Where I Stand: ‘The Good Old Days’ were years of terror and brutality

Friday, Jan. 10, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.

THE HOLIDAYS GAVE ME the opportunity to catch up on my reading. Wandering through a bookstore looking for good reading and good buys, I spotted "The Good Old Days," edited by Ernst Klee, Willi Dressen and Volker Riess, which appeared to be just the kind of reading a fella would appreciate during this happy time. At $9.98, I couldn't go wrong with this buy.

Well, it didn't take long to learn that the title, "The Good Old Days" ( "Schoene Zeiten" in German), had been taken from the cover of a photo album kept by the Treblinka concentration camp commander Kurt Franz. The contents of the book are taken from letters, diaries and reports written by the executioners and their friends during the Holocaust.

The book is a collection put together by Germanic writers who have dug deep into the problems of their own people. Klee had earlier written the book "Euthanasia in Nazi Germany." Dressen is an attorney dedicated to investigating Nazi crimes and Riess is a historian. This trio has written a book that should be read by every generation, because continually we are confronted with theorists who want to deny that there was a Holocaust. The slaughter of more than 6 million Jews, and others the Nazis were determined to butcher, was very real. It was the greatest sin committed against humanity since the recording of history.

Large numbers of Germans have done their best to claim that only a few Nazis were guilty of these brutal acts. The facts tell us that most likely a large majority of Germans knew what was happening but did nothing to stop it. Others, who did participate in the killing of innocent men, women and children, have claimed that, if they hadn't carried out the murders, they would have been killed. The records in this book show that no person who refused to kill Jews was killed or severely punished for refusal of orders.

The documents are typically precise and clear. For example, seven sheets of one report from a camp in Lithuania list the people killed every day. Aug. 29, 1941, was a busy day when "582 Jews, 1,731 Jewesses, 1,467 Jewish children" for a total of 3,782 were killed. The sum total at the bottom of sheet seven listed 137,346 killed up to 1 December 1941.

In the Babi Yar ravine near Kiev, 33,771 Jews were killed during the last two days of September 1941. Truck driver Fritz Hoefer describes what he saw when he arrived. "The moment one Jew had been killed, the marksman would walk across the bodies of the executed Jews to the next Jew, who had meanwhile lain down, and shoot him. It went on in this way uninterruptedly, with no distinction being made between men, women and children. The children were kept with their mothers and shot with them."

From Poland, in and around Cracow, comes this comment from a police official: "Members of the Grenzpolizeikommissariat were, with a few exceptions, quite happy to take part in shootings of Jews. They had a ball! Obviously they can't say that today! Nobody failed to turn up. ... I want to repeat that people today give a false impression when they say that the actions against the Jews were carried out unwillingly. There was great hatred against the Jews; it was revenge, and they wanted money and gold. Don't let's kid ourselves, there was always something up for grabs during the Jewish actions. Everywhere you went, there was always something for the taking. The poor Jews were brought in, the rich Jews were fetched and their homes were scoured."

Some of the men who refused to participate in these brutal acts tell us:

"I did not experience any disadvantage as a result of refusing to be involved in the shooting. Although I said to Kozar that he could send me to the front or anywhere else but that I would not shoot any defenseless Jews, there were no such consequences. How many Jews were shot I do not know.

"I was very disturbed by the sight of the execution areas. I therefore refused to take part in the execution. Nothing happened to me as a result of my refusal. No disciplinary measures were taken; there were no court-martial proceedings against me because of this.

"Instead I had to do an extra guard duty. I was naturally only too happy to do this swap. Afterwards, I did not experience any negative consequences whatsoever as a result."

"The Good Old Days" isn't pleasant reading, but it should be required reading for opinion-makers, students and those people believing that it was all too terrible to happen and, therefore, couldn't have happened.