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Holocaust Final
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Holocaust Final



From 1938-1945 a tragic event occurred. Today we know it as the Holocaust. Jews all over Germany were killed just because of their religion. During this time, other events occurred like “Black Sunday”, the Chelmno death camp opened, and the surrender of Germany. How could someone hurt so many innocent people?

The Chelmno Death camp opened on December 7, 1941. It was the first Nazi extermination camp to open. The camp operated from December 7, 1941-April 1943. When it was closed down, the manor house was blown up. A special SS gassed people with exhaust fumes and then burnt them. It operated three gas vans using carbon monoxide. The camp was established to kill the Jews at Warthegau. Poles, Jews, and Roma were classified as subhuman creatures; discrimination against the Poles was followed by the persecution and eventual extermination of Roma and Jews.


Those who survived the initial excesses were deported to labor camps and ghettos, the largest of the latter being situated in Lodz. The Nazis chose an empty manor house in Chelmno (called the Castle) for extermination purposes. The camp was constructed in November 1941, after the expulsion of nearly all inhabitants from the area. The extermination of Romany and Jews was carried out by the so-called Sonderkommando Kulmhof, also known as Sonderkommando Lange. This special unit was named after its first commander SS-Hauptsturmführer Herbert Lange. It was later called Sonderkommando Bothmann, after SS-Hauptsturmführer Hans Bothmann, Lange's successor. Herbert Lange already had gained some experience in killing mentally ill persons in Poland between late 1939 and June 1940 utilizing gas vans. In Chelmno the Jews were destined to perish in such gas vans.



The technology was quite simple. The 'Sonderkommando' had three vans at its disposal. The only technical innovation was the specially constructed sealed compartments mounted on a Renault chassis. These compartments were lined with tin and had airtight, double doors. The floor of the compartment had a wooden lattice to facilitate the cleaning out of detritus. Beneath it was an aperture with a nozzle to which the pipe from the exhaust was connected. By the time Lange's unit came to use these vans, they had been tried and tested in the 'euthanasia program'. By these means, about 145,000 people were murdered at Chelmno in the first phase of its operations. Gassings started on December 7th, 1941. The first deportees were Jews from surrounding communities and about 5,000 Gypsies who had been incarcerated in the Lodz ghetto. From January 16th to January 29th, 1942, 10,000 Jews were deported from Lodz to Chelmno and murdered. They were followed by 34,000 between March 22nd and April 2nd, 1942, 11,700 between May 4th and 15th, 1942, 16,000 between September 5th and 12th, 1942. In addition, 15,200 Jewish slave laborers from the Lodz region were gassed at Chelmno.
When Germany surrendered, they made a document called the instrument of surrender. This instrument of surrender was signed on May 7, 1945, at Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower's headquarters in Rheims by Gen. Alfred Jodl, Chief of Staff of the German Army. At the same time, he signed three other surrender documents, one each for Great Britain, Russia, and France.

The unconditional surrender of the German Third Reich was signed in the early morning hours of Monday, May 7, 1945 at Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) at Reims in northeastern France. Present were representatives of the four Allied Powers—France, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States—and the three Germany officers delegated by German President Karl Doenitz—Gen. Alfred Jodl, who had alone been authorized to sign the surrender document; Maj. Wilhelm Oxenius, an aide to Jodl; and Adm. Hans-Georg von Friedeburg, one of the German chief negotiators. Lt. Gen. Walter Bedell Smith, SHAEF chief of staff, led the Allied delegation as the representative of General Eisenhower, who had refused to meet with the Germans until the surrender had been accomplished. Other American officers present were Maj. Gen. Harold R. Bull and Gen. Carl Spaatz.


After the signing of the Reims accord, Soviet chief of staff Gen. Alexei Antonov expressed concern to SHAEF that the continued fighting in the east between Germany and the Soviet Union made the Reims surrender look like a separate peace. The Soviet command wanted the Act of Military Surrender, with certain additions and alternations, to be signed at Berlin. To the Soviets, the documents signed at Berlin on May 8, 1945, represented the official, legal surrender of the Third Reich. The Berlin document had few significant changes from the one signed a day earlier at Reims.


Things changed when the Germans invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941. After accusing Jews of signaling Soviet planes, Romanian and German government agencies instigated pogroms that began on June 28. During the pogrom, the Romanian authorities, together with the German soldiers, not only murdered thousands of Jews in Iasi, but also sought to destroy an entire community that had existed for over 300 years.


Thousands more were arrested. On June 29, called “Black Sunday” by the Jews, thousands of Jews were gathered into a courtyard of police headquarters. Most were shot by Romanian troops; 4,330 of the survivors were herded into sealed cattle cars. Of those, 2,650 died of thirst or suffocation. Altogether, over 10,000 Jews were murdered that day, in Iasi. In the 1930’s, Jews made up over 30% of the city’s population. On August 30, 1941 the 980 Jews that survived the torture were brought back to Iasi.


In my opinion, “Black Sunday” was the most horrific of the three events. All the innocent Jews taken out from their homes, herded into a courtyard, and shot. Why were the Jews killed? What made them any different from everyone else? What made people think that Jews were any less of a person than you or me? Today, we still fight the religion battle. People all over the world still think everyone should be a certain way. But just because you don’t have the same beliefs, doesn’t mean we should hate each other.
We don’t need to relive the holocaust, so I think we should all put our differences aside and do our best to get through.













Bibliography:

(Sources:
Gutman, Israel, ed. Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, Macmillan Publishing Company, New York, 1990
Kogon, Eugen; Langbein, Hermann; Rückerl, Adalbert; eds. Nazi Mass Murder, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1993
DDR-Justiz, NS-Verbrechen Vol. IV, XIX, XXI, XXII
Bednarz, Wladyslaw. Oboz stracen w Chelmnie nad Nerem , Warszawa, 1946
Gulczynski, Janusz. Oboz smierci w Chelmnie NAD Nerem, Konin, 1991
Dreßen, Willi; Klee, Ernst; Riess, Volker; Eds. The Good Old Days, The Free Press, NY, 1988)


Page title- “Chelmno (Kulmhof - Poland)”
Forgotten Camps.

Page Title- “Shoah Resource Center”
Iasi



May 2, 2008 | 1:10 PM Comments  0 comments

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