The Nazis took total control of 2 million Jews at the beginning of the war when Germany invaded Poland on the 1st September 1939. Heydrich the architect of the final solution explained his plans and procedures for the eradication of the Jews in Poland. He made it clear that the ‘ultimate aim’ would have to be carried out over a long period of time and it was important that it was kept top secret. For the final solution to be carried out successfully it would be impossible without taking the smaller steps to get to the one big step; the annihilation of all Jews in Europe. Heydrich had carefully thought out his plans and his first step was to get all the Jews together. The Nazis could not achieve this without telling a ‘little lie’ and therefore the Jews were told that they would not need to deal with the conflict they had to deal with in previous years and also that they were being relocated to a better place of good homes and work. The Jews were in for a surprise as Heydrich had really relocated them to concentration camps and ghettos in the east.
The Jews then were liquidated throughout their time in concentration camps and ghettos through hard labour, illness, maltreatment and starvation. The euthanasia program attracted the Nazi leaders and soon became suitable followers of the program. Consequently the gas had been proven to kill the Jews, which previously was used to kill the mental and disabled.
The nature of how the Jews were murdered after 1942 seems much more organized and well thought out compared to when you look back before 1942 you’ll notice that the nature of how they dealt with the Jews then seemed very disorganized and incomplete. Einsatkommandos were employed by Heydrich to bring all the Jews together and were sent to reception centers or quite simply shot standing against a wall. The Nazis did not keep their hatred towards the Jews much of a secret as in source B they set fire to buildings burning the Jews alive and chasing after the Jews in streets throwing grenades at them.
A conference was held at Wannsee on the 20th January 1942, officials met here to discuss the ‘final solution’ this was basically the final and most effective way of eliminating all the Jews in Europe. They discussed the previous nature of the killings used to kill the Jews and decided that ‘shooting was a messy, slow and upsetting method of liquidation’. Heydrich and Himmler decided that gas was much quicker and cleaner and the ‘final solution’ was now made official.
The approach towards the Jews remained the same after the Wannsee Conference. The procedures of the liquidation of the Jews changed because before the conference the Jews were killed mainly by shooting, this, which had been proven to be very time consuming and expensive. It is evident that shooting wasn’t always effective, in source J it is said that the Jews were made to stand in a pit and were shot, a man survived this as the bullet had slightly grazed the side of his head and later escaped. The biggest difference in approach was that now the liquidation of the Jews was much more industrialized and well organized.
After the Wannsee Conference the biggest difference was the nature of how the Nazis got rid of the Jews although the approach towards them had changed a little. The Nazis now concentrated on using gas as their main method of killing the Jews. I personally think that the nature and approach towards the persecution of the Jews changed due to the Wannsee Conference. I think this because before the Wannsee Conference the liquidation of the Jews was a disorganized and incomplete process. As a result of the Wannsee conference the liquidation operation was now much more organized and efficient as more prominence was made on the obliteration of the Jews.
