Download The Holocaust

The Holocaust: Hitler’s War against the Jews
I. The Final Solution
A. Summer of 1941
Intoxicated by their victory
Some sort of solution was at hand
Verbal order from Hitler
No written document linking Hitler
Deniability
Reinhard Heydrich
Herbert Goering and a formal authorization
Drafting a solution
“Resettlement”
Forced immigration
Somewhere in the East
October
Plans are made
Mass extermination
Invitation to a secret conference
Select members
B. Secret Meeting at Wannsee
January 20, 1942
Heydrich was present
An hour
About a dozen people
Hitler, Goebbels, Himmler
Were not present
Agencies that would be involved
Death Camps
Extermination of the Jews
Established in Poland, Czechoslovakia
Handle millions
Many would die in transit
Others would be worked to death
Unfit would be marched to the gas chambers
What did that mean?
The round up and transport of all European Jews
To the death camps
This was to be the “final solution”
C. Need for Secrecy
German public was not ready for this action
Even some Nazi members
Something was going on
Did not assume resettlement
There could be rumors
Would be rumors
No confirmation
Secrecy
They would not understand
Foreign propaganda
Number of incidents in Belgium
Wanted to avoid this
Would make great use of the information
The victims
Must be kept ignorant of their fate
Off on a journey
Going to be resettled
May hear rumors
D. Implementation: 1942
Auschwitz, Treblinka, and other camps
Deportation from Warsaw ghetto
Treblinka
Death Camps
Same principles
Train arrives
Cattle cars
People were separated
Work
Unfit
The Unfit
A long journey
Mark your luggage
You will need a shower
Anything of value
Gold teeth, hair, etc. were claimed
1942-1945
4-5 million were killed
Einsatzgruppen
1-2 million or so
Russians, Poles, Gypsies and others disappeared
Enemies of the Nazi Germany
II. The Allied Response to the Camps
A. Information
Einsatzgruppen
Barbaric actions
Hard information was available
What it really meant
Western Allies and the German military
August
The Allies bombed Buchenwald
The factories
Intelligence Plans
Flew flights over Auschwitz
A debate within the Allied Government
Attack the camps
Kill all of the inmates
Was a commando raid possible?
What would you do?
B. Attack the War Machine
Destroy it as fast as possible
Would bring an end to the regime
Save lives
Considerable concern
Just kill another way
Allies start making public statements
The war is over
There will be an accounting
III. Allies and the Camps
A. April 1945
Buckenwald
Belsen
55,000
B. Ugliness
Mass graves
Bodies were in piles
The Living
C. The Totals
May 1945
Role call of the dead