Download - History of the Holocaust
History of the Holocaust
Ofer Ashkenazi
Brief Survey
The Holocaust“The deliberate, systematic murder of approximately 6 million Jews in Nazi dominated Europe between the years 1941-1945”(Ronnie S. Landau)And,
The deliberate murder of millions of “enemies” of the Nazi Regime: Roma (Gypsies), East-European civilians, political opponents, “a-social” people, homosexuals, and people with “hereditary disease”
Main Time Periods in the History of the Holocaust:1. 1933-1939: Nazi Germany: Experimenting with exclusion, persecution, and violence:
Von Papen’s Cabinet, January 1933
September 1, 1939:The Outbreak of the Second World War
1941-1943
1943-1945
Main Time Periods in the History of the Holocaust:2. 1939-1942: World War II: Ghettoization and Mass Murder
Mass Killing of Jews in Occupied Eastern Europe in the Fall of 1941:
1. Einsatzgruppen: Killing of Jewish populations in the Baltic territories of the Soviet Union
2. Generalgouvernemant: Belzec. Regeional police chief Odilo Globocnik initiates a local killing area, for Jews who cannot work
3. Warthegau: regional police chief Koppe and Gauleiter Arthur Geiser initiating a gas-vans site in Chelmno (to kill from the overcrowded Lodz ghetto)
4. Jews are sent from Germany to be killed on arrival in the Baltic states
I only wish to be the leading soldier of the Reich
Decisions from above:
1.September 1941: deportation of Jews to the east will start now, before the end of the war.
2.Logistics + “prophecy” (Hitler’s comments on SS killings)
3.December 12, 1941: Hitler’s party speech. Goebbels’ interpretation is widely circulated:
January 1942, The Wansee Conference
Europe 1939-1945: Concentration and Death Camps “Selection” in Auschwitz
Jewish Children in Auschwitz
Main Time Periods in the History of the Holocaust:3. 1942-1944: World War II: Systematic Mass Murder
The Holocaust
Neighbors: The Occupied Population and the Holocaust
90%
75-90%
55-60%
20-25%Less than 1%
Main Time Periods in the History of the Holocaust:4. 1944-1945: World War II: Death Marches and Liberation
The death march from Dachau (April 29, 1945)
How Do We Know? / What Do We Know?
1. Official Correspondence of the Nazi Government, Wehrmacht, SS, etc. (Commands, Reports, Speeches, etc.)
2. Gestapo and SD Reports (Public Opinion, etc.)3. Photographs and Films4. Diaries of Victims5. Diaries of Nazi Officials6. Secretly kept Documentation of life under Nazi Occupation
(e.g. “Oneg Shabbat”)7. Memoirs (Victims, Perpetrator, “Bystanders” and
“neighbors”)8. Collected Testimonies (written or filmed)9. Fiction
Main Points of Interest/Debates among Contemporary Historians:
The “Singularity” of the Holocaust
The Origins of the Final Solution:• Modernity and its Discontent• Materialist Objectives• The “Special Path” of German
History
Intentional / “circumstantial”?
Who made it possible? (Who is Responsible?)
“Ordinary Men” / “Willing Executioners”?Nazi leadership?Wehrmacht / SS soldiers?German By-Standers?Non-German collaborators?Jewish collaboration?