earlbrooks wrote: ↑Wed May 22, 2024 6:26 pm
Dear Roland,
Perhaps you know this answer?
Those who served many months and are thin and weak?
Did the Germans gas them too, or gunshot?
First of all, selection happened only in Aushwitz because it was a "combo" camp - initially a labor camp with death factory (Birkenau) added much later. In purely extermination camps - Chelmno, Sobibor, Belzec, Treblinka - there was no selection, everyone was gassed (Majdanek was a special case - and a total mess as there were no gas chambers there so it was not a "classic" extermination camp).
My understanding is that those no longer able to work in Auschwitz were gassed until the very end in January of 1945 when those unable to move (take part in "death march") were shot. As were those who worked for Aktion 1005, exhuming and burning corpses in abovementioned camps (sans Majdanek and Auschwitz - in the latter crematoria did the job).
In this recent film "The Tatooist in Auschwitz" 2024, there are selection scenes within.
They are fully aware of their fates, and are led naked from the barrack huts. (see photos)
Author Dr Miklos Nyiszli of the book Auschwitz, Chapter IX describes the standard execution of 70 naked women.
Chosen taken from Block C. Too thin for productive work, now liquidated by a 6mm gunshot into their necks.
1941 - Despite the obvious gunshots, the people undressed and advance forward.....
My beautiful wife once said "Alone, I would resist and fight "Claw the soldiers eyes out"
But with family, with a heavy sigh..."I would undress and support my family to the pits."
Sometimes in desparation, they tried to explain or seek mercy from the shooters.
Even having a local neighbour "vouch" for them.
Most were not successful
earlbrooks wrote: ↑Tue May 28, 2024 7:04 pm
Sometimes in desperation, they tried to explain or seek mercy from the shooters.
Even having a local neighbour "vouch" for them.
Most were not successful
I'm a bit skeptical about these stories - a lot of what is written about Holocaust is simply not true. Both SS Einsatzgruppen and police battalions who did the shooting selected Jews for mass murder based on documents issued to the latter almost immediately after the occupation. No gentile could be mistaken for a Jew and no Jew could pretend to be a gentile - famous German bureaucracy made sure it never happened.
However, when the locals did the selection and shooting - like in Latvia and Lithuania - such mistakes probably did happen as the whole process there was a mess. In this case being vouched for by the local gentiles worked... sometimes.
Oh, and there was no mercy - ever. The whole process was designed to make sure it never happened.
earlbrooks wrote: ↑Tue May 28, 2024 7:28 pm
I read testimony where a jewish wife exclaimed she was pure Russian blood.
Only jewish by marriage.
Sometimes this plea helped, sometimes not.
With Germans it usually did - with locals not necessarily.
I reflect on those families standing in line, waiting.
Like the photo from Micoz 1942 and others.
What could be running through their minds?
"They are just trying to scare us"
"Gunshots are just target practice, That's all"
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Last edited by earlbrooks on Thu Jun 13, 2024 6:39 am, edited 1 time in total.
earlbrooks wrote: ↑Tue May 28, 2024 7:04 pm
Sometimes in desperation, they tried to explain or seek mercy from the shooters.
Even having a local neighbour "vouch" for them.
Most were not successful
I'm a bit skeptical about these stories - a lot of what is written about Holocaust is simply not true. Both SS Einsatzgruppen and police battalions who did the shooting selected Jews for mass murder based on documents issued to the latter almost immediately after the occupation. No gentile could be mistaken for a Jew and no Jew could pretend to be a gentile - famous German bureaucracy made sure it never happened.
However, when the locals did the selection and shooting - like in Latvia and Lithuania - such mistakes probably did happen as the whole process there was a mess. In this case being vouched for by the local gentiles worked... sometimes.
Oh, and there was no mercy - ever. The whole process was designed to make sure it never happened.
Pictures are very good, by the way.
Dear Roland, I am curious, if a child is circumcised, but he is not Jewish, will the Germans simply put him in the firing squad, or will they choose to let him go?
