Wartime policies towards the Jews 1939-1945.

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Wartime policies towards the Jews 1939-19945

This is a key background assignment to support your coursework. You are asked to trace the polices which the nazis adopted to deal with the Jewish populations in the occupied territories.

On 1st September 1939 a Wehrmacht force of 1.25 million men swept into Poland in the wake of heavy aerial bombardments. After two weeks the Polish capital Warsaw was captured, On 17th September the Soviet Union invaded the eastern part of the country whereupon Germany and the USSR agreed to divide Poland. On 28th September Poland surrendered.

The aim of the German occupation policy was to change Poland to a German living space (Lebensraum) and, in the process, to effectively destroy the Polish nation. The Polish Jews had no chance to escape. As early as September 1939 Reinhard Heydrich had given orders to concentrate the Jews in larger towns located near railway lines. In November 1939 Hans Frank gave the order to establish a Judenrat in each municipality. The Judenrat became the link between the Jewish population and the Nazis, the Jews were ordered to declare their valuables and their houses - factories and shops were confiscated. From the