Three People of the Holocaust

There were three groups of people in the Holocaust: The criminals who tortured and murdered; The victims murdered; and those who survived and were scarred for life—mentally and physically. The helpers were the people who helped the Jews and others to escape and survive.

These are just examples of each group.

The Criminal

Hildegard Lachert was known to the prisoners as Bloody Brigitt, always striking them repeatedly until their blood spilt. She was a female guard, or Aufseherin, at several concentration camps. She became publicly known for her crimes at Ravensbrück, Majdanek and Auschwitz-Birkenau. After the war, she was found guilty and sentenced to [a total of] 27 years in prison for her brutal treatment of inmates during her camp service, but she only served ten years.

In November 1947, she appeared in a Kraków, Poland courtroom, along with 40 other SS guards in the Auschwitz trial. Because of her war crimes at Auschwitz and Płaszów, the former guard and mother of two surviving children were sentenced to 15 years in prison. Lächert was freed from incarceration in Kraków in 1956. In 1975, the German government decided to retry her and other SS guards from the Majdanek Concentration Camp.

The testimonies heard concerning Lächert’s sadistic behaviour were extensive and detailed. One former prisoner, Henryka Ostrowska, testified, “We always said blutige [German for blood] about the fact that she struck until the blood showed,” giving her the nickname Bloody Brigitte (Krwawa Brygida in Polish). Many other witnesses depicted her as the worst, the cruellest Aufseherin, Beast, and Fright of the Prisoners. For her part in selection to the gas chamber, releasing her dog onto inmates and overall, her abuse, the court sentenced her to 12 years. Because of time served, time in custody, and time in Krakow—she was released.

The Victim

Frank Emanuel Polak was born on 19 December 1941 in Amsterdam and murdered at age two. In February 1944, he was deported to Auschwitz and murdered in a gas chamber after the selection. It looks like his parents and siblings survived.

His smiley face will haunt me for a long time.

The Helper

Carlos Sampaio Garrido was a Portuguese diplomat credited for saving the lives of approximately 1,000 Jews in Nazi-occupied Hungary while serving as Portugal’s ambassador in Budapest between July and December 1944.

In 2010 he became the second Portuguese recognised as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem.

“Ambassador of Portugal in Budapest, from October 1939 to June 1944. When Hungary was conquered by Germany in March 1944, the neutral countries did not recognize the new government. Responding to the request of the Allies, the dictator of Portugal, António de Oliveira Salazar, reduced the level of diplomatic representation in Hungary, and Carlos de Almeida Afonseca de Sampaio Garrido was called back to Portugal. Until his departure from the city in June, Carlos de Almeida Afonseca de Sampaio Garrido dedicated his efforts to helping Jews. The presence of the SS in Budapest in those days accelerated the persecutions of all residents without excepting diplomatic representations. Carlos de Almeida Afonseca de Sampaio Garrido granted asylum in his home to a dozen persecuted, mostly Jews, without notifying his ministry. On 28 April, at 5 in the morning, his residence was raided by agents of the political police of the Hungarian fascist regime and his protégés were taken to the central prison in Budapest. Carlos de Almeida Afonseca de Sampaio Garrido resisted the arrest of his guests and presented an official protest to the government, demanding his release, the investigation of those guilty of the affront and an official apology for the violation of the extraterritoriality of the Portuguese embassy. With this attitude, he achieved the liberation of those people but was declared Carlos de Almeida Afonseca de Sampaio Garrido resisted the arrest of his guests and presented an official protest to the government, demanding his release, the investigation of those guilty of the affront and an official apology for the violation of the extraterritoriality of the Portuguese embassy. With this attitude, he achieved the liberation of those people but was declared Carlos de Almeida Afonseca de Sampaio Garrido resisted the arrest of his guests and presented an official protest to the government, demanding his release, the investigation of those guilty of the affront and an official apology for the violation of the extraterritoriality of the Portuguese embassy. With this attitude, he achieved the liberation of those people but was declared persona non grata in Hungary. Faced with this situation, he had to inform the Foreign Ministry about the diplomatic projections of his performance: the ministry had already warned him, on 11 May, about the “irregularity” of it. Carlos de Almeida Afonseca de Sampaio Garrido moved to Switzerland on 5 June, from where he continued to send instructions to his successor in charge of the embassy, ​​Alberto Branquinho, to continue helping persecuted Jews.”

sources

https://www.yadvashem.org/es/holocaust/encyclopedia/sampaio-garrido-carlos-de-almeida-afonseca-de.html

https://www.joodsmonument.nl/nl/page/174871/frank-emanuel-polak

https://www.stewartandel.co.uk/hildegard-laechert

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hildegard_L%C3%A4chert

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Calcutta Light Horse-Operation Creek

Operation Creek (also known as “Operation Longshanks”) was a military operation undertaken by the British in World War Two on 9 March 1943.

Organized by the Special Operations Executive (SOE), the Calcutta Light Horse regiment was deployed to attack the German ship Ehrenfels, anchored in the Portuguese, hence neutral, Mormugao harbor in Goa, Portuguese India.

The Calcutta Light Horse was raised in 1872 and formed part of the Cavalry Reserve in the British Indian Army. The regiment was disbanded following India’s independence in 1947.Most of them had already volunteered for active duty and been rejected, and all of them were discontent–they did not like being left out of the war. They still trained regularly and enthusiastically, but any hope of seeing real action was gradually fading away.

For decades the Calcutta Light Horse, was more a social club than territorial regiment. The unit’s last military action had taken place in the Boer War almost 50 years earlier.

Ehrenfels became a target when it was discovered that she was transmitting information on Allied ship movements to German submarines, which played a part in the sinking of 12 Allied ships in the Indian Ocean in early Mar 1943.

The Germans had a secret transmitter on one of tthe Ehrenfels, a freighter that had sought refuge with two other German vessels, the Braunfels and the Drachenfels, in the neutral harbour of Goa on the outbreak of WW2

The Calcutta Light Horse regiment sailed aboard the barge Phoebe and sailed from Calcutta to Goa. Upon reaching Mormugao harbor in the night of 9 Mar 1943, the men of the regiment infiltrated the German ship and detonated explosives.

When British intelligence received word of the successful destruction of Ehrenfels, it sent an open message to announce that the British was about to invade Goa, which was a bluff. The crews of the other two German ships at Mormugao, Drachenfels and Braunfels, along with several Italian ships also present, scuttled their own ships to prevent British capture.

 

The operation was later the inspiration for the movie “the Seawolves”

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Source

Warfare History

SS Navemar-The ship built for 15, but carried close to 1200

SS Navemar was a cargo steamship that was built in England in 1921, was Norwegian-owned until 1927 and then Spanish-owned for the rest of her career. An Italian submarine sank her in the Strait of Gibraltar in 1942.

Navemar is notable for a voyage in 1941 in which she carried about 1,120 European Jewish refugees to the United States in overcrowded and insanitary conditions.

In 1941, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (known as “The Joint”) were desperate to rescue Jewish refugees from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia escaping Nazi persecution.

Many held US visas that were about to expire. The Joint’s agents directed them to Seville, where the Navemar had been privately chartered to make the transatlantic crossing. Tickets for the few passenger cabins sold at exorbitant prices. The captain vacated his cabin and charged $2,000 to all who could fit themselves into the small space.Bunks were fitted in the filthy cargo holds, which had previously carried coal.Although attempts were made to clean the ship, there was too little time to complete the task.

Navemar left Seville on 6 August 1941. She called at Lisbon in Portugal, where many of the visas were extended by the US Embassy. After calling at Havana in Cuba she reached New York on 12 September 1941. Many of the passengers had contracted typhus and six of them died in the seven-week crossing,and a seventh died upon arrival in New York.

After her refugee voyage Navemar returned to general trade. On 23 January 1942 the Marcello-class Italian submarine Barbarigo torpedoed and sank her in the Strait of Gibraltar.