Holocaust
Memorial Day
Remembering
Genocides: Lessons for the Future
What
was the Holocaust?
The
Holocaust has come to represent the supreme example of genocide in human
history. It is important because for the first time in history, a government
set out to destroy an entire people simply because they existed.
Although
it took place during the Second World War, the war was not the cause of the
Holocaust. It was the result of people
being manipulated and being fed prejudice based on ignorance, fear and misunderstanding
about minority groups and other groups who were "different".
Perhaps the most difficult thing for us to
understand about the Second World War is the sheer scale of the human
tragedy. The numbers of the dead are so
large they are almost incomprehensible.
In broad terms
55,000,000 people died of
whom 38,000,000 were civilians and 17,000,000 were soldiers. A further 35,000,000 people were wounded.
The Holocaust accounted for approximately 20% of
all of these deaths. Over 11,000,000
people were killed because they did not fit a government's pattern of
normality.
While the victims of the Holocaust can be grouped
in various ways - race, nationality, belief or condition -
6,000,000 were Jewish
6,000,000 were Polish
3,000,000 were Polish Jews
3,000,000 were Polish Christians
4,000,000 were Ukrainians
900,000 were Ukrainian Jews
1,500,000 were children
500,000 were gypsies
200,000 were mentally or physically
disabled
15,000 were homosexual
2,500 were German Jehovah's Witnesses
-
it should never be forgotten that they were
11,000,000 individuals who came from all over Europe - including the Channel
Islands.
-
These memorials near Aushwitz-Birkenau's
Crematoria Number 3 stand by the ashpits where the remains of thousands of
people were disposed of.
The Victims of the Holocaust
The
Jews were the
main group victimized by the Nazis.
Hitler and other Nazi leaders saw them not as a religious group but as a poisonous "race"
who lived off the work of others. He
blamed them for Germany's defeat in the First World War and he saw the trouble
in Germany that followed was largely the work of the Socialists and Communists
whose leaders included several Jews. For hundreds of years the Jews had been
blamed for the death of Jesus Christ and this had led to various levels of
persecution at different times. The
Nazis were able to build on this anti-Jewish feeling to justify the removal of
human rights from Jewish people.
Between 1933
and 1938 a number of laws were passed which succeeded in destroying the lives
of German Jews. As German armies captured other countries this programme was
extended into the newly occupied countries.
This process eventually led to the concentration and death camps Of the 8.860,000 Jews who lived in Europe
at the time an estimated 6,000,000 were killed.
Roma and Sinti (Gypsies) were targeted by the Nazis because
they were non-Aryans and so they were racially inferior. Like the Jews they had been persecuted,
either officially or unofficially, for centuries. Under the Nazis Roma and Sinti families were rounded up and moved
into special areas. Between 200,000 and
500,000 gypsies were killed during the Holocaust.
Disabled people were also victims in the Holocaust
because they did not fit in with the Nazis ideal of the master race. These people also included the mentally
ill, the incurably sick, alcoholics and epileptics. They were classed as
‘unworthy of life’ and as a ‘biological threat’ to Aryan genetic purity. People
in asylums were viewed as a burden on society.
During the Holocaust over 300,000 people were sterilised by force and
over 200,000 patients from asylums were killed
Other victims were the Slavic people of Eastern
Europe. The Nazis saw them as being
racially inferior only fit to serve the "master race". Hitler
made them a focus of Nazi hatred because of their association with
Communism. Millions of Poles, Russians
and others were killed in prisoner of war, labour and extermination camps.
Political opponents
of the Nazis such as Communists, social democrats and trade unionists were
harassed, subjected to brutal treatment and often put in prisons and
concentration camps without trial. This
also happened to their religious opponents such as Jehovah’s Witnesses and to
groups of people whose lifestyle was thought to be inappropriate such as
homosexuals.
These rare photographs were taken by
Stanley Green inside the camp at Buchanwald.
He used a home-made camera and film which he later smuggled out with him
when he was moved to an internment camp.
The Vocabulary of the Holocaust
Anti-Semitism - A term
introduced in 1879 by Wilhelm Marr, an anti-Jewish German journalist. It was originally used in the sense of
"opposition to Jews" but today it is used in the sense of
"prejudice against Jews".
Bigotry - Intolerance for
the beliefs of others, particularly those of minority groups.
Genocide - (genos = people or race, cide = murder) The
use of deliberate, systematic measures in order to bring about the destruction
of a racial, political or cultural group or to destroy the language, religion
or culture of a group.
Holocaust - Literally
"fire that causes destruction", it has become associated
virtually exclusively with the murder of six million Jews by the Nazis during
WWII. As a term holocaust was first coined in 1189 by Richard of Devizes when
describing the massacre of Jews in England following the coronation of Richard
the Lionheart.
Persecution - The oppression
and/or harassment of people based upon the race, religion, colour, nationality
or other distinguishing characteristics.
Pogrom - An organised,
often government sponsored or condoned massacre of Jews.
Prejudice - A
favourable or unfavourable opinion of a person or group based on a stereotype.
Propaganda -
Information, which is used to promote a cause or to injure or enhance the
reputation of a group, individual, or position. It may either not be factual or it may give the facts a
particular slant to suit the purpose of the author.
Racism - A belief that one
race is superior to another.
Scapegoat - A person
or group who is blamed for the mistakes or failure of others. This blame is
usually promoted through propaganda.
Stereotype - A generalised image of a person or group, which fails to acknowledge
individual differences and which is often prejudicial to that person or group.
Holocaust Memorial Day aims to:
How did it affect the Channel Islands
Once they were occupied the Channel Islands became a microcosm of what was
happening all over Occupied Europe. Within
three months the first notices aimed
specifically at the small Jewish community appeared in the newspapers.
Altogether between October 1940 and October 1943, fourteen laws were
registered as Acts of the Royal Court specifically legalising discrimination
against Jews in the Channel Islands. Yet
in 1942 Dr Caspar, the man in charge of operations against Jews in the Channel
Islands had a list of only 22 Jews living in the island. By early 1942 a large
number of French Jews and German political prisoners were in camps in Alderney.
I remember
watching how some of the Jewish prisoners would pray. They were not allowed to
do this by the Germans. When the barrack Kapo went to another hut ..two men
would stand at the doors at both sides of the hut. Then they would pray. Always
there were tears on their faces when they prayed.
Francisco Font, Spanish Republican held in Alderney
As part of their programme of fortifying the islands
the Organisation Todt shipped thousands of forced workers into the islands from
all over Europe. While some forced
workers lived in lodgings, the worst treated - the Russians and the Spanish
Republicans - lived in camps in which starvation, brutality, beatings and death
were everyday occurrences.
Not Russia or Poland
but Jersey. A Russian in the pillory at Morville, St Ouens with two branches of
trees tied tightly round his neck and attached to two trees., the man just able
to touch the ground with his toes…. Some of us had imagined that the tales we
had heard of similar atrocities in Russia were simply for propaganda purposes.
Now we have witnessed them in Jersey we are less sceptical.
Edward Le
Quesne, 20 February 1943
Any Russian defaulter was liable to
transfer to this camp. One such was crucified on the camp gate, naked and in
midwinter. The German guards threw buckets of cold water over him all night
until he was dead. Another was caught by bloodhounds when attempting to stow
away to the mainland. He was hanged and crucified on the same gate. His body
was left hanging on the gate for 5 days as a warning.
British Intelligence report (PRO WO 106/5248B, interview
2253) (death)
Alderney had its own concentration camp which was called Sylt. Between March 1943 and June 1944 the camp
was operated by a SS brigade. Sylt was
a satellite camp of Neuengamme near Hamburg but the inmates came from
Sachsenhausen, a camp near Berlin.
Islanders who were caught breaking the law or who were seen as being
undesirables could find themselves drawn into the continental prison system
and for some the journey ended in the
concentration camps
The Ultimate Sacrifice
According to the most recent research 400 islanders
were taken from the islands to concentration camps and prisons on the
continent. Of these 305 were from
Jersey and 95 were from Guernsey and Sark.
The following islanders either died in or as a result
of their treatment in concentration camps.
Jersey
June Sinclair 1943 Ravensbruck
Maurice Gould 1943 Wittlich
Léonce Ogier 1943 Biberach after Fresnes
Peter Bruce Johnson 1943/44 Dora-Mittelbau
Canon Clifford Cohu 1944 Spergau
Emile Paisnel 1944 Naumberg-am-Saale
Peter Painter 1944 Gross-Rosen, Sachsenhausen
Walter Dauney 1944/45 unknown
Arthur Dimmery 1944/45 Laufen after Neuengamme
John Nicolle 1944/45 Dortmund
William Marsh 1945 Frankfurt-Preungasheim
George Fox 1945 Naumberg-am-Saale
Clifford Querée 1945 Naumberg-am-Saale
Frederick Page 1945 Naumberg-am-Saale
Clarence Painter 1945 Dora-Mittelbau
James Houillebecq 1945 Neuengamme
Louisa Gould 1945 Ravensbruck
Joseph Tierney 1945 Celle
Marcel Rossi 1945 Flossenberg
Frank Le Villo 1946 Nottingham after Bergen-Belsen
Guernsey
Louis Symes 1940 Cherche Midi
Theresa Steiner 1942 Aushwitz-Birkenau
Auguste Spitz 1942
Aushwitz-Birkenau
Marianne Grunfeld 1942
Aushwitz-Birkenau
Charles Machon 1944 Potsdam
Percy Millar 1944 Frankfurt
Joseph Gillingham 1944/45 Naumberg-am-Saale
Sidney Ashcroft 1945 Naumberg-am-Saale
John Ingrouille 1945 Brussels after release from camp
Unknown
Other genocide in the 20th
century
The world was so horrified by the Holocaust that the newly formed United
Nations introduced its Convention on Genocide in 1948 and this was later
followed by the Declaration on Human Rights. Despite this, genocide and "ethnic cleansing" have continued
in many countries around the world.
In the last ten years there have numerous, well-documented atrocities
committed in places such as Rwanda, Bosnia and Kosovo.
The two main groups who live in the African country of Rwanda are the
Tutsi and the Hutu. Between April and
June 1994, about 800,000 Tutu civilians were wiped out in a brutal, political
campaign of genocide carried out by Hutu extremists. Hundreds of thousands more
Tutsi were forced to leave their homes and many died in overcrowded and disease
ridden refugee camps.
Throughout the 1990s the former European country of Yugoslavia was
divided by civil war as the country broke up. Even though the different
religious and cultural groups had lived side by side for hundreds of years,
terrible atrocities were carried out.
In the 1992 war, the smallest of the ethnic groups, the Bosnian Muslims
were the victims. The human rights abuses against all sections of the
population and the treatment of the Bosnian Muslims were some of the most
terrible events to occur on European soil since the Holocaust. Of the hundreds
and thousands of people killed or wounded, 51,000 were children. Over a million
people were forced out of their homes in Bosnia and many fled the region as
refugees.
Debbie
Wainwright's photograph shows members of the Kosova Liberation Army gathering
up the bodies of massacred Kosovars for burial six weeks after the event.
In the winter of 1998-99 it looked as if it was about to be repeated in
the Serbian province of Kosovo.
Hundreds of thousands of Kosovar Muslims were deprived of their
identities and forced out of their homes by extremist Serbians. This time the international community
reacted and sent troops in to protect the civilians.
Lessons for the Future
The Holocaust Memorial Day reflects upon a tragic and disturbing past. As
its focus, the day confronts and reflects upon the mass destruction of European
Jewry and the variety of victim groups persecuted by the Nazis. But the day
also recognises that the type of behaviour demonstrated in Nazi Germany was not
a phenomenon limited either to Germany or to the mid-Twentieth Century.
Events in countries such as Cambodia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Rwanda and
Kosovo show that human beings have the ability to murder their fellow citizens
en masse. Persecution and mass death will almost inevitably form a part of the
future of human behaviour too. The Holocaust Memorial Day seeks to highlight
the importance of understanding and combating the processes that lead to such
tragedy.
Holocaust Memorial Day is, therefore, as much about the future as it is
about the past.
On 27January
2000, forty-four governments from around the world sent delegations to Sweden
to attend the Stockholm Forum on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research.
The inter-governmental conference set out to give support to education and
research in an attempt to help governments fight racism, anti-semitism and
intolerance.
STATEMENT OF COMMITMENT
1. We recognise that the Holocaust
shook the foundations of modern civilisation. Its unprecedented character and
horror will always hold universal meaning.
2. We believe the Holocaust must have a permanent place in our nation's
collective memory. We honour the survivors still with us, and reaffirm our
shared goals of mutual understanding and justice.
3. We must make sure that
future generations understand the causes of the Holocaust and reflect upon its
consequences. We vow to remember the victims of Nazi persecution and of all
genocide.
4. We value the sacrifices of those who have risked their lives to
protect or rescue victims, as a touchstone of the human capacity for good in
the face of evil.
5. We recognise that humanity is still scarred by the belief that race,
religion, disability or sexuality make some people's lives worth less than
others'. Genocide, anti-semitism, racism, xenophobia and discrimination still
continue. We have a shared responsibility to fight these evils.
6. We pledge to strengthen our efforts to promote education and research
about the Holocaust and other genocide. We will do our utmost to make sure that
the lessons of such events are fully learnt.
7. We will continue to encourage Holocaust remembrance by holding an
annual UK Holocaust Memorial Day. We condemn the evils of prejudice,
discrimination and racism. We value a free, tolerant, and democratic society.
I stand in front of you
and see your innocent stares,
looking at me, anticipating a personal account of my
pains and nightmares.
How do I
begin?
How can I make you understand and feel
the deep scars that I carry
fragile and still easy to bleed?
How do I tell
you about human created hunger
hopeless, no-end-in-sight,
when, perhaps, you just had a good meal
and feel full and warm inside?
How do I tell
you about constant fear
in the pit of the stomach, the nauseating kind
when, hopefully, you experienced only
goodwill and peace in your short life?
How do I tell
you about losing family and friends
in a matter of minutes
by moving thumbs in white gloves,
belonging to a Nazi
a so-called human being?
How do I tell
you about the odour of burning flesh,
tortures and killings of innocent people
that were planned cold bloodedly, years before!
drinking and singing around the table?
How do I tell
you about Auschwitz-Birkenau
the efficient killing machine
where mothers, babies, children and the old
marched to the "showers" and out as smoke?
How do I tell
you about being torn from
all my loved ones in my teens
when you only know and should know
the warm embrace of family and peers?
How do I tell
you about
the genocide of six million and more
during which my family lost eighty one,
when you can happily look at yours and declare
missing: NONE.
I do however,
know to praise
those wonderful few, defiant and brave,
at great risk to themselves,
reached out and helped many lives to save.
I stand in
front of you
and see your innocent stares,
but having heard it all
your gaze is no longer there!
You have
lowered your eyes
so sorry! I saddened you,
having heard a witness
now, you become a witness too.
To inform and
teach my story is told.
I urge you to be fair-minded and bold.
For it is up to you, THE YOUNG
how the future will unfold.
Let us create
a society
free of hatred and hunger
where respect for each other
glows like a beautiful ember.
Judy (Weissenberg) Cohen
The author of these verses survived
Auschwitz-Birkenau, Bergen Belsen, slave labour at a Junkers Aeroplane factory
and a death march. She was liberated by the American Forces on May 5, 1945 in a
small town called Duben, near Leipzig, in Germany.