Author: ilb00005

What have been the major obstacles you have faced in putting a research project together?

I have found that when researching primary sources, it is difficult to find a vast amount. My topic is focusing on Kristallnacht through the lens of the British press and when trying to get hold of different forms of mass media, newspapers tend to be the most common way to find useful sources, however aspects such as radio broadcasting are harder to locate as I would like to get hold of transcripts for my dissertation also.

What strategies have you adopted to overcome these obstacles?

I have looked through the national archives along with the British newspaper archives to in depth look at certain newspapers from the events, however over the course of the summer, I will try and hold on to different aspects of the British press at the time of Kristallnacht, as I said, that primary sources are a lot harder to come by than secondary sources.

What has this taught you about approaching your dissertation?

This module has taught me to research thoroughally when sitting down to help get a good grasp on the topic I am going to undertake. I feel like doing a lot of reading and researching over the course of the summer will help me have a good understanding of the the dissertation topic I am looking at. After writing my proposal, I feel like time management is good to focus on for me as it gives you a longer time to reading your research and fully understand, especially, when reading books, articles or journals, the author’s argument and how to interpret that in my dissertation.

Which aspects of the 9X6 module have been the most useful in helping you get your project ready to start?

I felt that during seminars, when discussing the coursework of this module, I liked the small groups to look over examples of essays/papers from other students who had taken the module, to understand the key aspects of what to include in essays and what not to, and understand what others feel are the advantages and disadvantages before starting to write up the dissertation proposal. I also find the seminars very useful when learning about what to do for the coursework as it gave me a good understanding when writing up my proposal.

 

For my dissertation, I am planning to look at antisemitism within Nazi-occupied Europe (focal point – Poland), focusing on the Ghettos and how this was the starting point towards leading up to the Final Solution by looking at extermination camps such as Treblinka, Belzec and Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Primary Sources:

Max Eichler, Du bist sofort im Bilde (Erfurt: J. G. Cramer’s Verlag, 1939) pp. 139-142.

I found this in a German Propaganda Archive dealing with antisemitism (named – bending spines) and the source in English is named, “The Jewish Problem” and is from a book (citizen’s handbook) to the Third Reich. This specific section mentions that the Nazi measures against the Jews are rational and defensive, however there are also points in these rules that are indicating, what is to happen next to Jewish people under the Nazi regime. It gives measures on the exclusion of Jews from the German Economy, such as prohibiting the Jewish citizens owning shops. There are measures against the Jews in the Cultural Arena, with not being able to attend concerts or theatres and children being places into Jewish schools, being segregated from non-Jewish children. This source is useful as it gives detail into the rules, that Jews had to abide to, after essentially being removed from society.

Extracted from A. Levin, Mi-Pinkaso she ha-More mi-Yehudiya (“From the Notebook of the Teacher from Yehudiya”), Beit Lohamei ha-Geta’ot, 1969, p. 70.

Extract from The Warsaw Ghetto: Diary of Avraham Levin (June, 5, 1942)

“People die in great numbers of starvation, the typhus epidemic or dysentery, they are tortured and murdered by the Germans in great numbers, but they do not escape from life by their own desire. On the contrary, they are tied to life by all senses, they want to live at any price and survive the war.”

I found this on the Jewish Virtual library and the diary extract shows the conditions of the Warsaw ghettos and this was just another way in killing Jews, before the survivors were transported to the likes of Treblinka. This source is useful in displaying the cruel conditions Jewish people faced during the Nazi occupation of Poland and how I’ll be able to write about the experiences of anti-Semitism leading up to the Nazi’s final plan of the extermination of Jews across Nazi-occupied Europe.

Der Adler, 26 November 1940, p. 624.

I found this once again the German propaganda archives (named – bending spines) and this piece of Propaganda is an advert for a film called “Jud Süß”, (Süss the Jew.) While researching the film, the main plot explained is a Jewish man awaits execution on the gallows by the Nazis. The film was the idea of Joseph Goebells, and later was to encourage members of the SS and the public to view, as it depicted what Jews were like in society. The film also talks about Kristallnacht, the destruction of hundreds of synagogues and shops owned by Jews. This source will be useful to me, as it shows that Hitler’s regime was brainwashing the citizens supporting Hitler, into thinking Jews were literal parasites in the world.

Secondary Sources:

Charnysh, Volha, and Evgeny Finkel. “The death camp Eldorado: political and economic effects of mass violence.” American political science review 111, no. 4 (2017): 801-818.

I came across this review while looking for information into extermination camps and it analyses the horrific conditions of Treblinka and that during 1942 hundreds of thousands polish Jews were transported to be exterminated. After shutting down ghettos in Poland, it was believed by Polish Jews that they were being moved to labour camps, however it was the Nazis “Final Solution” that began to take place. This source is useful to use as it shows the horrific movement of antisemitism during WW2 and how it got increasingly worse for Jewish citizens. By using this secondary source it gives me a good insight into the Nazi ideas of persecution and the design of the camps.

Lichtblau, Eric. “The Holocaust just got more shocking.” New York Times 1 (2013): 2013.

This was found as an extract of the New York Times while trying to find useful documents online and it mentions in this source the horrifying use of Labour and extermination camps, along with the Warsaw ghetto, the antisemitism placed upon Jews during the War was catasthrophic. All these sources show how awful the lives of Jewish citizens were during Nazi-occupied Europe and how the antisemitism changed over the course of 1933-1945, by the closing of shops to the mass extermination of Jews. This source will give me a good insight into Nazi occupied Europe.