HST 230    The Final Solution and Concentration Camps

I. The Final Solution
   A. When
	1. the decision was made in 1941
	2. Heydrich was in charge
	3. Wannsee Conference, January 1942
   B. How
	1. they had already been exterminating communists
	2. they used Einsatzgruppen (intervention squads) at first
		a. for example, shot and killed 34,000 Jews in Kiev [MAP]
		b. time consuming; psychologically draining
	3. started experimenting with gas
		- carbon monoxide and hydrogen cyanide
		- guest expert: Joe Somers, PhD
 
II. Olga Lengyel
   A. Introduction
	1. Olga Lengyel and her family
		a. she was 35 years old in 1944
		b. she lived in Cluj, Romania [MAP]
		c. she lived with her husband, Dr. Miklos Lengyel
			and their sons Thomas and Arvad
		d. her parents also lived with them
		e. Miklos was a respected surgeon and director of a hospital
		f. Olga was one of his surgical assistants
	2. the Nazis 
		a. they had invaded in 1940
		b. Cluj had become part of German-occupied Hungary
		c. they controlled everything
   B. Deportation
	1. in 1944, the Nazis began investigating Miklos because
		they thought he was boycotting German pharmaceuticals
	2. he was arrested and going to be deported
	3. Olga thought he must be needed as a surgeon in Germany
	4. she decided to go with him; her parents and her sons would also go
	5. they packed up and went to the train station
	6. they were surrounded by soldiers by the time the cattle cars pulled up
	7. there were about 100 people in their car
		a. they were locked in for 7 days
		b. given very little water; no food
		c. some people died on the way; the bodies started to decompose
   C. Arrival at Auschwitz
	1. about 4000-5000 people got off the train
	2. ambulances took the sick straight to the gas chambers
	3. the rest were arranged in two lines
		a. young and old to the left
		b. able-bodied to the right
	4. Olga's oldest son looked older than 12
		a. she insisted that he wasn't yet 12
		b. he got to go to the left with his grandparents and younger brother
		c. she was trying to spare him from hard labor
		d. but she found out later that the left line 
			went straight to the gas chambers
	5. children, elderly and Jews generally went straight to the gas chambers
		- Hungarian Jews heading to the gas chambers at Auschwitz
	6. the able-bodied men and women were split up
	7. Olga went off with the women
		a. they were stripped and searched
		b. their heads were shaved
			(the hair was used to fill cushions and mattresses back in Germany)
   D. Life at Auschwitz
	1. accommodations (the women's barracks)
		a. Olga was assigned to Barrack 26
		b. bunks with wooden boards
		c. one blanket for every 10 inmates
		d. 1500 inmates in Barrack 26
		e. some slept on the dirt (mud) floor
	2. diet
		a. "coffee" for breakfast
		b. "soup" for lunch (including buttons, hair, rags, mice, etc.)
		c. "bread" for dinner (which included sawdust)
	3. utensils
		a. there were 20 bowls for all 1500 inmates
		b. not allowed to exit barracks at night; used bowls as chamber pots
		c. no soap and water to clean them out
   E. Selections
	1. roll call twice per day
	2. had to line in front of barracks and stand there for hours
	3. many would then be "selected" for the gas chambers; esp. sick inmates
	4. thousands of new arrivals everyday; had to make room for them
   F. The Gas Chambers and Crematoria
	1. the Nazis didn't want to cause a commotion; didn't want people to fight it
		a. they were usually polite
		b. they gave out soap and towels at the showers
		c. they had signs that told people to remember their hanger numbers
			so they could get their clothes back after the shower
	2. but when they got a group into the shower, they simply locked the door
	3. they let them sweat for a bit, then dropped in a gas cylinder
	4. all, or nearly all, were dead within 20 minutes or so
	5. the bodies were then taken to one of the crematories
   G. Hard Labor
	1. various types
		a. digging stones for road construction
		b. cleaning out latrines
		c. working at the gas chambers or crematories
	2. Olga's least favorite job was picking up trash at the train station
		a. physically easy, but psychologically impossible
		b. she saw thousands of people about to make the same mistake she did
			and she couldn't do anything about it
		c. this job made her realize that the Nazis would kill anyone they wanted
			1. one time, she saw four blonde Americans in line
			2. they demanded to be treated according to international law
			3. they were taken into the woods and shot
   H. The Infirmary
	1. Olga was picked to work there because of her medical background
	2. extremely hard work
		a. hundreds of cases per day
		b. very long hours - 4am-8pm, at least
		c. very few medicines and bandages
		d. no sanitation, disinfection
	3. things were slightly better when the Nazis set up a hospital 
		a. it was mainly for surgery
		b. but it was very dangerous to go there because those
			who were the sickest were often "selected"
	4. the most difficult part of the job was dealing with pregnancies
		a. when babies were born, mother and child 
			were sent to the gas chambers
		b. Olga and the other infirmary workers decided to 
			at least save the mothers
		c. they would pinch the baby's nose and force it to
			drink something lethal
		d. they would then pass off the baby as stillborn
		e. and then the mother would be allowed to live
	5. on occasion, the Nazis simply sent all the pregnant women
		at the camp straight to the gas chambers
   I. "Scientific" Experiments
	1. not much science involved; more torture than anything
	2. inmates were infected with various diseases to see what would happen
		- but the doctors would just lose interest or ignore them
	3. doctors attempted to see how long inmates could survive
		in certain situations, e.g.:
		a. subsisting only on salt water
		b. submerged in ice water
		c. exposed to the blazing sun
	4. sometimes they killed inmates just to dissect them
	5. the most common experiments dealt with sterilization
		- the Nazis wanted all the non-German people to die out
		and then they'd be able to take over their land
	6. Josef Mengele, Nazi officer in charge of selection at Auschwitz
		- Jewish twins kept alive for Mengele's experiments   
J. Nazi Propaganda
	1. they made it seem like people wanted to be deported
		- they filmed family members flocking to join men 
		who were being deported
	2. they made it seem like the deportees were doing fine in Germany
		a. they had them send postcards saying everything was okay
		b. they didn't let them say they were at Auschwitz
		c. they had to say they were in the German town of Waldsee
	3. when word got out about the concentration camps, they made it 
		seem like life was actually good in the camps
		a. they allowed the male and female inmates to sit in the sun
		b. they set up a stage and had a band play for them
		c. then they had a plane fly over and film the entire scene
	4. all this film footage was used in newsreels to appease the public
   K. Escape
	1. the Russians were closing in on Auschwitz in late 1944
	2. the Nazis gave orders to burn all the hospital records
	3. then they killed all the sick and feeble inmates
	4. then they started marching all the other women toward Germany
		a. the roadside was littered with dead bodies
		b. Olga found out later that one of those bodies was her husband
	5. Olga's first escape
		a. as the guards were getting the women lined up and it was still dark,
			she and a couple other women made a run for it 
		b. they hid in the woods and then made their way to a Polish village
		c. they found shelter with a Polish family
		d. German soldiers were staying with the family
		e. the soldiers eventually took all the women prisoner and left
	6. Olga's second escape
		a. she chewed through the rope and made a run for it
		b. the soldiers were drunk and passed out
		c. a peasant woman led her to a river and she crossed it
		d. she waited while the Russians kept up their bombing
		e. the Russians then liberated the area
		f. Olga was finally free
   L. Freedom				
	1. she made her way to France, and then to the US		
	2. she settled in New York City		
	3. her life's goal was to get the word out about Nazi atrocities
		a. she published a memoir in 1946
		b. she founded the Memorial Library in NYC in 1962
			- the goal of the library was to preserve Holocaust memorabilia
		c. the library became:
			The Olga Lengyel Institute for Holocaust Studies and Human Rights

III. Discussion: Christopher Browning, Ordinary Men

1. Discuss the following factors that might help explain how the men of Reserve 
	Police Battalion 101 became killers.

     •	Battlefield frenzy (enraged, vengeful warriors)
     •	Atrocity by policy (followed wartime orders)
     •	Routinization (killing became routine)
     •	Distancing (dehumanization of the other via negative racial stereotyping)
     •	Special selection (elite soldiers skilled at killing)
     •	Self-selection (especially violence-prone individuals)
     •	Situational factors (brutal conditions caused people to slip into the role of killer) 
     •	Duress (bullied into killing by fellow soldiers)
     •	Indoctrination (brainwashed with racist propaganda)
     •	Conformity (did what everyone else was doing to avoid isolation and rejection)

2. Which factors are the MOST helpful in explaining how the men became killers?  

3. Which factors are the LEAST helpful in explaining how the men became killers?  

4. Can these factors help explain the behavior of others in the Nazi regime?  
	SS soldiers, Gestapo, concentration camp commanders, Einsatzgruppen, Nazi doctors?