In late medieval Europe, suspicions arose that minority groups wished to destroy the Christian majority by poisoning water sources. These suspicions caused the persecution of different minorities by rulers, nobles and officials in various parts of the continent during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The best-known case of this kind of persecution was attacks perpetrated against Jewish communities in the German Empire between 1348 and 1350. At this time, the Black Death devastated the continent, and Jews were accused of intentionally spreading the disease by poisoning wells. A series of terrifying massacres ensued, destroying many of the major Jewish communities in Europe. This was not, however, the only case in which such charges led to persecution. In 1321, lepers in south-western France were accused of attempting to spread their particular illness by poisoning water sources. These accusations evolved to include the idea that the plot was initiated by Muslim rulers and aided by the Jews of France. As a consequence, both Jews and lepers suffered violent fates, from expulsion or isolation to execution by fire. Similar, albeit less widespread, cases can be traced up until the fifteenth century. Often Jews were the victims, but lepers, Muslims, paupers, mendicants and foreigners also fell victim to persecution justified by allegations of well poisoning. This dissertation presents a thorough analysis of the subject of well-poisoning accusations and describes why and how they were adopted in the late Middle Ages. The study describes the origins of this phenomenon, how it spread through medieval Europe and its eventual decline. It asserts that in order to explain this process, one must first understand the factors within medieval society, culture and politics that made the idea of a well-poisoning threat convincing. It shows that these accusations were created to justify and drive the persecution and marginalization of minorities. At the same time, it claims that well-poisoning accusations could not have caused such major political and social shifts unless contemporaries genuinely believed the charges were plausible, convincing and threatening.

This period of the history of the Jews in the Yemen was selected for study on account· of the richness of the material which is available. The sources used in this research for the study of the political, economic and social situation of the Jews in the Yemen may be divided into the following groups: 1. The MSS. A - Hebrew MSS. B Arabic MSS. The printed sources A - Hebrew printed B - Arabic printed sources c - European printed sources Trave1lers A - Contemporary travellers B - Modern travellers In addition to the Hebrew and Arabic sources we have a series of eye-witness reports from travellers who visited the Yemen during the last three centuries, and whose observations have had remarkable and enduring results. The information obtained from these sources is plentiful and of great interest and importance for the history of the Yemen in general and supplies us with personal observations on the people, both Arabs and Jews. Such journevs increased the volume of knowledge and broadened its horizons owing to the opportunities taken for study and investigation. Although these sources have been mentioned in both the footnotes and the bibliography, it would be worth mentioning them here to estimate their relative informative value. One of the most essential Hebrew sources on which we have relied most in this dissertation is Korot Ha-Zman, written by Habshush. All we can learn about Habshush must be gleaned from his own writings. He was primarily a coppersmith by profession and it was only in his later years that he took up writing. In the Spring of 1893, Habshush was occupied in writing his Hebrew account of the history of the Jews'in the Yemen. The Autumn of the same year he spent writing his account about his journey with Halevy.1 His decision to write his own works was perhaps partly due to the influence of the European travellers who spread culture among the Jews in the Yemen in the nineteenth century. But his method of writing and his bitter complaints against the treatment of Ha1evy.

Doctor of Philosophy / This regional study documents the life and the destruction of the Jewish community of Magdeburg, in the Prussian province of Saxony, between 1933 and 1945. As this is the first comprehensive and academic study of this community during the Nazi period, it has contributed to both the regional historiography of German Jewry and the historiography of the Shoah in Germany. In both respects it affords a further understanding of Jewish life in Nazi Germany. Commencing this study at the beginning of 1933 enables a comprehensive view to emerge of the community as it was on the eve of the Nazi assault. The study then analyses the spiralling events that led to its eventual destruction. The story of the Magdeburg Jewish community in both the public and private domains has been explored from the Nazi accession to power in 1933 up until April 1945, when only a handful of Jews in the city witnessed liberation. This study has combined both archival material and oral history to reconstruct the period. Secondary literature has largely been incorporated and used in a comparative sense and as reference material. This study has interpreted and viewed the period from an essentially Jewish perspective. That is to say, in documenting the experiences of the Jews of Magdeburg, this study has focused almost exclusively on how this population simultaneously lived and grappled with the deteriorating situation. Much attention has been placed on how it reacted and responded at key junctures in the processes of disenfranchisement, exclusion and finally destruction. This discussion also includes how and why Jews reached decisions to abandon their Heimat and what their experiences with departure were. In the final chapter of the community’s story, an exploration has been made of how the majority of those Jews who remained endured the final years of humiliation and stigmatisation. All but a few perished once the implementation of the ‘Final Solution’ reached Magdeburg in April 1942. The epilogue of this study charts the experiences of those who remained in the city, some of whom survived to tell their story.

Doctor of Philosophy / This regional study documents the life and the destruction of the Jewish community of Magdeburg, in the Prussian province of Saxony, between 1933 and 1945. As this is the first comprehensive and academic study of this community during the Nazi period, it has contributed to both the regional historiography of German Jewry and the historiography of the Shoah in Germany. In both respects it affords a further understanding of Jewish life in Nazi Germany. Commencing this study at the beginning of 1933 enables a comprehensive view to emerge of the community as it was on the eve of the Nazi assault. The study then analyses the spiralling events that led to its eventual destruction. The story of the Magdeburg Jewish community in both the public and private domains has been explored from the Nazi accession to power in 1933 up until April 1945, when only a handful of Jews in the city witnessed liberation. This study has combined both archival material and oral history to reconstruct the period. Secondary literature has largely been incorporated and used in a comparative sense and as reference material. This study has interpreted and viewed the period from an essentially Jewish perspective. That is to say, in documenting the experiences of the Jews of Magdeburg, this study has focused almost exclusively on how this population simultaneously lived and grappled with the deteriorating situation. Much attention has been placed on how it reacted and responded at key junctures in the processes of disenfranchisement, exclusion and finally destruction. This discussion also includes how and why Jews reached decisions to abandon their Heimat and what their experiences with departure were. In the final chapter of the community’s story, an exploration has been made of how the majority of those Jews who remained endured the final years of humiliation and stigmatisation. All but a few perished once the implementation of the ‘Final Solution’ reached Magdeburg in April 1942. The epilogue of this study charts the experiences of those who remained in the city, some of whom survived to tell their story.

I analyze the behavior of Jews imprisoned in the Treblinka, Sobibór, and Birkenau extermination camps in order to illustrate a systematic process of deception and psychological conditioning, which the Nazis employed during World War II to preclude Jewish resistance to the Final Solution. In Chapter I, I present resistance historiography as it has developed since the end of the war. In Chapter II, I delineate my own argument on Jewish behavior during the Final Solution, limiting my definition of resistance and the applicability of my thesis to behavior in the extermination camp, or closed, environment. In Chapters III, IV, and V, I present a detailed narrative of the Treblinka, Sobibór, and Birkenau revolts using secondary sources and selected survivor testimony. Finally, in Chapter VI, I isolate select parts of the previous narratives and apply my argument to demonstrate its validity as an explanation for Jewish behavior.

This thesis compares the different trauma received at the three major hiding places for Jewish children in Belgium during the Holocaust: Christian establishments, private families, and Jewish orphanages. Jewish children hidden at Christian establishments received mainly religious trauma and nutritional, sanitary, and medical neglect. Hiding with private families caused separation trauma and extreme hiding situations. Children staying at Jewish orphanages lived with a continuous fear of being deported, because these institutions were under constant supervision of the German occupiers. No Jewish child survived their hiding experience without receiving some major trauma that would affect them for the rest of their life. This thesis is based on video interviews at Shoah Visual History Foundation and Blum Archives, as well as autobiographies published by hidden children.