Topic 3: The Holocaust

Who was Leon Greenman?

A British Holocaust survivor and anti-fascist campaigner.

Who was Esther (Elsa) Greenman?

The wife of Leon and mother of Barney Greenman. She was murdered on arrival at Birkenau death camp.

Who was Barney Greenman?

Elsa and Leon's two year-old son. He was murdered on arrival at Birkenau death camp.

Why did the Greenman family go to the Netherlands?

To look after Elsa's grandmother.

Why couldn't the Greenman family escape the Nazis?

Because the friends they had entrusted with their documents destroyed them to avoid getting into trouble.

Name one question a philosopher might ask about the Holocaust.

How is genocide even possible? Who is responsible for genocide? What can genocide teach us about ourselves? What is the best response to evil?

What was the Holocaust?

The systematic murder of 6 million Jews by the Nazi regime between 1941 and 1945.

What happened to the number of Jews in Europe between 1933 and 1945?

It decreased from 9.5 million to 3.5 million.

Define anti-Semitism

Prejudice or discrimination towards Jews on the basis of their identity.

Define persecution

Persecute means to treat someone badly over a period of time because of their religion, political beliefs or ethnic background.

Name a group who were persecuted by the Nazi regime

Jewish people, Homosexual people, Romany Gypsies, people with disabilities

What makes someone Jewish?

Belonging to the ethno-religious group that traces its origin to the ancient people of Israel.

What is an ethnoreligious identity?

An identity that is made up of a mixture of ethnic origin and religious adherence.

What does it mean to say the Jews are an ethnoreligious group?

Their identity is made up of a complicated mixture of ethnic origin and religious adherence.

Why is it wrong to think of Jews as a racial group?

Because anyone can convert to Judaism, and there are Jews of all races (e.g. Ethiopian Jews)

Give an example of an antisemitic stereotype used in Nazi propaganda.

Jews are greedy or have too much money; Jews want to take over the world; Jews are a threat to Christianity

How were Nazi's represented by Nazi propaganda

Angelic; charitable; aryan; innocent

How did Nazi propaganda prepare the ground for genocide?

By dehumanising Jewish people, it became possible to treat them in inhuman ways.

What was the "Final Solution"?

The Nazis's plan to exterminate the Jews and Jewish culture

What was the difference between death camps and concentration camps?

Death camps were set up for the sole purpose of murdering people en masse; concentration camps were forced labour camps where people also died.

What sort of work were prisoners made to do in concentration camps?

Building roads, building and maintaining concentration camps, sorting possessions of new arrivals.

Why was there a sign on the gates of Auschwitz that read "Arbeit Macht Frei?"

Because the inmates were told that if they worked hard they would be set free.

What is a "collaborator"?

Someone who the Nazis or helped make the killing possible.

What is a "perpetrator"?

Someone who ordered, organised, or carried out the killing.

What is a "bystander"?

Someone who stood by and did nothing to support the Nazis or to help their victims.

Give an example of someone who rescued Jews or resisted the Nazis during the Holocaust.

Zofia Kossack; Kurt Gerstein; Irene Sendler; Otto Weidt; Leopold Socha

Give an example of a perpetrator in the Holocaust.

Police Battalion 101 (murdered Jewish families); Dr Kremner (chose who would be gassed); Arthur Greiser (helped organise Holocaust); Otto Moll (supervised gas chambers); Albert Konrad Gemmeker (camp commandant)

Give an example of a bystander in the Holocaust.

Richard Wiener (filmed a mass murder);

Give an example of a collaborator in the Holocaust.

Race scientists who made anti-Semitism seem respectable; railway workers involved in transportation; postal workers who helped the Nazis find Jewish people; neighbours and auctioneers who profited from sale of Jewish property.

Why did some Jews lose their faith after the Holocaust?

Because they couldn't reconcile their belief in a loving God with the evil they had experienced.

Explain the problem of evil.

If God were really omniscient, omnipotent, and omniscient, then evil would not exist.

Explain one Jewish response to the problem of evil.

The free will argument (Eliezer Berkowits); Hitler has won if Jews give up on God (Emil Fackenheim); if evil exists, God cannot (Richard Rubenstein); God exists, but is not all powerful (Rabbi Harold Kushner); Jews should avenge themselves (Simon Wiesenthal); the Holocaust was a punishment for not obeying God's laws (Rabbi Ovadia Yosef); human beings cannot comprehend God's reasons (Menachem Mendel Schneerson).