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Dr. Monte S. Finkelstein
FSU Holocaust Institute
Summer 2008
“The Diversity of Nazi Victims”
SELECTED SOURCES
Berenbaum, Michael, editor. A Mosaic of Victims: Non Jews Persecuted and
Murdered by the Nazis (New York, 1990)
Burleigh, Michael and Wolfgang Wippermann. The Racial State: Germany, 19331945 (Cambridge, 1991)
Evans, Richard. The Coming of the Third Reich (New York, 2003)
Friedlander, Henry. The Origins of Nazi Genocide: From Euthanasia to the Final
Solution (Chapel Hill, 1995)
Friedlander, Saul. Nazi Germany and the Jews: The Years of Extermination, 19391945 (New York, 2007)
Gutman, Yisrael and Michael Berenbaum, editors. Anatomy of the Auschwitz
Death Camp (Bloomington, Indiana, 1994)
Jehovah Witnesses Stand Firm Against Nazi Assault, Video (Watchtower Bible
and Tract Society, New York, 1996)
King, Christine Elizabeth. The Nazi State and the New Religions: Five Case
Studies in Non-Conformity (New York, 1982)
Koonz, Claudia. The Nazi Conscience (Cambridge, Mass., 2003).
Lewy, Guenter. The Nazi Persecution of the Gypsies (New York, 2000)
Lifton, Robert. The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of
Genocide (New York, 1986)
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Lukas, Richard C. The Forgotten Holocaust: The Poles Under the German
Occupation, 1939-1944 (Lexington, Kentucky, 1986)
Mitchell, Joseph R. and Mitchell, Helen. The Holocaust: Readings and
Interpretations (New York, 2001)
Plant, Richard. The Pink Triangle: The Nazi War Against Homosexuals (New
York, 1986)
Porraimos: Europe’s Gypsies in the Holocaust, video, (The Cinema Guild, New
York, 2003)
Pringle, Heather. The Master Plan; Himmler’s Scholars and the Holocaust (New
York, 2006)
Proctor, Robert N. Racial Hygiene: Medicine Under the Nazis (Cambridge, Mass.,
1988)
Purple Triangles -Video- (Bible and Tract Society, New York, 1991)
Reynaud, Michel and Graffard, Sylvie. The Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Nazis:
Persecution, Deportation and Murder, 1933-1945 (New York, 2001)
Wytwycky, Bohdan. The Other Holocaust: Many Circles of Hell (Washington,
D.C., 1980)
Yahil, Leni. The Holocaust: The Fate of European Jewry (New York, 1990)
See the publications of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
on the Handicapped, Homosexuals, Poles, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Sinti and
Roma
A.
BACKGROUND TO THE KILLINGS
1.
19th century racial hygiene movement was aimed at discovering
which people or groups of people were of inferior intelligence, sought
to manipulate breeding to improve human race
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2.
numerous governments acted against those considered inferior
3.
those “unworthy of life” were said to deserve a painless death; killing
would benefit society; phrase and idea predated the Nazis who
adopted it
4.
Nazis followed a distinct pattern in their killings:
Exclusion, followed by end of legal protections, followed by death
5.
Nazis first target were the handicapped; this operation allowed Nazis
to develop the selection process, killing techniques, disposal process,
and the means to hide the murders
B..
THE HANDICAPPED
1.
July 1933 law called for the handicapped to be sterilized; aimed at
adults who were labeled a burden on the community
2.
October 1935 marriage law prevented marriages between those
considered carriers of hereditary degeneracy
3.
euthanasia of children began in 1939; those with particular
deformities were targeted; physicians cooperated with promise that
they would not be prosecuted later
4.
children starved or medicated to death
5.
killings defended on grounds that children had incurable ailments or
would never have led productive li
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C.
6.
at almost same time, Nazis started the T4 program
7.
T4 operation was supposed to be secret; had a massive infrastructure
of doctors and bureaucrats
8.
T4 program laid background for future slaughter of Jews by setting up
procedures for rounding up the victims, transporting them, processing
them and killing them
9.
Nazi officials lied to families about the fate of their relatives
10.
in August 1941 Hitler ordered a formal halt to the killings; public
opposition, church opposition
11.
T4 personnel moved to the east for larger killing tasks; killing of
handicapped continued during the war; in occupied territories and in
Germany; often called the “wild euthanasia program”
GYPSIES
1.
Gypsies originally came India; migrated west to Europe; historical
target of discrimination; labeled as liars, thieves, criminal, and even
cannibals
2. Divided into two major groups: Roma are those who have lived in
Eastern Europe; Sinti are West European Gypsies
3.
Gypsies target of prejudice in pre-Nazi Germany; many efforts made
to control and restrict their activities
4.
When Hitler came to power he simply borrowed and applied laws that
were already in place to control the Gypsies; Nazi leaders had
conflicting ideas on the treatment of Gypsies
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D.
5.
Nazi racial scientists divided Gypsies into pure Gypsies were
considered of good blood; those who had intermingled were impure
6.
in 1935, Gypsies first rounded up and placed into special Gypsy
camps; conditions in camp depended upon location and person in
command
7.
in 1936, Reich Central Office for the Fight Against the Gypsy
Nuisance was created
8.
September 1939- Conference held in Berlin; called by Reinhard
Heydrich; probably decided on a Final Solution to the Gypsy problem
9.
1939-mass round up of Gypsies began; sent to various concentration
camps; others deported to Poland for forced labor or placed in ghettos
or simply dumped
10.
December 1942- all Gypsies left in the Reich ordered to Auschwitz;
Auschwitz contained largest population of Gypsies; had a separate
section in the camp; Gypsy camp existed for 17 months; in August
1944, last of the Gypsies in the camp were gassed
11.
Gypsies subject to all types of experiments by Nazi doctors
12.
in most other parts of Europe Gypsies turned over to the Germans and
killed
JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES
1.
persecuted on religious grounds; had chance to escape persecution by
renouncing their religious beliefs; most refused to do so
2.
Witnesses came to Germany in the 1890's; only 20,000 Germans were
Witnesses in the 1930s
3.
disliked by mainstream Protestant and Catholic Churches; individual
German states did seek to ban their literature
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E.
4.
Nazis disliked Witnesses for many reasons: Witnesses taught that
forces of Jehovah would defeat the forces of Satan as personified in
the Nazis; Witnesses refused to pledge allegiance to German state or
serve in the army; identified as communists; denounced for
international ties; also denounced for supposed connection to Judaism
5.
Witnesses tried to persuade Nazis that they were not their enemy;
1933- Declaration of Facts a Witness work designed to inform the
Nazi government of their neutrality
6.
1935- Nazis pass laws barring Witnesses from civil service jobs, lost
government benefits, children barred from schools, etc.,
7.
1936-1939- Witnesses under constant attack by Nazis; as repression
got worse, they continued their resistance
8.
Witnesses sent to concentration camps; maintained their religious
beliefs; continued their attack on the Nazi state; subject to punishment
and torture
9.
considered model prisoners; accepted order and authority; part of a
divine plan; sustained in camps by family and faith
HOMOSEXUALS
1.
Homosexual behavior had been outlawed in Germany for years; in
liberal climate of the Weimar Republic gay culture had flourished;
there was homosexual rights movement (Magnus Hirschfeld)
2.
paragraph 175 of an 1871 law code formed basis far persecution of
homosexuals in Germany
3.
Hitler and Himmler considered homosexuality a predisposition which
could not be changed; believed that only a few homosexuals could be
“rehabilitated”; believed that a final solution was as inevitable for
them as it was for the Jews
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4.
Himmler the most homophobic of all Nazi leaders; explained the
reasons for the extermination of male homosexuals in terms of
population and race
5.
in 1933, storm troopers began to raid gay bars and some homosexuals
were arrested and detained but most felt safe because Ernst Roehm,
head of the SA was a notorious homosexual
6.
Roehm’s murder by Hitler in June 1934, opened gates for widespread
persecution of homosexuals
7.
in December 1934- law changed so that homosexual intent was now
grounds to arrest someone for being homosexual
8.
by 1938-1939 all gay bars and organizations had been shut down
9.
Himmler ordered death for any homosexuals in the SS; German
military did not follow same rules and many gays joined the military
and found refuge during the war
10.
Homosexuals sent to camps; forced to wear Pink Triangles; among the
most hated, despised, punished and isolated group of prisoners
11.
Nazis feared that homosexuals would convert guards and other
prisoners to the gay lifestyle
12.
homosexuals used heavily for experiments; attempts were made to
“rehabilitate” or “straighten them out”
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F.
THE POLES
1.
Hitler hated Poles for both racial and political reasons; invasion of
Poland led to massive slaughter
2.
Western Poland annexed to Germany; Poles driven from this area;
Germans moved in; towns and cities given German names
3.
Remaining part of Poland designated the General Government; run by
Germans; Hitler saw it a dumping ground for undesirables, a reservoir
of slave labor; and a location for concentration camps
4.
in early 1940, close to one million Poles deported from annexed area
to General Government
5.
in General Government Germans made considerable efforts to
exterminate all the leading strata of the Polish people; killed
professors, educated classes in general, civic and political leadership
6.
Germans aimed at destroying Polish people and culture at the same
time
7.
Polish children kidnapped; sent to Germany for possible
Germanization or death
8.
Nazis strictly subjugated Poles, starved them; Nazis aimed to
depopulate Poland and make room for German settlers
9.
Poles executed almost daily in parts of Poland; other sent to camps
were they were worked to death, starved, or gassed
10.
many Poles and historians believe that if war had continued, Poles
would have been obliterated by the Germans
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G.
H.
RHINELAND BASTARDS
1.
small group of children; had German mothers; fathers were black
French soldiers from Morocco who had occupied Germany after
World War I; at least one father was an African-American
2.
Nazi government registered children; 385 of them; children examined
to prove their “racial inferiority”
3.
sterilized by doctors
RUSSIAN PRISONERS OF WAR
1.
after the Jews, Russian POWS numerically the largest number of
victims
2.
approximately 5.7 million Red Army soldiers taken prisoner during
the war; over half perished
3.
died in camps or in transport; died from hunger, lack of shelter;
thousands shot; brutally treated by German military
4.
ordeal of Soviet prisoners did not end with the war; rejected by Soviet
community after the war; many sent to the Gulag by Stalin
These victims should never be forgotten, especially when we think of the
numerous reasons for which they were persecuted.
Must not forget that some of the same prejudices that motivated the Nazis, still
exist and motivate some people today.
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