sinbadism:sinbadism:The Nazi genocide was completed not only through the killing of Jewish people, b
sinbadism:sinbadism:The Nazi genocide was completed not only through the killing of Jewish people, but also through the murder of towns, homes, communities, even nationalities.Königsberg and Memel, my family’s final home in Europe after centuries of moving and being deported all around central Europe, no longer exist in any tangible way. My family, along with the many thousand other Jewish residents of this region (collectively, East Prussia), lost not just many of its members, but all of the personal property they’d, over the span of a couple generations of being allowed to settle anywhere, collected. Houses, farms, books, paintings, photographs, heirlooms - almost all destroyed or stolen. Königsberg fell less than 80 years ago, and yet many of these artifacts are as difficult to recover as they would be had they been in Alexandria over a millennium ago.The hundred years preceding the Holocaust were a golden age for Jewish civil life. Political, social, educational, and religious groups were abundant, especially in Germanophone urban centers like Berlin, Vienna, and Königsberg. Jewish scientists, historians, and artists rose in this short period from being unknown and sometimes outright forbidden to being at the forefront of their fields. Their work, too, was quickly lost in enormous proportion. Königsberg was “Jew-free” when it was bombed to oblivion in 1944. Those Jews, and their belongings, that did not escape East Prussia for Israel, Britain, or the Americas almost completely annihilated. Less than 5% survived. The Jewish population of this region today only exists as a result of the Soviet occupation; they are immigrants from Russia. A few descendants of those forced to flee have returned, but their numbers can be counted by hand.[Image descriptions: 1. A sepia-toned photograph, probably around the turn of the century, probably in or around Königsberg. It possibly documents a wedding. The people in the photograph are either members of the Pinner or Perlmann families, both Ashkenazi Jews. 5 people are standing in front of a good-sized house, in a garden, flanked by flowers and trees. From left to right: A man in his 20s or 30s poses in a suit that is quite too big for him, with his hand on his hip; a young woman, most likely Jenny Perlmann, wearing a linen dress with a deep collar over a high collared white blouse, smiles, holding a basket of flowers; a young man, most likely Oskar Pinner, smolders in a 3 piece suit, hand on his hips, showing a pocketwatch and chain. a couple of yards behind them, an elderly woman walks with what appear to be garden shears; an elderly man with a white beard and mustache follows her, wearing a captain’s hat, and holding his coat collar.] -- source link
#cw: holocaust