The Role Of Conceptions And Indigenous Actions In Ukraine’s Holocaust

Taylor Jackson Dr. Hickman Genocide and War Crimes 10/10/2008 The Role of Conceptions and Indigenous Actions in Ukraine’s Holocaust From their first world history class, many western students are lead to believe that the Holocaust was begun by an evil man, in the person of Adolf Hitler, who rallied a people around the destruction of the arbitrarily chosen and defenseless Jewish population. This massive oversimplification of the reasons behind the holocaust proves to be misleading. Many fail to realize the complex reasons behind the many atrocities that were committed during this horrific chapter of world history. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Holocaust in the Ukraine. First of all, Germany had a very specific reason for expanding beyond its borders and destroying the Jewish population of the Ukraine. Also, the actions of many people, including occupying Germans and ethnic German residents of the Ukraine, aided in the success and progression of the genocide. When attempting to understand the Holocaust in the Ukraine, one must examine the thinking behind the Nazi’s colonial ambitions. As mentioned in Wendy Lower’s book Nazi Empire-Building and the Holocaust in Ukraine, Nazi colonial ideas center on the concepts of “race and space.” Hitler held a strong belief that ethnic Germans, and more specifically Aryans, were the superior races. Additionally, he labeled the Jewish race as the most inferior. Hitler also adhered to a very strong belief that wherever ethnic Germans resided in the world, the German state had a legitimate claim on the people and the land (Lower 2002). This even included moving Germans into certain areas to legitimize their colonization.

In the mindset of Adolf Hitler, the selection of the Jews to be the inferior race would be perfectly logical. The Jewish race had a long history of isolating themselves from the rest of society to maintain their strict lifestyle, which was deeply rooted in the Jewish faith. This devout adherence to Jewish law caused an extraordinarily strong sense of community among the population. Additionally, laws required the education of all young men in order to take part in religious rituals. These two factors alarmed many gentiles that lived around the various Jewish diasporas across Europe and the Middle East. In many cases, the societies at large would view the Jewish population as threatening as Jews often retained high positions yet still reserved a great amount of mysteriousness. The seeds of these anti-Semitist notions were planted after the expulsion of the Jews from their homeland and their subsequent scattering to various parts of the world. They continued to intensify up until the beginning of the Holocaust (Black). Before the beginning of the Holocaust, Germans had an intense desire to expand their boundaries. While great debate was undertaken within Germany about whether to meet this end by forming colonies oversees or locally, one thing was certain: additional living space, or lebensraum, was needed. Under the Nazis, it was determined that local expansion would be beneficial. According to Lower, “Hitler looked to Germany’s eastern frontier as the natural place to expand” (2002). This could likely be due to the Ukraine’s abundance of natural resources and population of inferior Slavic peoples (Lower 2005). Hitler envisioned this area as a “Garden of Eden” where the settled German farmer would “till the land with a weapon at his side” (Lower 2002). While Hitler’s aim was to create a “Garden of Eden” for his preferred Aryans, it would result in being a land of misery for many of the inferior races. In order to purify the Ukraine of its inferior residents, Nazi Germany undertook a campaign of genocide on a massive proportion.

The scale was so massive, in fact, that a certain level of assistance from those being persecuted would have been necessary. One of the means in which the Nazis began to control Ukraine was by placing ethnic German and Ukrainian residents of the colonized territory in leadership positions. While these people appeared to be more inferior Eastern in appearance and action rather than Aryan, they were nonetheless utilized to by the Nazis to administer the occupied Ukraine (Lower 2002). The Nazis were seemingly able to motivate these inferior people to use their positions of leadership to purify Ukraine of its most inferior inhabitants: the Jews. This process turned countrymen against their fellow citizens and neighbors against one another, resulting in one of the most horrific instances of genocide during the Holocaust (Browder). The Holocaust in Ukraine is arguably among one of the most interesting to study, and unfortunately is one that is not studied near enough. Within its history, one can easily detect the complex colonial aspirations of the Germans. It can also be easily noted that there was not only an aggressive force of Germans taking part in hostilities, but also a large component of “inferior” races that were either willing participants or complacent figures in the face of these atrocities. The Holocaust in Ukraine certainly disproves many of the commonly held notions about the Holocaust, especially the idea that there was not any level complacency or willingness among those being persecuted. However, in order for this genocide to have been so horrific, a certain level of this complacency or willingness had to occur.

Works Cited Black, Tim. "Why are the Jews the 'Chosen' Victims?" History Review (Mar 2004): 34-35. Browder, George C. "Collaboration in the Holocaust: Crimes of the Local Police in Belorussia and Ukraine, 1941-44 - Martin Dean." Holocaust and Genocide Studies (Fall 2002): 293. Lower, Wendy. "A New Ordering of Space and Race: Nazi Colonial Dreams in Zhytomyr, Ukraine ." German Studies Review (May 2002): 227-254. Lower, Wendy. Nazi Empire Building and the Holocaust in Ukraine. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 2005.