The Nazi Holocaust 1938-1945 6,000,000 Deaths
Adolf Hitler and his Nazi followers tried to get rid of the entire Jewish population of Europe by forcing them to go to Concentration camps and killing them in gas Chambers, amongst other ways of murder.
In January 1933, Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany. During his rise to power, Hitler had blamed the Jews for Germany's defeat in World War I and other economic problems. Hitler also had racial theories saying that Germans with fair skin, blond hair and blue eyes were the supreme form of human, or master race. According to Hitler, the Jews were the exact opposite.
In January 1933, Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany. During his rise to power, Hitler had blamed the Jews for Germany's defeat in World War I and other economic problems. Hitler also had racial theories saying that Germans with fair skin, blond hair and blue eyes were the supreme form of human, or master race. According to Hitler, the Jews were the exact opposite.
At this time, Jews composed only about one percent of Germany's population of 55 million. German Jews considered themselves to be Germans by nationality and Jews only by religion. They had lived in Germany for centuries.
But they were shut out of German society by the Nazis through laws and decrees. The Nuremberg Laws of 1935 deprived them of their German citizenship and forbade intermarriage with non-Jews. They were not allowed to go to school, couldn't practice their professions, were excluded from military service, and they were even forbidden to share a park bench with a non-Jew.
At the same time, the direction of Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels portrayed Jews as enemies of the German people. The Jews lost everything, including their homes and businesses and there were no protest from non-Jewish German civilians. The Nazi propaganda film "The Eternal Jew" even compared Jews to plague carrying rats, a foreshadow of what was to come
In 1938, Hitler expanded the the Nazi Reich by Austria to their territory. Discrimination immediately began on Austria's Jews. They also lost everything.
Back in Germany, hatred toward the Jews had finally reached it's peak on the night that marks the beginning of the Holocaust. The Night of Broken Glass (Kristallnacht) occurred on November 9 after a 17-year-old boy shot and a German embassy official in Paris, because of the harsh treatment his Jewish parents had received from Nazis.
Motivated by Joseph Goebbels, Nazis used the death of the German embassy official as an excuse to carry out the first pogrom against Jews. Ninety Jews were killed, 500 synagogues were burned and most Jewish shops had their windows smashed. 25,000 men were brought to concentration camps, on one of the first mass arrests.
Many German and Austrian Jews now attempted to flee Hitler's Reich. However, most Western countries maintained strict immigration laws and showed little interest in receiving large numbers of Jewish refugees.
Hitler wanted to blame the Jews for the new world war he was soon to declare. That war began in September 1939 as German troops stormed into Poland, a country that had over three million Jewish people. After Poland's quick defeat, Polish Jews were forced into ghettos in Krakow, and Warsaw, to await future plans (concentration camps). Inside these overcrowded ghettos, tens of thousands died from hunger and disease because of the bad living conditions.
In 1940, the building of a concentration camp near the Polish city of Oswiecim, renamed Auschwitz by the Germans, to hold Polish prisoners.
Meanwhile, Hitler continued his conquest of Europe, he invaded Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg and France, forcing all the Jews under Nazi control. However what was to do with the millions of Jews now under Nazi control - referred to by the Nazis themselves as the Judenfrage (Jewish question).
The following year, Hitler invaded the Soviet Union. Before the invasion he had summoned his top generals and ordered them the attack on Russia would be ruthless, targeting Communists and Jews and that normal rules of military combat were to be ignored.
Inside the Soviet Union were an about three million Jews. There the Germans killed many of them without even capturing them first.
During the summer of 1941, Auschwitz was "found" as the solution to the Jewish question...
But they were shut out of German society by the Nazis through laws and decrees. The Nuremberg Laws of 1935 deprived them of their German citizenship and forbade intermarriage with non-Jews. They were not allowed to go to school, couldn't practice their professions, were excluded from military service, and they were even forbidden to share a park bench with a non-Jew.
At the same time, the direction of Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels portrayed Jews as enemies of the German people. The Jews lost everything, including their homes and businesses and there were no protest from non-Jewish German civilians. The Nazi propaganda film "The Eternal Jew" even compared Jews to plague carrying rats, a foreshadow of what was to come
In 1938, Hitler expanded the the Nazi Reich by Austria to their territory. Discrimination immediately began on Austria's Jews. They also lost everything.
Back in Germany, hatred toward the Jews had finally reached it's peak on the night that marks the beginning of the Holocaust. The Night of Broken Glass (Kristallnacht) occurred on November 9 after a 17-year-old boy shot and a German embassy official in Paris, because of the harsh treatment his Jewish parents had received from Nazis.
Motivated by Joseph Goebbels, Nazis used the death of the German embassy official as an excuse to carry out the first pogrom against Jews. Ninety Jews were killed, 500 synagogues were burned and most Jewish shops had their windows smashed. 25,000 men were brought to concentration camps, on one of the first mass arrests.
Many German and Austrian Jews now attempted to flee Hitler's Reich. However, most Western countries maintained strict immigration laws and showed little interest in receiving large numbers of Jewish refugees.
Hitler wanted to blame the Jews for the new world war he was soon to declare. That war began in September 1939 as German troops stormed into Poland, a country that had over three million Jewish people. After Poland's quick defeat, Polish Jews were forced into ghettos in Krakow, and Warsaw, to await future plans (concentration camps). Inside these overcrowded ghettos, tens of thousands died from hunger and disease because of the bad living conditions.
In 1940, the building of a concentration camp near the Polish city of Oswiecim, renamed Auschwitz by the Germans, to hold Polish prisoners.
Meanwhile, Hitler continued his conquest of Europe, he invaded Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg and France, forcing all the Jews under Nazi control. However what was to do with the millions of Jews now under Nazi control - referred to by the Nazis themselves as the Judenfrage (Jewish question).
The following year, Hitler invaded the Soviet Union. Before the invasion he had summoned his top generals and ordered them the attack on Russia would be ruthless, targeting Communists and Jews and that normal rules of military combat were to be ignored.
Inside the Soviet Union were an about three million Jews. There the Germans killed many of them without even capturing them first.
During the summer of 1941, Auschwitz was "found" as the solution to the Jewish question...
At Auschwitz, a new camp was being built to be known as Auschwitz II (Birkenau). They would become the future site of gas chambers to be used for mass extermination. The idea of using gas chambers was called "mercy killing".
In January 1942, top Nazis discussed plans for the "Final Solution". The Jews in Europe would now be gathered up and deported into Poland where new extermination centers were being constructed (Auschwitz-Birkenau amongst others).
The extermination process was very well planned. Jews arriving in Poland in trains informed by the SS that they had come to a transit stop and would be continuing on the right path soon. Men were then split up from the women and children. Everyone was taken to undressing barracks and told to remove all of their clothing. They were then guided along pathway. At the end of the path was a bathhouse with shower rooms. As soon as the people were all inside, the door was shut, so no air could escape. Deadly carbon monoxide fumes were then fed into the chamber killing everyone.
The corpses were gotten rid of by various methods including mass burials, cremation in open fire pits or in crematory ovens like those used at Auschwitz. All clothing, money, gold, jewelry, watches, eyeglasses and other valuables were sorted out then shipped back to Germany for re-use.
Polish Jews were simply told they were being "transferred" to work camps. Many went willingly, hoping to escape the ghetto conditions. Young children and the elderly often died long before reaching their destination because of the bad transportation methods.
In Auschwitz Jews went through a selection process. Young adults fit for slave labor were allowed to live and had an ID number tattooed on their left arm. Everyone else went to the gas chambers. A few People, especially twin children, were set aside for human medical experiments.
The Nazis tried to keep all of the death camps secret, however, rumors and some witness reports started to emerge. Especially since the mass shootings in Russia were hard to conceal. In June and July 1942, the New York Times reported that over 1,000,000 Jews had already been shot.
Jews in America responded to the various reports by holding a rally at New York's Madison Square Garden in 1943 to pressure the U.S. government into action. As a result, a Conference was held, U.S. and British representatives meeting to discuss the problem of refugees from Nazi-occupied countries. However, the meeting resulted in inaction towards the exterminations.
200,000 Jews from neutral countries were saved from death camps by the WRB (War Refugee Board), sent by U.S President Roosevelt after the U.S inaction concerning the extermination of the European Jews had been criticized
At some point, Jews took matters into their own hands and resisted the Nazis. The most notable was the battle in Warsaw Ghetto. There, a group of about 700 Jews armed with weapons, they had smuggled in, battled 2000 SS soldiers armed with tanks, artillery and flame throwers. When they encountered resistance from the Jews, the Nazis decided to burn down the entire ghetto.
Resistance also happened inside the death camps. In a camp in Poland 300 Prisoners managed to escape however most of them were caught and only 50 of them made it away.
Few non-Jewish people were willing to risk their own lives to help the Jews. However the great country of Denmark rescued nearly its entire population of Jews by transporting them to safety by sea. The other great country, Italy and also Bulgaria both refused to accept the German demands for deportations. Elsewhere in Europe, people didn't do much of anything to help Jewish families who were being deported.
By 1944, the war had turned against Hitler and his armies were being defeated by the Allies. However, the killing of Jews continued.
From May 15 to July 9, over 430,000 Hungarian Jews were deported to Auschwitz. During this time, Auschwitz 9000 people were killed each day. Pits were used to burn the bodies, because there were too many bodies for the crematories.
Soviet troops freed the first camp, in eastern Poland, where over 360,000 had died. As the Soviet Army came closer to Auschwitz, the destruction of the gas chambers was ordered.
The Soviet Army reached Auschwitz on January 1945. By that time, 1,500,000 Jews, along with 500,000 Polish prisoners and Gypsies, had died there. At that time the atrocities of the Nazi regime were finally fully acknowledged by the U.S and Britain.
On April 30, 1945, Adolf Hitler committed suicide and his Reich collapsed. By then, most of Europe's Jews had been killed. Four million had died from the gas chambers in the death camps while another two million had been shot dead or died in the ghettos.