The Holocaust

1
The Holocaust A Quest for Meaning
Prof. Heidi M. Szpek
2
Life Before the Holocaust
Kielce's Market Kielce Museum, Jewish artist
P.Schultz
3
Anti-Semitism before the Holocaust

• Jew as the Other under Rome early
  Christianity
• Persecution during the Crusades
• Creation of the ghetto (Venice 1517)
• Blood libel charges
• Martin Luther
• Emphasis on conversion
• Issue of Usury
• Mass expulsions throughout Europe (1500-1900)
• Prominence of the Other (professional
  accomplishments)
• Change from Anti-Semitism based on religion to
  ethnic discrimination

4
Pale of Settlement in Russia

• Est. 1791 by Czar Elizabeth II, under pressure to
  rid Moscow of Jewish
• business evil influence
• 90 of Jews lived in
• 4 of land

5
Pogroms (E. Europe)
Yiddish/Russian term for devastation
6
Jewish Reaction

• Sought complete assimilation
• Fought to be accepted at local and national
  levels (e.g. WWI service)
• Maintained separate Jewish lifestyle

Excerpt Norman Salsitz, A Jewish Boyhood in
Poland Remembering Kolbuszowa
7
Four-tiered Social Structure
Eastern Europe

• Poles (Catholic)
• Ukranian peasant (Russian Orthodox)
• Volksdeutsch/Ethnic German descendant of German
  settlers brought in during 18th century
• Jews (Yiddish)

8
Select Additional Sources

• Elie Wiesel, The World of the Shtetl.
• In Wise Men and Their Tales Portraits of
  Biblical, Talmudic, and Hasidic Masters.
  Schocken, 2004 (pp. 316-336). On Reserve
• http//www.bagnowka.com
• http//www.ushmm.org/
• http//motlc.learningcenter.wiesenthal.org
• (hopefully soon back online)

9
After World War I

• Largest Jewish community was in Poland
• Ukraine Petlura Gang 60,000 Jews killed
• Germany Weimar Constitution democracy
• Walter Rathenau, Minister of Reconstruction
• Jews blamed for Germanys humiliation
• National Socialist German Workers Party

10
25 Point Program

• (Munich, 25 February 1920)
• Creation of a Greater Germany
• Return of Germanys lost colonies
• POINT FOUR
• None but members of the Nation may be members of
  the State. None but those of German blood,
  whatever creed, may be members of the Nation. No
  Jew therefore may be members of the Nation.

11
Adolf Hitler

• 1920 7 in the Nazi party
• 1925 jailed for treason
• 1925 first installment of Mein Kampf
• Marxism Judaism greatest threats
• Redefined Aryan and Semitic
• Excerpt Mein Kampf
• 1933 Chancellor of Germany

12
1925-1933 Germany

• Military organization within Nazi party
  established (SA, SS, Gestapo)
• 1926 Hitler Youth
• Inflation unemployment began to rise
• 1931 Rosh HaShanah attack on Jews returning
  from synagogue symbolic

13
1933

• 5 February 1933 Emergency Decree
• 27 February 1933 Reichstag fire
• 28 February 1933 Emergency Order
• March 1933 Dachau opened
• 23 March 1933 Enabling Act
• Einzeloperationen individual operations
• Boycott of Jewish shops
• Windows marked with Star of David or Jude
• 7 April 1933 Order retirement (all non-Aryans)
• Sachsenhausen Esterwegen camps
• Jews expelled from Universities (Einstein)
• 10 May 1933 book burning, Berlin Opera House
• October 1933 Law of Revolution at Dachau (hanging)

14
Jewish Reaction

• Despair
• Suicide
• Some left Germany to W. Europe
• 5000 emigrated to Palestine
• Others waited

15
1934-1935

• Intensified campaign to create Judenfrei villages
• May 1934 Der Sturmer

16

• Attempted legislation to prevent sexual relations
  between Jews and non-Jews
• Redefinition of who is Jewish
• New term Christian non-Aryans
• 15 September 1935 Nuremberg Laws
• 1. Citizenship only belong to a national of
  German or kindred blood
• 2. Jews were not of German blood intermarriages
  forbidden
• 3. forbid relations outside marriage between Jew
  and German
• 4. Jews forbidden to fly German flag

17
1936-August 31, 1939

• Assassination of Wilhelm Gustloff, head of Nazi
  party in Switzerland, THUS all police power
  centralized under Gestapo
• One of events later used to justify Kristallnacht
• March 1936 Przytyk pogrom, s. of Warsaw
• Poles would be accustomed to such actions
• Palestinian Arabs begin General Strike
• Because British allowed Jews to emigrate in
  Palestine
• Hitler into Rhineland (violating Versailles)
• half of German Jews find refuge
• Polish Jewry (c. 4 million) too extensive

18
The Eternal Jew

• 8 November 1937

19
1938

• March 1938 Austria annexed (Anschluss)
• Buchenwald opens
• June 1938 burning of synagogues
• 6 July 1938 International Conference at Evian
  issue of refugees avoid having a Jewish problem
• September 1938 Sudetenland to Germany

20
Kristallnacht

• 9 November 1938
• Impetus Grynszpan affair (Paris)
• 191 synagogues damaged
• Jews fined for damage done

Berlin, Germany
Dortmund, Germany
21

• December 1938 first train to Britain with German
  Jewish children
• 3 May 1938 second Jewish Law Hungary
• Forbid Jews to be judge, lawyer, teacher
• 17 May 1939 Palestine White Paper
• 75,000 Jews to Palestine in next 5 years
• May 1939 plight of the St. Louis
• 23 August 1939 non-aggression pact between Nazi
  Germany Soviet Union
• If invade Poland, Soviet Union would do nothing

1 September 1939 Germany invades Poland
World War II begins
22
Discussion

• Your response/reactions to stories/
• photos/details in Gilberts Holocaust Wiesels
  After the Darkness
• Life and character of Adolf Hitler
• Your response to
• response/reaction of world
• human nature for action/thoughts to oppressed at
  this time