Introduction to the Holocaust

“Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget those things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never.”

Goal of Today

• Today we will be looking at the origins of the Holocaust.

• What were some of the steps that led to the murder of millions of people?

• Terms– Nuremberg Laws – Kristallnacht

Holocaust time line• 1933

– Hitler was named German Chancellor (Jan.). Dachau, first concentration camp, established (March). Boycotts against Jews begin (April).

• 1935 – Anti-Semitic Nuremberg Laws

passed by Reichstag; Jews lose citizenship and civil rights (Sept.).

• 1937 – Buchenwald concentration camp opens (July

Time line continued• 1938

– Extension of anti-Semitic laws to Austria after annexation (March). Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass)—anti-Semitic riots and destruction of Jewish institutions in Germany and Austria (Nov. 9). 26,000 Jews sent to concentration camps; Jewish children expelled from schools (Nov. 9–10). Expropriation of Jewish property and businesses (Dec.).

• 1940

– As war continues, Einsatzgruppen (mobile killing squads) follow German army into conquered lands, rounding up and massacring Jews and other “undesirables.”

Time line continued• 1941

– Goering instructs Heydrich to carry out the “final solution to the Jewish question” (July 31). Deportation of German Jews begins; massacres of Jews in Odessa and Kiev (Nov.); and in Riga and Vilna (Dec.).

• 1942

– Mass killings using Zyklon-B begin at Auschwitz-Birkenau (Jan.). Nazi leaders attend Wannsee Conference to coordinate the “final solution” (Jan. 20). 100,000 Jews from Warsaw Ghetto deported to Treblinka death camp (July).

• 1943

– Warsaw Ghetto uprisings (Jan. and April); Ghetto exterminated (May).

• Historic Reasons: • Religious—Jews blamed for death of Jesus; stereotype of

the “wandering Jew”• Economic—Jews accused of economic exploitation

• Modern Reasons :• Protocols of the Elders of Zion—talks of a worldwide

Jewish conspiracy• Political—Jews accused of spreading Marxism• Racial—Nazi racial ideology promoted the idea that Jews

are a separate race “polluting” the German Volk

Antisemitism

History of Anti Semitism • Jews were scapegoats for many problems. For

example, people blamed Jews for the “Black Death” that killed thousands in Europe during the Middle Ages

• In the Russian Empire in the late 1800s, the government incited attacks on Jewish neighborhoods called pogroms. Mobs murdered Jews and looted their homes and stores.

Nazi Antisemitic Propaganda

• Demonized Jews• Perpetuated stereotypes• Reinforced Nazi racial

ideology• Encouraged viewing

Jews as “alien”• Engendered fear and

paranoia

• An exhibition entitled Der ewige Jude (The Eternal Jew) attracted 412,300 visitors, more than 5,000 per day, during its run at the Deutsches Museum in Munich from November 1937 to January 1938.

• Poster: "He is guilty for the war"

• Racism was taught in public schools as a scientific fact, through the dissemination of anti-Semitic literature and textbooks with racist themes. For example, a mathematics problem from the Third Reich stated, "The Jews are aliens in Germany--in 1933 there were 66,060,000 inhabitants in the German Reich, of whom 499,682 were Jews. What is the per cent of aliens?" Teachers were given a guide that explained how to foster anti-Semitic attitudes in their pupils. Books with anti-Semitic themes were given to children at a young age.

Anti-Jewish propaganda book "The Poisonous Mushroom” Germany, c. 1938.

• Illustration from the anti-Semitic children's book, The Poisonous Mushroom, in which a Jewish man is depicted as a child molester attempting to lure German children with candy

• Illustration from The PoisonousMushroom, that depicts religiousJews from Eastern Europe as dirty,ugly, and dishonest

Anti-Jewish propaganda book "Trust No Fox." Germany, ca. 1938.

1933 Boycott Jewish Businesses• On April 1, 1933, the Nazis

carried out the first nationwide, planned action against the Jews: a boycott of Jewish businesses.

• On the day of the boycott, Storm Troopers stood menacingly in front of Jewish-owned shops. The six-pointed "Star of David" was painted in yellow and black across thousands of doors and windows. Signs were posted saying "Don't Buy from Jews" and "The Jews Are Our Misfortune."

• Three Jewish businessmen are forced to march down a crowded Leipzig street while carrying signs reading: "Don't buy from Jews; Shop in German businesses!" Leipzig, Germany, 1935

The Nuremberg Laws 1935• The first law, The Law for the Protection of German Blood and

German Honor, prohibited marriages and extra-marital intercourse between “Jews ” (the name was now officially used in place of “non-Aryans ”) and “Germans ” and also the employment of “German ” females under forty-five in Jewish households.

• The second law, The Reich Citizenship Law, stripped Jews of their German citizenship and introduced a new distinction between “Reich citizens ” and “nationals.”

• The Nuremberg Laws by their general nature formalized the unofficial and particular measures taken against Jews up to 1935. The Nazi leaders made a point of stressing the consistency of this legislation with the Party program which demanded that Jews should be deprived of their rights as citizens.

What the Law Did• The Nuremberg Laws did not define a “Jew” as

someone with particular religious beliefs.

• Many Germans who had not practiced Judaism for years found themselves caught in the middle of Nazi terror.

• The Nuremberg Laws were intended to bring about a clear separation of races

This book is designed to show what a normal German child looks like on the left. The pictures on the right show what Jewish children look like

• Like everyone in Germany, Jews were required to carry identity cards, but the government added special identifying marks to theirs: a red "J" stamped on them and new middle names for all those Jews who did not possess recognizably "Jewish" first names -- "Israel" for males, "Sara" for females. Such cards allowed the police to identify Jews easily.

• 1939 flyer from the Hotel Reichshof in Hamburg, Germany. The red tag instructs Jewish guests of the hotel that they are not permitted in the hotel restaurant, bar, or in the reception rooms. The hotel management required Jewish guests to take their meals in their rooms. Following the Nuremberg Laws of 1935, Jews were systematically excluded from public places in Germany.

• Throughout the 1930s, German Jewish businessmen were pressured to close their enterprises or sell them to "Aryans" at a fraction of their true value. By April 1938, the number of Jewish-owned businesses had declined from about 100,000 in January 1933 to 39,552. Retail stores were especially hard hit -- only some 9,000 shops of an estimated 55,000 were still in Jewish hands in July 1938.

• In the months prior to Kristallnacht, the Nazis stepped up their efforts to drive Jews from the German economy and strip them of their assets.

– 1938 was a fateful year– Hard-core Nazis were

confronting average people’s “complacency”; they worried that Jewish values had penetrated the bourgeoisie and that people’s enthusiasm for Nazi values were diminishing.

– The fact that Jews were criticized and ostracized was not enough; they were still there and paralyzing the mind of the avg. German – anti-Semitic policy thus had to be radicalized

• KRISTALLNACHT

• On November 9, 1938, the Nazis unleashed a wave of violence against Germany's Jews. In the space of a few hours, thousands of synagogues and Jewish businesses and homes were damaged or destroyed. This event came to be called Kristallnacht ("Night of Broken Glass") for the shattered store windowpanes that carpeted German streets.

Why?• Reason for the violence: November 7th assassination of a

German diplomat in Paris, Ernst vom Rath, by Herschel Grynszpan, a Jewish teenager whose parents, along with 17,000 other Polish Jews, had been recently expelled from the Reich. Though portrayed as spontaneous outbursts of popular outrage, the violent retaliation was calculated and carried out by the SA, SS, and local Nazi party organizations.

Who Was Blamed?• Stormtroopers killed at least 91 Jews and injured

many others. For the first time, Jews were arrested on a massive scale and transported to Nazi concentration camps. About 30,000 Jews were arrested for the “crime” of being Jewish and sent to Buchenwald, Dachau, and Sachsenhausen, where hundreds died within weeks of arrival. Release came only after the prisoners arranged to leave Germany and agree to transfer their property to "Aryans."

• German officials calculated that 7,500 enterprises were damaged or destroyed in the rampages. The Nazis forced the Jews to pay the costs of the violence and banned them from gainful economic activity. Insurance monies to cover the damages were confiscated, Jewish store and home owners had to repair their buildings at their own cost, and an "atonement" fee of 1 billion Reichsmarks (about $400 million) was imposed on the Jewish community.

• Curfews were places on Jews, limiting the hours of the day they could leave their homes.

Sterilization Laws

• 1933 Sterilization Law: Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Descendants

• Allowed involuntary sterilization of anyone suffering from disease thought to be genetically determined– Feeble-mindedness, manic-depression, schizophrenia,

malformation, deafness, blindness, epilepsy, alcoholism

Up to 400,000 (more than 1% of population) sterilized

Euthanasia• September 1939

• Physicians to grant “mercy death” to patients judged “incurably sick by medical examination”

• All state institutions required to report on all patients who had been ill more than 5 years and who were unable to work

• Filled out questionnaires giving name, race, nationality, marital status

• Decision regarding who is euthanized was based on these questionnaires

• Euthanasia became part of normal hospital routine