British Caribbean Slavery and the Holocaust in Germany and Occupied Europe—A Comparison

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Racist Regimes, Forced Labour and Death

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Abstract

This chapter investigates the mechanics of differential racial incorporation and shows the similarities in both regimes. Differential incorporation in the British Caribbean lead to social inclusion at the end of slavery, while in Germany and Nazi-occupied Europe, the outcome was exclusion and elimination. Caribbean slavery and the Holocaust form parallel cases when it comes to intentionality to target and kill the victims, with both race and religion playing a part in persecution and death. British Caribbean slavery and the Holocaust are assessed as crimes against humanity and genocide, where differential incorporation by race and ethnicity, based on the suppression of human rights, lead to elimination of the victims.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    There was a marked difference between surveillance of prisoners by guards in concentration camp barracks, and its absence from the huts of the Caribbean slaves, where sexual relations were unregulated.

  2. 2.

    Wachsmann estimates there were only 200,000 Jewish survivors of the Holocaust in 1945, compared with the figure of 400,000 cited here as being alive in 2019 (Wachsmann 2010). Much presumably depends on the meaning of “survivors”.

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Clarke, C. (2024). British Caribbean Slavery and the Holocaust in Germany and Occupied Europe—A Comparison. In: Racist Regimes, Forced Labour and Death. Global Diversities. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-55544-2_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-55544-2_9

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

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