Le massacre de Majdanek.... ?

Le massacre de Majdanek....

Le 3 novembre paraissait, sur le site du quotidien israélien "Haaretz",
un article rappelant que ce jour-là marquait l'anniversaire
d'un massacre de grande ampleur, et même d'une ampleur extravagante:

- les "Nazis, troublés par la résistance juive qui grandissait dans la région",
massacrèrent en un jour, oui, en une seule journée, 43.000 juifs et ce
dans Majdanek et deux de ses sous-camps de la région de Lublin (en Pologne).
C'est ce qui est appelé l'Aktion Erntefest (Opération Fête des moissons):

- les prisonniers avaient dû creuser des tranchées prétendument antiaériennes
dans les jours précédant l'exécution, puis, le 3 novembre, nus et les mains
derrière la nuque, on les avait fusillés, "un par un" (43.000 !),
chacun devant se coucher sur les corps des victimes qui l'avaient précédé.
Mais, heureusement, "les fusillades étaient accompagnées d'une bande sonore
de musique de danse diffusée par haut-parleurs, sans doute pour rendre
plus difficile pour les voisins des camps de savoir ce qui se passait".
Les anglophones trouveront le début de cet article à l'adresse suivante:

http://www.haaretz.com/news/features/this-day-in-jewish-history/.premium-1.5

Il est illusté de la photo qu'on trouvera ici en pièce jointe et qui porte
la légende suivante:
"Une photo de 1944 du charnier de Majdanek".
Lisez bien: "1944", c'est-à-dire un an après cette prétendue tuerie,
et "charnier" est bien au singulier (mass grave).

Le massacre de Majdanek.... ? Sans-t11

HAARETZ

This Day in Jewish History / Nazis kill 43,000 in one-day Harvest Festival
massacre Perturbed by increasing Jewish resistance in the area,
the Nazis executed some 43,000 Jews at Majdanek and two of its
sub-camps in the Lublin district of Poland. By David B. Green :

http://www.haaretz.com/misc/writers/david-b-green-1.357

| Nov. 3, 2013 | 11:13 AM | 1
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A 1944 photo of the mass grave at Majdanek.

this story is by
David B. Green :

http://www.haaretz.com/misc/writers/david-b-green-1.357

Mass execution at Majdanek Nazi death camp remembered

http://www.haaretz.com/news/mass-execution-at-majdanek-nazi-death-camp-remembered-1.104501

By DPA | Nov. 3, 2003 | 12:00 AM | 1
On November 3, 1943, German forces in the Lublin district of Poland carried
out the Holocaust's largest massacre of Jews over a 24-hour period. Dubbed
Aktion Erntefest (Operation Harvest Festival),the Nazis oversaw the execution
of some 43,000 people at Majdanek and two of its sub-camps,
Trawniki and Poniatowa.

Operation Harvest Festival came toward the end of Operation Reinhard,
the two-year effort by the Germans to murder all the Jews of what was called
the General Government (namely, occupied Poland).
Between October 1941 and November 1943, some two million Jews were killed
in the context of Operation Reinhard.

By that November, however, the Germans were concerned by the expressions
of resistance they were facing from Jews in areas near the Russian front.
These had included, from August-October, uprisings in both the Vilna and
Bialystok ghettos, and armed actions in both the Treblinka and Sobibor death camps.
The decision was made to eliminate those Jews who remained alive , for the most
part as slave laborers , in the Lublin district, in eastern Poland.

Stripped of illusions

In his 1992 book “Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution
in Poland,” historian Christopher R. Browning stated that, up through the
spring of 1943, Jews continued to hold on to the hope of “salvation through labor,”
but that in the months that followed,they were “gradually being stripped of
their illusions.”
From the point of view of SS leader Heinrich Himmler, their murder , which had
always been part of the plan –would have to be carried out in one swift action,
otherwise his men would face the possibility of further resistance from Jews who
realized they had nothing left to lose.

In preparations for the massacre, prisoners were ordered to dig, in a zigzag pattern,
what were purported to be antiaircraft trenches, but what would in fact become
their own graves.
At dawn on November 3, Majdanek and its two sub-camps were surrounded
by SS troops and members of Reserve Police Unit 101.
During the course of the day, prisoners were brought from the camps to the
trenches and shot, one by one.
At Majdanek, the number of murdered reached 18,400, while at Trawniki
the casualty numbers reached between 6,000 and 10,000.
Because of a lack of manpower, the killing at Poniatowa extended through
to November 4.

At all three camps, prisoners were ordered to strip naked and clasp their hands
behind their necks before they were led to the trenches, where they had to
lie down on top of the bodies of the victims who had preceded them to their deaths.
Their shootings were accompanied by a soundtrack of dance music played
over loudspeakers, presumably to make it harder for neighbors of the camps
to know what was happening. When prisoners in one of the barracks at Poniatowa
demonstrated resistance, their building was set on fire.
The total killed at that camp is estimated at 14,000.

Aktion Erntefest succeeded in its goal of ridding the Lublin district of its final
surviving Jews.

Twitter: @davidbeegreen

http://www.haaretz.com/news/features/this-day-in-jewish-history/.premium-1.555804

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