During the Holocaust, trying to "pass" as non-Jewish was often more feasible for women than men. Some Jewish women, like Schüpper Rufeisen, took the risk in order to join resistance efforts against the Nazis and their collaborators. Most Jews who tried to pass, however, did so simply to remain alive in a system designed to murder them. Passing took many forms.
A family story: Just before the beginning of World War II - in my ancestral town of Krosno, Poland - my great uncle, Inek Trenczer, courted and fell in love with a woman of the town, Malka Fruhman, and they decided to marry. Their plans, however, were abruptly and tragically interrupted when the Nazi German army invaded Poland on September 1, 1939.
My mother, Regina Treitler, had in fact violated the War Brides Act, but she justified her actions as the only way she could reunite her family after the Holocaust. My parents had fled Germany in 1938, right before Kristallnacht. They had saved themselves, but my mother had been tormented by the fact that her two brothers and her sister-in-law had not escape. They were trapped in Europe for the duration of the Holocaust, their fates unknown.
Many of the objects dating from 1933 to 1945 up for sale under the title "System of Terror Vol II" contained the names and personal information about the persecuted. "For victims of Nazi persecution and Holocaust survivors, this auction is a cynical and shameless undertaking that leaves them outraged and speechless", Christoph Heubner, the executive-vice president of International Auschwitz Committee said in a statement. "They should be displayed in museums or memorial exhibitions and not degraded to mere commodities."
A psychiatrist is tasked with analyzing Hermann Göring and other Nazis as they fight for their lives during the Nuremberg trials. These men orchestrated the deaths of over 6 million Jews, homosexuals, Gypsies, and political opponents. Did they feel remorse, guilt, or nothing at all? It is such a great concept for a story and plot, but, in Nuremberg, they really blew it.
"I hereby indict the following persons for crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity: Hermann Wilhelm Goring. Rudolf Hess. Joachim von Ribbentrop..." Courtroom 600 in Nuremberg's Palace of Justice was filled to capacity as Chief Prosecutor Robert H. Jackson read out a list of names, one after the other. His list was long. The Major War Crimes Trial against 24 high-ranking representatives of the Nazi state began on November 20, 1945, in the southern German city of Nuremberg.
