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Date: Wed, 1 Jun 1994 11:05:00 CST Reply-To: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> Sender: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> From: JIMMOTT@spss.com Subject: Holocaust and Homosexuals [x Voice of America gopher]
From: "Daniel E. Rogers" <drogers%jaguar1.usouthal.edu@uicvm.uic.edu>
The following is a report lifted from the Voice of America gopher (available via gopher at gopher.voa.gov). I have posed a question after the report.
DATE=5/30/94
TITLE=HOLOCAUST / HOMOSEXUALS (L-ONLY)
BYLINE=ART CHIMES
DATELINE=JERUSALEM
INTRO: Israel's gay community gathered Monday to honor the victims of the Nazi persecution of homosexuals. VOA correspondent Art Chimes reports from Jerusalem on the controversial observance, which was repeatedly interrupted by protesters.
TEXT: Some 150 homosexuals and lesbians gathered at the cavernous memorial hall of the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial to pay tribute to the Nazi's homosexual victims. But the ceremony was repeatedly interrupted by right-wing and religious Jews who objected to the what they called the desecration of a holy place.
// Act -- protest ("get out from here," "AIDS," etc. ... Fade //
A few minutes before the ceremony, Yephim Maidanik, an Israeli who emigrated from Russia, said it is "absolutely not" possible to be gay and Jewish, any more than it is possible to be Jewish if you convert to another faith.
// Maidanik act //
They said, we don't want to be Jewish. Like those Jews
that take Christianity, like those Jews who take Islam.
They first deserted God. They don't belong to [the]
Jewish community. That's it.
// End act //
The commemoration of the homosexual victims of the Holocaust was held at Yad Vashem, Israel's official Holocaust memorial site. But Yad Vashem officials distanced themselves from the event, emphasizing that they were not sponsoring the observance.
The chairwoman of the society for the protection of personal rights, Israel's leading gay rights organization, said the only problem she had with Yad Vashem was with security after guards failed to stop the repeated interruptions of the ceremonies.
// Act -- protest in Hebrew ("you're desecrating this
holy [place], you sexual deviants") ... Fade //
The first hint of controversy came last Friday, when a group of American rabbis placed an advertisement in the Jerusalem Post (daily) newspaper, denouncing the observance. It described homosexuality as an "abomination" and a "cardinal crime in Judaism."
But another view came from Jack Gilbert, a gay rights activist from London, who said the commemoration of the Nazis' homosexual victims does not detract from the other victims of the Holocaust.
// Gilbert act //
We don't diminish that experience by also mentioning
that there were other victims. Because the only way we
can be sure that it doesn't happen again is to be sure
that other people who are persecuted are also free and
unpersecuted.
// End act //
Hundreds of thousands of homosexuals -- perhaps as many as a half-million
Source: Voice of America
Question: If memory serves me correctly, Yehuda Bauer has put the number of homosexuals imprisoned by Nazi Germany _for being homosexual_ at around 20,000 (all Germans). Thus while the numbers above may be correct given the proportion of homosexuals in the population at large, isn't it misleading to make the statement as above, implying that hundreds of thousands of homosexuals were killed for their sexual orientation rather than for being Jews?
Dan Rogers
From: dsc%st-andrews.ac.uk@uicvm.uic.edu (David Claridge)
I am working on a chapter on Hitler, Stalin and totalitarianism as part of my PhD on state terrorism. I am having a few problems with the historical details regarding the development of the security apparat and legal system under Hitler. More specifically the relationship between the Nazi party and the state, particularly the role of the SS as a sort of 'symbiosis' of the two sources of authority. I am surprised at how limited the literature appears to be on this area. Can anyone provide any suggestions regarding books and articles, or any other advice?
David Claridge Email: dsc@st-and.ac.uk Department of International Relations dsc@gn.apc.org University of St Andrews Fife, KY16 9AL, UK Tel: (0334) 62935
Date: Wed, 1 Jun 1994 17:17:00 CST Reply-To: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> Sender: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> From: JIMMOTT@spss.com Subject: Need help determining fate of family members
From: Brynda Watkins <watkins%GIBBS.OIT.UNC.EDU@uicvm.uic.edu>
I received this from a forwarded listserv which concerns holocaust survivors. I felt it was of value for members of the holocaust list. Sharon Smith sksmith@nuacvm.acns.nwu.edu Northwestern Univ. Library Evanston, IL 60208
From: Stephen Caldwell <scaldwell@BIX.COM> To: Multiple recipients of list UUS-L <UUS-L@UBVM.cc.buffalo.edu> Subject: shoah (fwd)
Hi,
this lovely lady asked me to forward this to you all.
From:FACSHAFERI@MERCUR.USAO.EDU
To: Multiple recipients of list BRIDGE-L
<BRIDGE-L%UCSBVM.BITNET@cmsa.Berkeley.EDU> Subject: shoah
>From Ingrid (facshafer@mercur.usao.edu):
I am sending this to all my lists. Please excuse the duplication if you and I happen to share Internet interests. I spent the afternoon interviewing Leo, a Holocaust survivor who has only recently begun to talk about his experiences. In fact, he had not spoken about several aspects of his past until today. Remembering is agony for him--all of us ended up in tears, Leo, his wife, and I-- but he says he wants to help write the book because he feels so strongly that his story is one of human goodness and generosity as well as unspeakable cruelty. In addition, I suspect part of him realizes that he won't heal until he allows himself to face the horror. To my surprise, I learned that Leo had given up trying to determine the fate of family members in the late forties while he was in the U.S. army. Several attempts had proven futile, and he decided to accept that he was the only one left. When I suggested I give the Internet a try, he agreed.
I am hoping that someone on one of my lists has access to a Holocaust list or some other appropriate resource. Supposedly, there are some relatives in Argentina. These are the names and approximate dates of birth (spellings of first names are phonetic) of his immediate family:
Father: Abraham Polenzweig
Mother: Rifka Polenzweig
Sisters: Esther, born 1926
Sesil (pronounced "Cecil"), born 1933
Zosha, born 1936
Brother: Huna, born 1930
Leo, my friend, was born around 1928 or 1929. His family lived at the outskirts of Warsaw where his father and mother owned and operated a general store with goods ranging from soft coal and clothing to flour and salami. He went to public school and Hebrew school, visited with his grandparents in the country, and spent summers in a two-story white vacation house. There was a live-in maid/nannie (his mother worked). They had Catholic friends and employees (his father also owned several teams of horses and a taxi). Then the Germans marched in. For a while, the family hid behind false walls and took to the sewers. Then they were caught. >From Warsaw, they were first sent to Lublin, and then to Auschwitz. He last saw his mother and two younger sisters walking toward the gas chambers. He last saw his father being marched toward an area where prisoners were shot. He had lost all contact with his brother Huna and older sister Esther when he first arrived in Auschwitz but he never forgot his father's final words: "You will survive."
Please, help me distribute this request.
Never again!
Thank you, and shalom,
Ingrid
Date: Thu, 2 Jun 1994 10:40:00 CST Reply-To: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> Sender: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> From: JIMMOTT@spss.com Subject: Vatican and Final Solution
From: 6492PHAYERM%VMS.CSD.MU.EDU@uicvm.uic.edu
After reading the article in the NY Times, which even spoke of Vatican "collaboration" in the Holocaust, I read the next day in another newspaper that the Vatican had distanced itself from the earlier statement. If the Vatican is engaged in some sort of a statement for the purpose of opposing antisemitism, fine, but I found myself asking what other motives it might have for this course of action. One might be that it would reduce pressure on the Vatican to release all of its WWII Holocaust related documents. It is becoming increasingly clear that there are some gaping holes in the multi-volume Actes et Documents series.
Date: Thu, 2 Jun 1994 15:31:00 CST Reply-To: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> Sender: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> From: JIMMOTT@spss.com Subject: Re: Holocaust and Homosexuals [x Voice of America gopher]
From: Chuck Weckesser <71233.677@compuserve.com>
Dear Professor Rogers,
You obviously are not terribly familiar with Germany's former Paragraph 175 - which even existed until recently - that provided for the wholesale slaughter of both foreign and German Jews.
Of course, the irony here is that the SA was filled with gays including Rohm who, as you know, was murdered on 30 June 1934 (Night of the Long Knives).
Regards,
Charles J. Weckesser, M.A. (History)
From: Gideon Goldstein <ortisrael%igc.apc.org@uicvm.uic.edu>
Dan,
Just a word to complement your report:
This afternoon (June 1), a debate was held in the Israeli parliament as to the incident happening at the memorial hall at Yad Vashem.
The formal stand of Yad Vashem, cited by the deputy minister for Education and Culture, said that Yad Vashem policy is to keep the memorial hall open to any individual or group wishing to hold memorial services.
Yad Vashem does not auspice any memorial service.
Yad Vashem expressed regret that the gay movement turned the event into a PR situation, inviting extensive media coverage and distributing informative and promotional materials inside the memorial hall.
Gideon Goldstein
From: "Terry Moore" <RTMOORE%PCAD-ML.ACTX.EDU@uicvm.uic.edu>
Hello, Dan!
I will offer you my thoughts on this.
> Question: If memory serves me correctly, Yehuda Bauer has put the number of > homosexuals imprisoned by Nazi Germany _for being homosexual_ at around > 20,000 (all Germans). Thus while the numbers above may be correct given > the proportion of homosexuals in the population at large, isn't it > misleading to make the statement as above, implying that hundreds of > thousands of homosexuals were killed for their sexual orientation rather > than for being Jews?
I would say so. The Nazis hated homosexuals as much as Jews, IMHO. For some insight into this, please consult Rudolf Hoess' work "Commandant of Auschwitz". He devotes many many pages of his memoirs, written shortly before his execution, to homosexuals and why they had to be expunged from society. His views very much reflected the views generally of his colleagues in the SS.
Hope this helps.
Terry
Terry Moore, Professor of German and French, Amarillo College P.O. Box 447, Amarillo, Texas 79178, voice 806-371-5077 fax 806-371-5370
Date: Thu, 2 Jun 1994 16:34:00 CST Reply-To: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> Sender: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> From: JIMMOTT@spss.com Subject: Japanese-Americans in World War II From: Jonathan Morse <JMORSE%UHCCMVS.UHCC.HAWAII.EDU@uicvm.uic.edu>
I'm sorry: I've deleted the original post and I don't remember who sent it or precisely what was being asked for. But:
A lot has been written about California's Japanese-Americans and the "inhuman mistake" that sent them to concentration camps during World War II. Much less, however, has been done with:
--California's Italian-Americans, many of whom were likewise interned;
--the Japanese-American internees in Hawaii, a small and (I believe) carefully selected minority of Hawaii's large Japanese-American population; or
--Canada's Japanese, who were singled out for mistreatment in ways that didn't apply in the United States. American policy, for instance, was to keep interned families together; Canadian policy was to separate them. And Canada's West Coast Japanese weren't allowed to return home until, I believe, 1949.
Incidentally, the phrase "inhuman mistake" comes from the letter of resignation that the first administrator of the American program sent to President Roosevelt after just two months. The administrator was Milton Eisenhower, the general's brother.
Jonathan Morse
Dept. of English, University of Hawaii
Date: Thu, 2 Jun 1994 16:39:00 CST Reply-To: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> Sender: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> From: JIMMOTT@spss.com Subject: Terror under Hitler
From: MKRAIN%ucs.indiana.edu@uicvm.uic.edu
David,
You might try a chapter from Timothy Bushnell, et. al.'s edited volume (1991) on state terrorism and its links to genocide. I'm pretty sure there are a few articles in there which would help, especially one on the development and "overdevelopment" of the SS. The article asks whether terror stabilized or destabilized Hitler's rule, and concludes that because the SS spiraled out of control (of the state) it actually helped to destabilize the regime...
Good luck in your research... let us know how it goes...
-Matt Krain
Dept of Political Science
Indiana University
Bloomington, IN 47405 (USA)
E-Mail: MKRAIN@ucs.indiana.edu
From: JUREK%vaxph.mpi-stuttgart.mpg.de@uicvm.uic.edu
Most probably you know it, but just in case since this book covers your area of study so well:
Author: Bullock, Alan, 1914-. Title: Hitler and Stalin : parallel lives / Alan Bullock. Edition: 1st American ed.
Pub. Info.: New York : Knopf : Distributed by Random House, 1992.
Phy Descript: xviii, 1081 p., [28] p. of plates : ill., maps ; 25 cm.
Notes: Originally published: London : HarperCollins, 1991.
Includes bibliographical references (p. [1035]-1057) and
index.
LC Subject: Hitler-Adolf-1889-1945.
Stalin-Joseph-1879-1953.
Heads-of-state -- Europe -- Biography.
Germany -- History -- 1933-1945.
Soviet-Union -- History -- 1925-1953.
Language: eng
ISBN: 0394586018 : 35.00.
Jerzy Remigioni, Stuttgart
From: "Connelly, William" <wconnelly%ushmm.org@uicvm.uic.edu>
In reply to Mr. Claridge's posting requesting information on
the role and history of the SS to assist him with his paper
comparing the Nazi and Soviet "police states", others will
no doubt refer to works such as _Anatomy of the SS-State_
and other historical works on the SS and Nazi Germany.
I would just like to mention a pair of comparative
statistical studies on the measurable human cost of these
two systems, both by R.J. Rummel. The first, _Democide_,
examines the brutal legacy of the Nazi period, while _Lethal
Politics_ does the same for the Soviets.
Nota Bene for Mr. Claridge: Since I spent a couple of
years in and around St. Andrews, I felt I might save one of
my alma mater a little shoe leather by hytelnetting through
the St. Andrews, Edinburgh and other Scottish University
Library Catalogues, but none seem to have both works.
However, the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh does
have a copy of _Lethal Politics_. The St. Andrews
University librarian may be able to arrange for an
interlibrary loan of this book, and perhaps _Democide_ as
well, from another British library. If this is not the
case, both works are available from Transaction Publishers,
which has an office in London.
With Regards,
|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
| WCONNELLY@USHMM.ORG |
|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
| William Connelly |
| U.S. Holocaust Research Institute Library |
| 100 Raoul Wallenberg Pl., S.W. |
| Washington, D.C. 20024-2150 |
| Voice (202) 488-6109 |
| Fax (202) 479-9726 |
|______________________________________________|
From: "Terry Moore" <RTMOORE%PCAD-ML.ACTX.EDU@uicvm.uic.edu>
Hello, David!
I ran across one work that may be of interest. I will keep an eye out on others.
> I am working on a chapter on Hitler, Stalin and totalitarianism as part of > my PhD on state terrorism. I am having a few problems with the historical > details regarding the development of the security apparat and legal system > under Hitler. More specifically the relationship between the Nazi party > and the state, particularly the role of the SS as a sort of 'symbiosis' of > the two sources of authority. I am surprised at how limited the literature > appears to be on this area. Can anyone provide any suggestions regarding > books and articles, or any other advice?
One work that I found in my own library is "In the Name of the Volk: Political Justice in Hitler's Germany" by H.W. Koch. It should still be in print.
You might also consult William L. Shirer's "Rise and Fall of the Third Reich". He devotes considerable space to the legal system in Nazi Germany.
Will keep an eye out for others.
Hope this helps, and all the best to you and your research.
Terry
Terry Moore, Professor of German and French, Amarillo College P.O. Box 447, Amarillo, Texas 79178, voice 806-371-5077 fax 806-371-5370
Date: Fri, 3 Jun 1994 15:00:00 CST Reply-To: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> Sender: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> From: JIMMOTT@spss.com Subject: Homosexual victimization in the Holocaust
Sender: Alex Sagan <sagan%HUSC.BITNET@uicvm.uic.edu>
This is a response to Dan Rogers post and query:
Thanks for posting the VOA story. Yes, the story is misleading.
Elisheva Shaul, in her article in The Encyclopedia of the Holocaust (I. Gutman, ed.), writes: "Under Nazi rule, tens of thousands of persons were punished on the charge of homosexuality. Thousands of them (some sources put the figure at ten thousand or more, but no precise figure is available) were imprisoned in concentration camps, where they had to wear a pink triangular patch (rosa Winkel). Many of the homosexuals imprisoned in the camps perished there. Shortly before the end of the war, some of them were set free [sic] and drafted into frontline service with the Wehrmacht. This step, of course, violated Nazi principle on the issue." Shaul goes on: "Persecution of homosexuals was restricted to the Reich and the areas annexed to it. There is no evidence of Nazi-instigated drives against homosexuality in the occupied countries."
Unfortunately it is common for jounalists to put together this sort of sloppy story, doing little more than setting up opposing views of a subject. Only a little effort would be required to properly inform VOA listeners about the issues involved. I wonder what the source is for the historical innacuracies in the article. Perhaps the source consists of persons present at the commemoration; it seems to me a journalist must check such a source (call a historian!). Statements are made which are not attributed to anyone and are presented simply as matters of fact. I do not doubt the validity of the commemoration, though its integrity is jeopardized if it involves misinformation.
As for the protesters, Yad VaShem, and the security guards, it would help to know more about their actions. Here I may be demanding a longer story, not just a more accurate one, but the religious and political context of such behavior might be analyzed. I saw on CNN some footage of the protesters disruptions. They (the disruptions) were rather revolting, to tell the truth, a queer (excuse the pun) manifestation of the politicization of sexuality and religion.
As for the number of Jews who were killed by the Nazis as racially-defined Jews, but who also happened to be homosexual, I would offer these thoughts: I see no reason to believe that the article is referring to this number. We do not, of course, actually know what percentage of the general population may be said to be homosexual, even if we can agree on a definition of homosexuality. But your math makes sense if we take the oft-cited (though recently critiqued) estimates for the percentage of homosexuals in the population: around 10 percent would yield a number that is around half a million. So much death--it boggles the mind.
Thanks, again for posting the article. By the way, on what gopher do you find such things?
--Alex Sagan <sagan@husc8.harvard.edu>
From: "Klevan, David G." <dklevan%ushmm.org@uicvm.uic.edu>
At the prompting of Prof. Rogers, I would like to share
this with the rest of the users on the net:
Prof. Rogers,
To my knowledge most reliable sources, including Dr. Klaus
Mueller (gay consultant to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum)
estimate the number of homosexuals imprisoned in the camps
at between 10,000 and 20,000. By in large, these prisoners
were male (there is no documentation of a systematic attempt
to incarcerate lesbians, such as there was for gay men).
Many homosexuals were also imprisoned in prisons (not
concentration camps). Gay men wore the pink triangle in the
camps (not in the outside society, as the VOA article
suggests with its comparison to the yellow star-of-david).
The mortality figure in the camps is believed to be at least
2,200 to 5,000 for the people wearing the pink triangles.
You are correct in surmising that the estimation of hundreds
of thousands distorts the truth. Obviously, there were gays
among those murdered because they were Jewish, but of the
victims of the Nazis it was probably less than ten thousand
murdered in the camps specifically BECAUSE OF THEIR
HOMOSEXUALITY. As many as 63,000 men were convicted of
homosexual offenses in courts from 1935-1945 in Germany.
Interestingly, Nazi thugs frequently raided gay bars, and in
cases that we know of when gays were discovered to also be
Jewish, they were often beaten severely and, I believe,
sometimes killed.
The important thing to remember is that very little research
has been done into the fates of homosexuals in the Holocaust
compared to the research on Jews, Poles, and other groups.
One of the major reasons for this reality is that the
anti-gay law known as paragraph 175 that was revised under
the Nazi regime (it expanded an anti-sodomy law into a law
that made all homosexuals, regardless of their actions,
"enemies of the state") stayed on the books until the
1960s and reflected German society's continuing hostility
and indifference toward the fate of homosexuals.
Homosexuals were never recognized as victims of the Nazis
and risked imprisonment (with their stay in the
concentration camps counting as a previous arrest) if they
came out of the closet to testify. Because of this, it may
be some time before we are able to say with real confidence
that we know exactly what the numbers were for homosexuals
killed by the Nazis and their collaborators. Nonetheless,
the estimates that we have at the moment are probably fairly
accurate.
I hope that this helps to answer your question.
I would like to add a response to Prof. Weckesser's claim
that paragraph 175 legislated murderous actions against
Jews. I assume that he made a typo and meant to say
homosexuals, but even with that granted, it is important to
make a distinction betweeen the policies of systematic
extermination that were implemented in the case of the Jews
and the anti-gay policies. Barabaric as it was, paragraph
175 was not a "final solution" for homosexuals.
David Klevan <dklevan@ushmm.org>
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 3 Jun 1994 14:57:00 CST
Reply-To: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET>
Sender: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET>
From: JIMMOTT@spss.com
Subject: Re: Need help determining fate of family members
From: Joanne Rudof <JOANNER%YaleVM.CIS.Yale.edu@uicvm.uic.edu>
I suggest that the best place toassist in locating relatives lost during the Shoah is the International Tracing Service of the Red Cross. The Holocaust and War Victims Tracing and Information Center has access to recently opened archival recrods and they are very helpful. They are located at the Central maryland Chapter, 4700 Mount Hope Drive, Baltimore, MD 21215-3200, (301) 764-5301 or (800) 848-9277.
Good luck.
Joanne Rudof, Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust
Testimonies, Yale University
From: Romuald Wroblewski onk <Romuald.Wroblewski%onk.ki.se@uicvm.uic.edu>
Dear Ingrid,
I printed out you letter and will put it on the notice-board in Judaica
House in Stockholm. I feel that there is still a chance to finde
relatives. My father met his sister first 1955 on a street in Warszawa
although he was making several attempts to find her through Red Cross.
I feel that may be several of the Wasserman familly from Pinsk are alive.
Regards,
Romuald (Wasserman) Wroblewski
Stockholm
Sweden
Date: Sat, 4 Jun 1994 12:37:00 CST Reply-To: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> Sender: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> From: JIMMOTT@spss.com Subject: Determining fate of family member
From: Ingrid Shafer <FACSHAFERI@mercur.usao.edu>
Apology and Correction:
On May 28 I posted a request for information that might help a friend of mine who is a Holocaust survivor discover the fate of his family. Only today (June 4) I noticed that I had misspelled my own e-mail address which I had placed in parentheses after my name. Hence, there is a good possibility that messages addressed to me were returned by MERCUR, if they were sent not to the address found in the header (correct!) of my message but the one I inserted in the body of my post. I discovered my mistake when I began to wonder about a forwarded message that had initially been rejected by the local Postmaster as undeliverable on account of a "Bad address" and "No such local user." If you posted my message on other lists, would you please send this correction to the same lists. If your mail was returned, please, accept my apologies and resend the material to <facshaferi@mercur.usao.edu>.
A helpful contact in Jerusalem was able to have the lists of the Search Bureau for Missing Relatives searched. There was not a single Polenzweig listed, and the woman at the agency wonders if Leo knows his correct name. So I am now looking for information about possible alternate family names. The name is German and translates into "Branch of the Poles." Could there be a Polish version or spelling of the name? Leo was called Lizer (spelling?) at home.
Once again I add the original request:
Father: Abraham Polenzweig
Mother: Rifka Polenzweig
Sisters: Esther, born 1926
Sesil (pronounced "Cecil"), born 1933
Zosha, born 1936
Brother: Huna, born 1930
Leo, my friend, was born around 1928 or 1929. His family lived at the outskirts of Warsaw where his father and mother owned and operated a general store with goods ranging from soft coal and clothing to flour and salami. He went to public school and Hebrew school, visited with his grandparents in the country, and spent summers in a two-story white vacation house. There was a live-in maid/nanny (his mother worked). They had Catholic friends and employees (his father also owned several teams of horses and a taxi). Then the Germans marched in. For a while, the family hid behind false walls and took to the sewers. Then they were caught. >From Warsaw, they were first sent to Lublin, and then to Auschwitz.
He last saw his mother and two younger sisters walking toward the gas chambers. He last saw his father being marched toward an area where prisoners were shot. He had lost all contact with his brother Huna and older sister Esther when he first arrived in Auschwitz but he never forgot his father's final words: "You will survive."
Please, help me distribute this request.
Never again!
Thank you, and shalom,
Ingrid
(facshaferi@mercur.usao.edu)
Date: Mon, 6 Jun 1994 10:42:00 CST Reply-To: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> Sender: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> From: JIMMOTT@spss.com Subject: Camp Noe, Vichy France
From: Gaston L Schmir <glschm%minerva.cis.yale.edu@uicvm.uic.edu>
In reply to the inquiry by Julian Duffus of April 22, 1994, I cite the following references:
[1] Gret Arnoldsen, Silence, on tue, La Pensee Universelle, Paris,
1981. 278 p.
[2] Eric Malo, Le camp de Noe: des origines a novembre 1942.
Memoire de maitrise, Universite de Toulouse - Le Mirail, 1985. 219 p.
[3] Eric Malo, Le camp de Noe: internement et deportation (fevrier
` 1941 - septembre 1942), ca. 1985. 18 p. Reprinted from
undetermined journal, printed in Auch (France)
[4] Rene S. Kapel, Un rabbin dans la tourmente (1940-1944): dans
les camps d'internement et au sein de l'Organisation Juive de Combat,
Editions du Centre, Paris, 1986. 220 p.
[5] Anne Grynberg, Documents, Le Monde Juif, Centre de
Documentation Juive Contemporaine, Paris, vol 44, October-December 1988, p
167-178
[6] Anne Grynberg, Documents, ibid., vol 45, January-March 1989, p 20-26
[7] Anne Grynberg, Documents extraits du Fonds de la Commission
des Camps, ibid., vol 45, April-June 1989, p 81-87
[8] Eric Malo, Les camps d'internement du Midi de la France 1939-1944,
Bibliotheque Municipale de Toulouse, 1990. 66 p.
Catalogue of an exhibit held in Spring 1990
[9] Anne Grynberg, Les camps de la honte: les internes juifs des
camps francais (1939-1944), Editions La Decouverte, Paris, 1990.
400 p.
[10] Jacques Grandjonc and Theresia Gruntner, eds., Zone d'ombres
1933-1944: exil et internement d'Allemands et d'Autrichiens dans le
sud-est de la France, Editions Alinea et Erca, Aix-en-Provence,
1990. 474 p.
[11] Monique-Lise Cohen and Eric Malo, eds., Les camps du Sud-Ouest
de la France 1939-1944. Exclusion, internement et deportation,
Editions Privat, Toulouse, 1994. 240 p.
Some of these references are only marginally concerned with Noe, but I hope they will be helpful.
Gaston L. Schmir
Date: Mon, 6 Jun 1994 10:51:00 CST Reply-To: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> Sender: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> From: JIMMOTT@spss.com Subject: Cultural life in the camp of Terezin
From: "Martin Holle" <HOLLEM%jura1.jura.uni-mainz.de@uicvm.uic.edu>
Hallo everybody!
I am working on an essay about the cultural life in the concentration
camp of Terezin (near Prague/Czech Republic). I am especially
interested in informations about the Jewish composer Victor Ullmann
and his opera "The emperor of Atlantis" which was written by him in
Terezin but never performed because the composer himself and most of
the artists working on the opera were brought to Auschwitz before.
If you have any idea, where to find informations about him, please
mail me.
My e-mail adress: hollem.jura1.jura.uni-mainz.de
Martin Holle, Mainz (Germany)
Date: Mon, 6 Jun 1994 17:02:00 CST Reply-To: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> Sender: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> From: JIMMOTT@spss.com Subject: Email list for finding lost relatives and reconnecting families
From: bkahn%Kodak.COM@uicvm.uic.edu
>From: Bruce E. Kahn, Imaging Research Labs, Mail 01708, Phone 722-3517
> To my surprise, I learned that Leo had given up trying to
> determine the fate of family members in the late forties while he
> was in the U.S. army. Several attempts had proven futile, and he
> decided to accept that he was the only one left. When I suggested
> I give the Internet a try, he agreed.
>
> I am hoping that someone on one of my lists has access to a
> Holocaust list or some other appropriate resource. Supposedly,
> there are some relatives in Argentina. These are the names and
> approximate dates of birth (spellings of first names are phonetic)
> of his immediate family:
> Father: Abraham Polenzweig > Mother: Rifka Polenzweig > Sisters: Esther, born 1926 > Sesil (pronounced "Cecil"), born 1933 > Zosha, born 1936 > Brother: Huna, born 1930
>
>
> Please, help me distribute this request.
Well, since you asked ... I submit that the best place to look for help in finding lost relatives, and reconnecting families is on the Jewish Genealogy list. The JEWISHGEN conference started on FIDOnet and has been gated between FIDOnet and Internet now for about a year.
JEWISHGEN may be accessed from any commercial service from a mailing list. The internet mailing list is housed on NYSERNET.ORG and welcomes new subscribers. To subscribe to the JEWISHGEN List on Nysernet, one must simply send an email message from their service as follows.
To: listserv@nysernet.org (saying nothing but)
SUBSCRIBE JEWISHGEN Firstname Lastname
All messages posted to this list as well as those posted by Fidonet users will be forwarded to your mailbox at the address from which you sent in your subscription.
Be forwarned, the message base averages between 30-50 messages a day and has caused some subscribers to be overwhelmed with the amount of mail in their personal mailboxes. To offset this situation, the listserver at NYSERNET.ORG does have the MAIL DIGEST feature which we do recommend subscribers to use. This allows a days worth of messages to be consolidated in digest form and sent to you as one message.
After subscribing to the list and after taking care of the housekeeping tasks of changing your PASSWORD, you may change to the Mail Digest feature by sending email as follows:
To: listserv@nysernet.org (saying nothing but)
SET JEWISHGEN Mail Digest
Messages can be posted from you as a subscriber at any time by sending email as follows:
To: jewishgen@israel.nysernet.org
SUBJECT: Please be SPECIFIC!
Body of your message
Please be advised also since this message base is being read by a "mixed bag" of users and read in a variety of "flavors" there are some "rules" we must abide by for the good of the message base. These rules will be sent to you after you have subscribed to the list.
All messages posted to the list will be received by all the list subscribers and will also be gated into FIDONET and read by all those who read and post to JEWISHGEN on hobby BBS's. The same is true in reverse. All those who access FIDONET BBS's throughout the world will also receive all messages posted by subscribers to the internet list.
HERE are some other commands you might want to execute from the LISTSERV@NYSERNET.ORG for future reference. They should be sent individually as follows:
HELP SET (these will tell you the commands for controlling MAIL) HELP (these will tell you the commands for SUBSCRIBING and UNSUBSCRIBING)
If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact us!
Bruce E. Kahn JEWISHGEN co-moderator bkahn@kodak.com
or
Susan E. King Trace!Gateway Computer Graphics Support Group Fidonet 1:106/270 12 Greenway Plaza, Suite 1100 (713)862-6400 Houston, Texas 77046 (713)871-3148 Internet susan.king@trace.cgsg.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Jun 1994 09:19:00 CST Reply-To: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> Sender: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> From: JIMMOTT@spss.com Subject: Wanted: Book on Nazism
From: SCHOCHET@zodiac.rutgers.edu
I am looking for advice and/or help about books to assign in the largeenrollment,
introductory political science I regularly teach.
Inter alia, I always show the one-hour version of _Triumph of the Will_
(my intentions are certainly mixed: I want to call Nazism to the attention of
my students, and also want to talk about "romantic" political ideologies and
the use and manipulation of symbols by and through politics).
The previous readings, in order, include _Antigone_, "Letter from Birmingham
Jail," _Lord of the Flies_, and _The Communist Manifesto_. _Triumph_ is
followed by Rousseau's _Social Contract_, Atwood's _Handmaid's Tale_ and other
scattered materials. It has become increasingly clear to me that I should
assign some READING to go with _Triumph_ rather than rely upon my lectures.
I presume that most of my students will have seen _Schindler's List_ by this
fall (I haven't seen it yet; re-reading the book last summer was quite enough
for now), and I'm looking for something that will convey the everyday and
mundane nature of the Nazi horror the way that the book (and, I am told, the
film) do. I would like them to know that the character who went out to his
balcony and shot a Jew or two every morning for the sheer sport of it was not,
by his own lights, behaving in an extraordinary manner.
I thought of assigning the two _Maus_ books, partially because the comic-book
idiom they employ captures the matter-of-factness of it all with an amazingly
straightforward horror. But then again, do I have my students spend an additional
$20.00 or so for "comics"?
If anyone has any suggestions, I should be most appreciative.
Gordon Schochet Rutgers University
schochet@zodiac.rutgers.edu
Date: Tue, 7 Jun 1994 10:47:00 CST Reply-To: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> Sender: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> From: JIMMOTT@spss.com Subject: Re: Nazi-instigated drives against homosexuality
From: whuber%sadis01.kelly.af.mil@uicvm.uic.edu (WILLIAM L. HUBER - SAA)
>
> Sender: Alex Sagan <sagan%HUSC.BITNET@uicvm.uic.edu>
>
> ........................ There is no evidence of Nazi-instigated drives
> against homosexuality in the occupied countries."
Funny you should mention that. I believe that very issue was addressed in _Mein Kampf_. Hitler felt that homosexuality weakened a nation and since Hitler wanted Germany to be strong the homosexuals had to go. On the other hand they were not touched in other countries because it served the Nazi purpose to keep the population weak and easily dominated.
The son of a high ranking Danish governmental official was picked up in Hamburg in 1940 for participating in homosexual acts. The Nazis used this incident to blackmail the father into causing the Danish Army to stand down and their boarder guards not to interfere with the German invasion. The ploy worked and the son was returned to Denmark unharmed but had the father not done as the Germans specified the son would have been sent to a concentration camp and that detail was spelled out very clearly. I don't have my source material with me but this line of discussion reminded me of this incident. It also points out the political opportunism/terrorism that Hitler excelled in.
Bill Huber / whuber@sadis01.kelly.af.mil
Date: Tue, 7 Jun 1994 10:48:00 CST Reply-To: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> Sender: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> From: JIMMOTT@spss.com Subject: Representing the Wannsee Conference
From: "Daniel E. Rogers" <drogers%jaguar1.usouthal.edu@uicvm.uic.edu>
I have just finished teaching a course on the Holocaust. One essay question on the final exam concerned the Wannsee conference. The students were asked why the conference was necessary, who attended, and what the major results were. During the term, we had read and discussed the minutes of the conference and watched the excellent film, _The Wannsee Conference_.
What I am shocked to find is that the film _became_ the conference for the students. In their exam answers, they refer often to the various positions of the men at the meeting table and almost seem to forget that the screenwriters took a good deal of dramatic license. Granted, the testimony of Adolf Eichmann during his trial added to the screenwriters' knowledge of what happened at the conference, and they based the film in part on his recollections. But when one student wrote about the barking dog disrupting the conference, I began to worry that the film was _too_ powerful (I don't know: DID Eichmann say anything about a barking dog?).
I wonder if anyone else who has used both the minutes and the film has encountered anything similar? Is this anything to worry about? Should the class discuss even further how history can be approached through a variety of means, and how to be critical of sources? During the term we did discuss whether the film or the minutes better represented the "truth" of the Wannsee conference, but without reaching a consensus, of course. Most students, though, preferred the film.
My thanks for any comments.
Dan Rogers
From: "Rebecca Hill" <hillx018%maroon.tc.umn.edu@uicvm.uic.edu>
Hannah Arendt's _Eichmann in Jerusalem_ is always a good choice for the issue of "banality of evil," although I think the _Maus_ books are great and worth every penny. I've seen "Triumph of the Will" in a class in which we'd also read parts of _Mein Kampf_ - which was, for me, a really powerful experience. I must say that "Triumph of the Will" stands oddly juxtaposed to your other assignments. Surely, you don't compare Hitler and Martin Luther King? how do you organize this in your class? I'd be interested to know whether you have seen the new film, "The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl"? Since that just came out, it might be an interesting extra credit assignment for your class.
From: "Froma I. Zeitlin" <FIZ%PUCC@uicvm.uic.edu>
To Gordon Schochet: First of all, I think that Maus is hardly a comic book; it is a unique and remarkable work, of enormous appeal to students. $20 seems to me quite a bargain. But if you want other suggestions, two come to mind: 1. Gitta Sereny, Into That Darkness (it works out from interviews with Franz Stangl in prison. He was the commandant of Sobibor and then Treblinka, having started as an Austrian policeman who got involved in the euthanasia program). But the book is far more than this, bringing in many other witnesses, including Nazis, Jews, his wife etc. and giving more than a glimpse into the workings of Treblinka. The last section, which establishes how the Catholic network in Rome helped him escape the Allied net is also riveting.
2. Ordinary Men by Christopher Browning. the study of one single German reserve police battalion, conscripted into operations of mass slaughter of Jews in Poland, and their education into becoming mass murderers from being, as the title suggests, quite 'ordinary men.' It certainly is a shocker, a quick 'education' for the students, since it's quite short.
From: William Mich Thomas <wmthomas%strauss.udel.edu@uicvm.uic.edu>
2 books from my Ger. Hist class last semester:
Hilberg, Raul. _Perpetraters, Victims, Bystanders: The Jewish
Catastrophe, 1933-1945_. New York: Harper Collins, 1992. 268
pages of text (plus 63 pages of notes).
I thought this a very well written book: quick read, easy to follow, something I think most undergrads would not find "boring."
Kershaw, Ian. _Hitler_. London and New York: Longman, 1991. Part of
_Profiles in Power_ series. Just over 200 pages.
This book is "drier" than Hilberg but deals more with the politics of Hitler & 3rd Reich & Hitler as a politician.
Hope these help.
Will Thomas
University of Delaware
Date: Tue, 7 Jun 1994 15:47:00 CST Reply-To: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> Sender: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> From: JIMMOTT@spss.com Subject: Holocaust & homosexuals
From: pl2%ukc.ac.uk@uicvm.uic.edu
I have followed the above discussion with interest and realise how little I know about what happened to gay men during the Holocaust. I guess there are other list members who feel the same and would appreciate David Klevan's suggestions on articles and books to read.
Date: Tue, 7 Jun 1994 16:59:00 CST
Reply-To: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET>
Sender: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET>
From: JIMMOTT@spss.com
Subject: Re: Email list for finding lost relatives and reconnecting
families
From: KATZSOL%VAX2.CONCORDIA.CA@uicvm.uic.edu
Suggest you also try searching for persons with variants of this name, e.g. Polan, Polansky, Pullan, Pollak, Ellenzweig, etc. -- as name changes and spellings often occur when persons emigrate.
Sol Katz, Concordia University
From holoweb@h-net.msu.edu Thu Aug 22 14:08:30 1996
Date: Thu, 22 Aug 1996 14:07:07 -0400 (EDT)
From: HOLOCAUS Gopherspace <holoweb@h-net.msu.edu>
To: HOLOCAUS Gopherspace <holoweb@h-net.msu.edu>
Subject: log 9406b
>From LISTSERV@UICVM.CC.UIC.EDU Mon Aug 12 22:19:14 1996 Received: from UICVM.UIC.EDU (UICVM.CC.UIC.EDU [128.248.100.50]) by h-net.msu.edu (8.7.1/8.7.1) with SMTP id OAA22646 for <help@H-NET.MSU.EDU>; Mon, 12 Aug 1996 14:54:15 -0400 Message-Id: <199608121854.OAA22646@h-net.msu.edu> Received: from UICVM.CC.UIC.EDU by UICVM.UIC.EDU (IBM VM SMTP V2R2)
with BSMTP id 8801; Mon, 12 Aug 96 13:53:27 CDT Received: from UICVM.UIC.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@UICVM) by UICVM.CC.UIC.EDU (LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with BSMTP id 6004; Mon, 12 Aug 1996 13:53:18 -0500 Date: Mon, 12 Aug 1996 13:53:15 -0500 From: "L-Soft list server at UICVM (1.8b)" <LISTSERV@UICVM.CC.UIC.EDU> Subject: File: "HOLOCAUS LOG9406B" To: H-NET Help <help@H-NET.MSU.EDU>
Date: Wed, 8 Jun 1994 08:32:00 CST Reply-To: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> Sender: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> From: JIMMOTT@spss.com Subject: Terror and Hitler
From: James Costello <jcostello%igc.apc.org@uicvm.uic.edu>
SS ltrTEXTMSWDP@*OV*RZY}To David Claridge, re: Terror under Hitler.
The chapter, *Concentration Camps and Killing Centers* in _Holocaust Literature: A Handbook of Critical, Historical, and Literary Writings_. ed. by Saul Friedman, Greenwood Press (Westport, CT), 1993, (ISBN 0-313-26221-7), Library of Congress call number: D804.3.H35, contains a starting discussion and bibliography on the SS. Helmut KrausnickUs _Anatomy of the SS State_ and Martin BrozatUs, _The German Dictatorship_ are mentioned.
Good luck!
James Costello (jcostello@igc.apc.org)
Date: Wed, 8 Jun 1994 09:25:00 CST Reply-To: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> Sender: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> From: JIMMOTT@spss.com Subject: Origin of the term Holocaust
From: lin collette <BI599128%BROWNVM@uicvm.uic.edu>
I don't recall if this has ever come up in discussion before, and I haven't come up with an answer myself, but does anyone out there know when the term "Holocaust" was first used to describe the extermination of the Jews? Are there any sources that explain the etymology of the term in this sense?
thanks.
lin collette
bi599128@brownvm.brown.edu
Date: Wed, 8 Jun 1994 14:53:00 CST Reply-To: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> Sender: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> From: JIMMOTT@spss.com Subject: Representing the Wannsee Conference
From: "Froma I. Zeitlin" <FIZ%PUCC@uicvm.uic.edu>
Wannsee Conference: I have never used either the minutes of the meeting or the film in the course I teach, but I have seen/read both, and am not surprised that the students should have responded to the film as the 'real' thing. The film was designed to take exactly as much time as the meeting did; I presume it was held in the Wannsee villa itself. On the other hand, I personally found the simulation very jarring and suspected it was not necessarily authentic (including the barking dog), first, because of the actors when one knew the real faces (esp. Heydrich and Eichmann), and then because of the stereotyping of Nazi behavior -- just what one would expect.
From: Jonathan Morse <JMORSE%UHCCMVS.UHCC.HAWAII.EDU@uicvm.uic.edu>
Dan Rogers reports with some anxiety that when he tried to teach the history of the Wannsee Conference with primary documents, supplemented by a modern filmed docudrama, his students wound up regarding the film as somehow "real" in ways that the mere historical record wasn't. Should this, Dan asks, be a matter of concern?
Well, the general phenomenon has caused heavy breathing among theorists of the postmodern. Jean Baudrillard, for instance, has written some interesting things about Disneyland ("Disneyland is presented as imaginary in order to make us believe that the rest is real, when in fact all of Los Angeles and the America surrounding it are no longer real, but of the order of the hyperreal and of simulation"), and his ideas are helping further the current discussion on the H-net American Studies list of Disney's current plans to build an American history theme park in Virginia. The book to explore for an intro (including an intro to Baudrillard) is _A Postmodern Reader_, ed. Joseph Natoli and Linda Hutcheon (Albany: SUNY Press, 1993).
But Dan, for my money the book that best explores the emotional significance of what you've been experiencing is Don DeLillo's novel _White Noise_ (Viking, 1985). And if you're looking for vocational identification, you'll be interested to know that the book's protagonist is a professor of Hitler Studies who teaches, among other things, a course called Advanced Nazism.
Jonathan Morse
Dept. of English, University of Hawaii
From: herb%halcyon.com@uicvm.uic.edu (Herb Effron)
Your point re: "... how history can be approached ... and how to be critical of sources" is well-put and likely central to the success of your course.
My most recent reminder comes from Prof. Bob Keller (Emeritus) of Western Washington University who makes the point emphatically in his Inquiring Mind presentation, "Chief Seattle's Speech: The Fifth Gospel?"
My perspective (as an advisor for Holocaust education) is that, if your students leave with this alone, you will have instilled a beginning insight to search out and understand the broader lessons of the Holocaust.
Thanks.
Herb Effron Herb Effron herb@halcyon.com Seagopher, Inc. for personal mail seattle-usa@halcyon.com
Date: Wed, 8 Jun 1994 16:27:00 CST Reply-To: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> Sender: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> From: JIMMOTT@spss.com Subject: Educational resources on the Holocaust
From: "Connelly, William" <wconnelly%ushmm.org@uicvm.uic.edu>
This is in response to Gordon Schochet's posting requesting
recommendations for materials to include in his curriculum.
This Museum's Gonda Educational Resource Center has
produced some marvelous resource guides for teachers such
as its Annotated Bibliographies of classroom materials, an
Annotated Filmography (which includes those often
hard-to-find SOURCES for the films), etc.
To receive a packet of these materials, send your request
(with a mailing address, please) to:
U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
Educational Resource Center
100 Raoul Wallenberg Pl., S.W.
Washington, D.C. 20024-2150
Or EMail: kbrosius@ushmm.org
With Regards,
|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
| WCONNELLY@USHMM.ORG |
|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
| William Connelly |
| U.S. Holocaust Research Institute Library |
| 100 Raoul Wallenberg Pl., S.W. |
| Washington, D.C. 20024-2150 |
| Voice (202) 488-6109 |
| Fax (202) 479-9726 |
|______________________________________________|
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 8 Jun 1994 19:20:00 CST
Reply-To: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET>
Sender: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET>
From: JIMMOTT@spss.com
Subject: Holocaust Course Syllabi
We now have 5 syllabi from Holocaust Courses on the HOLOCAUS fileserver. To get a copy of all 5, send this command to listserv@uicvm.uic.edu:
get syllabi $package
If anyone else would like to share their syllabi with everyone else on HOLOCAUS, please send it to holocaus@uicvm.uic.edu and I will include it on the fileserver.
Jim Mott
Holocaus moderator
Date: Thu, 9 Jun 1994 11:07:00 CST Reply-To: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> Sender: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> From: JIMMOTT@spss.com Subject: Nazi drives against homosexuals
From: Chris <SIMPSON%american.edu@uicvm.uic.edu>
There is another aspect to this issue that I think deserves attention. That is,_after_the Holocaust persecution of homosexuals became in a certain sense a substitute for open anti-semitism, which had become widely discredited. I have not worked this theory through thoroughly as yet, so no doubt my argument is fuzzy, but I do think there is something to it.
In most early 20th century political anti-Semitism, Judaism was linked with communism in a way that simultaneously "proved" the evil of Judaism and "proved" the existence of a pervasive communist/liberal conspiracy bent on destroying Christian values. Such claims became central to the radical and even moderate rightwing political movements, including religion-based parties such as the Christian Democrats and various pre-war Catholic Action groups. The role of this ideology in drawing collaborators into the work of the Nazis has been well documented.
After the war, this form of anti-semitism grew widely discredited on the moderate right; it did not disappear, certainly, but became a taboo attitude that could not be publicly embraced. Joseph McCarthy, for example, went to some lengths to avoid association with anti-semitic anti-communism, even though by any realistic standard those were his ideological roots. Meanwhile, anti-semitic anti-communism was formally disavowed by Christian Democratic political parties and eventually by the Catholic Church.
The Jew's place in McCarthy's demonology was taken by the homosexual to a very large degree. McCarthy often used queer-baiting to attack his enemies, particularly during his campaigns against the State Department and the Voice of America. He often described political opponents who could not be typecast as secret communists as "lace pantied," not real men, and so on, in contrast to his own self-presentation as "tail gunner Joe." (Not to get too far off the point, but one element in all this was surely the ambiguous role of Roy Cohn and David Schine (sp?), the rumors surrounding McCarthy's bachelorhood, etc. etc. I am not suggesting that McCarthy was actively gay, only that the rumors surrounding his life did play a role in his politics regardless whether they were true or not).
Similarly, rightwing and Christian-right publications to this day regularly explore the purported homosexual-communist conspiracy that is, once again, attacking "Christian" civilization. The comparison of 30's era rhetoric concerning Jewish-communist conspiracies with post-1950 rhetoric concering homosexual-communist conspiracies really is remarkably close in both English and German languages.
On a related point, Hitler's cultural rhetoric concerning "degenerate art" and the supposed corrupting effects of "Jewish" movies, publications, etc., also frequently attempted to link homosexuality and enlightened attitudes about human sexuality in general to purported Jewish-communist conspiracy. The Freud-Jung controversy over sexuality in the human psyche provides many examples of the distinction the Nazis attempted to draw between "Jewish" (i.e., sexual, including homosexual) science and culture and "Aryan" (i.e., heroic, clean, dynamic) science and culture.
Obviously, I am not accepting the Nazis' claims about Jews, homosexuals, Aryans, etc., etc. I am speaking here of how things appeared to believers and bigots.
Anyway, it seems as though the post-Holocaust silence concerning the Nazis' quite systematic effort to suppress male homosexuals, and the publicity given to the myth that homosexuality was tolerated or even encouraged in the SS, needs to be seen in the light of broader cultural trends sparked by the rising autonomy of women, the Cold War, the Communist-Catholic struggle for control of Eastern Europe, and so on. One such trend, I think, was the perceived necessity to re-integrate much of the German power structure and certain cultural trends that had found their logical fulfillment in Nazism back into the fold of western civilization.
That is as far as I can get with it at the moment. I am very interested in any feedback or critique readers here care to offer.
From: "Klevan, David G." <dklevan%ushmm.org@uicvm.uic.edu>
Although there have been several books written on
homosexuals during the Holocaust, there are only a handful
that I know of that are available in English language.
Below are a few recommendations.
Burleigh, Michael and Wolfgang Wipperman. The Racial State:
Germany 1933-1945. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University
Press, 1991.
Heger, Heinz. The Men With the Pink Triangle. Boston:
Alyson, 1980.
Lautmann, Ruediger. "Gay Prisoners in Concentration Camps as
Compared with Jehovah's Witnesses and Political Prisoners"
in Michael Berenbaum, ed., A Mosaic of Victims: Non-Jews
Persecuted and Murdered by the Nazis. New York: New York
University Press, 1990, pp. 200-221.
Plant, Richard. The Pink Triangle: The Nazi War against
Homosexuals. New York: Henry Holt, 1986.
Wolff, Charlotte. Magnus Hirschfeld: A Portrait of a Pioneer
in Sexology. London: Quartet Books, 1986.
A new edition of Heinz Heger's book should be coming out in
the near future with an introduction by Klaus Mueller of the
US Holocaust Memorial Museum. Also, there is a film which
incorporates rare testimony from gays victimized by the
Nazis that is available through the USHMM Bookstore for
around $25. It is called "We were marked with a big 'A'."
The Bookstore phone number is 202/488-6146; fax number is
202/488-0438. Also, the USHMM Education Department is
currently developing an information packet on homosexuals in
the Holocaust which should also be available in the near
future, and hopefully will be loaded into the internet.
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 9 Jun 1994 14:01:00 CST
Reply-To: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET>
Sender: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET>
From: JIMMOTT@spss.com
Subject: Re: Wanted books on Nazism
From: <SBOLKOSK%ca-f1.umd.umich.edu@uicvm.uic.edu>
Gordon, Forgive the repetition to what you have already received, but
if you are looking for a work on Nazism, not exclusively on the
Holocaust, then I think Bracher's *The German Dictatorship* remains
perhaps the most informative and compelling. Franz Neumann's
*Behemoth: The Structure and Practice of National Socialism, 1933-
1944* may be dated but still a significant work on the workings of
the NSDAP in power. Bracher has the advantage of focusing on the
annihilation of the Jews. More recent works, I think, have not
surpassed his.
Sid Bolkosky
UM-Dearborn
From: Nicole J Cunningham <nicolejc%csd4.csd.uwm.edu@uicvm.uic.edu>
Although I did not make the request for books on nazism, I have found everyone's suggestions to be extremely helpful as I am currently planning a course for the fall entitled "Contemporary Representations of the Holocaust." (Actually I'm co-teaching it with Gary Weissman who, as some of you will recognize, has a more active relationship to this list than I do.) At any rate, we will be teaching a wide variety of texts, ranging from survivor narratives and other historical texts to Holocaust (the miniseries) and an episode of the original Star Trek which imagines a planet world in which Hitler won the War. We are also planning to read *Maus* (and now I'm finally at the point I wanted to make!)
In a previous post, Gordon Schochet expressed hesitancy at asking his students to pay $20 for "comic books." Froma Zeitlin, in a subsequent posting, stated that *Maus* was "hardly a comic book." *Maus* is absolutely a comic book *and* it's worth every penny of the $20 (well, books in general are way over-priced but you know what I mean.) *Maus*'s status as a form of popular media should not have to be redefined or denied in order to make it worthy of being taught in the academy. The approach that Gary and I are taking is that (for better or for worse, and we argue about which one it is) popular representations are the way most of the world (ourselves included) understand and remember history and thus taking these texts seriously and teaching students to think critically about them is crucial.
Now, I know this will mess up Jim Mott's attempt to group posts by subject, but I want to change it (the subject) briefly. In a couple of weeks I am going to Poland with my partner's family (which includes a camp survivor). We will be visiting all of the camps and qhettoes (in Poland) where family members were imprisoned. These include Majdanek, Plaszow, Treblinka, Auschwitz/Birkenau as well as Radom, Warsaw, and Krakow ghettoes. Does anyone have any suggestions for me in terms of either reading before I leave or things to look for or see once I'm there? I would appreciate any and all input.
Thanks,
--
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Nicole J. Cunningham email: nicolejc@csd4.csd.uwm.edu Modern Studies voice: 414.223.3070 (h) Dept of English and Comp Lit 414.229.4141 (o)
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
From: Marc1773%aol.com@uicvm.uic.edu
As a student, one of my classes had a required reading list which included Jackson J. Spielvogel's: Hitler and Nazi Germany. As a fond writer of papers on these related topics, I always manage to incorporate some of his ideas and words. It is a masterpiece which is easy to read and neatly divided into thorough chapters. I highly reccommend it.
Date: Thu, 9 Jun 1994 14:47:00 CST Reply-To: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> Sender: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> From: JIMMOTT@spss.com Subject: Representing the Wannsee Conference
From: Chuck Weckesser <71233.677@compuserve.com>
Dear Dan,
As a fellow historian I would strongly advise that your approach to teaching the history of the Holocaust rely, ironically enough, on Ranke's methods, the father of modern history who, as you of course know, strongly emphasized the importance of original, primary source documents.
I agree with your opinion that the film depicting the Wannsee Conference did indeed use a great deal of literary device *BUT ONLY* insofar as what the precise words spoken were.
In other words, the words uttered at Wannsee (delayed incidentially by Pearl Harbor) most assuredly used terminology similar to the dialogue in the film; In short, the utter and complete destruction of European - and possibly even American - Jewry.
What fascinates me is that Eichman and others essentially signed their own death warrants by even keeping minutes of the meeting (as Germans, these bureaucrats could not resist documentation - to have asked a Nazi to avoid documentation would have been akin to asking him cut off his own arm - "efficiency" was/is far too entrenched in the German collective psyche to do otherwise).
Of course, in January 1942 Germany still believed that victory was possible even though the front at Stalingrad was collapsing at the very time the conference commenced.
The Wannsee Conference, in my opinion, is the most important reason that Heydrich earned himself a place in history given the fact that he was executed by Czech partisans less than six months after Wannsee. And for his just execution, the Germans retaliated by literally wiping the town of Lidice (sp?) off the map.
What goes around comes around. I take joy in the fact that Heydrich did not die instantly; instead, he died an agonizing death, the only form of death suitable for such a diabolical, nefarious and murderous individual.
Kind Regards,
Chuck Weckesser
From: SCHENKE%oise.on.ca@uicvm.uic.edu
I am new to the list, but was struck by Daniel Rogers' comments on students' ways of taking up the Wannsee film as opposed to the minutes. Film and print are very different cultural practices and require, I think, the asking of different questions and also different forms of pedagogy. To limit the viewing (and teaching) of a film to questions of its representational `validity' is to miss out on questions of how historical validity is struggled over, how films do their cultural work differently from print, and how the seductions of visual persuasion are built out of the interplay between viewers, producers and social contexts. Wouldn't a better exam question be to ask how the film shapes `its' truth about the conference differently from the minutes and what the implications of this are? Rather than asking which form is `more true'? Or, similarly - not `why the conference?', but `why the film?' and `why the film in this way'? The subtitle, for example, of Anton Kaes' book "From `Heimat' to Hitler" is "the return of history through film". In this case, he's looking at how a selection of German films produce particular practices of remembering (and forgetting), but similar questions apply, I think, to `Wannsee' (even to Schindler's List). If Schindler's List, for example, can be seen by many as a `definitive' rendering of the Holocaust, then why is it surprising that the Wannsee film should have the power to `become' the conference? Isn't the question as to how it `becomes' this way the substance (instead of the problem) of the pedagogy? Or why, for some students, the barking dog comes to be such a memorable and powerful image (rather than whether or not Eichmann actually said anything about this)?
Date: Thu, 9 Jun 1994 19:58:00 CST Reply-To: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> Sender: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> From: JIMMOTT@spss.com Subject: Cultural life in the camp of Terezin
From: Hank.Greenspan@um.cc.umich.edu
re: info on Victor Ullmann, a colleague suggests:
Joza Karas, _Music in Terezin: 1941-5_ (New York: Beaufort Books, 1985).
Date: Sun, 12 Jun 1994 19:08:17 CDT Reply-To: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> Sender: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> From: SBOLKOSK@ca-f1.umd.umich.edu Subject: Re: Representing the Wannsee Conference
Dan, Part of the significance of the Wannsee Conference lies in the
RSHA's assuming full authority and leadership in the "Final
Solution." Those attending the conference included representatives
from the various civil service offices as well as the diplomatic
corps, and the minutes clearly reveal that they acquiesced to the SS
plan. The minutes, then, serve more than the conceit of a German
penchant for documentation, they are written confirmation of the
hierarchical roles assigned to each of the various agencies. As to
the representation, the film probably captures the mood of the
conference, although I think with a bit of heavy-handed overemphasis
of the nonchalance of the proceedings. Students ought to read the
text as well as view the film, but a discussion of how to represent
historical events would seem important. My problem, when I used it
in a large class, was the difficulties of a videotape and sub-titles--
much more mundane. Good luck.
Sid Bolkosky
UM-Dearborn
Date: Sun, 12 Jun 1994 19:11:47 CDT Reply-To: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> Sender: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> From: Dean Shavit <U55287@UICVM.BITNET> Subject: Re: Origin of the term Holocaust
In-Reply-To: Message of Wed, 8 Jun 1994 09:25:00 CST from <JIMMOTT@spss.com>
I do believe Holocaust means "conflagration" or "big fire." It shouldn't be too hard to make the connection from there. The OED says: 1 A sacrifice wholly consumed by fire; a whole burnt offering.
Well, that's pretty self-explanatory.
Date: Tue, 14 Jun 1994 13:37:00 CST Reply-To: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> Sender: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> From: JIMMOTT@spss.com Subject: Need help locating source of Nazi program against Jews
From: "Dr. Sandy Silverburg" <SSILVER%achilles.catawba.edu@uicvm.uic.edu>
I am searching for an English version of the 25 articles of faith formulated by the NSDAP on February 24, 1920 which sets the basis for much of the early Nazi anti-Jewish legislation. Can anyone assist me, please. Thank you.
SRSilverburg
Sanford R. Silverburg (H) 704 633 1702 Department of Political Science (O) 704 637 4397
Catawba College Fax 704 637 4444 Salisbury, NC 28144-2488 email ssilver@achilles.catawba.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Jun 1994 14:34:00 CST Reply-To: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> Sender: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> From: JIMMOTT@spss.com Subject: Origin of the term Holocaust
From: HANFTS%conrad.appstate.edu@uicvm.uic.edu
A long time ago I attended a seminar on the Holocaust conducted by Taul Hilberg and Rabbi Rubenstein (CUNNING OF HISTORY) and I forget which one said the term was based on a Greek term meaning "burned offering."
Sheldon Hanft
Hanfts@Appstate.edu
From: "Connelly, William" <wconnelly%ushmm.org@uicvm.uic.edu>
This is one of those perennial, but always unanswered (or
incompletely answered) questions: Where and when did the
word "Holocaust" come to describe the events which nearly
destroyed the Jews of Europe? I particularly look forward
to reading everyone's input. Here's what I've come across
so far:
There is a short entry in the 4 volume _Encyclopedia of the
Holocaust_ which briefly discusses the origin of the term
Holocaust, its derivation from the Greek for "sacrifice",
explains synonymous terms such as Shoah and Churban (also
spelled Hurban, .hurbn), and also contains a brief
bibliography which cites the Yad Vashem Studies article
on the subject which, though well worth looking at,
gives no mention of a "first appearance" of the term
"Holocaust" in the sense that we on this list
understand it. Fact is, I can personally remember having
read of trench warfare in World War One as having been a
"holocaust" (uncapitalized) in a book published in the 20's.
Since the word has often been used in the past to describe
all manner of fires, catastrophes and battles, it seems to
me that finding the very first incidence of the use of the
word in print to refer to the events which affected the
Jews of Europe might be an interesting bit of sleuthery
worthy of the subscribers to this list...to finally have
some reasonably definitive answer to offer. With this in
mind, I offer the following, still apochryphal, curiosity:
I am told that there is a publication (the title of which I
am still not sure of) which appeared in 1940 or 1941 that
has a photograph (on the cover?) of people carrying torah
scrolls to safety from a synagogue in Paris (or maybe
"French" North Africa?) just before the arrival of the
German occupiers. The caption is said to something like
"...and the holocaust begins..." It is said that this
publication is somewhere in the archives of the Leo Baeck
Institute in New York, but I called there and had a chat
with the librarian a few months ago and she was not aware of
the item. Maybe someone out there will have better luck or
more details. If so, I hope they will send me a copy of the
item.
With Regards,
|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
| WCONNELLY@USHMM.ORG |
|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
| William Connelly |
| U.S. Holocaust Research Institute Library |
| 100 Raoul Wallenberg Pl., S.W. |
| Washington, D.C. 20024-2150 |
| Voice (202) 488-6109 |
| Fax (202) 479-9726 |
|______________________________________________|
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 14 Jun 1994 14:35:00 CST
Reply-To: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET>
Sender: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET>
From: JIMMOTT@spss.com
Subject: Re: Wanted Books on Nazism
From: SBOLKOSK@ca-f1.umd.umich.edu
Nicole (and Gary), Regarding your use of survivor testimonies in your
course: the University of Michigan-Dearborn has now transcribed some
twenty interviews which can be obtained along with the tapes through
interlibrary loan. The UM-Dearborn is now involved in transcribing
and cataloguing these and 145 more interviews to be entered onto
OCLC, an international library network. The tapes (audio, for now)
remain invaluable as the voices are not duplicated by any other
source. Should you (or anyone else) be interested in using these
materials, let me know.
Sid Bolkosky
UM-Dearborn
From holoweb@h-net.msu.edu Thu Aug 22 14:08:36 1996
Date: Thu, 22 Aug 1996 14:07:29 -0400 (EDT)
From: HOLOCAUS Gopherspace <holoweb@h-net.msu.edu>
To: HOLOCAUS Gopherspace <holoweb@h-net.msu.edu>
Subject: log 9406c
>From LISTSERV@UICVM.CC.UIC.EDU Mon Aug 12 22:16:27 1996 Received: from UICVM.UIC.EDU (UICVM-ETH1.CC.UIC.EDU [128.248.2.150]) by h-net.msu.edu (8.7.1/8.7.1) with SMTP id OAA38156 for <help@H-NET.MSU.EDU>; Mon, 12 Aug 1996 14:53:44 -0400 Message-Id: <199608121853.OAA38156@h-net.msu.edu> Received: from UICVM.CC.UIC.EDU by UICVM.UIC.EDU (IBM VM SMTP V2R2)
with BSMTP id 1723; Mon, 12 Aug 96 13:53:22 CDT Received: from UICVM.UIC.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@UICVM) by UICVM.CC.UIC.EDU (LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with BSMTP id 6008; Mon, 12 Aug 1996 13:53:18 -0500 Date: Mon, 12 Aug 1996 13:53:16 -0500 From: "L-Soft list server at UICVM (1.8b)" <LISTSERV@UICVM.CC.UIC.EDU> Subject: File: "HOLOCAUS LOG9406C" To: H-NET Help <help@H-NET.MSU.EDU>
Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1994 08:58:00 CST Reply-To: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> Sender: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> From: JIMMOTT@spss.com Subject: Wannsee conference's timing
From: JUREK%vaxph.mpi-stuttgart.mpg.de@uicvm.uic.edu
Chuck Weckesser <71233.677@compuserve.com> writes:
>Of course, in January 1942 Germany still believed that victory was possible eve
n
>though the front at Stalingrad was collapsing at the very time the conference
>commenced.
The Stalingrad annihilation of von Paulus' army corps happened almost exactly one year _after_ the Wannsee conference (beginning of 1943, not 1942). Early 1942 the Germans found themselves pushed back from Moscow but still full of hope for the future.
>What goes around comes around. I take joy in the fact that Heydrich did not die >instantly; instead, he died an agonizing death, the only form of death suitable >for such a diabolical, nefarious and murderous individual.
The commonly accepted version, I believe, has been that Heydrich died of infection following some minor shrapnel wounds suffered during the explosion of the grenade. I have recently read in the press that this was not accidental since the bomb had been prepared in a secret weapon establishment in Britain and specifically contained some biological agents. Can anybody confirm this?
Also, note that he was killed not for his role in the Holocaust but rather as the Protector of Bohemia and Moravia, or whatever the official title of the head of that Protectorate was.
Regards,
J. Remigioni, Stuttgart
Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1994 12:37:00 CST Reply-To: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> Sender: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> From: JIMMOTT@spss.com Subject: Conference on Working with Holocaust survivors and 2nd Generation
From: USERGB2Q@um.cc.umich.edu
AMCHA, the National Israeli Center for Psychosocial Support of Survivors of the Holocaust and the Second Generation has asked me to post this announcement. A conference on "working with Holocaust survivors and second generation" is going to take place in Jerusalem at the Renaissance Hotel from July 3 - 6. AMCHA's address in Jerusalem is: 23 Hillel St., Jerusalem, Israel 94581. Their fax # is - 972-2-250669. Rhw program sounds very interesting but is too long for me to post here. I'll, however, gladly fax a copy to anyone who wishes me to do so. Thanks, Chava
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 1994 09:25:04 CDT Reply-To: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> Sender: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> From: Jonathan Morse <JMORSE@UHCCMVS.UHCC.HAWAII.EDU> Subject: Representing the Wannsee Conference
A small correction to Mr. or Ms. Schenke's useful post: the title of Anton Kaes's excellent book is actually _From 'Hitler' to 'Heimat': The Return of History as Film_ (Harvard UP, 1989). I suppose the difference between Schenke's "through" and Kaes's "as" is what this thread is all about.
Kaes's title, incidentally, refers in the first instance to Hans-Juergen Syberberg's _Hitler: A Film from Germany_. I haven't seen that film, but I continue to find the screenplay (trans. Joachim Neugroschel; Farrar, Straus, 1982) wonderfully, powerfully disturbing. I should think it would be a useful book to read, Dan Rogers, by way of preparatory meditation next time you plan to show _The Wannsee Conference_.
Jonathan Morse
Dept. of English, University of Hawaii
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 1994 09:25:49 CDT Reply-To: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> Sender: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> From: Harold Marcuse <marcuse@humanitas.ucsb.edu> Subject: vengeful survivors
----------------------------Original message---------------------------- In the 20 June 1994 *Nation*, pp. 878-82 there is a discussion of the politics and misrepresentations involved in the publication of John Sack's *An Eye for an Eye: The Untold Story of Jewish Revenge Against Germans in 1945* (Basic books, 1993). The book was discussed on this list a while ago; the review is by Jon Wiener.
Harold Marcuse internet: marcuse@humanitas.ucsb.edu Dept. of History Tel: (805) 968-6703 (home) Univ. of California 893-2635 (office) Santa Barbara, CA 93106 Fax: -8795 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Jun 1994 09:27:17 CDT Reply-To: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> Sender: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> From: MICHAEL J SCHULDINER <FFMJS@ALASKA.BITNET> Subject: Travel to Conferences
I'm hoping to attend a holocaust conference this year, perhaps
one overseas. I seem to recall hearing of a travel agency (in NY,
I think) that provided discounts for travel to conferences. Does
anyone know of such a travel agency? Does anyone know of any source
of relatively inexpensive airfare to, for example, Israel? We don't
hear of these things up here.
Michael Schuldiner,
University of Alaska
FFMJS@ALASKA
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 1994 09:31:37 CDT Reply-To: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> Sender: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> From: charles gregory fried <f6ri@MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU> Subject: Revisionism
To any and all readers:
A friend of mine recently had a frustrating and disturbing experience with a holocaust revisionist. I append below my friend Sandy's letter. He gave me his permission to do so her on this list, and will be very interested to hear your comments. I think the most important point he makes is that he fears what such people will do to his children, if they ever gain the ear of the innocent, and so he seeks strategies for pre-empting their influence. What are good books or documentaries to read or show to children which won't traumatize them, but which will also educate them to the nature and magnitude of the crime?
If you can, please write to Sandy directly, as well as to this list.
To any and all:
Here is the copy of Sandy's letter regarding revisionism. I should say that I have already recommended Vidal-Naquet's *Assassins of Memory* and Deborah Lipstadt's *Denying the Holocaust*.
Fr: Sandy Petersen <sandyp@idcube.idsoftware.com>
Greg,
This weekend, I had a rather disturbing experience. I was at a (very minor) civil war re-enactment -- most of which, I hasten to assure you, was riotous fun -- and met a man who had made a part-time career of serving as a extra in period films. He showed up for a recent Texas/Mexican war film (I forget the name), for instance, and reported that his next project was to appear in a film to be called AVENGING ANGELS. The title made my ears perk up, and sure enough, it turned out to be a film about so-called "Mormon assassination squads" of the Old West, a slander that I thought no living educated person believed in anymore (the tales of the Mormon assassins were widespread during the 19th century, when Mormons lived mysteriously out in Utah and everyone thought they were something sinister and evil). So that depressed me a little. Now millions of people will see this dreck on nationwide TV (I assume it's a made-for-TV movie, but I suppose it may be a feature film).
Then, just as the meeting was breaking up, I met another fellow, whom I'm happy to report normally musters as a Rebel. This was the first person I've ever met with whom I've had an extended conversation who believed the tales of the Holocaust revisionists. He was firmly convinced that the Holocaust was either (A) exaggerated or (B) completely made up, and was tending towards the latter.
I was thunderstruck, and pointed out the fact that there were literally millions of eyewitnesses to the events. He more-or-less dismissed the eyewitnesses, claiming that "empirical evidence" was better than eyewitness reports. He then asked me if I'd read the Lutz Report (I could have the name spelled wrong) which apparently attacked the concept of the gas chambers in the death camps -- claiming they weren't built properly to work as gas chambers; no sealing around the doors or something. He also named some other reports, none of which I'd read (life being too short to waste my time on horoscopes, network TV, or Holocaust revisionists).
I wasn't defeated in the argument. It was clear that he'd NEVER met anyone who'd read enough about the Holocaust and the war to be able to refute his statements, and he was quite taken aback. Because the guy was a nice mild-mannered man, the argument was nice and mild-mannered. Unfortunately, just when we were both getting ready to muster our big guns (when I feel I'd have decisively struck a blow for the non-revisionist truths), it started to rain, and we had to leave.
So I didn't get to submit my most important proofs of the damn Holocaust. In my frustration, I'm launching them at you. Basically, if there was no Holocaust, what happened to Poland's Jews? If the huge concrete structures in Auschwitz weren't gas chambers, then what were they? What were the crematoriums for? What about the mass graves of shooting victims, each plugged in the back of the head? What happened to the 3 million Russian soldiers taken prisoner in the first year of the war? What happened to the 25-35 million Soviet citizens who vanished during the war?
I actually brought up the subject of the German atrocities in Russia, and his defense was that the Ukrainians had collaborated, so how bad could the Germans be? I pointed out that the Ukrainians had STOPPED collaborating when the Germans showed their true colors.
Anyway, my concern was not so much that this idiot would be able to make his claims stick. My concern was, frankly, for my children. What would happen if this clown or the knaves who'd convinced him had a discussion with, say, a high-school or college kid, or anyone, really, who was less well-read than myself on the subject? His quoting of actual "reports" and nitpicking of tiny details would probably sound pretty convincing to many people, not to mention the fact that it is psychologically far more satisfying to believe that the Germans weren't a nation of atrocity-mongers only a generation ago.
No wonder the watchword is "Remember".
From: Chuck Weckesser <71233.677@compuserve.com>
While visiting (then West) Germany in 1988 I took the train from Munich to Dachau along with several companions. I was struck by the fact that none of us spoke a single word--not one. The camp spoke for itself; if I am not mistaken, Dachau was/is exactly as it was when it was liberated in 1945.
There is a significant difference between Dachau and Polish concentration camps. To the best of my knowledge, the mass murder of Jews did not take place in Germany proper (heaven forbid the sensibilities of the German people should have been upset). I also recall that Dachau was one of the first camps to open (1934
There were never any operational gas chambers at Dachau. Instead, the hostages of Dachau were brutalized on an individual basis. Hangings were common. Disease (especially dysentary) was rampant. Discipline was brutal and photographs remain to this day of Dachau hostages being subjected to the most horrendous torture one can imagine.
Finally, it is important to remember that at the time Dachau opened, Goering was Minister of the Interior and thus responsible for the creation of the first concentration camps. There was no way that Goering could explain away his involvement in the early camps when prosecuted and sentenced to death at Nuremberg; of course, as we all know, Goering took the coward's way out and cheated the hangman by committing suicide the day before his death.
In short, be prepared for powerful emotions. I swear I could smell death everywhere I walked. I was shaking with fright by the time I left.
CJW
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 1994 10:09:57 CDT Reply-To: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> Sender: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> From: Harold Marcuse <marcuse@humanitas.ucsb.edu> Subject: Escaped Nazis
The 5 June 1994 LA Times ran a front page story on the work of
an Argentine group "Project Testimony" which is unearthing lots
of archival material which sheds lights on the paths by which
Nazi perpetrators made it to Argentina, including the institutions
which helped them.
Interesting things about Mengele, for example: entered Arg. on
20 May 1949 w/ Red Cross passport #100,501 under the name Gregor
Helmut; in Nov. 1956 he presented his birth certificate to the
West German Embassy to have his name rectified, after which he
petitioned Frankfurt University to validate his medical degree.
He practiced medicine before going under cover to Brazil, where
he died in 1979.
No contact address is given, but I would guess that an organization
such as the Simon Wiesenthal Foundation might know.
Harold Marcuse internet: marcuse@humanitas.ucsb.edu Dept. of History Tel: (805) 968-6703 (home) Univ. of California 893-2635 (office) Santa Barbara, CA 93106 Fax: -8795 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Jun 1994 10:11:07 CDT Reply-To: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> Sender: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> From: Jonathan Morse <JMORSE@UHCCMVS.UHCC.HAWAII.EDU> Subject: Nazi articles of faith: Sandy Silverburg's query
An English-language summary of the 1920 German Workers' Party (DAP) program, which subsequently became Nazi policy, can be found under "Nazi Party Programme: 25 Points" in _The Third Reich Almanac_, ed. James Taylor and Warren Shaw (World Almanac Books, 1987; originally published in England under the title _A Dictionary of the Third Reich_).
Jonathan Morse
Dept. of English, University of Hawaii
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 1994 10:23:04 CDT Reply-To: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> Sender: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> From: Jim Mott <U15607@UICVM.BITNET> Subject: Holocaust Revisionism From: Jonathan Morse <JMORSE@UHCCMVS.UHCC.HAWAII.EDU>
Last year _The New Yorker_ published a wide-ranging article about Auschwitz which mentioned a curious detail about the secondary literature: one of the European revisionists associated with the Faurisson group had changed his mind when he read a purchase order for Auschwitz which included a large number of shower heads but no pipes to go with them. That was a small victory for simple truth, but what I'm afraid it demonstrates most is that the falsehood we're dealing with isn't simple. Its complexity seems to me to arise from its dual epistemological status. I.e., in English:
Consider a literary example. Old Vladek, in Spiegelman's _Maus_, is a man who has suffered deeply and not recovered. He carefully saves bits of wire he has found on the street, he desperately tries to return a half-eaten box of cereal to the store, and his suspicion and lovelessness have made life hell for both of his wives. On this list a few months ago, someone commented that the artist who created such a character, and made him explicitly Jewish, must be an antisemite. It's easy enough to ridicule such a crudely positivist, but-is-it-good-for-the-Jews reading, and in _The Facts_ Philip Roth has done all that needs to be done along that line. I hope most of us realize that a Jewish hero doesn't absolutely have to resemble Paul Newman in _Exodus_ or Charlton Heston in _The Ten Commandments_. But the simplifying impulse that wants us all to be Anne Franks has its counterpart on the other side, and it too is deeply felt. If you've grown up on Shylock--or, to put it more bluntly, if you've grown up believing that the New Testament is true--then you've been taught to read in a way that you may never be able to unlearn. The fear that reduces every fact to a Jewish term, Elie Wiesel style, is a way of reading the world, and so is the impulse to deny that the Jews of Europe ever lived or ever died. And merely to say "Here, read this" isn't going to change the *way* the text is read.
That said, I'd suggest a look at _"The Good Old Days": The Holocaust as Seen by Its Perpetrators and Bystanders_, ed. Ernst Klee, Willi Dressen, and Volker Riess, trans. Deborah Burnstone (Free Press, 1991). But it's not a book for the sensitive.
Jonathan Morse
Dept. of English, University of Hawaii
To any and all readers, and to Sandy:
"Revisionist" isa strange term- revised from truth to falsehood is hardly a
revision. In any case, your experience regarding the Holocaust
revisionist is certainly consonant with what I've seen in the media, never
having had the dubious pleasure of conversing with one of them. They are
often well-prepared to argue their case (perhaps well-rehearsed is a better
description). The concern you express at the end about exposure of one's
children to these characters is a real one. Hhere in Canada, we've had
two such cases. One of them, a notorious anti-Semite in New Brunswick, is
a teacher who has never brought his beliefs into the classroom - but the
students know and Jewish kids have had to sit there knowing about his
extracurricular activity. His status is in doubt at present. The other
was a teacher who actually taught this peculiar world view to his classes
(in rural Alberta). Apart from Holocaust denial, he also taught of the
international Jewish conspiracy, the evil teachings of the Talmud and other
such gems of wisdom. Kids were not assigned standard textbooks because, in
his words, "all standard history is censored" (by you know who). Jews
assasinated Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt, carreid out the RUssian
REvolution, started both World Wars, and created both communism and modern
capitalism, all linked to the "Jewish-Illuminati" sonspiracy. One child
received 85% for an essay in which she wrote, "The Jews believe in violnece
and revolution to gain their end while Christians believe in serving with
compassion for each other. They live by the bible and Jews by the Talmud
where evil acts are encouraged". The fascinating fact: he did this for
almost thirteen years, with the full knowledge of the community ("well, we
don't relly believe all that buit is is a free country and besides he is a
good teacher and such a nice guy too- in fact, he was mayor for a
while...."). Of course, no Jews live in this small community. Finally a
courageous housewife blew the whistle on him and shortly thereafter the
school board ended his teaching career (he's now repairing automobiles in
case anyone has a car troubles in Eckville, Alberta). The case is
documented in a book by David Bercuson and Douglas Wertheimer, entitled "A
Trust Betrayed" (Doubleday, 1985). A fascinating story of how nice people
tolerate evil...sound familiar?
From: Richard Rubenstein <rrubenst@garnet.acns.fsu.edu>
I have just read Sandy Petersen's letter. I may be wrong but when someone is as resistant to the evidence of the Holocaust as the man she describes, I have the feeling that something in him wants to revive all that the swastika stands for. Deborah Lipstadt is correct when she writes that the real objective of the deniers is to take the stench out of Auschwitz to prepare for a return of National Socialism as a "respectable" political option in Germany.
Richard L. Rubenstein
Florida State University
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 1994 10:29:03 CDT Reply-To: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> Sender: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> From: Jim Mott <U15607@UICVM.BITNET> Subject: Origin of the term Holocaust
From: marcuse@humanitas.ucsb.edu (Harold Marcuse)
etymology of sorts by Leon Jick in the Spring 1986 *Brandeis
Review*, which originally appeared in the 1982 *Yad Vashem
Bulletin*.
I know that I read a more detailed discussion by Sybil Milton,
but I forget where -- perhaps in her 1986 essay in *Holocaust
and Genocide Studies* -- but she would know best.
H. Marcuse
On the term 'holocaust.' It indeed is a Greek word, meaning "wholly burned," and is the Septuagint's translation of the Hebrew sacrifice "ola." The two terms are not synonymous, since "ola" signifies a sacrifice whose smoke 'rises' (=ola), i.e., the afterproduct, while 'holocaust' refers to the process/result (consumed by fire). Neither were the names that Jews gave to the Nazi extermination process during the war, when either 'hurb'n,' more precisely, 'die dritte hurb'n' (the term used for the two destructions of the temple, with this event being the third) and Shoah, meaning annihilation (a word taken from the prophets, e.g., Isaiah 6.11, 10.3, 47.11). The search for the first use of 'holocaust' in the Nazi context yields different results. see e.g., James Young (Writing and Rewriting the Holocaust) 200, n. 8. There are many who detest the use of the term 'Holocaust' on the grounds that its origins as a religious sacrifice implies some submerged theological justification of 'sacrifice,' particularly in a Christian context. Even worse, to some extent, is the fact that an offering was generally wholly burned in Hebrew sacrificial practice because it was a sin offering to atone for some transgresssion. Fortunately, most people neither know the derivation of the word or its more specific meanings, but a certain current in Orthodox Jewish thinking can be detected, both then and now, which suggests the Jews were punished for their sins (and in particular, assimilation). On the other hand, Holocaust itself (with a capital H) has stuck, I think, because its etymology is painfully apt: the idea of total destruction and through burning, which condenses the Nazi style of extermination into a memorable sign. In other words, while 'holocaust' has been and is being used in a figurative sense for any mass disaster, it is horribly literal in the case of the Shoah. At the same time, now that Holocaust has come to signify this single event, it is borrowed metaphorically, with all the emotional baggage it carries, for other events, as we well know.
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 1994 10:33:16 CDT Reply-To: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> Sender: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> From: Joanne <JOANNER@YaleVM.CIS.Yale.edu> Organization: Yale University Subject: Re: Cultural life in the camp of Terezin
In-Reply-To: Message of Mon, 6 Jun 1994 10:51:00 CST from <JIMMOTT@spss.com>
We have several testimonies of people who were in Terezin and participated in o pera performances or attended them. We also have the testimony of Joza Karas w hose book was suggested earlier.
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 1994 12:27:32 CDT Reply-To: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> Sender: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> From: William Mich Thomas <wmthomas@strauss.udel.edu> Subject: Re: Need help locating source of Nazi program against Jews
In-Reply-To: <199406142113.RAA09117@strauss.udel.edu>
You might try:
Matheson, Peter, ed. _The Third Reich and the Christian Churches_.
Grand Rapids, MI, 1981.
the Appendixes of Conway, John S. _The Nazi Persecution of the Churches,
1933-1945_. New York, 1968.
I'm not sure whether they list the entire program or just excerpts.
Hope these help,
Will Thomas
U of Delaware
wmthomas@strauss.udel.edu
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 1994 12:29:26 CDT Reply-To: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> Sender: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> From: Jim Cerny <J_CERNY@UNHH.UNH.EDU> Subject: US Holocaust Museum developing a WWW server.
In the computer trade publication _Network World_, June 13, 1994, pp. 1 ff., there is a report that the US Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) is developing a World Wide Web (WWW) server so it can make some of its resources available to the Internet community. They write:
"Beyond the Learning Center, Kramer [director of technical services at the Museum] said the museum is planning this summer to publicize the address of its existing WWW server to give Internet users direct access to museum resources. The museum uses a dedicated Unix-based machine running Mosaic as an Internet server." [p. 85]
To access WWW servers, a HOLOCAUS subscriber will need a graphical windowing terminal, with an Ethernet connection, and with a suitable client program such as Mosaic. Mosaic is available at no cost for common windowing platforms such as Unix workstations, Macintoshes, and Microsoft Windows PCs. If you have a dial-up connection to the Internet it is probably not practical to try to access a WWW server, though there is software to support Ethernet over dial-up (SLIP and PPP). WWW servers are usu. described as hypertext-based and include lots of graphics, so line speed becomes important in downloading images that typically run to 50K bytes or more. There is a non-graphical client for WWW access, called Lynx, that just assumes VT100 terminal emulation and does not attempt to display graphics.
If all of these acronyms are unfamiliar to you, then odds are you do not have WWW access at your fingertips. For the subset of subscribers who do have WWW access, I did some Internet detective work to figure out the URL for the Museum's server-in-progress
http://www.ushmm.org/home.html
There is not a lot there yet, but it looks as though it will be very
good.
Jim Cerny, Geography Dept., Univ. N.H.
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 1994 12:51:00 CST Reply-To: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> Sender: Holocaust List <HOLOCAUS@UICVM.BITNET> From: JIMMOTT@spss.com Subject: Re: Visiting Dachau
From: SBOLKOSK@ca-f1.umd.umich.edu
Chuck, I, too, visited Dachau in 1988 as a guest of the government
(another story). The original barracks were levelled directly after
the war and one "model" barrack was constructed. The museum and the
monument were later additions, as were the three chapels. We arrived
late and were invited by the director to stay after hours, so my
publisher and I wandered the camp alone. There was one gas chamber,
never used, once sabotaged, which connects to the creamtorium. The
director took us outside of that austere building and pushed her foot
into the earth about six inches. She came to ashes and told us the
earth was still saturated with ashes. One of the more striking
things to me about that visit was the sign on the outskirts of the
town: "Welcome to Dachau, 1500 years old," written in fraktur. I
suspect that explains much of the resentment of the residents of the
village of Dachau--who has ever heard of Dachau and associates it
with anything but the camp which, by the way opened in March, 1933
primarily for political prisoners and homosexuals, opponents or
potential opponents of the NSDAP. It became a repository for Jews as
the death marches took place in 1945, overcrowded, ridden with
disease, filth and death. When I was there, the parking lot was full
of school buses from all over West Germany, part of the process of
Holocaust education. The museum, I thought, was excellent as was the
staff.
Sid Bolkosky
UM-Dearborn
From: osinski%chtm.eece.unm.edu@uicvm.uic.edu (Marek Osinski)
Chuck Weckesser <71233.677@compuserve.com> wrote:
>There is a significant difference between Dachau and Polish concentration >camps.
I presume this was not intentional, but the phrase "Polish concentration camps" is highly offensive to Poles and historically misleading. The correct term should be: "concentration camps in Nazi-occupied Poland". I would very much appreciate if this correection was posted to the HOLOCAUS list.
Best regards,
Marek Osinski
From: "Froma I. Zeitlin" <FIZ%PUCC@uicvm.uic.edu>
Having visited Dachau myself, allow me to make some minor corrections. Strictly speaking, the camp is not quite what it was when it was in use. Because of epidemics, all the barracks had to be burned down. One was reerected for purposes of display and only the foundations of the others are there. There is a gas chamber at Dachau; it was built but never used. It is adjacent to the crematoria. This section, including the execution place, is now veiled from view through heavy plantings, which are designed to lead the visitor into this area. The SS headquarters are now the museum. There are also large memorials, one Catholic, one Evangelical, one Jewish (and behind these is the Carmelite convent). I should add that I was there on a rainy day in May, so the air was very humid. When I came to the crematoria, there was a terrible sickly smell. All those around me were holding handkerchiefs before their noses. I find it hard to believe what we all immediately suspected -- after 45 years???
From: William Mich Thomas <wmthomas%strauss.udel.edu@uicvm.uic.edu>
> While visiting (then West) Germany in 1988 I took the train from Munich to
> Dachau along with several companions. I was struck by the fact that none of us
> spoke a single word--not one.
I have gone to Dachau three times (when I was 14, 18, and 21) and each
time it was the same experience for me. It is so somber. Visitors
hardly say a word and if they did, it was in a whisper [most visitors--I was
rather annoyed at some of my group the last time I went because they were
chatting away and laughing even after walking through the entrance]. It
seemed to me as if I was walking on hallowed ground. It is an utterly
disturbing and depressing place to visit, but I would go there again if I
had the chance.
I just wonder if the sign, which was standing near the main entrance the
last time I visited, is still there--it was asking people to also go
visit the quaint little village of Dachau itself.
> The camp spoke for itself; if I am not mistaken, > Dachau was/is exactly as it was when it was liberated in 1945. _Victory in Europe: D-Day to Berlin_ has some interesting footage of Dachau taken almost immediately after its liberation. The documenatry itself is excerpts from George Stevens', Hollywood producer filming the war for the US govt., "home" movies. What is particularly interesting about the footage [and why I think it might be of use to Sandy] is that it's all in color. Example: frozen, snow-covered bodies in railroad cars.
> There is a significant difference between Dachau and Polish con- > centration camps. To the best of my knowledge, the mass murder of Jews > did not take place in Germany proper (heaven forbid the sensibilities > of the German people should have been upset). Precisely!
> I also recall that Dachau was one of the first camps to open (1934 > It opened in March 1933.
Will Thomas
U of DE
wmthomas@strauss.udel.edu
From: Devon Miller-Duggan <dmd%bach.udel.edu@uicvm.uic.edu>
In reply to Chuck Weckesser"s message about visiting Dachau: I also found my visit there very important. I saw it in 1978, when my husband and I were living in Germany during his first trip funded by the Humboldt Stiftung. We went to Munich to visit the woman he had lived with while doing dissertation research ten years before, a