Shoah Page #12

Aumeyer addressed the crowd,

You're here to work,

for our soldiers fighting at the front.

Those who can work will be all right.

It was obvious

that hope flared in those people.

You could feel it clearly.

The executioners had gotten

past the first obstacle.

They saw it was succeeding.

Then Grabner spoke up,

We need masons, electricians,

all the trades.

Next, Hossler took over.

He pointed to a short man in the crowd.

I can still see him.

What's your trade?

The man said,

Mr. Officer, I'm a tailor.

A tailor? What kind of tailor?

A man's... No, for both men and women.

Wonderful! We need people

like you in our workshops.

Then he questioned a woman,

Whafs your trade?

Nurse, she replied.

Splendid! We need nurses

in our hospitals for our soldiers.

We need all of you!

But first, undress.

You must be disinfected.

We want you healthy.

I could see the people were calmer,

reassured by what they'd heard,

and they began to undress.

Even if they still had their doubts,

if you want to live, you must hope.

Their clothing remained

in the courtyard,

scattered everywhere.

Aumeyer was beaming,

very proud of how he'd handled things.

He turned to some of the SS men

and told them,

You see? That's the way to do it!

By this device,

a great leap forward had been made:

Now the clothing could be used.

RAUL H I LBERG, historian

[ In English] In all of my work, I have never begun

by asking the big questions,

because I was always afraid

that I would come up with small answers,

and I have preferred, therefore,

to address these things,

which are minutiae or detail,

in order that I might then

be able to put together

in a gestalt,

a picture, which, urn,

if not an explanation,

is at least a description,

a more full description,

of what transpired.

And, in that sense, I look also upon

the bureaucratic destruction process,

for this is what it was,

as a series of minute steps

taken in logical order

and relying above all,

as much as possible,

on experience, past experience.

And this goes not only, incidentally,

for the administrative steps that were taken,

but also the psychological arguments,

even the propaganda.

Amazingly little was newly invented

until, of course, the moment came

when one had to go beyond that which

had already been established by precedent,

and one had to gas these people,

or, in some sense,

annihilate them on a large scale.

Then, these bureaucrats became inventors.

But like all, all inventors of institutions,

they did not copyright

or patent their achievements,

and they preferred obscurity.

[ Lanzmann, In English]

What did they get from the past, the Nazis?

They got the actual content

of measures which they took.

For example, the barring of Jews from office,

the prohibition of intermarriages,

the employment in Jewish homes

of female persons under the age of 45,

the various marking decrees,

especially the Jewish star,

the compulsory ghetto,

the voidance of any will executed by a Jew

that might work in such a way

as to prevent inheritance of his property

by someone who was a Christian.

Many such measures had been worked out

over the course of

more than a thousand years

by authorities of the Church

and by secular governments

that followed in those footsteps.

And the experience gathered over that time

became a reservoir that could be used

and which indeed was used

to an amazing extent.

You mean that one can compare...

- One can actually compare...

- each measure?

One can compare a rather large number

of German laws and decrees

with their counterparts in the past

and find complete parallels,

even in detail,

as if they were a memory

which automatically extended

to the period of 1933

and 1935 and 1939 and beyond.

In such respect,

they didn't invent anything?

They invented very little,

and they did not invent

the portrait of the Jew,

which also was taken over,

lock, stock and barrel,

from writings going back

to the 16th century.

So, even the propaganda,

the realm of the imagination

andinvenfion,

even there, they were remarkably

in the footsteps of those who preceded them,

from Martin Luther to the 19th century.

And, here again, they were not inventive.

They had to become inventive

with the final solution.

That was their great invention,

and that is what made

this entire process different

from all others

that had preceded that event.

And, in this respect,

what transpired

when the final solution was... adopted,

or, to be more precise,

when the bureaucracy moved into it,

was a turning point in history.

Even here, I would suggest

a logical progression,

one which came to fruition

in what might be called closure,

because, from the earliest days,

from the fourth century,

fifth century, sixth century,

the missionaries of Christianity

had said, in effect, to the Jews,

You may not live among us as Jews.

The secular rulers who followed them,

from the late Middle Ages,

had then decided,

You may not live among us,

and the Nazis finally decreed,

You may not live.

This means that the three steps were...

The first one was conversion.

- Conversion, followed by...

- The second one, ghettoization.

- Expulsion.

- Or expulsion.

Expulsion.

And the third was the territorial solution,

which was, of course, the solution carried out

within the territories under German command,

excluding emigration:

death,

final solution.

And the final solution, you see,

is really final,

because people who are converted

can yet be, in secret, Jews,

people who are expelled can yet return,

but people who are dead will not reappear.

In such a respect, in the last stage,

they were really pioneers and inventors?

This was something unprecedented,

and this was something new.

How can one figure...

give some ideas

about the complete newness of this,

because I think that it was new

for themselves too?

Yes, it was new,

and this... I think, for this reason

that one cannot find a specific document,

a specific plan, outline or blueprint

which states,

Now, the Jews will be killed.

Everything is left to inference

from general words.

Inference from...

- General wording.

- Mm-hmm.

The very wording final solution

or total solution

or territorial solution

leaves something to the bureaucrat

that he must infer.

He cannot read that document.

One cannot even read

G6ring's famous letter to Heydrich,

at the end of July 1941,

charging him in two paragraphs

to proceed with the final solution.

And taking that document aside,

everything is clarified?

Far from it.

- Far from it?

- Far from it.

It was an authorization to invent.

It was an authorization to begin something

that was not as yet

capable of being put into words.

I think it...

I think of it that way.

It was a case for every agency,

as a matter of fact.

Absolutely, for every agency.

In every aspect of this operation,

invention was necessary.

Certainly at this point,

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