JJ2014:
Please be assured that I researched the topic thuroughly before posting it or even including it. The information I have is from a series of groups, including the Jewish Holocaust Site and the translation of the letters and papers belonging to the Commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolph Hoss. I did indeed speak to a Jehovah's Witness member for my research, as well, but her information did not take precedence over the information from my other sources. Thus, having my information from both the 'Jewish' side and the 'Nazi' side, among others, I feel confident that my research was all-encompassing. If you wish to cite where your information/ opinions originate, I would be happy to further investigate this.
I feel personally that even if there were only a half-dozen victims in a specific group, to not report those victims would be an injustice. Any victim is a victim, and to ignore one group due to later misconceptions, misreporting, or lack of numbers (or even name changes), is ignoring part of history. In this case, the Jehovah Witnesses are listed as victims of religious/ political persecution. While their numbers and tortures may not have been as great or as obvious as those of the Jewish people, they did indeed suffer and were imprisoned. Thus, they are included in this report. I agree that the majority of known victims were indeed those of Jewish faith; however, they were not the only victims nor the 'most important' victims. To place one group above another or to place more value on one group above another is, in my opinion, what the Nazi party did during the Holocaust.
The very idea of this blog is to inform people that there were other victims, even if of lesser numbers or perhaps lesser degrees of torture and slaying. While the Jewish people suffered a great injustice, they were not the only vicims as many people surprisingly seem to believe. To not report on any of the victims is an injustice in and of itself.
Thank you for your input.
Friday, July 29, 2011
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Works Cited
The American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise
Dwork, Deborah, and Robert Jan van Pelt. Holocaust A History. New York City
Edward L. King. Nazism. http://www.masonicinfo.com/nazism.htm (accessed April 15, 2011).
Hoss, Rudolph, and Primo Levi. Death Dealer: the Memoirs of the SS Kommandant at Auschwitz . Edited by Steven Paskuly. Translated by Andrew Pollinger. New York City
Karen Silverstrim, University of Arkansas
Laffin, John. "1939-9-the Nazi War Cult." In Jackboot: a History of the German Soldier 1713-1945, 160-68. New York City
Levi, Primo, and Philip Roth. Survival in Auschwitz : the Nazi Assault on Humanity. Translated by Stuart Woolf. New York City
Louis Bulow. Angel of Death: Josef Mengele. http://www.auschwitz.dk/Mengele.htm (accessed April 15, 2011).
Lynott, Douglas. "Josef Mengele." Tru.TV. Time/Warner. http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/history/mengele/index_1.html (accessed April 13, 2011).
Matalon Lagnado, Lucette, and Sheila Cohn Dekel. Children of the Flames: Dr. Josef Mengele and the Untold Story of the Twins of Auschwitz . Reprint. New York City
Pine, Dan. "‘Giants’ a Stirring Story of Jewish Dwarfs Who Survived the Holocaust." JWeekly, February 18, 2005. http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/25140/-giants-a-stirring-story-of-jewish-dwarfs-who-survived-the-holocaust/ (accessed April 27, 2011).
Speer, Albert, and Eugene Davidson. Inside the Third Reich: Memoirs by Albert Speer. Translated by Richard Winston and Clara Winston. New York City
Terese Pencak Schwartz. Holocaust: Non-Jewish Victims. http://www.holocaustforgotten.com/Newsletter.htm (accessed April 15, 2011).
Yehuda, Koren. "Mengele and the Family of Dwarfs." History Today 55, no. 2 (February 2005): 32-33. http://web.ebscohost.com.jsc-proxy.libraries.vsc.edu/ehost/detail?vid=3&hid=18&sid=9e5c25c8-0c1a-4b41-91ad-48b63bf73365%40sessionmgr15&bdata=JkF1dGhUeXBlPWlwLHVybCx1aWQmc2l0ZT1laG9zdC1saXZl#db=aph&AN= (accessed April 27, 2011).
Twins
Dr. Mengele was a physician assigned to work at Auschwitz concentration camp. He was responsible for keeping the prisoners healthy so they work or making sure those who were too sick died by a Phenol injection directly to the heart. He would also meet the trains in order to select who would be put into work group and who would be sent to die immediately (1). However, Dr. Mengele was also given permission to conduct genetic experiments* on the prisoners. Among the new arrivals, Dr. Mengele chose as many sets of identical twins as he could. “While the twins were spared from outright execution, they were delivered to a decidedly crueler fate. Mengele reserved a special barracks for his twin subjects, as well as for dwarfs, cripples and other "exotic specimens." The barracks was nicknamed the Zoo, Mengele's holding pen. The twins were his favorite subjects, and they were afforded special treatment, such as being able to keep their own hair and clothing, and receiving extra food rations. The guards were under strict orders not to abuse the children, and were to look after their well being lest one should fall ill and die. Mengele became explosively irate if one of his beloved specimens should happen to die. These twins were referred to as "Mengele's Children (2)." During selection, most often the families were separated at the train platform. Twins were chosen by Dr. Mengele and the rest he sent to gas chamber (3).
In his work, Dr. Mengele wanted to study the effects of different procedures or chemicals on people. What better way to determine the results than by affecting one twin and studying the changes, using the other twin as a baseline? “As twins, they were nature's natural guinea pigs. One child was used as a control and the other had experiments conducted on her/him. If a twin died, the other twin was killed by an injection into the heart and comparative autopsies were done on the two (4).”
“A camp [Auschwitz] where affection and comfort were lavished upon the children living in the Zoo, only so as to keep them healthy enough for twisted and pointless experimentation; a camp where Mengele himself escorted his beloved "children" to the gas chambers, referring to their walks as a game he called "on the way to the chimney (5)."
Auschwitz had another, less infamous, doctor who also performed horrendous experiments on children, though it is not clear if she singled out twins or all children. “Dr. Herta Oberhauser killed children with oil and evipan injections, removed their limbs and vital organs, rubbed ground glass and sawdust into wounds (6).”
In Auschwitz, an estimated 3,000 twins were chosen by Dr. Mengele. Of these, 160 were rescued by the Russian Army (7). Despite his barbaric experiments, many of the survivors who were younger children at the time recall Dr. Mengele as a nice man who treated them well, brought them presents, befriended them, and personally took them to their experiments. He was almost a surrogate father figure to them (8).
*The range of tests and cruelties performed on these children encompass both extremes: gentle measurements and barbarous and deadly surgeries or treatments or experiments. They are so numerous and varied, that I have chosen to relay them as direct quotes. They are explicit. Some people may wish to avoid reading them.*
“In addition to the selections and beatings, Mengele occupied his time with other numerous acts of the most base cruelty, including the dissection of live infants; the castration of boys and men without the use of an anesthetic; and the administering of high-voltage electric shocks to women inmates under the auspices of testing their endurance (9).”
“Ironically, it was his very experiments that extracted the heaviest physical toll on the children upon whom he lavished such care and affection, and hundreds ended up dying as a result of his gruesome deeds. As with other inmates at Auschwitz, Mengele's imagination knew no bounds when it came to devising physical torments for his victims. Preliminary examinations of the twins were routine enough. The children filled out a questionnaire, were weighed and measured. However, a more gruesome fate awaited them at Mengele's hands. He took daily blood samples from his children, and sent these to Professor von Verschuer in Berlin. He injected blood samples from one twin into another twin of a different blood type and recorded the reaction. This was invariably a searingly painful headache and high fever that lasted for several days. In order to determine if eye color could be genetically altered, Mengele had dye injected into the eyes of several twin subjects. This always resulted in painful infections, and sometimes even blindness. If such twins died, Mengele would harvest their eyes and pin them to the wall of his office, much like a biologist pins insect samples to styrofoam. Young children were placed in isolation cages, and subjected to a variety of stimuli to see how they would react. Several twins were castrated or sterilized. Many twins had limbs and organs removed in macabre surgical procedures that Mengele performed without using an anesthetic. Other twins were injected with infectious agents to see how long it would take for them to succumb to various diseases (10).”
"Dr. Mengele had always been more interested in Tibi. I am not sure why - perhaps because he was the older twin. Mengele made several operations on Tibi. One surgery on his spine left my brother paralyzed. He could not walk anymore. Then they took out his sexual organs. After the fourth operation, I did not see Tibi anymore (11).”“The girls, like other twins, had to undergo hundreds of tests. Their heads and body parts were measured and compared. Once they had all their blood transfused with the blood of another set of twins. As a result of that experiment, the girls became very ill and developed a high fever.
The girls reported that Mengele injected his subjects’ eyes with chemicals and dyes to find out if they could be turned into the right shade of Aryan blue. He "swapped" parts of their organs from one set of twins to another. He injected their bodies with poisons and an unknown number of viruses and diseases to compare results from one set of twins to another.
"We had no idea of what was in store for us. The atmosphere was horrible." The girls went with other twins to face Mengele. They remember standing naked before him and the other SS men. They were told they would be impregnated by identical male twins. They remember having blood transfusions from incompatible donors in preparation for the breeding program (12).”
“Mengele performed both physical and psychological experiments, experimental surgeries performed without anesthesia, transfusions of blood from one twin to another, isolation endurance, reaction to various stimuli. He made injections with lethal germs, sex change operations, the removal of organs and limbs, incestuous impregnations (14).”
“So called camp doctors, especially the notorious Josef Mengele, would torture Jewish children, Gypsy children and many others. "Patients" were put into pressure chambers, tested with drugs, castrated, frozen to death, and exposed to various other traumas (15).”
“Mengele was almost fanatical about drawing blood from twins, mostly identical twins. He is reported to have bled some to death this way (16).”
“Once Mengele's assistant rounded up 14 pairs of Gypsy twins during the night. Mengele placed them on his polished marble dissection table and put them to sleep. He then proceeded to inject chloroform into their hearts, killing them instantaneously. Mengele then began dissecting and meticulously noting each and every piece of the twins' bodies (17).”
“Near the end of the war, in order to cut expenses and save gas, "cost- accountant considerations" led to an order to place living children directly into the ovens or throw them into open burning pits (18).”
Sources:
(1) Hoss, Rudolph, and Primo Levi. Death Dealer: the Memoirs of the SS Kommandant at Auschwitz. Edited by Steven Paskuly. Translated by Andrew Pollinger. New York City: Da Capo Press, 1992.
(2) Lynott, Douglas. "Josef Mengele." Tru.TV. Time/Warner. http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/history/mengele/index_5.html (accessed April 13, 2011).
(3) Candles Holocaust Museum. Candles Holocaust Museum. http://www.candlesholocaustmuseum.org/ (accessed March 25, 2011).
(4) Candles Holocaust Museum. Candles Holocaust Museum. http://www.candlesholocaustmuseum.org/index.php?sid=4&id=4 (accessed March 25, 2011).
(5) Lynott, Douglas. "Josef Mengele." Tru.TV. Time/Warner. http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/history/mengele/index_6.html (accessed April 13, 2011).
(6) Louis Bulow. Angel of Death: Josef Mengele. http://www.auschwitz.dk/Mengele.htm (accessed April 15, 2011).
(7) Matalon Lagnado, Lucette, and Sheila Cohn Dekel. Children of the Flames: Dr. Josef Mengele and the Untold Story of the Twins of Auschwitz. Reprint. New York City: Penguin, 1992.
(8) Louis Bulow. Angel of Death: Josef Mengele. http://www.auschwitz.dk/Mengele.htm (accessed April 15, 2011).
(9) Lynott, Douglas. "Josef Mengele." Tru.TV. Time/Warner. http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/history/mengele/index_4b.html (accessed April 13, 2011).
(10) Lynott, Douglas. "Josef Mengele." Tru.TV. Time/Warner. http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/history/mengele/index_5.html (accessed April 13, 2011).
(11) Louis Bulow. Angel of Death: Josef Mengele. http://www.auschwitz.dk/Mengele.htm (accessed April 15, 2011).
(4) Candles Holocaust Museum. Candles Holocaust Museum. http://www.candlesholocaustmuseum.org/index.php?sid=4&id=5 (accessed March 25, 2011).
(13) Louis Bulow. Angel of Death: Josef Mengele. http://www.auschwitz.dk/Mengele.htm (accessed April 15, 2011).
(14) Louis Bulow. Angel of Death: Josef Mengele. http://www.auschwitz.dk/Mengele.htm (accessed April 15, 2011).
(15) Louis Bulow. Angel of Death: Josef Mengele. http://www.auschwitz.dk/Mengele.htm (accessed April 15, 2011).
(16) Louis Bulow. Angel of Death: Josef Mengele. http://www.auschwitz.dk/Mengele.htm (accessed April 15, 2011).
(17) Louis Bulow. Angel of Death: Josef Mengele. http://www.auschwitz.dk/Mengele.htm (accessed April 15, 2011).
(18) Louis Bulow. Angel of Death: Josef Mengele. http://www.auschwitz.dk/Mengele.htm (accessed April 15, 2011).
Resistance Fighters and Those Whom Helped Others
These include: the Polish Underground; German citizens who disagreed with the Final Solution, Euthanasia Policy, or other policies they witnessed; Russian Partisans; and other militant or civilian groups or individuals who defied the Nazi Regime to help themselves and their neighbors.
Some of these rescuers had unofficial titles, such as the Kindertransports (a group of people who rescued Jewish children from Germany and sent them to England to live in safety) or the Hidden Children (Jewish children in the Netherlands were hidden in Catholic families or moved around from family to family to keep them safe). Other individuals had now-famous names, such as Schindler or Wallenberg. However, there were millions of people who resisted the Nazi Regime and its policies. Some lived in cities or country homes, some lived in forests, some even lived in the camps or Nazi barracks. People were transported, hidden in homes and businesses, given false papers, and helped in varying other ways.
These people who helped were considered enemies for the very fact that they resisted the Nazis and aided the ‘enemies’ of the Nazis. Often, if someone was caught who was part of resistance, he or she would be imprisoned or executed. Some wore purple triangles as conscientious objectors, others wore the red triangle of political prisoners or the black triangle of the asocials (1)(2).
One law in the Nazi regime demanded that German citizens divorce those who were considered inferior or enemies (Jews, African descended, etc.). If the German citizen refused this divorce, he or she was imprisoned. Many of these prisoners did not survive (3).
According to one of the survivors from Auschwitz, Primo Levi, an Jewish Italian chemist, “One section of the camp itself is in fact set aside for civilian workers of all nationalities who are compelled to stay there for a longer or shorter period in expiation of their illicit relations with Haftlinge (prisoners), This section is separated from the rest of the camp by barbed wire, and is called E-Lager, and its guests E-Haftlinge. ‘E’ is the initial for ‘Erziehung’ which means education (4).”
Sources:
(1) Terese Pencak Schwartz. Holocaust: Non-Jewish Victims. http://www.holocaustforgotten.com/Newsletter.htm (accessed April 15, 2011).
(2) Hoss, Rudolph, and Primo Levi. Death Dealer: the Memoirs of the SS Kommandant at Auschwitz. Edited by Steven Paskuly. Translated by Andrew Pollinger. New York City: Da Capo Press, 1992.
(3) Terese Pencak Schwartz. Holocaust: Non-Jewish Victims. http://www.holocaustforgotten.com/Newsletter.htm (accessed April 15, 2011).
(4) Levi, Primo, and Philip Roth. Survival in Auschwitz: the Nazi Assault on Humanity. Translated by Stuart Woolf. New York City: Touchstone: Simon & Schuster, 1996, page 83.
Religious Leaders, Priests, Pastors, and Clergy
(i.e.: Catholics, Christians, Lutherans, etc.)
Also known under the title of conscientious objectors or pacifists, religious authority figures represented many religions, even those religions in which Nazi’s had been baptized or raised. Like the Jewish people and the Jehovah Witnesses, these other religious figures were persecuted for refusing to embrace the Nazi state, criticizing the Nazi Regime’s policies, assisting Jews and other refugees, and pacifism (1). According to one source, Hitler wanted to wipe out organized religion and replace it with a worship of the Nazi ideology, something insupportable by religious leaders (2).
“4. Pastor Martin Niemoller is the originator of the now-famous quotation: “In Germany
Punishments ranged from a few days in jail, street executions and brutality, concentration camp imprisonment, and executions (4)(5)(6). Hundreds of thousands were massacred in Soviet villages (7). In Poland
As most religious affiliations, aside from Jewish or Jehovah’s Witnesses, were not recorded in concentration camp records, it is uncertain the full number of incarcerated or executed. However, Dachau had 2,579 Catholics and 141 ‘other’ religious prisoners, 1,034 who died in the camp, 132 who were transferred out or liquidated or exterminated, 314 who were released prior to the liberation of Dachau, and 1,240 who were liberated on April 29, 1945 (11).
Many of the deaths of these religious figures were listed officially as accidents or illness, however it is uncertain. The victims died under ‘mysterious’ circumstances while awaiting trial or serving their sentences (12).
Sources:
(1) United States Holocaust Memorial Museum United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
(2) Terese Pencak Schwartz. Holocaust: Non-Jewish Victims. http://www.holocaustforgotten.com/non-jewishvictims.htm (accessed April 15, 2011).
(3) Hoss, Rudolph, and Primo Levi. Death Dealer: the Memoirs of the SS Kommandant at Auschwitz . Edited by Steven Paskuly. Translated by Andrew Pollinger. New York City
(4) United States Holocaust Memorial Museum United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
(5) Terese Pencak Schwartz. Holocaust: Non-Jewish Victims. http://www.holocaustforgotten.com/non-jewishvictims.htm (accessed April 15, 2011).
(6) United States Holocaust Memorial Museum United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
(7) United States Holocaust Memorial Museum United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
(8) United States Holocaust Memorial Museum United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
(9) Terese Pencak Schwartz. Holocaust: Non-Jewish Victims. http://www.holocaustforgotten.com/non-jewishvictims.htm (accessed April 15, 2011).
(10) Lynott, Douglas. "Josef Mengele." Tru.TV. Time/Warner. http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/history/mengele/4b.html (accessed April 13, 2011).
(11) United States Holocaust Memorial Museum United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
(12) United States Holocaust Memorial Museum United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Refugees
There were about 30,000 anti-Nazi and illegal refugees in Belgium and France. Also, the International Brigade of the Spanish Civil War had fled to France in 1939. These Spanish refugees consisted of about half a million people, mostly children, women, and elderly, and were put into Mediterranean concentration camps by the French government. In 1941, these Spanish refugees were sent to official concentration camps; tens of thousands were sent to Mauthausen alone. In early 1945, there were about 3,000 Spanish refugees listed alive; however, between February and April, this number was reduced by 2,163 due to killings.
Sources:
The final number of Spanish Refugee survivals was around 837.
Sources:
Karen Silverstrim, University of Arkansas. Overlooked Millions: Non-Jewish Victims of the Holocaust. http://www.ukemonde.com/holocaust/victims.html (accessed April 15, 2011).
Prisoners of War (POWs)
Many soldiers, and some civilians, were captured during World War II and the military actions directly before the war. Among these POWs were Soviets, Americans, English, French, Czechs, and many others. Statistics of POW deaths usually concentrate on those of Soviet descent, making finding totals of victims difficult.
The Nazi regime held an especial hatred of Soviets, due to their Communist government. They began what was considered a war of annihilation against the Soviets, considering them sub-humans. Slavs and Jews were also included in the Soviet roundup, including Soviets with ‘Asiatic’ features. The POWs were considered the biggest threat, as they were linked in Nazi thinking to the ‘Jewish conspiracy’. They called the Soviet POWs ‘the Bolshevik Menace’ (1).
Rudolph Hoss, the Commandant of Auschwitz, wrote “The second-largest group (of prisoners), who were supposed to build a POW camp at Birkenau, were the Russian prisoners of war (2).”
There were approximately 5.7 Soviet POWs. Of these, about 1 million were released as ‘auxiliaries’ of the Army and the SS groups. Another half million escaped or were liberated by the Soviet Army. By January of 1945, there were 930,000 Soviet POWs remaining in German custody. 3.3 million Soviet POWs had been killed or died of circumstances before the end of the war (3).
Of the American and British POWs, there had been 231,000 taken prisoner. 8,3000 of them died. (4)
The difference between the Soviet POWs and the British and American POWs was their treatment. Most of the American and British POWs were kept in a separate section of the camp from other prisoners. They were allowed their uniforms, and were often provided medical attention and food. Soviets, on the other hand, were subject to harsher conditions, poor clothing, poor food, and hard labor. (5)(6)(7)
Many Soviet POWs were killed by gassing or shooting. The following two quotes were written by Rudolph Hoss in his memoirs:
“On that very same day the first execution of the war took place in Sachsenhausen. It was a Communist who refused to perform his air raid duties in the Junker aircraft factory in the city of Dressau. Plant security reported him and he was arrested by the State Police and brought to the Gestapo in Berlin for questioning. The report was presented to Himmler, who then ordered his immediate execution by firing squad (8).”
“I remember well and was much more impressed by the gassing of nine hundred Russians which occurred soon afterwards in the old crematory because the use of Block 11 caused too many problems (9).”
Those who weren’t killed with Carbon Monoxide, Cyclon-B gas, or Firing Squads were worked, starved, and neglected until they died.
Sources:
(1) United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. http://www.ushmm.org (accessed April 13, 2011).
(2) Hoss, Rudolph, and Primo Levi. Death Dealer: the Memoirs of the SS Kommandant at Auschwitz. Edited by Steven Paskuly. Translated by Andrew Pollinger. New York City: Da Capo Press, 1992, page 132.
(3) United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. http://www.ushmm.org (accessed April 13, 2011).
(4) United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. http://www.ushmm.org (accessed April 13, 2011).
(5) United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. http://www.ushmm.org (accessed April 13, 2011).
(6) Levi, Primo, and Philip Roth. Survival in Auschwitz: the Nazi Assault on Humanity. Translated by Stuart Woolf. New York City: Touchstone: Simon & Schuster, 1996.
(7) Hoss, Rudolph, and Primo Levi. Death Dealer: the Memoirs of the SS Kommandant at Auschwitz. Edited by Steven Paskuly. Translated by Andrew Pollinger. New York City: Da Capo Press, 1992.
(8) Hoss, Rudolph, and Primo Levi. Death Dealer: the Memoirs of the SS Kommandant at Auschwitz. Edited by Steven Paskuly. Translated by Andrew Pollinger. New York City: Da Capo Press, 1992, page 98.
(9) Hoss, Rudolph, and Primo Levi. Death Dealer: the Memoirs of the SS Kommandant at Auschwitz. Edited by Steven Paskuly. Translated by Andrew Pollinger. New York City: Da Capo Press, 1992, page 156.
Polish
One of the largest groups of victims was the Polish people. They were a small country, very agricultural, which resided close to Germany. The farmers were strong, healthy, and modest. Thus, Germany saw them as both a threat and a potential resource (1).
In 1939, Germany invaded Poland. After a bitter battle, Germany won and annexed much of Poland’s land to themselves and their allies. They ensured compliance from the Polish citizens by wiping out the Intelligentisa, or ruling class then deporting everyone else to ghettos or concentration camps, or by preventing others from leaving the country at all. Those who were Jews, and later those of Gypsy heritage, were treated more harshly, rounded-up, placed in ghettos, deported, shot, transported to concentration camp, forced into labor, used for scientific experiments and killed. Non-Jews were restricted, used for slave labor, and drafted into the German army (2).
One of the most heart-wrenching things which occurred was when the Nazis removed blond-haired, blue-eyed Polish children from their families and sent these children to Nazi parents to be ‘Germanized’. In many cases, the children never found their natural parents or siblings again (3).
Primo Levi, an Italian Jewish man, wrote a book about his experiences in the concentration camp Auschwitz. “Everyone will treat with respect the numbers from 30,000 to 80,000: there are only a few hundred left and they represented the few survivals from the Polish ghettos. It is as well to watch out in commercial dealings with a 116,000 or a 117,000: they now number only about forty, but they represent the Greeks of Salonica… (4)”
“I also have to mention here the Summary Court and the killing of hostages, since this affected only the Polish prisoners (5),” wrote Rudolph Hoss, Commandant of Auschwitz, in his memoirs.
In total, it is estimated that there were some six million Polish killed: three million Jews and three million Catholics (6).
Sources:
(1) Terese Pencak Schwartz. Holocaust: Non-Jewish Victims. http://www.holocaustforgotten.com/non-jewishvictims.htm (accessed April 15, 2011).
(2) Terese Pencak Schwartz. Holocaust: Non-Jewish Victims. http://www.holocaustforgotten.com/non-jewishvictims.htm (accessed April 15, 2011).
(3) Terese Pencak Schwartz. Holocaust: Non-Jewish Victims. http://www.holocaustforgotten.com/non-jewishvictims.htm (accessed April 15, 2011).
(4) Levi, Primo, and Philip Roth. Survival in Auschwitz: the Nazi Assault on Humanity. Translated by Stuart Woolf. New York City: Touchstone: Simon & Schuster, 1996, page 28.
(5) Hoss, Rudolph, and Primo Levi. Death Dealer: the Memoirs of the SS Kommandant at Auschwitz. Edited by Steven Paskuly. Translated by Andrew Pollinger. New York City: Da Capo Press, 1992, page 129.
(6) Terese Pencak Schwartz. Holocaust: Non-Jewish Victims. http://www.holocaustforgotten.com/Newsletter.htm (accessed April 15, 2011).
Jehovah’s Witnesses
The Jehovah’s Witnesses were persecuted for their ideology and their strength of will. Hitler wanted to promote Nazi ideology for people to swear allegiance to and follow. The Jehovah’s Witnesses refused to swear allegiance to any government, God, or ideology except that of Jehovah. They refused to follow the Nazi’s regime and refused to sign loyalty documents, fight in war, or vote in elections. They were believed to have international connections with America
Whereas Jehovah’s Witnesses were not deliberately hunted down for death, originally, they stiff suffered greatly at the hands of the Nazi regime. Meetings were broken up, printing presses shut down or destroyed, materials burned, archives confiscated, and followers beaten. By 1933, Jehovah’s Witnesses (also called International Bible Students) were banned in Bavria and throughout most of Germany Germany Germany and other areas occupied by Germany
In the concentration camps, they were made to wear purple triangle patches or purple armbands, denoting them as conscientious objectors (5). Though not outright slaughtered as wholly as Jews, Gypsies, and Poles, between 2,500 to 5,000 died in prison or the camps. More than 200 were tried in German War Courts and sentenced to death for refusing military service. These sentences were carried out (6).
According to the Commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolph Hoss, “How different each person’s approach to death was. The Jehovah’s Witnesses were in a way strangely satisfied. One could say they had an almost transfigured mood and had a rock-hard awareness that they were to be allowed to go into Jehovah’s kingdom. The draft dodgers and the saboteurs calmly composed and reconciled themselves to the inevitability of their fate. The professional criminal and the truly asocial appeared to be quite different, either cynical, insolent, or apparently vigorous. Trembling inside with the fear of the great unknown, they raged and fought all the way or whined for a priest to help them (7).”
Sources:
(1) Terese Pencak Schwartz. Holocaust: Non-Jewish Victims. http://www.holocaustforgotten.com/Jehovah.htm (accessed April 15, 2011).
(2) United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
(3) United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
(4) United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
(5) Terese Pencak Schwartz. Holocaust: Non-Jewish Victims. http://www.holocaustforgotten.com/Jehovah.htm (accessed April 15, 2011).
(6) United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
(7) Hoss, Rudolph, and Primo Levi. Death Dealer: the Memoirs of the SS Kommandant at Auschwitz . Edited by Steven Paskuly. Translated by Andrew Pollinger. New York City
Homosexuals
In the Weimer Republic, before the rise of Nazism, Paragraph 175 of the criminal code made homosexuality illegal. However, many Germans appeared tolerant as there was a strong homosexual support network, clubs, groups, and press, as well as activism. Many saw this as a decadence of the Germans, but nothing much was done until the Nazis took power. In 1933, they dissolved the organizations and support groups and sent the homosexual men to prisons and concentration camps (1).
The threat the Nazis saw in the homosexuals was that they were unlikely to produce children, therefore not helping in the production of pure Germans. They were considered a racial threat, as well as too weak and effeminate to fight for the German nation. If the homosexual was not a German, he was not persecuted; only German homosexual men were (2). In fact, “Lesbians were not regarded as a threat to Nazi racial policies and were generally not targeted for persecution (3).”
Aside from the dissolution of support networks, the shutting down of groups, clubs, and press, and the banning of publication, over 12,000 books and 35,0000 photographs (from the Institute for Sexual Science) were destroyed in mass book burnings in Berlin in May of 1933. Those which weren’t destroyed have never been recovered. The Gestapo and local police kept “pink lists” of men suspected of homosexual activity, and used these lists to hunt down and imprison them. In 1936, Paragraph 175 was revised and made the persecution of homosexuality legal, eventually strengthening it to include any suspected activity as well as thoughts or inclinations. In 1935, Himmler and the Reich Control Office for Combating Abortion and Homosexuality, made it legal to hold in protective custody or preventive arrest anyone they deemed dangerous to German moral fiber. This could be done to anyone, without trial, for an indefinite term. Some of the men interned in concentration camps were purposely mislabeled as political prisoners while others were mistakenly put into other categories (4); however, the majority of imprisoned homosexuals could be identified by the pink triangle patch they were forced to wear (5)(6).
As homosexuality was considered a disease, it was thought it could be cured through ridicule, humiliation, separation, hard work, and beatings. Others thought it could be voluntarily changed to heterosexuality, and those men who ‘gave up’ being homosexuality were given reduced sentences, amnesty, and release. Castration was another way to earn a reduced sentence, though later castration was made mandatory, with or without consent (7).
According to Karen Silverstrim, “In the camps, however, Nazis and prisoners alike consistently singled out one group for mistreatment. The tens of thousands of homosexuals incarcerated and killed in the camps were usually treated more harshly than other prisoners, and were also subjected to cruel medical experiments, like some other victims (8).” Some of those medical experiments caused mutilation of the men, caused illness, or even ended in death while no viable scientific knowledge was gained. In the concentration camps Dora-Mittelbau, Flossenburg, and Buchenwald, homosexuals were given the deadliest assignments; they did not often survive long (9).
“Hitler even searched his own men and found suspected homosexuals that were sent to concentration camps wearing their S.S. uniforms and medals (10),” according to Terese Schwartz. And the SA Chief, Ernst Rohm, and the Army Supreme Commander, Von Fritsch, were murdered due to allegations that they were homosexual (11).
In the end, it is uncertain just how many were killed, though some estimated place the figure between 5,000 to 15,000 (12)(13).
Sources:
(1) United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005261 (accessed April 13, 2011).
(2) United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005261 (accessed April 13, 2011).
(3) United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005261 (accessed April 13, 2011).
(4) United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005261 (accessed April 13, 2011).
(5) Terese Pencak Schwartz. Holocaust: Non-Jewish Victims. http://www.holocaustforgotten.com/NewsGays.htm (accessed April 15, 2011).
(6) United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005261 (accessed April 13, 2011).
(7) United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005261 (accessed April 13, 2011).
(8) Karen Silverstrim, University of Arkansas. Overlooked Millions: Non-Jewish Victims of the Holocaust. http://www.ukemonde.com/holocaust/victims.html (accessed April 15, 2011).
(9) United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005261 (accessed April 13, 2011).
(10) Terese Pencak Schwartz. Holocaust: Non-Jewish Victims. http://www.holocaustforgotten.com/NewsGays.htm (accessed April 15, 2011).
(11) Karen Silverstrim, University of Arkansas. Overlooked Millions: Non-Jewish Victims of the Holocaust. http://www.ukemonde.com/holocaust/victims.html (accessed April 15, 2011).
(12) United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005261 (accessed April 13, 2011).
(13) Terese Pencak Schwartz. Holocaust: Non-Jewish Victims. http://www.holocaustforgotten.com/NewsGays.htm (accessed April 15, 2011).
Gypsies: Roma, Sinti, and Lalleri
Hitler considered the nomadic people of Romani descent to be racially inferior and degenerates. These people, the Roma, the Sinti, and the Lalleri, (also collectively referred to as Gypsies), were some of the first people rounded up and segregated from German society (1)(2)(3). They were considered asocials (mainly slackers and inherently petty criminals) and were put in specialized forced labor camps, which unfortunately changed from transient camps to permanent ones before they were deported to ghettos and concentration camps (4)(5)(6). “The next largest contingent in the camp were the Gypsies. Long before the war they Gypsies were rounded up and put into concentration camps during the campaign against the asocials (7),” remarked Rudolph Hoss, Commandant of Auschwitz, in his memoirs.
At first, mixed Roma-German people were exempt from persecution, but lated they were seen as dangerous while pure blooded ‘Gypsies’ were spared (8). The Nuremberg laws, originally designating what constituted Jewish blood, were suddenly applied to Roma peoples as well (9). Many were imprisoned without a legitimate crime being listed.
Many Roma had to endure forced sterilization and hard labor, ridicule and lack of adequate supplies, disease, deportation, shootings, and gassings (10)(11). Hoss wrote “Himmler learned about the death rate [of the Gypsies], which, compared to the whole camp, was still relatively low, even though the death rate among the children was exceptionally high. I do not believe that many of the newborns survived the first weeks. Himmler saw everything in detail, as it really was. Then he ordered me to gas them. Those who were still able to work were to be selected, just as was done with the Jews. (12).”
In the end, an exact death toll is uncertain for Roma peoples. Some of the figures are listed as: about half a million “almost the entire Eastern European Gypsy populations (13)”, 2220,000 “about twenty-five percent of all European Roma (14)”, among other more generalized or regional figures. After World War II ended, the discrimination continued, and what occurred to the Gypsies in the camps was considered legal as they were “criminals”. It wasn’t until the 1970s that the Roma were acknowledged as true victims of the Holocaust with rights to restitution, but by then most of the survivors had died (15).
Sources:
(1) Hoss, Rudolph, and Primo Levi. Death Dealer: the Memoirs of the SS Kommandant at Auschwitz. Edited by Steven Paskuly. Translated by Andrew Pollinger. New York City: Da Capo Press, 1992, page 135.
(2) Terese Pencak Schwartz. Holocaust: Non-Jewish Victims. http://www.holocaustforgotten.com/romgypsies.htm (accessed April 15, 2011).
(3) United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/artcle.php?ModuleId=10005219 (accessed April 13, 2011).
(4) Terese Pencak Schwartz. Holocaust: Non-Jewish Victims. http://www.holocaustforgotten.com/romgypsies.htm (accessed April 15, 2011).
(5) United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/artcle.php?ModuleId=10005219 (accessed April 13, 2011).
(6) United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007329 (accessed April 13, 2011).
(7) United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/artcle.php?ModuleId=10005219 (accessed April 13, 2011).
(8) United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007329 (accessed April 13, 2011).
(9) Hoss, Rudolph, and Primo Levi. Death Dealer: the Memoirs of the SS Kommandant at Auschwitz. Edited by Steven Paskuly. Translated by Andrew Pollinger. New York City: Da Capo Press, 1992, page 135.
(10) United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/artcle.php?ModuleId=10005219 (accessed April 13, 2011).
(11) United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007329 (accessed April 13, 2011).
(12) Hoss, Rudolph, and Primo Levi. Death Dealer: the Memoirs of the SS Kommandant at Auschwitz. Edited by Steven Paskuly. Translated by Andrew Pollinger. New York City: Da Capo Press, 1992, page 136.
(13) Terese Pencak Schwartz. Holocaust: Non-Jewish Victims. http://www.holocaustforgotten.com/romgypsies.htm (accessed April 15, 2011).
(14) United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/artcle.php?ModuleId=10005219 (accessed April 13, 2011).
(15) United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/artcle.php?ModuleId=10005219 (accessed April 13, 2011).
Freemasons
The Freemasons are a group of men, and now women, who meet in private for their own rituals, discussions, and business. They are known as a ‘secret society” and are prevalent throughout Europe and America. However, Hitler and his Nazi regime felt that the Masons were a threat to their policies and power. It was believed that the Masonic lodges had connections to social and liberal democrats and close ties with the Jews. In fact, it was believed that Jews were in control of the Freemasons and dictated how they behaved, who they had associations to, and their government links. Whereas many Masons were Jewish, the Jews had no control over policy or practice. Religion and Masonic orders were kept separate (1).
Originally, the Masonic lodges were shut down and disbanded, assets were confiscated, archives and libraries taken and studied. Soon, the Masons were banned from careers in the Ministry of Defense, both military and civilian. By October 28, 1934, the Masonic lodges were decreed as hostile or the German state. By 1935, all lodges had been dissolved and their assets confiscated by the Nazis; to this day only some of these collections have been returned. Others reside in foreign archives. Soon, there were propaganda exhibitions across Europe to ridicule Freemasonry, direct hatred towards them, and heighten the fear of the Masons (2).
It was eventually believed that there was a Jewish-Masonic conspiracy against the Nazis. The Freemasons were believed to have political power and use it to provoke war (such as World War II), as well as using their “power” for subversive activities, revolution, and using the press to control the general public. They were also said to be responsible for FD Roosevelt’s (the American president) policies (3).
In 1922, Rosenberg published a book called “The Crime of Freemasonry: Jewry, Jesuitism, and German Christianity.” This was followed in 1925 with Hitler’s own book, “Mein Kamf,” in which he stated “… and in Freemasonry, which has succumbed to him [the Jews] completely, he has an excellent instrument with which to fight for his arms and put them across. The governing circles and the higher strata of the political and economic bourgeoisie are brought into his nets by the strings of Freemasonry, and never need to suspect what is happening (4).” In 1927, Ludendorff’s published his book “Exterminating Freemasonry by Revealing Its Secrets.” In 193, the Nazis were determined to root out all “… Jewish, liberal, and Masonic infectious residue that remains in the unconscious many, above all in the academic and intellectual world (5).”
No one is certain how many Freemasons died, or in which categories. As many Freemasons also fell under other categories, such as Jewish, political prisoners, etc., there is no record of numbers of Freemason deaths. It is also unknown how many Freemasons were persecuted for being Freemasons, and how many for being Jewish or for being suspected of being Jewish. There were Freemasons in the resistance movements, there were some arrested, and there were those murdered during World War II (6).
At the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum- “you can also read some of Hitler’s materials linking the Jews and Freemasonry to his extermination programs 7)."
Sources:
(1) United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007187 (accessed April 13, 2011).
(2) United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007187 (accessed April 13, 2011).
(3) United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007187 (accessed April 13, 2011).
(4) United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007186 (accessed April 13, 2011).
(5) United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007187 (accessed April 13, 2011).
6) United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007187 (accessed April 13, 2011).
(7) Edward L. King. Nazism. http://www.masonicinfo.com/nazism.htm (accessed April 15, 2011).
Dwarfs
One group of people across Europe which is often overlooked in the Holocaust is those with Dwarfism. Not precisely sought out, despite being considered genetically inferior, when these “little people” showed up in concentration camp transports, they were treated much as other physically disabled or handicapped people. Some were worked to death or starved to death, others were sent to the gas chamber, and still others were taken by Nazi doctors, such as Josef Mengele, for experimentation, and ultimately death (1). “Like a demonic impresario casting the ultimate freak show, SS doctor Josef Mengele plucked out from the masses that passed before him, twins, and unusual mutations: hunchbacks, pinheads, hermaphrodites, giants, dwarfs, obese men and corpulent women (2).”
While most families were whittled down to one or two survivors, or even completely annihilated, one family kept eleven members alive, as well as eleven non-members whom they shielded by claiming blood relations. This family contained seven people with dwarfism, and had arrived at Auschwitz in a group. Dr. Mengele chose this extended group for his torturous experiments (3).
He went so far as to have them put together in special living quarters where they were given clean bedding, a private bucket behind a curtain, a washbasin, and good food. They were even allowed to keep their clothes, hair, and cosmetics (4)(5). During Dr. Mengele’s experiments on heredity, he had specialists from every branch of medicine examine and extract samples from the little people. “… to extract bone marrow, pull out teeth, pluck hairs, place drops in the dwarfs' eyes that would blind them for hours. They poured first boiling then freezing water into the ears. The married female dwarfs were subjected to close gynaecological scrutiny (6).”
There were other “dwarfs” brought into Auschwitz, as well as other concentration camps. Two little people had arrived after the Ovitze family, and they, too, were taken from the gas chamber line. However, they were killed, boiled in water until their bones were clean of flesh, and their skeletons were given to a museum of anthropology (7).
Another ‘dwarf” at Auschwitz met a far different fate than that of the Ovitze family. Primo Levi, in his book “Survival in Auschwitz” mentions him: “Elias Lindzin, 141565, one day rained into the Chemical Kommando. He was a dwarf, not more than five feet high, but I have never seen muscles like his. … If Elias regains his liberty he will be confined to the fringes of human society, in a prison or a lunatic asylum. … In the Lager (concentration camp) Elias prospers and is triumphant. He is a good worker and a good organizer, and for this double reason, he is safe from selections (gas chamber) and respected by both leaders and comrades (8).” His fate is unknown at this time.
“Mengele had several hundred twins at his disposal, and he made notoriously cruel experiments on them. But since he had only one family of dwarfs, he was careful not to put their lives at risk. This enabled the Ovitzes to see liberation, on January 27th, 1945 (9).”
Others were not so “lucky”.
Sources:
(1) Pine, Dan. "‘Giants’ a Stirring Story of Jewish Dwarfs Who Survived the Holocaust." JWeekly, February 18, 2005. http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/25140/-giants-a-stirring-story-of-jewish-dwarfs-who-survived-the-holocaust/ (accessed April 27, 2011).
(2) Yehuda, Koren. "Mengele and the Family of Dwarfs." History Today 55, no. 2 (February 2005): 32-33. http://web.ebscohost.com.jsc-proxy.libraries.vsc.edu/ehost/detail?vid=3&hid=18&sid=9e5c25c8-0c1a-4b41-91ad-48b63bf73365%40sessionmgr15&bdata=JkF1dGhUeXBlPWlwLHVybCx1aWQmc2l0ZT1laG9zdC1saXZl#db=aph&AN= (accessed April 27, 2011).
(3) Yehuda, Koren. "Mengele and the Family of Dwarfs." History Today 55, no. 2 (February 2005): 32-33. http://web.ebscohost.com.jsc-proxy.libraries.vsc.edu/ehost/detail?vid=3&hid=18&sid=9e5c25c8-0c1a-4b41-91ad-48b63bf73365%40sessionmgr15&bdata=JkF1dGhUeXBlPWlwLHVybCx1aWQmc2l0ZT1laG9zdC1saXZl#db=aph&AN= (accessed April 27, 2011).
(4) Yehuda, Koren. "Mengele and the Family of Dwarfs." History Today 55, no. 2 (February 2005): 32-33. http://web.ebscohost.com.jsc-proxy.libraries.vsc.edu/ehost/detail?vid=3&hid=18&sid=9e5c25c8-0c1a-4b41-91ad-48b63bf73365%40sessionmgr15&bdata=JkF1dGhUeXBlPWlwLHVybCx1aWQmc2l0ZT1laG9zdC1saXZl#db=aph&AN= (accessed April 27, 2011).
(5) Pine, Dan. "‘Giants’ a Stirring Story of Jewish Dwarfs Who Survived the Holocaust." JWeekly, February 18, 2005. http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/25140/-giants-a-stirring-story-of-jewish-dwarfs-who-survived-the-holocaust/ (accessed April 27, 2011).
(6) Yehuda, Koren. "Mengele and the Family of Dwarfs." History Today 55, no. 2 (February 2005): 32-33. http://web.ebscohost.com.jsc-proxy.libraries.vsc.edu/ehost/detail?vid=3&hid=18&sid=9e5c25c8-0c1a-4b41-91ad-48b63bf73365%40sessionmgr15&bdata=JkF1dGhUeXBlPWlwLHVybCx1aWQmc2l0ZT1laG9zdC1saXZl#db=aph&AN= (accessed April 27, 2011).
(7) Yehuda, Koren. "Mengele and the Family of Dwarfs." History Today 55, no. 2 (February 2005): 32-33. http://web.ebscohost.com.jsc-proxy.libraries.vsc.edu/ehost/detail?vid=3&hid=18&sid=9e5c25c8-0c1a-4b41-91ad-48b63bf73365%40sessionmgr15&bdata=JkF1dGhUeXBlPWlwLHVybCx1aWQmc2l0ZT1laG9zdC1saXZl#db=aph&AN= (accessed April 27, 2011).
(8) Levi, Primo, and Philip Roth. Survival in Auschwitz: the Nazi Assault on Humanity. Translated by Stuart Woolf. New York City: Touchstone: Simon & Schuster, 1996, pages 95, 97-98.
(9) Yehuda, Koren. "Mengele and the Family of Dwarfs." History Today 55, no. 2 (February 2005): 32-33. http://web.ebscohost.com.jsc-proxy.libraries.vsc.edu/ehost/detail?vid=3&hid=18&sid=9e5c25c8-0c1a-4b41-91ad-48b63bf73365%40sessionmgr15&bdata=JkF1dGhUeXBlPWlwLHVybCx1aWQmc2l0ZT1laG9zdC1saXZl#db=aph&AN= (accessed April 27, 2011).
Disabled and Diseased
On July 14, 1933, the Law for the Prevention of Progeny with Hereditary Diseases was passed. This law called for any per with a “mental illness, learning disability, physical deformity, epilepsy, blindness, deafness, or severe alcoholism (1),” be sterilized to prevent the reproduction of such ‘birth defects’. These people were considered a burden on society, called ‘useless eaters’, and were a threat to the genetically pure Hitler sought to establish in Germany. They were considered ‘biological enemies’, along with Jews and Roma (2)(3).
“…in 1939, a Berlin garrison psychologist named Deegener was called on to define an imbecile. He dutifully went to work and came up with a classic definition. ‘The term covers morons, simpletons, semi-Aryans, habitual criminals, intellectual pacifists and conscientious objectors, former Communists, atheists, and egotists incapable of understanding the Nazi ideal. It is doubtful if education, friendly advice or punishment could cure any of these men.’(4)”
The first to fall victim to this new directive were infants and toddlers. On August 18, 1939, there was a decree that medical personas report all newborn infants and children under three showing signs of severe mental or physical disability. Eventually, the number included all juveniles aged to seventeen years (5).
5,000 small children in institutions were murdered and 110,000 institutionalized adults were also killed. These initial killings took place at the institutions where the patients were housed. 70,000 more adults were taken to killing centers and killed, along with thousands of prisoners unable to work any longer in the concentration camps (6). About 5,000 victims were killed through starvation or lethal overdoses of medicine. Others were gassed, left without needed medical treatment, given poison, or received lethal injections (7)(8). Some patients were shot in the back of the head or received injections of phenol directly into the heart (9).
“Having actively and decisively taken part in selections in the prisoners' sick blocks, of such prisoners who through hunger, deprivations, exhaustion, sickness, disease, abuse or other reasons were unfit for work in the camp and whose speedy recovery was not envisaged... Those selected were killed either through injections or firing squads or by painful suffocation to death through prussic acid in the gas chambers in order to make room in the camp for the "fit" prisoners, selected by him [Dr. Josef Mengele] or other SS doctors... The injections that killed were made with phenol, petrol, Evipal, chloroform, or air into the circulation, especially into the heart chamber, either with his own hands or he ordered the SS sanitary worker to do it while he watched (10).”
There were some people who were taken into the concentration camp ‘hospitals’ for medical experiments; these patients weren’t always noticeably diseased or handicapped while others were. “Like a demonic impresario casting the ultimate freak show, SS doctor Josef Mengele plucked out from the masses that passed before him, twins, and unusual mutations: hunchbacks, pinheads, hermaphrodites, giants, dwarfs, obese men and corpulent women (11).”
As for the families of the murdered patients, in order to keep them from raising a protest or getting suspicious, the Nazi doctors had a method of ‘explaining’ these unexpected deaths. “Ashes from cremated victims were taken from a common pile and placed in urns without regard for accurate labeling. One urn was sent to each victim’s family, along with a death certificate listing a fictive cause and date of death. The sudden death of thousands of institutionalized people, whose death certificates listed strangely similar causes and places of death, raise suspicions. Eventually the Euthanasia Program became an open secret (12).”
Sources:
(1) United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/focus/disabilities/ (accessed April 13, 2011).
(2) Terese Pencak Schwartz. Holocaust: Non-Jewish Victims. http://www.holocaustforgotten.com/NewsDisabled.htm (accessed April 15, 2011).
(3) United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/focus/disabilities/ (accessed April 13, 2011).
(4) Laffin, John. "1939-9-the Nazi War Cult." In Jackboot: a History of the German Soldier 1713-1945, 160-68. New York City: Barnes & Noble Books, 1995, page 168.
(5) United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/focus/disabilities/ (accessed April 13, 2011).
(6) United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007329 (accessed April 13, 2011).
(7) United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007329 (accessed April 13, 2011).
(8) United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/focus/disabilities/ (accessed April 13, 2011).
(9) Hoss, Rudolph, and Primo Levi. Death Dealer: the Memoirs of the SS Kommandant at Auschwitz. Edited by Steven Paskuly. Translated by Andrew Pollinger. New York City: Da Capo Press, 1992, page 129.
(10) Lynott, Douglas. "Josef Mengele." Tru.TV. Time/Warner. http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/history/mengele/index_1.html (accessed April 13, 2011).
(11) Yehuda, Koren. "Mengele and the Family of Dwarfs." History Today 55, no. 2 (February 2005): 32-33. http://web.ebscohost.com.jsc-proxy.libraries.vsc.edu/ehost/detail?vid=3&hid=18&sid=9e5c25c8-0c1a-4b41-91ad-48b63bf73365%40sessionmgr15&bdata=JkF1dGhUeXBlPWlwLHVybCx1aWQmc2l0ZT1laG9zdC1saXZl#db=aph&AN= (accessed April 27, 2011).
(12) United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/focus/disabilities/ (accessed April 13, 2011).
People of African Descent
Germany had few people of African descent before World War I. With the ally occupation after the Great War, a great many African-descended soldiers came into Germany with the French Army. In time, many of these men settled down and married German women, producing children of ‘mixed heritage’ (1).
According to memoirs written by Albert Speer, a high ranking architect and military equipment producer of the Nazi party, Hitler was not pleased with American Olympic athlete Jesse Owens. “People whose antecedents came from the jungle were primitive, Hitler said with a shrug; their physiques were stronger than those of civilized whites. They represented unfair competition and hence must be excluded from future games (2).” This exclusion never came to pass.
The Nazi Regime felt these children were an insult or disgrace to Germany and must be eliminated. “The mulatto children came about through rape or the white mother was a whore,” Hitler wrote. “In both cases, there is not the slightest moral duty regarding these offspring of a foreign race.”(3)”
A law was passed by the Nazi Regime, Commission Number 7, promoted sterilization for children of ‘mixed-blood’. In 1937, local authorities were instructed to make lists of these mixed children. Without parental knowledge or permission, these children were taken from their schools and taken to the Commission. If it was determined that the child was of African descent and German descent, he or she was immediately hospitalized and sterilized.
Some 400 children fell victim to this forced sterilization.
Source:
(1) Terese Pencak Schwartz. Holocaust: Non-Jewish Victims. http://www.holocaustforgotten.com/African.htm (accessed April 15, 2011).
(2) Speer, Albert, and Eugene Davidson. Inside the Third Reich: Memoirs by Albert Speer. Translated by Richard Winston and Clara Winston. New York City: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 1970, page 73.
(3) Terese Pencak Schwartz. Holocaust: Non-Jewish Victims. http://www.holocaustforgotten.com/African.htm (accessed April 15, 2011).
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