A Daughter Remembers a Father: A French Jew and the Scars of Holocaust

"You might come back, because you're young, but I'll not come back." The father calmly prophesied to his 15 year old daughter as they waited in a transit camp at Drancy, near Paris, to be sent on trains that would take them to the heart of Europe and into a blackhole that would engulf the lives of 6 million Jews, amongst others. The daughter, as the father told, came back and as an octogenarian writer penned a memoir in the form of a letter to the father who "did not come back".

Marceline Loridan-Ivens' tender memoir "But you did not come back" is not just another tale of holocaust and Auschwitz but a very moving portrait that tells in brief prose of a very dark era and how families were not just torn asunder in the moment but carried the scars, if they survived, for all their lives.

France, then and now, remains a hot bed anti-semitism. Marceline is one of the "160 still alive out of the 2,500 who came back-76,500 French Jews were sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau". The collaborationist Vichy regime in France tapped into the anti-Semitism that prevailed and shipped tens of thousands of Jews to the ovens of Auschwitz.

Marlene's father, Schloime Rozenberg, a Polish Jew settled in France, bought an imposing chateau which he thought was a symbol of his having achieved a dream. French law prohibited him, as a Jew, from being the legal owner though. The chateau was registered in the name of his son. Marceline asks, "did you think that by becoming the owners of a chateu we would no longer be Jews in their eyes?" Rosenberg had originally thought of migrating to America but instead stopped in France. Marceline surmises that he was perhaps convinced by Emile Zola's J'Accuse and told himself "nothing could happen to us here" ('"J'Accuse" - I accuse- was a letter written by Emile Zola in defense of the anti-semitic prosecution of French army officer Alfred Dreyfus on trumped up charges. Theodor Herzl, who went on to become the founding father of Zionism, witnessed the humiliation of Dreyfus and in that moment was born the Zionist movement).

The cruelty of the French laws persists even in the death certificate awarded to Rozenberg. Since he was not a French citizen at the time of deportation his death certificate would become official only five years after the date on which the government stated he was probably dead. Marceline writes "You'd made many requests before the war to get the citizenship you dreamed of. In vain. You loved this country, I'm not sure it was mutual". "You were a foreign Jews, that was your only official title, according to the state". Even in a memorial that the township constructed to commemorate the war dead the city was loathe to mention that Rozenberg died in Auschwitz.

It could be argued if only the Nazis focused on the war and not in killing they might have won the war. The industrial scale of Holocaust is of biblical proportions. Millions were ferried from a vast theater of war that spread across the European continent. Nothing illustrates this more than the journeys taken by Marceline and her father. They both are sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau first. Later Marceline is sent to Bergen Belsen and from there to a ghetto in Czechoslovakia. All that while the allies were racing towards Berlin in a pincer movement and the Reich was being reduced to a rubble. Think about that for a moment. Auschwitz-Birkenau is at the heart of Poland. From Auschwitz, near Krakow, to Bergen-Belsen, in Northern Germany, is 800 KMs. From Bergen-Belsen to Thereseienstadt in The German-Czech border is 466 KM and one has to cross Leipzig and Dresden. Conveying and obsessively accounting for prisoners in war time is no joke. Thousands perished in the box cars. Rozenberg was moved from Auschwitz to Mauthausen in Austria and then to Gross-Rosen in Poland. A roundtrip journey in and out of Poland.

Marceline Loridan-Ivens

Gross-Rosen was liberated by the Red Army in February 1945. Official records that Marceline distrusts puts Rosenberg's possible death at Gross-Rosen. She imagines how her father might've died, "you looked just like all the corpses I saw scattered along the road as I returned","arms outspread, your eyes wide open. A body who'd seen death and then watched himself die".

Auschwitz and Birkenau are now referred collectively as a hyphenated word but to the prisoners a world separated them both. Marceline was at Birkenau while her father was at Auschwitz. While they were marched up and down to their slave jobs they could see each other but could not walk over and get a hug. Once Marceline and Rozenberg do break that rule and they were severely beaten for that. Amidst the melee the father slips a tomato to his daughter. "His lunch". The haunting theme of the book is a letter that the father manages to slip to the daughter. Try as she might Marceline is unable to recall the contents of the letter. She remembers wondering how he got paper to scratch a note, because she can barely find material to wipe after defecating.

Two depictions in this memoir brought to my mind similarities with the slavery experience of Blacks that Colson Whitehead portrayed in his gut wrenching narration "Underground Rail Road".

Prisoners, of all kinds, always yearn for freedom. Concentration camp prisoners and slaves knew that attempts to escape would, if failed, lead to gruesome death. Choosing the manner of death was the last act of defiance that many could have. An escapee from Birkenau slashes her wrists and cheats the gallows even as she was dragged to one.

Whether it was the slave girl in South Carolina or a Jewish girl in Auschwitz they suffer ignominies that are uniquely inflicted on women in any conflict. Nudity was never by choice and more often clinical and equally often it was asexual and as such sex and nudity loose their interconnectedness. After a tender teenage girl whose womanhood is blossoming is made to stand naked, in her emaciated condition, along with tens of others to be examined by Dr. Mengele it is natural for the girl to never look at her naked self ever again in the erotic sense. Remember that the girl also later learns what a grotesque and sick monster Mengele was. One can only imagine what that must mean to the girl who was clinically examined by that monster while being naked.

When Marceline is eventually rescued and reacher her home, her mom and others, except the father, had all been free for a year. She is a misfit. The home is fractured and Marceline tells her father that in his absence there's too much screaming and too little listening to one another. Her brother commits suicide, her mom remarries and Marceline drift away from her family but clings to the sisterhood of survivors who meet on a regular basis.

While at the camp Marceline desires to be alive but as survivor the guilt of survival, as Levi Strauss wrote of it, weighs on her, like remembering her unwitting and reluctant part in the death of a girl at the camp, feeling guilty about sleeping on a soft mattress and more.

Even after such an event as Holocaust the soul of France remains stained by anti-Semitism. Marceline hides her Jewishness by adopting the French surnames of the men she married consecutively. Witnessing 9/11 and the victims jumping from the towers of the World Trade Center Marceline's memories of the horrors she suffered and never could leave behind, well up within herself and she realizes that "up until that day, I'd been avoiding the fact that being Jewish is the strongest thing about me".

Marceline records her perspective on Israel too. "You dreamed of Israel, it exists." "Wars normally end, but not this one, for the Jewish state has never been accepted by the Arab countries that surround it; its borders are never fixed, ever-changing, violent. And the longer this goes on, the more suspect Israel becomes, in the opinion of Europeans as well."

Anti-Semitism, Marceline thinks, is here to stay. "Anti-semitism is an eternal given." "Anti-Semitism will never disappear. It is too deeply rooted in the world"

While filming the movie "Birch-Tree Meadow" ('Birkenau' means Birch tree) Marceline asks an actress to lie down on a cot, stretch out her hand and say, as Marceline would say to her father if he was there, "I loved you so much that I was happy to have been deported with you".

The most interesting omission in the book is the mention of the most famous victim of Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, the camps where Marceline was interned, Anne Frank. Anne Frank died, aged 15, along with her sister at Bergen-Belsen a few months before the camp was liberated by British forces. As always, being the father of a child, now 11, such tales give a gut punch to even contemplate how the children, separated from parents learn to survive until they truly survive or succumb to the pestilence of disease that often swept such camps. The human instinct for survival is amazing even in children. Let us hug our children a little tighter and teach them that fighting injustice and hatred is a moral duty of all. Stories like that of Marceline tell us once more of our moral duty in opposing hatred however small and whoever it is aimed at.

References:

Some book Reviews.

1. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/feb/09/but-you-did-not-come-back-marceline-loridan-ivens-review

2. http://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21692841-haunting-memoir-young-holocaust-survivor-dear-father

3. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/02/books/a-french-deportee-life-at-auschwitz-and-history-repeating.html?_r=0 (NYT's feature of the author has some parallels to incidents I've cited and my choices of excerpts).

Paradesi: Bala's exercise in sado-masochism

"Our sweetest songs are those that tell our saddest thoughts" warbled Shelley in his 'Ode to a skylark'. The genius of Shakespeare reaches its apogee in his tragedies. Music can haunt us with a sad strain. Movies like 'Life is Beautiful' and 'Bicycle Thieves' leaves us with a pang in our heart. Portraying tragedy in a play or music or a movie calls upon the deepest reservoirs of creativity in any artist because  the portrayal can easily slide into a maudlin meaningless assault on the senses. Life abounds in tragedy. War zones with children starving and maimed continues till today. Promising lives cut short by disease and poverty is an all too common truth. So many children die of cancer after an unspeakably horrifying ordeal. How does any art form deal with all that? When does a tragic story become epic? When does a portrayal of tragedy become art and not a documentary? If one can answer with an example of showcasing a work to say this is how it should NOT be then Tamil director Bala's 'Paradesi' is a good example.

Bala gained quite a reputation for gritty movies that revolve around those that languish in the margins of life. His 'Naan Kadavul' with its cast of deformed individuals eking out a life under a slave holder made stomachs churn. Such moviemaking has earned Bala a halo of making 'unflinching' movies that are difficult to watch and for that reason alone praised. Yet his movies are only difficult to watch as much as one cannot stand next to a gutter infested with pigs. Neither has any profundity. If one wanted to make art by showing on screen what we would turn our eyes away from then all that we have to do is give a camcorder to a child and let it loose in some slums and conflict zones in the world, say in Ethiopia.

Seeing me disinterested in the movie my cousin, who loved the movie and who knows my deep love for  studying Holocaust, asked "if this movie was about Holocaust would you not be watching it enraptured". I told him "Exactly. Go watch 'Schindler's List' or 'Pianist' to understand how tragedy is portrayed'. I also added "watch out for Charu's review he would mention those movies". Next day morning my cousin told me "you are great. Charu just now posted a review and he cited 'Schindler's List' and 'Pianist'".

Millions perished in the ovens of Auschwitz and other concentration camps. How does one portray it in a movie and not come across as documentary? Why would 'Pianist' be a work of art but the documentary 'Auschwitz', however expensively and detailed its production might be, remain just a documentary?

Roman Polanski and Spielberg did not show people just being marched to death. There is a reason they both picked stories that had a redemptive element, a sense of hope amidst unspeakable horror, a faith in the triumphant spirit of humanity. A Nazi officer being moved by listening to Chopin, a Nazi war profiteer weeping about the lives he could have saved had he been more frugal in his expenses, give hope in humanity. It is that sense of hope that saves those movies from being dreary. Is that naive? No. That is the proper function of art.

Take 'Sophie's Choice'. Another movie centered on Holocaust and one that ends in heartbreaking tragedy. The heroine had to choose between her babies as to which she will give up to die in Auschwitz. But that is not the choice that the movie pivots on. That choice haunts the heroine and propels her to make one final choice, between her lover and husband. The tragic ending is poignant and one that the story inexorably churns towards. Its like how Macbeth, Hamlet and Lear churn towards their climactic tragic conclusion. And in their conclusion the reader or viewer strangely feels a liberation. Its a liberation in having peered at a profound layered truth that often glides by us unnoticed in the rush of life.

Wladyslaw Szpilman's memoir 'Pianist' is a mediocre book and certainly not to be ranked alongside Elie Wiesel's 'Night' or Viktor Frankl's 'Man's search for meaning' or Primo Levy's 'Survival in Auschwitz'. Yet Polanski turns a mediocre memoir into art with creative re-telling that includes even some fictional moments, one of which, when Szpilman plays an imaginary piano, is very poignant.

Bala is no sensitive artist or a keen student of literature and this shows. He took a book, 'Red Tea', about the travails of bonded laborers in British era tea estates and turns it into a documentary that pretends to be a movie.

The movie has dialogues scripted by Nanjil Nadan, a Sahitya Akademi awardee. Nanjil has a repugnant anal fetish. I've seen his stories abound with remarks about farting or piles. I guess in his mind nativity means speaking of the rear end and its functions. Even with a much respected author by his side Bala slips on characterizations. The movie garnered rave reviews particularly for Nanjil Nadan's dialogues. The dialogues were not exceptional and could have been written by anon with a sharp pen. I'd hazard a guess that Nanjil was not integral to movie making but wrote dialogues for scenes narrated by the director and I'd even guess that Nanjil's dialogues were edited mercilessly by the director.

Many have fondly recalled Nanjil's short story 'Idalaakudi Rasa' being used in the early portrayal of the hero. But that story, particularly the characterization of Rasa, had no context in this movie. Only in Tamil Nadu would reviewers wax eloquent about a misplaced short story out of affection for the author. Nanjil did not enhance his literary credentials a bit by taking part in this movie. Why do Tamil authors crave for cinema fame and attention?

The hero who appears like a retarded bumpkin in the opening scenes later emulates higher cognitive emotions of deep sympathy and even a sense of righteousness. A panoply of characters come and go with cardboard like qualities. A character is either villainous or innocent. A pyramid of exploitation crushes the gullible villagers with the middleman, a hack and few others up the totem pole all under the British estate owner.

The cinematographer was a much spoken about Chezhian. Other than employing a sepia toned lens I am not sure what he accomplished. As the villagers, by the tens, drink water from a pond like animals the camera sweeps across them and a scene with potential for poignancy just glides by. Long shots, sweeping panorama, sepia tone etc do not make up for cinematography. Cinematography is more than just handling a camera and knowing technology. It is not a mean feat that Schindler's List, filmed in black and white, won an Oscar for cinematography.

Music was sheer torture in a movie where music should have been one of the pillars. Again, G.V.Prakash probably knows how to play instruments and bang a few notes but that does not make him a musician. Incidentally the result would be no different even if Ilayaraaja, a has been, had scored the music.

The worst part of the movie was the Christian doctor. The characters was a pathetic caricature of evangelical christians who proselytize tribals. Yes proselytization remains a stigma for many missionaries. But equally undeniable is the role of CHristian missionaries in bringing education and health services to many remote corners. Ironically the book that the movie was based upon was written by a Christian doctor, P.H.Daniel, who toiled amongst the laborers. The doctor in the movie even dances a ridiculous dance with his White wife to celebrate Christmas. As they dance they assume the position that depicts the crucifix and they cavort while throwing bread to the laborers. A clear allusion to the Gospel miracle of feeding 5000. Thankfully Bala, in his perversion, did not pick on Muslims.

The story itself just plods and in fact the central theme of the movie happens only at half point (interval). Until then it is filled with inane jokes of the heroine teasing the bumpkin hero and a very thin portrayal of village life. Bala had used villagers as actors. He hit a bumper prize with the hero's grandmother. Everyone else has no idea of what acting it. There is a reason why professional actors should be used in a movie.

Upon reaching the plantation the movie drops any pretense of being a movie and is sheer documentary of the repressiveness and exploitation. The scene where the Britishers party and talk of Gandhi showcases the cardboard nature of characters and the pathetic quality of the actors. The movie, with a fetish for tragedy, the careens from one contrived tragedy to another. The ordeal finally ends with the hero's wife and newly born child entering the gates of hell. This was supposed to leave the viewer dazed and angry at a world of hopelessness. Yet, most viewers heave a sigh of relief and dart towards getting into their cars to drive back home. There is no lingering sadness just a vicarious pleasure of having slithered out of a gutter.

Vittoria De Sica's much lauded 'Bicycle thieves' too ends on a sad note. A father and son walk away with no hope about tomorrow in war ravaged Italy. What is worse the father had been humiliated as a thief before the eyes of his son. There is poignance in that simple story of a father desperately trying to get a cycle so he could go to his just secured job.

Satyajit Ray's 'Ashani Sanket' is a sensitive portrayal of the Bengal famine, in which millions perished. Ray takes us on a journey to understand the ravages of a famine that wrecked a once prosperous state. He narrates sensitively the breakdown of traditional relations. The famine is both central theme and a backdrop to a changing world.

All that Paradesi indulges in is a kind of sadism in tormenting the viewers and it is masochistic in as much as Bala wallows in making such movies.

Bala released a 'making of Paradesi' trailer prior to movie release. He would painstakingly instruct each and every actor on what postures to assume, how not to stare at a camera, how to engage in conversations and look natural etc. Bala, I am sure, has a great future as an assistant director. 

Holocaust and the Israeli/Jewish psyche

Hollywood found a convenient story in Rwanda and romanticized the story of Tutsi persecution by Hutu's. 'Hotel Rwanda' did not delve into the complex history of the conflict, a history in which Hutus and Tutsis killed each other in turns culminating in a horrific genocide that saw a million Tutsis butchered. Paul Kagame, leader of Tutsi rebels, won a military victory and took office. Kagame later went to war with Congo for purely imperialistic purposes and presided over retributions killings of Hutu's in Rwanda. Yet the world only speaks of the Tutsi dead. Rwanda is not lectured to about learning from its past. If Rwanda was Israel American college campuses would gleefully scold about their inhumanities.

Last year Afro-American mayor and fellow Afro-American legislator of the city of Washington D.C. let loose a racist rant against Asian shopkeepers and Asians in DC. If one did not know the speaker was an Afro-American and listened to the remarks, given the history of USA, one would mistake it for a rant by a white racist. Al Sharpton and Malcolm X were established anti-semites. One protest organized (related to an unfortunate car accident caused by a Jewish driver) by Al Sharpton targeting Jews in Manhattan resulted in the death of a Jew. The Crown Heights riot tore apart Manhattan. Afro-Americans and Latinos (most of who are illegal immigrants) share a testy tenuous relationship in cities like L.A simply because Latino, since most are illegal, lack access to elected office unlike blacks.

Gandhi's India, Putin's Russia, De Gaulle's France, China and more countries indulge in naked imperialistic aggression against neighbors. Yet those countries are not the most scolded in UN. That dubious honor is reserved for Israel.

Do Israeli's and the Jews in general suffer from perpetual victimhood? Is holocaust a convenient 'victim card' that Israel plays? No and No. Never. Ask those questions to the small child who was killed in southern French town of Toulose by a jihadist because the child was Jewish. Ask those questions to the innocent Jews, including both parents of a toddler, who were mowed down in a Chabad in Mumbai by Pakistani terrorists because they were Jews.

For those bleeding heart liberals who say "we condemn those acts but Palestine..." I say 'shame on you'. Not even Indians knew that Jews lived in Mumbai. That were targeted by Pakistani terrorists speaks of how hatred had hijacked a religion. If those same Jews in Mumbai injured any Muslim as retribution for Palestinian intifada would any sane minded person accept that as rationale. We would condemn it unequivocally.

The Jewish people, given their history of being persecuted over 2000 years, have long memories. Scattered around the globe and living amidst hatred they nurtured hope for living in Jerusalem saying 'Next year, in Jerusalem'. The holocaust gave rise to another slogan, 'never forget'. How can they forget? Can Israel afford not to be a hawk? Can Israel depend on international bodies in times of need? No and No.

When Israel pleaded to be left alone after the UN partition the Grand Mufti croaked 'we will push you into the Red sea'. No country, not even US, guaranteed Israel its right to exist. UN abandoned Israel after the partition vote. Having lost 6 million, with no cash coffers of friendly governments, nobody to buy ammunition from legally, surrounded by enemies Israel defended itself in a drama unparalleled in human history. As soon as the British left, as they always do, it was chaos. Armies from Syria, Jordan, Lebabon and Egypt descended on Israel from all sides barring the Red sea side. Golda Meir landed in New York with nothing but a handbag. Ms Meir told the Jews of New York "it is not your choice to decide whether or not we fight. It is ours and we will fight. But it is your choice whether we live or die because we need money without which we will die".

The war of 1967 is looked at as the most pivotal moment in Arab-Israeli history. Israel humiliated Egypt and Syria in a swift and decisive campaign that altered the maps and left a searing wound in the Arab psyche. Egypt and Syria were baying for Israel's blood and Israel lived under the scepter of war and total annihilation. Again, this was a campaign that US did not support or wish to happen. A Syrian paper published a cartoon of mountain of Jewish skulls leaving no doubt as to what would happen to a defeated Israel.

 Photo Courtesy : "The Six Day War" Michael Oren

                                                                                                

Then in 1970 came 'Black September'. Yasser Arafat unleashed naked terrorism against Israeli athletes who were in Munich for the Olympics. It was terrorism on live relay. Jews were once again threatened on the soil of Germany. While the world ignored this heinous act Israel once again found itself alone battling for the lives of its beloved citizens. No one, not even the US, came to the rescue of those Israelite athletes. In a botched rescue attempt the athletes were killed and the Olympics proceeded on schedule without so much as a pause. Till today in no Olympics are those athletes mourned. If only they had been from any other country.

Today Bibi Netanyahu is reviled as a hawk. How can he not be one after losing his brother in Operation Entebbe. A plane carrying Israelis was hijacked by PLO terrorists. With 106 Israeli lives at stake Israel looked around for help and once again God's chosen people found themselves alone, all alone. In a daring rescue attempt, one for the history books, a commando operation liberated the hostages during which Yonathan Netanyahu was killed. Can Israel afford to rely on world opinion? Can Israel afford to 'forget'? Never. Not in a 1000 years must Israel forget. 

Would Sonia have signed a peace treaty with Prabhakaran? Would Putin shake hands with a Chechen leader? Would an Armenian shake hands with a Turkish leader? Yet, Israeli leader Yitzhak Rabin shook hands with Yasser Arafat and paid for it with his life at the hands of a murderous Israeli. 

When two sides fail to arrive at a negotiation what would they do? If they asked Yasser Arafat they would launch terrorist attacks on the other sides. The Camp David negotiations shepherded by Bill Clinton, in a desperate attempt to rescue his legacy post-Lewinsky, ended, according to most observers, only because of Arafat's intransigence. To cover up his failed talks Arafat launched the second intifada, a campaign of terror. Ehud Barak conceded more than what any Israeli had ever conceded and Arafat had almost everything he wanted at hand. Arafat who knows only to inflict terror and not to build a nation stomped out. Arafat is no Ben Gurion and both Israel and Palestine pay a price for that.

It was a rich irony for Arab states to move a motion in the UN to label Zionism as 'racism'. This by a bunch of people who run tin pot dictatorships with no semblance of human rights. Israel's ambassador to UN Chaim Herzog in a stirring speech 'hate, ignorance and evil' ripped apart the motion figuratively and literally, watch it here:

Time magazine in a shameful cover asked recently if Israel desired peace. The cover featured an Israeli lounging on a beach side. Israel has forged its destiny amidst an unprecedented sustained campaign of military assaults and terrorist attacks. That a magazine would take the picture of a man at a beach side and wonder if a nation desires peace shows the depths of depravity to which journalism plunged to. Would that same Time magazine, after 9/11, show Americans in revelry and ask "do Americans desire peace"? 

America became a staunch ally of Israel due to strategic real politick as Egypt became ensconced in the bosom of USSR. America stands by Israel for its own strategic reasons. Much is made of American aid to Israel. Pakistan practically blackmails America into giving billions in aid without which, Pakistani leaders claim, fundamentalists would run amuck and destroy America. Just last week America released $750 million to Egypt, a country which has no friendly intention toward America. But for America Saudi Arabia would have been overrun by Saddam. What America refused to do for Israel in 1948 it did for Muslims in Kosovo. 

Is it an accident that Israel has the largest number of companies listed in the Nasdaq after USA. The book 'Startup Nation' explores how Israel focused on development and human capital amidst the constant fear of death. Warren Buffet is investing in an Israelli company that is within distance of being annihilated by Hamas's rockets. Buffet reasons that he is investing in what the employees are capable of producing not in the brick and mortar that Hamas can destroy.

When Mitt Romney spoke of cultural differences in the context of how Israel and West Bank/Gaza develop the politically correct left wingers erupted in anger. Many were livid that Romney would compare Israel with strife torn, segregated, walled off West Bank. What the critics forgot was how immigrant Jews created Tel Aviv out of the swamps. Israel was nothing but swamps and vast tracts of land unused with pockets of habitation. Israel was built by hand kibbutz after kibbutz. If Palestinian leadership know nothing but terrorism is it Israel's problem?

A recent analysis of Israeli and  Palestinian textbooks found rampant stereotyping on both sides with the Palestinian textbook far outranking Israeli texts in preaching hatred. Egyptian textbooks practically inculcate a culture of hatred in children with outrageous texts. 

It is easier to find Jews in Israel who are sympathetic to Palestinian cause than to find a Palestinian who is critical of Yasser Arafat or Hamas. Many Jews in America are now increasingly critical of Israeli policies particularly on the settlements. 

All the above notwithstanding it would be in Israel's own interest to help Palestinians realize their own state. The settlement policies are human rights violations and territorial aggressions. It further messes up an already intractable problem. 

Just as Gandhi's India is militaristic and Christian West is guilty of every human rights violation on the textbook Israel too is not without blemishes. The blemishes of Israel should be seen as the blemishes of a nation and nothing more. Holding Jewish people everywhere as guilty is anti-semitism. Speaking of Israel's questionable acts as the acts of 'Jewish people' is as silly as speaking of America's militarism as the militarism of Christians. The holocaust is bigger than even the state of Israel. It has universal lessons for all.

Let us all study and learn from holocaust. I wish nothing but peace for the people of Palestine and Israel. May their God's give their leaders wisdom to achieve what has eluded generations for the past half century. 

My Pilgrimage To Auschwitz And The Tragic 'Uniqueness' of The Holocaust

I am not a religious person and therefore the idea of a pilgrimage has never appealed to me. My journey to Auschwitz should aptly be called 'pilgrimage'. It is a trite cliche to say that it is the journey that matters not the arriving. I experienced it as my flight was about to land in Krakow.

As the flight from Berlin entered the airspace of Poland I could see that it was chillier than Berlin. As we landed in Krakow I could see snow. Krakow airport looked like a suburban airport in India. I was now worried whether my light jacket would stand the cold. Then I worried if my baggage would be handled properly or would it be lost on a wintry rudimentary airport in Poland. I consoled myself that I can wear a knitted T-shirt underneath by thick cotton shirt with suede patches and top it off with my jacket to beat the cold.

I've watched so many movies and documentaries of Holocaust and read so many books. I remember how Meryl Streep, in 'Sophie's choice',  stands shivering in the cold on that notorious 'selection platform' in Auschwitz with two infants at hand. Then of course 'Schindler's list'. And then a wave of shame washed me over. Here I am, a healthy guy with credit cards and the ability to buy anything I want at any store in case of emergency. Even if my bags are lost its only an inconvenience for me. In the case of a dire necessity as American citizen I can walk into a US consulate. Millions of women, children, aged and the sick have been dragged to this city in box cars, families have been torn asunder at the whim of a Nazi thug at the platform. The victims were depersonalized, their bodies did not belong to them let alone their possessions. In that one moment I realized why a pilgrimage is a spiritual necessity. Whether one calls it a pilgrimage or a study tour the idea is that nothing, no amount of reading books or watching movies, can substitute for being in a place. Of course a study tour or pilgrimage is useless without the reading and watching prior to that. Only a mind that is pullulating with memories will find that aha moment at a place. Else one would be a mindless tourist sauntering through Auschwitz like one would stroll in a park or a museum.

When our tour guide pointed to a serene innocuous swimming pool like water and asked us "what do you think that is" most thought it was a swimming pool for the Nazis to relax. No. Auschwitz was insured by the company Allianz. As an insurance requirement, like today, Allianz stipulated that Auschwitz should have a pond like place to store water to fight any fire hazard. No book had written about that. Looking at the pond and the memory of millions who died a chill ran down my spine at the grotesque nature of human affairs.

Our tour guide made a penetrating observation that Auschwitz was not a concentration camp but an 'extermination' camp built to kill on an industrial scale. Auschwitz's central location played a key role. A map showed the places from which Jews (and others) were transported to Auschwitz from as far as Budapest.

These are insights that become readily available and would take several books to cultivate. That is why a history study tour is essential for students. Next on my agenda is to stand on Edmund Pettus bridge in Selma where Afro-Americans went on a march braving mounted police and police dogs. Several trips like that are pending.

I've often been confronted with the question of whether Holocaust is unique? Being from Tamil Nadu I am also often asked "would you not consider the killings of Sri Lankan Tamils as holocaust, is Rajapakse not Hitler". Of course a Rwandan could ask the same, so would somebody from Darfur. What about an Armenian? The massacre of a million Armenians is still not officially classified as 'genocide', let alone a holocaust. What is so 'unique' about the holocaust? Is it the numbers, a staggering 6 millions? Yes and no.

For any victim in an ethnic conflict his/her tragedy would be, in his/her perspective, the greatest tragedy to befall humanity. I've to respect how a victim feels. A Tamil mother grieving over a child blown to death or a wailing child who had lost both parents or Rwandan who was gang raped and mutilated or a Darfur native who is maimed would all be legitimate in feeling remote to a tragedy that befall a different people decades ago.

It is however the unpleasant duty of a historian to put things in perspective. Let us not forget that from Jaffna to Darfur to Rwanda the deaths and killings were part of and result of civil war with both sides being engaged in an armed conflict. That 6 million Jews were murdered like sheep without a single bullet being fired from their side is indeed unique. That they went to their deaths without a fight has been cruelly used to criticize them or even discredit the scale of the horror.

Syria is burning. UN report says that a million Syrians have crossed over to neighboring countries as refugees. However feeble maybe the efforts of the world in stopping the bloodshed it should be noted that at least the world bodies are 'trying' something and there are nations to open their doors to the refugees. A plaque at Dachau states bluntly "when the inmates at Dachau were liberated most went back to their home countries but the Jews had nowhere to go".

FDR's inaction to bomb Auschwitz is a hotly debated topic. Just last week a new book claims that if the transit lines to Auschwitz had been bombed and if the crematoriums had been bombed it still would not have saved many because allies had the ability to do those only late into the war when many had already been killed. It is 2013 and even today new evidences and new rationale is being investigated in the most complex savagery of humanity.

It is a modern shorthand to refer to any despicable ruler as 'Hitler'. Only Stalin, in reality, matched the cruelty and horrors of Hitler. It is impossible for any ruler of any country to inflict on any race the horrors that Hitler inflicted on humanity at large and at Jews in particular. Doctors, I mean doctors, non-chalantly indulged in medical experiments on Jews. Dr Mengele used to select twin children and subject them to blood curdling medical experiments. Doctors in Berlin thought it unnecessary to wonder how come so many body parts of so many children is turning up for analysis. Dr Mengele had a peaceful anonymous death and never was brought to justice.

Do concentration camps (or the modern internment camps) make up the holocaust? Historian Timothy Snyder in a book review of 4 books writes that it was 'not yet holocaust' referring to Warsaw Ghetto, the laws that prohibited Jews from practically living as human beings etc. In very penetrating analysis Snyder comments that Hitler's murderous scheme was able to take root only because Hitler, in every country he invaded, destroyed every civil institution. In Poland non-Jewish Poles had to be killed first. But in Lithuania which had already been ravaged by Stalin and lost its civil structures Hitler found willing allies in the puppet right wing regime. Close to a 150,000 jews were killed in the matter of a year with Lithuanians being eager to outdo the Nazis and prove themselves as valuable subjects of Nazi state. Death visited the jews in the form of the invader and aided by people who used to be neighbors.

The Nazi regime was an industrial killing machine that took the contours of a holocaust as it brought countries under its jackboot. Stalin had to content himself killing mostly Soviet citizens. Wholesale murder of the Czech or Poles was something even Stalin could not do. Jews were made to pay for the cost of cremating the murdered jews. Snyder writes "Nazi Germany was a special kind of state, determined not to monopolize but to mobilize violence".

Sick minds have caviled about whether it was indeed 6 million who died. Two weeks ago New York Times reported that what we thought we knew of holocaust and the camps is but a fraction of truth according to new evidence. Recent research, gruesomely detailed and verified, asserts that there were nearly 40,000 death camps. Way more than what was thought of.

Only when I planned my trip to go to concentration camps I realized a sobering fact. All the notorious camps were actually close to cities. Dachau is an hour away from Munich, Auschwitz and Birkenau are just 2 hours away from Krakow, Bergen-Belsen where Anne Frank and her sister were killed (not died) is 2 hours away from Berlin, Berlin itself had a concentration camp, Ravensbruck was 90 miles north of Berlin, Buchenwald was near Weimar. The NYT article concludes that given the number of camps it is impossible that people did not know what was going on. At Dachau I saw a photograph of stunned German citizens, dragged to the the camp by allied army liberators, looking over emaciated corpses and the ovens. Were the people of Dachau truly ignorant? I don't think so.

When communist jackboot replaced the Nazi boot in Eastern Europe covering Auschwitz talk of jewish victims was muted as Stalin's regime wanted to speak only of communist victims. That, after nearly 65 years since the camps were liberated, we are still learning and unearthing evidence gives us a perspective of the tragic uniqueness of holocaust. This new knowledge is not an incremental addition to the existing knowledge but it is a paradigm shift that practically enlarged the scope of what was already a too big to digest horror.

Holocaust remains a unique tragedy unparalleled before or after in history. Let us not, juts to rob the Jewish people and Israel, deny this uniqueness and nor shall we wish it upon any people for ages to come.

The one remaining question that I promised to answer was about the lessons from Holocaust that Israel learned. In another perversely unique manner no other tragedy that befall any people draws the question "did they learn from it?". No other people who have suffered are being asked "how different are you from your tormentors". Whenever I speak of holocaust to most people the invariable question is "what about the suffering of Palestine". People are more eager to hold Israel and the Jewish people accountable for todays mess all the more so because of holocaust. In this aspect too, sadly, Israel and the Jewish people are treated uniquely. I'll answer them in my next blog.

Berlin and Nuremberg: Museums For A Ghostly Past

I've written the past few tourism blogs in a thematic manner overlooking the chronology of when I visited those places. Also I've not delved into the anecdotes of what I 'experienced' as a traveler in those cities about food, commute, people etc. I'll get to the tourist aspect in the coming days.

Subsequent post-war generations of Germany have confronted their parents with the question of "how did Nazism happen", "how did we allow holocaust to happen" etc. Ever since the unification Germany and Germans have taken it upon themselves to answer all that forthrightly. This is also possible only after the unification for several reasons. The historical sites in Berlin are now accessible giving an authenticity that was not possible earlier for a museum constructed anywhere. For instance the museum 'Topography of Terror' which details the repressive Gestapo regime during the Nazi era stands in Berlin in the same spot where Gestapo headquarters used to be. The Berlin Wall used to pass right next to it hence after the fall of the wall it is now possible for the museum to exist. Another reason is now Germany tries to view the Soviet repression and Nazi era in a connected manner of how they mutilated the soul of Germany.

Several erstwhile Nazi places that are now museums in Germany are often referred to as 'Documentation Center'. The 'Topography of Terror Museum'  constructs in artistic and painfully detailed manner the emergence of a repressive thuggish state apparatus. Running along the remnants of Berlin Wall is a series of very nice display of glass panels that are hung from steel frames detailing in chronological manner aspects of the rise of Nazism (check the picture at the right of this page http://www.topographie.de/en/exhibitions/berlin-1933-1945/#c1068). Every Siemens factory that utilized slave labor is mapped out. An artistic display tells us by using pull-outs on a calendar how holidays were declared based on Nazi festivals. Unflinching accounting of how many Nazis managed into slip into civilian life and even become judges in West Berlin is recounted in full. USSR wanted to embarrass West Germany and released a list of judges who were known to have been Nazis. While some of who lost property under Nazis some like condom manufacturer Julius Fromm, a Jew, were branded as 'Jewish proprietor of the capitalist kind' and refused restitution. Nazism which gifted the word 'Goebbelsian propaganda' was all about propaganda. A poster depicting a muscular healthy man carrying on his shoulders 'hereditary sick people' informed school students of the 'cost' of such an effort.

The inside of the museum is breathtaking. The colors are not too bright in the room, the expansive hallwith chronologically arranged labrynthine looking hanging displays with surrounding glass walls conveys a surreal feeling of openness in discussing a shameful chapter of German history (see the pics in the link http://www.topographie.de/en/exhibitions/topography-of-terror/#c1069 ).

Himmler talking of extermination, interrogation records of Jews stamped with 'J', transport lists, pictures of Jews having their beards snipped by smiling Nazis, details of camps and so much more is laid out for anyone wishing to study and learn. I'd say come to this museum not just to learn of Nazism or of how Jews were persecuted. Come to this museum to learn how hatred manifests human soul. Come here to learn what a set of human beings man did to their fellow human beings. Victims and perpetrators may change but the theme is sickeningly continuous. 

The holocaust museum in Berlin is situated, intentionally, I was told, right next to the notorious Fuhrer bunker were Hitler committed suicide. This museum is uniquely constructed with large cement blocks with grid like cobbled stone pathway that rises and falls in an undulating manner. The museum architecture evokes a sombre dark mood albeit not too depressing. The use of steel and glass is deftly combined to give a sense of openness and grimness. A room details stories of families, again with very well researched documents to trace the families path through holocaust. The room itself is imposing with mammoth cement blocks hanging from the roof inlaid with backlit glass panels of photos and documents.

The Fuhrer bunker was razed to the ground and filled up with mud by invading Red army in order to prevent any future 'shrine'. Today the place is a car park. This bunker was identified only recently. Sadly I saw some hooligan had scribbled 'holocaust ist luge' in a cycle stand nearby (and hence opposite to the holocaust museum). I jotted it down and used google to translate, it read 'holocaust is a lie'.

Nuremberg is an hour away from Munich by train. This city was the cradle of Nazism. There are no good English speaking hop on hop off tours. I just went to the 'documentation center' which is next to the large grounds where Nazi rallies took place. The taxi driver who dropped me said "look at that steel arrow like structure piercing the colosseum style building. This colosseum was left unfinished by the Nazis and the arrow like structure is there to signify an arrow into the heart of Nazism". Here we learn how Nazis used mega rallies as a method to project power and popularity. A room had displays of front pages from world newspapers that spoke of the rise of Hitler. It is sad to note how much the world knew and indeed feared Nazism and yet allowed it all to happen until an unspeakable price in human lives was paid to undo it. 

Nuremberg is not just any city. It was the center of German culture. It is here that Nazism took its shape and it is from the notorious Nuremberg rallies, so often pictured in Hollywood movies of that era, that Hitler mesmerized a nation and plunged it into untold misery. I could not visit the famous Albrecht Durer home. 

Coming a full circle Nazism faced the long arm of justice in Nuremberg. It was in Nuremberg the famous trials that convicted and executed many top Nazis took places. Those trials form the basis of today's war crimes trials. Ironically USSR which killed thousand of Polish officers in Katyn sat as part of the judges. During the trials none of the Nazis could even say a word of the conduct of Red Army which could easily be accused of war crimes that are only less severe in relation to what the Nazis did. Red army plundered and raped German villages. Allies punished Germany by obliterating most of the nation in punitive bombing raids. Dresden was flattened. The British who had their boot on India's throat and the French who plundered North Africa too were the judges.

Berlin: City Of Museums

A German colleague once told me that I'd need ten days to tour Berlin's museum. He was right. The country which had the birth of printing press, the Reformation movement, cradle of Western Classical music, more Nobel laureates than US and UK combined until 1931, country of Goethe, Schilling and Nietzsche, Nazism, Communism, Holocaust has museums for all and it would very well take ten days to satiate a curious mind.

On the day I arrived in Berlin I trekked to Checkpoint Charlie which was 15 minute walk from the Marriott I stayed in. Only when I stood there in a street could I envisage what a brutal gash through a city the Berlin Wall was. Imagine any city you grew up in and then imagine a wall bisecting it abruptly in the middle. A private museum displays all artifacts from that era including a sub-compact car in which a fully grown adult would stuff himself/herself in the trunk to escape from East Berlin. Before I went to Berlin I browsed through Tina Rosenberg's , Pulitzer and National Book Award winner, 'Haunted Lands'. Rosenberg details the devastation of Eastern Europe by USSR. She details how unified Germany is now prosecuting erstwhile soldiers of East Germany who would shoot at fleeing East Berliners.

The Berlin Wall museum details how Peter Fechter was shot on 17th Aug 1962 by East Berlin soldiers when Fechter attempted a futile escape. The US soldiers on West Berlin stood helpless and watched Fechter bleed to death. The soldiers who shot Fechter were prosecuted in the 90's. Note that it is a contentious prosecution because the soldiers did what was legal in that country at that time.

That architecture plays an integral role to a building and particularly to a museum as thematic as Jewish museum was evident when I went to the Daniel Libeskind designed Jewish Museum in Berlin. Given the shadow of a grotesque tragedy it is natural that the architect tries to evoke a poignant gloom but balance is maintained such that the tragic sense is not overwhelming making the visitor run out in despair. The museum has geometrical alleys and narrow rectangular slices for windows with a cement pathway all intended to evoke a concentration camp feeling. A holocaust tower which has large iron doors and absolute darkness transports the visitor to a grim era.

The genius of Jewish Museum's curator is in ensuring that the museum is not only a tribute to an unspeakable tragedy but in also ensuring that a visitor gets an idea that Jews in Germany lived a culturally rich life contributing to the rich tapestry of the country. That the German Jewish community was an intellectually vibrant community and every inch German citizens is clearly brought out by unique exhibits like the glass mannequins that represent German Jews who fought on behalf of Germany in World War I.

The museum traces artfully the history of persecution of Jews in the centuries before holocaust across Christian Europe. 'Salomon bar Simson', a narrative Hebrew history, recounts the persecution of jews in Germany during the first Crusade 1096 AD. Details of how jews were stereotyped and prohibited from various professions are vivid to learn how hatred seeps into minds. Many Jews would change their last names such as 'Cohn' to 'Coen' to escape persecution. Amongst the many geniuses celebrated was Karl Marx too. Marx was of jewish lineage but his father had converted to Christianity. Marx himself wrote very harshly of Jews that he was accused of anti-semitism.

The most interestingly curious display was a collection of 'detective reports'. A prospective groom was investigated in detail by a detective from the bride's side. The notes include whether the groom had a good job, his salary and even about his mother. This museum is a must visit for any one desirous of learning Jewish cultural contribution to Germany and the world in general.

The DDR museum showcases life in East German days. Every house needed to maintain a 'house book' to record guests staying over 3 days. In libraries supposedly subversive works would be kept separately and labeled 'Poison of thought'. One needed a 'poison pass' to read any of those books. School children practiced throwing grenades and girls had to undergo 'Lehre' or compulsory apprenticeship. Oh by the way East Germans hated abortion more than today's GOP in USA, there was only one 'no' vote against a March 1972 law regulating abortion. Communist economy fixed a professional Engineer's salary at 1470 Marks (1988) and a Bricklayer's salary at 1370 Marks (1988). A chemist earned 1300DM whereas a mineworker earned 1444DM (1988).

The German history museum is breathtaking in scope and could very well take one full day by itself. Indians always haughtily talk of what they 'taught' the world. One exhibit in this museum spoke of what Germans 'learned' from technologically advanced Orient. The city of Augsburg in 1526 regulated aid for poor ensuring they are not dependent on charity by the church. Interesting exhibits on Luther and Reformation impress the vast scope of how the world was changed. Modern day unions have their roots in professional guilds that were established centuries ago for the same purposes. The guilds regulated who practiced a profession in order to stifle competition. Workers guilds practiced pretty much what todays trade unions do.

One very little known museum is the 'Medical History Museum' named after the father of Pathology 'Rudolph Virchow'. This museum has very little exhibits that have an English note. Students of medicine can benefit from a visit. Here too the German's unflinchingly face up to the the dark chapter of medical experimentation in the Nazi era. Twisted beliefs in Darwinism and eugenics led doctors to kill disabled and the mentally challenged in addition to evil experiments on children in Auschwitz and elsewhere.

I'll cover Hitler's last bunker, Holocaust museum and Topography of terror in my next post for the sake of readability.

Jeyamohan and Holocaust: The poisonous edge of skepticism

I just returned from a history tour in Germany centered mostly around Third Reich and Holocaust. I visited Auschwitz-Birkenau and Dachau concentration camps along with visits to Berlin's fabled Jewish history museum and holocaust museum. As an avid reader of Jewish history and holocaust a tour like this was long desired. Did I learn anything new beyond what I know through reading books by survivors and historians?

Crematorium Ovens at Dachau, Near Munich in Germany

Contemporary Tamil fiction writer Jeyamohan visited USA in 2009 and toured Boston for a day. He happened to visit a small holocaust memorial in Boston and in his role as public intellectual he sought to raise some questions. The 'proof' for holocaust appears to be based more on hearsay and memoirs of victims and we do not know if they were subject to historical analysis. Holocaust deniers like David Irving have not been answered decisively. Is American government promoting talk of holocaust in order to not discuss America's own nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Jeyamohan is not an anti-semite though these questions have been all posed by deeply anti-semitic haters. I'll assume he was posing as a skeptic seeking to appear as an intellectual who is disapassionately questioning deeply held ideas. I'll seek to answer Jeyamohan's question only because they give a framework.

We all think we know holocaust simply because we watched 'Schindler's List' or 'The Reader' or 'The Pianist'. A few discerning readers might add Elie Wiesel's book 'Night' or even fewer might refer Primo Levi's 'Survival in Auschwitz'. Some may have watched one or two documentaries even. All of those give only a glimpse into a horror that remains, fortunately, unparalleled in human history. Of course some also ask 'why is holocaust unique? should the word 'holocaust' be used only to refer to those killed Jews?'.

Author of the book 'German genius' points to a historical anomaly with regard to holocaust. Every historical event is usually much talked about in the immediately succeeding years and slowly fades from memory. Holocaust on the other hand was talked very little in the immediate years after the end of the war but has seen a phenomenal amount of talk in recent decades. This is an inversion of historical process. There are several reasons for this.

In the immediate years after the end of the war the world, particularly the two emergent super powers, were more intent on carving up Germany and Eastern Europe and locking themselves in a deadly ideological battle. While the Nuremberg trials progressed and several Nazi leaders were executed as punishment for war crimes many more escaped and resettled in African or Latin American countries. A vast majority of the Nazi death camps, especially the ones in Poland like Auschwitz-Birkenau etc, fell behind the iron curtain.

USSR was more keen on talking about how communists were killed by Hitler and downplaying the rest of the victims, most notably the jews. USSR, after all, was a deeply anti-semitic country that donated to the world the word 'pogrom'.

What of Israel itself? A nation for the jews did not come about for another 3 years until 1948. In those days the Jewish community did not have the time to sit and mourn its losses but had to lobby for a nation. The UN vote only promised a nation to Israel alongside Palestine. Nobody, not even the US, guaranteed a secure Israel let alone any means to survive. The grand Mufti of Jerusalem declared 'we will push you into the red sea'. Armies from Jordan, Syria and Egypt raced towards Israel to snuff it out at its very birth. In this context Israel itself hesitated to talk of holocaust and the millions  of Jews killed only because they were afraid that it would be seen as a sign of weakness and a lack of man power. Accepting that nearly 2/3rd of entire Jewish population perished without any resistance was too apalling to even accept in the face of an onslaught.

Further complications arose from talking about a little known aspect of holocaust that is not talked about much even today. The Jewish councils in the ghettos that were in charge of selecting people for trains to Auschwitz and the 'sonderkommandos' that worked in gas chambers cleaning out the dead were only barely mentioned and that too as 'collaborators'. Today they are looked at as much a victim as those who died. Memoirs by sonderkommandos detail what emotional scars such duties leave. Those memoirs, Mr Jeyamohan, are not vacuous exaggerated tales but cries of tormented hearts that have lived through an inhuman tragedy that words cannot capture.

We think seeing Amon Goeth in 'Schindler's List' shoot people at random in the midst of having sex somehow captures the horror. No. He was more evil. He was more deliberate. A documentary details the meeting of a girl who worked at Goeth's home with Goeth's own daughter in Plaszow, Poland where Goeth ran the camp. Death was not a random careless accident. It was deliberate and it stalked every inmate. Some critics have demurred that Spielberg simplified the horror by depicting Goeth as an impulsive, careless murderer.

There are parts of holocaust that Hollywood would not even dare to touch. The medical experiments on children and women by Dr Joseph Mengele are too horrendous to even recount. I visited the Medical history Museum in Berlin. There they have recounted unflinchingly how the medical community sold its soul to the devil. At Dachau there is a photo that depicts the 'high altitude experiment'. In order to find out the odds of a survival of a Luftwaffe pilot who ejects from his aircraft at high altitudes a prisoner was sent into a pressurized room and, with doctors observing, the pressure was lowered to the point where the prisoner died in front of their eyes. The photo was amongst the thousands taken by the SS themselves. Experiments were conducted to see how TB spread in human body, how human body reacted to extreme cold, lamp shades were made of human skin, twin children were killed for eugenics study.

Jeyamohan wonders if such tales were scrutinized by historians. Every museum in Berlin and elsewhere in Germany and in Auschwitz functions under the highest standards. Jews know very well that even at the slightest whiff of exaggeration there are heartless people waiting to white wash the entire horror. The letters displayed, the admission cards at Auschwitz, the train tickets, invoices for poison gas Zyklon B, remnants of gas chambers, intact crematoriums, mobile gassing vans, the death registers, population census of jews before and after the war in each neighborhood all tell a grim story.

A recent documentary by BBC tells the story of 'Kindertrains'. Jewish children were sent by the hundreds from France to Britain to escape oncoming horror. A book based on that documentary is not a he-says-she-says type but a heart rending historical document. A million jewish children died in the holocaust.

Evil holocaust deniers like David Irving have played mischief with conspiracies like 'where is Hitler's order for Final solution?'. While some were implied some orders were not. At the 'Topography of terror' museum, erected at the very spot in Berlin where the Gestapo headquarters once stood, an audio recording of the chilling words of Himmler calling for extermination is available for willing ears to listen. To cite Irving as source for intellectual skepticism is a shame. It only shows the danger of what happens when Jeyamohan wades into territories beyond his expertise. Irving's book on World War II does not even have entry for 'holocaust' in the index instead it only has an entry "Jewish Problem".

Rudolph Hoss, commandant of Auschwitz, has written his own memoirs titled 'Commandant'. If Jeyamohan thinks tales by survivors are just tales let him read that. A doctor who aided Mengele has written "Eye witness at Auschwitz". The doctor details in graphic manner of how he once saved a small girl who happened to survive inside a gas chamber. Hoss details how mothers, fully aware of what was coming, used to play with children before stepping into gas chambers. What else can they do?

Photos by the thousands are in archives. Every photo displayed in museums is credentialed and authenticated. At the 'Topography of terror' museum I was astounded to see a photograph picked for a unique depiction. Amongst hundreds of people giving the Hitler salute just one man would stand defiantly with folded arms. The museum had a note that the man's identity was not known for sure. Imagine sifting through thousands of photo to exhibit just that one very unique photo and what professionalism in saying that the identity is not known. The museum also had originals of Gestapo interrogation transcripts in binders for interested visitors to read and understand the regime of terror. Is this what Jeyamohan calls 'hearsay'?

While top Nazis were investigated and executed at Nuremberg notorious ones like Josef Mengele and Adolph Eichmann had escaped capture. Eichmann was later abducted by Israel is a movie like operation and arraigned at an Israeli court. Writer Hannah Arendt's 'Banality of evil' recounts that trial. Interestingly the road adjacent to where Hitlers last bunker once stood is named 'Hannah Arendt'. Mengele was never captured. Many nations who sheltered these Nazis were anti-semitic so Israel and international law never reached them.

Many lesser Nazis slipped into public lives too. In an embarrassing incident Soviet run Eastern Germany released a list of 16 judges in West Germany who were known to be Nazis. Later they were dismissed. Only after 20 years was a trial conducted in Frankfurt to bring to justice the killers at Auschwitz. Most were only awarded 5-7 years imprisonment. In a very unique display at the museum of Terror we are shown how only in 1972 just 16 officers of Reich Security officers were investigated by the prosecutor in Berlin . Of that only two were sentenced.

The fall of Soviet empire, opening up of Poland and the Nazi death camps in Poland like Auschwitz and Treblinka have spurred further scholarship in holocaust. That is why as recently as 2008 a book on holocaust, 'The years of extermination' by Saul Friedlander, was considered fresh with details that it was awarded the Pulitzer. Elie Wiesel's novel, Primo Levi's memoir, Anne Frank's diary are all not just memoirs but historical documents. At Anne Frank's house in Amsterdam there are originals of their parents admission cards to Auschwitz. At Bergen-Belsen Anne Frank met her friend who later survived  the war to corroborate the tales. Anne Frank's own father, Otto Frank, was the sole survivor in that family. 140,000 Jews lived in Netherlands before the war. Only 30,000 survived. At Lvov out of 120,000 Jews just a few less than 1000 survived the war. Prior to war Jews were nearly 5% of the population in Hungary. Nearly 400,000 Hungarian Jews were killed in Auschwitz alone bringing their survivors percentage down to 1.4%.

The Nazi regime organized death on an industrial scale using methods of industry to achieve mass killing by the thousands at an instant. Dachau alone had more than 50 sub camps. Prisoners from far off Italy and interior Russia were carted into Auschwitz. Auschwitz was a camp established for only one purpose, to exterminate, at the heart of Europe.

1.3 Million People were killed in Auschwitz. 1.1 Million were Jews.

In a letter I wrote I objected to Jeyamohan that it is a grave mistake to equate Holocaust with the bombing of Hiroshima. One is memorial to the murder of unarmed women and children by a country where they lived as citizens for no other sin than being Jews. The other was an act of war against a country that initiated war. Japan was a cruel, very cruel, imperial power that refused to end the war even after Hitler was defeated. It is good to ask questions that provoke in order to illuminate lesser known dark angles but Jeyamohan seems to ask these questions only to provoke. Skepticism towards anything that comes to be seen as 'common knowledge' is good. It is not a sin to ask "did 6 million die". An intellectual skeptic would take it further to understand and study. Just to ask a question and smugly leaving it at that only betrays an ulterior motive of seeking to appear dispassionate and intellectual. By the way why does no one ask "could it have been more". In any riot, any genocide anybody wonders 'could it have been more'. Only when it comes to holocaust do people ask "was it really that much"? Unlike Jeyamohan most of those who ask that are sheer anti-semites.

The worst part was where Jeyamohan says he has watched hundreds of movies regarding holocaust. The horrors like the medical experiments are not captured in any movie. Rudolph Hoss lived with his family just outside the Auschwitz camp. He spends time with his children and came to the camp to kill children. Educated Nazi officer would fling a child into a wall and watch the brains splatter across. A group of Nazi officers once played football with a one year child and made its mother wipe the blood of their boots. Can any art form, words or painting or movies, capture such a horror? Is there any explanation in any psychology or philosophy for any of that? Nazis would advertise why killing the disabled was good for the economy. What movie has even depicted that?

What were my ideas when I ended the tour? What is the impact of Holocaust on Israel today? What have the Jews taught the world by talking about holocaust? All that and more later.


Notes:

Interested readers can see my photographs with notes at https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.4007347221684.138348.1221294625&type=1&l=7447dc0bb4

History of the Jews in hungary http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Hungary#Number_of_survivors
Lvov Ghetto http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lvov_Ghetto

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Holocaust_denial
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust#Victims_and_death_toll

Links from Jeyamohan:
Jemo in Boston http://www.jeyamohan.in/?p=3488

Jemo to me http://www.jeyamohan.in/?p=3547

Amsterdam: Anne Frank's home and Torture Museum

Tragedy struck a Jewish school in South France today when an unidentified gunman killed four an adult, 13 year old girl,a 7 year old and a 3 year old, six others were wounded. They had been shot at close quarters. They were shot because they were Jews and the school was a Jewish school. In 2008 Pakistani terrorist thugs who terrorized Mumbai specifically targeted a Jewish chabad for their killing spree. I shall reserve my comment on Israel's critics for a following blog but this provides a backdrop for my visit to the home of Holocaust's most famous victim, Anne Frank. Before that a brief on the Torture Museum.

A museum focusing on torture was very inviting. Though I am broadly familiar with the themes of torture, especially the use of torture by the Christian Church seeing the instruments of torture along with helpful notes was chilling. The Spanish Inquisition made a name for itself with Torquemada and the inquisition chair (below)

The accused has to sit on that chair and the screws would be tightened to maximize pain. This was mostly used on women accused of being witches. The rack pictured below (http://www.torturemuseum.nl/instruments-of-torture/) is another instrument the very sight of which is painful.

Religious minorities (mostly Jews), dissenters, minorities, gays, political prisoners and lots of women bore the brunt of these punishments. The museum, in European tradition, had the usual US bashing. Fleeting mention was made of Guantanamo. Guantanamo is picnic compared to the above.

As a deep admirer of Israel and Jewish history the holocaust remains an obsessive topic for me. In 2010 when I toured Amsterdam for a few hours I glimpsed the home of Anne Frank during a canal cruise. This year I made what can be called a pilgrimage to her home. Anne Frank's family and another family of 3, 8 Jews totally, hid in a secret annexe in a factory for 2 years during the war fearing deportation to extermination camps. The families were betrayed on 8th August 1944 and were deported first to Auschwitz. Anne Frank and her sister were later deported to Bergen Belsen. One has to really pause and digest this. Jews arrested in Amsterdam were transported to Auschwitz in Poland. Then two of them get transported halfway back into Bergen-Belsen in Germany. I visited a Gestapo jail in Cologne where a prisoner from Ukraine (!!!) had scrawled on the walls. Imagine the logistics needed for all these transports that had no strategic goal except hate. By the time the family was arrested Hitler's Third Reich was crumbling and his army was being beaten back by the equally murderous Red Army to the East and by the American and British forces from the West.

Anne and her sister Margot perished in the typhus epidemic that swept Bergen-Belsen. The sisters died a few days apart next to each other sometime in March 1945. Allied armies liberated Bergen-Belsen in April 1945. Only Otto Frank, Anne's father, survived from Auschwitz. Anne's mother had died too. Otto made his way back to Amsterdam and searched for his darling children. Finally he learnt that they were dead.

When the Frank family went into hiding Anne was 13. Anne received a diary as gift. While in hiding this girl, just entering her teens, wrote a journal of all that happened for two years. The last entry is on 1st August 1944. She has interest in movies, the helpers who hid the family get her movie magazines, Otto marks the growth of his daughters with a pencil mark (it is still there), a map is stuck to follow the progress of Allied army since Normandy landings, a radio keeps them connected, Margot still takes Latin lessons and sends her work for correction pretending  to be somebody else, a 16 year old boy (from the other family) kindles love in Anne, Anne has her first kiss, she writes of Gandhi too hearing from radio reports.

Otto Frank discovers the diary and publishes it to universal acclaim. The diary has been translated into tens of languages and has sold millions. Otto, with help, converted the annexe into a museum. A very touching photo is below. Here is Otto Frank, just before the museum is opened to public, looking alone and pensive at the floor where his children played and his wife walked. The pain is palpable and sorrow engulfs the viewer in an emotional embrace across time and space.

The photographer Arnold Newman who took the photo reminisced, "how could I ask this man to pose? I couldn't. Instead I just waited and Otto went into a deeply pensive mood. It was then I took the photograph". They cried and embraced after the photo shoot ended.

Anne Frank wrote in her diary, "One day this terrible war will be over. The time will come when will be people again and not just Jews!".

Whether it is Jeremiah Wright or Al Sharpton spewing explicit and implicit anti-semitism or this madman today today who killed children just because they are Jews the sad answer is Anne Frank's hope only lives on as hope.

I'll take this opportunity to answer in my next blog a few questions on Israel, Holocaust and Jews. Anne Frank was 15 when she died. And she died because she was a Jew. And only because she was a Jew did she and her family die.

Amsterdam: Jewish Historical Museum

Before I knew Amsterdam's most famous Jew, Anne Frank, I had studied about it's second most famous Jew, Baruch Spinoza in Will Durant's "The story of philosophy". Spinoza ranks alongside Immanuel Kant as possibly the greatest modern philosopher. In two pages, that only Will Durant can write, Durant traces the arc of Jewish diaspora from its expulsion by the Romans unto the day Jews settled in Amsterdam and the birth of Spinoza. Spinoza was excommunicated by the Jewish community for his philosophy fearing that it angered their Christian hosts in the city.

Failing to find a home or museum of Spinoza I visited the "Jewish Historical Museum". Durant writes that Jews persecuted in Spain by Ferdinand , during Spanish Inquisition, fled in search of safety. "A large number of them embarked in the frail vessels of that day and sailed up the Atlantic, between hostile England and hostile France, to find at last some measure of welcome in little big souled Holland. Among these was a family of Portuguese Jews named Espinoza. Thereafter Spain decayed, and Holland prospered. The Jews built their first synagogue in 1598; and when, seventy five years later, they built another, the most magnificent in Europe, their Christian neighbors helped them to finance the enterprise. The Jews were happy now, if we may judge from the stout content of the merchants and rabbis whom Rembrandt had given immortality". Only Will Durant could write a passage that compresses so many meanings within a few lines. I had missed seeing Rembrandt's home in Amsterdam due to lack of time.

The Jewish museum had a permanent exhibition detailing the history of the first synagogue, Jewish rituals, artifacts that gave a vivid picture of one of the world's most ancient culture. One plaque mentioned the loyalty of Jews in Amsterdam to the Dutch royalty for the relative peace with which Jews could live in Holland unlike the rest of Europe. When Spinoza, like Uriel a Costa before him, had expounded beliefs that angered their Christian hosts the Jewish community excommunicated him as a price for their peaceful existence.

In what could happen only in Western museums typical of Western attitudes the Jewish museum had an exhibition titled "My name is Cohen". Cohen is the priestly name referring to Aaron, brother of Moses, who is considered the first priest for Israel. The exhibition is about people whose last name is 'cohen' (http://www.mynameiscohen.com/) and what it means for them to have the most famous Jewish surname. One Cohen, not a resident of Israel, said that he bears a burden that people who come to know his surname ask him about each and everything Israel did. A Jew, anywhere in the world, is considered a representative of Israel and has to bear the brunt of that association said he. Another Cohen bristled that just because he is a Jew he does not have to support all that Israel does (sadly no Palestinian would say that of Al-Fatah or Hamas, at least not publicly). One Cohen recounted sadly how a customer ate at his restaurant and left saying "I will not pay a Jew". To one Cohen it is a badge of pride, to another it is a "losing brand value", another is sheepish about her Jewish identity.

The exhibition brings to the fore that this race has suffered uniquely amongst all races in history. Centuries of persecution, in every single corner of the world, reaching its climax, if one call it so, in the Holocaust has left its imprint on every member young and old. Durant waxes eloquent in his introduction to Spinoza, "what drama could rival the grandeur of these sufferings, the variety of of these scenes, and the glory and the justice of this fulfillment?" (the fulfillment Durant refers is the creation of Israel)


As I exited the museum, as always, I browsed the gift shop. I was very surprised to see books by Spinoza. The community that excommunicated him in different situation 400 years ago has now embraced its greatest genius amongst the so many geniuses produced by that race.

All was not well for Jews of Amsterdam. That no host country is ever safe for Jews was illustrated in Holland. Nazi Germany invaded Holland in 1940. The Dutch initially protested deportation of Jews by organizing a strike. Virtually unheard of in any other state under Nazi occupation but it later morphed into tragic and cruel co-operation. Between 1940-1944 in just 4 years nearly 75% of Holland's Jews were exterminated with the active co-operation of many Dutch citizens. The Holocaust's most famous victim Anne Frank is a searing tragedy for another day.