Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews Peter Longerich (grave mercy .TXT) 📖

in the long run and ultimately

only led to the postponement of repressive measures by the Germans. Because

they could not resist the demands of the German side the Jewish councils gradually

reached the conclusion that it was their task to increase the chances of survival of

at least a part of the population of the ghettos by following German orders and

acquiescing in the wishes of the occupying powers, and in particular by encouraging

the workforce to be as productive as possible. For this reason the councils tended

to discipline the population of the ghettos in their own interests—as they believed.

The Jewish police therefore often proceeded rigorously in order to preserve the

authority of the councils. 132

It would be too simplistic to derive from this account an image of a Jewish elite

that was anxious to conform at all costs. After a detailed examination of the Jewish

170

The Persecution of the Jews, 1939–1941

councils in the General Government and Upper Silesia Aharon Weiss has come to

the conclusion that of the 146 Jewish elders originally nominated by the Germans

57 lost their positions because they were not willing to meet the demands that were

placed upon them by the Germans: 11 resigned their posts, 26 were replaced, 18

were liquidated and 2 committed suicide. In the light of this it was not so much the

individual compliance of those holding these positions that ultimately guaranteed

the successful implementation of the Germans’ policies as a willingness on the

German side to force the institution of the Jewish councils into submission, if

necessary using the most brutal of methods. The relatively frequent changes in the

occupancy of the council posts had as a further consequence the effect of gradually

replacing the members of local elites, who had initially dominated the Jewish

councils, with newcomers and outsiders, who had less intimate connections with

the local population and therefore tended to reinforce the alienation that was

growing between the councils and the population of the ghettos. 133

If the institution of the Jewish councils tended to bow to the demands of the

Germans and was in particular prepared to treat different sectors of the popula-

tion of the ghettos in a differentiated manner—corresponding to their presumed

usefulness to the German occupying power—this was because the Jewish occu-

pants of council posts were guided by the idea that the Germans were pursuing a

rationally comprehensible goal and that their behaviour was ultimately calculable

or predictable. However, the fact that the policies of the occupying power were

based on ideologically racist premises to which all utilitarian perspectives were

subordinated was a phenomenon that must have been wholly incomprehensible

to the Jewish councils. The reality of a thoroughgoing racist occupation was

something without historical precedent. 134

From the perspective of the persecutors the system established in the ghettos

was remarkably efficient. The minimum of effort was needed to facilitate the total

exploitation and the near perfect dominance of the ghetto populations. The

occupiers could always rely on their instructions being carried out by the Jewish

councils, with a different membership if necessary. The ‘management’ of the

ghettos by the Jewish councils guaranteed in almost all cases the resolution of

conflict within the ghettos themselves, without bothering the occupying powers

with any serious need to intervene.

In the years 1940 and 1941 underground action within the ghettos was

restricted to social aid, cultural activities, illegal political meetings, and the

production of pamphlets. There was no real basis for any far-reaching organized

passive resistance, let alone any active measures. 135 Resistance from the ghettos was not a factor that would cause the German side any serious trouble in 1940–1.

On the contrary, the Jewish councils developed a routine of following German

instructions, which became fatally habitual: with the intention of preventing

the worst, the Jewish councils themselves became the instruments of German

anti-Jewish policy.

Deportations

171

It would be completely futile to try to analyse the conditions in the ghettos

without always remembering and bearing in mind at every stage of the analysis

that the ghettos were institutions conceived, realized, and rigorously controlled by

the Germans. The slightest degree of insubordination on the part of the Jewish

councils was met with the most draconian of punishments. 136 The autonomy of these Jewish councils within the ghettos, which was in any case only vestigial, and

the illusions of the inhabitants that derived from the appearance of autonomy,

were important components of the perfidious system of control that the Germans

employed. From the perspective of the historiography of the perpetrators any

judgement of the behaviour of the Jewish councils that does not take into account

the true power relations is entirely pointless.

However, turning the ghettos into productive enterprises and increasing the

deployment of Jews in forced labour projects within the General Government

after spring

137

1941

led to the increased differentiation of the Jewish population

according to their ‘capacity for work’. This distinction was an important precursor

of the concept developed by the SS from autumn 1941: ‘annihilation through

work’.

Deportations Phase III: The Consequences of

the Madagascar Plan

The Madagascar Plan also had a direct effect on ‘Jewish policy’ in the area of the

Reich. In mid-July 1940 the Gauleiter of Berlin, Goebbels, informed leading

officials in the Propaganda Ministry that immediately after the end of the war

he would have the more than 60,000 remaining Jews of Berlin ‘transported to

Poland’ within no longer than eight weeks. Then the ‘other Jew cities (Breslau,

etc.)’ would have their turn. In early September 1940 the official responsible for

‘Jewish affairs’, Hans Hinkel, once more confirmed that it was the authorities’

intention to deport all the Jews of Berlin immediately after the end of the war. 138

And indeed it was in October 1940 that deportations on the largest scale so far

were to take place: the expulsion of the Jewish minorities from Baden and the

Saar-Palatinate, who were deported to southern France following the expulsion of

Jews and other ‘undesirables’ from Alsace and Lorraine, which had been ear-

marked for annexation. By summer 1940 there had been protests in the Gaus of

the Palatinate and Baden when the population that had been evacuated from the

border zones at the outbreak of war began to return and the Jews also wished to

resettle in their former homes; in Breisach and Kehl local Party authorities had on

their own initiative driven the returning Jews into the occupied Alsatian zone,

although they were allowed to return from there a few weeks later after an

intervention