® © 2012 ReferencePoint Press, Inc. Printed in the United States For more information, contact: ReferencePoint Press, Inc. PO Box 27779 San Diego, CA 92198 www. ReferencePointPress.com ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this work covered by the copyright hereon may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means—graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, web distribution, or information storage retrieval systems—without the written permission of the publisher. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA George, Charles, 1949– The Holocaust : part of the understanding world history series / by Charles George and Linda George. p. cm. — (Understanding world history) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-1-60152-366-2 (e-book) 1. Holocaust, Jewish (1939–1945)—Juvenile literature. I. George, Linda. II. Title. D804.34.G46 2010 940.53'18—dc22 2010045684 Contents Foreword 4 Important Events of the Holocaust 6 Introduction 8 Th e Defi ning Characteristics of the Holocaust Chapter One 14 What Conditions Led to the Holocaust? Chapter Two 26 Prelude to Annihilation Chapter Th ree 40 Th e Road to Auschwitz Chapter Four 55 Mass Murder Chapter Five 69 What Is the Legacy of the Holocaust? Source Notes 82 Important People of the Holocaust 86 For Further Research 88 Index 91 Picture Credits 95 About the Author 96 Foreword When the Puritans fi rst emigrated from England to America in 1630, they believed that their journey was blessed by a cov- enant between themselves and God. By the terms of that covenant they agreed to establish a community in the New World dedicated to what they believed was the true Christian faith. God, in turn, would reward their fi delity by making certain that they and their descendants would always experience his protection and enjoy material prosperity. More- over, the Lord guaranteed that their land would be seen as a shining beacon—or in their words, a “city upon a hill,”—which the rest of the world would view with admiration and respect. By embracing this no- tion that God could and would shower his favor and special blessings upon them, the Puritans were adopting the providential philosophy of history—meaning that history is the unfolding of a plan established or guided by a higher intelligence. Th e concept of intercession by a divine power is only one of many explanations of the driving forces of world history. Historians and phi- losophers alike have subscribed to numerous other ideas. For example, the ancient Greeks and Romans argued that history is cyclical. Nations and civilizations, according to these ancients of the Western world, rise and fall in unpredictable cycles; the only certainty is that these cycles will per- sist throughout an endless future. Th e German historian Oswald Spen- gler (1880–1936) echoed the ancients to some degree in his controversial study Th e Decline of the West. Spengler asserted that all civilizations inevi- tably pass through stages comparable to the life span of a person: child- hood, youth, adulthood, old age, and, eventually, death. As the title of his work implies, Western civilization is currently entering its fi nal stage. Joining those who see purpose and direction in history are thinkers who completely reject the idea of meaning or certainty. Rather, they reason that since there are far too many random and unseen factors at work on the earth, historians would be unwise to endorse historical predictability of any type. Warfare (both nuclear and conventional), plagues, earthquakes, tsunamis, meteor showers, and other catastroph- ic world-changing events have loomed large throughout history and prehistory. In his essay “A Free Man’s Worship,” philosopher and math- 4 ematician Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) supported this argument, which many refer to as the nihilist or chaos theory of history. According to Russell, history follows no preordained path. Rather, the earth itself and all life on earth resulted from, as Russell describes it, an “accidental collocation of atoms.” Based on this premise, he pessimistically con- cluded that all human achievement will eventually be “buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins.” Whether history does or does not have an underlying purpose, his- torians, journalists, and countless others have nonetheless left behind a record of human activity tracing back nearly 6,000 years. From the dawn of the great ancient Near Eastern civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt to the modern economic and military behemoths China and the United States, humanity’s deeds and misdeeds have been and continue to be mon- itored and recorded. Th e distinguished British scholar Arnold Toynbee (1889–1975), in his widely acclaimed 12-volume work entitled A Study of History, studied 21 diff erent civilizations that have passed through his- tory’s pages. He noted with certainty that others would follow. In the fi nal analysis, the academic and journalistic worlds mostly regard history as a record and explanation of past events. From a more practical perspective, history represents a sequence of building blocks—cultural, tech- nological, military, and political—ready to be utilized and enhanced or ma- ligned and perverted by the present. What that means is that all societies— whether advanced civilizations or preliterate tribal cultures—leave a legacy for succeeding generations to either embrace or disregard. Recognizing the richness and fullness of history, the ReferencePoint Press Understanding World History series fosters an evaluation and in- terpretation of history and its infl uence on later generations. Each vol- ume in the series approaches its subject chronologically and topically, with specifi c focus on nations, periods, or pivotal events. Primary and secondary source quotations are included, along with complete source notes and suggestions for further research. Moreover, the series refl ects the truism that the key to understand- ing the present frequently lies in the past. With that in mind, each series title concludes with a legacy chapter that highlights the bonds between past and present and, more important, demonstrates that world history is a continuum of peoples and ideas, sometimes hidden but there none- theless, waiting to be discovered by those who choose to look. 555 Important Events of the Holocaust 1543 1939 Martin Luther pens On the Jews and Th eir Lies. Nazi invasion of Poland sparks World War II; mass murder of Jews begins. 1925 Publication of Hitler’s anti- Semitic Mein Kampf. 1920 Beginnings of the Nazi Party in Germany. 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1945 1950 1990 2010 1889 Birth of Adolf Hitler. 1933 Hitler becomes chancellor of Germany; fi rst concentration camp built at Dachau. 1935 Passage of anti- Jewish Nuremberg Laws. 1938 Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass. 6 1940 Warsaw ghetto established; Auschwitz constructed. 1941 Nazi invasion of Soviet Union; massacres at Uman and Babi Yar. 1947 Passage of UN Resolution 181, partitioning Palestine. 1944 Death marches; Soviets liberate Majdanek 1948 concentration State of Israel established. camp. 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1945 1950 1990 2010 1949 2009 Nuremberg trials end. Attack on visitors at US Holocaust 1945 Museum by anti- Auschwitz liberated; Hitler commits Semitic gunman. suicide; World War II ends in Europe; Nuremberg trials begin. 1942 1993 Wannsee Conference announces the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum opens. Final Solution; massive deportation of Jews to death camps begins. 7 Introduction TTThhheee DDDeeefffiiinnniiinnnggg CCChhhaaarrraaacccttteeerrriiissstttiiicccsss ooofff ttthhheee HHHooolllooocccaaauuusssttt Elie Wiesel—author, lecturer, Holocaust survivor, and winner of the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize—was 15 years old when offi cials of Nazi Germany deported him and his family from their homeland in 1944. Th e Nazis, by that time, had invaded and taken control of Romania, along with most of Europe. On May 16, 1944, the Wiesels, along with hundreds of other Jewish families, were loaded into railroad freight cars in Sighet, Transylvania (northwestern Romania), to be hauled to Aus- chwitz, a Nazi concentration camp in southwestern Poland. Th ey had committed no crime. Th ey were no threat to the government. Th ey were simply Jews, and Nazis believed all Jews should be eliminated. Wiesel was one of only three members of his extended family to survive the camps that had been built for the annihilation of Europe’s Jews. His mother and younger sister died soon after arriving at Aus- chwitz, presumably in a gas chamber. Some months later, he and his father were force-marched to another camp—Buchenwald—where the senior Wiesel was beaten to death. By the time Elie Wiesel was freed, on April 10, 1945, he was 16. He did not learn that his two older sisters had survived the camps until months later. Th ree days after his camp’s liberation, Elie Wiesel saw himself in a mirror, the fi rst time he had seen his refl ection in more than a year. “From the depths of the mirror, a corpse gazed back at me. Th e look in his eyes, as they stared into mine, has never left me.”1 What Wiesel 8 Severely emaciated at the time of their liberation in 1945, these Jews from Russia, Poland, and the Netherlands worked as slave laborers at the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany—the same camp where author Elie Wiesel was held as a teenager. 9 lived through, and what continues to haunt his thoughts and dreams, the world now calls the Holocaust—the torture and murder of 6 mil- lion Jews by Nazi Germany. In Night, Wiesel’s landmark memoir, he writes about his fi rst night in Auschwitz: Never shall I forget that night, the fi rst night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky. Never shall I forget those fl ames which consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never.2 Defi ning the Holocaust At least four terms have been used to describe this human tragedy. Th e Nazis, masters of propaganda, euphemistically called it Endlö- sung der Judenfrage—the “Final Solution of the Jewish Question.” In the early 1940s, Eastern European Jews used the Yiddish word churb’n, which means “destruction,” or the Hebrew term sho’ah, which means “catastrophe.” Th e term “holocaust,” according to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, means “a thorough destruction involving extensive loss of life especially through fi re.”3 Since the end of World War II, the capitalized word “Holocaust” is usually understood to describe what happened to Jews and other groups at the hands of Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1945. According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s website: 10