About the project
The international conference “Toward an Integrated Perspective on Nazi Policies of Mass Murder” was held in Oslo in June 2009. The conference was organised by the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research, in partnership with the HL-Center. An anthology of the conference proceedings was subsequently published.
The anthology represents a comprehensive perspective on the Nazis’ policy of mass murder. Based on primary sources from European and US archives, the essay collection provides new interpretations of the Nazis’ policies on ethnic, religious and sexual minorities in the German occupied areas – particularly in Eastern Europe. The contributions reconcile the functionalist-intentionalist debate about the origins of the Nazis genocide. In their actions towards “inferior races”, the Nazis proved to have been more flexible than previously believed. Confronted by military setbacks, the Nazis were willing to reformulate their murderous policy and therefore made certain concessions to minority groups that were intended for extermination. In the long term, however, the Nazis never abandoned their ideology of racial exclusivity, which also contributed to their ultimate defeat. The project’s second thesis regards the complex ethno-political landscape in Eastern Europe under Nazi rule. German occupying powers encouraged ethnic rivalries and conflicts which, historically, can be traced back to the Austro-Hungarian and Russian empires. This made it easier for the Nazis to employ a policy of divide and rule, not least with respect to recruiting participants for the mass murder of Jews.
Results
The anthology Eradicating Differences: The Treatment of Minorities in Nazi-Dominated Europe was published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing in 2010. The book may be purchased from www.amazon.com or directly from the publisher.
The anthology’s contents
Introduction: Toward an Integrated Perspective on the Nazi Policies of Mass Murder
Anton Weiss-Wendt
1. Nazi Persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses
Hans-Hermann Dirksen
2. The Nazi Persecution of Homosexuals in Occupied Countries: A Lenient Exception to Normal Justice against Non-Germans?
Geoffrey J. Giles
3. Hitler’s Struggle for Existence against Slavs: Racial Theory and Vacillations in Nazi Policy toward Czechs and Poles
Richard Weikart
4. Goralenvolk: An «Aryan» Minority in Southern Poland and Its Treatment by the Nazis
Katarzyna Szurmiak
5. Looking East or Looking South? Nazi Ethnic Policies in the Crimea and the Caucasus
Kiril Feferman
6. The Civil Wars in the Soviet Western Borderlands, 1941–1945
Alexander V. Prusin
7. A Multipronged Attack: Ustaša Persecution of Serbs, Jews, and Roma in Wartime Croatia
Alexander Korb
8. Genocide and Ethnocide: Similarities and Differences Between Jewish and Slovenian Victimization in Slovenia
Andrej Pančur
9. The Campaign «Jews-Lice-Typhus» as an Example of Polish Participation in Nazi Anti-Semitic Propaganda
Agata Katarzyna Dąbrowska
10. Through the Eyes of the Survivors: Jewish-Gentile Relations in Bessarabia and Transnistria During the Holocaust
Diana Dumitru