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Greg Jackson (0:00)
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Greg Jackson (0:53)
History that Doesn't Suck is driven by a simple mission to make learning legit seriously researched history more accessible through entertaining stories. If you'd like to support the work we do and receive ad free episodes, bonus content and other exclusive perks, we invite you to join our membership program. Sign up today for a seven day free trial at htdspodcast.com membership or click the link in the episode notes. It's a Beautiful Saturday morning, May 13, 1939. We're in Hamburg, Germany at the city's port where 937 passengers are in the midst of boarding the Ms. St. Louis. Among them is Gisela Kneipple and what thoughts must be going through her young mind. Though only 15 years old, she remembers when, despite having one loving teacher who'd remind students that Gisela was no different from them, she had to transfer to an all Jewish school. She remembers when the SS man started standing in front of her parents grocery store to drive away business. Only the bravest, like their Catholic neighbor the baker, dared to push past him. She remembers when friends and family described last year's night of broken Glass, a night of terror for German Jews that she luckily did not experience personally. She remembers the day when two men ordered her Polish born father to pack a bag, grab his passport and go with them. Gisela will always remember making him those last sandwiches for his unknown journey, just as she'll never forget how her mother fought in the courts against their eviction so a German couple could take their apartment. A German couple? Are they not German? Gisela was born and raised here, but in recent years the blue eyed blond haired Jewish girl has seen that identity taken from her Systematically. Nonetheless, she's only 15. A 15 year old with wonderfully brave parents who've shielded her and her little sister from the worst of what's been going on. It's a task her mother has shouldered remarkably well since her father's deportation. But now her lonely mother knows that she must get these girls out of Nazi Germany. And so, clinging to her bags, Gisela walks up the gangway beside her mother and 12 year old sister to board the St. Louis, only semi aware of the horrors her family and nearly every one of the ship's passengers, all of whom save a handful are Jewish, have experienced in recent years. To her traveling to Cuba on this beautiful diesel powered luxury ocean liner, all while knowing that her father is coming later. Well, it is, as she'll later recall, really quite an adventure. The next two weeks at sea are amazing. Captain Gustav Schroeder is an amazing man who insists that the crew treat the almost exclusively Jewish passengers like any other paying customers. And with the St. Louis boasting a cinema, a swimming pool and a ballroom. Oh, Gisela's on cloud nine. The dances, the new friendships. For many, their fears slip deeper into the Atlantic. With every nautical mile clocked. They enjoy the ship's amenities, but only most. Gisela notices those with shaven heads released from camps at Dachau and Buchenwald on the condition that they leave Germany and never return. They remain tense. And as the St. Louis reaches Cuban waters, it turns out their tension is well founded. At 3am May 27, the St. Louis arrives in Havana harbor only to have most of its passengers denied entry. It seems that the Director General of Cuba's Office of Immigration, Manuel Benitez Gonzalez, has sold most of these passengers landing documents for $150 apiece. Peace that were less than legal or at least taking advantage of a legal loophole. And Cuban President Federico Laredo Bruz less than a month old. Decree 937 has put an end to that. Only four Spaniards, two Cubans and 22 Jews are allowed to disembark. Days pass as the U. S based Jewish Joint Distribution Committee negotiates with the Cuban president. But given his nation's anti immigrant sentiments, he stands by his new decree requiring refugees to pay a $500 bond to ensure they aren't a cost to the state. Well, the JDC doesn't have $453,500 for over 900 people. This is when Gisela's bubble bursts a little bit more. As talk of returning to Germany passes through the ship, she watches A shorn headed man bleeding from razor cuts charge across the deck, throw himself overboard, then in the water attempt to pull out his arteries. Incredibly, sailors still manage to save him. Forced to leave Cuba on June 2, the captain sets a course for nearby Miami, Florida. It makes sense. 743 of his 908 Jewish passengers only intended to pass through Cuba and already have American visas in the works. Surely something can be done. Alas, as we Learned in episode 118, the Immigration act of 1924 ended the Ellis island era with an even stricter immigration quota than its 1921 predecessor. Meanwhile, Congresswoman Edith Rogers and Senator Robert Wagner's recent bill that would welcome 20,000 Jewish children to the US as refugees has failed. Sympathetic editorials follow while direct pleas are sent to the Roosevelts. But it's all for naught. On June 4, the State Department says that these passengers must wait their quota turn. So no, nothing will be done. And on June 7th, our heavy hearted captain sets the St. Louis on a return course for Germany. As his passengers, these tired, poor huddled masses yearning to breathe free stand on the deck wretchedly watching Florida's shores disappear. Panic grips the ship. Suicide watches are put in place. Then finally, on June 13, the JDC sends word that Belgium, the Netherlands, France and Great Britain will divide the refugees among them. Gisela, her mother and her sister are sent to England. Messages from their father continue until they don't. They'll never see him again. Yet Gisela considers herself one of the lucky ones. Of the 532St. Louis passengers sent back to continental Europe and unable to emigrate before the impending Nazi invasion, nearly half of them will die as victims of the Holocaust. Welcome to history that doesn't suck. I'm your professor, Greg Jackson, and I'd like to tell you a story. In the course of our last two episodes, we've seen Benito Mussolini create fascism and rise as Italy's dictator or il Duce. And we've seen Adolf Hitler create his own brand of fascism, a German take built on a foundation of anti Semitism called Nazism, to become Germany's dictator or the Fuhrer. Well, considering what empowered Adolf will do in the name of that unadulterated hate, it's time we get to know those whom he is blaming for Germany's ills and targeting so mercilessly the Jewish people. But even with our tight focus of contextualizing Nazism's antisemitism, the this is a big lift about a 2000 year lift. So let's lay some framework ahead of our story. First, you'll hear me mention the so called Jewish question a lot. Essentially the question is how Jews fit into the social, political and cultural aspects of a non Jewish society. Many approach the Jewish question from an anti Semitic perspective, but many Jewish scholars tackle it too. And we'll get a taste of that, okay? Second, Judaism's origins aren't a religion per se. It's more theopolitical. That is a divine meets legal or simultaneously theological and political tradition. At its very core, living as a Jew means living according to the Jewish law, the 613 commandments. God is the highest authority. And as such, we'll find that the rise of the modern nation state puts Jews in a tricky spot between the secular state's leaders leader and maintaining allegiance to their God. This conflict morphs the tradition into what we'd refer to as a religion. And this religion does not make demands on its adherents that challenge the authority of the nation state. But even as modernity presses this faith tradition to turn the now a religion corner, we'll see the Jewish question follow right into the 1930s, if not beyond. Though that beyond is not our concern today. So with that framework laid, we'll now fly through 2000 years of Jewish history from the Roman Empire to the Third Reich, but with a focus on modern Europe, where we'll find the continent's nation state. Building west and old school monarchical east are creating distinctly different challenges and responses as Jews in both spheres battle antisemitism. With all of this understanding, we'll then go in close on 1930s Nazi Germany, where we'll find Adolf leaning on the continent's age old antisemitism as takes professions, homes and even citizenship from Germany's and Austria's combined 750,000 Jews, we'll follow this earliest stage of the Holocaust up to 1938's Kristallnacht or the Night of Broken Glass, leaving us just shy of when young Gisela boarded the St. Louis. But why didn't the United States welcome the St. Louis passengers? We'll go there too, finishing the episode with a look at the Jewish experience in America and the spread of Europe's antisemitism to the United States, particularly in the 1920s. 20s. We'll even see a full on Nazi rally in New York City. Some of this will be rough if you listen with your kids. Maybe give this one a listen through by yourself first. Otherwise let's turn the clock back 2000 years and get to it. Rewind. Zipping past the patriarchs, prophets, kings, and the Greek or Hellenistic period. Judaism hits a new phase after the 1st and 2nd century Jewish Roman wars. Now let's neither over nor understate these conflicts. The Roman Empire's secret sauce is its pluralism and letting the people they conquer do their thing. But the Romans can also insist rather brutally that the conquered get the youe're conquered memo. That two edged sword renders the Second Temple's destruction in 70 A.D. a ramped up Jewish Diaspora. And by the second century rabbinic Judaism no longer able to be tied to the Temple. Rabbinic Judaism allows this largely displaced people to adapt with the tradition in exile, but also keeps crucial continuity as the rabbis maintain a focus on Jewish law. These rabbis are not only studying and practicing oral and written Torah or law, but also interpreting it into something that can adapt to present and future diasporic conditions. This jives better with the Romans. But as Christianity survives Rome's fall to sweep over Europe, the distinctions between it and Judaism come to the fore. Differences range from interpretations of Scripture to the Messiah and vary from one particular sect to the next. But the key thing is that by the medieval period, an anti Jewish polemic becomes central to Christian Europe's identity. With Jews serving as the go to scapegoat for life's unexplainable ills. Has a child gone missing? The Jews are blamed, accused of killing the child for sacrifice under the false narrative of blood libel is the bubonic plague passing through again The Jews are blamed, charged with consorting with the devil and killing Christ. Meanwhile, Christian Europe bans Jews from many professions, leaving them to fill roles that Christians need and yet deem as sinful, like money lending or banking. That doesn't help with perceptions either. And medieval Europe's deeply false narratives and limitations on Jews will reverberate far down the road. As for day to day life, medieval European Jews live separately from Christians in what historians term semi autonomous corporate societies or kahilas. Simplified a kehila is a state of within a state. They function as individual groups with feudal charters. Rabbis run the community and provide basic social services like education and welfare. The entire rabbinic structure, performance of the law and Torah study can be maintained, allowing Jews to live theopolitically, that is theologically and politically by the virtue of Jewish law. This works for the most part. Christian Europe's rulers don't mind the Jews theo political situation. Not until the Enlightenment's concepts of the nation state and citizenship, that is. Indeed, modern Western Europe's Jews are facing a new challenge. Do they remain in their semi Autonomous corporate societies or assimilate into Christian Europe's church and state separating world? Can they balance Jewish identity or citizenship with say, a secularizing French citizenship? Do Jews even want emancipation, meaning full unencumbered citizenship in the nation in which they reside? Also, does that nation want to grant them emancipation? Well, it's complicated to start. Modern antisemitism echoes, yet is separate from the medieval Christian idea of anti Jewry. This antisemitism contains a few key ideas. One, nations require complete integration. Jews have their own culture and national ties that are at odds with their new nation state. Two, political platforms can be grounded in anti Semitism. Three, those who dislike modernity, especially capitalism, can blame its ills on the Jews. And four, race based language is successful in isolating Jews. This isn't to say Europe only sees barriers to Jewish emancipation. In 1781, Prussian politician Christian Wilhelm von Dom looks to the Enlightenment's ideals of universal natural rights to argue in its favor within the German states. He writes that more than anything else, a life of normal civil happiness in a well ordered state, enjoying the long withheld freedom would tend to do away with clannish religious opinions. The Jew is even more a man than Jew. And how would it be possible for him not to love a state where he could reach positions of honor and enjoy general esteem? Close quote. So Christian wants to emancipate Jews. But his statement the Jew is even more man than Jew still suggests that Jews are seen as subhuman. Furthermore, he is assuming that Jews want emancipation and will welcome the state, suppressing traditional theopolitical life. He doesn't get how this will force Jews to transform Judaism into a religion to gain acceptance in a Germanic state. From the Jewish perspective, this means placing the state in the position of highest authority and subordinating their God to said state. Meanwhile, Western Europe's emancipation talk doesn't mean that European Jews are guaranteed safe and comfortable lives. It's particularly bad in the East. Pogroms, that is violent attacks against local Jewish communities, generally condoned if not blessed by the state, are becoming widespread. Yes, I trust to recall from episode 118. These sometimes deadly attacks role in driving many Eastern European Jews to flee to Western Europe and America. The first pogrom we believe, happens in Odessa, Russia in 1821. Even beyond the severity of pogroms, Jewish life in Western and Eastern Europe is now structurally different. So much so that this will factor into the Nazi party's eventual final solution. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. That's a story for a later day, for now let's just absorb these consequential differences. While most Jews in Western Europe's nation states are beginning the emancipation process, moving to larger cities and perhaps assimilating into secular society, Eastern European Jews are living in shtetls. Shtetl is a Yiddish word roughly translating to small town, and it describes an insular, rural, predominantly Yiddish speaking, market based community where Jews lives center around religion, tradition and family. It's kind of like the medieval Kahila, but second gen or 2.0. Perhaps the best way to wrap our heads around late 19th century Eastern European Jewish life is by experiencing a fictionalized shtetl world created by Solomon Rabinovitch or Shalom Alaikum to use his better known Yiddish pseudonym, which he shares with us in his classic collection of tales, Tevye the Dairyman and the Railroad Stories. According to his biographer Jeremy Dawber, Shalom uses this work to ironically juxtapose the past in changing present and for good measure include doses of playfulness, disruption, along with the occasional self referential or autobiographical excursion. All that said, allow me to set the stage. Our protagonist, Tevye, or Rebe Tevye, to show him some proper respect, is in a tough situation. After his first daughter Shytel, rejects a wealthy arranged marriage for her true love, a poor tailor named Motel, and after his second daughter Huddle, leaves their shtetl to follow her revolutionary husband Perchyk to Siberia, Tevye's third daughter Chava, wants to marry a non Jewish man. Hmm, sound familiar? Fiddler on the Roof fans. Anyhow, this is a hard corner for the traditionalist father to turn, see him process that. It's an unspecified day in Tevye's world. He's just returned from a conversation with a local town priest where he was informed that Fedka, a non Jew, wishes to marry his daughter Chaba. And Tevye, well, to quote him, when I got home, oh, everything was topsy turvy. The children were lying with their faces bright, buried in pillows, weeping loudly. Golda was more dead than alive. I looked around for Chava. Where is Chava? No Hava laying down with his head buried in a pillow. Tevye laments, how have I sinned more than the rest of the world, that I am punished more than all the Jews. Distraught, Tevye turns to his wife Golda, asking, maybe you have some idea of what's to be done. Golda responds, woe is me.