Nationalism, Conspiracy Theories, and Antisemitism in the Transylvanian Greek Catholic Newspaper Dumineca on the Eve of the Holocaust (1936–1940)

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-79
Author(s):  
Ion Popa
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Jewish Population ◽  
Mass Murder ◽  
New Order ◽  
Conspiracy Theories ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Christian Population

Abstract In the first half of the twentieth century churches in Eastern Europe often promoted extreme nationalism and antisemitism. Their very effectiveness discouraged many bystanders from helping Jews during the Holocaust. Here the author studies a little-known journal published by the Greek Catholic (Uniate) bishopric of Maramureş, a Transylvanian province of Romania (and Hungary from 1940 to 1944) with a significant Jewish population. This journal contributed to a climate in which the Christian population would look on with equanimity or even assist as the Nazi New Order pursued the mass murder of all Jews.

Obedient Authoritarians or Lay Darwinists?

2019 ◽  
pp. 29-61
Author(s):  
Michał Bilewicz
Keyword(s):  
Social Dominance ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Social Dominance Orientation ◽  
Mass Murder ◽  
Social Darwinism ◽  
Conspiracy Theories ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
General Explanation

This chapter discusses the role of ideology in genocides, beyond the traditional conservatism–liberalism distinction. This chapter analyzes ideological views in greater detail by reviewing established psychological concepts, such as authoritarianism and social dominance orientation, as well as conspiracy theories, racial health ideology, and the concept of Lebensraum that formed the ideological foundation of the Holocaust and other large-scale crimes. Authoritarian ideology accurately explains the behavior of desk killers, bureaucrats responsible for organizing the mass murder. Social dominance ideology seems to give a more general explanation of genocide—it can be found in German social Darwinism, the idea of Lebensraum, the Nazi eugenic program, and the illusions spread by occupiers among the victims and the bystanders. The chapter suggests that deep study of ideologies might provide important insight into perpetrators’ worldviews and into their justifications of criminal acts, as well as an explanation of bystanders’ and victims’ behavior.

Timothy Snyder's Bloodlands

2012 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 117-123
Author(s):  
MARK MAZOWER
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Intimate Relationship ◽  
Mass Murder ◽  
Concentration Camps ◽  
Mass Killing ◽  
Baltic States ◽  
The Baltic ◽  
Modern Mass

In the middle of the twentieth century, state-sponsored mass killing took place in Europe on a scale unknown before or since. Although the figures are contentious, around six million civilians are estimated to have been deliberately killed under Stalin; around eleven million under Hitler (p. xiii). What makes this phenomenon all the more striking is that not only was it severely circumscribed in time – it came to an end by the early 1950s – but it was also highly localised. Eastern Europe – in particular Poland, the Baltic states, Belarus and the Ukraine – was the epicentre, and its inhabitants among the chief victims. It is the story of these lands – the ‘Bloodlands'– that Timothy Snyder, one of our leading historians of eastern Europe, has singled out. If we are to see this extraordinary spate of murderousness as the central event of the century (as Snyder argues), then we need a much clearer view than we presently have of what happened in the Bloodlands. In particular, we need to jettison the view that modern mass murder took place chiefly in concentration camps – much of the killing happened through starvation or the shooting squad – and we need to appreciate the extent to which it happened as a consequence of the intimate relationship between the regimes of Hitler and Stalin. This, in a nutshell, is the rationale for this book.

scholarly journals NON-NIPPED MEMORY. THE HOLOCAUST IN THE SOVIET WAR MEMOIRS

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 127-188
Author(s):  
Denys Shatalov
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Mass Murder ◽  
New Order ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Soviet Literature ◽  
Nazi Persecution ◽  
War Memoirs ◽  
Post War

The article addresses the presentation of the mass murder of Jews during WWII in the Soviet printed production. An overall trend of ignoring the topic of the Holocaust in the Soviet media discourse is unquestioned. Yet, (non)presentation of the mass destruction of Jews in the Soviet literature, which is commonly emphasized by the researches, needs clarification. If we look at the Soviet literature on the Great Patriotic War (including fiction prose), we can trace a phenomenon described in this article through war memoirs. Alongside official ignoring of the Holocaust in the Soviet Union, the whole post-war period experienced mass publishing and re-publishing of memoir books which provided direct references to the murder of Jews by the Nazis during the war. Herewith, combatants’ memoirs would often touch very briefly on the murders of Jews, but give no explanations. Such reference style implies that the authors targeted the  readers’ background awareness. Detailed descriptions of  Jewish discrimination, segregation, getthoisation and murder are found in the memoirs of former prisoners of war and partisans. The account of Nazi persecution of the Jews is an integral part of the stories of everyday life in the occupied territory, which often represents the major piece of the narrative. Under certain ideology, the mention of the murders of Jews was intentionally instrumentalized by the Soviet memoir writers seeking to demonstrate a criminal nature of Nazi collaborators. As can be inferred from the Soviet war memoirs, we are not supposed to simplify a clear-cut attitude of ignoring and should conceptualize the phenomenon of «non-nipped memory» in semi-official narratives. Soviet narratives, particularly war memoirs, did not highlight Nazi persecution of the Jews as a separate phenomenon; although described in detail, it was seen only as a part of the «new order». In the Soviet setting, we do encounter ignoring of the Holocaust (as a separate phenomenon), but at the same time, although with certain limitations, the memory of the mass murder of the Soviet Jews was quite actively reflected in war memoirs.

The Ghetto: A Very Short Introduction

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bryan Cheyette
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Jewish Population ◽  
Urban Life ◽  
16Th Century ◽  
Short Introduction ◽  
Economic Interests ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
History Of ◽  
Single Idea

The Ghetto: A Very Short Introduction provides an overview of the history of the ghetto, focusing on specific times and places throughout history. Is the ghetto real or imagined? The word ‘ghetto’ would not have existed without 16th-century Italian economic interests, which led to the policy of placing the Jewish population in enclosed enclaves in around twenty-four Italian towns and cities. During the Holocaust, there were many hundreds of Nazi ghettos in Eastern Europe varying in size, duration, and purpose. The history of the ghetto was adopted by African-Americans in the mid-20th century and is still used to describe both the concrete and abstract qualities of segregated urban life. There is no single idea or place which encompasses ‘the ghetto’.

scholarly journals Dying Hungry: Nazi Ideology and the Pragmatism behind Starvation in Implementing the Final Solution

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-42
Author(s):  
Kiril Feferman
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Jewish Population ◽  
Final Solution ◽  
German Jews ◽  
Nazi Ideology ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Food Policies ◽  
Mass Starvation ◽  
The Relationship

German theories and policies regarding the relationship between food and Jewish citizens of eastern Europe served as an important foundation of the Nazis’ Judenpolitik during the Holocaust (1933-45). The mass starvation of Jews in German-dominated Europe was the result of a carefully calculated policy to make the Jews pay for a long list of misfortunes they had allegedly inflicted on the Germans. This policy evolved from a highly restrictive and discriminatory approach toward German Jews, which unfolded against a backdrop of harsh food policies applied to the local non-Jewish population.

scholarly journals Between Europeanisation and Local Legacies: Holocaust Memory and Contemporary Anti-Semitism in Romania

2020 ◽  
pp. 088832542090620 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raul Cârstocea
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
The Other ◽  
Communist Regime ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
Holocaust Memory ◽  
National Memory ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
The One

This article addresses the persistence of anti-Semitism in Romania, placed in the context of some recent debates concerning the memory of the Holocaust in the country, as well as in the area of Central and Eastern Europe more broadly. It argues that, despite significant improvements in terms of legislation, the memory of the Holocaust remains a highly contested issue in contemporary Romania, torn between the attempts to join in the European memory of the Holocaust and local legacies that on the one hand focus primarily on the suffering of Romanians under the communist regime, and on the other perform a symbolic “denationalisation” of the Jewish minority in the country, whose own suffering is thus excised from national memory. It does so by focusing in particular on the debates surrounding the adoption of Law 217/2015, meant to clarify earlier legislation on Holocaust denial, and comparing them with those prompted by the Ukrainian “memory laws” passed in the same year. Taking into account both the national and international reactions to these very different pieces of legislation, the article shows the still-persisting discrepancy between a (mostly Western) “European” memory of the legacy of the twentieth century and local memory topoi characteristic of the countries that were part of the former socialist bloc.

The Jewish Population of Tennessee

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurence Maslon
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Popular Music ◽  
Jewish Population ◽  
Music Industry ◽  
Major Power ◽  
Sheet Music ◽  
Early Music ◽  
Music Publishers ◽  
Popular Music Industry

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the first way that the imprimatur of Broadway reached consumers was through the immense distribution of colorful and tuneful sheet music. Early music publishers learned quickly that associating a song with a Broadway show such as the Ziegfeld Follies, Broadway personalities such as Al Jolson and Fanny Brice, or Broadway composers such as Victor Herbert gave that tune a special identity that increased its popularity. In addition, music publishers, such as Max Dreyfus, were major power brokers in the popular music industry, yielding the ability to make a song into a hit, and continued to be influential through the first half of the twentieth century.

scholarly journals On Becoming a Non-Jewish Holocaust Writer: Yann Martel’s Beatrice and Virgil

Humanities ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 12
Author(s):  
Rachel F. Brenner
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Jewish Identity ◽  
Personal Life ◽  
Holocaust Memory ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
The World ◽  
Family Level ◽  
History Of ◽  
Religious Origins

To appraise Martel’s non-Jewish perspective of Holocaust thematic, it is important to assess it in the context of the Jewish relations with the Holocaust. Even though the Jewish claim to the uniqueness of the Holocaust has been disputed since the end of the war especially in Eastern Europe, the Jewish response determined to a large extent the reception of the disaster on the global scene. On a family level, the children of survivors have identified themselves as the legitimate heirs of the unknowable experience of their parents. On a collective level, the decree of Jewish annihilation constructed a Jewish identity that imposed an obligation to keep the Holocaust memory in the consciousness of the world. Martel proposes to supersede the history of the Holocaust with a story which would downplay the Jewish filiation with the Holocaust, elicit an affiliative response to the event of the non-Jewish writer and consequently integrate it into the memory of humanity at large. However, the Holocaust theme of Beatrice and Virgil refuses to assimilate within the general memory of humanity; rather, the consciousness of the event, which pervades the post-Holocaust world, insists on its constant presence. The omnipresence of the Holocaust blurs the distinctions between the filiative (Jewish) and affiliative (non-Jewish) attitudes toward the Jewish tragedy, gripping the writer in its transcendent horror. Disregarding his ethnic or religious origins, the Holocaust takes over the writer’s personal life and determines his story.

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