MAFIA

Mafia Chronology - Section I

1282
Palermo, Sicily

"Sicilian Vespers" revolution against the occupying Angevins is traditionally viewed as the birth of the Sicilian Mafia. There are no contemporary mentions of the name "Mafia," a term which comes into being hundreds of years later, but the underground movement against Anjou may be seen as the ancestor of a later Mafia.

1792


New York, US

Coulter's Brewery is erected at the Five Points intersection of New York's Lower East Side, facing Paradise Square. The Brewery in later years and in a later incarnation as a broken-down tenement would become the centerpiece of New York's most impoverished and criminally active neighborhood.

1805


Genoa, Italy
Giuseppe Mazzini
Birth

1834


New Orleans, US
Joseph P. Macheca
Birth. (according to one source, his name was originally Peter Carvanna).

1837


New York, US

Coulter's Brewery on the Lower East Side becomes a tenement house. In the decades to come, it would become known as the "Old Brewery" and be inhabited by the poorest of the New York City's immigrant poor. It would be the site of numerous gang battles, murders and assorted crimes.

c.1845


New Orleans, US
Joseph P. Macheca
Macheca's father was sent off for a long prison stay and urged his wife Marietta to remarry. She married Giuseppe Mercieca (Joseph Macheca), who was originally from Malta and had established a fruit selling business in New Orleans. Young Peter Carvanna's name became Joseph Peter Macheca. Joseph Macheca Sr. later had two other sons with his wife Marietta.

1854


Corleone, Sicily
Antonio Morello
Approximate date of birth in some older sources for the most senior of the Morello-Terranova brothers. While a New York immigrant named Antonio Morello did earn a criminal reputation around the turn of the 20th Century, it now appears that he was not related to the Morello-Terranova family.

1857


Monreale, Sicily
Charles Matranga
Birth

1858


New Orleans, US
Charles Matranga
Family moves from Sicily.

1859


Palermo, Sicily
Giuseppe Mazzini
Revolutionary and former member of Neapolitan Camorra, Mazzini seems to have united Palermo opponents of Bourbon rule within a "Mafia" underground organization built along the lines of the Camorra.


1860
Jan

New Orleans, US
Raffaele Agnello
Palermo Mafioso Agnello arrives in New Orleans. His brother Joseph is already settled in the city.

1860
Apr
3
Palermo, Sicily
Giuseppe Mazzini
Supporting Mazzini's Republican movement, Mafia overthrows Bourbon authority in Palermo.

1861


Palermo, Sicily

Mafia appears to begin incorporating the groups of bandits in the Sicilian hills.

U.S. Civil War begins with Confederate attack on Fort Sumter - April 12, 1861.
1861


Texas, US
Joseph Macheca
Macheca becomes rich running Union blockades during the Civil War.

1862


Bisacquino, Sicily
Vito Cascio Ferro
Birth

1863


Sicily

The term "Mafia" becomes more widely known after a play about heroic Palermo jail inmates is produced.

Confederacy surrenders, ending Civil War - April 9, 1865.
President Lincoln assassinated in Washington, DC - April 14, 1865
1865


New Orleans, US
Joseph Macheca
Wealthy Macheca returns to Louisiana, sets up steamship trading company, involves himself in local Democratic politics. Begins to organize the "Innocents" gang of Sicilian immigrants.

1867
May
2
Corleone, Sicily
Giuseppe Morello
Birth. (a.k.a. Peter, "The Clutch Hand.") Giuseppe Morello appears to have been the oldest of the Morello-Terranova brothers. He was half-brother to Nicholas Morello(Terranova) and Ciro and Vincent Terranova. A number of sources incorrectly place Giuseppe Morello's birth in either 1863 or 1870.

1867


Sicily
Rosario Meli Meli, 22, possibly a key player in the youth-oriented early Mafia, is convicted of murders. He escapes from police.

1868
Oct

New Orleans, US
Joseph Macheca
Macheca's "Innocents" gang gets its first notice from authorities and media during the Presidential election season. The gang conducts violent raids against Republican African-Americans in the French Quarter.

1868
Oct
28
New Orleans, US
Joseph Macheca
Raffaele Agnello,
Litero Barba
On his way home from a meeting of Macheca's Innocents gang at the Orleans Ballroom, Litero Barba is shot to death at the corner of St. Philip and Chartres Streets. Barba is a leader of the local Messina colony. While the killing was first attributed to African Americans, Mafia leader Raffaele Agnello was later deemed responsible.

1868


New Orleans, US
Rosario Meli,
Raffaele Agnello,
Joseph Macheca
Meli turns up in New Orleans as a subordinate to Raffaelo Agnello, who is challenging the rule of the indigenous mob of Joseph Macheca.

1868
Dec

New Orleans, US
Raffaele Agnello,
Joseph Agnello, brother of Mafia boss Raffaele Agnello, hosts a party at his Royal Street residence to bring together the competing factions in the local Sicilian underworld. The gathering turns violent. Agnello lieutenant Alphonse Mateo is shot in the face at close range. Messinian faction boss Joseph Banano is shot in the back. Both men survive.

1869
Feb
15
New Orleans, US
Raffaelo Agnello,
Agnello sends his brother Joseph and several other members of his organization to attack the Messinian gang bosses at home. The group bursts into a Chartres Street residence, opening fire with shotguns. Messinian leaders Joseph Banano, Giovanni Casabianca, Pedro Allucho and two other men managed to escape with only minor injuries.

1869
April
1
New Orleans, US
Raffaele Agnello,
Joseph Macheca
Assassin Joseph Florada ambushes and kills Agnello in front of the Macheca produce store on Toulouse Street. He shoots Agnello in the face at close range with a blunderbuss pistol. Agnello bodyguard Frank Sacarro pursues and shoots at the Florada. Florada escapes through a nearby bakery.

1869
July
22
New Orleans, US
Raffaelo Agnello
Agnello's death is avenged as his brother Joseph and Salvador Rosa murder Messinian leaders Joseph Banano and Pedro Allucho near the French Market.

1869


New Orleans, US
Joseph Macheca,
Raffaelo Agnello
Macheca's gang puts down the remnants of the Agnello challenge. Macheca helps to establish the Matranga family as the leaders of the local Sicilian underworld.

American East and West are joined by railroad - 1869
1870


Monreale, Sicily

The Stuppagghieri criminal group comes to light in Monreale. It competes with old-line Mafia there.

1871


Italy
Jim Colosimo
Birth. (a.k.a. "Big Jim".)

1871



Giuseppe Mazzini
Death - about 66 years old.

1872
Apr
20
New Orleans, US
Raffaelo Agnello
Agnello's brother Joseph is shot to death at the Picayune Pier. His killers are Joseph Maressa, Joseph Florada and two other men.

1872


Chicago, US
Jim Colosimo
Arrives in Chicago.

1874


Sicily
Antonino Leone,
Giuseppe Esposito
Mafia gains international attention as leader Leone and his lieutenant, Giuseppe Esposito, kidnap English banker and demand ransom. Payments are slow. Leone reportedly mails first one ear, then the other, and then a portion of the victim's nose to his family. Reports of the mutilation appear to have been greatly exaggerated.

1875


Sicily
Antonino Leone,
Giuseppe Esposito
Under pressure from the English government, the Italian army moves against Leone. Enduring significant losses, the army encircles Leone's band in the hills and captures the leader as well as Esposito. Leone is sentenced to life in prison (serves only a few years before escaping to North Africa), but Esposito escapes from police and returns to lead the Sicilian Mafia.

1875


San Francisco, US
Rosario Meli
Meli and some followers move from New Orleans to San Francisco in the hopes of establishing themselves as leaders of a Mafia group there.

Telephones first exhibited - 1876.
1877
Mar
19
Corleone, Sicily
Ignazio Lupo
Birth. (a.k.a. Ignazio Saietta, "Lupo the Wolf.")

1877


Sicily
Calogero Vizzini
Birth. (Known to Mafiosi as "Zu Calo" or Uncle Calo.)

1878
Sep
29
New Orleans, US
Salvatore Marino
Leader of the rebel Mafia movement known as Stuppagghieri (Stoppaglieri) dies after a bout with Yellow Fever.

1878
Nov

New York, US
Giuseppe Esposito
With authorities on his trail, Espositio decides to flee to U.S. Sails to New York via Marseilles, France. Notes that New York underworld is dominated by Irish gangs with some smaller, inconspicuous Italian/Sicilian gangs. Possibly gets to work organizing the Mafia in New York.

1878


San Francisco, US
Rosario Meli
Meli and several associates are accused of murder. An underling confesses to the killing and insists it was a matter of honor. No prosecution in the case. Group then charged, convicted and jailed for robbery.

1879


Italy
Antonino Leone
The legendary brigand leader Leone reportedly escapes from prison, disappears in North Africa.

1879


New York, US
Joe Petrosino
Future super-cop arrives in New York City.

1879
Spring

New Orleans, US
Giuseppe Esposito,
Joseph Macheca
Looking for greener pastures, Esposito and some associates relocate from New York to New Orleans. Finds Macheca agreeable to sharing underworld leadership. Esposito renames himself Vincenzo Rebello.

1879
Oct

New Orleans, US
Giuseppe Esposito (a.k.a. Vincenzo Rebello)
Esposito marries Sarah Castagno. News travels back to Sicily, where Esposito left a wife and children.


1880


New Orleans, US
Giuseppe Provenzano
Esposito lieutenant Provenzano controls work on New Orleans docks.

1880


New Orleans, US
David Hennessey
Hennessey, who works in the New Orleans police force along with his cousin Mike, first becomes aware of a Mafia presence in his town.

1880
Sept.
8
San Francisco, US
Rosario Meli
American officials seek to deport Meli. He is moved to New York and reportedly boarded ship for Sicily. However, he seems never to have arrived at his destination.

1881
Jul
5
New Orleans, US
Giuseppe Esposito
Tony Labruzzo
David Hennessey
Learning of his Sicilian Mafia connections through his Sicilian wife and an informer, Tony Labruzzo, Hennessey nabs Esposito and turns him over to be deported. Esposito returns to New York City on July 13 for an extradition hearing.

1881
Jul
13
New York, US
Giuseppe Esposito
Esposito insists he is Vincenzo Rebello and has been wrongly identified. He cannot be deported until authorities can prove his identity through photos and witnesses. New York Sicilian community mobilizes to assist him.

1881
Sep
21
New York, US
Giuseppe Esposito
His identity proved, Esposito is deported, faces murder charges in Italy. Internal struggles erupt within Mafia organizations in New Orleans and New York as Mafiosi seek to determine who has betrayed Esposito.

1881


Rome, Italy
Giuseppe Esposito
Convicted of murders, Esposito is jailed for life.

Electric lights make their debut in lower Manhattan - 1882
1882


New Orleans, US
Giuseppe Provenzano,
Joseph Macheca,
Charles Matranga,
David Hennessey
Two factions emerge in New Orleans after Esposito's arrest. Provenzano's group, comprised of more traditional mafiosi with ties to Palermo leadership, are angered that Macheca did not use his political influence to save Esposito. The Macheca-Matranga faction includes home-grown criminals. Macheca is able to use political muscle to have Hennessey brothers dismissed from police force.

1882


New York. US
Arnold Rothstein
Birth.

1882


Naples, Italy
Johnny Torrio
Birth. (a.k.a. "Terrible John.")

1883


Sicily
Vito Cascio Ferro
Assault is reportedly first official charge to go on Cascio Ferro's police record.

1883


New York, US
Joe Petrosino
Joins New York police force.

1884


New York, US
Johnny Torrio
Taken to live in New York by his recently widowed mother.

1884
Apr.
5
Staten Island, New York, US
Antonio Flaccomio,
Camillo Farach Farach's dead body is found in a field on Staten Island. His business partner (cigar store at 103 Degraw Street in Brooklyn), Antonio Flaccomio, is primary suspect. Police believe the two dueled with sword canes over a financial disagreement. Coroner's jury eventually decides that Farach's death is the result of a suicide, though he was stabbed both in his chest and his back.

1886
May
18
Corleone, Sicily
Vincent Terranova
Birth.

1886


Sicily
Giuseppe Masseria
Birth. (a.k.a. "Joe the Boss.")

1886


Castellamare del Golfo, Sicily
Salvatore Maranzano
Birth. (a.k.a. "Don Turridru.")

1886
July

New York, US
Antonio Flaccomio,
John Farach Flaccomio, in hiding in Buffalo, Chicago, Louisville and New Orleans since 1884, resurfaces in New York City. He appears before John Farach, brother of Camillo Farach, admits responsibility for Camillo's death and asks to be allowed to return to live in the city. Farach tells him to stay out of Brooklyn or he will be killed.

1887
Apr.
14
New York, US
Antonio Flaccomio
A friend leads Flaccomio to a dark spot at Manhattan's Jersey Street, near Crosby Street, and attacks him. Flaccomio is prepared for the betrayal and shoots his assailant in the wrist. The two men flee. Flaccomio runs a grocery nearby at 607 Third Avenue. He has apparently been condemned to death by regional Mafia leaders who believe he violated underworld codes by taking Camillo Farach's life in 1884 and by aiding a government investigation into Sicilian counterfeiting rings.

1887
Jun
6

Cesare LaMare
Birth.

1888


New Orleans, US
David Hennessey
A wave of reform sweeps through New Orleans and leads to Hennessey rejoining the police force as its chief.

1888


New Orleans, US
Rocco Geraci
Geraci is identified as top enforcer for the Macheca-Matranga group.

1888


New Orleans, US
Joseph Macheca,
Charles Matranga,
Giuseppe Provenzano
Authorities believe Macheca-Matranga organization has imported 320 members of the Stoppaglieri group from Sicily. Macheca-Matranga is preparing for all-out war against Provenzano's Mafia and begins challenging Provenzano's monopoly on the docks.

1888
July
20
Corleone, Sicily
Ciro Terranova
Birth. (a.k.a. Ciro Morello, "The Artichoke King," "The Boss," and in at least one reference "Whitey.")

1888
Oct.
14
New York, US
Carlo & Vincenzo Quarteraro,
Antonio Flaccomio
Flaccomio stabbed to death in the first recognized Mafia murder in New York. Brothers Carlo and Vincent Quarteraro are accused of the crime, which occurred in front of the Cooper Union building at Eighth Street and Third Avenue, not far from Flaccomio's grocery. Flaccomio was drinking and gambling with acquaintances at La Trinicria restaurant at Manhattan's St. Mark's Place, owned by Giuseppe Canizzaro and Natale Sabatino. An argument erupted. Sabatino and Francesco Aita escorted Flaccomio out of the restaurant and down the street. Carlo and Vincenzo Quarteraro charged after Flaccomio with knives. Carlo stabbed Flaccomio to death. Police decided that the killing was the result of a vendetta linked to the betrayal of Sicilian counterfeiting rings and to the murder of Camillo Farach.

1888
Oct.
22
New York, US
Carlo & Vincenzo Quarteraro,
Antonio Flaccomio
Carlo Quarteraro, believed to be the actual murderer of Flaccomio, has fled the country. His brother Vincenzo turns himself in to police, believing he is wanted merely as a material witness. Vincenzo is charged with murder. NYPD Inspector Byrnes announces to the press that the Palermo, Sicily, Mafia has branches in the United States, headquartered in New York City and New Orleans.

1889
Jan.
24
New Orleans, US
Giuseppe Provenzano,
Vincenzo Ottumvo,
Joseph Macheca,
Charles Matranga,
David Hennessey
According to Chandler, Provenzano attempts to negotiate a peace treaty with Macheca-Matranga, but his emissary, Vincenzo Ottumvo, is axed to death. (Note: This story is at odds with police records.) Hennessey attempts to intervene in the erupting conflict. Calls a conference and arranges truce but appears to be siding with Provenzano.

1889
Feb
11

Joseph Bruno Dovi
Birth

1889
Apr.

New York, US
Carlo & Vincenzo Quarteraro,
Antonio Flaccomio Vincenzo Quarteraro is acquitted of the Flaccomio murder. Disgusted police detective remarks that Italians in New York can go ahead and "kill each other."

1889


Palermo, Sicily
Ignazio Lupo
Lupo, just 12 years old, is believed to have murdered a man named Salvatore Morello (apparently unrelated to the Giuseppe Morello family). Flees to New York to escape prosecution.


1890
Jan
6
Corleone, Sicily
Nicholas Morello
Birth

1890
Apr
6
New Orleans, US
Giuseppe Provenzano,
Joseph Macheca,
Charles Matranga,
Provenzano forces ambush some Macheca-Matranga men at Claiborne and Esplanade Streets, killing two. Key Provenzano figures are arrested. Despite "underworld code," Macheca-Matranga gang provides information on the crime to police.

1890
May
1
New Orleans, US
Giuseppe Provenzano,
Joseph Macheca,
Charles Matranga
Open warfare begins between rival underworld factions.

1890
July

New Orleans, US
Giuseppe Provenzano
Provenzano defendants are convicted of the killings, but judge throws out the verdict and orders a new trial.

1890
Summer

New Orleans, US
David Hennessey
Police chief prepares to testify on behalf of the Provenzano group in second ambush trial Oct. 17 and to expose the Macheca-Matranga mob.

1890
Oct
15
New Orleans, US
David Hennessey,
Joseph Macheca,
Charles Matranga
Hennessey is ambushed near corner of Girod and Basin Streets at about 11:30 p.m. He was on his way home to 275 Girod Street. Boy walks ahead of him along the street and whistles a signal. Gunmen emerge and kill the police chief.Macheca-Matranga leadership is hauled in and charged with the assassination.

1890
Jan
1
Dedham, MA, US
Giuseppe DeLucca
Giacchino Cocchiara
DeLucca convicted of Nov. 21 killing of Edward Cunningham. State witness Cocchiara is marked for death.

1891
Mar
11
New Orleans, US
Joseph Macheca,
Charles Matranga
Jury finds Macheca-Matranga defendants not guilty. Jury tampering is evident. The group remains in custody.

1891
Mar
14
New Orleans, US
Joseph Macheca,
Charles Matranga
Angry mob asembles, enters the jail and murders most of the defendants. Macheca is among those killed. Charles Matranga manages to survive the incident and later becomes recognized head of New Orleans underworld.

1891


Cosenza Province, Italy
Francesco Castiglia
Birth of Frank Costello. His birthplace is usually said to be the village of Lauropoli. But Selvaggi names the town of Cassano Jonio.

1891


Castellamare del Golfo, Sicily
Salvatore Sabella
Birth.

1891


Corleone, Sicily
Jack Dragna
Birth.

1891
Aug
26
Brooklyn, US
Robert Castellano
Brooklyn police investigate threats against cigar store owner Castellano, speculate that a branch of Mafia is responsible.

1891
Oct
10
Castellamare del Golfo, Sicily
Stefano Magaddino
Birth.

1892


New Orleans, US
Giuseppe Provenzano,
Charles Matranga
Provenzano family flees New Orleans as Matranga organization absorbs the remainder of the Provenzano mob. Matranga is supreme Mafia boss in the city.

1892
Dec
4
Brooklyn, US
Antonio Morello,
Francesco Meli Antonio Morello allegedly kills Neapolitan Francesco Meli of Brooklyn. Incident may represent a struggle over control of the Brooklyn docks. Morellos establish control bases in Brooklyn and upper Manhattan/Bronx. Lower Manhattan appears to be left alone (still dominated by Irish. Jewish gangs).

1893
Mar
8
New York, US
Nicholas Morello,
Giuseppe Morello,
Ciro Terranova,
Vincent Terranova
Morello-Terranova family moves from Sicily to New York, affiliates itself with Sicilian mobster Ignazio Lupo.

1893


Sicily
Raffaele Palizzolo
Palizzolo is believed to have murdered Baron Emanuele Notarbartolo, who died after 16 knife wounds.

1894
Jan
9
Boston, US
Pasquale Sacco
Police speculate that a branch of the Mafia or the Camorra is behind the brutal razor slaying of Sacco.

1894
Mar
8
Providence, RI, US
Dante Regali,
Augusto Ferrari,
John Caproni
Regali and Ferrari stand trial for robbing and beating local banker Caproni.

1895
Jan
1
Washington, DC, US
John Edgar Hoover
Birth.

1895
Jan
27
New Orleans, US
Police Chief Dexter Gaster
Gaster reports that the local Mafia - thought extinct after 1891 lynchings - is once again active.

1895
May
25
Danville, IL, US

Mob lynches two alleged leaders of a criminal gang. Danville authorities warn local gangsters to leave town.

1895
Jun
21
Boston, US
Gioacchino Cocchiara,
Giuseppe DeLucca,
Antonio Caro Armblissa
Fearful that his friend Armblissa is conspiring with imprisoned DeLucca on a vendetta, barber Cocchiara shoots Armblissa twice.

1895


Chicago, US

1895 is generally regarded as the official start date for the Unione Siciliana in Chicago. The Unione became a national brotherhood providing support for Sicilian immigrants but was later contaminated by Mafiosi and turned into a criminal network. An earlier start date for the organization (or, perhaps, an earlier parent group) appears likely.

1895


Brooklyn, US
Giuseppe Balsamo
(a.k.a. "Battista Balsamo") Arrives in New York. Was an established Sicilian Mafioso. One source claims erroneously that he was the first American "Godfather." His authority was likely confined to a region of Brooklyn.

1895


New York, US
Francesco Castiglia
Frank Costello arrives in New York. Family settles into apartment on East 108th Street and begins operating a small grocery.

1895
July
4
Waterbury, CT, US
Antonio Spadola
Local Mafioso Spadola is implicated in the shooting of Nicolo Errico.

1895
Sep
11
Waterbury, CT, US
Antonio Spadola
Newspapers report that Patrolman Charles Fiore, expected to testify in the Spadola trial, has been threatened by members of the local Italian community.

1896


Sicily
Sam Carolla
Birth (orig. Sylvestro Carolla)

1897
Feb
6
New York, US
Louis Buchalter
Birth. (a.k.a. "Lepke.")

1897
Feb
20

Nicolo Licata
Birth.

1897


New York. US

Legend: Patriarch of Morello-Terranova clan is gunned down after a night of gambling.

1897
Oct.
2
Palermo, Sicily
Joe Profaci
Birth.

1897
Nov
14
Naples, Italy
Paul Ricca
Birth. (a.k.a. Paul DeLucia.)

1897
Nov
21
Risigliano, Italy
Vito Genovese
Birth. (a.k.a. Don Vitone.)

1897
Nov
24
Lecara Friddi, Sicily
Salvatore Lucania
Birth. (a.k.a. Charlie Luciano, "Charlie Lucky," Charles Ross.)

Spanish-American War - April 20, 1898, to Dec. 10, 1898.
1898
Jun
13
Springfield, MA, US
Natale Giuliano
Giuliano is charged with the shooting death of his in-law Pietro Fazzio on a busy street in broad daylight. Witnesses against Giuliano become suddenly forgetful.

1898


New York, US
Antonio Morello
Shot down. Possibly 44 years old. Despite published claims, this Morello was apparently not related to the Morello-Terranova underworld clan.

1899


New York. US
Charles Ubriaco
Arrives in New York and sets to work for Lupo-Morello group.

1899


Brooklyn, US
Alphonse Capone
Birth. (a.k.a. "Snorky," "Scarface")

1899
Dec
1
Palermo, Sicily
Gaetano Lucchese
Birth. (a.k.a. Tommy Lucchese, Luckese, "Three-Finger Brown.")

HOLOCAUST, JEWISH (1939-1945)

GERMAN JEWS DURING THE HOLOCAUST, 1939-1945
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1933-1939

In January 1933, some 522,000 Jews by religious definition lived in Germany. Over half of these individuals, approximately 304,000 Jews, emigrated during the first six years of the Nazi dictatorship, leaving only approximately 214,000 Jews in Germany proper (1937 borders) on the eve of World War II.

In the years between 1933 and 1939, the Nazi regime had brought radical and daunting social, economic, and communal change to the German Jewish community. Six years of Nazi-sponsored legislation had marginalized and disenfranchised Germany's Jewish citizenry and had expelled Jews from the professions and from commercial life. By early 1939, only about 16 percent of Jewish breadwinners had steady employment of any kind. Thousands of Jews remained interned in concentration camps following the mass arrests in the aftermath of Kristallnacht (Night of the Broken Glass) in November 1938.



Deportation of Jews from Greater Germany, 1941-1944
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World War II

Yet the most drastic changes for the German Jewish community came with World War II in Europe. In the early war years, the newly transformed Reich Association of Jews in Germany (Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland), led by prominent Jewish theologian Leo Baeck but subject to the demands of Nazi German authorities, worked to organize further Jewish emigration, to support Jewish schools and self-help organizations, and to help the German Jewish community contend with an ever-growing mass of discriminatory legislation.


Describes deportation from Berlin
Personal stories





Following the outbreak of war on September 1, 1939, the government imposed new restrictions on Jews remaining in Germany. One of the first wartime ordinances imposed a strict curfew on Jewish individuals and prohibited Jews from entering designated areas in many German cities. Once a general food rationing began, Jews received reduced rations; further decrees limited the time periods in which Jews could purchase food and other supplies and restricted access to certain stores, with the result that Jewish households often faced shortages of the most basic essentials.


German authorities also demanded that Jews relinquish property “essential to the war effort” such as radios, cameras, bicycles, electrical appliances, and other valuables, to local officials. In September 1941, a decree prohibited Jews from using public transportation. In the same month came the notorious edict requiring Jews over the age of six to wear the yellow Jewish Star (Magen David) on their outermost garment. While ghettos were generally not established in Germany, strict residence regulations forced Jews to live in designated areas of German cities, concentrating them in “Jewish houses” (“Judenhäuser”). German authorities issued ordinances requiring Jews fit for work to perform compulsory forced labor.

In early 1943, as German authorities implemented the last major deportations of German Jews to Theresienstadt or Auschwitz, German justice authorities enacted a mass of laws and ordinances legitimizing the Reich's seizure of their remaining property and regulating its distribution among the German population. The persecution of Jews by legal decree ended with a July 1943 ordinance removing Jews entirely from the protection of German law and placing them under the direct jurisdiction of the Reich Security Main Office (Reichssicherheitshauuptamt-RSHA).

Deportation

Public imagination associates the deportation of Jewish citizens with the “Final Solution,” but indeed the first deportations of Jews from the Reich-albeit Jews from areas recently annexed by Germany-began in October 1939 as part of the Nisko, or Lublin, Plan. This deportation strategy envisioned a Jewish “reservation” in the Lublin District of the Government General (that part of German-occupied Poland not directly annexed to the Reich). Adolf Eichmann, the German RSHA official who would later organize the deportation of so many of Europe's Jewish communities to ghettos and killing centers, coordinated the transfer of some 3,500 Jews from Moravia in the former Czechoslovakia, from Katowice (then Kattowitz) in German-annexed Silesia, and from the Austrian capital, Vienna, to Nisko on the San River. Although problems with the deportation effort and a change in German policy put an end to these deportations, Eichmann's superiors in the RSHA were sufficiently satisfied with his initiative to ensure that he would play a role in future deportation proceedings.

In addition, RSHA officials coordinated the deportation of approximately 100,000 Jews from German-annexed Polish territory (the so-called province of Danzig-West Prussia, District Wartheland, and East Upper Silesia) into the Government General in the autumn and winter of 1939-1940. In October 1940, Gauleiter Josef Bürckel ordered the expulsion of nearly 7,000 Jews from Baden and the Saarpfalz in southwestern Germany to areas of unoccupied France in a second deportation of German Jews. French authorities quickly absorbed most of these German Jews in the Gurs internment camp in the Pyrenees of southwestern France.

Upon Hitler's authorization, German authorities began systematic deportations of Jews from Germany in October 1941, even before the SS and police established killing centers (“extermination camps”) in German-controlled Poland. Pursuant to the Eleventh Decree of Germany's Reich Citizenship Law (November 1941), German Jews “deported to the East” suffered automatic confiscation of their property upon crossing the Reich frontier.

Between October and December 1941, German authorities deported around 42,000 Jews from the so-called Greater German Reich -- including Austria and the annexed Czech lands of Bohemia and Moravia -- virtually all to ghettos in Lodz, Minsk, Kovno (Kaunas, Kovne), and Riga. German Jews sent to Lodz in 1941 and to Warsaw, the Izbica and Piaski transit ghettos and other locations in the Generalgouvernement in the first half of 1942 numbered among those deported together with Polish Jews to the killing centers of Chelmno (Kulmhof), Treblinka, and Belzec.

German authorities deported more than 50,000 Jews from the so-called Greater German Reich to ghettos in the Baltic states and Belorussia (today Belarus) between early November 1941 and late October 1942. There the SS and police shot the overwhelming majority of them. After selecting a small minority to survive temporarily for exploitation as forced laborers, the SS and police interned them in special German sections of the Baltic and Belorussian ghettos, segregated from those few local Jews whose survival the SS and police had permitted, generally to exploit special occupational skills.

Such “German ghettos” within a larger ghetto framework existed notably in Riga and in Minsk. SS and police officials killed most of these German Jews when they liquidated the ghettos in 1943. After late October 1942, the German authorities deported the majority of Jews remaining in Germany directly to the killing center at Auschwitz-Birkenau or to Theresienstadt.

German regulations initially exempted German Jewish war veterans and elderly persons over the age of sixty-five, as well as Jews living in mixed marriages (“privileged marriages”) with German “Aryans” and the offspring of those marriages from anti-Jewish measures, including deportations. In the end, German officials deported disabled and highly decorated Jewish war veterans as well as elderly or prominent Jews from so-called Greater German Reich and the German-occupied Netherlands to the Theresienstadt (Terezin) ghetto near Prague. Although the SS used the ghetto as a showcase to portray the fiction of “humane” treatment of Jews, Theresienstadt in actuality represented a way station for most Jews en route to their deportation “to the east.” The SS and police routinely relocated Jews from Theresienstadt, including German Jews, to killing centers and killing sites in German-occupied Poland, Belorussia, and the Baltic States. More than 30,000 died in the Theresienstadt ghetto itself, mostly from starvation, illness, or maltreatment.

In May 1943, Nazi German authorities reported that the Reich was “judenrein” (“free of Jews”). By this time, mass deportations had left fewer than 20,000 Jews in Germany. Some survived because they were married to non-Jews or because race laws classified them as Mischlinge (of mixed ancestry, or part Jewish) and were thus temporarily exempt from deportation. Others, called “U-Boats” or “submarines,” lived in hiding and evaded arrest and deportation, often with the aid of non-Jewish Germans who sympathized with their plight.

In all, the Germans and their collaborators killed between 160,000 and 180,000 German Jews in the Holocaust, including most of those Jews deported out of Germany.



Grinberg Archives

Jewish deportees from Magdeburg in the Warsaw ghetto
View historical film footage

GENERATION X

Generation X defies definition

by Jennifer Jochim, Outpost Contributor


In this package:


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Myths and realities

Facts and figures


Generation X can technically be defined as the generation following the Baby Boomers. Xers were born between 1965 and 1980, 1961 and 1981, 1964 and 1979, 1963 and 1979, 1965 and 1975 or since the mid-1960s, depending on which source you use. For practical purposes we will say that Generation X was born between 1965 and 1980, now ranging in age from 17-32 and usually judged by characteristics assigned to them by the media.

Generation Xers were brought up on television, Atari 2600s and personal computers. They are the generation that was raised in the 1970s and 1980s, and saw this country undergo a selfish phase that they do not want to repeat.

"Generation X grew up in the 'me generation' of the 1980s, and now they are able to see that it is not all it is cracked up to be," said Jackie Shelton, 31, vice president of Minor Advertising in Reno.


David Bever takes time from studies to play video basketball. Photo by Arthur Pines.

The term Generation X came from a book written in 1991 by Douglas Coupland by the same name. It is a fictional book about three strangers who decide to distance themselves from society to get a better sense of who they are. He describes the characters as "underemployed, overeducated, intensely private and unpredictable."

Coupland took his book's title from another book "Class," by Paul Fussell. Fussell used "X" to describe a group of people who want to pull away from class, status and money in society. Because the characters in Coupland's book fit that description, he decided on the title "Generation X."

The media found elements of Coupland's characters' lives in America's youth and labeled them Generation X. This stereotypical definition leads society to believe that Generation X is made up of cynical, hopeless, frustrated and unmotivated slackers who wear grunge clothing, listen to alternative music and still live at home because they cannot get real jobs. It is a label that has stuck, stereotypes and all.
copyright 6/1/97 Nevada Outpost http://www.jour.unr.edu/outpost

Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation

Nuclear Weapons: The Modernization Myth

A comparison of U.S., Russian, Chinese, British, and French nuclear forces undermines the recurring argument that Washington is falling behind. As Kingston Reif explains in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, debunking this “modernization myth” demonstrates clearly that the U.S. nuclear arsenal remains second to none.