Tyranny, war crimes and genocidal
violence were always a constant in human history. However, the Holocaust is the
most extreme form of genocide that ever happened, being a process of methodical
extermination of certain human groups, mostly targeted on “biological”,
“racial” considerents.
The Holocaust (Shoah – “Catastrophe”, in Hebrew) means the deliberated mass murder
of 5-6 million Jews, plus millions of others members of various ethnic and
religious groups, political opponents, war prisoners etc. by European Axis
Powers during World War II. This extreme violence occured in the context of a war that caused the death of around 50
million people in Europe only, a war triggered by Far-Right ideology, extreme
nationalism and militarism (Jones, 2006, p. 233).
The so-called “unique uniqueness” of
the Holocaust comes right from the intentional, determined and seriously
organized process of wiping out an entire population, regardless of age, gender
and other considerations (Heinsohn, 2000, Jones, 2006, p. 254).
Origins
and Causes
Intolerance and, especially,
Judeophobia, were already common in traditional European societies. Their
rejection of Jesus and His Divinity, association with His execution and a
perceived attack on the Christian moral order were the reasons Jews were
discriminated in Christian countries, often violently. From isolation in
ghettos to full-scale pogroms and mass expulsions, anti-Jewish persecution was
a constant of European Middle Ages.
After the rise of modern states,
despite a tendency towards tolerance and integration, even in Pre-War Germany,
residual Judeophobia also gained new arguments, including the “backwardness” of
traditional Jewish communities, a perceived control over modern means of
production (industry, banking), association with cosmopolitanism and an attack
on traditional values, all these fueled by modern pseudo-scientific racial
theories (Jones, 2006, p. 235).
This became more obvious during the
Weimar Republic, when Jews became some of the favorite scapegoats for the WWI
disaster of German Far-Rightists, including the leaders of the National
Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP). By exploiting divergences in the
Democratic camp and the economic crisis, the Nazis managed to get political
power in Germany, in January, 1933 (Gilbert, 1987, p. 23, Jones, 2006, p. 235).
For Hitler, Jews were the main target, and the “annihilation of the Jews” was a
primary goal, even since the early years of the NSDAP. (Jones, 2006, p. 240).
The initial campaign against
political opponents of the new regime quickly continued with a growing
persecution against Jews. With the Nuremberg Laws (1935), German Jews lost
their citizenship rights and large numbers were forced to emigrate. The Kristallnacht (1938) meant the beginning
of violent repression (Gilbert, 1987, p. 47-48, Jones, 2006, p. 235-237).
The war further aggravated the
situation, as regions with substantial Jewish populations, such as Poland and
Soviet territories, were occupied by Nazis and their allies. Ghettoization and “Holocaust
by bullets” (punctual massacres perpetrated by military and SS death squads,
causing roughly 1.8 million casualties) were the first stages of the extermination
process (Jones, 2006, p. 239).
Announced by the decision to halt
Jewish emigration from occupied areas, in May, 1941, the “final solution” officially
started with the Wansee Conference on January 20, 1942 (although methodic
extermination, including the use of gas chambers was already employed in
Eastern occupied territories, ever since the autumn of 1941 (Gilbert, 1987, p.
152-184).
The creation of an extensive system
of death camps (Auschwitz, Treblinka, Belzec, Sobibor, Chelmno, Majdanek etc.)
provided the Nazi regime with a solution for a faster elimination of Jews and
other targeted groups. Concentration camps were already common in Fascist
countries, while gas chambers were first set up in 1939, so the whole process
just required an enlargement of an existing infrastructure (Jones, 2006, p.
240-241).
Targeted
Groups
Jews
Jews were the primary target of the
Holocaust. Around 5-6 million people with Jewish background were exterminated
in Germany, other Axis countries and occupied territories.
Polish
and Soviet Civilian Citizens
While Jews were the hardest hit
community by the Nazi repression, Slavic peoples were seen by Hitler and other
Nazi leaders as the primary target for mass extermination. In addition to the 3
million Jewish Poles, another 3 million Christian Poles died during German
occupation. Around 18 million Soviet civilians also lost their lives.
A large numbers of these victims
were due to intentional mass murder, deportations, forced labor and forced
famine. On a long term, Nazi leaders envisioned a total extermination of
Central and Eastern European Slavs, as a premise for a German colonization of
the area (Jones, 2006, p. 270-271).
Roma People
Persecution against German gypsies
started in 1935, reaching a genocidal climax during the war. The Porrajmos (“Devouring”) – the methodic
genocide of Roma peoples by Germany and other Axis regimes claimed somewhere
between 500,000 and 1.5 million lives (Jones, 2006, p. 274-276).
Other Ethnic
Groups
Other groups were also targeted by
Axis regimes, and their identity and reasons for persecutions varied from
country to country. For instance, a few thousands of Afro-Germans were closed in
concentration camps, where many of them died (while other thousands were
expelled or sterilized; Heinsohn, 2000).
The Ustaša regime in Croatia primarily
targeted Orthodox Serbs, seen as the main obstacle in establishing a fully
Croat and Catholic state (Manhattan, 1986, p. 38).
War Prisoners
3.3 million Soviet war prisoners
died due to intentional murder or inhumane treatment in Nazi concentration
camps. (Jones, 2006, p. 271).
Religious
Dissenters
Within this category, fall members
of mainstream religions in Germany and allied countries, who contested the
regime on religious grounds, but mostly Neoprotestants (with Jehovah’s
Witnesses as the primary target) seen as enemies of the regime, due to their
pacifist and anti-establishment beliefs. 10,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses were
arrested and over 1,200 were killed in Germany only (Jones, 2006, p. 267).
Political
Opponents
Political opponents to Hitler’s rule
and, especially, Left-Wing activists were the first target of the Nazi
repression. While there are no clear numbers of these victims, it seems that
only the Communists exterminated by the Nazi regime exceeded 100,000 (Jones,
2006, p. 264).
Disabled
People
State directed “euthanasia” of
disabled people, seen as social parasites even before the Nazi regime was
installed, claimed over 250,000 lives. The so-called “Aktion T-4” was, actually, the first mass extermination process
undertaken by Hitler’s government, starting in September 1939 (Heinsohn, 2000, Jones,
2006, p. 268-269).
Undesirables,
Asocial, Homosexuals
Unemployed persons, those considered
“criminals” under vague arguments and part of the male homosexual minority were
the target of persecutions. While few were actually isolated in death camps,
imprisonment conditions were so harsh that thousands of them died (Jones, 2006,
p. 264-266).
Perpetrators
The Reich Main Security Office (RSHA
– the security division of the SS) and, especially, the Jewish Affairs Department
(with representatives throughout the Reich, occupied areas an allied states)
led by Adolf Eichmann was the main institution overseeing the “Operation
Reinhard”, i.e. the extermination of Jews. The implementation was handled by
various SS units, as well as the German regular army (Gilbert, 1987, p. 284).
Apart from Germany, other Axis
nations enforced genocidal measures against Jews, Roma and other groups.
Admiral Horthy’s regime in Hungary organized
mass executions of Jews, Serbs, Roma etc., even since the beginning of their
involvement in the War (Gilbert, 1987, p. 287-288). In March 1944, Horthy
agreed to start mass deportations of Jews to German camps (Gilbert, 1987, p.
662-681). 63,000 Jews were killed in Hungary (including occupied territories),
prior to the Nazi occupation. More than 400,000 were deported to death camps
after the occupation, most of them being killed (Cole, 2001).
Romania, under the Antonescu regime,
organized the killing of hundreds of thousands of Jews, nomad Roma people and
religious dissenters, starting with punctual pogroms, such as those in Iasi and
Galati, in June 1941, and going up to full-scale deportation, isolation in
death camps and mass executions (such as those in Odessa, in October 1941) in
occupied Soviet territories (Gilbert, 1987, p. 161-219).
The puppet “Independent State of
Croatia” was one of the regimes most involved in mass extermination of
“undesirable” categories, meaning political opponents, Jews, Roma but, mostly
Serbs. Death camps, massacres, deportation, torture, etc. were employed to
establish a politically, religiously and ethnically homogenous state, a process
that claimed at least 700,000 civilian lives (Manhattan, 1986, p. 34-75).
The Vichy Regime in France, the
Quisling regime in Norway and Tiso’s government in Slovakia deported much of
their Jewish population to German concentration camps. On the other hand,
Finland, Bulgaria and Italy, while also Axis members, refused deportation and
other violent repression measures (Gilbert, 1987, p. 547-548).
Besides Axis countries and puppet
regimes, pro-Nazi militias and auxiliary forces in occupied regions were also
involved in mass murder of “undesirable” populations, mostly Jews. Ukrainian,
Lithuanian and Latvian nationalists were among the fiercest collaborators in
organizing anti-Jewish pogroms (Gilbert, 1987, p. 154-157).
Consequences
The most evident consequence of the
Holocaust and other Nazi war crimes was the demographic one. Millions of people
perished, with dramatic consequences on a short term (workforce shortage,
abnormal sex ratio, low fertility, “missing generations”) and on a long term (a
lower population and different ethno-confessional structure; Gitelman, 1993, p.
3-4).
Another consequence was that the
Holocaust gave a significant boost to the Zionist ideology, with hundreds of
thousands of refugees fleeing to Palestine and even more seeing emigration as
the sole solution to a safe future, and the assimilationist doctrine losing
terrain. This led to the creation of a new state, Israel, with all the related
conflicts in the Near East.
Finally, the horrific accounts of
these war crimes caused a significant shift in Global public opinion, towards a
firm rejection of Antisemitism, Racism and Far-Right ideologies. However, in
some regions, in the USSR, for instance, this rejection was used to suppress
various nationalist movements, associated or not with Nazism (Gitelman, 1993,
p. 4-9).
