Ovens of Auschwitz
“When the SS began the mass killing of Jews(by shooting them in great numbers), it turned out to be messy, disoriented and demoralising”. Stood on the edge, before the dark, charred and ash burnt pits full of corpses, in rows and rows, the footage shows us, between the foul cries of the wounded and the soft release of shot guns, discomfiting horror of the second world war.
Some with striped pyjamas, some with bare torsos, stood their turn not valiantly nor dejectedly, merely confounded by the moment. That such a thing was possible, each one wondered “did the west knew what was happening?”. One British officer of high command, in his interview notes “we knew it. but we could not comprehend it. we just could not come to establish between ourselves that the killings were actually being carried out”.
But if the Nazi doctrine clearly proclaimed the superiority of Aryan race, and felt the need to cleanse it off Jews, why, one would ask, were the Germans merely asking the Jews to leave. To which, Gestapo officer, has an answer “Nearly 8 million Jews, including the ones form occupied Russia, Poland and evacuated Germans had to be deported, but no country would have them. So they had to be killed.”
As the supply of Jews outnumbered the capacity of German officers and the facilities to get rid off them, some one in the SS had come up with the brilliant idea of gassing them. Very soon concentration camps were built along the railway lines to facilitate the transportation of Jews. Trains from all over Germany and its occupied Europe, transported Jews in carriages that were ill equipped, cramped, rocky, debilitating and inhumane. One survivor recalls “ when we actually saw the light of the day after about forty hours, the sudden rush of clean air had us transfixed for the moment, until we got the whiff of what can only explained as roasted chicken”
“In Poland, Jews wanting to get away from starvation, actually paid their railway fares”, a Polish immigrant observes “collected by their own self appointed leaders and countrymen”. None of the Jews being transported knew their destination. The charade of hospitality was carried out by the SS and Gestapo in the pretence of transportation for resettlement. Most Jews believed in the story, some wished it was true but most knew it to be dubious.
In the end, they were all gassed in patented gas chambers using zynox pellets that broke into a cloud of cyanide upon exposure to air. Outside the caps, the able ones were separated from the rest, by a brief and quick inspection made by the Doctors. While the able ones were put to work immediately with pyjamas and a number of identification, the rest were cleansed. The irony is that all the able workers constructed the tall chimneys themselves. Outside the camps, barricaded by two rows of barbed wire slanting slightly as if to mock the ones inside. Some chose to commit suicide by holding onto those electric fences, some found that their health deteriorated to the extent that they were invalid and had to see the doctors, who immediately found them a berth in the gas chambers. One officer notes “the able ones slaved outside till their turn had come to enter inside and be gassed”
The rest (women, children, sick and old) were stripped, their clothes collected and dumped in great halls for wartime use; after gassing, en route to the ovens, dead bodies were examined for golden teeth and other jewellery. An officer notes “particularly in the dead bodies of women, in the most intimate parts”. The hair, the clothes, the metal and spectacles, all were made use in war time artillery, some melted and some otherwise. In the beginning, when Cyanide was introduced, it was still in a state of experimentation, Paul Thompson in his book ‘Modern Times” writes “the prisoners vomited green mucus like fluid and died the most barbarous deaths one can imagine”. Towards the end of the war, a time had come, in 1944-45 when the camps were running out of cyanide and “the old were thrown into the ovens without wasting precious cyanide on them. They were burnt alive”
The workers that did the cleaning up were Jews themselves. “They had not strength enough to drop off the dead copses into the pit”. with a hook pinned to the chin, dead bodies were to dragged into the pit, its heinous nature causing some workers to drop themselves into the put n be burned alive than continue living that way.
If there was not enough room, kids were thrown over the heads of everyone, through the shower installations, they were poisoned, “leaving pregnant women miscarried, children dying like flies, and most digging their nails into each others backs.” There was no escape in the dark; then the dead bodies were carried into the oven for burning
When the Russians greeted the Jews in concentration camps with retreating German fronts ahead of them, a Russian military General recalls “the stench of corpses was everywhere around us. We realised that many were too weak to live at all”
The Bomb
“Roosevelt’s sudden death in 1945 had implications in the foreign relations with his successor, Harry Truman’s little understanding of the consequences”. In that year America hastened to put use their uranium and plutonium bombs on Japan. Uranium needed no testing, but plutonium did
To foster America’s bargaining power in Europe, among a number of alternatives that were chalked out patiently considering the long lasting implications, Truman decided to drop the bomb on Japan without warning. “He feared that a delay would lead Russia (who would have engaged in direct confrontation with Japan)to squeeze out an undue share from America’s plate.”
By July 1945, the plutonium bomb testing had been done in a remote desert in America. The astounding results , Truman shared with Churchill, with much merriment and the later acquiesced with jubilation, they both realised what it meant. The war could come to an end very soon. With the nuclear bomb, the beacon of their armoury, America would, Churchill believed, silence the Japanese.
In the big 3 meeting of that time that involved Stalin, Truman and Churchill, the two nations debated if Stalin should be kept unawares of the bomb. Finally, after much deliberation, the two nations shared with Stalin, secret of the bomb. Much to America’s dismay, one congressman recalls “Stalin took the news in his own stride, just as another piece of wartime artillery.” America was expecting a flabbergasted Stalin and thought they could sit down on the bomb to discuss “future implications.”
Japan, although wanted to get out of war at the time, was not willing to surrender “unconditionally” The Japanese soldier “is trained to protect the emperor till his death. The institutionalising of the Japanese soldier is carried out with utmost diligence right from childhood” one Japanese General recalls “the iron clad determination, and the only two possibilities sketched out for a Japanese soldier made it difficult for the allies.” Every nation wished to end the war, it had cost them fifty million lives in total. No one wanted to see it prolong anymore. Every nation was exhausted, their residual economic strength tested and their will put to great malleable effects. America knew Japan would approach Russia for negotiations, there was no time to loose
Russia came out of the meeting embittered and distrustful, with the bomb “ostentatiously hoisted up the hips of America, Stalin was going to be very secretive of his motives.”
America passed an Ultimatum soon after the big 3 meeting. Japan ignored the ultimatum made on ground s of unconditional surrender. They approached Russia hoping that Stalin might aid them in negotiations. The Japanese wanted to end the war too, but they only a surrender with their emperor retaining the throne was acceptable to them. The Japanese codes were broken, America knew about the effort they were making to bring Russia on their side.
At 8:15, the morning of august the 6th 1945, flying at 32000 feet, the Enola gay dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. America’s explained, “the fanatic Japanese soldiers were unwilling to surrender…and wanted to fight till the end.”
Japanese hopes of Russian mediation did not work out to their expectation as Stalin decided to resolve it in his own way. Russia waged a war against Japan.” America’s hope for a closure of the war without Russian involvement was thwarted and the end was getting complicated than was imagined before.”
The Japanese were still not willing to surrender. When the devastated emperor, addressed the public after the nuclear attacks that cost millions of lives on ground and millions due to radiation, “nine out of ten soldiers hated the emperor’s addressing”. Japanese foreign minister explains in the interview” they were taught to die for the emperor since their childhood and the present situation was unacceptable to them” One British soldier observes “the Russian attack on Japanese, and the nuclear attacks did it for the allies. Otherwise, the Japanese would have fought till the very end.”
Outcome
When London was bombed by Hitler's army, Winston Churchill in his book “second world war” remarked that India was a liability for them, for 60-70 thousand British soldiers were in India overseas, while the British raj was in dire straits at home.
First World War ended permeating the atmosphere with wealth of supreme and incontestable admiration to all the survived participants. It became instantly fashionable and the youth of the time grew up with a certainty of honor in war; followed with privileges and admiration following the war. This gripping scene ensued an air of expectation in the youth, and when eventually the Second World War broke out, men like George Orwell were more than excited. He exposed this debilitating side of anticipation in his essays.
But soon, the inherent faculties of war debunked the lofty ideals the youth of the time were glued to. Orwell was left aimless in an anarchic revolution of Spanish civil war. While in Spain, he maintained that sooner or later, he would be pushed into the front and then he would prove his prowess, the day never came. He was shot on his morning walk with his back to a brave soldier.
Second World war erupted in Europe. It dragged relatively isolated America into it. American soldiers retuned home to their cities that were virtually untouched. They were twice the richer than before the war, they now had the bomb. The soviet Union was pulled into the war, and they had their losses and purchase; one can say that the second world war left Russia mentally stronger than before. As for Europe, it was a plenitude of rubble with soldiers returning home to economically shattered nations.
“Mussolini’s fascism, Japan’s militarism, Germany’s Nazism lost…the right side won” - BBC producer.
References:
1. BBC “World at War”
2. Paul Thompson “Modern Times”
3. Winston Churchill “Second World War”
4. George Orwell “Homage to Catalonia”
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