SHOAH
The Destruction of the Jewish Population
in Europe, 1933-1945
Through the Middle Ages, Jews were
banned from many kingdoms or
consigned to special ‘ghettos’ where
they were from time to time with
‘pogroms’ or Christian church leaders
accused Jews or stealing children,
committing ritual murders, and (as in
the illustration from a church handbill)
desecrating the host used in
communion.
Background – Beyond the Pale
Some kingdoms (like the Islamic states of Iberia) welcomed
Jews. Maimonides, the Sephardic philosopher, lived in
Cordoba and studied in Morocco and Egypt.
Enclaves within Islam
In the 1500s, Martin Luther’s
anti-Semitic views influenced
proto-Protestant German
thought by his view that Jews
should be persecuted – “burn
their synagogues and let
whatever escapes be covered
with sand and mud. Let them be
forced to work, and if this avails
nothing, we will be compelled to
expel them like dogs . . .”
Luther and German antiSemitism
Both the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Code of
Napoleon granted equal rights to non-Christians. This allowed
Jews greater freedom and influenced several changes in
Europe:
• Orthodox Judaism was diluted in western Europe
• Some Jewish intellectuals joined Christian thinkers in
studying the socialists ideas that grew out of the French
revolution (eg. Karl Marx)
• Jews entered into the mainstream of business in France,
Britain, Germany and elsewhere – mostly in small
businesses or trade
• Anti-Semitism now added “unfair trade” to its list of
complaints.
The French Revolution
Arthur de Gobineau, a French
aristocrat,argued in the 1850s that racial
differences determined the progress of
peoples and that history showed that "all
civilizations derive from the White race." He
believed that the purest members of his
“white race” were those of Aryan blood
(most western Europeans). Gobineau was
not especially prejudiced against Jews, but
his widely distributed essay on racial
inequality, with its core belief in the
superiority of "Aryan blood," would influence
many others
Aryanism
In 1871, Germany became a unified
nation. A new nationalist fever, coupled
with additional strains as the young nation
struggled to balance rapid industrial
growth, social change and traditional ways,
led to an increase in social stress and class
divisions. Historian Heinrich Treitschke
wrote a long essay in 1879 in which he
claimed that the fundamental differences
between German Jews and Christians
could not be reconciled, and that the Jews
had "usurped too large a place in our life."
National Birth
Historians have tried for
decades to explain Adolf
Hitler's murderous antiSemitism. No complete answer
has ever been discovered, but
as a young man in Vienna,
Hitler read numerous antiSemitic pamphlets and books.
After Germany lost the Great
War of 1914-18, he eagerly
joined others in blaming
German Jews for the defeat.
Hitler in Vienna, August 1914, joins
cheering crowd and Austria goes to
war against Serbia.
Versailles Treaty
The German Jewish population was
about 520,000 in 1930 – less than 1%
of the total population
Civil rights, secured to all Jews by the
Weimar government, made Germany
an attractive country. But antiSemitic groups flourished after 1919,
including the National Socialist
German Workers Party (Nazi).
Walther Rathenau, Weimar
Foreign Minister, assassinated in
1922 by right-wing nationalists.
German Jewish population
German Jews were not
united in religious
doctrine. Many in the
eastern parts of
Germany were
Orthodox Jews who
followed strict dietary
practices. Many
Orthodox Jews had fled
Poland or Russia.
Others were more
westernized -“Conservative” Jews
who were fully
assimilated in German
life.
East and west
Hitler incorporated his Aryan,
anti-Jewish ideas into Mein
Kampf. He rebuilt it around
the three themes-- antiSemitism, anti-Communism,
Germany’s racial superiority.
He told a journalist that once
in power he would build
gallows and order hangings
until Germany was “cleansed
of Jews.”
The Nazi Ideology
Houston Stewart Chamberlain, an
Englishman married to Richard
Wagner’s daughter, believed Germany
could dominate Europe, but warned
that “greedy and immoral Jews” could
block German expansion. He warned
the "pure" Germans that they not could
become "lords of the world" unless they
first stopped the Jews. He reiterated his
views with more force during World War
I. Adolf Hitler is known to have read
his work, and made Wagner the semiofficial musician of Nazism.
Influences on Nazi anti-Semitism
Nazi persecutions increased
with the burning of books
written by Jewish writers;
schools expelled Jewish
students; Jewish doctors were
forbidden to treat non-Jewish
patients, lawyers to accept
non-Jewish clients.
Until 1938, Hitler left most
Jewish veterans of the Great
War alone.
Banning “Jewish-ness”
Hitler assembled “race experts” to “educate” the German people
on the ideas of Aryan supremacy and Jewish perfidy.
The “race experts”
A major force for denigrating the Jews was Der Sturmer, the
newspaper edited by “Jew-baiter no. 1” Julius Streicher.
Der Sturmer
Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil
Service – civil servants who were “not of Aryan descent
are to be retired”
Law for the Prevention of Progeny of Hereditary
Disease – permitted a “genetic health court” made up
of physicians and “racial hygiene” experts to determine
who could be sterilized. (Evolves into the T4 program –
killing “defectives” with lethal injections).
Racial hygiene classes a required in schools
Dachau opens for “political criminals”
Anti-Jewish Legislation, 1933
Under the Nazi government, the Ministry of Education and Culture
now undertook the program of “gleichgeschaltet” (coordinating
state and society). All press and news were controlled by the
national government, neighborhoods were organized by reliable
Party “coordinators” and education was reorganized – every student
was to be taught “rassenkunde” – racial science – which
emphasized Nazi ideas of Aryan supremacy and the inferiority of
non-Aryans. Families undertook intense genealogical research to
‘prove’ they were Aryan.
Once the Nuremberg Laws (1935) strictly prohibited Jewish-nonJewish relationships, Himmler’s SS – the core of Aryan thought –
now debated the question of “Mischling” children – those born to
one Jewish and one non-Jewish parent. Some “Mischehen” were
projected by Hermann Goering and other prominent Nazis
throughout the era.
Gleichgeschaltet & Rassenkunde
In April 1933 the Nazi Party mounted a major boycott of
Jewish-owned businesses. Hundreds of small stores went
broke and sold their property – at reduced prices to
primarily Nazi Party members.
Boycotts
About 150,000-200,000 Jews left Germany between 1933-38. Those
who let were mostly the young, with the US taking more immigrants
than any other country. Under German exit laws, emigrants yielded
over two-thirds of their property to the state (essentially ransoming
their freedom).
Jewish emigration
Jews remaining in Germany were forbidden to enter theaters,
stadiums, public parks or pools. Prominent Jewish thinkers and
educators were arrested and sent to concentration camps. Any Jew
who wished to flee Germany had to accept a passport marked with a
“J.” Only a few countries in the world were willing to accept Jewish
immigrants.
Proposals to permit large groups to go to Palestine or Africa
foundered. At the 1938 Evian Conference, only the Dominican
Republic offered a haven.
“Jews Not Wanted”
Since 1924, the U.S. had carefully
restricted immigration through a quota
system. Even if a person could find a
place on the quota list he or she could
be rejected if the American consul
feared he/she would be a “public
charge” – someone who would not earn
enough and become a welfare recipient.
Americans who would file an affidavit
promising to support an immigrant
could help a person overcome this
“public charge” obstacle.
U.S. Restrictions
Employees of the State Department
generally came from an upper middle
class background, their consulate
personnel often educated at ivy league
schools who were members of a fairly
elite set. Hugh Teller, assistant consul at
Stuttgart, had a similar background.
Teller admitted after the war that he
investigated both applicants for visas
and employees at the consulate for any
“communist associations.” (Teller
personnel file obtained via Freedom of
Information Act, with assistance from
Senator Paul Wellstone).
State Department Personnel
Herman Stern of North Dakota
sponsored his first relative in
1933, his niece Klara, the
daughter of his brother Gustav.
With the help of North Dakota
Senator Gerald Nye, Stern was
able to clear the way for her to
come to the United States, live
in Valley City and attend Valley
City State College.
Klara was the first of over one
hundred people helped by
Stern.
Friends in high places
150,000 emigrants did not
forward Hitler’s goal of
making Germany
“Judenrein” (clean of
Jewish influence). The
Jewish population grew
when Hitler annexed Austria
(200,000 Jewish
population) and part of
Czechoslovakia.
Hitler now eyed Poland, and
threatened that a new
“world war” would end in
“the annihilation of the
Jewish race in Europe.”
German Expansion
Heydrich
In November 1938 a Polish
refugee named Herschel
Grynszpan killed a German
diplomat to protest the
deportation of his Jewish
parents. This triggered a
wave of anti-Jewish riots that
were planned and carried out
by Nazi Party members and
police units.
Jewish immigration efforts
now accelerated. But war
was looming in Europe.
Kristallnacht
Poland’s population included 3.5 million Jews (mostly
Orthodox). From the first the plan to attack Poland made Nazi
intentions clear. Himmler ordered Sonderkommando units to
carry out “a hard, tough task which demands the commitment
of the whole person without regard to any difficulties that may
arise. You will be given details by Sturmbannfuehrer Eichmann
of the RSHA who will come to see you in the near future. The
department taking part will be informed at the appropriate
time. You have to maintain the strictest silence about this order,
even to your superiors. The Jews are the eternal enemies of the
German people and must be exterminated. All Jews we can
reach now, during the war, are to be exterminated without
exception.” Poland was invaded September 1, 1939.
War
Jews, intellectuals and gypsies were shot by Einsatzgruppen (special duty
units) in large numbers. The Nazi occupation government under Hans Frank
gathered surviving Polish Jews in ghettos (Lodz entry pictured above) and
soon began deporting German and Austrian Jews to join them. Polish and
Ukrainian civilians were offered rewards by German authorities to find those
in hiding with a Judenjagd (a “Jew hunt”). This system gathered the victims
and identified those who would help kill them.
Gathering the victims
Poland lost about 1/5th of its
population in the war – 3 million
Jews and 3 million Catholic
Poles and Ukranians. Several
thousand Romani (gypsies)
were also murdered.
Einsatzgruppen killed thusands
in mass shootings, the ‘death
camp’ was developed, gas was
used extensively for the first
time at Chelmno. An escapee
from Auschwitz would reveal the
extent of this in 1942 (but
British code breakers had known
of it for over a year.
Poland’s Holocaust
January 1942, Reindard Heydrich (Himmler’s most reliable
aide) convenes a conference in Wannsee suburb (of Berlin) –
SS, RSHA, Gestapo, security police, Interior Ministry and
other representatives discuss the methods required to
transport “approximately 11 million Jews [who] will be
involved in the final solution of the European Jewish
question.”
Adolf Eichmann (right), Heydrich’s assistant,
is selected to handle all details concerned
with transport, camp organization, and
actual “processing” of the Jews sent to the
camps.
Wannsee
From 1942-44,
Germany pressured
the Vichy French,
Italian, Romanian and
Hungarian
governments to
deport their Jewish
populations to Poland.
All these nations
eventually
cooperated. Drancy
(left) is where French
Jews awaited trains to
Auschwitz.
Willing collaborators
Yosef Laufer was 17 when his village (part
of the Soviet Union section of Poland) was
seized by Germany in 1941. Confined to
a village ghetto, Laufer’s family survived
by gleaning fields for grain and selling
firewood they cut in the woods.
After being forced onto a train for camp,
Laufer and his father escaped the rail car
(abandoning his mother and sister) and
lived in woods, fields and a riverside cave
for 2 years before the Russians entered
the region.
Laufer’s father survived the war but was
killed by Polish thugs six months later.
Surviving the Dangers
Not only did the IG Farben help build the gas chambers and
ovens at Birkenau (the extermination section of Auschwitz),
it also mass-produced the poison (Zyklon B) and operated a
plant at the camp using slave labor.
The Death Factory
Josef Mengele was one of
dozens of physicians and
scientists who used camp
inmates in involuntary
experiments to test human
reactions to malaria and
other diseases. And the
effects of high air pressure,
water pressure, oxygen
deprivation and extreme heat
and cold on the human body.
Hundreds died in these
experiments.
Guinea Pigs
Werner von Braun was the German
authority on rocket development,
creating the V2 missile within a
slave-built underground factory that
use thousands of slaves as labor.
Hundreds died of malnutrition at the
factory.
The US knew of this when they
hired von Braun to create the US
missile program (he always denied
any knowledge that the workers he
supervised were forced labor).
Rocket Science
Documents in the National Archives
reveal that the US government
knew by August 1941 that German
“special action forces” were
systematically killing Polish and
Russian Jews, but feared saying so
would ruin their code-breaking
secrets. The evidence of the “the
Nazi slaughter of Jews” did not
become public knowledge until late
1942.
Army Air Force aerial photograph of
Auschwitz, 1944 (National Archives)
Debates over what the U.S.,
Britain, and other nations could
have done to stop the Holocaust
has become a major part of
Holocaust literature.
Bomb Auschwitz?
Between 1939 and 1945, some six million European Jews were
murdered by the Nazis, most in special extermination camps.
Even after the war ended, survivors were still at risk in eastern
Europe, especially in Poland where the Communist government
made little effort to protect or aid Jewish refugees.
Holocaust
The plight of Jews in Europe was hotly debated during World
War II. In 1944, yielding to pressure from several groups, FDR
created the War Refugee Board (with Cordell Hull, Henry
Morgenthau, and Henry Stimson as directors of efforts to bring
war refugees to the US
War Refugee Board
The totality of evil
Few defendants admitted to any wrong-doing at the war crimes
trials, but even many Europeans who hated the Nazis openly
wondered why so much was much over “the killing of Jews.”
Nuremberg
“Evil can spread like a fungus over the surface of the earth and
lay waste the entire world. Evil comes from a failure to think. It
defies thought for as soon as thought tries to engage itself with
evil and examine the premises and principles from which it
originates, it is frustrated because it finds nothing there. That is
the banality of evil.” -- Amos Elon’s introduction comment to
Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem.
A Crime of Acceptance