policies towards the jews; 1940-41 Flashcards
What did Hitler win in October 1940?
A series of Blitzkrieg victories in the west, defeating France and leaving Britain isolated.
What planning did Hitler start in October 1940?
Detailed planning for the conquest of the USSR, known as Operation Barbarossa.
When did Hitler launch Operation Barbarossa?
In June 1941.
Which territories of the USSR did German armies occupy?
Those in eastern Poland, the Baltic States, western Russia and Ukraine.
How did the war in the east differ to that of the fighting in the west for Germany?
The east was a war of racial annihilation, one of savagery. It was on a completely different scale than the relatively civilised struggle in the west.
How many Soviet Jews were brought under German rule in 1941?
More than 3 million.
How had the war against the Soviets been brutal?
Hitler had issued instruction to eliminate the ‘Bolshevik-Jewish intelligentsia’.
However, there’d been no instruction to kill all Soviet Jews, but the troops saw the killings as part of their overall mission, shown in Goering’s issue to kill communist commissars and Jewish sympathisers.
What pressure did the war with the Soviets put upon Hitler?
To deal with the Jewish question.
What further measures isolated the Jews by late 1941? [3]
- Radios were confiscated from Jews. Had been banned from buying in November 1939. A month later banned from buying chocolate.
- Jews were excluded from wartime rationing allowances for clothing and shoes in 1940. In July they were limited to times in which they could enter shops.
- 1941 Jews were required to have police permit to travel. December 1941 meant that Jews in Germany were required to wear a yellow star of David, which had already been applied to occupied territory Jews.
When and where was the first ghetto set up?
In February 1940 in Lodz, the 2nd biggest city in Poland.
How many Jews were living in Lodz in 1940?
Around 320,000.
Where were most Jews in Lodz placed?
In accommodation in a closed ghetto where they later had to build a surrounding wall themselves.
What responsibility was given to the Jewish Council of Elders? [6]
- Food
- Health
- Finance
- Security
- Accommodation
- Registration
What happened to the homes of Jews who were sent to ghettos?
They were confiscated, most Jews had to sell their valuables to survive.
What did the Nazis do to supplies for the ghettos?
They restricted the amount of food and medical supplies that entered the overcrowded ghettos.
How many people shared an average room in the ghettos?
Around 6.
How many people lived in an average apartment in the ghettos?
15.
What types of diseases spread rapidly in the ghettos?
- Lice infestations
- Spotted fever
- Typhus
- Typhoid
- Tuberculosis
What black market was there in the ghettos?
One that smuggled food in from the outside.
What did Jewish leaders in ghettos organise?
Prayers and religious festivals despite them being strictly forbidden.
What did Jewish elders in ghettos try to do? What were some accused of?
Those in authority acted responsibly and tried their best to relieve suffering, but some were accused of corruption or collaboration with the Nazis.
Where was the largest ghetto established in Poland?
In capital city of Warsaw.
What did Governor Hans Frank order Jews to do in October 1940?
He ordered the Jews to build a high wall around the walls of the Jewish Quarter of Warsaw, forming the ghetto.
The Jews paid for these construction costs.
When was the Warsaw ghetto completely sealed off from the rest of the city?
In November 1940.
How many Jews were concentrated in the beginning of the Warsaw ghetto?
Over 400,000.
Where were richer Jews of the Warsaw ghetto housed?
In the ‘small ghetto’.
Where were the mass of ordinary people of the Warsaw ghetto housed?
In the ‘large ghetto’ but they were not large at all and became massively overcrowded.
What were food rations like in the large ghetto?
They were at starvation levels.
What did malnutrition and overcrowding in the ghettos lead to?
Outbreaks of killer diseases.
How many people died in the Warsaw ghetto in 1940-41?
More than 100,000.
The remainder of most later went to die in the death camps.
What did the conditions of the ghettos give insight to about the fate intended for the Jews?
The ghettos were designed so that Jews died in large numbers of starvation, cold and disease, or even worked to death.
How many Jews in total died in the ghettos?
Around 500,000.
What was the Eisatzgruppen?
These were ‘Special Groups’ sent to eliminate communist officials, Red Army commissars, partisans and ‘Jewish-Bolshevik intelligentsia’.
How did the activities of the Eisatzgruppen exceed its original role?
They began carrying out numerous mass killings of Soviet Jews in the second half of 1941.
What is the estimated number of Soviet Jews killed by the Einsatzgruppen in June-July 1941?
Possibly half a million.
Who made up the Einsatzgruppen?
Temporary units made up of police and regular troops commanded by men from the Gestapo, SD and Criminal Police.
It was under overall direction of the SS.
When had the Einsatzgruppen established?
Heydrich and the RSHA had organised them in 1938 and 1939 to secure government buildings and to seize official files at the time of the Anschluss with Austria and occupation of Prague.
How were the Einsatzgruppen used in 1939?
Massively for extensive military operations in the invasion of Poland, when they were involved in ‘Special Actions’ against Jews and many Poles, especially communists.
Who were often recruited to assist the Einsatzgruppen?
Local volunteers.
Where did the Einsatzgruppen play a big role in ‘ethnic cleansing’?
In territories in western Poland that were incorporated into Greater Germany.
What were the key responsibilities of the Einsatzgruppen?
Mass shooting of Jews and forcing Jews into ghettos in cities.
What is the estimated number of Jews killed in Poland in 1939?
Around 7000.
What is the estimated total of people killed in Poland by the Einsatzgruppen?
15,000 including Jews and members of the ‘intelligentsia’.
How many Einsatzgruppen followed behind the first wave of the German Army’s invasion into the Soviet Union?
4, with between 600-1000 men.
Which Einsatzgruppen led the way into the Soviet Union? What followed?
Special Group A, followed by Special Groups B, C, and D in a ‘second sweep’ A deeper soviet areas were overrun.
What happened in Bialystok, eastern Poland on June 27th, 1941?
Police Battalion 309 carried out a massacre.
Who did the police battalions include?
Ordinary men who’d been conscripted into the police instead of the regular army.
What was happening to the killing of Jews once the number of men involved increased to 40,000?
Men were being routinely shot whilst Jewish women and children were now also to be shot.
What did some Einsatzgruppen and auxiliary groups restrict their killings of Jews to?
Just the ‘intelligentsia’ and partisans, whilst in other areas the groups were set about killing as many Jews as possible.
What was the difference in killings of Jews between Special Group A and Special Group B in the Baltic States?
Group A shot 250,000 Jews in 1941 whilst Special Group B shot 45,000 in the same period.
What did the increase in number of Jews under Nazi rule when war in the east broke out provide for the Nazis?
It posed challenges to the regime committed to deal with the ‘Jewish Problem’ but it meant that they had the opportunity to experiment with new methods of dealing with the problem.
What did the invasion of the USSR mark overall for the Nazi regime’s progress?
It marked a further stage in the radicalisation of Nazi policy as their cherished ideal of Lebensraum was close, and Nazi racial ambitions could be given free rein.
Why had radicalisation of Germany deepened once war between Germany and the USA broke out in December 1941?
It meant that there was no longer an incentive for Hitler to exercise any restraint in the west.
