Definition of "holocaust survivor"

Great Debates
1

It seems to me that there should be a straightforward definition of what a holocaust survivor is/was. Now that the vast majority of that generation is no longer here, the term “son/daugher or grandson/daugher of a holocaust survivor” has started to creep into our lexicon. However, I have a problem with this.

Depending on how you twist it, just about anyone who has European ancestry from the early 20th century to the time of WWII can claim to be a holocaust survivor, even if they were in actuality not in any danger.

For example: in a conversation with a friend, he informed me that his Grandfather was a holocaust survivor, a Jew who fled Russia. Ok, no problem with that, as clearly being jewish in Russia during WWII was no picnic. (Actually, from what I’ve read, being Jewish in Russia AFTER WWII was no picnic either). So, as the conversation continues, he volunteers that his grandfather went to America in 1925. 1925?!?! His grandfather was NOT a holocaust survivor, he was an immigrant, a Jewish immigrant, but that’s it. He may have been going to America for a number of reasons, but escaping Hitler’s Germany and the holocaust is not one of them. I don’t know why he left Russia. Perhaps he wasn’t having a good time being Jewish in Russia in 1925, or perhaps he wanted to go to America for a thousand other reasons, many of which had nothing to do with his being Jewish, but to identify his grandfather as a holocaust survivor, is, IMHO an insult to the real holocaust survivors that did face the grim, real experience of the holocaust.

So, I ask, what makes someone a holocaust survivor?

Here’s a working definition of what I think it should encompass - a person who, because of their religious beliefs, nationality, culture, heritage, etc who was persecuted in Hitler’s Germany from the period of 1933-1945, and lived to see the end of the war. If someone survived this period of prosecution and was someone on the prosecution target list, they can claim survivor status. (If the dates need to be debated, fine… Debate. But this is my working definition).

A person who spent time in a concentration camp, obviously, was on the front lines of the holocaust. But that person did not have to be Jewish to attract the attention of the SS, or become declared an “undesirable” by the state. So, you didn’t, (IMO) have to be in a concentration camp. You could also have been someone who was hunted down because of your background, but never caught. A Pole who happened to escape Poland in 1940 and make it to the West certainly would be a holocaust survivor, regardless of whether or not he was Jewish.

However, someone who was living in the West, or who had immigrated to the West before the atrocities began does not qualify as a holocaust survivor.

I would say that someone like Einstein, who was in The West at the time and could not return home because of the danger to his life was not a holocaust survivor by definition. He clearly would have been persecuted if he returned home, but he didn’t. He didn’t live “on the run”, and was not hunted down, even though he could have easily been if the Germans wanted to do so.

I think someone like Einstein could have another word associates with their experience, but holocaust survivor seems a stretch, and denigrates those that truly did suffer through the holocaust. I think this type of person should be identified in the definition. However, somehow we must distinguish the difference between his life and the lives of those living daily within the horror of the holocaust.

I am interested in hearing from the dopers on this. First, IS there an accepted definition of “holocaust survivor”, and if so, how broad a brush is used? As a point of reference, I had a grandfather who left Poland in 1927. Whether he was Jewish or not is a question the family is currently trying to resolve. However, no one has EVER described him as being a holocaust survivor, including him. And in my opinion, whether he was Jewish or not makes no difference. As a Pole, he was an undesirable, and would have been persecuted in one form or fashion if he had remained in Poland and caught. Calling him a holocaust survivor is an insult to people who actually lived theough and survived it.

2

Anyone actually in danger of of harm from the Nazis, and yet was not killed by them is (or was) a Holocaust survivor. Some people may want a stricter definition but that one is suitable for me.

3

Russian Jews were fleeing some really bad conditions in the 1920s.
I’d agree that a Holocaust Survivor would be someone like the woman whom my nephew asked at a swimming pool, “Who wrote on your arm?”, but the Nazis are not the only ones who brought terror, pain and death to Jews.

Can you imagine having that horror brought back on a sunny morning at the apartment swimming pool by a child?
Wow.
Sorry, I digress.

4

At least he ddin’t say: Nice tat, granny!

good thing I don’t believe in hell or else I’d be going there!

5

Your friend might be using “Holocaust survivor” as a catchall term for the oppression that Jews experienced in eastern and central Europe during the early 1900s.

Just like I might talk about Jim Crow second-class citizenship when talking about my parents, who grew up during the “Jim Crow” era but who lived in Indiana. I’m generalizing temporally. Your friend is generalizing spatially. Both generalizations would be inappropriate in the context of, say, financial restitution. But they can also be useful shorthand as long as folks aren’t being too pedantic.

6

Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith were hanged in Indiana. The song Strange Fruit was written with them in mind.

7

Right, but the Jim Crow system was a Southern thing. Indiana was a very racist state, but it wasn’t a Jim Crow state.

8

Ah. I have mistakenly lumped the two together.

9

Ultimately, the purpose of language is to communicate information. You can only judge the use of word in a certain way by whether or not it succeeds at communicating the intended information. “Holocaust survivor” means, to probably 99.9% of the US population, someone who lived during Hitler’s rule in either Germany or lands that Germany conquered and survived. I would say your friend is using the term in a way that adds more confusion than clarity.

10

I’m okay with “pogrom survivor” (aka roof fiddler) but claiming holocaust survival for someone who left Europe before 1933 is unsupportable.

11

Is it possible that this friend was just clueless about history? I find it all too plausible that someone might believe that WWII occurred during the 1920s.

12

My experience is that Jewish folks use the term to refer only to people who escaped Europe from the Nazis.
But I wouldn’t mess with the guy over it. :slight_smile:

13

While there is a perception that Jim Crow “was a Southern thing”, I don’t think that’s completely true.

Kansas was not a “Southern state” but let’s remember the famous Brown decision banning segregation occurred not in Birmingham, Alabama but in Topeka Kansas.

Indiana had quite a few “sundown towns” and I believe also had other racist laws and institutions that certainly would be classified as Jim Crow if they’d been in the South.

I’m sure you know what “sundown towns” were but for others, they were towns where it was literally illegal to be there if you were black after sundown. The idea being that blacks would go there as servants but quite literally couldn’t live there.

14

My grandfather (the one who didn’t serve in combat)? If the Nazis had taken over the US, he would have been harmed. I’ve seen someone use that logic: he was in Connecticut, but the Nazis wanted to kill him, it was only the small matter of not being in power in Connecticut that stopped them.

15

The problem is, so many people expand the definition to fit just about everybody who wants to make an argument that they were a HS. In the last thread I recall about it, just about everybody in Europe was a survivor. Dunno if they included England.

Originally Posted by **TriPolar **
Anyone actually in danger of of harm from the Nazis, and yet was not killed by them is (or was) a Holocaust survivor. Some people may want a stricter definition but that one is suitable for me.

If that is the case, I am a Holocaust Survivor. My mother was in England during the blitz, a dozen years before I was born. Had she been killed, I would never have been born.

16

You did not exist at the time and thus were not in actual danger. However, I wouldn’t see anything wrong with your mother being considered a Holocaust survivor. I understand that’s not what people typically mean, but I don’t see the need to draw a line between people who experienced different levels of danger when both had reasonable fear for their lives.

17

I’ve always thought of a Holocaust survivor as someone who was actually in a concentration camp.

18

Well, if Anne Frank had managed to stay in hiding until after the war, I’d have no problem counting her and her relatives.

19

Hmmm, good point. Then that would include people who managed to elude the Nazis, I guess, rather than escape. I don’t know. (I think that was the case with Roman Polanski)

20

One of my uncles was born and raised in the U.S., and was a holocaust survivor. After Pearl Harbor, he enlisted and was deployed in Europe. Somehow the Germans captured him, and when they discovered he was Jewish, sent him to Auschwitz. He remained there until the end of the war, and of course was treated like all the other Jews. I remember, as a kid, seeing the number tattooed on his arm.