Auschwitz was the largest of the Nazi concentration camps, located about 60 km from Krakow in Poland. It was built in 1940 on the order of Heinrich Himmler, in order to be used as an extermination camp; from 1942 the "final solution will be implemented there. (systematic extermination of the Jews). In 2015 was commemorated the liberation of the camps of Auschwitz Birkenau , in memory of the millions of Jews murdered and massacred in the name of Hitler's racist ideology, according to which, the German race presents a superiority vis-à-vis other races deemed inferior. Based on this ideology, the Shoah was perpetrated. – the disaster in Hebrew - which will cost the lives of more than five million Jews, organized in a methodical and cold way.
The “Final Solution”
The Endlosung – Final Solution - project, conceived by high Nazi dignitaries, such as Himmler, Eichmann or Heydrich, was conceived with the aim of exterminating the Jewish race as Heinrich Himmler's remarks reveal this in a speech given on October 4, 1943 in front of S.S generals;
The initial objective of the Third Reich was to exclude the Jewish populations who were placed under the domination of Nazi yoke, as the territorial expansion of the empire took place. The plan put in place provided for the evacuation, there again the use of certain terms conceals a much more brutal reality, “towards the East”, in other words towards the USSR. When the German-Soviet pact was broken on June 22, 1941, Hitler and his associates aspired to conquer all of the territories in the East in order to send the Jewish population there. But this ambition was to be shattered at the gates of Moscow, when, once the confusion and stupefaction had passed, the Soviet armies led a counter-offensive marking the beginning of a reflux of German troops and a military defeat.
Then the project of extermination and systematic elimination of the Jewish people began. Through this project, it is the climax of Hitler's ideology that is reached, since the extermination of the Jewish people follows the ghettoization and its brutality, marked by famine. The notion of survival dominates the daily life of these stigmatized populations. The repeated violence perpetrated by the Einsatzgruppe which scoured the areas over which the Nazi army had passed, in order to flush out political opponents but especially the Jews. They were tasked with murdering them unconditionally.
Germany also mobilized its "allies" or rather its clientele to extend the deportation of Jews across the continent. France was "invited" to do so, as indicated by the words of the chief of police of the Vichy government just before the Vel d'Hiv roundup in July 1942:
In these remarks, the weight of the words but especially of the silences is sometimes worth even more. This note gives the impression that Vichy France retains a certain sovereignty, because it has been "invited". In reality, France is placed under the tight control of Nazi Germany. Behind the term "guest", very diplomatic, we must see the term "ordered". Moreover, this note does not reveal the destination of these Jews in a context where the process of extermination is already underway. Through different terms of this message, it is the sending to death that is presented.
The extermination camps
The extermination camps, Chelmno, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka and Auschwitz Birkenau, constituted the application of the project of the final solution. For five years, this process of systematic assassination will be perpetrated on the European continent, the Nazis trying to keep secret the horrors committed inside this concentration camp archipelago.
The geographical location of the exterminations was meticulously thought out, by the choice of Poland within its pre-1939 borders. Several reasons can explain this choice among which, Poland as pivot geopolitics of the eastern countryside and above all, Poland as the place of establishment of the largest Jewish communities, all facilitated by the presence of communication axes, marked by the high density of railway axes. The geographical conditions, represented by the dense forest covers and the many almost uninhabited regions favored the preservation of secrecy.
Auschwitz
Auschwitz was officially chosen by the high Nazi dignitaries to constitute the center of mass annihilation of the Jews of Europe, on the decision of Himmler in particular. After the rail convoys traveled to these camps, the Jews, unaware of what awaited them, were mostly gassed (Zyklon B) upon arrival. A "selection" was made between Jews able to work and those not able. For the latter, death was immediate. For the others, it was only a very short reprieve, a few weeks, maybe a few months. Abraham Bomba, a survivor of Treblinka leaves an unequivocal testimony:
At the end of the war, panicked by the arrival of the Red Army, the Nazis undertook the systematic destruction of the evidence that constituted these extermination camps. They failed, but many structures were destroyed. British and American troops displayed a "detonating mix of horror, anger, shame, guilt and fear", they said, at such atrocities with the discovery of human mass graves and the reality of what happened. actually unfolded during these five years of war from 1940 to 1945.
"In the silence of the world, two-thirds of the Jews of Europe, men, women and children were murdered by the Nazis, according to a deliberate plan of annihilation”. Their fault? Being guilty of the "crime of being born" (Anne Grynberg). It was indeed a genocide committed against the Jews and a catastrophe for humanity.
2015 Commemorations and Testimonies
Through the 2015 commemorations, Memory and History mingled through testimonies, analyzes of historians, in order to remember this event which traumatized European societies. 70 years separate us from this genocide, the testimonies of the survivors still reach us today, but it is clear that in ten years, the direct memory, drawn from the reality of the events experienced by the survivors, will have disappeared. Only literature and writing will remain as the sole source of this dark past to enable the application of this wish so often expressed, that of "never again".
Some testimonies from former deportees repeatedly mentioned Primo Levi, Italian writer, survivor of this genocide whose words alone can account for "absolute evil" (Annette Wieviorka);
Bibliography
- The Shoah, the impossible forgetting, by AnneGrynberg, Gallimard discovery, 1995.
- 1945, the discovery, by Annette Wieviorka. Threshold, January 2015.
- The commandant of Auschwitz speaks, by Rudolf Hoess. Pocket Discovery, 2005.