Transcript The Road to the Final Solution

The Road to the Final Solution
A Plan for the Destruction of the
Jewish Population
The Final Solution
• After the June 1933 Nazi party rise to power,
state-enforced racism resulted in anti-Jewish
legislation, boycotts, Aryanization, and
Kristalnacht.
• All of these initiatives were aimed at removing
Jews from German society.
• It would only be at the beginning of WWII that
the plan would evolve into extinguishing the
Jews.
The Beginnings:
• The massive Nazi initiative known as the Final Solution was aimed at
removing Jews from German society by means of their total
annihilation.
• This extreme piece of legislation did not occur as a knee-jerk reaction
to Judaism in Germany; rather, it evolved over a series of years.
• It was the result of a constant escalation stemming from the perpetual
search for solutions which failed to solve ongoing problems in
Germany (ex. poor economy).
• In the beginning, the only wish of the Nazi regime was for Jews to
emigrate out of Germany completely to create racial purity within
Germany and to create lebensraum (“living space”) for German
nationals of Aryan blood.
• When Jews did not leave and problems mounted, they were blamed for
the problems and targeted as the root of Germany’s unhappiness.
– Were their options other than the complete annihilation of the Jews?
First Steps:
• The first step toward a Final Solution became the complete
dehumanization of Jews.
• In order for people to accept what was about to become of the Jews and
actively participate in the acts that Hitler deemed necessary to promote
racial purity, they had to believe that Jews were bad.
• Hitler offered people a choice: live with the Jews or help exterminate
them.
• The majority of German citizens didn’t care either way and were not
interested in what was going on. Another large percent of the German
populace didn’t want to see what was going on around them. Only a
minority of the citizens participated with any measure of glee or
enthusiasm.
• Regardless of which position a German citizen took, there is still a
measure of “collective responsibility” that has to be acknowledged.
After all, doing nothing is as much a response as actively participating.
First Steps (continued)
• Deportations were the primary way in which German tried
to get rid of the Jews. However, no other European nations
would take them in.
• As Nazi legislation limited the income and personal rights
of Jews, they became increasingly unable to afford to
escape.
• With the creation of the Nuremberg Laws, the rights of
Jews were almost entirely stripped.
– All hope of escaping was soon to be lost.
– Jews made to wear badges in an effort to make
Germans “feel embarrassed, to feel afraid to [have] any
contact with the Jews.” (Adolf Eichmann)
The Wannsee Conference
• January 20, 1942
• 15 high-ranking Nazi party and German government
leaders
• Reinhard Heydrich (head deputy to Himmer’s SS): quoted
as saying that the purpose of the meeting was to discuss the
“final solution to the Jewish question in Europe.”
• “Final Solution”- code name for the deliberate, carefully
planned destruction or genocide of the Jews. The Nazis
used this vague term to hide their policy of mass murder
from the rest of the world.
• Also at the conference, different subjects such as methods
of killing, liquidation, ghettoization, and extermination
were discussed.
Post Conference:
• After Wannsee, new information was spread that
mobile killing centers were already slaughtering Jews
in the occupied areas of the Soviet Union.
• These units or Einsatzgruppen were made up of police
and SS men. They followed the regular army into
occupied territories and rounded up Jews. The victims
were either moved into ghettos or immediately killed.
• Many times the squad members marched their victims
to open fields, forests, and ravines on the outskirts of
conquered towns. There they shot them or gassed
them in gas vans and then dumped the bodies into
mass graves.
• The executioners were ordinary men who followed orders
of their commanders.
• Many killers had wives and children back in Germany.
• Propaganda and training had taught many members of the
killing squads to view their victims as enemies of
Germany.
• They used euphemisms such as “special treatment” and
“special action” to describe what they were doing.
• When it became clear that the psychological burden of
killing was becoming too much, gassing vans were used to
eliminate the shame of their actions.
• Eventually, extermination camps were built in an effort to
efficiently erase the Jews and keep the minds of the captors
at ease.
• To keep the Jewish
population under
control and dwindling
in population, Hitler
began the creation of
concentration camps.
• Initially, they were
designed to
incarcerate political
prisoners, criminals,
and security risks.
• While conditions were
horrible and death
rates were high, there
is no evidence that
they were used for
extermination.
• The death rates were
so high due to
malnutrition, typhus,
and exhaustion.
• Eventually, the
disposal of the corpses
became a serious
problem.
Two important precedents for the death camps
deserve attention:
• The Aschaffenburg concentration camp
– 1st camp to officially murder its prisoners in masse
• The Nazi Euthanasia Project
– Not “dying with dignity”
– Focused on “life unworthy of life”
– Eliminated those who carried defective genetic
materials which might endanger the quality of the
“Aryan” stock
– Doctors assisted with the destruction
Hippocratic Oath
I swear by Apollo Physician and Asclepius and Hygieia and Panaceia and all
the gods and goddesses, making them my witnesses, that I will fulfill
according to my ability and judgment this oath and this covenant:
To hold him who has taught me this art as equal to my parents and to live my
life in partnership with him, and if he is in need of money to give him a share of
mine, and to regard his offspring as equal to my brothers in male lineage and to
teach them this art - if they desire to learn it - without fee and covenant; to give
a share of precepts and oral instruction and all the other learning to my sons
and to the sons of him who has instructed me and to pupils who have signed the
covenant and have taken an oath according to the medical law, but no one else.
I will apply dietetic measures for the benefit of the sick according to my
ability and judgment; I will keep them from harm and injustice.
I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody who asked for it, nor will I make
a suggestion to this effect. Similarly I will not give to a woman an abortive
remedy. In purity and holiness I will guard my life and my art.
I will not use the knife, not even on sufferers from stone, but will withdraw in
favor of such men as are engaged in this work.
Whatever houses I may visit, I will come for the benefit of
the sick, remaining free of all intentional injustice, of all
mischief and in particular of sexual relations with both
female and male persons, be they free or slaves.
What I may see or hear in the course of the treatment or
even outside of the treatment in regard to the life of men,
which on no account one must spread abroad, I will keep
to myself, holding such things shameful to be spoken
about.
If I fulfill this oath and do not violate it, may it be granted
to me to enjoy life and art, being honored with fame
among all men for all time to come; if I transgress it and
swear falsely, may the opposite of all this be my lot.
These programs paved the way for the
Holocaust in several important ways:
FirstLegitimized government-sponsored killing
SecondBeginning stage in the corruption of German
medical professionals
•began with “mercy killings”
•escalated into full scale involvement of some in the mass
extermination of Jews & others in death camps
ThirdDeveloped technology which would later be applied to
mass murder
The Rationalization of Murder
• A clear distinction must be observed
between the death camps, or killing centers,
and the concentration camps.
• All of the concentration camps were death
camps in that thousands of inmates did of
starvation, being worked to death, exposure
to the elements, epidemics, or simply being
executed for alleged crimes.
• The classification between death camp and
concentration camp is based on the primary
function for which it was established.
The Nazi
Concentration
Camps
Dachau was the first
concentration camp established.
•
•
•
•
In Munich (1933)
Ordered by Heinrich Himmler
Ruled by Commandant Theodor Eicke
Would serve as the model for all of the other
concentration camps
• Became the murder school for the SS
• First prisoners were political opponents of the regime,
communists, and social democrats.
• Jews- followed these b/c of their political opposition
• At Dachau, the first crematoria were
constructed for the disposal of
corpses.
• There were also gas chambers
constructed; however, there is NO
evidence that they were ever used for
extermination.
• Other methods such as gallows were
used to rid the Nazis of ‘troublesome’
Jews.
There were nearly 9,000 concentration
camps within Germany and its occupied
territories. Some of the most noted
among them are:
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Mauthausen
Bergen-Belsen
Buchenwald
Ravensbrück
Terezin (Theresienstadt)
Mauthausen (Austria)
Prisoners were forced to
climb the 186 steps of the
Wiener Graben with large
blocks of granite on their
backs.
Often the blocks would
fall, crushing limbs and
bodies of those following,
sometimes killing.
 The SS guards invented
competitions betting on
which prisoner would make
it to the top first.
Mauthausen (cont.)
• Those surviving the ordeal would
then be forced to jump from the
edge of the quarry to their death
below. This particular spot at the
edge of the quarry was known
“The Parachute Jump”.
• “...in 1944 ....The SS led fortyseven Dutch, American, and
English officers and flyers,
barefooted, to the bottom. On
their first journey up the 186
steps they forced the men to
carry twenty-five kilogram
stones on their backs. On each
successive journey they increased
the weight of the load. If a
prisoner fell, he was beaten. All
forty-seven died of the
treatment”.
Mauthausen (cont.)
The Wailing Wall
• Newly arrived
prisoners were
subjected to an
initiation ritual:
standing at attention
facing this wall while
chained to iron rings;
this for at least hours,
and sometimes days.
• They were
interrogated and
brutally beaten.
• Today the wall is
covered with
numerous memorial
tablets.
• It is hard to imagine
anything worse than being
thrown into a
concentration camp.
• Even in Mauthausen there
was a deeper hell: an
isolation unit. Here, in
what was already the end
of the line, there was
another, darker place, the
end of the line at the end
of the line.
• If one broke the camp's
often absurd rules, he
could very well have been
be thrown into the bunker.
Bunker Hall
The Gas Chamber
• The chamber in Mauthausen was built in the
basement, below the sick quarters. It was
completed and used by the spring of 1942. On
the other hand, the sick quarters were only half
completed at war's end.
• The SS would cram 120 persons into this
chamber, seal the doors and pump in carbon
monoxide. Inefficient as it was, the prisoners
often died of suffocation rather than the gas.
• “Consequently, when the doors were opened to
remove the bodies, it was found that the dead
were covered not only with excrement and blood,
but their eyes protruded from their heads and
their bodies stiffened into grotesque positions.”
The Judas Opening
A peep hole for the curious, the professional killers, the sadists
and the perverse. A place to gloat over the deaths of others; to
wield such power, indeed to have such power. Why? To feel above
it all, like a brooding Greek god on Mt. Olympus: superior, alive,
invulnerable, perhaps even for a few moments, immortal?
• Among many other pseudo-scientific "experiments", SS
doctors removed organs from living people, bottled and stored
them on shelves in the dissecting room.
• They skinned prisoners with interesting tattoos and sold them
as book covers, gloves, luggage and lamp shades.
• One physician selected two prisoners with near perfect teeth
and used their heads as paperweights on his desk.
The Latch
• It is always
surprising to see the
degree of care and
meticulous attention
to detail, even
elegance, the SS
exacted in their goal
of surrounding,
punishing and killing
innocent people.
• This latch, however,
is on the entrance
gate to the main
camp at
Mauthausen.
Bergen-Belsen
• Bergen-Belsen was a
concentration camp
near Hanover in
northwest Germany,
located between the
villages of Bergen and
Belsen.
• Built in 1940, it was a
prisoner-of-war camp
for French and
Belgium prisoners.
Bergen-Belsen (cont.)
• It was designed to hold
10,000 prisoners, however,
by the war’s end more than
60,000 prisoners were
detained there, due to the
large numbers of those
evacuated from Auschwitz
and other camps from the
East.
• Tens of thousands of
prisoners from other camps
came to Bergen-Belsen after
agonizing death marches.
Trouble at Belsen
• Conditions in the camp
were good by
concentration camp
standards, and most
prisoners were not
subjected to forced labor.
However, beginning in
the spring of 1944 the
situation deteriorated
rapidly.
• Belsen was transformed.
Prisoners of other camps
too sick to work were
brought, though none
received medical
treatment.
• As the German Army retreated
in the face of the advancing
Allies, the concentration camps
were evacuated and their
prisoners sent to Belsen.
• The facilities in the camp were
unable to accommodate the
sudden influx of thousands of
prisoners and all basic services food, water and sanitation collapsed, leading to the
outbreak of disease.
• Anne Frank and her sister,
Margot, died of typhus in March
1945, along with other prisoners
in a typhus epidemic.
Tragedy at Belsen
The Fall of Belsen
As the first major camp to be liberated by the
allies, the event received a lot of press coverage
and the world saw the horrors of the Holocaust.
 Sixty-thousand prisoners were present at the
time of liberation.
Afterward, about 500 people died daily of
starvation and typhus, reaching nearly 14,000.
 Mass graves were made to hold the
thousands of corpses of those who perished.
Lord of Belsen
• Joseph Kramer
– "Beast of Belsen“
– His prescription for the uncontrollable epidemic of diarrhea
was starvation. 'If you don't eat, you don't shit.'
– When railroad cars and convoys were unavailable, he
dispatched the prisoners on long marches. The weakest,
unable to keep going, were left to die or were shot. The
roads were littered with thousands who had succumbed.
– tried and found guilty by a British military court
– Forty-five staff members were tried, fourteen were acquitted.
– Kramer was hanged.
Herta Bothe
• The notorious Herta Bothe became a
camp guard and soon acquired a
reputation as a sadist who beat prisoners
without mercy.
• Shot weak female prisoners carrying food
containers from the kitchen to the block
with her pistol.
• Often beat sick girls with a wooden
stick.
• charged with having committed war
crimes
• got imprisonment for 10 years
Juana Bormann
•“The woman with the dogs”
• took sadistic pleasure in setting her wolfhounds
on prisoners to tear them to pieces
•I could earn more money …
•found guilty and convicted of war crimes;
executed
Buchenwald
• one of the largest
concentration camps
established by the Nazis
• Originally designed for male
prisoners (political prisoners)
• Females were not introduced
until 1944
• The official goal of
Buchenwald was the
destruction of the prisoners
by work. Thousands of
prisoners were murdered in
Buchenwald by work, torture,
beatings, or simply starvation
and lack of hygiene.
Ilse Koch
• the Bitch of Buchenwald
• fond of riding her horse
through the camp naked,
whipping any prisoner who
attracted her attention
• Her hobby was collecting
lampshades, book covers,
and gloves made from the
skins of specially murdered
concentration camp inmates,
and shrunken human skulls.
• Sentenced to life imprisonment
• Committed suicide in a
Bavarian prison
Extract from the Nuremberg Trial.
Mr. Dubost (French prosecutor): Could you please tell us about the tattooed skin?
Witness Bachalowsky: Yes.
Mr. Dubost: Please tell us what you know.
Witness Bachalowsky: In Buchenwald, human tattooed skin was placed in Block 2. This
block was called the "pathological block".
Mr. Dubost: Could you tell us if there was much tattooed skin in this block?
Witness Bachalowsky: There was always human skin there. I can't tell you exactly how
much there was because there was a lot of traffic in this block. There was not only tattooed
skin but also tanned human skin without tattoos.
Mr. Dubost: Does this mean that they skinned prisoners?
Witness Bachalowsky: They skinned prisoners, then they tanned the skin.
Mr. Dubost: Could you give us more details about that?
Witness Bachalowsky: I saw the SS leaving Block 2 with human skin in their arms. Some
comrades who worked in this block told me the SS received orders for human skin, and that
tanned skin were given to the guards and visitors. Human skin was also used to make book
covers.
Mr. Dubost: We have been told here that the former
commandant, Koch, was punished for that.
Witness Bachalowsky: I don't know about that case, I was
not in the camp at this time.
Mr. Dubost: So, were there human tattooed and tanned skin
in the camp after Koch left?
Witness Bachalowsky: There was always skin. When the
Americans liberated the camp, they still found tattooed and
tanned skin...
Ravensbrück
• only major Nazi
concentration camp for
women
• a small village located in a
beautiful area with many
forests and lakes
• death by starvation, beating,
torture, hanging, and shooting
• During the last months of the
war, and due to the rapid
advance of the Russian
Army, the SS decided to
exterminate as many
prisoners as they could, in
order to avoid any testimony
about what happened in the
camp.
Irma Grese
• "Beast of Belsen"
• the League of German
Girls
• Her father ordered her to
stay away from their
house
• acts of sadism, beatings
and arbitrary shooting of
prisoners, savaging of
prisoners by her trained
and half starved dogs, and
her selecting prisoners for
the gas chambers
• directly responsible
for orders to kill over
500,000 female Jews,
Gypsies, and political
prisoners
• impressed her
superiors with her
brutality
• enjoyed selecting
children to be killed
• last words were
"Long live Poland!"
Maria Mandel