Session: The Holocaust

Image Source: http://romaniroots.webs.com/holocaust.jpg

The Lead Up

• Prior to the physical extermination of Jews Hitler as part of the Final Solution, the Nazis used ‘legal means’ to prosecute the Jews.

• When Hitler seized power in 1933 he used his new powers under the ‘Enabling Law’ to begin his attack on the Jews.

• In 1938, the Nazi attack on the Jews changed and became more violent with Himmler launching Kristallnacht on 11th November 1938.

• By 1939, half of Germany’s 500,000 Jews had emigrated to escape Nazi persecution.

The Einsatzgruppen (Mobile Killing Units)

• Prior to the ‘Final Solution’, Himmler sent 4 specially trained SS units called “Einsatzgruppen battalions” – mobile killing units, into German occupied territory and shot at least 1 million Jews.

• The Einsatzgruppen main task was to murder those perceived to be racial or political enemies found behind German combat lines in the occupied Soviet Union.

• Einsatzgruppen were squads composed of German SS soldiers and Order Police personnel.

• Victims were taken to deserted areas where they were made to dig their own graves and shot.

• The Einsatzgruppen also murdered thousands of mentally & physically disabled people within asylums.

Change of Tactics

• Due to the war & Poland’s Nazi governor preventing the ‘resettlement’ of the Jews in Poland, the Nazis ended the ‘resettlement to the East’ program, & decided to Change tactics.

• Orders were sent to remove the Jews that were in the Ghettos all across Europe, & round up any Jew & other ‘undesirables.’ They were to be placed in concentration camps until further notice.

• Jews were told they were being relocated to the East – Madagascar.

Tactics utilized to force Jews to leave the Ghettos

Tactics

Starvation

The Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto were

only fed a 1000 calories a day .

A Human being needs 2400 calories a day to maintain their weight

Terror

The SS publicly shot people for smuggling food or for

any act of resistance

Deception

The Jews were told that they were going to

‘resettlement areas’ in the East – Madagascar

In some Ghettos the Jews had to purchase their

own train tickets.

They were told to bring the tools of their

trade and pots and pans.

Hungry people are easier to control

New arrivals at the Death camps were given postcards to

send to their friends.

Source: School History

The Final Solution

• In January 1942, Himmler decided to change tactics once again and called a special conference at Wannsee.

• At this conference it was decided that the existing methods were too inefficient and that a new ‘Final Solution’ was necessary.

• The Final Solution – systematic extermination of Jews & enemy groups singled out by the Nazis.

Image Source: http://www.uncp.edu/home/rwb/himmler.jpg

Wannsee Conference

How was the Final Solution going to

be organised?

Shooting was too inefficient as the bullets were needed for the war

effort

Jews were to be rounded up and put

into transit camps called Ghettoes

The Jews living in these Ghettos were to

be used as a cheap source of labour.

Conditions in the Ghettos were designed to be so bad that many

die whilst the rest would be willing to leave these areas in the

hope of better conditions

On arrival the Jews would go through a

process called ‘selection.’

The remaining Jews were to be

shipped to ‘resettlement areas’ in the

East.

Women, children, the old & the sick were to

be sent for ‘special treatment.’

The young and fit would go through a process called

‘destruction through work.’

Source: Mr RJ Huggins, 2002, School History

Auschwitz Entrance

Notice how it has been built to resemble a railway station, so Jews wouldn’t suspect it was a concentration/death camp. The

Jews seeing a ‘railway station’ would’ve believed the Nazis’ story – that the they (Jews) were going to Madagascar.

Auschwitz Tactics: Processing of New Arrivals

Deception & Selection

At Auschwitz the trains pulled into a mock up of a normal station.

The Jews were helped off the cattle trucks by Jews who

were specially selected to help the

Nazis

At some death camps the Nazis would play records of classical music to help calm

down the new arrivals.

At Auschwitz the new arrivals were calmed

down by a Jewish orchestra playing classical music.

All new arrivals went through a process

known as ‘selection.’

Mothers, children, the old & sick were sent

straight to the ‘showers’ which were

really the gas chambers.

The able bodied were sent to work camp

were they were killed through a process

known as ‘destruction through work.’

Source: Mr RJ Huggins, 2002, School History

Map of AuschwitzNew Arrivals

‘Destruction Through Work’

Auschwitz from the Air

Notice how the Death camp is set out like a factory complex

The Nazis used industrial methods to murder the Jews and process their dead bodies

The Gas Chambers• The Nazis would force

large groups of prisoners into small cement rooms and drop canisters of Zyklon B, or prussic acid, in its crystal form through small holes in the roof.

• These gas chambers were sometimes disguised as showers or bathing houses.

The SS would try and pack up to 2000 people into this gas chamber.

Processing the Bodies

• Specially selected Jews known as the Sonderkommando were used to remove the gold fillings and hair of people who had been gassed.

• The Sonderkommando Jews were also forced to feed the dead bodies into the crematorium.

• During mass shootings, victims were not placed in crematoriums, they were buried in mass graves. Victims usually dug their own grave prior to being shot.

Ovens at DachauImage Source:

Nazism & The Holocaust• Hitler’s hatred of peoples he

regarded as inferior resulted in the deaths of almost six million Jews as well as the deaths of many others, especially Roma (gypsies), Socialists, Communists, homosexuals and the mentally and physically disabled.

• They were sent to purpose-built death camps, most of which were built in eastern Poland, where they were systematically murdered – gas chambers, mass shootings, medical experiments & via starvation.

• This atrocity came to be known as the Holocaust.

Image Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/Children_in_the_Holocaust_concentration_camp_liberated_by_Red_Army.jpg