UNIT 1: Characteristics and Myths About the Holocaust

Jewish population worldwide:

1939: 16.5 million 1945: 11 million1950: 11.4 million1970: 12.6 million1990: 12.9 million2020: 12.9 million

(projected)If no Shoah:

1950: 17.9-18.5 million1970: 19.8-25.2 million1990: 20.3-30.0 million2020: 20.3-35.1 million

UNIT 1: Characteristics and Myths About the Holocaust

Genocide: a successful one-sided mass killing in which a state or other authority deliberately intends to destroy a group outside the universe of moral and social obligations of the perpetrators as that group and membership in it are defined by the perpetrators. The extermination may take place directly (through murder) or indirectly (by creating conditions which lead to the group’s destruction).

UNIT 1: Characteristics and Myths About the Holocaust

Holocaust: the deliberate, intentional murder of

2/3 of European Jewry by the Nazis and their collaborators in and before WWII.

Cannot be compared with nuclear war, slavery

Holocaust = a wholly-burnt offering or sacrifice

Popularized by Elie Wiesel

SHOAH = Hebrew for catastrophe

UNIT 1: Characteristics and Myths About the Holocaust

Every genocide has certain characteristics that define it.

The Holocaust…

UNIT 1: Characteristics and Myths About the Holocaust

Took place in the heart of Western civilization

It was an international genocideTook place in 22 countries in Europe and

N. Africa

UNIT 1: Characteristics and Myths About the Holocaust

There was a demonic obsessiveness on the part of the perpetrators

Wiesel: not all victims were Jews, but all Jews were victims

June 9, 1944: round-up on Greek island of 1700 Jews while the Germans were battling the Americans/Canadians in the West and the Russians in the East

June 29: arrival at Auschwitz where most were killed

UNIT 1: Characteristics and Myths About the Holocaust

Irrationality of the ideologyJews blamed for capitalism, communism, compassion, mercy, pornography, etc.Contradictions didn’t matter

UNIT 1: Characteristics and Myths About the Holocaust

Implementation was with the utmost rationality

Industrialized, depersonalized, dehumanized mass killing

Nazis were pioneers at this

UNIT 1: Characteristics and Myths About the Holocaust

The elite of society cooperatedJudges, teachers, doctors, etc.

The Holocaust represents the ultimate perversion of science and technology, especially medical science

Nearly 50% of German doctors belonged to Nazi party

Some came to view the Holocaust as a health measureEugenics became “biological therapy”

UNIT 1: Characteristics and Myths About the Holocaust

The Smoking Chimney at the Hadamar Hospital

UNIT 1: Characteristics and Myths About the Holocaust

Systematic dehumanization of its victimsHolocaust is the best-documented genocide

Simon Dubnow: “Brothers, remember what you see; write it down.”The West German government, representing the perpetrators, admitted guilt

Reparations were paidHolocaust is best-studied and most-studied genocide

Survivors have written and spoken about it so we might knowThe Holocaust is a genocide which gave birth to a modern state: Israel

UNIT 1: Characteristics and Myths About the Holocaust

Myths about the Holocaust:About the event

The Holocaust never happened

Deniers are perpetrators because they seek to murder the memories of the victims

The Holocaust is a Jewish problem

Raises questions for Western civilization, Christianity, and humanity in general

UNIT 1: Characteristics and Myths About the Holocaust

About the perpetrators

Those who took part were coerced under threat of extreme penalty

Most who committed the crimes did so knowingly and not under duress“willing executioners”

Only Hitler and a few others carried out the genocide; the German people knew little…

There were few people in Germany who knew nothing about it

UNIT 1: Characteristics and Myths About the Holocaust

Jews from the Lodz Ghetto board a train for deportation bound for Chelmno. C. 1942-44.

UNIT 1: Characteristics and Myths About the Holocaust

UNIT 1: Characteristics and Myths About the Holocaust

About the victimsWhy didn’t the Jews resist more?

Wiesel: the question should be – in the face of all the obstacles, how could so many find the strength to resist?

The Jews cooperated in their own destruction

Nazis created a Judenrat wherever they went as a go-between between the SS and the Jews

UNIT 1: Characteristics and Myths About the Holocaust

UNIT 1: Characteristics and Myths About the Holocaust

About the bystandersDutch Jews had a good chance of survival

80% (110,000 of 140,000 were murdered) diedmyth grows out of the Diary of Anne Frank

The Nazis built the death camps in Poland because the Poles were anti-Semitic

most of the Jews were in PolandPoland was far enough away from Western and Southern Europe to keep the genocide secret