![]() ![]() Initially Jews were confined to ghettos, eventually to labour and death camps. 'Blacks' in South Africa were locked into their role of unskilled, manual labourers, a position that they had occupied since the beginning of 'white' settlement in the Cape. Jews, previously prominent in the cultural, academic and economic life of Germany, were impoverished and dehumanized. Freedom of movement was restricted and residential segregation enforced in both countries. Unlike the German Jews, South African 'blacks' had at least some kind of nominal right to equality in their designated 'homelands'. In South Africa 'blacks' were made citizens of 'ethnic homelands'. Under German rule Jews were rendered stateless and expelled as far as possible from the Reich. In both countries separation was followed by deprivation of citizenship. In South Africa the stated premise was that each 'ethnic' group would best realise its full potential if it was encouraged to preserve its integrity and promote its own culture. In Germany the reasons given were the desire to preserve the pure Aryan volk and protect the volkisch culture. The dissertation opens with a discussion of the methods used by each of the different systems to define the victim races, and justify their inferior status. It acknowledges that both systems were rooted in ideas of race, but while the tools used by the Nazis in Germany and the apartheid government in South Africa are superficially similar, their very different objectives brought about radically different outcomes once their policies were enforced. This dissertation explores similarities and differences. In recent years it has become fairly commonplace to make comparisons between the Holocaust and Apartheid.
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