Mosaic:
Victims of
Nazi Persecution
GUIDANCE NOTES
Introduction
Content and Usage
During the years 1933 to 1945, the Nazis and their
collaborators were responsible for the persecution
of millions of people from a variety of religious,
ethnic and political backgrounds. Discrimination
took a variety of forms and was conducted for a
plethora of reasons but all of these policies were
rooted in Nazi ideology.
This resource consists of sets of materials for all
groups targeted by the Nazis and their
collaborators. Each set consists of three different
components – a poster, a biographical case study
and a leaflet containing a historical overview –
which cumulatively enable students to examine the
experiences of any one victim group.
This resource is designed to help students explore
the diverse experiences of the numerous groups of
people persecuted during the period of the Third
Reich. It is intended for use with students aged 13
years and above, and can be employed in a range of
different subjects. In the notes that follow teachers
can find further guidance on the content and usage
of the resource together with advice on the
pedagogical challenges and conceptual issues.
The poster bears an image relevant to the group in
question together with three accompanying
questions. These questions are sufficiently general
in their nature that they are accessible to all abilities
and do not require any prior knowledge or
understanding. Their function – like that of the
poster – is to generate students’ interest and
prompt discussion. Because of this, the posters
lend themselves to a variety of purposes including
classroom or departmental display, as well as use in
stimuli activities. Since the themes of the poster
relate to the case study, the two can also be used in
conjunction with each other. If using the posters as
part of a classroom activity, teachers will find the
following information useful for contextualisation.
A JOINT PROJECT
The Jews of Hungary Poster
This image shows members of the Jewish community
of Sighet. These people are shown in front of a
wooden synagogue, similar to those found in Shtetls
throughout Eastern Europe prior to the Holocaust.
Sighet was the home of Elie Wiesel, whose story is
relayed in the accompanying postcard.
The “Gypsies” Poster
This poster shows a soldier by the name of Kurt
Winterstein. Kurt was one of Adolf Hitler’s personal
drivers, but when the Nazis discovered that his mother
was a “Gypsy” Kurt was removed from the army and
forcibly sterilized. Kurt is a relative of Rita Prigmore,
whose story is relayed in the accompanying postcard.
The “Disabled” Poster
This poster contains a modern-day photograph of
Hartheim Castle – the third killing centre to be
created during the Nazi Euthanasia Programme.
Located near Linz, Austria, the castle originates
from the ninth century, though its present building
was created in 1600. In 1898 the castle was
donated to the Upper Austrian Charity Association,
who converted it to be used as a hospital for the
physically and mentally disabled. Following the
Anschluss in 1938, the castle became the property
of the Third Reich. In early 1940 work began to
transform the building into a killing centre for the
euthanasia programme. Hartheim Castle functioned
as an extermination centre from 1940 to 1944.
During this time approximately 30,000 people were
killed by lethal injection and/or gassing. One of
these victims was Theresia Karas, whose story is
retold in the accompanying postcard.
The biographical case study recounts the story of
someone who belongs to the victim group. In each
instance, this case study contains a picture of the
person together with a description of their fate
during the period. In this way, students are provided
with a point of access which re-humanises the
historical events and makes these more intelligible.
As such, the case studies can be used for display
purposes, as starter or main class activities, and as
a basis for further group or independent research.
The historical overview provides students with a
concise summary of what happened to the victim
group being studied. In this manner, the overview
serves to contextualise the poster and the
biographical case study and encourage the
development of historical knowledge and
understanding. Whilst it is intended that the
overview be used in this way, it is also possible for it
to be used as a stand-alone resource separate from
the other two components.
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Pedagogical Principles and
Conceptual Issues
Victims & Victimhood
As with many aspects of Holocaust education,
teaching the differing experiences of those who
were subjected to persecution poses distinct
pedagogical challenges. One of these is the
importance of ensuring that students do not come
away thinking about groups of people as solely
victims devoid of any humanity. It is crucial that
students do not end up seeing these individuals as
merely passive objects which were acted upon, for
this serves to further dehumanise them and
misrepresent the diverse ways in which people
responded to persecution. It is for this reason that a
key element of this resource is the biographical
case studies, which serve to reindividualise history
and allow students to consider the human impact
that various policies had.
Another key pedagogical challenge faced by
educators is to ensure that students do not fall into
the trap of seeing “victimhood” in competitive terms.
Comparing the suffering of different individuals and
groups is both pernicious and nonsensical, for it can
lead to relativisation and a distortion of the historical
record. Against this outcome, educators should
encourage students to see the benefits that an
integrated approach to the various victims of Nazism
can have on our understanding of the particularities
of the Holocaust and other crimes committed by the
Nazis and their collaborators. It is with this in mind
that this resource contains material on an array of
different victim groups so as to avoid implying any
hierarchy of suffering.
Concepts & Definitions
When broaching the subject of the victim groups of
Nazism, teachers should also be attentive to certain
conceptual issues which may arise in their
classrooms. Foremost among these is the
importance of ensuring clear and concise definition
of key concepts which students will encounter and
refer to during the course of their learning. Whilst
words such as Holocaust, persecution,
discrimination and prejudice are important here,
students should also have secure understanding of
other frequently cited yet sometimes misused terms
like Nazi, perpetrator, bystander, and collaborator. It
is recommended that before using any of these for
the first time the teacher seeks to establish
students’ existing conceptualisations and correct
these accordingly.
Guidance Notes
An additional set of concepts which teachers should
be aware of in their teaching relate more specifically
to the “racial state” which carried out discriminatory
policies. In the past generation it has become
popular to think of Nazi Germany as a “racial state”
– a country where thinking about “race” and
“racism” was a central feature of culture, society
and politics. Accordingly, a core concern was the
“health” of Germany in light of what the Nazis saw
as the inherent struggle for survival between people
and nations. In this view, the well-being of Germany
was directly linked to blood and since aptitudes and
characteristics were all understood to be
transmitted through inheritance, it was imperative
that the purity of German blood be protected and
improved. This was all the more important since the
Nazis believed that the Aryan race (of which
Germany was a part and was supposedly superior
to all others) was under serious threat by so-called
“inferior” races and asocial elements within the Third
Reich.
“Race” and the “Racial State”
Before beginning to approach interpretations of
“race” and “racism” by the Nazi regime it is strongly
suggested that teachers establish students’
understandings of these terms. With these in place
teachers can move students towards examining the
content of Nazi racial thinking, and its place within
Nazism’s ideological world-view. This is no easy
task; the Nazis themselves found that notions of
“race” elided precise definition, and this is in no
small part due to how ideas of race rest on flawed
foundations. Despite Nazism’s attempt to legitimise
its views by appealing to modern scientific
advances it could not overcome the fact that
empirical proof to validate their claims was forever
unobtainable.
Century right up until the outbreak of World War
Two. Indeed, notions of racial improvement found
favour at both ends of the political spectrum in an
array of different countries, and led to a number of
governments implementing “positive” and “negative”
eugenic policies. With this in mind, accounting for
why the “racial state” developed in the manner that
it did in Germany becomes all the more pressing.
The concept of the “racial state” is thus an
important if complex one for students to grasp, but
they must also be aware that this notion alone
cannot adequately account for all of the victim
groups created by Nazism. Political opponents, for
example, were subjected to discrimination and
violence by the regime not on account of their
“race” so much as their “political crimes”; similarly,
Jehovah’s Witnesses were persecuted for their
spiritual refusal to accept the regime and their
perceived “anti-Nazi” behaviour. Although both of
these groups were seen to threaten the
Volksgemeinschaft – the idealised “national
community” of racially pure Germans – they were
not regarded as posing the same biological danger
as others.
More extensive guidance notes on the pedagogical
principles of Holocaust education can be obtained
from the Holocaust Educational Trust.
Further Information
For further guidance on using this resource and
teaching the Holocaust, please contact the Trust
using the details at the end of this pamphlet. Other
classroom resources can also be downloaded free
of charge from the Teaching Tools section of the
Holocaust Educational Trust’s website, accessible
via http://www.het.org.uk/index.php/educationgeneral/login.
Whilst this generally reflected how much of the
“science” invoked by the Nazis had more in
common with irrationality than with rationality, it
more specifically spoke to the fundamental fallacy at
the core of Nazi racial thinking: namely, that there is
no such thing as “race” in biological terms. In this
respect it is crucial that students recognise that ‘the
Third Reich was a racial state, but one based more
on race mysticism than on racial science’.
So that students are able to appreciate how Nazi
ideology and policy both mirrored and diverted from
transnational trends, it is also crucial that students
can place the way in which racial thinking was
institutionalised in Germany in a broader context of
developments elsewhere. This is of paramount
importance given that eugenic theories were
popular within the Western world from the late 19th
Guidance Notes
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Glossary
Anschluss
The political union of Germany and Austria, whereby
the latter was incorporated into the former. On
March 12 1938 German soldiers entered Austria
and 24 hours later the two were unified. A few
weeks later in April 1938 a plebiscite was held to
secure public endorsement. The results of this vote
were interfered with to ultimately indicate that 99%
of the population approved of the union.
Antisemitism
Prejudice or hatred of Jewish people. The history of
anti-Jewish sentiment stretches so far back in time
that it has been referred to as the “longest hatred”.
However, in the 19th century anti-Jewish prejudice
fused with new ideas and trends to produce
antisemitism: the notion that Jews were different
and inferior on account of their race.
Aryan
Someone who belonged to the so-called “Aryan”
master race which, according to Nazi ideology, was
responsible for the great achievements of European
civilization and thus superior to all other “races”.
Such ideas were not introduced by the Nazis but
rather originated in the late nineteenth century.
Ashkenazi Jews
Jews who came to settle in Central and Northern
Europe after migrating northwards from the Middle
East during the Roman period.
Auschwitz
The German name given to the Polish town
Oswiecim and synonymous with the camp complex
which existed between 1940 and 1945. Auschwitz
consisted of three main camps – Auschwitz I,
Auschwitz II (Auschwitz-Birkenau) and Auschwitz III
(Monowitz). A number of sub-camps near to
Auschwitz were also established.
Concentration camps
Sites such as Dachau and Buchenwald that were
built by the Nazis to imprison individuals and groups
of people they considered “enemies of the state”
such as political opponents, Jehovah’s Witnesses
and Jews. Commonly, the purpose of these camps
was to punish and “re-educate” those interned
there. Following the outbreak of war in 1939 and
later the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, the
network of camps expanded in size and population.
Death camps
These six sites – Auschwitz-Birkenau, Belzec,
Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibor and Treblinka – were
established by the Nazis to systematically murder
people. These camps were located in modern-day
Poland.
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Eugenics
First introduced by the British scientist Francis
Galton in 1883, “eugenics” was derived from Greek
to mean “good birth”. As an idea, eugenics was
influenced by other trends in social thought and
scientific thinking in the late nineteenth century,
including Social Darwinism, which took Charles
Darwin’s idea of a “survival of the fittest” and
applied these to the human world. In order to
combat “degeneration”, eugenics aimed at
improving the health and well-being of a given
population. This could take “positive” measures,
such as providing financial incentives to couples
seen to be of “good” racial stock, and “negative”
policies like sterilization. Eugenics was one of the
most well-known examples of “race science”. It was
an international movement which acquired different
characteristics from country to country. In Germany,
eugenics developed into Rassenhygiene – “Race
Hygiene”.
Euthanasia
Derived from notion of a “good” or “merciful” death,
the word euthanasia under the Nazis was
euphemistically used to describe the systematic
murder of mentally and physically disabled children
and adults within Nazi Germany. The Euthanasia
Programme also came to be known as the “T4
Aktion” or simply “T4” in reference to the address of
the administrative centre for the programme in
Berlin.
Genocide
A specific legal term introduced in 1944 to describe
crimes which are enacted against groups. Derived
from the Greek word for race or tribe (geno-) and
the Latin term for killing (-cide), “genocide” was
coined by the Polish-Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin
in the attempt to encapsulate Nazi policies of
persecution and murder. In 1948 the United Nations
introduced the Convention on the Prevention and
Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. This
established genocide as a crime which members
were obliged to act against.
Ghettos
Areas of villages, towns or cities where the Nazis
forced Jews to live. In some cases these areas were
physically sealed off from the non-Jewish population.
Commonly Jews could not leave a ghetto without
special permission. Many ghettos were extremely
overcrowded and ridden with disease.
The word “ghetto” originates from Italian, after the
first ghetto of Europe was established in Venice in
1516 to restrict Jews’ freedom. Jewish ghettos
could be found in many cities in medieval Europe,
and reflected the suspicion with which Jews were
viewed by Christian society.
Guidance Notes
Gypsy
An umbrella term commonly used to refer to
Romany or Sinti people.
Holocaust
The word “holocaust” originates from the Greek and
later Latin term for burnt offering or sacrifice. From
the 1950s, the word came to be used in connection
with the experience of European Jews under Nazism
during World War Two. Internationally the Holocaust
is defined in a number of ways. In the UK, the
Imperial War Museum offers the following definition:
“Under the cover of the Second World War, for the
sake of their ‘New Order’, the Nazis aimed to
destroy all the Jews of Europe. For the first time in
history, industrial methods were used for the mass
extermination of a whole people. Six million people
were murdered, including 1,500,000 children. This
event is called the Holocaust.
The Nazis enslaved and murdered millions of other
people as well. Gypsies, people with physical and
mental disabilities, Poles, Soviet prisoners of war,
trade unionists, political opponents, prisoners of
conscience, homosexuals, and others were killed in
vast numbers.”
Persecution
The oppression, harassment or maltreatment of a
person or group on account of their religion, gender,
sexual orientation or beliefs.
Porrajmos
A term meaning “devouring” or “destruction” which
is usually used by Gypsies to describe the murder
of Roma and Sinti people during World War Two.
Race science
A phrase generally used to refer to the fusion of
racial thought and putative scientific rationality or
practice. Race science acquired various forms and
means of expression, and was borne out of
advances in scientific thought and knowledge in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The term could
be used to refer to thinking about race in a wide
range of different disciplinary contexts – from
anthropology and biology, to sociology and
psychology.
Sephardi Jews
Jews who historically came to predominantly settle
in North Africa and the Near East. There are
differences in culture and religious practice
between Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews.
Shoah
Meaning “catastrophe” in Hebrew, the word Shoah
is used in Israel in particular (but also elsewhere) in
preference to the term “Holocaust”. In the main, this
is to avoid the religious connotations of burnt or
sacrificial offering, which originally accompanied the
word “holocaust”.
Shtetl
Towns or villages characterised by large Jewish
populations. These communities were commonly
very traditional and centred upon long-standing
customs and cultural practices. This included
observing orthodox religious rituals and laws,
spending much time on education and learning, and
using Yiddish as a language.
Star of David
A traditional symbol of the Jewish people, used by
the Nazis and others as a method of identifying and
discriminating against Jews. Commonly the Star
was sewn on to people’s clothes.
BCM Box 7892, London WC1N 3XX
T. 020 7222 6822 F. 020 7233 0161
E. [email protected]
www.het.org.uk
National Union of Teachers
T. 020 7380 4722 F. 020 7387 8458
E. [email protected]
www.teachers.org.uk
Guidance Notes
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