Enemies of the State

“Non-Jewish Victims of the Holocaust”
Enemies of the State
Timothy Hensley
Research Librarian
Virginia Holocaust Museum

Question: How many people died during the Holocaust?

Answer: Between 11 million and 17 million*
* We use 13 million

Question: Who were the victims?

Jews (6 million)
Roma & Sinti (250,000)
Handicapped (80,000)
Soviets (3 million)
Poles (3 million)
Serbians (700,000)
Political opponents (80,000)
Homosexuals (12,000)
Jehovah’s Witnesses (2500)
Answer:
Source: Holocaust Chronicle

Victim Rosette

Race

Ideology

Nation

“Race Science”
The pseudo-science of 20th Century Eugenics

Father of modern eugenics
Francis Galton

The Nazi’s used “junk science” to target certain groups.
“Race Hygiene”
“Bad genes enter a village”

Hair samples
Profiling
Facial measurements

Result of Nazi “racial science”

“Racial Enemies”
Handicapped, Roma & Sinti (Gypsies), Afro-Germans

The handicapped were promoted as a drain on federal dollars.
Sterilization Law (1933)

Eugenic sterilization programs were found throughout the US in the 1930s.
U.S. Eugenics

The handicapped were murdered by lethal injection and eventually gas chambers.
Operation T4 (1939)

“Work shy”
Nationless
Drain on the State

Roma & Sinti

Gypsy clean-up week
Deportation
Concentration
Extermination

Nazi Policy toward “Gypsies”

20,000
French-African troops
Treaty of Versailles
Rhineland

Afro-Germans

“[Hitler] was highly annoyed by the series of triumphs by the marvelous colored American runner, Jesse Owens. People whose antecedents came from the jungle were primitive, Hitler said with a shrug; their physiques were stronger than those of civilized whites and hence should be excluded from future games.”
--Albert Speer
Berlin Olympics1936

Afro-Germans were frequently used in Nazi propaganda posters.
“Insult to the German nation”
“Racial pride fades”

Jazz music was attacked as being the product of a “lesser race.”
Degenerate Music

According to one liberator's testimony there were approximately 8000 Afro-German or mixed-race Germans in Dachau.
8000 in Dachau?

“Ideological Enemies”
Political Dissidents, Homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses

Communism as scapegoat
Backlash against the “bourgeoisie”
Were the first sent to concentration camps

Political opponents

Spent six years in Buchenwald as a political prisoner
Eugene Kogon

§ 175 Lewdness between men
“…punishment of up to ten years in the penitentiary, and even with mitigating circumstances no less than three months imprisonment.”
Remained active until 1969

Focused on the Aryan birthrate
Imprisoned initially then sent to camps
Were treated harshly by fellow prisoners

Homosexuals

Were denied Nazi victim status until relatively recently
Post War

Considered Un-German
Headquartered in the United States
Banned in 1935
Deported to camps

Jehovah’s Witnesses

Were given the option to sign a renouncement in order to be freed from the camp system (no one took this option).
Renouncement

“National Enemies”
Poles, Soviets, Serbians

While grabbing lebensraum was their ultimate goal, the Nazis attempted to displace populations throughout the east and obliterate their culture.
Cultural Assault
Grunwald monument in Krakow