Wall of Indifference by Judy Chicago

wall of indifference

What is the role of bystanders and the free world during this period? During the Holocaust?

What is the experience of women during the Holocaust?

On September 1, 1939 marks the invasion of Poland by German forces and the beginning of World War II. Jews were forcibly concentrated in ghettos within major cities. In these ghettos, Jews were forced to live in walled quarters. This idea was not new, but had existed since the 16th century. The Nazis revived this older form of anti-semitism.

During 1941-42 the Nazis secretly built six death camps with gas installations in Poland. their names were Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, majdanek, Auschwitz and Chelmno. Death camps were camoflouged to look like labor camps. When the Jews arrived, they were separated into two lines; women and children and men in the other. This process was called selection. This led to them being examined by a doctor who would decide if should be kept alive or die.

German women had a special purpose for the Nazis, the reproduce a healthy, genetically correct children. In 1933 when the Nazis came into power, concentration camps were established in Germany for degenerate peoples, which included:

Jews

gypsies

political prisoners

homosexuals

women that were ‘unnatural’ for example, lesbians and prostitutes

Many historians believe that the German decision of genocide was made in1941. By late 1941-1942 the United States and Great Britain had received numerous reports about massacres in Germany. Yet no one made any decision to help or rescue the Jews. In November of 1941, the head of the State department’s Division of European Affairs, Cavendish Cannon said, “So far as I know we are not ready to tackle the whole Jewish problem.”

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