Category: Genocide

Sophie Scholl’s Final Words

Anti-Semitism, Civil Rights, History, Resistance

Today in History –> Seventy-eight years ago today Sophie Scholl (along with Hans Scholl and Christoph Probst) a twenty-one year old German student and anti-Nazi political activist, active within the White Rose non-violent resistance group in Nazi Germany having been convicted of treason was executed by the guillotine.

In February of 1943, the [White Rose group] was apprehended when leaving pamphlets in suitcases all across the University of Munich. Sophie took to a balcony that overlooked a courtyard and scattered reams of flyers as students exited classes. Her action was witnessed by the school’s janitor, who reported Sophie and Hans to the Gestapo. After being interrogated for nearly 24 hours, Sophie emerged from questioning with a broken leg but a steely spirit. She was quoted as saying, “I’ll make no bargain with the Nazis.”

The students’ hearing began a mere four days after their arrest and, because all pled guilty, they were not allowed to testify. Still, Sophie did not sit quietly throughout the proceedings. She interrupted the judge throughout, with statements like: “Somebody had to make a start! What we said and wrote are what many people are thinking. They just don’t dare say it out loud!” and “You know the war is lost. Why don’t you have the courage to face it?”

She was allowed one official statement: “Time and time again one hears it said that since we have been put into a conflicting world, we have to adapt to it. Oddly, this completely un-Christian idea is most often espoused by so-called Christians, of all people. How can we expect righteousness to prevail when there is hardly anyone who will give himself up to a righteous cause? I did the best that I could do for my nation. I therefore do not regret my conduct and will bear the consequences.” She and her fellow defendants were sentenced to death by execution, which was carried out within hours of the decision. On the back of Sophie’s indictment, she wrote the word “Freedom”. Her reported last words were, “Die Sonne scheint noch”—”The sun still shines.”

Her last words:

“How can we expect righteousness to prevail when there is hardly anyone willing to give himself up individually to a righteous cause. Such a fine, sunny day, and I have to go, but what does my death matter, if through us, thousands of people are awakened and stirred to action?”
~ Sophie Scholl

Anne Frank on War

History, Most Admired Authors, Quotes, The Holocaust

“I don’t believe that the big men, the politicians and the capitalists alone are guilty of the war. Oh, no, the little man is just as keen, otherwise the people of the world would have risen in revolt long ago! There is an urge and rage in people to destroy, to kill, to murder, and until all mankind, without exception, undergoes a great change, wars will be waged, everything that has been built up, cultivated and grown, will be destroyed and disfigured, after which mankind will have to begin all over again.”

~ Anne Frank, “The Diary of a Young Girl – 3 May 1944”

#FavoriteQuotes #AnneFrank

Dwight D. Eisenhower Vigilance to Preserve the Truth

Anti-Semitism, History, Mental Health, Remembrance, The Holocaust, Video

Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower had studied his World War II enemy, he was unprepared for the Nazi brutality he witnessed at Ohrdruf concentration camp in April 1945. Bodies were piled like wood and living skeletons struggled to survive. On International Holocaust Remembrance Day, learn how Eisenhower foresaw a day when the horrors of the Holocaust might be denied and hear about his vigilance to preserve its truth…

Otto Frank Liberated from Auschwitz

Anti-Semitism, History, Survivors, The Holocaust

On this day in 1945, the Russian army liberates Auschwitz concentration camp. Otto Frank is one of around 8,000 prisoners remaining in the camp, most of them desperately ill.

Otto Frank is the only one of the eight people who hid in the Secret Annex to survive the horrors of the war. He has lost his wife Edith and his daughters Margot and Anne.

Shortly before his death he says:

“I am now almost ninety and my strength is slowly failing. Still, the task I received from Anne continues to restore my energy: to struggle for reconciliation and human rights throughout the world.”

Otto Frank died on 19 August 1980.

Photo Otto Frank 1979.

#HMD #HolocaustMemorialDay #Auschwitz

Steve Ross (né Szmulek Rozental)

Anti-Semitism, History, Survivors, The Holocaust

Holocaust survivor Steve Ross (né Szmulek Rozental) was born in 1931 near Łódź, Poland. He spent five years in ten different concentration camps, including Budzyń, Auschwitz, and Dachau. He survived medical experiments, starvation, sexual abuse, and brutal beatings on a daily basis. When Ross was liberated from Dachau in April 1945, he was 14 years old and weighed 50 lbs. Among the American troops who liberated the camp was Lt. Steve Sattler, whose act of kindness restored Ross’s hope in humanity, even after everything he had been through. When Lt. Sattler saw Ross, he jumped down from atop his tank, hugged the emaciated child, and shared his food rations with him. He also gave the boy a handkerchief decorated with the American flag. After the war, Ross settled in the Boston area where he became a social worker and spent his life helping at-risk youth. When speaking to students about his experience, he would carefully unfurl the American flag handkerchief, and share how one small act of kindness can transform a life.

Photo: Steve Ross holding handkercheif (Getty Images)

Source: American Society for Yad Vashem

Raoul Wallenberg

History, Remembrance, Resistance, The Holocaust, Today in History

Today in Holocaust History –> On this day 17 January 1945, Righteous Among the Nations, Raoul Wallenberg was taken away by Russian soldiers. He was never seen again.

Just prior to the Soviet army entering Budapest, Wallenberg said to his colleague in the Swedish embassy:

“I’ve taken on this assignment, and I will never be able to go back to Stockholm without knowing … that I’d done all a man could do to save as many Jews as possible”.

~ Raoul Wallenberg, Righteous Among the Nations

Raoul Wallenberg was sent to Budapest in 1944 to rescue Jews with connections to Sweden. He arrived with a list of Jews whom he was to help and 650 protective passports. However, he quickly widened the scope of his efforts by issuing 1000’s of “protective letters” and setting up a network of protective houses for Jews .

As the situation in Hungary deteriorated, Wallenberg abandoned all diplomatic protocol and attempted to rescue as many Jews as he could at great risk to himself.

Wallenberg used unconventional methods, including bribery and blackmail, to finance and run his huge rescue operation, successfully saving thousands of Jews. When Adolf Eichmann ordered a “death march” of tens of thousands of persons to the Austrian border, Wallenberg followed the marchers in their vehicles, and distributed food, clothing, and medications. He was able to free Jews from the death march by claiming that they were his “protected” Jews.

In 1956, 11 years after his disappearance, the Soviets finally stated that Raoul Wallenberg had died in prison in 1947.

In 1963 Yad Vashem recognized Raoul Wallenberg as Righteous Among the Nations.

Source: Yad Vashem

Simone Segouin

European History, History, Resistance

Simone Segouin, mostly known by her codename, Nicole Minet, was only 18-years-old when the Germans invaded. Her first act of rebellion was to steal a bicycle from a German military administration, and to slice the tires of all of the other bikes and motorcycles so they couldn’t pursue her. She found a pocket of the Resistance and joined the fight, using the stolen bike to deliver messages between Resistance groups.

She was an extremely fast learner and quickly became an expert at tactics and explosives. She led teams of Resistance fighters to capture German troops, set traps, and sabotage German equipment. As the war dragged on, her deeds escalated to derailing German trains, blocking roads, blowing up bridges and helping to create a German-free path to help the Allied forces retake France from the inside. She was never caught.

Segouin was present at the liberation of Chartres on August 23, 1944, and then the liberation of Paris two days later. She was promoted to lieutenant and awarded several medals, including the Croix de Guerre. After the war, she studied medicine and became a pediatric nurse. She is still going strong, and this October (2021) she will turn 96.

Miep Gies

European History, History, Remembrance, The Holocaust, Today in History

Today in History –> On this day in 2010, Miep Gies, the last survivor of a small group of people who helped hide a Jewish girl, Anne Frank, and her family from the Nazis during World War II, dies at age 100 in the Netherlands. After the Franks were discovered in 1944 and sent to concentration camps, Gies rescued the notebooks that Anne Frank left behind describing her two years in hiding. These writings were later published as “Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl,” which became one of the most widely read accounts of the Holocaust.

Paddington Bear

Literature, Remembrance, The Holocaust

Did you know:

Did you know that the beloved character Paddington Bear was inspired by Jewish children who escaped the Holocaust on the Kindertransport? Creator Michael Bond (1926-2017) was motivated by his memories of children arriving at London’s Reading station during WWII. These young refugees each carried a small suitcase and wore labels around their necks to identify them. It’s no coincidence that in the book, the little bear is found sitting on his suitcase in Paddington Station in London with a note around his neck that reads, “Please take care of this bear. Thank you.” He is discovered and adopted by the Brown family, thus the name Paddington Bear. In the story, Paddington’s best friend is Mr. Samuel Gruber, an elderly Jew from Hungary who escaped the Nazis. ❤️

Photo: Geoff Pugh

Source: American Society for Yad Vashem

#PaddingtonBear #Kindertransport

First Kindertransport

Anti-Semitism, History, The Holocaust

82 years ago, the first Kindertransport train left Germany:

Following the Kristallnacht pogrom in 1938, the British government changed its immigration policy to allow Jewish children to enter the country, providing that charities could pay a £50 bond for each child as a guarantee that they would leave the country when the situation improved. The children’s parents were not allowed to join them unless they had the financial means to support themselves, so most children travelled alone on what became known as the Kindertransport (‘children’s transport’).

Most of the almost 10,000 Kindertransportees never saw their parents again.

#Kindertransport #Holocaust