Set the Stage.

It is important to provide you with some general facts about WWII and Anti-Semitism, the facts/figures posted below are provided by a MRH Lecture presented by Dr. Catherine Chatterley (University of Manitoba).  These are both key facts that are important to better understanding Anti-Semitism and its relation to WWII, as well as, facts that I found intriguing and would like to look into further.


Definition of Anti-Semitism: hostility toward or discrimination against Jews as a religious, ethnic, or racial group (Merriam-webster.com)


General Information:
-  Anti-Semitism has existed for thousands of years; the only new concept that Hitler introduced to Anti-Semitism was that of Death camps
- Theology: association between the Jews and the devil (Jews killed Jesus); in the imagination is what gives the Jews the power (accusation of conspiracy; Jews work against society)


Relationship Between Anti-Semitisn & Racism

- Xenophobia: hatred of the stranger/unknown/other (common to all human groups)

- Racism: European concept; like animals are divided into species; similar to concept of nations

- Traditional anti-semitism

    - 1800 to 1900 years old

    - instead of religion making Jews different, not a racial explanation and now has become a     

      part of their blood (there is a science to it)

- Anti-semitism

   - not race/racial in its inception

    - religious; based on Christian theology

    - much older, more complex than racism


Specific Information to WWII:

- Hilter was able to set his idea in motion through German society via propaganda
- Invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, where Hitler believed was where the creation of Jews and their conspiracy took place
- There were 6 death camps, all located in Poland
- Other groups targeted secondarily to the Jews: Polish, Roma (Gypsies), Jehovah Witness (due to not agreeing to fight due rejection of Hitler's theories) [all added to the extermination lists in 1942]


Numbers:
- 1.3M people were sent to Auschwitz over the course of WWII; 1.1M were killed by the end of January 1945
    - hundreds of Jehovah Witnesses and Homosexuals
    - 15,000 Prisoner's of War (POWs)
    - 21,000 Roma
    - 70,000 Poles in politics
    - 1M Jews (many children and infants)
- 6M+ Jews were killed (4M have been named), known to be upwards of 7/8M total
- Killed 2/3s of Jewish Europe
   - fragmented communities left, wiped out/greatly diminished very old populations



" Do not believe, in anything simply because you have heard it.  Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumoured by many.  Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books.  Do not believe in anything because merely on the authority of your teachers or elders.  Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations.  But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reasons and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it." - Hindu Prince Gautama Siddhartha, the founder of Buddhism