The Holocaust is a term mainly used to describe the systematic, state-sponsored oppression and killing of about 6m. men, women and children—above all Jews—by Nazi Germany and its collaborators between 1939 and 1945. The Hebrew term Shoah has a similar meaning but often refers specifically to the killing of the Jewish population and could therefore to some extent be considered as one element of the ‘Holocaust’.
Shortly after Adolf Hitler’s Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP) came to power in 1933, the new rulers began to adopt increasingly barbaric methods to suppress above all Jewish citizens, but also political opponents of the Third Reich (especially social democrats and communists). Concentration camps were set up as early as 1933, a fact that was publicly known. These early camps were not death camps. However, thousands of opponents of the government and an increasing number of Jews suffered and many died because of bad conditions and the brutal treatment they received from the SS (Schutzstaffel), a paramilitary organization of the NSDAP.
The persecution of the Jews was carried out at different levels: the Nazis called for a boycott of Jewish businesses and Jews were dismissed from jobs in the public sector. Following the Nürnberg Laws of 1935, Jews were deprived of citizenship and were not allowed to marry so-called Aryan Germans. On Kristallnacht, the night of 9 November 1938, nearly every synagogue in Germany was set alight, and from then on thousands of Jews were imprisoned in concentration camps, mainly in Dachau and Buchenwald. Following the early German victories in the Second World War, most of the European Jewry fell under German control. The Nazis then pursued an even more barbaric strategy: Einsatzgruppen of the SS apprehended and killed Jews, Roma and many non-Jewish slaves across Central and Eastern European Countries. Furthermore, mainly in former Poland the Nazis created ghettos (the biggest in Warsaw and Lodz) and large-scale concentration camps where millions of Jews would be killed. At the ‘Wannsee Conference’ on 20 January 1942 Germany decided the ‘final solution’; that 11m. people should be systematically annihilated in such concentration camps as Auschwitz, Chelmno and Treblinka. By the time that Allied troops liberated the camps—which came to be referred to as ‘KZ’ at the end of the war—6m. people had died, mainly by being gassed.
The Holocaust remains a central, traumatic event in European history and has significant implications for European politics today. Holocaust Remembrance Days—observed on different days in different countries—secure the international commemoration of the millions of victims of Nazi Germany’s extermination policies. The most important Remembrance Day lies on 27 Nisan in the Jewish calendar (shortly after Passover, April/May in the Gregorian calendar). The parliament of Israel declared the day Yom Hashoah ve Hagevurah (Holocaust Remembrance and Heroism Day), marking not only the destruction, but also the resistance of Jews. This nation-wide public holiday is observed in various ways: through candle lighting, speeches, poems, prayers and singing. Six candles are often lit to represent the 6m. victims. A major international political effort to secure the remembrance of the Holocaust was undertaken in 1998, when at the initiative of Sweden the ‘Task Force for International Co-operation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research’ was created. The mission of this organization is ‘to encourage activities on Holocaust education, remembrance, and research in member countries and in other interested countries’ (taskforce.ushmm.org). Among its European members are Austria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Sweden and the United Kingdom.
Compensation for Jewish victims of the Holocaust has mainly been negotiated since 1951 through the Jewish Claims Conference (www.claimscon.org). As a result, the German government has paid more than US $50,000m. in indemnification for suffering and losses resulting from the Nazi persecution. In August 2000 the German government and parts of the German economy created the Foundation ‘Remembrance, Responsibility and Future’ (www.stiftung-evz.de) which aims to secure compensation for forced labourers and other Nazi victims in the Third Reich. The foundation was also launched to ‘provide adequate legal security for German enterprises and the Federal Republic of Germany, especially in the United States of America’ (Preamble, The Law on the Creation of a Foundation ‘Remembrance, Responsibility and Future’). Five thousand million Deutsche Marks (DM) were made available by the companies joined together in the Foundation Initiative of German Industry, and another 5,000m. DM by the German government. The application deadline pursuant to the Law was 31 December 2001. The regulations for the payment have been sharply criticized from the very beginning since the whole process seemed too complicated and slow.
Sascha Feuchert
University of Giessen
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