April 20, 2008
In Memorium
This event finds itself rather close to my heart, as my maternal grandmother was a Jew who grew up in Poland. The Nazis killed her two brothers, two great uncles whom, as a result, I had neither the honor nor the opportunity to meet.
At family weddings in New York during my early youth, I met a few older relatives who had been in the camps and who showed me their tattooed numbers, indelible mementos of the horrors they had faced, and unlike millions of others had survived, at the hands of the Germans.
WARSAW (AFP) - The last commander of the 1943 Warsaw ghetto uprising, Marek Edelman, on Saturday honoured the memory of his comrades who died fighting Nazi Germany in the doomed Jewish stand against the Holocaust.
Joined by family members, hundreds of bystanders and city officials, Edelman marked the 65th anniversary of the revolt at the imposing monument to the ghetto fighters, unveiled in 1948.
Braving driving rain, the silent participants first laid flowers at the monument.
The frail Edelman, 85, was then pushed in his wheelchair to the site of the bunker where the leader of the revolt, 24-year-old Mordechaj Anielewicz, and 80 comrades had committed suicide as Nazi forces closed in.
The crowd then walked to the site of the “Umschlagplatz”, the railway siding from which the Nazis sent more than 300,000 Jews to the Treblinka death camp in northeastern Poland.
Edelman, who took command after Anielewicz’s death, rarely attends high-profile official ceremonies, preferring to remember his comrades in a lower-key fashion on April 19, the day the revolt actually began.
This year’s official event was held on Tuesday, in the presence of Poland’s President Lech Kaczynski and Israel’s Shimon Peres.
That ceremony had been brought forward because the actual anniversary fell on a Saturday, which is the Jewish Sabbath.
On the eve of World War II, Poland was Europe’s Jewish heartland.It was home to 3.5 million Jews, and Warsaw alone had a community of around 400,000.
After invading Poland in 1939, Nazi Germany set up ghettos nationwide to isolate the country’s Jews and facilitate the “Final Solution” — half of the six million Jews who died in the Holocaust were Polish.
At its height, more than 450,000 were crammed into the walled Warsaw ghetto.
About 100,000 died inside from starvation, disease and in summary executions. Most of the rest were sent to Treblinka in mass deportations which began in 1942.
In the ghetto, a handful of Jewish paramilitary groups, mostly made up of young people — Edelman was just 20 — coalesced into a poorly-armed force of around 1,000.
The banner of one group was a blue Star of David on a white background, which caused Nazi ire when it was hoisted during the revolt. It became the flag of Israel.
On Saturday, youths handed out paper armbands emblazoned with the symbol, which participants wore as they formed a human chain around the monument while sirens wailed and a Polish army honour guard fired a salute.
The ghetto fighters first clashed with the Nazis on January 18-22, 1943, managing to hinder the deportations.
On April 19, 1943, they took up arms again, as the Nazis moved to wipe out the remaining 60,000 ghetto dwellers.
“We knew perfectly well that there was no way we could win,” Edelman told AFP in a recent interview. “It was a symbol of the fight for freedom. A symbol of standing up to Nazism, and of not giving in,” he said.
The fighters held out as 3,000 Nazi troops razed the ghetto with explosives and fire.
Following Anielewicz’s suicide on May 8, Edelman and several dozen comrades escaped through the sewers. The Nazis marked their “victory over the Jews” by blowing up Warsaw’s main synagogue on May 16.
Around 7,000 Jews died in the revolt, most of them burned alive, and more than 50,000 were sent to Treblinka.
Besides denting the Nazis’ sense of superiority, the fighters managed to inflict some damage, killing and injuring a combined 300 troops.
Sporadic clashes continued in the ghetto ruin until the autumn.
Edelman and many other survivors later took part in the Warsaw uprising, launched on August 1, 1944 by the Polish underground.
That failed 63-day revolt and the Germans’ brutal response cost the lives of 200,000 civilians and 18,000 resistance members, and saw the near-total destruction of Warsaw by the Nazis.
While I feel nothing but contempt for the German people of the times who allowed Hitler, Himmler, Eichmann and the rest of those thugs to rise to the leadership of their country – I’m sorry, but while I understand the desperation they must have felt given the depression they were in, debacles such as Kristalnacht and the requirement that Jews bear identifying emblazons as such on their clothing would not have been tolerated by a civilized population to begin with, and when Jewish families began to disappear, well – the indifference of the German citizenry spoke for itself – I attach no blame to German citizens of today, for that would be the equivalent of the likes of liberal guilt-mongers who attempt to commute blame for black slave ownership by people long dead to white Americans living today.
That said, many monsters were produced from among the German people under the Third Reich, including the “man” given the responsibilty for the razing of the Warsaw Ghetto, a particularly vile creature called Jurgen Stroop.
May he and the rest of those Nazi bastards continue to rot in hell.
http://hardastarboard.mu.nu/wp-trackback.php?p=811
April 20th, 2008 at 7:14 pm
May the Nazis rot in hell indeed. The word itself is forever associated with the worst behavior “civilization’ has yet seen. When I think of Treblinka, I think Nazi, Gestapo..Nazi, Holocaust..Nazi. Now the word has become a cheap epithet, thrown around carelessly. To quote from your previous post, for example, “That’s the thing about liberals: They are the fascists,” C’mon, Seth, us libs don’t want to rot in hell with Heydrich, Goebbels
and Mengele! You are already getting that NYC ‘edge’.
April 20th, 2008 at 7:46 pm
BB –
The fascist reference originated with liberals accusing Bush of being same, remember, yet it’s the left that seeks to kill free speech if it doesn’t agree with their own point of view. So if they can freely call the President of these here United States a fascist, then surely, well…
That said, I still view you as a liberal in name only. You are much too open minded and tolerant of us conservatives to be a true liberal.
If I were to equate you with any of those old Germans, the closest to fascistic I could get would be Walter Schellenberg, who, despite being a general, not only despised Nazism and all it stood for but also engaged in numerous covert activities that would have seen his head rolling in the cellars at Prinz Albrechtstrasse had he been caught.
Aside from Rush’s coining of the term “feminazi” (an apt description nonetheless), every other modern application has come from the left, generally directed at Republican subjects.
April 20th, 2008 at 7:58 pm
BB:
Liberalism is devolving into fascism. They drown out any other voice which dissents from their ideology. Look at the lefty students at Columbia U who assaulted a Minuteman speaker on immigration. They have thrown pies at Ann Coulter when she was speaking. They have perpetrated hoaxes during Islamofascism Week in order to discredit the participants. They have refused tenure to college professors because they do not subscribe to their leftist worldviews (see Camille Paglia - who is a moderate Liberal among others).
In short, they resort to suppression of speech, punishment in the workplace, and even violence.
In my book, that’s fascist. It is only by grace of the laws in this country that they have not done worse. But believe me, I am sure that it could very well come to “worse” if our nation continues to erode our Constitution and succumb to political correctness and multi kulti rot.
Yes, Naziism is evil. Organized evil. The Japanese, however, were no angels either. What they did to Nanking was horrendous. Their barbarous treatment of the Chinese, Koreans, and POWs ranks up there as well, though they were not as systematic as the Nazis. I think the key thing here is that both groups were devoid of Judeo Christian values which recognizes the inherent dignity of the human person. The Nazis supplanted Christianity with paganism blended with Darwinian eugenics. The Japanese were never Christian and we see the inhumane treatment of women and children in Asia to this day with human trafficking and the sex slave industry.
Seth:
When I was in college back in the 80’s I my landlord was a survivor of the Warsaw uprising and escaped from Dachau. He still had the tattoo on his arm. He and his wife emigrated to the US after the war and did very well for themselves (strange, how blacks still use slavery from over 150 years ago to justify their “problems” today). Although Mr. Masowicki never spoke of what he endured, it was his wife who used to talk to me about it.
My mother is Korean, and she endured a great deal of hardship, growing up in the 30’s and 40’s during Japan’s occupation of Korea. I grew up knowing that she detested the Japanese, and it wasn’t till just recently that she has found forgiveness in her heart and no longer hates them. My Dad, who is an American of Anglo descent, fought WWII and grew up hating Germans because of the Holocaust. I too shared that resentment, but as I grow older I realize how weak people are in the face of evil and injustice. Yes, the German people should have stood up and protested, but when you have a family and you know that the price of resistance would involve watching your loved ones suffer for it, or even death, well, I think it’s difficult and requires a superhuman effort to do so. Some Germans did resist, and were killed for it. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was one, and he was martyred for standing up to the Nazis. Franz Jagerstatter was an Austrian farmer who refused to serve in the draft during the war and he was beheaded, leaving behind a family with small children. Sophie Scholl was a college student in Munich who, with her brother, organized a resistance (The White Rose) of German students against the Nazis. They were captured and beheaded.
I’m not making excuses for the German people. But they are not all to blame. And many suffered at the hands of the Nazis as well.
One thing that frightens me is that today in Europe, there are some who are regressing back to atheistic Darwinism, and anti Semitism is on the rise there. Fueled by resentment over Islamic immigration, these folks, I fear, will resort to the same tactics of the past.
Once again, Europe does not learn any lessons from its past.
April 20th, 2008 at 9:01 pm
“it’s the left that seeks to kill free speech if it doesn’t agree with their own point of view.” Yeah,
Now, seriously, getting back to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising,
we sure did in those Dixie Chicks!
we need clarify that the great bulk of the resistance
leadership and fighters (eg, ZOB, Hashonim Dror, Paolei
Zion, Hashomer Hatzar and the Jewish Bund) were, er…
socialist groups.
April 20th, 2008 at 9:15 pm
BB:
Dixie Chicks? I don’t recall anyone throwing pies at them, or attacking them onstage. Enlighten us, please.
Secondly, even if it occurred, it does not justify the constant and systematic muzzling of anyone who dissents from liberal ideology.
Do you deny that Liberals do this? Please answer.
April 21st, 2008 at 11:10 am
Atheling, getting hit with a pie is fascism? Gee, I got hit in the face with pies yearly when our company raised $ for charity..you know bid for the pleasure of hitting the boss? [banana creme is best] DC were removed from many CW stations and bombarded with death threats. DJs were suspended/fired for playing their music. It occurs they may be as reviled by the right as much as Ann/Rush/Sean/Laura/Bill is by the left.
As far as “the constant and systematic muzzling of anyone who dissents from liberal ideology.”.. a figment of your fevered imagination. I’ve heard talk radio. Not here to argue about which extreme is the meanest, stupidest or possesses the most conspiracy theories. The minions on both extremes march in lockstep with some strange positions. Here to address the historical Nazi, not to compare that evil to any current opinion.
April 21st, 2008 at 11:54 am
BB:
You still didn’t answer my question regarding the Dixie Chicks. Be honest.
How about rushing a stage and assaulting a speaker? That’s a crime, in case you didn’t realize it. Whether or not the victim is injured, it is still a VIOLATION of a person’s right to free speech and and their person.
Suppression of free speech IS fascist. Look at the Soviet Union. Look at Nazi Germany. And now, look at the EU.
April 21st, 2008 at 1:31 pm
Oh, and btw, last I heard, we prosecute people for DEEDS, not
SPEECH.
I ought to know. I work in law.
April 21st, 2008 at 4:10 pm
BB –
(wow, what a day after, I just dozed off in mid-comment!)
The Dixie Chicks were not muzzled, no one prevented them from speaking their piece.
They also aren’t the best example to employ: They were in a foreign country in front of a large audience, and they chose to disparage the President of their own country. This goes a little beyond what anyone could refer to as responsible use of their freedom of speech.
Remember, any time a celebrity goes abroad, like it or not, he or she is unofficially representing the U.S. — audiences are influenced by things he or she says. Such statements could influence members of that foreign audience to lobby or vote against pro-American leaders, for example.
Again, also, whatever actions were taken by radio stations or others in response to treasonous remarks by the Dizzy Chix were a matter of disapproval after the fact, not of stifling their freedom of speech. There is a big difference.
Re socialist groups — What can one say? The world had not yet observed the tragic results of socialism. That was then. Those among our countrymen who still wish to live in a socialist state should move to one, not try to force it on all Americans whether we like it or not.
Atheling –
And there was also Kurt Schumacher.
But remember that Hitler was elected by a population that knew up front they were voting for the orchestrator of the “Beer Hall Putsch” and a man who had served time in prison for activities related to his political extremism.
They should never have allowed such a man to become their leader in the first place.
Anti-semitism is growing over there, especially in Germany and France (I disinclude the obvious Muslims in this, just referring to indigenous folks).
As far as atheism in Europe goes, one of its most dangerous bi-products will be the faith void it creates for Islam to fill. Mark Steyn made some good points about that in America Alone.
Europe will never learn, they’ll repeat their mistakes over and over until the day they begin paying the dhimmi tax, then decisions about how to live, what to opine and how they are governed will be taken out of their hands.
April 21st, 2008 at 4:49 pm
Seth,
I get it; the right is always right, the left is always wrong. That’s pretty simple. Way too simple.
So, this singer said she was ashamed to be from the same state as the president. Treason? Whaaa, we still got the Alien & Sedition laws?
April 21st, 2008 at 4:55 pm
BB -
Now you’re being wilfully obtuse.
And, to answer your question, yes, the Left is always wrong and the Right is always right.
Righty tighty, Lefty loosie.
April 21st, 2008 at 5:51 pm
Atheling,
“Righty tighty, lefty loosie”?? That is an old secret engineering term. Thought you were in law?
April 21st, 2008 at 5:56 pm
…to get back to the original comments….
the ‘grandmother’ Seth speaks of actually had 3 brothers, but she usually only spoke at length of two of them…Aaron (her oldest brother) and the one Seth is named after (and he was the family rebel). Her two younger brothers were Zionists and voyaged to Israel to help build the ‘promised land’… Aaron, the oldest, was quite brilliant and a true idealist (or so the telling always went)…he was, together with both his brothers and others, a freedom fighter in the broad sense of the word….in fact, there’s a kibbutz in Israel that has written a book documenting their helping others escape from both the Warsaw and Tarnapol gettos (they were murdered in Treblinka and Dachau and Auschwitz0 and within the pages Seth’s forebears are given more than a single paragraph…so you can see that Seth comes by his sense of indignant rage at those that would bastardize justice, freedom, and common sense…..Seth, someday you must let your friends and fellow bloggers in on the fact that on your grandfather’s side you are a true decendent of a revolutionary…but that lends itself to another time.
April 21st, 2008 at 6:26 pm
BB:
“Secret engineering term”? Huh. I guess my Dad, an old Army guy, somehow infiltrated the cabal!
Hey, you learn all sorts of things working in a law office - it’s not just dry legalese. (Ducking now, waiting for the drubbing about lawyers to commence).
Wow, Seth, so you’re named after the rebel of the family! I’ll have to tell you my Dad’s amazing story about a friend of his who hid from the Nazis in the Netherlands, escaped to the US, and his remarkable life after that… It makes you realize that there are no coincidences in life - just the Lord being “incognito”!
April 21st, 2008 at 6:29 pm
I’m pretty sure they will rot in Hell.
April 21st, 2008 at 9:50 pm
BB –
Actually, the right is always right, the left is always left, the latter moreso by the day.
How did Reagan put it? “…it’s just that they know so much that isn’t true.”
You miss my point entirely re the Ditzy Chix. They are free to voice whatever opinion they choose. However, and I’ve said this before, rights are not free, freedoms are not free. There are responsibilities attached to them, a fact that our political left seems to have forgotten. These responsibilities are not written into the law because our founding fathers figured that Americans would be smart, perspicatious, discreet enough on their own to know what these responsibilities are, and that placing any limitations on rights like freedom of speech would, in itself, be contradictory to the entire concept. The responsibility inherent in the right to free speech is to refrain from using it in a manner that can do harm. Take, for example, the irresponsible anti-war grandstanding by the media and many Democrat members of Congress — this has proved to embolden the enemy and is directly responsible for a whole slew of the same deaths the MSM likes to crow about in their anti-war diatribes.
That said, disparaging ones government, individual politicians or foreign policy in such a forum as the Ditzy Chix did is abuse of the right to free speech in that it can cause damage to another country’s perception of our government and its policies.
NHMW –
I knew a little about the two brothers, ie something to do with their underground involvement, but not about the 3rd brother or any of the rest. Thanks, now I know indeed where my “attitude” comes from!
Nancy and Harry had better watch themselves, there’s a new revolutionary in town…
Atheling –
(Ducking now, waiting for the drubbing about lawyers to commence) LOL!
Wow, I read the email, and that is one helluva story! You’re totally right about it being no coincidence.
Shoprat –
There’s probably a special room in hell just for the Nazis.