Art, Music, and Poetry: Artistic Documentation During the Holocaust Lauren Beauregard

SWOSU Journal of Undergraduate Research Volume 2 Article 2 3-1-2018 Art, Music, and Poetry: Artistic Documentation During the Holocaust Lauren Beauregard Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.swosu.edu/jur Part of the History Commons, Life Sciences Commons, Nonfiction Commons, Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons, and the Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons Recommended Citation Beauregard, Lauren (2018) "Art, Music, and Poetry: Artistic Documentation During the Holocaust," SWOSU Journal of Undergraduate Research: Vol. 2 , Article 2. Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/jur/vol2/iss1/2 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at SWOSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in SWOSU Journal of Undergraduate Research by an authorized administrator of SWOSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Volume 2, Fall 2017 9 Art, Music, and Poetry: Artistic Documentation During the Holocaust by Lauren Beauregard (Prof. Sunu Kodumthara, Department of Social Sciences) Tetraazamacrocycles, cyclic molecules with four nitrogen at- oms, have long been known to produce highly stable transition metal complexes. Cross-bridging such molecules with 2-carbon chains has been shown to enhance the stability of these complexes even further, providing enough stability to use the resulting compounds in applications as diverse and demanding as aqueous, green oxidation catalysis all the way to drug molecules injected into humans. Although the stability of these compounds is believed to result from the increased rigidity and topological complexity imparted by the cross-bridge, there is insufficient experimental data to exclude other causes. In this study, standard organic and inorganic synthetic methods were used to produce unbridged dibenzyl tetraazamacrocycle ana- logues of known cross-bridged tetraazamacrocycles and their transition metal complexes to allow direct comparison of molecules identical except for the cross-bridge. The syntheses of the known tetraazamacrocycles and the novel transition metal complexes were successful with high yields and purity. Ini- tial chemical characterization of the complexes by UV-Visible spectroscopy and cyclic voltammetry shows little difference in electronic properties from bridged versions. Direct comparison studies of the unbridged and bridged compounds’ stabilities re- main to be carried out and will shed light on the importance of the cross-bridge to complex robustness. According to Theodor Adorno, “to write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric.”1 Of course, poetry was written during the Holocaust as well as after. More accurately, Nina Apfelbaum argued that “read- 1 Theodor Adorno, “Cultural Criticism and Society,” Prisms 1949, 34. 10 SWOSU Journal of Undergraduate Research ing the memoirs, diaries and works of fiction written by Holocaust survivors provides another dimension to an understanding of the Holocaust.”2 During the Holocaust, Jewish artists used their abili- ties to create works as a way to both document their everyday lives as well as to reclaim humanity in the German concentration camps. After Germany lost the Great War, Adolf Hitler declared the Jewish people were the reason for the loss and claimed that their “whole existence is based on one single great lie, to wit, that they are a religious community while actually they are a race.”3 Without recognizing this lie, one would never be able to achieve victory. In Hitler’s opinion, the Jewish “race” was looking to take over the world through their financial knowledge and used this to stir the buried hatred and distrust the German population held against Jewry.4 With his constant and brutal propaganda against Jews, they never stood a chance against Hitler and his regime. He used phrases such as “Jewish disease” or “incurables” in order for the German people to fear associating with Jews.5 This would be his immovable stance on Jews throughout his reign as Chancellor, an ominous sign for those of Jewish descent. A date that will live in infamy, November 9, 1938, Kristall- nacht was a night of destruction and turmoil. Brought about by the assassination of the third secretary of the German embassy in Paris, Ernst vom Rath, Kristallnacht was the retaliation of the Nazis, removing as many as 30,000 German Jews from the streets and incarcerating them in various concentration camps throughout the country, showing the turn to violent measures taken to rid Eu- rope of all Jewry. The “Night of Broken Glass” was given its name due to the broken windows that littered the streets from homes, shops and synagogues that were looted and burned during pogroms throughout Germany, Austria and Bohemia. However, the worst loss of the night was that of the 96 Jewish lives. Previous to this, Nazi Germany adopted the usual European policy for Jews until 1941, when they faced total war and all Jewish emigration plans 2 Nina Apfelbaum, “Bearing Witness: A Resource Guide to Literature, Poetry, Art, Music, and Videos by Holocaust Victims and Survivors,” 1. 3 Adolf Hitler, “Mein Kampf,” 232. 4 For many, Anti-Semitism dates back to the death of Jesus. 5 Hitler, 252. Volume 2, Fall 2017 11 fell through.6 After plans fell through, the “Jewish problem” had to be dealt with in a different manner: the European Jews had to die.7 Among the first to suggest the “final solution” was Hein- rich Himmler, one of Germany’s officials in charge of the entire Nazi police force as well as the death camps in East Germany, who declared that Jews had to “vanish from the face of the earth.”8 An- other who wanted to see the Jewish people vanish completely was Hermann Goering, Plenipotentiary of the Four Year Plan. Goering agreed with Himmler and believed since the problem in Germany was that of an “economic nature,” it must be dealt with economi- cally. The theory given was that the economy needed to be strictly Aryan, as it was the “superior” race. While the first center created specifically to eliminate the Jews began to fulfill its purpose in December 1941, the official order for the “final solution” came with the Wannsee Conference in January 1942 between the SS and German political officials. During the conference, they estimated the death of almost 11 million European Jews, including those that were not in occupied countries such as Ireland or Great Britain.9 Thus began the extermination camps, in which Nazis murdered nearly two thirds of European Jewry by acts of terror, gassings, shootings, disease and starvation. There were many extermination camps in Europe, although the most infamous were those of Dachau, Auschwitz, Treblinka, 6 Emigration consisted of taking Jewish German citizens from their homes, stripping them of citizenship and essentially dumping them at border points between Germany and Poland. Because of this policy, one son of an unfortunate Jewish German citizen, Herschel Grynszpan, assassinated Ernst vom Rath, later causing Kristallnacht. When Poland closed its borders and no longer allowed Germany to leave Jews in their country, Germany turned to a more sinister solution to their “Jewish problem”. 7 Anti-Semitism began in Europe long before the Holocaust. Policies against Jews began in Rome shortly after Christ. Christians pushed Jews to abandon their faith and accept Christianity. When those policies failed, the Catholic Church viewed the Jewish faith as dangerous to the Christian faith. Amongst his many writings, Martin Luther declared that if he were a Jew, he would have converted long ago. Luther’s book was published during an increasingly Anti-Semitic time, only adding to the hatred previously felt towards the Jewish people. This hatred led to the policy stating that Jews could either convert to Christianity or face expulsion. 8 Omer Bartov, Holocaust: Origins, Implementation, Aftermath, 93. 9 United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, ‘The “Final Solution”’ http://www. ushmm.org/outreach/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007704. 12 SWOSU Journal of Undergraduate Research and Theresienstadt.10 The practices used in these camps were often vicious and inhumane. In one instance reminisced by Treblinka survivor Jankiel Wiernik, a young mother had her infant stripped from her arms as she went to the gas chambers. The SS member who took the child tore it in half and threw it against a nearby building simply because he enjoyed watching others suffer.11 According to Wiernik, this was not an unusual occurrence. Many SS members were vicious and enjoyed behaving as such, although it must be said that there were rare instances where soldiers were sympathetic to the camp inhabitants. For example, Wiernik also mentioned an officer who would sneak portions of his meals to prisoners he felt needed the extra nourishment. The mass killings began with shootings by firing squads, but because ammunition became more necessary for the war effort and the grounds were filled to capacity with previously murdered Jews, Germans turned to gas chambers and crematoriums. They quickly had the Jewish prisoners dig up the mass graves filled with decomposing corpses and had the prisoners pile the bodies to burn, never allowing the fires to burn out. Germans became quick and efficient with the mass execution of European Jews. With the use of either carbon monoxide or Zyklon B, Jews were checked for any valuables, prosthetics, gold teeth, etc. and then taken to either large furnaces or pyres and gassed. The fires burned hot constantly, and between ten and twelve thousand bodies turned to ash a day.12 The ash filled the sky, suffocating those who had to put the bodies into the fires. As more Jews were sent to the camps, the need for more gas chambers and crematoriums rose, and the Jews were the ones who built them. Essentially, they were forced to build their own death chambers and dig their own graves before they were gassed. The outlook on life was bleak for those who lived in the camps, and occasionally one would commit suicide, unable to cope with the trials looming around every corner.

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