The Holocaust
The Nazi Race War

Origins: sterilization
◦ Gypsies
◦ “Rhineland Bastards”
◦ The handicapped

T-4 Program (September 1939 – August
1941)
◦ Summer 1939 = “mercy killing” of handicapped
children
◦ September 1939 = systematic program for
euthanizing handicapped adults
◦ January 1940 = gas used to kill the handicapped
◦ Backlash from German Catholics; T-4 brought to
an end
The War Against the Jews


Anti-semitism was nothing new . . .
Hitler wanted to deal with the Jews through
phases:
◦ April 1933 = Civil Service Law, banning Jews from
civil service work, universities
◦ September 1935 = Nuremberg Laws, defining
“Jewishness”, banning interracial marriage, and
stripping citizenship from Jews

9 November 1938 = “Kristallnacht”
◦ Synagogues burned throughout Germany
◦ Scores of Jews killed
◦ Tens of thousands of Jewish men imprisoned
The War Against the Jews

Mass killing begins . . .
◦ After September 1939 invasion of Poland
◦ Important part of Operation Barbarossa

Einsatzgruppen A, B, C, D
The War Against the Jews

Mass killing begins . . .
◦ After September 1939
invasion of Poland
◦ Important part of
Operation Barbarossa

Einsatzgruppen
A, B, C, D
◦ Kill more than
1,000,000 Jews . . .
◦ . . . And tens of thousands of gypsies, partisans,
political dissidents
Hitler’s Instructions


Such a nasty Eastern Front . . .
Military signed off on whatever Hitler &
Himmler wanted
◦ “Barbarossa Decree” (13 May 1941)
 All guerrilla fighters are to be killed
 Acts against civilians will not be prosecuted
◦ “Commissar Order” (6 June 1941)
 Ignore the Geneva Convention
 Kill all political commissars (they don’t count as
legitimate POWs)

Any explicit orders from Hitler?
◦ 16 July 1941 = kill all who oppose us on the
Eastern Front
A “Final Solution”?

Deportation & Ghettoization
A “Final Solution”?


Deportation & Ghettoization
Nazis want a more systematic framework of
liquidation . . .
◦ Fall 1941 = decision to kill the Jews

20 January 1942 = Wannsee Conference
◦ Centralize/organize the liquidation of Jews
◦ Reinhard Heydrich = in charge of the “Final Solution”
 “Final Solution” = deportation of Jews to the “General
Government” for extermination

Extermination camps begin operations . . .
◦
◦
◦
◦
December 1941 = Chelmno
March 1942 = Belzec & Auschwitz
April 1942 = Sobibor
July 1942 = Treblinka
Auschwitz as Example

Auschwitz I built (summer 1940)
Auschwitz as Example

Auschwitz I built (summer 1940)
◦ Used for agricultural experimentation

Construction of Auschwitz II, or
Auschwitz-Birkenau (October 1941)
◦ Had to expand quickly to hold increasingly
large numbers of Jews

By early 1942, cramming people into
Birkenau
◦ Expansion of crematoria; use of Zyklon B
Resistance?

Escape?
◦ Very, very difficult –
immigration quotas
◦ Voyage of the St. Louis
(June 1939)

Misinformation
◦ Nazis worked hard to confuse/trick Jews

Violent Uprisings?
◦
◦
◦
◦
◦
April 1943 = Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
August 1943 = revolt at Treblinka
October 1943 = revolt at Sobibor
October 1944 = revolt at Auschwitz-Birkenau
All of these were pretty quickly dealt with . . .
Death Toll at Death Camps
Auschwitz = 1,100,000 killed
 Treblinka = 900,000

◦ In roughly one year
Belzec = 600,000
 Majdanek = 360,000
 Chelmno = 320,000
 Sobibor = 250,000
 TOTAL = 3-3.5 million people killed in
extermination camps alone
