More Nazi atrocities inspired by post-war events

Thursday, 7 June 2012

(click to enlarge)
Alabama Journal (Montgomery, Alabama), March 16, 1961, p.18

Even babies were gassed on birth. Jews were buried up to their heads in the earth and then cavalry was sent riding over them. The skin of victims was made into saddles, gloves and ladies' handbags.

Two healthy Dutch Jewish youths had their stomachs and kidneys removed and then gasoline was injected into their hearts. An SS officer kept the skull of one of them, on his desk.

These ridiculous claims are from an article written by American journalist Sid Moody, who died in April 2012, the article seems to have appeared in a few American newspapers in the weeks before the Eichmann show trial commenced in Jerusalem.
[see for instance: Alabama Journal (Montgomery, Alabama), March 16, 1961, Page 18]

The inspiration for the skull on the desk, was likely the U.S. Marine who sent the skull of a Japanese person to an young woman in the United States, and a photo of her with the skull on her desk, was published as "Picture of the Week" in Life magazine in May 1944. A horrific thing for a German to do (real or made-up), but it's just quirky when the Americans partook in "skull stewing" during the war.

The "buried up to their heads and then cavalry was sent riding over them" is a new one to me, at least in the Ho£ocaust. I've found claims that European colonialists in Australia killed Aboriginals this way (they also made items i.e. a tobacco pouch, out of Australasians' skins). But I believe that Sid Moody, or his uncited source for this story, found inspiration in a 1930s communist film which was re-publicized in the United States during the 1950s.

Actress, critic, and writer Marie Seton, published a biography of Russian-Jewish film director Sergei M. Eisenstein in 1952. In the book she described how Eisenstein, whilst directing a pro-Communist film in Mexico during 1931, had experienced a "revelation" about what should be the climax of his film, a death scene of the peons (labourers). Seton wrote:

"The peons were to be buried up to their necks in the ground and their heads trampled by galloping horses."

Eisenstein's film was to be called ¡Que viva México!, but apparently it was never finished by him, although others over the years, including Marie Seton in 1939, have attempted to finish the film for him. The scene Eisenstein filmed with horses trampling upon men buried up to their necks, can be viewed from 112:00 on this youtube film [as provided link now not working, the relevant sequence can instead be seen here (from 1:15:25) - and here (from 1:12:30)].

13 "Major Extermination Camps"

Alabama Journal (Montgomery, Alabama), March 16, 1961, p.18

[note the inclusion of camps in Germany like Dachau and Buchenwald, as "Major Extermination Camps"!]

Thursday, 7 June 2012

More Nazi atrocities inspired by post-war events

"When a Jew, in America or in South Africa, talks to his Jewish companions about 'our' government, he means the government of Israel."

- David Ben-Gurion, Israeli Prime Minister