June 12, 3013
Day 3
Today we continued on our journey through the 1940s and the
Holocaust. It was a short day and I must
say I am feeling the exhaustion of an intense workshop. However, I must say that this workshop
continues to excel in its presentation and the sheer quantity/quality of the
materials covered. We discussed the best
and the worst in humankind today – but focused more on the best than the worst.
For the negative category, we did talk briefly about those
who would stand outside the ghetto and blackmail Jews trying to slip out in
order to smuggle food in. (Be aware that
the Germans did not provide much in the manner of food rations and often
supplied older food to the ghettos. It
was not uncommon for Germans to use circumcision against the Jews – they worked
the blackmail scheme more on men than women.
To prove a Jewish man they simply had to pull down his pants, which
apparently they did.
My questions on America and the Holocaust have some
answers. There are two conflicting
theories as to why America did not react sooner, or bomb some of the Holocaust
camps. To boil down a 2 hour lecture, it
seems that there was simply not enough information to determine the camps,
there wasn’t enough air support (to bomb meant moving operations from other
parts of the war), and there was a fear of retaliation. There were also issues that the technology
would not allow target-specific bombing and that greater harm would come to
those they were trying to save.
Americans were sympathetic to the Jewish plight and newspapers published
it. America also had a bad taste from World War I
when there was a lot of anti-German propaganda that was circulated that was not
true. An interesting aside is that
America had a greater dislike for the Japanese (Pearl Harbor) than the
Germans.
We met a child survivor of the Holocaust today. It is interesting because of what her mother
did to save them. Her mother was worried
when her pregnant sister was taken away and never seen again. Her father was also taken to a camp and never
returned. With this in mind, her mother
opted to move away from the small town in which they lived and head to a larger
city. While she worked she left her
daughter with poor farming families in the nearby village. She opted to pay a family to care for her
daughter and even had her practicing Catholicism to protect her. Surviving the war they moved to Paris where
this survivor, Halina, first learned that she was Jewish. The way she found out was that her mother
felt a bit fearful that Poland was hostile to Jews. She opted to move to Paris and told her daughter
the night before that they were leaving.
As a child, Halina wanted to go to Mass as not attending was a sin. Her mother explained to her that they were
Jewish. Halina was truly stunned because
in listening to the locals she believed that Jews were dirty and hairy. However, she accepted her religion over a
period of time and they continued on their way, eventually settling with a
stepfather in Canada. From there they
moved to America. She also married a
fellow Holocaust survivor. In an
interesting twist, she did not want to marry a survivor and it seemed to be a
part of her life that she wanted closed.
However, she did note that they identified well with one another. She
had children that they raised Jewish and currently has several
grandchildren.
We then had speakers from children of Holocaust
survivors. These speakers also shed
light on questions that I have had for quite some time. I understood that Jewish generations were
also impacted by the Holocaust and I knew that some had switched to
Christianity but I wasn’t entirely sure why.
Some Jewish writers stated that the loss of belief (where was God during
the Holocaust? How could this happen)
proved to be too much and hence the switch to Christianity. It seems that it was deeper than that. Jews who survived the Holocaust had great
fear left in them, even when they came to America. To protect their children they brought them
up Catholic or did not reveal their Jewish heritage.
One person described a program where she met with second
generation children of Nazi parents.
After several tense days, they finally started to reveal their
stories. The children of the Nazi
parents were very scarred – their parents came home and were often abusive to
them as well. There were stories of suicide
when they got older due to shame of what their parents did. Granted, this is a second hand story but
these were the perceptions of this individual who was, herself, very surprised
at what the meeting revealed.
One theme that constantly shows up in this course is the
dislike and distrust of the Holocaust deniers.
There are new websites that are professionally made which deny the
Holocaust. It is surprising, though I
suspect that the denial that came out from World War II (remember that people
didn’t believe the information and thought it was propaganda) is likely used as
a source. How they can deny journals,
witnesses, locations, and military reports is amazing. (Then again, there are conspiracies that we
have not landed on the moon and that aliens have contacted us, etc., so I
suppose that these fringe elements do exist).
I am please that they utilize education as a way to combat ignorance (as
this fits with my own philosophy).
Off to Day 4 next….
Dr. Peter Black of the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC.
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