from Zinn Education Project:
On April 19, 1943, the eve of Passover, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising began when Nazi forces attempted to clear out the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw, Poland, to send them to concentration camps. The Germans were met by gunfire from Jewish resistance fighters who held off the Nazis for 28 days before Warsaw was demolished and they were sent to concentration camps. How might history have changed if other countries had come to their aid?
---With the moral voice of the Papacy gone, the concordat in reality became a victory for the Fuhrer and became subservient to the regime. Protestant Churches as a whole, with the exception of a few pastors were caught up in the zealous nationalism of Nazism. The German Christians Faith Movement took over the mainstream church offices to be opposed only by the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Confessional Church, led by the Reverend Martin Niemöller. It was his famous quote, which lasts to this day: Image:Munich agreement.jpgReverend Martin Niemöller - “First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade-unionists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a trade unionists. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out – because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak for me.” ---Read More:http://www.biblesearchers.com/prophecy/zechariah/zech12.1-2.shtml
Powerful photo. a complete indictment on western “values” and the flimsy artificial creation that the “enlightenment” represented.All the pontificating of a Voltaire and John Stuart Mill, framing the destruction within the literature of Kafka, caught in the atheistic conventions and mundanity of an Arendt, the banalities of evil, the authoritarian personality analysis by Adorno, the literal shock of the incomprehensible from Stanley Milgram,the “Hitler did not go far enough with regard to destroying capitalist structures, of a Zizek, does not provide answers, merely keeps the carousel turning, reinforcing perhaps the nihilism that festers waiting for Part II.
Ironically, the photo is not entirely different than the jewish expulsion in Gush Katif and Amona communities in Israel. Like Eichmann, Sharon and Olmert were just looking “for a little firm footing to resettle their jews” and resorted state sponsored terrorism to achieve that end reinforcing the rather disturbing connection between Zionism and the West including Germany to seal of havens subsequently followed by the predictable ” he went too far” epilogue we know so well today.
There was a good novel about the ghetto called “The Wall” by John Hersey, remarkable that a non-jew could have such a profound comprehension; one that touched on some fundamental truths, underscored and under the radar of the plastic society we live in of Debord’s Society of the Spectacle: the authentic and courageous lives of “ordinary” people making their way through a corrupt and dangerous world in total honesty with themselves.
Ultimately, the most significant thing about the Holocaust is not how we comprehend or not this tragedy, and even our desire to memorialize its perished victims through institutions and monuments like Yad Vashem or entertainment complex Hollywood fare; but what we do about it and stop creating markers to mourn for us. If we allow the suffering and despair to dishearten us from raising ourselves to a higher level, then other final solutions can be realized. Its a question of rebuilding, triumph through pride and commitment to higher ideals and disengaging ourselves from the multitude of small acts that in sum, inform of a complicity to the forces that brings such destructions about.
ADDENDUM:
( see link at end) …His interrogator showed him a video clip of a ceremony in Jerusalem over a year ago, with prominent Rabbis and Knesset members present. It showed Rabbi Wolpo presenting a “Hero of Israel” certificate, together with 26,000 New Shekels, to a soldier’s parents. The soldier, at a previous initiation ceremony held at the Western Wall to swear in new IDF recruits, had led a group of soldiers recruits in raising a banner proclaiming that they swore to protect the Jewish state and its people, but not to evict Jews from their homes. For this courageous act he was sentenced to 26 days in military jail. When any soldier is jailed for such acts, the Museum awards his parents 1000 New Shekels for every day of his jail sentence – “as a sign of esteem for their merit of having raised such children who are prepared to sacrifice themselves for the people and land of Israel,” as Rabbi Wolpo says.
The interrogator informed Rabbi Wolpo that he is under suspicion of encouraging soldiers to disobey orders, a crime liable to heavy punishment. Rabbi Wolpo declared that he intends to continue on this path, because it is inconceivable that a young person initiated into the
at the Western Wall with an oath to protect his people and homeland, should later be compelled by his commanders to transgress that oath by aiding the enemy’s battle against Jews faithful to their homeland. Read More:http://www.collive.com/show_news.rtx?id=18768&alias=police-question-dinner-organizer
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