Holocaust Memorial Day 2011:
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Recalling the BUSINESS of the Holocaust
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May 1st, 2011."Yom HaShoah," Holocaust Memorial Day begins here in Israel this evening. Tomorrow, at 10 a.m., as happens every year, air-raid sirens throughout the country will wail for two minutes and citizens will stand in silent respect.
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This is not another blog post to recount the Holocaust. Movies, newsreels, survivor accounts and books can do that far better, more thorougly and with more insight than I.
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This is a business blog, however. And today, as the descendant of many who perished in the ashes, I have decided to look at the BUSINESS angle of the Holocaust. Because, in many ways, it WAS a Business!
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At its peak, the Nazis murdered 10,000 Jews a day. It begs the disturbing question: what does it take to liquidate that number of human beings in a span of 24 hours? Yesterday. Today. Tomorrow. The next day. The next. My answer…
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1) Brutal Efficiency: Men and women who took great pride in a job-well-done. Workers who might have showed up early and left late. Highly-motivated workers determined to perform their dastardly tasks at the highest level possible.
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2) Logistics: Trains running on time. Forcing people from trains to "showers" to crematoria in a swift and orderly fashion. Adolf Hitler actually launched a tirade at rail operators who were bringing troops to the front; they were diverting precious resources from concentration camps.
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3) Supplies: Zyklon-B: the poison gas used in the showers. Ovens. Crematoria. Guns. Bullets. Slave-laborers.
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4) A Business Plan: To wipe a people from the face of the earth. Planned and instituted by beasts with names like Hitler, Eichmann (later captured, brought to trial and executed in Israel), Goebbels, Himmler and Heydrich.
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5) Personnel: Brutal killers without morals or regard for human life: SS. Gestapo. Einsatzgruppen. And periphery "employees." Train conductors. Mechanical engineers. Architects. Builders. Chemists. Ordinary people?
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6) Industry: A steady supply of trains, gas, bullets, shovels, ovens, etc. All supplied by industry which collaborated with the Nazi regime. IG Farben: The chemical/pharmaceutical company that produced Zyklon-B…yes, I too always believed that pharmaceutical companies produced medicine that healed! Siemens, and the list goes on.
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7) Scale: Massive. Roundups. Transport. Execution pits, concentration camps and extermination camps throughout Nazi-occupied Europe.
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8) The CEO: Adolf Hitler might have been the incarnation of EVIL…but…can anyone doubt his oratory skills? His charismatic and hypnotic nature? He played the race-card to a "t," utilizing massive German unemployment, horrendous economic conditions and the vision of restoring Germany to its grandeur. All he needed was a scape-goat. He found it in the Jews. And with that, his obedient minions put into effect the extermination of a people.
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Yes, during that dark time in world history, a mere six decades ago, BUSINESS came together perhaps like no other business before or since.
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The plan was diabolical. The efficiency was ruthless. It was all carried out on an INDUSTRIAL-SCALE. And the results were…
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UNSPEAKABLE!
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Business can be a force for good.
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And for EVIL!
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PHOTO: Yonatan (Jonathan) Maisel: 2006, Patrolling in Jerusalem, Israel. Six Million brothers and sisters: "Never Forget!"
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Dear Readers, due to several recent anti-Semitic comments and e-mails, I’m closing this post to comments. I don’t like doing it. Sorry.
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