Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- 1 Historiography and Popular Understandings
- 2 Ghetto: The Source of the Term and the Phenomenon in the Early Modern Age
- 3 Ghetto and Ghettoization as Cultural Concepts in the Modern Age
- 4 The Nazis' Anti-Jewish Policy in the 1930s in Germany and the Question of Jewish Residential Districts
- 5 First References to the Term “Ghetto” in the Ideological Discourse of the Makers of Anti-Jewish Policy in the Third Reich (1933–1938)
- 6 The Semantic Turning Point in the Meaning of “Ghetto”: Peter-Heinz Seraphim and Das Judentum im osteuropäischen Raum
- 7 The Invasion of Poland and the Emergence of the “Classic” Ghettos
- 8 Methodological Interlude: The Term “Ghettoization” and Its Use During the Holocaust Itself and in Later Scholarship
- 9 Would the Idea Spread to Other Places? Amsterdam 1941, the Only Attempt to Establish a Ghetto West of Poland
- 10 Ghettos During the Final Solution, 1941–1943: The Territories Occupied in Operation Barbarossa
- 11 Ghettos During the Final Solution Outside the Occupied Soviet Union: Poland, Theresienstadt, Amsterdam, Transnistria, Salonika, and Hungary
- 12 Summary and Conclusions
- Bibliography
- Index
9 - Would the Idea Spread to Other Places? Amsterdam 1941, the Only Attempt to Establish a Ghetto West of Poland
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 March 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- 1 Historiography and Popular Understandings
- 2 Ghetto: The Source of the Term and the Phenomenon in the Early Modern Age
- 3 Ghetto and Ghettoization as Cultural Concepts in the Modern Age
- 4 The Nazis' Anti-Jewish Policy in the 1930s in Germany and the Question of Jewish Residential Districts
- 5 First References to the Term “Ghetto” in the Ideological Discourse of the Makers of Anti-Jewish Policy in the Third Reich (1933–1938)
- 6 The Semantic Turning Point in the Meaning of “Ghetto”: Peter-Heinz Seraphim and Das Judentum im osteuropäischen Raum
- 7 The Invasion of Poland and the Emergence of the “Classic” Ghettos
- 8 Methodological Interlude: The Term “Ghettoization” and Its Use During the Holocaust Itself and in Later Scholarship
- 9 Would the Idea Spread to Other Places? Amsterdam 1941, the Only Attempt to Establish a Ghetto West of Poland
- 10 Ghettos During the Final Solution, 1941–1943: The Territories Occupied in Operation Barbarossa
- 11 Ghettos During the Final Solution Outside the Occupied Soviet Union: Poland, Theresienstadt, Amsterdam, Transnistria, Salonika, and Hungary
- 12 Summary and Conclusions
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Marking the Jewish quarters and Jewish streets and blocking off the Jewish neighborhoods furthers the lowering of the Jews' status [Deklassierung].
Reichskommissar Arthur Seyss-Inquart, the Nazi administrator of the occupied Netherlands, March 25, 1941If the idea of concentrating the Jews in a physical ghetto evolved from the notion that the Ostjuden posed a special danger, the question naturally arises as to whether the model, once created in Poland, was exported to other places under Nazi control. On the one hand, information about the ghettos in Poland was disseminated in newspaper articles, movies, and rumors, making it possible to copy the idea. On the other hand, as Seraphim had noted, “in most of the cities of central, western, and southern Europe, and in the towns of Eastern Europe where there are only a few Jews, it is impossible to ghettoize the Jews; there aren't enough of them.” It is true that Seraphim was not of high enough rank to dictate the extent to which the idea of concentrating Jews in ghettos would be implemented; nor was he ever actively involved in these efforts at ghettoization. I believe, nevertheless, that his logic, as well as his understanding of the concept of ghettoization – the concentration of Jews in physical ghettos and not simply a process of isolation from their surroundings – lay at the basis of the actions taken on the ground. The conspicuous fact is that ghettos were not established in Western Europe or in the Greater Reich.
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- The Emergence of Jewish Ghettos during the Holocaust , pp. 94 - 101Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011