LGBT History Month Part I

In honor of of LGBT History Month, I will be introducing a brief history of LGBT topics in the gay community prior to 1933 in Germany and during the Nazi Holocaust, while Part II will discuss the gay community after the war and cover how these topics relate to today as well as some conclusions about current events.

Prior to 1933,  Paragraph 175 of the German criminal code was created under Kaiser Wihelm I. The law vaguely prohibited homosexuality. The period between the end of World War I, in 1918, and 1933, was a more "liberating" and more openly sexual time. The Weimar Republic (1918-1933) is general seen as a liberating time for women and feminism. Women were now allowed to vote and openly flaunted their femininity. Yet, as this is occurring, women were also portrayed as physical objects in the arts such as film and paintings. Lesbians and homosexual men organizations and social groups developed in larger cities such as Berlin. Some male individuals and groups felt threatened by this new wave of female freedom and open gay communities. Those male individuals and groups saw the latter as a threat to their way of life and social standing much like some groups of people feel today in 2012.

With the Nazi party and Adolf Hitler arriving in 1933, the code was revised. The revised law was issued on June 28, 1935, and put into effect on September 1st of that year, emphasized the "criminality of both men involved in 'indecency.'" Under Paragraph 175a, ten years of hard labor was imposed for "indecency", even for those under the age of 21. Homosexuality between women was left out of the law. Women are thought to be purposely left out of the law because regardless of their homosexuality, women could still produce children. Though lesbians were not systematically persecuted like gay men, they did lose their gathering places and associations.

Homosexuals were labeled as parasites and "enemies of the state" much like their Jewish neighbors, stereotyped to empower hatred among "Aryan" Germans. Even though the exact number of homosexual victims of the Holocaust and Nazi persecution may never be known, an estimated 100,000 men were arrested under Paragraph 175. Those arrested were imprisoned and send to hard labor. This was part of the Nazi policy of "re-education". Those in prisons and concentration camps suffered harsh conditions. An estimated 5,000 to 15,000 homosexual men were imprisoned in concentration camps. Homosexual prisoners were marked with a pink triangle. As Nazi territory expanded, Paragraph 175 was imposed on male populations in Austria, western Poland and western Czechoslovakia, Luxembourg, and Alsace-Lorraine.In other occupied territories, the Nazi government was only concerned with the homosexuality of German men and not of the native population. Homosexuals in concentration camps were given the works and most dangerous work and, alongside poor rations and fewer breaks, many died as a result.

Please take a moment and read through these media sources and LGBT references.  

LGBT History Month Website: 

http://lgbthistorymonth.com/ 

The Human Rights Campaign's blog in regards to National Coming Out Day: 

http://www.hrc.org/resources/entry/the-history-of-coming-out 

Please check this vlog by Lauren Bird of the Harry Potter Alliance: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMHF0VrJb7c&list=FLbCkNgngfGHVDaOW0Jrd7JA&index=1&feature=plpp_video 

Sources: 

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: 

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005149

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum:
http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/hsx/

Holocaust Media

Here are two media sites regarding the Holocaust. The first is a video and the second is a timeline.

Here is the opening statement for a video about the Holocaust History Museum in Israel by Yad Vashem.

By reconstructing the events that led to the Holocaust, the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem aims to bring the past to life and prevent future atrocities through greater understanding. Explore.org founder Charles Annenberg Weingarten visits and talks to one of the museum's most senior Holocaust scholars.

Follow the link below to watch:
http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/places/regions-places/caucasus-middle-east/israel-holocaust-history-museum-eorg/

The United States Holocaust Museum showing the course of events leading up to the Holocaust, the war period, and afterwards.  The timeline also includes the court cases involving Nazis and their crimes against humanity, genocides since the Holocaust, the evolution of countries who recognize racial hatred as a crime and/or write it into law, and ends in 2008.

For the timeline, click the following link:
http://www.ushmm.org/propaganda/exhibit.html#/timeline/

Holocaust Remembrance

I apologize for the gap in-between posts. Various reasons prevent me from creating a new post.

Looking back at the various topics discussed so far (collective guilt, the German expulsion, Sovietization, the Holocaust, etc.), it is once again important to put these topics and themes into present day context. First off, President Obama, in April, visited the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. Seems like old news? It's not. Press coverage in recent weeks has focused on the November elections and, this past week, remembering 9/11. The NY Daily News quoted the President as he gave a speech at the museum:

"'We must tell our children about how this evil was allowed to happen because so many people succumbed to their darkest instincts, and because so many others stood silent,' Obama told an auditorium filled with survivors, Jewish leaders and human rights activists....'Never again' is a challenge to defend the fundamental right of free people and free nations to exist in peace and security, and that includes the state of Israel,' Obama said."

President Obama is right - we should continue our awareness about Nazi atrocities and all peoples are free and deserve to live in peace. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Even in our modern, technology based societies, atrocities still exist around the world and freedom to live in peace is challenged. Examples include Syria and the Congo, where rebels of the M23 group rape and kill while three members of the punk group Pussy Riot are sentences to 2 years in jail for "hooliganism" when in reality they were jailed for opposing Vladimir Putin and being a feminist group.

Even more surprising, and sickening, are recent events in India, as reported by Der Spiegel, regarding the use of Adolph Hitler's name and   the swastika, used by the Nazi party as their symbol and now evokes the meaning of hate promoted by the Nazis. Once again a store owner used the name "Hitler" for his business and the swastika is the logo. This store is a men's clothing store and not the first to use the name "Hitler" or the swastika. Previously, a cafe owner titled his new cafe "Hitler's Cross" while another company that produced bed linens created a bed linen line which displayed swastikas on it as part of their "Nazi Collection". In an interview with Der Spiegel, the owner of the men's clothing line admitted that he knew little  about Hitler when he chose the name for the store. The owner also has no problem with the name and has no intention of changing it. Though people should not fear a name, it is hateful and intolerant to use the name of Hitler for benefit, especially financial, and so blatantly deny the mass killings in his name. India is a rising nation, both economically and socially as well as culturally diverse, and it is extremely disappointing that such businesses are allowed to exist.A comparison in the US would be naming a street after a KKK member who slaughtered innocent people of color. Naming a business after a tyrant is, in a way, honoring that tyrant.

In other news, by spring 2013 a Holocaust museum in Brooklyn is scheduled to open.The museum is titled the Kleinman Family Holocaust Education Center and will be located on 50th Street. The museum will focus on the orthodox Jewish experiences. David Layman, who helped create the 9/11 Memorial in NYC, also helped to create and design this museum.

What we should take from this is all people, no matter where they live in the world, should have access to education and intolerance should be discouraged. We continue to see that intolerance, hatred, and gender inequality can lead to imprisonment and murder.The Nazi government and the mass killings it enforced should be an example of how governments today should NOT act. Holocaust remembrance is important and a vital part of history. If we forget it or continue to avoid those countries who kill innocent people, such events will continue to happen and never end. The Holocaust, to me, represents the ultimate hatred and cruelty of man and I hope that one day, I will see the end of genocides everywhere and governments who speak up for the rights of humankind.

Here are the links to the articles mentioned in this post. Please read them and spread them around.
http://articles.nydailynews.com/2012-04-23/news/31388381_1_obama-visits-people-and-free-nations-buchenwald-concentration-camp

http://articles.nydailynews.com/2012-08-07/news/33069735_1_holocaust-museum-holocaust-project-holocaust-survivors

http://www.kfhec.org/

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/new-hitler-store-in-india-triggers-global-uproar-a-853199.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/m23-rebels-in-congo-have-committed-war-crimes-report/2012/09/11/5c7f2c06-fc1c-11e1-98c6-ec0a0a93f8eb_story.html 

Holocaust in Hungary and Sovietization

As I researched for my MA thesis, I discovered an important and under-discussed area of the Holocaust - the Holocaust in Hungary. Hungarian policy towards Nazi Germany can be summed up as the distant, and only semi-supportive ally. Hungary financially supported Nazi Germany, exported tons of good to Germany, especially oil, and even helped with the invasion of the Soviet Union. The Arrow Cross government imposed some Nazi-style laws in order to shield themselves from a Nazi occupation. Jews in Hungary lived a fabulous lifestyle when compared to those Jewish populations in Poland. Hungarian Jews had their basic human rights violated. For example, they could not vote, hold office, attend school with other Hungarians, and other violations. Though several thousand Hungarian Jews died during this time, most were able to continue on semi-comfortably. By 1944, many Hungarian Jews thought  they could survive to see the end of the war and the end of Nazi German and intolerance. But, by the summer of 1944, German troops entered Hungary. German authorities hoped they could prevent Soviet troops from entering Germany at the expanse of Hungarians. Within the course of a few months, most of the Hungarian Jewish population was destroyed. In relation to Poland, where the destruction of the Jewish population developed and occurred over several years, the murder of Hungarian Jews is overwhelmingly startling. A single priest was allowed to evacuate a group of Hungarian Jews, ultimately saving their lives. Few Hungarian Jews returned to Hungary from concentration camps after the close of the war.

As the war slowly closed and the Soviet army advanced west, Soviet troops occupied Hungary. Starting with the point of occupation, the Sovietization of Hungary began. The first glimpse of this Sovietization began with the German expulsion form Hungary. The Czech President in exile during the war, President Benes, pushed for the expulsion of Germans from the liberated Czechoslovakia and from the rest of eastern Europe. According to Benes and other governments in exile and nationalists, expulsion was a punishment Germans deserved. Hungary was included in this category but Hungarian authorities did not wish to expel all the Germans from within Hungary; they only wished to punish those Germans responsible for war crimes such as the Holocaust. Unfortunately, such wishes by the Hungarian authorities did not happen. The Red army remained in Hungary after the official German surrender. Soviet officials forced the expulsion of all Germans onto Hungary. The weak Hungarian government could not say no to Soviet officials and prevent the expulsions. Therefore, Sovietization began in Hungary. Soviet authorities remained ever present in Hungary and created a communist government. The Holocaust, ironically, was a taboo topic and not allowed to be discussed. The war was then blamed on the West and their democratic ways.

For more information, check out these authors or works:
Stephen D. Kertesz, a former Hungarian diplomat during the war, has several publications both books and journal articles.

Braham, Randolph and Scott Miller, editors. The Nazis' Last Victims: The Holocaust in Hungary. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1997.

Browning, Christopher. The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939-March 1942. Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2004.

Fenyo, M.D. Hitler, Horthy, and Hungary: German-Hungarian Relations 1941-1944. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972.

Paikert, G.C. The Danube Swabians: German Populations in Hungary, Romania and Yugoslavia and Hitler's Impact on their Patterns. Netherlands: The Hague Martinus Nijhoff, 1967.

Yad Vashem and the Jewish Virtual Library

In the New Jersey Star-Ledger last Thursday (7/19), there was an article titled “Alleged Nazi-era war criminal detained: 97-year-old accused of torturing people sent to death camps.” The article emphasis’s the resurgence of anti-Semitism specifically in Hungary BUT the resurgence of anti-Semitism is not solely occurring in Hungary. It is happening all over Europe and the US. 

In August 1953, Yad Vashem, located in Jerusalem, Israel, was established. Yad Vashem is “the official Israeli institution for the commemoration of the Holocaust,” as Suzanne Vromen writes in her book Hidden Children of the Holocaust. Yad Vashem writes on its’ about section

As the Jewish people’s living memorial to the Holocaust, Yad Vashem safeguards the memory of the past and imparts its meaning for future generations. Established in 1953, as the world center for documentation, research, education and commemoration of the Holocaust, Yad Vashem is today a dynamic and vital place of intergenerational and international encounter.

Overall, Yad Vashem is the center for education, research, documentation, and commemoration of the Holocaust. Yad Vashem is also responsible for the Righteous Among the Nation which acknowledges and commemorates those non-Jews who placed their lives at risk in order to help safe-guard (which was done in various ways, please see the Yad Vashem website for details) the Jewish community. The organization does extraordinary work. 

The next resource is The Jewish Virtual Library. It is also a fantastic and wonderful source relating to Jewish history, especially regarding the Holocaust.  A section of the site is dedicated to women and Judaism. This is an important and unique factor of site because when discussion of the Holocaust take place, women are not usually separately addressed. The Jewish Virtual Library naturally has photos and other imagery for the benefit of the general public.  Please also look into this site and the information available for you to read. 

So, how does this tie into the newspaper article? Very easily. Anti-Semitism and intolerance are unacceptable behaviors. Governments such as the United States, and the rest of the world for that matter, need to recognize the significance of the rise of anti-Semitism and address the issue. Accepting such behavior, especially intolerance, has already caused  dozens of genocides across the world, mostly located in Africa and the Middle East. “Modern” society needs to look back at the lessons learned from the Holocaust then look forward and try to prevent further genocide, intolerance, and anti-Semitic behaviors and ways of thinking. Without that that, anti-Semitism, intolerance, and genocides will continue to be the norm of the peoples of the world. 

Sources: 

Yad Vashem 

http://www1.yadvashem.org/yv/en/museum/index.asp?WT.mc_id=ggcamp&WT.srch=1 

The Jewish Virtual Library 

  http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/index.html 

Germany, the expulsion, and the Cold War

The expulsion of innocent German civilians from 1944-1950 as a result of their defeat in World War II was the tip of the iceberg in world affairs that caused what we now know as the “Cold War”. I have encountered several sources as I researched for my Master’s Thesis that state the “Cold War” began with German unification of 1871. This  unification in 1871 sparked a series of events in Europe that ultimately caused the expulsion and the “Cold War.” Any history can agree or disagree with this statement but the expulsion of Germans is a clear tipping point that lead to the “Cold War.” Gilad Margalit’s work, called Guilt, Suffering, and Memory: Germany Remembers its Dead of World War II, published in 2010 is extremely detailed and informative. It gives an overview of the German expulsion, how soldiers and expellees are remembered from the end of the war until present day, and the relationship between former West and East Germany and their interpretation of the war and collective guilt. It is a work worth reading. Another work that looks at refugees and expellees and their presence in occupied Germany is Ian Connor’s Refugees and expellees in post-war Germany. His work covers the origins of the expulsion and the problems expellees and refugees faced in occupied Germany such as housing, food, and unemployment. The concept of how expellees should be represented in present-day Germany is hotly debated. Those expellee leaders, expellee organizations, and expellees, as well as their supporters, are labeled as revisionist because of their desire to give recognition to the suffering of 12 million Germans who were expelleed and the 2 million who perished on their journey to Germany. View museum exhibits have been created to acknowledge the expulsion form 1944-1950. Even though Germany and many other countries are working towards understanding their impact in World War II and the Holocaust, the events surrounding the expulsion and the expulsion themselves have not yet been included in this discussion thus causing a delayed acceptance of flaws on the hands of those who committed the expulsion.

Works mentioned:

Connor, Ian. Refugees, and expellees in post-war Germany. New York: Manchester University Press, 2007.

Margalit, Gilad. Guilt, Suffering, and Memory: Germany Remembers its Dead of World War II. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2010.

Study Abroad / Austria in the war

On the last day of May 2009, just two weeks after the end of my junior year of college (undergraduate), I traveled abroad for my one-month study abroad program. I landed in Heathrow International Airport in London where I would spend the first two days of my trip before continuing on to Munich airport and then a bus ride to Salzburg, Austria.  The program I enrolled in gathered the students in London first for nothing other then sight-seeing. Two days in busy London was unbelievable as well as overwhelming. Between the traffic, it's directions, the loads of people, the Tube, and other visual stimulus, I seemed unable to become coherent. I will always be glad that I was with other students during these two days otherwise I would still be in London, forever attempting to get back to my hotel.

More importantly are the pieces of information that I would soon discover about Austria and its relationship with the war (the Second World War). As I traveled the two hours from Munich, Germany to Salzburg, Austria, I noticed the traditional (and often, stereotypical) farm houses that lay next to the Autobahn and roads. These houses represented traditions that may not have always been unified under one German speaking government.

While living in Salzburg for one month, the belief that the Austrian government was a willing participant in Nazism and welcomed the Anschluss with open-arms was reinforced. In Salzburg, for example, the "Stumbling Stones" often go unnoticed, memorials to soldiers killed during the war are out of view of tourists, and other plaques in memory of those victims of Nazism are few and far between. The impression a visitor receives is that the city, as well as the rest of the country, would rather forget the supposed forced occupation and mass murder of the country's Jewish population. The Jewish population of the Salzburg never recovered after the war. One survivor returned to the city and rebuilt the Synagogue - in a different location then the original, which was destroyed during the war. The Synagogue is out of tourist's view. The hostel I was staying in for the month was a ten minute walk from this synagogue and I never knew it. Today, there are only about 100 Jewish people living in Salzburg. It was not until 2007, that formal recognition was given to forced Jewish laborers and other forced laborers renovated the Staatsbrücke (city bridge; a major bridge in the city for cars and pedestrians) during the war. The city government was forced to place a plaque on the bridge in 2007, after more renovations, because of pressure from certain members of the community. Without their pressure, the memorial plaque would never have happened. The story of the Staatsbrücke proves Salzburg's inability to come to terms with its past.  The city is still very much conservative Roman Catholic.

No historian can state that the whole of Austrian society were willing supporters of Nazism. That would support the concept of collective guilt which is incorrect and inappropriate. Yet, the Austrian government has a duty to the Jewish and other Austrian victims of the Holocaust by recognizing and remembering that such events occurred in Austria.  Believing in the idea that the country of Austria as a whole was a victim of Nazism pushes all blame to Germany as the sole villain which is also incorrect. The Austrian government today needs to denounce the actions of Nazi-supporting Austrian officials from during the war as well as the Holocaust and persecution of Jewish populations. Without this, cities like Salzburg will never be able to overcome their conservatism, perceptions of history, and accept the destruction of their Jewish community which has been preventing the city from remembering their lost community.

Helpful sources:
For more information on AIFS Study Abroad, check out their website: 
http://www.aifsabroad.com/

Brief history of Salzburg's Jewish population:
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/Salzburg.html

Israelitische Kultusgemeinde Salzburg:
http://www.ikg-salzburg.at/