Holocaust Remembrance Day

Reposted January 27 2023 Updated to add Jewish Museum/Memorial Berlin Germany and Holocaust Museum Washington DC and Terezin Czech Republic

Reposted January 27 2022

Published October 2018 - Budapest Hungary

September 2015 - Berlin Germany

The Holocaust Memorial we had missed on our first day. Click on the photo for a better view.

The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, also known as the Holocaust Memorial is a memorial in Berlin to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, designed by architect Peter Eisenman and engineer Buro Happold. It consists of a 19,000 m2 (4.7-acre) site covered with 2,711 concrete slabs or "stelae", arranged in a grid pattern on a sloping field. The stelae are 2.38 m (7 ft 10 in) long, 0.95 m (3 ft 1 in) wide and vary in height from 0.2 to 4.8 m (7.9 in to 15 ft 9.0 in). They are organized in rows, 54 of them going north–south, and 87 heading east–west at right angles but set slightly askew.

According to Eisenman's project text, the stelae are designed to produce an uneasy, confusing atmosphere, and the whole sculpture aims to represent a supposedly ordered system that has lost touch with human reason. A 2005 copy of the Foundation for the Memorial's official English tourist pamphlet, however, states that the design represents a radical approach to the traditional concept of a memorial, partly because Eisenman did not use any symbolism. However, observers have noted the memorial's resemblance to a cemetery

Later in the day we went to the Jewish Museum.

The Jewish Museum Berlin (Jüdisches Museum Berlin) is one of the largest Jewish Museums in Europe. In three buildings, two of which are new additions specifically built for the museum by architect Daniel Libeskind, two millennia of German-Jewish history are on display in the permanent exhibition as well as in various changing exhibitions.

Don't expect this to be a Holocaust Museum like the one in Washington DC that we visited last year.

This museum is dedicated to all things Jewish.

Information from the museum's website.
Unlike in most museums, the way to the permanent exhibition at the Jewish Museum Berlin is downstairs.

The connection between the Baroque building through which one enters the museum and the new building designed by Daniel Libeskind which houses the exhibitions is underground. Dark and winding are the stairs that symbolically link the past, present, and future of German-Jewish coexistence.

Be it winter or summer, a decorated Christmas tree stands proud in the permanent exhibition. In the exhibition area "Family Life," it reminds us that Christmas trees could be found in many a Jewish household at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries.

These Christmas trees had no religious significance, but were a sign of a cultural rapprochement. Christmas was celebrated as a German family event – it was a national happening and many Jews did not want to miss being part of it.

 Taken as we leave the museum.

August 2014 - Washington DC

August 2014 - Washington DC

We went to the Holocaust Museum one day. This is a very moving museum, not for the faint of heart.

It uses a lot of photographs to augment the history from the early 30s when Hitler first came to power.

The most memorable and gut wrenching movie I've ever seen is The Boy in the Striped Pajamas.

Most of the museum does not allow photographs but somehow no one stopped me taking these photos in an exhibit titled "remember the children".

The following information is from the Holocaust's own web site. I include a link below to their video of the exhibition that is stunning.

The exhibition tells the story of one family’s experiences during the Holocaust from the perspective of a boy growing up in Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1945. The self guided exhibition takes about 45 minutes to an hour to walk through.

 Click on the link below to watch the video.
A brief film introduces the exhibition’s narrator, Daniel, and the story of the Holocaust. Visitors then enter realistic environments where they can touch, listen, and engage in Daniel’s world as it changes during the Holocaust. The exhibition design is based on historical imagery gathered from family photo albums, documentary sources, and pictorial diaries of the period. Daniel’s diary entries, which serve as the exhibition’s primary text, are based on the wartime writings of young people and on the memories of some of those who survived.

 

October 2012 - Budapest Hungary

On Sunday I showed you a tour we took called the Jewish Interest in Budapest Hungary.

The tour continued with a stop at the Holocaust Museum. Unfortunately, we did not have a lot of time and you could easily spend a whole day here. Some people, however, cannot handle it and often come back out immediately. 

The museum was created around a synagogue which is no longer in use as there are not enough Jews left in Budapest to support the number of synagogues they had before the Holocaust. 

The Holocaust Memorial Center pays tribute to the victims of the Hungarian Holocaust. The complex, inaugurated in 2004, houses a synagogue, a museum and an inner courtyard with a glass memorial wall dedicated to the over 500,000 victims with their names inscribed on the wall. The museum's permanent exhibition tells the history of the Holocaust through the stories of individuals in an interactive way. Original documents and personal belongings are on display.


It was an eerie, disturbing place to visit. It also includes the gypsies, Romas as part of the displays as the Nazis included them in their persecutions as well.


When the Soviet Army captured Budapest on January 17-18, 1945, it was too late to save the lives of 564,500 Jews who had been sent to the various death-camps run by the Nazis. The Budapest SS headquarters, however, was over-run by the Soviets before the Nazis were able to destroy a huge number of papers which documented their efforts to annihilate the Hungarian Jews. These documents, together with many of the photographs that are part of this essay, were bundled up by the Soviets and stored in the basement of the Hungarian Ministry of the Interior where they remained unseen for over forty years.

As you walked around in partial darkness, you could hear footsteps following you.

 One of the priests who saved many Jews.

Glass chairs represent the victims in the unused synagogue.

Outside in the courtyard.

The practice of burying the dead with flowers is almost as old as humanity. Even in prehistoric caves some burial sites have been found with evidence that flowers were used in interment. But Jew­ish authorities have often objected to bringing flowers to the grave. There are scattered Talmudic mentions of spices and twigs used in burial (Berakhot 43a, Betzah 6a). Yet the prevailing view was that bringing flowers smacks of a pagan custom.

That is why today one rarely sees flowers on the graves in traditional Jewish cemeteries. Instead there are stones, small and large, piled without pattern on the grave, as though a community were being haphazardly built.

But stones have a special character in Judaism. In the Bible, an altar is no more than a pile of stones, but it is on an altar that one offers to God. The stone upon which Abraham takes his son to be sacrificed is called even hashityah, the foundation stone of the world. The most sacred shrine in Judaism, after all, is a pile of stones — the Western Wall.

I like this explanation.

While flowers may be a good metaphor for the brevity of life, stones seem better suited to the permanence of memory. Stones do not die.

 We make one more stop at a very sad memorial that will send shivers up your spine. It is called Shoes on the Danube and is located in front of the parliament and between the two bridges along the Danube.

The Shoes on the Danube is a memorial to the Budapest Jews who were shot by Arrow Cross militiamen between 1944 and 1945. The victims were lined up and shot into the Danube River. They had to take their shoes off, since shoes were valuable belongings at the time.
The Nazis had installed the fascist Hungarian Red Arrow Party as the country’s national government. Herds of Red Arrow members, mostly teenage boys, would rampage the streets of Budapest firing at will at Jews. The most notorious massacres were when mobs of supporters would round up groups of Jews and march them to the banks of the Danube. Here, after being made to take off their shoes, they would be blasted into the icy waters. Around 10,000 to 15,000 were killed in this way.

The memorial was created by Gyula Pauer, Hungarian sculptor, and his friend Can Togay in 2005. It contains 60 pairs of iron shoes, forming a row along the Danube. Each pair of shoes was modeled after an original 1940's pair.

JUNE 2012 - TEREZIN CZECH REPUBLIC

We were a very small group going to Terrazin (Theresienstadt).

The town of Terezin was founded in 1780 by Emperor Josef II originally as part of a system of Late Baroque military fortresses to protect the Kingdom of Bohemia from attack from the north-west. It was named after his mother Empress Maria Theresa. The small fortress was later converted into a prison at the beginning of the 19th century.

This fortress gave Hitler a ready made camp for his use. The Nazis appreciated these pre-built, solid enclosures. They realized that the walls and structure which had originally been built to keep intruders out, could easily be used to keep their prisoners within.

Source

Cynically, for Nazi propaganda purposes, the Gestapo presented the Terezin ghetto to an inspection delegation of the International Red Cross Organisation as an ideal, model Jewish settlement. In reality however the town and fortress of Terezin were being used by the Nazis as a transit camp for Jews, and all others deemed enemies of the Third Reich, from all over Europe.

Although only used as a temporary holding place before transporting victims on to other death camps, nevertheless 160,000 prisoners passed through Terezin of whom 36,000 lost their lives within the walls of this former Nazi concentration camp.

In 2002 the city was also struck by floods during which the crematorium was damaged. A plan was eventually developed in cooperation with national authorities. According to the Fund, a long-term conservation plan was conceived, which includes further repairs, documentation, and archaeological research.

Some photos of the fortress as we drive into town.

Early in the war Terezín was designated a ghetto for the aged and one of the bitterest tales is that of elderly Jews in Germany and Austria who were fooled or cajoled into signing over the deeds to their houses in exchange for guaranteed housing, board and medical support until the end of their lives. Something like a great Jewish retirement village. Imagine the disappointment and despair of the new arrivals when they found that their retirement village gave them only a slot in a hall filled with people on huge triple bunks like the shelves of a warehouse.

 

The Nazis transformed the Small Fortress into a prison for their political prisoners and the Large Fortress into the Theresienstadt Ghetto. 

You can just see the railway tracks towards the bottom of this photo Trains arriving brought Jews into an already overcrowded Ghetto. Trains out of Theresienstadt delivered them to their deaths.

As you walk down a long path you come to both the cemetery and the memorial. The memorial, shaped like a large menorah, was placed here in 1972 by the Czechoslovakian government.

The cemetery was used in the beginning to bury the dead. There are markers scattered on the green grass, but there are no names or dates; they bare only a single, engraved Star of David.

 The crematorium

 

We were told no photos allowed but our guide said we didn't hear that from her, so we took a few.

Terezin developed a deep feeling of family according to many of the survivors. As larger numbers of people were crammed into smaller spaces, a sense of community deepened. In the town of Terezin, the population had normally been around 5,000 people before the war. At the height of the war, Terezin held over 55,000 Jews. As a consequence, starvation and disease proved rampant. Thousands died of malnutrition and exposure. 
 The ovens were not used to gas people, no one was gassed at Terezin. By September 1942 the crematorium was built because the death toll was so great from starvation and disease that they were running out of room for graves.

 

At top capacity the crematorium could cremate 190 bodies a day. The ashes were taken out of the back, searched for gold (from teeth), and then placed in cardboard boxes.
Near the end of the war, the Nazis tried to dispose of any incriminating evidence, so they dumped 8,000 of these cardboard boxes into a pit and 17,000 boxes into the nearby Ohre River.

Over the door to the museum is this sign that says Yizkor, the Hebrew word for Remember.

Formerly a school and during the Nazi years a boys’ home, the building now houses displays including original works of art from the ghetto and a detailed explanation of the way Terezín was used in 1944 to fool the International Red Cross into condoning the Nazis' treatment of the Jews. 

You can watch the film here.

 On this wall you can see the name of Hana Bradyova. Here is a fascinating timeline of Hana's life.

During the war 140,000 people were sent to Theresienstadt, and of those 15,000 were children. These children eventually passed through to camps like Auschwitz and less than 300 survived.

October 23, 1944
Hana is sent to Auschwitz on the second last transport to leave Terezin for Auschwitz. Hana is promptly sent to the gas chamber shortly after she arrives in Auschwitz.

This wall is covered in the names of children.

Jewish painters, musicians, and philosophers held secret classes in Terezin. The artists were determined to remind their students that despite the war, the world was a beautiful place and that they could add to its beauty. From these secret classes, some 4,500 children’s drawings survived the war and are held in the Jewish Museum in Prague. Again I was told no photos but I managed a couple.

The yellow star, inscribed with the word "Jude," has become a symbol of Nazi persecution. Its likeness abounds upon Holocaust literature and materials. But the Jewish badge was not instituted in 1933 when Hitler came to power. It was not instituted in 1935 when the Nuremberg Laws stripped Jews of their citizenship. It was still not implemented by Kristallnacht in 1938. The oppression and labeling of the Jews by use of the Jewish badge did not begin until after the start of the Second World War. And even then, it began as local laws rather than as a unified Nazi policy.

The oldest reference to using mandatory articles of clothing to identify and distinguish Jews from the rest of society was in 807 CE. In this year, Abbassid caliph Haroun al-Raschid ordered all Jews to wear a yellow belt and a tall, cone-like hat.
But it was in 1215 that the Fourth Lateran Council, presided over by Pope Innocent III, made its infamous decree. Canon 68 declared:
Jews and Saracens [Muslims] of both sexes in every Christian province and at all times shall be marked off in the eyes of the public from other peoples through the character of their dress.

We then board the bus to Terezin Small Fortress – Former Gestapo Prison. I found this even creepier than the Museum.

You walk down this massive walkway surrounded by green grass where the cemetery lies with thousands of political prisoners buried. 

These political prisoners were both Jews and non-Jews of all nationalities. Many of the dates on the tombstones were later than May 1945; many of Terezin's prisoners were beyond medical help at the time of the camp's liberation by the Russians, and died before they could be repatriated.

The Small Fortress is surrounded by tall brick walls which are covered with a green grass on top. To get to the entrance, you must walk across a bridge (over what used to be a moat) which leads you to an entrance surrounded by a black and white striped design.

This is the administration court. To the left is the reception office (where the records of the prisoners were kept), the guards' office (where inmates were interrogated), and the prison commander's office.

During its tenure as a Nazi prison, the Small Fortress was run by only one prison commander, SS-Hauptsturmführer Heinrich Jöckel. He was greatly responsible for the terrible conditions within the prison, thus he was sentenced and executed in 1946.

The gate at the end of this courtyard states "Arbeit Macht Frei" ("Work Makes One Free"), the same phrase that was repeated often by the Nazis within their concentration camps. Going through the gate, leads you to "Courtyard I."

The Nazis targeted Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, Communists, twins, and the disabled.

 You walk through the prison barracks, execution grounds, workshops, isolation cells and a cemetery which was built after the war .

This is one of the mass cells in Courtyard I. Approximately 60 to 100 prisoners were housed in each one of these mass cells, giving each prisoner only 30 cm of room on the bunks. The proximity of the prisoners made it easy for the lice and fleas to hop from one prisoner to another, aiding the spread of disease.
Within each of the mass cells were three-tiered bunks, one sink, a very small shelf, and one small toilet for all the prisoners to share.

 

Most of the prisoners of the Small Fortress were considered "political" prisoners - accused of resistance, violating anti-Jewish laws, labor offenses, or giving support to persecuted peoples.* The first prisoners that came to the Small Fortress arrived on June 14, 1940.
At that time, two courtyards (I and II) were used to house prisoners. Courtyard II consisted largely of prisoner workshops (currently closed to the public). Courtyard III was opened in June 1942 with the addition of female prisoners to the Small Fortress.
Courtyard I consists of Blocks A and B (the door with the white sign over it is the entrance to Block A) and holds 17 mass cells as well as twenty much smaller cells used for solitary confinement.
Roll call for the prisoners in Courtyard I would be held on this dirt area. At one time, there were up to 1,500 inmates held just in this Courtyard.

 This room was built as a men's bathroom in case the International Red Cross decided to visit they would see that the men were treated well. However, if you look closely there isn't any plumbing installed.

You can see where the Nazis chipped the ledge off the wall after a successful escape by Milos Esner, Josef Mattas and Frantisek Marsik by climbing out the window and walking along this ledge, which goes around the corner of the building to the opening between the walls.

 

Gate of Death

A woman prisoner with her hands tied behind her back. 

 This guard tower overlooks courtyard IV.

On the way back to Prague we passed the town of Lidice.

On May 27, 1942, SS Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich, Deputy Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia, had been attacked in Prague by Free Czech agents who were trained in England and brought to Czechoslovakia to assassinate him. They shot at Heydrich as his car slowed to round a sharp turn, then threw a bomb which exploded, mortally wounding him. Heydrich managed to get out of the car, draw his pistol and shoot back at the assassins before collapsing in the street.

Heydrich survived for several days, but died on June 4 from blood poisoning brought on by fragments of auto upholstery, steel, and his own uniform that had lodged in his spleen.

Meanwhile the Gestapo and SS hunted down and murdered Czech agents, resistance members, and anyone suspected of being involved in Heydrich's death, totaling over 1000 persons. In addition, 3000 Jews were deported from the ghetto at Theresienstadt for extermination. In Berlin 500 Jews were arrested, with 152 executed as a reprisal on the day of Heydrich's death.
As a further reprisal, Hitler ordered the small Czech mining village of Lidice to be liquidated on the fake charge that it had aided the assassins.
In one of the most infamous single acts of World War Two, all 172 men and boys over age 16 in the village were shot while the women were deported to Ravensbrück concentration camp where most died. Ninety young children were sent to the concentration camp at Gneisenau, with some taken later to Nazi orphanages if they were German looking.
The village of Lidice was then destroyed building by building with explosives, then completely leveled until not a trace remained, with grain being planted over the flattened soil. The name was then removed from all German maps.