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Alexandra K. Jeppson
Professor Mary Jane Chase
History 113
20 April 2015
Propaganda to Reality
In his pamphlet, Joseph Goebbels stated that We are enemies of the Jews, (Goebbels in
Lualdi, 245). He then continued to unabashedly accuse the Jews for every misfortune in
Germany. Scattered throughout his slanderous words was his solution: hate, purge, and annihilate
them. Unfortunately his words became reality for countless people, including Sam Bankhalter
and Hinda Kibort. Both Bankhalter and Kibort were Jews, and thus victims of the Holocaust
(Lualdi, 252). In this paper I will discuss how many of Goebbels statements came true in the
lives of Bankhalter and Kibort.
About half way through his pamphlet, Goebbels states, [The Jew] has corrupted our
race, fouled our morals, undermined our customs, and broken our power, (Goebbels in Lualdi,
245). When Goebbels was making this statement, he meant that the Jewish people corrupt
mankind through their traditions, values, even existence. In a sense, the Jews did reveal the
corruption of corrupt the Germans and foul their morals, but not in the way Goebbels had
intended. In the holocaust, the Germans committed horrendous atrocities. The acts of abuse,
murder, torture, rape, experimentation, and other unspeakable acts left a historical blight on the
German race. I believe a race that commits these acts is as corrupt as they come. Kibort
explained some of the horrors she experienced:
We came in batches, totally naked. I cannot describe how you feel in a situation like this.
We were searched, totally, for jewelry, gold, even family pictures. We had to stand

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spread-eagle and spread out our fingers. They looked through the hair, they looked into
the mouth, they looked in the ears, and then we had to lie down. They looked into every
orifice of the body, right in front of everybody. We were in total shock. (Kibort in Lualdi,
255-256).
As this quote illustrates, the Jews could not keep their belongings, not matter how simple it may
be. The Germans ripped away everything, and didnt even want the Jews to have the simple
happiness of having a photo of a family member. The manner in which they searched the Jews
shows a lack of decent morals. That they would force women to strip, and then search their
entire body in such a brutal manner is an act of the foulest morals of all. Additionally, while most
people know a little of the horrors that occurred in the concentration camps, the Jews were also
abused outside of these camps, in normal towns and cities. Kibort told of her experiences before
she was ever deported to a work\concentration camp. She said, Everybody could command us
to do whatever they wanted. They would make you hop around in the middle of the street, or
they made you lie down and stepped on you, or spit on you, or they tore at beards of devout
Jews. And there was always an audience around to laugh, (Kibort in Lualdi, 254). When a
society is comfortable spitting and stepping on people, ripping their beards, and laughing, that
society has undermined itself. When Goebbels said that Jews had corrupted our race, fouled our
morals, undermined our customs, and broken our power, he was right and wrong. He was right
in the sense that the German race was corrupted, their morals fouled, customs undermined, and
power broken, but he was wrong that it was the Jews fault; the Germans did it to themselves, as
illustrated in the above ways, and as further examples will show.
Goebbels continues on and says, The Jew is the plastic demon of the decline of
mankind, (Goebbels in Lualdi, 245). This statement illustrates how the Jews were no longer

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human in the Germans eyes. Kibort actually made this observation when she said, One day we
were human, the next day were subhuman, (Kibort in Lualdi, 254). As subhuman, the Jews
were treated as such from simple beatings at school to horrific experiments. Bankhalter
explained that [as] Hitler came to power, there was not a day at school I was not spit on or
beaten up, (Bankhalter in Lualdi, 253). It is true that people who are seen as human are beaten
up at school. But to be beaten every day, and for this to be the norm if you were a Jew, is not
acceptable. Sadly, it didnt end there. Bankhalters experience in Auschwitz gives the impression
that the Jews were like rats. He said, I saw Dr. Mengeles experiments on children, I knew the
kids that became vegetables. Later in Buchenwald I saw Ilse Koch with a hose and regulator,
trying to get pressure to make a hole in a womans stomach. I saw them cutting Greek people in
pieces, (Bankhalter in Lualdi, 253). Most people would not treat other human beings like this.
The only way this was possible was for the Germans to not see the Jews as human, but as a
disposable lab animal. Additionally, the Jews were being exterminated in mass, just as if they
were pests. In Kiborts experience, the Jews were treated more like livestock. To be transported
[the Jews] were put on cattle trains[They] had no bathrooms[They] were very crowded,
(Kibort in Lualdi, 255). All of those conditions sound just like when cattle are loaded onto the
train to be taken to the slaughterhouse. Kibort also says that one night she heard there was a
factory where they boiled peoples bodies to manufacture soap, (Kibort in Lualdi, 256). Again,
this is a treatment for livestock to make glue, not for human beings. Thus you can see that
Goebbels was correct, that the Jew wasnt seen as human.
The final quote from Goebbels that I will discuss is when he explains what it means to be
a Christian:

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Anti-Semitism is un-Christian. That means, then, that he is a Christian who looks on
while the Jew sews straps around our necks. To be a Christian means: love they neighbor
as thyself! My neighbor is one who is tied to me by his blood. If I love him, then I must
hate his enemies. He who thinks German must despise the Jews. The one thing makes the
other necessary. (Goebbels in Lualdi, 245)
What he meant is that if you cant be Christian and not hate the Jews. Christians believe in loving
your neighbor. Well, as their neighbors were Germans, they must love Germans and hate the
enemy of the Germans: the Jews. Whether people agreed with this statement or not, the meaning
was clear: do not assist the Jews. Kibort saw this in action after she escaped from her German
captors:
With our last strength, we made it to a small Polish village about a mile away. We
knocked on doors, but they didnt let us in, and they started to throw things at us. We
went to the church, and the priest said he couldnt help us because the Germans were in
charge. We were so weak, we just sat there on the church steps, and late in the evening
the priest came with a man who told us to go hide in a barn that was empty. We did not
get any other help, whatsoever, from the whole Polish village no medical help, not a rag
to cover ourselves, not even water. Nothing. (Kibort in Lualdi, 257).
People were so afraid of their German neighbors, that they offered very little help. If they were
caught helping the Jews, then they would be seen as an enemy as well, and share the same fate
with the Jews.
In conclusion, Goebbels pamphlet painted a grim future for the Jewish people. He said,
It is not true that we eat a Jew every morning at breakfast, (Goebbels in Lualdi, 245). Literally,
no, they did not. But at the rate the Germans destroyed the Jews, they might as well have.

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Bankhalter said, Every day the killing, the hanging, the shooting, the crematorium smell, the
ovens, and the smoke going out, (Bankhalter in Lualdi, 253). The Jews were treated like lab rats
and experimented on. They were exterminated like pests. They were treated as cattle, their bodies
burned or boiled for soap. The Jews werent seen as human. They were forsaken by their
neighbors. They were beaten down by a corrupt society. They experienced horrors that no man
should ever dream of. As a result the Germans, through their treatment of the Jews, became a
fouled and corrupted people, and they eventually lost their power when other nations intervened.
Thus you can see how correct Goebbels was.

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Works Cited
Bankhalter, Sam, Kibort, Hinda, Memories of the Holocaust in Lualdi, Katharine J. "The Great
Depression and World War II." Sources of The Making of the West: Peoples and Cultures.
4th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2012. 252-258. Print.
Goebbels, Joseph, Nazi Propaganda Pamphlet in Lualdi, Katharine J. "The Great Depression and
World War II." Sources of The Making of the West: Peoples and Cultures. 4th ed. Boston:
Bedford/St. Martin's, 2012. 243-245. Print.