Station #1: The Holocaust and the German Strategy and Final Solution plan

The Holocaust Definition of The Holocaust The State sponsored, systematic persecution and annihilation of European Jews by Nazi Germany and its collaborators between 1933 and 1945. Jews were the primary victims – 6 million were murdered. From the Greek word meaning “a sacrifice by burning.” In Hebrew the term “shoah” is used, meaning “catastrophe.”

The Holocaust was Unique: Never before had a government, one that had prided itself on its own citizens’ high level of education and culture, sought to define a religious group as a race that must be eliminated throughout an entire continent, not just within a single country. Never before had a government harnessed the immense power of technology for such destructive ends, culminating in the horror of Auschwitz – a death camp that, at its peak, “processed” 10,000 Jews a day. Never before had a government summoned their best and brightest people to mobilize destruction and used mobile killing units (Einsatzgruppen) to systematically kill approximately 1.5 million individuals in 2 years. Never before had a government sought to dehumanize a group through such a devastatingly thorough and systematic use of propaganda that included the use of film, education, public rallies, indoctrination of the youth, radio, newspapers, art and literature. The Holocaust was Unique

Two Thousand Years of Jewish Life in Europe by 1933 Map: Two Thousand Years of Jewish life in Europe by 1933 Most of the Jewish communities in Europe had come into existence hundreds of years before the founding of the nations of which they were to become a part. Others had subsequently been destroyed by expulsion and persecution in the Middle Ages, but had then been re-founded a second, a third, and even a fourth time. The Jews of Germany had already been living continuously in different parts of Germany for more than 1500 years when the German Empire was established in 1870, the year of German unity under Bismarck.

Dr. Seuss Political Cartoon: Pulling in Russia In this cartoon by Dr. Seuss, he illustrates the “heads” of all the countries in Western Europe and Southern Europe that have been overrun. The next country to be brought down, a real beast, is Russia. Notice that Italy appears different from the other countries. Italy was a supposed ally at this time.

Wannsee Conference: Documentation Picture on Left: List “A” gives the countries under direct German rule. List “B” gives the countries allied to Germany, neutral or at war with Germany. The USSR figure is far too high: less than a million Jews were still alive in the German-occupied regions of the Soviet Union. Note that this list also specifies the number of Jews in unconquered countries for eventual destruction, including 330,000 from Britain, 18,000 from Switzerland, 6,000 from Spain, and 4,000 from Ireland. Picture on Right: One of the macabre features of the numerical list of the Jews submitted at the Wannsee Conference was the fact that no figure was given for the Jews of Estonia, merely a brief note that Estonia was “free of Jews.” This was true. The 1,000 Estonian Jews who had come under German rule in October 1941 had all been murdered during the 3 months prior to the Wannsee Conference. _______________________________________________________________ At the Wannsee Conference, Heydrich gained formal authority over the “Final Solution” and the use of the Jews as a slave labor force. Heydrich calculated there were about 11 million Jews in Europe – including England and Ireland – and outlined a plan whereby they would be deported to the east, put to work, and then killed. The Jews would build the German utopia, a proposed 80 billion Reichsmark construction project. It was understood that those who were not worked to death would be systematically murdered. List of countries presented at the Wannsee Conference, with the number of Jews who were to be deported to their deaths. Almost half of these countries never came under German rule or control.