Holocaust Midterm Review

Emancipation:
 Means freedom
 Turning point in Jewish history: 1791 because the French nation passed a law
saying "Jews are equal citizens like everyone else". Until that time, we were
different. Less than equal in every respect (this was during the time of the French
revolution)
 Until then, a Jew could not buy/ sell land, couldn't be a doctor lawyer, a professor,
Jews had to pay a tax
 You can also legally marry outside your faith- the marriage will be recognized
with the state.
 Jews were free. Started in France and started to spread throughout the world. It
had an impact because they were an important nation. So Jews were everywhere-
and in all occupation. (No anti-Semite will say Jews are not smart). They did well.
They were good businessmen, good scientists, good theatre, newspapers,
everywhere they went they succeeded.
 Aroused a lot of resentment.
Modern Anti-Semitism:
 Coined after the emancipation
 Means that the Jews are taking over. So why is that bad? Its contrary to what we
believe in. They have to go. Don’t even convert- you're bad in your blood we
don't want you.
vs old: We want you to be like everyone else. Convert or get out (in Spain, England,
everywhere.)
Nazi Redemptive anti-Semitism:
 By hurting a Jew I am redeeming myself- Nazis take it one-step further- the Jew is
destructive. Harmful. So by killing a Jew I’m doing the world a service. Anything
wrong with the world is because of the Jew. The Jews are behind everything.
Therefore all our problems will be solved if we get rid of them (not just different;
they're bad).
World War I and Versailles Treaty:
 Very traumatic for Germany. They thought that they were better than everyone
else. And they lost the war? Unthinkable. So when you lose that badly what do
you do? Blame someone else. Conspiracy theory relieves you from the trauma.
Ex: if you made a bad investment, its g-d forbid it’s not your fault, its the fault of
the guy that told you to invest there.
 The treaty was a document saying they are guilty for starting the war. They owed
billions of dollars in compensation.
 Very humiliating, especially when everyone else was just as guilty
Hitler, Austria, painter, vagabond, WWI:
 Wasn’t even from Germany, he was born in Austria.
 His dream was to become a famous artist (he was a painter). He wanted to be the
new Michelangelo. But he was frustrated no one recognized his genius. No one
knows what the Jews had to with it or why he blamed them.
 Vega bound: he wasn’t a high school or college graduate, and a very hard time

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 making a living. He sometimes didn’t have a place to stay and would be homeless
~ couldn’t pay rent.
 This new idea of anti-Semitism captivated him.
 WWI: became a foot-soldier. Very low-level food soldier; his job was a runner
and he was decorated by a Jewish officer
 When the war ended, he almost died, then he decided to go into politics
 There were a lot of political movements in Germany and a lot of people were
upset, so many people had ideas on how to bring Germany back to its greatness.
He joined the German working party- he out-shouted everyone else. He wouldn't
let you speak. He raised his voice. He had a way of talking and people liked that.
He really believed what he was saying- people thought he was exaggerating but
he truly believed in what he said.
 Changed its name to the Nazi Party; contraction of the full name: National
Socialist German Workers Party
Beer Hall Putsch; Mein Kampf- Racism, Jews, Expansion, Euthanasia:
 Hitler wanted to take over the local government in Munich but it failed. He was
arrested, placed on trial because he lead a demonstration without a license
 The Nazi party was even considered illegal. He was sentenced to 5 years in prison
but got out after a short time: 8 months on good behavior. There he wrote Mein
Kampf- "My Struggle", which spells out exactly what he would do if he got
power.
 Purpose of the book was racism (world is racist) ~ white race is superior and will
always be superior. Blacks are stronger but they are lazy. White = creative among
them are the Arians (some of these ideas were Hitler’s alone, but they were world
known). He believed in the superiority of the white man.
 He writes about how he wondered about why countries go to war, unemployment,
prostitution ~ behind all these things are they Jews = cause of all the problems.
They do this because they want to take over. They are inferior and they know that,
they secretly want to take over. Hitler says by fighting the Jew I am saving the
rest of the world. I am doing the work of God.
 He was close to Himmler. When the Nazi party disbanded he was raising
chickens; Himmler the chicken farmer became head of the SS.
 First person to write about the superiority of the white man was a French man,
Gobineau, the founder of modern racism.
 Expansion- Germany is the superior race but we need more room to populate- so
the only way we can expand is by taking over other countries. So in the future,
we'll take Poland and Russia and colonize it.
 Euthanasia= mercy killing, the painless killing of a patient suffering from an
incurable and painful disease or in an irreversible coma.
- What do we do with persons who are mentally defective? Who cannot help
themselves and cannot be healed? There’s no need for mental institutions. Persons
who can't be productive- let them die. They're not useful. Criminals aren’t useful
either so he should die too.
 Here we can see that Hitler meant what he wrote in his book. People thought he
was exaggerating because he was bitter in Jail. But he wasn't

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  People started to lose faith in the government because they weren't making any
positive changes. Hitler’s campaign was "I'm not a politician. I mean what I say,
try me out. I know how to restore Germany". The Nazi party won by a landslide.
They were one of the largest parties out there.
Jan. 30, 1933; Reichstag Fire, concentration camps; 1934- dissolution of all parties,
Hitler dictator:
 Hitler becomes Prime minister in Jan. 30, 1933
 Nuremberg had annual rallies (Nazis met). When he got out of jail in 1895, out of
550, the Nazis got 12 seats in parliament. Then there was the depression, people
didn’t know where to go because they lost confidence in all the parties. This is
when Hitler began to campaign; I know how to restore the country, I’m not a
politician. Try me out! When he campaigned he didn’t talk about anything he
wrote in the book, he talked about the economy. After this his party went from 12
to 180 seats (coalition govt.). Then there was another election in 1932 rose from
180 to 230 – became the single largest group, had 45% of the votes.
 Greatest fear people had been communism. Communism ~ way of insulting
people during those days. Communists were destroying nobility and they were
changing Russia. Thought they were destroying society by making everyone
equal.
 Nazis engineered that someone should torch the parliament building and this
caused Germany to go into a state of emergency (to go against communism).
Under this state of emergency, your constitutional rights are suspended until
1945- that’s how he became a dictator since all the political parties joined his
party.
 President died- we don't need a president- I, Hitler, will be both. Call me Fehr.
 All the communists are arrested- so they created camps to put them in-
Concentration camps.
 The SS were assigned to watch these dangerous people, communists.
Churches- Aryan clause:
 Jesus was a Jew
 Aryan clause: many Jews had converted, but they were born Jewish- can people
who were born Arian and Jewish converts sit together? Many of churches began
making separations. There was a big fight over this because it de-legitimizes the
conversion. Christian religion u are Christian however for Nazis is based on your
blood
SA, SS, Wehrmacht, Gestapo:
 SA: storm troopers. Anyone can volunteers, you get a uniform to be one of the
team (members of the Nazi party in high standing).
 SS: if you want to be a member of the elite Nazi party, you need to be
indoctrinated: prove 6 generations of purity and you get a special uniform and
ability to carry weapons. They were also the people in charge of the concentration
camps.
 Wehrmacht: regular army draft, you have to serve for 2 years
 Gestapo: the secret police, don’t have uniforms, have brown jackets, arrest people
opposed to the regime and then from there were sent to the concentration camps.
Had to respond with hail Hitler, if you didn’t you were reported.

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Anti-Jewish Laws: Civil Service, schools, Aryanization, Jewish name:
 Civil service: you lose your job if you work for the federal or local government
 Schools: law against "overcrowding" (having a disproportionate amount of Jews
in relation to the population). Jewish people had to go to their own private schools
 Aryanization: Germans decide how much you sell stuff for
 Jewish name: if you have a name that doesn't sound Jewish you were forced to
have a Hebrew name.
1935 Nuremberg Laws; Mischlige (mixed blood):
 A Jew is no longer a citizen- you become a subject.
 "Protection of German blood and German honor"
 Jews can no longer marry a non-Jews (assimilating is not allowed)
 You go to jail for being suspected of having sexual relations
 Jewish people can't have women under the age of 45 as a nanny/ housekeeper
 Worst sin in Germany was "desecration of the blood"- for a Jewish person to
impregnate a non-Jew
 A Jew is anyone who has at least 3 Jewish grandparents
Kristallnacht:
 A massive, coordinated attack on Jews throughout the German Reich on the night
of November 9, 1938, into the next day, has come to be known as Kristallnacht or
The Night of Broken Glass.
US Immigration Laws:
 Super strict, only let in a certain amount of Jews (most people had to have a
connection, or sponsor)
 Had to wait to even get on the quota and you'd be disqualified if you're too
successful.
July 1938 – Evian Conference; May 1939 – Evian Boat; 1940 – Madagascar Plan:
 It was held in Evian, France, from July 6--15, 1938. After Germany annexed
Austria in March 1938, Roosevelt called for an international conference to
promote the emigration of Austrian and German Jewish refugees and create an
international organization whose purpose would be to deal with the general
refugee problem.
 In May 1939, 937 passengers, most Jewish refugees, left Hamburg, Germany, en
route to Cuba. Most of them planned eventually to emigrate to the United States
and were on the waiting list for admission. All passengers held landing certificates
permitting them entry to Cuba, but when the St. Louis reached the port of Havana,
the President of Cuba refused to honor the documents.
 Hitler told the French government that they could keep morocco, and other
African colonies, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, etc. - BUT, the only place the
Germans wanted was the island of Madagascar.
 Before the war, the poles began to write about the possibility of moving the Jews
out of Poland to Madagascar. Why Madagascar? Its under populated, large, and
has a tropical climate - maybe the Jews would be interested in going there.
However, none of this came into fruition. But now that France had been defeated,
the idea of the Jews moving there became attractive to Germany. This was ideal

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 because the Jews would all be on one island, and Germany could assert complete
control. The Jews would have freedom, but they would still be under the
discretion of the Germans - held as hostages under the good behavior of the
American Jews.
 Americans were disinterested in what was happening in Europe at the time.
America was mainly interested in what was happening in japan and the other side
of the pacific. The Nazis said, the Jews are trying to push America into a war onto
Germany - people like henry ford, Charles Lindbergh, Charles Kennedy - big
names at the time were supporting this idea in America.
 “The Madagascar plan” seemed completely feasible. But, then a big problem
arose: we’d have to go around Africa to get the Jews to Madagascar - it’s a very
long sea voyage. The problem is that the British navy controlled the seas, and
clearly Germany and Britain were not on good terms. With this issue, it became
clear that the Germans would not be able to pull this off. But “if we cant move
them out, we’ll have to find another solution.” slowly but quickly, the final
solution was conjured - the only way to get rid of the Jews was to kill them
Kindertransport:
 (Children's Transport) was the informal name of a series of rescue efforts which
brought thousands of refugee Jewish children to Great Britain from Nazi
Germany between 1938 and 1940.
 sent only the children; they were told their parents would meet them there.
However, when they got there their parents were nowhere to be found.
Harold Ickes & Alaska Plan:
 Harold Ickes and a few others in President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s
administration liked the idea of resettling German Jews in Alaska. It would be “a
haven for Jewish refugees from Germany and other areas in Europe where the
Jews are subjected to oppressive restrictions.” According to Ickes’s diaries,
President Roosevelt wanted to move 10,000 settlers to Alaska each year for five
years, but only 10 percent would be Jewish “to avoid the undoubted criticism”
the program would receive if it brought too many Jews into the country. With
Ickes’s support, Interior Undersecretary Harold Slattery wrote a formal proposal
titled “The Problem of Alaskan Development,” which became known as the
Slattery Report. It emphasized economic-development benefits rather than
humanitarian relief: The Jewish refugees, Ickes reasoned, would “open up
opportunities in the industrial and professional fields now closed to the Jews in
Germany.”
 However, this idea went nowhere ~ didn’t work since Alaska is too far away for
Jews from Germany to get there.
Agression: Austria (3/1938), Czechoslovakia (9/1938; 3/1939)
 In 1938, Hitler stages disturbances, riots, in Austria, which gives him the cue to
send the German army into Austria. The Austrians welcome Hitler.
 Hitler wanted to expand eastward to Poland, Russia, Ukraine, Czech, etc. He saw
the Slavick ethnic group as inferior. After conquering Austria, Hitler moves to
conquer Czechoslovakia.
 Czechoslovakia was the next country (was a country that didn’t exist b4 WWI.)
had country was Czech (western Europe) the others were Slovaks. Most country

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 was Czech so the Slovaks wanted to be independent from them. Hitler knew this
and split them up and then took over.
 Czech were upset so they fought against Hitler, planned an agreement with
France and England. So if Germany attacked they would be at war with France
and England. The French and the British tried to convince Hitler not to start war,
but Hitler refused and said I’m gonna take it over forcefully. Finally they agreed
to Hitler that he could have the small territory of Czech (they didn’t want to start
another war). This was known as the Munich pact of Sept. 30, 1938
 Germans had respect for France and it was a country of half Aryans and half non
so these lands would be colonized by the Germans and they would need to
remove millions.
 Chamberlain meets with Hitler before he leaves to England. The prime minister
writes up an agreement about going to war with Germany. Hitler signs (even
though a year later they go to war with each other)
 Hitler demands that the Slovaks should up-rise against the Czechs, so he could
move in. Czech is now declared a protectorate
War: 1939: Poland. 1940 Denmark, Norway, Holland, Belgium, France.
War 1939 - Poland:
 1939, German invasion of Poland. The bulk of the Jewish people in Poland fell in
the German zone of Poland, 2.5 million. The German zone of Poland was divided
into 2 parts: 1 part that was to be immediately annexed to Germany and therefore
the Jews had to be removed from there, as well as huge numbers of non-Jews
who were forced out.
 They are renaming cities and giving them German names. For instance, the
Polish city of Oswiecim (pronounced Oshvietzem) renamed to Auschwitz;
Brezinka renamed to Birkenau. There large Polish city named Lodz was changed
to Litzmannstadt.
 The Poles claim that they suffered under German occupation, which is true. They
suffered more than anyone under German occupation. Yet they were still anti-
Semitic.
 The German plan was for Poland to disappear from the map, and therefore they
would treat the Poles very harshly. They targeted the intellectual elite to eliminate
the leadership. Anyone in Poland in a leadership position was arrested, taken out
and shot.
 The German government closed down all universities so that they would not get
a high education. The plan was to exile the Poles. What about the Jews? For
them, something else was in store. The Germans had not yet decided what to do
with them in 1939; they were still hoping to get the Jews out of Europe to
somewhere else.
 In the meantime, there was no venue. The Jews were to be isolated from the
general population, and moved and locked into ghettos. The ghettos were first
started in Poland. This is the only country under German occupation where all
the Jews were moved into Poland.
France, England, Denmark, Norway, Belgium…
 England and France then declared war on Germany, but Poland was too far away
to be saved, and it then was “wiped off the map.”

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  The Russian part of Poland was communist - no private enterprise, where a lot of
Jews felt their ability to practice Judaism was threatened.
 From 9/39-4/40, about 6 months, nothing happened at all - this was called the
phony war, because nothing happened on the field. At sea, however, there were
battles between German and British ships.
 Germany strikes north and occupies Denmark in 4/40, and from Denmark, they
occupied Norway - neither of which had very many Jews. The reason these
countries became occupied was because the Germans feared that the British navy
would create blockades in these countries for the Germans to be besieged.
 On 5/40, on may 10th, Germany struck Holland, Belgium and France. At this
time, the phony war ended. People did not believe that Germany would be able to
take over France - in WWI, the French held fast to Germany’s attempt to take
over. But, to the shocking surprise to the whole world, the French army collapsed
within 6 weeks of occupation. The British who had sent their army to help the
French also became trapped in France, and in effort to escape, these British
soldiers had to leave all of their weaponry there in order to survive. At this point,
France was defeated. in 6/40, it seemed as though Hitler had won the war...
 The Germans considered the Dutch people to be a “lost Germanic tribe.”
Therefore, they wanted to pursue Holland as part of Germany. Upon occupation,
they laid down strict German rule. Belgium they only implemented a military
rule. France - in only 1/3 of France, they allowed France to have a government
out of the city vishi (this government had to collaborate with the Germans
anyways, though.) the remaining 2/3 of France was under complete German
occupation. 320,000 Jews in France at this time.
Denmark
 While Sweden was neutral. There were 7,500 Jews in Denmark and 3,000 in
Sweden. It only took a day for the Germans to occupy Denmark in April of 1940
- and when this happened, they said, “we aren’t going to occupy Denmark, we
just want to have our military present.” The Nazis didn’t impose problems on the
Danish Jews.
 Germans called Denmark a model occupation.
 One of the reasons Germany lost WWI was because the people were starving.
Germany is not an agricultural country but an industrial one. so they ran out of
food, as their imports were not coming in (which is generally from Russia, whom
they were at war with).
 In Auschwitz they were killing 10,000 Jews a day - the measly 7,500 Danish
Jews meant nothing to the Nazis.
 The Danish wanted to back out ties with Germany being worried that if the
Germans lost the war, they would suffer, too. Germany took offense to this and
decided to clamp down on Denmark - they put severe laws on the Germans and if
anyone was to disobey them, they would be sent to the concentration camps.
Denmark, of course, was up in commotion. This was in august 1943.
 Himmler, head of the SS, had sent an SS officer in Denmark to keep the situation
calm. now that a curfew (a state of emergency) had been imposed, though, an
officer named Werner Best (who was a kernel, but wanted to move up in ranks)

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 suggested that the Nazis pick up the 7,500 Jews and “clean up” Denmark - in
hopes of being promoted.
 Best had sent a telegram to Berlin for it to be forwarded to the Fuerher (Hitler),
who was not in Berlin, but in Far East Germany, which was a hiding place. Most
of the Jews were concentrated in Copenhagen - it would be “easy” to snatch them
all up. Germany had an embassy in Copenhagen.
 Best approached Georg Duckwitz, a Nazi attaché, and suggested his plan to take
all the Jews and send them to Auschwitz. Duckwitz rejected this idea - he didn’t
want to disturb the Danes anymore than they already had, and they knew that if
they took the Jews big problems would arise. Best’s job had been to keep peace -
this was the opposite. He felt silly, and realized he had already sent the telegram
out to Hitler. Duckwitz took a plane out to Berlin to try and stop the telegram,
and they couldn’t. Hitler had already approved the request.
 Duckwitz had an idea: he decided to fly to Sweden, to Stockholm, where he met
with the prime minister and requested that the Jews from Denmark be allowed to
escape to them. This was in September 1943, and everyone knew that Germany
was going to lose the war. The Swedes agreed to this, and said they would keep
them in camps. They would keep them safe but contained. Duckwitz thanked him
and flew back to Copenhagen to give Best the news.
 Whistleblower: somebody who gives information in secret, like Duckwitz. He
met with the Danish underground and told them all about this so that they could
inform the Jews and tell them to escape.
 Rabbi Marcus Melschior: a Danish rabbi who they approached to tell the news, in
order for him to inform the rest of the Jews. He was in disbelief - the Danish
Jews had all the freedom in the world up until then - how could this be true? he
was finally convinced, albeit confused.
 September 25th, 1943, the Shabbos before Rosh Hashanah, the Jews were given
a message: on X night, someone is going to come to your apt, give you a code
word, and you’ll follow him, give him your keys, and go.
 The Nazis already had the list of Danish Jews - they were prepared to get them
on the second day of Rosh Hashanah. None of the Jews were home, they were all
in Sweden - 7,200 Jews and an additional 400 non-Jews who were married to
Jews.
 Duckwitz saved the Danish Jews.
Holland
 A small country in Western Europe. In May 1940, Germany took over Holland -
there were 140,000 Jews living there out of 8 million. The Germans considered
the Dutch to be no less than a Germanic tribe - one of them, as they were 100%
Aryan. They resembled the Germans. Holland had a government, a monarchy
with a queen, at the time Wilhelmina.
 Hitler appointed a Nazi governor to rule Holland to become a German province.
 Jews in Holland had never experienced any anti-Semitism. This was an even
bigger shock to them - the German invasion. Life for the Jews in Holland had
always been perfect, so they didn’t have any back up plans for incase something
were to happen.

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  The Germans forced the Dutch Jews to register at the police station and fill out a
form (otherwise they’d have penalties) - name, address, profession, relatives,
phone number, etc. Jews weren’t worried because they were so naive when it
came to tragedy - however, they were concerned that they were the only ones who
had to register, and became skeptical. Through the Jews registering, they then had
all the information about where the Jews were living in Holland.
 Once registered, Holland instated that all persons working for the Dutch
government (civil employees) were asked to fill out a form which the subject’s
name, address, type of civil job, and as an add in, write whether or not they were
Aryan. This was called the Aryan form. If the subject was Jewish, they said they
were not Aryan, and the next day they would receive a notice saying that their job
was terminated.
 More laws were then instated. Jews couldn’t travel without permission, go to the
movies, work for the radio or entertainment fields, Jewish children couldn’t go to
public schools, Jewish pets had to be turned in, Jewish radios, bicycles, cars had
to be turned in and finally, a Jewish Council had to be created through which the
German (nee Dutch) government would pass orders.
 Most of the Dutch Jews were obedient, as they trusted their rooted heritage in
Holland and wouldn’t believe that something would happen.
France:
 When the Germans invaded France on May 10th, 1940, within 6 weeks the
French army collapsed, which was a shocker for the French - not only that they
lost, but that they lost so quickly. This was very traumatic for the French, and the
Germans were very surprised and overjoyed at their victory. Moreover, the
Germans began to think they were indestructible, and wanted to “re-submit” the
French to the Germans.
 Hitler envisioned Germany to stretch Eastward in Europe, not West. So they had
to subdue France; when the Germans sat down to give terms to France after
conquering them, they decided to be more lenient with them. They decided to split
France into two sections: one would have a government of their own, and one
would be under the complete jurisdiction and control of the Nazi empire (the
north part of France, which bordered England - who Germany was still at war
with).
 Later on, the Italians, who were at the time ruled under Mussolini, requested that
they could have control over a portion of France, too, to which Hitler agreed. Italy
then gained control over a small part of France that bordered Italy. France was
then split into 3 zones: the Nazi zone, the Italian zone and the French zone.
 The French saw their Jews as “out of line”: they banned them from any type of
media positions, educator positions, anything with status - as they didn’t consider
the French Jews truly “French.” Some of the French Jews had just moved to
France - clearly did not embody the French archetype. They, however, did not
want to murder the French Jews - that was a Nazi outlook. France was the first
country in Europe to emancipate the Jews.
 Half of the French Jews were recently French - they spoke with Yiddish accents,
etc. - but the Jews in general were comfortable in France - they had status, and
were doing well. The other half of the Jews in France had been there for centuries,

9
 and the French recognized them as fully French, although these Jews didn’t refer
to themselves as Jews, but instead Israelites, due to the negative connotation of
the term “Jew.” Israelite, Zion, etc. all had positive connotations.
 The German Jews referred to themselves as “Germans as part of the Mosaic
religion (Moses)”, all because “Jew” was a negative term.
 So, Vichy, the latter half of France which the French remained control over, had
their own army and police force, etc. Hitler was satisfied with the partitions. The
French were very frustrated, however: they had lost the war, the Germans
controlled them, and the new French leader was Petain - a general from WWI,
very decorated, who had won in WWI against the Germans. He was 84 years old,
and the new leader of France, and the French looked up to him. The French were
looking for someone to blame for their humiliating defeat - and the traditional
scapegoat across the board were inevitably, the Jews. “We made a mistake by
liberating the Jews! We need to put the Jews back into brackets if we want to
restore this country.”
 In September 1940, the French passed a law called “Statute of the Jews”: it
defined who a Jew was, which emulated the Nuremburg laws, and also limited the
professions that Jews could do - anything in government, judge, lawyer, media,
anything of status. Jewish organizations could still function (religious, non-
religious, Zionist, children’s, retired people, etc.), Jews could still move from one
place to another, Jews could still go to university - albeit restricted, public school
was still open to Jews.
 May 1941 there was an amendment to this statute, which further restricted the
Jews’ professions. Part of this amendment, too, was that every Jew had to register
at the police station, so that the government would know where the Jews were, to
keep track of them. Once registered, a red stamp with the letter “J” was put on the
ID for indication. There was no violence or ghettos at this point.
 The French then passed another law - major companies, like an electric company,
could not be owned by Jews. So, if it was owned by a Jew it had to be sold, if it
was part owned, the Jews had to leave, etc. These were strictly major businesses -
ones that were big enough to employ non-Jews.
 Jews knew that if they wanted to live in France, they had to live in the French
territory (Vichy, South of France), because although they were anti-Semitic, they
weren’t as bad as the Germans.
 Internment Camps were created in the Vichy part of France. Enclosed camps
which were guarded by French policemen, in which Jews couldn’t leave. Jews
lived in barracks - conditions were below standard, food was sub-par, medical
facilities were minimal. These were for foreign Jews who hadn’t been
nationalized, about 30,000 Jews (German and pseudo-French).
 Jewish organizations came to the French government and requested that they take
the children from these internment camps and put them into homes for children -
it took a load off of the camps. They went to the Ose (ozay), which is where the
children’s homes were, but their parents remained in the camps. Some people died
in the camps due to either old age or lack of proper medical attention.

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 The French told the Red Cross and the Quakers (who came to give help to the
Jews in the internment camps) that the reason they were encamped was due to
their being for foreign.
 In September 1940, the Germans decided to evict 10,000 Jews from Germany
(from Bodin) and gave them to France.
 The French set up an office, a ministry of Jewish affairs, in order to keep the laws
against the Jews in tact (sort of like the IRS, but for Jews). This office would issue
“certificates of non-association with the Jewish race” to people who were
identified as Jews but not actually Jewish (either converted, or parents converted,
whatever it was).
 By 1942, the killings had been instated all over Europe, but were to be done in
Poland - Jews travelled by train. Jews over the age of 6 had to wear a Jewish star
on their coats - all over Europe, including France.
 The Germans controlled most of France, and they asked the Vichy government to
apply the star rule to their Jews, too. Surprisingly, the Vichy government said no -
the reason was because the people of France weren’t anti-Semitic to the point of
wanting to humiliate the Jews - it would defy public opinion. The French weren’t
interested in humiliation tactics. This was in June.
 The Germans then decided it was time to round up the French Jews and send them
to the death camps. So, the Germans met with the head of the Vichy police (the
federal police - like a state trooper), and they said they decided to move out the
French Jews and send them to Poland to perform labor. Because all of these Jews
had registered, it was easy to pick them out - they started with 23,000 Jews. The
Vichy government agreed - they wanted to get rid of the foreign Jews - but only
on one condition, which was that the French police would round these Jews up,
not the Germans. If arrests were to be made, it was going to be done by the
French police officers.
 While the French government knew that turning the Jews to the Germans would
be probably fatal due to labor conditions, they had no idea of the extent to which
the Germans were subjecting the Jews to.
 The Germans wanted to take the Jews on July 16th, 1942 - 23,000 of them. The
Jews would be rounded up and taken to a place outside of Paris called Drancy,
and from there, the train would take them to Poland. On the early morning of July
16th, at around 4 am, Jews would receive a knock on the door from a policeman,
telling them to pack their bags and come with them. Jews were panicking.
 There was a certain police officer who had told some of the Jews not to be at their
homes on the morning of July 16th, so a lot of them left. While there was
supposed to be 23,000 rounded up, only 13,000 Jews were. They were brought to
the winter stadium, there for 2 or 3 days. Finally, they were brought to Drancy,
and from there, Auschwitz.
 The Germans were disappointed with the small turn out - only 13,000 - not
enough. They needed 10,000 more Jews to be happy. In August of 1942, Jews
were being rounded up from the internment camps. Between the Jews in these
camps and the children who had been previously sent away (some went into
hiding), the French successfully rounded up another 10,000 Jews for the Germans.

11
  In November 1942, Germany decided to occupy the Vichy part of France, too.
The Italians didn’t bother the Jews in their occupied part of France - so a lot of
French Jews fled to the Italian zone. Eventually, the Germans took over the Italian
zone, too - which gave them complete control of France. This was in September
of 1943.
 A lot of French people began to hide Jews. Non-Jewish French people were being
forced to go to Germany to work, to replace Germans who were being sent to the
army. This upset the French, which made them want to help the Jews.
 Out of the 320,000 Jews in France, France was liberated by August of ’44, the
Germans had killed about 80,000 of them. 2,000 died in internment camps.
78,000 were killed in camps.
1941:Yugoslavia, Greece:
 The German air force launches Operation Castigo, the bombing of Belgrade, on
this day in 1941, as 24 divisions and 1,200 tanks drive into Greece.
 The attack on Yugoslavia was swift and brutal, an act of terror resulting in the
death of 17,000 civilians–the largest number of civilian casualties in a single day
since the start of the war. Making the slaughter all the worse was that nearby
towns and villages had emptied out into the capital city to celebrate Palm Sunday.
All of Yugoslavia’s airfields were also bombed, destroying most of its 600 aircraft
while still on the ground.
 As part of a comprehensive Balkan offensive, German forces also bombed the
Greek port city of Piraeus as army divisions swept south and west, en route to
Salonica and the eventual occupation of Greece
Poland – Heydrich Order:
 Heydrich was the second in command of the SS, after Himmler.
 On September 21st 1939, three weeks after the Nazi invasion of Poland began, SS
deputy chief Reinhard Heydrich sent a memo outlining methods of containing and
organizing Jews.
Ghettoization:
 The idea of the ghettos was to eliminate the small Jewish communities. Most Jews
lived in cities or small towns (rather than villages). Jews made up 10% of the
population, but in the cities, they made up 25-30, even up to 50% of the
population (Lublin, Warsaw, Krakow, Lodz, etc.) Most of them had small
businesses; the Polish government did not allow Jews in the big businesses.
 When the Warsaw ghetto was established, there were 250,000 Jews. They moved
in Jews from other localities, small surrounding towns, and there were now
450,000 Jews. Their plan was to move the Jews into the main ghettos, close them
off from the rest of the population with either a wall or a fence. The ghettos is
supposed to be at the end of a railway, so that the Jews can be taken away on the
train.
 Inside the ghettos, the Jews will have their own local administration by people
appointed by the Germans, accepted as community leaders. They will head what
is called a Jewish Council, or Judenrat, taking care of housing, food, education,
welfare, children, etc. They will have the following duties: they had to take a
census of everyone in the ghetto – age and sex, because any Jewish person from

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 the age of 15-60 (man) or 18-45 (woman) is liable to perform physical labor for
the Germans.
 There were various forms of labor. First, things outside the ghetto: when the
Germans went to war against Poland, they bombed from the air. The rubble had to
be cleared from the houses that were destroyed. They’d take Jews out of the
ghetto and have them do that. Or other actions such as clearing the snow in the
winter or building a new railway or road.
 All of this labor was for nominal or no payment. Of course, there was a lot of
corruption. People in the ghetto were starving. People wanted to work so they
could enable trading their clothing for food.
 They lowered the rations in the ghettos so that the Jews would die and there
would be fewer Jews to export form the ghetto.
 The other type of labor that Germans needed Jews for was in German companies
setting up branches inside the ghetto. For instance, the Germans are producing the
Volkswagen, and there is a certain item in the car – the brakes, for example – so
they set up a shop in the ghetto to produce the brakes, and Jews produced the
products.
 They were better treated working in the shops, as opposed to in the work detail.
All of this was on the basis of slave labor.
 The labor fooled the Jews into thinking that the Germans would not destroy them
– if they were doing free labor, why would they be killed?
 The Germans allowed the Jews in the ghettos a modicum of education. Some
schools were closed and others were allowed to operate. In the Warsaw ghetto,
religious observances were forbidden. The Jews met in secret places, like
windowless rooms, where they davened secretly. In some ghettos, Jews were
allowed to hold services. It all depended on who the German commander of the
ghetto was.
 The mortality rate in the ghetto was rising because of less food and less medical
equipment. There was not enough medicine to go around in the ghettos. The
Germans passed a law that any Jew found outside the ghetto without authority
would be shot, and any Pole who had a Jew in his home would also be shot.
 At this point, the Jews were required to wear the yellow star identifying them as
Jewish.
 Inside the ghetto, the Jews were permitted to have a Jewish police. They did not
carry arms but had a baton. Their job was to make sure that those who were
selected for labor would show up, and that people who were thinking of rebelling
against the Germans would be arrested. The Judenrat in all the ghettos warned the
Jews that the Germans have changed, and the last thing we want to do is provoke
them. They warned them against founding an underground or a resistance.
 Inside the ghettos were housing committees. It was very crowded in the ghetto,
and they had to allocate people to rooms. Usually it was 6 people to a room.
Kitchens and toilets were shared by many families.
 At the entrance of the ghettos, the Germans put a sign that said “Danger: Typhus
Infection.” Therefore, the Polish people thought the Jews were being locked up so
that they wouldn’t get infected.
Judenrat:

13
  The Jewish council. They had to take a census of all the Jews by age, gender,
address, etc. They had to be in touch with the government when a new law was
instated regarding the Jews. In the meantime, the Nazi’s were happy about all of
this. This all happened in 1940.
June 22, 1941: War with Russia; Start of mass extermination:
 Operation Barbarossa, the massive military invasion of the Soviet Union on June
22, 1941, intended to wind up the war by the winter. The invasion had been
planned for a long time, and in anticipation, the Germans prepared units of
Ukrainian, Lithuanian, Latvian and Belorussion nationalist and oppositionist
collaborators.
 Hitler considered the invasion of the USSR as part of his plan to provide the
German nation with “living space” (Lebensraum) and an opportunity to destroy
Communism, which he loathed. For this reason he instructed his military
commanders to subject Kommisars (political officers who accompanied the Red
Army) and intellectuals to cruel and harsh treatment. Under his inspiration, the
“Kommisars Order” set out the rules for treatment of these officials and for Jews
in the Soviet territories.
 In the first weeks of the invasion Jewish women and children were shot by
happenstance, but by the middle of August the scope of the murders had been
widened to include all Jews. This policy crystallized as a result of Hitler’s visit to
the front and his conclusion that the territorial solution to the Jewish problem was
by then impractical, a conclusion that paved the way for the systematic mass
murder of the Jews. Jewish women and children were defined as “worthless
consumers” who could not contribute to the workforce.
 Four special operations divisions (Einsatzgruppen) – A, B, C, and D – operated
behind the corps that took part in the campaign against the USSR. The units were
made up of SS, police and auxiliaries mobilized from the local population.
 Hundreds of thousands of Jews managed to flee into the depths of the Soviet
Union, but approximately 2 million Jews remained under Nazi occupation and
were the victims of mass murder carried out by the Einsatzgruppen units. In less
than half a year, by the end of 1941, about half a million Jews had been murdered
within the areas of the Soviet Union conquered by the Nazis.
 The murders generally took place in forests, valleys and abandoned buildings
close to the homes of the victims. The Jews were forced to undress and hand over
their valuables a short distance from the mass graves. They were taken in groups
to the pits and shot. Many were buried alive.
 On September 1941, members of Einsatzgruppe C murdered 33,771 Jews from
Kiev over two days in Babi Yar. Babi Yar also became a site for the mass murder
of Sinti and Roma (gypsies) and Soviet prisoners of war. Ponar, a forest located
6.2 miles south of Vilna, became a killing ground for tens of thousands of Jews.
From July 1941 to July 1944, more than 70,000 people, the vast majority Jews,
were murdered in Ponar.
 From November 1941, Jews and other victims of the Nazi regime (Soviet POWs,
partisans, hostages and others) were murdered in the Blagovshchina forest, close
to the village of Maly Trostinets, southeast of Minsk. The first to die were some
100,000 Jews from the Minsk ghetto, and starting in May 1942, Jews were

14
 brought from Germany, Bohemia and Moravia, Poland and the Low Countries
and murdered there. Some were murdered in gas vans, and the rest were shot. All
the victims were buried in pits that had been dug in advance. According to
different estimates, between 206,500 and half a million people were murdered in
the Trostinets area.
 Towards the end of 1941 the Germans realized that they would not defeat the
Soviet Union in a lightning war as they had originally planned. The German army
would require a workforce that would help in paving roads, clearing minefields,
producing ordinance and equipment. The decision was thus made to temporarily
leave Jewish prisoners alive in camps and ghettos in order to employ them for the
German war effort. The extermination was renewed in its full intensity in the
spring of 1942. By the winter of 1943 most of the Jews of Belorussia and almost
half of the 2.5 million Jews of Ukraine had already been murdered.
Einsatzgruppen:
 On June 21st, 1941 - the Einsatzgruppen, “special action groups”, government
created units, were sent out to kill, following the German army. They shot Jews
over open ditches where they’d fall to their deaths. If the ditches weren’t present,
they’d force the Jews to dig their own graves.
Patrick Debois – Holocaust by Bullets:
 A Catholic priest from France. Born in France after the war. Had a grandfather
who was a French soldier, who was captured by the Germans during the war and
held captive. Upon trying to escape, and succeeded, he was re-captured and sent
to a less-comfortable prison. He was sent to a place in Ukraine called Rava-
Ruska. He and other French soldier were held there. When the war was over, he
went back to France to his family in a small French town and they asked him,
“tell us, how were your conditions there, in rava-ruska?” to which he replied, “I
don’t want to talk about it.” when his grandson (Patrick Desbois) asked him, he
said, “the food was lousy, the sanitation, too, but compared to what happened to
the Jews outside of prison - it was paradise.” that was all he said. Later, as Patrick
grew older, he became interested in what his grandfather meant. One day, after
becoming a priest, he held a catholic priest conference in Poland. After the
conference, he went across the border to rava-ruska, to see where his grandfather
had spent time in prison.
 After this life-changing experience, Father Patrick Dubois wrote a book telling
this story, Holocaust By Bullets. He discovered places where Jews were shot,
places that were not even on the map - small communities that went unknown. He
requested money for markers over the graveyards of these Jews. He felt as though
he was a religious man -- how can people just skim over thousands of lives
without any remembrance?
Dec. 7, 1941 – Japan attacks at Pearl Harbor; 4 days later Hitler at war with US
January 20, 1942: Wannsee conference, Final Solution; gassing:
 Wannsee was the street where the conference took place in Berlin. It took place on
1/20/1942. Many of the participants were PhD’s - the smartest of Germans to
determine how to murder Jews more effectively and efficiently. the house where
the conference took place was in the house of a Jew (who was forced out and
killed).

15
 - Wannsee Conference Protocol: each man at the conference was given a list of
countries and cities with the populations of Jews residing in each city. the
objective was to seek the most effective methods of murder for each city’s
individual population. the total was expected to be 11 million Jews in total,
which was an intentional over-exaggeration on their behalf, as it allowed for
“extra room” incase more Jews who had gone undetected came up. at this
conference, there was a secretary who took down the dialogue throughout. a lot
of the words were “re-coded” into code words just incase this document got
into the wrong hands - they wanted this entire solution to remain a secret. the
document indicated that a lot of the Jews would die of “natural causes”, etc.
 “Europe will be combed of Jews”
 What was to happen with the half Jews, quarter Jews, converts, etc.?
 Who was considered “Jewish” enough to be killed?
 The half Jews and quarter Jews were dismissed from the army
 Hitler was once able to detect Jewish ancestry 6 generations back in a person. He
was the search dog of Jewish blood - no matter how small the percentage.
 half Jews were to be treated as “full” Jews
Auschwitz (selections); Treblinka, Belzec, Sobibor, Chelmno (gas vans), Majdanek:
 Concentration camps and death camps were two different things. While a
concentration camp was also a death camp, a death camp differed in that when
one came to a death camp, they were killed immediately. In a concentration camp,
by contrast, there were pickings - those that landed up with labor would not die
immediately, they would first work and then get killed.
 Death camps included:
- Treblinka
- Sobibor
- Belzec
- Chelmino
 These were all in Poland.
 The Jews were told they were moving to “start new lives.” This prompted most of
them to bring all of their good things. Therefore, upon arriving to the camps,
Germans seized these expensive things (jewelry, food, clothing, etc.). Jewish
people were assigned to “sort” these belongings out and organize them all. Then,
there were Jews appointed as barbers, as well as Jews appointed to take the
corpses out of the gas chambers and dispose of them (burn or bury them). All of
this dirty work was done by Jews at the death camps.
 At the concentration camps, many Jews were put to labor creating parts for cars,
helping in the production of rubber, and working in factories creating synthetic
oil. Jews in concentration camps lost their names and were instead given numbers
to be identified by.
 The gas chambers were fueled by tank engines, not pellets. That way more gas
would be produced.
 Concentration camps included:
- Auschwitz (both a concentration and death camp)
- Majdanek

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  There were “transport vans” that would eject its muffler emissions into the actual
vehicle itself, where 50-80 Jews (squished into this van) would be gassed and
killed (from the van’s gas emissions) within 10 minutes. The Jews who got into
these vans were told that they were going to take showers, which is why they
were nude.
 Suffocation was more economical and didn’t require as much manpower.
Moreover, Jews helped in the killings - they would tell people to get undressed,
led them into gas chambers, took out the dead bodies from the chambers, cut their
hair, etc.
 The SS had “clean hands”, they were not involved in any of this horrific dirty
work, and they merely advised and supervised.
 Heinrich Himmler, the head of the SS, visited Minsk to see an execution of a Jew.
He wanted to watch. In front of a ditch, Jews were murdered by machine guns one
by one. While one of these Jews were being murdered, blood splattered and
landed on Himmler’s jacket; upon seeing it, Himmler almost fainted, and told the
soldiers, “Take me away, I can’t handle blood.” How sickeningly ironic and
nauseating.
 When in the gas chamber, many of the victims would urinate, defecate and
menstruate. Upon having to clean out the bodies, fans immediately went off and
ventilated so that the next “batch” of Jews coming in “for their showers” wouldn’t
be suspicious seeing all of these bodily fluids on the floor.
 The German objective was to summon Jews from all parts of Europe and have
them killed. It worked. Jews were passive and went along with it because nobody
believed that anything like this could ever happen. People didn’t understand, and
couldn’t understand, the magnitude of evil that Hitler was orchestrating - how
could they have prepared?
Gerstein Report:
 Written by Kurt Gerstein.
 Was the first lieutenant of the Waffen SS, who then rose to become the Head of
Technical Disinfection Services of the SS, and in that capacity supplied hydrogen
cyanide (Zyklon B), and conducted negotiations with the owners.
 On 17 August 1942, together with Rolf Günther and Wilhelm Pfannenstiel,
Gerstein witnessed the gassing of some 3,000 Jews in the extermination
camp of Belzec in occupied Poland. The report features his eyewitness testimony.
It was used as evidence in the Nuremberg Trials.
Slovakia; payment for deportation:
 Jews were confined to ghettos, which were organized by lists of names. The
ghettos were next to railways and the death camps were nearby. A small country,
Slovakia, which used to be part of Czechoslovakia (which was split in to in 1939
by Hitler). The Czech part was directly controlled by Germany. The Slovaks had
different history than the Czechs and wanted to be independent - both states have
a lot of Jewish history. The main city in Slovakia is called “Brateslava” - but the
Germans and Jews called it “Presburg”. Anytime a country took over a city they
gave it a new name, one which was familiarized with the country’s native tongue.
 A big rabbi named the Chaztam Sofer lived in Presburg before the modern times,
during the time of Napolean. When Slovakia became independent, it had about

17
 120,000 Jews. Most of them were orthodox and very frum. For instance, there
was a very big yeshiva in a place called Nitra, another one in Presburg, and other
communities such as Munkatch.
 Hungary and Slovakia border each other. Hungary had, in 1939, edged itself
closer to Nazi Germany as an ally. Certain regions in Slovakia were Hungarian
speaking, and that was meant to be given to Hungary.
 Slovakia was mainly Catholic, and when it became independent, the Priest, Josef
Tiso, was in charge. The reason it became Catholic is because Hitler forced it to
became two separate states, and thus it became a new nationality (mainly fascist).
They had something called the Hlinka Guards, the Slovakian version of the SS.
One day, Hitler called Tiso to come to Germany for a conference. Hitler then tells
him that he had to do something about the 90,000 Jews, and Tiso agrees because
he also disliked Jews. Immediately, Tiso instated about 240 laws against Jews.
This is called the Jewish Codex. Things included shchita being forbidden, Jews
cannot marry non-Jews or convert, they could only live in certain areas, etc.
 What was to happen to the Jews who already converted? If it happen before a
certain date it was recognized, if not, not. Jews had to wear a certain star with
certain specifications on it, the letter Z on it, etc. In the main capital, Presburg,
where most of the Jews lived (about 10,000), had to be removed and relocated.
 Moving forward in 1942, Germany is still at war with Russia - winning, but with
difficulty. They needed more soldiers. The Germans then turned to their allies and
asked for some laborers to work in the German factories so that they could take
their German laborers and send them to fight in Russia. So Germany asked for
30,000 Slovak workers who they would pay to work. The Slovaks were not
excited about this - we’re a poor country, why should we send our workers to help
the German economy?
 The Slovak government says how about 30,000 Jews? Germany responds that
they weren’t asking for 30,000 Jews right now - their ultimate plan was to “finish
off” the Jews in Poland. In the meantime, they needed workers. The Slovaks said,
what’s wrong with using Jews? The Germans were elusive about their plan. They
said if they didn’t send professional workers, they’d have to train them to work,
which would be costly. It’s going to cost 500 Marks to train each Jew - the
Slovaks agreed to pay for this, but on the account that Germany let them stay
there as long as they needed to.
 Now Germany was forced to take all these Jews from Slovakia. Slovakia was the
first country to offer their Jews, and even pay them for it. How convenient. (To be
fair, they didn’t know about the German plan to destroy these Jews...)
 On March 25th, 1942, the first Jews to be sent to the camps were from Slovakia.
 The Slovaks then came across an issue: they only sent Jews who were between
18-40, to work. What were they going to do with the elderly? They’re of no use
and they cost money (social welfare). So then Slovakia offered the entire families
of these Jewish workers. The Slovaks convinced the Germans that if the entire
family was there, the factory workers would work better considering how family
oriented the Jews are.
 Panic struck in the Jewish community. Two of the rabbis in Nitra decided to write
a letter to the Pope. They wrote a letter saying, “Holy Father...about 30,000 of our

18
 people are going to be sent to the Germans. Please intervene, as this is a Catholic
country.” The hierarchy in the Catholic church means that the Pope’s word is
golden - everyone has to obey what he says. The Pope then called in the
ambassador from Slovakia in the vatican, and the Pope said, “families should
stick together - not fair that you’re pulling them apart.” Slovakia was overjoyed to
send the old people too.
 The Slovaks rounded up the Jews and the Germans then took over. Train after
train the Jews were sent. 60,000 were sent to Germany. The yudenrot (Jewish
council) were the ones who compiled the lists of Jews for the Slovaks. The
Germans took over once the train reached Poland.
 The small Jewish organization was formed, somewhat against the yudenrot
because they worked so closely with the government. Two of the members of this
new organization - Rabbi Weissmandel and Mrs. Fleischmann - decided they
needed to track down and find out where these thousands of Jews were being sent.
How were they going to execute it?
 They decided they would pay professional border smugglers to cross the border
into Poland and track down where these people had been sent to perform “labor.”
These border smugglers were not Jewish and had experience in going from place
to place. The plan was also to send kosher food, other Jewish needs to these sent
Jews through these emissaries.
 When the emissaries went and came back, they said they couldn’t find the Jews -
they disappeared into a certain region and we can’t pinpoint the exact location
(they had been in the camps, off the maps). So the working group organization
became very worried - what happened to our people? In the meantime, a rumor
began to be spread that some of these young women who were sent to do labor
were being turned into prostitutes to serve the German soldiers - it was a false
rumor. But upon hearing it, the people wrote to the Vatican, and the Pope was
infuriated by the priest in Slovakia - it was unforgivable for a leader to allow this.
Even though this never actually happened, the Slovak government approached the
Germans and said, “Can you tell us where these Jewish people that we turned
over to you are now?” and the Germans said, “Don’t worry, they’re performing
good labor, but we can’t tell you where they are because we sent them from one
place to another since it’s the war.” The Slovaks requested to send government
officials to check on the Jews because they wanted to verify that the Jews were
performing labor to confirm with the Jews. The Germans became anxious, as
clearly these Jews were not performing labor, but they were being killed.
 When the Slovaks offered the Jews, the Jewish laborers were sent to build the
camps (for themselves!), and a lot of them died just from bad weather conditions
and poor treatment. If the Germans had told the Slovaks that the Jews were
building camps, the lie would have been revealed, as they initially told them
they’d be working in factories.
 In September 1942 (right after Yom Kippur), 60,000 Jews had already been sent
to Germany. The Germans decided they were not going to take any more Jews
from Slovakia, because by then, they were already destroying Jews from other
countries. There was a total of 90,000 Jews in Slovakia - about 8,000 of them fled

19
 to Hungary because the Holocaust hadn’t reached there yet - and 60,000 had been
deported. This left 22,000 Jews in Slovakia.
 Many of these 22,000 Jews were put into Slovak labor camps (since they weren’t
being sent to Germany anymore), and there, the conditions were good and there
were various workshops, there with their families. They were safe for the time
being.
 In March 1944, the Germans took over Hungary, which is when the Holocaust
began there. These 8,000 Jews from Slovak who had fled there immediately
crossed back into Slovak to avoid the German invasion. But, in August 1944,
there was a rebellion in Slovakia against the regime, and the regime couldn’t
handle this uprising so they called in Germany to help them. At that point, they
decided to round up the remaining 22,000 Jews, who were then sent to Auschwitz.
 Some thousand Jews were able to go into hiding with non-Jewish people in
Slovakia (from 9/44-5/45 when the war ended).
 Rabbi Weissmandel was a famous figure in Slovakia.

The reading definitions:

 Reich Citizenship Law: The Reichstag has unanimously enacted the
following law, which is promulgated herewith: Article 1. A subject of the state is a
person who enjoys the protection of the German Reich and who in consequence
has specific obligations toward it.
 Zelkowicz Report of Rumkowski Speech:
o The chairman of the Judenrat appointed by the Nazi administration
was Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski
o convinced that Jewish productivity would ensure survival, he forced the
population to work 12-hour days despite abysmal conditions and the lack
of calories and protein;[17] producing uniforms, garments, wood and
metalwork, and electrical equipment for the German military.
 Weissman Appeal for Bombing:

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