The 'Kapo' Lesson

[VoluntaryAmerican]

If you ever find yourself in a concentration camp, you should realize that the opposing force will not have enough soldiers to imprison you. They will rely on the prisoners to police themselves, like the Kapo did during the holocaust.

The Kapo was a Jewish traitor who sold out his own people for preferential treatment, more food, nice clothes, and a room to himself.

"The moment he becomes a Kapo, he no longer sleeps with them. He is held accountable for the performance of the work, that they are clean, that the beds are well-built. [...] So, he must drive his men. The moment we become dissatisfied with him, he is no longer Kapo, he's back to sleeping with his men. And he knows that he will be beaten to death by them the first night."
—Heinrich Himmler, June 21, 1944


"The concentration camp system owed its stability in no small way to a cadre of kapos, who took over the daily operations of the camp, relieving the SS personnel. Thus, absolute power was ubiquitous. Without the delegation of power, the system of discipline and supervision would have promptly disintegrated. The rivalry over supervisory, administrative and warehouse functionary jobs was, for the SS, just a welcome opportunity to pit groups of prisoners against each other and keep them dependent. The normal prisoner, however, was at the mercy of a dual authority, the SS, who often hardly seemed to be at the camp, and the prisoner functionaries, who were always there."
—Eugen Kogon, concentration camp survivor

Does the Kapo traitor remind you of some people already in our society?

[juvanya]

George Soros was one of them.

[bunklocoempire]

Does the Kapo traitor remind you of some people already in our society?

Sometimes. Depends on how ignorant the person is of the situation.

[timosman]

https://www.jpost.com/Blogs/For-the-...s-Kapos-392967

03/04/2015

Search for the word “kapo” on the Jerusalem Post website and you will find a blizzard of hits, usually in the comments posted under articles.

Jerusalem Post columnists Gershon Baskin and Uri Savir are regularly assailed as “kapos” by certain readers for espousing pro-peace views. One sample from a column by Savir published last March: “Let's put it in simple words even a deluded madman like you or Kapo Baskin can comprehend; ANY JEW WHO WOULD DIVIDE JERUSALEM IS A TRAITOR TO HA'SHEM AND THE JEWISH PEOPLE. KAPO!!!”


The pejorative “kapo” is regularly thrown at peace activists, proponents of a two-state solution of a diplomatic resolution of the Iran crisis, human rights advocates and in general members of the progressive Zionist camp.

I am a target too. Every time I write an article, people start sending tweets labeling me as a kapo. There’s even a hashtag. I can take criticism and brush off insults -- but I do think we as Jews and Israelis should erase this horrible word from our public discourse. Our sages teach us that one of the reasons the Temple was destroyed was “sinat chinum” – gratuitous hatred among Jews. Use of this epithet is a classic example of sinat chimum.

Kapos were Jews who were enlisted by the SS during the Holocaust to serve as administrators or functionaries or trustees in the concentration and extermination camps. Quoting from the Jewish Virtual Library, “The German concentration camps depended on the cooperation of trustee inmates who supervised the prisoners. Known as Kapos, these trustees carried out the will of the Nazi camp commandants and guards, and were often as brutal as their SS counterparts. Some of these Kapos were Jewish, and even they inflicted harsh treatment on their fellow prisoners. For many, failure to perform their duties would have resulted in severe punishment and even death, but many historians view their actions as a form of complicity. After the war, the prosecution of Kapos as war criminals, particularly those who were Jewish, created an ethical dilemma which continues to this day.”


So the charge against dovish Jerusalem Post columnists is that they are the equivalent of Jews who collaborated with Nazis – that they are in effect aiding in the mass extermination of the Jewish people.


As the son of a Holocaust survivor, I worked for many years to create a fitting memorial at the Belzec extermination camp in Poland where my own grandparents were murdered (the memorial was inaugurated in 2005). So I find this accusation deeply offensive.


But this is not about my feelings. Use of this term is also corrosive to our democracy, both in Israel and the United States, which depends on the free exchange of ideas and vigorous debate. By labeling one’s political opponent a kapo, one is in effect saying that person’s views are outside the pale, that he or she is a traitor and a collaborator with Nazis or their modern-day equivalent.


Using that term to smear one’s political opponents is also profoundly arrogant. We all wish to believe that. faced with the impossible choice that confronted the Jews herded into concentration camps, we would unhesitatingly choose death over collaboration. But none of us were there; none of us faced that choice. We hope we would have behaved like heroes, but do we really know? As another Jewish-born sage remarked. "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone."


Interestingly, Israeli judges who presided over the trials of some accused kapos in the early years of the State of Israel handed down relatively lenient sentences. Author Idith Zertal, in her book, “Israel’s Holocaust and the Politics of Nationhood” writes: “The leniency displayed by the courts, even in the gravest abuse cases, stemmed, one would assume, from the impact of the ghastly pictures … the extreme borderline conditions in which people, robbed of their humanity, were essentially dead while still alive.”


So as I end this blog, I invite readers to comment freely. Please disagree, dispute my facts, rebut my arguments, present counter viewpoints, dissent from my premise, demolish my argument. But let’s debate with civility – and let’s banish this horrible term from our lexicon.