Chelmno and the Holocaust: the history of Hitler's first death camp

2012 ◽  
Vol 50 (02) ◽  
pp. 50-1029-50-1029
Keyword(s):  
Death Camp ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
History Of

Bełżec

2000 ◽  
pp. 268-289
Author(s):  
Rudolf Reder
Keyword(s):  
Jewish Population ◽  
Freedom Of Movement ◽  
Death Camp ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
General Government ◽  
History Of ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Considerable Detail

This chapter looks at the testimony of Rudolf Reder, a survivor of Bełżec death camp. Bełżec murder camp was the first camp set up by Aktion Reinhard, an operation whose purpose was to dispose, in the least obtrusive manner, of the Jewish population of the General Government and adjacent countries under Nazi rule. Into this camp, Rudolf Reder was brought with one of the first transports of Jews from Lemberg caught during the great Aktion. Reder arrived in Bełżec at the height of the camp's activity. Because of his position as odd-job man, he was allowed considerable freedom of movement. He was therefore able to describe the camp, its installations, and its functioning in considerable detail. But his story is also the deeply harrowing account of someone who witnessed with horror the slaughter of innocents which went on day after day. And this, together with the relevant details which, without his description, might have remained forever obscure, make Reder's booklet, Bełżec (1946), a unique document of this terrible but little-known chapter in the history of the Holocaust.

scholarly journals ESCAPE FROM THE DEATH CAMP, OR LUCKY BREAK OF PRISONER 13390 (BASED ON THE MEMOIRS OF LEONARD ZAWACKI)

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 687-694
Author(s):  
S. S. Khodyachikh
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Prisoners Of War ◽  
Concentration Camp ◽  
Traumatic Experience ◽  
World War ◽  
Death Camp ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
The World ◽  
Short Run ◽  
History Of

The article analyzes the circumstances and conditions that led to the successful escape from the Auschwitz concentration camp of a group of Polish prisoners of war under the leadership of Leonard Zawacki, prisoner 13390. The escape was carried out on September 28, 1944 by a group of six prisoners of war, two of whom changed into SS uniforms and “escorted” four glaziers to work outside the camp. Zawacki’s memoirs, published in Poland in the form of a short-run pamphlet, as well as many hours of interviews in which he talked about his traumatic experience, life in imprisonment, partisan unit, and the very escape, are introduced into scientific circulation. Zawacki’s memoirs are a valuable source not only about the history of the World War II and the Holocaust, but also the deep experiences of a man who went through the hell of Auschwitz and survived against all odds.

Out of the Whirlwind Reconsidered

2020 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Michael Berkowitz
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Personal History ◽  
Historical Writing ◽  
Holocaust Literature ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
History Of ◽  
Mutual Accountability ◽  
Union College

This article argues that Albert Friedlander’s edited book, Out of the Whirlwind (1968), should be recognised as pathbreaking. Among the first to articulate the idea of ‘Holocaust literature’, it established a body of texts and contextualised these as a way to integrate literature – as well as historical writing, music, art and poetry – as critical to an understanding of the Holocaust. This article also situates Out of the Whirlwind through the personal history of Friedlander and his wife Evelyn, who was a co-creator of the book, his colleagues from Hebrew Union College, and the illustrator, Jacob Landau. It explores the work’s connection to the expansive, humanistic development of progressive Judaism in the United States, Britain and continental Europe. It also underscores Friedlander’s study of Leo Baeck as a means to understand the importance of mutual accountability, not only between Jews, but in Jews’ engagement with the wider world.

Searching for Justice After the Holocaust

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J. Bazyler ◽  
Kathryn Lee Boyd ◽  
Kristen L. Nelson ◽  
Rajika L. Shah
Keyword(s):  
Best Practices ◽  
Legal History ◽  
Holocaust Survivors ◽  
European Parliament ◽  
Slave Labor ◽  
Insurance Policies ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
History Of ◽  
Nazi Era ◽  
Property Restitution

The Nazis and their cohorts stole mercilessly from the Jews of Europe. In the aftermath of the Holocaust, returning survivors had to navigate unclear and hostile legal paths to recover their stolen property from governments and neighbors who often had been complicit in their persecution and theft. While the return of Nazi-looted art and recent legal settlements involving dormant Swiss bank accounts, unpaid insurance policies and use of slave labor by German companies have been well-publicized, efforts by Holocaust survivors and heirs over the last 70 years to recover stolen land and buildings were forgotten. In 2009, 47 countries convened in Prague to deal with the lingering problem of restitution of prewar private, communal, and heirless property stolen during the Holocaust. The outcome was the Terezin Declaration on Holocaust Era Assets and Related Issues, aiming to “rectify the consequences” of the wrongful Nazi-era immovable property seizures. This book sets forth the legal history of Holocaust immovable property restitution in each of the Terezin Declaration signatory states. It also analyzes how each of the 47 countries has fulfilled the standards of the Guidelines and Best Practices of the Terezin Declaration. These standards were issued in 2010 in conjunction with the establishment of the European Shoah Legacy Institute (ESLI), a state-sponsored NGO created to monitor compliance. The book is based on the Holocaust (Shoah) Immovable Property Restitution Study commissioned by ESLI, written by the authors and issued in Brussels in 2017 before the European Parliament.

German Angst

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank Biess
Keyword(s):  
Federal Republic ◽  
National Socialism ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Peace Movements ◽  
Original Analysis ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
The Future ◽  
History Of ◽  
Fear And Anxiety ◽  
Relationship Of

German Angst analyzes the relationship of fear and democracy in postwar West Germany. While fear has historically been associated with authoritarian regimes, the book highlights the role of fear and anxiety in a democratizing society: these emotions undermined democracy and stabilized it at the same time. By taking seriously postwar Germans’ uncertainties about the future, the book challenges dominant linear and teleological narratives of postwar West German “success.” It highlights the prospective function of memories of war and defeat, of National Socialism and the Holocaust. Fears and anxieties derived from memories of a catastrophic past that postwar Germans projected into the future. Based on case studies from the 1940s to the present, the book provides a new interpretive synthesis of the Federal Republic. It tells the history of the Federal Republic as a series of recurring crises, in which specific fears and anxieties emerged, served a variety of political functions, and then again abated. Drawing on recent interdisciplinary insights of emotion studies, the book transcends the dichotomy of “reason” and “emotion.” Fear and anxiety were not exclusively irrational and dysfunctional but served important roles in postwar democracy. These emotions sensitized postwar Germans to the dangers of an authoritarian transformation, and they also served as the emotional engine of the environmental and peace movements. The book also provides an original analysis of the emotional basis of right-wing populism in Germany today, and it explores the possibilities of a democratic politics of emotion.

The Tropes of Jewish/Muslim Difference

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yulia Egorova
Keyword(s):  
Reference Point ◽  
Jewish Communities ◽  
Communal Violence ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Way

The chapter explores how notions of Jewish and Muslim difference play out in the history of communal violence in independent India. In doing so it will first interrogate the way in which trajectories of anti-Muslim ideologies intersect in India with Nazi rhetoric that harks back to Hitler’s Germany, and the (lack of) the memory of the Holocaust on the subcontinent. It will then discuss how the experiences of contemporary Indian Jewish communities both mirror and contrast those of Indian Muslims and how Indian Jews and the alleged absence of anti-Semitism in India have become a reference point in the discourse of the Hindu right deployed to mask anti-Muslim and other forms of intolerance.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document