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    The Unblazed Trail: How Holocaust Victims and Perpetrators Escaped Europe
    The Unblazed Trail: How Holocaust Victims and Perpetrators Escaped Europe
    The Unblazed Trail: How Holocaust Victims and Perpetrators Escaped Europe
    Ebook114 pages57 minutes

    The Unblazed Trail: How Holocaust Victims and Perpetrators Escaped Europe

    By David Weiss

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    About this ebook

    The Jews of Europe were trapped. Anti-Semitism had been an issue in Europe for centuries, but the sentiment increased exponentially when the Nazis rose to prominence. An attention-getting orator, Adolf Hitler laid out the case that the Jews were responsible for Europe's woes. The economic penalties after WWI hurt the German economy and Hitler used the struggle to blame the Jews. Even as the economy improved, Hitler stayed true to his message.

    The ramp up of anti-Semitic rhetoric and behavior in Europe was persistent during the 1930's. The Jews in countries such as Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Italy, Greece and Yugoslavia also felt the ferocity of the anti-Jewish movement. Many of these countries were establishing new laws modeled after the Nuremberg Laws which stripped Jews of their Human Rights. 

    Nations did not simply allow Jews to leave. They often times required that the Jews give up their financial possessions. How could they get a ticket and be able to settle elsewhere without any financial means? Many Jews simply didn't have a lot of money. Making the final decision to pick-up and leave was also difficult.

    The other huge obstacle was the fact that nobody wanted the Jews to enter their country. After World War I, many nations in the world took a more isolationist approach.  The United States and other countries also had a large issue of their own with anti-Semitism.There was simply no place to go to.

    The countries in this book accepted some Jews. Some, like the Dominican Republic, wanted to accept more, but by the time everything was set-up for them to cross the Atlantic, it became too dangerous to make this journey. Other nations like Bolivia had a small program in place which was paid for and run by one influential individual. In general, the small quotas these countries had set were not filled due to the difficulty of getting Jews across the Atlantic and other troubles. These nations did, however, play a role in saving some Jews from the horrors of the Holocaust. 

    This book also highlights the willingness (or lack of willingness) of these nations to accept Holocaust Survivors after the war. One of the big lesser-told tragedies of the Holocaust was the inaction of the world community post-WWII. 

    My grandparents all found themselves in difficult spots after the Holocaust. My two grandparents from Poland ended up in Displaced Persons Camps. In 1946 they found a new home in Belgium. They lived peacefully in Belgium until 1961 and had their only child, my mother, in 1949. In 1961 they received sponsorship through a cousin and a synagogue in Wisconsin and came to the United States. My other grandmother was in hiding in her home country of Slovakia during the war. She stayed in Slovakia after the war because it was re-formed as Czechoslovakia and run as a free, democratic nation. My grandfather was a Slave Laborer and ended the war in hiding as well. He also stayed in Czechoslovakia. They got married and lived in grandma's hometown of Trnava until 1949. By 1949 the communists had taken over the government and most of the Jews of Slovakia left for the new nation of Israel. My grandparetns stayed in Israel until 1952 when my grandmother's niece in the United States married a well-to-do businessman whose parents sponsored my grandparents and my father who was five years old at the time. Most Survivors were not this fortunate.

    Part 2: Unfortunate Escapes: Nazi War Criminals

    The 2nd part of this book details several of the escapes from Nazi War Criminals. These profiles highlight the anti-semitism that existed worldwide even after the Holocaust. See how "the ratline" operated.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherExpert Promotions LLC
    Release dateDec 6, 2018
    ISBN9781386446460
    The Unblazed Trail: How Holocaust Victims and Perpetrators Escaped Europe

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    • 5/5
      I truly did not know how hard it was for the Jews to escape Nazi Germany until I read this book. The obstacles they had to overcome to leave were tremendous: countries were not willing to accept them, and if they even found a country willing to accept them, taxes imposed on them for leaving took their entire life savings. The author explains the other aspects that kept the Jews from escaping. However, part two of the book shows how some countries actually aided the Nazis in escaping after the war! The author highlights some of the Nazi trials (the Eichmann trial information was really interesting) and the comprehension questions at the end are extremely well written. I have read other books by this author and his contribution to Holocaust education is huge. I definitely recommend this book.

    Book preview

    The Unblazed Trail - David Weiss

    The Unblazed Trail:

    How Holocaust Victims and Perpetrators Escaped Europe

    A lot of your Cared, just not enough

    —Jay Asher

    Introduction for Survivor Safe Havens

    The Jews of Europe were trapped. Anti-Semitism had been an issue in Europe for centuries, but the sentiment increased exponentially when the Nazis rose to prominence. An attention-getting orator, Adolf Hitler laid out the case that the Jews were responsible for Europe’s woes. At the end of World War I, the victorious Allies punished Germany severely in the Treaty of Versailles. The economic penalties hurt the German economy and Hitler used the struggle to blame the Jews. Even as the economy improved, Hitler stayed true to his message.

    The ramp up of anti-Semitic rhetoric and behavior in Europe was gradual and persistent during the 1930’s. The Jews in Germany and Austria knew that things were getting very bad. The Jews in countries such as Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Italy, Greece and Yugoslavia also felt the ferocity of the anti-Jewish movement. Many of these countries were establishing new laws modeled after the Nuremberg Laws which stripped Jews of their Human and Civil Rights. Jews in western European nations such as France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Holland and the Scandinavian countries did not feel that they had as much to worry about.

    It is safe to say that by 1936 most Jews in Germany, Austria and the first group of countries mentioned above (Poland, Hungary, etc) wanted to leave Europe. By 1938, almost all Jews in Europe would have liked to leave. But by 1939, it was too late for almost anyone to leave.

    First off, nations did not simply allow Jews to leave. They often times required that the Jews give up their financial possessions. How could they get a ticket and be able to settle elsewhere without any financial means? Many Jews simply didn’t have a lot of money. Most were living week-to-week and making it across an ocean wasn’t a financial possibility. Making the final decision to pick-up and leave was also difficult. Families were generally not familiar with life anywhere outside of their city of small village. Perhaps things could improve. It simply isn’t that easy to take a family and just leave your country for an unknown place.

    The other huge obstacle was the fact that nobody wanted the Jews to enter their country. After World War I, many nations in the world took a more isolationist approach. This is certainly the case with the United States. The United States and other countries also had a large issue of their own with anti-Semitism. Many people and governments worldwide claimed that the Jews carried diseases and were an undesirable immigrant group. There was simply no place to go to.

    IF countries such as the United States, Canada, Great Britain and Australia would have accepted them, almost all of the Jews of Europe would have relocated there. Even if they had no possessions or knew little about their new life, the hope of coming to one of these great nations would have given them reason to relocate. But even if emigrating to the countries mentioned in this book (Jamaica, Phillipines, China, Bolivia, etc) would have been made fully available to all of the Jews of Europe, most of them would have taken the opportunity. The Jews that stayed and died and those that stayed and survived remained in Europe simply because they had no choice.

    There were also European Jews who thought that they were escaping by going to France, Holland and other European countries. Unfortunately, these nations would eventually be taken over by the Nazis. Moving to other European destinations usually just delayed their deportation/death. Other times (although rare) they did find more support in countries like Belgium and they were able to survive.

    People often forget the fact that going to Israel simply was not an option. Israel did not become a country until 1948. In the preceding years, the area was called the Palestinian Mandate and was controlled by England. England wanted to appease the Arab population by limiting the number of Jews allowed to enter Palestine. They felt that this would lead to less fighting between Jewish settlers and the Arabs. In the 1930’s there were tremendous restrictions on Jews entering the Palestinian Mandate.

    The countries in this book accepted some Jews. Some, like the Dominican Republic, wanted to accept more, but by the time everything was set-up for them to cross the Atlantic, it became too dangerous to make this journey. Other nations like Bolivia had a small program in place which was paid for and run by one influential individual. In general, the small quotas these countries had set were not filled due to the difficulty of getting Jews across the Atlantic and other troubles getting visas and getting through the red tape. These nations did, however, play a role in saving some Jews from the horrors of the Holocaust. The number of Jews saved by going to these remote locations is small when we look at the millions killed and tortured, but even playing a small, positive role is important;

    There’s a boy walking down the beach and throwing starfish into the water. A woman comes upon him and asks what he’s doing. He says, ‘There was a big storm last night and all the starfish washed up on the shore and if the afternoon sun hits them, they’ll dry up and die’. She says to the boy, ‘Yes, there was a big storm. But the beach stretches for miles and miles. And there are millions of starfish. Your efforts aren’t going to make any difference’. With that, the wise boy reaches down and says, ‘It will make a difference to this one’, and he tosses it into the ocean.—Legend retold by Jason Garrett (Dallas Cowboys Head Coach)

    This book also highlights the willingness (or lack of willingness) of these nations to accept Holocaust Survivors after the war. One of the big lesser-told tragedies of the Holocaust was the inaction of the world community post-WWII. When the Soviets, Americans and Brits liberated Nazi-occupied land, Europe had an immediate refugee problem. It was certainly better to be a Displaced Person than a prisoner, but the path to free, normal life would still be long and winding for most Survivors.

    Many of the Jews and other newly-released prisoners had no home country to return to. If they returned to places like Poland or Ukraine they would be immediately killed. The population in many European nations was very anti-Semitic and non-Jews blamed the Jews for the war. With Great Britain not allowing Jews to enter Palestine and the world’s top nations (United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand) accepting a low number of immigrants, these Displaced Persons often stayed in DP Camps for many years. Some found refuge in

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