Wednesday, January 3, 2018

Nazis, the Holocaust and The Jews of Tunisia

I want to share with you this somewhat long post which I feel is very important to know especially for those concerned with humanity, justice and morality. 

I ask that you please help by sharing it.

I saw where TIP -The Israel Project, had posted a video translated by The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) of  Protesters in Tunisia destroying a Holocaust Exhibition in Tunisia and stating that:  
"The Holocaust was a myth and a Lie."
Each time I encounter these videos of eitherTV interviews or interviews in the street. As a Jew watching and listening, I wonder; "Just how deep of a vile putrid sickness of hatred these Arabs have for us Jews."

But what matters to me the most is the massive response that we witnessed in the UN and in the world media to the courageous and deeply commendable statement of recognition that President Donald J Trump dared to make when he recognized not only that Jerusalem is OUR Jewish capitol. But that we Jews have a right to OUR Homeland.

In today's world of "Palestinian Revisionist history", where historic records of documented facts and truth are blatantly ignored and denied. We vividly see the desire by the Arab block in the UN to erase Jewish rights to Eretz Yisrael. 
What is astounding is the utter apathy of the world to this campaign of hate and mendacious lies. Few people are even willing to open factual history books and verify the truth.

I highly doubt that many in todays world know the historical truth that, "IF" , it had not been for the landings of the Allies in North Africa and their quick victory by May 1943, the Jews of  North Africa - Morocco, Tunisia and Libya would have known the same fate as the Jews of Europe.

After the Wannsee Conference in January 1942  Himmler realized that the Jews of North Africa may escape (Sonderbehandlung) "special treatment" -the euphuism for - extermination.
To give the "treatment" to the Jews of North Africa he reassigned SS Oberstrumbannführer Walter Herman Julius Rauff.
Rauff was proven to be a brutal and notorious killer as leader of the einsatzgruppen-special extermination units. Those German forces who had a leading role in the implementation of the "Final Solution of the Jewish question"  (Die Endlösung der Judenfrage) in conquered territories "to the East". Rauff was involved in the murder of hundreds of thousands of Jews in mobile ''Black Raven'' gassing vans in place of the expensive and slow process of shooting the Jews of Eastern Europe. 

A 1943 MI5 file on Rauff states:
"In both these postings [Tunisia and northern Italy] Rauff rapidly gained a reputation for utter ruthlessness. In Tunis and Italy he was responsible for the indiscriminate execution of both Jews and local partisans. His work in Italy involved imposing total German control on Milan, Turin and Genoa. His success in this task earned him the congratulations of his SS superior, who described it as 'a superb achievement'."
In 1972, in Santiago de Chile, Rauff made a deposition as a witness before a German prosecutor. On the subject of the extermination of Jews in Poland and Russia, asked whether at that time he had any doubts concerning the use of gas vans, Rauff answered:
"Ob ich damals Bedenken gegen den Einsat [sic] der Gaswagen hatte, kann ich nicht sagen. Für mich stand damals im Vordergrund, dass die Erschiessungen für dei Männer, die damit befasst wurden, eine erhebliche Belastung darstellten und dass diese Belastung durch den Einsatz der Gaswagen entfiel. [...I cannot say. The main issue for me at the time was that the shootings were a considerable burden for the men who were in charge thereof and that this burden was taken off them through the use of the gas vans.]"
The vans, which were disguised with Red Cross emblems, were used in 1941 and 1942 before Hitler's extermination camps began murdering six million Jews. Captured Nazi documents said the vans killed 50 people at a time in 15 to 20 minutes and were used in the Soviet Union, Poland, Yugoslavia, Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia.

From July 1942 until May 1943, SS Oberstrumbannführer Walther Rauff was posted as commander of the SS Einsatzkommando Tunis to take care of the Jewish Question in Tunisia, and to continue the implementation of the Final Solution in Vichy-Tunisia.
Oswald Pohl, who had been previously assigned by Himmler to organize the camps in Eastern Europe joined him. Despite constant attacks by the Allies, Rauff instigated drastic anti-Jewish policies.

Everything that happened to the Jews of Europe happened in Tunisia, in different ways and to differing degrees, except for the most important aspect of the Holocaust -- extermination. 
The Nazis established a local Judenrat, took hostages, confiscated the property of the Jews (aryanization) and imposed on the community heavy financial punishments.

The community was required to provide the needs of the German army, and the synagogue become a German storeroom. The Jews were marked with the Yellow badge, 5,000 Jews were sent to more than 30 slave labor camps in Tunisia and a few were sent to the extermination camps.

Many Jews were murdered by means of being shot in their homes, Death marches, hunger, diseases and bombings. Gilbert Mazuz, a handicapped boy from Tunis who was shot by a German soldier in cold blood during a forced march. It was the same fate of death given to Joseph, Jean, and Gilbert Scemla, the three men of the family who were betrayed by an Arab friend, arrested by the Germans, deported to Dachau and executed.

Only when Tunisia was liberated by the Allies in May 1943, did the persecution of the Jews cease. It was the first Jewish community to be liberated from Nazi Germany.

In May of 1945 Walter Herman Julius Rauff, the former Nazi SS colonel escaped with the assistance of the ODESSA Jesuit escape network. 
Rauff hid in a number of Italian convents, apparently under the protection of Bishop Alois Hudal.

Later in 1947 he was helped by the Grand Mufti Haj Amim al-Husanayi to escape to Damascus, where he was reunited with his wife and two sons. He worked as a "security advisor" for then Syrian President Hosni Zaim, only to fall out of favor after a coup there a year later. After barely escaping from Syria, Rauff fled to Lebanon and later back to Italy, where he gained a transit pass for Ecuador in 1948 where he and his family settled, later shifting to Chile in 1958.
Chile has a large German community where many who served in the SS used the ODESSA network to escape to.

Under Augusto Pinochet's military dictatorship, Rauff served as an advisor within the Chilean secret police, DINA. It had been "alleged" that during the 1965-1975 period the CIA officials used -"operated" -read funded Rauff for his "anti-communist" work. 
This would explain General Pinochet's regime resistance to calls for his extradition to stand trial in West Germany or Israel.

Suffering from lung cancer. Rauff died in Santiago Chile, which had harbored him for more than 25 years on 14 May 1984 from a heart attack. His funeral was the occasion of a Nazi celebration in the local German community.

These are the facts it is my duty as a History teacher to relay the truth ..... And now so do you.


3 comments:

  1. All above is true and there is a lot more too. Around the corner from me lives an elderly gentleman who was 10 years old (not 100% sure could be 12 too) when the Nazi thugs marched into Tunisia. He has told me the stories, all horrifying about the Germans and their Arab allies. The Berber tribes were a lot more kind and helped many Jews to escape. He has photos and every time I visit him he repeats his story. One thing he remembers is Husseni the uncle of Arafat when Jews were shot, they'd shout, Haj Amin will be happy.

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  2. The role of the Rauff unit in Tunisia has been greatly exaggerated. Hitler had agreed that North Africa should be part of the Italian sphere of influence, in which Mussolini would have the sole power to set policy. as is well known, as long as Mussolini was the independent ruler of Italy, he did not permit the killing of Jews in any of the territories under Italian control, which included Libya and subsequently Tunisia. Thus, there could not have been any mass killing of jews in the parts of North Africa under Axis control, since it was the italian Government that exercised the political power there, not the German Government. In Tunisia, Rauff's SS unit was subject to Italian political control, and the only function allowed to it was the rounding up of Jewish men as labour conscripts for deployment on various defensive works run by the Italian occupation forces, and also by the french colonial administration.

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    1. You missed the intent and message of my Blog. " the historical truth that "If" it had not been for the landings of the Allies in North Africa; Operation Torch the British-United States invasion of French North Africa on the 8th of November 1942 and their quick victory by May 1943, the Jews of North Africa - Morocco, Tunisia and Libya would have known the same fate as the Jews of Europe.

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