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Rochelle Wilner |
Frank Dimant |
Prof. Stephen Scheinberg |
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Rochelle Wilner |
Frank Dimant |
Prof. Stephen Scheinberg |
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Within this section there are 10 numbered photographs whiuch describe a situation or location as a catalyst for discussion. Following each photo are observation questions and issues for further research, as well as key words with which the student should become familiar.
*Adapted from The Holocaust—Social Responsibility and Global Citizenship—A Resource Guide for Social Studies 6 Teachers, British Columbia, Ministry of Education, 2000.
**Adapted from the Holocaust memorial Day, Remembering Genocides, Lessons for the Future education pack of the United Kingdom, The Holocaust Educational Trust, 2000.
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This is a photograph taken in Germany in 1934, one year after the Nazis came to power. A woman sitting on a park bench marked in German ‘Only For Jews.’ Other benches were marked ‘Only for Aryans.’ |
OBSERVATION QUESTIONS
1. Who do you think the woman was?
2. Why do you think this photograph was taken?
When they came to power, the Nazis attempted to set up a totalitarian society. They set out to control the life of every individual in Germany using tenor and propaganda. They banned all political parties except the Nazi Party and arrested anti-Nazis, putting many into concentration camps. The Nazis were racist. They believed in the existence of an ‘Aryan race’ which was superior and had to protect itself from other so-called ‘inferior’ groups such as Jews, Gypsies, Slays and Blacks. The Nazis passed many laws which persecuted such minority groups in society. Jewish people were particularly attacked. Hitler repeatedly called them “a germ, infecting society”. He talked of them as a powerful unified group, the enemy of Germany. He blamed Germany’s military and economic failings on the Jews. In fact, Jews formed less than one per cent of the German population and were fully integrated members of Weimar society. Many had fought for and been honoured by Germany in the First World War.
1. What do you think the Nazis hoped to achieve by forcing Jews and ‘Aryns’ to use separate benches?
2. Can you think of other periods in history when similar methods of segregation were used?
3. Germany in the 1930s was ruled as a dictatorship. How does a democratic system seek to protect minority groups in society?
1. Over 400 laws were passed against the Jewish community by the Nazis. Research the main laws passe before 1939 and think about the effect that each was intended to have.
2. How were other groups (disabled people, homosexuals, Jehova’s Witnesses, for example) persecuted by the Nazis in the 1930s? Why?
The classification tag and number given to Albert Christel in Sachsenhausen concentration camp near Berlin, in 1943. |
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OBSERVATION QUESTIONS
1. What do you think was the purpose of the triangle?
2. What do you think the number was for?
The Nazis dehumanized the inmates of the concentration camps and some of the state prisons by giving them a symbol, which indicated the reason for their detention, and assigning them a number to replace their name. Most Jews living outside the camps were forced to buy and wear a star to identify them in public.
Not everyone fitted neatly into single categories. Nor were the symbols applied consistently from camp to camp. The red triangle — indicating a political prisoner — was one of three classifications assigned to Albert Christel. He was also openly gay.
Born in 1907 in Metz, near the German border with France, Albert belonged to a left-wing youth organization, which the Hitler Youth despised. Albert’s family was anti-Nazi.
In 1933, Albert was detained by the Gestapo to warn him off further dissent. Undeterred, upon his release, he went to Leipzig to assist the Communists, whom he believed to be the most credible anti-Fascist grouping. There he was arrested again for posting flyers, after which he left for Prague. When he returned to Germany, not yet 30 years of age, he was denounced as a homosexual and tried under the newly amended law, Paragraph 175, which made suspected homosexuality a criminal offence.
In 1939, when Germany invaded Poland, Albert was placed with other political prisoners in the notorious Dresden Prison. Many politicals and most gays were not sent to camps, but were instead exposed to inhuman treatment in police prisons. There they could be subjected to hard labour, torture, experimentation or execution.
Without trial, he was transferred to Sachsenhausen concentration camp where he was initially assigned a red triangle. When the camp authorities discovered he was gay, Albert was re-categorized as a ‘pink triangle’ and placed in the section of the camp designated for homosexuals. In this section, prisoners were subjected to particular abuses, so that their mortality rate was very high.
After spending time in Flossenburg and Neuengamme camps, Albert was transferred back to Sachsenhausen in 1943. The political prisoners respected his previous record of resistance and lobbied to have his category altered. Thus it was that the red triangle, pictured, was given to him. It was extremely rare for political prisoners, who were the most well organized in the camps, to intervene in this way.
In April 1945, the Nazis attempted to transfer the prisoners on foot as the Allies approached. It was during this ‘Death March’, which killed many young and old people, that the Americans liberated the prisoners.
But for Albert it did not feel like full liberation. After the War, neither the Allies nor the new West German state recognized homosexuals as a class of victim. Neither did they remove the Nazi-amended Paragraph 175. People who had been persecuted for being gay had a hard choice: either to bury their experience and pretend it never happened, or to try to campaign for recognition and compensation in an environment where the same law and same judges prevailed.
Albert chose to fight, one of the few who did. After many years, he failed to receive any recognition whatsoever and was the target of hate crime. In 1967 the Nazi Paragraph 175 was finally amended and homosexuality was decriminalized in Germany. But this proved too late for Albert; crushed by post-War discrimination, he committed suicide in 1970 at the age of 63. In the 1980s the President of Germany finally recognized the unjust and inhumane treatment of homosexuals by the Nazis.
1. Albert was a German who opposed the Nazis and was punished for doing so. What motivated him to resist?
2. Are there occasions even today when it is necessary for citizens to oppose their governments?
3. What kind of pressures might there have been on a gay man returning from a prison or a camp in 1945?
1. Why did the Nazi policies on race affect Aryans who were disabled or gay?
2. Can you find other people who resisted the Nazis? What were their nationalities or ethnic identities?
3. Under the Nazis women had very specific gender roles, which is why paragraph 175 did not refer to females. How did the Nazis view the respective roles of men and women?
4. In which countries in the world is it still possible to be arrested and imprisoned for one’s political or religious beliefs?
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A Romany (Gypsy) man is having his nose measured. |
OBSERVATION QUESTIONS
1. The use of devices such as ‘nose measuring’ to establish a person’s ‘race’ and place in the world seems ridiculous. Why do you think such equipment was developed?
2. By looking at the picture can you tell the nationality of the man?
The Nazis and Hitler believed in ‘racial science’ or eugenics. They supported and promoted the idea that all people belonged to specific races and that each of the races could be classified and placed in rank order. At the top of the scale were the Aryans represented by idealized blond and blue eyed individuals and north European races. Southern Europeans, (Poles, Slavs, etc.) were in the middle; and at the very bottom the Nazis placed Jews and Blacks. The Jews had a special significance for the Nazis and were described as ‘parasites’ and ‘deviants’, as well as being categorized as ‘racially inferior’. Another group classified as ‘people of different blood’, and deemed to be so-called ‘asocials’, were the Roma and Sinti (Gypsies) who have had a presence in Europe for hundreds of years. The Roma and Sinti are a specific ethnic group with distinct cultural traditions and practices. They are usually associated with a travelling lifestyle, a tradition some attempt to uphold today. Many Roma and Sinti, however, have settled in villages and towns, albeit often on the outskirts, throughout central and Eastern Europe. Similarly to the Jewish people, Roma and Sinti have been negatively stereotyped and often persecuted for being different.
The Nazis’ idea of ‘racial science’ (based on theories developed in Europe in the nineteenth century) was that a person’s ‘race’ could be identified from physical features such as eye-colour and nose size or shape. A variety of equipment was developed to measure these features, such as that being used in the above picture. It was also believed that a person’s character could be determined by identifying their race.
The ‘Office for Race Hygiene and Population Biology’ was established by the Nazis in the 1930s to conduct work on race and genetics. Its work was intended to justify Nazi racial policies. A major part of this involved the study of Gypsies.
Thousands of Gypsies were sterilized and placed in work camps, where many starved. As the Second World War progressed, many Gypsies were sent to extermination camps. A Gypsy Camp was established at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
1. Why do you think some people like to put other people into negative category groups? What are the uses and problems of doing this?
2. Sometimes we belong to and identify with certain groups. What are the benefits of this?
3. What is a stereotype? Provide examples of stereotypes and think about how they may have been created. Why do people stereotype others?
Racism was a central component of Nazi ideology. Can you provide examples of racism today?
What can be done to stop people judging others according to their physical appearance?
1. How are "visible" minorites treated today (a) in Canada (b) in Europe?
2. You could use yur local library, newspapers and the Internet to research information or contact organizations who monitor persecution. Examine how different groups in Canadian society are represented today by the media. Can you find any examples of prejudice and stereotyping?
Front view of the Hadamar Institution, where 10,000 people were killed by doctors appointed by the Nazis. |
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OBSERVATION QUESTIONS
1. Describe what you see in the photograph.
2. Why might buildings such as this have been selected by the Nazis for their euthenasia programme?
The Nazis believed in the existence of ‘races’ which had different characteristics, making some superior to others and more worthy of life. They thought that the northern Europeans, particularly the Germans, were members of the ‘Aryan race’ which was the ‘master race’. But the Aryans had to be kept strong by ensuring their purity: by breeding amongst pure Aryans, on the one hand, and expelling ‘aliens’ or the inferior, who might weaken the race by breeding with it, on the other. The latter included the mentally ill, the incurably sick, disabled people, those with hereditary conditions such as blindness and deafness, alcoholics and epileptics. These people were degraded by the Nazi regime and classed as ‘unworthy of life’ and as a ‘biological threat’ to Aryan genetic purity. People in asylums were viewed as an economic burden on society.
Many scientists in Germany and around the world supported Nazi racial ideas. They advocated theories of eugenics and they wanted to have control over the evolutionary process and make their own ‘selections’ as to who would live or die. If such theories were implemented, these scientists argued, the human race would be ‘improved’. Early in the Nazi regime, in June 1933, a law was passed for the ‘Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring’. This allowed for the forced sterilization of over 300,000 men, women and children classed as ‘inferior’ by the Nazis; the aim was to make sure these people could no longer have children.
Shortly after the outbreak of war in 1939, Hitler ordered the so-called ‘euthanasia’ programme. Six special institutions were set up in Germany and Austria. Hadamar, shown in the photograph, was one of these places. Doctors were appointed and authorized to kill institutionalized disabled people who were deemed ‘incurable’.
In total, over 200,000 people are thought to have been killed in horrific ways, either by lethal injection, starvation or in specially constructed gas chambers. Over 10,000 people were killed at Hadamar alone, and the thick smoke from the incinerator was said to be visible every day.
Deception was an important part ot the Nazis ‘euthanasia’ programme. Parents were often told that their children were being transferred to new hospitals to receive intensive care. Later, parents would be informed by letter of the death of their child ‘during an operation’ and would receive a false death certificate. The veil of secrecy was impossible to maintain, however, especially when it became clear that people were being removed from asylums and not being seen again. One incident was recorded by an official report, when in March, 1941, mentally ill patients were loaded onto buses in a market place: “The removal of these people has caused a great deal of unpleasantness. The entire population of Ausherg had gathered and watched over the scene in tears”. Members of the public, especially church representatives, strongly protested in writing about the ‘euthanasia programme’. As a result Hitler put an official stop to the gassings.
However, in reality, the killing continued in secret throughout the war. The methods and many of the staff from the ‘euthanasia’ institutions were transferred during the war to Eastern Europe where they were utilized in the ‘Final Solution’ programme to murder European Jewry.
1. What do we mean by the word euthanasia today?
2. How would you account for the attempt to conceal the policy of euthanasia and the Nazis’ officially backing down in the face of popular protest?
1. Why do you think the murder of disabled people provoked a public outcry in 1941, when the German population did not speak up against other Nazi racial policies?
2. What measures are in place in Canada to protect the rights of disabled people?
Research two examples of German protest against the ‘euthanasia’ programme.
Today, genetics is a growing field of science and scientists talk of ‘genetic engineering’. Are there moral lessons to be learned from the Nazi period as to how science science can and should be implemented?
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Children on arrival in Britain wait to be collected from a Kindertransport. |
OBSERVATION QUESTIONS
1. Can you tell from the photograph where these children are from?
2. When do you think that this picture was taken?
3. What do you think might have been written on the label the girl is reading?
Refugee associations were established in Britain immediately after Hitler and the Nazis attained power in 1933. These associations were, on the whole, run independently and helped with a variety of refugee groups. They consisted of both Jewish and Christian organizations. Academic and scholarly groups were also involved in rescue and support.
The events of 1938, especially Kristallnacht ‘Night of Broken Glass’, drove more Jews and opponents of the Nazis to try and leave the Third Reich.
One way in which children were helped to escape from Germany and the countries under German occupation was the Kindertransports. In 1938 and 1939, 9,342 children were taken out by train. A number of refugee associations in Britain co-operated to organize the Kindertransports. Each child needed a sponsor in Britain to provide for them. The children did not usually know who they were going to live with or for how long.
The children were sent to Britain by their families and usually arrived unaccompanied, apart from those few who had a sibling or cousin also on the transport. They ranged from the very young, such as toddlers, to young teenagers. The first transport of 320 children arrived in December 1938. Approximately 70 per cent of the children were Jewish. The rest were the children of other persecuted groups, such as political opponents to Nazism. The Kindertransports ended only when war broke out. Although the children were admitted into Britain on temporary visas, many were able to stay in the country after 1945. After the war many had to come to terms with the fact they had lost their parents and family.
1. Why do you think children were rescued and not adults?
2. Describe in your own words what a refugee is.
3. The people who provided homes for the children were not paid to do so. Why do you think they wanted to help? What makes a person want to help another person whom they do not know? Do you think that people would react in this way today?*
*Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransports, For nine months prior to World War II, in an act of mercy unequalled anywhere else before the war, Britain conducted an extraordinary rescue mission, opening its doors to over 10,000 Jewish and other children from Germany, Ausria and Czechoslovakia. These children were taken into foster homes and hostels in Britain, expecting eventually to be reunited with their parents. The majority of them never saw their families again. Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransports, a 2000 Warner Brothers production is a documentary feature about this remarkable rescue operation and its dramatic impact on the lives of the children who were saved.
1. Research Canada’s response to victims of Nazism throughout the 1930s.
2. Could the Canadian Government have done more?
3. Provide examples of refugees who have come to Canada in the last 10 years. How do we know about them and how are they treated here?
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