5 Holocaust Inquiries

German History

Max P. Quayle

5 Inquiries into the Holocaust 1. What factors in Jewish history made this minority particularly susceptible to persecution in Europe and Germany? Throughout all recorded history since Father Abraham laid claim to the land called Canaan, Israelites, Jews, Semites, and Hebrews have been persecuted, conquered, enslaved and displaced. It is a tribute to both their physical attributes, and their obdurate, indefatigable wills that they still exist at all. There is within the holistic Jew - be it the mind, character or constitution of blood something of a tendency toward acceptance when they deem that the time has come for them to suffer. I do not declare them masochistic, nor are they unable to resist. They are simply able to gauge, very accurately when a time has come to submit to a force, or foe arrayed against them. In Jerusalem, the righteousness of their King was perhaps the metric, and as David and Solomon fell, so too did that great city not long after. In Egypt, Pharaoh decreed the time of suffering, and all but once they bore it. Finally, in modern history, an exodus has occurred in small or large cases at least every century: Previous to the force of Holocaust, Russian Jews were rudely displaced in the latter 19th century. Before that, European history is full of anti-Semitic laws, controls and violence. To say that these events have contributed to an evolutionary readiness for persecution and suffering alone would be a stretch. Factor in the oral tradition and written histories which are shared and reviewed in a systematic way among families and close knit groups in solidarity, and I

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German History

Max P. Quayle

propose a strong case that the experiences of the Jewish nation, as long as someone lived to tell the tale, have had a decisive and abiding influence on their modern composition. To the European Jews, tightly held tradition kept history alive in their outlook and was certainly influential in decision making. Many expelled Russian Jews carried tales and experiences of bitter persecution on their westward journey to Europe. Once resettled in Germany, Poland and other regions around, I suggest they were actually quite unsettled and, unsure as to their future. This is a feeling prerequisite to Judaism. Another aspect of the Jewish people is their hardy willingness to make the best of their current situation, however bleak. Looking to the very nature of their historical emigrations, it is safe to say that they were willing to reap when the wheat was high, and sow on any land from which they could cull. By their thrifty and fiscally prudent nature, any civilization in the 20th century came replete with the perfect niche for an intelligent, hardworking Jew. Having thus immersed them selves into the economies and cultures of the German provinces and surrounding countries, they found a relative comfort and had, in large measure, begun to succeed. Thus, the cycle of success, persecution and subsequent displacement surely became apparent within the close knit groups of European Jews. Therefore, I suggest that susceptibility in Germany and Europe was not especially particular: When a non-warlike and systematically maltreated people are true to their heritage, they surely live in anxious expectation of the next disruption, dislocation or, in the case of the 20th century, mass evacuation. Their very existence of the modern Jew is one of patented, possibly relegated, susceptibility. 2

German History

Max P. Quayle

2. True or false: Peculiarities in German nationalism and unification are, at least in part, to blame for the Holocaust. Unique traits cultivated and nourished in the peoples of post Prussian Germany included a profound respect for authority, a palpable confidence in the expertise of their work force and a refined, indulgent love of good beer. To set these forth as partial causes of the most brutal and offensive annihilation of a people ever known would be similar to suggesting that the oddly surreal phrase “Manifest Destiny” accurately reflects the attitude of early American Patriots toward the Native Inhabitants of this American continent. Ergo, absolutely. It is the very peculiarities in groups of people that have often been exaggerated to foment war and human cruelty one to one another throughout history. Specifically, the German peculiarities and personal honor in connection with nationalistic pride, truly prepared the German mind for acceptance of atrocity. Not in the civilian ranks as thoroughly as within the military, police and civil/political autocracy; but prevalent nonetheless. A careful study of this process of nationalistic hubris can be gleaned from the dueling essays: Ordinary Men, by C. R. Browning, and Hitler’s Willing Executioners by D. J. Goldhagen1. In these treatises I have found two views of the different necessary components of the same process: The mental functions that need to be executed, and coping with the severe stresses inherent to them, lay bare the intimate and personal degradative journey from civil peace officer to cold, efficient killer. A similar, as fascinating exposé could be drawn, contrasting the waysa children in a schoolyard react to a fight among their peers, versus the accepted rules they might be able to quote, concerning proper behavior necessary to avoid such brawls. The ring still forms, the chant 1

Niewyck, D.L. The Holocaust, pp. 76-103; Houghton Mifflin, New York: 2003

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German History

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of “Fight, fight!” still echoes, and the very behaviors that will surely lead to a rapid de-escalation (by virtue of attention drawing) of the strangely exciting scene are employed knee jerk by your children and mine. I have tried to establish a ‘partial’ responsibility for the Holocaust as it applies to the essential German political Nationalist. What is left to show is the extent to which this somewhat ‘blind faith’ in policies, contributed to the acts of violence: Culture develops around people who are pursuing survival, and are refining preferences in both the mundane and exciting conditions of normal life. For example, any time an authority suggests to me to do a certain thing for the betterment of my city; I perform lightening fast calculations to determine what the impact will be on me, personally. Then, I consider what the greater good may be. If I am convinced that the requestor is competent in his field, and honorable in his ways I don’t usually require a step by step justification of the proposal – I can at that point simply support or dismiss; all this before even talking with family or friends and neighbors. Imagine the German propaganda machine at its height, having already made its fundamental case to the vast majority of the citizen of the Reich. It would take a pretty shocking rebuttal of wide acceptability to reverse so many carefully prepared minds. Excepting the word ‘blame’, and affixing ‘responsible’, or ‘answerable’ might help to personalize the extent of this national characteristics’ involvement.

3. Karl Schleunes has described the path leading to the Holocaust as “Twisted.” What does he mean by this? 4

German History

Max P. Quayle

I take his nomenclature to be particularly apt as a description of the nonchalance surrounding the numbing, desensitization that each individual human being had to pass through who was associated in any way with the inhuman treatment of prisoners, and evacuees. No sane individual can make the journey from coexistence and toleration to complete rejection and ferocious hate with out setting foot on a number of distinct and separate paths. Anti-Semitism alone will not be responsible. Jealousy and envy cannot foment with completeness. Sub human categorization cannot suddenly replace relative equality, or tolerance. Abandonment of human decency is not a rapid, easy shift. Each of these paths requires some passage, and time, before the ultimate goal is reached. Incident to the Holocaust were many simultaneous reductions in the way the Jew was portrayed, publicly described, and even privately handled, which served to remediate feelings of doubt. A hike into a deep canyon, by necessity, requires many twists and turns; so also, does the descent into genocide. If the party were to simply race toward the bottom, the result would be disaster, and failure. But as the group carefully picks the paths that seem to lead down steadily, some very perilous sections can be either wittily navigated through or skipped altogether; the travelers opting instead for another way. Critical also, to the holocaust, was the possibility and application of having some go down one path and others travel on another, thereby systematically avoiding the requirement that all participants experience all degrees of the descent. In lieu of the horrors of this massacre, a metaphor may not serve the memory of the deceased appropriately; however, there is something to be said for the path of least resistance: The trail that gets there the 5

German History

Max P. Quayle

easiest is rarely the hardest or the straightest – It is twisted, convoluted and in this case, intimately corrupted. ‘Twisted’, as a descriptive article, is full of potential clarification as it applies to the road to systematic murder and the burning of all evidence. The human mind cannot process the whole Holocaust; it must be taken in little by little, a portion at a time. Such too, is the mental trip that accompanied the perpetrators of this madness: Logic, reason, and human sensibilities all needed to be skewed, bent and inverted – a process which would be unique to each participant, and could not be categorically simplified for all – and this would take some time. A contrasting metaphor can compare each individual’s personal and unique excursion into the acceptance of Buddhism, Mormonism, or Pacifism to the journey taken by those mentioned above: Though vastly differing objectives are therein sought, the course of each man or woman is perfectly personal and rests its appeal in a broad range of myriad attractions. Comparatively, as a ‘sudden’ Christian might arouse skepticism among the faithful, so too might an instantly bloodthirsty Nazi; each extreme would be observed for a time before being welcomed into the throng, and believed. Like the piles of distorted and mangled corpses that greeted the Russian forces as they liberated Poland, so too must a twisted and demented heap of lacerated and bleeding thoughts accompany a journey within a healthy, compassionate mind through the wrench-ing debasement and inhuman processes necessary to ally itself with a force purposed to eradicate an entire race.

4. When did the “Holocaust” proper begin? 6

German History

Max P. Quayle

“Holocaust: that which is offered up; it signifies a burnt offering offered whole unto the Lord.”2 Rather than hold to this definition, I refer to it only to divide the Jewish case from other inhuman massacres, including the Turkish-Armenian massacre to which this definitions’ sources point as an etymological root. Burning, as a component is key, but, the whole idea of an offering prepared for and offered whole to the Lord would serve to sanctify the killings as ritual, when they were, in the case of Nazi Germany, depraved and devoid of any consistent religious context. In the course of the Second World War, the stage of battle might be compared to an amphitheater which is so large, that its opposing ends lie far enough beyond the horizon of the earth’s sphere, that all components and players on the field cannot possibly be viewed from one perspective, simultaneously. For the purpose of scope I will not propose a date or an act as the beginning of the Holocaust, but will portray events which are indicative of myriad Holocausts along the entire breadth of the era. Any where, and every where in the theater of WWII, when any human was placed into bondage, deprived of self defense and murdered by any means, and then as an act of desecration, or simply for purpose of hiding evidence, their remains were burned; this person I identify as a victim of the Holocaust. The necessity of burning cannot be corralled with all other methods of disposal, because of the simple fact that at the end of the process, there is no evidence strong enough to convict the perpetrator. The atrocities of the Holocaust are specifically those crimes committed for which no physical evidence remains to launch a charge or to try an alleged murderer. The secret cowardice of this erasure of the existence of human beings sets the tone of 2

Petrie, J. Etymology of the word Holocaust (www.fpp.co.uk/Auschwitz/docs/Holocaust) accessed 3/19/08

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German History

Max P. Quayle

the Holocausts’ horror. Buried corpses can be unearthed, identified or at least interred again, with dignity; scattered ashes cannot. Man has no right to destroy utterly that which he did not, nor can create. And had women participated in the executions I might have to rethink this condition, but as it stands, the closest Nazi women got to the ovens were these three: herta bothe, ilse koch, irma grese3, not intending to be trite, I will not dignify these three names with common capitalization. They are the exceptions to my masculine definition and though the mutated minds that drove their actions were likely lunatic, I would that they might reside in everlasting ignominy. The massive, highly efficient ovens which ended up burning the Jews and others stand at the center of my argument, with isolated arsons, pit fires and corpse scorching included as individual, very personal Holocausts.

5. What motivated the killers in the “mobile killing squads” to kill Jews?

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Mesna, Angela: http://www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty/marcuse/classes/33d/projects/naziwomen/NaziWomenMainPage.htm Date created: December 8, 2003, modified 12/21/03, comments added 1/20/04, 4/14/04, 4/23/04

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German History

Max P. Quayle

Here is a question of pride. I am a dedicated employee, I will go to profound lengths in my field, to see that my dedication and loyalty is above reproach. My desire in holding myself to this standard is not for the company’s profit, but for my own outstanding profile as an individual contributor. My pride impels me to be better than others, and I thrive on the challenges associated with honestly besting an equal, or peer. In the death squads, I am confident that morale was kept strong by sheer immorality. I imagine beautiful young Jews and gypsies were summarily raped, merchants robbed, and children unmentionably mistreated. I envision these squads as groups of mid-level SS men, periodically bolstered with a new recruits, each basically killing time trying to out do each other within the unit, through atrocity and degradation. Due to the incessant documentation and communication on the front, rival units likely competed as well. Immersion in such ‘games’ might have served to distance the cold, bare fact of what they were doing, from the emotional trauma it should normally invite. Let us consider the systematized and calculating German mind. I can name six categories in which I would prefer a German brand name, or idea: Folding chairs, meat shears, cars, chocolate, audio speakers and, of course, in historical instruction. The German mind is geared to encapsulate the finer details. And it captures efficiency, function and precision in all that it creates. Perhaps the tendency to follow authority near blindly, and to submit unilaterally to nationalist agendas, serves to free up the human mind to apply itself more diligently in the spheres where it can make a difference.

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German History

Max P. Quayle

In America, we are taught: “One shot was heard around the world, one vote counts, one man can make the difference.” Perhaps the German creature is of another sort, perhaps he is uninterested in, even irritated by, the absence of authority dictating process and control; perhaps he is a dangerous evolutionary genetic pool dweller who waits on the fringe of humanity for the opportunity to be efficient and perfect and best, in the area of his expertise. I have this trait, though I cannot imagine its application to something as obscene as stark, calculated murder. Orders, dedication to duty, and sickening indifference provided ample motive for the Death Squads’ revolting cast of cowards.

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