The Holocaust was one of the largest-scale secrets the nazi's were able to keep from the world for a majority of the regime. While the war began late in 1939, the first concentration camp (Majdanek) was discovered by the Soviets in Poland. This reveals that the nazis were able to conceal an organized, fasted paced, and large scaled genocide for multiple years.
This deception was primarily done by having as little reference to it as possible on paper, a majority of the orders and records made and kept verbally. In fact, most of what documents were made referring to concentration camps were destroyed before the end of the war. The classification for these documents was "Geheime Reichssache" meaning top secret. In addition, in any verbal reference to the genocide, nazi officials would use non-specific terms such as "action" as opposed to killings and "resettlement" as well as "special treatment".
Another approach to covering up the evidence of concentration camps was Operation 1005. This operation brought the burning of bodies in mass graves and destruction of several abandoned concentration camps.
After ridding of evidence, another precaution to take is to mislead the public to create a positive sentiment to the current leadership, or create a campaign of misinformation. The Nazis permitted a Red Cross Commission to go around Germany and disseminate the idea that the "resettled" Jews are in good conditions and treated fairly. Also, as more Jews were deported to concentration camps, the population within the ghettos decreased. Only then did the nazis fund projects to spruce up the homes with gardens and painting jobs. The prisoners were then instructed to behave properly and give good reports to visitors and inspectors.
Due to all these precautions and illusions created by the german regime, there was a significant amount of Holocaust deniers. These people, specifically in Germany, remain ignorant and befuddled by how an advanced country could commit such an atrocity (this sentiment is also combined with a national pride).
William, very interesting post! One thing that I didn't know before was that the Germans actually passed a lot of information about the Holocaust verbally, didn't know that! In kind of a messed up way that's actually quite smart. I was still interested in how even though I know that there were prisoners who managed to escape the camps, other countries refused to believed that the Holocaust was actually real and I wanted to know if there was any action taken at all against it. there were countries that knew about the holocaust years before it was actually ended and had they taken action earlier on, the war could have had a different ending and a huge amount of lives could have been saved. I also found that some historians however believe that "theoretical military action by the Allies, such as bombing the Auschwitz concentration camp, would have saved the lives of very few people". This is because people were constantly being brought in so they wouldn't have really been able to save as many lives as it is believed.
ReplyDeleteSource: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_response_to_the_Holocaust
The Holocaust was truly one of the scariest horrors of the world. The choice by the Nazi regime to reference the genocide as little as possible is new information to me. Before the camps started, the Jews were herded into tiny ghettos and forced to live in terrible conditions. If this had been shown to the Allies, perhaps they would have intervened earlier. However, to avoid contempt from other nations, Hitler actually invited the Red Cross to the ghettos to inspect them. The Jews there were forced to clean up the place, and pretend that they loved it there. It was a sadistic move, to trick the outside nations into believing that Hitler was just like other leaders.
ReplyDeleteSources:
3 years of Jewish Studies during middle school
https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007463
The Holocaust was such a horrific atrocity that some people deny it because it is terrifying to believe that something to that extent could actually have happened. The Holocaust did happen, and it is important that people know about it to avoid allowing what the Nazis did to be repeated. I think it is interesting how Eisenhower went to Ohrdruf, which was a subcamp of the Buchenwald concentration camp and was liberated by US troops, and knew how important it was to share what he saw had happened there. Eisenhower stated, "I made the visit deliberately, in order to be in a position to give first-hand evidence of these things if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to 'propaganda.'" After seeing what the Nazis had done at camps like Ohrdruf, Eisenhower was impacted and knew he needed to make it known to the world that these crimes against humanity had really been committed.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10006131
Many people probably noticed that there was something wrong when so many people of the same race started leaving cities and towns, which shows that the Germans were very powerful over the press. Just like the story of Anne Frank, when they started noticing this, many Germans helped the Jews hide away so they didn't have to be sent to concentration camps. Even then, it's really interesting that not much information of the concentration camps reached outside of Germany until after they were discovered. I find it chilling that the Germans were able to keep a secret so big for so long...
ReplyDelete