several thousand prisoners at Ravensbrück before the camp’s liberation in April 1945.

With the Soviet Army’s rapid approach in the Spring of 1945, the SS decided to exterminate as many prisoners as they could in order to avoid leaving anyone to testify as to what had happened in the camp. With the Russians only hours away, at the end of March, the SS ordered the women still physically well enough to walk to leave the camp, forcing over 20,000 prisoners on a death march toward northern Mecklenburg. Shortly before the evacuation, the Germans had handed over 7000 female prisoners, mostly French, to officials of the Swedish and Danish Red Cross. Fewer than 3,500 malnourished and sickly women and 300 men remained in the camp when it was liberated by the Red Army  on April 30, 1945. The survivors of the Death March were liberated in the following hours by a Russian scout unit.

By the time liberation came, tens of thousands (estimates are about 30,000 to 40,000) of women and children had perished there.

More then 3 million women and children were killed in concentration camps. This film depicts some of the atrocities performed om women before murdered by the nazi’s

Jewish women, gypsy women, and other women including political dissidents in Germany and in Nazi-occupied countries were sent to concentration camps, forced to work, subjected [...]]]> Jewish Women During The Holocaust

More then 3 million women and children were killed in concentration camps. This film depicts some of the atrocities performed om women before murdered by the nazi’s

Jewish women, gypsy women, and other women including political dissidents in Germany and in Nazi-occupied countries were sent to concentration camps, forced to work, subjected to medical experiments, and executed, as men were. One Nazi concentration camp, Ravensbrück, was created especially for women and children; of 132,000 from more than 20 countries incarcerated there, about 92,000 died of starvation, illness, or were executed.

A woman’s gender in the camps could subject her to special victimization including rape and sexual slavery, and a few women used their sexuality to survive. In a world in which women are often valued for their beauty and their child-bearing potential, the shearing of women’s hair and the effect of a starvation diet on their menstrual cycles added to the humiliation of the concentration camp experience. Just as a father’s expected protective role over wife and children was mocked when he was powerless to protect his family, so it added to a mother’s humiliation to be powerless to protect and nurture her children.

Ravensbrück or Ravensbrueck (German pronunciation: [ʁaːfənsˈbʁʏk]) was a notorious women’s concentration camp during World War II, located in northern Germany, 90 km north of Berlin at a site near the village of Ravensbrück (part of Fürstenberg/Havel).

Construction of the camp began in November 1938 by SS leader Heinrich Himmler and was unusual in that it was a camp primarily for women. The camp opened in May 1939. In the spring of 1941, the SS authorities established a small men’s camp adjacent to the main camp.

Between 1939 and 1945, over 130,000 female prisoners passed through the Ravensbrück camp system; only 40,000 survived. Although the inmates came from every country in German-occupied Europe, the largest single national group incarcerated in the camp consisted of Polish women.

Inmates at Ravensbrück suffered greatly. Living in subhuman conditions, thousands were shot, strangled, gassed, buried alive, or worked to death. Periodically, the SS authorities subjected prisoners in the camp to “selections” in which the Germans isolated those prisoners considered too weak or injured to work and killed them. At first, “selected” prisoners were shot. Beginning in 1942, they were transferred to “euthanasia” killing centers or to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp. The SS staff also murdered some prisoners in the camp infirmary by lethal injection.

Starting in the summer of 1942, medical experiments were conducted without consent on 86 women; 74 of them were Polish inmates. There were two types of the experiments done on the Polish political prisoners. The first type tested the efficacy of sulfonamide drugs. These experiments involved deliberate cutting into and infecting leg bones and muscles with virulent bacteria, cutting nerves, introducing substances like pieces of wood or glass into tissues, and fracturing bones. The second set of experiments studied bone, muscle and nerve regeneration, and the possibility of transplanting bones from one person to another. Out of the 74 Polish victims, called Króliki, Kaninchen, Lapins or Rabbits by the experimenters, five died as a result of the experiments, six with unhealed wounds were executed and the rest survived due to the help of other inmates in the camp, but with permanent physical damage. Four of them—Jadwiga Dzido, Maria Broel-Plater, Władysława Karolewska and Maria Kuśmierczuk—testified against Nazi doctors at the Doctors’ Trial in 1946.

Between 120 and 140 Gypsy women were sterilized in the camp in January 1945. All of them, unaware of the consequences, signed the consent form after being told by the camp overseers that the German authorities would release them if they agreed to sterilization.

All inmates were required to do heavy labor, ranging from heavy outdoor jobs to building the V-2 rocket parts for Siemens. The SS also built several factories near Ravensbrück for the production of textiles and electrical components.

The bodies of those killed in the camp were cremated in the nearby Fürstenberg crematorium until 1943. In that year, SS authorities constructed a crematorium at a site near the camp prison. In the autumn of 1944, the SS constructed a gas chamber near the crematorium. The Germans gassed several thousand prisoners at Ravensbrück before the camp’s liberation in April 1945.

Nazi Germany built a facility in 1942 known as A Death Factory for the purpose of exterminating the Jewish race.

Around 300 barracks were built on a 170-hectare site.

At its peak, 90,000 people were detained here at any one time to be killed.

Once people passed through this gate, [...]]]> Holocaust. Auschwitz Birkenau Video

Nazi Germany built a facility in 1942 known as A Death Factory for the purpose of exterminating the Jewish race.

Around 300 barracks were built on a 170-hectare site.

At its peak, 90,000 people were detained here at any one time to be killed.

Once people passed through this gate, the chimneys were their only way out.

The railway passing through Death Gate into the concentration camp brought Jews from all over Europe.

This Polish man was also placed here for his anti-Nazi activities. (Interview with a Polish survivor in Polish, subtitles) I remember seeing a Jewish mother and her child arriving from Slovakia. They were carrying heavy luggage and looked exhausted. The mother was leading her child by the hand. Some people were instructed to go to a building and the others were sent to the gas chamber. That was the first time I witnessed the genocide.

Jews were told that they were going to take a shower, they were stripped naked and led to a room.

What came out from the holes in the ceiling was not hot water but a gas containing a deadly pesticide.

Nearly 400 Jewish people were killed at a time. The victims suffered for up to 20 minutes before suffocating to death.

Their bodies were cremated in the incinerators in the adjoining room.

Sometimes the number of the bodies exceeded the maximum capacity and they had to be burnt in the fields.

A pile of hair from Jewish women sent to the Gas Chamber was placed in a storage room.

The Nazis sent the hair back to Germany to use as fabric. Children were separated from their parents and also sent to the Gas Chamber.

The number of people killed at the Auschwitz concentration camp was said to be over 1.4 million.

Those who managed to survive bore huge emotional scars from the horrifying experience.

(Polish former prisoner recalls his memory in German, subtitles)

.I can still hear the voice shouting,  Left! Left! Hats off!…..Heads right!