Final Solution
Hitler
• 1923 – Beer Hall Putsch – imprisoned – Mein
Kampf
– Medieval-style irrational prejudice on Jews
Hitler
• Jan 30 1933 appointed CHANCELLOR
– March 21 1933 DACHAU – 1st concentration camp
worldwide protest = „Jewish plot“  launches an
ANTI-JEWISH CAMPAIGN
- April 1 1933 GENERAL BOYCOTT OF JEWISH SHOPS
AND PROFESSIONALS (students, professors,
judges)
The Nuremberg Laws
• 1933-35 Discriminatory Legislation
• Sep 15 1935 Nuremberg Laws
– CLEAR DEFINITION OF A JEW
The Nuremberg Laws
• The Law for the
Protection of German
blood and German
Honor
• The Reich Citizenship
Law
– Reich Citizens x
Nationals (State
Members)
– A Jew can not be Reich
Citizen = NO POLITICAL
RIGHTS
The 2nd Phase of Persecution
1938- 1942
• The Night of Broken Glass
– Nov. 9-10 1938
– German diplomat Ernst vom Rath assasinated by a
German-born Polish Jewish boy Herschel
Grynszpan
– COORDINATED ATTACK on Jewish people and their
property
• 91 Jews murdered
• 25 000 – 30 000 arrested and deported
• 200+ synagogues destroyed
The 2nd Phase of Persecution
1938- 1942
• The Night of Broken Glass
– HJ´s, Gestapo, SS, SA
– Means for the confiscation of firearms from Jews
– Followed by economic and political persecutions
= BEGINING OF THE FINAL SOLUTION
THE HOLOCAUST
The Last Phase of the Persecution of
the Jews = Final Solution
• Wansee, Jan 20 1942
– 1st Vernichtungslager in CHELMNO, summer 1941
– Heydrich
– goal= removal of the Jews from the Lebensraum of
the German people
• Emigration „had become a problem“: 537 000 Jews
• 2nd solution: EVACUATION OF THE JEWS TO THE EAST
THE HOLOCAUST
The Last Phase of the Persecution of
the Jews = Final Solution
• Wansee, Jan 20 1942
– Slovakia + Croatia „the essential and crucial
problems have already been solved“
• Slovakia – June 1941
• Croatia – July 1941
• First deportations, concentration camps and genocide
THE HOLOCAUST
The Last Phase of the Persecution of
the Jews = Final Solution
• Wansee, Jan 20 1942
– Northern countries „omitted for the time being“
THE HOLOCAUST
The Last Phase of the Persecution of
the Jews = Final Solution
• Wansee, Jan 20 1942
– Final Solution welcomed by the military governor
of Poland „Jews constitute a substantial danger as
carriers of epidemics and most of them are
useless.“ – First targets
RESISTANCE
• Warszaw Ghetto Uprising
– April 19- May 16 1943
– THE LARGEST SINGLE JEWISH REVOLT during WWII
– Mordechai Anielewicz letter to Antek Yitzhak
Zuckerman
• Read at the Eichman trial in 1961
• ABOVE ALL A SYMBOL TO SHOW THAT JEWS DID NOT
DIE WILLINGLY
RESISTANCE
• Uprisings in:
– Treblinka, Aug 1943
– Sobibor, Oct 1943  closed
– Auschwitz, Oct 1944
Reaction
of the International Community
• Bermuda Conference
– Apr 19-30 1943
– Extended mandate of the Inter-Governmental
Comitee on Refugees
• Set up in 1938 – EVIAN conference
– BUT THE PROBLEM WAS NO LONGER ONE OF
REFUGEES
NO REAL MEASURES WERE TAKEN
Reaction
of the International Community
• Shocking indifference
– Shmuel Zygelboym (BUND)
• 1940 escaped Poland
• Implored the governments to take retaliatory and
rescue action
• Committed suicide to protest against the world´s
indifference, May 11 1943
• Letter in NY Times, June 4 1943