Just returned from a three day conference.
As Holocaust educators, we talk about the choices that individuals face and the patterns that one may follow in making one’s choice. The trend seems to be to focus on the role of the “perpetrator” and “bystander” in the greatest crime in the history of the world, to examine the nuances of their behavior, to perhaps gain insight into why the Holocaust occurred. Yes. Very, very, important.
But how about including in our discussion the actions and behaviors of the soldiers who ended the Holocaust? They faced a choice, too. They had seen their friends vaporized in front of their eyes, they were weary, and tired of being shot at, and utterly exhausted. They were twenty fours hours away from another major showdown at a “last stand” city. Many of the soldiers would not survive, though the end of the war was in sight.
But they stopped, even as the enemy was digging in behind the battlelines.
Horrified and in shock, they sprang into action. One 4 year old survivor remembers that it was the “first time in my life that I can recall an adult with a smile”. If someone were to argue that the world owes these soldiers a debt, I don’t think too many people would find that problematic.
If you have not viewed the news clips (about 3 minutes each), I welcome you to do so. In doing so, however, you are forewarned that there is someone who vehemently disagrees with that argument. He even shakes his finger.
And what does that say about the soldiers in this story? We need to dissect the behavior of the collaborators and those who are complicit in the crime. But what is it about the decisions made and actions taken by these soldiers that is important to study? Of course this is worthy of our consideration, and as I struggle with my own role in the future of Holocaust education, I don’t think it should be overlooked or worse, “sidebarred” in the larger narrative of choices, patterns of behavior, and decision making.
Remember, the permanent exhibition at the USHMM even opens with visitors listening to the narrative of one of these soldiers on the elevator ride up to the 4th floor. Why? It is more than that soldier just becoming the “set-up guy” for the shock that greets one when the elevator doors open. We need to really explore that further.
Frank Towers, a World War II veteran who helped liberate 2,500 Jews on a train bound for a Nazi concentration camp, meets Bruria Falik of Woodstock, who was on the train, at Arbor Ridge at Brookmeade in Rhinebeck. (Photos by Karl Rabe/Poughkeepsie Journal)
Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to have you consider this, with the video interviews, as well. And to the folks who might have thought otherwise, it’s not about me, finding and bringing folks together- those soldiers are primary actors in this drama, and are survivors in their own right as well. {And note that throughout this discussion I have refrained from using the term “liberator”. My guys are not even officially recognized as “liberators”.}
What made them tick? Would one of us have picked up and carried a sick, lice-ridden, foul smelling “semblance” of a human being, exhausted and at the breaking point ourselves ? Look below in the next post to get a Holocaust survivor’s take on it.
Teaching History Matters 