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.