Most neo-Nazis, White Supremacists, White Nazis and neo-Supremacists joke about the Holocaust from time to time. We chuckle at Irene Zisblatt’s insatiable appetite for diamonds, Herman Rosenblat’s infamous “it was real in my mind” line, Mr. Hubert’s reference to the eagle and the bear, and all those other wild and wacky claims.
This time, however, it was different for me. My smile turned upside down, my pipe dropped from my mouth, and I was forced to utter the unutterable: “Did the Holocaust happen after all?”
Yes, the following story is that believable.
It was an emotional meeting for a Holocaust survivor who had the chance to meet the relatives of the doctor who saved his life at a concentration camp multiple times.
Bernard Igielski, 91, says Dr. Bethold Epstein stepped in four times to keep him from the gas chamber at Auschwitz.
Epstein died in 1962, but on Thursday, Igielski had the chance to meet his nephew at the Gural Jewish Community Center in Long Island.
Epstein was a Jewish doctor who ran the hospital where Igielski was quarantined for scarlet fever.
It’s interesting to know that, despite their genocidal intent, the Nazis still chose to look after their Jewish prisoners in hospitals staffed with Jewish doctors. You’ve gotta admit that these Germans are the absolute masters at lulling their prey into a false sense of security.
To some extent, comparisons can be made with the four-legged nigger (or, to use the proletarian term, “pit bull”). Pit bulls have been selectively bred for suppressed behavioral indicators of aggression. This means that they remain friendly and placid around their future victims, biding their time until that “shocking” moment when they snap and leap for the nearest jugular.
Germans are the same. They treated their Jewish prisoners well, gave them swimming pools and hospitals in their camps… but they were just biding their time.
They knew where this was headed.
Fortunately for Bernard Igielski, Dr. Epstein knew where this was headed, too.
“Every two days they would come and clean out the hospital and take everybody to the gas chamber,” Igielski said. “Every time they came, he pushed me out the back door until they left.”
Ah, the old “shove the Jew through the door” trick.
Fooled many an Obergruppenführer, that one.
You doubters need to understand that the Nazis were very busy between 1942 and 1944. This was Peak Shoah, a time when the greatest number of Jews and their violins were incinerated in pedal-powered gas chambers. Once you take into account this busyness, which caused the death camps to descend into chaos, the possibility of a Jew being overlooked by the Nazis…
… four times…
… starts to make sense.
Igielski said it was very hard for him to express how he was feeling during the emotional reunion.
“I would have kissed the ground, I would have kissed his feet, he saved my life,” Igielski said.
Dr. Joseph Cohen remembers his uncle but didn’t know the whole story until now.
“I’m very moved by this,” Cohen said. “It’s gratifying to see how wonderful he behaved. I never knew about that.”
I’d have thought that Joseph Cohen’s uncle would have told his nephew about his heroic endeavors at Auschwitz.
Then again… maybe not. Jews tend to be a humble bunch, which is why we rarely hear about their suffering during World War II. In fact, we didn’t hear about the Holocaust at all until decades after the war, which, when you think about it, is a true testament to the Jews’ humility and self-restraint.
Honest people on the inside and out, these Jews.