Holocaust

RESISTANCE IN GHETTOS

Between 1941 and 1943, underground resistance movements developed in approximately 100 ghettos in Nazi-occupied eastern Europe (about one-fourth of all ghettos), especially in Poland, Lithuania, Belorussia, and the Ukraine. Their main goals were to organize uprisings, break out of the ghettos, and join partisan units in the fight against the Germans.

The Jews knew that uprisings would not stop the Germans and that only a handful of fighters would succeed in escaping to join the partisans. Still, some Jews made the decision to resist. Weapons were smuggled into ghettos. Inhabitants in the ghettos of Vilna, Mir, Lachva (Lachwa), Kremenets, Czestochowa, Nesvizh, Sosnowiec, and Tarnow, among others, resisted with force when the Germans began to deport ghetto populations. In Bialystok, the underground staged an uprising just before the final destruction of the ghetto in September 1943. Most of the ghetto fighters, primarily young men and women, died during the fighting.

The Warsaw ghetto uprising in the spring of 1943 was the largest single revolt by Jews. Hundreds of Jews fought the Germans and their auxiliaries in the streets of the ghetto. Thousands of Jews refused to obey German orders to report to an assembly point for deportation. In the end the Nazis burned the ghetto to the ground to force the Jews out. Although they knew defeat was certain, Jews in the ghetto fought desperately and valiantly.

RESISTANCE IN CAMPS

Under the most adverse conditions, Jewish prisoners succeeded in initiating resistance and uprisings in some Nazi camps. The surviving Jewish workers launched uprisings even in the extermination camps of Treblinka, Sobibor, and Auschwitz-Birkenau. About 1,000 Jewish prisoners participated in the revolt in Treblinka. On August 2, 1943, Jews seized what weapons they could find--picks, axes, and some firearms stolen from the camp armory--and set fire to the camp. About 200 managed to escape. The Germans recaptured and killed about half of them.

On October 14, 1943, prisoners in Sobibor killed 11 SS guards and police auxiliaries and set the camp on fire. About 300 prisoners escaped, breaking through the barbed wire and risking their lives in the minefield surrounding the camp. Over 100 were recaptured and later shot.

On October 7, 1944, prisoners assigned to Crematorium IV at Auschwitz-Birkenau rebelled after learning that they were going to be killed. The Germans crushed the revolt and murdered almost all of the several hundred prisoners involved in the rebellion.

Other camp uprisings took place in the Kruszyna (1942), Minsk-Mazowiecki (1943), and Janowska (1943) camps. In several dozen camps prisoners organized escapes to join partisan units. Successful escapes were made, for example, from the Lipowa Street labor camp in Lublin.

Despite being vastly outgunned and outnumbered, some Jews in ghettos and camps did resist the Germans with force. The spirit of these efforts transcends their failure to halt the genocidal policies of the Nazis.

She taught the world not to loose hope in a time of hopelessness. And to never give up.
Born on June 12, 1929, in Frankfurt, Germany, to Otto and Edith Frank. While Hitler was in power. For the first 5 years of her life, Anne lived with her parents and older sister, Margot, in an apartment on the outskirts of Frankfurt. Between the ages of 13 and 15. Her family had to flee to the Netherlands because they feared that Germany wasn't a safe place to live. Anne Frank was the last of her family to flee to the Netherlands, as she stayed with her grandparents. Anne Frank wrote short stories, fairy tales, essays and the beginning of a novel. These were all hand written during her two years in hiding. She put a face on the Holocaust. The world knew what the Germans were doing. There were reports about the concentration camps.

She showed specific character traits like courage, optimism, generosity, and she was appreciative.

Anne Frank died in March 1945, aged 15, at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.Born on June 12, 1929, in Frankfurt, Germany, to Otto and Edith Frank. While Hitler was in power. For the first 5 years of her life, Anne lived with her parents and older sister, Margot, in an apartment on the outskirts of Frankfurt. Between the ages of 13 and 15. Her family had to flee to the Netherlands because they feared that Germany wasn't a safe place to live. Anne Frank was the last of her family to flee to the Netherlands, as she stayed with her grandparents. Anne Frank wrote short stories, fairy tales, essays and the beginning of a novel. These were all hand written during her two years in hiding. She put a face on the Holocaust. The world knew what the Germans were doing. There were reports about the concentration camps.

She showed specific character traits like courage, optimism, generosity, and she was appreciative.

Anne Frank died in March 1945, aged 15, at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

The Nazis relied mainly on:

• Poison gas.
• Mass open air shootings.
• Working prisoners to death in slave labor camps.
• Giving the victims inadequate food and no medication, which made them die of malnutrition and made them easy victims of diseases such as typhus.

The Nazis decided that gassing was by far the most efficient way of killing large numbers of victims.

Name(s) for the mass murder of the Jews include:

• The murder of about six million European Jews by the Nazis in WW2 is nowadays generally referred to as the Holocaust (with the definite article and a capital letter). Though this word was first used in this sense in 1942 it only came into general use in the late 1970s.

• Before the late 1970s the terms generally used were the Final Solution or, simply, Auschwitz. (One objection to the use of the expression 'the Final Solution [of the Jewish question]' was that it was a direct translation of the term used by the Nazis themselves, which was 'die Endloesung der Judenfrage'. It was also a euphemism, that is, an expression intended to 'cover up' the reality of what was happening.

• There's a general word for any attempt to murder an entire race or ethnic (or cultural) group - genocide. As far as is known, this word was created in 1943 or 1944 originally to refer to the Nazi mass murder of the Jews and 'Gypsies'.

In the early stages of the Holocaust the Nazis sent the killers (the mobile killing units - Einsatzgruppen) to the victims, but later decided that it would be generally more efficient to send the victims to extermination camps to be killed.

There was not a question of efficiency, as this method was scaled down before that came into question, as at this time Germany's success was greater than anyone thought possible. Compared to the other method employed (hanging), mass shootings were highly efficient.

It was General Bach-Zelewski who highlighted the effects (to Himmler) on the men of the executions, before long (a couple of months) the focus of the einsatzgruppen changed to include women and children, this had a bad effect on the executioners, true enough many of them would have to be drunk to do their duty and this also led to them killing many more people than they were supposed to (for which many were brought to trial). The result was that a special (mental) hospital was established for these servicemen and the early methods of summary execution were scaled down.

All over the greater Reich different people were coming up with independent solutions, ranging from automatic killing devices to mass killing devices, with the first zyclon-B experiments in Auschwitz in September of 1941 and the adaptation of the T-4 mobile gas vans at a similar time.

It was because of the effect on the German soldier that the early methods were changed, not because of inefficiency.

The question assumes an initial 'big bang', which some historians, such as Christopher Browning, do not accept.

There is no exact date, as there was almost certainly no single order for the start of the 'Final Solution'. However, if you want a specific date, the obvious 'candidates' are:

Mobile killing units go into action behind German lines. The first large scale massacres take place in Kaunas, Lithuania, starting on 25 June 1941 --- or

The first mass gassings started at Chelmno (Kulmhof) in Poland on 8 December 1941.

Note that the Wannsee Conference (20 January 1942) is no longer accepted by historians, as the meeting was concerned with co-ordinating the various agencies involved. No policy decisions were taken.

Answer 1

In a foot note to his famous case study of Little Hans, Sigmund Freud theorized that the most deeply rooted psycho-dynamic cause of antisemitism was a reaction to the ritual of circumcision known as the Brit Milah.

Answer 2

Freud's conjecture is strange in view of the fact that hundreds of millions of Moslems, Africans and Westerners also circumcise.

There is no adequate rational explanation for anti-Semitism. A reason must be sought on a spiritual level.

Answer 3

Anti-Semitism began the same way that ethnic hatreds usually begin. People with territories that border one another become antagonistic towards each other. Anti-Semitism only became a unique violence targeted to Jewish individuals with no military or political standing in the Roman Empire when Christianity began to impose the blood libels on the Jews and found them guilty of killing Jesus Christ for eternity. Islam added to this by claiming that Jews were corrupt and perverted their teachings. Economic and social competition compounded the pre-existing religious grounds for Anti-Semitism and eventually became the dominant forms of Anti-Semitism.