Raul Hilberg
Page 5
Mesopotamia and Judea itself. The direction and convergence of Jewish forces indicate
that the goal was Jerusalem. See Shimon Applebaum, Jews and Greeks in Ancient
Cyrene (Leiden, 1979), pp. 201-334 and particularly pp. 336-37.
33. See David Segal, “Observations on Three War Poems of Shmuel Ha-Nagid,"
AJSreview 4 (1979): 165-203. Ha-Nagid was the only medieval Hebrew war poet.
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The psychological dependence of European Jews is illustrated by
the following incident. In 10%, when the Jewish communities of Germany were warned by letters and emissaries from France that the crusaders were coming to kill them, the Jewish leadership of Mainz
replied: “We are greatly concerned with your well-being. As for ourselves, there is no great cause for fear. We have not heard a word of such matters, nor has it been hinted that our lives are threatened by the
sword.”
Soon
the
crusaders
came,
“battalion
after
battalion,”
and
struck at the Jews of Speyer, Worms, Mainz, and other German cities.M
More than eight hundred years later, a president of the Jewish council
in Holland was to say: "The fact that the Germans had perpetrated
atrocities against Polish Jews was no reason for thinking that they
behave Isic] in the same way toward Dutch Jews, firstly because the
Germans had always held Polish Jews in disrepute, and secondly because in the Netherlands, unlike Poland, they had to sit up and take notice of public opinion.”35 In the Netherlands, as in Poland to the east,
Jewry was subjected to annihilation.
For the Diaspora Jews, acts of armed opposition had become
isolated and episodic. Force was not to be a Jewish strategy again until
Jewish life was reconstituted in a Jewish state. During the catastrophe
of 1933-45 the instances of opposition were small and few. Above all,
they
were,
whenever
and
wherever
they
occurred,
actions
of
last
(never first) resort.34
On the other hand, alleviation attempts were typical and instantaneous responses by the Jewish community. Under the heading of alleviation
are
included
petitions,
protection
payments,
ransom
arrangements,
anticipatory
compliance,
relief,
rescue,
salvage,
reconstruction—in short, all those activities designed to avert danger or, in
the event that force has already been used, to diminish its effects. Let
us give a few illustrations.
34. Mainz Anonymous Hebrew Chronicle (text of a contemporary account), in
Shlomo Eidelberg, ed. and trans., The Jews and the Crusaders (Madison, Wis. 1977),
pp. 99-100.
35. Testimony of D. Cohen, November 12, 1947, cited by Louis de Jong, ‘The
Netherlands and Auschwitz," Yad Vashem Studies 7 (1968): 44.
36. From 1789 Jews had gained military experience in the armies of continental
Europe. In 1794 and 1831 they had fought in their own detachments on the side of Polish
forces in Warsaw. During 1903-4 Jewish self-defense units, armed with clubs, confronted
drunken mobs invading the Jewish quarters of several Russian cities. Yet these experiences, often cited in literature, were limited precedents. The Jewish soldiers of the German or Austrian armies did not wear a Jewish uniform. The Jewish detachments in
Warsaw fought as residents of Poland for a Polish cause. The self-defense units in Russia
did not challenge the Russian state. Even so, it is noteworthy that the death camp revolts
in Ibeblinka and SobibOr were planned by Jewish inmates who had been officers, that the
principal ghetto rising took place in Warsaw, and that Jewish partisan activity was concentrated in parts of the occupied USSR.
23
PRECEDENTS
The ancient city of Alexandria, Egypt, was divided into five districts: o, p, y, 8, and e. The Jews were heavily concentrated in the Delta (waterfront section), but they had residences also in other parts
of town. In a.d. 38, Emperor Caligula wanted to be worshipped as a
half-god. The Jews refused to pay him the desired respect. Thereupon,
riots broke out in Alexandria. The Jews were driven into the Delta, and
the mob took over abandoned apartments. Equality of rights was temporarily abolished, the food supply to the Delta was cut off, and all exits were sealed. From time to time, a centurion of Roman cavalry
would enter Jewish homes on the pretext of searching for arms. Under
these conditions, which have a peculiarly modem flavor, the Jews sent
a delegation to Rome to petition Emperor Caligula for relief. The delegation included the famous philosopher Philo, who disputed about the matter in Rome with the anti-Jewish public figure Apion.” This is one
of the earliest examples of Jewish petition diplomacy. More than nineteen hundred years later, in 1942, a delegation of Bulgarian Jews petitioned for a similar purpose: the Jews were attempting to ward off ejection from their homes.“
Sometimes the Jews attempted to buy protection with money. In
1384, when much Jewish blood was flowing in Franken, the Jews
sought to ransom themselves. Arrangements for payment were made
with speed. The city of Nuremberg collected the enormous sum of
80,000 guilders. King Wenzel got his share of 15,000 guilders from that
amount. The representatives of the king, who participated in negotiations with other cities, received 4,000 guilders. Net profit to the city: over 60,000 guilders, or 190,000 thaler.* The Jews in Nazi-occupied
Europe, from the Netherlands to the Caucasus, made identical attempts to buy safety from death with money and valuables.
One of the most sagacious alleviation reactions in the Jewish arsenal
was anticipatory
compliance.
The victim,
sensing
danger, combatted it by initiating a conciliatory response before being confronted
by open threats. He therefore gave in to a demand on his own terms.
An example of such a maneuver was the effort of European Jewish
communities before 1933 to bring about a significant shift in the Jewish
occupational structure from commerce and law to engineering, skilled 37 38 39
37. Heinrich Graetz, Volkstümliche Geschichte der Juden, (Berlin and Vienna,
1923), vol. 3. pp. 600-69. Victor Tcherikover, Hellenistic Civilization and the Jew (JPS
and Hebrew University, 1959), pp. 313-16. Excerpts from Philo's description from a
letter of Emperor Claudius (a.d. 41) in Naphtali Lewis, The Roman Principaie—27 B.C.-
285 a.d. (Toronto, 1974), pp. 111-13. Claudius refers to the separate Jewish mission as
“something never done before.-’
38. Frederick Chary, The Bulgarian Jews and the Final Solution, 1940-1944
(Pittsburgh, 1972) pp. 73-74, 92-96, 144-52.
39. Stobbe, Die Juden in Deutschland, pp. 57-58.
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PRECEDENTS
labor, and agricultural work. This movement, which in Germany was
known
as
Berufsumschichiung
(occupational
redistribution),
was
prompted by a hope that in their new economic role the Jews were
going to be less conspicuous, less vu
lnerable, and less subject to the
criticism of unproductiveness.40 41 42 43 44 Another illustration of anticipation is
the self-restraint by Jewish firms of pre-1933 Germany in the hiring of
Jewish
personnel.
Jewish
enterprises
had
already
become
the
employers of most Jewish wage earners, but now some companies instituted
quotas
to
avoid
an
even
greater
manifestation
of
such
Jewishness.*'
Several
years
later,
in
Nazi-dominated
Europe,
Jewish
councils spent many hours trying to anticipate German requirements
and
orders.
The
Germans,
they reasoned,
would
not
be concerned
about the impact of a particular economic measure on those Jews who
were least capable of shouldering another burden, whereas the councils might at least try to protect the weakest and neediest Jews from harmful effects. In this vein, the Jewish Council of Warsaw considered
confiscating Jewish belongings wanted by the Germans,*2 and for the
same reason the council devised a system for drafting Jewish labor,
with provisions exempting well-to-do Jews for a fee in order that the
money might be used to make payments to families of poorer Jews who
were working without wages for German agencies.'5
The alleviations that followed disaster were developed to a very
high degree in the Jewish community. Relief, rescue, and salvage were
old
Jewish
institutions.
The
relief
committees
and
subcommittees
formed by "prominent" Jews (the Prominente), which are so typical of
the United Jewish Appeal machinery today, were commonplace in the
nineteenth century. Already during the 1860s, collections for Russian
Jews were conducted in Germany on a fairly large scale.** Reconstruction—that is to say, the rebuilding of Jewish life, whether in new sur40. In two letters addressed to Adolf Hitler on April 4 and May 6. 1933, a conservative organization of Jewish war veterans (Reichsbund jüdischer Frontsoldaten) pointed out that it had long espoused a Berufsumschichiung from ''intellectual" pursuits to agriculture and the artisan trades. Texts in Klaus Herrmann, Das Dritte Reich und die deutsch-jüdischen Organisationen, 1933-1934 (Cologne, 1969). pp. 66-67. 94-98.
41. Esra Bennathan. “Die demographische und wirtschaftliche Struktur der Juden," in Werner Mosse, ed., Entscheidungsjahr 1932 (Tübingen, 1966), pp. 88-131, at pp. 110, 114.
42. Raul Hilberg, Stanislaw Staron. and Josef Kermisz, eds.. The Warsaw Diary of
Adam Cierniakow (New York, 1979), p. 99.
43. See Czemiaköw’s diary, entries for October 13-24, 1939; November 2 and 13,
1939; December 9. 1939; and January 21 and 23, 1940, ibid., pp. 81-110, passim; Czer-
niaköw to Plenipotentiary of the District Chief for the City of Warsaw, May 21, 1940,
ibid., pp. 386-87.
44. See, for example, list of contributions in Allgemeine Zeitung des Judenthums
(Leipzig), November 2, 1869, p. 897 ff.
PRECEDENTS
roundings or, after abatement of persecution, in the old home—has
been a matter of automatic adjustment for hundreds of years. Reconstruction is identical with the continuity of Jewish life. The bulk of any general Jewish-history book is devoted to the story of the constant
shifts, the recurring readjustments, the endless rebuilding of the Jewish
community. The years after 1945 were marked by one of the largest of
these reconstructive efforts.
Next in our scale is the reaction of evasion, of flight. In the diagram
the evasive reaction is not marked as strongly as the alleviation attempts. By this we do not mean the absence of flight, concealment, and hiding in the Jewish response pattern. We mean, rather, that the Jews
have placed less hope, less expectation, and less reliance on these
devices. It is true that the Jews have always wandered from country to
country, but they have rarely done so because the restrictions of a
regime became too burdensome. Jews have migrated chiefly for two
reasons:
expulsion
and
economic
depression.
Jews
have
rarely
run
from a pogrom. They have lived through it. The Jewish tendency has
been not to run from but to survive with anti-Jewish regimes. It is a
fact, now confirmed by many documents, that the Jews made an attempt to live with Hitler. In many cases they failed to escape while there was still time and more often still, they failed to step out of the
way when the killers were already upon them.
There are moments of impending disaster when almost any conceivable action will only make suffering worse or bring final agonies closer. In such situations the victims may lapse into paralysis. The
reaction is barely overt, but in 1941 a German observer noted the
symptomatic fidgeting of the Jewish community in Galicia as it awaited
death,
between
shocks
of
killing
operations,
in
“nervous
despair”
(verzweifelte
Nervositat).0
Among
Jews
outside
the
destruction
arena,
a passive stance manifested itself as well. In 1941 and 1942, just when
mass killings began, Jews all over the world looked on helplessly as
Jewish populations of cities and entire countries vanished.
The last reaction on the scale is compliance. To the Jews compliance with anti-Jewish laws or orders has always been equivalent to survival.
The
restrictions
were
petitioned
against
and
sometimes
evaded, but when these attempts were unsuccessful, automatic compliance was the normal course of action. Compliance was carried to the greatest lengths and to the most drastic situations. In Frankfurt, on
September 1, 1614, a mob under the leadership of a certain Vincenz
Fettmilch attacked the Jewish quarter in order to kill and plunder. 43 *
43. Oberfeldkommandantiir 36$ to Militirbefehlshaber im Generalgouvemement,
December 18. 1941, T $01, roll 214.
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PRECEDENTS
Many Jews fled to the cemetery. There they huddled together and
prayed, dressed in the ritual shrouds of the dead and waiting for the
killers.* This example is particularly pertinent, because the voluntary
assembly at graves was repeated many times during the Nazi killing
operations of 1941.
The Jewish reactions to force have always been alleviation and
compliance. We shall note the reemergence of this pattern time and
again. However, before we pass on, it should be emphasized again that
the term “Jewish reactions” refers only to ghetto Jews. This reaction
pattern was bom in the ghetto and it will die there. It is part and parcel
of ghetto life. It applies to all gh
etto Jews—assimilationists and Zion·
ists, the capitalists and the socialists, the unorthodox and the religious.
One other point has to be understood. The alleviation-compliance
response dates, as we have seen, to pre-Christian times. It has its
beginnings with the Jewish philosophers and historians Philo and Josephus, who bargained on behalf of Jewry with the Romans and who cautioned the Jews not to attack, in word or deed, any other people.
The Jewish reaction pattem assured the survival of Jewry during the
Church’s massive conversion drive. The Jewish policy once more assured to the embattled community a foothold and a chance for survival during the periods of expulsion and exclusion.
If, therefore, the Jews have always played along with an attacker,
they have done so with deliberation and calculation, in the knowledge
that their policy would result in least damage and least injury. The Jews
knew
that
measures
of
destruction
were
self-financing
or
even
profitable up to a certain point but that beyond that limit they could be
costly. As one historian put it: "One does not kill the cow one wants to
milk.”4’ In the Middle Ages the Jews carried out vital economic functions. Precisely in the usury so much complained of by Luther and his contemporaries, there was an important catalyst for the development
of a more complex economic system. In modem times, too, Jews have
pioneered in trade, in the professions, and in the arts. Among some
Jews the conviction grew that Jewry was "indispensable.” 46 47
46. Graetz, Volkstümliche Geschichte der Juden, vol. 3, pp. 388-89. The mob permitted them to flee. The Jews returned to their homes two months later, under imperial protection. Fettmilch was tom to pieces by four horses upon orders of the authorities—
the Emperor did not like pogroms. In Erfurt, during the fourteenth century, a mob was
permitted by the city council to kill one hundred Jews. When the crowds began to
threaten the remaining three thousand Jews, the victims fled to their apartments, blocked
the entrances, and then set fire to their own homes, burning themselves to death in the
holocaust. Ludwig Count Ütterodt, Gunther Graf von Schwarzenburg—Erwählter
Deutscher König (Leipzig, 1862), p. 33n.
47. Stowasser, "Zur Geschichte der Wiener Geserah," Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial-
und Wirtschaftsgeschichte 16 (1922): 106.
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In the early 1920s Hugo Bettauer wrote a fantasy novel entitled Die
Stadt ohne Juden (The City without Jews).* This highly significant