Shoah

1. Shoah

2. Endlösung „final solution of the Jewish question“ • Victims: 6 milion European Jews from German occupied territories • Holocaust = greek word for a burnt offering • Shoah = hebrew word for an enormous disaster

3. Hitler • January 1933 – Reich Chancellor • 12 years after the end of WWI in the time of economical crisis • Thoughts about the right of Germans to gain a larger territory, subjugation of European nations, inferior groups = Jews, Gypsies, Slavs  became a part of the official politics of the state • Ideological mass propaganda : Jews are inferior and are responsable for the economical, political and moral crisis of Germany • Jews were gradually excluded from the social, cultural, economical and political life of the country

4. Nüremberg Laws • 1935 – laws about the protection of the German blood and honour • Determination of Jewish person and of Jewish half-breed • Persons marked as Jews were not allowed to marry or even be in contact non-Jewish people, the Arians • Jews • have been deprived of the most of their property and belongings • Were not allowed to execute most of the jobs • Were persecuted • Number of anti-Jewish laws was implemented within the Germany controlled area

5. Nazism • Concentration camps in Germany already since 1933 • Crystal night – November 9.-10. 1938 – huge pogrom on Jews in all Germany, Austria and German controlled territories (Sudeten) • Berlin-Wannsee conference – January 20 1942 • Definitive decision about the physical extermination of all European Jews • Mass murders in Eastern Europe and deportations of Central European Jews already since 1941 Opava, Silesia, burning synagogue

6. Occupation of the Bohemian Lands • March 15 1939 – Protektorat Bohemia and Moravia • Immediately were published laws limiting freedom of Jews  Jews were progressively excluded from the society • Germanization of Czech factories and goods – broad definition of Jewish belongings • Emigration: Central for the Jewish Emigration (after Adolf Eichman) – emigrants had to pay large sums of money • Jews banned to enter public spaces and they did not have right to be out of their appartment after 8pm

7. Restrictions against Jews • March 1940 – all Jews had to register • September 1940 – Jewish children were not allowed to attend schools • Jews lost their right to use their personal belongings and their bank accounts were controlled • September 1 1941 – all Jews above 6 had to wear visibly a Jewish star

8. Deportations • 1939 – already first deportation to Poland • Fall 1941 – began systematic mass deportations of whole families • Decided by the Acting Reich Protector, SS Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich in the fall 1941 • October 1941 – 5000 people to Lodz, 277 survived

9. Terezín • Ghetto for internation of Jews since October 1941 – first deportations since November 1941 • Received regular transports of whole families usually 1000 people in a time • Families were immediately separated  casernes • Jews were not allowed to have any contact with Terezín citizens • February 1942 – the commune of Terezín was abolished and the Terezín inhabitants were ordered to move out within four months • Jews lived since in the civile houses and were allowed to walk within the town during the day • Over 74 000 Jews from the Bohemian Lands • Since June 1942 – transports from Germany and Austria – mainly old people (paied their „stay at a spa“ almost with all their assets) • Since 1943 – transports from Holland and Danemark

10. Terezín • Before war : 7000 inhabitants • 1942 : 58 491 inhabitants • Overcrowded • Jews were allowed to have a luggage of 50 kg per person including the blankets – usually were deprived from it upon their arrival • Work : 16-65 years but 12 year old kids worked too • Weekly workload : about 60 hours, sometimes more than 100 hours • appalling hygienic conditions • Lack of water and health care infections

11. Terezín • 1942 – 100 people per day were dying • Since September 1942 - crematorium • Transit and labour camp • At the beggining of the year 1945 Nazis tried to build here a gas chamber but they did not have time to finish it anymore.

12. Terezín • Cultural activities • First illegal, later used for Nazi propaganda • 1944 – Embelishement of the town and visit of the Red Cross • Propaganda movie „Hitler donated a Town to the Jews“ • 12 thousand children – since 1942 lived separately in children houses

13. Transports to the East • To ghettos in Riga and Warzsaw • To the extermination camps in Treblinka, Chelmn, Maly Trostenets near Minsk in Belarus, and many more, especially around Lublin • Usually died immediately upon their arrival or were shot on the way • Since October 1942 untill October 1944 transports to Auschwitz- Birkenau • Selection – majority gased upon arrival (all mothers with small children)

14. After 1945 • 1st CzechoslovakRepublic (1918-1938) : 365 000 Jews • 272 000 Jews did not survive the Shoah • 1945-1948 Czechoslovakia (Eduard Beneš, Jan Masaryk) supports Israel, Israeli aviators were trained here • 1948 Communist takeover followed by antisemitic processes in the 1950´s (Jews accused of „cosmopolitanism“) • 1968 Soviet Invasion • 1989 Fall of the communist regime in the satelite countries of the Soviet Union • The „normal“ Jewish life is possible only since the 1990´s • Czech Republic: 5000 members of the Jewish communities and other organizations; 25 000 Jews

15. Poland • September 1 1939 WWII started by a German attack of Poland • Soviet army immedietaly occupied the former Russian part, Germany took the Western Poland including Lodz and Upper Silesia; since 1941 Germany took the Soviet part • Polish intellectual elite murdered • Mass murders of Polish people in the countryside • 6 200 000 Polish victims • Second largest Jewish community in Europe • 2 700 000 Polish Jewish victims (3 million Polish Jews before WWII) • 6 extermination camps – 3,5 milion Jews murdered here • Auschwitz since 1941 • Belzec, Sobibor, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, Majdanek, Lublin since 1942

16. Warszaw Ghetto Uprising • Largest ghetto in Poland since 1940 – to concentrate Jews before the deportation to the extermination camps; labour • 1943 • Largest act of the Jewish resistance • First mass uprising in Nazi occupied Europe • Inhabitants that were not murdered at the place sent to Treblinka • 60 000 Jews !!! • Holy Week, 1990´s • film adaptation of Jerzy Andrzejewski´s book by Andrzej Wajda • Roman Polanski, The Pianist, 2002 • http://youtu.be/itR0-I9idXk • http://youtu.be/kkvDWm9t9DM • Wladyslaw Szpilman • http://youtu.be/_vb9c1NxGdg • http://youtu.be/ZOwP6k8fp0M

17. Communism • Since 1945 pogroms against more than 1000 people that returned from the concentration camps – mass emigration • Forced collectivisation of agriculture and factories • Antisemitic campaign 1968 – mass emigration • 1955 – 1991 Warszaw military pact – against NATO • (Dissolution in 1991 signed in Prague)

18. Hungary • In 1920 was accepted in Budapest the first anitsemitic law in Europe – max 6% of Jews at the Universities • Miklós Horthy´s fascist government was sending Jews and communists to the internation camps since 1920 • Gyula Gömbös, the leader of the Party of the Protectors of the Race and the Prime Minister joined Hitler • Massacres of Jews already since 1941 • Jewish stars and deportations since April 1944: • 564 500 Jewish victims (750 000 Jews lived in Hungary before the WWII) • 440 000 Jews transported to Auschwitz; 80% murdered • Raoul Wallenberg, Swedish diplomat rescued thousand of Jews since 1944

19. Hungary • Red terror • After WWII since 1948 communist dictatorship of stalinist Matyas Rakosi • 1956 only 13 days • Soviet Army bombarded Budapest • Present untill 1989 like in Czechoslovakia after 1968 • 1956-1988 „goulash communism“ – Janos Kadar