Holocaust - Source related questions.

Authors Avatar

Holocaust Coursework

(1)         What can you learn from Source A about how the Jews were treated in 1939 in Nazi Germany?

From Source A we can learn that in 1939 in Nazi Germany Jews were treated differently and hated. ‘Jewish shops which had been destroyed. The big Synagogue was in flames’. The Germans were showing the ultimate mark of disrespect by burning down the Jewish place of worship. The Jews were treated inhumanely, they were kept from ‘early morning’ until ‘about six o’clock’. The Jews were made to feel ashamed of what they were ‘some shouted abuse’. The Jews were taken from there houses without consent but they were powerless to do anything ‘Two SS men came to my house to fetch me’.    

(2)        Study Sources B and C. Using the sources and your own knowledge explain what the Nazis meant by the “Final Solution”?  

        The “Final Solution”(Endlösung) was the name give to the Nazis attempt to systematically exterminate the entire Jewish population of Europe, an estimated

11 million people. "Europe would be combed of Jews from east to west". This “Solution” was led by the Nazi belief of anti-Semitism, the religious and racial prejudice against the Jews.

        Prior to the “Solution” the Nazis worked vigorously to encourage Jews to emigrate. The Madagascar Plan was one example of strategies which were formulated to remove Jews from Germany and its occupied lands. But foreign countries were reluctant to accept the influx of Jewish refugees.

        At the Wannsee Conference on January 20, 1942 in Wannsee, a Berlin suburb, the details of the "Final Solution" were clarified. The conference was convened by Heydrich and Himmler. The purpose of the meeting was to co-ordinate the Nazi bureaucracy required to carry out the "Final Solution," which provided for:                                                 

  • Deportation of Jews to killing centres.  
  • Immediate death for those who were unable to work or the very young, the old, and the weak.
  • Segregation by gender of the remaining Jews.
  • Decimation through forced labour with insufficient nourishment.
  • Eventual death for the remnant.

        

Jews were held in ghettos for eventual murder. From the ghettos Jews were brought to the East for labour and served in Concentration Camps if they were considered fit enough. Otherwise sent straight to Death Camps like Auschwitz.

        Upon arrival at a Concentration Camp, the inmates were usually stripped of all their valuables and clothes. They were then shorn of body hair, disinfected and given a shower. Each step of the process was designed to dehumanise the prisoners, both physically and emotionally. Life in the camps was a living hell. Woken up at dawn and given little bread and liquid. Then sent out to work for 10-14 hours in mines, factories, and road or airfield building, often in subzero weather or the severe heat of summer. Physical and emotional harassment was common.

        The German skill in adapting the 20th century techniques of mass production was applied in engineering the "Final Solution." In 1941, the engineers of the "Final Solution" utilised these same principles to cheaply and efficiently murder millions of Jews. The plants established to carry out this mass murder were the Death Camps. In order to process the murder of thousands of people, great pains were taken to deceive the victims concerning their fate. The Nazi planners of the operation told the victims that they were being resettled for labour. On arrival they were told that they would have to be deloused and enter the baths. The baths were in reality the gas chambers. The shower heads in the baths were actually the inlets for poison gas. Auschwitz was able to process the death of 12,000 victims daily. By the end of 1944, an estimated two-and-a-half million Jews had died at Auschwitz alone.

        Einsatzgruppen or "Special Action Squads" were specially trained units of the SS who followed the first wave of German army troops in the invasion of the Soviet Union (June 1941). Their orders were to execute on the spot all Communists, Jews, and Gypsies.

Join now!

It is estimated that by the end of 1942, they had killed more than a million Soviet Jews. These victims were shot or loaded into enclosed trucks modified for the introduction of carbon monoxide to asphyxiate its victims. An additional 400,000 were killed by other SS units, anti-Semitic native civilians, police units, and the German army. One example of the Einsatzgruppen mass executions was Babi Yar. Thousands of Jews on the outskirts of Kiev were rounded up and mowed down by machine guns. The records of the Einsatzgruppen unit which participated in the executions recorded that 33,771 Jews were killed ...

This is a preview of the whole essay