CHAPTER EIGHT

Creators of a Kingdom of Death

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, say, an antebellum United States farmer might have felt; the SS could replenish the slaves because there were inexhaustible numbers…

Historical Context: The Kingdom of Death existed in the camp system of Eastern Europe, but it began to rise earlier in the ghettos. Herded into segregated, usually dilapidated parts of cities and towns, Jews were forced to eke out an existence in overcrowding, disease, and malnutrition. Work was possible, but more often than not the Jews found themselves slaves to the Axis war effort. Life had changed abruptly for those who had not fled, for those who had been hoping Hitler would not last. Why did the Nazis and their collaborators do these things? How could they?

Rationale to Teach: Here students will enter the world in which the Jews were forced to exist. Ghettos and camps are introduced. They will be covered in more detail in the succeeding chapter. What we do here is really set the table to cover the mentality (supposed) of the perpetrators. This will give students some handle on how or why not only soldiers but also the common man could carry out these atrocious activities.

Major Topics:

1. Camps system

2. General Government (Poland)

3. Auschwitz

4. Slavery

5. Medical experiments

6. Motivations of the perpetrators

Comment: In addition to introducing the various camps and ghettos, we also take a look at some of the psychological/social motivations of the perpetrators. Here your students will get the opportunity to debate the different hypotheses, and attempt to make out “real world” examples to match them. Again, many pupils will offer that these hypotheses in some way attempt to explain away or make excuses for the perpetrators. While this is understandable, stress to them that while the actions are inexcusable, it is perhaps for the benefit of the student of the Holocaust to try to put a face on the hatred, to attempt to make some sense of the senseless. We often explain things in terms we can grasp.

Multiple fences at Auschwitz

Resources:

Classroom notes with lines of questioning/student interaction

http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/Holocaust/cc.html. Jewish Virtual Library. This site contains just about all the links one would need to give a good survey of the concentration camps.

Berenbaum, Michael. Witness To the Holocaust, New York: Harper Collins Publishers, Inc. 1997. For excerpts from the writings of three perpetrators, see pp. 172-201.

Browning, Christopher. Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland, New York: Harper Perennial, 1993.

Teaching activity about the Hitler Youth, available here.

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