Holocaust and the Final Solution

Railroad lines into the entrance at Auschwitz, Poland where approximately 1.1 million died, most of them Jews

Mein Kampf (My Struggle) by Adolf Hitler

Excepts from Mein Kampf Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.

Excepts from Mein Kampf The Jew has always been a people with definite racial characteristics and never a religion.

Excepts from Mein Kampf The personification of the devil as the symbol of all evil assumes the living shape of the Jew.

Excepts from Mein Kampf With satanic joy in his face, the black-haired Jewish youth lurks in wait for the unsuspecting girl whom he defiles with his blood, thus stealing her from her people.

The Eradication of Jews (and other undesirables) from Europe Between 1933 and 1945, Nazi Germany established about 20,000 camps to imprison its many millions of victims. These camps were used for a range of purposes including forced-labor camps, transit camps which served as temporary way stations, and extermination camps built primarily or exclusively for mass murder. From its rise to power in 1933, the Nazi regime built a series of detention facilities to imprison and eliminate so-called "enemies of the state."

Greater Germany Major Nazi Camps: 1944

Jewish families being evacuated via trains to the east

The Eradication of Jews (and other undesirables) from Europe cont. Most prisoners in the early concentration camps were German Communists, Socialists, Social Democrats, Roma (Gypsies), Jehovah's Witnesses, homosexuals, and persons accused of "asocial" or socially deviant behavior. These facilities were called “concentration camps” because those imprisoned there were physically “concentrated” in one location.

Escape From Sobibor

Sobibor - Sobibor- Located in occupied Poland during WWII. Victims were brought in either via railroad or by truck. Known victims included Jews as well as Gypsies and Soviet P.O.W.’s(Jewish). Victims were suffocated with redirected exhaust from trucks.

Nazi Camps in Occupied Poland: 1939-1945

Images of Death

Sobibor Today

Jewish children being led by German nurses in one of the concentration camps after being separated from their families

The Eradication of Jews (and other undesirables) from Europe cont. After Germany's annexation of Austria in March 1938, the Nazis arrested German and Austrian Jews and imprisoned them in the Dachau, Buchenwald, and Sachsenhausen concentration camps, all located in Germany. After the violent Kristallnacht ("Night of Broken Glass") pogroms in November 1938, the Nazis conducted mass arrests of adult male Jews and incarcerated them in camps for brief periods.

Nazi Camps in the Baltic Countries: 1941-1945

Jewish Children in an undated photo

The Eradication of Jews (and other undesirables) from Europe cont. Following the German invasion of Poland in September 1939, the Nazis opened forced-labor camps where thousands of prisoners died from exhaustion, starvation, and exposure. SS units guarded the camps. During World War II, the Nazi camp system expanded rapidly. In some camps, Nazi doctors performed medical experiments on prisoners.

Nazi Camps in the Low Countries: 1940-1945

Remains of Jews killed by the Germans

The Eradication of Jews (and other undesirables) from Europe cont. Following the June 1941 German invasion of the Soviet Union, the Nazis increased the number of prisoner-of-war (POW) camps. Some new camps were built at existing concentration camp complexes (such as Auschwitz) in occupied Poland. The camp at Lublin, later known as Majdanek, was established in the autumn of 1941 as a POW camp and became a concentration camp in 1943. Thousands of Soviet POWs were shot or gassed there.

Major Nazi and Axis Camps in Southern Europe: 1941-1944

Jews lining up for roll call

The Eradication of Jews (and other undesirables) from Europe cont. To facilitate the "Final Solution" (the genocide or mass destruction of the Jews), the Nazis established extermination camps in Poland, the country with the largest Jewish population. The extermination camps were designed for efficient mass murder. Chelmno, the first extermination camp, opened in December 1941. Jews and Roma were gassed in mobile gas vans there. In 1942, the Nazis opened the Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka extermination camps to systematically murder the Jews of the Generalgouvernement (the territory in the interior of occupied Poland).  

Wannsee Conference, 1942 “to…create a final solution for the Jewish problem of Germany and Europe” the expulsion of the Jews from every sphere of life of the German people, the expulsion of the Jews from the living space of the German people. to make all necessary arrangements for the preparation for an increased emigration of the Jews, to direct the flow of emigration, to speed the procedure of emigration in each individual case. -The aim of all this was to cleanse German living space of Jews in a legal manner.

Nazi Camps in the Former Austria: 1938-1945

Holocaust survivor shows off tattoo (identification number) given to all inhabitants by the Germans

The Eradication of Jews (and other undesirables) from Europe cont. The Nazis constructed gas chambers (rooms that filled with poison gas to kill those inside) to increase killing efficiency and to make the process more impersonal for the perpetrators. At the Auschwitz camp complex, the Birkenau extermination camp had four gas chambers. During the height of deportations to the camp, up to 6,000 Jews were gassed there each day.

Nazi Camps in France: 1944

Remains of Jews just outside of a camp as it was liberated by American troops

The Eradication of Jews (and other undesirables) from Europe cont. Jews in Nazi-occupied lands often were first deported to transit camps such as Westerbork in the Netherlands, or Drancy in France, en route to the killing centers in occupied Poland. The transit camps were usually the last stop before deportation to an extermination camp.

The Eradication of Jews (and other undesirables) from Europe cont. Millions of people were imprisoned and abused in the various types of Nazi camps. Under SS management, the Germans and their collaborators murdered more than three million Jews in the extermination camps alone. Only a small fraction of those imprisoned in Nazi camps survived.

Images from American liberation of Nazi Concentration Camps DachauVictims Images from Dachau

Statistics of the Holocaust Country Initial Jewish Estimated Estimated Survivors Population % Killed Killed POLAND 3,300,000 91% 3,000,000 300,000 USSR3, 020,000 36% 1,100,000 1,920,000 HUNGARY 800,000 74% 596,000 204,000 GERMANY 566,000 36% 200,000 366,000 FRANCE 350,000 22% 77,3202 72,680 ROMANIA 342,000 84% 287,000 55,000 AUSTRIA 185,000 35% 65,000 120,000 LITHUANIA 168,000 85% 143,000 25,000 NETHERLANDS 140,000 71% 100,000 40,000 BOHEMIA/ MORAVIA 118,310 60% 71,150 47,160 LATVIA 95,000 84% 80,000 15,000

Statistics of the Holocaust Country Initial Jewish Estimated Estimated Survivors Population % Killed Killed SLOVAKIA 88,950 80% 71,000 17,950 YUGOSLAVIA 78,000 81% 63,300 14,700 GREECE 77,380 87% 67,000 10,380 BELGIUM 65,700 45% 28,900 36,800 ITALY 44,500 17% 7,680 36,820 BULGARIA 50,000 0% 50,000 DENMARK 7,800 .8% 60 7,740 ESTONIA 4,500 44% 2,000 2,500 LUXEMBOURG 3,500 55% 1,950 1,550 FINLAND 2,000 .03% 7 1,993 NORWAY 1,700 45% 762 938 TOTAL 9,508,340 63% 5,962,129 3,546,211

Statistics of the Holocaust Country Initial Jewish Estimated Estimated Survivors Population % Killed Killed SLOVAKIA 88,950 80% 71,000 17,950 YUGOSLAVIA 78,000 81% 63,300 14,700 GREECE 77,380 87% 67,000 10,380 BELGIUM 65,700 45% 28,900 36,800 ITALY 44,500 17% 7,680 36,820 BULGARIA 50,000 0% 50,000 DENMARK 7,800 .8% 60 7,740 ESTONIA 4,500 44% 2,000 2,500 LUXEMBOURG 3,500 55% 1,950 1,550 FINLAND 2,000 .03% 7 1,993 NORWAY 1,700 45% 762 938 TOTAL 9,508,340 63% 5,962,129 3,546,211

Memorials to the Holocaust “May it Never Happen Again” Berlin Memorial, Opened 2005 "Then, in spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart." -Anne Frank- Holocaust Memorial for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Miami Beach Holocaust Memorial