The Holocaust - Paper Three

When was the shop Boycott and who organised it?

Organised by the SA on the 1st of April 1933

How did ordinary Germans respond to the boycotts?

Many were apathetic or even sympathetic towards the Jews and refused to take part in the boycotts despite pressure from the SA. A report from the ‘National Observer’ paper stated that some people in Hamburg (the leftist centre of Germany) even forced their way into Jewish shops”

How were the Boycotts received internationally and how did the Nazi’s repsond?

The Boycotts received negative international press condmeing the acts, to which the Nazi’s responded, calling the boycotts a spontaneous demonstration of  ‘justifiable’ anti-jewish feeling nationwide. However, statistics and reports suggest otherwise".

How did the Nazi’s legally persecute the Jews in March 1933

Jewish judges were banned and excluded from court, and Jews were no longer able to serve on the juries

How did Nazi’s legally persecute Jews in April 1933

• Hitler and Nazis established the Law for the Restoration of the Profession Standard of the Civil Service, which excluded Jews (except for War Veterans - to appease Hindenburg) from serving in the German Civil Service.

• Furthermore, the Nazis imposed a quota on Jewish school children, meaning that only 5% of school placements were allocated to them, and Jewish academics were removed from university posts

How did the Nazis legally persecute Jews in the September 1933?

Goebbels established a ‘Reich Chamber of Culture’, which excluded Jews from jobs in the theatre, music industry, and film industry. 

An ‘Aryan Paragraph’ in the ‘National Observer’ excluded all Jews from working as journalists. 

When were the Nuremberg Laws announced?

15th of September 1935

What ideology were the Nuremberg Race Laws built on?

the theory that Germans were a part of the ‘Aryan Race’, while Jews were inferior Semites that threatened the racial purity of the Nation and its people. Nazi’s said that it was crucial for Jews and other racial minorities to be separated from Germans for this reason.

The Reich Citizenship Law

This law distinguished between ‘citizens’ and ‘subjects’, the ‘citizens’ being those of German or related blood. Meaning that ‘Jews’ and other minorities were not citizens of Germany and had no political rights.

The Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honour

This law was against ‘race-mixing’, or as the Nazi’s called it ‘Rassenchande”, meaning ‘race-defliment’. This law banned future marriages and sexual relations between Germans and Jews. This law also prohibited Jews from employing German women under the age of 45 in order to prevent Jewish-German children, which would ‘undermine the purity of the German Race’.

What were the punishments for breaking the Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honour?

The penalties for violating this law ranged from public humiliation and fines to imprisonment and forced labour.

When and What was the First Supplementary Decree of the Reich Citizenship Law?

This law was enacted on the 14th of November 1935 and classified a Jew as someone with three or more Jewish grandparents, or two if they were heavily involved in the Jewish community.

What was a Mischling

Mischling were half Jews. Mischling of the first degree was a half jew who had two jewish grandparents and didn’t actively practise/was married to a non-jew, and Mischling of the second degree was someone who only had one Jewish grandparent.

How were Mischlinge persecuted?

While persecution of Mischlinge was initially less intense, the nature of the laws meant that many half Jews married other Jews and furthered the risk of their persecution.

The Law for the Alternation of Family and Personal Names

This law was introduced in August 1938, which states that Jews can only be given government approved first names, while adults had to adopt a second first name, ‘Israel’ for men and ‘Sara’ for women.

When was Kristallnacht?

Over the 9th-10th of November

What triggered Kristallnacht?

The 7th of November 1938, Ernst Von Rath, a German embassy official was shot dead by a Polish Jewish teen in Paris in response to the persecution of Jews in Germany. On the 9th, Goebbels made a speech, encouraging party activists to initiate violent attacks on Jews. 

What were the direct impacts of Kristallnacht?

over 8000 Jewish businesses were destroyed, 200 synagogues burned, hundreds of Jews beaten, and over 90 killed. Furthermore, 30,000 Jewish men were rounded up and sent to concentration camps. Many were released but only on the account of written promises to leave Germany for good.

Who carried out the violence on Kristallnacht?

The violence was mostly initiated by party activists and SA members, however in some places ordinary Germans joined in on the pogroms, while fire-fighting services and police forces did nothing to stop the violence.

How was Kristallnacht received internationally and domestically?

While the event received significant condemnation from other countries, and even by some high ranking Nazis, ordinary Germans did not speak out about the violence, including the protestant and catholic churches.

How were Jews treated after Kristallnacht?

The Jews were forced to pay 1000 million Marks in reparations for the death of Rath, while the government seized the money that insurance companies were paying out for the destruction of Jewish property. No German was ever prosecuted for their crime.

What did Kristallnacht symbolise for Jews?

Kristallnacht symbolised a dramatic increase in the radicalisation of German anti-semitism and a move towards the violence that would later facilitate the systematic killing of Jews.

How did the outbreak of war result in further discriminatory measures against Jews?

Driving licenses, radios, and telephones were confiscated. Jews were subjected to a curfew and had restricted shopping hours. Clothing rations were not allocated to Jewish people, and their food ration coupons were stamped with a large ‘J’. Jews were also forced to hand over goods that served any kind of value, such as appliances, type writers, and furs. Jews were also subjected to forced labour, often in work camps. All violations by the Jews resulted in extreme punishment such as the death penalty for the most trivial of offenses.

What was the Emigration option, who initiated it, and when?

As of January 1939, Heydrich and Göring rigorously encouraged Jewish emigration. Heydrich established a Central Office of Jewish Emigration with the goal of ridding Germany of it’s Jews within a decade.

To what extent was the emigration plan successful?

The emigration plan was largely successful with 150,000 Jews leaving Germany in the year following November 1938, with a previous 150,000 Jews leaving from 1933-1938. This meant that the Jewish population in Germany had decreased by half from 503,000 in 1933, to 234,000 in 1939. 

Why did the Emigration Plan effectively fail?

the outbreak of war, and the fact that most sea lanes were now closed to the German vessels complicated the problem of forced Jewish emigration, which still remained a priority of the Nazi regime.

What was the Madagascar Plan and when was it decided?

In July 1940, the Foreign Minister began to promote the notion of sending the news to the French Colony of Madagascar as the defeat of France and likely surrender of Britain made this plan feasible. The island was to become a Jewish reservation, largely adminstried by Jews but under the overall jurisdiction of Himmler.

How were the Jews to be impacted by this?

It was theorised that many Jews were to die on the journey or when faced with the harsh climate. 

For how long did this remain the final solution and why did it fail?

The Madagascar plan was to remain the final solution until late 1940, but ultimately got written off with the continuation of war with Britain due to their stronghold of the sea.

What did Germany acquire from conquering Poland?

By the end of September 1939, Germany had conquered Poland and Germany gained 188,000 square kilometers of land containing 2 million Jews.

How much Polish territory was incorporated into the Third Reich?

About half of polish territory was incorporated into the Reich. 80% of those living in the ‘incorporated territory’ were Poles. The other half of Polish territory, which was referred to as the 'General Government’ was to be the dumping ground for Jews, Roma and Sinti, and Poles under German control and working towards German needs.

What was the Incorporated Territory to be used for?

Himmler set about deporting Poles and Jews from the incorporated territories to the General government in order to make lebensraum for ethnic Germans. By the end of 1940, some 300,000 Jews and Poles had been deported.

The nature of these deportations to the General Government

Families were given very little time to move out and were forced to leave most of their belongings to the German settlers.

What was the Lublin Reservation and when was it decided upon?

Himmler realised there was the possibility of creating a vast reservation for all European Jews in the General Government, and by the end of September 1939, it was provisionally decided that Jews and other minorities should be sent to the Lublin district, which was the farthest corner of the German empire.

Why did the Lublin Reservation Plan fail?

Offical mass deportation did not begin until December 1939 and the goal to rid the incorporated territories of Jews by February 1940 was far from complete. By then, Himmlers plan had faced opposition from Frank and Göring due to the economic disruption it would cause.

When, why, where, and how did ghettoisation come about?

Ghettoisation became a part of Nazi policy in September of 1939, initially as a preparatory measure for the planned Jewish expulsion to the Lublin reservation. Heydrich instructed Einsatzgruppen units to round up Polish Jews in areas close to railway lines in order to be deported easily. 

What is an intentionalist approach towards ghettoisation?

Intentionalists view this policy of ghettoisation as a conscious preliminary step towards total annihilation.

What is a functionalists approach to the policy of Ghettoisation?

Functionalists accept the view that ghettoisation eventually facilitated the systematic killing of Jews, but argue that Nazi leadership hadn’t thought through Jewish policy to that extent yet.

When was the Warsaw ghetto created? 

The Jewish area of Warsaw was declared an isolation zone, off limit to Germans. Warsaw was a city with a 30% Jewish population already. Then in March 1940, Jews were instructed to build a 2.2 meter wall around the Jewish quarter. Then on the 2nd of October, all Jews in Warsaw were instructed to move into the ghetto.

What were the living conditions in the ghetto’s like?

• The Ghetto housed 500,000 Jews with 100,000 confined to a single square kilometer. This meant that an average of 15 people were confined to a single apartment with 6 to a room.

• Only 1% of these apartments had running water.

• In the Ghetto, Jews were forced to live on rations of 300 calories a day, while Germans were granted 2300.

• Economic ties with the outside world was cut off and supplies were quickly exhausted.

• Heating fuel was in extremely short supply and the health of strength of many quickly deteriorated as disease spread.

How were the Ghettos percieved by germans?

  People of all ages were dying on the streets while the Ghetto’s “became something of a tourist attraction”, according to Alan Farmer. They were filmed by Goebbel’s propaganda units, and the images worked to further dehumanise Jews in the eyes of the Germans, as they reinforced stereotyping of Jews as the spreaders of disease, crime, and filth.

How many people died in the Warsaw ghetto in 1941 alone?

43100 Jews

When and why was work introduced to the Ghettos?

By 1941, the ghetto’s were beginning to cost the third reich as supplies were consumed but not being produced. Furthermore, with the lublin reservation plan failing, the nazi’s decided that it was in Germany’s best interest to get Jews in the ghettos to create a self sufficient economy in order to further German war efforts.

How did the introduction of work in the ghettos impact the Jews?

In the major Lodz and Warsaw ghetto's, conditions began to improve and the death rate fell. By july 1941, some 40,000 Jews were working to produce things like furniture and shoes in the Lodz ghetto. However, working conditions were poor and food shortages still prevailed.

Why did the process of German Ghettoisation begin in 1940?

Some German doctors and health officials believed that Jews, as a result of their culture and nature, were naturally carriers of various diseases and needed to isolate. This was a self-fufilling prophecy with the poor conditions in the ghettos.

What was the Judenrat and what was their role in the Ghetto?

On Heydrich’s orders, the Jews were to establish their own ‘Judenrat’ or ‘Jewish council’ with the goal of maintaining ‘orderly community life’ in the ghettos. Essentially meaning that their function was to carry out German orders. The Judenrat members were typically older with backgrounds in professional employment. They were to collect numbers and statistics on the Ghetto’s population and recruit workers for forced labour battalions both outside and inside of the ghetto.

When was the first ghetto established?

The first officially established ghetto was in Lodz in April 1940.

Was there resistance in the camps and ghettos?

There was notable resistance in both the camps and the ghettos, most significantly in the Warsaw ghetto in April 1943.

Level of resistance between 1941-1943

Across 1941-1943, underground resistance groups developed in over 100 ghettos and nazi occupied eastern europe with the main goals of organising uprisings, breaking free from ghettos or camps, and joining partisan units in their fight against the Germans.

How did the Judenrat respond to this resistance?

Many saw the resistance as both dangerous and pointless, believing complacency was a safer option.  

What kinds of people joined in resistance?

Young Jews, particularly Marxists and Zionists concerned with maintaining Jewish honour.

When was the Warsaw Ghetto uprising and why did it arise?

The warsaw ghetto uprising arose in April 1943 and continued into May due to rumors that the Germans would deport the remaining Jews in the ghetto to Treblinka death camp following Himmlers orders to shut down the ghetto.

What did the Warsaw ghetto uprising look like?

On entering the ghetto, SS and police units were meet with members of the Jewish Fighting Organization armed with hand grenades and a small stock pile of armaments.

How was the resistance squashed? 

Although the Germans were able to end the major fighting in a few days, the ferocity of the attack surprised the Nazis significantly and it took them just over a month to completely defeat the resistance and deport the remaining inhabitants. Even for months after, reisters continued to hide in the rubble of the ghetto and attack.

Where else did resistance in the ghetto’s occur?

In 1943 also, Ghetto inhabitants rose in against the Germans in Vilna, Bialystok and other ghettos, many taking up arms in the knowledge that so many Jews had already been deported and killed.

Did Jews really believe that they were going to defeat the Germans?

No. While Jewish resistance fighters did not believe that they would be able to save their fates, they fought for the sake of Jewish honour and to avenge the deaths of so many.

1943 Camp resistance 

Resistance groups rose up in Treblinka in August 1943, and Sobior in October 1943, wherein they attacked SS officers with stolen weapons. German auxillers killed most of the rebels either during or after the uprising, finding the escaped prisoners in nearby forests. However, several dozen prisoners eluded recapture and survived the war.

Auschwitz-Birkenau Resistance

In October 1944 at Auschwitz-Birkenau, members of the Jewish Special Department mutinied against the SS. Nearly 250 Jews died during the fighting, and another 200 were killed afterwards. Several days later the SS identified five women who had supplied the fighters with explosives to blow up a crematorium. All five were killed.

How did the Jews resist spirtually and culturally?

In the ghettos, Jewish language and culture was largely preserved with special ghetto schools being set up to teach Jewish children yiddish, Jewish history, religion, Hebrew, and other academic subjects. This attracted some 4000 students in the warsaw ghetto between 1940-1941. Furthermore, many Jews resisted Nazi policy by quietly practising their religion, such as observing holidays and the sabbath, and praying.

What kinds of things did Hitler say in his 30 January speech 1939

Hitler warned that “if international-finance Jewry within europe and abroad should succeed once more in plunging the people’s into a world war” this would result in the “destruction of the Jewish race in Europe”.

How do intentionalists view Hitler’s 30th of January 1939 speech?

Intentionalists view this speech as hitler saying that regardless of Germany’s fate in the war, the fate of European Jews was already sealed. 

How do structuralists view Hitler’s 30th of January 1939 Speech?

Structuralists like Micheal Marrus point out that Hitler’s words can be very different to his actions, and many have allowed a more leisurely ‘solution’ to the ‘jewish question’ had germany been victorious in the war.

When was Operation Barbarossa?

22nd June 1941

What was operation Barbarossa?

Hitlers attack on the Soviet Union.

What did Hitler seek to gain from Operation Barbarossa on a ideological sense? 

This was on the eastern front granted Hitler the opportunity to win Lebensraum for racially pure germans and destroy ‘Jewish Bolshevism” 

When does Lucy Dawidowicz argue that the decision for genocide was made?

Lucy Dawidowicz argues that the decision must have been taken some time between december 1940 and march 1941, believing that operation barbarossa and the disorder of the war was designed to allow the unchecked murder of Jews.

Why do some historians disagree with Dawidowicz?

The preparations for the systematic murder of the Jews did not begin until the autumn of 1941, three months after Germany invaded the USSR. Furthermore, the systematic gassing did not begin until March 1942, more than two years after the outbreak of WW2.

What was the Einsatzgruppen and what was their goal?

In 1941, there were four Einsatzgruppen units, each some 1000 men strong. Leaders were high ranking nazis who had often perviously served in the SD, but most were ordinary police men. on the 3rd of March 1941, Hitler insisted that the Bolshevik/Jewish intelligentsia in the USSR must be eliminated.

What did Einsatzgruppen violence look like?

Although the different groups did things in different ways, typically on entering a Russian town, they would round up and shot communists leaders and jews as a part of a deliberate policy of ‘pacification’, allegedly in response to partisan attacks.

How did the people in the USSR receive the anti-Jewish violence?

In some areas, like Ukraine and the Baltic Regions where anti-semtism ran high, locals would join in the violence and carry out pogrom-style killings.

What evidence suggests that the genocidal order was not given to the Einsatzgruppen in March 1941?

While a certain step towards the Holocaust with nazi attitudes hardening, by no means all Jewish men and few Jewish women and children had been killed by June-July 1941. As Historian Philippe Burrin points out, there is a world of difference between systematic killing and cold-blooded violence.

How many people were in the Einsatzgruppen by the end of 1941?

around 60,000

How did Einsatzgruppen policy change by August 1941?

Women and children, alongside men, were now being routinely massacred and executions were conducted differently with hundreds of victims forced to kneel before a trench at once and shot into them.

What evidence suggests that the final decision was made in July 1941?

The construction of the Polish death camps began in autumn of 1941, and the testimonies of Himmler reiterate this.

What evidence suggests that the final decision order came later around September or October 1941?

Historians like Kershaw and Burrin believe that the decision came in September or October when Operation Barbarossa was beginning to fail, leading to the need for harsher methods to keep the captured areas under control. Furthermore, Kershaw stresses that “unequivocal signs of actual planning of systematic genocide in Poland are not be found before October’.

Why did the Nazi’s turn to gassing as the method for killing Jews?

Although mass shooting was effective in terms of numbers, they were hard to conceal, cost, and time ineffective. Furthermore, some of the killers were starting to report psychological distress. So Himler commissioned SS technical advisers to find a method efficient, concealed, and ‘humane’. Gassing had been highly effective in the Euthanasia program which had ended in August 1941, and still had trained T-4 personal.

When, where, and why were the initial gassing experiments, and on whom?

The initial gassing experiments were conducted in Lodz in Autumn of 1941 as the conditions in the Lodz ghetto were increasingly appalling and more Jews were still expected to arrive there. In November a small village near Lodz, Chelmno, was chosen to try out the gassing, and an old mansion was transformed into barracks for Jews to change in upon arrival. The first gassings were in gas-vans in Chelmno in December on Russian prisoners of war. A permanent chamber was established in Jan 1942.

How many Jews dies in Chelmno camp?

By the time the camp was destroyed in March 1943, some 140,000 Jews were killed there, alongside a few thousand Sinti and Roma, poles, and Russians.

When were the first gassings at Auschwitz?

The first gassings at Auschwitz occured on the 3rd of September 1941, making it clear that the order for genocide had been given by the end of september 1941 and possibly up to two months sooner.

When was the Wannsee conference and what was its purpose?

The Wannsee conference took place on the 20th of Jan 1942 and was intended to resolve the logistical arrangements for a programme aimed at a ‘complete solution of the Jewish question’.

Who attended the Wannsee conference?

While only Heydrich out of the high ranking Nazis attended, many at the conference were a part of the German elite, bureaucrats that were enthusiastic about contributing to the final solution.

How do historians view the Wannsee conference?

Some historians view the conference as the final phase of the decision-making process which led tot he final solution, although the gassing predated the conference. In the view of Kershaw, it was merely about the logistics of mass murder, ensuring that by 1942 the extermination campaign was an almost industrial process of systematic murder.

How did states like Switzerland, Sweden, and Spain receive Jews?

These neutral states often closed their borders and restricted asylum.

What was the impact of these bystanders?

this passive acceptance normalised Jewish persecution and enabled Nazi actions, the lack of outside resistance allowing the Nazis to escalate from discrimination to segregation, to extermination with little pushback. Furthermore, the lack of objection legitimised Nazi actions and reinforced Nazi propaganda that Jews were unwanted outsiders.

British Immigration policies

Britain limited the number of Jewish refugees it accepted before and during the war and while Kindertransport from 1938-1939 rescued around 10,000 Jewish children, their parents were often left behind. Furthermore, Britain tightened immigration to Palestine, in 1939, restricting Jewish entry to 75,000 for five years due to regional tensions.

When had the British government received intelligence of Nazi death camps and what resistance did they offer?

The british government received intelligence about the massacres and existence of camps by 1942, however despite this, they did not launch missions of disrupt the killing. The bombing of some of the 44 railways leading to Auschwitz were considered but ultimately decided against and deemed military impractical, arguing that ending the war was the best way to end the killings. 

The US immigration policies 

The US kept strict immigration quotas during the 1930’s and 1940’s, even after Kristallnacht and other signs of persecution, President Roosevelt’s administration resisted relaxing immigration quotas, fearing domestic backlash during the Great Depression. 

The SS St. Louis

In 1939, a ship from hamburg carrying 900 Jewish refugees, many of whom were children, was turned away from US shores and was forced to return to Germany, where many on the boat later perished.

When did the US gain intelligence of nazi extermination?

By late 1942, the USA had received reliable intel about the Nazi extermination programme. However action was limited to propaganda statements condemning the atrocities. Direct military action (bombing railways) was rejected for the same reason as the British.

What was the War Refugee Board?

The War Refuge Board was created in 1944 after pressure from Jewish activists and some US politicians. This organisation funded rescue missions and helped to save 200,000 Jews. However it came very late in the war when most of the victims had already been killed. This demonstrates the vast impact international opposition could have had.

Why were Britain and the USA bystanders?

Both Britain and the USA placed the military defeat of Germany over humanitarian rescue. Furthermore, fear of antisemitism, adverse political opinion, and economic pressures in their respective countries discouraged governments from taking refugees.