To read the first post in this series, click here.
And here is an ongoing index of the posts.
I'm back on The Holocaust Explained website.
I'm almost done with their section about the Nazi's rise to power.
I think I'm going to look at some of their other sections—the ones that deal with the pre-Nazi and early Nazi days.
Yesterday I was kind of feeling lost about what to do next. I felt maybe I was done with the Rise of Nazism posts. Then I realized, I really only looked at government issues. And yeah. Government is central to the whole Nazi thing. But I want to look at other things in society besides government. What was going on with general people?
Even with the government, though. It's probably possible to dig deeper into that.
* * *
The last section in The Holocaust Explained's Nazi's Rise to Power is about three themes of Nazi consolidation.
These three things are: pseudo-legal, terror and intimidation, and pseudo-moderation.
Pseudo-legal was giving the Germans the idea that the government was stable and something to respect—not a scary revolution but a government going through normal legal processes to keep the country safe.
There was this balance of taking away rights and removing opposition while trying to push the message, nothing to see here. Everything is fine. Move along,
Terror and intimidation refers to the SS and SA harassing people and sticking them in concentration camps. Giving people the idea that they may be taken away from their family is a good way to scare people into following orders.
Pseudo-moderation was about trying to make Nazis seem moderate. The Holocaust Explained uses the Night of Long Knives as an example of this. They say, Following the purge, the Nazi’s sculpted the media coverage to portray the event as a preventative measure against a revolutionary, violent, and uncontrollable force, rather than a series of political murders.
* * *
Now I'm going to fulfill my newish tradition of looking at other Holocaust-related websites to see whether they list the Nazis as being left-wing or right wing.
Sometimes they don't share an opinion about that. Either way, I'll probably explore other parts of their website....see what I can learn.
Today's website is The El Paso Holocaust Museum.
The museum is located in downtown El Paso.
We spent one night in El Paso...on our first trip to Disneyland and the Grand Canyon.
I'm looking at the museum on Google Maps. Because I love Google Maps.
The museum area looks very Texan and western...which fits, because El Paso is in west Texas.
Using the Google Street View time machine, I see the museum building had no Holocaust sign in the 2008 photo. Maybe the museum is new to the building. Or they just didn't have a sign yet?
I'm sure the museum website will have some history.
Yep. Here's their history page. I mean history of the museum; not history of the Holocaust. But I'm guessing they'll have that as well.
The museum was started by a Holocaust survivor named Henry Kellen.
Kellen and his wife Julia had decided upon moving to the United States (way back when) that they would not talk about the Holocaust.
But then in the 1980's, Holocaust denial became a trend. So in 1984, Kellen decided to fight back by telling his story.
The drama of finding Mengele's body happened in 1985.
I'm wondering about the relationship between Nazi hunting and Holocaust denial in the 1980's. Did one push the other to grow? Maybe Nazi hunting was inspired by denial? OR maybe denial was a reaction to the hunting?
Was the Holocaust not a big subject before the 1980's?
It became a special interest of mine...probably very late 80's and early 90's. I think I assumed that it had been a popular subject for a long time?
Though now I'm having vague memories of maybe my dad? saying it had once been a taboo type of subject in Jewish communities. I don't know if my dad said it...or someone else. OR I dreamed it. But something like Jews were ashamed, because of the idea they had been like sheep...easy to slaughter.
It's kind of similar to how having convicts in one's family tended to be shameful to Australian families. Now it's seen as a sort of badge of honor.
I don't think having family members killed in the Holocaust is seen as a badge of honor. But it's not something to hide or be ashamed of.
OR...I guess sometimes there IS honor in surviving.
Six million Jews did NOT survive. But maybe there's a sort of honor in knowing this happened to your ancestors...yet your family is still alive.
As for convicts. For descendants of people who committed violent crimes, there might be a kind of dark humor badge of honor. But for convicts who were just guilty of poverty...there can be honor in surviving the British/Australian governments.
* * *
Getting back to the history of the El Paso Holocaust Museum history....
Henry Kellen started his museum in a small corner of the El Paso Jewish community center.
Another couple, the Rosenbaum's donated 250K to build an actual museum near the Jewish community center.
I tried to find the Jewish Community Center on Google Maps and couldn't. I Googled and also couldn't find a website. Though they are listed on Yelp. But there are no reviews, and Yelp is waiting for someone to claim the site.
Well...went and read more from the Holocaust Museum. There was a fire in 2001 which destroyed the Holocaust Museum. I'm guessing maybe it also destroyed the community center.
The new (current) museum opened in January 2008.
When the museum was homeless, it was still operating via a traveling exhibit and a temporary gallery.
The El Paso museum is the first Holocaust museum in Texas, and it's the only fully bilingual Holocaust museum. I'm assuming the other language is Spanish.
* * *
Well, the website doesn't have a history or glossary type section. So I'm probably not going to be able to get another answer to my left-right question.
But they do have stories of survivors from El Paso. I'm going to read some of them, because they might have insights about the rise of Nazism. NOT just in Germany, though. Many of these survivors are from other European countries.
I probably should have titled these posts "Learning about the Rise of Nazism in Europe" rather than just Germany.
* * *
I'm starting with Agnes Schaechner who was born in 1930 in Debrecen, Hungary. She would have been three when Hitler came into power. I'm sure she didn't notice the Hitler stuff.
The El Paso Holocaust Museum has videos of the survivors, nicely divided into small bits. I'm probably going to listen only to the ones pertaining to pre-Holocaust days.
Schaechner says she had a pretty normal childhood until she was in 8th grade and then was not allowed to return to school, because she was Jewish. That was in 1943.
There's a long space between Hitler coming into power and the shit hitting the fan for young Agnes. I wonder if there were people warning against this before the shit hit the fan. And I wonder if those people were told they were alarmists.
Well...the video titled "antisemitism" partly answers my question.
A few years before Schaechner was excluded from school, her American uncle obtained and sent papers to all their relatives to move to Mexico...with plans that they'd eventually come to the United States.
Schaechner's family did not leave, because her grandmother was still alive but not in the best of health. They felt she wouldn't survive the trip.
It is NOT easy to move.
Even if there is danger, I think we lie to ourselves. We convince ourselves that this is the worst it's going to get; things are going to get better. Surely nothing that bad will happen.
* * *
Now I'm watching the video clip about Germany invading. It happened in 1944.
Hungary was kicking out their Jewish students BEFORE the Nazis came.
Different places are often interconnected...in good ways and bad.
They talk about leaving it up to the states (in America). But zealous fantastics are unlikely to stop there. They will probably try to make their agenda a Federal thing. And right-wing Christian Nationalists from around the world will probably work together.
For example, right-wing Americans might make the right-wing racist Nazi-like leader of modern Hungary one of their honorary guests at their Dallas convention.
On a positive note...While the right-wing people can work together in a globalist fashion to push racism, antisemitism, homophobia, misogyny, transphobia, sexism, etc..... the left-wing people can join together from different nations to fight back. (edited to add 11/30/2023-This paragraph didn't age very well)
* * *
The next survivor...
Wait. I should note that though these people survived the Holocaust, they didn't necessarily survive life itself.
Agnes Schaechner died in 1998 at the age of 68.
The next survivor on the El Paso site is Arlene Pergricht. She was born in Budapest in 1912 and died in 1994.
Pergricht would have been much older than Schaechner when Hitler came into power—a young adult rather than a young child.
Pergricht talks about her childhood. She was in a family of three girls and three boys. She lived in a community where Jewish and Christian children hung out together, and attention wasn't paid to who was Jewish and who was Christian.
It makes me think of MAGA Americans who have LGBTQ+ friends. Maybe they don't know about the anti-LGBTQ rhetoric. Maybe they ignore it.
As the rhetoric gets louder...as more laws are passed...will these MAGA people stick by their friends? Will they help them? Will they speak up?
* * *
Some of the Holocaust survivors don't have videos...just brief biographies. I'm going to skip over those and look at the ones with videos. And again, for now, I'm watching only the ones that are about the beginnings of the shit show....not the middle or the aftermath.
So...next is Edith Eger.
She was born in Kosice Slovakia in 1927.
There's no date of death for her. Maybe she's still alive.
The little bio says that Eger encountered Mengele. Maybe I'll listen to her Auschwitz video, since I spent a week learning about what Mengele did AFTER the Holocaust and very little about what he did during.
In her pre-war video, Eger talks about how her family was very assimilated into the culture.
The culture of where....I don't know.
There is some confusing European history and geography here.
At least it's confusing for me.
Europe changes a lot.
Her birthplace was Slovakia. But then the biography talks about Nazi-occupied Hungary.
Maybe Kosice was in Hungary back then?
Did Slovakia even exist yet?
I had to rewind the video. Eger says she was born in Czechoslovakia.
Oh! Slovakia.
I never noticed that—the word Slovakia inside of the word Czechoslovakia.
So did Czechoslovakia split into Slovakia and the Czech Republic?
How does Hungary play into it?
Eger talks about a Hungarian life. She says that Hungarian Jewish life was different from Polish Jewish life. Hungarian Jews were assimilated. They were allowed to go to Hungarian schools.
I'm going to finish with the videos...and then try to figure out some European historical geography.
Hearing survivors tell their Mengele stories...the emotional trauma is much more painful than hearing the gruesome facts.
What's worse? Hearing that Mengele might be responsible for 400,000 deaths. Or hearing about sixteen year old Edith l standing in the lines with her mother. Mengele sends Edith's mother in one direction and Edith in another. Later Edith asks a fellow inmate about the smoke coming out of the chimney and is told that's what happened to her mother.
It's all horrible. It gets worse and worse.
But really...just hearing about forceful separations of families is terrifying and extremely sad.
* * *
I'm consulting Lord Wiki about Kosice.
He hasn't really helped with my confusion.
I'm probably going to give up on understanding it...soon.
It looks like Czechoslovakia and Hungary have fought over it through the centuries.
Oh! Okay. So Hungary used to be a kingdom....And Kosice was part of that kingdom from 1000-1551. Then it was part of the Ottoman Empire; then it was sort of Hungarian yet also Transylvanian? That all was in the 1600's.
Well...basically...it seems to be mostly part of this Hungarian kingdom.
Except from 1918-1938, it was part of Czechoslovakia. But what do I know? Maybe Czechoslovakia was also part of Hungary.
Well....it seems WAS is the important word here.
In 1918, they got their independence. That lasted until 1938. Then it became the Kingdom of Hungary again...through the war.
It's interesting that Eger refers to her pre-war days as being in Hungry. Well...I guess she was young when they had the independence thing going on. She would have been about eleven when they went back to being Hungarian.
In 1945, Czechoslovakia became independent again....And then it split up in 1992.....
I'll skip that particular rabbit hole. For now.
* * *
The next survivor is Larry Gladstone. If I'm understanding things right, he didn't go to a death camp. Instead he was put into forced labor.
He's listed as being from Vishniak Chamenitza, Czechoslovakia. But I'm wondering if that was Hungary at some point.
I'm going to try not to dwell on it.
Gladstone talks about his childhood—says Jews were treated very well.
Then things went downhill.
Gladstone started the forced labor 1942. He would have been around twenty.
In the video, he talks about being underfed for the labor required of them.
There was a Typhus epidemic.
Gladstone escaped infection by hiding in a stable. He says a German saw him but didn't turn him in. That's good.
Or maybe he didn't escape infection? I'm not completely sure.
He talks about being very weak. But that could have been from hunger and the cold.
And there were many people who ended up with frozen feet. That sounds very painful.
The Nazis took care of the feet issue by shooting the victims to death.
And there was a long walk which Gladstone labels as a death march. Because anytime someone was too tired or too weak...and they sat down; the Nazis would shoot them.
* * *
We should wipe the words inhumane out of the dictionaries.
Humans can be incredibly cruel. And I do NOT mean that there are super rare humans who, in very rare times, can be incredibly cruel.
In the long history of humankind, I don't think this level of cruelty is that unusual.
Unfortunately.
* * *
Now I'm looking at Edith Kallman.
She was born in Czechoslovakia in 1924.
There's some more Hungary/Czechoslovakia confusion for me in her bio.
In 1944, she was caught and sent to Auschwitz.
Her pre-war video is short. Her father died when she was six. But besides that, she said her childhood was normal and happy.
In the Nazi Invasion video, she talks about being forced to wear the Yellow Stars. Yeah. Of course hearing this doesn't make me think about antisemitism. Instead I'm sitting here shedding tears for all the MAGA people in a super similar situation—forced to wear face masks during Covid.
* * *
Ferenc Klein was very young when Hitler came into power. He was born in 1932 in Hungary.
During the Holocaust, because he and his brother Otto were twins, they were targeted by Josef Mengele.
I have to say. One thing I love about these bios is knowing that all these survivors not only became American, but they became Texans.
Yes, I hate our current state Government.
But I do love Texas.
One of the survivors had cacti in the background of her videos. I love that.
Anyway...watching the videos now.
Klein talks about how he and his twin brother were very close.
Their family was very wealthy.
I think wealth can often help cushion people against the adversity that is going on in their society. But...sometimes it can't. Or sometimes, the cushion might still be there. But if the adverse forces are strong enough, the cushion can be punctured.
* * *
Klein's story is similar to Schaechner in that there was talk about coming to the United States. But worries about his grandmother's age and health prevented them from doing so.
He says that Pesach 1944 was the last holiday he spent with his family.
A few days later, some Nazis came by the house. Klein wasn't home. But the Nazis lined up the family members that were home and then took Klein's father to jail.
Oh....
So in this case, it seems wealth was the opposite of a cushion.
Since Klein's father's wealth came him influence in the city, it seems the Nazis saw him as a threat. So he was one of the first Jews taken.
* * *
Next is Hannah Burstein.
She was born in Tarnow Poland. She's the first I've looked at who wasn't part of the whole Czechoslovakia/Hungary thing.
But I'm wondering if Tarnow was part of Czechoslovakia and/or Hungary at some point.
I'm actually going to map all the birthplaces of the El Paso survivors...well just the ones with the videos. I skipped over the non-video people.
* * *
Something very weird is going on.
Multiple times I've tried to Put Larry Gladstone's birthplace of Vishniak Chamenitza, Czechoslovakia into the map. I cut the name of the city. I paste it. I see it. But as soon as I click for the directions, it switches the name of Vishniak Chamenitza to The El Paso Holocaust Museum.
Why???
I just pasted the word into general Google, and I get the El Paso Holocaust museum.
I'm guessing maybe the museum misspelled his birthplace?
I just split the word up into two.
I looked up Chamenitza and got Google asking me if I meant Chemnitz. So I think that's where things probably messed things up.
Well...no Vishniak doesn't fit in anywhere either.
Well...no. That's not exactly true. Vishniak exists as a Romanian alcoholic beverage made from sour cherries.
I'm not a drinker. But if I was, I think I'd want that as my drink.
It sounds good.
* * *
I Googled Larry Gladstone to see if another website would give his birthplace. Legacy, an obituary website just lists his birthplace as Czechoslovakia.
* * *
The United States Holocaust Museum has a page for Gladstone. The museum actually has a box of correspondences between the Gladstones (who were then the Glattsteins) and another Jewish family who had immigrated to Mexico before the war.
Unfortunately, the letters aren't digitized. They're available at the museum upon request (7 days notice needed).
Anyway...they give Gladstone's birthplace as being Vysna Kamenica. That does go into Google Maps without switching to The El Paso Holocaust museum.
* * *
I finished the map!
I added Berlin to add some perspective.
Germany and Poland are more north.
Czechia and Slovakia are below.
Hungary is the most southern of the countries.
None of the survivors I've looked at, so far, are from what is now Czechia.
I'm going to keep the map open and keep adding to it.
* * *
Now I shall watch the Gladstone videos.
Just a piece of trivia: My family too changed their name.
We were Rabinovitz and at some point changed to Roberts.
I'm skimming through a family history document to see if it says when.
I know some of my cousins use Rabinovitz. I don't know if their branch never Anglicized their name...or if they did and then switched back.
Well...the document...which is actually a letter to my dad's first cousin from her mother...mentions the first time the name was changed. But it's confusing. It says the guy lived in Chicago Mayer but that he stayed in Russia. I think there's a mistake there somewhere.
Something got lost in translation. Somewhere.
Moving on....
Back to the videos.
I got confused just now...was surprised to see a woman and not Larry Gladstone.
I forgot.
I was thinking of Gladstone because of the birthplace mystery.
But I'm on Hannah Burstein's videos.
Burstein talks about her pre-war life. Her community was mostly Jewish. They didn't have much interaction with Gentiles.
I can't remember if I mentioned this, but one of the survivors had mentioned that the Jews in her community were very assimilated into the general population...unlike how things were in Poland.
Burstein was born in Poland.
So yeah. I think Jews in Poland were more segregated.
* * *
Henry Kellen was born in Lodz Poland but before the war, his family moved to Lithuania.
I think Lithuania is where The Stranger Things controversy is.
Yep. Just Googled....
I added Lithuania to my map. It's way up north from the other countries.
It was occupied in 1941.
Now I'm needing a timeline.
Which of these countries was occupied by Germany when?
The United States Holocaust Museum has a timeline of World War II.
Italy and Germany joined together in unholy matrimony in 1936. Soon after, Germany signed a pact with Japan.
Oh shit...this gets very confusing.
I guess some countries signed pacts with Germany while others were invaded.
Austria was annexed or incorporated in 1938.
In 1939, there's very confusing stuff with Slovakia/Czech. Something about the Slovaks.
I'm lost.
Poland was invaded in 1939 by Germany and then the Soviet Union. That's pretty intense, since both countries were on opposing teams.
Denmark and Norway were invaded by Germany in 1940 and then also France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Belgium.
This is some really scary stuff.
I've already, fairly long ago, come to terms with the fact that humans can be incredibly violent and sadistic towards each other. I'm much less ready to face the fact that boundaries and governments are not eternal.
Invasions feel like something that happens a long time ago or in lands far away.
But with what's happening in the Ukraine. And the threat of China doing the same to Taiwan.
It doesn't seem too far-fetched imagining other countries, we take for granted, being torn apart and turned into something new.
Even the United States.
Or the United States splitting up into two or three new countries.
I was telling Tim about Czechoslovakia becoming Czechia and Slovakia. I joked maybe that will happen to us and once country will become Amer and the other Ica.
Realistically...it will probably more likely become Texas and The United States.
I can imagine Hungary signing a Treaty with Greg Abbott.
* * *
Back to the timeline. I'm so easily distracted.
Never mind.
I'm going to stop with the timeline for now. It's too overwhelming.
I want to get back to the videos.
Oh! I just skimmed through Henry Kellen's bio again and was reminded he's the one who actually started the El Paso Holocaust Museum!
Kellen talks about his childhood in Poland. Like the other Polish survivors, he talks about living in a Jewish community without much contact with Gentiles. But he says unlike other people in his situation, he didn't encounter hostility from the Polish people.
It's interesting that he refers to the others as Polish. I wonder if he considered himself Polish. Before the Holocaust, did Jews from Poland consider themselves Polish. Or did they see themselves as completely separate?
I wonder about Jews in more assimilated countries. Did they label themselves as being from those countries? Did they consider themselves fully German or fully Hungarian? Fully Danish? And once they were persecuted; those who survived and escaped...did any of them still see themselves as Danish, Hungarian, Danish, etc.
I mean for those who came to the United States. Would any of them consider themselves German-American. Or their later descendants? I imagine most would identify, instead, as Jewish-American.
Wow...Kellen says that when Hitler spoke of the Jews, the German Jews would say, he's not referring to us. He's referring to the Polish Jews.
I'm wondering where Kellen heard this. I guess in books? Letters? I'm just trying to wrap my mind around this world where Twitter doesn't exist.
Well...now he's saying that Polish Jews felt they need not worried. Hitler was in Germany. It was a German-Jew problem.
As for Lithuania, Kellen says there were many Lithuanians who collaborated with the Nazis...especially in small towns.
Kellen mentions there not being much communication which helped me to realize that maybe....
Well, now I'm feeling stupid about wondering where he heard all this.
I didn't consider that he learned about the attitudes and beliefs AFTER the war.
I guess I was thinking of the videos as being more....
I don't know the word.
It's like when you talk about the past without anachronistic insights.
Is there a word for that?
* *.*
Now I'm on Irene Osborne who looks very much like my younger sister's mother-in-law.
Osborn was born in Koblenz Germany in 1927.
I added it to the map. It's way far west than the other towns I have marked already.
In her Early Life video, Osborne says she went to a Catholic School and so had very little knowledge of antisemitism.
I think that's a bit overly generous towards Catholics.
I mean not that Catholics are the most antisemitic people. And I wouldn't assume a Catholic situation would equal antisemitism. But I wouldn't go as far to use the word..."so".
I feel like she meant to say "Jewish school" and got confused. And it's weird, because my sister's mother-in-law is Catholic.
* * *
Osborne's Antisemitism and Kristallnacht video is really sad...traumatic.
Of course the systematic bodily murder of Jews and others is the worst part of the Holocaust. But the other stuff is incredibly horrific as well. Intruders. Destruction of beloved property, etc.
One of my current obsessions is the lines from Station Eleven.
I remember damage; then escape. Then adrift in a stranger's galaxy for a long time. But I'm safe now. I found it again. My home.
I think probably most people in the world can relate to those lines in some way...either extremely directly or in a vague symbolic way.
It can pretty much be the voiceover for anyone having trauma-flashbacks or sad memories.
BUT...I think it fits extremely well with Holocaust survivors.
And survivors of any war or genocide.
* * *
Itzhak Kotkowski's story is quite different from the others I've looked at so far.
He was arrested not by Nazis but by Communists.
He was born in Warsaw, Poland. He left Poland when the Nazis invaded; was then captured and labeled an enemy of the state.
He was sentenced to forced labor but was able to get amnesty by joining the Soviet Union military.
I wonder why they saw him as an enemy of the state.
Sadly, Google won't let me add any more destinations to my El Paso Holocaust survivor map. So I removed Berlin. Because that was just an extra.
* * *
I just had a funny geographical realization.
So looking at the map of Europe...on the RIGHT/East you have the Soviet Communists which are the far-left authoritarian threat and to the LEFT/West, you have the far-right Nazi threat.
It's just kind of backwards.
* * *
Kotkowski had a happy childhood in 1920's Poland.
If I squint, Kotkowski looks a bit like my Grandpa Ed.
Kotkowski, unlike the other Polish survivors I've looked at for this post, seems to have been more assimilated. He didn't have much knowledge of antisemitism in his younger years and considered himself as Polish.
I'm wondering if this is geography based. Maybe Warsaw was more integrated than Lodz and Tarnow.
In his Jewish Community video, Kotkowski talks about the variety in the Polish Jewish community. Some Orthodox. Some not. Some left-wing; some right-wing.
* * *
Lucie Liebman was part of the resistance....some form of what could be probably called antifa. These antifa called themselves Maccabeus.
She was born in Vienna, Austria.
I can't add that to my map without subtracting something.
But I can just kind of look at it.
Austria is below Germany.
I know all of this is obvious to a lot of people. But I'm not great at European geography.
I would probably know that Austria is near Germany. But I'd be lost about where their borders connect.
Liebman had a wealthy childhood—maid, nanny and chauffeur.
They weren't religious; didn't belong to a synagogue.
Liebman felt loved but not by her parents. She had a nanny.
I'm glad she had her nanny. But I imagine it still hurts to feel unloved by one's parents. Even if there's a nice substitute, it's going to hurt.
Despite her lack of closeness with her parents, Liebman enjoyed her childhood.
I wonder if people appreciate their childhood more if it's interrupted by trauma. I mean the times before the trauma.
I think there's also something about a place becoming idyllic once we've left it...even if not because of war or atrocities.
We left Madison Wisconsin when I was eight or nine. It's so idyllic in my memory...(minus some psychological traumas). I think if we stayed, the memories would be less idyllic. Because the childhood memories would be mixed with more jaded teen and adult memories.
My parents are selling their lake house which they've had since before all our kids were born. I imagine the memories will be idyllic for all of us to some degree...way in the future. But I think the memories will be especially idyllic for the youngest ones.
The youngest will lose the lake house around the same time I lost Madison.
It would be an interesting study....see if there's any difference in how people view their childhood depending on whether they still have full access to their childhood home.
* * *
Now I'm watching Liebman's video about the Nazis invading Austria in 1938.
She remembers waking up early; then looking outside and seeing Nazi flags in the street.
Soon after, that morning, the Brown Shirts....I forgot who they are. The SS? SA?
Well...whoever...they came pounding on their door.
I just Googled. Brownshirts were the SA.
Liebman talks about how they must have scouted the area...known where to go.
Somehow they knew were the Jews lived...or where some of them lived.
Oh...this surprised me. I was expecting the SA to beat the family up and drag some of them away.
Instead, they rearranged the furniture and created an office.
It's like a really dark and horrible version of an HGTV show.
Liebman's father told her family that he was going to go to work to settle affairs and then they were leaving. Each family member left.
During the beginning of their escape journey, Liebman's father told her that if anyone says Heil Hitler to her, she should return the greeting. Leibman didn't want to do that; she was stubborn. So she took the route of pretending not to understand.
I'm all for the resistance. But sometimes slipping under the radar is a better choice.
That being said...I can totally imagine myself as a child being very anxious about having to lie.
So...at this point the Liebman's family life was one of upheaval but not major tragedy.
They were able to get to Czechoslovakia where her grandmother lived.
But then in 1939...as Liebman puts it, Hitler followed us to Prague.
Liebman would have been about twelve then.
The Nazis came to her school and asked who was Jewish.
Liebman stood up and was told to sit in the back of the class. And then about a week later, the Jewish kids were expelled from school.
Things got worse and worse. Jews started being taken away...to concentration camps. Liebman says, though, that at the time, they hadn't known where the Jews were being taken.
The Jews had to turn in their belongings to the Nazis. Liebman gives radios and jewelry as examples.
Throughout the video I've seen so far, from Liebman, she talks in a somewhat dissociative way....or without much emotion. Just kind of laying down the facts. But then she gets to the part about her grandfather being beaten to death and dying. Her young self seeing the brutality in person. She cries.
I can only imagine what it's like to live with the childhood memory of seeing someone you loved gruesomely and brutally killed.
That's incredibly traumatic.
* * *
By the way, I just Googled Liebman and saw that she actually wrote a book about her life..if anyone is interested.
Out of all the El Paso survivors I've listened to so far, I think she's the best at talking about her experiences. So it's not shocking to me, that she wrote a book.
Because I have this whole complicated autistic method of choosing which books to read next, I probably won't be reading it.
But maybe someday.
I Googled her though, because I wanted to see if there's enough info online to maybe do a detour post about her.
One thing that's kind of interesting to me is that she talks about being a stubborn child. She not only refused to say Heil Hitler in the street but also at school when requested.
And she grew up to join the resistance.
Are stubborn children more likely to become part of resistance movements? Are they more likely to fight for social justice?
* * *
I was planning to watch more of Liebman's videos but instead I bookmarked her page.
I don't think I'm going to do a detour post on Liebman. But I might watch her videos in the future for a more generalized detour post.
OR....
I have a list of post ideas. I'm not sure if they're going to be detour posts within my series about the rise of Nazism in Germany. Or if these are these things I will write about after I finish with the rise in Nazism stuff.
* * *
I'm going to move onto the next El Paso Holocaust survivor.
This is Mark Kupfer who was born in Nowy Korczyn, Poland.
His town was predominantly Jewish—a lot of them Jewish merchants. Then there were some Polish people living outside the town...and the two groups didn't get along very well.
I'm consulting Lord Wiki about the town now. It doesn't seem to have much history post World War II...except that the Synagogue has been turned into a historical site.
I'm sure the town has some kind of modern history...unless it's totally abandoned. But maybe it's present existence is somewhat ignored. Maybe because of shame or just wanting to sweep things under the rug. OR it could just be nothing exciting has happened.
I'm tempted to say the history is too dark...like we don't want to know about the new residents, because the old residents were murdered or kicked out.
But there are MANY places that we celebrate and show interest in where the people who once lived there were once violently or unfairly displaced.
Google Maps has some user photographs of the synagogue. I thought there was a large black and white bird in the photo. It kind of looked like a Magpie from Australia. But I zoomed in. I think it's just a light.
The synagogue is right next to a river called Nida.
I remember at one of our synagogues...doing this Yom Kippur thing of throwing something into the water...
Crumbs?
Googled....
It's throwing crumbs or pebbles into water...and it's supposed to represent tossing away the bad things we did that year. I think it's kind of like wiping the slate clean.
Anyway....I'm imagining that Kupfer's childhood congregation might have done this at the river.
* * *
I'm wondering if any Jews have returned to live in Nowy Korczyn. I can't easily find anything. I'm guessing probably not. I imagine some come to visit. I wonder how they're treated by locals.
I read a really good Australian novel several years ago—Too Many Men by Lily Brett. A woman goes with her Holocaust-survivor father back to his home in Poland. I vaguely remember it. But it does stick out in my mind that they encountered antisemitism. I think some of it might have been along the lines of exploiting Jews and the Holocaust...selling Jewish-themed merchandise.
* * *
Lord Wiki has information on the Jewish population in (general) Poland.
There were 3.2 million in 1939. They made up 9% of the population. In comparison....the Pew Research Center says Jews make up 2.4% of the United States.
By 1945, the number of Jews in Poland had decreased to 100,000. Though by 1946, the numbers had increased to 230,000.
I'm sure there's a story there....
I guess maybe the ones who survived decided to come back?
Then there's a decrease through the years....I'm guessing immigration to Israel and other historical type things. I see something about Communism.
These days, there is different ideas of how many Jews there are.
In a 2011 census, 7353 people identified as Jewish. But it's believed there are many more who are Jewish but do not identify as such.
It's kind of like autism statistics really only refer to the people who have been diagnosed as autistic. The numbers keep increasing making it look like autism is becoming a massive epidemic. But it's really a matter of diagnosis and identification.
I think of actors...and officially there are a handful of famous actors who are autistic. Anthony Hopkins, Daryl Hannah, Josh Thomas, Wentworth Miller, Dan Aykroyd....
In terms of diagnosis/identified...autism probably occurs in like 1/2000 celebrities. But if we go beyond the official ones, it's probably like 1/10 are autistic.
Or one out of 3.
Maybe 3/4?
* * *
Rabbit holes and tangents cause very long posts.
* * *
There are probably a lot of people with Jewish ancestry in Poland. That's what Lord Wiki told me. And I'm going to move on now to the next survivor.
* * *
I feel like this post is super long already. I worry if I listen to more survivor accounts, I'm going to fall down more rabbit holes.
BUT I feel bad walking away from the last few survivors on the page.
I think it's because I have felt ignored—under-read and under-listened-to. So, is makes me sad to imagine sharing my childhood story on a page; then while other people's story is listened to, mine is abandoned.
So I am going to listen to the rest of the childhood/pre-Nazi accounts. But I will try to not fall into rabbit holes.
It might feel enough to just list their names; then listen....and if something really stands out, I'll mention it.
So the remaining names are:
Neftali Frankel from Tarnow, Poland
Olga Bowman from Pacin, Hungary.
Sarah Hauptman born in Poland but grew up in Belgium.
Thelma Krugman from Sowina Poland.
Tibor Schaechner from Budapest.
If I don't end up relaying anything about their lives, please remember I'm watching only their childhood videos and pre-war videos.
I might bookmark some of their other stories for future posts.
* * *
It's the next day....
Last night or this morning, I was thinking that this is an example of where autistic hyperempathy is more of a hindrance than a virtue....and not usually helpful.
Well...because it's not just El Paso. I started thinking....oh wait. Now I might feel like I need to listen to all recorded Holocaust survivors I encounter. I can't just walk past.
But they are DEAD.
And even if their spirits are around there somewhere....
Well, I'm sure they'd appreciate a listen.
But it's more important to listen to those who are still alive.
That sounds cold.
And wrong.
Dead people deserve listeners and readers.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that though the dead deserve empathy...if we're going to go OVERBOARD with empathy, the dead shouldn't be the main recipient.
I say this as if I'm going to stop listening to Holocaust videos, walk out the door, and go do beautiful volunteer work.
When really...I'll probably transfer most of my empathy to fictional characters and stuffed animals.
For example, I told Tim that we can throw most of the old cat toys away. The cats don't play with them. Why have I not done this yet?
And then I looked down...and they have faces.
When you're autistic, any object can elicit excessive empathy. But when it has a face....
* * *
Neftali Frankel has an interesting story. Well, I couldn't understand his account of it, because it's in Spanish. I looked at his bio. He escaped to Mexico and spent most of his life there. He came to El Paso in 2003.
* * *
Olga Bowman talks about how her parents had sensed something bad was happening early on...But as a child, it didn't really register.
Sometimes children can be protected from horrors...at least until the danger is on the doorstep.
* * *
I have been staring at the screen for like 30 minutes, struggling to think of what to say about children being protected from horrors.
I have so many mixed feelings and thoughts....conflicting.
Privileged children growing up overprotected and going through life blind to injustices.
And then...
Children with selfish, inappropriate parents who push their kids to see things that they don't need to see.
Yeah.
Well...I wanted to be like: I stared at the screen for like 30 minutes and then came up with something absolutely brilliant.
But I'm stuck.
Let's just move on.
* * *
I'll just say:
For all children: I hope they have very many carefree days.
Or....
Fun days at least.
* * *
Too many children don't have enough carefree days.
* * *
I don't mean literally "carefree" days.
But days with Brady Bunch level problems vs. Game of Thrones or The Walking Dead level ones.
* * *
Thelma Krugman talks about her parents trying to hide the scary things from them...but the kids would overhear a bit here and there.
I think I've heard some experts saying that parents should be direct with kids...and that it's scarier for it to be kept in little whispers...like kids will sense something is wrong.
I think those experts are right to some degree.
But I also think that parents don't need to make it a point to overburden their kids.
You know...probably the most important rule is simply to not gaslight one's children.
If the child happily sticks their head in the sand...and can easily maintain that position, let them.
But if the child notices something is wrong and asks questions, try not to lie.
Downplaying is one thing...sometimes maybe appropriate.
But anything that leads the child to falsely believe they are being oversensitive, imagining things, overreacting, mishearing things, going crazy, etc.
That's not okay.
* * *
Basically:
Lies of omission: Often a good parenting choice.
Gaslighting: Very often, a very bad parenting choice.
* * *
Tibor Schaechner, who was married to the first El Paso Holocaust survivor listed on the website, talks about how, during the pre-war days, there was less antisemitism in the big cities. He lived in Budapest.
It seems maybe like a universal phenomenon that big cities have less bigotry and discrimination. Or at least, it's easier for a variety of types of people to fit in.
He also talks about how they lived comfortable lives and were assimilated. And that made the horrors more unbelievable.
I think the more privileged our lives are, the harder it is to imagine horrors could happen to us.
Even now...I am an adult who reads the news, reads sad tragic books, writes blog posts about depressing things, posts all kinds of political and social justice stuff on social media.
Yet it has only been very recently that it truly sunk in that one day it might be someone from MY family that is killed in a mass shooting. Or one day, it might be us trapped in a burning house.
That being said...I have often had horrible imaginings of very tragic things happening to my family-choking, car accidents, suicide, drownings, kidnappings.
Why do some things seem very threatening and add so much anxiety to my life? While other things seem like it can only happen to OTHER people?
Is there a metaphysical reason? Like a part of us knows how we're going to die and how we're going to lose those we love?
OR is it the opposite? Maybe we're put under a spell to make us NOT fear the things that are going to end up kicking us off the island. That seems more likely since we so often hear people say that they never expected it to happen to them.
Maybe someone should do a study on this. Survey people and ask them about their biggest traumas and tragedies....and then ask if these tragedies matched what they had previously most worried about.
What is more common?
My worst nightmare (biggest fear) came true.
OR
I never imagined it could happen to us.
Read my novel: The Dead are Online
