Hitler and the Nazi party set up early acts of discrimination showing their anti-Semitism. These included the Nuremburg laws and the boycott in 1933. The Nuremburg laws included no sexual relations outside of marriage between Jews and German blood citizens, and marriages between the two were forbidden. Jews were also not allowed to display their national flags or colours. Anyone to disagree with these laws were punished with penal servitude, imprisonment, or a fine. The boycott happened on April the 1st 1933, it was just one week after Hitler became dictator of Germany. Banks, offices, departments, and shops that were owned or run by Jews had the Nazis telling people not to use them, this was unsuccessful and lasted for just three days before the new laws were set up to rob the Jews of their rights. Kristallnacht was an event that happened on the 9th to the 10th of November 1938. It was also known as the “Night of broken glass”. It was triggered by the assassination of German diplomat Ernst vom Rath by Herschel Grynszpan, a German born Polish Jew. In a coordinated attack on Jewish people and their property, 99 Jews were murdered and 25,000 to 30,000 were arrested and placed in concentration camps. 267 synagogues were destroyed and thousands of homes and businesses were ransacked. This was done by the Hitler Youth, Gestapo, SS and SA.
Ghettos were then set up in 1939, they were in awful condition and very cramped. Over one million Jews were crammed into the small apartment like buildings with no running water or electricity. They were limited to food which was almost impossible to buy, some families sent there children beneath the walls into the German streets to collect food from the outside of the Ghettos. Some were never seen again, and some came back to a dead family member or whole family through to starvation or disease. Theses ghettos were separated from the rest of society and were isolated giving the German Citizens no idea of what was happening, and if some did they had no idea of the true extent of how the Jews were being treated. This all then lead to the run up of the “Final Solution”. In January 1942 the Wannsee conference took place and lasted for just 90 minutes, this conference marked the point where the holocaust became official government policy. The Nazis used phrases that were very unsuspecting to anybody that saw them such as “The Final Solution”. Jews that weren’t fit enough to work for Germany such as the old, sick and very young were sent for “Special Treatment” and “resettlement”. Concentration camps were set up in Germany for them; however the Death Factories were all set up around and outside of Germany in places like Poland. These were designed solely for the mass murder of Jews. The Germans were very clever in there approach to transportation of these Jews from camps and ghettos to the Death camps. They kept the Jews calm and used train stations with ticket offices and restraint signs making the whole ordeal very believable. The Jews thought that they would spend time at there stops before another journey for the resettlement, however the first stop was there last. These camps used Gas chambers as the method for death; they could kill up to 2,000 Jews every hour.
The Nazis used very clever methods of keeping these vast operations private and closed of from the outside world. They made there death camps outside of Germany, the concentration camps and ghettos inside Germany were well known about however the German Citizens would have feared the Nazis power. There were Jews that attempted to resist the force, In April 1943 the Jews gathered one thousand men and women each armed with a revolver, they were crushed by the German force after a month long battle. Inspired by this group the Jews in camps started to revolt, most were unsuccessful but some did escape with their lives. Allies such as Britain and USA couldn’t have done anything else to help the Jews but to keep fighting, the longer they spent at war the longer the Germans could carry on with their operations. So they did all they could and definitely saved many more lives than they would have done had they bombed Auschwitz and killed all the prisoners doing so.
The Holocaust in Germany occurred through manipulation, propaganda, and a very clever group. The Nazi party were very organised and extremely racist, however its nothing that hasn’t happened before, racism and mass murders have been going on throughout history, a well known one is the Genocide in Rwanda. This genocide happened in 1994 and shows how recent these opinions have been going on. No matter what there will be people, groups, and organisations with racist opinions such as today’s BNP party, and the KKK in America. However I do think that Genocides will not happen on the scale as the German Holocaust did. I believe this because of the organisations such as the UN, and countries like America and the UK with great measures in place to help countries and certain groups of people out in great danger or crisis’s. Today’s technology has advanced since back then and would give a much better way of communicating to outside countries for help and let people understand and know what is going on and happening. So all in all I believe that people views will remain throughout the rest of history but i do not believe that Genocide on such a scale will occur again.
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Sheets from class 1. What was the final solution?
2. Why was there so little opposition to the holocaust?
