Shooting Squads was the most common way to kill the Jews as it was quick and could be done on the street on in a pit with 200-300 more Jews, mass shooting was among the first method employed at killing the Jews, in some sources it states that Jews were asked to dig up their own grave before being shot. The Germans who had the job of exterminating the Jews were called Einsatzgruppen, who were death squads whose sole job was to kill every Jew or inferior race they happen to come across. Once Jews heard about the massive hate campaign, the tried to hide in basements and under floorboard, when the Nazis discovered this they used to shoot at the ceilings from the rooms below to try and kill them. But the Nazis were becoming worried on the number of bullets being wasted and as a result thought of this idea of lining Jews up in a straight line facing straight and shooting one bullet, in hope that it will kill one by one in the line up. Up to 6 million Jews were killed using this method. As the war progressed more ammunition was need and the Nazis had to think of new ideas and methods to eliminate the Jews.
After thinking of solutions on how to save bullets the SS discovered that Carbon Monoxide, which was lethal to humans and was capable of death if dispatched with the right amount. This method was first tested in Gas vans; Jews were grabbed from the street or wherever they could find them, stripped of all clothing and belongings (even hair) and thrown on back and gassed, their cover was that the van was a shower. It wasn’t as successful as hoped due to the lack of deaths, they wanted another method. They now constructed small gas chambers where hundreds could be killed in Carbon Monoxide. In Auschwitz 1 one of the main death camps, the SS discovered that another gas called Zyklon B was more effective and lethal then Carbon Monoxide. More Jews could now be gassed as the SS saw how efficient and fast this method had become. This was probably one of the best ways the Nazis killed Jews as it was painless for them and they didn't feel as scared as to what would be happening to them.
3. Why did the Nazi’s treatment of Jews change from 1939-1945?
Nazis started using Ghettos in the 1939 to accommodate the large number of Jews being sent to Poland. They were also seen as good accommodation as the Jews can supply slave labour for the war, it was also a good way to keep the Jews out of Germany and in Poland.
In 1939 the war starts, Hitler prepares his army and invades Poland, here the Jewish population was over 2 million. Poland was extremely important for the Nazi term of Lebensraum. Lebensraum was a term, which meant living space. However, this space was only meant for the Aryan race. This didn't include the many Jews in the countries Hitler wanted to take over, therefore Hitler wanted them out. He was already trying to control this "inferior" race in Germany and now he had even more. In 1939 and onwards, the Nazis thought up many methods on how they were going to control the accumulating number of Jews in their empire. To solve the problem of the substantial increase in the number of Jews, the Nazis had to introduce new methods to control them, that’s when they thought up of ghettos. As there was a war going on it was impossible for the Jews to escape or try to leave as border security would be tougher than ever. Meanwhile, Nazis used their propaganda skills to make the Jews seem like the enemy and turn people to hate them. Now that the Jews had been deported the Nazis took over their houses and businesses in attempt to improve Germany and forget about the Jews, which now wouldn’t be too difficult as they are all gathered in one place, it’s a simple matter of building a wall around it to keep them from the real world.
The Nazis stopped using Ghettos in late 1943 due to a number of factors. One of which was the fact that there were too many Jews to cram in, there just wasn’t enough room. The other factor was that the Nazis couldn’t control when they died, as the majority of the time they die from disease and starvation, which could take weeks, even months. And the German government (Hitler) wanted to focus on the war effort and not looking after Jews as food had to be bought to keep the labour workers alive. The large amount of Jews meant that there needed to be a large amount of soldiers guarding them, soldiers that could be put to better use in the war.
Einsatzgruppen can be described as member of the security police and SS, during 1939- 1941 who were given orders to KILL all Jews as well as communist functionaries, the handicapped, institutionalized psychiatric patients, Gypsies, and others considered undesirable by the Nazi state. The victims were killed in mass shootings, buried in a big hole, later were dug up and burned to get rid of all the evidence of the cruelty that had occurred. They were used as they were seen a quick and simple way to execute Jews whether on the street or gathered in numbers of 200-300 and shot at until they are all dead.
The USSR was a large socialist state; the government couldn’t afford to build ghettos in every major town or city and therefore needed another solution, as ghettos didn’t seem practical with the scale of the state and the war. This seemed as a simple approach where Jews could be killed there and then.
Einsatzgruppen were stopped being used in 1942 because of the large amount of wasted resources, the bullets used to kill the Jews could be used in the war effort. It was also said that the Germans didn’t like killing in cold-blood especially women and children, it affected their mind by not letting able to sleep and having guilt. The invasion of the USSR was not going according to plan because of the size of its forces, and as a result Germany decided to focus on the war rather than on the Jews.
Both concentration and death camps (1942) were initially intended to hold political prisoner and those that rejected the new regime in 1933. The Nazis used the death camps for the executions of the Jews. Concentration camps, which is where the Nazis sent political opponents, criminals, Jews, prisoners, and homosexuals, were described as “slow death camps” because the deportees were worked to death in them for the duration of their sentence.. The camps were used because they were easy to make and got rid of a large number of Jews, unlike the mass shooting. #
Because the ghettos were so over crowed they was a big fear of disease spread, as they was no type of sanitation, and the ill were not treated so the speak of germs was very easy infecting the whole compartment, this was a more sufficient way as they were gassed immediately with the Zyklon B gas. Camps were established in the east that had the capacity to kill large numbers including Belzec (15,000 a day), Sobibor (20,000), Treblinka (25,000) and Majdanek (25,000). As the government wanted to get all the Jews out of German occupied territory, but the borders were closed due to the war, so this seemed a quick and effective way of killing a large number of Jews at once and focusing on the war. To some extent the method of killing people with the gas seemed a more quicker and humane as it was instant and people were told that cover up stories like the gas van being shower vans, people were told to go in there to have a shower and then killed them. The large amount of Jews meant that the government could use the fit and healthy for slave labour in factories and industries near the camp and the workers were fed to make sure they were fit enough to work, those that were not , were seen as a burden and usually killed. By 1944 there were 13 main concentration camps and over 500 satellite camps. In an attempt to increase war-production, inmates were used as cheap-labour. The charged industrial companies around 6 marks for each prisoner working a twelve-hour day. Once the USA joined the war, Germany needed to get rid of the Jews and evidence fast and concentrate on winning the war, which led to mass killings is short space of time. There weren’t enough mobile gas units to go around the country so camps were the only place they seemed isolated and controlled. Camps were stopped being used in 1944-1945 as most of the Jews were killed and therefore there was no use for the camps anymore, plus the evidence must be destroyed as what Hitler was doing was cold-blooded murder of a race based solely on their race (genocide).once the war was lost, Hitler needed to cover his tracks, by that he had to close all the camps down. It has been estimated that between 1933 and 1945 a total of 1,600,000 were sent to concentration work camps. Of these, over a million died of a variety of different causes. During this period around 18 million were sent to extermination camps. Of these, historians have estimated that between five and eleven million were killed.
Describe how the Jews were discriminated against in Germany in the years 1933 to 1939.
Adolf Hitler came into power in Germany in January 1933; he had a growing desire to create a superior race, called Aryans (white, blonde hair and blue eyes). At that time Germany has a cross section of races living within it, Hitler wanted to ‘purify’ Germany and the only way he could do that was by getting rid of the inferior races, like Jews (whom only made up less than 1% of the overall German population), to allow his superior race to prosper. The Enabling Act that followed in March allowing Hitler and the Nazis to establish the needed policies in order to 'cleanse' Germany of the Jews as they did not need to seek approval from the Reich, at this time Hitler became dictator of Germany gaining control of every aspect of German life. The way the Jews were seen and treated got worse with time and the more power Hitler obtained.
The first real anti-Jew violence started on April 1933, with an official one-day boycott of Jewish shops, lawyers and doctors across the whole of Germany. This was in due to the fact that Joseph Goebbels believed the Jews were spreading horror propaganda which was damaging Nazi Germany's reputation. On the day at 10.00am SA members stood in front of Jewish businesses stopping people from entering. They painted the yellow Star of David on the door and held signs warning people “Don’t buy from Jews”. Throughout Germany, acts of violence against individual Jews and Jewish property occurred; the police rarely intervened. The rest of the year saw Jews being forced out of legal professions, civil services, teaching. They were also barred from community centres and the production of kosher meat was banned, this resulted in Jews loosing parts of their life and identity.
The Nuremberg Laws of 1935 had two parts to it; the first was , which prohibited marriages and extra-marital intercourse between “Jews” (the name was now officially used in place of “non-Aryans”) and “Germans” and forbidden Jews from employing young Aryan women as household help. The second law, , stripped Jews of their German citizenship and introduced a new distinction between “Reich citizens” and “nationals.” This for the Jews meant a loss of freedom to choose who they could marry and to vote, as if they didn’t exist. They had limited choice in where they could go as most places banned Jews, some families were forced to live in poor conditions as finding work became increasingly difficult. They were treated as if to say they had a disease or something, Jews couldn’t go out as they were banned from most parks and restaurant, but also from the verbal and physical abuse they received from German citizens who caused them much humiliation. As the citizenship was stripped away from them most had to consider immigrating somewhere else in hope of a better future. In the same year Rabbis and other Jewish leaders were prohibited to preach, Jewish newspapers and magazine were suspended and the writers arrested.
In 1938 things were getting ridiculously worse; Jews couldn’t be doctors nor practice medicine, making it harder for Jews to support themselves. Jewish Men were forced to add ‘Israel’ as their middle name, where as women had to add ‘Sara’, as if they weren’t humiliated enough they also had they passports stamped with J, and some had their passports completely removed to stop them leaving the country. Jewish children were banned from going to school resulting in children not receiving basic life skills.
In November the 8 1938 there was havoc being caused across Germany and Austria. The Nazis of attacks against the Jews, in a few hours 91 Jews were murdered; thousands of synagogues and businesses were burned down. This event came to be called Kristallnacht ("Night of Broken Glass") for the shattered store windowpanes that carpeted German streets. It is said that the event took place after a teenage Jew killed a German Diplomat in Paris on the 7 November. For the first time, Jews were arrested on a massive scale and transported to Nazi concentration camps. This left Jews with no businesses, no faith, no pride, they were seen as know body’s. They were stripped of everything they ever owned and believed in half a decade.
2. In what ways did the Nazi’s try to eliminate all Jews in Europe in the years from 1941 onwards?
The years following 1941 were full of terror and hurt for the German Jews. They were killed in many ways such as being hung, shot, gassed and were even used for medical experiments.
There three main methods the Nazis used to try and eliminate all Jews in Europe from 1941 onwards; Ghettos (created in 1940 in Poland) were initially used as method of imprisoning Jews, Shooting Squads( 1941) were seen as quick way to eliminate Jews. And Camps (1942 after Wansee Conference) were seen as a quick and effective method in eliminating the Jews.
The first method of trying to get rid of Jews was using Ghettos. The main aim was to separate the Jewish community and ‘cleanse’ Germany and Poland by imprisoning them. Conditions in the ghettos were inhumane with no electricity or food. They had barely any clothes and were freezing cold and lived most of the time in darkness. Disease and starvation were the primary killers in such cramp conditions. Ghettos were not aimed at killing the Jews at that time (they decided that later on), people were forced to work in factories and building railway which later lead to the concentration and death camps, which economically benefited the Nazis. The working Jews were seen as useful but those who couldn’t work were seen as a burden (usually killed and let to die). Warsaw was the largest ghetto situated in Poland.
Shooting Squads was the most common way to kill the Jews as it was quick and could be done on the street on in a pit with 200-300 more Jews, mass shooting was among the first method employed at killing the Jews, in some sources it states that Jews were asked to dig up their own grave before being shot. The Germans who had the job of exterminating the Jews were called Einsatzgruppen, who were death squads whose sole job was to kill every Jew or inferior race they happen to come across. Once Jews heard about the massive hate campaign, the tried to hide in basements and under floorboard, when the Nazis discovered this they used to shoot at the ceilings from the rooms below to try and kill them. But the Nazis were becoming worried on the number of bullets being wasted and as a result thought of this idea of lining Jews up in a straight line facing straight and shooting one bullet, in hope that it will kill one by one in the line up. Up to 6 million Jews were killed using this method. As the war progressed more ammunition was need and the Nazis had to think of new ideas and methods to eliminate the Jews.
After thinking of solutions on how to save bullets the SS discovered that Carbon Monoxide, which was lethal to humans and was capable of death if dispatched with the right amount. This method was first tested in Gas vans; Jews were grabbed from the street or wherever they could find them, stripped of all clothing and belongings (even hair) and thrown on back and gassed, their cover was that the van was a shower. It wasn’t as successful as hoped due to the lack of deaths, they wanted another method. They now constructed small gas chambers where hundreds could be killed in Carbon Monoxide. In Auschwitz 1 one of the main death camps, the SS discovered that another gas called Zyklon B was more effective and lethal then Carbon Monoxide. More Jews could now be gassed as the SS saw how efficient and fast this method had become. This was probably one of the best ways the Nazis killed Jews as it was painless for them and they didn't feel as scared as to what would be happening to them.
3. Why did the Nazi’s treatment of Jews change from 1939-1945?
Nazis started using Ghettos in the 1939 to accommodate the large number of Jews being sent to Poland. They were also seen as good accommodation as the Jews can supply slave labour for the war, it was also a good way to keep the Jews out of Germany and in Poland.
In 1939 the war starts, Hitler prepares his army and invades Poland, here the Jewish population was over 2 million. Poland was extremely important for the Nazi term of Lebensraum. Lebensraum was a term, which meant living space. However, this space was only meant for the Aryan race. This didn't include the many Jews in the countries Hitler wanted to take over, therefore Hitler wanted them out. He was already trying to control this "inferior" race in Germany and now he had even more. In 1939 and onwards, the Nazis thought up many methods on how they were going to control the accumulating number of Jews in their empire. To solve the problem of the substantial increase in the number of Jews, the Nazis had to introduce new methods to control them, that’s when they thought up of ghettos. As there was a war going on it was impossible for the Jews to escape or try to leave as border security would be tougher than ever. Meanwhile, Nazis used their propaganda skills to make the Jews seem like the enemy and turn people to hate them. Now that the Jews had been deported the Nazis took over their houses and businesses in attempt to improve Germany and forget about the Jews, which now wouldn’t be too difficult as they are all gathered in one place, it’s a simple matter of building a wall around it to keep them from the real world.
The Nazis stopped using Ghettos in late 1943 due to a number of factors. One of which was the fact that there were too many Jews to cram in, there just wasn’t enough room. The other factor was that the Nazis couldn’t control when they died, as the majority of the time they die from disease and starvation, which could take weeks, even months. And the German government (Hitler) wanted to focus on the war effort and not looking after Jews as food had to be bought to keep the labour workers alive. The large amount of Jews meant that there needed to be a large amount of soldiers guarding them, soldiers that could be put to better use in the war.
Einsatzgruppen can be described as member of the security police and SS, during 1939- 1941 who were given orders to KILL all Jews as well as communist functionaries, the handicapped, institutionalized psychiatric patients, Gypsies, and others considered undesirable by the Nazi state. The victims were killed in mass shootings, buried in a big hole, later were dug up and burned to get rid of all the evidence of the cruelty that had occurred. They were used as they were seen a quick and simple way to execute Jews whether on the street or gathered in numbers of 200-300 and shot at until they are all dead.
The USSR was a large socialist state; the government couldn’t afford to build ghettos in every major town or city and therefore needed another solution, as ghettos didn’t seem practical with the scale of the state and the war. This seemed as a simple approach where Jews could be killed there and then.
Einsatzgruppen were stopped being used in 1942 because of the large amount of wasted resources, the bullets used to kill the Jews could be used in the war effort. It was also said that the Germans didn’t like killing in cold-blood especially women and children, it affected their mind by not letting able to sleep and having guilt. The invasion of the USSR was not going according to plan because of the size of its forces, and as a result Germany decided to focus on the war rather than on the Jews.
Both concentration and death camps (1942) were initially intended to hold political prisoner and those that rejected the new regime in 1933. The Nazis used the death camps for the executions of the Jews. Concentration camps, which is where the Nazis sent political opponents, criminals, Jews, prisoners, and homosexuals, were described as “slow death camps” because the deportees were worked to death in them for the duration of their sentence.. The camps were used because they were easy to make and got rid of a large number of Jews, unlike the mass shooting. #
Because the ghettos were so over crowed they was a big fear of disease spread, as they was no type of sanitation, and the ill were not treated so the speak of germs was very easy infecting the whole compartment, this was a more sufficient way as they were gassed immediately with the Zyklon B gas. Camps were established in the east that had the capacity to kill large numbers including Belzec (15,000 a day), Sobibor (20,000), Treblinka (25,000) and Majdanek (25,000). As the government wanted to get all the Jews out of German occupied territory, but the borders were closed due to the war, so this seemed a quick and effective way of killing a large number of Jews at once and focusing on the war. To some extent the method of killing people with the gas seemed a more quicker and humane as it was instant and people were told that cover up stories like the gas van being shower vans, people were told to go in there to have a shower and then killed them. The large amount of Jews meant that the government could use the fit and healthy for slave labour in factories and industries near the camp and the workers were fed to make sure they were fit enough to work, those that were not , were seen as a burden and usually killed. By 1944 there were 13 main concentration camps and over 500 satellite camps. In an attempt to increase war-production, inmates were used as cheap-labour. The charged industrial companies around 6 marks for each prisoner working a twelve-hour day. Once the USA joined the war, Germany needed to get rid of the Jews and evidence fast and concentrate on winning the war, which led to mass killings is short space of time. There weren’t enough mobile gas units to go around the country so camps were the only place they seemed isolated and controlled. Camps were stopped being used in 1944-1945 as most of the Jews were killed and therefore there was no use for the camps anymore, plus the evidence must be destroyed as what Hitler was doing was cold-blooded murder of a race based solely on their race (genocide).once the war was lost, Hitler needed to cover his tracks, by that he had to close all the camps down. It has been estimated that between 1933 and 1945 a total of 1,600,000 were sent to concentration work camps. Of these, over a million died of a variety of different causes. During this period around 18 million were sent to extermination camps. Of these, historians have estimated that between five and eleven million were killed.
