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Warsaw Ghetto

Warsaw Ghetto

The Warsaw Ghetto was the largest of the Jewish ghettos established by Nazi Germany in General Government during the Holocaust in World War II. In the three years of its existence, starvation, disease and deportations to concentration camps and extermination camps dropped the population of the ghetto from an estimated 450,000 to 37,000. The Warsaw Ghetto was the scene of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, one of the first mass uprisings against Nazi occupation in Europe.

Formation of the Ghetto

Plans to isolate the Jewish population of Warsaw and its nearby suburbs in a ghetto first circulated immediately after the German occupation of Poland in 1939. At the time, the German administration of the General Government had not been fully organized, and there were conflicting interests among the three major players: the civilian administration, the military, and the SS. Under these circumstances, the Jewish Council, or Judenrat, headed by Adam Czerniakow, was able to delay the establishment of the Ghetto by one year, mainly by appealing to the military to consider how Jews were a valuable labor resource. Adam Czerniakow The Warsaw Ghetto was finally established by the German Governor-General Hans Frank on October 16, 1940. At this time, the population of the Ghetto was estimated to be about 380,000 people, about 30% of the population of Warsaw. However, the size of the Ghetto was about 2.4% of the size of Warsaw. Nazis then closed off the Warsaw Ghetto from the outside world on November 16th that year, building a wall. During the next year and a half, Jews from smaller cities and villages were brought into the Ghetto, while diseases (especially typhoid) and starvation kept the inhabitants at about the same number. Average food rations in 1941 for Jews in Warsaw were limited to 253 kcal, compared to 669 kcal for Poles and 2,613 kcal for Germans.

Destruction of the Ghetto

typhoid In early 1942, the Nazis made the decision at the Wannsee conference to exterminate the Jews of Europe. The first phase of the Final Solution was Operation Reinhard, with the goal of destroying the Jews of Poland. Construction started on the Treblinka extermination camp in May of 1942, and it was completed in July, when the wholesale liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto was to begin. On July 22, 1942, the Judenrat was informed that all Jews except those working in German factories, Jewish hospital staff, members of the Judenrat and their families, and members of the Jewish police force and their families would be "deported to the East". The Jewish police were to deliver 6,000 Jews to the Umschlagplatz train station each day, and failure to do so would result in immediate execution of some one hundred hostages, including Czerniakow's wife. After failing to pursuade the Germans to change their plans, or at least spare the orphans of the Ghetto, Czerniakow killed himself on July 23, 1942, leaving behind a note, "I can no longer bear all this. My act will prove to everyone what is the right thing to do." On July 23, members of the Jewish underground met, but decided not to resist, believing that the Jews were really being sent to work camps, rather than their death. As ordered on July 22, 1942, mass deportations of the inhabitants started; in the next 52 days (till September 12, 1942) about 300,000 people were taken to the Treblinka extermination camp. During the remaining days of July, the Jewish Ghetto Police were responsible for carrying out the deportations, a total of 64,606 Jews were transported to the death camps that month. From August onward, the Germans and their allies took a more direct role in the deportations, with over 135,000 Jews deported in August alone. The final phase of the first mass deportation happened between September 6 and September 10, 1942, when 35,885 Jews were deported, 2,648 were shot on the spot and 60 committed suicide. After this selection approximately 55,000 to 60,000 Jews remained alive in the Ghetto, either working in German factories within the Ghetto or living in hiding. During the next six months, what was left of several political organizations was brought together under the name ŻOB (Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa, Jewish Fighting Organization), headed by Mordechaj Anielewicz, with 220-500 persons; another 250-450 were organized in the ŻZW (Żydowski Związek Walki, Jewish Fighting Union). The members of these groups had no illusions about the German plans and wanted to die fighting. Their armament consisted largely of handguns, homemade explosives and Molotov cocktails; the ŻZW was better armed as a result of better contacts to the Polish underground outside the Ghetto.

Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and the destruction of the Ghetto

On January 18, 1943, the first instance of armed resistance occurred when the Germans started the second expulsion of the Jews. The Jewish fighters had some success: the expulsion stopped after four days and the ŻOB and ŻZW resistance organizations took control of the Ghetto, building dozens of fighting posts and operating against Jewish collaborators. During the next three months, all inhabitants of the Ghetto prepared for what they realized would be a final struggle. The final battle started on the eve of Passover, April 19, 1943. Jewish partisans shot and threw grenades at German and allied patrols from alleyways, sewers, house windows, and even burning buildings. The Nazis responded by shelling the houses block by block and rounding up or killing any Jew they could capture. Significant resistance ended on April 23, and the uprising ended on May 16. During the fighting approximately 7,000 of the Jewish partisans were killed and 6,000 were burnt alive or gassed in bunkers. The remaining 50.000 people were sent to German death camps, mostly to Treblinka extermination camp.

Social and cultural life in the ghetto

Treblinka extermination camp Treblinka extermination camp Despite the enormous hardships of day-to-day life, the Judenrat and youth movements succeeded in organizing various institutions and organizations in the Ghetto to meet the various needs of the inhabitants. The major concerns were overcrowding, hunger, inactivity, and work detail. In response, the Judenrat took the bulk of the responsibility for allocating housing-with an average of seven people per room, while charitable organizations such as CENTOS organized free soup kitchens: at one point as much as two-thirds of the Ghetto's population was provided for by these soup kitchens. For a brief time, the Judenrat was also permitted to organize four elementary schools (grades 1-3) for ghetto children, but there was also an extensive underground school system run by the various youth movements, which covered all grades (often disguised as soup kitchens) and even offered university-level courses on Sundays. The Judenrat was also responsible for the hospitals and orphanages that operated in the Ghetto. One orphanage, headed by the pediatrician and author Janusz Korczak, was run as a model democracy, called the Republic of Children. This and the other orphanages were evacuated in 1942 and their occupants and staff were sent to Treblinka. Cultural life included a lively press in three languages (Yiddish, Polish, and Hebrew), religious activity (including a church for Jews who had converted to Catholicism), and lectures, concerts, theater, and art exhibits. In many cases, the artists and performers were prominent figures in Polish cultural life during the war. One of the most remarkable cultural efforts in the Ghetto was headed by the historian Emmanuel Ringelblum and his group Oyneg Shabbos, which collected documents by people of all ages and positions to create a social history of life in the Ghetto. In all, it is estimated that some 50,000 documents were collected, including essays on various aspects of ghetto life, diaries, memoirs, art work, underground journals, drawings, school work, posters, play bills, recipes, notes from lectures, etc. These documents were hidden in three separate batches, two of which have since been recovered and provide an invaluable insight into life in the Ghetto. Plans are now underway to find the third cache, which is believed to be buried under what is now the Chinese Embassy in Warsaw.

Commemoration

On April 22, 2002, members of the Polish Council for Christians and Jews commemorated the 59th anniversary of the 1943 anti-Nazi uprising in with visits to memorial sites connected with the city’s former Jewish quarter.

Famous Ghetto prisoners

1943
- Władysław Szpilman whose memoirs have become the film The Pianist by Roman Polański
- Marcel Reich-Ranicki the most famous living literary critic in Germany

References

- Israel Gutman, Resistance: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Houghton Mifflin, 1998, trade paperback, ISBN 0395901308, hardcover, 1994, 277 pages, ISBN 0395601991
- Martin Gray, For Those I Loved, Little Brown Company, 1984, hardcover, ISBN 0316325767, 351 pages

External links

- [http://www.deathcamps.org/occupation/warsaw%20ghetto%20liquidation.html Warsaw Ghetto Liquidation]
- [http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/warsawtoc.html Documents and information about the Warsaw Ghetto] from the Jewish Virtual Library Category:World War II ghettos Category:History of Warsaw Category:Nazi Germany Category:Jewish Polish history ja:ワルシャワ・ゲットー

Jew

The word Jew (Hebrew: יהודי transliterated: Yehudi) is used in many ways, but generally refers to a follower of Judaism, a child of a Jewish mother, or someone of Jewish descent with a connection to Jewish culture or ethnicity; and often a combination of these attributes. This article discusses the term as describing an ethnic group; for a consideration of Jewish religion, please refer to Judaism. Most Jews regard themselves as a people, members of a nation, descended from the ancient Israelites and converts who joined their religion at various times and places. The Hebrew name Yehudi (plural Yehudim) came into being when the Kingdom of Israel was split between the northern Kingdom of Israel and the southern Kingdom of Judah. The term originally referred to the people of the southern kingdom, although the term Bnei Yisrael (Israelites) was still used for both groups. After the Assyrians conquered the northern kingdom leaving the southern kingdom as the only Israelite state, the word Yehudim gradually came to refer to people of the Jewish faith as a whole, rather than those specifically from Judah. The English word Jew is ultimately derived from Yehudi (see Etymology). Its first use in the Bible to refer to the Jewish people as a whole is in the Book of Esther. In modern usage, Jews include both those Jews actively practicing Judaism, and those Jews who, while not practicing Judaism as a religion, still identify themselves as Jews by virtue of their family's Jewish heritage and their own cultural identification. Usage note: The word "Jew" is a noun. Its use as an adjective (e.g. "Jew lawyer") is widely considered offensive; "Jewish" is strongly preferred. Its use as a verb (e.g. "to jew someone") is also considered offensive. However, some sources, such as the American Heritage Dictionary, suggest that phrases like "Jewish person" may be offensive if pointedly used to avoid the word "Jew".

Etymology

There are different views as to the origin of the English language word Jew. The most common view is that the Middle English word Jew is from the Old French giu, earlier juieu, from the Latin iudeus from the Greek Ioudaios (Ιουδαίος). The Latin simply means Judaean, from the land of Judaea. The Hebrew for Jew, יהודי , is pronounced ye-hoo-DEE. The Hebrew letter Yodh (or Yud), י, used as a 'y' in the Hebrew language (as in the word ye-hoo-DEE), becomes a 'j' in languages using the Latin-based alphabet when the Yodh is used as a consonant rather than as a vowel. Therefore, a rough transliteration of יהודי in English would be Jew. The etymological equivalent is in use in other languages, e.g., "Jude" in German, "jøde," in Norwegian, etc., but derivations of the word "Hebrew" is also in use to describe a Jewish person, e.g., in Italian (Ebrei) and , (Yevrey). (See Names of the Jewish people for a full overview.)

Who is a Jew?

Names of the Jewish people. (1878 painting by Maurice Gottlieb)]] Judaism shares some of the characteristics of a nation, an ethnicity, a religion, and a culture, making the definition of who is a Jew vary slightly depending on whether a religious or national approach to identity is used. For discussions of the religious views on who is a Jew and how these views differ from each other, please see Who is a Jew?. Generally, in modern secular usage, Jews include three groups: people who practice Judaism and have a Jewish ethnic background (sometimes including those who do not have strictly matrilineal descent), people without Jewish parents who have converted to Judaism; and those Jews who, while not practicing Judaism as a religion, still identify themselves as Jewish by virtue of their family's Jewish descent and their own cultural and historical identification with the Jewish people. Historical definitions of Jewish identity have traditionally been based on Halakhic definitions of matrilineal descent, and halachic conversions. Historical definitions of who is a Jew date back to the codification of the oral traditon into the Babylonian Talmud. Biblical interpertations of sections in the Tanach, such as Deuteronomy 7:1-5, by learned Jewish sages, is used as a warning against intermarriage between of Jews and non Jews because "[the non-Jewish male spouse] will cause your child to turn away from Me and they will worship the gods of others." Leviticus 24:10 speaks of the son in a marriage between a Hebrew woman and an Egyptian man to be "of the community of Israel.", which contrasts with Ezra 10:2-3, where Israelites returning from Egypt, vowed to put aside their gentile wives and their children. Since the Haskalah, these halakhic interpertations of Jewish identity have been challenged.

Jewish culture

Judaism guides its adherents in both practice and belief, and has been called not only a religion, but also a "way of life," which has made drawing a clear distinction between Judaism, Jewish culture, and Jewish nationality rather difficult. In many times and places, such as in the ancient Hellenic world, in Europe before and after the Enlightenment (see Haskalah), and in contemporary United States and Israel, cultural phenomena have developed that are in some sense characteristically Jewish without being at all specifically religious. Some factors in this come from within Judaism, others from the interaction of Jews with others around them, others from the inner social and cultural dynamics of the community, as opposed to religion itself.

Ethnic divisions

The most commonly used terms to describe ethnic divisions among Jews currently are: Ashkenazi (meaning "German" in Hebrew, denoting the Central European base of Jewry); and Sephardi (meaning "Spanish" or "Iberia" in Hebrew, denoting their Spanish, Portuguese and North African location). They refer to both religious and ethnic divisions. Other Jewish ethnic groups include Mizrahi Jews (a term overlapping Sephardi, but emphasizing North African and Middle Eastern rather than Spanish history, and including the Maghrebim); Teimanim (Yemenite and Omani Jews); and such smaller groups as the Gruzim and Juhurim from the Caucasus, the Bene Israel, Bnei Menashe, Cochin and Telugu Jews of India, the Romaniotes of Greece, the Italkim (Bené Roma) of Italy, various African Jews (most notably the Beta Israel or Ethiopian Jews), the Bukharan Jews of Central Asia, and the Persian Jews of Iran.

Population

Prior to World War II the world population of Jews was approximately 18 million. The Holocaust reduced this number to approximately 12 million. Today, there are an estimated 13 million to 14.6 million Jews worldwide in over 134 countries.

Significant geographic populations

Please note that these populations represent low-end estimates of the worldwide Jewish population, accounting for around 0.2% of the world's population. Higher estimates place the worldwide Jewish population at over 14.5 million.

State of Israel

world's population (Shown standing between the two banners)]] Israel, the Jewish nation-state, is the only country in which Jews make up a majority of the citizens, although the United States has a larger number of Jews. It was established as an independent democratic state on May 14, 1948. Of the 120 members in its parliament, the Knesset, 9 members are Israeli Arabs and 2 are Israeli Druses. At the time of its independence, approximately 600,000 Jews lived in Israel. Since then, the country's Jewish population has increased by about one million over each decade as more immigrants arrived and more Israelis were born, resulting in one of the most significant global Jewish population shifts in over 2,000 years. All the Arab Israeli Wars have not slowed Israel's growth. Israel opened its doors to the Holocaust survivors. It has absorbed a majority of the Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews from the Islamic countries. It has taken in hundreds of thousands of Jews from the former USSR, and has airlifted tens of thousands of Ethiopian Jewsto Israel. In the past decade nearly a million immigrants came to Israel from the former Soviet Union. Many Jews who emigrated to Israel have moved elsewhere, known as yerida ("descent" [from the Holy Land]), due to its economic problems or due to disillusionment with political conditions and the continuing Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Diaspora (outside Israel)

The waves of immigration to the United States at the turn of the 19th century, massacre of European Jewry during the Holocaust, and the foundation of the state of Israel (and subsequent Jewish exodus from Arab lands) all resulted in substantial shifts in the population centers of world Jewry during the 20th century. Jewish exodus from Arab lands of the Russian Empire to the safety of the US from 1881-1924.]] Currently, the largest Jewish community in the world is located in the United States, with around 5.6 million Jews. Elsewhere in the Americas, there are also large Jewish populations in Canada and Argentina, and smaller populations in Brazil, Mexico , Uruguay, Venezuela, Chile, and several other countries (see History of the Jews in Latin America). Western Europe's largest Jewish community can be found in France, home to 600,000 Jews, the majority of whom are immigrants or refugees from North African Arab countries such as Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia (or their descendants). There are over 265,000 Jews in the United Kingdom. In Eastern Europe, there are anywhere from 500,000 to over two million Jews living in Russia, Ukraine, Hungary, Belarus and the other areas once dominated by the Soviet Union, but exact figures are difficult to establish. The fastest-growing Jewish community in the world, outside Israel, is the one in Germany, especially in Berlin, its capital. Tens of thousands of Jews from the former Eastern Bloc have settled in Germany since the fall of the Berlin Wall. The Arab countries of North Africa and the Middle East were home to around 900,000 Jews in 1945. Systematic persecution after the founding of Israel caused almost all of these Jews to flee to Israel, North America, and Europe in the 1950s. Today, around 8,000 Jews remain in Arab nations. Iran is home to around 25,000 Jews, down from a population of 100,000 Jews before the 1979 revolution. After the revolution some of the Iranian Jews emigrated to Israel or Europe but most of them emigrated (with their non-Jewish Iranian compatriots) to the United States (especially Los Angeles). Outside Europe, Asia and the Americas, significant Jewish populations exist in Australia and South Africa.

Population changes: Assimilation

Since at least the time of the ancient Greeks, a proportion of Jews have assimilated into the wider non-Jewish society around them, by either choice or force, ceasing to practice Judaism and losing their Jewish identity. Some Jewish communities, for example the Kaifeng Jews of China, have disappeared entirely, but assimilation has remained relatively low over much of the past millenium, as Jews were often not allowed to integrate with the wider communities in which they lived. The advent of the Jewish Enlightenment (see Haskalah) of the 1700s and the subsequent emancipation of the Jewish populations of Europe and America in the 1800s, changed the situation, allowing Jews to increasingly participate in, and become part of, secular society. The result has been a growing trend of assimilation, as Jews marry non-Jewish spouses and stop participating in the Jewish community. Rates of interreligious marriage vary widely: In the United States they are just under 50%, in the United Kingdom around 50%, and in Australia and Mexico as low as 10%, and in France they may be as high as 75%. In the United States, only about a third of children from intermarriages affiliate themselves with Jewish practice. Additionally, since non-religious Jews generally tend to marry later and have fewer children than the general population, the Jewish community in many countries is aging. The result is that most countries in the Diaspora have steady or slightly declining Jewish populations as Jews continue to assimilate into the countries in which they live.

Population changes: Wars against the Jews

Diaspora Throughout history, many rulers, empires and nations have oppressed their Jewish populations, or sought to eliminate them entirely. Methods employed have ranged from expulsion to outright genocide; within nations, often the threat of these extreme methods was sufficient to silence dissent. Some examples in the history of anti-Semitism are: the Great Jewish Revolt against the Roman Empire; the First Crusade which resulted in the massacre of Jews; the Spanish Inquisition led by Torquamada and the Auto de fe against the Marrano Jews; the Bohdan Chmielnicki Cossack massacres in Ukraine; the Pogroms backed by the Russian Tsars; as well as expulsions from Spain, England, France, Germany, and other countries in which the Jews had settled. The persecution culminated in Adolf Hitler's Final Solution which led to the Holocaust, and the slaughter of approximately 6 million Jews from 1939 to 1945.

Population changes: Growth

Israel is the only country with a consistently growing Jewish population due to natural population increase, though the Jewish populations of other countries in Europe and North America have recently increased due to immigration. In the Diaspora, in almost every country the Jewish population in general is either declining or steady, but Orthodox and Haredi Jewish communities, whose members often shun birth control for religious reasons, have experienced rapid population growth, with rates near 4% per year for Haredi Jews in Israel, and similar rates in other countries. Orthodox and Conservative Judaism discourage proselytization to non-Jews, but many Jewish groups have tried to reach out to the assimilated Jewish communities of the Diaspora in order to increase the number of Jews. Additionally, while in principle Reform Judaism favors seeking new members for the faith, this position has not translated into active proselytism, instead taking the form of an effort to reach out to non-Jewish spouses of intermarried couples. There is also a trend of Orthodox movements pursuing secular Jews in order to give them a stronger Jewish identity so there is less chance of intermarriage. As a result of the efforts by these and other Jewish groups over the past twenty-five years, there has been a trend of secular Jews becoming more religiously observant, known as the Baal Teshuva movement, though the demographic implications of the trend are unknown. Additionally, there is also a growing movement of Jews by Choice by gentiles who make the decision to head in the direction of becoming Jews.

Jewish languages

Hebrew is the liturgical language of Judaism (termed lashon ha-kodesh, "the holy tongue"), and is the language of the State of Israel. It was revived by Eliezer ben Yehuda, who arrived in Palestine in 1881 at a time when no one spoke the Hebrew language. Diaspora Jews (outside Israel) today speak the local languages of their respective countries. Yiddish is the historic language of many Ashkenazi Jews, and Ladino of many Sephardic Jews.

History of the Jews

:See also: Historical Schisms among the Jews

Jews and migrations

Historical Schisms among the Jews Throughout Jewish history, Jews have repeatedly been directly or indirectly expelled from both their original homeland, and the areas in which they have resided. This experience as both immigrants and emigrants (see: Jewish refugees) have shaped Jewish identity and religious practice in many ways. An incomplete list of such migrations includes:
- The patriarch Abraham was a migrant to the land of Canaan from Ur of the Chaldees.
- The Children of Israel experienced the Exodus (meaning "departure" or "going forth" in Greek) from ancient Egypt, as recorded in the Book of Exodus.
- The Kingdom of Israel was sent into permanent exile and scattered all over the world by Assyria.
- The Kingdom of Judah was exiled first by Babylonia and then by Rome.
- The 2,000 year dispersion of the Jewish diaspora beginning under the Roman Empire, as Jews were spread throughout the Roman world and, driven from land to land, and settled wherever they could live freely enough to practice their religion. Over the course of the diaspora the center of Jewish life moved from Babylonia to Spain to Poland to United States and to Israel.
- Many expulsions during the Middle Ages and Enlightenment in Europe, including: 1290, 16,000 Jews were expelled from England; in 1396, 100,000 from France; in 1421 thousands were expelled from Austria. Many of these Jews settled in Eastern Europe, especially Poland.
- Following the Spanish Inquisition in 1492, the Spanish population of around 200,000 Sephardic Jews were expelled by the Spanish crown and Catholic church, followed by expulsions in 1493 in Sicily (37,000 Jews) and Portugal in 1496. The expelled Jews fled mainly to the Ottoman Empire, the Netherlands, and North Africa, others migrating to Southern Europe and the Middle East.
- During the 19th century, France's policies of equal citizenship regardless of religion led to the immigration of Jews (especially from Eastern and Central Europe), which was encouraged by Napoleon Bonaparte.
- The arrival of millions of Jews in the New World, including immigration of over 1,000,000 Eastern European Jews to the United States from 1890-1925, see History of the Jews in the United States.
- The Pogroms in Eastern Europe, the rise of modern Anti-Semitism, the Holocaust and the rise of Arab nationalism all served to fuel the movements and migrations of huge segments of Jewry from land to land and continent to continent, until they have now arrived back in large numbers at their original historical homeland in Israel.
- The Islamic Revolution of Iran, forced many Iranian Jews to flee Iran. Most found refuge in the US (particularly Los Angeles, CA) and Israel. Smaller communities of Persian Jews exist in Canada and Western Europe.

Kingdoms of Israel and Judah

Persian Jews)]] Jews descend mostly from the ancient Israelites (also known as Hebrews), who settled in the Land of Israel. The Israelites traced their common lineage to the biblical patriarch Abraham through Isaac and Jacob. A kingdom was established under Saul and continued under King David and Solomon. King David conquered Jerusalem (first a Canaanite, then a Jebusite town) and made it his capital. After Solomon's reign the nation split into two kingdoms, the Kingdom of Israel (in the north) and the Kingdom of Judah (in the south). The Kingdom of Israel was conquered by the Assyrian ruler Shalmaneser V in the 8th century BC and spread all over the Assyrian empire, where they were assimilated into other cultures and become known as the Ten Lost Tribes. The Kingdom of Judah continued as an independent state until it was conquered by a Babylonian army in the early 6th century BC, destroying the First Temple that was at the centre of Jewish worship. The Judean elite was exiled to Babylonia, but later at least a part of them returned to their homeland after the subsequent conquest of Babylonia by the Persians seventy years later, a period known as the Babylonian Captivity. A new Second Temple was constructed, and old religious practices were resumed.

Persian, Greek, and Roman rule

:See related article Jewish-Roman wars. The Seleucid Kingdom, which arose after the Persians were defeated by Alexander the Great, sought to introduce Greek culture into the Persian world. When the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes, supported by Hellenized Jews (those who had adopted Greek culture), attempted to convert the Jewish Temple to a temple of Zeus, the non-Hellenized Jews revolted under the leadership of the Maccabees and rededicated the Temple to the Jewish God (hence the origins of Hanukkah) and created an independent Jewish kingdom known as the Hasmonaean Kingdom which lasted from 165 BCE to 63 BCE, when the kingdom came under influence of the Roman Empire. During the early part of Roman rule, the Hasmonaeans remained in power, until the family was annihilated by Herod the Great. Herod came from a wealthy Idumean family and became a very successful client-king under the Romans. He significantly expanded the Temple in Jerusalem. Upon his death in 4 BCE the Romans directly ruled Judea and there were frequent changes of policies by conflicting and empire-building Caesars, generals, governors, and consuls who often acted cruelly or to maximize their own wealth and power. Rome's attitudes swung from tolerance to hostility against its Jewish subjects, who had since moved throughout the Empire. The Romans, worshipping a large pantheon, could not readily accommodate the exclusive monotheism of Judaism, and the religious Jews could not accept Roman polytheism. After a famine and riots in 66 CE, the Judeans began to revolt against their Roman rulers. The revolt was smashed by the Roman emperors Vespasian and Titus Flavius. In Rome the Arch of Titus still stands, showing enslaved Judeans and a menorah being brought to Rome. It is customary for Jews not to walk through this arch. menorah The Romans all but destroyed Jerusalem; only a single "Western Wall" of the Second Temple remained. After the end of this first revolt, the Judeans continued to live in their land in significant numbers, and were allowed to practice their religion. In the second century the Roman Emperor Hadrian began to rebuild Jerusalem as a pagan city while restricting some Jewish practices. Angry at this affront, the Judeans again revolted led by Simon Bar Kokhba. Hadrian responded with overwhelming force, putting down the revolution and killing as many as half a million Jews. After the Roman Legions prevailed in 135, Jews were not allowed to enter the city of Jerusalem and most Jewish worship was forbidden by Rome. Following the destruction of Jerusalem and the expulsion of the Jews, Jewish worship stopped being centrally organized around the Temple, and instead was rebuilt around rabbis who acted as teachers and leaders of individual communities. No new books were added to the Jewish Bible after the Roman period, instead major efforts went into interpreting and developing the Halakhah, or oral law, and writing down these traditions in the Talmud, the key work on the interepretation of Jewish law, written during the first to fifth centuries CE.

Beginning of the Diaspora

Though Jews had settled outside Israel since the time of the Babylonians, the results of the Roman response to the Jewish revolt shifted the center of Jewish life from its ancient home to the diaspora. While some Jews remained in Judea, renamed Palestine by the Romans, some Jews were sold into slavery, while others became citizens of other parts of the Roman Empire. This is the traditional explanation to the Jewish diaspora, almost universally accepted by past and present rabbinical or Talmudical scholars, who believe that Jews are almost exclusively biological descendants of the Judean exiles, a belief backed up at least partially by DNA evidence. Some secular historians speculate that a majority of the Jews in Antiquity were most likely descendants of converts in the cities of the Graeco-Roman world, especially in Alexandria and Asia Minor. They were only affected by the diaspora in its spiritual sense and by the sense of loss and homelessness which became a cornerstone of the Jewish creed, much supported by persecutions in various parts of the world. Any such policy of conversion, which spread the Jewish religion throughout Hellenistic civilization, seems to have ended with the wars against the Romans and the following reconstruction of Jewish values for the post-Temple era. During the first few hundred years of the Diaspora, the most important Jewish communities were in Babylonia, where the Talmud was written, and where relatively tolerant regimes allowed the Jews freedom. The situation was worse in the Byzantine Empire which treated the Jews much more harshly, refusing to allow them to hold office or build places of worship. The conquest of much of the Byzantine Empire and Babylonia by Islamic armies generally improved the life of the Jews, though they were still considered second-class citizens. In response to these Islamic conquests, the First Crusade of 1096 attempted to reconquer Jerusalem, resulting in the destruction of many of the remaining Jewish communities in the area.

Middle Ages: Europe

First Crusade story in Moorish Spain, from a 14th century Spanish Haggadah.]] Jews settled in Europe during the time of the Roman Empire, but the rise of the Catholic Church resulted in frequent expulsions and persecutions. The Crusades routinely attacked Jewish communities, and increasingly harsh laws restricted them from most economic activity and land ownership, leaving open only moneylending and a few other trades. Jews were subject to explusions from England, France, and the Holy Roman Empire throughout the Middle Ages, with most of the population moving to Eastern Europe and especially Poland, which was uniquely tolerant of the Jews through the 1700s. The final mass expulsion of the Jews, and the largest, occurred after the Christian conquest of Spain in 1492 (see History of the Jews in Spain). Even after the end of the expulsions in the 17th century, individual conditions varied from country to country and time to time, but, as rule, Jews in Western Europe generally were forced, by decree or by informal pressure, to live in highly segregated ghettos and shtetls.

Middle Ages: Islamic Europe and North Africa

During the Middle Ages, Jews in Islamic lands generally had more rights than under Christian rule, with a Golden Age of coexistence in Islamic Spain from about 900 to 1200, when Spain became the center of the richest, most populous, and most influential Jewish community of the time. The rise of more radical Muslim regimes, such as that of the Almohades ended this period by the thirteenth century, and Jews were soon expelled from Spain. Many of these Jews found refuge in the Ottoman Empire, which remained tolerant of its Jewish population for much of its history.

Enlightenment and emancipation

During the Age of Enlightenment, significant changes occurred within the Jewish community. The Haskalah movement paralleled the wider Enlightenment, as Jews began in the 1700s to campaign for emancipation from restrictive laws and integration into the wider European society. Secular and scientific education was added to the traditional religious instruction received by students, and interest in a national Jewish identity, including a revival in the study of Jewish history and Hebrew, started to grow. Haskalah, and 1804 French print.]] The Haskalah movement influenced the birth of all the modern Jewish denominations, and planted the seeds of Zionism. At the same time, it contributed to encouraging cultural assimilation into the countries in which Jews resided. At around the same time another movement was born, one preaching almost the opposite of Haskalah, Hasidic Judaism. Hasidic Judiasm began in the 1700s by Israel ben Eliezer, the Baal Shem Tov, and quickly gained a following with its exuberant, mystical approach to religion. These two movements, and the traditional orthodox approach to Judaism from which they spring, formed the basis for the modern divisions within Jewish observance. At the same time, the outside world was changing. France was the first country to emancipate its Jewish population in 1796, granting them equal rights under the law. Napoleon further spread emancipation, inviting Jews to leave the Jewish ghettos in Europe and seek refuge in the newly created tolerant political regimes (see Napoleon and the Jews). By the mid-19th century, almost all Western European countries had emancipated their Jewish populations, with the notable exception of the Papal States, but persecution continued in Eastern Europe, including massive pogroms at the end of the 19th century throughout the Pale of Settlement. The persistance of anti-semitism, both violently in the east and socially in the west, led to a number of Jewish political movements, culminating in Zionism.

Zionism and immigration

Zionism Many of the newly secular Jews who had embraced Haskalah found themselves deeply troubled by the continuing virulent anti-semitism of the late 1800s, especially the massive pogroms of the 1880s in Russia and the Dreyfus Affair, which occurred in France in 1894, a country many Jews had previously thought of as particularly accepting. Many Jews in Eastern Europe embraced socialism as a potential escape from persecution, but another group, the Zionists, led by Theodor Herzl, viewed the only solution as the creation of a Jewish state. Initially, religious Jews opposed Zionism, as did many secular Jews, who saw integration or other social movements as more promising. The chain of events between 1881 and 1945, however, beginning with waves of anti-Semitic pogroms in Russia and the Russian-controlled areas of Poland, and culminating in the Holocaust, converted the great majority of surviving Jews to the belief that a Jewish homeland was an urgent necessity, particularly given the large population of disenfranchised Jewish refugees after World War II. In addition to responding politically, during the late 19th century, Jews began to flee the persecutions of Eastern Europe in large numbers, mostly by heading to the United States, but also to Canada and Western Europe. By 1924, almost two million Jews had emigrated to the US alone, creating a large community in a nation relatively free of the persecutions of rising European anti-Semitism (see History of the Jews in the United States).

The Holocaust

This anti-Semitism reached its most destructive form in the policies of Nazi Germany, which made the destruction of the Jews a priority, culminating in the killing of approximately six million Jews during the Holocaust from 1941 to 1945. Originally, the Nazis used death squads, the Einsatzgruppen, to conduct massive open-air killings of Jews in territory they conquered. By 1942, the Nazi leadership decided to implement the Final Solution, the genocide of all of the Jews of Europe, and increase the pace of the Holocaust by establishing extermination camps specifically to kill Jews. Millions of Jews who had been confined to diseased and massively overcrowded Ghettos were transported to these "Death-camps" where they were either gassed or shot. Many Jews tried to escape Europe before or during Holocaust, but were unable to find refuge, giving new urgency to the Zionist goal of establishing a Jewish homeland. Holocaust

Israel

In 1948, the Jewish state of Israel was founded, creating the first Jewish nation since the Roman destruction of Jerusalem. After a series of wars with neighboring Arab countries, almost all of the 900,000 Jews previously living in North Africa and the Middle East fled to the Jewish state, joining an increasing number of immigrants from post-War Europe. By the end of the 20th century, Jewish population centers had shifted dramatically, with the United States and Israel being the centers of Jewish secular and religious life.

Persecution

:Related articles: Anti-Semitism, History of anti-Semitism, Modern anti-Semitism

Jewish leadership

There is no single governing body for the Jewish community, nor a single authority with responsibility for religious doctrine. Instead, a variety of secular and religious institutions at the local, national, and international levels lead various parts of the Jewish community on a variety of issues.

Famous Jews

Jews have made contributions in a broad range of human endeavors, including the sciences, arts, politics, business, etc.

External links

General

- [http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761567959/Jews.html#s1 Encarta Encyclopedia entry on Jews]
- [http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org Jewish Virtual Library] - collection of many articles on many topics, including Jewish history
- [http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia]
- [http://www.jta.org Jewish Telegraphic Agency] - news bureau reporting on contemporary Jewish news and issues
- [http://www.book-lover.com/legendsofthejews/ Legends of the Jews] - online text of classic work by Louis Ginzberg

Maps

- [http://www.routledge.com/textbooks/0415236614/resources/indi.asp Map collection] related to Jewish history and culture from Routledge Publishing

Photos

- [http://www.ZionOzeri.com Zion Ozeri Photography] - photos of many Jewish communities worldwide (requires Macromedia Flash player)

Major Jewish secular organizations

- [http://www.adl.org/adl.asp Anti-Defamation League]
- [http://www.bnaibrith.org B'nai B'rith International]
- [http://www.ajc.org American Jewish Committee]
- [http://www.ujc.org United Jewish Communities: The Federations of North America]
- [http://www.ajcongress.org American Jewish Congress]
- [http://www.science.co.il/JSO.asp Jewish Student Organizations]

Global Jewish communities

- [http://www.haruth.com/JewsoftheWorld.html Jewish Communities of the World] - large list of Jewish communities in many countries
- [http://www.ujc.org/ir_category_listing.html?nt=0&id=200 List of international Jewish organizations]
- [http://uk-org-bod.supplehost.org/bod/index.jsp Board of Deputies of British Jews]
- [http://www.cjc.ca Canadian Jewish Congress] - Jewish advocacy organisation representing Canadian Jewry
- [http://www.einst.ee/factsheets/jews/ Jews in Estonia]
- [http://www.fjc.ru/default.asp Federation of Jewish Communities of the CIS (Russia)]
- [http://www.col.fr/ Communaute Online: France]
- [http://www.haruth.com/JewsArgentina.html Jewish Argentina]
- [http://www.mindspring.com/~jaypsand/index.htm African Jews] - also contains information about various small Jewish communities elsewhere
- [http://chinese-school.netfirms.com/Jews.html Chinese Jews] - history of Jews in China
- [http://www.bh.org.il/Communities/index.aspx/ The Database of Jewish Communities]
- [http://www.chabad.org/centers/default.asp?AID=6268 Global Chabad-Lubavitch Centers and Institutions Directory]

Zionist institutions

- [http://www.wzo.org.il/en/default.asp World Zionist Organization]
- [http://www.zoa.org Zionist Organization of America]
- [http://www.hadassah.org Hadassah] - Women's Zionist Organization, also operates a number of prominent hospitals
- [http://www.habonimdror.org Habonim Dror] - Union of Progressive Zionists

Israeli institutions

- [http://www.jafi.org.il The Jewish Agency]
- [http://www.yad-vashem.org.il Yad VaShem] - The Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority
- [http://www.imj.org.il Israel Museum]
- [http://www.bh.org.il/index.html/ Beth Hatefutsoth - The Nahum Goldmann Museum of the Jewish Diaspora]

Lists of notable Jews

- [http://www.science.co.il/Nobel.asp Jewish Nobel Prize Laureates]
- [http://www.jinfo.org Prominent Jewish Scientific and Cultural Figures]

Religious Links

- Orthodox: [http://ou.org The Orthodox Union]
- Conservative: [http://www.uscj.org United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism]
- Karaite: [http://www.karaite-korner.org The Karaite Korner]
- Reform: [http://urj.org/ Union for Reform Judaism]
- Humanistic: [http://www.shj.org/ Society for Humanistic Judaism]
- Reconstructionist: [http://www.jrf.org Jewish Reconstructionist Federation]
- Chabad-Lubavitch: [http://www.chabad.org Chabad]
- Haredi Forum: [http://www.harediforum.com/forum/ Haredi Discussion Forum]

Notes

# Data based on a [http://www.jpppi.org.il/JPPPI/SendFile.asp?TID=67&FID=2377 study] by Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI). See [http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/Printer&cid=1088046787193&p=1008596975996 Jewish people near zero growth] by Tovah Lazaroff, Jerusalem Post, June 24, 2004. # See, for example Jews by country page for higher estimates. # Data based on a study by the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics. See [http://www.cbs.gov.il/sidrnge.cgi?sid=3764&stid=1&tid=2] (Updated to June 2005). # 1993 Russian census. Some estimates are much higher, the US State Department Religious Freedom Report [http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2004/35480.htm] estimates the number of Jews in Russia alone at 600,000 to 1 million. # [http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/Judaism/jewpop.html Jewish Virtual Library], [http://www.jewfaq.org/populatn.htm JewFAQ] # # # #
- Jew ko:유대인 ja:ユダヤ人 simple:Jew th:ยิว

Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany, or the Third Reich, refers to Germany in the years 1933–1945, when it was under the control of the National Socialist German Workers Party, or Nazi Party, with the Führer Adolf Hitler as head of state. Third Reich, used as a near-synonym for Nazi Germany, is the English for the German expression Drittes Reich, literally Third Empire, but the second word is seldom translated. It refers to the government and its agencies rather than the land and its people. The term was first used in 1922 as the title of a book by conservative writer Arthur Moeller van den Bruck. It was adopted by Nazi propaganda, which counted the Holy Roman Empire as the first Reich, the 1871–1918 German Empire the second, and its own regime as the third. This was done in order to suggest a return to former German glory after the failure of the 1919 Weimar Republic. The reasons for the accession of the Nazis to power are complex. The Nazi Party deliberately attempted to combine traditional symbols of Germany with Nazi Party symbols in an effort to reinforce the perception of their being one and the same. Thus the Nazi Party used the terms "Drittes Reich" and "Tausendjähriges Reich" ("Thousand-Year Reich") to connect the allegedly glorious past to its supposedly glorious future. In speeches, books and articles about the Third Reich post 8 May 1945, the 1000 years is often juxtaposed against the twelve years of the Third Reich's existence. The terms were used only briefly and dropped from propaganda in 1939, officially to avoid persiflage, possibly also to avoid religious connotations. During their twelve year rule, the Nazis sent massive armies throughout most of continental Europe. Ideologically, the Nazis endorsed the idea of a Greater Germany, with Berlin renamed Germania as its capital, and integration of all people of supposed pure Germanic origin. This policy manifested itself in the systematic extermination of an estimated eleven million people of racial minorities within Germany and majority populations in some other European countries (Jews, Gypsies, Slavs), political opponents (liberals, communists), and social outcasts (the disabled, homosexuals), as well as opposing inhabitants and tens of millions of others as a direct or indirect result of combat.

Chronology of events

- Weimar Republic (includes the events leading to Hitler's appointment as Chancellor of Germany in 1933)
- Gleichschaltung (for the legal measures taken by the Nazis to establish their dictatorship)
- World War II (with a focus on military events)
- Axis Powers

Pre-War Politics 1933-1939

Axis Powers On January 30 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor by President Paul von Hindenburg after attempts by General Kurt von Schleicher to form a viable government failed, and under heavy pressure from former Chancellor Franz von Papen. Even though the Nazi Party had gained the largest share of the popular vote in the two Reichstag general elections of 1932, they had no majority in parliament.

Consolidation of power

The new government installed a dictatorship in a series of measures in quick succession (see Gleichschaltung for details). On February 27 1933 the Reichstag was set on fire, and this was followed immediately by the Reichstag Fire Decree, which rescinded habeas corpus and civil liberties. A further step that turned Germany into a dictatorship virtually overnight was the Enabling Act passed in March 1933 under pressure. The act gave the government (and thus effectively Adolf Hitler) legislative powers and also authorized it to deviate from the provisions of the constitution. With these powers, Hitler removed the remaining opposition and turned the Weimar Republic into the "Third Reich". Further consolidation of power was achieved on January 30, 1934, with the Gesetz über den Neuaufbau des Reichs (Act to rebuild the Reich). The act changed the highly decentralized federal Germany of the Weimar era into a centralized state. It disbanded state parliaments, transferring sovereign rights of the states to the Reich central government and put the state administrations under the control of the Reich administration. 1934 Only the army remained independent from Nazi control, and the Nazi quasi-military SA expected top positions in the new power structure. Wanting to preserve good relations with the army, on the night of June 30, 1934 Hitler initiated the Night of the Long Knives, a purge of the leadership ranks of the SA as well as other political enemies, carried out by another, more elitist, Nazi organisation, the SS. Shortly thereafter the army leaders swore their obedience to Hitler. At the death of president Hindenburg on August 2 1934, the Nazi-controlled Reichstag merged the offices of Reichspräsident and Reichskanzler and reinstalled Hitler with the new title Führer und Reichskanzler. The inception of the Gestapo, police acting outside of any civil authority, highlighted the Nazis' intention to use powerful, coercive means to directly control German society. Soon, an army estimated to be of about 100,000 spies and infiltrators operated throughout Germany, reporting to Nazi officials the activities of any critics or dissenters. Most ordinary Germans, happy with the improving economy and better standard of living, remained obedient and quiet, but many political opponents, especially communists and some types of socialists, were reported by omnipresent eavesdropping spies, and put in prison camps where they were severely mistreated, and many tortured and killed. It is estimated that tens of thousands of political victims died or disappeared in the first few years of Nazi rule. :For political opposition during this period, see German resistance movement.

Social policy

:See also Racial policy of Nazi Germany The Nazi regime was characterized by political control of every aspect of society in a quest for racial (Aryan, Nordic), social and cultural purity. Modern abstract art and avant-garde art was thrown out of museums, and put on special display as "Degenerate art", where it was ridiculed. However, the crowds attending these displays of "decadent art" frequently eclipsed those attending officially sanctioned displays. In one notable example on March 31, 1937, huge crowds stood in line to view a special display of "degenerate art" in Munich, while a concurrent exhibition of 900 works personally approved by Adolf Hitler attracted a tiny, unenthusiastic gathering. The Nazi Party pursued its aims through persecution and killing of those considered impure, targeted especially against minority groups such as Jews, Gypsies, Jehovah's Witnesses and homosexuals. By the Nuremberg Laws passed in 1935, Jews were stripped of their German citizenship and denied government employment. Most Jews employed by Germans lost their jobs at this time, their jobs being taken by unemployed Germans. On November 9, 1938, the Nazi party incited a pogrom against Jewish businesses called Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass, literally "Crystal Night"); the euphemism was used because the numerous broken windows made the streets look as if covered with crystal. By September 1939, more than 200,000 Jews had left Germany, with the Nazi government seizing any property they left behind. The Nazis also undertook programs targeting "weak" or "unfit" members of their own population, such as the T-4 Euthanasia Program that killed tens of thousands of disabled and sick Germans in an effort to "maintain the purity of the German Master race" (German: Herrenvolk) as described by Nazi propagandists. The techniques of mass killing developed in these efforts would later be used in the Holocaust. Under a law passed in 1933, the Nazi regime carried out the compulsory sterilization of over 400,000 individuals labeled as having hereditary defects, ranging from mental illness to alcoholism. Recent research has also emphasised the role of the extensive Nazi welfare programmes that supposedly helped maintain public support for the regime until late in the war.

Economic policy

welfare When the Nazis came to power the most pressing issue was an unemployment rate of over 40%. The economic management of the state was first given to respected banker Hjalmar Schacht. Under his guidance, a new economic policy to elevate the nation was drafted. One of the first actions was to destroy the trade unions and impose strict wage controls. The government then expanded the money supply through massive deficit spending. However at the same time the government imposed a 4.5% interest rate ceiling, creating a massive shortage in borrowable funds. This was resolved by setting up a series of dummy companies that would pay for goods with bonds. The most famous of these was the MEFO company, and these bonds used as currency became known as mefo bills. While it was promised that these bonds could eventually be exchanged for real money, the collapse was put off until after the collapse of the Reich. These complicated maneuvers also helped conceal armament expenditures that violated the Treaty of Versailles. Normally the effects of price control combined with a large increase in the money supply would produce a large black market, but harsh penalties that saw violators sent to concentration camps or even shot on the spot prevented this development. Repressive measures also kept volatility low, reducing inflationary pressures. New policies also limited imports of consumer goods and focusing on producing exports. International trade was greatly reduced remaining at about a third of 1929 levels throughout the Nazi period. Currency controls were extended, leading to a considerable overvaluation of the Reichsmark. These policies were successful in cutting unemployment dramatically. Industry was mostly not nationalized, and businesses were still motivated by pursuing profits. However industry was closely regulated with quotas and requirements to use domestic resources. These regulations were set by administrative committees composed of government and business officials. Competition was limited as major companies were organized into cartels through these administrative committees. Selective nationalization was used against businesses that failed to agree to these arrangements. The banks, which had been nationalized by Weimar, were returned to their owners and each administrative committee had a bank as member to finance the schemes. The German economy was transferred to the leadership of Hermann Göring when, on October 18, 1936 the German Reichstag announced the formation of a Four-year plan to shift the German economy towards a war production base. The four-year plan technically expired in 1940, but by this time Hermann Göring had built up a power base in the "Office of the Four-Year Plan" that effectively controlled all German economic and production matters. Under the leadership of Fritz Todt a massive public works project was started, rivaling the New Deal in both size and scope; its most notable achievement was the network of Autobahnen. Once the war started, the massive organization that Todt founded was used in building bunkers, underground facilities and entrenchments all over Europe. Another part of the new German economy was massive rearmament, with the goal being to expand the 100,000-strong German Army into a force of millions. In 1942 the growing burdens of the war and the death of Todt saw the economy move to a fully command economy under Albert Speer.

World War II

:See: Military history of Germany during World War II Military history of Germany during World War II Military history of Germany during World War II In 1939 Germany's actions led to the outbreak of World War II in Europe. Poland, France, Denmark, Norway, Belgium and the Netherlands were invaded. Initially, the United Kingdom could do little to come to the rescue of its European allies and Germany subjected Britain to heavy bombing during the Battle of Britain. After invading Greece and North Africa, Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941. It declared war on the United States in December of 1941 after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. The persecution of minorities continued both in Germany and the occupied areas. From 1941 Jews were required to wear a yellow star in public, and most were transferred to ghettos, where they remained isolated from the rest of the population. In January 1942, at the Wannsee conference under the supervision of Reinhard Heydrich, a plan for the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question" (Endlösung der Judenfrage) in Europe was hatched. From then until the end of the war some six million Jews and many others, including homosexuals, Slavs and political prisoners, were systematically killed and more than 10 million people were put into slavery. This genocide is called the Holocaust in English and the Shoah in Hebrew. (The Nazis used the euphemistic German term Endlösung—"final solution.") Thousands were shipped daily to extermination camps (Vernichtungslager, sometimes called "death factories") and concentration camps (Konzentrationslager, KZ), some of which were originally detention centers but later converted into mass-murder factories, or had death camps added to their facilities, for the purpose of killing of their inmates. Parallel to the Holocaust the Nazis conducted a ruthless program of conquest, colonization and exploitation over the captured Soviet and Polish territories and their Slavic populations as part of their Generalplan Ost. According to estimates, 20 million Soviet civilians, three million non-Jewish Poles, and seven million Red Army soldiers died under Nazi maltreatment in what the Russians call the Great Patriotic War. The Nazis' plan was to extend German lebensraum ("living space") eastward, but their public pretext for launching the war in Eastern Europe was "to defend Western Civilization against Bolshevism". By February 1943 the Soviets had defeated the Nazis at Stalingrad and began the push westward, winning the tank battle at Kursk-Orel in July. The Nazi regime was pushed back to the borders of Poland by February 1944 with the outcome of the war no longer in much doubt. The Allies finally opened a second front in June 1944 in Normandy, but the Soviets had already turned the tide of the war in Europe, mostly on their own, with 5-15% of Soviet supplies coming from the west. Soviet troops moving westward met Allied troops moving eastward at the Elbe on April 26 1945 (Cohen). On April 30 1945, as Berlin was being taken by Soviet forces, Hitler committed suicide. On May 4–8, 1945 German armed forces surrendered unconditionally. This was the end of World War II in Europe and, with the creation of the Allied Control Council on June 5 1945, the four Allied powers "assume[d] supreme authority with respect to Germany" (Declaration Regarding the Defeat of Germany, US Department of State, Treaties and Other International Acts Series, No. 1520).

Aftermath

Declaration Regarding the Defeat of Germany 1945.]] The winning allies split Germany into occupation zones. At the Potsdam Conference German borders within the Soviet occupation zone were moved westward, with most of the territory given to Poland as compensation for the annexation of eastern Polish lands by the Soviet Union. About half of German East Prussia was annexed by the Soviet Union, including its capital Königsberg (now known as Kaliningrad). The German exodus from Eastern Europe, begun by the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, was continued and completed once virtually all Germans in Central Europe had been "resettled" to west of the Oder-Neisse line, having affected about seventeen million ethnic Germans. The French, US and British occupation zones later became West Germany (the Federal Republic of Germany), while the Soviet zone became the communist East Germany (the German Democratic Republic, excepting sections of Berlin). West Germany recovered economically by the 1960s, being called the economic miracle (German term Wirtschaftswunder) due to economic aid by the United States of America (Marshall Plan), while the East recovered at a slower pace under Communism until 1990, due to reparations paid to the Soviet Union and the effects of the centrally planned economy. After the war, surviving Nazi leaders were put on trial by an Allied tribunal at Nuremberg for crimes against humanity. A minority were sentenced to death and executed, but most were jailed and then released by the mid 1950s due to poor health and old age. In the 60s, 70s and 80s some renewed efforts were made in West Germany to take those who were directly responsible for crimes against humanity to court (e.g. Auschwitz trials). However, many of the less prominent leaders continued to live well into the 1970s and 1980s. In all non-fascist European countries legal purges were established to punish the members of the former Nazi and Fascist parties. Even there, however, some of the former leaders found ways to accommodate themselves under the new circumstances. An uncontrolled punishment hit the children of Nazis and those fathered by German soldiers in occupied territories, including the "Lebensborn" children. :See Nuremberg Trials

Organization of the Third Reich

The leaders of Nazi Germany created a large number of different organizations for the purpose of helping them stay in power. They rearmed and strengthened the military, set up an extensive state security apparatus and created their own personal party army, the Waffen SS. Through staffing of most government positions with Nazi Party members, by 1935 the German national government and the Nazi Party had become virtually one and the same. By 1938, through the policy of Gleichschaltung, local and state governments lost all legislative power and answered administratively to Nazi party leaders, known as Gauleiters. The organization of the Nazi state, as of 1944, was as follows:

Head of State and Chief Executive

- Führer und Reichskanzler (Adolf Hitler)

Cabinet and national authorities

- Office of the Reich Chancellery (Hans Lammers)
- Office of the Party Chancellery (Martin Bormann)
- Office of the Presidential Chancellery (Otto Meissner)
- Privy Cabinet Council (Konstantin von Neurath)
- Chancellery of the Führer (Philip Bouhler)

Reich Offices

- Office of the Four-Year Plan (Hermann Göring)
- Office of the Reich Master Forester (Hermann Göring)
- Office of the Inspector for Highways
- Office of the President of the Reich Bank
- Reich Youth Office
- Reich Treasury Office
- General Inspector of the Reich Capital
- Office of the Councillor for the Capital of the Movement (Munich, Bavaria)

Reich Ministries

- Reich Foreign Ministry (Joachim von Ribbentrop)
- Reich Interior Ministry (Wilhelm Frick, Heinrich Himmler)
- Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda (Joseph Goebbels)
- Reich Ministry of Aviation (Hermann Göring)
- Reich Ministry of Finance (Lutz Schwerin von Krosigk)
- Reich Ministry of Justice (Franz Schlegelberger)
- Reich Economics Ministry (Walther Funk)
- Reich Ministry for Nutrition and Agriculture (Walther Darre)
- Reich Labor Ministry (Franz Seldte)
- Reich Ministry for Science, Education, and Public Instruction (Bernhard Rust)
- Reich Ministry for Ecclesiastical Affairs (Hanns Kerrl)
- Reich Transportation Ministry (Julius Dorpmüller)
- Reich Postal Ministry (Wilhelm Ohnesorge)
- Reich Ministry for Weapons, Munitions, and Armament (Fritz Todt, Albert Speer)
- Reich Ministers without Portfolio (Konstantin von Neurath, Hans Frank, Hjalmar Schacht, Arthur Seyss-Inquart)

Occupation authorities

- Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories (Alfred Rosenberg)
- General Government of Poland (Hans Frank)
- Reich Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (Konstantin von Neurath)
- Deputy Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia (Reinhard Heydrich)
- Office of the Military Governor of France

Legislative Branch

Annotation: The separation of powers' was abolished in 1933 by the Empowerment Act. The Reichsregierung war empowered to enact formal statute laws by its own, with unconstitutional content. In later years of the dictator himself usurpated legislative powers.
- Reichstag
- Speaker of the Reichstag (Hermann Göring)
- Reichsrat (disbanded February 14, 1934)

Military

Wehrmacht — Armed Forces :OKW — Armed Forces High Command ::Chief of the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces - Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel ::: Chief of the Operations Staff - Colonel General Alfred Jodl Heer — Army :OKH — Army High Command :Army Commanders-in-Chief ::Colonel General Werner von Fritsch (1935 to 1938) ::Field Marshal Walther von Brauchitsch (1938 to 1941) ::Führer and Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler (1941 to 1945) :::Field Marshal Ferdinand Schörner (1945) Kriegsmarine — Navy :OKM — Navy High Command :Navy Commanders-in-Chief ::Grand Admiral Erich Raeder (1928-1943) ::Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz (1943-1945) ::General Admiral Hans-Georg von Friedeburg (1945) Luftwaffe — Airforce :OKL — Airforce High Command ::Reichsluftschutzbund (Air Force Auxiliary) :Air Force Commanders-in-Chief ::Reich Marshal Hermann Göring (to 1945) ::Field Marshal Robert Ritter von Greim (1945) Abwehr — Military Intelligence :Rear Admiral Konrad Patzig

General Government

The General Government (in full General government for the occupied Polish areas, in German Generalgouvernement für die besetzten polnischen Gebiete) was the name given by Germany to the governing authority in Poland after its occupation by the Wehrmacht in September and October 1939. The term is also applied, though not strictly correctly, to the territory administered by the General Government.

Creation of the General Government

1939 Hans Frank was appointed Governor-General of the occupied territories on 26 October 1939. Two decrees by Hitler (8 October and 12 October 1939) provided for the division of the annexed areas of Poland into the following administrative units:
- Reichsgau Wartheland (initially Reichsgau Posen), which included the entire Poznan Voivodship, most of the Lodz Voivodship, five counties of the Pomeranian voivodship, and one county of the Warsaw voivodship;
- the remaining area of Pomeranian voivodship, which was incorporated into the Reichsgau Danzig-Westpreussen (initially Reichsgau Westpreussen);
- Ciechanow District (Regierungsbezirk Zichenau) consisting of the five northern counties of Warszawa Voivodship (Plock, Plonsk, Sierpc, Ciechanow and Mlawa), which became a part of East Prussia;
- Katowice District (Regierungsbezirk Kattowitz) or unofficially Ost-Oberschlesien (East Upper Silesia); which included Sosnowiec, Będzin, Chrzanow, and Zawiercie counties and parts of Olkusz and Zywiec counties. The area of these territories was 94,000 square kilometres and the population was about 10 million. The remaining block of territory was placed under an administration called the General Government (in German Generalgouvernement für die besetzten polnischen Gebiete), with its capital at Krakow and subdivided into four districts, Warsaw, Lublin, Radom, and Krakow. After the German attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941, East Galicia, previously part of the Ukrainian SSR, was incorporated into the General Government and became its fifth district. The General Government was a purely German administration, not a Polish puppet government.

Population

The population in the General Government's territory was initially about 12 million, but this increased as about 860,000 Poles and Jews were expelled from the Germany-annexed areas and "resettled" in the Government General. Offsetting this was the German campaign of extermination of the Polish intelligentsia and other elements thought likely to resist. From 1941 disease and hunger also began to reduce the population. Poles were also deported in large numbers to work as forced labour in Germany: eventually about a million were deported, of whom many died in Germany. In 1940 the population was divided on different groups. Each group had different rights, food ratios, allowed strips in the cities, public transportation and restricted restaurants. Listed from the most privileged to the least:
- Germans from Germany (Reichdeutsche),
- Germans from outside, active ethnic Germans, Volksliste category 1 and 2 (see Volksdeutsche).
- Germans from outside, passive Germans and members of families (this group included also many ethnic Poles), Volksliste category 3 and 4,
- Ukrainians,
- Highlanders (Goralenvolk) - an attempt to split the Polish nation by using local collaborators
- Poles,
- Jews (eventually sentenced to extermination as a category).

Genocide policies

During the Wannsee conference on January 20, 1942, The State Secretary of the General Government, Dr. Josef Bühler pushed Heydrich to implement the "final solution" in the General Government. As far as he was concerned, the main problem of General Government was an overdeveloped black market that disorganised the work of the authorities. He saw a remedy in solving the "Jewish question" in the country as fast as possible. An additional point in favour was, that there were no transportation problems here. In 1942 the Germans began the systematic extermination of the Jewish population. The General Government was the location of four of the six extermination camps in which the most extreme measures of the Holocaust, the genocide by gassing of undesired "races," chiefly millions of Jews from Poland and other countries, was carried out between 1942 and 1944. Overall 4 million of the 1939 population of the General Government area had lost their lives by the time the Soviet armed forces liberated the area in late 1944. It was German policy that the (non-Jewish) Poles, like other Slavic peoples, were to be reduced to the status of serfs, and eventually replaced by German colonists of the "master race." In the Government General, all secondary education was abolished and all Polish cultural institutions closed. In 1943, the government selected the Zamojskie area for further German colonisation. German settlements were planned, and the Polish population expelled amid great brutality, but few Germans were settled in the area before 1944. See Generalplan Ost for more information about this.

Resistance

Resistance to the German occupation began almost at once, although there is little terrain in Poland suitable for guerilla operations. The main resistance force was the Home Army (in Polish: Armia Krajowa or AK), loyal to the Polish government in exile in London. It was formed mainly of the surviving remnants of the pre-War Polish army together with many volunteers. Other forces existed side-by-side, such as the communist People's Army (Armia Ludowa or AL), backed by the Soviet Union and controlled by the Polish Communist Party. By 1944 the AK had some 380,000 men, although few arms. During the occupation, the various Polish resistance organizations killed about 150,000 Axis. The AL was about 15% of the size of the AK. In April 1943 the Germans began deporting the remaining Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto, provoking the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, April 19 to May 16. That was the first armed uprising against the Germans in Poland, and prefigured the larger Warsaw Uprising of 1944. In July 1944, as the Soviet armed forces approached Warsaw, the government in exile called for an uprising in the city, so that they could return to a liberated Warsaw and try to prevent a Communist take-over. The AK, led by Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski, launched the Warsaw Rising on 1st August in response both to their government and to Soviet and Allied promises of help. However Soviet help was never forthcoming, despite the Soviet army being only 18 miles (30 km) away, and Soviet denial of their airbases to British and American planes prevented any effective resupply or air support of the insurgents by the Western allies. After 63 days of fighting the leaders of the rising agreed a conditional surrender with the Wehrmacht. The 15,000 remaining Home Army soldiers were granted POW status (prior to the agreement, captured rebels were shot), and the remaining civilian population of 180,000 expelled.

The end

As the Soviets advanced through Poland in late 1944 the General Government collapsed. Frank was captured by American troops in May 1945 and was one of the defendants at the Nuremberg Trials. During his trial he converted to Catholicism. Frank surrendered forty volumes of his diaries to the Tribunal and much evidence against him and others was gathered from them. He was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity and on October 1, 1946, he was sentenced to death by hanging.

References

External links

- [http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/nuremberg/franktest.html Testimony of Frank at Nuremberg] Category:Nazi Germany Category:Holocaust Category:Jewish Polish history Category:Special territories Category:History of Poland

World War II

, and the use of new, extremely devastating weapons such as the atom bomb. From top going counterclockwise: Allied landing on D-Day 1944, the Nuremberg Rally 1936, the Nagasaki atom bomb 1945, the Soviet flag over the Reichstag in Berlin 1945 and the Gate of Auschwitz.]] World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a mid-20th Century conflict that engulfed much of the globe and is accepted as the largest and deadliest continuous war in human history. It was the first time that a number of newly developed technologies, including nuclear weapons, were used against either military or civilian targets. World War II resulted in the direct or indirect death of anywhere from 50 to 60 million or more people, over 3% of the world population at that time. It is estimated to have cost more money and resources than all other wars combined: about 1 trillion US dollars in 1945 (adjusted for inflation; roughly 10.5 trillion in 2005), not including subsequent reconstruction [http://www.historychannel.com/worldwartwo/?page=triumph5]. The outcomes of the war, including new technology and changes to the world's geopolitical, cultural and economic arrangement, were unprecedented. The conflict began by most Western accounts on September 1 1939 with the German invasion of Poland (the Pacific war is taken to have started on July 7 1937 with the Japanese attack on China) and lasted until mid-1945, involving many of the world's countries. Virtually all countries that participated in World War I were involved in World War II. Britain, France, Australia and New Zealand declared war on Germany on September 3, 1939 and Canada followed on September 10, 1939. The United States entered the conflict in December of 1941 after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Summary

Attributed in varying degrees to the Treaty of Versailles, the Great Depression, and the rise in nationalism, racism,