Cruel World (98 page)
Authors: Lynn H. Nicholas
I felt guilty about everything that my parents, the NSB, the Nazis, that Hitler, had done. Precisely because you had heard so much about it, because your parents respected the movement so much and now everyone was tearing it all down, as their child you felt all dirty and you couldn’t do anything about it. I had no parents I could be proud of. That feeling of guilt and shame stayed for a long time. I was angry that their choice poisoned my youth, and even a big part of my life.
20
Reentry was not easy for anyone who had been exiled or evacuated. Provincialism had not been erased by the world war. Everyone at home tended to be focused on his own experiences and recovery. Young children coming back to the Netherlands from the Japanese internment camps in Indonesia were mocked at school because of the ill-fitting and often exotic clothes supplied to them by the rescue agencies. None of the returnees to any country knew any of the local war jargon, or what had happened there under the Nazis while they had been gone. They were often way behind in their studies and had to be placed in classes with younger schoolmates. Attempts by older boys and girls to find sympathetic listeners who might reassure them were met by counterstories from those who considered their own experiences just as bad, which they often were. The enormous publicity surrounding the liberation of the concentration camps and the vast number of horror stories everyone heard soon led older people to talk of other things, an avoidance increased by an ingrained wariness of confiding in others and by the unwillingness of many victims to relive their recent pain. Above all, sheer survival in the ruins of Europe, or trying to escape it, took every ounce of energy. Almost all memoirs and oral histories of the period, which would come forth in floods twenty-five and more years after the war, refer to this strange silence, especially between generations, which would not be broken for many years.
In Germany, months after the formal surrender, relatives mourn a child killed by an unexploded grenade
.
(photo credit 17.2)
And so the war ended, piecemeal, receding like a putrid tide leaving behind every kind of human desolation and detritus. It would be a long time before Europe ceased to be somber and gray, and before warmth and food were taken for granted. Traces remain even seventy years later. Spanish Refugee Aid still cares for a small group of elderly Civil War exiles who live in France. Poles, Balts, Russians, Jews, and small remnants of every other uprooted people are scattered around the world. All have made their way in some manner, some very well, but they remain people apart.
One might have thought that the events of the Nazi era and the forty million dead would open every eye to the evils of intolerance and extremism and would cause people to fall into each other’s arms in common sorrow, but they did not. Even as World War II ended, new conflicts began, and others have succeeded them without cease, bringing horror and corruption, which “stream like blood out of our televisions,” to millions of children.
21
In the face of the power of induced collective suppression and violence, the actions of rational and humane individuals, who are present everywhere, and who, in the cruel Nazi world, saved those they could, still remain the best hope for mankind.
A
BBREVIATIONS
| DGFP | Documents on German Foreign Policy, 1918–1945 |
| FRUS | Foreign Relations of the United States |
| IMT | International Military Tribunal |
| IWM | Imperial War Museum, London |
| LC/MS | Library of Congress, Manuscript Division |
| NA | National Archives, College Park, Maryland |
| NIOD (formerly RIOD) | Nederlands Instituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie, Amsterdam |
| PRO | Public Record Office, Kew, Great Britain |
| RG | Record Group (in National Archives) |
| TWC | Trials of War Criminals |
| UNA | United Nations Archives, New York |
| UNRRA | United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration |
ROLOGUE
1.
NA RG 338/54, ETO/USFET, Detachment F1F3, report, “Asylum at Kaufbeuren, Swabia,” 5 July 1945; NA RG 238, Nuremberg Doc. 1696-PS; Ernst Klee,
Euthanasie im NS-Staat
(Frankfurt, 1983), pp. 452–54.
2.
Alan Bullock,
Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives
(New York, 1993), pp. 983, 805.
3.
Hermann Rauschning,
Hitler Speaks
(London, 1939), pp. 113, 229–30, as cited in Richard Pipes,
Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime
(New York, 1993), p. 280.
4.
Adolf Hitler,
Mein Kampf
, ed. D. C. Watt (London, 1974), p. 367.
5.
Ibid., p. 368.
HAPTER
1. A
PPLIED
E
UGENICS
1.
Daniel J. Kevles,
In the Name of Eugenics
(Cambridge, MA, 1995), pp. 96–97.
2.
Hitler,
Mein Kampf
, p. 400.
3.
For a complete history of this undertaking and its fate, see the study by Nancy L. Gallagher,
Breeding Better Vermonters: The Eugenics Project in the Green Mountain State
(Hanover, NH, 1999).
4.
Ibid., pp. 122–24; Appendix C, p. 185, gives the full text of the law.
5.
Kevles,
In the Name of Eugenics
, p. 115.
6.
This account is based on ibid., pp. 110–11; quote on p. 111.
7.
Stephen Jay Gould,
The Mismeasure of Man
(New York, 1981), pp. 335–36. See also Kevles,
In the Name of Eugenics
, p. 329, n. 48.
8.
Gould,
The Mismeasure of Man
, pp. 172, 233.
9.
Washington Post
, 29 September 2003.
10.
Kevles,
In the Name of Eugenics
, pp. 112, 116.
11.
Ibid., p. 120.
12.
Hitler,
Mein Kampf
, p. 368.
13.
See, for example, Gunnar Broberg and Nils Roll-Hansen,
Eugenics and the Welfare State
(Ann Arbor, MI, 1996).
14.
Michael Burleigh,
Death and Deliverance: Euthanasia in Germany, 1900–1945
(Cambridge, UK, 1994), p. 42; William Shirer,
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
(New York, 1960), pp. 234–35.
15.
Gregor Ziemer,
Education for Death: The Making of the Nazi
(Oxford, 1941), p. 27.
16.
For the best summary of this process, see Henry Friedlander,
The Origins of Nazi Genocide: From Euthanasia to the Final Solution
(Chapel Hill, NC, 1995), Chapter 2.
17.
For a summary of this issue, see Lisa Pine,
Nazi Family Policy, 1933–1945
(New York, 1997), Chapter 4.
18.
NA RG 59, LM 193/16/440–47, 862. 12/26, W. W. Adams, 23 November 1935.
19.
Gisela Bock, “Racism and Sexism in Nazi Germany,” in
When Biology Became Destiny
, ed. Renate Bridenthal, Atina Grossmann, and Marion Kaplan (New York, 1984), pp. 271–96.
20.
Cited in Stefan Kühl,
The Nazi Connection: Eugenics, American Racism, and German National Socialism
(Oxford, 1994), pp. 87–88.
21.
For a detailed account of the controversy on which the following is based, see Keith L. Nelson, “The ‘Black Horror’ on the Rhine: Race as a Factor in Post—World War I Diplomacy,”
Journal of Modern History
42 (December 1970), pp. 606–27.
22.
Cited in Robert C. Reinders, “Racialism on the Left: E. D. Morel and the ‘Black Horror on the Rhine,’ ”
International Review of Social History
13 (1968), p. 1.
23.
Christian Science Monitor
, 28 October 1920, cited in Nelson, “The ‘Black Horror’ on the Rhine,” p. 618.
24.
Nelson, “The ‘Black Horror’ on the Rhine,” p. 621.
25.
Reiner Pommerin,
Sterilisierung der Rhinelandbastarde: Das Schicksal einer farbigen deutschen Minderheit, 1918–1937
(Düsseldorf, 1979), pp. 24–27.
26.
Hitler,
Mein Kampf
, p. 295.
27.
Nelson, “The ‘Black Horror’ on the Rhine,” p. 626.
28.
Melita Maschmann,
Account Rendered: A Dossier on My Former Self
(London, 1965), p. 13.
29.
The following account is taken from Pommerin,
Sterilisierung der Rhinelandbastarde
.
30.
Ibid., p. 47.
31.
Ibid., p. 84.
32.
Burleigh,
Death and Deliverance
, p. 58.
33.
Ludwig Eiber,
“Ich wuste, es wird schlimm.” Die verfolgung der Sinti und Roma in München, 1933–1945
(Munich, 1993), pp. 16–18.
34.
Ibid., p. 45.
35.
On Ritter, see Wim Willems,
In Search of the True Gypsy
(London, 1997), Chapter 5.
36.
Cited in Isabel Fonseca,
Bury Me Standing
(New York, 1996), p. 258.
37.
Willems,
In Search of the True Gypsy
, pp. 255–56.
38.
Sybil Milton, “Nazi Policies Toward Roma and Sinti, 1933–1945,”
Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society
5, 2:1 (1992), p. 6; Guenter Lewy,
The Nazi Persecution of the Gypsies
(Oxford, 2000), pp. 52–55.
39.
Willems,
In Search of the True Gypsy
, p. 259.
40.
Eiber,
“Ich wuste, es wird schlimm,”
p. 58.
41.
Interrogation transcript of Franz August Wirbel, Landeskriminalamt, Baden-Württemberg, 8/26/1982, in Sybil Milton and Henry Friedlander,
Archives of the Holocaust
(New York, 1993), Vol. 22, Doc. 110, pp. 261–71.
42.
Lewy,
The Nazi Persecution of the Gypsies
, pp. 68–70.
43.
Conti to Central Office, Kripo, 1/24/40, in Milton, “Nazi Policies Toward Roma and Sinti,” p. 15, n.33.
44.
Lewy,
The Nazi Persecution of the Gypsies
, pp. 70–81.
45.
Ibid., pp. 135–43, 193.
46.
Ibid., pp. 146–47.
47.
Helena Kubica, “Children and Youths at KL Auschwitz,” in
Auschwitz: Nazi Death Camp
, ed. Franciszek Piper and Teresa Swiebocka (Oswiecim, 1996), p. 129.
48.
Elzbieta Piekut-Warszawa, in Irena Strzelecka, “Experiments,” in Piper and Swiebocka, eds.,
Auschwitz: Nazi Death Camp
, pp. 94–97.
49.
Ibid., pp. 103–5.
50.
Ambassador Dodd’s Diary, 1933–1938
, ed. William E. Dodd, Jr., and Martha Dodd, (New York, 1941), entries for 16 August and 1 September 1933.
51.
For the best description of this process from the personal point of view, see Victor Klemperer,
I Will Bear Witness: A Diary of the Nazi Years, 1933–1945
, 2 vols. (New York, 1998, 1999).
52.
Malcolm Muggeridge, in
Fortnightly Review
, 1 May 1933, in Robert Conquest,
The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine
(New York, 1986), p. 260.
53.
F. Belov,
The History of a Soviet Collective Farm
(New York, 1955), pp. 12–13, in Dana G. Dalrymple, “The Soviet Famine of 1932–1934,”
Soviet Studies
15:3 (1964), p. 261.
54.
Harry Lang,
New York Evening Journal
,15 April 1935, in Dalrymple, “The Soviet Famine,” p. 262.
55.
Conquest,
The Harvest of Sorrow
, p. 284.
56.
New York Evening Journal
, 16 April 1935, in Conquest,
The Harvest of Sorrow
, p. 287.
57.
Conquest,
The Harvest of Sorrow
, p. 286.
58.
Ibid., p. 291.
59.
Ibid., p. 298.
60.
Lev Kopelev,
The Education of a True Believer
(New York, 1977), pp. 11–12, 235, cited ibid., pp. 232–33.
61.
Conquest,
The Harvest of Sorrow
, p. 297.
62.
Ibid., pp. 294–95;
New York Times
, 22 August 1933, p. 1; Ewald Ammende,
Human Life in Russia
(London, 1936), pp. 102–3 (citing Reuters, 21 May 1934) and 236–37.
63.
Arch Getty and Oleg Naumov, eds.,
The Road to Terror: Stalin and the Self-Destruction of the Bolsheviks, 1932–1939
(Yale 1999), pp. 468–79 and Docs. 168–70.
64.
Ibid., pp. 486–87.
65.
New York Times
, 7 September 1933, p.64.
66.
NA RG 59, LM 193/21/060, 862.4016/496 Messersmith to State, 25 March 1933.
67.
Ibid.
68.
J. Noakes and G. Pridham, eds.,
Nazism, 1919–1945: A History in Documents and Eyewitness Accounts
, 2 vols. (New York, 1990), Vol. 1, Doc. 394, p. 524.
69.
NA RG 59, LM 193/21/199–202, editorial from
Der Angriff
, Berlin, 28 March 1933.
70.
NA RG 59, LM 193/21/180, 862.4016/568, Messersmith to State, 31 March 1933.
71.
The literature on the anti-Jewish measures in Germany is vast. For a clear summary, see Raul Hilberg,
The Destruction of the European Jews
(New York, 1985), Chapters 2 and Chapters 3.
72.
Ibid., p. 38.