“The Final Solution”

• Nazis frequently talked about “solving the Jewish question” but what they meant by these words changed over time.– Slandering Jews – Stigmatize them as a pariah group– Curtailing the role of Jews in German society– Denial of citizenship and civil rights– Forced emigration

Nuremburg Laws 1935

• At the annual party rally held in Nuremberg in 1935, the Nazis announced new laws which institutionalized many of the racial theories prevalent in Nazi ideology.

• Anyone with 3-4 Jewish Grandparents is considered Jewish

• Deprived Jews of citizenship• Prohibited marriages and sexual relations between

Aryan and non-Aryans• Boycott of Jewish businesses• Nov 1935, the laws were extended to Gypsies and Blacks

Kristallnacht 1938

• Night of broken glass – shards of broken glass from Jewish businesses, synogogues, homes, and hospitals

• Pogrom - series of coordinated attacks against Jews through Nazi Germany and Austria.

• 30, 000 sent to concentration camps• Pre-text for the attacks was the death of a

German diplomat in Paris by a Polish Jewish resident in Paris.

Ghettos and segregation• Nazis considered a

sort of “reservation” for the Jews – Poland or Madagascar.

• Became the policy of enclosing Jews in restricted ghettos – overcrowding led to mass death

• Next step was small and logical: Nazis began to kill the Jews directly.

Lodz, Poland Ghetto

• Feb 1942: A bridge that connected the two sections of the Lodz Ghetto

• Nazis decided to implement the “Final Solution” in the occupied territories to the east of Germany because– Majority of Jews lived in this region– Easier to conceal the evidence (In Germany they created gas

chambers in hospitals to kill handicapped people but they were unable to maintain secrecy and faced opposition in Germany).

– History of violent anti-Semitism. Pogroms and killings within the last 60 years

Nazi tactics to make Jewish resistance difficult

1. Deception2. Terror3. Separation of family members4. Collective Responsibility5. Slave labour

Mass Murder Program

• Upon the invasion of the Soviet Union, four mobile firing squads were used. – Mass shootings were inefficient, gruesome,

difficult to keep hidden and considered too stressful on the killers.

– 1-1.5 million people were murdered in this way• In response, the SS leadership decided to rely

on poison gas. First in mobile gassing vans then they est. “Death Camps”

• Gas chamber used at Auschwitz during 1941-1942.

• Cremation chambers at Auschwitz

• Mass grave

• 6 Million Jews were killed in the Holocaust. Blacks, Roma, Homosexuals, handicapped, political opponents were also targeted, bringing the total to 11 million.

Artwork by Felix Nussbaum• Felix

Nussbaum (11 December 1904 – 2 August 1944) was a German-Jewishsurrealist painter. Nussbaum’s artwork gives a rare glimpse into the essence of one individual among the victims of the Holocaust.