“unsuspecting British troops” found Bergen-Belsen in the Spring of 1945

After visiting the Bergen-Belsen Memorial Site several years ago, I wrote about the camp on my website at http://www.scrapbookpages.com/BergenBelsen/ConcentrationCamp.html

Apparently, I was completely wrong in what I wrote on my website.  The YouTube video tells the truth about what really happened.

The video above starts off by saying that “unsuspecting British troops” found the Belsen camp on a “spring morning.”  It seems that the Germans had not made an agreement with the British to turn the camp over to them, as I reported on my website.

The early part of the video shows a photo of a fence, obviously taken at Auschwitz-Birkenau, which we are led to believe was taken at Belsen.  Then we see one of the fake guard towers that were put up by the Allies at Birkenau after the camp was no longer in operation.

At 1:23 minutes into the video, the true story the lies begin:  According to the video, the truth is that there were no negotiations between the Germans and the British to turn the camp over to the British.  No, what really happened is that a lone German soldier came out of the camp, and met the “unsuspecting” British troops, who knew nothing about the Belsen camp up to this point.

Children in Bergen-Belsen camp who came out to meet the British “liberators.”  (click on photo to enlarge)

This quote is from my website page about the Belsen camp, which was voluntarily turned over to the British:

The Bergen-Belsen concentration camp was voluntarily turned over to the Allied 21st Army Group, a combined British-Canadian unit, on April 15, 1945 by Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, the man who was in charge of all the concentration camps. Bergen-Belsen was in the middle of the war zone where British and German troops were fighting in the last days of World War II and there was a danger that the typhus epidemic in the camp would spread to the troops on both sides.

[…]

Hungarian soldiers in the Germany Army, who had been sent to keep order while the camp was transferred to the British, were in fact shot by the British, according to British soldiers who participated in the liberation.

Negotiations for the transfer of the Bergen-Belsen camp to the British took several days. Then on the night of April 12, 1945, a cease-fire agreement was signed between the local German Military Commander and the British Chief of Staff, Brigadier General Taylor-Balfour, according to Eberhard Kolb in his book, “Bergen-Belsen from 1943 to 1945.”

An area of 48 square kilometers around Bergen-Belsen was declared a neutral zone. The neutral zone was 8 kilometers long and 6 kilometers wide. Until British troops could take over, the agreement specified that the camp would be guarded by a unit of Hungarian soldiers and soldiers from the German Wehrmacht (the regular army as opposed to the SS). They were assured that they would be allowed free return passage to the German lines within six days after the British arrived. The SS soldiers who made up the staff of the camp were to remain at their posts and carry on their duties until the British arrived to take over. There was no specific stipulation in the agreement about what their fate would be, according to Eberhard Kolb.

On the afternoon of Sunday, April 15th, British soldiers arrived at the German Army training garrison, next door to the concentration camp, and the transfer of the neutral territory of the Bergen-Belsen camp was made. A short time later, a group of British officers entered the concentration camp, which was right next to the garrison, although the distance by road was about 1.5 kilometers.

Hungarian soldiers in the Germany Army, who had been sent to keep order while the camp was transferred to the British, were in fact shot by the British, according to British soldiers who participated in the liberation.

Negotiations for the transfer of the Bergen-Belsen camp to the British took several days. Then on the night of April 12, 1945, a cease-fire agreement was signed between the local German Military Commander and the British Chief of Staff, Brigadier General Taylor-Balfour, according to Eberhard Kolb in his book, “Bergen-Belsen from 1943 to 1945.”

An area of 48 square kilometers around Bergen-Belsen was declared a neutral zone. The neutral zone was 8 kilometers long and 6 kilometers wide. Until British troops could take over, the agreement specified that the camp would be guarded by a unit of Hungarian soldiers and soldiers from the German Wehrmacht (the regular army as opposed to the SS). They were assured that they would be allowed free return passage to the German lines within six days after the British arrived. The SS soldiers who made up the staff of the camp were to remain at their posts and carry on their duties until the British arrived to take over. There was no specific stipulation in the agreement about what their fate would be, according to Eberhard Kolb.

On the afternoon of Sunday, April 15th, British soldiers arrived at the German Army training garrison, next door to the concentration camp, and the transfer of the neutral territory of the Bergen-Belsen camp was made. A short time later, a group of British officers entered the concentration camp, which was right next to the garrison, although the distance by road was about 1.5 kilometers.

According to Michael Berenbaum in his book “The World Must Know,” Commandant Josef Kramer greeted British officer Derrick Sington at the entrance to the camp, wearing a fresh uniform. Berenbaum wrote that Kramer expressed his desire for an orderly transition and his hopes of collaborating with British. He dealt with them as equals, one officer to another, even offering advice as to how to deal with the “unpleasant situation.” That same day, Commandant Kramer was arrested by the British; five months later he was brought before a British Military Tribunal as a war criminal.

On April 8, 1945, around 25,000 to 30,000 prisoners had arrived at Bergen-Belsen from other concentration camps in the Neuengamme area. On that date, there were over 60,000 prisoners in the camp and some had to be housed in the barracks of the adjacent Army Training Center. The Geneva Convention specified that civilian prisoners were to be evacuated from a war zone, and up until this time, the Nazi concentration camps had been either evacuated or abandoned as the war progressed. But because of the typhus epidemic, it was impossible to evacuate all the prisoners from Bergen-Belsen. The camp could not be abandoned for fear that the epidemic would spread to the soldiers of both sides.

At 2:13 minutes into the video, a British officer named Bob  Daniels tells what really happened when the British first arrived at Belsen.  Daniels saw “a desperate looking man [Commandant Joseph Kramer] “getting rid of reams of paper.”  According to Bob Daniels, there was “total fear among every single German there.  “They realized that we had arrived.”

The story about Joseph Kramer “getting rid of reams of paper” could be a reference to the number of deaths in the Belsen camp and the small number of death certificates.  I previously blogged about this at https://furtherglory.wordpress.com/2011/01/22/50000-deaths-at-bergen-belsen-but-only-6851-death-certificates-issued/

Later on, in the video, we learn that even while the camp was being liberated by the British, the Germans went on killing.  At 4:27 minutes into the video we learn that “even while the camp was being liberated, the Germans kept on killing the prisoners.”  At 4:40 minutes into the video, we learn that “the SS youth” [Hitlerjungend] were killing the prisoners, “shooting them in the balls, and the women in the crotch.”

Moving right along, we learn at 5:38 minutes, what kind of people were sent to Bergen-Belsen.  Belsen was NOT an  exchange camp for Jews.  No-Oh.  It was a camp for “Communists, trade unionists, homosexuals, priests and Jews”; it was “one of the earliest work camps set up in 1933.”  In other words, this video describes the Dachau camp, not Belsen.

The narrator goes on the say that Belsen had the words “Arbeit macht Frei” over the gate.  Belsen did not have this sign on the gate because it was NOT a “work camp,” but an EXCHANGE CAMP.  The words “exchange camp” are never spoken in  this video.

A couple of the photos in the video look like photos taken at the liberation of the Wöbbelin camp but are purported to be prisoners at Belsen.

 

New movie about Steve Jobs is in the works

The first Apple Computer

Steve Jobs

In the past, I have written a couple of blog posts about Steve Jobs.  These blog posts have been getting a lot of hits lately, and I set out to find out why.

Did Steve Jobs really try to cure cancer “macrobiotically”?

Did a delay in having an operation for cancer cause Steve Jobs to die?

I have now discovered that there is a new movie, being produced by Aaron Sorkin, which will be about the life of Steve Jobs.  You can read about the upcoming movie in the news here.

 

Today is December 28th, the birthday of Woodrow Wilson

The world, as we know it  today, started with Woodrow Wilson’s 14 points. What would the world be like today, if Wilson had never been born?

My parents worshiped  Woodrow Wilson. That’s why I have studied his life and his influence on the world.

You can learn more about Woodrow Wilson’s private life from the video below.

 

69th anniversary of the Nuremberg IMT and Rudolf Hoess is back in the news

In the past, I have written several blog posts about the confession of Rudolf Hoess, the former Commandant of the Auschwitz “death camp.”

https://furtherglory.wordpress.com/tag/confession-of-rudolf-hoess/

https://furtherglory.wordpress.com/tag/rudolf-hoess-confession/

I also wrote about the trial of Rudolf Hoess on my website at http://www.scrapbookpages.com/AuschwitzScrapbook/History/Articles/RudolfHoess.html

Recently my blog posts, about Hoess, have been getting lots of hits, and I set out to find out why there is so much interest in Rudolf Hoess.  I found a recent news story, in a British newspaper, called The Telegraph.

The news story in the The Telegraph quotes an article, which was written on November 20, 2014, the 69th anniversary of the start of the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal.  This article in the The Telegraph starts with this quote:

Auschwitz commander Rudolf Hoess was one of the men tried in Nuremburg, in a series of hearings which began 69 years ago today. His grandson tells The Telegraph of his shame over his relative’s actions – and why he thinks Europe has not learnt its lessons from the past…

Rudolf Hoess was NOT “tried in Nuremburg (sic)” on November 20, 1945. Hoess was a witness for Ernst Kaltenbrunner in the trial at Nuremberg, which started on Nov. 20, 1945.

This quote is from Wikipedia:

Begin quote:

On 25 May 1946, [Rudolf Hoess] was handed over to Polish authorities and the Supreme National Tribunal in Poland tried him for murder. His trial lasted from 11 March to 29 March 1947. During his trial, when accused of murdering three and a half million people, Höss replied, “No. Only two and one half million—the rest died from disease and starvation.”[34] Höss was sentenced to death by hanging on 2 April 1947. The sentence was carried out on 16 April immediately adjacent to the crematorium of the former Auschwitz I concentration camp. He was hanged on a short drop gallows constructed specifically for that purpose, at the location of the camp Gestapo. The message on the board that now marks the site reads:

“This is where the camp Gestapo was located. Prisoners suspected of involvement in the camp’s underground resistance movement or of preparing to escape were interrogated here. Many prisoners died as a result of being beaten or tortured. The first commandant of Auschwitz, SS-Obersturmbannführer Rudolf Höss, who was tried and sentenced to death after the war by the Polish Supreme National Tribunal, was hanged here on 16 April 1947.”

End quote

Gallows on which Rudolf Hoess was hanged at Auschwitz

The gallows is a stone’s throw from the Auschwitz gas chamber, which you can see in my 2005 photo below.

Gas chamber in  Auschwitz camp

The last hurrah in the prosecution of German war criminals who perpetrated the Holocaust

Ruins of one of the gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau

I have written about the case of German war criminal Oskar Gröning in several previous blog posts, which you can read at https://furtherglory.wordpress.com/tag/oskar-groening/

According to the latest news, as reported in a British newspaper, which you can read in full here, Okkar Gröning will be put on trial in Germany in April 2015. This is likely to be “the last hurrah,” the last trial of a German SS man who committed crimes against the Jews in World War II. He will be tried under the “common plan” principle, an ex-post-facto law which makes it a crime for an SS man to have been anywhere near where Jews died in a “death camp” during the Holocaust. There is no defense against this law, so Oscar Gröning will be automatically convicted.

This quote is from the news article:

His case highlights the failure of the German judiciary adequately to bring Holocaust perpetrators to justice since the end of the Second World War. An estimated 1.2 million were murdered at Auschwitz. Some 6,500 SS guards worked at the camp but only 49 have been convicted of war crimes. […]

In the decades after the Nuremberg trials, German prosecutors relied almost exclusively on evidence, largely from eyewitnesses, that linked suspects to specific murders in order to convict them. The practice explains the low conviction rate of Nazi death camp guards. It took a new generation of prosecutors to bring about the recent change in the German judiciary’s attitude to Nazi war crimes. In 2011 they set a legal precedent by securing the conviction of the former Sobibor Nazi death camp guard John Demjanjuk by a Munich court.

Demjanjuk was found guilty of being an accessory to the murder of 28,000 Dutch Jews at Sobibor, an “extermination-only” camp in Nazi occupied Poland, in which all prisoners were gassed within hours of their arrival. There were no eyewitnesses at Demjanjuk’s trial. But judges for the first time accepted the prosecution’s argument he was an accessory to mass murder simply by having worked as a guard at the camp. Prosecutors will use the same legal arguments at Gröning’s trial. However Gröning has already denied the charges.

Krema I gas chamber in the Auschwitz main camp

Why were the Nazis constantly running out of Zyklon-B gas for gassing the prisoners?

Today, I read yet another story of a Holocaust survivor, who was not the only person to be  saved because the Nazis had run out of Zyklon-B gas when it was his or her turn to be gassed.

Klara Markus, a Romanian Jewess, was saved because the Nazis had run out of gas when it was her turn.  Every day, it seems, there is yet another Holocaust survivor who is alive today because the Nazis had run out of Zyklon-B.

Why did this happen so often?  The purpose of the Nazi camps was to exterminate the prisoners; this was done by using Zyklon-B gas.  One would think that someone would be in charge of stocking Zyklon-B, so that the camp would never lack the means of killing the prisoners.

This quote is the words of Klara Markus, as reported in the  article about her in the Mail Online:

“But when they put us inside and went to turn the gas on, they found they had run out.

“One of the guards joked that it was our lucky day because they had already killed so many they didn’t have any gas left for us.

“God was watching over me that day.”

I think I know why the Nazis were constantly running out of gas for the homicidal gas chambers.  It was because they were wasting Zyklon-B by using it to delouse the clothing of the prisoners, in an attempt to save lives. Typhus is spread by lice, so Zyklon-B was used in disinfection chambers to prevent typhus.

Clothing disinfection building at Auschwitz-Birkenau

Building where clothes were disinfected with Zyklon-B

Stains on building which was used to disinfect clothing

Holocaust survivor who was sent to the Mauthausen gas chamber the day before the camp was liberated

You can read about Holocaust survivor Anneliese Nossbaum and her narrow escape from the Mauthausen gas chamber in this article in the PlanoStarCourier newspaper.

The Mauthausen gas chamber had shower heads on the ceiling to fool the victims (Click on photo to enlarge)

This quote is from the news article:

In 1944, 15-year-old [Anneliese] Nossbaum was taken in a railcar along with her mother and many others to Auschwitz. Lying about her age, she was sent to work in an airplane part factory in Freiberg, Germany. Her aunt, a teacher, was sent to the gas chambers because of a hip deformity.

After celebrating her 16th birthday in Freiberg with a few slices of bread her mother was able to collect and save, Nossbaum was sent to the Mauthausen concentration camp. On May 4, 1945 she was sent to the gas chambers. However, due to bombing by Allied forces in the nearby city, there was a shortage of Zyklon B – a pesticide used by the Nazis in the camps. Nossbaum was sent back to the camp, until it was resupplied. It never was. On May 5, Allied forces liberated the camp, she said.

I blogged about the liberation of Mauthausen in this blog post: https://furtherglory.wordpress.com/2010/05/07/the-liberation-of-mauthausen-may-5-1945/

Anti-Fascist Resistance fighters at Mauthausen greet US liberators, May 5, 1945
Photo Credit: USHMM

When the US Third Army liberated the infamous Nazi concentration camp at Mauthausen on May 5, 1945, they found the bodies of several fully-clothed dead prisoners in the gas chamber. According to the Museum at Mauthausen, the last gassing of prisoners in the main camp was on April 28, 1945, only a week before the liberation. On April 21, 1945, the Red Cross had begun evacuating prisoners out of the Mauthausen camp, but the gassing of prisoners still continued during the time that Red Cross representative, Louis Haeflig, was staying in the camp.

When I visited the Mauthausen Memorial Site, a sign in the gas chamber said that Ludwig Haider was gassed on April 23, 1945, the same day that a Red Cross truck took selected prisoners out of the camp, with the permission of the Commandant. According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, a gas chamber was built at the Mauthausen concentration camp, “probably in 1941.” Disguised as a shower room, the gas chamber was located underground beneath the prison building, which is now the Museum at the Mauthausen Memorial Site.

The following quote is from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum:

While most inmates were killed by shooting, hanging, beating, starvation, and disease, Mauthausen did have a gas chamber capable of killing about 120 people at a time. The gas chamber was usually used when transports of prisoners arrived. Special demonstration mass killings were organized for the benefit of visiting Nazi dignitaries, such as Heinrich Himmler, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, and Baldur von Schirach, who were able to observe the killings through a small viewing window in the entrance door.

One of the two doors into the gas chamber with water pipe on the wall

Shower heads on the ceiling of Mauthausen gas chamber

The two photos above illustrate that the Mauthausen gas chamber was a multi-purpose room.  Prisoners could take a shower, or they could be gassed.

Let’s back up for a moment:  Anneliese Nossbaum was sent to Auschwitz at the age of 15, so she was past the age of being selected for the gas chamber.  Yet, according to her story, she had to lie about her age in order to be sent to a camp in Germany, instead of being sent to the gas chamber.

After working in a camp in Germany, she was sent to Mauthausen near the end of the war.  Why was she sent to Mauthausen?  To be gassed, of course.  As luck would have it, she barely escaped being gassed because the camp was out of Zyklon-B.

Why does Anneliese Nossbaum tell these stories?  Because her true story would constitute Holocaust denial.

Holocaust survivor identifies herself in famous photo taken after Auschwitz-Birkenau was liberated

Paula Lebovics is shown, at the age of 6, in the front row of the photo above.

Paula is also shown in the photo below, which is a still shot from a film taken by the Soviet liberators of Auschwitz-Birkenau.

She is the third child from the left in the middle row of the photo below.

You can read a recent news article, in the LA Times, about Paula Lebovics here.

This quote is from the news article in the LA Times:

[Paula] Lebovics is Jewish and a Holocaust survivor, liberated at age 11 from Birkenau concentration camp. On her left forearm, she bears the Nazis’ tattooed identification number.
Lebovics was 6, living in Ostrowiec, Poland, when World War II abruptly destroyed her childhood.  […]

That little girl [Paula Lebovics] had seen public hangings, snow stained red by blood and the skies above her camp turned crimson by smoke from the ovens that ran all day, spewing out residue that stuck to her skin. […]

Birkenau had been liberated. A Russian soldier, in tears, had lifted Lebovics up and rocked her in his arms. Not a parent, not a relative, just a fellow human being reaching out.

There is no photo of Paula being carried, but the photo below shows a young boy being carried in the arms of a Russian soldier.

Young boy being carried out of an Auschwitz barrack by Russian soldiers

Child survivors walking out of Auschwitz-Birkenau

I previously blogged about photos that promote Holocaust denial in this blog post: https://furtherglory.wordpress.com/2014/05/17/beware-of-illustrating-news-articles-with-photos-that-promote-holocaust-denial/

How did all these children in the photos above, including Paula Lebovics, survive the famous DEATH CAMP known as Auschwitz-Birkenau?

Everybody knows that children under the age of 15 were immediately sent to the left to the gas chamber by Dr. Josef Mengele, unless they were twins, who could serve as subjects for his experiments.

Why was Paula allowed to live after she had witnessed the “skies above her camp turned crimson by smoke from the ovens that ran all day”?

Why is Paula still alive today, at the age of 81, after her ordeal in Auschwitz-Birkenau?  Did Dr. Mengele use some “special treatment” to make sure that Paula lived, so that she could testify against the Nazis 70 years after the camp was liberated?

Old women were liberated by Russian soldiers at Auschwitz-Birkenau

Adults over the age of 45 were automatically sent to the gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau, according to the official Holocaust story. Except for the old ladies in the photo above, who were allowed to live.

This blog post is beginning to sound like a Geico commercial, so I am going to sign off now.  (Well, do you know that children as young as 6 were allowed to live in the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp?)

Holocaust survivor who survived Auschwitz and the Allied bombing of the Melk sub-camp of Mauthausen

Allison Bradshaw — THE BATTALION
Al Marks shared his experience in the Holocaust at a lecture series by Texas A&M Hillel on Wednesday.

Click on the photo above to enlarge.

You can read about Holocaust survivor Al Marks in this news article:

The following quote is from the news article:

Al Marks, who survived four Holocaust concentration camps between ages 13 to 15, visited the Texas A&M campus Wednesday as a part of the Texas A&M Hillel Holocaust Survivor Lecture Series. Marks told his story of survival, hope and life in the camps. […]

“My mother was standing next to me. And she was motioned to my right and that was the last time I saw my mother. And I was motioned to the left,” Marks said.

Marks said he knew what was happening when he and his parents were separated.

“I didn’t have a chance to say goodbye or hug her. We knew what that meant just by reading because all the people who went on the other side they were sent to a room that they could shower. But instead of showering gas came out…so that was Auschwitz,” Marks said. […]
“After I was separated not to go to the gas chamber immediately…we were sent to Melk,” Marks said. “Ironically Melk was bombed by the American Air Force shortly after I got there on July 8, 1944. We lost over 600 people. All these horrible dates talking about it — it didn’t only happen to the Jewish prisoners — it happened to everybody that was there.”

The Melk prison camp which was a sub-camp of the Mauthausen concentration camp

Hitler passing through the town of Melk in Austria

There were 10,000 prisoners working in the Melk sub-camp of Mauthausen, according to the confession of the Commandant of the Mauthausen camp.

Note that there were over 600 prisoners killed by bombs dropped from American Air Force planes.  Melk was bombed because it had munitions factories where Jews and other prisoners worked.

Note that Al Marks was between the ages of 13 and 15 when he was a prisoner of the Nazis. Once again, Dr. Josef Mengele screwed up and waved him to the side that was saved from the gas chamber, when he arrived at Auschwitz at the age of 13.  According to accepted Holocaust history, children under the age of 15 went straight to the gas chamber, hours after they had arrived at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Did Hitler just want to expel the Jews from Europe, or did he want to kill them all?

I have been having a depressing discussion with one of the readers of my blog, in the comments section, about the use of the word “expelled” to describe Hitler’s motive in wanting to get the Jews out of Germany, and eventually out of Europe.

Some of the regular followers of my blog might want to weigh in on the subject of the Nazis “expelling” the Jews versus “murdering the Jews.”

Hitler wanted to “ausrotten” the Jews.  What does that mean?  There are two sides to this question.  One side is against the law in 20 countries, and the other side is “the Holocaust” as taught in schools world wide.  You can read some quotes from Hitler’s speeches on this blog post: https://furtherglory.wordpress.com/2013/04/14/the-latest-flap-in-the-national-news-the-nazi-essay-controversy-in-albany-ny/

I previously blogged about this subject in a blog post entitled Let me tell you about the Jewish settlement in Nisko, Poland which you can read in full here.

This quote is from that previous blog post:

When did Hitler decide on the genocide of the Jews in Europe?  Nobody knows because he didn’t put it in writing.  One thing we do know is that, in the 1930s, there were proposals, by other European leaders, to resettle the Jews in Uganda, Madagascar or Biro Bidjan in Siberia.  In other words, any place besides Palestine.

After the conquest of Poland in 1939, Germany got in on it, with a settlement for the Jews in Nisko, a little town in Poland.   The settlement quickly failed because of poor prior planning.

Before World War II, the Polish Nationalists had asked the French right-wing parties to back the idea of a mass emigration of the Polish Jews for a settlement on the island of Madagascar. At the same time, in the Soviet Union, Stalin had launched the project of the Jewish Republic of Biro Bidjan, located in Siberia.

Let’s start with the Jewish settlement in Nizko, Poland.

This quote is from an essay written by Wolf Murmelstein, the son of Benjamin Murmelstein, the last Jewish elder of Theresienstat, now known as Terezin.

The very moment to show the Arab friends how Nazi Germany could address Jewish emigration to a destination far away from Palestine came in October 1939 after Poland had been overrun. On October 6th, Hitler, in his speech before the Reichstag, offering in this manner peace talks to the Western Allies, spoke about the new assessment of Poland and mentioned vaguely the idea of a Jewish Settlement Area there.

In the same days of October, a transport of Jewish men of working age from Vienna and Bohemia-Moravia had to be set up, and some leading Community Officials – Murmelstein from Vienna and Edelstein from Prague – with other staff members – had to join. On October 19, 1939, this first transport reached the station of Nisko, a little town in the Lublin area, near the border between the German and the Soviet zones of Poland. After a long march, the group reached a meadow, their destination. The following day, Eichmann gave a speech about building shanties, setting up a health service, an organization to start, etc. as “otherwise it should mean to die.”

In a personal talk, Murmelstein asked about the means available, realizing that there was nothing, as Eichmann advised only: “kick the Polish peasant out and settle in his house.” This seemed to be madness, but a Jewish official, within this mess and ignoring, of course, the political background, could not appreciate the method there was in it.

[…]

Eichmann, at Nisko, sent the leading Jewish officials home in order to catch every possible further emigration opportunity. From Vienna, Prague and Berlin, some

The very moment to show the Arab friends how Nazi Germany could address Jewish emigration to a destination far away from Palestine came in October 1939 after Poland had been overrun. On October 6th, Hitler, in his speech before the Reichstag, offering in this manner peace talks to the Western Allies, spoke about the new assessment of Poland and mentioned vaguely the idea of a Jewish Settlement Area there.

In the same days of October, a transport of Jewish men of working age from Vienna and Bohemia-Moravia had to be set up, and some leading Community Officials – Murmelstein from Vienna and Edelstein from Prague – with other staff members – had to join. On October 19, 1939, this first transport reached the station of Nisko, a little town in the Lublin area, near the border between the German and the Soviet zones of Poland. After a long march, the group reached a meadow, their destination. The following day, Eichmann gave a speech about building shanties, setting up a health service, an organization to start, etc. as “otherwise it should mean to die.”

In a personal talk, Murmelstein asked about the means available, realizing that there was nothing, as Eichmann advised only: “kick the Polish peasant out and settle in his house.” This seemed to be madness, but a Jewish official, within this mess and ignoring, of course, the political background, could not appreciate the method there was in it.

[…]

Eichmann, at Nisko, sent the leading Jewish officials home in order to catch every possible further emigration opportunity. From Vienna, Prague and Berlin, some thousand persons, until March 1941, could still emigrate during increasing difficulties. No further transports were scheduled to arrive in Nisko any more. The 450 workers returned home after six months. The camp had been set up for the transit of Germans returning from Eastern European countries to the Reich.

Read the last sentence again: The [Nisko] camp had been set up for the transit of [Jewish] Germans returning from Eastern countries to the [German] Reich.  It seems that no country wanted the Jews. This quote is from an article which you can read in full here:

On 13 May 1939, more than 900 Jews fled Germany aboard a luxury cruise liner, the SS St Louis. They hoped to reach Cuba and then travel to the US – but were turned away in Havana and forced to return to Europe, where more than 250 were killed by the Nazis.

Did you catch that? The Jews “fled” from the Nazis, but no other country would take them, not even the United States of America. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum explains what happened.

I visited the USHMM museum several years ago. After leaving the elevator on the fourth floor of the musuem, the progression of the fourth floor exhibit is to the left. The displays continue around behind the elevators until you come to a red and white painted metal pole, placed horizontally so that it is a barrier blocking the exit near the end of the room. On my visit to the museum, I noticed that some visitors squeezed through and went around the barrier, but by doing so they missed a significant part of the displays.

The red and white metal pole represents the border of Poland which the Germans crossed when they invaded on September 1, 1939, but there is more to the story before you get to that point, so visitors should turn left at the barrier, where you will see a semicircular niche completely covered with a photograph of Lake Geneva.

The title of the exhibit in the niche is “No help, No haven.” It is the story of the Evian Conference, which President Roosevelt organized in July 1938. Representatives of 32 countries met at a luxury hotel to discuss the refugee problem after the Germans had taken over Austria in March and made it known that they wanted to get rid of all the Jews.

The Evian conference was a failure because no country wanted to accept the Jews, but the United States did agree to admit the full quota of Eastern Europeans and Germans (Jews and non-Jews) allowed by our immigration laws, which had not been done up to that time.

Hitler didn’t want Jews in Germany; he wanted Germany to be a nation of Germans. What to do?  Hitler decided on the Transfer Agreement, by which he sent prominent Jewish leaders to Palestine and  transferred a large sum of money with them.

I previously wrote about the Transfer Agreement on this blog post: https://furtherglory.wordpress.com/2011/10/05/hitler-and-the-transfer-agreement/

Hitler was an anti-Semite, which meant something different in his day. I blogged about the meaning of anti-Semite in this previous blog post: https://furtherglory.wordpress.com/2011/06/19/was-richard-wagner-an-anti-semite/

Now the news is full of stories about Netanyahu who wants Israel to be a “nation state.”  Oh no! Netanyahu is worse than Hitler, who wanted Germany to be a nation state for Germans.  Where will the Germans go, if they are ever kicked out of Germany by the Jews, who are now returning to Germany?  They can’t go to Israel because Israel is now a “nation state” for Jews.