Beautiful Egypt 108 – «Tragedies» – May 24, 2015

   In the two previous articles, we spoke of the ideologies spread by Nazism amongst the Germans, especially youth. The party’s goal was to unite efforts in order to restore the glory of the German Empire. Germany was also attempting to expand her borders and hegemony at the expense of millions of human beings. Yet, she was defeated by the Soviet troops which invaded Berlin. Hitler committed suicide, and Nazism was annihilated. However, at that time, humanity went through many tragedies.

   Nazis were keen on exterminating Jews as well as other races from German territories, which is why they perpetrated the so-called Holocaust, having categorized these people as dangerous to the German society. Thus, Germans started nursing animosity to whoever did not belong to the Aryan race, such as Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, political opponents, mentally and physically disabled Germans, epileptics, blind, mute and so on. In effect, millions of innocent people lost their lives: 6 million Jews, 3 million Polish, 3 million Russian soldiers who were taken prisoners, about a million gypsies, and hundreds of thousands of the sick.

Holocaust

   The term, “holocaust” first appeared in 1942. But, it was extensively used in the 1950s, then the 1970s to describe the genocide perpetrated by the Germans during World War II against the Jews. Originally, the term meant, “an animal sacrifice offered to a god in which the whole (olos) animal is completely burnt.” Yet, it has been adapted to describe great tragedies.

   This series of tragedies started when the Nazis took over in 1933. At that time, the party called for boycotting whatever is Jewish for one day, having hung posters on which, “Do not buy anything from Jews” and “Jews are the cause of all evil” were written. Special operations forces roamed some streets voicing anti-Jew jingles. Likewise, a Jewish lawyer was murdered in Kiel. No sooner had this happened, than Jews were fired from government organizations. Moreover, in 1935, Nuremberg Laws were issued, prohibiting Jews from marring non-Jews. Jews were deprived from the German nationality as well as the right to vote in the elections. In 1938, Jewish students were forbidden from admission into German public schools. To conceal all this, Germany hosted the Olympic Games in Berlin. This continued until the Nazis reached the Final Solution to the Jewish Question.

   In 1942, the Nazi Party held a conference in which it discussed the method to exterminate Jews and other inferior (subhuman) races. They divided humans into: the Aryan race (which was superior) and other mixed European races, like gypsies, Polish, Jews, Slavs, Celts, and Africans. To them were added homosexuals, criminals, mentally or physically disabled, communists, liberals, anti-Nazis, and Jehovah’s witnesses.

   Concentration camps started in 1933. In 1939, they reached six in Germany. A lot of people were crammed in a very narrow space. Work was divided among prisoners. They were also object of scientific and medical experiments. In 1941, extermination camps were founded to kill prisoners with poisonous gas or other means, after which corpses were burnt. These camps amounted to 47: 17 in Germany, 9 in Poland, 4 in Norway, 2 in each of Holland, Estonia, Italy, France, and one in each of Czechoslovakia, Latvia, Lithuania, Austria, Belorussia, Ukraine, Belgium, Channel Islands between France and the United Kingdom.

Following are some true tragic stories:

Helene Melanie Lebel

   Helen was born to a Jewish father and a Catholic mother. She was raised in Vienna. Her mother remarried when she was fifteen. At the age of nineteen, signs of mental disturbance started to show on Helen. Her case worsened. So, she left school. Then after a nervous breakdown, she was diagnosed as schizophrenic. So, she was placed at Steinhof Psychiatric Hospital, Vienna. After annexing Austria, Helen was confined in that hospital, then moved to Brandenburg, Germany, where she was undressed, subjected to a physical examination, and then led into a shower room.

   Helene was killed with thousands of other prisoners in gas chambers. Then, their bodies were burnt in 1945. She was officially listed as dying in her room of “acute schizophrenic excitement.”

Henoch Kornfeld

   Henock was born in 1938 to a Jewish couple. When he was one year old, Germany raided Poland. Despite the fact that the Polish Army tried to resist the German invasion, it was defeated. The city where Henoch lived was under German control. The whole family was deported to a Ghetto at Rzeszow, then to the Belzec extermination camp where they were gassed. At that time, he was only three and a half years old.

Alexandra Schicharva

   Alexandra was the second-youngest of six children born to Russian Orthodox parents. Her family lived in a small village in the Orlovskaya region, some 250 miles south of Moscow [in the Soviet Union]. She attended public school, where she learned German. Alexandra’s father was a plasterer and painter, and often worked away from home for months. Her mother worked at a collective farm in the village.

   Alexandra recounts, “I was deported with other Soviets by cattle car to Germany.” She describes that horrific period of time, saying, “We were now slaves to the Reich, and had to wear a patch to show we were “easterners.” I was assigned to work at an inn on the Mosel River. My Nazi boss, a cold woman, relished telling me I was a subhuman. Secretly I’d listen to Soviet news on their radio. One day I was caught and questioned by the Gestapo. I told them I listened only to hear my own language. They warned me that next time I’d be sent to a concentration camp.”

Alexandra was liberated by American forces in March 1945.

   History is full of stories which the best are those of working, building civilizations, and preserving humanity, not destroying it. This what Egypt has always been doing. Egypt is a maker of civilizations. Thus, stories never end in Beautiful Egypt.

General Bishop

Head of the Coptic Orthodox Cultural Center