I like this web page. It has a very nice SS officer photo album. 1944/45 at the very end of a brutal 30 year war. Shooting and non shooting. Bombing of civilian cites. Thousands of thousands of German civilians were being killed by Allied bombing campaigns. Important to put things in to context. A war declared on Germany in 1939 for defending itself from Poland. Poland was threatening to invade Germany - a new/old understanding of the situation.
http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/ssalbum/
Then there is this album. 1944/45. There are no gassing or murders here. I see people getting off trains. This is a deportation and labor program. Not genocide or mass murder. There are no photos of “gas chambers” or any photos of dead people as result of gassing.
http://resources.ushmm.org/inquery/uia_query.php/photos/key/auschwitzalbums/noframes?max_docs=all&page_len=25
By mid 1944, you can be certain German infrastructure was starting to break down. Bridges, electricity, water treatment plants. There was a naval blockade in place during the war. You get the idea. It is very difficult to truck supplies (food/medicine/Zyklon B) to a camp while a P47, with 8 50 caliber machine guns, is shooting at you. It is difficult to ship supplies somewhere but only to find a bridge is out. That was the kind of war that was going on. Indiscriminate warfare. A total war between two economic philosophies. Capitalism versus National Socialism (National Socialism - think Mein Kampf and the “Programme“ by Gottfried Feder).
“Elderly Jewish men from Subcarpathian Rus sit on the grass in Auschwitz-Birkenau prior to being sent to the gas chambers.”
That is an assumption and spin.
“The "Auschwitz Album" is an album of photographs documenting the arrival, selection and processing of one or more transports of Jews from Subcarpathian Rus (Carpatho-Ukraine), then part of Hungary, that came to Auschwitz-Birkenau in the latter half of May, 1944. “
That is correct. Selection (for work) and processing (shaving of hair, delousing, disinfecting).
“Jewish women from Subcarpathian Rus who have been selected for forced labor at Auschwitz-Birkenau, march toward their barracks after disinfection and headshaving. “
They were sent to barracks.
I see people walking. Were is the gas chamber?
Same thing. A picture with an assumption. Where are the gas chambers?
“Jewish women and children from Subcarpathian Rus who have been selected for death at Auschwitz-Birkenau, walk toward the gas chambers."
If something bad was going on at this camp, why take pictures if only to implicate oneself? I would not take any photos at all if up to no good. The fact is nothing was going on. No gassing, cremations (except for people who died. There were hundreds or even thousands of people at these labor prison camps).
“The album, which includes 193 photographs mounted on 56 pages, was taken by SS-Hauptscharführer Bernhardt Walter, head of the Auschwitz photographic laboratory known as the Erkennungsdienst [Identification Service] and his assistant, SS-Unterscharführer Ernst Hofmann. The album was produced as a presentation volume for the camp commandant. The photographs were arranged in the album by a prisoner named Myszkowski, who worked in the lab. He also decorated the volume and wrote captions for the pictures.”
The captions written for this album are not the original captions by Myszkowski. You are not going to label a photo “….walk toward the gas chambers” and present this album to a camp commandant. Talk about self incrimination. Unless it was a walk to the gas chamber to de-louse clothes. No problem with that.
Another “Off to the gas chambers!” Maybe to disinfect their clothes? There were gas chambers for this purpose.
“At war's end Lili was sick with typhus in the infirmary of the Nordhausen concentration camp.”
Typhus was a big problem at this and other camps. This is why they used Zyklon B. Good stuff. I can use it to fumigate my room. Seal up my room up with duct tape, sprinkle Zyklon B on the floor, close the door and seal it with duct tape, wait 24 hours to kill tiny lice/bugs, and ventilate. It is proper to wear a gas mask at least for protection. I probably need training and certification from the company who made Zyklon B. The right way in using Zyklon B. But, If I am careful, I can use Zyklon B without a gas mask or training (hold my breath or breath shallow while applying Zyklon B).
http://www.cwporter.com/c1.htm
A survivor story. May 1944. Again, this is near the end of a total war against Germany.
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007883
She was only 19 years old during her deportation experience. Deportation and labor is the theme. Adolf Hitler warned if war came to Germany over Poland, Adolf Hitler would begin deporting ordinary Jews. This is a war time speech, keep this in mind. Churchill was already bombing civilians
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPpEQuatcTU
I like this speech. A couple of months after the Polish Campaign.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sn48bPq_t8o
One may ask why Jews were singled out. This picture gives a hint. From 1933 boycotts to Dresden. Who declared war first? "Judea Declares War on Germany”. This is the other side of it all. A side not shown. Movies or Propaganda.
A few quotes.
“At the train station, the SS packed us all into cattle cars.”
What is a cattle car? I saw box cars. Ordinary railroad box cars. She got on to a train. Maybe not first class or coach. There were no seats for they were box cars. A war was going on.
“They then ordered us to undress; take off everything. So, there we were, completely naked in front of all those SS soldiers and were ordered to take a quick shower.”
She took a shower. A wartime experience.
“By this time all the others; the old people like my grandparents, or the pregnant women like my aunt, or my cousins who were too young; were sent to the left. The Nazis didn't need them. We never saw them again. None of them came back. Not one. “
What is she implying or assuming here?
“On another day, after the roll-call, we had to line up to be tattooed on our arms with numbers.”
This was to protect her identity. There were legitimate prisoners faking other peoples ID. I wonder how many non Jews or criminals were at these labor prison camps? This concentration camp system was a penal system. Instead of calling them camps, maybe they should be called Jails? They were called Camps because they were something better than USA Sing Sing style jails/prisons.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sing_Sing
The rest of her story describes people being sick and/or dying. Infrastructure breakdown at work and a Typhus outbreak.
The problem with this website is its narrow mindedness. It takes a small part of WW2 and makes clean sweeping judgment. The Nazis are “evil”. Dedicated in1993. http://www.ushmm.org/museum/about/
This is the theme I see. It is only within the past 20, 25 years that this “Holocaust” started to pick up speed. Someone decided to crank up the Holocaust volume. 50 years after the fact.
Where was she in 1980?, 1970?, 1960? Why didn’t she run to the “authorities” describing how she was treated by the “evil Nazis” back then? Maybe publish a book 5, 10 years after the war? Maybe she had more important things on her mind like marriage, school, and such.
Why not a “Holocaust Museum” in 1955? 1960? 1970? Was there any?
The Jews are being singled out for this Holocaust. OK. How about German civilians? Russian civilians? American GI’s? (I had a relative that was in a concentration camp, he “survived“ of course). Either there is a Holocaust for all or a Holocaust for none.
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