Lessons of Our Fathers

Simon Karski was 10 years old as he stood with his Grandfather watching the construction engineers under the protection of armed guards begin to unload their equipment from the trucks. He didnt understand that the home he had known all his short life was soon to become his prison. It was November 1940 and the ghetto that had been established one month before in his home city of Warsaw in Poland was about to show signs of becoming more permanent with the building of a wall complete with guard posts and checkpoints. “What are they doing Grandpa?” asked Simon. “They are preparing to finish the job.” replied his grandfather in a weary voice. “Come lets get you home to your Mother”. Although he didnt yet realise it, Simon was about to cross the threshold into manhood even at this early stage of his life.

In the year since the Germans had arrived in his land things had changed so much and life was becoming more difficult by the day. Everything was regulated so much more for the jews than it had been before. The universal joke was that soon you would need a permit to visit the toilet! Now the building of this wall was making things impossible. Men were being cut off from even going to their places of employment. They could no longer go out and sell their goods or for that matter bring in the goods that were needed to live a normal life. Slowly and surely in the months that followed, the life was being sucked out of the community.

Simon and his young friends became adept at finding ways in and out of the ghetto. It was essential to smuggle goods in as the daily allowances were nowhere near enough for the inhabitants to survive. More and more people were being rounded up from around Poland and shipped into the ghetto. Even with the smuggling there was widespread hunger and children were starving to death. Medicines were almost non existent.

Months turned into years and the daily struggle for survival became constant. Even in this strange and terrible environment where people were being crammed more than seven to a room they learned how to adapt and to a certain extent, cope with the atrocities that were being inflicted on a daily basis.

And then came the deportations and disappearances. Soldiers would come in the night and take people away. There was no rhyme or reason to it. Both young and old, men and women, anyone could disappear at the hands of the nazi occupiers. As the rumours spread about the terrible fate awaiting those who were taken, Simon began to realize what his grandfather had meant when he spoke those words to him. “they are preparing to finish the job”.

As news filtered back into the ghetto it soon became clear that the rumours were indeed true. The jews were being taken from Warsaw to Treblinka.But Treblinka was no ordinary concentration camp, it was purely an extermination camp. It was literally a highly efficiant killing machine. The remaining inhabitants of the ghetto had no choice. They would have to fight to the very last for their own survival. At the young age of 13 Simon shot a man for the first time in his life as he defended the barriers with his fellow Jews. For three long months they held out against the nazi murderers. But eventually the last pockets of resistance were overcome and the Ghetto was razed to the ground along with most of its inhabitants.

Simon was one of the lucky ones. Although gravely wounded, the knowledge of the alleys, tunnels and sewers that he had attained during his three years of smuggling enabled him to escape from the ghetto in the last days of the terrible onslaught. He was taken in and hidden by a friendly polish family with whom he remained until he was well enough to join the resistance once again in the struggle against the Germans. He survived to witness the utter destruction of the German Reich and the execution of its evil leaders. He had lost his entire family in Warsaw but in 1950 at the age of 20 he eventually arrived to start a new life in Israel.

Simon Karski was 73 years old as he stood with his 10 year old grandson watching the construction engineers under the protection of armed guards begin to unload their equipment from the trucks. It was the summer of 2003 and Simon now lived in the village of Zufin near the Palestinian city of Qalqiliya. A city that was gradually being turned into a ghetto by the building of this barrier. “What are they doing Grandpa?” asked Simon’s grandson. “They are preparing to finish the job.” Simon replied in a weary voice. A great feeling of sadness washed over Simon as his thoughts turned to the last barrier he had watched being built, and he knew that this time would be no different.

It came as no surprise to Simon when over the next few months life became more and more difficult for the inhabitants of Qalqiliya. Everything was regulated so much more for the Palestinians than it had been before. The universal joke was that soon you would need a permit to visit the toilet! Now the building of this wall was making things impossible. Men were being cut off from even going to their own fields. They could no longer go out and sell their goods or the produce they did manage to grow in the markets of Tel-Aviv nor for that matter could they bring in the goods that were needed to live a normal life. Slowly and surely in the months that followed, the life was being sucked out of the community.

And then came the disappearances. Soldiers would come in the night and take away husbands and fathers, brothers and sons. there was no rhyme or reason to it and usually no charges. It was all done in the name of “State Security” or for “the safety of the state”. Women in labour would be denied access to hospital because the ambulance would be turned back at the checkpoint. Heaven forbid that a newborn was given the chance to be the next suicide bomber, Better be safe and turn the ambulance back. The elderly, young and weak were left to suffer and die through lack of medicine Because nothing was allowed through the barrier without permission and usually the essentials for daily living including medicines were turned back.

Gradually things were becoming more and more like a concentration camp. Not a concentration camp like the Nazis of old had built but like the ultra efficient concentration camp that the Israelis had produced from what was the Gaza Strip. Simon had heard of the deprivation that was prevalent there, even though Israeli citizens were forbidden to enter. He knew also from experience what men did when they were pushed to extremes and it became a question of survival. They would fight, and they would fight till the last man drew his last breath. Just as so many of his friends had done those long years ago in Warsaw.

The Israelis had learned well from their Nazi teachers. They had learned how to build walls to keep people where they wanted them. They had learned how to control whole populations through fear. They had learned how to use laws to rob and confiscate land and property and they had learned how to subjugate an entire people, dehumanise and crush them underfoot. In the space of one man’s lifetime, the most abused race on the face of the earth had gone full circle and become the abuser. Just as the abused child often grows up to abuse others, so the abused Jewish people grew up to be the abusing Jewish state of Israel. Israel was indeed a star pupil who learned and implemented these lessons of the nazis well. Unfortunately they did not learn the most important lesson of all. It was all to obvious to Simon who had only been a humble plumber, but it was lost on his grand and lofty leaders as they sat in the Knesset and passed their draconian laws.

Of course the character of Simon does not really exist. But sadly, the events woven around his life are all too real.The lessons of history are there for all to see. In the terrible events of 1943 the Jews of Warsaw were wiped out as they fought for survival in what was once their home but had become their prison. Although the Warsaw Jews were destroyed, the final result was the utter devastation wreaked on the nazi nation by the allies as they stopped the evil regime in its tracks. Sooner or later The Palestinian people will reach a point of no return. If the events and injustices are allowed to continue to develop as they are at present then they will have no alternative but to take up arms and fight for their very survival. No doubt they will suffer the same fate as the warsaw Jews. But their allies and neighbours will surely avenge them and destroy the regime that sought to annihilate an entire population.

The Swastica and the Star of David. Two diametricaly opposed symbols of statehood. Who would ever consider that the two states represented by these symbols would have anything in common? Surely the idea is ridiculous, But there is indeed a commonality between these states. In the nineteen thirties Nazi Germany sought to justify its actions and expansionist policies by using the phrase “Lebensraum” or “living space”. Hitler saw the expansion of his borders as providing both increased security to the state of Germany’s borders and also a way of providing that “living space”. Now in the early twenty first century Israel seeks to do the same. It may not be called Lebensraum any more but the methods employed and the rethoric of the politicians is remarkably similar. The continued occupation of the west bank is justified by the need for living space for the Jewish people and the building of the barrier is justified in the name of state security. But the reality is the ongoing and increasing suffering of the Palestinian people whose only crime is to have been unfortunate enough to have been born Palestinian.

There is a famous quote by George Santayana that says “Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it”. That quote has been used by many other wise and great men throughout the ages including Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill. Let us hope and pray that the leaders of Israel will learn that lesson before it is to late. The result of not learning this important lesson of history could spell utter catastrophy for the whole Middle East Region not to mention the state of Israel itself that so many brave and honorable people laid down their lifes to create. The inevitable consequences this would have on the western nations incuding the US does not bear thinking about. Suffice to say it would make today’s war on terror look like a minor disturbance.