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Home , Michael Marrus, The Holocaust in Greece, The Holocaust in Norway

WEEK 4 German Wartime Control over Western Europe, Scandinavia, and the Balkans: Implications for Jews Prepared by Tony Joel and Mathew Turner

Week 4 Unit Learning Outcomes ULO 1. evaluate in a reflective and critical manner the consequences of racism and prejudice

ULO 3. synthesise core historiographical debates on how and why occurred

ULO 4. recognise important linkages between the Second World War and the Holocaust, and question Hitler’s role in these events

Introduction Following its invasion and occupation of in September 1939, Hitler’s Germany next extended its sphere of influence in the northern spring of 1940 by attacking Scandinavia and western Europe. All attacks culminated in quick and decisive German victories. Less than a year later, Germany defeated the Balkan states of and Yugoslavia. The conquests in western Europe, along with subsequent military successes across the Balkans and eastern Europe, ultimately created what Raul Hilberg describes as “a vast semicircular arc” under Hitler’s control “extending counterclockwise from to Romania.”1 While Jews in each of the newly- occupied states from Scandinavia, through western Europe, and into the Balkans suffered the consequences of Nazi persecution, there were significant differences from country to country and over time.

To explain why there was so much spatial and temporal variation, this learning module has three core aims. First, it outlines the policies that the Germans put in place to deal with Jews who came under their control. Second, it considers the extent to which local populations cooperated with or resisted against Nazi attempts to persecute Jews. Third, it examines how different forms of German administration in occupied countries impacted on the implementation, nature, and timing of anti-Jewish policies, including the eventual extermination of Jews. With these aims in mind, the learning module is divided geographically, with sections devoted to western Europe, Scandinavia, and the Balkans.

In completing this learning module, you will continue your evaluation, in a reflective

1 R. Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, vol. 2. (Holmes & Meier, New York, 1985). p. 543. LEARNING MODULE 4. Section 1: Western Europe 2 and critical manner, the consequences of racism and prejudice. Furthermore, you will grapple with and synthesise core historiographical debates on how and why the Holocaust occurred. Along the way, you will recognise important linkages between the Second World War and the Holocaust, and question Hitler’s role in these events.

Section 1. Western Europe

This section focuses on western Europe and the various forms of German administration that were established in countries defeated and controlled by . It asks why Hitler invaded western Europe and provides a timeline of this early phase of the war. Section 1 also considers why Germans showed far greater restraint towards Jews in western Europe than in occupied Poland. It examines the anti-Jewish policies that were introduced, specifically in , Belgium, and the .

USHMM map of the German invasion of western Europe, 1940 Source: "German Invasion of western Europe, 1940," USHMM. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/media_nm.php?ModuleId=10005429&MediaId=367 [Accessed 15 March 2017]

In the absence of any overarching plan for administering occupied western Europe, a variety of administrative arrangements evolved. The specific form they took was determined partly by social and partly by military strategic considerations. The Nazi leadership assumed that the administrative arrangements put into place in this period were only temporary, preceding more permanent structures that would emerge once they won the war and cemented their “Thousand Year Reich.”

The Nazis regarded groups such as the Scandinavians and the Dutch as likely being racially sympathetic, believing they would willingly identify with Hitler’s racial goals. In addition, Berlin supported independent, collaborationist states in the west, so long as they did not resist Nazi occupational objectives. France and Belgium (whose “racial” LEARNING MODULE 4. Section 1: Western Europe 3 makeup was considered to be rather more ambiguous than that of the “Germanic” peoples of the Netherlands and Scandinavia) were viewed as areas of potential economic exploitation while their longer-term fate remained unclear.

a) Forms of German Administration in Western Europe Michael Marrus and point out that Hitler oversaw the formation of a “variety of administrations.”2 They differed from each other in their level of independence from direct Nazi rule, in their reliance on prewar local bureaucracies, and on whether they were subject to civilian or military administration.

Beyond those areas that were directly incorporated into the expanded German state, the Nazis devised three forms of administration in western Europe: • civil administration under a • direct military rule • government by a nominally independent but collaborationist régime

Civil administration under a Reichskommissar The state was governed by a civilian administration headed by a Reichskommissar (a gubernatorial title meaning a Nazi commissioner/governor of an occupied territory) who reported directly to Hitler. In contrast to the Generalgouvernement in Poland, western European states’ prewar civil service remained intact and were charged with implementing Nazi policy through local officers.

(l) Arthur Seyss-Inquart standing next to , with the SS chief and his deputy in the background. (r) , third from left, is flanked by SS chief Heinrich Himmler and the German army general , while Norwegian puppet leader also sits alongside Himmler. Sources: “Nazis take Austria,” The History Place. http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/triumph/tr-austria.htm [Accessed 15 March 2017] “Norway’s Role in the War against the Soviet Union,” Encyclopedia of Safety. http://survincity.com/2012/07/norways-role-in-the-war-against-the-soviet-union/ [Accessed 15 March 2017]

2 Michael Marrus and Robert Paxton, “The Nazis and the Jews in Occupied Western Europe 1933-44,” The Journal of Modern History, vol. 54, no. 4. 1982, p. 689. LEARNING MODULE 4. Section 1: Western Europe 4

Both the Netherlands (Holland) and Norway (where a puppet government, headed by Vidkun Quisling, gave an appearance of independence) were ran as a governed by a Nazi Reichskommissar. In the case of the Netherlands, Arthur Seyss-Inquart, a high-ranking Nazi from Austria, served as the Reichskommissar. In Norway, the role was filled by Josef Terboven. (Whereas Terboven committed suicide at the end of the war, Seyss-Inquart was hanged after being found guilty of crimes against humanity during the .)

Direct military rule Germans divided occupied France and Belgium into two military districts: “Belgium and Northern France”; and “France.” In “Belgium and Northern France” the Belgian civil service, based in Brussels, carried out German orders. The German administration of “France” was centred in Paris, although the Vichy government was responsible for providing the bureaucratic infrastructure necessary for the administration of the area directly controlled by the military.

Map showing how conquered France was divided into two zones, with the northern part of the country (along with Belgium and the Netherlands) occupied by German military forces, whereas the southern part of the country remained unoccupied. The unoccupied zone in the south became known as . Source: “The Jews of Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia,” . http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/education/newsletter/25/algeria_marocco.asp [Accessed 15 March 2017] LEARNING MODULE 4. Section 1: Western Europe 5

Collaborationist states Vichy France continued to operate as a nominally independent state with its own diplomatic service until Germany occupied it at the end of 1942.

Its government, headed by the French WWI hero Marshal Philippe Pétain, was based in the southern regional town of Vichy. Pétain was convinced that, through collaboration, he was protecting the interests of French citizens even if this meant that his régime cooperated with the implementation of German policy such as the persecution of Jews. The Vichy régime assumed that open opposition to German interests would result in direct occupation.

WWI hero and leader of Vichy France Philippe Pétain meets Hitler in 1940. Source: "The British General who planned to arm Vichy France," BBC. http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-17390290 [Accessed 15 March 2017]

These various forms of administration had a number of advantages for the Germans. The relatively low investment of resources meant that Germany governed a large area at comparatively little cost. Cooperation of local administrations facilitated compliance by local populations who were far more likely to take orders from familiar faces in their native language and, because key figures among the occupied local communities were cooperating with Germans, it was difficult for those under occupation to organise resistance without fear of betrayal.

On the other hand, dependence on local authorities meant that bureaucratic procrastination or resistance could subvert German orders. Additionally, the fragmentation of German forms of administration worked against the implementation of a coordinated policy throughout western Europe.

LEARNING MODULE 4. Section 1: Western Europe 6

b) and the German Assault on Western Europe Hitler’s in September 1939 triggered the outbreak of the Second World War. In large part due to the northern winter, however, during late 1939 and early 1940 nothing much else happened. This is the period known in the English-speaking world as the , or what the Germans refer to as the Sitzkrieg: a play-on-words meaning the “sit-down war” as opposed to Hitler’s devastatingly effective tactic of Blitzkrieg (or “lightning war”). Once the weather cleared and Hitler went on the offensive again, western Europe fell to his Blitzkrieg strategy with surprising speed.

9 April 1940: Germany invaded Denmark and neutral Norway. Denmark capitulated within just 6 hours! Similarly, Norway capitulated within a day of the invasion. The Norwegians received ongoing military support from France and Britain (including the Royal Navy’s attempts to protect the fjords), but it proved futile and the campaign was over in a matter of weeks.

10 May 1940: The Dutch surrendered just five days after Germany invaded the Netherlands.

15 May 1940: Without warning, Hitler invaded neutral Belgium and on 28 May — less than a fortnight later — the Belgian forces surrendered.

28 May 1940: Once Belgium was conquered, Germany immediately attacked France. British troops, sent to help defend France, were forced to evacuate from Dunkirk on 4 June. In yet another sensational demonstration of Blitzkrieg, Paris was captured on 14 June. The French government sued for an armistice on 22 June.

Hitler, flanked by key Nazi figures and military leaders, inspects Paris on 23 June 1940, the day after signing an armistice with defeated France. Source: “How did Britain hide its Treasure from the Nazis?” BBC. http://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/zgdsbk7 [Accessed 15 March 2017] LEARNING MODULE 4. Section 1: Western Europe 7

Following his prewar foreign policy successes that netted him Austria and the Sudetenland, and his military offensives against the remainder of and then Poland, by late 1939 Hitler controlled most of central Europe. Now, less than three months since Germany launched its offensive against Denmark and Norway, by mid- 1940 Hitler also had conquered most of Scandinvia and western Europe. It was a remarkable achievement for a nation that, within the previous two decades, had been so demonstrably weakened militarily, politically, and economically through defeat in the First World War followed by the various crises that beset the Weimar Republic as well as the devastating consequences of the Great Depression. In mid-1940, it seemed that all of Europe — and, perhaps, beyond — was well within Hitler’s grasp.

According to Doris , Hitler’s war against western powers had been envisaged from the beginning as a prerequisite to consolidating his grandiose plans for resettlement in the East.3 Interestingly, according to Bergen, Hitler’s racial ideology had always led him to believe that the western powers would prove to be his greatest military adversaries — the “inferior” slavic races to the East would simply crumble under Germany’s might. In contrast to Poland, and the subsequent invasion of the Soviet Union, Hitler’s racial considerations also would dramatically and directly shape how war in the west was fought.

Why did Hitler invade western Europe? What did he seek to achieve there?

The historical consensus is that the invasion occurred for military strategic (i.e. “conventional”) rather than ideological reasons. Germany’s primary war aim in western Europe seemed to be to strengthen its position in the west and to prevent a French or British attack that would have engaged Hitler in a war on two fronts — an outcome that, history suggested, he had good reason to fear. A secondary aim was to consolidate Germany’s resource base in preparation for eventual war against the Soviet Union (the Nazi-Soviet Pact of August 1939 remained in place, but Hitler always intended on breaking it whenever he decided the time was ripe for attacking Stalin). Hitler appeared to have few clearly defined longer-term objectives for occupation. This had profound implications for how German authorities treated Jews living in the region. Treatment generally was far less brutal than what Jews in occupied Poland endured at this early stage of the war.

Germans acted with greater restraint in the west than in the east for a number of reasons. These included:

• owing to their belief that, Jews and immigrants notwithstanding, the native inhabitants of western Europe were “racially” acceptable, Germans applied different ethical standards to their behaviour towards local populations. In the “civilised” and “cultured” west, non-Jews were to be treated with due respect.

3 , War & Genocide. (Rowman & Littlefield, London, 2009). pp. 132-35. LEARNING MODULE 4. Section 1: Western Europe 8

• the well-established western traditions of tolerance and integration meant that German occupiers were wary of arousing negative reactions among local populations who may have been sympathetic towards the plight of Jews.

• they needed to take into account local feelings owing to the thin stretching of Nazi administrative and military resources in comparison with Poland. Germany had a relatively limited capacity to deal with signs of resistance.

• the far smaller SS presence in western Europe meant there was far less impetus for the implementation of antisemitic measures. Initially, the pursuit of racial policy was not as central a concern for the foreign office and the army administration in the west. In the first years of occupation, these agencies lacked the ideological commitment of the SS towards the annihilation of Europe’s Jews.

c) Anti-Jewish Policies in Western Europe By the time France was conquered, the Nazis assumed that eventually all Jews would be removed from Europe, whether through deportation (perhaps to Madagascar, or to somewhere in “the East” beyond the Nazi orbit). Consequently, early treatment of Jews in western Europe was basically a “holding” operation.

The wide range of jurisdictions meant that in the early period of Nazi administration antisemitic policies were carried out in a patchy and uncoordinated fashion. Because anti-Jewish policy in the west was less driven by SS ideologues, at first its implementation lacked a sense of urgency and commitment. The pace of persecution varied markedly within different administrative areas of western Europe. Anti-Jewish measures were enacted relatively slowly and unevenly, whether in the Reichskommissariat of the Netherlands or under the direct military administrations in Belgium and occupied France. Paradoxically, it was Vichy France — where Germans exercised the least direct control — that seized the initiative and proposed the earliest and most stringent implementation of anti-Jewish laws.

Following the decision to exterminate all of Europe’s Jews, the situation of Jews across the continent, including western Europe, deteriorated markedly. From late-1941, SS officers directly intervened in Jewish affairs throughout western Europe. Anti-Jewish measures were systematically put into place. Jews were arrested and held in interim camps in western Europe before deportation to labour and extermination camps located in eastern Europe.

Nazi authorities in western Europe encountered several obstacles including: resistance from local populations who were sympathetic to their Jewish neighbours; local administrations who resented German bullying; and even German authorities suspicious of interference by the SS. The relative dispersion of Jews through western Europe, especially in France where the largest number of Jews were located, meant Germans were heavily dependent on local cooperation to identify and capture their targets. LEARNING MODULE 4. Section 1: Western Europe 9

(l) Two insignia from the uniform of the Vichy fascist youth movement, Moisson Nouvelles. (r) Members of Moisson Nouvelles gather around the French fascist movement’s flag in Pont de Beauvoisin. A few of the boys in this photograph actually were Jews in hiding, and they joined the movement as part of their cover. This included the young German Jew Walter Karliner, whose mother, father, and two sisters were deported from France to Auschwitz in 1943-44. Walter and his brother younger Herbert, the only two family members to survive the Holocaust, relocated to the United States after the war. Sources: "Photo Archives," USHMM. http://digitalassets.ushmm.org/photoarchives/result.aspx?search=MOISSONS%20NOUVELL [Accessed 15 March 2017] “Photo Archives,” USHMM. http://digitalassets.ushmm.org/photoarchives/detail.aspx?id=1087365&search=&index=9 [Accessed 15 March 2017]

Essentially due to the acute labour shortage experienced by the Nazis, during the first roundups there was a high level of cooperation from the local populace. Foreign Jewish refugees were especially vulnerable at this stage. Nonetheless, from 1943 onwards local officials became increasingly reluctant to collaborate, especially where this involved the arrest of local Jews (i.e. native Jews rather than foreign Jews living in the area). Logistical difficulties in mobilising sufficient rolling stock (trains) in order to transport Jews from western Europe to camps in Poland also impeded deportations.

Prior to occupation, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands all had long traditions of recognising the civil rights of their Jewish communities. A brief survey of each country indicates the extent to which these traditions influenced the treatment of Jews. (Our focus is on these countries because this is where the majority of Jews in western Europe were located.)

Vichy France Visit the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) website for a detailed account of France and the Holocaust.

The Vichy régime presented itself as the legitimate successor to the prewar French government. One might have anticipated that such a leadership would have been eager to frustrate any action believed to threaten French citizens — regardless of their chosen religion — but Vichy was led by an arch-conservative government. It was dedicated to the restitution of Catholic family values, the ethos of hard work, and, indeed, in many ways was sympathetic to the social values espoused by national socialism under Hitler. LEARNING MODULE 4. Section 1: Western Europe 10

In their seminal study Vichy France and the Jews, Michael Marrus and Robert Paxton observe that the early introduction of anti-Jewish measures by the Vichy régime (the first of which appeared on 27 August 1940) occurred on the sole initiative of French authorities. Marrus and Paxton state: “Years of scrutiny of the records left by German services in Paris and Berlin have turned up no trace of German orders to Vichy in 1940 — or for that matter to any other occupied or satellite regime of that year — to adopt anti-Semitic legislation.”4 Without German encouragement or assistance, Vichy administrators incorporated further anti-Jewish measures into the Statute of Jews, proclaimed in Vichy France on 3 October 1940.

PRESCRIBED TEXT: Please read Saul Friedländer’s chapter entitled “Vichy France: ‘Our’ Jews and the Rest,” pp. 570-85.

Measures excluded Jews from civil service positions, the “liberal” professions (such as law and medicine) and forced Jews to register themselves with the government. Naturalised Jews lost their citizenship. In July 1941, “Aryanisation” (i.e. confiscation) of Jewish businesses was put into effect by Vichy leaders. Foreign Jews were interned under dreadful conditions in internment/concentration camps that were located in France and administered by French authorities (see below the video on Drancy).

The Vichy régime was at least partially motivated by the hope that Germany would treat it sympathetically in exchange for persecuting Jews. As Marrus points out in the reading, however, ideology rather than pragmatism primarily drove Vichy’s autonomous attack on Jews. French was not based on Nazi-style racism, but rather it drew on a long-standing, national tradition of “state antisemitism” heavily driven by the influence of Catholicism on French society.

Arguably, the Vichy government did not explicitly aim to contribute to the extermination of Jews. It is true that Vichy leaders showed a ruthless antisemitic streak from the outset, and they displayed utmost callousness in 1942 when welcoming the deportation of stateless and foreign Jews for what it believed at the time was “forced labour in the east.” Even so, a case can be made that Vichy authorities did not “collaborate” knowingly and willingly in the Nazi system of extermination. For most of 1942, Vichy leaders remained unaware about the Nazis’ extermination program over

4 Michael Marrus and Robert Paxton, Vichy France and the Jews. (Basic Books, New York, 1981). p. 5. LEARNING MODULE 4. Section 1: Western Europe 11 in Poland, and found the rumours of systematic mass extermination unfathomable. Nonetheless, in light of its ambivalence toward the plight of foreign Jews living in France, it appears that the Vichy régime’s continued “protection” of French-born Jews was undertaken more from concern to maintain principles of French sovereignty than out of altruism.

A young Jewish couple, who lent assistance to the French Jewish resistance group Armée Juive, posing in the forest. Source: USHMM. http://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1140443 [Accessed 15 March 2017]

From 1943, when knowledge of the Nazi extermination camps was widespread throughout Europe, Vichy France was to some degree complicit because it did nothing further to prevent German deportation of non-French Jews. According to John Fox, however, Vichy authorities and the French people blocked the deportation of the majority of Jews in France (those of French nationality) and effectively “sabotaged” Nazi objectives.5

Here is a very short clip about Catholics in France under .

Info

5 John Fox, “How Far did Vichy France ‘Sabotage’ the Imperatives of Wannsee?” in David Cesarani, The : Origins and Implementation. (Routledge, London, 1994). p. 206. LEARNING MODULE 4. Section 1: Western Europe 12

Occupied France came under a military administration, contends preeminent German military historian Ulrich Herbert, whose personnel was “characterized by German- nationalist patriotism.”6 French authorities in the northern occupied zone governed cautiously and held overzealous Nazi racism in contempt. This did not prevent them, however, from introducing their own anti-Jewish measures in addition to those proclaimed in the south by their Vichy counterparts. As long as anti-Jewish measures in France followed an “orderly” and “legal” process, the German military administration willingly cooperated in the persecution.

Following discussions between the German Foreign Office and leaders in the occupied zone of northern France, the “First Directive Regarding Jews” was issued on 27 September 1940. Jews who had escaped from occupied France down to Vichy France were not allowed to return and faced incarceration in camps. As was already the case in Vichy France, Jews in occupied northern France now were required to be registered and Jewish businesses and properties were listed. These latter measures were designed to pave the way for the later deportation of Jews. They also enabled the policy of “Aryanisation” of Jewish property in France to be well advanced by the end of 1940. Although the administration was only “moderately” antisemitic, this “First Directive” set a precedent for the rest of occupied western and northern Europe.

(l) Drancy, the notorious camp/compound in the heart of Paris where Jews were imprisoned before deportation, had been constructed as a rectangular, multi-story apartment building. Most Jews deported from France to Poland passed through this transit camp. (r) A French Gendarme stands guard at the entrance gate to Drancy, August 1941. A large crowd of newly arrived Jews is congregated in the compound’s central square. Source: "Drancy," USHMM. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005215 [accessed 3 March 2015] “183-B10919,” Das Bundesarchiv. http://www.bild.bundesarchiv.de/archives/barchpic/search/_1489730057/?search[view]=detail&search [focus]=1 [Accessed 15 March 2017]

We have established that French authorities — both in Vichy to the south and the occupied zone in the north — often were very willing to initiate antisemitic policies. It is important to note, however, the deportation of Jews to extermination camps was

6 Ulrich Herbert, “The German Military Command in Paris and the Deportation of French Jews,” in Ulrich Herbert (ed.) National Socialist Extermination Policies: Contemporary German Perspectives and Controversies. (Berghahn Books, New York/Oxford, 2000). pp. 130-36. Here p. 131. LEARNING MODULE 4. Section 1: Western Europe 13 initiated by the German occupying authorities. In total, approximately 77,000 Jews hitherto living in France (i.e. native French Jews and foreign Jews residing there) were murdered during the Holocaust.

If you are interested in finding out more about Drancy, here is an extract from a documentary that includes interviews with former internees.

Belgium Like northern France, Belgium was placed under direct German military occupation. Again, the Nazi occupiers relied on the pre-existing public service for administration. Its treatment of Jews, however, followed a different course.

Lucy Dawidowicz notes the relatively late introduction of anti-Jewish measures in Belgium, which did not commence until October 1940 (i.e. almost six months after German occupation), as well as the high level of support Jews received from French- speaking Belgians who were hostile to German administration.7

The German military administration soon realised that there was not the same level of support for antisemitic policies in Belgium as in France. Indeed, the public service heads were clearly reluctant to cooperate with Nazi authorities. In response, the German administration proceeded cautiously in introducing anti-Jewish measures in Belgium. Despite the presence of some local Nazi sympathisers, this did not solve the difficulty in recruiting sufficient local assistance to enforce anti-Jewish policy. Ultimately, a comparatively smaller proportion of Belgian Jews — approximately 25,000 — were killed in the Holocaust. Moreover, according to the USHMM, a sizable number of Jews living in occupied Belgium avoided deportation, many with the help of the Belgian civil service. The situation for Jews in the Netherlands, however, was starkly different.

The Netherlands As mentioned above, the administration of the Netherlands took the form of a civil administration under the Reichskommissar Arthur Seyss-Inquart. Like ,

7 , The War against the Jews, 1933-45. (Penguin, London, 1986). p. 435. LEARNING MODULE 4. Section 1: Western Europe 14 who ruled the Generalgouvernement within occupied Poland, Seyss-Inquart reported directly to Hitler.

German occupational policy of the Netherlands aimed to lay the groundwork for its eventual incorporation into a Greater Germany. Events such as the February 1941 general strike, however, made it obvious that the Dutch people would not submit to what Gerhard Hirschfeld terms “self-Nazification” and so the Germans pursued a relatively non-intrusive occupational policy.8 Although a number of organisations within the Netherlands were sympathetic to Nazi ideas, the Germans did not fully trust them. Local Nazis remained relatively marginalised within Dutch society as a whole, which failed to be swayed by Nazi propaganda. Seyss-Inquart’s administration changed direction in the later phases of German occupation, adopting a considerably less conciliatory stance.

PRESCRIBED TEXT: Martin Dean’s chapter entitled “Robbery in the Netherlands,” pp. 412-21, details the extent to which Dutch Jews were systematically robbed of their property and valuables by Nazi Germany with the collaboration of the Dutch civil service.

At first, anti-Jewish measures were directed against Jews employed in the Dutch civil service and the registration of Jewish-owned businesses. In each instance, a Jew was defined according to the Nuremberg racial definition based on descent from three Jewish grandparents (n.b. the Vichy government’s definition was even stricter as it specified only two Jewish grandparents were required for some to be classified as “racially” Jewish). Then, in January 1941, all Jews were required to register with local authorities.

In contrast to France, anti-Jewish measures were greeted by protests from various sections of Dutch society. The Secretaries-General (heads of department in the public service) queried the dismissal of Jews, and the churches publicly objected to the October 1940 regulations. According to Dutch historian Ben Sijes, there also were protests at Dutch tertiary institutions when Jewish university professors were dismissed from their positions.9 As Bob Moore indicates, the question of Dutch

8 See Gerhard Hirschfeld, “Nazi Propaganda in Occupied Western Europe: The Case of the Netherlands,” in David Welch (ed.) Nazi Propaganda: The Power and the Limitations. (Croom Helm, London, 1983) 9 Ben Sijes, “The Position of the Jews during the German Occupation of the Netherlands: Some Observations,” in Michael Marrus (ed.) The Nazi Holocaust: Historical Articles on the Destruction of European Jews, vol. 4.1, The “Final Solution” Outside Germany. (Meckler, Westport, Conn., 1989). p. 1254. LEARNING MODULE 4. Section 1: Western Europe 15 resistance versus cooperation is immensely controversial.10 Whereas there are clear examples of collaboration in business between the Nazis and the Dutch upper classes, as Jan Herman Brinks points out there are other cases in which the Dutch were prepared to publicly demonstrate against German rule.11

Dutch support for Jews developed in the context of escalating popular discontent with Nazi rule. In late 1940 and early 1941, the economic situation of the wider Dutch population had deteriorated markedly. In early February 1941, a major strike was called with the aim of preventing further transportations of Jews to Germany.

In response, German soldiers entered private Jewish quarters in Amsterdam (where the greatest concentration of Dutch Jews was to be found) inciting fights with Jews in the hope of distracting attention from their conflict with Dutch workers. Non-Jews joined in to defend Jews and several Germans were wounded. A turning point in German policy towards administration in the Netherlands had been reached. It was acknowledged that “self-Nazification” was a failed policy.

As a result of these events the Jewish quarter in Amsterdam was sealed off and, on 13 February 1941, the Germans established a Jewish Council whose first task was to hand over firearms. On 25–26 February, the Dutch labour movement responded by calling a strike. Although the Nazis brutally crushed this strike, it nonetheless was of immense symbolic importance. Leni Yahil suggests:

The Jews were not saved, but the strike remained in people’s memory as an outstanding act of solidarity. It was the first act of public resistance against the German Occupation, not only in Holland but in the whole of Europe, and it had been called in support of the Jews. It took the Germans by surprise. Hitler was furious and threatened to evacuate the entire Dutch population to Poland.12

The complexity of the situation for Jews in the Netherlands is indicative of the situation for Jews throughout western Europe in the early period of Nazi occupation. Policy emerged on an ad hoc basis and partially was shaped by the form of occupational administration. The most important point to note, as Moore makes at the end of your reading, is that Jews in western Europe, like those in Germany, could not have anticipated the later directions of Nazi policy. Eventually, around 75 per cent of Jews in the Netherlands were deported and exterminated. In total, some 120,000 Dutch Jews were murdered during the Holocaust.

10 Bob Moore, Victims and Survivors: the Nazi Persecution of the Jews in the Netherlands, 1940-1945. (Arnold, London; New York, 1997). pp. 53-61. 11 Jan Herman Brinks, “The Dutch, The Germans & the Jews,” History Today, June 1999. pp. 17-23. 12 Leni Yahil, “Methods of Persecution: A Comparison of the Final Solution in Holland & Denmark,” in Michael Marrus (ed.), The Nazi Holocaust: Historical Articles on the Destruction of European Jews, vol. 4. (Westport, Connecticut, 1989). pp. 179-80. LEARNING MODULE 4. Section 1: Western Europe 16

(top) Children interned in the infamous , from which Dutch Jews (including Anne Frank) were transported by train to Auschwitz. (bottom) Signage on the train specially designated for transporting Dutch Jews from Westerbork to Auschwitz during the war. Sources: "Children in Westerbork," Anne Frank Guide. http://www.annefrankguide.net/en-GB/bronnenbank.asp?aid=10770 [Accessed 15 March 2017] “Deported to the Camps,” Anne Frank House. http://www.annefrank.org/en/Anne-Frank/Discovery- and-arrest/Deported-to-the-camps/ [Accessed 15 March 2017]

LEARNING MODULE 4. Section 2: Scandinavia 17

Section 2. Scandinavia As discussed above, the and Norwegians were quickly overpowered by German forces when faced with Hitler’s Blitzkrieg tactics in April 1940. Neighbouring Sweden remained technically neutral throughout the war. For all three countries — despite linguistic, cultural, and geographical similarities — treatment of their comparatively small Jewish populations was demonstrably different.

Map of Germany’s attack on Denmark and Norway, 1940. Source: "Denmark – Map" USHMM. https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/media_nm.php?ModuleId=10005209&MediaId=438 [Accessed 15 March 2017]

Norway Following its capitulation to German armed forces, Norway was nominally headed by Vidkun Quisling, a former defence minister and the pro-Nazi leader of the Norwegian fascist organisation . In reality, however, Quisling was only a figurehead and the country was actually run by a German administration. Though numerically small, the number of Norwegian Jews murdered in the Holocaust was proportionally high. According to Samuel Abrahamsen, there were 1,700 Jews in Norway at the time of the Nazi invasion in April 1940, 49 per cent of whom (over 800) were killed in the Holocaust.13 This percentage, Abrahamsen points out, was higher than what was recorded in France (26 per cent), or German allies Italy (20 per cent) and Finland (where, according to William B. Cohen and Jörgen

13 Samuel Abrahamsen, “,” in Randolph Braham (ed.) Contemporary Views on the Holocaust. (Springer, Netherlands, 1983). p. 109. LEARNING MODULE 4. Section 2: Scandinavia 18

Svensson, only 7 out of 2000 Jews were murdered).14 Warnings from local police, help from the Norwegian underground, and protests from the churches and general public allowed some Jews to escape — including around 900 to neighbouring neutral Sweden. Abrahamsen notes, however, that a number of similar factors played a direct role in the demise of those Jews who were deported – including police collaboration, enticement of Jewish wealth and property, and threats of punishment for aiding Jews.15 In the view of Bjarte Bruland and Mats Tangestuen, there has been a “tendency to quietly forget that the Norwegian police had been the key perpetrators in Norway, and that German participation in the practical execution of arrests and transportation… was minimal, or even non-existent.”16

Vidkun Quisling greeted by Adolf Hitler. Source: "Remembering Vidkun Quisling," Daily Stormer. http://www.dailystormer.com/remembering-vidkun-quisling/ [Accessed 15 March 2017]

Denmark Denmark’s treatment of its Jews stands in contrast not only to its Norwegian neighbour, but to most countries in Europe. At the time of the Nazi invasion, the Jewish population numbered around 7,500 in Denmark. The Germans considered Danes to be fellow “Aryans” and, as a result, allowed them to continue running their own form of government with little German oversight. Utilising this relative autonomy, the Danish government did not impose a number of critical anti-Jewish laws typical at this elsewhere across Nazi-controlled Europe, including stripping

14 William B. Cohen, Jörgen Svensson, “Finland and the Holocaust,” Holocaust and Genocide Studies, vol. 9, no. 1, Spring 1995, p. 70. 15 Abrahamsen, “The Holocaust in Norway.” p. 112. 16 Bjarte Bruland and Mats Tangestuen, “The Norwegian Holocaust: Changing Views and Representations,” Scandinavian Journal of History, vol. 36, no. 5, 2011. p. 593. LEARNING MODULE 4. Section 2: Scandinavia 19

Jews of property, forcing them to wear the yellow star, registration, and dispossession of homes and businesses. Denmark refused to persecute its Jewish citizens, even under mounting pressure from Nazi authorities to take action. By October 1943, Berlin formulated a plan to deport Danish Jews. When the plan became known, Danish authorities, Jewish organisations, private citizens, Danish police, Danish churches, and even the Danish royal family resisted. Their efforts led to the rescue of some 7,200 Danish Jews who were sent to neutral Sweden and saved from the gas chambers. As a result of this resistance, almost all Danish Jews survived the Holocaust. Although around 120 Danish Jews perished in Auschwitz, this is by far one of the lowest percentages in any German-occupied country. Indeed, Karl Christian Lammers argues that the 7,200 Danish Jews who were rescued serve as an admonishing reminder “…that another outcome to the persecution of the Jews and the Holocaust had been possible, and that more Jews might have been rescued from extermination.”17 Hans Kirchhoff describes the example of Denmark as “a symbol of hope and light in the darkness of the Holocaust.”18

Some of the thousands of Danish Jews who were rescued from imminent deportation to Nazi death camps by fellow Danes who transported them by boats to neighbouring neutral Sweden under the cover of . Source: "How Denmark saved its Jews from the Nazis," Der Spiegel. http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/book-examines-how-jews-of-denmark-were-saved-from- the-holocaust-a-928116.html [Accessed 15 March 2017]

17 Karl Christian Lammers, “The Holocaust and Collective Memory in Scandinavia: The Danish Case,” Scandinavian Journal of History, vol. 36, no. 5, December 2011, p. 571. 18 Hans Kirchhoff, “Denmark: A Light in the Darkness of the Holocaust? A Reply to Gunnar S. Paulsson,” Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 30, 1995, p. 477. LEARNING MODULE 4. Section 2: Scandinavia 20

Sweden Formally neutral, Sweden was not invaded by Nazi Germany. Stockholm, however, maintained diplomatic relations with Berlin. When it became clear to the Swedes, as it had by the middle of 1942, that Nazi deportations of Jews to the east amounted to a death sentence, Sweden began to shift its neutral stance, at least with respect to the question of accepting Jewish refugees. According to Michael Mogensen, moreover, Sweden attempted to dissuade Nazi Germany from deporting Danish Jews and when this failed it publicly announced that it would be accepting all Jews (7,200) from Denmark (and over the course of the war, some 900 Norwegian Jews). Sweden also was willing to protect Danish transports of Jews by engaging its naval forces.19 None of Sweden’s 6,700 Jews (as of 1933) were killed in the Holocaust.

PRESCRIBED TEXT: Please read Paul A. Levine’s chapter entitled “Sweden expands Asylum,” pp. 735-43 (up to the sub-heading “Swedish Diplomacy in Budapest”).

Besides protecting its own native Jewish population and thousands of Jews from neighbouring Denmark and Norway, due to its neutrality in the war Sweden also proved a safehaven for individual Jews attempting to flee Nazi persecution across continental Europe. One such example is the Polish Jew Raphael Lemkin, who spent several months living in Sweden in 1940-41 before migrating to the United States. Through his friend Karl Schlyter (a former Swedish minister of justice), Lemkin obtained work as a Law lecturer at a university in Stockholm. He subsequently obtained visas that enabled him to escape Europe by travelling to the United States via the Soviet Union and Japan. Once settled in the United States, Lemkin emerged as a highly influential historical figure by coining the phrase “genocide” (prior to Lemkin, mass-scale murder perpetrated against a group of people had remained a “crime without a name”) and devoting the remainder of his life to the cause of genocide prevention. Lemkin died in New York in 1959, and inexplicably the drafted manuscript of his autobiography sat unpublished among the archival holdings of the New York Public Library for several decades until it was discovered by Donna-Lee Frieze (yes, Donna from this unit’s teaching team!) and published in 2013.

19 Michael Mogensen, “October 1943 – The Rescue of the Danish Jews,” in MB Jensen and SLB Jensen (eds.), Denmark and the Holocaust. (Institute for International Studies, Njalsgade, 2003). pp. 33-61. LEARNING MODULE 4. Conclusion 21

(l) The identity card issued by the War Department to Raphael Lemkin following his entry into the United States. A Polish Jew, Lemkin escaped Nazi-controlled Europe by reaching Sweden where he worked as a Law professor at a university in Stockholm for several months in 1940-41. (r) The front cover of Lemkin’s autobiography, edited by Donna-Lee Frieze and posthumously published a half-century after his death. Sources: "Genocide and Human Experience," CJH. http://www.cjh.org/lemkin/conference.php [Accessed 15 March 2017] “Totally Unofficial: The Autobiography of Raphael Lemkin,” Barnes & Noble. http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/totally-unofficial-raphael-lemkin/1119330357 [Accessed 15 March 2017]

Section 3. The Balkans

The Yugoslav government that had been sympathetic to the Nazis was overthrown in a coup on 26 March 1941. Hitler subsequently invaded the Balkans. This precipitated the German occupation of Yugoslavia and Greece by the end of May. Key dates included:

6 April 1941 Germany invaded Yugoslavia.

17 April 1941 Yugoslavia surrendered.

May 1941 Germany invaded and occupied Greece. (With British help Greece had resisted Italy’s attempted invasion in October 1940, but was unable to resist the Germans).

Doris Bergen stresses what was at this time the unprecedented brutality of Germany’s occupation policies in Yugoslavia.20 Not only Jews, but “Gypsies” (Sinti and Roma), communists, and Yugoslav nationalists were targeted, with local criminal elements encouraged to seize the initiative in committing atrocities. The result was both a swelling of partisan forces who mounted a guerrilla war against their German occupiers, and vicious reprisals against any German losses, which saw mass killings of civilians in retaliation.

20 Bergen, War & Genocide, pp. 142-44. LEARNING MODULE 4. Conclusion 22

a) Greece Greece was the final country to be conquered by Nazi Germany before Hitler’s fateful decision to invade the Soviet Union in June 1941. Greece’s administration was divided between Germany and two of its allies, Italy and Bulgaria. While Greece remained nominally independent under a puppet régime, the German military occupied the city Salonika in the north-eastern region of Greece. Tellingly, as Dawidowicz indicates, this is where 55,000 of Greece’s 76,000 prewar population of Jews were located.21 For centuries, Salonika had been a major European centre of Jewish culture.

READING EXCERPT: Now please turn to Andrew Apostolou’s "'The Exception of Salonika': Bystanders and Collaborators in Northern Greece."

Local Greeks in Salonika typically did not share the more liberal attitude towards Jews held by most of their fellow countrymen. They adopted a stridently nationalist stance, which was accompanied by high levels of antisemitism. Although the Nazis did not introduce formal measures against Jews until June 1942 (extremely late in comparison with other regions under Jewish occupation), once enacted these actions were well received by many local Greeks.

German soldiers force a group of Jews to perform calisthenics on Eleftheria (Freedom) Square in Salonika.

Source: USHMM. http://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa6401 [Accessed 15 March 2017]

21 Dawidowicz, The War against the Jews. pp. 513-17. LEARNING MODULE 4. Conclusion 23

In July 1942, adult male Jews in Greece were seized as slave labour. In February 1943, the were implemented. Jews were herded into ghettos, forced to wear the Star of David, and their property was seized. Deportations commenced in March 1943, and by August 1943 some 45,000 Salonikan Jews had perished in Auschwitz (in addition to 4,000 Greek Jews deported by the Bulgarians from ). Remarkably, in 1944 — at a time when German military resources were severely stretched — ships were diverted to collect Jews who had fled to the Aegean islands, and SS officers were flown to to organise deportations of smallish numbers of Jews.

You may wish to visit the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) website for more details on .

b) Yugoslavia Yugoslavia was dismembered into two parts.

Croatia Nominally independent, Croatia was governed by Anté Pavelic, the leader of the radically antisemitic and nationalist Ustaša party. Croatia was a German puppet state par excellence whose anti-Jewish actions exceeded even those of the Nazis. Dawidowicz notes the speed with which Croatian Jews were required to register, give up property, wear the yellow star, and become mobilised into forced labour.22 There are clear similarities with what occurred in Poland, except that measures that had taken several months to evolve there were now compressed into just a few weeks in Croatia. Visit the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) website for information on the notorious Croatian camp complex named Jasenovac.

An Ustaše camp guard stands near an entrance to the notorious Croatian camp Jasenovac. Source: "Ivica Matković," Jasenovac Memorial Site. http://www.jusp-jasenovac.hr/Default.aspx?sid=7255 [Accessed 15 March 2017]

22 Dawidowicz, The War against the Jews. pp. 467-68. LEARNING MODULE 4. Conclusion 24

Serbia Serbia was placed under direct military control and the Wehrmacht immediately took the initiative in the persecution of Jews. In contrast to western Europe, where the German military leaders were concerned to act “correctly” so as not to alienate the local populations, the occupying forces sent into Serbia, which principally composed of Austrian units, were intent on wreaking revenge for Serbia’s role in precipitating the First World War (Serb nationalists were responsible for the assassination of the Austro- Hungarian royal prince Archduke Franz Ferdinand). In occupied Serbia, there was no evidence whatever of the tensions that characterised relations between the Wehrmacht and SS in western Europe.

READING EXCERPT: Please read the piece by Walter Manoschek "Early Actions against Serbian Jews," in which he examines the role played by the army.

Although Yugoslavia primarily was invaded for strategic and economic reasons that would pave the way for the invasion of the Soviet Union, occupational policy in Serbia was driven by ideology. Accordingly, (special action squads largely composed of SS personnel) accompanied the occupying forces to target “racial” and political enemies.

Following the failure of the SS to “pacify” Serbia, however, it was the Wehrmacht that was most directly involved in administering the territory, including the persecution of Jews. From May to July 1941, Jews were compelled to register, dragooned into forced labour battalions, and suffered “Aryanisation” of their property.

From July to September 1941, following the example of events in the Soviet Union, Jews were labelled as “dangerous partisans,” placed in camps, and some were summarily shot. From October, mass shootings were carried out by the army, supposedly to combat partisan insurgency.

LEARNING MODULE 4. Conclusion 25

READING EXCERPT: Please read Peter Longerich’s piece "The Extension of Mass Murder in Autumn 1941" in which he shows how the escalation of shootings in Serbia ran parallel to the targeting of Jews in the Soviet Union and parts of Poland.

Initially, these actions were directed against men only. By November, and in all likelihood in line with the decision to implement the “Final Solution,” all remaining Jewish survivors — principally women, children, and the elderly — were rounded up and transported to the town of Semlin in Croatia where they were gassed in stationary vans. By August 1942, Serbia was declared free of Jews.

Conclusion It is important to bear in mind that the “Final Solution” was not confined to eastern Europe, but rather it was a murderous enterprise conducted on a continental scale. The invasion and conquest of Scandinavia, western Europe, and the Balkans between April 1940 and May 1941 brought with it large swathes of territory, and several hundred thousand European Jews suddenly under Nazi control. While it is broadly agreed by historians that Hitler’s primary motivations for the conquest of Scandinavia and western Europe were strategic and economic, nonetheless racial considerations certainly played an ongoing role. Jews residing within each of the newly-conquered lands suffered vastly different degrees of persecution by the authorities, whether German or local. Depending on strategic considerations, available resources, and the reception of Nazi occupation, Germans adopted and imposed various forms of administration. Whereas some countries were relatively autonomous, others were run by often brutal collaborators, or directly by German armed forces. The implications for Jews largely depended on the nature of their country’s occupation and administration, and at least equally on the willingness of locals to protect Jews from persecution and deportation — or, conversely, to actively participate in such murderous actions. While the numbers murdered in these countries is dwarfed by the number of Jews slaughtered in Poland and Ukraine (approximately 4 million collectively), as examples western Europe, Scandinavia, and the Balkans demonstrate the ideological zeal with which the “Final Solution” was pursued across the length and breadth of Europe, even as the war began to turn against Nazi Germany.