Shoah

The term Shoah (Hebrew: השואה ) indicates the extermination by the Nazi Germany of the three quarters of the Juif S of the occupied Europe, that is to say two thirds of the Jewish Population European total and approximately 40% of the Jews of the world, during the Second world war — what represents between five and six million Victime S according to the estimates of the historians. This Génocide of the Jews constituted for the Nazi S “the Final solution with the Jewish question” ( die Endlösung der Judenfrage ).

The extermination of the Jewish S, main target of the Nazi S, was perpetrated by the hunger in the Ghettos of Poland and the occupied USSR, by the mobile units of slaughter of the Einsatzgruppen on the face of the East, by means of the extermination by the forced labor in the Concentration camps, and in the Gas chambers of the camps of dead the.

The horror of this “crime of mass”, led, post-war period, with the development of the legal concept of “Crime against humanity” and of “Génocide”, used subsequently in other contexts (Armenian genocide, Génocide of Tutsi, etc).

The extermination of the Jewish people during the second world war is characterized by its industrial, bureaucratic and systematic character and remains single at present by its number of victims. Paroxysm of a latent European anti-semitism, it is also a genocide characterized by the tracking and the radical elimination of part of the European Jewish population not representing any military or political threat for the torturers.

The Third Reich, which claimed to last thousand years, also exterminated masses of them the Tzigane S ( Porajmos ), the homosexual German, the mental Handicapé S (much of Master-of works " Euthanasia " being then assigned to the massive gazage of the Jews). He assassinated in his prisons and his Concentration camps the Témoins of Jéhovah, the Franc-maçons, the Esperanto phons, the dissidents political and the resistant of all Europe in general, in particular the Communistes.

The term “Shoah”, nevertheless, refers more particularly to the Génocide of the Juif S, and to its radical specificity, amply established by the historiography and integrated by the contemporary conscience since its redécouverte in the Années 1970.

Origin of the word Shoah

Shoah is a Hebrew word which means “cataclysm”, “catastrophe”. One in general prefers it with “unsuitable Holocauste”, although spread, because very connoted religieusement this one meaning in the Bible “sacrifice in the honor of God”, not letting remain no trace of the victim.

Elie Wiesel disputes it as much as “holocaust” even if it also employs it. In its discussions with Michael de Saint Cheron, in 1988, it says to prefer the term hourban to him, which, in the literature bearing Yiddish on the event, also means “destruction” and refers to that of the Temple. By their origin, these three terms underline the Jewish specificity of the event.

Shoah is a Génocide, term initially formed in 1944 by the lawyer Raphaël Lemkin in order to indicate the extermination of the Jews of Europe. The term of “ judéocide ” is also employed, in particular by the historian Arno J. Mayer in the Final solution in the history .

Shoah is also the title of a Documentary film nine hours thirty carried out in 1985 by Claude Lanzmann and bearing on Shoah. Composed of testimonys, this film is free from any document of files. It evokes the events with a verbal precision relentless and watch also the always long-lived topicality of the danger anti-semite. It is this film which imposed in French the use of the name Shoah after the choice of the realizer for the Hebrew word that one found already, for example, in the Hebrew text of the Déclaration of Independence of the State of Israel of 1948. Claude Lanzmann justifies in his film the title in the following way: “If I had been able not to name this film, I would have done it. There how could it have had a name to name an event without precedent in the history? I said “the thing”. They are rabbis who found the name of Shoah. But that wants to say destruction, cataclysm, natural disaster. Shoah, it is a Hebrew word which I did not hear, that I do not include/understand. It is a short word, infracassable. An opaque word that nobody will include/understand. An act of radical nomination. A name which passed in the language, except in the United States. ”

Shoah like process

Analysis of Raul Hilberg

In the Destruction of the Jews of Europe , Raul Hilberg analyzes Shoah like a process, whose stages are the definition of the Jews, their expropriation, their concentration, and finally their destruction. The first stage is codified by the laws known as of Nuremberg, in 1935, which themselves came after series of measure discriminatory catches starting from 1933. The Juifs are defined by the legislation Nazi according to the religion of their ascending and their own confession. Any person having three or four Jewish grandparents is regarded as Jewish. A person having two Jewish grandparents is also considered as Jewish if it is itself of religion Jew, or if it is married with a person of this confession. If such is not the case, where if the person has one Jewish grandparent, it is arranged in a specific category, the Mischlinge, who is the subject of discriminations, but not as hard as those undergone by the Jews and which, in general, is not concerned thereafter process of destruction.

Expropriation takes the form of very strong incentives on the Jews to sell the large companies which they have (Aryanisation), then, starting from 1938, of legally forced sales. This process is then employed by certain satellites of Germany, like the France of Vichy.

Concentration of the Jews of Reich, of Poland, then occupied territories in the USSR was done starting from 1938, in Ghettos.

The extermination is decided in the current of the year 1941. Undoubtedly towards the end of the summer, Adolf Eichmann is convened in the office of Reinhard Heydrich, which says to him: “I leave to Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler; Führer Adolf Hitler now ordered the physical extermination of the Jews. ”

For Mr. Hilberg, Shoah is a crime of bureaucrats, who pass from one stage to the other, thoroughly, logically, but without preestablished plan. This analysis was approved by the other specialists in Shoah, but the moment when the exterminating intention appears is the subject of debates.

Genesis of the decision

In the Years 1980 especially, the discussion opposed intentionnalists and functionalist. For the first, the intention to exterminate the Jews of Europe preceded the declaration of war. It is the case, in particular, of Leon Poliakov, Saul Friedländer, Eberhard Jäckel, Lucy S. Dawidowicz, or of Daniel Jonah Goldhagen. They are pressed on several texts of Hitler, in particular of the letters of 1919 and 1920, of the passages of Mein Kampf , or the speech of January 30th, 1939, according to which a new world war would lead to “the destruction of the Jewish race in Europe”.

In opposition to this thesis, several historians, in particular Martin Broszat, Arno J. Mayer and Philippe Burrin, think that the Nazis had not chosen the Final solution before 1941. The extreme anti-semitism of the Nazis is, according to this thesis, the requirement of Shoah rather than its direct cause. The Nazis would have decided to exterminate only after the invasion of Poland and the USSR placed considerable masses of Jews under their authority, and after an emulation within the “Polycratie Nazi” (Martin Broszat).

In the Years 1990 and 2000, other historians, such Ian Kershaw, tried to exceed this debate.

In any event, the extermination itself was done according to two principal methods: in the east of the German borders, the Jews were killed on the spot, in ghettos or by mobile units of slaughter; in the south and the west, they were off-set towards centers of setting to death, the death camps.

Extermination of the Jews of Eastern Europe

Ghettos

After the German invasion of the Poland, the Jews of this country are constrained food in closed districts, the Ghetto S. the living conditions are definitely harder there than in the ghettos of Reich, for three reasons. Initially, the persons in charge of the concentration of the Jews in Poland are, often, of the members of NSDAP, and not, as in Germany, of the civils servant without affiliation partisane. Then, the Jewish Poles represent what there is more méprisable in mythology Nazi, and are persecuted as of before the war. Lastly, the Jews were much more numerous numerically and proportionally, in Poland (3,3 million, including two million in the German zone, on 33 million inhabitants in all the country) that in Germany. The Jews of Old Reich (borders of 1937) are also off-set towards the ghettos of Poland, starting from 1940.

The first ghettos are built in the part of Poland incorporated in Reich, during the winter 1939-1940, then in the general Government, left Poland managed by Hans Frank. The ghettoisation is completed essentially during the year 1941, and completely finished in 1942.

Inside even of the ghetto, the movements of the Jews are limited: they must on their premises remain seven hours of the evening at seven o'clock in the morning. The external monitoring is ensured by the regular Police force, and the interior monitoring by the Police force of safety (Gestapo and Kripo), itself reinforced by the regular Police force, at the request of the latter.

As of on October 26th, 1939, the principle of the forced labor for the Jews of Poland adopted east. The Jews are decimated by the Malnutrition, the epidemic S - in particular of Typhus, of Tuberculose, Grippe -, and consecutive tiredness with work that impose to them the German authorities. For example, the ghetto of Lodz, which counts: 200,000 inhabitants in the beginning, counts more: 45,000 dead until August 1944.

As from December 1941, the survivors of the ghettos are off-set towards the centers of setting to death. The first are the Jews of the Wartheland, sent to Chelmno. In March 1942, those of Lublin are sent to Belzec. As from July, the ghetto of Warsaw starts to be emptied.

Mobile units of slaughter

Extermination of the Jews of Western and Balkan Europe

The process of deportation

November 29th, 1941, Reinhard Heydrich convenes several Staatssekretäre and head clerks S with Wannsee, suburb of Berlin. The meeting is planned for on December 9th, then deferred to January 20th, 1942, because of the Japanese attack against Pearl Harbor. The rapporteur is Adolf Eichmann. Heydrich draws a statistical picture of the Jews of Europe, including those alive in neutral countries (Ireland, Sweden, Suisse Turkey) and with the the United Kingdom. He announces then that the Jews of Western Europe must be off-set in Poland, then organized in columns of work. A part will be eliminated quite naturally by its state from physical deficiency and the remainder will have to be treaty consequently .

Two German administrations ensure the deportation of the Jews of Western Europe towards the centers of setting dead: office IV-B-4 of RSHA, directed by Adolf Eichmann, and the ministry for Transport. Eichmann and its collaborators deal with the whole of the process in Reich, protectorate of Bohemia-Moravie and in Poland. In the satellite countries and the occupied territories, Eichmann sends “experts for the Jewish businesses”, near the embassies or chiefs of the S and the police force.

As of the first deportations, in spring 1942, and until the interruption of the Final solution by Himmler, in November 1944, the convoys of Jews have priority, on the same basis, if it is not more still, military convoys.

Deportations since Germany and the occupied territories

The Jews of Reich are the first with being off-set. Only the Jews of the mixed marriages and the majority of the Mischlinge escape transport towards the camps: the deportation of the first would risk, by the caused scandal, to compromise the deportation of the others, largely majority; as for the seconds, the Nazis do not manage to agree to arrange them in the same category as the Jews.

In Poland: 2,200,000 Jews are still alive at the winter 1941-1942. The majority are sent towards the camps of Chelmno, Treblinka, Sobibor, Belzec and Auschwitz. Neither the Jews of the mixed marriages, neither the war veterans, nor even Mischlinge are saved; the capital punishment is planned for the Poles who would be surprised to block the process of deportation or with hiding Jews. In Galicie, the Jews are destroyed by deportation, but also by shooting, in particular of the weakest people.

With the Netherlands, the Jews are taken in a trap. In the east, Reich is, in the south, the Belgium are administration military, and in the west, the sea. The country, densément populated, offers few possibilities of hiding, and the majority of the Jewish Netherlanders are townsmen. The German civil administration shows a zeal very particular to off-set the Jews, under the impulse of Reichskommissar Seyss-Inquart, which makes adopt, as of on October 22nd, 1940, a statute of the Jews identical to that established by the laws of Nuremberg, then made carry out quickly the aryanisations and the concentration of the Jews, at least those of Amsterdam. If the Dutch government leaves in exile at the time the invasion, it leaves general secretaries. Those, without hiding their reserve but without adopting a policy of obstruction, yield with the requirements of the occupant and make take part the police force Dutchwoman in the arrest of the Jews. On the whole, more than one hundred thousand of them are off-set (majority towards Auschwitz and Sobibor) and a little more than four thousand survive. In addition, two thousand Jews died in the camps of transit of Vught and Westerbok. A general strike bursts in February 1941 to protest against the legislation anti-semite, but this one is quickly subdued. Thereafter, no spectacular action is undertaken in favor of the Jews. Resistance Dutchwoman however takes several actions in hiding.

The Luxembourg quasi is annexed and entrusted to the Gauleiter Simon. This one made apply the statute of Nuremberg, aryanise and concentrates the Jews with almost as much celerity than Seyss-Inquart. This aggressive policy makes flee the majority of the Jews. On approximately: 3,100 Jews present in 1940, only 800 are still present in July 1941. They are off-set as of October, initially towards the ghetto of Lodz (there does not exist yet of center of setting to dead), then towards that of Lublin, and the others with Auschwitz.

It is also with celerity that the Jews of Belgium are identified and expropriés. : 25,000 of them are off-set towards Auschwitz. More: 40,000 are hidden by Belgian families, or flee towards the France.

The Greece is divided between Germany, the Italy and the Bulgaria, its allied. The policy anti-semite starts to prevail there on July 13rd, 1942, when six to seven thousand Jews, old of eighteen at forty-eight years, are compelled with the forced labor, under particularly painful conditions (marshes infested by Moustiques, mines of Chrome), from where a death rate of 12%. Part of the other Jews flees towards the Italian zone, where the authorities categorically refuse to assist the Germans in their persecution anti-semite. In January 1943, the right-hand man of Eichmann, Günther, goes personally on the spot to organize the deportations, which take place from February to August. They concern: 46,000 Jews (on: 55,000), of which: 45,000 are sent to Auschwitz and the others (foreign or particularly useful for industry) with Bergen-Belsen. In October, the collapse of the mode of Benito Mussolini deprives the Jews residing in Italian zone of their protection. A quizaine of thousands of others are off-set in 1944, by counting those of Rhodos. As of the 3 of this month, the general S Jürgen Stroop pormulgue a legislation anti-semite for the whole of Greece. Any Jew which would not come to be made count before the 8 would be shot, and any Greek who would help a Jew would undergo the same fate.

In Norway, the Nazis and the puppet government of Vidkun Quisling encounter a savage resistance, as well against the occupation of the country as against the deportation of the Jews, for the majority of Norwegian nationality and perfectly comparable. On approximately: 1,800 Jews living in the country into 1939,930 escape the deportation while fleeing towards Sweden, which accommodates them readily and takes even several steps to save a maximum of it. Approximately 800 Jews are off-set, in great majority towards Auschwitz, the others worms of the Concentration camps. The others survive while hiding.

Resistance is even more effective with the Denmark, in particular because the occupant allows the Danes to keep, until 1943, a self government and stripped of any sympathy to the Nazism or an arbitrary form of dictatorship. In the night of 1st at October 2nd, 1943, the German police force tries rafler, in once, the six thousand Jews living in the country. She manages to stop only 477, the others of them being hidden by their compatriots, then forwarded to Sweden. A few tens of additional Jews are stopped before arriving in this neutral country. The majority of the off-set Jews are sent to Theresienstadt, and not in a center of setting to death. Fifty died, of natural death.

Deportation in the satellite countries

Co-operative satellites

In Slovakia, the mode of M gr. Jozef Tiso chooses collaboration resolutely, including as regards anti-semitism, which is worth to him to be classified by Raul Hilberg like one of satellites par excellence , as well as Croatia of the Oustachis (see below the particular case of this territory). Whereas Slovakia was yet only autonomous, a commission preached a statute of the Jews, applied after independence (April 1939). As of August 1940, the Slovak government creates the central Office of the economy which, as opposed to what its name seems to indicate, deals only with the policy anti-semite, and not only in the economic domain. But the Germans are not entirely satisfied, because this mode, fascist and catholic at the same time, persecutes “only” the people of confession Jews, Mischlinge free-thinkers and the people converted after October 30th, 1918. In September 1941, the Jewish Code , which does not count less than three hundred articles, redesigns the legislation anti-semite, with a definition of the Jew even harder than that of the laws Nazis. The aryanisations and the exclusion of the Jews of the liberal professions follows this code, but with certain difficulties due to the local situation (for example, the majority of the doctors exerting into 1939 are Jews). Marking and the concentration are undertaken without zeal, but without unwillingness either. The initiative of the deportation returns, not with the Nazis, but with the leaders Slovak, concerned to get rid as fast as possible of the Jews, in the only condition which the evacuations proceed under conditions relatively acceptable for the episcopate. The law of deportation of May 1942 exempts the people converted before March 1939. Moreover, the catholic clerks do not express particular will to save the Jews, and even refuse to grant baptisms of kindness. After the collapse of the Slovak State, at the summer 1944, the deportations accelerate. On the whole: 70,000 Jews are off-set, of which: 65,000 died in the camps.

In France, the situation is a little more complex. North, is and the Atlantic littoral are subjected to a mode of military administration comparable with that of Belgium. The south is, until November 1942, within the only competence of the Régime of Vichy. This one adopts a policy autonomous anti-semite, since 1940, with the first (October 1940) then the second (June 1941) statute of the Jews. Its goal is initially the emigration of a maximum of Jews. In spring 1942, the policy hardens. Louis Darquier de Pellepoix, related to the Nazis since the end of the year 1930, succeeds Xavier Vallat as general police chief with the Jewish Questions. Pierre Laval, very favorable to collaboration, succeeds the admiral Darlan, less enthusiastic collaborator. In February, the general Otto von Stülpnagel, opposed to the policy of the hostages and reprisals (which aims the Jews particularly) is replaced. Especially, the police operations pass from the military command to RSHA and the S, under the authority of Carl Albrecht Oberg. The first convoy of Jews leaves on March 27th, 1942 Drancy, for Auschwtiz. July 4th, the Vichy government informs the Parisian Gestapo that it “subscribes to the deportation, to start, of all the Jews stateless people of the occupied and nonoccupied zones”. The French police force takes part in the raids, which extend quickly to the Jews from French nationality. The only refusal expressed by Vichy relates to the denaturalisation of the Jews of French nationality.

Nonco-operative satellites

In Italy, the small Jewish community was perfectly comparable. On fifty thousand Jews, ten thousand are registered with the fascistic national Parti with the beginning of the year 1930. However, the mode mussolinien obtains a legislation anti-semite, with the laws of 1938 and 1939. For as much, he refuses to off-set his Jews, and the Italian troops, in France and Greece, are opposed to any deportation. The inversion of Mussolini and the German invasion transform the ally into marionette. The RSHA from now on is determined to catch up with wasted time. On the whole: 7,500 Jews of Italy are off-set towards Auschwitz. 800 survive.

Hungary of the rear-admiral Miklos Horthy obtains a legislation anti-semite as of the end of the year 1930, with the laws of 1938 and 1939, of inspiration more catholic than Nazi. The law of 1941, on the other hand, redefines the Jew in terms similar, if not harder, than the laws of Nuremberg. : 17,000 Jews stateless people are shot or off-set in the annexed Ruthénie, in August 1941. But for as much, the mode of Horthy does not intend to even off-set the Jews of Hungary, in spite of the pressures of Berlin. It is only in March 1944, when the German troops invade the country and imposes a government pronazi, that the deportation becomes possible. Although the war is obviously lost and that nobody, so much among the future victims than among the witnesses, is not made an illusion on the fate of the deportees, the Jews are forwarded to Auschwitz. The Nazis do not have time to off-set the majority of the Jews of Budapest, but those undergo appalling living conditions in the ghetto, until the release of the city.

The Bulgaria adopts a legislation anti-semite as from November 1940, on religious criteria rather than racial. It agrees to off-set only the Jews of the territories conquered during the war, and not those which live in the borders of 1939. Those are however despoiled of part of their goods and, often, constrained with the forced labor. August 30th, 1944, few before the arrival Soviet troops, the whole of the legislation anti-semite are repealed.

In June 1941, the Finland is combined in Germany against the the USSR. But it is not occupied by the German troops, and refuses to off-set its two thousand Jews, although Heinrich Himmler comes personally to Helsinki to require of the Finnish government to rectify its position.

Camps

In 1940, Oswald Pohl creates an autonomous office in the apparatus S, the Hauptamt Haushalt und Bauten and the Hauptamt Verwaltung und Wirtschaft (central Office of administration and economy). It gathers these two organizations in February 1942, under the name of Wirtschafts-Verwaltunghauptamt (WVHA, economic and administrative central Office). The next month, Pohl integrates the general inspection of the camps in the WVHA.

Close to 6 000 Death camps, concentration or work were installed in Poland in September 1939, that is to say half of the camps scattered through the Europe under the cut of the Germany Nazi E. On 7,5 million people locked up in these camps in Polish territory, approximately 6,7 million perished in Gas chambers or died of exhaustion, of Faim, Maladie S, work exténuant, Torture S and brutalities, according to the Polish sources.

According to Edwin Black, the quiet use of the Technology of the Data processing and Perforated cards Hollerith by the Dehomag largely facilitated these exterminations.

In 2005, a ceremony was organized for the sixtieth birthday of the release of the camps in the presence of the last survivors and many personalities of the whole world.

Centers of setting to death

The centers of setting to dead (usually called death camps ) are the clearest demonstration of the originality of Shoah. They are the only example, in the human history, of installations entirely dedicated to the murder “with the chain”.

The first center of setting to death is that of Kulmhof, or Chełmno, built in December 1941 on Polish Ner, located in the center. It functioned until in 1943 and of 1944 with 1945. Chełmno represents a transition between the mobile operations from gazages, by the Einsatzgruppen (see above) and the troops of Serbia (see below): the installation of assassination is fixed, but they are still trucks with gas. Among the victims, the Jews of the Ghetto of Łódź, distant of 70 kilometers. Followed as of 1942 those of Belzec and Sobibor, in the east of the Poland, at the Ukrainian border of today. The exterminating activity ceases in September 1942, and begins again during the months of July and August 1944. On the whole, more: 150,000 Jews (Polish of the Wartheland, German deportees with the ghetto of Lodz) perished.

The site of Belzec is selected in October 1941. The camp is built of November 1941 in February 1942. On the whole: 434,508 Jews are assassinated there, primarily by gazage with the Carbon monoxide, according to the estimates of Raul Hilgerg - a little less: 600,000, according to Lucy S. Dawidowciz. The victims are primarily Polish and German Jews, come from Galicie, Cracow and Lublin.

The center of Sobibor is built in March - April 1942. The Nazis exterminate more: 150,000 Jews, of April in June 1942, then of October 1942 in October 1943. The victims are off-set since Lublin, the Netherlands, the Slovakia, Bohemia-Moravie (“protectorate” of Reich), and a small portion since the France, of which the storyteller and psychologist for children Janusz Korczak and Lydia Zamenhof, the girl of L.L. Zamenhof, the inventor of the international language Esperanto, died in Treblinka towards the end of the summer 1942.

Auschwitz-Birkenau where the Nazi S exterminated between a million and a million and half of people, as a large majority of the Juif S of Europe, is most important of the Nazi camps. It is at the same time a concentration camp and a center of setting to death.

The camp of Majdanek was created contiguous to the town of Lublin, in this province considered as the heart of the great Jewish communities of Poland. According to the Polish Commission of the war crimes: 125,000 Jews are gauzes there for the working life of the camp

Concentration camps

As from the winter 1941-1942, only a small minority of the Jews are off-set towards the Concentration camps strictly speaking. Approximately: 150,000 died in the camps of Bergen-Belsen, Buchenwald, Stutthof and others.

Three particular cases

The Serbia

Subjected to the German military authority, Serbia knows Shoah according to particular methods. The various German persons in charge (S, Wermacht) of this territory put a zeal very particular to physically eliminate the Jews - and the Gypsies - present on the territory which they manage. The definition and the concentration of the Jews are carried out in a few months. The general Franz Böhme makes carry out by shooting the whole of the Jews and the Gypsies of male sex, between the autumn 1941 and spring 1942, reproducing the orders given to the Einsatzgruppen . The women and the children are raids and internees in camps in November and December 1941. They all are assassinated by gazage with the Carbon monoxide between January and May 1942.

In August 1942, the chief of administrative staff in Serbia writes a note for his new superior, mentioning this in particular:

Serbia, only country where Jewish question and solved gypsy question. ( Serbien einziges Land in dem Judenfrage und Zigeunerfrage gelöst. )

The sixteen thousand Jews of Serbia were destroyed until the last.

If the speed and the relative originality of the destruction of the Jews of Serbia are due on the initiative of the local officers, the leaders Nazis of did not block anything their action, quite to the contrary: the idea to shoot Jewish men is suggested in first by Adolf Eichmann, and the truck of gazage is provided by the authorities of Berlin.

The Croatia

The Romania

Member of the Axis, Romania of the Antonescu dictator responsible for died for approximately: 200,000 Jews, which turns into to Rumanian collaborators the most important participants of Shoah after the Nazis and in front of Oustachis Croatian.

Romania sheltered pre-war period the third Jewish community of Europe, according to the census of December 1930. A tradition anti-semite was firmly established there: Romania was the last country with émanciper its Jews, in 1919. In December 1937, a government pronazi is formed, under the direction of Octavian Goga, and deprives: 120,000 Jewish Roumanians of their nationality. The Goga government is reversed a little later but its successors continue the policy anti-semite, excluding the Jews from the ways iron, imposing of the quotas in industrial labor and revoking part of the civils servant of Jew confession.

In February 1941, the fascists of the Garde of Iron perpetrate a pogrom strapping in Bucharest. 118 dead is identified. The corpses are atrociously mutilated.

After the invasion of the USSR, the Rumanian army, allied of Wehrmacht, takes an active part in the massive massacre of the Jews in reconquered Bessarabia, Ukraine and in Odessa. Thus, as of on June 25th, 1941, the Rumanian army assassinates: 7,000 Jews with Iassy.

Particular case in Europe of the genocide, it is a whole territory, Transnistrie, which is transformed into territory of extermination. : 217,757 Jews die there, of which: 130,000 of Soviet nationality and: 87,757 Roumanians. : 139,957 of the victims killed by Roumanians.

On the other hand, the Jews living in the borders of 1940 neither were shot nor off-set. The Rumanian government initially thinks of off-setting them, but gives up it then abruptly.

Quantified assessments of the victims

When at the end of its work the destruction of the Jews of Europe , Raul Hilberg tries to quantify the victims overall, it raises that the figures are divided into three categories:

consecutive Deaths with the deprivations, in particular, hunger and the disease in the ghettos.
Died by shootings.
consecutive Deaths with the deportations towards the death camps.

The estimates come from reports/ratios emanating in particular of the German services, the satellite authorities and the Jewish councils. They were then refined thanks to the comparisons between the statistics of pre-war period and those of Après-guerre. Hilberg endeavors to make corrections to take into account only the Jews victims of Shoah and to draw aside those whose death can be charged to the war. This dissociation is often delicate. Thus, when Germany invade the USSR, a million and half of Jews leave their residence, as well as a more significant number of not-Jews among whom mortality is higher than the normal. Another problem in the estimate of the number of victims is due to the fact that 70% of the victims come from the Poland and the USSR and that the borders of these two countries do not cease evolving/moving throughout the war so that the statistics of the bureaucracy Nazi often refer to territories whose fontières are moving.

In short, the width of the genocide itself, the circumstances of persecution and the war, the ambiguity even of the quality of Juif make impossible to quantify the number of victims precisely, even less to categorize them: Hilberg gives finally the estimate of 5,1 million Jewish victims.

Victims by country

According to Raul Hilberg in According to the prewar borders . Some poucentages indicated is drawn from the site of the CCLJ:

Poland: more: 3000000 (8% of survivors)
the USSR: more: 700000
Romania: : 270000
Czechoslovakia: : 260000
Hungary: more: 180000
Lithuania: until: 130000
Germany: : 130000
Netherlands: more: 100000 (25% of survivors)
France: : 75000 (72% of survivors)
Latvia: : 70000
Yugoslavia: : 60000
Greece: : 60000
Austria: more: 50000
Belgium: : 24000
Italy (Rhodos included/understood): : 9000
Estonia: : 1000
Norway: less: 1000
Luxembourg: less: 1000
free City of Dantzig: less: 1000

Total: : 5100000

the table refers at the borders of 1937. The Jews converted with Christianity are included/understood in these figures and the refugees are hoped in the countries from which they were off-set.

According to Robinson Jacob:

Poland and the USSR: : 4,565,000
Germany: : 125,000
Austria: : 65,000
Czechoslovakia (in the borders of 1937): : 277,000
Hungary (in the borders of 1942): : 402,000
France: : 83,000
Belgium: : 24,000
Luxembourg: 700
Italy: : 7,500
Netherlands: : 106,000
Norway: 760
Romania: : 40,000
Yugoslavia: : 60,000
Greece: : 65,000

Total: : 5820960

Victims per year

According to Hilberg

Constitution of Ghetto S and deprivations: more: 800000

Ghettos of Eastern Europe under German occupation: more: 600000
Theresienstadt and deprivations outside the Ghettos: : 100000
Colonies of Transnitrie (Rumanian Jews and Soviet): : 100000

Shootings with open sky: : 1400000
Camps: : 2900000

Death camps created by Germany

Auschwitz: until: 1000000
Treblinka : until: 800000
Belzec : : 434508
Sobibor : more: 150000
Chełmno (Kulmhof): : 150000
Majdanek (Lublin): : 50000
Camps responsible for a few tens of victims or less: : 150000

Camps created by Romania: : 100000
Camps created by Croatia and others: less: 50000

Total: : 5100000 , of which: 2700000 in the Gas chambers.

French victims

According to figures establish by the association of Wire and Filles of the deportees Jewish of France chaired by Serge Klarsfeld and published in 1985

: 75721 Jews, of which close to: 11000 children, were off-set of France of March 1942 in August 1944, the majority towards the camp of Auschwitz.
74 convoys on the whole left in direction the extermination or concentration camps, the first of Compiegne on March 27th, 1942 and the last of Clermont-Ferrand on August 18th, 1944.
Nearly 90% of these: 76000 Jews of France were off-set towards Auschwitz. The 43 convoys off-set in 1942, were it in direction of Auschwitz-Birkenau. In 1943, out of 17 convoys of deportees, 13 were bound for Auschwitz and 4 of Sobibor. In 1944, the 14 convoys were also bound for Auschwitz, except a party for Kaunas and Reval.
: 2566 survivors were entered with the Libération in 1945, that is to say approximately 3% of the deportees.
With: 3000 died in the camps of internment before the deportation and the thousand of executions of Jews, the assessment of the “Final solution” in France reached: 80000 victims.

the nationalities most touched among the off-set Jews of France were the Poles (approximately: 26000), French (: 24000 of which more: 7000 are newborns in France of foreign parents), the Germans (: 7000), Russians (: 4500), Roumanians (: 3300), Austrians (: 2500), Greeks (: 1500), Turks (: 1300), Hungarian (: 1200).

At least 85% of the off-set Jews of France was stopped by the French police force.

Consequences of Shoah

In addition to spoliation, the suffering and the death of million Jews, Shoah marks an historical turning point because it is the occasion of an international awakening bringing several major facts:

the creation of a international court to judge the crimes Nazis, which was used as model with the Tribunal of Tokyo, then of inspiration to the International penal court of $the Hague;
the creation of the concept legal of Crime against humanity, imprescriptible;
a movement of sympathy to the creation of a Jewish State, Israel, with the the Middle East;
the creation of the concept of Genocide, applied a posteriori to former phenomena (Armenian genocide, Genocide of Hereros), then posterior (Genocide of Rwanda, Massacre of Srebrenica, etc). This concept does not appear in the final act of the Procès of Nuremberg, in order to avoid legal criticisms on the non-retroactivity of the criminal laws.

Judgment of the negation of Shoah by UNO

January 23rd, 2007, the General meeting of the United Nations adopted the 61/L.53 resolution condemning the negation of the Holocauste in these terms:

the General meeting, ''

Noting that on January 27th was indicated by the United Nations international Day of commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust,

1. Condemn without reserve any refusal of the Holocaust;

2. Urge all the Member States highly to reject without reserve any refusal of the Holocaust as an historical event, that this refusal is total or partial, or any activity undertaken in this direction .

Files of Shoah

The files of Shoah are preserved in several establishments, in particular:

In Germany, with Bad Arolsen, Potsdam, Coblentz and (since 1996) Berlin. These centers recovered the majority of the preserved documents, until the end of the years 1960, the Public records of the United States.
In the Center of conservation of the historical documents of Moscow.
With the Yiddish Institute for Jewish Research (YIVO) and in Leo Abeck Institute, both benches with New York.
In the files of the Israeli police force (documents produced for the lawsuit of Adolf Eichmann) and with the Institute of Yad Vashem (written documents and oral testimonys of survivors).
With the Information center Jewish contemporary, of Paris (documents Nazis and Jews).

The debates held at the time of the lawsuit of Nuremberg, as well as the documents used on this occasion, were completely reproduced in Procès of the large war criminals in front of the international military Tribunal: Nuremberg, November 14th, 1945 - October 1st, 1946 , work in twenty-five volumes published with Nuremberg of 1947 to 1949 and reprinted in 1993.

Evocation of Shoah in arts

The extent of the atrocity revealed in the world with the release of the camps and during the lawsuit of Nuremberg deeply marks the spirits like one of the most ashamed events of the history of humanity. This feeling of horror will be expressed naturally in the artistic production of the 20th century, initially by the publication of testimonys of victims then by the explicit or metaphorical representation of Shoah.

Literature

A. Appelfeld, the naked Heritage (1994), Olivier, 2006. All the work of this Israeli great writer makes the " caption intime" of a childhood and a life taken in the storm of the " solution finale".
Giorgio Agamben, What remains of Auschwitz
Martin Amis, the arrow of time
Robert Antelme: the mankind , 1957
Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem
Anne Frank, the Newspaper of Anne Frank
Martin Gray, In the name of all mine
Esther Hautzig, infinite steppe
Ruth Klüger, Refusal to testify ( Weiter leben , 1992, transl. of German by Jeanne Etoré), Viviane Hamy, 1997: testimony and reflection of old off-set of Auschwitz. Dispute the assignment to the testimony of the " rescapés". Consequently, in total opposition to the theses of Agamben.
Gerard Larnac, After Shoah - instrumental reason and cruelty , ED. Ellipses, 1997.
Primo Levi, If it is a man : testimony and reflection of a former deportee of Auschwitz
Jonathan Littell, Benevolent the
Robert Blackbird, Death is my trade
Art Spiegelman, Maus : testimony on Shoah in the form of cartoon (price Pulitzer 1992)
William Styron, the Choice of Sophie
Andre Schwarz-Bart, the Last of right the
Frédérick Tristan, extraordinary Funerals of Abraham Radjec , 2000.
Elie Wiesel, Night ( the Night )
Imre Kertész, To be without destiny (" Sorstalanság "), 1997 (Nobel Prize of literature 2002).
Alain Melka , Deaths lives in Auschwitz , 2005

Cinema

the Pianist ( The Pianist , 2002) of Roman Polanski
Amen. (2002) of Costa-Gavras
After Shoah. Instrumental reason and cruelty (1997) of Gerard Larnac
the life is beautiful (1997), of Roberto Benigni

the List of Schindler ( Schindler' S List ) of Steven Spielberg (1993)

Shoah (1985) of Claude Lanzmann

Momentary the ( Pasazerka , 1963) of Andrzej Munk

Nuit and fog of Alain Resnais (1955)

Europa Europa of Agnieszka Holland (1990)

Way of life of Radu Mihaileanu (1998)

Television

Holocaust ( Holocaust , 1978) of Marvin J. Chomsky
Conspiracy (2001) of Frank Pierson
In the name of all mine (1983) of Robert Enrico

Music

In the Airplane over the Sea , of Neutral Milk Hotel (1998)
Night and fog, French song of Jean Ferrat

the small train , Rita Mitsouko

Like you , Jean-Jacques Goldman

The Jewish Genocide of the S and the Philosophy

In addition to the Repercussion S Cultural S, the genocide of the Jews had consequences in the field of the philosophical thought. Thus, Adorno raised the famous question: “How to think after Auschwitz? ”.

The German philosopher Hans Jonas tried to define the Concept of God after Auschwitz . For him, a certainty emerges from the disaster. After Auschwitz, the concept of the divine absolute power must be abandoned. Or then, it would have to be admitted that God wanted or allowed the extermination of the Jews. Thus, the Jewish psychiatrist Henri Baruk does not hesitate to conceive this event according to the biblical tradition, like a negative Théophanie, “the application of the threats of God to Moïse in the event of rupture of the Alliance”. According to Baruk, Marx and Freud, these two dissidents of the Judaïsme that the Bible indicates under the name of “false prophets” are the large persons in charge of this rupture of the Alliance which involves a threat against the existence even of the Jewish people. In a close line, André Néher speaks in connection with the “holocaust” about a “failure about God”.

Contrary to this position, Hanna Arendt demystifies the extermination of any mystical or theophanic dimension in its famous thesis on the banality of the evil. She regards the Nazi S as servants of the crime, simple wheels of an enormous insane and inhuman bureaucratic machinery become.

The philosopher Paul Ricœur developed a philosophy of the memory, defining the Duty to remember like a certain form of injunction to remember events horrible, which takes its direction only by report/ratio “with the difficulty felt by the national community, or wounded parts of the body politic, to make Mémoire these events in an alleviated way”. He raises that there is a slip of the good use to the abuse the “Duty to remember”, when “the duty to return justice, by the memory, with another that oneself”, with the victims with the regard of which we have a debt to pay, sets up in “direction of conscience which proclaims itself spokesperson of the request for justice of the victims” by a kind of “collecting of the dumb word of the Victime S”.

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