Liberation of the Concentration Camps

When we went to Nohra, […] we took a day trip into Buchenwald. […]It was just unbelievable to see. You couldn’t—there was so much of it, you couldn’t grasp at all. We just see these people standing, you see the bodies. You see the ashes. You see the ditches. It’s just—I can’t really describe it to tell you, you know, how horrendous it was to see these people treated like animals. You might see even worse than that.

Andrew Kiniry, 45th Evacuation Hospital, describing when the 3rd Army liberated Buchenwald

As the allies advanced from the West and the Soviets from the east, many expected to see the remnants of training camps or POW camps. What they found was beyond their wildest nightmares.

What they found were thousands upon thousands of men, women and children, all on the brink of starving to death, who had been left abandoned in fences like cattle. Not only were these people but specific groups of people. Some were disabled, some were gay, some were slavs. But the most notable among these groups of people were the Jews. The soldiers thought they had seen the worst of it but they were very wrong.

A group of child prisoners at Auschwitz

They found large gas chambers, in which the prisoners would be put inside, under the pretence of having a shower to cleanse themselves. Then, Zyklon B, a pesticide, would be poured in through the showers. Deaths could take anywhere between 3 minutes to 30. The bodies were then dragged out and burnt in ovens nearby. The specific targeting of Jews was called Germany’s “Final Solution”, which involved the eradication of the Jewish population from Europe. This was known as the Holocaust, but many Jews today prefer to call it the Shoah.

Over 5.7 million Jews were killed in the concentration camps. Others killed included 2-3million Soviet POWs, 1.9 million Poles, 1.5 million Romani, 250,000 disabled people, 170,000 Freemasons, 25,000 Slovenes, 15,000 homosexuals, 5,000 Jehovahs witnesses, 7,000 Spanish Republicans as well as countless others. Over 17 million people died due to the concentration camps alone.

The survivors were liberated, many only to find that their homes had been repossessed. Many Jews sought shelter in Palestine whilst others stayed in Europe, where relentless persecution still occurs to this day. To this day, people still deny these events happened, either that the statistics are overestimates or that such things never occurred and is simply a victim complex made by Jews. Many cite the Holocaust as the greatest humanitarian tragedy in history.

The Incredible Story of Oskar Schindler

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing

Edmund Burke

Oskar Schindler was a German speaking man living in the Sudetenland before war broke out. He was very well known in his youth for being a Casanova, before settling and marrying Emilie Pelzl in 1928. However, their marriage was fraught with strife, as Emilie believed that Schindler only married her when he needed someone to come home to.

By 1938, Schindler managed to land himself as a spy for the Germans, infiltrating Czechoslovakian society. Eventually, he was found out and sentenced to death. However, with days, perhaps even hours of his life left, Hitler annexed the Sudetenland and, in accordance with the Munich Agreement, Schindler was let go. He eventually ended up joining the Nazi party just before the outbreak of World War 2. Him and his wife were moved to the industrial town of Ostrava near the Polish Border, where he would bribe Nazi Officials in order to curry favour. Once Poland was invaded in 1939, Schindler saw this as a new business opportunity.

He set up shop in a Jewish Ghetto set up by the Nazis in Krakow, Poland. He made enamel in the city and hired a Jewish man who used to work in the factory he took over, Abraham Bankier, as floor manager and made him hire the employees. This assistant made it so that as many Jews could be considered essential workers so wouldn’t be taken to concentration camps and killed. He justified this to Schindler by saying that, due to Nazi laws, Jews were payed less so would cost him less money than hiring Poles to do the same work. Schindler agreed whilst enjoying the company of the Nazi party officials due to his new stature as an industrialist. He had landed himself a large contract supplying the army with kitchenware in their new war against France and Britain.

By 1941, a new law was passed stating that Jews could now earn zero money, and all money that would usually be payed to Jews would now be paid to the SS. However, this now meant that the survival of the Jews working in the factory was now Schindler’s choice. Schindler decided to use his connections with the black market to supply his workers with food out of his own pocket. This is the beginning of Schindler’s arc to redemption.

By 1942, the Death Camps had begun to open. Many of the Jews in Krakow were sent to Belzec Death Camp. However, because they were employed by Schindler, the now hundreds of Jews under his employ were saved from the gas chambers. However, things soon began to change.

Amon Göth, a second Lieutenant in the SS, ordered a new camp to be constructed in Plaszow, only 4km from Krakow. Every morning and every night, Jews from Krakow would work on building the new camp and then working inside. Göth was ruthless, he would use Jews at target practice and train dogs to attack them on command. Schindler began becoming friendly with the tyrant of Plaszow, by sending him lavish gifts he found on the black market, taking him to lavish parties and charming him relentlessly.

A photo of Amon Göth

In March 1943, Göth ordered Krakow Ghetto to be liquidated and all the Jews to be moved to Plaszow. 2,000 Jews are moved while another 2,000 are killed during the liquidation. Schindler allegedly hid his employees inside the factory to keep them from harm.

The Liquidation of Krakow Ghetto

After having witnessed the liquidation, Schindler was said to be appalled. Sol Urbach claimed that:

[Schindler] changed his mind about the Nazis. He decided to get out and to save as many Jews as he could

Sol Urbach, Schindlerjude

Schindler moved his operation to Plaszow and bribed Amon Göth to do so and build a sub camp around the factory, whilst still maintaining a relationship with him. Göth allowed Schindler to do whatever he wanted inside the sub camp in Plaszow, which Schindler took to his advantage. The Jews who worked for Schindler inside his camp were given adequate food and living quarters, banning the SS from entering the camp.

As Germany realised it was on a track to losing the war, Göth ordered all Jews to be moved to Auschwitz to be killed. Schindler managed to, at a large personal expense, to get Amon to allow him to take all his workers to Brunnlitz to set up another factory there.

Amon asked him to make a list of every name he needed for his new factory. This list included 1,100 Jewish names. However, Schindler was unable to write it in person, as the SS had arrested Göth for his black market dealings via Schindler. Schindler was ratted out by Göth and also arrested. He assigned Marcel Goldberg to prepare the list.

One page of Schindler’s List. The list ended up being almost 20 pages long

Every man on the list was successfully sent to Brunnlitz. However, a train carrying the women was sent to Auschwitz by mistake. Whilst in prison, Schindler scrambled to save the women from death, sending a representative down to stop the extermination. Despite a very close call with death, all the women were moved safely to Brunnlitz. By now, Schindler had spent a lot of money on bribes, black market dealings and saving the lives of the Jews. He spent the last of his money on decent clothes for his workers. His workers spent the last days of the war intentionally making faulty guns in order to hinder the Nazi war effort as much as possible.

Once the war was over, Schindler was penniless but had saved 1,100 lives from the hands of the Nazis. However, because he was a member of the Nazi Party, a war profiteer and a profiteer of slave labour, he had to go into hiding in Argentina. He left his wife in 1957 and sailed back to West Germany. He died, poor, with a collapsed business and a failed marriage in 1974. However, for those few years, he would recieve small donations from the thousand lives he had saved from the clutches of evil. Amon Göth was hanged for crimes against humanity. The people he saved named themselves the Schindlerjuden, in his honour. Schindler’s name was added to the Avenue of the Righteous in Israel, a place were those who saved Jews during the Holocaust and risked their lives doing so. He was buried upon Mount Zion in Israel. Over 8,500 people are alive because of Schindler’s actions that wouldn’t have been otherwise.

Oskar Schindler’s grave covered in stones, a sign of respect for the dead in Judaism

Schindler’s story was turned into a book, Schindler’s Ark, by Thomas Keneally which was inspired by Poldek Pfefferberg, a Schindlerjude. The book was later adapted into the 1993 film Schindler’s List directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes and Ben Kingsley. It was nominated for 12 Academy Awards and won 7, including Best Picture. It is considered to be one of the greatest films of all time.

Liam Neeson (left) and Ben Kinglsey (right) portraying Oskar Schindler and Itzhak Stern respectively in Schindler’s List

Whoever saves one life saves the world entire

Ben Kingsley, Schindler’s List

Hitler in Power

At the risk of appearing to talk nonsense I tell you that the National Socialist movement will go on for 1,000 years! … Don’t forget how people laughed at me 15 years ago when I declared that one day I would govern Germany. They laugh now, just as foolishly, when I declare that I shall remain in power!

Adolf Hitler, reporting to a British Correspondent, 1934

Hitler employed his “Work and Bread” tactic once he became Führer. It started with when he would make it appear that unemployment had gone down. He did this by counting women who made families as employed. He fired Jewish shopkeepers and replaced them with non-Jewish shopkeepers. He then didn’t count the Jews as unemployed. If the Jewish business owners refused to cooperate, they would be boycotted.

A boycotted Jewish business in Germany

Hitler built the Autobahn, which took only 3 years to build 1000 kilometres. He also made the Volkswagen Beetle, a cheap and affordable car for the working class. Unemployment went down to 400,000 during Hitler’s time in office and things seemed to be looking up for Germany. Little did the German people know, Hitler was preparing them for war.

He denounced the Treaty of Versailles and rearmed his army, by building tanks, planes and warships for the German Army and reintroduced conscription. Hermann Goering would become the head of the new Luftwaffe, a name that has stuck with the German Air Force to this day.

Young boys were made to join a Nazified version of the Scouts, the Hitler Youth. They did exercise, sports and learned not to trust Jews.

Hitler meeting a group of Hitler Youth members

Jews suffered from relentless persecution and segregation under the time of the Nazi’s being in power. Jewish Lawyers and judges were sacked in March 1933. They were banned from sports clubs and the teachers were sacked by April. Race Studies was introduced in schools in September. Jewish businesses boycotted by painting the Star of David or the word “Juden”, the German word for Jew, on shop windows and soldiers turned people away. Jews had their German Citizenship revoked. They weren’t allowed to vote and marry non-Jews. By 1936, Jews weren’t allowed electrical equipment. In 1938, Jewish doctors were sacked, had to have something to identify them as a Jew in their name, Jewish children were banned from non-Jewish schools, Synagogues and businesses were attacked. The discrimination escalated further and further until the straw broke the camel’s back.

Ernst Vom Rath, a German diplomat, was killed by Herschel Grynszpan, a German-born Polish Jew who killed Rath for deporting his parents, along with thousands of other Polish Jews to a slum of a refugee camp near the Polish Border, as the Polish government were not admitting Jews without valid passports who had lived in Germany for more than five years. Many Polish Jews wanted to return to Poland due to Hitler’s antisemitic laws, but were denied entry. Reinhard Heydrich, head of the Gestapo, forced thousands upon thousands of Polish Jews to illegally cross the border. Due to the increased influx of immigrants, faster than they could build homes, the Polish Government denied Polish Jews from entering the country, and the Jews remained trapped between two countries who did not want them. Enraged by the Nazi government’s actions, an angered Grynszpan killed Vom Rath. On the night of November 9th, 1938, members of the SS and SA, along with the Hitler Youth and the general public, attacked Jewish businesses, burnt down synagogues and arrested Jews in an attempt to force them out of the country. Over 30,000 Jews were sent to the concentration camps, where many would die. Herschel was arrested and sent to the concentration camps. He was never seen again. His parents, who had survived the war, requested that his date of death be put as May 8th, 1945, the day Germany surrendered and the European war ended. This night of November 9th 1938 is known as Kristallnacht or the Night of Broken Glass.

A Jewish business having been attacked as a cause of Kristallnacht, German for Night of Broken Glass

Jewish and non-Jewish children weren’t allowed to play together, and Jews were banned from swimming pools. They were evicted from homes in April 1939 and by September weren’t allowed outside between 8pm and 6am. All of this lead up to the Final Solution in 1942, referred to as the Holocaust or the Shoah, in which 6 million Jews were killed by shootings and, more infamously, Zyklon B gas. Those who survived returned home to find their houses taken and Jews still suffer persecution to this day.

Children who were prisoners at Concentration camps during the Holocaust

Jehovah’s Witnesses, unlike the Jews, were given a choice to join them and stop being a Jehovah’s Witness or go to a concentration camp. Over a third of German Jehovah’s Witnesses were killed in concentration camps.

Under Nazi policy, women were not allowed to do much of anything, either. They were required to wear traditional German dresses instead of trousers and high heels. They weren’t allowed to work and if they were working, they were fired and encouraged to start a family. Women were given 25% of a year’s wage for every child they had. They were awarded medals for how many children they had, the highest being a gold medal for 8 children. They were even paired up with SS officers to have the “perfect” Aryan children, since all SS officers were pure Aryan.

They were imposed an ideology where they were only to focus on three things, Kinder, Kirche, Kuche or Children, Church, Cooking in English. They were banned from juries in court trials, considered to be too emotional to judge such a decision.