Holocaust Memorial Day

Above: York Minster's Star of David - image credit, York Minster.

The Holocaust, the genocide masterminded by the Nazis, took place between 1941 and 1945, at the same time as the Second World War was being fought. More than fifty years later, the horrors of this period continue to shock and continue to reverberate. Around six million Jews were murdered, while other victims numbered in the millions and thousands, including Soviet prisoners of war, the disabled, Jehovah's witnesses, homosexuals, Romani and ethnic Poles. These victims endured enslavement in concentration camps, imprisonment, torture and murder, and the testimonies of those who survived these horrors testifies to the dark depths of human hatred, intolerance and bigotry. 

Holocaust Memorial Day Trust's theme for 2017 is how can life go on? The survivor and prolific author Elie Wiesel, who died last year, explained that "for the survivor death is not the problem. Death was an everyday occurrence. We learned to live with Death. The problem is to adjust to life, to living. You must teach us about living." This year's theme incorporates issues including trauma and coming to terms with the past, displacement and seeking refuge, justice, rebuilding communities, and reconciliation and forgiveness. These issues continue to resonate today, and should be considered by each and every one of us.

Yesterday, I attended a memorial service at York Minster, and a beautiful Star of David was lit in the Chapter House using candles. The service was moving, and included a talk from a young man whose relative had perished in the Holocaust. Attending services such as that at York Minster always brings back memories for me of visiting Auschwitz in 2009 while at secondary school. While our teacher prepared us as much as she could for what we would experience, visiting the camp was something that I don't think any of us could forget. Emotions ran high that day, and subsequently, but how was it possible for any of us to imagine the suffering inflicted on those who walked through Auschwitz's gates, many of whom never left? How could any of us truly come to terms with the horrors inflicted at Auschwitz, and other killing camps such as Treblinka or Sobibor? 

I have included some photos taken from the trip. These serve as powerful reminders of how cruelty, intolerance and hatred can extend to unspeakable crimes and to loss of life. They remind us that racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism, ethnic cleansing, homophobia and prejudice are still with us today. These issues will always be important. They are inextricably tied to human nature, and remind us of what can happen when scapegoats are sought for perceived unfairness or problems in society.

Recently, I attended an exhibition about one of the most famous victims of the Holocaust, Anne Frank, a diarist who died at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp at the age of fifteen. The exhibition's title was 'A history for today'. It was incredibly moving to revisit Anne's story and to consider her legacy, but two photos, in particular, caught my eye and provided a startling reminder that, perhaps, we have not really moved forward since the dark days of 1941-45. Genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, and Darfur - among others - are a testament to the unwillingness, or inability, of subsequent generations to learn from the horrors of the past. These two photos, I think, speak a thousand words. 

Hatred, intolerance, bigotry and prejudice are still very much with us, and there are still lessons to be learned from the Holocaust. 

The Expulsion of the Jews from England

On 18 July 1290, a cataclysmic event took place that was to have far-reaching consequences. King Edward I ordered the expulsion of the Jews from England. Only in 1657, a total of 367 years later, were the Jews permitted to return to England. The Edict of Expulsion has usually been interpreted as the inevitable culmination of worsening persecution against the Jews. 

By 1290, the Jews were an accepted presence in English society, although Christians viewed them with ambivalence. Economically, Jews could enjoy great influence. Loans with interest were permitted between Jews and non-Jews, contrary to English practice which expressly forbade usury, which was regarded by the Church as a heinous sin. While Jews could benefit from lending money at high rates of interest, they were also vulnerable to the whims of the king, who could levy heavy taxes on them without summoning Parliament. Their reputation as extortionate moneylenders, whether deserved or not, could make them unpopular among their Christian fellows. 

In wider society, as W.D. Rubinstein has noted, anti-Jewish attitudes were prevalent. These stemmed from, and were encouraged by, negative images of the Jew as a diabolical figure that preyed on innocent Christian children. Jews were vulnerable to accusations of ritual murders; most notably, William of Norwich (d. 1144) and Little St. Hugh of Lincoln (d. 1255). Walter Laqueur opined that: 'There have been about 150 recorded cases of blood libel... that resulted in the arrest and killing of Jews throughout history, most of them in the Middle Ages. In almost every case, Jews were murdered, sometimes by a mob, sometimes following torture and a trial'.

Above: William of Norwich (left) and Little St. Hugh of Lincoln (right).

Hostility to the Jews occasionally erupted in violence and bloodshed. Massacres occurred in 1189 and 1190; in York, over 100 Jews were massacred while hiding in a tower. The situation gradually worsened as, less than thirty years later, in 1218, Jews were required to wear a marking badge. Over the course of the thirteenth-century, Jews were heavily taxed. In 1275, King Edward I issued a statute that placed a number of restrictions on the Jews in England, in which he outlawed the practice of usury. Later, the king charged the Jews with failing to follow the Statute of Jewry, and he ordered their expulsion from the country in July 1290.

Only in the seventeenth-century were Jews officially permitted to return to England. The widely anti-Semitic attitudes that characterised medieval and early modern Europe, as a whole, did not disappear in modern times. The Holocaust, which claimed the lives of roughly 6 million Jews, built on and was encouraged by anti-Jewish propaganda that had existed on the Continent for hundreds of years.

Anne Frank

The persecution of the Jews, known by the haunting Greek word the Holocaust, meaning sacrifice, by the Nazis in central and eastern Europe occurred over a period of three years, 1942-45, although it can hardly be doubted that the Jews have been persecuted since the beginning of the time. However, a collection of factors including the bleak economic climate in twentieth-century Europe, the devastating aftermath of WW1, and the desire of each country to strengthen and 'reborn' itself, meant that persecution, intolerance, and hatred were more prominent than they had hitherto been, and eventually led to mass murder, torture, and elimination. The Jews, of course, were the obvious and largest group of victims, although one must not forget about other persecuted groups such as gypsies, homosexuals, the disabled, Jehovah's Witnesses, and other races.

Anne Frank is known as one of the most discussed and famous victims of the Jewish Holocaust. On this day in history, 12 June 1929, she was born in Frankfurt, Germany as the second daughter to Otto Frank and his wife Edith; her sister Margot three years older. A Jewish family, the Franks lived in a time of increasing violence and anti-Semitism in Europe, of which Germany was a country which notably experienced such attitudes under the Nazi Party headed by Adolf Hitler. This family eventually fled Germany in the early 1930s for Amsterdam - they were among some 600,000 Jews who escaped Germany in the period 1933-39.

Anne's diary, known as The Diary of a Young Girl, is exceptionally intriguing as a document providing insights into the life of a Jewish family living in twentieth-century Europe on the brink of the Second World War. Anne's cleverness, wit, and outspoken nature shine forth throughout her diary, particularly in her often complex relations with her other family members while dwelling in the claustrophobic environment of the secret annexe. Also on this day, 12 June 1942, thirteen-year old Anne was first given her diary as a birthday present, and wrote in it regularly hereafter.



Anne's diary indicates her close relationship with her father, and illuminatingly details her blossoming friendship and, perhaps, romance with Peter van Pels, whose family also resided with the Franks in the secret annexe. Her relationship with her mother Edith was more strained, although she later expressed disgust at her earlier contempt for Edith. Anne's relationship with Margot also became gradually closer as the two became older. In this diary, Anne wrote regularly until the family were arrested in August 1944.

Who exactly betrayed those hiding is controversial, and will probably never be known for certain. They were all eventually taken to Auschwitz, separated from one another; Anne, by virtue of just turning 15 in June, escaped being gassed. In October, Anne, her sister and Auguste van Pels were transported to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany. In March 1945, both Anne and Margot died from a typhus epidemic which decimated the camp, killing some 17,000 prisoners.

Anne's story, expressed in her diary, is famous the world over. We need not concern ourselves with the outrageous allegations made by some that the diary is fake, a forgery. Eloquently, beautifully written, the reader is haunted throughout by the knowledge of the writer's horrific fate which she could never have realised. Read as a historical source as well as an incredibly moving book, The Diary of a Young Girl reminds us all of the darkness and evil possible in human nature, and how quickly dislike, contempt and racism can manifest itself in violence, brutality, and murder. One can only pray that such horrific events never take place again - but sadly, they are taking place, every day.

"Willing Executioners" - do the German people have a history of persecution which renders them different to other nationalities?

Two famous authors in their respective fields, Daniel J. Goldhagen and Anne L. Barstow, have suggested in their works that the German people have a long history of persecution which in some way renders them unique amongst other nationalities. Leading to accusations of racism or xenophobia, both have maintained that German persecution was fundamentally unique in its evil. Yet is this the case? This article will consider both the merits and flaws of the examples given in these works in order to deduce whether their claims can be supported. These two case studies will be considered in debating this disturbing question.

Barstow is a historian specialising in European witchcraft and is notorious in academia for her pro-feminist perspective. Indeed, some have suggested that she takes it to the extremes and her claims can therefore be said to be nonsensical. Her book "Witchcraze: A New History of the European Witch Hunts" is, however, harrowing in the details it provides of the tragic mass persecutions of thousands of 'witches' - mostly women - across Europe, ranging from Scotland to France to eastern Europe to the German lands. Perhaps the most graphic case study, gruesomely described, is that of the Pappenheimer family in 1600. A brief overview of this case will be given before deciding whether the Germans really were unique in their persecution, in this case of witchcraft.

This family, in 1600, were dwelling in Bavaria, Germany. The Pappenheimer family were amongst the lowest in the social system prevalent in Bavaria at  this time, and even today their name can be used as a nickname for a garbage man. Paulus was the father, and was married to Anna, who was in her fifties in 1600. They had three sons, Jacob, Gumpprecht and Hoel/Hansel, who was only ten at this time. The family's occupation was that of beggars. They thus attracted hostility and contempt from their neighbours. Undoubtedly, however, this family was not only targeted because of its low social status but because they were Lutherans in a Catholic duchy; as in Europe during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Germany was ravaged by religious hostility, often leading to widespread bloodshed and execution which accelerated in the witch-hunts. Not by coincidence was the persecution of witchcraft most severe in German lands, largely because of religious upheaval.

Selected by a thief, the family were accused of witchcraft. On the order of the Duke, Maximilian I, who ruled Bavaria, the Pappenheimers were taken to Munich and tortured into confessing to everything they were accused of. Contemporaries, in the words of Michael Kunze, identified this family as "instruments of the devil", probably because of both their contemptible social status and heretical religious beliefs. Indeed, Kunze suggests that "Duke Maximilian certainly regarded the execution as a means to stabilize safety in his country", through rooting out heresy which divided his people. The family confessed to hundreds of crimes, including theft and murder, although the severe torture meted out to them certainly means that we cannot treat their confessions as true or honest. They also admitted to sorcery and named accomplices.

Barstow records, in excruciating detail, the events which followed this. Readers should bear in mind that the executions took place in public, following ceremonial processions attended by hundreds of people:

"They were stripped so that their flesh could be torn off by red-hot pincers. Then Anna's breasts were cut off. The bloody breasts were forced into her mouth and then into the mouths of her two grown sons... a hideous parody of her  role as mother and nurse...
Church bells pealed to celebrate this triumph of Christianity over Satan; the crowd sang hymns; vendors hawked pamphlets describing the sins of the victims...
Meanwhile, Anna's chest cavity bled. As the carts lurched along, the injured prisoners were in agony. Nonetheless, they were forced at one point to get down from the carts and kneel before a cross, to confess their sins. Then they were offered wine to drink, a strangely humane act in the midst of this barbaric ritual.
One can hope that between the wine and loss of blood, the Pappenheimers were losing consciousness. They had not been granted the 'privilege' of being strangled before being burned, but in keeping with the extreme brutality of these proceedings, they would be forced to endure the very flames.
Further torments awaited Paulus. A heavy iron wheel was dropped on his arms until the bones snapped... Paulus was impaled with a stick driven up through his anus...
The four Pappenheimers were then tied to the stakes, the brushwood pyres were set aflame, and they were burned to death. Their eleven-year-old son was forced to watch the dying agonies of his parents and brothers. We know that Anna was still alive when the flames leapt up around her, for Hansel cried out, 'My mother is squirming!' The boy was executed months later".

This horrific case study can only be viewed as exceptional in the European witch hunts in the period 1550-1750. Undoubtedly, they were most severe in German-speaking lands, as other scholars have identified, and exemplified by infamous persecutions in Trier, Wurzburg and Bamberg. Barstow takes this trial as evidence of the gender-orientated nature of the witch-hunts, sadistically torturing and murdering women in ways which reflected both the perpetrator's sexual longings and fear, even hatred, of women. Yet does this provide evidence that the Germans are a nation who persecute others more violently and cruelly in times of crisis - ie. social problems, economic unrest and religious upheaval in the 1600s - than other nations?

If Daniel J. Goldhagen is to be believed, then yes. Obviously, the two historians focus on significantly different periods; Barstow witch persecutions in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Goldhagen the extermination of the Jews during World War Two. Yet both scholars indicate that Germans are exceptional in their desire to persecute others. This is demonstrated graphically in Goldhagen's notorious book, "Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust", published in 1996.

For those who are not aware of Goldhagen's thesis, he suggests that ordinary German people turned against their Jewish neighbours during the Nazi dictatorship out of underlying anti-Semitism and hatred towards Jews, acting in conjunction with a bloodthirsty desire to exact brutal and sadistic revenge on what they deemed 'inferiors'. Not only, in Goldhagen's eyes, were 'Germans' anti-Semitic beliefs about Jews... the central causal agent of the Holocaust', but 'ideas about Jews that were pervasive in Germany... induced ordinary Germans to kill unarmed, defenseless Jewish men, women, and children by the thousands, systematically and without pity'.

However, as Carr warns us, 'study the historian before you study the facts'. This wise quote should be considered in relation to both Goldhagen and Barstow. Goldhagen is not only Jewish, but is the son of a Holocaust survivor. Without wishing to sound disrespectful or make it simplistic, this will obviously colour his interpretation of the tragic events in the period 1939-1945. Barstow, on the other hand, is a renowned feminist, who seeks to approach the witch-hunts from a gendered approach. In concentrating on a notorious German trial, this allows her to convey the alarming way in which men tortured and murdered women during these persecutions. Yet as other scholars have warned, we cannot look at events in a 'keyhole', obscuring both context and other factors. Yes, as Goldhagen suggests, there was significant anti-Semitism prevalent in Germany, but so was there also in other countries such as France, the Iberian Peninsula and Eastern Europe. In relation to Barstow, it cannot be ignored that in some countries, such as Russia and Iceland, more men than women were actually tortured and killed for witchcraft, and far from torture reflecting the punishers' sadistic desire to exact violence and torture in a sexual means upon women, men were brutally tortured in this way too. In Russia, a favourite torture was to apply pincers to the scrotum.

As with the above, a case study which Goldhagen uses to support his argument will be cited, and then considered. The Police Battalion 309, some days after Operation Barbarossa began, 'ignited a portentous, symbolic fiery inferno in the city of Bialystok' against that destination's Jews. Like Barstow, Goldhagen conveys in gruesome details the events:

"...the Germans packed the large synagogue full. The fearful Jews began to chant and pray loudly. After spreading gasoline around the building, the Germans set it ablaze: one of the men tossed an explosive through a window, to ignite the holocaust. The Jews' prayers turned into screams...
Between 100 and 150 men of the battalion surrounded the burning synagogue. They collectively ensured that none of the appointed Jews escaped the inferno. They watched as over seven hundred people died this hideous and painful death, listening to screams of agony. Most of the victims were men, though some women and children were among them.
Not surprisingly, some of the Jews within spared themselves the fiery death by hanging themselves or severing their arteries. At least six Jews came running out of the synagogue, their clothes and bodies aflame. The Germans shot each one down, only to watch these human torches burn themselves out".

Goldhagen concludes by remarking:

"The inescapable truth is that, regarding Jews, German political culture had evolved to the point where an enormous number of ordinary, representative Germans became - and most of the rest of their fellow Germans were fit to be - Hitler's willing executioners".

This case study is chilling, harrowing, in its detail. Both Goldhagen and Barstow, it has to be said, employ dramatic, harrowing, gruesome language to support their views that Germans willingly sought scapegoats for the evils befalling their society, albeit in very different circumstances and time periods. Yet both academics have been heavily criticised for their interpretations. Barstow's critics denounce her arguments, suggesting that she uses evidence in a very selective way to build up a narrow, one-dimensional argument, while Goldhagen's opponents similarly critique his inability to recognise that other European populations acted in similar ways to the Germans. Anti-Semitism, for instance, was widespread in Eastern Europe - where it still is - while Browning has provided evidence of Luxembourgers' complicity in willingly killing Jews. As other historians remark in relation to genocides, if there are 'ordinary Germans', there are also 'ordinary Croats', 'ordinary Hutus', 'ordinary Turks', etc.

In relation to Barstow's book, she herself provides evidence of barbaric cruelty visited by one people against another in times of crisis, for instance in referring to the victorious Spaniards' widespread violence and sadistic cruelty inflicted upon native Indians. This included feeding living people to dogs, burning them alive, and randomly decapitating body parts at will. It was very rare for condemned witches to be burned alive at the stake; often, they were strangled beforehand, and this occurred in other German lands, so the Pappenheimer trial has to be seen as exceptional amongst others. The persecution of witches in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was an European-wide phenomenon, with unbelievable cruelty inflicted upon the condemned. To suggest that it was worst in Germany because of the German people's history of persecution against 'the Other' is wildly erroneous. A more balanced argument would suggest that Germany experienced the worst witchcrazes because religious division was greatest there than anywhere else. Geography and social/economic factors were undoubtedly central too. Other countries were not far behind Germany in the numbers of witches persecuted, including Scotland and France. Spain was also ready to punish those it deemed deviant harshly, as seen in the infamous 'auto de fe' in the medieval period where condemned heretics were tied to pyres and burned alive in Spanish towns, Spanish citizens celebrating during this fiery event.

Goldhagen's book has been the subject of considerable hostility and academic criticism, which readers can access in a variety of articles. Although German anti-Semitism cannot be doubted, attention must be paid to the extraordinary nature of the Nazi dictatorship, where, as Browning remarks, 'repression was real'. Goldhagen's view attaches little importance to this factor, which understandably leads to a distorted interpretation of life in Germany in the 1940s. Moreover, not all Germans approved of 'The Final Solution' or extreme anti-Semitism. There is evidence to show that 'ordinary Germans' actually voiced pity and sympathy to Jews when they witnessed them on marches.

Persecution, undoubtedly, has been severe in Germany. Tragic events have led some scholars to hypothesise that the German people are characterised by xenophobia, intolerance, hatred and anti-Semitism, willingly and bloodthirstily participating in the violent torture and execution of enemies. However, this cannot with any validity really be substantiated. The Pappenheimer case study was extreme, and although other witch-hunts in Germany, such as Trier, were horrific in the violence involved and the widespread torture and execution of many victims, it is erroneous to imply that this was worst in Germany because of its citizens' inner traits, since other nations endured similarly horrific witch-hunts. Anti-Semitism, similarly, was rife in Germany in the twentieth century, yet many supported the Nazi regime not necessarily out of hatred of Jews and a desire to violently murder the Jewish race. Many were not aware of the nature of the 'Final Solution' and some who were readily disapproved of it.

Unfortunately, almost all nations have a history of persecution, hatred and hostility to those it deems enemies. In moments of crisis, this underlying hostility is brought to the fore in a desperate attempt to restore 'normal' conditions. Germany is a tragic example of just how horrific this desire to achieve stability can be.