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A vanished world — 10 Comments

  1. One of the part-time jobs I had after finishing grad school was working as a copy editor for Dori Laub, MD, one of the founders of the Holocaust Survivors Film Project that eventually became the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies. Dr. Laub was personally very kind to me– he had me to his home for dinner on occasion, and helped me understand on a deeper level why my dad had been so traumatized by his experience in rescuing the inmates of the concentration camp at Wöbbelin in May 1945 (info. about Wöbbelin and its liberation here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W%C3%B6bbelin_concentration_camp).

    It turned out that Frank Logue, the former mayor of New Haven, had had similar traumatic experiences as an infantryman during the liberation of another camp, and Dr. Laub said that he was recording testimonies from American veterans who had seen the camps as well as testimonies from the camps’ survivors.

    I consider it an honor that I had the opportunity to work with Dr. Laub, to attend the lecture series that he sponsored at the medical school, and to read the books he eventually published. More about him here:

    https://fortunoff.library.yale.edu/about-us/founders/

    More about the Fortunoff Archive plus sample videos here:

    https://fortunoff.library.yale.edu/

  2. PA Cat,
    Thanks very much for that comment.
    Had never heard of the Wobbelin camp nor the main camp of the group—the Neuengamme camp (link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuengamme_concentration_camp )
    Horrific.
    – – – – – – – –
    Levi’s short story, “Iron”, in “The Periodic Table”, made a particularly strong impression on me when I read it only several years ago. A story about an extraordinary friendship between the author and a classmate, whose influence on Levi—sharing his love of mountaineering with the author—may well have, in the end, enabled Levi to survive Auschwitz.
    (It’s the unasked question at the end of the story which made the huge impression on me.)

  3. Strange how, in some way, one always has the impression of being fortunate, how some chance happening, perhaps infinitesimal, stops us crossing the threshold of despair and allows us to live.

    Ties well with Viktor Frankles “Mans Search For Meaning.” Having a purpose gives you the drive to survive tough times.

    https://youtu.be/SJUhlRoBL8M

  4. zenman:

    I see the two as very different. In addition, the two had very different experiences during their stay in camps as well as very different ways of writing about it. Here’s a view of Frankl with which you may be unfamiliar.

  5. That book sounds interesting. I shall have to see if I can find a copy.

    It reminds me of a book I encountered almost 40 years ago: “A Photographer in Old Peking” by Hedda Morrison, 1986. Morrison fled Nazi Germany in 1933 and found a job running a photography studio in Peking (or Peiping as it was then known). Her photographs are a rare record of an ancient culture that has now been obliterated by war, Communism and the heedless torrent of modernity.

    I bought a copy and sent it to my friend Avram Davidson as a gift. He served in the US Navy in WW II and was stationed in Peking in 1946 (he was a “corpsman” (combat medic) with the 5th Marine Regiment) so he had seen some of the same things Morrison recorded.

    I just checked and was pleasantly surprised to find that our library has a copy of Morrison’s book.

  6. And our local library also has Vishniac’s book! So, two more titles for my hold list.

  7. I seem to remember photos made through a microscope by Mr Vishniac being used in some commercial in the 60’s.

  8. IMO the second most important thing Eisenhower did, after winning the war against Nazi Germany, was documenting and publicizing the Holocaust, because the reasons he gave for doing so are starkly needed today.

    https://remember.org/facts-aft-lib-eis.html

    This is what Eisenhower said on pages 408-9 of “Crusade in Europe”

    “The same day [April 12, 1945] I saw my first horror camp. It was near the town of Gotha. I have never felt able to describe my emotional reactions when I first came face to face with indisputable evidence of Nazi brutality and ruthless disregard of every shred of decency. Up to that time I had known about it only generally or through secondary sources. I am certain, however that I have never at any other time experienced an equal sense of shock.

    “I visited every nook and cranny of the camp because I felt it my duty to be in a position from then on to testify at first hand about these things in case there ever grew up at home the belief or assumption that `the stories of Nazi brutality were just propaganda.’ Some members of the visiting party were unable to through the ordeal. I not only did so but as soon as I returned to Patton’s headquarters that evening I sent communications to both Washington and London, urging the two governments to send instantly to Germany a random group of newspaper editors and representative groups from the national legislatures. I felt that the evidence should be immediately placed before the American and British publics in a fashion that would leave no room for cynical doubt.”

    And in “Ike the Soldier: As they knew him” (G.P. Putnam and Sons, New York, 1987) Merle Miller quotes Eisenhower speaking on April 25th 1945 to the members of Congress and Journalists who had been shown Buchenwald the day before:

    “You saw only one camp yesterday. There are many others. Your responsibilities, I believe, extend into a great field, and informing the people at home of things like these atrocities is one of them… Nothing is covered up. We have nothing to conceal. The barbarous treatment these people received in the German concentration camps is almost unbelievable. I want you to see for yourself and be spokesmen for the United States.” [pages 774-5]

  9. More history about Ike and the camps.

    https://perspectives.ushmm.org/item/film-of-general-dwight-d-eisenhower-visiting-the-ohrdruf-camp

    Films like this one from Ohrdruf were also made at other camps liberated by Allied soldiers. They served as evidence in the trials of the major Nazi leaders at Nuremberg in 1945 to 1946. They were also used to raise public awareness of Nazi crimes. These films stand today as important and lasting documentation of the Holocaust.

    https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/299896
    by Jeff Dunetz in 2021 (includes a screencap of Eisenhower’s cable to Marshall)

    How Eisenhower made sure the horrors would never be forgotten
    When General Eisenhower saw the horrors of the Nazi death camps, he presciently insisted that a visual and written record be kept for history so that it could never be denied. Op-ed.

    This year, April 7 at sunset through the next day at sundown is a very solemn day on the Jewish calendar, Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. Its full name in Hebrew is Yom HaZikaron laShoah ve-laG’vurah …. which in English translates to “Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day.” .. a worldwide day of remembrance for the approximately six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust as a result of the actions carried out by Nazi Germany and its allies. We also remember the Jewish resistance during that period.

    As we remember the Shoah, we should know that if it wasn’t for General Dwight D. Eisenhower, much of the video and picture proof of the Holocaust would not be available today. He wanted to make sure that people in the future couldn’t deny or forget the horrors committed by the Nazis.

    Eisenhower understood that many people would be unable to comprehend the full scope of this horror. He also understood that any human deeds that were so utterly evil might eventually be challenged or even denied as being literally unbelievable. For these reasons, he ordered that all the civilian news media and military combat camera units be required to visit the camps and record their observations in print, pictures, and film.

    Sadly the General’s prediction proved correct. When some groups, even today, attempt to deny that the Holocaust ever happened, or that it wasn’t that bad, they must confront the massive official record, including both written evidence and thousands of pictures, that Eisenhower ordered to be assembled when he saw what the Nazis had done.

    On this Yom HaShoah, indeed on every day, may the memories of those who suffered through the Shoah always be blessed. And may we never forget what evil men can do when they are appeased by the rest of the world.

    The video clip linked here is a news video taken that day the Generals visited Ohrdruf– It is graphic, but it should be watched nevertheless. Sadly even though I was the one who put it up on Youtube, they will not allow me to embed it because it ”has been identified by the YouTube community as inappropriate or offensive to some audience.”

  10. Recommended for inspiration:

    Hassidic Tales of the Holocaust – Yaffa Eliach. Prof. Eliach compiled these from 89 oral histories and interviews. The three story tall room at the U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington DC with the photographs of the Jews of one small town used photos taken by Eliach’s mother.

    Sparks of Glory: Inspiring Episodes of Jewish Spiritual Resistance – Moshe Prager. Taken from first person interviews. Most of the subjects, and Prager, are long since deceased.

    Those Who Never Yielded – Moshe Prager – resistance through non violent non cooperation with the Nazis regarding Jewish life.

    Moshe Prager was Gerer Chasid from Poland. He was instrumental in the then Gerer Rebbe’s escape from Europe in that the Rebbe’s papers were provided by a non-Jewish friend of Prager’s. When Prager went to get the documents, his friend had two sets and told him that if he didn’t save himself too, his Rebbe wasn’t going to get the papers.

    Recommended for comic relief (no humor is darker than by survivors):

    The Dance of Genghis Cohn – Romain Gary

    A Jewish ghost, a comedian named Genghis Cohn, haunts the Nazi officer who had him killed in a mass execution. As the Nazi gave the order to fire, Cohn turned around, dropped trou and shouted in Yiddish, “Kish mir in Tuchas” (Kiss my ass).

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