This book compares the systems of exploitative race relations associated with two racist regimes – slavery in the British colonial Caribbean and forced labour in the Holocaust in Germany and the Nazi-occupied lands in Europe. Although each system was introduced by expansionist European powers, through racist enslavement, transportation, dehumanisation and the destruction of human life, the construction and operation of sugar plantations by African and Creole slave labour for the export of tropical products in the period 1650 to 1838 was different from the mass murder of Jewish and Gypsy civilians with the intention of creating a forced-labour regime and colonial-style ethnic cleansing during the Second World War.
Though differentiated in time and place, the four principal common denominators that make feasible the detailed comparison of British Caribbean slavery and the Holocaust in Europe are racism, colonialism/occupation, slavery/forced labour, and death. Juxtaposition of these two companion studies will reveal comparisons and contrasts previously unexplored in the field of race relations under colonialism and the Holocaust.
The book will be of interest to scholars and students of the social sciences and history, particularly those with an engagement with slavery and forced labour, the sociology of race and racism, and Holocaust studies.
Author(s): Colin Clarke
Series: Global Diversities
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2024
Language: English
Pages: 295
Also by Colin Clarke
Acknowledgements
Contents
List of Figures
Part I: Introduction
1: A Question of Comparison—British Caribbean Slavery and the Holocaust in Germany and Occupied Europe
Introduction
Slavery and Holocaust Studies and Reparations
Slavery and Holocaust Studies
Reparations for Slavery and the Holocaust
Colonialism, Slavery and the Holocaust
Slavery, Colonization and the Holocaust
New World Slavery and the Holocaust
The Real World and Social Theory
Exploring the Real World of British Caribbean Slavery and the Holocaust
Theoretical Framework
Slavery and the Holocaust: Preliminary Commonalities and Differences
Preliminary Comparison
Forced Migration, Slavery/Forced Labour and Colonialism
The Holocaust and Colonialism
Conclusion
References
Part II: British Caribbean Slavery
2: Establishment of the Colonial Empire: Sugar-Slave Plantations, White Exploitation, and Slave Suppression
Introduction
English Colonisation of the Spanish Lake
White Pioneer Settlement
Cromwell’s Western Design
White English Right to Vote
British Colonies Acquired by Foreign Conquest
The Triangular Trade, the ‘Machine’ on the Sugar Slave Plantations, and Slave Mortality
Triangular Trade
The ‘Machine’ on the Slave Sugar Plantations, and Slave Mortality
The ‘Machine’ of the Sugar Plantation—A Lethal Exploitation
Slave Mortality—The Fatal Flaw
White Sexual Exploitation in Race Mixing
Race and Power
White and Black
Sexual Economy of Race and Beyond
Slave Rebellion and White Repression
Running Away and Outright Slave Rebellion
Military and Militia Repression
The Militia—A Microcosm of Slave Society
Conclusion
References
3: Urban Ambiguity—Slave or Free?
Introduction
Urban Slavery, Overseas Trade and Internal Trade and Marketing
Urban Slavery
Overseas Trade
Internal Trade and Marketing
Socio-Legal Strata and Employment in the Towns
Free Whites
Free People of Colour and Free Blacks
Jews
Slaves
Urban Residential Patterns in Slavery
Land Use and Racial Ecology of Kingston
Urban Ecology of Other Caribbean Towns
Slavery and Social Control in the City
Conclusion
References
4: Social Structure of Slave Society and the Impact of the Abolition of the Slave Trade and Slave Emancipation
Introduction
Differential Incorporation: Free, Partially Free, and Unfree
Free Whites
Partially Free—Free People of Colour
Partially Free—Free Blacks
Jews
Unfree—Slaves
Cultural Hierarchy—Creolization
Masters
Free People of Colour
Jews
Slaves
Abolition of the Slave Trade and Amelioration of Slavery
Abolition of the Slave Trade—The Beginning of the End
Amelioration Trumped by Slave Revolt
The Quest for Civil Rights and Slave Emancipation
Civil Rights—The End of the Story
Slave Emancipation—Achieved
Conclusion
References
Part III: The Holocaust in Germany and Occupied Europe
5: Germany’s Persecution of the Jews, Evisceration of Poland, and Exploitation of the Ghettos
Introduction
Germany’s Persecution of the Jews and other Targeted Victims, and the Creation of the Nazi Concentration Camps (1933–42)
Racial Persecution and the Loss of Civil Rights
Nuremberg Race Laws and Similar Curbs
Aryanization of Property and Occupations—Jewish Immiseration
Concentration Camps and Forced Labour
The Destruction of the Polish State 1939–40
Nazi Racial Policy in Dismembered Poland
Settlement of the Volksdeutsche in the Context of the West Poland Annexations
Polish Ghettoization, Forced Labour and Liquidation (1941–43)
Ghettoization in Poland
Warsaw and Litzmannstadt/Lodz—Starvation Ghettos
Warsaw
Litzmannstadt
Conclusion—Liquidation
References
6: German Ethnic Settlement, Spatial Planning and Colonization in the USSR (1941–44)
Introduction
The Holocaust by Bullets (1941–43)
War on the Soviet Union
Einsatzgruppen—Mobile Security and Killing Units
Mass Killings Begin
General Plan for the East (1941–1944)
Genesis of the Plan
The General Plans and Their Implementation
Slav Expulsions and Germanization
Volksdeutsche
Filtering Poles and Ukrainians in the Planned Settlements
Putting Settlements on the Ground and Their Obliteration
Ethnic Cleansing and Socio-Spatial Engineering
Zamosc Project
Hegewald
End of the General Plan
Conclusion
References
7: Jewish and Ethnic Victims of Forced Labour in Germany and the Occupied Territories (1939–45)
Introduction
Jewish Forced labour in Public and Private Enterprises (1939–42)
Forced Labour and the Jews
The Rise of the SS Concentration Camp System
Jews and Ethnic Forced Labourers in the Rapidly Expanding SS Concentration Camp System (1942–45)
Death, Industry and the Industrialization of Death
SS Concentration Camps as Coercive Institutions
Camp Personnel and Social Structure
Gender and Race
Deadly Outcomes: Camp Medical Experiments and Death Marches
Camp Medical Experiments
Death Marches
Conclusion
References
8: Death Camps in the General Government (1942–43) and High-Technology, Labouring-to-Death Camps in Germany (1943–45)
Introduction
SS Operation Reinhardt Death Camps (1941–43)
Globocnik’s Camps—and Galicia
SS Labouring-to-Death Camps (1943–45): Monowitz
IG Farben and Buna at Monowitz
Working to Death
SS Labouring-to-Death Camps (1943–45): KL Mittelbau Dora
Forced Labour and Aviation in the Harz
A Collaborative Project
Dora Camp Overground—Expansion and Renaming
The Aviation Industry Goes Underground
Building the V2 Rocket
High-Tech Industry and Labouring to Death
Conclusion: Concentration Camps Expand and Collapse
References
Part IV: Conclusion
9: British Caribbean Slavery and the Holocaust in Germany and Occupied Europe—A Comparison
Introduction
The Shared Basis for Differential Incorporation and Treatment—Caribbean Slavery and the Holocaust
Legal Stratification and Socio-Racial Exclusion—A Comparison
Treatment in Murderous Regimes: Intentionality and Targeting—Parallel Cases
Caribbean Plantation Slavery
Death Camps and Working to Death Camps
Racial and Ethnic Exploitation: Plantations and Concentration Camps, Towns and Ghettos, Colonization and Decolonization
Slave Plantations and Concentration Camps
Caribbean Towns and Jewish Ghettos
The Caribbean and the General Plan for the East: Colonization and Decolonization
Crimes Against Humanity and Genocide: Nuremberg and Afterwards
Lauterpacht v Lemkin
Trial at Nuremberg and Subsequent UN Involvement
A Hierarchy of International Crimes Post 1945?
Past into Present: Reparations, Black Lives Matter and Need for Full History
Reparations for the Holocaust
Reparations for Slavery
Black Lives Matter and “The Full History”
Coda
Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
References
Glossary
Index
