The Holocaust and the end of WWII

The Holocaust, 1941-45“The Final Solution”

• Until 1941, Hitler and Nazis did not agree on what to do with Jews• Emigration• Madagascar

• TURNING POINT: June 1941, Operation Barbarossa

• Einsatzgruppen: “Mobile Killing Groups” or “Single-task groups”

• Jews• Communists• Gypsies• Poles

Einsatzgruppen, 1941-42

Final Solution (cont.)

• The ghettos were already sealed (1940)• Poison gas vans tested the use of gas• Auschwitz-Birkenau• Systematic annihilation of Jews and Gypsies• 1942–1944: one million killed

• Anonymous slaughter• People were tortured, beaten, and executed

publicly

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Auschwitz-BirkenauWhat is it?

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Who did this?Reserve Police Battalion 101 from Hamburg

• Ordinary Germans obeying orders• July 1942-Nov. 1943: killed more than 38,000 Jews• deported 45,000 others.

Who knew?

• Extermination involved the knowledge and cooperation of many not directly involved in killing.

• Most who suspected the worst were terrified and powerless.

• Many Europeans believed “the Jews” were a problem that needed “solving”.

• Nazis tried to conceal the death camps.• What of other governments?

• Vichy France required Jews to wear special identification.

• Italians participated less actively.• Hungarian government dragged its feet.

Resistance?

• Little resistance seemed to be possible

• Rebellions at Sobibor, Auschwitz and Treblinka

• Warsaw ghetto uprising (1943)• 80 percent of the residents had been

deported• Small Jewish underground movement• 56,000 Jews were killed

Death Camps

Camp name KilledAuschwitz II 1,000,000Belzec 600,000Chełmno 320,000Jasenovac 58–97,000Majdanek 360,000Maly Trostinets 65,000Sobibór 250,000Treblinka 870,000

Overall human costs

• 5.1-6.0 million Jews– 800,000 in Ghettos– 1,400,000 in open-air shootings– 2,900,000 in camps

• 1.8-2.0 million Poles• 2-3 million Soviet POWS• 200,000 Roma & Sinti• 20,000-25,000Slovenes• 270,000 people with disabilities• 10,000-15,000 gay men• 2,500-5000 Jehovah's Witnesses

Near obliteration of Jewish culture

Near obliteration of Jewish culture (e.g. Beliec)

Beliec’s absence