judenmord, European helpers

Mondays German Der Spiegel magazine prominently features with a title story "The Accomplices, Hitlers European helpers with the Judenmord"

Some excerpts from nr 21/18.5.09 pages 82-92

In relation with the forthcoming Munchener trail of trawniki Ivan/John (Nikolai) Demjanjuk the Flossenburg/Sobibor guard it examines and surveys the industrial massmurder of jews, the Germans are responsible for, but until today unnoticed went that in foreign (European) countries Hitlers executers found willing helpers and assistants.

page 84... It is clear that the last big Nazi trail on German soil will be extraordinary.
With this accused it will be the first time that foreign actors will be places in focus of the worlds attention, exactly those people that surprisingly got few attention:
Ukrainian gendarmes, Latvian Hilfspolizisten, Rumanian soldiers or Hungarian train workers (Eisenbahners). Also Polish farmers, Dutch kadasterservants, French majors, Norwegian ministers, Italian soldiers - all these worked together with that worse crime the holocaust.
Experts like Dieter Pohl from Institut fur Zeitgeschichte estimates the number of non-Germans at 200,000 that prepared killings, executed or supported these actions. About the same number of the Germans and Austrians.
And manytimes they were as cruel as them........

page 85
....
What made the Rumanian dictator Ion Antonescu and his generals, soldiers, civil servants, farmers, etcetera decide to kill 200,000 jews (and possible that number might actually have been 400,000), on there own account "aus eigenem Antrieb" like historian Armin Heinen formulates. How to explain why Baltic deatheskaders by German command acted in Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine? .....

page 86
... On the killingfields of Eastern Europe every single German policeman was assited by 10 local hilfspolicemen/helpers...

.. A Final conclusion about the european dimension of the holocaust with six million killed jews is still to come. Only late - most actors did already die - French and Italian have commenced to study, work off, make work of their own history.
Others like Lithuania and Ukraine are still struggling with that challenge, or like Rumania, Hungary or Poland, have still to start really doing that.....(???)

Is it true what the Spiegel authors state that no serious debate about killing jews Roma Sinti or others by Romanian army has started yet among historians, journalists, media, the people, or enthousiasts like at forums like these ???

page 87....
And antisemitism? In thirties those in favour got many support, because of feelings of insecurity related with post world war struggle of life and economy.
Especially in Eastern Europe it was common to make jews scape goats, and to exclude these competitors from the labormarket.
In Hungary jews were excluded from higher offices and many professions in late 1930-ies. Rumania voluntary accepted the infame Nurnberger laws, Poland de facto closed many universities for jews.

Why did people, soldiers officers did what they did, kill with cruelty?
In certain circumstances like a vacuum of law and order in certain regimes or situations, stigmatisation of certain groups seems to suffice....
Non-german actors act with the same rationality, that ruled the progress of the crime at the german site....
Evidence provided the Rumanians near Odessa at the Black Sea, that was under control of Rumanian authorities then.
In winter 1941/1942 350,000 from Rumania expelled jews were packed there in ghettos and Lager because the situation at the front (progress had halted?) made it not possible to transport them further east.
Major illnesses and epidemic plagues were at the brink to break out, something had to be done.
A German advisor suggested or proposed to kill them. The Rumanians accepted that advise and organised it. according to historian Armin Heinen an international brigade of "Henkersknechten" executed tens of thousands: Rumanian gendarmen Ukrain policemen, volksdeutsche militia and local volunteers.
Old and those unable to walk because of illness residing in stables were burned with benzine. Those walking were driven towards the forest and executed there...

Does exist some memorial at Odessa commemorating these events, or can somone tell in what forest, what place this happened?
Was it the largest war crime on territory under Rumanian authority in WW2?
Were these events and other facts about history discussed before december 1989?
When did serious discussion about it started in deomcratic Rumania?
What was the role of the Army, the generals and other officers?

Is this forum mature enough for serious debate on such matters when history is not that gloriuous?

Der Spiegel could be hardly called a trusted source! It's a tabloid, for God's sake!
There are wild exagerations, outright lies and some flimsy shadows of truth in the quoted article! There actually is/was a debate in Romania on this matter, but nothing really public, nobody admitting stuff like this! Take me, for example: I was a passionate of history (ww2 and more) from when I was a kid, but only this year I've read what seems to be a sound description of the Romania's part in "judenmord" - that being written by a foreign author, as well! See that:
http://www.worldwar2.ro/forum/index.php?showtopic=5160
I admit with shame that I really believed (as 95% of the Romanians undoubtedly still do) there were no such things as Romanians systematically killing jews; during college I read a book by Alex. Mihai Stoenescu, "Armata, mareşalul şi evreii", which tried to explain some of the anti-jews incidents from 1940-1941, but no more! I also admiz I wasn't terribly interested on the subject, but... this is no excuse!

This post has been edited by MMM on May 20, 2009 12:03 pm

MMM

Did your read the complete article?

I am a bit puzzled by your strong distrust of the magazine in the first place.
Why discredit all of the magazine, just proof the authors Georg Bonissch (60), Michael Sontheimer(54) were wrong, biased, or did their journalistic research in unethical, unmethodoical or other to be disproved way.

So Spiegel is at least partly correct that Rumania has not yet fully started to lift the curtain in this matter, and put some light at the shadow side of history.

I have been a reader of it for long, and must admit they seem to be well informed both on actual intenational and national events, backgrounds, and highly respected by foreign politician who agree to be interviewed.
Also for a tabloid they seem highly aware of historical context, background and self critical research into matters... but I may biased... (I am not German)

What Romanian modern tabloid is comparable or exceeds Spiegel in standard of quality supported by a large team of independent critical journalist rooted in democracy?

It seems both authors largely draw material from publications by Prof. Dr. Armin Heinen fur Neuere und Neueste Geschichte RWTH Aachen Historical Insitute

January 1986 he published his dissertation Legion Erzengel translated and published in Bucuresti in 1999, Humanitas, Legiunea Arhanghelului Mihail

In 2007 he wrote his long time study, using many sources, Rumanien, der Holocaust und der Logik der Gewalt (Logic of Violence), Aachen
Is that translated already?

On page 20 he writes that he did not use the Final report from the international commission on Holocaust in Romania, published 2005, Iasy as no translation was in time available for him. That report had been presented to Iliescu, november 11th, 2004

What critical arguments Romanians presented against Heinen theses or his use of his sources?

NONE!!!!
But it's still a tabloid, a paper which only sells sensation, black-or-white-no-shades-of-grey stuf; do you get my point?
I'll read the article tonight and tell you all about it...

A 3,000 square meter park in central Bucharest will be replaced by a concrete memorial to the victims of the holocaust:

http://www.hotnews.ro/stiri-esential-56782...locaustului.htm

We've also built monument praising the US airmen that bombed Romania in WWII.

We've clearly condemned the Romanian regime that took part in the Holocaust and made Antonescu persona non grata in our public spaces.

It's not clear to me what the Der Spiegel article wants or implies. We're towing the line, are we not?

We do toe the line - that was the idea behind all these manifestations of sympathy/whatever; what seems to be the problem is the actual attitude of the public, the official discourse, the schoolbooks!

In 50 years of communism we have shown we're able to change our discourse and public behavior if need be but that doesn't mean we ended up believing in it. If they want to coerce us into just another parroting then they'll get it. Even for 50 years. But it will be "fara fond." It's a wrong approach taken by the West imo.

I am glad to read you guys are towing the line!

Sorry, nevertheless I do not get your point MMM!?
I do not see why you should not discriminate between magazines which do write in different shades of grey and others (tabloids) that do mostly write dominantly black or white.

As I said I do read that magazine for years (decades) now, I am not convinced that they do their job bad. Yes I do not like either what they write about my country but do entitle them the right to do so, to have different view and opinion than mine.
It can be very well to learn how some other sees your own country rather different.

Though it might be true Spiegel gave a far too much flat picture of todays Romanian awareness of its past. It is up to you to correct that if you wish so...

To make my point. Spiegel two weeks ago in nr19/2009 gave an excellent account how Germans had tried to free hostages taken by Somalian pirates. With Russian rented transport Antonov planes they had transported their Police Superpuma helikopters and armed GSG9 antiterrorist teams into Kenia, and than aboard an USNavy helikoptervessel to sneak into the area. But assessing the operation to be to life-risking for both hostages and teams decided not to go for it.
When Spiegel revealed what had and had not happened, a lot of German parliament members were not asumed as they had not been informed by their own governement at all. Not odd to say Spiegel reporters do their job, research rather well. Proof me my judgement is wrong in this matter.

That would be getting far off-topic, but still: I cannot trust that paper about some other subjects I know little or nothing about, when I see how they distort reality on a matter with which I'm more familiar! Get it now?
I know very well how press can distort reality...
The expression is "toe the line", as toe means the finger of the foot
And, finally, before getting back to the jews, I don't see how I, as a person, could change/correct the image of Romania; not when a lot of money are spent in campaigns of image...

If you would have bothered to search the forum, you would have found several topics on the issue, some as old as the forum itself.

Please continue the discussion in one of them.

I have bothered to search, and, indeed, found interesting different threads, topics, articles. I hope my critical mark was not that offending though, was it?

Also it is not my intention to continue here, as I did add elsewhere in the forum, but believe I should not withold forummembers some of the remarks from readers reaction letters that appeared in Der Spiegel yesterday (Nr.22/25.5.09)...

Page 8
"The Spiegel article should in those countries provoke reaction to refurbishment of history, itself an essential element of free domocracy" Christian Tesic

The EU did not with these former accomplices before accepting them as new members, work things out. Especially Slowakija, and also the Batlic states did never distantiate from these known cruelties, last but least did they confronte themselves with it. Dr. Peter Bielicky

To solve that riddle - how could it happen - one needs to know that other citizens with jewish faith were not murdered that simple.
Often it was plane robbery and greed was a motive. Among those murders were every one, German and non-german, physisian and worker, the smart and the dumbs. It can happen again, we have to beware. Maybe beware of ourselves. Often it is not the angry other who commences, starts.. Ekehard Gerard

Also in the USA shortly before the outbreak of WW2 existed eruptions of antisemitism. At the immigration authority at Ellis Island I found a staggering proof that then a refugeeship filled with 300 jewish children was prohibited to land or dock. The children were send back to Europe into (disaster) a certain death, after both chambers of the US Congress had refused. The representatives obviously knew what the US people wished. Dr Walter Laufenberg

Gabriela Votova writes she learned only about those willing European helpers from the Hanna Arendt book Eichmann in Jerusalem. It was not only a bad German dream but that Hitler put a flame to that epoche of hate and deathwish..

The case of Demjanjuk shows again that significant feature of the guilty actors.
Keeping silent until (their own) death. Which is rather not helpful to the victims...
Christopher Wolters

A very important contribution to the theme did Antonella Salomoni publish in 2007
L'Unione Sovietica e la Shoa - Genocidio, resistenza, rimozione
This excellent documenetd research work was regrettedly not translated in German
Dr Kaspar Wildberger

I am not relieved that alongside us Germans other humans from other countries cooperated in cruelty against there own citizens. We Germans were inventors of that destructionmachine. Others only borrowed our morale. Gerhard Donat.

the spiegel is a weekly magazine and generally considered to be a higher quality publication. it is definetly not a tabloid (yet). THE tabloid in germany is the daily newspaper "bild". not so much in format as in content.
nevertheless, the quality of the magazine has declined over the years from very good to a bit better than average nowadays. sometimes articles contain errors as the sources seem to be mainstream and wikipedia, when it comes to historical articles.

the reason for this type of of article is the recent extradition of Ivan Demyanyuk to Germany.

I read that article in german, as i usually buy the magazine almost every monday since about 8-9 years now.
The focus was to ilustrate the often very enthusiastic collaboration in eastern europe when it comes to deportation and/or extermination of jews.

This post has been edited by dead-cat on May 29, 2009 05:47 pm

He-he-he! Try and say this in Romania and in Romanian! I hope you can run fast then...
PS - this is one of the reasons for whicch I prefered to be a teacher of English instead of History - the truth isn't always the best choice, although Romania is "the land of choice", isn't it?!?!

I see that my plea to continue the discussion in the already existing topics on this subject was in vain. I renew it and will close this one. Below you have the links to the existing topics:

http://www.worldwar2.ro/forum/index.php?showtopic=118
http://www.worldwar2.ro/forum/index.php?showtopic=689