23 - The Final Solution

Question 1

What was the ‘Jewish solution’ and when was it implemented

Answer 1

1942
A systematic attempt to exterminate the Jewish population of occupied Europe

Question 2

What did Untermenschen mean

Answer 2

Less than human

Question 3

How did the Nazis consider Untermenschen

Answer 3

Slav people’s from Eastern Europe
Roma and sinti
Racial undesirables - mentally and physically disabled, homosexuals, members of religious sects

Question 4

After what event did persecution against Jews increase

Answer 4

Reichkristallnacht

Question 5

What did the invasion of the USSR 1941 turn the war into

Answer 5

A war of racial annihilation

Question 6

What happened to policies against Jews by December 1941

Answer 6

Nazis realised their aims cannot be achieved by deporting Jews to Madagascar, or herding them into ghettos in general government area of Poland and that radical policies were needed

Question 7

When was the Wannsee conference

Answer 7

January 1942

Question 8

What was the Wannsee conference

Answer 8

A conference for Nazi officials was held at a villa on the shores of lake Wannsee, near Berlin, that seems to have been the key moment in the implementation of the systematic murder of the Jews.

A meeting to inform officials of their role in the process

Question 9

Who ran the Wannsee conference

Answer 9

Reinhard Heydrich (most senior man in SS after Himmler)

Question 10

When was the decision to exterminate Jews in Europe made

Answer 10

Likely sometimes in summer of 194, after the invasion of the USSR has begun

Question 11

What happens to treatment of Jews after the conference

Answer 11

Deportations of Jews to designated camps became more systematic and the mass killings of Jews accelerated

Question 12

What made Nazi propaganda turn more towards anti semitism

Answer 12

The war turning against Germany 1942-43

Question 13

What did Goebbels and other Nazi leaders make clear

Answer 13

No secret that the war would result in the destruction of the Jews
Although did not spell out exactly what was happening

Question 14

When did the Nazis begin to close camps
What did they do w prisoners and the camps

Answer 14

In Nov 1944 when soviet armies had advanced deeply into Poland and were getting close to death camps
Surviving prisoners were sent on forced marches to the west
Crematoria at Auschwitz we’re blown up

Question 15

When were camps liberated

Answer 15

Jan 1945 Auschwitz liberated by soviet forces

Other camps in Germany liberated in the coming months by British and American forces

Question 16

What was the first death camp established

Answer 16

Chelmno
Victims killed in vans pumped with carbon monoxide gas

Question 17

What was used in all death camps

Answer 17

Zyklon B gas

Question 18

Name some specially constructed death camps

Answer 18

There were six
Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka Auschwitz Majdanek Chelmno
Operational in 1942-43
Vast majority of Jews sent her died in gas chambers

Question 19

Which was the largest camp

Answer 19

Auschwitz Birkenau
Became hub of extermination programme after 1943
Unlike other camps Was also a vast industrial complex run by the SS using slave harbour

Question 20

What would happen to prisoners on arrival to Auschwitz Birkenau

Answer 20

Prisoners would be inspected by the guards
Those deemed fit for work were sent to other parts of teh camp
The rest, mainly children women the elderly and sick were sent straight to the gas chambers

Question 21

Was their Jewish resistance

Answer 21

Widespread
Although in the face of Nazi repression it was largely small scale and u,it alley ineffective

Question 22

Examples of Jewish resistance

Answer 22

In eastern Euroupe partisan groups established base camps in forests, from where they could mount sabotage raid on German forces.

Revolts in some ghettos

Organised revolts in the death camps

Question 23

Examples of the partisan groups that resisted

Answer 23

One ran by the Bielski brothers in Belarus which attracted 1200 partisans

Question 24

Examples of revolts in ghettos

Answer 24

Bialystok
Another large rising in the Warsaw ghetto in 1943

Question 25

Examples of resistance in death camps

Answer 25

1943 in sobibor and Treblinka

1944 in Auschwitz Jewish prisoners blew up crematorium 4

Question 26

What were the death marches

Answer 26

From autumn 1944 with German forces in restreat from the red army, the regime organised evacuations and forced marches from the camps in the east.

Caused terrible suffering and many deaths

Many died from exposure to harsh winter weather, malnourishment, illness and exhaustion

Many were shot for being too slow

Question 27

What were the death marches

Answer 27

From autumn 1944 with German forces in retreat from the red army, the Nazi regime organised evacuations and forced marches from camps in the east which caused suffering and many deaths.

Many died fro, exposure to harsh winter weather, malnourishment, illness and exhaustion
Many were shot by guards for being too slow

Question 28

How many died on the death marches

Answer 28

Estimate 250,000-400,000

Question 29

We’re final solution policies also directed towards non Jews

Answer 29

Policies were inconsistent and evidence of a systematic plan of Exeter inaction is fragmentary

Question 30

What happened to gypsies

Answer 30

Most were rounded up and sent to concentration camps, some death camps.

There was a seperate gypsy camp at Auschwitz that housed men women and children

Some were immediately gassed and many died from the terrible conditions

About 250,000 gypsies were killed

Question 31

What happened to soviet prisoners of war

Answer 31

Unlike western POW’s soviet prisoners of war were mostly sent to concentration camps and some death camps where they were gassed to death

Question 32

How many Soviet POW’s died

Answer 32

Over 3 million

Question 33

Other victims to concentration camps

Answer 33

Homosexuals
Jehovah’s Witness

Question 34

Hitlers responsibility for the holocaust

Answer 34

Fanatical anti semitism was always a major motivation for Hitler as fuhrer

Hitler set out the framework of goals in which his subordinates operated, creating a regime in which the potential for mass killings was always present

Even tho no written order from Hitler to exterminate Jews has ever been found, leading Nazis operated in a way of ‘working towards the fuhrer’

Question 35

Evidence other Nazi leaders responsible for holocaust

Answer 35

Nazi regime had many overlapping centres of power, and rival Nazi leaders competed for Hitlers approval

The actual implementation of the holocaust was responsibility of the SS led by Himmler and his key subordinate Heydrich

Other leaders involved, including Martin Bormann, Goering, Eichmann and Goebbels

Question 36

We’re Germans as a whole responsible?

Answer 36

Thousand of lower level officials, soldiers and police, carried out the orders ri deport and execute millions of victims. Included on Germans in occupied territories

Few people were openly critical of Nazi decisions