Anne Frank 19291945

1
Anne Frank (1929-1945)

• History 106
• May 8, 2009

2
Document Assignment Week Six

• Paul Fussell was a junior army officer awaiting
  transfer from Europe to the Pacific when the
  United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima
  on August 6, 1945. In 1981, responding to
  criticisms of the decision to drop the bomb,
  Fussell published an article called Hiroshima A
  Soldiers View, later retitled, Thank God for
  the Atomic Bomb. For Week Six, read Thank God
  for the Atomic Bomb--link here. Also read
  excerpts from Michael Walzers reply to Fussell,
  Hiroshima A Dissenting View here.
  Additionally, read A Hiroshima Maidens Tale,
  in Bentley and Ziegler, p.1045.
• Be prepared to discuss these documents in section
  May 11 or 12.

3
Some Websites of Interest

• Official site of the Anne Frank Museum
• The Anne Frank Center USA
• The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum

4
The Holocaust as History Intentionalism vs.
Functionalism

• Intentionalism The mass killing of Jewish people
  was the direct, planned result of Hitlers
  violent anti-Semitic intentions and policies.
• Intentionalists believe that Hitlers plan was
  clear from the start No nation can rid itself
  of this plague the Jews except by the
  sword.Mein Kampf, 1925
• Functionalism The mass killing of Jews was not
  planned long in advance. Hitlers anti-Semitism
  at first was leading to the expulsion of all Jews
  from Europe, perhaps to the island of Madagascar.
  Only later did wartime circumstances cause it to
  mutate into mass murder.

5
Anti-Semitism in 20th Century Europe

• Traditional Christian hostility to Jews
• Emergence of new popular anti-Semitism around
  1900
• Hitlers anti-Semitism
• Evidence suggests that for most Nazi supporters,
  becoming a Nazi preceded becoming intensely
  anti-Semitic
• Increasing persecution and violence as Hitler
  consolidates power

6
Kristallnacht The Night of Broken GlassNov.
9-10, 1938
7
War and the Holocaust Decision

• Murder on the Eastern Front
• Wannsee Conference, February 1942
• Extermination Camps and Gas Chambers
• Work Camps and Death Camps

Site of the Wannsee conference of Nazi leaders
that decided on the extermination of Jews as the
final solution.
8
Jews and Other Nazi Targets

• Hitlers murderous racism extended beyond Jewish
  people.
• Other groupsCommunists and other political
  enemies, Roma people (Gypsies), mentally ill and
  handicapped, homosexualswere also victims of
  Nazi terror.

9
Nazi Extermination as Bureaucratic Routine
Map of Concentration and Extermination Camps
10
Nazi Extermination as Haphazard Improvization

• Especially in Western Europe, where Jewish
  populations were smaller, the pace of genocide
  was uneven.
• In several countries, Christians and/or left
  wingers opposed extreme persecution with some
  temporary success.
• Nevertheless, even in The Netherlands, a country
  generally known for toleration, 80 of the Jewish
  population died in the Holocaust.

11
Varieties of Resistance

• Scholars debate how much Jewish resistance there
  was.
• 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
• The price of violent resistance was collective
  reprisal.
• Escape, hiding, and other forms of Holocaust
  resistance

Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Nazi Soldier with
captured resistance fighters.
12
Anne Franks Story Jewish and Universal
13
Family Background

• A middle-class German Jewish family
• Assimilation and Secularism
• To Amsterdam after Nazi takeover in Germany
• At right Anne with parents and older sister
  Margot, Amsterdam, 1941

14
Otto Franks Business

• Annes fathers company manufactures a product
  people can use to make jam.
• The companys building has unused rooms in the
  rear.
• These become the Secret Annexe where the Franks
  hide, starting in July 1942..

15
Life in Hiding

• Contact and Isolation
• Crowding and Conflict
• Teenage Romance
• Creating a literary legacy

Recreation of a room in the Secret Annexe
16
Attic of the Secret Annexe
17

• August 4, 1944 An SS officer and three Dutch
  policemen arrive. The Frank family and the
  others in the Annexe are arrested and taken to
  Westerbork prison camp (below). Soon after they
  are sent to Auschwitz, in Poland.
• Anne Frank died of typhus in March, 1945 at the
  Bergen-Belsen camp in Germany. Of the eight
  arrested, only Otto Frank survived.

18
The History of the Diary

• After the war, publication in the Netherlands,
  1947
• Translated into English, published in US in 1952
  as The Diary of a Young Girl.
• Broadway play, then movie (1959) and TV drama.

19
Anne Franks Hope

• In spite of everything, I still believe that
  people are really good at heart.
• July 15, 1944
• Is this the lesson we can learn from the story of
  Anne Frank?