Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Yom HaShoah

[Visual content warning, near the end, for concentration camp survivors.]

International Holocaust Remembrance Day, instituted by the United Nations General Assembly, is on the 27th of January (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Holocaust_Remembrance_Day).

Today is Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, in the Jewish calendar.

But I remind you, my friends, that the Holocaust killed not only Jews. That of the 11 million people killed in the Nazi concentration camps, 6 million were Jews, and 5 million were:
  • political prisoners
  • leftists
  • liberals
  • communists
  • pacifists
  • conscription resisters
  • deserters
  • spies
  • prisoners of war
  • unionists
  • royalists
  • social democrats
  • socialists
  • Freemasons
  • anarchists
  • convicts
  • forced laborers
  • immigrants
  • gay and bisexual men
  • lesbian and bisexual women
  • people of color
  • Jehovah's witnesses
  • Roma (gypsies)
  • people with mental illness
  • people with disabilities
  • alcoholics and addicts
  • beggars
  • homeless people
  • sex workers
  • "race defilers" (people who had sex with the "wrong" opposite-sex people)
  • those who couldn't work
  • racial, ethnic, religious, and cultural minorities
  • and more.

You and me.

Never again. Never forget.

I was privileged to know a number of Holocaust survivors growing up.

I honor them, those who are still living and the memory of those who have died.

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The Nazis used at least twelve distinct symbols in concentration camps.  Here are two posters depicting them:

A chart of prisoner markings used in German concentration camps. The vertical categories list markings for the following types of prisoners: political, professional criminal, emigrant, Bible Students (as Jehovah's Witnesses were then known as), homosexual, Germans shy of work, and other nationalities shy of work. The horizontal categories begin with the basic colors, and then show those for repeat offenders, prisoners in Strafkompanie, Jews, Jews who have violated racial laws by having sexual relations with Aryans, and Aryans who violated racial laws by having sexual relations with Jews. In the lower left corner, P is for Poles and T for Czechs (German: Tscheche). The remaining symbols give examples of marking patterns.


A chart of prisoner markings used in German concentration camps. The vertical categories list markings for the following types of prisoners: political, professional criminal, emigrant, Bible Students (as Jehovah's Witnesses were then known as), homosexual, Germans shy of work, and other nationalities shy of work. The horizontal categories begin with the basic colors, and then show those for repeat offenders, prisoners in Strafkompanie, Jews, Jews who have violated racial laws by having sexual relations with Aryans, and Aryans who violated racial laws by having sexual relations with Jews. In the lower left corner, P is for Poles and T for Czechs (German: Tscheche). The remaining symbols give examples of marking patterns.
Photos of Nazi concentration camp charts of prisoner markings public domain; source, Wikimedia; second photo by US Holocaust Memorial Museum.

    For more information, I encourage you to see the Wikipedia entries on:

    Nazi concentration camp badges at
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_concentration_camp_badges and

    Holocaust victims at
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_victims 

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