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The aftermath of the Jewish holocaust had a profound effect on society in both Europe and the rest of the world. Its impact could be felt in theological discussions, artistic and cultural pursuits and political decisions.
For decades, Germany refused to allow access to its Holocaust-related archives in Bad Arolsen, citing privacy concerns. In May 2006, a 20-year effort by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum led to the announcement that 30–50 million pages would be made available to historians and survivors also others too.[1]
The Holocaust and its aftermath left millions of refugees, including many Jews who had lost most or all of their family members and possessions, and often faced persistent antisemitism in their home countries. The original plan of the Allies was to repatriate these "Displaced Persons" to their country of origin, but many refused to return, or were unable to as their homes or communities had been destroyed. As a result, more than 250,000 languished in Displaced person camps for years after the war ended.
With most displaced persons unable or unwilling to return to their former homes in Europe and with restrictions to immigration to many western countries remaining in place, Berihah, which eventually transported 250,000 Jews (both DPs and those who hid during the war) to the Mandate. By 1952, the Displaced Persons camps were closed, with over 80,000 Jewish DPs in the United States, about 136,000 in Israel, and another 20,000 in other nations, including Canada and South Africa.
The few Jews in Poland were augmented by returnees from the Soviet Union and survivors from camps in Germany. However, a resurgence of antisemitism in Poland, such as the Kraków pogrom on August 11, 1945, and more importantly the July 4, 1946 Kielce pogrom led to the exodus of a large part of the Jewish population, which no longer felt safe in Poland.[2] Anti-Jewish riots also broke out in several other Polish cities where many Jews were killed.[3]
An important reason for the atrocities was a widespread Polish belief that the Jews were supporters of the new communist regime and the new oppressors of the Polish state. This belief, termed "Żydokomuna", was fuelled by fact that Poland's postwar Communist government was Jewish-dominated. Two out of three communist leaders who dominated Poland between 1948 and 1956 (Jakub Berman and Hilary Minc) were of Jewish origin. The attitude of Christian Poles toward the Polish Jews hardened significantly and hundreds of Jews were killed in anti-Jewish violence. Some were simply killed for financial reasons.[4] The widespread Polish view of the Jews as communist traitors had led to massacres already in the 1920s.[5] As a result of the exodus the number of Jews in Poland decreased from 200,000 in the years immediately after the war to 50,000 in 1950 and to 6,000 by the 1980s.[6]
Lesser post-war pogroms also broke out in Hungary.[4]
As of 2005, 40% of the 400,000 Holocaust survivors living in Israel live below the poverty line, resulting in heated and dramatic protests on the part of survivors against the Israeli government and related agencies. The average rate of cancer among survivors is nearly two and a half times that of the national average, while the average rate of colon cancer, attributed to the victims' experience of starvation and extreme stress, is nine times higher.[7][8]
There has been a recent resurgence of interest by descendants of survivors in researching the fates of their relatives. Israel. Other databases and lists of victims' names, some searchable over the Web, are listed in Holocaust (resources).
The Holocaust is known for being about prejudice- prejudice against Jewish people and other minorities. One victim’s recount stated the horrid emotional conditions, “Some people just went crazy. They started talking to themselves. They walked back and forth… I cried a lot. I didn’t want to live anymore.” This demonstrates some of the ways in which “Depression and prejudice were comorbid in concentration camps within separate players: the victims and perpetrators. The Jews’ depression was caused by the Nazis’ prejudice.” [9] This depression caused by prejudice is termed "deprejudice" by Cox, Abramson, Devine and Hollon.
On the eve of World War II, there were 11 to 13 million Yiddish speakers in the world.[10] The Holocaust, however, led to a dramatic, sudden decline in the use of Yiddish, as the extensive Jewish communities, both secular and religious, that used Yiddish in their day-to-day life were largely destroyed. Around 5 million, or 85%, of the victims of the Holocaust, were speakers of Yiddish.[11] In the decades preceding World War II, there was a tremendous growth in the recognition of Yiddish as an official Jewish European language. Seen as a Yiddish renaissance, there had been great strides in Yiddish press and literature, including educational and scientific works, up through the 1930s, in particular in eastern European countries such as Poland. Starting with the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939, and continuing with the destruction of Yiddish culture in Europe during the remainder of the war, Yiddish language and culture was almost completely rooted out of Europe, with no chance of ever recovering to its once great status as an international language attempting to unify the Jewish Diaspora throughout the world.
On account of the magnitude of the Holocaust, many theologians have re-examined the classical theological views on God's goodness and actions in the world.[12] Some believers and former believers question whether people can still have any faith in God after the Holocaust, and some of the theological responses to these questions are explored in Holocaust theology. In it orthodox Jews state their reasons for why they believe the Holocaust happened and, to a more extreme degree, why they felt the Jews of Europe deserved to die.[13]
The Holocaust has also been the subject of many films, including Oscar winners Schindler's List, The Pianist and Life Is Beautiful. With the aging population of Holocaust survivors, there has been increasing attention in recent years to preserving the memory of the Holocaust. The result has included extensive efforts to document their stories, including the Survivors of the Shoah project and Four Seasons Documentary,[16] as well as institutions devoted to memorializing and studying the Holocaust, including Yad Vashem in Israel and the US Holocaust Museum. The historic tale of the Danish Jews fleeing to Sweden by fishing boat is recounted in an award-winning American children's novel.[17]
The Holocaust also had a major impact on works of art created before the Holocaust. The reason is that huge amounts of works of art were looted by the Nazis from Jewish art collectors and dealers, either through outright theft or fire sales under extreme duress. Although the original owners were in turn brutally murdered during the Holocaust, many of their relatives survived, and naturally would like to retrieve their long-lost family heirlooms. A current owner cannot simply plead ignorance of an artwork's terrible history, since a thief can never convey good title. One who purchases stolen property from a thief must give the property back to its rightful owner and sue the thief (if he has not already vanished) for fraud to get one's money back.
Thus, any work of art that existed prior to 1945 has a potential provenance problem. This is a serious obstacle for anyone who currently collects pre-1945 European art. To avoid wasting thousands or even millions of dollars, they must verify (normally with the assistance of an art historian and a lawyer specializing in art law) that potential acquisitions were not stolen by the Nazis from a Holocaust victim. The highest-profile legal case arising from this problem is the U.S. Supreme Court decision of Republic of Austria v. Altmann (2006), in which the Court held that U.S. courts could retroactively apply the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 to Austria for torts that allegedly occurred before 1976. As a result
In the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, the Jewish Agency led by Chaim Weizmann submitted to the Allies a memorandum demanding reparations to Jews by Germany but it received no answer. In March 1951, a new request was made by Israel's foreign minister Moshe Sharett which claimed global recompense to Israel of $1.5 billion based on the financial cost absorbed by Israel for the rehabilitation of 500,000 Jewish survivors. West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer accepted these terms and declared he was ready to negociate other reparations. A Conference on Jewish Material Claims against Germany was opened in New York City by Nahum Goldmann in order to help with individual claims. After negociations, the claim was reduced to a sum of $845 millions direct and indirect compensations to be installed in a period of 14 years. In 1988, West Germany allocated another $125 million for reparations.[18]
In 1999, many German industries such as Deutsche Bank, Siemens or BMW faced lawsuits for their role in the forced labour during World War II. In order to dismiss these lawsuits, Germany agreed to raise $5 billions of which Jewish forced laborers still alive could apply to receive a lump sum payment of between $2,500 and $7,500.[19] In 2012, Germany agreed to pay a new reparation of €772 millions as a result of negociations with Israel.[20]
In 2014, the Sons and Daughters of Jewish Deportees from France.[22]
These reparations were sometimes criticized in Israel where they were seen as "blood money".[23] The American professor Norman Finkelstein wrote The Holocaust Industry to denounce how the American Jewish establishment exploits the memory of the Nazi Holocaust for political and financial gain, as well as to further the interests of Israel.[24] These reparations also led to a massive scam where $57 millions were fraudulently given to thousands of people who were not eligible for the funds.[25]
The United Nations General Assembly voted on November 1, 2005, to designate January 27 as the "International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust." January 27, 1945 is the day that the former Nazi concentration and extermination camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau was liberated. The day had already been observed as Holocaust Memorial Day a number of countries. Israel and the Jewish diaspora observe Yom HaShoah Ve-Hagvora, the "Day of Remembrance of the Holocaust and the courage of the Jewish people," on the 27th day of the Hebrew month of Nisan, which generally falls in April.[26]
Holocaust denial is the claim that the genocide of Jews during World War II—usually referred to as the Holocaust[27]—did not occur in the manner and to the extent described by current scholars.
Key elements of this claim are the rejection of the following: that the Nazi government had a policy of deliberately targeting Jews and people of Jewish ancestry for extermination as a people; that between five and seven million Jews[27] were systematically killed by the Nazis and their allies; and that genocide was carried out at extermination camps using tools of mass murder, such as gas chambers.[28][29]
Many Holocaust deniers do not accept the term "denial" as an appropriate description of their point of view, and use the term Holocaust revisionism instead.[30] Scholars, however, prefer the term "denial" to differentiate Holocaust deniers from historical revisionists, who use established historical methodologies.[31]
Most Holocaust denial claims imply, or openly state, that the Holocaust is a hoax arising out of a deliberate Jewish conspiracy to advance the interest of Jews at the expense of other peoples.[32] For this reason, Holocaust denial is generally considered to be an antisemitic[33] conspiracy theory.[34] The methodologies of Holocaust deniers are often criticized as based on a predetermined conclusion that ignores extensive historical evidence to the contrary.[35]
Documentaries that have to do with life after the Holocaust:
External links, references, and other resources are listed at Holocaust (resources).
Cold War, Battle of Stalingrad, Nazi Germany, Battle of the Atlantic, Second Sino-Japanese War
Jerusalem, West Bank, Hebrew language, Tel Aviv, Syria
Discrimination, Armenian Genocide, Ethnic cleansing, World War II, International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia
Tennessee, Conference USA, Murfreesboro, Tennessee, University, Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders
Einsatzgruppen, World War II, Sobibór extermination camp, Treblinka extermination camp, Nazi Germany
World War II, International Military Tribunal for the Far East, Japanese war crimes, Tokyo, John Rabe
World War II, United Kingdom, Nazi Germany, Royal Canadian Navy, Operation Overlord
World War II, Restitution, Jewish Agency for Israel, Aftermath of the Holocaust, Holocaust