The “Final Solution”

Holocaust in Germany

"In Germany they first came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me-and by that time no one was left to speak up."

-Reverend Martin Niemoller

What is the “Jewish Question”?

“The Holocaust is the final solution to the Jewish question.” - Adolf Hitler

Auschwitz Camp, 1945

Who is sent to the camps?

"The Nazis victimized some people for what they did, some for what they refused to do, some for what they were, and some for the fact that they were." - John Conway

“The Holocaust illustrates the consequences of prejudice, racism and stereotyping on a society. It forces us to examine the responsibilities of citizenship and confront the powerful ramifications of indifference and inaction.” - Tim Holden

Registration of prisoners upon arrival at Buchenwald concentration camp. (1938)

Newly arrived prisoners undressing before they are washed and shaved (in Buchenwald) 1940

Six thousand Mauthausen prisoners wait in the camp courtyard for disinfection. After 24 hours, nearly 140 had died. (July 1941)

Sachsenhausen prisoners, wearing uniforms with triangular badges, stand in columns under the supervision of a camp guard. (1938)

"We had two SS doctors on duty at Auschwitz to examine the incoming transports of prisoners. The prisoners would be marched by one of the doctors who would make spot decisions as they walked by. Those who were fit for work were sent into the camp. Others were sent immediately to the extermination plants. Children of tender years were invariably exterminated since by reason of their youth they were unable to work...at Auschwitz we endeavored to fool the victims into thinking that they were to go through a delousing process. Of course, frequently they realized our true intentions and we sometimes had riots and difficulties due to that fact."

-Rudolf Hoss

Jewish women and a child - after they had handed over their belongings to German soldiers and before a mass execution. (1941 - 1942)

An American soldier stands above the corpses of children that are to be buried in a mass grave dug by German civilians from the nearby town of Nordhausen. (April 14, 1945)

Survivors in Dachau(1945)

Emaciated Jewish survivors, who had been confined to the infirmary barracks at Ebensee, are gathered outside on the day after liberation. The survivor at center-left holding his metal name tag is Joachim Friedner, a twenty-one year-old Polish Jew from Krakow. (May 7, 1945)

"There were many ways of not burdening one's conscience, of shunning responsibility, looking away, keeping mum. When the unspeakable truth of the Holocaust then became known at the end of the war, all too many of us claimed that they had not known anything about it or even suspected anything."

- Richard von Weizsaecker

A prisoner being suspended and subjected to low pressure experimentation. (March - August 1942)

A prisoner who has been subjected to low pressure experimentation. For the benefit of the Luftwaffe, air pressures were created comparable to those found at 15,000 meters in altitude, in an effort to determine how high German pilots could fly and survive. (March - August 1942)

A guide shows jars containing human organs removed from prisoners in Buchenwald to Jack Levine, an American soldier. (May 27, 1945)

During the Medical Trial (Case #1 of the Subsequent Nuremberg Proceedings), Polish survivor Jadwiga Dzido shows her scarred leg to the court, while expert witness Dr. Alexander explains the nature of the medical experiment performed on her in the Ravensbrueck concentration camp. Dzido, a member of the Polish underground, was arrested and deported to Ravensbrueck in March 1941. There, she was subjected to medical experiments, performed by defendants Herta Oberheuser and Fritz Ernst Fischer, on November 22, 1942. (1946)

An exhibit of human remains and artifacts retrieved by the American Army from a pathology laboratory run by the SS in Buchenwald. These items were used as evidence of SS atrocities in the Buchenwald war crimes trial held at Dachau, Germany. The two shrunken heads are from Polish prisoners who were recaptured after escaping from the camp and executed. (April 16, 1945)

A wagon loaded with corpses intended for burial in Buchenwald. (April 11 - May 1945)

Railway cars loaded with the corpses of prisoners who died on route to Dachau from other concentration camps. (April 30, 1945)

http://history1900s.about.com/library/holocaust/blbuchenwald5.htm

“We in the United States should be all the more thankful for the freedom and religious tolerance we enjoy. And we should always remember the lessons learned from the Holocaust, in hopes we stay vigilant against such inhumanity now and in the future.”

– Charlie Dent