I’ve been working with the Holocaust Educational Trust and this article is a part of my final project

Introduction:

For my next steps I want to do an article for my school’s History magazine. I’ve already written an article previously so I think my Next Steps project would be a good fit for it. In the session, we were giving certain prompts and this one really resonated with me, and I really want to do my project using this statement as a springboard: Although the Holocaust was the genocide of Jewish people, we must understand the reasons why other groups were persecuted in order to gain a full understanding of the Holocaust.

How is the Holocaust defined?

The Holocaust Educational Trust defines the Holocaust thus: The Holocaust was the murder of approximately six million Jewish, men women and children by Nazi Germany and its collaborators during the Second World War. 

Usefulness of the definition

The definition is useful in a multitude of ways. ‘men, women and children’ demonstrates to us that they were targeted for who they are rather than anything they’ve done, challenging the stereotypical depictions of Jewish people as evil, predatory, money-obsessed and conspirators to world domination. ‘Nazi Germany and its collaborators’ shows that states and individuals were complicit even if they were not directly involved like SS members, freight drivers, guards etc. Even Lithuanian collaborators murdered Jewish people as Nazi Germany took over.  The verb ‘murder’ as opposed to the much more passive ‘kill’ is also important as it highlights that these were humans killing other humans, affirming the humanity of not only the perpetrators but the victims whose names were replaced by tattoos and their worldly possessions discarded for prison uniforms, starvation rations and brutality.

Limitations of the definition

While the definition is useful in the aforementioned ways, it is limited as it only focuses on the persecution of Jewish people and while they should rightfully be at the forefront of our remembrance, other groups also deserve recognition. Many other groups faced hardships during this time like the disabled community, black and mixed communities, the gay community, Roma and Sinti people and those the Nazis deemed to be dangerous political adversaries. I want to share some of their stories and investigate why those groups were also persecuted to gain a full understanding of the Holocaust.

Soviet Prisoners of War

During the course of Operation Barbarossa, 5.7 million Red Army soldiers were taken prisoner by Germany. Around 3.3 million of them died in Nazi captivity, most from Autumn 1941 to Spring 1942. They were held in ‘camps’ which were usually just fenced off fields with no food or accommodation. Among the victims was Konstantin Alexandrovich Skilov. Furthermore, over 7 million soviet citizens were killed (1.3 million of those people being of Jewish descent). The Nazis regarded them as both ideological and racial enemies. Learning about this is so important because there is so much divisiveness in politics and the ‘us and them’ mentality has really been allowed to flourish. Whether it is the paradigm between Democrats and Republicans, Conservatives and Labour, rhetoric like those espoused in Nazi Germany still exist and must be addressed quickly.

Football’s relation to all of this

 To show solidarity for the Black Lives Matter Movement, Footballers took a knee representing how the police officer Dereck Chauvin murdered George Floyd. They were booed and politicians like Priti Patel and Boris Johnson.

 Taking the knee was actually something popularized by Colin Kaepernick. He is an American Football player who player in the NFL and was called unpatriotic and Anti- American for simply advocating for equal rights for Black people. There is a rich legacy of black people internationally making symbolic statements and use their bodies, voices and influences to catalyse a tidal wave of immense change.

Beyoncé paying homage to the Black Panther movement during her 2016 Superbowl performance also caused a revealing controversy She faced backlash, vitriol and boycotting all for supporting the autonomy, freedom and complete liberation of her race. While not exactly the same, there is an extremely rich legacy of persecuted group’s self-defence being interpreted as a disruption to power structures. That interpretation is what led to Rosa Parks being arrested, Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcom X being assassinated, Nelson Mandela being imprisoned for 27 years and Beyoncé facing major pushback. By thinking of the Holocaust beyond the subjugation of Jewish People, we are able to understand it better and create connections of those events to contemporary movements.

The Disabled Community

The Holocaust was partly motivated by the pursuits of Eugenics. The Nazi’s sought to create the perfect race of people (Aryans). And disabled people were viewed as being a financial liability, leading to over 250 thousand of them being murdered. One of them was Theresia Karas who was born on the 13^thMay 1928 in Austria. She suffered from epilepsy and spent her life in and out of hospitals and even though she was receiving physical therapy at the Diakoniewerk Gallneukirchen – a home for the disabled- on 13^th January 1941, twelve-year-old Theresia was one of the 59 people transported to Hartheim Castle where she was murdered.

Mixed-race community

The Nazis were also concerned with the purity of the race and those who were of mixed origin opposed that very narrow-minded goal

Theodor Wonja- Michael is an example His mother was of White Jewish descent and his father of African descent. Jews and black people were actually implicated as co-conspirators by the Nazi regime as bringing about the destruction of the pure and unblemished white race and as a mixed person, Theodore, even as innocent, defenceless and unaware baby, was a sinister amalgamation of all their fears. He was called a ‘foreigner’ and repeatedly attacked and tried to remain invisible out of fear of forced sterilization as over 500 mixed and black kids were. In 1943 at the age of 18 years old, he is put in a forced labour camp for foreigners and after the war is liberated.  He’d since become a successful journalist, activist, actor and performer. He passed away 19^th October 2019 at the age of 94.

The rise in anti- Jewish hate crimes

Overall, this project has had a huge impact on me and while I believe that definition of the Holocaust could benefit from refining and expanding, it remains true unfortunately to this day that Jewish people are being ‘targeted’ and ‘othered’. The Community Security Trust revealed a record high of 1,805 antisemitic incidents in 2019 and in 2020 the number was 1,668 (the third highest recorded in CST history). These are not outliers. These numbers point to a pertinent problem.  It is clear that Covid-19 has led to a rise in antisemitic conspiracy theories and the use of dangerous alternative media platforms. Whilst it is partly to do with better reporting and knowledge, it is worrying that this trend isn’t coming down.

Regarding the nature of the incidents, CST reports that there were 100 cases of assault/extreme violence, 72 of damage and desecration of Jewish property, 1,399 reports of abusive behaviour (including verbal abuse, antisemitic graffiti, antisemitic abuse via social media and one-off hate mail), 85 direct antisemitic threats, and 12 cases of mass-mailed antisemitic leaflets or emails. The hate that made the Holocaust happen didn’t disappear, it re-designed. The propaganda that created terrible stereotypes about Jews didn’t stop spreading, it found new modes, more viral and sensationalised platforms to be disseminated.

Impact

This experience has had an indelible impact on me, expanding my mind, understanding and knowledge in ways words in any language would be inadequate in conveying. What struck above all else is the immense loss the Jewish community and other disenfranchised minority groups had to grapple with purely because of facets of their identity that had no control ovel. This inspired me to write a poem called ‘Loss’ as I feel like that is what an underpins the true tragedy of the Holocaust. Whether it was loss of a loved one (s), friends, business, possessions and ties to their cultural roots, loss was and is inescapable and must be remembered with a level of sensitivity and care not afforded to them during the devastating reign of the Nazi regime.

Loss

 

Infiltrating minds

Colonizing thoughts

Terrorist to my beating heart

Loss

 

A non-linear series

A sequence of disconnected cries

A piece of me died with you

But I grieve for the puzzles pieces that stay

 Lost

 

Unforgettable. That’s what you are sways in the background

You glide with me. Powerful. Elegant. Sensual. Passionate. Alive

You died on me. Weak. Messy. Repulsive. Detached.             Cold

Though near or far. So soulful. So sorrowful.

  Loss

 

“I’ll fight for you!” you chanted to us (me)

In shiny black uniform, we strut, we march, we demand, take up and seize space

In your memory

In your honour

I don’t know how to lead a revolution

All I have is

   Loss

 

They’re fleeing like flies

Grabbing audience members with my flimsy grasp

I beg them to stay

A group without its leader

Is a cacophony of conflict and banging noise

No justice, no peace

Where is the peace when we don’t know what happened to our…