What was the Final Solution? Flashcards
1
Q
What happened at the Wannsee Conference and when was it\?
A
- Jan 1942
- lots of leading Nazis got together (not inc. Hitler)
- 3 days longer
- finalising details of the Holocaust
- Wannsee - small town outside Berlin
- agreed and finalised how final solution would take place
- listed how many Jews were in each country in Europe
2
Q
What was Adolf Hitler’s 6yr Anniversary after coming to power speech about? and when was it?
A
- 30th Jan 1939
- saying if Jews started the war as they were secretly controlling the world then the only solution would be to annihilate the Jewish ‘race’
- warning to US not to get involved
- saying Jews are economic capitalists that control the world but are also in conspiracy with the Bolsheviks (communists) to rule the world
- saying Germany will not start a war but if one is started then the Jewish ‘race’ will be annihilated
3
Q
What happened during the ‘Holocaust by the Bullets’? and when was it?
A
- 1941-44
- happened in Eastern Europe after Nazi invasion of the USSR - Operation Barbarossa
- Babin Yar - biggest massacre in the Holocaust
- Nazis thought most of the people in the USSR (The Slavs) were an inferior, ‘sub-human race’ of people - led Nazis to believe that the normal rules of war didn’t apply
4
Q
What 2 purposes died the War Against Soviets (Operation Barbarossa) have?
A
- would allow Nazis to gain land and resources e.g. food
2. would destroy Communism which Nazis wrongly believed was led by Jews
5
Q
Why was Operation Barbarossa particularly brutal?
A
particularly brutal with millions of civilians killed, 1000s of Roma and Sinti also murdered in mass shootings
6
Q
What did the Chief of the Secretary Police issued to the German army and when?
A
- 6th June 1941 - chief of the Secretary Police issued a special order to German army
- anyone believed to be a communist official, or who worked for Soviet gov, was either to be shot or handed over to special units called Einsatzgruppen
- few weeks later, Heydrich sent instructions for Einsatzgruppen to execute any communists politicians and all Jews employed by Communist party or gov
- Einsatzgruppen took Heydrich’s instructions as an order to murder all communist and Jewish men
- very quickly women and children were being targeted and murdered too
7
Q
How many people did the Soviet Union lose?
A
Soviet Union lost 28 million
8
Q
What were all communist in Nazis minds?
A
- Jewish
- Nazism vs Communism
9
Q
How does the Einsatzgruppen show radicalisation?
A
- Einsatzgruppen shows radicalisation as order to kill all Jewish men in the Communist party or working for gov but it got ramped up and all Jewish ppl inc. women and children
- Jews in E Europe treated far harsher at first, wiping out entire villages and shetls
- Jews in E Europe less assimilated - spoke Yiddish, living in big Jewish communities
- W Europe - kicked out of houses, lost jobs and property, forced labour
- 2.2 mil Jews shot in the ‘Holocaust by Bullets’ mainly in 1941 - 1942
10
Q
What happened to Jews of Ejszyski (E Poland)?
A
- 3500 Jews lived there before WW2
- Septe 1939 - area of Poland invaded by Soviet Union
- June 1941 - Germany invaded Soviet Union
- Jews immediately persecuted, wore yellow Star of David on clothes, curfews, slave labour
- Einsatzgruppen followed German army shot suspected communists and suspected Jewish men across Soviet Union
- Aug and Sept 1941 - Einsatzgruppen and local helpers began killing whole Jewish communities
- Sept 1941 - Lithuanian police rounded up Jews and locked them in a stable and 3 prayer houses. After 3 days, the men were taken to the Jewish cemetery and shot. The next day, women and children shot nearby. The Lithuanians shot 3446 in these two days: 989 men, 1,636 women and 821 children
- more than 995 of Jews in Ejszyski were murdered during the Holocaust - only 29 survived
11
Q
What happened to Jews in Amsterdam?
A
- May 1940 - Germany invaded the Netherlands.
- Autumn 1940 - Nazis introduced anti-Jewish laws and persecution increased
- 1941 - 100s of men sent to concentration camps in the spring after fights with Dutch Nazis.
- August 1941 - Jewish children banned from state schools and 1000s of Jewish men taken away for slave labour
- May 1942 - Jews forced to wear yellow Star of David badge
- July 1942 - German police began rounding up Jews in Amsterdam. They were kept in a theatre in the city centre and then sent to Westerbork transit camp. A transit camp which was a place where Jews were held before they were deported to extermination camps.
- Most of Jews in Westerbork sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp.
- A minority of people selected to work in Auschwitz but most, inc. all children and old people, immediately sent to gas chambers.
- Most of ppl selected to work also died because of disease, starvation or exhaustion.
- Other Jews sent from Westerbork to Sobibòr extermination camp where almost all murdered in gad chambers as soon as they arrived: only 8 Jews from Amsterdam survived Sobibòr
- 70%+ of all Jews from Amsterdam murdered in Holocaust
12
Q
When did the Holocaust kick into gear?
A
- Holocaust kicked into gear in 1941
13
Q
Road to Holocaust: Process of Radicalisation
A
- original aim to win war, then ‘allow’ genocide through disease and starvation in the East after all the Jews had been moved there
- brutality of war in Russia (Operation Barbarossa - June 1941) and the linking of Judaism and communism radicalised local commanders who were allowed to interpret vague orders from above - led to mass shootings in Poland/Russia
- as war dragged on and America joined war in Dec 1941 Nazis increasingly realised they wouldn’t be able to win war or wouldn’t win war any time soon so they saw Jews as existential enemies - death camps set up from early 1942
- it became a war aim to complete the Nazi genocide throughout Europe
14
Q
Auschwitz Birkenau Facts
A
- liberated 26th Jan 1945
- Nazis not able to destroy death camps
- dealt with Jews from all over Europe
- Extermination camp with gas chambers
15
Q
Timeline of Holocaust: Pre-war up to Summer 1940
A
- before WW2 started the Nazis aimed to force all Jews to emigrate from Germany
- because of this no Ghettos created in Germany before 1939
- when Germany invaded Poland in Sept 1939 it actually made its ‘Jewish Problem’ worse - another 3 million Jews were now under Nazi control
- the first ghettos were established as early as October 1939 - this was as part of a plan to ‘deport’ all Jews to the Central Government - land in Poland that was a Nazi colony
- Jews of Poland were concentrated into Ghettos before the planned deportation to the Central Government - where it was expected/hoped they would slowly die of disease and starvation
