Lebensraum 75 Years Later

Today marks the 75th anniversary of Nazi Germany’s invasion of Poland and the beginning of World War II. On September 1, 1939, Hitler’s army marched into Poland as part of the Nazi’s plan to conquer Europe in order to gain more living space, or lebensraum, for the great Aryan nation. Hitler, being the master of propaganda that he was, actually staged a fake attack to help sway German public opinion in favor of a war. SS men dressed in Polish Army uniforms “attacked” a German radio tower along the Polish border giving Hitler the ammunition he needed to portray Poland as the aggressor and unleash his invasion.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock you know what happens next – a massive, full-scale world war that claimed millions of lives. World War II and the horrors that it produced were the impetus for the modern human rights movement. From the ashes of Europe and Japan rose the United Nations, the UN Declaration of Human Rights and more stringent international laws, all aimed at preventing another war like World War II and another Holocaust.

I’ve been fortunate in my travels to have spent two weeks in Eastern Europe visiting Germany, Austria, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia. As can be expected in those countries there are hundreds of years of history and a strong emphasis on their role during World War II. Visiting Auschwitz is an experience that I think everyone should have, and is one that will stay with me for the rest of my life. The enormity of the place and the horrors held within those barbed wire fences were beyond anything anyone could have imagined at that time; and while I was there I tried to remain conscious of the fact that every single place that I was walking, someone had suffered horrifically – to me that place is sacred.

I’m often asked by those that don’t know me well if I’m Jewish because of my interest in the Holocaust – I’m not, just an honorary Jew. I want to know why humans do the things they do, what makes someone capable of murdering innocent men, women and children based on their religion, the color of their skin or their political beliefs? Eleven million people died in the Holocaust, six million of them Jews. The phrase, “Never Again,” was used following the war as a battle cry for the prevention of future genocide – a cry that has sadly fallen on deaf ears.

While we have definitely made tremendous progress in the realm of human rights in the past 75 years, similar atrocities continue to happen. Genocide and ethnic cleansing is still rampant today. The word genocide gets tossed around a lot in the media but what most people don’t know is that there are specific criteria that acts of aggression must meet in order for mass killings to be considered a genocide. God willing there will only be one Holocaust – so defined by Hitler’s design to murder every single person in the world of the Jewish faith – that’s what sets it apart from other genocides. The word genocide wasn’t even invented until November 1944 when a Polish Jew, living in America, named Raphael Lemkin created the word from the Greek word geno, meaning race/tribe, and the Latin derivative cide, from caedere, which means killing.

On December 9, 1948, the newly formed United Nations passed the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. The convention states that genocide is committed when the following acts are committed against a group: killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, deliberate calculations of ending life, preventing births and forcibly transferring children of the group. To be found guilty of the crime of genocide the perpetrators have to carry out any of these acts with the intent to destroy all or part of the group in question. Lemkin’s life goal was to see the United States ratify the convention – a goal he worked so hard for that it literally cost him his life and he succumbed to a heart attack on August 28, 1959. The United States finally ratified the Convention on November 25, 1988.

So ask yourself this: where are genocides taking place in the world today? Do the current conflicts in Israel, Sudan, Darfur, Syria and Iraq, to name a few, count? Look at the definition and explanation above and decide; and when you’ve made your decision do something about it.

A Bright Day in Cambodia

Two senior officials of Cambodia’s former Khmer Rouge genocidal regime were found guilty today in Phnom Penh of crimes against humanity. The UN-backed Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) (similar to the courts at Nuremburg) found Nuon Chea, 88 and Khieu Samphan, 83, guilty for their role in the forced evacuation of Phnom Penh and subsequent genocide more than 30 years ago.

Chea was the number 2 man under Pol Pot during the reign of the Khmer Rouge and Samphan was the former head of state. Many of the perpetrators of the Cambodian genocide have never stood trial due to ill health, death or political finagling that has left them exempt from punishment. The trial that concluded today took more than three years to reach a verdict. Pol Pot never stood trial and died in 1998. 

The Khmer Rouge, led by Pol Pot, terrorized the people of Cambodia from 1975 – 1979. Approximately 1.7 million Cambodians were murdered through execution, torture, forced labor, disease and starvation. Sadly, it was a genocide most of the world turned away from, including the United States. We were still in the thick of the Cold War and had just wrapped up our wars in both Vietnam and Cambodia. Southeast Asia was no longer a place we wanted to be despite the overwhelming evidence that a genocide was taking place.

I was lucky enough to travel to Cambodia a few years ago with one of my best friends from college who was living in Shanghai, China at the time. Her then boyfriend, now husband, traveled with us along with another friend from college. While we were in Phnom Penh we visited the killing fields outside of the city. The Khmer Rouge targeted anyone they deemed to be an intellectual – if you wore glasses you were dead, professor, teacher, lived in the city you were dead. They forcibly evacuated the entire capitol of Phnom Penh marching people out into the countryside to work on collective farms where many of them starved to death or died from disease. Families were separated and people would disappear for “reeducation,” many at the notorious Toul Sleng, or S21, prison.

On our way to the killing fields our guide told us her own story of life under the Khmer Rouge. She was four years old at the time when Phnom Penh fell to the Khmer Rouge. She, along with her family, were force marched out of the city and separated into different work camps. She was alone and she told us of being caught one night in the camp digging for worms by the river; she was starving and she was only five years old. She was incredibly lucky that the Khmer Rouge did not kill her on the spot; any type of foraging was forbidden and basically seen as stealing. She never told us what happened to her family and I didn’t want to pry.

In the center of the killing fields is a large stupa that contains the clothing and skulls of some of the people murdered at that site. The surrounding fields of bright green grass have a gentle roll to them and it’s almost peaceful if you didn’t know that the sunken-in areas are the mass graves of countless innocent Cambodians. Due to Cambodia’s wet and humid climate bone fragments and pieces of clothing work their way up to the surface from time to time. As I walked along the pathways I looked down to see a pair of men’s red running shorts partially submerged in the mud.

Later on in the trip I was chatting with my friend’s boyfriend who is half Jewish. I could tell when we were at the killing fields that the experience was upsetting. We were in Siem Reap swimming after a long day of hiking at the temples and I asked if he was ok. He said yes and said that my friend had told him about our travels through Eastern Europe and Auschwitz; he asked me how I was able to go to these places and come out fine. I told him that when I’m there I’m very aware that every single step I take I am walking where someone suffered tremendously. Their fate was more horrific than what I have ever experienced, or can imagine, and while I’m there I say a prayer for all the people who are gone. I treat these places and the people in them with as much respect as possible.

The reason I go to these places and spend so much time in these dark recesses of humanity is that I want to understand why we do these horrible things to each other, how can we stop them from happening again and how do we help the victims of these crimes. After the Holocaust the world said “Never Again,” sadly that’s turned into “until next time.”