{"id":"5f1162396cee07000623d97d","slug":"questions-i-am-asked-about-the-holocaust-en","title":"Questions I Am Asked About The Holocaust","audio_url":"https://hls.blinkist.io/bibs/5f1162396cee07000623d97d/5f11623a6cee07000623d97f-T1594975661.m4a?Expires=1653053584&Signature=LrSTr0BzNhT~aQmDe-6Yv3Mvy2M9ZydizqshbqNlyUSLB5X9L-QObtve6~~SGou0Ipm9FpQPUz~pSt0poMbt8OIyqrUDxNhFx1uGSJDBPXnSPXaZVfAHrO9RHEQxaeB6iQUBw8SV92YQR17PKJ6RkgbkQjfunrnyb3XeooA1OmSD5LCAHZMTq2J16XAaHeP41nPECKMLBfLST4wpVryy8I8889Fo4fLWREH-MiZ2usmyfdvjEdMYrsolnZfqmrWuTOJzjRYpfJol4KhS5ethbEAEn2Kv8Dd~wS~uIMPCXSE1xVPGqozDi99e~ckX4j4sbdYIMcPj7JB1pzrXxIcCKQ__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJXJM6BB7FFZXUB4A","chapters":[{"id":"5f11623a6cee07000623d97f","title":"Injustice must be stamped out at the very beginning.","text":"

Hédi Fried was born in 1924, in the Romanian town of Sighet.

Her early childhood was happy, surrounded by a large and close-knit family, and a community who looked out for one another. Sighet was a diverse place — with Romanians and Hungarians, and Jews and Christians living side by side.

Gradually, though, she began to notice things change. As a Hungarian Jew, she found herself running into prejudice more and more.

The key message here is: Injustice must be stamped out at the very beginning.

The first signs of this prejudice built up almost imperceptibly, like the first silky strands of a spider’s web. In the 1930s, these strands began to multiply.

One day, as war was brewing, Hédi’s school asked the students which sort of service they’d like to provide, in case conflict broke out. She opted for the postal service and was excited about a new challenge. As the students were sent to meet their instructor, he began his training by asking if everyone present was Romanian. When Hédi didn’t raise her hand, she found that she wasn’t allowed to continue — she was sent home, in angry tears.

Then, not long after this, after war had begun, the Hungarian army marched into Romania and brought with them Hitler’s Nuremberg Laws. First, Jewish public servants were dismissed. Then, Jewish doctors and lawyers were only allowed to treat and represent other Jews. Jewish stores were closed to non-Jews. Then, crushingly for Hédi, schools were closed to Jewish children.

And as each of these terrible laws were implemented, Hédi and her family adjusted themselves to the new reality. Even as the web tightened around them, they were confident that it would pass. The war would soon be over; Germany would be defeated.

But each of these steps was the precursor to something worse. Soon, the Fried family were forced to stitch yellow stars to their clothes. Soon, they were banned from the streets, parks, and cinemas. Still, they grew accustomed to it.

Then, they were forced from their home and into Sighet’s Jewish ghetto. Even then, as Hédi hugged her dog Bodri goodbye and said farewell to her childhood bedroom, piano, and diaries, she believed this too would pass. That she and her family would soon return.

Much later, she realized that this terrible process should never have been allowed past the first stage — that day when she was sent home from school for being Jewish. Her lesson to us now is: never, ever, get used to injustice.

"},{"id":"5f11623a6cee07000623d980","title":"European anti-Semitism grew from three central myths.","text":"

As the threat of anti-Semitism surrounded the Fried family, Hédi asked her father why so many people seemed to hate her. He sat her down and explained in detail the roots of the prejudice they faced.

The key message here is: European anti-Semitism grew from three central myths.

The first and most ancient of these myths is a central Christian falsehood.

At the birth of Christianity, the Middle East teemed with Christian prophets who went out into the wider world to convert others to their cause. One group who steadfastly refused to become Christians were the Jews. When they refused, they were accused of murdering Christ. From that moment on, the Jews were persecuted in Christendom with increasing spite and violence.

The second myth is the blood libel that had its origins in the Middle Ages. This first appeared in a village in Eastern Europe. One day, early in the year, a young Christian boy disappeared, and a Jewish baker was accused of having murdered him to use his blood to make Passover bread. False witnesses were called upon to claim that they had seen the incident. Then, whipped up into a mob, the villagers began rounding up all the Jews in the village — armed with cudgels they chased down every last one of them. Later, as spring came on, the ice melted on the nearby lake and the boy’s body floated to the surface. He hadn’t been murdered — he’d drowned.

But this wouldn’t stop the virulent anti-Semitism. Soon, other villages would make the same unfounded accusation that Jews were harvesting the blood of children, and the myth spread across Europe. Many died at the hands of the ignorant mob. In fact, the last trial on the basis of this allegation was held as late as 1883 in Hungary.

The third and most recent myth is a complex set of lies originating in Czarist Russia. These were released in a pamphlet entitled The Protocols of the Elders of Zion in 1903. This pamphlet claimed that Jews held influential positions all over the world and that, at the end of the nineteenth century, they had drawn up a detailed plan for achieving global domination. Hitler himself believed this fabrication, fueling his anti-Semitism early in life. The Protocols were even assigned to school children in Germany, when the Nazis came to power in 1933.

What unites all of these myths is that they are no more true than any old wives’ tale. Tragically, they all contributed to the environment that made the Holocaust possible.

"},{"id":"5f11623a6cee07000623d981","title":"The terror of the concentration camp became apparent even on arrival.","text":"

May 15, 1944 was not just another ordinary spring morning in Sighet.

Nineteen-year-old Hédi watched as Hungarian gendarmes entered Sighet’s Jewish ghetto and began rounding up its inhabitants.

Along with many others, the Fried family were pushed into a cattle car and driven to a mysterious location. After a long, cramped journey, they were instructed to get out of the carriage. Night had fallen.

Under torch beams, they stood on the ramp before Auschwitz, alongside many other bewildered Jews from across Europe. After a barrage of shrill commands and insults, Hédi was separated from her parents.

She’d never see them again.

The key message here is: The terror of the concentration camp became apparent even on arrival.

In the confusion, Hédi held on tightly to her younger sister, Livi, who was 14. With her parents gone, she’d be damned if she’d lose her sister too. They were instructed to stand in a long queue.

Here they encountered Dr. Mengele, who became infamous for his cruel experiments on Jewish patients. He stood on the ramp to Auschwitz and surveyed the new arrivals. With a light flick of his whip, he decided who would live and work, and who would go immediately to the gas chambers.

That night, Hédi and Livi would be chosen for hard labor. Their mother and father would be sent to a bathhouse, where, instead of water, Zyklon B, a lethal pesticide, filled the, so called, “shower cabin.” Hédi hadn’t even been able to hug them one last time.

Once in the camp, Hédi and Livi were stripped of their old clothes and dressed in basic rags and rough clogs. Soon, they realized they’d receive only scraps to eat.

They also realized that whether they lived or died was left mostly to chance. The SS guards had been trained in brutality and to think of their prisoners as subhuman. They’d lash out when they felt like it — many prisoners were killed by the violent whims of these men. Then, if they fell ill, prisoners would be considered useless for labor and sent to the gas chambers. Or to Dr. Mengele.

Dr. Mengele would continue to haunt the prisoners at the camp. Occasionally, he would drop by to find a suitable victim for his experiments. He had a preference for twins, pregnant women, and those with physical “irregularities.” If he offered candy or was unusually kind to you, it generally meant that you’d been chosen. His nickname became the “Angel of Death.”

This nightmare soon began to warp the prisoners’ sense of time. Many didn’t know whether they’d been in Auschwitz for a day, a year, or their whole lives.

"},{"id":"5f11623a6cee07000623d982","title":"Prisoners in the concentration camps suffered from desperate hunger.","text":"

Aside from the terror that prisoners felt in the concentration camps, there were two other overwhelming sensations.

The first was the cold. Stripped of their old clothes and belongings, the inmates were left only rags to survive the Polish cold.

The other overpowering feeling was the gnawing in their stomachs.

The key message here is: Prisoners in the concentration camps suffered from desperate hunger.

Because the Nazis were not planning to keep those in the camps alive for very long, the food was extremely meagre. It was calculated to sustain a human being for just three months. It consisted of 300 grams of black bread that was mostly sawdust, 5 grams of margarine, and sometimes a sliver of sausage or a smear of jam. For dinner, they were served a thin, watery soup that was made of potato peelings. To drink, they received a black liquid the Nazis called “coffee,” which was clearly anything but.

For Hédi and the other women, hunger overtook any other sensation they might’ve felt — including even the bitter cold. As time wore on in the camp, the hunger became a collective hunger — the women became one single groaning belly.

These cravings drove the prisoners to desperation. Sometimes Hédi would trick her stomach into thinking she was full by chewing saliva. And every night, her last thought was of the piece of dry black bread she would have for breakfast the next day.

Sadly, this hunger would sometimes drive the women apart. Bits of bread would be jealously guarded and fought over. Daughters would steal from their mothers, siblings would steal from each other. This desperation led to the bitterest feuds and acrimony.

Then, there were desperate attempts to seize anything edible when the women had to walk to work outside the camp, accompanied by guards. They would risk being shot just to pull up a stalk of old broccoli in the vegetable fields.

On some nights, the girls in her camp would sit up after the guards had gone and talk about recipes from home. They would imagine they were cooking together — each of them bringing different ingredients to the table. To survive all of this misery, they feasted in their imaginations.

"},{"id":"5f11623a6cee07000623d983","title":"For a woman, life in the concentration camp presented special difficulties.","text":"

The SS men who ran the concentration camps treated all prisoners with the same brutality. Women were subject to the same inhumane workload and punishment as the men. But they also faced extra difficulties, which have often been overlooked.

The key message here is: For a woman, life in the concentration camp presented special difficulties.

All belongings and clothes were confiscated when the prisoners reached the camps. So, without even the most basic bathroom supplies, life for women with periods was especially trying.

Without their menstrual pads, there was nothing to stem the bleeding. If they were very lucky, they might be given a piece of rag by the block elder — the woman who’d been appointed as the head of their section of the camp.

But most of the time, they were given nothing and were forced to walk around in blood-smeared clothes. If they were discovered in such a state by one of the SS guards — as often happened — they would be viciously beaten and abused.

Mysteriously, though, many women stopped getting their periods when they arrived at the camps. The lack of food and stress surely contributed to this. But it’s also suspected that they were given a special hormone by the Nazis that stopped their cycles.

Another distressing fate awaited many women who ended up in the camps. To maintain morale among the SS men, brothels were built.

Despite “inter-racial” relationships being officially banned, Jewish women from the labor camps would be sent to these brothels after a hard day’s toil. And, naturally, they had to do as they were commanded, otherwise they would be killed immediately. Then, after a night in the brothel, they had to return to their back-breaking work the next morning.

Occasionally, a high-ranking SS officer would fall in love with one of these women. She’d then be allowed to run his household, escaping the hard labor of the camp and the obligations of the brothel. However, the violent, irrational world of Nazism meant that many of these women were murdered after a short while.

Hédi Fried and her younger sister escaped the sexual exploitation and violence that came to many women. Sticking together like inseparable twins, they managed to survive the Nazis’ punishing routine when so many others succumbed. They gave each other a reason to live.

"},{"id":"5f11623a6cee07000623d984","title":"The immediate aftermath of the Holocaust was disorientating, with many trying to find their way back to homes that no longer existed.","text":"

In April 1945, Hédi and Livi were transported to Bergen-Belsen, a labor camp in northern Germany.

Two months later, the British 11th Armoured Division liberated the camp, discovering its starving inmates and tens of thousands of unburied corpses.

Famished, ill, and scarred by what they’d seen, many inmates could barely register their “liberation.” What kind of world was left to them?

The key message here is: The immediate aftermath of the Holocaust was disorientating, with many trying to find their way back to homes that no longer existed.

Hédi’s experience of liberation was a fever dream.

In the chaos following liberation, she’d searched frantically through a nearby camp for her father. There, in her weakened state, she contracted typhus and came down with a high fever. She soon passed into unconsciousness. Two weeks later, she opened her eyes again to see her sister standing over her bedside in a refugee camp. Without Livi’s continuous care, it’s certain she would have perished.

Before liberation, Hédi dreamt that her life could carry on as before. She would return to Sighet and pursue her early teenage ambitions. She’d study medicine, train as a pediatrician, then travel to Africa to heal people.

In truth, there was little left of Sighet as she remembered it. And soon, Livi and Hédi found themselves on an ambulance boat, headed to Sweden, where they’d spend the rest of their lives. Nothing would ever go back to how it was.

Many other survivors tried to go back home, though.

But as the continent had been ravaged by war, there was nothing like a functioning transport system. Many concentration camp survivors decided to walk on foot, hitch rides, or jump aboard the few trains they happened to see. There were many thousands of Jewish refugees roaming through Europe.

Of Hédi’s family from Sighet, only ten of the 31 survived the Holocaust. A small number of them attempted to go back home.

One of them was her uncle, Sanyi. He’d worked in a bakery in Auschwitz, and had managed to sustain himself on bread. After liberation, he searched desperately for his wife, Helen. Thinking that, if she had survived, she would’ve headed back to Sighet, he set out on this enormous journey on foot.

When he reached Prague, something astonishing happened. Drifting through the streets, he ran into his wife. She’d had exactly the same idea. Can you begin to imagine how they felt when they saw each other’s faces again?

"},{"id":"5f11623a6cee07000623d985","title":"Holocaust survivors have often grappled with questions of identity.","text":"

For much of her life, Hédi Fried has wondered who exactly she is.

When she lived in Sighet, Romania, as a Hungarian Jew, she considered her nationality to be Romanian. Then, when she settled in Sweden after the war, she began to think of herself as Swedish. But nowhere have these identities felt certain.

The key message here is: Holocaust survivors have often grappled with questions of identity.

Before the war, Hédi began to notice these questions for the first time.

As a child, she had played with her friends, from many diverse faiths and ethnicities, without even considering their differences. That many of them wore different clothes, spoke different languages and ate different cuisine was just part of the fabric of her childhood. They were just children; her friends. Whether they were Jewish or Christian, Romani, Hungarian, or Romanian was immaterial.

It was only when she went to school that she was made aware of national and ethnic differences. There, pupils were punished for speaking languages other than Romanian. In fact, on Hédi’s very first day at school, she received several lashes with a reed for speaking Hungarian. The intention was to make Romanians out of all of these different ethnic groups. The red marks on Hédi’s little hand were a reminder that being different was not acceptable.

Then, when she arrived in Sweden much later, she faced new questions about identity. After being made to feel less than human by the Nazis, she desperately needed to be accepted by the Swedish. And at first, they did accept her. There was great sympathy from the Swedish public for survivors like Hédi.

But then, the old problems resurfaced. After the initial pity shown by the Swedish public, she began to encounter occasional bursts of prejudice again. Even though the war was over, and this was Sweden, there were still anti-Semites. There were even neo-Nazis. She received hateful letters from these far-right extremists; some even managed to write from prison.

And, then, there was the question of citizenship. Hédi married and had three children in Sweden. Along with her husband, she worked hard and contributed to Swedish society. But she’d have to wait seven years before she could apply for citizenship and be “officially” Swedish. And even then, she still received looks and words from Swedes that said: You’re not quite one of us.

In the end, beyond the borders of the nation state, beyond the bits of cultural identity she has picked up on the way, she is simply Hédi Fried: a survivor.

"},{"id":"5f11623b6cee07000623d986","title":"Many Holocaust survivors felt justified hatred toward their captors, but found lasting hatred impossible.","text":"

How would you feel toward the people who had murdered your family?

How would you feel toward those who had kidnapped you, then starved, worked, and abused you until you almost lost your mind?

The key message here is: Many Holocaust survivors felt justified hatred toward their captors, but found lasting hatred impossible.

Hédi developed a burning hatred for both her German captors and the Hungarians who handed her over to them.

One instance that nearly drove her over the edge came when she was working outside the labor camp. Her prisoner group had nearly worn their shoes out, and there were rumors that a new shipment was on its way. The women were hungry and cold, and their wet feet were in shoes that were just tatters. Hédi approached the camp chief and asked if she could get a new pair.

He smiled ironically at her, then slapped her left cheek so hard that her ears rang. Then he slapped her other cheek, and she collapsed to the ground in searing pain. At that moment, though she managed to restrain herself, she could’ve killed him without remorse. She hated him, body and soul.

But even more than the Nazis, Hédi hated the Hungarian gendarmes who had turned her family over to them in Sighet. It would take a long time before she would get their feathered caps out of her mind.

Later, however, Hédi understood that hatred is what had fueled the whole catastrophe.

She accepted that hatred was a natural response to being wronged. However, years after the Holocaust, she realized that her hatred for the Germans and the Hungarians was only affecting her. Hating doesn’t affect the hated, but makes the one who hates feel dreadful. Then, if vengeful feelings are acted upon, the hated soon becomes the one who hates. And so the bitter spiral continues.

Even immediately after liberation — when you would expect the desire to take revenge to be at its most intense — many prisoners understood how destructive hatred is. After the liberation of Bergen-Belsen, the British soldiers rounded up the Nazi guards in a truck, and drove them around, while calling out: “Here you have your executioners, do as you please, take your revenge.” Most former prisoners simply walked away, content with being free of them at last.

"},{"id":"5f11623b6cee07000623d987","title":"The slogan “Never Again” is meaningless unless we’re very vigilant.","text":"

In the 75 years since the Holocaust, the slogan “Never Again” has remained popular. It warns us that the evils of the 1930s and 40s must never happen again. However, as the survivors dwindle in number, the message of the phrase has become diluted with time.

The key message here is: The slogan “Never Again” is meaningless unless we’re very vigilant.

What has happened before can very easily happen again.

In fact, genocide — the murder of an entire people — has already happened again. In Rwanda, in 1994, up to one million people were killed in a mass slaughter by the Hutu extremists. Then, in Serbia, in the late 1990s, war crimes were committed when thousands of Kosovar Albanians and others were killed by the Serbian forces.

And as war, famine, and climate change forces migrants from the African continent across the Mediterranean, we watch as they’re left to drown by European authorities. The callousness of the past easily transfers to the present.

And as the far-right rises again across the world, we must warn against the past with extra force. The success of nationalist, anti-immigrant parties must remind us that what happened in the 1930s and 40s really isn’t so far away from us.

Hédi Fried believes that the best way to warn against the past is through education that engages both the head and the heart. Indeed, if knowledge only reaches the head, it’s easily forgotten. For it to really sink in, it must awaken emotional learning. In fact, recent science has shown us that we learn certain lessons only through emotions.

To do this, she believes that survivors’ stories like hers must become widely taught. Through telling the stories of intimate pain and loss, she believes that new generations can learn the right lesson. That is, Never Again.

Finally, we must learn to stop being bystanders. The sad fact is that there are the same essential types of people now as there were in the 1930s and 40s. Look at any school playground: you’ll see bullies, victims, and the bystanders. The same is true of wider society. To paraphrase the liberal philosopher Edmund Burke: for evil to flourish, it only takes a lot of people to do nothing.

For us to defeat evil, we must know when to intervene. In many parts of the world, that time is now.

"},{"id":"5f11623b6cee07000623d988","title":"Final summary","text":"

The key message in these blinks:

The anti-Semitism that led to the Holocaust grew incrementally, over many years. By the time it was happening, it was too late to do anything about it. When the Holocaust was taking place, it dehumanized its victims. Men and women were treated with equal brutality, though women suffered from specific difficulties and punishments. Then, in the chaotic aftermath following liberation, many survivors were left disoriented and lost. Many struggled with questions of identity in their adoptive countries. Today, we face a rising tide of prejudice and nationalism that must be resisted if we’re to avoid repeating the horrors of the past.

Actionable advice:

Nip your own prejudices in the bud.

If you ever find yourself generalizing about an ethnicity, nationality, gender or sexuality with a friend or colleague, stop right there. Even if it seems harmless to you, reflect a moment on how prejudices develop and harden. Exactly like that. By people like you thinking they’re just having a bit of harmless fun.

Got feedback?

We’d sure love to hear what you think about our content! Just drop an email to remember@blinkist.com with the title of this book as the subject line and share your thoughts!

What to read next: The Seventh Million, by Tom Segev.

You’ve just looked on all the horror and hardship of the Holocaust from the perspective of a survivor. For European Jews, life following liberation was often very difficult. Many had lost their families, while their old homes had been demolished or occupied. For others, after the concentration camps, Europe would always be a nightmare land, to which they could never return.

So, many would travel to Israel, the old homeland of the Jews that was being built again. Here, Tom Segev considers the impact that the Holocaust had on this emergent nation. For insights into the way the Shoah - the “catastrophe” in Hebrew - shaped the politics, culture and identity of Israel, get the blinks to The Seventh Million.

"}]}

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