Why did the Nazis treatment of the Jews change from 1939 –45?
The invasion of Poland in September 1939 led Britain and France to declare war on Germany. This acted as a catalyst for change in the treatment of the Jews. The conquest of Poland brought more than 3 million polish Jews under nazi rule, as this was the country with the highest Jewish population. In fact the polish city of Warsaw alone had a larger Jewish population than the whole German Reich. Naturally, the situation grew worse as German captured more land, they found more Jews and this meant that step by step more countries could be occupied in the same way, hence more Jews being exterminated.
The Jews, which had been captured in Poland, were heavily terrorised with public humiliation, beatings and random killings. They were also driven into crowded ghettos in an area of Poland known as the general government. To mark them out, Jews were made to wear a yellow Star of David.
Between the periods of 1939 –45, the Nazis dominated most of Europe and created 356 ghettos in Poland, the Soviet Union, the Baltic States, Czechoslovakia, Romania and Hungary. This is because they believed, that Jews were a disease and a permanent threat to the ‘Aryan’ race, and they were ready to take any action, which could make the areas under their control ‘Jew-free’. With all the countries occupied, the Germans knew all the Europeans Jews could now be watched. Therefore the Jews became prisoners inside Europe and anywhere they went they could get captured. However, this soon became a problem, because the soldiers assigned to watch them in the ghettos, were becoming outnumbered as the number of Jews doubled rapidly. The soldiers also became involved in the war with the allies at the time, therefore the number of soldiers decreased. So the question is what could be done with the Jews? The initial solution to the ‘Jewish problem’ was ghettoriasation. This meant that Jews were deported to large ghettoes away from the Aryans, where they could not infect the blood of the so-called ‘Aryans’. However, it is important to note that at this point in time the ghettoes were not death camps, they were as the name suggests, buildings concentrated with Jews in an area, which the nazis could manage. Yet in camps like these many people were starved to death, some rotted away while others died of dieses. Many commanders raped women in the camps, and others were used as guinea pigs in scientific experiments. However, as suggested above this solution could no longer operate as well due to the low number of soldiers available. Therefore, the Nazis considered the possibility of forcing all Jews to emigrate. One plan was to create a Jewish homeland somewhere in Eastern Europe. Another was to send all the Jews to Madagascar, a French island off the coast of southern Africa. But in 1941 both these options were discarded by a simpler, more direct plan for ending the ‘Jewish problem,’ this was known as the ‘final solution.’
