synagogues ransacking and breaking windows of Jewish businesses and homes.
Over a thousand synagogues were damaged and many businesses were
destroyed. Twenty-six thousand Jews were arrested and sent to
concentration camps. Jews were physically attacked and beaten, ninety-one
died. Police stood by as the violence occurred and firemen were present to
ensure that the flames from the synagogues did not spread to 'Aryan'
property. In its aftermath Jews lost the illusion that they had a future
in Germany. After a meeting to discuss the damage, the Nazis chose to
further persecute the Jews by forcing them to pay for the damages of
Kristallnacht. GÖ²ing concluded the meeting with a note of irony: 'I would
not like to be a Jew in Germany'. Within days, the Nazis forced the Jews
to transfer their businesses and property to Aryan hands. Jews were forced
out of skilled work and in April 1939 all their remaining wealth was
confiscated.
The three thousand Jews left in the German Reich were now trapped. The
confiscation of their wealth had left them unable to buy or bribe their
way out of Germany, and no other country was willing to accept huge
numbers of poverty-stricken refugees. Hitler began publicly to threaten
that war in Europe would mean the 'annihilation of the Jewish race'.
German Jews found themselves in complete destitution with nowhere to turn.
The German Jews were restricted in education. From April 7 1933
'non-Aryan' teachers were not allowed to teach. Jewish children at school
were humiliated in front of their classes, and school textbooks were
rewritten to show Jews as polluters of the Aryan race. In 1938 all Jewish
children were expelled from state schools. The Nazis also encouraged book
burnings of writings by Jews and others not approved of in the Reich. Jews
were barred from earning university degrees.
During the period 1933 - 1939 there was a systematic removal of rights
from Jews in Germany. They were stripped of their civil rights as German
citizens and isolated them from Germans legally, socially and politically.
Jews were reduced to subjects of the state. The Jewish people's image also
deteriorated during this time, because of the constant attack from Nazi
propaganda. The Jews went form a thriving and respected race to an
unwanted and hated minority in a country that was about to go to war.
2. Why did the Nazi Treatment of Jews change between 1939 and 1945?
Between 1939 and 1945 the treatment of Jews changed considerably. There
were many different motives for this. In 1940 the problem of the Jewish
people for the Nazis escalated. It became clear to Hitler and his top
advisors that forced immigration of Jews out of the Reich is not a
feasible option, as they would never be able to push all the Jews out of
their borders. The Nazis needed to contemplate an alternative method of
disposing of the Jews.
The passivity of the German people was clear after Kristallnacht. It was
made apparent to the Nazis that they would encounter little opposition,
even from the German churches. In 1938 thirty-eight government leaders met
at a conference at Evian in France, to discuss the growing problem of
Jewish refugees from Germany. Instead of criticising the German action or
even aiding with emigration of the Jews, the conference sent a message to
Germany saying that it would not interfere in Germany's domestic affairs.
No country was willing to take on large numbers of Jews. This signalled to
the Nazis that, as nobody wanted them they will have to dispose of them
themselves, and they would receive no outside interference.
In September 1939 war erupted after Germany invaded Poland, this
exacerbated the problem, as it meant two million more Jews for the Nazis
to deal with. With the war started the Nazis no longer had to abide by
foreign governments. Also communication was poor, and countries were
preoccupied in the war so the Jews were neglected. The Germans swept
across Poland, gathering up Jews. Those who were strong enough, were taken
away to work to death as slave labourers for the Nazi war effort. A
special task force, the Einsatzgruppen, was created to round up Jews and
herd them in to Ghettos and concentration camps. A ghetto was part of a
town sealed to separate Jews from the rest of the town. Here five hundred
thousand died from famine, starvation, sickness, and forced labour. The
Nazis has no intention that those selected for work should survive.
Germany continued with their conquest of most of Europe in 1940, gathering
more and more Jews as they went.
The German invasion of Eastern Europe seemed to trigger the start of the
holocaust in 1941. A further five million more Jews became under Nazi
rule. As soon as the invasions got under way the systematic massacre of
Jews began, with the Einsatzgruppen in charge. Einsatzgruppen were special
squads related to the SS but often involving local people. Himmler was the
leader and a key feature in the holocaust, as his efficiency and
dedication aided Hitler in his aim of genocide. After rounding up Jews
they took them to the countryside and gunned them down beside mass graves.
More than two million people died in this way.
Collaboration was vital in order for the nazi's plans to be carried out.
It would have been impossible to transport the millions of victims from
every Nazi occupied country to the death camps, without the extensive help
of thousands of people. In Eastern Europe the Jews had not been well
integrated into society, and there was a stronger sense of anti-Semitism
in the east. Some people were happy that the Nazis were in power, as it
meant that they would gain Jewish land, and property. In many places the
Nazis found willing local people to carry out the task of shooting Jews,
and it was known in some villages for whole Jewish populations to be
killed.
As the problem was increasing the Nazis were looking for an answer to the
Jewish question. This was known as 'the final solution to the Jewish
question' instigated after a meeting in Wannsee in. In January 1942 a
conference was held to present the 'final solution'. The meeting was a key
turning point as it was decided that Jews should not be able to carry on
living in ghettos or to emigrate but they should be killed as quickly and
as efficiently as possible. Experiments were created to investigate the
most effective ways of destruction. The scientists often used Jews as
their guinea pigs for such experiments. No anaesthetics were used and
suffering was extreme.
The SS decided on gas as the method of extermination, partly because they
felt that shooting was too emotionally distressing for those who had to do
the killing. At first gas vans were used at an extermination centre in
Chelmno. The exhaust was turned back into the van so that they died of
carbon monoxide poisoning while being driven to mass graves. This process
was wasting time so eventually this method gave way to more organised and
systematic genocide. Special extermination camps were constructed in
Eastern Europe. Gas chambers and crematoria were ordered, tested and built
at the ends of railway lines. It was about 1941 that the Germans decided
to eliminate the ghettos and deport the ghetto populations to these
extermination camps. The starving Jews were promised food and
'resettlement' to persuade them to travel in the cattle wagons that would
roll them to the crematory ovens.
By 1941 the Nazi leaders were aware of the number of Jews they would have
to deal with. They realised that using methods such as shooting would take
too long to eliminate them all and was an unrealistic target. So at the
Wansee conference they decided that they should use modern factory methods
to 'process' Jews to death as quickly as possible. More extermination
camps were built as a result of this. They used gas such as Zyklon B to
kill. Afterward the bodies would be burnt in the crematoria. All bodies
were plundered for things that could be of use- clothes, valuables, shoes
and hair. After the killing was done the mouths were searched for gold
teeth.
As it was made clear that Nazi defeat was imminent the killing of Jews was
stepped up. Hitler was so obsessed in successfully exterminating the
Jewish race that he used vital troops from the eastern front to come and
aid in the camps. In 1944 there were long death marches of all remaining
Jews across Germany in the face of the advancing Soviet army. The Nazis
tried to cover up their activities, which shows that they knew they were
immoral. Mass graves were dug up and set alight, and documents were
destroyed o try and cover up this terrible act of genocide.
3. How successfully did the Allies punish the Nazis for the Holocaust?
When the allied forces closed in on Nazi Germany liberating the
concentration camps and death camps, the allies announced that they would
punish those responsible for the atrocities taken place in Europe. But how
do you punish successfully tragic genocide such as the holocaust?
The main Nazi leaders such as Hitler, Himmler and Goebbles were not
punished, as they committed suicide because they were scared of
retribution. This frustrated many people, as the main leaders were never
reprimanded for their actions. This shows that the allies were not
entirely effective in their methods of punishment. However there is little
they could have done in this case. Other Nazi leaders fled to the Middle
East or South America, where they took on new identities. The fact that
they were able to leave shows that the allies were not successful in the
organisation of punishment. A Jewish action group called D.I.N was set up
to track down and reprise SS officers. They were responsible for killing
sixteen Nazi leaders alone. Even today people are still trying to locate
these missing ex-Nazis. The punishment was not confined to a certain time
limit, but some believe that it should have been. In 1960, Adolf Eichmann,
who had started a new life in Argentina, was carried off to Jerusalem for
trial. The allies failed to punish some Nazis. Some individuals who had
led an active part in the Holocaust discreetly resumed their ordinary
lives in Germany or Austria. Some once more reached high positions in the
state or economic life. This proves that the Allies did not reach their
targets in their endeavour for justice.
In 1943 a commission was set up by seventeen countries -including the
allies- to investigate war crimes, it was called the UN. Official
punishment began when the war ended on 7th May, which was the official day
of Nazi surrender. Germany was petitioned and each of the allies were
given responsibilities for their certain area. They were given
responsibilities of discipline and control, and with this included the
trial and punishment of those responsible for the holocaust. They tried to
stop the reprisal killings and give them official fair trials and
sentences. I don't believe it is possible to have a fair trial given the
feelings and evidence involved. The judges and the prosecutors all came
from the allied countries. The trials could not always be juste because
the jury would often have biased feelings, and it is hard to overlook the
substantial and shocking evidence given. However the allies came to the
conclusion that a trial was the best way of dealing with the
circumstances, because it meant that they could discuss the evidence
gathered by the UN and then sentence and administer the punishment. There
was also the underlying question of who to bring to trial? There were so
many people involved in the holocaust. It is possible to believe that the
whole nation was culpable, as the majority of people were responsible for
some active involvement in the holocaust. The allies made the decision to
punish people on the grounds that they represented the leadership of
organisations responsible for the conduct of the war. This was to avoid
legal and moral issues including the rights and wrongs of following
orders. But what about people such as the manufacturers of Zyklon B; the
gas enabling the Nazis to kill effectively. Many industrialists profited
greatly from the Holocaust, however, they were not punished.
The Allies kept their promise to try war criminals. In 1945-6 twenty-four
of the main Nazi leaders were tried for crimes against humanity in
Nuremberg, where the Nazi racial laws had been announced ten years
earlier. The allies wanted to destroy the Nazi's ideas from the source.
Also it showed how Germany was moving on. Nineteen defendants were found
guilty and twelve of them were sentenced to death, three were given life
imprisonment, and four were sentenced to between ten and twenty years
imprisonment. Every aspect of these trials was supposed to be fair as the
allies wanted to portray to the rest of the world a sense of justice. The
sentences are varied to show it was fair. Three defendants were acquitted
to prove that it was not biased. The allies realised that the Nuremberg
trials were going to stand as an example for future world conduct of
justice. The allies were faced with the predicament of how should they
punish the Nazis? They were not sure if living with their actions were
substantial punishment. However many of the Nazis did not see that their
actions were wrong, so this is not successful punishment. Instead the
allies established that they should give varied sentences from
imprisonment to death by hanging. They believed that this was a successful
deterrent for these crimes, but for some who had deep anti-Semitic views
it would never be.
After the Nuremberg trials other subsequent Nuremberg proceedings took
place. Eight hundred and six people were sentenced to death but only four
hundred and eighty-six sentences of death were carried out and others
sentenced for imprisonment rarely completed their full sentence. This
demonstrates that the punishment from the allies was not successful
because unless carried out punishment is meaningless. At the Nuremberg
trials, crimes against humanity were for the first time defined as a
punishable offence. So the allies were successful at establishing that
there should be a law criticising the Nazi actions. Many people were
dissatisfied with the Nuremberg verdicts, and called for all Nazi leaders
to be punished by death. The trials of many lesser figures in Hitler's
regime followed.
But the Allies' enthusiasm for punishing Germans soon faded. Individuals
who had played a key role in the Final Solution rarely served more than
five years in prison. Industrialists who had profited from Jewish slave
labour either received token prison sentences or went free. The Allies
wanted to move on and did not want to punish the future generations of
Germans who were disgusted at their parents' behaviour. In 1951 the allies
passed the Clemency Act, which, forgave people for their actions in the
Holocaust. Some believed that forgiving them was signalling to them that
their actions were acceptable. Although de-Nazification is supposed to be
taking place in Germany, the allies fail considerably because ex-Nazi
teachers were reinstated with their jobs, and allowed to teach in schools
again.
The allies also gave financial punishment. The German government decided
to issue reparations in compensation for the many people working as slave
labourers. Money was also given to the millions who had had their property
confiscated by the Nazis. In 1952 the Luxembourg Accords were signed. This
was an agreement between West Germany and Israel. Israel was the country
set up for the Jewish community, to provide a permanent haven for the
Jewish survivors. The Accords stated that the German government would pay
Israel $867 million to help rebuild the country. Of that money only
fifteen percent went to victims outside Israel. So other victims of the
Holocaust, such as Slavs, gypsies and homosexuals were overlooked. These
groups did not really receive justice because the Jews were the ones who
emphasised their cases. The punishment from the allies should have been
universal not just for certain races.
The Holocaust will always be controversial, and the question will always
remain; did the allies do enough to punish. There is serious criticism
that the allies did not do enough to punish Nazis. Other countries felt
that they had to continue in the places were the allies failed, and
continued in the fight for justice. The Allies were successful in many
ways however they lacked persistence in many areas. However they were put
in a hard position because the world was watching how they would react to
the Holocaust. There was only so much the allies could do, and for some
this would never be substantial.
