In our continued study of the Second World War, we will turn our attention to the atrocities known as the Holocaust. While many people now know of the horrible slaughter of millions of Jews and other groups, the story has not always been widely understood, and even now some groups are claiming that it never happened.
In class we briefly discussed antisemitism (the hatred of Jews) and its origins. It's rather difficult to imagine that Americans were once generally antisemitic, holding all Jews accountable for the crucifiction of Jesus and continuing the European tradition of blaming Jews for all wide-spread financial woes. The Ku Klux Klan, in addition to the mistreatment of African-Americans, also targeted Jews and Catholics in their abuses. It was only after the revelation of the evils of the Holocaust that most Americans adopted a sympathetic view of the Jewish people.
Jews have lived in America almost since the very first settlers arrived. Because most of the colonies were founded by determined Protestant groups, however, Jews weren't welcomed many places. It was Maryland, with its guaranteed religious freedom for all, and New Amsterdam (New York), with its secular society, where most of the Jewish settlers made their homes. Following World War II hundreds of thousands of American Jews, called Zionists, would emigrate to the new country of Israel, recreating a nation that had been non-existent for almost 2,000 years. They even revived the ancient Hebrew language in order to assimilate all the Jews that would arrive from countries like the US and the Soviet Union and many others. Israel was even governed by a Jewish-American - Golda Meir.
Today millions of Americans claim Jewish heritage. Although there has never been a Jewish-American president or vice-president, Jews have served in every other capacity in government. Because American Jews aren't always possible to identify strictly my physical appearance, many Americans are unaware of this minority group (thank goodness for Adam Sandler's Hanukah song, right?). Still concentrated in New York, some pockets of Jewish Americans cling to the traditions that set them apart in the earlier days of our nation's history. They even speak a language called Yiddish - unique in that it never belonged to a country, and was entirely made up of slang and bits of other languages. (Some of the words have become common in English, such as schmooz and klutz). So even if you think this assignment is megilla, be a mensch - not a nudnik or a neddish - and get it done, mach shnel. Fershtay?
Please go to the National Holocaust Museum education web site - http://www.ushmm.org/outreach/en/ - and report on one of the articles you find there. Also, if you have visited the holocaust museum or been to a European museum of similar focus, share your experience. The requirements for this assignment include responses to at least two other essays (minimum 150 words). Good luck and God bless!
-Nazi Racism:
ReplyDeleteHitler always had ideas about race. Even years before he came chancellor he spread his beliefs in racial “purity” and in the superiority of the “Germanic Race” - what he called an Aryan “master race”. The ideal of the Aryan was blond, blue-eyed, tall. When Hitler finally came to power, these beliefs became the government ideology and were spread in publicity displayed posters, on the radio, in movies, in classrooms, and in newspapers.
Target of these public programs were ethnic groups for example the Roma (Gypsies), african-german and especially Jews. Hitler and other Nazi leaders viewed the Jews not as a religious group, but as a poisonous "race," which "lived off" the other races and weakened them. After Hitler took power, Nazi teachers in school classrooms began to apply the "principles" of racial science. They measured skull size and nose length, and recorded the color of their pupils' hair and eyes to determine whether students belonged to the true "Aryan race."
-Story about a Jew in a concentration camp:
At this point I want to share a story I've been told at a Nazi museum which has once been a Nazi base in Germany. It's called the Wewelsburg and is placed in Paderborn, Nordrhein-Westfalen, near a concentration camp. The office guide showed the documents of all the people who died in that concentration camp. In the end he pulled out on case, talking about the youngest victim. It was 15-years old boy. It was a winter and snow lied on the ground. He was playing near the fence to the outside world when he saw a girl passing the way. Out of whatever reason they both started a snowball fight. In the evening when the girl returned home she told her father about the “funny snowball fight with the jew in the concentration camp”. Her father went off about it. In a letter to the Nazi base he writes about “evil influence of an object touched by a Jew” and the “loss of his daughter's innocence”. A worker at the base told him they'd “take care of it”.
The next day the jewish boy in the concentration camp took a shower and was “never seen again”.
This week assiment is concentrate of the World World II.I decide to talk about the worst concentrate camp ever: Auschwitz. It was the largest camp estabilished from the Germans. It include different type of camp, such as concentration, extermination, and forced-labor camp. It was estabilished in Cracow (Krakow), Poland. It was divided in three part: Auschwitz I, Auschwitz II (or Birkenau) and Auschwitz III (or Monowitz). More than one million people lost their lives at Auschwitz and most of them were Jewish. At the entrance of the camp there was a written "ARBEIT MACHT FREI", which means "work makes one free." Actually the Nats decided to "kill" person with labor work. Escaped from Auschwitz were almost impossible. All the camp was surrounded by elettrical cables and tehre were guards with guns everywhere. Most prisoners at Auschwitz survived only a few weeks or months.
ReplyDeleteFor the second report I decide to explain the beginning of the Nazi. After Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany in January 1933, he decided to turn Germany to a one-party dictatorship and organized a Nazi police. He declared end of individual freedom. People were controlled; infact the officials could read your own mail and listen your conversation on the phone.
Termination of the Handicapped:
ReplyDeleteDuring the time of Hitler's escapade he made it very clear that mentally and physically handicapped people were not acceptable in his "superior race" he was creating. As an attempt to remove all of these people Hitler came up with a program known as "euthanasia." This program was so extremely unorthodox that it's almost unbelievable, doctors were the main overseers of these murders and they came up with documents stating that the patient was no longer a use to society there for there existence here was no longer needed and with that they were murdered. Any mentally or medically fragile infants or children were usually either starved to death or they were injected with an insane dose of drugs which provided a horrible death, but there pain was disregarded because they were "useless." It is insane how heartless these people had to have been but as Akers said the fear of authority far exceeded the personal morals put into practice. In other countries this still goes on, people forget to remember that no matter what the situation people have rights and they are children of God... All I know is judgment day will be quite interesting if the world continues in the way it is going.
Christian:
ReplyDeleteGreat job on your essay. The whole Rescue in Denmark thing absolutely amazes me! I can't fathom how only 51 people could die when the odds of that happening were so slim. I would say that those people were granted much grace in the day of these events. Your essay was full of brilliant information and I got a lot from it. So again really good job.
Marta:
Really good job on your essay. I really enjoyed how you put a lot of your opinion into every thing. Again you had plenty of information and I know more now about the topic than I ever would have other wise. Now especially in the second part of your essay it really stuck out to me where you said that the government could push into literally every part of your life even down to your phone call! Great job!
The Nuremberg Race Laws
ReplyDeleteThe German Reichstag made at the Nuremberg Party Rally on 09.15.1935, the "Reich Citizenship Law" and the "Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor." The law distinguishes German blood, Jews and mongrels between first and second degree. Before the law were counted as German blood and half-breeds as imperial citizens, not Jews. Both laws mean that since 1933 the legal codification is intended to represent the Nazis, the tightening of public discrimination and persecution of the Jews in the German Reich. The German Jews determined to be second-class citizens and people with less rights. There are only a citizen of the Reich, if they are "German or related blood". The Jews were not allowed to consult with and work in any public office. They were not allowed to marry a pure German and have no relationship to one, because it was committed. So they were no longer citizens of the Reich, but only a simple citizen. This also meant the discrimination of the disabled and mentally ill. They were, like the Gypsies, closely monitored. Some of them were used in 1939 under the pretext of racial hygiene considerations as experimental subjects.
Of course, sharp protests came from home and abroad. They responded with sharp newspaper articles, pamphlets and letters to Hitler and protested. But it did not impressed the Nazi officers; they continued with their propaganda and their actions against Jews.
Christian:
ReplyDeleteI really liked your essay. People always talk about the way Jews were treated during war but I never thought about how they have lived before war. It's kind of fascinatiing how they simply established these own communities called shtetls in which they even used their own books, movies and language to not have a need to adopt other languages of their countries. I never really thought about how they lived in europe but I wouldn't have expected that they kind of excluded themselves. That's really impressing.
Marta:
Your essay is pretty good too. It made me think of the question
we discussed today: If something like in World War II would be able to happen again. Like you said Hitler just kind of changed the laws. It didn't happen overnight but he used pretenses to change it like the Reichstag fire (burning of the reichstag building which was set on fire by a Jew as Hitler said) and after that he just made up the Enabling Act and changed a few laws. It's so inconceivable how Hitler came to power legally by just bypass the real laws of the german empire. Good job!
Anti-Semitism
ReplyDelete“I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you,” (Genesis 12:3). These words were spoken in the book of Genesis by God himself concerning the great nations that Abraham’s descendents would become, but sadly, throughout history, numerous people have neglected this warning about what God will do to the nation against His chosen people.
Racial hatred against Jews is called anti-Semitism and we see examples of this throughout history. Anti-Semitism started when the Romans destroyed the city of Jerusalem in the year 70 A.D. When they destroyed Jerusalem, the Romans also dispersed the Jewish population throughout the empire. As the Roman Empire began to fall and the Middle Ages started to begin, Jews in Europe were able to become rich in times when everyone was poor, you see, Christianity was the official religion of most European Nations and at the time most Christians didn’t believe in lending money with interest, but Jews did, this helped many Jews become quite prosperous. This sparked a hatred for Jews that would continue on for years. Throughout most of the rest of European history, and even American history, the Jews were hated, being called “Christ-killers.” In the 1800s and early 1900s some politicians ran on anti-Semitic campaigns. One such politician was the mayor of Vienna, Karl Lueger, who was an inspiration to the young Adolf Hitler. Hitler’s argument for Anti-Semitism was that the Jews were not as evolved as the rest of the human race because the Jews did not intermarry; the Nazis basically believed that the Jews were sub- human
Nazi Racism:
ReplyDeleteWhen Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany, he brought with him his racial views. He believed that the German race was far more developed than others and that it should be preserved. He believed that Jews were “a poisonous race that lived off other races and weakened them.” He also believed that Gypsies and those who were handicapped or mentally ill were inferior and should be kept from infecting the “Aryan” race. One of his methods of limiting the “infection” of the Aryan gene pool was sterilizing any people who were not beneficial to the preservation of the Aryan race. This included the sterilization of over 500 African-German children.
I went to the National Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC in October of this school year. It was an incredible experience to see photographs and footage and hear stories of what people went through during the Holocaust. It didn’t quite bother me that this event was targeting a specific group, but that these people were treated so terribly. Most people have heard about the gas chambers killing many of them, but I was really surprised to hear that some of them were used for tests to find the limits of the human body. Some were drowned, and others were frozen in icy water or even electrocuted. As I walked through, I periodically saw rooms that were completely filled with photos of people who were affected by the Holocaust. I think it’s hard to really grasp how many people were involved, but when I saw all those photos covering the walls of rooms, I think I started to grasp the reality of it. The thing that really affected me was the sea of shoes. When you walk into the room, you are hit with this eerie feeling that makes your heart sink when you think about how many people lost their lives and can only be remembered by their shoes. It makes me sick to think that this actually happened and could easily happen again, though I pray that it never does.
Jews from the Warsaw ghetto are marched through the “ghetto” during deportation. Warsaw, and also Poland 1942-1943.
ReplyDeleteMany Jews in the ghettos across Eastern Europe tried to reorganize resistance against the Germans and to arm and alarm themselves with smuggled and homemade weapons. Between 1941 and 1943, underground resistance movements formed in about 100 different Jewish groups. The most famous attempt by the Jews to resist the Germans in armed fighting, which occurred in the Warsaw ghetto.
In the summer of 1942, about 300,000 Jews were deported from Warsaw to Treblinka. When many reports of mass murder in the killing center leaked back to the Warsaw ghetto, a surviving group of mostly young people formed an organization called the “Z.O.B.” (For the Polish name, Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa, which means Jewish Fighting Organization). The Z.O.B., led by 23-year-old Mordecai Anielewicz, issued a proclamation calling for the Jewish people to resist going to the railroad cars. In January 1943, Warsaw ghetto fighters fired upon German troops as they tried to round up another group of ghetto inhabitants for deportation. Fighters used a very small supply of weapons that had been smuggled into the ghetto. After a few days, the troops retreated. This small victory inspired the ghetto fighters to prepare for future resistance. And this should hopefully inspire others to push through the hard times and maybe they will get a victory in the end!
Lara, i really liked your essay because it was really well written and well thought out and i like to read your essays because you are from a different country and you have different opinions and its really good to hear what you think.
ReplyDeleteChristian, Very good job on your essay! i always like to hear what you think on these subjects. I can tell you enjoy history and like to learn more and you really write good essays! Good Job!
Lara,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed your essay. I think it is awful how Hitler would do something like this, trying to develop the perfect “Aryan race.”
Christian,
I thought that you did a very good job. I thought you did a good job of painting a picture of what it was like to be a Jew back before the Holocaust.
Hitler Comes to Power
ReplyDeleteIn the early 1930’s Germany’s mood as a country was grim and due to the Peace Conference after World War 1 Germany’s economy had taken a huge hit. Millions of German citizens were out of work and due to their loss in World War 1 many still had little confidence in their German Government. Due to these circumstances the conditions for a new leader, one that without these terrible times probably would have never been elected, to rise from the ashes and make a huge threat to the entire Globe. It was now the perfect timing for Hitler to make his jump to power. Hitler was an incredible speaker and his promised filled speeches filled the hearts of the German people with hope, especially those unemployed, middle class, and the poor. And within a couple of years the Nazis, in the past making up about three percent of the votes of the German political system, would now win the election and make Hitler the new Chancellor of Germany. When Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany in 1933 many Germans believed they had found their savior, and the only hope of restoring Germany back to the way they were used to before World War 1.
Dear Jessi,
ReplyDeleteGREAT JOB, JESSI!!! I really enjoyed your essay and I think you did a really awesome job at getting the point across you wanted to make, and you did so in very good, easy to understand details and backed it up very well with facts and lots of factual information. I really enjoyed your essay and thought you did a really good job! I can’t wait to see what you write next week!
Dear Amanda,
I really enjoyed reading your essay this week, and I think you did a really good job on your essay! You also did a great job at describing the points in your essay with clear, easily understandable wording, but at the same time it was very informative and not at all elementary sounding. You too did a great job on your essay this week and cannot wait to read your essay next week.
For this week homework, I want to talk about Jewish Life in Europe Before the Holocaust. I’m very interested in it, because I’ve never really get into any of it, so this will be a good chance for me to learn some. In 1933, the largest Jewish populations were concentrated in Eastern Europe, including Poland, the Soviet Union, Hungary, and Romania. Many of the Jews of Eastern Europe lived in predominantly Jewish towns or villages, called shtetls. Eastern European Jews lived a separate life as a minority within the culture of the majority. They spoke their own language, Yiddish, which combines elements of German and Hebrew. They read Yiddish books, and attended Yiddish theater and movies. Although many younger Jews in larger towns were beginning to adopt modern ways and dress, older people often dressed traditionally, the men wearing hats or caps, and the women modestly covering their hair with wigs or kerchiefs. When the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, Jews were living in every country of Europe. A total of roughly nine million Jews lived in the countries that would be occupied by Germany during World War II. By the end of the war, two out of every three of these Jews would be dead, and European Jewish life would be changed forever. By the 1930s, with the rise of the Nazis to power in Germany, they all became potential victims, and their lives were forever changed.
ReplyDeleteLara,
ReplyDeleteI love yours, because it is so clear and I like your opinion. You did a really good job, I learned a lot from it. Great job!!:)
Marta,
Your essay is very interesting, I love it!!! I learned a lot from it. You said that it didn’t happen overnight, that’s right, but then nobody stopped him so he became so powerful. You did a good job! I like it!
Amanda,
I really do like your essay, you did a good job! I like it. I love that you talked about it made me so easy to understand. This is really easy for me to read. I learned a lot from it. Good job!!
@ Patricia
ReplyDeleteYou did a very good job with your essay. It includes all the important facts I know of and it is a very important topic to write about. The only thing I have to criticize is the German translation of Kristallnacht, it doesn’t mean “Night of Shattered Glass”, but crystal night. But the rest of your essay is very good.
@K. Sellmaier ;-)
I really like your essay about the Nuernberg Race Laws. They are a very sad and bad part in my countries history and they show how the Jews and other unwanted people slowly lost their rights.
Dear Jessica
You did a very good job with your essay, it is interesting that you have chosen this topic as an essay. I think it is really good that you included a Christian world view, cause it shows us, that no matter what we always have to approach the situation from a Christian worldview.