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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
Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Web. 6 Apr. 2012.
"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
Holocaust Memorial Museum. Web. 6 Apr. 2012.
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Hastings 16"LIBERATION OF NAZI CAMPS." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States
Holocaust Memorial Museum. Web. 14 Apr. 2012.
"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
Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Web. 11 Apr. 2012.
"Warsaw Ghetto Uprising."Holocaust Survivors. National Endowment for the Humanities. Web.
10 Apr. 2012.
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