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1941: Not Shaike Iwensky, “standing in line to be killed”
ExecutedToday.com ^ | July 9, 2012 | Meaghan Good

Posted on 07/08/2020 8:09:51 PM PDT by CheshireTheCat

On this day in 1941, seventeen-year-old Shaya “Shaike” Iwensky came within seconds of being shot by the Einsatzgruppen outside the city of Daugavpils, Latvian SSR. Sheer dumb luck — and a slight miscalculation by the Germans — saved his life.

Shaike was born and raised in Jonava, Lithuania and fled to Daugavpils with his brother when the Germans invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941. On June 29, he was arrested along with the other Jewish male adults in town. His brother, who was fifteen years old, was arrested alongside him, but released the same day because of his age.

For the next week and a half, Shaike was held in a crowded prison cell, fed almost nothing, and forced to work during the day.

On July 8, he noted “a change for the worse in our guards, an extraordinary meanness … In my worst fears, I could not have conjured up the kind of hell in which I now found myself.”

That day he and his comrades were stuck in a truly Sisyphean ordeal: forced to roll rocks up a hill, three men to a rock. They kept losing their grip and the rocks would slide back.

That night some other prisoners told him they had been forced to dig huge ditches, which were covered in chlorine.

The next day, the eighteenth day of Operation Barbarossa, Shaike found out what the ditches were for...

(Excerpt) Read more at executedtoday.com ...


TOPICS: History
KEYWORDS: daugavpils; einsatzgruppen; holocaust; jonava; latvian; lithuania; meaghangood; operationbarbarossa; shaikeiwensky; shayaiwensky; theholocaust

1 posted on 07/08/2020 8:09:51 PM PDT by CheshireTheCat
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To: CheshireTheCat

My God....and it goes on to this day.

But here, if they kick our doors in, we can die on our feet, fighting.


2 posted on 07/08/2020 8:31:21 PM PDT by elcid1970 ("Pres. Trump doesn't wear glasses. That's because he's got 2020.")
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To: Whenifhow; null and void; aragorn; EnigmaticAnomaly; kalee; Kale; AZ .44 MAG; Baynative; bgill; ...

p


3 posted on 07/08/2020 9:07:36 PM PDT by bitt (Let justice be done though the heavens fall Fiat justitia ruat cælum)
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To: CheshireTheCat

The more one reads about the Holocaust, the more it seems inconceivable. As we move away from the events of WWII in years, there is a danger it will be forgotten.
The level of cruelty is beyond all understanding. These people were non-combatants...


4 posted on 07/08/2020 10:35:30 PM PDT by Netz ( and looking for a way ti IMPROVE mankind.i)
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To: Netz

Remember what happened in Rwanda in 1994. Overnight clergymen, school teachers, merchants, and other middle class professionals happily led mobs murdering hundreds of thousands of people belonging to the ‘wrong’ tribe.

The capacity for incredible mass cruelty seems to be in the human DNA, it just needs the right organizers.


5 posted on 07/09/2020 12:54:40 AM PDT by robowombat (Orthodox)
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To: robowombat

Yes, this is true...human nature has proven this out, time and time again.


6 posted on 07/09/2020 6:39:13 AM PDT by Netz ( and looking for a way ti IMPROVE mankind.i)
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To: AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Arthur Wildfire! March; Berosus; Bockscar; cardinal4; ColdOne; ...

The Holocaust began before the Wannsee Conference (summer 1942); ordered to submit a final plan to accomplish it, Hitler’s creepy “man with the iron heart” Reinhard Heydrich began the killing with alacrity, I suspect in order to find the most efficient way of mass-murdering millions. The bastard got capped early in June 1942 (just for being an a**hole, not specifically for The Holocaust).

http://www.google.com/search?q=Wannsee+Conference


7 posted on 07/09/2020 11:57:51 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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To: elcid1970

When they kick our doors in. The if ship has sailed.


8 posted on 07/09/2020 3:31:06 PM PDT by sport
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To: robowombat

The Wotus and the Tutsis{sp?]I remember that.


9 posted on 07/09/2020 3:40:40 PM PDT by sport
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