Auschwitz Under Our Noses

Dear Readers,

There are other priorities of news. Janet Jackson’s flashing of right breast was repeated so many times after the Super Bowl, that it seemed for the moment that this was the real issue; this was the issue that the world’s goodness hangs on to.

About sixty years after the shameful Holocaust of millions of Jews in the hands of Germans, many in the world still feel the pain for not doing enough for the victims during their time of despair. From time to time there are pointing fingers, blaming from one group to another can still be heard. “In recent years a plethora of respectable institutions -- the Vatican, the U.S. government, the international Jewish community, the Allied commanders -- have all been accused of "allowing" the Holocaust to occur, through ignorance or ill will or fear, or simply because there were other priorities, such as fighting the war.”

Decades have come and gone and there are definite changes, more awareness on the gross human rights violations around the world, more stronger human rights organizations doing all they can to make us aware, to not to repeat the same mistakes the world did before, while the Germans gassed the Jews.

But has the world changed much? “The ways in which information about crimes against humanity can simultaneously be "known" and not known hasn't changed at all. Nor have other interests and other priorities ceased to distract people from the feelings of shame and guilt they would certainly feel, if only they focused on them.”

Last week, BBC televised a documentary on the widespread human rights violations by the North Koreans, existence of concentration camps where human experimentations is done with the poisonous chemical weapons. One of the North Koreans, who was an administrator for one of the concentration camps described it in chilling language: “I witnessed a whole family being tested on suffocating gas and dying in the gas chamber," he said. "The parents, son and a daughter. The parents were vomiting and dying, but till the very last moment they tried to save the kids by doing mouth-to-mouth breathing." The documentary also included testimony from a former prisoner, who says she saw 50 women die after being deliberately fed poison. And it included documents smuggled out of the country that seemed to sentence a prisoner to a camp "for the purpose of human experimentation."”

The South Koreans wish to see an eventual peaceful reunification with the North Koreans; therefore they want to do more “investigations” on this issue. U.S. is reluctant to raise this topic, as Collin Powell never mentioned this human experimentation by the North Korean regime while he was talking with the journalists regarding the diplomatic talks between North Korea and its neighbors on Nuclear weapons.

Perhaps more could be done rather than announcing further “investigations”, and the world knows what happens to these “investigations”, and how they seem to disappear under the heavy burden of more forthcoming “investigations” of the future, and eventually, these “investigations” never seem to unearth the crime, or even if they do, it becomes too late for hundreds of thousands of people who have already perished under the nose of the negligent world communities.

Anne Applebaum, the writer who wrote this opinion editorial for the Washington Post says, “Later -- in 10 years, or in 60 -- it will surely turn out that quite a lot was known in 2004 about the camps of North Korea. It will turn out that information collected by various human rights groups, South Korean churches, oddball journalists and spies added up to a damning and largely accurate picture of an evil regime. It will also turn out that there were things that could have been done, approaches the South Korean government might have made, diplomatic channels the U.S. government might have opened, pressure the Chinese might have applied.”

All these “might have” scenario of the future historians pointing fingers to our present generation’s unwillingness in helping North Koreans who are dying under the dreadful chemical weapon experimentation, shall pile up on other equally reprehensible “might have” scenario of the accumulated past.

The dead will be dead. But we, the lively ones, shall live and die in collective guilt and shame.

Regards,
Mahbubul Karim (Sohel)
February 7, 2004


Auschwitz Under Our Noses

By Anne Applebaum

Wednesday, February 4, 2004; Page A23

Nearly 60 years ago last week, Auschwitz was liberated. On Jan. 27, 1945, four Russian soldiers rode into the camp. They seemed "wonderfully concrete and real," remembered Primo Levi, one of the prisoners, "perched on their enormous horses, between the gray of the snow and the gray of the sky." But they did not smile, nor did they greet the starving men and women. Levi thought he knew why: They felt "the shame that a just man experiences at another man's crime, the feeling of guilt that such a crime should exist."

Nowadays, it seems impossible to understand why so few people, at the time of the Auschwitz liberation, even knew that the camp existed. It seems even harder to explain why those who did know did nothing. In recent years a plethora of respectable institutions -- the Vatican, the U.S. government, the international Jewish community, the Allied commanders -- have all been accused of "allowing" the Holocaust to occur, through ignorance or ill will or fear, or simply because there were other priorities, such as fighting the war.

We shake our heads self-righteously, certain that if we'd been there, liberation would have come earlier -- all the while failing to see that the present is no different. Quite a lot has changed in 60 years, but the ways in which information about crimes against humanity can simultaneously be "known" and not known hasn't changed at all. Nor have other interests and other priorities ceased to distract people from the feelings of shame and guilt they would certainly feel, if only they focused on them.

Look, for example, at the international reaction to a documentary, aired last Sunday night on the BBC. It described atrocities committed in the concentration camps of contemporary North Korea, where, it was alleged, chemical weapons are tested on prisoners. Central to the film was the testimony of Kwon Hyuk, a former administrator at a North Korean camp. "I witnessed a whole family being tested on suffocating gas and dying in the gas chamber," he said. "The parents, son and a daughter. The parents were vomiting and dying, but till the very last moment they tried to save the kids by doing mouth-to-mouth breathing." The documentary also included testimony from a former prisoner, who says she saw 50 women die after being deliberately fed poison. And it included documents smuggled out of the country that seemed to sentence a prisoner to a camp "for the purpose of human experimentation."

But the documentary was only a piece of journalism. Do we really know that it is true? We don't. It was aired on the BBC, after all, an organization whose journalistic standards have recently been questioned. It was based on witness testimony, which is notoriously unreliable. All kinds of people might have had an interest in making the film more sensational, including journalists (good for their careers) or North Korean defectors (good for their cause).

The veracity of the information has been further undermined by the absence of official confirmation. The South Korean government, which believes that appeasement of the North will lead to reunification, has already voiced skepticism about the claims: "We will need to investigate," a spokesman said. The U.S. government has other business on the Korean Peninsula too. On Monday Secretary of State Colin L. Powell told a group of Post journalists that he feels optimistic about the prospect of a new round of nuclear talks between North Korea and its neighbors. He didn't mention the gas chambers, even whether he's heard about them.

In the days since the documentary aired, few other news organizations have picked up the story either. There are other priorities: the president's budget, ricin in the Senate office building, David Kay's testimony, a murder of a high school student, Super Tuesday, Janet Jackson. With the possible exception of the last, these are all genuinely important subjects. They are issues people care deeply about. North Korea is far away and, quite frankly, it doesn't seem there's a lot we can do about it.

Later -- in 10 years, or in 60 -- it will surely turn out that quite a lot was known in 2004 about the camps of North Korea. It will turn out that information collected by various human rights groups, South Korean churches, oddball journalists and spies added up to a damning and largely accurate picture of an evil regime. It will also turn out that there were things that could have been done, approaches the South Korean government might have made, diplomatic channels the U.S. government might have opened, pressure the Chinese might have applied.

Historians in Asia, Europe and here will finger various institutions, just as we do now, and demand they justify their past actions. And no one will be able to understand how it was possible that we knew of the existence of the gas chambers but failed to act.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A10791-2004Feb3?language=printer