Transcript The Holocaust Memorial Day January 27 th 2013 The

The Holocaust Memorial Day January 27th 2013
By Jack Bastable
The Holocaust
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The Holocaust (Shoah) was a unique event in 20th century history. It evolved
slowly between 1933 and 1945. It began with discrimination; then the Jews were
separated from their communities and persecuted; and finally they were treated
as less than human beings and murdered.
During the Second World War the Nazis sought to murder the entire Jewish
population of Europe and to destroy its culture. In 1941 there were about 11
million Jews living in Europe; by May 1945 the Nazis had murdered six million of
them. One-and-a-half million of these were children.
We now call these events the Holocaust.
Whilst the Jews of Europe were the Nazis’ primary target, many millions of other
people were also imprisoned, enslaved and murdered. These people included
Roma, those with mental or physical disabilities, homosexuals, Jehovah's
Witnesses, trade unionists, political opponents, Poles and Soviet prisoners of war.
The Nazis did not act alone. They were supported and assisted by people from
within the countries they occupied across Europe. Most countries stood by while
the Nazis and their accomplices carried out the mass murder of the Jewish people.
The Final Solution
• During the summer of 1941, in breach of Hitler’s agreement with Joseph
Stalin, Germany invaded the Soviet Union. Following the German army
into battle were the Einsatzgruppen. Local people supported these killing
squads, one of the main tasks of which was to kill all Jewish men, women
and children in the areas that were being conquered. By December 1941,
over 500,000 Soviet Jews had been murdered.
• However, for the Nazis leadership, conventional killing methods were
insufficient and inefficient.
• On 20 January 1942, 15 leading officials of the Nazi state met at a villa in
Wannsee, a suburb of Berlin, to discuss the ’Final solution of the Jewish
Question’.
• The ’Final solution’ was a code name for the murder of all the Jews of
Europe. The people present at the conference were to discuss how to
make mass murder happen in an organised and methodical way.
People Respond
• The Holocaust is very difficult to understand. It tested human
nature and led to extreme reactions.
• Some writers today, when they consider the Holocaust, categorise
the people affected in the following ways: as victims, as
perpetrators, as bystanders and as rescuers.
• This section gives examples from each category and explains how
people across the world responded to the events in Nazi controlled
Europe. This includes the treatment of communities and peoples by
the Nazis and their accomplices.
• More importantly, the section seeks to question why some people
acted in a way that enabled or allowed the Nazis to carry out their
inhumane polices and why others acted to protect and save lives.