The Holocaust: From Blog Posts to Book 

The purpose of “The Holocaust” and these blog posts is to combine them into a published book entitled Safe Schools for Jewish Students: An Educator’s Guide to Preventing Antisemitism and Strengthening Belonging.

Go here for the full Table of Contents.

Chapter 2 – The Holocaust

The Holocaust: From Hate to Genocide

Adolf Hitler wrote in his book “Mein Kampf” that the Soviet version of communism, Bolshevism, had a racial connection to the Jews. “In Russian Bolshevism we must see the attempt undertaken by the Jews in the twentieth century to achieve world domination. Just as in other epochs they strove to reach the same goal by other, though inwardly related processes. Their endeavor lies profoundly rooted in their essential nature.”

At a rally, Hitler introduced these two Nuremberg Laws:

1. The “Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honor” forbade Jews from marriage and sex with non-Jews to prevent the defilement of German blood.
2. The “Reich Citizenship Law” removed basic rights from Jews and specified who qualified as a “racial Jew.”

As the challenges of defining who was a “full Jew” ensued, precautions among the non-Jews transformed into arresting non-Jews who associated with Jews, and imprisoning Jews who associated with non-Jews. Further laws forbade Jews from owning radios or telephones, buying chocolate, practicing medicine, and the list went on.

The Nuremberg Lies opened the door to the Holocaust. In 2012, Gregory Stanton laid out the “Ten Stages of Genocide Chart,” giving insight into how Germany became a perpetrator.

1. Classification: Creating a division between “us” and “them.”
2. Symbolism: Designating identifying markers, like yellow badges, belts, or hats for the oppressed to wear as a visual manifestation of hatred.
3. Discrimination:  Denying civil rights to the identified group, as the Nuremberg Laws did. Sometimes even denying citizenship.
4. Dehumanization: Referring to the group as inhuman, such as “cockroaches” or “vermin.”
5. Organization: Planning the genocide. Genocides are always planned.
6. Polarization: Spreading propaganda to incite the public.
7. Preparation: Building up armies and weapons.
8. Persecution: Creating death lists of who shall be murdered.
9. Extermination: Murdering the identified victims deliberately and systemically.
10. Denial: The perpetrators or later generations deny the existence of the crime.

Since hindsight is 20/20, and the past genocides were not as studied in such detail as the Holocaust, Germany’s progression into genocide went unchecked.

Click here for a downloadable PDF poster of the ten stages of genocide.

Post-War and Secondary Antisemitism

Denial of the Holocaust is, in itself, another form of antisemitism. Denial came in three forms.

1. Trusting the perpetrator over the victim – There were those that chose to believe the account of Auschwitz guard Sonderführer Thies Christophersen over the mountains of evidence. Christophersen claimed that the prisoners in the concentration camps were treated well, he never saw any gas chambers, and only diseased prisoners died. His particular account is often cited among neo-Nazi groups.
2. Minimizing the scale of the crime – People denied the feasibility of so many being killed in the concentration camps. For them, the sheer number of victims must have been exaggerated.
3. Trivializing the method of genocide – By comparing the war to other wars, the deniers insisted that death is just a component of war and what resulted in the Holocaust was a natural outcome of war.

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Author Biography of Safe Schools for Jewish Students

Ezra Barany loves riveting readers with Jewish thrillers. His first two books in The Torah Codes series were award-winning international bestsellers. In his free time, he has eye-opening discussions on the art of writing novels with his wife and book coach Beth Barany. A high school physics teacher, Ezra lives in Oakland with his beloved wife and two cats working on the next book. Ezra, not the cats.