Holocaust Notes
History Of Anti-Semitism
History of Antisemitism Lesson I: A Short History of Anti-Semitism �The roots of anti-Semitism, prejudice against Jews, go back to ancient times. Throughout history, the seeds of misunderstanding can be traced to the position of the Jews as a minority religious group. Often, in ancient times, when government officials felt their authority threatened, they found a convenient scapegoat in the Jews. Belief in one God, monotheism, and refusal to accept the dominant religion set the Jews apart from others. Romans Persecute Christians �The Romans conquered Jerusalem, center of the Jewish homeland, in 63 B. C. During the early period of Roman rule, Jews were allowed to practice their religion freely. At that time, the first targets of Roman persecution were Christians, considered by the Romans to be heretics or believers in an unacceptable faith. However, once Christianity took hold and spread throughout the empire, Judaism became the target of Roman authorities. Christianity Becomes State Religion �When Constantine the Great, in the early fourth century, made Christianity the state religion of the Roman Empire, religious conformity became government policy as well as Church doctrine. Christianity teaches love and brotherhood, but not all early Christians practiced these teachings. Some wanted to convert all non-believers. Jews had their own religion. They did not want to become Christians. The more the Jews remained true to their faith, the harder some worked to convert them. When Jews clung to their religion, distrust and anger grew. The Church demanded the conversion of the Jews because it insisted that Christianity be the only true religion. The power of the state was used to make Jews outcasts when they refused to give up their faith. They were denied citizenship and its rights. �By the end of the fourth century, Jews had been stamped with one of the most damaging myths they would face. For many Christians they had become the Christ-killers, blamed for the death of Jesus. While the actual crucifixion of Jesus was carried out by the Romans, responsibility for the death of Jesus was then placed on the Jews. Religious Minorities Harshly Treated in Middle Ages �In Europe, during the Middle Ages from 500 A.D. to about 1450 A.D., all religious non-conformists were harshly treated by ruling authorities. Heresy, holding an opinion contrary to Church doctrine, was a crime punishable by death. Jews were seen as a threat to established religion. As the most conspicuous non-conforming group, they were attacked. At times it was easy for ruthless leaders to convince their largely uneducated followers that all non-believers must be killed. Sometimes the leaders of the Church led the persecutions. At other times, the Pope and bishops protected the Jews. New Laws Set Jews Apart �The Justinian Code, compiled by scholars for the Emperor Justinian, 527-565 A.D., excluded Jews from all public places, prohibited Jews from giving evidence in lawsuits in which Christians took part, and forbade the reading of the Bible in Hebrew. Only Greek or Latin were allowed. Church Council edicts forbade marriage between Christians and Jews and outlawed the conversion of Christians to Judaism in 533. In 1215, the Fourth Lateran Council stamped the Jews as a people apart with its decree that Jews were to wear special clothes and markings to distinguish them from Christians. �The Crusades, which began in 1096, resulted in increased persecution of Jews. Religious fervor reached a fever pitch as the Crusaders made their way across Europe towards the Holy Land. Although anger was originally focused on the Muslims controlling Palestine, some of this intense feeling was redirected toward the European Jewish communities through which the Crusaders passed. Massacres of Jews occurred in many cities en route to Jerusalem. In the seven-month period from January to July 1096, approximately one fourth to one third of the Jewish population in Germany and France, around 12,000 people, were killed. The persecutions of this period caused many Jews to leave western Europe for the relative safety of central and eastern Europe. �The Council of Basel (1431-43) established the concept of physical separation in cities with ghettos. It decreed that Jews were to live in separate quarters, isolated from Christians except for reasons of business. Jews were not allowed to go to universities. Attendance for them at Christian church sermons was required. Many Occupations Closed to Jews �In western and southern Europe, Jews could not become farmers because they were forbidden to own land. Gradually more and more occupations were closed to them. Commerce guilds were also closed. There were only a few ways for Jews to make a living. Since Christians believed lending money and charging interest on it, usury, was a sin, Jews were able to take on that profession. It was a job no one else wanted. �Because they filled an important need in managing money and finances in a changing economy, their role expanded over the years. Jewish moneylenders became the middlemen between the wealthy landowning class and the peasants. Rulers gave Jews the unpopular job of tax collecting, causing deep hostility among debt-ridden peasants. In times of economic uncertainty, dislike of the Jew as tax collector and moneylender was coupled with religious differences to make Jewish communities the targets of attacks. Black Death Leads to Scapegoating �The Black Death, or bubonic plague, led to intense religious scapegoating in many communities in Western Europe. Between 1348 and 1350, the epidemic killed one third of Europe's population. Many people believed the plague to be God's punishment of them for their sins. For others the plague could only be explained as the work of demons. This group chose as their scapegoat people who were already unpopular in the community. �Rumors spread that the plague was caused by the Jews who had poisoned wells and food. The worst massacre of Jews in Europe before Hitler's rise to power occurred at this time. For two years, a violent wave of attacks against Jews swept over Europe. Tens of thousands were killed by their terrified neighbors despite the fact that many Jews also died of the plague. �Not only were Jews blamed for the Black Death, but they were also believed to murder Christians, especially children, to use their blood during religious ceremonies. The blood libel, as it is known, can be traced back to Norwich, England, where around 1150, a superstitious priest and an insane monk charged that the murder of a Christian boy was a part of a Jewish plot to kill Christians. Despite the fact that the boy was probably killed by an outlaw, the myth persisted. Murdering Jews was also justified by other reasons. Jews were said to desecrate churches and to be disloyal to rulers. Rulers who tried to protect the Jews were ignored or they themselves were attacked. Expelled from Western Europe �By the end of the Middle Ages, fear and superstition had created a deep rift between Jews and Christians. As European peoples began to think of themselves as belonging to a nation, Jews were thought of as outsiders. They were expelled from England in 1290, from France in 1306 and 1394, and from parts of Germany in the 14th and 15th centuries. They were not legally allowed in England until the middle of the 1600s and in France until the French Revolution. Golden Age and Inquisition in Spain �Unlike Jews in other parts of western Europe, the Jews of Spain enjoyed a Golden Age of political influence and religious tolerance from the 11th to the 14th centuries. However, in the wave of intense national excitement that followed the Spanish conquest of Granada in 1492, both Jews and Muslims were expelled from Spain. Unification of Spain had been aided by the Catholic Church which, through the Inquisition, had insisted on religious conformity. Loyalty to country became equated with absolute commitment to Christianity. From 1478 to 1765, the Church-led Inquisition burned thousands of Jews at the stake for their religious beliefs. Protestant Reformation �The Protestant Reformation, which split Christianity into different branches in the 16th Century, did little to reduce anti-Semitism. For much of his life the Protestant Reformation leader Martin Luther expressed moderate views toward Jews. Believing the Jews would become converts to the faith, Luther urged humane treatment. However when the Jews failed to convert, he turned against them. In his booklet Of Jews and Their Lies, published four years before he died in 1546, Luther advised: �"First, their synagogues or churches should be set on fire....Secondly, their homes should likewise be broken down and destroyed....They ought be put under one roof or in a stable, like gypsies....Thirdly, they should be deprived of their prayerbooks....Fourthly, their rabbis must be forbidden under threat of death to teach anymore...." Separate Way of Life Develops in Ghetto �Religious struggles plagued the Reformation for over 100 years as terrible wars were waged between Catholic and Protestant monarchs. Jews played no part in these struggles. They had been separated completely during the Middle Ages by Church law, which had confined the Jews to ghettos. Many ghettos were surrounded by high walls with gates guarded by Christian sentries. Jews were allowed out during the daytime for business dealings with Christian communities but had to be back at curfew. At night, and during Christian holidays, the gates were locked. �The ghettos froze the way of life for the Jews because Jews were segregated and not permitted to mix freely. They established synagogues and schools. They developed a life separate from the rest of the community. Enlightenment and the French Revolution �In the 1700s, the Age of Faith gave way to the Age of Reason. In the period known as the Enlightenment, philosophers stressed new ideas about reason, science, progress, and the rights of individuals. Jews were allowed out of the ghetto. The French Revolution helped many western European Jews get rid of their second-class status. In 1791 an emancipation decree in France gave Jews full citizenship. In the early 1800s, the German state of Bavaria, Prussia, and other European countries passed similar orders. �Although this new spirit of equality spread, many Jews in the ghetto were not able to take their places in the outside world. They knew very little about the world outside the ghetto walls. They spoke their own language, Yiddish, and not the language of their countrymen. �The outlook of thinkers of this period shifted from a traditional way of looking at the world which stressed faith and religion to a more modern belief in reason and the scientific laws of nature. A new foundation for prejudice was laid which changed the history of anti-Semitism. Now semi-scientific reasons were used to prove the differences between Jews and non-Jews and to set them apart again in European society. Nationalism in Germany �In the early 19th century, strong nationalistic feelings stirred the peoples of Europe. Much of this feeling was a reaction against the domination of Europe by France in the Napoleonic Era. In Germany, many thinkers and politicians looked for ways to increase political unity. Impressed by the power France had under Napoleon, they began to see solutions to German problems in a great national Germanic state. �The word anti-Semitism first appeared in 1873 in a book entitled The Victory of Judaism over Germanism by Wilhelm Marr. Marr's book marked an important change in the history of anti-Semitism. In his book Marr stated that the Jews of Germany ought to be eliminated because they were members of an alien race that could never fully be a part of German society. Aryan Superiority �Marr's ideas were influenced by other German, French, and British thinkers who stressed differences rather than similarities among people. Some of these thinkers believed that Western European Caucasian Christians were superior to other races. Although the term Semitic refers to a group of languages not to a group of people, these men made up elaborate theories to prove the superiority of the Nordic or Aryan people of northern Europe and the inferiority of Semitic people, or Jews. Russia and France in the Late 1800s �In other parts of Europe, anti-Semitism took different forms. In 19th century Russia, pograms, massacres of Jews by orders of the czars, occurred. In France from 1894 to 1906, the Dreyfus Case revealed the depth of anti-Semitism in that country. Captain Alfred Dreyfus, the first Jew to be appointed to the French general staff, was falsely accused of giving secret information to Germany. Although cleared of all charges, his trial brought strong anti-Jewish feelings to the surface in France. �Until the late 1800s, anti-Semites had considered Jews dangerous because of their religion. They discriminated against Jews because of their beliefs, not because of what they were. If they converted, resentment of them decreased. After 1873, Jews were thought of as a race for the first time. Being Jewish was no longer a question of belief, but of birth and blood. Jews could not change if they were a race. They were basically and deeply different from everyone else. That single idea became the cornerstone of Nazi anti-Semitism.
Hitler's Rise Of Power
Lesson II: Hitler's Rise to Power �In the century and a half before 1933, the people of Germany created more enduring literature and music, more profound theology and philosophy, and more advanced science and scholarship than did the people of any other country in the world. Germans were highly cultured. Their universities were the most respected in Europe. And yet it was in this country that Nazism developed. �Many factors played a part in Adolf Hitler's rise to power. Hitler's arresting personality and his skills as a public speaker and a propagandist contributed to his political success. His ability to attract followers can also be attributed to the bitterness many Germans felt following their country's defeat in World War I, resentment of the terms of the Versailles Treaty, weaknesses of the Weimar Republic, the Depression, and extreme nationalism of the German people. Weimar Republic Blamed for Germany's Defeat �In 1919 after defeat in World War I, Germany set up a republic. The Weimar Republic was created during the period of general exhaustion and shock that followed the war. The Kaiser, Germany's ruler, fled to Holland and although the military had lost the war, the new government was blamed for the defeat. �Germans were not prepared for a democratic government. The country had always known authoritarian leaders and had been ruled by an emperor since 1871. Most Germans saw the Weimar Republic as a interim government. When Germany held elections, it became a "Republic without Republicans." It did not have an elected majority and was disliked by all sides. Resentment of the Versailles Treaty �At the end of World War I, the Weimar government had been forced to sign the Treaty of Versailles. The treaty fostered feelings of injustice and made many Germans want revenge. Article 231, the war guilt clause, declared that Germany was the principal aggressor in the war and declared it responsible for the destruction. Germany was forced to give up land and pay massive reparations. �Following Germany's defeat, the German mark became almost worthless. In 1914 $1.00 was equal to 4 marks; in 1921 $1.00 was equal to 191 marks; by 1923 $1.00 was equal to 17,792 marks; and by the latter 1920s $1.00 was worth 4,200,000,000,000 marks. Hitler benefitted from the country's economic problems. Economic uncertainty offered a rich soil for the seeds of fascism. Hitler's Early Years �Adolf Hitler was born on April 20, 1889, in Austria. He was the fourth of six children. Hitler's stepfather, a custom's official, died when Adolf was 14. Hitler's first years at school were successful until he entered a technical school at age 11. There, his grades became so poor that he left school at 16. �After his mother's death in 1907, Hitler moved to Vienna, where he lived for seven years. While there he applied for admission to the Academy of Art, but was rejected for lack of talent. In 1913 Hitler moved to Munich, Germany and joined the German army. In World War I, he took part in heavy fighting. He was wounded in 1916 and gassed in 1918. He was recovering in a hospital when the Armistice was signed on November 11, 1918. From Hitler's wartime experiences came the central ideas he pursued later: his belief in the heroic virtues of war, his insistence that the German army had never been defeated, and his belief in the inequality of races and individuals. Nazi Party Formed �In 1919, at age 30, Hitler returned to Munich, where former soldiers embittered by their experiences had formed associations. Many of these groups blamed Germany's defeat on Jews who had stabbed the army in the back. Hitler joined the German Workers Party and within a year's time, had transformed it into the National Socialist German Workers' Party, or Nazi Party. By 1922, Hitler had become a well-known figure around Munich. He rented beer halls and hammered away at his basic themes: hatred of Communists and Jews, the injustice of the Treaty of Versailles, and the betrayal of the German army by Jews and pacifists. �On November 8, 1923, Hitler and his followers attempted a takeover of the government in Munich. The failure of this attempt resulted in a five-year jail sentence for Hitler. He served only nine months of his sentence, during which time he wrote the book Mein Kampf (My Struggle). This book would become the bible of the Nazi movement. Hitler made no secret of his program; it was clearly spelled out in Mein Kampf. In the book Hitler announces his intention to manipulate the masses by means of propaganda, forecasts a worldwide battle for racial superiority, and promises to free Germany from the limitations imposed by the Treaty of Versailles. �Released from prison in 1924, Hitler realized the Nazis must come to power legally. "Democracy must be defeated with the weapons of democracy," he said. His task was to reorganize his outlawed party and work toward his goals. The popularity of Hitler's racist ideas coupled with his magnificent gift of oratory united the disillusioned of every class: the bankrupt businessman, the army officer who couldn't adjust to civilian life, the unemployed worker or clerk, and the university student who had failed his exams. Professionals and Workers Attracted to Nazi Party �Hitler's ideas found support among all classes from lawyers, doctors, and scientists to factory workers. However, his strongest supporters were members of the lower middle class, small shopkeepers, clerks and tradesmen. On average, young Protestant men favored the party, while women, older people, and Catholics continued to oppose it. �Hitler offered something for everyone: the glories of Germany would return; war is a normal state of life; the common enemy of the German people is the Jew; the salvation of the world depends on the German race. Hitler's racist appeals attracted anti-Semites, but most Germans were more attracted by other aspects of his program. His followers believed his promises and rallied at Nuremberg to follow the Fuhrer--the leader. Depression Brings New Supporters �His chance came during the Depression years. After 1929, many people blamed the Weimar government for the country's economic problems. By the early 1930s Germany was in a desperate state. Six million people were out of work. Hitler alone spoke of recovery. Hitler Appointed Chancellor �The Nazi party surprised observers with its success in the parliamentary elections of 1930 by winning 107 seats in the Reichstag, or parliament. By July 1932 the Nazis had gained control of 230 seats and had become the strongest single party. In January 1933, an aging President Paul von Hindenburg was persuaded to appoint Hitler Chancellor of the Reich. Hitler called a new election for March 1933. The Nazi-controlled Reichstag then passed the Emergency Decree. All civil rights, free speech, freedom of the press, the right to assemble, the privacy of the mails, were suspended. All open opposition came to an end. �Until the election, Hitler used the power of emergency decrees to rule. Newspaper offices and radio stations were wrecked. When an arsonist set fire to the Reichstag building, Hitler blamed the blaze on the Communists. Civil Rights Suspended by Enabling Act �On the first day the new Reichstag met, the Nazis helped push through the Enabling Act. This act provided legal backing for the Nazi dictatorship. No charges had to be filed to lock people up. Warrants did not have to be issued for arrests. "Enemies of the people and the state" were sent to concentration camps. The Reichstag adjourned, never again to have an effective voice in the affairs of Germany during Hitler's rule Third Reich Comes to Power �When Hindenburg died in August 1934, Hitler saw his chance to consolidate his power. Hitler, with a vote of 90 percent, united the offices of President and Chancellor to become the Supreme Head of State and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. The democratic state was dead. Hitler's Third Reich had come to power.
Pre-war Nazi Germany
Lesson III: Prewar Nazi Germany Seizure of power gave the Nazis enormous control over every aspect of German life. The Nazis could use the machinery of government, the police, the courts, the schools, the newspapers and radio, to implement their racist beliefs. In April 1933 Hitler began to make discrimination against Jews government policy. All non-Aryans were expelled from the civil service. A non-Aryan was defined as anyone who had Jewish parents or two or more Jewish grandparents. In this same year the government called for a general boycott of all Jewish-owned businesses and passed laws excluding Jews from journalism, radio, farming, teaching, the theater, and films. Nuremberg Laws � In 1934, Jews were dismissed from the army. They were excluded from the stock exchange, law, medicine, and business. But it was the Nuremberg Laws of 1935 that took away the citizenship of Jews born in Germany and labeled them subhuman. With these laws Hitler officially made anti-Semitism a part of Germany's basic legal code. Under these laws, marriage between Jews and German citizens was forbidden. Jews were not to display the German flag and could not employ German servants under 45 years of age. These laws created a climate in which the Jews were viewed as inferior people. The systematic removal of Jews from contact with other Germans made it easier for Germans to think of Jews as less human or different. � German Jews lost their political rights. Restrictions were reinforced by identification documents. German passports were stamped with a capital "J" or the word Jude. All Jewish people had to have a recognizable Jewish name. Jewish men had to use the middle name Israel; Jewish women the middle name Sarah. These names had to be recorded on all birth and marriage certificates. SS Gains Power � Hitler's position was challenged from within the Nazi party by the SA, an abbreviation for the German word for storm troopers. Also called brown shirts, they were Hitler's private army. In 1934 Hitler ordered a purge of the SA by the SS, the elite group of soldiers who served as his personal bodyguard. The Night of Long Knives ended any challenge to Hitler's position of power. Once the SS State was created, resistance to the Nazi regime was destroyed. Communists, Catholics, Jews, intellectuals, and others were the targets of the Gestapo, or secret police. Dachau Is First Concentration Camp � The SS were responsible for setting up concentration camps throughout Germany. Anyone suspected of disloyalty or disobedience could be sent there. The first concentration camp was at Dachau close to Munich. It was built to hold political dissenters and enemies of the state. No charges had to be filed against the detainees. No warrant for their arrest was necessary; no real evidence was required. � In 1935, Hitler reintroduced the military draft in violation of the Versailles Treaty. In 1936 German troops occupied the Rhineland. That same year Hitler signed an agreement with Mussolini to establish the Berlin-Rome Axis. Night of Broken Glass � On November 9, 1938, the Nazis carried out what the German press called a spontaneous demonstration against Jewish property, synagogues, and people. Dr. Josef Goebbels, the propaganda minister, claimed the demonstration was in reaction to the shooting of a lower-level diplomat at the German embassy in Paris. A young Jewish boy attempted to assassinate the ambassador because his father had been deported to Poland. Throughout Germany fires and bombs were used to destroy synagogues and shops. Store windows were shattered, leaving broken glass everywhere. By the time it ended, nearly 100 people had been killed. That night became known as the Night of Broken Glass, or Kristallnacht. German documents found later showed that Kristallnacht had been carefully planned weeks in advance by the Nazis. � In March 1938, German troops marched into Austria and met no resistance. Austria became a part of greater Germany. This Anschluss, or joining, would be justified under the Treaty of Versailles, which stated that all people of one nationality had the right to live under one government. � Hitler next seized the Sudentenland, an area where many Germans lived. For a short time he persuaded the British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, that he was right in doing so. But when he invaded and occupied the rest of Czechoslovakia, no justifications could be found. World War II Begins � Poland would be next. On September 1, 1939, German forces, spearheaded by tanks and bombers, marched into Poland and crushed all organized resistance. England and France declared war against Germany on September 3, 1939, and the world was once again at war.
What is the Holocaust?
The Killing Begins...what is the Holocaust? �"One day we heard someting that was very disturbing to all of us. We heard for the first time about Auschwitz in Poland. That's where the killing was done. That we would be sent there, and that we would share this fate, none of us knew, not even when we were in Auschwitz itself." --Rudy Herz, Myrtle Beach Concentration Camp Survivor �"The inability to comprehend evil on such a scale gives evil an advantage. It allows evil to slip away from memory and be forgotten. It must not be forgotten, or it will come back again." --Miriam Chaikin, author of A Nightmare in History Overview IV: The Holocaust The term Holocaust comes from a Greek word that means burnt whole or consumed by fire. Between 1939 and 1945, nearly six million Jews died in the Holocaust along with five million non-Jews. Among the non-Jewish groups the Nazis singled out for murder and persecution were the Gypsies, Polish intellectuals, Serbs, resistance fighters of all nations, and German opponents of Nazism. These were not accidental deaths or casualties of war, but planned mass executions. Along with these 11 million human beings, a way of life, an entire culture rich in traditions vanished as well. Policy of Emigration Abandoned �In the prewar years, Hitler tried to rid Germany of its Jewish population by a series of harsh, discriminatory laws intended to make Jews want to leave Germany. If this failed, he planned forced expulsion. At the time World War II began, many historians argue that the Nazis had not yet devised a plan for the murder of the Jews. Although Hitler had begun setting up concentration camps in 1934 for the persecution of political and religious dissidents, the Final Solution may not have been decided upon until after the invasion of the Soviet Union. �The war enabled the Nazis to apply their racial theories, particularly against the "subhuman" Poles, Slavs, Gypsies, and Jews. Starting in October 1939, following the invasion of Poland, Heinrich Himmler created a new department of the SS; its purpose was to deal with deportations and emigration. Once groups were categorized as "subhuman," they no longer had to be treated by the normal rules of civilized behavior. Nazi leaders felt justified in making them victims of mass brutalization. Wansee Conference �In June 1942, Hitler decided to move from a policy of forced emigration to one of annihilation. It became official at a conference held in the Berlin suburb of Wansee. At the Wansee Conference, SS officers and other top Nazi leaders learned that a new policy was soon to be put into effect. Instead of forcing Jews to emigrate, Nazi officials would deport them to death camps. A death camp would have facilities designed specifically for mass murder. �The Nazis euphemism for this policy was evacuation to the East. At the conference, Nazi leaders received instructions for the deportation of Jews from all Nazi-occupied countries to death camps in Poland. Nazi leaders had a two-step plan. Jews were to be gathered at concentration points in cities on or near railroad lines and then taken by train to mass killing centers. New Technology for Killing �At the beginning of the war, the SS, directed by Heinrich Himmler, had organized mobile killing squads, the Einsatzgruppen, that followed the German armies into occupied Poland and, later, into the Baltic countries. Jews were rounded up in towns and villages and driven to the forests or into the countryside. As soon as they were stripped of their clothes and any possessions, victims were executed by gunfire and buried in huge pits. Fearing this method of execution would be discovered, the Germans abandoned mass shootings and relied, instead, upon specially equipped vans that were used to gas the passengers within. Death Camps in Poland �While the killing vans did the job, the process itself was slow. The Germans felt a new, faster method had to be found. At first the Nazis experimented with gas chambers at small concentration camps in Germany. But after the Wansee Conference, orders were given to build death camps in Poland, easily reachable by direct rail lines from any point in occupied Europe. �Eastern Europe was selected as the site for these camps for two reasons. First, the largest number of Jews lived in Eastern Europe. Second, the non-Jews living in these areas had age-old traditions of anti-Semitism and were unlikely to oppose the activities of the Nazis. In fact, many offered assistance. Starting in 1941, death camps were being built in Poland at Auschwitz, Treblinka, Sobibor, Chelmno, Belzec, and Maidanek. Jews Forced into Camps �The Germans began to round up Jews throughout Europe. The victims were first put in ghettos and told that, when labor camps were built, they would be resettled in special work areas. In the ghettos, the Germans allowed starvation and deprivation to weaken the captives. Then, whenever the officials in charge decided, a certain number of ghetto residents were ordered to report to rail stations for resettlement "to the East." �Between 1941 and 1945, the Germans built and operated 20 major concentration camps in Germany and Eastern Europe. The concentration camps, including Dachau, Buchenwald, Mauthausen, and Ravensbruck were set up as work camps. Prisoners were worked to death as slave laborers or used in medical experiments conducted by German physicians and university scientists. Scores of other, smaller concentration camps were built too in other areas. These camps tied up men and material in their operation and were a drain on German manpower. This policy did not advance the war effort. However, it showed the strong commitment of the Nazis to the Final Solution. �At first, thinking that life could only be better away from the disease-ridden ghettos, the victims willingly accepted resettlement. In order to avoid panic in the ghettos, the Germans allowed families to travel together to the death camps. Herded into cattlewagons, the families received little water and no food as the trains made the slow trip into Poland. Deportation to the East �The victims seldom knew what was about to happen to them. Although rumors from the death camps began to filter back into the ghettos after 1942, few Jews could believe that mass extermination was the final aim of the Germans, a nation many had considered to be the most cultured and advanced in Europe. Even when a number of death camp escapees managed to return to the ghettos and report what they had seen, their accounts were dismissed as wild stories. �Under the resettlement plan, the Nazis first emptied out the major areas of Jewish settlement in Eastern Europe. Poland was first, followed by Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Rumania, Yugoslavia, Hungary, and the Soviet Union. As Nazi victories in Western Europe brought even more Jews under Nazi control, victims were brought to these camps from France, Holland, Belgium, and finally, Germany itself. The policy of genocide was in full force in Europe by mid-1943. Auschwitz Is Largest Death Camp �The largest death camp was built west of Krakow in Auschwitz. Beginning in late 1941, Russian prisoners of war and several thousand Jewish prisoners worked nonstop to build the gas chambers and crematoria, as well as hundreds of barracks to house slave laborers. German engineers and architects supervised the construction. Scores of German doctors and medical researchers were given permission to carry out medical experiments on human beings in specially equipped laboratories built on the grounds of the camp. �The camp began accepting large numbers of prisoners in 1942, and was soon operating at full capacity. While the Germans used some prisoners as slave laborers, killing was the major goal of the camp. By mid-1944, when vast numbers of Hungarian Jews began arriving at Auschwitz, 10,000 people or more were murdered daily. Even as the war brought the Soviet armies deep into Eastern Europe after 1944, trains filled with victims continued to arrive in Auschwitz. �The trains, packed with terrified prisoners, arrived in the death camps several times each day. Prisoners were unloaded from the trains by waiting guards. Once they were separated by sex, victims waited in long lines to be checked by an SS doctor who decided who would go to the gas chambers. The young, the healthy, and those with skills needed by camp officials were sent into the camp itself. In the camp, their heads were shaved and they were herded into overcrowded barracks. Old people, sick people, women with children under 14, and all pregnant women were sent to the gas chambers. Nazis Try to Destroy Evidence of Camps �In late 1944, the Allied armies crossed into Germany and the Soviet forces liberated sections of eastern Poland. Fearful that the secret of the death camps would be discovered, the Germans began destroying them. Treblinka had already been plowed under after a Jewish revolt in August 1943, and Auschwitz was partially taken apart in 1945. �As the Allies approached several of the remaining camps, the killing continued, with nearly a half million victims murdered in 1945 alone. The SS forcibly marched the surviving prisoners from the death camps in Poland into Germany, where they remained in concentration camps until they were freed by the Allies. These final death marches killed thousands, and tens of thousands of starving victims were eventually left to die in abandoned German trains. Hitler Commits Suicide �On April 30, 1945, shortly before he took his own life, Hitler wrote his last political testament. He blamed the war on the Jews. They were, he said, solely responsible for causing the war and their own eventual destruction.
Rescuers and Bystanders
Overview VI: Bystanders and Rescuers �For the most part, the nations of the world offered little assistance to the victims of the Holocaust. German plans for the annihilation of the Jews could not have succeeded without the active cooperation of non-Germans in occupied Europe. A long tradition of anti-Semitism aided the Nazis in their efforts. Many of the death camps were, for example, staffed by Eastern Europeans, recruited and trained by the Nazis. League of Nations Offers Little Help �During the early stages of Nazi persecution of German Jews, few countries offered to take in the victims of persecution. This was true even after it became clear that discrimination against Jews was a deliberate policy of the German government. Although its charter forbade such actions, the League of Nations was helpless to stop Hitler's plans for the forced expulsion of the Jews. The League did set up a commission to help German Jewish refugees, but League member nations offered so little assistance that the head of the commission, James McDonald, resigned in protest. No nation offered to revise its immigration policy to meet this crisis. None offered to accept German Jews while they could still get out. United States Keeps Immigration Quotas �The countries of the world continued to restrict immigration from Europe. The American public learned about the death camps in November, 1942, when the State Department made this information public and gave it to the mass media. It was never treated as a major news story in American newspapers. �A few Church leaders worked with American Jewish organizations to urge the government to act, but on the whole there was a deafening silence from the United States and other countries. The State Department saw no place to put the thousands of Jews that would have to come. There was no leadership from President Roosevelt to put pressure on the State Department or government officials. Despite this, several thousand Jews did manage to get out. Refugees went anywhere they could obtain a visa, China, Africa, Brazil, Japan, or India. �By late 1938, the Nazis had recognized that forced emigration of German Jews was a failure. The German Foreign Office noted that the world had closed its borders to the Jews. How could the Jews leave Hitler's Germany if there was now no place for them to go? Immigration Quotas Not Filled �Throughout early 1939, the United States admitted about 100,000 Jews from Germany and other Eastern European nations. However, this figure represented only about one-fourth of the places available in the United States for refugees from Nazi Germany and occupied Europe. Nearly 400,000 openings were not filled. Certain officials within the State Department resisted attempts to fill the quotas allowed for Jewish emigration. Reasons for this are complex. Throughout the Depression years, some Americans feared job competition from incoming refugees. Anti-Semitism also played a part in American policy toward the refugees. Great Britain, Canada, and a number of Latin American countries had policies similar to those of the United States. St. Louis Refused Entry �While the doors to official emigration were closing, many still tried to leave their country for a safe haven abroad. Counting on the goodwill of the United States and Canada, several shiploads of German Jews sailed for North America in 1938 and 1939. In May, 1939, 937 German Jews boarded the "St. Louis," bound from Hamburg, Germany, to the United States. The passengers on the "St. Louis" already had American quota permits but did not yet have visas. �The "St. Louis" reached Cuba. For over one month, the passengers waited for their papers to be processed by American authorities. When permission was eventually denied by the United States and a number of other nations, the "St. Louis" was forced to return to Germany, where most of the passengers died in concentration camps. �The world's religious communities did little to protest the mistreatment of Germany's Jews. Before the war, few Catholic and Protestant clergymen in Germany officially condemned Nazi treatment of German Jews. Church leaders in Germany looked aside when in 1935 the Nazis implemented the Nuremberg Laws. Monasteries and Convents Offer Refuge �After war broke out, however, a number of Catholic and Protestant leaders did offer some assistance to Jews, including false baptismal certificates and refuge in monasteries and convents. In Germany, Pastor Martin Niemoeller, a World War I hero, eventually spoke out against Nazi policies, as did a few other high-ranking German religious leaders. But such protest was limited and came too late to make a difference. �The Vatican, under Pope Pius XII, was silent throughout the war. Even when Italian Jews were deported from Italy within view of the Vatican, the Pope offered no official condemnation of German policies. Denmark and King Christian �Many courageous individuals and nations did attempt to stop the Holocaust. The Danish government refused to accept German racial policies, even after that nation was occupied in 1940. The Danish king, Christian X, forcefully told German officials that he would not permit the resettlement of Denmark's small Jewish population. In 1943, when the Nazis ordered the deportation of the Danish Jews, word was quickly sent throughout the country to help the Jews escape to Sweden. The rescue that followed saved nearly 7,000 lives. This number represented over 90 percent of Denmark's Jewish population. Italy and Bulgaria �Although Italy and Bulgaria were allied with Germany in the war, both nations resisted German orders to deport Jewish citizens. The Bulgarian king and government slowed efforts to deport Bulgarian Jews, as did the Italian government. Despite severe German pressure and local anti-Semitic political parties, both governments saved three-fourths of their Jewish citizens from deportation and death. Raoul Wallenberg �While the Hungarian government at first resisted efforts to deport Hungarian Jews, it finally agreed to let the resettlement begin in 1944. Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat working in Budapest, gave tens of thousands of Swedish passports to condemned Hungarian Jews, often handing out these documents to people already loaded on German trains bound for the death camps. �Wallenberg's efforts during 1944 saved about 20,000 lives, and he sought shelter for hundreds of others in safe houses protected by the Swedish government in Budapest. Suspected of spying for the Allies, Wallenberg was arrested by the Soviets after the liberation of Budapest in 1945 and was never heard from again. �There were also many Polish citizens who aided Jews during the war. A few Polish resistance groups supplied arms to Jewish fighters in the various Polish ghettos. Zegota, an underground organization of Polish Catholics, hid Jews from deportation. There were many instances of individual Polish citizens hiding Jews in their homes and farms until the end of the war. However, most Polish Resistance groups ignored, or even persecuted, Jews who escaped from ghettos and camps. Holocaust Museum Honors Rescuers �At Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial museum in Israel, those non-Jews who aided Jews during the war are honored as Righteous Gentiles. Hundreds of trees have been planted along a pathway to remind museum visitors of the courage of non-Jews who, despite risk to their own lives and families, refused to stand by while others were being persecuted or murdered.
Resisters
Lesson V: Resisters �When the horrors of the Holocaust were revealed, many people wondered how it was possible for the Nazis to kill so many people without meeting overwhelming resistance. Why did so many millions go to their deaths in ghettos and camps without fighting back? Policy of Collective Responsibility �Jewish resistance to Nazi persecution was limited by circumstances in occupied Europe. With the carefully worked out plans for the Final Solution, there were few chances for massive resistance. Under the Nazi policy of collective responsibility, any individual or group working against the Germans faced brutal punishment. Entire communities and families were held responsible for individual acts of resistance or sabotage. Poland, for example, lived under a virtual state of terror throughout the occupation. Any contact between a Pole and a Jew was punishable by death. �Despite this, resistance to Nazi persecution took several forms: armed resistance outside the ghettos and camps, resistance within the ghettos that led to uprisings, and the passive resistance of individuals and groups who showed their opposition by continuing to practice their religion. Armed Resistance in the Countryside �Armed resistance came from those who managed to escape capture. Organizing themselves into small resistance groups in the Eastern European countryside, these people--with few arms, inadequate food, and little help from native citizens, fought against the Nazis on several fronts. Known as partisans, such groups attacked German supply depots, captured weapons, and served as links between the ghettos and the outside world. In both Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, Jewish partisan groups fought against the Nazis in the forests and countryside. When the ghettos were being evacuated and destroyed, Jewish resistors led a number of uprisings in these ghettos. Warsaw Ghetto Uprising �The strongest armed resistance took place in the ghettos of Eastern Europe. One of the most famous uprisings took place in the Warsaw Ghetto in April, 1943. With few arms and almost no outside help, a group of young ghetto residents held out for several weeks against overwhelming German superiority. The Warsaw Ghetto was destroyed soon after the uprising. Only a handful of the ghetto fighters survived. But this uprising was not unique. Revolts also took place in the Vilna Ghetto and in several smaller Polish ghettos. Gas Chambers Destroyed by Resisters �Jewish resistance groups also operated within a number of major concentration camps and death camps. In Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Sobibor, Jews formed active resistance groups that helped prisoners in many ways. They got food from the outside, bribed camp guards, sabotaged installations, and, eventually, led armed uprisings. Jews working in the crematoriums in Auschwitz revolted in 1943, destroying one of the gas chamber-crematory facilities and killing a number of SS soldiers. �In Treblinka, prisoners spent a year organizing a full-scale revolt that took place in the summer of 1943, allowing a number of prisoners to escape. In Sobibor, nearly 700 Jews revolted and, though most were hunted down and killed, some 300 managed to escape. These revolts so enraged Hitler and Himmler that both camps were destroyed.
Timeline of the Holocaust
Holocaust Time Line 1933 January 30: Hitler appointed chancellor of Germany. March 5: Hitler receives strong vote of confidence from German people in Reichstag elections. March 24: Reichstag gives Hitler power to enact laws on its behalf. April 7: Jews barred from German civil service. April 25: Number of Jewish children admitted to German schools and universities reduced. May 10: Books by Jews and opponents of Nazism burned publicly. October 19: Germany withdraws from League of Nations. 1934 August 3: Hitler declares himself president and chancellor of the Third Reich after death of Paul von Hindenburg. 1935 January 13: Saar region annexed by Germany. March 16: Hitler violates Versailles Treaty by renewing compulsory military draft in Germany. March 17: German army enters Rhineland. September 15: Nuremberg Laws deprive Jews of German citizenship. 1936 March 3: Jewish doctors no longer permitted to practice in government institutions in Germany. March 7: Jews no longer have the right to participate in German elections. German army reoccupies Rhineland. August 1: Olympic Games open in Berlin. Signs reading "Jews Not Welcome" are temporarily removed from most public places by Hitler's orders. 1937 July 16: Buchenwald concentration camp opens. November 16: Jews can obtain passports for travel outside of Germany only in special cases. 1938 March 13: Austria annexed by Germany. July 23: German government announces Jews must carry identification cards. November 7: Attempt made by Herschel Grynszpan to assassinate German diplomat in Paris. November 9: Kristallnacht, Night of Broken Glass, anti-Jewish riots in Germany and Austria, takes place. November 12: German Jews ordered to pay one billion Reichsmarks in reparations for damages of Kristallnacht. November 15: All Jewish children expelled from German schools. 1939 March 15: Germany occupies Czechoslovakia. August 23: Soviet-German Pact signed. September 7: German army invades Poland. World War II begins. November 28: First Polish ghetto established. 1940 April 9: German army occupies Denmark and southern Norway. May 10: Germany invades Holland, Belgium, and France. June 22: French army surrenders and signs armistice with Germany. October 3: Anti-Jewish laws passed by Vichy Government in France. November 15: Warsaw Ghetto closed off approximately 500,000 inhabitants. November 20: Hungary, Rumania, and Slovakia join the Axis. 1941 May 15: Rumania passes law condemning adult Jews to forced labor. June: Vichy Government revokes civil rights of French Jews in North Africa. June 22: Germany invades Soviet Union. December 8: Chelmno death camp opened near Lodz, Poland. 1942 January 20: Wansee Conference begins. June 1: Treblinka death camp opens. July 28: Jewish fighting organization set up in Warsaw Ghetto. October 4: All Jews still in concentration camps in Germany are sent to death camp at Auschwitz. 1943 April 19: Warsaw Ghetto revolt begins. June: Nazis order all ghettos in Poland and Soviet Union liquidated. July 24: Revolt in Italy; Mussolini deposed. August 2: Armed revolt in Treblinka death camp. October 2: Order for the expulsion of Danish Jews. Through rescue operations of Danish undergound, 7000 Jews evacuated to Sweden; only 475 people captured by Germans. October 14: Armed revolt in Sobibor death camp. 1944 March 19: German army invades Hungary. May 15: Deportation of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz begins. June 6: Allied invasion of Normandy. July 20: Group of German officers attempt to assassinate Hitler. July 24: Russians liberate Maidanek death camp. 1945 January 17: Evacuation of Auschwitz; prisoners begin death march. April: Russian army enters Germany from east; Allied army enters from the west. April 30: Hitler commits suicide. May 8: Germany surrenders. November: Nuremberg Trials begin. 1962 December: Adolf Eichmann executed in Israel. 1965 February: Legislation passed in Germany to allow prosecution of Nazi war criminals to be extended for additional 20-year-period. 1987 May: Klaus Barbie trial begins in Lyons, France.
Remembering the Holocaust
Lesson VIII: Remembering and Forgetting �"When I tell the story of my life, it takes me quite a while to get back to normal. I get nightmares. I don't mind having nightmares in order that future generations can benefit from it." --Ben Stern, Columbia Concentration Camp Survivor �"The wrongs which we seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated, so malignant and devastating, that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored because it cannot survive their being repeated." --Justice Robert Jackson, Chief American Counsel at Nuremberg �The magnitude of the Holocaust did not become evident until April 17, 1945, when the Allied forces from the West and the Russian forces from the East linked up at the Elbe River in Germany. As unsuspecting Allied soldiers entered the concentration camps in Germany, they discovered thousands of dying people. Despite the efforts of British and American medical personnel, these prisoners were rescued too late. Many of them died of typhus and other diseases or from starvation in the weeks following liberation. Displaced Persons �Allied forces were faced with a dilemma. What was to be done with the freed prisoners of war and displaced persons? For most survivors, their homes, family, and friends no longer existed. Those who did return to their homelands were often met with hostility by their neighbors; many of whom had profited by the absence of their Jewish neighbors. When it became clear that other countries would not significantly raise their immigration quotas, the 200,000 Jews liberated from the camps were returned to their native countries. But some 65,000 Polish and Lithuanian Jews had nowhere to go. �Both political and humanitarian reasons contributed to the decision to open the doors of Palestine to the survivors of the Holocaust. In Western Europe and the United States, letters from soldiers in occupied Germany described the horrors of the death camps. In the United States the findings from committees and individuals contributed to public awareness of the Holocaust. Israel Opens Doors to Refugees �In November 1947, the United Nations General Assembly voted to sanction a partition plan dividing Palestine into a bi-national state. The state of Israel became a haven for the surviving Jews of Europe. The modern state of Israel did not result from the Holocaust. Its roots go back the Zionist political philosophy of the late 19th century, but the Holocaust experience decidedly influenced its establishment. Nuremberg Trials �Resettlement of refugees was just one of the problems facing the leaders of the postwar world. Equally pressing was the need to understand and bring to justice those who had carried out the Holocaust. This was the purpose of the Nuremberg Trials held in Nuremberg, Germany. An international court, representing the United States, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union, was convened. Most of those who had participated in the Holocaust were charged with committing crimes against humanity. Such crimes were defined as the murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhuman acts committed against civilian groups on political, racial, or religious grounds. �The trials took place from November 1945 to October 1946. The 22 who were tried were the political, military, and economic leaders of Nazi Germany. Among the defendants were Hermann Goering, Rudolf Hess, and Albert Speer. At a second set of trials, using American judges from 1946 to 1949, the defendants were high-ranking Nazi officials, including cabinet ministers, SS officers, diplomats, and doctors who had carried out medical experiments. The American Nuremberg Tribunal sentenced 24-four persons to death, 20 to life imprisonment, 98 to other prison terms and acquitted 35. Defendants Argue: Obeying Orders �Defendants did not deny the charges, but argued basically that in a war situation, they were following orders and could not be held responsible for orders from a superior officer. The prosecutors argued that while war is an evil thing, there is the unwritten custom of war that forbids murder as distinguished from killing in legitimate combat. �Not all war criminals have been prosecuted. Between 15,000 and 20,000 were still alive in the early 1990s. Most are thought to be hiding in Europe, South America, or the United States. The search for these people continues, led by men and women known as Nazi hunters. Adolf Eichmann Captured �One of the most famous Nazi hunters is Simon Wiesenthal, a Holocaust surivor. He has successfully tracked down over 1000 Nazi criminals. His most famous feat was the discovery of the hiding places of Argentina's Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi official responsible for arranging all transportation of Jews to the camps during the period of the Final Solution. Eichmann was captured in Argentina in 1960 and tried and executed in Israel in 1962. Another well known Nazi hunter is the German-born Beate Klarsfeld. Through her efforts, Klaus Barbie, known as the Butcher of Lyons, was brought to trial in France and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1987.
Notes from Mrs.Korpics
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