The Liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau -- Never Again

"[The Russian military has committed war crimes in Bucha and Mariupol comparable to Nazi crimes; inspired by a] similar sick megalomania [free people must not remain indifferent]."

"Being silent means giving voice to the perpetrators."

"Remaining indifferent is tantamount to condoning murder."

Piotr Cywinski, state museum director, Auschwitz

 

"Standing here today at this place of remembrance, Birkenau [Auschwitz-Birkenau], I follow with  horror the news from the east that the Russian army which liberated us here, is waging a war there in Ukraine."\

"Why? Why?"

Survivor Zdzislawa Wlodarezyk

Zvika Karavany, 72, a Yemeni-born Israeli, wipes his tears in front of the Death Wall in the former Nazi German concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz during ceremonies marking the 78th anniversary of the liberation of the camp in Oswiecim, Poland, Friday, Jan. 27, 2023. (AP Photo/Michal Dyjuk)

"So I was hiding out in the heap of dead bodies because in the last week when the crematoria didn’t function at all, the bodies were just building up higher and higher."

"So there I was at nighttime, in the daytime I was roaming around in the camp, and this is where I actually survived, January 27, I was one of the very first, Birkenau was one of the very first camps being liberated."

"This was my, my survival chance."

Bart Stern, Voices From Auschwitz,  United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

The Liberation of Auschwitz, USHMM

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is a horror, a dreadful example of a state under the control of a tyrannical aggressor hungry for power and prestige, willing to sacrifice Ukrainian and Russian lives to achieve his goal of the re-domination of Ukraine. The Russian military, under orders of Russian President Vladimir Putin, is committing war crimes. The indiscriminate bombing of civilian enclaves, hospitals, apartment blocks, theatres, shopping malls -- in the process killing civilian populations and destroying civil infrastructure, depriving millions of heat, light and water in the dead of winter, annexing territory and obliterating historical landmarks -- criminal acts of war.

Yet to compare the Holocaust, the systematic state annihilation through organized mass butchery of an ethnic-religious population is unparalled in the annals of modern history. What is happening to Ukraine is tragic, immoral and disgusting beyond words, but it is not a genocide, even while the nation's culture, tradition and heritage sites are threatened. Murder on a mass scale, the scheduled obliteration of a people, sparing none, remains unique to the German Nazi plans of the Final Solution.

Second Gentleman Douglas Emhoff, left, visits the former Nazi German concentration and extermination camp KL Auschwitz during ceremonies marking the 78th anniversary of the liberation of the camp in Oswiecim, Poland, Friday, Jan. 27, 2023. (AP Photo/Michal Dyjuk)

The emotionally passionate recall of the genocide has no equal in Ukraine. Ukraine is a state, it is a vast country, it has a military which nations surrounding it and others from the Western world of democracy have trained and armed, in the process supporting an effective fighting force determined to save their nation, their heritage and their population from Russian vandals. Jews had no nation, they were a diaspora, a nation in ancient historical exile yearning to return to their ancestral lands. No military supported their right to live, no mass outrage rang through the corridors of power among the Allied nations.

And now that the Jewish nation has been restored to its legendary homeland by an act of universal remorse it remains continually challenged by the vicious intransigence of neighbours who violently dissented against the presence of a Jewish state and in the lifetime that followed Israel's return, deadly assaults have never ceased, and the international community's post-war sympathy has evaporated, left a cynical, critical, jaundiced eye unmoved by the ongoing plight of a tiny nation struggling to contain the hatred and violence still threatening its survival.

People place candles at the former crematorium as they attend a ceremony in the former Nazi German concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz during ceremonies marking the 78th anniversary of the liberation of the camp in Brzezinka, Poland, Friday, Jan. 27, 2023. (AP Photo/MiBchal Dyjuk)

Remembering and recalling the dread fate in numbers too steep for the human mind to cope with -- the death of Jews, Roma, Homosexuals, Mentally and Physically handicapped, political dissenters, Jehovah's Witnesses in staggering numbers, as fascist Germany focused on disinheriting the lives of those considered to be enemies of the Third Reich and unsuitable to live among Aryans -- still reels the mind. The vast complex of annihilation  took the lives of 1.1 million people, young and old, mostly Jews, during World War II.

The complex stands in ruins, a mute and grisly symbol of the most degraded stage of humanity's fall from grace, reeking of evil in the horrors that were perpetrated there. At the commemoration of the78th anniversary of its liberation, when the world could no longer avert its eyes to the mass tragedy, and was faced with the reality of living corpses in striped garb shuffling to meet their liberators, it represents the supreme irony that the very army that liberated the camps was that of the Soviet Union, once part of the Axis, then with the Allies when Germany turned on Russia, marking the turn of its fortunes.

The very country whose troops liberated Auschwitz-Birkenau was persona non grata at the memorial to the liberation it had achieved. Unlike previous years when a Russian delegation was present and honoured to pay its respects to the innumerable victims of Nazi ideology, the successor to the Soviet Union and its current president whose actions mirror in many respects that of the Nazis, received no invitation to attend. Russia's reputation is now as black in most people's estimation as their recall of Nazi Germany.

What is happening in Ukraine struck Bogdan Bartnikowski, a 91-year-old Pole, as he saw news coverage of Ukrainian refugees fleeing Russian troops invading their country, among them a small girl in a crowd of refugees, her mother holding her hand and the child holding her teddy bear, "It was literally a blow to the head for me because I suddenly saw, after almost 80 years, what I had seen in a freight car when I was being transported (at age 12) to Auschwitz. A little girl was sitting next to me, hugging a doll to her chest". 

People walk next to the ''Arbeit Macht Frei" (Work Sets You Free) gate at the former Nazi German concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau in Oswiecim, Poland, Thursday, Jan. 26, 2023. Survivors of Auschwitz-Birkenau are gathering to commemorate the 78th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi German death camp in the final months of World War II, amid horror that yet another war has shattered the peace in Europe. The camp was liberated by Soviet troops on Jan. 27, 1945. (AP Photo/Michal Dyjuk)

Imperial Warmonger

"What we're doing today, including with our special operation, is an attempt to stop this war and protect our people who live on these territories."

Russian President Vladimir Putin

 

"[The only way to stop] this Russian aggression [is with] adequate weapons. The terrorist state will not understand anything else."

"Today, thanks to the air defense systems provided to Ukraine and the professionalism of our warriors, we managed to shoot down most of the Russian missiles and Shaheds,.".

"Unfortunately, it is difficult to provide 100% protection with air defense alone. Especially when terrorists use ballistic missiles."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy

"I'm left without anything. Not a single room is left intact, everything got hit."

"At first, I heard a roar. And then there was an extremely loud strike that made me jump up. I was in the bedroom."

"I was saved by the fact that the bedroom is to the other side of the house."

Halyna Panosyan, 67,Hlevakha near Kyiv 

People check a destroyed house after a Russian rocket attack in Hlevakha, Kyiv region, Ukraine, Jan. 26, 2023.

 

“I think that this latest development in terms of armed supply is just an evolution of the situation and of the way Russia started moving the war into a different stage."

“[Russian President Vladimir] Putin has moved from a concept of [a] special [military] operation to a concept now of a war against NATO and the West."

European External Action Service Secretary-General Stefano Sannino

 

Ukrainian policemen stand in front of a damaged residential building after a Russian shelling in Kherson, southern Ukraine, on 29 January 2023. Photograph: Genya Savilov/AFP/Getty Images

 

Russia, in a fury over the newly announced release of Germany's Leopard tanks to the Ukrainian military in anticipation of a spring advance planned by the Kremlin, lost no time in venting its ire by targeting civilian infrastructure and energy grids all over Ukraine, well beyond the front lines. The hard-won Western pledges of dozens of battlefield tanks in an effort to repel the Russian invasion led Moscow to implode with fury.

This response was hardly a new and different one totally unexpected, since Moscow regularly responded to any battlefield successes realized by Ukrainian counteroffensive forces with massed air strikes leaving millions without light, heat or water. Some 15 of the total of 24 drones Russia sent over Ukraine targeted Kyiv along with 47 of 55 Russian missiles some of which were fired from Tu95 strategic bombers in the Russian Arctic.

As people headed to work, sirens blared, spurring crowds to take cover in underground metro stations. The strikes, spanning eleven regions, hit apartment blocks, twisting corrugated metal, crumpling masonry and creating craters. Missiles damaged energy facilities in Odesa, the Black Sea port that UNESCO designated a "World Heritage in Danger" site. "What we saw today, new strikes on civilian Ukrainian infrastructure, is not waging war, it's waging war crimes" stated French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna.

The Russian anti-ship missiles were designed to sink aircraft carriers, not aim for civilian apartment blocks. Moscow is responsible for dead, maimed and missing civilians in Ukraine. Terrorism has become Russia's driving force of intimidating imperialism. Wagner Group mercenaries have been exceedingly helpful to Russia's cause of  'protecting' Russian minorities living in the Soviet Union's former satellite countries.

 

Mikhael Klimentyev/Sputnik

 

Nothing deters Vladimir Putin, nothing gives him second thoughts, not even the perishability of his own servicemen, sacrificed to his ambition to the tune of up to 500 succumbing daily to the Ukrainian resistance along the 850-mile front line. "They just throw in bodies until something collapses. Their equipment is crap, their weapons are crap, but these human waves are killing us", stated Dan Bilak, Canadian lawyer turned Ukrainian territorial defence soldier.

 

Nina Kovalenko, 66, crying over the body of her son Mykhailo Kovalenko, 36, who was killed in a strike on Saturday in Kostyantynivka, in eastern Ukraine.Credit...Lynsey Addario for The New York Times

Rumours are afloat now of a new Russian offensive coming from Belarus where a buildup of troops and equipment is currently underway, presumably to aim at western Ukraine, its goal to cut off supply routes for NATO arms entering from Poland, and in the process prepare for a new assault on Kyiv. Vladimir Putin is anxious to achieve a resounding victory, sick of the humiliations Ukraine has delivered to him on the battlefield.

Should events turn in Mr. Putin's favour, Moldova, Georgia, the Baltic republics and Eastern Europe countries have good reason to tremble in anticipation of a replay on their own soil.  In the pursuit of his mission, the President of Russia has engaged the world with few exceptions in a new phenomenon of Russiaphobia. Vladimir Putin is more comfortable basking in sycophantic admiration than he is in isolation.

He is a master of the unpredictable. Russia's possession of nuclear arms ensures that the suspense and fear of hasty decision-making in a frenzy of frustration and anger could lead him to errors of  judgement. The fact that twenty-five countries are firmly aligned against his ambitions to the extent of pledging and providing financial and materiel support to Ukraine at this juncture in tense history foretells Russia's fate, win or lose. 

A Ukrainian serviceman gets ready to fire with a mortar from a position not far from Bakhmut, Donetsk region on Jan. 27, 2023, amid Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The Red Dragon Versus Land of the Rising Sun

"Meanwhile, short-sighted economic policies -- are undermining the integrated world economy that underpins both American prosperity and global peace."

"[Japan is increasing its defence spending reacting to U.S. foreign policy established under G.W.Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden] -- two decades of passive incompetence [that failed to anticipate, counter or deter China's massive military buildup]."

"A perverse synthesis of Trumpian trade policy, half-baked green energy initiatives and knee-jerk, progressive regulatory overreach won't make the world a safer or better place."

Walter Russell Mead, Professor of Foreign Affairs and Humanities at Bard College ... Annandale-on-Hudson, New York

Japanese fighter aircraft at Chitose air base in Hokkaido prefecture. Photograph: Kazuhiro Nogi/AFP/Getty Images

Japan considers China's new aggressive policies a direct threat; its "biggest security challenge", leading the Japanese government to declare its intention to increase military spending to a dramatic extent; $51.4 billion for 2023 alone and over five years a total of $318 billion "to deal with the most severe and complex security environment since World War II". 

This commitment represents a total shift distancing the country from its post-World War II position when it pledged and wrote into law that its military serve solely in a defensive capacity. The Japanese military, in fact, has been in bad odour with the Japanese public. A public which viewed the military as a necessary evil to be tolerated and nothing more. For decades following the end of World War II, a member of the Japanese military appearing in public in military uniform risked being mobbed by angry citizens.

And so military personnel en route to military headquarters or other military sites would wear their civilian clothing, and then change into uniform once they reached their destination. Now, the nation has committed itself to spending roughly two percent of its GDP in a five-year period with the aim to purchase and develop missiles with an expanded range enabling Japan to hit targets as distant as China should it conclude an attack is imminent.

Japan is prepared to build its own long-range missiles and in the interim to procure 500 American-produced Tomahawks in the short term giving it counter-strike capabilities. This, despite an uneasy public opinion poll indicating that only 56 percent of its population indicated support for plans to enable their military to attack foreign bases.

Despite shifting public opinion there is still considerable opposition to increasing military spending in Japan  EPA

Japan's plans apart from 104-35A and 52 F-35B fighter jets from the U.S. they are to expend among other major purchases next generation fighter jets partnering with the U.K. and Italy and with the same partners, developing a new air-to-air missile. Ranked globally after the U.S., China, Russia and India, Japan is fifth in overall military power currently, but with its new defence budget hoisting it upward to third place. Its alliances with the West meant to help counter the growing influence and belligerence expressed by both China and North Korea.

The current quality of American leadership and commitment represents a thorn in conventional trust in the globe's sole global power's commitment level beyond its own security. Washington's traditional allies are experiencing diminished confidence in its leadership, stimulating Japan to expand its partnerships and joint military exercises to Australia, the U.K., France and others, along with ASEAN nations.

With China testing the waters as it were, by firing missiles approaching Japan's southern islands in a show of military force around Taiwan, the level of tension rose. North Korea further stoked tensions by firing a missile into Japan's 200-mile Exclusive Economic zone in Northwestern Japan in September. In reaction to Japan's announcement of increasing defence spending, North Korea fired two missiles in Japan's direction.

Japanese fighter planes scrambled over 200 times in 2020, two-0thirds of those events targeted Chinese war planes, the remainder in response to Russian provocation. Japan is forced to enhance its maritime security in response to China's rapid expansion of the size and capability of its naval force.  Defence of the southwestern Nansei Islands and the disputed Senkaku Islands in the East china Sea a mater of national security..

The Uzushio-class submarine of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) sails during the International Fleet Review to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the foundation of JMSDF, at Sagami Bay, off Yokosuka, south of Tokyo, Japan November 6, 2022. REUTERS/Issei Kato/Pool/

China is less than favourably impressed by Japan's declaration of its new defence commitment. Beijing denounced the new strategy as "a dangerous step that would lead Asian nations to question Japan's commitment to peace"; beyond irony, given Beijing's lack of commitment to peace with its neighbours as evidenced by its constant claims and provocatively aggressive acts of 'ownership'. 

 

According to the Chinese Embassy in Tokyo, Japan's decision would "provoke regional tension and confrontation".

North Korea had plenty to declare over Japan's plans, citing them as "a serious challenge to international peace and security"; Pyongyang would continue to ramp up missile and other weapons testing in its own defence, it declared. Beyond hilarious, if it weren't so serious..      

"Unfortunately in the vicinity of our country, there are countries carrying out activities such as enhancement of nuclear capability, a rapid military build-up and unilateral attempt to change the status quo by force."  

"These are also now becoming more outstanding. In the next five years, in order to fundamentally reinforce our defence capabilities we will implement a defence build-up program worth 43 trillion yen ($314bn; £257bn)."  

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida

Members of the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force (JGSDF) on parade, November 2021. EPA-EFE/Kiyoshi Ota/poo

German Intransigence on Ukraine Military Materiel

"It was right and it is important that we didn't let ourselves be driven [into making the decision]."

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz

 

"With spring approaching, Ukrainian forces are working to defend the territory they hod and preparing for additional counter offences."

"To liberate their land, they need to be able to counter Russia's evolving tactics and strategy on the battlefield in the very near term."

U.S. President Joe Biden

 

"German main battle tanks, further broadening of defence support and training missions, green light for partners to supply similar weapons."

"Just heard about these important and timely decisions in a call with Olaf Scholz."

"Sinecrely grateful to the chancellor and all our friends in [Germany]."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy

Germany's Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has come under pressure to supply Ukraine with Leopard 2 tanks   Reuters

All NATO members were in agreement; it was necessary to work together as a supportive team to render to Ukraine all the support it needed -- both in terms of expressions of support and the supply of military weapons -- to allow the country to continue defying the intentions of the Kremlin to return Ukraine to a vassal state. Finally, it has been decided; France, the U.K., the U.S., Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, (Canada) and Sweden are to send hundreds of tanks and heavy armoured vehicles to help fortify Ukraine's efforts to break through entrenched Russian lines on Ukrainian territory.

It has been weeks of speculation finally come to a crescendo, and a conclusion. Ukraine repeatedly asked its allies to send it tanks so it could counter Moscow's suspected plans of moving forward again with heavy armed vehicles once spring arrives. When the terrain, now semi-frozen, and as winter wears on, will become a bog, and finally settle into a hard, dry landscape once again able to hold the weight of tons of steel, enabling the Russian military to launch another assault to retake territory the Ukrainian counteroffensive liberated.

The tense anxiety over Germany's steadfast reluctance to release large arms just as fellow NATO members were urging and themselves committing to, has finally come to a head. German prevarication, citing its sense of responsibility after its horrendous performance in World War II and the Holocaust years, restrained it from become embroiled in a situation that could conceivably lead to another world war; it was fearful of escalating the situation into a wider conflict from the Ukraine-Russia theatre.

How very noble, somewhat tardy but Germany has officially discovered its conscience, taking full responsibility for forcing years of viciously destructive conflict on the world, for destroying tens of millions of lives. Well, what if there was a different, more complicated backstory that might be substantially less noble that caused Germany to balk and play for time over supplying Ukraine with the means to defend itself? 

 

Many issues raise themselves for scrutiny by a jaundiced eye. Take the mid-2000s when investment in new pipelines for greater access to plentiful and inexpensive Russian gas reserves, bypassing the pipelines that ran through Poland and Ukraine, despite being warned of the potential for security implications of such pipelines. Where Germany would be crucially dependent on Russian gas and Moscow could get on with its near-abroad expansion plans wile continuing energy exports.

 

In years past Russia punished Ukraine and Western Europe with diminished gas flows as a method of control and discipline when Moscow felt so inclined. There is also the issue of elite German political figures being drawn into the Russian sphere of energy influence; Gerhard Schroeder with his close relations with Moscow and President Putin leading his advocacy for Nord Stream 1.  A project for which he was eventually pleased to act as chairman; what! a former chancellor chairing another country's energy project?!

 

For his troubles he is reputed to have been graced with $1 million annually from Russian gas companies. Succeeding Schroeder, Angela Merkel opposed Ukraine's request for NATO membership, believing Vladimir Putin could be reasoned with. The Nord Stream 2 pipeline was approved in 2015 by Frau Merkel, a year following President Putin's instigated rebel war in eastern Ukraine, and Moscow's occupation of Crimea and its annexation. Her successor, Olaf Scholz is a Schroeder protege.

 

In 2021 two senior German officials at the German economic ministry were investigated for their roles in energy supply while spying for Russia.A senior ruling government official last year installed a fraudulent environmental foundation enabling Moscow to bypass U.S. sanctions, receiving 192 million euros from Gazprom, used to help complete Nord Stream 2. This operation was known to both Chancellors Merkel and Scholz.

 

At a time when Russian gas represented 55 percent of Germany's energy supply, Moscow's threats to cut energy exports to Europe was linked to its unspoken pressure to allow Russia its invasion of Ukraine without interference. It was only under intense pressure from other NATO members that Germany was forced to supply Ukraine with war materiel, although it continued to balk at sending them Leopard 2 tanks, and to refuse to give permission for their tanks owned by other countries to release them to Ukraine.

 

Lacking Berlin's approval, German-manufactured military weapons by law may not be re-exported elsewhere. The German government, in fact, did not reflect the opinion of the majority German population, in its refusal to allow military materiel to be sent to Ukraine. Its major focus as a government reflected the economic fallout from its loss of German gas supplies.

A German Leopard tank during exercises   Getty Images

Guilty as Charged

"In the final analysis, the court does not retain the hodgepodge of explanations provided by Gabriel Sohier Chaput about his writings."

"[The court] rejects his entire account, because his explanations leave no doubt. The court finds that the explanations provided are specious, insincere, opportunistic, deceptive, far-fetched, implausible, concealers of the truth, and were cobbled together to conceal the true intention of the accused."

"[Sohier Chaput] intentionally promoted hatred, through the Daily Stormer platform, against people of Jewish faith."

"The evidence in this regard is overwhelming. In closing, allow [myself] to make the following observation: the victims [Jews and other groups] of the Holocaust and also the victims of other genocides perpetrated throughout history, as well as their families deserve to be left in peace. The suffering they have been put through is inexpressible and defies the meaning of humanity."

Quebec Court Judge Manlio Del Negro, Montreal

"We need to make sure no [social justice warrior] or Jew can remain safely untriggered."

"[2017] will be the year of action."

"Non-stop Nazism, everywhere, until the very streets are flooded with the tears of our enemies."

'Zeiger' aka Sohier Chaput, Dailu Stormer

Gabriel Sohier Chaput aka 'Zeiger'

A series of articles published by the Montreal Gazette in 2018 described Gabriel Sohier Chaput as one of North America's most prominent writers on the Daily Stormer, an infamous, race-baiting, antisemitic rag of a far-right news website. Sohier Chaput was linked in the articles to the Zeiger pseudonym he signed off with when publishing hundreds of articles on the website of the Daily Stormer where it was pointed out that he organized meetings for a local neo-Nazi group.

The publishing of the Montreal Gazette articles in a display of investigative journalism uncovering the  presence and influence of a coterie of neo-Nazis and fascists actively working to denigrate, demonize, slander and harass Jews and their institutions led B'nai Brith Canada to file a complaint to the Montreal police. This led to a warrant being issued for the man's arrest in 2018.

 

Andrew Anglin, Founder, Daily Stormer

Sohier Chaput was charged under the Criminal Code with willful promotion of hatred "by communicating statements, other than in private conversation, [that] willfully promote hatred against any identifiable group". On conviction, the charge carries a maximum penalty of a two-year sentence in prison. When the trial began a year ago, Helene Poussard, the defence lawyer, stated that while her client was guilty of having posted between 800 and 1,000 items under the Zeiger pseudonym he was within his constitutional rights.

 

His writings were repugnant, stressed the lawyer, but he had a right to post them under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Her argument failed to impress Justice Del Negro, who ordered that Sohier Chaput be taken into custody. Since the warrant was issued for his arrest in 2018 he had never been earlier detained. "There is nothing ironic in the fact that millions of Jewish people and others were exterminated during the Holocaust orchestrated by the Nazis ... it is one of the saddest events in the history of humanity."

 

Members of the Montreal Antifascist collective protested outside of the courthouse Friday, as closing arguments resumed in the hate propaganda trial of Gabriel Sohier-Chaput. The 35-year-old Montreal man appeared in court by video conference. (Radio-Canada)

 

Approaching Doomsday

"The Doomsday Clock is sounding an alarm for the whole of humanity. We are on the brink of a precipice."

"But our leaders are not acting at sufficient speed or scale to secure a peaceful and livable planet."

Mary Robinson, former United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights

"Even if nuclear use is avoided in Ukraine, the war has challenged the nuclear order — the system of agreements and understandings that have been constructed over six decades to limit the dangers of nuclear weapons."

Steve Fetter, dean, graduate school and professor of public policy, University of Maryland

 

"We are living in a time of unprecedented danger, and the Doomsday Clock time reflects that reality."

"Ninety seconds to midnight is the closest the clock has ever been set to midnight, and it's a decision our experts do not take lightly."

Bulletin president and CEO Rachel Bronson  

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists announced that it has moved the minute hand of the Doomsday Clock to 90 seconds to midnight. From left,, Siegfried Hecker, Daniel Holz, Sharon Squassoni, Mary Robinson and Elbegdorj Tsakhia with the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists remove a cloth covering the Doomsday Clock at a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington on Tuesday. Patrick Semansky/AP

There is much to despair over in this world; never-ending regional conflicts, the state of the environment, deadly pathogens cutting a swath through the world in a declared pandemic, faltering economies, terrorism, agricultural disasters leaving populations in dire need of food, rampant wildfires, disastrous floods, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, burgeoning refugee numbers resulting from conflict, unstoppable waves of economic migrants. These threaten world stability, but do not necessarily augur doom.

And while the scientists and activists engaged with the work of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists and its annual reports alerting the world to an ever-increasing  approach of doom, mentioned nuclear weapon proliferation in China, increasing uranium enrichment in Iran, provocatively aggressive missile tests in North Korea, and potential for future disastrous pandemics passing from animal to human in zoonitic disease transmission, "disruptive technologies" and increasing climate change representative of existential threats to humanity, the focus was on the Ukraine-Russian war.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the Russian president's occasional threat pointing to his country's nuclear arsenal and special nuclear military alerts, along with Vladimir Putin's bringing the violent conflict to the doorstep of Europe's largest nuclear station with its six reactors in Zaporizhzhia, the second hand of fate on Earth moved inexorably closer to Armageddon. The advocacy group hoping to influence society to the closer approach of all-consuming danger, moved the 'Doomsday Clock' to 90 seconds before midnight.

"We are really closer to that doomsday", former Mongolian president Elbegdorj Tsakhis said at the annual announcement on Tuesday, emphasizing how close humanity has become to finalizing life on Earth. The existential threats related to the actions and words of Russian leader Vladimir Putin, representing the ultimate threat of annihilation of humanity. "People and scientists are warning us and we have to wake up now", he urged.

The clock was visualized as a motif in 1947 by the advocacy group, symbolic of the potential and possibility of the world community posing a grim risk to its longevity as a race peopling this planet Earth. The clock was moved 10 seconds closer to the dreaded midnight than it had been last year. This is the closest the threat has ever reached to strike midnight. Following the collapse of the Cold War with the disintegration of the Soviet Empire and relaxed tensions worldwide of a cataclysmic encounter with the use of nuclear weapons, the clock was moved to 17 minutes from midnight.

In the years to follow the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists saw a gradual transition from counting down minutes to midnight to exchanging minutes for seconds in an ongoing alert of worldwide danger of the collapse of civilization. For the very first time, the grim announcement was made in both the Russian and Ukrainian languages to emphasize and directly implicate and alert the main antagonists in potential results of an escalating and ever more dangerous conflict with the risks involved of a wider world war.

 

IAEA

The Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant in Ukraine.

 

Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

"Photographs depicting the smoke over the ghetto as well as in the streets and courtyards inside the ghetto, burnt-out houses, firefighters putting out the flames, posing on the roof of a building or eating from mess tins in the street." 

"It seems that Leszek Grzywaczewski tried his best to record these scenes, realizing the importance of documenting events inaccessible to the eyes of people on the other side of the ghetto wall."

POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, Warsaw

 

"The Germans began to systematically burn down the buildings, turning the ghetto into a fire trap." "The Jews fought valiantly for a month until the Germans took over the focal points of resistance."

"It was the first popular uprising in a city in Nazi-occupied Europe."

Yad Vashem, World Holocaust Remembrance Center, Israel

  USHMM Warsaw, Poland, between 1940 and 1943

On October 12, 1940, German military authorities occupying Poland decreed establishment of a ghetto in Poland's capital, Warsaw. The decree required all Jewish residents of the city to move into a designated area sealed from the rest of the city. The ghetto was enclosed by a wall 10 feet in height capped by barbed wire, closely guarded to prevent movement between the ghetto and the rest of Warsaw. 

 

The population of the ghetto was increased with Jews compelled to move there from nearby towns, the final total of ghetto residents estimated to be over 400,000. Ghetto residents were forced to live in an area of 1.3 square miles, equal to an average of 7.2 persons per room. Food was scarce and hunger was rampant.

Some young men and women ventured out of the ghetto over the walls at night or through underground sewer tunnels, to bring back outside news, to return with food, and eventually some joined the Polish Underground movement. Others brought back whatever weapons they could find. Over time a cache of weapons was built representing the armoury put to use in time by the resisters of the Warsaw Ghetto. Comprised mostly of young Jews who resolved to fight and to die in the effort. And they did -- accomplishing both goals.

Photographs of the period have been placed at various memorial sites; mostly photographs taken for recording purposes by German forces, addicted to record-keeping and maintenance. As though proud of their accomplioshments and determined to ensure a precise accounting of all measures taken in the extermination of Europe's Jews. To indicate how efficient and proficient they were, tasked by their Fuhrer to rid the world of the presence of Jews.

 

Smuggling was how most people in the ghetto got food, and children were often the ones sneaking out of the ghetto to do it. nieznany/unknown via Wikimedia Commons

A newly discovered cache of personal photographs, the property of a young Polish firefighter of the time, highlights the destruction the Nazis brought to the tight little enclave where Jews were fenced in, many dying of disease or starvation. When the German military became aware of a planned uprising they must have been astonished that a paltry few ill-equipped Jews had the temerity to fight back, and in fact manage to counter an offensive and keep the Germans at bay for a month; a rag-tag, starving group of Jews countering the mighty German military.

The German authority had begun slowly selecting Jews for deportation to the Treblinka extermination camp wth its goal to "eliminate the Jewish population". An estimated 265,000 Jews were deported from July to September of 1942, wth another 35,000 killed outright in the ghetto itself. This brought Jewish resistance groups to plan a response. The illusion that anyone would survive the ghetto  when the war eventually came to an end dissipated as the ghetto incarcerants began to realize they were all slated for death.

 

Starvation was omnipresent in the Warsaw Ghetto for both young and old. Blid Bundesarchiv/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

 

The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was sparked by the evacuation of Jews to certan death. During the final days of the uprising the Nazis ended the Jewish resistance by setting the ghetto on fire. The German military called on Warsaw firefighters to make certain the blaze "did not spread to the houses on the 'Aryan' side", according to the POLIN Museum, located on the site of the former Warsaw Ghetto.

A yuung Zbigniew Leszek Grzywaczewski, 23 years of age, began snapping pictures while pursuing his duties as a civilian firefighter. Images show buildings on fire, smoke billowing, firefighting crews and Jews evacuated from the ghetto. The photographs, since the negatives were found by a son of the photographer, represent the sole known photos taken by a non-German.

A dozen of the 48 shots on the roll of negatives were published previously as prints, held at the Holocaust Museum in Washington and the Jewish Historical Institute. The POLIN Museum now possesses photographs never before seen. The negatives are now to be featured in an exhibition titled "Around Us a Sea of Fire" in honour of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising's 80th anniversary, at the POLIN Museum.

Jews captured during the Warsaw ghetto uprising. Poland, April 19–May 16, 1943. National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD

Russia's 'Special Military Operation'

"I attended the funerals of young men the age of my sons. I've met women who saw their husbands summarily executed by Russian troops. I met people missing limbs, or handicapped from war wounds, often in the prime of life."

"Not yet a year into this war and the casualties, military and civilians, Ukrainians and Russians are already over 200,000. To what end?"

"The Russian invasion of Ukraine, this great madness, has laid bare the weaknesses of a corrupt and ill-equipped army that struggles to hold territory but can still inflict death on a nightmarish scale."

"The easy victory Vladimir Putin thought was his in a week, has turned into a bloody quagmire."

Paule Robitaille, Quebec journalist journeying through the former Soviet Union

 

"They just throw in bodies [as new Russian conscripts at the front line] until something collapses." 

"Their equipment is crap, their weapons are crap, but these human waves are killing us."

Dan Bilak, foreign volunteer, Ukrainian territorial defence

"What we're doing today including with our special operation, is an attempt to stop this war and protect our people who live on these territories."

Russian President Vladimir Putin

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This is the explanation Mr. Putin gave in 2014 when he annexed the Crimean Peninsula and armed ethnic Russian Ukrainian rebels living in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region. This is what conquest of foreign regions is all about; claiming another nation's geography as one's own by sending in colonies of ethnics to give weight to the conquering state's power and entitlements. During the Soviet era of occupation of its satellite neighbours, ethnic Russians moved to the new territory as settlers consolidating Russian primacy.

Russians living in the 'near abroad' are used by the Kremlin in its stealth movements and threats of reoccupation, of restoring the territories controlled by the USSR. And Mr. Putin's explanation of Russia's obligation to uphold the right of ethnic Russians in protection of their language, their customs, their history and their political aims that coordinate with Moscow's gives the entitlement of forceful entry and violent conflict. As happened in Georgia, and then Ukraine's Luhansk and Donetsk provinces in the Donbas.

Russia, portraying Ukraine as the aggressor, and itself as the liberator. The approach that fascism rules supreme in Ukraine and it is Russia's mission to save Ukraine from itself. Ukrainians have not, by and large, honoured that scenario. The 'liberating' Russian military has flaunted all modern and universally accepted protocols of warfare focusing on sparing civilian populations direct conflict, left to the battlefield of opposing armies. 

 

The wholesale destruction of the Ukraine power grid in an effort to bring the country to its knees, the deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure, hospitals, schools, markets, apartment blocks, belies Moscow's protests at charges of war crimes. Mass graves, bodies lying in the street, direct witness accounts of human rights violations committed by Russian troops before withdrawing under Ukrainian counterattacks are more than ample evidence of the war crimes committed by Russia

With the help of the Wagner Group mercenaries, of Ramzan Kadyrov's Chechen military threat, the militias of the ethnic Russian separatist militias and others the Ukrainian counteroffensive has had its struggle cut out, but has acquitted itself admirably in retaining captured towns and villages and pushing Russian forces back to the front lines. An estimated 500 military deaths daily in heated combat appears not to have persuaded the Kremlin to pull back and pull out of its ill-designed 'special military operation'. 

The Ukrainian resistance, the level of determination and courage demonstrated by a military whose members only in the last several years were exposed to modern military strategies by NATO-member training sessions and supplied, hesitantly at first, then with growing impetus in larger, more effective military resources to counteract the Russian advance, surprised the world at large and gave heart to the Baltic nations who know that should Ukraine fall, they will be next; Estonia, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova among others.

 

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"[Ukraine is anxious for supporting nations to send Leopard 2 tanks and to] immediately, officially request the German government to allow delivery of these tanks to Ukraine". 

"This is the move that will make the whole situation crystal clear and we will see where it takes Germany. This is something that needs to be done right away and everything will become obvious."  

"[I am] confident [Germany would supply the tanks eventually]: We already received British Challenger. They said it would be impossible... Every time in the end we obtained the desired result. We will have it this time as well."

Ukraine Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba

"An Immigration Plan to Grow the Economy"

"Last year Canada welcomed over 405,000 newcomers - the most we’ve ever welcomed in a single year. The Government is continuing that ambition by setting targets in the new levels plan of 465,000 permanent residents in 2023, 485,000 in 2024 and 500,000 in 2025. The plan also brings an increased focus on attracting newcomers to different regions of the country, including small towns and rural communities."

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, Government of Canada

 

"It's hard to see  how the increased demand for both  health and housing that would accompany large increases in immigration [assuming  no other policy changes] would not further strain both systems."

"We need immigration for other economic reasons."

Arvind Magesan, economist, University of Calgary

 

"Government talks about immigrants as if they're going to the immigrant store and picking up a few."

"Even people born within a privilege situation in Canada are finding it hard to move beyond renting and working. Immigrants are coming and they're even less privileged."
"That doesn't seem to be a concern that's registering with the government. It's a very predatory situation."

Stephen Punwasi, co-founder, data journalism website Better Dwelling

Canada is aiming to welcome 500,000 newcomers in 2025, and one of the goals is to help fill jobs with skilled workers. (Patrick Morrell/CBC)

"According to the federal government’s own website, a skilled tradesperson applying to come to Canada today would have their application processed within 47 months – one month shy of four years. The express program for provincial nominees stands at 15 months."

"There is a strong need for skilled trades but someone facing a four-year wait just to be processed is likely to look elsewhere. Demand for immigrants is high in developed countries and Canada will need to improve its system to compete."

"We also need to do more to ensure the people we do welcome can flourish once here. The immigration department’s own website states that 'Overall immigrant and refugee earnings match the Canadian average about 12 years after arrival'."

"How can Canada attract the best and brightest with processing times like this?

"A 12-year timeframe for immigrants to catch up to Canadian-born citizens is too long. Part of the reason is there are too many barriers still in place stopping people from being able to find meaningful and lucrative work once they arrive."

"There are also problems we haven’t touched on like the lack of housing and transportation infrastructure to handle so many new people each year and, sadly, the Trudeau government too often stands in the way."

Toronto Sun editorial

Pew Research found through a global survey in 2019 that Canada  stood out among its peer countries with the belief that immigration "makes our country stronger". Canada was ranked the world's most migrant-friendly nation through a Gallup survey of 2020. A 2022 poll by the Environics Institute found 58 percent of Canadians backed the belief that Canada "needs more immigrants".

 

While many countries are increasingly suspicious of migration, Canadians tend to welcome immigrants into their neighbourhoods, generally unconcerned whether immigrants are prepared to integrate into Canadian society, and they view immigration critical to the future of the country. Recently the Angus Reid Institute asked Canadians if they felt immigrants were taking their jobs and 71 percent responded "no". 

Among Canada's political parties there is no anti-immigration sentiment. Recent months, however, have seen an opposite trend among Canadians with respect to the government's new accelerated immigration numbers that have risen over 40 percent in the past few years. A record-breaking 431,645 permanent residents entered Canada last year. On a per-capita basis, Canada now brings in four times more immigrants than another historically high-immigration country, our neighbour to the south.

Canadians are now concerned with the nation's universal health care system, with housing and with social welfare infrastructure. Health care in Canada, already overstretched in capacity before the pandemic struck, has since been barely limping along, failing dismally to look after the health needs of the population, with surgeries cancelled and delayed and hospital emergency wards closing down, unable to cope with the influx of emergency cases.

 

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A November poll commissioned by the Association of Canadian Studies saw half of respondents expressing the belief that Canada was welcoming "too many" immigrants. 75 percent of all respondents expressed "concern" relating to what the immigrant surge could result in for the country's immediate future. Most of the skepticism stems from a fear that two of the country's most defining crises -- housing affordability and health-care shortages -- will be negatively impacted by greater immigration numbers.

Canada has the distinction of having the most acute housing shortage of any country in the G7; home prices since 2000 have become too steep for normal people to buy up available stock. Canada came last in the OECD's ranking of housing prices in comparison to average incomes last year. Wait times for health care --never very reassuring -- are so acute now that Canadians are treated to news of patients dying in hospital emergency rooms.

 

A poll by the Institute for Canadian Citizenship last year found that among recent university-educated immigrants now in Canada, up to a quarter were re-thinking their future, making plans to leave the country, disappointed in their experiences to date. "Many new Canadians are having a crisis of confidence in Canada -- and that should be ringing alarm bells all over Ottawa", remarked ICC CEO Daniel Bernhard.

About one in four Canadians came to the country as an immigrant     Getty Images