Holocaust Final Terms: Wannsee Conference

Holocaust Final Terms:

Wannsee Conference: * Held on January 20th, 1942 in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee * 15 men gathered to discuss the “Final Solution” * The conference was held by an SS officer named Reinhard Heydrich * The purpose of the conference was to inform administrative leaders of departments responsible for various policies relating to Jews. * Heydrich proposed the deportation of Jews from Europe and North Africa to the east. * By the end of the conference, it was concluded that Jews would be annihilated

Final Solution: * The deliberate and physical annihilation of Jews

“Just Men”: * In 1185, Rabbi Levy tells Jews to return to their own God * Jews agreed to go because Rabbi Levy told
them to * Rabbi Levy kills them because of this * This acts sparks the legend of the lamed-vovnik, the just man, of which there are 36 * The purpose of the just man is to take all the suffering of mankind and bring it upon himself * The just men must do this because the world’s suffering would be too much for mankind to endure

Gleischaltung:
Mark lecturer 02/04/2013 * Nazi government structure * Autocratic control over society * Jewish sychronization - centralization of power * Organize social, political, and cultural organizations
Intentionalists vs Structuralists:
Mark lecturer 02/04/2013 * Intentionalists believed all control should go to Hitler * Structuralists believed control should be dispersed evenly

East vs. West: * Eastern states were anti-semetic, but the individuals were not * Western states were not anti-semetic, but the individuals were * Eastern Jews were not as acculturated―most only spoke Yiddish * Western Jews were more acculturated―they could speak their state’s native language
January 14 = East Monday March 4th lecture = West

German euthanasia:
Michael Thaler 02/11/2013
The pianist: His family saw Nazis carry a man on a wheel chair and throw him out the window * Kill people with disabilities or mental problems * Over 200,000 people killed
Nuremberg Laws:
The Shop On Main Street * Laws proposed by Hitler on Sept 13th * Laws took effect on Sept 15th, 1935 * The citizenship law states in part, that a * Set of anti-semitic laws that defined who was a Jew * Full power by Hitler - Nazism became official ideology * Involves anti-semitism as a form of scientific racism * These laws stripped Jews of their rights and left them defenseless under their government. * These laws also took away the right for Jews and Germans to marry * Jews were forbidden to wear Reich colors, but encouraged to wear Jewish colors

Holocaust photography:
Bruce Thompson (guest speaker) showed us the most famous picture of the Holocaust, which was a picture of a little boy with his hands up
Bruce Thompson lecture 02/06 * Used as proof of what happened * Demonstrates how Nazis humiliated Jews * Used to prosecute Nazis after the war (Nazis that were portrayed in photographs were convicted and charged) * Prolongs memory/creates evidence

Warsaw Ghetto:
The pianist * Largest ghetto * Resisted in 1942

Genocide: * Similar to Romanian Massacre of Jews * Doesn’t stem from reason * Coordinated plan to wipe out a race, etc. * Different from other genocides because it wasn’t about a territorial dispute

Resistance:
Survival in Auschwitz – when guy is washing in her hands. March 1 = Dora lecturer. Marth 4th = French resistance * Partisans of Vilnas * Fought back because the one thing the Nazi’s couldn’t take away was their will to survive * Revolted in Warsaw ghetto * Carried cyanide to commit suicide
Schindler’s List: * Nazi Party member * Buys a formerly Jewish-owned enamelware factory and uses bribery to get military contracts to make war supplies * On his quest to be rich, he is indifferent about the Jews and their situation * Starts off as a greedy man * Loves cars, is a womanizer * Eventually becomes the savior of 1,100 Jews * Schindler got together a list which listed all the Jews that could work or were qualified to work for him * His reason for saving them is never explained

Eichmann Trial: Feb.
25 * Adolf Eichmann was a Nazi who was found and captured in Argentina * Mossad captured him * He was known as the architect of the Final Solution * Put on trial in Israel in 1961, where he was found guilty * At midnight between May 31 and June 1, 1962, Eichmann was executed by hanging

Crisis of 1938:
Schindler’s list * Germany had a 0% unemployment rate but was short on a supply of labor and raw materials * They needed to choose between social projects or military spending * Had to export labor
Richard Heydrich:
02/22
* Nazi official who was head of the
SA

Himmler: * SS Leader widely blamed for the Holocaust * Started the Einsatzgruppen

The Bloodlands: * Book contains similarities between Hitler and Stalin’s regime * “Hitler and Stalin thus shared a certain politics of tyranny: they brought about catastrophes, blamed the enemy of their choice, and then used the death of millions to make the case that their policies were necessary or desirable. Each of them had a transformative Utopia, a group to be blamed when its realization proved impossible, and then a policy of mass murder that could be proclaimed as a kind of ersatz victory” * When people are in a state of war, murder becomes normal * 14 million people were killed * State of war―every man for himself. Morals become altered

Banality of Evil:
Relate this back to Fatelessness where author talks about Holocaust as if it were normal * Written by Hannah Arendt * Her thesis is that the great evils in history (the Holocaust in particular) were not executed by fanatics or sociopaths, but by ordinary people who accepted the premises of their state and therefore participated with the view that their actions were normal * When people are in a state of war, horrific things become normal

Rumkowski: * Elder of the Judenrat in the Lodz Ghetto * He made Jews work for up to twelve hours a day * Controversial because although individuals felt like he made them work for too long, his methods of giving labor earned their ghetto more money, which allowed them to be the last ghetto to be liquidated

Lodz Ghetto: * Located in central Poland * Second largest ghetto, right after Warsaw ghetto
* The last ghetto in existence in Poland

Czerniakow: * A Polish Jew * July 23, 1942 was the day he committed suicide by swallowing a cyanide pill after finding about the liquidation of the ghetto * His suicide was a form of resistance * His wife survived, but his son did not * He was part of the Judenrat in Warsaw ghetto * Judenrat were responsible for rounding up Jews when it was time for them to be killed (This was done under Nazi orders) * In his suicide letter, he stated that he would rather die than to kill other people against his own will

Judenrat: * Jewish council of elders * They were responsible for making Jews work whenever Nazis required them to * Some established a military component in order to organize resistance against Nazis

Operation Barbarossa: * Code name for Hitler’s invasion of Russia (July 1940) * Broke the Soviet-Nazi Non-Aggression Pact and plunged the Soviet Union into WW2 * Hitler’s invasion strategy

Einsatzgruppen: * Composed primarily of SS * Death squads * After the Jews, Gypsies, Political Soviets * Killed Bolsheviks and Partisans * Group formed in 1938, but were known in 1941
Mischling: * Persons of “mixed blood” (Person who is a descendent of one or two grandparents who are fully Jewish) * Term used for people that only have partial Aryan ancestry * A Jew is anyone who descended from at least three grandparents who are fully Jewish * Term used for people that only have partial Aryan ancestry
Page 111, 225-226

George Duckwitz: * Warned Danish Jews of their intended deportation in 1943 * Assigned to German Embassy in Copenhagen * Courageous German maritime attache * Prevented 95% of Jewish deportation in Denmark

Hannah Arendt:
Europa- the boy starts to hate Jews because he was pretending to be German (Like Dry Tears as well) * Author of Banality of Evil * Claimed the Nazi’s were not sociopaths- people that were conflicted with evil and began to think they were doing the right thing