1. What was the Holocaust?
Holocaust means “complete destruction”. The word is used to describe the Shoah , the discrimination and then systematic killing of Jews in the period of 1933 to 1945 by the “Third Reich” and their allies in Europe.
2. Why did it occur, why were the Jewish people specifically selected for exclusion and extermination?
One popular theory among Jews in the early 19th century was that Jews were selected for exclusion due to their wish of separation from the rest of the population. If Jews would assimilate and abandon their specific customs, they would be less subject to special treatment. These ideas become particularly popular in a period where new established laws and human rights, from the Josephinian Toleranzedikt in Austria over the US constitution to the Code Napoleon abolished the different treatment of citizens based on religion or origin. The trend towards assimilation brought the rise of Jews into the society of the perspective countries, many converted in those years to other religions.
It should be noted that Germany – the country that executed the Shoah in the most perfect way and were the race theory (see below) was the most popular – was also the country were the assimilation was the most popular.
Very popular is the theory that anti-Semitism is based in Christian beliefs. The Jews, “killers of Jesus”, “not recognizing the Christ” are in some sense guilty and deserve punishment or, at least, exclusion. Some cite the bible “His blood be upon us and upon our children”. Christian Anti-Judaism has lasted for centuries. “Many Christians saw only a Jewish God of revenge and hate at work.. who kept watch over obedience to his strict law whereas the New Testament proclaimed the Good News about the God of forgiveness and love who gave Christians a life of freedom from the law”
The question of the Church’s Complicity and Guilt is discussed with much vigor. It is somewhat easier what concerns the protestant church, as they have been divided in a “German” (nationalist) and a “Professing” branch , where the separation between “good and bad” has been institutionalized. Nevertheless, there should be given attention to words like by Yosef Yerusalmi: “There is no.. question .. that Christian anti-Semitism.. contributed to create the climate .. in which the genocide .. could be carried out. .. But .. [this cause] .. certainly was not the only one. .. The Holocaust was the work of a State exclusively modern, neopagan.” And in the difference to many other political or religious institutions, the Catholic Church has made a clear statement where she stands today to this issue, specifically in the declaration “Nostra Aetate” or in other discourses of the pope.
The nineteenth century brought the “race theory”, the believing that mankind separates in several races and that there are superior and inferior races. Jews belong in this theory to the inferior races and are the cause of economic, political and cultural problems.
To deal with this “problem” was the program of Adolf Hitler and his party. Their project was “a modern state like the hellic city states, governed by aristocrats with a broad helote (worker) base. Five to ten percent of the population, the best selection, should govern, the rest has to obey and to work. Only by this way the highest scores can be obtained that are to be demanded .. by the German people. This selection is done .. by the eradication of all .. minor elements.. .
But this theory that Jews were the cause of problems was not confined to Germany or the Hitler party alone. E.g. in Poland, nationalists proposed in the 30s the emigration of one million Jews, a commission was set up to solve the problem.
One solution proposed was to settle the Jews in some confined area. Opposed to the idea of Zionism, this area should not be Palestine. Stalin had created the Autonomous Jewish Republic Biro Bidjan on the Amur River. A British proposal was to settle them in Uganda. The polish commission investigated Madagascar.
According to Heinrich Himmler, “the emigration of all Jews to Africa or any other colony would completely erase the term Jew. This would be the best and most humane method, if the Bolshevistic way of physical extermination of a nation should be refused out of internal conviction as non-German and non-feasible”.
As the events in world war II did not bring the necessary advances to complete this plan, Reinhard Heydrich, chief of police, was installed as Commissioner for the final solution of the European Jewish Problem. In the conference on the Wannsee it was decided that the final solution would be the settlement of the Jews in Eastern Europe, were they should be subjected to forced labor. Many of them will die, and the rest – the most resistant ones – should be “specifically treated” so that they could not become the kernel of a new Jewish installation.
In the denazification process of Germany after World War II, the German population was classified in several categories and judged accordingly. The Nürnberg tribunal charged the officials of the Third Reich of "Crimes against Humanity," the last of four counts of "criminal activities". This assumes that the systematic killing of Jews were a criminal act done by individuals, and that the reasons are to search in the reasons for crime per se, i.e. as misbehavior by individuals.
Discrimination of Jews has started in “biblical times”. The Jewish wish to live on their own beliefs and laws has made them a target for discrimination, exile, slavery and murder. It should be noted that the total destruction of the Jewish community in Palestine by the Romans in the first century was the start of a 2000-year Diaspora which only ended with the creation of Israel in 1948. Discrimination, expulsion and murder continued on in the different countries where the Jews lived from then on. For example, the history of the German city of Augsburg notes ten expulsions of the Jews in the past 1000 years, the Nazi period being the last. It should also be noted that the Shoah is not limited to Germany. In Serbia, anti-Jewish legislation was introduced in 1940 – before the German attack. And it just took one year of occupation till the authorities reported to Berlin that Serbia was “free of Jews”. The measures against the Jews in the occupied territories could not have been executed without the help of the local authorities, it has taken many years till this fact was recognized, eg. by the French President Chirac concerning the role of the French administration during the war.
Discrimination of Jews is also an ongoing process. When Jews wanted to emigrate from Yugoslavia to Israel in 1948, they could do so by forfeiting all their property. And in 1999, all Jews living in Kosovo have been expulsed.
3. What can be done to prevent this type of occurrence from happening again?
From a Jewish perspective, memory is the most important fact to prevent further events. Jewish religion sets memory as a value per se, from the slaughter of the children in Egypt up to the Shoah. In this sense, the Jewish community and the State of Israel have put in place a series of initiatives, starting from the Yad Vashem memory facility, tracking and punishment of Nazi criminals throughout the world to extensive research in many places and forums. In this context should be counted many other initiatives by countries and private persons that support the memory of the holocaust. Also, in some countries denigration of the Nazi crimes is a criminal offense per se.
One approach was presented by the Vatican:
1. The need to implement existing legal instruments against genocide
Series of legal instruments and juridical structures exist, from the Convention for the Prevention and the Punishment of the crime of Genocide approved by the UN in 1948 to the International Criminal Court approved in Rome 1998. However, not all countries have ratified these structures and – more important – they have not prevented new genocides from happening.
2. The central role of international, regional and sub-regional organizations
A corpus of international law has imposed obligations on member States, but not all have the capacity to cope with all of them. As implementation is key, the international organizations should offer juridical and technical assistance.
3. The commitment to education and vigilance against genocide
Individuals and Communities need to be educated on the horrors of genocide, to op-pose it but above all to prevent it from occurring again. As Msgr. Miglore mentions “Genocide is latent in places where eliminating the other is considered a fast solution to drawn-out rivalries and unresolved conflicts, where blatantly unjust relations between groups are ideologically justified, where.. [hate is] .. still burning for lack of mutual forgiveness and reconciliation, where acceptance of past mistakes .. are obstructed by the fear to confront historical reality. .. These are also identifiable factors in the breeding grounds of terrorism.”
Historically, civil courage combined with solid moral grounds seems to be the best base to prevent such events. Numerous examples are known, and the title of “just” has been attributed to people who have saved Jews. As the Talmud says, those who saves one person saves the whole world.
The one striking example is Denmark where the king declared (under German occupation) that he would wear the yellow star as the first person if it would be made mandatory for Jews. Denmark was the only country where the yellow star did not became mandatory. Later on, the Danish population evacuated all the Jewish population to Sweden. A small boat in Yad Vashem remembers these events where a whole country resisted despite the same exposure to Nazi terror as all the other occupied countries.
4. What can you personally do to prevent this type of bigotry/racism from occurring in your life and at your school?
Students can personally act by
5. What other reflections / thoughts do you have after discussing and reviewing these sources
I think that all people should accept the others’ differences: Then; there would be no problems.
Rudolph Heidecker