The Holocaust

Part IIFrom The Final Solution to

Liberation

The Final Solution

• As Hitler and the Nazis empire grew and their war efforts increased, they were faced with a dilemma over “The Jewish Question.”

The Final Solution• The Wannsee Conference

– In 1942 a group of Nazi officials gathered to solve “The Final Solution to the Jewish Problem.”– They decided to

systematically exterminate Europe’s Jewish population.

• The Einsatzgruppen – mobile killing squads. Hitler found their methods effective but inefficient for large scale extermination.

Deportation• Jews from the Polish Ghettos, Holland,

Germany, and other lands were herded into cattle cars to be transported to forced labor or extermination camps. Jews were simply told that they were being relocated to “The East.”

Concentration Camps• Concentration Camps• Death Camps – 4 Camps used only for

killing.

Concentration Camps

• The Gas Chambers – Zyklon B

Auschwitz-Birkenau• Served as a slave labor and

death camp.• 1.25 million alone killed at

Auschwitz. 9 out 10 were Jews. Roma, Soviets, Political Prisoners, and the Physically and Mentally disabled were also victims of Auschwitz.

Resistance• Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

– 27 days of armed resistance using home made bombs and stolen pistols.

• Sobibor – an armed rebellion of prisoners closed the death camp.

• Jewish Partisans – resistance fighters

• Denmark – gentile population saved their entire Jewish population.

• Holland – righteous gentiles took great risk and hid, housed, and fed their Jewish neighbors for the entire occupation.

Aftermath• May 1945 – Nazi Germany collapsed.• An estimated 6 million Jews were killed, 10

million people total at the hands of the Nazis.• 24 senior Nazi officials

were found and arrested. They were put on trial in Nuremburg for Crimes Against Humanity.

• In 1948, the state of Israel was established.