Figure 1.--
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Figure 1.-- |
We have received quite a range of questions from readers on the Holocaust. Many are issues addressed on many of the pages in the Holocaust section. Some are not and are important enough to be addressed. Some of these questions come from students working on school projects. Often these basic question cut the central issues involved. We will try to answer some of these questions and readers are incouraged to submit additional questions as well as to comment on the questiins akready addressed.
The answer to this question is quite simple. Unlike World War II where children were killed for the most part incidentally to combat operations, the NAZIs as part of the Holocaust targeted children. Jewish children and their mothers along with the elderly were the first to be murdered at the death camps. For the most part the children were not held at the camps, but were sent directly to the gas chambers after they cut off the transport trains.
Several students had posed this question. The general tendency of studebts is to approach the holocaust like other historical subjectsd logically. This is probably a mistake. Hatred is not always logical. For example many Americans hate Black people because they see them as lazy and not very intelligent. Hitler and the NAZIs disliked Jews because they were successful economically and professionally (because they were industrious and did well in school). There are historical reasons for anti-Semitism, but don't expect them to be logical or founded on fact. The origins of anti-Semitism lay in the Middle Ages and the Church played a central issue. This is a topic which we have only begun to address in our site.
Another student poses this question, which is related to the question above. Students are incouraged to look at both or often the many sides of an issue. A good teacher will help students put aside their national, religious, social class, racial and ethnic prejudices and assess historical issues disaptionately. While this is simply good teaching, when assessing the Holocaust this approach is dangerous. There is sadly in this world pure evil. This was reflected un Hitler and the NAZIs. Trying to look at both sides of the issue lends a creditibility to the NAZis that they do not merit. On many controversial issues, proponents can muster reasonable arguments, that is why the issue is controversial. This is not, however, always the case. The answer of course is that the Jews did nothing to merit the horror visited upon them. NAZI antisemitism was a volitile mixture of Nordic mythology, xenephobic nationalism, gangsterism, racial bigotry, ignorance, hisdtorical tradition, and pure evil. It had vurtually nothing to do with the Jews themselves.
The point of the Holocaust was not to use Jews for labor. The purpose was to kill them. Children who had little or no value as labor were among the ones killed first. Upon arrival at the camps, children and women with children were sent directly to the gas chambers. Now it is true that some Jews were used for forced labor. They were, however, given so little food and housed in such poor
conditions that there life expentency was only a few months. The purpose was to kill them. This was done at a time in Germany that
there was a shortage of labor to man the war industries. This did not matter, the priority was to kill.
The answer sadly is, not much. There was still considerable anti-Semetic feeling in America during the 1930s and 40s. America allowed very little Jewish immigration during the War. America did help defeat the NAZIs which saved many Jews, but there were no efforts to destroy the gas chambers in the death camps. There were some efforts to help Jews in Vichy France escape, but primarily well know Jews with professional reputations. Even after the War, there
was great resistance in the Congress to allow the Jews in refugee camps to come to America.
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