Ninety Minutes.

90 Minutes;

That's all the time it took, on the 20^th day of January 1942,  exactly 75 years ago today,  for 15 high ranking members of the “German National Socialist Party” to confirm the cooperation of various Government Departments and to decide on the fate of millions of German, French, Italian, Polish, Hungarian and several other European countries' Jewish citizens.

Their fate was to be death.

Their death was to be “the Final Solution of the Jewish Problem”

This “Final Solution” was to be achieved by a variety of means: They were to be starved to death, shot to death and finally poisoned to death by various poison gas compounds.

Actually the decision had been made long ago, namely a few days after Hitler and his Gang of Killers had taken power in Germany in January of 1933.

This 90 minute meeting on the 20^th January 1942 in a Villa on the shores of the Wannsee (Lake Wann) was simply meant to confirm total cooperation of several different Departments and, to an extent, also the methodology to be employed for the extermination of Europe's Jewish population.

Of the 15 attendees, 8 carried the academic title of “Doctor”.

The only name, remembered by most, is that of “Obersturmbannführer ( Lieutenant Colonel ) Adolf Eichmann.

(Eichmann escaped after the War's end to Argentina, lived there for several years, was finally kidnapped by Israeli Special Forces, brought to Israel, charged with the crime of Genocide, convicted, and finally executed by hanging.)

Other members, present at this conference, died in subsequent war actions, or committed suicide, or just disappeared. Some were charged, incarcerated for some years and died of natural causes.

During this Conference, a list was produced of the number of Jews living in various European countries. Those, living within German Jurisdiction, were to be killed, men, women and children, not after the War, but, on Hitler's specific order, as soon as possible. Then the Holocaust was continued at an accelerated pace. A careful count by several independent research groups arrived at a number between 5,600,000 and 6,000,000 killed Jewish individuals.

Today, on the 20^th January, we stand in stunned silence, contemplating how 15 intelligent persons

( we presume their intelligence ) can coldbloodedly discuss the extermination of millions.

During his trial in Israel, Adolf Eichman testified, that the terminology used during the Conference was guarded and the expressions “killing” or “extermination” were usually circumscribed as “finding a final solution” or “transporting to the East.”

After the official part of the meeting “the participants, toasting each other with Cognac, and in a relaxed way, used the expression “extermination” freely and without hesitation.

Involved in this entire 12 years of shame were Doctors, Lawyers, Judges, Engineers, Industrialists, Teachers, simple Men and Women and Religious men of all stripes.

How could this happen?

Actually it was quite simple.

Bertstravels