Dachau Massacre

Nuremberg Trials

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." - Margaret Mead

International Response to the Holocaust controversial topic in history Some countries and individuals actively helped. Other countries seem to have ignored the genocide. Historians argue about how aware the int’l community was about the Holocaust.

International Response to the Holocaust When it was clear Denmark would be invaded by the Nazis, Danish citizens helped the Danish Jews flee to safety in neutral Sweden. As a result, 99% of the Danish Jewish population survived the Holocaust. The Bulgarian gov’t prevented 48,000 Bulgarian Jews from being deported to Nazi death camps. (However, Jews in Bulgarian-occupied areas of Greece and Macedonia were deported and killed.)

During the Nazi policy of deportation, German Jews were allowed to emigrate if they could prove they had a country to go to. Evian Conference (1938) – countries met in France to discuss the problem of Jewish refugees fleeing persecution in Europe – US and Britain (superpowers at the time) attended – 31 of the 32 attendees refused to accept more refugees International Response to the Holocaust

Bermuda Conference (1943) – US and Britain met again to discuss the continuing problem of Jewish refugees (by this time the Nazis were gassing Jews) – neither country increased their immigration quotas – a US official protested US policy by publishing the Report on the Acquiescence of this Government in the Murder of the Jews International Response to the Holocaust

Hans Gerhard Creutzfeldt German neuropathologist worked at a psychiatric clinic during the 1930s and 40s prevented nearly all of his patients from being euthanized as part of the T-4 program

Archbishop Damaskinos of Athens Greek Orthodox priest formally protested the deportation of Greek Jews issued baptismal certificates to Jews, thereby passing them off as Christians and saving them

Foreign Diplomats – issued visas so Jews could emigrate to safety, hid them in embassies, etc. Ho Feng-Shan China - Austria 1000s Carl Lutz Switzerland - Hungary 62,000 Raoul Wallenberg Sweden - Hungary 100,000s

Nazis Oskar Schindler German businessman Albert Battel German military officer saved Jews by claiming them as “essential workers” in his enamel factory disobeyed orders and blocked his fellow German soldiers from entering a Polish ghetto that they were to “empty” helped move 100+ Jews to safety (instead of being sent to the death camps)

Irena Sendler Polish snuck children out of the Warsaw ghetto

Khaled Abdulwahab Tunisian hid a Jewish man in his hammam, Turkish bathhouse Hamza Abdul Jalil Tunisian kept two Jewish families on his farm – safeguarded them from the Nazis