World Studies - The Holocaust
1933
- Once in power, Hitler wanted to “purify” Germany.
- By purify, he meant to get rid of all non-Aryans,
especially Jews.
- To hurt the Jews economically, Germans were told to
boycott Jewish businesses and goods.
- To hurt the Jews politically, Jews were forced out of
government jobs, universities, teaching positions, and
the press.
1935
- Germany passes the Nuremberg Laws.
- Jews were no longer allowed to be German citizens.
- The Nazis believed in racial science, the idea that
some races were superior to others.
- They believed the Jews were a race of people,
inferior to all others.
- The Nazis did not want to dilute, or mix, the Aryan
bloodlines.
- Jews therefore could no longer marry non-Jews.
- All existing marriages between Jews and non-Jews
were declared illegal, and all the children of those
unions were illegitimate.
- It was also illegal for Jews to have sexual relations
with non-Jews.
- For the Nazis, a single drop of “Jewish blood”
meant that you were considered a Jew.
1938
- November 9th: Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass)
- It was a night of extreme violence by the Nazis; over
100 Jews were murdered.
- 20,000 Jews were arrested, hundreds of synagogues
(Jewish temples) were burned, and Jewish businesses
were looted and destroyed.
- This was the first widespread government approved
violence against the Jews.
- Jews were forced to pay for the destruction caused
by Kristallnacht.
- Afterward, Jews were banned from public cinemas
and other public places in Germany.
- Jews were forced to close down and sell their
businesses.
- Jewish children were not allowed to attend public
schools.
1939
- Germany invades and conquers Poland.
- Poland had a much larger Jewish population than
Germany.
- Jews in Poland suffered all of the Nazi persecution
already existing in Germany.
- Jews were forced to wear the Star of David on their
clothing as identification.
- Jews in Poland were forced to leave their homes
and move into crowded ghettos.
- Ghettos were sections of cities surrounded by
barbed wire or brick walls from which Jews could
not exit without Nazi permission.
The Final Solution
- By 1941, almost all of the Jews in Germany, Austria,
and Poland had been placed in ghettos.
- Their homes and possessions had been taken by the
Nazis.
- Jews could not escape to other countries because they
could not leave the ghettos.
- Hitler and the Nazis were faced with a decision.
- “What should the Nazis do with the Jews in
Germany, Austria, and Poland?”
- This became known as The Jewish Question
- Their answer was to exterminate (murder!) all the
Jews of Europe.
- This was called The Final Solution.
- The Final Solution was the plan to mass murder
all Jews in Nazi-controlled lands.
Camps
- Hitler carried out the Final Solution by sending Jews to
concentration and extermination camps.
- Over 20,000 camps were built, mostly in Poland.
- Concentration camps were built to house the Jews as a
workforce.
- The Nazis used the Jews as slaves to provide free labor for German
businesses and the army.
- Prisoners arrived on trains, and were immediately separated into
two lines.
- Unhealthy prisoners were immediately sent to extermination
camps.
- This was called “special treatment” by the Nazis.
- Healthy prisoners were given approximately 500 calories per
day and typically worked 12 hours per day, 7 days per week.
- Healthy prisoners were worked to the point of starvation and
exhaustion, and then sent to extermination camps.
- Extermination camps were killing centers, created for the
quick, efficient mass murder of large numbers of Jews.
- The most common method of murder was the use of a rat
poison called Zyklon-B.
- Jews were crowded into showers where they were told they
were going to be cleaned and disinfected.
- Instead, the doors were locked and the poison was dropped into
acid, creating a gas which killed all the shower’s inhabitants.
- Typically, the bodies were then burned in large ovens
(crematoriums) and turned to ash.
- This makes it difficult to estimate the exact number of people
murdered.
- From 1941-1945, over 6 million Jews and 4 million other
people were murdered in the camps.
- By the time the Holocaust ended, 6 out of every 7 Jews in
Europe had been murdered by the Nazis.