Sunday 24 January, 2010

World

Rows of bodies of dead inmates fill the yard of Lager Nordhausen, a Gestapo concentration camp. This photo shows less than half of the bodies of the several hundred inmates who obviously died in the bombings that destroyed the buildings. Germany.

By Charles Gardner

Threatened with annihilation a couple of generations ago, the Jews still face another Holocaust. Iran, for one, has repeatedly stated through its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, that it wants to see Israel “wiped off the map” while the terrorist organisations it supports – Hizbollah and Hamas – have similarly vowed to drive the nation into the sea.

As anti-Semitism rises throughout Europe and beyond, Holocaust Day is still marked in Britain at least – lest we forget. And this was the motive behind the action taken by former U.S. President Eisenhower when, as Supreme Commander of the Allies Forces at the end of World War II, he came across the horror of Hitler’s death camps and insisted that photographs be taken – so that future generations would not be tempted to deny that such things happened as many, including the Iranian leader, have since done.

In fact the general apparently ordered all possible photographs to be taken, and that the German people from surrounding villages be ushered through the camps and even made to bury the dead.

His reasoning effectively amounted to this: “Get it all on record now – get the films, the witnesses, because somewhere down the road of history some b****** will get up and say that this never happened.”

The UK has recently debated whether to remove the Holocaust from its school curriculum because it ‘offends’ the Muslim population, some of whom claim it never occurred.

It has not been removed as yet. And Holocaust Day is once more being remembered this week. But this is a frightening portent of the fear gripping the world and of how easily each country is succumbing to it.

It is now 65 years since end of the war in Europe in which six million Jews along with millions of Christians, Russians and 1,900 Catholic priests were murdered, raped, burned, starved, beaten, experimented on and humiliated while the German people looked the other way!

Now more than ever, with Iran, among others, claiming the Holocaust to be a myth, it is imperative to ensure the world never forgets.

As someone has said, how many years will it be before the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Centre ‘never happened’ because it offends Muslims in the U.S.

Meanwhile the Dutchwoman who helped protect the legendary Anne Frank and her family from the Nazis during World War II has died, aged 100. Miep Gies was the last survivor of those who supplied food to young Anne, her parents, sister and four other Jews for two years before they were finally discovered and taken to a concentration camp.

According to a spokesperson for the Anne Frank House Museum in Amsterdam, Mrs Gies died of a neck injury following a fall at her home. Anne’s diary, which chronicles her life in hiding from June 1942 to August 1944, was rescued by Mrs Gies. Anne died in Belsen concentration camp in March 1945, aged just 15, and Mrs Gies gave the diary to her father Otto, the family’s only survivor, who published it in 1947. It was subsequently translated into 70 languages, and has been read by millions worldwide. The moving story of a young girl’s extreme courage, optimism, humour and zest for life amidst great danger, it has also been seen on stage and screen, and is a stark reminder of the ever-present threat of anti-Semitism, and all the gross atrocities of which it is capable.

Even now Iran is building nuclear weapons with the intention of committing genocide against the Jews, with all the repercussions that will have for further conflagration in the Middle East. That’s why we must never forget, nor let our children forget…

Photo: Public Domain