This desire for the understanding of man’s actions brings forth the question of the reasoning, timing, and enactment of the “final solution” to the Holocaust, and a desperation to understand the mindset of the participants in this time of mass murder and suffering. Describing and understanding the “final solution” assumes the presumption that such a concept may be accomplished. Peter Longerich in Bartov sets forth a chronological timeline of the “final solution.” To put it briefly, Longerich’s timeline begins with the solution’s conception, as an idea, in September of 1939, during the war with Poland, and its official implementation in the Spring of 1942, due to the pressures of war and land expansion (Bartov, 121- 131). Though accurate, …show more content…
The Wannsee Protocol of January 20, 1942 surmises the desires of this end goal. However, the protocol fails to notice the implementations already set forth by the higher authorities, which demotes the protocol to a listing of desires that were already prevalent. These previous instances of “final solution” enactment consisted of individuals such as Heinrich Himmler and Adolf Eichmann. These two individuals along with many others enacted their ideas of a “final solution” based on their own desires and wishes (Bartov, 125- 8). Despite the irrelevance of the Wannsee conference meeting the group of lower ranking officials still discussed the logistics of this Jewish race’s extermination which resulted in a ledger surmising the solution and its desired outcome (1-5). In order to gain Hitler’s good graces, individuals sought out their own enactment of a “final solution” which results in the inability to accredit a single individual with the solution’s founding and implementation. While some individuals desired a rise in statues, other participants motivations differed in an unexpected and humane …show more content…
Felix Landau, fits the stereotyped description, and participated in the German Einsatzkommando (EK), killing squad. In his journal Landau describes his experiences as a member of the killing squad and while he kills with no moral compass or emotion, he speaks with great emotions of his desire to please his love Trude (Bartov, 141). This inclusion of love as his reason for fighting creates a realistic image of a German soldier as a human being which one does not expect, especially considering the horrendous acts these men
soldiers during the Jewish Holocaust, knew that the Nazi’s actions were inhumane and cruel; hence, he commanded his soldiers to not confiscate property from the Jews. Although the Nazi soldiers did not take valuables away from the Jews, they still dehumanized and exterminated the Jews, rega...
Elizer’s personal account of the holocaust does not merely highlight the facts of the holocaust: millions suffered and the event was politically and religiously motivated, but provides an in depth investigation to what a person endured mentally, physically, and emotionally. Beginning as a teenager, Elizer thought highly of God and of his own beliefs, however, that quickly diminished when he was put into a system of sorting and killing people. During the holocaust, Elizer was not the only person to change; almost everyone suffered and changed differently. The stressful and harsh times affected Elizer just as they affected the person working next to him in the factory. Elizer quickly began to question everything “I pinched myself: Was I still alive? Was I awake? How was it possible that men, women, and children were being burned and that the world kept silent?” (Wiesel 32). Although Elizer forms this mentality, he also finds the will to survive, to protect his father, and to not turn into the people that were aro...
Most narratives out of the Holocaust from the Nazis point of view are stories of soldiers or citizens who were forced to partake in the mass killings of the Jewish citizens. Theses people claim to have had no choice and potentially feared for their own lives if they did not follow orders. Neighbors, The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland, by Jan T. Gross, shows a different account of people through their free will and motivations to kill their fellow Jewish Neighbors. Through Gross’s research, he discovers a complex account of a mass murder of roughly 1,600 Jews living in the town of Jedwabne Poland in 1941. What is captivating about this particular event was these Jews were murdered by friends, coworkers, and neighbors who lived in the same town of Jedwabne. Gross attempts to explain what motivated these neighbors to murder their fellow citizens of Jedwabne and how it was possible for them to move on with their lives like it had never happened.
Goldhagen's book however, has the merit of opening up a new perspective on ways of viewing the Holocaust, and it is the first to raise crucial questions about the extent to which eliminationist anti-Semitism was present among the German population as a whole. Using extensive testimonies from the perpetrators themselves, it offers a chilling insight into the mental and cognitive structures of hundreds of Germans directly involved in the killing operations. Anti-Semitism plays a primary factor in the argument from Goldhagen, as it is within his belief that anti-Semitism "more or less governed the ideational life of civil society" in pre-Nazi Germany . Goldhagen stated that a
Murders inflicted upon the Jewish population during the Holocaust are often considered the largest mass murders of innocent people, that some have yet to accept as true. The mentality of the Jewish prisoners as well as the officers during the early 1940’s transformed from an ordinary way of thinking to an abnormal twisted headache. In the books Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi and Ordinary men by Christopher R. Browning we will examine the alterations that the Jewish prisoners as well as the police officers behaviors and qualities changed.
The phrase “Final Solution” referred to their plan to annihilate the Jewish population. This plan stated that all European Jews would be killed by shooting, gassing, or any way necessary (Final Solution). The article “The Wannsee Conference and the Final Solution,” documented that on January 20, 1942, the Nazis and Germans met to tell the non-Nazi Leaders what the Final Solution was, and that they were responsible for helping to get the Jews transported to the camps. The Final Solution was not the beginning for the elimination. This was already being accomplished by mobile killing squads that would shoot any Jewish men, women, or children. Later, on July 22, 1942 the gassing chambers were finished in the extermination or death camps. Camouflaging the chambers as large showers, the Jews would think they were going to bathe, when they were actually being gassed to death
The Final Solution to the Jewish question resulted in indisputably the worst genocide the world has ever seen. Historians have been debating for years on its origins. The two schools of thoughts disagree on when the blueprint was designed and who enforced it in 1942. Lucy Dawidowicz and Richard Breitman agree with the Intentionalist school of thought. They both agree that Hitler had intended to eliminate the Jews from the world and enforced it by 1939. Christopher Browning agrees with the Functionalist point of view. He believes that the final solution was a reaction to this situation is Russia. Bauer is able to bring both schools of thoughts together. Whatever side people choose, this debate will never end unless concrete evidence is found. For now both schools of thought will continue to try to understand this topic better.
The events which have become to be known as The Holocaust have caused much debate and dispute among historians. Central to this varied dispute is the intentions and motives of the perpetrators, with a wide range of theories as to why such horrific events took place. The publication of Jonah Goldhagen’s controversial but bestselling book “Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust” in many ways saw the reigniting of the debate and a flurry of scholarly and public interest. Central to Goldhagen’s disputed argument is the presentation of the perpetrators of the Holocaust as ordinary Germans who largely, willingly took part in the atrocities because of deeply held and violently strong anti-Semitic beliefs. This in many ways challenged earlier works like Christopher Browning’s “Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland” which arguably gives a more complex explanation for the motives of the perpetrators placing the emphasis on circumstance and pressure to conform. These differing opinions on why the perpetrators did what they did during the Holocaust have led to them being presented in very different ways by each historian. To contrast this I have chosen to focus on the portrayal of one event both books focus on in detail; the mass shooting of around 1,500 Jews that took place in Jozefow, Poland on July 13th 1942 (Browning:2001:225). This example clearly highlights the way each historian presents the perpetrators in different ways through; the use of language, imagery, stylistic devices and quotations, as a way of backing up their own argument. To do this I will focus on how various aspects of the massacre are portrayed and the way in which this affects the presentation of the per...
For many educated people, learning about the Holocaust can send them feelings of sorrow or deep remorse. Not only for the meaning of the word, but why it is called that. The pure evil of the final solution, thought of and created by none other than Adolf Hitler, will never stop haunting people more than half a decade later. One of the prominent things that everyone missed in his highly sold auto-biography "My Struggle". The thought of solid hatrid found within the cover of the horrible book will always burn in the souls that it harmed from the day it began till the dawn of today.
The Final Solution was the pre-planned idea to exterminate the entirety of the Jewish population. Under the decree of the Nazi Party, the Final Solution was implemented in stages. The First stage was to (essentially) unwelcome the Jews from Germany society, through boycotts, the anti-Jewish legislation, and the Night of Broken Glass, which were all aimed to remove the Jews as quickly as possible from society. This exportation quickly spread throughout Europe after the start of WWII. The second action was to send the Jews to Ghettos, isolated from all other peoples.
The Holocaust is one of the most horrifying crimes against humanity. "Hitler, in an attempt to establish the pure Aryan race, decided that all mentally ill, gypsies, non supporters of Nazism, and Jews were to be eliminated from the German population. He proceeded to reach his goal in a systematic scheme." (Bauer, 58) One of his main methods of exterminating these ‘undesirables' was through the use of concentration and death camps. In January of 1941, Adolf Hitler and his top officials decided to make their 'final solution' a reality. Their goal was to eliminate the Jews and the ‘unpure' from the entire population. Auschwitz was the largest concentration camp that carried out Hitler's ‘final solution' in greater numbers than any other.
Ordinary men have the capacity to commit extraordinary crimes and on April 11, 1961, Adolf Eichmann, an ordinary looking man, faced trial for the murder of five million Jews. Adolf Eichmann served in the Nazi party as their expert on Jewish matters. During the Nuremberg trials that took place years before Eichmann’s trial, many witnesses testified to the control Eichmann had over the implementation of the final solution. SS Captain Wisliceny worked under Eichmann in Hungary in 1944 and he proclaimed that Eichmann said, “he would jump into his grave laughing, because of the feeling that he had five million people on his conscience, gave him extraordinary satisfaction’” (48). Also, Eichmann worked with the members of Jewish councils, and they claimed in earlier trials that he had a direct hand in the “Jewish Question” (49).
Niewyk, Donald . "The Will to Survive." In The Holocaust Problems and perspectives of Interpretation, ed. Donald L Niewyk. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1997. 59-66.
Among these modern principles are instrumental rationality, rule following, the ordering and categorization of all of social life, and a complex division of labor. When analyzed, all of these principles played a role in the mass extermination of the Jewish people. For Bauman, postmodernity is the result of modernity’s failure to rationalize the world and the amplification of its capacity for constant change. Bauman describes that there are two ways to minimize the significance of the holocaust as the theory of civilization, modernity, and of modern civilization 1) to present the holocaust as something that happened to the Jews as an event in Jewish history, and 2) to present the holocaust as an extreme case of a wide and familiar category of social phenomena. These perspectives make the Holocaust part of an individual history, not relevant or representative of the morality of modern
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