People may often look at what was going on in Germany during the 1930’s and ask, “Why did the Jews stay in Germany?” I asked myself the same things after reading about the Zionist’s actions to try and protect their people under German persecution during that time. The Nazi’s were obviously broadcasting their opinions and legislation on their treatment of Jews. The facts weren’t hidden and Hitler’s new Germany was on the rise. But why couldn’t people leave?
There were plenty of mix-ups in the negotiations between the Germans and Jews of the future Israel state. Jews had begun to divide themselves on how they wanted to protect their fellows brothers and sisters. The more obvious course of action would have been the Zionist approach where the Jews would have been given expense to move to Israel. But those Jews in Germany did not want to leave. Germany was their home and Israel was nothing but a foreign mystery. So thus came the boycott strategy. Neither produced any productive for the Jews. History tells what happens next in Germany over the next decade. But what would come after would help define the world as we see it today.
The holocaust changed an entire culture. Jews were now the “lowest” people in Europe. 60 million of them were eradicated while the survivors managed to claw their way out of hell. How could anyone recover from that? I always wondered how the survivors kept their faith together. But reading about the Jew’s actions following the Holocaust changed my perception on what managed to come out of World War II. Since majority of the survivors were very young men and women, some even children whose parents were killed, many of them had no where to go or no idea what they would do with their lives. Basically, if they had no home to go to, they had nothing. I see this as one of the biggest reasons why the change in the Zionist attitude shifted over WWII. Before, their hoes were all they knew. Their culture was where they lived, not the Jewish culture alone. But now, everything had changed. Jews were now looked at differently with a huge stigma on their backs. All they had was each other. In this point of desperation, the Jewish culture and faith found itself at its strongest point.
I have no intentions of saying that the Holocaust was a great thing. It was a disgusting, atrocious act. But the Holocaust changed the mindset of those Jews who did not want to leave Europe. Who could they go to now? Everyone seemed to hate them. So Zion was their new sanctuary. Thus began the process of leaving Europe. Thankfully, after the US realized how terrible their treatment of the Jews was, a plan began to be set in place to move Jews to Israel. But how could European Jews begin to move into Israel immediately? Most of them were very young and probably had no idea how to make a living on their own, let alone live in Israel itself. Numbers of Jews and country leaders alike began to work together to create a plan to get Jews ready for a return to Zion.
Not only did the Holocaust change the “home” mindset of European Jews, but it strengthened their faith just as much. In preparing for the emigration to Israel, young Jews began to join multiple Zionist groups from different countries in order to learn more about the culture, history, and faith of true Judaism. There was no one there to teach them these things, so they had to put their hope in someone else. But as crazy as it seems, it all worked out. Young men and women were wanting to learn about their heritage and culture. They wanted to live on and fight. Having mindsets like these are what cast the bond of cultures forever. When they could have lost all faith, they fought to keep it. Through various Zionist groups and Kibbutzes, young Jews were able to grow stronger in their culture and prepare themselves for life on their own in Israel. These actions all shaped our world as we see it today and helped bring back the faith of the Jewish community in not only the world, but of themselves.
Source:
http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/Volodymyr_Volynskyy/vol205.html
http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/sznajderman-tema
I really like the way that you explained the Holocaust because it was hell for the Jews and it was eye opening for the rest of the world. The idea that one person could be that cruel and demand that amount of death shows what people can really be capable of. I really like the way you tied your article together. You made a lot of valid points!
You did a really good job of explaining the mindset of the Jewish people approaching World War II. The conditions that they lived under were dreadful, which makes can make it hard to understand why they didn’t flee Europe earlier. The Holocaust, although atrocious, provided the motivation for migration of the Jewish population.
I like how you explain the mindset of the Jewish people before and after the war. I think the phenomenon that more Jews did not want to leave Germany in the 1930s during the rise of Hitler occurred for two reasons. 1, Germany was their home, moving away to a far off land was not as appealing as staying in the country that they understood and identified with. 2, the the Jews had been persecuted for centuries. Therefore, the early Hitler anti-semantic propaganda was nothing new. Many Jews probably felt it would eventually pass and they could stay in their homes. Postwar I think the entire Jewish population felt more untied under the sentiment of “we survived”. That alone made the Jewish population similar and remarkable.
I wanted to comment on the question of “why did some Jews stay in Germany in the early days of Nazi rule?” Ashkenazim Jews, them being the European tribe of the Jewish people, had lived in Central and Eastern Europe since the the 1st millennium A.D., though they had a particularly strong presence in Germany. Their culture was deeply tied to that of the Germans, to the extent that Yiddish, the language of the Ashkenazim Jews, is categorized as being of “Judaeo-Germanic origins”. The Ashkenazim Jews were so ingrained into parts of Germanic culture that they were nearly a sub-sect of German, as much as Saxon, Hessian or Prussian is. So I agree with your statement; Germany was their home, they had been there for hundreds of years and had certainly experienced hardships before and likely thought they would overcome these new hardships, unfortunately, they did not understand the intent of the Nazis or the depths of their depravity.
I like how you brought in that the holocaust brought Jews together with a common struggle and experience. That young Jews were the largest demographic of survivors, and that this caused them to have hope for a foreign land, is a good point to consider in thinking about the formation of Israel in Palestine. Do you think that they were willing to move abroad to the Middle East was influenced more by the fact they were unwanted or that there was hope in a new land?