Holocaust and Jewish Resistance Teachers’ Program Summer 2016 Documents Holocaust and Jewish Resistance Teachers’ Program Copyright © 2016 American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors and Their Descendants 122 W 30th St #304A, New York, NY 10001-4009 (212) 239-4230 www.hajrtp.org July 2016 Elaine Culbertson Neil Garfinkle Meryl Menashe Program Director Program Liaison Program Liaison COPYRIGHT NOTICE The Content here is provided under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (“CCPL” or “license”). This Content is protected by copyright and/or other applicable law. Any use of the Content other than as authorized under this license or copyright law is prohibited. By exercising any rights to the work provided here, you accept and agree to be bound by the terms of this license. To the extent this license may be considered to be a contract, the licensor grants you the rights contained here in consideration of your acceptance of such terms and conditions. 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HAJRTP – 2016 Table of Contents Background Reading .................................................................................................... 1 July 2 ............................................................................................................................ 40 July 3-5 ......................................................................................................................... 85 July 6 .......................................................................................................................... 166 HAJRTP – 2016 Table of Contents July 7 .......................................................................................................................... 194 July 8 .......................................................................................................................... 217 July 9 .......................................................................................................................... 237 July 10 ........................................................................................................................ 249 HAJRTP – 2016 Table of Contents July 11 ........................................................................................................................ 296 Diaries and Memoirs ................................................................................................. 312 Poetry ......................................................................................................................... 332 HAJRTP – 2016 Table of Contents Using Survivor Testimony ...................................................................................... 365 National Archives Artifact Analysis .................................................................... 369 Resources .................................................................................................................. 378 HAJRTP – 2016 1 Background Reading HAJRTP – 2016 2 Definition of the Holocaust 1 The Holocaust (from the Greek ὁλόκαυστος holókaustos: hólos, “whole” and kaustós, “burnt”)0F0F Churben or ,חורבן :HaShoah, “the catastrophe”; Yiddish ,השואה :also known as Shoah (Hebrew Hurban, from the Hebrew for “destruction”), was the mass murder or genocide of approximately six million Jews during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi Germany, led by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei “National Socialist German Workers' Party,” NSDAP), throughout Germany 2 (Deutsches Reich, “German Empire”) and German-occupied territories.1F1F Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust The Holocaust was the state-sponsored, systematic persecution and annihilation of European Jewry by Nazi Germany and its collaborators, between 1933 and 1945. Jews were the primary 3 victims — six million were murdered. Roma (“Gypsies”)2F2F , physically and mentally disabled people and Poles were also targeted for destruction or decimation for racial, ethnic, or national reasons. Millions more, including homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Soviet prisoners of war, and political dissidents also suffered grievous oppression and death under Nazi tyranny. Source: http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/media_nm.php?ModuleId=10005143&MediaId=7827 1 Dawidowicz, Lucy (1975). The War Against the Jews., p. xxxvii. 2 Snyder, Timothy (2010). Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin. London: The Bodley Head.2010, p. 45. Further examples of this usage can be found in: Bauer 2002, Cesarani 2004, Dawidowicz 1981, Evans 2002, Gilbert 1986, Hilberg 1996, Longerich 2012, Phayer 2000, Zuccotti 1999. 3 The word ‘Gypsy’ refers to any itinerant person who is suspected of dishonest practices derives from traditional racist stereotypes of the Romani people. Definition of the Holocaust HAJRTP – 2016 3 The Jews of Europe before and after the Holocaust Estimated Pre- Estimated Percent Country War Jewish killed killed population Baltic countries 253,000 228,000 90 Belgium 65,000 40,000 60 Bohemia and 90,000 80,000 89 Moravia Bulgaria 64,000 14,000 22 Byelorussian SSR 375,000 245,000 65 Denmark 8,000 52 <1 France 350,000 90,000 26 Germany and Austria 240,000 210,000 90 Greece 70,000 54,000 77 Hungary 650,000 450,000 70 Italy 40,000 8,000 20 Luxembourg 5,000 1,000 20 Netherlands 140,000 105,000 75 Norway 2,173 890 41 Poland 3,300,000 3,000,000 90 Romania 600,000 300,000 50 Russian SFSR 975,000 107,000 11 Slovakia 90,000 75,000 83 Ukrainian SSR 1,500,000 900,000 60 Yugoslavia 43,000 26,000 60 Total 8,861,800 5,933,900 67 These numbers from Lucy Dawidowicz show the annihilation of the Jewish population of Europe by (pre-war) country. Dawidowicz, Lucy. The War Against the Jews, Bantam, 1986.p. 403. The Jews of Europe before and after the Holocaust HAJRTP – 2016 4 What Is Judaism? What is Judaism? What does it mean to be a Jew? Most people, both Jewish and gentile, would instinctively say that Judaism is a religion. And yet, there are militant atheists who insist that they are Jews! Is Judaism a race? If you were to say so, most Jews would think you were an anti- Semite! So what is Judaism? • Judaism has been described as a religion, a race, a culture, and a nation • All of these descriptions have some validity • The Jewish people are best described as an extended family Is Judaism a Religion? Clearly, there is a religion called Judaism, a set of ideas about the world and the way we should live our lives that is called “Judaism.” It is studied in Religious Studies courses and taught to Jewish children in Hebrew schools. See What do Jews Believe? for details. There is a lot of flexibility about certain aspects of those beliefs, and a lot of disagreement about specifics, but that flexibility is built into the organized system of belief that is Judaism. However, many people who call themselves Jews do not believe in that religion at all! More than half of all Jews in Israel today call themselves “secular,” and don’t believe in God or any of the religious beliefs of Judaism. Half of all Jews in the United States don’t belong to any synagogue. They may practice some of the rituals of Judaism and celebrate some of the holidays, but they don’t think of these actions as religious activities. The most traditional Jews and the most liberal Jews and everyone in between would agree that these secular people are still Jews, regardless of their disbelief. See Who is a Jew? Clearly, then, there is more to being Jewish than just a religion. Are Jews a Race? In the 1980s, the United States Supreme Court ruled that Jews are a race, at least for purposes of certain anti-discrimination laws. Their reasoning: at the time these laws were passed, people routinely spoke of the “Jewish race” or the “Italian race” as well as the “Negro race,” so that is what the legislators intended to protect. But many Jews were deeply offended by that decision, offended by any hint that Jews could be considered a race. The idea of Jews as a race brings to mind nightmarish visions of Nazi Germany, where Jews were declared to be not just a race, but an inferior race that had to be rounded up into ghettos and exterminated like vermin. What Is Judaism? HAJRTP – 2016 5 But setting aside the emotional issues, Jews are clearly not a race. Race is a genetic distinction, and refers to people with shared ancestry and shared genetic traits. You can’t change your race; it’s in your DNA. I could never become black or Asian no matter how much I might want to. Common ancestry is not required to be a Jew. Many Jews worldwide