Transcript Why the Jews? - PatriciaNowacky

Four Stages
Pagan Era
Early Christianity
Middle Ages
18th-19th Centuries
ca. 2000 B.C. – ca. A.D. 50
ca. A.D. 100-500
ca. A.D. 500-1500
A.D. 1700-1900
Part I: Why the Jews?
Pagan Era
ca. 2000 B.C. – ca. A.D. 50
Jews introduce monotheism into
a polytheistic world
Claim to be God’s Chosen People stirs
resentment (others make the same claim)
Jews become defined as the “Other,” a peculiar
people
Part I: Why the Jews?
Early Christianity
ca. A.D. 100-500

Jesus a “trouble maker”
for Roman and Jewish leaders

Jesus’ crucifixion (Matthew 27: 23-25)
Jews as “Christ-killers)

Christians as God’s new Chosen People
Replacement theology
Part I: Why the Jews?
Early Christianity
ca. A.D. 100-500

“God’s plan” for history (St. Augustine, A.D. 410)

Jews’ conversion to Christianity a signal of
Christ’s second coming
 Augustine says history develops in 7 stages:
Adam, Noah, Abraham, David, Babylonian Captivity,
Jesus. The 7th will be Christ’s return.
 Christ’s return signaled by conversion of the Jews, so don’t
persecute them: they are part of the plan

Jews assigned role of being obstacles to the final
perfection
Part I: Why the Jews?
Middle Ages A.D. 500-1500
 Christianity defines and shapes
new European world
Three estates:
Those who pray
Those who fight
Those who work
A French bishop says God divided his people—explains inequalities

Jews excluded by law from mainstream society


Cannot own land or participate in “honorable professions”
Said to be in league with the devil and the powers of evil
Jesus’ argument with Jewish leaders, John 8:44
“You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He
was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in
him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
“
This verse was used and wildly twisted.
Part I: Why the Jews?
Middle Ages A.D. 500-1500
 Church decrees that lending money at interest
(usury) is a mortal sin (A.D. 1187)
Church, as largest land owner, is the wealthiest entity. The church lends
money at interest. Reformers like St. Francis of Assisi argue that this is
not the function of the church. They win and usury is declared a sin: a
Christian usurer cannot be saved.
Problem: They still need moneylenders. So they look for a group that
won’t be saved anyway (according to the Church), and they decide to
let them be useful.
Jews are allowed to lend money to Christians
Jews become resented as money-lenders—but most banks are still in
Christian hands. Further, “fake Jews” crop up.
Part I: Why the Jews?
Middle Ages A.D. 500-1500
 Persecution of Jews worsens after A.D. 1000

Jews slaughtered in the First Crusade (A.D. 1096)
 Religious fervor at fever pitch
 On knight, Emico, decided in 1096 that
the Holy Land is too far and targets “infidels”
in Europe: the Jews. Kills about 12000 Jews
in towns along the Rhine river
 This is NOT official Church stance.
Some Jews are hidden in bishops’ palaces
and are saved
Part I: Why the Jews?
Middle Ages A.D. 500-1500
 Persecution of Jews worsens after A.D. 1000

Charged with ritual murder
of Christian boys
 In 1144 in Norwich, a Christian boy is murdered.
The killer is not found. A group of Jews on the
edge of town are rumored to be
guilty.
 The rumor is that Jews “need” the
blood of Christian children for
their Passover bread
 This is the beginning of the
“blood libel” applied to Jews
Part I: Why the Jews?
Middle Ages A.D. 500-1500
 Persecution of Jews worsens after A.D. 1000

Charged with host desecration, well poisoning, etc.
 Jews killed Jesus, so now they are out to kill him again in the Eucharist
 Art depicts Jews stabbing Communion wafers

Blamed for spread of bubonic plague (late 1300s)
 1/3 of population of Europe dies
of the Black Death
 Intense religious scapegoating
 Jews practice better hygiene and
rodent control, so they suffered
less from the plague
 Jews are accused of spreading
the plague by poisoning wells
Part I: Why the Jews?
Middle Ages A.D. 500-1500
 Persecution of Jews worsens after A.D. 1000

Jews are required to wear the Star of David, to stay inside
during Lent, and to abide by other restrictions
 A Christian who sees a Jew might be tempted to beat him up
and sin during Lent, so Jews should stay in
Jews are slaughtered by the
thousands across Europe in
pogroms and mob attacks,
and through public torture,
burnings, and execution
 Passion plays transmit hatred of Jews

 Most people can’t read, so myths and prejudices are passed
through passion plays. Pontius Pilate becomes a hero and Jews
are the bad guys
Part I: Why the Jews?
Middle Ages A.D. 500-1500
 Expulsion of Jews
From Western Europe
1290: England
1306: France
1300s – 1400s: German states
1492: Spain
1400s – 1500s: Italian states
Jews move in waves to Eastern Europe
(so when Hitler was in power much later, 1% of Germany’s
population was Jewish—but 10% of Poland’s was Jewish)
Part I: Why the Jews?
Middle Ages A.D. 500-1500
 Creation of Jewish ghettoes in European cities





Ghettoes are surrounded by high walls with gates
guarded by Christian sentries
Jews are allowed out by day for business dealings with
Christian communities
Jews must be back in ghettoes
by curfew
At night, and on Christian holidays,
gates were locked
Jews are segregated and develop
a life separate from
the larger community
Part I: Why the Jews?
Middle Ages A.D. 500-1500
 Protestant Reformation and the Jews

Martin Luther, On the Jews and Their Lies (1543)
 Martin Luther was an Augustinian monk
 As a young man, he writes a pamphlet favorable to
Martin Luther
Jews: he can see why they don’t convert, as the
Church is so corrupt
 When he begins the Reformation, he invites Jews to
convert, but they don’t.
 As an older man, he writes a new pamphlet,
reviling Jews. He wants synagogues burned, sacred
texts burned, and rabbis silenced. He suggests
putting Jews in labor camps to learn to work and
learn to convert.
Part I: Why the Jews?
18th and 19th Centuries: Hope and Threat
The Hope of the Enlightenment


Thomas Jefferson
 Declaration of Independence (1776)
 “We hold these truths to be self-evident, Thomas Jefferson
that all men are created equal…”
Jean Jacques Rousseau
 On the Origin and Foundation of the Inequality of Mankind
(1755)
Jean Jacques Rousseau
 Intellectual Father of the French Revolution of 1789
 “Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite” = Liberty, Equality, Fraternity
 God did not divide people. People can be equal. Man
created inequality and man can undo it.
Part I: Why the Jews?
18th and 19th Centuries: Hope and Threat

Emancipation movements of peasants, slaves, women, and Jews

A safe harbor for Jews in Germany?
They know the history and see what happens elsewhere,
as with the pogroms in Russia, but Germany seems like
a safe place. No one expected Jews to be harmed in Germany.
 “If in 1900, an educated, politically sophisticated European had been told
that in this new century one of these European countries was going to do
something terrible to the Jews, that person would most likely have said, ‘Ah
yes! These French will do anything.’ or “These Russians will do anything.”
(George Mosse, Toward the Final Solution: A History of European Racism,
1978)

Part I: Why the Jews?
18th and 19th Centuries: Hope and Threat


Assimilation of Jews into 19th Century German society
 Entry into business world (Industrial Revolution)
 Entry into German cultural world (art, literature, music, etc.)
 Entry into medicine and law (not prestigious professions at this
time), and into new field: journalism
 Already there is a high rate of intermarriage between Jewish
and Gentile Germans.
Jews assimilate so well that rabbis have
a new fear: the disappearance of Jews
as a people (the Jewish people will be completely
absorbed into Gentile culture).
Part I: Why the Jews?
18th and 19th Centuries: Hope and Threat
 The threat of the 19th Century: The Birth
of Modern Racism
Arthur de Gobineau: “Father of Modern
Racism”
 Essay on the Origin of Inequality in the
Human Races (1854)
 Superior and inferior races: Jews as an
inferior and destructive people
 Race as a biological concept

Arthur de Gobineau
Part I: Why the Jews?
18th and 19th Centuries: Hope and Threat
 The Threat of the 19th Century: The Birth
of Social Darwinism
Darwin’s concepts in On the Origin of Species
(1859) of “survival of the fittest” and “natural
selection” applied to nations and races
 Social Darwinism especially popular in Germany,
England, and the U.S.
 1879: term “anti-Semitism” introduced (term is
coined by Marr, a journalist, who talks about a
race of Semites plotting against Germany)

Charles Darwin
Part I: Why the Jews?
18th and 19th Centuries: Hope and Threat
Goals:
th
The threat of the 19 Century:
•Breed a superior
Social Darwinism
+
Modern Racism
=
a scientific basis
for hatred
race
•Root out “inferior
stock”
•Solve social
problems (crime,
poverty, disease)
Birth of a new science:
EUGENICS
(“good breeding”)
Part I: Why the Jews?
18th and 19th Centuries: Hope and Threat
 1869: Darwin’s cousin writes that the superior race needs to
promote breeding among themselves and impede the
inferior race from breeding. He suggests sterilization.
 The U.S. takes the lead on this



Indiana was the first state to pass a compulsory sterilization law, with
the law coming into effect in 1907 (Stern 2007, p. 7). After this law was
struck down in 1921 by the Indiana Supreme Court, there was an
attempt to pass a new sterilization law in 1925 which sought to
reinstitute eugenic sterilization in Indiana through the creation of a
state eugenicist, but this effort was defeated in the Indiana Legislature
(Lantzer and Stern 2007, pp. 9-10). Shortly thereafter, the legislature
succeeded in passing a second law in 1927. This law was expanded in
1931, and eventually repealed in 1974 (Baldanzi et al).
The first law, in 1907, targeted: “’confirmed criminals’, ‘idiots’,
‘imbeciles’, and ‘rapists’” (Stern 2007, p. 9). The second law, in 1927,
was somewhat more limited, confined to the “’Insane’, ‘feeble minded’
or ‘epileptic’” (Stern 2007, p.29). There was thus a shift in emphasis,
from the mentally ill and serious criminals to only the mentally
ill. Both laws were specifically designed to target those housed within
state institutions, not those in the general population (Stern 2007, pp.
9, 29).
http://www.uvm.edu/~lkaelber/eugenics/IN/IN.html
When Germany sterilizes in 1933, they point to the U.S. as a model
Part II
Why Germany?
Why Hitler?
Why the Holocaust?
Why Germany?
1900: Germany had become the world’s leading
power.
What went wrong?
1914-1918
World War I is where it all went wrong.
Why Germany?

Germany believes it has been attacked unfairly
Neighbors are jealous of their power and cultural reputation
(they believe this because the government says so—God is on
their side!).
 26 nations declare war on Germany
 Drive to defend the Fatherland
 Millions of young men volunteer


War to be short, over by Christmas


Trench warfare in WWI
Not over by Christmas of 1914…1915…1916…1917…
Tremendous sacrifices demanded


On the battlefield (Verdun/Somme)
On the home front (Turnip Winter)
Children starved during the
Turnip Winter
Why Germany?

German leaders insist Germany is winning the war.




They lie to the public about the war.
They insist that people double their sacrifice.
Suddenly, in October 1918, Germany must admit
defeat.
Shock to the German public: “How could we be
winning for four years and then surrender?”
Why Germany?
 November 1918: Revolution
German soldiers/sailors disband, disobey
orders
 Empire collapses


Germans revolt
1919: Treaty of Versailles

War Guilt Clause
 Blames Germany entirely for the start of
World War I
 “Among its numerous provisions, it
Preparing the Versailles Treaty
required Germany and its allies to accept
full responsibility for causing the war and, under the terms of
articles 231–248, to disarm, make substantial territorial concessions
and pay reparations to the Entente powers.”
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.marxist.com/images/stories/history/treaty_of_versailles_7.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.marxist.com/treaty-of-versailles-to-end-allpeace.htm&usg=__0SBnv9EyFDJINRiiRUxbT8WK8oE=&h=378&w=300&sz=70&hl=en&start=13&zoom=1&tbnid=xJSu1HzPHckKRM:&tbnh=122&tbnw=97&ei=4LyaT7yZCKXe0QHd1qH3Dg&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dversailles%2Btreaty%26hl%3D
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bv%3D2%26tbm%3Disch&itbs=1
Why Germany?
1919-1933: The Shock Continues

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
“The Versailles Treaty was one of the most
outrageous and predatory treaties in
history. It was a blatant act of plunder
perpetrated by a gang of robbers against
a helpless, prostrate and bleeding Germany.”
The Treaty left Germany unarmed and struggling to
pay reparations to the rest of Europe.
Germans don’t get it. They “know” they didn’t start
the war. How can they be blamed and forced to pay
reparations?
German politics become brutal
 400 political assassinations
 Roving political armies across Germany
Why Germany?
1919-1933: The Shock Continues
 Hyperinflation: 1919-1923
Children stack
piles of
worthless
money
$1.00 = 4,200,000,000,000 Reichmarks
 Men are paid twice per day

 Gives wives a chance to spend the money quickly on something of
value they can trade later

Example: Dietrich Bonhoeffer
 His father bought a 20 year life insurance policy, which matures
in 1923. It is his life savings, but he can’t buy a toothpick with it.
 Bonhoeffer was a theologian who has shaped modern Christian
thought.
 He was later involved in a plot to assassinate Hitler.
Germans ask: Who is to blame for all of this?
Why Germany?
 In November 1923, Hitler and his Brown Shirts go
into a beer hall in Munich, shoot the ceiling and
declare the government overthrown. This fails and
he goes to jail for treason from 1924-1928.



German system stabilizes.
1928 election: Nazis get 2.7% of the vote
1929: The Great Depression Begins
Bombing of Beer Hall Putsch


25% official unemployment rate (unofficial is higher)
1930s: Failure of Democratic Politics in Germany
Why Hitler?
 Germans want an explanation. All parties have one.
 Hitler’s explanation: the Jews betrayed Germany.
 Hitler tests his theory of propaganda—and it works.
•He presents his Big Lie Theory in
Mein Kampf:
•He theorizes that politicians
have to lie, but little lies are
bad—you get caught.
•A politician needs a BIG
lie—repeat it and keep it
simple. People will believe it.
Why Hitler?
Anti-Jewish
propaganda
Hitler’s Big Lie








Germany was winning and the Jews at home
stabbed the army in the back.
In other countries, Jews blamed the war on
Germany.
Jews’ financial schemes caused the Depression
Jews run all the capitals (Washington, Paris, etc.).
They run all the financial institutions.
Jews are responsible for the Versailles Treaty and the War Guilt Clause.
Jews are responsible for racial decline. They are inferior. Intermarriage
is an example of the Jewish plot to ruin the purity of the race.
Germany believes Hitler’s Big Lie about the Jews.
 Where there’s smoke there’s fire, right?
 People might “know” some items are untrue, but they “know” other bad
things, so might not some other bad things be true?
Why Hitler?
Hitler tells Germans they are a superior race—it’s nice
to hear.
Hitler’s Promises
 Restore Germany to world leadership
 Restore the economy



They do actually help unemployment.
By 1936, there’s a labor shortage—this
is smoke and mirrors.
Purify the Aryan race (eugenics)
Solve the “Jewish problem”
Propaganda: the perfect Aryan
family (A people helps itself!)
Why the Holocaust?
By January 1933, Hitler is chancellor of Germany. He soon
establishes a total dictatorship.
Hitler’s Racial Policies: Purifying the
German Race
 1933: Sterilization Law (the U.S. is
the model)
 1937: Sterilization of the
“Rhineland bastards”




Propaganda: the cost of supporting the “Rhineland
bastards”
These are teenagers (children of
liasions between African troops and
German women, born around 1920).
Race mixing is the new original sin.
Hitler sterilizes them to avoid further
racial impurities.
1939: euthanasia of the physically
and mentally handicapped
Master Race: Himmler and the SS
racial ideal
Why the Holocaust?
Hitler’s Racial Policies
 Segregation of Jews

Aryan Paragraph (April 1933)
 a clause in membership statutes, deeds,
etc., which reserves rights of residence or membership to Aryans only

Nuremberg Laws (1935)
 Jews are stripped of citizenship, forbidden to marry Aryans
 Pogrom-like measures


Concentration camps: Dachau (March 1933) and others
How to prove who’s a Jew and who’s not?
 Produce the baptismal certificates of all your grandparents

1936: Nazis are sent to tear down statue of
Jewish composer Mendelssohn. It’s next to
Wagner’s. They don’t know which is which
and tear down the one with the biggest
nose—it’s Wagner (btw, a huge anti-Semite).
Wagner
Mendelssohn
Why the Holocaust?
Hitler’s Racial Policies
 Emigration: Where can they go?
Difficult due to Depression
 Restrictive immigration laws in U.S.
and elsewhere
 World is divided in 2 parts: places Jews

First 200 in Kindertransport
can’t go, and places they can’t stay


Nazis don’t let emigrants take their assets
Kindertransport begins in 1939, partly in
response to Kristallnacht
 Great Britain takes in 10,000 Jewish children
 U.S. refuses to take any children (opposition led by Sen. Robert
Reynolds)
 Reynolds says removing children from families is against God’s law
 Gen. Mosely says Jewish kids will pollute the U.S.—let them in if they
are sterilized
Why the Holocaust?
Hitler’s Racial Policies
 Teachers, to keep jobs, had
to join Nazi party and instill
Nazi ideology in kids. They
must swear an oath to
Hitler, not Germany. 97%
do join. 1/3 become actual
members.
 Teachers had to prove nonJewishness
 Function of all education is
to produce a Nazi.
Hitler Youth
propaganda
Why the Holocaust?
Hitler’s Racial Policies
 Aryanization:


Jews are robbed of property and assets.
Jewish businesses are boycotted or taken from them.
“Help liberate Germany from Jewish capital.
Don’t buy in Jewish stores.”

Jews are forced into humiliating
menial tasks, like scrubbing the streets.
Jews scrub the streets
while onlookers jeer.
Why the Holocaust?
With World War II (1939-1945) comes the Holocaust.
 Ghettoes for Jews created by the Nazis
Children in the Warsaw ghetto
Building the wall at the Warsaw ghetto
Bodies after the liquidation
of the Warsaw ghetto
Why the Holocaust?
With World War II (1939-1945) comes the Holocaust.
 The Final Solution
On July 17, 1941, four weeks after the invasion of the Soviet
Union, Hitler tasked SS chief Heinrich Himmler with
responsibility for all security matters in the occupied Soviet
Union. Hitler gave Himmler broad authority to physically
eliminate any perceived threats to permanent German rule.
Two weeks later, on July 31, 1941, Nazi leader Hermann Goering
authorized SS General Reinhard Heydrich to make
preparations for the implementation of a "complete solution of
the Jewish question."
http://www.ushmm.org/outreach/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007704
Why the Holocaust?
With World War II (1939-1945) comes the Holocaust.
After the June 1941 German invasion of
 Roving murder squads
the Soviet Union, SS and police units

SS and Reserve Police Battalions
(acting as mobile killing units) began
massive killing operations aimed at entire
Jewish communities. By autumn 1941, the
SS and police introduced mobile gas vans.
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005151
Einsatzgruppe at work
Why the Holocaust?
With World War II (1939-1945) comes the Holocaust.
 Death camps erected in Poland (1941-1942)
Arrival ramp at Auschwitz
Arial view: Birkenau at Auschwitz
Majdanek
Why the Holocaust?
With World War II (1939-1945) comes the Holocaust.
 Death camps erected in Poland (1941-1942)
Majdanek
Crematorium at Majdanek
Personal items of Auschwitz inmates
Auschwitz: women’s bunks
Children at Auschwitz
Zyklon B canisters
Why the Holocaust?
With World War II (1939-1945) came the Holocaust.
 Concentration
camps (hundreds)
created across
Europe
Why the Holocaust?
Why didn’t the Jews and other groups resist more?
 They were physically
ruined—starving, etc.
 They had no access to guns.
 Nazis practiced collective
responsibility:
Example: A child ran away from the
ghetto and was caught. He was
beaten and tortured. His parents,
siblings, and neighbors were brought to
a public square, where—in front of the
child—they were shot in every limb
before they were killed.
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak outBecause I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not
speak out-Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out-Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me--and there was no one left to
speak for me.
Rev. Martin Niemöller