Figure 1.--Here we see a tragic scene in 1938--German Jewish children gathered on a railway platform with their parents waiting for a train that will take the children to the Hook of Holland and thence by ship to England where they will be placed in a variety of foster homes and boarding institutions or camps. The second figure from the left in the foreground is a boy about 12 years old. He wears short pants and long dark stockings under his belted overcoat and a peaked cap, probably a school cap of some sort. It is obviously winter time. One of the girls wears the 1930s equivalent of ski pants, gathered at the ankle.

The Holocaust was conducted by NAZI Germany. Germany had one of the most assimilated Jewish communities in Europe. This was initially a proble for the NAZIs. After Germany's defeat in World War I, virulent anti-semitism was a major feature of many right-wing nationalist groups. The worst features of these groups becamce German government policy after NAZI leader Adolf Hitler seized power in Germany. President Hindenburg named NAZI leader Adolf Hitler Chancellor of Germany (January 1933). Hitler almost immediately on April 1, 1933, launched the nationl campaign against the country's Jews on April 1, 1933. [Berenbaum, p. 21.] The NAZIs in the following 6 years before launching World War II introduced over 400 different laws to percecute Jewish Germans. The laws were carefully crafted to isolate, excluded, degrade, rob, and disinfranchise German Jews. German Führer Adolf Hitler at the Nuremberg Party Congress on September 15, 1935 announced three new laws that were to be cornerstones of German racist policies and the supression of Jews and other non-Aryans. Organization genius Heinrich Himmler and his brutally efficient SS were Hitler's tools to carry out the Holocaust. A necessary step in both Hitler's seizure of power and the Holocaust was the creation of concentration camps. These lead directly after the start of World War II to the Death Camps opened in occupied Poland. The NAZIs gave particularly attention to education and control of the German educational system. They were well aware that it would be difficult to convert many adults and only a minority of Germand had ever voted for the NAZIs in democratic elections. The children were a different matter. In this regard the Hitle Youth program was a valuable tool.Even the NAZIs, before World War II, hesitted at genocide. World War II changed this and removed the last inhibitions. The swift conquest of Poland left the NAZIs in control of Poland's large Jewish population (September/October 1939). The collpase of the Fench Army esentially left the NAZIs in contriol of Western Europe (June 1940). The NAZIs and much of the ret of Europe thought that the Germans had won the War. Reservations and inhibitions that some Germns might have felt had been reduced or eliminted by NAZI anti-semetic propaganda and education and the belief that NAZIism was Europe's future for th next 1,000 years.

German Jews

Germany had one of the most assimilated Jewish communities in Europe. Jews had been establihed in Germany ince the Middle Ages. They received full citizenship rights in Imperial Germany. Not all Germans agreed with this, but Chancellor Bismarck did. Gemany had a historical tradition of anti-semitism. Such sentiment increased as a wave of Russian Jews fleed to Germany in the late 19th century because of pogroms and a variety of government anti-Jewish measures. (Many Russian Jews fleeing Tsarist oppression also came to America.) Germny's loss in World War I came as a great shock to the German people. Many Germans were stunned and did not understand why after so much sacrifice that the War could have been lost, especially as victory had seemed so close in the Spring of 1918. The fact that Germany was not occupied and t was a civilian and not military government that asked for the armistace gave rise to a big lie--that Germany had been stabbed in the back by republicns led by socialists and Jews. After Germany's defeat in World War I, virulent anti-Semitism was a major feature of many right-wing nationalist groups. Many German Jews by the time o the Weimar Republic (1918-33) were fully assimilated. Jews were full citizens of theweimar Republic. Some had converted to Christiaity or married Christians. Many saw themselves as Germans who happened to be Jews. Few attended Jewish schools. There were, however, schools that Jews avoided, either because of the ant-Semetic beliefs of the staffs or students. The NAZIs were at first considerd a fringe party, not representing the brelief of most Germans. German Jews were disturbed with the rising populaity of the NAZIs, but did not believe they would ever gain power. Few in the 1920s had a preminition of what was to come. Some did especially by the early 1930s when the NAZIs had become a major political party. But even the most pessimistic had no idea of the enormity of the dissaster that was about to befall them. One Jewish author growing up in Austria and Berlin writes, "We were on the Titanicand everyone knew it was hitting the iceberg. The only uncertainty was about what would happen when it did." [Hobsbawm]

NAZIs Seize Power (January 30, 1933)

Germany was becoming ungovernable because of the strength of the NAZIs and Communists in the Reichstag and growing street violence. An aging President Hindenburg was advised that Hitler could be controlled in a coalition government. President Hindenburg dislikes Hitler, but appoints him Reich Chancellor on January 30, 1933. After becoming Reich Chancellor, Hitler quickly moves to seize control of the Government. The Reichstag fire provides the pretext for mass arrests of Communists andother political opponents. The worst features of the right wing anti-Semetic groups soon became German government policy. Hitler proclaims himself Füehrer of the Third Reich after President von Hindenburg dies. (August 2, 1934.) This opened the way for Hitler's total mastery of Germany.

Concentration Camps

The NAZIs on March 4, 1933 open the first concentration camp at Dachau, near Munich. The first inmates are not Jews, but political opponents. The camps play an important role in Hitler's seizure of total political power so that he could persue his political and economic program without opposition. The camp at Dachau would be the blueprint for a massive system of camps that would eventually extend throughout Western Europe and include both work and death camps. The concentraton ca,ps were necesary for both Hitler's seizure of power and the Holocaust. They lead directly after the start of World War II to the Death Camps opened in occupied Poland.

Repression and Isolation

President Hindenburg named NAZI leader Adolf Hitler Chancellor of Germany (January 1933). Hitler almost immediately on April 1, 1933, launched the national campaign against the country's Jews on April 1, 1933. The Nazis initiate a national boycott of Jewish shops and businesses (April 1, 1933). They then dismissed Jews employed in the civil service, including schoolteachers and university professors. (April 7, 1933.) The NAZIs in the following 6 years before launching World War II introduced over 400 different laws to percecute Jewish Germans. The laws were carefully crafted to isolate, excluded, degrade, rob, and disinfranchise German Jews. Jews were excluded from the civil service by the Civil Service Law (April 7, 1933). This included teaching in state schools. Books were one of the first casulties of the NAZI regime when Hitler seized power in 1933. The NAZIs organized mass burnings of books written by Jews or expressing objectional ideas. Virtually all books by Jewish authors were destroyed. Hitler Youth members enthusiastically committed masterpieces of the German language as well as many foreign texts to huge bonfires. The NAZIs adopt legislation permitting the forced sterilisation of gypsies, handicapped, afro-Germans, as well as others considered inferior to the Aryan race (July 14, 1933). Signs saying "Jews not allowed" or "Jews not welcomed" begin appearing throughout Germany. Geman Führer Adolf Hitler at the Nuremberg Party Congress on September 15, 1935 announced three new laws that were to be cornerstones of German racist policies and the supression of Jews and other non-Aryans. These became known as the Nuremberg Laws The first 1935 law established the swastika as the official emblem of the German state. The second established special conditions for German citizenship that excluded all Jews. The third titled "The Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor" prohibited marrige between German citizens and Jews. Marriages violating this law were voided and extra-marital relations prohibited. The Nuremberg Laws came as areat shock to many Jewish children. Many Jewish family were assiumilated into German life and were not practicing Jews. Some had converted to Christianity. Others had mArried partners ho were Christian. In some cases the childen were not even aware of theiur German heritage. Tne Nuremberg Laws made Jewish identity not just a matter of religion, but of race. The NAZIs begin arresting gypsies and confining them to the Dachau concentration camp (July 12, 1936). After the adoption of the Nuremberg Race Laws, the NAZIs directed a steady stream of legal and quasi-legal actions the Jews. The NAZIs began taking increasing economic actions against Jews during the first half of 1938. Many laws were passed restricting Jewish economic activity and occupational opportunities. Slowly Jews were being deprived of making a living in Germany. A new law passed during July, 1938, required all Jews to carry identification cards. It became effective January 1, 1939. The Great Depression during the 1930s caused many countries, including the United States, to limit immigration. NAZI policy at the beginning was not set out to murder millions of Jews. The NAZIs were intent on stripping Jews of all their assetts and driving them penniless out of the country. The NAZIs stopped allowing Jews to emmigrate. Some of the last Jews to get out of Germany were the children broughtout through the Kindertransport. Counterpoint to the NAZI program of exterminating Jews and other groups considered to be sub-human was the Lebensborn program, a sectret NAZI program to enrich German racial lines with pure Nordic Aryan blood. The Lebensborn program was a pet project of SS Reichsführer Himmler. The German Wehrmacht and the SS, armed with list of NAZI opponents, crossed the German-Austrian frontier. Hitler on March 13, speaking before a jubilent crowd in Linz, announced the "Anschluss" (Annexation) of Austria into the German Reich. Jouous celebrations occurred throught Austria. Even while the celebrations were going on, the SS and local NAZIs began rounding up those who had opposed the NAZIs. Violence occured against the Jews. Jewish students and [rofessors were attacked in universities. Jews at random were dragged into the streets to scrub the sidewalks on their hands and knees--surounded by taunting crowds. After the Anchluss, the fate of Austrian Jews became fused with German Jews, but they had much less time to escape. The Anchluss had brought large numbers of Jews under NAZI control. The plight of the Austrian Jews was publicized throughout Europe and Ameruc in the newspaprs. An internationl conference was organized, prompted espcially by Preident Roosevelt in America. There are 32 countries who send delegaions. At this time, the NAZIs almost certainly would have allowed Jew to leave Germany--once they had stripped them of all their belongings and property. The conference, however, failed because the participants were unwilling to accept large numbers of Jewish refugees. This outcomre was widely reported in the NAZI controlled German press.

Gypsies

The NAZIs begin arresting gypsies and confining them to the Dachau concentration camp (July 12, 1936). The SS sends German gypsies and gypsies from German-occupied countries to Auschwitz-Birkenau, to the so-called ‘gypsy camp’ (March 1942).

Kristallnacht (November 1938)

Kristallnacht or the "Night of Broken Glass" was a vicious NAZI pogrom directed at NAZI Jews. A Polish-born Jewish Jew, Sendel Grynszpan, wrote to his soon describing how he had been expelled to Poland and mistreated. His son Herschel was a 17-yearold boy studying in Paris. Disdraught by his parents' treatment, he shot the Third Secretary of the German Embassy, Ernst vom Rath. As a reprisal, Hitler personally approved a massive assault on Germany's Jews in their homes and attacks on Jewish stnagoges. The attacks began eary on November 10. Members of the Gestapo and other NAZI organizations such as the SA and the Labor Front were told to repprt to the local NAZI Party office and were given their instructions. They then moved out ramsacking Jewish shops and synagoges and setting firm to them. Groups of NAZIs broke into Jewish homes, looting them and destroying property that they did not want. Pets were killed. About 100 Jews were killed. About 20,000 mostly men were dragged off to the Buchenwald, Dachu, and Sachsenhausen concentration camps. The orgy of violence exceed even what the NAZIs had palnned. This was of copncern because the NAZIs hoped to eventually seize the property. The Jews were thus required to repair the danage to their shops and homes. When the NAZIs realized that Jewish property was insured, Goering issued a decree requiring that insurance payments made to the German Government. An additional 1 billion mark fine was imposed on Germany Jewish community.

Kindertransport (1938-40)

Some of the last Jews to get out of Germany were the children brought out through the Kindertransport. This was the transport of Jewish children out of Austria, Czecheslovakia, and Germany mostly during the summer of 1939. The British Government, horrified at the outburst of violence in Kristallnacht agreed to eased immigration restrictions for certain of Jewish refugees. Two charitable groups help organize the program: the British Committee for the Jews of Germany and the Movement for the Care of Children from Germany. Together these groups persuaded the British government to permit children under the age of 17 to enter Britain from Germany and German-occupied territories (at the time what used to be Austria and the Czecheslovakia). About 10,000 children were saved--the largest group of children to be saved from the NAZIs. Most were aided by Jewish charitable organizations, but Quakers and other groups also helped. The experience was traumatic for the children, especially the younger ones, who did not understand why they were being separated from their parents. The children had to say a final goodbye to their parents and families for a long train journey to England and numerous checks by NAZI authorities. Most were never reunited with their families who were murdered in the NAZI death camps. The older children were put up on hostels, many of the younger children were adopted.

Continued Repression

New regulations contiued to restrict Jewisj like in Germany during the months leading up o World War II. Several new regulations foowed Kristallnacht. The Government declared all driver’s licenses issued to Jews were invalid, significantly restricting movement. Many Jews were forced to sell their businesses, often at minimal prices. The few Jews still in universities are expelled (December 1938). The Government abloishes all Jewish organisations (January 1939). The Government prohibits Jews from working in the health sector (January 1939).

World War II (1939-45)

Even the NAZIs, before World War II, hesitted at genocide. World War II changed this and removed the last inhibitions. The swift conquest of Poland left the NAZIs in control of Poland's large Jewish population (September/October 1939). The collpase of the Fench Army esentially left the NAZIs in contriol of Western Europe (June 1940). The NAZIs and much of the ret of Europe thought that the Germans had won the War. Reservations and inhibitions that some Germns might have felt had been reduced or eliminted by NAZI anti-semetic propaganda and education and the belief that NAZIism was Europe's future for th next 1,000 years.

Poland (1939-44)

The Holocasust began in Poland. The NAZI invasion of Poland launched World War II (September 1939). It lso meant tht the Himmler's SS under orders from Hitler could launch the Holocasut or Final Sollution as the NAZI's called it. Poland was the incubus where the SS could test out the instruments for the mass murder of European Jews. It was also the home of the largest Jewish community in Europe, over 3 million people.

Stolen Art

Alfred Rosenberg was the leading NAZI Party therotician and was made Minister of the Occupied Easter terriories. He established atask force to seize and bring cultural trasures to Germany. More than 5,000 imporant paintings including works by most of the great masters (Fragonard, Gainsborough Goya, Rembrandt, Rubens, and many others) were taken from museums and homes. Many other items including coins, porcelin, sculpture, and other treasures were taken. There was also much "pwnerless Jewish property. Mostitems of value had already been divested by 1940 from German Jews, but the German conquests in Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France had opened up new avenues for plunder. [Gilbert, p. 344.]

Institute for the Investigation of the Jewish Question (1940)

Alfred Rosenberg during 1940 established the Institute for the Investigation of the Jewish Question in Frankfurt. When he opened the Institute he declared, "Germany will regard the Jewish Question as solved only after the last Jew has left te Greater German living space. [Gilbert, p. 344.] One of Rosenberg's principal difficulties in sloving the Jewish Question (meaning robbing and killing Jews) was a juridictional dispute with Himmler and the SS.

Opperation Barbarossa (June 22, 1941)

The Wegrmact on Hitler's commnd the invassion of the Soviet Union (June 22, 1941). Hitler commanded that it would be war like none other, a war of exterination. From the onset, especially trained killing squads, the Einsatzgruppen, begin murdering Jews in mass executons, mostly by shooting. This had occured on a smaller scale in Poland. Now there ws no limit to the killings. In many cases there was no effort to heard the Jews into ghettos, but were killed immediatly or within days.

Decission (July 21, 1941)

Reinhard Heydrich receives authorisation to begin the implementation of the Endlösung the ‘Final Solution of the Jewish Question’ (July 31, 1941). The order was given by Güring. It must have followed an oral order by Hitler who declined to put such orders in writing. To most ranking NAZIs as the Panzers drove deep into the Sovirt Union, it looked like Germany had won the War and that they were masters of Europe. Most believed that there would be no consequemnces for what ever they did in the East. The NAZIs begin the construction of Birkenau at Auschwitz as a killing center for gassing Jews. Construction of other specially designed Death Camps in Poland are begun.

Jews in Germany (1941)

German Jews were in 1941, despite the NAZI Einsatzgruppen actions in Poland were not yet being murdered in large numbers. The NAZIs order German Jews to wear the Star of David (September 1, 1941). The NAZIs begin issuing German Jews deportation orders to Poland. Many believe what they are told that they are going to be resettled in the East (October 1941). I do not know if actual deportations began in 1941. Part of the reason may have been the deteriorating military situation in Russia. I do not yet have the completre account on this. The military situation in the East had stabilized (mid-April 1942) and the the NAZIs could proceed with mass murder at their new death camps in Poland. Reich Jews in 1942 are included in the mass murder. Many are sent directly to the darth camps rather thsan the Polish ghettos. Many Reich Jews were killed at Chelmo and Maly Trostinez.

Wansee Conference

NAZI officials saw the mass killing of Jews in the Soviet Union in the summer and fall of 1941 as being conducted in a disjointed and uncoordinate fashion. Himmler became concerned about the psychological impact on SS members of personally killing Jews, especially women and children. Now that the NAZIs contolled virtually all of western Europe and millions of Jews, it was felt that a coordinated plan was needed to efficently execute the "Final Sollution". The SS was the principal tool, but the killing of millions necesitated the cooperation of many different Government agencies. The was originally scheduled for December 9, 1941, but had to be postponed because of the stuningly successful Russian offensive in front of Moscow and after Pearl Harbor, Hitler's declaration of war on America. The meeting was finally held on January 20, 1942 in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee. The meeting was a secret sesion attended by 15 senior NAZI officials. The purpose was to coordinate the "Final Sollution"-the murder of 11 million Europen Jews. that had already began in Poland and the Soviet Europe. The decission to murder the Jew had already been taken. The Conference was to coordinate and immplement that decission.

Deportations (1938-44)

German Jews were not forced together in Ghettos, they were however, gradually forced out of small towns all over Gernmay and gradually deprived of their property and unable to find work forced to live in squalor and deplorable conditions. Gradually they were deported to Poland. This began even before the German invasion in 1939, but the early deportations were Jews who were found to be Polish Jews. Some Polish Jews living in Germany after World War I obtained Polish passports, but continued living in Germany. NAZI authorities studied the individual records and identified Jews born in Poland. These Polish Jews the first to be deported. The Polish authorities often did not cooperate with the NAZIs. Several incidents occurred where deported Jews suffered terribly during all kinds of weather caught between Polish and German border guards. The suffering of one youth's family promted a Jewish youth in Paris to shoot a German diplomat thus launching Kristallnacht. Once Poland had been conquered, the process became easier. German Jews would receive notification of deportation and would have to report at a specified time. Most of the deportations were to Poland. The NAZIs beginning October 22, 1940 began deporting 6,500 German Jews from the Western Landen of Baden, the Saar, and the Plaatinate to internment camps in the French Pyrenees (Gurs, Noé, Récébédou, and Rivesaltes) which were controlled by Vichy guards. These were some of the oldest Jewish families in Germany. Some came from Mannheim where the first synagogue was built in 1664. A few were from Alt Breisach where the first Jew which arrived in 1301. All their himes, shops, and property were seized by local NAZI authorities. The lack of even the most basic facilities at these camps made then more deadly than deportment to Poland, at least in 1940. [Gilbert, p. 347.] The deportation of German Jews began in an organized fashion (October 1941). At first the deportations carried the German Jews to the ghettos established in Poland. After the Death Camps opened in June-July 1942 the transports begin to be routed directlyn to these camps.

Rosensrasse (February 1943)

The Gestapo in an action against Berlin Jews arrested 5,000 and detained them at a collection point on Rosenstrasse (February 27, 1943). One of the few successful public demonstrations against the NAZIs occurred in 1943. Aryan wives of detained Jews demonstrated on Rosenstrasse against the detention of their husbands. Apprentlt they were not joined by thw Aryan husbands of detained female Jews. Presumably because they would have been attacked by SA bully boys, but authorities did not want to order an attack on German women. Other arrests and deportions of Berlin Jews had met no public resistance. This time it was different because among those arrested were Jews married to Aryans. Here we do not fully understand NAZI law. The Nuremburg Laws made marriage and exual relations between Jews and Sryans illegal. Many Aryans as a result divorced their Jewish partners. This does not appear to have been a legal requirement, although Aryans married to Jews and their children faced many problems. Among those detained in February were Jews who had been officially categorized "Aryans by marriage". Here I am not sure if all Jews married to Aryans. I am not sure to what extent these married partners were husbands or wives, but there appear to have been more husbands than wives. The day following the arrests, Aryan wives appeared outside the Risenstrasse detention center and the numbers increased until several hundred showed up there. They did not demonstrate, but just stood silently outside the detention center. The full details of what occurred including Hitler's involvement are unknown. It is known that Propaganda Minister Josef Goebbels saw it as a public relations nightmare. One week later the Jews were released. Some who had been deported were even brought back from Auschwitz. I assume the Jew released were only those married to Aryans, but do not yet have full details.

Knowledge and Complicity

The question of how much the average German knew about the Holocast and to what extent they were complicit in it is a much debated topic. It is one that few Germans have wanted to discuss. An American historian, Daniel Goldhagen has raised the issue and maintains that there was wide knowledge and that a kind of willing comoplicity. His books speaking engagements have attracted considerable interest, but many Germans are deeply resentful at him for raising the issue. There are some obvious facts. Most of the actual killing was done in Poland, the Soviet Union, and other Eastern Euroopean countries. In Poland where the death camps were located, most of the killing was done behind barbed wire where the SS carried out the murders without public scrutiny. Many of the Jews that arrived had no idea as to the fate that awaited them. Others while they did not know the details had few illusions about the NAZIs. NAZI controlled media in Germany never published accounts of the killings. Even the Allied propaganda did not provide details on the Holocaust and what claims were mentioned were dismissed by many Germans as war propaganda. (The Allies, especially the British, had during World War I fabricated many lurid accounts of German attricities, specially in Belgium.) While all this is true. There are other clear facts suggesting that many Germans knew. Public statements by Hitler, Goebbels, and other NAZIs while not specific made it very clear as to the regimes plans for the Jews. The NAZI Stromtroopers (SA) and Hitler Youth had songs and chants with the words, "Death to the Jews". The NAZI pogrom of Kristallnacht was conducted in Germany in the full view of the German people. While the actual number of deaths were minimal compared to the later killings, there were killings and vicius beatings carried out in publiv view. After the War began, not only the SS but Wehrmacht units were involved in mass roundups and killings of Jews. Many must have talked about their experiences in the East. Jews were used as slave labor by large numbers of German companies and employees there would have been exposed to what was happening. The German railway system organized thetransport of large numbers of Jews east. Many would have know about where they were being transported and the fate that awaited them. The subject is difficult to reserach, because interviews with Germans living at the time cannot be taken at face value. Many Germans benefitted by the NAZI anti-Jewing campaign in the 1930s. Many got jobs that the Jews were dismissed from. Many got homes, shops, and other property that was stollen from the Jews. Many participated in small ways such as avoiding Jewish shoops and ignoring or reporting on Jewish neighbors. School children ostraicized or even physically asaulted their Jewish school mates. These are painful memories that few Germans want to admit and most want to forget.

Impact on Germany

We know what the impact of the Holocaust was on the Jews, both those murdered and those that survived. There were 6 million precious lives lost and lived cripped by the loss of family and friends. Less well examined was the cost to Germany. The NAZIs argued that Jews and other non-Aryan influences weakened Germany. There was never any assessment done, but rather a resort to prejudice and pseudo science. Actually the NAZI campaign against the Jews significantly impaired the German war effort. There was some benefit in terms of slave labor, but this was a net loss because the talents and abilities of German Jews was essentially waisted. Jews in World War I like other citizens had supported the war effort. Many received military commendations and played notable rolls in war industries. The most obvious loss was the nuclear phyiists that fled Germany and NAZI-occupied Europe. Not only did this weaken NAZI science, but played a major role in the Manhattan project. Germany in 1939 was to believed to be 2-years ahead of America and Britain in nuclear physics, but was unable to build a nuclear weapon. After the War the impact on Germany was also significant. The Jews and others who fled the NAZIs played a major role in America's emergence as a world leader, not only in science but the arts as well. The German post-War economic miracle has clouded the impact on Germany. German befofe the NAZIs was a world leader in many areas. This was true of many scientific disciplines as can be assessed by noting the number of nobel prizes won by German scientists. Germany had a leadership position in many areas like television, color film, and taking movies. Germany had a dynamic fashion industry. German film studios were some of the most important in the world. German artists were at the cuttig edge of modern art. Look at Germany after the War. Many of these were areas in which Jews, before the NAZIs, played an important role. German industry staged an impressive recovery, but German companies were largely involved in craftmanship and building goods with basically old technology. None of the major advances in the world economy have come from Germany, such as transistors, computers, the internet, digital recording, ect. Nor has the German fashion industry, movie studios, artists, ect approched the status that they had before the NAZIs. There are a range of factors involved here. But surely the loss of a small, but educated, creative minority is one of the factors involved.

Individuals

We have found information about several individuald drawn up in the Holocaust. Here we focus primarly on the experiences of children. Too often accounts of the Holocaust deal with statistics and numbers. The numbers are so large to be overwealming. Behind every single one of those numbers are individuals. Looking at these individuals it seems almost unbelievable the fate awaiting them. We are interested in how the Holocaustvaffected individual families. We are collecting information about some families. With many we do not have a full account, but these accounts provide details on how the Holocaust affect individuals and families. We will also include here photographs we have found of individuals even though we may not be able to identify them.

Erich Rosenberg (1924-41)

Erich Rosenberg was born in 1924 at Rotherbaum, Hamburg, Germany. We are not sure what happened to his parents, but Erich was orphaned. Erich at the time of World War II lived at an orphanage at Hamburg and was deported in 1941 with other Jewish orphans to Riga, Latvia. The NAZIs after the invasion of the Soviet Union (June 1941) set up a ghetto there for Jwws. Erich and the other orphans soon after their arrival were murdered by the NAZIs.

Sources

Berenbaum, Michael. The World Must Know (Ed. Arnold Kramer. Boston: Little, Brown, & Company, 1993).

Crane, Cynthia A. "The plight of German children from Jewish-Christian 'mixed marriages': Often forgotten victims of the holocaust," Children and the Holocaust: Symposium, United states Holocaust Memorial Museum, April 3, 2003.

Goldhagen, Daniel

Held, Wendy. "A victim of survivor gelt," The Washington Post May 28, 2005, p. W11.

Hitler, Adolf. Mein Kampf.

Hobsbawm, Eric. Interesting Times: A Twentieth-Century Life (Pantheon: 2003), 448p. Hobsbawm was born in Egypt of an English father and Austrian mother. He was raised in Vienna and Berlin. As a teenagr he became a Marxist and was recruited to a communist youth group. He engaged in anti-NAZI activities, but he and his parents left Germany within weeks of the NAZI take over. He writes that he remained a Communist in later years out of loyalty to his young friend who fought the NAZIs--few of who survived the Third Reich.

Nuremberg Tribunal. "Individual Responsibility of Defendants: Artur Seyss-Inquart," Nazi Conspiracy and Aggresion Vol. II. USGPO, Washington, 1946, pp.956-1004.

Padfield, Peter. Himmler: Reichsführer-SS (Henry Holt: New York, 1991), 656p.

Created: October 12, 2002
Last updated: 2:31 PM 9/12/2008