Gain Access To A Small Town Near Auschwitz: Ordinary Nazis And The Holocaust Illustrated By Mary Fulbrook Accessible As Digital

vond het een goed boek, Verhelderend om te lezen vanaf de kant van een ambtenaar onder het naziregime hoe de vreselijke bevelen zonder protest werden uitgevoerd en hoe antisemitisme kon ontstaan en uitgroeien tot het uitmoorden van nagenoeg alle Joden in de streek waar dit boek over spreekt.
Jammer dat het de indruk gaf dat er een bepaald aantal woorden gehaald moest worden: veel herhaling van zinnen in andere woorden maakte het soms wat vervelend door te blijven lezen.
Ik kreeg ook die indruk bij het nawoord wat een poging leek achteraf toch niet alle bekenden aan beide kanten voor het hoofd te stoten, wat een beetje als mosterd na de maaltijd kwam na dit toch wel heftige verhaal.
Mary Fulbrook brings us the story of Udo Klausa, a German civilian administrator in Bedzin, Poland, during WW II, He was known as a decent wellrespected man during and after the war, However, Klausa was a German who could not say: "Wir haben es nicht gewusst" we did not know that, Although he was not directly involved in the atrocities, as Landrat District Administrator he must have implemented and even facilitated the inhuman Nazi handling of the Jews.

Udo Klausa, probably brainwashed by the Nazi propaganda, believed in the correctness of his duties and considered himself as a decent man and good German, He was ready to serve his Fatherland, even willing to go to the front, Did he ever realize the wrongdoing by the Nazis Did he try to distance himself of their actions Did he try to stop them
Fulbrook digged deep into the Klausa family archives, and at the same time she investigated very thoroughly the memories and records of Polish and Jewish survivors of the Bedzin Region.

This work is rather heavy, full of long descriptions, citations, and testimonies, It is not an easy read it took me a while and a lot of pauses to finish it, But it is probably one of the best investigations into the backgrounds of the Holocaust,

In the same period as I was reading this book, I also plunged in the Days: Lies and Secrets in the Terror Wars by Kurt Eichenwald.
I strongly condemn those who actually committed horrific atrocities against innocent and even not so innocent people, but I just wonder how we morally can judge people who were blinded, brainwashed, and misled, by an extremely well organized propaganda system then and now and who strongly believed in the righteousness of their actions.
The Silesian town of Bedzin lies a mere twentyfive miles from Auschwitz through the linked ghettos of Bedzin and its neighbouring town, some,Jews passed on their way to slave labour or the gas chambers.


The principal civilian administrator of Bedzin, Udo Klausa, was a happily married family man, He was also responsible for implementing Nazi policies towards the Jews in his area inhumane processes that were the precursors of genocide, Yet he later claimed, like so many other Germans after the war, that he had 'known nothing about it' and that he had personally tried to save a Jew before he himself managed to leave for military service.
A Small Town Near Auschwitz recreates Udo Klausa's story, Using a wealth of personal letters, memoirs, testimonies, interviews and other sources, Mary Fulbrook pieces together his role in the unfolding stigmatization and degradation of the Jews under his authoritiy, as well as the heroic attempts at resistance on the part of some of his victims.
She also gives us a fascinating insight into the inner conflicts of a Nazi functionary who, throughout, considered himself a 'decent' man, And she explores the conflicting memories and evasions of his life after the war,

But the book is much more than a portrayal of an individual man, Udo Klausa's case is so important because it is in many ways so typical, Behind Klausa's story is the larger story of how countless local functionaries across the Third Reich facilitated the murderous plans of a relatively small number among the Nazi elite and of how those plans could never have been realized, on the same scale, without the diligent cooperation of these generally very ordinary administrators.
As Fulbrook shows, men like Klausa 'knew' and yet mostly suppressed this knowledge, performing their day jobs without apparent recognition of their own role in the system, or any sense of personal wrongdoing or remorse either before or after.


This account is no ordinary historical reconstruction, For Fulbrook did not discover Udo Klausa amongst the archives, She has known the Klausa family all her life, She had no inkling of her subject's true role in the Third Reich until a few years ago, a discovery that led directly to this inescapably personal professional history.

a remarkably detailed, horrible to read documentary account of the murder of the Jews of Bedzin, . . clearly posing the choices faced by the Jews and the heartless murder committed by the Germans, Nazis and civilians alike, . . no German could have failed to know what was going on

, . . the Augustdeportation relied on trickery and deception to get Jews to collect themselves in a place that could easily be overseen and guarded, . . the roundup was initially disguised as an identity card procedure, . . the Jewish Council issued an order that all Jews mst show

up to have their identity cards authorized, . . failing to comply would risk arrest and deportation, . .,Jews gathered alphabetically on the Hakoach and Sarmacja sports grounds from Augto Aug, . . families were not broken up, . . selections between 'fit to work' and death were done in full view of the townspeople, . . carried out by SS with local employers and the SS Schmelt organization, . .were selected for deportation and retained in the orphanage building on the other side of the railway line andother locations, . . the first transport to Auschwitz left on Aug, . . trains continued to run until the last deportation on Aug, . . many died or were killed while loading the trains, . . elderly, sick, babies were shot or brains bashed out

, . . Selections were made Jews were called up to the tables in turn evaluated according to age, Health, current employment, potential usefulness for work the old, Young, ill, people without work identity cards were sent straight to Auschwitz families were separated.
. . They treated us like cattle, no longer human beings, . . We did not know what was best to do, . . Those not selected the first day stood in the rain overnight until the next day, . . those who survived carried on until the next time

, . . An elderly member of one family, on a list for deportation, fear that any attempt to evade around would put all members of his family at risk in other families, when one member was listed for deportation, others went with them, unable to bear the thought of loved ones going alone to their deaths.
. . Still others committed suicide, choosing their own moment and means of death,