Academic literature on the topic 'World war, 1939-1945, jews'

In the years 1989–1944 two different wars against the Soviet Union were imposed upon Finland. During the Winter War of 1989–1940 Germany remained strictly neutral on the basis of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact&&Great Britain and France planned intervention in favour of Finland. When the second, so-called Continuation War broke out in the summer of 1041, Finland was co-belligerent of Germany, and Great Britain declared war on Finland in December 1941. De jure, however, Finland was never an ally of Germany, and at the end of the war, in the winter 1944–1945, the Finnish armed forces expelled the German troops from Lapland, which was devastated by the Germans during their retreat to Norway. Military service was compulsory for each male citizen of Finland. In 1939 the Jewish population of Finland numbered 1 700. Of these, 260 men were called up and approximately 200 were sent to serve at the front during the Winter War.

Before 1939, Jewish architects were active members of their profession, participating in domestic and international architectural networks and contributing to the built environment of Polish cities. From the mid-1930s, however, intensifying antisemitism and far-right political forces pressured architectural networks to exclude Jews from professional unions. The start of the Second World War and the German occupation in 1939 strained professional architectural networks but led to the formation of underground workshops, cooperatives, and other groups, whose connections extended from Warsaw through the camps and ghettos of occupied Poland. This article presents the history of Jewish-Polish architects from 1937 to 1945. Demonstrating how architectural networks reacted to changing conditions of war, occupation, and genocide, it emphasizes architectural networks as sites of political engagement, ranging from prewar antisemitic attacks on Jews and their removal from the Society of Polish Architects (SARP) to underground architectural networks that hid Jews and allowed them to work. Although the fate of Jewish architects depended largely on their relationships with their professional networks, they also actively decided how to utilize those networks to resist the Nazis and to ensure their survival. This research shows that interpersonal relationships and wartime networks were consequential in determining the wartime fates of Jewish architects and also shaped the profession’s post-war structure.

The outbreak of World War II marked the beginning of a tragic period in history that determined the fate of Polish Jews. From its first days, the German terror was not only remembered as a prelude to the Holocaust, but also as the beginning of the end of synagogue architecture in Poland. The iconography presented in the article draws attention to the burning synagogues and, at the same time, the end of a world that was indisputably part of the culture, art and identity of Poland before 1939.In the landscape of Poland it constituted a kind of individuality, which in the vocabulary of the Third Reich was perceived as: “Jewish culture and architecture” (Judische Kultur und Architektur), “Jewishtypes” (Judische Typen), “subhumans” (Untermenschen). This is the vocabulary of the German soldier who has occupied Poland since September 1939. And although some of them had already become familiar with this world during the First World War, it was mostly the young recruit born between1920 and 1922 who perceived it in an alien way, unprecedented for him. Convinced of their mission to expand their living space (Lebensraum), and thus their right to rule over Poland and Eastern Europe, the young Germans simultaneously made a visual perception of Polish Jews. The main part the article consists of iconographic documents visualising the silent historical source and studies of the subject created after 1945. They cover the period from 1939 to 1941 and depict the process of destroying Polish synagogue architecture. These are significant years because it was during this period that the largest number of synagogues built in Poland before 1939 were destroyed.

The paper addresses the Slovak drama of the 21st century dedicated to the Second World War, the Holocaust, and the Slovak National Uprising. After the “velvet revolution” of 1989, interest in the military and insurgent theme in Slovak art as a whole declined sharply, but as early as in the 21st century playwrights and theaters of Slovakia are increasingly beginning to return to these topics. Many of these plays created in the last twenty years were written in order to actualize public discussions about the period of the Slovak Republic (1939–1945), around the mass deportation of Jews from its territory, around the arization, etc. The main task of these plays` authors is to put serious moral questions before the viewer. For this purpose, the paper focuses on social and historical context in which National Socialism spread in Slovakia. Such are, for example, the works of R. Ballek “Tiso”, P. Rankov “It Happened on the First of September (or Some Other Time)”, A. Gruskova “The Woman Rabbi”, V. Klimachek “The Holocaust”, Y. Yuraneva “The Silent Whip”. One of the most important questions that Slovak writers and society have been asking in recent decades is the question of how and why Slovaks actually joined Nazi Germany during the Second World War, what prompted them to do this.

This story is about a kind of pilgrimage, which is connected to the course of events which occurred in Częstochowa on 22 September 1942. In the morning, the German Captain Degenhardt lined up around 8,000 Jews and commanded them to step either to the left or to the right. This efficient judge from the police force in Leipzig was rapid in his decisions and he thus settled the destinies of thousands of people. After the Polish Defensive War of 1939, the town (renamed Tschenstochau) had been occupied by Nazi Germany, and incorporated into the General Government. The Nazis marched into Częstochowa on Sunday, 3 September 1939, two days after they invaded Poland. The next day, which became known as Bloody Monday, approximately 150 Jews were shot deadby the Germans. On 9 April 1941, a ghetto for Jews was created. During World War II about 45,000 of the Częstochowa Jews were killed by the Germans; almost the entire Jewish community living there.The late Swedish Professor of Oncology, Jerzy Einhorn (1925–2000), lived in the borderhouse Aleja 14, and heard of the terrible horrors; a ghastliness that was elucidated and concretized by all the stories told around him. Jerzy Einhorn survived the ghetto, but was detained at the Hasag-Palcery concentration camp between June 1943 and January 1945. In June 2009, his son Stefan made a bus tour between former camps, together with Jewish men and women, who were on this pilgrimage for a variety of reasons. The trip took place on 22–28 June 2009 and was named ‘A journey in the tracks of the Holocaust’. Those on the Holocaust tour represented different ‘pilgrim-modes’. The focus in this article is on two distinct differences when it comes to creed, or conceptions of the world: ‘this-worldliness’ and ‘other- worldliness’. And for the pilgrims maybe such distinctions are over-schematic, though, since ‘sacral fulfilment’ can be seen ‘at work in all modern constructions of travel, including anthropology and tourism’.

Mass deportations of native populations (Jews included) from territories annexed by the USSR in 1939–40 in amicable division of spoils with Nazi Germany and its allies had everywhere the same historical background and followed roughly the same procedure. Territories in question included the states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in their entirety, parts of Finland, nearly one-half of pre-1939 Poland, and the formerly Romanian regions of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina.

The article is devoted to assistance, rescue to the Jewish people in Romanian territory, including "Transnistria" in 1939–1945. Using the archival document from different institutions (USHMM, Franklyn D. Roosevelt Library) and newest literature, the author shows the scale of the assistance, its mechanism and kinds. It was determined some of existed charitable organizations and analyzed its mechanism of cooperation between each other. Before the war, the Romanian Jewish Community was the one of largest in Europe (after USSR and Poland) and felt all tragedy of Holocaust. Romania was the one of the Axis states; the anti-Semitic policy has become a feature of Marshal Antonescu policy. It consisted of deportations from some regions of Romania to newly-created region "Transnistria", mass exterminations, death due to some infectious disease, hunger, etc. At the same moment, Romania became an example of cooperation of the international organizations, foreign governments on providing aid. The scale of this assistance was significant: thanks to it, many of Romanian Jews (primarily, children) could survive the Holocaust: some of them were come back to Romanian regions, others decide to emigrate to Palestine. The emphasis is placed on the personalities, who played important (if not decisive) role: W. Filderman, S. Mayer, Ch. Colb, J. Schwarzenberg, R. Mac Clelland and many others. It was found that the main part of assistance to Romanian Jews was began to give from the end of 1943, when the West States, World Jewish community obtained numerous proofs of Nazi crimes against the Jews (and, particularly, Romanian Jews). It is worth noting that the assistance was provided, mostly, for Romanian Jews, deported from Regat; some local (Ukrainian) Jews also had the possibility to receive a lot of needful things. But before the winter 1942, most of Ukrainian Jews was exterminated in ghettos and concentration camps. The main kinds of the assistance were financial (donations, which was given by JDC through the ICRC and Romanian Jewish Community), food parcels, clothes, medicaments, and emigrations from "Transnistria" to Romania, Palestine (after 1943). Considering the status of Romania (as Nazi Germany's ally in World War II), the international financial transactions dealt with some difficulties, which delayed the relief, but it was changed after the Romania's joining to Allies. The further research on the topic raises new problem for scholars. Particularly, it deals with using of memoirs. There is one other important point is inclusion of national (Ukrainian) historiography on the topic, concerning the rescue of Romanian Jews, to European and world history context.

This article analyses Hammaren, a Swedish blend of Der Stürmer, Der Hammer and domestic antisemitic publications, published by the most radical Swedish national socialists and antisemitic crusaders, launched in January 1943 and discontinued on 30 April 1945, the day of Adolf Hitler’s suicide in Berlin. Hammaren fought a global war against an imaginary enemy, ‘the Jew’, described as evil and immensely powerful. ‘The Jew’ was responsible for everything wrong in the world, from embezzlement, petty theft and peddling to capitalism, Bolshevism and the ongoing world war, understood as an eschatological race war instigated by ‘the Jew’ and threatening the very existence of the white race. Hammaren, according to its contributors, was an enlightenment project; antisemitism meant self-defence against an overbearing, all-powerful enemy. This article investigates some of the strategies employed by Hammaren to spread rumours about the Jews, to ‘expose’ them and their henchmen, and thereby awaken Swedes to the dire situation.

The International Committee of the Red Cross from Geneva and its activities in the circumstances of the Second World War has been exclusively humanitarian, and the ICRC based it on the then applicable provisions and regulations of the International Law of War (the Law of Armed Conflict). In the aftermath of the Second World War, sporadic allegations began to arise on the ICRC's activities in the war’s circumstances, from 1939 to 1945. These allegations focused in particular on the ICRC's relations with the Authorities of the German Reich, and on the ICRC's activities in favor of the Jews during the war. Initially, the ICRC and its leadership has been facing sporadic accusations from various organizations or individuals, as well as accusations from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), that had no official relations with the ICRC, and shown open hostilities towards the ICRC in the aftermath of the Second World War. In mid-1946, the representatives of Yugoslav authorities accused the ICRC of protecting collaborators and war criminals and further aggravated the situation. The reason for the outbreak of the conflict was the issue of displaced persons, among other. The Yugoslav Red Cross started the conflict that continued through the official Yugoslav press, with the support of the Yugoslav authorities. Soon, both the Yugoslav Red Cross and the Yugoslav authorities extended their allegations towards the ICRC to the entire ICRC’s activities carried out during the war. Based on original archival sources, published sources and literature, the author presents the genesis of the conflict.

The historical connection between war and genocide is clear and apparent. Scholars of mass killing have repeatedly pointed out the linkages between the First World War and the Armenian genocide of 1915, between the Second World War and the Holocaust, between the 1993–4 war and the genocide in Rwanda, and between the war in Bosnia and the genocide in Srebrenica. Scholars of war, most often military historians, have been less ready to tie what they see as two distinct social phenomena – war and genocide – into the same bundle. This was especially the case, until recently, for the Nazi attack on the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, and the subsequent mass murder of the Jews. The Wehrmacht, the German fighting forces, were seen to be implementing an enormously ambitious military campaign against the Soviet Union, which, in the end, they lost. Meanwhile, the Nazi security organs – the SS, the SD, and the Einsatzgruppen – carried out the ‘Final Solution’, inspired primarily by Hitler and the Nazi hierarchs.