engleski

THE SPREADING OF GENOCIDAL POLICIES FROM NAZI GERMANY TO POLAND (SINCE 1939) AND TO CROATIA (SINCE 1941) – AND THE VITAL IMPORTANCE OF EXEMPTIONS FROM THE ANTI-JEWISH MEASURES

This paper deals with the process of transmissions of Nazi racist mechanisms of identifying, isolating, marking, deporting and annihilating Jews from the Reich to Austria, Poland and Croatia. Almost identical patterns of hatred propaganda against Jews could be found in every part of the Nazi dominated Europe, which was a consequence of activities of the same institutions (foreign branches of the NSDAP, Gestapo, the SS, and the Sicherheitsdienst) in all conquered countries – along with ethnic Germans as willing auxiliaries. Jewish departments of police institutions were responsible for identification, surveillance and deportation of Jews. Vilko Kühnel – allegedly an ambivalent half-Croat and half- Volksdeutscher – was the Croatian Eichmann who abused the cooperation with Jews for genocidal purposes. Unlike some countries in Hitler’s Europe, Croatia had the legal instruments for exemption of Jews from anti-Jewish measures. Similar to the situation in Italy and France, conversion to Catholicism could change the status of Jews as well the intermarriage with non-Jews. Mixed marriages were firmly defended by the Archbishop Stepinac who also tried to help ‘full’ Jews. Jewish physicians (along with their parents and children) could in some cases acquire the protection if they were proclaimed vital for strategic and public health policy. The paper tries also to estimate the role of the Ustaša movement during the Nazi rule in Croatia and to stress the turning point of massive opposition against the Ustaša puppet regime and its anti- Jewish policy. Contrary to some opinions, many Croatia’s Jews considered themselves Croatian patriots and were willing to be fully assimilated in the Croatian identity.

Jewish markings in Germany, Poland and Croatia, deportations to work and extermination camps, Nuremberg Laws, Holocaust, rescue of Jews, honorary Aryans, Vilko Kühnel, ethnic Germans in Croatia during the WWII, Ustaša movement, Ante Pavelić, Croatian State Archives, Jewish Department of Ustaša Police in Zagreb, petitions for Jews, Jewish physicians in Croatia 1941- 1945, conversion of Jews to Catholicism

DOWNLOAD FROM: http://issuu.com/zeljkouvanovic/docs/the_spreading _of_genocidal_policies In footnote 18, there is a reference to the additional image material in the CD-edition called "Nationalized Companies in NDH and the fate of Jewish owners." The document is without any remark about the author, but hereby it is acknowledged that it belongs to Dr. Esther Gitman. Also, in the footnote 22, there is a reference to the additional material in the CD- edition called "Jewish physicians in the Home Guard". The document is without any remark about the author, but hereby it is acknowledged that it belongs to Dr. Esther Gitman. Here I stress my deepest gratitude to Dr. Gitman for allowing me to use this materials.