Polish-Jewish Relations: 1,300 Keyword-Phrase-Indexed Book Reviews (by Jan Peczkis)

The Treblinka Death Camp: History, Remembrance, by Chris Webb and Michal Chocholaty. 2014. Ibidem Press, Stuttgart

Holocaust Self Importance: The Preeminence of the Jews’ Holocaust Over All Other Genocides

The content of this book largely repeats earlier works on Treblinka. I focus instead on distinctive content.

HOLOCAUST SELF IMPORTANCE: THE MYSTIFICATION OF THE HOLOCAUST BY THE UN. USE OF HOLOCAUSTSPEAK

In the Foreword, Professor Tom Lawson of Northumbria University asserts that, “…there is a UN mandated remembrance day and the Holocaust has become a kind of moral touchstone which is held up as the central event of the twentieth century…we are constantly reminded of the idea that the Holocaust is both unrepresentable and unimaginable…epic memory…” (p. vii. Emphasis added). Lawson then backtracks a little from such thinking.

Holocaust self-importance is obvious. No such superlative terms are used of any other genocide! They are Holocaust supremacist terms and are pure Holocaustspeak. After all, no one suggests that the Armenian genocide is a moral touchstone. No one treats the Gypsy genocide as the central event of the twentieth century. No one suggests that the Cambodian genocide is unrepresentable, unimaginable, or some kind of epic memory. Finally, how many non-Jewish genocides even have a UN mandated remembrance day?

THE AKTION REINHARDT DEATH CAMPS: WHENCE THE NAME

Webb and Chocalaty trace the origins of the name. (p. 358). Some historians believe Reinhardt referred to Fritz Reinhardt, State Secretary in the Reich Ministry of Finance, and not SS-Obergruppenfuhrer Reinhard Heydrich. Webb and Chocalaty consider this unlikely. They point out that Gerald Reitlinger, in his FINAL SOLUTION, stated that Odilo Globocnik connected Reinhard Heydrich to Einsatz Reinhard or Aktion Reinhard. Furthermore, none other than Adolf Eichmann testified that Einsatz Reinhardt was named after Heydrich. (p. 358). As for ending Reinhard with a “d” or “t”, the authors point out that documents vary as to whether they end the name with a “d” or “t”. (p. 358). Finally, to complicate matters even further, Reinhard Heydrich was christened Reinhardt, but changed the spelling to Reinhard when he achieved the rank of SS Major. (p. 359).