#minsk ghetto

[mesetacadre]

Hello! In one of your posts you mentioned Anna Louise Strong's The Soviets Expected It, where she describes that Belarusians did not turn on their Jewish neighbors when Nazis invaded the USSR. Then you said that in 30 years the USSR managed to extirpate antisemitism from the general population. Was this something Strong said in the book explicitly? I'm interested in the topic and I was wondering whether Strong's book is worth reading for her analysis on how the USSR managed to eliminate antisemitism or whether she only mentions it briefly. Thank you!

Hello! After searching for it, @komsomolka helped me find this quote. It wasn't by ALS as I remembered, but rather by Vic L. Allen in his book The Russians are Coming: The Politics of Anti-Sovietism:

It was German practice as they entered Soviet territories to encourage the local populace to engage in pogroms against the Jews as a first stage in their genocidal policy. They had some success in those areas which had become part of the Soviet Union since 1939 but in the Soviet Union proper there was no evidence of spontaneous anti-Semitism. A Jewish historian commentated that "In Byelorussia, a conspicuous difference is evidenced between the old Soviet part of the region and the area which had previously belonged to Poland and was under Soviet rule from September 1939 to June 1941. Nazi and anti-Jewish propaganda drew a weak response in the former Soviet Byelorussia: we encounter complaints in Nazi documents that, "it is extremely hard to incite the local populace to pogroms because of the backwardness of the Byelorussian peasants with regard to racial consciousness" Another view of the cause of the racial attitudes in Byelorussia was given in a secret memorandum by a collaborator to the chief of the German army in August 1942. He wrote: "There is no Jewish problem for the Byelorussian people. For them, this is purely a German matter. This derives from Soviet education which has negated racial difference... The Byelorussians sympathize with, and have compassion for the Jews, and regard the Germans as barbarians and the hangman of the Jew, whom they consider human beings equal to themselves...".

The Russians are Coming: The Politics of Anti-Sovietism (pages 144-145), Vic L. Allen, via ebook-hunter.org

This book goes into some detail regarding jews in the USSR, the sixth chapter, in part II, is dedicated to this.

Anna Louise Strong also wrote about antisemitism in the USSR, although just like almost any other subject in her books, she tackles it through a collection of anecdotes and observations, though I still think she paints a clear picture that's corroborated by Allen's book, for example:

Acts of race prejudice are severely dealt with in the Soviet Union. Ordinary drunken brawls between Russians may be lightly handled as misdemeanors, but let a brawl occur between a Russian and a Jew in which national names are used in a way insulting to national dignity, and this becomes a serious political offense. Usually, the remnants of national antagonisms require no such drastic methods; they yield to education. But the American workers who helped build the Stalingrad Tractor Plant will long remember the clash that Lewis and Brown had with the Soviet courts after their fight with the Negro Robinson, in the course of which they called him “damn low-down nigger.” The two white men were “deported” to America, disgraced in Soviet eyes by a serious political offense; the Negro remained and is now a member of the Moscow City government. The devotion of long-suppressed peoples and their willingness to die for their new equality is the prize that the Soviet national policy won for the present war. The Jews in the Soviet Union especially know that they have something to fight for as they see beyond the border Hitler’s destruction of the Jews and the anti-Semitism that spreads from country to country. When I last visited Minsk, which under the tsar was a ghetto city, and under the Soviets was the capital of the Byelo-Russian republic, with more than one-third of the population Jews, I asked the young Intourist guide, “Don’t you yourself, as a Jewish woman, ever encounter racial feeling in your daily contacts?” “I haven’t for years,” she answered. I wonder what she encountered when the Nazis entered Minsk.

The Soviets Expected it, Anna Louise Strong, via redstarpublishers.org

I recall across the years one of the Birobidjan leaders who went on the same train with me to Moscow. His energy and teasing laughter made him the life of the train. He frequently sat in the compartment with two Red Army commanders, joshing them about the quantities of edibles they consumed and declaring that he would have them arrested for upsetting the food balance of the country. Later he told me that these two commanders gave him more delight than anything on the train. He told me of his own early life in the Ukraine amid constant pogroms. He repeated the discussions with the two Red Army commanders. They had been asking whether the Red Army gave adequate help to the Jewish settlers. “We hear they made you a road. Was it a good one? Do they help you properly with your harvest? How are relations developing between the Red Army and the new immigrants?” “Can you imagine what those questions mean to me, a Jew of Birobidjan?” he asked. “No, you can never imagine it, for you cannot live my life. Those Red commanders are the sons of the Cossacks who used to commit the pogroms! And now it is all gone like a dream! They want to know if they help us adequately! They are too young even to remember pogroms. But I remember; I am old enough.”

The Soviets Expected it, Anna Louise Strong, via redstarpublishers.org

How much discrimination there was against Jews in educational institutions is hard to tell. It was never general but certainly there was some. It was evasive and struggles always developed against it. My best friend felt for a time undermined in her university job because she refused to yield to the anti-Semitism which seemed to be promoted by the Party secretary at the university. One day she came home exultant. “Now I know the Party doesn’t stand for anti-Semitism,” she said. “They removed A… He was in charge of universities here for the Central Committee and was behind much of this anti-Semitism.” This anecdote shows the confusion that existed. Anti-Semitism was sometimes promoted by people high in office, but always with evasion. The basic law that made it illegal was never attacked, challenged or revoked. The disease of anti-cosmopolitanism passed, and anti-Semitism with it. Not by law or decree, but because of three facts. In 1950, the USSR reached the highest production in its history, with comparative abundance of goods. The USSR also attained the A-Bomb — the threat of America’s monopoly was gone. And, also in 1950, the Chinese People’s Republic was established in Peking, and at once made alliance with the USSR. The sick, excessive patriotism bred by the cold war could not survive close contact with an eastern, equal ally, whose inventions began a thousand years before Russia’s, and whose present intelligence and achievements even the most successful Russians had to acclaim.

The Stalin Era, Anna Louise Strong, via redstarpublishers.org

In simple oratory the worker and peasant deputies to the new National Assemblies told of their tortured past and of their happiness when the Red Army arrived. Women told how in former days young boys had been held on anthills by landlords’ agents in order to break the spirit of rebellion, how a mother picking up fuel in the woods to heat water for a newborn baby had been caught by the lord’s forester, beaten, and afterward turned over to the attack of fierce dogs. It was a gruesome account of medieval conditions. Deputies from Grodno told how the Jewish and ByeloRussian workers of the city had organized their own militia before the Red Army came and had rushed out and helped build a bridge for it into the city under the fire of Polish officers. “As soon as the Red Army came,” said a carpenter from Bialystok, “we asked them to set up Soviet power for us. But they told us: ‘Soviet power is the power of the people. Organize it yourselves, for now you are the bosses of your lives’.” A simple peasant women deputy said: “Let the priests pray to God for Paradise, but for us the daylight is already come; the bright sun is come from the East.” Letters telling a similar story reached America from Jews in the occupied regions. They especially commented on their rescue from death, for they had been threatened both by German bombing and by anti-Semitic bands of Poles. “If the Red Army had been a day later, not a Jew in our town would have been left alive,” wrote a man from Grodno. Other letters marvelled at the new equality. “To the Bolsheviks everyone is equal; there is no difference between Gentile and Jew.” There was a grimmer side to the story. Poles in fairly large numbers were deported to various places in the Soviet Union. Letters received by their relatives in Europe and America showed that they were scattered all over the U.S.S.R.; the sending of the letters also indicated that they were not under surveillance but merely deported away from the border district. The Soviet authorities claimed that former Polish officers and military colonists had done considerable sabotage and kept the people disturbed by rumors of imminent invasions by Rumanian and British troops. After the conclusion of the Soviet-Polish alliance against Hitlerite Germany, these Poles rapidly joined the Polish Legion under the Red Army High Command. Most of them then stated that they fully understood the necessity of the Red Army’s march into Poland.

The Stalin Era, Anna Louise Strong, via redstarpublishers.org

The new people’s government of Lithuania had appointed as governor of Vilna an able Communist, Didzhulius, not long since out of prison. Prison had injured his health and he had gone to a rest home, but had not been able to take the time to get well. People were needed for Vilna, and so he came. When I saw him he had held office only three days. “We must end this evil process whereby first Poles suppress Lithuanians and then Lithuanians suppress Poles,” he told me. “Under Smetona only thirty thousand people here had the vote. We have given it at once to everybody. “There were one hundred thousand unemployed here. We at once began road-building and other public construction; we are setting up public relief. The old Polish pensioners had buildings and funds which Smetona did not let them touch. We have made their possessions available to them for the relief of those most in need. We have done more to relieve the misery of starving people in three days than Smetona did in six months.” One of the first decrees passed was that government officials must hear citizens’ requests in whatever language the citizens choose. For this purpose officials are sought who can speak as many languages as possible. Schools also are to be in all the local languages. “Under the Poles education was only in Polish; under Smetona it was only in Lithuanian,” said Didzhulius. “Now we shall have to have schools in our languages since there are four chief languages in this district: Polish, Jewish, Lithuanian and Byelorussian.”

The New Lithuania, Anna Louise Strong, via redstarpublishers.org

Overall, I think the picture ALS paints is a nuanced one. The USSR made a lot of progress removing racism and nationalism from its population, although it was not perfect and some decisions like the deportations were negative for the moved population (though not as genocidal or malevolent as most like to paint it), they did an outstanding job at the task of removing prejudice from their society at a time where that was not happening anywhere else, and this was reflected both in laws and in action. We have a lot to learn from their policies, both their many (even to this day) unparalleled achievements as well as from their flaws.

To these third party accounts I'll also add Stalin's own words:

In answer to your inquiry: National and racial chauvinism is a vestige of the misanthropic customs characteristic of the period of cannibalism. Anti-semitism, as an extreme form of racial chauvinism, is the most dangerous vestige of cannibalism. Anti-semitism is of advantage to the exploiters as a lightning conductor that deflects the blows aimed by the working people at capitalism. Anti-semitism is dangerous for the working people as being a false path that leads them off the right road and lands them in the jungle. Hence Communists, as consistent internationalists, cannot but be irreconcilable, sworn enemies of anti-semitism. In the U.S.S.R. anti-semitism is punishable with the utmost severity of the law as a phenomenon deeply hostile to the Soviet system. Under U.S.S.R. law active anti-semites are liable to the death penalty. J. Stalin

Anti-Semitism: Reply to an Inquiry of the Jewish News Agency in the United States . J. V. Stalin, 1931. First published in the newspaper Pravda, No. 329, November 30, 1936

[historicity-was-already-taken]

Some thoughts on learning the Holocaust.

There is no scale of suffering, or trauma, or hell. Someone who survived Treblinka and someone who survived Bergen Belsen both went through hell, just different versions of it. Holocaust survivors all experienced variations of hell, from Denmark to Minsk.

But when LEARNING about the Holocaust, it’s extremely normal to learn about it at levels, starting with the least horrifying; which is why, I think, Anne Frank’s narrative has become such a universalized understanding of the Holocaust.

But then you move to transit camps, to internment camps, the ghettos, to Auschwitz, to the Operation Reinhard Death Camps (Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka), to the Einsatzgruppen and Babi Yar Level Shit. And every new level makes the old one look less horrifying by comparison.

In that pattern of learning, it’s perfectly rational to say things like OH PLEASE BELSEN WAS NOTHING because you are a student absorbing traumatic history in the healthiest possible way. Saying something like that, as a student of history, is not a judgement on the experiences of survivors; it’s a commentary on sequential learning.

Historiographically speaking, Holocaust survivors and Holocaust historians often mutually fail to understand each other; to the point where survivors actively dislike historians (although soon this sentence will be entirely in past tense, unfortunately). And I’m pretty sure that, for historians of things that happened within living memory, this is an ongoing concern—language of experience and survival vs. language of learning and understanding. I’m not sure where I’m going with this, but I wish we had better language for this chasm.

[dragoneyes618]

The expression "like lambs to the slaughter" is taken from a verse in Psalms (44:23; see also Isaiah 53:7) in which the psalmist describes Jews dying for God's sake, and beseeches God not to hide His face from the Jews' affliction. These very words had been cited years earlier, when poet Abba Kovner called on his fellow Vilna Jews to revolt: "We will not be led like sheep to the slaughter....Brothers! It is better to die fighting like free men than to live at the mercy of the murderers. Arise! Arise [and fight] with your last breath!" (January 1, 1942).

While a significant number of Jews did rebel, there are several reasons why the overwhelming majority did not. The most important reason is that almost no Jews had weapons, and arms and legs are of little utility against machine guns and an organized army. (Indeed, while most American Jews support gun-control laws, the few Jews I know who oppose them invariably argue that had European Jewry been armed, many more Jews might have survived.) Few people realize that because of their lack of arms, almost none of the several million prisoners taken by the Germans fought back, including several million Russian soldiers, a large percentage of whom died in Nazi camps.

There was also a moral reason for the relatively low number of revolts: The Jews knew that other Jews would be the ultimate victims of any act of rebellion, even a successful one: The Germans would murder them in retaliation. A prominent Jewish philosopher has articulated the moral dilemma that would-be resisters confronted:

"Was it morally right to kill an SS officer if, as a consequence, hundreds and even thousands of men, women, and children would perish immediately?" - Eliezer Berkovitz (1910-1993), Faith After the Holocaust, page 30

In one notable case, Jewish fighters attacked a German police detachment in the old Jewish quarter of Amsterdam; the German response was terrible:

"Four hundred and thirty Jews were arrested in reprisal and they were literally tortured to death, first in Buchenwald and then in the Austrian camp of Mauthausen. For months on end they died a thousand deaths, and every single one of them would have envied his brethren in Auschwitz, and even in Riga and Minsk. There exist many things considerably worse than death, and the SS saw to it that none of them was ever very far from their victims' minds and imagination."

- K Shabbetai, As Sheep to the Slaughter? The Myth of Cowardice. The survivors' sensitivity to charges of cowardice is underscored by the fact that Shabbetai's book was published by the World Federation of Bergen-Belsen Survivors' Association.

Yet many instances of Jewish resistance did still occur, the most famous in the Warsaw Ghetto:

"The dream of my life has become true. Jewish self-defense in the Warsaw Ghetto has become a fact. Jewish armed resistance and retaliation have become a reality. I have been witness to the magnificent heroic struggle of the Jewish fighters."

- Mordechai Anielewicz, April 23, 1943, four days after the outbreak of the Warsaw Ghetto revolt, in a note to Yitzchak Zuckerman, a unit commander in the revolt

Only twenty-four years old when he helped organize the Warsaw Ghetto revolt, Anielewicz realized that the Germans intended to deport and murder every remaining Jew in Warsaw. The revilt was triggered by word that yet another Nazi deportation was imminent.

The Warsaw Ghetto fighters held out for about a month, longer than the Polish army withstood the 1939 Nazi invasion.

Yitzchak Zuckerman, the heroic unit commander to whom Anielewicz addressed the above note, was among the few Warsaw Ghetto fighters who survived the war. Some forty years later, he was interviewed by Claude Lanzmann for the movie Shoah:

"I began drinking after the war. It was very difficult....You asked my impression. If you could lick my heart, it would poison you."

Despite the Warsaw Ghetto revolt and other acts of resistance, during the 1961 Eichmann trial it became fashionable among some Jews and non-Jews alike to express shock and a certain contempt for those Jews who "failed to resist." Elie Wiesel responded:

"The Talmud teaches man never to judge his friend until he has been in his place. But, for the world, the Jews are not friends. They have never been. Because they had no friends they are dead. So learn to be silent."

- Elie Wiesel, "A Plea for the Dead"

- Jewish Wisdom, Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, pages 532-535

[freepalestinesposts]

Israeli preparations for the "final solution" of the Palestinian issue. History repeats itself⬇️

In the autumn of 1941, approximately 338,000 Jews remained in Greater Germany. Until this point, Hitler had been reluctant to deport Jews in the German Reich until the war was over because of a fear of resistance and retaliation from the German population. But, in the autumn of 1941, key Nazi figures contributed to mounting pressure on Hitler to deport the German Jews. This pressure culminated in Hitler ordering the deportation of all Jews still in the Greater German Reich and Protectorate between 15-17 September 1941.

Following the order, Himmler, Heydrich and Eichmann attempted to find space for the Jews from the Greater German Reich in the already severely overcrowded ghettos in eastern Europe. Officials in the Łódź, Litzmannstadt, Minsk and Riga ghettos were all informed that they would need to absorb the population of Jews from the Greater German Reich, irrespective of overcrowding.

The Minsk Ghetto was full, so in order to make room for the Reich Jews, the local SD , German Army and local collaborators gathered approximately 25,000 of the local ghetto inhabitants, drove them to a local ravine, and murdered them. German Jews soon filled their places in the ghetto. Similar murders took place in Riga.

In Łódź Ghetto, no local Jews were removed prior to the arrival of 20,000 Jews from the Greater German Reich. Instead, following the success of the experiments in using gas vans for mass murder at Chełmno extermination camp in December 1941, deportations from the ghetto to Chełmno began on 16 January 1942, four days before the Wannsee Conference.

As with most of the Nazis’ murderous actions, the deportation of German Jews was improvised and haphazard . The increased numbers of Jews arriving in the ghettos of eastern Europe led to severe overcrowding, unsustainable food shortages and poor sanitation. This, in combination with the slow progress in the German invasion of the Soviet Union, convinced the Nazis that a ‘solution’ to the ‘Jewish problem’ needed to be organised sooner than had been originally envisaged. The deportations also partly led to the gas experiments at Chełmno, and heightened the Nazis’ sense of urgency to coordinate the policy towards Jews at the Wannsee Conference.

[ifiwereafish]

I am now keeping the flame and name alive of Sofie Kaepper.

Sofie was born on 15th December, 1870.

During the war, she lived in Wien, Austria

On 28th November 1941, Sofie was deported on Transport 12 to the Minsk Ghetto, in present day Belarus. Her prisoner number while she was on Transport 12 was 656.

She was murdered. Date unknown.

Zichrona Livracha. זכרונה לברכה. Many her Memory be a Blessing.

Yom HaShoah is an observance separate to International Holocaust Remembrance Day where Jews around the world come together to honour and mourn the atrocities specifically committed against the Jewish people during the Holocaust.

A major aspect of this is humanizing and dignifying those lost to this horrific violence by reading the six million names, split up amongst the world's Jewish communities so they are never forgotten.

For those looking to join in remembrance and solidarity with the Jewish community Illuminate the Past is a wonderful website that entrusts you with a name to remember and keep alive through your life.

Just a warning that this is a very emotional experience and there is a chance the name you will be given will belong to that of a child, take that and your mental state into an account before clicking.

[fromtheothersideby]

How Jewish Partisans Challenged Nazi Forces in Soviet Byelorussia.

The Bielski brothers, natives of Stankevichi in Western Byelorussia, emerged as icons of resistance against Nazi persecution. Rather than succumbing to the horrors, they initiated a fierce armed resistance, safeguarding numerous Jews and retaliating against their oppressors. As Aron Bielski articulated, "We weren't afraid of the Nazis. We were on home soil."

The brothers personally endured the German's savagery, witnessing several family members fall victim. Choosing defiance over submission, they sought refuge in the woods, rapidly forming a significant partisan detachment predominantly consisting of Jews. Their mission wasn't just survival; they proactively rescued people from nearby ghettos. Tuvia Bielski, the eldest, asserted, "We may be killed while we try to live. But we will do all we can to save more lives."

Their base, named "Jerusalem in the Woods," was established deep within the Naliboki Forest. This well-organised hideout boasted essential facilities, including a command HQ, workshops, a school, and even a synagogue. As Aron Bielski reminisced, the forest symbolised their "freedom and salvation."

Throughout the war, the Bielski partisans exhibited immense courage, confronting the Nazis and collaborating with Soviet partisan detachments. Their contributions led to the rescue of an estimated 1,230 Jews.

Among those who found refuge with the Bielskis were Raia (Rae) and Zeidel Kushner, the grandmother and grandfather of businessman Jared Corey Kushner, Donald Trump's son-in-law.

After the war, the brothers moved to Israel and subsequently to the U.S., where they pursued various careers. Their exceptional tale gained widespread attention with the 2008 film 'Defiance', featuring Daniel Craig as Tuvia.

Discover the full account here: https://www.rbth.com/history/336751-how-jewish-partisans-struck-terror]

#FromTheOtherSide 🇧🇾 #Minsk #Belarus

[worldwartwoineurope]

Minsk Ghetto

Affixed to this barbed wire fence surrounding the Minsk ghetto is a sign stating “Warning: anyone climbing the fence will be shot!”

Entrance to the Minsk Ghetto.

German soldiers parade three young people through Minsk before their execution.  The placard reads “we are partisans who shot at German soldiers.”

Jewish partisan leaders from Minsk soon after liberation.  From left to right: (first row) B. Chaimowicz, S. Zorin, H. Smoliar; (second row), C. Feigelman, Y. Kraczynsky, and N. Feldman.

Jewish residents of Minsk are forced to move into the ghetto.

Jewish residents of Minsk are rounded up to be forced into the ghetto.

Masha Bruskina, a Jewish Soviet partisan hanged with two other partisans,  Krill Trus and Volodya Sherbateyvich. The sign reads: “We are partisans who shot at German soldiers.”

[kvetchlandia]

Uncredited Photographer     Three Jewish Woman Anti-fascist Fighters From the Minsk Ghetto and the Partisan Ranks Outside the City After the nazis Destroyed the Ghetto and Murdered the Remaining Jewish Population: Zelda Nisanilevich Treger, Rozka Korczak-Marla and Vitka Kempner-Kovner     Undated (Probably taken after the Red Army liberated Minsk, July, 1944)

[jewish-privilege]

While digging the foundation of an apartment building in the Belarusian city of Brest near the Polish border, construction workers recently discovered human remains believed to come from hundreds of Jews killed by the Nazis during the occupation of Eastern Europe, reports Reuters.

According to the news agency, excavations of the mass grave have been taken over by the Belarus military, and so far soldiers have exhumed 730 bodies, though officials expect to find more in the area. “It’s possible they go further under the road,” said Dmitry Kaminsky, the soldier leading the exhumation unit. “We have to cut open the tarmac road. Then we’ll know.”

Some of the skulls recovered bear bullet holes, suggesting that the people in the grave were executed. During World War II, Brest was part of Nazi-occupied Poland and the site of the grave was part of the Brest Ghetto, a segregated section of the city where Jews and other minorities were forced to live.

The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports that Brest's Mayor Alexander Rogachuk is currently in talks with local and international Jewish groups about moving the remains to local Jewish cemeteries.

The Brest Ghetto was established after the Germans overtook Poland, and roughly tens of thousands of the city’s Jewish citizens were confined to the area. On October 15, 1942, the Nazis loaded 20,000 Jews onto railcars and transported them to Bronnaya Gora, about halfway between Brest and Minsk by rail, where pits had been prepared. The Jews of Brest were then shot and dumped into the pits along with 30,000 Jews from other cities and regions. In 1944, when the Soviets liberated Brest, only nine Jewish citizens were found to have survived the war.

Belarus has come under fire in recent years for its handling of Jewish and Holocaust heritage sites within its borders. JTA reports that the government has demolished three synagogues—two in Minsk and one in Luban—as well as three Jewish cemeteries.

Kate Samuelson from Vice reports that callousness toward victims of the Holocaust in Brest is decades old. After the war, the Soviets sought to scrub the last vestiges of Jewish culture from the city, dismantling one of the largest Jewish cemeteries in the region to make way for a sports stadium. Locals recycled the headstones, using them in the foundations of houses, as paving stones and in gardens. As of 2014, 1,500 headstones had been found around the city, including 450 dug up during the construction of a supermarket. Many are being stored in the hopes that they could one day become part of a memorial.

[berniesrevolution]

The first mention of Adolf Hitler in the New York Times was on November 21, 1922, buried on page 21. From the headline, one could almost have thought the article was about a cabaret singer or literary celebrity: “NEW POPULAR IDOL RISES IN BAVARIA.” It was not until the fifth sub-headline that the Times mentioned that Bavaria’s new pop idol, in addition to raising a “gray-shirted army armed with blackjacks and revolvers,” was “anti-Red and anti-Semitic.” In the body of the article, the Times correspondent frankly portrayed Hitler’s militarism, acknowledging the tendency of his group to “beat up protesting Socialists and Communists.” But, it said, there are multiple perspectives on Hitler: “[He] is taken seriously by all classes of Bavarians… he is feared by some, enthusiastically hailed as a prophet and political economic savior by others, and watched with interest by the bulk.” Most of the article was spent documenting Hitler’s gifts as a political organizer, noting that “in addition to his oratorical and organizing abilities, has another positive asset: he is a man of the ‘common people,’” who had won the Iron Cross, which for “a common soldier is distinctive evidence of bravery and daring,” and “he is credibly credited with being actuated by lofty, unselfish patriotism.”  

The Times did not dwell too much on Hitler’s agenda, because “Hitler’s program is of less interest than his person and movement,” commenting that he promotes “half a dozen negative ideas clothed in generalities.” Toward the very end, the NYT did make clear that primary among these negative generalities was a murderous loathing of Jews. But, the correspondent said, this was probably just bluster:

The keynote of his speaking and writing is violent anti-Semitism… so violent are Hitler’s fulminations against Jews that a number of prominent Jewish citizens are said to have sought safe asylum in the Bavarian highlands… But several reliable, well-informed sources confirmed the idea that Hitler’s anti-Semitism was not so genuine or violent as it sounded, and that he was merely using anti-Semitism as a bait to catch followers and keep them aroused, enthusiastic, and in line… A sophisticated political observer credited Hitler with peculiar cleverness for laying emphasis and over-emphasis on anti-Semitism, saying: “You can’t expect the masses to understand or appreciate your finer real aims. You must feed the masses with cruder morsels and ideas like anti-Semitism. It would be politically all wrong to tell them the truth about where you are leading them.”

Reading the New York Times’ coverage of the rise of Adolf Hitler and the progress of the Holocaust is a useful and sobering exercise. If you want to understand how atrocities can be normalized, ignored, and downplayed, and how anyone could “not know” facts that should have been obvious to everyone even at the time, browsing through the NYT archives can help. The Times was not the British Daily Mail (which was openly pro-fascist). It was then, as it is now, a liberal paper, owned by a Jewish family. But, partly because liberal naivete about political reality made it harder to perceive threats that socialists and communists saw all too well, and partly because the Times’ owners didn’t want to be seen as being somehow biased toward Jews, the Times was timid about accurately portraying the Nazi menace.

The failure of the Times to report on the Holocaust itself has been widely documented, and is the subject of an entire book, Buried by the Times. The Times reviewer of that book admitted that the paper “was seriously negligent throughout that period,” burying stories about the killings of Jews in the back pages and never giving them space or significance proportionate to their moral importance. The reviewer, however, also partly defended the paper, pointing out that (1) it was not alone in doing this and (2) it could not have known what was going on, because what happened was unprecedented:

“[Buried by the Times’ worst failing is] its handling of exactly what people knew and understood in the 1930’s and 40’s as the Nazis drove Jews to their deaths. Concentration camps were nothing new; they’d been around throughout history. Death camps — the Nazis’ contribution to modernity — were unheard of, and the extent of the killing could not have been fathomed… How could Sulzberger or any other newspaper executive have comprehended the extent of what was happening in Europe?”

That argument is highly plausible, and is often invoked when people or institutions are rebuked for their failures: it’s easy to say now that you should have known, but at the time… The phrase “Monday Morning Quarterback” and the word “ahistorical” are sometimes used. But this argument is not self-proving. It’s reasonable to think it might have been impossible to know. The question is whether it actually was. One reason to doubt it is that the New York Times actually did report on all of the facts that its reviewer said were impossible to comprehend. It just treated them as insignificant.

For instance, the first time the name “Auschwitz” was mentioned in the paper was on July 3, 1944, in a story entitled “Inquiry Confirms Nazi Death Camps: 1,715,000 Jews Said To Have Been Put To Death By Germans.” The story reported that international organizations had “confirmed reports of the existence in Auschwitz and Birkenau in upper Silesia of two ��extermination camps’” where “Jews are shipped” to be “eradicated.” Front page news, one would hope? More like “midway down page 3.” The front page headlines that day:

MAYOR WOULD TAX ALL RENTS TO END SUBWAY DEFICITS

Simple Money Order Will Be Issued Soon

OPA RAISES PRICES ON COTTON ITEMS, THIRD OF OUTPUT

And the big story of the day:

ALL RAIL LINES TO MINSK NOW CUT

The Times had reported on the unfolding Holocaust well before 1944. In November of 1942, the paper published a story with the headline “HIMMLER PROGRAM KILLS POLISH JEWS: Slaughter of 250,000 In Plan To Wipe Out Half of Country This Year Is Reported.” Every fact was reported: “Old persons, children, infants, and cripples among the Jewish population of Poland are being shot, killed by various other methods, or forced to undergo hardships that inevitably cause death… Only 40,000 October ration cards had been printed for the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto, where the population last march was 433,000….[The Poland plan is] ‘the first step toward complete liquidation.’… Only the young and relatively strong people are left alive as they provide valuable slave labor.’”

This report, in which every horror of the Holocaust was laid out for the world to witness, was so important that it made it to page 10. The front page that day was devoted to: the Battle of Stalingrad (important, admittedly!), “EXTORTION CHARGED BY MAYOR IN ROW OVER STIRRUP PUMPS,” “TWO THANKSGIVINGS FOR PACIFIC TROOPS,” and “PRESIDENT WARNS PRODUCTION CHIEFS TO RECONCILE AIMS.” (Out of 23,000 front-page stories between 1939 and 1945, 11,500 were about World War II itself but only twenty-six were about the Holocaust.) This means that even in 2005, the New York Times was printing fabricated Holocaust history, suggesting that its writers and editors didn’t know about extermination camps, when the obvious truth is that they didn’t care.

(Continue Reading)

[ayushkejriwal]

JOURNEY WITH NO RETURN Today I visited an exhibition that focuses on the deportation of Jews from the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, which took place as part of the “final solution to the Jewish question”. In 1939–1945, almost 81,000 of these Jews were deported to the ghettoes in Łódź, Minsk and Terezín and to the concentration, labour and extermination camps in the German-occupied territories of Eastern Europe. More than 78,000 of them fell victim to the Shoah. In the Jewish Quarters there was a cemetery and one grave had this beautiful red rose placed on it. There was something so beautiful and sad about it at the same time. I was full of emotions. If you look at the second and third picture you will notice handwritten notes left by people for their loved ones. I wonder why do we humans treat each others so badly?! I hope all these people are in peace now and in their happy place. #ayushkejriwal #pragueworld #journeywithnoreturn #jewishquarterprague (at Prague Jewish Quarter) https://www.instagram.com/p/ClEN_W-s_rg/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[bechdelexam]

so after reading the minsk ghetto: jewish resistance and soviet internationalism im very interested in reading hersch smolar’s memoir but my uni library has that as “read on site” only. which considering the condition of some of the books ive checked out it must be pretty damn delicate

[quotesfrommyreading]

Celia started work as a junior clerk in Marshall and Snelgrove's department store in Oxford Street, but was soon trained to use a capstan lathe and found herself in an ammunitions factory. 'I made the screws for the end of bombs,' she said. “I had nightmares, because although I wanted Britain to win the war, I knew that any one of these bombs could have killed my parents. I wanted Germany to be taken off the map but not with my parents in it. I missed them terribly. I used to have this recurring dream where I was on one side of the road and they were on the other and this Doodlebug was going down the road on legs.”

Celia last heard of her father in 1941, when he was deported to the Minsk ghetto as slave labour – but he never returned. Her mother kept in touch with Red Cross letters. One day in 1945, as Celia was getting off a London bus, she met and instantly fell in love with Ken Lee, a British soldier on leave from serving in Germany. Ken later found her mother in Hamburg, but it was not until 1949, when they were married with a daughter, that Celia visited her for the first time in eleven years. She realised then how much living in Britain had changed her. “I was embarrassed by the big emotional show when I arrived,” she recalls. “I'd become pretty English by then. That sort of thing wasn't done.” Although she continued to visit her mother, she never wanted to stay in Germany. “I felt horrible the first time I went back. I looked at everyone and wondered what the hell they had been doing during the war.” Celia Lee now says emphatically, with a slight accent from her childhood, that her nationality is definitely British.

  —  How the Girl Guides Won the War (Janie Hampton)

[berlin4transfusion]

GESCHICHTE

Der Name Berlin leitet sich vermutlich von dem slawischen Begriff br’lo bzw. berlo mit den Bedeutungen ‚Sumpf, Morast, feuchte Stelle‘oder ‚trockene Stelle in einem Feuchtgebiet‘ sowie dem in slawischen Ortsnamen häufigen Suffix -in ab. Dafür spricht vor allem, dass der Name in Urkunden immer wieder mit Artikel auftaucht („der Berlin“).

Der Stadtname ist weder auf den angeblichen Gründer der Stadt, Albrecht den Bären, noch auf das Berliner Wappentier zurückzuführen. Hierbei handelt es sich um ein redendes Wappen, mit dem versucht wird, den Stadtnamen in deutscher Interpretation bildlich darzustellen. Das Wappentier leitet sich demnach vom Stadtnamen ab, nicht umgekehrt

Mittelalter

Die auf der Spreeinsel gelegene Stadt Cölln wurde 1237 erstmals urkundlich erwähnt. 1244 folgte dann die Erwähnung (Alt-)Berlins, das am nordöstlichen Ufer der Spree liegt. Neuere archäologische Funde belegen, dass es bereits in der zweiten Hälfte des 12. Jahrhunderts vorstädtische Siedlungen beiderseits der Spree gegeben hat. 1280 fand der erste nachweisbare märkische Landtag in Berlin statt. Dies deutet auf eine frühe Spitzenstellung, wie sie auch aus dem Landbuch Karls IV. (1375) erkennbar wird, als Berlin mit Stendal, Prenzlau und Frankfurt/Oder als die Städte mit dem höchsten Steueraufkommen nachgewiesen werden. Die beiden Städte bekamen 1307 ein gemeinsames Rathaus.

Berlin teilte das Schicksal Brandenburgs unter den Askaniern (1157–1320), Wittelsbachern (1323–1373) und Luxemburgern (1373–1415). Im Jahr 1257 zählte der Markgraf von Brandenburg zum ersten Mal zum einzig zur Königswahl berechtigten Wahlkollegium. Die genauen Regeln wurden 1356 mit der Goldenen Bulle festgelegt; seitdem galt Brandenburg als Kurfürstentum. Nachdem der deutsche König Sigismund von Luxemburg 1415 Friedrich I. von Hohenzollern mit der Mark Brandenburg belehnt hatte, regierte diese Familie bis 1918 in Berlin als Markgrafen und Kurfürsten von Brandenburg und ab 1701 auch als Könige in bzw. von Preußen.

Im Jahr 1448 revoltierten Einwohner von Berlin im „Berliner Unwillen“ gegen den Schlossneubau des Kurfürsten Friedrich II. („Eisenzahn“). Dieser Protest war jedoch nicht von Erfolg gekrönt, und die Stadt büßte viele ihrer mittlerweile ersessenen politischen und ökonomischen Freiheiten ein. Kurfürst Johann Cicero erklärte 1486 Berlin zur Hauptresidenzstadt des brandenburgischen Kurfürstentums.

Bereits seit 1280 gab es Handelsbeziehungen zur Hanse, insbesondere zu Hamburg. Ab dem 14. Jahrhundert war Berlin Mitglied der Hanse. 1518 trat Berlin formal aus der Hanse aus bzw. wurde von ihr ausgeschlossen.

Die Reformation wurde 1539 unter Kurfürst Joachim II. in Berlin und Cölln eingeführt, ohne dass es zu großen Auseinandersetzungen kam.

Der Dreißigjährige Krieg zwischen 1618 und 1648 hatte für Berlin verheerende Folgen: Ein Drittel der Häuser wurde beschädigt, die Bevölkerungszahl halbierte sich. Friedrich Wilhelm, bekannt als der Große Kurfürst, übernahm 1640 die Regierungsgeschäfte von seinem Vater. Er begann eine Politik der Immigration und der religiösen Toleranz. Vom darauf folgenden Jahr an kam es zur Gründung der Vorstädte Friedrichswerder, Dorotheenstadt und Friedrichstadt.

Im Jahr 1671 wurde 50 jüdischen Familien aus Österreich ein Zuhause in Berlin gegeben. Mit dem Edikt von Potsdam 1685 lud Friedrich Wilhelm die französischen Hugenotten nach Brandenburg ein. Über 15.000 Franzosen kamen, von denen sich 6.000 in Berlin niederließen. Um 1700 waren 20 Prozent der Berliner Einwohner Franzosen, und ihr kultureller Einfluss war groß. Viele Einwanderer kamen außerdem aus Böhmen, Polen und Salzburg.

Preußisches Königreich

Berlin erlangte 1701 durch die Krönung Friedrichs I. zum König in Preußen die Stellung der preußischen Hauptstadt, was durch das Edikt zur Bildung der Königlichen Residenz Berlin durch Zusammenlegung der Städte Berlin, Cölln, Friedrichswerder, Dorotheenstadt und Friedrichstadt am 17. Januar 1709 amtlich wurde. Bald darauf entstanden neue Vorstädte, die Berlin vergrößerten.

Das Berliner Schloss, seit 1702 die Hauptresidenz der preußischen Könige und ab 1871 der Deutschen Kaiser.

Nach der Niederlage Preußens 1806 gegen die Armeen Napoleons verließ der König Berlin Richtung Königsberg. Behörden und wohlhabende Familien zogen aus Berlin fort. Französische Truppen besetzten die Stadt von 1806 bis 1808. Unter dem Reformer Freiherr vom und zum Stein wurde am 19. November 1808 die neue Berliner Städteordnung beschlossen und in einem Festakt am 6. Juli 1809 in der Nikolaikirche proklamiert, was zur ersten frei gewählten Stadtverordnetenversammlung führte. An die Spitze der neuen Verwaltung wurde ein Oberbürgermeister gewählt. Die Vereidigung der neuen Stadtverwaltung, Magistrat genannt, erfolgte am 8. Juli des Jahres im Berliner Rathaus.

Bei den Reformen der Schulen und wissenschaftlichen Einrichtungen spielte die von Wilhelm von Humboldt vorgeschlagene Bildung einer Berliner Universität eine bedeutende Rolle. Die neue Universität (1810) entwickelte sich rasch zum geistigen Mittelpunkt von Berlin und wurde bald weithin berühmt.

Weitere Reformen wie die Einführung einer Gewerbesteuer, das Gewerbe-Polizeigesetz (mit der Abschaffung der Zunftordnung), unter Staatskanzler Karl August von Hardenberg verabschiedet, die bürgerliche Gleichstellung der Juden und die Erneuerung des Heereswesens führten zu einem neuen Wachstumsschub in Berlin. Vor allem legten sie die Grundlage für die spätere Industrieentwicklung in der Stadt. Der König kehrte Ende 1809 nach Berlin zurück.

In den folgenden Jahrzehnten bis um 1850 siedelten sich außerhalb der Stadtmauern neue Fabriken an, in denen die Zuwanderer als Arbeiter oder Tagelöhner Beschäftigung fanden. Dadurch verdoppelte sich die Zahl der Einwohner durch Zuzug aus den östlichen Landesteilen. Bedeutende Unternehmen wie Borsig, Siemens oder die AEG entstanden und führten dazu, dass Berlin bald als Industriestadt galt. Damit einher ging auch der politische Aufstieg der Berliner Arbeiterbewegung, die sich zu einer der stärksten der Welt entwickelte.

Im Ergebnis der Märzrevolution machte der König zahlreiche Zugeständnisse. Ende 1848 wurde ein neuer Magistrat gewählt. Nach einer kurzen Pause wurde im März 1850 eine neue Stadtverfassung und Gemeindeordnung beschlossen, wonach die Presse- und Versammlungsfreiheit wieder aufgehoben, ein neues Dreiklassen-Wahlrecht eingeführt und die Befugnisse der Stadtverordneten stark eingeschränkt wurden. Die Rechte des Polizeipräsidenten Hinckeldey wurden dagegen gestärkt. In seiner Amtszeit bis 1856 sorgte er für den Aufbau der städtischen Infrastruktur (vor allem Stadtreinigung, Wasserwerke, Wasserleitungen, Errichtung von Bade- und Waschanlagen).

Im Jahr 1861 wurden Moabit und der Wedding sowie die Tempelhofer, Schöneberger, Spandauer und weitere Vorstädte eingemeindet. Den Ausbau der Stadt regelte ab 1862 der Hobrecht-Plan. Der Fluchtlinienplan orientierte sich mit großzügigen Straßenzügen und Plätzen an der Umgestaltung von Paris durch Baron Haussmann. Die Blockbebauung mit einer Traufhöhe von 22 Metern prägt viele Berliner Stadtviertel. Durch den rasanten Bevölkerungsanstieg, Bauspekulation und Armut kam es zu prekären Wohnverhältnissen in den Mietskasernen der entstehenden Arbeiterwohnquartiere mit ihren für Berlin typischen mehrfach gestaffelten, engen Hinterhöfen.

Deutsches Kaiserreich

Mit der Einigung zum kleindeutschen Nationalstaat durch den preußischen Ministerpräsidenten Otto von Bismarck, die am 18. Januar 1871 vollzogen wurde, kam Berlin auch in die Stellung der Hauptstadt des deutschen Nationalstaats, zunächst mit dessen staatsrechtlicher Bezeichnung Deutsches Reich (bis 1945).

Mit Gründung des Kaiserreichs lässt sich der Beginn der Gründerzeit, in dessen Folge Deutschland zur Weltmacht und Berlin zur Weltstadt aufstieg, für Deutschland sehr genau auf das Jahr 1871 datieren. Im mehr als vier Jahrzehnte währenden Frieden, der im August 1914 mit Beginn des Ersten Weltkriegs endete, wurde Berlin im Jahr 1877 zunächst Millionenstadt und überstieg die Zweimillionen-Einwohner-Grenze erstmals im Jahr 1905.

Nach seiner Abdankung 1918 in Spa kehrte Kaiser Wilhelm II. nicht mehr nach Berlin zurück.

Weimarer Republik und Nationalsozialismus

Nach dem Ende des Ersten Weltkriegs wurde am 9. November 1918 in Berlin die Republik ausgerufen. In den Monaten nach der Novemberrevolution kam es mehrfach zu teils blutigen Auseinandersetzungen zwischen der Regierung und ihren Freikorps sowie revolutionären Arbeitern. Anfang 1919 erschütterte der Spartakusaufstand die Stadt, zwei Monate später ein Generalstreik. 1920 kam es zum Blutbad vor dem Reichstag und später zum Kapp-Putsch.

Im gleichen Jahr folgte mit dem Groß-Berlin-Gesetz eine umfassende Eingemeindung mehrerer umliegender Städte und Landgemeinden sowie zahlreicher Gutsbezirke. Berlin hatte damit rund vier Millionen Einwohner und war in den 1920er-Jahren die größte Stadt Kontinentaleuropas und die nach London und New York drittgrößte Stadt der Welt.

Die Stadt erlebte in den 1920er Jahren eine Blütezeit der Kunst, Kultur, Wissenschaft und Technik. Diese Zeit wurde später als die „Goldenen Zwanziger“ bezeichnet. Berlin war auch aufgrund der weit ausgedehnten Stadtfläche, die größte Industriestadt Europas.

Nach der „Machtergreifung“ der Nationalsozialisten im Jahr 1933 gewann Berlin als Hauptstadt des zentralistischen Dritten Reichs an politischer Bedeutung. Adolf Hitler und Generalbauinspektor Albert Speer entwickelten architektonische Konzepte für den Umbau der Stadt zur „Welthauptstadt Germania“, die jedoch nie verwirklicht wurden.

Das NS-Regime zerstörte Berlins jüdische Gemeinde, die vor 1933 rund 160.000 Mitglieder zählte. Nach den Novemberpogromen von 1938 wurden tausende Berliner Juden ins nahe gelegene KZ Sachsenhausen deportiert. Rund 50.000 der noch in Berlin wohnhaften 66.000 Juden wurden von 1941 an in Ghettos und Arbeitslager nach Litzmannstadt, Minsk, Kaunas, Riga, Piaski oder Theresienstadt deportiert. Viele starben dort unter den widrigen Lebensbedingungen, andere wurden von dort während des Holocausts in Vernichtungslager verschleppt und ermordet. Ab 1942 fuhren Deportationszüge nach Auschwitz.

Während des Zweiten Weltkriegs wurde Berlin erstmals im Herbst 1940 von britischen Bombern angegriffen. Die Luftangriffe steigerten sich massiv ab 1943, wobei große Teile Berlins zerstört wurden. Die Schlacht um Berlin 1945 führte zu weiteren Zerstörungen. Fast die Hälfte aller Gebäude war zerstört, nur ein Viertel aller Wohnungen war unbeschädigt geblieben. Von 226 Brücken standen nur noch 98.

Geteilte Stadt

Nach der Einnahme der Stadt durch die Rote Armee und der bedingungslosen Kapitulation der Wehrmacht am 8. Mai 1945 wurde Berlin gemäß den Londoner Protokollen – der Gliederung ganz Deutschlands in Besatzungszonen entsprechend – in vier Sektoren aufgeteilt, nämlich die Sektoren der Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika, des Vereinigten Königreichs Großbritannien und Nordirland, Frankreichs und der Sowjetunion: amerikanischer, britischer, französischer und sowjetischer Sektor. Weder in der Konferenz von Jalta noch im Potsdamer Abkommen war eine förmliche Teilung in Westsektoren und Ostsektor (West-Berlin und Ost-Berlin) vorgesehen. Diese Gruppierung ergab sich 1945/46 durch das Zusammengehörigkeitsgefühl der West-Alliierten einerseits und das Gefühl der Mehrzahl der Berliner andererseits, die die West-Alliierten als Befreier „von den Russen“ empfanden.

Die Sowjetische Militäradministration in Deutschland schuf schon am 19. Mai 1945 einen Magistrat für Berlin. Er bestand aus einem parteilosen Oberbürgermeister, vier Stellvertretern und 16 Stadträten. Für Groß-Berlin blieb allerdings eine Gesamtverantwortung aller vier Siegermächte bestehen. Die zunehmenden politischen Differenzen zwischen den Westalliierten und der Sowjetunion führten nach einer Währungsreform in den West-Sektoren 1948/1949 zu einer wirtschaftlichen Blockade West-Berlins, die die Westalliierten mit der „Berliner Luftbrücke“ überwanden.

Bornholmer Straße im westlichen Teil Berlins, 1989. Nach dem Fall der Mauer bereitet ein Spalier den Besuchern aus der DDR einen Empfang.

Mit der Gründung der Bundesrepublik Deutschland im Westen Deutschlands und der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik (DDR) im Osten Deutschlands im Jahr 1949 verfestigte sich der Kalte Krieg auch in Berlin. Während die Bundesrepublik ihren Regierungssitz in Bonn hatte, was zunächst als Provisorium gedacht war, proklamierte die DDR Berlin als Hauptstadt. Der Ost-West-Konflikt gipfelte in der Berlin-Krise und führte zum Bau der Berliner Mauer durch die DDR am 13. August 1961.

West-Berlin war seit 1949 de facto ein Land der Bundesrepublik Deutschland – allerdings mit rechtlicher Sonderstellung – und Ost-Berlin de facto ein Teil der DDR. Berlins Osten und Westen waren ab 1961 völlig voneinander getrennt. Der Übergang war nur an bestimmten Kontrollpunkten möglich, allerdings nicht mehr für die Bewohner der DDR und Ost-Berlins und bis 1972 nur in Ausnahmefällen für Bewohner West-Berlins, jene die nicht nur im Besitz des Berliner Personalausweises waren.

Im Jahr 1971 wurde das Viermächteabkommen über Berlin unterzeichnet und trat 1972 in Kraft. Während die Sowjetunion den Viermächte-Status nur auf West-Berlin bezog, unterstrichen die Westmächte 1975 in einer Note an die Vereinten Nationen ihre Auffassung vom Viermächte-Status über Gesamt-Berlin. Die Problematik des umstrittenen Status Berlins wird auch als Berlin-Frage bezeichnet.

Wiedervereinte Stadt

In der DDR kam es 1989 zur politischen Wende, die Mauer wurde am 9. November geöffnet. Am 3. Oktober 1990 wurden die beiden deutschen Staaten als Bundesrepublik Deutschland wiedervereinigt und Berlin per Einigungsvertrag deutsche Hauptstadt.

Am 20. Juni 1991 beschloss der Bundestag mit dem Hauptstadtbeschluss nach kontroverser öffentlicher Diskussion, dass die Stadt Sitz der deutschen Bundesregierung und des Bundestages sein solle. 1994 wurde das Schloss Bellevue auf Initiative Richard von Weizsäckers zum ersten Amtssitz des Bundespräsidenten. In der Folgezeit wurde das Bundespräsidialamt in unmittelbarer Nähe errichtet.

Im Jahr 1999 nahmen Regierung und Parlament ihre Arbeit in Berlin auf. 2001 wurde das neue Bundeskanzleramt eingeweiht und von Bundeskanzler Gerhard Schröder bezogen. Die überwiegende Zahl der Auslandsvertretungen in Deutschland verlegten in den folgenden Jahren ihren Sitz nach Berlin.

Zum 1. Januar 2001 wurde die Zahl der Berlin untergliedernden Bezirke durch deren Neugliederung von 23 auf 12 reduziert, um eine effizientere Verwaltung und Planung zu ermöglichen.

[kientrucsutiennguyen]

Holocaust là gì

Holocaust là một trong những hành động diệt chủng khét tiếng nhất trong lịch sử hiện đại. Nhiều hành động tàn bạo của Đức Quốc xã trước và trong Thế chiến thứ hai đã hủy diệt hàng triệu sinh mạng và thay đổi vĩnh viễn bộ mặt của châu Âu. 

Holocaust : Từ tiếng Hy Lạp holokauston , có nghĩa là hy sinh bằng lửa. Nó đề cập đến cuộc đàn áp và tàn sát có kế hoạch của Đức Quốc xã đối với người Do Thái và những người khác được coi là thấp kém hơn so với người Đức “chân chính”.

Bạn đang xem: Holocaust là gì

Shoah : Một từ tiếng Do Thái có nghĩa là tàn phá, đổ nát hoặc lãng phí, cũng được sử dụng để chỉ Holocaust.Nazi : từ viết tắt của Đức là viết tắt của Nationalsozialistishe Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (Đảng Công nhân Đức Quốc gia xã hội chủ nghĩa).Giải pháp cuối cùng : Thuật ngữ Đức quốc xã ám chỉ kế hoạch tiêu diệt người Do Thái của họ.Kristallnacht : Nghĩa đen là “Đêm pha lê” hay Đêm thủy tinh vỡ, đề cập đến đêm 9-10 tháng 11 năm 1938 khi hàng nghìn giáo đường Do Thái và các ngôi nhà và cơ sở kinh doanh thuộc sở hữu của người Do Thái ở Áo và Đức bị tấn công.Trại tập trung : Mặc dù chúng ta sử dụng thuật ngữ chung chung là “trại tập trung”, nhưng thực tế có một số loại trại khác nhau với các mục đích khác nhau. Chúng bao gồm các trại tiêu diệt, trại lao động, trại tù binh chiến tranh và trại trung chuyển.

Adolf Hitler, thủ tướng Đức, được những người ủng hộ chào đón tại Nuremberg vào năm 1933. Hulton Archive / Stringer / Getty Images 

Holocaust bắt đầu vào năm 1933 khi Adolf Hitler lên nắm quyền ở Đức và kết thúc vào năm 1945 khi Đức Quốc xã bị quân Đồng minh đánh bại. Thuật ngữ Holocaust có nguồn gốc từ tiếng Hy Lạp holokauston , có nghĩa là hy sinh bằng lửa. Nó đề cập đến cuộc đàn áp và tàn sát có kế hoạch của Đức Quốc xã đối với người Do Thái và những người khác được coi là kém hơn so với người Đức “thực sự”. Từ Shoah trong tiếng Do Thái – có nghĩa là tàn phá, đổ nát hoặc lãng phí – cũng đề cập đến tội ác diệt chủng này.

Ngoài người Do Thái, Đức quốc xã còn nhắm vào người Roma, người đồng tính luyến ái, Nhân chứng Giê-hô-va và người khuyết tật để bắt bớ. Những người chống lại Đức Quốc xã bị đưa đến các trại lao động khổ sai hoặc bị sát hại.

Từ Nazi là từ viết tắt trong tiếng Đức của Nationalsozialistishe Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (Đảng Công nhân Đức Quốc gia xã hội chủ nghĩa). Đức Quốc xã đôi khi sử dụng thuật ngữ “Giải pháp cuối cùng” để chỉ kế hoạch tiêu diệt người Do Thái của họ, mặc dù nguồn gốc của điều này không rõ ràng, theo các nhà sử học.

Người chết

Theo Bảo tàng Tưởng niệm Holocaust của Hoa Kỳ, hơn 17 triệu người đã thiệt mạng trong Holocaust, nhưng không có tài liệu nào ghi lại tổng số. Sáu triệu người trong số này là người Do Thái – khoảng 2/3 tổng số người Do Thái sống ở châu Âu.  Ước tính có khoảng 1,5 triệu trẻ em Do Thái và hàng nghìn trẻ em Romani, Đức và Ba Lan đã chết trong Holocaust.

Số liệu thống kê sau đây là từ Bảo tàng Holocaust Quốc gia Hoa Kỳ. Khi nhiều thông tin và hồ sơ được phát hiện, có khả năng những con số này sẽ thay đổi. Tất cả các con số là gần đúng.

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6 triệu người Do Thái5,7 triệu thường dân Liên Xô (thêm 1,3 thường dân Do Thái Liên Xô được tính vào con số 6 triệu người Do Thái)3 triệu tù nhân chiến tranh của Liên Xô (bao gồm khoảng 50.000 lính Do Thái)1,9 triệu thường dân Ba Lan (không phải Do Thái)312.000 thường dân SerbLên đến 250.000 người khuyết tậtLên đến 250.000 Roma1.900 nhân chứng Giê-hô-vaÍt nhất 70.000 người tái phạm tội và “người không xã hội”Một số lượng không xác định các đối thủ chính trị và các nhà hoạt động của Đức.Hàng trăm hoặc hàng nghìn người đồng tính luyến ái (có thể được bao gồm trong 70.000 người tái phạm tội và số “asocials” ở trên).

Sự khởi đầu của Holocaust

Vào ngày 1 tháng 4 năm 1933, Đức Quốc xã kích động hành động đầu tiên của họ chống lại người Do Thái Đức bằng cách tuyên bố tẩy chay tất cả các doanh nghiệp do người Do Thái điều hành.

Các Luật Nuremberg , ban hành ngày 15 Tháng 9 năm 1935, được thiết kế để loại trừ người Do Thái khỏi đời sống công cộng. Luật Nuremberg tước quyền công dân của người Do Thái Đức và cấm kết hôn và quan hệ tình dục ngoài hôn nhân giữa người Do Thái và người ngoại bang. Những biện pháp này đặt tiền lệ pháp lý cho luật chống Do Thái sau đó. Đức Quốc xã đã ban hành nhiều luật chống người Do Thái trong vài năm sau đó: Người Do Thái bị cấm vào các công viên công cộng, bị sa thải khỏi các công việc dân sự và buộc phải đăng ký tài sản của họ. Các luật khác cấm các bác sĩ Do Thái điều trị cho bất kỳ ai khác ngoài bệnh nhân Do Thái, trục xuất trẻ em Do Thái khỏi các trường công lập và đặt ra các hạn chế đi lại nghiêm trọng đối với người Do Thái.

Mặt tiền đổ nát của các cửa hàng thuộc sở hữu của người Do Thái ở Berlin sau Kristallnacht. Hình ảnh Bettmann / Getty 

Vào đêm ngày 9 và 10 tháng 11 năm 1938, Đức Quốc xã kích động một cuộc tấn công chống lại người Do Thái ở Áo và Đức được gọi là Kristallnacht (Đêm của thủy tinh vỡ, hay dịch theo nghĩa đen từ tiếng Đức, “Đêm pha lê”). Điều này bao gồm việc cướp bóc và đốt phá các giáo đường Do Thái, phá cửa sổ các cơ sở kinh doanh do người Do Thái làm chủ và cướp phá các cửa hàng đó. Vào buổi sáng, kính vỡ vương vãi khắp mặt đất. Nhiều người Do Thái đã bị tấn công hoặc bị quấy rối, và khoảng 30.000 người đã bị bắt và đưa đến các trại tập trung.

Sau khi Thế chiến thứ hai bắt đầu vào năm 1939, Đức Quốc xã ra lệnh cho người Do Thái đeo ngôi sao màu vàng của David trên quần áo của họ để họ có thể dễ dàng bị nhận ra và nhắm mục tiêu. Những người đồng tính cũng bị nhắm mục tiêu tương tự và buộc phải mặc áo tam giác màu hồng.

Khu ổ chuột Lublin ở Ba Lan. Hình ảnh Bettmann / Getty

Sau khi Thế chiến thứ hai bắt đầu, Đức Quốc xã bắt đầu ra lệnh cho tất cả người Do Thái sống trong các khu vực nhỏ, tách biệt của các thành phố lớn, được gọi là các khu biệt lập. Người Do Thái bị buộc phải rời khỏi nhà của họ và chuyển đến những nơi ở nhỏ hơn, thường được chia sẻ với một hoặc nhiều gia đình khác.

Một số khu ổ chuột ban đầu mở cửa, điều đó có nghĩa là người Do Thái có thể rời khỏi khu vực vào ban ngày nhưng phải trở lại sau giờ giới nghiêm. Sau đó, tất cả các khu ổ chuột đều trở nên đóng cửa, có nghĩa là người Do Thái không được phép rời đi trong bất kỳ hoàn cảnh nào. Các khu biệt động lớn nằm ở các thành phố Bialystok, Lodz và Warsaw của Ba Lan. Những chiếc ghettos khác được tìm thấy ở Minsk, Belarus ngày nay; Riga, Latvia; và Vilna, Lithuania. Khu ổ chuột lớn nhất ở Warsaw. Lúc cao điểm tháng 3 năm 1941, một số 445.000 đã được nhồi nhét vào một khu vực chỉ 1,3 dặm vuông trong kích thước.

Quy định và thanh lý các Ghettos

Trong hầu hết các khu ổ chuột, Đức Quốc xã ra lệnh cho người Do Thái thành lập một Judenrat (hội đồng Do Thái) để quản lý các yêu cầu của Đức Quốc xã và điều chỉnh cuộc sống nội bộ của khu Do Thái. Đức Quốc xã thường xuyên ra lệnh trục xuất khỏi các khu ổ chuột. Tại một số khu ổ chuột lớn, mỗi ngày có từ 5.000 đến 6.000 người bị đưa đến các trại tập trung và tiêu diệt bằng đường sắt.  Để khiến họ hợp tác, Đức Quốc xã nói với người Do Thái rằng họ đang bị chuyển đi nơi khác để lao động.

Khi chiến tranh thế giới thứ hai chống lại Đức quốc xã, họ bắt đầu một kế hoạch có hệ thống để loại bỏ hoặc “thanh lý” các khu nhà ở mà họ đã thiết lập thông qua sự kết hợp của giết người hàng loạt tại chỗ và chuyển những cư dân còn lại đến các trại tiêu diệt. Khi Đức Quốc xã cố gắng thanh lý Khu ổ chuột Warsaw vào ngày 13 tháng 4 năm 1943, những người Do Thái còn lại đã chống trả trong cuộc nổi dậy được gọi là Cuộc nổi dậy Warsaw Ghetto. Các chiến binh kháng chiến của người Do Thái đã chống lại toàn bộ chế độ Đức Quốc xã trong gần một tháng.

Trại tập trung

Mặc dù nhiều người gọi tất cả các trại của Đức Quốc xã là trại tập trung, thực tế có một số loại trại khác nhau , bao gồm trại tập trung, trại hủy diệt, trại lao động, trại tù binh và trại trung chuyển. Một trong những trại tập trung đầu tiên là ở Dachau, miền nam nước Đức. Nó mở cửa vào ngày 20 tháng 3 năm 1933.

Từ năm 1933 đến năm 1938, hầu hết những người bị giam giữ trong các trại tập trung là tù nhân chính trị và những người mà Đức Quốc xã gán cho là “người không có tâm”. Những người này bao gồm người tàn tật, người vô gia cư và người bệnh tâm thần. Sau Kristallnacht năm 1938, cuộc đàn áp người Do Thái trở nên có tổ chức hơn. Điều này dẫn đến số lượng người Do Thái bị đưa đến các trại tập trung tăng theo cấp số nhân.

Cuộc sống trong các trại tập trung của Đức Quốc xã thật kinh khủng. Các tù nhân bị buộc phải lao động chân tay nặng nhọc và được cho ăn ít. Họ ngủ từ ba người trở lên trong một chiếc giường gỗ chật chội; giường chưa từng được nghe nói đến. Tra tấn trong các trại tập trung là phổ biến và thường xuyên xảy ra tử vong. Tại một số trại tập trung, các bác sĩ Đức Quốc xã đã tiến hành các thí nghiệm y tế đối với các tù nhân trái với ý muốn của họ.

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Trại tử thần

Trong khi các trại tập trung nhằm mục đích làm việc và bỏ đói các tù nhân thì các trại tiêu diệt (còn được gọi là trại tử thần) được xây dựng với mục đích duy nhất là giết chết một nhóm lớn người một cách nhanh chóng và hiệu quả. Đức Quốc xã đã xây dựng sáu trại tiêu diệt, tất cả đều ở Ba Lan: Chelmno, Belzec, Sobibor , Treblinka , Auschwitz và Majdanek .

Các tù nhân được vận chuyển đến các trại tiêu diệt này được yêu cầu cởi quần áo để họ có thể tắm. Thay vì tắm, các tù nhân bị dồn vào phòng hơi ngạt và bị giết. Auschwitz là trại tập trung và tiêu diệt lớn nhất được xây dựng. Người ta ước tính rằng gần 1,1 triệu người đã thiệt mạng tại Auschwitz.

Chuyên mục: Hỏi Đáp

from Sửa nhà giá rẻ Hà Nội https://ift.tt/2V6H9JN Blog của Tiến Nguyễn https://kientrucsunguyentien.blogspot.com/

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today is 75th anniversary of Warsaw’s Ghetto Uprising

under the command of Mordecai Anielewicz. The Warsaw ghetto uprising was the largest, symbolically most important Jewish uprising, and the first urban uprising, in German-occupied Europe. The resistance in Warsaw inspired other uprisings in ghettos (e.g., Bialystok and Minsk) and killing centers (Treblinka and Sobibor).