500,000 Holocaust survivors are living out their final years in poverty

The title of this blog post is a quote from a news article that was published today:

https://www.algemeiner.com/2017/01/25/remembering-the-holocaust-forgetting-the-survivors/

This is the time of the year when you see ads on TV asking for donations for the starving Holocaust survivors in Russia.

The Jews are the richest people in the world; why can’t they take care of their own.

The following quote is from the news article, cited above:

Begin quote

Today, many of the world’s remaining 500,000 Holocaust survivors are living out their final years in poverty. Most of those who are suffering either live in Israel, across the former Soviet Union or in greater New York City.

Of the 189,000 Holocaust survivors in Israel, 25 percent live below the poverty line. Of the 60,000 survivors throughout the former Soviet Union (FSU), poverty is endemic — approaching 85-90%. Even in New York City, home to another 60,000 survivors, about half live below the poverty line.

End quote

I have written many times, on my blog, that I think the reason that these Jews have lived such a long life is because they had a meager diet as children; their diet consisted of bread and oatmeal, with very little meat.  I had a similar diet as a child, and I think that this is why I have lived a long life, and I am still in good health.

Hielig Vaterland

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSyvozq8Cx4

1 Heilig Vaterland! In Gefahren
Deine Söhne sich um dich scharen.

Von Gefahren umringt, heilig Vaterland!
Alle stehen wir Hand in Hand!

Von Gefahren umringt, heilig Vaterland!
Alle stehen wir Hand in Hand!

2 Bei den Sternen steht, was wir schwören.
Der die Sterne lenkt, wird uns hören.

Eh’ der Fremde dir deine Kronen raubt,
Deutschland, fallen wir Haupt bei Haupt!

Eh’ der Fremde dir deine Kronen raubt,
Deutschland, fallen wir Haupt bei Haupt!

3. Heilig Vaterland, heb zur Stunde
Kühn dein Angesicht in die Runde!

Sieh uns all entbrannt, Sohn bei Söhnen stehn.
Du sollst bleiben, Land, wir vergehn!

Sieh uns all entbrannt, Sohn bei Söhnen stehn.
Du sollst bleiben, Land, wir vergehn!

http://ingeb.org/Lieder/heiligva.html

 

The stairs of death at Mauthausen

My photo of the Mauthausen stairs of death

This morning, when I checked the stats for my blog, I found that there were many readers who are going to my scrapbookpages.com web pages about the Mauthausen concentration camp.  You can follow the link below to my website.

http://www.scrapbookpages.com/Mauthausen/Quarry/StairsOfDeath01.html

I read a news article today, dated January 19th, 2017 about Mauthausen which you can read here.  My photo, shown above, was used in the Gallery section of the news article, but no photo credit was given to me, nor to my website.  The link below takes you directly to the Gallery section of the article.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/gallery/infamous-mauthausen-stairs-death-9653675

My photo of the Monument for the Jews at Mauthausen

I took the photo above, during a light rain. The photo looks like a painting, but it is not.

Here’s the true story about Mauthausen:

The Mauthausen concentration camp was a Class III camp where prisoners who were classified as “Return undesired” were sent.

It was a punishment camp where the inmates had to do hard time in a rock quarry. Those on the punishment detail had to carry granite boulders up these steep stairs on their backs once a day.

The photo below shows the sign that is on the wall on the left of the photo above.

Sign on the wall at the bottom of the stairs

Here is the translation of the words on the sign:

Begin translation

Prisoners from different nationalities worked here. Under the most primitive safety precaution,they longed for the biggest job performance with big brutality.

There, you even had the best chance to liquidate the prisoners in the fastest way.

With a often over 50 kg heavy stone on the back, in double quick and under constant hits chased around in the quarry the victim soon broke down, to die helpless in any corner of the quarry.

End translation

The 186 steps on the “Stairs of Death” in the Mauthausen quarry are not as steep as you might think. They have been redone so that tourists can easily climb up and down them.

The steps are evenly spaced and there are rest stops, one near the bottom and several near the top. There is no handrail, but there is a stone wall on each side for most of the climb.

When I visited the camp, I hired a taxi to take me to the bottom of the stairs, so that I could climb up the stairs. All the other tourists were climbing down the stairs and then back up. I didn’t want to risk climbing down the stairs and falling all the way down.

My photo of granite stairs at Mauthausen