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Foreword
- University of Wisconsin Press
- Chapter
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Foreword The memory of the Holocaust is, above all, the memory of murdered people. The terrible abyss of evil that destroyed millions of lives during the last world war provokes a sense of shock and disbelief that cannot be expressed in words. We must consider how such atrocities could have been possible. It is a most difficult task for Jews because they are still mourning— and will indeed always mourn—their millions of murdered relatives. The fate of Jews in German-occupied Europe was decided in January 1942 at the Wannsee Conference in Berlin, where the Third Reich made its decision regarding “the final solution to the Jewish question.” However, the Germans disguised their intentions to murder all of Europe’s Jewish inhabitants. In the history of civilization, there has never been such a methodical plan of mass killing and looting, bringing to bear the enormous forces of human and industrial procedures in an effort to murder. Hitler’s propaganda first deprived Jews of their humanity, equating them with vermin. These Jews were then isolated and terrorized in the centers of mass destruction, murdered in ways that beggar description. As a result, German Nazism led to an outcome that few could have even imagined: the destruction of Jewish civilization throughout a significant part of Europe. In view of this inconceivable tragedy, we should remember with all the more admiration those Jews who successfully fought against their ix Translated from the Polish original and used by permission of W¬adys¬aw Bartoszewski and Wydawnictwo Nasza Ksi™garnia. tormentors, the Germans and their collaborators. Each Jew was, from the perspective of the German occupiers, a being who deserved to be destroyed . A Jew who encountered a German soldier or policeman met not only his mortal enemy in war but also someone who believed that Jews did not have the right to life. But how can people maintain their will to live when they sense that their deaths are imminent? When we speak of the Jewish resistance movement in the death camps, we should keep in mind that these camps, by definition, prevented any opportunity to confront the Germans. Revolts that occurred in the camps in Treblinka, Sobibór, and Auschwitz-Birkenau are further proof that Jews showed their murderers that one cannot destroy their humanity. The fact that a few prisoners managed to survive was extremely important. It meant that the Holocaust would be a crime that could not be forgotten. Philip “Fiszel” Bialowitz, a former prisoner at the Sobibór extermination camp, has written of his personal history of struggle. He has described how a group of several hundred Jews decided to avenge the deaths of their relatives, friends, and other victims, and of how Sobibór was the scene of an unprecedented event: a dramatic escape of prisoners en masse. He wrote this book out of his wish to fulfill the mission entrusted to him at Sobibór on October 14, 1943. There, seconds before the prisoner uprising began, the revolt leaders—a rabbi’s son from •ó¬kiewka named Leon Feldhendler and a Soviet Army soldier named Sasha Pechersky—called out to their fellow prisoners: “If you survive, bear witness to what happened here! Tell the world about this place!” For many years, Philip Bialowitz has been testifying about what he witnessed to the many of us who wish to learn. He speaks at synagogues, churches, universities, schools, and museums around the world. His message is not only a shocking description of the fate of humankind or a cry of despair for the millions of innocent victims but also—and above all— a clarion call that never again in human history can we allow hatred and indifference to create such tragedy. Philip Bialowitz is an extremely strong voice of humanity’s conscience. He recognizes that today’s world contains new “Holocausts,” and he points to them and condemns them. More than six decades after the revolt at Sobibór, readers now have in their hands a x Foreword [3.235.227.36] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 16:24 GMT) very significant book that is a unique testimony of truth about history’s darkest moment. W B Secretary of State, Republic of Poland Plenipotentiary of the Council of Ministers on International Dialogue and Affairs Member of the Righteous among the Nations Honorary Citizen of the State of Israel xi Foreword ...