Photoessay #2892 - Destruction of European Jewry

Prof. Naar talked about the different definitions of genocide.  Another core belief torpedoed.  You know, the one where the Nazis killed so many Jews and destroyed everything and they were brought to trial in Nuremburg and lots of them were condemned to death.  The Allies, in order to ensure that no genocide would happen again set up the United Nations which had a Convention of Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

Then somehow with a very few years, West Germany was the US really great ally in the struggle against the Soviet Union and Communism.  That was the model I grew up with, the Red Menace who was going to take over the world.  We must fight against communism.

But, wait, the Nuremberg trials (there were two sets) only had 200 defendants.  Most of the Nazis were still there, running Germany.  And, now, the Jews in America should accept this new country as an important part of the alliance against communism.  The destruction of Jewry?  That was dealt with at the Nuremberg trials.  Really?  All of the thousands of people who made the machinery of destruction of the Jews, they're still there.  How could we embrace them?  How could we trust them?

Raphael Lemkin defined genocide as

Generally speaking,genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation  except when accomplished by mass killings of all members of a nation.  It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundation of the life of national groups, with the aim of annhihilating the groups themselves. The objectives of such a plan would be the disintegration of political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of the personal security, liberty health, dignity and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups.

He then goes on to describe the characterstics of genocide in political, social, cultural, economic, biological, physical, religious and moral arenas.

The Nazis practically accomplished destruction in all of these areas.  Jews, who survived, who wanted to 'go home' after being gone for a very few years, found nothing, just nothing remaining of their homes and communities.  All of these separate parts were gone, their possessions gone, somebody else living in their homes, their families massacred.  Their home completely gone. And their neighbors largely hostile.

The United National Assembly described genocide much more narrowly

• Killing members of the group
• Causing seriously bodily or mental harm to members of the group
• Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physcial destruction in whole or in part
• Imposing measure intended to prevent births within the group
• Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group

My teacher thought that some wanted to narrow the definition as they, themselves, were imposing other sanctions on their own populations or colonies.

So the destruction of European Jewry goes unanswered and unavenged.

Picture of the destruction of a major synagogue in West Berlin in 1958.  The building have been completely stripped by the Nazis.