Hello. I'm Dr. Joel Zisenwine from the International Institute for Holocaust research at Yad Vashem. In his first political essay dated September 1919, Adolf Hitler marked the removal of Jews as a future objective, but at the time he did not specify the nature neither his exact intentions, and also, not the means for achieving this objective, as well as the exact geographic scope that he was thinking of at the time. According to existing records, it appears that during the 1930s, there was no master plan or we could call a Blueprint for mass deportations or mass murder. But even then in the early years of the existence of the Third Reich, it would appear that at least among several members of the Security Services and party members, the motivation for removing Jews from all aspects of life in Germany was very strong. We could indicate several modes or main channels that were used in order to implement the anti-Jewish policies during the 1930s in Germany. The first one was of course legislation intended to revoke citizen status of German Jews, and impair their financial means. The second channel was social isolation. Non-Jews or so-called, Aryans would no longer come in contact with Jews. The third channel was violence that targeted various Jewish individuals. Also in the first three years the Nazis encouraged Jewish immigration, but this was not part of a formal policy. An example for this encouragement can be seen in the 1933-1934 transfer agreement that allowed the export of Jewish property from Germany. In the second half of the 1930s, Germany began to implement an aggressive approach towards its neighbors in a breach of the Versailles Treaty. So for example, in 1936 the German military forces enter the demilitarized Rhine province. At the same time, Germany's main ally fascist Italy invaded Ethiopia, and at the same time Germany under Hitler's direct guidance began preparations for a future war while formulating the four-year plan which was a plan to prepare Germany's industry for war. In the second half of the 1930s, we can detect a correlation between Germany's escalating radicalization in the international front, and the worsening treatment of German Jews. This internal radicalization was made apparent among others by the acceleration of urbanization process, meaning the seizing and looting of Jewish property, and transferring it over to alien ownership. This radicalization also became apparent by the annexation of the neighboring Austria in March 1938, the so-called Anschluss. This consequently lead to the addition of approximately 200,000 Jews to the Third Reich. In the first few weeks following the Anschluss, a radical and very violent anti-Jewish mood spread in Austria. This included arrest of Jewish individuals and particularly the brutalization of Jews mainly in the streets of Vienna. We're very familiar with photos of Jews being forced to scrub the sidewalks and streets with toothbrushes and shoe brushes. This led to a mass panic and wish to flee the country. Jews who wished to emigrate following these events had to stand in line for days in front of government offices, and foreign embassies, and consulates in Vienna. They had to fill out various forms. While this wave of terror and violence was sweeping Vienna, the Jewish department in the security services began to implement the new policy. In August 1938, a young officer in the security services Adolf Eichmann arrived in Vienna and set up the central agency for Jewish immigration in Vienna, in German, "Zentralstelle fur judische Auswanderung in Wein" This idea to set up a central organization that would deal with the immigration of Jews actually had originated from the head of the Jewish community, Joseph Loewenherz. The community's institutions were collapsing under the load of tens of thousands of requests for travel permits. In addition, the lack of coordination between various German offices in charge of the immigration process made it even more complicated for the Jews to acquire the needed documents. Loewenherz had requested from Eichmann to coordinate this activity. Eichmann had established the Central Agency for Jewish Immigration after receiving authorizations from his superiors. The establishment of this agency by the Nazi security services indicated a shift from a policy aimed at indirectly encouraging the immigration of Jews from German territories, to forced emigration. Namely, the Jew is required to leave the Reich territory in a given period of time, but he can still choose his destination. The Vienna Agency also developed a bureaucratic system intended to bleed the wealthier Jews who intended to emigrate out of their entire property. The Jewish communities property was used to finance the emigration of the poor Jews. This administrative course was intended to force the Jews to leave Germany while transferring their property and money to the Nazi state. The activity this office created the organizational model on which in the near future most deportation operations in Central and Western Europe would be based on. This model was made up of four main components. The first component was the meticulous registration of Jewish population in a specific community. For instance, the Viennese Jewish community had a card index with all names of members of the community. This index was handed over to the [inaudible] and enabled them to monitor the forced emigration of the Jews. The second component called for the force cooperation of the local leadership. This is a model that we will later see implemented all across Europe. The third component call for the confiscation of Jewish property and handing it over to the state. The fourth component required the arrest and concentration and then deportation of Jewish population. This method is known in historiography today as the Austrian model or the Viennese model. Eichmann characterized it in the following way; in one hand you put the first documents and the other paperwork, and on the other hand the password comes out. Eichmann described this as some sort of conveyor belt. Eventually this organization will be responsible for putting into action the transports in Vienna. In October 1938 alongside the activity of the Vienna Immigration Agency, Germany attempted to deport a large number of Jews from its borders. As opposed to forced immigration where the Jew can still decide upon his destination, in an act of deportation, the state dictated the time and destination. Approximately 17,000 Polish Jews living in Germany were arrested at the end of October and then deported to Poland. This operation is known in German as the Poland Transport. But due to Poland's refusal to allow their return, they were held in dire conditions in somewhat of a no man's land at the border town of Zbaszyn. These events indirectly led to the [inaudible] attack on November 10th. In the next few months we will see an acceleration of Nazi Germany's expansion policies. Following the occupation of Czechoslovakia in March 1939, a Central Bureau for the Immigration of Jews was set up as well in Prague using the model developed in Austria. To sum up the events in the late 1930s prior to the outbreak of World War II, I think you can say that an infrastructure for mass deportations of Jews was created between 1938 and 1939. This included both a system for forcing out large numbers of Jews, and several personnel that had become experts in organizing large-scale transports.
