World War II Massacre in the French village of Maillé

Today I came across an old news article, dated July 2008, which told about a German prosecutor, Ulrich Maass, who had reopened the case against German soldiers, who destroyed the French village of Maillé and killed 124 civilians, in a reprisal action during World War II on August 25, 1944, the same day that German troops surrendered to the Allies in Paris. You can read the full news article here.

Genocide — Episode 20 of “The World at War”

The World at War is a British television documentary consisting of 26 hour-long episodes. I don’t remember seeing the documentary when it was first shown on TV in 1973.  I had lived through World War II and in 1973, I was watching shows like the Brady Bunch and the Mary Tyler Moore show with my family.

The World at War is currently being shown on the Military channel, and last night I watched Episode #20 which is entitled Genocide.  It starts off with a young Heinrich Himmler who is concerned with turning the German youth into a strong, healthy “superior race.”  Himmler is shown as the founder of the SS, which is described as a superior fighting force.  The documentary is narrated by  actor Sir Lawrence Olivier who has a cultured, upper class British accent.

“Inheritance,” a documentary about Monika Hertwig, the daughter of Amon Goeth

Still photo of Monika Hertwig from the film Inheritance

Monika Hertwig, the daughter of Amon Goeth, is the subject of the 2008 PBS documentary film entitled “Inheritance.”  James Moll, the film maker, deliberately used bad lighting to make Monika look like a scary monster when she is actually a beautiful woman, just like her mother Ruth Irene Kalder, a movie actress who was the mistress of Amon Goeth while he was the Commandant of Plaszow, the camp that is shown in the movie “Schindler’s List.”

Prisoners at Dachau taunted by signs…

The first thing that visitors to Dachau are told by their tour guides is that the prisoners were taunted by a sign over the gate which said “Arbeit Macht Frei,” which is translated literally as Work makes Free.  Today I read a blog written by Corrine, a visitor who said that her tour guide told her that the “no smoking sign” in the administration building, which is now the Museum, was “put there as a taunt to the prisoners who were not allowed cigarettes.”  You can read Corrine’s blog here.

"Smoking Forbidden" sign in Dachau Museum

Dr. Oz talks about “Hair Color and Your Health”

“Brunettes, blondes and redheads all have something to beware, from thinning and balding to an increased risk of certain diseases,” according to Dr. Oz.

SS soldiers have an undeserved bad reputation

I am posting today in answer to a comment made by “tampalam” on my post about the scene in Shutter Island where SS soldiers are killed by the American liberators of Dachau.

“Tampalam” wrote: “I have no pity for any member of the SS. They knew what they were doing and they knew about the holocaust. There is no distinction between regular and Waffen SS. However, the summary execution of any person who has surrendered is wrong.”

This opinion of the SS seems to be shared by many people who believe Allied propaganda about the SS, which is totally wrong with regard to the true nature of the SS.

Survivors of the Dachau “death train” saved by an African American soldier

I came across an article in the Wall Street Journal, published on November 25, 2003, about a young Jewish boy who survived Auschwitz and Buchenwald and the death train to Dachau; you can read the full article here.  After Dachau was liberated on April 29, 1945, the boy was moved, along with other Dachau survivors, to the SS garrison next door to the concentration camp, which had been taken over by the American Army. There he met some African American soldiers who were in a supply convoy.  Lt. John Withers, the leader of the all-black convoy, violated Army orders by hiding this boy and another Dachau death train survivor among the black soldiers in his unit. The two boys stayed with the African American unit for more than a year while they recovered their health.  They could have remained with the other Displaced Persons at the SS garrison and been taken care of, but these two boys decided that they wanted their freedom after being in Nazi prison camps for years.

Jimmy Gentry, liberator of Dachau concentration camp

Last night I saw a TV show about the Holocaust survivors who live in the state of Tennessee and the American liberators of the Nazi concentration camps who also live in Tennessee. Among the survivors who spoke on camera were Eva Rosenfeld and Hedy Lustig. Some of the survivors were in the Lodz ghetto until late in the war when they were sent to Auschwitz.  One of the American liberators was Jimmy Gentry who was with the 42nd Rainbow Division of the US Seventh Army during World War II.

New web site will challenge Holocaust denial

Lawrence Rees, a well known British historian, is launching a new web site (www.WW2history.com) which will tell the true story of World War II and combat Holocaust denial, according to a news article which you can read here.

According to the article, “Among the main features will be timelines for four theatres of war; the Western Front, the Eastern Front, the Pacific Front and the Holocaust.” 

Martin Sommer, the infamous “hangman of Buchenwald”

Martin Sommer was the SS man who was in charge of the bunker, which was the camp prison at Buchenwald. Sommer is famous as the alleged innovator of the hanging punishment in which prisoners were hung by their arms from the trees in the forest surrounding the Buchenwald camp. In 1942 Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, the man in charge of all the Nazi concentration camps, had decreed that the guards were forbidden to “lay violent hands on the prisoners.”

Martin Sommer was put on trial by SS judge Dr. Georg Konrad Morgen in a Nazi court in 1943 at the same time that Buchenwald Commandant Karl Otto Koch and his wife Ilse were put on trial for embezzlement and abuse of the prisoners at Buchenwald. Karl Otto Koch was convicted and executed, but his wife was acquitted of all charges. Martin Sommer was transferred to  the Russian front after the trial.

Martin Sommer escaped punishment for his alleged crimes until 1958, when he was put on trial in Bayreuth district court in West Germany and convicted of the murder of 25 prisoners by injection.  Sommer received a life sentence; the case was upheld in May 1959 by the Federal Court.