History of the Holocaust

Ofer Ashkenazi

Brief Survey

The Holocaust

“The deliberate, systematic murder of approximately 6 million Jews in Nazi dominated Europe between the years 1941-1945”(Ronnie S. Landau)And,

The deliberate murder of millions of “enemies” of the Nazi Regime: Roma (Gypsies), East-European civilians, political opponents, “a-social” people, homosexuals, and people with “hereditary disease”

Main Time Periods in the History of the Holocaust:

1. 1933-1939: Nazi Germany: Experimenting with exclusion, persecution, and violence:

Von Papen’s Cabinet, January 1933

September 1, 1939:The Outbreak of the Second World War

1941-1943

1943-1945

Main Time Periods in the History of the Holocaust:

2. 1939-1942: World War II: Ghettoization and Mass Murder

Mass Killing of Jews in Occupied Eastern Europe in the Fall of 1941:

1. Einsatzgruppen: Killing of Jewish populations in the Baltic territories of the Soviet Union

2. Generalgouvernemant: Belzec. Regeional police chief Odilo Globocnik initiates a local killing area, for Jews who cannot work

3. Warthegau: regional police chief Koppe and Gauleiter Arthur Geiser initiating a gas-vans site in Chelmno (to kill from the overcrowded Lodz ghetto)

4. Jews are sent from Germany to be killed on arrival in the Baltic states

I only wish to be the leading soldier of the Reich

Decisions from above:

1.September 1941: deportation of Jews to the east will start now, before the end of the war.

2.Logistics + “prophecy” (Hitler’s comments on SS killings)

3.December 12, 1941: Hitler’s party speech. Goebbels’ interpretation is widely circulated:

January 1942, The Wansee Conference

Europe 1939-1945: Concentration and Death Camps “Selection” in Auschwitz

Jewish Children in Auschwitz

Main Time Periods in the History of the Holocaust:

3. 1942-1944: World War II: Systematic Mass Murder

The Holocaust

Neighbors: The Occupied Population and the Holocaust

90%

75-90%

55-60%

20-25%

Less than 1%

Main Time Periods in the History of the Holocaust:

4. 1944-1945: World War II: Death Marches and Liberation

The death march from Dachau (April 29, 1945)

How Do We Know? / What Do We Know?

1. Official Correspondence of the Nazi Government, Wehrmacht,

SS, etc. (Commands, Reports, Speeches, etc.)

2. Gestapo and SD Reports (Public Opinion, etc.)

3. Photographs and Films

4. Diaries of Victims

5. Diaries of Nazi Officials

6. Secretly kept Documentation of life under Nazi Occupation

(e.g. “Oneg Shabbat”)

7. Memoirs (Victims, Perpetrator, “Bystanders” and

“neighbors”)

8. Collected Testimonies (written or filmed)

9. Fiction

Main Points of Interest/Debates among Contemporary Historians:

The “Singularity” of the Holocaust

The Origins of the Final Solution:• Modernity and its Discontent• Materialist Objectives• The “Special Path” of German

History

Intentional / “circumstantial”?

Who made it possible? (Who is Responsible?)

“Ordinary Men” / “Willing Executioners”?Nazi leadership?Wehrmacht / SS soldiers?German By-Standers?Non-German collaborators?Jewish collaboration?