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Key
Texts and Guiding Questions for
THE
HOLOCAUST AND THE HEARTLAND:
The Long Reach of Persecution and Genocide
Co-facilitated
by
the
University
of
Minnesota
’s Center for Holocaust and Genocide
Studies
www.chgs.umn.edu
and TRACES Center for History and
Culture
www.TRACES.org
held
at various locations
for
Day 1
Information
about Eugenics in
America
:
click
here
(for
this course, pre-read pages 240-287 at
click
here
Additional
sites include:
click
here
and
click
here)
Descriptions
of Case Studies, with Guiding Questions:
Midwest
Anti-Semites:
Henry Ford
As
founder and owner of the Ford Motor Company, Henry Ford Sr. made a positive
and lasting contribution to both American industry and culture by providing
inexpensive automobiles to millions of people. As the only American
mentioned in Hitler’s Mein Kampf,
however, Ford contributed much more to American society than just
automobiles and jobs.
Henry
Ford held an authoritative role over both his company and his employee’s
personal lives by offering English and other “improvement classes” for
immigrant workers. He vehemently protested World War I, and lashed out
against international bankers whom he saw responsible for financing the war
and hurting his business. After a disastrously failed peace-making attempt
in
Europe
,
he sought an outlet to express his feelings. In 1919 he purchased the
failing
Michigan
newspaper, the Dearborn Independent.
The newspaper first began attacking Jews in May 1920 and in 91 subsequent
editions blamed Jews for almost every problem in
America
,
ranging from unemployment to fixing baseball games. His hateful sentiment
was well summarized by his pithy quote,
Whichever way you turn to trace the harmful
streams of influence that flow through society, you come upon a group of
Jews.
Anyone
who bought one of Henry Ford’s automobiles was automatically given a
subscription to the Independent,
which eventually boasted a circulation of 700,000.
Many of the paper’s anti-Semitic articles were reprinted by the
Ford-owned Dearborn Publishing Company in four paper-bound volumes, the most
notorious being the The International
Jew, the World’s Foremost Problem. The International
Jew portrayed Jews as monolithic, malicious schemers, plotting to
control the planet. The book did not portray Jews as individuals, but as a
single minded, calculating cartel. For his work, Hitler’s regime awarded
Henry Ford the “Grand Service Cross of the Supreme Order of the German
Eagle.”
Although
he later publicly issued two written apologies for his books and articles,
Henry Ford’s sincerity and even his signature are still debated as being
possibly inauthentic. Although the now publicly-owned Ford Motor Company has
attempted to mend ties with Jewish people, the International
Jew—which once had an audience of hundreds of thousands—is now
posted on the internet and, capitalizing on Henry Ford’s name, continues
to spread hate to millions.
Charles Lindbergh
Born in
Michigan
and reared in
Minnesota
,
aviation pioneer Charles Augustus Lindbergh was one of the world’s first
truly international heroes. In 1927 he completed the first-ever solo
trans-Atlantic flight—and caught the imagination of a newly airborne
nation. Only 14 years later, however, many branded him a Nazi sympathizer
and anti-Semitic because of his outspoken views against the
U.S.
’
entry into World War II. One columnist said the “Lone Eagle” had
plummeted from “Public Hero No. 1” to “Public Enemy No. 1”. Debate
continues today as to whether Charles Lindbergh was a Nazi sympathizer or
simply sought to keep
America
out of the war.
On
11
September 1941
Charles appeared in Des Moines/Iowa to speak on
behalf of the isolationist America First Committee. The famous aviator
criticized groups he perceived were leading
America
into war, for acting against the country’s interests. He expressed doubt
that the
U.S.
military could win a war against
Germany
,
which he assessed had “armies stronger than our own.” The speech was met
with public outrage, and Charles was denounced as an anti-Semite for
comments such as:
If
any one of these groups—the British, the Jewish, or the
administration—stops agitating for war, I believe there will be little
danger of our involvement.
Even Charles’ hometown of Little
Falls/Minnesota removed his name from its water tower.
Six
years previously, Charles and his wife—writer Anne Morrow Lindbergh—had
moved to
Britain
to
escape relentless and sensationalist publicity surrounding the kidnapping
and murder of their infant son. In 1936, Charles inspected the German
military aviation program on behalf of the
U.S.
government, and that August attended the Summer Olympic Games in
Berlin
as
a guest of Hermann Goering, the head of Hitler’s Luftwaffe. Impressed by
German industry and society under Hitler, the Lindberghs considered moving
to
Berlin
and began inspecting possible property. In 1938, Goering presented Charles
with the Service Cross of the German Eagle for his contributions to
aviation. Upon returning to
America
in
1939, Charles advocated isolationism, but was criticized for his Nazi
sympathies and anti-Semitic sentiments.
When
Japan
attacked
Pearl
Harbor
on
7
December 1941
,
debate over
U.S.
war policy came to an end and America First quickly dissolved. Charles, who
had resigned his military commission in 1939, asked to be reinstated, but
President Roosevelt refused. The middle-aged Lindbergh later served as an
observer in the Pacific, and eventually flew over two dozen combat missions,
including one in which he downed a Japanese aircraft.
guiding
questions to Henry Ford and Charles
Lindbergh:
—Why or how were some Midwesterners
so fascinated by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi movement he spawned, while others
were skeptical and disdainful from the beginning? (See http://traces.org/admirersofnazism.html)
—How great was [German-language]
newspapers’ influence in creating pro-Nazi sympathies among Midwesterners
in specific, and among Americans in general? (See http://traces.org/derstaatsanzeiger.html)
—How did the rise of Nazism affect
Germans immigrating to the
Midwest
? What sort of conflicts did they
experience, as a consequence? (See http://traces.org/germanimmigrants.html)
for
Day 2
Midwest
Pen Pals and their European “Friends”:
Lucille and Maria
Lucille
Nelson of Eagle Grove/Iowa had had polio at age seven, and later took 60
piano lessons via a correspondence course with a firm in
Kansas
City
,
given her immobility. Her keen interest in music, then, excited her when as
a 15-year-old girl at
Goldfield
High
School
she learned of a girl in
Vienna
who sought a pen pal. A doctor’s only child, Maria Louisa Likar happened
to have many of the same interests as Lucille—including a passion for
Wagner operas. For more than a year and a half, the two exchanged not only
letters full of details from their lives, but newspaper clippings, photos of
Hollywood stars and starlets, fashion ideas for Maria’s dressmaker—even
gifts of jewelry and handkerchiefs.
Maria’s
letters, however, increasingly departed from the cares and interests typical
of teenage girls and dripped with political references. She stood for hours
on a curb in the Austrian capital, for example, and waited for a glimpse of
Adolf Hitler—who she said “arrived under the indescribable jubilation of
the people.” On another occasion, Maria later reported to Lucille that
Our Fuehrer [was] in
Vienna
for three days. There were so many people at the
Hotel, though he was not officially here, that you can’t imagine. I myself
waited 4 hours. But that doesn’t matter. I think never a man was loved by
the whole nation like this. Just [now] I read in the paper that you hear in
the newspapers [that] in
Germany
[there] are dreadful conditions and I don’t
know what else. That is not true. That’s only wrote by the Jews to prevent
peace. Everything is in best order. It is so funny if you sit in
Germany
and you reads things that never happened. That I
only tell you, that you know how the things stay realy [sic].
Maria’s
letters noted Hitler’s birthday and of listening to the “wireless” to
the Nazi party rallies in Nuernberg. She also warned Lucille not to believe
“Jewish lies” about the “New Germany”, which during their friendship
came to include annexed
Austria
.
After the annexation both girls’ letters were subject to censorship and
some of Maria’s never arrived in
Iowa
.
Eventually, Maria wrote “I will never again write about politics.”
Lucille
was devastated when her last letter to Maria at Salmgasse 10 was returned
“address unknown.” Since Maria was to have just received some furniture
for her own room as a birthday present, Lucille couldn’t understand the
mysterious disappearance of her special friend—and she would wonder, her
whole life, what happened to her Austrian pen pal.
Anne and Margot Franks’
Iowa
Pen Pals
They
were four young girls, interested in friends and boys and movie stars, in
laughing and giggling and having a good time. Were they best friends, living
next door? No. In fact,
Iowa
farm girls Juanita and Betty Ann Wagner, and
Amsterdam
residents Anne and Margot Frank lived half a world apart and never met
except through letters. The girls were pen pals, brought together by an
innovative and progressive
Iowa
school teacher, Birdie Mathews.
Juanita
told her pen friend Anne all about life on a farm and about the state in
which she lived. She shared about her mother and older sister Betty as well.
Anne wrote back and spoke of the Montessori school that she attended and
told Juanita about her own family. The girls’ older sisters also became
pen pals. Margo Frank wrote to Betty Ann Wagner about the exciting times
during which they were living and about being so close to
Germany
.
War
came to the
U.S.
on
7
December 1941
.
Both Juanita and Betty Ann were concerned for their Dutch friends but they
attributed the lack of letters to the war. It was not until after the war
when Betty Ann wrote again to Anne and Margo and received a reply from Otto
Frank—Anne and Margo’s father—that they found out the girls had
perished in one of Nazi Germany’s concentration camps,
Bergen-Belsen
.
For
a brief moment in time—during an era when many young people did not look
beyond their own borders—four girls touched each other’s lives from half
a world away, thanks to Birdie Matthews. “Miss Birdie” was a world
traveler who brought the world back to her students; she retired in 1945 and
died in 1974, at the age of 94—fondly remembered by many of her former
pupils.
guiding
questions to Pen Pals:
—How did teenage
Midwest
girls perceive life abroad and those who lived it? How were their worldviews
altered by what they learned via correspondence? (See http://traces.org/anne.html
and http://traces.org/maria.html)
Herman
Stern: Quiet Rescuer of Jews
A German-Jewish immigrant himself
in the early 1900s, between 1933 and 1941 Herman Stern helped 125
Jews—mostly relatives or friends of relatives—flee Nazi Germany.
Assisted by Senator Gerald P. Nye of Hermann Stern’s adopted home state of
North Dakota
, Stern personally raised the funds to bring and
found the makeshift livelihoods to support the many refugees he aided. A
one-man rescue team, in large part he used unreliable, meager Depression-era
proceeds from his modest dry-goods business to “buy” the lives of
individuals who otherwise might have perished.
[This information is from Nowhere to Turn on the
Minnesota
State
University
at
Moorhead
’s website http://www.mnstate.edu/shoptaug/nowhereexhibit.htm,
researched by Terry Shoptaugh.]
guiding
questions to Quiet Rescuer:
—By the time Herman Stern began
assisting other Jews wanting to leave
Germany
,
to what degree had he successfully assimilated with or integrated into
American society? At one point does an immigrant become an “American”?
Quaker
Responses to the Nazi Persecution:
Clarence Pickett
“I
remember sitting in a quiet Quaker Meeting one Sunday morning in our Center
on Prinz Louis Ferdinandstrasse and listening to the screaming voice of
Goebbels (from a loud-speaker outside), pouring forth a venomous attack on
all Jews and calling upon the churches to have nothing to do with them,”
Clarence Picket later recalled, after visiting Nazi Germany in 1938.
Born
in
Illinois
,
raised on the
Kansas
prairie and graduated from
Iowa
’s
Penn
College
,
Clarence became the Executive Secretary of the American Friends Service
Committee (AFSC) in 1929. As an
Earlham
College
professor he had been teaching and experimenting with the application of
ethical principles in social situations; the AFSC was seeking to focus on
the prevention of war, not just war relief.
Relief
for Jews who were trying to flee
Germany
soon became an overwhelming concern. Working closely with Jewish, Lutheran
and Catholic groups, the AFSC and British Friends (as Quakers also are
called) sought at the
Berlin
Quaker
Center
to
help individuals who were not religious but were condemned because they had
even one Jewish grandparent. For this and other work the AFSC—along with
the (British) Friends Service Council—was awarded the Nobel Peace in 1947.
Leonard Kenworthy
Leonard S. Kenworthy served as director or the
International
Quaker
Center
in
Berlin
from 1940–41, as he wrote later “primarily assisting Jewish people to
leave that hate-drenched nation.”
AFSC
head Clarence Pickett—seeking a young, single man who spoke German and
would accept the risks involved—asked the 28-year old Quaker school
teacher to direct Friends’ relief efforts for one year. Leonard had been
born in Richmond/Indiana to a family with a tradition of working abroad for
humanitarian causes; he accepted and stayed despite the frustrations, fears
and wartime conditions he endured. Soon after his return home, the
U.S.
entered the war and he was drafted and served as a conscientious objector.
The
Center—begun as a response to Kristallnacht—was committed to helping as
many Jews as possible find refuge in other countries. The obstacles were
enormous. First of all, few places in the world were willing to accept
Jewish refugees. Then, the bureaucracy facing those who had found a place to
go was long and exacting. As Leonard reported “it seemed like an endless
process, but it was their only hope for leaving.” He estimated that of the
1,000 persons the Quaker bureau was able to assist, perhaps 100 left during
his year. Those he was powerless to assist, he listened to sympathetically,
but long afterwards he continued to ponder what else he could have done.
One
thing the Center was able to accomplish was to provide a place for Berlin
Quakers to wrap packages of books, games and musical instruments to be sent
to German camps for Allied prisoners of war. This was one small testimony to
peace that Hitler’s regime allowed the Friends to do. Years later, when
asked why the Nazis permitted Quakers to do even as much as they did,
Leonard speculated that it could have been because they were so small, or
because they were ridding Germany of Jews, or because the feeding that the
Quakers had done after WWI was still remembered by hungry German
children—some of whom had grown up to be Nazi officials.
Nancy Parker and Gertrude McCoy
Two young Midwest
Quaker women, Nancy Parker and Gertrude McCoy, spent the 1938-39 academic
year teaching at a Quaker school in
Palestine
.
At the Friends School of Ramallah, they taught a variety of subjects, and
supervised many of the Muslim and Christian students—which at times
included having them lie on the floor when battles between the British and
Palestinians came too close. Nancy and Gertrude both fell in love with the
land and their students, but had only signed on for one year.
Nancy
was to be a delegate to the German Quaker Yearly Meeting in August 1939,
while Gertrude had gotten a post in a school in the German town of
Ambach
,
near
Munich
.
Gertrude
spent a month in
Germany
,
where she experienced women hissing at her for wearing rouge and lipstick,
and soldiers threatening her when she did not offer “Heil Hitler”. Just
before school was to open, soldiers took the headmaster in the middle of the
night, and banged on her door: “If you don’t go back to the
U.S.
today, you will have to work for Hitler”. She sailed back in a ship filled
with others escaping the impeding war—including the Joseph Kennedy family
of
Boston
and renowned conductor Arturo Toscanini.
Nancy
also felt the fear that pervaded
Germany
.
She, too, was hissed at when she did not say “Heil Hitler” and German
Quakers told her to always be careful, as the Gestapo was present at all
Quaker meetings. Only when inside a Friend’s apartment or way out in the
country after a long hike was she able to hear her hosts’ grief and
frustrations. She was even careful not to write her impressions in her
journal while she was there. She, too, had narrow escapes leaving
Germany
,
but did make it home safely, despite the terror of the times.
She
later vividly described her experiences in Notes
from Ramallah, 1939.
The Scattergood Hostel for European Refugees,
1939-43:
From 1939 to 1943, 186 refugees from Nazi-occupied
Europe
found refuge at Scattergood, a hostel in what had been a Quaker boarding
school near West Branch/Iowa. Among them were Jews, as well as political
opponents of Hitler’s regime, religious figures, artists, merchants,
journalists, elderly ladies and little children. With the help of Iowa
Quaker farmers and college students the refugees sought to overcome the
trauma of their experiences in
Europe
,
find a niche for themselves and build a new life in the
New
World
.
The founders of the hostel strove to rehabilitate and integrate the
refugees. Reflecting their native culture and the era in which they lived,
the Quakers believed that the best way to help the newcomers was to
assimilate them into American society, to create “New Americans.”
Friends (as Quakers formally are known) sought to help their guests avoid
belated suffering; the refugees sought to adapt to their new environment as
a means of survival and to juggle who they’d been with the new biographies
they were forming. Together, Quaker and Jew, farmer and lawyer, grandmother
and child shared a living community, the legacy of which lives on today,
enriching those who know of and open themselves to it.
The
Quaker
Hill
Center
for European Refugees, 1940-41:
Though modeled on the hostel at Scattergood, the refugee center at Quaker
Hill differed from the prototype on which it was based. Sheltered in a
large, white-pillared house donated by a wealthy Quaker manufacturer, the
hostel was located in
Richmond
,
Indiana
—a
Midwest
town of 33,000 with a large Quaker population and activist heritage, as well
as home to Earlham, a Friends college. Much more so than rural
Iowa
,
Richmond
suggested the milieu typical of the industrialized, relatively densely
populated
Lower
Midwest
stretching from the
Mississippi
River
to
the headwaters of the
Ohio
.
There, paid and volunteer staff who organized Quaker Hill hoped to more
easily and fully integrate that project into its surrounding community.
Undertaken at the request of Jewish organizations and others working with
European refugees, Quaker Hill operated on the assumption that a group of
people unknown to each other before might learn to live well together, and
to work cooperatively and in peace and harmony. Thus, a sound, healing
balance between mental and physical activity was sought to help remedy the
spiritual wounds of Nazi Germany's dejected Jews.
guiding questions to Scattergood
Hostel and Quaker Hill:
—What motivated Quakers to go to Nazi Germany
to assist Jews or other persecuted groups, and to take in refugees from
Nazi-occupied
Europe
—Did they generally accept their “guests”
(as they called the refugees) as the newcomers were, or did they attempt
(covertly or overtly) to change the Europeans’ behaviors or characters? If
the latter, did the refugees mostly welcome or resist such moves; why, or
how?
—In what ways did the refugees ultimately
assimilate to or integrate in
U.S.
culture?
—How did the refugees contribute to or alter
the host culture?
—In what ways and to what extent are
Scattergood Hostel and Quaker Hill positive role models for refugee
assimilation or integration programs today, and in what ways inadequate or
inappropriate?
German-American
Civilian Internment—including of Jews:
background
German
Americans are the largest ethnic group in the U.S. Approximately 60 million
Americans claim German ancestry. German-American loyalty to
America
’s
promise of freedom goes back to the Revolutionary War. Nevertheless, during
the Second World War the U.S. government and many Americans viewed German
Americans and others of “enemy ancestry”
as potentially dangerous—particularly recent immigrants, including Jews
who had fled Nazi persecution (to both American continents) or even
imprisonment.
The
U. S. Government used many interrelated, constitutionally questionable
methods to control those of enemy ancestry—including internment,
individual and group exclusion from military zones, internee exchanges for
Americans held in Germany, deportation, “alien
enemy” registration requirements, travel
restrictions and property confiscation. The human cost of these civil
liberties violations was high: families were disrupted, reputations
destroyed, homes and belongings lost.
About Selective Internment:
Pursuant to the Alien Enemy Act of 1798 (50 U.S.C 21-24), which remains in
effect today, the U.S. may apprehend, intern and otherwise restrict the
freedom of “alien
enemies”
upon declaration of war or actual, attempted or threatened invasion by a
foreign nation. During WWII, the U.S. Government interned at least 11,000
persons of German ancestry. By law, only “enemy
aliens”
could be interned; however, with governmental approval, their family members
frequently joined them in the camps. Many such “voluntarily”
interned spouses and children were American citizens.
Edgar
Friede: A Jew Once Again Behind Barbed
Wire
Edgar
Friedman was born of Jewish parents in
Hamburg
in
1892. “Doktor” Friede—as attorneys are known in
Germany
—practiced
law until forbidden to do so by Nazi edicts. “Eddie” and his wife, Liesl,
were granted exit permits in 1938. Before they could emigrate, however,
Eddie was arrested and imprisoned in Sachsenhausen, a concentration camp in
Oranienburg, outside
Berlin
.
Using his connections to the legal community, Eddie eventually was able to
secure his release from Sachsenhausen and flee to
America
with Liesl.
In
San
Francisco
his English was insufficient to pursue law, so Eddie found work delivering
Viennese pastries door-to-door in the German community. To F.B.I. agents
secretly monitoring the Friedes’ activities, this connection to suspicious
German Americans indicated that the dejected lawyer was a dangerous Nazi.
During the December 8th raids following
Pearl Harbor
, in which hundreds were
arrested, the F.B.I. took him into custody in his
San
Francisco
apartment. Doctor Friede—a Jew who narrowly had escaped extermination in
Germany—wound up behind barbed wire at the Fort Lincoln internment camp
for men outside Bismarck/North Dakota. There, he fought Gitterkrankheit
(“fence sickness”) for six months before his protests of innocence
finally were heard. He was released and returned to
San
Francisco
,
but marked for life by the internment experience. He never practiced law
again, and spent thirty-nine years as a door-to-door cosmetics salesman. He
always fixed his deep, sad eyes on his customers and introduced himself as
Doctor Friede.
Years
later, the Friedes were still so terrified by their experience and the power
of the F.B.I. that they would not allow their real names to be used when
their story was first published.
guiding
questions to Vanished:
—Are ethnic background or ideology justifiable
grounds for internment (in other words, imprisoning suspects for who they are
or what they believe, as opposed to their actions)?
—Does a given society owe due process only to
its citizens, or also to legal non-citizen residents?
—During
WWII the U.S. Government forcibly removed 4,058 Latin American Germans from
South America—some of whom were German or Austrian Jews who had recently
fled Nazi persecution—to camps in Texas, at Ellis Island and elsewhere
[just as 2,200 Peruvian Japanese also were interned alongside indigenous
Japanese Americans]: what are some of this action’s legal and moral
implications? Was this action effective in making the
U.S.
more secure?
for
Day 3
Midwest
POWs in Nazi
Germany
: Behind Barbed Wire
The first
U.S.
troops to enter WWII came from the
Upper
Midwest
;
the 34th Division also served the longest stint of active duty—611 days.
In February 1943 some 1,800 mostly Iowa, but also Minnesota and Dakota
soldiers fell prisoner to Rommel's Afrikakorps;
they were marched to Tunis, flown to Naples, then shipped in box cars to
Nazi Germany, where they spent two years as "Hitler's uninvited
guests." Those who survived that living hell returned to
America
's
Heartland forever changed. Jewish Midwest POWs had experiences different
from their co-captives.
guiding
questions to Behind Barbed Wire:
—Why
did some Midwest POWs survive certain conditions or experiences, while
others did not?
—What
roles did art, free-time and religion play in helping those men who did
survive imprisonment by the Nazi regime?
—Why
did some Germans or Austrians assist U.S. POWs, while others did not?
—How
did the liberated POWs later come to terms with their own experiences?
—How
do nations and the individuals who constitute a nation come to a point of
reconciliation for collective acts or experiences?
Aftermath: What Midwest Soldiers Found in Nazi Camps
American GIs who fought their way across
Europe
from
Normandy
and
Italy
into
Germany
were not fighting to liberate Jews in ghettos or concentration camps. Nor
was that a stated war aim of the Allied Powers. The Soviets, however, opened
the Majdanek Camp in
Eastern
Poland
on
23
July 1944
and took control of abandoned camps at Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka the
next month. Their Red Army liberated Auschwitz on 27 January 1945, while
Canadian forces liberated the abandoned Vught concentration camp in the
Netherlands in October 1944 and Free French Forces entered the
Natzweiler-Struthof camp in Alsace on 23 November 1944.
The Americans and British arrived at concentration camps that
remained in
Germany
and
Austria
in April and May 1945. The British opened
Bergen-Belsen
,
near
Hanover
,
while American forces entered Ohrdruf,
Dachau
,
Buchenwald
,
Nordhausen, Flossenbürg, Mauthausen, Gusen and other camps in
Bavaria
and
Austria
.
The photos shown in the related exhibit at
TRACES
Center
for History and Culture (co-sponsored by the
University
of
Minnesota
’s
Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies; for details see www.chgs.umn.edu)
were taken by American Army personnel from
Minnesota
.
Many were taken with their own cameras, while others were taken by U.S. Army
photographers and given to members of liberation units who wanted this as
evidence of the Nazi crimes against Jews, political prisoners, Gypsies and
others.
Buchenwald
’s
inmates came from 38 countries, including the
U.S.A.
Many of these photos are difficult to view. They are shown not only
as a memorial to those who died, but also in order to understand the
consequences of war, tyranny, intolerance and racial hatred—or
indifference to them.
guiding
questions to Aftermath:
—What did
Midwest
soldiers find at
Dachau
or
other Nazi camps?
—How did they react to those
findings?
—How do you think they “should”
have reacted? How do you think you would have reacted?
—What were some of the basic,
under-lying causes of the Holocaust?
—What “lessons” from the
Holocaust can be applied today?
See www.TRACES.org for more information and views of the exhibit.
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