[inaudible conversations] our subject today is the holocaust hitlers plan to eradication of European Jews during world war ii and not the persecution began years before the war started and their pursuit of the final solution remains unaccountable to the hillside world until the fall of the third reich they capture the records the nazis kept and recorded the liberation of the camps with photos with the documentation now preserved in the National Archives was used as evidence in the war crimes trials to document the actions of those who carried out the crimes and those that discovers a the results in todays featured book we have nearly 600 of their stories including my sisterinlaws mother offered without commentary as recollections show us and of the persecution through the survivors size. From the end of the war we have urged to never forget books like our crime was being jewish ensure that we do not. And anthony pitch is said journalist who long ago abandoned his native england for the united states. Of his many nonfiction books the to that i am most familiar with are the Award Winning they have killed cop a dead. Papa dead. Some years back i remember reading in the Washington Post that president bush had packed one of his books for Summer Reading if he has been featured on previous cspan tv shows as well as the history channel, a national geographic, booktv, npr and cbs. As a journalist he covered ever ted eck went and israel of broadcast editor and is Senior Writer for the u. S. News and world report. With one of the Smithsonian Associates here in washington to of a firstclass walking tour associated with lincolns of us when dash fascination. Ladies and gentleman, please welcome anthony pitch. [applause] i want to pay tribute to helped enormously in my previous books talking about as an archivist. And without any of these books. I think our crime was being jewish is a marvelous title with one mans interview that my crime was being jewish i think that sums it up. You may think it is the horrors of the off holocaust the really is about heritage. The importance of knowing what happened in the past and people of all faiths that can outflank savagery. Where are the nazi leaders . They are all dead gone by their own hand of suicide. Mass murderers and the trash of history. That the third reich would last 1,000 years it did not last two decades. What about the survivors . They were descended who had faced hatred rand conquest of forced conversions and the holocaust for the tormentors included the pharaohs that enslave them for many years. With many different shades. And they survived. Now in my closing years of life it is time choose some up. I am even more convinced of the survival is truly phenomenal. And if anything, if we judge the past i am absolutely convinced they will overcome the career rise of antisemitism that has raised the murderous end so soon after the holocaust. That is what surprises me. With the grumblings of it to surface again. Now my hope is that this point people of all ages and faith for those whod known nothing or little about the holocaust for those who were ignorant of the heritage inn for those who dont realize that if antisemitism is taken to an extreme it must result in the contents of this book. For this Book Research the interviews of the fatah Holocaust Memorial and the foundation the International Military tribunals in nuremberg and the hearings before the house of representatives and even personal memoirs. So i got a very, very good view of the hundreds hundreds, hundreds of interviews in this book you dont have to read hundreds just read this one. [laughter] and i think the survivors have a right to hold their heads high because they recounted in their own words , is the enormous number of atrocities, the whole range that they had to confront and surviving and you get a good sense of what it was like. You can write about the holocaust without writing about it exactly as it was a and that is what i did. In their words. My preface the arrests is their words excerpt to show the atrocities. You will not find a chronology because it is a reflection really of their shattered lives. I did not have an index because many people would have been included that were silenced by murder. What a holocaust survivor told another woman i cannot watch holocaust movies or read books about them because it is too sad. The survivor said, dont expect me to pat you on the back. If we could live it then you could watch it. There is so much wisdom in this book. Not my wisdom, but theres. We interviews are so amazing what they wrote about and as i go through you will see the wisdom that comes out of it. This book was prompted by antisemitism in france from the antics and of a socalled comedian. A caribbean father and french mother and he has one skit where he ridicules the holocaust and has in the seven frenchmen kidnapped and tortured and murdered only because he was jewish and the audience roars with laughter. And you cannot say it is justified by this coming and says all of these things when he wasnt even there. I think the best answer i could give him is those words of those who are not alive. Jews have defied the odds these were people who bequeathed a triumphant heritage of endurance. And my books testifies to that resilience. Many say it never happened. But they cannot answer a survivor who told me shortly before his death last year, if it didnt happen then where is my family . And you have to listen to a lutheran after seeing the crematorium and the bloodstained walls and the corpses he said i was there. I saw it with my own eyes. It another man had nothing but contempt for the deniers. Even with their own eyes they will find out there really happened. And another man who helped to free from the concentration camp swore when you see a room full of 500 bodies you cannot forget Something Like that and another soldier saw Railroad Cars packed with dead bodies he said i wish i never saw anything like that i hope i never see again. Some people managed to hide refuge in the city sewers where children played with rats and that is where a man drowned while looking for something to drink and a woman suffocated her baby to death rather than let its cry is betrayed her whereabouts. Shortly before they fled fled, the mother took her children to the park to let them see this line at the entrance gate and she told them to never ever forget what was written there. The words read the jews and dogs are not allowed in the park. Then the hatred of the jews was displayed without any shame and distinguished jewish lawyer who went to the same coffee house for more than 20 years and he sat at the same table served by the same waiter. And after the union of greece im sorry germany and austria in 1938, the waiter came up to him that signified membership of the nazi party and said i dont wait on the dirty jews. The times seem to be on their side. Perhaps it was the culture and they did not appreciate the peril to their lives. There was a doctor in berlin who told his son he would not be taking up of positions in the hospital because the nazis rule will not last and the germans will musty and for it. And also explaining why he turned down a position in 1936 and said the germans will not do anything to meet i of the war veteran. I have the iron cross. Another man brushed off not see rule to compare it to trade with people with their umbrellas waiting for it to stop. So they dismissed wholesale accounts. And then another man escaped from a train in 1942 when he got back to his relatives in warsaw and told them of this water ahead they said it is farfetched than they did not believe pam. So even the offense failed to influence many people. On the ninth and tenth of november, 1938, the not seek went across germany and destroyed or ransacked jewish homes and offices and shops is sent them to concentration camps and in one incident, a man who had befriended a jewish child while able way it had even eaten at his home now was a group of storm troopers to threaten the boys parents. So you have to consider all that as background then war broke out september 1939. And the of persecution intensified. That is when hundreds of thousands of jews were packed into cattle cars for the torturous journey to the death camps. There was no room to move, and space to feed babies, no medications and little air to breathe. They had to make do with one bucket to defecate and urinate than bassoon overflowed. Vengeance standing like fatfree for days with little or no food and soiling your clothes because there was no where else to go. That train journey from turret blown dash from greece took nine days. Panic broke out in one trade when there river spread there were all going to be burned alive. A female doctor cut open her veins in her wrist and lakes then did the same for other women who preferred to commit suicide. When darr arrived tired and hungry and gasping for anything to drink, and nobody was there to rid them of the small of their bowels are the stench of abroad the dead but instead they were met by a group of not ceased to scream at them to line up for selection to be forced into slavery or to be gassed and the laggards were shot on the spot and the dogs were biting those who didnt know what was going on and approved as part is they had done nothing wrong to be degraded and beaten and starved and murdered only because the entire people was annihilated simply because they were jewish. Antisemitism had reached such a crescendo that cannot see consider them their rule. They had no weapons and were facing fanatics in nothing put them against family or relatives and others reacted like human beings. Expected something to turn up in their favor when all seemed lost. The heartache. You have to listen to some other people who were there. The haunting of a man who saw his mother, sister mother, sister, brother sent away to be gassed and he said there was no time to say anything. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. We were in hell. And another girl saw her mother sent off to be gassed , she said from that moment ive lost my emotions i didnt know how to cry. One boy who is now retired professor in engineering wrote the blurb for my back cover, hid from the selections by hiding in the latrines of excrement up to his mouth and the nazis with high bin between the corpses to prevent the selections they were dehumanized in every possible way nobody was ever known by their name but only by the tattooed numbers on their forearms. And they thought they were lucky and thankful they had not been tattooed on their cheeks or four arms. For women realized there was only one goal between them so they defecated in throughout the contents and half an hour later drink soup from the very same goal. They saw people eating human flesh because cannibalism saved them from starvation and women stopped having their periods and others would wash their hair in the water served up as soup. When they went to though the tree and they expected to be brushed by somebody dead hanging about them just like they expected to get wet when swimming. If they failed to follow orders at will call there would have to hop on all fours like frogs. And then they would discover she was hugging a woman whod died overnight in everybody fought over the thin slice of bread she left behind and another saw her mother walking off to be gassed and said i am only 80 i i have not even made love. A man was brought in to the gallo in then recognized his own mothers shoes. They would consider death day luxury because the word deal of suffering was over. Then there was medical experiments on people who had absolutely nothing wrong with people suffered excruciating pain and many died from barbarism. Women were sterilized in painful procedures and some men had their testicles removed. Teachers gave poison candy to their peoples expecting them to die before the nazis could get them and one man had to address the dog and to apologize to steal food from his ball. Witnesses to murder close up nobody was better position to talk about it and those of the commanders the people whose terrible task was to supervise the gassing than remove the bodies. And they were killed, all of them after six months than other men were brought in as replacements. They would hope nobody would survive to tell about the horrors that in the confusion of preparation some did manage to escape. And their memoirs put to bed deficiencies of the deniers. If desired and now go to the instances of bravery. He said if i forgive you what would it do and she spat in his face and said i will do the same thing again so he let her dingell on for days and then they were arrested for a week without any food or water and then they were taken up to give them a chance by the reason was being read out in the tools to commit collective suicide. This is the story that is the best of all in the book. They gave him 30 minutes for the truck or he would be shot dead. He happened to be a concert cellist and he knew it took me three minutes to play so he hummed to himself and finished ahead of schedule and saved his life. There was a rabbi and he said i forgive my community and now before i stand before you buy dont think we forgive you of your sins into there was another man praying and he said why are we praying we are abandoned in a miserable condition and a day of pride to him and said you dont understand. Im praying to god to thank him for not making me a murderer you see the wisdom of this and many stories he was religious and then he saw how long they suffered for and he said i can understand how they were for days or weeks or months but not year after year. Im angry with god. I have a problem with him and there were others that died with dignity in the spirit and there were other people bleating like him and he said to them theres nothing to be afraid of you will die as martyrs. How did they pick up their lives . There was one that years later found out she was sitting next to the soldier she went up to him and sobbing and whimpering she said she had found a savior. There was a woman that told people at the speech all about the horrors of auschwitz and they said why did you bring children into this world if they were so terrible and she said hitler wanted to eliminate us i got my revenge by saying look we are here and then another lady compared her concentration camp and is that its like the pain of having babies so always remember the baby and never the pain otherwise women with never have babies. There was a man who came from auschwitz to washington, d. C. And got a job at the famous restaurant one day he had heard that the leader code than they would be addressing people on the mall and they decided to go but hes worked himself but that wouldnt be those that said. They were just like the gestapo and then they said who are you to say that and he showed them the tattoo on his arm and he said i got this in auschwitz. How much did you pay to have it put on . That is when david jumped up on the road and started the riot but he managed to tear off into the police intervened and dragged him off and he was fine. Though not seize found out and said we are going to kill you, your wife and children. They said youve suffered enough under the nazis why dont you go downstairs, get back your money and make believe that it never happened. She went for the sense of the appearance and thats when the survivors that i have looked and suffered as a jew and i will die as a jew. And on the way back up to the places for the residents of the visiting event. It was as if they had killed all the victims and later she changed her mind. Afterwards she told one of the colleagues that she felt very comfortable. They were hanging upside down by their feet and did one thing for those that were murdered. Every day we said at the memorial prayer just as they would have done for my parents and sister and brother. Unless we know about it and tell others about it its bound to happen again. Now i want to end for this one. They were told it was a top ranking not see living on the hill in austria about they didnt know his name so they set off and they went upstairs with a revolver ready and all he saw was the opposite so they said to the man who are you and he said i am julius and it matched the name on his id and then they sold the initials printed on the card. They said are you julius and he said yes thats who i am. Keep going back and they said are uv julius . Thats who i am from the newspaper but they didnt shoot him because they they couldnt be beat in cheating anybody that surrendered however when they got to the car didnt you told one of the biggest stories [inaudible] if he had arrested this antisemite. He said that i am jewish and thats when the camera started. Thank you very much. Plus the thank you for the talk i want to start with what you started with with heritage and specifically you left off the times. Human beings tend to continue to be cruel to each other throughout History History there that is but it is africanamerican, and indigenous people, indians, whoever it is, and he said it was because they were jewish so i would like to hear from your Historical Perspective to say why does that trend continue in use at this point in time this jewish groups made us grow angry or whatever it is. There is no justification for it, but at what we learned from our parents and peers is how germany decided to use that story to give people a reason to cause them so much pain so im curious if you were to go back to the point in time that you can say this is why they have been treated this way. I dont think i heard at the beginning but are you saying what is the reason for the antisemitism and from the Historical Perspective where is this point whether it is biblical were jewish, did this group that carried on throughout the time i know theres a lot of structure and history that continues on but you go about asp some point. If i could answer that [laughter] its beyond me why so many people like jews that distinguish themselves many nobel laureates. It might be jealousy and in another way i know they are smart because many professionals denied them and Everything Else and i dont know the reason for it. And i think this is related to the changing demographics in europe. It might be the reason that i dont know why it passed. What made you feel this subject after studying lincoln . What turned you to the subject lacks i look for the criteria in the books. They have to be true and they have to be horrific. Somehow im attracted to that. I dont know why. [laughter] but thats why i wrote these in vietnam and i have a book coming out in march but it somehow pulls apart in the intensity of that horror and thats why im looking for the subject now. It hasnt been written about before this epic, true. Thats the reason i went for that but if was another reason. There was this man that i mentioned earlier that is a