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THE HOLOCAUST
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Hitler comes to power
When Hitler came to power, he promised Germans a better life. A powerful
and convincing speaker, he convinced many disenchanted Germans a new
improved country. The Nazis appealed to the young, the unemployed and
small businessmen.
When Hitler became Chancellor, he turned Germany into a one-party
dictatorship. He declared a state of emergency following the Reichstag
Fire. All individual freedoms and rights were removed, including the right to
privacy.
Hitler and the Nazis would rely on terror and violence to maintain and
increase their power. Heinrich Himmler would head Hitler’s secret police
force, the Gestapo.
Nazi Propaganda and Censorship
The Nazis won the support of the German people through a campaign of
propaganda.
Headed by Dr. Joseph Goebbels, the Nazis took control of all forms of
media and communication (newspapers, magazines, books, public meetings,
rallies, art, music, movies and radio).
The Nazis burned books they deemed unfit by such Jewish authors as
Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud.
Anti-Semitism grew. (Prejudice against Jews)
Hitler claimed that there was a “master race” which consist of Aryans
(blond, blue-eyed and tall).
The Nazis believe that the human race could be improved by limiting the
reproduction of people considered to be “inferior”. Germans doctors were
force sterilization on the Gypsies, the handicapped, the mentally ill, the
deaf, the blind, African-German children and the Jews.
Teachers began to apply “the principles of racial sciences”. They measured
their students skulls and noses, noted the colour of their hair and eyes to
determine if they meant the criteria for the Aryan race. Jews and Gypsies
were humiliated in the process.
The Handicapped
The Jews were not the only target of the Nazis. The physically and mentally
ill were also targeted. They were viewed as “useless” members of society.
The Nazis also claimed they were a threat to Aryan genetic purity. The
Nazis, therefore, believed that these individuals were unworthy of life.
The T-4 program was a euthanasia program that murdered the retarded,
physically handicapped and mentally ill in Germany.
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German doctors aided the Nazis in targeting these individuals by locating
them through medical files and histories.
The handicapped were killed in specially constructed gas chambers.
Handicapped babies and small children were killed by injections or
starvation. The bodies were burned.
Jews and anti-Semitism in Europe
Before the Holocaust, 600 000 Jews were living in Germany.
The largest concentration of the Jews in world was in Eastern Europe.
Contrary to German propaganda and prejudice, not all Jews were extremely
wealthy.
Anti-Semitism was prevalent in Europe prior to the Holocaust. The Church
throughout the Middle Ages had taught that the Jews were responsible for
Christ’s death even though the Romans had crucified Jesus. They were
blamed for the outbreak of the Black Death (the plague) in the 14th century.
Pogroms of many Jewish cities occurred at the time.
Nazi persecution of the Jews
Jews were forced to wear the Star of David on their arms to identify
themselves. They were also forced to carry identification cards.
Jewish businesses were boycotted. Jews were denied entry into other
German businesses, etc…
The Nuremburg Race Laws were passed in 1935. These new laws took away
many Jewish rights and prevented Jews from holding many jobs. They also
institutionalized many of the Nazis racial theories.
The laws also defined a Jew. Not in religious terms, but in terms of lineage.
Anyone with 3 or more Jewish grandparents was defined as Jewish whether
they practiced the Jewish faith or not.
Jewish children were not allowed to enter museums, public playgrounds or
pools. They were also expelled from schools.
Jewish adults and children were completely segregated in German society.
Pogroms (organized violence against Jews) also occurred.
The pogroms which took place on November 9, 1938 became known as
Kristallnacht or “the Night of the Broken Glass” because the streets were
lined with broken glass from Jewish store windows. On that evening all over
the Reich violence broke out against the Jews. The murder of a German
official in Paris by a Jewish teenager began the events but Joseph Goebbels
carefully organized the pogroms. Over the next two days, 1 000 synagogues
were burned, 7 000 Jewish businesses were attacked and dozens of Jews
were killed. Jewish cemeteries, hospitals, schools and homes were looted
while the authorities sat by and watched.
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The Ghettos
The Nazis forced the Jews to live in marked-off sections of cities called
ghettos or Jewish residential quarters.
The ghettos were fenced in with barbed-wire or surrounded by walls. The
entrances were guarded.
Life in the ghetto was unbearable. The living conditions were terrible. The
area was overcrowded. Several families were forced to live in one small
apartment in filthy conditions. Disease was rampant. The Nazis deliberately
tried to starve the residents of the ghettos. There was no sources of heat.
Thousands died in the ghettos. Many committed suicide.
Concentration Camps
Prison camps or concentration were built by the Nazis to imprison Jews,
Gypsies, political and religious opponents, resisters, homosexuals and other
“enemies of the state”.
There would be more than 100 concentration camps across German-occupied
Europe by the end of WWII.
The Final Solution
The Final Solution was the Nazi plan to exterminate the Jewish people. The
goal was genocide (the deliberate, systematic destruction of a racial,
cultural or political group).
The Final Solution was first revealed to non-Nazi leaders at the Wannsee
Conference although the genocide had already begun.
The Einsatzgruppen was a mobile group of SS which followed German armies
into the Soviet Unionin June 1941. They were ordered to shoot all Jews,
communist leaders and Gypsies.
The Einsatzgruppen were responsible for the deaths of one million Jews.
They shot the Jews and used gas vans to carry out the murders but this
method proved ineffective and psychologically devastating to the killers.
Ordinary men carried out the murders of the Jews. Nazi propaganda and
training had convinced many that the Jews were enemies of Germany.
Those who struggled with the murders often used liquor to numb themselves.
The Nazis systematically deported Jews to six extermination camps to the
area of Poland to decrease the psychological burden on the killers. The most
famous death camp was Auschwitz. These camps were killing centres to
achieve Hitler’s goals of genocide.
In all the Final Solution would consist of many forms of murder: gassing,
shootings, random acts of violence, disease and starvation.
Arrival at the Death Camps
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After arriving by train, the Jews were forced to form a line and were sorted
by the guards. The guards separated the men from the women and children.
A doctor, usually an SS physician, separated the sick from the healthy.
Infants, young children, pregnant women, the elderly, the handicapped and
the sick usually did not survive this initial selection.
Once selected to die, the victims were led to the gas chambers. (Told them
they were going to take showers to prevent panic.)
Prisoners were forced to carry the bodies to a room where all the values
were removed and then the bodies were burned in a crematoria or buried in
mass graves.
Those who did not face the gas chambers often faced extermination
through work.