RealTimeWWII: Nazi occupiers of Czechoslovakia take over Terezin for ghetto

I follow the twitter feed for Real Time WWII, and this is today's post:
Nazi occupiers of Czechoslovakia have taken over walled fortress of Terezín to use as a ghetto & concentration camp. pic.twitter.com/lNq1oJvSac

Blog Questions for 11/20

JAH 386-404:

Why did the Nazis change their method of extermination from mass shooting to gassing in the death camps? How many Jews, and from which countries, were killed in the camps?

There was a horrific group of Nazi’s who committed mass murders and mass shootings called the Einsatzgruppen. They either would shoot Jews into a ditch, or just throw them in.The number of Jews that were killed by Einsatzgruppen A-D was jaw dropping and sickening. Some of the groups killed up to of 33,000 Jews. The Nazis began to feel that shooting was laborious and to dependent on man power. Additionally, it began getting too emotional for the men doing the shooting. At the Wannsee Conference, 15 members discussed the "Final Solution," which was meant to find a solution for a more efficient way to kill all the Jews in Europe. Concentration camps were fixed killing institutions, which makes me sick to even talk about. The gassing started with carbon monoxide poison in busses and then was switched to gassing in camps. By 1943 1.7 million Jews were killed by gas. The gassing method was used in all major extermination camps in Trebinka, Chelmno, Auschwitz, Sobibor, Belzec and Majdanek. The number of Jews that were murdered in camps was overwhelming. From 1942-1944 107,000 Dutch Jews were gassed at Auschwitz and Sobibor. In 1944- 77,000 French Jews were killed. 25,000 Belgium Jews were sent to Auschwitz.

pp. 491-493 Report of the Iraqi Commission of Inquiry on the Farhud

The Farhud was an attack on the Jews of Baghdad in 1941 - what happened and why did it happen?

The Farhud was a horrific attack on the Jews of Baghdad in ’41. What happened was soldiers punched and stabbed Jewish people near the Khurr bridge. The individuals that were stabbed were sent to a nearby hospital. Then, a mob formed outside of the hospital demanding that they release the Jews so they can kill them. The hatred of these people is disturbing. Additionally, soldiers began to hurt and even kill other civilians. Jews and Muslims were the main targets of the hate crimes. The mayhem in Baghdad also involved robberies. The reason all of this was happening was because of Nazi propaganda such as The German Legation. 

Blog post for 11/20

Why were the ghettos set up? What were the conditions in the ghettos?

The ghettos were created to confine and segregate the Jews. Essentially the established of ghettos were to expedite the practice of terror on a large and efficient scale. Within the time frame of October 1939 and April 1941, the Nazi regime began to forcibly place Polish Jews into these ghettos. The Nazi ghettos can be compared to prisons because of it lack a free will to leave. Each night a German guard would lock up the gates from the outside to ensure no one would escape. Typically, Nazi ghettos were constructed in the poorest sections of towns, while “the non-Jewish population was moved out and Jews were transferred in”.  Established to help survive in the ghettos, the Jewish social Self-help (ZETOS) was an organization that “…dealt with refugee affairs, housing, clothing, culture, and public kitchens...” They made a provisional school system, created religious services, and organized activities for the community. Though the ZETOS did as much as they could, it was not enough; “In Warsaw at least 75 percent of the 100,000 Jewish children under the age of fifteen required welfare assistance of some kind” and not all were being cared for. In addition, within the ghettos “Jews suffered from overcrowding epidemics, starvation, terror, and isolation from the outside world.” Overcrowding had spread disease; the typhus epidemic had taken the lives of 43,239 victims. Plumbing was dysfunctional and eventually overflowed the toilets. There was little heat offered to the Jews in the winter and water was infrequent. Parents were often forced to choose between using their water for cooking or for washing lice out of a child’s hair. In terms of starvation, the ration of their monthly food didn’t nearly equate to our consumption of food per month (in modern day). Within the Warsaw ghetto, the daily bread ration was less than 3.5 ounces. “In January 1941, the official total daily caloric intake granted Jews was 220” and by “august 1941, it was reduced to 177”! In 1941 august 5,560 perished from hunger and a total of 500,000 Jews died from starvation and disease.

Visit to Latvia - Riga and Liepaja

In the summer of 2010, I went on a visit to two cities in Latvia - Riga and Liepaja. Riga is the capital of Latvia, and Liepaja is a city along the coast of the Baltic where my grandfather's uncle and his wife - Mordecai and Dovra Falkon - were living when the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union in June of 1941. Mordecai was murdered with other Jewish men in the summer, and Dovra was killed in mid-December with many other Jewish women at a site on the Baltic coast north of Liepaja. I wrote up my visit to both cities on my personal blog - these are links to my posts:

Visit to Riga
Visit to Liepaja

Nov 20th Blog Questions

5. Q: How did Jews resist the Nazi genocide?

   A: Three ways that the Jews resisted Nazi genocide were emigration, spiritual resistance, and armed struggles. An example of emigration was the Kindertransport. The Kindertransport was when England received approximately 10,000 Jewish children living in the Reich. In Poland, Emanual Ringelblum organized the documentation of ghetto life with the help of an array of rabbis, social scientists, writers, historians, and journalists. This was known by the code name of Oyneg Shabbes which translates to "Sabbath Delight." Despite Jewish education being deemed illegal, from 1940-1942, an illegal Jewish high school in the Warsaw ghetto taught vocational courses as well as technical drawing and pharmacology classes. Bundist and Zionist youth persisted in printing out newspapers as well as offering intellectual and spiritual comfort to those living in the ghettos. On April 19, 1943, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising occurred. Jewish resistance fighters waited for the germans to enter the ghetto in order to liquidate it with Molotov cocktails and pistols. The battle went on for there weeks until commander Mordechai Anielewicz was killed, arrests were made, and Jewish hideouts were discovered.  

6. Q:Should the US or Britain have bombed the death camps?
 
   A: I believe the shouldn't have, but rather bomb the train lines leading to Auschowitz-Birkenau. Despite that idea being dismissed as "logistically unfeasible" (JAH 403), this would have prevented further Jews from entering the concentration camps as well as cutting off travel. From this, air support could've arrived at the camps and use the German's lack of transportation to overtake the camp and save those incarcerated.

Blog posts for 11/18

 Hitler took control of Germany and stripped it of its democratic system to that he was the sole leader, and he had the control. The Nazi's use of propaganda is studied by marketing students because their message was so effective. Their propaganda was everywhere and it was relentless. Hitler had to use the Jews as a scapegoat for many of the problems in Germany, but he had to do it slowly and systematically. It wasn't like over night everyone believed the Jews were sub-human, it all had to start with blaming them for something small. And once the idea that the Jews were responsible for something small, it wouldn't surprise the public they were behind something a little bigger, and then something a little bigger than that, and so on until finally the public is at the point of full anti-semitic emotions toward the Jews. 



When Hitler is talking about emotional anti-Semitism he is talking about all things that relate to emotions. Jews control the media so they are bad, Jews are bankers so they are greedy, etc. are all forms of emotional anti-semitism, they draw a negative emotional response from the Germans. Racial anti-semitism refers to the Jews not even being people. Hitler installed this idea in the German people that Jews were less than them, merely animals. This idea of being superior to them is racial anti-semitism.

Questions for 11/20

How did the Einsatzgruppen (the murder squads) proceed in killing the Jews of the Soviet Union?

They were composed of between 500-900 people and were divided up into smaller commando squads. They would enter the towns in the early hours of the morning and take their victims by surprise. They forced them to march to anti-tank ditches or sometimes forced them to dig their own graves. After they were robbed and stripped, they were then machine gunned to death.

pp. 491-493 Report of the Iraqi Commission of Inquiry on the Farhud

The Farhud was an attack on the Jews of Baghdad in 1941 - what happened and why did it happen?

 

Soldiers punched and stabbed Jewish people near the Khurr bridge. The individuals were sent to the hospital and a mob formed outside of the hospital demanding they they release the Jews so they can kill them. Soldiers also began to hurt and/or kill other civilians, Jews and Muslims alike, as well as robbing stores. It happened because of Nazi propaganda such as The German Legation and the Mutfi of Jerusalem Amin al-Husayni and his entourage.

Questions 11/18

1. Once the Nazis gained power in Germany in 1933, how did they move against the Jews?

The first step was Hitler being named the chancellor of Germany making him the most powerful man in Germany.  Hitler's next step was to end democracy in Germany so that he was making all of the decisions.  The Nazi party then decided to implement their ideas and their notion that the Arian race was the superior race to everyone in the world. One of the first moves the Nazi party made against the Jews was to implement the Nuremberg laws in 1933. These laws restricted the Jews to secondary citizens and prevented Jews to go to movies or regular schools. 

2. What happened on Kristallnacht? Why did the Nazis do it?

Kristallnacht took place on November 9-10 1938.  The english translation of Kristallnacht is "Crystal Night" which is fitting because many Jewish homes, synagogues and over 7,500 Jewish businesses were destroyed by non Jewish citizens and German SA officers. Many Jews were killed and the ones who weren't were sent to different concentration camps. The Nazi's did this to try and wipe out the Jews from the economy because the Nazis were blaming the Jews for many of the problems in the German economy. 

Question for Nov 20

There are many ways the Jews tried to resist the Nazi genocide. Ways which Jews tried to resist include emigration, spiritual resistance and armed struggle. Parents did their best to save their children by sending them to non-Jews to care for them. The children from the Reich were transported by the Kindertransport to England. Furthermore, Emanuel Ringelblum started a secret operation, called Oyneg Shabbes.  Its aim was to collect documents of ghetto life of the Jews of Poland. Writers, journalists, teachers, rabbis, social scientists and historians helped by doing tasks such as writing papers, gathering documents and photographs, commissioned photos and papers from children. From the information documented by the Oyneg Shabbes, it has been found that the individuals in the ghetto camps survived longer because the children smuggled food; artists, musicians, poets and painters still attempted to continue doing their work; there was still an operating Jewish High School in the Warsaw ghetto between 1940 and 1942. Additionally, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was a prominent case of Jewish armed resistance. The Jewish Fighting Organization was created and was led by Mordechai Anielewicz. They fought the Germans for, three weeks, with pistols and Molotov cocktails. It ended when Anielewicz was killed and General Jürgen Stroop destroyed Warsaw’s Great Temple, as a way to point out his victory. Overall, Jewish resistance did not change the situation of the Jews. 

Blog post for 11/20

JAH 386-404:

1. Why did the Nazis change their method of extermination from mass shooting to gassing in the death camps? How many Jews, and from which countries, were killed in the camps?

Nazi killing groups called Einsatzgruppen began to commit mass shootings. Either Jews were shot into a ditch or were thrown into one.The number of Jews that were killed by Einsatzgruppen A-D was startling. Some groups killed upwards of 33,000 Jews. The Nazis found that shooting was laborious, ineffective and too dependent on manpower. It also started to become too emotions for Germans. At the Wannsee Conference 15 members discussed the "Final Solution," which resulted in a solution for a more efficient way to kill all the Jews in Europe. Concentration camps were fixed killing institutions and no longer did Einsatzgruppen have to track down and shoot Jews. Gassing started with carbon monoxide poison in busses and then was switched to gassing in camps. By 1943 1.7 million were gased. Jews were gassed and murdered in camps all over Europe, with major extermination camps in Trebinka, Chelmno, Auschwitz, Sobibor, Belzec and Majdanek. Jews were taken from all over to these camps, but mostly from the major ghettos nearby. The number of Jews that were murdered in camps depended on the year for example:

From 1942-1944 107,000 Dutch Jews were gassed at Auschwitz and Sobibor.

1944- 77,000 French Jews were killed.

25,000 Belgium Jews were sent to Auschwitz.

JMW: 777-778 “A Secret Speech on the Jewish Question,” by Heinrich Himmler:

What does this speech reveal about the mentality of Himmler, one of the architects of the Final Solution?

Himmler begins his speech with the "Jewish Question." Jews must be exterminated, even though it might be hard to do. There might be a decent Jew that you know but that is not the case overall. Everyone has to be murdered, even the children because they will grow up and threaten Germans' sons and grandsons. There is an even larger effect on the Germans who are executing these murders, but don't worry, they are fine. The Jewish question will be answered by the end of the year.

-Through Himmler's speech he seems deeply sorry for every decision he is making, it pains him, but it must be done.

Hannah Wolinsky- Blog Question for Wednesday November 20, 2013

Hannah Wolinsky

What do these two diaries (by Chaim Kaplan and Janusz Korczak) reveal about life in the Warsaw Ghetto?

Chaim Kaplan’s Diary:

March 10, 1940: This diary entry opens up with the idea that hate towards Jews has become so normal and overlooked. “The Jew is filthy; the Jew is a swindler and evil; the Jew is the enemy of Germany and undermines its existence; the Jew was the prime mover in the Versailles Treaty; the Jew is Satan.” He then goes on to talk about how the Germans believe that Judaism and Nazism cannot exist together because they are so conflicting. The Germans believe that humanity must either be German or Jewish. Kaplan feels that the entire Jewish community no longer has a grip on life in the Warsaw Ghetto. The diary entry then turns around and becomes more optimistic, discussing how there is a hidden power in the Jewish community that keeps them alive. Although the Jews are being persecuted, humiliated, and broken, they continue to love life and fight for their rights to survive. The fact that the Warsaw Ghetto has seen hardly any suicides is proof of that hidden strength.

October 2, 1940: Even on holidays, the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto are not allowed to have public prayers. Kaplan remarks what a wonder it is how they are still surviving. The Jews of this ghetto are not allowed to do virtually anything, yet they still find a way to make a life for themselves. Their emotions have become numbed by the circumstances in which they have been treated.

Janusz Korczak’s Diary:

Korczak mentions how hard life is, but how easy death is. He greets a young girl and pleads for her to smile but all he sees is an “unhealthy, pale, lung-sick smile.” He then speaks of hunger and misery later on in this diary entry. As a guard is watching Korczak water flowers, he wonders why this man is standing so calmly. Perhaps he doesn’t know how bad things were in this ghetto.

Steven Gilburne - November 18th - Blog Questions

1. Once the Nazis gained power in Germany in 1933, how did they move against the Jews?

First, Hitler was appointed as the chancellor which made him the most powerful person in the German Government. He ended German democracy as his initial move so he was able to do whatever he liked. He implemented his storm troopers to terrorize the people as well. The Nazi’s soon after began to implement their ideology that Nazi’s are the superior race. The Nuremberg laws in 1933 made the Jews second class citizens which was another affect of the move against the Jews. They could not go to movies, schools, and other things that non Jews were allowed to do. 

2. What does Hitler mean by the distinction between “emotional antisemitism” and “racial antisemitism”?

By Emotional Antisemitism, Hitler is talking about how Jews are seen as less than the average citizen, and how they were “bad” and everything that came with a Jew was “bad”, Making it an emotional issue. By Racial Antisemitism, Hitler is talking about how he views the Jew’s as an alien race. That they are actually a different people, not antisemitism through the German filtered lens that makes Jews seem like bad people (emotional antisemitism).

Blog Nov 18

1.             What does Hitler mean by the distinction between "emotional antisemitism" and "racial antisemitism"?

Hitler made a distinction between ‘emotional anti-Semitism’ and ‘racial anti-Semitism’ in order to rationalize his beliefs. According to Hitler, ‘emotional anti-Semitism’ was an invalid way of creating a political movement because it wasn’t based in fact. ‘Anti-Semitism based on purely emotional grounds will find its ultimate expression in the form of pogroms.’ In order to truly rid the world of Jewry, a ‘systematic, legal campaign against the Jews [to annul] the special privileges they enjoy in contrast to the other foreigners living among us” was necessary. 

1.             What happened on Kristallnacht? Why did the Nazis do it?

Kristallnact took place on November 9-10, 1938. This event can be seen as a microcosm for the entire Holocaust. The English translation is ‘Crystal Night’ which was fitting because of the massive amounts of glass that littered the streets from Jewish establishments being destroyed by SA paramilitary forces and non-Jewish civilians. Many Jews were killed and thousands were arrested and taken into concentration camps only to meet their death there. This event was sparked because of the assassination of the German diplomat Ernst vom Rath by Herschel Grynszpan. Grynszpan was a German-born Polish Jew who lived in Paris.

blog post for Nov. 19th

Once the Nazis gained power in Germany in 1933, how did they move against the Jews? 

Before Hitler’s rise to power, he vowed to isolate the Jews and shun them away from the German public sphere. This later became the central idea for the Nazi party. In Hitler’s Twenty- five point program, he expresses their plans for the Jews of Germany: “Only a member of the [German] race can be a citizen. A member of the race can only be one who is German blood, without consideration of creed. Consequently no Jew can be a member of the race.” Because of the Nazi centralization and Hitler's rise to power, this ideal escalated to full enforcement against the Jews. People began to openly hate the Jewish people. For instance, on April 4, 1933, Bishop Otto Dibelius, the leading protestant clergyman in Germany, expressed his support for the Nazi party by stating, “I have always considered myself an anti-Semite.” As the societal structure in Germany began to accept widespread anti-Semitism, widening exclusion, public humiliation and physical terror were experienced everywhere. The German government sought to prosecute the Jews without harming Germany's international reputation and economic recovery. Thus the anti-Jewish campaign moved to berlin in Nazi Germany and began to create a rift in the Jewish economy. In 1934, 20 percent of the German Jewry did not have an income and slowly became impoverished. Nazi Germans began to Ayranize all Jewish businesses. They had single handedly forced this transfer and outright robbed Jewish property and their businesses. By 1938 between 60 and 70% of German Jewish businesses had shut down. In addition, on May 10 1933, universities all over Germany banded together to burn the books created by Jewish and anti-Nazi authors. By 1938 the decertification of all Jewish physicians was set in place and were now considered “sick-treaters”. Hitler became “…increasingly celebrated as a great conqueror. He had rearmed Germany, brought it international recognition, disenfranchisement and robbed the Jews in the absence of meaningful international protest and expanded the country’s territory, all without firing a shot.”

Questions for Nov 18

7. Kristallnacht, also known as Night of Broken Glass, occurred in November 1938. Jewish homes and 7,500 Jewish owned shops and businesses were ruined. Other damage that occurred include destruction of over one thousand synagogues, killing ninety one percent of the Jewish population and sending several Jews to concentration camps. Hitler only permitted police and fire brigades to provide assistance when German life and property were at risk. Also in order to impair the Jewish economy, it was decided that Jews were responsible to pay for clean-up and the state only paid Jewish owners a very little amount for their property and then they sold it for its actual value. This eliminated the Jews from the economy, which was the Nazi’s goal. The Nazi’s did this as, “Hitler was concerned about the uninhibited private profiteering for the Aryanizations of Jewish business and property.” The Austrian and German Jewish population was basically wiped out after Kristallnacht.

"Response of the Christian population in Germany to the Nuremberg Laws"

In towns such as Allenstein, a mostly Catholic town, Christians still bought goods from Jewish shops. They also respected and treated the Jews well, as they did not really abide by the race laws. However, the situation was not the same in other cities, which were predominantly Protestant. Everyone in Nuremburg did not approve of the Anti-Semitic laws. The Protestants thought the laws would inhibit riots and propaganda.  Most of the population did not want the Anti-semantic laws. The document states, “It would indeed be desirable to stop such anti-Semitic excesses, which are condemned by the greater part of the population.”

Title

My question is this, was a pogrom on the scale perpetrated by Hitler and Nazi Germany possible in any other country at the time?  We have seen that in many countries at the time there were feelings of anti-antisemitism to varying degrees.  In the U.S. powerful individuals, such as Henry Ford, and groups, The Ku Klux Klan, advocated that action be taken against the Jewish immigrants that were entering the country.  In addition the ideas of eugenics, that Hitler eventually borrowed, had their roots in American science.  Alfred Dreyfus was a French citizen and a member of the military general staff but was still accused and found guilty of treason.  Such a crime had heavy implications about the loyalty of Jews to their country.  Even when war did break out some areas that were invaded by the Nazis cooperated with the Germans and gave up Jews living there.  In the modern day region that was Ukraine nearly a million Jews were captured and executed by Nazis.  The main difference that I can see between Germany and other countries was that in Germany a anti-Semitic government with an aggressive leader was able to obtain office.  In Russia such ideas were rejected by the communists, while in the U.S. democracy was able to limit immigration of Jews but could not outright persecute them, though eugenics was gaining ground.  England had gave a remarkable number of Jewish soldiers medals for the their efforts in The Great War.  In France antisemitism was alive and present, the actions taken by French after German occupation show such, and in Italy as well a fascist government violently opposed to socialism emerged.  Had Germany not began World War II might not a similar event have occurred in another country?

In addition, why were Jewish shops and profeshionals targeted before synagouges in Nazi Germany?
 The reason would appear to be that the Germans were more concerned about the Jews as a race rather then a religion.  Jews were seen to dominate in many fields, such as the medical profession,  and Jewish business owners were thought to be draining the German economy.  By attacking, fining and liquidating Jewish business owners and their property; the Nazis were able to seize funds while at the same time limit Jewish presence in German society.  Jewish doctors, professors, and students were forced to abandon their profession as well.  Compared to these more visible individuals synagogues were far less important.  It is true that later the Nazis defined a Jew as "...belonged to the Jewish religious community at the time this law was issued or joined the community later." but the actual communities themselves seemed of little importance.  By looking into the future we can perhaps see why the Jewish community and synagogues were at first overlooked.  With Germany preparing for war the acquisition of funds as we as educating a new generation in Nazi thought took precedence.  Adolf Hitler had a clear idea of the method of dealing with Jews in the future but until Germany was militarily built up the primary goal was to limit Jewish influence and power in society. 

Blog Questions 11/18

What happened on Kristallnacht? Why did the Nazis do it?

Kristallnacht was a night where citizens and government officials alike destroyed over 7,500 Jewish shops and homes, over 1,000 synagogues. They also killed 91 Jews and put 26,000 in concentration camps. The police and fire brigades were ordered not to get involved, unless German life or property was in danger. This was put forth by Joseph Goebbels to unleash spontaneous demonstrations in retaliation after Hershel Grynszpan, a Jew, shot the third secretary in the German Embassy.

What does Hitler mean by the distinction between "emotional antisemitism" and "rational (not racial) antisemitism"?

According to Hitler, "emotional antisemitism" will be expressed in pogroms and will be carried out based on inner emotions and without thought, and will thus be not truly effective. Rational antisemitism will be a systematic, legal campaign against the Jews by revoking privileges that they enjoy.

Blog Question for Monday November 18- Hannah Wolinsky

Hannah Wolinsky

What happened on Kristallnacht? Why did the Nazis do it?

Kristallnacht, also known as the Night of Broken Glass, was a night that marked the destruction of Jewish-run businesses as well as any place of public Jewish life. 7,500 shops and businesses owned by Jews were destroyed on this night, and over 1,000 synagogues were broken into and stolen from. 300 synagogues were set on fire and neither police or fire brigades were allowed to do anything to stop it. About 26,000 Jews were gathered and taken to concentration camps, while 91 Jews were killed on this one night. This was the last time that such a violent occurrence toward the Jews would take place in public, rather than discreetly in private. The Nazis not only held Kristallnacht in order to further the discrimination and heartless attitude towards Jews, but also to ensure that Jews were no longer making a living the way they previously had been. By destroying 7,500 shops and businesses owned by Jews, the Nazis were ensuring that Jews no longer be in business or have any economical freedom.

What does Hitler mean by the distinction between "emotional antisemitism" and "racial antisemitism"?

Emotional anti-Semitism is anti-Semitism only based on emotional grounds. This type of anti-Semitism is not systematic and not truly effective. An example of emotional anti-Semitism is pogroms. Rational anti-Semitism, on the other hand, uses a legal and logical campaign against the Jews. Rational anti-Semitism includes destroying special privileges that the Jews enjoy with the ultimate destruction of all Jews.