Folkemord og etnisk udrensning

Tragedy is a complex puzzle of historical events leading to the final finally of what the truth is from the cause of terror. Through the pages you will witness the pain, sorrow, joy from the people who have survived to the loss of those who have given up hope caused from the crush of terror to the loss of humanity. Recognizing history will once again repeat itself. Tragedies are the signs if life.

In a bunker deep below Berlin's Old Reich Chancellery, Adolf Hitler and his new bride, Eva Braun, took their own lives just after 3:00 p.m. on April 30, 1945-Hitler by gunshot to the temple, Braun by ingesting cyanide. But the Führer's suicide did not instantly end either Nazism or the Second World War in Europe. Far from it: the eight days that followed were among the most traumatic in modern history, witnessing not only the final paroxysms of bloodshed and the frantic surrender of the Wehrmacht, but the total disintegration of the once-mighty Third Reich.In Eight Days in May, the award-winning historian and Hitler biographer Volker Ullrich draws on an astonishing variety of sources, including diaries and letters of ordinary Germans, to narrate a society's descent into Hobbesian chaos. In the town of Demmin in the north, residents succumbed to madness and committed mass suicide. In Berlin, Soviet soldiers raped German civilians on a near-unprecedented scale. In Nazi-occupied Prague, Czech insurgents led an uprising in the hope that General George S. Patton would come to their aid but were brutally put down by German units in the city. Throughout the remains of Third Reich, huge numbers of people were on the move, creating a surrealistic tableau: death marches of concentration-camp inmates crossed paths with retreating Wehrmacht soldiers and groups of refugees; columns of POWs encountered those of liberated slave laborers and bombed-out people returning home.A taut, propulsive narrative, Eight Days in May takes us inside the phantomlike regime of Hitler's chosen successor, Admiral Karl Dönitz, revealing how the desperate attempt to impose order utterly failed, as frontline soldiers deserted and Nazi Party fanatics called on German civilians to martyr themselves in a last stand against encroaching Allied forces. In truth, however, the post-Hitler government represented continuity more than change: its leaders categorically refused to take responsibility for their crimes against humanity, an attitude typical not just of the Nazi elite but also of large segments of the German populace. The consequences would be severe. Eight Days in May is not only an indispensable account of the Nazi endgame, but a historic work that brilliantly examines the costs of mass delusion.

Disentangling a controversial history of turmoil and progress, this Handbook provides essential guidance through the complex past of a region that was previously known as the Balkans but is now better known as Southeastern Europe. It gathers 47 international scholars and researchers from the region.

History, Trauma and Shame provides an in-depth examination of the sustained dialogue about the past between children of Holocaust survivors and descendants of families whose parents were either directly or indirectly involved in Nazi crimes.

Die sozialistischen Staaten des östlichen Europas beobachteten die seit Ende der 1940er Jahre in der Bundesrepublik entstandenen Vertriebenenverbände und ihre politischen Aktivitäten aufmerksam und misstrauisch. Der Band nimmt erstmalig diese ,Feind- und Fremdbeobachtung' durch die Nachrichtendienste anhand verschiedener Fallbeispiele aus der DDR, Polen, der Tschechoslowakei, Ungarn, Rumänien und Jugoslawien in den Blick. Es wird untersucht, was die Geheimdienste über die Vertriebenenfunktionäre und ihre Vergangenheit wussten, und danach gefragt, wozu und wie diese Informationen gesammelt und genutzt wurden. Daneben geht es auch um die Rolle der in den sozialistischen Staaten verbliebenen Deutschen und der Aussiedler, die in die BRD kamen und ein Bindeglied zwischen Vertriebenen und ,alter Heimat' darstellten. Der Band leistet so einen wichtigen Beitrag zur Erforschung der Wahrnehmung der Vertriebenenverbände in den sozialistischen Staaten, zur Arbeit der Sicherheitsdienste sowie zu den bilateralen Kontakten im ,Kalten Krieg'.

The Göttingen-based Sartorius family business during the Third Reich - an exemplary case of economic normality and adaptation to the regime.Established in 1870 by Florenz Sartorius as a precision mechanical workshop, the Sartorius Group today is a leading partner for biopharmaceutical research and the industry. The roots of the company's two current divisions can be traced back to the firm's early years, specifically the founding of the membrane filter company (Membranfilter-Gesellschaft m.b.H) in 1927. For the first time, Manfred Grieger examines the activities Sartorius and its entrepreneurs engaged in during the Nazi era. He reveals the relationship between the company and the government, as well as the actions of the leading players of the family-run business during the Nazi regime. In doing so, he also focuses on the question of succession within the family of entrepreneurs since the transition from the second to the third generation falls within this period.The author explores the changing role of the company in the wartime economy, the decline in civil-sector production and the increasing importance of manufacturing finished products at Sartorius for the armaments industry, as well as the employment of forced laborers. Moreover, he examines which influence the firm's key decisionmakers had on this development. Manfred Grieger also addresses the denazification process at management level, which sheds an exemplary light on the individual coming to terms with the past of economic elites, who experienced their own economic miracle in the Federal Republic of Germany.

Eines der wesentlichen Themen der Holocaust-Forschung ist die Frage nach dem Wissen der Zeitgenossen um die Verfolgung der Juden. Heinrich Wildner (1879-1957) - das zeigen seine Tagebücher der Jahre 1938 bis 1944 - wusste sehr viel. Der kaltgestellte, aber immer noch gut vernetzte ehemalige Spitzendiplomat liefert detaillierte Angaben zu Geschehnissen in Wien, zu Kriegs- und Frontereignissen, zum Verhalten vieler seiner ehemaligen Kollegen und Zeitgenossen aus Verwaltung und Politik, zu Gerüchten, zu Witzen, die im Umlauf waren. Auch die rasch eingetretene antideutschen Stimmung der Bevölkerung kommentierte er. Durchgängig finden sich Hinweise auf nationalsozialistischen Gräueltaten, auf Entrechtung, Verfolgung und Ermordung der jüdischen Bevölkerung in Österreich und in den besetzten Gebieten, auf die Enteignung von Klöstern und Großgrundbesitz von Adeligen, auf Kunstraub, Euthanasie, Zwangsarbeiter und Kriegsverbrechen.Die Texte zeigen von den Inhalten und Formulierungen her eine erschreckende Parallelität zum aktuellen Krieg in der Ukraine. Am 3. September 1939 gibt es den Eintrag: "Übrigens ein merkwürdiger Krieg, er wird gar nicht Krieg genannt, sondern Gewaltanwendung, die der Gewalt entgegengesetzt wird."

Eine zweifache Überlebensgeschichte.Im Alter von acht Jahren wurde Shaul Ladany 1944 mit seiner Familie aus Ungarn in das KZ Bergen-Belsen deportiert, konnte aber als Mitglied der sog. »Kasztner-Gruppe« in die Schweiz ausreisen. Später wanderte er nach Israel aus und wurde ein bekannter Wissenschaftler und Sportler. Als Geher nahm er an den Olympischen Spielen in München teil und überlebte den Anschlag der palästinensischen Terrorgruppe auf die israelische Mannschaft am 5. September 1972.Im Begleitband zur Ausstellung »Lebensläufe. Verfolgung und Überleben im Spiegel der Sammlung von Shaul Ladany« werden zahlreiche Originaldokumente zur Verfolgung im Nationalsozialismus präsentiert, ergänzt um Informationen zur deutschen Besatzungsherrschaft in Serbien und Ungarn sowie zum Neuanfang der Überlebenden im Staat Israel.Auch der antisemitisch begründete Anschlag bei den Olympischen Spielen 1972 wird anhand von Quellen dargestellt.Die pädagogische Handreichung bietet die Möglichkeit zur Auseinandersetzung mit Kontinuitätslinien des Antisemitismus durch die Kontextualisierung des Schicksals von Shaul Ladany. Das Material, teilweise bestehend aus perforierten, heraustrennbaren Seiten, ist ab SEK. II einsetzbar. Es enthält neben historischem Quellenmaterial didaktische Empfehlungen.Die Bände erscheinen zweisprachig in Deutsch und Englisch.

Up to 1939, when Poland came under German domination, it was the center of the European Jewish world, filled with a large Jewish population that had lived on Polish soil for over nine centuries, and developed a vibrant self-sustaining social and religious community culture. During the German occupation of World War II, close to 3 million Polish Jews were exterminated. Poland was where the Nazis established most of their ghettos and all death camps. It was where the railroad tracks converged, bringing hundreds of thousand Jews from the remotest corners of Europe to feed the Nazi death machine. Thousands of Poles risked their lives to save Jews by mostly sheltering them, while most others were passive onlookers, fearful for their lives to get involved, and too many others collaborated with the hated enemy in eliminating Jews. Mordecai Paldiel, a historian of the Holocaust, examines the important role Jews played in Poland in the years before Germans occupied the country. He also examines the antisemitism that existed in Poland before the Nazis arrived. Just as important, he highlights the various responses of Poles as witnesses of the German extermination of Jews, including the thousands who, in spite of the dangers to themselves, did their utmost to save Jews from the German-orchestrated Holocaust.

"[1944 Diary] is a deeply personal account, made even more remarkable that it was written during World War II and the horrors of the Holocaust . . . A moving and fascinating read." -Library JournalIn 2010, Farrar, Straus and Giroux published two novels by the German-Jewish writer Hans Keilson: Comedy in a Minor Key-written in 1944 while Keilson was in hiding in the Netherlands, first published in German in 1947, and never before in English-and The Death of the Adversary, begun in 1944 and published in 1959, also in German. With their Chekhovian sympathy for perpetrators and bystanders as well as for victims and resisters, Keilson's novels were, as Francine Prose said on the front page of The New York Times Book Review, "masterpieces" by "a genius" on her list of "the world's very greatest writers." Keilson was one hundred years old, alive and well and able to enjoy his belated fame.1944 Diary, rediscovered among Keilson's papers shortly after his death, covers nine months he spent in hiding in Delft with members of a Dutch resistance group, having an affair with a younger Jewish woman in hiding a few blocks away and striving to make a moral and artistic life for himself as the war and the Holocaust raged around him. For readers familiar with Keilson's novels as well as those new to his work, this diary is an incomparable spiritual X-ray of the mind and heart behind the art: a record of survival and creativity in what Keilson called "the most critical year of my life."Offering further insight into Keilson are the sonnets he wrote for his lover, Hanna Sanders, which appear in translation at the back of this volume.

It is Easter Sunday, April 1945, early in the morning, maybe just dawn. We stand still, like frozen grey statues. Us. Seven hundred and thirty women, wrapped in wet, grey, threadbare blankets, standing in the rain. Our blankets hang over our heads, drape down to the soil. We hold them closed with our hands from the inside, leaving only a small opening to peer out, so that we save the precious warmth of our breath. So begins the author s sojourn, her search for freedom that begins with the chaotic barrenness in which she found herself after her liberation on Easter Sunday, April 1945, and takes her across several continents and half a lifetime. Raab paints a brief yet moving picture of her idyllic life before her internment and the shock and the horrors of Auschwitz, but it is in the images of life after her liberation, that Raab imparts her most poignant story a story told in a clear, almost sparse, always honest style, a story of the brutal, and, at times, the beautiful facts of human nature. This book will appeal to a number of audiences to readers interested in human nature under the most trying circumstances, to historians of World War II or Jewish history, to veterans and their families who lived through World War II, and to those interested in politics and the evils of political extremism.

An inspiring true story of hope and survival, this is the testimony of a boy who was imprisoned in Auschwitz, Gross-Rosen and Buchenwald and recorded his experiences through words and color drawings.In June 1943, after long years of hardship and persecution, thirteen-year-old Thomas Geve and his mother were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Separated upon arrival, he was left to fend for himself in the men's camp of Auschwitz I.During 22 harsh months in three camps, Thomas experienced and witnessed the cruel and inhumane world of Nazi concentration and death camps. Nonetheless, he never gave up the will to live. Miraculously, he survived and was liberated from Buchenwald at the age of fifteen.While still in the camp and too weak to leave, Thomas felt a compelling need to document it all, and drew over eighty drawings, all portrayed in simple yet poignant detail with extraordinary accuracy. He not only shared the infamous scenes, but also the day-to-day events of life in the camps, alongside inmates' manifestations of humanity, support and friendship.To honor his lost friends and the millions of silenced victims of the Holocaust, in the years following the war, Thomas put his story into words. Despite the evil of the camps, his account provides a striking affirmation of life.The Boy Who Drew Auschwitz, accompanied with 56 of his color illustrations, is the unique testimony of young Thomas and his quest for a brighter tomorrow.

How does a secular, non-practising Jew who has lived most of her life outside the Jewish community suddenly find herself in the front rows of a Nazi war crimes tribunal?In 2015, the award-winning writer Judith Kalman was invited to Lüneburg to testify at the trial of Oskar Gröning, accused of facilitating 300,000 murders at Auschwitz. She appeared on behalf of a relative she had never met, a child of her father’s first marriage, who died in the camp.Kalman not only found herself in the unaccustomed company of survivors who had built their identities and missions out of Holocaust remembrance, but grappling with profound questions of loss, guilt, and restitution. For the first time in her life, she was forced to confront her parents’ tragic past, and how it had confounded her own sense of who she wanted to be: “Broken friendships, missed expectations, difficult family relationships, and a problematic marriage were all forged in the heritage of loss.”Called to Testify is a beautiful, thoughtful memoir about the meaning of life in the wake of traumatic events, coming to terms with your identity, and understanding the magnitude of what can never be restored.

When the Nazis came to re-educate the Bride of Christ in the 1930s, they stubbed their toes on Paul Schneider, a faithful pastor in the Rhineland. They silenced his tongue, but not his witness-and Paul Schneider has much to say to us today.

Amid ethnic violence, political corruption, and petty professionalintrigue, an artist tries to live free of lies.Set during the last years of the Soviet Union, StoneDreams tells the story of Azerbaijani actor Sadai Sadygly, who landsin a Baku hospital while trying to protect an elderly Armenian man from a gangof young Azerbaijanis. Something of a modern-day Don Quixote, Sadai has longbattled the hatred and corruption he observes in contemporary Azerbaijanisociety. Wandering in and out of consciousness, he revisits his hometown, theancient village of Aylis, where Christian Armenians and Muslim Azeris oncelived peacefully together, and dreams of making a pilgrimage of atonement toArmenia. Stone Dreams is a searing, painful meditation onthe ability of art and artists-of individual human beings-to make change in theworld.

On May 11, 1942, German military police and local auxiliaries entered Voronova, gathering all Jewish residents in the Market Square. SS Commandant Vindish pronounced the Reichstag's verdict of 1938: all Jews were responsible for the troubles of the German people and of all humanity, and were condemned to death, and now was the time to carry out that verdict. Some 2,300 were massacred that day: while they breathed their last air they were piled into layers, and between layers their executioners spilled chlorine and whitewash for disinfection. Among those brutally buried some were only wounded, covered by the bodies of the next layer, choking underneath them. Some townsfolk hid and joined the Partisans in nearby forests, later exacting revenge against their tormentors. Those who remained as necessary laborers in town were eventually taken to the Lida Ghetto, and finally to Majdanek, where they were killed. Towards the end of the War, some prisoners from Majdenek were returned to Voronova to exhume and burn bodies-- so as to hide evidence of the massacre from the advancing Allied troops.Though there is no more Jewish community of Voronova, it lives in these pages and in our collective memory. -Adam Cherson (Translation Editor)