The eastern bloc without the holocaust

[Mightyboosh5]

Since the holocaust and exodus of jews to America, Israel and other locations, the yiddish speaking ashkenazi population of eastern europe has reduced massively since 1939.

I was wondering lets say the nazi regime still ghettoises and imprisons the jewish population of its occupied territories, but uses them for labour rather than aims for total extermination, of course this would still arguably result in a kind of genocide as starvation and disease would be massive, and the einzatsgruppen would still likely kill many many jews in eastern europe. lets say only 1 or 2 million jews do die because of the war.

Now lets say the war proceeds as OTL and eastern europe comes under communist control in the aftermath of the war, how does the jewish society of poland, western russia and the balkans develop in hte 50s 60s 70s and 80s.

For instance would jews be expelled from eastern poland like catholic poles were in the aftermath of its annecation to the USSR, or would they be allowed to stay.

Also how would the fall of the iron curtain affect jews, especially with the rise of nationalism that came along with it.

Sorry about how expansive this question is i was just wondering about it because most of the threads ive seen about no holocaust are primarily looking at their affect on the war effort itself or on its affects on israel post war.

 

[mjwebb76]

I would suggest you break your question into parts to focus on what you mean. Specifically, the genocide against the Jews can be broadly divided into three phases.

Phase 1: Murder of Jews in the Soviet Territories (1941-42). Nearly all of this involved Einsatzgruppen (and their local helpers) gathering the Jews of a town or a village and taking them into the forest and murdering them all with machine guns. This phase destroyed the Shetels and also had the strongest "ideological" element. Specifically, locals could "demonstrate" they were not really communists (despite having worked for the Soviets last month) by killing Jews, since Nazi ideology held that communism was a Jewish plot.

Phase 2: Murder of the Jews in the Reinhard Camps (1942-43). When it became clear that the Soviet Union would not be conquered (or conquered as quickly) the Nazi's held a conference at Wannsee where they outline "The Final Solution" to the Jewish question. They quickly built five death camps (Treblinka, Belzec, Sobibor, Chelmno and Maidanek) in Poland. The Jews from Poland (and to some extent some other countries such as the Netherlands) were transported to these camps and in the vast majority of cases sent directly to the gas chambers. Only a infinitesimal fraction survived these camps (900,000 were killed at Treblinka, around 70 survived; 250,000 were killed at Sobibor, around 50 survived; 500,000 were killed at Belzec, 7 survived etc.) It is estimated that 2 million+ were willed in the Reinhard camps, destroying the vast majority of the Jewish population of Poland. Your question seems to focus on the Jews killed in this phase.

Phase 3: Post Reinhard Phase (late 1943-1945). By late 1943, the Reinhard camps were closed because the vast majority of Jews in Poland were dead. However, this was when Auschwitz truly became a death camp (rather than just a concentration camp). During this time around a million people were killed at Auschwitz ( a few hundred thousand had been killed in the prior years when it was more a concentration camp). A large number of these were Hungarian Jews who had not been sent to the death camps prior to 1944. Another few hundred thousand were killed in the death marches in late 1944 and 1945.

My point is that if you are suggesting we butterfly away all of the intentional killing this will actually have significant impacts on the Eastern Front itself. Indeed if the Germans had been more open to assistance from the Ukrainians rather than murdering many of them they may have been more successful in their military aims. On the other hand, if you are assuming that Phase 1 still happens, but Phases 2 and 3 do not then you will retain a number of Jews (and particularly educated Jews) in post-war Poland and Hungary which could have significant implications in post-war politics but probably has a minimal impact on the war itself.

 

[Mightyboosh5]

I would suggest you break your question into parts to focus on what you mean. Specifically, the genocide against the Jews can be broadly divided into three phases.

Phase 1: Murder of Jews in the Soviet Territories (1941-42). Nearly all of this involved Einsatzgruppen (and their local helpers) gathering the Jews of a town or a village and taking them into the forest and murdering them all with machine guns. This phase destroyed the Shetels and also had the strongest "ideological" element. Specifically, locals could "demonstrate" they were not really communists (despite having worked for the Soviets last month) by killing Jews, since Nazi ideology held that communism was a Jewish plot.

Phase 2: Murder of the Jews in the Reinhard Camps (1942-43). When it became clear that the Soviet Union would not be conquered (or conquered as quickly) the Nazi's held a conference at Wannsee where they outline "The Final Solution" to the Jewish question. They quickly built five death camps (Treblinka, Belzec, Sobibor, Chelmno and Maidanek) in Poland. The Jews from Poland (and to some extent some other countries such as the Netherlands) were transported to these camps and in the vast majority of cases sent directly to the gas chambers. Only a infinitesimal fraction survived these camps (900,000 were killed at Treblinka, around 70 survived; 250,000 were killed at Sobibor, around 50 survived; 500,000 were killed at Belzec, 7 survived etc.) It is estimated that 2 million+ were willed in the Reinhard camps, destroying the vast majority of the Jewish population of Poland. Your question seems to focus on the Jews killed in this phase.

Phase 3: Post Reinhard Phase (late 1943-1945). By late 1943, the Reinhard camps were closed because the vast majority of Jews in Poland were dead. However, this was when Auschwitz truly became a death camp (rather than just a concentration camp). During this time around a million people were killed at Auschwitz ( a few hundred thousand had been killed in the prior years when it was more a concentration camp). A large number of these were Hungarian Jews who had not been sent to the death camps prior to 1944. Another few hundred thousand were killed in the death marches in late 1944 and 1945.

My point is that if you are suggesting we butterfly away all of the intentional killing this will actually have significant impacts on the Eastern Front itself. Indeed if the Germans had been more open to assistance from the Ukrainians rather than murdering many of them they may have been more successful in their military aims. On the other hand, if you are assuming that Phase 1 still happens, but Phases 2 and 3 do not then you will retain a number of Jews (and particularly educated Jews) in post-war Poland and Hungary which could have significant implications in post-war politics but probably has a minimal impact on the war itself.

Thank you for the detailed response i have only a basic understanding of holocaust history and this has been really helpful.

to be honest the butterflying of the first stage would be an interesting question aswell, because eastern poland/ western ukraine-belarus was genuinely the centre of yiddish civilisation at the time, its destruction being avoided would have all sorts of implications for post war dealings with poland and western soviet union.

However lets say phase one still takes place and the rest of the war proceeds with all the implied aggressiveness towards jewish civillians just without the organised extermination, how many jews who would have died would survive do you think? 4 million?

 

[Sam R.]

Most scholars agree that the holocaust was baked into the institutions, functions and agents of the German state. Ie: that it was a functional process. Such processes won’t be negated by a change in intentions. A functional assemblage of state institutions that won’t kill millions of Jews Slavs Roma and others is a functional assemblage of state institutions that won’t declare war on Poland or get caught up in depression or war military spending or probably dedemocratise Germany from the right.

Start with the Wikipedia article on functionalism versus intentionalism.

 

[Mr_Fanboy]

What about a world where the Nazis never rise to power, or another world war simply does not break out, or both?

 

[Alanith]

What about a world where the Nazis never rise to power, or another world war simply does not break out, or both?

In that world the Eastern Bloc never comes under Soviet occupation.

 

[Mightyboosh5]

Most scholars agree that the holocaust was baked into the institutions, functions and agents of the German state. Ie: that it was a functional process. Such processes won’t be negated by a change in intentions. A functional assemblage of state institutions that won’t kill millions of Jews Slavs Roma and others is a functional assemblage of state institutions that won’t declare war on Poland or get caught up in depression or war military spending or probably dedemocratise Germany from the right.

Start with the Wikipedia article on functionalism versus intentionalism.

Ok so what youre saying is that nazi germany in ww2 would always do the holocaust, i dont know enough about the subject to really challenge this and thethread wasnt meant to be about the details of ww2 anyway. i was just interested in how the dynamics of the eastern blocs social and political culture would operate if there existed a jewish minority of several million existed in eastern europe.

 

[mjwebb76]

Most scholars agree that the holocaust was baked into the institutions, functions and agents of the German state. Ie: that it was a functional process. Such processes won’t be negated by a change in intentions. A functional assemblage of state institutions that won’t kill millions of Jews Slavs Roma and others is a functional assemblage of state institutions that won’t declare war on Poland or get caught up in depression or war military spending or probably dedemocratise Germany from the right.

Start with the Wikipedia article on functionalism versus intentionalism.

I completely disagree with this, as evidenced by the fact that the means by which the Nazis were going to effectuate the "Final Solution" and indeed what the Final Solution was kept changing. Now you may say that because the Nazis prioritized the murder over military needs (eg holocaust trains had priority) it is exceedingly unlikely the Nazis would have chosen to not implement the Reinhard plans. However I think it’s a stretch to say once the Nazis came to power the holocaust as we saw it was preordained. It resulted from choices made by profoundly evil people.

 

[Sam R.]

implement the Reinhard plans

It wasn’t like th Heer at all levels, and without the threat of negative consequences for refusal at al levels, were implementing a murder and starvation campaign on a racial basis in 1941. Nah.

 

[mjwebb76]

It wasn’t like th Heer at all levels, and without the threat of negative consequences for refusal at al levels, were implementing a murder and starvation campaign on a racial basis in 1941. Nah.

That is quite different from the systematic efficiency of the Reinhard operation. For example, according to the Holocaust museum roughly half the Jews in the Soviet Union were killed. Less than half the Jews in France of Belgium were killed. By contrast, in Poland 3 million out of a pre-war population of 3.2 million were killed. In Hungary 560,000 out of a pre-war population were killed. If we imagine that that these 70-90% figures are reduced to more like 30-50% this implies millions of Jews remaining in Eastern Europe after the war. It is interesting to consider why type of impact this may have had after the war. Unfortunately, I think the most likely outcome is they would have just been another group crushed under Stalinist oppression.