The Recent History of Palestine’s Christian Arab Activism

Sam Smith

HY238: Jews in the Modern World

Tuesday December 21st, 2010

The Recent History of Palestine’s Christian Arab Activism

            Often lost in the contemporary political and humanitarian debate over the Israeli-Palestine conflict is the perspective of Christians in the region. While they remain a minority, their power is often disregarded and unrecognized by academia and the media. Despite this reality, Christian Arabs have tremendous activist power in Palestine and make up nearly 5% of the territory’s population. Because Christian Arabs tend to hold greater sums of wealth in Palestine, many have fled the region as the Israeli Army and Hamas have created many unstable disaster zones, patricianly in the Gaza strip. David Ben-Gurion is Israel’s  “founding father” (Efraim Karash: Zionism and the Palestinians, 357) and first prime minister co-authored a comprehensive book on the history of Palestine. According to his findings, there were 100,000 Christian Arabs in Palestine in 1915. Today, while Christians make up an impressive 10% of the Palestinian Arab population, there numbers have shrunk dramatically. In 2005, it was estimated that the Arab Christian population of the Palestinian territories was between 40,000 and 90,000 people. Today, the majority of Palestinian Christians live abroad. Around 50% of Palestinian Christians belong to the Orthodox Church of Jerusalem. Minority Christian groups include Jacobites, Chaldeans, Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Lutherans, Evangelicals, Born Again, Baptists and even Jehovah Witnesses. While Palestinian Christians have a diverse and fascinating history of struggle and triumph, I will outline in this paper their recent history, specifically highlighting the uniquely powerful role they have held in activist circles. I will outline the recent history of Christian Arab presence in Palestine and analyze the unique role Christian Arabs have taken amidst the endless regional conflict.

            Perhaps the most peaceful people in the Middle East, Christian Arabs have become forgotten victims of a violent conflict they very little role in. In a 2007 letter from Congressman Henry Hyde to President George W. Bush, Hyde stated that "the Christian community is being crushed in the mill of the bitter Israeli-Palestinian conflict" and that expanding Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem were "irreversibly damaging the dwindling Christian community". One might assume Christians have sided with the region’s Jews, as Judaism mirrors Christianity far more than Islam. But, while Christian Arabs share many biblical passages, convictions and religious beliefs with Jews, they are not blinded by the role Jews have had in their Middle Eastern existence. Most Christians in Palestine blame the Israeli occupation, and the war on against Islamic extremism to be the reason for their exodus from Gaza. Many innocent Christians have been caught in Israeli crossfire- Christians that had no political role in the region’s religious conflict. These victims include 15-year-old Christine Turk, who suffered from a deadly heart attack as she was surrounded by Israel’s relentlessness bombardment of primarily Muslim neighborhoods. In her father’s words, “Israel’s destruction of Palestinian homes, schools and hospitals goes beyond military defense. My daughter died from fear. Fear of a brutal, anti-Humanitarian force, and like our Muslim brothers, we are ashamed of the Israeli Army’s actions against the united Palestinian people.” Family members of other Christian Palestinians who have lost their lives during the Gaza offensive have also spoken out against Israel’s disregard for non-Jewish human life. While the media consistently under-reports the destruction of Mosque’s in Palestine, next-to-nothing is heard of the churches and holy buildings of Baptist, Orthodox & Catholic backgrounds that have been damaged or demolished by Israeli shelling. While the Israeli government perpetrates what many Christians in the region consider a great falsehood that the attacks target insurgents and religious extremists who wish to destroy Israel, Christians unable or unwilling to flee have paid an unnoticed price as the destruction of harmless churches and innocent civilians continues.

            Moreover, while the majority of Christian Palestinians side either with the Islamic end of the conflict or remain unaffiliated, the destruction of Christian livelihood at the hands of Muslim extremists cannot be ignored either. In 2006, an Al-Queda-allied group called "Lions of Monotheism" claimed responsibility for the firebombing of five churches, among them an Anglican and an Orthodox church. This small and relatively powerless group has done little to sway Christian Arabs away from uniting with their fellow Muslims and it is noticeably less damaging than the destruction of life at the hands of Israel. Furthermore, most Christian Palestinians identify these Islamic groups as extremist; where as the Israeli military is a mainstream and internationally legitimized force far more threatening and powerful in the everyday lives of Christians. However, there is no doubt that Christians have become innocent victims, in several cases, of both Jewish and Muslim forces on opposite ends of battle. For instance, Armenians in Jerusalem, identified as Palestinian Christians, have been attacked and received threats from Muslim and Jewish extremists. In September, two Armenian Christian clergy were expelled after protesting against Jewish extremists for spitting on holy Christian objects.

           

            The role taken on by Christian Arabs in Palestine, in response to the position they have been put in by surrounding violence has been one, in many respects, of triumphant activism. Both the founder of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, George Habash, and the founder if its offshoot, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Nayif Hawatmeh, were Christians, as is prominent Palestinian activist and former Palestinian Authority minister Hanan Ashrawi. In February 2009, a group of Christian community activists within the West Bank wrote an open letter asking Pope Benedict XVI to postpone his scheduled trip to Israel unless the government changes its treatment. They highlighted improved access to places of worship and ending the taxation of church properties as key concerns. Neither need was met.

 In a incredibly eye-opening awakening to non-activist Christian Arabs, a Palestinian student from Gaza was handcuffed, blindfolded and left waiting for hours at a checkpoint on her way back from a job interview in Ramallah, all at the hands of the Israeli military. The military had expelled Berlanty Azzam from Bethlehem just two months before she was scheduled to complete her degree in buisness. The Israeli human rights organization Gisha (Legal Center for Freedom of Movement) as well as Amnesty International got heavily involved in the incident and found that Israel had discriminated against Azzam for her political views and violated human rights. In a statement that riled up Christians in the region, Azzam stated she was treated like a criminal simply because she was a Christian. This sparked outrage amongst Christian Palestinians who were previously uninvolved with activism against Israel.  After two hearings denounced by Christian Arab organizations, the High Court upheld the position of the Israeli state and ruled not to allow Berlanty to return to Bethlehem University to complete her studies. In the course of the High Court hearings, the state made no security allegations against Berlanty but simply said her presence in the West Bank was “illegal”. Her presence was not illegal under a single Israeli or Palestinian law, but Israel’s treatment of her- which included 6 hours of waiting for the “secret police” and forcing her to sign a Hebrew document she could not read violated many international human rights laws. While she was able to finish her studies on the telephone and receive a Bachelor’s degree, she continues to spark several political rallies from Palestinian Christians, as her exile from her home remains a hot topic in the region.

Christian Arab activism in Palestine, although most popular when incidents such as Berlanty Azzam’s exile take place, is still centered and organized around the big picture. In December 2009, prominent Christian leaders residing in both the West Bank and Gaza strip released a historical document titled “The Kairos Palestine Document, a moment of truth”. Similar to documents released by South African churches in the mid-1980s at the height of repression under the apartheid regime, the document calls for an end to the occupation of Palestine’s people. The document declares the Israeli occupation of Palestine a "sin against God", violating principals of both Christianity and Judaism. It calls on churches and Christians all over the world to consider it and adopt it and to call for the boycott of Israel. Further, the document states that leading Israel into isolation is the only way there can be a “peaceful solution in the Holy Land”.

For now, as the occupation of Palestine continues and activists of all religious faiths struggle to fight against institutionalized military oppression, Christian Arabs, although gravely unnoticed, remain in existence by the tens of thousands. And it is this presence that gives them the potential to raise awareness about the horrors and injustices of Palestine’s occupied status. It is this presence that gives them the ability to gain sympathy and support from Christians worldwide. While little to no media coverage and very little awareness about their political role in the region threatens to further their immigration into safer nations, if the right people do what is necessary at the right time, something can be done to alleviate a situation of dire need. Christian Palestinians, for now, can only hope their action on behalf of their people and their fellow neighbors of all religious convictions can lead to a more peaceful future in one of the greatest conflicts in the Middle East today. 

Immigration of Jews and Immigration of Mexicans: Comparing forms of American Nationalism

Sam Smith

Sunday, December 18, 2010

Jews in the Modern World

Immigration of Jews and Immigration of Mexicans:

Comparing forms of American Nationalism

            Throughout American history, Immigration has defined politics, policies and practices. It has shaped the melting pot or salad bowl that is the United States. This history, although complex and unique, has repeated itself generation after generation as struggles and triumphs for various peoples has sown themselves into the fabric of North American history. In this essay, I will compare the tremendous similarities between the migrations of Jews in the early 20^th century to the recent surge in Mexican-American immigration. Four key similarities between what both minorities faced and continue to face as immigrants paint this picture. Two of these similarities came as forms of prejudice- the questioning of each groups allegiance to the United States and the feeling that both posed a threat as dangerous aliens. And two of these similarities came as forms of discrimination- one on the right to buy property and on the right to attend school without being judged according to your nationality or religion. While the differences are perhaps equally stark, I hope to shed light on the similarities often forgotten between Jewish and Mexican immigrants.

PREJUDICAL CONCEPTIONS

            As the immigration of Jewish peoples surged throughout Eastern America at the turn of the century, prominent officials, politicians and businesspeople whose ancestors came from the Christian “heartland of Northwest Europe” (Sachar, 384) began to articulate exclusionary religious-based nationalism. This wave of nationalistic patriotism served to isolate Jews as un-American. America began exhibiting between those who followed their savior Jesus Christ and those who denied he was the messiah. Foreign Service officer Wibur Carr fabricated statistics in the late 1910s suggesting “ninety percent [of Jews] lack[ed] any conception of patriotic or national spirit, and the majority of this percentage is mentally incapable of acquiring it.” (Sachar, 384) Anti-Semites throughout New York, Chicago and Philadelphia began to deny Jews political power claiming they “could not demonstrate that they cared about their fellow countrymen, but only about themselves.” (Sachar, 402) This intolerance and preconception about Jews led to very successful movements to forbid a continuation of their increasing immigration into the U.S from a very unstable and unsafe Europe. Very similarly, Mexicans in the contemporary United States are seen as unpatriotic elements. Gustav Arellando, staff writer for Los Angeles’s “O.C Weekly” stated in an NPR interview, that Mexicans are “not patriotic about this country”, adding that they “are ungrateful and ignorant, contributing next to nothing as far as patriotic spirit goes.”

William Carr also spoke of the Jews much like the anti-Semitic American Christians who surrounded him. He described them as being “dangerous in their habits”. Much like immigrants attempting to escape lives of violence and poverty in 19^th and 20^th century Poland, Mexicans who have come to America expecting a better life have been consistently greeted with the same assumptions about their so called “violent inclinations” as ex-CNN anchor Lou Dobbs once charged them for having. A quick Google search of “illegal immigrants” lends you to dozens of nationalistic websites from usillegalaliens.com to deportthemall.com. The anti-immigration attitude that paints Mexicans especially as violent savages is not, however exclusive to radical online groups. In Nevada for instance, Sharron Angle, Republican challenger of Sen. Harry Reid aired an ad depicting immigrants as violent gang members who are “forcing families to live in fear.” In a televised interview, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer claimed she was leading a war against Mexicans, stating she was “out here on the battlefield getting the impact of all this illegal immigration, and all the crime that comes with it.” This statement, disregarding the fact that Arizona’s crime is far less than that of non-Border-states and that the majority of those found guilty of violent crime in Arizona are not Mexicans, mirrors the anti-Semitic falsehoods perpetrated against Jews who were perceived to pose a danger to the country. Both Sharron Angle and Jan Brewer argue that Mexicans steal jobs, heighten crime and threaten the fabric of America, much like anti-Semites argued that Jews stole power and had criminal inclinations. Both arguments, which ignore the possibility that an economy can be built upon immigrant labor and economic opportunities for non-Christian-whites also ignore the reality that crime is very little about race but, as top economists suggest, class. By highlighting the racial or religious differences present in the country at the time, the anti-Semites or anti-immigrant argument very cleverly blames problems on those who have very little impact on the country as a whole. They do this to gain support and distract the public from the bigger picture. This tactic achieves scape-goating, one of the of any nation’s political policies that incites fear of the ‘other’ in order to achieve unity for the majority.

INSTITUTIONALIZED DISCRIMINATION

While conceptions may hurt feelings, it has been the institutionalized discrimination against Jewish and Mexican immigrants that paints a truly disturbing picture of nationalistic America. Housing prejudice has defined this inequity for both minority groups. “In New York, in the last years before the war, immigrant Jews moving from ghetto neighborhoods into areas of “second settlement” found themselves blocked from renting apartments in the more desirable areas of Upper Manhattan.” Similarly, well-off Mexican-Americans have been subject to housing discrimination in wealthy suburbs of Phoenix as well as the outskirts of Atlanta and Houston. Even in a city like Los Angeles, often called a ‘safe-haven for illegals’ by conservative politicians, a study conducted by The State University of New Jersey found that Mexican Americans were more likely than Anglo Americans to be asked to pay a security deposit or application fee for apartment and home purchases throughout LA county.

In addition to home discrimination, restrictions against both Jewish and Mexican immigrants are prominent in schools. In 1926, Harvard capped how many Jews could be admitted into the college. At Yale, the same action was taken, as the admissions department was forbidden from enrolling a student body made up of more than 13% Jewish students. Although numerical percentage caps are forbidden by modern U.S law to be used against any minority group, a 2005 study by Princeton sociologists Thomas J. Espenshade and Chang Y. Chung compared the effects of affirmative action on racial and special groups at three highly selective private research universities. The study found that Hispanics, 82% of which identified as “Mexican American” were far more disadvantaged by college admissions departments than were self-identified “African-Americans”, so much so that schools were nearly three times more inclined to accept an equally qualified non-Mexican American than they were to accept somebody of partial Mexican descent.

In conclusion, while my intention in this paper is not to compare struggles solely for the purpose of generating sympathy for today’s victims of border nationalism, I feel history needs to repeat itself yet again so this bigotry can end. Something must be done to raise awareness and advance the struggles of Mexican immigrants much like it was or, as some might argue, still needs to be done for Jewish immigrants who faced the same fierce prejudice upon their entrance to the United States. In the words of Camden, New Jersey’s mayor Chris Patterson, “racism, like nationalism cannot be tolerated”. While patriotism serves to unite the nation, nationalism serves to divide it- into those who pledge allegiance to a society made up of people whose ancestors immigrated to America or a society made up of all immigrants. Nationalism, or a phobia of internal competition for external places, pits the Jew or the Mexican as the threat. The true threat is nationalism itself. For, as Chris Patterson argues, “nationalism breeds the belief that one race or group of people is entitled to more than the other”, that one group of people is better than the other. And this, weather it be anti-immigrant Nationalism or anti-Semitic nationalism, is just plain wrong. 

Anti-Italianism & Portrayals of Italian-Americans

Anti-Italianism & Portrayals of Italian-Americans

December 9, 2009 | An Essay By Sam Smith

            In 1907, Italian Immigration into the United States peaked at just under 286,000 men, women and children. By 1940, there were millions of native-born Italian-Americans living in the US. But well before the numbers grew to be this large, when far less Italians were settled in North America, strong anti-Italian prejudice existed. In 1891, a fiction book targeting the growing Mafia of Louisiana appeared on the bookshelves of The New York Detective Library in Manhattan just weeks after the lynching of eleven Italians. The book, titled The New Orleans Mafia embodied three key elements of brutal anti-Italian discrimination. First, much like Kristallnacht-era illustrations of Jews in central Europe, or ‘scientific’ explanations of the African man’s inferiority to the white man during the civil rights movement, the book both exaggerated and entirely invented generalizations about the appearance of Italians. “It was evident to the boy that both were Italians for the color of their skin and the unattractive contour of their features amply proclaimed their nationality. ‘Dagoes!’ he muttered.” By depicting Italians to be easily distinguishable by simple facial features, The New Orleans Mafia helped create and fuel a stereotypical notion of the Italian people. Second, the text goes on to depict Italians to be extremely violent. “The Sicilians have always been the most bloody- minded and revengeful of the Mediterranean races”. Claims that Italians were a bloodthirsty people became a constant theme of anti-Italianism. Third, the book bluntly groups Italians with African-Americans. “Like the Negro, the favorite weapon of the Sicilian is the razor”. Stereotypes geared toward Sicilians were often the same as stereotypes geared towards blacks, as Italians were typically and frequently conveyed as ‘White Negroes’.

In this paper, I will present and analyze these three stereotypes and their relation to the discrimination against Italians present in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. I will examine the media of the time’s role in this discrimination as well as societal disadvantages Italians faced from institutions throughout the south. I will also analyze modern day depictions of Italian-American history threw films like The Godfather and Gangs of New York and how these films relate to the topic of Italian intolerance. Finally, I will conclude by looking into the Italian Immigrants response to inequity and the current state of Italian Immigrants. The central source for this paper, as the source of all but one quote will be this week’s reading Whiteness of a Different Color by Matthew Frye Jacobson.

Throughout areas of Louisiana, Mississippi and West Virginia, Italians fostered peaceful relations and interrelations with blacks. Despite persistent and vigorous acts of racism against African-Americans, Italians stood by them “liv[ing] and work[ing] comfortably among blacks” (57). Although even socializing with colored people went against local race codes, Italians went as far as to intermarry and raise families with blacks throughout Louisiana especially. Because Italian immigrants made no effort to separate themselves by living in black communities, and freely permitting blacks to live in theirs, “southern thinking made no effort to distinguish” the two groups (57). They thus received the title ‘white nigger’, or dago. This was by no means a harmless perception, as “being like niggers” meant “being as bad as niggers” and resulted in the lynching of Italian immigrants (57).

The media largely fueled the perception of Italians as “white niggers”. The New York Times was the consistent leader of the pack when it came to anti-Italian editorials and news clippings. One article claimed it was not an “uncommon thing to see at noon some swarthy Italian…resting and dining from his tin kettle, while his brown-skinned wife is by his side”. And this was the least offensive of the Times slanders. Besides questioning the Italian’s “fitness for citizenship” the paper callously referred to them as “rattlesnakes” from a “cowardly”, “lawless” race (56). Jacobson links the relationship between media and violence, courageously exposing the New York Times role in anti-Italian brutality:

“…all the key elements common to the New York Times editorials: the depiction of the Italian colony not as properly white, the question of good citizenship; and, hence the ultimate righteousness of the lynch mob”.

                                                                                                             -Page 61

“the little jail was crowded with Sicilians, whose low, receding foreheads, dark skin, repulsive countenances and slovenly attire proclaimed their brutal nature. ”

-The New York Times[1]

            The Times, while perhaps the most unrelenting force of anti-Italianism in popular eighteenth and nineteenth century media (perpetrating discrimination against Italians based on solely on appearance, in particular) was not alone. The Portland Oregonian described Italian immigration into New Orleans as “an explosion of cheap Latin fury and braggadocio” (58). Henry Calbot Lodge of The North American Review refused not only to label the lynching of Italians as racist, but referred to the lynchings as a “reasonable response of good citizens to the immigrants’ offensive secret organizations” (60). Mainstream newspapers were largely anti-immigrant at the time and approved of the lynchings across the board, coldheartedly throwing around the term “lynch law” for “unrestricted immigration” (60). Despite the obvious racism present in newspapers across the country, so-called journalists claimed that they were being practical and that the people of America saw “no hostility towards the Italians” whatsoever (60). But when one reads a “news” article from the Times that hints upon threats of a genocide of Italians in America, it is hard to claim vicious anti-Italianism is not a factor:

“…the Times went on to warn that, if Italians failed to fall in behind other “descent” American citizens…than the mob would [succeed] in doing away with the “criminals””                                                                                  

                                                                                                            -Page 58

This language, which sounds much like that that came out of the genocide of the 1990s in Rwanda in which Tutsis were referred to as “cockroaches”, suggests that the Italian people are practically sub-human, because they are indecent and criminal. White supremacists grew furious, fueled by the image created by the media that portrayed Italians as being uncivil, and took action threw violent means. Due to this sentiment, Italians lived “in constant danger of being lynched” (62). But white supremacists, typically deemed as typical radicals, were not so radical in the time, and it was in-fact the courts, the legislation and the police force that acted as perhaps the largest perpetrator of anti-Italianism.

Police engaged in Italian discrimination after a mob went after Italians following the assassination of the police chief of New Orleans. Hundreds of Italian immigrants, who were not criminals, were arrested by law enforcement for the assassination they had no link to. The courts, when dealing with situations of criminality convicted but an Italian-American citizen, again and again brought race into the picture. “Did Italian racial character have anything to do with the original crime?” the court would ask.  Even on a year as late as 1921, Congress passed a quota which limited the number of aliens, including Italians, that were allowed to immigrate to the United States annually. The justification was on the basis that “legislation should suppress what is becoming a menace to the country”. On that very same year, two Italian Immigrants were convicted of a murder despite the “lack of evidence against them” (114). They were given the death penalty, and modern historians agree that this was an undeniable example of anti-Italian prejudice. Racism became so regularized that even Judges themselves were involved in the root of institutionalized anti-Italianism, making legal matters racial:

“One local judge, R. H Marr, Jr., pointed to the racial clannishness of the Italian colony to explain the community’s fierce outpouring of anti-Italian sentiment…Convictions in crimes involving Italians had been notoriously scarce, he charged, because, when questioned “any number of Dagoes swear to the most positive and circumstantial alibi…these people had so far as the public knew, confined their operation to their own race.”

            -Page 58

The suggestion that all Italians were normally in communication with one another but that regarding a crime, Italians were so lawless that they did things in secrecy applies racial terms and conditions to a simple matter of crime and punishment. Judges, who played a key role in the imprisonment of innocent Italians, seemed to be more interested in participating in anti-Italianism than in serving justice. The Godfather, which portrays police crackdowns on the mob as being simple criminal crackdowns of the mid 1900s, neglects to expose police crackdowns on the mob as being targeted anti-Italian crackdowns that ignored mobs of other nationalities. But of course, The New York Times was back at it again, claiming the police were not persecuting people “as Italians”, while Jacobson depicts the police’s actions as heavily targeted.

The Godfather also fed into a stereotype about Italians as mobsters, one heavily refuted by Italian-Americans throughout the course of HBO’s series The Sopranos, suggesting that a typical Italian family is one of carnage and unlawfulness. As Jacobson would say, director Francis Ford Coppola perpetrates the “popular understanding of Italians’ innate criminality.” (56). Martin Scorsese’s 2002 film Gangs of New York depicted the early discrimination of Irish settlers in Manhattan, but did not hint at the rise to power the Irish had in the late mid 1800s and the strong role they had in Anti-Italian discrimination. The “Anglo-Saxon” south was largely dominated by Irish Immigrants and anti-Italian policy was “represented by the Irish police chief” who was eventually assassinated in New Orleans by rebelling Italian mobsters. (59). It is not only stereotypes perpetrated by film that paint a negative image of Italians, but what is left out about their struggle that leads to misinformation surrounding their history. These two major motion pictures, both Best Picture nominations at the Academy Awards, portray undeniably moving and important stories, but they do not deal with a story commonly untold: that of anti-Italianism.

One subject largely but intentionally ignored by this essay up to this point is the response of Italian immigrants to the prejudice, discrimination, racism and hatred of the time. Quite simply, they did not sit by quietly. “Italian protestors themselves mobilized a racially accented language of “barbarism” and “civilization” in addressing the wrongs perpetrated in New Orleans”. Language led to revolt, and protests led to results. Inch my inch, Italians gained their ground in the south, and across America they became a emblem of culture and diversity. By 1941, they were proclaimed one of “liberty’s children” (202) by the Detroit Free Press. They were finally viewed as a respectable ethnicity, and not simply a race excluded from other whites. The transition from separating people based on European origins to separating people simply by white or black moved Italians away from the line of fire. Unfortunately, for African-Americans, a large number or Italians joined in with Irish, Swedish, Polish, Dutch, German and French Americans (now fully assimilated and identifying themselves as ‘Americans’) in the more focused and intense intolerance of blacks. Italian-Americans today are a vibrant and beloved icon of American culture. From Little Italy in lower Manhattan to pizza joints across Chicago and San Diego, Italians contribute millions of dollars and endless heart into the fabric of today’s United States.

I wrote this paper because Whiteness of a Different Color exposed to me what was a crucial part of American history largely ignored by society. Seeing films that, in small part, perpetrated this ignorance further inspired me to delve deeper into the historical portrayal of Italian Americans, focusing particularly on the late eighteenth and early nineteen century south of course. The simple yet stunning facts surrounding Italian-Americanism and Anti-Italianism could not simply be ignored. One fact was: the largest lynching in American history was of Italians. How could I not write a paper on the topic after hearing something like that? Italians may be, as historians can debate, the second most discriminated upon race in the time period this paper covers. It was of my interest what connections there were between the discrimination of blacks and discrimination of Italians, as well as the medias role in anti-Italianism was. I am glad we, as a modern American salad bowl of culture, now live peacefully in a country where rampant racism does not lead to lynch mobs or even widely accepted notions of inferiority. However, less than one hundred years ago, this discrimination was a consistent part of what defined American immigration and this is a past that must never be forgotten. 

Honor Code Upheld

Bibliography (not previously cited):

- Jacobson, Matthew Frye, Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race, Harvard, 1999

---

[1] Gambino, Richard. Vendetta: The True Story of the Largest Lynching in U. S. History

Nazism and Homosexuality

History 200

Everyday Life in the Third Reich

Paper # 1

NAZISM AND HOMOSEXUALITY

History of an Overlooked Persecution

Sam Smith

February 4, 2012

            The Nazi regime, easily labeled and commonly regarded as the classic symbol of evil, victimized many minority groups during its time in power between 1933 and 1945. Ruling over Germany for those twelve years, the Nazis persecuted non-Aryans from a massive array of religious and racial backgrounds. Accounting for at least half of its victims were the Jewish people- over 6 million killed. Other groups included communists, blacks, Romanis, the physically and mentally handicapped, Jehovah's Witnesses and of course political dissenters and opponents from all imaginable backgrounds. One group that was heavily persecuted under the Third Reich stands out, for, they were not a racial or religious minority, nor did they suffer from a mental or physical disorder. They were deemed non-typical and eventually declared enemies of the state simply for loving members of the same gender. As they have been throughout several periods of European and world history, homosexuals, particularly men, were intensely persecuted and victimized by Hitler’s regime. This paper will examine the roots of anti-gay persecution within Nazi Germany, focusing on the shift within the Nazi party originally containing many openly gay men. The paper will chronicle the early arrests and imprisonment of homosexuals and eventually examine life for homosexuals in concentration and death camps. While the persecution of homosexuals under the Third Reich is often “neglected by researchers” and “little known to the public”, it was exceptionally widespread and remains of tremendous importance in understanding the policies and practices of the National Socialist German Workers' Party.[i]

            Homosexuality within the Nazi Party and Nazi Identity 

Many historians have stressed the tremendous prevalence of homosexuality not only within the Nazi party, but also in the identity of Nazism itself. A “high incidence of homosexuals in the early SA” made for what many researchers have identified as a “surprisingly large homosexual element with the macho world” of the Nazi party.ii Moreover, the “homosexual camaraderie of the SA” has led many historians to charge that “Nazism was itself deeply defined by a militaristic homo-eroticism.”[ii] Martyn Whittock details how close relationships and personalized favors gave early Nazi leadership this image of a homosexual brotherhood:

“Ernst was nicknamed ‘Frau Rohrbein’, due to his intimate friendship with Paul Rohrbein, Berlin’s first SA commander. Ernst had first met Rohbein at the El Dorado, a favourite meeting place of Berlin’s homosexual community and, in 1931, Rohrein had introduced Ernst to an old comrade: Rohm, the overall commander of the SA. By April of that same year, Ernst was promoted to a command within the SA and, by 1932, was elected to the Reichstag as a Nazi deputy. Such string-pulling gave the SA the reputation of being a homosexual fraternity.”[iii]

            Other historians have argued that homosexuality was not as prevalent as it was exaggerated to be in early Nazi leadership. Dagmar Herzog argues in his book Sexuality and German Fascism that the sharp condemnation of homosexuality arose very early in Nazi Germany, stating that historians who suggest that homosexuality flourished within the ranks of the SS and SA are being “sensationalistic” and “exaggerating greatly.”[iv] Herzog details how Heinrich Himmler, the Chief of the German Police and the Minister of the Interior, despised homosexuality and made this very clear immediately during his time in power. Himmler’s speeches “dealt more obsessively with homosexuality than did those of any other Nazi leader.”[v] However, Herzog does state that the actual disciplining of suspected homosexuals in the SS and other organizations under Himmler’s control was “far from uniform or consistent” and his treatment of suspected homosexuals was “flexible”, allowing for the scaling back of arrests of homosexuals during the 1936 Berlin Olympics.iv Still, Herzog is firm in his denial of Whittock’s argument that homosexuality was of high incidence in early Nazi leadership, suggesting that this argument’s roots come from an attempt to “vilify the Nazi movement by painting it as riddled with homosexuals.”iv Herzog argues that even today, gays and lesbians around the world are faced with the “pernicious myth that homosexuals themselves had formed the backbone of the Nazi movement.”[vi] Moreover, Herzog states that the so-called “homosexual camaraderie” of Nazi policeman and troops is a myth and that the Nazis “shunned the soft, emotional, feminine underside of such relationships”[vii]

It is clear that the prevalence of homosexuality within the Nazi party and the identity of Nazism in relation to homoeroticism and homosexual camaraderie is a topic of great debate among historians. It is also clear that whether or not the incidences of homosexual men in Nazi leadership were high, these men did exist, and in many ways, they are tremendously connected to the roots of the persecution of homosexuals under the Nazis.

Roots and Beginnings of the Persecution

Homosexuality was first condemned by the Nazis in 1928, as the “central reason” for the Nazi persecution of homosexuals was made clear.[viii] This reason was that homosexuals would not “contribute to the Nazis drive for expanding the German population.”[ix] However, Hitler’s position had been to tolerate homosexuality. This was in line with his general approach toward “ignoring Nazi members’ personal lives, so long as they did not cause him trouble.”ii However, when Hitler felt he needed to revise his increasingly rigid and heavily propagated image of a leader “upholding public morality”, he determined that the firing of Ernst Rohm would be justified under the “condemnation of rowdiness and disorder, venal corruption and homosexuality.”ix The public knew Rohm to be a bad-mannered heavy-drinker and since anti-homosexual policy was “embraced by the majority of the population”, it was easy for Hitler to link his unruly and disruptive personality with his homosexuality.[x] Hitler’s hatred of the non-typical/abnormal identified homosexuality as “deviant.”viii As historian Ian Kershaw puts it, by condemning homosexuality within the Nazi party, Hitler was seen to be “signaling a triumph for values associated with normality.”ix

Signifying the beginning of a widespread and systematic persecution of homosexual men within Nazi Germany, the Nazi regime carried out a series of political murders known as the "Night of the Long Knives.” During a meeting between Hitler and Mussolini in Venice on June 15, 1934, Mussolini upbraided Hitler for tolerating homosexuality within the SA, which Mussolini stated was ruining Hitler's good reputation all over the world.[xi] In response, Hitler took action to eliminate gay men from the Nazi party. He claimed that his execution of homosexual or otherwise deviant Nazi leaders put an end to "homosexuality, debauchery, drunkenness, and high living" in the SA.[xii] “The Night of Long Knives” was thus carried out between June 30^th and July 2^nd of 1934. Members of the SA who were exposed for the homosexual activity or were known to be homosexual were executed. Most of the 85 killings were carried out by the SS and the Gestapo, the regime's secret police.

 Before “The Night of Long Knives”, on March 2^nd, 1933 the Prussian Minister of the Interior issued three decrees for the combating of public indecency, one of which addressed those who engaged in “unnatural sex acts.”[xiii] As sodomy was deemed unnatural, all known homosexuals were targeted. While many Germans were unaware of these decrees, they symbolized the beginning of a homophobic policy that were designed, Gunter Grau argues, to “deter and eradicate through terror, and of coercive measures to cure the ‘scourge’ of homosexuality.”xii As a result of the decrees, most of the bars known to be meeting-places for gays and lesbians were shut down in Berlin and other big cities and towns in Germany. Books featuring unnatural sex acts as well as books that featured sex outside of marriage or prostitution were banned. “All literary, popular and scientific works published since the turn of the century, and especially since the First World War, which dealt with the theme of homosexuality” were destroyed, often burnt.xii

In the second half of 1934, a special section was set up at Gestapo Headquarters to deal with homosexuality. Moreover, an institution was set up under the terms of Himmler’s secret directive, known as the “Reich Office for the Combating of Homosexuality and Abortion.”[xiv] At the end of the year all police officers were asked for lists of persons who had been homosexually active in the past. The small-scale arrests of homosexual men ensued, with “325 of the 1770 men held in ‘preventive detention’” in 1934 identified as homosexuals by 1935.[xv] Finally, in June of 1935 the sixth amendment to the Nazis Penal Code, which revised Paragraph 175 of the Criminal code, which already made homosexuality illegal, “expanded the definition of criminal acts, increased police powers and led to the arrest of about 100,000 homosexual men, of whom 50,000 were imprisoned.”viii By compiling the fullest possible register of homosexual men and requiring all local police authorities to report on suspected violations of the criminal code, the Nazis “opened the fold-gates for an unprecedented wave of public denunciations and for arbitrary actions on the part of the Criminal Police and the Gestapo.”xiv Reference to the arrests and imprisonment of gay Germans can be found in Eric A Johnson and Karl-Heinz Reuband’s What We Knew. In their interview with Karl Meyer, he states that “[The Gestapo] just put me in a cell with a lot of homosexuals they had rounded up at that time.” Meyer, who was deemed a political opponent, was considered an “enemy of the state” much like Jews and homosexuals were.[xvi]

In March of 1937 Himmler endorsed even harsher treatment of homosexuals by encouraging the Ministry of Justice to change the sentence for homosexuality from prison to penitentiary terms. However, by the time the ministry had completed a draft for a new penal code, the Second World War had broken out, and Hitler, concerned about the national morale, judged this “an inopportune moment to introduce more heavily punitive measures.”xvii

The Death Penalty for Homosexuals in the SS and Police 

Adolf Hitler issued the official edict prescribing the death penalty for SS and police members found guilty of homosexuality by a judge. The edict was put into effect on November 15, 1941. According to Herzog, “no single case or surge in offenses had provoked it.”[xvii] The law specified that “less serious cases” of homosexuality might result in a prison or penitentiary sentence but that any and all members of the SS or Gestapo who commits “indecency with another man or allows himself to be abused in an indecent manner with be punished with death.”[xviii] Herzog argues that the reasoning behind Hitler’s decision to institute the death penalty came from a combination of fears and prejudices that arose during his conversation with Joseph Goebbels on August 18, 1941 which was described in detail in Goebbels diary. These fears and prejudices were as follows: “the potential for a homosexual conspiracy to take over the state, the alleged predilections of homosexuals for young boys, the infectious disese metaphor and the need to keep the Wehrmacht and party unsullied.”xvii On this same night, August 18^th Hitler made his fateful declaration:

“Especially in the Party and its various organizations, as well as in the Wehrmacht, it is necessary to act with ruthless severity against any case of homosexuality that appears in its ranks. If this is done the state apparatus will remain clean, and it must remain clean.”

                                                                                    - Adolf Hitler

And in signing the death penalty on November 15, 1941, Hitler made this declaration official.

“A member of the SS and Police who commits unnatural acts with another man or lets himself be abused for unnatural acts shall be punished with death”

                                                                                    - Adolf Hitler

Gunter Grau gives the impression that the introduction of the death penalty for homosexual offenses in the SS and police meant that such punishments subsequently became the norm, and therefore Himmler succeeded in “cleansing” the SS.[xix] George Moose goes to the other extreme and states that “no executions actually took place; suspected homosexuals were expelled or retired from the SS instead.”[xx] Dagmar Herzog argues a hybrid: that “death sentences were carried out, but the new ruling was applied rarely and inconsistently.””xvii

Gays and Lesbians in the Camps

Of the 50,000 homosexual men who were sentenced to prison in 1935, most of them served time in regular prisons. Approximately 15,000, however, were incarcerated in Nazi concentration camps. They were differentiated by a pink triangle sewn onto their uniforms. According to Whittock, “they were particularly targeted for abuse and a number were also castrated.”viii Many homosexual men were victims of crude medical experiments conducted within the camps. These experiments were designed to “cure them of their sexual orientation. Targeted by both guards and other prisoners the death rate amongst homosexual prisoners was “very high.”viii

Buchenwald concentration camp, which started operating in 1937, began admitting homosexual men that same year, becoming the first concentration camp to do so. By the end of 144, 189 prisoners were wearing the pink triangle. They made up well under 1% of the prisoners, making it easy for other prisoners to target them. The homosexuals at Bushenwald were isolated from their friends and family and never allowed to be honored with a funeral after their death. Homosexual prisoners were also isolated from other homosexual men, as the Nazis did not want them to engage romantically or become “bound together by anything more than their sexual orientation.”[xxi] Claustrophobic conditions of internment, heavy labour in the underground galleries and a “generally poor state of health” brought death to most homosexual prisoners in Bushenwald.xxi Furthermore, reports of fellow prisoners confirmed that most of the homosexuals deported to Buchenwald were castrated. It has also become known that they were used for excruciating typhus fever experiments. In some camps, gay men could be castrated as the price of release, but in Bushenwald, castrated men were forced to remain prisoners following their castrations.

Lesbians under Nazi rule

Because women were driven from the few influential public domains and leadership positions which they had won for themselves in 1920s Germany, the Nazis had succeeded in creating a state devoid of any lesbian conspiracy for power and none were executed during the “Night of Long Knives.” Lesbians were not targeted in the Third Reich’s anti-gay laws. Women who were lesbian were infrequently perceived as “dangerous to society” and thus simply forced to behave heterosexually[xxii]. While some lesbians were killed during the Nazis time in power, they were not seen as a serious threat and thus were not victimized to the extent that gay men were.

Lesbians were exempt from penal sanctions and thus the registration and prosecution bodies set up within the Gestapo and Criminal Police in the wake of “The Night of Long Knives” concentrated almost entirely on male homosexual enemies of the state. Still, some women were persecuted and put in concentration camps for having engaged in same-sex sexual activity. As Grau argues, it is “not clear how many women had to undergo the horror of a concentration camp because of their homosexuality; most lesbians were spared that fate if they were prepared to conform.”[xxiii]

The Death Toll

The most widely accepted death toll relating to the total number of gays killed during the Holocaust is 9,000, although estimates range and the exact number cannot be known.[xxiv] The death rate among the estimated 15,000 gay men deported to concentration camps is commonly regarded to be around 60%. 9,000 is 60% of 15,00, making it the most commonly accepted toll.

While homosexuals were only one minority group victimized by Hitler’s regime, they were an important one. By identifying gays as abnormal and subversive deviants, the Nazis solidified the homophobic nature of much of Europe during the twentieth century and paved the way for the future  of anti-gay laws, bans and crimes. In conclusion, the persecution and execution of homosexuals leading up to and during the Holocaust symbolizes not only the Nazi’s obsession with rigid and twisted standards of perfection, but the continent and worldwide discrimination against gay and lesbian people and the view that they are wrong for being who they are.

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[i]  Grau, Gunter. Hidden Holocaust? Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1995. Page xxiv

[ii] Whittock, Marytn. The Third Reich. London: Constable & Robinson, 2011. Page 137

[iii] Whittock, Page 59

[iv] Herzog, Dagmar. Sexuality and German Fascism. New York: Berghahn Books, 2005. Page 259

[v] Herzog, Page 257

[vi] Herzog, Page 322

[vii] Herzog, Page 260

[viii] Herzog, Page 258

[ix] Whittock, Page 138

[x]  Kershaw, Ian: “The Hitler Myth.” Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company (2000) Page 27 

[xi] Wheeler-Bennett, John. The Nemesis of Power: The German Army in Politics 1918–1945. New York: Palgrave Macmillan,1967. Page 202

[xii] Kershaw, Ian. Hitler: 1889–1936. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1999. Page 85

[xiii] Grau, Page 26

[xiv] Grau, Page 87

[xv] Grau, Page 27

[xvi] Johnson, Eric & Reuband, Karl-Heinz. What We Knew. Cambridge, MA: Basic Books, 2005.

[xvii] Herzog, Page 265

[xviii] Herzog, Page 266

[xix] Grau, Page 182

[xx] Moose, George. The Image of Man: The Creation of Modern Masculinity. New York: Harper Collins, 1996. Page 75

[xxi] Grau, Page 265

[xxii] Grau, Page 8

[xxiii] Grau, Page 15

[xxiv] Hezog, Page 271

Bibliography

-       Grau, Gunter. Hidden Holocaust? Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1995.

-       Whittock, Marytn. The Third Reich. London: Constable & Robinson, 2011.

-       Herzog, Dagmar. Sexuality and German Fascism. New York: Berghahn Books, 2005.

-       Wheeler-Bennett, John. The Nemesis of Power: The German Army in Politics 1918–1945. New York: Palgrave Macmillan,1967.

-       Kershaw, Ian. Hitler: 1889–1936. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1999.

-       Johnson, Eric & Reuband, Karl-Heinz. What We Knew. Cambridge, MA: Basic Books, 2005.

-       Moose, George. The Image of Man: The Creation of Modern Masculinity. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.

-       Kershaw, Ian: “The Hitler Myth.” Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company (2000)