Tell Ye Your Children… Your Ye Tell Tell Ye Your Children… STÉPHANE BRUCHFELD AND PAUL A. LEVINE A book about the Holocaust in Europe 1933-1945 – with new material about Sweden and the Holocaust THE LIVING HISTORY FORUM In 1997, the former Swedish Prime Minister Göran Persson initiated a comprehensive information campaign about the Holocaust entitled “Living History”. The aim was to provide facts and information and to encourage a discussion about compassion, democracy and the equal worth of all people. The book “Tell Ye Your Children…” came about as a part of this project. The book was initially intended primarily for an adult audience. In 1999, the Swedish Government appointed a committee to investigate the possibilities of turning “Living History” into a perma- nent project. In 2001, the parliament decided to set up a new natio- nal authority, the Living History Forum, which was formally establis- hed in 2003. The Living History Forum is commissioned to work with issues related to tolerance, democracy and human rights, using the Holocaust and other crimes against humanity as its starting point. This major challenge is our specific mission. The past and the pre- sent are continuously present in everything we do. Through our continuous contacts with teachers and other experts within education, we develop methods and tools for reaching our key target group: young people. Tell Ye Your Children… A book about the Holocaust in Europe 1933–1945 – THIRD REVISED AND EXPANDED ENGLISH EDITION – STÉPHANE BRUCHFELD AND PAUL A. LEVINE Tell Ye Your Children… A book about the Holocaust in Europe 1933–1945 – THIRD REVISED AND EXPANDED ENGLISH EDITION – THE LIVING HISTORY FORUM www.levandehistoria.se The title of this book is based on a quotation from the Bible, Book of Joel 1:2-3 “Hear this, ye old man, and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land Hath this been in your days, or even in the days of your fathers? Tell ye your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation.” Stéphane Bruchfeld is a doctoral candidate at The Department Third revised and expanded edition (2012) This book is published by the Living History Forum of History of Science and Ideas, and The Hugo Valentin Centre, First printing The Living History Forum is a Swedish public authority com­ Uppsala University. He is currently researching the origins of ISBN: 978-91-86261-26-9 missioned to work with issues related to tolerance, democracy Holocaust denial in Sweden, focusing in particular on the politi­ Published by the Living History Forum, Stockholm 2012 and human rights, using the Holocaust and other crimes against cal party The National League of Sweden. Bruchfeld is the author The authors are solely responsible for the editorial content humanity as its starting point. of this book. of several publications and articles, including “Förnekandet av This book was originally published in 1998, and to date, over 1.5 Förintelsen – Nynazistisk historieförfalskning efter Auschwitz.” Authors: Stéphane Bruchfeld and Paul A. Levine million copies have been distributed free of charge in Sweden. (“Denial of the Holocaust – Neo-Nazi Falsification of History Project manager: Bitte Wallin After Auschwitz”), and “Är det dags att göra sig av med ‘Förin­ Layout design: Magnus Wigg / Direktör Wigg This book is being distributed with the support of Natur & Kultur telsen’? Reflektioner kring ett begrepp” (“Has the time come to Picture editor: Sanna Johansson / Bildresurs Natur & Kultur is a publishing foundation motivated by its found­ discard ‘the Holocaust’? Reflections on a concept”). Translations: Stéphane Bruchfeld, Paul Levine, Katharina er’s principles and ideas. According to its statutes, the founda­ Lyckow Williams tion’s primary task is to counteract totalitarian ideas and forms of Paul A. Levine, PhD, is Docent and Associate Professor at The Printed by Edita Aros, Västerås 2012 government and to foster economic and political freedom. Hugo Valentin Centre, specialising in the History and Memory of the Holocaust. Since his 1996 dissertation “From Indifference to Original English Edition Activism: Swedish Diplomacy and the Holocaust 1938-1944”, Graphic design: Elsa Wohlfart Levine has published numerous articles on various aspects of Holocaust history and memory, most recently the chapter “The On-Looker”, in the Oxford Handbook of Holocaust Studies (Lon­ don, 2010). His monograph, “Raoul Wallenberg in Budapest: Myth, History and Holocaust”, (London, 2010), has been trans­ lated into Swedish, entitled “Raoul Wallenberg i Budapest: Män­ niskan, myten och Förintelsen” (Lund, 2011). Table of contents 70 6 Foreword 36 Deportation Swedish Chronology 1928–1945 38 Umschlagplatz 71 7 Children as guinea pigs From bullets to gas 39 A place of blood and tears 72 Operation Reinhardt 41 Separations 8 Introduction 75 Franz Stangl 42 The genocide of the “Gypsies” 8 The background to racist ideologies 76 Auschwitz-Birkenau 8 Antisemitism and racial biology 78 The 200 pictures from Birkenau 45 Chronology 1943–1945 80 The 600 boys 13 Chronology 1919–1933 46 The genocide begins 81 Working in hell 49 The Einsatzgruppen 14 Jewish life before the war 82 Recreation time for the SS 84 Bombing Auschwitz 16 The “Gypsies” 51 Sweden and the Holocaust 86 The Holocaust in other parts of Europe 16 “Gypsies” and the racist state 52 Racial theories in Sweden before the war 18 Homosexuals 52 Jews in Sweden 87 Resistance and rescue 19 The handicapped and “asocials” 54 The Nazi temptation 89 The Warsaw ghetto revolt 55 The “new Germany” as seen from Sweden 91 The death camp revolts 20 Chronology 1934–1939 56 Sweden and the refugee crisis of 1938 92 German civil resistance 21 Persecution 57 Reactions to the November pogrom 93 The Rosenstrasse protest 22 Jewish businesses terrorised 59 “Business as usual” – everyday 95 The democracies close their doors relations with Nazi Germany 97 Witnesses to genocide 23 International reactions 60 Sweden after “Operation Barbarossa” 100 The death marches and 25 The November pogrom 60 First reports of mass murder the end of the Holocaust 26 A “Germanic” empire in Europe 62 The “Final Solution” in Norway 101 The Holocaust 64 Swedes in foreign armies 27 The ghettos are formed – lessons to be learned? 65 Sweden’s Foreign Office 104 Memories of the Holocaust 29 Life in the ghetto fights genocide with diplomacy 32 The impossible choices 66 Raoul Wallenberg and other Swedes in Budapest 106 Selected bibliography 33 Death in the streets 67 The White Buses and other rescue operations 107 List of quotations 35 Chronology 1940–1942 68 Peace in Europe, joy in Sweden 109 Pictures and illustrations 69 What does the Holocaust mean for Sweden today? ease. For Jews living in Central and Western Europe, this with personal accounts.We hope this book will contrib­ Foreword process could take several years. In other areas, it could ute to a greater awareness of the Holocaust, and act as be remarkably swift. For Jews in the Baltic States and a basis for a dialogue about morality, ethics and democ­ This book,“Tell Ye Your Children…” was first published the Soviet Union, it could be a matter of a few weeks – racy – not only today but also in the future. Nonetheless, in 1998 as part of the “Living History” information cam­ sometimes even one, single day. it can serve only as a starting point, and we urge all who paign initiated by then Swedish Prime Minister Göran Even if we can never establish exactly how many are interested to continue their own search for know­ Persson. Over a decade later, the now permanent Living people suffered from the Nazi vision of a “Germanic” ledge and understanding. History Forum commissioned us to revise and update empire in Europe under Greater Germany, the dimen­ This book would have been impossible to write the book, which included complementing it with a sions of the crime are clear enough. Simultaneous to without the painstaking and persistent efforts of histo­ newly written chapter on Sweden and the Holocaust. approximately six million Jews being murdered in rians the world over to understand and explain different This has enabled us to include some of the findings of the Holocaust, over two hundred thousand “Gypsies” aspects of the Holocaust. We are greatly indebted to the extensive research conducted over the past decade, (Romani-speaking groups and Travellers) were subject­ them. We also wish to take this opportunity to thank particularly when writing the new chapter on Swe­ ed to genocidal policy. In Germany, tens of thousands those who assisted us in revising and updating the book. den. We are grateful for this opportunity to publish of members of political resistors and “ordinary people” We would particularly like to extend our warm thanks an expanded edition in English. Many questions still fell victim to the Nazis, along with well over one hun­ to our assistant Viktor Bernhardtz, photo editor Sanna remain, but there is a clearer picture today of how Swe­ dred thousand physically and mentally disabled people Johansson and layout designer Magnus Wigg.We would den and its population reacted to first the persecution and “asocial elements”, thousands of homosexuals and also like to express our gratitude to Martin Månsson and of Germany’s Jews and the subsequent deportation and Jehovah’s Witnesses. Close to ninety-eight per cent of Rune Rautio, who kindly supplied us with rare photos. murder of them throughout Europe between 1941 and victims lived outside Germany’s borders. Three mil­ Lars M. Andersson, Charlotta Brylla, Matthew Kott, 1945. There was, in fact, no unified Swedish response. lion Soviet prisoners of war and as many, if not more, Helmut Müssener, Ester Pollack, Mattias Tydén, Klas On the contrary, the Government and its citizens dis­ civilians in Poland, Belarus, Russia, Ukraine and the Åmark and Oscar Österberg shared their invaluable played a wide range of reactions.