Helena Relat i Vall

9 November 2013 | A Slovak Jewish #Auschwitz survivor Filip Müller passed away. He was born in 1922. Deported to in April 1942 No. 29236. One of the members of the #Sonderkommando - prisoners, mainly Jews, who were forced by the Germans to work at gas chambers and crematoria of the camp. In the Sonderkommando, Müller decided to end his life by joining a group of people sentenced to death from the Theresienstadt family camp (sector BIIb at Auschwitz II-Birkenau). While awaiting his fate, a girl who recognized him came up to him, stating: 'We understand that you have chosen to die with us of your own free will, and we have come to tell you that we think your decision is pointless: for it helps no one [...] We must die, but you still have a chance to save your life. You have to return to the camp and tell everybody about our last hours. You have to explain to them that they must free themselves from any illusions. They ought to fight, that's better than dying here helplessly. It'll be easier for them, since they have no children. As for you, perhaps you'll survive this terrible tragedy and then you must tell everybody what happened to you.' Müller came to believe that he had a duty to try staying alive. In January 1945 he was transferred out from Auschwitz during in one of the death marches. He was liberated in one of Mauthausen subcamps. After the war he became a witness in several trials of the perpetrators of crimes. --- Learn more about the tragic story of Sonderkommando, prisoners at Auschwitz: 🔹 online lesson: lekcja.auschwitz.org/en_10_s… 🔹 podcast: youtu.be/NIaRnw3hZX4 🔹 book: books.auschwitz.org/en_US/p/…

8 November 1941 | A Dutch Jewish boy, Edward Jonas Ossendrijver, was born in Amsterdam. In February 1944, he was deported to #Auschwitz and murdered in a gas chamber after the selection. --- A short video showing the ruins of gas chamber and crematorium III: youtube.com/shorts/ipQmBPAlJ…

9-10 November 1938 | The November Pogrom – a pogrom against the Jews throughout Nazi Germany. Hundreds were killed (or died by suicide), 30,000 men arrested and incarcerated in concentration camps, over 1,000 synagogues burnt, over 7,000 Jewish businesses destroyed or damaged. In an article on the evening of 11 November, Joseph Goebbels ascribed the events to the "healthy instincts" of the German people: "The German people are anti-Semitic. It has no desire to have its rights restricted or to be provoked in the future by parasites of the Jewish race." The pogrom changed the nature of the Nazi persecution of Jews from economic, political & social to physical with beatings, incarceration & murder. In this view, it is not only as a large-scale pogrom but also a critical stage within a process which led to genocidal stage. Reichspogromnacht is also known as the Kristallnacht ("Crystal Night"). This name comes from the shards of broken glass that littered the streets after the windows of Jewish-owned stores, buildings and synagogues were smashed. Only three years after the November Pogrom the physical extermination of Jews began in Germany & German-occupied European territory - first the murder was perpetrated in the East by shooting of the Einsatzgruppen & later in gas chambers of extermination camps, such as Auschwitz. Exactly 4 years after the November Pogrom - on 9 November 1942 - a transport of 1000 Jews deported by the Germans from District of Białystok arrived at Auschwitz. 190 men & 104 women were registered. The remaining 706 people were murdered in gas chambers.