History Of The Holocaust

A Handbook And Dictionary

Abraham Edelheit, Hershel Edelheit, Ann Edelheit

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9780367319823
• eBook ISBN:
  9780429973369
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

This two-part volume combines an accessible overview of contemporary Jewish history with a unique dictionary of Holocaust terms. In addition to assessing the Holocaust specifically, Part 1 of the book discusses the history of European Jewry, anti-Semitism, the rise and fall of Nazism and fascism, World War II, and the postwar implications of the Ho

PART 1
HISTORY OF THE HOLOCAUST

East European scholar on the eve of World War II

Authors’ Collection

1

Antecedents

The Jews of Europe

If it had not been for the terrible events that unfolded between 1933 and 1945, the Jews of Europe would, in all probability, have continued to live as they had for nearly a millennium. Arriving on the continent after the conquest of the then-known world by Alexander the Great (ca. 333 B.C.E.), European Jewish communities developed primarily after the Roman destruction of the Second Temple (70 C.E.) and the failure of the Bar-Kokhba revolt (ca. 132–135 C.E.). Despite the fact that Jews in Europe thus predated the arrival of many of the ethnic groups associated with European countries, Jews did not become prominent until after the ninth or tenth century.¹

Thereafter, Jews had to endure repeated periods of hatred, persecution, and, at times, almost daily violence. Jews were confined to designated areas called ghettos and were forced to wear distinctive marks upon their clothing. At times, entire communities were obliterated by pogroms or expulsion.² Jewish history was not, however, only a history of tears. Judaism survived and even thrived wherever it found fertile soil. A vibrant and varied social, political, and intellectual life developed in both ghettos and villages. Jewish institutions — kehilot (community councils), synagogues, yeshivot (academies), and hevrot (societies) — flourished, as did the greatest of all Jewish institutions, the family.³

Although Jewry had previously weathered numerous crises, the period after 1500 witnessed an increasing fragmentation of the Jewish world. The mass conversion of Spanish Jews who, under duress, officially adopted Christianity while continuing some Jewish observances in secret — so-called Marranos — created a class of Jews by birth who no longer had an attachment to traditional norms of Jewish life.⁴ A further series of crises, beginning with the Chmielnicki massacres in 1648–1649 and ending with the Shabbatean heresy of the late 1660s, very nearly rent asunder the Jewish community.⁵ In response, the Hasidic movement, which emphasized piety and articulated an optimistic worldview, arose to fill the vacuum left by the crises. The Hasidic masters, the tzadikim, followed Israel ben Eliezer, the Baal Shem Tov, in emphasizing devekut (devotion) and hitlahavut (joy) — both seen as being as important as, if not more important than, book learning. Hasidism, moreover, represented the apotheosis of the communal crisis in post-Shabbatean Jewry. Combining mystical piety with a de-activated form of messianism that emphasized the cosmic importance of halacha (Jewish law), Hasidism spoke to the Jewish everyman and soon spread from the steppes of the Ukraine to the foothills of the Carpathians and even to central Poland and beyond.⁶

Only in Lithuania did the Mitnagdim, those who opposed Hasidism, retain a foot-hold. The Mitnagdim were especially strong in and around Vilna, the “Jerusalem of Lithuania.” Here the yeshivot reigned. For the further glory of Judaism, students spent days and nights studying Talmudic tomes replete with ancient law and lore. These Talmudic academies rivaled those of Babylonia and Eretz Israel, if they did not in fact surpass them. In Mir, Slobodka, Volozhin, Vilna, and Brisk some of the greatest Jewish minds were honed to perfection.⁷

Sephardi Jewry

Jewish communities also flourished throughout the Mediterranean lands and in Southeast Europe. Among these communities perhaps the largest were those of the Sephardim, Jews who had been expelled from Spain in 1492 and their descendants. As was the case with Ashkenazi Jewry (Jews who had settled in the Germanic lands), the Sephardim and their offspring were able to rebound into a cohesive and well-organized community.⁸

After 1492 Sephardim spread far and wide. A majority of the exiles went east to the Ottoman Empire. Briefly, it seemed that the expulsion might lead to a renewed settlement in the Land of Israel. This possibility, in turn, led to renewed messianic speculation and the aforementioned controversy surrounding the false messiah Shabbetai Zevi. Others from among the exiled of Spain came to the New World to establish what was to become the largest and richest Jewish community in history. Still other Sephardim sought refuge in the North, reestablishing Jewries in the Netherlands, England, and France. The largest concentration of Sephardim by far was in the Balkans. Their distinctive culture clearly identified them as originating in Spain, which affirms the unique cultural symbiosis of the “golden age” of Spanish Jewry.⁹

Enlightenment and Emancipation

The latter half of the eighteenth century spawned a series of ideological changes in Western Europe. Although not directly related to Jews, two particular developments had impact on the status and fate of European Jewry. The first of the two developments was the Enlightenment, generally identified with cultural and intellectual trends in France. The Enlightenment represented the systematic application of rationalist and “scientific” principles to humanity, and particularly to politics. Connected with the Enlightenment, although independent of the intellectual movement, was the rise of the absolutist state, one that encompassed all citizens or subjects. For Jews these two movements augured a change in status, since the absolutist nation-state could no longer tolerate autonomous national entities — states within a state — within its borders.¹⁰ As a result, concerned thinkers proposed the “civic improvement” of the Jews by granting emancipation and citizenship to Jews willing to become part of the host nation. Thus, from the mid-eighteenth century on, a grand debate raged over the idea of emancipation, but the Ancien Régime proved unable to reform in so radical a fashion.¹¹ Further impetus was given to the European debate in the aftermath of the American Revolution (1776–1783), the ratification of the U.S. Constitution, and the granting of citizenship to American Jewry.

Within the Jewish world a new spirit was also kindled during the middle of the eighteenth century. Small numbers of Jews became aware of the “backwardness” of Jewish society and proposed remedies for all ills that kept Jews in what they saw as a cultural ghetto even while the walls of the physical ghetto were crumbling. The modernizers adopted the name of Maskilim (Enlighteners) and called their movement the Haskala (Enlightenment). Ideologically, this group owed its background to the writings and teachings of Moses Mendelssohn, a German Jewish philosopher. The primary goal of the Haskala was to reeducate Jews so that they could fit into modern society. With the emancipation, the Maskilim, at least in Western Europe, led the way in creating “good” Jewish citizens. Thus, adaptation of Jewish mores to the larger society became the goal. “Be a Jew in your home and a man in the street” was their motto.¹²

The French Revolution (1789) brought the debate on Jewish status to a crescendo. During the next century civil rights were granted to Jews in virtually all of Western Europe: in France (1791), Italy (1869), Great Britain (1858–1871), and Germany (1871).¹³ Tension often accompanied the emancipation, however, especially in France and Germany. Civil status was accorded to Jews as individuals, not to Jewish communities. In return for civil rights, Jews were asked to surrender their national identity and assimilate into the larger society.¹⁴

Under the circumstances, adaptation to and assimilation into the larger environment appeared the only means to resolve the paradox of Jewish survival and also proved that Jews had made strides in “improving” themselves in order to become deserving citizens — Israelites of French or German nationality. With the internalization by Jews of new liberal ideas, religious Judaism also became more diverse. In Germany, a number of Jews sought to reform Judaism in order to make it more compatible with modern society. A different group saw the need for some changes but were only willing to make changes for which they found precedents in Jewish history. Yet a third group saw no need for changes in the tradition, although they too adopted a more modern worldview.

In Germany, England, and the United States, the most liberal group of the Maskilim crystallized into the Reform movement, which was formulated by leaders such as Abraham Geiger, Samuel Holdheim, and David Friedlander. The middle group, under the guidance of luminaries including Zechariah Frankel and Solomon Schechter, became the Positive Historical school, better known as Conservative Judaism. The most traditional group, led by Rabbis Shimshon Raphael Hirsch, Isaac Breuer, and Azriel Hildesheimer, developed into Neoorthodoxy, which combined strict adherence to Jewish law with a modern Weltanschauung.¹⁵

Closely related to the religious sphere was the development of modern Jewish studies. Applying modern historical principles to Judaism, practitioners of Wissenschaft des Judentums (Science of Judaism) offered both proofs for religious polemics and a more relevant way of understanding the Jews’ role in society. In this way the liberal scholars, such as Geiger and Leopold Zunz, could meet traditionalists like Nachman Krochmal, Shlomo Yehuda Rapoport, and Shmuel David Luzzatto. The result was an almost-unprecedented flourishing of Jewish scholarship.¹⁶

Wissenschaft des Judentums also bore fruit in Eastern Europe. Scholars trained in scientific historiography who made seminal contributions to Jewish scholarship included Meyer Balaban, Ignac Schipper, and Emmanuel Ringelblum. Their dean was Simon Dubnow, the historian and political activist.¹⁷ Jewish literature also developed significantly with the likes of Haim Nahman Bialik, Saul Tchernikovsky, Isaac Leib Peretz, Judah Leib Gordon, Abraham Mapu, Mendele Mokher Seforim (Shalom Jacob Abramowitsch), and Shalom Aleichem (Shalom Rabinovitz) who depicted — in verse and prose — the life of a civilization.¹⁸

Post-Emancipation German Jewry

With the final decree of emancipation dated January 12, 1871, German Jewry entered a new stage of history. At least officially, German Jews now became full citizens of the German Empire, permitted to participate in all aspects of economic, political, and cultural life. German Jewry became a shining example of both the best and worst aspects of modern Jewry: great wealth coupled with intense materialism; religious freedom coupled with an attempt to flee Judaism; civic equality and intense antisemitism in many circles. Throughout the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth, German Jewry remained a compact, highly urbanized middle-class or upper-middle-class element in German society. It has been estimated, for example, that 70 percent of German Jews made their living in commerce (primarily in small- and medium-scale retailing), banking, and manufacture. Jewish professionals — lawyers, doctors, dentists — represented the next largest group of gainfully employed Jews. In both cases, the percentage of Jews in these fields was disproportionate to their total population.¹⁹ When Jewish urban concentration is considered, the amount of disproportion declines and it becomes clear that Jews did not dominate any field of economic activity.²⁰ The same may be said of Jewish political orientations in pre—World War I Germany: They tended to the center and left primarily because the right-wing parties had been opposed to emancipation in the first place.²¹

Internally as well, emancipation resulted in a major transformation of German Jewry. In addition to the aforementioned rise of multiple Jewish denominations, German Jewry experienced an intense period of secularization. Increasingly, German Jews did not identify themselves as Jews, but as Germans. When they did discuss religious affiliation, they did so as “Germans of the Mosaic faith.”²²

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Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Illustrations
• List of Abbreviations
• Preface
• Part 1 History of the Holocaust
• Part 2 Dictionary of Holocaust Terms
• For Further Reading
• About the Book and Authors
• Name Index
• Place Index
• Subject Index