When will I learn

It is not a good idea to read intense literature just before bed. Not when you are inclined to insomnia.

I have been reading a dense history of the Holocaust - 600 pages or so - called The Years of Extermination 1938-1944. Since these were the years my family and I escaped from Berlin and went to England, I was very interested and I admit, that belatedly, I'm reading a lot of Holocaust materials.

For most of my life, it's been like that proverbial elephant in the room and I couldn't deal with it
but now I'm obsessed with it. I'm hoping that it's cathartic.

Tonight however, I got totally upset with the endless reiterations of anti-Semitic crap and endless pages with numbers in the hundreds of thousands of people carted of crammed into trains to "disposal" centers (terrible euphemisms for murder places). Shot, starved, experimented on, worked to death, beaten, gassed - young, old, ill, pregnant, women, men, children under 10, over 10 they could work; rich, poor, intelligent, stupid, religious, secular...........no difference. Babies with their heads bashed against walls.

I had nightmares of being chased in a forest when the children were small. Desperately trying to carry them to safety and runnin and running...............................

And a whole country in thralldom to a madman - and not knowing it - believing everything he said - and if not believing being too frightened to resist. A frail, said little tale once in a while of someone who reached out to help a Jew and was him or herself arrested and carted off to Bergen-Belsen, Buchanvald, Dachau, Sobidor, Auschwitz, and the names go on and on.
The neighbors complaining about the smoke of the burning Jews - even as they buy the shoes no longer needed by their former neighbors.

Country after country spilling their Jews into the hands of the Germans - France, Belgium, Holland, Norway, Sweden, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Poland = some resisted for a while, dragged their feet- helped hide a few - provided visas for a few - but most sent them off to their death willingly, joyfully, glad to help themselves, to the homes, the clothes, the jewelry and household possessions. No shame, no guilt, no blood on their hands - they were just Jews.

And I'm angry at the Jews - so self deluding, in denial that this could be happening, unable to organize to fight back even if it's a lost cause. Unable even to agree upon a plan. Arguing even as they are carted off to die. So few places where they rose up and gave as good as they got.

I understand because even as I read I feel a total disbelief in the pure evil that befell my people.
That in modern times, in a civilized country with music, literature, poetry - this was not Uganda!

Were we so obedient - or so used to being abused and disposessed that we thought "Oh sh-t it's happening again."

Who could believe and be prepared for the smooth, efficient, scientific factory like eradication of 6 million people. 6,000,000 people - more if you include Gypsies and gays - and P oles -and
Serbs and Slav - people who did not fit the Aryan image.

And did you know Hitler had a Jewish grandparent within the numbers that would have labeled him Jewish, if he hadn't been the labeler

It boggles the mind - and this is the country I'm going to visit in June. Last time I was in Germany in the 1980's sometime, I sat on a train waiting to leave - reading a book so I was shocked when a man in uniform barked "AUSWEIS" at me. Even as I gathered he was a ticket taker - my body went into shock. I think I turned white. I know I almost wet my pants. The fear was right there. He did, in all honestly, see my distress and backed off, switched in English and made clear it was just tickets he wanted. But............in my genes, I knew he'd come to kill me at last.

How did we escape those death trains? I wish my parents were alive to ask these questions. When so many died, how did we live - and why?

I look at my grandchildren now and I know there'd be no mercy. There were cute babies then
and they were treated like vermin. The one that haunts me is the Town where the Germans came in and killed of all the adults. For some reason they saved 90 children under 5. 90 children under five were locked in a barn with no food, no water, no blankets, no adults.

The chaplains came and saw what was happening and complained to the Hauptleutenant.
After some discussion over a couple of days they sent the soldiers in to kill the children.
One officer had found a little fair haired girl who trusted Daddy like figures and she held onto him - he gently escorted to the shooting area and watched while she was shot.

Are these human beings? Do these people have a soul? And where were the voices of the religious leaders? Lutherans, Protestants, Catholics - - none saw any incongruity with their expressed faith and what they were engaged in.

I'll never find what I'm looking for which is an answer - How could a whole country do and stay sane- or become sane. I'll never forget the postcard a young soldier sent home to his girlfriend
to show what a hero he was - he posed lining up his rifle at a Jewish woman frantically trying to protect her baby = what a hero.

Ok, more cheeful next time.