Majdanek

One of the things that demonstrates how we are

a cut above lesser animals, even

our closest, primate cousins – in addition,

of course, to double entry bookkeeping –

is our ability to plan and manage

projects: like fox hunting and the Pyramids.

 

However, we should never forget

‘of mice and men’, ‘betwixt cup and lip’,

and ‘unintended consequences’ – like

throngs of tourists and urban foxes.

And take, for example, some of the proffered

solutions by European Powers

to the so-called ‘Jewish question’: Britain’s

Balfour Declaration, and the two

Madagascar Plans in the ’30s – the first

was Franco-Polish, the second German.

 

The first plan involved the voluntary

re-settlement of thousands of Polish Jews

in the island of Madagascar,

then a French colony; the second,

following the fall of France, the enforced

migration of all European Jews

to act as hostages to ensure their

‘racial comrades in America’ behaved.

Both proved unfeasible – the former

because of climate and poor infrastructure,

and the latter because, having lost

the Battle of Britain, the Nazis

abandoned the invasion of the UK.

The requisitioned British Merchant Fleet

was to have shipped the Jews to the island.

 

As the forces of the Third Reich conquered

Eastern Europe and entered Russia

a new plan developed: to move the Jews

and the Slavs to Siberia, to starve

or be murdered. When the Soviets refused

to be defeated the Final Solution

to that inadmissible question –

Die Endlösung der Judenfrage –

was devised: the building of gas chambers

at Auschwitz, Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek,

Sobibor, Treblinka.