JE09 Holocaust Essay 2 assignment
Following the suppression of the Warsaw ghetto uprising the SS officer in charge, Jürgen Stroop, signed off on a report of the operation. The report looks like a scrapbook, pages with text and photos in a black leather binder. There are three parts: a descriptive narrative introductory section, copies of daily communiques, and finally a series of 52 photographs. Three copies were made: Stroop kept one, one went to his superior officer Krüger, and one went to Himmler. The report was part of evidence gathered for the International Military Tribunal at Nürnberg in 1946, the American Military Tribunal at Nürnberg in 1947, and again in Warsaw in 1951 in the trial of Stroop and others. Stroop was sentenced to death and hanged in Warsaw in 1951. An english translation of the full text of the report (without images) is here. Many of the most famous images are here. Full (low-quality) scans of the photographs are here. The Warsaw ghetto uprising (late April to mid-May 1943) followed Himmler's order of 19 Feb 1943 to "liquidate" the ghetto. Most Jews in the ghetto were sent to Treblinka. By April is was clear to the relatively few remaining inhabitants that evacuation meant death in the camps or in transit. There is an extensive historiography of the uprising, well worth learning more about. Basic bibliography here.
Here is the image I would like you to discuss. In a page or so, take time to reflect on what you see, based on what you know, with special attention of roles or categories of the people in the image. Read, if you would like, information in the links above, (but info only in those links; don't get lost in a huge research project now--no time for that). But feel free as well to do no further looking about now and write only based on your thoughtful examination and analysis of this single image. A higher-resolution file is here.
Email your essay to me and the group (reply to all) by Friday at 6pm.
