The Holocaust was an inconceivable historical event, which forever robbed Western culture of its innocence. As civilized human beings, we fail to understand how events of such horror could have taken place, and how an idea so inhumanly warped could have spread like wildfire through an entire continent, instigating the systematic annihilation of millions of Jews. This free online course was produced jointly by Tel Aviv University and Yad Vashem – the World Holocaust Remembrance Center. This course is the second of the two courses and covers three themes in its three weeks: Week 1: The Final Solution We’ll look at the cultural and mental processes that paved the way to the comprehensive and systematic mass murder of Jews in Europe – that is, the Final Solution. As part of this hard lesson we will discuss the various characteristics of the murder sites and death camps, and reveal selected aspects of the horror that occurred in them. Week 2: Jewish and Non-Jewish Responses to the Holocaust We will try to explore questions regarding knowledge about the application of the Final Solution, as well as a variety of responses and annihilation of victims, local populations and perpetrators. Week 3: The End of the War We will dedicate this lesson to the events that occurred in the last years of the Holocaust, as well as questions of memory, commemoration and future research. We strongly recommend that you register for "The Holocaust - An Introduction (I): Nazi Germany: Ideology, The Jews and the World" as well. Taking both parts of the course would enable you to obtain a fuller and more comprehensive knowledge about The Holocaust. This online course is offered in an innovative, multi-level format, comprising: Comprehensive lectures by leading researchers from Tel Aviv University and Yad Vashem. A wealth of voices and viewpoints presented by guest lecturers Numerous documents, photos, testimonies and works of art from the time of the Holocaust. Novel learning experience: Crowdsourcing – involving the learners themselves in the act of collecting and shaping information, via unique, exciting online assignments.
Introduction
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From the course by Tel Aviv University
The Holocaust - An Introduction (II): The Final Solution
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From the lesson
The Final Solution and the Drive for Eliminating All Jews and All Perceived Jewish "Influences"
This lesson will be devoted to the cultural and mental processes which paved the way to the comprehensive and systematic mass murder of Jews. We will deal with the specific decision-making process regarding the murder of the entire European Jewry, the implementation of the initial murder, the broadening circle of killing, and the early Jewish reactions to the "Final Solution".
Meet the Instructors
Professor Havi Dreifuss, PhDProfessor
Havi Dreifuss is a historian of the Holocaust in Eastern Europe; senior lecturer in the Department of Jewish History at TAU; heads the Center for Research of Holocaust History in Poland, Yad Vashem.
Dr Na'ama Bela Shik, PhDDirector, Educational Technology Department, The International School for Holocaust Studies, Yad Vashem
The International School for Holocaust Studies, Yad Vashem
[MUSIC]
>> Hello.
We're happy to open our second part of the course, the Holocaust, an Introduction,
and it's wonderful to have you with us.
Some of you have already taken the first part of this course and
must remember how we tried to set a little bit of knowledge necessary for
understanding of the Holocaust, as well as expose you to the value and
limits of historical sources in what we call From the Historian's Desk.
Others are joining us only today, and
as much as it is always great to see new faces even in this virtual world,
we strongly recommend you take this part after finishing the first one.
This is true not only due to the many notions and
facts already introduced in the first part.
But also since today we are about to discuss maybe the most
difficult part of the holocaust, the development and
implementation of the mass murders of the Jews.
In today's session, we'll try and
expose how decisions regarding the total annihilation of the Jews was made.
And what did it mean for the millions of targeted victims as well as for
the perpetrators.
We will depict the terrifying reality of some of the death sites, as well
as a constant assault on human soul created as a system in the Nazi camps.
Just as before,
this will be done with a combination of many different points of view.
Germans, with all their internal complexities, local ones and
their various historical contexts, as well as Jewish, a perspective
which will expose the absolute horror of the individuals whose world,
family members, as well as beliefs and hopes, were brutally crushed.
The questions we will ask today address the origins of the mass murders and
the main figures or powers which contributed to their development.
This is not a new question, and it has actually been haunting many
from the moment the magnitude of the Holocaust was exposed.
Thus, as part of the Nuremberg Trials of Nazi leaders,
to be discussed much later in this course, some questions about the mechanism
which lead to the mass murder of the millions of Jews were asked.
And documents collected during the trials served as important sources for
historians.
From the late 60s, the world of research was dominated by dispute between
two different schools of thought, Intentionalism and Functionalism.
Each holding opposing perceptions regarding key questions in the field.
The intentionalists claim that the Holocaust,
the mass murder of the Jews, was a product of direct early intention.
They argued that on the basis of Nazi anti-semitic ideology,
Hitler as a supreme leader had a design planned for
the total removal of the Jews which he implemented in a more or
less linear manner since his rise to power in 1933.
In contrast, functionalist researchers
claim that the mass murder of the Jews was a function of events.
An outcome of an unintended process escalating as a result of
many different factors, as internal struggles within in the Nazi bureaucracy.
Those two approaches actually had a few main points of contention.
First, was the Holocaust a result of ideology or of an ongoing radicalization?
Meaning, was Nazi ideology the true driving force of the Nazi regime,
or only a facade, a tool, propaganda used to achieve power and political dominance?
Yet, those schools also differed in the questions of Hitler's role in the events.
The intentionalists claimed that Hitler and his senior ranks were responsible for
all decisions take in the Third Reich including the mass murder of the Jews.
While the functionalists emphasize bureaucracies and
grass roots part in the implementation of Anti-Jewish steps.
Each of those schools was criticized for different weaknesses of it's argument.
The intentionalists were challenged for placing the responsibility for
the atrocities only on Hitler and his high ranking staff.
And thus, clearing the German society for responsibility for those deadly deeds.
They were also accused for anacronism, interpreting early sources,
not in their context but in light of later understandings and developments.
The functionalists were criticized for diminishing the role of ideology
in anti-semitism and the mass murder of the Jews.
They were asked if there were only circumstantial reasons.
Thus, if millions of Jews were murdered
only as a result of practical problems such as food shortage or
local aspirations, why were the Jews the ones who were repeatedly targeted?
Phrasing it differently, why the Jews?
And not the Cyclicsts or people with blue eyes.
The bottom line, the fact that no direct order signed by Hitler was ever found,
contributed to the ambiguity.
Yet today, we know that ambiguity was part of the system and served it.
As you remember, Hitler used to set the general calls and policy guidelines,
often orally, and expected his people to suggest ways to
accomplish them, a policy termed Working towards the Fuehrer.
It will be exactly this process that will, on the one hand,
continue to emphasize the total removal of the Jews as a central object.
And on the other hand, encourage a constant emergence of endless creative
initiative of high and low German officials to solve the Jewish question.
The many initiatives will result not only in a continuous escalation of anti-Jewish
steps, but also in interweaving the actions of grassroots actors,
with those of high ranking Nazis all contributing to a set of
decisions which will ultimately lead to the implementation of the final
solution of the Jewish question, mass and total murder of the Jewish people.
Thus, today we can say that the intentionalism and
functionalism focus on two different aspects of the mechanism.
Which made the magnitude of the catastrophe possible.
They intentionally exposed the essence of the Nazi ideology
in the central place of hatred of the Jews and anti-Judaism in it.
And emphasized Hitler's role, as well as the role of his highest ranking servants.
The functionalists on the other hand, uncovered the many local powers and
individuals who served this genocidal regime, whether because of pure belief or
coercion, while trying constantly to promote its goals.
Both schools have contributed to our current understanding that the mass
murder of the Jews was a product of a number of decisions driven from above,
but taken also as a result of an ongoing restlessness from below.
Yet, prior to our attempt to better understand who decided on
what Nazi Germany termed the Final Solution of the Jewish question,
we must emphasize the existence of a cultural and mental process
which paved the way to a comprehensive and systematic mass murder of the Jews.
Indeed, Nazi redemptive antisemitism again, discussed clearly from before,
defined the Jews as antirace, a destructive element of humanity and
the hazard to the existence of the most needed racial New Order of the world.
This was the living motivation, yet
it would not have been able to manifest itself if not for
the well-rooted hostility towards the Jews all over Europe.
Traditional hatred of the Jews as well as modern antisemitism throughout Europe.
For educated people as well as laymans,
the constant of a world without Jews started to be a possible vision.
>> Jews stood for a principle of equality.
And we can see they issue of burning books, of desecrating Torah scrolls.
They were obsessed the Nazis with marking and defining the Jews everywhere.
But there is also no process of self purification.
And that is very interesting.
Carl Schmidt, the legal expert in the Nazi Germany,
he spoke in 1936 about a purifying the Nazi legal system from Jewish ideas.
The Association for the German Language embarked on a process of
purifying the German language from Jewish influences.
In the 1940s the [FOREIGN] led by the Nazi leader Rosenberg,
collected the Jewish libraries and Jewish degenerate
art from all over Europe and quarantined them in Prague.
Now if we take this all altogether,
we have to add to that that Hitler was a transformational leader.
This is a concept which is very important,.
Hitler is a person who succeeded in transforming society within
a very short period into a different society.
And that is what happened in Nazi Germany in the 1930s and
can explain what happened afterwards in the 1940s.
>> Over time, this mental process will not just lead to
the acceptance of the mass murder >> But
to extent of involvement in its implementation.
So how did this Final Solution of the Jewish question emerge?
Who are the individuals and organizations which took an active part in its planning
and in its actual implementation?
How are millions of human beings, of Jews, murdered, and
what was the effect of the murder on victims, perpetrators, and witnesses.
Those are some of the difficult questions we would like to address today.
[MUSIC]
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