holocaust

After 1933, the Nazi dictatorship:

- Outlawed other political parties.

- Disbanded trade unions and other social organizations.

- With the authority of Hermann Goering (Pres. of Reichstag), the Gestapo was established and given unlimited powers.

- Concentration camps were set up for "corrective treatment" of difficult opponents, including Dachau.

A massive state propaganda program was implemented, including Nuremberg Rallies.

- Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Truth and Enlightenment, created "Big Lie".

- Innocent Germany tormented by an "International Jewry".

- During the Great Depression, Hitler argued that Jews are against Germany.

Nazi racial thinking - German national community draws strength from pure blood/race.

- The Physicians' Law.

- Disbarring of lawyers.

- Law against overcrowding of German schools.

- Law of Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring.

- Reich flag law (Swastika as symbol).

- Law for the Defense of German blood and honor.

- Law for the protection of the hereditary health of the German people.

Goebbels ran the Aryanization campaign - Jews were pushed out of the arts; he decided the fates of individual composers and tunes.

Policies begin changing:

Isolation:

All Jews were forced to wear a patch with the Star of David.

Ghettos – Germans began moving Jews into designated cities, then into rundown parts of the city and enclosed them inside.

Isolate and control the Jewish populations; stop mixing with Aryans, and the hope was that they would succumb to the conditions (lack of food, water, space, unsanitary living).

Concentration Camps – Hitler moved Jews out of the cities to work camps that forced the Jews to work for the Nazis.

The Public Record of the Jewish Refugee Crisis:

Roughly 300,000 of the estimated 500,000 German Jews left pre-war Germany between 1933-Sept 1939.

July 1938: Evian Conference, created to address the Jewish refugee crisis; delegates from 32 countries refused to help Jewish refugees.

April-December 1940: The German occupiers confined 3 million Polish Jews to ghettos.

1942: Berlin orders that all Jews under German rule be “evacuated” to “labor camps” in Eastern Europe.

1938 was a terrible year as the concept of Greater Germany with Austria and Czech and a Jewish Solution were closer.

The fact that Jews were being ostracized wasn’t enough; anti-Semitic policy had to be radicalized.

Kristallnacht – Nov 9/10, 1938.

Final Solution:

Jews were not dying “fast enough” in Hitler’s eyes, so they turned to the mass murder of Jews.

Concentration camps became death camps; example Auschwitz.

SS troops became killing squads that searched through all German-controlled territories hunting down Jews.

Genocide became policy of the German government at the Secret Conference in Jan, 1942.

"Work will set you free" Sign

• Dr. Josef Mengele - "The Angel of Death"

3 Consequences of Holocaust:

1. The slaughter of an estimated 6 million Jews (doesn't include Roma, Slavs, Poles, Handicapped)

2. The violence against the Jews and the West turning their back on them led to the founding of Israel after WWII.

Nuremberg Trials - Leaders within the Nazi party are captured and tried for crimes against humanity. The resulting convictions led to death penalty and some choosing suicide before being executed. Some, including Mengele, escaped and led a new life on the run.