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Anti-Semitism: Historic Roots

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Sarah
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« Reply #15 on: April 15, 2008, 09:03:35 pm »

1933

Jan 30, 1933 - Adolf Hitler is appointed Chancellor of Germany a nation with a Jewish population of 566,000.

Feb 22, 1933 - 40,000 SA and SS men are sworn in as auxiliary police.

Feb 27, 1933 - Nazis burn Reichstag building to create crisis atmosphere.

Feb 28, 1933 - Emergency powers granted to Hitler as a result of the Reichstag fire.

March 22, 1933 - Nazis open Dachau concentration camp near Munich, to be followed by Buchenwald near Weimar in central Germany, Sachsenhausen near Berlin in northern Germany, and Ravensbrück for women.

March 24, 1933 - German Parliament passes Enabling Act giving Hitler dictatorial powers.

See also - The Rise of Hitler - from Unknown to Dictator of Germany

April 1, 1933 - Nazis stage boycott of Jewish shops and businesses.

April 11, 1933 - Nazis issue a decree defining a non-Aryan as "anyone descended from non-Aryan, especially Jewish, parents or grandparents. One parent or grandparent classifies the descendant as non-Aryan...especially if one parent or grandparent was of the Jewish faith."

April 26, 1933 - The Gestapo is born, created by Hermann Göring in the German state of Prussia.

May 10, 1933 - Burning of books in Berlin and throughout Germany.

July 14, 1933 - Nazi Party is declared the only legal party in Germany; Also, Nazis pass Law to strip Jewish immigrants from Poland of their German citizenship.

In July - Nazis pass law allowing for forced sterilization of those found by a Hereditary Health Court to have genetic defects.

In Sept - Nazis establish Reich Chamber of Culture, then exclude Jews from the Arts.

Sept 29, 1933 - Nazis prohibit Jews from owning land.

Oct 4, 1933 - Jews are prohibited from being newspaper editors.

Nov 24, 1933 - Nazis pass a Law against Habitual and Dangerous Criminals, which allows beggars, the homeless, alcoholics and the unemployed to be sent to concentration camps.


1934

Jan 24, 1934 - Jews are banned from the German Labor Front.

May 17, 1934 - Jews not allowed national health insurance.

June 30, 1934 - The Night of Long Knives occurs as Hitler, Göring and Himmler conduct a purge of the SA (storm trooper) leadership.

July 20, 1934 - The SS (Schutzstaffel) is made an independent organization from the SA.

July 22, 1934 - Jews are prohibited from getting legal qualifications.

Aug 2, 1934 - German President von Hindenburg dies. Hitler becomes Führer.

Aug 19, 1934 - Hitler receives a 90 percent 'Yes' vote from German voters approving his new powers.


1935

May 21, 1935 - Nazis ban Jews from serving in the military.

June 26, 1935 - Nazis pass law allowing forced abortions on women to prevent them from passing on hereditary diseases.

Aug 6, 1935 - Nazis force Jewish performers/artists to join Jewish Cultural Unions.

Sept 15, 1935 - Nuremberg Race Laws against Jews decreed.


1936

Feb 10, 1936 - The German Gestapo is placed above the law.

In March - SS Deathshead division is established to guard concentration camps.

March 7, 1936 - Nazis occupy the Rhineland.

June 17, 1936 - Heinrich Himmler is appointed chief of the German Police.

Aug 1, 1936 - Olympic games begin in Berlin. Hitler and top Nazis seek to gain legitimacy through favorable public opinion from foreign visitors and thus temporarily refrain from actions against Jews.

In Aug - Nazis set up an Office for Combating Homosexuality and Abortions (by healthy women).


1937

In Jan - Jews are banned from many professional occupations including teaching Germans, and from being accountants or dentists. They are also denied tax reductions and child allowances.

Nov 8, 1937 - 'Eternal Jew' travelling exhibition opens in Munich.


1938 Return to Top of Page

March 12/13, 1938 - Nazi troops enter Austria, which has a population of 200,000 Jews, mainly living in Vienna. Hitler announces Anschluss (union) with Austria.

In March - After the Anschluss, the SS is placed in charge of Jewish affairs in Austria with Adolf Eichmann establishing an Office for Jewish Emigration in Vienna. Himmler then establishes Mauthausen concentration camp near Linz.

April 22, 1938 - Nazis prohibit Aryan 'front-ownership' of Jewish businesses.

April 26, 1938 - Nazis order Jews to register wealth and property.

June 14, 1938 - Nazis order Jewish owned businesses to register.

In July - At Evian, France, the U.S. convenes a League of Nations conference with delegates from 32 countries to consider helping Jews fleeing Hitler, but results in inaction as no country will accept them.

July 6, 1938 - Nazis prohibited Jews from trading and providing a variety of specified commercial services.

July 23, 1938 - Nazis order Jews over age 15 to apply for identity cards from the police, to be shown on demand to any police officer.

July 25, 1938 - Jewish doctors prohibited by law from practicing medicine.

Aug 11, 1938 - Nazis destroy the synagogue in Nuremberg.

Aug 17, 1938 - Nazis require Jewish women to add Sarah and men to add Israel to their names on all legal documents including passports.

Sept 27, 1938 - Jews are prohibited from all legal practices.

Oct 5, 1938 - Law requires Jewish passports to be stamped with a large red "J."

Oct 15, 1938 - Nazi troops occupy the Sudetenland.

Oct 28, 1938 - Nazis arrest 17,000 Jews of Polish nationality living in Germany, then expel them back to Poland which refuses them entry, leaving them in 'no-man's land' near the Polish border for several months.

Nov 7, 1938 - Ernst vom Rath, third secretary in the German Embassy in Paris, is shot and mortally wounded by Herschel Grynszpan, the 17 year old son of one of the deported Polish Jews. Rath dies on November 9, precipitating Kristallnacht.

Nov 9/10 - Kristallnacht - The Night of Broken Glass.

Nov 12, 1938 - Nazis fine Jews one billion marks for damages related to Kristallnacht.

Nov 15, 1938 - Jewish pupils are expelled from all non-Jewish German schools.

Dec 3, 1938 - Law for compulsory Aryanization of all Jewish businesses.

Dec 14, 1938 - Hermann Göring takes charge of resolving the "Jewish Question."


1939 Return to Top of Page

Jan 24, 1939 - SS leader Reinhard Heydrich is ordered by Göring to speed up emigration of Jews.

Jan 30, 1939 - Hitler threatens Jews during Reichstag speech.

Feb 21, 1939 - Nazis force Jews to hand over all gold and silver items.

March 15/16 - Nazi troops seize Czechoslovakia (Jewish pop. 350,000).

April 19, 1939 - Slovakia passes its own version of the Nuremberg Laws.

April 30, 1939 - Jews lose rights as tenants and are relocated into Jewish houses.

In May - The St. Louis, a ship crowded with 930 Jewish refugees, is turned away by Cuba, the United States and other countries and returns to Europe.

July 4, 1939 - German Jews denied the right to hold government jobs.

July 21, 1939 - Adolf Eichmann is appointed director of the Prague Office of Jewish Emigration.

Sept 1, 1939 - Nazis invade Poland (Jewish pop. 3.35 million, the largest in Europe). Beginning of SS activity in Poland.

See also - World War Two in Europe Timeline

Sept 1, 1939 - Jews in Germany are forbidden to be outdoors after 8 p.m. in winter and 9 p.m. in summer.

Sept 3, 1939 - England and France declare war on Germany.

Sept 4, 1939 - Warsaw is cut off by the German Army.

Sept 17, 1939 - Soviet troops invade eastern Poland.

Sept 21, 1939 - Heydrich issues instructions to SS Einsatzgruppen (special action squads) in Poland regarding treatment of Jews, stating they are to be gathered into ghettos near railroads for the future "final goal." He also orders a census and the establishment of Jewish administrative councils within the ghettos to implement Nazi policies and decrees.

Sept 23, 1939 - German Jews are forbidden to own wireless (radio) sets.

Sept 27, 1939 - Warsaw surrenders; Heydrich becomes leader of RSHA.

Sept 29, 1939 - Nazis and Soviets divide up Poland. Over two million Jews reside in Nazi controlled areas, leaving 1.3 million in the Soviet area.

In Sept - Quote from Nazi newspaper, Der Stürmer, published by Julius Streicher - "The Jewish people ought to be exterminated root and branch. Then the plague of pests would have disappeared in Poland at one stroke."

In Oct - Nazis begin euthanasia on sick and disabled in Germany.

Oct 6, 1939 - Proclamation by Hitler on the isolation of Jews.

Oct 12, 1939 - Evacuation of Jews from Vienna.

Oct 12, 1939 - Hans Frank appointed Nazi Gauleiter (governor) of Poland.

Oct 26, 1939 - Forced labor decree issued for Polish Jews aged 14 to 60.

Nov 23, 1939 - Yellow stars required to be worn by Polish Jews over age 10.

In Dec - Adolf Eichmann takes over section IV B4 of the Gestapo dealing solely with Jewish affairs and evacuations.


1940 Return to Top of Page

Jan 25, 1940 - Nazis choose the town of Oswiecim (Auschwitz) in Poland near Krakow as site of new concentration camp.

In Jan - Quote from Nazi newspaper, Der Stürmer, published by Julius Streicher - "...The time is near when a machine will go into motion which is going to prepare a grave for the world's criminal - Judah - from which there will be no resurrection."

Feb 12, 1940 - First deportation of German Jews into occupied Poland.

April 9, 1940 - Nazis invade Denmark (Jewish pop. 8,000) and Norway (Jewish pop. 2,000).

April 30, 1940 - The Lodz Ghetto in occupied Poland is sealed off from the outside world with 230,000 Jews locked inside.

May 1, 1940 - Rudolf Höss is chosen to be kommandant of Auschwitz.

May 10, 1940 - Nazis invade France (Jewish pop. 350,000), Belgium (Jewish pop. 65,000), Holland (Jewish pop. 140,000), and Luxembourg (Jewish pop. 3,500).

June 14, 1940 - Paris is occupied by the Nazis.

June 22, 1940 - France signs an armistice with Hitler.

In July - Eichmann's Madagascar Plan presented, proposing to deport all European Jews to the island of Madagascar, off the coast of east Africa.

July 17, 1940 - The first anti-Jewish measures are taken in Vichy France.

Aug 8, 1940 - Romania introduces anti-Jewish measures restricting education and employment, then later begins "Romanianization" of Jewish businesses.

Sept 27, 1940 - Tripartite (Axis) Pact signed by Germany, Italy and Japan.

Oct 3, 1940 - Vichy France passes its own version of the Nuremberg Laws.

Oct 7, 1940 - Nazis invade Romania (Jewish pop. 34,000).

Oct 22, 1940 - Deportation of 29,000 German Jews from Baden, the Saar, and Alsace-Lorraine into Vichy France.

In Nov - Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia become Nazi Allies.

In Nov - The Krakow Ghetto is sealed off containing 70,000 Jews.

Nov 15, 1940 - The Warsaw Ghetto, containing over 400,000 Jews, is sealed off.


1941 Return to Top of Page

In 1941 - Hans Frank, Gauleiter of Poland, states, "I ask nothing of the Jews except that they should disappear."

In Jan - Quote from Nazi newspaper, Der Stürmer, published by Julius Streicher - "Now judgment has begun and it will reach its conclusion only when knowledge of the Jews has been erased from the earth."

In Jan - A pogrom in Romania results in over 2,000 Jews killed.

Feb 22, 1941 - 430 Jewish hostages are deported from Amsterdam after a Dutch Nazi is killed by Jews.

In March - Hitler's Commissar Order authorizes execution of anyone suspected of being a Communist official in territories about to be seized from the Soviets.

March 1, 1941 - Himmler makes his first visit to Auschwitz, during which he orders Kommandant Höss to begin massive expansion, including a new compound to be built at nearby Birkenau that can hold 100,000 prisoners.

March 2, 1941 - Nazis occupy Bulgaria (Jewish pop. 50,000).

March 7, 1941 - German Jews ordered into forced labor.

March 26, 1941 - The German Army High Command gives approval to RSHA and Heydrich on the tasks of SS murder squads (Einsatzgruppen) in occupied Poland.

March 29, 1941 - A 'Commissariat' for Jewish Affairs is set up in Vichy France.

April 6, 1941 - Nazis invade Yugoslavia (Jewish pop. 75,000) and Greece (Jewish pop. 77,000).

May 14, 1941 - 3,600 Jews arrested in Paris.

May 16, 1941 - French Marshal Petain issues a radio broadcast approving collaboration with Hitler.

June 22, 1941 - Nazis invade the Soviet Union (Jewish pop. 3 million).

June 29/30 - Romanian troops conduct a pogrom against Jews in the town of Jassy, killing 10,000.

Summer - Himmler summons Auschwitz Kommandant Höss to Berlin and tells him, "The Führer has ordered the Final Solution of the Jewish question. We, the SS, have to carry out this order...I have therefore chosen Auschwitz for this purpose."

In July - As the German Army advances, SS Einsatzgruppen follow along and conduct mass murder of Jews in seized lands.

In July - Ghettos established at Kovno, Minsk, Vitebsk and Zhitomer. Also in July, the government of Vichy France seizes Jewish owned property.

July 17, 1941 - Nazi racial 'philosopher' Alfred Rosenberg is appointed Reich Minister for the Eastern Occupied Territories to administer territories seized from the Soviet Union.

July 21, 1941 - In occupied Poland near Lublin, Majdanek concentration camp becomes operational.

July 25/26 - 3,800 Jews killed during a pogrom by Lithuanians in Kovno.

July 31, 1941 - Göring instructs Heydrich to prepare for Final Solution.

In Aug - Jews in Romania forced into Transnistria. By December, 70,000 perish.

In Aug - Ghettos established at Bialystok and Lvov.

Aug 26, 1941 - The Hungarian Army rounds up 18,000 Jews at Kamenets-Podolsk.

Sept 3, 1941 - The first test use of Zyklon-B gas at Auschwitz.

Sept 1, 1941 - German Jews ordered to wear yellow stars.

Sept 6, 1941 - The Vilna Ghetto is established containing 40,000 Jews.

Sept 17, 1941 - Beginning of general deportation of German Jews.

Sept 19, 1941 - Nazis take Kiev.

Sept 27/28 - 23,000 Jews killed at Kamenets-Podolsk, in the Ukraine.

Sept 29/30 - SS Einsatzgruppen murder 33,771 Jews at Babi Yar near Kiev.

In Oct - 35,000 Jews from Odessa shot.

Oct 2, 1941 - Beginning of the German Army drive on Moscow.

Oct 23, 1941 - Nazis forbid emigration of Jews from the Reich.

In Nov - SS Einsatzgruppe B reports a tally of 45,476 Jews killed.

Nov 24, 1941 - Theresienstadt Ghetto is established near Prague, Czechoslovakia. The Nazis will use it as a model ghetto for propaganda purposes.

Nov 30, 1941 - Near Riga, a mass shooting of Latvian and German Jews.

Dec 7, 1941 - Japanese attack United States at Pearl Harbor. The next day the U.S. and Britain declare war on Japan.

Dec 8, 1941 - In occupied Poland, near Lodz, Chelmno extermination camp becomes operational. Jews taken there are placed in mobile gas vans and driven to a burial place while carbon monoxide from the engine exhaust is fed into the sealed rear compartment, killing them. The first gassing victims include 5,000 Gypsies who had been deported from the Reich to Lodz.

Dec 11, 1941 - Hitler declares war on the United States. Roosevelt then declares war on Germany saying, "Never before has there been a greater challenge to life, liberty and civilization." The U.S.A. then enters the war in Europe and will concentrate nearly 90 percent of its military resources to defeat Hitler.

Dec 12, 1941 - The ship "Struma" leaves Romania for Palestine carrying 769 Jews but is later denied permission by British authorities to allow the passengers to disembark. In Feb. 1942, it sails back into the Black Sea where it is intercepted by a Soviet submarine and sunk as an "enemy target."

Dec 16, 1941 - During a cabinet meeting, Hans Frank, Gauleiter of Poland, states - "Gentlemen, I must ask you to rid yourselves of all feeling of pity. We must annihilate the Jews wherever we find them and wherever it is possible in order to maintain there the structure of the Reich as a whole..."


1942 Return to Top of Page

In Jan - Mass killings of Jews using Zyklon-B begin at Auschwitz-Birkenau in Bunker I (the red farmhouse) in Birkenau with the bodies being buried in mass graves in a nearby meadow.

Jan 20, 1942 - Wannsee Conference to coordinate the "Final Solution."

Jan 31, 1942 - SS Einsatzgruppe A reports a tally of 229,052 Jews killed.

In March - In occupied Poland, Belzec extermination camp becomes operational. The camp is fitted with permanent gas chambers using carbon monoxide piped in from engines placed outside the chamber, but will later substitute Zyklon-B.

March 17, 1942 - The deportation of Jews from Lublin to Belzec.

March 24, 1942 - The start of deportation of Slovak Jews to Auschwitz.

March 27, 1942 - The start of deportation of French Jews to Auschwitz.

March 28, 1942 - Fritz Sauckel named Chief of Manpower to expedite recruitment of slave labor.

March 30, 1942 - First trainloads of Jews from Paris arrive at Auschwitz.

In April - First transports of Jews arrive at Majdanek.

April 20, 1942 - German Jews are banned from using public transportation.

In May - In occupied Poland, Sobibor extermination camp becomes operational. The camp is fitted with three gas chambers using carbon monoxide piped in from engines, but will later substitute Zyklon-B.

May 18, 1942 - The New York Times reports on an inside page that Nazis have machine-gunned over 100,000 Jews in the Baltic states, 100,000 in Poland and twice as many in western Russia.

May 27, 1942 - SS leader Heydrich is mortally wounded by Czech Underground agents.

In June - Gas vans used in Riga.

June 1, 1942 - Jews in France, Holland, Belgium, Croatia, Slovakia, Romania ordered to wear yellow stars.

June 4, 1942 - Heydrich dies of his wounds.

June 5, 1942 - SS report 97,000 persons have been "processed" in mobile gas vans.

June 10, 1942 - Nazis liquidate Lidice in retaliation for Heydrich's death.

June 11, 1942 - Eichmann meets with representatives from France, Belgium and Holland to coordinate deportation plans for Jews.

June 30, 1942 - At Auschwitz, a second gas chamber, Bunker II (the white farmhouse), is made operational at Birkenau due to the number of Jews arriving.

June 30 and July 2 - The New York Times reports via the London Daily Telegraph that over 1,000,000 Jews have already been killed by Nazis.

Summer - Swiss representatives of the World Jewish Congress receive information from a German industrialist regarding the Nazi plan to exterminate the Jews. They then pass the information on to London and Washington.

July 2, 1942 - Jews from Berlin sent to Theresienstadt.

July 7, 1942 - Himmler grants permission for sterilization experiments at Auschwitz.

July 14, 1942 - Beginning of deportation of Dutch Jews to Auschwitz.

July 16/17 - 12,887 Jews of Paris are rounded up and sent to Drancy Internment Camp located outside the city. A total of approximately 74,000 Jews, including 11,000 children, will eventually be transported from Drancy to Auschwitz, Majdanek and Sobibor.

July 17/18 - Himmler visits Auschwitz-Birkenau for two days, inspecting all ongoing construction and expansion, then observes the extermination process from start to finish as two trainloads of Jews arrive from Holland. Kommandant Höss is then promoted. Construction includes four large gas chamber/crematories.

July 19, 1942 - Himmler orders Operation Reinhard, mass deportations of Jews in Poland to extermination camps.

July 22, 1942 - Beginning of deportations from the Warsaw Ghetto to the new extermination camp, Treblinka. Also, beginning of the deportation of Belgian Jews to Auschwitz.

July 23, 1942 - Treblinka extermination camp opened in occupied Poland, east of Warsaw. The camp is fitted with two buildings containing 10 gas chambers, each holding 200 persons. Carbon monoxide gas is piped in from engines placed outside the chamber, but Zyklon-B will later be substituted. Bodies are burned in open pits.

In Aug - The start of deportations of Croatian Jews to Auschwitz.

Aug 23, 1942 - Beginning of German Army attack on Stalingrad.

Aug 26-28 - 7,000 Jews arrested in unoccupied France.

Sept 9, 1942 - Open pit burning of bodies begins at Auschwitz in place of burial. The decision is made to dig up and burn those already buried, 107,000 corpses, to prevent fouling of ground water.

Sept 18, 1942 - Reduction of food rations for Jews in Germany.

Sept 26, 1942 - SS begins cashing in possessions and valuables of Jews from Auschwitz and Majdanek. German banknotes are sent to the Reichs Bank. Foreign currency, gold, jewels and other valuables are sent to SS Headquarters of the Economic Administration. Watches, clocks and pens are distributed to troops at the front. Clothing is distributed to German families. By Feb. 1943, over 800 boxcars of confiscated goods will have left Auschwitz.

Oct 5, 1942 - Himmler orders all Jews in concentration camps in Germany to be sent to Auschwitz and Majdanek.

Oct 5, 1942 - A German eyewitness observes SS mass murder.

Oct 14, 1942 - Mass killing of Jews from Mizocz Ghetto in the Ukraine.

Oct 22, 1942 - SS put down a revolt at Sachsenhausen by a group of Jews about to be sent to Auschwitz.

Oct 25, 1942 - Deportations of Jews from Norway to Auschwitz begin.

Oct 28, 1942 - The first transport from Theresienstadt arrives at Auschwitz.

In Nov - The mass killing of 170,000 Jews in the area of Bialystok.

Dec 10, 1942 - The first transport of Jews from Germany arrives at Auschwitz.

In Dec - Exterminations at Belzec cease after an estimated 600,000 Jews have been murdered. The camp is then dismantled, plowed over and planted.

Dec 17, 1942 - British Foreign Secretary Eden tells the British House of Commons the Nazis are "now carrying into effect Hitler's oft repeated intention to exterminate the Jewish people of Europe." U.S. declares those crimes will be avenged.

Dec 28, 1942 - Sterilization experiments on women at Birkenau begin.

Map of Concentration/Death Camps


1943 Return to Top of Page

In 1943 - The number of Jews killed by SS Einsatzgruppen passes one million. Nazis then use special units of slave laborers to dig up and burn the bodies to remove all traces.

Jan 18, 1943 - First resistance by Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto.

Jan 29, 1943 - Nazis order all Gypsies arrested and sent to extermination camps.

Jan 30, 1943 - Ernst Kaltenbrunner succeeds Heydrich as head of RSHA.

In Feb - The Romanian government proposes to the Allies the transfer of 70,000 Jews to Palestine, but receives no response from Britain or the U.S.

In Feb - Greek Jews are ordered into ghettos.

Feb 2, 1943 - Germans surrender at Stalingrad in the first big defeat of Hitler's armies.

Feb 27, 1943 - Jews working in Berlin armaments industry are sent to Auschwitz.

In March - The start of deportations of Jews from Greece to Auschwitz, lasting until August, totaling 49,900 persons.

March 1, 1943 - In New York, American Jews hold a mass rally at Madison Square Garden to pressure the U.S. government into helping the Jews of Europe

March 14, 1943 - The Krakow Ghetto is liquidated.

March 17, 1943 - Bulgaria states opposition to deportation of its Jews.

March 22, 1943 - Newly built gas chamber/crematory IV opens at Auschwitz.

March 31, 1943 - Newly built gas chamber/crematory II opens at Auschwitz.

April 4, 1943 - Newly built gas chamber/crematory V opens at Auschwitz.

April 9, 1943 - Exterminations at Chelmno cease. The camp will be reactivated in the spring of 1944 to liquidate ghettos. In all, Chelmno will total 300,000 deaths.

April 19-30 - The Bermuda Conference occurs as representatives from the U.S. and Britain discuss the problem of refugees from Nazi-occupied countries, but results in inaction concerning the plight of the Jews.

April 19, 1943 - Waffen SS attacks Jewish Resistance in Warsaw Ghetto.

In May - SS Dr. Josef Mengele arrives at Auschwitz.

May 13, 1943 - German and Italian troops in North Africa surrender to Allies.

May 19, 1943 - Nazis declare Berlin to be Judenfrei (cleansed of Jews).

June 11, 1943 - Himmler orders liquidation of all Jewish ghettos in occupied Poland.

June 25, 1943 - Newly built gas chamber/crematory III opens at Auschwitz. With its completion, the four new crematories at Auschwitz have a daily capacity of 4,756 bodies.

July 9/10 - Allies land in Sicily.

Aug 2, 1943 - Two hundred Jews escape from Treblinka extermination camp during a revolt. Nazis then hunt them down one by one.

Aug 16, 1943 - The Bialystok Ghetto is liquidated.

In Aug - Exterminations cease at Treblinka, after an estimated 870,000 deaths.

In Sept - The Vilna and Minsk Ghettos are liquidated.

Sept 11, 1943 - Germans occupy Rome, after occupying northern and central Italy, containing in all about 35,000 Jews.

Sept 11, 1943 - Beginning of Jewish family transports from Theresienstadt to Auschwitz.

In Oct - The Danish Underground helps transport 7,220 Danish Jews to safety in Sweden by sea.

Oct 4 - Himmler talks openly about the Final Solution at Posen.

Oct 14, 1943 - Massive escape from Sobibor as Jews and Soviet POWs break out, with 300 making it safely into nearby woods. Of those 300, fifty will survive. Exterminations then cease at Sobibor, after over 250,000 deaths. All traces of the death camp are then removed and trees are planted.

Oct 16, 1943 - Jews in Rome rounded up, with over 1,000 sent to Auschwitz.

In Nov - The Riga Ghetto is liquidated.

In Nov - The U.S. Congress holds hearings regarding the U.S. State Department's inaction regarding European Jews, despite mounting reports of mass extermination.

Nov 3, 1943 - Nazis carry out Operation Harvest Festival in occupied Poland, killing 42,000 Jews.

Nov 4, 1943 - Quote from Nazi newspaper, Der Stürmer, published by Julius Streicher - "It is actually true that the Jews have, so to speak, disappeared from Europe and that the Jewish 'Reservoir of the East' from which the Jewish pestilence has for centuries beset the peoples of Europe has ceased to exist. But the Führer of the German people at the beginning of the war prophesied what has now come to pass."

Nov 11, 1943 - Auschwitz Kommandant Höss is promoted to chief inspector of concentration camps. The new kommandant, Liebehenschel, then divides up the vast Auschwitz complex of over 30 sub-camps into three main sections.

Dec 2, 1943 - The first transport of Jews from Vienna arrives at Auschwitz.

Dec 16, 1943 - The chief surgeon at Auschwitz reports that 106 castration operations have been performed.


1944 Return to Top of Page

Jan 3, 1944 - Soviet troops reach former Polish border.

Jan 24, 1944 - In response to political pressure to help Jews under Nazi control, Roosevelt creates the War Refugee Board.

Jan 25, 1944 - Diary entry by Hans Frank, Gauleiter of Poland, concerning the fate of 2.5 million Jews originally under his jurisdiction - "At the present time we still have in the General Government perhaps 100,000 Jews."

In Feb - Eichmann visits Auschwitz.

March 19, 1944 - Nazis occupy Hungary (Jewish pop. 725,000). Eichmann arrives with Gestapo "Special Section Commandos."

March 24, 1944 - President Roosevelt issues a statement condemning German and Japanese ongoing "crimes against humanity."

April 5, 1944 - A Jewish inmate, Siegfried Lederer, escapes from Auschwitz-Birkenau and makes it safely to Czechoslovakia. He then warns the Elders of the Council at Theresienstadt about Auschwitz.

April 6, 1944 - Nazis raid a French home for Jewish children.

April 7, 1944 - Two Jewish inmates escape from Auschwitz-Birkenau and make it safely to Czechoslovakia. One of them, Rudolf Vrba, submits a report to the Papal Nuncio in Slovakia which is forwarded to the Vatican, received there in mid June.

April 14, 1944 - First transports of Jews from Athens to Auschwitz, totaling 5,200 persons.

In May - Himmler's agents secretly propose to the western Allies to trade Jews for trucks, other commodities or money.

May 8, 1944 - Rudolf Höss returns to Auschwitz, ordered by Himmler to oversee the extermination of Hungarian Jews.

May 15, 1944 - Beginning of deportation of Jews from Hungary to Auschwitz.

May 16, 1944 - Jews from Hungary arrive at Auschwitz. Eichmann arrives to personally oversee and speed up the extermination process. By May 24, an estimated 100,000 have been gassed. Between May 16 and May 31, the SS report collecting 88 pounds of gold and white metal from the teeth of those gassed. By the end of June, 381,661 persons - half of the Jews in Hungary - arrive at Auschwitz.

In June - A Red Cross delegation visits Theresienstadt after the Nazis have carefully prepared the camp and the Jewish inmates, resulting in a favorable report.

June 6, 1944 - D-Day: Allied landings in Normandy.

June 12, 1944 - Rosenberg orders Hay Action the kidnapping of 40,000 Polish children aged ten to fourteen for slave labor in the Reich.

Summer - Auschwitz-Birkenau records its highest-ever daily number of persons gassed and burned at just over 9,000. Six huge pits are used to burn bodies, as the number exceeds the capacity of the crematories.

In July - Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg arrives in Budapest, Hungary, and proceeds to save nearly 33,000 Jews by issuing diplomatic papers and establishing 'safe houses.'

July 24, 1944 - Soviet troops liberate first concentration camp at Majdanek where over 360,000 had been murdered.

Aug 4, 1944 - Anne Frank and family arrested by Gestapo in Amsterdam, then sent to Auschwitz. Anne and her sister Margot are later sent to Bergen-Belsen where Anne dies of typhus on March 15, 1945.

Aug 6, 1944 - The last Jewish ghetto in Poland, Lodz, is liquidated with 60,000 Jews sent to Auschwitz.

Oct 7, 1944 - A revolt by Sonderkommando (Jewish slave laborers) at Auschwitz-Birkenau results in complete destruction of Crematory IV.

Oct 15, 1944 - Nazis seize control of the Hungarian puppet government, then resume deporting Jews, which had temporarily ceased due to international political pressure to stop Jewish persecutions.

Oct 17, 1944 - Eichmann arrives in Hungary.

Oct 28, 1944 - The last transport of Jews to be gassed, 2,000 from Theresienstadt, arrives at Auschwitz.

Oct 30, 1944 - Last use of gas chambers at Auschwitz.

Nov 8, 1944 - Nazis force 25,000 Jews to walk over 100 miles in rain and snow from Budapest to the Austrian border, followed by a second forced march of 50,000 persons, ending at Mauthausen.

Nov 25, 1944 - Himmler orders the destruction of the crematories at Auschwitz.

Late 1944 - Oskar Schindler saves 1200 Jews by moving them from Plaszow labor camp to his hometown of Brunnlitz.


1945 Return to Top of Page

In 1945 - As the Allies advance, the Nazis conduct death marches of concentration camp ifmates away from
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Sarah
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« Reply #16 on: April 15, 2008, 09:04:18 pm »

GENOCIDE IN THE 20TH CENTURY:

THE NAZI HOLOCAUST: 1938-1945 6,000,000 DEATHS

It began with a simple boycott of Jewish shops and ended in the gas chambers at Auschwitz as Adolf Hitler and his Nazi followers attempted to exterminate the entire Jewish population of Europe.

In January 1933, after a bitter ten-year political struggle, Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany. During his rise to power, Hitler had repeatedly blamed the Jews for Germany's defeat in World War I and subsequent economic hardships. Hitler also put forward racial theories asserting that Germans with fair skin, blond hair and blue eyes were the supreme form of human, or master race. The Jews, according to Hitler, were the racial opposite, and were actively engaged in an international conspiracy to keep this master race from assuming its rightful position as rulers of the world.

Jews at this time composed only about one percent of Germany's population of 55 million persons. German Jews were mostly cosmopolitan in nature and proudly considered themselves to be Germans by nationality and Jews only by religion. They had lived in Germany for centuries, fought bravely for the Fatherland in its wars and prospered in numerous professions.

But they were gradually shut out of German society by the Nazis through a never-ending series of laws and decrees, culminating in the Nuremberg Laws of 1935 which deprived them of their German citizenship and forbade intermarriage with non-Jews. They were removed from schools, banned from the professions, excluded from military service, and were even forbidden to share a park bench with a non-Jew.

At the same time, a carefully orchestrated smear campaign under the direction of Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels portrayed Jews as enemies of the German people. Daily anti-Semitic slurs appeared in Nazi newspapers, on posters, the movies, radio, in speeches by Hitler and top Nazis, and in the classroom. As a result, State-sanctioned anti-Semitism became the norm throughout Germany. The Jews lost everything, including their homes and businesses, with no protest or public outcry from non-Jewish Germans. The devastating Nazi propaganda film The Eternal Jew went so far as to compared Jews to plague carrying rats, a foreshadow of things to come.

In March 1938, Hitler expanded the borders of the Nazi Reich by forcibly annexing Austria. A brutal crackdown immediately began on Austria's Jews. They also lost everything and were even forced to perform public acts of humiliation such as scrubbing sidewalks clean amid jeering pro-Nazi crowds.

Back in Germany, years of pent-up hatred toward the Jews was finally let loose on the night that marks the actual beginning of the Holocaust. The Night of Broken Glass (Kristallnacht) occurred on November 9/10 after 17-year-old Herschel Grynszpan shot and killed Ernst vom Rath, a German embassy official in Paris, in retaliation for the harsh treatment his Jewish parents had received from Nazis.

Spurred on by Joseph Goebbels, Nazis used the death of vom Rath as an excuse to conduct the first State-run pogrom against Jews. Ninety Jews were killed, 500 synagogues were burned and most Jewish shops had their windows smashed. The first mass arrest of Jews also occurred as over 25,000 men were hauled off to concentration camps. As a kind of cynical joke, the Nazis then fined the Jews 1 Billion Reichsmarks for the destruction which the Nazis themselves had caused during Kristallnacht.

Many German and Austrian Jews now attempted to flee Hitler's Reich. However, most Western countries maintained strict immigration quotas and showed little interest in receiving large numbers of Jewish refugees. This was exemplified by the plight of the St. Louis, a ship crowded with 930 Jews that was turned away by Cuba, the United States and other countries and returned back to Europe, soon to be under Hitler's control.

On the eve of World War II, the Führer (supreme leader) publicly threatened the Jews of Europe during a speech in Berlin: "In the course of my life I have very often been a prophet, and have usually been ridiculed for it. During the time of my struggle for power it was in the first instance only the Jewish race that received my prophecies with laughter when I said that I would one day take over the leadership of the State, and with it that of the whole nation, and that I would then among other things settle the Jewish problem. Their laughter was uproarious, but I think that for some time now they have been laughing on the other side of their face. Today I will once more be a prophet: if the international Jewish financiers in and outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war, then the result will not be the Bolshevizing of the earth, and thus the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe!"

Hitler intended to blame the Jews for the new world war he was soon to provoke. That war began in September 1939 as German troops stormed into Poland, a country that was home to over three million Jews. After Poland's quick defeat, Polish Jews were rounded up and forced into newly established ghettos at Lodz, Krakow, and Warsaw, to await future plans. Inside these overcrowded walled-in ghettos, tens of thousands died a slow death from hunger and disease amid squalid living conditions. The ghettos soon came under the jurisdiction of Heinrich Himmler, leader of the Nazi SS, Hitler's most trusted and loyal organization, composed of fanatical young men considered racially pure according to Nazi standards.

In the spring of 1940, Himmler ordered the building of a concentration camp near the Polish city of Oswiecim, renamed Auschwitz by the Germans, to hold Polish prisoners and to provide slave labor for new German-run factories to be built nearby.

Meanwhile, Hitler continued his conquest of Europe, invading Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg and France, placing ever-increasing numbers of Jews under Nazi control. The Nazis then began carefully tallying up the actual figures and also required Jews to register all of their assets. But the overall question remained as to what to do with the millions of Jews now under Nazi control - referred to by the Nazis themselves as the Judenfrage (Jewish question).

The following year, 1941, would be the turning point. In June, Hitler took a tremendous military **** by invading the Soviet Union. Before the invasion he had summoned his top generals and told them the attack on Russia would be a ruthless "war of annihilation" targeting Communists and Jews and that normal rules of military conflict were to be utterly ignored.

Inside the Soviet Union were an estimated three million Jews, many of whom still lived in tiny isolated villages known as Shtetls. Following behind the invading German armies, four SS special action units known as Einsatzgruppen systematically rounded-up and shot all of the inhabitants of these Shtetls. Einsatz execution squads were aided by German police units, local ethnic Germans, and local anti-Semitic volunteers. Leaders of the Einsatzgruppen also engaged in an informal competition as to which group had the highest tally of murdered Jews.

During the summer of 1941, SS leader Heinrich Himmler summoned Auschwitz Commandant Rudolf Höss to Berlin and told him: "The Führer has ordered the Final Solution of the Jewish question. We, the SS, have to carry out this order...I have therefore chosen Auschwitz for this purpose."

At Auschwitz, a large new camp was already under construction to be known as Auschwitz II (Birkenau). This would become the future site of four large gas chambers to be used for mass extermination. The idea of using gas chambers originated during the Euthanasia Program, the so-called "mercy killing" of sick and disabled persons in Germany and Austria by Nazi doctors.

By now, experimental mobile gas vans were being used by the Einsatzgruppen to kill Jews in Russia. Special trucks had been converted by the SS into portable gas chambers. Jews were locked up in the air-tight rear container while exhaust fumes from the truck's engine were fed in to suffocate them. However, this method was found to be somewhat impractical since the average capacity was less than 50 persons. For the time being, the quickest killing method continued to be mass shootings. And as Hitler's troops advanced deep into the Soviet Union, the pace of Einsatz killings accelerated. Over 33,000 Jews in the Ukraine were shot in the Babi Yar ravine near Kiev during two days in September 1941.

The next year, 1942, marked the beginning of mass murder on a scale unprecedented in all of human history. In January, fifteen top Nazis led by Reinhard Heydrich, second in command of the SS, convened the Wannsee Conference in Berlin to coordinate plans for the Final Solution. The Jews of Europe would now be rounded up and deported into occupied Poland where new extermination centers were being constructed at Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, and Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Map and Photos


Map showing locations of Nazi Concentration & Death camps.


Adolf Hitler salutes SS troops on parade in Nuremberg while SS Leader Himmler (in front) watches.


Jews in Vienna forced to scrub sidewalks.


A mass shooting somewhere inside occupied Russia.


Jewish children in the Lodz Ghetto on their way toward transports that will take them to Chelmno Death Camp.


Crematory ovens at Majdanek with piles of human ashes still in front, as seen after liberation.


Portrait of Otto Ohlendorf, former commander of SS Einsatzgruppe D, taken during war crimes trials. He admitted killing 90,000 Jews, was convicted and hanged by the U.S.

Code named "Aktion Reinhard" in honor of Heydrich, the Final Solution began in the spring as over two million Jews already in Poland were sent to be gassed as soon as the new camps became operational. Hans Frank, the Nazi Governor of Poland had by now declared: "I ask nothing of the Jews except that they should disappear."

Every detail of the actual extermination process was meticulously planned. Jews arriving in trains at Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka were falsely informed by the SS that they had come to a transit stop and would be moving on to their true destination after delousing. They were told their clothes were going to be disinfected and that they would all be taken to shower rooms for a good washing. Men were then split up from the women and children. Everyone was taken to undressing barracks and told to remove all of their clothing. Women and girls next had thmir hair cut off. First the men%*C and then the women and children, were hustled in the **** along a narrow fenced-in pathway nicknamed by the SS as the Himmelstrasse (road to Heaven). At the end of the path was a bathhouse with tiled shower rooms. As soon as the people were all crammed inside, the main door was slammed shut, creating an air-tight seal. Deadly carbon monoxide fumes were then fed in from a stationary diesel engine located outside the chamber.

At Auschwitz-Birkenau, new arrivals were told to carefully hang their clothing on numbered hooks in the undressing room and were instructed to remember the numbers for later. They were given a piece of soap and taken into the adjacent gas chamber disguised as a large shower room. In place of carbon monoxide, pellets of the commercial pesticide Zyklon-B (prussic acid) were poured into openings located above the chamber upon the cynical SS command - Na, gib ihnen shon zu fressen (All right, give 'em something to chew on). The gas pellets fell into hollow shafts made of perforated sheet metal and vaporized upon contact with air, giving off lethal cyanide fumes inside the chamber which oozed out at floor level then rose up toward the ceiling. Children died first since they were closer to the floor. Pandemonium usually erupted as the bitter almond-like odor of the gas spread upwards with adults climbing on top of each other forming a tangled heap of dead bodies all the way up to the ceiling.

At each of the death camps, special squads of Jewish slave laborers called Sonderkommandos were utilized to untangle the victims and remove them from the gas chamber. Next they extracted any gold fillings from teeth and searched body orifices for hidden valuables. The corpses were disposed of by various methods including mass burials, cremation in open fire pits or in specially designed crematory ovens such as those used at Auschwitz. All clothing, money, gold, jewelry, watches, eyeglasses and other valuables were sorted out then shipped back to Germany for re-use. Women's hair was sent to a firm in Bavaria for the manufacture of felt.

One extraordinary aspect of the journey to the death camps was that the Nazis often charged Jews deported from Western Europe train fare as third class passengers under the guise that they were being "resettled in the East." The SS also made new arrivals in the death camps sign picture postcards showing the fictional location "Waldsee" which were sent to relatives back home with the printed greeting: "We are doing very well here. We have work and we are well treated. We await your arrival."

In the ghettos of Poland, Jews were simply told they were being "transferred" to work camps. Many went willingly, hoping to escape the brutal ghetto conditions. They were then stuffed into unheated, poorly ventilated boxcars with no water or sanitation. Young children and the elderly often died long before reaching their destination.

Trainloads of human cargo arriving at Auschwitz went through a selection process conducted by SS doctors such as Josef Mengele. Young adults considered fit for slave labor were allowed to live and had an ID number tattooed on their left forearm. Everyone else went to the gas chambers. A few inmates, including twin children, were occasionally set aside for participation in human medical experiments.

The death camp at Majdanek operated on the Auschwitz model and served both as a slave labor camp and extermination center. Chelmno, the sixth death camp in occupied Poland, operated somewhat differently from the others in that large mobile gas vans were continually used.

Although the Nazis attempted to keep all of the death camps secret, rumors and some eyewitness reports gradually filtered out. Harder to conceal were the mass shootings occurring throughout occupied Russia. On June 30 and July 2, 1942, the New York Times reported via the London Daily Telegraph that over 1,000,000 Jews had already been shot.

That summer, Swiss representatives of the World Jewish Congress received information from a German industrialist regarding the Nazi plan to exterminate the Jews. They passed the information on to London and Washington.

In December 1942, British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden stood before the House of Commons and declared the Nazis were "now carrying into effect Hitler's oft-repeated intention to exterminate the Jewish people of Europe."

Jews in America responded to the various reports by holding a rally at New York's Madison Square Garden in March 1943 to pressure the U.S. government into action. As a result, the Bermuda Conference was held from April 19-30, with representatives from the U.S. and Britain meeting to discuss the problem of refugees from Nazi-occupied countries. But the meeting resulted in complete inaction concerning the ongoing exterminations.

Seven months later, November 1943, the U.S. Congress held hearings concerning the U.S. State Department's total inaction regarding the plight of European Jews. President Franklin Roosevelt responded to the mounting political pressure by creating the War Refugee Board (WRB) in January 1944 to aid neutral countries in the rescue of Jews. The WRB helped save about 200,000 Jews from death camps through the heroic efforts of persons such as Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg working tirelessly in occupied countries.

The WRB also advocated the aerial bombing of Auschwitz, although it never occurred since it was not considered a vital military target. The U.S. and its military Allies maintained that the best way to stop Nazi atrocities was to defeat Germany as quickly as possible.

In April 1944, two Jewish inmates escaped from Auschwitz and made it safely into Czechoslovakia. One of them, Rudolf Vrba, submitted a detailed report to the Papal Nuncio in Slovakia which was then forwarded to the Vatican, received there in mid-June. Thus far, Pope Pius XII had not issued a public condemnation of Nazi maltreatment and subsequent mass murder of Jews, and he chose to continue his silence.

The Nazis attempted to quell increasing reports of the Final Solution by inviting the International Red Cross to visit Theresienstadt, a ghetto in Czechoslovakia containing prominent Jews. A Red Cross delegation toured Theresienstadt in July 1944 observing stores, banks, cafes, and classrooms which had been hastily spruced-up for their benefit. They also witnessed a delightful musical program put on by Jewish children. After the Red Cross departed, most of the ghetto inhabitants, including all of the children, were sent to be gassed and the model village was left to deteriorate.

In several instances, Jews took matters into their own hands and violently resisted the Nazis. The most notable was the 28-day battle waged inside the Warsaw Ghetto. There, a group of 750 Jews armed with smuggled-in weapons battled over 2000 SS soldiers armed with small tanks, artillery and flame throwers. Upon encountering stiff resistance from the Jews, the Nazis decided to burn down the entire ghetto.

An SS report described the scene: "The Jews stayed in the burning buildings until because of the fear of being burned alive they jumped down from the upper stories?With their bones broken, they still tried to crawl across the street into buildings which had not yet been set on fire?Despite the danger of being burned alive the Jews and bandits often preferred to return into the flames rather than risk being caught by us."

Resistance also occurred inside the death camps. At Treblinka, Jewish inmates staged a revolt in August 1943, after which Himmler ordered the camp dismantled. At Sobibor, a big escape occurred in October 1943, as Jews and Soviet POWs killed 11 SS men and broke out, with 300 making it safely into nearby woods. Of those 300, most were hunted down and only fifty survived. Himmler then closed Sobibor. At Auschwitz-Birkenau, Jewish Sonderkommandos managed to destroy crematory number four in October 1944.

But throughout Nazi-occupied Europe, relatively few non-Jewish persons were willing to risk their own lives to help the Jews. Notable exceptions included Oskar Schindler, a German who saved 1200 Jews by moving them from Plaszow labor camp to his hometown of Brunnlitz. The country of Denmark rescued nearly its entire population of Jews, over 7000, by transporting them to safety by sea. Italy and Bulgaria both refused to cooperate with German demands for deportations. Elsewhere in Europe, people generally stood by passively and watched as Jewish families were marched through the streets toward waiting trains, or in some cases, actively participated in Nazi persecutions.

By 1944, the tide of war had turned against Hitler and his armies were being defeated on all fronts by the Allies. However, the killing of Jews continued uninterrupted. Railroad locomotives and freight cars badly needed by the German Army were instead used by the SS to transport Jews to Auschwitz.

In May, Nazis under the direction of SS Lt. Colonel Adolf Eichmann boldly began a mass deportation of the last major surviving population of European Jews. From May 15 to July 9, over 430,000 Hungarian Jews were deported to Auschwitz. During this time, Auschwitz recorded its highest-ever daily number of persons killed and cremated at just over 9000. Six huge open pits were used to burn the bodies, as the number of dead exceeded the capacity of the crematories.

The unstoppable Allied military advance continued and on July 24, 1944, Soviet troops liberated the first camp, Majdanek in eastern Poland, where over 360,000 had died. As the Soviet Army neared Auschwitz, Himmler ordered the complete destruction of the gas chambers. Throughout Hitler's crumbling Reich, the SS now began conducting death marches of surviving concentration camp inmates away from outlying areas, including some 66,000 from Auschwitz. Most of the inmates on these marches either dropped dead from exertion or were shot by the SS when they failed to keep up with the column.

The Soviet Army reached Auschwitz on January 27, 1945. By that time, an estimated 1,500,000 Jews, along with 500,000 Polish prisoners, Soviet POWs and Gypsies, had perished there. As the Western Allies pushed into Germany in the spring of 1945, they liberated Buchenwald, Bergen-Belsen, and Dachau. Now the full horror of the twelve-year Nazi regime became apparent as British and American soldiers, including Supreme Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower, viewed piles of emaciated corpses and listened to vivid accounts given by survivors.

On April 30, 1945, surrounded by the Soviet Army in Berlin, Adolf Hitler committed suicide and his Reich soon collapsed. By now, most of Europe's Jews had been killed. Four million had been gassed in the death camps while another two million had been shot dead or died in the ghettos. The victorious Allies; Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union, then began the daunting task of sorting through the carnage to determine exactly who was responsible. Seven months later, the Nuremberg War Crime Trials began, with 22 surviving top Nazis charged with crimes against humanity.

During the trial, a now-repentant Hans Frank, the former Nazi Governor of Poland declared: "A thousand years will pass and the guilt of the Germany will not be erased."

http://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/genocide/holocaust.htm

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« Reply #17 on: April 15, 2008, 09:13:35 pm »

Holocaust denial

Holocaust denial, or Holocaust revisionism as it is referred to by its supporters, is the belief that the Holocaust did not occur as it is described by mainstream historiography. Key elements of this belief are the explicit or implicit rejection that, in the Holocaust:

The Nazi government had a policy of deliberately targeting the Jews and the Gypsies for extermination as a people;
Over five million Jews[1] were systematically killed by the Nazis and their allies.
Tools of efficient mass extermination, such as gas chambers, were used in extermination camps to kill Jews.
In addition, most Holocaust denial implies, or openly states, that the current mainstream understanding of the Holocaust is the result of a deliberate Jewish conspiracy created to advance the interest of Jews at the expense of other nations. For this reason, Holocaust denial is generally considered an antisemitic conspiracy theory. Because of this, Holocaust denial is also illegal in a number of European countries, as their governments hold that it is motivated by an anti-Semitic and anti-democratic agenda.

The Holocaust is generally considered by historians to be one of the best documented events in recent history, and is the subject of thousands of books and articles.[2] Most historians and scholars therefore reject Holocaust denial as "grounded in hatred, rather than any accepted standards of assertion, evidence, and truth"[3] and a "pseudoscience" that "rejects the entire foundation of historical evidence,"[4] and is instead based on a "blatantly racist"[5] ideology.

While a few Holocaust deniers have training as historians, some of their most prominent representatives have been shown in court to have a pattern of falsifying historical documents (David Irving) or deliberately misrepresenting historical data (e.g. Ernst Zündel). This history of Holocaust deniers distorting, ignoring, or misusing historical records has led to almost universal condemnation of the techniques and conclusions of Holocaust denial, with organizations such as the American Historical Association, the largest society of historians in the United States, stating that Holocaust denial is "at best, a form of academic fraud."[6] Similarly, Public Opinion Quarterly, summarizing the work on the subject done by a range of historians including Jaroff, Lipstadt, Riech, Ryback, Shapiro, Vidal-Naquet, Weimann, and Winn concludes "No reputable historian questions the reality of the Holocaust, and those promoting Holocaust denial are overwhelmingly anti-Semites and/or neo-Nazis."[7]

Many Holocaust deniers insist that they do not deny the Holocaust, preferring to be called "Holocaust revisionists". They are nevertheless commonly labeled as "Holocaust deniers" or "negationists" to differentiate them from historical revisionists by those who consider their goal to be not historical inquiry using evidence and established methodology, but rather to try to prove that the Holocaust did not exist, regardless of historical evidence.[8]
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« Reply #18 on: April 15, 2008, 09:14:05 pm »

Beliefs of Holocaust Deniers

Holocaust deniers make the following claims, though not all Holocaust deniers make all of the claims listed[12]:

Nazis did not use gas chambers to mass murder Jews. Small chambers did exist for delousing and Zyklon-B was used in this process.
Nazis did not use cremation ovens to dispose of extermination victims. The amount of energy required to fire the ovens far exceeded what the energy-strapped nation could spare in wartime. The cremation ovens that existed would have been too small for this purpose and the reason there were cremation ovens at all was they were put in to provide cremation services for the deaths from natural causes and disease epidemics that could reasonably be expected in a high-density work camp.
The figure of 5-6 million Jewish deaths is an irresponsible exaggeration, and many Jews who actually emigrated to Russia, Britain, Palestine and the United States are included in the number.
Many photos and much of the film footage shown after World War II was specially manufactured as propaganda against the Nazis by the Allied forces. For example, one film, shown to Germans after the war, of supposed Holocaust victims were in fact German civilians being treated after Allied bombing of Dresden. Pictures we commonly see show victims of starvation or typhus, not of gassing.
Claims of what the Nazis supposedly did to the Jews were all intended to facilitate the Allies in their intention to enable the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, and are currently used to garner support for the policies of the state of Israel, especially in its dealings with the Palestinians.
Historical proof for the Holocaust is falsified or deliberately misinterpreted.
There is an American, British or Jewish conspiracy to make Jews look like victims and to demonize Germans. Also, it was in the Soviet interest to propagate wild stories about Germany in order to frighten related nations into accepting Soviet rule (Poland, Czechoslovakia, etc.). The amount of money pumped into Israel and reparations from Germany alone give Israel a strong incentive to maintain this conspiracy.
The overwhelming number of biased academics and historians are too afraid to actually admit that the Holocaust was a fiction; they know they will lose their jobs if they speak up.
In any event, the Holocaust pales in comparison to the number of dissidents and Christians killed in Soviet gulags, which Holocaust deniers usually attribute to Jews.
Additionally, two other common claims of Holocaust deniers are easily confused with the legitimate debate of functionalism versus intentionalism:

Although crimes were committed, they were not centrally orchestrated and thus the Nazi leadership bore no responsibility for the implementation of such a policy.
Documents such as the Wannsee Conference protocols, the Einsatzgruppen reports, and many other original materials have overwhelmingly demonstrated the centralized planning and knowledge of the Holocaust by most upper echelons of the Nazi leadership. Historians continue to debate how widespread the knowledge of the Holocaust was in German society and government, and how the decisions to implement the Final Solution evolved, but the centrally-planned nature of the Holocaust, and the role of the Nazi leadership in its planning and execution, has not been subject to any doubt by scholars or historians.
There was no specific order by Adolf Hitler or other top Nazi officials to exterminate the Jews.
While to date no such specific "Führerbefehl" has been found, there is no necessity for it to exist in order to establish that Hitler was aware of the Holocaust. In addition, particularly in the context of the Wannsee Conference, it has been proven that the upper echelons of the Nazi regime did indeed give orders that resulted in the Holocaust.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_denial
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« Reply #19 on: April 15, 2008, 09:14:41 pm »

Other genocide denials

Other acts of genocide and atrocity have met similar attempts to deny and minimize. The list of these acts is extensive and proof is often difficult to obtain, either because governments are involved in the denial or because there is debate on whether the occurred atrocities are genocide or not. For example, Ward Churchill, a controversial scholar and activist in the area of Native American studies, asserts that the concept of holocaust denial applies to minimization of the significance of attempted extermination of other victims of the Nazi holocaust such as Gypsies and to marginalization of other "holocausts" such as the near elimination of Native Americans.

Some other examples are:

The toll of the Great Chinese Famine caused by the government of Mao was higher than the toll of the Second World War in China but could only be proved some decades later with demographic evidence.
the Nanjing Massacre (1937) by the Japanese army, which many Japanese politicians, such as Ishihara Shintaro, have denied happened;
The Armenian Genocide by Turkey is denied by the Turkish government. Although some Turkish writers are being persecuted for going against the state's official standpoint concerning the massacre, the situation might change complexion in the coming years, mainly as a result of Turkey's attempt to join the European Union;
The Ustaše genocide by Croats, who killed hundreds of thousands of Serbs in WWII in Jasenovac and other places, was denied by Croatian president Franjo Tuđman and by many people in present day Croatia.
The mass-killings organized by the Khmer Rouge in Democratic Kampuchea (today Cambodia), now almost universally regarded as genocide, were sometimes denied or minimized by contemporary commentators, primarily on the political left. Critics of Noam Chomsky accuse him of doing so (1, 2). Chomsky's position was based largely on his prior objections to the Khmer Rouge's opponents, whom he considered imperialists (see argumentum ad hominem). Chomsky now refers to what happened in Cambodia as a genocide (see Criticism of Noam Chomsky).
The Bosnian Genocide by Bosnian Serbs is still denied by most Serbs and others although it has gained acceptance at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) through the court case entitled Prosecutor vs Krstic (see Srebrenica Massacre).
Gregory H. Stanton, formerly of the US State Department and the founder of Genocide Watch lists denial as the final stage of a genocide development: "Denial is the eighth stage that always follows a genocide. It is among the surest indicators of further genocidal massacres. The perpetrators of genocide dig up the mass graves, burn the bodies, try to cover up the evidence and intimidate the witnesses. They deny that they committed any crimes, and often blame what happened on the victims."[38]
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« Reply #20 on: April 15, 2008, 09:15:21 pm »

Anti-Semitism and the Muslim world

The Qur'an, Islam's holy book, accuses the Jews of corrupting the Hebrew Bible. Muslims refer to Jews and Christians as a "People of the book"; Islamic law demands that when under Muslim rule they should be treated as dhimmis - from the Arab term ahl adh-dhimma. The writer Bat Ye'or introduced the modern word Dhimmitude as a generic indication of this Islamic attitude. Dhimmis were granted protection of life (including against other Muslim states), the right to residence, worship, and work or trade, and were exempted from military service, and Muslim religious duties, personal law and tax. They were obligated to pay other taxes (jizyah and land tax), and subject to various other restrictions regarding the contradiction of Islam, the Qur'an or Muhammad, proselytizing, and at times a number of other restrictions on dress, riding horses or camels, carrying arms, holding public office, building or repairing places of worship, mourning loudly, wearing shoes outside a Jewish ghetto, etc.

Anti-Semitism in the Muslim world increased in the twentieth century, as anti-Semitic motives and blood libels were imported from Europe and as resentment against Zionist efforts in British Mandate of Palestine spread. While anti-Semitism has certainly been heightened by the Arab-Israeli conflict, there were an increasing number of pogroms against Jews prior to the foundation of Israel, including Nazi-inspired pogroms in Algeria in the 1930s, and massive attacks on the Jews in Iraq and Libya in the 1940s (see Farhud). George Gruen attributes the increased animosity towards Jews in the Arab world to several factors including: The breakdown of the Ottoman Empire and traditional Islamic society; domination by Western colonial powers under which Jews gained a disproportionatly large role in the commercial, professional, and administrative life of the region; the rise of Arab nationalism, whose proponents sought the wealth and positions of local Jews through government channels; resentment over Jewish nationalism and the Zionist movement; and the readiness of unpopular regimes to scapegoat local Jews for political purposes.[7]

Anti-Zionist propaganda in the Middle East frequently adopts the terminology and symbols of the Holocaust to demonize Israel and its leaders. At the same time, Holocaust denial and Holocaust minimization efforts have found increasingly overt acceptance as sanctioned historical discourse in a number of Middle Eastern countries.

Islamic claims that certain Jews had been transformed into lowly animals

Al-Jahiz (d. 869), a ninth century Islamic zoologist and belles-lettriste who authored The Book of Animals, writes that the mouse, cheetah, eel, white ant (termite), and lizard were originally sinful Jews. (See Al-Jahiz, Omar bin Bahar, Kitab Al-Hayawan. Cairo: Mustafa Al-Bai Al-Halabi and sons (1943), Col. I, p. 309.)

Qur'an 7:163 says that God told a group of Sabbath-breakers living by the sea "Be ye apes, despised and rejected" to punish them for breaking the Sabbath. This verse (interpreted to mean that they were turned into apes) is sometimes used by hostile groups to mock the Jews, on the grounds that these must have been Jews, since the Sabbath is a commandment which (according to Islam) God demanded of Jews but not of his other followers. Thus Hamas says:

"Allah did not mete out the punishment of transformation on any nation except the Jews. The significance of it is actual change in the appearance of the Jew and perfect transformation from human to bestial condition... from human appearance to the form of genuine apes, pigs, mice, and lizards..." (Source: The Hamas monthly publication Falastin Al-Muslima (London), September 1996, series of articles by Ibrahim Al-'Ali, pp. 54-55.)
Similarly, the following quotes are excerpted from a sermon broadcast on Palestinian TV by Dr. Mustafa Najem, Dec. 6, 2002:

"The Jews...are the brothers of monkeys and pigs...Allah has warned us against their evil and their arrogance, and has said: 'You will find that the most brazen among mankind, with hatred towards the believers, are the Jews and the Idolaters.' [Qur'an, 81,5]...The Jews are Jews, and we are forbidden to forget their character traits even for a moment, even for a blink of an eye. O Servants of Allah! The Jews are those who tried to murder your Prophet in order to expunge the call (to Islam)....Prayer and blessing to the Imam of the Jihad fighters, Mohammed, who waged a Jihad against the Jews...The Jews...are Idolaters, heretics, whose faith is false."
In the Islamic Aghlabid dynasty (9th through 11th century, North Africa) Jews were forced to wear a patch that had an image of a monkey, and were also forced to affix said image to their homes. (For Christians, the image was of a pig.) (F. Viré, "Kird," Encyclopedia of Islam, Second Edition.)

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« Reply #21 on: April 15, 2008, 09:15:51 pm »

History of the Jews in the United States

Jews were often condemned by populist politicians alternately for their left-wing politics, or their perceived wealth, at the turn of the century. Anti-semitism grew in the years leading up to America's entry into World War II, Father Charles Coughlin, an anti-Semitic radio preacher, as well as many other prominent public figures, condemned "the Jews," and Henry Ford reprinted The Protocols of the Elders of Zion in his newspaper.

In 1939 a Roper poll found that only thirty-nine percent of Americans felt that Jews should be treated like other people. Fifty-three percent believed that "Jews are different and should be restricted" and ten percent believed that Jews should be deported. [8] It has been estimated that 190 000 - 200 000 Jews could have been saved during the Second World War had it not been for bureaucratic obstacles to immigration deliberately created by Breckinridge Long and others.[9]

Unofficial antisemitism was also widespread in the first half of the century. For example, to limit the growing number of Jewish students between 1919-1950s a number of private liberal arts universities and medical and dental schools employed Numerus clausus. These included Harvard University, Columbia University, Cornell University, and Boston University. In 1925 Yale University, which already had such admissions preferences as "character", "solidity", and "physical characteristics" added a program of legacy preference admission spots for children of Yale alumni, in an explicit attempt to put the brakes on the rising percentage of Jews in the student body. This was soon copied by other Ivy League and other schools, and admissions of Jews were kept down to 10% through the 1950s. Such policies were for the most part discarded during the early 1960s.

American anti-Semitism underwent a modest revival in the late 20th century. The Nation of Islam under Louis Farrakhan claimed that Jews were responsible for slavery, economic exploitation of black labor, selling alcohol and drugs in their communities, and unfair domination of the economy. Jesse Jackson issued his infamous "Hymietown" remarks during the 1984 Presidential primary campaign. According to ADL surveys begun in 1964, African-Americans are "significantly more likely" than white Americans to hold anti-Semitic beliefs, although there is a strong correlation between education level and the rejection of anti-Semitic stereotypes. [10].

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« Reply #22 on: April 15, 2008, 09:16:26 pm »

New anti-Semitism

The term new anti-Semitism refers to the contemporary international resurgence of anti-Jewish incidents and attacks on Jewish symbols, as well as the acceptance of anti-Semitic beliefs and their expression in public discourse.

The term, which first came into general use in the early 1970s, is used to distinguish a form of anti-Semitism regarded as differing in its rhetoric, its professed purpose, and its place on the political spectrum from the old anti-Semitism, which derived from the Right and was motivated by racial theory, religion, or nationalism. The new anti-Semitism is closely associated with the Left and its opposition to Zionism, and to the existence of the state of Israel as a Jewish homeland. [1] [2] [3] [4]

Controversy regarding new anti-Semitism centers on whether opposition to the state of Israel expresses anti-Semitism only as a symptom or by-product, or whether it is more closely linked to, and supported by, more general anti-Semitic beliefs. Critics of the concept contend that it serves only to equate legitimate criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism.

The nature of the new anti-Semitism

An image in the Jordanian newspaper Ad-Dustour on November 13, 2000 merged the Star of David with the swastika.The charge of new anti-Semitism is primarily applied to groups on the Left, and is described as drawing its vocabulary and arguments from an opposition to Zionism and to the state of Israel. [1] [2] Gerry Gable, publisher of the anti-fascist Searchlight magazine has said that "a lot of anti-semitism is driven by the left. There are elements who take up a position on Israel and Palestine which in reality puts them in league with anti-Semites. It's becoming more pervasive. A lot of hatred is being built up by people who really should know better." [3]

Proponents of this model argue that anti-Zionism may function as a proxy for traditional anti-Semitism, thereby allowing anti-Semites to espouse a socially acceptable opposition to the Israeli state and its ideology, rather than a socially unacceptable religious or ethnic hatred. Proponents further argue that some grievances against Israel, stemming from the Arab-Israeli conflict, have become anti-Semitic in character and are manifested by hostility toward Jews in general. As Daniel Lazare has commented, in a paraphrase of August Bebel: "Anti-Semitism is the anti-Zionism of fools…"[5]

Britain's Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks expressed this view when he argued that "the new antisemitism — and it is new — is a global phenomenon conveyed by Internet, e-mail, television and video, and we do not yet know how the new communications media will affect its spread. … It is coming simultaneously from three different directions: first, a radicalized Islamist youth inflamed by extremist rhetoric; second, a left-wing anti-American cognitive élite with strong representation in the European media; third, a resurgent far right, as anti-Muslim as it is anti-Jewish. [6]

In The Case for Israel, Alan Dershowitz describes a definition of anti-Semitism as "taking a trait or an action that is widespread, if not universal, and blaming only the Jews for it. That is what Hitler and Stalin did, and that is what former Harvard University president A. Lawrence Lowell did in the 1920s when he tried to limit the number of Jews admitted to Harvard because 'Jews cheat.' When a distinguished alumnus objected on the grounds that non-Jews also cheat, Lowell replied, 'You're changing the subject. I'm talking about Jews.' So, too, when those who single out only the Jewish nation for criticism are asked why they don't criticize Israel's enemies, they respond, 'You're changing the subject. We're talking about Israel.'"[7]

That attacks on Israel may serve as a cover for anti-Semitism has been accepted by official governmental bodies in Europe and the United States. For example, in 2005, the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC), part of the Council of Europe, tried to define more clearly the relationship between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism as part of a general effort to track anti-Semitism. The EUMC developed a working definition of anti-Semitism that defined ways in which attacking Israel or Zionism could be anti-Semitic, the definition states:

"Examples of the ways in which anti-Semitism manifests itself with regard to the State of Israel taking into account the overall context could include:

Denying the Jewish people right to self-determination, e.g. by claiming that the existence of a state of Israel is a racist endeavor.
Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.
Using the symbols and images associated with classic anti-Semitism (e.g. claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis.
Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.
Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the State of Israel.
However, criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as anti-Semitic."[8]
In his article "Human Rights and the New Anti-Jewishness", Irwin Cotler, Canada's Minister of Justice, writes that "classical or traditional anti-Semitism is the discrimination against, or denial of, the right of Jews to live as equal members of a free society; the new anti-Semitism — incompletely, or incorrectly, [referred to] as "anti-Zionism"... — involves the discrimination against, denial of, or assault upon the right of the Jewish people to live as an equal member of the family of nations. What is intrinsic to each form of anti-Semitism — and common to both — is discrimination. All that has happened is that it has moved from discrimination against Jews as individuals — a classical anti-Semitism for which there are indices of measurement (e.g., discrimination against Jews in education, housing, or employment) — to discrimination against Jews as people — a new anti-Semitism — for which one has yet to develop indices of measurement. [9]

Cotler identifies distinct categories to illustrate the scope, character and specific instances of the new anti-Semitism. He describes them as Genocidal, Political, Theological, Cultural, Anti-Israel, Economic and State-sanctioned. Broadly, he asserts that anti-Semitism has expanded from the hatred of Jews to include hatred of Jewish national aspirations, the hatred of Israel's status as a sovereign nation, and the denial of its right to an equal role in the global community of nations. Cotler identifies distinct indices by which this prejudice may be manifested, ranging from the state-sanctioned theological anti-Semitism of some Islamic governments to the Cultural anti-Semitism which he perceives in the European elite. He also stressed that such prejudice may be overtly manifested (in the case of anti-Semitic rhetoric) or subtly manifested through diplomatic pressure, or by the economic boycott of Israeli businesses and their trade partners.
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« Reply #23 on: April 15, 2008, 09:16:54 pm »

False allegations about Israel and Jews

Proponents of the new anti-Semitism say that one of its manifestations involves false allegations made about Israel and Jews, with the intent of stirring up hatred against them. This section lists examples used to support that claim.

Perhaps the most notable case was the so called "Jenin massacre" allegation, in which it was claimed that in Jenin, Israeli Defense Forces committed atrocities "horrific beyond belief," according to United Nations special envoy Terje Rød-Larsen [14], and "massacred" 500–3000 innocent Palestinians during Operation Defensive Shield. Two weeks after the press promoted the Jenin massacre allegation, international reporters uncovered that no massacre had taken place in Jenin. Fatah lowered its estimate of the death toll to 56 people, the majority of whom were combatants, as were the 23 IDF soldiers killed during the battle. The "Jenin massacre" story sparked waves of anti-Israeli protests and violent attacks against Jews in Europe.

The role of the media in reporting these events was highly controversial. Many Western media outlets were criticized as having deliberately misled their readers, and some reporters were accused of fabricating information to demonize Israel. However, reports by the Western media of a "massacre" in Jenin were generally presented as eyewitness accounts, and not as undisputed facts. The BBC, for instance, conveyed reports of a "massacre" from some international observers, but did not take a position as to whether or not such events had occurred.[14] Some reporters noted that it was difficult to ascertain what had actually happened in Jenin following the end of Israeli military operations there, as foreign observers were not initially given access to the city.

In the Arab media, conspiracy theories involving Jews abound. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a text debunked many years ago as a fraud perpetrated by Czarist intelligence agents, continued to appear in the Middle East media, quoted not as a hoax but as a factual source. In 2002 and 2003, two television series appeared that dramatized the events of The Protocols. One was a Syrian production, sponsored in part by the government of Syria, that aired on Hezbollah satellite television in Lebanon and throughout the Middle East; the other, a 41-part series, was produced and aired in Egypt. The presentations emphasized blood libel and the alleged control by the Jewish community of international finance. The clear purpose of the programs was to incite hatred of Jews and of Israel. Copies of the Protocols and other similar anti-Semitic forgeries were readily available in Middle Eastern countries, former Soviet republics and elsewhere.

Another widely disseminated conspiracy theory holds that Jews were behind the 9/11 attacks. This accusation is usually supported by the false false claim that 4,000 Jews or Israelis who worked at the World Trade Center did not show up for work on the day of the attacks, supposedly a sign that they were warned by a complicit Israeli intelligence agency. [15] (See also 9/11 conspiracy theories.) These allegations were renewed after the October 2005 bombings in Amman, Jordan, when it was revealed that the Israeli government had issued a routine warning to its citizens in Amman before the bombings took place.

Such media channels often broadcast globally and incite attacks against Jews. On December 2004, the French court banned Hizbullah's TV channel Al-Manar after repeated anti-Semitic attacks and allegations such as "Zionist attempts to transmit AIDS to Arab countries." [16]

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« Reply #24 on: April 15, 2008, 09:17:24 pm »

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The Urantia Book


 

 
PAPER 185


 THE TRIAL BEFORE PILATE


 

  185:0.1 SHORTLY after six o'clock on this Friday morning, April 7, A.D. 30, Jesus was brought before Pilate, the Roman procurator who governed Judea, Samaria, and Idumea under the immediate supervision of the legatus of Syria. The Master was taken into the presence of the Roman governor by the temple guards, bound, and was accompanied by about fifty of his accusers, including the Sanhedrist court (principally Sadduceans), Judas Iscariot, and the high priest, Caiaphas, and by the Apostle John. Annas did not appear before Pilate.

  185:0.2 Pilate was up and ready to receive this group of early morning callers, having been informed by those who had secured his consent, the previous evening, to employ the Roman soldiers in arresting the Son of Man, that Jesus would be early brought before him. This trial was arranged to take place in front of the praetorium, an addition to the fortress of Antonia, where Pilate and his wife made their headquarters when stopping in Jerusalem.

  185:0.3 Though Pilate conducted much of Jesus' examination within the praetorium halls, the public trial was held outside on the steps leading up to the main entrance. This was a concession to the Jews, who refused to enter any gentile building where leaven might be used on this day of preparation for the Passover. Such conduct would not only render them ceremonially unclean and thereby debar them from partaking of the afternoon feast of thanksgiving but would also necessitate their subjection to purification ceremonies after sundown, before they would be eligible to partake of the Passover supper.

  185:0.4 Although these Jews were not at all bothered in conscience as they intrigued to effect the judicial murder of Jesus, they were nonetheless scrupulous regarding all these matters of ceremonial cleanness and traditional regularity. And these Jews have not been the only ones to fail in the recognition of high and holy obligations of a divine nature while giving meticulous attention to things of trifling importance to human welfare in both time and eternity.

 

   
1. PONTIUS PILATE


  185:1.1 If Pontius Pilate had not been a reasonably good governor of the minor provinces, Tiberius would hardly have suffered him to remain as procurator of Judea for ten years. Although he was a fairly good administrator, he was a moral coward. He was not a big enough man to comprehend the nature of his task as governor of the Jews. He failed to grasp the fact that these Hebrews had a real religion, a faith for which they were willing to die, and that millions upon millions of them, scattered here and there throughout the empire, looked to Jerusalem as the shrine of their faith and held the Sanhedrin in respect as the highest tribunal on earth.

  185:1.2 Pilate did not love the Jews, and this deep-seated hatred early began to manifest itself. Of all the Roman provinces, none was more difficult to govern than Judea. Pilate never really understood the problems involved in the management of the Jews and, therefore, very early in his experience as governor, made a series of almost fatal and well-nigh suicidal blunders. And it was these blunders that gave the Jews such power over him. When they wanted to influence his decisions, all they had to do was to threaten an uprising, and Pilate would speedily capitulate. And this apparent vacillation, or lack of moral courage, of the procurator was chiefly due to the memory of a number of controversies he had had with the Jews and because in each instance they had worsted him. The Jews knew that Pilate was afraid of them, that he feared for his position before Tiberius, and they employed this knowledge to the great disadvantage of the governor on numerous occasions.

  185:1.3 Pilate's disfavor with the Jews came about as a result of a number of unfortunate encounters. First, he failed to take seriously their deep-seated prejudice against all images as symbols of idol worship. Therefore he permitted his soldiers to enter Jerusalem without removing the images of Caesar from their banners, as had been the practice of the Roman soldiers under his predecessor. A large deputation of Jews waited upon Pilate for five days, imploring him to have these images removed from the military standards. He flatly refused to grant their petition and threatened them with instant death. Pilate, himself being a skeptic, did not understand that men of strong religious feelings will not hesitate to die for their religious convictions; and therefore was he dismayed when these Jews drew themselves up defiantly before his palace, bowed their faces to the ground, and sent word that they were ready to die. Pilate then realized that he had made a threat which he was unwilling to carry out. He surrendered, ordered the images removed from the standards of his soldiers in Jerusalem, and found himself from that day on to a large extent subject to the whims of the Jewish leaders, who had in this way discovered his weakness in making threats which he feared to execute.

  185:1.4 Pilate subsequently determined to regain this lost prestige and accordingly had the shields of the emperor, such as were commonly used in Caesar worship, put up on the walls of Herod's palace in Jerusalem. When the Jews protested, he was adamant. When he refused to listen to their protests, they promptly appealed to Rome, and the emperor as promptly ordered the offending shields removed. And then was Pilate held in even lower esteem than before.

 

  185:1.5 Another thing which brought him into great disfavor with the Jews was that he dared to take money from the temple treasury to pay for the construction of a new aqueduct to provide increased water supply for the millions of visitors to Jerusalem at the times of the great religious feasts. The Jews held that only the Sanhedrin could disburse the temple funds, and they never ceased to inveigh against Pilate for this presumptuous ruling. No less than a score of riots and much bloodshed resulted from this decision. The last of these serious outbreaks had to do with the slaughter of a large company of Galileans even as they worshiped at the altar.

 

  185:1.6 It is significant that, while this vacillating Roman ruler sacrificed Jesus to his fear of the Jews and to safeguard his personal position, he finally was deposed as a result of the needless slaughter of Samaritans in connection with the pretensions of a false Messiah who led troops to Mount Gerizim, where he claimed the temple vessels were buried; and fierce riots broke out when he failed to reveal the hiding place of the sacred vessels, as he had promised. As a result of this episode, the legatus of Syria ordered Pilate to Rome. Tiberius died while Pilate was on the way to Rome, and he was not reappointed as procurator of Judea. He never fully recovered from the regretful condemnation of having consented to the crucifixion of Jesus. Finding no favor in the eyes of the new emperor, he retired to the province of Lausanne, where he subsequently committed suicide.

 

  185:1.7 Claudia Procula, Pilate's wife, had heard much of Jesus through the word of her maid-in-waiting, who was a Phoenician believer in the gospel of the kingdom. After the death of Pilate, Claudia became prominently identified with the spread of the good news.

 

  185:1.8 And all this explains much that transpired on this tragic Friday forenoon. It is easy to understand why the Jews presumed to dictate to Pilate -- to get him up at six o'clock to try Jesus -- and also why they did not hesitate to threaten to charge him with treason before the emperor if he dared to refuse their demands for Jesus' death.

  185:1.9 A worthy Roman governor who had not become disadvantageously involved with the rulers of the Jews would never have permitted these bloodthirsty religious fanatics to bring about the death of a man whom he himself had declared to be innocent of their false charges and without fault. Rome made a great blunder, a far-reaching error in earthly affairs, when she sent the second-rate Pilate to govern Palestine. Tiberius had better have sent to the Jews the best provincial administrator in the empire.

 

   
2. JESUS APPEARS BEFORE PILATE


  185:2.1 When Jesus and his accusers had gathered in front of Pilate's judgment hall, the Roman governor came out and, addressing the company assembled, asked, "What accusation do you bring against this fellow?" The Sadducees and councilors who had taken it upon themselves to put Jesus out of the way had determined to go before Pilate and ask for confirmation of the death sentence pronounced upon Jesus, without volunteering any definite charge. Therefore did the spokesman for the Sanhedrist court answer Pilate: "If this man were not an evildoer, we should not have delivered him up to you."

  185:2.2 When Pilate observed that they were reluctant to state their charges against Jesus, although he knew they had been all night engaged in deliberations regarding his guilt, he answered them: "Since you have not agreed on any definite charges, why do you not take this man and pass judgment on him in accordance with your own laws?"

  185:2.3 Then spoke the clerk of the Sanhedrin court to Pilate: "It is not lawful for us to put any man to death, and this disturber of our nation is worthy to die for the things which he has said and done. Therefore have we come before you for confirmation of this decree."

  185:2.4 To come before the Roman governor with this attempt at evasion discloses both the ill-will and the ill-humor of the Sanhedrists toward Jesus as well as their lack of respect for the fairness, honor, and dignity of Pilate. What effrontery for these subject citizens to appear before their provincial governor asking for a decree of execution against a man before affording him a fair trial and without even preferring definite criminal charges against him!

  185:2.5 Pilate knew something of Jesus' work among the Jews, and he surmised that the charges which might be brought against him had to do with infringements of the Jewish ecclesiastical laws; therefore he sought to refer the case back to their own tribunal. Again, Pilate took delight in making them publicly confess that they were powerless to pronounce and execute the death sentence upon even one of their own race whom they had come to despise with a bitter and envious hatred.

 

  185:2.6 It was a few hours previously, shortly before midnight and after he had granted permission to use Roman soldiers in effecting the secret arrest of Jesus, that Pilate had heard further concerning Jesus and his teaching from his wife, Claudia, who was a partial convert to Judaism, and who later on became a full-fledged believer in Jesus' gospel.

 

  185:2.7 Pilate would have liked to postpone this hearing, but he saw the Jewish leaders were determined to proceed with the case. He knew that this was not only the forenoon of preparation for the Passover, but that this day, being Friday, was also the preparation day for the Jewish Sabbath of rest and worship.

  185:2.8 Pilate, being keenly sensitive to the disrespectful manner of the approach of these Jews, was not willing to comply with their demands that Jesus be sentenced to death without a trial. When, therefore, he had waited a few moments for them to present their charges against the prisoner, he turned to them and said: "I will not sentence this man to death without a trial; neither will I consent to examine him until you have presented your charges against him in writing."

  185:2.9 When the high priest and the others heard Pilate say this, they signaled to the clerk of the court, who then handed to Pilate the written charges against Jesus. And these charges were:

 

  185:2.10 "We find in the Sanhedrist tribunal that this man is an evildoer and a disturber of our nation in that he is guilty of:

"1. Perverting our nation and stirring up our people to rebellion.

"2. Forbidding the people to pay tribute to Caesar.

"3. Calling himself the king of the Jews and teaching the founding of a new kingdom."

 

  185:2.11 Jesus had not been regularly tried nor legally convicted on any of these charges. He did not even hear these charges when first stated, but Pilate had him brought from the praetorium, where he was in the keeping of the guards, and he insisted that these charges be repeated in Jesus' hearing.

  185:2.12 When Jesus heard these accusations, he well knew that he had not been heard on these matters before the Jewish court, and so did John Zebedee and his accusers, but he made no reply to their false charges. Even when Pilate bade him answer his accusers, he opened not his mouth. Pilate was so astonished at the unfairness of the whole proceeding and so impressed by Jesus' silent and masterly bearing that he decided to take the prisoner inside the hall and examine him privately.

  185:2.13 Pilate was confused in mind, fearful of the Jews in his heart, and mightily stirred in his spirit by the spectacle of Jesus' standing there in majesty before his bloodthirsty accusers and gazing down on them, not in silent contempt, but with an expression of genuine pity and sorrowful affection.

 

   
3. THE PRIVATE EXAMINATION BY PILATE


  185:3.1 Pilate took Jesus and John Zebedee into a private chamber, leaving the guards outside in the hall, and requesting the prisoner to sit down, he sat down by his side and asked several questions. Pilate began his talk with Jesus by assuring him that he did not believe the first count against him: that he was a perverter of the nation and an inciter to rebellion. Then he asked, "Did you ever teach that tribute should be refused Caesar?" Jesus, pointing to John, said, "Ask him or any other man who has heard my teaching." Then Pilate questioned John about this matter of tribute, and John testified concerning his Master's teaching and explained that Jesus and his apostles paid taxes both to Caesar and to the temple. When Pilate had questioned John, he said, "See that you tell no man that I talked with you." And John never did reveal this matter.

  185:3.2 Pilate then turned around to question Jesus further, saying: "And now about the third accusation against you, are you the king of the Jews?" Since there was a tone of possibly sincere inquiry in Pilate's voice, Jesus smiled on the procurator and said: "Pilate, do you ask this for yourself, or do you take this question from these others, my accusers?" Whereupon, in a tone of partial indignation, the governor answered: "Am I a Jew? Your own people and the chief priests delivered you up and asked me to sentence you to death. I question the validity of their charges and am only trying to find out for myself what you have done. Tell me, have you said that you are the king of the Jews, and have you sought to found a new kingdom?"

  185:3.3 Then said Jesus to Pilate: "Do you not perceive that my kingdom is not of this world? If my kingdom were of this world, surely would my disciples fight that I should not be delivered into the hands of the Jews. My presence here before you in these bonds is sufficient to show all men that my kingdom is a spiritual dominion, even the brotherhood of men who, through faith and by love, have become the sons of God. And this salvation is for the gentile as well as for the Jew."

  185:3.4 "Then you are a king after all?" said Pilate. And Jesus answered: "Yes, I am such a king, and my kingdom is the family of the faith sons of my Father who is in heaven. For this purpose was I born into this world, even that I should show my Father to all men and bear witness to the truth of God. And even now do I declare to you that every one who loves the truth hears my voice."

  185:3.5 Then said Pilate, half in ridicule and half in sincerity, "Truth, what is truth -- who knows?"

  185:3.6 Pilate was not able to fathom Jesus' words, nor was he able to understand the nature of his spiritual kingdom, but he was now certain that the prisoner had done nothing worthy of death. One look at Jesus, face to face, was enough to convince even Pilate that this gentle and weary, but majestic and upright, man was no wild and dangerous revolutionary who aspired to establish himself on the temporal throne of Israel. Pilate thought he understood something of what Jesus meant when he called himself a king, for he was familiar with the teachings of the Stoics, who declared that "the wise man is king." Pilate was thoroughly convinced that, instead of being a dangerous seditionmonger, Jesus was nothing more or less than a harmless visionary, an innocent fanatic.

  185:3.7 After questioning the Master, Pilate went back to the chief priests and the accusers of Jesus and said: "I have examined this man, and I find no fault in him. I do not think he is guilty of the charges you have made against him; I think he ought to be set free." And when the Jews heard this, they were moved with great anger, so much so that they wildly shouted that Jesus should die; and one of the Sanhedrists boldly stepped up by the side of Pilate, saying: "This man stirs up the people, beginning in Galilee and continuing throughout all Judea. He is a mischief-maker and an evildoer. You will long regret it if you let this wicked man go free."

  185:3.8 Pilate was hard pressed to know what to do with Jesus; therefore, when he heard them say that he began his work in Galilee, he thought to avoid the responsibility of deciding the case, at least to gain time for thought, by sending Jesus to appear before Herod, who was then in the city attending the Passover. Pilate also thought that this gesture would help to antidote some of the bitter feeling which had existed for some time between himself and Herod, due to numerous misunderstandings over matters of jurisdiction.

  185:3.9 Pilate, calling the guards, said: "This man is a Galilean. Take him forthwith to Herod, and when he has examined him, report his findings to me." And they took Jesus to Herod.
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« Reply #25 on: April 15, 2008, 09:17:50 pm »

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  posted 03-08-2006 03:31 AM                       
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4. JESUS BEFORE HEROD


  185:4.1 When Herod Antipas stopped in Jerusalem, he dwelt in the old Maccabean palace of Herod the Great, and it was to this home of the former king that Jesus was now taken by the temple guards, and he was followed by his accusers and an increasing multitude. Herod had long heard of Jesus, and he was very curious about him. When the Son of Man stood before him, on this Friday morning, the wicked Idumean never for one moment recalled the lad of former years who had appeared before him in Sepphoris pleading for a just decision regarding the money due his father, who had been accidentally killed while at work on one of the public buildings. As far as Herod knew, he had never seen Jesus, although he had worried a great deal about him when his work had been centered in Galilee. Now that he was in custody of Pilate and the Judeans, Herod was desirous of seeing him, feeling secure against any trouble from him in the future. Herod had heard much about the miracles wrought by Jesus, and he really hoped to see him do some wonder.

  185:4.2 When they brought Jesus before Herod, the tetrarch was startled by his stately appearance and the calm composure of his countenance. For some fifteen minutes Herod asked Jesus questions, but the Master would not answer. Herod taunted and dared him to perform a miracle, but Jesus would not reply to his many inquiries or respond to his taunts.

  185:4.3 Then Herod turned to the chief priests and the Sadducees and, giving ear to their accusations, heard all and more than Pilate had listened to regarding the alleged evil doings of the Son of Man. Finally, being convinced that Jesus would neither talk nor perform a wonder for him, Herod, after making fun of him for a time, arrayed him in an old purple royal robe and sent him back to Pilate. Herod knew he had no jurisdiction over Jesus in Judea. Though he was glad to believe that he was finally to be rid of Jesus in Galilee, he was thankful that it was Pilate who had the responsibility of putting him to death. Herod never had fully recovered from the fear that cursed him as a result of killing John the Baptist. Herod had at certain times even feared that Jesus was John risen from the dead. Now he was relieved of that fear since he observed that Jesus was a very different sort of person from the outspoken and fiery prophet who dared to expose and denounce his private life.

 

   
5. JESUS RETURNS TO PILATE


  185:5.1 When the guards had brought Jesus back to Pilate, he went out on the front steps of the praetorium, where his judgment seat had been placed, and calling together the chief priests and Sanhedrists, said to them: "You brought this man before me with charges that he perverts the people, forbids the payment of taxes, and claims to be king of the Jews. I have examined him and fail to find him guilty of these charges. In fact, I find no fault in him. Then I sent him to Herod, and the tetrarch must have reached the same conclusion since he has sent him back to us. Certainly, nothing worthy of death has been done by this man. If you still think he needs to be disciplined, I am willing to chastise him before I release him."

  185:5.2 Just as the Jews were about to engage in shouting their protests against the release of Jesus, a vast crowd came marching up to the praetorium for the purpose of asking Pilate for the release of a prisoner in honor of the Passover feast. For some time it had been the custom of the Roman governors to allow the populace to choose some imprisoned or condemned man for pardon at the time of the Passover. And now that this crowd had come before him to ask for the release of a prisoner, and since Jesus had so recently been in great favor with the multitudes, it occurred to Pilate that he might possibly extricate himself from his predicament by proposing to this group that, since Jesus was now a prisoner before his judgment seat, he release to them this man of Galilee as the token of Passover good will.

  185:5.3 As the crowd surged up on the steps of the building, Pilate heard them calling out the name of one Barabbas. Barabbas was a noted political agitator and murderous robber, the son of a priest, who had recently been apprehended in the act of robbery and murder on the Jericho road. This man was under sentence to die as soon as the Passover festivities were over.

  185:5.4 Pilate stood up and explained to the crowd that Jesus had been brought to him by the chief priests, who sought to have him put to death on certain charges, and that he did not think the man was worthy of death. Said Pilate: "Which, therefore, would you prefer that I release to you, this Barabbas, the murderer, or this Jesus of Galilee?" And when Pilate had thus spoken, the chief priests and the Sanhedrin councilors all shouted at the top of their voices, "Barabbas, Barabbas!" And when the people saw that the chief priests were minded to have Jesus put to death, they quickly joined in the clamor for his life while they loudly shouted for the release of Barabbas.

  185:5.5 A few days before this the multitude had stood in awe of Jesus, but the mob did not look up to one who, having claimed to be the Son of God, now found himself in the custody of the chief priests and the rulers and on trial before Pilate for his life. Jesus could be a hero in the eyes of the populace when he was driving the money-changers and the traders out of the temple, but not when he was a nonresisting prisoner in the hands of his enemies and on trial for his life.

  185:5.6 Pilate was angered at the sight of the chief priests clamoring for the pardon of a notorious murderer while they shouted for the blood of Jesus. He saw their malice and hatred and perceived their prejudice and envy. Therefore he said to them: "How could you choose the life of a murderer in preference to this man's whose worst crime is that he figuratively calls himself the king of the Jews?" But this was not a wise statement for Pilate to make. The Jews were a proud people, now subject to the Roman political yoke but hoping for the coming of a Messiah who would deliver them from gentile bondage with a great show of power and glory. They resented, more than Pilate could know, the intimation that this meek-mannered teacher of strange doctrines, now under arrest and charged with crimes worthy of death, should be referred to as "the king of the Jews." They looked upon such a remark as an insult to everything which they held sacred and honorable in their national existence, and therefore did they all let loose their mighty shouts for Barabbas's release and Jesus' death.

  185:5.7 Pilate knew Jesus was innocent of the charges brought against him, and had he been a just and courageous judge, he would have acquitted him and turned him loose. But he was afraid to defy these angry Jews, and while he hesitated to do his duty, a messenger came up and presented him with a sealed message from his wife, Claudia.

  185:5.8 Pilate indicated to those assembled before him that he wished to read the communication which he had just received before he proceeded further with the matter before him. When Pilate opened this letter from his wife, he read: "I pray you have nothing to do with this innocent and just man whom they call Jesus. I have suffered many things in a dream this night because of him." This note from Claudia not only greatly upset Pilate and thereby delayed the adjudication of this matter, but it unfortunately also provided considerable time in which the Jewish rulers freely circulated among the crowd and urged the people to call for the release of Barabbas and to clamor for the crucifixion of Jesus.

  185:5.9 Finally, Pilate addressed himself once more to the solution of the problem which confronted him, by asking the mixed assembly of Jewish rulers and the pardon-seeking crowd, "What shall I do with him who is called the king of the Jews?" And they all shouted with one accord, "Crucify him! Crucify him!" The unanimity of this demand from the mixed multitude startled and alarmed Pilate, the unjust and fear-ridden judge.

  185:5.10 Then once more Pilate said: "Why would you crucify this man? What evil has he done? Who will come forward to testify against him?" But when they heard Pilate speak in defense of Jesus, they only cried out all the more, "Crucify him! Crucify him!"

  185:5.11 Then again Pilate appealed to them regarding the release of the Passover prisoner, saying: "Once more I ask you, which of these prisoners shall I release to you at this, your Passover time?" And again the crowd shouted, "Give us Barabbas!"

  185:5.12 Then said Pilate: "If I release the murderer, Barabbas, what shall I do with Jesus?" And once more the multitude shouted in unison, "Crucify him! Crucify him!"

  185:5.13 Pilate was terrorized by the insistent clamor of the mob, acting under the direct leadership of the chief priests and the councilors of the Sanhedrin; nevertheless, he decided upon at least one more attempt to appease the crowd and save Jesus.

 

   
6. PILATE'S LAST APPEAL


  185:6.1 In all that is transpiring early this Friday morning before Pilate, only the enemies of Jesus are participating. His many friends either do not yet know of his night arrest and early morning trial or are in hiding lest they also be apprehended and adjudged worthy of death because they believe Jesus' teachings. In the multitude which now clamors for the Master's death are to be found only his sworn enemies and the easily led and unthinking populace.

  185:6.2 Pilate would make one last appeal to their pity. Being afraid to defy the clamor of this misled mob who cried for the blood of Jesus, he ordered the Jewish guards and the Roman soldiers to take Jesus and scourge him. This was in itself an unjust and illegal procedure since the Roman law provided that only those condemned to die by crucifixion should be thus subjected to scourging. The guards took Jesus into the open courtyard of the praetorium for this ordeal. Though his enemies did not witness this scourging, Pilate did, and before they had finished this wicked abuse, he directed the scourgers to desist and indicated that Jesus should be brought to him. Before the scourgers laid their knotted whips upon Jesus as he was bound to the whipping post, they again put upon him the purple robe, and plaiting a crown of thorns, they placed it upon his brow. And when they had put a reed in his hand as a mock scepter, they knelt before him and mocked him, saying, "Hail, king of the Jews!" And they spit upon him and struck him in the face with their hands. And one of them, before they returned him to Pilate, took the reed from his hand and struck him upon the head.

  185:6.3 Then Pilate led forth this bleeding and lacerated prisoner and, presenting him before the mixed multitude, said: "Behold the man! Again I declare to you that I find no crime in him, and having scourged him, I would release him."

  185:6.4 There stood Jesus of Nazareth, clothed in an old purple royal robe with a crown of thorns piercing his kindly brow. His face was bloodstained and his form bowed down with suffering and grief. But nothing can appeal to the unfeeling hearts of those who are victims of intense emotional hatred and slaves to religious prejudice. This sight sent a mighty shudder through the realms of a vast universe, but it did not touch the hearts of those who had set their minds to effect the destruction of Jesus.

  185:6.5 When they had recovered from the first shock of seeing the Master's plight, they only shouted the louder and the longer, "Crucify him! Crucify him! Crucify him!"

  185:6.6 And now did Pilate comprehend that it was futile to appeal to their supposed feelings of pity. He stepped forward and said: "I perceive that you are determined this man shall die, but what has he done to deserve death? Who will declare his crime?"

  185:6.7 Then the high priest himself stepped forward and, going up to Pilate, angrily declared: "We have a sacred law, and by that law this man ought to die because he made himself out to be the Son of God." When Pilate heard this, he was all the more afraid, not only of the Jews, but recalling his wife's note and the Greek mythology of the gods coming down on earth, he now trembled at the thought of Jesus possibly being a divine personage. He waved to the crowd to hold its peace while he took Jesus by the arm and again led him inside the building that he might further examine him. Pilate was now confused by fear, bewildered by superstition, and harassed by the stubborn attitude of the mob.

 

   
7. PILATE'S LAST INTERVIEW


  185:7.1 As Pilate, trembling with fearful emotion, sat down by the side of Jesus, he inquired: "Where do you come from? Really, who are you? What is this they say, that you are the Son of God?"

  185:7.2 But Jesus could hardly answer such questions when asked by a man-fearing, weak, and vacillating judge who was so unjust as to subject him to flogging even when he had declared him innocent of all crime, and before he had been duly sentenced to die. Jesus looked Pilate straight in the face, but he did not answer him. Then said Pilate: "Do you refuse to speak to me? Do you not realize that I still have power to release you or to crucify you?" Then said Jesus: "You could have no power over me except it were permitted from above. You could exercise no authority over the Son of Man unless the Father in heaven allowed it. But you are not so guilty since you are ignorant of the gospel. He who betrayed me and he who delivered me to you, they have the greater sin.

  185:7.3 This last talk with Jesus thoroughly frightened Pilate. This moral coward and judicial weakling now labored under the double weight of the superstitious fear of Jesus and mortal dread of the Jewish leaders.

  185:7.4 Again Pilate appeared before the crowd, saying: "I am certain this man is only a religious offender. You should take him and judge him by your law. Why should you expect that I would consent to his death because he has clashed with your traditions?"

  185:7.5 Pilate was just about ready to release Jesus when Caiaphas, the high priest, approached the cowardly Roman judge and, shaking an avenging finger in Pilate's face, said with angry words which the entire multitude could hear: "If you release this man, you are not Caesar's friend, and I will see that the emperor knows all." This public threat was too much for Pilate. Fear for his personal fortunes now eclipsed all other considerations, and the cowardly governor ordered Jesus brought out before the judgment seat. As the Master stood there before them, he pointed to him and tauntingly said, "Behold your king." And the Jews answered, "Away with him. Crucify him!" And then Pilate said, with much irony and sarcasm, "Shall I crucify your king?" And the Jews answered, "Yes, crucify him! We have no king but Caesar." And then did Pilate realize that there was no hope of saving Jesus since he was unwilling to defy the Jews.

 

   
8. PILATE'S TRAGIC SURRENDER


  185:8.1 Here stood the Son of God incarnate as the Son of Man. He was arrested without indictment; accused without evidence; adjudged without witnesses; punished without a verdict; and now was soon to be condemned to die by an unjust judge who confessed that he could find no fault in him. If Pilate had thought to appeal to their patriotism by referring to Jesus as the "king of the Jews," he utterly failed. The Jews were not expecting any such a king. The declaration of the chief priests and the Sadducees, "We have no king but Caesar," was a shock even to the unthinking populace, but it was too late now to save Jesus even had the mob dared to espouse the Master's cause.

  185:8.2 Pilate was afraid of a tumult or a riot. He dared not risk having such a disturbance during Passover time in Jerusalem. He had recently received a reprimand from Caesar, and he would not risk another. The mob cheered when he ordered the release of Barabbas. Then he ordered a basin and some water, and there before the multitude he washed his hands, saying: "I am innocent of the blood of this man. You are determined that he shall die, but I have found no guilt in him. See you to it. The soldiers will lead him forth." And then the mob cheered and replied, "His blood be on us and on our children."


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« Reply #26 on: April 15, 2008, 09:18:15 pm »

 
Ishtar

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  posted 03-08-2006 09:10 AM                       
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« Reply #27 on: April 15, 2008, 09:19:06 pm »

Absonite

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  posted 03-08-2006 10:06 AM                       
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The Jews were a proud people, now subject to the Roman political yoke but hoping for the coming of a Messiah who would deliver them from gentile bondage with a great show of power and glory. They resented, more than Pilate could know, the intimation that this meek-mannered teacher of strange doctrines, now under arrest and charged with crimes worthy of death, should be referred to as "the king of the Jews." They looked upon such a remark as an insult to everything which they held sacred and honorable in their national existence, and therefore did they all let loose their mighty shouts for Barabbas's release and Jesus' death.

Pilate knew Jesus was innocent of the charges brought against him, and had he been a just and courageous judge, he would have acquitted him and turned him loose. But he was afraid to defy these angry Jews,


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[ 03-08-2006, 10:08 AM: Message edited by: Absonite ]
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« Reply #28 on: April 15, 2008, 09:19:28 pm »

 
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Rate Member   posted 03-08-2006 06:31 PM                       
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Had that happened, Absonite, devine scripture would not have been fullfilled. Neither your sins, nor mine, could be absolved through the saving grace of Jesus Christ. What happened, had to happen, it was foreordained. I have great respect for the hebrew; and only ask the same in return.
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« Reply #29 on: April 15, 2008, 09:19:56 pm »

 
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  posted 03-08-2006 08:14 PM                       
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Brig,

as usual, you don't know what you are talking about.


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