HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL DAY

Today is Holocaust Memorial Day, which is commemorated on the 27^th January because this is the day when the Red Army liberated Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi death camp) each year. Now, perhaps more than ever, we should take time to remember the millions of people who have been murdered or whose lives have been changed beyond recognition during the Holocaust, Nazi Persecution and in other subsequent horrors which have followed in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, Darfur and are on-going in Syria.

We should also forever remember the earlier genocides that inflicted on the Armenians and the Ukrainians. It is only right and proper that we honour the survivors and continue to challenge ourselves to use the lessons of their experience to inform our lives today.

By the end of the Holocaust, six million Jewish men, women and children had perished in ghettos, mass-shootings, in concentration camps and extermination camps. As Allied troops made progress across Nazi-occupied Europe, they began to uncover concentration and extermination camps. The camp of Majdanek in Poland was the first to be liberated, in summer 1944.

Faced with defeat and advancing Allied armies Nazi forces burnt the crematoria and the mass graves in attempts to hide the crimes that they had committed. The  Operation Reinhardt camps of Sobibor, Belzec, and Treblinka were dismantled by the Nazis from 1943, and Auschwitz itself was evacuated in late 1944. The surviving prisoners, weak from starvation and ill-treatment, and poorly clothed against elements were forced to walk into the interior of Germany, away from the Allied armies, many thousands died on the enforced ‘death marches’. 

When Soviet soldiers liberated Auschwitz-Birkenau on 27^th January 1945,  they found several thousand emaciated survivors, and the smouldering remains of the gas chambers and crematoria. In the following months, the Soviets liberated Stutthof, Sachsenhausen and Ravensbruck.

In the west, US troops liberated Buchenwald in April 1945, followed by Flossenburg, Dachau and Mauthausen. British Troops liberated Bergen-Belsen on 15^th April 1945. It is estimated there were over 60,000 prisoners in Belsen by April 1945. Approximately 35,000 prisoners died of typhus, malnutrition and starvation in the first few months of 1945.

Jewish leaders, were once asked  Tony Blair (the then UK prime minister) do we need Holocaust Memorial Day in Britain? Jonathan Sacks (former Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth for 22 years, until 2013) noted that this was the question from Tony Blair in 1999, when it was proposed that the UK have a Holocaust Memorial Day, and Blair wanted the opinion of British Jewish leaders. They explained that they did not need a specific day to remember as Jews.

When it comes to remembrance Jewish people already had Yom ha-Shoa, their own memorial day, which falls soon after Passover in the Jewish calendar. Every Jew literally (or figuratively) lost family in the Holocaust. For Jews, Yom ha-Shoa is a grief observed. The Jewish leaders said that the Holocaust was not just a crime against Jews and other victims – Roma, Sinti, homosexuals, the handicapped, Jehovah’s Witnesses and political opponents of the Nazi’s among them; it was an assault on all of humanity.  As has been said by a survivor previously perhaps we really need additional eleventh commandment along the lines of – Don’t be bystander! 

DON’T STAND BY

Today is Holocaust Memorial Day, which is commemorated on the 27^th January (the date upon which the Red Army liberated Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi death camp) each year. It is important that we take time to remember the millions of people who have been murdered or whose lives have been changed beyond recognition during the Holocaust, Nazi Persecution and in other subsequent horrors which have followed more recently in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, Darfur and Syria.

Neither should we forget the genocides inflicted on the Armenians and the Ukrainians. It is only right and proper that we honour the survivors and continue to challenge ourselves to use the lessons of their experience to inform our lives today.

By the end of the Holocaust, six million Jewish men, women and children had perished in ghettos, mass-shootings, in concentration camps and extermination camps. As Allied troops made progress across Nazi-occupied Europe, they began to uncover concentration and extermination camps. The camp of Majdanek in Poland was the first to be liberated, in summer 1944.

Nazi forces burnt the crematoria and the mass graves in attempts to hide the crimes that had been committed - the Operation Reinhardt camps of Sobibor, Belzec, and Treblinka were dismantled by the Nazis from 1943, and Auschwitz was evacuated in late 1944. The surviving prisoners, weak from starvation and ill-treatment, and poorly clothed against elements were forced to walk into the interior of Germany, away from the Allied armies, many thousands died on the enforced ‘death marches’. 

Soviet soldiers liberated Auschwitz-Birkenau on 27^th January 1945, where they found several thousand emaciated survivors, and the smouldering remains of the gas chambers and crematoria (the Nazi’s had attempted to destroy evidence of their crimes against humanity). In the following months, the Soviets liberated Stutthof, Sachsenhausen and Ravensbruck.

In the west, US troops liberated Buchenwald in April 1945, followed by Flossenburg, Dachau and Mauthausen. British Troops liberated Bergen-Belsen on 15^th April 1945. It is estimated there were over 60,000 prisoners in Belsen by April 1945. Approximately 35,000 prisoners died of typhus, malnutrition and starvation in the first few months of 1945.

Tony Blair (the then UK prime minister) once asked Jewish leaders do we need Holocaust Memorial Day in Britain? Jonathan Sacks (formers Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth for 22 years, until 2013) noted that this was the question as Tony Blair in 1999, when it had been proposed that the UK have a Holocaust Memorial Day, and Blair wanted the opinion of British Jewish leaders. They explained that they did not need it as Jews.

When it comes to remembrance Jewish people already had Yom ha-Shoa, their own memorial day, which falls soon after Passover in the Jewish calendar. Every Jew literally (or figuratively) lost family in the Holocaust. For Jews, Yom ha-Shoa is a grief observed. The Jewish leaders said that the Holocaust was not just a crime against Jews and other victims – Roma, Sinti, homosexuals, the handicapped and Jehovah’s Witnesses among them; it was an assault on all of humanity.  As one of the survivors said earlier today perhaps we need an eleventh commandment – Don’t be bystander!

DON’T BE A BYSTANDER…

Today is Holocaust Memorial Day, which is commemorated on the 27^th January (the date the Red Army liberated Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi death camp) each year. It is important that we take time to remember the millions of people who have been murdered or whose lives have been changed beyond recognition during the Holocaust, Nazi Persecution and in other subsequent genocides which followed more recently in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur. It is right that we honour the survivors of these regimes and challenge ourselves to use the lessons of their experience to inform our lives today. From 1933, the Nazis used propaganda, persecution, and legislation to deny human and civil rights to Jews, they used centuries of anti-Semitism as their foundation.

By the end of the Holocaust, six million Jewish men, women and children had perished in ghettos, mass-shootings, in concentration camps and extermination camps. As Allied troops made progress across Nazi-occupied Europe, they began to uncover concentration and extermination camps. The camp of Majdanek in Poland was the first to be liberated, in summer 1944. Nazi forces burnt the crematoria and the mass graves in attempts to hide the crimes that had been committed - the Operation Reinhardt camps of Sobibor, Belzec, and Treblinka were dismantled by the Nazis from 1943, and Auschwitz was evacuated in late 1944. The surviving prisoners, weak from starvation and ill-treatment, and poorly clothed against elements were forced to walk into the interior of Germany, away from the Allied armies, many thousands died on the enforced ‘death marches’. 

Soviet soldiers liberated Auschwitz-Birkenau on 27^th January 1945, where they found several thousand emaciated survivors, and the smouldering remains of the gas chambers and crematoria (the Nazi’s had attempted to destroy evidence of their crimes against humanity). In the following months, the Soviets liberated Stutthof, Sachsenhausen and Ravensbruck. In the west, US troops liberated Buchenwald in April 1945, followed by Flossenburg, Dachau and Mauthausen. British Troops liberated Bergen-Belsen on 15^th April 1945. It is estimated there were over 60,000 prisoners in Belsen by April 1945. Approximately 35,000 prisoners died of typhus, malnutrition and starvation in the first few months of 1945.

Tony Blair (then UK prime minister) once asked Jewish leaders do we need Holocaust Memorial Day in Britain? Jonathan Sacks (formers Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth for 22 years, until 2013) noted that this was the question as Tony Blair in 1999, when it had been proposed that the UK have a Holocaust Memorial Day, and Blair wanted the opinion of British Jewish leaders. They explained that they did not need it as Jews.

When it comes to remembrance Jewish people already had Yom ha-Shoa, their own memorial day, which falls soon after Passover in the Jewish calendar. Every Jew literally (or figuratively) lost family in the Holocaust. For Jews, Yom ha-Shoa is a grief observed. The Jewish leaders said that the Holocaust was not just a crime against Jews and other victims – Roma, Sinti, homosexuals, the handicapped and Jehovah’s Witnesses among them; it was an assault on all of humanity.  As one of the survivors said earlier today perhaps we need an eleventh commandmant – Don’t be bystander!

A NUMBERS GAME

News that the Turkish Republic has (too put it mildly) “reacted with anger” to news that the French Senate has (finally) approved a bill making it a crime to deny that genocide was committed by Ottoman Turks against the Armenian's during World War I should not come as much of a shock. So it would not be much of a surprise that the Turkish foreign ministry has loudly branded the decision "irresponsible" and threatened swift retaliatory measures.

Most historians and the Armenian's recognise that up to 1.5 million people died in 1915-16 under Ottoman rule during the First World War deported en masse from eastern Anatolia to the Syrian Desert and elsewhere in 1915-16. They were killed or died from starvation or disease during a brutal deportation ordered by the Ottoman Government.

The total number of Armenian dead is disputed, but, historians and the Armenian Government says approximately one and half million people died in pretty grim circumstances. Turkey (a republic since 1920) has repeatedly rejected the term genocide and argued that the number of Armenian's who died was around estimates the total to be 300,000. According to the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS), the death toll was "more than a million".

Now this may all sound somewhat semantic, a bit like the Brits saving that they only developed the concept of the concentration camp during the Boer war and that those Africans and Afrikaners who died, died of neglect and incompetence rather than from malice aforethought. Or perhaps its a bit like saying that the six million who died in the Bengal famine (1943/1944) did so because the Brits were busy at the time, but, generally they did a good job in India.

The French bill will now be sent to President Nicolas Sarkozy to be signed into law, which he is expected to do before the end of February. The Turkish government argues that judging what happened in eastern Turkey in 1915-16 should be left to historians, and that the new French law will restrict freedom of speech.

The current Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is expected to outline possible retaliatory measures against Paris in parliament on Tuesday. France has already recognised the killing of the Armenian's as genocide but the new law will mean that anyone denying it faces a year in jail and a fine of 45,000 euro's ($57,000).

The Turks have already frozen diplomatic ties with France after the lower house passed the bill last month. The proposed law had been watered down and made more general - outlawing the denial of any genocide - but naturally this failed to appease the Turkish authorities in Ankara.

The current disagreement between France and Turkey may have much to with modern French politics and the current President than historical events. This, while recognising a historical genocide and an injustice, may have more to do with finding an easy way to delay Turkish entry into the EU and also be something that plays well with sympathetic French voters.