9. Operation Barbarossa Flashcards
German racial attitudes towards citizens of the USSR
Nazis thought that most people who lived in the USSR were sub-human - Slavs were an inferior race
Nazis saw communists as equal to Jews
What was Operation Barbarossa?
The Nazi invasion of the USSR in June 1941
Why was the Eastern Front a particularly brutal battleground?
Because Germany believed they were fighting a racial war of extermination
How did Operation Barbarossa impact Jewish prosecution?
Murders turned from unsystematic/sporadic to systematic/planned/organisation
What is the persecution against Jews as a result of Operation Barbarossa known as?
The Holocaust by bullets
Who was the leading Nazi behind the deportations of Jews to the General Government?
Heydrich
What office was Heydrich the chief of?
Reich Security Main Office
German mobile killing squads and their organiser
Einsatzgruppen
Organised by Heydrich
Orders given to the Einsatzgruppen
Heydrich ordered in June 1941 that the Einsatzgruppen should execute any communist
The Einsatzgruppen interpreted his order to murder all Jewish individuals as they were seen as equal to communists
Activities of the Einsatzgruppen
The mobile killing squads took Jews out of their homes and shot them into mass graves
Process of Jewish murder by the Einsatzgruppen
Jews in a town ordered to gather in a particular place at a particular time
Members of the Einsatzgruppen surrounded the town
Houses searched to make sure no one was hiding
Jews taken to a site on the edge of town
Jews forced to undress and hand over their possessions and anyone who refused would be shot
The Jews would be taken to a trench or pit
Jews would stand by or lie down in the pit and were shot
The victim’s possessions were sold to locals
What happened at Babi Yar?
September 1941, SS and German police units murdered a significant number of Jews who remained in Kyiv
33,771 Jews were killed in a 2 day period
