Unit 7: Jewish and non-Jewish Victims of the Holocaust

German Jewry: the first to suffer

Stats when Nazis came to power:520,000 German Jews (.078% of the population)

1914: pop. had been 600,000 JewsApproximately 1/6 of Germany’s Jews served her in WWI (100,000 casualties)

1932: of 37 Cabinet positions, only 3 were Jews and another 4 could claim Jewish descent

Jews controlled no major companies, industries, and not one of Germany’s wealthiest families were JewishHigh intermarriage rate in 1920’s (maybe 40%)

500 conversions a year to Christianity

Unit 7: Jewish and non-Jewish Victims of the Holocaust

Prewar Jewish school, Czechoslovakia

Jewish shtetl (village)

Unit 7: Jewish and non-Jewish Victims of the Holocaust

1/3 of Jews lived in Berlin1/3 lived in other major cities1/3 scattered among thousands of villages

Many Jewish organizations operated to strengthen Jewish culture and resolve through education and social functions

Some wanted to prepare young Jews to emigrate Zionists proposed the creation of Israel as a homeland for Jews

Unit 7: Jewish and non-Jewish Victims of the Holocaust

The majority (325,000) of German Jews survived

Reasons for staying –“How long can Hitler last?”“Nazism is just traditional antisemitism.”Veterans felt their service, medals would protect them“How can I protect my business?”“How can I learn a new language and culture?”“How can I leave my relatives behind?”Bourgeois Jews would have become welfare recipients

Unit 7: Jewish and non-Jewish Victims of the Holocaust

At the time of 1938, Shanghai was the only place in the world that required no visa

Took in more Jews (25,000) than Canada, India, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa combined

May, 1939: British closed the doors of Palestine to Jewish immigration except for 15,000 per year (max. of 5 years = 75,000)

Arab pressure to close

October, 1941: another 150,000 Jews fled Germany

Unit 7: Jewish and non-Jewish Victims of the Holocaust

Unit 7: Jewish and non-Jewish Victims of the Holocaust

Life in the ghetto –Nazis reinstituted slavery, barbarism, and the ghetto

Several hundred ghettos1st was in Nov. 1939 in Piatrkow, Poland

Lasted to summer, 1944 (became known as the Lodz ghetto)

Scene in the Lodz ghetto marketplace

Unit 7: Jewish and non-Jewish Victims of the Holocaust

Basic characteristics:Form of concentration campConditions of maximum deprivationSlum parts of a cityInadequate housing, food supply, hygieneSome were open; most became closedGoverned by Judenrat (Jewish Council)

In 1960’s, many condemned them as collaborators

Unit 7: Jewish and non-Jewish Victims of the Holocaust

Judenrat of Lodz collaborated with Nazis most

Headed by Mordecai Rumkowski“salvation through work” – make yourselves useful to stay alive

Lodz became an efficient ghetto for making German army uniforms

Unit 7: Jewish and non-Jewish Victims of the Holocaust

Warsaw the largest ghetto450,000 “inmates” in 1 ½ square milesJudenrat led by Adam Czernizkov

He was in over his head in trying to balance saving Jews with supplying the Nazis with slave labor

July 22, 1942: order to deport

Unit 7: Jewish and non-Jewish Victims of the Holocaust

Scenes from the Warsaw Ghetto

Unit 7: Jewish and non-Jewish Victims of the Holocaust

Minsk: capital of White RussiaConquered June 30, 1941Elia Mishkin head of Judenrat

Engaged in resistance from beginningHelped organize resistance in and out of the ghetto

10,000 Jews made their way out to join the resistance troops in the forestsSign states, "Warning. Anyone

climbing the fence will be shot!"

Unit 7: Jewish and non-Jewish Victims of the Holocaust

Negatives of ghettos –Mortality rate

20% died of natural causes (typhus, hunger, etc.)

Jan ’41-May ’42: more than 66,000 perished in Warsaw ghetto

Unit 7: Jewish and non-Jewish Victims of the Holocaust

Judenrat, Smugglers, Profiteers

Judenrat workers, skilled workers, Shopkeepers

“Floating” population: those living hand-to-

mouth; odd jobs, smugglers

Refugees – continually dumped in; didn’t know

how to survive…

Beggars, prostitutes, orphans

Society in the ghetto:

Unit 7: Jewish and non-Jewish Victims of the Holocaust

Positives of ghettos –

SmugglingUnderground newspapers, schools for HebrewDiaries, journals that made it through the warUnderground Zionist meetingsGraffiti, artwork that survivedIntellectual and spiritual life was never fully stifled

Are each of the above a form of resistance to Nazi rule and control?

Unit 7: Jewish and non-Jewish Victims of the Holocaust

Inside the camps: the Kingdom of Death

Auschwitz: “a different planet”

Time irrelevant; “each day was a year”

Vocabulary doesn’t apply

Hunger, cold, fear don’t have the same definitions

Standards of society did not apply

Unit 7: Jewish and non-Jewish Victims of the Holocaust

Reasons people were able to survive:

Age: children and the aged didn’tClimate of origin: harsh Polish wintersKnowledge of German: to untangle instructionsSkills: what were you worth to the Nazis?Typhus: had it before? = developed immunityPhysical staminaInitial work detail: level of sadism of kapo or overseerRelationships: did you know someone?LUCK WAS THE #1 FACTOR IN SURVIVAL

Unit 7: Jewish and non-Jewish Victims of the Holocaust

Mental, attitudinal changes to aid survival:

The power to refuse consentWash in dirty water with no soapForget the past

Learn the SS gamesRole playDevelop quick reaction timeBecome adaptable

Need to help was as important as the need for helpPrayer, clandestine religious observancesVictor Frankel: “The only thing they couldn’t take was your attitude”

Unit 7: Jewish and non-Jewish Victims of the Holocaust

Jewish resistance –

Many have criticized the Jewish resistance as minimal and inconsequential

Definition of resistance: any individual or group action consciously taken in opposition to known or surmised laws, actions, or intentions directed against the Jews by the Germans and their supporters

Unit 7: Jewish and non-Jewish Victims of the Holocaust

Resistance to the Nazis

Members of The White Rose – A German Resistance Movement

Jewish Resistance fighters

Unit 7: Jewish and non-Jewish Victims of the Holocaust

Obstacles to resistance:Ignorance UnimaginabilityFamily solidarity Religious faith

Deceit, deception by Nazis – constantHow could the very young or very old resist?Collective responsibilityIsolation from outside world in ghettos and camps

To escape – what would one escape to?

Judenrat: key was to make the ghetto as useful as possible; hope to outlast the Nazis

Unit 7: Jewish and non-Jewish Victims of the Holocaust

Resistance in the campsJust surviving was an act of resistance

EscapeEst. 600 attempts to escape from Auschwitz (400 successful)

1944: escape of Jew and Gentile couple

Remained free for 2 weeks; caught, tortured but revealed nothing of underground resistance

Unit 7: Jewish and non-Jewish Victims of the Holocaust

Record everythingSonderkommando: Jews who worked in the crematoria

Wrote diaries and buried them in the ashes around the crematoria

Sonderkommando engage in open pit burning of bodies

Unit 7: Jewish and non-Jewish Victims of the Holocaust

Physical, armed resistanceTreblinka (8/43)Sobibor (10/43)Auschwitz (10/44)

Crematorium IV put out of commission Polish-led underground in Auschwitz, while helpful, never really affected the uprising

Gunpowder supplied by 4 young Jewish women who worked in the factories

They were found out, tortured (but revealed nothing), and hanged

organized by Sonderkommando

Unit 7: Jewish and non-Jewish Victims of the Holocaust

Resistance in the forests: partisan movements

20,000-40,000 Jewish partisans in the forests around Eastern Europe

Although Jews made up only 1% of French population, they comprised 15-20% of French Resistance

Many Jews resisted as part of nationalist movements

Unit 7: Jewish and non-Jewish Victims of the Holocaust

Jewish servicemen (-women) who fought in WWII

Americans: ½ million fought, 11,000 diedSoviets: ½ million fought, 120,000 diedSept. 1939: 150,000 Polish Jews fought in Polish army; 33,000 were killed in battleJewish parachutists from Israel organized resistance in the Balkans

Worked with the British RAF

Unit 7: Jewish and non-Jewish Victims of the Holocaust

Reasons for Persecution

Stages of Persecution

Evidence of Resistance

(any)

Final Toll on Population

Non-Jewish Target Groups