How much did they know?

During the war time the Germans only knew that there was the " unconditional surrender " term so that actually forced the Germans to fight with all their might, I think. But still Speer knew even if he kept on saying he did not.

 

Well he had nothing to loose and he saved his life, I suppose he wasn't the only one. Even if he wasn't sincere, he at least showed some remorse, many others didn't.

 

Not just the Germans like we´ve seen:

Odessa

Romanian army units assembled 19,000 Jews in a public square in the harbor area and shot many of them. They doused others with gasoline and burned them alive. At least 20,000 other Jews were assembled at the local jail and then taken to the village of Dalnik. There, the Romanians shot some of the Jews and locked others into warehouses that they then set ablaze.

In November 1941, the Romanian authorities ordered the remaining 35,000 Jews in Odessa into two ghettos, Dalnik and Slobodka, established on the edge of the city. Many died of exposure, disease, and starvation over the next three months. In January and February 1942, Romanian police and military personnel deported the surviving 19,295 Jews from the Odessa ghettos to Romanian-administered camps and ghettos in the Berezovka region in Transnistria, including Bogdanovka, Domanevka, and Akhmetchetka.

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005476

 

At this juncture can I just say that the denizens of the WW2 forums have left me lost for words. 5 pages into this massively contentious debate and everyone has managed to remain calm, intelligent and respectful, avoiding hurling around stupid comments making totally unfounded points. Well done folks, just reminds he why whatever happens I still return here!

 

Yes - no flame-outs; we must be slipping !

 

Kai, your post about the Romanians is very interesting it's a delicate subject that was mostly occulted after 1944-45. The same happened in France. Some jews were deported by Gendarmes. In Poland Holocaust survivers were victims of Pogroms in 1945-46 as they tried to claim there homes back. Several neutral countries are also guilty: the Swiss returned Jewish refugees to the Germans and accepted Nazi money. Monaco owes part of its wealth to a "convenient occupation".

 

Yes, Skipper67,

many nations and their people took part.

In the Ostfront in 1941 during the early Barbarossa when Germans just were entering the cities/towns the locals had already taken the Jews prisoner and gave to the Germans.I think this happened especially in the Baltic countries. The locals also took part in the killing of Jews a bit later on.

Also in Merridale´s Ivan´s war some Red Army soldiers thought Hitler had done a good thing getting rid off the Jews!

 

As you fellas have pointed out, many European countries have blood on their hands, doing the Germans dirty work for them with a relish.

The thing is, there has always been a sick anti semitism through out the world, and probably always will be.

My question is, do you think that ''any'' country in the world could stoop as low as what the Germans [and their helpers] did, if the circumstances were right?

 

At the time? Certainly. The culprits mentioned here surely did it plus certain others in Central Europe, albeit as a low intensity effort, a few private affairs, so to speak. It was a matter of time and getting things organized to make it a state function. Remember in Romania the Gipsy community was still being heavily persecuted until quite recently, this being curbed due to accession to the EU. Probably the feeling still lingers, only this time the authorities now have to pay attention.

 

thank god for the xmas break, will give me time to read this thread and give it a dignified response.

In my opinion though, there was widespread knowledge of evacuations, etc, quite how much people knew in terms of what happened after the evacuations though im not so sure.

 

There are many people who helped jews however. Officials from neutral countries, such as Wallenberg from Sweden, but also individuals: the protestant community in the French Cevennes have sheltered many jews, others were helped by Dutch farmers, the King of Danemark sewed a jewish star on his uniform as a sign of solidarity and almost the entire Danish police force was sent to Buchenwald for having helped jews to escape.

 

Yes, it would be nice for a change if we spoke of the good guys. Here's one list.

http://yad-vashem.org.il/righteous/index_righteous.html

 

Just my last point on that the top nazis knew:

January 26, 1944 - A Himmler speech to several hundred high ranking Wehrmacht officers at the municipal theater in Posen Himmler said, "When the Fuhrer gave me the order to carry out the solution of the Jewish question, I at first hesitated, ...But this was ultimately a matter of a Fuhrer order and therefore I could have no misgivings. In the meantime, the assignment has been carried out, and there is no longer a Jewish question.Himmler wanted to make it perfectly clear that the order came from the highest authority in Germany. "

http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/ww2timeline/Final_Solution.html

Thus Himmler made all the top nazis aware ( if they did not already ) about what was happening!

 

There are no innocents in this. The U.S. had its fair share of regretful incidents. Many cannot forgive Henry Ford for his promotion of anti-Zionist activities. Yet, he was instrumental in giving equal paying jobs to blacks during a time of rampant racism.

 

Just reading about these in the book by Peter Longerich " The unwritten order".

Even the Jews did not know/believe that they would be killed ( gassed and burned ) so I guess not many Germans knew either where they were heading, really.

------------

" Neither immediately before nor after the Wannsee conference, but only in late spring 1942 was the capacity of the extermination camps suddenly and hurriedly expanded."

-----------

" With the declaration of war against the USA on Dec 11th 1941 , the concept of taking West and Central European "hostage" Jews became obsolete. At this point the "Final solution"- the systematic murder of all European Jews - was introduced."

---------

According to the book:

Until late 1941 Jews of working age 16-65 were saved from the camps. Also Jews in Germany and central Europe were saved as they were "sorta" considered hostage to keep the US out of war. Jews in eastern Europe were eliminated from the beginning. Once the war was declared to the US, the Jews in Germany were replaced by foreign workers and not even work capability saved them.

The elimination in the East begun by shooting the Jews as saboteurs and partisans, which might have helped getting the Wehrmacht do the shooting. For every ambushed dead German soldier 100 civilians were shot and often most of these were Jews
( male ) from camps/prisons. Soon after the women and children were murdered as well.

 

From Longerich´s book:

On 29th December 1942 Himmler presented Hitler with the " Report to the Fuhrer on combating Gangs and Mobs ", No 51. This was specially prepared in large "Fuhrer-type" which he could read without his glasses. Adjutant´s manuscript note on top records it was submitted to Hitler on 31st december 1942.

Including were stats ( among others ):

2. Gang helpers and suspect
a.) arrested 16,553
b) executed 14,257
c) Jews executed 363,211

----------

So at least Hitler should know that BIG numbers of Jews were being killed...some 90% or more of all...

 

That's very interesting Kai, due to the fact that in reality no one could very well turn their eyes from the real genocide going on around them, in that scale at least.

Hitler had to have known about it, it's not possible otherwise.

 

http://www.forward.com/articles/il-duce-s-own-idea/

Oct 27, 2006

The Jews In Mussolini’s Italy from Equality to Persecution
By Michele Sarfatti


In 1934, Benito Mussolini famously declared that “there has never been antisemitism in Italy.” A mere four years later, after abandoning his Jewish mistress of 27 years, he passed his infamous racial laws.

Based on newly discovered documents and an abundance of statistical data, the book demonstrates that, contrary to popular belief, Mussolini’s policies toward the Jews were independently conceived and implemented, and not — as some have argued — a late concession to Hitler’s war against the Jews. Despite Il Duce’s alliance with Hitler, “only” about 7,000 Italian Jews (16.3% of the Jewish population) died in Nazi death camps. Moreover, documented instances of Italians risking their lives to save Jews abound—a fact that reinforced the perception of Italians as “brava gente” (“good people,” the kind who helped preserve Jewish lives).

In 1938, the Italian dictator passed and enforced the racial laws, in many respects even more restrictive than anti-Jewish legislation in Nazi Germany, and Italy became an officially antisemitic country. Sarfatti stresses that Mussolini was never pressured by Hitler regarding racial policies. Italians on the whole did not protest the laws until their lethal consequences became clear. By 1943, the Fascists began confiscating Jewish property and rounding up Jews for deportation, and abruptly many of those who had not protested against anti-Jewish laws rushed to save Jews.

 

On Speer again:

from Peter Longerich The Unwritten Order

From Göbbels´diary entry of 29 May 1942 it emerges that on Göbbels´insistence Hitler agreed to instruct Albert Speer to "make sure as soon as possible that Jews presently working in the German armaments industry be replaced by foreign workers".

 

I recall we spoke of picturing the massacre events somewhere.

On " Masters of Death" by Richard Rhodes

" Two enlisted men in Bingel´s company were arrested for having taken photographs of the Uman massacre. Beyond shipping their personal possessions ( in which he hid some of the photographs ) home to their wives, Bingel was unable to protect them;they received one-year prison sentences, which they served in a military facility in Germany.