Andrew Hastings Eng 102-101

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Research

Holocaust Overview

Andrew Hastings

Eng 102: Composition II

Mr. Neuberger

4 April 2012


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A picture of Adolf Hitler.Source: http://bit.ly/HtL3ff

Many people think that the Holocaust occurred over the entire time World War II took

place. In reality it only took place over a two and a half year period starting in 1942 and ending

in 1945. There were many events that took place over many years leading up to the Holocaust

that allowed for it to happen. The Holocaust is something in history that has to be learned from

and is something that can never be repeated.

Nazi rise to power

According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM), Germany was

hit hard by the worldwide economic depression and millions of people were out of work. Fifteen

years before the depression during World War I the Germans lost confidence in their government

known as the Weimer Republic. The conditions made for the rise of a new leader, Adolf Hitler.

Along with Hitler came the National Socialist Party, or Nazi party for short. Hitler was a very

good public speaker who made many promises of a prosperous and glorious Germany. The

Nazis rise to power was very fast. Before the depression the

Nazis were basically unknown and in 1932 the Nazi party

took the majority of the vote in the Reichstag. In January 1933

Hitler was appointed chancellor and the Germans thought that

Germany was saved (Hitler Comes to Power). According to,

Germany: Establishment of the Nazi Dictatorship, the

Reichstag Fire occurred on February 28, 1933. It permitted

the suspension of basic civil rights. This led into many other

laws being passed and the building of Hitlers dictatorship. Hitler designated himself as the

Fuehrer as well as Reich Chancellor. As Fuehrer, his power was unlimited and his will was what

decided the fate of the future of Germany (USHMM).


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Nazi views on Jews.Source: http://bit.ly/HtRYG9

Nazi views on Jews-antisemitism

According to USHMM, anti-Semitism and the persecution of the Jews was a main goal of

Nazi ideology. They had a 25 point program in which they declared their intentions to segregate

Jews from society and take away the Jews political, legal, and civil rights. As soon as the Nazis

took control they started to implement laws to fulfill their twenty-five point program. In the first

six years of Nazi rule from 1933 until the start of the war in 1939, there were more than four-

hundred decrees and regulations that restricted every aspect of Jews public and private lives.

Many of those laws were national ones issued by the German government and affected every

Jew. There were also exclusionary laws implemented in local

governments. Hundreds of individuals in all levels of

government throughout the country were involved in the

persecution of Jews as they thought of anti-Jewish legislation

and made it reality. There was not any part of Germany that

was untouched (Anti-Jewish Legislation in Prewar Germany).

According to Anti-Semitism in History: Nazi Anti-

Semitism, Nazis saw the Jews as the source for political,

social, economic, and ethical problems facing the German people. Hitlers theories on race and

the Jews intent to survive and expand at the expense of Germans inspired many anti-Jewish

boycotts, book burnings, and anti-Jewish legislation (USHMM).

Nuremberg laws

According to Yad Vashem, the Nuremburg laws were two fundamental racial laws

implemented by the Nazi Party in Nuremberg, Germany on September 15, 1935. The laws were

the legal basis for anti-Jewish policy in Germany. Thirteen laws were added over the next eight


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The Nuremburg laws.Source: http://bit.ly/srKen

years that included the official definition of who was to be considered a Jew and who was an

Aryan. The first of the laws was called the Reich Citizenship Law which declared that only

Aryans could be citizens of the Reich. This law took away

the Jews political rights and reduced them from citizens

to state subjects. The second law was the Law for the

Protection of German Blood and Honor. This law

forbade marriages and extramarital sexual relations

between Germans and Jews, the employment of German

maids under the age of 45 in Jewish homes and the raising

of the German flag by Jews. The Nuremberg laws provided a legitimate legal mechanism for

excluding the Jews from German culture. It also gave the Nazi Party a rationalization for the

anti-Semitic riots and arrests they had carried out over previous months (Nuremberg Laws).

Propaganda

According to Nazi Propaganda, Hitler said, Propaganda tries to force a doctrine on the

whole people Propaganda works on the general public from the standpoint of an idea and

makes them ripe for the victory of this idea (USHMM). Adolf

Hitler wrote these words in his book Mein Kampf, in which he first

advocated the use of propaganda to spread the ideals of National

Socialism. In addition, the article describes how when the Nazis

took power in 1933, Hitler established a Reich Ministry of Public

Enlightenment ran by Joseph Goebbels. The Ministrys goal was to

make certain the Nazi message was communicated correctly and

successfully through art, music, theater, films, books, radio,Nazi propaganda poster.

Source: http://bit.ly/I8rs4a


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Hastings 5educational materials, and the press. Propaganda campaigns created an atmosphere for violence

against Jews. It also encouraged the acceptance of impending measures against Jews, as it

seemed as if the Nazis were stepping in and restoring order. Films played an important role in

racial anti-Semitism, the superiority of German military power, and the evil of the enemies as

defined by Nazi ideology. The films portrayed Jews as subhuman, wandering cultural parasites,

and consumed by sex and money. Newspapers in Germany printed anti-Semitic pictures

depicting the Jews. The Nazi regime used propaganda to effectively mobilize the German

population to support its wars of conquest until the very end of the regime. Nazi propaganda was

essential in motivating those who implemented the mass murder of the European Jews and of all

the other victims that were killed by the Nazis (USHMM). The use of propaganda helped allow

for the persecution and largest scale of mass murder that has ever been seen by the human race.

Kristallnacht

According to the article, Nazis Launch Kristallnacht, on November 9, 1938 carrying into

November 10 the Nazis launched a campaign of terror against Jewish people and their homes

and businesses in Germany and Austria. This event was

called Kristallnacht or Night of Broken Glass because

of all of the smashed windows of Jewish owned places.

Kristallnacht left 100 Jews dead, 7,500 Jewish businesses

damaged and hundreds of synagogues, homes, schools,

and graveyards vandalized. There were around 30,000

Jewish men that were arrested and sent to concentration

camps. As an excuse to carry out this attack the Nazis used the murder of a low-level German

diplomat in Paris by a 17 year-old Polish Jew. After Kristallnacht, the Nazis blamed the Jews and

Broken windows of a Jewish owned business onKristallnacht.

Source: http://bit.ly/HMSFKW


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Hastings 6fined them one billion marks or the equivalent of $400 million for the death of the diplomat.

Over 100,000 Jews fled Germany after Kristallnacht. Many countries broke off relations with

Germany after this, but the Nazis suffered no serious consequences for their actions (History).

Rounding up Jews-ghettos

According the Florida Center for Instructional Technology, confining Jews in ghettos was

not Hitlers idea. For centuries, Jews had faced persecution and were often forced to live in

ghettos. The difference between Nazi ghettos and ghettos of the past is that the Nazi ghettos were

being used as a step in eliminating the Jews instead of just isolating them from the rest of the

population (The Ghettos). According to the article Ghettos, ghettos were closed off city districts

in which Germans concentrated the Jewish population and

forced them to live under very harsh conditions. The

ghettos were meant to isolate the Jews from the rest of the

population. There were at least 1,000 ghettos established

in German-occupied Poland and the Soviet Union alone.

The first ghetto was established in Po The Nazis used the ghettos as places to control and

segregate Jews while they deliberated upon what to do with the Jews to achieve their goal of

eliminating the Jewish population. After the decision was made on what to do with the Jews,

known as the Final Solution, all of the Jews were deported to killing centers and the ghettos

were destroyed. The largest ghetto in Poland was the Warsaw ghetto. There were more than

400,000 Jews inside of a 1.3 square mile area. In the ghettos, the Jews were forced to wear

armbands identifying them as a Jew. There were many resistance efforts such as smuggling in

food or medicine. There was almost no form of schooling or any public gathering. If anything

occurred of that nature the organizers would be found and killed (USHMM).

A picture of the Warsaw ghetto.Source: http://bit.ly/HB0rsf


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Hastings 7Resistance

According to Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the first civilian revolt began on April 19, 1943

lasting until May 16. It was the longest lasting uprising. The uprising was mainly due to

deportations to death camps. It was not about saving Jewish lives but about choosing the way

they were going to die. This uprising gave hope to many Jews as the word spread to other camps

(Holocaust Survivors). According to Resistance During the Holocaust, the atmosphere of terror

and isolation in the camps, as well as starvation, hindered the will of the prisoners and the

possibilities of resistance. Escape was nearly impossible because of high-voltage electrical wires

and guard towers. The daily routine was very strictly planned. There were a system of harsh

punishments for small infractions, close surveillance, and countless roll calls. If you were caught

attempting to resist or escape you were killed when caught. There

were many forms of unarmed resistance in the camps. There was

very secretive resistance groups formed in many of the

concentration camps. Many resistance efforts revolved around

relieving the suffering of the inmates. The activities included

gathering food, money, and medical supplies for those in need.

Another form of unarmed resistance was trying to inform the

outside world about the camps and the activities that go on in the

camps. There were multiple occasions of armed resistance as well. There were three killing

center revolts in Treblinka, Sobibor, and Auschwitz-Birkenau. These revolts came about because

of desperation and hopelessness, when it became very clear that every prisoner in the camp was

to be exterminated. Furthermore at Treblinka on August 2, 1943, a massive revolt occurred in

which many prisoners died during the escape and around 200 actually got out but only about 20

Jewish resistance in the camps.Source: http://bit.ly/IiadQZ


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The attendees of the Wannsee Conference.Source: http://bit.ly/I3E2m5

of them were never caught. In Sobibor on October 14, 1943, 300 prisoners escaped and almost

200 of them avoided recapture. Only a small number however survived to the wars end. In

Auschwitz-Birkenau on October 7, 1944, a group of prisoners blew up one of Birkenaus

crematoria using dynamite smuggled in to the camp. 600 prisoners escaped but all were either

captured or killed. A last form of armed resistance was from gypsies at Auschwitz but it was

quick to be shut down (iEarn).

Wannsee conference-The final solution

According to Wannsee Conference and the Final Solution, on January 20, 1942, fifteen

high-ranking Nazi Party and German government officials gathered at a villa in a Berlin suburb

of Wannsee. They were there to discuss and coordinate the implementation of what they called

the Final Solution of the Jewish question. The Final

Solution was the code name for the extermination of the

European Jews. At the time of the conference, most of the

people there were aware of mass murder of Jews in

German-occupied areas of the Soviet Union and Serbia.

None of the officials present objected to the Final

Solution. The decision had already been made at the highest level of the Nazi regime. At the

conference it was indicated that approximately 11,000,000 Jews in Europe would fall under the

guidelines set by the Final Solution. This not only included Jews from Axis-controlled Europe,

but also the Jewish populations of the United Kingdom, and the neutral nations. The goal of the

Wannsee Conference was very clear to everybody there and that was to plan and coordinate the

systematic extermination of the Jews (USHMM).

Selection-selektion


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The selection process.Source: http://bit.ly/wDDhOC

According to At the Killing Centers, after deportation trains arrived at the extermination

camps the guards would order the deportees to get out and form a line. Then there was a

selection process. The men would be separated from women and children. A Nazi physician

would quickly look at each person to determine whether or not he or she was healthy and strong

enough for forced labor. The officer would then point to

the left or the right and the victim did not know whether

he or she was being selected to live or die. The young,

elderly, handicapped, pregnant women and the sick had

little chance of surviving the first selection. Those that

were selected to die were led straight to the gas chambers.

Furthermore, the article describes how in order to

prevent panic, camp guards told the victims that they were going to take showers to rid

themselves of lice. The victims were told to undress and to hand over their valuables. Then they

were driven naked to the gas chamber and locked inside. Finally either Zyklon B pellets were

dropped into the chamber or carbon monoxide was pumped in, and the victims were usually dead

within minutes. Then the bodies were hauled off to have their hair, gold teeth, and fillings

removed. The bodies were then cremated or buried in a mass grave (USHMM).

Extermination Methods

The methods the Nazis used for extermination were poor sanitation, starvation, disease,

forced labor, medical experiments, mass shootings, mobile killing units, and two different types

of gassing operations which proved to be most effective. According to Forced Labor: An

Overview, the labor was often pointless and humiliating. There were brutal conditions such as

lack of proper equipment, not having the proper clothes, malnourishment, and lack of rest. In


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Hastings 10some cases forced labor was a means of survival, because if you were useful they might not kill

you. If you were working the whole time it gave you the potential to survive the war (USHMM).

Mass shootings were a major method of extermination. According to Extermination Camps, in

Majdanek death camp between November 3-4 in the year 1943 around eighteen thousand Jews

were killed in one day as part of a mass shooting. Jews were captured or arrested and forced to

dig their own graves. The Jews would then stand next to the graves, and the Nazis would shoot

them so they would fall into the graves. This went on from June 1941 until the end of the war.

Many shootings were done by four Einsatzgruppen (A-D) (The Danish Center for Holocaust and

Genocide Studies). According to USHMM, the

Einsatzgruppen, which means mobile killing units, was

one of the first steps of the Final Solution. These units

were tasked with murdering of those perceived to be

racial or political enemies of Germany in the occupied

Soviet Union. The methods of extermination used by

these groups were mass shootings. This put a psychological burden on the soldiers because of

killing so many people up close. This is what led to the invention of gas vans or hell vans.

These were made of chambers mounted on cargo vans and carbon monoxide was pumped into

the chamber from the trucks exhaust killing the victims inside (Einsatzgruppen: Mobile Killing

Units).

All of the killing methods used were slow and inefficient. The Nazis wanted to kill

millions of Jews and not leave evidence behind. This led to the invention of huge stationary gas

chambers and crematoriums at the extermination camps. According to Yad Vashem, in

December 1941 the Nazis started using large scale gas van operations at the Chelmno

An Auschwitz gas chamber.Source: http://bit.ly/HGQhVH


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A picture of Auschwitz death camp.Source: http://bit.ly/KsclV

extermination camp, but this proved to be ineffective for the millions of Jews they wanted to

exterminate. In 1942, Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka death camps were equipped with large

stationary gas chambers where exhaust gas from diesel engines killed hundreds of thousands of

Jews. In addition to previous gassing operations, the Nazis were always looking for more

efficient methods of extermination. A form of hydrogen cyanide was found called Zyklon B and

put into use at Auschwitz. This poison gas became the most efficient way of mass murder and

was used for four years at Auschwitz. Over a million people were gassed to death during that

time. During the four years the camp was expanded allowing it to become the main killing

center (Gas Chambers).

The death camps

According to the article The Camps, more than half of the estimated six million Jews that

were murdered during the Holocaust were exterminated in the gas chamber/crematorium system

of the Nazi death camps between 1942 and 1945. There

were only six death camps that were constructed after the

Final Solution became an official policy. The camps

were built for the sole purpose of mass extermination of

mainly Jews, but other groups as well that did not fit the

Aryan description.

Chelmno. This extermination camp was under the

command of Hauptsturmfuhrerer Herbert Lange. After the Jews were transported to the camp

they were forced into vans and the doors were closed and locked. The motor was started and a

hose carried the carbon monoxide fumes into the van. It required around ten to fifteen minutes to

kill all who were in the van. The driver drove the bodies to pre-dug graves in the forest where


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Hastings 12Jews were forced to unload the bodies into graves. The van then returned and repeated the

operation. Estimates of the victims that were killed there are as high as 360,000.

Auschwitz-Birkenau. This camp is the most well-known death camp. It served as a

concentration camp for forced labor and an extermination camp. Auschwitz was also used as a

place where medical experiments were carried out. It was the largest camp and was eventually

split into three camps. Birkenau or Auschwitz II was where extermination took place and it was

located about 1.5 miles away from the original camp. It was run by Rudolf Hoess. This camp

was the most efficient camp established by the Nazis. The total number of Jews that were

murdered will never be known. Estimates go as high as two and a half million. In a single day

the most people ever killed and cremated was 24,000.

Belzek. This death camp was under the command of Odilo Globocnic. For the first few

months the camp used diesel fumes to kill its victims. By 1942 Zyklon-B gas was used

experimentally and proved to be extremely effective. This led to other camps using it as well. It

is estimated that more than six hundred thousand people were killed at Belzek.

Sobibor. This camp was built in 1942 and ran by Obersturmfuhrer Franz Stangl. It had

five gas chambers that killed around two hundred and fifty thousand Jews. At this camp about

fifty prisoners survived to tell their story.

Treblinka. This camp was under the command of Franz Stangl. This camp is where the

majority of the Warsaw ghettos population was sent to. By July 11, 1945, when the Soviets

entered Warsaw, over seven hundred thousand Jews had been murdered at Treblinka. There was

also a revolt at this camp.

Majdanek. The camp was ran much like the other ones. By the fall 1943, two hundred

thousand had been gassed. There is an estimate of 1,380,000 people that were killed there.


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Hastings 13Stutthof. This camp was established as a concentration camp in 1939. It was later

converted to a death camp in 1941. This camp was mainly a forced labor camp although there

was a gassing operation. Around 65,000 people were murdered here (Middle Tennessee State

University).

Liberation

According to Liberation of Nazi Camps, Soviet forces were the first to reach a major

camp, Majdanek in July 1944. The Nazis tried to hide the evidence of mass murder but the gas

chambers were left in a hasty evacuation. In the summer of 1944, the Soviets also liberated the

sites of Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka. These camps

were dismantled in 1943, after almost all of the Jews had

been killed. The Soviets also liberated Auschwitz in

January 1945. They found an overwhelming amount of

evidence of mass murder. In the following months the

United States, British forces, and the Soviets liberated

many other concentration camps. The liberators

confronted extremely harsh conditions in the camps. Only after liberation was the full scope of

the Nazi horrors exposed to the world (USHMM).

After Liberation

According to Life After the Holocaust, liberation

was bittersweet. They were alive but everything was lost.

Thousands died even after liberation of malnutrition and

disease. Many survivors returned home to find strangers

living in their homes and their possessions gone. They

Liberation of a Nazi camp.Source: http://bit.ly/IqxxeF

Jews in a displaced persons camp.Source: http://bit.ly/IKKTjl


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Hastings 14were treated with resentment and fear. Many Jews were placed in displaced persons camps as

they had nowhere to go. No country wanted to take in a large amount of Jews. For the most part

Jews were not wanted anywhere (Holocaust Memorial Day Trust).


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Hastings 15Works Cited

"ANTI-JEWISH LEGISLATION IN PREWAR GERMANY." United States Holocaust

Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Web. 7 Apr. 2012.

"ANTISEMITISM IN HISTORY: NAZI ANTISEMITISM." United States Holocaust Memorial

Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Web. 7 Apr. 2012.

"AT THE KILLING CENTERS." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States

Holocaust Memorial Museum. Web. 13 Apr. 2012.

"The Camps."Middle Tennessee State University. Middle Tennessee State University. Web. 14

Apr. 2012.

"EINSATZGRUPPEN (MOBILE KILLING UNITS)." United States Holocaust Memorial

Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Web. 13 Apr. 2012.

"FORCED LABOR: AN OVERVIEW." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United

States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Web. 13 Apr. 2012.

"Gas Chambers." Yadvashem. Yadvashem. Web. 13 Apr. 2012.

"GERMANY: ESTABLISHMENT OF THE NAZI DICTATORSHIP." United States Holocaust


"The Ghettos." Florida Center for Instructional Technology. University of South Florida, 2005.

Web. 9 Apr. 2012.

"GHETTOS." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial

Museum. Web. 9 Apr. 2012.

"HITLER COMES TO POWER." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States



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Hastings 16"LIBERATION OF NAZI CAMPS." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States


"Life After the Holocaust."Holocaust Memorial Day Trust. Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, 6

Jan. 2012. Web. 14 Apr. 2012.

"NAZI PROPAGANDA." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust

Memorial Museum. Web. 8 Apr. 2012.

"Nazis Launch Kristallnacht."History. History. Web. 9 Apr. 2012.

"Nuremberg Laws." Yadvashem. Yadvashem. Web. 7 Apr. 2012.

"Resistance During the Holocaust."IEarn. IEarn. Web. 10 Apr. 2012.

Vogelsang, Peter, and Brian B.M. Larsen. "Extermination Camps." The Danish Center for

Holocaust and Genocide Studies. The Danish Center for Holocaust and Genocide

Studies, 2002. Web. 13 Apr. 2012.

"WANNSEE CONFERENCE AND THE "FINAL SOLUTION"" United States Holocaust


"Warsaw Ghetto Uprising."Holocaust Survivors. National Endowment for the Humanities. Web.

10 Apr. 2012.


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Andrew Hastings Eng 102-101

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