The events in the aftermath of World War 1 had unquestionably contributed to the development of the Holocaust and the degree of the contribution of the event was extensive. Germany took the worst hit from the aftermath of the war. The Holocaust was a horrific occurrence that happened during 1941 – 1945 and resulted in the death of 6 million Jews. The main events that contributed to the Holocaust were The Weimar Republic, the Treaty of Versailles, Concentration Camps, and the Berlin Olympics.
The Weimar Republic era was during a difficult time both economically and socially. It was Germany’s government during the period after WW1 (1919 to 1933) and until the rise of Nazi Germany. Throughout the war, the value of the German currency, the Reichsmark, decreased incredibly. In an attempt to fix this, the government printed more money but this caused the value of the Reichsmark to decrease even more. During this economic crisis, Germany continued to try and pay the reparations as stated by the Treaty of Versailles. Germany requested permission in 1922 to halt their payments whilst their economy recovered but the Allies declined their request. Source 1 is an American political cartoon of a man (Germany) being crushed by a giant bag (reparations) demanded by the Treaty of Versailles. Germany was on the verge of collapse by 1923 and was unable to continue paying reparations. This led to France and Belgium invading Ruhr, a region in Germany. Both France and Belgium wished to use resources from Ruhr to compensate for the unpaid reparations. This demonstrates how much of a severe impact it left on not only the German people but also its economy.
The Treaty of Versailles worked well in the favor of the Allies but not Germany. The treaty quite clearly blamed Germany for the damages and forced them to disarm & become defenseless, make territorial grants, and pay a tremendous amount of $5 billion. Germany reacted very negatively to this. Protests took place outside the German Parliament and on the streets. Some historians referred to it as ‘history’s most hated treaty’ and blamed it for paving the way for the Second World War whereas others disagreed and said that the negotiators did the best they could in the challenging circumstances. Source 2 is the perspective of a Canadian Military Historian, Terry Copp, and his view on the Treaty in his book, No Price Too High. It was stated in his book that, “This view of the Great War and the peace settlement was never accepted within Germany and quickly became unfashionable among liberal and leftwing intellectuals in Britain, the United States, and Canada. This history of the origins of the war was “revised” to argue that Germany had been drawn to the war by her allies. The real causes of the war were said to be rival imperialism, the naval race, the armaments industry, or simply capitalism.
If Germany was no more “guilty” than France or Britain, the moral basis for restraining German military power or requiring reparations did not exist. The development of “revisionist” ideas about the causes of the war was paralleled by a growing disillusionment with the heroic image of the soldiers.” In that specific paragraph, he is indicating that the Treaty wasn’t as bad as people insist it to be. He pointed out that over the course of history, people just made the terms of the treaty sound overly extreme. He even argued that the Allies would not have imposed strict military restrictions and reparations on Germany if they were not guilty. Therefore he implied that Germany must have been extremely destructive during the war and deserved the punishment they received.
Once a Jew was placed into a concentration camp, they were guaranteed to have a rough time. They detained people under extremely harsh conditions without them even being indicted of a crime or going through a judicial process. The first camp was built in Dachau on March 22, 1933. In Nazi Germany, concentration camps became a critical way in which Nazis subjected their control. Source 3 is snippets of a transcript from a Holocaust Survivor, Theodore Haas. “The horror of Dachau was known throughout Germany” yet no one ever tried to intervene but it wasn’t that simple, Hitler had immense support and influence. Theodore was asked “How did you accept the fears of Dachau?” to which he replied, “Due to the constant hunger and extremely cold weather, one becomes too numb to even think of fear. A prisoner under these conditions becomes obsessed with survival; nothing else matters.” This just goes to prove how once a Jew ended up in a concentration camp, it would be nearly impossible to get out. The situation was very traumatizing for the survivors. Even to this day, they can’t sleep in peace without the past coming back to haunt them and this is when he says “I have nightmares constantly.” He also mentioned that as punishment, he got stabbed and shot several times. From his perspective, America wasn’t what it seemed like and there was more anti-semitism there. “Now, due to the curse of Liberalism, America is in a period of moral decline….. police officials who don’t give a damn about the Bill of Rights. They just want to control people, not protect and serve. When you study history, you see that when a country becomes an immoral manure heap, as America is rapidly becoming, all minorities suffer, and ultimately, all the citizens.” This source showed that an innocent 21-year-old got thrown into the camp but he was lucky enough to make it out.
The Berlin Olympics was a powerful propaganda tool. The Holocaust was still years away but Jews and non-Aryans in Germany were already being targeted a while before the Olympics took place. Rallies and boycotts happened, Jewish books were burned, and Intermarriage was banned. There was just so much happening against the Jews because of the Nuremberg Laws which had been the start of the Holocaust. At first, these laws were only relevant to Jews but were soon extended to other groups such as Gypsies. Due to pressure from other nations, they stopped their activities for the duration of the games. Source 4 is an image of Lustgarden at night and many Berliners and tourists were strolling. This source presents one of the ways Germany tried
to leave the foreigners with a good image of Germany and for the rest of the world to see while Hitler devised domination and war. By using many different methods to appeal to foreigners, the games were a success and many left Germany with a positive image of the country.
The main events that occurred after World War 1 did contribute to a great extent to the development of the Holocaust. If Germany wasn’t forced to sign the terms, then their economy wouldn’t have suffered so much and the rise of the Nazi party would have been difficult meaning that the Holocaust could have been prevented or at least decreased its impact on the modern world.
To begin with, No one would want something like the holocaust to occur to happen again. Well, something similar to it can happen again. People may still be anti-Semitic and if people do not speak about the hate of Jews or try to fight against it, something like the holocaust could happen. People need to educate themselves on what happened during the event. Gen Z mainly lacks knowledge of it and should know some facts about it.
A man named Irving Bienstock happens to be, a child who had lived the Holocaust nightmare. He went through everything and explained how he was bullied just for being Jewish. Irving claims, ‘Anti-Semitism is coming back, and it scares me. The holocaust could happen again if we do not oppose it, that’s what happened in Germany.” Bienstock stated. Jews weren’t allowed to own businesses, Jews never felt safe, etc. He said that the Holocaust happened due to the fact that people were against Jews. They were treated poorly. No one had stopped what was going on and that is how the Holocaust occurred. It could’ve been prevented. There is a lot of hate in the world and no one should be treated differently for their background.
As well as, In the article, it states, “There is anti-Semitism here, today, too. I am playing a role in educating the next generation, and I’ll keep doing it as long as I can.’ Inviting Bienstock stated. People need to be educated on what happened during the Holocaust and defend Jews. When people offend Jews or any different culture in general someone needs to defend or speak up for them. Even though it has been 75 years or more since the Holocaust, something like it can happen again. Especially with all of the racism in the world. They were put in gas chambers, caught diseases, etc. They were even starved. The Jews’ rights were taken away, they were all deported. It was as if their lives didn’t matter. Discrimination, in general, has to come to an end or an event like so can happen again.
Another equally important fact, there is a survey that finds that many Kentuckians think the holocaust could happen again. In the article, it states,” Nationally, 63 percent of all survey respondents do not know six million Jews were murdered and 36 percent thought that “two million or fewer Jews” were killed during the holocaust.” It was a very tragic event. Many people’s lives were taken. Jewish families may have all lost someone in their life because of the Holocaust. Families were also separated. Many Jews who were living in Europe were also murdered. Everyone in school right now, globally, lacks knowledge of this major event. It is such a large number of people who were murdered during this time and everyone needs to acknowledge it. Nothing like the Holocaust should happen again.
As a result, something like the Holocaust can likely happen again. History can repeat if no one is educated on what has happened. Jews were treated terribly and many lives were taken. If people were to stop discriminating against Jews; others in general maybe it can reduce the likelihood of it happening again.
The Holocaust stands as one of the darkest chapters in human history, characterized by the systematic genocide of millions of innocent lives. Within this harrowing period, the experiences of the Jewish community in Sighet, Romania, highlight the complex dynamics of survival, fear, and the failure to anticipate the true nature of Nazi terrorism. This essay critically examines the factors that contributed to the failure of Sighet Jews to anticipate the extent of the Nazi threat, including their limited access to information, the influence of denial, and the manipulation of propaganda.
Limited Access to Information:
One crucial factor in the failure to anticipate Nazi terrorism was the limited access to information faced by the Jewish community in Sighet. During the early stages of the Nazi regime, information about the atrocities committed against Jews in other regions was scarce and often distorted. The lack of reliable news sources and the deliberate suppression of information by Nazi propaganda machinery shielded the Sighet Jews from fully comprehending the magnitude of the threat they faced. This information gap inhibited their ability to assess the gravity of the situation and take necessary precautions.
Influence of Denial:
Denial played a significant role in the failure to anticipate Nazi terrorism. The Jews of Sighet, like many others at the time, found it difficult to fathom the sheer brutality and inhumanity of the Nazi regime. They clung to the hope that reason, empathy, and human decency would eventually prevail, blinding themselves to the signs and warning signals that were becoming increasingly evident. This denial, while understandable given the unimaginable horrors they faced, ultimately hindered their ability to recognize the urgency of the situation and take proactive measures.
Manipulation of Propaganda:
Another critical factor was the manipulation of Nazi propaganda, which served to deceive and control the Jewish population. The Nazis skillfully employed propaganda to disseminate false information, create divisions within the Jewish community, and instill a sense of false security. Through their propaganda machine, the Nazis presented themselves as protectors of law and order, while concurrently spreading anti-Semitic sentiments. This manipulation of information and emotions contributed to the confusion and complacency among the Sighet Jews, preventing them from accurately assessing the impending danger.
Collective Trauma and Paralyzing Fear:
The collective trauma experienced by the Jewish community, coupled with paralyzing fear, also played a role in their failure to anticipate Nazi terrorism. The unimaginable horrors of persecution and the constant threat to their lives created a climate of fear and desperation. This fear often led to a state of paralysis, where the community became trapped in a cycle of survival instincts, unable to fully comprehend the scale and intensity of the Nazi onslaught. The trauma and fear permeating Sighet’s Jewish population hindered their capacity to think critically and foresee the atrocities that lay ahead.
Conclusion:
The failure of the Sighet Jews to anticipate the true nature of Nazi terrorism was influenced by various factors, including limited access to information, denial, the manipulation of propaganda, and the collective trauma and fear experienced. While it is essential to understand the context and complexities surrounding their failure, it is equally crucial to acknowledge the overwhelming power and brutality wielded by the Nazi regime. The Holocaust serves as a grim reminder of the consequences of human complacency and the necessity of remaining vigilant against hate, oppression, and genocidal ideologies.
On 28th June 2007, the UN World Heritage Committee officially announced that the new name of the concentration camp of the Nazis in Auschwitz Birkenau German Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camp (1940 -1945) (Auschwitz Concentration). In an attempt to dehumanize the victims of the Nazis and as a testament to the resilience of a few of the inmates of the camps, the mentality of the brutal Nazis is worth a topic to remind each and everyone that the universe needs to be protected under the shield of peace and love.
Tortures beyond human thoughts and suffering to the furthest extent create numbness in the minds of every reader of the Nazi camps. Located 37 miles west of Krakow, Auschwitz was the camp where gruesome killings of innocent Jews took place. Auschwitz I was the administration center, Auschwitz II Birkenau was the extermination camp and Auschwitz III Monowitz was the work camp. The camp commandant Rudolf Hoss testified at the Nurenberg Trials that up to 2.5 million people had died at Auschwitz.
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Auschwitz I was founded on May 20, 1940. (Auschwitz Concentration).
It contained several blocks of which Block II housed a ‘prison within the prison’ where violators of numerous rules were punished. They had to spend nights in “standing cells” a 1.5 m square area containing 4 men who could do nothing but stand. ‘The basement had “starvation cells” where prisoners were incarcerated without food and water till they were dead’. (Auschwitz – Nazi Concentration Camp). The basement also had “dark cells” with only a very tiny window and a solid door. Here prisoners gradually suffocated to death. The SS – the officials in charge, would light a candle in the cell to use up the oxygen more quickly to hasten the death of the prisoners. Operated by Heinrich Himmler’s SS, the execution of the prisoners took place in a rather brutal manner.
Some prisoners were made to hang with their heads behind their backs dislocating their shoulder joints for several days. The execution yard was the place where individual execution of important personalities took place. They were either shot or suspended from hooks. The infamously famous Doctor Josef Mengele, conducted experiments to determine the effects of injection of caustic chemicals into the uterus of women. Many women died in pain. He also performed castration with anesthetics. Prisoners in the hospital camps were regularly killed by a lethal injection of phenol.
The condition of the prisoners in Auschwitz II Birkenau was no less awful. Four gas chambers were installed about 1600 prisoners were killed every day under the effect of the highly lethal cyanide-based pesticide, Zyklon B. The gas chambers resembled shower rooms where they were neatly stacked in groups. The prisoners who were transported to this place by train were often violently dropped off the trains during the course of the journey. Initially, they were escorted in two lines, one for women and one for men. Later, they were divided into 4 groups according to their physique.
The weaker women and children and those who couldn’t work were gassed to death. The second group was the workers whose clothes were taken away, heads shaved, sterilized, given black and white clothes to wear, and sent to the industrial factories for hard work. The third group consisted of twins and dwarfs, specially selected by Doctor Josef for his inhuman experiments to determine how long it would take a person to die. He cut off body parts and reattached them to different parts of the body. The fourth group was the women prisoners; rudely called “Canada”. The role of Oskar Schindler is worth mentioning. He had miraculously saved 1100 Jewish Poles from execution, beatings, starvation, and sickness.
The atrocities on the prisoners in Auschwitz III Monowitz who were mainly Jews, Poles, and Germans were horrendous. Prisoners moved in lines of two into a place where a procedure called ‘Selektion’ took place. The ones who could work were not killed at this time, while the women’s children and the others who couldn’t be gassed. Some of the prisoners who couldn’t react or move became what was known as ‘Muselmann’. The dreaded part of the camp was the ‘Appell’ or Roll call. In this, the prisoners were sent out into the cold night after a hard day of work, lined up and shot dead or gassed. The worst part of the chores of the inmates was the ‘Sonderkommando’ where the bodies of the dead prisoners were burnt in the crematoria.
Apart from these, the prisoners were given tattoos in their right arms as an easier way of registration. Around 405000 prisoners are estimated to be registered. The daily routine of the prisoners was to wake up at dawn, clean the areas and arrange for the roll call. They walked to the worksite, where regular inspection was done and the Doctor picked up his ‘suitable specimens’ for various experimental activities. It is believed that at times the people were tattooed on their chests and the Jews, the worst sufferers had metal plates stitched to their arms as roll numbers. “The tattoos of the survivors have come to symbolize the utter brutality of the concentration camps.” Apart from this the prisoners were arranged according to series of A U – Soviets, Z- Germans, A- men, B- women.
The prisoners in the three prison houses were made to sleep in groups of 4 on a bunk made of wood barely a few inches wide and long. The weaker ones have shoved off their beds for execution. The prisoners, after waking up lined their way to the different sections they were led to. Daily inspection and routine executions made the prisoners accustomed to the ritual of human sacrifice. Most of the prisoners died due to forced labor, inhuman treatment, systematic starvation, lack of disease control, individual execution, and the so-called medical experiments.
Forced labor emaciated the prisoners to such an extent that they were reduced to a bundle of bones within no time. Gruesome work ranging from carrying the diseased and the dead, long hours of work in factories without water and food, inhuman working conditions reduced the people to a shadow of their former selves. The inhuman treatments that they were subject to prevented them from being able to protest or rebel. Those who planned to escape and those who were caught were given capital punishment. Barbed electric fences around the prison house stopped prisoners from escaping. Torch lights of high voltage worked at night to spot any escaping prisoner. Guards kept a 24-hour watch over the whole area.
The prisoners were given hardly any meal to be able to stand up to work. Food was rationed and as the number of prisoners to each prison house increased the former inmates were put to death to accommodate the new ones. Living under sub-human conditions, women, children, and the weaker men suffered from fatal diseases which were not attended to. Women and children suffered the worst consequences. Yet another gruesome act was individual execution where the prisoner faced death either by a bullet or by hanging down from a nail. This punishment was given to those prisoners who occupied a distinguished rank either in society or in the army.
Conclusion
The death of Hitler put an end to the sufferings of the Jews, the Soviets, and the Germans. The three prison houses were destroyed and the prisoners were taken to safer places. Though not completely destroyed, the prison houses remained a site worth visiting. Each prison house has told endless tales of woe while being a constant reminder of the savagery of man against man.
Shame on the Homo sapiens who regard themselves as sane and rational creatures and yet commit the worst crimes worth remembering! It’s barely 63 years since the first gas chambers for humans were constructed. It is getting worst still as different parts of the world are becoming prey to murderous activities by extremist groups and terrorists in the name of religion, caste, and race. One need not mention the made race after imperial glory and political power of a few ‘glorious’ personalities.
Throughout the history of second half of twentieth century, the attempts to suppress a so-called “unpopular knowledge”, on the part of governmental authorities and public institutions, have contributed more then anything else to citizens in Western countries being slowly deprived of their essential civil freedoms. We are being continuously told by mainstream Medias that, among other things, people in democratic countries enjoy the freedom of self-expression.
In fact, we are being told that America’s recent wars in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq, had only one objective – popularizing the concept of democracy among those who used to suffer under totalitarian regimes. However, this is being done in time when citizens in so-called “democratic” countries often face criminal charges for simply trying to do a historical inquiry on the issue of Holocaust, or for suggesting that the establishment of “multicultural paradise” in Western countries is impossible in principle, simply because the concept of racial equality does not correspond to the objective reality, while being utterly unscientific in its essence.
In this paper, we will focus on exploring different aspects of formal and informal censorship, in regards to a so-called “Holocaust denial”, as we strongly believe that people’s ability to express their thoughts freely is essential to the existence of democracy in this country, despite the fact that the hawks of political correctness strive hard to convince us in otherwise. We will also establish a link between government’s pressure to silence historical revisionists and the fact that Western civilization, as we know it, will be facing the danger of self-destruction, once citizens are being deprived of their sense of rationale, as result of being subjected to politically correct indoctrination.
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Before the end of WW2, it was a perfectly legitimate practice to criticize Jewish people for their strong affiliation with shady commercial activities, their promotion of spiritual decadence or their close ties with Communist leadership in Soviet Union. However, after WW2, the public criticism of Jews, or even referral to them as regular people and not the “holy cows”, became socially unacceptable. It appears that, even if Holocaust did not happen, it would have to be invented, because it effectively puts Jews beyond any criticism whatsoever.
The fact that indulging in historical research on Holocaust started to represent a danger to historians, unless they wholeheartedly support the dogmatic version of this event, laid the ground for the establishment of informal and then formal censorship, in regards to this issue. In his article “Informal censorship of Holocaust revisionism in the United States and Germany”, Robert Kahn provides us with example of how the existence of informal censorship on discussing the Holocaust reveals itself in America.
The article describes what has happened when in 1992, academic newspapers in 35 American universities and colleges were asked to publish a paid advertisement, on behalf of The Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust (CODOH), which encouraged students to engage in open debates on the issue. Apparently, only 5 newspapers had published the ad, while supplementing it with their own comments on the essence of ad’s message as “offensive and inaccurate”, “founded on historical fiction and anti-Jewish bigotry”, “offensive, provocative and wrong” and “racist, pure and simple”.
Kahn is making a good point, when he suggests that: “While this may be expected of the papers that killed the ad, the critical posture taken by those who ran it reflects the availability of freedom of speech as an arguing point. The First Amendment allowed student editors to oppose revisionism without censoring, a luxury their German counterparts lacked” (Kahn, p. 126). The reason why newspapers had to supplement the ad with derogatory comments is because, had they not done it, they would have been sued by Jewish Anti-Defamation League and consequentially closed down.
Why Jewish organizations in U.S. are being so strongly opposed to the prospects of open discussion on Holocaust? Why are the people in this country being encouraged to think that arguing the dogmatic views on Holocaust represents crime, even though that U.S. Constitution operates with the concept of “benefit of the doubt” as being vital to the existence of democracy in the first place? The answer to this question is obvious – Jews were able to turn the issue of Holocaust into one of the most lucrative businesses on Earth.
Germany alone pays Israel $350 million on annual basis, as “reparations for Holocaust”. Swiss banks are being extorted in broad day light by various Jewish organizations for huge amounts of money. These groups threaten to apply the label of “anti-Semitism” to these banks, if they fail to address Jewish demands. As time goes by, the number of self-proclaimed “holocaust survivors” grows increasingly larger, even though that it does not make any logical sense.
Even though that the majority of these “survivors” were born well after the end of WW2, they are strongly convinced that everybody owe them money. The article “Siege of Leningrad Victims to be Compensated”, which can be found on the site of JTA, reveals the sheer hypocrisy with which Jews impose “historical guilt” for their misfortunes on everybody else but themselves: “The Claims Conference has won payment for Jewish survivors of the Nazi siege of Leningrad. Under an agreement the conference described as a “historic breakthrough,” the German government will make a one-time payment of about $4,000 to victims of the siege now living in Israel or Western countries” (JTA, 2008).
Apparently, the millions of Russians, who died and became invalids, during the siege of Leningrad, do not qualify for compensation from Germans. After all, they are nothing but “goims”- cattle. In fact, the mere suggestion that Jews were not only the ones who had suffered, during the course of WW2, now represents a criminal offence in many European countries and Canada, because it is being regarded as “Holocaust denial”.
In his article “Censoring Holocaust Denial is Hypocritical”, Alec Brandon provides readers with the proof that the form of government in most of European countries and Canada can no longer be referred to as democracy but as Liberal dictatorship: “Holocaust denial laws litter much of Western Europe: Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Switzerland all have laws criminalizing the act.
The punishment for denial is not insubstantial and is actually enforced quite often. The maximum sentence in Austria is 10 years” (Brandon, 2007). Two years ago, the famous British historian David Irving, was being sentenced to 3 years in jail in Austria, simply because pointing out at the fact that there is absolutely no objective evidence that Jews were being gassed in German concentration camps on mass scale, and that the “survivors’” testimonies, upon which the notion of Holocaust rests, are utterly contradictory. It might very well be the case that Irving’s point of view is wrong, but it is even more wrong to be putting someone in jail for simply expressing its opinion on historical even that had taken place 70 years ago.
On February 5, 2003, another “Holocaust denier” Ernst Zundel, was being stripped of his Canadian citizenship and deported to Germany, on the premise that he represented a “threat to Canadian national security”, where he was being charged with the “thought crime” and sentenced to 7 years in jail. In his article “Who Is Ernst Zundel, And Why Is He In Jail?”, Mark Weber provides us with the insight on sheer absurdity of ideological censorship: “There is absolutely no basis for the “security threat” charge. Zundel’s life is an open book. He is a peaceful man with no record of violence. During the 40 years he lived in Canada, he was never convicted of a crime. In fact, he has himself been a victim of hate and violence. He survived at least three attempts on his life, including a devastating arson attack against his residence” (Weber, 2003).
While failing to recognize Muslim terrorists with Canadian citizenship as such that represent “security threat”, Canadian authorities could not come up with nothing better then prosecuting Ernst Zundel, who was employing hundreds of people, who used to donate thousands of dollars to various Christian charities, on annual basis, and who simply had enough courage to stand up for his beliefs. Mark Weber explains the reasons why Zundel was being persecuted: “Zundel is in prison not because his views are unpopular or because he is a “security risk.” He is in prison because Jewish groups want him there. He is a prisoner because he promotes views that the Jewish-Zionist lobby considers harmful to its interests” (Weber, 2003).
After Zundel was convicted of “promoting extremism”, all of his books, such as “The Auschwitz Lie and Did Six Million Really Die?”, were being removed from public libraries in Canada. In fact, these books are now being included into the list of “extremist literature”, which people are not allowed to bring to Canada. If person who crosses Canadian border admits that he or she is in possession of any of Zundel’s books, these books will be confiscated by customs and destroyed.
In his article “The Censorship Trial of Ernst Zundel”, Bradley R. Smith confirms that Canada is turning into a truly totalitarian state: “At the border dividing our nations, history books are seized by Canadian Customs and Excise offices as ‘obscene’ if they promote a point of view toward World War Two that is not approved of by the State” (Bradley, 2007).
In Canada, gays can legally get married, children in public schools can get an explicit information on “sexual diversity”, Hindus can carry concealed daggers in public, as part of their “cultural heritage” – yet, if anyone raises its voice against the sheer insanity of having Liberal wackos being in charge of designing country’s socio-political policies, he will be automatically branded as “extremist”.
This has led to a situation that FBI now considers Canada as country that poses threat to U.S. national security. In his article “Danger from Canada”, Oliver Guitta explains why: “Historically, a number of terror attacks targeting the U.S. have originated in Canada, such as the ‘Millennium plot’ planned against Los Angeles airport… Canada is well known for its reluctance to extradite suspects, especially when they are nationals… For example, the Canadian leader of the Tamil Tigers, Manickavasagam Suresh, was arrested in 1995 as a threat to national security and was ordered to be deported, but he is still in Canada 13 years later” (Guitta, 2008).
The reason why we have included this quotation in the paper is to illustrate that Liberal censorship, which claimed Ernst Zundel as its victim, is conceptually counter-productive. It cannot benefit anyone in principle, except for the rich representatives of “chosen people. This is why people who insist that there should even more “hate crime” laws enacted, in order to combat “intolerance”, are nothing but traitors, who will eventually be dealt with as traitors.
As we have mentioned earlier, Jewish groups of interest were able to effectively deny people their right of freedom to of speech in Western countries, whatever incredible such suggestion might sound, because there is a plenty of evidence available that substantiates the validity of this statement. The non-Jews in Western countries are expected to always feel shame over the Holocaust, and to be willing to open up their wallets, every time “chosen people” demand it.
This is the reason why Western Medias, 90% of which “purely accidentally” happened to be owned by “God’s folk”, withhold from citizens any information that might cause them to wonder why they need to close their eyes on what “progressive” politicians do to their countries. It is a fact that policy of “multiculturalism” resulted in creation of situation when more and more cities in countries like France, Britain, U.S. and Canada slowly turn into Third World slums, with drug dealers openly pushing narcotics to kids, with residents dumping garbage right onto the streets, as part of “celebration their ethnic uniqueness”, with law abiding citizens being afraid of venturing into ethnic “ghettos” or even coming out of their houses, after it gets dark.
Everybody know this fact, yet people are only allowed to hold “kitchen talks” about it, while fearing to be laid off from their jobs or being labeled as “racists”, as the logical result of them deciding to talk about it openly. Slowly but surely Western countries are being turned into the modern equivalent of Soviet Union, where people’s public statements and their actual thoughts did not correlate. Just like in Soviet Union, we now live under ideological censorship of political correctness, with its proponents suggesting that it is perfectly legal to jail people simply because they want to utilize their right of self-expression.
For example, within a matter of last 10 years, there has been no single Hollywood movie made that would feature a Black character as the main villain, despite the fact that, according to statistics, while constituting only 12% of population in America, Blacks commit 65% of all crimes. According to these movies, Blacks consist exclusively of computer geniuses and future American Presidents. In fact, even mentioning this statistics represents a “crime” against political correctness; therefore, any information that would shed doubt on the possibility of building “multicultural paradise” is being effectively censored.
The reason why revisionist literature is being banned from libraries is not because Jews become utterly horrified by suggestion that their horrors, during the course of WW2, maybe were not quite as horrible as they would like everybody to believe, but because such literature helps to prevent White people from indulging in psychological masochism. For example, those who have read Irving’s or Zundel’s books will never believe that traveling to Israel to pledge allegiance to Jewish cause, on the part of both American presidential candidates, even before either of them became elected, is something absolutely normal – after all, both: McCain and Obama intend to become not Israeli but American Presidents.
In his article “Listen to Vladimir Bukovsky”, John F. McManus discusses how one of the most famous Soviet dissidents Vladimir Bukovsky, who had spent half of his life being imprisoned in GULAG, views the recent socio-political developments in America and the countries of EU: “Greatly alarmed, Bukovsky sees the police powers in the EU’s Europol on the way to becoming the equivalent of the USSR’s KGB.
Europol has already criminalized ‘racism’ and ‘xenophobia’ and he fears that the absence of any definition of these ‘crimes’ will enable the EU’s authorities to silence and punish the opponents of political correctness” (McManus, 2007). As we have illustrated in the first part of this paper, this already began to happen, with many European prominent intellectuals finding themselves behind bars, simply because they refused to be brainwashed. Thus, we can conclude that we are now past the point of discussing the issue of censorship, in regards to some particular book being banned from libraries, because of containing sexual obscenity, for example.
Given the wide range of modern ideological censorship, which is aimed at preventing people from relying on their sense of logic, when it comes to discussing the issues of political and social importance, it is now so much easier to actually talk about things that were not being subjected to censorship yet, even though that their number is being continuously decreased, as time goes by. For example, as recent as ten years ago, the story of “Cinderella and the Seven Dwarfs” could be easily found in just about any elementary school’s library.
It is not the case anymore now. Apparently politically correct censors do not like word “dwarf”, because their mental depravity causes them to think of this word as being “offensive”. In very near future, this fairy tale might end up being referred to as “The Story of Physically Abused Female Servant and Seven Vertically Challenged Individuals who had the Misfortune of being born as Caucasians”.
Conclusion
Thus, it is wrong to think, like many naïve citizens do, that authorities have the right to ban books from public libraries, because of book’s “extremist” content. It is important to understand that those who actively strive to deprive Western nations of their inner integrity, as something that would insure that the processes of “money bags” becoming even richer and the ordinary citizens becoming poorer would go unchallenged, will never be satisfied with even little bit of freedom being left to people.
Today they tell us we cannot read Zundel, tomorrow they will be telling us that our children cannot read “Cinderella and Seven Dwarfs” and after tomorrow, they be raiding our houses, simply to set whatever the books they can find on fire, just like being predicted by Ray Bradbury in his novel “Fahrenheit 451”, because there is no need for people to read books, once they have MTV channel and Oprah’s Talk Show.
Annotated Bibliography
Brandon, Alec “Censoring Holocaust Denial is Hypocritical”. 2007. Chicago Maroon. Web.
Author discusses the instances of people being punished for seeking a historical truth. Even though Brandon agrees that denying Holocaust is wrong, he criticizes those Liberal that are being utterly intolerant towards people who hold different opinions from what Liberals consider as being “appropriate”.
Guitta, Oliver “Danger from Canada”. 2008. Middle East Times. Web.
In this article, Gutta discusses how promotion of policy of multiculturalism in Canada, resulted in this country becoming a haven for terrorists. At the end of the article, he suggests that Canada represents threat to American national security, because of that.
Kahn, Robert “Informal Censorship of Holocaust Revisionism in the United States and Germany”. George Mason University Civil Rights Law Journal, v. 9, no. 1 (1998) p. 125-49. Web.
In this article, author discusses different forms of informal censorship in American colleges and universities.
McManus, John “Listen to Vladimir Bukovsky”. 2007. Bnet. Business Network. Web.
McManus talks about former Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky, who is being known for his criticism of political correctness in Western countries, as the form of ideological oppression, similar to Communism and Nazism.
Siege of Leningrad Victims to be Compensated. 2008. JTA Breaking News. Web.
This article informs readers that those Jews, who survived the siege of Leningrad, during WW2, are eligible for $4000 payments from German government, while denying the possibility to Russian survivors for also being eligible for compensation.
Smith, Bradley “The Censorship Trial of Ernst Zundel”. 1991. Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust. Web.
In this article, Smith suggests that Canada is turning into totalitarian state, because country’s penal code operates with the concept of “thought crime”.
Weber, Mark “Who Is Ernst Zundel, And Why Is He In Jail?”. 2003. Institute for Historical Review. Web.
Mark Weber discusses reasons why Ernst Zundel was being deported to Germany and exposes the sheer absurdity of his indictments. He also makes it clear that Canada has turned into Liberal dictatorship and that U.S. is about to follow its footsteps.
America was one of the most powerful nations during the time of Holocaust in Germany and at the start of Second World War. The nation had made major strides in regards to freedom and democracy. America was a world model having made significant advances in economics and political fields.
It was at this time in Germany when Adolf Hitler’s regime stripped Jews off their liberties and humanity. Millions of were massacred as American turned a blind eye to the plight of Jews. Had America intervened early and acted accordingly, millions could have been saved from the Holocaust, but instead they choose to abandon the Jewish people.
Main body
Soon after World War I, American policy maker made a decision aimed at stopping America from being involved in other country’s domestic affairs and international conflicts. Isolationism policy was adopted and come the Second World War, America was not willing to get involved in the war. Most American public were also against any involvement of American in European war as they felt that America’s interest could only be protected by avoiding foreign conflicts. The general feeling was that no American life should be lost in the war in Eastern Europe.
Later when America joined Russia in the war against the Nazi Regime, the action was selective in that it failed to protect the Jews from genocide. By the spring of 1944, Americans were aware of mass killing of Jews at Auschwitz’s Gas Chambers at Birkenau extermination camp.
Jews leaders made passionate plea to the United States to bomb the railway leading to the camp but their calls were ignored. Instead, the United States bombed industrial targets in Auschwitz, located fives miles from the Extermination camp. Over 100,000 Jews died at the gas chambers in Birkenau during the period which America was bombing the Auschwitz industrial complex. Had America intervened by bombing the camp and the railway line leading to the camp, most of these Jews could have been saved.
During the period when the Holocaust was taking place, America was going through the great economic depression. The US was not ready to any immigrant, fearing job crisis and the burdening of the already strained economy. It is for this reason that immigration rules were tightened.
In 1938, over 20,000 Jews from German applied for US visa, but the Visa quota system at the time allowed only 7,000 Germans to have US visas. By 1939, the number of Jews seeking US visa had increased to 300,000 with only 20,000 getting approval.Plea by Human Rights body to the U.S State Department to increase the Germany quota fell on deaf ears.
Late 1930s and early 1940s gave rise to anti-Semitism movement in United States, spreading hatred against Jews across America. Anti-Jewish literature and slogans were speared allover United States. Many Jews faced physical assault and those who owned properties became an easier target to vandalism. This hatred further complicated effort to help Jews facing genocide in Eastern Europe.
Conclusion
America’s late and selective involvement in Eastern Europe war contributed to the holocaust. This coupled with anti-Semitism and tight immigration rules made it hard for Jews to seek refuge in United States. The nation failed to stop the genocide when it had the capacity and the capability to do so at an early stage. In principle, America abandoned the Jews at the hour of need.
Millions have dispersed in wars and disasters, but none really measures up to the famous killing of German Jews by the Nazi party that was in power than under the leadership of Adolph Hitler. This took place between 1935 to the commencement of the 2nd World War though it can be traced to have begun earlier than this though the intensity was much lower. Discrimination was purely based on race which later changed from discrimination to the final solution which involved killing of all the Jews in Germany and even campaigning for Jews living in the rest of Europe who had escaped from Germany to be killed. The Nazi government believed that the German race or Aryan race was superior and thus it had to be preserved at whatever cost. The minority Jews were seen as the major threat to the superior race. In fact the number of Jews was approximately 1% of Germany’s population by then.
The discrimination as said at workplaces and other areas was later to escalate to actual killing with the taking of power by the Nazi party establishing legal backing of their activities with the enactment of the Nuremburg laws. The origin of discrimination and the transformation of it to extermination was characterised by very interesting events and happened gradually. This paper thus examines the factors surrounding the discrimination, how it begun and was later to develop into extermination that was also later developed “the Holocaust”.
Discrimination process
Prior to the passing of the Nuremburg laws in 1935, there had been random discrimination and hostility against the German Jews in the country. With consolidation of power by the Nazi party, after Hitler was appointed chancellor by President Paul Von Hindenburg, discrimination of the Jews became legal. The police force acted in all ways to support the laws that forced as many as 75 000 Jews to run away from their home country and seek refugee status in neighbouring countries. As early as 1935, the Nazi party was staging protests against the Jews by boycotting their businesses. They aimed at discriminating the Jews from all spheres of life.
The Nazi Party used to organise protests and boycotts which more often than not turned into violence. Jewish businesses and any Jewish oriented products were boycotted. For example in May 1933, several book burning sort of ceremonies were held. They involved the Aryan people burning all scholarly works and books written by the Jews. The same year also saw Jews being denied their rights to own farmland or even to inherit it from their ancestors. The Nazi did all this as they blamed the Jews for various failures of the German society such as poverty, unemployment, and losing of the First World War more given that many Jews had taken part in the war in the belief that they were bonafide citizens of the third Reich. However, much of these problems had been brought about by the treaty of Versailles which had been imposed to counter the rise of Germany after having triggered the First World War.
Though the discriminations then were held by Nazi party members, they activities were supported by non-party public who had grown jealous of the industriousness and entrepreneurial skills displayed by the Jews then. As such, the government pretended to be against the activities of the Nazi party but deep down did nothing to stop their activities. In fact reports show that the Nazi party regulated its activities in fear of driving away moderate political figures as it was still hoping to rise to power after which we see the development of the holocaust in full swing3. In addition to this, Germany the Nazis would space their protests in anticipation of the world’s opinion. When none was forthcoming, another protest would be organised.
Nuremberg laws
According to the Free Online dictionary, a holocaust is the killing of people en masse by others or by fire5. Unfortunately, the world knows of one holocaust. Other major genocide such as the cases in Rwanda, Bosnia and even during the slave trade when more people were involved, the German case was more pronounced as it was mainly based on race. Other victims of the holocaust were German Aryans viewed to have some traces of hereditary diseases such as epilepsy, autism, criminals, homosexuals and enemies of the state persecuted on alleged political and military grounds which was not the case.
The Nuremburg laws passed in 10 September 1935 during a Nazi party convention set the groundwork for the holocaust.6 The author goes further and says that earlier form of discrimination against the Jews could have been tolerated as some of the Jews themselves were hopeful that the discrimination would end. Austin says of the holocaust as something that stands out in human history and surpasses other forms of genocides due to the methodology used and its ferocious intensity that saw the period between 1938 and 1945 around 12-13 million people slaughtered.
There were three major laws that were formed on this particular day though they were later to be followed by several thousand derivations. These laws were;
Law of protection of the German race through hereditary health- Persons with such diseases were forced to be surgically sterilised though in writing the law stated that such people had the right to make a decision on whether to undergo sterilization.
Law of protection of the German race through citizenship- It denied all Jews their citizenship and viewed them as second class citizens. By then the international law allowed basic rights to be extended to persons of proven citizenship before it was later amended to declare human rights to all whether citizens of a country or not. This law thus set the basis for all forms of discrimination on the Jews as they had no human rights in the first place as non-citizens. The definition of a citizen also changed. According to Nazi, a Jew was a person who had the full lineage of a Jewish family or a mixed race person who had three Jewish grandparents. To clarify this law, charts were introduced in which individuals could use to trace their position as German or Jewish.
Law of protection of the German race through blood and honour- This law forbade any marriages or sexual contact between Germans and Jews. It recognised the Germans as a superior race and had to be preserved and contamination of the blood by non-Germans avoided. The honour part of the law forbade Jews from carrying the German flag which had then been adorned with the swastika and also forbade from any Jews employing Germans in their households.8
The drafting of these laws is said to have drawn inspiration from British attempts to “order” its empire in hierarchal manner in India through martial races. Also, Adolph Hitler seemed to use slavery rules used in the 19th century in the US.9 Apart from Hitler another person who contributed immensely to the formation of these barbaric laws was one Hans Globke. By then, the world was ill placed as condemning the activities of the German government as the two leading world powers had practiced almost similar laws in history which had come to pass. As such, many expected that the harsh laws enacted in Germany under the Jews were momentary and would come to pass. Another aspect that worked for the leader of the Nazi government was that he had obtained absolute powers as the Chancellor and president of the state after the death of President Paul Von Hindenburg. He also had the army service men swearing personally to him and thus obtained absolute political and military power that allowed him to act at his will.
Hitler also drew inspiration of drafting these laws from the Darwin’s theory on survival for the fittest published in the book, “Origin of Species” in the mid 19th century. He also linked this theory on to have been in use earlier in history through “biological racism in the United States as a rationale for slavery and anti-Semitism in Europe as the underlying principle for cultural nationalism”. Another notable application of this law was in Vienna, Austria. Karl von Lueger, the mayor of city in the late 1890’s was openly anti-Semitic and manipulated the anti-Semitic passions of people for political gains which is what Hitler exactly did years later.
Forced emigration
With the Jews denied citizenship, some opted to seek asylum in foreign countries around the world. The Nazi government encouraged it as they viewed the action provided more opportunities to the master race. Obsession with this idea led to the government to adopt another more viscous policy that would ultimately lead to the Second World War: creation of living space for the master race. Other developments in the government seemed to rescind on the earlier intentions of expelling Jews from Germany. With Hitler busy on strategising on acquiring more space for his people one of his point men in government Hermann Goering, assumed enormous powers over the economy. He reversed the process of forced immigration through the “Aryanization” process in April 1938. This procedure sought to nationalise all Jewish property and deny them means to travel out of the country. The final solution to the Jewish question now obtained another direction in planning to deport all the Jews to Madagascar, an island off the Indian Ocean.12
In protecting the master race, Hitler viewed that forced immigration of the Jews reduced contamination and created more living space and opportunities for his people. He lured Jews to explore other opportunities in foreign lands and thus ordered the designing of passports for Jews that only permitted one to leave but never to return. His obsession with creating more living space for the Aryans was to be seen with the annexation of Austria in 1938 without much resistance as he was considered a saviour. In this, country he also ordered the deportation of Jews using the international Jewish conspiracy theory. Several countries around the world accepted the Jews in their countries though quotas were in place to protect excessive immigration.13 All this, time the international world turned a blind eye on the activities of Hitler. Again, Hitler was also convinced of his international appeal after the country successfully hosted the 1936 Olympic Games. Nevertheless, the US convened a conference to discuss the issue of Jews deportation attended by 39 states but there was no agreement reached. This shows that the world was not happy with the activities of Hitler but none dared to raise a finger. As such some historical questions are posed by historians such as, did the holocaust take place because the world failed to act or due to the mere acts of one Adolph Hitler?14
Another attempt to create more living space for the master race saw Hitler’s army men invade Poland on September 1, 1939, Yugoslavia and Greece on April 6, 1941 and the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941. Prior to these invasions, it is clear that Hitler anticipated a harsh reaction from the international community regarding the “final solution” to the Jewish question and his quest for more living space for the master race. He is quoted to have indicated the reaction with a speech to his top brass party members
If the international Jewish financiers inside and outside Europe should again success in plunging the nations into a world war, the result will not be the bolshevization of the earth and thus the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race throughout Europe.15
During all this time Hitler had the full backing of his army men and several police forces such as the Schutzstaffel (SS), the Sturmabteilung (SA) and the Gestapo. The SS was a paramilitary unit fielding around one million men under Heinrich Himmler and is accredited with a majority of the human atrocities in the Holocaust. The SA was more significant in the early 1930s when Hitler was rising to power. It was a paramilitary group whose ranking system was adopted by the Nazi party. The Gestapo on the other hand was the regimes secret police. On the “Night of the Long Knives” (also code named “Hummingbird”) the SS and the Gestapo killed all the SA leaders and other political entities who were viewed not to be convincingly loyal to the Fuehrer.16
Concentration camps
With the introduction of the aryanization process, the final solution changed plan to extermination. The SS, SA and the Gestapo were very crucial in the formation and running of concentration camps. Concentration17 camps had been in existence as early as 1933 which were used by the Nazi party to hold political prisoners. The writer thus draws a distinction between these camps and extermination camps. However, it is these early concentration camps in Germany that were later used for extermination before others were established elsewhere such as in Poland, Belgium and Austria. Major Extermination camps included Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Majdanek and Auschwitz-Birkenau.
These camps held different categories of people from Soviet prisoners of wars to Eastern Europe intellectuals. As such they were required to wear identify uniforms or colored badges according to their category e.g. communist soviet prisoners wore red triangle badges and yellow for Jews.
Millions died in these camps due to disease, starvation, overwork or the various means used in execution such as shooting, live burning, hanging or poisonous gas chambers. In what was to be called operation 14f13, prisoners in selected camps were killed. Other minor camps flourished as the prisoners provided free labor and as such were set up near factories and mines. Inability to work efficiently only resulted to death of the prisoners in the gas chambers or through other means. Movement of prisoners from one camp to another was often and was done in inhumane cattle transportation tracks and thus many died on their way.
In 1942, Wannasee Conference chaired by Reinhard Heydrich as directed by Himmler announced the use of prisoners in the camps for medical experiments and extermination. As the war progressed, the prisoners increased in number before the German troops began losing the war slowly. By 1943, allied troops had made entry into Germany and other countries with concentration camps thereby freeing them. In total, around 11 million Jews were killed during the Holocaust.
The 2nd world war
As earlier stated, Hitler had predicted a reaction from the international community over his expansion activities by invading other counties. Fortunately for him, many of the countries he chose to attack had weak armies and thus stronger sympathising nations had to come to their aid. In the process had gained friends and allies in the name of Italy under Mussolini and Japan to form the Axis. All the three had planned to expand their territories. The 1941 attack on Poland marked the beginning of the 2nd World War which forced the international community headed by the US to form a counter union called the Allies. These forces were however not united as the US preferred to work alone and as such gave more room to the German troops to advance.18
Hitler proved to a very gifted man in planning and executing the war. A simple mistake in the attack of England did cost him the war. Another thing that cost him the war was the harsh winter weather in the Soviet Union that forced many of his troops to either die or retreat. By 1944, the troops were partially subdued and many concentration camps prisoners freed. Unfortunately, a number of them later died due to diseases. Unfortunately, with the occupation of Berlin by Allied troops, Hitler himself could not face the embarrassment of losing and thus committed suicide together with his one day old wife. Most of his accomplices in government had escaped the country or surrendered thus bringing an end to a war that claimed over 70 million civilian and military lives, making it the worst human catastrophe in history.
Endnotes
3 Browning, C., Matthaus, J. & Yad, Y. Origins of the final solution: The evolution of Nazi Jewish policy, London arrow Books, 2005
There have been numerous public debates in Germany about the commemoration of the Third Reich. These debates point at the mentalities that the modern German culture has regarding the holocaust, German involvement in the Second World War and the whole dark period that came after the fall of the Weimar Republic. The most popular debates that are a pointer to the contemporary German detachment to the Third Reich are the Goldhaggen debate and the Wehrmacht Exhibition saga debate. These debates highlight conflicts, challenges and the complications involved in the way the modern Germans relate to their dark history. In order to understand the attitudes of the Germans to what they consider as their dark past it is important to understand the factors that led to these debates that illustrate modern German thinking.
Goldhaggen Debate in Germany
To start with, this debate was triggered by a book published by David Goldhaggen, which focused on the willing executioners of the Hitler’s Regime. It is about the ordinary Germans and the holocaust. The author of this book argued against the notion that the near annihilation of Jews in Europe was as a result of coercion of the Germans by a few wayward leaders (Evans 2008, 98). The leaders, according to the contemporary German thinking, managed to lure decent people who became instruments in their malicious schemes. Before the book was launched, the debate revolved around two schools of thought. These schools of thought had the functionalists pitted against the Intetionalists. The two wings focused their arguments on the involvement of the government decision making organs and their level of involvement in the decimation of Jews by the Hitler’s Nazi regime. However, Goldhaggen focuses on the actions of the people on the ground, who were used by the Nazi hierarchy to undertake the mass extermination of Jews. Goldhaggen tries to put across the factors that motivated the real murderers who were unwittingly involved in the Nazi apparatus.
Goldhaggen attacks the attitudes held by the Germans and makes a conclusion that the ordinary Germans were not subconsciously involved in the Hitler’s genocidal policy. According to Goldhaggen, the big question is not the people that were involved in the mass extermination and torture of the minority Jews, the question is the reasons behind these macabre killings. He maintains that there is no evidence of coercion and peer pressure to exonerate the ordinary Germans from the involvement in the execution of the Jews and maintains that they favored the government policy. Most Germans killed in support of Hitler’s government according to Goldhaggen, and therefore, they were willing executioners (Goldhaggen1996, 37). This means that holocaust raises the ideological question of the kind of thinking that the Germans had.
German Reaction to Goldhaggen
Germans were not pleased by the stand taken by Goldhaggen and his allegation and this precipitated a very large public debate that took three phases. The reaction of the Germans displays the contemporary culture’s position on the holocaust and the mass exterminations carried out by the Nazi regime during the Third Reich. The contemporary Germans were not happy with collective guilt that Goldhaggen imposed on them by saying that the holocaust was a consequence of the nuanced view of Germans on Semitism (Goldhaggen1996, 34). The book evoked past memories that the contemporary German culture would like to remain buried deep in history, and their reaction betrayed their estrangement, or the wish to remain estranged from their recent, dark past. The responses from outside Germany to Goldhaggen were more favorable because, inside Germany debaters described Goldhaggen’s work as polemical because of the way it attributed the holocaust to just one cause. The contemporary German dispensation, according to the observers of the debate, does not in any way think that the holocaust was a consequence of a single factor, especially when that single factor is the Germans and their anti-Semitism. However, this attitude thawed as the debate got into the second phase. The second phases involved stage face-offs that were held in events that attracted more that 6000. This time round, the German public sided with the author and this set the ball rolling for the third and the most important phase of the debate. The phenomenon created by Goldhaggen ceased to be about the dark past of the German republic. A process of moral reflections on the period after the fall of the Weimar republic began. The Goldhaggen debate helped the Germans to reconnect with the past they had been escaping from and helped them to see their role on the mass exterminations of the holocaust. The Goldhagen debate represents a shift in the attitude of the Germans regarding the commemoration of the Third Reich and the remembrance of the holocaust. The Germans at first did not want to be associated with that past and its atrocities and whenever an issue arose about the third Reich and the holocaust, their first reaction was denial. This is because the recent past is not something any German is proud of. The attitude displayed by the Germans indicates their inevitable escapism from the past that still haunts them. However, as the issue faded away, the Germans were able to reconnect with that past, helping them to morally reflect on the truth instead of running away from it. This is what exactly transpired during the whole course of the Goldhaggen debate, which opened a can of worms but later sobered up the German public. Goldhagen had touched the German nerve and the emotional response from the people especially inside the country was expected. This is because the character of the ordinary German had been put into question and the German started comparing the way they view themselves with the way others view them relative to the atrocities committed during the Third Reich. The attitudes were especially intense because Goldhaggen came at the time when Germany was making transition from the Bonn era to the Berlin era after the reunification and this is something that had already elicited mixed feelings outside the country. Germany was reorienting after a very tough past and Goldhaggen had triggered a bomb whose explosion really showed who the Germans really are.
Crimes of the Wehrmacht Controversy Debate
The Goldhaggen debate may have been controversial but the one that preceded it was even more controversial. The debate was the crimes of the Wehrmacht sparked by an exhibition called the war of extermination. It had been organized by a publicist called Hannnes Herr, and for many years it pulled many Germans from different provinces.
The exhibition did not please the German right wing and it was attacked in public debate and in the media until it was closed. Another exhibition was opened to take over from the former one, using a divergent perspective (Fritz 1997, 67). The exhibition, just like the Goldhaggen book, had touched a German raw nerve by revisiting the role played by the Hitler’s army, the Wehrmacht in the Second World War and in the war of extermination that targeted the European Jewry. This is because the exhibition destroyed one of the biggest German ideologies. The ideology was that the Wehrmacht was clean and blameless (Heer 1995, 57). The German cultural dispensation believed that the army was not in any way involved in the decision making that led to holocaust genocides and its involvement in the killings was a sense of duty. The German believed that the army was abused by the Nazi (Rossino 2005, 15). However, the exhibition defeated this notion by displaying evidence that the Wehrmacht was an integral part of the holocaust machinery and it was not just a tool, but also supported the Nazi war of extermination. The exhibition exposed the crimes of the so called clean army, and the reaction widened when more that 1400 photos were availed to the public. The response was sensational and caused much indignation. This is because the attitudes that the Germans had been holding were being negated and the exhibition was opening Germany to global scrutiny again after the country had already healed from the Second World War and the post war split.
Reaction of the Germans to Crimes of the Wehrmacht Exhibition
The reactions of the Germans, especially the right wing were especially fueled by the fact that the country was holding military training to prepare for action against the Balkans. That is why the public debates sought to defend the legendary Wehrmacht because the contemporary German culture had attached much importance to the army. Anything that reminded Germans of their atrocious past would evoke a lot of public outcry and this demonstrated their desire to remain estranged with that past. There are few things from the era of the third Reich and the holocaust that the Germans are proud of and one of these is the Wehrmacht. Therefore, the exhibition that put the Wehrmacht in bad light was put under pressure even by the CDU government led by Helmut Kohl (Eberhard 1997, 34). The international stature of Germany had grown phenomenally immediately after reunification in 1990 and the reaction of the Germans to such an event that dented the image of a German legend was expected. The general feeling was that the exhibition was not serious and it was out to defame the army. The debate took a perspective of defense. This time round there was no shift from denial to acceptance. The Germans vehemently refused to let their army be besmirched by the revelations that they considered to be half truths. The problem with the perspective taken by the debate is that the debaters were running a way from the issue instead of approaching it head on. This is because the organizers of the exhibition had enough proof that the Wehrmacht participated in this war of extermination and was part of the decision making hierarchy that fueled the genocidal holocaust. The German media refused to give the organizers a platform to justify their evidence and instead gave that platform to the right wingers that went on propagating lies in defense of the Wehrmacht. This illustrates the position of the Germans on the crimes of extermination conducted by Nazi. According to the German, the German structures like the army and even the general public had nothing to do with all the atrocities conducted during the Third Reich (Davies 2006, 122). They attribute the holocaust to the activities of the elite leadership of the Hitler’s era and therefore. Germans cannot carry the collective guilt because of some crimes committed by what they call “A few mad leaders”. The modern German culture has refused to take the blame for the crimes committed during the third Reich. Though the image of Germany outside the country remains tainted by the Third Reich, the Germans are quite detached and estranged from this past because there is virtually nothing positive they can identify with (Knopf 1996, 35). It is easy to understand where the attitudes of the Germans towards past commemorations are coming from. Germany has never faded from international limelight during the better part of the 20th century. The country was the main aggressor in the first war and it suffered most during the war that preceded its worst economic crisis. The fall of the Weimar Republic and the Rise of the third Reich marked the lowest times in German history (Wippermann1997 45). The post war Germany was evidenced by the split that created West Germany and East Germany and this was a trying period for the two countries (Schoepps1996, 91). This means that the only positive side of Germany can only be seen after its reunification. This is why these commemorative created painful wounds in the hearts of the contemporary Germans and that is why they have a bitter attitude towards these commemorative activities. The contemporary Germans would like the world to forget about the past and judge the country using the present; however the commemoration of the Third Reich and the holocaust through negative publicity like in Goldhaggen and crimes of the Wehrmacht gives the world a chance to ridicule the country.
References
Davies, Norman.2006. Europe at War 1939-1945: No Simple Victory. London: Pan Books.
Eberhard, Jäckel, 1997. Simply Put, A Bad Book. Hamburg: Littell pp. 159-164.
Evans, Richard, J. 2008. The Third Reich at War. London: Allen Lane
Fritz, Stephen G. 1997. The German Soldier in World War II. Kentucky:University Press of Kentucky
Goldhagen, David.1996. Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust. New York: Guilford Press
Heer, Hannes. 1995. War of Annihilation: Crimes of the Wehrmach. Hamburg: Hamburger Verlag
Knopf, Alfred. 1996. Response to Goldhaggen. NY: Random House,
Racial prejudice was the main cause of mass killings during the Holocaust. Hitler murdered approximately six million Jews from different parts of Europe because of racial prejudice. He considered them an inferior race that did not deserve to live. Hitler and his army gathered Jews from all the regions he controlled. He then took them to camps where he put them in rooms and filled them with poisonous gas.
When I watched testimonies from survivors, and read Art’s book, I understood the trauma that victims of the Holocaust and their children experienced. Victims’ children were traumatized for many years because of the experiences that their parents went through. This work presents my subjective understanding of the Holocaust based on survivors’ testimonies and Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel; Maus I: A Survivor’s Tale.
Spiegelman uses animal characters to portray human beings as brutal creatures. According to him, human beings can be as dangerous as animals (Schwarz 263). He appropriately uses different animals to represent different races of human beings. Mice represent Jews, while cats represent Germans. Spiegelman uses mice to represent Jews because of the oppression they experienced while in Hitler’s concentration camps.
The mistreatment the Jews experienced is similar to what mice experience in the presence of cats. Rita Weiss explains how soldiers snatched a baby from its mother and gave it to an old woman. When the mother refused to give her baby to the old woman, they beat her thoroughly with the purpose of killing her. Weiss shades tears during her interview because of these memories (Vashem). Such actions show the brutality of Hitler’s soldiers towards the Jews. Spiegelman metaphorically uses cats to refer to Hitler’s army. This depiction shows their brutality towards Jews.
Spiegelman appropriately uses animals to point out racial and religious prejudices as some of the causes of brutality against fellow human beings (Schwarz 264). Germans killed many Jews any time they wished to kill them; this is how cats kill mice. This analogy shows that Hitler did not respect Jews. The main reason for his lack of respect was the difference in their origin and religion. The Jews never understood why Hitler and his men mistreated them. During one of the interviews with his son, Mr. Spiegel said, “About Auschwitz, nobody can understand” (Spiegelman 10).
When I read Maus I, I understood the trauma that victims of the Holocaust and their children suffered. Many of them never recovered from the post-Holocaust trauma. Some died because of this trauma while others developed psychological disorders that disturb them up to date. In the novel, Anja Spiegelman is unable to handle her trauma. She gets two nervous breakdowns; one before Hitler’s men took her to Auschwitz concentration camp, and the next one after their release.
She eventually commits suicide when she fails to handle the trauma (Spiegelman 16). Art Spiegelman, on the other hand, hires a psychiatrist to help him handle his trauma after knowing about the harsh experiences that his parents had gone through while at the concentration camp. His trauma intensifies after her mother’s death (Schwarz 264). Jackie Handali, a survivor, narrates how soldiers beat up and killed all his family members. They beat his mother using their gun butts for attempting to talk to him (Vashem).
The Holocaust left memories among the people who survived the Holocaust and their children (Schwarz 263). The few people who survived still remember every event as it happened. Rita Weiss narrates all the events that happened after their arrest. Her story demonstrates the impact the Holocaust left in her memory. For example, she explains how people who had physical impairments were thrown out of a train and left to die.
Such memories are also evident in Vladek Spiegelman, who narrates events that happened more than 40 years before. These memories became very overwhelming for his wife to bear. She, therefore, committed suicide to free herself. Weiss cries when she remembers everything that transpired; especially when she imagines that Harry died in a crematorium (Vashem).
In conclusion, the experiences of the survivors of the Holocaust have helped me understand how brutal, and prejudiced Hitler and his army were towards the Jews. They have also helped me know the magnitude of the trauma that survivors have gone through since the end of the Second World War. Some of the survivors died shortly after their release while others developed psychological disorders from their experiences and their parents’ experiences in concentration camps. I can comfortably conclude that the Holocaust occurred because of Hitler’s hatred towards the Jews, and his lack of value for human life. According to testimonies from Vladek, Weiss, and Handali, the Nazi forces did not feel pity for anyone; whether a woman, child, or a man. They mistreated them without paying attention to these factors.
Works Cited
Schwarz, Gretchen E. “Graphic novels for multiple literacies.” Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy (2002): 262-265. Web.
Spiegelman, Art. Maus: A survivor’s tale. New York: Pantheon. Takaki, 1986. Web.
Vashem, Yad. “Holocaust Survivor Testimonies: Selection in Auschwitz.” Online video clip. YouTube. 2010. Web.
The World War II genocide of Jews, known as the Holocaust, changed both the Jewish history and the history of the world, transforming the human perception of violence and religious conflicts. The Holocaust was a turning point in the development of Jewish collective consciousness and the public’s views on discrimination and nationalism. The movies and literature devoted to the subject raise the questions of morality, human nature, and the nature of evil, teaching new generations to be particularly sensitive about religious and social issues.
Main body
Schindler’s List, directed by Steven Spielberg, tells the story of a moral transformation of Oskar Schindler, a German businessman who, during World War II, saved over a thousand Jews by employing them in his factories. The movie offers an intense and transformative viewing experience vividly depicting Nazis’ atrocities against Jews and the depravities of human nature (Shandler 108). By risking his life and spending all his money to save his workers, the main character shows that when outrageous political decisions are concerned, it is the choice of every individual which side to take.
Under the Nazi regime, millions of Jews were deported, imprisoned in concentration camps, tortured, and killed. The Holocaust had a profound effect on society both in Europe and all over the world, and its consequences are still felt today. Forster et al. in their study of the Holocaust’s effects on Jews, claim that “survivors of politically-induced traumas develop strong social identification with other members of their group and transmit their identities to their descendants.” The Holocaust facilitated the development of the collective consciousness and memory of the Jewish community scarred by the horrors they had suffered.
Apart from Jews, Germans also targeted other social groups whom they perceived as inferior or a threat to the regime. Gypsies, and black people were persecuted for racial reasons, being considered a threat to the Nazi ideal of a “pure Aryan race.” People with mental and physical disabilities were viewed as biologically defective and a financial burden to the state. Homosexuals were thought to corrupt German values and culture. The Nazi policy towards all groups of victims was brutal and violent. They were forced to wear identifying badges: Jews were compelled to mark themselves with a yellow star of David, and gay men had to wear a downward-pointing pink triangle. In concentration camps, red triangles were used for political prisoners, green for criminals, blue for immigrants, brown for Gypsies, purple for Jehovah’s Witnesses, and black for prisoners regarded as “antisocial,” including prostitutes and lesbians. Apart from labeling, a set of laws was implemented to deprive the discriminated groups of basic human rights. The Nazi policy was aimed at isolating and dehumanizing ethnic minorities and “social deviants,” marking them as being different from everyone else and separating them from society.
Conclusion
In my opinion, the discrimination that Jews and other social and ethnic groups experienced during World War II shaped the world that we live in. Today, national governments need to be extremely careful in their religious policies and attitudes towards social minorities. I think that every ethnic group and every religion have equal rights to self-expression, and they should be observed by every country in the world to prevent history from repeating itself. The Holocaust showed what terrible things humans are capable of, and, when inhuman government decisions are concerned, I believe that morality should be a choice of every individual.
Works Cited
Shandler, Jeffrey. Jews, God, and Videotape: Religion and Media in America. NYU Press, 2009.
Forster, Diana, et al. “The Political Consequences of Trauma: Holocaust Exposure and Emotional Attachment to Israel Among American Jews.” Contemporary Jewry, 2020, Web.