Holocaust Study Guide PDF

Preview

Summary

Full Study Guide for Final Exam filled out...

Description

FINAL EXAMINATION—Study Guide German 59, “The Holocaust in Film and Literature” (Fall 2018) Prof. Fuchs Short Essays (1 page): 1. Ferenc Török’s 1945 (if you haven’t watched the film, I assure you, you will be in trouble) ● Greek Drama, the classical unities ● two Jewish survivors of the Holocaust who arrive in a Hungarian village in August 1945 ● villagers became paranoid because some of feared that these and other Jews are coming to reclaim Jewish property 2. ● ● ● ● ●

Elie Wiesel’s Night holocaust survivor author of “Night” born in Sighet, Romania March 1944- Ghetto May 1944- Deportation to Auschwitz ○ almost killed by another prisoner ○ witnessed the death of his father, but couldn’t do anything to stop it ● Loss of faith ○ can’t cope with the idea of an all-knowing God 3. Resistance (be specific: people/organization’s names—their function, places) ● August Landmesser refused to do the Nazi salute at the 1936 rally with crossed arms ● John Heartfield published more than 200 anti-fascist collages in ArbeiterIllustrierte- Zeitung in Berlin and Prague ○ Hitler censored it ● Hundreds of priests sent to Dachau for opposition to Nazism ● Major Catholic resistors purged in 1934 during Night of the Long Knives ● About 10,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses arrested and some sent to camps ● Convents, monasteries, and orphanages throughout Germany, the Netherlands, France, Belgium, Italy, and Poland sheltered Jews ○ Assisi Network- in Italy and Southern France ○ Zegota- in Poland ● Student Resistance: The White Rose Society ● Anti-Fascist group founded at the University of Munich in 1942 by student activism ○ called for sabotage of government ○ participated in underground “teach-ins” ○ arrested in 1943, tried for treason, and executed 4. Margarethe von Trotta's Rosenstrasse.

Ruth’s husband has just passed away she is very strict and attentive towards her grievance period Ruth never told her daughter about her past Hannah learns about her mothers past and embarks on a journey to Germany Hannah interviews Mr. Fischer, the woman who saved her mother when she was a child ● Nazi’s arrested male and female Jews and kept them at Rosentrasse ● Wives of the arrested men waited outside Rosentrasse and demanded that their husbands be set free ● eventually, they were set free

● ● ● ● ●

5. The persecution of the other groups of people, in addition to the Jewish people, under the Nazi rule (be specific, similarities and differences) ● ●

Also Targeted- gypsies, homosexuals, disabled; even if they were German, poles Gypsies- lazy, dirty, criminals, asocial, racially inferior

6. Poetry: Paul Celan (go over his poems in detail—consult my lecture) ● poems about sights, experiences, and aspects of life in concentration camps and ghettos ● black milk= spoiled soup ● grave in the air= ashes flying around ● black flakes= ashes in the air ● willow and aspens don’t relieve sorrows Short Answers (maximum length one paragraph): 1. Anti-Semitism ● launched in 1879 by German journalist Wilhelm Marr ● religious- belief that Jews killed Jesus ● linguistic/ethnic- speak a different language ● national/political- not always considered citizens of the nation where they dwell; considered “foreign element” ● Racial- In the mid-19th-century, Jews considered racially inferior, degenerate ● economic- belief that Jews control media, banks, practice usury/ moneylending, Jews hold host nation” captive ● Slander: Spoken defamation ○ Jews practice ritual murder ○ poison wells (cause Bubonic Plague) ○ can’t be saved/redeemed ○ eternally condemned to wander the earth (“Wandering Jew) 2. Nazi propaganda machine (people, works) ●

●

Goebbels- propaganda minister, worked with Hitler to enforce and create strong propaganda, pushed for stringer anti-semitism against Jews, The Eternal Jew, Triumph of the Will Leni Riefenstahl- a female director that directed “The Triumph of the Will”

3. The Eternal Jew (Film) ● the false documentary used to convince people how bad Jews are ● a campaign in Poland gave them an opportunity to get to know the Jewish people ● nearly 4 million Jews in Poland ● after seeing pictures of Polish ghettos for Jews; Germans deemed them toxic ● Jews not poor but live in disturbing homes ● Jews doing work isn’t voluntary; German soldiers force them ● not used to working ● welcome trade eagerly ● Jews don’t care how they get their money 4. ● ● ● ● ●

Fascism in Nazi Germany rebirth of nation scapegoats= Jews (blamed for the decline of Germany) populist nationalism celebrates a return to order, social hierarchy, militarism, and discipline becomes totalitarian through terror, singularity, instability, and elimination of all checks and balances

5. Endlösung der Judenfrage ● Final Solution to the Jewish Question ● Common Euphemism 6. ● ● ●

Lebensborn A system of maternity homes for the wives of SS men and for single mothers SS initiated to promote the preeminence of the Aryan race

7. Hannah Arendt (excerpts from both works we talked about) ● The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951 ○ 1st major book to analyze the genesis of the Holocaust ● The goal of totalitarianism- “is to see to it that the victim never existed at all” ● Elements of Totalitarianism○ totalitarianism- governed by a single person who controls everything (Hitler) ○ total domination- reduces the infinite plurality of humanity, eliminates freedom and spontaneity ○ makes a mockery of any legal system and all forms of adequate punishment ○ terror is the essence of totalitarianism, domination destroys freedom 8. Adolf Eichmann ● Obersturmbannführer ● the mid-1930s: worked under Heydrich in SD

● ● ● ● ●

1938/39: Facilitated emigration of Jews out of Germany fled to Argentina Eichmann trial took place in Israel Found Guilty on all 15 charges and executed on May 31, 1962 claimed he was just following orders, he didn’t do anything.

9. ● ● ●

Wannsee Conference (where, goals, film) 1942; small conference outside of Berlin 12 people attended this conference Heydrich (Commander of SS) invites everyone to the conference

10. Extermination camps (names, where, the technology of killing used) ● Auschwitz○ Birkenau: 1.1 million killed; use of Zyklon B (1941) ○ Located in Poland ● Sobibor ○ 250,000 killed; using carbon monoxide released from the exhaust pipes of a tank engine ○ Located in Poland ● Belzec ○ 600,000 killed; first experiments with gas chambers in 1941/41 ○ 15,000 murder per day ○ Located in Poland ○ 2 survived ● Treblinka ○ 870,000 killed; gas chambers ○ located in Poland ○ mainly Polish Jews ● Majdanek ○ 360,000 killed, gas chambers disguised as showers ○ located in Poland ● Chelmno ○ 400,000 killed; mobile vans ○ located in Poland ○ 10 survived 11. Primo Levi ● order of terror ● experience of people building the camps ● the Nazis had devised a process of dehumanization that pitted victims against each other in an animalistic fight for survival ● Forms of dehumanization ○ stripped of names ○ stripped of belongings ○ shaved hair ○ uniforms

○ starved ○ “Shell of Humans” ○ killing humanity 12. Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah ● over 350 hours of testimony; took 11 years to film and edit, the 1970s to early 1980s ● Shoah- destruction ● No historical footage or historical reenactment; just testimony in the present ● Little script and no theatrical stagecraft. 13. Le Chagrin et la Pitie,N by Marcel Ophuls ● film about the collaboration between the Vichy government and Nazi Germany during World War II. ● The film uses interviews with a German officer, collaborators, and resistance fighters from Clermont-Ferrand. 14. The Investigation by Peter Weiss ● play that depicts the Auschwitz Trials ● not a story and no stagecraft ● documentary theater: selection and presentation of evidence; catalog of atrocities 15. Major Nazi perpetrators (names, rank, function, crimes, sentences, eg. Mengele: Who was he? What role did he play and where did he “work” exactly? How did he end up?) ● Hitler- Fuhrer, leader of Germany, committed suicide ● Josef Mengele- a Nazi doctor at Auschwitz, experimented on the prisoners, fled to South America but soon discovered, however never caught ● Himmler- head of the SS ● Goring- #2 to Hitler, in charge of the military ● Heydrich- set up the Wannsee Conference, head of the Gestapo, head of Einsatzgruppen ● Gestapo is police, SS is more military ● Goebbels- propaganda minister, worked with Hitler to enforce and create strong propaganda, pushed for stringer anti-semitism against Jews, The Eternal Jew, Triumph of the Will ● Albert Spier- architect, designed concentration camps, “The Nazi Who Said I’m Sorry” came up during the Nuremberg Trials 16. The Reader by Bernhard Schlink ● Hanna Schmitz is an illiterate German woman ● doesn’t want anyone to know she’s illiterate ● has an affair with a 15-year-old boy named Michael who reads to her

● She joins the SS and becomes a guard at Auchwitz ● Her and other female SS guards trap Jews in a church as it burns down ● Hanna and the other female SS guards are tried for the crime, but the other guards say that Hanna was in charge of the event and wrote the incident report ● Hanna deflected the blame but couldn’t provide evidence that she didn’t write the report since she didn’t want anyone to know that she was illiterate ● She takes all the blame and is sentenced to life in prison 17. Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning ● psychology of survival ● humanity in the face of suffering ● finding meaning despite suffering ● we must have hope, even in tough times 18. Berlin Monuments ● Holocaust Memorial by Peter Eisenman, 2005 ● The Jewish Museum by Daniel Libeskind, 2001 ● Renata Sith and Frieder Schnock, Bavarian Quarter Memorial 19. Etty Hillesum (who, function, where, message) ● writer ● confessional letters and diaries ● Amsterdam-- law and Slavic languages ● Diary in 1941 ● Her diaries record ○ increasing Anti-Jewish measures ○ growing uncertainty about the fate of fellow Jews ○ duty to support others Very Short Answers (maximum length one sentence): 1. Weimar Republic ● democratic government before the Nazi’s came to power, 1919-1933 2. ● ● ● ● ●

The Treaty of Versailles Allied powers blamed Germany for WW1 ordered Germany to pay reparations de-militarized economy crashed German citizens felt blamed

3. ● ● ●

Nuremberg Laws September 15, 1935 establish citizenship based on “German Blood and certification by the Reich Prohibits marriage between Germans and Jews

● only those of German or related blood were entitled to be Reich citizens 4. Madagascar Plan ● Plan to ship all Jews to Madagascar...