Islamic Schoolbooks Teach ... - reference.

https://www.memri.org/reports/indian-islamic-schoolbooks-teach-hate-against-polytheists-and-unbelievers

The following are some questions and answers relating to non-Muslims from part 2 of Noorani Talim.

"Q. What do you call someone who associates someone equal to or partner with Allah?

"A. We call them Mushrik [polytheist] and Kafir [unbeliever]

"Q. What is wrong in being a Kafir or Mushrik?

"A. Allah will always be unhappy with a Kafir or Mushrik and after death they will remain in the fire or hell forever.

"Q. Will Kafirs or Mushriks never go to paradise?

"A. No, never, they will remain in hell for eternity.

"Q. How is it known that Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihe Wasallam is the Prophet of Allah Ta'ala?

"A. It is proven by the fact that, our Holy Prophet called people towards Islam, he performed many miracles and he gave such knowledge of the unseen (Ilm-e-Ghaib) which can only be given by none other than a Prophet of Allah.

"Q. What do you call a person who does not believe in Muhammad Mustapha Sallallahu Alaihe Wasallam as a Prophet?

"A. He/She is a Kafir

"Q. What if someone believes in Allah Ta'ala but does not believe in the Holy Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihe Wasallam?

"A. The person is also a Kafir."

The following are some questions and answers from part 3 of Noorani Talim.

"Q. What is 'Kufr'?

"A. To disbelieve in any of the things that are compulsory to believe in Islam.

"Q. Who was the last Prophet?

"A. Hazrat Muhammad Mustafa (peace be on him).

"Q. Are there going to be any Nabis [prophets] now?

"A. There will be no Nabi now. This is because our holy Prophet (peace be on him) is the seal of the prophets. If a person doubts this, then he is a Kafir.

"Q. If a person prays Namaz [i.e., the five daily prayers in Islam], fasts, etc. and believes everything of Iman-Mufassal [complete faith] but is insulting and be rude to the Prophet (peace be on him). Is this person a Muslim?

"A. No! Such a person is a Kafir and murtad [apostate].

"Q. If a person does not insult the Prophet but purposely believes that those who insult the Prophet are Muslims. Is such a person regarded as a Muslim?

"A. No! This person too is a Kafir and murtad."

The following are some questions and answers from part 4 of Noorani Talim.

"Q. It is not possible that humans, animals and mountains just evolved by themselves?

"A. No, this is impossible because we can see for ourselves that the tiniest things such as pens and pencils cannot make themselves, then how can the Earth and Sky and other big things come into being all by themselves.

"Q. If a Muslim says that Allah is nothing and says that the earth and sky just came into being and were not created by Allah, what is the ruling on this?

"A. Whoever says this has stepped outside the folds of Islam and is deemed a Kafir.

"Q. What is the Islamic ruling of someone who speaks badly of Allah?

"A. It is an act of Kufr [unbelief] to speak or think of Allah in this way.

"Q. What is Jannat [heaven] made of?

"A. The walls of Jannat are constructed from bricks made of gold and silver and are laid in alternate position i.e. one gold, one silver, one gold etc. The cement is made from sweet smelling musk and the stones are of pearls and diamonds.

"Q. Can you explain other qualities of Jannat?

"A. There are many qualities of Jannat which cannot even be explained, out of which here are some:

"i) Jannat has oceans of water, milk and honey. The streams of these oceans will go up to the Jannatees [residents of paradise] houses and will be sweet smelling.

"ii) The women of Jannat are so beautiful that is one was to be shown in this world, from the earth to the skies would be brightened. Their bangles are so shiny that the sun's rays would disappear like the stars with the sun's rays.

"iii) When the Jannatees will eat and drink but they will not perform excretion or urine, they will also be clean from saliva and mucus. Their sweat will be sweet smelling. Their food will be completely digested.

"iv) The Jannatees will have all kind of fruit and food. If one desired to eat some meat that would be presented to them straight away. If they desired to drink something that would be there straight away in a glass.

"v) If the Jannatees wanted to meet with each other they would straight away be presented in from of the guests. Their carriage would get to their destination straight away.

"vi) Jannatees will always stay healthy and free from illness. They will never become ill, they will always remain alive, they will always remain young and never grow old. They always remain in luxury and never face difficulties.

"vii) The Jannatees from the lower grades will have Eighty Thousand servants and seventy-two wives.

"Q. What is Dozakh [Hell]?

"A. Dozakh is a place made for Kafirs, wrong sects, and sinful Muslims and is made of fire.

"Q. What is the fire of hell like?

"A. The fire of hell was fired up for a thousand years then it went red, it was then heated for another thousand years and it went white then for another thousand years it was heated and it went black. It is now completely black with no light whatsoever.

"Q. Is there any light in Hell?

"A. No, Dozakh is completely dark.

"Q. How hot is the fire of Dozakh?

"A. The fire of Dozakh is seventy times hotter than fire in this world.

"Q. How deep is Dozakh?

"A. Only Allah knows how deep it is, but it is quoted in the Hadith Sharif that if a stone was thrown inside it after seventy years it would still not hit the bottom.

"Q. What food and drink will be given to the Dozakhees [residents of hell]?

"A. The puss that will come out of the Dozakhees will be given to them to drink and to eat they will be given a fruit with thorns which if a part of it comes into the world with its heat and bad smell the whole world would suffer. However, the Dozakhees will eat it without any choice and it will get stuck in their throats. To obtain relief from this they will ask for water and will be given boiling hot oil to drink, which after drinking their insides will burn out.

"Q. Can you explain some other details of Dozakh?

"A. i) There is fire in the hell is every direction and everything is made from fire of Dozakh is so strong that if a pin-point of it was thrown into this world everything would die with its heat. Also if one link from the chains of the Dozakhees was to be put on top of the mountain, the mountain would shake and the link would sink in.

"ii) The face of the guard of Dozakh is so scary that if it was seen on earth all the people would die of fright.

"iii) In hell there will be snakes the size of large camels and scorpions the size of large donkeys whose bit sting would have the painful effect of up to forty years.

"iv) The last punishment given to the less sinful is that they will be shoes of fire to wear, which with the heat will boil the wearer's brain and his head will blow open like a pan's cover blows open.

"Q. What is the order for those who do not believe in Jannat or Dozakh?

"A. The one does not believe in Jannat or Dozakh is an Infidel (Kafir)."

The following are some questions and answers from part 5 of Noorani Talim.

"Q. What is known as Gunaah-e-Kabira?

"A. Extremely large sins are considered Gunaah-e-Kabira. The main ones include polytheism, infidelity, adultery, theft, alcohol consumption, telling lies, back-biting, telling tales, not praying Namaz, not fasting in the month of Ramadan, and not giving Zakat [alms].

"Q. If one does not perform Gunaah-e-Kabira then will he not remain a Muslim?

"A. Those who perform Shirk [polytheism] or Kufr does not remain a Muslim, he then becomes a Mushrik or Kafir. As for the rest of the Kabira Gunaahs [large sins] one does stay a Muslim if he commits these sins, a very disobedient Muslim is known as 'Faasiq.'

"Q. What is known as Shirk?

"A. To partner or treat as equal something or someone with Allah or Allah's characteristic is considered shirk.

"Q. What is meant by to partner with something with Allah?  

"A. To Partner with Allah is to believe in more than one Allah, like the Christians have three Gods, this is the reason why they are Mushriks. The Hindu faith is associated with many gods, they are also defined as Mushriks.

"Q. What is Kufr?

"A. To reject any fact of Zaruriyaat-e-Deen [compulsory beliefs or religion]."

---

[1]Telegram.org/QadriLaibrary and Telegram.org/FAKHR_E_AZHAR, accessed June 21, 2019.

Saudi Twitter Poll Finds 33% In Favor Of Relations With Israel, Versus 47% Against

Sukina Al-Meshekhis's Twitter Poll

The poll set up by Saudi journalist Sukina Al-Meshekhis, who resides in the Emirati city of Dubai and writes a column in the Saudi daily Al-Yawm, asked: "Do you support Gulf countries maintaining good relations with Israel and treating it as [just another] country in the Middle East?" Despite being active for only 24 hours, it elicited 5,342 responses, with 33% voting in favor of relations with Israel, 47% voting against, and 20% choosing to "wait for the results [of the poll]." 

M E M R I 

12,000 Palestinians Fought for U.K. in WWII Alongside Jewish Volunteers, Historian Finds

Sparking an uproar in 2015, Netanyahu argued prominent Palestinian leader 'played an important role' in Hitler's plan to annihilate the Jews, but Prof. Mustafa Abbasi says Palestinians were 'not at all' looking to aid the Nazis

Arab rookies line up in a barracks square for their first drill under a British soldier, in Mandatory Palestine, December 1940

Sparking an uproar in 2015, Netanyahu argued prominent Palestinian leader 'played an important role' in Hitler's plan to annihilate the Jews, but Prof. Mustafa Abbasi says Palestinians were 'not at all' looking to aid the Nazis

In 2015, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sparked an uproar when he claimed that Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini was the one who’d urged Hitler to annihilate the Jews. In the wake of the criticism this elicited, Netanyahu said his intention was not to absolve Hitler of responsibility for the Holocaust, but to note that “the Mufti played an important role in the Final Solution.”

But it turns out that there was another side to the story that also escaped mention by Netanyahu, the historian’s son: the forgotten role played by thousands of Palestinians who did not heed the Mufti of Jerusalem’s call to support the Axis countries, and went so far as to take up arms to fight the Nazis, often shoulder to shoulder with young Jews from Mandatory Palestine.

Professor Mustafa Abbasi, a historian at Tel Hai Academic College, has spent years tracing their story. Having recently published an academic article on the subject, this week he suggested an opposite narrative to the one that Netanyahu put forward. The prime minister had sought to paint the Palestinians as supporters of the Third Reich, but Abbasi says, “The Mufti did not find a receptive audience among the Palestinians for his call to aid the Nazis. Not at all.”

The subject of Abbasi’s research is unusual. Many studies have been published about Jewish volunteerism in the war against the Nazis, which reached a peak with the formation of the Jewish Brigade. But “the thousands of Arab volunteers are hardly mentioned and sometimes the record is often distorted,” Abbasi says.

In an article in the latest issue of the periodical Cathedra (“Palestinians Fighting the Nazis: The Story of Palestinian Volunteers in World War II”), he explains why these Palestinian fighters have been left out of the history books.

On the one hand, Zionist historians naturally placed an emphasis on the role played by Jewish volunteers in the fight against the Nazis. On the other hand, their Palestinian counterparts were focusing on the struggle against British rule and were not eager to glorify the names of those who cooperated with Britain not so many years after the British put down the Arab Revolt of 1936-1939, and thereby indirectly helped the Jews establish a state.

“Neither side wished to highlight this subject,” says Professor Abbasi. “But I think it’s the historian’s job to be faithful to the sources and to try to describe history as it was, without being hostage to any national narrative that would limit him and prevent him from writing history freely.”

One has to wonder why no organization was ever established to commemorate the actions of these Palestinian volunteers. “Many of them were killed and many others are still listed as missing. But no memorial has ever been established for them,” says Abbasi. In fact, the records of the Palestinian volunteers, along with much of their personal archives and papers, have disappeared, much of it lost in the War of Independence. 

Over the last few years, Abbasi was able to learn of their story in Palestinian newspapers from the Mandate era, in memoirs and personal journals, and through interviews he conducted with a few of the last remaining volunteers who are still alive. He also collected material from various British archives, from the Zionist Archive, and the archives of the Haganah and the IDF.

Abbasi estimates that about 12,000 young Palestinians enlisted in the British Army in World War II. Hundreds became POWs, many others (the exact figure is unknown) were killed. “Compared to other peoples, this is not an insignificant number,” he says, and also points out that, unlike other groups, the Palestinians volunteered for the British Army from the first stage of the war.

Initially, the Palestinian and Jewish volunteers served in mixed units. “They received training and drilled at the same bases and in many instances fought shoulder to shoulder, and were also taken prisoner together,” says Abbasi. And as reported here two years ago, the proximity of the Jewish and Palestinian fighters sometimes led to unusual outcomes, as in the case of Shehab Hadjaj, a Palestinian who enlisted in the British Army, was taken prisoner in Germany and died in 1943. To this day, he is listed at Mount Herzl as “a casualty of Israel’s wars” because someone mistakenly thought his surname indicated that he was Jewish.

“Relations among the fighters were generally good, and if there was any friction it was mainly over service conditions, like mail and food,” Abbasi says. However, there were certain key differences between the two groups, too. For example, while the Jews were united in their goal of fighting the Nazis to promote the establishment of the Jewish state, the Palestinians “had no clear national agenda,” Abbasi writes. For this reason, unlike the Jews, they did not seek to form separate Palestinian units and there was no “Palestinian Brigade” parallel to the Jewish Brigade, in which thousands of Jews from Mandatory Palestine served.

So who were the Palestinians who volunteered for the British Army to fight the Nazis? Abbasi says they mostly came from the Palestinian elite and that, contrary to what many think, represented “an important and central part of the Palestinian public.” A part of the public that believed it was necessary to stand by Britain at this time, and to temporarily put aside the Palestinian national aspirations – akin to the Jewish idea to “fight Hitler as if there were no White Paper, and fight the White Paper as if there were no Hitler.”

They did this at a time when the Mufti of Jerusalem had left Palestine for exile in the Arab countries and Europe, where he met with Hitler and congratulated the Muslim volunteers of the Free Arab Legion – an Arab unit established in the army of Nazi Germany. “He left Palestine for a decade in 1937. What kind of leader abandons his people at such a time?” Abbasi wonders. “He had no influence on the public. He was detached and the public was already tired of him and his methods. They didn’t see him as a leader,” he says. “Anyone who says differently is distorting history,” he adds in a not so subtle dig at certain politicians.

In his research, he documented pro-British propaganda conferences that were held from 1940 on in Abu Dis (next to Jerusalem), in Jenin, in villages in the Nablus area, in Tul Karm and in Lod. Among the supporters of Britain’s fight against the Nazis were the mayors of Nablus and Gaza. Radio Palestine broadcast the comments of an Egyptian writer who said, “The war is between the lofty and humane values represented by England and the forces of darkness represented by the Nazis.”

Motivations for volunteering were varied. “Some did it for ideological reasons, out of opposition to the Nazi ideology and loyalty to the British and the values that they represented,” says Abbasi. This motivation was common among upper middle class and highly educated Palestinian volunteers from urban backgrounds. Rural Palestinians were motivated largely by financial reasons. “And there were also those who were seeking adventure and wanted a chance to travel abroad,” he says.

Abbasi found that some Palestinian women also volunteered to fight the Nazis. Almost 120 young women did so as part of the Auxiliary Territorial Service, the women’s branch of the British Army, alongside Jewish women. A British recruiting poster in Arabic, published in the Falastin newspaper in January 1942, read: “She couldn’t stop thinking about contribution and sacrifice, she felt ongoing pride and exaltation of spirit – when she did what she saw as her sacred duty for her nation and its sons. When your country is crying out to you and asking for your service, when your country makes it plain that our Arab men need your love and support, and when your country reminds you of how cruel the enemy is – when your country is calling you, can you stand by and do nothing?”

Abbasi is one of the only researchers in Palestinian society who is studying this area, which was also the subject of a 2015 article by Dalia Karpel in Haaretz Magazine. He came to it thanks to his maternal grandfather, Sa’id Abbasi, who was one of the volunteers in the British Army during the war. “The family didn’t talk about it, until one day when I asked my grandmother why there was such a big age difference between her children,” he says. “Her answer was: ‘Don’t remind me of the time your grandfather left me for so many years.’” Abbasi decided to find out more about that time, and came to see that his family story was part of his people’s history.

In the future, he hopes, the original material he has collected will be developed into a book that, for the first time, will tell the optimistic story of a rare moment in history in which Jews and Palestinians joined forces for a lofty shared goal.


Ofer Aderet 


https://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/When-Palestinian-Arabs-and-Jews-fought-the-Nazis-side-by-side-592200

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-historian-12-000-palestinians-fought-for-u-k-in-wwii-alongside-jewish-volunteers-1.7309369

ARON TAUB & VIKTOR FEIGIN from Spain civil war to execution in Finland

Taub Aron
16.05.1910 Tallinn – 26.07.1941 Soome

Autor: Sune Sahlstedt (ajaloolane) EestiExpress(03.05.2006)

30. juunil 1941 heideti lennukilt kaks eestimaalast Hämeenlinna lähedale Kalvolasse. Need olid tallinlane Aron Taub ja viljandlane Hans Karu. Taub, kes võeti peaaegu kohe kinni, oli 31aastane karusnahaäri omaniku poeg ja oli jõudnud ametit õppida mitmel pool Euroopas.Karu oli Taubiga ühevanune, kuid tema võeti kinni alles nädal hiljem Hattulas.Nad kuulati põhjalikult üle ning kulus üle kolme nädala, enne kui välikohus neile 26. juulil surmaotsuse langetas.Kolm nädalat pärast vangistamist polnud sõjaväeametnikud veel kindlad, kas Taub, keda hoiti kinni Hämeenlinna vanglas, on seadusevastane võitleja või mitte. Protokollides rõhutatakse, et ta on juudi päritolu. Kui surmaotsus oli lõpuks langetatud, hukati mõlemad mehed Ojoisis, paar kilomeetrit Hämeenlinnast põhja pool, kus vanglal oli taimeaed.

Tel +358503590495S. K. Sahlstedt, Klintensintie 5802400, Kirkkonummi
sune.sahlstedt@luukku.com

Kultuur ja Elu 1/2007 Kagebiidid ja ohvrid
...
On märgatav jõukamate juutide soov istuda kahel toolil, eriti alates 1934. või 1936. aastast, lastes poegadel aegsasti punaseks minna, et säästa vanemaid. Okupandid võtsid neid kõhklevalt, aga väliselt meelsasti vastu – oskasid eesti keelt, tundsid kohalikke olusid. Neid kasutati RO-s, miilitsas, julgeolekus, parteitööl. Kõige edukama karjääri tegi Pika Hermanni tornist 21. juunil Eesti riigilipu maha tõmmanud Leo Aisenstadt, saades rahanduse rahvakomissari asetäitjaks, tema isale kuulunud majad jäid natsionaliseerimata.Ei natsionaliseeritud ka Aron Taubi isale kuulunud maja Viru tn 7.) Oleks liiast nõukogude arhiivipaberitest loota leida jälgi sellest, mida Taub tegi residendi või agendina. Igatahes tegi seda vabatahtlikult, sest sõdis Hispaanias hästi, tõusis ruttu reamehest leitnandiks ja sealt kapteniks; õppis selgeks diversanditöö, astus Hispaania kommunistlikku parteisse ja sedakaudu oli 1940 siin juba samuti parteilane. 1940. suvel peab petutöökohta Tervishoiu rahvakomissariaadis 1. eriosakonna juhataja asetäitjana ja mobilisatsiooniosakona inspektorina.
Oma hiigelkorteri täitmiseks võttis Natalitš Taubilt igasuguse raha ja allkirjata 8 pehmet tooli, 3 lauda ja kirjutuslaua, puhveti, peegelkapi, trümoopeegli, tugitooli, kusheti, kaks lühtrit ja lõpetuseks kaks suurt õlimaali. Narva maantee konspiratiivkorteri sisustamiseks loovutas Taub oma Wilmsi tänava korterist diivani, 2 tugitooli, 4 pehmet tooli, lühtri ja laua. (Märkus: Aron Taubi lõpp on mõistatuslik. Saksa okupatsiooni aegse Eesti Julgeolekupolitsei ja SD Tallinna B IV osakonna Era-sse jõudnud hajapaberites (ERA, R-64, n 1, s 126) on säiliku erinevatesse osadesse sattunud nimekiri 4 lehel pealkirjaga “Soomes langevarjuga alla hüpanud eestlaste nimestik!” Selles on 46 nime ja kõige esimesena hüppasid 30. juunil 1941 (NB! Jätkusõja 4. päeval; Saksa-Vene sõja 9. päeval) Aron Taub ja keegi H. Karu. Soomlased andsid kinnipüütud diversandid sõjakohtu alla, enamik lasti maha; Taub 26. juulil 1941.

“Eesti rahva kannatuste aastas” (Tln, 1943, 1. Kd, lk 98) on seda lugu mainitud seoses langevarjumehe Viktor Feigini tabamisega Soomes; kättesaadavates Soome jätkusõda käsitlevates raamatutes seda episoodi ei mainita. Taubi isikut kõrvale jättes tuleb imestusega küsida, kuis nii ruttu täiesti tavalisi tsiviliste diversantideks koolitati? Isegi langevarju selgeks õppimiseks kulus rohkem aega. Või oli tegu mingi varasema plaaniga ja õigus Viktor Suvorovil (“Jäälõhkuja: kes alustas Teist maailmasõda”; Tln, 2000)? Või on ERA-sse maandunud paber üks võlts asi? Kuid kuhu jäi siis Aron Taub, sest Saksa okupatsiooni ajal mõrvatute nimestikus teda pole. Igatahes pidi tema kommunistlikku entusiasmi vähendama kokkupuutumine tegelikkuse ja Natalitši-taolise tegelasega, seepärast otsustaski alata uut lehekülge?) ...

Viktor Feigin
27.06.1910 Pihkva – 17.07.1941 Soome

in Tallinn in 30_is, was local jewish sport activist.

As many others, Taub was dropped not far from Hämeenlinna in 30.6.41 for sabotage-diversion tasks, was immediately apprehended and delivered to police by locals. No pics seen yet.
The same of Viktor Feigin, cought  in Sääksmäki. That both were jews was an issue for interrogators.
After few weeks they were facing the  firing squad.

from:  "Suomen sotien valokuvat" - https://www.sotasampo.fi/fi/photographs/page/sakuva_87061

Feigin as caught 01.07.1941

Sääksmäki, Finland

The policeman Sergeant Toivonen and the farm mistress Parila in the place where Feigin surrendered

with Finnish police/army on the background

equipment 

for how long it would last ?
СУДАК - zander in tomato, latvian bakon, sausage, undefined wite package...

looks some moments before execution, with cigarette, dressed different.

Wartime Finnish execution
The same in color

in Spain civil war

with the armband RO of workers militia.

1940.

sitting on right with comrades of workers militia.

tallinn 1940.

Veckorevy - Weekly view 1944-08-21 & First day of the Winter War

Estonia has had a large Swedish population living in the islands and coastal area since the 13th century. During the Second World War, this area, was first invaded by Soviets through the Molotov Ribbentrop deal, and then, in summer 1941 by Germany. In the autumn of 1943, the German authorities granted Sweden permission to make a transfer of 780 old and sick Estonian Swedes. A government committee, "The Committee of Estonian Swedes", was formed to administer the transfer. After prolonged negotiations with the German authorities, in the spring of 1944, it was granted permission to transport the remaining Estonian Swedes to Sweden. The Estonian schooner "Juhan" hired for the transport made a total of nine trips in 1944. The last transport went on September 18 with a small boat, "Triina", from Tallinn. In total, 3335 Estonian Swedes came to Sweden with these boats. About the same number came on their own in various boats. Between 1940 and 1944, a total of 7,000 Estonian Swedes, 25,000 estonians, 4000 latvians and 500 lithuanians came. The great escape from the Baltics is the first major refugee wave to Sweden in modern times. Most refugees came across the Baltic Sea to Gotland or to Stockholm's Archipelago and were quarantined there because of infectious diseases in the war-torn areas. After the time in quarantine, most were sent to work within Swedish forestry and agriculture. The film is a unique document that shows the ship "Juhan" under the Nazi flag with estonian sweds ,arrives  to Sweden and their recovery on Sabbatsberg.

http://www.filmarkivet.se/movies/veckorevy-1944-08-21/

80 years ago: First day of the Winter War  from: yle.fi/news  30.11.2019 10:18

Fit, bright, not too Jewish - Kindertransport policy for which children to save from the Nazis revealed

Children seeking sanctuary in Britain before the Holocaust were refused the lifeline of the Kindertransport if they were thought to have disabilities or looked too Jewish, say researchers.

Historian Louise London, who has written about Britain’s immigration policies at the time, said that it was “the Jewishness of Jewish refugees” that was seen as “particularly problematic”.

Speaking at a conference on Monday organised by the Association of Jewish Refugees to mark the 80th anniversary of the Kindertransport, Dr London said it was thought that Jewish children separated from their parents “would be less visibly Jewish” and, once dispersed into British families, “over time they would be, as was often said, ‘Anglicised,’ hastening their assimilation.”

She added that the “problem of what to do with the Jews took precedence over efforts to save them”.

One document featuring details of a 15-year-old refugee from Vienna, Kitty Milch, stated she was “an intelligent looking and not particularly Jewish young woman”.

Professor Paul Weindling of Oxford Brookes University, who has studied letters sent by the Kindertransport office in London and organisations applying to accept refugee children, said it was also common for people to request “non-Orthodox” children so that, it was thought, they could be more easily integrated.

“People were specifically requesting what type of child they would like.”

Medical certificates issued to children at the time guaranteed that they were “fit for work” and confirmed that there was “no record of family illness, disability, or poor mental health”.

He said he knew of a case of one child having to travel to the Nazi medical centre in Vienna to get her certificate. “You can only imagine how scared she would have been,” he said. “Others failed and were rejected.”

Children who were rejected often ended up dead, he said.

Fourteen-year-old Eva Renee Seinfeld wrote to Princess Elizabeth from Vienna appealing for help in July 1939, but by that point the number of children coming to Britain from the city had shrunk to 291.

“May it please your Royal Highness to grant my request in assisting my great despair and to make it possible to come over to England,” she wrote.

“I am of a quiet and modest kind, of a good and severe education and it will be my greatest endeavour to be worthy of your noble and kind protection.”

She was deported from Vienna in 1942 and died in Sobibor.

Heinrich Steinberger applied to be reunited with his father who was in Kitchener camp near Sandwich, Kent, in August 1939, but by that point the number of children granted permission was down to 195.

Mr Steinberger, whose mother had a domestic permit to work in Britain, was not successful. Records show he was deported from Vienna in 1942 and died in Sobibor.

Prof Weindling found that mental and physical characteristics were often referred to in the correspondence. He said the head of the main Kindertransport organiser in the UK, the Movement for the Care of Children from Germany, requested children who were “bright,” “physically fit” and possessed “exceptional qualities”.

He said: “They were specifically looking for intelligent, healthy children, possessing positive moral qualities and specifically stated that they did not want those who were mentally or physically disabled.”

He also gave the example of Hans Lang, born in 1932 in Vienna and in the care of the Jewish Boys Orphanage. He was described on an application as “very well behaved but very slightly mentally backward.” His application was rejected by the Kindertransport office in London and his fate was unclear.

Prof Weindling said organisations which funded the Kindertransport sought to ensure that none of the refugees would become a financial burden on the public, as well as applying pressure for children to be selected based on their intellect and appearance.

He said 2142 children were sent to Britain from Vienna between December 1938 and August 1939 but after the 851 sent in December, numbers massively decreased.

Children were often required to produce medical and school certificates and social workers were instructed to carry out home visits to ensure each child’s suitability, his research shows.

Officials in Vienna received “frequent requests” for orphans, because host families in Britain wanted to take in young children.

Dr London said there was an “obvious” tension at the time between British government policy, which was that children brought over should re-emigrate, and the desires of “foster-parents for a child that would become a permanent member of their family.”

She said: “The government made no effort to resolve these ambiguities.”

Every child was required a guarantee of £50 to finance their eventual re-emigration as it was assumed at the time that the danger was temporary, and the children would return to their families when it was safe.

“Without their parents the children were acceptable here,” Dr London said.

According to Dr London, author of Whitehall and the Jews, it was thought that “if some were ultimately allowed to remain, they could contribute good white stock to the population at a time when the birth rate was low.”

Prof Weindling said the research deconstructs the “myth” of the Kindertransport as an unproblematic rescue mission.

Children often took it upon themselves to apply to be let into Britain. Prof Weindling said it was an example of the initiative they had to show at the time but not everyone would have been able to express the same tenacity.

For example Otto Hutter, who was 15, enrolled himself on the Kindertransport in December 1938, the month the first Kindertransport from Vienna departed.

Mr Hutter recalled how he joined a short queue of accompanied children and was interviewed by officials.

“Regardless of my having presented myself without a parent, I was enrolled because - as I learned much later - boys nearly 15 years old were given priority lest they be soon sent to forced labour camps.”

Mr Hutter said he was made to undergo a medical examination before being issued with documents for his parents to sign and was sent away with a list of clothing to pack into a small case.

A letter written by Mr Hutter recalled: “I was issued with an identification number printed on a card to be worn around the neck when joining the transport due to leave in less than a week’s time. My number was 359. Just 360 children were enrolled that day. So I had made it just in the nick of time.”

Hella Pick, journalist and Kindertransportee who arrived in Britain in March 1939, said there was a lack of awareness around the conditions placed on refugees at the time and more needed to be learnt.

Ms Pick, who was as born in Vienna, Austria, into a middle class Jewish family, said researching her own story and the process in which she arrived had been a “rapid” learning experience.

“It has made me realise how fortunate we were to be selected. Had we come from some other background we might not be sitting here,” she said.

She said strict restrictions on refugees were “sadly” symptomatic of the country’s current “attitude to immigration”.

The Jewish Chronicle

Anton Weiss-Wendt : Murder Without Hatred: Estonians and the Holocaust & 41a juulil toimusid Mõisaküla massihukkamised

https://www.amazon.com/Murder-Without-Hatred-Estonians-Holocaust/dp/0815632282

Reviewed by Jeff Rutherford (Department of History, Wheeling Jesuit University) 

https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=26325

Estonia's Holocaust: Ideological or Pragmatic Murder?

During the past two decades, Holocaust research has focused on the killing fields of central and eastern Europe, with Poland, Yugoslavia, and the various regions of the Soviet Union receiving the bulk of the attention. In comparison, the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia, and especially Estonia have been relatively neglected, particularly in English-language literature. Anton Weiss-Wendt addresses this lacuna with an impressively detailed study of the Holocaust on Estonian soil. While Estonia's miniscule Jewish population--fewer than a thousand by the time of German arrival in 1941--certainly differentiates it from the eastern European norm, the relatively small number of victims allows Weiss-Wendt to examine their fates on an individual basis, providing a more intimate examination of those murdered than generally found in the literature.

The question of Estonian ideological commitment to the Holocaust is one of the primary issues investigated by the author and it proves to be one of the more contentious aspects of the book. Weiss-Wendt begins by examining the development of the independent Estonian state during the interwar period. A relatively ethnically homogenous nation, its largest ethnic minority was the Baltic Germans, who became the most troublesome minority for the Estonian state, especially after the 1919 Land Reform destroyed the power of the Baltic German landlords by redistributing the land to Estonian peasants. In contrast to its awareness of this vocal minority, the Estonian population generally regarded the Jews in Estonia--numbering only 4,434 in 1934--with indifference. Weiss-Wendt describes relations between the two groups as "friendly yet superficial" (p. 7) and argues that Estonian Jews were in many ways isolated from mainstream culture and society. Antisemitism, which became such a powerful ideology throughout central and eastern Europe during the interwar period, never gained much traction in Estonia. Even the radical Right refrained from following Nazi racial ideas; here, resurgent Estonian nationalism saw Baltic Germans--not Jews--as the primary threat to the state and thus distanced itself from Nazism and its ideological tenets.

The turning point in Estonian attitudes towards Jews appears to have come with the Soviet occupation of the state in 1940. According to Weiss-Wendt, Estonia's meek response to the Red Army's advance led to a demoralized and humiliated population, one further unsettled by the deportation on June 14-15, 1941, of over 10,000 people to the interior of the Soviet Union. Included in this deportation were 415 Jews, which as Weiss-Wendt notes, constituted some 10 percent of the state's Jewish population. Despite having suffered under Soviet rule in a similar fashion to ethnic Estonians, Jews nonetheless were linked to Soviet terror in "Estonian collective memory" (p. 51). The population believed that special Soviet shock battalions were most responsible for implementing Soviet terror and that Jews were disproportionately represented in these formations. He also states that "the perceived threat of a Russo-Jewish conspiracy stemmed from the popular belief that held Jews as quintessential Communists" (p. 50). Despite making such claims, he then paradoxically argues that "there were simply not enough Jewish Communists in Estonia to sustain the Judeo-Bolshevik myth" (p. 56).

This somewhat contradictory approach to the issue of Estonian motivations for murdering Jews mars Weiss-Wendt's otherwise detailed and penetrating examination of native police and their participation in the Holocaust. He has utilized the existing police files of some four hundred investigations undertaken against the fewer than a thousand Jews still remaining in the country during the German occupation. On the basis of these files, Weiss-Wendt provides an extraordinary look at the ways in which cases against individual Jews were constructed. At the core of these prosecutions was what the author describes as "a dispute regarding Jews' allegiance to the Estonian state" (p. 158). In other words, the police were investigating the links between Jews and communists during the Soviet occupation. He further notes that "at the bottom of all accusations was the belief that the Jews had placed themselves in opposition to the Estonian state and the Estonian people" (p. 163). If it was impossible to determine whether Jews had actually worked with Soviet power against the Estonian state, then "Jewish origin automatically became a criminal offense" (p. 163). On each of these four hundred cases, either "communist suspect" or "accused of subversive activities" was stamped on the file. Weiss-Wendt argues that "only infrequently" was the word Jewish added, which demonstrated that "Estonians went first and foremost after Communists, real and imaginary" (p. 174). But if every Jew in Estonia was targeted and condemned to death for working for Soviet power, then it seems somewhat disingenuous to argue that no ideological agenda directed particularly at Jews lay behind the action. To me, at least, an evaluation of the evidence presented by the author seems to indicate that the pernicious idea of "Judeo-Bolshevism" took root in Estonian society to some degree, especially among police organs and nationalist paramilitary units.

Weiss-Wendt offers a different motivation for Estonians' participation in the Holocaust: a quest to prove their worth to Germany with an eye on their position in the future National Socialist order. The relationship between the Third Reich and Estonia had been close since the 1930s. Germany's desire for the shale oil deposits of the Baltic led to such close economic ties that by 1939, the Estonian economy was all but dependent on Germany's. In addition to these economic connections, each country viewed the other as a possible partner; from Tallinn's perspective, Germany offered security against the reimposition of Bolshevism, while many racial theorists in Berlin viewed the Estonians as the most racially developed group in eastern Europe. The combination of these factors--as well as a local German leadership, unusually attuned to the national Estonian psyche, that did its best to placate the locals--led to a strong relationship between the two states during the war. As Weiss-Wendt notes, "Estonia was probably the only country in occupied Eastern Europe without armed anti-German resistance" (p. 74).

The desire to ensure an independent position in Nazi-dominated Europe led Estonians not only to acquiesce to German rule, but also to participate willingly in the Holocaust. Since the eradication of European Jewry was one of the Reich's overriding war aims, Estonian cooperation would only serve to further ingratiate them with Germany. Linking this willingness to the notion of destroying communism strengthened Estonian national identity by "wip[ing] away the shame and humiliation caused by the Soviet takeover of 1940" (p. 337). The overriding desire to regain the short-lived sovereignty of the interwar period led Estonians to "sacrifice not only their own lives but also the lives of others" (p. 339). In fact, they became "eager collaborators," as this was the only way to restore an independent state and their national pride (p. 343). While such a line of argumentation provides some important insight into Estonia's role in the Holocaust, it still seems to complement the idea that Estonians did indeed subscribe to the idea of a Judeo-Bolshevik threat.

While one can dispute some of Weiss-Wendt's interpretations, the tremendous amount of archival research--sixteen archives in six different countries--allows him to present a very detailed narrative of the Holocaust in Estonia while at the same time putting it into the context of the experiences of other Baltic states. His discussion of the Estonian police highlights the independence and doggedness of this group in their attempts to make Estonia judenfrei. Once this "goal" was fulfilled, however, the murder of Jews within Estonia did not stop. Transports of Jews from Czechoslovakia and Germany were sent to camps in Estonia. There, Estonian guards liquidated virtually all of the arriving Jews. Their co-religionists from Latvia and especially Lithuania also died in Estonian camps. According to Weiss-Wendt, 8,614 Jews died in Estonian territory during the war. Even after the primary killing campaigns ended, Jews still suffered there as their labor was exploited in various labor camps, with the most important being linked to the shale oil deposits so desperately needed by the Germans, especially once the Romanian oil fields were lost to the Reich. In these sections of the work, the author's focus on individuals truly pays dividends as he breathes life into both victims and perpetrators, fully exploring how people experienced the Holocaust at the lowest levels.

Murder without Hatred is without question the most detailed study available in English on the German occupation of Estonia and the latter's collaboration in the Holocaust. Weiss-Wendt has done yeoman labor in cataloguing the various labor camps that sprung up throughout Estonia as well as by putting a human face on the dry statistics that tend to camouflage the brutality and violence of the Holocaust. And one cannot overlook that he has mined archives throughout the Baltic region whose languages have made such materials generally inaccessible to a Western audience. Though his interpretations are in some cases open to question, Weiss-Wendt has certainly advanced the state of the literature regarding Estonia's experiences during the Second World War and made a real contribution to Holocaust historiography as a whole. 

Anton Weiss-Wendt about Estonian Holocaust 1941-1944

Mõisaküla massihukkamine.