Archive/File: people/g/goldhagen.daniel.jonah/burned-alive-bialystok Last-Modified: 1996/06/20 "The Germans, without precise orders about the methods by which to achieve their ends, took their own initiative (as they so often were to do during the Holocaust) in devising a new course of action. The main synagogue of Bialystok was a towering symbol of Jewish life. An impressive squarish stone structure crowned with a dome, it was the largest synagogue in Poland. Casting about for a way to dispose of the mass of assembled Jews under the shadow of this looming testament to the life of the Jewish enemy, the Germans adopted a plan to destroy both simultaneously -- the Jews as well as their spiritual and symbolic home -- which was a natuaral conclusion for their anti-semitically inflamed minds. <31> The burning of synagogues, especially during Kristallnacht, had already become a motif of German anti-Jewish action, and, once established, it was available to be drawn upon anew as a guide to action. Transubstantiating a house of worship into a charnel house was an ironic beginning to the campaign that these men knew was supposed to end with Jewry's extinction. The men of Police Battalion 309's First amd Third Companies drove their victims into the synagogue, the less complaint Jews receiving from the Germans liberal blows of encouragement. The Germans packed the large synagogue full. The fearful Jews began to chant and pray loudly. After spreading gasoline around the building, the Germans set it ablaze; one of the men tossed an explosive through a window, to ignite the holocaust. The Jews' prayers turned into screams. A battalion member later described the scene that he witnessed: "I saw... smoke, that came out of the synagogue and heard there how the incarcerated people cried loudly for help. I was about 70 meters' distance from the synagogue. I could see the building and observed that people tried to escape through the windows. One shot at them. Circling the synagogue stood the police members who were apparently supposed to cordon it off, in order to ensure that no one emerged."<32> Between 100 and 150 men of the battalion surrounded the burning synagogue. They collectively ensured that none of the appointed Jews escaped the inferno. They watched as over seven hundred people died this hideous and painful death, listening to screams of agony. Most of the victims were men, though some women and children were among them.<33> Not surprisingly, some of the Jews within spared themselves the fiery death by hanging themselves or severing their arteries. At least six Jews came running out of the synagogue, their clothes and bodies aflame. The Germans shot each one down, only to watch these human torches burn themselves out.<34>" (Goldhagen, 189-190) Footnotes --------- <31> For the spontaneity of the Germans' burning of the synagogue, see E.M., Buchs, pp. 1814r-1815 <32> H.S., Buchs, p. 1764 <33> The court estimates the number to have been at least seven hundred (Judgement, Buchs, p. 57). The Indictment puts it at a minimum of eight hundred (Buchs, p. 113). Jewish sources place the number at around two thousand. A survivor estimates that 90 percent of the victims were men and 10 percent were women and children. See J.S., Buchs, p. 1830; also, see I.A., Buchs, p.1835 <34> Judgement, Buchs, p. 56-58. The Germans forced at least two Jews, a man and a woman, into the building after it was already ablaze. Work Cited Goldhagen, Daniel Jonah. Hitler's Willing Executioners. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996
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