Download Debating whether the Holocaust could have been Prevented Week

WEEK 9
The Feasibility of Resistance and Rescue:
Debating whether the Holocaust could have been Prevented
P re p are d b y T on y J oel an d M at h ew Turn er
Week 9 Unit Learning Outcomes
ULO 1. evaluate in a reflective and critical manner the consequences of racism and prejudice
ULO 4. recognise important linkages between the Second World War and the Holocaust,
and question Hitler’s role in these events
Introduction
This week’s learning module grapples with two of the most controversial issues that
continue to influence historiographical debate about the Holocaust: the separate but
related themes of resistance and rescue. Section 1 examines the question of Jewish
resistance. Namely, could and should have Jews stood up for themselves more effectively
against Nazi persecution and genocide? Did Jews fail to resist? This section also considers
how we can define “resistance,” looking at the divergent ways in which Holocaust
scholars view Jewish resistance against Nazism. Should actions only be called resistance if
they involved armed force, or did simply surviving in the face of such atrocious treatment
constitute an act of resistance? These questions are visited through the best-known
example of organised and armed Jewish resistance during the Holocaust: the Warsaw
Ghetto Uprising. Did this act of resistance (and others) reveal the potentialities or futility of
Jews employing physical force to oppose the Nazis and their collaborators?
Section 2 focuses on the question of whether the international community could have
intervened to rescue Europe’s Jews. The broad theme of rescue envelops two main
aspects: the alleged failure of the international community to provide safe havens for
Jewish refugees prior to the outbreak of war; and the Western Allies’ and Soviet Union’s
apparent failure to save Jews during the war by destroying (or at least interrupting) the
Nazis’ killing facilities through direct military intervention. Section 2 focuses on the key
issues involving the latter aspect that is concerned with what may have been possible
during the war years. While you are encouraged to draw your own conclusions about
the validity and persuasiveness of the arguments presented, it is important that you
never lose sight of the fact that the primary responsibility for the murder of Jews rests
with Hitler’s criminal régime and its many willing collaborators across Europe.
LEARNING MODULE 9.
Section 1: Resistance
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In completing this learning module, you will continue to evaluate, in a reflective and
critical manner, the consequences of racism and prejudice. You will also continue to
recognise important linkages between the Second World War and the Holocaust.
Section 1. Resistance
We have already seen the extent to which the Holocaust became genocide on a continental
scale. To this end, Jews experienced the Holocaust in a multitude of ways and in various
settings. Some were confined to ghettos, where they faced disease and starvation, and, for
those who survived long enough, eventual deportation to camps. Hundreds of thousands
of Jews were murdered through mass shootings conducted by Einsatzgruppen and other
murderous forces, often close to where they resided. Other Jews lived in western Europe,
where survival depended on the zeal of local collaborators, as well as the kindness or
indifference of others. Within each of these settings — and countless others — Jews were
faced with a choice to resist what was happening to them, either actively or passively.
Most Jews were ordinary folk — men, women, children, and the elderly — with no
experience in handling firearms, conducting military operations, or surviving in harsh
conditions. The very young and the elderly were in no real position to take up arms
against the German army, and, likewise, those who were responsible for the survival of
children or elderly parents were similarly encumbered.
Still, the inconsistency of Nazi rule and devotion to Jewish persecution meant that
right across Europe Jews faced rather different situations. For many Jews in Poland, for
instance, they were trapped within hermetically-sealed ghetto walls, and without
outside support. Jews in western Europe generally had more freedom of movement,
and arguably faced less of an existential threat than their eastern European
counterparts. In other words, Jews in eastern Europe were in greater peril at an earlier
stage, though in less of a position to resist through force. Conversely, Jews in western
Europe had more opportunities to resist but were more inclined to “hold out” and
avoid German capture rather than taking the risk of taking up arms. Whatever the
complexities, the points to note are that we cannot generalise about Jewish resistance to
Nazi genocide, and that it is important to understand the hopeless reality that Jews
faced at the time rather than applying hindsight.
To further complicate matters, scholars do not even agree on what should and should
not constitute “resistance” when it comes to Jews and the Holocaust. The eminent
Holocaust scholars Raul Hilberg and Yehuda Bauer embody these opposing — indeed,
polarized — viewpoints regarding resistance. Hilberg and his supporters, for instance,
place emphasis on active resistance and are especially critical of Jewish wartime
leadership for a perceived failure to recognise the dangers posed by the Nazis and
consequently failing to organise counter measures to resist persecution/extermination.
Hilberg argues that the “reaction pattern of the Jews is characterized by almost complete
lack of resistance... the documentary evidence of Jewish resistance, overt or submerged,
LEARNING MODULE 9.
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is very slight.”1 For Hilberg, the inability of Jews to resist the Nazi onslaught could be
attributed to the much longer history of Jews in Europe. Over 2,000 years, the Jewish
minority had learnt, according to Hilberg, that they could “survive destruction by
placating and appeasing their enemies.”2 The consequences of applying this lesson of
history to the existential threat Nazi Germany posed to European Jews — what Hilberg
famously calls the “machinery of destruction” — were deadly. Hilberg concludes that
Jews were “caught in the strait jacket of their history” and, subsequently, “plunged
themselves physically and psychologically into catastrophe.”3
Bauer and other likeminded scholars, conversely, stress the importance of not only
active but also passive resistance. Accordingly, such an interpretation argues that
merely staying alive longer than the Nazis wanted could constitute a form of
resistance. Life-saving acts of unarmed resistance — including smuggling food into
ghettos and camps, or sacrificing one’s own life to save others from starvation or
murder — constitute resistance in Bauer’s view. But the definition also extends to
“cultural, educational, religious, and political activities” that may potentially boost the
morale of Jews, as well as the work of Jewish doctors to preserve life.4 Clearly, then, a
substantial gap exists between the definitions of Jewish resistance to Nazi genocide
posited by two of the world’s most esteemed Holocaust scholars in Hilberg and Bauer.
READING EXCERPT: Michael Marrus, in his piece entitled "Jewish
Resistance to the Holocaust," summarises these positions and
points to nuanced arguments that move beyond such polarisation.
Two of Marrus’ more interesting observations relate to:
• the importance of intent and motivation for defining whether resistance occurred;
• and the relative insignificance of resistance overall in the Second World War in
shaping the course of events. Indeed, Marrus argues that resistance often involved
unacceptable risks.
Importantly, from Marrus’ perspective, acts of resistance frequently were made with a view
to preserving some form of record for the future. Acts of armed resistance, during which
1
Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews. (Quadrangle, Chicago, 1961). p. 662.
2
ibid. p. 666.
3
ibid. p. 667.
4
Yehuda Bauer, Rethinking the Holocaust. (Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2001). p. 120.
LEARNING MODULE 9.
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Jews faced insurmountable odds of survival and near-certain death, often were preceded by
Jews recording their plight for future posterity, whether through secret diaries or final letters.
Indeed, probably the most oft-quoted instance involves the renowned Russian-born Jewish
historian Simon Dubnow. According to witnesses, when facing imminent death during a
liquidation of the Riga ghetto in December 1941 Dubnow’s final words in Yiddish were a
rallying call to his fellow Jews to ensure their genocide would be remembered in future:
“Yidn, shreibt un ferschreibt!” (“Jews, write and record!”). 5
The eminent Jewish historian, writer, and activist Simon Dubnow, who was 81 years old when he was
shot during a liquidation of the Riga ghetto in December 1941.
Source: “The Jews of Latvia: Professor Simon Dubnow and His Final Journey,” The Museum of Family History.
http://www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/mfh-dubnow-simon.htm
[Accessed 3 May 2017]
a) Resistance in the Ghettos
As Marrus notes in the above reading (in which he quotes Bauer), Jews took up armed
resistance against the Nazis in no fewer than 150 ghettos in Poland.6 Despite what
appears to be substantial physical opposition undertaken by Jews in ghettos, the
interpretation of their behaviour has been the focus of much debate surrounding the
5
See, for instance: “The Jews of Latvia: Professor Simon Dubnow and His Final Journey,” The Museum of
Family History. http://www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/mfh-dubnow-simon.htm [Accessed 2 May 2017]
6
Yehuda Bauer, A History of the Holocaust. (F. Watts, New York, 1982). pp. 270-71, quoted in Michael Marrus,
“Jewish Resistance to the Holocaust,” Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 30, no. 1, January 1995, pp. 83-110.
Here pp. 103-04.
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adequacy — or otherwise — of Jewish resistance. Theoretically, Jews in ghettos had
more opportunity to organise resistance than Jews concentrated in camps because the
German presence within ghettos was minimal and responsibility for day-to-day
administration lay with the Jewish councils, whereas in camps Jews came almost
totally under direct Nazi control.
According to Lucy Dawidowicz, the reality of ghetto conditions militated against any
systematic armed resistance developing.7 Dawidowicz argues that any criticism of the
Jewish leaderships’ apparent failure to resist is unreasonable. The failure of resistance was
not the result of cowardice but rather a function of the circumstances in which Jews found
themselves. Few ghetto inhabitants were capable of embracing the notion that armed
resistance might offer a greater chance of survival than complying with German orders.
The possibility of escape existed only in some ghettos scattered across easternmost Poland,
the Baltic States, and eastern Europe, which were located near forests where local partisan
groups supported by the Soviets were hidden. Even in such circumstances, of course, there
were no guarantees that Jews could find long-term protection.
(l) Frida and Hanan Altermann, killed during resistance operations in the Minsk ghetto.
(r) The Jewish partisan leader Tuvia Bielski, one of the celebrated Bielski Brothers made famous in the
2009 film Defiance (in which the central role of Tuvia is portrayed by Daniel Craig). Tuvia survived the
war and eventually moved to the United States where he died in 1987 aged 81 years old.
Sources: Yad Vashem.
http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/holocaust/resource_center/item.asp?GATE=Z&list_type=30&TYPE_ID=85&TOTAL=&pn=2&title=Belorussia [Accessed 3 May 2017]
Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation.
http://jewishpartisans.blogspot.com.au/search/label/Tuvia%20Bielski [Accessed 3 May 2017]
7
Lucy Dawidowicz, The War Against the Jews 1933-1945. (Penguin, London, 1990). See especially the chapter
“For your Freedom and Ours,” pp. 376-409.
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READING EXCERPT: Please read Barbara Engelking's piece
entitled “In the Ghetto: Moods between Hope and Fear.”
Oscillation between moods of hope and fear partly explains why ghetto inhabitants may
have been reluctant to engage in resistance. On the one hand, hope that the nightmare
was nearly over meant that ghetto inhabitants felt that it was not worth taking the risks
that resistance entailed. On the other hand, fear, especially of retaliation against family
and loved ones, could paralyse the will to react against Nazi oppression.
b) The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
Michael Marrus, in his reading mentioned above, observes that Hannah Arendt
especially glorified the heroics of the participants in the most well-known example of
resistance, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, which provided a spectacular exception to the
metanarrative of Jewish caution.
Mass deportations of some 300,000 Jews from the Warsaw ghetto to Treblinka took
place in the (northern) summer of 1942. The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising commenced on
19 April 1943, as the Germans sought to capture and deport the 55,000 to 60,000 Jews
who still remained in the ghetto following the mass deportations the previous year.
While the uprising demonstrates how Jews were capable of defying the Nazis, its tragic
outcome also illustrates what might be the consequences of such defiance.
Jews gathered at the Warsaw ghetto’s deportation point known as the Umschlagplatz, 1942. Jews selected for
deportation were ordered to meet at the Umschlagplatz, without knowing their destination was Treblinka.
Source: “Nachum Remba,” Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team.
http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/revolt/remba.html [Accessed 3 May 2017]
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Does the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising exemplify the limitations of resistance? Or does it
suggest possibilities of resistance that could and should have been grasped sooner?
(For instance, if the inhabitants of the Warsaw ghetto had revolted a year earlier, they
still would have numbered in the hundreds of thousands thus making it exponentially
harder for the Nazis to counter.)
The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Unfolds
On 19 April 1943, Jewish inhabitants of the Warsaw ghetto commenced the first mass
armed revolt against Nazi occupation anywhere in Europe.8 They initiated the uprising
in full knowledge that it most likely would fail, but by this late stage word had filtered
back to the ghetto confirming the existing rumours swirling around about was taking
place in the extermination camp located at the nearby village Treblinka. This knowledge
meant that those Jews still remaining in the Warsaw ghetto in early 1943 knew for certain
that, even if they decided not to resist, they were condemned to death anyhow.
In 1942, a few escapees from the Treblinka extermination camp had found their way
back to the Warsaw ghetto to warn of the fate of deportees. Confirmation of rumours
about extermination camps resulted in a fundamental change of attitude among those
who remained in the ghetto, many of whom were relatively young and attracted to the
idea of taking up direct military action. With nothing left to lose, some Jews in the
Warsaw ghetto decided to fight back. Zivia Lubetkin, a participant in the uprising,
wrote in her memoirs: “It was obvious to us that the Germans would liquidate us. We
said to ourselves that in this situation, we must at least kill as many Germans as
possible and stay alive as long as possible.”9
After 13 September 1942, the Jewish underground in the Warsaw ghetto prepared for
the impending next wave of deportations (although there was uncertainty about when
this would take place). As far as possible, the various youth and other organisations
within the ghetto were coordinated into a plan of attack. Apart from some splinter
groups, general consensus was reached that an armed revolt was the only feasible
course of action.
So long as Jews believed that hope existed, most of them could not be easily persuaded
to support an uprising. It was crucial, then, to counter against German propaganda
promoting the misinformation that deportation meant relocation from the squalid ghetto
to better conditions awaiting Jews at labour camps or farms. Arms either had to be
procured (a difficult enterprise not only because of ghettoisation but also given the lack
of support from the mainstream Polish underground) or manufactured (difficult due to a
lack of appropriate materials). Consequently, the fighters were desperately ill-equipped.
8
The following account draws heavily on Shmuel Krakowski, The War of the Doomed: Jewish Armed Resistance in
Poland 1942-1944. (Holmes & Meier, New York, 1984). Chapter 10, “The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.” Krakowski’s
use of primary accounts by participants, translated from Yiddish and Polish, is of special interest.
9
Quoted in ibid. p. 165.
LEARNING MODULE 9.
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The resistance leadership, mobilized under the ŻOB (Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa or
Jewish Fighting Organisation), divided the ghetto into sections. Combat units were
trained and weapons were hidden in preparation for the assault.
The steps taken demonstrate the complexity of undertaking large-scale, planned armed
resistance:
• the ŻOB challenged the authority of the Judenrat, taking over the political and
military leadership of the ghetto (this included executing any Jewish informers);
• German misinformation was counteracted through the distribution of leaflets;
• a network of hiding places, stocked with provisions, was established;
• the ŻOB refined its resistance strategy following a surprise German raid in January 1943;
• a community tax in support of resistance was levied;
• and members of different political groups were recruited and fused together in a
unified resistance movement.
The surprise German raid conducted in January 1943 revealed weaknesses in the
Jewish resistance strategy. Valuable lessons were learnt by the ŻOB for future
resistance. According to Zivia Lubetkin:
The January uprising taught us, the Jewish Fighting Organisation, to prepare for
the battle awaiting us. We learned that it was most important to put the people
into a kind of military barracks, to plan the uprising so that all people would be
in their positions, and to make sure that each company commander, each area
commander, and each fighter would know what he was to do so that we would
not be surprised when the Germans renewed the action.10
(l) Zivia Lubetkin, the only female member of the ŻOB High Command, and its leader Yitzhak Zuckerman.
Both survived the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, married after the war in 1946, and later moved to Israel.
(r) Zivia testified in the Adolf Eichmann trial in Israel, 3 May 1961.
Sources: “Zivia Lubetkin and Yitzhak Zuckerman,” JewishHistory.org
http://www.jewishhistory.org.il/showpic.php?ID=679 [Accessed 3 May 2017]
USHMM. https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/media_ph.php?ModuleId=0&MediaId=4976 [Accessed 3 May 2017]
10
ibid. p. 182.
LEARNING MODULE 9.
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When the time came, then, the Jewish uprising was (within the limitations of the
situation) a well-coordinated and organised act of armed resistance. The ŻOB had
succeeded in mobilising virtually the whole community.
Forewarned by the moderate resistance they had encountered in January, the Germans
had reinforced their troops for the final attack on the ghetto that commenced on
19 April 1943. Ghetto residents held to their positions within buildings and in the
extensive network of bunkers and tunnels while the organised Jewish fighters engaged
in armed attacks on German troops who were then forced to retreat. Furthermore, the
passive resistance of the general Jewish population who refused to report for
deportation contributed to the effectiveness of the armed resistance.
Resistance against the Germans still was holding up remarkably well on the second day
of the revolt. On the third day, however, the Germans unleashed a new tactic: fire. This
had a devastating impact on the non-fighting ghetto populace, as this contemporary
account by a member of the Jewish labour organisation, the Bund, demonstrates:
What the Germans could not accomplish, the all-encompassing fire did.
Thousands of people are dying in the flames. The smell of burnt bodies is suffocating.
Charred bodies are lying on the balconies of houses, window sills, and unburnt stone
steps. The fire expels the people from the shelters, forces them to escape from prepared
hideouts, from safe hiding places, attics, and cellars. Thousands are wandering around
in the yards, awaiting seizure, imprisonment, or direct death, at any moment at the
hands of the Germans. Hundreds of people are losing their lives by jumping from third
or fourth floors. This is how mothers are saving their children from being burnt alive.11
Fires continued to engulf much of the ghetto into the fourth day, but the majority of the
Jewish fighting forces nonetheless remained intact. On the fifth and sixth days, fighting
shifted to guerrilla combat as the German forces led by Jürgen Stroop, an SS commander,
systematically combed the ghetto block-by-block for fighters and other Jews in hiding.
On the seventh day (25 April 1943), the Germans dropped incendiary devices from
planes onto the ghetto and attacked it with heavy artillery. Desperately short of
weapons and ammunition, the ghetto fighters moved underground into bunkers, and
tried, at much risk, to gain more weapons from beyond the ghetto walls.
After a week, the Germans had effectively broken the back of the rebellion. Yet,
isolated pockets of fighting continued as resisters remained in hiding for months
afterwards. According to a Polish underground report:
Although two months have already passed since the beginning of the liquidation of the
Warsaw Ghetto, the Germans have not been able to end this operation. In many places
in the ghetto, in cellars, sewers, and closed buildings, remnants of the Jews are still
hiding. These concentrations sometimes number a few hundred people. The Germans
are gradually finding these concentrations and destroying them, with great cruelty, by
11
ibid. p. 198.
LEARNING MODULE 9.
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blowing up buildings, flooding their foundations with water, and murdering the Jews
they capture. In certain cases, there are battles with the Jews who resist stubbornly or
try to break through to the “Aryan” quarters. From time to time, there is the sound of
houses being blown up in the ghetto, and during the nights, close shooting is heard.
Latvian and Ukrainian units, supervised by the Germans, are carrying out the final
liquidation of the ghetto with great cruelty.12
In late September 1943 — that is, five months after the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising had
commenced — Polish work groups assigned to blow up and clear away the remaining
rubble continued to find survivors: the remnants of the resistance.
(top left) SS commander Jürgen Stroop flanked by his troops watching on as the Warsaw ghetto is set ablaze.
(top right) View of the fire raging in the Warsaw ghetto during the German suppression of the uprising.
(bottom left) Ghetto inhabitants captured after being forced to come to the surface due to their
underground hiding spots either being deliberately flooded or smoked out due to fire. In the background
German troops are rummaging through Jews’ belongings.
(bottom right) Waffen SS soldiers flank Jews captured during the uprising as they are marched out of the
Warsaw ghetto. Notice the little girl at the front, who somehow must have survived the atrocious living
conditions of the ghetto for several years before being captured in April 1943.
Sources: Getty Images. http://www.gettyimages.ae/detail/news-photo/reich-persecution-of-jews-poland1939-45-warsaw-ghetto-news-photo/545734225
http://www.gettyimages.com.au/event/65th-anniversary-of-the-warsaw-ghetto-uprising-80316973
HolocaustSurvivors.org http://www.holocaustsurvivors.org/data.show.php?di=record&da=photos&ke=73
“The Liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto,” Yad Vashem.
http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/warsaw_ghetto_testimonies/liquidation.asp
[Accessed 3 May 2017]
12
ibid. p. 212.
LEARNING MODULE 9.
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PRESCRIBED TEXT: Please read Yisrael Gutman’s chapter
entitled “Nothing to Lose,” pp. 387-401.
You can also read an account by Dr Marek Edelman, the last surviving member of the
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising’s leadership group prior to his death aged 90 in October 2009.
(t) Marek Edelman in his youth, and as an octogenarian standing in front of the Monument to the
Warsaw Ghetto Heroes shortly before his death aged 90.
(b) Edelman’s coffin and portrait with a state guard of honour in front of the monument, 2009.
Sources: “co było słychać na warszawskim stricie 19.04.1943 roku,” co slychac na stricie.
http://coslychacnastricie.blogspot.com.au/2016/04/co-byo-sychac-na-warszawskim-stricie.html
“Marek Edelman, Commander in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Dies at 90,” NY Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/03/world/europe/03edelman.html
Getty Images. http://www.gettyimages.com.au/photos/marek-edelman
[Accessed 3 May 2017]
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Edelman also features in this week’s powerful B&W documentary in which he paints a
rather bleak picture.
Significance of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
What, then, was the significance of this uprising? In one sense it can be argued that the
exercise was futile. While some fighters managed to escape the ghetto and join partisan
groups in the forest, it is doubtful that any significant numbers of Jews were saved. On
the other hand, however, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising offered the chance to die in battle
instead of waiting passively for imminent death in the gas chambers of Treblinka.
Memorial to the survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, who escaped through the underground sewers.
Photograph: Tony Joel, November 2011.
LEARNING MODULE 9.
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Importantly, too, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising acted as an inspiration for non-Jewish
resistance efforts in Poland. For the Polish underground, the heroism shown in the
Warsaw ghetto demonstrated that the Germans were not wholly invincible. Jews,
confined within a ghetto and equipped with few resources, had been able to withstand
the superior German forces for far longer than had been expected. In addition, as word
spread other Jewish ghettos now had both a model of resistance to follow and a source
of inspiration. Even so, the relatively small populations of other ghettos coupled with
their lack of access to arms severely limited the possibility of similar undertakings.
Knowledge of events in the Warsaw ghetto also inspired insurrections in extermination
camps including Treblinka.
Section 2. Rescue
The polar opposite of the question of Jewish resistance, though hardly any less
contested, is the role the Allies (the Western Allies, represented by Britain and the
United States, and the Soviet Union) played in saving Jewish lives. That question, too,
is split into two parts: what the international community could have done before the
war began to accept more Jewish émigrés attempting to escape Nazi Germany; and, of
most relevance here, what more the Allies could have done to “rescue” Jews during the
war, particularly once it became understood that the Nazis were committing genocide.
a) The Western Allies
The failure of outside states or agencies to protect or rescue Jews has attracted
considerable controversy. As liberal democracies apparently supportive of human
rights, Britain and the United States have borne much of the criticism. Arguably:
• during the prewar period, both states failed to take seriously the plight of Jewish
refugees seeking a safe haven away from increasing Nazi persecution (see the earlier
discussion relating to obstacles to German Jews migrating). Once the war began, Jews
desperate to find refuge in countries such as “neutral” Switzerland often were met
with distrust, even when authorities had a reasonably clear idea of the consequences
of refusing entry.
• despite the British intelligence learning in 1942, from the decryption of secret German
Enigma codes, that Jews were being massacred in the Soviet Union, this information
was not shared with the Americans. Nor was it seen by the British as a serious reason
for intervention. (Acting on the intercepted reports almost certainly would have
made the Germans realise that their Enigma code had been cracked, thus ending
Britain’s access to priceless war-related information from the enemy.)
• When information about Auschwitz became available in 1944, reaction from the
democracies remained muted. A subtext to these criticisms is the notion that
government élites in both Britain and the United States, if not active antisemites,
were at least latently antisemitic.
LEARNING MODULE 9.
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By 1944, knowledge of Auschwitz was confirmed. Yet, even though the USAAF
(American air force) bombed the adjacent factories at Auschwitz III (Monowitz), it did
not target the extermination camp at nearby Birkenau. The decision not to bomb
Auschwitz-Birkenau is one of the chief reasons why critics such as Dan Wyman have
accused the United States government of deliberately ignoring the genocidal plight of
European Jews. The issue, however, is not necessarily as cut-and-dried as it seems.
READING EXCERPT: Please read Michael J. Neufeld's piece
entitled "Bombing Auschwitz: A Guide for the Perplexed." This
reading, which is taken from the introduction to Neufeld's edited
collection of articles on the controversy surrounding the bombing of
Auschwitz, summarises the arguments for and against bombing.
Note especially Neufeld’s observations relating to the dangers of hindsight—that is, of
failing to understand and appreciate events from the perspective of 1944.
An aerial reconnaissance photograph of Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp, September 1944. Note
in the top left corner of the photo the USAAF bombs being dropped, which targeted Auchwitz’s nearby
factories instead of its killing facilities. The Birkenau complex was never designated as a target.
Source: “Auschwitz,” Encyclopædia Britannica.
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/43486/Auschwitz [Accessed 3 May 2017]
LEARNING MODULE 9.
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Jewish communities outside of continental Europe, particularly in the United
States and Britain, also had failed to mobilise adequate governmental support
for the plight of their fellow Jews trapped in Nazi-controlled Europe. Their
suggestions for rescue often reflected poor knowledge and understanding of
the issues. The establishment of the War Refugees Board in the United States in
1944, for instance, assumed that significant numbers of Jews still were alive and
the provision of migration opportunities was the central issue. By 1944,
however, most Jews under Nazi control already had been murdered.
• PRESCRIBED TEXT: Please read Richard Breitman’s chapter
titled “The United States and Refugees, 1933-1940,” pp. 180-89.
PRESCRIBED TEXT: Also please read Louise London’s chapter
entitled “The Unreceptive British Empire,” pp. 200-15.
Any assessment of the supposed inadequacies of rescue attempts must take heed of
Pamela Shatzkes’ claim made specifically in relation to Anglo-Jewry’s inability to take
into account the broader context of the war.13 Governments would not — indeed, could
not — jeopardise the wider war effort in order to rescue Jews. As Neufeld observes,
prolonging the war ultimately would have been more dangerous for Europe’s Jews: it
would have meant that they had to endure life under Nazism for longer; and the
diversion of resources to undertake rescue attempts could not guarantee the success of
such missions anyhow. Nonetheless, it does not mean that one should ignore the
seeming lack of concern for the plight of Jews demonstrated by those who might have
been expected to care.
PRESCRIBED TEXT: You may wish to re-read Marion Kaplan’s
chapter titled “Going and Staying,” with particular focus on the
sub-section “Obstacles to Emigration,” pp.241-51.
PRESCRIBED TEXT: Please read Gunnar S. Paulsson’s chapter
entitled “The Hidden Jews of Warsaw,” pp. 699-706.
13
Pamela Shatzkes, Holocaust and Rescue: Impotence or Indifference? Anglo-Jewry, 1938-1945.
(Palgrave, Basingstoke, 2002)
LEARNING MODULE 9.
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b) Scandinavia
Intriguingly, one of the safest areas for Jews in Europe during the Holocaust — despite the
geographical proximity to Nazi Germany — was within Scandinavian countries. We have
encountered the relatively successful cases of Denmark and Sweden already (Week 4), in
which the former was occupied by the Nazis but resisted attempts to deports its country’s
Jews, whereas the latter was a nominally neutral country that proactively saved over 7,000
Danish Jews fated for transport to Auschwitz being offering them refuge. The example is
an exceptionally rare one, and while the numbers of Jews saved (relative to the millions of
Jews murdered) is comparatively small, the episode nonetheless is symbolically
significant. It illustrates how, under the right circumstances and with sufficient political
and moral will, saving the lives of thousands of Jews was possible through state
intervention. Yet, it is also important to bear in mind how exceptional the circumstances
were, and that the Nazis’ military and ideological focus was on eastern Europe rather than
their fellow “Aryan” nations in Scandinavia, which posed no military threat, were not as
geo-strategically valuable, and had reasonably small Jewish populations. Despite a
number of similarities to the Danish-Swedish success story, in the case of nearby Norway
the antisemitic and collaborative Quisling puppet government, combined with a greater
degree of direct German involvement in running state affairs, sealed the fate of Norwegian
Jews, around half of whom were ultimately deported to their deaths.
PRESCRIBED TEXT: Please read Paul A. Levine’s chapter
entitled “Sweden Expands Asylum,” pp. 735-52.
c) The Soviets
The topic of rescuing Jews from Nazi clutches is one that has been long dominated by
the perspective of the Western Allies. In many respects this is understandable. Prior
to the outbreak of war, there was certainly little desire on the part of Jews in central
and western Europe to emigrate to the Soviet Union as a way to distance themselves
from Nazi antisemitism. Indeed, anti-Jewish actions had been so prevalent in Tsarist
Russia that the word “pogrom” — Russian in origin, translating to “devastation” —
was adopted in English and other languages specifically in reference to outbursts of
violence perpetrated against Jews throughout eastern Europe but especially Russia
LEARNING MODULE 9.
Section 2: Rescue
17
during the late 1800s and early 1900s.14 Consequently, the Soviet Union does not
figure in any discussions around possible Jewish “rescue” before war broke out.
(t) Perpetrators pose with victims of the Kishinev pogrom in 1903. This pogrom, which resulted in 49 deaths,
some 500 Jews wounded, and around 2,000 Jews made homeless, erupted on Easter Sunday. At the time
Kishinev was in Bessarabia, which is now Moldova.
(b) Postcard featuring local onlookers and Jewish victims of a pogrom in Odessa, 1905. A series of vicious
pogroms occurred in Odessa in 1821, 1859, 1871, 1881, and 1905. At the time Odessa was part of the Russian
Empire, and now is located in present-day Ukraine.
Sources: “The First Twentieth Century Pogrom,” Jewish Journal.
http://boston.forward.com/articles/189611/the-first-twentieth-century-pogrom/
“Experiencing the Russian Empire,” Cambridge Core. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/thestate-antisemitism-and-collaboration-in-the-holocaust/experiencing-the-russianempire/70059E9AEFB9AD6749D950486809E83D [Accessed 3 May 2017]
Werner Bergmann, “Pogroms,” in Wilhelm Heitmeyer and John Hagan (eds.), International Handbook of
Violence Research, vol. 1. (Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, 2003). pp. 351-67. Here p. 351.
14
LEARNING MODULE 9.
Section 2: Rescue
18
After mid-1941, however, the Soviets were by far the largest armed force Nazi
Germany faced, while the Red Army was responsible for all territorial gains east of
Berlin, and for the liberation of every major Nazi camp located on Polish soil. Similar
to the case of the Western Allies, however, it cannot be assumed that the Soviets
necessarily did all they could in order to save Jewish lives (beyond winning the war
against Nazi Germany as quickly as possible).
READING EXCERPT: Danny Orbach and Mark Solonin,
in "Calculated Indifference: The Soviet Union and Requests to
Bomb Auschwitz," shed light on a largely unexplored question:
did the Soviets know what was happening in Auschwitz, and
could they have done anything to stop the killing earlier?
The assessment of Stalin presented by Orbach and Solonin is especially damning. The
Soviet leader possessed reliable intelligence of Auschwitz’s true purpose, information that
Orbach and Solonin claim Stalin deliberately withheld from Red Army commanders in the
field and partisan units. Stalin, according to Orbach and Solonin, had command over
advanced units that may have been used to help Jews, or even to liberate Auschwitz from
German hands earlier than January 1945. Moreover, they argue that the Soviets had a
greater technical capability when it came to the theoretical bombing of AuschwitzBirkenau than the Western Allies, and were much closer to the target at an earlier time
(August 1944). Orbach and Solonin acknowledge that any bombing operation from the
Soviet perspective would have brought with it many difficulties, and there was no
guarantee of success. Ultimately, though, Orbach and Solonin argue that it was Stalin
himself who made the decision not to attempt an aerial bombardment of Auschwitz’s
killing facilities. It was a course of inaction that they attribute to Stalin’s own antisemitism,
and to “a complicated shift in the Soviet Union’s nationalities policy.” Amongst other
objectives, this policy aimed to suppress the nationalist aspirations of Jews and many other
minority groups within a postwar Soviet Union. Essentially, Stalin’s indifference to the
plight of Jews was “calculated.” Although research on this subject remains in its infancy, it
adds further layers of complexity to an ongoing historical debate.
Conclusion
The topics of Jewish resistance and rescue in the Holocaust raise a number of
important questions, can lead to heated debate, and are prone to the dangers of
hindsight. It is often claimed that Jews were far too passive and they allowed
themselves to be “led like lambs to the slaughter,” but such a conclusion is far too
straightforward. Rather than reaching for simplistic generalisations we need to delve
LEARNING MODULE 9.
Conclusion
19
deeper and consider the variances. Likewise, assertions that the Allies could and
should have done more to save Jewish lives during the war — beyond defeating
Hitler’s Germany and liberating all Europeans from the yoke of Nazism as quickly as
possible — need to take into account the complexities of the broader wartime historical
context. After all, it simply was not possible to waltz into Nazi-controlled territory
during wartime and help millions of Jews to escape. And by the time Allied forces
were in a position to overrun German camps the overwhelming majority of Holocaust
victims had been murdered already.
Perhaps more than any other topics covered in this unit, this week’s key themes of rescue
and resistance challenge you to eschew the clarity of hindsight and build some historical
empathy for those victims and bystanders who sometimes faced impossibly difficult
decisions. Indeed, ask yourself: what would you have done in the circumstances?
In the case of resistance, first and foremost it must be recognised that Jewish experiences
of the Holocaust differed throughout much of Europe, and opportunities to resist using
force were limited and varied according to geography, German priorities, and local
conditions. Most European Jews had no access to proper weapons, little to no experience
in combat, and were struggling to survive as prisoners of the Nazis or to prevent
themselves (and their loved ones) from becoming captive. With such circumstances in
mind, you need to consider whether resistance should be limited to Hilberg’s tight
definition of “armed” and “active,” or Bauer’s preference for a more open interpretation.
If the Nazis’ intention was to kill every Jew in Europe, was the mere act of survival in
itself a form of resistance?
We also need to be careful neither to ignore nor overestimate the acts of armed
resistance that took place. Hilberg largely dismisses such instances, even when it
comes to the quite spectacular and exceptional act of resistance that took place during
the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Arguably, though, this single example also raises further
questions. Ultimately, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was crushed, most of the Jews who
survived the fighting were captured and murdered, with only a few surviving the war.
Meanwhile, the Jewish ghetto fighters inflicted relatively minor damage to German life
and limb. Did such large-scale acts of armed resistance, then, demonstrate the
potentiality or the futility of Jews actively fighting back? In other words, could Jews
have done more to defend themselves as they did in the Warsaw ghetto? And could
the Nazis’ attempt to exterminate European Jewry have been prevented — or at least
mitigated to a far greater extent — had they done so? Or does this particular uprising
suggest that the chances of success and survival were minimal and came at great cost
— in other words, was there anything Jews could have done to adequately defend
themselves against the Nazi machinery of destruction?
As with resistance, in considering the question of rescue we must attempt to place
ourselves in the position of decision-makers. The Western Allies and the Soviet Union
were up against the might of the German armed forces — the defeat of which was their
LEARNING MODULE 9.
Conclusion
20
utmost priority. For the Soviets in particular, the war was an ideological and military
struggle to the death, one that cost the lives of tens of millions of soldiers and civilians. Is
it reasonable, then, to argue that more should have been done specifically to save Jews
other than defeating Nazism? It is likely that the Allies had a reasonably solid awareness
of what was happening to Jews around the time it was unfolding (though probably just
after most Jews were already dead). Later in the war, for instance, the Allies knew what
was occurring at Auschwitz — at a time when its extermination facilities were within
striking distance of British and American bombers and advanced Red Army troops. Why
the Western Allies decided not to bomb Auschwitz for the purposes of stopping the
mass killing of Jews — as opposed to the strategic motivations behind the bombing of
the nearby factories at Monowitz — is an open question for you to ponder.
The Big Three — Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin — and their key military advisors gathered together at
the Yalta Conference in February 1945. Beyond defeating Hitler and liberating all of Europe from
Nazism, could the Allies have done more to save Jews?
Source: “Yalta Conference,” Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yalta_Conference [Accessed 3 May 2017]
Finally, in discussing both resistance and rescue during the Holocaust one point must be
stressed above all others: the culpability of Nazi Germany. Jews were not killed because
they failed to resist or because the Allies refused to save them. Any bald accusations to
the contrary are without justification. It is possible that more could have been done, and
more Jewish lives could have been saved. Blame for the genocide of Europe’s Jews,
however, lays squarely at the feet of the Third Reich and its willing collaborators.