Part Three: Can we learn from history? Perhaps the question is what can we learn from history? Or why don’t we learn from history?

28 Tuesday Mar 2017

Posted by rangewriter in Everything else

Tags

Adolf Hitler, Donald Trump, Fascism, history, Holocaust, Umberto Eco

Recent visits to Auschwitz-Birkenau and Schindler’s Factory in Poland have deepened my personal fears about where my country, and the world at large, are headed.

It may be too early to credibly define the current president of these United States as a fascist. But the warning signs are clear and present. In an essay titled Eternal Fascism: Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt, Umberto Eco presents a list of features that he believes are typical of Eternal Fascism (Ur-Fascism). He claims that the features do not have to exist together and that some even contradict each other, but “it is enough that one of them be present to allow fascism to coagulate around it.” Below is an outline of a few of his items that may invite coagulation today.

Traditionalism: The rejection of the modern world disguised as a rebuttal of the capitalistic way of life. The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense Ur-Fascism can be defined as irrational.(How irrational that one of the richest men in America has walked over the backs of the poor but now claims to be their only hope?)
Cult of action for action’s sake: Action is beautiful in itself. It must be taken before or without reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation. (Think early morning Tweet fests?) Distrust of the intellectual world has always been a symptom of Ur-Fascism.
The critical spirit: In modern culture the scientific community praises disagreement as a way to improve knowledge. For Ur-Fascism, disagreement is treason. (Think science-bashing?)
Fear of diversity: Ur-Fascism grows and seeks consensus by exploiting and exacerbating the natural fear of difference. The first appeal of a fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders.(Think Mexicans, Muslims, LGBTQs, Uppity Women . . .?)
Individual or social frustration: the most typical feature of fascism in the past has been the appeal to a frustrated middle class, a class suffering from an economic crisis or feelings of political humiliation. (Think promises to bring jobs back to America, to Make America Great Again?)

Well, the list goes on, but you get the idea. It seems to me that parallels between pre-Holocaust Germany and present world conditions have never in my lifetime been so closely aligned.

Adolph Hitler was a powerful speaker who promised “the disenchanted a better life and a new and glorious Germany. … He appealed to the unemployed, young people, and members of the lower middle class. When he was appointed chancellor in 1933, Germans believed that they had found a savior for their nation.”

Donald Trump rose to power by leveraging his celebrity with folksy speech that appeals to lower middle class Americans. He promised a better life to the disenchanted, a regulation-free corporate environment, and vouched to “Make America Great Again.” His inarticulate proclamations combined with the promise of an unfettered business environment effectively harnessed two disparate electorates.

Hitler waged war on intellectuals, artists, and scientists, all of whom posed a threat to his proclaimed white supremacy theory and his unabashed power grab.One of Donald Trump’s first actions after taking office was to muzzle scientists and news organizations.

Donald Trump has vowed to “drain the swamp.” Exactly which swamp he is draining and what he is growing in its place is a puzzle:

Steve Bannon – Chief Strategist & Senior Advisor: Has published as “news” articles proclaiming that birth control makes women unattractive and crazy. Is an unabashed white nationalist and anti-Semite.
Scott Pruitt – EPA: Climate change denier. Has sued the EPA over environmental regulations, a fox in the chicken house.
Jeff Sessions – Attorney General: Blatant racist whose only problem with the KKK is that they smoke pot, believes the ACLU is un-American, and that the Voting Rights Act is intrusive.
Sonny Perdue – Department of Agriculture: solution for drought is to pray for rain, favors agribusiness and their overuse of chemicals over American farms.
Rick Perry – Department of Energy: while campaigning for president called the DoE worthy of elimination.

As a distraught adolescent studying the Holocaust, my wise elders counseled that this could never happen in America. “We have a free press here. The three branches of the US government will deter tyranny,” they told me. How long will we have a free press when the President cherry picks who will attend press conferences and when public funding is stripped from public broadcasters? Who will have the balls to stand up to The Donald’s “You’re fired!” rhetoric? How effective is a three branch government when all three branches are controlled by one party?

Sources:

Auschwitz-Birkenau. http://auschwitz.org/ Accessed on March 24, 2017.

Jewish Virtual Library: A Project of AICE. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/timeline-for-the-history-of-judaism. Accessed on March 24, 2017.

Scientific American: Policy & Ethics. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/trump-administration-restricts-news-from-federal-scientists-at-usda-epa/. Accessed March 25, 2017.

Sebastian, Michael; “A Close Look at Donald Trump’s Cabinet” Marie Claire http://www.marieclaire.com/politics/a23922/donald-trump-cabinet-appointments/?zoomablej March 2, 2017. Accessed March 24, 2017.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “Introduction to the Holocaust.” Holocaust Encyclopedia. www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005143. Accessed on March 24, 2017.

Part Two: Can we learn from history? Perhaps the question is what can we learn from history? Or why don’t we learn from history?

26 Sunday Mar 2017

Posted by rangewriter in Everything else

≈ 24 Comments

Tags

Auschwitz Birkenau Memorial & Museum, Crematorium, gypsies, history, Hitler, Holocaust, Jews, Nazi, non-Aryan, Poland, SS

As early as 1939, Nazis began arresting teachers, civil servants, artists, priests, politicians, representatives of the intellectual elite, and members of the numerous resistance organizations that were springing up in Germany and Poland. Sometimes these victims were simply shot on the spot. Others were arrested and sent to concentration camps for trivial offenses—like failing to sing the pledge of allegiance with enough enthusiasm.

Before Auschwitz was built, Poles were expelled from a large region west of Krakow. By 1941, all residents were gone and their homes had been demolished.

Auschwitz I, located near the former village of Oświęcim, was an SS garrison and the seat of the main offices of political and prison labor departments. The main military supply stores and workshops were located there. Political prisoners began arriving in 1940.

Auschwitz II-Birkenau, built in 1942 on the site of the former village of Brzenka, was originally intended to house Soviet POWs, and as a center for the Final Solution—extermination. It was the largest of the Auschwitz complex of 40 sub camps. Without the benefit of brick barracks buildings, Birkenau was a muddy hell hole. Wooden dorms were erected by incoming prisoners but never provided sufficient room for the population nor were they in any manner weather proof. Four large crematoria were built in each quadrant of the 40-square-kilometer site.

Rows of crumbling brick chimneys are all that remains of the crude wooden barracks watched by armed guards.

Death Barrack in which women deemed unfit to work were isolated by the SS. Here they waited for their “final solution, without food or water and often for several days. Each bunk held 20+ women. The top bunk was preferred, as two below suffered from the uncontrollable dysentery of their companions above. But few had the strength to access the top bunks.

Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II were split into separate entities and run by different commanders in early 1944, at which time Auschwitz II was referred to simply as Birkenau. The two camps merged again on November 25, 1944. At its peak in 1944, Birkenau housed a fourth of the entire population of the Nazi concentration camp system. Ninety percent of all Auschwitz gas chamber victims perished in Birkenau.

Auschwitz III, or Monowitz, was built in 1942 to house camp labor for IG Farben plants that fabricated synthetic rubber and liquid fuels. This was the next largest sub camp built. Workers had to walk seven kilometers from the camp to the factory. A crematorium was erected at Monowitz to deal with the high turn over of overworked and underfed prisoners.

In October 1944, the encroaching Soviet army prompted the annihilation if the gas chambers and crematoria, along with the final liquidation and evacuation of the camps. Dead and dying prisoners were dispatched into gigantic pit graves which were sometimes barely covered with dirt. When the Soviet Army arrived at Auschwitz on January 27, 1945, they found 7,000 starving prisoners too sick to stand, many only minutes from their last breath. Newly discovered pit graves are still uncovered in forests and farmlands throughout Poland.

Collapsed remnant of crematorium and gas chamber #II at Birkenau.

As early as 1946 and still in the throes of war shortages and devastation, the Polish government and citizenry began work to secure evidence of the Holocaust and to preserve and restore the historical site of Auschwitz-Birkenau. The Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial Museum is open all year, every day except January 1, December 25, and Easter Sunday. Admission is free, but hiring a licensed guide is highly recommended, as is reserving an appointment at least one month ahead of a visit. Guides accommodate 17 languages and are professional and knowledgeable.