Holocaust Questions and Answers

1. What factors account for the fact that the Jewish Holocaust is more well known than
   other mass slaughters? How does Abzug explain his book? 
   Unlike other mass slaughters which the perpetrators can deny their scale or even their
   occurrence, the horrors of the Jewish Holocaust were relayed to the whole world through photos
   and videos shot by Allied camera men after the liberation of the concentration camps by Allied
   soldiers. As a result of such ample evidence and the immense international attention and
   consternation that followed its release, the Jewish Holocaust has become by far the best known
   of all genocides.
   Chapter One
2. Why did Americans (military, press and public) doubt what was taking place in these
   camps? Why was it so hard for Americans to comprehend or believe the truth? 
   Americans believed reports that Nazis were committing bad things in the concentration camps.
   However, they refused to believe the scale or horror of the atrocities because of the legacy of
   World War One propaganda against Germany which later turned out to be false and exaggerated
   and also because the atrocities were so horrific and so massive that they had a hard time
   believing they were true.
3. Explain Reinhold Neibuhr’s assessment of why the West ignored what was happening.
   Why were those who liberated the camps still unprepared for what they found? 
   According to Reinhold Neibuhr the West ignored what was happening because of guilt at the
   realization that the problem of anti-Semitism was common in many other Western countries as
   well, not just Germany. Hitler had just gone to the extremes but not initiated the problem.
   The soldiers who liberated the camps were unprepared for what they found because the horrors
   and the scale of the horrors was beyond anything that they had imagined.
   Chapter Two
4. How was Ohrdruf discovered? What did Americans find there? What had the camp been
   used for? 
   Ohrdruf was accidentally found by units of the Fourth Armored Division who were looking for a
   Nazi communications centre. Upon entering the camp, they found piles of dead bodies, fleshless
   and with bullets in their heads. The camp had previously been used as a labor camp where
   inmates dug huge caverns for housing underground transportation and headquarters.
5. Why did Eisenhower order troops to tour Ohrdruf? 

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Upon seeing the horrors of Ohrdruf, General Eisenhower ordered troops not at the front to visit
the camp because he felt that it was important that both the troops and the world become aware
of the terrible conditions of the camp and other concentration camps.

6. What had Nordhausen been used for under the Nazis? How did the liberators of the camp
   deal with what they found there? 
   Nordhausen had been constructed in 1943 and used by the Nazis to provide labor for V-2
   factories. When it was liberated, American soldiers evacuated survivors to army hospitals and
   dug mass graves to bury the dead prisoners.
   Chapter Three
7. How and why did Buchenwald change between 1938 and its liberation in 1945? How was
   it different from Ohrdruf and Nordhausen? 
   Between 1938 to 1945 Buchenwald changed from being a camp for political prisoners, Jews, and
   criminals to a slave labor camp housing, in addition to earlier prisoners, Eastern and Western
   Europeans as well as Gypsies. The change was necessitated by the war economy that required
   lots of labor for war industries. The main difference between Buchenwald and Ohrdruf and
   Nordhausen was the bitter revenge killings that were commonplace and carried out by armed
   prisoners against their SS guards. The camp also had social division where German and Western
   European prisoners received better treatment than Jews and Eastern European prisoners.
8. Why did American repress emotions when confronted with these camps? Why was it
   easy for them to see the survivors as subhuman? 
   Americans repressed their emotions because that was the only way they could function. It was
   easy for them to see survivors as sub-humans because they were unpleasant to look at, makes or
   in rags, and generally exhibited craven behavior.
   Chapter Four
9. What is the meaning of this chapter’s title?
   The title ‘A Landscape of Terror’ means that the landscape of Germany, Austria, and occupied
   Poland was dotted with hundreds of big concentration camps, sub-concentration camps, and sub-
   sub-concentration camps where inmates were terrorised. Apart from these camps, there were also
   many terrorised people that could be met along roads of Nazi Germany.
10. (See Chapter 5 as well for this one.) What were German civilian attitudes toward the
    camps, during Nazi rule and after? Would you let this go on near your home? 
    Germans expressed ignorance about the concentration camps that were near them. Those who
    knew about them preferred to remain silent about them. After they were liberated, Germans
    brought in to see them were horrified at the conditions of their inmates but few expressed
    remorse. This could be because they had been brainwashed into believing that the inmates were
    sub-humans.

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11. What actions did Nazis take as Allied troops approached the camps described in this
    chapter? 
    As the Allies approached Nazis tried evacuating some of the inmates probably to their death
    camps in the East. For remaining inmates, they burnt them or left them to die.
    Chapter Five
12. What were the origins of Dachau? How did the camp evolve under Nazi control? 
    Dachau was a thousand-year old town 11 miles north of Munich. It was generally a quiet where
    people came to relax and escape from the bustle of Munich. In 1933 it was set up as a pilot camp
    for internment and re-education of Hitler’s enemies (Communists and Social Democrats). Jews
    were brought in after 1938 and during the Second World War it served as a hub for shipment of
    slave workers and prisoners.
13. What motivated the revenge attacks as Dachau was liberated? Are these attacks
    justifiable?
    The revenge killings that were carried out in Dachau after its liberation were caused by anger at
    the brutal actions of SS guards during the war. The killings were certainly not justified as it
    would have been better if they had been tried in a court of law.
    Chapter Six
14. What was the history of Mauthausen before it’s liberation? How was it different from
    other camps? 
    Mauthausen was established in 1938 by SS boss Heinrich Himmler to provide labor for a quarry.
    It later admitted Jews, Jehovah Witnesses, criminals, and homosexuals. What made it different
    from other camps was the near-death working conditions that the inmates faced in the camp
    working at the quarry.
15. Again, how did GI’s deal with the experiences of the camps? How do you think you
    would cope confronted with these horrors? 
    GI’s dealt with the experiences of the camp either avoiding looking at the most terrible
    conditions in the camps, or trying to forget what they had seen. Personally, I would have tried
    coping with images of the terrible conditions at the camp by avoiding them.
    Chapter Seven
16. How did the American public react to reports about the camps? 
    American public reacted to reports of the conditions of the camps with a mixture of surprise and
    outrage. Many found it hard believing that such atrocities could be carried out on such grand a
    scale.

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17. How and why were tours of the liberated camps conducted? 
    Tours to the camps involved soldiers, German citizens, Congress members, journalists, and other
    interested parties. Visitors generally viewed the human remains, the physical camps, and
    interviewed survivors. The purpose of the tours was to bear first hand witness to Nazi atrocities
    so that there would be no doubt that they ever happened.
18. Why did some people criticize reports of the camps as “propaganda” and even deny what
    happened? How did soldiers who had seen the camps react to such efforts? 
    Some people denied the reports of the camps as propaganda because they did not believe that
    Germans could commit such atrocities. Others believed that the reports were meant to condition
    the public for a hard peace with Germany such as that of the First World War. Soldiers who had
    visited the camps and had a first hand experience of its conditions reacted to the denials by
    sharing snapshots that they had taken of the camps.
19. After reading the last paragraph of this chapter, flip back through all the pictures so far.
    Are they hard to look at? How can you explain cruelty on this scale? 
    The pictures are certainly heartrending and unbelievably horrific. Cruelty of this scale could not
    have happened minus the intense brainwashing which made many Germans to believe that Jews
    and other groups were sub-humans and, therefore, deserved no sympathy.
    Chapter Eight
20. How did imprisonment affect the survivors? Did the conditions of the camps create
    heroes? If you know anything about slavery in the US, do the effects sound similar? 
    Imprisonment at the camps left survivors broken in both body and spirit. The conditions
    generally created no heroes as the inmates adopted a tough survival mentality. Their situation
    after liberation was similar to that of African Americans after their emancipation at the end of the
    Civil War. The conditions had so broken them that they had no problem living without dignity
    and engaging in activities that could bring disrepute to them.
21. How were the DPs dealt with after the war? How were American perceptions of Jewish
    DPs different from their perception of other DPs? 
    After the war the Allies created United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration to take
    care of the needs of displaced persons (DPs). Priority was given to DPs from Nazi-occupied
    countries and not Austrians, Germans, and Hungarians who were considered as enemies.
    American perceptions of Jewish DPs were highly negative compared to those of other DPs,
    particularly Balts. They viewed Jewish DPs as dirty and disorganized as opposed to the clean and
    organized Baltic DPs.
22. Why did American attitudes toward Germany change so quickly after the war? How had
    Patton changed since you saw him in Ch. 2? 

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Americans attitudes towards Germans quickly changed to positive after the war because they
loves their towns and hospitality which they found to resemble their hometowns more closely
than English or French towns.
Compared to General Patton of Chapter Two, the new Patton had little sympathy, if any, for
Jews and had become pro-Nazi. This hardening of feelings towards Jews could be because of his
anti-Semitism as well as his desire to have Germans be part of the anti-Soviet war that he
believed was coming.

23. What was the Harrison Report? What were its recommendations for the Jewish DPs? 
    The Harrison Report was a report by Earl Harrison on the condition of Jewish DPs. It
    recommended that their temporary conditions be improved and also that their emigration to other
    countries, particularly Palestine and USA, be quickened.
    Epilogue
24. How did the experience in the camps affect the survivors, the liberators, and the
    American public? 
    For liberators, a few suffered nightmares, others quickly moved on after their friends and family
    disbelieved or showed little interest in their stories of the concentration camps. In later years,
    though, they remembered their horrific experiences. For the survivors, they struggled to live
    normal lives after their liberation. Some, filled with rage, started looking out for ex-Nazis for
    revenge while others found therapy through talking of their experiences. For the public, they
    initially greeted the reports with shock and anger but then as the war crimes proceedings dragged
    on they lost interest in the subject.
    Big Question
25. Hitler was known to praise the “efficiency” of the extermination of Native Americans and
    modeled Jewish segregation laws on Southern segregation. In what ways was the Nazi
    treatment of Jews different from white Americans’ treatment of Native and Black
    Americans?
    Just like Nazi treatment of Jews, White Americans treated Native Americans and African
    Americans very badly. However, unlike Nazis, they never had a deliberate policy to exterminate
    them as a people.
26. What did you think of this book overall, and what did you learn from it?  Would you
    recommend I continue to use it as an option for this course, and why?
    The book is a great and informative read. Its strength lies in the detailed context that it offers on
    actions or inactions of various players such as the survivors, the liberators, the SS guards, the
    German civilians, and the Allied political and military leadership of the time. It should certainly
    continue being used as an option for this course because of its in-depth examination of the
    Holocaust complete with numerous pictures that give a visual reinforcement of the horrors of the
    Holocaust.

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Works Cited

Abzug, Robert H. Inside the vicious heart: Americans and the liberation of Nazi concentration
camps. Oxford University Press, USA, 1987.