Kingdom of Death and the Mentality of Its
Creators
Nazi camp system was
the embodiment of Nazism
Man-made Hell
1st camps were makeshift, improvised (1933)
SA established them
Warehouses, cellars
Beat, tortured political opponents
We saw examples
of these in the video “Ultimate Power”…
March, 1933: Dachau 1st
official camp
One of last camps to be liberated
Theodore Eicke was commandant
Made rules, camp system
Dehumanization, punishments, prisoner administration (kapos, etc.)
We reviewed
methods of dehumanization that had been discussed during previous units of our
study of the Holocaust, as well as during our slavery unit from the beginning
of the semester. Some of the things the
students cited were: physical
punishment or duress, nudity in front of other prisoners or the perpetrators,
deprivation of essentials of clothing, food, and shelter, sleeplessness…
WVHA: branch of SS that
came to run camps
RSHA: Eichmann in charge
of deportation to the camps
“Work Makes You Free”:
sign above the gate at Auschwitz
I previewed the
idea we’ll talk about soon, that many leaders of the various Jewish Councils
tried to convince their constituents that the more “valuable” they were through
their work, the better chance of survival they would have.
“Asocials” were first camp inmates
Who were these
asocials? -- Criminals like thieves,
prostitutes, political opponents, the poor or homeless, those protesting the
Nazi way, drunks…
Kristallnacht stepped up # of Jews in camps, which had actually
been on the rise since the previous spring
Jews could still be freed if they could prove they had a visa
Sept. 1, 1939: camp
populations mushroomed
Sources of slave labor
1945: ¾ million slave laborers
in camps
7 million slaves not in camps
At this point we
interrupted the note taking to look at a long list of corporations that
established factories in the camps for the purpose of exploiting slave
labor. It can be viewed (with its
original reference) at
http://remember.org/educate/companies.html
Students
recognized the names of several of the companies, most notably Ford Motor
Company and Shell Oil. We discussed
whether or not we would have a moral obligation at this point in history,
removed some 60 years from the situation, to deny these businesses our
dollars. It was a good but brief
discussion; some of the students’ responses included: --It was a long time ago and carried out by people who may not
still be alive. Have they ever
apologized? I would say that if they
apologized, then we should forgive them.
It is another issue altogether if they have never admitted to their
guilt. -- It’s kind of like slave
reparations – do we punish these companies for something that happened so long
ago? But it’s not like that at all,
because there are still people alive, on all sides of the Holocaust, who were
exploiting or exploited by these circumstances.
Chelmno (12/41): 1st
camp constructed as part of Final Solution
Gas vans (carbon monoxide [CO])
Odilo Globocnik, 1941, ordered to kill all Jews in the General
Government (Poland)
Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka then constructed
Majdanek, Auschwitz also equipped to kill
Chelmno: approximately
350,000 Jews killed
Belzec: 500-600,000 Jews
killed
Sobibor: 250,000 Jews
killed
Treblinka: 800-900,000
Jews killed
Majdanek: approximately
350,000 Jews killed
Auschwitz: 1.1
million-1.3 million Jews killed
+ 70-80,000 Poles, several
1,000 gypsies, Soviets
Here we began a
discussion on the diversion of Allied resources to destroy the camps. Students wanted to know why not even a few
planes could have been spared, particularly in light of the Nazis using
tremendous resources apart from the war effort to carry out the Holocaust. Getting ahead of ourselves, I did explain
that above all, the United States and its allies were committed to winning the
war first. I also touched on the fact
that FDR did not want to be seen as fighting a “Jewish war” in any way; other
critics have sarcastically stated that the Jews were “expendable”.
Auschwitz I: SS
barracks, Block #11 (prison), #10 (medical experiments)
Auschwitz II/Birkenau: killing facility, barracks for slave labor
Auschwitz III/Buna,
Monowitz: huge synthetic rubber plant
Run by I.G. Farben (German industry)
45 sub-camps around, all administered from Auschwitz
10,000 camps total in Germany and German-held
lands
Killing, transient, POW,
slave labor, etc.
German industry heavily involved in the camps for slave labor
Paid SS a per diem for each slave
One young man
asked about the relative “value” of a black slave in the United States to a
Jewish slave during World War II. I
answered that while a black would have required a sizeable initial investment,
the returns could be good from the standpoint that if he was purchased young,
the owner could reap benefits for decades.
That slave would also be strongly encouraged (made) to reproduce. On the other hand, the slaves that were
obtained from the camps were maybe more closely “rented” in that there was no
true ownership by these international corporations. The SS held “ownership” and “sublet” the labor as long as it
lasted. When a slave died, there really
wasn’t any loss in terms of the initial investment that the US farmer had
made. Because the slaves in the war
were prisoners, the cost for them was nominal, and there was an almost
inexhaustible. I made sure to point out at the end of the discussion that it
had been strictly from an economic perspective.
Some firms had plants in the camps
Bayer paid for female slaves on which to run experiments
Medical experiments in camps
Military reasons – saltwater intake, temperature extremes, air
pressure, injections with various germs/diseases
Racial reasons – how to produce twins (Josef Mengele [the Angel
of Death]), produce dominant traits, sterilization experiments
No care was taken to render the experiments medically valid
Warsaw ghetto: Jewish
doctors experimented on themselves on the effects of starvation and
malnutrition; they did it “right”, lending medical value to their work
Students wanted
to know the difference between the Nazi experiments and those carried out by
the Jewish doctors mentioned. I talked
about simple things like the scientific method, having a control for the
experiment, etc. Maybe above all other
reasons was a simple altruism on the part of the Jews – they actually hoped
their studies would benefit others. We
can’t be so certain of the Nazis’ goals.
Students wanted some details beyond the notes, so I discussed some of
the things I had seen and read while going through the Permanent Exhibit at the
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, such as videotapes from film shot by
the SS of victims after the experiments.
Systemization in the camps
Flow-charts to track who and what went where
This is one of
the great obscenities of the Shoah – the efficiency of mass murder.
All income went into SS bank accounts
Contraband from Jews (jewelry, alarm clocks, clothing, shavers,
etc.) were sold to soldiers
Some went to WVHA for welfare distribution to Germans
All income came back to SS
Thousands of civilians had to be involved in this as bystanders
and collaborators
Denial: “I don’t want to
know where it came from…”
A student had
raised this idea when we did the activity on assigning levels of guilt to
various participants in the Holocaust.
It was stated then more like “don’t ask, don’t tell”.
Motivation
of the perpetrators
Schools of thinking:
Situationalist:
obedience to authority
Certain mechanisms take over (autocracy, order)
Milgram experiments in the 1950’s-‘60’s
Word association/electric shock scenario
1974: “60 Minutes”
interview by Morley Safer with Milgram
In almost every case of obedience…there is always some
justification on the part of the “doer” to a cause
In Milgram’s experiments worldwide, 600 of 1000 administered a
“lethal” dose of electricity
We went into
some detail on Milgram’s experiment, and I relied on those students who have
taken or are currently enrolled in psychology to tell the story a little more
completely than I could. Students were
amazed at the thought that these statistics of giving the “lethal” dose even
applied to subjects who were Jewish.
Conformity to group pressure
Soldiers kill/die for their buddies
Dispositionalist:
personality issues
Auschwitz guards had specialties in cruelty
Sadistic, psychopathic
disposition
I told them of
the “Neck Jumper”, a guard whose specialty it was to knock a prisoner to the
ground, then jump hard with his boots upon the inmate’s neck, snapping it. There was a great deal of disgust on the
part of several students – of course the question “why?” was asked. The answer I gave was “because he could”…
Interactionalist: in a
situation of radical evil, a human being will develop a “second self” in order
to function in the evil environment
Camp doctors – the “Auschwitz self”
Psychic numbing
Here I related
part of the premise of Robert Jay Lifton’s book, “The Nazi Doctors” (excerpted
in Donald Niewyck’s The Holocaust), where he discusses the concept of
the second self. In a much different
example, I asked students if they behave or speak the same way with friends as
they do at home, at work, or at church.
Of course they replied “no”. So
I asked, understanding that we were speaking of two totally different levels of
existence, if they could accept Lifton’s theory as to how this could have been
a rationalization for behavior. They replied that they could.
Idealistic/Ideological:
so-infected with antisemitism
Existentialist:
participation in this vast undertaking helped give meaning to the
perpetrator’s life
A thrill, a high…
One year, on the
opening day of deer season in Illinois, I asked this question, trying to draw a
parallel of the “high” – I asked, “When is a deer hunter most likely to have a
heart attack?” -- Right when he is
shooting the animal, or right after. –
I thought it would be when they were dragging the carcass back to their
car… -- People would make that
assumption because of the physical duress; but it’s the emotional changes that
the body goes through – elevation of the hormone levels, adrenaline, general
excitement. That’s the high, the
thrill. Certainly I didn’t aim to
equate the two examples, but I always try to give the kids an example to which
they can relate.
Human passion: sadism is
a form of malignant aggression
Can be brought out, cultivated
Need to show control
Greed was everywhere in the Holocaust
Wehrmacht plundered the
dead, their homes
Hate (not completely conditioned by ideology)
Hate breeds fear of revenge from the one you hate
Revenge: for Allied
bombs on German cities, etc.
Ambition, careerism:
desire to get ahead
Many of us can
relate in some way to feelings at some of these levels.