Introduction to The Holocaust

Introduction to The Holocaust
Steps to Genocide 1933 to 1945

Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, heal'd by the same means, warm'd and cool'd by the same winter and summer as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? - Shylock Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice Act III Scene I

The Holocaust (proper noun):
holocaust (noun): Greek word meaning “sacrifice by fire” The Holocaust (proper noun): The Holocaust was the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of approximately six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators.

The Holocaust (from the Greek ὁλόκαυστος holókaustos: hólos, "whole" and kaustós, "burnt")
Also known as the Shoah (Hebrew : השואה, HaShoah, "catastrophe"; Yiddish : חורבן, Churben or Hurban, Hebrew for "destruction")

genocide (noun): Nazi target groups:
The crime of destroying a group of people because of their ethnic, national, racial, or religious identity Nazi target groups: Ethnicities: Jews & Gypsies (Roma), Nationalities: Slavs (Poles & Russians) “Degenerates”: homosexuals, the mentally & physically disabled Political rivals: communists & socialists Religions: Jehovah Witnesses & Jews Asocials: Anybody else who opposed the Nazis

Life Before the Holocaust
Kielce's Market: Kielce Museum, Jewish artist P.Schultz

Anti-Semitism before the Holocaust
Jew as ‘the Other’ under Rome & early Christianity Persecution during the Crusades Creation of the ghetto (Venice 1517) Blood libel charges Martin Luther Emphasis on conversion Issue of Usury Mass expulsions throughout Europe ( ) Prominence of the Other (professional accomplishments) Change from Anti-Semitism based on religion to ethnic discrimination

Pale of Settlement in Russia
Est by Czar Elizabeth II, under pressure to rid Moscow of Jewish business & ‘evil’ influence 90% of Jews lived in 4% of land

Pogroms (E. Europe) Yiddish/Russian term for ‘devastation’

Jewish Reaction Sought complete assimilation
Fought to be accepted at local and national levels (e.g. WWI service) Maintained separate Jewish lifestyle Excerpt: Norman Salsitz, A Jewish Boyhood in Poland: Remembering Kolbuszowa

Four-tiered Social Structure
Eastern Europe Poles (Catholic) Ukranian peasant (Russian Orthodox) Volksdeutsch/Ethnic German – descendant of German settlers brought in during 18th century Jews (Yiddish)

After World War I Largest Jewish community was in Poland
Ukraine: Petlura Gang – 60,000 Jews killed Germany: Weimar Constitution = democracy Walter Rathenau, Minister of Reconstruction Jews blamed for Germany’s humiliation National Socialist German Workers’ Party

25 Point Program (Munich, 25 February 1920)
Creation of a Greater Germany Return of Germany’s lost colonies POINT FOUR: None but members of the Nation may be members of the State. None but those of German blood, whatever creed, may be members of the Nation. No Jew therefore may be members of the Nation.

Adolf Hitler 1920 #7 in the Nazi party 1925 jailed for treason
1925 first installment of Mein Kampf Marxism & Judaism greatest threats Redefined Aryan and Semitic Excerpt: Mein Kampf 1933 Chancellor of Germany

Germany Military organization within Nazi party established (SA, SS, Gestapo) 1926 Hitler Youth Inflation & unemployment began to rise 1931 Rosh HaShanah – attack on Jews returning from synagogue; symbolic

1933 5 February 1933 Emergency Decree 27 February 1933 Reichstag fire
28 February 1933 Emergency Order March 1933 Dachau opened 23 March 1933 Enabling Act Einzeloperationen “individual operations” Boycott of Jewish shops Windows marked with Star of David or Jude 7 April 1933 Order retirement (all non-Aryans) Sachsenhausen & Esterwegen camps Jews expelled from Universities (Einstein) 10 May 1933 book burning, Berlin Opera House October 1933 Law of Revolution at Dachau (hanging)

Jewish Reaction Despair Suicide Some left Germany to W. Europe
5000 emigrated to Palestine Others waited

1934-1935 Intensified campaign to create Judenfrei villages
May 1934 Der Sturmer

Redefinition of who is Jewish New term: Christian non-Aryans
Attempted legislation to prevent sexual relations between Jews and non-Jews Redefinition of who is Jewish New term: Christian non-Aryans 15 September 1935 Nuremberg Laws 1. Citizenship only belong to a national of German or kindred blood 2. Jews were not of German blood; intermarriages forbidden 3. forbid relations outside marriage between Jew and German 4. Jews forbidden to fly German flag

1936-August 31, 1939 Assassination of Wilhelm Gustloff, head of Nazi party in Switzerland, THUS all police power centralized under Gestapo One of events later used to justify Kristallnacht March 1936 Przytyk pogrom, s. of Warsaw Poles would be accustomed to such actions Palestinian Arabs begin General Strike Because British allowed Jews to emigrate in Palestine Hitler into Rhineland (violating Versailles) half of German Jews find refuge Polish Jewry (c. 4 million) too extensive

The Eternal Jew 8 November 1937

1938 March 1938 Austria annexed (Anschluss) Buchenwald opens
June 1938 burning of synagogues 6 July 1938 International Conference at Evian – issue of refugees & avoid having a Jewish problem September 1938 Sudetenland to Germany

Kristallnacht 9 November 1938 Impetus: Grynszpan affair (Paris)
191 synagogues damaged Jews fined for damage done Berlin, Germany Dortmund, Germany

December 1938 first train to Britain with German Jewish children
3 May 1938 second ‘Jewish Law’: Hungary Forbid Jews to be judge, lawyer, teacher … 17 May 1939 Palestine White Paper 75,000 Jews to Palestine in next 5 years May 1939 plight of the St. Louis Canada 23 August 1939 non-aggression pact between Nazi Germany & Soviet Union If invade Poland, Soviet Union would do nothing 1 September 1939: Germany invades Poland: World War II begins

They came for the Communists,
and I didn't object - For I wasn't a Communist; They came for the Socialists, - For I wasn't a Socialist; They came for the labour leaders, - For I wasn't a labour leader; They came for the Jews, - For I wasn't a Jew; Then they came for me And there was no one left to object. Martin Niemoller, ( ) German Protestant Pastor, & Nazi Political Prisoner from 1937 to 1945

Concentration camp prisoners wearing triangles and inmate numbers.

Why Have Camps? Essential to Nazi’s systematic oppression and eventual mass murder of enemies of Nazi Germany Slave labor moved them towards their ultimate goal- “annihilation by work” What was taken from Jews was used to provide goods for the German People

Three Steps on the Road to Genocide:
You cannot live among us as Jews. You cannot live among us. You cannot live. Burning of Jewish books, including the Torah, 1934

Escalation of Hate Genocide
Institutionalized, government sponsored racism Genocide Discrimination Prejudice Stereotyping

You cannot live among us as Jews.
Prejudiced Attitudes: Stereotyping Discrimination & Harassment Systemic Racism

anti-semitism (noun):
You cannot live among us as Jews. anti-semitism (noun): hostility toward or discrimination against Jews as a religious, ethnic, or racial group Jewish caricature for anti-semitic Viennese magazine, Kikeriki, 1900 – The Jews try to conquer the world through a black market in grain.

The personification of the devil as the symbol of all evil assumes the living shape of the Jew”~Adolf Hitler Hitler’s minister of propaganda Joseph Goebbels, links love of Germany with hatred of the Jews

Eugenics: Based loosely on early 20th century understanding of the science of genetics, eugenicists believed that people should be bred as farmers breed animals: deliberately weeding out “inferior” traits through genetic selection. The Nazis believed that they could create a “a master race”.

Aryan race: The Nazis believed that people of Northern European ancestry – especially those with blue eyes and blonde hair – were superior to all other people, including people of African, Asian, and Middle-Eastern ancestry. In 1933, there were few people of African or Asian ancestry living in Germany. There were, however, 500,000 Jews who seemed to threaten “racial purity”.

The Power of Words… “The great masses of the people will more easily fall victim to a big lie than a small one” “How fortunate for leaders that men do not think” The victor will never be asked if he told the truth” “ I believe today I am acting in the sense of the Almighty Creator. By warding off the Jews I am doing the Lord’s work” What do all these quotations have in common?

All were said by Adolf Hitler…

Above: “Juden Rause” (“Jews Get Out”), Nazi children’s board game A group at exit 2 are “off to Palestine”

How did they know who was Jewish?
November 1935 German churches begin to collaborate with Nazis by supplying records indicating who is Christian State of the art data processing was used to take a census in all German territory. Early on the Nazis included questions on religious heritage The machine allowed Nazi officials to tabulate huge amounts of data very quickly German Hollenith Machine – a subsidiary of IBM

In 1934, Nazi scientists developed This kit, which contained 29 samples of human hair. The samples were used by geneticists, anthropologists, and doctors to determine ancestry. Hair colour also became a means to prove the supposed superiority of Aryans and the inferiority of Jews, Gypsies, and those of “mixed breeds”.

“The Eternal Jew” – a degenerate-art exhibition in Munich opened on November, The largest prewar anti-semitic exhibit produced by the Nazis, it depicted Jews as vile, subhuman creatures. The exhibit featured photographs pointing out the typically “Jewish” traits. The Jew was stereotyped as having a large hooked nose, enormous lips and sloping forehead.

Germans were suspicious of Jews who were seen as conspiring (with the help of communists) to take over the world.

On April 1, 1933, Hitler declared a one-day boycott of Jewish shops Many German citizens voluntarily participated

May 1933, Jewish books were burned in public bonfires

“The Nuremberg Laws” turned prejudice & discrimination into systemic racism. For example: 1935: Jewish Newspapers could no longer be sold 1936: Jews lost the right to vote 1938: Jews had to surrender drivers’ licences & car registrations Below: Aerial view of Nuremberg, Germany, prewar period

1935- Nuremberg Race Laws

The Nuremberg Laws also classified “degrees “ of Jewish blood One use for this classification was to permit or to deny couples the right to marry (and thus to reproduce) One proposed “solution” to the Jewish problem was sterilization

By 1938, all Jews were required to carry identification cards Jewish passports & papers were marked with a “J”

You cannot live among us.
Many Jews attempted to leave Germany. But many nations, including Great Britain, Canada & the United States limited Jewish immigration Left: In 1939, 850 Jewish refugees attempt to enter British-controlled Palestine illegally.

British officials arrested the 850 European Jewish immigrants and interned them in a detention center near Haifa. Similarly, in 1939 the German refugee ship St. Louis attempted to find safe harbour for its Jewish passengers in Cuba & the US. Most end up back in Belgium & the Netherlands.

Ghetto: Evacuating the Jews from Germany, the Nazis created compulsory “Jewish Quarters” in most Polish cities and towns. The ghetto was a section of a city where all Jews from the surrounding areas were forced to reside, surrounded by barbed wire or walls Left: Jewish labourers are forced to build a wall around the Warsaw ghetto

Nazi ghettos were a preliminary step in the annihilation of the Jews
Nazi ghettos were a preliminary step in the annihilation of the Jews. Ghettos became transition areas, used as collection points for deportation to concentration & death camps

By spring of 1941, conditions inside Poland’s Warsaw Ghetto were hellish: Food was scarce, clothing consisted many of old rags, and medical supplies were virtually non-existent. Child mortality rates skyrocketed Left: Orphan sleeping in Warsaw ghetto, 1941

In 1941, German Jews were taken into “protective custody” and deported to concentration camps, build in eastern Germany & Poland. Left: Jews being deported from German city of Baden-Baden

In response to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the Nazis destroyed the ghetto and moved the residents farther east “to safety”.

Jews carried their few remaining possessions to train stations. They were then transported in freight and cattle cars. Not only were there no chairs, but the trains also lacked sanitation, food, water, and air.

Concentration Camps Camps were built on railroad lines for efficient transportation On arrival, all are given numbers- some have this tattooed on their wrist

You cannot live among us
In 1941, Romania also began to deport its Jews. The 2500 occupants of the lasi train were allowed to disembark for a few minutes. Burning and dehydrated, they immediately sought refuge in the cool mud before returning to the torture of the sealed railcars.

Step 3: You Cannot Live Law for the Protection of Hereditary Health
Idea was to improve the quality of the German race Nazi policy to eliminate those “unworthy of life” (mentally or physically challenged) to promote Aryan “racial integrity” Policy halted in 1941 due to outcry within Germany Einsatzgruppen (mobile killing units) had began killing operations aimed at entire Jewish communities in the 1930s. Thought to have killed as many as 1 million people in six months Vigorous participation of local police helped facilitate the killing

You cannot live Fewer than half the 2500 Romanian Jews on the lasi death train survived the eight day train journey. Death due to exhaustion, starvation, dehydration, and suffocation was common on the train transports.

You cannot live. 1941 kamenets-podolski ukraine, members of Einsatzkommandos and local Ukrainian nationalists murdered Jews in huge open pits. Mass shoots and graves in Estonia and Poland were inefficient and demoralized German soldiers. The Germans began to seek a more permanent solution to the Jewish problem.

You cannot live Final Solution:
The code name for the plan to destroy the Jews of Europe. In December, 1941, Jews were rounded up -- under the excuse of a “resettlement” program -- and sent to death camps in the East.

You cannot live. On July 31, 1941, SS Major General Reinhard Heydrich (1904 – 1942), was empowered to prepare “a total solution of the Jewish question in the German sphere of influence in Europe”. This document did not specify what the “solution” would be, but it did permit him to handle “the Jewish question” in ways that went beyond “emigration and evacuation”. Blond and blue-eyed Heydrich fit the “Aryan” ideal On January 20, 1942 Heydrich convened the Wannsee Conference, a meeting with top Nazi officials, in which the plans to coordinated the “final solution” were outlined. Ambushed by Czech Resistance fighters near Prague, Heydrich died on June 4, 1942. The Germans took revenge by razing the Czech village of Lidice and killing all of its male inhabitants

You cannot live. At the Wannsee Conference, SS Officer Adolf Eichmann ( ) was given the task of implementing the “Final Solution”. An extremely efficient bureaucrat, Eichmann organized the round-ups and the train convoys to the extermination camps Eichmann observed that poison gas was already being used to exterminate the mentally handicapped. He devised the gassing procedures and set the death quotas in the extermination camps. Eichmann fled Germany for Buenos Aires after the war. In the 1960, the Isreali government found him, kidnapped him, tried him in Isreal, and hanged him.

You cannot live. Taking place at the beautiful Wannsee estate, the 1942 conference was attended by fifteen men, eight of whom had advanced university degrees ranging from law to philosophy and theology. Nearly all knew about the deportations and killings already in progress. Ten days after the meeting, on January 30, 1942, Hitler proclaimed that “the results of this war will be the total annihilation of the Jews.”

You cannot live. Leader of the SS and head of all police forces – including the Gestapo --, Heinrich Himmler (1900 – 1945) spent much of 1943 implementing the “final Solution” by using his control over the courts and civil service to advance the racial reordering of Europe. Himmler paid particular attention to the fate of the 600,000 Jews of France. When trying to pass a British checkpoint in May 1945, the fugative was recognised & arrested; he bit a cyanide pill, dying in moments.

You cannot live. The SS were put in charge of the day-to-day operations of the death camps.

You cannot live. Many SS guards claimed after the war that they had just “been following orders.” Rudolf Hoess, Commander at Auschwitz said, “We were all so trained to obey orders without even thinking....” Left: SS guards at Sobibor Death Camp, 1942

You cannot live The sign over the entrance to Auschwitz said “Work makes one free.” However, Auschwitz was NOT a labour camp. It was actually the largest of the death camps.

You cannot live

You cannot live This pile of clothes belonged to prisoners of the Dachau concentration camp Most of it would be resold to German civilians.

You cannot live The Germans deported the Dutch Jews east starting in mid-1942 Most believed they were going to labour camps Few believed the death camps even existed.

You cannot live Mauthausen labour camp at liberation in 1945
Note how relatively well-fed and well-dressed the inmates look.

You cannot live Compare the previous picture to this one showing the inmates of a death camp. Many who were not immediatedly taken to the gas chambers, died more slowly from malnutrition & overwork.

Once selected, you began the process of extermination
Your luggage would be left for collection later

First you removed your valuables

Then you removed your shoes and clothes

Eyeglasses Confiscated property from prisoners was kept in storerooms nicknamed “Kanada”. The sheer amount of loot stored there was associated with the riches of Canada

Then they removed your hair

Finally Prisoners were sent to gas chambers disguised as showers
Zyklon B gas used to gas people in 3 – 15 minutes Up to 8000 people were gassed per day at Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest death camp with 4 operating gas chambers Gold fillings from victims teeth were melted down to make gold bars Prisoners moved dead bodies to massive crematoriums

The gas chambers, disguised as showers, mainly used carbon monoxide and Xylon-B. To meet the daily death quota, the SS guards gassed men, & women; the elderly & children.

Large industrial ovens were used to cremate the remains. Jewish inmates operated the ovens under SS supervision.

Major Death Factories Sobibor - 250 000 Chlemno - 255 000
Majdanek Belzec Treblinka Auschwitz-Birkenau –

Nearing the End of the War
By 1945, the Nazis’ began to destroy crematoriums and camps as Allied troops closed in Death Marches (Todesmarsche): Between , Nazis ordered marches over long distances. Approximately – prisoners perished in Death Marches On January 27, 1945, the Soviet army entered Auschwitz (largest camp) and liberated more than 7,000 remaining prisoners, who were mostly ill and dying.

Corpse-laden-cart Allied soldiers liberating the camps often had to dig mass graves.

“Inspite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart” - Diary of Anne Frank In March 1945, Fifteen-year-old Anne Frank died at Bergen-Belsen of typhus

When the British liberated Bergen-Belsen April 15, 1945, they discovered tens of thousands of unburied bodies. At 4:00 am on April 29, 1945, the last day of his life, Adolph Hitler made one last address to the German people: “Above all I charge the leaders of the nation and those under them to scrupulous observance of the laws of race and to merciless opposition to the universal poisoner of all peoples, international Jewry.”

Even after liberation, Bergen-Belsen inmates continued to die prisoners died from April 15 to June 20, 1945.

Buchenwald, 1945: The human remains on this table included two shrunken heads and a lampshade allegedly made from human skin. The commandant’s wife, Ilse Koch, kept a collection of tattooed human skin

Nazi doctors did high pressure experiments (left) and radiation experiments (below).

1945, Soviet troops liberated Auschwitz. Rudolf Hoess, Commander of Auschwitz, was asked if the Jews whom he had murdered had in any way deserved their fate. He answered, “Don’t you see, we SS men were not supposed to think about these things ... Besides, it was something already taken for granted that the Jews were to blame for everything.”

European Jewish Population in 1933 was 9,508,340

Estimated Jewish Survivors of Holocaust: 3,546,211

HOLOCAUST STATISTICS

There were some revolts.
In October 1942, the Sobibor armed revolt and escape attempt closed the camp. In October 1944, Auschwitz inmates revolted, but failed to achieve their goal: the destruction of the ovens & gas chambers.

There were some heroes. Oscar Schindler ( ) A German businessman who first profitted from the war but who later saved over 1,300 Jews from the gas chambers by declaring them essential workers – regardless of age or capacity to work.

There was some justice. On November 22, 1945, the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal began.

There were some survivors.
Stanislaw “Shlomo” Smajzner – survivor of Sobibor escape Thomas Blatt – survivor of Sobibor escape

There was a promise: Never Again.

Works Cited Chartock, Roselle and Jack Spencer. The Holocaust Years: Society on Trial. New York: Bantam Books, Harran, Marilyn, et. al. The Holocaust Chronicle: Ahistory in Words and Pictures. Lincolnwood: Publications International, Ltd., Schumacher, Julie A. Voices of the Holocaust. Logan: Perfection Learning Corporation, 2000.

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