6.23 The ‘final Solution’

Question 1

When is the Wannsee conference?

Answer 1

Jan 1942

Question 2

When is the round up of all Jews in Vichy France?

Answer 2

July 1942

Question 3

When is the concentration of all killings at Auschwitz?

Answer 3

May 1943

Question 4

When is the start of the deportations of Jews from Germany

Answer 4

June 1943

Question 5

When is the mass deportation of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz?

Answer 5

June 1944

Question 6

When is the destruction and evacuation of Auchwitz?

Answer 6

Nov 1944

Question 7

When is the liberation of Auschwitz?

Answer 7

Jan 1945

Question 8

What happens April 1945

Answer 8

Suicide of Hitler

Liberation of Belsen and KZ Mauthausen

Question 9

What was a reason for the final solution

Answer 9

Vast number of Jews sent to General gov in Poland was too much for the authorities to deal with

Question 10

Why was the Wannasee conference delayed by a month

Answer 10

Soviet Union counter offensive
Attack on pearl harbour and entry of Japan and USA into the war

Question 11

What was the Wannsee conference

Answer 11

Senior bureaucrats were informed on their roles in a decision that had already been decided (wasn’t decided at the conference) the decision being the final solution

Question 12

Who was at the Wannsee conference?

Answer 12

15 high ranking Nazis (no Hitler or Himmler)

-chaired by Hedrich second most powerful man in the SS

-Heydrich has received orders from Goering empowering him to organise the preparations for the final solution

Deportations would be to specific areas where there was a camp system (50% of Jews that were killed died from Feb 1942-Feb 1943)

Question 13

What happened to the killings of Jews as Germany started to lose the war 1942-43?

Answer 13

Accelerated and prioritised over military needs-Nazi propaganda becomes more hate filled than before

Question 14

Describe how the intensification of Nazi propaganda ran in parallel with the periods of crisis in Germany’s war effort?

Answer 14

Spring 1943 Stalingrad defeat-Goebbels total war speech-massive propaganda drive

Autumn 1943: bombing roads and red army pushing back: similar surge of anti-Jewish propaganda

Summer 1944: allies land in France-another surge of anti Jewish propaganda

Question 15

What did the Nazis tell the population the war while do for the Jews

Answer 15

Lead to there destruction (didn’t say specially final solution of systematically wipe them out)

Question 16

By summer 1944 it was clear Germany would lose did it affect the final solution?

Answer 16

No it had the reverse effect -Nazis only closed down killing machine to conceal what they were up to when soviets were deep in Poland

Question 17

What is the difference between concentration camps and death camps

Answer 17

Concentration camps not designed as centres for extermination death camps on the other hand build with specific purpose of killing Untermenschen

Question 18

Untermenschen?

Answer 18

‘Sub humans’ used by Nazis to describe those they deemed as racially inferior(e.g Jews and gypsies)

Question 19

What % of murdered Jews died at Auschwitz?

Answer 19

20%

Question 20

What was zyklon B

Answer 20

Poisonous cyanide gas used in death camps

Question 21

What other death camps were there?

Answer 21

Chelmno
Majdanek
Belzec
Sobibor

Question 22

What happened at Chelmno death camp

Answer 22

First killing centre established
145,000 died

Carbon monoxide used until Zyklon B developed in 1942

Question 23

What happened in Majdanek death camp?

Answer 23

200,000 death 60% Jewish

Question 24

What happened in Belzec death camp?

Answer 24

500,000 Jews dead and several thousand gypsies

Question 25

What happened at Sobibor death camp?

Answer 25

250,000 dead mostly Jews and soviet prisoners of war

Question 26

How did Jews resist the Nazi persecution?

Answer 26

Partisan fighters established base camps deep in the forest and carried out acts of sabotage against German occupiers

Many of these groups were nationalist and communist but there was some Jewish groups

(In Belarus a group led by Bielski brothers eventually established a permanent community of 1200 partisans and a refuse for Jews escaping ghettos)

Question 27

How many Jewish Parisian fighters were active in Lithuania in 1942

Answer 27

10,000

Question 28

What is partisan fighter

Answer 28

a member of an irregular military force formed to oppose control of an area by a foreign power or by an army of occupation by some kind of insurgent activity.

Question 29

What is evidence of Jewish partisan groups being active in Poland?

Answer 29

General governor Hans frank had to commit large security forces to try and deal with more than 20 different Jewish partisan groups

Question 30

Was there resistance from the Jews in Ghettos?
Describe them

Answer 30

-violent revolt against Nazis in ghetto of Bialystok

-large uprising Warsaw ghetto Jan 1943 which took SS by surprise as 80% of the Jews had already been sent to a death camp
Takes till May 1943 to strip the revolt

-in 1944 at Auschwitz Jews blew up crematorium

Question 31

Describe the Nazi death marches

Answer 31

1944 Germans pull back as soviets advance camps were evacuated and inmates sent on long marches away from red army

Many died of illness and exhaustion as they were already malnourished

Death range 250,000-400,000 many being women

These marches continued up till the end of the war

Question 32

Argument for Hitler being responsible for holocaust?

Answer 32

-motivated from the start by fanatic anti semitism

-dominated all aspects of power and propaganda in Germany

-all Germans supported his ideas or were incapable or opposing him because of terror and intimidation of the regime

Question 33

Was it only Hitler’s responsibility?

Answer 33

No there were decisions by thousands of lesser Nazi officials that also played a part on mass mercer of such a large scale

Question 34

What other Nazis had key roles in the holocaust

Answer 34

Goering
Eichmann
Speer
Goebbels
Bormann (Hitler’s private secretary)

Question 35

Did large portion of the German population share in Hitler’s crimes

Answer 35

Yes they voted for the regime initially

Question 36

What was the total death toll from the holocaust?

Answer 36

6mill Jews (78% in Germany and occupied territories)

90,000-220,000 Romanian gypsies

270,00 mentally and physically disabled in Euthenasia programme

5,000-15,000 homosexuals

2500-5000 Jehovah’s witnesses