The Hidden Album 1942 - 1943 E-Book

Heidemarie Wawrzyn

• Herausgeber: GRIN Verlag
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

Document from the year 2014 in the subject History of Germany - National Socialism, World War II, , language: English, abstract: Beiträge zu Feminismus, Antisemitismus und Nationalsozialismus im 19./20. Jahrhundert: Vol 7. The planned presentation has been written on the occasion of International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The starting point of the project was the discovery of a hidden military album including photos of Belarus and Russia in 1942/43. Many German soldiers kept photo albums to commemorate their “glorious days” in World War II. They had been in places where German killing units – Einsatzgruppen – had murdered Jews, Communists and anyone opposed to their advance. In towns like Grodno, Baranowicze, Bobruisk, Orel, and Briansk – hardly household names - Jews were sent to ghettos, forced into labor service, and routinely rounded up and massacred. The Einsatzgruppen and the German Army worked together. By spring 1943, approximately 1.25 million Jews were dead. The annotated photo presentation displays twenty-four black and white photographs. Looking closely at one snapshot, the reader can see yellow badges on the coats of women holding shovels in their hands. On the same page, a soldier is laughingly pulling a woman away from a truck. What is the background to these pictures? What had happened there? The author tries to find answers to these questions – questions which are difficult to solve almost seventy years after the Holocaust.

Leseprobe

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Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

Breaking the Silence (Introduction)

His Time of Service (Excerpts and Photos from a Documentary)

Appendix

Memorial Plaque, Baranowicze

Timeline: Baranowicze, July 1941 – July 1942

Bibliography

Preface

Almost two years after the beginning of World War II, Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941. SS mobile killing units followed directly on the heels of the Wehrmacht, the German army, and routinely rounded up Jews. With the assistance of the Wehrmacht, Jews were taken to extermination camps and killing fields.

Many German soldiers kept photo albums to recall their adventures and commemorate their “glorious days” in World War II. They had been in places where German killing units – Einsatzgruppen – had murdered Jews and anyone opposed to their advance. In towns like Grodno, Baranowicze, Bobruisk, Orel, and Briansk – hardly household names - Jews were sent to ghettos, forced into labor service, and routinely rounded up and massacred. The Einsatzgruppen and the German Army worked together. Logistical support including supplies, housing, and manpower were provided by the army. By spring 1943, over a million Jews and thousands of Soviet political commissars, partisans, and disabled persons were dead.

The starting point of the present project was the discovery of the hidden military album of my father who drove a truck through Belarus and Russia in 1942/43. The annotated photo presentation displays 24 black and white photographs. Dates and names of the depicted places were taken from the very few handwritten notes in the album; other dates had to be estimated on account of the absence of written documentation. Explanations of the pictures derive largely from the documentary “My Time of Service” (Richmond, VA 2005). Further details on towns, ghettos and killing sites were found in libraries and archives as well as on the Internet; those comments are written in italics.

For the most part the discovered photo album consists of ordinary pictures routinely taken during and after World War II – photos you can see in other military albums as well. But for one notable exception. That photo shows Jewish women, shovels in their hands, digging or closing graves. What is the background to that picture? What had happened there? How deeply was my father involved in the Aktionen against the Jews? In the presentation at hand, the author tries to find answers to these questions – questions which are difficult to solve almost seventy years after the Holocaust.

Acknowledgments

First of all, I want to thank the Virginia Holocaust Museum in Richmond/Virginia where Jay Ipson, the former director, and Charles Sydnor, the present museum head, advised and encouraged me to research my father’s military album. My thanks also go to the former museum curator, Dianna Gabay who made it possible to digitize the photos in the album and store them on CD for future lectures and presentations. I also want to thank Tim Hensley, head of the museum’s library and archives, for his help.

Last but not least, I want to express my thanks to the librarians and archivists of the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. and Yad Vashem in Jerusalem for their warm assistance. My special thanks go to Donna Schatz who turned the discovery and contents of the album into a short documentary.

Jerusalem, 27 January 2014

Heidemarie Wawrzyn

The Hidden Album

1942-1943

(Annotated Photo Presentation)

Breaking the Silence (Introduction)

When I was a child, Uncle George and his family often visited us on weekends in our small townhouse in Berlin which had been built during the Nazi era. My uncle loved to imitate Hitler and Goebbels and make fun of them. After his visit my parents used to say, "It's nice to have George here. But we don't like his mockery of Hitler and Goebbels." I did not ask why. When in 1979 almost the entire German nation watched the TV series Holocaust, my parents did not want to see it. I did not ask why. When my father mentioned the Second World War and added that he had driven a truck in Russia, I did not ask further questions.