Preserved Interviews from the Claude Lanzmann Shoah Collection
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Czerniakow, Adam
Czerniakow, Adam (1880-1942), Chairman of the Warsaw Judenrat. Born in Warsaw, Czerniakow was trained as a chemical engineer. He served on the Warsaw Municipal Council from 1927-1934, and was elected to the Polish Senate in 1931. Even though Czerniakow was a member of the Jewish community's executive council before World War II, the Jews of Warsaw did not consider him to be one of their leaders. He was not a member of any Jewish political party, was considered to be an assimilated Jew, and could not speak Yiddish very well. In spite of this, when the Nazis invaded Warsaw and the chairman of the Jewish community council fled the city, the mayor asked Czerniakow to take his place as the leader of the Jews. The Germans ordered him to establish a Judenrat in October 1939. During the first few months of the occupation, some leading Judenrat members managed to leave the country. Czerniakow also had this opportunity, but he refused to shirk his leadership duties and criticized those who did. The Warsaw Ghetto was established in October 1940. At this point, the Judenrat, led by Czerniakow, took on many new municipal-like responsibilities, including food, work, sanitation, housing, culture, and health services for the inhabitants of the ghetto. The Judenrat grew to encompass 25 different departments and 6,000 employees—more than 11 times the number of workers in Warsaw's Jewish Council before the war. Czerniakow was strenuously criticized by Warsaw's underground resistance for what they saw as collaboration with the Nazis. However, Czerniakow's policy of trying to work within the system was his attempt at saving lives. -
The Obedience Alibi Milgram 'S Account of the Holocaust Reconsidered
David R. Mandel The Obedience Alibi Milgram 's Account of the Holocaust Reconsidered "Unable to defy the authority of the experimenter, [participantsj attribute all responsibility to him. It is the old story of 'just doing one's duty', that was heard time and again in the defence statement of the accused at Nuremberg. But it would be wrang to think of it as a thin alibi concocted for the occasion. Rather, it is a fundamental mode of thinking for a great many people once they are locked into a subordinate position in a structure of authority." {Milgram 1967, 6} Abstract: Stanley Milgram's work on obedience to authority is social psychology's most influential contribution to theorizing about Holocaust perpetration. The gist of Milgram's claims is that Holocaust perpetrators were just following orders out of a sense of obligation to their superiors. Milgram, however, never undertook a scholarly analysis of how his obedience experiments related to the Holocaust. The author first discusses the major theoretical limitations of Milgram's position and then examines the implications of Milgram's (oft-ignored) experimental manipula tions for Holocaust theorizing, contrasting a specific case of Holocaust perpetration by Reserve Police Battalion 101 of the German Order Police. lt is concluded that Milgram's empirical findings, in fact, do not support his position-one that essen tially constitutes an obedience alibi. The article ends with a discussion of some of the social dangers of the obedience alibi. 1. Nazi Germany's Solution to Their J ewish Question Like the pestilence-stricken community of Oran described in Camus's (1948) novel, The Plague, thousands ofEuropean Jewish communities were destroyed by the Nazi regime from 1933-45. -
What Do Students Know and Understand About the Holocaust? Evidence from English Secondary Schools
CENTRE FOR HOLOCAUST EDUCATION What do students know and understand about the Holocaust? Evidence from English secondary schools Stuart Foster, Alice Pettigrew, Andy Pearce, Rebecca Hale Centre for Holocaust Education Centre Adrian Burgess, Paul Salmons, Ruth-Anne Lenga Centre for Holocaust Education What do students know and understand about the Holocaust? What do students know and understand about the Holocaust? Evidence from English secondary schools Cover image: Photo by Olivia Hemingway, 2014 What do students know and understand about the Holocaust? Evidence from English secondary schools Stuart Foster Alice Pettigrew Andy Pearce Rebecca Hale Adrian Burgess Paul Salmons Ruth-Anne Lenga ISBN: 978-0-9933711-0-3 [email protected] British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A CIP record is available from the British Library All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism or review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permissions of the publisher. iii Contents About the UCL Centre for Holocaust Education iv Acknowledgements and authorship iv Glossary v Foreword by Sir Peter Bazalgette vi Foreword by Professor Yehuda Bauer viii Executive summary 1 Part I Introductions 5 1. Introduction 7 2. Methodology 23 Part II Conceptions and encounters 35 3. Collective conceptions of the Holocaust 37 4. Encountering representations of the Holocaust in classrooms and beyond 71 Part III Historical knowledge and understanding of the Holocaust 99 Preface 101 5. Who were the victims? 105 6. -
THE POLISH POLICE Collaboration in the Holocaust
THE POLISH POLICE Collaboration in the Holocaust Jan Grabowski The Polish Police Collaboration in the Holocaust Jan Grabowski INA LEVINE ANNUAL LECTURE NOVEMBER 17, 2016 The assertions, opinions, and conclusions in this occasional paper are those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect those of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. First printing, April 2017 Copyright © 2017 by Jan Grabowski THE INA LEVINE ANNUAL LECTURE, endowed by the William S. and Ina Levine Foundation of Phoenix, Arizona, enables the Center to bring a distinguished scholar to the Museum each year to conduct innovative research on the Holocaust and to disseminate this work to the American public. Wrong Memory Codes? The Polish “Blue” Police and Collaboration in the Holocaust In 2016, seventy-one years after the end of World War II, the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs disseminated a long list of “wrong memory codes” (błędne kody pamięci), or expressions that “falsify the role of Poland during World War II” and that are to be reported to the nearest Polish diplomat for further action. Sadly—and not by chance—the list elaborated by the enterprising humanists at the Polish Foreign Ministry includes for the most part expressions linked to the Holocaust. On the long list of these “wrong memory codes,” which they aspire to expunge from historical narrative, one finds, among others: “Polish genocide,” “Polish war crimes,” “Polish mass murders,” “Polish internment camps,” “Polish work camps,” and—most important for the purposes of this text—“Polish participation in the Holocaust.” The issue of “wrong memory codes” will from time to time reappear in this study. -
Using Diaries to Understand the Final Solution in Poland
Miranda Walston Witnessing Extermination: Using Diaries to Understand the Final Solution in Poland Honours Thesis By: Miranda Walston Supervisor: Dr. Lauren Rossi 1 Miranda Walston Introduction The Holocaust spanned multiple years and states, occurring in both German-occupied countries and those of their collaborators. But in no one state were the actions of the Holocaust felt more intensely than in Poland. It was in Poland that the Nazis constructed and ran their four death camps– Treblinka, Sobibor, Chelmno, and Belzec – and created combination camps that both concentrated people for labour, and exterminated them – Auschwitz and Majdanek.1 Chelmno was the first of the death camps, established in 1941, while Treblinka, Sobibor, and Belzec were created during Operation Reinhard in 1942.2 In Poland, the Nazis concentrated many of the Jews from countries they had conquered during the war. As the major killing centers of the “Final Solution” were located within Poland, when did people in Poland become aware of the level of death and destruction perpetrated by the Nazi regime? While scholars have attributed dates to the “Final Solution,” predominantly starting in 1942, when did the people of Poland notice the shift in the treatment of Jews from relocation towards physical elimination using gas chambers? Or did they remain unaware of such events? To answer these questions, I have researched the writings of various people who were in Poland at the time of the “Final Solution.” I am specifically addressing the information found in diaries and memoirs. Given language barriers, this thesis will focus only on diaries and memoirs that were written in English or later translated and published in English.3 This thesis addresses twenty diaries and memoirs from people who were living in Poland at the time of the “Final Solution.” Most of these diaries (fifteen of twenty) were written by members of the intelligentsia. -
Yehuda Bauer
1 Shoah, Antisemitism, War, and Genocide: Text and the Context Yehuda Bauer Ladies and Gentlemen, Colleagues and Friends, The International Task Force for Holocaust Education, Remembrance, and Research, was founded by the then Swedish Prime Minister, Göran Persson, as an answer to a problem that was expected to be solved within a few years’ time, namely the lack of education. There had been worrying signs of a lack of knowledge about the Holocaust among Swedish youths, but there was also disillusionment with democracy generally. Mr. Persson’s government began the process of establishing, with government help, an independent, special, large organization called Levande Historia, to address the educational aspects of steps to be taken to remedy the situation. I was asked to advise in all this. In order to establish the ITF, the Prime Minister turned to President Clinton and Prime Minister Tony Blair to join, and they agreed. I was then asked to become the Academic Adviser of the new body and, as they say, the rest is history. Soon afterwards, Mr. Persson then suggested that a large inter-governmental conference should be organized that would address these concerns internationally, and I became the person responsible for the academic side, and a member of the organizing committee, consisting of important Swedish government officials, driven forward largely by Veronika Bard- Bringeus. We opened the Stockholm Forum on Holocaust Education on January 27, 2000, with a large number of governments in attendance. Out of that came the famous Stockholm Declaration, which until today forms the basis for the ITF. A great deal has changed since then. -
British Responses to the Holocaust
Centre for Holocaust Education British responses to the Insert graphic here use this to Holocaust scale /size your chosen image. Delete after using. Resources RESOURCES 1: A3 COLOUR CARDS, SINGLE-SIDED SOURCE A: March 1939 © The Wiener Library Wiener The © AT FIRST SIGHT… Take a couple of minutes to look at the photograph. What can you see? You might want to think about: 1. Where was the photograph taken? Which country? 2. Who are the people in the photograph? What is their relationship to each other? 3. What is happening in the photograph? Try to back-up your ideas with some evidence from the photograph. Think about how you might answer ‘how can you tell?’ every time you make a statement from the image. SOURCE B: September 1939 ‘We and France are today, in fulfilment of our obligations, going to the aid of Poland, who is so bravely resisting this wicked and unprovoked attack on her people.’ © BBC Archives BBC © AT FIRST SIGHT… Take a couple of minutes to look at the photograph and the extract from the document. What can you see? You might want to think about: 1. The person speaking is British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. What is he saying, and why is he saying it at this time? 2. Does this support the belief that Britain declared war on Germany to save Jews from the Holocaust, or does it suggest other war aims? Try to back-up your ideas with some evidence from the photograph. Think about how you might answer ‘how can you tell?’ every time you make a statement from the sources. -
Chapter 3 the ISSUE of the HOLOCAUST AS a UNIQUE
Chapter 3 THE ISSUE OF THE HOLOCAUST AS A UNIQUE EVENT by Alan Rosenberg and Evelyn Silverman The question of the "uniqueness" of the Holocaust If the Holocaust was a truly unique event, then it has itself become a unique question. When we approach lies beyond our comprehension. If it was not the Holocaust, we are at once confronted with a truly unique, then there is no unique lesson to be dilemma: if the Holocaust is the truly unique and learned from it. Viewed solely from the unprecedented historical event that it is often held to perspective of its uniqueness, the Holocaust must be, then it must exceed the possibility of human be considered either incomprehensible or trivial. comprehension, for it lies beyond the reach of our A contexualist analysis, on the other hand, finds customary historical and sociological means of inquiry that it was neither "extra historical" nor just and understanding. But if it is not a historically unique another atrocity. It is possible to view the event, if it is simply one more incident in the long Holocaust as unprecedented in many respects history of man's inhumanity to man, there is no special and as an event of critical and transformational point in trying to understand it, no unique lesson to importance in the history of our world. Using be learned. Yehuda Bauer states the problem from a this method, we can determine the ways in which somewhat different perspective: the uniqueness question both helps and hinders our quest for understanding of the Holocaust. If what happened to the Jews was unique, then it took place outside of history, it becomes a mysterious event, an upside-down miracle, so to speak, an event of religious significance in the sense that it is not man-made as that term is normally under stood. -
20070215-Bauer.Pdf
UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM CENTER FOR ADVANCED HOLOCAUST STUDIES On the Holocaust and Other Genocides Yehuda Bauer W A S H I N G T O N , D. C. On the Holocaust and Other Genocides Yehuda Bauer JOSEPH AND REBECCA MEYERHOFF ANNUAL LECTURE 5 October 2006 The assertions, opinions, and conclusions in this occasional paper are those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect those of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council or of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. First printing, February 2007 Copyright © 2007 by Yehuda Bauer THE JOSEPH AND REBECCA MEYERHOFF ANNUAL LECTURE was endowed by the Meyerhoff family in 1994 to honor excellence in research and foster dissemination of cutting- edge scholarly work on the Holocaust and its legacy. Joseph and Rebecca Meyerhoff of Baltimore, Maryland, were active philanthropists in the United States and abroad, focusing especially on Jewish learning and scholarship, as well as on music, the arts, and humanitarian causes. Their children, Eleanor Katz and Harvey M. Meyerhoff (Chairman Emeritus of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council), have endowed this lecture, which is organized by the Museum’s Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies. There can hardly be a doubt that one of the most problematic documents in international relations is the 1948 Convention on the Prevention of the Crime of Genocide, which was ratified by most countries of the world. As we all know, it was originally the brainchild of Raphael Lemkin, a Polish-Jewish lawyer who managed to flee from Europe in the early stages of World War II, and who coined the term genocide. -
Europe and the World in the Face of the Holocaust
EUROPE AND THE WORLD subject IN THE FACE OF THE HOLOCAUST – PASSIVITY AND COMPLICITY Context6. Societies in all European countries, death camps. Others actively helped the whether fighting against the Germans, Germans in such campaigns ‘in the field’ occupied by or collaborating with them, or carried out in France, the Baltic States, neutral ones, faced an enormous challenge Romania, Hungary, Ukraine and elsewhere. in the face of the genocide committed against Jews: how to react to such an enormous After the German attack on France in June crime? The attitudes of specific nations as well 1940, the country was divided into two zones: as reactions of the governments of the occupied Northern – under German occupation, and countries and the Nazi-free world to the Holocaust Southern – under the jurisdiction of the French continue to be a subject of scholarly interest and state commonly known as Vichy France (La France great controversy at the same time. de Vichy or Le Régime de Vichy) collaborating with the Germans. Of its own accord, the Vichy government Some of them, as noted in the previous work sheet, initiated anti-Jewish legislation and in October guided by various humanitarian, religious, political, 1940 and June 1941 – with consent from head of personal or financial motives, became involved in state Marshal Philippe Petain – issued the Statuts aiding Jews. There were also those, however, who des Juifs which applied in both parts of France and exploited the situation of Jews for material gain, its overseas territories. They specified criteria for engaged in blackmail, denunciation and even determining Jewish origin and prohibited Jews murder. -
Gadol Beyisrael Hagaon Hakadosh Harav Chaim Michoel Dov
Eved Hashem – Gadol BeYisrael HaGaon HaKadosh HaRav Chaim Michoel Dov Weissmandel ZTVK "L (4. Cheshvan 5664/ 25. Oktober 1903, Debrecen, Osztrák–Magyar Monarchia – 6 Kislev 5718/ 29. November 1957, Mount Kisco, New York) Евед ХаШем – Гадоль БеИсраэль ХаГаон ХаКадош ХаРав Хаим-Михаэль-Дов Вайсмандель; Klenot medzi Klal Yisroel, Veľký Muž, Bojovník, Veľký Tzaddik, vynikajúci Talmid Chacham. Takýto človek príde na svet iba raz za pár storočí. „Je to Hrdina všetkých Židovských generácií – ale aj pre každého, kto potrebuje príklad odvážneho človeka, aby sa pozrel, kedy je potrebná pomoc pre tých, ktorí sú prenasledovaní a ohrození zničením v dnešnom svete.“ HaRav Chaim Michoel Dov Weissmandel ZTVK "L, je najväčší Hrdina obdobia Holokaustu. Jeho nadľudské úsilie o záchranu tisícov ľudí od smrti, ale tiež pokúsiť sa zastaviť Holokaust v priebehu vojny predstavuje jeden z najpozoruhodnejších príkladov Židovskej histórie úplného odhodlania a obete za účelom záchrany Židov. Nesnažil sa zachrániť iba niektorých Židov, ale všetkých. Ctil a bojoval za každý Židovský život a smútil za každou dušou, ktorú nemohol zachrániť. Nadľudské úsilie Rebeho Michoela Ber Weissmandla oddialilo deportácie viac ako 30 000 Židov na Slovensku o dva roky. Zohral vedúcu úlohu pri záchrane tisícov životov v Maďarsku, keď neúnavne pracoval na zverejňovaní „Osvienčimských protokolov“ o nacistických krutostiach a genocíde, aby „prebudil“ medzinárodné spoločenstvo. V konečnom dôsledku to ukončilo deportácie v Maďarsku a ušetrilo desiatky tisíc životov maďarských Židov. Reb Michoel Ber Weissmandel bol absolútne nebojácny. Avšak, jeho nebojácnosť sa nenarodila z odvahy, ale zo strachu ... neba. Každý deň, až do svojej smrti ho ťažil smútok pre milióny, ktorí nemohli byť spasení. 1 „Prosím, seriózne študujte Tóru,“ povedal HaRav Chaim Michoel Dov Weissmandel ZTVK "L svojim študentom, "spomína Rav Spitzer. -
Gazeta Spring/Summer 2021
Volume 28, No. 2 Gazeta Spring/Summer 2021 Wilhelm Sasnal, First of January (Side), 2021, oil on canvas. Courtesy of the artist and Foksal Gallery Foundation, Warsaw A quarterly publication of the American Association for Polish-Jewish Studies and Taube Foundation for Jewish Life & Culture Editorial & Design: Tressa Berman, Daniel Blokh, Fay Bussgang, Julian Bussgang, Shana Penn, Antony Polonsky, Aleksandra Sajdak, William Zeisel, LaserCom Design, and Taube Center for Jewish Life and Learning CONTENTS Message from Irene Pipes ............................................................................................... 4 Message from Tad Taube and Shana Penn ................................................................... 5 FEATURES Lucy S. Dawidowicz, Diaspora Nationalist and Holocaust Historian ............................ 6 From Captured State to Captive Mind: On the Politics of Mis-Memory Tomasz Tadeusz Koncewicz ................................................................................................ 12 EXHIBITIONS New Legacy Gallery at POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett Tamara Sztyma .................................................................................................................... 16 Wilhelm Sasnal: Such a Landscape. Exhibition at POLIN Museum ........................... 20 Sweet Home Sweet. Exhibition at Galicia Jewish Museum Jakub Nowakowski .............................................................................................................. 21 A Grandson’s