The Final Solution

Creating an Enemy• How did Hitler and the Nazis get a nation of enlightened individuals to

support and participate in Genocide? • Was the Holocaust forced upon Germans and conquered European

states, or did they want to participate? Prove it! • Did Jews allow themselves to become victims?

Creating an Enemy• Holocaust/Final Solution - systematic

extermination of European Jews (genocide) • 20th C Anti-Semitism -- Jews are to blame

for all the problems of modern society • Jews = Untermenschen (sub-humans)

Creating an Enemy• Progression of idea into reality:

• Mein Kampf (1923) • First organized boycotts and

anti-Semitic attacks (1933) • Joseph Goebbels -- Minister

of Propaganda

• Nuremberg Laws (1935) • Jews deprived of all legal

rights

Finding a “Solution”• “Kristallnacht” (Nov. 1938)

• 191 Synagogues burned • 2000 Jews murdered • 1000s of stores looted/

burned • “open season” on Jews

(Hitler)

Finding a “Solution”• WWII, Sept. 1939 • Invasion of Russia, June 1941

• pogroms = occasional destruction of isolated Jewish community

• Wannsee Conference, 1942 • Nazis plan the “Final

Solution” = eradication • Heinrich Himmler

Methods of the Holocaust• Ghettoize Jews forcefully

• Warsaw, Poland • After invasion of USSR (June 1941)

• Einsatzgruppen (Mobile Killing Squads)

• Well-organized mass executions • How could they commit such

atrocities? • Atrocity by Decree • Group actions • Role of Euphemism

Letter from Willy Just to SS-Obersturmbannfuehrer Walter Rauff, 5 June 1942 RE: Technical alterations to the special vehicles already in operation and those in production. Since December 1941, for example, 97,000 have been processed using three vans without any faults developing in the vehicles… Further operational experience hitherto indicates that the following technical alterations are appropriate.... 2) The vans are normally loaded with 9-10 people per square meter. With the large Saurer special vans this is not possible because although they do not become overloaded their maneuverability is much impaired. A reduction in the load area appears desirable. It can be achieved by reducing the size of the van by c. 1 meter. The difficulty referred to cannot be overcome by reducing the size of the load. For a reduction in the numbers will necessitate a longer period of operation because the free spaces will have to be filled with CO. By contrast, a smaller load area which is completely full requires a much sorter period of operation since there are no free spaces..... 3) The connecting hoses between the exhaust and the van frequently rust through because they are corroded inside by the liquids which fall on them. To prevent this the connecting piece must be moved so that the gas is fed from the top downwards. This will prevent liquids flowing in..... 6) The lighting must be better protected against damage than hitherto....It has been suggested that lighting should be dispensed with since they are allegedly never used. However, experience shows that when the rear door is closed and therefore when it becomes dark, the cargo presses hard towards the door....It makes it difficult to latch the door. Furthermore, it has been observed that the noise always begins when the doors are shut presumably because of fear brought on by the darkness.

Letter from Willy Just to SS-Obersturmbannfuehrer Walter Rauff, 5 June 1942 RE: Technical alterations to the special vehicles already in operation and those in production. Since December 1941, for example, 97,000 have been processed using three vans without any faults developing in the vehicles… Further operational experience hitherto indicates that the following technical alterations are appropriate.... 2) The vans are normally loaded with 9-10 people per square meter. With the large Saurer special vans this is not possible because although they do not become overloaded their maneuverability is much impaired. A reduction in the load area appears desirable. It can be achieved by reducing the size of the van by c. 1 meter. The difficulty referred to cannot be overcome by reducing the size of the load. For a reduction in the numbers will necessitate a longer period of operation because the free spaces will have to be filled with CO. By contrast, a smaller load area which is completely full requires a much sorter period of operation since there are no free spaces..... 3) The connecting hoses between the exhaust and the van frequently rust through because they are corroded inside by the liquids which fall on them. To prevent this the connecting piece must be moved so that the gas is fed from the top downwards. This will prevent liquids flowing in..... 6) The lighting must be better protected against damage than hitherto....It has been suggested that lighting should be dispensed with since they are allegedly never used. However, experience shows that when the rear door is closed and therefore when it becomes dark, the cargo presses hard towards the door....It makes it difficult to latch the door. Furthermore, it has been observed that the noise always begins when the doors are shut presumably because of fear brought on by the darkness.

Methods of the Holocaust• Concentration Camps

• Racial Darwinism • Zyclon-B, Kapos, “Arbeit” = Psychological

Dissonance • American Response?

The Resistance

Defiance• Questions to consider:

• What are the ways in which conquered peoples could respond to the Nazis?

• What does collaboration mean? • What choices did Jews have

under the Nazi system of the Holocaust?

• What difficulties were involved in resistance against the Nazis (for both Jews and non-Jews)?

DefianceCollaborationist Regimes:

Complicity or participation Provide workers, resources Carry out ideology

Reprisal — Nazi punishment for entire communities for individual acts of resistance

Defiance• The White Rose

• Student movement, University of Munich • “White Rose Letters” -- network of correspondence to instigate rebellion

• “We will not be silent. We are your bad conscience. The White Rose will not leave you in peace.”

• “Hold out in defiance of all despotism.”

Hans SchollSophie Scholl

Christopher Probst

Defiance• Behind Enemy Lines

• Jewish Brigade -- Palestinian Jews who infiltrated enemy territory, resistance & rescue operations

• Hannah Szenes

• Ghetto Uprisings • Warsaw Ghetto

• By Sept 1942 -- 300K Jews deported, 60K left in Warsaw • April 1943 (Passover) -- “All are ready to die as human

beings” (Resistance begins) — 4 weeks of street fighting • Vilna Ghetto (Lithuania)

• “Let us not walk like sheep to the slaughter”

• Jewish Partisans • Mobile fighters in the

forests of USSR • Bielski Brothers --

protected over 1,200 Jews