Univ., Diss.--Münster (Westfalen), 1997. / Quellen- und Literaturverz. S. [402] - 432.

Texte remanié de: Diss.--Universität Münster, 1997. / Bibliogr. p. 402-432. Index.

Thesis (M.A.) -- Central Connecticut State University, 2007. / Thesis advisor: Mieczyslaw B. Biskupski. "... in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in European History." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 106-120). Also available via the World Wide Web.

The difficulties of finding original material in general practice on which to write a Thesis made the author review his Service experience and choose the aforementioned subject. Whilst serving with the 11th Light Field Ambulance the author had the dubious privilege of working in the huts of Belsen Camp from the day of liberation onwards until the last hut was burned down by the British after complete evacuation of the camp. Few people who worked there can at any time have seen a greater wealth of clinical material. The death rate whilst evacuation was proceeding between April 20th, 1945 and May 17th, 1945, numbered some thirteen thousand in Camp 1 alone. In perusing the small amount of literature existing on the subject it is surprising that no real intensive clinical investigations seem to have been carried out at the Camp. The reasons for this are not far to seek. The magnitude of the problem which existed and smallness of resources of the liberating forces in men and material made the problem largely an administrative one of extreme urgency. Everyone in the area was employed in providing the daily wants of an average community to the internees. Food, water and clothing had to be provided. Some semblance of hygiene and order had to be brought to the Camp and an attempt made to evacuate the seriously ill estimated at some twenty eight thousand in Camp I and three thousand in Camp II. Along with another officer the author was responsible for the collection and evacuation of the sick from Camp I to Casualty Clearing Stations and General Hospitals in the neighbourhood. The appalling conditions of filth and squalor in the camp and a death rate of five hundred a day at the outset made speed in evacuation the prime consideration. Under these circumstances and because of language difficulties it was impossible to carry out a detailed examination of all patients, nor was it possible to keep clinical records. Many cases were examined in detail however end several visits were paid by the author to general hospitals where conditions were considerably more suitable for examination. Naturally no special investigations could be carried out by the author and cases were examined solely by clinical means.

The dissertation focuses on the fates of some 5 000 men, women and children of mostly Jewish descent who were deported by German Nazi authorities from the occupied Slovak State into the Sachsenhausen, Ravensbrück, Bergen-Belsen and Theresienstadt concentration camps in the period ranging from November 1944 to the end of March 1945. The main objectives of the dissertation include the establishment of the number and identity of the deportees, the circumstances of their arrest, deportation, imprisonment and liberation as well as the causes of survival, or death, of the victims of racial persecution during the German occupation of Slovakia. Based on a comparative and content analysis of the available archival sources, oral and written testimonies by survivors and, to a limited extent, of secondary literature, the writer attempts to explain the conduct of the perpetrators and victims as well as the general historical context of the deportation and imprisonment of Slovak Jews by the Nazi regime. Based on an analysis of documents related to the anti-Jewish measures taken by the Nazi security apparatus in Slovakia with the assistance of local collaborators, more general conclusions are made with regard to the development of the Nazi "Final Solution of the Jewish Question" in the German Reich and the...

In mid-April 1945, US and UK forces swept through Germany. The Western Allies had spent years preparing for the moment, cultivating a civil affairs capacity since the Interwar Period and devoting thousands of hours to planning for the occupation. However, the rapid pace of the advance stretched the new capability beyond its limits as frontline forces seized large swaths of Germany and encountered exponentially increasing numbers of displaced persons. The accidental discoveries of Buchenwald and Bergen-Belsen and the tens of thousands of survivors suffering appalling levels of starvation and disease overwhelmed the forces dispatched to address the sites, resulting in a sluggish response. Significant flaws in Allied planning assumptions caused the breakdown that potentially cost hundreds of unnecessary deaths. Yet, operational staff officers from the Supreme Headquarters down to the division level recognized the poor response and, in two short weeks, adapted the plan to address the conditions on the front. Policy adjustments and messages from General Eisenhower removed ambiguity in existing guidance and provided clear direction to frontline forces. More importantly, the Western Allies formally merged the campaign plan guiding combat operations, OVERLORD, with the plan for occupation, ECLIPSE. The changes produced a marked improvement in the US liberation of Dachau on 29 April 1945, thereby demonstrating adaptation and innovation at the operational level of war.

The thesis Jews in Czechoslovakia after WWII deals with the situation of the Czech and Moravian Jews after the WWII. It looks into the problems of the Jews liberated in the concentration camps and their process of repatriation and the problems, which were connected with their's adaptation to the society in Czechoslovakia. It follows the work of the Czech repatriation authorities and foreign Jewish organizations, which helped the Jews to adapt into the Czechoslovakia society. The thesis puts emphasizes on the differences between the behavior of the Jewish community in Prague and the Czech bureaus, which were obvious in the period of the return of the Jews to Czechoslovakia after the WWII. It also deals with the situation of the Jews from Carpathian Ruthenia and the Jews with German nationality, whose conditions where much more difficult.