DESCRIPTION
: Here for sale is an exceptional ILLUSTRATED ART PORTFOLIO ( book ) regarding the REMNANTS of the POLISH JEWISH
SYNAGOGUES , The Polish - Jewish artist Joseph Cempla has created a CYCLE of 18 drawings in which he documented artisticaly 18 SYNAGOGUES , Most of them
ruined and destructed during the HOLOCAUST and the WW2 . ALL the drawings were
gathered together in a portfolio /book which was published in Israel in 1959 , Namely "HOLY STONES - REMNANTS of SYNAGOGUES in POLAND". The introduction was written by David Davidovitch ( Davidowicz ). TEXT in English. Depicted among others are Synagogues in Kazimierz , Rzeszow, Wodzislaw , Kolbuszowa , Warsaw, Laszczow, Modliborzyce , Cracow , Zamosc and others. EACH of the DRAWINGS is
printed on a separate large leaf . Original Illustrated cardboard PORTFOLIO / FILE . TEXT and headings in English. 18 large loose sheets + A few text pp . Around 14.5 x 11.5"
. Very good condition . Clean. Practicaly unused ( Please look at scan for actual
AS IS images ) . Book will be sent protected inside a protective packaging .
AUTHENTICITY : This is an ORIGINAL vintage 1959 portfolio /book
. NOT a reproduction or a reprint . It comes with life long
GUARANTEE for its AUTHENTICITY and ORIGINALITY.
PAYMENTS
: Paypal & All credit cards.
SHIPPMENT : SHIPP worldwide via registered airmail is $ 29 . Will be sent inside a rigid protective packaging . Will be sent around 5-10 days after payment .
Wooden synagogues are an original style of Synagogue architecture that developed in the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth. A unique Jewish artistic and architectural form The wooden synagogue was "an original architectural genre" that drew on several models, including Poland's wooden building traditions and central plan, masonry synagogues in which four massive masonry pillars that define the Bimah rise to support the roof vaulting.[3] Central pillars support the vaulting of only a handful of wooden synagogues. Instead, in wooden synagogues the vaulting and domes are suspended by elaborate roof trusses. Common features shared by wooden synagogues include the independence of the pitched roof from the design of the interior domed ceiling. The outside of a wooden synagogue gave no hint of the domes and multiple, Baroquevaults that would be found within. The exteriors were decidedly plain, giving no hint of the riot of carving, painting, domes, balconies and vaulting inside. The architectural interest of the exterior lay in the large scale of the buildings, the multiple, horizontal lines of the tiered roofs, and the carved corbels that supported them. The elaborate domed and vaulted ceilings were known as raki'a (Hebrew for sky or firmament) and were often painted blue sprinkled with stars. The Bimah was always placed in the center of the room. Wooden synagogues featured a single, large hall. In contrast to contemporary churches, there was no apse. Moreover, while contemporary churches featured imposing vestibules, the entry porches of the wooden synagogues was a low annex, usually with a simple lean-to roof. In these synagogues, the emphasis was on constructing a single, large, high-domed worship space.According to art historian Stephen S. Kayser, the wooden synagogues of Poland with their painted and carved interiors were “a truly original and organic manifestation of artistic expression—the only real Jewish folk art in history.”According to Louis Lozowick, writing in 1947, the wooden synagogues were unique because, unlike all previous synagogues, they were not built in the architectural style of their region and era, but in a newly evolved and uniquely Jewish style, making them "a truly original folk expression," whose "originality does not lie alone in the exterior architecture, it lies equally in the beautiful and intricate wood carving of the interior."[7]Moreover, while in many parts of the world Jews were proscribed from entering the building trades and even from practicing the decorative arts of painting and woodcarving, the wooden synagogues were actually built by Jewish craftsmen.The interior vaulting of the Wolpa Synagogue is described by art historians Maria and Kazimierz Piechotka as having been "the most magnificent of all known wooden ceilings" in Europe. [9] Of course, since Christians were free to build with brick and stone, few European buildings of the scale of the Wolpa synagogue were ever built in wood. The walls of the main hall were 7.2 meters high. The vaulting, under a three-tiered roof, rose to a height of fourteen meters in three tiers marked by fancy balustrades. Each tier was made up of several curving sections faced in wooden paneling to form a graceful, tiered and vaulted dome. The vaulted ceiling was supported by the four wooden corner columns that rose form the bimah, and by trusses in the roof.Art historian Ori Z. Soltes points out that the wooden synagogues, unusual for that period in being large, identifiably Jewish buildings not hidden in courtyards or behind walls, were built not only during a Jewish "intellectual golden age" but in a time and place where "the local Jewish population was equal to or even greater than the Christian population. History According to Maria and Kazimierz Piechotka, the wooden synagogue style developed in the century between the mid-sixteenth and mid-seventh centuries, a period of peace and prosperity for the Polish-Lithuanian Jewish community. In addition to Poland and Lithuania, wooden synagogues are found in modern Belarus and the Ukraine. Wood was abundant and inexpensive in the heavily forested commonwealth, but a large part of the motivation for building in wood rather than masonry was the great difficulty of obtaining government permission to erect masonry synagogues.[12] The wooden synagogues, which featured multi-layered high roofs, multi-beamed domes, galleries, wooden balconies and arches were built to high standards of craftsmanship.[13] Interior decoration The interiors were decorated with wall and ceiling paintings that, in many cases, covered the walls and ceilings entirely, and with elaborately carved wooden Torah Arks.[14][15][16] Thomas Hubka has traced the style of decorative painting in the wooden synagogues to the medieval Hebrew illuminated manuscripts of Ashkenazi Jewry.[17] The intricate wooden decoration of the barrel vaulted ceiling of the Przedbórz Synagogue was considered so beautiful that before the Second World War it drew tourists to the small village of Przedbórz.[18] Regional variations Architectural historian Rachel Wischnitzer has traced regional variations in wooden synagogue style. The interiors of the wooden synagogues of Lithuania were not as exuberantly painted as were synagogues of other regions. Instead, Lithuanian synagogues were notable for architectural details such as ceilings with the boards laid in decorative herringbone patterns. Several Lithuanian synagogues featured corner pavilions. The wooden synagogues of Galicia were notable for their elaborate wall paintings.[1] Influence on art and architecture Frank Stella's Polish village series draws on images of Wooden synagogues published by Maria and Kazimierz Piechotkain in their 1957 book, Wooden synagogues. [19] The Sons of Israel Synagogue, by architects Davis, Brody and Wisniewski, in Lakewood, New Jersey evokes Polish wooden synagogues in modern materials in the shape of its roof.[19] The Temple B'rith Kodesh in Rochester, New York, by architect Pietro Belluschi is roofed with a domed wooden drum intended to evoke the wooden synagogues of Poland. [19] The modern building of Congregation Beth Shalom Rodfe Zedek in Chester, Connecticut was designed by artist Sol LeWitt who conceptualized the "airy" synagogue building, with its shallow dome supported by "exuberant wooden roof beams" an homage to the Wooden synagogues of eastern Europe.[20][21] Surviving wooden synagogues Although it was long thought that none of the wooden synagogues survived the destruction of the First and Second World Wars, it is now known that a number do survive, albeit only of the smaller type.[22][23] List of towns with identified extant wooden synagogues Pakruojis (Polish: Pokrój), the largest of the wooden synagogues that survives in present day Lithuania (built 1801), now in deteriorating condition [23][24] Tirkšliai [23] Seda (Polish: Siady), built in early 20th century [23][25] Žiežmariai (Polish: Żyżmory), in deteriorating condition [23][26] Telšiai(Polish: Telsze), built in 19th century, vacated around 1940 [23][27] Kurkliai (Polish: Kurkle), in Soviet times used as barn, now in deteriorating condition [23][28] Alanta, built in late 19th century, in deteriorating condition [23][29][30] Rozalimas (Polish: Rozalin), built in 19th century [23][31] Kaltinėnai (in Commonwealth gmina Szyłele, Lithuanian: Šilalė)[23] Laukuva [23] Plungė (Polish: Płungiany)[23] Veisiejai (Polish: Wiejsieje)[23] Trakai (Polish: Troki), a Karaite synagogue called Kenesa built in 18th century, with altar (Torah Ark) and interior preserved in good condition [23][32] ******** Polish Wooden Synagogues To many people, the Polish Wooden Synagogue represents the only indigenous Jewish architecture, that is, a style of folk architecture that is both unique to the Jews, and not primarily adapted from something else. The wooden synagogues in Poland were entirely destroyed in WWII, although a handful seem to have survived in Lithuania, Ukraine, and perhaps Belarus. (Some of these have been discovered only recently, as when a barn was explored in detail, and its roots as a synagogue were uncovered by Albert Barry in 1999.) M. & K. Piechotka [1959] trace the development of the wooden synagogue, and document about seventy of them in detail ranging from one illustration to sixteen. 47 others are identified on a map. The Piechotkas' map shows the synagogues as having ranged from Kornik and Cieszowa on the west, past Kiev on the east (Kozin and Makoshino). Perhaps it is more accurate to say that's the range in which the Institute of Polish Architecture documented synagogues. For example, the first synagogues built in Siberia were probably wooden as well.For about 45 years, their 1959 Wooden Synagogues book was the most detailed and comprehensive English-language work on the subject. However it has been superceded by their 2004 book, Heaven's Gates, in English. The text has been expanded, the book reorganized, and the illustrations have been greatly improved, presumably through painstaking work with modern computer software such as Photoshop™. This documentation is only possible because the Institute of Polish Architecture of the Polytechnic of Warsaw had started documenting the synagogues in 1923 or shortly thereafter. Importantly, even though the Institute was destroyed in 1944, much of the archives were successfully hidden from the Nazis during WWII, and recovered soon thereafter. (The rest is lost forever, along with the synagogues themselves.) According to the Piechotkas, most of the original synagogue documentation and photography was done by Szymon Zajczyk, who perished in the holocaust on 27 May 1944. (His photo, on the right, is from the Piechotka 1996 book.) The Piechotkas trace both the development of the Jewish Community in Poland and the development of synagogue architecture. Some commonly seen features were: A very ornate raised bimah (platform from which the torah and prayers are read) with a high canopy above it. A women's section at the side, in a balcony, or both. Interior decoration that was often, but by no means always, quite ornate, with very complex and professional carvings, especially on the bimah and ark. Interiors that were often fully and ornately painted with colorful decorations, often very professionally done. Some synagogues were painted in a more folksy style. Although there were large wooden churches, the wooden synagogues were unique in having large spans essentially spanning the entire width of the building without interior columns. The synagogues were usually on a street heading away from the main church in town. In Przedbórz, for example, the church is up on a hill above the town square; the synagogue is down by the river, on the opposite side of the square. See them on the town map. Read more about Przedbórz's Wooden Synagogue. See 34 of Moshe Verbin's wooden synagogue models. (You have to scroll way down the page to see the model thumbnails. Click on a small picture to get to the larger pictures. The page includes various additional historical comments by the Piechotkas and others.) Read about Albert Barry's synagogue video, available from Florida Atlantic University in English, Hebrew or Yiddish, with narration by Theodore Bikel. ***** A synagogue (from Greek: συναγωγή,transliterated synagogē, "assembly"; בית כנסת beyt knesset, "house of assembly"; שול or בית תפילה beyt t'fila, "house of prayer", shul; אסנוגה, esnoga) is a Jewish house of prayer. Synagogues usually have a large hall for prayer (the main sanctuary), smaller rooms for study and sometimes a social hall and offices. Some have a separate room for Torah study, called the beth midrash — בית מדרש ("House of Study"). Synagogues are often not consecrated spaces, nor is a synagogue necessary for collective worship. Jewish worship can be carried out wherever ten Jews (a minyan) assemble. A synagogue is not in the strictest sense a temple; it does not replace the true, long-since destroyed, Holy Temple in Jerusalem. Many Jews in English-speaking countries use the Yiddish term "shul" (cognate with the German schule, school) in everyday speech. Spanish and Portuguese Jews call the synagogue an esnoga. Persian Jews and Karaite Jews use the term Kenesa, which is derived from Aramaic, and some Arabic-speaking Jews use knis. Reform and some Conservative congregations in the United States sometimes use the word "temple."Although synagogues existed well before the destruction of the 2nd Temple in 70 CE, communal worship in the time while the Temple still stood centered around the korbanot ("sacrificial offerings") brought by the kohanim ("priests") in the Holy Temple. The all-day Yom Kippur service, in fact, was an event in which the congregation both observed the movements of the kohen gadol ("the high priest") as he offered the day's sacrifices and prayed for his success. During the Babylonian captivity the Men of the Great Assembly began the process of formalizing and standardizing Jewish services and prayers that did not depend on the functioning of the Temple in Jerusalem. Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai, one of the leaders at the end of the Second Temple era, promulgated the idea of creating individual houses of worship in whatever locale Jews found themselves. This contributed to the saving of the Jewish people by maintaining a unique identity and a portable way of worship despite the destruction of the Temple, according to many historians. Synagogues in the sense of purpose-built spaces for worship, or rooms originally constructed for some other purpose but reserved for formal, communal prayer, existed long before the destruction of Solomon's Temple.[1] The earliest archaeological evidence for the existence of very early synagogues comes from Egypt, where stone synagogue dedication inscriptions dating from the third century BCE prove that synagogues existed by that date.[2] A synagogue dating from between 75 and 50 BCE has been uncovered at a Hasmonean-era winter palace near Jericho.[3][4] More than a dozen Second Temple era synagogues have been identified by archaeologists.[1] Throughout Jewish history, synagogues have been constructed by all types of people. They have been constructed by wealthy patrons; by ethnically-bound groups of people (such as the Sephardic synagogues established by Sephardi refugees to large cities that had already established congregations[citation needed]); and by any like-minded group of Jews. Eastern European Jewish communities were characterized by the presence of kloizen (literally, "gathering places") in which worshippers belonging to the same profession prayed together. Thus there was the tailors' kloiz, the water-carriers' kloiz, etc. One kloiz that still bears that name today is the Breslov synagogue in Uman, Ukraine, which accommodates thousands of worshipers at the annual Breslover Rosh Hashana kibbutz (prayer gathering). It is called the "New Kloiz" to distinguish it from the "Old Kloiz", which was built by Nathan of Breslov in 1834.[5] There is no set blueprint for synagogues and the architectural shapes as well as interior designs of synagogues vary greatly. In fact, the influence from other local religious buildings can often be seen; such as arches, domes and towers. Historically, synagogues were built in the prevailing architectural style of their time and place. Thus, the synagogue in Kaifeng, China looked very like Chinese temples of that region and era, with its outer wall and open garden in which several buildings were arranged.The styles of the earliest synagogues resembled the temples of other sects of the eastern Roman Empire. The surviving synagogues of medieval Spain are embellished with mudéjar plasterwork. The surviving medieval synagogues in Budapest and Prague are typical Gothic structures. The emancipation of Jews in European countries not only enabled Jews to enter fields of enterprise from which they were formerly barred, but gave them the right to build synagogues without needing special permissions, synagogue architecture blossomed. Large Jewish communities wished to show not only their wealth but also their newly acquired status as citizens by constructing magnificent synagogues. These were built across Europe and in the United States in all of the historicist or revival styles then in fashion. Thus there were Neoclassical, Neo-Byzantine, Romanesque Revival Moorish Revival, Gothic Revival, and Greek Revival. There are Egyptian Revival synagogues and even one Mayan Revival synagogue. In the nineteenth and early twentieth century heyday of historicist architecture, however, most historicist synagogues, even the most magnificent ones, did not attempt a pure style, or even any particular style, and are best described as eclectic. Some synagogues used the swastika as a decorative element, usually without religious significance, before it took on sinister connotations in twentieth-century Nazi Germany. In the post-war era, synagogue architecture abandoned historicist styles for modernism.An ark – called the Aron Kodesh – ארון קודש, the Holy Ark by Ashkenazim and heikhal – היכל [temple] by Sephardim – where the Torah scrolls are kept. The ark in a synagogue is positioned in such a way that those who face it, face towards Jerusalem. Thus, sanctuary seating plans in the Western world generally face east, while those east of Israel face west. Sanctuaries in Israel face towards Jerusalem. Occasionally synagogues face other directions for structural reasons; in such cases, some individuals might turn to face Jerusalem when standing for prayers, but the congregation as a whole does not. The ark is reminiscent of the Ark of the Covenant which contained the tablets with Ten Commandments. This is the holiest spot in a synagogue, equivalent to the Holy of Holies. The ark is often closed with an ornate curtain, the parochet - פרוכת, which hangs outside or inside the ark doors. A large, raised, reader's platform called the bimah (בימה) by Ashkenazim and tebah by Sephardim, where the Torah scroll is read and from where the services are conducted in Sephardi synagogues. A continually-lit lamp or lantern, usually electric, called the ner tamid (נר תמיד), the "Eternal Light," used as a reminder of the western lamp of the menorah of the Temple in Jerusalem, which remained miraculously lit always. A candelabrum specifically lit during services commemorating the full Menorah. A pulpitfacing the congregation for the use of the rabbi, and a pulpit or amud - עמוד (Hebrew for "post" or "column") facing the Ark where the Hazzan stands while leading the prayer service. A partition (mechitzah) dividing the men's and women's seating areas, or a separate women's section located on a balcony. A synagogue may be decorated with artwork, but in the Rabbinic and Orthodox tradition, three-dimensional sculptures and depictions of the human body are not allowed, as these are considered akin to idolatry. Synagogue windows are sometimes curved at the top and squared at the bottom, recalling the popular depiction of the shape of the Tablets of Stone that held the Ten Commandments which Moses received from God at Mount Sinai. There is also a tradition to install twelve windows around the main sanctuary to recall the Twelve Tribes of Israel, underscoring the importance of unity and brotherhood as a result of the communal prayers[citation needed]. Until the 19th century all synagogue interiors were laid out with both a spiritual and a communal focus. In an Ashkenazi synagogue, all seats faced the aron kodesh (Ark) in which the Torah scrolls were housed. In a Sephardi synagogue, seats were arranged around the perimeter of the sanctuary, but when the worshippers stood up to pray, everyone faced the Ark. The Torah was read on a reader's table located in the exact center of each sanctuary, echoing the manner in which the Children of Israel stood around Mount Sinai when they received the Torah. The leader of the prayer service, the Hazzan, stood at his own lectern or table, facing the Ark. The United States has well over 1200 Orthodox congregations, including over 1000 affiliated with the Orthodox Union (OU), and 150 with the National Council of Young Israel, as well as many associated with Agudath Israel of America, a widespread movement especially identified with Haredim. The German Reform movement which arose in the early 1800s made many changes to the traditional look of the synagogue, keeping with its desire to simultaneously stay Jewish yet be accepted by the host culture. The first Reform synagogue, which opened in Hamburg in 1811, introduced changes that made the synagogue look more like a church. These included: the installation of an organ to accompany the prayers (even on Shabbat, when musical instruments are proscribed by halakha[citation needed]), a choir to accompany the Hazzan, and vestments for the synagogue rabbi to wear [1]. In following decades, the central reader's table, the bimah, was moved to the front of the Reform sanctuary — previously unheard-of[citation needed] in Orthodox synagogues. The rabbi now delivered his sermon from the front, much as the Christian ministers delivered their sermons in a church. The synagogue was renamed a "temple," to emphasize that the movement no longer looked forward to the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem.[citation needed] The Conservative movement, which also developed in Europe and America in the 1800s, rejected Reform as being too liberal and Orthodoxy as being too outdated. However, like other varieties of Judaism, its synagogue design is not consistent. Some Conservative synagogues resemble Reform temples, complete with organ[2]. Others resemble Orthodox synagogues, but usually without a mechitza, the dividing barrier between men and women. There are approximately 750 Conservative synagogues in the United States today. Many Conservative synagogues contain a ner tamid (Eternal Light). The Reconstructionist movement, which arose in America in the latter half of the 20th century, counts fewer than 100 synagogues worldwide. In keeping with a Reconstructionist Jewish spirit of liberalism, the movement's synagogues are not as traditionalist in design as are synagogues of Conservative Judaism, and do not use the mechitza, but most do have a ner tamid (Eternal Light). The congregation decides communally how much traditional Judaic imagery and symbols are appropriate. Reconstructionist Jews generally do not call their houses of worship "temples". Synagogues often take on a broader role in modern Jewish communities and may include additional facilities such as a catering hall, kosher kitchen, religious school, library, day care center and a smaller chapel for daily services. A related place of worship is the shtiebel (שטיבל, pl. shtiebelekh or shtiebels, Yiddish for "little house") that is frequently used by and preferred by Hasidic and Haredi Jews. A shtiebel may sometimes be a room in the private home of a Hasidic Rebbe, or a place of business which is set aside for the express purpose of prayer. It may or may not offer the communal services of a synagogue Another type of communal prayer group, favored by some contemporary Jews, is the Chavurah (חבורה, pl. chavurot, חבורות), or prayer fellowship. These groups meet at a regular place and time, usually in a private home. In antiquity, the Pharisees lived near each other in chavurot and dined together to ensure that none of the food was unfit for consumption.[6] Orthodox Jews, who must collect a minyan or quorum of ten men before certain communal prayers can be recited, do not require a consecrated space and commonly assemble at pre-arranged times in offices, living rooms, or other spaces when these are more convenient than formal synagogue buildings. During the 19th and early 20th century, it was fairly common for Jewish communities particulary in Europe, to construct very large, showpiece synagogues. These edifices were intended not simply to accommodate worshipers, but to serve as emblems of Jewish participation in modern society. For this purpose, they were built to be not merely large, but architecturally impressive. Even small cities had elaborate synagogues of this type, albeit smaller than the synagogues of Vienna and New York. They are often designated as The Great Synagogue of..., or, in Russia, The Choral Synagogue. These notable synagogues include; the Great Synagogue of Rome, the New Synagogue (Berlin), the Leopoldstädter Tempel, the Grand Choral Synagogue, the Moscow Choral Synagogue, the Great Synagogue of Florence, the Great Synagogue, Plzen, the Great Synagogue (Warsaw), the Košice Orthodox Synagogue, the Novi Sad Synagogue, the Szeged Synagogue,[7] the Sofia Synagogue and the Great Synagogue of Oran. The largest synagogue in the world is probably the Belz World Center, in Jerusalem, Israel; whose main Sanctuary seats 6,000. Construction on the edifice lasted for over 15 years. The next largest may be the Satmar synagogue in Kiryas Joel, New York; which is said to seat "several thousand." [8] The largest synagogue in Europe is the newly constructed Bratzlav Center at the graveside of Rabbi Nahman of Bratzlav in Uman, Ukraine; which seats up to 5,000. Congregation Shaare Zion, an Orthodox Sephardic synagogue located in Brooklyn, New York; which is the largest Syrian Jewish congregation in New York City. It is attended by over 1,000 worshipers on weekends. Kehilas Yetev Lev D'Satmar (Williamsburg, Brooklyn); seating between 2,000 to 4,000 congregants. Temple Emanu-El of New York, a Reform Temple located in New York City, with an area of 3,523 m², seating 2,500. The Dohány Street Synagogue in Budapest, Hungary; which seats 3,000. Main article: Oldest synagogues in the World The oldest Samaritan synagogue, the Delos Synagogue dates from between 150 and 128 BCE, or earlier and is located on the island of Delos. [9] The Jericho Synagogue, the oldest, securely dated, mainstream Jewish synagogue in the world was built between 70 and 50 BCE at a royal winter palace near Jericho.[10] The oldest synagogue fragments are stone synagogue dedication inscriptions stones found in middle and lower Egypt and dating from the third century BCE.[2] Main article: Oldest synagogues in the United States Congregation Shearith Israel, 1655, is the oldest congregation in the United States, its present building dates from 1897. The Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island, is the oldest Jewish house of worship in North America that is still standing. It was built in 1759 for the Jeshuat Israel congregation, which was established in 1658. Other famous synagogues The Rashi Shul, built in 1175 and razed on Kristallnacht in 1938, was painstakingly reconstructed using many of the original stones. It is still in use as a synagogue. The Synagogue of El Transito of Toledo, Spain, was built in 1356 by Samuel HaLevi, treasurer of King Pedro I of Castile. This is one of the best examples of mudejar architecture in Spain. The design of the synagogue recalls the Nasrid style of architecture that was employed during the same period in the decorations of the Alhambra palace in Granada as well as the Mosque of Cordoba. Since 1964, this site has hosted a Sephardi museum. The Hurva Synagogue, located in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, was Jerusalem's main Ashkenazi synagogue from the 16th century until 1948, when it was destroyed by the Arab Legion several days after the conquest of the city. After the Six-Day War, an arch was built to mark the spot where the synagogue stood. A complete reconstruction is now underway in keeping with plans drawn up by architect Nahum Meltzer. The Great Synagogue of Oran. The Barbados Nidhe Israel Synagogue ("Bridgetown Synagogue"), located in the capital city of Bridgetown, was first built in 1654. It was destroyed in the hurricane of 1831 and reconstructed in 1833[3]. The Amsterdam Esnoga is a Sephardic synagogue in Amsterdam built on pilings. It was founded by ex-Marranos (Portuguese Crypto-Jews) in 1675. The Snoa in Willemstad, Curaçao, Netherlands Antilles was built by Sephardic Portuguese Jews from Amsterdam and Recife, Brazil. It is modeled after the Esnoga in Amsterdam. Congregation Mikvé Israel built this synagogue in 1692; it was reconstructed in 1732. The Bialystoker Synagogue on New York's Lower East Side, is located in a landmark building dating from 1826 that was originally a Methodist Episcopal Church. The building is made of quarry stone mined locally on Pitt Street, Manhattan. It is an example of Federalist architecture. The ceilings and walls are hand-painted with zodiac frescos, and the sanctuary is illuminated by 40-foot (12 m) stained glass windows. The bimah and floor-to-ceiling ark are handcarved. The Great Synagogue of Florence, Tempio Maggiore, Florence, 1874-82, is an example of the magnificent, cathedral-like synagogues built in almost every major European city in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.**** The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah,[c] was the genocide of the European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, across German-occupied Europe, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews, around two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population.[a][d] The murders were carried out in pogroms and mass shootings; by a policy of extermination through work in concentration camps; and in gas chambers and gas vans in German extermination camps, chiefly Auschwitz, Bełżec, Chełmno, Majdanek, Sobibór, and Treblinka in occupied Poland.[4]
Germany implemented the persecution in stages. Following Adolf Hitler's appointment as Chancellor on 30 January 1933, the regime built a network of concentration camps in Germany for political opponents and those deemed "undesirable", starting with Dachau on 22 March 1933.[5] After the passing of the Enabling Act on 24 March,[6] which gave Hitler plenary powers, the government began isolating Jews from civil society; this included boycotting Jewish businesses in April 1933 and enacting the Nuremberg Laws in September 1935. On 9–10 November 1938, eight months after Germany annexed Austria, Jewish businesses and other buildings were ransacked or set on fire throughout Germany and Austria during what became known as Kristallnacht (the "Night of Broken Glass"). After Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, triggering World War II, the regime set up ghettos to segregate Jews. Eventually thousands of camps and other detention sites were established across German-occupied Europe.
The segregation of Jews in ghettos culminated in the policy of extermination the Nazis called the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question", discussed by senior Nazi officials at the Wannsee Conference in Berlin in January 1942. As German forces captured territories in the East, all anti-Jewish measures were radicalized. Under the coordination of the SS, with directions from the highest leadership of the Nazi Party, killings were committed within Germany itself, throughout occupied Europe, and within territories controlled by Germany's allies. Paramilitary death squads called Einsatzgruppen, in cooperation with the German Army and local collaborators, murdered around 1.3 million Jews in mass shootings and pogroms between 1941 and 1945. By mid-1942, victims were being deported from ghettos across Europe in sealed freight trains to extermination camps where, if they survived the journey, they were gassed, worked or beaten to death, or killed by disease or during death marches. The killing continued until the end of World War II in Europe in May 1945.
The European Jews were targeted for extermination as part of a larger event during the Holocaust era (1933–1945),[7][8] in which Germany and its collaborators persecuted and murdered other groups, including ethnic Poles, Soviet civilians and prisoners of war, the Roma, the handicapped, political and religious dissidents, and gay men.[e] The death toll of these other groups is thought to be over 11 million.[b]
Contents
1 Terminology and scope
1.1 Terminology
1.2 Definition
2 Distinctive features
2.1 Genocidal state
2.2 Collaboration
2.3 Medical experiments
3 Jews in Europe
4 Origins
4.1 Antisemitism and the völkisch movement
4.2 Germany after World War I, Hitler's world view
5 Rise of Nazi Germany
5.1 Dictatorship and repression (1933–1939)
5.2 Sterilization Law, Aktion T4
5.3 Nuremberg Laws, Jewish emigration
5.4 Anschluss
5.5 Kristallnacht
5.6 Resettlement
6 Beginning of World War II
6.1 Invasion of Poland
6.1.1 Einsatzgruppen, pogroms
6.1.2 Ghettos, Jewish councils
6.2 Invasion of Norway and Denmark
6.3 Invasion of France and the Low Countries
6.4 Invasion of Yugoslavia and Greece
6.5 Invasion of the Soviet Union
6.5.1 Reasons
6.5.2 Mass shootings
6.5.3 Toward the Holocaust
6.6 Germany's allies
6.6.1 Romania
6.6.2 Bulgaria, Slovakia, Hungary
6.6.3 Italy, Finland, Japan
6.7 Concentration and labor camps
7 Final Solution
7.1 Pearl Harbor, Germany declares war on America
7.2 Wannsee Conference
7.3 Extermination camps
7.3.1 Gas vans
7.3.2 Gas chambers
7.4 Jewish resistance
7.5 Polish resistance, flow of information about the mass murder
7.6 Climax, Holocaust in Hungary
7.7 Death marches
7.8 Liberation
7.9 Death toll
8 Other victims of Nazi persecution during the Holocaust era
8.1 Soviet civilians and POWs
8.2 Non-Jewish Poles
8.3 Roma
8.4 Political and religious opponents
8.5 Gay men, Afro-Germans
9 Aftermath
9.1 Trials
9.2 Reparations
9.3 Historikerstreit, uniqueness question
9.4 Awareness
10 Sources
10.1 Notes
10.2 Citations
10.3 Works cited
11 External links
Terminology and scope
Terminology
Main article: Names of the Holocaust
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The Holocaust
Jews on selection ramp at Auschwitz, May 1944
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Early policies
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Victims
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Ghettos
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Camps
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Atrocities
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Resistance
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Allied response
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The term holocaust, first used in 1895 by the New York Times to describe the massacre of Armenian Christians by Ottoman Muslims,[9] comes from the Greek: ὁλόκαυστος, romanized: holókaustos; ὅλος hólos, "whole" + καυστός kaustós, "burnt offering".[f] The biblical term shoah (Hebrew: שׁוֹאָה), meaning "destruction", became the standard Hebrew term for the murder of the European Jews. According to Haaretz, the writer Yehuda Erez may have been the first to describe events in Germany as the shoah. Davar and later Haaretz both used the term in September 1939.[12][g] Yom HaShoah became Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Day in 1951.[14]
On 3 October 1941 the American Hebrew used the phrase "before the Holocaust", apparently to refer to the situation in France,[15] and in May 1943 the New York Times, discussing the Bermuda Conference, referred to the "hundreds of thousands of European Jews still surviving the Nazi Holocaust".[16] In 1968 the Library of Congress created a new category, "Holocaust, Jewish (1939–1945)".[17] The term was popularised in the United States by the NBC mini-series Holocaust (1978), about a fictional family of German Jews,[18] and in November that year the President's Commission on the Holocaust was established.[19] As non-Jewish groups began to include themselves as Holocaust victims, many Jews chose to use the Hebrew terms Shoah or Churban.[20][h] The Nazis used the phrase "Final Solution to the Jewish Question" (German: die Endlösung der Judenfrage).[22]
Definition
Most Holocaust historians define the Holocaust as the genocide of the European Jews by Nazi Germany and its collaborators between 1941 and 1945.[a]
Michael Gray, a specialist in Holocaust education,[30] offers three definitions: (a) "the persecution and murder of Jews by the Nazis and their collaborators between 1933 and 1945", which views Kristallnacht in 1938 as an early phase of the Holocaust; (b) "the systematic mass murder of the Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators between 1941 and 1945", which recognises the policy shift in 1941 toward extermination; and (c) "the persecution and murder of various groups by the Nazi regime and its collaborators between 1933 and 1945", which includes all the Nazis' victims, a definition that fails, Gray writes, to acknowledge that only the Jews were singled out for annihilation.[31] Donald Niewyk and Francis Nicosia, in The Columbia Guide to the Holocaust (2000), favor a definition that focuses on the Jews, Roma and handicapped: "the systematic, state-sponsored murder of entire groups determined by heredity".[32]
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum distinguishes between the Holocaust (the murder of six million Jews) and "the era of the Holocaust", which began when Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in January 1933.[33] Victims of the era of the Holocaust include those the Nazis viewed as inherently inferior (chiefly Slavs, the Roma and the handicapped), and those targeted because of their beliefs or behavior (such as Jehovah's Witnesses, communists and homosexuals).[34] Peter Hayes writes that the persecution of these groups was less consistent than that of the Jews; the Nazis' treatment of the Slavs, for example, consisted of "enslavement and gradual attrition", while some Slavs (Hayes lists Bulgarians, Croats, Slovaks and some Ukrainians) were favored.[24] Against this, Hitler regarded the Jews as what Dan Stone calls "a Gegenrasse: a 'counter-race' ... not really human at all".[e]
Distinctive features
Genocidal state
Further information: List of Nazi concentration camps
German-occupied Europe, 1942
Concentration camps, extermination camps, and ghettos (2007 borders; extermination camps highlighted)
The logistics of the mass murder turned Germany into what Michael Berenbaum called a "genocidal state".[36] Eberhard Jäckel wrote in 1986 during the German Historikerstreit—a dispute among historians about the uniqueness of the Holocaust and its relationship with the crimes of the Soviet Union—that it was the first time a state had thrown its power behind the idea that an entire people should be wiped out.[i] Anyone with three or four Jewish grandparents was to be exterminated,[38] and complex rules were devised to deal with Mischlinge ("mixed breeds").[39] Bureaucrats identified who was a Jew, confiscated property, and scheduled trains to deport them. Companies fired Jews and later used them as slave labor. Universities dismissed Jewish faculty and students. German pharmaceutical companies tested drugs on camp prisoners; other companies built the crematoria.[36] As prisoners entered the death camps, they surrendered all personal property,[40] which was cataloged and tagged before being sent to Germany for reuse or recycling.[41] Through a concealed account, the German National Bank helped launder valuables stolen from the victims.[42]
Collaboration
Main articles: Responsibility for the Holocaust, Collaboration with the Axis Powers, and German-occupied Europe
Dan Stone writes that since the opening of archives following the fall of former communist states in Eastern Europe, it has become increasingly clear that the Holocaust was a pan-European phenomenon, a series of "Holocausts" impossible to conduct without the help of local collaborators. Without collaborators, the Germans could not have extended the killing across most of the continent.[43][j][45] According to Donald Bloxham, in many parts of Europe "extreme collective violence was becoming an accepted measure of resolving identity crises".[46] Christian Gerlach writes that non-Germans "not under German command" killed 5–6 percent of the six million, but that their involvement was crucial in other ways.[47]
The industrialization and scale of the murder was unprecedented. Killings were systematically conducted in virtually all areas of occupied Europe—more than 20 occupied countries.[48] Nearly three million Jews in occupied Poland and between 700,000 and 2.5 million Jews in the Soviet Union were killed. Hundreds of thousands more died in the rest of Europe.[49] Some Christian churches defended converted Jews, but otherwise, Saul Friedländer wrote in 2007: "Not one social group, not one religious community, not one scholarly institution or professional association in Germany and throughout Europe declared its solidarity with the Jews ..."[50]
Medical experiments
Main articles: Nazi human experimentation and Doctors' trial
The 23 defendants during the Doctors' trial, Nuremberg, 9 December 1946 – 20 August 1947
Medical experiments conducted on camp inmates by the SS were another distinctive feature.[51] At least 7,000 prisoners were subjected to experiments; most died as a result, during the experiments or later.[52] Twenty-three senior physicians and other medical personnel were charged at Nuremberg, after the war, with crimes against humanity. They included the head of the German Red Cross, tenured professors, clinic directors, and biomedical researchers.[53] Experiments took place at Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Dachau, Natzweiler-Struthof, Neuengamme, Ravensbrück, Sachsenhausen, and elsewhere. Some dealt with sterilization of men and women, the treatment of war wounds, ways to counteract chemical weapons, research into new vaccines and drugs, and the survival of harsh conditions.[52]
The most notorious physician was Josef Mengele, an SS officer who became the Auschwitz camp doctor on 30 May 1943.[54] Interested in genetics[54] and keen to experiment on twins, he would pick out subjects from the new arrivals during "selection" on the ramp, shouting "Zwillinge heraus!" (twins step forward!).[55] They would be measured, killed, and dissected. One of Mengele's assistants said in 1946 that he was told to send organs of interest to the directors of the "Anthropological Institute in Berlin-Dahlem". This is thought to refer to Mengele's academic supervisor, Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer, director from October 1942 of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics in Berlin-Dahlem.[56][k]
Jews in Europe
Country Number of Jews
(pre-war) Source
Austria 185,000–192,000 [49]
Belgium 55,000–70,000 [49]
Bulgaria 50,000 [49]
Czechoslovakia 357,000 [58]
Denmark (1933) 5,700 [59]
Estonia 4,500 [49]
Finland 2,000 [49]
France 330,000–350,000 [49]
Germany (1933) 523,000–525,000 [49]
Greece 77,380 [49]
Hungary 725,000–825,000 [49]
Italy 42,500–44,500 [49]
Latvia 91,500–95,000 [49]
Lithuania 168,000 [49]
Netherlands 140,000 [49]
Poland 3,300,000–3,500,000 [49]
Romania (1930) 756,000 [49]
Soviet Union 3,020,000 [49]
Sweden (1933) 6,700 [59]
United Kingdom 300,000 [58]
Yugoslavia 78,000–82,242 [49]
Main article: History of the Jews in Europe
There were around 9.5 million Jews in Europe in 1933.[60] Most heavily concentrated in the east, the pre-war population was 3.5 million in Poland; 3 million in the Soviet Union; nearly 800,000 in Romania, and 700,000 in Hungary. Germany had over 500,000.[49]
Origins
Antisemitism and the völkisch movement
See also: History of the Jews in Germany, Christianity and antisemitism, Martin Luther and antisemitism, Religious antisemitism, and Racial antisemitism
Throughout the Middle Ages in Europe, Jews were subjected to antisemitism based on Christian theology, which blamed them for killing Jesus. Even after the Reformation, Catholicism and Lutheranism continued to persecute Jews, accusing them of blood libels and subjecting them to pogroms and expulsions.[61] The second half of the 19th century saw the emergence in the German empire and Austria-Hungary of the völkisch movement, developed by such thinkers as Houston Stewart Chamberlain and Paul de Lagarde. The movement embraced a pseudo-scientific racism that viewed Jews as a race whose members were locked in mortal combat with the Aryan race for world domination.[62] These ideas became commonplace throughout Germany; the professional classes adopted an ideology that did not see humans as racial equals with equal hereditary value.[63] The Nazi Party (the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or National Socialist German Workers' Party) originated as an offshoot of the völkisch movement, and it adopted that movement's antisemitism.[64]
Germany after World War I, Hitler's world view
Further information: Aftermath of World War I; Treaty of Versailles; Adolf Hitler, antisemitism and the Holocaust; Mein Kampf; and Historiography of Adolf Hitler
After World War I (1914–1918), many Germans did not accept that their country had been defeated, which gave birth to the stab-in-the-back myth. This insinuated that it was disloyal politicians, chiefly Jews and communists, who had orchestrated Germany's surrender. Inflaming the anti-Jewish sentiment was the apparent over-representation of Jews in the leadership of communist revolutionary governments in Europe, such as Ernst Toller, head of a short-lived revolutionary government in Bavaria. This perception contributed to the canard of Jewish Bolshevism.[65]
Early antisemites in the Nazi Party included Dietrich Eckart, publisher of the Völkischer Beobachter, the party's newspaper, and Alfred Rosenberg, who wrote antisemitic articles for it in the 1920s. Rosenberg's vision of a secretive Jewish conspiracy ruling the world would influence Hitler's views of Jews by making them the driving force behind communism.[66] Central to Hitler's world view was the idea of expansion and Lebensraum (living space) in Eastern Europe for German Aryans, a policy of what Doris Bergen called "race and space". Open about his hatred of Jews, he subscribed to common antisemitic stereotypes.[67] From the early 1920s onwards, he compared the Jews to germs and said they should be dealt with in the same way. He viewed Marxism as a Jewish doctrine, said he was fighting against "Jewish Marxism", and believed that Jews had created communism as part of a conspiracy to destroy Germany.[68]
Rise of Nazi Germany
Dictatorship and repression (1933–1939)
Further information: Anti-Jewish legislation in prewar Nazi Germany, Racial policy of Nazi Germany, and Anti-Nazi boycott of 1933
Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses: SA troopers urge a boycott outside Israel's Department Store, Berlin, 1 April 1933. All signs read: "Germans! Defend yourselves! Don't buy from Jews."[69]
With the appointment in January 1933 of Adolf Hitler as Chancellor of Germany and the Nazi's seizure of power, German leaders proclaimed the rebirth of the Volksgemeinschaft ("people's community").[70] Nazi policies divided the population into two groups: the Volksgenossen ("national comrades") who belonged to the Volksgemeinschaft, and the Gemeinschaftsfremde ("community aliens") who did not. Enemies were divided into three groups: the "racial" or "blood" enemies, such as the Jews and Roma; political opponents of Nazism, such as Marxists, liberals, Christians, and the "reactionaries" viewed as wayward "national comrades"; and moral opponents, such as gay men, the work-shy, and habitual criminals. The latter two groups were to be sent to concentration camps for "re-education", with the aim of eventual absorption into the Volksgemeinschaft. "Racial" enemies could never belong to the Volksgemeinschaft; they were to be removed from society.[71]
Before and after the March 1933 Reichstag elections, the Nazis intensified their campaign of violence against opponents,[72] setting up concentration camps for extrajudicial imprisonment.[73] One of the first, at Dachau, opened on 22 March 1933.[74] Initially the camp contained mostly Communists and Social Democrats.[75] Other early prisons were consolidated by mid-1934 into purpose-built camps outside the cities, run exclusively by the SS.[76] The camps served as a deterrent by terrorizing Germans who did not support the regime.[77]
Throughout the 1930s, the legal, economic, and social rights of Jews were steadily restricted.[78]On 1 April 1933, there was a boycott of Jewish businesses.[79] On 7 April 1933, the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service was passed, which excluded Jews and other "non-Aryans" from the civil service.[80] Jews were disbarred from practicing law, being editors or proprietors of newspapers, joining the Journalists' Association, or owning farms.[81] In Silesia, in March 1933, a group of men entered the courthouse and beat up Jewish lawyers; Friedländer writes that, in Dresden, Jewish lawyers and judges were dragged out of courtrooms during trials.[82] Jewish students were restricted by quotas from attending schools and universities.[80] Jewish businesses were targeted for closure or "Aryanization", the forcible sale to Germans; of the approximately 50,000 Jewish-owned businesses in Germany in 1933, about 7,000 were still Jewish-owned in April 1939. Works by Jewish composers,[83] authors, and artists were excluded from publications, performances, and exhibitions.[84] Jewish doctors were dismissed or urged to resign. The Deutsches Ärzteblatt (a medical journal) reported on 6 April 1933: "Germans are to be treated by Germans only."[85]
Sterilization Law, Aktion T4
Main article: Aktion T4
Further information: Nazi eugenics and Erbkrank
The poster (c. 1937) reads: "60,000 RM is what this person with hereditary illness costs the community in his lifetime. Fellow citizen, that is your money too. Read Neues Volk, the monthly magazine of the Office of Racial Policy of the Nazi Party."[86]
The economic strain of the Great Depression led Protestant charities and some members of the German medical establishment to advocate compulsory sterilization of the "incurable" mentally and physically handicapped,[87] people the Nazis called Lebensunwertes Leben (life unworthy of life).[88] On 14 July 1933, the Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring (Gesetz zur Verhütung erbkranken Nachwuchses), the Sterilization Law, was passed.[89][90] The New York Times reported on 21 December that year: "400,000 Germans to be sterilized".[91] There were 84,525 applications from doctors in the first year. The courts reached a decision in 64,499 of those cases; 56,244 were in favor of sterilization.[92] Estimates for the number of involuntary sterilizations during the whole of the Third Reich range from 300,000 to 400,000.[93]
In October 1939 Hitler signed a "euthanasia decree" backdated to 1 September 1939 that authorized Reichsleiter Philipp Bouhler, the chief of Hitler's Chancellery, and Karl Brandt, Hitler's personal physician, to carry out a program of involuntary euthanasia. After the war this program came to be known as Aktion T4,[94] named after Tiergartenstraße 4, the address of a villa in the Berlin borough of Tiergarten, where the various organizations involved were headquartered.[95] T4 was mainly directed at adults, but the euthanasia of children was also carried out.[96] Between 1939 and 1941, 80,000 to 100,000 mentally ill adults in institutions were killed, as were 5,000 children and 1,000 Jews, also in institutions. There were also dedicated killing centers, where the deaths were estimated at 20,000, according to Georg Renno, deputy director of Schloss Hartheim, one of the euthanasia centers, or 400,000, according to Frank Zeireis, commandant of the Mauthausen concentration camp.[97] Overall, the number of mentally and physically handicapped murdered was about 150,000.[98]
Although not ordered to take part, psychiatrists and many psychiatric institutions were involved in the planning and carrying out of Aktion T4.[99] In August 1941, after protests from Germany's Catholic and Protestant churches, Hitler canceled the T4 program,[100] although the handicapped continued to be killed until the end of the war.[98] The medical community regularly received bodies for research; for example, the University of Tübingen received 1,077 bodies from executions between 1933 and 1945. The German neuroscientist Julius Hallervorden received 697 brains from one hospital between 1940 and 1944: "I accepted these brains of course. Where they came from and how they came to me was really none of my business."[101]
Nuremberg Laws, Jewish emigration
Main article: Nuremberg Laws
See also: Jews escaping from German-occupied Europe to the United Kingdom
Czechoslovakian Jews at Croydon airport, England, 31 March 1939, before deportation[102]
On 15 September 1935, the Reichstag passed the Reich Citizenship Law and the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor, known as the Nuremberg Laws. The former said that only those of "German or kindred blood" could be citizens. Anyone with three or more Jewish grandparents was classified as a Jew.[103] The second law said: "Marriages between Jews and subjects of the state of German or related blood are forbidden." Sexual relationships between them were also criminalized; Jews were not allowed to employ German women under the age of 45 in their homes.[104][103] The laws referred to Jews but applied equally to the Roma and black Germans. Although other European countries—Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Italy, Romania, Slovakia, and Vichy France—passed similar legislation,[103] Gerlach notes that "Nazi Germany adopted more nationwide anti-Jewish laws and regulations (about 1,500) than any other state."[105]
By the end of 1934, 50,000 German Jews had left Germany,[106] and by the end of 1938, approximately half the German Jewish population had left,[107] among them the conductor Bruno Walter, who fled after being told that the hall of the Berlin Philharmonic would be burned down if he conducted a concert there.[108] Albert Einstein, who was in the United States when Hitler came to power, never returned to Germany; his citizenship was revoked and he was expelled from the Kaiser Wilhelm Society and Prussian Academy of Sciences.[109] Other Jewish scientists, including Gustav Hertz, lost their teaching positions and left the country.[110]
Anschluss
Main article: Anschluss
March or April 1938: Jews are forced to scrub the pavement in Vienna.
On 12 March 1938, Germany annexed Austria. Austrian Nazis broke into Jewish shops, stole from Jewish homes and businesses, and forced Jews to perform humiliating acts such as scrubbing the streets or cleaning toilets.[111] Jewish businesses were "Aryanized", and all the legal restrictions on Jews in Germany were imposed.[112] In August that year, Adolf Eichmann was put in charge of the Central Agency for Jewish Emigration in Vienna (Zentralstelle für jüdische Auswanderung in Wien). About 100,000 Austrian Jews had left the country by May 1939, including Sigmund Freud and his family, who moved to London.[113] The Évian Conference was held in France in July 1938 by 32 countries, as an attempt to help the increased refugees from Germany, but aside from establishing the largely ineffectual Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees, little was accomplished and most countries participating did not increase the number of refugees they would accept.[114]
Kristallnacht
Main article: Kristallnacht
Potsdamer Straße 26, Berlin, the day after Kristallnacht, November 1938
On 7 November 1938, Herschel Grynszpan, a Polish Jew, shot the German diplomat Ernst vom Rath in the German Embassy in Paris, in retaliation for the expulsion of his parents and siblings from Germany.[115][l] When vom Rath died on 9 November, the government used his death as a pretext to instigate a pogrom against the Jews. The government claimed it was spontaneous, but in fact it had been ordered and planned by Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels, although with no clear goals, according to David Cesarani. The result, he writes, was "murder, rape, looting, destruction of property, and terror on an unprecedented scale".[117]
Known as Kristallnacht (or "Night of Broken Glass"), the attacks on 9–10 November 1938 were partly carried out by the SS and SA,[118] but ordinary Germans joined in; in some areas, the violence began before the SS or SA arrived.[119] Over 7,500 Jewish shops (out of 9,000) were looted and attacked, and over 1,000 synagogs damaged or destroyed. Groups of Jews were forced by the crowd to watch their synagogs burn; in Bensheim they were made to dance around it, and in Laupheim to kneel before it.[120] At least 90 Jews died. The damage was estimated at 39 million Reichmarks.[121] Cesarani writes that "[t]he extent of the desolation stunned the population and rocked the regime."[122] It also shocked the rest of the world. The Times of London wrote on 11 November 1938: "No foreign propagandist bent upon blackening Germany before the world could outdo the tale of burnings and beatings, of blackguardly assaults upon defenseless and innocent people, which disgraced that country yesterday. Either the German authorities were a party to this outbreak or their powers over public order and a hooligan minority are not what they are proudly claimed to be."[123]
Between 9 and 16 November, 30,000 Jews were sent to the Buchenwald, Dachau, and Sachsenhausen concentration camps.[124] Many were released within weeks; by early 1939, 2,000 remained in the camps.[125] German Jewry was held collectively responsible for restitution of the damage; they also had to pay an "atonement tax" of over a billion Reichmarks. Insurance payments for damage to their property were confiscated by the government. A decree on 12 November 1938 barred Jews from most remaining occupations.[126] Kristallnacht marked the end of any sort of public Jewish activity and culture, and Jews stepped up their efforts to leave the country.[127]
Resettlement
Further information: Haavara Agreement
Before World War II, Germany considered mass deportation from Europe of Germ