Print
E-mail
Comment
Rate
Unanswered questions from Holocaust can fill volumes
Click image to enlarge
|
BY: MARILYN H. KARFELD Senior Staff Reporter
In the summer of 1942, nearly 500 middle-aged men, new recruits in German Reserve Police Battalion 101, agreed to shoot Jews in the head, brutal one-on-one killings, even though their commanding officer offered to assign them to a less difficult job.
Over the next nine months, these men killed 89,000 Polish Jews. Only 10 or 12 policemen asked to be relieved of the duty, and none was punished, writes historian Christopher R. Browning in Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland.
Why did some Germans and Poles agree to become murderers, while others refused or at least hesitated? How many German police were involved in killing Jews and never were held accountable for their crimes? What about the fate of the collaborators?
These are among the unanswered conundrums that remain from the Holocaust, says David Silberklang, a Brooklyn-born senior historian at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Remembrance Authority of Israel. He is this term’s Rosenthal Visiting Fellow for Case Western Reserve University’s Judaic Studies Program.
Over 60 years have passed since liberation of the Nazi concentration camps in Europe. In that time, scores of scholars have researched and written about the persecution and killing of Europe’s Jews. The Hall of Names at Yad Vashem holds testimony and short biographies of over two million victims, about a third of the Jews who perished.
Yet despite the voluminous research, there are countless unanswered questions from the Holocaust, says Silberklang, who spoke at Case last week.
Since 1953, Yad Vashem has been gathering pages of testimony about the Jews who were killed. Just over half of the victims have been identified thus far. Perhaps a million more names will eventually be collected.
“The Nazis obliterated the rest, their lives and their deaths,” says Silberklang.
Other puzzles include the victims’ response to the Holocaust, Silberklang says. Why did some Jews try to save themselves from mass deportations and near-certain death, going into hiding or organizing Jewish resistance, while others did not?
The date of the decision to launch the “Final Solution” also eludes scholars, says Silberklang. Did Hitler ever actively order the extermination of all the Jews of Europe? While some scholars argue that he must have made that determination, others insist there was no formal decision. Instead, they theorize that the Final Solution policy evolved over time.
In July 1941, Poles, not German Nazis, killed 1,600 Jews, their fellow townspeople, in the small community of Jedwabne. These were their schoolmates, well-known shopkeepers and familiar tradesmen. In his 2001 book Neighbors: The Destruction of the Polish Community at Jedwabne, Poland, Jan T. Gross tries to explain why.
“Was Jedwabne a singular or representative event?” asks Silberklang. “Was it unusual what these Poles did? We don’t know. We don’t know enough to reach a conclusion.”
To this day, the editor of the journal Yad Vashem Studies points out, no book tells the comprehensive story of the Holocaust in Poland, where three million Jews were killed. An 84-year-old scholar in Israel has been working on such a book for over 25 years.
“He’ll never finish the book,” Silberklang maintains. “The problem is, he’s one of the few people in the world with the necessary language skills and knowledge about Poland. If he can’t finish, who can?”
By the end of 2007, Yad Vashem expects to publish its Lexicon of the Ghettos, a compendium of articles detailing over 1,000 Jewish ghettos established by the Nazis and their collaborators during World War II. The project, which began 2-1/2 years ago, has required the labor of a team of researchers.
Silberklang, who serves on the project’s editorial board, says experts with the ability to read and ensure the accuracy of the ghetto lexicon are very hard to find.
Furthermore, there were hundreds, if not thousands, of Jewish communities in Poland for which there is no research, says the Case visiting professor. “There is information but no analysis, no looking at patterns. We’re in diapers. We’re just beginning.”
Similar questions remain about the Jews in Greece, Romania and the former Soviet Union. Cutting-edge research has set the framework of what needs to be investigated, but there is so much that scholars simply have not explored.
For example, Silberklang says, there is no book on Greece in the Holocaust, in part because of the Greek government’s reluctance to allow scholars complete access to its archives. Knowledge about the differences between Athens and Macedonia and the islands is required. Researchers also need to know the many languages spoken by the Jews in Greece n Italian, German, Ladino, Hebrew, French, Spanish, and of course Greek.
In the republics of the former Soviet Union and Russia itself, the task is perhaps more daunting. Despite some interviews with local people, Silberklang says, there are so many small killing sites that still remain unknown.
While the number of books published on the Holocaust grows every year, Silberklang insists that there is no shortage of research topics for interested students to pursue.
With the collapse of communism 16 years ago, the defunct Soviet Union opened its archives throughout most of its former republics. In Moscow’s Special Archive, documents are housed in a building five-stories tall, with nine more stories underground, says the Yad Vashem historian. The Soviets didn’t destroy a single piece of paper.
According to Silberklang, Shmuel Spector, the late Yad Vashem scholar, visited the Moscow archive in 1992 and said: “If scholars live to be 120, work six days a week, 12 hours a day, it would take them 100 years just to turn the pages, let alone digest anything.”
mkarfeld@cjn.org
Over the next nine months, these men killed 89,000 Polish Jews. Only 10 or 12 policemen asked to be relieved of the duty, and none was punished, writes historian Christopher R. Browning in Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland.
Why did some Germans and Poles agree to become murderers, while others refused or at least hesitated? How many German police were involved in killing Jews and never were held accountable for their crimes? What about the fate of the collaborators?
These are among the unanswered conundrums that remain from the Holocaust, says David Silberklang, a Brooklyn-born senior historian at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Remembrance Authority of Israel. He is this term’s Rosenthal Visiting Fellow for Case Western Reserve University’s Judaic Studies Program.
Over 60 years have passed since liberation of the Nazi concentration camps in Europe. In that time, scores of scholars have researched and written about the persecution and killing of Europe’s Jews. The Hall of Names at Yad Vashem holds testimony and short biographies of over two million victims, about a third of the Jews who perished.
Yet despite the voluminous research, there are countless unanswered questions from the Holocaust, says Silberklang, who spoke at Case last week.
Since 1953, Yad Vashem has been gathering pages of testimony about the Jews who were killed. Just over half of the victims have been identified thus far. Perhaps a million more names will eventually be collected.
“The Nazis obliterated the rest, their lives and their deaths,” says Silberklang.
Other puzzles include the victims’ response to the Holocaust, Silberklang says. Why did some Jews try to save themselves from mass deportations and near-certain death, going into hiding or organizing Jewish resistance, while others did not?
The date of the decision to launch the “Final Solution” also eludes scholars, says Silberklang. Did Hitler ever actively order the extermination of all the Jews of Europe? While some scholars argue that he must have made that determination, others insist there was no formal decision. Instead, they theorize that the Final Solution policy evolved over time.
In July 1941, Poles, not German Nazis, killed 1,600 Jews, their fellow townspeople, in the small community of Jedwabne. These were their schoolmates, well-known shopkeepers and familiar tradesmen. In his 2001 book Neighbors: The Destruction of the Polish Community at Jedwabne, Poland, Jan T. Gross tries to explain why.
“Was Jedwabne a singular or representative event?” asks Silberklang. “Was it unusual what these Poles did? We don’t know. We don’t know enough to reach a conclusion.”
To this day, the editor of the journal Yad Vashem Studies points out, no book tells the comprehensive story of the Holocaust in Poland, where three million Jews were killed. An 84-year-old scholar in Israel has been working on such a book for over 25 years.
“He’ll never finish the book,” Silberklang maintains. “The problem is, he’s one of the few people in the world with the necessary language skills and knowledge about Poland. If he can’t finish, who can?”
By the end of 2007, Yad Vashem expects to publish its Lexicon of the Ghettos, a compendium of articles detailing over 1,000 Jewish ghettos established by the Nazis and their collaborators during World War II. The project, which began 2-1/2 years ago, has required the labor of a team of researchers.
Silberklang, who serves on the project’s editorial board, says experts with the ability to read and ensure the accuracy of the ghetto lexicon are very hard to find.
Furthermore, there were hundreds, if not thousands, of Jewish communities in Poland for which there is no research, says the Case visiting professor. “There is information but no analysis, no looking at patterns. We’re in diapers. We’re just beginning.”
Similar questions remain about the Jews in Greece, Romania and the former Soviet Union. Cutting-edge research has set the framework of what needs to be investigated, but there is so much that scholars simply have not explored.
For example, Silberklang says, there is no book on Greece in the Holocaust, in part because of the Greek government’s reluctance to allow scholars complete access to its archives. Knowledge about the differences between Athens and Macedonia and the islands is required. Researchers also need to know the many languages spoken by the Jews in Greece n Italian, German, Ladino, Hebrew, French, Spanish, and of course Greek.
In the republics of the former Soviet Union and Russia itself, the task is perhaps more daunting. Despite some interviews with local people, Silberklang says, there are so many small killing sites that still remain unknown.
While the number of books published on the Holocaust grows every year, Silberklang insists that there is no shortage of research topics for interested students to pursue.
With the collapse of communism 16 years ago, the defunct Soviet Union opened its archives throughout most of its former republics. In Moscow’s Special Archive, documents are housed in a building five-stories tall, with nine more stories underground, says the Yad Vashem historian. The Soviets didn’t destroy a single piece of paper.
According to Silberklang, Shmuel Spector, the late Yad Vashem scholar, visited the Moscow archive in 1992 and said: “If scholars live to be 120, work six days a week, 12 hours a day, it would take them 100 years just to turn the pages, let alone digest anything.”
mkarfeld@cjn.org
 |
 |
|
| Apply for Cleveland Executive Fellowship | Interfaith program draws Jews, Christians, Muslims |
Article Rating
Reader Comments
The following are comments from the readers. In no way do they represent the view of clevelandjewishnews.com.
You must register with a valid email to post comments. Only your Member ID will be posted with the comments. Registration is free.
Registered users sign in here: |
Become a Registered User |
