Stories from WW2

[Jet]

Raoul Wallenberg
Righteous Among the Nations

To me there's no other choice.
I've accepted this assignment and I could never return
to Stockholm without the knowledge that I'd done everything in human
power to save as many Jews as possible. — Raoul Wallenberg

Being a history buff, I used to watch The History Channel religiously until I noticed that they seemed to air documentaries and footage of Hitler constantly. Finally, I wrote an email to their programming department asking why they felt it necessary to to glorify Adolph Hitler by giving that madman so much air time and very little air time to heroes of the Holocaust, or other topics on WWII for that matter. I wanted to know why they were absorbed with footage of atrocities, and if they were aware that incredible heroism did take place to save thousands of victims of the Holocaust. And then, having the temper and mouth that I have, I wanted to know what neo-Nazi on their staff was making programming decisions in favor of airing Hitler, who wasn't anything to look at anyway. I was hot under the collar because their programming was so tilted and I wanted a more fair and wider range of programming subjects regarding WWII. The gutless wonders never wrote back.

That said, I'd like to post some information about an incredible man named Raoul Wallenberg and links to the Wallenberg foundation and Yad Vashem. Wallenberg is credited for saving 30,000 Hungarian Jews, but it's more around the figure of 100,000, and he considered one of the foremost heroes of WWII.


Raoul Wallenberg (August 4, 1912 – July 17, 1947?) was a Swedish humanitarian who worked in Budapest, Hungary, during World War II to rescue Jews from the Holocaust. Between July and December 1944, he issued protective passports and housed Jews, saving tens of thousands of Jewish lives.

On January 17, 1945, he was arrested in Budapest by the Soviets after they wrested control of the city from the Germans, and was reported to have died in March. The exact circumstances of his death have long been in dispute. In 1957, the Soviets claimed that Wallenberg had actually died of a heart attack in 1947 at the age of 35. There had been reports, however, from prisoners in the same facility, that he was seen alive long past 1947. In 1991, Vyacheslav Nikonov was assigned by the Russian government to find out the truth; he concluded that Wallenberg did indeed die in 1947, executed while a prisoner at Lubyanka.[6] Associated Press reported in April 2010, that newly discovered evidence shows "with great likelihood" that Wallenberg was alive after the date the Soviets claimed he died.

Protective passport made by Wallenberg

Wallenberg has been honored numerous times. He is an honorary citizen of the United States, Canada, Hungary and Israel. Israel has also designated Wallenberg one of the Righteous among the Nations. Monuments have been dedicated to him, and streets have been named after him throughout the world. A Raoul Wallenberg Committee of the United States was created in 1981 to "perpetuate the humanitarian ideals and the nonviolent courage of Raoul Wallenberg" and gives out the Raoul Wallenberg Award to that end.

For more facts on Raoul Wallenberg, please visit:


The Raoul Wallenberg International Foundation
http://www.raoulwallenberg.net/?en/w...graphy.611.htm

Raoul Wallenberg Honored as Righteous Among the Nations, Yad Vashem
http://www1.yadvashem.org/righteous_...allenberg.html

[NJFemmie]

The best-kept secret in the U.S. about the Holocaust is that Poland lost six million citizens or about one-fifth of its population: three million of the dead were Polish Christians, predominantly Catholic, and the other three million were Polish Jews. The second best-kept secret of the Holocaust is the greatest number of Gentile rescuers of Jews were Poles, despite the fact that only in Poland were people (and their loved ones) immediately executed if caught trying to save Jews. The Yad Vashem museum in Israel honors "the Righteous Among the Nations" and Poland ranks first among 40 nations with 5,503 men and women, almost one-third of the total, honored for their "compassion, courage and morality" and who "risked their lives to save the lives of Jews."

Why the Polish Holocaust is rarely recognized by American media and wire services or mentioned in Holocaust literature has baffled Polish Americans and Poles, especially since so many books and articles have been published about the Holocaust.

The historical record clearly indicates that Hitler had a specific master plan for Poles, whom he hated almost as much as he hated Jews. Poles were regarded as Untermenschen or subhumans and their land was slated to provide Germany with Lebensraum (living space). Before the Nazis invaded Poland, Hitler announced, “The destruction of Poland is our primary task.” He also commanded, “Kill without pity or mercy all men, women, and children of Polish descent or language. Only in this way can we obtain the living space we need.” Hitler’s head of secret police, Heinrich Himmler, promised that “all Poles will disappear from the world.”

In the early years, most prisoners at Auschwitz were Poles, not Jews. Of the first 611 people who died at Auschwitz, 591 were Poles and 20 were Jews.

[theoddz]

I think I've posted about this on the other sites, but since this thread specifically addresses stories about WWII, I thought I'd post the story here (again), because I think it's a good little story.

My Pop was 13 years old when WWII broke out in 1941. He born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii, the youngest of 7 children (4 boys, 2 girls), to parents who had immigrated from the Chinese province of Canton, in the southern section of mainland China. Pop was playing in the street, that morning, when he watched the Japanese planes flying low over his house in Kaimuki, on their way to bomb Pearl Harbor. Like most boys of that time, he was fascinated with air planes and enamored with the stories of the famous flyer, Charles Lindbergh. He has always told me that he knew the planes were Japanese because these were flying so low that he could clearly spot the red "meatball" painted on the sides of the planes, and even the faces of some of the pilots. No one had any idea what they were doing, or going to do, until the sounds of explosions rocked the city of Honolulu and thick black smoke began to billow into the sky above Pearl Harbor. Pop said that my grandmother gathered everyone into the basement of the small house and kept them there for all of that day. My Uncle Richard was a civil service pipe fitter at Pearl Harbor during that time, and the family didn't see him for 3 days following the bombing and only knew that he was part of the original response team called to cut open the hulls of capsized Navy ships to rescue the trapped crews.

During the duration of the War, Pop continued his schooling at St. Louis High School and also worked part time at the Dole Pineapple factory, in Honolulu. His entire family had worked at Dole, at one time or another, with the exception of my grandfather, who spoke no English, but was an accountant in a book store. Pop's job in the pineapple factory was to monitor and adjust the temperature of the juice that is packed with canned pineapple. When the War finally ended in 1945, Pop was still working in the Dole factory. Funny, but Pop still says, to this day, that his stint in the pineapple factory gave him the incentive to stick to his studies and get an education so he wouldn't be doomed to that kind of physical labor for the rest of his life!!

On V-J Day (Victory over Japan), August 15, 1945, Pop heard the news of the Japanese surrender on the radio while working his shift at the Dole factory. Back then, the Dole factory in Honolulu had a huge steam whistle on the top of a water tower that could be heard over most of the island of Oahu. Pop asked his supervisor if he could climb up that tower and blow the big steam whistle. His supervisor agreed, and Pop said that one of the most joyful days in his life, to this day, has been the memory of pulling (and dangling on, because Pop was always a skinny kid) on that rope and letting that whistle blow and blow.

A few years ago, Pop gave me a package that was carefully wrapped and preserved in a small cellophaned bundle. It was The Honolulu Star evening edition, dated December 8, 1941, the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed. One of his friends from high school had a part time job at the newspaper back then, and had given this to Pop. He'd kept it all of these years and was now turning it over to me to keep. It's one of my most treasured possessions, to this day, from my Pop.

Pop was never able to join the military because his eyes were so bad. I think that's always been a bit of a disappointment for him throughout his lifetime. He made the best of it, though, and got a wonderful education, along with his PhD. He's never forgotten that day in December, so many years ago. I'll never forget him telling me about it.

Those Americans who lived and fought through WWII really were The Greatest Generation. I don't think the world will ever see anything as grand as that generation.

~Theo~

Oh yes, and Mother was a real life "Rosie the Riveter"!!!

[Jet]

Originally Posted by theoddz

[FONT="Book Antiqua"][SIZE="3"][COLOR="Black"]I

Those Americans who lived and fought through WWII really were The Greatest Generation. I don't think the world will ever see anything as grand as that generation.

~Theo~

You are so right Theo....thanks for a sharing a great story.

[Jet]

Originally Posted by NJFemmie

Why the Polish Holocaust is rarely recognized by American media and wire services or mentioned in Holocaust literature has baffled Polish Americans and Poles, especially since so many books and articles have been published about the Holocaust.

While this may be true, (I say this only because I've heard the contrary) there is an abundant amount of information on the Warsaw ghetto and Hitler's invasion of Poland in 1939.

[NJFemmie]

Originally Posted by Jet

While this may be true, (I say this only because I've heard the contrary) there is an abundant amount of information on the Warsaw ghetto and Hitler's invasion of Poland in 1939.

Yes, there is - and the subject continues to grow (thankfully).
However, most people think Hitler only hated the Jews.

A lot of people did not know that he (and the Soviet Union with their secret pact to divide Poland) hated the Poles (more specifically) just as much and literally wanted them wiped off the face of the earth. He was "afraid" of polish patriotism and the damage that could have caused his "master plan".

Many years ago, I came across this petite Jewish woman in Queens. I don't remember exactly how the subject came up, but she mentioned she was a survivor of the holocaust. I told her that my parents were too, and she immediately replied "Oh, you are Jewish too?" I said no. I told her my parents weren't Jewish, they were Catholic and they were Polish.

Over the years I have encountered quite a number of people who thought that if you weren't Jewish, you were not necessarily targeted by the Nazis. This is so far from the truth. In fact, I have heard some crazy notions about what they thought happened during the war.

[Jet]

I just knew that Hitler was after Jews and any persons deemed "undesirable" and "useless" in his scheme to generate a supreme arian race. That meant disabled, homosexual, elderly and Jews, He also annihilated Russians iby the millions and people forget that. Jews were prosperous, they owned businesses, they were educated, non-arian, and they maintained status and wealth during a depression in Germany. NJFemmie, and everyone thanks for contributing to Andrew's thread with such interesting and educated posts.
I'm going to move on from the subject of the Holocaust for a little while since WWII is a favorite subject and there are a few stories I want to contribute.

If you are interested in the Holocaust, I would also recommend some incredible movies on the subject, if you haven't seen them already.

The Holocaust - mini-series with Meryl Streep and James Woods
Playing for Time -Venessa Redgrave
Jakob the Liar - Robin Williams
The Diary of Anne Frank is a given
La vita è bella (Life is Beautiful)
subtitled but an incredible movie about a child and his protective father in the camps.
Shindler's List is a given

and if there are others, please feel free to recommend them.

[Jet]

One more movie I'd like to recommend:
The Scarlet and The Black - Gregory Peck (true story about a monsignor who disguised himself to leave the Vatican and past the Nazi's to help Jews escape from secret locations.)

[Jet]

Originally Posted by theoddz

[FONT="Book Antiqua"][SIZE="3"][COLOR="Black"]

Those Americans who lived and fought through WWII really were The Greatest Generation. I don't think the world will ever see anything as grand as that generation.

~Theo~

Tanno Theo, I just got to thinking....they really were greatest American generation. They knew right from wrong, for the most part, they were spirted and heroic, and eager to win the war, and they had those great big black, rotary dial telephones that wired into the wall so you could hear on the god&%$*mn things, and mouthpiece wasn't on your upper jaw. Geezes, I was born late; I hate technology today. Jus' sayin'....



America had phones just like this.
The irony of all this is that post WWII kicked off a new technological age. *shakes head*

[Mitmo01]

Hitlers ideology was to wipe off the face of the earth most of eastern europe--thats why almost all of the concentration camps were in eastern euprope and mostly in poland...

Lebensraum as the nazi concept-- happened because anything east of germany was considered so low and less than that the germans were trying to not only reinvent history but also reinvent the populations of europe...there were no death camps west of poland, there were internment camps but the death camps were solely reserved for areas east of germany...

NJFemmie is right that most people dont realize that the intellectuals in poland were the first to be exterminated and interned in death camps that they had to build themselves...the population of poland was decimated and god forbid if you were an intellectual...you wouldve been the first to be targeted...

a great fictional work by William Styron deals with this in his book" Sophies Choice, the movie was good but the book was phenomenal

and Hitler had real power.....what i mean by that is that real power comes when you do not have to speak what it is you wish to happen because your underlings and toadies know exactly what you want to happen....he never had to mention concentration camps but they were built......I always think about that when i look at power as a concept in leadership....makes me shudder

[Mitmo01]

The Shoah series is a tremendous cinematic experience and very accessible....it truly is an incredible feat

[NJFemmie]

I wish I knew of stories to tell - but the "silence" of the Holocaust truly does affect generations. I know nothing about my family history beyond my parents, essentially... and even their lives I know very little about because of the pain they suffered.

I certainly do not diminish what has happened to other cultures, countries and races because of this war, but I can say that as I get older, the desire to know more about my pre-war family has become painful and frustrating.

I remember as a child, I would go through some serious separation anxiety when my mother would take trips to Poland to find ANY kind of information about her brother, who we suspect either died in, or was murdered in a camp. All I know is that they were separated, and never saw each other again. My mother was 14 at the time, and I think her brother was only a few years older.

[Jet]

"War Against the Jews"
by Lucy S. Dawidowicz

I would like to recommend, the book, The War Against the Jews by Lucy S. Dawidowicz, who is a scholar of Jewish life. The book is regarded as an in-depth, pioneering study of Nazi genocide.


About the Mrs. Dawidowicz and War Against the Jews

She was the daughter of Polish immigrants, was at the center of the study of the modern Jewish experience at Yeshiva University, where she held a chair in interdisciplinary Holocaust studies. Early in her career, in the immediate aftermath of World War II, she went to Europe, where she helped Jewish survivors of the war to re-create schools and libraries, and she recovered vast collections of books seized by the Nazis.

Before that, while in her early 20's, she had lived in Vilna, Poland, from 1938 to 1939, where she witnessed the onslaught of European anti-Semitism, writing about the experience in a memoir, "From That Place and Time," published by W. W. Norton last year. Her other books include "The Jewish Presence" (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich) in 1977 and "The Holocaust and the Historians" (Harvard University Press), a critical survey of scholarship on the Holocaust, in 1981. Hopes Turn to Agonies

"There was a certain irony to my trip to Vilna," Mrs. Dawidowicz told an interviewer for Publisher's Weekly, speaking of her pre-war experience in Poland. "I went there with the romantic belief that it might become the world center for a self-sustaining Yiddish culture."

When she saw what turned out to be the beginning of the end of Jewish life in Poland, she immersed herself in Yiddish literature and Jewish history, so that she could help to preserve Jewish culture in the postwar world.

Mrs. Dawidowicz (pronounced dah-vee-DOH-vich), a small energetic woman who spoke in the accents of the Bronx, engaged in heated arguments within Jewish circles over both the nature of the Holocaust and the responsibility of American Jews for not doing more to prevent it.

Her major work, "The War Against the Jews," postulates that the destruction of the Jews was a central and inescapable element in Nazi ideology and was always a principle war aim of Hitler, just as important as his military conquest of Europe. In this view, she conflicted with other historians, who believed that the Holocaust was not a necessary part of the Nazi program but evolved in response to such circumstances as the defeats on the Eastern front.

"The War Against the Jews" (Holt, Rinehart & Winston) was called "a work of high scholarship and profound moral import" by Irving Howe, in his review in The New York Times Book Review. It is marked above all by its sobriety. Mrs. Dawidowicz allows the coolly accumulated weight of detail -- the growing force of the Nazi's anti-Semitic juggernaut, the evolution of the camps as places of scientific murder, the efforts by the victims to hold onto fragments of normal life -- to create its emotional and intellectual impact.

Mrs. Dawidowicz refused to judge the failure of the Jews themselves to mount a more active resistance to the genocide, and in this she clashed bitterly with a number of other historians.

Her belief was twofold. First, she felt it morally inappropriate for those who did not face the persecutions themselves to criticize the behavior of those who did. Second, she felt that in any case, Jewish resistance was doomed to failure. Given the Jews' isolation, their lack of arms and the overwhelming material superiority of their enemies, there was virtually nothing they could have done to alter their fate, she wrote. Defended Role of Jews

In her book The Holocaust and the Historians, Mrs. Davidowicz is critical of a number of historians and commentators -- Bruno Bettelheim, Hannah Arendt and Raul Hilberg are among those she mentions -- who described the European Jews during the war as passive, cowardly or, in the case of the Judenrat, set up by the Nazis as self-governing boards in the ghettos, even collaborationist.

Similarly, Mrs. Dawidowicz rejected a chorus of opinion to the effect that Jews in the United States were guilty of complacency and a failure to react effectively to the Holocaust.

In articles in Commentary magazine and The New York Times, she wrote, first, that the Jews here did undertake wipespread efforts to awaken the government and world opinion to the fate of the European Jews. Second, she argued that, in any case, whatever might have been done here, the Jews of Europe were caught in a vise from which virtually no escape was ever possible. The only way to save them, she believed, was to militarily defeat the Nazis as quickly as possible, and that fact justified the Allies' concentration on the war effort, rather than on efforts to save the Jews.

Mrs. Dawidowicz, whose maiden name was Lucy Schildkret, was born in New York in 1915 and educated at Hunter College and Columbia University. She recounts in "From That Time and Place" how she began to work for YIVO's Manhattan branch after her year in Vilna. She met her husband, Szymon Dawidowicz, an escapee from Poland there. Mr. Dawidowicz died in 1979.

Source material:
The New York Times

[Jet]

Originally Posted by NJFemmie

I wish I knew of stories to tell - but the "silence" of the Holocaust truly does affect generations. I know nothing about my family history beyond my parents, essentially... and even their lives I know very little about because of the pain they suffered.

I certainly do not diminish what has happened to other cultures, countries and races because of this war, but I can say that as I get older, the desire to know more about my pre-war family has become painful and frustrating.

I remember as a child, I would go through some serious separation anxiety when my mother would take trips to Poland to find ANY kind of information about her brother, who we suspect either died in, or was murdered in a camp. All I know is that they were separated, and never saw each other again. My mother was 14 at the time, and I think her brother was only a few years older.

Life has a way....NJFemmie....life has away....
I was involved with a Jewish girl whose mother had been sent to Bergen-Belsen as a child. She had been separated from her sister, never to be seen or heard from until....

one day, while visiting in Israel, my ex-girlfriend's mother had met up with several people on her trip in a search for information on Holocaust survivors. She took with her, the only known photograph of her sister.....

who just happened to be in the group of people searching for surviving members of their families. The sisters reunited after 40 some years, can you imagine? After the camps were liberated, my girlfriend's mother came to the US on a sponsorship from the Sears family (as in Sears & Roebuck) who brought many surviving Jews to the US.

God works amazing things....

[Mitmo01]

Hannah Arendt wrote an interesting book called " The Origins of Totalitarianism" and she is credited with the phrase " the banality of Evil"

She posited that the real people responisble for allowing the nazis to rise to power were the same normal people that went to work everyday blindly following orders and doing what they were told....

the people that were signing off on death orders were called "writing desk executioners" they were the workers who went to thier jobs everyday and did what they were told because they followed the rules...


she is very controversial but regardless of the differing opinons on her writing and her philosophy she actually made me think when i had to read that book...

the masses in germany and europe followed orders blindly and did what they were told...no dissent, no arguement, because of conditioning....I hope that in my lifetime im never put in that postion ever....i do not want to be a blind sheeple ever....I always want to have the spirit of dissent in my blood and in my bones even if it means im breaking the law somehow....i never want to forget what happend in that war...

[theoddz]

If you have HBO, I highly recommend the new 10 part series The Pacific. It's produced and filmed by the same outstanding group who produced Band of Brothers. I can't help but be extremely enthusiastic about this show, because it's about the unit I served with, the 1st Marine Division.

It's certainly worth watching and focuses on how the war affected the Marines who fought the Japanese in the Pacific. Every now and then, I run across an old Marine where I work, the most recent an old grizzled retired Sgt.Maj. who fought at the battle of Iwo Jima. He finally finished his 28 year career as the command Sgt.Maj of the Marine detachment aboard the USS Kitty Hawk, during Vietnam. When I met Sgt.Maj. Leo Tucker, I met a living hero. He truly was a hero of "the old breed". When I shook his hand and introduced myself, for some odd reason, it felt like I was touching across the generations of Marines who have served. He had served in the "fighting 1st MarDiv".

If you get a chance, watch it.

Semper Fidelis,
~Theo~

[Andrew, Jr.]

I believe that all vets are our heroeos, not just those who fought in wars. I am just so very proud of our men and women who volunteer, but never saw "war" so to speak. My hat is off to all of you.

Theo,

I have a major issue with Steven Speilberg, Tom Hanks, and HBO with the new movie "The Pacific". Most of our men and women from that time period just don't have the income to have HBO/cable. I believe it should have been made into a mini-series on regular TV. That way everyone could watch the show.

When I have gone to the WW2 Memorial in Washington, DC and you see the memorabilia left behind...it just brings tears to most everyone's eyes. It is our history. And the men and women who I see there still wearing their hats or parts of their uniform from days gone by, it may have faded but it is just as real today as it was back then. The reflection pond with the stars...that is my tipping point. It is magnificant. I don't think any photograph can do it justice. It is just that powerful.

Much love and peace,
Andrew

[theoddz]

Originally Posted by Andrew, Jr.

I believe that all vets are our heroeos, not just those who fought in wars. I am just so very proud of our men and women who volunteer, but never saw "war" so to speak. My hat is off to all of you.

Theo,

I have a major issue with Steven Speilberg, Tom Hanks, and HBO with the new movie "The Pacific". Most of our men and women from that time period just don't have the income to have HBO/cable. I believe it should have been made into a mini-series on regular TV. That way everyone could watch the show.

When I have gone to the WW2 Memorial in Washington, DC and you see the memorabilia left behind...it just brings tears to most everyone's eyes. It is our history. And the men and women who I see there still wearing their hats or parts of their uniform from days gone by, it may have faded but it is just as real today as it was back then. The reflection pond with the stars...that is my tipping point. It is magnificant. I don't think any photograph can do it justice. It is just that powerful.

Much love and peace,
Andrew

I totally get your point about making this series and others like it accessible to more people on a broader scale and not just those who can afford things like HBO. Thing is, The Pacific will end up being like Band of Brothers and will be, in time, picked up by non premium television networks. If I remember correctly, The History Channel wasn't long in running Band of Brothers, after its premier showing on HBO.

And, a word about Steven Spielberg......he has donated, free of any charge, to multiple schools and organizations, copies of Schindler's List. I think he realizes the importance of as many people of future generations seeing these historical productions as possible. I salute him for that.

There was a quote in the Band of Brothers series that I will never forget. In it, one of the Veteran narrators says something like, "I wonder if future generations will ever know what it cost the men who fought and died in this war".

Indeed.

~Theo~

[Andrew, Jr.]

Theo,

Thank you. I did not know that about Steven Spielberg and HBO. That makes me happy to know. I know I watch "Band of Brothers", "Schindler's List", and "Saving Private Ryan" with vets repeatedly. They will see a scene and then go talking for hours at a time about certain things they encountered in Germany, Poland, or where they were.

The one remark they all agree on about the movie "Saving Private Ryan" is that the first 10 minutes of the invasion was only Hollywood's version of what it was really like. They all say if you intensify it by 500 times that much, then that is what it was really like. The boats ran aground, tanks never made it to shore during the fighting, and the poor men. Men were just stacked on top of each other, either they were shot or drowned. The one thing I find interesting is that back then there were alot of soldiers who didn't know how to swim. Now it is a requirement.

If you ever get a chance to come to the East Coast, I would love to take you to the WW2 monument, The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and Arlington Nat'l Cemetary. All are just breathtaking. And to watch the soldiers march at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is sobering. The detail of their march, and the changing of the guard. Unbelieveable. It makes one proud to be American.

One of the things I would like to do, in the Jewish faith it is customary to place a stone at the grave of a family member or friend or relative. I want to place a stone on Mr. Schlinder's grave. It would be such a privilage and honor to do so.

[Jet]

Popping into see interesting stories on WW2. Thanks for the great tip on HBO and the Pacific, unforunatelyI don't get it.