7 - Final Solution Flashcards
How did the accelaeration of policy happen??
Jewish populations rounded up:
France, Italy, Greece.
Ghettos emptied: Minsk + Warsaw
Feb 1944: Amsterdam Jews sent to Auschwitz
Summer 1944: defeat for Nazi inevitable, but instead of stopping policy, it had reverse effect
Wanted to kill as many as possible
Nov. 1944: Soviets in Poland - Nazis closed down and emptied camps
Crematoria at Auschwitz blown up
Efforts to hide evidence weak and rushed
Surviving prisoners - Forced marches West (‘death marches’)
Final Solution never completed:
Jan 1945: Auschwitz liberated by USSR
Spring 1945:
Dachau & Mauthausen liberated by USA
Bergen-Belsen & Buchenwald liberated by British
May 1945: Hitlers death & surrender of Germany - extent of operation finally apparent…
What were concentration camps like??
‘Ordinary camps’
Existed since 1933 (Dachau)
Found near almost every major population centre
NOT designed for extermination
Housed:
Political prisoners
Catholics
Homosexuals
Socialists
Petty criminals
German populace: majority aware of them (some happy - punish ‘deviants’; most scared)
What were death camps??
Began operation late 1941
Built for specific purpose for exterminating the ‘Jewish race’
Untermenschen - ‘racial undesirables’ to be wiped out
Prisoners arrived and divided:
‘Productive’ - worked to death as slave labour
‘Unproductive’ - sent straight to gas chamber upon arrival
What was Chelmno??
First killing centre
Used mobile gas vans initially
Zyklon B developed early 1942
145,000 deaths
What was Sobibor??
250,000 deaths
Mostly Jews and Soviet POWs
Oct. 1943: Jewish revolt (800 prisoners escaped)
Closed down by Himmler afterwards
What was Treblinka??
Sole purpose: Death
Operational: July 1942 - September 1943
Almost 1 million Jews dead
Destination of 300,000 Warsaw Jews
Stats for Auschwitz II ??
1.1 million deaths
2.5 crematories built
Could burn 340 bodies a day
Built in 1941
Used to be barracks converted
What was resistance like??
Holocaust Myth - Jewish ‘passivity’ (nonsense)
Reality: concealed by Nazis and hidden by fact of no chance of long term success
Partisan camps in forests of East Europe - 10,000 Jewish partisans in Lithuania (1942)
Poland - Hans Frank recorded assigning forces to deal with 20 different Jewish partisan groups
Belarus - Bielski brothers (camped over 1200 fighters)
Resistance also within Ghettos and Camps
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (Jan - May 1943) only stopped by 2000 soldiers and air strikes
Revolts in Sobibor and Treblinka in 1943
1944: Jews blew up Crematorium 4 at Auschwitz-Birkenau
Messages to Allies about camps relayed throughout war - limited impact (Allied disbelief & lack of agency to intervene)
What were death marches??
Mostly occurred Autumn-Winter 1944 (German withdrawal)
Freezing weather
Death from illness and exhaustion
No stopping
Process repeated from camp to camp
Difficult to know exact deaths
Estimates: 250,000 - 400,000
Most casualties female
Continued until end of war
