Polish-Jewish Relations: 1,300 Keyword-Phrase-Indexed Book Reviews (by Jan Peczkis)

Hitler and the Jews: The Genesis of the Holocaust, by Philippe Burrin. 1994. Edward Arnold, London, Melbourne, Auckland

The Holocaust Developed Incrementally, and Began With the Jewish Intelligentsia. No Written Order for the Holocaust Exists

This book upends some widely-held beliefs about the Holocaust. Let’s look at some of this.

FINAL SOLUTION: CHANGING AND INDEFINITE MEANING

The Final Solution (Endlosung), though associated with the Holocaust and specifically the (alleged) objective of killing all Jews, was nothing of the sort. It rather meant the ridding of Europe of all its Jews (Judenrein), by whatever means.

Burrin comments, “The Nazi police apparatus spoke of this coming deportation as the ‘final solution’, an expression that appeared, as we have seen, at the end of 1939 and had gained much wider use by the summer of 1940…This prescription made no sense unless the goal of this final solution was to empty the Nazi sphere of its Jews, and not to amass as many as possible in it in order to exterminate them.” (p. 88).

In discussing the situation that existed April 29, 1941, Burrin writes, “For [Alfred] Rosenberg, the resettlement of the Jews in an indeterminate territory always constituted the ‘final solution to the Jewish problem’. If an extermination programme for Soviet Jews existed, he obviously knew nothing about it.” (p. 98).

He adds that, “No documentation establishes that Hitler ordered or made plans for the total extermination of the Soviet Jews before the launching of the Russian campaign. Available sources indicate, rather, that he goal remained the expulsion of the Jews from Europe and their concentration in a reservation.” (p. 100).

For an excellent study of the ambiguity inherent in the term “Final Solution”, see:

https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2020/03/21/holocaust-supremacism-dominates-academia-final-solution-and-other-german-terms-were-not-necessarily-exterminatory-naimark/

NO WRITTEN PROOF THAT “FINAL SOLUTION” EVER EVOLVED TO MEAN THE DEATH OF EVERY SINGLE EUROPEAN JEW

Even when “Final Solution” came to be associated with the Holocaust, there is no written evidence that every single Jew, under Nazi German jurisdiction, was targeted for death. Burrin comments, “No document survives bearing an extermination order signed by Hitler, nor any documentation attesting to the existence of such a written order.” (p. 20).

THE JEWISH INTELLIGENTSIA, LIKE THE POLISH INTELLIGENTSIA, WAS TARGETED FIRST

The organized Nazi German mass killings of Poles (Polocaust) began with the intelligentsia. Then, over a longer period of time, it would escalate into the full-blown genocide of Poles. In a parallel fashion, the organized mass killings of Jews (Holocaust, specifically Holocaust by Bullets) began with the Jewish intelligentsia. Months later, it would escalate into the full-blown genocide of Jews.

Referring to July 1941, Burrin makes this clear, “The groups executed Jews of the male sex almost exclusively; but all Jewish men were not killed. The reports clearly indicate that priority victims were members of the intelligentsia: teachers, lawyers, rabbis, etc., doctors being exempted. Thus, in Minsk, all the Jews were assembled in a camp and screened. Only members of the intelligentsia were detained and executed; the others were released and placed in a ghetto.” (p. 106).