The Eyes Behind the CurtainThe Eyes Behind the Curtain

Jakub CandaAlexandra NguyenCatherine PourdavoudJennifer To

“Every arm of the country's sophistcated bureaucracy was involved in the killing process. Parish churches and the Interior Ministry supplied birth records showing who was Jewish; the Post Ofce delivered the deportaton and denaturalizaton orders; the Finance Ministry confscated Jewish property; German frms fred Jewish workers and disenfranchised Jewish stockholders; the universites refused to admit Jews, denied degrees to those already studying, and fred Jewish academics; government transport ofces arranged the trains for deportaton to the camps; German pharmaceutcal companies tested drugs on camp prisoners; companies bid for the contracts to build the crematoria; detailed lists of victms were drawn up using the Dehomag (IBM Germany) company's punch card machines, producing metculous records of the killings. As prisoners entered the death camps, they were made to surrender all personal property, which was carefully catalogued and tagged before being sent to Germany to be reused or recycled. Berenbaum writes that the Final Soluton of the Jewish queston was "in the eyes of the perpetrators … Germany's greatest achievement."

Michael Berenbaum

The Genocidal State

"Not one social group, not one religious community, not one scholarly insttuton or professional associaton in Germany and throughout Europe declared its solidarity with the Jews."

Saul Friedlander

BEGINNING?BEGINNING?

19331933

19351935

THE NUREMBERG LAWSTHE NUREMBERG LAWS

19381938

DIE KRISTALL NACHTDIE KRISTALL NACHT

Collaborators

Ant-Semitsm

The Beginning

1935, “The Jew is our greatest

enemy; beware of the Jew!”

Vienna, 1938

“That was when I began to hate them, and my hatred remains our only link today. They were our frst oppressors. They were the frst faces of hell and death.”- Elie Wiesel, Night

Collaborators

The Local Police“The Lithuanian army is spread out in the street; soldiers push, people drag along, everyone is electrifed, irritated, exhausted…and weeping.” –Herman Kruk, The Last Days of the Jerusalem of Lithuania: Chronicles from the Vilna Gheto and the Camps, 1939-1944

Making the choice to actvely

oppress

Collaborators

Laughing, Spitng, Throwing Rocks

Holocaust Survivor Account: Esther Meisler

Not merely “watching” on the sidelines

Vienna, March 1938

Germany Parade, Nov. 1939

Even the children!

Polish girl in Schindler’s List,

Evacuaton of Jews to Gheto

Collaborators

Maus, pg. 149

Inbred ant-Semitsm, fear, and hate

Collaborators

Bribery

Dana Schwartz, Holocaust Survivor Story

Maus, pg. 89 How much is a human life worth?

The questonable: To blame or not?

Zyklon B Manufacture (Degesch, Degussa, IG Farbin, Testa)

Architecture of concentraton camps and gas chambers

The line becomes “fuzzy”

Collaborators

Mobile Gas Van Producton

They were neither collaborators nor resistors

Reasons to what led them to be who they areReasons to what led them to be who they are

Dana Schwartz

“Behind The Curtains”

“They simply didn’t care”

“Looking the other way”

Helping the JewsHelping the Jews

• Share informaton• Provide resources (food,

shelter, etc…)• Smuggle Jews out of the

ghetos• Hide Jews• Help Jewish partsans

..But the Risks!..But the Risks!

• Confscaton of all possessions

• Sent to concentraton camps

• Poland and other parts of Eastern Europe: Death Penalty

So Why Help?

• Bribery• Ant-Nazi• Moral reasons• Protectng citzens• Connectons/relatonships

Everyday HeroesEveryday Heroes

• The “Righteous Gentles”

Works Cited

Bar-On, Dan. The Bystander in Relaton to the Victm an the Perpetrator: Today and During the Holocaust. Rep. Vol. 14. Social Justce Research, 2001. Print.

Hondius, Dienke. Bystander Memories Explored: Dutch Gentle Eyewitness Narratves on the Deportaton of the Jews. Rep. no. 1571-5493. Vol. 6. New York: Springer, 2007. Print.

Kruk, Herman. "The Last Days of the Jerusalem O Lithuania: Chronicles from the Vilna Gheto." German 59: The Holocauast in Film and Literature. 59-135. Print.

Levi, Primo. Survival in Auschwitz. New York: Orion, 1958. Print.

Sachs, Nelly. "You Onlookers." German 59: The Holocaust in Film and Literature. 53-53. Print.

Schindler's List. Dir. Steven Spielberg. Amblin Entertainment, 1993. DVD.

Schwartz, Dana. "Holocaust Survivor." Holocaust Survivor Day. UCLA, Los Angeles. 25 Feb. 2010. Speech.

Shoah. Dir. Claude Lanzmann. 1985. DVD.

Simaite, Ona. "Leters from a LIbrarian: Lost and Found in Vilna." German 59: The Holocaust In Film and Literature. 137-52. Print.

Spiegelman, Art. "Maus." Comic Strip. Apex Noveltes and Pantheon, 1973. 1-156. Print.

"Testmony Excerpts - Bystander and Two Survivors." Interview. Youtube. Yale University, 9 Oct. 2009. Web. 8 Mar. 2010. <htp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WByrxGE64Y0>.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Web. 8 Mar. 2010. <htp://www.ushmm.org/>.

Wiesel, Elie. Night. Argentna: Mark Turkov, 1955. Print.