The Holocaust: An OVERVIEW
Two German Jewish families at a prewar gathering. Only two of
them survived Holocaust. Germany, 1928.
HITLER BECOMES A PROPHET
•Hitler to Reichstag, January 30,
1939: “Today, I will again be a
prophet. If international finance
Jewry…should again succeed in
plunging the nations into a world war,
the result will not be the
Bolshevization of the earth and thus
the victory of Jewry, but the
annihilation of the Jewish race in
Europe.”
What was the Holocaust?
Concepts:
• The Holocaust was the state-sponsored, systematic
persecution & annihilation of European Jewry by Nazi
Germany and its collaborators between 1933 and 1945.
Jews were the primary victims — six million were
murdered; Roma, people with disabilities living in
institutions, Soviet prisoners of war , Soviet civilians,
and Polish leadership elites were likewise targeted for
destruction or decimation for racial, ethnic, or
national reasons. Millions more, including
homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and political
dissidents, also suffered grievous oppression and death
under Nazi tyranny
What was the Holocaust?
• The phrase Final Solution of the Jewish
Question was code for the physical
annihilation of all European Jews
• Holocaust & Final Solution not
synonymous: the Holocaust is a term that
encompasses all forms of discrimination &
persecution of Jews within Nazi sphere of
influence & includes resistance and rescue.
• Final Solution of the Jewish Question
part of broader plan for völkische
Flurbereinigung [ethnic cleansing]
Nazi iDEology
th
Grounded in 19 Century Völkisch
Theories of Human History
&Relations.
•Race=Fixed Set of Physiological,
Psychological, Behavioral &
Ethical Characteristics
•Inequality of the Races
•Social Darwinist Struggle for
Survival
NAZI IDEOLOGY
•Social Darwinism
•Survival=Expansion and Purification.
•Growth through reproduction requires
expansion. Instinctual impulse.
•Purification: eliminating foreign
biological influences & defective
genetic elements.
•Each race expanded from fixed,
national land base.
Nazi ideology
JEWS AS PRIORITY RACIAL ENEMY
• Jews defined as race—but no land mass.
• Jews only race with capacity to organize inferior
races to resist & destroy superior races & cultures.
1. International finance: impoverish host nation
2. Mass media: mislead host nation
3. Bolshevism: instigate civil war & political chaos.
4. Equal rights and international peace:
a. Undermine host nations & drain away natural
advantages of superior “races.”
• Jews priority danger--acted like Germans.
Other racial “issues”
•Polish Leadership Classes—
Intellectual elites
•East Slavs & “Asiatics”—Soviet
civilians
•Bearers of the Bolshevik idea—
Soviet POWs & officials of Soviet
Communist Party & State
Other racial “issues”
•People with hereditary physical &
intellectual disabilities
“Breed out” “weak genes” & eliminate “useless eaters.”
Sterilization, later “mercy-killing.”
• Roma—hereditary “criminal class”
• Afro-Germans
• About 2,500 in Germany
• Nazi regime did not physically annihilate
Afro-Germans. Many, though not all were
sterilized
• Too small a minority to have significant priority
“BehaViOral” eNeMies
• NEVER AGAIN 1918: STAB IN THE BACK
1. TOOLS OF JEWS:
• Criminals, Asocials- incl. Roma & Homosexuals
• Political Opponents: Pacifists, Internationalists,
Catholic Clergy, Jehovah’s Witnesses.
• “Marxists”: Social Democrats, Communists,
Labor Unions, Anarchists.
2. BEFORE GERMANY WENT TO WAR AGAIN,
THESE FORCES HAD TO BE NEUTRALIZED.
3. RACIALLY VALUABLE—REHABILITATION.
Chancellor Adolf Hitler and President Paul von Hindenburg.
Potsdam, Germany, March 21, 1933
STATE OF EMERGENCY
•February 28, 1933: Reichstag Fire
Decree
1. Suspended constitutional constraints on
state investigations of individuals &
groups for criminal or subversive actions
2. Authorized central government to
overthrow local governments
3. Central Government decides when
emergency ends
STATE OF EMERGENCY
•Emergency legislation directed
against Communists
•Highly popular.
•Opened extra-legal space to
implement core Nazi goals
•Hitler’s position as Führer, August 19,
1934, placed his authority outside
constraints of state & law.
SA man guards arrested Communists. Berlin, Germany,
March 6, 1933.
NAZI BOYCOTT
Germans!
Defend
yourselves!
Don't buy
from Jews!
Assault Detachment (Sturmabteilungen—SA) members with
signs block the entrance to a Jewish-owned shop. Berlin, Germany,
April 1, 1933.
“WOrkiNg tOWards the FÜhrer”
The Burning of “Un-German“ Books. Berlin, Germany, May 1933.
Race Hygiene
At Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Genetics, &
Eugenics, a racial hygienist measures a woman's features to
“determine” her racial ancestry. Berlin, Germany, date uncertain.
“FOlk cOMMuNity” (VOlksgeMeiNschaFt)
Nazi Party Congress, Nuremberg, Germany, September 1938.
Chart indicating determination of Jewish racial ancestry in Nazi Germany.
A chart used by German Ministry of Health to justify compulsory
sterilization of "inferiors." Shows decrease in reproduction of
"superior" peoples & increase in "inferior" peoples. Germany, 1938
Antisemitic Propaganda
Nazi Antisemitic Book,
The Eternal Jew, 1937
Nazi stereotype depicting
Jews as both money lenders
& communists.
Source: Der Ewige Jude, Munich: Zentralverlag der NSDAP.,
Franz Eher, Nachf., 1937
German Gains 1938-1939
“Peace iN Our tiMe!”
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain (center) meets
press at airport following return from Munich Conference.
London, Great Britain, September 1938.
Emigration
Jews wait at Margarethen Police Precinct for exit visas.
Vienna, Austria, March 1938.
Emigration
Children’s Transport
(Kindertransport)
Passport issued to
Gertrud Gerda Levy,
who left Germany in August 1939
on a Children's Transport
(Kindertransport) to Great Britain.
Berlin, Germany, August 23, 1939.
A synagogue destroyed during Kristallnacht ("Night of Crystal").
Baden-Baden, Germany, November 10, 1938.
Transferring Ownership
“Stamm &Bassermann
Formerly Gummi Weil”
"Aryanization" of
Jewish-owned
businesses.
Frankfurt, Germany,
1938.
Nazi Soviet Pact
August 23, 1939, Purpose
of Nazi-Soviet Pact for
Nazi Germany:
Secure Germany’s Eastern
Front in event of war with
West.
Start of World War II
German forces during invasion of Poland, Sep. 1939
German soldiers guard Jews rounded up
for forced labor.
Warsaw, Poland, 1939 or 1940.
“legitiMiziNg” Medical Murder
Berlin, September 1, 1939
Reich Leader Bouhler and
Dr. med. Brandt
are tasked with responsibility
to extend the authority of
physicians to be designated in
future so that, after
the most careful assessment
of their condition, those
suffering from illnesses deemed
to be incurable may be granted
a mercy death.
[signed]
A. Hitler
People with Disabilities in Germany
German-Occupied Europe
German Partition of Poland
Ghettos
View, footbridge connecting two parts of Łódź ghetto.
Łódź, Poland, 1941
In the Ghetto
Jews in crowded apartment in Radom ghetto. Poland,
March 1941-August 1942.
In the Ghetto
In Warsaw ghetto, Jewish
children with bowls for
rations of soup.
Warsaw, Poland,
1940-1943.
In the Ghetto
Child working at a machine in a ghetto
workshop. Kaunas, Lithuania, 1941-1943.
Characteristics of Ghettos
1. Geographically located in north & central
regions of the former Jewish Pale of
Settlement, where European Jewish population
was more dense: Government General,
Białystok District, Lithuania, Latvia, &
western parts of Belarus and Ukraine.
2. A section of a city in which Jews were required
to live—almost always a run down section,
lacking utilities connections.
3. Jews not permitted to leave confines of the
ghetto without authorization of Germans.
4. Jewish community “governed” by a selfadministration, usually a Jewish Council.
5. Jewish Council responsible to
Jewish community for:
a) Housing
b) Food distribution
c) Policing
d) Taxation
e) Education and Childcare
f) Social Services
g) Sanitation, Burial
the “FiNal sOlutiON
•January 24, 1939:
• Heydrich as Chief of Security Police & SD
entrusted w/coordinating Final Solution to
Jewish question in Reich
•September 27, 1939:
• Security Police & SD reorganized into RSHA
under Heydrich, later Kaltenbrunner
•July 31, 1941:
• Heydrich & RSHA tasked w/coordinating Final
Solution to Jewish Question in Europe
Shooting Operation Sites
Shooting Operations
Ukrainian Jews shortly before German SS & police massacre them.
Lubny, Soviet Union, October 16, 1941.
German police shoot wounded Jewish women following the
mass shooting of Jewish civilians outside the Mizocz ghetto.
Belarus, October 1942.
Wannsee Conference
Site of January 20, 1942 Wannsee Conference, convened by Reich
Security Main Office chief Reinhard Heydrich, on "Final Solution of
the Jewish Question." Berlin, Germany, date uncertain.
ss & POlice uNits charged With iMPleMeNtiNg “FiNal
sOlutiON”
Reichsfuhrer - SS and Chief of German Police
Henrich Himmler
SS Operations
Main Office
SS
Main Office
Inspector ,
Operations Concentration
Office
Camps
Waffen SS
(to 1942)
SS-Economic &
Administrative
Main Office
Oswald Pohl
Chief
Order Police
Kurt Daluege
Inspectorate,
Concentration
Camps
(after 3/42)
Higher SS
& Police Leader
Government General
F. -W. Krüger
IdO (Reich)
BdO (Occupied
Teritories)
IdS (Reich)
BdS
(Occupied
Territories)
chief, Security Police & SD
RSHA (Berlin)
Reinhard Heydrich
Office III
SDInternal
Camp Commandant
Auschwitz
Rudolf Hoess
Police
Battalions
Eg. 101
KdO
Trawniki
Training
Camp
Streibel
Detachment Lublin
KdS
KdG
Dept. Operation
“ReinhaRd”
Deportations
Höfle
Detachment P
oniatowa
VI
SDOffice V
Kripo Foreign
IVb4
Eichmann
SS & Police Leader
Lublin District
Globocnik
Waffen SS
Field Units
Office IV
Gestapo
Einsatzgruppen of Sipo & SD
SS Special Detachments
Wirth
Belzec
Sobibor
Treblinka 2
Holocaust in Romania
Deportation to Killing Centers
Deportation
Jews board deportation train at Westerbork transit
camp, Netherlands. From Westerbork, German
authorities deported Jews to Auschwitz & Sobibor in
German-occupied Poland, 1942-44.
Deportation
Deportation of Jews from Warsaw ghetto to Treblinka.
Warsaw, Poland, July-September 1942.
Deportation
Jewish men, women, and children
during deportation to the
Treblinka killing center.
Siedlce, Poland, August 1942.
Deportation
Jewish women, children & elderly await deportation at
railroad station in Koszeg, a small town in northwestern Hungary.
Koszeg, Hungary, 1944. Transport went to Auschwitz
In Auschwitz
Jewish women and children deported from Hungary line up for
selection. Auschwitz-Birkenau camp, Poland, May 1944.
IN AUSCHWITZ
Selection of Hungarian Jews at Auschwitz-Birkenau killing center.
Oświęcim, Poland, May 1944.
In Auschwitz
Piles of shoes that belonged to prisoners killed in gas
chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Poland, wartime.
Concentration Camp System
Forced Labor
Forced labor in the quarry of
Mauthausen Concentration
Camp.
Austria, date uncertain.
The SS forced prisoners to carry
Granite blocks up more than
180 steps. Larger blocks could
each weigh more than 75 pounds.
Forced Labor
Prisoners at forced labor in Siemens factory. Auschwitz camp,
Poland, 1940-1944.
German Military Defeat
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
Deportation of Jews from Warsaw ghetto during uprising.
Warsaw, Poland, May 1943.
Rescue in Denmark
Boat used by Danish fishermen to transport Jews to
Sweden during German occupation. Denmark, date
uncertain.
RESCUE IN DENMARK
1. Largely autonomous Danish administration until 1943;
Germans regard population as racial equals
2. Relatively small Jewish population
a. About 7,500 Jews in Denmark, including about 1,500
refugees, out of a population of 3.5 million (.02%)
3. Largely assimilated Jewish community, native Danish
speakers
4. Low level of anti-Semitism: Jews are regarded as Danes first;
Jews second. No process of segregation.
5. Proximity of a neutral country willing to accept the refugees.
6. About 7,000 Jews in Denmark found refuge in Sweden
Germans arrested about 400 Jews in Denmark
Rescue in Poland
Commercial area on Nalewki
Street in Warsaw's Jewish
quarter.
Warsaw, Poland, 1938.
German decree of October 1941, in German & Polish, warns
that Jews leaving the ghetto, or Poles who assisted them, will be
executed. Częstochowa, Poland.
Stanisław Dobrowolski
Krakow, Poland, ca. 1930.
During the war, Stanislaw
headed the Kraków branch of
Żegota (Polish Council for Aid
to Jews)
Żegota was an underground
organization that aimed to
rescue & assist Jews in Germanoccupied Poland.
Members of a Polish family
who hid a Jewish girl on their
farm.
Zyrardów, Poland, 1941-1942.
RESCUE IN POLAND
1. Direct German rule; Germans regard population as
racial inferiors
2. Relatively large Jewish population about 3.0 million
Jews out of 30 million (10 percent)
3. Jews account for as much as 30-40 % of some major
cities: Warsaw (30 %), Łódź (35%) Lwów—today:
L’viv (30%)
a. Half of all Jewish Holocaust victims lived in prewar Poland
4. Many unassimilated Jewish communities, with many
Hassidic Jews, different in dress & language
5. High level of anti-Semitism; Jews are regarded as
Jews not Poles.
6. In heart of German-occupied Eastern Europe.
Slovakia & Hungary dangerous to reach
Holocaust in Romania
Hans Scholl (left), his sister Sophie (center), & Christoph Probst (right),
members of White Rose opposition group. All three were arrested, condemned
by the People's Court, &executed on February 22, 1943. Munich, 1942.
Evacuation Marches
Clandestine photograph,
taken by a German civilian,
of Dachau Concentration
Camp prisoners on
evacuation march south
through a village on way to
Wolfratshausen.
Germany, April 26-30, 1945.
Liberation
Liberation
Children survivors of Ravensbrück Concentration Camp.
Germany, 1945.
Liberation
Survivors of
Mauthausen
cheer U.S.
soldiers as they
pass through the
main gate of the
camp. The
photograph was
taken several
days after the
liberation of the
camp.
Mauthausen,
Austria, May 9,
1945.
Liberation
Camp survivors after liberation.
Dachau, Germany, after April 29, 1945.
Nuremberg War Crimes Trials
Herman Göring turns to speak with Karl Doenitz during
Nuremberg Trial. Rudolf Hess, Joachim von Ribbentrop, &
Wilhelm Keitel sit to Göring's left. Karl Dönitz & Alfred Rosenberg
in back. Nuremberg, Germany, November 26, 1945.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
• Doris Bergen, War and Genocide: A Concise
History of the Holocaust (Lanham, Md.: Rowen
& Littlefield, 2009)
• Browning, Christopher, Ordinary Men: Police
Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland
(New York: Harper, 1998)
• Marion A. Kaplan, Between Dignity and
Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1998).
• Raul Hilberg et al., edts. The Warsaw Ghetto
Diary of Adam Czerniaków (New York: Stein
and Day, 1979)
BIBLIOGRAPHY
• Paul Robert Magocsi, Historical Atlas of
Central Europe, Rev. & Expanded Edition
(Seattle: U. Washington Press, 2002)
• Martin Gilbert, The Routledge Atlas of the
Holocaust, 4th Edition (New York: Routledge,
2009).
More Information?
• Peter Black: United States
Holocaust Memorial Museum
pblack@ushmm.gov
website: www.ushmm.org.
Holocaust Encyclopedia online.
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