For the first post in this series, please click here.
The next section on The Holocaust Explained is about President Hindenburg dying.
This happened on August 2, 1934.
Hitler announced that the offices of the President and the Chancellor would be combined into one position. And the man fulfilling that position would be him.
A few weeks later, they held a vote on the plan.
95.7% of the population voted. 89.93% voted yes.
That's a lot of yeses.
Did people feel threatened into voting?
Or did Goebbels do such a fantastic job with the propaganda?
Maybe it was a combination of both things.
* * *
I'm consulting Lord Wiki to get a better idea about things.
He says there was intimidation of voters.
This included having storm troopers at polling stations and pressure to vote without secrecy.
Some ballots were pre-marked yes.
Voting numbers sometimes outweighed the number of people voting.
Jewish people, and others deemed undesirable, faced less voting fraud and intimidation. Because then the Nazis could point to those communities and label them as disloyal.
* * *
In my last post, I neglected to do my new tradition of looking at other Holocaust sites to see if they label Nazis as being lefties or righties.
So in this post, I'm going to make up for that by looking at two sites.
* * *
I'm on the CANDLES Holocaust Museum.
It's purpose is to shine a light on the twins who were medically abused by Dr. Mengele.
Interestingly, the one tourist in the website's front page photo, is a Black woman. If I was going to picture a person who was medically abused, a Black woman might be the first person to come to mind. And of course, Black men have been victims of notorious experiments as well.
* * *
CANDLES is in Indiana...in Terre Haute.
I don't really picture a big Jewish population in Indiana.
But...sometimes what we picture and expect fails to match with reality.
* * *
Well...here's something interesting.
CANDLES Holocaust Museum is a three minute walk from a Church called Pentecostal House of Prayer Bnai Shalom.
Is this Holocaust museum a Jewish project or is it a Christian project?
Well....the town does have a synagogue.
I was wondering if Terre Haute might be the kind of town with Evangelical Christians who obsess about Jewish people...not because they truly care about Jewish people but because the Jews play a part in their mythology.
* * *
The synagogue is an 18 minute walk from CANDLES.
Maybe I was being a bit too suspicious about CANDLES being so closed to a Messianic-Jewish church.
For those who don't know....
Usually Messianic-Jewish churches and Jews for Jesus are usually predominately Christian and have the goal of using manipulative language to try to trick Jews into becoming Christian.
* * *
CANDLES is using yellow and blue coloring on their website. They talk about standing with the Ukraine and give links to various organizations to help refugees.
That's good.
I'm starting to feel more and more guilty about my suspicions.
Also...I felt a sort of relief when I clicked on a link offering more organizations, and it took me to The Guardian. I mean instead of taking me to somewhere like...Conservapedia.
* * *
I'm looking at a glossary of Holocaust terms on the CANDLES website. I searched for the word "left". One of the results is under Baum Gruppe.
Baum Gruppe was an anti-Nazi group made up mostly of young Jewish communists and left-wing Zionists.
I wonder.
How many anti-Nazi groups were right-wing?
I feel like I keep seeing left-wing/communist groups rather than right-wing ones.
* * *
I searched for "right" and found something.
Note: There are multiple cases of "left" and "right" in the document. But all except two (one right and one left) have the usual meanings of the word...(outside the context of political ideology)
Under Treaty of Versailles, the website says, The war guilt clause was particularly onerous to most Germans, and revision of the Versailles Treaty represented one of the platforms that gave radical right wing parties in Germany, including Hitler's Nazi Party, such credibility to mainstream voters in the 1920s and early 1930s.
* * *
Keeping score with the Nazis are left vs Nazis are right:
Now I have six for Nazis being right-wing: CANDLES along with The Budapest Holocaust Memorial Museum, The Holocaust Explained, United Holocaust Memorial Museum, Snopes, and The Political Compass.
and two for Nazis being left-wing: Dinesh D'Souza and Conservapedia
* * *
For anyone wondering why I'm so into this whole Nazis were right-wing vs Nazis were left-wing.
It pretty much comes down to...
Daddy issues.
* * *
I'm going to go down a bit of a CANDLES rabbit hole.
They have a blog which looks interesting to me.
I want to read a few posts.
From the titles and photos, I get the idea that they're don't just passionately support helping Jewish people but also passionately support helping all refugees and/or targeted people.
I think left-wing Jews tend to be more interested in preventing all genocide and persecution while right-wing Jews concentrate more heavily on what's happening to Jews.
* * *
I'm going to read a post by Beth Nairn entitled "Send her Back! Send him Back!"
The title refers to chanting that happens at certain type of political rallies. Nairn talks about how hard it is to become an immigrant and imagines how it might feel to know that certain sections of the population might prefer for you to leave.
Nairn says about Ilhan Omar: Her time in office has been clouded by some controversial personal and political statements and this piece is in no way an endorsement of those words nor a statement of support for Omar. This is, however, a testimony of my belief as to how the quest for the American Dream, when it collides and clashes with the politics of the majority can become a dangerous challenge to the “light” and hope this country symbolizes for millions of people each and every day.
Would a white Christian immigrant making controversial statements be pushed to go back to where they came from?
Would a brown immigrant who supported a right-wing Christian agenda be encouraged to go back to where they came from?
Maybe? By the left?
I don't know. Do left-wing people push the you-don't-belong-here message as much as the right?
Nairn also talks about Melania Trump being an immigrant. I can imagine there were people on the left who pushed her to leave.
Nairn's overall message is that immigrants should have as much rights as natural-born citizens to hold and share controversial opinions without being told they don't belong and should leave.
I think it's an important thing to remember.
* * *
Now I'm going to read a post by Charles Moman entitled "None of this was on my Radar"
Well....
It turns out to be a special-interest origin story!
The "this" in the title refers to the Holocaust. Moman didn't know much about it. He just knew the number of six million.
He was at a conference for teachers and one of the options was visiting CANDLES and listening to a lecture by Eva Mozes Kor (who was a victim of Dr. Mengele AND the founder of the Museum).
The special interest in the Holocaust didn't begin then for Moman. It was more like a prologue, perhaps.
Two years later, he was hit by a drunk driver. During his painful recovery from intensive injuries, he ended up watching a Netflix documentary called Forgiving Dr. Mengele. And then Netflix pushed him down a Holocaust rabbit hole.
My response to that documentary title = the title of Jordan Peele's most recent movie.
Though I haven't seen the documentary. Maybe it would change my mind.
I doubt it, though.
I don't forgive those who aren't sorry.
And I'm pretty sure Mengele never showed regret.
If I'm wrong...I'm fascinated.
* * *
Here's a 1985 article from The Orlando Sentinel.
His son Rolf Mengele was against what his father did, but he helped his father hide, because he didn't want to deal with the fall out.
The evil doctor was never captured and prosecuted. He lived a long peaceful life and then drowned.
Back to Rolf Mengele. He only saw his father twice in his life...so it's not like he literally hid him...like in the attic or something.
The first time, he didn't know the man he met was his father. He was told it was his uncle.
In a letter, Josef Mengele (the evil doctor) wrote, On one hand I cannot hope for your understanding and compassion for my life's course; on the other, I do not have the minutest inner desire to justify or even excuse any decisions, actions or behavior regarding my life.
When I read that part, I started thinking...oh...maybe he is expressing some level of regret. It sounds kind of like he's saying he's not going to try to make excuses for what he did.
BUT...
The next part says, when it comes to indisputable, traditional values, where I sense danger to those close to me or the unity of my people, my tolerance has its limits.
Fuck him.
I mean if someone else said that, I might find it...
Well, depending on who said it..my reaction might range from being inspired to rolling my eyes.
But knowing that "my people" probably refers to the Aryan race and danger probably refers to Jews.
And knowing what he did to Jewish people.
Fuck him.
He deserves zero forgiveness.
* * *
In 1977, Rolf Mengele traveled to Sao Paulo to confront his father.
Evil Doctor Mengele lived in what his son described as a poor area.
That's good.
At least he wasn't living a life of luxury.
The article gives Mengele's address: Rua Missuri 7.
Of course, I had to look on Google Maps.
It may have been Just a dirt road, potholes and dust back in the 70's. But now it has asphalt. Or stone? Some kind of brick.
I wonder who lives at Rua Missuri 7 now. Do they know that Josef Mengele lived there?
* * *
Rolf Mengele says that his father was depressed, afraid, and suicidal.
I'd like to think that it was guilt and regret that made him feel that way.
But it was likely more a fear of being caught; a dislike of how his life turned out; and a feeling that he was unfairly persecuted.
* * *
I don't forgive Mengele.
Nor do I forgive the friends he had in San Paulo.
If I'm understanding the article correctly, Liselotte and Wolfram Bossert witnessed Mengele's stroke and death at sea and were also the ones to inform Mengele's other friends of his death.
They wrote: It is with deep sorrow that I fulfill the painful duty of informing you and all relatives of the death of our common friend.
YUCK.
And down further in the letter they say, Heroically struggling until his very last breath, as he had been doing throughout his long life of chaos, our friend passed away on a subtropical beach.
YUCK.
Fuck the Bosserts.
And though I have some pity for Rolf Mengele...for the most part, I say Fuck him as well.
He is quoted as saying, The trial...whatever the outcome would have been, would have taken years. And the injuries it would have inflicted upon me and my family are beyond comprehension.
Yeah. Give me a break.
Inge Byhan, the writer for the piece in The Orlando Sentinel sums up Josef Mengele's later years very well: He was insensitive, uninstructive, self-righteous all the way to his undeserved peaceful end.
* * *
Here's something awful.
Karl Mengele, the father of Josef, was the founder of a company called Karl Mengele and Sons. Back in 1985, when the article was written, the company was 110 years old and was Europe's biggest freight car manufacture. The company did 90 million dollars of business back in 1984.
Please tell me that by now the company is gone...or has been bought out and the name has been changed.
I kind of skimmed the rest of the article.
In the end, though, I learned that Inge Byhan is actually from Germany. The article was reprinted from a German magazine called Bunte.
* * *
I Googled the company.
It doesn't seem to exist.
There was a 1986 article in the Los Angeles Times saying the company suffered financial challenges, and the government bailed them out,
The Orlando Sentinel article said the company worked in freight cars. The Los Angeles one says farm equipment.
Maybe it was both?
I'm confused.
* * *
For anyone sitting there thinking I shouldn't have a grudge against the family; It's not their fault their son was evil....
The family sent Josef an allowance of $100-175 a month during his thirty-five years of hiding.
* * *
I'm looking at Gunzburg in Bavaria Germany where the company was/is located.
There is still something on the map called Karl-Mengele-Straße.
It's a seven minute drive from Legoland.
* * *
I think I need to go down a massive Mengele rabbit hole.
But I already promised myself I would look at two Holocaust websites for this post. And this post is already very long.
So I'm going to fulfill my promise.
And then I think I'm going to do a detour post dedicated solely to a Mengele rabbit hole.
* * *
The Holocaust site I'm going to look at now is The Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum. It's close to me. I think I should probably go there someday.
Now I'm looking to see if they have any online education on their site.
They have an online archive.
I searched for "left-wing" and "right-wing" and got around 800 results for both...with just "wing" or the other words. I don't know how to do it so it will include only the full terms.
Their archive does look like it's a great resource for finding primary sources.
* * *
I looked a bit through other places on the site and then searched in their main search thing for "left-wing" and "right-wing". I didn't get anything. So I'm not going to add them to either side.
Hopefully, I will visit the museum in the near future, and hopefully I will write about it in a post.
Also...I might come back to their archives if I'm wanting to find some primary sources for some other reason.
I guess what I'm saying is the museum is not useful to me at this moment in terms of my left vs right quest. BUT I know left vs right is not the most important function of a Holocaust Museum.
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