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Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of genocide; starvation; systematic, state-sponsored violence and persecution; and antisemitism perpetrated by Germany and its collaborators during the Holocaust.
Antisemitism is defined as hatred of or prejudice against Jewish people. The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), which comprises 31 member states including the US, adopted a non-legally binding definition of antisemitism on May 26, 2016. The IHRA encourages governments to use its definition. Antisemitism has existed for thousands of years. There has been a rise of antisemitism in recent years both in the US and around the world. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has educational materials on the history and background of antisemitism.
Auschwitz was the largest complex operated by Nazi Germany in Poland. In contrast to other Nazi murder centers, Auschwitz included both concentration or labor camps and a death camp. The main camp was built in 1940 and was referred to as “Auschwitz I.” Constructed in 1941, Auschwitz-Birkenau, or Auschwitz II, housed the gas chambers and crematoria. It was located around two miles from the main camp. There were also a number of subcamps where SS officers used Jewish people as slave labor. According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, over 1.1 million people died at Auschwitz, including at least one million Jewish people. Walter Rosenberg/Rudolph Vrba arrived at Auschwitz in June 1942. His access to different areas of the complex enabled him to meticulously record the horrors that occurred there. The Soviet Army liberated prisoners at Auschwitz in January 1945.
During the Holocaust, Auschwitz was the only location where prisoners received prison numbers. SS officers only assigned numbers to prisoners selected for work. Those selected for immediate death did not receive a prison number. Auschwitz prison numbers helped determine a prisoner’s status. Veterans had low, old numbers, which came with privileges strictly observed by the other prisoners. The SS officers issued prison numbers chronologically to the new Jewish arrivals. Thus, these numbers revealed their deportation date and place of origin. At Auschwitz, SS officers assigned the number 44070 to Rudi. Despite the horrors that he endured at the complex, Rudi never considered the first two numbers (44) a curse. Instead, he believed they brought him luck since he survived.
Nazi Germany leaders used the term “Final Solution to the Jewish Question” as a euphemism for the mass murder of European Jewish people. It represents the last stage of the Holocaust. Prior to this plan, Hitler and his collaborators encouraged or forced Jewish people to leave Germany and other parts of Europe. Hitler’s Final Solution ended these policies, replacing them with systemic and state-sponsored annihilation between 1941 and 1945. Historians still do not know exactly when Hitler decided to mass murder Jewish people, although the decision was likely made with the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941.
The Holocaust refers to the state-sponsored, systematic mass murder of Jewish people by Nazi Germany and their collaborators during WWII. Nazi leaders desired to murder 11 million Jewish people. They succeeded in killing six million.
Kanada was a large warehouse at Auschwitz where Nazi Germany held the confiscated belongings of new arrivals. SS officers assigned prisoners to sort the belongings. Valuables were set aside and eventually sent back to Germany to help fuel the country’s war machine. “Kanada” is the German spelling for Canada. Prisoners nicknamed the warehouses “Kanada” since they equated both the country and warehouse with wealth. Valuables from Kanada fueled an underground resistance at Auschwitz and enabled a complicated prisoner hierarchy. Rudi worked at Kanada, which is how he was introduced to the underground resistance and likely survived so long at Auschwitz.
Walter encounters the Muselmanner for the first time at Auschwitz. Prisoners in German Nazi concentration camps used this term to describe other prisoners who were suffering from a combination of severe starvation and exhaustion and resigned to their impending death. Fries sent these men to the hospital, which Walter came to realize was a death sentence. Walter quickly realized that death surrounded him at Auschwitz. He knew he needed to stay strong to survive.
Adolf Hitler led Nazism, which is a form of fascism. The movement expressed disdain for liberal democracy and incorporated dictatorship, antisemitism, scientific racism, white nationalism, and more into its creed. The Nazi Party existed in Germany from 1920 to 1945. Despite the horrors caused by this ideology during WWII, there is a post-WWII movement to revive and reinstate the ideology, known as neo-Nazism.
Slovakia was the first Axis partner to deport its Jewish population. Nováky served two functions. First, it was a transit camp. It held Jewish people before they boarded trains for their “resettlement” (or, more accurately, their deportation from the country). They did not know their deportation date. Their destination also remained a mystery. Second, Nováky was a labor camp where over 1,000 Jewish people “were kept against their will and used as slave workers” (27). After his failed escape attempt trying to evade his government’s deportation notice, Rudi found himself in the transit camp. Freedland underscores that “waiting to know his fate did not suit Walter” (27). Walter then plotted his escape from Nováky.
Throughout history, various groups have used identifying badges to mark someone as Jewish. These badges often coincided with anti-Jewish policies designed to segregate and control the Jewish population. The Nazis used the Star of David beginning in 1938 as an identifying badge for Jewish people. The badge not only stigmatized and humiliated Jewish people but also enabled the Nazis to segregate and control them. These badges served as a prelude to the Nazis’ deportation and mass murder of the European Jewish population.
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