1. Final Solution

2. Wannsee Conference January 20, 1942
15 high ranking Nazi officials meet in Berlin to coordinate the implementation of the “Final Solution” to the Jewish Question
Reinhard Heydrich and Adolf Eichmann were present

3. Wannsee Conference
The Final Solution was the code name for the systematic, deliberate, and physical annihilation of European Jews
The conference was held to:
Inform and secure support from agencies relevant for the implementation
Inform participants that Hitler had appointed Heydrich to coordinate the operation
The decision had already been made to annihilate the Jews, the purpose was only to discuss implementation

4. Leaders at Wannsee Conference
Heydrich
Eichmann

5. Wannsee Conference
Heydrich indicated 11 million Jews would fall under the Final Solution
Including Jews in United Kingdom and neutral ares (Switzerland, Ireland, Sweden, Spain, Portugal, and European Turkey)
They were to be separated by gender, then the able bodied Jews were to be used to build roads
A large number of those would be lost through “natural reduction”

6. Chelmno Gassing Vans Lodz ghetto experiment (December 1941)
People were told they had to shower before moving to the next camp and forced to take their clothes off and get into a van
The exhaust of the van was re-routed to go inside the van

7. Chelmno Gassing Vans
Once the driver started the engine, the people inside were suffocated immediately
The van would bring the bodies to a camp in the woods and unload the bodies
They would be unloaded and burned in mass graves
The driver would go back to the castle, clean the van, and reload with more victims

8. Operation Reinhard
Plan to murder all Jews in Generalgouvernement (German occupied Poland that wasn’t directly annexed)
The (RSHA) Reich Security Main Office was responsible for coordinated the deportation to killing centers

9. Operation Reinhard
Odilo Globocnik directed operations between 1941 and 1943
His assistant was Christian Wirth
Three killing centers were operational as a part of Operation Reinhard
Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka

10. Operation Reinhard There were four main aims of the operation
Resettle (i.e. kill) Polish Jews
Exploit skilled labor before killing them
Secure the personal property of Jews
Identify and secure alleged hidden and immovable assets such as factories, apartments, and land

11. Operation Reinhard They tested the gasses on Soviet and Polish POWs
They were said to have threatened their own men with gassing to keep them ‘in line’
The majority of the victims of Operation Reinhard were from Polish ghettos
Several forced labor camps were also a part of Operation Reinhard

12. Operation Harvest
Operation Harvest was to get rid of all the Jews left in Lublin District of the Generalgouvernement
It was in response to resistance against Nazis in Treblinka and Sobibor as well as uprisings in Warsaw and others
Gas chambers don’t work at Majdanek, so they shoot them; music was played through the loudspeakers to cover the sound of the killings

13. Josef Mengele SS physician
Assistant to Dr. Otmar von Verhuer-a leading researcher in twins studies
1937 joined the Nazi party
1943 transferred to be a physician at Auschwitz

14. Josef Mengele The medical staff performed selections at the camps
Mengele is most known as “the angel of death” or sometimes the “white angel” for his cruel demeanor
Would appear many times when he was off duty to ensure that potential subjects would not be missed
He would appear sober at the ramp, which was unusual for those in charge of selection

16. Josef Mengele
Previously performed legitimate experiments with twins, now with the opportunity to maim or kill subjects, he performed a broad range of agonizing and often lethal experiments with twins-mostly children
Had a fascination with heterochromia: a condition in which the irises of an individual were two different colors
He collected the eyes of his victims for research materials

17. Josef Mengele
Many of his test subjects died as a result of his experimentation or were murdered to facilitate post-mortem exams

19. CONCENTRATION 100 of these in Nazi-occupied Europe
prisoners used for forced labor
prisoners usually lasted less than 1/2 year
communists, homosexuals, criminals, social-democrats, artists.
First camp was opened in 1933, right after Nazis came to power

20. Count Folke Bernadette negotiating for prisoners
RAVENSBRUCK
Camp for women only
run by German women who were criminals
prisoners worked on remodeling furs
50,000 killed
14,000 rescued by Swedish diplomat
Count Folke Bernadette negotiating for prisoners

21. EXTERMINATION Started out as ordinary concentration camps
later modified with gassing installations for use on humans, now “DEATH CAMPS”
two sub-groups:
1) Majdanek and Auschwitz, Birkenau
2) Operation Reinhard camps and Chelmno
“NAZIS GET CLOSE TO CREATING HELL ON EARTH!!!”

22. MAJDANEK Established in 1941 as a POW camp
started its part in the Final Solution in 1942
Jews, Poles and Soviet POW’s sent here
had two gas chambers to exterminate

23. AUSCHWITZ Started operations in January 1940 (Poland)
Himmler chose Auschwitz as the place for the Final Solution
had 4 gas chambers/crematories by 1943
mass killings with Zyklon B gas
commanded by Rudolph Hoess
recorded 12,000 kills in one day

24. ORDERED TO TAKE ALL POSSESSIONS FROM JEWS
THE SS AT AUSCHWITZ
ORDERED TO TAKE ALL POSSESSIONS FROM JEWS
TEETH WITH GOLD
PILES OF GLASSES

25. ZYKLON-B
GAS USED TO KILL VERMIN. IT WAS INEXPENSIVE COMPARED TO GAS. DROPPED FROM CEILINGS

26. MEDICAL EXPERIMENTS Sterilization of men and women
endurance of pain to high and low temperatures and pressure
experiments on twins to increase number of multiple births to Aryan women
injections of phenol to kill patients
Dr. Mengele attempted to sew children together to make Siamese twins

27. OPERATION REINHARD Largest single massacre of Holocaust
March 1942-November 1943
named after Reinhard Heydrich
carried out at three camps, run by the SS
every Jew that arrived at one of the camps would be dead in 2 hours.
Total of 1,700,000 Jews killed

28. BELZEC MARCH 1942 JEWS FROM LUBIN GHETTO- POLAND
OPERATIONS STOP DECEMBER 1942
CAMP WAS DISMANTLED AND PLOWED OVER AND PLANTED ON

29. SOBIBOR MAY 1942 3 GAS CHAMBERS ESCAPE OF 300 JEWS AND SOVIET POW’S
ONLY 50 LIVE
GAS CHAMBERS SHUT DOWN AFTER ESCAPE

30. TREBLINKA JEWS FROM WARSAW GHETTO 10 GAS CHAMBERS
LOCATED EAST OF WARSAW
BODIES WERE BURNED IN OPEN PITS
AUGUST 1943

31. Camp Totals

32. Jewish population before, Jewish population after Holocaust
STATISTICS BY COUNTRY
Jewish population before, Jewish population after Holocaust