Jewish History/AP Euro Holocaust Notes

5/2/11

How did the Nazi takeover lead to the persecution of the Jews?

v Surprise to many Jews

¨     Weimar Republic was liberal and tolerant, and offered opportunity to the Jews, which Jews took advantage of

Ø  The Weimar constitution was even written by a Jew, Hugo Preuss!

Ø  Walter Rathenau was a Jew, who headed the war effort in WWI, organized reconstruction after the war, and served as foreign minister.  BUT, he was assassinated in 1922 because the rightists did not want a Jew to be in such a prominent position

Ø  We Were So Beloved

 Book written after WWII expressing the question of how could it have happened

v Nazism

¨     A form of fascism that appealed to those who wanted order and were afraid of change, socialism, and disorder

¨     11/32 Nazis received 1/3 of the seats in the Reichstag (the election wasn’t really free and fair) à von Hindenburg appointed Hitler Chancellor as of January 30^th, 1932

¨     Shortly thereafter (February 4^th), Hitler gained “emergency” powers- he could censor the press and prohibit public meetings

¨     2/27 Reichstag fire à increased support for a stronger government (Hitler)

¨     3/5 “election”- lots of force and fraud à Hitler was in charge

v Persecution of Jews- 1933

¨     April 1^st- One Day Boycott of Jews

Ø  This was right before Easter, the biggest shopping day of the year

Ø  April 1^st was also Shabbat, showing how an overwhelming amount of Jews were irreligious and assimilated, and had their Jews open on Shabbat

¨     April 7^th- Law for the Restoration of the Professional Standards of the Civil Service

Ø  Jews were fired from all influential jobs: government, judges, lawyers, journalists, musicians, university professors

Ø  Hitler wanted to get rid of all people that affected public policy

¨     May- book burning

Ø  Burned Jewish books (Torah, Talmud) and books written by Jews.  They even burned Freud!

5/3/11

¨     July- Jews who arrived in Germany after 1918 lost their citizenship

¨     Shechita was outlawed (humanitarians thought it was bad)

¨     Jewish farmers cannot inherit land

v 1934 von Hindenburg died à Hitler became both chancellor and president; Heinrich Himmler became head of the SS

v 1935 Nuremburg Laws

¨     Defined Jews as subjects of the Reich (had to obey all the laws with no protection), not citizens

Ø  Deprived Jews of citizenship

¨     Racial definition of “Jew”

Ø  3 or more Jewish grandparents = a “full” Jew

Ø  1 or 2 Jewish grandparents = mischilinge (mixed Aryan and non Aryan ancestry)

¨     In the early stages, Jews weren’t physically killed, they were morally degraded

v Discrimination built

¨     1936- Jewish teachers cannot teach Aryan children
Jews were not allowed at health resorts
No Jewish books or music for non-Jewish audiences
No more intermarriage

¨     1936 Olympics in Berlin

Ø  The Nazis hid their anti-Semitism

Ø  Took down all the anti-Jewish signs and let the Jews walk around and have shuls so the rest of the world would think it wasn’t that bad for the Jews à world disbelief later when the Jews complained

Ø  Once the Olympics were over, the signs went right back up

¨     1937 Aryanization- theft of Jewish property

Ø  Jews were forced to sell their stores at an extremely low price

¨     1938 Jewish communities lost all recognition
Doctors and lawyers lost their licenses to practice
All Jewish women got the middle name Sarah, and all males got the middle name Israel
Jews had to take inventory on all their assets

Marked a “J” on Jewish passports (Swiss idea)

Concentration camps

Kristallnacht (see notes from November) = turning point to violence

v Efforts to escape

¨     Reichsvertreitung der deutschen Juden- tried to arrange emigration

¨     1933 the League of Nations appointed James McDonald to find new homes for the Jews

Ø  The Germans opposed it, the League did not back him up, and eventually McDonald quit

¨     US and Latin America did not want Jews to come to their countries because the Great Depression was occurring, and they did not want more people competing for jobs

¨     England- kinder transport, but they limited Jews entry to Palastine

¨     Evian Conference

Ø  Complete fail

Ø  The countries were told that if they came they would not have to take Jews- the conference was set up to fail

¨     Rich Jews were able to get visas to Latin America

Ø  An evil dictator in Dominican Republic, Trujio, allowed Jews in

5/11/11
How did the Nazis try to implement the “final solution” to the Jewish problem”?

v On conquest of an area the German army and local collaborators attacked the Jews

¨     Civilians were encouraged to attack Jews and bring them to the Nazis

v Ghettos

¨     Open ghettos

Ø  You were able to get up and leave- no high walls or guard towers

Ø  But why would people stay there if they could leave?

 There was nowhere else to live, get food, and if they left they would probably get killed

 Most stronger, younger people took their chances and risked leaving the ghetto

¶ Bielsky brothers- got a group of people and they hid in the forest and fought the Nazis

 Also, most people were too young, old, or sick to get out and hide

¶ It was possible to leave, but some people were just too weak

 These ghettos were temporary- soon enough, the open ghettos were, became closed ghettos, or the people were deported/murdered

¨     Closed ghettos

Ø  More organized- guards, high walls, shooting

Ø  Bad conditions

 Starvation

 Overcrowding

 Disease

Ø  Efforts to lift up spirit

 Frum tried to organize learning, less religious tried to organize learning

 These did not work out so well

Ø  Deportations to the camps

Ø  Judenrat

 Jewish organization that carried out Nazi orders

¨     Kovno Ghetto

Ø  Nazis announced they needed 500 educated young men to work (did this to get rid of potential leaders)

Ø  September ‘41 5,000 work permits were given to be distributed to skilled workers

 Soon enough, people realized that these permits = life.  If you did not have a permit, you were destined for death

 The Judenrat didn’t know what to do.  Some Judenrat leaders grabbed some, some police grabbed some, and riots broke out with people grabbing some

 The next day the ghetto was rounded up between those who had permits and those who didn’t, but an officer just said forget it

Ø  A Jew killed a policeman à 1,000 Jews were killed

Ø  October- all the Jews were ordered to assemble, 10,000 were selected out and killed à

 Moral dilemma- Jews knew that assembly meant that only few would survive.  They went to the chief rabbi, Rabbi Shapiro, asking if they should cooperate or resist, and the rabbi came to the conclusion that they should cooperate.  Why?

¶ It’s better to guarantee the lives of some Jews

Ø  In the Kovno case, the Judenrat complied with the Nazi’s orders

5/12/11

¨     4 approaches to dealing with the Nazis

Ø  Lvov

 Nazis asked for a list of people deported, and the Judenrat refused

 Approach: total non-cooperation

 Eventually, the ghetto leader Joseph Parnes was executed by being tied to the back of a car

Ø  Warsaw

 Cooperated on confiscation of property, but not when they were ordered by the Nazis to give a list of names

 Leader Adam Czerniakow committed suicide

Ø  Lodz

 Leader Mordechai Rumkowski was ordered to provide victims.  He decided to give in the young, old, and sick to preserve the lives of the healthy

Ø  Budapest

 Head of the Judenrat was Rudolph Kasztner cooperated completely and gave a lot of Jews as victims.  The Nazis rewarded him with a train that carried 14,000 Jews to freedom and survival in Switzerland

¨     Warsaw Uprising

Ø  Resistance Communiqué p.185

 Nothing in this communiqué had any shred of hope

 It emphasized strength and love for the Jews as a whole

v Camps

¨     Labor camps

Ø  Intended to kill the Jews by overwork and starvation

¨     Death camps

5/13/11

How did the “world” respond to the Holocaust?

v Map

¨     Overstates the percentage of Jews killed because it starts with the population of Jews in 1939 rather than 1933

Ø  In Germany, many Jews left Germany after facing anti-Semitism before ‘39

¨     No Jews killed in…

Ø  England- the Nazis never took over there

Ø  Spain- they were officially neutral but leaned on the Nazi side, however Franco believed he descended from marranos.  He didn’t completely open his border, but refused to send his Jews over to Hitler

Ø  Switzerland- neutral country.  Didn’t kill Jews, but they robbed them

Ø  Denmark- Jews were very integrated, and the Danes refused to give over lists of Jews.  Instead, they saved them

¨     Many Jews were killed in

Ø  Poland

Ø  Lithuania

Ø  Holland

¨     Bulgaria

Ø  Ally of the Germans during the war.  However, no Jews were killed there

Ø  The king of Bulgaria went to meet Hitler and then died a few days later (he was young and healthy, so it was odd for him to die).  Later on his wife believed that he was poisoned by Hitler for not cooperating

Ø  Peshev, the Prime Minister, ruled Bulgaria.  He didn’t want to get rid of the Jews, so he stalled whenever the Nazis asked him about it.  Then, he started deporting Jews living in Bulgaria that were not Bulgarian, but Bulgarian Jews stayed.  Then when there were no more non Bulgarian Jews, Peshev continued to stall because it was the end of the war and Hitler was going to lose, and he realized that deporting its Jews would put Bulgaria on trial for mass murder after the war

5/16/11

v Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

¨     By 1943, the Nazis got serious about deporting the Jews of the ghetto à Jewish Combat Organization, which organized a resistance

¨     Nazis surrounded the ghetto in January and faced the first armed resistance

¨     Jews appealed to the world to send help through small radios, but they got nothing, no help at all

¨     Pesach/ April 19^th- the Nazis began their final assault as a moral insult to the Jews

Ø  House to house resistance

Ø  Jews used the little weapons they had

Ø  Nazis used tanks and flame throwers

Ø  Killed many Jews and sent the rest to camps.  Some Jews killed suicide

Ø  It took the Nazis three weeks (May 8^th) to get to the Jewish headquarters.  They gas bombed the headquarters so the Jews could not attack back.  Two days later the resistance was over

¨     75 survivors left through the sewers, the rest were deported

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