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Jun. 12th, 2004 02:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
maryxmasTruth and Reconciliation needed to redress wrongs from WWII
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"Hundreds of thousands of Eastern Europeans, caught in the cataclysm of history's most brutal fight, Hitler versus Stalin, had but little choice concerning their roles. The vast majority of such people were hardly enamoured of either brute. Refusal to comply with orders, e.g. in the case of guards, meant instant execution by a bullet to the back of the head by either German SS or Soviet NKVD agents. People struggled to survive the vortex of violence they found themselves in."
Trapped between brutes, Eastern Europeans had no options:
Rani-Villem Palo
Edmonton Journal
18 April 2004
The situation that Edmontonian Josef Furman finds himself in, accused of being an armed guard at a Nazi concentration camp, arises from an highly complex and dangerous Eastern Europe during the Second World War. Not knowing the full extent and basis for the allegations against Furman by the Department of Citizenship and Immigration, it is difficult to assess his wartime activities. If it can be proven that he held an even modest position of authority or actually mistreated or killed prisoners or attempted to cover up criminal involvement then, indeed, he should be punished for participation in the Holocaust. However, if he was only a passive participant then he should not be treated as a war criminal.
Hundreds of thousands of Eastern Europeans, caught in the cataclysm of history's most brutal fight, Hitler versus Stalin, had but little choice concerning their roles. The vast majority of such people were hardly enamoured of either brute. Refusal to comply with orders, e.g. in the case of guards, meant instant execution by a bullet to the back of the head by either German SS or Soviet NKVD agents. People struggled to survive the vortex of violence they found themselves in. Very few of us today would choose certain death were we in their shoes. Of course, there were many who were active and enthusiastic participants in horror and it is these individuals who must be tracked down and prosecuted. Jews, not surprisingly and rightfully so, have spearheaded efforts to identify and punish Nazi criminals and their abettors.
But there is evil in all groups. Crimes against humanity were carried out by both sides in World War II -- not only by Nazi Germany. The Soviets (both Red Army and NKVD) committed the vast majority of war crimes on the Allied side.
I am an Estonian-born Canadian. My parents survived Soviet brutality and we were fortunate to escape to the West. When the Red Army entered Estonia in 1940 unspeakable crimes were carried out by both army units and Stalin's dreaded secret police. Some among those who tortured and murdered Estonians were Jewish. Jews, though at once persecuted in both Tsarist and Communist Russia, also held important positions in Stalin's political and security networks. Thus, while Jews were individually and collectively the greatest victims of the Second World War, all groups, Allied and Axis alike, need to confront and deal with the criminals still in their midst. Those who suffered under the Communists, including the Russian people themselves, cry out for a more even-handed redress of past wrongs.
During the night of June 14, 1941 five per cent of Estonia's population (equivalent to 1.5 million Canadians today) were forcibly deported to Siberia in rail cars. Few would ever return. Most would die slowly in labour camps such as in the Kolyma and Magadan regions where temperatures routinely reached -60 C in the long winter months.
When Germany invaded Russia, Estonians and many others in Eastern Europe cheered en masse as they escaped Stalin's deadly embrace. The retreating Reds slaughtered wantonly as they withdrew to the defence of the motherland. Thousands of Estonian men joined German military units and followed the hated Soviets into the depths of Russia. Some Estonians did commit crimes as part of Waffen (combat) SS divisions such as Viking and Das Reich. The majority, however, were simply there to fight Russians.
By 1944 the Soviets had turned the tables and the Red Army returned to Estonia visiting even greater horror upon the tiny Baltic nation. Unlike Germany, Russia has not had to answer for its decades of Soviet crimes against humanity. Millions died. Many of these murderers are still alive. Some of these survivors were camp and deportation guards. Others willfully and enthusiastically participated in the extermination of other human beings.
Proving things is fraught with great difficulty as many documents were destroyed on purpose or consumed in wartime conflagrations and extant archival records, whether Nazi or Soviet, are sometimes suspect in their veracity as both sides were eager to score propaganda points. Many, though certainly not all, Nazi criminals have been dealt with but not so with their Soviet counterparts. Most surviving Soviet participants are in Vladimir Putin's Russia but others can be found throughout Western and Eastern Europe, Israel, the United States and Canada.
What the global community needs is a version of Mandela's and Tutu's Truth and Reconciliation Commission especially for Communist crimes. The great evil committed by the Nazis, particularly against European Jewry, did finally end in 1945 while Soviet horror continued for another four decades.
If Josef Furman was an unwilling participant then, perhaps, he has not been treated fairly. If it can be proven, however, that he was willfully involved then let us punish him and others like him, whatever the side they were on and wherever they may now reside.
Rani-Villem Palo is an associate professor of history at Augustana University College in Camrose
TOP
"Hundreds of thousands of Eastern Europeans, caught in the cataclysm of history's most brutal fight, Hitler versus Stalin, had but little choice concerning their roles. The vast majority of such people were hardly enamoured of either brute. Refusal to comply with orders, e.g. in the case of guards, meant instant execution by a bullet to the back of the head by either German SS or Soviet NKVD agents. People struggled to survive the vortex of violence they found themselves in."
Trapped between brutes, Eastern Europeans had no options:
Rani-Villem Palo
Edmonton Journal
18 April 2004
The situation that Edmontonian Josef Furman finds himself in, accused of being an armed guard at a Nazi concentration camp, arises from an highly complex and dangerous Eastern Europe during the Second World War. Not knowing the full extent and basis for the allegations against Furman by the Department of Citizenship and Immigration, it is difficult to assess his wartime activities. If it can be proven that he held an even modest position of authority or actually mistreated or killed prisoners or attempted to cover up criminal involvement then, indeed, he should be punished for participation in the Holocaust. However, if he was only a passive participant then he should not be treated as a war criminal.
Hundreds of thousands of Eastern Europeans, caught in the cataclysm of history's most brutal fight, Hitler versus Stalin, had but little choice concerning their roles. The vast majority of such people were hardly enamoured of either brute. Refusal to comply with orders, e.g. in the case of guards, meant instant execution by a bullet to the back of the head by either German SS or Soviet NKVD agents. People struggled to survive the vortex of violence they found themselves in. Very few of us today would choose certain death were we in their shoes. Of course, there were many who were active and enthusiastic participants in horror and it is these individuals who must be tracked down and prosecuted. Jews, not surprisingly and rightfully so, have spearheaded efforts to identify and punish Nazi criminals and their abettors.
But there is evil in all groups. Crimes against humanity were carried out by both sides in World War II -- not only by Nazi Germany. The Soviets (both Red Army and NKVD) committed the vast majority of war crimes on the Allied side.
I am an Estonian-born Canadian. My parents survived Soviet brutality and we were fortunate to escape to the West. When the Red Army entered Estonia in 1940 unspeakable crimes were carried out by both army units and Stalin's dreaded secret police. Some among those who tortured and murdered Estonians were Jewish. Jews, though at once persecuted in both Tsarist and Communist Russia, also held important positions in Stalin's political and security networks. Thus, while Jews were individually and collectively the greatest victims of the Second World War, all groups, Allied and Axis alike, need to confront and deal with the criminals still in their midst. Those who suffered under the Communists, including the Russian people themselves, cry out for a more even-handed redress of past wrongs.
During the night of June 14, 1941 five per cent of Estonia's population (equivalent to 1.5 million Canadians today) were forcibly deported to Siberia in rail cars. Few would ever return. Most would die slowly in labour camps such as in the Kolyma and Magadan regions where temperatures routinely reached -60 C in the long winter months.
When Germany invaded Russia, Estonians and many others in Eastern Europe cheered en masse as they escaped Stalin's deadly embrace. The retreating Reds slaughtered wantonly as they withdrew to the defence of the motherland. Thousands of Estonian men joined German military units and followed the hated Soviets into the depths of Russia. Some Estonians did commit crimes as part of Waffen (combat) SS divisions such as Viking and Das Reich. The majority, however, were simply there to fight Russians.
By 1944 the Soviets had turned the tables and the Red Army returned to Estonia visiting even greater horror upon the tiny Baltic nation. Unlike Germany, Russia has not had to answer for its decades of Soviet crimes against humanity. Millions died. Many of these murderers are still alive. Some of these survivors were camp and deportation guards. Others willfully and enthusiastically participated in the extermination of other human beings.
Proving things is fraught with great difficulty as many documents were destroyed on purpose or consumed in wartime conflagrations and extant archival records, whether Nazi or Soviet, are sometimes suspect in their veracity as both sides were eager to score propaganda points. Many, though certainly not all, Nazi criminals have been dealt with but not so with their Soviet counterparts. Most surviving Soviet participants are in Vladimir Putin's Russia but others can be found throughout Western and Eastern Europe, Israel, the United States and Canada.
What the global community needs is a version of Mandela's and Tutu's Truth and Reconciliation Commission especially for Communist crimes. The great evil committed by the Nazis, particularly against European Jewry, did finally end in 1945 while Soviet horror continued for another four decades.
If Josef Furman was an unwilling participant then, perhaps, he has not been treated fairly. If it can be proven, however, that he was willfully involved then let us punish him and others like him, whatever the side they were on and wherever they may now reside.
Rani-Villem Palo is an associate professor of history at Augustana University College in Camrose
