The Holocaust Journal (Lest We Forget) - Germany 1944 (III)

The concentration camp at Terezin, Czechoslovakia was built to fool the world. Known as Theresienstadt, it was "temporarily beautified" by the Nazis in mid-1944 to fool Red Cross representatives and to make a propaganda film showing the ghetto as "Hitler's gift to the Jews."

In fact, Theresienstadt was always a concentration camp and a transit camp for German and Western European Jews who ended up being deported to Auschwitz. All told, 140,000 Jews were sent to Theresienstadt. More than 33,000 died in camp and approximately 88,000 were deported and murdered. Only 20,000 survived.

Fifteen thousand children were interned at Theresienstadt. One hundred survived the war.

In July 1944, partisan activity increases. Jewish-Polish groups work behind the lines in several areas as the Russian Army approaches from the East. The U.S. Army assigns a Jewish-American, Lt. Col. Murray C. Bernays, to collect evidence of war crimes against American servicemen. Bernays begins to put together a concept of Nazism as a criminal conspiracy which will become a basic strategy for the Nuremberg Trials in 1945-46. Switzerland finally opens its doors to all Jewish refugees who wish to enter the country and are able to do so.

* July 3 - Minsk, Belorussia is captured by the Soviet Army. In England, Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann asks the British War Cabinet to form a Jewish Brigade to fight in the British Army. They would carry a flag with the Star of David.

* July 7 - British PM Winston Churchill says he favors bombing Auschwitz. Between July 7, 1944 to January 19, 1945, the Allies bomb industrial areas near Auschwitz four times. The Auschwitz camp is bombed once, accidentally.

* July 8 - In Hungary, the government informs Berlin it will deport no more Jews from within its borders.

* July 8-13 - About 8000 German soldiers are killed by Soviet troops and Jewish partisans at Vilna.

* July 9 - Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat arranges for Swedish visas for hundreds of Jews. Before it's over, Wallenberg will save many thousands of Jewish lives.

* July 19 - Angelo Roncalli, (later Pope John XXIII) petitions Admiral Horthy for the lives of 5000 Hungarian Jews with Palestinian visas. Later he will provide baptismal certificates for Jews in hiding.

* July 20 - The infamous plot to kill Hitler. While Hitler is injured when the bomb explodes, he is not killed and exacts a horrible revenge. The plotters themselves are hung by wire, a very painful way to die. Another 200 people are executed.

* July 23 - The first death camp is liberated - Majdanek. About 500 inmates are alive. The Nazis abandon the camp with some 1,000 prisoners and attempt to destroy the camp but leave behind many cadavers and standing gas chambers.

* July 25 - Three tankers with over 1600 Jews arrive at Rhodes where 94 more Jews are forced aboard the overloaded ships. Lord Walter Moyne, the British official in the Middle East, finally approves British military training for Jews who are being sent on suicide missions in Occupied Europe. His purpose is thus: "The scheme would remove from Palestine a number of active and resourceful Jews....The chances of many of them returning in the future to give trouble in Palestine seem slight."

* July 30 - The three tankers mentioned above arrive at Piraeus, Greece where the Jews are forced into trucks and driven to the Haidar detention camp near Athens.

During WWII, British policy in Palestine was outlined in the White Paper, published in 1939. This reversed England's support for a Jewish state, set up rigid regulations on land transfers in Palestine, and placed a limit of 75,000 Jewish immigrants over a 5-year period.

British policy was essentially anti-Semitic. During the first two years of the war, Britain blocked escape routes for Jewish refugees. Boats filled with Jews fleeing the Nazis were refused entry into Palestine and returned to their point of origin. British Prime Minister Anthony Eden absolutely refused to use Palestine as a refuge for Jews.

England must claim responsibility (indirectly) for the deaths of tens of thousands of Jews.

To be continued...