The Holocaust: A Dutch Image


Figure 1.--An important NAZI strategy in the Holocaust was to keep families together until they reached the death camps. Thus able bodied men who could have offered resiatance or at least escape, meekly followed orders in the desire to protect their children, wives, and elderly parents. Here Dutch families are reporting as ordered for "relocation" to the East. For most this meant murder at one of the NAZI death camp located in Poland. Notice the little boy with hs Star of David who has brought along his most precious possessions--two wooden toys. Dutch Jews were concentrated in holding camps--especially Westerbork beforing being deported. This boy and his sisters were almost cerainly was killed within hours of reaching one of the death camps, probably Auschwitz. Source: Metherlands State Institute for War Documentation.

An important NAZI strategy in the Holocaust was to keep families together until they reached the death camps. Thus able bodied men who could have offered resiatance or at least escape, meekly followed orders in the desire to protect their children, wives, and elderly parents. Here Dutch families are reporting as ordered for "relocation" to the East. For most this meant murder at one of the NAZI death camp located in Poland. Notice the little boy with hs Star of David who has brought along his most cherished possessions--two wooden toys. Dutch Jews were concentrated in holding camps--especially Westerbork beforing being deported. This boy and his sisters were almost cerainly was killed within hours of reaching one of the death camps, probably Auschwitz.

Imagery

There are countless images of the Holocaust. Often people think of the piles of decaying corpses that the Allies found when liberating NAZI concentration camps. I find these images to be numbing. This is the image that comes to mind when I think of the Holocaust. These beautiful children lining up with their meager prossessions reporting for "relocation" to the East. Especially moving here is the little boy with his most cherished possessions--two toys. This image illustrates more than any other I know of the precious children just like or our neighbor's children that perished in the Holocaust.

Children

This images also illustrates the brutal fact that the NAZIs in planning the Holocaust actually focused on the children. The children were unproductive. The NAZIs had a penchant for eliminating unproductive people. They even launched a program to kill unproductive Germans such as mentally and physically handicapped people. Jewish children were not only inproductive, but they were the future of the Jewish people.

Families

An important NAZI strategy in the Holocaust was to keep families together until they reached the death camps. Thus able bodied men who could have offered resiatance or at least escape, meekly followed orders in the desire to protect their children, wives, and elderly parents.

Scene

A Dutch reader writes, "I looked at the picture of the little Dutch boy with his toy horse, I felt like crying. It is one of the most moving photos I have ever seen. Is it possible that one of the guards gave that toy to his own child when he came home in the evening after a hard day of work at the ovens. "Look what Daddy brought you! How could he do that without thinking of the little boy he killed that day?" We are not entirely sure about wht is happening in the scene here. We do believe that the photograph depicts a scene at Westerbork, the concentration camp in the Netherlands where Dutch Jews were concentrated before deportment and "resettlement" in the East. This meant that there would always be a ready supply of victims readily available when the transports arrived. A reader writes, "The Dutch Jews were brought to Westerbork, a camp in the North of Holland. The little boy was perhaps allowed to bring his toy with him to Auschwitz? The NAZIs tried to act as normal as possible in the beginning and kept the families together. So why not have the children take their dolls and toys with them? They knew what was going to happen to them. The Jews did not know it. They went like sheep to the slaughterhouse." What we are unsure about if this is when they arrived at Westerbork or when they were able to board the transports for deportment. We tend to think that this is when they were about to be deported. There wee rules about what Jews could possess. The Jews had to surrendef Valuables such as gold and jewelry. Thus when they arrived at Westerbork, often with suitcases, there was an attempt to find any valuable possessions they might have secreted. Notice the bench like structures which allowed for the inspection of personal possessions. Here since the Jews only seem to have blanket rolls, we assume that theu are about to board the transports. Notice the little boy with hs Star of David who has brought along his most precious possessions--two wooden toys. He is hoping that he will be allowed to take his toys with him. I do not know if this was permitted. Within hours or days these children would arrive at the NAZI death camp located in Poland. This boy and his sisters were almost cerainly was killed within hours of reaching one of the death camps, probably Auschwitz.

The Dutch Holocaust

The NAZIs were more successful in the Netherlands than in most countries, primarily because of the geography of the country. There was no where for Dutch Jews to escape. Many German Jews had fled to the Netherlands before the War. The survival rate of the German Jews in the Netherlands was much higher than the Dutch Jews themselves. This was because the German Jews who fled the Reich knew what the NAZIs were all about and were more adept at dealing with NAI measures. They were less likely to surrender their assetts and more of them went into hiding than the Dutch Jews. More of the Dutch Jews were fooled to a greater extent by the NAZI fiction of resettlement.






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Created: 12:22 AM 7/6/2005
Last updated: 12:22 AM 7/6/2005