I have done a little research and reading over the years on the holocaust and what the Jewish people went through when they were judged as unworthy as humans and so many innocents were exterminated in Hitler's "final solution". I recently read this quote from a book about women in Auschwitz and I couldn't help but see so many similarities between the way the Jews were treated and how the witnesses treat those they feel are "rebellious" or causing division or whatever other accusations they can drum up against those they want to be rid of. I believe any of us who have been shunned by friends and families can relate to how eerily (spelling?) this corresponds with the rigid and unloving way those who disagree with the "Society" are treated. (Though we cannot fully realize the ultimate horror that the Jews experienced at Nazi hands...some of the treatment handed out by witnesses can also result in severe trauma and what I refer to as PTWSD...Post Traumatic Witness Stress Disorder.")
Fritzies first recollection of the effects of occupation was of her schoolteacher denying her access to her continued education. The teacher told Fritzie that she was no longer allowed to attend the school because she was Jewish.
A teacher who was my teacher who took out a white handkerchief from his pocket the week before to wipe a smudge off my face, turned to me one day and told me I must not come to school anymore. Within a days time, Jews were labeled as different, inferior, and in need of segregation and regulation. The government established rules for access to educational institutions, time limits for shopping or walking on public streets or working, bans for sitting on public benches, and mandates for wearing a yellow star to indicate that one was Jewish. Each day brought about another legislated rule, another edict, or a new law to restrict freedom and dignity.
If someone came toward someone who was not a Jew, the Jew needed to step off the sidewalk to allow the next person who of course was not Jewish to walk by. I recall our neighbors turning their backs on us. Spitting on us. Neighbors who lived in peace with us, who were our friends the week before.
In March 1944 the Jews were told to gather their belongings for relocation in a ghetto in their own town. They quickly realized they had mistakenly believed the lies of those they had trusted. Though hopeful they would be relocated in a safe place, they soon realized that their fate led to imprisonment. I will never understand how one human neighbor, a friend can turn against you, a person who has lived with you in peace, who watched you being born, who has gone to school with you, who knows your family and knows your life history but, nevertheless, that's what they did.
Quoted from Love Carried Me Home--Women Surviving Auschwitz by Joy Erlichman Miller, Ph.D.
Edited by - HadEnuf on 1 July 2002 12:33:33
Edited by - HadEnuf on 1 July 2002 14:47:36