The Holocaust The Systematic Murder of the European Jews and
Enemies of the Nazi Regime
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The Persecution of Jews in Pre-War germany The persecution and
hatred of the Jews was one of the main policies of the Nazi party
They began persecuting the Jews right after they assumed power
During the first six years of Hitler's dictatorship, over 400
decrees and regulations restricted all aspects of the public and
private lives of Jewish people
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1933-1934 The first wave of legislation focused on limiting the
participation of Jews in public life The "Law for the Restoration
of the Professional Civil Service" excluded Jews from being part of
the public service and performing jobs such as medicine, law and
teaching Jewish doctors were banned from treating non-Jewish
patients At this time, Jews were also banned from attending public
schools and universities
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The Nuremberg Laws In September 1935, the "Nuremberg Laws" were
announced excluding German Jews from Reich citizenship They also
prohibited Jews from marrying or having sexual relations with
persons of "German or German-related blood" Since they no longer
held citizenship, they were no longer able to vote or hold public
office Jewish patients were no longer admitted to municipal
hospitals Jews were also expelled from the German Army
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1937-1938 "Aryanization" meant the dismissal of Jewish workers
and managers of a company and/or the takeover of Jewish- owned
businesses by non-Jewish Germans who bought them at bargain prices
fixed by the government
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KristallNacht On November 7, 1938, Polish- Jewish student
Herschel Grynzpan, shot a German diplomat Ernst von Rath The Nazi
government responded by attacking Jewish businesses, homes and
synagogues on the night of November 9-10, 1938 Almost 7,500
businesses were destroyed and 177 synagogues were burned to the
ground In response the Nazi Government levied a 1,000,000,000 mark
fine against the Jewish community
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Consequences for the Jewish Community Jews were barred from
cinemas, theaters, and sports facilities In many cities, Jews were
forbidden to enter designated "Aryan" zones The government required
Jews to identify themselves in ways that would permanently separate
them from the rest of the population Jewish men and women bearing
first names of "non-Jewish" origin had to add "Israel" and "Sara,"
respectively, to their given names All Jews were obliged to carry
identity cards that indicated their Jewish heritage and all Jewish
passports were stamped with an identifying letter "J"
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Euthanasia Program Under the Nazi Regime, "euthanasia" was a
murder program which targeted for systematic killing mentally and
physically disabled patients living in institutions This was the
first program of mass murder, predating the genocide of European
Jewry by approximately two years They aimed to eliminate what Nazi
scientists considered "life unworthy of life"
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Euthanasia Program In the spring and summer months of 1939, the
Nazis began to organize a secret killing operation targeting
disabled children Public health authorities began to encourage
parents of children with disabilities to admit their young children
to one of a number of specially designated pediatric clinics The
clinics were in reality children's killing wards where specially
recruited medical staff murdered their young charges by lethal
overdoses of medication or by starvation
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Euthanasia Program Estimates suggest that at least 5,000
physically and mentally disabled German children died as a result
of the child "euthanasia" program during the war years The program
was eventually extended to include adults as well People were
killed using special vans pumped full of carbon monoxide gas or
shower rooms that pumped in carbon monoxide gas This technology was
eventually used in Nazi death camps
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Ghettos The first ghetto was established in Poland in Piotrkw
Trybunalski in October 1939 Ghettos were city districts (often
enclosed) in which the Germans concentrated the Jewish population
and forced them to live in miserable conditions The largest ghetto
in Poland was the Warsaw ghetto, where more than 400,000 Jews were
crowded into an area of 1.3 square miles
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Ghettos The Germans established at least 1,000 ghettos in
German- occupied and annexed Poland and the Soviet Union alone With
the implementation of the "Final Solution" (the plan to murder all
European Jews) beginning in late 1941, the Germans systematically
destroyed the ghettos In August 1944, German SS and police
completed the destruction of the last major ghetto, in Lodz
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Daily Life in the Ghettos All Jews living in ghettos were
forced to wear identifying badges or armbands Jews in ghettos were
forced to perform forced labor for the German Reich Daily life in
the ghettos was administered by Nazi-appointed Jewish councils
(Judenraete) A ghetto police force enforced the orders of the
German authorities and the ordinances of the Jewish councils,
including deportations to killing centers
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Daily Life in the Ghettos With the implementation of the "Final
Solution" (the plan to murder all European Jews) beginning in late
1941, the Germans systematically destroyed the ghettos In August
1944, German SS and police completed the destruction of the last
major ghetto, in Lodz
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Resistance Efforts in the Ghettos Jews responded to the ghetto
restrictions with a variety of resistance efforts Ghetto residents
frequently engaged in so-called illegal activities, such as
smuggling food, medicine, weapons or intelligence across the ghetto
walls Some Jewish councils and some individual council members
tolerated or encouraged the illicit trade because the goods were
necessary to keep ghetto residents alive In some ghettos, members
of Jewish resistance movements staged armed uprisings The largest
of these was the Warsaw ghetto uprising in spring 1943
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EinSatzgruppen (mobile Killing Squads) Einsatzgruppen were
squads composed primarily of German SS and police personnel Their
job was to murder those perceived to be racial or political enemies
in the occupied Soviet Union They also murdered thousands of
residents of institutions for the mentally and physically
disabled
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EinSatzgruppen (mobile Killing Squads) They followed the German
army as it advanced deep into Soviet territory They used the local
people to help carry out mass- murder operations At first the
Einsatzgruppen shot primarily Jewish men By late summer 1941, they
shot Jewish men, women, and children without regard for age or sex,
and buried them in mass graves
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EinSatzgruppen (mobile Killing Squads) Often with the help of
local informants and interpreters, Jews in a given locality were
identified and taken to collection points They were then marched or
transported by truck to the execution site, where trenches had been
prepared In some cases the victims had to dig their own graves
After the victims had handed over their valuables and undressed,
men, women, and children were shot, either standing before the open
trench, or lying face down in the prepared pit
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EinSatzgruppen (mobile Killing Squads) In the late summer of
1941, Heinrich Himmler, noting the psychological burden that mass
shootings produced on his men, created the gas van, a mobile gas
chamber By the spring of 1943, the Einsatzgruppen had killed over a
million Soviet Jews and tens of thousands of Soviet political
commissars, partisans, Roma, and institutionalized disabled
persons
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Concentration Camps As Germany conquered much of Europe in the
years 1939 1941, the SS established a number of new concentration
camps to incarcerate increased numbers of political prisoners,
resistance groups, and groups deemed racially inferior After the
beginning of the war, the concentration camps also became sites for
the mass murder of small targeted groups deemed dangerous for
political or racial reasons
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Concentration Camps Most prisoners in the camps were severely
malnourished and were eventually worked to death Diseases were
rampant in the camps and many prisoners died from a lack of
treatment The Nazis constructed gas chambers for use to kill people
at several of the concentration camps as part of a policy that
became known as The Final Solution
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Extermination Camps The Nazis established killing centers for
efficient mass murder Killing centers were almost exclusively
"death factories" German SS and police murdered nearly 2,700,000
Jews in the killing centers either by asphyxiation with poison gas
or by shooting
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Extermination Camps The SS considered the killing centers top
secret To obliterate all traces of gassing operations, special
prisoner units were forced to remove corpses from the gas chambers
and cremate them The grounds of some killing centers were
landscaped or camouflaged to disguise the murder of millions.
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Chelmo, Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka The first killing center
was Chelmno, which opened in December 1941 Mostly Jews, but also
Roma (Gypsies), were gassed in mobile gas vans there In 1942, the
Nazis opened the Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka killing centers to
murder the Jews of Poland The SS killed approximately 1,526,500
Jews between March 1942 and November 1943
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Auschwitz-Birkenau Almost all of the deportees who arrived at
the camps were sent immediately to death in the gas chambers The
exception being a small group chosen for special work teams known
as Sonderkommandos
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Auschwitz-Birkenau By spring 1943 Aschwitz- Birkenau had four
gas chambers using Zyklon B poison gas in operation At the height
of the deportations, up to 6,000 Jews were gassed each day here
Over a million Jews and tens of thousands of Roma, Poles, and
Soviet prisoners of war were killed there by November 1944
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Dr. Josef Mengele The Angel of Death Dr. Josef Mengele served
as the chief physician at Auschwitz-Birkenau As part of his duties
he performed selections of prisoners determining who would be
retained for work and who die in the gas chambers Known as the
Angel of Death, for his coldly cruel demeanor with this selection
duty
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Dr. Josef Mengele The Angel of Death Mengele became interested
in using twins for medical research in order to trace the genetic
origins of various diseases Mengele performed a broad range of
agonizing and often lethal experiments with Jewish and Roma twins,
most of them children
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The Victims Although the Jews were their primary targets, the
Nazis also Communists, Socialists, Social Democrats, and trade
union leaders, Roma (Gypsies), Poles, Slavic peoples, Clergy,
Jehovah's Witnesses and homosexuals