Photoessay #2086 - Golden Harvest

I just finished "Golden Harvest; Reflections of events on the periphery of the Holocaust," a very disturbing and upsetting book. It confirms what I've thought all along; that the Shoah was administered and motivated by economic concerns. For a long time, I've thought that the Holocaust activities (which seemed to absorb so many resources) were funded by the materials taken from the Jews. That the Jews unwittingly were funding their own demise.

 I certainly had the feeling that the non-Jewish survivors in Nazi occupied territories seemed to take a casual attitude to the events, that somehow they were not responsible. This book illustrates how civilians in occupied countries participated in the persecution and destruction of their Jewish neighbors. With an eye to obtaining their possessions and property With enthusiasm. The idea was that it was the Germans who were eliminating these rich Jews and taking hold of their property. The local people realized that they also could take the property of the Jews themselves with impunity. The Jews were dehumanized which made community members feel entitled to torture and steal from them. Ethical values of stealing everything including the clothes from Jewish members in their community quickly became suspended as the Nazi occupation declared the Jews as inhuman vermin.

That's why there was no escape for the Jews caught in the net. Even if they could get away from the Nazis proper, those in the countryside would be sure to destroy them for their property, what little they might have left.

Frightening. Don't be so sure that it couldn't happen now. Think of how those Mexican emigrants are labeled as 'illegal aliens'? Doesn't that label seem to take away your humanity. Or discrimination against Mustlims. Doesn't the terrible description of the terrorists leave the population that the members of this community must be destroyed at any cost?

The picture of peasants gathering after a day of toil illustrated the premise of the book. See the skulls and bones set up in front; that's their harvest. These folks are digging in the mass graves around Treblinka, searching for dental gold and jewelry which might have been buried with the victims. Some officials are clearly supporting the effort and those digging feel entitled to plunder the victims once again. The author posits that all of Europe might have such a picture in their family albums.