Dachau Massacre

Nuremberg Trials

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful,

committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever

has." - Margaret Mead

International Response to the Holocaust

• controversial topic in history• Some countries and individuals actively

helped.• Other countries seem to have ignored

the genocide.• Historians argue about how aware the

int’l community was about the Holocaust.

International Response to the Holocaust

• When it was clear Denmark would be invaded by the Nazis, Danish citizens helped the Danish Jews flee to safety in neutral Sweden. As a result, 99% of the Danish Jewish population survived the Holocaust.

• The Bulgarian gov’t prevented 48,000 Bulgarian Jews from being deported to Nazi death camps. (However, Jews in Bulgarian-occupied areas of Greece and Macedonia were deported and killed.)

• During the Nazi policy of deportation, German Jews were allowed to emigrate if they could prove they had a country to go to.

• Evian Conference (1938) – countries met in France to discuss the problem of Jewish refugees fleeing persecution in Europe–US and Britain (superpowers at the time) attended – 31 of the 32 attendees refused to accept more

refugees

International Response to the Holocaust

• Bermuda Conference (1943) – US and Britain met again to discuss the continuing problem of Jewish refugees (by this time the Nazis were gassing Jews)

–neither country increased their immigration quotas–a US official protested US policy by publishing

the Report on the Acquiescence of this Government in the Murder of the Jews

International Response to the Holocaust

Hans Gerhard Creutzfeldt

• German neuropathologist

• worked at a psychiatric clinic during the 1930s and 40s

• prevented nearly all of his patients from being euthanized as part of the T-4 program

Archbishop Damaskinos of Athens• Greek Orthodox

priest• formally protested

the deportation of Greek Jews

• issued baptismal certificates to Jews, thereby passing them off as Christians and saving them

Foreign Diplomats – issued visas so Jews could emigrate to safety, hid them in embassies, etc.

Ho Feng-ShanChina - Austria

1000s

Carl LutzSwitzerland -

Hungary62,000

Raoul WallenbergSweden - Hungary

100,000s

Nazis

Oskar SchindlerGerman

businessman

Albert BattelGerman military

officer

• saved 1100+ Jews by claiming them as “essential workers” in his enamel factory

• disobeyed orders and blocked his fellow German soldiers from entering a Polish ghetto that they were to “empty”

• helped move 100+ Jews to safety (instead of being sent to the death camps)

Irena Sendler

• Polish • snuck 2500+

children out of the Warsaw ghetto

Khaled Abdulwahab

• Tunisian• hid a Jewish man in

his hammam, Turkish bathhouse

Hamza Abdul Jalil

• Tunisian• kept two Jewish

families on his farm – safeguarded them from the Nazis