Post your comments here about the rise of racist antisemitism leading up to the Nazis.
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It was interesting to read that the Jews were constantly being displaced and never really had a “home”. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be accepted nowhere and to always be considered a “problem” that has to be gotten rid of. I cannot imagine how the morale of the Jewish people must have suffered.
The thing that really seems the most clear to me is that much of it was economic…the Jews were perceived as a threat to the economies where they lived, once those economies began to evolve from agricultural to industrial/commercial. It was interesting to me that when these economies were primarily agricultural, the Jews business dealings (banking, commerce, etc.) were considered “dirty”, but once the economies changed to industrial/commercial, suddenly banking and commerce were considered desirable and the Jews were seen as competition. They could never win.
I completely agree with you- the Jews could never win. Jews were systematically excluded from various social, political, and economic establishments and institutions. This isolation forced many Jews to enter into professions that later proved profitable as you mentioned. As Rubenstein and Roth also point out in Approaches to Auschwitz, the Jews “were perceived as having prospered at the expense of other groups in society…Jews [were seen as] both responsible for and profiting from what they regarded as an illegitimate social order.” Then a quote from Pierre-Joseph Proudhon later states, “this [Jewish] race which poisons everything by meddling everywhere without ever joining itself to another people.” How could they “join” with another people if they were not permitted or viewed as “fit” to do so?
Patty and Dana both provide excellent points. It’s absolutely true that there was no way that the Jews could make themselves part of a social circuit. What fascinates me are the publications that so freely discuss the contempt against the Jews. In addition to the laws being formulated as a means to force the Jews out, publications such as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion were accepted as factually accurate literature. Rubenstein and Roth claim, “by accusing the Jews of being a group secretly conspiring to conquer the world, it became possible to see any atrocity committed against them as an act of self-defense” (82). I do not mean to sound like a wannabe psychologist, but the term “projection” comes to mind. Those who harbored an extreme resentment against the Jewish people were all very quick to project their own desire to reign supreme onto the Jews, making it appear as if the Jewish race were the oppressors, and all other races and religious members were the victims.
What I keep thinking of is the reaction - or lack of it - of the other nations at this time. Nations at this time seemed to go out of their way NOT to help the Jews. I was struck cold when I read that Goebbels wrote in his diary that “the Americans are happy that we are exterminating the Jewish riffraff”. Could our perceived ambivalence to the Jews during this time really have led him to this conclusion? Or was he simply justifying his own actions?
Well, apparently the US closed its doors once the Jews started flooding out of Germany, so I think the US definitely turned its eyes away. That doesn’t mean the US was overtly happy Germany was “exterminating the Jewish riffraff” - who really knows how deep their awareness was of the potential consequences of their turning away.
Tina, I agree with you that there was a lot of projection going on. After all, it was Germany that was power hungry and looking to take over the world, and yet the Nazis projected that quality onto the Jews. They say that the things you hate about others usually mirror things you hate about yourself.
I wanted to bring up something that has been a bit of a conflict. There has been an emphasis both in the Rubenstein & Roth book, and also in class, that the holocaust wasn’t an expression of emotional hatred, but rather a very calculated, scientific, emotionally detatched, well-organized, reasoned approach to solving a “problem”. Generally speaking, I can see this. But there certainly was also some extremely sadistic stuff going on in those camps that appears to hatred driven. For example, the Jewish slave laborers weren’t just made to work, they were starved to death, beaten, and worse. What was the purpose of that? Was it really necessary to torture these people to carry out their detached, well-organized “solution”?
Patty,
I agree with you that there had to be some sadistic stuff going on. As I read more and more about the massacres, I wondered what kind of people could do such things but then again it’s happened since then in other parts of the world. I think that they really had to buy into Hitler’s philosphies about sub-humans.
Also, in reference to the other countries not doing anything, couldn’t they have been held up on war crimes also? In particular, when the Americans had the chance in ‘43 to bomb the war camp areas but chose not too! What was that all about???
The Nazi’s have found a way to confuse me. The Nazi’s created laws to entice the Jews to leave Germany- then the Germans took over all of the countries surrounding them. Didn’t they consider that once they took the countries around them, they would be doubly impacted by their Jewish dilema?
Another question I have to this situation is how the Jews have no home. They have no place to call their own, to retreat too. Where are the Jews to go? no country would open their doors and arms to a people being ostrasized. America, in my opion is as shameful as every other European country, if not worse. Perhaps WWII is the reason America adopted its worldwide watchdog behavior.
It is interesting to read in depth into the history of the Holocaust. I find it appalling how much had to go right, for so much to go so horribly wrong.
I would concur with Mary and Patty that the things that were done were very sadistic and grotesque. Having read one of the additional writings this week about the gentleman who witnessed some of those being murdered blew my mind. The soldiers were heartless to have murdered not only the elderly, but young children. It was done so callously but what I don’t understand is why most jews (especially men) didn’t resist?.
*On another note, I’m not sure if anyone caught this but there was a history channel special on Hitler last night that went into his life and how captivating he was as a speaker. He had such am electrifying presence and command with his audience that you would almost think that there was some type of supernatural presence that aided him. Some of those who were responsible for certain plans for extermination referred to him as the Messiah.
This week’s readings in Rubenstein and Roth went a little more deeply into incidences of Jewish resistance and lack of resistance. I found it a very interesting chapter. The thing is, they were really in a terrible bind because to resist would most definitely result in death and probably many MORE deaths than if they cooperated. This was the thinking of the Jewish leaders in the ghettos and they were later criticized for it by some. Of course, people can resist on PRINCIPLE so that they feel they are being honorable but it’s not like there was any governmental body they could turn to for assistance. Resisting was a certain death sentence whereas cooperation could buy them some time; hopefully, enough time to outlast the war and be rescued.
Patty,
I used to think that I would resist but as you said it probably would have resulted in instant death and everyone’s natural instinct is for survival. I just don’t think I would have been able to sit on the Junerat ( Jewish council) and been the one to pick out who would go first to the death camps. Then again, we don’t know what we would do to survive and protect our families.
Mary
I definitely agree that the instinct of survival played a critical role. In the “What Would You Do?” for this week, one of the scenarios describes the life of a Christian man who is married to a Jewish woman. He most probably would risk being deported to the ghetto and death if he stays with his wife. So, reiterating one of your questions from last week, to whom does he owe his loyalty…his wife or himself? In this case, is survival paramount?
We talked a lot last night about why many Jews did not resist. Frankly, I don’t find the concept that difficult to understand given the situation and the lack of better alternatives. But what I am finding VERY difficult to understand is how the individual Germans and other perpetrators could do the things they did. I understand all the steps that led up to “the final solution” and in the macro sense, it all comes together. But ultimately, each individual person made a choice to do the things they did and even if a person believed the “final solution”, was necessary, was the sadism necessary to accomplish it? How could an individual throw a baby up in the air and shoot it, or line up wailing mothers and children in front of a pit and shoot them down? How could a person see another human who is weak and stumbling from being starved and worked to death and then kick him to the ground and shoot him? To me, this goes beyond executing a rational solution to a problem. It is sadism, pure and simple and it is really making me depressed to realize the inhumanity that humans are capable of.
Once my husband and I visited St. Paul’s cathedral in London and when we walked in, a service was beginning. Being adverse to organized religion, we almost decided to leave and come back another time, but thankfully changed our mind. We sat there listening to the choir and gazing around us at the overwhelming beauty of the cathedral and we we were both overwhelmed to the point of tears over the beauty that humankind is capable of.
And now, in this class, I often feel brought to tears over the ugliness that humankind is capable of. And I find it much harder to understand.
Patty,
It was very hard for me to accept that there was evil in this world. I just couldn’t believe that human beings were capable of hurting others. I mainly felt that way because of my respect for life of all kind; humans, animals, nature etc. After taking Dr. Wall’s course on evil and some personal things that happened in my life I now do know that man is capable of doing things far beyond the scope of reality. Yes, and it is called EVIL! So as I am still moved to tears when I read stories such as “Night”, I now know it comes out of man’s desire to destroy and that good will always confront evil.
Mary
Yes, Mary, and what is sad is that often “evil” wins!
I think one of the things that is most frightening about all this is that it wasn’t just one person - Hitler - who was sadistic and heartless, it was hundreds, maybe thousands of people who all came together to participate in these sadistic acts and treated the whole thing as though it was as casual as tossing away a newspaper. How could all those people participate in this? I can barely stand to READ about it - I have been feeling very depressed reading Night and our other readings, and these people were THERE and were participating! Can you imagine not only SEEING these things (which would be enough to traumatize a person for life), but to be willingly participating in them yourself? Imagine that you are one of the people throwing half-dead people (including children!!) into a pit and then shooting them or leaving the half-dead people to die slowly because that way you don’t have to waste an extra bullet. (Talk about German frugality).
What scares me is that this could easily happen again. If it was just one person - one “crazy” (like Charlie Manson), you could explain it as one psychopath who went too far off the deep end. But in this case, masses of people came together and collaborated very carefully to carry out these heinous acts. I am sure most of the participants were not crazy psychopaths, but regular people like you and me. Even some of the Jews who were put in charge in the camps (the Capos) became sadistic in their treatment of the other prisoners.
While I was reading about Hitler’s views and thoughts about Jewish people I actually found myself laughing. I was laughing because of the outrageous attempts and effort that he put into ridiculing a whole race of people. It amazes me the things that he said even though many of his ideas were not original. It blows my mind. How could a human being be so cold and heartless to make these people feel like dirt. It just seems to me that he blamed the Jews for all of Germany’s disfortune because he was jealous and worried that they may one day be on top. The laws and regualtions are a disgrace and an embarrassment to me as my grandfather was of German desent. How could put a race of people and make them live in ghettos, take their belonging, destroy their homes and synagogues?
Also, while reading the senarios that were handed out in class, made me think of the amount of horror these people must have endured. Most people would do anything to save their families and the Germans made it seem like if they cooperated that they would not be harmed. No matter what these people did and no matter how much they complied with German order they were still going to experience genocide and be tortured and killed. There was no way out for the Jews. They were damned of they did and damned if they didn’t. Hitler’s actions along with all who followed him gave the German race a horrible and digusting reputation.
February 12th, 2008 at 10:36 am
It was interesting to read that the Jews were constantly being displaced and never really had a “home”. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be accepted nowhere and to always be considered a “problem” that has to be gotten rid of. I cannot imagine how the morale of the Jewish people must have suffered.
The thing that really seems the most clear to me is that much of it was economic…the Jews were perceived as a threat to the economies where they lived, once those economies began to evolve from agricultural to industrial/commercial. It was interesting to me that when these economies were primarily agricultural, the Jews business dealings (banking, commerce, etc.) were considered “dirty”, but once the economies changed to industrial/commercial, suddenly banking and commerce were considered desirable and the Jews were seen as competition. They could never win.
February 15th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
Hi Patty,
I completely agree with you- the Jews could never win. Jews were systematically excluded from various social, political, and economic establishments and institutions. This isolation forced many Jews to enter into professions that later proved profitable as you mentioned. As Rubenstein and Roth also point out in Approaches to Auschwitz, the Jews “were perceived as having prospered at the expense of other groups in society…Jews [were seen as] both responsible for and profiting from what they regarded as an illegitimate social order.” Then a quote from Pierre-Joseph Proudhon later states, “this [Jewish] race which poisons everything by meddling everywhere without ever joining itself to another people.” How could they “join” with another people if they were not permitted or viewed as “fit” to do so?
February 18th, 2008 at 11:05 am
Patty and Dana both provide excellent points. It’s absolutely true that there was no way that the Jews could make themselves part of a social circuit. What fascinates me are the publications that so freely discuss the contempt against the Jews. In addition to the laws being formulated as a means to force the Jews out, publications such as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion were accepted as factually accurate literature. Rubenstein and Roth claim, “by accusing the Jews of being a group secretly conspiring to conquer the world, it became possible to see any atrocity committed against them as an act of self-defense” (82). I do not mean to sound like a wannabe psychologist, but the term “projection” comes to mind. Those who harbored an extreme resentment against the Jewish people were all very quick to project their own desire to reign supreme onto the Jews, making it appear as if the Jewish race were the oppressors, and all other races and religious members were the victims.
February 18th, 2008 at 2:36 pm
What I keep thinking of is the reaction - or lack of it - of the other nations at this time. Nations at this time seemed to go out of their way NOT to help the Jews. I was struck cold when I read that Goebbels wrote in his diary that “the Americans are happy that we are exterminating the Jewish riffraff”. Could our perceived ambivalence to the Jews during this time really have led him to this conclusion? Or was he simply justifying his own actions?
February 19th, 2008 at 10:29 am
Well, apparently the US closed its doors once the Jews started flooding out of Germany, so I think the US definitely turned its eyes away. That doesn’t mean the US was overtly happy Germany was “exterminating the Jewish riffraff” - who really knows how deep their awareness was of the potential consequences of their turning away.
Tina, I agree with you that there was a lot of projection going on. After all, it was Germany that was power hungry and looking to take over the world, and yet the Nazis projected that quality onto the Jews. They say that the things you hate about others usually mirror things you hate about yourself.
I wanted to bring up something that has been a bit of a conflict. There has been an emphasis both in the Rubenstein & Roth book, and also in class, that the holocaust wasn’t an expression of emotional hatred, but rather a very calculated, scientific, emotionally detatched, well-organized, reasoned approach to solving a “problem”. Generally speaking, I can see this. But there certainly was also some extremely sadistic stuff going on in those camps that appears to hatred driven. For example, the Jewish slave laborers weren’t just made to work, they were starved to death, beaten, and worse. What was the purpose of that? Was it really necessary to torture these people to carry out their detached, well-organized “solution”?
February 19th, 2008 at 10:41 am
Patty,
I agree with you that there had to be some sadistic stuff going on. As I read more and more about the massacres, I wondered what kind of people could do such things but then again it’s happened since then in other parts of the world. I think that they really had to buy into Hitler’s philosphies about sub-humans.
Also, in reference to the other countries not doing anything, couldn’t they have been held up on war crimes also? In particular, when the Americans had the chance in ‘43 to bomb the war camp areas but chose not too! What was that all about???
February 19th, 2008 at 10:54 am
The Nazi’s have found a way to confuse me. The Nazi’s created laws to entice the Jews to leave Germany- then the Germans took over all of the countries surrounding them. Didn’t they consider that once they took the countries around them, they would be doubly impacted by their Jewish dilema?
Another question I have to this situation is how the Jews have no home. They have no place to call their own, to retreat too. Where are the Jews to go? no country would open their doors and arms to a people being ostrasized. America, in my opion is as shameful as every other European country, if not worse. Perhaps WWII is the reason America adopted its worldwide watchdog behavior.
It is interesting to read in depth into the history of the Holocaust. I find it appalling how much had to go right, for so much to go so horribly wrong.
February 20th, 2008 at 11:30 am
I would concur with Mary and Patty that the things that were done were very sadistic and grotesque. Having read one of the additional writings this week about the gentleman who witnessed some of those being murdered blew my mind. The soldiers were heartless to have murdered not only the elderly, but young children. It was done so callously but what I don’t understand is why most jews (especially men) didn’t resist?.
*On another note, I’m not sure if anyone caught this but there was a history channel special on Hitler last night that went into his life and how captivating he was as a speaker. He had such am electrifying presence and command with his audience that you would almost think that there was some type of supernatural presence that aided him. Some of those who were responsible for certain plans for extermination referred to him as the Messiah.
February 25th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
This week’s readings in Rubenstein and Roth went a little more deeply into incidences of Jewish resistance and lack of resistance. I found it a very interesting chapter. The thing is, they were really in a terrible bind because to resist would most definitely result in death and probably many MORE deaths than if they cooperated. This was the thinking of the Jewish leaders in the ghettos and they were later criticized for it by some. Of course, people can resist on PRINCIPLE so that they feel they are being honorable but it’s not like there was any governmental body they could turn to for assistance. Resisting was a certain death sentence whereas cooperation could buy them some time; hopefully, enough time to outlast the war and be rescued.
February 25th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
Patty,
I used to think that I would resist but as you said it probably would have resulted in instant death and everyone’s natural instinct is for survival. I just don’t think I would have been able to sit on the Junerat ( Jewish council) and been the one to pick out who would go first to the death camps. Then again, we don’t know what we would do to survive and protect our families.
Mary
February 25th, 2008 at 8:38 pm
Mary,
I definitely agree that the instinct of survival played a critical role. In the “What Would You Do?” for this week, one of the scenarios describes the life of a Christian man who is married to a Jewish woman. He most probably would risk being deported to the ghetto and death if he stays with his wife. So, reiterating one of your questions from last week, to whom does he owe his loyalty…his wife or himself? In this case, is survival paramount?
February 27th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
We talked a lot last night about why many Jews did not resist. Frankly, I don’t find the concept that difficult to understand given the situation and the lack of better alternatives. But what I am finding VERY difficult to understand is how the individual Germans and other perpetrators could do the things they did. I understand all the steps that led up to “the final solution” and in the macro sense, it all comes together. But ultimately, each individual person made a choice to do the things they did and even if a person believed the “final solution”, was necessary, was the sadism necessary to accomplish it? How could an individual throw a baby up in the air and shoot it, or line up wailing mothers and children in front of a pit and shoot them down? How could a person see another human who is weak and stumbling from being starved and worked to death and then kick him to the ground and shoot him? To me, this goes beyond executing a rational solution to a problem. It is sadism, pure and simple and it is really making me depressed to realize the inhumanity that humans are capable of.
Once my husband and I visited St. Paul’s cathedral in London and when we walked in, a service was beginning. Being adverse to organized religion, we almost decided to leave and come back another time, but thankfully changed our mind. We sat there listening to the choir and gazing around us at the overwhelming beauty of the cathedral and we we were both overwhelmed to the point of tears over the beauty that humankind is capable of.
And now, in this class, I often feel brought to tears over the ugliness that humankind is capable of. And I find it much harder to understand.
February 29th, 2008 at 7:11 am
Patty,
It was very hard for me to accept that there was evil in this world. I just couldn’t believe that human beings were capable of hurting others. I mainly felt that way because of my respect for life of all kind; humans, animals, nature etc. After taking Dr. Wall’s course on evil and some personal things that happened in my life I now do know that man is capable of doing things far beyond the scope of reality. Yes, and it is called EVIL! So as I am still moved to tears when I read stories such as “Night”, I now know it comes out of man’s desire to destroy and that good will always confront evil.
Mary
February 29th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
Yes, Mary, and what is sad is that often “evil” wins!
I think one of the things that is most frightening about all this is that it wasn’t just one person - Hitler - who was sadistic and heartless, it was hundreds, maybe thousands of people who all came together to participate in these sadistic acts and treated the whole thing as though it was as casual as tossing away a newspaper. How could all those people participate in this? I can barely stand to READ about it - I have been feeling very depressed reading Night and our other readings, and these people were THERE and were participating! Can you imagine not only SEEING these things (which would be enough to traumatize a person for life), but to be willingly participating in them yourself? Imagine that you are one of the people throwing half-dead people (including children!!) into a pit and then shooting them or leaving the half-dead people to die slowly because that way you don’t have to waste an extra bullet. (Talk about German frugality).
What scares me is that this could easily happen again. If it was just one person - one “crazy” (like Charlie Manson), you could explain it as one psychopath who went too far off the deep end. But in this case, masses of people came together and collaborated very carefully to carry out these heinous acts. I am sure most of the participants were not crazy psychopaths, but regular people like you and me. Even some of the Jews who were put in charge in the camps (the Capos) became sadistic in their treatment of the other prisoners.
It’s just very distressing.
March 8th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
While I was reading about Hitler’s views and thoughts about Jewish people I actually found myself laughing. I was laughing because of the outrageous attempts and effort that he put into ridiculing a whole race of people. It amazes me the things that he said even though many of his ideas were not original. It blows my mind. How could a human being be so cold and heartless to make these people feel like dirt. It just seems to me that he blamed the Jews for all of Germany’s disfortune because he was jealous and worried that they may one day be on top. The laws and regualtions are a disgrace and an embarrassment to me as my grandfather was of German desent. How could put a race of people and make them live in ghettos, take their belonging, destroy their homes and synagogues?
Also, while reading the senarios that were handed out in class, made me think of the amount of horror these people must have endured. Most people would do anything to save their families and the Germans made it seem like if they cooperated that they would not be harmed. No matter what these people did and no matter how much they complied with German order they were still going to experience genocide and be tortured and killed. There was no way out for the Jews. They were damned of they did and damned if they didn’t. Hitler’s actions along with all who followed him gave the German race a horrible and digusting reputation.