Holocaust Is One of the Most Tragic Events - Essay Example

The Holocaust Holocaust is one of the most tragic and most puzzling events in the human history. It presents us with more questions, than answers. The reason for such unawareness in the course of the Holocaust's history may lie in the fact, that huge numbers of Jews have been murdered, while they could shed some light on the events taking place at that time; or by the fact, that the main ideologists and participants of this horrible system were dead before we were able to receive any valuable information from them. Despite all difficulties, this work will be an attempt to answer one more question related to the topic of Holocaust - why was there such a great variation in the proportion of Jews, murdered in various countries of Europe during that period Introduction Though the general course of events (finding out the Jews, their gathering, deportation and elimination) was similar in many features, Holocaust in different European countries had its peculiarities. Hungary was the ally of Nazi Germany, but despite this fact, the lives of numerous Jewish populations (almost one million people) until 1944 had not been threatened by anything. Though anti-Jewish laws have been adopted, Hungarian authorities opposed to the German demands for deporting the Jewish to the death camps. The situation changed in 1944, when the German army occupied Hungary. During the 42 days, starting from the beginning of May, more than 437 thousand of Hungarian Jews have been sent to Oswiecim - Birchenough. While the world community pretended, that nothing was happening, the Germans killed in gas chambers 12 thousand people every day. Only at the beginning of July 1944, the head of the Hungarian government, Miklosh Horti, signed the order to stop the deportation, or to slow it down, and about 200 thousand Jews from Budapest have finally avoided deportation. The neutral diplomats of Sweden, Switzerland and Vatican have given their assistance to the Hungarian Jews. However, already at the end of 1944 about 30 thousand Jews more died during the so called 'death marches' to the Austrian border. (Braham 1981, p24) Italy has also been a German ally; and as well as in Hungary, the anti-Jewish laws have been adopted there. However, its small Jewish population was in safety, and only after the failure of the Mussolini's government in July, 1943, German troops were able to capture eight out of thirty five thousand of local Jews and to deport them to Oswiecim-Birchenough. All this took place with the support of Italian Nazis. (Berenbaum, 1998, p86) After the German occupation in April, 1944, Yugoslavia has been divided into several parts. The total number of Jews living in the country was 80 thousand, out of which about 16 thousand lived in Belgrade. The Germans used thousand of Jews as cheap labor force, having deprived them of their entire inventory beforehand. In August, 1941, the wave of mass arrests seized the country. The bigger portion of Serb Jews has been killed. In spring 1942, in the Semline concentration camp in Belgrade suburbs, people were killed by gas, using the specially equipped truck. Only several hundreds of Serb Jews remained alive by summer 1942. (Braham, 1994, p144) Croatian fascists have also become close allies of Germany. Croatian Jews were obliged to carry the 'David's Star' and their property has been confiscated. The regime was constantly destroying Serbs, Jews and Gypsies all across the country. Only in Yasenovo concentration camp, dozens thousands of Serbs and twenty out of thirty thousand Croatian Jews have been killed. By the end of October, 1941 almost all Jews of Croatia have been destroyed. About seven thousand of those who remained alive were sent to Oswiecim. During the whole period of war, about sixty thousand of Yugoslavian Jews have been killed. (Berenbaum, 1998, p91) Greece has been simultaneously occupied by the two armies - German and Italian. The Jews, who appeared to be in the Italian zone, have not been subjected to repressions until 1944. As for the German zone, the 50-thousand Jewish community of Salonika has suffered the biggest losses. During March-August 1943, about forty thousand Jews have been deported to Oswiecim. Only about one thousand of them have returned to Salonika after the end of the war. (Hilbert, 1985, p11) Bulgarian government managed to avoid the deportation of the Jews, who were the citizens of Bulgaria, and these were about 50 thousand. However, no one prevented the Germans from deporting the Jews of Macedonia and Frakia, who were not Bulgarian citizens. More than 11 thousand people have been sent to the death camp in Treblinka. By the beginning of the war there have been about 750 thousand of Jews living in Romania. About 160 thousand out of them have been led to the hungry death or murdered by Romanian and German troops in Bessarabia or Bukovina; 150 thousand more have been sent to Transnistria, mostly to be destroyed together with the local Jews. However, about three hundred thousand of Jews from the central country regions have been able to survive the war, and despite the anti-Jewish policy of Ion Antonesku, Romanian government refused to deport the last 300,000 Jews to the death camps. (Radu, 2000, p27) The main suggested reasons for variation in the number of Jews murdered in European countries In analyzing and looking for a reason of so big discrepancies in the number of Jews murdered in different European countries during Holocaust, it is necessary to reflect on the possible implications as for why it could happen and what the grounds in each country were, which could cause big or small number of deported and murdered Jews. First of all, Germans used different policies in different countries in relation to the local population and especially Jews, who were under their control. Simultaneously, it is necessary to account for the extent the local population resisting to the Nazi regime, as it is clear - the level of support and the number of the deported and murdered Jews in this or that country was in direct relation. However, and to my mind, the main implication and probably, the reason for the variations in the number of Jews murdered in European countries during Holocaust, was in the role the authorities of each country played - what I mean here is that in the countries, where local authorities refused to follow Nazis orders as for deportation and elimination of Jews, the number of victims was far less than in those where the authorities were totally supporting the Nazi regime and following the policy of anti-Semitism. Holocaust in France Holocaust in France may be characterized by the situation, when the anti-Jewish regime has already been settled in the country when the Nazis have not yet occupied it. It was first of all good for the government and authorities, as following the requirements and orders of the Nazi regime, the French avoided too close look at their activity and hoped to avoid the occupation of the French territory by Germans. However, these plans didn't come true and thousands of innocent Jews have been murdered under the regime of Vichy. If in the other European countries (except the Baltic states) the anti-Jewish movements were not so vivid and displayed themselves after the moment of German invasion into them, the French anti-Jewish campaign has started far before the Germans themselves appeared to be in the French territory, this is why France was among the countries, where the number of victims of the Vichy's regime was one of the highest in Europe. However, according to the general opinion, then number of Jews, who have suffered from the hands of the Nazis themselves, was much lower than for example, in Poland or Serbia. This is usually explained by the relative patience of the Germans towards the nations living in the Western Europe. In connection with the identification of the first and the main reason of variations in the number of the murdered Jews across Europe, which has been mentioned to be due to the authorities and their inability to oppress to the Nazi regime, one more reason, closely connected with the first one, may be named: this reason is in support or denial of the anti-Jewish movements by the population. As Marrus (1995) notes, 'a French government, enjoying widespread popular support, threw itself into anti-Jewish activity in the first two years. During 1940 and 1941, France legislated anti-Semitism much as had prewar Hungary, Romania and Poland. This is the point which tends to be obscured by the horror of Final Solution. Long before the systematic killing operations were conceived for Eastern Europe and even before the Germans applied serious pressure upon French, the regime worked hard to marginalize and punish the Jews'. (p27) It is assumed, that the result of such phenomena as oppression, arrests, and related, were even stronger in the unoccupied territories, than in the occupied ones. According to the sources, thousands of Jews were interned, and their conditions were close to those in the Nazi concentration camps; there were more than 4,500 Jews deported from the unoccupied zone to the concentration camps outside France. Due to the anti-Jewish policy of the French authorities, France has been characterized by one of the greatest number of Jews murdered in the country. It is clearly seen, that with the active support of the anti-Semitist policies, population has also been actively involved into the process of anti-Jewish fights, which also increased the number of those, who had no chance to save their lives. (Adler, 1987, p29) The consequences of Holocaust in Serbia Though the attack on Serbia has not been planned as an act of racism, anti-Jewish movements have become integral parts of the German invasion across Europe. However, the situations in different countries were absolutely different and in such countries as Bulgaria and Denmark, the number of Jewish people saved was much higher than in the other states under Germans, due to the different political courses and the level of German support, which is supposed to be the main reason of the quantitative variations in murders. Historically, Serbia has been supposed to be guilty in the WWI by Austria, which deprived it from its empire, and thus it was a matter of honor for them to fight against 'Jewish Bolshevism' in Serbia. The occupational regime in Serbia has been actively supported by the local military agencies and local authorities, which of course resulted in huge number of persecuted and murdered representatives of the Jewish community. As Manoschek (2000) sets it, 'in coordination with the civilian and police agencies, the military commander enacted measures against Jews and Gypsies from the very beginning. The process of registration, marking, deprivation and social exclusion already constituted an integral component of National Socialist Jewish policies.' (p18) This of course became the prerequisite of mass destructions of the whole Jewish communities in Serbia. Serbian authorities were closely cooperating and supporting the anti-Jewish policies of Wermacht. By the time of German invasion into the Soviet Union, there has been created a special hostage accumulation for the Jews and Communists, and their everyday murders have become a usual matter for everyone. The number of the Jews murdered and persecuted in Serbia is horrible, and taking into account that the majority of them lived in Belgrade, there was no chance for them to escape, especially with the active their persecution by the local authorities. As an example of such cooperation with the German regime, it will be appropriate to note, that in April 1941 in the city of Zrenjanin, the 2,000 Jewish community has been 'committed to ghetto' in the city. The exact number of such ghettos in Serbia at that time is not yet known, but it is estimated that about sixty thousand of Serbian Jews have been murdered during the period of German occupation. (Manoschek, 2000, p20) Holocaust in Romania The number of Jews living in Romania before 1939 was the third largest after the Soviet Union and Poland; however the pace of the German policy's implementation was very rapid in this region. The history of the Romanian Holocaust had its beginning with the reign of the King Carol II, who followed the German fascist trends and was the first to introduce the measures of fighting against Jews and Gypsies. It is even more interesting to note, that 'there were also instances when the Germans actually had to step into restrain and slow down the pace of the Romanian measures. At such times the Romanians were moving too fast for the German bureaucracy'. (Hilbert, 1985, p23) Thus, as in the situation with France, the destruction of the Jewish community as the nation was held under the active support of the Romanian authorities, which at times were even restrained by the German commandment itself. However, there are certain important differences in the Holocaust course in this country. First of all, the implementation of the Jewish policy was not as cruel as it has been in the other countries - the use of gas-cells has not been adopted in the Romanian territory, and most of Jewish people died in concentration camps of malnutrition. The second peculiar feature of the Antonesku regime was in the fact that he feared Jews would become allies with Russians, and this was the main reason of his cruelty towards this nation - not the literal anti-Semitism, as it has been with the rest of the European countries. The third and one of the most important events in the Romanian history of that time was when Romanian authorities refused to deport 300,000 of Romanian Jews to Germany. (Braham, 1998, p72) It took place at the end of the war when Romania already understood that Germany would lose this it and didn't want to aggravate its situation as a Germany's ally. Thus, the Holocaust situation in Romania was contradictory - on the one hand, active destruction of mass Jewish communities (according to the estimates, about 800,000 Jews have been murdered during the Holocaust period in Romania); on the other hand, avoiding the use of too cruel methods of destruction with the final refuse to deport the Jews. Being Germany's ally, Romania strived for literal independence in implementation of its anti-Jewish policies. The number of the Jews murdered in Romania appeared to be the second largest after that of Germany. (Braham, 1994, p36) This huge variation in comparison to the other countries of Europe is caused by not only the active support of the authorities, but also by the fact that historically Romania has been characterized by one of the largest amounts of Jews inhabiting its territory. This fact may also be viewed as one of the predictions for mass deaths of Jews in different European countries. The Holocaust course in Baltics The history of anti-Jewish policies in the Baltic states come down to the period of the year 1939, when the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact has been signed, defining the Baltic's territory integral with the Soviet one and thus defining the position of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia as German enemies from the very beginning. However, the Soviet Union itself has actively participated in implementing anti-Jewish policies before the WWII. 'Jewish educational and cultural activities were shut down and squelched by the Soviets. Approximately 5000 Latvian Jews were deported to Siberia during the one year of Soviet occupation. In Estonia, the Jewish community was cut off from the Jewish communities in Latvia and Lithuania because of travel restrictions enforced by the Soviets. The Soviet incursion into Lithuania was the beginning of the end for the Jewish communities.' (Ezergalis, 1996, p79) However, before the German invasion the extermination of Jews was not taking so large scales. First of all, the Germans created the so-called mobile killing units. One of such units was tied to the Baltic region and was responsible for the mass destruction of the Baltic Jews. The most common method used for the destruction of Jews was the gunshot execution. The key to success in anti-Jewish propaganda lied in the manipulation, used by Germans - the direct comparison and connection of Jews and Bolshevism, with the bigger portion of population being against the Soviet regime, created the mass support of the anti-Semitism by the local population; even Catholic Church has been noticed in its anti-Semitist moods during the period of 1939-1944. However, the number of the Jewish people murdered in the Baltic states, is comparatively small due to the following reasons: first of all, many of them had the chance to flee to the central Russia; second, the total number of Jews living in the Baltic territory was rather small; third, some of Jewish representatives survived on being hidden and protected by the local population. (Levin, 1996, p22) Local authorities didn't display so much support to the German regime, and being both against the Soviets and the Germans, tended to independency. Jews in Baltic States were an easily identified group due to their clear separation from the rest of the population. However, not only Jewish but also other native people, who did not fit to the German ideas of racial equality and identity, have been destroyed. Simultaneously, the number of victims could be considerably decreased in Baltics, if not for the indifference, with which the Soviet state treated the displays of anti-Semitism in this part of the Soviet Union. Thus, among the suggested reasons for the variations in the number of murdered Jews across Europe at times of Holocaust, may not only be the support of the German regime by local authorities, but also simple indifference to the course of anti-Semitic actions, as it has been with the Baltic countries. Only due to the fact, that the portion of Jews in these countries was not so high, the number of Holocaust victims here is among the lowest in Europe. Polish Holocaust The consequences of Polish Holocaust are the most difficult and tragic in the world history. The reasons for such serious variation in the number of murders in distinction from other European countries may be supposed to be as follows: the attitudes towards the Jews in Eastern Europe was much less tolerant by Germans in comparison to that in Western part of Europe; Poland has been characterized by the largest Jewish population in Europe; the destruction of Jews in this part of Europe was the cruelest through the use of gas chambers and concentration camps; the destruction has been held by the active assistance of the local non-Jewish authorities and regional structures. As Longreich (2001), described it, 'whilst it is true that extending the murders to particular areas outside the Soviet Union in the autumn of 1941 was done in the context of deportation programs ordered by Hitler, no-one has yet been able to find a direct order for the execution of these new mass murders or for the use of poison gas. It becomes evident, that institutions with regional responsibility were each, in a systematic manner, attempting to kill a substantial proportion of the Jewish population in their areas with the help of particular method of murder'. (p29)Thus, Poland with its huge portion of Jewish population has been viewed as the polygon for experiments and murders, with people serving as a material for tortures. The examples of rescues in the period of Holocaust In the light of the tragic events described, the situation in Denmark in relation to Holocaust and Jewish persecution may be looked at as a kind of miracle, or the wisest step made by the local authorities in their opposition to the German regime. According to http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.phplang=en&ModuleId=10005185, at the attempt to implement the anti-Jewish policies in Danish territory, German troops have met active opposition, which had not been noted in other European countries, with more than 8,000 Jews saved and secretly transported to neutral Sweden for rescue. That is why Denmark is noted among the countries, which have almost not suffered from Holocaust. The similar events are known in Budapest, where the local professor provided Jews with the so called 'passes' and thus saved more than 10,000 Jews from death. The attempts to save Jews in Poland have not found any material or moral support. (Rossino, 1997, p47) The plans of the Bulgarian King to deport Jews in 1943 have been interrupted by the active involvement of the key political and religious figures into this process, and thus the plans for deporting the Jews from the country have been cancelled. These events only support our suggestion, that the variations in the number of Jews murdered in different countries of Europe during Holocaust were mainly caused by different level of the governmental support of the suppressive regime and the involvement of the local authorities into anti-Jewish actions. Conclusion It is no secret, that during the period of German invasion at the territory of Eastern and Western Europe, there have been noticed great variations in the number of murdered Jews depending on the country. In the light of everything written above, the reasons for these variations are the following: the main reason lies in the level of the support of German anti-Semitist policies by local authorities, or their indifference to the displays of anti-Semitism. On the basis of historical background, and depending on the specific country, it is clear to see, that with the anti-Jewish moods, which existed in the European countries before the WWII, the new pro-Nazi governments acquired an opportunity to unveil the anti-Jewish actions justified by various prejudices and implications. In the countries, where local authorities refused to cooperate with Germany and displayed active oppression (As in Bulgaria and Denmark), thousands of innocent Jews have been rescued; the number of the local Jewish population. There is direct relation between the portion of the Jewish population and the number of the Holocaust victims for each specific state; the support of the local population. For many instances, local population was led into false opinion about the Jews through propaganda and prejudices. In the case with Romania Germans ha to restrain their too active steps in relation to Jews, while it is admitted that there is no direct order to destroy Polish Jews through gas-chambers, it mainly being the initiative of the local supporters of German regime. The reasons for such level of hatred towards Jews and other 'inappropriate' for Germans nationalities it yet not understood, though it is clear that biggest portion of Holocaust victims could be avoided, if the governments experienced more efforts and courage in oppressing the Nazi regime. References Adler, J 1987, The Jews of Paris and the Final Solution, Oxford University Press, New York, pp. 25-34 Berenbaum, M & Abraham, J 1998, The Holocaust and History. The Known, the Unknown, the Disputed and the Reexamined, Indiana University Press, Indiana, pp. 80-99 Braham, RL 1981, The Politics of Genocide: the Holocaust in Hungary, Braham Columbia University Press, New York, pp.24-47 Braham, RL 1994, 'Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust in the politics of East Central Europe', Holocaust and Genocide Studies, vol.8, no.2, pp. 143-63. Braham RL 1994, The Tragedy of the Romanian Jewry, Columbia University Press, New York, pp. 36-37 Braham, RL 1998, Romanian Nationalists and the Holocaust, Columbia University Press, New York, pp. 70-81 Ezergalis, A 1996, The Holocaust in Latvia 1941-1944, The Missing Center, Riga Model Printing House, Latvia, p. 79 Hilbert, Raul 1985, The Destruction of the European Jews, revised, vol. 2, Holmes & Meier, New York, pp. 9-26 Levin, Dov 1996, The World Reacts at Holocaust, John Hopkins University Press, London, pp. 21-27 Longreich, Peter 2001, 'The extension of mass murder in Autumn 1941' in The unwritten order: Hitler's role in the Final Solution, ed. P. Longreich, Tempus Stroud, UK, p. 29 Manoschek, W 2000, 'Early actions against Serbian Jews', in National Socialist extermination policies: contemporary German perspectives and controversies, ed. 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