Nazi camps racialized Jewish prisoners by labeling them with Muslim terms

Evidence

The Muslims are everywhere. At the center and at the margins of Europe and its literature, visible and invisible, they figure a disappearing nonact where passivity and subjection endure. Indeed, “Muslims,” this most visible and invisible of words, has been a manifest site, a site of manifestation, an “image,” as Primo Levi says, for absolute subjection, and a figure of recognition-and at bottom, if there were one, the only question I would have is this: How did this “recognition” become and remain possible since the earliest days? … Emil Fackenheim thought it wise to add to their unbearable name yet another name, another calling. The Muslims, he chillingly writes, “may be called the most truly original contribution of the Third Reich to civilization.” — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab, 688 (#expands, via linked claim)

In the 19th century Jews and Muslims were jointly conceived as Semites, bound by a linguistic and racial heritage as well as by Abrahamic monotheism. Arabs were Jews on horseback, as Disraeli wrote. It was only in the 20th century, Renton argues, following the alliance in 1917 between the British Empire and Zionism, that European notions of Muslims and Jews entered a new period in which Jews ceased to be ‘Oriental’ and Islam was reconceived as a political problem — Runnymede Trust (ed. Farah Elahi & Omar Khan), Islamophobia, 699 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The camp word ‘Muslim’ originated from prisoners’ praying posture resembling Arabs.; Concentration camp prisoners called ‘Muslims’ became a figure of absolute subjection — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab: A History of the…, 688; European Jews and Muslims were jointly racialized as Semites until 1917 — Runnymede Trust (ed. Farah Elahi & Omar Khan), Islamophobia: Still a Challenge for Us…, 699 (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• Concentration camp prisoners called ‘Muslims’ became a figure of absolute subjection #expands (0.93) — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab, 688
• European Jews and Muslims were jointly racialized as Semites until 1917 #complicates (0.72) — Runnymede Trust (ed. Farah Elahi & Omar Khan), Islamophobia, 699