YEAR 10 THE HOLOCAUST- DOCUMENTS

Source 1. Konstantin von Gebsattel, The Jewish Question, 1913 I am not an anti-Semite.I know some Jews, particularly business people, whom I respect and admire. On the other hand one would be blinder than Hdur [the Nordic god of darkness] if one stubbornly refused to see that our entire life is dominated and endangered by the Jewish spirit: internal affairs by the press in Jewish hands, financial affairs by the great banks directed by Jews, legal affairs by the huge number of Jewish lawyers in the big cities, cultural affairs by the many Jewish university professors, and the almost exclusively Jewish theater directors and critics. The Jewish and Germanic spirits contradict each other like fire and water: the latter is deep, positive, and idealistic, the former superficial, negative, destructively critical, and materialistic. The danger threatening Germandom and thus also the German Reich is grave and immediate; the more dangerous because it is cleverly disguised because the Jewish press has succeeded in persuading a large section of the nation that anyone who fights against the excesses of Judaism is backward and inferior. I, on the other hand, maintain that anyone who fails to take up this struggle even for one day is avoiding his urgent duty in a cowardly way ...

Were Anti-Semetic sentiments present in Germany prior to the 1930s?

The Nuremburg Laws 1935 Background note:

Jews in Germany once again became aliens in their own country. Nonetheless, because they gave legal status to Jews in Germany (as secondary citizens), the Nuremberg Laws had the paradoxical effect of giving Jews a certain sense of security. To mitigate the effect of the Nuremberg Laws on world opinion and to gain their acceptance by the German public, Nazi propaganda claimed, quite falsely, that the Nuremberg Laws marked the end of legal measures against Jews. The Reich Citizenship Law, in particular, provided the basis for later discriminatory legislation aimed at driving Jews out of Germany and isolating and segregating those who remained

Source ARTICLE 2 2 An individual of mixed Jewish blood is one who descended from one or two grandparents who were racially full Jews, insofar as that individual does not count as a Jew according to Article 5, paragraph 3. A grandparent shall be considered as full-blooded if he or she belonged to the Jewish religious community.
ARTICLE 3 Only the Reich citizen, as bearer of full political rights, exercises the right to vote in political affairs, and can hold a public office. The Reich Minister of the Interior, or any agency empowered by him, can make exceptions during the transition period, with regard to occupying public offices. The affairs of religious organizations will not be touched upon.

ARTICLE 5 1 A Jew is anyone who descended from at least three grandparents who were racially full Jews. Article 2, par. 2, second sentence will apply. 2 A Jew is also anyone who descended from two full Jewish parents, if:(a)he belonged to the Jewish religious community at the time this law was issued, or he joined the community later; (b) he was married to a Jewish person at the time the law was issued, or married one subsequently; (c) he is the offspring from a marriage with a Jew, in the definition of paragraph 1, which was

contracted after the Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honor became effective; (d) he is the offspring of an extramarital relationship, with a Jew, in the definition of paragraph 1, and will be born out of wedlock after 31 July 1936.

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What was the purpose of source

The Ghettos Source

The ghetto[The Warsaw Ghetto] was designated quite a few blocks around, cordonedoff and they built a high wall, probably about a 10-foot wall, with glass on top of the wall so you could not scale that wallOn the other hand they left a little bit of a hole at the gutter, for the water to run throughIt was a very small hole, but enough for me as a little kid to crawl through. I wasnt the only one that was crawling through, other kids would crawl through not knowing what happens on the other side. So you made your way through and I would go out from the ghetto and buy some food. I couldnt carry too much. I would buy one loaf, sometimes some potatoes, a few different thingswhich were pretty cheap, not to spend too much money, bring it into the ghetto. My father would sell it and we had a little bit of what was left over from that. Henry Greenblatt (Born in Poland, 1930) Source
What can I tell you? I can only talk about Terezin and how it stands out if I think about what came afterward. While we were there it wasthere was a constant dying going on. There were epidemics there, people had encephalitis, which is an inflammation of the brain membranes, people had jaundice, which I had too. Dont forget the proximity of people living togetherone got it, everybody got it. No medication there or very little. So whoever got well, got well, whoever didnt get well, died. Especially the older people, the older people, they died like flies. What stands out? We were still togetherwe still wore regular clothes, even though it was old and it was no good, and we had our hair and we looked like human beings. That stands out. Thea Rumstein (Born in Austria,1928) What was life like in the Ghettos?

The Final Solution

Source Goerings authorization to Heydrich, 31 July 1941 The Reich Marshal of the Greater German Reich Commissioner for the Four-Year Plan Chairman of the Ministerial Council for National Defense Berlin, 31 July 1941 To: The Chief of the Security Police and the Security Service, SS-Gruppenfhrer Heydrich Complementing the task that was assigned to you on 24 January 1939, which dealt with a solution of the Jewish problem through emigration and evacuation as advantageously as possible, I hereby charge you with making all necessary preparations in regard to organizational and financial matters for bringing about a total solution of the Jewish question in the German sphere of influence in Europe. Wherever other governmental agencies are involved, these are to cooperate with you. I charge you furthermore to send me, before long, an overall plan concerning the organizational, factual, and material measures necessary for the accomplishment of the desired solution of the Jewish question. [signed] Goering Source: Office of the US Chief of Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality, Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, Vol. III (Washington DC: US Government Printing Office, 1946), pp. 5256 [Doc. 710-PS

What change in the policy of dealing with the Jews occurred between 1939 and 1941?

6.5 Police decree on identification of Jews, 1 September 1941 In agreement with the Reich Protector for Bohemia and Moravia the following law ... is herewith published: ARTICLE 1 1 Jews over six years of age are prohibited to appear in public without wearing a Jewish star. 2 The Jewish star is a yellow piece of cloth with a black border in the form of a sixpointed star of the size of a hand of yellow material with the inscription Jew. It has to be worn visible on the left side of chest, tightly sewed on to the garment.

Deportation Source
So we packed up what we had and, of course, all the clothes, and we were taken to the train, to these cattle trains, and put in. It must have been a hundred, a hundred and twenty, we were pushed in, they pushed us like sardines. I remember them pushing us because the wagons were full but they still kept pushing people in. And there were no windows except the little one on top, with wires, I remember that because I had to be lifted up to look if we went through stations, to tell them what kind of a station it is. So the little ones were lifted up. And from there the train went direct from Mukacevo, the train went straight to AuschwitzWe arrived in Auschwitz, I remember it was during the daytime we arrived therePeople were crying. People were talking, saying, Where are they taking us? What are they going to do with us? Will we all be killed? And others said, Dont talk like that! Peter Hersch
(Born in Czechoslovakia, 1930) Peter and his family were deported to Auschwitz from Mukacevo ghetto in 1944.

Is Source

reliable?

What evidence does Source give about the way the Jews were treated during transportation from the Ghettos?

Did the people have any hope?

At Auschwitz Source
In the evening, we new prisoners received a high honor that we were neither aware of nor fully appreciated, namely the opportunity to have an informative talk with our three inmate overseers, to ask them questions about the camp in general and above all about our prospects here. As we thought that we were in a work camp, we did not doubt that the quarantine was a transitional phase and that our situation had to get much better as soon as we had adjusted to the work process of the camp. And of course we immediately asked about the family camp, where we soon hoped to see our family and friends again Then the last visitor of the evening came by, the third, whom I remember as the one whose words had a different effect on me than the others. This third visitor was a mature woman, and it seemed to me that one could carry on with her what we would consider a sensible conversation. With the hint of a friendly smile she looked at us and was about to walk by our bunk. But I held on to her. Do you know where the family camp is? I asked bluntly, awaiting her answer hopefully but at the same time skeptically. She rested her hands on the edge of our bunk. The suggestion of a smile did not disappear from her lips as she calmly replied: There is no family camp. But where did our people go? I asked again please tell us where they are. Then she raised her right hand and, with her forefinger and a corresponding movement of her eyes, she pointed upward. They are there, she said simply. And when she saw our incredulous horror she merely nodded and added: There, where all the others have gone. With that she left us. And again we exchanged meaningful glances with each other. Yet the serious, unambiguous words and gestures of this woman had made the first breach in my total ignorance, although I was still twenty-three days away from grasping this atrocity. A faint apprehension rose in me of something terrible happening in this camp that was totally foreign to me and threatened us all. An apprehension that gradually changed into a certainty that completely changed my view of the world. But at the same time a previously unknown feeling stirred in me, lurking, so to speak, like a wild animal ready to pounce on me and force me to the ground. It was the fear that the knowledge of our fate first unleashed in me in its full fury and that was completely different than anything called fear in normal life. A fear that ruled all Jewish prisoners and that was capable of causing completely unforeseeable reactions in every one of us. Source: Lucie Begov, . A Ghost Emerges The Gas Chambers We Didnt Believe It Mit meinen
Augen: Botschaft einer Auschwitz-berlebenden (Gerlingen: Bleicher Verlag, 1983), pp. 1528. Translated by Sally Winkle

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What evidence do sources provide for the purpose of the camp at Auschwitz?