World At War - III

Saw episodes through 24 since my last post on the subject. The episodes covered the genocide, the endloesung or the Final Solution to the Judenfrage, or the Jewish Question or Problem. In its distinct, crisp and accurate manner, the episode took us through Anne Frank's house in Holland, to the Nuremberg Laws of 1938, read out by Goering in the Reichstag, with Hitler and the NSDAP leadership looking over(the videos obviously accompanied by Laurence Olivier's baritone voice), the kristallnacht of November '38, then moving over to the rise of Himmler from a small time horticulturist to the earlier years of the Munich Beer Hall Putsch, the formation of the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler and marginalization of the SA, the outbreak of the war and the commencement of the death machines - starting with the Dachau model camp, to other innumerable camps - each surrounded by ancilliary posts using forced labor to oil the war engine. Episode 20, the one focussing on the genocide, showed some morbid, graphic video clips of the camps at Auschwitz and Buchenwald and other places such as Mauthausen and Madjanek where initially the Einsatzgruppe shot their victims by the thousands. The video was peppered with interviews of Karl Wolff, Himmler's adjutant, many jewish survivors, other SS soldiers and leaders, some of Hitler's staff like Heinz Linge and Traudl Junge, etc... Particularly interesting was Wolff's witnessing Himmler's visit to Auschwitz and witnessing the slaughter of some of the jews. Apparently, a jewish shooting resulted in some of the brain matter getting splattered all over Himmler's coat, which made him turn all pale and green with sickness. Wolff tried to help keep his boss maintain his cool. Some of the subsequent measures to the Judenfrage included the Wannssee Conference - attended by the likes of Eichmann and Mengele and chaired by Heydrich to expedite the final solution, since each country acquired added to the count of jews and other "unlikeable" elements into the lebensraum, and also because extermination by shooting had its effect on the Waffen SS units and that it was not very efficient. And then came the Zyklon B enabled gas chambers - stills showing naked women and men lined up, children separated from their mothers, piles of belongings and personal effects - including prosthetics, wigs, actual hair, teeth...there was also a clip on the medical experiments.A very moving bit, something I was not aware of earlier, was that a number of the inmates, albeit a very small number, committed suicide by jumping onto the electric wires surrounding the camps. Pictures of some of those people was so moving, since it captured the expressions of helplessness and despair.. A very interesting bit was that most of the jews in the Occupied areas (Netherlands and other scandinavian areas) were told that they were being taken for resettlement to the east, and the video clips actually show a good number of affluent or middle class jews paying to be transported first!!! The very thought, the scenes and clips of the death camps, the death marches, still sends shivers down my spine - even after reading so much on the subject. To think that rational men, ably armed with the latest that technology, or science could offer, would be no different than the Hutus and Tutsis of Rwanda and Burundi in their bestiality and hatred towards other "inferior" fellow human beings or the untermenschen. The episode ended with a scene of the dead and decomposing in the liberated camps, and a particularly stirring colored video clip of large bulldozers picking up piles of skeletal, naked bodies of jewish victims of the Holocaust. Apparently, post the surrender of Germany, civilians were forced to visit the camps and see for themselves how their beloved NSDAP resettled the jewish people. Some of the people are shown reacting to the sight with utter horror. Olivier says in the accompanied narration that apparently a mayor of a german town, and his wife, after going through such a visit, returned back to their place, and committed suicide - out of utter horror, disgust and shame. Its been about 63 years and already we are seeing a revival of neo-nationalistic and in some cases, anti-semitic sentiments in many parts of the world.
The other episodes dealt with the Pacific theater - something that I am not as interested as perhaps the Asian people of the South East must be - the Pacific theater and Imperial Japan's surrender. Episode 24 is on the Bomb. It has clips of Robert Oppenheimer giving his famous speech quoting the Gita - the "I am become Death, the destroyer of the world" one. Priceless video clips of the american operations across the Pacific islands including Saipan, Guam, Tawara, the Palau islands, Phillipines, Iwo Jima, Okinawa and finally the Flying Fortresses flattening Japanese cities with tons and tons of bombs. Japan was almost at its knees and its envoys pleading in front of Molotov which was denied as Russia declared war on Japan over Manchuria in mid 1945. The West, after the German surrender, was increasingly scared and hostile towards the intentions of USSR, and rightly so. While the USSR justified its occupation of the "satellite" countries (many of whom, like Poland, felt betrayed by the Allies' not coming to their aid), its declaration of war on Japan must have rung alarm bells across the US, since wherever the USSR waged war, it occupied some or all the territories. And communism coming so close to the US would truly have been unsettling. It would also have given them unprecedented hold over a huge part of the globe, as the Japanese had occupied much of China and the Indo-China. Truman and Byrnes decided to drop the Bombs without informing any of their allies to gain greater bargaining power. The Cold War must have sent its first wave of chilly, cold winds across at this time, cold enough for the US to raise hell in Japan. Some of the Japanese ministers and policymakers interviewed in episodes 23 and 24 mention the sentiments in Japan even when everything was lost. Apparently, even after the two bombs were dropped, 99 of every 100 Japanese people wanted the war to continue, since they feared for their emperor and believed in fighting to the last man. Apparently, even a 1000 atomic bombs would not have shaken their resolve. But the emperor going on radio, informing the people of their decision to surrender to the Allies on Potsdam terms, really took the people aback. The video clips show people crying and the general reaction. What is ironic is the Japanese considering the Americans brutal - yes, 20th century warfare introduced a different kind of warfare unknown to the practitioners of conventional warfare of the preceding centuries - but the Japanese calling Americans brutal?? After Nanking? Just because it was mano-a-mano and not wholesale bombardment? Haven't people across ages realized what they ask for when they wage wars? ...What definitely was not excusable was the use of the atomic bombs...but I guess it was necessary for the world to realize what it could do and what the consequences of an atomic war could be. Had it not been, it would just have been a classified test in the Mojave desert unknown to people, who would have invented the bomb (and perhaps used it) anyways. The rest is history. But I believe, what is unnerving is that history repeats, and rather, has to repeat itself. People start forgetting the affects of war, death and destruction and are forced to experience it first hand when they reach their heights of hubris and arrogance, as the citizens of Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany realized. I feel most for the victims of the warring nations - those who had nothing to do with things, but became unwilling parties. The Occupied countries in Europe and Asia. The Jews , gypsies, romas, poles..the Chinese, the Malayans and the Russians who must have died in such huge numbers. Somehow the feeling is not the same for the thousands of Indians who got killed when Islamic invaders came into the country through the ages - partly because we don't seem to be learning from anything. We still choose to be divided along caste and religious lines. Reading any journal or book on India in the 19th century or earliers seems as if it all happened only recently. Nothing like the homogenous people in other countries who atleast have some common beliefs, have some sense of integrity and propriety. We always remained vulnerable to attacks and reacted to each attack with emotion rather than as a cohesive force. We are a spiritual society, but there is nothing spiritual about being a divided lot...heard we may have an exclusive women-only IIT. Soon there could be a Muslim IIT, a Hindu IIT, etc..and then the communal riots across...hmmm....an endless debate, this.