History of the Holocaust (III)

Outlines III

Chaim Kaplan (Diarist, Bearing Witness)

-Diaries weren’t allowed in ghetto

-HS teacher in Warsaw ghetto

-Day-to-day writings on ghetto life, sociological study

Oneg Shabbes (Bearing Witness)

-Diaries weren’t allowed in ghetto

-Diverse group met Sat afternoons

-”Joys of Shabbes”

-3 milk canisters of writings

-Emmanuel Ringelbum head

Emmanuel Ringelblum (Bearing Witness)

-Left-wing Zionist

-Worked for Judenrat in committee

-He+Family smuggled out of Warsaw into “Aryan” side 1943

Hersh Glik (Music/Theater, Bearing Witness)

-Wrote poems meant to be sung

-”Zog Nit Keyn Mol” sung far/wide

-In Vilna ghetto

-FPO Partisans group member

Music and Theater (Bearing Witness)

-Private music + public concerts/theaters not allowed

Education (Bearing Witness)

-Education not allowed in ghetto

-Individuals/Parents clandestine teaching

-Hopes that after war Jews could go to university/jobs

Rabbi Kolonymous Kalman Shapira (Communal religion, Bearing Witness)

-Gave public sermons in Warsaw ghetto

-Snuck ppl into his apt

-Filed sermons/info for Oneg Shabbes

-Expressed anger/pain at Gd, opening convo up

Yiddish

-Death of Ashkenazi culture/people
-Pressure to learn language of the land

-Hard to maintain since closed off community

-Connected to language/culture

-Loss of civilization

Ladino

-Death of Sephardi culture/people (spec. Greek Jewry)

-Bulgarians who didn’t stay, absorbed goods/homes

-Loss of civilization

Orthodox

-Killed in higher % of Jewry

-Loss of civilization

-Orthx Jews easier to spot/humiliated

-More stayed compared to Modern/Secular Jews

-No promise to cultural access outside of European heartland

-What was rebuilt of Orthx communities were rebuilt as response rather than continuing culture

Raphael Lemkin

-1900-1959 born in Bezwodne Belarus from poor family, but educated in Poland

-Escaped to Sweden then to US by 1944

-Lawyer who studied genocide/mass atrocity & the aftermath/judgement

-Published book 1944 abt war + international blueprint

-Came up with “genocide”

-Inspired UN Genocide Convention

-Eichmann Trial 1961

-Oversaw deporting populations

-Used underground Ratline, Vatican helped escape

-Smuggled immediately out of Argentina —> Taken to Israel put on trial

-First public acknowledgement in Israel

-Publicized on TV realization how horrible

Kielce Pogrom

-07/46 in Poland

-Rumor spread that Jews killed a Christian child

-Mob killed all 40 Jews then killed Jews in town trains

-Local Bishop said Jews had it coming for bringing communism

Harrison Report

-08/45

-Sent by Truman

-Sent back report to separate Jews from others

-Received counter report: to toughen it out & mo money to make more camps

-By Aug 1945 separate camps created

Switzerland (Neutral Powers)

-Neutral in name but very much benefited

-JStamp 1938: Asked Germans to put special stamps on Jewish passports

Joint Declaration

-12/17/1942

-Calling out killings (Made countries consider loss + switches sides)

War Refugees Board

-1944

-Rescue/relief of victims but mostly symbolic

-Relation to Henry Moregenthau

-Prior: 400 Orthx Rabbis walked on Washington to petition for a refugee agency/help to Roosevelt

Bombing Auschwitz

-Military focus on winning the war front and not wasting material

-Neither Brits nor US bombed

Henry Morgenthau

-Jewish US Secretary of Treasury

-For years thought US should help European Jews

-Related to push Roosevelt/War Refugees Board 1944

Jan Karski

-Polish issues first, Jewish issue second

-University student w/ photographic memory

-Dressed up as Jewish 2x to go to Warsaw Ghetto

-Smuggled into Belzec outer labor camp

Exodus

-07/47

-Stopped by British ships before reaching Haifa

-British treated ship as enemy vessel, went onboard military

DP Camp Administration

-Made out of preexisting concentration camps

-Originally set up under military command

-Roll call, hourly rules, regimented discipline

DP Camp Conditions

-Traumatic/Uncomfy for Jews

-Goyim camp guards who oppressed Jews

-Barbed wire and gate

-Controlled space, others can’t come in

-German guards at front gates

DP Camp Culture

-By 08/45: separate camps created for Jews

-Opportunity to build community/family back up

-Birth rate highest in the world at the time post-war

-Outside prep: Skill workshops, Learning languages

Death Marches

-Jan to May 1945: ~800k inmates forced to walk towards German soil

-Estimated ~250k killed en route

-Seemed to be spontaneous development, not planned

-No food/housing plans —> Just make ppl walk

-Died: Exhaustion, Hunger, Too slow then shot

-Some inmates on marches allowed to sleep in barn 1 night then Germans left them

Liberation

-Soviets liberated Eastern Europe, Americans West, Brits Northern

-Other troops liberated camps in Germany

-Soviets came to Auschwitz knew death from seeing mass graves

-Americans at Dachau or Brits at Bergen-Belsen saw death at this scale first hand

-Some Allied troops found death marches & liberated then/there

-Many inmates still died: Exhaustion, Hunger

Memorialization (Reverberations)

-Memorial books- Yizkor-Bikher grassroots gravestone alternative

-Stumbling stones throughout Europe (first in Germany early 1990s)

-1947 Warsaw monument

-Museums

-Learning in college classes

Denial and Distortion

-Ex-patriot Germans/Austrians who’ve left felt bias against accents/homeland

-Wanted pride for nation not having stories tied to CrimesAgainstHumanity/Holocaust

-Finds questions & borrow in to raise doubts

-Less than 6 million in numbers

-Where’s proof of all gas chambers/camps?

-Agree it happened but deny responsibility (Einsatzgruppen not Hitler, no document)

-Countries in Middle East questioning legitimacy of StateIsrael

Silence to Salience (Reverberations)

-Survivors told to keep quiet about experiences

-Traumatic to talk about experiences while rebuilding life

-Newsreels during war but stopped postwar

-Stories only emerge during latter part of 20th C.

Silence to Salience (Reverberations)

-Eichmann Trial 1961

-Holocaust (1978) televised miniseries in US

-While historically problematic, millions watched it

-Turning point of US apprehension in Goyim communities

-1970s context: Birth of ethnic pride + programs

-College courses, Popular films, books, Pop culture

Victims/Bystanders/Perpetrators

-Some may not have been a permanent label

-At what level of doing is one considered a bystander vs perpetrator

-Where do rescuers fall in these terms?

Red Cross

-Tried to be neutral to help every side during war

-Easily becomes German collaborationist w/ “good” intentions

-06/1944: Invited to visit Theresienstadt model camp

-Filmed propaganda/wrote reports

-Later invited to see a POW camp

Terezin/Theresienstadt

-High concentration of Jewish intellectuals/scholars/artists

-06/1944 Red Cross Visit

-“Beautification” and planting flowers

-Artists playing music

-Facade just for the visit

Auschwitz Report

-04/1944
-2 Slovakian Auschwitz escapees

-Went to Slovakia for their own people + to write about experience

-Public media to send out to the world

Saly Mayer

-Swiss Jewish JDC worker tasked to get goods/funds out

-Became conduit of information + sent it thru Jewish channels

-Would send info to R. Stephen Wise

R. Stephen Wise

-Reform Hungarian born Jewish Rabbi

-Trying hard to get media/gov’t to hear info

-Would receive info from Saly Mayer

[G-word] Family Camp

-Liquidated 08/44 (or May??)
-Part of Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland

-Estimated ~21k Roma/Sinti killed

-Medical staff used Roma/children for experimentation

Lodz Ghetto

-Liquidated 08/44

-Industrial center in Poland

-10/41: ~5k Roma/Sinti sent to Lodz (half were children)

-Many Roma had been systematically killed in Chelmno

Porajmos

-Romani word meaning “devouring”

-Term not as known compared to [G-word]/Roma/Sinti

Postwar Discrimination & Division (Porajmos)

-Post-Holocaust: Continued to be discriminated against legally/publicly

-Groups/Identities continue to be divided, No proper symbols/unification

-Holocaust museum exhibit backlash -Memory

Ottoman Legacy (Southern Europe)

-Most of South Eur was part of Ottoman Empire prewar

-Empire crumbling by 20th C.

-Much more tolerant

-Nazi ideology harder to sell in Ottoman Empire as not antisemitic

-Sephardi Jews moved into Ottoman land after early expulsion from Iberian Peninsula

Nuremberg Trials

-Series of trials 1945-1946

-International attempt (US/UK but USSR pulled out)

-Wanted to show fairness + followed careful steps (headphones, soldiers guarding)

-Trial for Nazi/Holocaust perpetrators

FPO United Partisans Organization

-Abba Kovner head

-Smuggled itself out of Vilna ghetto and into forest

-Training/Fighting as partisans instead of a Ghetto armed resistance force

-year info?

Abba Kovner

-Charismatic 20 year old from Vilna Ghetto

-Yiddish poet w/ no military training

-Became leader of FPO + Became involved in getting people out of ghetto

Bielski Otrad

-Partisan group in Belarus

-Composed of poor/not very educated Jews

-Not typical urban handicraft and instead farming

-Rescued Jews, Creating town in forest of 1200 Jews

-Everyone had a job (eg: butcher) to provide for town/partisans

-Some sense of normalcy instated

Smuggling food/information (Self-Help)

-Smuggling as a type of job

-Smuggling fod/information to families

-Ghetto-to-ghetto smuggling (food, info, songs, arms, supplies)

-Acted as philanthropic network

Organized philanthropic work

-Judenrat sponsored underground soup kitchen, 1bowl of soup a day

-Used money provided for Judenrat elsehow

-Trading of medical supplies across ghettos

-Acted as philanthropic network

Zorin Unit (Soviet/Communist Partisans)

-Zorin: Jewish retired fighter who escaped Mints ghetto who became commander

-Dedicated Jewish 106 Unit in Belarus

-Came across Jews in forests & put them to work

-Actions done against Soviet commander orders

-100 men in unit, supporting family camp of 800 Jews (who worked mending uniforms)

Maquis (Nationalist Partisans)

-French resistance

-Sometimes helped Jews if timing aligned

UPA (Nationalist Partisans)

-Ukrainian resistance fighting against both Soviets and Nazis

-Took Nazi ideology + practiced active small scale genocide

-Jews + Poles killed. They were easier to differentiate than Germans

AK (Nationalist Partisans)

-Polish resistance fighting Nazis/German occupation

-No interest in helping Jews

-Armed wing of Polish Underground State

Territorial Imperative (Tripartate Pact)

-11/20/40 Hungary first nation to join Axis Powers

-Desire for land Hungary felt original ownership over

-Germany granted Hungary strip of Slovakian territory

-1940: Hungary asked for part of Romania

-1941: Hungary gains portion of Croatia + Serbia

Admiral Horthy

-Hindenburg comparison: Admiral not wanting to betray Jewish vets/families

-Concerned to cripple Hungarian economy

-1944: Overthrown and made figurehead by Arrow Cross

-07/44: Horthy halted deportations

-Ousted, Puppet regime takes over

Arrow Cross

-Homegrown Hungarian military

-Publicly beat/humiliated Jews

-1944: Coup staged and takes charge of Hungary (w/ German commands, Horthy is figurehead)

-Arrow Cross kills Hungarian Jews rounded up in Budapest

Ghettoization and Deportation

-03/44: German SS arrive. By April, ghettoization begins

-Many taken to Budapest. By May, mass deportations

-Mid 1944: Much less need for Jewish labor

-Ghettos not typical, are holding centers

-No Judenrat, no armbands, wearing religious coverings/warm clothes

-06/44: ~400k killed in about a month at Auschwitz

-07/44: Horthy halted deportations

Iasi Pogrom

-4k Jews killed by Romanian troops/local helpers

-Many ready to engage in antisemitic acts even without orders

-Some Romanians joined Einsatzgruppen behaviors + killed ppl in forests

Transnistrian massacres + camps

-Transnistrian Jews sent to camps entrolled by Romanians

-Camps had no infrastructure (latrines, barracks) + were just fenced off areas

Sephardi Jews + Ladino

-Families moved into Iberian Peninsula in early countries

-Moved to Ottoman lands + North Africa after after expulsion

-Spoke Ladino & had different cultures

-Lacked a common tongue/culture from other Jews

‘Aryan’ Question

-Germans: White Indian ‘Aryans”

-Who are the true Aryans?

-Impure + mixed, Kicked out b/c bad ‘Aryans’

-Roma/Sinti ended up in asocial group

Marzahn

-Roma/Sinti labor camp

-1936: Cleaning up Roma off streets for Summer Olympics in Germany
-Roma/Sinti ended up in asocial group

Pastor Trocme (Local Rescue)

-Le Chambon-sur-Lignon Frence town

-Town in hills of Southern France

-Doubled population and saved ~5k Jews

-Took out Jews from southern camps

-Parishioners led Jews up to hills during German checkups

-Reasons:

-Protestant minority who knew what its like

-Isolated geography

-Leadership to uphold as pastor

Chinue Sugihara (Diplomatic Rescue)

-Japanese consulate in Kaunas, Lithuania

-Sugihara was meant to scope what Germans were up to

-Spoke with delegation of Jewish refugees

-Created certifications to pass through Japan (went against orders)

-Sugihara/consulate handed out ~5k in a few days

-Shanghai ghetto: Transports got stuck in Shanghai during war

Raoul Wallenberg (National Rescue)

-Swedish businessman who worked under gov’t in Budapest

-Arrived to Hungary after Horthy overtaken

-Captured by USSR at 33

-Sugihara comparison: Wrote certificates of protection by Sweden for free

-Supported by American War Refugee Board (WRB)

-Got staff of Spanish + Swiss embassies to create more

-Over 50k created for Hungarian Jews

Voluntary Migrants

Forced Migrants

Greece (Southern Europe)

-1941 Greece split among Germans/Bulgarians/Italians

-Salonika: German-occupied city w/ dense Jewish Greek population

-Italian territory refused to deport Jews

• Many (Salonika) fled into Italian territory

-Bulgarian territory complies in 1943 to deport Jews

-Losing the war but willing to spend time/money moving ships + kill small communities

-Deportations in early 1943 and sent to Auschwitz to be killed (+Bulgarians sent to Treblinka)

Iron Guard

-September 1940 Romania joins Axis Powers

-Led by General Antonescu

-Organized Transnistrian Jews to be sent to camps by Romanians

• Camps had no infrastructure (latrines/barracks) and were fenced off areas

Yugoslavia

-Early 1941: Yugoslavia joins Axis Powers

-Summer 1941: Germans invaded + nation fell apart

Romania (Roma/Sinti Holocaust)

-25k Roma sent to Transnistria camp + ~11k died

-Romanian led camps sent early 1940s

Yugoslavia (Roma/Sinti Holocaust)

-