Is Kitty Hart-Moxon a plagiarist?

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David Green
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Re: Is Kitty Hart-Moxon a plagiarist?

#136

Post by David Green » 21 Jan 2018, 00:23

Sergey Romanov wrote:I have it in German, so no...
I will be working from the original English 1961 I Am Alive and Return to Auschwitz (1985) Atheneum, New York.

michael mills
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Re: Is Kitty Hart-Moxon a plagiarist?

#137

Post by michael mills » 21 Jan 2018, 01:44

You forgot Durchgangsjuden.
As I understand it, "Durchgangsjuden" were a sub-category of "Transportjuden", in that they were not sent to Auschwitz as individuals and they were not registered. The difference was that they were not killed on arrival but were held in the camp unregistered awaiting transfer to other camps. Nevertheless, they were still subject to the whims of the camp staff, and could be killed arbitrarily under certain circumstances, eg if their transfer were delayed and Auschwitz started to become overcrowded.

So far as I know the category of "Durchgangsjuden" only became significant in 1944 during the Hungarian deportation. Did they exist at earlier periods? I am not sure.

The really relevant distinction is between "Schutzhaftjuden" on one side and "Transport/Durchgangsjuden" on the other, the essential distinguishing feature being that the former could not be arbitrarily killed by the camp staff without a specific order from Berlin, whereas the latter could.


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Max
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Re: Is Kitty Hart-Moxon a plagiarist?

#138

Post by Max » 21 Jan 2018, 07:44

Yuli wrote:
Probably slips of tongue, as she does go on telling that she and her transport, as they were coming from a prison, were classified "political" (2:29:30).
She seems to me to be very adamant that, as well as having a triangle tattoo [therefore a Jew] she was also classified as political.
She was aware that it was unusual to be classified as both.
Greetings from the Wide Brown.

history1
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Re: Is Kitty Hart-Moxon a plagiarist?

#139

Post by history1 » 21 Jan 2018, 14:32

A Polish Jewish political prisoner, Dawid Kaufman, from Zawierce, Poland. He arrived in Auschwitz on July 14th 41 and "died" after ~ 1 month there:
Image
Another one from Tęgoborze, Poland: Holzer Dawid:
Image
It seems that being a Jewish and Political prisoner wasn´t so rare at all?
Question: Why should KHM get only a red triangle for political prisoners when the SS, as she claims with the triangle below the tattoo, knew about her Jewish ancestry?

Yuli
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Re: Is Kitty Hart-Moxon a plagiarist?

#140

Post by Yuli » 21 Jan 2018, 19:24

History1:
It seems that being a Jewish and Political prisoner wasn´t so rare at all? Question: Why should KHM get only a red triangle for political prisoners when the SS, as she claims with the triangle below the tattoo, knew about her Jewish ancestry??
Max:
She seems to me to be very adamant that, as well as having a triangle tattoo [therefore a Jew] she was also classified as political.
She was aware that it was unusual to be classified as both.
From the Auscwitz-Birkenau Museum:
"Marking of Jewish prisoners
In practice, Jews made up a separate prisoner category in Auschwitz. They were usually registered as “politicals”; the camp records contain extremely rare instances of Jews in other categories. At first, they were marked with an inverted red triangle overlapping a yellow triangle to form a Star of David shape; later, the red triangle was overlain with a narrow yellow rectangular stripe."
http://auschwitz.org/en/history/prisone ... -prisoners

So back to square one? KHM was registered as a Jewish prisoner (having the little triangle tattoo), and almost by default also as "political" (presumabely marked by inverted red triangle over yellow triangle, like in the two mug shots above). This would not give give her any privilieges in camp.

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Max
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Re: Is Kitty Hart-Moxon a plagiarist?

#141

Post by Max » 21 Jan 2018, 23:22

Yuli wrote: In practice, Jews made up a separate prisoner category in Auschwitz. They were usually registered as “politicals”; the camp records contain extremely rare instances of Jews in other categories. At first, they were marked with an inverted red triangle overlapping a yellow triangle to form a Star of David shape; later, the red triangle was overlain with a narrow yellow rectangular stripe."
http://auschwitz.org/en/history/prisone ... -prisoners

So back to square one? KHM was registered as a Jewish prisoner (having the little triangle tattoo), and almost by default also as "political" (presumabely marked by inverted red triangle over yellow triangle, like in the two mug shots above). This would not give give her any privilieges in camp.
Thanks for the correction but why did you say this ?
Probably slips of tongue, as she does go on telling that she and her transport, as they were coming from a prison, were classified "political" (2:29:30).
Greetings from the Wide Brown.

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Re: Is Kitty Hart-Moxon a plagiarist?

#142

Post by Yuli » 22 Jan 2018, 10:32

That was my misunderstanding, sorry. It is because I have seen numerous tattooed numbers of Jewish survivors and none had the small triangle. The practice of adding the triangle to Jewish prisoners was quite irregular over the years.

Sid Guttridge
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Re: Is Kitty Hart-Moxon a plagiarist?

#143

Post by Sid Guttridge » 25 Jan 2018, 19:35

Hi Guys,

As a matter of interest, what proportion of Kitty Hart-Moxon's whole text is suspect?

Are we talking most of the book, or just a fraction?

It also occurs to me that as English was not her first language and the excepts shown here above seem fluent, she probably had some help from third parties, or editors at least. There may be some mediator between her and the final text, perhaps even a ghost writer?

How would she be judged regarding plagiarism:

1) If her book was regarded as a CV?

2) If her book was regarded as an undergraduate essay?

Cheers,

Sid.

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Re: Is Kitty Hart-Moxon a plagiarist?

#144

Post by Yuli » 29 Jan 2018, 15:37

Back to the issue of drawing blood from AB prisoners. Perhaps we should have a separate thread on that issue.
Zywulska:

The day after the performance, the Germans took blood from the Jewish girls for transfusion. They were very polite. Ludka, a very resolute Jewish girl from Poland, refused to donate blood. 'Why should I? If they want it let them shoot me outright. They can take all the blood they want when they kill me.'
The German doctor was surprised at her attitude : You refuse to give blood for the Fatherland?'
'You never know how far they will go.' Ludka later said to me. 'I, the despised, down-trodden Jew, I who mean less to them than trash, I who come from an unclean race―I am to give my blood to the wounded Nordic soldier of the Herrenvolk!
And he was surprised that I refused!'
michael mills:
The story of Germans forcibly taking blood from prisoners and the population of occupied countries was an invention of Soviet propaganda that circulated widely during the war, even in the West. The most common form of this propaganda invention was that the Germans rounded up large numbers of children in occupied Soviet territory and drained the blood from them, to the point where the children died. I remember seeing many years ago a British-made wartime film called "The Boy from Stalingrad", which included a scene of children having the blood drained from them.
This propagandistic invention seems to be based on myths about vampires that were quite common in Eastern Europe. It also contains a strong element of historical irony in that it mimics the wide-spread myth that Jews took blood from children for ritualistic purposes.
wm:
The problem with that blood is, in comparison with what was going on in Auschwitz, it was basically a very tiny atrocity. The prisoners weren't harmed, after all in Kanada they had enough food to recover quickly.
We really don't know why it was done. Of course it may be true or not. It was claimed it was for German soldiers, but equally possible is they sold the blood on black market.
The following is a Hebrew-to-English translated excerpt from the detailed testimony of Auschwitz prisoner Lea (Elisabeth) Weisz, an Orthodox Jew from Foro-Encs, Hungary. She was deported to Birkenau in a transport of Hungarian Jews in May 1945. Before deportation she worked as a nurse in Kosice Ghetto.
After a few days of relative freedom, an order was heard again: Lagersperre. After the morning appell came a delegation of male and female SS officers. At that time we did not know that doctors were among them. They passed through the lines and looked at us like cattle dealers at the fair. Some of us were pulled out of the ranks. We were ordered to march to the revier. They chose 120 pretty girls with brown hair who looked relatively healthy.

We were shocked, who knows what awaits us at the revier? Nothing good could be expected. We heard from the prisoners that there was no return from the revier. But for those who have been registered in the book of life, it seems that even the power of the Gestapo cannot change their fate… From each of us they took a drop of blood to determine its type. I looked into the faces of 119 sisters who shared my fate. Each of them turned into a terrible question mark. Each pair of eyes looked at her companions with a mute question: what is awaiting us?

I was the first to go in. When I came out unharmed, the other women did not believe their eyes. I told them briefly, that all in all, they pumped half a liter of blood from my right arm. After they made the blood test, we all thought they would take us to the front or to the block of experiments. Compared to that, giving half a liter of blood was relatively a small matter. Even though we knew that the sub nutritional food we recieve could not get the blood back. At that time, we did not know that in another ten days, we would again be pumped out a half liter of blood. After all, it was impossible to know what would happen from moment to moment.

One day, after lunch, there was again a loud shout: lagersperre, alles rause, appell. Another appell at noon? What do they want from our lives? After we all stood in line, the same medical delegation appeared, accompanied by several revier workers, who carried large quantities of bread, margarine, and sausage in large blankets. Within a few seconds, a table stood in the middle of the courtyard, surrounded by benches. Lots of bags on the table. The Blockälteste announces that everyone who is called will come to the table. There is a deadly silence between the lines. Again I was called first, my trembling legs dragging me to the table. My mind is filled with terrible thoughts, terrible images. I return to my senses when they put a piece of bread into my hands, margarine and a sausage. My God! The mucus accumulates in my mouth, my stomach contracts and all the glands affected by the food start working. The doctor's smile lulls me. She smiles at me with the same pretty smile that she gave me as I laid on her desk in the revier. There she sat next to me holding a jar into which my blood flowed through a rubber tube the thickness of a pencil. With her other hand she kept a stethoscope on my heart. Now she gives me the extra food and I am shocked, because it means they take my blood again. Meanwhile we learn that our blood is destined for the blood bank for wounded SS soldiers. My God, I am so tired of being in this world. And here we go again to the revier, give blood again. But this time we are weak and desperate. For a few days the 120 of us still received a double dose for lunch and were allowed to enter the block and rest. I cried. I could not even run with the Ess-Kommando anymore and get the extra food for carrying the soup barrels. But if there is no strength, what can I do?
Source: document A.308, Moreshet Archive, Mordechai Anielevich Memorial - Center for Holocaust Education and Research, Givat Haviva, Israel

history1
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Re: Is Kitty Hart-Moxon a plagiarist?

#145

Post by history1 » 29 Jan 2018, 16:01

"She was deported to Birkenau in a transport of Hungarian Jews in May 1945"
I assume you meant May 1944 and not May 1945?
" From each of us they took a drop of blood to determine its type"
A single drop of blood isn´t enough to determine the blood type of a person.

By the way, Forró and Encs are two different villages, but neighbours.

Yuli
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Re: Is Kitty Hart-Moxon a plagiarist?

#146

Post by Yuli » 29 Jan 2018, 19:30

I assume you meant May 1944 and not May 1945?
Yes, of course, May 1944. I had a similar mistake before... :D
A single drop of blood isn´t enough to determine the blood type of a person.
Nowadays, with a proper kit, a blood sample obtained from a finger prick is sufficient to determine blood group and Rh factor. You can squeeze out a very big drop, The size of the drop would increase with the size of the pin. Whether this was the case in 1944 I do not know. It does raise the question why would they need to bother with that if they draw half a liter of blood. May be they measured something else in the blood sample or looked for specific blood groups before going to the more lengthy procedure.

michael mills
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Re: Is Kitty Hart-Moxon a plagiarist?

#147

Post by michael mills » 30 Jan 2018, 03:26

I remain skeptical. In the 19th Century some Russian peasants claimed that Jews took blood from them, and actually paid them for it.

history1
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Re: Is Kitty Hart-Moxon a plagiarist?

#148

Post by history1 » 30 Jan 2018, 09:54

Yuli, even for the cross-matching test before the administering of a blood transfusion to a patient one need more blood drops than only one (and you can´t split it either). And way more drops for the blood type/Rh factor analyisis are needed. And here we are talking about our modern sets. There´s no way that at the time they could this with a single blood drop as claimed.

Yuli
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Re: Is Kitty Hart-Moxon a plagiarist?

#149

Post by Yuli » 30 Jan 2018, 18:02

I understand these concerns. The witness may have erred in her description or interpretation at some points, as happens so often in survivor's testimonies, but I don't think it discredits the report of the main event. We all know that even an event witnessed by numerous prisoners is reported differently when it comes to details. But the event undoubtedly did happen. Of course, one would hope for additional testimonies, particularly first hand descriptions as this one, to go beyond skepticism.


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