The Holocaust, An "Accident" In History Of Humanity

sursă de primă importanţă, pot fi vizionate şi o serie de documentare care reprezintă mărturii directe ale supravieţuitorilor lagărelor de concentrare şi exterminare. ,,Soluţiei finale” i-au căzut victime, conform celor mai credibile surse, aproximativ 6 milioane de evrei ( desigur, numărul exact nu este cunoscut). Un tratament asemănător le-a fost aplicat şi rromilor (termenul de atunci, ţiganilor), aproximativ 250. 000, dintre aceştia murind în lagăre, dar şi persoanelor cu probleme de sănătate (diverse handicapuri), homosexualilor, etc. În lagărele concentrare, apoi de exterminare erau aduşi toţi cei care aparţineau ,,raselor inferioare”, adversarii politici, membrii ai rezistenţei, prizonieri de război. Aceşia erau supuşi unui regim de lichidare lentă, instrumentată prin munca forţată (celebrul dicton ,,Munca te eliberează”), subalimentare, epidemii, ,,experimente” medicale. Execuţiile sumare făceau, de asemenea, parte din viaţa cotidiană a acestor lagăre. Supravieţuitorii erau supuşi unui program zilnic de dezumanizare, deţinuţii fiind mai curând trataţi ca obiecte, decât ca oameni. Evident, că drepturile omului nu erau respectate. Ce mi se pare interesant este că unii dintre aceşti supravieţuitori au fost binecuvântaţi cu ani îndelungaţi, reuşind, în acest fel să-şi scrie memoriile, sau să povestească, în interviuri, experienţa nefastă pe care au avut-o. Închei acest scurt eseu exprimându-mi convingerea că niciodată, în istoria umanităţii o astfel de ,,experienţă” nu va mai fi repetată.

Teacher: Constantin Cornelia- Veronica Technological High School ,, Al. I. Cuza ”, Slobozia, Ialomiţa

Often, as a history teacher, my students ask me why we need to learn about the past. To this question, I answer, each time, as follows: history is necessary because it helps us to find out and understand what happened in the past, and if the implications of the event were negative, not to repeat the same mistakes, at the moment. The title of this essay starts from this consideration. From my point of view, the Holocaust was a black page in human history, an "accident" that has left deep traces to this day. The literature is very rich and varied. To begin with, I think we should start with the explanation of the term "holocaust."

The genocide of the Jews in World War II, known as the "Holocaust", was a programmatic event, the implementation of which involved all German state institutions. Etymologically, the term refers to "complete burning," "burning of all," which refers to the ancient Jewish ritual of sacrifice, in which animals, or pieces of them, or plants were burned at the altar for Yahweh (the deity of the Jews). So the Holocaust refers to the violent death of a large number of people. We are in 1942, in the middle of the world war, in Nazi Germany, led by Adolf Hitler. January of the same year is the time of the decision to systematically exterminate all Jews in Europe, known as the "final solution." The institution that was to implement this diabolical plan was the extermination camp. Here, the place of slow, time-consuming death, or of too costly executions by shooting, was taken by the gassing technique. The gas chambers, where thousands of people could be killed simultaneously, at minimal cost, turned the camp into a real death factory. Very interesting in this respect is the deposition of Rudolf Hoss, commander of the Auschwitz camp, the largest gas camp ever built (now in Poland and turned into a museum), at the Nuremberg trial, which can be read in the collection of documents coordinated by prof. univ. dr Bogdan Murgescu, History of the world in texts, from the beginnings to the present day, Bucharest, Teora Publishing House, 1999. We know that history presupposes the existence of the historical document. Every time I read the above document, my students are dismayed by what they hear. In addition to this, which is a source of prime importance, a series of documentaries can be viewed which represent direct testimonies of the survivors of the concentration and extermination camps. According to the most credible sources, about 6 million Jews were victim to the "final solution" (of course, the exact number is not known). A similar treatment was applied to the gypsies, approximately 250,000 of them dying in the camps, but also to people with health problems (various disabilities), homosexuals, etc. All those who belonged to the "lower races", political opponents, members of the resistance, prisoners of war were brought to the concentration and then extermination camps. They were subjected to a regime of slow liquidation, instrumented by forced labor (the famous saying "Work frees you"), malnutrition, epidemics, medical "experiments". Summary executions were also part of the daily life of these camps. Survivors were subjected to a daily program of dehumanization, with detainees being treated as objects rather than people. Obviously, human rights were not respected. What I find interesting is that some of these survivors have been blessed for many years, thus managing to write their memoirs, or to recount, in interviews, the unfortunate experience they had.

I conclude this short essay by expressing my conviction that never, in the history of humanity, will such a "experience" ever be repeated.