Holocaust

Adam Posner

"Cattle Car Complex;" lawyer working late who gets stuck in an elevator and has flashbacks to his parents' experiences in the Holocaust. Significance: the transmission of memory from one generation to the next; society's responses to the victims and later generations of Holocaust survivors (the night guard vs. the Russian driver)

Stoecker

"Our Demands on Modern Jewry" (1879) theologian and politician that founded one of the first anti-semitic political parties. viewed jews as a different race that had a superiority complex that needed to be worked out of them through hard labor. Believed that Judaism was an old religion that was a cancer to society.

Eter

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G.S.

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Justina's Diary

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Swabia

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The Geometer of Race

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Yudl

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Anna Nikolaievna

..."The Ghetto Dog;" widow; walks with her dog to her death; dog reminds her of her husband/has human qualities. Significance: Ghetto society (see Big Rose)

Sir William of Norwich

1144, Norwich England. Rumors spread that Jews need blood of little christian children to run their rituals. Called blood libel. When a little boy, william, is found stabbed to death, the Christians immediately blame it on the Jews. The courts ruled that there was not enough evidence to condemn them, but this does not stop them from making him into a legend, and spreading it all over Europe (and making him into a saint).

Paul Celan

1920-1970 Romanian poet. his parents were deported and killed. He had to do forced labor, managed to find scraps of paper and wrote on them, would mail the scraps.. After the war, he was troubled, in and out of pyschiatric hospital, eventually moved to France. He read Kafka's short stories, and in the margins he would write comments: "If only people could come, I could almost begin anew." He wrote poetry in German, which is very interesting given his situation/Jewish heritage (he called poetry "a message in a bottle, wash up on a heartland perhaps"), and in his poetry which we read in class ("Todesfuge" or "Death Fuge") he refers to the Shema Israel, which is the Holy prayer, said 3x a day and the last words on your lips before you die. In the end he committed suicide.

Kellog-Briand Treaty-

1928; Countries renounce war as a means to settle disputes. Pro: Offers precedent for 6A) Crimes against peace. Cons: Never defines "aggressive war" and never establishes sanctions. Significance: Provides legitimacy for considering "crimes against peace" an international law.

Father Patrick Desbois

A French priest who made it his mission to find eyewitnesses in order to locate the mass graves in Ukraine (estimated 1.2 million people died there, and there was not a single marking). (used archeology and geology tools to find some of these mass graves). Interested because his grandfather was a French soldier sent to concentration camp--became further interested when he studied at Yad-Vishem. The stories that Desbois found out through the interviews are important because they challenge our ideas about "bystanders"--he heard about young Ukrainian children who were forced to stand and keep watch over the Jews, even run over the bodies to push them down. Were they really bystanders, if they were scarred from these experiences? The Documentary about finding graves called, Holocaust by Bullets

Herschel Grynszpan

A Polish Jew, assassinated the Nazi German diplomat Ernst vom Rath. He did this in response to the treatment of Jews--Poland very anti-semitic, wants to keep them out. because of conditions, many Jews leave Poland and go to Germany to find work. But Germany doesn't want the Jews either, so they give them a deadline that they have to leave by. All these Jews rush to go back to Poland. But Polish leader nulls these Jews' citizenship, so they are stuck at the border between Poland and Germany, essentially with citizenship to neither, and no one wants them. Grynszpan's parents/family were one of these families held at the border, so he kills the Nazi for revenge. He wanted the whole world to know. But the Nazi leaders used this to extend/promote Jewish persecution, and was the cause of KRISTALNACHT.

Moshe the Beadle in Sighet:

A foreign Jew that was captured along with other foreigners and given over to Nazis, but he escapes the attempted mass murder. When he goes to Sighet to tell the Jews about what the Nazis were doing, no one believes him. SIGNIFICANCE: Knowledge was scarce and, when it was available, it was too unreal to believe. This plays into the larger reason as to why more people weren't resisting.

Tsava

A jewish ethical will--"this is what my children will remember me by, this is what i will leave behind." this was the point of the movie for the father.

Yugfor

A major YIVO project to see how the Holocaust impacted adolescence, which is a very pivotal point in a life. They hoped that contestants would want to collaborate on this project in the future.

Righteous Among the Nations

An honorific given by Yad Vashem to commemorate non-Jews who risked their own lives to save Jews from extermination. SIGNIFICANCE: An example of people performing great acts of kindness and bravery in a dark time. It's also a demonstration of the lengths people were willing to go to save fellow humans when anti-semitism was indoctrinated into society so heavily.

Khurban (Khurban Empire)

An old Yiddish word that is sometimes used in reference to the Holocaust. Translates into "desctruction" or "old war." This word has been used to define other events in the past as well. The significance for this (and Shoah) could be in the way we retell the history--how each of these words have their own meanings as well. So we even get into trouble with how we define the event itself.

John Chrysostym

Arch Bishop of Constantinople (386-387 BC) gave a series of 8 sermons that were anti-semitic and those ideas later spread and were used as justification by the Nazis.

Blumenbach

Author of "On the Natural Variety of Mankind". By some, he is seen as the Father of Anatomy. He is German. He believed that diversity in humans is due to climate. He was not a racial superiorist. One problem with his theory was the Jewish race, because they lived all over yet usually they all looked similar. He said they can identified through physiognomy. He ranked the races according to how beautiful he thought they were, putting caucausion/white first (but he did not in any way make judgements on character)

St. Augustine

Basically believes and teaches that Jews are wrong but that the relationship between christianity and Judaism is what defines the religion. Judaism is like a "wonderful fossil" that should be left alone and serve as an example of what not to do. This would become the minority view over time. He says they aren't doing anything new, so it's absolutely fine to just let it go.

A Poor Christian Looks at the Ghetto:

By Czeslaw Milosz (who was Lithuanian, but wrote in Polish) uses bee/insect imagery around the camp. Mole=patriarch. the last stanza talks about the New Testament, the 2nd coming of hesus, and how he will blame them all for the destruction. Heavy guilt in the end. Describes Honeycombs of lungs/ashes of different spectra. This is important in reference to how other religions dealt with the Holocaust, reacted to their role in it.

Chelmno:

First was a town in Poland, then chosen as a place for the first concentration camp (this is important, because for functionalists, Chelmno would be the modified solution to the growing Jewish problem, especially after the Nazis inherited all of the Polish Jews...Heydrich may finally implement his "final Solution"). Open from 1941-1945, built as a place to send the Jews from the Lodz ghetto. Estimated that 180,000 Jews were killed there.

Einsatzgruppen

German word meaning "task force." This group went into invaded areas (Poland especially) and went through town by town killing as many civilians as they could. They targeted priests and professors especially. Estimated that they killed 2 million people (1.3 million Jews) Began operations in Sept/Oct of 1939.

Rene Molho

Greek prisoner at Auschwitz. brother died in amry after experiments. he helped the gov round up nazis after the war, the army gave him a pistol when they found the doctor that killed his brother, but he did not kill the doctor. he said he was upset but proud that he did not sink to their level.

Holocaust

Greek word meaning completely burnt, it is usually linked to sacrifice. most common word used to describe the Nazi extermination of Jews, and others. The significance is the connotation that the word implies...sacrifice, which makes it seem like all of these Jews were willing to be killed (which many take offense to). May be linked to Bernard Maza's idea that the Holocaust was punishment for the Jews and Israel is the reward.

Klukowski

He was a doctor from the Underground, so he had knowledge of what was happening at the height of the Holocaust. He kept a diary in which he writes to soothe himself as he goes about his work at a Hospital that wasn't allowed to service Jews. There were times when he wanted to help injured or sick Jews, but his orders were strict and nothing could be done even if he wanted to. SIGNIFICANCE: Klukowski is in some ways a bystander and witness when he doesn't take action to help those he could from fear of personal risk. In other ways he is a victim when his hospital is put in danger by Nazis. The neat three-category system Hilberg used was too simplified in cases like Klukowski. People are more complex than a single label.

YIVO:

Institute for Jewish Research with headquarters in Vilna, Poland. Its mission is to study and preserve all aspects of Jewish life in Eastern Europe. Held a series of competitions and offered prizes for the best youth autobiography and in exchange the authors provided YIVO with information on their experiences, thoughts, and feelings.

Martin Buber and Jewish Adult Education

Jewish philosopher that resigned from his position as a professor at the University of Frankfurt. He founded the Central Office for Jewish Adult Education which became increasingly important as the Nazis forbade Jews to attend public schools.

Bundists

Jewish socialist movement that opposed zionism because they saw emigration to Palestine as a form of escapism. Doikeyt was central to its ideology.

Judge Leon Bazile

Loving v. Virginia marriage was interracial which violated the state's anti-miscegenation laws. Judge Bazile said in his ruling that God put different races on separate continents and that shows that he did not want them to mix.

Wannsee Conference

Meeting of highest Nazi officials on Jan 20, 1942, called by Heydrich. This was NOT a policy setting meeting, because the mass killing had already begun. More of a meeting in order to coordinate, emphasize the fact that they do not want the strongest to survive, and that all of this must be done as quickly as possible. Title of the conference comes from the street that the house where the conference was held was located.

Moshe Daum

Menachem's father, the one who really forced religion and isolationism onto him.

Margarete and Shulamith

Poem by Paul Celan who never recovered from his time at a Romanian camp. He only wrote in German about his Holocaust experience. Margareta has blond hair blue eyes while Shulamith (Hebrew bible name) has dark hair. Begins with "Black milk of daybreak we drink it at evening." It was an attempt to represent non-stop killing.

The Grey Zone

Primo Levy. No concrete distinctions between victims/bystanders/perps.

Sophie Scholl

She was a young German college student and member of the White Rose resistance group that made and distributed a series of pamphlets denouncing the Nazi's real intentions and actions. She was taken to trial and sentenced to death for betraying the government. SIGNIFICANCE: Her actions against the Nazis are example of intellectual resistance. She also demonstrates the importance of one's upbringing in our morality, since it was her father's teachings of humanity and ethics that later shaped her own views. You can also argue that this shows that not every German agreed with Hitler's plan.

Zivia Lubetkin:

She was one of the leaders of the Jewish Underground in Warsaw and the only woman of high command of the Jewish Fighting Organization (ZOB). She goes on to lead the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943. SIGNIFICANCE: Her actions are an example of physical resistance.

Poupette

Story in Charlotte Delbo's Auschwitz and After. Talking about how returning was hard--detailing how she finally felt the loss of her sister, and how her father had remarried, so she literally had to fight for her place in the household. She married, had kids, divorced. Basically, all about the bitterness of returning--it wasn't good, contrary to what we would think. She ends with the idea that she's going to France for a year just to do something with her life, because there is no living without Auschwitz.

Shoah

The Hebrew word used to describe the Holocaust, literally means "destruction" or "chaos". Commonly used in Europe, especially France. It is an archaic word linked to the medieval area.

Kaddish

The Jewish prayer for the dead. we've seen it a couple times, but in class we read a piece called "Who Knows Kaddish" where a young woman mourns the fact that she does not know the prayer, een as she's staring at a german cemetary full of JEws.

he Protocols of the Elders of Zion

The elders of the Jewish community were discussed in a collection of papers written during the 1800s (believed to be by a foreign branch of the Russian secret police). The elders were said to have met in a cemetery in Prague to discuss the Jewish takeover of the world. The premise behind them was that you cannot prove they didn't happen...therefore one could argue they could be true.

Common Memory

The facts, the dates, the names, the places. Put forth in the Langer's introduction to Auschwitz and After. Says that everyone can have the common memory...and if you just stick to this kind of memory, you can forget the deep memory, the scars of the deep memory.

Intentionalists

The idea that from the very beginning, the Nazis were determined to kill all of the Jews. Emphasizes Hitler's role as main guy. Theory supported by Lucy Dawidowicz. These theories--and the confusion surrounding them--stem from the fact that there is no "smoking gun" pointing to Hitler.

Madagascar Plan

The idea that they way the Germans were killing Jews--in mass shootings, or in the backs of vans--wasted too many bullets and was too emotionally scarring. Therefore, plan was proposed in 1940 to relocate all of the Jews to Madagascar. Also in support of the functionlists idea, because it shows that the Nazi party was trying out lots of different methods for taking care of the "Jewish Problem."

The Riddle of Rumpelstiltskin

The little Yiddish man in the story "the Liberator." He was the European Jew that everyone kind of exalted because he was european, but he also stood up at one point and said, you Ruben of the doubke name, you Ruben born in America, and then went off into nothing. this has to do with fact/fiction when retelling these kinds of myths.

Big Rose-

The prostitute in A Ghetto Dog. Doesn't like the dog at first, seems very harsh, but when notices dog's "human eyes" she steps back and takes a minute.

Adversus Judaeos

The sermons said by John Chrysostym

Chicky and Ervin

The two friends in the story, "the Lemon." Chicky is the "friend" that Ervin goes to when he must take his father's pants off to try to get a lemon. switch of roles, because Ervin must the protector/breadwinner for the family, while the mother is stuck.

Thinking Memory

This is all about knowing who went to the camp...this is what WE get from the common memory.

Functionalists

This theory is what is more commonly thought to be true by historians today. De-emphasizes Hitler's role in the Holocaust, instead focuses on the Nazis' movement, how they kept their plans fluid regarding the "Jewish Problem." They did not start out with the idea that they were going to have concentration camps/mass killings. This theory supported by Hans Mommsen.

Le Chambon sur Lignon

This was a town in France that collectively cooperated to save refugee Jewish children under the guise of a Protestant orphans. Even after helping, they refused to be called heroes. SIGNIFICANCE: This display of resistance shows that it doesn't have to be violent to make a difference. We also see that people of other regions and religions were willing to help/not everyone was cooperating with the Nazi regime.

Sandomierz

Town in poland that is stuck in belief about the Blood libel. There is a large mural of it in the church, showing the blood libel. to this day, all the townspeople know the story/pass it on to their kids. significant because the townspeople also change it to fit the modern times (like,maybe they needed the blood because of some genetic disorder/problem). a good example of how these rumors can get started/are affected.

Pola Lifszyc

Upon hearing that her mother was in the umschlagplatz she got a lift from her fiance and ran to her mother before she could be put into a train. SIGNIFICANCE:

Lavater

Wrote essays on physiognomy. He studied the face, and showed how the different features/measurements would determine character. This is significant because it means they could define race.

Gobineau

Wrote the "Inequality of Human Races" in 1853. Race is the explanation of everything and dominates civilization

Max Weinreich

YIVO gave contestants a book written by him to attempt to persuade them to work on the Yugfor project in the future. The book "The Way to Our Youth" that drew on youth autobiographies and came to epitomize the institute's commitment to doikeyt.

Yad Vashem - Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority

Yad Vashem is Israel's official memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Their objective is to educate, research, document, and commemorate. SIGNIFICANCE: Contributes to the documentation of acts of resistance and bravery performed by Jews and non-Jews.

Jan Skarbek

a Christian in Oswiecim, who had a good relationship with the Jews living there before the Nazis invaded and turned it into the model German town. SIGNIFICANCE: considered to be a symbol of Christian-Jewish coexistence in Poland before the war.

Johann Paul Kremer:

a Nazi doctor who was moved to Auschwitz and kept a diary of some of his experiences at the camp during his time there. (We read these in class). SIGNIFICANCE: from his writings we can see that he was not concerned at all about the conditions in the camp for the prisoners, and that he only recorded things like how great his dinner was and how he went on walks. You wouldn't expect to read these things in a diary of someone who is in a concentration camp, but he did not seemed concerned about anyone who was suffering.

Oyneg Shabbes

a group, excluding members of the Judenrate, that recorded all of the events of ghetto life in order to have records so that in the future, people will know what the conditions were in the ghettos. Set up by Ringelblum. Warsaw 1943 was the worst condition that the ghetto was ever in, yet it had the most people recording at this time. SIGNIFICANCE: without these records, people today would not know of the conditions in the ghettos. These records also allow us to see what ghetto life was like for many different families, and not just one family.

Emmanuel Ringelblum

a historian who was a member of the JDC (organization that provides aid for Jews all over the world). He went to Switzerland and the Nazis invaded Poland while he was out of the country. The JDC was bombed, so upon return, he goes back to the JDC and retrieves all of the documents he can, and tries to record everything that happens. He also set up Oyneg Shabbes. SIGNIFICANCE: without the documents that Ringelblum saved, we would not have any of those primary source documents for reference today.

Folker Neinecke

a man captured by the SS officers because he looked Aryan and given to aryan parents. all part of trying to make the master race. he didn't know until he was very old that this happened, either. other name was aleksander litau.

Deep Memory

a much different memory. this is the Auschwitz past, and it's never really over.

Rosa Robota

a participant in the uprising in Birkenau, the socialist Zionist movement, and worked in an ammunitions factory outside of Birkenau. She smuggled in dynamite from the factory and gave it to the Sonderkommando (in charge of making sure that the crematoria and the gas chambers worked. They were able to blow up crematoria 3 in the camp, and she was killed as punishment. SIGNIFICANCE: good example of resistance from those who lived in the camps.

The Little Smuggler

a poem by Henryka Lazawert about a young child who goes outside of the ghetto during the day no matter what the weather is like or what time of day. The child risks their life in order to make sure that the next morning their mother and family can have food to eat. SIGNIFICANCE: role reversal of children going out and making sure that they get food so that their family survives.

Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa (ZOB)

a resistance movement which was responsible for organizing/planning the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

"I Accuse" (1941):

a wife suffering from MS begs her husband to kill her and end her suffering. He kills her and is put on trial where the argument that death is a right as well as a duty is put forth. It is a German pro-euthanasia propaganda film.

Janusz Pogonowski

a young man who was in Auschwitz, and was able to write letters to people outside of Auschwitz. He and 11 other prisoners were hanged because they were suspected of helping 3 fellow prisoners escape, and establishing contact with the civilian population when they were outside of camp. Pogonowski did not allow the commandant to finish reading his sentence, and he hung himself. SIGNIFICANCE: this is seen as his last attempt to resist. He didn't allow the Nazis to kill him. It showed his "contempt for his executioners as well as courage in the face of death."

Treitchske

author of "A Word ABout Our Jews" in 1879. German nationalist that believes in the social darwinian struggle of life based in race. Jews should assimilate into German society and respect their traditions. They are different racially and are called "aliens". They run many aspects of German society without accepting the culture.

Lucy Dawidowicz

born in NY, not a religious Jew, but was fascinated by Jewish history in college. In 1939 she goes to Vilna and studies at YIVO, becoming good friends with the director. Luckily leaves in August, avoids German occupation. But a lot of her YIVO friends die in the war. In 1946 she travels back to Europe to collect as much of the Jewish history/letters as possible. She argues the INTENTIONALIST idea.

Marie-Louise

character in Charlotte Delbo's story of the same name. Story is characterized by one-sided ness of conversations. she talks all about how she was "trained like a child, monkey see monkey do" by her husband to return to normal life, although she does not ever return to waking up at the same time. she does not remember some things. But pierre does, her husband.

T-4 program

code name for euthanasia program to kill handicapped children and later adults. Doctors experimented with different methods of killing. Nurses and doctors that worked in the program were later sent to 3 death camps (Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka).

Crimes against peace-

engaging in a war of aggression or a war that violates international treaties (see Kellog-Briand). Significance: Germany engaged in a war of aggression by invading Poland and other European countries; therefore they can be held accountable for breaking this law at the International Military Tribunal.

Bishop von Galen

gives a powerful sermon against Nazi policies on euthanasia b/c handicapped Catholics were among those being killed.

Mordechai Rumkowski

head of the Judenrate in the Lodz ghetto. He picked 31 members to be on the committee, all but 3 of whom were sent to concentration camps forcing him to pick new members to be on the committee. He believed in making sure that the ghetto would be indispensable to the Nazis in the hopes of surviving the war. He viewed himself as a savior, and sacrificed members of his community in order to save the lives of others. SIGNIFICANCE: It is Jewish law that you cannot choose the life of one person over another, and Rumkowski broke this law by choosing to sacrifice some to save others.

Adam Czerniakow:

head of the Judenrate in the Warsaw ghetto. He attempted to relieve suffering by normalizing ghetto life through soup kitchens, day cares, schools, pharmacies, sports, theaters, etc. Tried to cooperate with the Nazis when they asked for a certain number of people for deportation, but in July 1942, there were mass deportations, and upon learning that children were to be deported next, Czerniakow commits suicide. SIGNIFICANCE: Unlike Rumkowski, Czerniakow follows Jewish Law of not choosing one's life over another (to a certain extent because he did send some but did not want to send the children).

Hadamar

killing center in Germany where handicapped children then adults were killed by church going nurses as part of the T-4 program. SIGNIFIGANCE: it was a test run of policies on the population and shows that just b/c you're religious doesn't mean you are immune.

"Abram"

lived in displaced persons camp after the Holocaust, was a child survivor. eventually escaped, fought in underground. after joins gang with other kids, one night they go out to seek revenge, go into house, demand food, break things. He ended up telling a worker that he killed someone that night.

Lebensunwertes Leben

means " a life unworthy of living". The Nazis used this term to refer to people they considered to be inferior or a drain of resources and that they targeted to euthanize.

Doikeyt

means being here and present, not wishing to return to Israel. It was a call by YIVO and the Bund to encourage youth (who were very politically active) to stay and not follow Zionist party urges to emigrate to Palestine.

David Boder

met survivors, recorded them, he was a pyschologist, journalist, wrote for newspapers, worked for BBC. this was part of the bit global outbreak of the Holocaust story, which happened some time in the 90's.

Crimes against humanity

murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, inhumane acts or persecutions on political, racial, or religious grounds are outlawed DURING WARTIME. Significance: Germans broke this law with the atrocities of the Holocaust, so they can be held accountable at the International Military Tribunal. ALSO, other countries (Soviet Union and USA) needed to add the "during wartime" clause so they could keep Jim Crow laws and the like without being accused of wrongdoing.

Witold Pilecki:

part of a secret Polish Army resistance group who wrote the first intelligence report on Auschwitz. He got arrested on purpose in order to get into Auschwitz, and was also a participant in the Warsaw uprising. SIGNIFICANCE: a good example of resistance during the war (on many different levels) by someone who was not Jewish.

Pierre

so fascinated by Auschwitz and the war that he makes his wife talk about it over and over until he knows every detail. At some point he corrects her knowledge. this goes along with the idea that can you really act like you've been there, talk about it, if you weren't actually there.

Fela

the "organizer" from "Old Words, New Meanings." she takes advantage of the camp to better herself...selling soup to the sick and taking the bread. this is part of the whole idea that there are no morals in Auschwitz

Porrojamos

the Gypsy word used to describe the Holocaust, meaning "destruction"

Zelig Kalmanovich

the director at YIVO in Vilnius. He met Lucy Dawidowicz when she traveled to Vilius to study Yiddish at YIVO. Upon Dawidowicz's coming home to the US, Germany invades Poland. She collects all that she can after the war from YIVO to preserve the documents that were there before the war. SIGNIFICANCE:

Janusz Korczak

the director of an orphanage who, upon being taken to the Umschlagplatz (where they are taken to be deported), he stays with all of the children who are left in the orphanage. He stays with them so that they would not be scared. SIGNIFICANCE: according to Ringelblum, this created the mindset that everyone should stay together in the face of hard time.

Lebensraum

the idea that a superior race needs lots of living space. idea held by Nazis/ Germans, who wanted to expand their own territory (Germany) beyond the borders which were dictated by the Treaty of Versailles (big point for Hitler) and used it as reason for displacement and eventual extermination of the Jews.

Lebensborn Program

the program that Folker Neinecke was part of, where SS officers would capture these Aryan looking children and put them with families that actually "fit them". as the Nazis invaded the other countries.

Sense Memory

this is what Charlotte Delbo did so well in her writings. she showed us the camp, and how it felt to be there, showed what it is was like to literally die of thirst.

Dzialoszyce, Poland

this was the little town that they had such trouble finding in Poland, because it was so small/barely existed anymore. This mirrors the troubles that most people who wanted to come back to remember had...they just don't know where.

War crimes-

violating the laws or customs of war, as set forth in the Geneva conventions (codified behavior of people during war) and the Hague convention (before Geneva). Significance: You can't kill prisoners of war (intentionally or through neglect) or deport them to slave labor. Germany did both to the Soviet POWs and therefore can be held accountable for breaking this law at the International Military Tribunal.

Zionist Federation of Germany

wanted to return to Palestine and create a state of their own. They turned to the Nazi government for help. They told Jews to reaffirm their Jewish identity (wear the yellow star w/ pride) and not to assimilate.They said that part of the blame is on Jews b/c they weren't proud enough of their Jewishness.

Declaration of Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

was written in April 1994 to the Jewish Community from the Lutheran church, apologizing for Martin Luther's letter/edict all those years ago. Recognized the hatred, was sorry. This is important because not only does it show the the history of the anti-semitism was so wide-spread, but it was also big for the church to reject something that the church was technically founded on

Ordinary Men:

written by Christopher Browning, the book argues that the Nazis were ordinary men doing irregular things. SIGNIFICANCE: The books highlights the idea that Nazis were not monsters, and that they were regular people like you and me, but that they just did things that were extremely out of the ordinary. It doesn't take a specific person to do such horrible things.

Willing Executioners

written by Daniel Goldhagen, the book argues that the Nazis were a special kind of people. SIGNIFICANCE: Highlights that ordinary people do not commit such awful acts. You have to be a specific kind of person to do such things.

Kurt Gerstein

wrote "Deathwatch at Belzec." He was a German SS officer in charge of sanitation. He goes on an assignment to get prussic acid and hints that it will be used to kill human beings in order to spread rumors among the population. He describes how people were gassed and they were so crammed that the bodies were still standing, families were still holding hands. Then other prisoners went through the corpses looking for gold or hidden money. He ends with how he was told by a superior how great and meaningful his work is.

Drumont:

wrote a similar literary piece to stoecker but in regards to french society. shows that anti-semitism was spreading and was not confined to just one area.