Holocaust Forgotten - Five Million Non-Jewish Victims (2 page)

BOOK: Holocaust Forgotten - Five Million Non-Jewish Victims
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The Germans took over the ranches, farms and Polish factories. Most healthy citizens were forced into slave labor. Young Polish men were drafted into the German army. Blond haired children were "Germanized" and trained from an early age to be Nazi supporters.

Jehovah Witnesses - For Their Religious Beliefs - They Stood Firm

 

 

 

Every European country, even Germany, had those who did not believe in the Nazi ideology and who were willing to die for their beliefs. Perhaps no other group stood so firmly in their beliefs as the Jehovah Witnesses. Hitler felt particularly threatened by this strong group of Christians because they, from the very beginning, refused to recognize any God other than Jehovah. When asked to sign documents of loyalty to the Nazi ideology, they refused.

Thousands of Jehovah Witnesses were imprisoned as "dangerous" traitors because they refused to take a pledge of loyalty to the Third Reich, refused to join the German workers union, to serve in the military or even raise their arms in the Heil Hitler salute.

Witnesses were among and earliest victims sent to concentration camps such as Sachsenhausen, Buchenwald and Ravensbruck. The Watchtower History Archive of Jehovah s Witnesses in Germany has registered over 4200 Witnesses of different nationalities who were locked up in a concentration camp. They were often considered 'voluntary prisoners', because the moment they recanted their views, they could be freed.

Those that were put into concentration camps, suffered in other ways. Forced to wear purple armbands, many lost their jobs and their pensions. Children of Jehovah's Witnesses were ridiculed by teachers, expelled by principals and bullied by their classmates. Some children were even forcefully removed from their homes and sent them to orphanages or private homes to be brought up as "good Germans".

Rom Gypsies - Executed for Their Race

 

 

 

Like the Jews, the Rom Gypsies were chosen for total annihilation just because of their race. Even though Jews are defined by religion, Hitler saw the Jewish people as a race that he believed needed to be completely annihilated. Like the Jews, the Rom Gypsies also were a nomadic people that were persecuted throughout history. The Germans believed both the Jews and the Gypsies were racially inferior and degenerate and therefore worthless. Half a million Gypsies, almost the entire Eastern European Gypsy population, was wiped out by the Nazis.

But, the Gypsies who survived were ignored as Holocaust survivors and not even allowed to receive war reparations. The Romani community has struggled to get any recognition as victims for their persecution and near-annihilation. To this day they continue to fight for commemoration. In late 2007, Romanian President, Traian Basecsu, apologized publicly for his nation's role during the Holocaust and ordered that the Porajmos (the name used by the Romani community for their Holocaust of World War II) to be taught in schools.

Today, there are at least two permanent museums, the Museum of Romani Culture in Czech Republic and the Ethnographic Museum in Poland which have exhibits memorializing the Gypsies for their losses.

Afro-Europeans - Sterilization and Humiliation

 

 

 

Prior to World War I, there were very few dark-skinned people of African descent in Germany. But during World War I, black African soldiers were brought in by the French during the Allied occupation. Most of the Germans, who were very race conscious, despised the dark-skinned "invasion". Some of these black soldiers married white German women that bore children referred to as "Rhineland Bastards" or the "Black Disgrace". In Mein Kampf, Hitler said he would eliminate all the children born of African-German descent because he considered them an "insult" to the German nation.

"The mulatto children came about through rape or the white mother was a whore," Hitler wrote. "In both cases, there is not the slightest moral duty regarding these offspring of a foreign race."

The Nazis set up a secret group, Commission Number 3, to organize the sterilization of these "Rhineland Bastards" to keep intact the purity of the Aryan race. In 1937, all local authorities in Germany were to submit a list of all the mulattos. Then, these children were taken from their homes or schools without parental permission and put before the commission. Once a child was decided to be of black descent, the child was taken immediately to a hospital and sterilized. About 400 children were medically sterilized -- many times without their parents' knowledge.

Homosexuals - Tagged and Tortured

 

 

 

Because Hitler's plan for a great Master Race had no room for any homosexuals, many males from all nations, including Germany, were persecuted, tortured and executed. Hitler even searched his own men and found suspected homosexuals that were sent to concentration camps wearing their S.S. uniforms and medals.

The homosexual inmates were forced to wear pink triangles on their clothes so they could be easily recognized and further humiliated inside the camps.

At least ten percent of the more than one million homosexual Germans were arrested under the Third Reich's anti-homosexuals laws. Others were imprisoned in government run mental hospitals. Hundreds were reportedly castrated by court order. Between 5,000 and 15,000 homosexual men were incarcerated in concentration camps, according to the International Association of Lesbian and Gay Children of Holocaust Survivors.

 

 

 

The Disabled - Put to Death Like Cats and Dogs

 

 

 

The Nazis decided that it was a waste of time and money to support the disabled. During Hitler's "cleansing program", thousands of people with various handicaps were deemed useless and simply put to death like dogs and cats. It's estimated that about 400,000 were sterilized because their illnesses were regarded to be inherited. They established the T-4 Euthanasia Program in order to maintain the "purity" of the so-called Aryan race by systematically killing children and adults with physical deformities or mental illness. Between 75,000 to 250,000 people were killed from 1939 through 1941.

Nazi Resisters from All Nations - Men, Women and Children

 

 

 

Every European nation had its courageous resisters. Poland's Underground army - made up of children, teenagers, and regular men and women - was responsible for defending the lives of thousands of its Jewish and non-Jewish citizens. Many were killed for their acts of courage against the Nazis. Even though most German citizens were supportive of Hitler's plan to control Europe, there were German citizens who died because they refused to go along with Hitler's plan.

Hitler wanted not only to conquer all of Europe, but Hitler also wanted to create a new religion and to replace Jesus Christ as a person to be worshipped. Hitler expected his followers to worship the Nazi ideology. Since Catholic priests and Christian pastors were often influential leaders in their community, they were sought out by the Nazis very early. Thousands of Catholic priests and Christian pastors were forced into concentration camps. A special barracks was set up at Dachau, the camp near Munich, Germany, for clergymen. A few survived. Some were executed, but most were allowed to die slowly of starvation or disease.

Many husbands and wives of Jews in Germany were forced to choose between divorce and concentration camps. Hitler would not allow "interracial" marriages. Those that chose to remain married were punished by imprisonment in camps where many died.

Chapter 3 - Resistance Fighter from the Underground

 

 

 

Most knew him as Tadeusz Borowski. Only the Polish resistance fighters knew him by his pseudonym, "Irek". As 2nd Lieutenant in the Polish Home Army, (Armia Krajowa), Irek was responsible for men with names like: "Szczur", "Ludwik", "Jurek", and "Chawcki". He took his orders from "Waligora", a.k.a. Major Jan Tarnowski, commander of "Wola" Region in Warsaw.

Wearing either stolen German uniforms or just plain street clothes, these homemade soldiers were the Polish Underground -- the resistance fighters of Nazi-occupied Poland. Fathers, grandfathers and young boys fought side by side with only red and white armbands for identification. They came together to defend, as best as they could, their beloved homeland. They fought with Polish pistols and German "shmyzers", automatic sub-machine guns, which they either stole or bought from the Nazis. They concealed their precious cache in cemeteries and hospital grounds.

The city sewers became their staging area, their Headquarters and their passage ways. The younger ones -- teenagers worked as liaisons, running through the sewers smuggling supplies and passing cryptic messages and orders.

"One night," says Borowski, "we got the order that our armbands must be switched before dawn from our left arms to our right arms." The Germans had infiltrated their ranks. "In the morning we were instructed to shoot anyone wearing an armband on their left arm."

Through the wet stinking sewers they moved like rats in sewage that was sometimes chest high. "We would have to dismantle our weapons," says Borowski, "and carry them along with our ammunition over our heads so they would not get wet."

In one almost comic military operation, Borowski, who speaks perfect German, dressed himself in a stolen Tirolean mountaineer's outfit -- complete with a feathered hat. With the help of three of his men, who followed discreetly in a "borrowed" German automobile, Borowski befriended three Nazi police officers. The charlatan then coyly maneuvered the German officers into a quiet cull-de-sac where his three partners were waiting.

By day Borowski worked within the walls of the Warsaw Ghetto as an engineer at the Tyton Fabryka at Dzeilna 62. Taking advantage of his freedom to pass through the well-guarded gates without suspicion, Borowski smuggled weapons, ammunition and forged documents inside for the Jewish Underground. He also worked with the Jewish Underground secretly preparing selected Jewish men and boys for combat.

BOOK: Holocaust Forgotten - Five Million Non-Jewish Victims
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