On the way home, I had the opportunity to do something I don’t normally do. I had the opportunity to sit and read a book from cover-to-cover in one sitting. During my flight home, I read the book Sarah’s Key. I highly recommend it; it was the type of book that you wish had another hundred pages because you just aren’t ready for the book to be over.
In a way, that was the perfect book to read on what was nearly a perfect learning experience. In the book, the main character is a journalist who is told to write about an event that occurred during the Holocaust. In learning about the event for her article, she develops a personal connection with one family that was rounded up during the event. In the process of learning about this family (specifically the young girl Sarah), she learns about herself.
My trip to Europe has taught me in the same way. I went on the trip wanting to learn more about WWII and the Holocaust, and what I came away with from the trip was a plethora of little stories that attach a human face to a major historical event. In my eyes, these little stories are the important history. They demonstrate humanity at its best and worst, and they provide us with an opportunity to think about our own actions and how they influence others. I feel deeply connected to a couple individuals, people whose stories aren’t usually told in most history books.
By having the opportunity to read and reflect on documents, visit museums and see artifacts, and view former ghettos and camps, a tragically beautiful mosaic of life emerges. The effects of World War II run deep and are glaringly apparent even today. Every place has its share of stories that are filled with both hope and sorrow. My goal is to take these stories and share them with my students, not so they just remember what happened, but so they can prevent similar tragedies in the future.
In the meantime, this trip has just begun the journey. I’ve made friends and contacts that will lead me to new insights and experiences as well as unlock doors for students that I teach. I cannot wait to share my experiences with students; I am certain they will be as captivated as I was.
A special thanks to the Chicago Foundation for Education for funding such a wonderful experience and my wonderful colleagues who took some time from vacation to follow my trip. I am blessed to work with such a wonderful organization and talented peers.
Warmly,
Brandon
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
The Jewish Museum and Dachau Concentration Camp
Yesterday was a day filled with learning. Since museums are closed on Mondays, I had to fit two very big learning experiences into one day. In order to have three full hours at the Jewish Museum, I needed to arrive when they opened at ten and leave at one so that I would be able to make the Dachau tour. It was really a whirlwind pace.
The Jewish Museum: This place disappointed me in some respects. It had three floors of exhibits. The top two floors housed contemporary art that I honestly couldn’t explain if my life depended on it. There was one photograph that did resonate with me on the second floor. I wish I could have snapped a picture of it, but they were guarding the place like hawks (especially since I was the only one in the museum). It was a picture of three sisters in their sixties or seventies. Their gaze faced the viewer, and each had their sleeved rolled up which revealed their tattooed numbers. I spent about ten minutes looking at the photo; it was very powerful. The strength and determination of the three women really came through in the picture.
The bottom floor contained the permanent collection of the museum. One piece made a lasting impression on me. The piece was part of an exhibit in which one could place markers on a map of Munich and a picture would light up on a board that would illustrate the information on the marker. Anyway, the train station across from my hotel was on the board. This is the same train station that I have been going to daily to eat and have Starbucks (and use their free internet).
It turns out that the station was used for two purposes that relate to the Holocaust and WWII. The first use of the station was to transport prisoners en route to Dachau. The station was where they started their journey to the camp. The other important purpose the train station served was that it was one of the sites of the Kinder transport. The Kinder transport was an effort to save Jewish children by sending them to host countries. In most scenarios, parents were putting their kids on these trains not knowing if they would ever see them again. The picture that lit up when I placed the marker on the map was of three small children hanging out the window of a train. Their faces were filled with terror.
Sitting in the train station right now, I can picture families being split. I can imagine parents running down the platform fearing (and perhaps even knowing) that they will never see their children again.
Dachau Concentration Camp: The camp is situated right outside of the city. It is not as massive as Auschwitz, but it is equally powerful. From a learning standpoint, Dachau allows much more access than Auschwitz (which I greatly appreciated). I was able to take some really powerful photos that I will be able to use when I teach Night. A total of 206,206 prisoners passed through the camp while in was in operation; over 42,000 people were killed at the camp. It was the only camp that was open the entire twelve years of the Nazi regime.
This was a difficult experience. I thought that it would be easier walking into the camp after having been to Auschwitz, but it wasn’t. I feel tremendously blessed to have had the opportunity to go to the camps, but I don’t think I ever want to go back in one again. The experience is too overwhelming. Thankfully I was able to document the experience and will be able to share it with students.
The Jewish Museum: This place disappointed me in some respects. It had three floors of exhibits. The top two floors housed contemporary art that I honestly couldn’t explain if my life depended on it. There was one photograph that did resonate with me on the second floor. I wish I could have snapped a picture of it, but they were guarding the place like hawks (especially since I was the only one in the museum). It was a picture of three sisters in their sixties or seventies. Their gaze faced the viewer, and each had their sleeved rolled up which revealed their tattooed numbers. I spent about ten minutes looking at the photo; it was very powerful. The strength and determination of the three women really came through in the picture.
The bottom floor contained the permanent collection of the museum. One piece made a lasting impression on me. The piece was part of an exhibit in which one could place markers on a map of Munich and a picture would light up on a board that would illustrate the information on the marker. Anyway, the train station across from my hotel was on the board. This is the same train station that I have been going to daily to eat and have Starbucks (and use their free internet).
It turns out that the station was used for two purposes that relate to the Holocaust and WWII. The first use of the station was to transport prisoners en route to Dachau. The station was where they started their journey to the camp. The other important purpose the train station served was that it was one of the sites of the Kinder transport. The Kinder transport was an effort to save Jewish children by sending them to host countries. In most scenarios, parents were putting their kids on these trains not knowing if they would ever see them again. The picture that lit up when I placed the marker on the map was of three small children hanging out the window of a train. Their faces were filled with terror.
Sitting in the train station right now, I can picture families being split. I can imagine parents running down the platform fearing (and perhaps even knowing) that they will never see their children again.
Dachau Concentration Camp: The camp is situated right outside of the city. It is not as massive as Auschwitz, but it is equally powerful. From a learning standpoint, Dachau allows much more access than Auschwitz (which I greatly appreciated). I was able to take some really powerful photos that I will be able to use when I teach Night. A total of 206,206 prisoners passed through the camp while in was in operation; over 42,000 people were killed at the camp. It was the only camp that was open the entire twelve years of the Nazi regime.
This was a difficult experience. I thought that it would be easier walking into the camp after having been to Auschwitz, but it wasn’t. I feel tremendously blessed to have had the opportunity to go to the camps, but I don’t think I ever want to go back in one again. The experience is too overwhelming. Thankfully I was able to document the experience and will be able to share it with students.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Munich Resistance
Not everyone in Nazi Germany were bystanders or supporters of the Nazis. There were some daring resistors who saw what Hitler was doing and decided to act. Even though Munich was the birthplace of Nazism, these people worked to undermine the Nazis and some ended up losing their lives because of it.
Today, Munich is exceptionally proud of these individuals because their actions support the idea that not everyone in Munich fell in love with Hitler’s ideas and actions. Here are three examples of resistors in Munich:
White Rose- Near the University of Munich stands a memorial with stones (which are permanent and do not wither like a flower- a typical Jewish custom). The memorial is there to commemorate six students at the university who created leaflets that explained the crimes the Nazis were engaged in and how the Nazi regime operated. They had to type out each copy; they had no printing press. The group managed to make six editions and delivered them despite heavy Gestapo presence in the area. Ultimately they were caught dumping leaflets out in the university by a janitor, who informed the dean, who in turn informed the Gestapo. For their actions, they were tortured and guillotined (with their heads forced to look up at the blade). Once their heads were removed, they were displayed to discourage individuals from writing against Hitler.
Their actions had major effects though. Because of their writing, many German towns gave up when they saw the Allies instead of fighting. The British found a set of the leaflets, made copies of them, and distributed them throughout Germany. As a result, their writing reached hundreds of thousands of people.
Johann Georg Elser-Johann Georg Elser tried to kill Hitler in 1939 and died in Dachau. He was a carpenter who heard Hitler’s message and decided that he needed to be stopped. He thought of a plan to kill Hitler that nearly worked. He knew that Hitler returned to Munich every year to reenact the speech that he gave during the Beer Hall Putsch. Hitler would come back and give the speech during the same day and at the same time. He decided that he would use a timed bomb to kill Hitler. In order to work on his plan, he managed to get locked in the Burgerbrau Beer Cellar several nights after closing to work on hollowing out a pillar to plant a bomb. His plan would have worked had Hitler’s timing been slightly off. Hitler disliked flying in fog. One of his aides informed him that fog was rolling in, and it would be best if he finished slightly earlier to fly back to Berlin as soon as possible. Thirteen minutes after Hitler finished speaking, the building exploded. Had Hitler stuck to the scripted time, he would have been dead and history might be different.
Elser was caught trying to leave the country through Switzerland. He would have gotten away, but he was entering the country illegally and when they searched him they found pictures and blueprints from the building. This gave him away. He was sent to Dachau and tortured. Nazis thought that he was part of a larger plot to kill Hitler and that a simple man without an education couldn’t have acted alone. He fed into this idea by suggesting at times that there were more people involved only to rescind what he said later. He was killed just before the end of the war.
Dodgers’ Alley-The gold marking on the street is a path that many people in Munich used to take to avoid having to solute to a plaque that stood on the side of the building (see the picture of the darkened stone where the plaque once stood). Individuals who were caught walking through the alley without a justifiable reason three times were sent to Dachau for insubordination. If you walked by the plaque without saluting, the guards standing next to the plaque would beat you to the point of death.
Today, if you get caught doing the salute anywhere in Germany, you are subject to prison time and a heavy fine. Foreigners are subject to a heavy fine and being permanently banned from entering Germany again.
Today, Munich is exceptionally proud of these individuals because their actions support the idea that not everyone in Munich fell in love with Hitler’s ideas and actions. Here are three examples of resistors in Munich:
White Rose- Near the University of Munich stands a memorial with stones (which are permanent and do not wither like a flower- a typical Jewish custom). The memorial is there to commemorate six students at the university who created leaflets that explained the crimes the Nazis were engaged in and how the Nazi regime operated. They had to type out each copy; they had no printing press. The group managed to make six editions and delivered them despite heavy Gestapo presence in the area. Ultimately they were caught dumping leaflets out in the university by a janitor, who informed the dean, who in turn informed the Gestapo. For their actions, they were tortured and guillotined (with their heads forced to look up at the blade). Once their heads were removed, they were displayed to discourage individuals from writing against Hitler.
Their actions had major effects though. Because of their writing, many German towns gave up when they saw the Allies instead of fighting. The British found a set of the leaflets, made copies of them, and distributed them throughout Germany. As a result, their writing reached hundreds of thousands of people.
Johann Georg Elser-Johann Georg Elser tried to kill Hitler in 1939 and died in Dachau. He was a carpenter who heard Hitler’s message and decided that he needed to be stopped. He thought of a plan to kill Hitler that nearly worked. He knew that Hitler returned to Munich every year to reenact the speech that he gave during the Beer Hall Putsch. Hitler would come back and give the speech during the same day and at the same time. He decided that he would use a timed bomb to kill Hitler. In order to work on his plan, he managed to get locked in the Burgerbrau Beer Cellar several nights after closing to work on hollowing out a pillar to plant a bomb. His plan would have worked had Hitler’s timing been slightly off. Hitler disliked flying in fog. One of his aides informed him that fog was rolling in, and it would be best if he finished slightly earlier to fly back to Berlin as soon as possible. Thirteen minutes after Hitler finished speaking, the building exploded. Had Hitler stuck to the scripted time, he would have been dead and history might be different.
Elser was caught trying to leave the country through Switzerland. He would have gotten away, but he was entering the country illegally and when they searched him they found pictures and blueprints from the building. This gave him away. He was sent to Dachau and tortured. Nazis thought that he was part of a larger plot to kill Hitler and that a simple man without an education couldn’t have acted alone. He fed into this idea by suggesting at times that there were more people involved only to rescind what he said later. He was killed just before the end of the war.
Dodgers’ Alley-The gold marking on the street is a path that many people in Munich used to take to avoid having to solute to a plaque that stood on the side of the building (see the picture of the darkened stone where the plaque once stood). Individuals who were caught walking through the alley without a justifiable reason three times were sent to Dachau for insubordination. If you walked by the plaque without saluting, the guards standing next to the plaque would beat you to the point of death.
Today, if you get caught doing the salute anywhere in Germany, you are subject to prison time and a heavy fine. Foreigners are subject to a heavy fine and being permanently banned from entering Germany again.
Monday, July 12, 2010
Munich, Nazism, and Vergangebheitsbewaltigung (translation: coming to terms with the past)
After an uneventful flight from Berlin to Munich, I had the opportunity to take Munich’s train to my hotel. Luckily, my hotel was just outside of a train station. I couldn’t have planned it any better. I decided to go for a walk and I snapped pictures of things that intrigued me. I didn’t whip out my guidebook or ask about what things meant; I just enjoyed the scenery. I slept exceptionally well last night after my walk.
Today I went for a walking tour that focused on the Third Reich. It was incredibly interesting. Hitler constantly referred to Munich as the birthplace of Nazism. From 1920 to 1933, the majority of Nazi activities and movements were in Munich. Hitler came to Munich after he received a draft notice to fight in Austria. He loved Munich and visited often.
In 1920, he went to a National Socialist meeting in a beer hall as a spy, and he ended up interrupting the meeting and gaining the attention of the party’s leader. The government allowed him to join the party, thinking it would be good to have someone working on the inside. After developing a following in the party, he ended up attracting larger and larger audiences. Fairly soon, he had to move to the Hofbrauhaus to have a building that was large enough to accommodate the size crowd he was drawing to listen to his speeches.
The Hofbrauhaus still exists; I had dinner there one night. If one looks closely at the ceiling, it is possible to still faintly see the swastikas painted on the ceiling of the hall.
Once he thought he had a sizable following, he attempted to overthrow the government of Munich and move on from there to Berlin. This did not work out; his revolution resulted in him fleeing the city by hijacking an ambulance (which he later claimed was to save an Aryan girl whose parents were in the city for a Nazi rally) and hiding at a friend’s basement just outside of Munich.
After his failed revolution, Hitler was tried in a kangaroo court that allowed him ample time to share his political views and share his propaganda. He was jailed very comfortably (he had his own personal secretary in Rudolph Hess to dictate Mien Kamph; he received three vegetarian meals daily; he got lessons in government and politics, and he was allowed to receive guests daily). He realized from this time that he had to gain power through “democratic” means, or else he would always remain at the fringe of German politics. He managed to do this through the Enabling Act of 1933. From that point on, most of the important Nazi events are in Berlin.
Munich views itself as a city that was liberated at the end of the war. The memorial below indicates this feeling. Did you notice the date? It is April 30, 1945 (the day Hitler took his own life and the Americans entered Munich).
Munich is not nearly as open about WWII as Berlin. Berlin has the huge Holocaust Memorial and every building has a marker explaining the significance it had during the war years (not many survived the bombing raids). Munich has a lot of small memorials that are not marked on maps. One really has to do a lot of research to find them and read about them to understand them
The tour guide mentioned that as long as the generation that lived during the war and their children are alive, the war will remain a difficult issue to discuss. He said that the generation that lived during the WWII were too busy trying to rebuild their lives after the war that they just wanted to ignore what happened, or as the tour guide put it, “sweep it under the rug.” Their kids (people born in the 60’s and 70’s) wanted to discuss what happened to ensure that it never happens again. They have gone to great lengths to teach their kids about the events of the war and have been very instrumental in getting a lot of the small memorials built around the city.
A perfect example of the generational differences regarding memory can be found in the eternal flame memorial. It was built at the end of the 1970’s after many individuals called for a memorial for the victims to be erected, yet the wartime generation did not want to spend the money to have the flame lit 24 hours days a day and recommended that the flame have hours in which it was not on. I found this fact to be very interesting and illustrative of what the tour guide shared about the feelings of the people of Munich.
Today I went for a walking tour that focused on the Third Reich. It was incredibly interesting. Hitler constantly referred to Munich as the birthplace of Nazism. From 1920 to 1933, the majority of Nazi activities and movements were in Munich. Hitler came to Munich after he received a draft notice to fight in Austria. He loved Munich and visited often.
In 1920, he went to a National Socialist meeting in a beer hall as a spy, and he ended up interrupting the meeting and gaining the attention of the party’s leader. The government allowed him to join the party, thinking it would be good to have someone working on the inside. After developing a following in the party, he ended up attracting larger and larger audiences. Fairly soon, he had to move to the Hofbrauhaus to have a building that was large enough to accommodate the size crowd he was drawing to listen to his speeches.
The Hofbrauhaus still exists; I had dinner there one night. If one looks closely at the ceiling, it is possible to still faintly see the swastikas painted on the ceiling of the hall.
Once he thought he had a sizable following, he attempted to overthrow the government of Munich and move on from there to Berlin. This did not work out; his revolution resulted in him fleeing the city by hijacking an ambulance (which he later claimed was to save an Aryan girl whose parents were in the city for a Nazi rally) and hiding at a friend’s basement just outside of Munich.
After his failed revolution, Hitler was tried in a kangaroo court that allowed him ample time to share his political views and share his propaganda. He was jailed very comfortably (he had his own personal secretary in Rudolph Hess to dictate Mien Kamph; he received three vegetarian meals daily; he got lessons in government and politics, and he was allowed to receive guests daily). He realized from this time that he had to gain power through “democratic” means, or else he would always remain at the fringe of German politics. He managed to do this through the Enabling Act of 1933. From that point on, most of the important Nazi events are in Berlin.
Munich views itself as a city that was liberated at the end of the war. The memorial below indicates this feeling. Did you notice the date? It is April 30, 1945 (the day Hitler took his own life and the Americans entered Munich).
Munich is not nearly as open about WWII as Berlin. Berlin has the huge Holocaust Memorial and every building has a marker explaining the significance it had during the war years (not many survived the bombing raids). Munich has a lot of small memorials that are not marked on maps. One really has to do a lot of research to find them and read about them to understand them
The tour guide mentioned that as long as the generation that lived during the war and their children are alive, the war will remain a difficult issue to discuss. He said that the generation that lived during the WWII were too busy trying to rebuild their lives after the war that they just wanted to ignore what happened, or as the tour guide put it, “sweep it under the rug.” Their kids (people born in the 60’s and 70’s) wanted to discuss what happened to ensure that it never happens again. They have gone to great lengths to teach their kids about the events of the war and have been very instrumental in getting a lot of the small memorials built around the city.
A perfect example of the generational differences regarding memory can be found in the eternal flame memorial. It was built at the end of the 1970’s after many individuals called for a memorial for the victims to be erected, yet the wartime generation did not want to spend the money to have the flame lit 24 hours days a day and recommended that the flame have hours in which it was not on. I found this fact to be very interesting and illustrative of what the tour guide shared about the feelings of the people of Munich.
My Next Trip
I promised Grace, a wonderful lady that I met while touring, that I would visit her in New Zealand. I guess that will have to be my next trip. She is a retired teacher and runs a sheep farm there. She is just one of the many nice people that I met along the way.
Dresden/Berlin
Leaving Prague, I had the opportunity to stop in Dresden for several hours. Dresden is a controversial site of WWII. In February of 1945 (a few months before the end of the war), the Allies bombed the entire city. The city wasn’t used for any sort of strategic purposes. There was no meaningful reason for us to bomb the city.
The Allies claimed that the bombing was a preventative measure that ensured that the railway station would not be used to move troops. Wouldn’t it make sense (if that was the case) to just bomb the railway station? The Allies used incendiary bombs (after carpet bombing the city) to make sure that Dresden was devastated. Nearly 40,000 German civilians were killed during the three days of bombing. There are few structures that survived the war.
I used the stop in Dresden as an opportunity to divide the trip from Prague to Berlin. I had a cold cucumber soup for lunch (which was delicious because the temperature was 98 degrees) and walked around a bit. It was pretty, but I wouldn’t spend more time than what I did within the city.
After leaving Dresden, I ended up making it to Berlin in the late afternoon. I hurried up and made it to the Topography of Terror before they closed to view an exhibit about the Litzmannstadt Ghetto. The exhibit focused on the photos that Jewish (as well as Nazis) took from 1940-1944 of Jewish life in the ghetto. See the posting about the concept of a ghetto for pictures.
The Allies claimed that the bombing was a preventative measure that ensured that the railway station would not be used to move troops. Wouldn’t it make sense (if that was the case) to just bomb the railway station? The Allies used incendiary bombs (after carpet bombing the city) to make sure that Dresden was devastated. Nearly 40,000 German civilians were killed during the three days of bombing. There are few structures that survived the war.
I used the stop in Dresden as an opportunity to divide the trip from Prague to Berlin. I had a cold cucumber soup for lunch (which was delicious because the temperature was 98 degrees) and walked around a bit. It was pretty, but I wouldn’t spend more time than what I did within the city.
After leaving Dresden, I ended up making it to Berlin in the late afternoon. I hurried up and made it to the Topography of Terror before they closed to view an exhibit about the Litzmannstadt Ghetto. The exhibit focused on the photos that Jewish (as well as Nazis) took from 1940-1944 of Jewish life in the ghetto. See the posting about the concept of a ghetto for pictures.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
The Concept of a Ghetto
Historically speaking, the term ghetto has been around for a very long time. As early as 1084, many cities and towns throughout Europe had these restricted areas that were designated specifically for Jews. Jews were viewed as a cultural minority due to their non-Christian beliefs in a Renaissance Christian environment. Many governing bodies wanted Jewish Ghettos in their lands because they generated funding and often lent a lot of money to governmental officials, yet the ghetto was restricted and could be closed off to prevent Jews from leaving (especially during Christian holidays). If debts ran too high to the Jews, a common practice in Europe was to kill the Jews in the ghetto or pass laws making Jewish life in ghettos difficult. The enforcement of Jews having to live in ghettos fell out of favor during the 1800’s and by 1882 the last ghetto was abolished in Italy.
When the Nazis came to power in 1933, they sought to isolate Jews. Starting with restrictive laws and moving on to property damage and theft, the Nazis wanted to make the Jewish population leave Germany. When this process did not work as quickly they would have liked, they began to think of more effective ways of isolating Jews. This caused Nazi officials to revisit the Medieval concept of a ghetto. The Reich’s Minister and General Field Marshall Hermann Goring and the Chief of Security Police Reinhard Heydrich (who was referred to as the “Butcher of Prague” and had thousands of assassination attempts before someone was finally successful) met in the Reich's Aviation Ministry after the Night of the Broken Glass in November of 1938 to discuss the creation of ghettos.
The Reich’s Aviation Ministry building(across from the former Gestapo’s offices and the Berlin Wall)
The side of the church where the assassins of Heydrich were shot after their location was disclosed and they were betrayed.
When the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939 (less than a year after Goring and Heydrich met), the Nazis set up ghettos for Jews in Poznan and Lodz. The exhibit that I saw focused on the Litzmannstadt Ghetto, which was located in the city of Lodz. The Litzmannstadt Ghetto was the second largest ghetto created by the Nazis (after Warsaw’s Ghetto that was completely destroyed during the war after the Warsaw Uprising). The city of Lodz had a Jewish population of 230,000 before the war; only a few thousand survived the Holocaust.
The Litzmannstadt Ghetto (as well as the other ghettos established by Germans) was not intended to be a permanent solution to what was viewed as the “Jewish problem.” The ghettos were just a stop in the road so that Germans could better pace the destruction of the Jewish population. The ghettos provided the Nazis with a large concentration of labor that could be exploited (as Oscar Shindler did with good intentions) and as a means to organize the Jewish population before deporting them to death camps. Despite the temporary nature of the camps, Jews strived to maintain aspects of normal life. Jewish councils in camps created schools, police forces, and medical offices.
The pictures below are from the Litzmannstadt Ghetto. They were taken by a group of inmates that were appointed by the Jewish Elder, Mordechi Chaim Rumkowski. He faced many difficult decisions. Despite being in charge of the Litzmannstadt Ghetto, he had to follow all of the rules put forward by the Nazis. One example of a difficult choice he had to make was selecting 20,000 victims to be deported and murdered. The pictures reflect an effort to maintain normalcy in the face of insurmountable odds (just as art was used by the children in Terezin).
When the Nazis came to power in 1933, they sought to isolate Jews. Starting with restrictive laws and moving on to property damage and theft, the Nazis wanted to make the Jewish population leave Germany. When this process did not work as quickly they would have liked, they began to think of more effective ways of isolating Jews. This caused Nazi officials to revisit the Medieval concept of a ghetto. The Reich’s Minister and General Field Marshall Hermann Goring and the Chief of Security Police Reinhard Heydrich (who was referred to as the “Butcher of Prague” and had thousands of assassination attempts before someone was finally successful) met in the Reich's Aviation Ministry after the Night of the Broken Glass in November of 1938 to discuss the creation of ghettos.
The Reich’s Aviation Ministry building(across from the former Gestapo’s offices and the Berlin Wall)
The side of the church where the assassins of Heydrich were shot after their location was disclosed and they were betrayed.
When the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939 (less than a year after Goring and Heydrich met), the Nazis set up ghettos for Jews in Poznan and Lodz. The exhibit that I saw focused on the Litzmannstadt Ghetto, which was located in the city of Lodz. The Litzmannstadt Ghetto was the second largest ghetto created by the Nazis (after Warsaw’s Ghetto that was completely destroyed during the war after the Warsaw Uprising). The city of Lodz had a Jewish population of 230,000 before the war; only a few thousand survived the Holocaust.
The Litzmannstadt Ghetto (as well as the other ghettos established by Germans) was not intended to be a permanent solution to what was viewed as the “Jewish problem.” The ghettos were just a stop in the road so that Germans could better pace the destruction of the Jewish population. The ghettos provided the Nazis with a large concentration of labor that could be exploited (as Oscar Shindler did with good intentions) and as a means to organize the Jewish population before deporting them to death camps. Despite the temporary nature of the camps, Jews strived to maintain aspects of normal life. Jewish councils in camps created schools, police forces, and medical offices.
The pictures below are from the Litzmannstadt Ghetto. They were taken by a group of inmates that were appointed by the Jewish Elder, Mordechi Chaim Rumkowski. He faced many difficult decisions. Despite being in charge of the Litzmannstadt Ghetto, he had to follow all of the rules put forward by the Nazis. One example of a difficult choice he had to make was selecting 20,000 victims to be deported and murdered. The pictures reflect an effort to maintain normalcy in the face of insurmountable odds (just as art was used by the children in Terezin).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)