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Over seven decades later, Jews in Europe facing same dangers

Tuesday February 20 2018
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A procession marking 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, a former Nazi concentration camp in Poland, on January 27, 2015. Jews say there is a fresh wave of anti-Semitism. PHOTO | AFP

By JACOB BARUA

It’s over seven decades since the end of WWII, when an unimaginable orgy of murder was perpetrated by Germany on Jews, leaving six million of them dead. Known as the Holocaust, this was a concerted attempt to erase Jews from the face of the Earth.

After being expelled from Israel, by the Romans in 70 AD, almost all Jews left their homeland and were dispersed throughout the Mediterranean basin, with most of them finally settling across Europe. Some even found safety in Ethiopia.

In 1933, Adolf Hitler, an Austrian, gained the adulation of the vast majority of Germans, and was nominated Chancellor. Hitler was a mere trigger to an already pervading anti-Semitism. The Nazis at first created a plan in advance for “dealing” with Jews.

They anticipated that once they defeated France and Great Britain they would take over their colonies and send the Jews to Africa, as slave labour. They were eyeing Madagascar as the experimental destination for this purpose.

When Germany failed to gain colonies in Africa, especially the ones they lost in WWI, such as Tanganyika, Namibia, Togo and Cameroon, their plan to despatch Jews here was no longer viable.

Germany had, during its colonial period, first committed brutal genocide in Africa, on the Herero people of Namibia. This was a premonition of their future actions.

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Neither did their incursion into Northern Africa succeed in 1941, when their most famous General, Erwin Rommel, known as The Desert Fox, failed at this task.

Numerous Kenyans, as part of the King’s African Rifles (KAR) valiantly took part in fighting the German Afrika Korps, mainly in Libya and Egypt. As a consequence of not capturing African colonies, the Germans decided to implement a completely drastic and different approach to the Jews that was to be euphemistically known as The Final Solution.

By the end of the war in 1945 this evil plan was almost accomplished and only a small number of Jews survived in each European country, as the German Nazis had done their best to round them up in each country they conquered. Their initial method of killing Jews was by firing squads. Heinrich Himmler, in charge of the Stormtroopers (SS), decided that this method was “too slow” as only hundreds of thousands could be eliminated.

A different mechanism was then put into place, which was more “efficient;” a vast chain of over a thousand German concentration camps. Here Jews were worked and starved to death, tortured, gassed and burnt. I spoke to a Jewish friend of mine, a survivor of the war, who was in hiding at the time.

He told me that one day he ventured outside, despite the risk, as in the middle of summer it seemed to be snowing.

To his horror he realised that the wafting white flakes were the ashes of people being burnt in the crematoria of a nearby German concentration camp, and the wind had spread them far and wide.

After the war, a slogan was born: Never Again! But in recent times, Jews are once more endangered in Europe. Despite the fact that few Jews remained in Europe, this tiny minority is facing a rabid wave of anti-Semitism. Jews are again murdered, beaten, threatened, abused, their synagogues and schools attacked.

Ironically the responsibility for this outrage lies to a large extent once more squarely at the feet of Germany.

Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany, which has again become a superpower, forced the European Union members to take in over a million Middle Eastern refugees. This has unwittingly unleashed upon the remaining Jews of Europe a spate of terror, as these newcomers are 80 per cent young men, of military age, coming from cultures that traditionally imbibed a visceral hatred of Jews.

Already Germany had millions of immigrants from countries that do not tolerate Jews. Charlotte Knobloch, president of the Jewish community of Munich and Bavaria decries the physical assaults that are now so prevalent.

And this problem is also present in other European countries with vast immigrant populations, which have the same mindset.

In Sweden entire areas are out of bounds to their scared police. Authorities, because of the virus of “political correctness,” fear naming these communities that are attacking Jews, as originating in the Middle East.

The former Head Rabbi of the United Kingdom, Jonathan Sachs, said the situation is so dire for Jews that one third of them are contemplating leaving Europe.

Yet the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, cynically stated that terrorism should be accepted as a normal part of life.

Charles Baccouche, of the Jewish organisation, the National Bureau for Vigilance against Anti-Semitism, based in Paris, puts it bluntly that Jews can no longer live in Europe. There’s an ancient Jewish saying: Are your bags packed?

Jacob Barua is a filmmaker and historical commentator. E-mail: [email protected]

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