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From 1933 to 1939 German Jews suffered discrimination and mistreatment by the Nazis
From 1933 to 1939 German Jews suffered discrimination and mistreatment by the Nazis
Discrimination of the Jews in Nazi Germany
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In Images before My Eyes: a Photographic History of Jewish Life in Poland
before the Holocaust, Lucjan Dobroszycki and Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett
both contributed to explaining the history of the Polish Jews through a compilation of pictures taken by photographers in Poland in-between the years of the wars. These photographs show aspects of Jewish life in politics, job, and community in Poland. As seen through the photographs, a change in equality and power of the Jews occurred as Jews went from taking part in the Parliament to riding in freight trains and leaving Poland. One could fully understand the significance of the photographs by the background information that Lloyd P. Gartner in History of the Jews in Modern Times and Ezra Mendelsohn in The Jews of East Central Europe Between the World Wars provide. Both Gartner and Mendelsohn bring light to the difficulties that the Jews of Poland experienced with those that tried to assimilate with the Polish nation. When assimilation became too difficult and unattainable, Zionists and Polish anti-Semites believed that emigration was the only solution.
The Jews in Poland were very politically involved as seen through the photographs in Images Before My Eyes. The minority-protection clauses of the Treaty of Versailles and the Polish Constitution of 1921 granted Jews equal rights and cultural antonomy (Dobroszycki 128). The political system of Poland allowed for the election of many Jews to both houses of Parliament and municipal councils. Images Before My Eyes shows the first national convention of Jewish municipal representatives in Poland on page 134. As seen in Images Before My Eyes, one could see voters lined up at the polls in a Warsaw Jewish neighborhood to elect represent...
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...aftsmen and completed jobs that the Polish could not. Politically, the Jews took part in elections of Polish representatives but also held positions as representatives themselves. Culturally, the Jews created communities and organizations that benefitted them, such as the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. However, once the Polish started to believe that the Jews were becoming nationalistic, they withdrew their protection of the Jews and became hostile. Pogroms were enacted and the only solution to the conflict and tension between the Jews and the Polish was emigration.
Works Cited
Dobroszycki, Lucjan, and Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett. N.p.: Schocken,
1994. Print.
Gartner, Lloyd P. History of the Jews in Modern Times. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2001. Print.
Mendelsohn, Ezra. The Jews of East Central Europe between the World Wars.
Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1983. Print.
Dawidowicz, Lucy S.. The war against the Jews, 1933-1945. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1975.
Oxtoby, Willard Gurdon. "Jewish Traditions." World religions: western traditions. 1996. Reprint. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 2011. 127-157. Print.
New York: William Morrow. Lipsett, S. M. & Co., P.A. and Ladd, E. C. (1971) The 'Secondary' of the 'Secondary' of the 'Secon "Jewish Academics in the United States: Their Achievements, Culture and Politics." American Jewish Yearbook -. Cited for Zuckerman, Harriet (1977).
The Sighet Jews appointed a Jewish Council (known as the Judenrat) as well as “a Jewish police force, a welfare agency, a labor committee [and] a health agency” to govern the ghettos and manage issues within the ghetto (Wiesel 12). The Judenrat and the Jewish Police Force were integral to the management of each ghetto. Soon after Germany’s annexation of Poland, chief of the Gestapo Reinhard Heydrich ordered the establishment of a Jewish governing council in almost every ghetto. Generally comprised of twenty-four prominent Rabbis and authority figures in the Jewish community of each town, the Judenrat managed and instituted new legislation introduced by the Germans. The Judenrat also managed the needs of the Jewish community and ultimately were tasked with carrying out the liquidation of the ghettos (Berenbaum). As in Night, Judenrat members’ lives were threatened to ensure they obeyed orders and did not revolt. Aside from the Judenrat, many other ghettos also had welfare organizations. In the Warsaw ghetto, the Judenrat supported an orphanage system and a financial aid society among other welfare organizations (“Warsaw”). Similarly, the Lublin Judenrat administered the local Jewish hospital, orphanage and home for the elderly (“Lublin”). The Sighet ghettos mirrored other ghettos during the
Hertzberg, Arthur. (1973). The Jews of the United States. New York: Quadrangle/ The New York Times Book Co.
The Change in Status and Position of Jews in Russia, France and Germany in the Years 1880-1920
Botwinick, Rita Steinhardt. A History of the Holocaust. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2004.
Tent, James F. In the Shadow of the Holocaust: Nazi Persecution of Jewish-Christian Germans. Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2003.
The Internet. The Internet. Available: http://www.nizkor.org/ ftp.cgi/people/r/reitlinger.gerald/ 3/12/1996 McFee, Gordon Are the Jews Central to the Holocaust?, 2000 Online. Internet.
The Warsaw Ghetto was a Jewish-populated ghetto in the largest city of Poland, Warsaw. A ghetto can be defined as a part of a city in which large quantities of members of a minority group live, especially because of social, legal, or economic pressure. Ghettos were commonly attributed to a location where there was a large Jewish population. In fact, the word Ghetto originated from the name of the Jewish quarter in Venice, Italy, in 16th century.The Warsaw Ghetto was the largest Ghetto, as a part of the Holocaust, and as an early stage of it, played a very significant role. Today, in our museum exhibit, we have several artifacts, including primary evidence relating to the Warsaw ghetto. We will be discussing how and why it was created, the lifestyle
The Jews were different from the general population of the countries where they were. They had different customs, had a different religion and dressed different. Because they were grouped in the ghettos these differences were increased. However, when Germany became a nation in 1871, there was a halt in anti-Semitic laws. In 1900, Jews could buy houses, and while they were subject to restrictions, they were more comfortable under Ge...
Most narratives out of the Holocaust from the Nazis point of view are stories of soldiers or citizens who were forced to partake in the mass killings of the Jewish citizens. Theses people claim to have had no choice and potentially feared for their own lives if they did not follow orders. Neighbors, The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland, by Jan T. Gross, shows a different account of people through their free will and motivations to kill their fellow Jewish Neighbors. Through Gross’s research, he discovers a complex account of a mass murder of roughly 1,600 Jews living in the town of Jedwabne Poland in 1941. What is captivating about this particular event was these Jews were murdered by friends, coworkers, and neighbors who lived in the same town of Jedwabne. Gross attempts to explain what motivated these neighbors to murder their fellow citizens of Jedwabne and how it was possible for them to move on with their lives like it had never happened.
Littman, Robert and Pasachoff, Naomi E, Concise History of the Jewish People, Rowman & Littlefield, 2005
This book left me with a deeper sense of the horrors experienced by the Polish people, especially the Jews and the gypsies, at the hands of the Germans, while illustrating the combination of hope and incredible resilience that kept them going.