free of Jews
" Jews free " or " free of Jews " were used initially in the 19th century, later in the period of National Socialism spread anti-Jewish terms that an area without Jewish designated residents. In the language of National Socialism , the term was mostly used as a euphemism : Organizations, professions, economic sectors, places and regions were declared as free of Jews after the Jews there had been deported or expelled. Occasionally the term was also used to designate areas of life as free from Jewish influence .
Concept formation
Both terms are already anti-Semitic in their word formation. The ending -frei is usually associated with a noun if the non-existence is taken as a preference. The ending -rein means not mixed with something that does not belong there; without extraneous addition, without falsifying, different effects .
Concept history
The term first appeared at the end of the 19th century. In the Centralorgan der Deutschen Antisemiten , a bimonthly magazine published by the publicist and publisher Theodor Fritsch , a call for the establishment of a theater without Jewish participation appeared in 1888. In addition, bath anti-Semitism spread during this time and many places unabashedly advertised that they were free of Jews . With reference to this, the political weekly newspaper Die Welt , founded by Theodor Herzl , wrote in 1899: "The first list of summer holidays free of Jews has just been published."
According to the current state of research, the term found its way into the vocabulary of the National Socialists at about the same time as the Aryan paragraph . In the period that followed, numerous places and regions tried to get rid of the supposed stigma of Jewish residents or Jewish guests. For example, the newspaper of the Central Association of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith wrote on December 14, 1933 that the spa administration on the North Sea island of Norderney had stamps printed with the inscription: "Nordseebad Norderney is free of Jews!" Until the National Socialists came to power, the island was considered to be friendly to Jews and in the 1920s it had a percentage of Jewish guests of over 50 percent.
With the beginning of the Second World War and the associated start of deportations and mass extermination , the term was also used in the areas occupied by the German Reich . In Poland , the Einsatzgruppen expelled Jews from the incorporated areas and took them to ghettos in the Generalgouvernement . Already at the beginning of 1940 it was reported from the annexed areas that they were free of Jews . During the war, more and more occupied areas were reported to be free of Jewish residents. For example, Luxembourg was declared free of Jews in the press on October 17, 1941, and German-occupied Estonia in December 1941.
In the same year the term was used in connection with the planned murder of European Jews. In a speech by Hans Frank , the governor-general in Poland, on December 16, 1941:
“With the Jews - I want to tell you quite frankly - one way or another must be put to an end. [...] if the Jewish tribe in Europe survived the war, but we had sacrificed our best blood for the preservation of Europe, then this war would only represent a partial success. Therefore I will only start out with the expectation of the Jews that they will disappear. You have to go. I have started negotiations with the aim of deporting them to the east. A major meeting will be held in Berlin on this issue in January. […] In any case, a great Jewish migration will begin.
But what should be done with the Jews? Do you think they will be placed in settlement villages in the Ostland? We were told in Berlin: why are you making this trouble; we can't do anything with them in the Ostland or in the Reichskommissariat, liquidate them yourself! […]
We must destroy the Jews wherever we meet them and wherever possible in order to maintain the overall structure of the empire here. [...]
The Jews are extraordinarily harmful eaters for us too. We have an estimated 2.5 million Jews in the Generalgouvernement, maybe 3.5 million Jews with the Jewish relatives and all that depends on it. We cannot shoot these 3.5 million Jews, we cannot poison them, but we will nevertheless be able to undertake interventions that somehow lead to a successful extermination, namely in connection with the major measures to be discussed by the Reich. The General Government must become free of Jews, just like the Reich. Where and how this happens is a matter of the authorities that we must set up and create here, and the effectiveness of which I will inform you in good time. "
The term also found its way into the minutes of the Wannsee Conference of January 20, 1942, mentioned by Frank .
On October 2, 1942, the Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler issued an instruction that all concentration camps in Germany were to be made free of Jews . Literally it says in a circular circulated by the head of the Gestapo Heinrich Müller :
“The RFSSuChefdDtPol. has ordered that all concentration camps in the Reich are to be made free of Jews and that all Jews are to be transferred to KL Auschwitz and the POW labor camp in Lublin . "
The SS then deported all of Dachau's Jewish prisoners to the Auschwitz extermination camp, for example .
literature
- Frank Bajohr : “Our hotel is free of Jews”. Baths anti-Semitism in the 19th and 20th centuries. S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2003, ISBN 3-596-15796-X .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Duden, 12th edition 1941, here quoted from: Cornelia Schmitz-Berning: Vokabular des Nationalsozialismus , 2nd, reviewed and revised edition, Berlin, 2007, ISBN 3-11-016888-X , p. 333.
- ↑ a b Cornelia Schmitz-Berning: Vokabular des Nationalsozialismus , 2nd, reviewed and revised edition, Berlin, 2007, ISBN 3-11-016888-X , p. 333.
- ↑ Duden.de: pure
- ^ Die Welt , Issue 25, June 23, 1899.
- ↑ Federal Agency for Political Education : The Second World War - War, Flight and Expulsion
- ↑ Document 2233-PS in: IMT: The Nuremberg Trial against the Major War Criminals ... , fotomech. Reprint Munich 1989, ISBN 3-7735-2523-0 , Vol. 29/30, pp. 502-503.
- ↑ transcript of the call with facsimiles of the original ( Memento of 29 June 2007 at the Internet Archive ): Total protocol ( Memento of 6 March 2009 at the Internet Archive ) (in color, PDF, 2.9 MB)
- ^ Circular from Heinrich Müller of October 2, 1944, quoted here from Barbara Schwindt: The Majdanek Concentration and Destruction Camp. Functional change in the context of the " final solution ". Würzburg, Königshausen & Neumann, 2005, ISBN 3-8260-3123-7 , p. 147.
- ↑ dhm