We Must Never Forget

Fellow Americans, 

Seventy-five years ago, on January 27, 1945, Soviet troops liberated the death camp Auschwitz in German-occupied Poland.  Auschwitz was just one of many death camps operated by the Nazis during WWII.  The primary purpose of these camps was the annihilation of the Jews, although Christians, prisoners of war, criminals, political opponents, and “undesirables” like the mentally and physically impaired were also murdered there.  According to statistics from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum website (www.ushmm.org), from 1940-1945, over one million people were slaughtered at Auschwitz alone!  Overall, more than six million Jews were exterminated by the Nazis in the Holocaust!

In Hitler’s so-called “final solution”, the Nazis forced the Jews at gunpoint to surrender their possessions, flee their homes, and move into Nazi-controlled areas known as “ghettos.”  From the ghettos, the Jews were loaded onto cattle cars and transported by rail to the death camps.  The camps were encircled with electric fences and guarded by Nazis with machine guns.  Inside the camps, the prisoners were segregated into groups and families were separated.  Able-bodied people were assigned to work details.  Those unable to work were led away to the gas chamber. 

Life inside the camps was unbearable.  Food and water was scarce, clothing and shelter was inadequate, rest was minimal, and illness was uncontrollable.  Lots of people died due to the harsh conditions, while others committed suicide.  Still others were used as human test subjects, as cruel and inhumane medical experiments were performed on them.  The rest died in the gas chamber.  After being gassed to death, their bodies were stripped of all jewelry and the gold fillings were removed from their teeth.  Then their bodies were burned in open pits and incinerators, their ashes dumped in nearby fields.   

It’s clear the Polish people living near Auschwitz knew what was happening inside and ignored it.  That’s why at the end of the war, General Eisenhower made the American press and the German people tour the death camps to personally see the horror, and to document it for posterity!  Thank GOD we won the war!

Go to YouTube and see the survivors’ testimonies for yourself.  Also, watch the 1960s The Twilight Zone episodes 80 and 105.  Pray for a strong America so this will never happen again!  May God bless you and the United States of America!

Dan Landi

Kidder, MO