Germany - 1939 (II)In October of 1939, Hitler authorized certain physicians to kill people thought to be "unworthy of life." Such unworthies would include mentally and physically disabled Germans and Austrians, children as well as adults. The Third Reich considered such people defectives and thus a blight on German racial purity.
The paper work authorizing this program was signed in October of 1939, but was backdated to September 1 (when the war began) to give the impression these "mercy killings" were a necessity of wartime.
The program was known as Operation T-4. Initially, seventy to eighty thousand people (including about 4-5 thousand Jews) were murdered under Operation T-4.
There were public protests, even though the Nazis tried to hide the program. Catholic and Lutheran leaders in Germany made enough noise so that Hitler "officially" stopped the killings on August 24, 1941. Actually, they continued in greater secrecy until 1945. Altogether between 200,000 and 250,000 disabled people were murdered.
Methods used to kill people included starvation and lethal injection at first, but these were too slow. Doctors and nurses working at the euthanasia centers finally opted for gassing with carbon monoxide in rooms designed to look like tiled showers. "After gold teeth were harvested, the corpses were burned in crematoria."
The photo above shows a Jewish woman suffering from starvation.
* August 2 - Albert Einstein writes to President Roosevelt sharing his concern that the Germans may be first to develop an atomic bomb.
* August 17 - The Reich Ministry of the Interior publishes a list of names Jews can give to their children.
* August 19 - The Jewish refugee ship, Rim, headed for Palestine, runs aground and burns at Rhodes, Italy.
* August 22 - Hitler tells his generals he wants the Poles liquidated to provide "living space" for Germans.
* August 23 - The German-Soviet Non-Agression Pact is signed.
* August 25 - Great Britain promises, via the Anglo-Polish Alliance, to assist Poland in the event Poland is attacked. [Great Britain does not live up to that promise.]
* August 27 - The German economy is set up for wartime. Ration cards are given to Jews which allow for a starvation diet of 200 to 300 calories per day.
* September 1 - World War II begins as the Nazis run rampant over western Poland. About 3,000 Jewish civilians die in the bombing of Warsaw, and 5,000 Jews are trapped by the Nazis in Danzig. Laws are passed for Poland and Austria that forbid Jews to be outside after 8 pm in the winter and 9 pm in the summer.
* September 1 - October 25, 1939 - Mobile killers called the SS Einsatzgruppen, carry out Operation Tannenberg. Many Polish Jews are murdered along with Catholic intellectuals. Synagogues are burned throughout Poland.
* 1400 Jews escaping from Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia land on a Tel Aviv beach. British soldiers open fire and kill two refugees.
* September 3 - France and England declare war on Germany. The British cancel all visas that had been given to "enemy nationals." The practical effect of that is the Jews can no longer immigrate to England.
David Ben-Gurion and the Jewish Agency Executive, more or less the Jewish government of Palestine, vow that Jews will fight Hitler. Over one and a half million Jews will end up in the military forces of those countries at war with Germany. About 555,000 Jews will serve in the United States armed forces.
September 6 - 17 - Much of the rest of Poland is overrun by the Nazis.
September 21 - SS Security Service chief, Reinhard Heydrich orders the SS to establish Jewish ghettos in German-occupied Poland. The purpose is to gather Jews in urban areas near railroads so they can be transported to concentration camps.
September 23 - Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement. Throughout Poland, Jews are abased and humiliated by SS troops. They are conscripted for hard labor, beards are shaved, property is destroyed, Jews are beaten and forced to dance for the troopers.
In Piotrkow, Poland, Jews are made to relieve themselves in the synagogue school and then use prayer shawls and holy books to clean up the mess.
* September 24 - Jewish POWS are held for ten days with food, and forced to clean latrines with their bare hands at Zyardow Stadium.
* September 27 - Warsaw falls. Jewish ghettos are set up. Inmates at Dachau are moved so that the Waffen-SS can use Dachau as a training ground.
* September 28 - Poland surrenders. The country is split between Germany and the Soviet Union. At the start of the Jewish festival of Sukkot, the SS deports over 6,000 Jews from Pultusk, Poland.
* October 1939 - Jews in Vienna, Austria are deported to Poland to be used as laborers.
* October 1 - The Polish government-in-exile is established in France, but will later move to London.
* October 6 - Speaking to the Reichstag, Hitler says he will grant peace to England and France if Germany's former colonies are returned, if Germany can again trade on world markets, and if Germany is allowed to solve the "Jewish problem."
Germany - 1939 (III) tomorrow.
1 comment:
The world sat by and watched but did little to stop or even object loudly. Perhaps it was that the victims were Jews and other “undesirables” like Poles, Gypsies, homosexuals, liberals and other label bearing sub humans. The shame of ignoring evil is often repeated. We even have those that refuse to accept that it happened. One must wonder at their reasons. It keeps happening even though some of the labels change periodically, except for the Jews. They seem to remain on top as victims. One must wonder why?
Bob Poris
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