LP 6 - Concentration
LP 6 - Concentration
Tolerance and Inhumanity
Jeff McDonald
The Night and Fog Decree –
December 7, 1941
"After lengthy consideration, it is the will of the Führer
that the measures taken against those who are guilty of
offenses against the Reich or against the occupation forces
in occupied areas should be altered. The Führer is of the
opinion that in such cases penal servitude or even a hard
labor sentence for life will be regarded as a sign of
weakness. An effective and lasting deterrent can be
achieved only by the death penalty or by taking measures
which will leave the family and the population uncertain as
to the fate of the offender."
SS Reichsführer Himmler
The Nazi Camps
•  The Reichstag is set on fire in February,
1933. Hermann Göring orders the arrest of
thousands of people believed to be
responsible.
•  In March, 1933, the first concentration
camp is opened at Dachau.
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LP 6 - Concentration
The Nazi Camps
•  Between 1933 and 1945, The Nazis established
about 20,000 camps. These camps were used as
forced-labor camps, prison facilities, as well as
transit camps which served as temporary way
stations.
•  Originally called “re-education” camps, these
facilities were later called “concentration camps”
because those imprisoned there were physically
“concentrated” in one location.
The Nazi Camps
•  From its rise to power in 1933, the Nazis built
these camps to imprison and eliminate so-called
"enemies of the state.“
•  Most prisoners in the early concentration camps
were German Communists, Socialists, Social
Democrats, Roma (Gypsies), Jehovah's Witnesses,
homosexuals, and persons accused of "asocial" or
socially deviant behavior.
The Nazi Camps
•  Inmates wore serial
numbers and colored
patches to identify their
categories: red for
political prisoners,
purple for Jehovah's
Witnesses, green for
criminals, black for
those considered to be
anti-social and pink for
homosexuals.
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LP 6 - Concentration
The
Nazi
Camps
By 1944
there were 13
main
concentration
camps and
over 500
satellite
camps
http://www.brown.edu/Courses/HI0135/Documents/Nazigenmaps.htm
The Nazi Camps
•  After the “annexation” of Austria
in March 1938, the Nazis arrested
German and Austrian Jews and
imprisoned them in the Dachau,
Buchenwald, and Sachsenhausen
concentration camps.
•  After Kristallnacht in November
1938, the Nazis conducted mass
arrests of German Jews and held
them in camps.
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005144
The Jews of Germany
•  In January 1933 there were some 523,000
Jews in Germany, representing less than 1
percent of the country's total population.
•  The Jewish population was predominantly
urban and approximately one-third of
German Jews lived in Berlin.
•  In the face of increasing legal repression
and physical violence, many Jews fled
Germany between 1933 and 1938.
http://www.ushmm.org/
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LP 6 - Concentration
Question to consider
•  If you were a Jew in Germany in 1935,
would you have stayed in Germany? Why
or why not?
Where did the Jews go?
•  Just after the Nazis come to power, there
was a substantial wave of emigration,
much of it to neighboring European
countries (France, Belgium, the
Netherlands, Denmark, Czechoslovakia,
and Switzerland).
•  The problem was that most of these
refugees were later caught by the Nazis
after their conquest of western Europe in
May 1940.
http://www.ushmm.org/
The Situation Worsens
•  After the events of 1938, there was an increase in
Jewish emigration out of Germany.
•  The German annexation of Austria in March, the
increase in assaults on Jews during the spring and
summer, Kristallnacht ("Night of Broken Glass") in
November, and the seizure of Jewish-owned property
all caused a flood of visa applications.
•  Although finding a destination proved difficult, about
36,000 Jews left Germany and Austria in 1938 and
77,000 in 1939.
http://www.ushmm.org/
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LP 6 - Concentration
The Situation Worsens
•  At the end of 1939, only about 202,000 Jews
remained in Germany and 57,000 in annexed
Austria, many of them elderly.
•  By October 1941, when Jewish emigration was
officially forbidden, the number of Jews in
Germany had declined to 163,000.
•  The vast majority of those Jews still in Germany
were later murdered in Nazi camps and ghettos.
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005468
Leaving Germany Becomes
Difficult for the Jews
•  The Evian Conference
•  In the summer of 1938, delegates from thirty-two
countries met at the French resort of Evian. During the
nine-day meeting, delegates spoke sympathetically for
the Jews, but most countries, including the United
States and Britain, offered excuses for not letting in
more Jewish refugees.
•  After Evian, the Nazis were quick to point out how
"astounding" it was that foreign countries criticized
Germany for their treatment of the Jews, but none of
them wanted to open the doors to the Jews.
•  The violence against Jews increases.
http://www.ushmm.org/outreach/evian.htm
The Doomed Voyage of the St.
Louis
•  In May 1939, 937 passengers, most Jewish
refugees, left Hamburg, Germany, for Cuba. All
passengers held landing certificates permitting
them entry to Cuba
•  When the St. Louis reached the port of Havana,
the President of Cuba refused to honor the
documents.
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LP 6 - Concentration
The Doomed Voyage of the St.
Louis
•  After the ship left the Havana harbor, it sailed so
close to the Florida coast that the passengers could
see the lights of Miami. The captain appealed for
help, but in vain. Even President Roosevelt refused
to intervene.
•  The St. Louis turned back to Europe. Belgium, the
Netherlands, England, and France admitted the
passengers. But within months, the Germans
overran western Europe and most of the passengers
were murdered during the Nazi "Final Solution."
http://www.ushmm.org/outreach/louis.htm
Why did some Jews stay?
•  Until October 1941, German policy officially
encouraged Jewish emigration.
•  Gradually, however, the Nazis sought to deprive
Jews fleeing Germany of their property by levying
an increasingly heavy emigration tax and by
restricting the amount of money that could be
transferred abroad from German banks.
•  Many Jews either could not afford to leave
Germany, or felt that “this too shall pass.”
http://www.ushmm.org/
The Heydrich Directive
To the Chiefs of all Einsatzgruppen of the Security Police.
Subject: Jewish Question in the Occupied Territory.
I refer to the conference held in Berlin today, and again point out that
the planned total measures (i.e. the final aim) are to be kept strictly
secret. Distinction must be made between:
1. The final aim (which will require extended periods of time) and the
stages leading to the fulfillment of this final aim (which will be carried
out in short periods). It is obvious that the tasks ahead cannot be laid
down from here in full detail. The instructions and directives below must
serve also for the purpose of urging chiefs of the Einsatzgruppen to give
practical consideration to (the problems involved).
2. For the time being, the first prerequisite for the final aim is the
concentration of the Jews from the countryside into the larger cities.
Reinhard Heydrich 21 September 1939
http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/holoprelude/heydrich.html
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LP 6 - Concentration
Question to consider
•  What did the Nazis hope to accomplish by
keeping the Jews concentrated in ghettos?
•  Do you think that the Nazis intended this to
be a temporary solution? Why? How does
the directive by Heydrich support this?
The Ghettos
•  Confining Jews in ghettos was not unique to the
Nazis. For centuries, Jews had faced persecution
and were often forced to live in designated ethnic
areas called ghettos.
•  The Nazis' ghettos were different. They were a
step in the destruction of the Jews, rather than just
a way to isolate them from the rest of society.
•  As the war against the Jews increased, the ghettos
became transition points for deportation to death
camps.
http://fcit.coedu.usf.edu/holocaust/timeline/ghettos.htm
The Ghettoization of the Jews
•  Following the directive by Reinhard
Heydrich (head of the Nazi Secret
Service/SD and the Gestapo),
ghettos are set up in Poland and the
other occupied territories (not in
Germany)
•  First ghetto is set up in Lodz, Poland
in early 1940
•  Warsaw ghetto is established in
October 1940
Ghetto in Lodz
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LP 6 - Concentration
Purposes of the Ghettos
•  Humiliation
•  Holding the Jews until the “final aim”
becomes clear.
•  Concentration
•  Solidarity of Germans
Conditions in the Ghettos
• 
• 
• 
• 
Crowded
Dirty and diseased
Fear and terror are everyday occurrences
Children are “useless” slave labor
•  Many are separated from parents and live in
hiding – sometimes 25% of the ghetto
population were children.
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LP 6 - Concentration
Governing the Ghetto
•  The Judenrat – the Jewish council
•  Usually 12 men, elected or appointed
•  Duties would include:
•  Protection
•  Heat
•  Schools
•  Fire
• Water
• Jobs
• Religious Activities
• Resettlement
The Ghettos of Poland
•  Hitler incorporated the western part
of Poland into Germany, and re•  named it the “General Government.”
The two million Jews that lived in
that area were to be concentrated
in ghettos in Poland's larger cities.
Later this would simplify transport to the death camps.
•  The Nazis spread propaganda saying that the Jews were
natural carriers of all types of diseases, especially typhus,
and that’s why it was necessary to isolate Jews from the
Polish community.
http://fcit.coedu.usf.edu/holocaust/timeline/ghettos.htm
The Ghettos of Poland
•  The five major ghettos were located in Warsaw,
Lódz, Kraków, Lublin, and Lvov.
•  On November 23, 1939 General Governor Hans
Frank issued an ordinance that Jews ten years of
age and older living in the
General Government had
to wear the Star of David
on armbands or pinned to
the chest or back. The
Jews had to buy these.
http://fcit.coedu.usf.edu/holocaust/timeline/ghettos.htm
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LP 6 - Concentration
The Ghetto System
•  As the war in Europe continued, the ghetto
system expands.
•  In total, the Nazis established 356 ghettos
in Poland, the Soviet Union, the Baltic States,
Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Hungary between
1939 and 1945.
•  All ghettos had appalling and inhuman living
conditions. Warsaw, the largest ghetto, held
400,000 people. Lódz, the second largest, held
about 160,000.
http://fcit.coedu.usf.edu/holocaust/timeline/ghettos.htm
The Ghetto System
•  Larger cities had closed
ghettos, with brick or
stone walls, wooden
fences, and barbed wire
around the boundaries.
Guards were placed at
gateways, and the Jews
were not allowed to leave
the ghettos under penalty
of death.
The Model Ghetto
•  The Nazis established the Theresienstadt (or
Terezín) ghetto in northwestern Czechoslovakia
as a so-called model ghetto to counter rumors
about the poor conditions in the ghettos.
•  Flower gardens, cafés, and schools were
constructed to prove to Red Cross inspectors that
the Jews in the ghettos lived in humane condition.
The Nazis even produced a propaganda film in
1944 entitled
“The Fuhrer gives a City to the Jews.”
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LP 6 - Concentration
The Model Ghetto
•  Theresienstadt was in fact a transit camp for Jews
who were later sent to Auschwitz.
•  Of the approximately 140,000 Jews transferred to
Theresienstadt,
approximately
90,000
were deported
to the death
camps.
Roughly 33,000
died in Theresienstadt
itself.
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005424
Question to consider
•  The Jews in Theresienstadt produced
beautiful pieces of music, artwork, and
poetry. Why do you think they did this?
The Butterfly
The last, the very last,
So richly, brightly, dazzingly yellow.
Perhaps if the sun's tears would sing
against a white stone ...
Such, such a yellow
Is carried lightly ,way up high.
It went away I'm sure because it wished to
kiss the world goodbye.
For seven weeks I've lived here,
Penned up inside this ghetto
But I have found my people here.
The dandelions call to me
And the white chestnut candles in the court.
Only I never saw another butterfly.
That butterfly was the last one.
Butterflies don't live in here,
In the ghetto.
Pavel Friedmann 4.6.1942
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