Could the Holocaust Have Been Avoided? Lessons From the Holocaust and Present Day Hatred Holocaust Power Point #11

In the early 1930s during the Great Depression, Europe and the U.S. reeled from unemployment, soup kitchens, bread lines, and they wondered if life would ever improve. The last thing they wanted was a new group of hungry people to feed. With the situation bleak everywhere, immigration declined because people felt they could go hungry at home more easily than in a strange country. There were of course, other places German Jews could go, but “No Immigrants Welcome” signs were up everywhere The responsibility for the Holocaust clearly falls on Hitler –His aim is clear from the first page of Mein Kampf to the death of his last victim in a death camp.

What the Outside World Could Have Done…. European Democracies –Could have stopped Hitler in his tracks if they had not tried appeasement (giving in to demands) The Role of the United Sates –President Roosevelt called an international conference that met at Evian, France. –They met and talked about the urgent need to help Jews resettle –No one else besides the Dominican Republic offered to take any more than their usual immigration quotas –Hitler knew now that no one wanted his Jews –After Kristallnacht, Roosevelt allowed the 15,000 Germans and Austrians with visitor status to remain in the U.S., but he did nothing more.

Most countries’ attitudes were indifferent St. Louis, which sailed from Hamburg in May 1939 with 900 German Jews on board---purchased entry permits to Cuba and hoped to eventually be allowed to enter the U.S.----when they arrived in Havana they were refused entry and moved on. Everywhere the S. Louis went, the passengers were rejected. Money was raised by Jewish organizations and they finally convinced England, Holland, Belgium, and France to take the passengers. A poll showed that 80% of Americans opposed changing immigration laws –In 1943, a Polish diplomat, Jan Karski, met with Roosevelt and told him about the death camps in Poland He asked the President to bomb railroads, gas chambers, and crematoria, but nothing was done The State Department found a problem in every approach to helping Jews –A Treasury Department lawyer discovered that the State Department was hiding information about the Holocaust from the president and trying to cut off any new reports on the subject –When Roosevelt found out he set up the War Refugee Board a few days later –U.S. decided the best way to help concentration camp inmates was a quick victory in the war

The responsibility for the tragedy of the Holocaust remains with Hitler and his Nazi henchmen, but the harm they brought to millions could have been reduced before and during the war. Prejudice is a disease that not only affects the mind, but the heart, eyes, and ears as well.

Lessons from the Holocaust Free Lunches –“There’s no such thing as a free lunch.”—every action has a price –In the early 1930s the Great Depression affected most of the world; desperate people look to anyone who can rescue them Leaders like Hitler and Stalin offered cures for their nation’s problems Hitler blamed Germany’s Jews and the international Jewish bankers---he was offering a “free lunch” –People were tired of street demonstrations, so he arrested Communists and even his own SA –People wanted jobs, so he started building projects, including lavish government buildings and autobahns (super highways) –German glory was built at the Jew’s expense –In the end Germany paid dearly, with a war, mass destruction, loss of property, thousands of lives, and loss of self-respect. –The world paid a price for its indifference as well

Power –Put too much power in anyone’s hand, and it leads to disaster. –Lord Acton’s famous comment that: “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely” was certainly true during the Nazi era. –The abuse of power spread beyond the camps--- any land or property in occupied Europe was available to any German official who wanted it. –Hitler planned to take all worthwhile farm land in occupied Poland and Russia and give it to German farmers. –In the end, Hitler’s obsession with power destroyed him and his dream. –His dream of glory led him to war with two nations he most feared and respected: Great Britain and the United States

Apathy Towards Evil –Each of us has a tendency to ignore abuses as long as they don’t affect us. –Martin Niemoller may have said it best---he supported Hitler when he came to power, but by 1935, he had seen what Nazism stood for and attacked it from the pulpit. He wrote the famous poem “First they came for the Jews” –When any person or group is picked on, and they have done nothing to provoke the attack, the time for protest comes before they come to pick on you.

Prejudice –Is a terrible beast to let loose on the world, and if it is allowed to roam free, it brings out the worst in human nature. –In Germany it began with defining who a Jew was, and that led to humiliation, suffering, and death for millions. –It is good to be proud of your school, team, city, state, and nation, and you should do everything possible to make them better. –But to wish evil on someone else, to assume they are hardly worth of living, does not make you better. –Germany learned the lesson the hard way. In time, they suffered for those years when Prejudice had ruled their land.

Is the Holocaust Unique? Native Americans—The Indians –US underwent a great expansion in 19 th century –Thousands upon thousands of Indians in the Southeast and Southwest were forcibly rounded up and taken from their land by the federal gov’t –Unaccustomed to the cold, hundreds froze to death –Others starved when their supplies ran out, still others died of disease –The Cherokees called their forced trek “The Trail of Tears”

The Armenians –In the early 20 th century a movement for independence developed among the 2.5 million Christian Armenians in Muslim Turkey –Police rounded up all educated Armenians and killed them –The remaining were marched on foot across hundreds of miles of desert and mountain-- -dying of thirst, starvation, and disease –Close to 1.5 million Armenians died

“The Rape of Nanking” –Japan and China were at war –In December of 1937, 50,000 Japanese soldiers captured the city of Nanking, the country’s capital –Given the order to kill all captives, they proceeded to carry out a bloody massacre –The Chinese were used for target and bayonet practice –Japanese soldiers held decapitation contests –Massacre continued for approximately 7 weeks –An estimated 200, ,000 Chinese were killed

Darfur –Located in Africa, a region of the Sudan (about the size of Texas), ethnically diverse –Two groups fighting…one a government supported militia who is trying to eliminate local peasants –Genocide has claimed over 400,000 lives and displaced 2.5 million. Also, more than 100 people die each day, 5,000 a month. –Their “purpose” is racial cleansing, trying to eliminate those that do not belong They have used rape, displacement, organized starvation, threats against workers, and mass murder –Also fighting for natural resources like water, farmable land

Present Day Hate Groups The hatred that took shape in Nazism was not special to the Nazis during the years Theirs was the most well organized and murderous The hatred is not dead. It lives in unknown numbers of people around the world today A few governments express hostility toward Israel as the Jewish state, and at Jews in general They secretly support terrorists who train in destruction and bloodshed even if it will mean they lose their own lives –Most of these are in the Middle East –America is a prime target—as proven by attacks on September 11 th The actions of hate groups in the Western world regularly appear in the newspapers and on television.

“Skinheads” –Usually these are young men who have shaved their heads to the skin---the reason for their name—and wear racist Nazi tattoos –There are women among them who may or may not have shaved heads –Skinheads are always white –They do not consider Jews to be white –They may call themselves “white supremacists” and demand “White Power” –Many are drawn to violence –Also hate homosexuals, blacks, Chinese, Puerto Ricans, Koreans, Japanese, Mexicans, Arabs, foreigners in general and immigrants from almost any country (basically anyone who isn’t white)

Holocaust Denial Many survivors of the Holocaust remember being told by the SS: –“However this war may end, we have won the war against you; and even if some proof should remain and some of you survive, people will say the events you describe are too monstrous to be believed; they will say they are exaggerations of…propaganda”

The deniers say there is “another side” to the history of the Holocaust –What “other side”? The Holocaust happened. Six million Jews were murdered. There is no “other side”. Those who deny the Holocaust may be extremists, openly racist, ferociously anti-Semitic but often they come clothed in the look of respectability and the appearance of scholarship. They present themselves as historians. They do not call their argument denial, and they do not call themselves deniers. They have named themselves “revisionists”. –They call their version of events “revisionism” as though they have revised and corrected the facts that have been accepted as true---until they came along.

Those who call themselves Holocaust revisionists deny accepted facts and manufacture new ones. They have written books and articles, and they too make use of the Internet The largest and most effective of the revisionist groups publishes a scholarly journal. Full of figures, footnotes, and long quotations, their writing claims to “reveal” the “true facts” about the Holocaust. They insist the Holocaust never happened.

The Final Message The hate groups and Holocaust deniers must be taken seriously. –Their number grows steadily larger and their actions become ever more dangerous. It does not matter if someone is not a Jew, not a black, not homosexual, not Mexican or Puerto Rican, an Asian or an Arab NO ONE IS SAFE FROM HATE A survivor said, “All that it takes for evil to triumph is for the good to do nothing.” –This is the message of the Holocaust!