The Holocaust

*Rise to power*

Nazi Germany and the Jews 1933-1939

Rise of the Nazis and Beginning of Persecution Overview How Vast was the Crime Nazi Germany and the Jews- 1933-1939 The Outbreak of WWII and Anti-Jewish Violence The Ghettos The Beginning of the Final Solution The Implementation of the Final Solution The World of the Camps Combat and Resistance Rescue The Fate of the Jews Across Europe The Final Stages of the War and the Aftermath Photo Gallery
The Rise of the Nazis to Power in Germany

Hitler and the Nazi Party rose to power due to the social and political circumstances that characterized the interwar period in Germany. Many Germans could not concede their countrys defeat in World War I, arguing that backstabbing and weakness in the rear had paralyzed and, eventually, caused the front to collapse. The Jews, they claimed, had done much to spread defeatism and thus destroy the German army. Democracy in the Weimar Republic, they argued, was a form of governance that had been imposed on Germany and was unsuited to the German nature and way of life. They construed the terms of the Versailles peace treaty and the steep compensation payments that it entailed as revenge by the victors and a glaring injustice. This frustration, together with intransigent resistance and warnings about the surging menace of Communism, created fertile soil for the growth of radical right-wing groups in Germany, spawning entities such as the Nazi Party. In 1925, a transitory economic upturn and a promising political dialogue brought relative calm into sight. However, the severe international economic crisis that erupted in 1929 carried the instability to new heights. In 1919, Adolf Hitler, a released soldier wounded in WWI, joined a small and insignificant group called the National Socialist Party. He became the groups leader and formulated the racial and antisemitic principles in its charter. In 1923 party activists led a revolt and tried to seize power in Munich, but failed. Hitler was imprisoned, during which time he wrote his venomous book Mein Kampf (My Struggle), in which he expressed his ideas about racial theory and Nazi global dominion. Hitler realized that he must employ legitimate democratic means in his struggle to seize power. However, he and his associates left no doubt about their belief in democratic freedoms as mere tools with which power might be attained. After his release Hitler reorganized the party. In the 1924 Reichstag elections, the Nazi Party received three percent of the votes cast and was represented in the parliament by fourteen delegates. In the 1928 elections, its support declined;

the party was able to send only twelve delegates to the legislature. The turnaround came in 1930, the first elections after the economic crisis began. Surprisingly, the Nazis received 18.3 percent of the vote and sent 107 delegates to the Reichstag, the German Parliament. In July 1932, with 230 mandates, they became the largest faction in the House a political force that made an impact and acceded to power legitimately. President Paul von Hindenburg gave Hitler the mandate to form a government, and Hitler became Chancellor on January 30, 1933.
The Beginning of the Persecution of Jews in Germany

In the 1930s, Germanys Jews some 500,000 people made up less than one percent (0.8%) of the German population. Most considered themselves loyal patriots, linked to the German way of life by language and culture. They excelled in science, literature, the arts, and economic enterprise. 24% of Germanys Nobel Prize winners were Jewish. However, conversion, intermarriage, and declining birth rates, led some to believe that Jewish life was doomed to disappear from the German scene altogether. The paradox was that Nazi ideology stemmed from Germany and the German people, among whom Jews eagerly wanted to acculturate. Indeed, there was a widespread belief amongst many Jews in the illusion that the role they played within industry and trade and their contributions to the German economy would prevent the Germans from completely excluding them. Nazi anti-Jewish policy functioned on two primary levels: legal measures to expel the Jews from society and strip them of their rights and property while simultaneously engaging in campaigns of incitement, abuse, terror and violence of varying proportions. There was one goal: to make the Jews leave Germany. On March 9, 1933, several weeks after Hitler assumed power, organized attacks on Jews broke out across Germany. Two weeks later, the Dachau concentration camp, situated near Munich, opened. Dachau became a place of internment for Communists, Socialists, German liberals and anyone considered an enemy of the Reich. It became the model for the network of concentration camps that would be established later by the Nazis. Within a few months, democracy was obliterated in Germany, and the country became a centralized, single-party police state. On April 1, 1933, a general boycott against German Jews was declared, in which SA members stood outside Jewish-owned stores and businesses in order to prevent customers from entering. Approximately one week later, a law concerning the rehabilitation of the professional civil service was passed. The purpose of the legislation was to purge the civil service of officials of Jewish origin and those deemed disloyal to the regime. It was the first racial law that attempted to isolate Jews and oust them from German life. The first laws banished Jews from the civil service, judicial system, public medicine, and the German army (then being reorganized). Ceremonial public book burnings took place throughout Germany. Many books were torched solely because their authors were Jews. The exclusion of Jews from German cultural life was highly visible, ousting their considerable contribution to the German press, literature, theater, and music.

In September 1935 the Nuremberg Laws were passed, stripping the Jews of their citizenship and forbidding intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews. Jews were banned from universities; Jewish actors were dismissed from theaters; Jewish authors works were rejected by publishers; and Jewish journalists were hard-pressed to find newspapers that would publish their writings. Famous artists and scientists played an important role in this campaign of dispossession and party labeling of literature, art, and science. Some scientists and physicians were involved in the theoretical underpinnings of the racial doctrine.

The Fate of a Jewish Veterinarian in Germany

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Few would have thought that the Nazi Party, starting as a gang of unemployed soldiers in 1919, would become the legal government of Germany by 1933. In fourteen years, a once obscure corporal, Adolf Hitler , would become the Chancellor of Germany.

World War I ended in 1918 with a grisly total of 37 million casualties, including 9 million dead combatants. German propaganda had not prepared the nation for defeat, resulting in a sense of injured German national pride. Those military and political leaders who were responsible claimed that Germany had been "stabbed in the back" by its leftwing politicians, Communists, and Jews. When a new government, the Weimar Republic , tried to establish a democratic course, extreme political parties from both the right and the left struggled violently for control. The new regime could neither handle the depressed economy nor the rampant lawlessness and disorder. This site explores the consequences of Germany's defeat in WWI.

The German population swallowed the bitter pill of defeat as the victorious Allies punished Germany severely. In the Treaty of Versailles , Germany was disarmed and forced to pay reparations to France and Britain for the huge costs of the war. This site contains the complete Treaty of Versailles as well as maps and related material. The German Workers' Party , the forerunner of the Nazi Party, espoused a right-wing ideology, like many similar groups of demobilized soldiers. Adolf Hitler joined this small political party in 1919 and rose to leadership through his emotional and captivating speeches. He encouraged national pride, militarism, and a commitment to the Volk and a racially "pure" Germany. Hitler condemned the Jews, exploiting antisemitic feelings that had prevailed in Europe for centuries. He changed the name of the party to the National Socialist German Workers' Party, called for short, the Nazi Party (or NSDAP) . By the end of 1920, the Nazi Party had about 3,000 members. A year

later Hitler became its official leader, or Fhrer.

Adolf Hitler's attempt at an armed overthrow of local authorities in Munich, known as the Beer Hall Putsch , failed miserably. The Nazi Party seemed doomed to fail and its leaders, including Hitler, were subsequently jailed and charged with high treason. However, Hitler used the courtroom at his public trial as a propaganda platform, ranting for hours against the Weimar government. By the end of the 24-day trial Hitler had actually gained support for his courage to act. The right-wing presiding judges sympathized with Hitler and sentenced him to only five years in prison, with eligibility for early parole. Hitler was released from prison after one year. Other Nazi leaders were given light sentences also. This site details Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch.

While in prison, Hitler wrote volume one of Mein Kampf (My Struggle) , which was published in 1925. This work detailed Hitler's radical ideas of German nationalism, antisemitism, and anti-Bolshevism. Linked with Social Darwinism, the human struggle that said that might makes right, Hitler's book became the ideological base for the Nazi Party's racist beliefs and murderous practices. This site discusses many of the ideas contained within Mein Kampf. After Hitler was released from prison, he formally resurrected the Nazi Party. Hitler began rebuilding and reorganizing the Party, waiting for an opportune time to gain political power in Germany. The Conservative military hero Paul von Hindenburg was elected president in 1925, and Germany stabilized. Hitler skillfully maneuvered through Nazi Party politics and emerged as the sole leader. The Fhrerprinzip, or leader principle, established Hitler as the one and only to whom Party members swore loyalty unto death. Final decision making rested with him, and his strategy was to develop a highly centralized and structured party that could compete in Germany's future elections. Hitler hoped to create a bureaucracy which he envisioned as "the germ of the future state." The Nazi Party began building a mass movement. From 27,000 members in 1925, the Party grew to 108,000 in 1929. The SA was the paramilitary unit of the Party, a propaganda arm that became known for its strong arm tactics of street brawling and terror. The SS was established as an elite group with special duties within the SA, but it remained inconsequential until Heinrich Himmler became its leader in 1929. By the late twenties,

the Nazi Party started other auxiliary groups. The Hitler Youth , the Student League and the Pupils' League were open to young Germans. The National Socialist Women's League allowed women to get involved. Different professional groups--teachers, lawyers and doctors--had their own auxiliary units. From 1925 to 1927, the Nazi Party failed to make inroads in the cities and in May 1928, it did poorly in the Reichstag elections, winning only 2.6% of the total vote. The Party shifted its strategy to rural and small town areas and fueled antisemitism by calling for expropriation of Jewish agricultural property and by condemning large Jewish department stores. Party propaganda proved effective at winning over university students, veterans' organizations, and professional groups, although the Party became increasingly identified with young men of the lower middle classes.

The Great Depression began in 1929 and wrought worldwide economic, social, and psychological consequences. The Weimar democracy proved unable to cope with national despair as unemployment doubled from three million to six million, or one in three, by 1932. The existing "Great Coalition" government, a combination of left-wing and conservative parties, collapsed while arguing about the rising cost of unemployment benefits. Reich president Paul von Hindenburg's advisers persuaded him to invoke the constitution's emergency presidential powers. These powers allowed the president to restore law and order in a crisis. Hindenburg created a new government, made up of a chancellor and cabinet ministers, to rule by emergency decrees instead of by laws passed by the Reichstag. So began the demise of the Weimar democracy. Heinrich Brning was the first chancellor under the new presidential system. He was unable to unify the government, and in September 1930, there were new elections. The Nazi Party won an important victory, capturing 18.3% of the vote to make it the second largest party in the Reichstag. The Great Depression has a large impact on Germany. This is a description of the Nazi Party's 1930 campaign for Reichstag seats.

Hindenburg's term as president was ending in the spring of 1932. At age 84, he was reluctant to run again, but knew that if he didn't, Hitler would win. Hindenburg won the election, but Hitler received 37% of the vote. Germany's government remained on the brink of collapse. The SA brownshirts, about 400,000 strong, were a part of daily street violence. The economy was still in crisis. In the

election of July 1932, the Nazi Party won 37% of the Reichstag seats, thanks to a massive propaganda campaign. For the next six months, the most powerful German leaders were embroiled in a series of desperate political maneuverings. Ultimately, these major players severely underestimated Hitler's political abilities. A more complete account of the complexity of German politics in 1932 is available. Interactive quiz on the rise of the Nazi Party. Lesson plans, discussion questions, term paper topics, reproducible handouts, and other resources for teaching about the rise of the Nazi Party are available here. | Nazi Party | Nazification | Ghettos | Camps | Resistance | Liberation | Aftermath |

A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust

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Jews in Nazi Germany

The Jews in Nazi Germany suffered appallingly after January 1933.Some rich Jews could afford to leave Nazi Germany (or were forced to) but many could not. Thugs in the SA and SS were given a free hand in their treatment of the Jews. The Jews were frequently referred to in "Mein Kampf" and Hitler had made plain his hated for them. References to the "filthy Jew" litter the book. In one section, Hitler wrote about how the Jews planned to "contaminate" the blood of pure Germans:
"The Jewish youth lies in wait for hours on end.......spying on the unsuspicious German girl he plans to seduce..........He wants to contaminate her blood and remove her from the bosom of her own people. The Jew hates the white race and wants to lower its cultural level so that the Jews might dominate." "Was there any form of filth or crime...without at least one Jew involved in it. If you cut even cautiously into such a sore, you find like a maggot in a rotting body, often dazzled by the sudden light - a Jew."

In 1920, Hitler announced to the very small Nazi Party the Five Points of national Socialism. One of these stated:
"None but members of the nation may be citizens of the State. None but those of German blood may be members of the nation. No Jew, therefore, may be a member of the nation."

Early on in his political career, Hitler continued with his anti-Semitism:

"His is no master people; he is an exploiter: the Jews are a people of robbers. He has never founded any civilisation, though he has destroyed civilisations by the hundred...everything he has stolen. Foreign people, foreign workmen build him his temples, it is foreigners who create and work for him, it is foreigners who shed their blood for him." Speech given in Munich in July 1922.

Once in power, Hitler used his position to launch a campaign against the Jews that culminated in the Holocaust. $$$$$$$$$$ Hitler blamed the Jews for all the misfortunes that had befallen Germany the loss of the First World War was the result of a Jewish conspiracy the Treaty of Versailles was also a Jewish conspiracy designed to bring Germany to her knees the hyperinflation of 1923 was the result of an international Jewish attempt to destroy Germany $$$$$$$$$$$$$ During the time when Weimar Germany was seemingly recovering under Stresseman, what Hitler said about the Jews remained nonsense listened to by only the few - hence his poor showing at elections prior to the 1929 Depression. During the impact of the Great Depression, though, when people became unemployed and all looked helpless, Hitler's search for a scapegoat proved a lot more fruitful. $$$$$$$$After January 1933, the Jews became the "Untermenschen" - the subhumans. Nazi thugs stopped Germans from shopping in Jewish shops. By 1934, all Jewish shops were marked with the yellow Star of David or had the word "Juden" written on the window. SA men stood outside the shops to deter anyone from entering. This was not necessarily a violent approach to the Jews - that was to come later - but it was an attempt to economically bankrupt them and destroy what they had spent years building up. On buses, trains and park benches, Jews had to sit on seats marked for them. Children at schools were taught specifically anti-Semitic ideas.$$$$$$$ Jewish school children

were openly ridiculed by teachers and the bullying of Jews in the playground by other pupils went unpunished. If the Jewish children responded by not wanting to go to school, then that served a purpose in itself and it also gave the Nazi propagandists a reason to peddle the lie that Jewish children were inherently lazy and could not be bothered to go to school. In 1935, the Nuremberg Laws were passed. The Jews lost their right to be German citizens and marriage between Jews and non-Jews was forbidden. It was after this law that the violence against the Jew really openly started. Those that could pay a fine were allowed to leave the country. Many could not and many shops refused to sell food to those who remained. Medicines were also difficult to get hold of as chemists would not sell to Jews. The campaign against the Jews stopped for a short duration during the Berlin Olympics - but once the overseas press had gone, it started up again. It reached a pre-war peak in 1938 with Krystalnacht - The Night of the Broken Glass. In November 1938, a Nazi 'diplomat' was shot dead by a Jew in Paris. Hitler ordered a seven day campaign of terror against the Jews in Germany to be organised by Himmler and the SS. On the 10th November, the campaign started. 10,000 shops owned by Jews were destroyed and their contents stolen. Homes and synagogues were set on fire and left to burn. The fire brigades showed their loyalty to Hitler by assuming that the buildings would burn down anyway, so why try to prevent it? A huge amount of damage was done to Jewish property but the Jewish community was ordered to pay a one billion mark fine to pay for the eventual clear-up. Jews were forced to scrub the streets clean.

Clearing up after Crystal Night

The Second World War - and the chaos this brought - gave Hitler even more freedom to bring death and destruction to Jewish communities throughout Europe. Historians are still divided over whether the Germans supported these Nazi actions or whether fear made them turn a blind eye. In the immediate aftermath of Krystalnacht, an

anonymous German wrote to the British Consul in Cologne stating that "The German people have nothing whatsoever to do with these riots and burnings." Christopher Isherwood, a British writer living in Germany, witnessed the arrest of a Jew in a cafe by the SA where everybody simply looked away - but to create a scene would have provoked a violent response from those doing the arresting. The fear of the concentration camps was such that most felt compelled to remain silent despite the fact that they did not approve of what was going on.

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Anti-Semitism
Anti-Semitism is the common name for anti-Jewish sentiments. Caricature, USHMM #42034 During Hitler, anti-Semitism was implemented in its most grotesque form.

The Nazis used anti-Semitism to carry out the Endlsung the Final Solution of the Jewish Question. Through persecution and later extermination of the European Jews, the Nazis hoped to solve the Jewish problem once and for all strongly backed by anti-Semites in the Balkans, the Soviet Union and other eastern European countries. But anti-Semitism is neither invented in Germany or a specifically German phenomenon. Through centuries, Jews were a persecuted people. Ever since the expulsion of the Jews from Palestine and their settling in Europe and elsewhere around the world, evidence of anti-Jewish sentiments and actions has surfaced. During the Middle Ages, such actions often took the form of pure mass murder. At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, Jews fell victim to frequent pogroms in Eastern Europe. But with the Nazi persecution in the 1930s and 1940s, Jews all over German-controlled Europe were systematically killed. More than 6 million were murdered.

Anti-Semitism: Jews persecuted since the Middle Ages

The animosity between the Christian church and the Jews
Ever since the Middle Ages, persecutions of Jews took place all over Europe. This was mainly due to the Christian Churchs persecution of Jews and Jewry, which was frequently followed by public pogroms. Jews were seen as strangers who represented a different religion in Christian medieval Europe. According to the Christians, the Jews were brash enough to deny that Jesus Christ was the Son of God. Accordingly, the Church and the people frequently accused the Jews of all sorts of misfortunes: The Jews were accused of being responsible for the death of Christ, they were accused of killing Christian children, and they were accused of causing natural catastrophes. When the Plague (The Black Death) broke out in 1348, the Jews were also accused of having caused that to happen.

Caricature of Jews' preference for money and power in Germany, in

Often the anti-Semitic waves were the children's book Der Giftpilz rooted in economic problems. In ('The Poisonous Mushroom'), 1935, the early Middle Ages, Christians USHMM #40014. were not allowed to work in the money lending business, and the Jews consequently took over this dirty business. But: This meant that Christians came to owe money to the Jews, and this led to the Jews being viewed as loan sharks. Such sentiments were widespread even in Hitlers days. Towards the middle and end of the medieval period, due to economic development and internationalisation, the Jews monopoly in the money business and their economic importance diminished.

Xenophobia
Anti-Semitism was also caused by xenophobia. The European populations turned their frustrations with their social and economic problems towards the strangers a situation perhaps not all that different from todays. At the end of the 13th century, anti-Semitic sentiments increased around Europe. In England, Jews were expelled in 1290, while in many other places Jews were massacred. Following the Jews persecuted and murdered in the Middle Ages. The drawing is from the 16th Reformation (15-16th century), anti-Jewish century. sentiments continued to abound in Northern Europe. The man behind the reformation, Martin Luther, expressed strong anti-Semitic ideas, for instance in 1453, when he wrote that the Jewish synagogues should be burned, their houses destroyed and the Jews be driven out of Germany forever. In the following centuries, European Jews were in reality isolated from their surroundings in the European cities, in so-called ghettos. In 1648 the by then culmination came, when a great massacre on Jews took place in Poland.

The 19th century

During the 19th century the conditions for Jews in Europe were greatly improved. Among the reasons for this were the Enlightenment philosophers plea for liberty and equality. The Jews were liberated under the impression of the ideals of the Age of the Enlightenment, and a process of assimilation commenced. Simultaneously, however, the 19th century marked the so far culmination to European anti-Semitism. As nationalism became the order of the day, the hatred of the Jews escalated and the number of pogroms increased all over Europe. In the name of nationalism, ethnic and religious minorities were looked down upon. Also, the word anti-Semitism was invented (in 1879). In Russia the Jews were strongly persecuted, often in the form of statesponsored pogroms, following the murder of Tsar Alexander II in 1881. The result was that many Jews were murdered and a large number of Jews fled to Western Europe. Around 2 million Jews went to the United States, while Argentina, Canada and Great Britain received around 300,000 Jews. The persecutions also lay the ground for the Zionist movement and the desire to establish a Jewish nation. The idea of a Jewish world conspiracy later used in nazi propaganda was based on The Protocols of the Wise Men of Zion. In this document, fabricated by the Russian Tsars secret police, were listed Jewish plans to take over the world. The falsification turned up in Germany in 1919 and was seen by anti-Semites as proof of the dark forces that had caused Germany to lose World War I. In Denmark, anti-Semitism was limited to riots during the so-called Jewish feud in 1819 and 1830 and it was not until 1849 that Jews became legally equal with the rest of the Danish population. In the Ukraine, however, anti-Semitic sentiments increased, leading tot the most terrible results. In 1919 Ukrainian nationalists murdered around 60,000 Jews.

Timeline persecutions of Jews in Europe

922 B.C. The Jewish kingdom is established 70 A.D. The Romans conquer the Jewish kingdom the Temple of Solomon is destroyed.

11-12th Cent. Massacres on Jews in the Rhineland and by the Crusaders. 1215 Jews in Europe are forced to dress in a certain way or carry the Jewish mark. 1290 The Jews are expelled from England. 14th Cent. The Jews are expelled from France. 1492 The Jews are expelled from Spain, unless they are willing to be baptised. 1648 Massacres on Jews in Poland and the Ukraine. 19th Cent. The Jews are gradually emancipated in Germany and in other Westernm European countries. 1819 Pogrom against the Jews of Copenhagen. 1881 Pogroms in Russia following the murder of the Tsar. 1919 Pogroms in Eastern Europe 60,000 Jews are killed in the Ukraine by Ukrainian nationalists.

Germany and anti-Semitism: the 19th century

Anti-Semitism gained ground in Germany during the 19th century. AntiSemitic libels were published everywhere, and the economic crisis of the early 19th century was linked to anti-Semitism and blamed on the Jews. Besides this, thousands of Jews fled to Germany from the pogroms in Eastern Europe at the end of the 19th century thus keeping up the level of German xenophobia. $$$$$$$ In a climate of economic crisis in Germany towards the end of the 19th century, Jewish bankers were blamed. The Jews were seen as evil and exploiting capitalists, and several anti-Semitic parties were founded. The famous composer Richard Wagner, among others, supported these anti-Semitic tendencies, which in time became infused with racistbiological ideas.$$$$$$$

"I view the Jewish race in particular as the born enemy of the racially pure man and of any nobleness in him; I am convinced that they especially will destroy us Germans." From: A letter from Wagner to King Ludwig II of Bavaria, Das Judentum in der Musik.

University teachers and other learned people also pleaded for antiSemitism. In connection with the growth of modern nationalism and the motto of one stat, one nation, the German author and philosopher Paul de Lagarde expressed that

"I have long been convinced that Jewry constitutes the cancer in all of our life; as Jews, they are strangers in any European state and as such they are northing but spreaders of decay."

Friedrich Nietzsches theory of the superman bermensch as a race biologically and intellectually better shaped than others, was misused by anti-Semites, and later by the Nazis. Some Germans felt like a part of this race of superior human beings at the end of the 19th century. Scientific race theories also surfaced as a new current in Europe and Germany in the 19th century. The Aryan myth came to play an important and terrible role during the Nazi era including the idea of a special German-Germanic spirit and race that was superior to all else. In spite of the anti-Semitism, Jews were awarded legal equality in Prussia in 1859, and later in the rest of Germany. This, however, did not hugely influence the amount of popular anti-Semitism. A fundamental myth about the Jews was the idea of them being in collusion with both capitalism and socialism. An abundance of AntiSemitic writings tried to explain this alleged conspiracy, which was to bring the Jews world supremacy. Hitler later used this myth as an argument for punishing the Jews.

Germany during the Weimar Republic

After World War I the German anti-Semitism reached new heights. The returning and dethroned German soldiers among them Adolf Hitler accused those on the home front of being responsible for the defeat. According to the so-called stabin-the-back legend, social democratic politicians, revolutionaries and especially Jews had stabbed the army in the back. And according to the paranoid Hitler, it was a mean conspiracy between Jewish capitalists in the allied countries that had financed World War I, while Jewish socialists and communists had been responsible for the stabbing on the home front. Hitler was even more explicit in Mein Kampf and in later speeches, where he spoke of the existence of a Jewish conspiracy to take over the world. In this conspiracy, Jewish capitalists had joined forces with the Judeo-Bolshevist socialism.

It almost looked as if nationalism and anti-Semitism only increased as ever-greater misfortunes descended on the German people. In many circles, the Jews were simply blamed for the miserable state of affairs in Germany. Jews were also accused of being parasites, Marxists and for being the very people behind World War I. Murders of prominent politicians were not unheard of in the first turbulent years of the Weimar Republic. But the murder of two prominent public personalities, the Jewish politician Rosa Luxembourg in 1919 and the visionary Jewish Foreign Minister Walther Rathenau in 1922, were both marked by strong anti-Semitic motives. Europe was in a state of economic crisis in the 1930s. The crisis hit the debt-ridden German nation particularly hard, causing economic impoverishment, high inflation, serious unemployment and poverty. The crisis was adding fuel to the flames of the anti-Semitic bonfire. A scapegoat had to be found: the Jews were chosen.

The Jews in Germany

At the time of the Nazi takeover in 1933, believing Jews made up 0,8% of the German population, 500,000 of a total population of approximately 62 million (according to a public census from 1933). The Jewish population was largely concentrated in the great cities.

Jews in Germany, 1933: 500,000 Jews in total (app. 0,8 % of the population) In the great cities: 161,000 in Berlin 26,000 in Frankfurt am Main 20,000 in Breslau 17,000 in Hamburg 15,000 in Cologne From: Wolfgang Benz, ed., Dimension des Vlkermords (Munich, 1991).

Most of Europes between 9 and 11 million Jews lived in Eastern Europe. But Germany had the largest number of Western European Jews. In general, the German Jews were better educated and assimilated than was the case with the Jews in the Eastern European countries. Many of the Jews in Germany were not believers. Although the Jews in Germany constituted a very small percentage of the total population, a relatively large number of Jews were represented on the political, economic and cultural scene. But this fact should not have caused anti-Semitism and ultimately persecution of the German Jews, of whom many felt more German than Jewish. In spite of the high degree of assimilation of the German Jews, they fell victim to the Nazi regimes policies of persecution and extermination.

The Nazis and anti-Semitism

Immediately after the elections to the Reichstag on 5 March 1933, which marked the real beginning to Hitlers and the Nazis takeover of Germany, the SA and other Nazi organisations gave way to their hatred of the Jews. Jews were molested, some even killed, and Jewish businesses were harassed or destroyed. The first apparent antiSemitic initiative was the boycott of Jewish Hitler in February 1933, shortly after being stores in April 1933. appointed Reich Chancellor, USHMM After this followed a #24531. wave of laws and ordinances.$$$$$ More than 2,000 racist laws and ordinances were issued between 1933 and 1945. $$$$$$$$$ Although historians disagree on how important anti-Semitism was in the early phase of the Nazi regime, 1933 definitely constituted a marked line between the times of the Weimar Republic and the new regime. The Reichstag Fire Decree of 28 February 1933, for instance, gave the Nazi state the possibility of imprisoning Jews (and other political enemies) without legal trial.

The Nazis did not exclusively view the Jews as a religious community, but rather as belonging to the Semitic race. This race tried to gain power at the expense of the Aryan race. Such ideas had been propagated by the French count Joseph de Gobineu and the Englishman Houston Stewart Chamberlain at the end of the 19th century. Caricature on the frontpage of Der Strmer The position of the (an anti-Semitic tabloid) depicting how the Jews at the centre of Jews are threatening Europe, 1937, USHMM both political and #37851A. economic affairs was perfect for theories of political conspiracy. It was relatively easy to accuse Jews of being in collusion with and responsible for communism, capitalism, liberalism, socialism, revolution, etc., etc. The so-called > The Nuremberg Laws from 1935 were a landmark event. They were a collection of race laws that definitively segregated the Jews from the German Volksgemeinschaft (peoples community). The most explicit expression of anti-Semitism was seen in the violent atrocities committed during the so-called Night of Broken Glass in 1938. Tens of thousands of Jews were imprisoned in concentration camps, while Jewish businesses, property and synagogues were destroyed. The Jewish were even presented with the bill for the atrocities committed by the regime: a fine of 1 billion Reichmark for their hostility towards the German people. In the schools, the regime put much energy into showing the children why it was necessary to be strict with the Jews. Through anti-Semitic literature, the pupils were indoctrinated with delusions of the Jews hunger for world dominance, that the Jews were an inferior and criminal race, and that the Jews were a serious danger to the German people. According to an official guideline for teaching about the Jewish Question from 1937, the teaching

should result in every single pupil:

"...remain an enemy of the Jews for the rest of his life and raise his children as enemies."

In general, the regimes propaganda, as well as the propaganda in all independent media, presented the Jews as simple animals. Der Strmer was the worst and most widely distributed of the anti-Semitic tabloids. Among other things, Der Strmer treated the Jewish ritual slaughtering of livestock in 1934, which caused a good deal of bad blood against the Jews. Jews were frequently made fun of or caricatured in illustrations, as for instance in a drawing of a rabbi who sucked the blood of children. The German Jews did not stay immune to the growing antiMalevolent caricature on the cover of Semitism. They began to the anti-Semitic children's book Der emigrate from Germany in Giftpilz ("The Poisoneous large numbers. Approximately Mushroom"), 1935, USHMM #40000. 300,000 of Germanys 500,000 Jews left the country between 1933 and 1941 in 1941 the emigration was halted. It has to be mentioned, in all fairness, that a large number of Germans distanced themselves from the anti-Semitism. Even Hermann Gring distanced himself from especially the violent anti-Semitism, for instance the events during the Night of broken Glass, but that was primarily for economic reasons. The destruction of Jewish businesses meant, at least in theory that German insurance companies had to pay out large compensations to the Jewish business owners, which according to Gring was completely ridiculous. Gring wanted the regime to control the masses so that no property was damaged through anti-Semitic demonstrations.

The Nazis anti-Semitic racial policy timeline 1920's: Verbal and written attacks on the Jews 1933: Boycott of Jewish stores 1933-34: The Jews are not allowed to work as:

Civil servants Teachers at the universities Journalists Artists

1930's: Physical attacks on Jewish property and people as well as unsanctioned but unpunished - murders. 1935: The Nuremberg Laws; race laws with the purpose of legally and administratively isolating and impoverish the Jews. 1935-39: Jewish property is confiscated, Jews are asked to emigrate from Germany (and from 1938 also from Austria). 1939: Forced labour for Jewish men between the ages of 14 and 60 is introduced. Jews begin to die because of the work and because of hunger. 1939-40: Ghettos are established in Poland for the Polish Jews later for German and other European Jews as well. Many die from disease, hunger and random executions. 1941, 15 September: German Jews are forced to wear the yellow star.October: German Jews are prohibited from emigrating from Germany. 1941: The first organised mass murders (by shooting) are committed by the four Einsatzgruppen. The first gassings (using gassing trucks) are carried out in the first extermination camp, Chelmno. Gas chambers and crematoria are under construction.

1942: Extermination camps are established and Jews are deported there. 1944-45: Death marches in fear of the Allied invasions, Jews surviving the concentration camps are forced to march to more secure camps. Many die during these transfers.

Why did the Germans support the Nazi Party and its discrimination of the Jews?
Here is presented the explanation of historian Saul Friedlnder. According to Friedlnder, the majority of the German population believed that the Nazi regime would solve several years of political crisis. This belief survived the problems (for instance the bad economy) in the first years of the regime. A series of successes on the international scene for instance the naval agreement with Great Britain 1935 was a strong contributing element. This belief in the regime carried with it a broad accept (passive or not) of the Nazis measures against the Jews. Sympathy with the Jews would have equalled doubting the policies of Hitler and the regime, and many Germans had definitively established their individual and collective priorities in this matter and not to the advantage of the Jews. The same applied to the regimes myth of the Volksgemeinschaft. The German national unity thus explicitly excluded the Jews. To belong to the German people meant accepting what this exclusion implied, i.e. that the Jews were not a part of Germany and its people. From: Saul Friedlnder, Nazi Germany & the Jews. Years of Persecution, 1933-39 (New York, 1997),p. 116.

Who was Jewish according to the Nazi racial terminology?

By the issuing of the Nuremberg Laws in 1935, the racial definition of

Jews and Jewishness became a lawbound reality within the Nazi regime. The definition meant that a Jew was now defined from the blood and no longer just on basis of faith. If a person had at least three Jewish grandparents, then this person was of Jewish race. A person was a halfJew, if he had two Jewish grandparents in German: Mischling ersten Grades. If a person had only one Jewish grandparent, he was a quarterJew (Mischling zweiten Grades). As it were, quarter-Jews were hardly affected by the Nazi persecution, while both pure Jews and half-Jews fell victim to the terrible Nazi measures.

Want to know more?

> Nazi race- and Jewish policy > Anti-Semitism a brief overview external link

Literature:
David Bankier, Probing the Dephts of German Antisemitism. German Society and the Persecution of the Jews, 1933-1941 (New York, 2000). Saul Friedlnder, Nazi Germany & the Jews. The Years of Persecution, 1933-1939 (New York, 1997). Daniel J.Goldhagen, Hitler's Willing Executioners. Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust (New York, 1996).

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*Neuremburg Laws*

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Massed crowds at the Nazi party rally in Nuremberg. Nuremberg, Germany, 1935. US Holocaust Memorial Museum View Photographs

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$$$$$$$At the annual party rally held in Nuremberg in 1935, the Nazis announced new laws which institutionalized many of the racial theories prevalent in Nazi ideology. The laws excluded German Jews from Reich citizenship and prohibited them from marrying or having sexual relations with persons of "German or related blood." Ancillary ordinances to the laws disenfranchised Jews and deprived them of most political rights. The Nuremberg Laws, as they became known, did not define a "Jew" as someone with particular religious beliefs. Instead, anyone who had three or four Jewish grandparents was defined as a Jew, regardless of whether that individual identified himself or herself as a Jew or belonged to the Jewish religious community.$$$$$$ Many Germans who had not practiced Judaism for years found themselves caught in the grip of Nazi terror. Even people with Jewish grandparents who had converted to

Christianity were defined as Jews. For a brief period after Nuremberg, in the weeks before and during the 1936 Olympic Games held in Berlin, the Nazi regime actually moderated its anti-Jewish attacks and even removed some of the signs saying "Jews Unwelcome" from public places. Hitler did not want international criticism of his government to result in the transfer of the Games to another country. Such a loss would have been a serious blow to German prestige. After the Olympic Games (in which the Nazis did not allow German Jewish athletes to participate), the Nazis again stepped up the persecution of German Jews. In 1937 and 1938, the government set out to impoverish Jews by requiring them to register their property and then by "Aryanizing" Jewish businesses. This meant that Jewish workers and managers were dismissed, and the ownership of most Jewish businesses was taken over by non-Jewish Germans who bought them at bargain prices fixed by Nazis. Jewish doctors were forbidden to treat non-Jews, and Jewish lawyers were not permitted to practice law. 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.

Key Dates
SEPTEMBER 15, 1935 NUREMBERG LAWS ARE INSTITUTED At their annual party rally, the Nazis announce new laws that revoke Reich citizenship for Jews and prohibit Jews from marrying or having sexual relations with persons of "German or related blood." "Racial infamy," as this becomes known, is made a criminal offense. The Nuremberg Laws define a "Jew" as someone with three or four Jewish grandparents. Consequently, the Nazis classify as Jews thousands of people who had converted from Judaism to another religion, among them even Roman Catholic priests and nuns and Protestant ministers whose grandparents were Jewish. OCTOBER 18, 1935 NEW MARRIAGE REQUIREMENTS INSTITUTED The "Law for the Protection of the Hereditary Health of the German People" requires all prospective marriage partners to obtain from the public health authorities a certificate of fitness to marry. Such certificates are refused to those suffering from "hereditary illnesses" and contagious

diseases and those attempting to marry in violation of the Nuremberg Laws. NOVEMBER 14, 1935 NUREMBERG LAW EXTENDED TO OTHER GROUPS The first supplemental decree of the Nuremberg Laws extends the prohibition on marriage or sexual relations between people who could produce "racially suspect" offspring. A week later, the minister of the interior interprets this to mean relations between "those of German or related blood" and Roma (Gypsies), blacks, or their offspring.

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The Nuremberg Race Laws

emberg Race Laws of 1935 deprived German Jews of their rights of citizenship, giving them the status of "subjects" in Hitler's Reich. The made it forbidden for Jews to marry or have sexual relations with Aryans or to employ young Aryan women as household help. (An ing a person with blond hair and blue eyes of Germanic heritage.)

two laws comprising the Nuremberg Race Laws were: "The Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor" (regarding marriage) and "The Reich Citizenship Law" (designating Jews as subjects).

ws were soon followed by "The Law for the Protection of the Genetic Health of the German People," which required all persons wanting to submit to a medical examination, after which a "Certificate of Fitness to Marry" would be issued if they were found to be disease free. The e was required in order to get a marriage license.

emberg Laws had the unexpected result of causing confusion and heated debate over who was a "full Jew." The Nazis then issued onal charts such as the one shown below to help distinguish Jews from Mischlinge (Germans of mixed race) and Aryans. The white figures Aryans; the black figures represent Jews; and the shaded figures represent Mischlinge.

s settled on defining a "full Jew" as a person with three Jewish grandparents. Those with less were designated as Mischlinge of two First Degree - two Jewish grandparents; Second Degree - one Jewish grandparent.

Nuremberg Laws of 1935,$$$$$ a dozen supplemental Nazi decrees were issued that eventually $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$wed the Jews completely, depriving them of their rights as human beings. Instructional Chart

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Stadtarchiv Bielefeld, courtesy USHMM Photo Archives)

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Nazi Propaganda
$$$$$$$"Propaganda attempts to force a doctrine on the whole people... Propaganda works on the general public from the standpoint of an idea and makes them ripe for the victory of this idea." Adolf Hitler wrote these words in his book Mein Kampf (1926), in which he first advocated the use of propaganda to spread the ideals of National Socialism$$$$$$$--among them racism, anti-Semitism, and anti-Bolshevism. "The function of propaganda is to attract supporters, the function of organization to win members... Propaganda works on the general public from the standpoint of an idea and makes them ripe for the victory of this idea...." - Adolf Hitler, 1924 At the core of the Holocaust we find modern anti-Semitism, the current version of Jew Hatred - that same phenomenon which appeared throughout the centuries, perhaps finding its most blatant manifestation with the medieval Church. The modern German anti-Semitism was based on racial ideology which stated that the Jews were sub-human (untermensch) while the Aryan race was ultimately superior. The Jew was systematically portrayed as a low-life, as untouchable rot (faulniserscheinung), and as the main cause of Germany's difficulties. Germany had major problems resulting from World War I. Although no warfare had occurred on German soil, the Emperor had fled, and the Weimar Republic was only established after years of severe political instability, with localised Bolshevist experiments a nd street terror in the cities. The Treaty of Versailles in 1919 brought the relinquishment of land on almost all fronts, especially to France (AlsaceLorraine, Saar) and Poland (Danzig corridor); the reduction of the German army to a home militia; and reparation payments bey ond the prevalent economic capabilities. The rocketing inflation of 1922 and 1923 caused further economic instability, which became even worse with the advent of the Great Depression of 1929. By 1932, unemployment in Germany peaked, and it was in this economic and political climate that Adolf Hitler established the Nationalist-Socialist Party (with "Mein Kampf" as its manifesto). With Hitler's rise to power in 1933 the national policy of organized persecution of the Jews began."

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The Nazi ideal of a community of the people tapped into German traditions that lauded social harmony over conflict and in addition valued hard work, clean living, and law and order. For the Nazis, this idealized community could never see the light of day unless it was based on racial purity. To this end, the new regime set out to mobilize the nation around certain missions, including the elimination of recognizable social types (and stereotypes) who disturbed the peace or who did not conform to well-established German values, but also those who did not fit into the white Aryan race. The Nazi version of the struggle between us and them, between the community of the people and the enemies of the community, was not just hostile, but vehement and full of language that dripped with war and images drawn from the Darwinian struggle for survival. In the kind of total-war rhetoric the Nazis used, it followed that mercy and compassion toward all enemies was portrayed as a vice, while intolerance and fanaticism were transformed into virtues. Once social enemies were targeted, the police, the judges, and any number of civil servants were quick to take the initiative and swing into action, even trying to outdo one another in their fealty to the cause of making the new order. Nazi Propaganda Minister The authorities in state and society below, in the cultural realm, medicine, welfare, the penal system, and so on, showed they were pleased that Hitler allowed them the flexibility and freedom to implement measures that many of them had only dared to contemplate in earlier years. No single target of Nazi propaganda took higher priority than Germany's young. By 1937, 97% of all teachers belonged to the National Socialist Teachers' Union. Every member of this union had to submit an ancestry table in triplicate with official documentary proof. Courses and textbooks in Nazi schools reflected the aims of Hitler. Of the topics that teachers were required to treat, the most important was racial theory and, by extension, the Jewish problem. In `The National Socialist Essence of Education, a German educator wrote that mathematics was "Aryan spiritual property; an expression of the Nordic fighting spirit, of the Nordic struggle for the supremacy of the world. One example of this propaganda is the publication known as Der Giftpilz (The Poisonous Mushroom) which appeared in Germany in 1938 and leaves little question regarding the intended Nazi solution to the "Jewish problem." The book begins innocently enou gh by describing a favourite German pastime, picking wild mushrooms in the woods. A young boy, Franz, accompanies his mother on a walk in a beautiful, wooded area and helps her gather mushrooms. After carefully describing and showing Franz several varieties of bo th edible and poisonous mushrooms, his mother compares the good mushrooms to good people and the harmful mushrooms to bad people. The most dangerous people are, of course, the Jews.

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-Der Giftpilz "Why Jews are baptized"

-Der Giftpilz "Cheating Jews"

-Der Giftpilz "Jewish Cruelty"

-Der Giftpilz "Jewish God is money"

Scenes from Der Giftpilz Franz proudly announces that he has learned in school that the Jews are bad people. His mother continues her comparison of Je ws to mushrooms by emphasizing that, just as poisonous mushrooms are difficult to distinguish from edible ones, it is difficult to differentiate Jews from Non-Jews because Jews can assume many forms. Franz's mother repeatedly alludes to the terrible destructive force of the Jews. One Jew can destroy an entire people because the Jew is the Devil in human form. The Jew poses a deadly th reat not only to the survival of the German people but to the survival of the world! It is Germany's obligation to warn the rest of the world abou t this terrible

toadstool and thereby save humanity from destruction. Thus begins one of the most insidious storybooks ever composed for children. A further aspect of the insidious nature of Nazi propaganda was the work of director Leni Riefenstahl, in particular the documentary films Triumph des Willens (Triumph of the Will), a record of the Reich Party Congress of 1934, and the two-part chronicle of the Berlin Olympic Games of 1936, Fest der Vlker and Fest der Schnheit, usually referred to as Olympia Part I and II. Although undoubtedly technically brilliant, indeed revolutionary in many respects, they unquestionably propagated Nazi ideals. Riefenstahl always claimed that she was merely a film-maker, a recorder of events, but there is no doubting the message that these films carried. The Eternal Jew is a 1940 anti-Semitic Nazi propaganda film. Its title in German is `Der ewige Jude, which is ambiguous and could be translated as The Wandering Jew". It was directed by Fritz Hippler at the insistence of German Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels, though the writing is credited to Eberhard Taubert. The film consists of feature and documentary footage combined with new materials filmed shortly after the Nazi occupation of Poland, which then had a Jewish population of about 3.3 million (roughly 10 percent of the total population). The film was made in the style of a documentary, the central thesis being the immutable racial personality traits that characterize the Jew as a wandering cultural parasite. Throughout the film, these traits are contrasted to the Nazi state ideal: While Aryan men find satisfaction in physical labour and the creation of value, Jews only find pleasure in money and a hedonistic lifestyle. While members of the Aryan race have a need for aesthetic living, rich Jews live in bug-infested and dirty homes, even though they could afford better. While western man has an appreciation of northern culture and imagery, Jews only find satisfaction in the grotesque and decadent. Many things that run contrary to Nazi doctrine are associated with Jewish influence, such as modern art, cultural relativism, anarchic and socialist movements, as well as sexual liberation. Triumph of the Will Jud S was one of a trio of anti-Semitic films released early in the war. It received the full support of the entire propaganda system. Here, for example, is a full page advertisement for the film taken from the Nazi Luftwaffe magazine. The advertisement claims that 8,000,000 people had seen the film, which was released in late September 1940.

Leni Reifenstahl

The Eternal Jew

Julius Streicher & Der Strmer. The course of Streicher's incitement and propaganda may be traced more or less in chronological order by referring to short extracts from "Der Strmer." The extracts which follow were selected at random. They were chosen with a view to showing the various methods that Streicher employed to incite the German people against the Jewish race, but his newspapers are crowded with them, week after week, day after day. It is impossible to pick up any copy without finding the same kind of invective and incitement in the headlines and in the articles. Jud Suss In a speech which Streicher made in 1922 in Nrnberg, after abusing the Jews in his first sentences, he is reported as going on to say: We know that Germany will be free when the Jew has been excluded from the life of the German people." In another speech in 1924 he stated: "I beg you and particularly those of you who carry the cross throughout the land to become somewhat more serious when I speak of the enemy of the German people, namely, the Jew. Not out of irresponsibility or for fun do I fight against the Jewish enemy, but because I bear within me the knowledge that the whole misfortune was brought to Germany by the Jews alone. Julius Streicher

I ask you once more, what is at stake today? The Jew seeks domination not only among the German people but among all peoples. The communists pave the way for him. Do you not know that the God of the Old Testament orders the Jews to consume and enslave the peoples of the earth? "The government allows the Jew to do as he pleases. The people expect action to be taken. You may think about Adolf Hitler as you please, but one thing you must admit. He possessed the courage to attempt to free the German people from the Jew by a national revolution. That was action indeed." In a further speech in April 1925, Streicher declared: "You must realize that the Jew wants our people to perish. That is why you must join us and leave those who have brought you nothing but war, inflation, and discord. For thousands of years the Jew has been destroying the nations. Let us make a new beginning today so that we can annihilate the Jews." This appears to be the earliest expression of one of the conspirators' primary objectives -- the annihilation of the Jewish race. Fourteen years later it became the official policy of the Nazi Government. May, 1934 Issue of Der Strmer

Sources: German Propaganda Archive Home Page www.USHMM.org Der Strmer, No. 22 (1934). Holocaust Enclyclopedia

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Nazi Propaganda Tactics

(May 1930)

From the report of the Prussian Ministry of the Interior:

... The rapid and steady growth of the National Socialist movement is due primarily to the catastrophic worsening of the economic condition of large segments of the population. Gaining more adherents is the perception that only a fundamentally different political and economic basis can check this development. Since the economic situation is the result of the lost war and its financial ramifications, the propaganda of the National Socialists is gaining more and more support. They call for a fundamental elimination of the "tribute obligations" to foreign countries and want to reach this goal by changing the domestic political power relationships in favor of a National Socialist regime in the form of a "third Reich." It is primarily economic despair that is winning followers for National Socialism because these groups see a radical change as their only hope. ... It is noteworthy that the majority of the supporters of National Socialism come especially from those segments of the population which have been hardest hit by the present economic distress. Included are, on the one hand, those who have been affected by the misery of the agricultural situation as well as, on the other hand, the gradually slipping middle class comprised of small scale businessmen in small towns which has suffered from the high cost of credit and the competition of large businesses. Included too are salaried personnel who have already lost their jobs, or for whom unemployment threatens. And finally also included is the new, young academic talent - that is, students and university scholars who because of the economic situation have lost all hope of making a living in the future. Added to this lately

is a not inconsiderable number of lower-and middle-ranking officials, especially from administrative offices ... such as the postal service, the railroad administration, the revenue service, as well as from the ranks of teachers. In contrast to the working class, which in this situation tends more toward communism, these groups are seeking to avoid at all cost sinking to the level of the "proletariat," and consequently see their salvation embodied by the other, "non-Marxist" radicalism - National Socialism. ... Added to this is the important factor of the type and scope of the party's propaganda.$$$$$ Selected districts are veritably inundated and worked-over with propaganda operations consisting of methodically and skillfully prepared written and verbal appeals as well as schedule of meetings, all of which in terms of sheer activity cannot in the least be matched by any other party or political movement. $$$$$ Hardly a day passes when there are not several meetings held in even very narrowly defined local areas.$$$$ Carefully organized propaganda headquarters in the individual districts see to it that speakers and topics are in tune with local conditions and economic circumstances.$$$$ The party's Reichstag and Landtag [regional parliament] delegates as well as a great number of other party speakers are on the road continually, developing and expanding these agitation tactics. Through systematic training courses, correspondence courses, and recently through the NSDAP speaker-training school established on July 1, 1929, such agitators are training for this task over a period of months and even years. If they prove to be qualified they receive official recognition from the party and are given a contract to give at least thirty speeches during an eight-month period, for which they are granted an incentive fee of 20 Reichsmark per evening in addition to expenses. Rhetorical skills are combined with lecture topics carefully selected to suit the particular audience, which in the rural areas and in small towns is mainly interested in economic matters. This, according to our observations, ensures that meeting halls are almost invariably overcrowded with approving listeners. Meetings with an audience of between one thousand and five thousand people are a daily occurrence in the bigger cities. ... At these events the government's entire internal and foreign policy is attacked in a demagogical style that does not shy away even from falsification, distortion, and slander. They are abusive and contemptuous of the government and blame it for the economic crisis. ... This propaganda is backed up almost everywhere by the simultaneous

appearance of SA people, who, on bicycles or on trucks - some belonging to the party - go to the individual meetings in an area and merely through being there give a speaker considerable support, help fill the hall itself, act as a protective force for the meeting, and in the end also act as a coercive force in that they allow no one to interject or contradict the speaker, which more or less makes it impossible for anyone to make counter arguments. By their public appearance they directly and indirectly help advertise the meeting, and thereby support the speaker's propaganda, entice sympathizers and the curious, and ultimately through their organization of parades in uniform they win supporters locally, primarily from among the younger generation. On such occasions the network of local groups is expanded as far as possible, or at least trusted individuals are recruited in order to lay the groundwork for the expansion of the movement through intensive, pervasive, word-of-mouth propaganda. Frequently such propaganda squads remain in a certain place for several days and attempt to inspire support for the Party from the local population by staging a variety of events such as concerts, sports festivals, military marching spectacles, as well as even closed-rank church attendance in suitable towns. In other towns a propaganda speaker from elsewhere will be stationed for a certain length of time; with a car at his disposal, he will then systematically travel through the surrounding area. National Socialist theater groups also travel from town to town, serving the same purpose. .... Source: B. C. Sax & D. Kuntz, "Inside Hitler's Germany," Massachusetts, 1992, pp. 98-100.

Source: Yad Vashem

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A Jewish Synagogue Burns During Kristallnacht (Source: Grobman and Landes, eds., Genocide)

Almost immediately upon assuming the Chancellorship of Germany, Hitler began promulgating legal actions against Germany's Jews. In 1933, he proclaimed a one-day boycott against Jewish shops, a law was passed against kosher butchering and Jewish children began experiencing restrictions in public schools. By 1935, the Nuremberg Laws deprived Jews of German citizenship. By 1936, Jews were prohibited from participation in parliamentary elections and signs reading "Jews Not Welcome" appeared in many German cities. (Incidentally, these signs were taken down in the late summer in preparation for the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin). In the first half of 1938, numerous laws were passed restricting Jewish economic activity and occupational opportunities. In July, 1938, a law was passed (effective January 1, 1939) requiring all Jews to carry identification cards. On October 28, 17,000 Jews of Polish citizenship, many of whom had been living in Germany for decades, were arrested and relocated across the Polish border. The Polish government refused to admit them so they were interned in "relocation camps" on the Polish frontier. Among the deportees was Zindel Grynszpan, who had been born in western Poland and had moved to Hanover, where he established a small store, in 1911. On the night of October 27, Zindel Grynszpan and his family were forced out of their home by German police. His store and the family's possessions were confiscated and they were forced to move over the Polish border. Zindel Grynszpan's seventeen-year-old son, Herschel, was living with an uncle in Paris. When he received news of his family's expulsion, he went to the German embassy in Paris on November 7, intending to assassinate the German Ambassador to France. Upon discovering that the Ambassador was not in the embassy, he settled for a lesser official, Third Secretary Ernst vom Rath. Rath, was critically wounded and died two days later, on November 9. The assassination provided Goebbels, Hitler's Chief of Propaganda, with the excuse he needed to launch a pogrom against German Jews. Grynszpan's attack was interpreted by Goebbels as a conspiratorial attack by "International Jewry" against the Reich and, symbolically, against the Fuehrer himself. This pogrom has come to be called Kristallnacht, "the Night of Broken Glass." $$$$$On the nights of November 9 and 10, gangs of Nazi youth roamed through Jewish neighborhoods breaking windows of Jewish businesses and homes, burning synagogues and looting. In all 101 synagogues were destroyed and almost 7,500 Jewish businesses were destroyed. 26,000 Jews were arrested and sent to concentration camps, Jews were physically attacked and beaten and 91 died$$$$$$ (Snyder, Louis L. Encyclopedia of the Third Reich. New York: Paragon House, 1989:201). The official German position on these events, which were clearly orchestrated by Goebbels, was that they were spontaneous outbursts. The Fuehrer, Goebbels reported to Party officials in Munich, "has decided that such demonstrations are not to be prepared or organized by the party, but so far as they originate spontaneously, they are not to be discouraged either." (Conot, Robert E. Justice at Nuremberg. New York: Harper & Row, 1983:165)

Three days later, on November 12, Goering called a meeting of the top Nazi leadership to assess the damage done during the night and place responsibility for it. Present at the meeting were Goering, Goebbels, Reinhard Heydrich, Walter Funk and other ranking Nazi officials. The intent of this meeting was two-fold: to make the Jews responsible for Kristallnacht and to use the events of the preceding days as a rationale for promulgating a series of antisemitic laws which would, in effect, remove Jews from the German economy. An interpretive transcript of this meeting is provided by Robert Conot, Justice at Nuremberg, New York: Harper and Row, 1983:164-172): `Gentlemen! Today's meeting is of a decisive nature,' Goering announced. `I have received a letter written on the Fuehrer's orders requesting that the Jewish question be now, once and for all, coordinated and solved one way or another.' `Since the problem is mainly an economic one, it is from the economic angle it shall have to be tackled. Because, gentlemen, I have had enough of these demonstrations! They don't harm the Jew but me, who is the final authority for coordinating the German economy. `If today a Jewish shop is destroyed, if goods are thrown into the street, the insurance companies will pay for the damages; and, furthermore, consumer goods belonging to the people are destroyed. If in the future, demonstrations which are necessary occur, then, I pray, that they be directed so as not to hurt us. `Because it's insane to clean out and burn a Jewish warehouse, then have a German insurance company make good the loss. And the goods which I need desperately, whole bales of clothing and whatnot, are being burned. And I miss them everywhere. I may as well burn the raw materials before they arrive. `I should not want to leave any doubt, gentlemen, as to the aim of today's meeting. We have not come together merely to talk again, but to make decisions, and I implore competent agencies to take all measures for the elimination of the Jew from the German economy, and to submit them to me.' It was decided at the meeting that, since Jews were to blame for these events, they be held legally and financially responsible for the damages incurred by the pogrom. Accordingly, a "fine of 1 billion marks was levied for the slaying of Vom Rath, and 6 million marks paid by insurance companies for broken windows was to be given to the state coffers. (Snyder, Louis L. Encyclopedia of the Third Reich. New York: Paragon House, 1989:201). $$$Kristallnacht turns out to be a crucial turning point in German policy regarding the Jews and may be considered as the actual beginning of what is now called the Holocaust.$$$$$$ 1. By now it is clear to Hitler and his top advisors that forced immigration of Jews out of the Reich is not a feasible option. 2. Hitler is already considering the invasion of Poland. 3. Numerous concentration camps and forced labor camps are already in operation. 4. The Nuremberg Laws are in place. 5. The doctrine of lebensraum has emerged as a guiding principle of Hitlers ideology. And,

6. The passivity of the German people in the face of the events of Kristallnacht made it clear that the Nazis would encounter little opposition even from the German churches. Following the meeting, a wide-ranging set of 39nti-Semitic laws were passed which had the clear intent, in Goerings words, of Aryanizing the German economy. Over the next two or three months, the following measures were put into effect (cf., Burleigh and Wippermann, The Racial State: Germany, 1933-1945. New York:Cambridge, 1991:92-96): 1. Jews were required to turn over all precious metals to the government. 2. Pensions for Jews dismissed from civil service jobs were arbitrarily reduced. 3. Jewish-owned bonds, stocks, jewelry and art works can be alienated only to the German state. 4. Jews were physically segregated within German towns. 5. A ban on the Jewish ownership of carrier pigeons. 6. The suspension of Jewish drivers licenses. 7. The confiscation of Jewish-owned radios. 8. A curfew to keep Jews of the streets between 9:00 p.m. and 5:00 a.m. in the summer and 8:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. in the winter. 9. Laws protecting tenants were made non-applicable to Jewish tenants. One final note on the November 12 meeting is of critical importance. In the meeting, Goering announced, I have received a letter written on the Fuehrers orders requesting that the Jewish question be now, once and for all, coordinated and solved one way or another. The path to the Final Solution has now been chosen. And, all the bureaucratic mechanisms for its implementation were now in place. It should be noted that there is some controversy among Holocaust scholars as to the origin, intent and appropriateness of the term Kristallnacht. The term, after all, was coined by Walter Funk at the November 12 Nazi meeting following the pogrom of November 8-10. The crucial question is whether the term was a Nazi euphemism for an all-out pogrom against German Jews and whether the Nazis used the term in a derisive manner. There is considerable evidence that both of the above questions have an affirmative answer. Holocaust, and Kristallnacht survivor, Ernest Heppner made the following observation in a recent (June, 1995) exchange of ideas on the Internet Holocaust Discussion List: ...as an eyewitness I was very emotionally involved in this event and its consequences. Like everyone else here in the United States, for some 50 years I called those horrible days and nights Kristallnacht. I changed my mind reluctantly when, during my research, I discovered Goerings intent to use this designation to ridicule this event. The following sources should be of interest to the subscribers of this list. Die Juden in Deutschland 1933-1945, herausgegeben von Wolfgang Benz, Verlag C.H. Beck, Munich 1989, part VI, pages 499-544, Der November- pogrom 1938. The second sentence of this chapter begins: Der Novem- berpogrom, als Reichkristallnacht im

Umgangstonverniedlicht... (The Novemberpogrom was prettified in the vernacular as crystal night.) Chapter 6, titled Die Kristallnacht als Anfang vom Ende, (crystal night as the beginning of the end) starts: Man kann den November- pogrom als ein Ritual oeffentlicher Demueting deuten... (The Novemberpogrom can be explained as a ritual for public humiliation...) The photograph accompanying this chapter it titled: Vielleicht gab das zersplitterte Glass Anlass zu dem Spottnamen Reichskristall- nacht. (Perhaps the broken glass was used to ridicule the pogrom). Also see Arnold Pauckers The Jews in Germany, Tuebingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1986, page 220: Der Novemberpogrom, euphemistisch Kristallnacht genannt, war der Anfang vom Ende... (The Novemberpogrom, euphemistically named Crystal Night was the beginning of the end.) There are additional sources, but I hope the above will serve to illustrate the fact that, except for the United States, The November Pogrom appears to be the established term./blockquote> Walter Pehle makes the following observation: It is clear that the term Crystal Night serves to foster a vicious minimalizing of its memory, a discounting of grave reality: such cynical appellations function to reinterpret manslaughter and murder, arson, robbery, plunder, and massive property damage, transforming these into a glistening event marked by sparkle and gleam. Of course, such terms reveal one thing in stark clarity the lack of any sense of involvement or feeling of sympathy on the part of those who had stuck their heads in the sand before that violent night. With good reason, knowledgeable commentators urge people to renounce the continued use of Kristallnacht and Reichskristall- nacht to refer to these events, even if the expressions have become slick and established usage in our language. (Pehle, W. H., Editors Preface in Pehle, W. H. (ed.) November 1938, From Reichskristall- nacht to Genocide, Berg Publishers Inc., NY, 1991, pp. vii-viii (English edition) So, it appears, the term Kristallnacht or Crystal Night was invented by Nazis to mock Jews on that black November night in 1938. It is, therefore, another example of Nazi perversion. There are numerous other examples of this same tendency in the language of the Nazi perpetrators: Sonderbehandlung (special treatment) for gassing victims, Euthanasie for a policy of mass murder of retarded or physically handicapped patients, Arbeit Macht Frei (Work Makes you Free) over the entrance to Auschwitz. When the Nazis launched their plan to annihilate the remaining Jews in Poland in the fall of 1943, they called it Erntefest, or Harvest Festival. While this may have been a code word, as Froma Zeitlin has observed, it had the same grim and terrible irony that is reflected in Kristallnacht as in so many other instances of the perverted uses of language in the Third Reich. Perhaps most cynical of all is the use of the term, Endloesung der Judenfrage (Final Solution of the Jewish Question), for what is now known as the Holocaust. Goebbels frequently used such terminology to amuse his audiences (usually other Nazi officials) and to further demoralize his victims.

On the other side of this controversy are those who argue that the term should be retained. In the first place, it is the term which has been used now for fifty years and connotes significant meaning to those who study the Holocaust. As Froma Zeitlin (in a message posted to HOLOCAUS Internet Discussion Group in June, 1995) observes: But I would like to point out that whether or not the name came into existence as a Nazi euphemism or not, the event itself and what it has come to signify has transformed an innocent name into one of unforgettable and dramatic meaning. The term is permanently out of circulation for any other use whatsoever. Can you imagine us now using Kristallnacht to refer to some street riot or another, no matter how extensively the streets were littered with broken glass? Certainly not. Moreover, what disturbed the German populace was less the sight of synagogues burning (fires take place all the time, after all it depends on the scale) than of the savage and wasteful vandalism that confronted bystanders everywhere, disrupting the clean and orderly streets (to say nothing of consumer convenience). What was indeed memorable was the sheer quantity of broken glass. A third point was the economic outcome of this massive breakage. Germany didnt produce enough plate glass to repair the damages (synagogues did not have to be replaced quite the contrary). The result was twofold: the need to import glass from Belgium (for sorely needed cash) and the outrage of indemnifying the Jewish community to pay for the damages. So the broken glass came to assume yet another outrageous dimension in the wake of the event. Paul Lawrence Rose, Penn State University, agrees with the retention of the term Kristallnacht instead of pogrom or some other term and makes the following observation: Of course, K-nacht was a pogrom of sorts, but it was a German event and more specifically still, a Nazi event. Replacing it with pogrom certainly sets it in the larger context of 41nti-Semitic massacres in European history, but it loses the German and Nazi contexts. And, as Zeitlin observes, the origins of terms do not equal the historical meanings that they accumulate. To have criticized Goerings use of language in 1938 would have been appropriate; however, 1996 the term kristallnacht carries the significance and power it has acquired over the past fifty years.

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Kristallnacht
"Nght of Crystal" - "Nght of Broken Glass"

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What does the word "Kistallnacht" ean? "Kistallnacht" is a German word that consists of two parts: "Kristall" translates to "crystal" and refers to the look of broken glass and "Nacht" means "night." The accepted English translation is the "Night of Broken Glass."

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---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The most infamous Anti-Semitic Pogrom in recent history occurred on November 9, 1938. Instigated primarily by Nazi party officials and the SA (Nazi Storm Troopers), the pogrom occurred throughout Germany (including annexed Austria and the Sudetenland regi on of Czechoslovakia). The name Kristallnacht has its origin in the untold numbers of broken windows of synagogues, Jewish-owned stores, community centers, and homes plundered and destroyed during the pogrom. The term became a euphemism for this brutal pogrom and does not adequately convey the suffering it caused. Early that evening Adolf Hitler attended a dinner party in Munich, during the course of the evening he received word of the death of Ernst Vom Rath, a German Diplomat stationed in Paris. Vom Rath was shot two days earlier by Herschel Grynszpan, a 17-year-old Polish Jew, who was angry that his parents, together with tens of thousands of Jews of Polish citizenship living in Germany (Grynszpan's parents had lived in Germany since 1911), had been expelled from Germany without notice. Spurred by a decision of the Polish government on the 6th of October 1938 to withdraw all passports from Polish citizens who had remained abroad for over 5 years, German authorities were forced to either accept 15,000 stateless ex-Polish Jewish citizens on their soil or to send them back to their homeland before the withdrawal came into effect. Ernst Vom Rath The Germans chose to deport them and on October 28, 1938, the Gestapo rounded up the Polish Jews within Germany, put them on transports, and then dropped them off on the Polish side of the Poland-Germany border (near Posen). With little food, water, clothing, or shelter in the middle of winter, thousands of these people died. Among these Polish Jews were the parents of seventeen year old Herschel Grynszpan

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Upon receiving the news, Hitler conferred in private with Joseph Goebbels, and then left the dinner party without Herschel Grynszpan giving his planned speech. Goebbels immediately took the floor in his stead and after announcing the death of Vom Rath, (which he of course blamed on a Pan-Jewish conspiracy), he went on to say that anti-Jewish demonstrations (pogroms) although not organized by the Nazi Party "would not be hampered." While Goebbels made the case for the death of Vom Rath as the catalyst for the pogrom, plans were already in place, and orders given to unleash terror on the streets:

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---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------TO ALL REGIONAL AND SUB-REGIONAL GESTAPO OFFICES sent at 1:20AM, November 8, 1938 SUBJECT: MEASURES AGAINST THE JEWS THIS NIGHT That only such measures were to be taken that would not endanger German lives or property (e.g. the burning of synagogues was only to be carried out if there was no danger of fire spreading to the surrounding district). Businesses and residences of Jews may be damaged but not looted. Particular care is to be paid in business sections and surrounding streets. Non -Jewish businesses are to be protected from damage under all circumstances. Police are to seize all archives from synagogues and offices of community organizations, this refers to material of historical significance. Archives are to be handed over to the SS. (Because the synagogues were to be burned to t he ground, the Nazis wanted the records of the Jews.) As soon as possible, officials are to arrest as many Jews especially wealthy ones - in all districts as can be accommodated in existing cells. For the time being, only healthy male Jews of not too advanced age are to be arrested.

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Signed by Reinhard Heydrich, SS Gruppenfrer

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------$Goebbels speech set off a firestorm of violence throughout Germany and parts of Austria. Hundreds of synagogues were vandalized, looted, and destroyed. Many were set ablaze and firemen were instructed to let the synagogues burn, and only prevent flames from spreading to nearby Aryan structures. The shop windows of an estimated 7,500 Jewish-owned commercial establishments were smashed and the wares within looted. Jewish cemeteries were desecrated. Mobs of SA men roamed the streets, attacking Jews and killing about 100 persons. In despair at the destruction of their homes, many Jews, including entire families, were driven to suicide. Three days later, on November 12, Hermann Gring called a meeting of the top Nazi leadership to assess the damage done during the night and place responsibility for it. Present at the meeting were Gring, Goebbels, Reinhard Heydrich, Walter Funk and other ranking Nazi officials. The intent of this meeting was two-fold: to make the Jews responsible for Kristallnacht and to use the events of the preceding days as a rationale for promulgating a series of antiBystanders view the smashed windows Semitic laws which would, in effect, remove Jews from the German economy. Gring's Speech: 'Gentlemen! Today's meeting is of a decisive nature,' Gring announced. 'I have received a letter written on the Fuehrer's orders requesting that the Jewish question be now, once and for all, coordinated and solved one way or another.'

'Since the problem is mainly an economic one, it is from the economic angle it shall have to be tackled. Because, gentlemen, I have had enough of these demonstrations! They don't harm the Jew but me, who is the final authority for coordinating the Germ an economy. `If today a Jewish shop is destroyed, if goods are thrown into the street, the insuranc e companies will pay for the damages; and, furthermore, consumer goods belonging to the people are destroyed. If in the future, demonstrations which are necessary occur, then, I pray, that they be directed so as not to hurt us. 'Because it's insane to clean out and burn a Jewish warehouse, then have a German insurance company make good the loss. And the goods which I need desperately, whole bales of clothing and whatnot, are being burned, and I miss them everywhere. I may as well burn the raw materials before they arrive. 'I should not want to leave any doubt, gentlemen, as to the aim of today's meeting. We have not come together merely to talk again, but to make decisions, and I implore competent agencies to take all measures for the elimination of the Jew from the German economy, and to submit them to me.' It was decided at the meeting that, since Jews were to blame for these events, they be held legally and financially responsible for the damages incurred by the pogrom. Accordingly, a "fine of 1 billion marks was levied for the slaying of Vom Rath, and 6 million marks paid by insurance companies for broken windows was to be given to the state coffers. Following the meeting, a wide-ranging set of anti-Semitic laws were passed which had the clear intent, in Gring's words, of "Aryanizing" the German economy. One final note on the November 12 meeting is of critical importance. In the meeting, Gring announced, "I have received a letter written on the Fuehrer's orders requesting that the Jewish question be now, once and for all, coordinated and solved one way or another." The path to the Final Solution has now been chosen. And, all the bureaucratic mechanisms for its implementation were now in place.

Joseph Goebbels

Burning of the Synagogue in Memel

Sources: USHMM History of the Holoaust -Franklin Watts 1882 Holocaust Chronicle -Publications International Martin Gilbert, Final Journey, The Fate of the Jews in Nazi Europe London 1979

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How the Jews in France were rounded up

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Email From our special correspondent The Guardian, Thursday 3 September 1942 10.09 EDT

$$$The round-up of Jews in occupied France was begun on July 14 and reached its height on the night of the 15th to 16th$$$$$$$. Twenty-eight thousand people, including Jews of foreign origin, French Jews, and other French subjects regarded as suspects were wanted by the French and German authorities. Many were warned in time of what was to come, in several instances by the French constabulary. In Paris thousands of them tried to hide in the Eighteenth District. One of those who were taken into custody after their money and valuables had been forcibly taken from them the men were brought to the Velodrome d'Hiver and the women carted off to the Parc des Princes. $$$$$Not a single soul whom the police could lay hands on was allowed to go free. Inmates of the Rothschild Hospital, which had been set apart for patients from the camp at Drancy, were placed under arrest regardless of their condition and no matter how recently they had been operated upon. Children over three years old were separated from their mothers, about 5,000 of them being herded together in three school buildings, whither they were taken in lorries after their parents had been seized and their homes locked up by the police. Quite a number of the smaller children are unable to give their names and cannot be identified.$$$$$ Efforts are now being made by the Quakers, the Salvation Army, and the Iraelite Union of France to improve conditions in the camps to which the adults were eventually transported. The

prisoners are half-starved and deprived of the most elementary comforts. There is no proper sanitation, no medical supplies, and no kitchen equipment. Children left in the streets In and around Paris foreign Jews formed the majority among the victims, but in the provinces, where German police carried out the arrests, French and foreign Jews alike were rounded up. Thousands of them, men and women, were provisionally interned in a camp at Pithiviers. Children were simply left in the streets and the neighbours expressly forbidden to take them in. The police turned up even in out-of-the-way places for the purpose of arresting the solitary Jewish family known to be living there. The plight of the French Jews was relieved to some extent by help and sympathy shown to them by their non-Jewish countrymen. Some were enabled to escape and numbers of children were given shelter and smuggled later into unoccupied territory, in spite of the danger involved. Others who evaded arrest are trying desperately to reach unoccupied France, and there is an almost uninterrupted stream of fugitives towards the demarcation line.

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The Holocaust
The Implementation of the Final Solution
Deportation to the Death Camps

Lublin, Poland, Jews with their belongings gathering in the street before deportation Photo Gallery $$$$$$In many cases, the deportation orders were given to the Judenrat suddenly, often around the Jewish holidays when awareness was reduced. Local police were charged with carrying out the Aktion (round-up of Jews) and the Jewish police was also tasked with participating in the round-up. The Jews were ordered to gather in a specific location, usually close to a train station, and to bring with them only a few possessions. During the Aktion anyone that did not follow the order to gather or could not keep pace with the others was shot. At the train station the Jews were

loaded into crowded cattle cars without proper ventilation. The cars were sealed from the outside and the Jews were kept in the cars for days without water or food until they reached their destination. Many perished as a result of the conditions on the train.$$$$$$$ The powerful mechanism of murder employed throughout Europe relied upon various deceptions and lies. The Jews in Poland were told that non-essential and unproductive elements would be sent for labor in the east while Jews in the west were informed of their transfer to settlements in the east. The murder machine would suddenly descend upon cities and towns and the Aktion would last for days or weeks. The Germans would begin the deportations with the weaker strata (the poor, refugees). The other sectors of society held on to the illusion that they would be left alone. After the initial deportation the ensuing stages would follow until the complete liquidation. The Jews response to the brutal scheme was a consequence of several factors. During the years preceding the extermination operation, the Nazis had done everything possible to drain the Jews of their physical strength, numb their will, deprive them of their human dignity, destroy their ability to organize, and cut them off from the outside world. Indeed, systematic starvation and looming death had diminished the endurance of the ghettoized masses and their ability to gather their strength. By now the Jews concerned themselves with immediate matters only rescue of family members, obtaining some bread, and sustaining the body, which yearned for warmth and nutrition. The Aktionen dealt the Jews a blow that thwarted any possibility of organizing large-scale selfdefense of any kind. The rumors about the death camps were usually greeted with disbelief, as ordinary logic and the human mind refused to grasp the very possibility of what was rumored. Thus, Nazi Germany managed to mislead the masses until, literally, the last moment.

Personal possessions with tags attached, on which the Nazis noted the estimated monetary value of each item. The belongings were plundered from Jews deported to the La Risiera camp in Trieste before they were executed or sent on transports to Auschwitz. More Artifacts Copyright 2012 Yad Vashem The Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority Contact Us | Terms and Conditions | Privacy Policy (www1.yadvashem.org/yv/en/holocaust/about/05/deportation.asp) site for above info *Resistance*

Jewish Resistance

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Jewish partisans, survivors of the Warsaw ghetto uprising, at a family camp in Wyszkow forest. Poland, 1944. YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, New York View Photographs

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$$$$$$$$Nazi-sponsored persecution and mass murder fueled resistance to the Germans in the Third Reich itself and throughout occupied Europe. Although Jews were the Nazis' primary victims, they too resisted Nazi oppression in a variety of ways, both collectively and as individuals. Organized armed resistance was the most forceful form of Jewish opposition to Nazi policies in German-occupied Europe. Jewish civilians offered armed resistance in over 100 ghettos in occupied Poland and the Soviet Union. In April-May 1943, Jews in the Warsaw ghetto rose in armed revolt after rumors that the Germans would deport the remaining ghetto inhabitants to the Treblinka killing center. As German SS and police units entered the ghetto, members of the Jewish Fighting Organization (Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa; ZOB) and other Jewish groups attacked German tanks with Molotov cocktails, hand grenades, and a handful of small arms. Although the Germans, shocked by the ferocity of resistance, were able to end the major fighting within a few days, it took the vastly superior German forces nearly a month before they were able to completely pacify the ghetto and deport virtually all of the remaining inhabitants. For months after the end of the Warsaw ghetto uprising, individual Jewish resisters continued to hide in the ruins of the ghetto, which SS and police units patrolled to prevent attacks on German personnel. During the same year, ghetto inhabitants rose against the Germans in Vilna (Vilnius), Bialystok, and a number of other ghettos.$$$ Many ghetto fighters took up arms in the knowledge that the majority of ghetto inhabitants had already been deported to the killing centers; and also in the knowledge that their resistance even now could not save from destruction the remaining Jews who could not fight. But they fought for the sake of Jewish honor and to avenge the slaughter of so many Jews.$$$$$$$ Thousands of young Jews resisted by escaping from the ghettos into the forests. There they joined Soviet partisan units or formed separate partisan units to harass the German occupiers. Although many Jewish council (Judenrat) members cooperated under compulsion with the Germans until they themselves were deported, some, such as Jewish council chairman Moshe Jaffe in Minsk, resisted by refusing to comply when the Germans ordered him to hand over Jews for deportation in July 1942. Jewish prisoners rose against their guards at three killing centers. At Treblinka in August 1943 and Sobibor in October 1943, prisoners armed with stolen weapons attacked the SS staff and the

Trawniki-trained auxiliary guards. The Germans and their auxiliaries killed most of the rebels, either during the uprising or later, after hunting down those who escaped. Several dozen prisoners eluded their pursuers and survived the war, however. In October 1944, at AuschwitzBirkenau, members of the Jewish Special Detachment (Sonderkommando) mutinied against the SS guards. Nearly 250 died during the fighting; the SS guards shot another 200 after the mutiny was suppressed. Several days later, the SS identified five women, four of them Jewish, who had been involved in supplying the members of the Sonderkommando with explosives to blow up a crematorium. All five women were killed. In many countries occupied by or allied with the Germans, Jewish resistance often took the form of aid and rescue. Jewish authorities in Palestine sent clandestine parachutists such as Hannah Szenes into Hungary and Slovakia in 1944 to give whatever help they could to Jews in hiding. In France, various elements of the Jewish underground consolidated to form different resistance groups, including the Arme Juive (Jewish Army) which operated in the south of France. Many Jews fought as members of national resistance movements in Belgium, France, Italy, Poland, Yugoslavia, Greece, and Slovakia. Jews in the ghettos and camps also responded to Nazi oppression with various forms of spiritual resistance. They made conscious attempts to preserve the history and communal life of the Jewish people despite Nazi efforts to eradicate the Jews from human memory. These efforts included: creating Jewish cultural institutions, continuing to observe religious holidays and rituals, providing clandestine education, publishing underground newspapers, and collecting and hiding documentation, as in the case of the Oneg Shabbat archive in Warsaw that would tell the story of the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto, despite its destruction in 1943. Further Reading Ainsztein, Reuben. Jewish Resistance in Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe: With a Historial Survey of the Jew as Fighter and Soldier in the Diaspora. New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1974. Glass, James M. Jewish Resistance during the Holocaust: Moral Uses of Violence and Will. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. Grubsztein, Meir, editor. Jewish Resistance during the Holocaust: Proceedings of the Conference on Manifestations of Jewish Resistance, Jerusalem, April 7-11, 1968. Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1971. Gutman, Israel. The Jews of Warsaw, 1939-1943: Ghetto, Underground, Revolt. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982. Krakowski, Shmuel. The War of the Doomed: Jewish Armed Resistance in Poland, 1942-1944. New York: Holmes and Meier, 1984. Rudavsky, Joseph. To Live With Hope, To Die With Dignity: Spiritual Resistance in the Ghettos and Camps. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1997.

Tec, Nechama. Defiance: The Bielski Partisans. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.

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Jewish Resistance to the Nazi Genocide

Millions of Jews were ordered to board trains and were locked in until the trains arrived at an unknown destination. Thousands worked in forced labor. Millions of others led a brutal existence in concentration camps, slowly wasting away as musselmen until they died. Questions have been raised as to whether the Jews went like sheep to the slaughter, or whether there was resistance. Since the death camps required the work of Jews in order to make the camps function efficiently, the question has also been raised as to whether Jews share some of the responsibility for the horror of the Holocaust.

For most of the Jews who died in the gas chamber, the issue of resistance was not an issue at all. Until as late as mid1942, the Jews were unaware that the Final Solution was being implemented. Stripped of weapons, facing starvation and disease, the prospect of deportation combined with offers of food was an incentive for Jews to board the trains which took them to their deaths. Most believed what they were told that they were going to be relocated to work. For virtually all, the reality that they faced immediate death did not occur until the doors of the gas chambers were sealed, the lights were turned off, and the smell of gas was perceived. By then, it was too late. Those who did resist, either by running from the trains, or attacking their captors, faced certain death. Some took advantage of this option and were summarily executed on the spot. Others chose to take their own lives when faced with the hopelessness of the situation. It might be argued that suicide under these circumstances was itself resistance. For others, deciding not to commit suicide but rather to make an attempt at survival amidst the hopelessness and despair of this situation was their resistance. Those that resisted more actively found that any success resulted in unintended consequences. The Nazis practiced the doctrine of collective responsibility. Thus, if a Nazi soldier was murdered by a Jew, not only was that Jew executed, but also his family, and perhaps a hundred other Jews. As a result, few Jews even considered carrying out this active resistance for fear of reprisals.

Spiritual Resistance in the Ghettos

While there were examples of courageous armed uprisings in the ghettos, resistance also took forms without weapons. For many, attempting to carry on a semblance of "normal" life in the face of wretched conditions was resistance. David Altshuler writes in Hitler's War Against the Jews about life in the ghettos, which sustained Jewish culture in the midst of hopelessness and despair. "All forms of culture sustained life in the ghetto. Since curfew rules did not allow people on the street from 7 p.m. until 5 a.m. the next morning, socializing had to be among friends living [in] the same building or visitors who spent the night. Card playing was very popular, and actors, musicians, comics, singers, and dancers all entertained small groups

who came together for a few hours to forget their daily terror and despair." Artists and poets as well entertained, and their works, many of which survive today, are poignant reminders of the horrors of the period (see Appendix II). Underground newspapers were printed and distributed at great risk to those who participated. Praying was against the rules, but synagogue services occurred with regularity. The education of Jewish children was forbidden, but the ghetto communities set up schools. The observance of many Jewish rituals, including dietary laws, was severely punished by the Nazis, and many Jews took great risks to resist the Nazi edicts against these activities. Committees were organized to meet the philanthropic, religious, educational, and cultural community needs. Many of these committees defied Nazi authority. Some Jews escaped death by hiding in the attics and cellars and closets of non-Jews, who themselves risked certain death if their actions were discovered by the Nazis. The writings and oral histories of survivors of the labor and concentration camps are filled with accounts of simple sabotage. Material for the German war effort, for example, might be mysteriously defective, the result of intentionally shoddy workmanship by Jewish slave labor. Despite the myth to the contrary, Jewish armed resistance to the Holocaust did occur. This active resistance occurred in ghettos, concentration camps, and death camps. Many of those who participated in resistance of this type were caught and executed, and their stories will never be told. However, there are many verifiable accounts of major incidents of this resistance:

Armed Ghetto Resistance

1. Tuchin Ghetto: On September 3, 1942, seven hundred Jewish families escaped from this ghetto in the Ukraine. They were hunted down, and only 15 survived. 2. Warsaw Ghetto: By 1943, the ghetto residents had organized an army of about 1,000 fighters, mostly unarmed and without equipment. They were joined by thousands of others, mostly the young and able-bodied, still needed for

forced labor. By that time, the half-million original inhabitants had been depleted to about 60,000 as a result of starvation, disease, cold, and deportation. $$$$$In January 1943, the S.S. entered the ghetto to round up more Jews for shipment to the death camps. They were met by a volley of bombs, Molotov cocktails, and the bullets from a few firearms which had been smuggled into the ghettos. Twenty S.S. soldiers were killed. The action encouraged a few members of the Polish resistance to support the uprising, and a few machine guns, some hand grenades, and about a hundred rifles and revolvers were smuggled in.$$$$$ Facing them were almost 3,000 crack German troops with 7,000 reinforcements available. Tanks and heavy artillery surrounded the ghetto. General Heinrich Himmler promised Adolf Hitler that the uprising would be quelled in three days, and the ghetto would be destroyed. It took four weeks. The ghetto was reduced to rubble following bomber attacks, gas attacks, and burning of every structure by the Nazis. Fifteen thousand Jews died in the battle, and most of the survivors were shipped to the death camps. Scores of German soldiers were killed. Some historical accounts report that 300 Germans were killed and 1,000 wounded, although the actual figure is unknown. 3. Bialystok Ghetto: Jewish paramilitary organizations formed within the ghetto attacked the German army when it was determined that the Nazis intended to liquidate it. The battle lasted just one day, until the resisters were killed or captured. 4. Vilna Ghetto: Some inhabitants of the Vilna Ghetto began an uprising against their Nazi captors on September 1, 1943. Most participants were killed, although a few escaped successfully and joined partisan units.

Armed Resistance in the Death Camps

1. Treblinka: Seven hundred Jews were successful in blowing up the camp on August 2, 1943. All but 150-200 Jews perished, as well as over 20 Germans. Only 12 survived the war.

2. Sobibor: Jewish and Russian prisoners mounted an escape attempt on October 14, 1943. About 60 of 600

prisoners involved in the escape survived to join Soviet partisans. Ten S.S. guards were killed and one wounded. 3. Auschwitz: On October 7, 1944, one of the four crematoria at Auschwitz was blown up by Sonderkommandos. These were workers, mostly Jews, whose job it was to clear away the bodies of gas chamber victims. The workers were all caught and killed.

Source: The HolocaustA Guide for Teachers. Copyright 1990 by Gary M. Grobman. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any means, mechanical or electronic, or by any information storage and retrieval system or other method, for any use, without the written permission of Gary M. Grobman, except that use, copying, and distribution of the information in this electronic version of this book is permitted provided that no fees or compensation is charged for use, copies, or access to such information and the copyright notice is included intact.

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*Wannsee Conference*

Wannsee Conference and the "Final Solution"

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Reinhard Heydrich, chief of the SD (Security Service) and Nazi governor of Bohemia and Moravia. Place uncertain, 1942. National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Md. View Photographs

$$$$$On January 20, 1942, 15 high-ranking Nazi Party and German government officials gathered at a villa in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee to discuss and coordinate the implementation of what they called the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question." $$$$ Representing the SS at the meeting were: SS General Reinhard Heydrich, the chief of the Reich Security Main Office (Reichssicherheitshauptamt-RSHA) and one of Reichsfhrer-SS (SS chief)

Heinrich Himmler's top deputies; SS Major General Heinrich Mller, chief of RSHA Department IV (Gestapo); SS Lieutenant Colonel Adolf Eichmann, chief of the RSHA Department IV B 4 (Jewish Affairs); SS Colonel Eberhard Schngarth, commander of the RSHA field office for the Government General in Krakow, Poland; SS Major Rudolf Lange, commander of RSHA Einsatzkommando 2, deployed in Latvia in the autumn of 1941; and SS Major General Otto Hofmann, the chief of SS Race and Settlement Main Office. Representing the agencies of the State were: State Secretary Roland Freisler (Ministry of Justice); Ministerial Director Wilhelm Kritzinger (Reich Cabinet); State Secretary Alfred Meyer (Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories-German-occupied USSR); Ministerial Director Georg Leibrandt (Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories); Undersecretary of State Martin Luther (Foreign Office); State Secretary Wilhelm Stuckart (Ministry of the Interior); State Secretary Erich Naumann (Office of Plenipotentiary for the Four-Year Plan); State Secretary Josef Bhler (Office of the Government of the Governor General-Germanoccupied Poland); and Ministerial Director Gerhard Klopfer (Nazi Party Chancellery). $$$$$$The "Final Solution" was the code name for the systematic, deliberate, physical annihilation of the European Jews.$$$$$ At some still undetermined time in 1941, Hitler authorized this European-wide scheme for mass murder. Heydrich convened the Wannsee Conference (1) to inform and secure support from government ministries and other interested agencies relevant to the implementation of the Final Solution, and (2) to disclose to the participants that Hitler himself had tasked Heydrich and the RSHA with coordinating the operation. The men at the table did not deliberate whether such a plan should be undertaken, but instead discussed the implementation of a policy decision that had already been made at the highest level of the Nazi regime. At the time of the Wannsee Conference, most participants were already aware that the National Socialist regime had engaged in mass murder of Jews and other civilians in the German-occupied areas of the Soviet Union and in Serbia. Some had learned of the actions of the Einsatzgruppen and other police and military units, which were already slaughtering tens of thousands of Jews in the German-occupied Soviet Union. Others were aware that units of the German Army and the SS and police were killing Jews in Serbia. None of the officials present at the meeting objected to the Final Solution policy that Heydrich announced. Not present at the meeting were representatives of the German Armed Forces (Wehrmacht) and the Reich Railroads (Reichsbahn) in the German Ministry of Transportation. The SS and police had already negotiated agreements with the German Army High Command on the murder of civilians, including Soviet Jews, in the spring of 1941, prior to the invasion of the Soviet Union. In late September 1941, Hitler had authorized the Reich Railroads to transport German, Austrian, and Czech Jews to locations in German-occupied Poland and the German-occupied Soviet Union, where German authorities would kill the overwhelming majority of them. Heydrich indicated that approximately 11,000,000 Jews in Europe would fall under the provisions of the "Final Solution." In this figure, he included not only Jews residing in Axiscontrolled Europe, but also the Jewish populations of the United Kingdom, and the neutral nations (Switzerland, Ireland, Sweden, Spain, Portugal, and European Turkey). For Jews residing

in the Greater German Reich and holding the status of subjects of the German Reich, the Nuremberg Laws would serve as a basis for determining who was a Jew. Heydrich announced that during the course of the Final Solution, the Jews will be deployed under appropriate supervision at a suitable form of labor deployment in the East. In large labor columns, separated by gender, able-bodied Jews will be brought to those regions to build roads, whereby a large number will doubtlessly be lost through natural reduction. Any final remnant that survives will doubtless consist of the elements most capable of resistance. They must be dealt with appropriately, since, representing the fruit of natural selection, they are to be regarded as the core of a new Jewish revival. The participants discussed a number of other issues raised by the new policy, including the establishment of the Theresienstadt camp-ghetto as a destination for elderly Jews as well Jews who were disabled or decorated in World War I, the deferment until after the war of Final Solution measures against Jews married to non-Jews or persons of mixed descent as defined by the Nuremberg laws, prospects for inducing Germany's Axis partners to give up their Jewish populations, and preparatory measures for the evacuations. Despite the euphemisms which appeared in the protocols of the meeting, the aim of the Wannsee Conference was clear to its participants: to further the coordination of a policy aimed at the physical annihilation of the European Jews. Further Reading: Mark Roseman, The Wannsee Conference and the Final Solution (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2002).

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THE WANNSEE CONFERENCE

The Wannsee Conference was held on 20 January 1942, in a villa owned by the SS-Nordhav Foundation in the attractive Berlin lakeside suburb of Wannsee. It was presided over by SS-Lieutenant General Reinhard Heydrich, Chief of the Security Police and Security Service. Heydrich summoned fourteen men representing the governmental and military branches most involved in implementing the practical aspects of the Final Solution. Reichsmarschall Hermann Gring had charged him with arranging all practical matters concerning the implementation of the Final Solution of the Jewish question.1 Heydrich was an ambitious and meticulous officer who relished the responsibility of power. One of Heydrich's foremost intentions was to make sure that all these men understood perfectly what duties and responsibilities their office was expected to fulfill. $$$$$In the years leading up to World War II, the phrase "Final Solution of the Jewish Problem" had taken on a series of increasingly ominous meanings in the Nazi vocabulary.2 The various implications had included voluntary emigration, confinement to ghettos in cities located along rail lines, forced removal to concentration camps, and finally, extermination. Heydrich wanted to be certain there was no confusion among the group that, now, the term referred specifically to the murder of all European Jews. $$$$ Heydrich's assistant, SS Lt-Colonel Adolf Eichmann tells us in testimony at his trial in 1961, that the meeting was relatively brief, lasting only an hour to an hour and a half, and that the atmosphere of the meeting was one of cooperation and agreement.3 These high-ranking members of the Nazi government met at mid-day over a buffet luncheon to discuss the annihilation of an entire people. Those attending were:

Gauleiter Dr. Alfred Meyer and Reichamtsleiter (Chief Officer) Dr. Georg Leibrandt - Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories State Secretary Dr. Wilhelm Stuckart - Reich Ministry of the Interior State Secretary Dr. Erich Neumann - Office of the Plenipotentiary of the Four Year Plan State Secretary Dr. Roland Freisler - Reich Justice Ministry State Secretary Dr. Josef Bhler - Office of Governor General [Poland] representing Hans Frank Under State Secretary Martin Luther - Foreign Office SS Senior-Colonel Gerhard Klopfer - Party Chancellery representing Martin Bormann

Ministerial Director Friedrich Kritzinger - Reich Chancellery SS Major-General Otto Hofmann - Race and Resettlement Main Office SS Major-General Heinrich Mller - Reich Security Main Office SS Lt-Colonel Adolf Eichmann - Reich Security Main Office SS Senior-Colonel Dr. Eberhard Schngarth - Commander of the Security Police and the SD in the General Government [Poland] SS Major Dr. Rudolf Lange - Commander of Security Police and Security Service for General Commissariat Latvia, as Deputy of Commanding Officer of Security Police and Security Service for Reich Commissariat Ostland [Baltic States and White Russia] Security Police and Security Service. 4

We have access to the minutes of the meeting (Protocol, in German usage) only by chance. In 1947, the Protocol was discovered in the files of one of the attendees, Martin Luther of the Finance Ministry. Years later, Ministerial Director of the Reich Chancellery, Friedrich Kritzinger and Adolf Eichmann described in detail everything that had occurred at the Wannsee conference and acknowledged the criminal nature of the gathering.5 Heydrich began the meeting by establishing the primacy of his authority. This authority transcended geographical boundaries. He briefly described the recent history of Nazi action against the Jews. The goals had been to remove Jews from different sectors of German society and then from German soil. The Reich Central Office for Jewish Emigration had been established to facilitate and encourage Jewish emigration and through its offices, those who could afford it were allowed to leave the country. This process proved to be too slow and too limited in scope. At the time of this meeting, Reichsfhrer-SS Heinrich Himmler had already stopped emigration. The Fhrer had approved a new solution: the evacuation of the Jews to the East. The Protocol states, "These actions are nevertheless to be seen only as temporary relief but they are providing the practical experience that is of great significance for the coming final solution of the Jewish question." Heydrich continues by enumerating the number of Jews in each country and observes, "Approximately eleven million Jews will be involved" He further states in the Protocol, "In large, single-sex labor columns, Jews fit to work will work their way eastward constructing roads. Doubtless the large majority will be eliminated by natural causes. Any final remnant that survives will doubtless consist of the most resistant elements. They will have to be dealt with appropriately because otherwise, by natural selection, they would form the germ cell of a new Jewish revival." In other words, none would be allowed to survive.

Beginning with Germany proper and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, Europe was to be cleared of Jews from west to east. This brought up a number of difficult questions to be resolved. First, who was a Jew? Would any Jews be exempt? Jewish Veterans who served Germany and were decorated in WWI? Jews married to Germans? Those of mixed blood (Mischlinge) married to Germans? Would sterilization be an alternative? Would those Jews be spared whose labor was necessary for the war effort? Nearly one third of the Protocol is devoted to these complicated matters, not all of which were resolved at this meeting.6 Eichmann tells us that the first part of the meeting was more or less a monologue by Heydrich and the last part, a summary of several positions put forward by individuals at the table.

SS-Gruppenfhrer Hofmann was in favor of sterilization instead of "evacuation" for half Jews (Mischlinge). Heydrich replied that a decision should be made on a case-by-case basis. He also spoke of an old people's ghetto, possibly Theresienstadt, to ward off anticipated interventions over individual cases.7 Stuckart of the Ministry of the Interior proposed compulsory divorce for Germans married to Jews. Erich Neumann from the Four Year Plan organization said that Jews should not be removed from essential enterprises unless replacement labor could be provided. Heydrich agreed, pointing out that this was already the policy. Josef Bhler from the General Gouvernment asked that the Final Solution begin in Poland, since there were no major transport or manpower problems. Bhler said the authorities from the General Gouvernment accepted Heydrich's primacy in all matters pertaining to the Jewish question and would support his work. He had but one request -- "that the Jewish question be solved as quickly as possible."
8

A number of those gathered at the conference table had already been actively engaged in the extermination of Jews and Bolsheviks since the summer of 1941. Lange and Schngarth commanded Einsatzgruppen activities in the Riga District and in Polish Galicia. Heydrich and Mller directed the killing operations of the Einsatzgruppen and Mller forwarded the Einsatz "Incident Reports" [Ereignismeldungen] to the Foreign Office. Eichmann routinely received "Incident Reports" from the Einsatz Units describing the daily tallies of their victims, and had himself witnessed a mass shooting near Minsk.9 By the time of the Wannsee Conference, the Einsatzgruppen operating behind the army front lines, had murdered more than half a million people.10 Mass shootings were not suitable for European Jewry outside the war zone and were also demoralizing for the Nazi troops. This had prompted a search for a more impersonal way of killing large numbers of people. By January 1942, the death camps in Belzec and Chelmno, with their gassing facilities, were already under construction. The Wannsee Conference was not called to decide the fate of European Jews but to

clarify all points regarding their demise. In Eichmann's testimony after the war, he said that Heydrich also intended to implicate, that is, share the guilt with the ministries represented at the table. (The war in Russia had begun to turn against the Germans and for the first time, there was a question about whether or not Germany would win.) A few days after the conference, each of the attendees received his own numbered copy of the Protocol prepared by Eichmann from shorthand notes. According to Eichmann, Heydrich proofread and polished the summary before he gave it his approval. We also know that the Protocol does not reflect everything that was discussed at the meeting, as Eichmann's words at his trial make clear: Q. Who spoke of this topic? A[nswer]. I no longer remember all the particulars today, Mr. President, but I know that the gentlemen sat around together and plotted together, and there they, in very direct words - not the words I had to use in the Protocol, but in very direct words - called things as they were, with no attempt to disguise them. I would be unable to remember these things if I did not know that, at the time, I said to myself: Look at Stuckart, who people always considered to be a very scrupulous and fastidious law and order man, and now his tone and all his formulations were very unlike the letter of the law. That's about the only thing that has really stayed in my memory. Presiding judge: What did he say about this subject? A. In particular, Mr. President, I would like ... Q. Not in particular - in general! A. Murder and elimination and annihilation were discussed.11

Notes 1. Lehrer, Stephen, Wannsee House and the Holocaust, p.143: Complementing the task already assigned to you in the directive of January 24, 1939, to undertake, by emigration or evacuation, a solution to the Jewish question as advantageous as possible under the conditions at the time, I hereby charge you with making all necessary organizational, functional, and material preparations for a complete solution of the Jewish question in the German sphere of influence in Europe. Insofar as the jurisdiction of other central agencies may be touched thereby, they are to be involved. I charge you furthermore with submitting to me in the near future an overall plan of the organizational, functional, and material measures to be taken in preparing for the implementation of the aspired final solution of the Jewish question.

2. The Holocaust History Project, Short Essays: What was the Final Solution? 3. Stephen Lehrer, Wannsee House and the Holocaust, page 174 4. Mark Roseman, The Wannsee Conference and the Final Solution: A Reconsideration, page 158 5. Stephen Lehrer, op cit., page 163 6. Mark Roseman, op cit., pages 157-172 7. Israel Gutman, Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, p. 1593 8. Mark Roseman, op cit, page 172 9. Gideon Hausner, Justice in Jerusalem, page 75 10. Stephen Lehrer, op cit., page 67 11. IfZ G 01 Prozeprotokoll, Sitzung 107, S. E1-F1

Bibliography Gutman, Israel (Editor-In-Chief), Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, McMillan Publishing Company, New York, 1990 Hauser, Gideon, Justice in Jerusalem, Harper & Row, New York, 1966 Lehrer, Steven, Wannsee House and the Holocaust, McFarland & Company, North Carolina, 2000 Longerich, Peter (Editor) Die Ermordung der europischen Juden,Serie Piper 1060 Roseman, Mark, The Wannsee Conference and the Final Solution: A Reconsideration, Metropolitan Books, New York, 2002 For related articles on this website, see: When did Hitler decide on the Final Solution? by Gord McFee and An Introduction to the Einsatzgruppen by Yale F. Edeiken

Note There are at least two excellent video films based on the Wannsee Conference: The 1984 Infafilm, The Wannsee Conference, distributed by Prism Entertainment Corporation, is a German production, spoken in German with English subtitles.

The 2001 HBO production, Conspiracy, is readily available at most local video rental stores. more short essays...
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(www.holocaust-history.org/shortessays/wannsee.shtml) *Selection-Selektion*

Selection

New arrivals. Jews from Hungary, in late May or Early June 1944, are sorted into male and female lines.
Photograph of Hungarian Jews taken by a German SS photographer in May 1944. 2011 Yad Vashem The Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority.

$$$$Once the Jews were unloaded and separated into male and female lines, they were then subjected to a selection process. SS doctors carried out this selection. Usually, those aged over 14 years of age and deemed fit for work were sent to one side of the unloading ramp; the rest were sent to the other side. The elderly and women with children were sent directly to the line of prisoners who were condemned to death in the gas chambers. Those Jews selected for work were sent to a separate building for registration. Prisoners would be registered, before undressing, placing their clothes on a hook, together with their shoes. They would then be tattooed with a registration number, shaved of all body hair, disinfected and forced through showers that were either extremely cold or painfully hot. Once showered, prisoners were given the infamous striped pyjamas, hat and a pair of wooden clogs. They were marched to the blocks to begin their life within the camp.$$$$$$$

London Jewish Cultural Centre 2011 (www.theholocaustexplained.org/ks3/the-final-solution/auschwitz-birkenau/selection/)

Public humiliation of Jews. Tarnow, Poland, 1940. Dokumentationsarchiv des Oesterreichischen Widerstandes View Photographs

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Before World War II, about 25,000 Jews lived in Tarnow, a city in southern Poland, 45 miles east of Krakow (Cracow). Jews--whose recorded presence in the town went back to the midfifteenth century--comprised about half of the town's total population. A large portion of Jewish business in Tarnow was devoted to garment and hat manufacturing. The Jewish community was ideologically diverse and included both religious Hasidim and secular Zionists. Immediately following the German occupation of the city on September 8, 1939, the harassment of the Jews began. German units burned down most of the city's synagogues on September 9 and drafted Jews for forced-labor projects. Tarnow was incorporated into the Generalgouvernement (the territory in the interior of occupied Poland). Many Tarnow Jews fled to the east, while a large influx of refugees from elsewhere in Poland continued to increase the town's Jewish population. In early November, the Germans ordered the establishment of a Jewish council (Judenrat) to transmit orders and regulations to the Jewish community. Among the duties of the

Jewish council were enforcement of special taxation on the community and providing workers for forced labor. During 1941, life for the Jews of Tarnow became increasingly precarious. The Germans imposed a large collective fine on the community. Jews were required to hand in their valuables. Roundups for labor became more frequent and killings became more commonplace and arbitrary. Deportations from Tarnow began in June 1942, when about 13,500 Jews were sent to the Belzec extermination camp. During the deportation operations, German SS and police forces massacred hundreds of Jews in the streets, in the marketplace, in the Jewish cemetery, and in the woods outside the town. After the June deportations, the Germans ordered the surviving Jews in Tarnow, along with thousands of Jews from neighboring towns, into a ghetto. The ghetto was surrounded by a high wooden fence. Living conditions in the ghetto were poor, marked by severe food shortages, a lack of sanitary facilities, and a forced-labor regimen in factories and workshops producing goods for the German war industry. $$$$$$In September 1942, the Germans ordered all ghetto residents to report at Targowica Square, where they were subjected to a "Selektion" (selection) in which those deemed "unessential" were selected out for deportation to Belzec. About 8,000 people were deported.$$$$ Thereafter, deportations from Tarnow to extermination camps continued sporadically; the Germans deported a group of 2,500 in November 1942. In the midst of the 1942 deportations, some Jews in Tarnow organized a resistance movement. Many of the resistance leaders were young Zionists involved in the Ha-Shomer Ha-Tsa'ir youth movement. Many of those who left the ghetto to join the partisans fighting in the forests later fell in battle with SS units. Other resisters sought to establish escape routes to Hungary, but with limited success. The Germans decided to destroy the Tarnow ghetto in September 1943. The surviving 10,000 Jews were deported, 7,000 of them to Auschwitz and 3,000 to the Plaszow concentration camp in Krakow. In late 1943, Tarnow was declared "free of Jews" (Judenrein). By the end of the war, the overwhelming majority of Tarnow Jews had been murdered by the Germans. Although some 700 Jews returned to the city after liberation, virtually all of them soon left to escape local antisemitism.

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Methods of mass murder

$$$$The Nazis and their helpers used the most terrible methods of murdering Jews, gypsies and other undesirable population groups. In the attempt to carry out the Final Solution as effectively as possible, different methods of mass murder were tested. The Nazis began by using mass shootings, then used gassing Jewish women before they are shot by the SD. A beach near Liepaja (Latvia), 15 December 1941, trucks (in the first USHMM #19121. extermination camp, Chelmno) and ended up by constructing large industrialised facilities of mass destruction as in Auschwitz-Birkenau, where the highly effective Zyklon B gas was used.$$$$

Mass shootings

From June 1941 until the end of the war, the four Einsatzgruppen (A-D), together with their eager Eastern European auxiliaries killed around 1,5 million Jews in the occupied parts of the Soviet Union. The method was first of all mass shootings. The Jews were captured or arrested, forced to dig their own graves or simply placed along large mass graves, and then shot so that they fell into the grave.
> The murder of the Soviet Jews

German soldiers from the Waffen-SS look on while a member of an Einsatzgruppe shoots a Ukranian Jew, USHMM #64407.

Gassing trucks
On of the killing methods was using mobile gassing trucks. It happened as follows: the Jews were forced into a hermetically sealed truck, and then exhaust gas from the engine was led into the truck. The Jews were thus suffocated. The method was first used in the Soviet Union by the four Einsatzgruppen, in an effort to make their killing A group of Jewish men await their death in one of operations more effective (than by using the mass Chelmno's gassing trucks, USHMM #51736. shootings). Also, gassing trucks were introduced in an effort to avoid that the killers became emotionally hit by the murders. But gassing trucks were also used to murder Jews in Poland (Lublin) and in Serbia (Belgrade). The Einsatzgruppen in the occupied parts of the Soviet Union used an estimated 15 gassing trucks.

Extermination camps
One of the most effective killing methods was by forcing Jews into gas chambers, where they were gassed to death using exhaust fumes or Zyklon B. In five of the six extermination camps gas chambers were constructed with the single purpose of killing Jews, gypsies and other undesirables. In the Chelmno extermination camp gassing trucks were used for this horrible Gas chamber in Auschwitz I. enterprise.

The procedure of killing the victims in gas chambers was the following: the victims were forced into the gas chamber, the door was closed and either exhaust fumes or Zyklon B-gas was led into the room. In the extermination camps at Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka exhaust fumes were used, while Zyklon B was used in Majdanek and Auschwitz-Birkenau. At least 3 million Jews were killed in the extermination camps that had been constructed with the single purpose of killing Jews as effectively, quickly and secretly as possible.
> The extermination camps

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Funeral of inmates who died or were killed just prior to liberation The Nazis did not start World War II with a plan to eliminate the Jews. This solution evolvedespecially from 1939 to 1941as they tried different techniques to accomplish their goals. Particularly in Germany and Poland camp commandants experimented with various killing methodologies and consulted with one another on their successes and failures. The ability of a single camp to kill 2,000-3,000 people per hour took years to achieve. At first, though, murder was done at close range-man-to-man, woman, or child.

Death by Firing Squad

In 1941, SS General Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski told his superior Heinrich Himmler that the Nazis had been murdering Jews, including women and children, at close range and in cold blood all summer. Bach-Zelewski was worried about this method's traumatizing effects on his men. Himmler recorded in his diary the General's concerns: "And he said to me, 'Reichsfuhrer, these men are finished for the rest of their lives. What kind of followers are we producing here- either neurotics or brutes?'"

Einsatzgruppen killing Himmler realized he had to find new methods that would spare his troops the psychological strain of killing human beings at close range.

Carbon Monoxide
According to the memoirs of Rudolf Hss, Commandant of Auschwitz, Adolf Eichmann suggested using "showers of carbon monoxide while bathing, as was

done with mental patients in some places in the Reich." Instead of leading to water, the showerheads were connected to canisters of carbon monoxide. The birth of this method had varied sources, including one ironic twist. Artur Nebe, a Nazi-killing squad commander, had come home drunk from a party one night and passed out in his garage with his car still running. The carbon monoxide gas from the exhaust nearly killed him.

The first carbon monoxide experiments, done with cars As Nebe related the incident to his SS comrades, this near-miss convinced him that gassing could be used effectively against the Jews and other Nazi enemies. Gas would be cheaper than bullets, and no Nazi would directly take a life.

Hell Vans
The Nazis' experimented with another methodology using carbon monoxide. Deported Jews from the Lodz Ghetto were led through a basement corridor and then up a ramp to a small windowless room that turned out to be the cargo area of a large van. Once the van was full, the doors were slammed shut, and as it was driven to a nearby forest, exhaust fumes were routed into the back, asphyxiating the trapped victims.

A hell van (recreation) After the van reached its destination, the bodies were buried or burned. Zofia Szalek, a German residing in the Polish town of Chelmno, describes what she witnessed: "We could hear the screams, but we couldn't see the people. They were loaded in and murdered there. It was hell. That's why we called these vans

'Hell Vans.'"

Video: Zyklon B archival promotional film (archival)

Zyklon B
The most effective and efficient technique developed for killing at Auschwitz depended on the same pesticide that was used to kill the lice in prisoners' clothing. The disinfectant, sold under the trade name of Zyklon B, was in plentiful supply. Once exposed to properly heated air, the crystals produced lethal gas.

Canister labels, Zyklon B In the fall of 1941, the basement of cell block 11the Auschwitz building where some of the most despicable punishments were meted outwas sealed and locked down. August Kowalczyk, a Polish political prisoner on a nearby work detail, witnessed the entire event. He reports that because they were still experimenting, Nazi judgments in error caused the murders to take place over a two-day period, instead of the expected half hour.

Massive Gas Chambers and Crematoria

By the early spring of 1943, four huge crematoria became fully operational at Auschwitz II (Birkenau). They housed eight gas chambers and forty-six ovens that could dispose of some 4,400 corpses per day. Trains would arrive at the camp and those most fitapproximately 10-30 percent of the arrivalswould be selected for a work detail. The remaining prisoners were sent to the gas chambers. Prisoners assigned to a unit known as the Sonderkommando had to move the bodies from the gas chambers to the furnaces. Several bodies at a time were burned in a single oven. In May 1944 a serious bottle-neck occurred at Auschwitz, because the deportation and extermination of the Hungarian Jews was under way.

Auschwitz gas chamber (artist's rendition from original documents) $$$$$$Numbering about 725,000, plus thousands more who were Christian converts but still counted as Jews by Nazi racial criteria, the Hungarian Jews were the largest Jewish group that remained alive in Nazi-dominated Europe. Between late April and early July 1944, more than 380,000 of them were brought to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where most were gassed and cremated. When the demand for corpse disposal overtaxed the camps ovens, camp authorities, needing to speed up the process, again resorted to burning bodies on pyres, using the huge pits that had been dug behind Crematorium V.$$$$$$ Precise counts of how many people actually were murdered in death camps can never be made because those marched off directly from the trains usually were not registered. However, a calculation that is both conservative and reliable indicates that at least 1.1 million people were gassed to death at Auschwitz90 percent of them Jews. Even with all of the death technology, the Germans could not cremate everyone they murdered during the Holocaust. As they retreated from the advancing Allied forces, they blew up the gas chambers and crematoria to destroy the evidence at Auschwitz. But the evidence lingered. In camps throughout Poland and Germany, tens of thousands of bodies remained stacked or spilling out into the cold winter snow.

Auschwitz 40-45 | Dachau 1974 | Maps and Plans | Understanding Auschwitz Today About the Series | Learning Resources | Feedback Copyright 2004-2005 Community Television of Southern California (KCET). All rights reserved. (www.pbs.org/auschwitz/40-45/killing/) site for above info

The Holocaust - The Nazi Genocide

The Holocau st - The Nazi Genocid e

The Holocaust was the systematic annihilation of six million Jews during the Nazi genocide - in 1933 nine million Jews lived in the 21 countries of Europe that would be occupied by Nazi Germany during World War 2. By 1945 two out of every three European Jews had been killed. The number of children killed during the Holocaust is not fathomable and full statistics for the tragic fate of children who died will never be known. Estimates range as high as 1.5 million murdered children. This figure includes more than 1.2 million Jewish children, tens of thousands of Gypsy children and thousands of institutionalized handicapped children. In his book Sheltering The Jews the Holocaust historian Mordecai Paldiel later wrote: "Never before in history had children been singled out for destruction for no other reason than having been born. Children, of course, were no match for the Nazis'

mighty and sophisticated killing machine .." KZ Dachau was the first concentration camp established in Nazi Germany - the camp was opened on March 22, 1933. The camp's first inmates were primarily political prisoners, Social Democrats, Communists, trade unionists, habitual criminals, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, beggars, vagrants, hawkers. In the late 1930's the Nazis killed thousands of handicapped Germans by lethal injection and poisonous gas. After the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, mobile killing units following in the wake of the German Army began shooting massive numbers of Jews and Gypsies in open fields and ravines on the outskirts of conquered cities and towns.

$$$$$Eventually the Nazis

created a more secluded and organized method of killing. Extermination centers were established in occupied Poland with special apparatus especially designed for mass murder. Giant death machines.

Holocaust Photos

Six such death camps existed: Auschwitz-Birkenau, Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibor, and Treblinka. Large-scale murder by gas and body disposal through cremation were conducted systematically by the Nazis and Adolf Hitler's SS men .. Victims were deported to these centers from Western Europe and from the ghettos in Eastern Europe which the Nazis had established. In addition, millions died in the ghettos and concentration camps

as a result of forced labor, starvation, exposure, brutality, disease, and execution.$$$ - Louis Blow

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Extermination camps

Holocaus t: Topics

For Teachers For Students

In the perio d of 19411945, for the first time in the histor y of mank ind, Bodies are burned in Auschwitz. In the indus summer of 1944 more than 440,000 trial Hungarian Jews arrived in Birkenau. The plants capacity of the ovens did not suffice - as a were result the bodies were burned under open sky. used (Source: Sterbenbcher von Auschwitz, vol. 1, to kill p. 192). peopl e. At the genocide on the Jews, extermination camps were established, where the Nazis in the most terrible way carried out the mass murder of 3 million Jews half of the 6 million victims of the Holocaust. A total of six extermination camps were established with the ghoulish purpose of killing Jews one after the other. Gypsies and other groups from all over Europe were also sent to the extermination camps. > Map of the extermination camps in Poland, 1942

More about: Introduction The six extermination camps Why extermination camps? Who controlled the camps? The victims Killing methods

From arrival to List of extermination camps Literature

Introduction
Chelmno was the first extermination camp to be established as part of the Final Solution to the Jewish Question the Nazis systematic effort to exterminate the Jews. This was quickly followed by the establishment of the three extermination camps Belzec, Treblinka and Sobibor. They were established under the code-name Operation Reinhard the starting signal to the extermination of the approximately 3 million Jews that lived in the General Government in Poland. In the concentration camps Auschwitz-Birkenau and Majdanek two further extermination camps were established. The six extermination camps were all situated in former Poland and had mass murder as their purpose. Outside Poland at least two camps existed that in many ways resembled the six extermination camps in Poland: Jungfernhof (in Latvia) and Maly Trostinets (in Byelorussia). $$$All of the extermination camps were thoroughly organised and resembled industrial plants to an alarming degree. However, only Auschwitz-Birkenau, with its advanced gassing facilities and crematoria, was marked by real high technology. In crematoria I and II there were elevators from the gas chambers underground, where the Jews were murdered, to the crematoria, where the bodies were burned. The six extermination camps were established within a very short time. From December 1941 to December 1942 Chelmno, Belzec, Treblinka, Sobibor, AuschwitzBirkenau and Majdanek were all became capable of

functioning. Their position was chosen primarily from their location in former Poland: they were all situated near railway lines, and they lay undisturbed in rural areas in far away Poland. They were all situated far from core Germany and outside the spotlight of the German as well as the international public.

The six extermination camps

Chelmno was the first extermination camp to be established with the one cruel purpose of killing people first of all Jews in a systematic fashion. In Chelmno, 152,000 were gassed to death using exhaust gas from trucks, in the period of December 1941-March 1943, and again from June-July 1944. In connection with Operation Reinhard, three extermination camps were established: Belzec, Treblinka and Sobibor. The purpose of the Operation was to exterminate all Jews in occupied Poland. The extermination camp Belzec was established in May 1942 and continued to function until August 1943. 600,000 Jews fell victim to the merciless efficiency of the gas chambers at Belzec. Sobibor also began its terrible business of mass murder in May 1942. The killings continued through October 1943, when an uprising among the prisoners put and end to the activities of the camp. 250,000 lost their lives in Sobibors gas chambers. The extermination camp Treblinka was working from July 1942 to November 1943. In August 1943 an uprising destroyed many of the facilities. 900,000 Jews lost their lives in the terribly efficient extermination camp at Treblinka. It is estimated that 1 million Jews and several thousand gypsies were killed during Operation Reinhard. Only a very few survived or escaped the killings: the vast majority were killed upon arrival.

Ausc hwitz Birke nau, whic h also functi oned as a conce ntrati Crematorium IV in Auschwitz-Birkenau. on J.C. Pressac, Auschwitz: Technique and camp operation of the gas chambers (New York, and a 1989), p.418. work camp , became the largest killing centre as far as the number of victims is concerned. It is estimated that between 1 and 2 million were killed in the extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau during its day. The first gassing experiments, involving 250 Polish and 600 Soviet POWs, were carried out as early as September 1941. The extermination camp was started up in March 1942 and ended its ghoulish work in November 1944. 9 out of 10 victims in the extermination camp AuschwitzBirkenau were Jews. The remaining victims were mainly Poles, gypsies, and Soviet POWs. Majdanek began its gassings in October 1942. The camp functioned in the same way as AuschwitzBirkenau, and also included a concentration- and work camp. In the autumn of 1943 the camp was closed after claiming between 60,000 and 80,000 Jewish victims. Apart from the six known extermination camps in Poland, organised mass murder was carried out in at least two more camps: in Jungfernhof (in Latvia) and in Maly Trostinets (in Byelorussia). Here, mass extermination was carried out in the form of shooting and gassing of Jews and Soviet POWs.

Why extermination camps?

Why did the Nazis begin to exterminate the Jews in extermination camps? This question has been highly debated all since World War II. View possible answers at: > The Final Solution

Who controlled the camps?

The SS was responsible for the administration of the extermination camps. Day by day management was taken care of in part by policemen from the Euthanasia Programme (the mercy killings of disabled Germans). In most of the extermination camps the camp guards, especially the leaders, were members of the SSs notorious Totenkopfverbnde The commandant of the black-uniformed Death Treblinka, Franz Heads Unit. These guards Stangl, was one of the were recruited from Theodor main men behind the Eickes tough school he murder of 900,000 was the man who had Jews in Treblinka. developed the concentration camp system in Dachau and had trained these men in the former concentration camps. The ordinary guards were usually Ukrainians or Balts, who in many eyewitness accounts are presented as violent thugs.

The Victims

A total of at least 3 millio n Jews were murd ered in the six The shoes of victims in Belzec. (From: H. exter Kuhnrich, Der KZ-Staat (Berlin 1983), p.144 minat ion camps. The precise figure is impossible to estimate, since the Nazis did not calculate the number as individuals but rather as the number of trainloads that arrived to the extermination facilities. Around 1 million Jews died in the Operation Reinhard-extermination camps: 152,000 were killed in Chemno, 60-80,000 Jews were gassed or shot in Majdanek, while more than 1 million Jews were gassed to death in Auschwitz-Birkenau. To this should be added tens of thousands of gypsies and Soviet POWs, who were also killed in the extermination camps. > Statistics

Killing methods

The A German police officer shoots a Jewish use woman who is still alive following a mass of execution of Jews from the ghetto in Mizocz, gas USHMM #17878. cham bers was the most common method of mass murdering the Jews in the extermination camps. The Jews were herded into the gas chambers, then the camp personnel closed the doors, and either exhaust gas (in Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka) or poison gas in the form of Zyclon B or A (in Majdanek and Auschwitz-Birkenau) was led into the gas chamber. Another method was the use of gassing trucks. In Chemno gassing trucks were used, where Jews, after being driven into the trucks, were suffocated by the exhaust fumes that were led into them in the truck. A third method was mass shooting of Jews and other groups (Soviet POWs, Poles, etc.). In Majdanek, on 3-4 November 1943, between 17,000 and 18,000 Jews were killed in one day as part of a mass shooting. The event was called Erntefest (harvest feast) and included similar actions all around the Lublin District. More than 40,000 Jews died as a result. > Killings methods during the Holocaust

From arrival to
When the victims arrived to the extermination camps in overcrowded trains, they were herded out onto the arrival ramp. Here, German SS-men and perhaps brutal Ukrainian guards forced them to hand over their belongings and their clothes. Most of the victims had been told that they were merely to be moved to the east for new jobs and living places, and most of them had brought their favourite belongings.

In the pure exter minat ion camp s, men were separ ated from Selection at the arrival ramp in Auschwitzwom Birkenau. The deported Jews were either en selected for work or for immediate gassing. In upon the background: a group of people on their arriva way towards gas chamber no. II. l. The first to be gassed were the men the women had their hair cut off before they went to their death. In the combined concentration- and extermination camps, Majdanek and Auschwitz, the SS chose those able to work for the work camps. Those unable to work the old, women and children were immediately sent to the gas chambers or shot in the "camp hospital". Even those able to work ended up in the gas chamber sooner or later, or they fell victim to random shooting actions within a few months, when they had been worn out by the tough work. That is, if they had not died already. Those able to work for instance helped carry the bodies to the crematoria or search the bodies for valuables. The bodies were looted of gold (from the teeth), before being thrown into large mass graves. In time, the bodies were burned either in mass graves or in the crematoria when, as the Soviet armies advanced through Poland, the Nazis tried to hide their terrible crime. There are few examples of uprisings in the extermination camps. In Sobibor and Treblinka prisoners tried to rebel in 1943, and the same was tried in Auschwitz in 1944. Only a very few managed to

escape.

List of extermination camps

Extermin. camp Period Jewish victims (est.) 152,000

Chelmno/Kulmhof 8 December 1941 until March 1943 and the summer of Auschwitz1944 Birkenau March 1942 until Belzec November 1944 Sobibor March 1942 until December 1943

Over 1 million Over 600,000 250,000

Treblinka

May-June 1942 , October-December Majdanek(-Lublin) 1942, March-August 1943 July 1942 until October 1943 October 1942 until October 1943

900,000 60,000 80,000

Literature:
General accounts: Yitzhak Arad, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka: The Operation Reinhard Death Camps (Indianapolis, 1987). Yisrael Gutman and Michael Berenbaum, eds., Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp (Bloomington, IN, 1994). Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews. Revised and definitive edition (New York, 1985).

Eugen Kogon et al., eds., Nazi Mass Murder: A Documentary History of the use of Poison Gas (New Haven, 1993). Eyewitness accounts: Tadeusz Borowski, This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen (1976). Polish resistance fighter, who survived Dachau and Auschwitz I and II. Belonged to the privileged part of the prison hierarchy, one of Polands more gifted authors; suicide in 1951. This book includes excerpts from his autobiographies. Rudolf Hss, Death dealer : the memoirs of the SS Kommandant at Auschwitz, edited by Steven Paskuly (Buffalo, NY, 1992). Claude Lanzmann, Shoah : an oral history of the Holocaust : the complete text of the film (New York, 1985). The interviews from the famous documentary film Shoah. Primo Levi, If this is a man (London, 1996). Touching reflections on life as a prisoner in a concentration camp and of the hierarchy in Auschwitz. "Those were the Days": The Holocaust through the Eyes of the Perpetrators and Bystanders, edited by Ernst Klee et al. (London & New York, 1991). The book is an anthology of documents, letters, diaries, eyewitness accounts, state and military reports, and photos, all depicting the nazi extermination of the Jews from the point of view of the perpetrators.

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Soon after liberation, camp survivors from Buchenwald's "Children's Block 66"a special barracks for children. Germany, after April 11, 1945. Federation Nationale des Deportes et Internes Resistants et Patriots View Photographs

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As Allied troops moved across Europe in a series of offensives against Nazi Germany, they began to encounter tens of thousands of concentration camp prisoners. Many of these prisoners had survived forced marches into the interior of Germany from camps in occupied Poland. These prisoners were suffering from starvation and disease. $$$$$$Soviet forces were the first to approach a major Nazi camp, reaching Majdanek near Lublin, Poland, in July 1944. Surprised by the rapid Soviet advance, the Germans attempted to hide the evidence of mass murder by

demolishing the camp. Camp staff set fire to the large crematorium used to burn bodies of murdered prisoners, but in the hasty evacuation the gas chambers were left standing. In the summer of 1944, the Soviets also overran the sites of the Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka killing centers. The Germans had dismantled these camps in 1943, after most of the Jews of Poland had already been killed. $$$$The Soviets liberated Auschwitz, the largest killing center and concentration camp, in January 1945.$$$ The Nazis had forced the majority of Auschwitz prisoners to march westward (in what would become known as "death marches"), and Soviet soldiers found only several thousand emaciated prisoners alive when they entered the camp. There was abundant evidence of mass murder in Auschwitz. The retreating Germans had destroyed most of the warehouses in the camp, but in the remaining ones the Soviets found personal belongings of the victims. They discovered, for example, hundreds of thousands of men's suits, more than 800,000 women's outfits, and more than 14,000 pounds of human hair. In the following months, the Soviets liberated additional camps in the Baltic states and in Poland. Shortly before Germany's surrender, Soviet forces liberated the Stutthof, Sachsenhausen, and Ravensbrueck concentration camps. US forces liberated the Buchenwald concentration camp near Weimar, Germany, on April 11, 1945, a few days after the Nazis began evacuating the camp. On the day of liberation, an underground prisoner resistance organization seized control of Buchenwald to prevent atrocities by the retreating camp guards. American forces liberated more than 20,000 prisoners at Buchenwald. They also liberated Dora-Mittelbau, Flossenbrg, Dachau, and Mauthausen. British forces liberated concentration camps in northern Germany, including Neuengamme and Bergen-Belsen. They entered the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, near Celle, in mid-April 1945. Some 60,000 prisoners, most in critical condition because of a typhus epidemic, were found alive. More than 10,000 of them died from the effects of malnutrition or disease within a few weeks of liberation. Liberators confronted unspeakable conditions in the Nazi camps, where piles of corpses lay unburied. Only after the liberation of these camps was the full scope of Nazi horrors exposed to the world. The small percentage of inmates who survived resembled skeletons because of the demands of forced labor and the lack of food, compounded by months and years of maltreatment. Many were so weak that they could hardly move. Disease remained an ever-present danger, and many of the camps had to be burned down to prevent the spread of epidemics. Survivors of the camps faced a long and difficult road to recovery. Resources

Abzug, Robert H. GIs Remember: Liberating the Concentration Camps. Washington, DC: National Museum of American Jewish History, 1994. Abzug, Robert H. Inside the Vicious Heart: Americans and the Liberation of Nazi Concentration Camps. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985. Bridgman, Jon. End of the Holocaust: The Liberation of the Camps. Portland, OR: Areopagitica Press, 1990. Chamberlin, Brewster S., and Marcia Feldman, editors. The Liberation of the Nazi Concentration Camps 1945: Eyewitness Accounts of the Liberators. Washington, DC: United States Holocaust Memorial Council, 1987. Goodell, Stephen, and Kevin Mahoney. 1945: The Year of Liberation. Washington, DC: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 1995. Goodell, Stephen, and Susan D. Bachrach. Liberation 1945. Washington, DC: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 1995.

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Liberation, Resistance & Rescuers

Resistance
Jews responded to the ghetto restrictions with a variety of resistance efforts. Ghetto residents frequently engaged in so-called illegal activities, such as smuggling food, medicine, weapons or intelligence across the ghetto walls, often without the knowledge or approval of the Jewish councils.

Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

The most well-known attempt by Jews to resist the Nazi regime took place in the Warsaw Ghetto in April 1943 and lasted for almost a month. This was organised by the Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa Z.O.B (Jewish Fighting Organisation), and headed by 23 year old Mordecai Anielewicz with the aim of encouraging Jewish inhabitants to resist being rounded up into rail cars which would take them to the concentration camps. In January 1943 shots had been fired during one such deportation by the Z.O.B using the small number of arms that had been smuggled into the Ghetto. After a few days of the attack, Nazi troops retreated. This success inspired further revolt. On 19 April 1943 the Nazis entered the Warsaw Ghetto to carry out its liquidation approximately 750 Z.O.B fighters fought the well-armed and trained soldiers. The revolt lasted for just over a month until, on 16 May they were finally defeated. More than 56,000 Jews were taken from the Warsaw Ghetto during the liquidation with 7000 being shot upon capture and the remaining 49,000 deported to concentration camps. There were also violent revolts in Vilna, Bialystok, Czestochowa, and several

smaller ghettos.

Rescuers
Many people and organisations rescued victims of the Nazi regime. Some nonJewish rescuers have been recognised by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations for their actions during the Holocaust. Those regarded as rescuers may have hidden someone for a few hours, overnight or two or three years. Some may have saved one life, others saved thousands. Whatever the scale each deed was as significant as each other. Both the Talmud and the Koran remind us: Whoever saves a life, it is as if he saved the world entire. During the Nazi period everyone had to make moral choices. Some people became perpetrators, others were bystanders. A small minority chose to help the persecuted these are the rescuers and helpers. This was an extraordinary selfless choice. It meant risking not only their own lives but the lives of their own family and children. Many paid with their lives. None succeeded in halting the Holocaust but many people were enabled to survive as a result of their efforts. Each chose to defy the power of the Nazis and their collaborators mostly single-handedly. That choice made a huge difference to many individual lives. More importantly they showed the power of the individual and provided hope in otherwise hopeless circumstances by demonstrating the importance of moral courage in action. During the Nazi period the vast majority of people were not perpetrators, but bystanders. We know that fear was a major contributing factor to the success of Nazi policy generally and the genocide of Jews, and the persecution of Roma and Sinti, Black, disabled and Lesbian and Gay people specifically. But there were courageous people who stood out from time to time. They were found in every Nazi-occupied country and from all walks of life. What is clear is that most of these people were very ordinary people, making individual choices of conscience. Their actions demonstrated that true heroes are often just ordinary people acting on their convictions. Many were surprised that what they had done was deemed to be exceptional. The Nazis were brutal in their reprisals against anyone caught trying to assist. Bystanders therefore had good reason to be concerned for their personal safety. This in turn makes the actions of those who did resist the more remarkable. Their actions were selfless, but no less calculated. They knew the potential risk, but took the risk anyway.

Liberation
When Allied troops began a number of offensive strikes in Nazi-occupied

Europe, they began to uncover the concentration camps throughout. After the first liberation the camp of Majdanek in Poland in summer 1944, Nazi forces began to burn down the crematoria and the mass graves. Prisoners were forced to walk into the interior of Germany, already suffering from starvation and illtreatment, many died on the enforced death march. In late 1944, Soviet troops also overran the sites Sobibor, Belzec, and Treblinka, which had been disused by the Nazis from 1943. Soviet soldiers liberated Auschwitz-Birkenau on 27 January 1945. They found several thousand emaciated survivors, and the smouldering remains of the gas chambers and crematoria the Nazi attempt to destroy evidence of their crimes against humanity. In the following months, the Soviets liberated Stutthof, Sachsenhausen and Ravensbruck. US troops liberated Buchenwald in April 1945, followed by Flossenburg, Dachau and Mauthausen. British Troops liberated Bergen Belsen on 15 April 1945. Liberator Iolo Lewis recalls the sight that met the liberators: I was absolutely horrified to find out what had happened where I stood and the inhumanity of man against man. I have never been the same since, mentally. How could people do this sort of thing to other people?... The people were not lively. They were treated like animals. They had lost reason. When the medics came in they tried to save a lot of people. $$$$$We cannot begin to imagine the scenes which confronted the liberators. Disease such as typhoid was rife, and an ever present danger to the malnourished survivors. Many camps had to be burnt to the ground in order to ensure the containment of diseases. The liberation of the camps exposed the full extent of the Nazis Final Solution to the rest of the world. $$$$$ Last updated 6 January 2012

Holocaust Memorial Day Trust PO Box 61074 London SE1P 5BX (t) 0845 838 1883 (e) enquiries@hmd.org.uk 2005 - 2012 Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, all rights reserved. The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust is a registered charity. No. 1109348 (hmd.org.uk/genocides/the-holocaust/liberation-resistance-andrescuers) site for above info

*After Liberation*

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Soon after liberation, surviving children of the Auschwitz camp walk out of the children's barracks. Poland, after January 27, 1945. US Holocaust Memorial Museum
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In 1945, when Anglo-American and Soviet troops entered the concentration camps, they discovered piles of corpses, bones, and human ashestestimony to Nazi mass murder. Soldiers also found thousands of survivorsJews and nonJewssuffering from starvation and disease. For survivors, the prospect of rebuilding their lives was daunting. $$$$After liberation, many Jewish survivors feared to return to their former homes because of the antisemitism (hatred of Jews) that persisted in parts of Europe and the trauma they had suffered. Some who returned home feared for their lives. In postwar Poland, for example, there were a number of pogroms (violent anti-Jewish riots). The largest of these occurred in the town of Kielce in 1946 when Polish rioters killed at least 42 Jews and beat many others.$$$$$ With few possibilities for emigration, tens of thousands of homeless Holocaust survivors migrated westward to other European territories liberated by the western Allies. There they were housed in hundreds of refugee centers and displaced persons (DP) camps such as Bergen-Belsen in Germany. The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) and the occupying armies of the United States, Great Britain, and France administered these camps. A considerable number and variety of Jewish agencies worked to assist the Jewish displaced persons. The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee provided Holocaust survivors with food and clothing, while the Organization for Rehabilitation through Training (ORT) offered vocational training. Refugees also formed their own organizations, and many labored for the establishment of an independent Jewish state in Palestine. The largest survivor organization, Sh'erit ha-Pletah (Hebrew for "surviving remnant"), pressed for greater emigration opportunities. Yet opportunities for legal immigration to the United States above the existing quota restrictions were still limited. The British restricted immigration to Palestine. Many borders in Europe were also closed to these homeless people. The Jewish Brigade Group (a Palestinian Jewish unit of the British army) was

formed in late 1944. Together with former partisan fighters displaced in central Europe, the Jewish Brigade Group created the Brihah (Hebrew for "flight" or "escape"), an organization that aimed to facilitate the exodus of Jewish refugees from Europe to Palestine. Jews already living in Palestine organized "illegal" immigration by ship (also known as Aliyah Bet). British authorities intercepted and turned back most of these vessels, however. In 1947 the British forced the ship Exodus 1947, carrying 4,500 Holocaust survivors headed for Palestine, to return to Germany. In most cases, the British detained Jewish refugees denied entry into Palestine in detention camps on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus. With the establishment of the State of Israel in May 1948, Jewish displaced persons and refugees began streaming into the new sovereign state. Possibly as many as 170,000 Jewish displaced persons and refugees had immigrated to Israel by 1953. In December 1945, President Harry Truman issued a directive that loosened quota restrictions on immigration to the US of persons displaced by the Nazi regime. Under this directive, more than 41,000 displaced persons immigrated to the United States; approximately 28,000 were Jews. In 1948, the US Congress passed the Displaced Persons Act, which provided approximately 400,000 US immigration visas for displaced persons between January 1, 1949, and December 31, 1952. Of the 400,000 displaced persons who entered the US under the DP Act, approximately 68,000 were Jews. Other Jewish refugees in Europe emigrated as displaced persons or refugees to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, western Europe, Mexico, South America, and South Africa.

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Liberation and Survival

Lesson Plan Sheryl Silver Ochayon Grades: 7 - 9 Duration: 1 - 2 hours
Didactic Objectives

Examine primary resources including testimonies and photographs relating to liberation and survival. Think about the meaning of liberation after the Holocaust: the saga of liberation was not a happy ending to a sad story, but a tragedy in and of itself. Gain insight into how Jews who had survived tried to put the pieces of their broken lives back together, and the difficulties they encountered in doing so.

Introduction

World War II ended in May 1945, after six years of bitter fighting. There were victory celebrations throughout the streets of Europe. The first of the Nazi camps to be liberated was Majdanek, in July of 1944, and the rest of the camps were liberated by the spring of 1945. At first glance one might assume that after all the suffering, liberation would be a moment of great joy. However, the immense difficulties and pain of the Jewish survivors presented a different reality. The story of how those who survived the Holocaust managed to return to life after liberation is not a happy ending to a tragic story; it is actually the final chapter of the tragedy. After years of terror, physical and mental abuse, and constant fear, the survivors finally came face to face with the fact that the world they had once lived in, along with their families, friends and communities, had been irretrievably lost. Somehow, they had to manage to pick up the pieces and begin new lives.

What Was Liberation?

During World War II, Jews who lived in Germany or in countries that had been occupied by Germany were imprisoned in labor camps, concentration camps, and death camps. They were liberated from these camps by Soviet, British and American soldiers in 1944 and 1945. The first concentration camp to be liberated was Majdanek. The prisoners in Majdanek were liberated by Soviet troops in July 1944. Soon thereafter Soviet troops found other Nazi camps, and freed their inmates. British and American troops reached Nazi camps in the spring of 1945, liberating tens of thousands of prisoners. These prisoners had been living under extremely harsh conditions. Many were starving and others were very sick. Many of the people who had been liberated had survived "death marches," forced to march over long distances. The death marches occurred towards the end of the war as the Allies advanced on the German army and the Nazis tried to move prisoners further west into Germany. The German leadership believed that the Third Reich would survive the war. They therefore attempted to move concentration camp prisoners within Germany's borders, so that they could still be exploited for slave labor. Upon entering Auschwitz-Birkenau, Soviet soldiers found only 7,650 prisoners. Most of the 58,000 remaining camp prisoners had been sent on death marches at the end of 1944. Prisoners were abused and sometimes killed by the guards accompanying them on these marches. Approximately 250,000 concentration camp prisoners died on death marches. Other than survivors of the camps, some of those liberated had been hidden during the war or had masqueraded as Christians with false identity papers. Still others were surviving ghetto fighters, partisans and those who had fled to the forests. Colonel Lewis Weinstein, a member of the US Army, liberated Jews who were in Nazi camps. He recalls: " We had heard all kinds of rumors and stories, but they were so horrible that they were indescribable; we just couldn't believe them. I had a great guilt feeling when I actually found out about what happened in these camps. I had talked in terms of possibly a few thousand having been murdered, but thinking in terms of six million... murdered - I was obviously very much taken aback."[1] Father Edward P. Doyle, a chaplain in the US Army during WWII, participated in the liberation of Nordhausen. He recalls: "I was there. I was present. I saw the sights. I will never forget. You have heard the story many times before. On the night of April 11, 1945, my division, of which I was the Catholic chaplain, took the town of Nordhausen. The following morning, with the dawn, we discovered a concentration camp. Immediately the call went out for all medical personnel that could be spared, to be present. [] On that morning in Nordhausen, I knew why I was there. I found the reason for it - man's inhumanity to man. What has happened to that beautiful

commandment of the Decalogue, the commandment of God to love one another?"[2] Eva Goldberg was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau and Horneburg camps, and was liberated at Salzwedel, Germany, by American soldiers. She recalls: "And what I remember most is the convoys of Americans who were standing on both sides of the road and looking at us. They did not believe what they were looking at!"[3] Classroom Discussion:

How do Colonel Weinstein and Father Doyle describe their experiences of liberation? Why is it important to read testimonies from the liberators, as well as testimonies by those who were liberated? What does Eva's testimony add to your understanding of Colonel Weinstein's and Father Doyle's testimonies?

What Did Liberation Mean for Jewish Survivors?

Liberation should have been a happy day for the survivors. Finally they were free of the constant fear of death they had lived with for so many years. For the Jewish survivors, however, liberation had come too late. Entire communities in Eastern Europe, especially, had been wiped out and all their Jews exterminated. Over 90% of the Jewish community in Poland, the largest in Europe, had perished.[4] In Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and the Balkan States, the outcome was nearly the same. The Jews of Western and Southern Europe also suffered terribly, though the proportion of those exterminated was lower. In many cases, whole families had been slaughtered, and only single members were left. A survey taken by the Organization for Jewish Refugees in Italy, for example, found that 76% of the Jewish refugees had lost all of their immediate families and all of their relatives, and were the sole survivors from their families.[5] More than anything else, however, with liberation the survivors were struck suddenly by the immensity of their losses. Up until liberation, survivors had expended all their efforts on the struggle to survive: they scavenged for food, they tried to protect themselves, they lived from minute to minute. This struggle to survive didnt leave room to focus on the world they had lost: their family and friends, their occupations and habits, their neighborhoods and their possessions. Suddenly they were confronted with a new reality. Their families were gone, and their lives would never be the same. An almost superhuman effort was needed to pick up the pieces of their broken lives and to start over again. While the rest of the world was counting the dead, the Jews were counting the living.

Yitzhak (Antek) Zuckerman, a member of the underground who fought, among other battles, in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, testified: That day, 17 January, was the saddest day of my life. I wanted to cry, not from joy but from grief. [..] How could we be happy? I was completely broken! You'd kept yourself going all the terrible and bitter years, and now... we were overcome by weakness. Now we could suddenly allow ourselves to be weak [..] Ultimately there is an end to war. We had lived all that time with a certain sense of mission, but now? It was over! What for? What for? [..] I had never cried; they had never seen me depressed, not once; I had to live strongly, but on 17 January its not easy to be the last of the Mohicans." [6] Yosef Govrin was born in 1930 in Romania. He was deported to various ghettos and camps in Transnistria. Yosef was liberated by Soviet soldiers in December 1944. He recalls: "The devastation caused by the war and the fact that I was an orphan came to me very forcefully on Victory Day. I saw the destruction that the war had wrought much more realistically, I suppose, than I had before. The destruction had been all around me day and night, but only on Victory Day did I notice it on the street where I was walkingIt was then, as a boy, that I grasped the full scale of the destructionand really, Victory Day is engraved in my memory to this day as a day ofnot as a day of celebration!" [7] Eva Braun was born in 1927 in Slovakia. During WWII she was imprisoned in Auschwitz-Birkenau, and liberated by US soldiers. Eva recalls: "You were praying all those months to be liberated and then it hits you all of a sudden - here you are free. But after it sank in, the freedom - I am speaking for myself - I realized that I was hoping the whole time that I would see my father and maybe, hope beyond hope, my mother, although I knew that this was not a realistic hope. But my father, I was sure I would meet him. I was positive. But still there were doubts, and I realized that I had to start thinking about the fact of what would happen if I would not... Freedom is relative. Very much so. The thought of the future weighed very heavily on me. Obviously we knew that it was no longer our problem but still we have to make a future for ourselves and how would we make that future?"[8] Miriam Steiner testified: "[..] The great crisis had not yet hit us. It began when my cousin came home a few days later. I barely recognized him, because that kid, that big slob, had two big ears, a big nose and two cavities for eyes. He began to recover from his "Musselman" condition. For the first time I cried, I fell on him and I cried at how he looked, because then I suddenly woke up. He was the start of my crisis, of the crisis of ours as a whole... He embraced me and said only this: "You should know one thing, don't wait for your father and your brother." He repeated that many times [..] "Now we began to realize the enormity of the loss, we began to understand that Grandfather and Grandmother and hardly any of our relatives had returned, only that one cousin, and his father also returned later on. People said we shouldn't wait for them, but

the truth is that we waited all the time for my father. And I only want to say that I often look around, as though I am still searching... not for Father, it is my brother for whom I am still looking all the time. I know it is completely unrealistic, because formally I am not searching, I.. I cast about with my eyes..."[9] Classroom Discussion:

Why do you think Yitzhak Zuckerman, Yosef Govrin, Eva Braun and Miriam Steiner did not feel that liberation day was a day of celebration? Many prisoners survived the Nazi camps by focusing only on their most immediate daily needs, and thinking about almost nothing else. How do you think this situation affected their experience of liberation? One of the greatest difficulties that liberated survivors faced was intense loneliness. Prof. Hanna Yablonka, a Holocaust historian and the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, describes her mother's sentiments upon graduating from nursing school, a few years after the Holocaust. According to Hanna, her mother was elated that she had finished her degree, and yet plagued with an overwhelming sense of loneliness - she truly had no one with whom to share her news. What do you think is the difference between the loneliness that we all sometimes experience and the loneliness that Holocaust survivors felt after liberation?

The Allied soldiers cared for the survivors they had liberated. They fed the survivors and gave them the medical attention that they so desperately needed. Ephraim Poremba was born in Poland. Ephraim was deported to several Nazi camps, and he was liberated by the US Army at the age of twenty. He recalls: "The Americans organized a hospital, they started doing tests, they set up tents with water and showers. We washed, they gave us soap. When did I last wash? I couldn't rememberFirst of all hot water; whoever saw hot water? It was a dream. As much hot water as you want, to wash with soap, with soap! You could even wash your head, your body, it was heaven, it was heaven on earth!"[10]
What Did the Survivors Do Following Liberation?

By the end of 1945, those Jews who had managed to survive forced labor camps, concentration camps, extermination camps, and death marches, or who had survived in hiding, in forests, or with the help of local individuals (later to become Righteous Among the Nations), wanted only to go home. Some found that they had no homes or families left. Others found that going home involved a dangerous journey through chaotic, post-war Europe. Those who succeeded in reaching their old homes had to confront a new reality: the local populations in their homes, particularly in Eastern Europe, were antisemitic and hostile toward Jews, and saw their return as unwelcome.

Shoshana Stark testified: I went home. I didnt have anywhere I could stay... The gatekeeper was living in the house and wouldnt let me go in... I also had aunts and family. I went to see all their apartments. There were non-Jews living in every one. They wouldnt let me in. In one place, one of them said, What did you come back for? They took you away to kill you, so why did you have to come back? I decided: Im not staying here, Im going.[11] Avraham Dobo (Dabri) wrote: After some initial difficulties, I got what I needed and set out on the one thousand kilometer journey, which took three weeks or more. I arrived in my town, and just as I got off the train I met a man, a Christian acquaintance, whom I had gone to school with. I asked, How are you? He said, Your sister arrived a week ago. I knew where she lived. I went on foot. My clothes were half military and half civilian. I didnt have any other clothes but one shirt just my rumpled pants and an army jacket. This is how I came home. I walked into my sisters house. I met her there, and she asked, Who are you looking for? Two years before, we said goodbye now she doesnt know me. I was skin and bones, with no hair. I looked like I could be ten years old and I could be eighty. I spoke with her a few minutes I wanted to know what was new. Then, we burst out crying.[12] Shmuel Shulman Shilo was born in Poland in 1928. He lived in the Lutsk Ghetto, and immigrated to Israel in 1946. He testified: Suddenly Im standing in the middle of the city [..] and I ask myself, So what? Home gone, family gone, children gone, my friends are gone, Jews gone. Here and there would be a Jew I hardly knew. This is what I fought for? This is what I stayed alive for? Suddenly I realized that my whole struggle had been pointless, and I didnt feel like living.[13]
The DP Camps

$$$$Understanding that the Jewish survivors could not, in most cases, be repatriated to their homes, Allied forces and the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), an organization created in anticipation of a great refugee crisis when World War II ended, cared for them by improvising shelter throughout camps in central Europe known as Displaced Persons' (DP) camps. Conditions in these camps, especially at the beginning, were very difficult. Many of the camps were former concentration camps and German army camps. Survivors found themselves still living behind barbed wire, still subsisting on inadequate amounts of food and still suffering from shortages of clothing, medicine and supplies. Death rates remained high. Yet, despite the wretched physical conditions, the survivors in the DP camps transformed them into a flurry of cultural and social activities. More than 70 Jewish newspapers were published. Theaters and orchestras were established. Educational institutions were set up. Commemoration projects were initiated.

The survivors had a strong drive that led them to try to find new meaning in their lives. An emissary from Palestine described the DP camps as follows: "There are always people out in the narrow street, usually young men, wandering around and looking for something. I feel that they are looking for some meaning in their lives. They get up in the morning and don't know why. The day passes and night falls, and another day and another night passes by. And if you should once look into the eyes of one of these young men, and knew how to read his soul -- you would understand that his soul is still wandering in his past, he is remembering the past and yearning for tomorrow. The present is unnecessary, serving only to bridge the gulf between the old life and the future. The sense of impermanence is tangible in every step. There is no stability -neither material nor spiritual. Yesterday was spent in hell on earth, tomorrow will be in a heavenly paradise -- and in between there is nothing but emptiness and inaction. The camp is full of posters -- here a wall newspaper and there an announcement board. Endless posters, flags and slogans. To the stranger who enters, life here seems active and full of culture and spirit. But on closer inspection, you will shudder at the terrible abyss opening at your feet. There is something special in the sounds of music, the dances and the cafe life, a sort of frightened and irritable undertone. Everything is seen in too sharp a light and is heard too loudly. Everything is beyond the human scale; and if you have breathed that air, you will understand that here live people who have already experienced their deaths long ago. Camp eyes are still saturated with the visions of suffering, camp lips smile a cynical smile, and the survivors' voices cry, 'We have not yet perished'."[14] More than anything else, though, the Jewish survivors had a deep desire for human relationships in order to banish their despair and loneliness. Many of the survivors were young men and women between twenty and thirty years of age, who were all alone in the world. They formed couples and married quickly. One DP who had lost his family proposed to another DP with these words, I am alone. I have no one, I have lost everything. You are alone. You have no one. You have lost everything. Let us be alone together.[15] The survivors were in a rush to have children and to raise new families as the symbol of the future their own future and that of the Jewish people. In the DP Camp at Bergen Belsen alone, 555 babies were born in 1946.[16] The birth rate in the camps was among the highest in the world. Eliezer Adler was born in 1923 in Belz, Poland. He spent most of WWII in a forced labor camp in the Soviet Union. After the war Eliezer spent three years in DP camps. He recalled: "...This issue of the rehabilitation of She'arit Hapleta ("surviving remnant"), the Jews' desire to live, is unbelievable. People got married; they would take a hut and divide it into ten tiny rooms for ten couples. The desire for life overcame everything - in spite of everything I am alive, and even living with intensity.

When I look back today on those three years in Germany I am amazed. We took children and turned them into human beings, we published a newspaper; we breathed life into those bones. The great reckoning with the Holocaust? Who bothered about that... you knew the reality, you knew you had no family, that you were alone, that you had to do something. You were busy doing things. I remember that I used to tell the young people: Forgetfulness is a great thing. A person can forget, because if they couldn't forget they couldn't build a new life. After such a destruction to build a new life, to get married, to bring children into the world? In forgetfulness lay the ability to create a new life... somehow, the desire for life was so strong that it kept us alive" [17] In this quotation, Abba Kovner, a leader of the Jewish underground and partisan movements in Lithuania, reflects on the activities of survivors after the liberation: "Nor would I have found it surprising if they had turned into a band of robbers, thieves, and murderers []. They had come forth hungry, dressed in tattered rages, broken and defeated, and the first thing they wanted was to seek the basic things: bread, shelter, and work. All of this could have deteriorated into the misery of their so-called rehabilitated lives."[18]
The Bericha: Emigration from Europe

The survivors in the DP camps in Europe focused their efforts on emigration from Europe to build new and productive lives elsewhere. Though they may have hoped to return to their homes, the rampant antisemitism and attitude of the local populations forced them to reach the conclusion that there was no longer any place in Europe for the Jews. Many of the DP camp residents strongly declared their intention to move to Palestine. The movement of the Jewish survivors out of Europe and towards then-Palestine was called the bericha, Hebrew for escape. At this time, however, Palestine was under the British Mandate. Highly restrictive immigration policies remained in effect until May 1948, when Israel became a state. Many of the survivors were forced to try to reach Palestine illegally. Some were intercepted by the British, as described in the testimony of Rachel Ben-Chaim. Rachel Ben-Chaim was born in Hungary in 1926. During WWII she was imprisoned in Auschwitz-Birkenau and the Stutthof camp. Rachel survived a death march, and in January 1945 she was liberated by Russian soldiers. Rachel immigrated to Palestine in January 1946. She recalls: "We crossed the borders using several strategies, at least four or five borders. Twice we were given forged papers... We crossed one border on foot. I was carrying someone's child. We crossed another border in a goods train. They put us in one or two wagons and closed us in. The empty goods train crossed the border to bring in goods, and we were in the wagons...Later we reached Villa Emma in Italy, and we were there for a long time without doing much. We left there later, and this is how it was: they loaded us onto lorries and tied down the tarpaulins over us. The Brigade soldiers [Jewish soldiers from Palestine, who technically belonged to the British Army but tried to help the Jewish survivors

reach Palestine] closed off the road, saying that only the army could go through, and we were the 'army'. They took us to the harbor... they almost threw us [onto the ship], because it was all very urgent. We had to get into the ship's hold very quickly, more than nine hundred of us. They just poured us into the ship... ...When the ship anchored off the coast of Palestine the English discovered us. Warships surrounded us and then something happened that I shall never forget, even though 47 years have gone by since then. We dropped anchor in the middle of the sea, we hoisted the national flag [the blue and white flag with the Star of David, later adopted as the flag of Israel] to the top of the mast, and we felt that the entire Jewish people was standing on the Haifa shore, because the deck was full... you don't forget something like that, it gave us the strength to endure many difficulties".[19] One third of the liberated survivors chose to emigrate to countries other than Israel. They moved, by and large, to the United States, Canada and other Western countries. Ken Hamer was born in 1937, in Lodz, Poland. Ken and most of his family spent the war hiding in the forest. Ken recalls his experiences after the war's end: "We were in Paris for some months and we couldn't be taken to Israel because they weren't taking children under a certain age [] I think under twelve or whatever it was [] and hence, we had an uncle in Australia, an uncle and a cousin in Australia, and we had passports to Australia, so we went to Australia."[20]
Conclusion

The stories of liberation, and the events that followed in the lives of Holocaust survivors, do not have a simple, happy ending. $$$The trauma experienced by those who were subjected to the Nazi regime was so great that it remained with them, and continues to accompany them in one form or another, throughout their lives.$$$$

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[1] Chamberlin, Brewster and Feldman, Marcia, The Liberation of the Nazi Concentration Camps 1945: Eyewitness Accounts of the Liberators, United States Holocaust Memorial Council, Washington D.C., 1987, pp. 75-76. [2] Ibid., p. 103. [3] Kleiman Yehudit and Springer-Aharoni Nina, The Anguish of Liberation,

Yad Vashem, Jerusalem 1995, p. 35. [4] Anita Shapira and Irit Keynan, The Survivors of the Holocaust, orig. in Return to Life: The Holocaust Survivors From Liberation to Rehabilitation, Beth Hatefutsoth, Ghetto Fighters House and Yad Vashem, Haifa 1995, pp. 35-47. [5] Zerach Warhaftig, Uprooted, Institute of Jewish Affairs of the American Jewish Congress and World Jewish Congress, New York, 1946, p. 52. [6] Testimony of Yitzchak Zuckerman, recorded at the Council of the United Kibbutz Movement on 9-10 May 1947. Published in: Zuckerman, Yitzchak, The Exodus from Poland , Ghetto Fighters House, United Kibbutz Movement Press, pp. 13-16 (Hebrew). [7] Kleiman, Yehudit and Shpringer-Aharoni, Nina (eds.), The Pain of Liberation, Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, 1995, p. 40. [08] Ibid., p. 45. [09] Ibid., p. 47. [10] Ibid., p. 53. [11] Testimony of Shoshana Stark, Yad Vashem Archive 03/4337, pp. 19-20 (Hebrew). [12] Israel Ring (Ed.), How Embers Survived [Hebrew], Moreshet and Ein Hamifratz, Kibbutz 1995, p. 130. [13] Yad Vashem Archives, 0.3, V.T/135. [14] Avni, Chaim, With the Jews in the DP Camps, Impressions from a Mission in 1945-1947 [Hebrew], Chaverim, 1981, pp. 32-35. [15] Michael Berenbaum, The World Must Know, Little, Brown and Company, Boston, 1993, p. 208. [16] Hagit Lavsky, New Beginnings: Holocaust Survivors in Bergen-Belsen and the British Zone in Germany, 1945-1950, Wayne University State Press, Detroit, 2002, p. 150. [17] Testimony of Eliezer Adler, Yad Vashem Archive, 03/5426, pp. 41-42 (Hebrew). [18] Abba Kovner, Mishelo ve-alav, Moreshet and Sifriyat Hapoalim, 1988, pp. 40-41 [Hebrew]. [19] Yad Vashem Archive 03/6921, pp. 40-43 [Hebrew]. [20] Yad Vashem Archives 0.3/10333.

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