'Accountant of Auschwitz' Oskar Groening Set to Stand Trial

It should never be forgotten....

http://www.theguardian.com/world/20...no-rights-but-fierce-determination-to-survive

Auschwitz survivor: 'We had no rights but a fierce determination to survive'

Eva Mozes Kor takes the stand at the trial of former SS guard Oskar Gröning to describe her ordeal at the death camp where he worked





Auschwitz death camp survivor, Eva Mozes Kor, in the courtroom in Lüneburg, Germany. Photograph: Julian Stratenschulte/dpa/Corbis Kate Connolly in Lüneburg
Wednesday 22 April 2015 14.18 EDT Last modified on Wednesday 22 April 2015 14.47 EDT







A survivor of Auschwitz who lost 119 members of her family in the Holocaust, has confronted the former SS guard who is on trial for complicity in the murder of 300,000 Jews, appealing to him to take responsibility for his actions.


Ninety-three year old Oskar Gröning sat impassively in the courtroom as Eva Mozes Kor, from Terre Haute, Indiana, greeted him by name before launching into a dramatic account of her internment at Auschwitz extermination camp where the former SS officer worked for two years.
Kor described how within 30 minutes of her family’s arrival from Romania in May 1944 at the selection platform in Auschwitz-Birkenau – where Gröning’s task was to take prisoners’ suitcases – her family was “ripped apart forever” after her parents were sent to their deaths, and she and her 10-year-old twin sister Miriam were picked out by the notorious doctor Josef Mengele to take part in his infamous experimentation programme on twins.


“Of our family, only Miriam and I survived because we were used in Dr Mengele’s experiments,” the 81-year-old told the court.
I made a silent pledge to ensure that I’d do everything in my power to survive and be reunited with my sister
Eva Mozes Kor​
“We became part of a group of twins girls, thirty sets of them aged two to 16 ... who were taken to a processing centre where they cut our hair short and took our clothes away. “Two Nazis and two prisoners restrained me [and] began heating a needle. When it got hot they burned it into my left arm. I got the number A-7063 and Miriam became A-7064.”
Kor, one of 60 third-party plaintiffs from around the world who are due to address the court during the four-month trial, described the “dirty bunk beds crawling with lice and rats” and of being “starved of human kindness and of the love of the mother and father we once had”. She added: “We had no rights but a fierce determination to survive one more day.”



She held the court spellbound as she recalled being a “Mengele twin” and the rigid experiment schedule she and Miriam were forced into. “On Monday, Wednesday and Friday we would be placed naked in a room for up to eight hours. They would measure our body parts ... it was very demeaning. On alternate days – Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays – we were brought to a lab where they took a lot of blood from my left arm and injected it five times into my right arm.”


She developed a fever and nearly died. “Mengele came to see me. He looked at the thermometer and laughed sarcastically, saying: ‘Too bad. She’s so young. She only has two weeks left to live’. I knew he was right but I refused to die. I made a silent pledge to ensure that I’d do everything in my power to survive and be reunited with my sister,” she said.
When the two sisters saw each other again after weeks of separation, her sibling refused to talk about what had happened to her. “We did not talk about it until 1985,” she said.





They later discovered that had one of them died, the other would have been killed with an injection to the heart so that Mengele could carry out a “comparative autopsy” on them. Her sister discovered only much later in life that her kidney had never grown larger than that of a 10-year-old’s due to the testing.



Miriam died of cancer in 1993. Kor looked towards Gröning as she told him she forgave him any wrongdoing, but added: “My forgiveness does not absolve the perpetrator from taking responsibility for his actions. Neither does it diminish my need to know what happened there, including wanting to know exactly what it was Mengele injected us with. After 70 years I have still not been able to find out.”


On the second day of what will be one of the last ever Nazi trials, state prosecutor Jens Lehmann sought to emphasise the extent to which Gröning, who volunteered for the SS at the age of 19 or 20, was an enthusiastic follower of the regime.



He described Gröning’s upbringing with a German nationalist father who encouraged him to join the youth wing of the nationalist paramilitary organisation the Stahlhelm (steel helmet), which was subsequently subsumed into the Hitler Youth.


His brother, Gerhard, had been a Hitler Youth leader before becoming an officer in the Wehrmacht.



Gröning’s later wife, who had been engaged to Gerhard before he fell at Stalingrad, had been a member of the Band of German Maidens, the girls’ wing of the Nazi party. Lehmann said Gröning had also followed the request of the Nazi leadership to renounce his membership of the protestant church, effectively switching his allegiance to Hitler and the Nazi party.
“Even within the SS you were in a minority when you decided to follow orders and do this,” Lehmann told him.


Detailed questioning of Gröning, a retired bank clerk, reinforced a picture of the highly compartmentalised division of labour within Auschwitz, and the importance that non-commissioned officers such as Gröning – who has described himself as a “small cog in the wheel” – had in the smooth running of the mass killing machine that operated there.


Gröning showed no emotion as he described how he watched as the freight trains rolled into the arrival platform at Auschwitz-Birkenau and the prisoners tumbled out. “How was the mood of the people?” judge Franz Kompisch asked him. “Clueless,” Gröning said. “They had no idea what was going on. That changed over time ... as depending on where they had come from and what they had heard, some suspected something, others suspected nothing.”


But he repeatedly stressed the importance that was drummed into every soldier of keeping order, by keeping the trains rolling, and clearing the arrival ramp and adjacent platform immediately after a train had been unloaded to ensure the next one could be opened as soon as possible.


“The capacity of the gas chambers and the crematoria was quite limited,” he explained to the court, his thin, liver-spotted hands gesticulating towards the judge. “If the trains had unloaded before a previous train had been processed, this would have disturbed the order, and chaos would have ensued. For the sake of order, we waited until one train was entirely processed, including removing the luggage, before opening another one.”
He recalled that two doctors would be on duty at a time to “decide who was fit for work and who wasn’t”. Those who were not were sent directly to their deaths. Asked by Lehmann whether he knew about specific changes that were made during his period of deployment to the organisation of Auschwitz and its management structure, Gröning said: “No, I’m just a poor, small, non-commissioned officer.”


Outside the courtroom, Kor repeated her feelings of compassion for Gröning, but said: “He’s still rationalising it. He’s trying to minimalise his role as much as possible by saying he only stood and watched. But it could be that bearing witness to what he did in this court case is the best thing he’s ever done in his life. Isn’t that sad?”
The trial continues.
 
It wasnt just this guy...sad to say when the jews were being shipped off. Most rabbis actually by their inaction, by not resesisting contributed to the mass slaughter. Its a well kept secret. But when the jews finaly did revolt it was against rabbis wishis

I cant remember the book but i beleive it was wftten by a native american academic ward.churchil who explores.this very issue...
The horror of this wasnt just the evil nazis...the entire german nation where hitlers willing executioners as they say...the rabbis were even complicent in the mass murder....less we forget, though, catholics where murdered in these camps along with deaf, gypsies, and any other undisirible the nazis got their hands on..poles...you name it...
Just keeping it real....
Genocide is s horrible horrible thing....
 
http://www.theguardian.com/world/20...no-rights-but-fierce-determination-to-survive

Auschwitz survivor: 'We had no rights but a fierce determination to survive'

Eva Mozes Kor takes the stand at the trial of former SS guard Oskar Gröning to describe her ordeal at the death camp where he worked





Auschwitz death camp survivor, Eva Mozes Kor, in the courtroom in Lüneburg, Germany. Photograph: Julian Stratenschulte/dpa/Corbis Kate Connolly in Lüneburg
Wednesday 22 April 2015 14.18 EDT Last modified on Wednesday 22 April 2015 14.47 EDT







A survivor of Auschwitz who lost 119 members of her family in the Holocaust, has confronted the former SS guard who is on trial for complicity in the murder of 300,000 Jews, appealing to him to take responsibility for his actions.


Ninety-three year old Oskar Gröning sat impassively in the courtroom as Eva Mozes Kor, from Terre Haute, Indiana, greeted him by name before launching into a dramatic account of her internment at Auschwitz extermination camp where the former SS officer worked for two years.
Kor described how within 30 minutes of her family’s arrival from Romania in May 1944 at the selection platform in Auschwitz-Birkenau – where Gröning’s task was to take prisoners’ suitcases – her family was “ripped apart forever” after her parents were sent to their deaths, and she and her 10-year-old twin sister Miriam were picked out by the notorious doctor Josef Mengele to take part in his infamous experimentation programme on twins.


“Of our family, only Miriam and I survived because we were used in Dr Mengele’s experiments,” the 81-year-old told the court.
I made a silent pledge to ensure that I’d do everything in my power to survive and be reunited with my sister
Eva Mozes Kor​
“We became part of a group of twins girls, thirty sets of them aged two to 16 ... who were taken to a processing centre where they cut our hair short and took our clothes away. “Two Nazis and two prisoners restrained me [and] began heating a needle. When it got hot they burned it into my left arm. I got the number A-7063 and Miriam became A-7064.”
Kor, one of 60 third-party plaintiffs from around the world who are due to address the court during the four-month trial, described the “dirty bunk beds crawling with lice and rats” and of being “starved of human kindness and of the love of the mother and father we once had”. She added: “We had no rights but a fierce determination to survive one more day.”



She held the court spellbound as she recalled being a “Mengele twin” and the rigid experiment schedule she and Miriam were forced into. “On Monday, Wednesday and Friday we would be placed naked in a room for up to eight hours. They would measure our body parts ... it was very demeaning. On alternate days – Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays – we were brought to a lab where they took a lot of blood from my left arm and injected it five times into my right arm.”


She developed a fever and nearly died. “Mengele came to see me. He looked at the thermometer and laughed sarcastically, saying: ‘Too bad. She’s so young. She only has two weeks left to live’. I knew he was right but I refused to die. I made a silent pledge to ensure that I’d do everything in my power to survive and be reunited with my sister,” she said.
When the two sisters saw each other again after weeks of separation, her sibling refused to talk about what had happened to her. “We did not talk about it until 1985,” she said.





They later discovered that had one of them died, the other would have been killed with an injection to the heart so that Mengele could carry out a “comparative autopsy” on them. Her sister discovered only much later in life that her kidney had never grown larger than that of a 10-year-old’s due to the testing.



Miriam died of cancer in 1993. Kor looked towards Gröning as she told him she forgave him any wrongdoing, but added: “My forgiveness does not absolve the perpetrator from taking responsibility for his actions. Neither does it diminish my need to know what happened there, including wanting to know exactly what it was Mengele injected us with. After 70 years I have still not been able to find out.”


On the second day of what will be one of the last ever Nazi trials, state prosecutor Jens Lehmann sought to emphasise the extent to which Gröning, who volunteered for the SS at the age of 19 or 20, was an enthusiastic follower of the regime.



He described Gröning’s upbringing with a German nationalist father who encouraged him to join the youth wing of the nationalist paramilitary organisation the Stahlhelm (steel helmet), which was subsequently subsumed into the Hitler Youth.


His brother, Gerhard, had been a Hitler Youth leader before becoming an officer in the Wehrmacht.



Gröning’s later wife, who had been engaged to Gerhard before he fell at Stalingrad, had been a member of the Band of German Maidens, the girls’ wing of the Nazi party. Lehmann said Gröning had also followed the request of the Nazi leadership to renounce his membership of the protestant church, effectively switching his allegiance to Hitler and the Nazi party.
“Even within the SS you were in a minority when you decided to follow orders and do this,” Lehmann told him.


Detailed questioning of Gröning, a retired bank clerk, reinforced a picture of the highly compartmentalised division of labour within Auschwitz, and the importance that non-commissioned officers such as Gröning – who has described himself as a “small cog in the wheel” – had in the smooth running of the mass killing machine that operated there.


Gröning showed no emotion as he described how he watched as the freight trains rolled into the arrival platform at Auschwitz-Birkenau and the prisoners tumbled out. “How was the mood of the people?” judge Franz Kompisch asked him. “Clueless,” Gröning said. “They had no idea what was going on. That changed over time ... as depending on where they had come from and what they had heard, some suspected something, others suspected nothing.”


But he repeatedly stressed the importance that was drummed into every soldier of keeping order, by keeping the trains rolling, and clearing the arrival ramp and adjacent platform immediately after a train had been unloaded to ensure the next one could be opened as soon as possible.


“The capacity of the gas chambers and the crematoria was quite limited,” he explained to the court, his thin, liver-spotted hands gesticulating towards the judge. “If the trains had unloaded before a previous train had been processed, this would have disturbed the order, and chaos would have ensued. For the sake of order, we waited until one train was entirely processed, including removing the luggage, before opening another one.”
He recalled that two doctors would be on duty at a time to “decide who was fit for work and who wasn’t”. Those who were not were sent directly to their deaths. Asked by Lehmann whether he knew about specific changes that were made during his period of deployment to the organisation of Auschwitz and its management structure, Gröning said: “No, I’m just a poor, small, non-commissioned officer.”


Outside the courtroom, Kor repeated her feelings of compassion for Gröning, but said: “He’s still rationalising it. He’s trying to minimalise his role as much as possible by saying he only stood and watched. But it could be that bearing witness to what he did in this court case is the best thing he’s ever done in his life. Isn’t that sad?”
The trial continues.

:cry:
 
Thats a very simplistic take on history..your welcome to hold it...no plm
I would prefer forgivness in this case..its just an opinion..a minority one fine.
What america has to do with this perticular case is well ive been discussing this on here with americans, and americs of course got away with genncide. The nazi didnt..its like a theif lecuturing another theif not to steal....nice...whwt worked for yoir nation, conquest and genocide of natives, the nazi also wanted to do and tried to do, its a good thing theu lost, but it doesnt negate your own nations genocide on others...or to put it this way. Just because your nation.got away with the crimes, of genocide, doesnt mean.the crimes didnt occure....
This man is being tried as we all know not because of the genocide, its because the nazis lost...
As for americs getting into the war...sure a couple of years after the fighting started, and the jews and others bejng murdered by the nazis wasnt part of the equatiin of american involment...as for italy siding with japan re the attacks...im mot sure if italy even knew.abouT the attack on pearl harbour, but some americans did...and let it happen anyway...
I dont know if the jews have forgiven italy...i know isreal has. I also know isreal awarded a fransiscan its top civiloan honor for saving jews during thst madness....
Italy and isreal have diplomatic relations...so on.
Yes im thankfull the allies along with mafia were able to get the fascists out....
But i wont ignpre the cost of doing that


Your take on history is from that of a revisionist. You are welcome to hold it. I will stick to the facts.
 
Lehmann said Gröning had also followed the request of the Nazi leadership to renounce his membership of the protestant church, effectively switching his allegiance to Hitler and the Nazi party.

Interesting .... :hmm:
 
Your take on history is from that of a revisionist. You are welcome to hold it. I will stick to the facts.

I respect that, yoir facts are just white washed to suit a certain ideology
There is no unbiased history..
 
Ward Churchill is a fake Native American.

Ward Churchill academic misconduct

Thank you for the info. It made me chuckle. When i read him while auditing a course on native american history, this was not known,
Regardless.its amusing ones blood or lack of it, purity wise, as in fake as to opposed to pure would be used in a thread of the nazis as a way means to discredet him.
Its just an ad hominum. And does not engagd his ideas or research.
If your arguing many many many rabbi where not conplicent in their own peoples slaughter, just show it.
As for wrad churchil guess we csn safely say hes an american, but that shouldnt matter.
 
Interesting .... :hmm:

This isnt suprising..the nazis where radicaly opposed to cbristianity. Why also using it when.it.suited them.
The nazis were lesdership wise anyway were neo germanic pagan by adherence realliy..or their ideas.on what that should be..
 
Thank you for the info. It made me chuckle. When i read him while auditing a course on native american history, this was not known,
Regardless.its amusing ones blood or lack of it, purity wise, as in fake as to opposed to pure would be used in a thread of the nazis as a way means to discredet him.
Its just an ad hominum. And does not engagd his ideas or research.
If your arguing many many many rabbi where not conplicent in their own peoples slaughter, just show it.
As for wrad churchil guess we csn safely say hes an american, but that shouldnt matter.
You're the one who brought up that he was a Native American. I simply let you know that he is not. He created his background in order to manufacture some kind of credibility for himself. His other problems were his shady research methods and plagiarism. Those are important factors consider when you're quoting an author. If he's not credible then the points you try to make based on his publications are also not credible. It's not a personal attack, it's showing his lack of credibility.

I don't need to discredit him. He did a good enough job of that himself.
 
You're the one who brought up that he was a Native American. I simply let you know that he is not. He created his background in order to manufacture some kind of credibility for himself. His other problems were his shady research methods and plagiarism. Those are important factors consider when you're quoting an author. If he's not credible then the points you try to make based on his publications are also not credible. It's not a personal attack, it's showing his lack of credibility.

I don't need to discredit him. He did a good enough job of that himself.

I brought thr info that was known at thr time..i hsvnt kept uo eith his dna resewrch or his blood work..sorry
But thsts besides.the point..
Is it?
where rabbi invokved by compliciny.and betrayal in their own peoples slaughter?
Thats a question he asked...
whesther he is from china or america or.where ever is besides the ppint...
I wasnt qouting him...i didnt even remember the name the book. But he is nof slone in askig snd explring that question., dna aside
 
I brought thr info that was known at thr time..i hsvnt kept uo eith his dna resewrch or his blood work..sorry
But thsts besides.the point..
Is it?
where rabbi invokved by compliciny.and betrayal in their own peoples slaughter?
Thats a question he asked...
whesther he is from china or america or.where ever is besides the ppint...
I wasnt qouting him...i didnt even remember the name the book. But he is nof slone in askig snd explring that question., dna aside
OK, so spit it out. What is it exactly that you are accusing the rabbis of, what is your source, and why are you bringing that up in this thread?
 
OK, so spit it out. What is it exactly that you are accusing the rabbis of, what is your source, and why are you bringing that up in this thread?

I.brought it up in this thresd in a post because it is very relavant to the discussion. My post was stating thsy the entire germany nation one way or snother was involved in that madness. And even rabbi where conplicent in most of it. If this conplcency allowed more get on those trains rsther then fightnfrom the stsrt kess wpukd of died in rhe chambers
It was a post from memory and i dropped the name of one author eho explored the issue. If your interested google it..i knoOw ward churchil is not the only soirce for this
Why is this relavant?
It is. Because by listining to the rabbi who essentialy helped ease tension and risistsnce millions uon million where led to the chAmbers. When revolt did occure in.ashwiitze the it was too litte to late..
Hey if we sre going to.try a 93 year old due, then there shouke be no sacred cows...rabbi included in the sesrch for truth
 
I.brought it up in this thresd in a post because it is very relavant to the discussion. My post was stating thsy the entire germany nation one way or snother was involved in that madness. And even rabbi where conplicent in most of it. If this conplcency allowed more get on those trains rsther then fightnfrom the stsrt kess wpukd of died in rhe chambers
It was a post from memory and i dropped the name of one author eho explored the issue. If your interested google it..i knoOw ward churchil is not the only soirce for this
Why is this relavant?
It is. Because by listining to the rabbi who essentialy helped ease tension and risistsnce millions uon million where led to the chAmbers. When revolt did occure in.ashwiitze the it was too litte to late..
Hey if we sre going to.try a 93 year old due, then there shouke be no sacred cows...rabbi included in the sesrch for truth
Which rabbi? When and where? What were the exact circumstances?

If you're going to make accusations, you need to back them up.

Note, this thread is very specific about the charge, about who is accused, why, and by whom.
 
complicit rabbis?? If they were bold to resist- they'd get shot on the spot (I'm sure). I doubt that they WANTED others to get on the trains but betting they themselves were afraid. Maybe they did try to prevent more from getting on the trains who knows.

Rabbis were just as human as the rest of the Jews and trying to survive. Why did you single out rabbis too?

I doubt that the ENTIRE country was involved in the madness.. pretty sure there may have been some Germans(not necessarily rabbis or jewish people) who did quietly try to help by hiding people or finding escape routes.

You still haven't given a direct source for your comments- other than "by memory" which isn't 100% accurate. Telling others to google it is kind of the lazy way out and makes it look like you didn't do your homework to provide a cite.
 
Which rabbi? When and where? What were the exact circumstances?

If you're going to make accusations, you need to back them up.

Note, this thread is very specific about the charge, about who is accused, why, and by whom.

Interesting. I said entire german nation one way or another as well as rabi, yet you only demand exact information on.rabbi, who, where, how,
Thats very telling.
Then you note.this.thread is very spacific. So i guess your asking me questions that you do not want awnsered in this thread. Even though how millions and millions of people got on.the trains to the camp is very much relavant...isnt it...
I guess not...

fair..
Ill poke around for you. Its actually not as big a secret as you seem to think..regarding the conplicincy and even utter betrayal of many rabbi of their own people to the nazi...
Butmaybe this news to you...
Cool.
 
Interesting. I said entire german nation one way or another as well as rabi, yet you only demand exact information on.rabbi, who, where, how,
Thats very telling.
What's it telling? That I prefer facts?

Then you note.this.thread is very spacific. So i guess your asking me questions that you do not want awnsered in this thread. Even though how millions and millions of people got on.the trains to the camp is very much relavant...isnt it...
I guess not…
:confused: I asked you questions so that you could answer them. If you can't answer them, so be it.

[quote}fair..
Ill poke around for you. Its actually not as big a secret as you seem to think..regarding the conplicincy and even utter betrayal of many rabbi of their own people to the nazi...
Butmaybe this news to you...
Cool.[/QUOTE]
No, you're not going to turn this on me. If you can't answer my questions then that's on you. After all, you brought it up, not me.
 
[


omplicit rabbis?? If they were bold to resist- they'd get shot on the spot (I'm sure).
ite.
Thats a ppor excuse in betraying your own people. In my opinion

I doubt that they WANTED others to get on the trains but betting they themselves were afraid. Maybe they did try to prevent more from getting on the trains who knows. .
This also can be said of germans too..

Rabbis were just as human as the rest of the Jews and trying to survive. Why did you single out rabbis too?.
BecausE they sre the religious leader of the people who suffered the brunt of the msddness of the halaucust. whaat they did and why and so on is important to the discussion


I doubt that the ENTIRE country was involved in the madness.. pretty sure there may have been some Germans(not necessarily rabbis or jewish people) who did quietly try to help by hiding people or finding escape routes.
.

yes indeed, but that doednst negate the entire system of the third riech being inviolved and that cotrolled the national socialist state..nazi.

You still haven't given a direct source for your comments- other than "by memory" which isn't 100% accurate. Telling others to google it is kind of the lazy way out and makes it look like you didn't do your homework to provide a cite.
Sure ive been busy, sometime this weekend ill post some things...
 
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What's it telling? That I prefer facts?


:confused: I asked you questions so that you could answer them. If you can't answer them, so be it.

[quote}fair..
Ill poke around for you. Its actually not as big a secret as you seem to think..regarding the conplicincy and even utter betrayal of many rabbi of their own people to the nazi...
Butmaybe this news to you...
Cool.
No, you're not going to turn this on me. If you can't answer my questions then that's on you. After all, you brought it up, not me.[/QUOTE]

Relax reba...ill have the time this weekend to find some sources...this is a thread we are sharing opinioins...its beeEn years since i read it...
A little time to look shouldnt be a plm.
as for facts what facts exsctly are you refering? Youve asked me questions, you havnt provided anything at all regarding your facts..
 
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