How did Nazis determine if whether or not someone was Jewish or Gay?

@wm.

You really don't have sense of shame. These poor people fled from Polish and Nazi oppression. Just few were lucky to escape.

 

I respectfully beg to differ. While I agree that the Nazis were organized with identifying people of Jewish ancestry within their own country, it was difficult and time consuming to locate Jews outside of Germany. In eastern Europe, to a greater extent then in the West, Einsatz groups would utilize native people to assist them. This was a widespread practice and is a fact. This was a terrible procedure, families who were neighbors and friends saved their own skin by pointing out Jewish families.

However, some did not conform SS demands and kept secrets and hid them as well. At a fatal cost.

 

You are talking about the events happening during the invasion of the USSR.
It's true collaborators and criminals helped the Nazis there, but actually identification of Jews was easiest at that time because ethnicity was recorded in their Soviet IDs and multiple other documents.

It Eastern Europe the Jews had been gathered in ghettos two years before the Holocaust started. It was easy to transport them to death camps from there.
The Jews who stayed outside were relatively easy to detect because they lacked proper birth certificates or marriage certificates (as they recorded faith of the holder).

 

Although Poland didn't exist at that time (i.e. "in the early 20th century well before WW1")
Actually more Poles emigrated than Jews, but maybe there were self-oppressed Poles...

 

Tamino, Thanks for the video on Jerry Springer, indeed a genuinely touching moment. Ironically his television program is based on exploiting people's bad circumstances and limited self control for the show but they are no doubt well paid . Still about as low a form of "entertainment" as exist on American TV. A good glimpse of the totality of life.
Teresienstadt is one of WW2's most complex , interesting and torturous subjects. Sometimes referred to as "The Model Camp" The Red Cross was allowed entry ever so often to demonstrate that the "camps" were not so bad and that those interred there reasonably well treated. I took a class through it in 1985 and looked at a display of photographs of Jewish children, well mounted with examples of their art work and some with art and poetry. Beneath them was the date they arrived and the date they left , to be sent to death camps and the date they died there. Without the latter information it would appear they were taught art and poetry, which they were by a Young Jewish woman whom had attended the Bauhaus prior to the war. She had saved all the material in suitcases and it was later discovered post war. She was eventually sent to a death camp. I have also been to Dachau but the thought that children were used to demonstrate well being through art and poetry while their murder was being planned somehow strikes me as more inhuman that Dachau. Equally inhuman is the model village outside the walls where the officers and men that ran the camp lived. Some had their families with them, schools, tennis courts, etc. I had nightmarish visions of an officer , having breakfast with his family, sending his children off to school, kissing his wife goodbye and walking to work which was the eventual death of children after they had served their purpose of showing their art to the Swiss Red Cross. Upon my second visit I discovered the exhibit had been moved to a synagogue in Prague to gain more exposure but I wished it had been left at Teresienstadt , for it's full impact. Seeing it in tourist laden Prague was not the same..

My apologies for wandering off the original topic but visiting Teresienstadt will stay with me until I die as will , of course, Dachau.

Gaines

 

An example of how the Gypsies were rounded up. Identification wasn't a problem, they didn't realize they were going to be murdered so they didn't try to hide, especially that they were cleverly deceived about the purpose of their relocation (warning: disturbing violence below):

As to the lack of primary sources, generally the poorer and less educated the victims the less we know about them, and the Gypsies were the poorest people of them all.
Similarly the impoverished masses of religious Jewish left relatively few accounts. And like the Gypsies there were so different from the population there was no problem with their identification.
Movies like Pianists and Schindler's List show the fate of pre-war Polish and Jewish elites, a minority among the Jews. There is an exception - an old Polish documentary Birthplace, it shows the other Jews, and the problems caused by circumcision and impossibility to disappear into the crowd. There are no touching moments here, the poor couldn't afford that luxury, so the warning is - most likely you don't want watch this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EY7iusEqlwQ

 

Gays were arrested often based on rumor. The Gestapo relied mostly on snitches to do its work. There was no investigation.

 

If I may, I'd like to broaden the scope of this thread by writing a few words about the identification of captured Jewish servicemen by the Germans.

In my own case, while helping to run a Prisoner of War camp in Austria I had the opportunity of discussing the topic with one of the SS prisoners. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/90/a8452190.shtmlhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/13/a2039113.shtml

In an entirely seperate incident, when my late brother perished on a bombing mission over Nurenberg, one of his crew members was "accused" of being Jewish and of belonging to a Jewish squadron simply because my brother was wearing an identity disk that had Jew as his religion.

For the benefit of newcomers to this forum, I will return here later and add the link that tells the full story about my brother's last bombing raid
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/90/a8452190.shtml


Ron

 

Many if not most Jewish people, or just people with Jewish ancestry still practicing the religion or not, were probably singled out by their surnames. Traditionally, Jewish people didn't use a last name. It was kind of like Iceland still does today, you were "Isaac son of Levi" (Isaac Ben Levi), then back about 1700(ish), European nations began organizing records and demanded Jews choose a permanent surname. A strong sounding name was desirable so that's why you see so many Jewish names ending in Steen/Stein (rock), Berg (mountain) and so on. Others chose surnames based on biblical themes - Abraham, Abramowitz. Cohen

Of course not every Jewish family chose such a name, and not everyone with a name ending like that is Jewish, but it's common enough that most people would come under extra scrutiny by their surname alone. Add to that the many traditional first names and it would be pretty hard for Levi Cohen to blend into the general population.

 

It wasn't like that in Eastern Europe.
At some point of time, the Jews and the peasants were ordered to assume surnames. Because those people frequently didn't quite understand what it was all about, or didn't care the bored bureaucrats chose for them their surnames leading to lots of funny names, like for example Niceglass (because the person sold glasses).


@Ron Goldstein

I don't think it's correct to say he was denied owning to his Polish birth, as it is written there.
The first Polish Bomber Squadron in Britain was created on July 1st, 1940. Another, three weeks later. In the end almost 20,000 Poles served in the Polish Air Forces in Great Britain.

I would say it wasn't his Polish origin that did it, but his "suspicious" origin.
Technically he wasn't a Pole but a Russian (brought to England ... just before the outbreak of WW1).
He probably didn't even speak Polish, only Yiddish (this was suspicious, it was "almost" German language) and maybe Russian (because: born in Warsaw).

I've heard stories of Poles harassed by British bureaucrats for the reason they had German sounding names, so it didn't take much to become a suspicious person at that time.

 

Wm


@Ron Goldstein ?

Ron

 

Wm,

I hear what you have to say, but with all due respect, you have made various assumptions that are simply incorrect.

Whilst accepting that pre ww1, Warsaw may have been technically Russian (because of the Duma that was created in 1906) my brother Jack was brought by my parents to England in 1912 at about the age of two. By the time ww2 broke out the British authorities made little or no reference to the former Russian occupation of Poland, as borne out later in my own Army records which refer simply to my parents as being Polish.

On another point that you raised, concerning Jack possibly speaking Yiddish, I was born in London in 1923 and simply do not remember my brother ever speaking Yiddish to our parents nor indeed did Jack's elder brother Lou.

Finally, I doubt that Jack would ever have wished to join the Polish forces as he would have learned from our parents of the virulent anti-semitism that existed in the Poland/Russia of those times and which caused them to emigrate to England.

Ron

 

The point is Polish origin couldn't possibly be an obstacle in serving in the British Army.
I wrote that he wasn't a Pole because in 1912 Poland didn't exist. You can't be a citizen of a non-existent country. It seems the British authorities didn't care what their recruits declared.
He could have become a Polish citizen if he had declared his wish to be in the Polish Consulate in London or somewhere else in the twenties or thirties. It's obvious he didn't.
He would be required to renounce his British citizenship (at that time people strongly believed that as a mother, you could have only one motherland), and he and his sons would be required to serve in the Polish Army for 2 years.

And sorry to say this but you can't a citizen if you refuse to serve your country in time of need. Over 100.000 Jews served in the Polish Army in 1939. Among the Polish officers murdered in Katyń there were over 400 Jews (7%), including Chief Rabbi of the Polish Army - Baruch Steinberg. Jews joined the Polish Army even in Palestine, like for example this man.

As to Yiddish, it was the mother tongue of the Polish Jews, as simple as that - only Jews belonging to Polish intellectual or ruling elites didn't speak Yiddish or spoke it badly.

You mention virulent anti-antisemitism but the fact is much more Jews immigrated to Warsaw than emigrated for some distant land, be it Western Europe or the US. At that time Warsaw was a Jewish Shangri-La.
People emigrated but the main reason was poverty many of them suffered. In fact more Poles emigrated than Jews, in comparison with Britain the impoverish Poland was a shit-hole.

 

I did read about ships full of Jews from Germany. At least a couple of countries refused to take them to their home country.This was the most famous. Earlier on I guess it was not so much of a problem, but the hatred for Jews grew as Hitler´s power got bigger, i.e. closer to WW2.

"The MS St. Louis was a German ocean liner most notable for a single voyage in 1939, in which its captain, Gustav Schröder, tried to find homes for 908 Jewish refugees from Germany. After they were denied entry to Cuba, Canada, and the United States, the refugees were finally accepted in various European countries, and historians have estimated that approximately a quarter of them died in death camps during World War II."

I guess the whole Europe was not doing much about it. Like Hitler said about the killing of the Armenians: " Nobody cared about that, nobody cares about the Jews".

"With the influence of the Endecja party growing, antisemitism gathered new momentum in Poland and was most felt in smaller towns and in spheres in which Jews came into direct contact with Poles, such as in Polish schools or on the sports field. Further academic harassment, such as the introduction of ghetto benches, which forced Jewish students to sit in sections of the lecture halls reserved exclusively for them, anti-Jewish riots, and semi-official or unofficial quotas (Numerus clausus) introduced in 1937 in some universities, halved the number of Jews in Polish universities between independence (1918) and the late 1930s. The restrictions were so inclusive that – while the Jews made up 20.4% of the student body in 1928 – by 1937 their share was down to only 7.5%,[99] out of the total population of 9.75% Jews in the country according to 1931 census.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Poland

 

Those editors of Wikipedia are really trying hard to find anti-semitism under every rock. Not to mention their knowledge of history is not impressive.

The guilty parties are always the Western Democracies and Poland and nobody else.
The fact that for example Romania in 1938 striped Romanian Jews of their citizenship is rarely mentioned. Or that in Hungary Nuremberg-like laws were introduced in the same year. That the Jews lost their vote rights at the same time there.

As to the countries refusing the poor ocean liners full of Jews. During the Great Depression most countries enacted immigration limits. Exactly like the US, Europe, Israel are doing today. It was anti-immigration legislation, not anti-Jewish.
It was reasonable measures protecting their own, suffering huge unemployment, population. Stupid or not it was their decision.
The organizers of those voyages were trying to crash-gate American and other ports, without authorization, without any visas - without nothing.
They and only they are responsible for all that resulting suffering.

In Poland ghetto benches were introduced by some universities as a safety measure, after years of protests and violence meted out by small right wing groups. It was done after everything else had been tried in vain.

Numerus clausus was introduced by some universities for the same reason, and additionally as a social justice measure, affirmative action leveling the field for the others in country where Jews comprised 20 or even 30 percent of students in some universities, but the Jewish population was less than 10%.
We can argue till the cows come home, as about American affirmative actions, if it was fair or not.

There were lots of injustice in the pre-war Poland, for the simple reason it was a very poor country. The fact that a few rich Jewish kids (basically only the rich could afford universities) had to relocate to Prague or Paris to study there is one of those who cares injustices.

The only country that admitted Jews, although maybe grudgingly, was Poland. It was 50,000 or something like that, I would have to check.

 

They have found it "under every rock" because it existed "under every rock" and was indeed virulent to that extent that even recent studies of Polish society have indicated extremely high degree of anti-Semitism - in a state which has practically erradicated own Jews. Polish state and Polish citizens were involved in massive, state persecution of Jews - Poland renounced Little Treaty of Versailles or the Polish Minority Treaty at the League of Nations forum in Geneva on 13 September 1934 to legalize persecutions of Jews and other minorities.

The above mentioned is a historic fact which indicates how deeply and strongly was Polish nation poisoned with hatred.

Just deny, but we know, this is very well documented.

 

Like pink unicorns, it's well documented by invisible documents...

If the Poles had wanted to harm their Jews they would have done it - nobody would stop them, even a mountain of treaties. The various treaties, including minority treaties, didn't protect Romanian, Hungarian, Soviet, German Jews - at all.
You can't stop bullets with paper.

The minority treaty was forced on Poland, this why it was disliked. Nobody likes to be forced to do something.
The Polish constitution gave equal rights to everybody. If that wasn't enough for someone, there were other countries like the USSR or Germany that certainly would protect his rights better.

But there was another reason, more important.
The treaty protected the German minority in Poland, but left the million strong Polish minority in Germany unprotected.
The "civilized" Germans weren't required to sign any minority treaty, leaving the Polish minority open to abuse - in such situation, tit for tat politics simply couldn't be used.

This was unjust, insulting, humiliating. The US would never agree to sign such a treaty.

 

Minorities are those who should be protected from the majority, not the opposite. Smaller minority needs even more protection. Poland decided in 1934 to deprive minorities from their fundamental rights and you are defending such a perverse behavior. By renouncing Polish Minority Treaty, Poland created an opportunity to perform a through ethnic cleansing and got away with it as a "victim".

Unfortunately, the Versailles Poland was made too large, was as chauvinistic as the Nazi Germany, was eager to get rid of minorities like the Nazi Germany did, was an aggressor state as the Nazi Germany was. There are so many similarities between these two states that I cannot understand why Britain and France choose to guarantee for Poland and were against Germany. The only conceivable answer is: to cripple Germany as the main treat to the interests of Empires and to use Poland as a springboard for eventual future attack on the USSR.

 

Thanks to the Polish constitution Polish minorities, especially their religion were better protected than any minority in the US today.

I'm quite sure anybody suggesting at that time it wasn't sufficient, and protection of foreign powers was needed, would be told #gfy and it would be the correct response.

From the Polish Constitution: