Zimbabwe’s holocaust – article by Ben Freeth
Whenever I look at the charred ruin of what a few weeks ago was our home, and see on my bed when I close my eyes the flames that engulfed everything we owned, I can not help thinking of the flames that, to the nationalists of Germany, were the final solution to the Jewish question sixty years ago.
My wife’s grandfather, Landale Train, used to tell us of when, as a South African prisoner of war next to Dachau concentration camp, he used to smell the sweet sickly smoke of the burning Jews from the crematorium incinerators. The very word, “holocaust,” comes, I understand, from the Hebrew word “olah” which when translated to the Greek is holokausten. It means “a burnt offering to the Lord.”
Gradually, terribly, the German National Socialists had been working towards the final solution of the Jewish question for over two decades. It culminated in the grand titled, “Kristallnacht,” where thousands of Jewish homes and synagogues and businesses were burnt down in November 1938. The SS wrote at the time: “we no longer hear the world screaming…we shall take the Jewish question to its final solution. It is total elimination…” All police stations were told beforehand in a directive from the Gestapo chief that: “actions against Jews and especially their synagogues will take place in all Germany. These are not to be interfered with.” The burning began and the victims of destruction were arrested. In the next few days 30,000 people were sent to Dachau and other camps. The concentration camps had begun. Landale smelt the smoke of their final annihilation a few years later from Stalag 4.
Living in Zimbabwe, I can not help feeling that a NAZI nationalist type agenda lives on in the hearts of some of the African leaders today. Just as racism was the central and pervasive theme of NAZI ideology, so it is under Mugabe in our time. Propaganda has to portray a simple message to a mass audience. Just as the nationalist agenda in Germany taught people to hate other people that are not the same, so the nationalist agenda in Zimbabwe mirrors this aim. The message being spun to the party adherents is that all Zimbabwe’s problems are related to the white man. Mugabe calls the white men “criminals” just as Hitler called the Jews “criminals.” The NAZI party talked of their rise to power and the sorting out of the Jewish question as the beginning of a German “renaissance.” Echoes of the German “renaissance” live on in the “African renaissance” where white men can not be called “Africans” by the black nationalist leaders because of their pigmentation. They can not belong.
The white population, which at its height numbered 270,000 in Zimbabwe, has been in a state of exodus ever since the black nationalist racist policies began here. It has now been whittled down to perhaps 20,000. The relentless purge of white farmers in Zimbabwe which continues, has seen ninety percent of farmers being forcibly and illegally evicted over the last 7 years. We have left our homes and livelihoods without compensation, through a persecution process that has left some of my friends dead and others severely debilitated or traumatised. Most of our homes and other property has been ruined or burnt. Further, the invasions have resulted in over a million farm workers losing their homes and livelihoods too.
We live in a country where a desert stares out through the furtive eyes of so many of our soul scorched compatriots. Anne Frank wrote in her diary a little before she was captured in her attic and taken away and burnt at the age of 15: “that’s the difficulty in these times: ideals, dreams and cherished hopes rise within us, only to meet the horrible truth and be shattered…”
After they burnt our house my nine year old son Joshua, who saw the only home he had ever known consumed before his eyes asked me: “is water stronger than fire; or is fire stronger than water?”
I thought a bit and I said to him: “fire is very strong and consumes everything if water isn’t available to quench it – but if there is water, fires are extinguished and fire is weaker.” Unfortunately, at out home, we did not have water because the thugs that have been persecuting us, had stolen our tractors and water carts and other fire fighting equipment; and so they laughed while our home burnt because they knew that the fire would burn everything we had.
There is a metaphor there. The nationalist fire that burns Zimbabwe with racial hatred burns on so strongly because nobody has cared enough or been brave enough to pour enough water on it and to put it out. So it was in Germany. Indifference served the NAZI cause. The small acts of complicity allowed the arrogance and cruelty of power to consume the Jews and ultimately destroy Germany. All of us have memories of times we should have done something and didn’t. In Germany not one of the 1.4 million workers on the railways that transported people to their deaths is known to have protested or resigned. At the Wannasee conference where the “final solution” was agreed in January 1942 there was no voice of opposition despite the fact that half the delegates were intelligent and educated people with doctorates from German universities.
Have the Western “civilised” nations learned anything from the holocaust? If such racist practices were to take place against minority groups in Western nations today in a climate of fear, would there be an outcry? Or would it be easier to allow it all to take place again? In Africa, despite an African International Court – the SADC Tribunal – ruling that the confiscation process of our home and farm is racist and illegal, nobody in the western nations halls of power appears to be willing to lift a finger to stop the rule of law and human rights breakdown. The money rather goes to treat the symptoms. Zimbabwe is now the most food aid dependant country on earth. We also have the lowest life expectancy on earth; and the madness is just allowed to go on by the rest of the world. More than that, yesterday I heard that our local police officer in charge, Chief Inspector Manika, who has allowed the brutalisation of our workers and destruction and burning of our property, has been sent on a peace keeping mission with the United Nations to Liberia!
When my parents-in-laws house was burnt on the farm, two days after our own, the fire consumed a battered wallet that had been from Landale. In it there was a treasured photograph of my mother-in-law as a little child with “Stalag 4” stamped on the back. It survived that holocaust of the 1940s and was carried with Landale till the day he died. It came to Angela recently. Last month, in Zimbabwe’s version of the holocaust, it went up as the smoke of black nationalist incense – an offering to their “Lord.” The solution to the black nationalists white problem was in hand.
The German writer, Von Weizacker wrote for his people after the holocaust: “whoever closes his eyes to the past becomes blind to the present. Whoever does not wish to remember inhumanity becomes susceptible to the dangers of new infestation.” It is sad that the most of the Western leaders of today have such short memories.
Ben Freeth
An edited version of this article appeared in The Spectator. The original article has been circulated on email.
November 18th, 2009 02:00
It is a shame that this poor farmer has been terrorized by the local mob. It looks like he has a very nice farm that provided a lot of jobs to the local economy.
As a result of the communist government, the country which was the breadbasket of Africa, is now home of a population that is starving. Farmers like Ben Freeth should not have been forced off of THEIR LAND – the citizens are now suffering as a result of the communist- racist government.
God bless you Ben Freeth and your family, and thanks for your article about the Zimbabwe holocaust. It is a shame that the world does not know about, or care about your once great country.
Thanks to Sokwanele.com for publishing this article!
– Tucker
– Illinois,
United States
of America
November 18th, 2009 06:35
A well argued letter and I personally agree with Ben’s Nazi/Jewish persecution analogy and the fate of whites in Zimbabwe.
Just as in Nazi Germany, silence and consent by so many of Zimbabwe’s ordinary citizens between 1982 and 2000 was a significant factor that allowed Mugabe’s evil agenda to gain a stranglehold in the country.
It could also be argued that, after the atrocities of Gukurahundi in 1982, those who continued to vote for Mugabe or give aid or pay taxes to the Zimbabwe government (Ben Freeth and Old Mutual included) effectively propped up Mugabe’s worsening dictatorship. It may depend on one’s moral standpoint, but we might want to ponder whether in fact our only two honorable options at that stage were either to leave the country entirely, thereby depriving Mugabe of our tax revenues, or to have consistently, actively and openly taken up the struggle against Mugabe’s odious rule. If we did anything less, it leaves each of us, black or white, open to allegations of complicity in our own downfall.
Finally, distressing as his and many others’ personal stories are, Ben is naïve to think that the rest of the world is going to act meaningfully to save him or Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe is not a flashpoint for World War 3, it has no strategic value to prompt Western intervention, and it would become a political quagmire if it did (remember the USA’s farcical intervention in Somalia, the ongoing debacle over oil riches in Nigeria’s delta region, and the millions of recent deaths over mineral riches in the Congo).
There are no knights on white horses charging to the rescue in Zimbabwe. We will have to rely on the slow tide of history and perhaps the bravery of a few heroes on the ground.
November 18th, 2009 08:02
It is such a well described letter and absolutely as things are in Zimbabwe but one wonders why this world is sitting back with no conscience whatsoever quite willing to not lift a finger or say a word on this situation as it stands today.There nust be much more to it why it is just brushed aside and taken no notice of. Scary thought, nevertheless.
November 19th, 2009 06:12
Beth, you are some of the world’s bravest and it is the greatest tragedy that the world does not recognise,(despite history) this totally unacceptable continuation of brutality against humanity. These Men are not honourable, but are greedy heartless creatures – our only salvation is that they will have to answer for it one day and history will record their decline and destitution, for which they will not have glory nor wealth, but utter dispair. Take heart Beth, that we are responsible for our behaviour and are the small voice of reason and conscience in a dark world – PEACE be with you, in your heart and in your understanding – I pray for God’s abundant blessing on you and your loved ones – you are not alone.
November 19th, 2009 15:25
Ben,may God give you his portion many times over to replace what has been stolen.The Devil and his angels are indeed resident in my country. I can only pray, Lord restore us…Heal us. Indeed you put it rignt…no one is raising a finger,not even the Christendom,. Come on guys, we cannot be complicit to the programs of Hell. We have to engage i Spiritual Warfare..the Bible instructs so.
Embarassed Black Zimbabwean
November 21st, 2009 01:13
I still think we should all go back so our families can be reconciled.
November 21st, 2009 17:50
I was born in “Rhodesia” and graduated with one of the finest medical degrees in the world, from the Godfrey Huggins School of Medicine, Salisbury, affiliated to the University of Edinborough. As a studnet, I was very “liberal”, but decided to leave the country when my black medical student “friends” told me (in open cnversation) that when they achieved power (which I accepted was inevitable), they would take all the money from the white man and divide it equally amoungst the blacks. They could not understand how this was not possible and would destroy the country. My dream was to give back to the people and the country repayment for the life and education I was fortutous to receive. This is now impossible. I believe that there are many, many ex-Rhodesians in the same position as me.
November 22nd, 2009 13:28
So, we have a the SS in Zim. Check history. Zanu-PF are simply repeating the actions of the brownshirts in Germny.
November 22nd, 2009 18:18
This is all horrendous, very sad, and totally destructive to Zimbabwe’s future. My only question to Mr. Freeth and other white farmers, and I ask this as a white person who does not live in Zimbabwe: What did you do during the years of white rule to aid the liberation movement, to protest against the humilations and injustices experienced by the black majority? Were you involved – or were you,like most whites, simply “enjoying” the benefits accruing to your status – ?? I’m not justifying what Mugabe’s thugs have done to you – only commenting that things go around, we often reap what we sow.
November 23rd, 2009 16:17
@Kudu Girl –
Mr Freeth is a young man so I imagine he was still at primary school learning how to read and write when the struggle for liberation was going on and Smith ruled. So unless you quite literally subscribe to the view that “the sins of the fathers are the sons too”, he cannot be held responsible for what you are trying to accuse him of. If you do believe that then you better get busy rounding up the children of murderers.
As for your comment asking him if he was like “most whites” – Google is your friend!
Smith’s party received 13,622 white votes for the ‘white seats’ in 1980, but the white population (1975) according to wikipedia stood at 296,000.
My question is: are the approximately 4% of the white population who bothered to vote for Smith the “most whites” you refer to, or is it possible that the majority who did not make an effort to support him and did not vote for him, recognised and understood the need for change? My family never ever supported Smith and what was going on in Rhodesia (labelled communists as a result) and it would be arrogant of me to assume we were unique.
It’s such a shame Kudu-girl, that in your haste to look ‘right-on politically correct’ you expressed a view that is actually quite prejudiced.
November 23rd, 2009 18:09
@Kudu Girl -
Kudu Girl – Ben was probably a small child during the Liberation Struggle!
Please remember how many years have passed since Independence in 1980! (and don’t forget 2 years in transition before that)
How many times do we, the second generation, have to point out to people that we were too young to do anything during that time? All we can do now is try and mend the country TOGETHER – black and white. It is always important to remember the past, but we also have to learn how to move away from the past into the future.That is the only way we can heal.
November 23rd, 2009 20:55
Quite telling it is that Kudu girls’ “only question” posed to Ben Freeth was one with racist themes and apologistic implications – ‘white person’,'white farmer’,'black majority’,'white rule’ – especially when, what I read at least, was Ben Freeths’despondancy and deep sense of urgency concerning ZIMBABWE.
Unless whites get rid of their ‘oppressive’ label (which often they gleefully self-impose) and blacks get rid of the hard-done-by attitude, each will continue to wallow in guilt and self pity respectively. The solutions are misguidedly perceived to lie in trading appeasement with condescendment. Its appears to be more important how much give and take is apportioned from a retrospective base-line, instead of forgive and forget and getting a move on forward.
Until racists like Mugabe and his ilk are removed from Africa, and wimpy apologists bury their forefathers indescretions, the Zimbabwe situation will live on as the ‘Zimbabwe Syndrome’.
November 26th, 2009 02:55
“THere is a nation which has abandoned all its liberties…There is a nation in the grip of a group of ruthless men preaching a gospel of intolerance and racial pride, unrestrained by law, by parliament, or by public opinion.”
-Winston Churchill, speaking in the House of Commons in 1936, warning of the dangers of Nazism.
November 27th, 2009 10:15
My thoughts are very much with you I just wish my thoughts could help you in some way. I am sat here at home in Scotland wondering what the hell is happening out there. Im sorry to say we never hear of any of this on our news over here and people are under the impression that times are changing and things are getting better but its quite obvious they are not. I will make sure everyone I know hears about this and it has not gone away!!
Thinking of you all across Zimbabwe