Read Online The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945 by Saul Friedländer - Free Book Online
Authors: Saul Friedländer
Tags: History
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some standing had his own individual style in handling the “Jewish question,” and any such leader had a vast constituency that was the instant target and the willing or captive audience of these tirades. Take Robert Ley, for example; his speeches and publications reached millions of workers, as well as the future leadership of the party trained in the centers, which he established and controlled since 1934. Thus, in 1940, when Ley published Unser Sozialismus: Der Hass der Welt ( Our Socialism: The Hate of the World ), his voice echoed in many German minds. For him plutocracy was, in the words of his biographer, “one tentacle of the Jewish enemy,” and Jewish plutocracy was “the dominance of money and gold, the repression and enslavement of people, the reversal of all natural values and exclusion of reason and insight, the mystical darkness of superstition…. The meanness of human carnality and brutality.” No common ground existed between this evil and the good that was the National Socialist Volksgemeinschaft : Between the two worlds “there is no compromise and no settlement. Whoever wants one, must hate the other. Who gives himself to one, must destroy the other.” 74
On occasion, however, it was necessary not to push the “logical” follow-up of anti-Jewish incitement beyond a given limit, as some measures could lead to negative reactions among the population. Thus, on March 6, 1940, Goebbels, Rosenberg, and their Führer reached the conclusion that some parts of church liturgy should not be forbidden, even if they praised the Jews: “We can’t push this matter now.” 75 In Dresden, for example, the Church of Zion—which also gave its name to the surrounding area, “the Zion Colony”—was not renamed throughout the war. 76
VI
Only a small fraction of the approximately 2.2 million Polish Jews who fell into German hands by the end of September 1939 belonged to the bourgeoisie. The great majority, whether living in cities or in small towns, belonged to the lower middle class of shopkeepers and artisans; as mentioned, they were increasingly pauperized due to the persistent economic crisis and growing ambient hostility. In Lodz, for example, in the early 1930s, 70 percent of Jewish working-class families (comprising on average five to eight persons) lived in a single room; almost 20 percent of these rooms were either in attics or in cellars; part were both workshops and living quarters. The Jews of Warsaw, Vilna, and Bialystok were not much better off than those of Lodz. 77 More than a quarter of the entire Jewish population of Poland was in need of assistance in 1934, and the trend was on the rise in the late thirties. 78 In Ezra Mendelsohn’s words, Polish Jewry, on the eve of the war, “was an impoverished community with no hope of reversing its rapid economic decline.” 79
An important—albeit decreasing—part of this population, let us recall, had been and remained self-consciously Jewish in terms of culture—including language (Yiddish or Hebrew)—and various degrees of religious practice. 80 During the interwar period the cultural separatism of the Jews—not different from that of other minorities living in the new Polish state—exacerbated the already deep-rooted native anti-Semitism. This hostile attitude was nurtured by traditional Catholic anti-Judaism, by an increasingly fierce Polish economic drive to force the Jews out of their trades and professions, as well as by mythical stories of Jewish subversive activities against Polish national claims and rights. 81
In this fervently Catholic country, the role of the church was decisive. A study of the Catholic press between the wars opened with a resolutely unambiguous statement: “All Catholic journalists agreed…that there was indeed a ‘Jewish question’ and that the Jewish minority in Poland posed a threat to the identity of the Polish nation and the independence of the Polish state.” The general tenor of the articles
On occasion, however, it was necessary not to push the “logical” follow-up of anti-Jewish incitement beyond a given limit, as some measures could lead to negative reactions among the population. Thus, on March 6, 1940, Goebbels, Rosenberg, and their Führer reached the conclusion that some parts of church liturgy should not be forbidden, even if they praised the Jews: “We can’t push this matter now.” 75 In Dresden, for example, the Church of Zion—which also gave its name to the surrounding area, “the Zion Colony”—was not renamed throughout the war. 76
VI
Only a small fraction of the approximately 2.2 million Polish Jews who fell into German hands by the end of September 1939 belonged to the bourgeoisie. The great majority, whether living in cities or in small towns, belonged to the lower middle class of shopkeepers and artisans; as mentioned, they were increasingly pauperized due to the persistent economic crisis and growing ambient hostility. In Lodz, for example, in the early 1930s, 70 percent of Jewish working-class families (comprising on average five to eight persons) lived in a single room; almost 20 percent of these rooms were either in attics or in cellars; part were both workshops and living quarters. The Jews of Warsaw, Vilna, and Bialystok were not much better off than those of Lodz. 77 More than a quarter of the entire Jewish population of Poland was in need of assistance in 1934, and the trend was on the rise in the late thirties. 78 In Ezra Mendelsohn’s words, Polish Jewry, on the eve of the war, “was an impoverished community with no hope of reversing its rapid economic decline.” 79
An important—albeit decreasing—part of this population, let us recall, had been and remained self-consciously Jewish in terms of culture—including language (Yiddish or Hebrew)—and various degrees of religious practice. 80 During the interwar period the cultural separatism of the Jews—not different from that of other minorities living in the new Polish state—exacerbated the already deep-rooted native anti-Semitism. This hostile attitude was nurtured by traditional Catholic anti-Judaism, by an increasingly fierce Polish economic drive to force the Jews out of their trades and professions, as well as by mythical stories of Jewish subversive activities against Polish national claims and rights. 81
In this fervently Catholic country, the role of the church was decisive. A study of the Catholic press between the wars opened with a resolutely unambiguous statement: “All Catholic journalists agreed…that there was indeed a ‘Jewish question’ and that the Jewish minority in Poland posed a threat to the identity of the Polish nation and the independence of the Polish state.” The general tenor of the articles
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