H9: The Holocaust

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I Believe

I believe
in the sun
even when
it is not shining

I believe
in love
when feeling
it not

I believe
in God
even when
he is silent

(Inscription found on the walls of a cellar in Cologne, Germany, where Jews hid from the Nazis)

Poem

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not Jewish

Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist

Then they came for the Catholics
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Catholic

Then they came for the Trade Unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Trade Unionist

Then they came for me
and there as no one left
to speak for me

Pastor Niemoller

Shema

You who live secure
In your warm houses,
Who return at evening to find
Hot food and friendly faces:

Consider whether this is a man:
Who labours in the mud
Who knows no peace
Who fights for a crust of bread
Who dies at a yes or a no.
Consider whether this is a woman,
Without hair or name
With no more strength to remember
Eyes empty and womb cold...

Consider that this has been:
I commend these words to you.
Engrave them on your hearts
When you are in your house,
when you walk on your way,
When you go to bed, when you rise.
Repeat them to your children....

Primo Levi, survivor

Let us say kaddish

Let us say Kaddish not only for the dead, but also for the living who have forgotten the dead. And let the prayer be more than a prayer, more than a lament; let it be outcry, protest and defiance. And above all let it be an act of remembrance. For that is what the victims wanted: to be remembered, at least to be remembered. For just as the killer was determined to erase Jewish memory, so were the dying heroes and fighting martyrs bent on maintaining it alive. They are now being defamed; or forgotten - which is like killing them a second time. Let us say Kaddish together - and not allow others to betray them now that they are dead.

Elie Wiesel - survivor

Resistance

Not much is known - because so few survived - of the heroic Jewish resistance which fought against overwhelming odds in the ghettos, camps and forests of Europe. This tenacious continued resistance to the Nazis, even in Auschwitz, remains an inspiration not only for the Jewish people in its ongoing struggle for a secure national homeland, but for all those committed to the right of every human being to live in freedom, dignity and peace. Here are a select few of the many many examples of Jewish resistance:

Holland February 1941 Jews resist Nazi attack on Jewish quarter of Amsterdam, killing a Dutch Nazi

Ilja, Poland March 1942 Two Jewish partisan leaders, Josef Rodblat and David Rubin, lead Jewish resistance group; 900 killed

White Russia May 1942 In Lida & Stolpce unarmed Jewish youth breakout of SS police control, escape into woods & join partisan groups

Berlin, Germany May 1942 Jewish students, led by Herbert Baum, display anti-Nazi posters. Baum and 152 other students shot

Parczew, Eastern Galicia 1944-45 A Jewish Polish officer, Alexande Skonicki, leads attacks of Polish partisan units on German military targets. Jewish partisans under his command, led by Yehiel Grynszpan, successfully acquire ammunition from German military posts

Treblinka, Poland February 1943 Young woman snatches rifle, shoots dead two Nazis and wounds a third

Warsaw, Poland 19 April 1943 Warsaw Ghetto uprising led by Mordechai Anielewicz. Jews resist German troops, tanks and artillery; they manage to drive out the Germans from the ghetto

Warsaw, Poland 8 May 1943 Jewish underground headquarters destroyed. Anielewicz and 56,000 Jews killed or deported during revolt. 15,000 manage to escape

Koldyczewo, Poland 1944 Jews kill 10 SS guards at slave labour camp. Hundreds of prisoners escape to join partisans

Auschwitz, Poland 7 October 1944 Polish, Hungarian & Greek Jews, using explosives stolen by 4 Jewish girls, blow up 1 of the 4 crematoria

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