those that cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.' (george santayana)
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'Those that cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.' (George Santayana). -is impossible to ascertain the exact number of Jewish victims, statistics indicate that the total was over 5.8 million How many Jews were murdered in each country and what percentage - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
'Those that cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.'
(George Santayana)
-is impossible to ascertain the exact number of Jewish victims,statistics indicate that the total was over 5.8 million
How many Jews were murdered in each country and what percentage of the prewar Jewish population did they constitute?
Austria 50,000 -- 27.0% Finland 7 -- 0.3%Italy 7,680 -- 17.3% Norway 762 -- 44.8%Belgium 28,900 -- 44.0% Poland 3,000,000 -- 90.9%Latvia 71,500 -- 78.1% Estonia 2,000 -- 44.4%Bohemia/Moravia 78,150 -- 66.1% France 77,320 -- 22.1%Lithuania 143,000 -- 85.1% Slovakia 71,000 -- 79.8%Bulgaria 0 -- 0.0% Greece 67,000 -- 86.6%Luxembourg 1,950 -- 55.7% Yugoslavia 63,300 -- 81.2%Denmark 60 -- 0.7% Germany 141,500 -- 25.0%Netherlands 100,000 -- 71.4% Hungary 569,000 -- 69.0%Romania 287,000 -- 47.1%Soviet Union 1,100,000 -- 36.4%
'..the Holocaust was not the murder of six million Jews, but the murder of one, then another, then another.' (Stephen Smith, co-founder and director of the Beth Shalom Holocaust Centre)
Anti- Semitism -means ‘Hatred of Jews’
-religious (Jew as Christ-killer),-economic (Jew as banker, usurer, money-obsessed),-social (Jew as social inferior, "pushy," vulgar, therefore excluded from personal contact),-racist (Jews as an inferior "race"),-ideological (Jews regarded as subversive or revolutionary),-cultural (Jews regarded as undermining the moral and structural fiber of civilization)
painting from 1515(note the yellow badges)
-for hundreds of years Christian Europe had regarded the Jews as the Christ -killers.
-had been driven out of almost every European country at one time or another
1275- were made to wear a yellow badge
1287- 269 Jews were hanged in the Tower of London
Anti- Semitism
-in medieval times, were ostracized from most professions by local rulers, the church and the guilds
-were pushed into marginal occupations considered socially inferior, such as tax and rent collecting and moneylending
-Natural tensions between creditors and debtors were added to social, political, religious, and economic strains
-became an element in a vicious circle
-peasants were forced to pay their taxes to Jews who were economically coerced into becoming the "front men" for the lords
-Jews would then be identified as the people taking their earnings, while peasants remained loyal to the lords
Anti- Semitism
-after WWI, hundreds of Jews were blamed for the defeat
-prejudice grew during the economic depression which followed
-many Germans were poor and unemployed and wanted someone to blame
-turned on the Jews, many of whom were rich and successful in business
Anti- Semitism
-1929, urging Germans to avoid buying from Jewish shops
“One can do anything to those Goyim. Our people crucified their Christ on the cross, and we do a great business on his birthday....”
-Nazis' saw history as a racial struggle
-considered the Jews a race whose goal was world domination and who, therefore, were an obstruction to Aryan dominance
-considered it their duty to eliminate the Jews, whom they regarded as a threat
-the Jews' racial origin made them habitual criminals whocould never be rehabilitated and were, therefore, hopelessly corrupt and inferior
Anti- Semitism
Nazi Propaganda-April 1, 1933- boycott of Jewish shops and businesses by the Nazis
-April 7, 1933- The law for the Re-establishment of the Civil Service expelled all non-Aryans (defined on April 11, 1933 as anyone with a Jewish parent or grandparent) from the civil service
-April 7, 1933- prohibited the admission of lawyers of non-Aryan descent to the Bar. It also denied non-Aryan members of the Bar the right to practice law. Similar laws were passed regarding Jewish law assessors, jurors, and commercial judges
-April 22, 1933- The decree regarding physicians' services with the national health plan denied reimbursement of expenses to those patients who consulted non-Aryan doctors
-April 25, 1933- restricted Jewish enrollment in German high schools to 1.5% of the student body. In communities where they constituted more than 5% of the population, Jews were allowed to constitute up to 5% of the student body
From a German schoolbook:Inge sits in the doctor’s waiting room…Again and again her mind dwells on the warning of the BDM leader (League of German Girls): ‘A German must not consult a Jew doctor! And particularly not a German girl! Many a girl who has gone to a Jew doctor to be cured has found disease and disgrace.’ The door opens. Inge looks in. There stands the Jew. She screams…she jumps in terror. Her eyes stare into the Jewish Doctor’s face. His face is the face of the devil. In the middle of the devil’s face is a huge crooked nose. Behind the spectacles two criminal eyes. And thick lips that are grinning. A grin that says ‘Now I’ve got you at last, little German girl.
Nazi Propaganda
Nazi Propaganda
May 1939-Page from antisemitic newspaper, "Der Stürmer," -illustration from a medieval book depicting ritual murder, a medieval antisemitic myth, is reproduced
Nazi Propaganda
"The Scourge of God, Polish Jews"
Nazi Propaganda
Nuremberg Laws-November 1935- Nazis issued the following definition of a Jew:
-anyone with three Jewish grandparents
-someone with two Jewish grandparents whobelonged to the Jewish community on September 15, 1935, or joined thereafter
-was married to a Jew or Jewess on September 15, 1935, or married one thereafter
-was the offspring of a marriage or extramarital liaison with a Jew on or after September15, 1935
-Mischlinge (hybrids) were divided into two groups:
-Mischlinge of the first degree--those with two Jewish grandparents
-Mischlinge of the second degree--those with one Jewish grandparent
-were officially excluded from membership in the Nazi Party and all Party organizations (e.g. SA, SS, etc.)
-were drafted into the Germany Army, they could not attain the rank of officers
-were also barred from the civil service and from certain professions
-were plans to sterilize Mischlinge, but this was never done-many were sent to concentration and death camps
Nuremberg Laws
-1940- all Jews had to have their passports stamped with the letter ‘J’
-also had to wear the yellow Star of David on their jacket or coat
Nuremberg Laws
Kristallnacht
Interior of Berlin's Fasanenstrasse Synagogue
-November 9, 1938
-”Night of Broken Glass”
-91 Jews were killed
-30,000 arrested and incarcerated in concentration camps
-Jewish homes, hospitals, and schools were ransacked
-over 1,000 synagogues were burned
-over 7,000 Jewish businesses destroyed or damaged
-pretext for the attacks was the assassination of German diplomat by a German-born Polish Jew in Paris, France
-was followed by further economic and political persecution of Jews
-is viewed by historians as the beginning of the Final Solution and The Holocaust
Kristallnacht
synagogue in Munich
The Daily Telegraph, 12/11/1938 An eyewitness account of Kristallnacht
Mob law ruled in Berlin throughout this afternoon and evening, and hordes of hooligans indulged (took part in) an orgy of destruction. I have seen several anti-Jewish outbreaks during the last five years, but never anything as sickening as this.
Racial hatred and hysteria seemed to have taken complete hold of otherwise decent people. I saw fashionably dressed women clapping their hands and screaming with glee, while respectable mothers held their babies to see the ‘fun’.The fashionable shopping centre of the capital has been reduced to a shambles, with the streets littered with the wreckage of sacked Jewish shops and offices. No attempt was made by the police to stop the rioters.
Kristallnacht
The St. LouisMay 13-June 17, 1939
-German transatlantic liner sailed from Hamburg, Germany, for Havana, Cuba.
-938 passengers
-almost all were Jews fleeing from the Third Reich. Most were German citizens, some were from Eastern Europe, and a few were officially "stateless."
The St. Louis-majority of the passengers had applied for U.S. visas, and had planned to stay in Cuba only until they could enter the United States
-political instability in Cuba meant that they could not leave the ship and were told to go back to Europe
-was forced to return to Europe in June 1939
-US (and Canada) refused to accept any refugees- were eventually accepted by Great Britain, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands
-many were eventually caught up in the Final Solution, the Nazi plan to murder the Jews of Europe
Wannsee Conference-Berlin, January 20, 1942
-lasted only about ninety minutes
-is where German officials discussed the implementation of the “Final Solution”(Germany's plan to murder all the Jews of Europe)
-systematic murder of Jews did not begin until the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941
-aimed to kill 11 million Jews
Organization of the Final Solution:Women, children, the old & the sick were to be sent for ‘special
treatment.’On arrival the Jews would go through a process called ‘selection.’
The remaining Jews were to be shipped to ‘resettlement areas’ in the East.
The young and fit would go through a process called ‘destruction through work.’
Conditions in the Ghettos were designed to be so bad that many die whilst the rest would be willing to leave these areas in the hope of
better conditionsShooting was too inefficient as the bullets were needed for the war
effortJews were to be rounded up and put into transit camps called GhettoesThe Jews living in these Ghettos were to be used as a cheap source of
labour.
Wannsee Conference
Ghettos
GhettosTactics used by the Nazis to get the Jews to leave the Ghettos:
Deception- were told that they were going to ‘resettlement areas’ in the East-In some Ghettos the Jews had to purchase their own train tickets-They were told to bring the tools of their trade and pots and pans-New arrivals at the Death camps were given postcards to send to their friends
Terror- SS publicly shot people for smuggling food or for any act of resistance
Starvation- Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto were only fed a 1000 calories a day (we need 2400 calories a day to maintain our weight)-hungry people are easier to control
Ghettos-Warsaw ghetto
-created autumn 1940
-had housed 240,000 Jews and 80,000 Christians
-Christians were given an order of eviction, and a month later the ghetto was sealed off by a wall
-March 1941- 445,000 Jews were living in the ghetto, and conditions deteriorated rapidly
Ghettos-summer 1942- 265,000 Jews were sent to Treblinka
-vast majority were to die in the gas chambers. These sudden evictions, coupled with the news of Nazi crimes which were filtering in through the underground, laid the foundations for the Ghetto Uprising, which began in earnest in April 1943.
-led to the further slaughter of some 55, 000 Jews
-area was liquidated in May 1943 -entire ghetto was razed to the ground
-Judenrat -council of Jews, appointed by the Nazis in each Jewish community or ghetto
-were led by noted community leaders
-enforcement of Nazi decrees affecting Jews and administration of the affairs of the Jewish community were the responsibilities of the Judenrat
-were guided, for the most part, bya sense of communal responsibility, but lacked the power and the means to successfully thwart Nazi plans for annihilation of all Jews
Ghettos
Concentration Camps
Concentration Camps
-first concentration camp, Dachau, opened on March 22, 1933
-approximately 5,000,000 non-Jews were killed
-Gypsies, Serbs, Polish intelligentsia, resistancefighters from all the nations, German opponents of Nazism, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, habitual criminals, and the "anti-social," e.g. beggars, vagrants, and hawkers
Concentration Camps
Concentration Camps
Concentration Camps
“Destruction Through Work”(fed 200 calories per day)
Concentration Camps
Same group six weeks later
Ovens at Dachau
Concentration Camps
Concentration Camps
A German policeman shoots individual Jewish women who remain alive in the ravine after the mass execution
Concentration Camps
-stash of gold wedding rings taken from victims at Buchenwald
Concentration Camps
An American soldier stands near a wagon loaded with corpses outside the crematorium of the Buchenwald concentration camp, Germany, following its liberation
Death Camps
Death Camps
-a concentration camp with specialapparatus specifically designed for systematic murder
-six such camps existed:Auschwitz-Birkenau, Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibor, Treblinka
-all were located in Poland. Why?
Death Camps-were transported in cattle cars in terrible conditions
-naked, dirty and half starved people look like animals, which helped to reinforce the Nazi propaganda
-SS used to train their new guards by encouraging them to set fire to a pit full of live victims – usually children
-all new arrivals went through a process known as ‘selection.’ Mothers, children, the old & sick were sent straight to the ‘showers’ which were really the gas chambers
-at Auschwitz the trains pulled into a mock up of a normal station.
-were helped off the cattle trucks by Jews who were specially selected to help the Nazis
-at some death camps the Nazis would play records of classical music to help calm down the new arrivals
-at Auschwitz the new arrivals were calmed down by a Jewish orchestra playing classical music
Death Camps
Death Camps
Notice how the Death camp is set out like a factory complex
Death Camps-the SS would try and pack up to 2000 people into this gas chamber
-dropped canisters of Zyklon B, or prussic acid, in its crystal form through small holes in the roof
-gas chambers were sometimes disguised as showers or bathing houses
Death Camps
-one day's collection at the peak of the gassings, about twenty five thousand pairs
Death Camps
-”Processing the bodies”
-sonderkommando -specially selected Jews were used to remove the gold fillings and hair of people who had been gassed
-were also forced to feed the dead bodies into the crematorium
Death Camps
Death Camps
Death Camps
Bales of hair shaven from women at Auschwitz, used to make felt-yarn
Human Experiments-called "der weiße Engel" ("the White Angel") by camp inmates because when he stood on the platform inspecting and selecting new arrivals his white coat and white arms outstretched evoked the image of a white angel
-met incoming prisoners at the camp, where it was determined who would be retained for work and who would be sent to the gas chambers immediately
-also appeared there frequently in search of twins, for his experimentation; he would wade through the incoming prisoners shouting Zwillinge heraus! (Twins out!), Zwillinge heraustreten! (Twins step forward!) Mengele's experiments also included attempts to change eye colour by injecting chemicals into children's eyes, various amputations of limbs, and other surgeries. Rena Gelissen's account of her time in Auschwitz details certain experiments performed on female prisoners around October 1943. Mengele would experiment on the chosen girls, performing sterilization and shock treatments. Most of the victims died, because of either the experiments or later infections."Once Mengele's assistant rounded up 14 pairs of Roma twins during the night. Mengele placed them on his polished marble dissection table and put them to sleep. He then injected chloroform into their hearts, killing them instantly. Mengele then began dissecting and meticulously noting each piece of the twins' bodies."He supervised an operation by which two Roma children were sewn together to create conjoined twins; the hands of the children became badly infected where the veins had been resected; this also caused gangrene.Mengele also sought out pregnant women, on whom he would perform vivisections before sending them to the gas chambers.[
Josef Mengele“Angel of Death”
“The White Angel”
Human Experiments-attempts to change eye colour by injecting chemicals into children's eyes, various amputations of limbs, and other surgeries
-would experiment on the chosen girls, performing sterilization and shock treatments
"Once Mengele's assistant rounded up 14 pairs of Roma twins during the night. Mengele placed them on his polished marble dissection table and put them to sleep. He then injected chloroform into their hearts, killing them instantly. Mengele then began dissecting and meticulously noting each piece of the twins' bodies."
Josef Mengele“Angel of Death”
“The White Angel”
-supervised an operation by which two children were sewn together to create conjoined twins
-the hands of the children became badly infected where the veins had been resected; this also caused gangrene
-also sought out pregnant women, on whom he would perform vivisections before sending them to the gas chambers
Human Experiments
Josef Mengele“Angel of Death”
“The White Angel”
Anne Frank-moved from Germany to Amsterdam in 1933
-July 1942 -went into hiding in the hidden rooms of Anne's father, Otto Frank's, office building
-after two years, the group was betrayed
-Anne and her sister, Margot, were eventually transferred to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where they both died of typhus in March 1945
-for her 13th birthday, received an autograph book she had shown her father in a shop window a few days earlier
-decided she would use it as a diary, and began writing in it almost immediately
-Achterhuis (a Dutch word denoting the rear part of a house, translated as the "Secret Annexe" in English editions of the diary)
-was a three-story space entered from a landing above the Opekta offices. Two small rooms, with an adjoining bathroom and toilet, were on the first level, and above that a larger open room, with a small room beside it. From this smaller room, a ladder led to the attic. The door to the Achterhuis was later covered by a bookcase to ensure it remained undiscovered
Anne Frank
Anne Frank
Elie Wiesel
-author of 57 books, including Night
-based on his experiences as a prisoner in the Auschwitz, Buna, and Buchenwald concentration camps
-was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986
Elie WieselBuchenwald, 1945. Wiesel is in the second row from the bottom, seventh from the left
Buchenwald, 1945. Wiesel is in the second row from the bottom, seventh from the left
Simon Wiesenthal-activities led to the capture of over one thousand Nazi criminals -spent four and a half years in the German concentration camps such as Janowska, Plaszow, and Mauthausen
-dedicated most of his life to tracking down and gathering information on fugitive Nazis so that they could be brought to justice for war crimes and crimes against humanity
-1947, he co-founded the Jewish Historical Documentation Center in Linz, Austria, in order to gather information for future war crime trials
Nuremberg Trials-November 20, 1945 to October 1, 1946
-5,025 Nazi criminals were convicted between 1945-1949 in the American, British and French zones, in addition to an unspecified number of people who were tried in the Soviet zone
-about 80,000 Germans have been convicted for committing crimes against humanity
Defendant Hermann Goering was the former head of the Luftwaffe and was at one time second in command to Hitler
Final Words
First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out – because I was not a Jew.Then they came for the communists and I did not speak out -because I was not a communist.Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out -because I was not a trade unionist.Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak outfor me.
Martin Niemöller spent the second world war in Dachau Concentration Camp. He was sent there for criticising Hitler’s regime.
Final Words
'In a world where humans are free to do right and to do wrong there will always be evil actions. If the Holocaust is to teach us anything, it must be a realisation that one has to speak out against evil. Even a limited, uncertain, anguished fight against the darkness is better than surrendering to the evils of the past and the present day.'
(Rabbi Albert Friedlander)
Questions?