BUILD UP TO WWII NOTHING IS COVERED UP: GLOBAL UNDERSTANDING COMMUNICATING THE HORRORS Eisenhower understood the importance of communicating the evidence of the Adolf Hitler’s promise to restore Germany to glory during the OF THE HOLOCAUST horrors of the camps to the world to avoid denial of the war crimes. Eye post WWI depression provided a platform for his fascist agenda. witness accounts, images and films taken during the Liberation were sent In 1933 he was appointed Chancellor and utilized propaganda to to global media outlets to ensure the world understood the true nature of promote Anti Semitism and Aryanism. World War II officially the Holocaust. began with the German invasion of Poland in September 1939. Adolf Hitler and German President “We are told the American soldier Paul von Hindenberg, shortly after Hindenburg asked Hitler to become does not know what he is fighting LIBERATION for. Now, at least, we know what chancellor.” 1933, Bild Bundesarchiv he is fighting against.” General Eisenhower “The best way to take control over a people and control them utterly is to take a little of their The Ohrdruf Concentration camp was the first camp to be freedom at a time, to erode rights by a thousand liberated by U.S troops, followed by Auschwitz, Ravensbrück, tiny and almost imperceptible reductions. In this Majdanek,Sobibor,and Treblinka among others from 1944-1945. way, the people will not see those rights and “German soldiers parade through Warsaw to After each liberation of the camps the allied soldiers along freedoms being removed until past the point at celebrate the conquest of Poland”. —US Holocaust with other witnesses were met with unspeakable horrors. Memorial Museum, courtesy of Richard A. Ruppert which these changes cannot be reversed.” - Adolf Hitler “As Allied and Soviet troops moved across Europe against Nazi Germany in 1944 and 1945, they encountered concentration The United States joined the Allied powers against the camps, mass graves, and other sites of Nazi crimes. The Axis powers after the December 7, 1945 Japanese Bombing unspeakable conditions the liberators confronted shed light attack of Pearl Harbor. on the full scope of Nazi horrors.” -U.S.Holocaust Memorial “Five starving men in German concentration camp at time of Museum liberation by U.S. Army” German people of Nordhausen ... The Kennewick April 1945, United States Army Signal The Daily Monitor 19 April 1945. digging graves for the mass burial of Courier-Reporter, May 17, Corps, LOC Chronicling America: Historic American dead prisoners from the concentration 1945 Newspapers.LOC. camp ... / Driza. April 1945 "If people didn't see the results of the Holocaust, they wouldn't be able to grasp how awful it was. Which is why [Eisenhower] brings photographers into the camps. If they do not see this, they'll never “Wreckage of USS Arizona, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, understand emotionally. And so the idea was to make a record that people could emotionally connect United States.” - Office for Emergency Management, with. He had the foresight to know that people would try to deny the Holocaust ever happened.” -David Dec.7, 1941 New York Times headline.” Dec,11, 1941 Eisenhower Grandson of Gen. Eisenhower quoted by Quincy Walters CONCENTRATION CAMPS Nuremberg “American troops directing the “Survivors move around between rows of “Prisoners of Dachau concentration liberation operations of the Dachau barracks in the newly liberated Dachau camp cheer as the U.S. Army concentration camp in April concentration camp. Dachau, Germany, May liberates them in April 1945” U.S. 1945.”API/Gamma-Rapho/Getty Images 1945”. —US Holocaust Memorial Museum, Army From New York Times courtesy of Merle Spiegel From New York Times Concentration camps were used for imprisonment, force labor, and to perpetrate a genocide again Between 1945 and 1949 as series of INternational Military Tribunals convened to hold Nazi leaders people who were viewed as threatening to the Nazi regime. There were 23 main camps each with subcamps accountable for War crimes and wartime atrocities. Film and eyewitness evidence gathered during all run under the SS management killing about 6 million Jews along with millions of others like liberation of the camps was critical to developing the understanding of the court and helped secure Jehovah Witnesses, gypsies, homosexuals, and disabled people. Thesis 161 convictions. In 1945, General Eisenhower invited Congress and “Adolf Hitler’s rise “In November 1945 the Americans screened a film to power...ushered in journalists to bear witness to the liberation of WWII Nazi shot by Allied photographers in liberated areas, an era of attacks and in February 1946 the Russian prosecutors against people Hitler Concentration Camps.Film of the visits communicated the war offered as evidence a 45-minute film, which deemed undesirable. included footage from captured German films. Both Jews living across crimes perpetrated against Jewish and other prisoners and films provided graphic detail of Nazi Europe became the atrocities.” -Yad Vashem primary target of Nazi served as evidence in the Nuremburg Trials and perpetuated hatred and violence. Those who did not fit a global understanding of the horrors of the genocide. within Nazi standards “Jewish Badge” of a “master race” US Holocaust Museum faced capture and “From 80 to 200 people were pushed into each car, not even able to sit. Most horrific brutality in transports carried 1,000 to 2,000 men, the attempted genocide women, and children, Travel time lasted now known as the from several hours to several days… I think “Never shall I forget that night, “Brigadier General Telford Taylor, the U.S. Chief Holocaust” it lasted a lifetime” ~Naomi Warren US Holocaust Memorial Museum the first night in camp, which BEARING WITNESS Counsel, delivers the prosecution's opening statement - National WWII Museum has turned my life into one long duri“Brigadier General Telford Taylor, the U.S. Chief Counsel, delivers the prosecution's opening statement night, seven times cursed and “A German girl is overcome as she walks during the Ministries Trial.” Jan. 06 1948 NARAng the seven times sealed. Never shall I past the exhumed bodies of some of the Ministries Trial.” Jan. 06 1948 NARA forget that smoke. Never shall I 800 slave workers murdered by the SS forget the little faces of the In April of 1945 Eisenhower requested members of Congress and journalists visit the Ohrdruf camp and guards near Namering, Germany, and “Was there any form of children, whose bodies I saw document the atrocity of these camps, to show the American public. Eisenhower along with George S. displayed here so that townspeople filth or crime without at Patton and Omar Bradley toured these camps in hopes to be a firsthand witness of the montrocies that could view the work of their Nazi turned into wreaths of smoke leaders.” University of South Florida least one Jew involved in had occurred so they could communicate the reality of the war crimes to the world. beneath a silent blue sky…” “I can’t recite the chronology or elaborate on the it? If you cut into such -Elie Wiesel facts. I can’t explain the reasons or defend how we a sore, you find, like a lived our lives. What I can tell you is how the maggot in a rotting body, events of 1933 sowed the seeds that fundamentally often dazzled by the “The overall atmosphere of the camp was one of – I don’t know- changed our future, that there was little sudden light, a Jew.” “Starved prisoners, nearly dead from they were – deprived of everything; their clothing, their health, hand-wringing or emotion, that circumstances were - Adolf Hitler hunger, pose in concentration camp in their means of survival. They were completely helpless.” - beyond control, that there was no recourse or Ebensee, Austria.... It was liberated by Emory Weston the 80th Division of the U.S. Army” Lt. appeal. I can tell you that events were Arnold E. Samuelson, Army Corp NARA incremental, that the unbelievable became the believable and, ultimately, the normal.” Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle Oct. 4, 1946 - Ralph Webster “Kicks and punches right away, often in the face; an orgy of orders screamed with true and simulated rage; complete “…SS camp personnel obeyed nakedness after being stripped; the shaving off of all Jewish prisoners were forced into the strict prohibition one's hair; the outfitting in rags.”-Primo Levi labor, most of them died due to against photography in Nazi disease, starvation, or annihilation, concentration, ill-treatment. and work camps... Allied cameramen... had been ordered to film evidence of LEGACY Nazi crimes for use in future trials, to justify ALLIED INVASION the high number of casualties to home Eisenhower’s decision to document the reality of the holocaust through film and eyewitness visits “Cable, General Eisenhower to General audiences, and to confront allowed for global understanding of the realities and created undeniable evidence of the genocide. It Marshall concerning Nazi horrors; Germans. [with] the shocking laid the groundwork for a standard for documenting genocides for international courts and the evidence “Unidentified concentration camp(s), Germany, requests visit by members of Congress and remnants of Nazi has been incorporated in memorials and Holocaust museums worldwide. the media,” April 19, 1945, Dwight D. criminality.” -Ulrike Weckel at time of liberation by U.S. Army: Three U.S. Army (?) soldiers looking at bodies in oven.” June 6 of 1944, Supreme Allied Commander Eisenhower's Pre-Presidential Papers United States. Army. Signal Corps. 1945 April General Dwight D. Eisenhower commanded 8-24. Operation Overlord, in Normandy, France. This invasion changed the course of the war as “Holocaust denial, distortion, and allied forces pushed the German military “You saw only one camp yesterday. There are many others.