UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM

UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM

CENTER FOR ADVANCED HOLOCAUST STUDIES

Forced and Slave Labor in Nazi-Dominated Europe

Symposium Presentations

W A S H I N G T O N , D. C.

Forced and Slave Labor in Nazi-Dominated Europe

Symposium Presentations

CENTER FOR ADVANCED HOLOCAUST STUDIES UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM

2004

The assertions, opinions, and conclusions in this occasional paper are those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect those of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council or of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

First printing, April 2004 Copyright ? 2004 by Peter Hayes, assigned to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; Copyright ? 2004 by Michael Thad Allen, assigned to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; Copyright ? 2004

by Paul Jaskot, assigned to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; Copyright ? 2004 by Wolf Gruner, assigned to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; Copyright ? 2004 by Randolph L. Braham, assigned to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; Copyright ? 2004 by Christopher R. Browning, assigned to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; Copyright ? 2004 by William Rosenzweig, assigned to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; Copyright ? 2004 by Andrej Angrick, assigned to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; Copyright ? 2004 by Sarah B. Farmer, assigned to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; Copyright ? 2004 by Rolf Keller, assigned to the

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Contents

Foreword ................................................................................................................................................i Paul A. Shapiro

PART I: FORCED AND SLAVE LABOR IN GERMANY Forced and Slave Labor: The State of the Field..............................................................................1

Peter Hayes

The Business of Genocide ..................................................................................................................... 9 Michael Thad Allen

Cultural Policy and Political Oppression: Nazi Architecture and the Development of SS Forced Labor Concentration Camps .........................................................................................................21

Paul B. Jaskot

PART II: JEWISH FORCED AND SLAVE LABOR Jewish Forced Labor as a Basic Element of Nazi Persecution: Germany, Austria, and the Occupied Polish Territories (1938?1943) ..........................................................................................................35

Wolf Gruner

The Hungarian Labor Service System (1939?1945): An Overview...............................................49 Randolph L. Braham

The Factory Slave Labor Camps in Starachowice, Poland: Survivors' Testimonies .......................63 Christopher R. Browning

Retelling the Jewish Slave Labor Experience in Romania ............................................................77 William Rosenzweig

PART III: FORCED AND SLAVE LABOR ACROSS EUROPE Forced Labor along the "Strae der SS"...........................................................................................83

Andrej Angrick

Foreign Labor in Vichy, France: The Groupements de Travailleurs Etrangers................................93 Sarah B. Farmer

Racism versus Pragmatism: Forced Labor of Soviet Prisoners of War in Germany (1941?1942)109 Rolf Keller

Appendix: Biographies of Contributors.......................................................................................125

Foreword

Civilians, including concentration camp prisoners, deportees, foreign nationals, and Jews, as well as prisoners of war were forced into the sprawling forced and slave labor system that encompassed Europe and supported the war efforts of the Nazi regime and Germany's Axis allies. Forced and slave labor was used in road-building and defense works; the chemical, construction, metal, mining, and munitions industries; in agriculture; at installations working at the highest levels of technology; and to perform menial tasks. Such labor was integral to concentration camps and their subcamps, farms, ghettos, labor battalions, church institutions, prisoner-of-war camps, and private industries in Germany, other Axis countries, and Axis-occupied territories east and west.

The pervasive and in some instances undisguised nature of this system is striking. Forced and slave labor took place not only in closed facilities, such as concentration and prisoner-of-war camps hidden from public eyes, but in many instances was a visible presence in the fabric of daily life: in the countryside on farms; in towns and cities across Europe when members of localized labor battalions assembled in the early morning and returned to their homes at dusk; and in ghettos, where Jews, often segregated only by barbed wire and therefore highly visible to their non-Jewish neighbors, hoped that labor might mean life.

The Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies organized a symposium Forced and Slave Labor in Nazi-Dominated Europe in October 2002 to present new research into key elements of that system. The symposium was part of an ongoing series of programs organized by the Center to bring to bear the knowledge and insight of experienced Holocaust scholars regarding topics of major significance, and to provide an outlet for cutting-edge research being carried out by new scholars who will ensure the field's future. The mission of the Center is to promote and support research on the Holocaust, to inspire the growth of the field of Holocaust studies, and to ensure the ongoing training of future generations of Holocaust scholars.

Nine scholars presented their work at the symposium, as well as a Romanian survivor, whose descriptions of his ghetto forced-labor experiences added a profoundly personal perspective to the scholars' presentations. The symposium itself was preceded by three days of intense deliberation among the presenters, who discussed one another's work in detail, debated the major new scholarly findings stimulated by recent

 ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download