The Holocaust: Difference between revisions
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{{Short description|Genocide of European Jews by Nazi Germany}} |
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{{dablink|This article deals with the Holocaust committed by the [[Nazi Germany|Nazis]]. For other meanings of the word Holocaust see [[Holocaust (disambiguation)]]}} |
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{{about|the state-sponsored genocide of European Jews during World War II|all peoples persecuted during this era|Holocaust victims}} |
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{{Redirect-multi|2|Holocaust|Shoah}} |
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{{Use American English|date=August 2020}} |
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{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2023}} |
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{{Infobox civilian attack |
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| title = The Holocaust |
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| partof = [[World War II]] |
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| image = Selection on the ramp at Auschwitz-Birkenau, 1944 (Auschwitz Album) 1a.jpg |
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| image_size = |
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| alt = Large number of people standing beside a railway siding with the camp gate in the background |
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| type = [[Genocide]], [[ethnic cleansing]], [[mass murder]], [[mass shooting]], [[death marches]], [[poison gas]], [[hate crime]] |
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| caption = Jews arriving at [[Auschwitz concentration camp#Auschwitz II-Birkenau|Auschwitz II]] in [[Occupation of Poland (1939–1945)|German-occupied Poland]], May 1944. Most were [[Selection (Holocaust)|selected]] to go to the [[Nazi gas chambers|gas chambers]]. |
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| location = Europe, primarily [[German-occupied Poland]] and the [[Soviet Union]] |
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| coordinates = |
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| date = 1941–1945 |
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| fatalities = [[Holocaust victims|Around 6 million Jews]] |
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| perps = [[Nazi Germany]] along with [[Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy|its collaborators]] and [[Axis powers|allies]] |
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}} |
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'''The Holocaust''' was the [[genocide]] of [[History of the Jews in Europe|European Jews]] during [[World War II]]. Between 1941 and 1945, [[Nazi Germany]] and [[Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy|its collaborators]] systematically murdered some [[Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe|six million Jews]] across [[German-occupied Europe]], around two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population. The murders were carried out primarily through [[#Mass shootings|mass shootings]] and poison gas in [[extermination camp]]s, chiefly [[Auschwitz concentration camp#Auschwitz II-Birkenau|Auschwitz-Birkenau]], [[Treblinka extermination camp|Treblinka]], [[Belzec extermination camp|Belzec]], [[Sobibor extermination camp|Sobibor]], and [[Chełmno extermination camp|Chełmno]] in [[Occupation of Poland (1939–1945)|occupied Poland]]. Separate Nazi persecutions killed a similar or larger number of non-Jewish civilians and POWs; the term ''Holocaust'' is sometimes used to refer to the persecution of these [[Holocaust victims|other groups]]. |
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The Nazis developed [[Nazism|their ideology]] based on racism and [[Lebensraum|pursuit of "living space"]], and [[Adolf Hitler's rise to power|seized power]] in early 1933. Meant to [[Emigration of Jews from Nazi Germany and German-occupied Europe|force all German Jews]] regardless of means to attempt to emigrate, the regime passed anti-Jewish laws, encouraged harassment, and orchestrated a nationwide [[pogrom]] in November 1938. After Germany [[Invasion of Poland|invaded Poland]] in September 1939, occupation authorities began to establish [[Nazi ghettos|ghettos]] to segregate Jews. Following the [[invasion of the Soviet Union]] in June 1941, 1.5 to 2 million Jews [[The Holocaust#Mass shootings of Jews|were shot]] by German forces and local collaborators. |
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[[Image:Selection Birkenau ramp.jpg|right|thumb|250px|Selection at the [[Auschwitz-Birkenau|Auschwitz]] ramp in 1944, where the [[Nazi germany|German Nazis]] chose whom to kill immediately and whom to use as [[slavery|slave labor]] or for [[Nazi human experimentation|medical experimentation]], such as those of the infamous Dr. [[Josef Mengele]]. The entrance to the main camp is in the background. Between 1.1 and 1.6 million people were killed at Auschwitz alone; over 90% of the victims were Jews.]] |
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[[Image:Nordhausen_camp.JPG|right|thumb|250px|[[Nazi Germany|German Nazi]] [[concentration camp]] in [[Nordhausen]]]] |
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Later in 1941 or early 1942, the highest levels of the German government decided to [[Final Solution|murder all Jews in Europe]]. Victims were deported by rail to extermination camps where, if they survived the journey, most were killed with poison gas. Other Jews continued to be employed in [[Forced labor in Nazi Germany|forced labor camps]] where many died from starvation, abuse, exhaustion, or being used as test subjects in deadly [[Nazi human experimentation|medical experiments]]. Although many Jews tried to escape, surviving in hiding was difficult due to factors such as the lack of money to pay helpers and the risk of denunciation. The property, homes, and jobs belonging to murdered Jews were redistributed to the German occupiers and other non-Jews. Although the majority of Holocaust victims died in 1942, the killing continued at a lower rate until the [[end of World War II in Europe|end of the war]] in May 1945. |
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The '''Holocaust''' is the name applied to the systematic state-led [[persecution]] and [[genocide]] of the [[Jew]]s of Europe and North Africa along with other groups during [[World War II]] by [[Nazi Germany]] and [[Non-German cooperation with nazis during World War 2|collaborators]]<ref>Donald L Niewyk, ''The Columbia Guide to the Holocaust,'' Columbia University Press, 2000, p.45: "The Holocaust is commonly defined as the murder of more than 5,000,000 Jews by the Germans in World War II." There is a debate among scholars over whether the Holocaust only refers to Jewish victims, or to all groups targeted by the Nazis, or to some subset of those groups. All scholars agree that other groups were targeted by the [[Germany|German]] [[Nazis]], but not all believe that the victims are part of the Holocaust. This article uses a wide definition of the Holocaust to include all groups systematically targeted by the Nazis.</ref>. Early elements of the Holocaust include the [[Kristallnacht]] [[pogrom]] of the 8th and 9th November 1938 and the [[T-4 Euthanasia Program]], leading to the later use of [[Einsatzgruppen|killing squads]] and [[extermination camps]] in a massive and centrally organized effort to exterminate every possible member of the populations targeted by [[Adolf Hitler]] and the [[Nazis]]. |
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Many [[Holocaust survivors|Jewish survivors]] emigrated outside of Europe after the war. A few [[Holocaust perpetrators]] faced criminal trials. Billions of dollars in [[Holocaust reparations|reparations]] have been paid, although falling short of the Jews' losses. The Holocaust has also been commemorated in [[List of Holocaust memorials and museums|museums, memorials]], and [[The Holocaust in the arts and popular culture|culture]]. It has become central to Western historical consciousness as a symbol of the ultimate human evil. |
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The [[Jew]]s of Europe were the main victims of the Holocaust in what the Nazis called the "[[Final Solution|Final Solution of the Jewish Question]]". The commonly used figure for the number of Jewish victims is [[6000000 (number)|six million]], though estimates by historians using, among other sources, records from the [[Nazism|Nazi]] regime itself, range from five million to seven million. |
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==Terminology and scope== |
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About 220,000 [[Sinti]] and [[Roma people|Roma]] were killed in the Holocaust (some estimates are as high as 800,000), between a quarter to a half of the European population. Other groups deemed "racially inferior" or "undesirable": [[Soviet]] military [[prisoners of war]] and civilians on occupied territories including [[Russians]] and other [[Slavs]], [[Poles]] (3 million Polish Jews, and 2 million Polish gentiles, total 5 million Poles killed in Holocaust), the mentally or physically [[disability|disabled]], [[homosexuality|homosexuals]], [[Jehovah's Witnesses]], [[Communist]]s and political [[dissident]]s, [[trade union]]ists, [[Freemasonry|Freemasons]], and some [[Roman Catholic Church|Catholic]] and [[Protestant]] clergy, were also [[persecution|persecuted]] and killed. Many scholars do not include the Nazi persecution of all of these groups in the definition of the Holocaust, with some scholars limiting the Holocaust to the genocide of the Jews; some to genocide of the Jews, Roma, and disabled; and some to all groups targeted by Nazi racism.<ref>Among the historians arguing that the Holocaust should refer only to Jews are Yehuda Baur and Guenter Levy. Those arguing the Holocaust includes Jews and Roma include Ian Hancock, Sybil Milton, and Donald Kendrick. Henry Friedlander argues that the definition should include Jews, Roma, and the handicapped. Richard Lukas and Ihor Karmenetsky include Poles among the Holocaust victims. Bodan Wytwycky includes Poles and Soviets. Richard Plant and F. Rector argue that homosexuals should be included, while Gunter Grau and Rodiger Lautmann argue against including gay men in the Holocaust.</ref> Taking all these other groups into account, however, the total death toll rises considerably, estimates generally place the total number of Holocaust victims at 9 to 11 million, though some estimates have been as high as 26 million.<ref>[http://www.holocaustforgotten.com/non-jewishvictims.htm Holocaust Forgotten] lists 5 million non-Jewish victims of the Holocaust, Niewyk suggests that the broadest definitions of the Holocaust would have as many as 17 million victims. The 26 million number is given in Service d'Information des Crimes de Guerre: Crimes contre la Personne Humain, Camps de Concentration (Paris, 1946), 197. For details on the number of victims given in the introduction, please see the death toll section.</ref> |
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{{Main|Names of the Holocaust}} |
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The term ''Holocaust'', derived from a Greek word meaning "[[Holocaust (sacrifice)|burnt offering]]",{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=14}} has become the most common word used to describe the Nazi extermination of Jews in English and many other languages.{{efn|{{harvnb |Bartov |2023a |pp=18–19 |ps=, "Much of this debate curiously boils down to a very specific historical question, namely, did the Nazis target the Jews for genocide in a manner that was essentially different from their treatment of any other group under their rule? [...] There can be little doubt that the Jews played a singular role in the Nazi ''imaginaire'' and that German Jewish policies distinguished them within the Nazi universe of murder and fantasy; but other groups clearly have been similarly targeted in other genocides [...] 'the extent of the 'final solution' was ... shaped by an antisemitism that was colored by a different element over and above the racism and ethno-nationalism that explains the murder of other groups by Nazi Germany—that element being the view of 'the Jews' as an implacable, collective world enemy.' To be sure, this makes the Holocaust unique only within the context of the Nazi empire ..."}}; |
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{{The Holocaust}} |
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{{harvnb |Smith |2023 |p=36 |ps=, "The Holocaust is particular to Jews and yet has had increasing relevance for those who do not identify as Jewish. ... All Jews everywhere were to be murdered because of their racial heritage was 'put into state policy' on January 20, 1942 at the Wannsee conference (Bazyler 2017, 29). Witness to the genocide of the Jews is a uniquely Jewish experience, because only Jews were targeted by that policy, even if other groups were targeted for genocide under other policies. The Nazi regime committed genocide against the Roma and Sinti, governed by separate policies. They also committed war crimes against Soviet Prisoners of War under other policies. So too the mass murder of disabled and the mentally ill had their own policies. The Nazis committed multiple genocides and crimes against humanity, at the same time, sometimes in the same place, governed by different laws, policies, and practices. It is not correct to say that there were many victim types during 'the Holocaust,' if by 'the Holocaust' we mean the genocide of the Jews."}}; |
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{{harvnb |Stone |2023 |loc=Introduction: What is the Holocaust?<!-- search "homosexuals" --> |ps=, "This is why the focus here is on the Jews. Roma, the disabled, Soviet POWs, homosexuals and other groups were victims of the Nazis, and it is entirely legitimate to study their fate alongside one another. But using the term 'Holocaust' to encompass all of these groups with the aim of being inclusive and not prioritizing one group's suffering, actually does a disservice to groups other than Jews. For the Nazis persecuted these groups for different reasons, reasons we fail to appreciate if we collapse them all together."}}; |
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{{harvnb |Engel |2021 |ps=, pp. 3 ("This book is about an encounter between two sets of human beings: on one hand, the people who acted on behalf of the German state, its agencies, or its almost 66 million citizens between 30 January 1933 and 8 May 1945; on the other, the more than 9 million Jews ...") and 5 ("Those discoveries about the encounter between the Third Reich and the Jews made that encounter stand out in the minds of many from other instances of Nazi persecution and encouraged observers to assign it its own special name.")}}; |
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{{harvnb |Jackson |2021 |pp=199–200 |ps=, "The Nazis killed some people almost exclusively due to their supposed genetic inferiority (the mentally and physically handicapped, Slavs, Roma); they killed others almost exclusively due to their perceived cultural decadence (communists, democrats, modernist authors and artists); but only the Jews were indicted on both grounds simultaneously and with equal vigor. ... This is not to say that Roma, communists, and others were not hated and murdered by the Nazis, but it is to note that the Jews were unique in being despised and assaulted in every dimension of their identity, corporeal and psychic."}}; |
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{{harvnb |Sahlstrom |2021 |p=291 |ps=, "the established understanding of the Holocaust today as the genocide of six million Jews"}}; |
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{{harvnb |Bartrop |2019 |p=50 |ps=, "Given this, it must always be remembered that the Holocaust was a premeditated action by the Nazis to permanently eradicate a Jewish presence in Europe. Others—the disabled, Roma, Poles and other Slavs, Jehovah's Witnesses, homosexuals, dissenting clergy, communists, socialists, "asocials," and political opponents of all sorts—were also persecuted and in many cases murdered in huge numbers; however, it was the campaign against the Jews that was the ideological "ground zero" for Nazi racial ideology. Others besides Jews were murdered, often on a genocidal scale, and should be remembered and acknowledged: but it was only the Jews who were all to be killed as part of a calculated policy of genocide."}}; |
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{{harvnb |Beorn |2018 |p=4 |ps=, "I will use the term 'Holocaust' to refer mainly to the Nazi attempt to murder the Jews of Europe; however, I will also use the more inclusive term 'Nazi genocidal project' to capture the larger murderous vision of which the Jews were such a large part. This includes Sinti/Roma (gypsies), the handicapped, political 'enemies,' Soviet prisoners of war, and—particularly in the East—entire ethnic groups such as the Slavs. One cannot understand the Holocaust in Eastern Europe without placing it in the context of this larger Nazi genocidal project that foresaw murder and demographic engineering on a colossal scale."}}; |
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{{harvnb |Cesarani |2016 |p=xxxix |ps=, "This book deals with the fate of the Jews, not of 'other victims' of Nazi political repression and racial-biological policies. Several other groups endured social exclusion, incarceration in concentration camps, and mass murder. However, the rationale for the persecution of these groups differed radically from the intentions that underlay anti-Jewish policy. Even though homosexual men and women, Germans of African descent, and the severely mentally and physically disabled were all disparaged in Nazi racial thinking, and depicted as a threat to the strength and purity of the Volk, only the Jews were characterized as an implacable, powerful, global enemy that had to be fought at every turn and finally eliminated."}}; |
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{{harvnb |Hayes |2015 |p=xiii |ps=, "This book also reflects another of its editor's convictions: the Holocaust was National Socialist Germany's assault on the Jews of Europe. Nazism attacked many groups, but none for the same reason that it attacked the Jews, none with the same urgency, and none to the same extent."}}; |
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{{harvnb |Hayes |Roth |2010 |p=2 |ps=, "Other groups—for example, Sinti and Roma, homosexuals, and Slavs—were swept up in the maelstrom of the Holocaust, but not for the same reasons as Jews and not with the same consequences ... In none of these cases, however, was the target group considered dangerous or coherent enough to warrant complete or immediate extirpation. This circumstance constitutes a significant difference from policies pursued toward the Jews, a difference that helps to clarify and define the Holocaust itself."}}; |
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{{harvnb |Stone |2010 |pp=1–2 |ps=, "For the purpose of this book, the Holocaust is understood as the genocide of the Jews ... 'Holocaust', then, refers to the genocide of the Jews, which by no means excludes an understanding that other groups—notably Romanies and Slavs—were victims of genocide."}}; |
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{{harvnb |Bloxham |2009 |p=1 |ps=, "Between 5,100,000 and 6,200,000 Jews were murdered during the Second World War, an episode the Nazis called the 'final solution of the Jewish question'. The world today knows it as the Holocaust."}}; |
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{{harvnb |Niewyk |Nicosia |2000 |ps=, pp. 45 ("The Holocaust is commonly defined as the mass murder of more than 5,000,000 Jews by the Germans during World War II. Not everyone finds this a fully satisfactory definition.") and 51 ("the traditional view that it was the genocide of the Jews alone")}}}} |
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The term ''Holocaust'' is sometimes used to refer to the persecution of other groups that the Nazis targeted,{{efn|{{harvnb |King |2023 |pp=26–27 |ps=, "Rather than one big thing, the Holocaust might now be described as an array of event categories. In [[Christopher Browning]]'s terms, the Holocaust involved three separate "clusters of genocidal projects": euthanasia and "racial purification" directed against the disabled and Sinti and Roma (at the time referred to collectively as "Gypsies") within the Third Reich; the eradication of Slavic populations living in countries east of Germany; and the Final Solution proper—that is, the attempted mass murder of every Jew residing anywhere within Germany's sphere of influence (Browning 2010, 407). (The list of persecuted categories—people targeted by the Nazis in ways short of genocide—would of course be longer.)"}}; |
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{{harvnb |Engel |2021 |p=6 |ps=, "Echoing this view, some have contended that the expression 'the Holocaust' ought to refer not only to the encounter between the Third Reich and the Jews but also to 'the horrors that Poles, other Slavs, and Gypsies endured at the hands of the Nazis' (Lukas, 1986: 220). Others have extended the term to encompass the Third Reich's treatment of homosexuals, the mentally ill or infrm, and Jehovah's Witnesses, speaking of 11 or 12 million victims of the Holocaust, half of whom were Jews. Still others have employed the word 'holocaust' also when referring to cases of mass murder not perpetrated by the Third Reich."}}; |
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{{harvnb |Kay |2021 |pp=1–2 |ps=, "For perhaps the first time, all major victim groups where the death tolls reached at least into the tens of thousands will be considered together: Jewish and non-Jewish ... it makes a great deal of sense to consider the different strands of Nazi mass killing together rather than in isolation from one another. This of course means going against the grain of most scholarship on the subject by examining the genocide of the European Jews alongside other Nazi mass-murder campaigns."}}; |
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{{harvnb |Gerlach |2016 |pp=14–15 |ps=, "There are a number of words I will try to avoid because of the serious misconceptions they might lead to. The terms 'Holocaust' and 'Shoah' are not useful since neither has any analytical value. 'Holocaust' (derived from the Greek holókauton, or burned sacrifice) has a religious connotation unbefitting of the event it is supposed to refer to, and users of this term may mean by it either the persecution and murder of Jews alone, or Nazi German violence against any group more generally ... Importantly, 'Holocaust' and 'Shoah' have also been criticized as 'teleological and anachronistic' terms that convey a retrospective view that makes complex processes appear 'as a single event.'"}}; |
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{{harvnb |Niewyk |Nicosia |2000 |p=51 |ps=, "The authors of this volume have adopted the third approach to a working definition: The Holocaust—that is, Nazi genocide—was the systematic, state-sponsored murder of entire groups determined by heredity. This applied to Jews, Gypsies, and the handicapped. This section also makes it clear that other definitions are defended by scholars who deserve a respectful hearing."}}}} especially those targeted on a biological basis, in particular the [[Romani Holocaust|Roma and Sinti]], as well as [[German atrocities committed against Soviet prisoners of war|Soviet prisoners of war]] and [[Nazi crimes against the Polish nation|Polish]] and [[World War II casualties of the Soviet Union|Soviet civilians]].{{sfn|Cesarani|2016|p=xxix}}{{sfn|Niewyk|Nicosia|2000|pp=45–52}}{{sfn|Peck|Berenbaum|2002|p=311}} All of these groups, however, were targeted for different reasons.{{sfn|Stone|2023|loc=Introduction: What is the Holocaust?<!-- search "homosexuals" -->}} By the 1970s, the adjective ''Jewish'' was dropped as redundant and Holocaust, now capitalized, became the default term for the destruction of European Jews.{{sfn|Calimani|2018|pp=70–100, 78–79, 86–87, 94–95, xxix}} The Hebrew word ''Shoah'' ("catastrophic destruction") exclusively refers to Jewish victims.{{sfn|Hayes|Roth|2010|p=2}}{{sfn|Beorn|2018|p=4}}{{sfn|Cesarani|2016|p=xxix}} The perpetrators used the phrase "[[Final Solution]]" as a euphemism for their genocide of Jews.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=15}} |
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==Background== |
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== Etymology and usage of the term == |
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[[File:Synagoge Pegnitz Nuernberg 1900.jpg|thumb|left|alt=A postcard of a river with buildings behind it|View of the [[Pegnitz (river)|Pegnitz]] River (c. 1900) with the [[Grand Synagogue of Nuremberg]], destroyed in 1938 during the [[November pogroms]]]] |
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{{main|Names of the Holocaust}} |
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[[History of the Jews in Europe|Jews have lived in Europe]] for more than two thousand years.{{sfn | Gilbert | 2015 | p=22}} Throughout the [[Middle Ages]] in Europe, Jews were subjected to [[Religious antisemitism|antisemitism based on Christian theology]], which [[Jewish deicide|blamed them for killing Jesus]].{{sfn|Bergen|2016|pp=14–17}}{{sfn|Weitz|2010|p=58}} In the nineteenth century many European countries [[Jewish emancipation|granted full citizenship rights to Jews]] in hopes that they would [[Jewish assimilation|assimilate]].{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|pp=20–21}} By the early twentieth century, most Jews in central and western Europe were well integrated into society, while in eastern Europe, where emancipation had arrived later, many Jews still lived in [[shtetls|small towns]], spoke [[Yiddish]], and practiced [[Orthodox Judaism]].{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|pp=21–22}} [[Political antisemitism]] positing the existence of a [[Jewish question]] and usually an [[international Jewish conspiracy]] emerged in the eighteenth and nineteenth century due to the [[rise of nationalism in Europe]] and [[industrialization]] that increased economic conflicts between Jews and non-Jews.{{sfn|Bartov|2023b|p=195}}{{sfn|Beorn|2018|pp=21–23}} Some scientists began to [[Scientific racism|categorize humans into different races]] and argued that there was a [[Social Darwinism|life or death struggle between them]].{{sfn|Beorn|2018|p=25}} Many racists argued that [[racial antisemitism|Jews were a separate racial group alien to Europe]].{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=146}}{{sfn|Bartov|2023b|p=196}} |
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The turn of the twentieth century saw a major effort to establish a [[German colonial empire]] overseas, leading to the [[Herero and Nama genocide]] and subsequent racial apartheid regime in [[German South West Africa|South West Africa]].{{sfn|Weitz|2010|p=62}}{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=37}} [[World War I]] (1914–1918) intensified nationalist and racist sentiments in Germany and other European countries.{{sfn|Weitz|2010|pp=64–65}} Jews in eastern Europe were targeted by [[Pogroms during the Russian Civil War|widespread pogroms]].{{sfn|Beorn|2018|p=24}} Germany had [[Casualties of World War I|two million war dead]] and lost a [[Treaty of Versailles|substantial territory]];{{sfn|Weitz|2010|pp=64–65}} opposition to the [[Weimar Republic|postwar settlement]] united Germans across the political spectrum.{{sfn|Weitz|2010|p=65}}{{sfn|Bloxham|2009|p=133}} The military promoted the untrue but compelling idea that, rather than being defeated on the battlefield, [[stab-in-the-back myth|Germany had been stabbed in the back]] by socialists and Jews.{{sfn|Weitz|2010|p=65}}{{sfn|Bloxham|2009|p=135}} |
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The word ''holocaust'' originally derived from the [[Greek Language|Greek]] word ''[[Holocaust (sacrifice)|holokauston]]'', meaning "a completely (holos) burnt (kaustos) sacrificial offering" to a god. Since the late 19th century, "holocaust" has primarily been used to refer to disasters or catastrophes. According to the [[Oxford English Dictionary]], the word was first used to describe Hitler's treatment of the Jews from as early as 1942, though it did not become a standard reference until the 1950s. By the late 1970s, however, the conventional meaning of the word became the Nazi genocide. The term is also used by many in a narrower sense, to refer specifically to the unprecedented destruction of European Jews in particular. Some historians credit [[Elie Wiesel]] with giving the term 'Holocaust' its present meaning. |
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[[File:Stab-in-the-back postcard.jpg|thumb|alt=see caption|1919 [[First Austrian Republic|Austrian]] postcard showing a [[Stab-in-the-back myth|Jew stabbing a German Army soldier in the back]]]] |
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The biblical word '''''Shoa''''' (שואה), also spelled '''''Shoah''''' and '''''Sho'ah''''', meaning "calamity" in [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]], became the standard Hebrew term for the Holocaust as early as the early 1940s.<ref>"[http://www1.yadvashem.org/Odot/prog/index_before_change_table.asp?gate=0-2 The Holocaust: Definition and Preliminary Discussion]," Yad Vashem (accessed June 8, 2005) And www.berkeleyinternet.com/holocaust/</ref> ''Shoa'' is preferred by many [[Jew]]s and a growing number of others for a number of reasons, including the potentially [[theologically]] offensive nature of the original meaning of the word ''holocaust''. |
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The [[Nazi Party]] was founded in the wake of the war,{{sfn|Bartov|2023b|p=197}} and [[Nazism|its ideology]] is often cited as the main factor explaining the Holocaust.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=143}} From the beginning, the Nazis—not unlike other nation-states in Europe—dreamed of [[A World Without Jews|a world without Jews]], whom they identified as "the embodiment of everything that was wrong with [[modernity]]".{{sfn|Stone|2023|loc=Introduction: What is the Holocaust?}} The Nazis defined the German nation as a [[Volksgemeinschaft|racial community]] unbounded by [[Territorial evolution of Germany|Germany's physical borders]]{{sfn|Beorn|2018|p=57}} and sought to purge it of racially foreign and socially deficient elements.{{sfn|Weitz|2010|p=65}}{{sfn|Stone|2020|pp=61, 65}} The Nazi Party and its leader, [[Adolf Hitler]], were also obsessed with reversing Germany's territorial losses and acquiring additional ''[[Lebensraum]]'' (living space) in Eastern Europe for colonization.{{sfn|Beorn|2018|p=42}}{{sfn|Bergen|2016|pp=52–54}} These ideas appealed to many Germans.{{sfn|Stone|2020|pp=62–63, 65}} The Nazis promised to protect European civilization from the [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] threat.{{sfn|Stone|2010|p=17}} Hitler believed that Jews [[Jewish Bolshevism|controlled the Soviet Union]], as well as the Western powers, and [[Jewish war conspiracy theory|were plotting to destroy Germany]].{{sfn|Evans|2019|pp=120–121, 123}}{{sfn|Beorn|2018|p=59}}{{sfn|Stone|2010|p=18}} |
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[[Image:Children in the Holocaust concentration camp liberated by Red Army.jpg|thumb|left|200px|Child survivors of the Holocaust filmed during the liberation of [[Auschwitz concentration camp]] by the [[Red Army]]. January, 1945]] |
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The word "genocide" was coined during the Holocaust. |
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== |
==Rise of Nazi Germany== |
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[[File:Das Grossdeutsche Reich.jpeg|upright=1.2|thumb|alt=see caption|[[Areas annexed by Nazi Germany|Territorial expansion of Germany]] from 1933 to 1941]] |
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There were several characteristics to the Nazi Holocaust which, taken together, distinguish it from other [[genocides in history]]. |
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Amidst a [[Great Depression|worldwide economic depression]] and [[Presidential cabinets of the Weimar Republic|political fragmentation]], the Nazi Party rapidly increased its support, reaching a high of 37 percent [[July 1932 German federal election|in mid-1932 elections]],{{sfn|Bloxham|2009|pp=138–139}}{{sfn|Beorn|2018|p=33}} by campaigning on issues such as anticommunism and economic recovery.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=151}}{{sfn|Beorn|2018|pp=33–34}} Hitler [[Nazi rise to power|was appointed chancellor]] in January 1933 in a backroom deal supported by right-wing politicians.{{sfn|Bloxham|2009|pp=138–139}} Within months, all other political parties were banned, the regime seized control of the media,{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=39}} tens of thousands of political opponents—especially communists—were arrested, and [[early camps|a system of camps]] for [[protective custody (Nazi Germany)|extrajudicial imprisonment]] was set up.{{sfn|Wachsmann|2015|pp=32–38}} The Nazi regime cracked down on crime and social outsiders—such as [[Romani people in Germany|Roma and Sinti]], [[Persecution of homosexuals in Nazi Germany|homosexual men]], and those perceived as workshy—through a variety of measures, including imprisonment in [[Nazi concentration camps|concentration camps]].{{sfn|Stone|2020|p=66}} The Nazis [[compulsory sterilization|forcibly sterilized]] 400,000 people and subjected others to [[forced abortion]]s for real or supposed hereditary illnesses.{{sfn|Stone|2020|p=67}}{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=55}}{{sfn|Longerich|2010|pp=47–48}} |
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Although the Nazis sought to control every aspect of public and private life,{{sfn|Beorn|2018|p=35}} Nazi repression was directed almost entirely against groups perceived as outside the national community. Most Germans had little to fear provided they did not oppose the new regime.{{sfn|Bloxham|2009|p=148}}{{sfn|Stone|2020|p=65}} The new regime built popular support through economic growth, which partly occurred through [[Economy of Nazi Germany|state-led measures]] such as [[German rearmament|rearmament]].{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=39}} The annexations of [[German annexation of Austria|Austria]] (1938), [[Munich Agreement|Sudetenland]] (1938), and [[Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia|Bohemia and Moravia]] (1939) also increased the Nazis' popular support.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=40}} Germans were inundated with [[Nazi propaganda|propaganda]] both against Jews{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=39}} and other groups targeted by the Nazis.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=55}} |
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===Efficiency=== |
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[[Image:Ghettos.gif|thumb|200px|right|[[Ghettos]] established in Europe in which Jews were confined, in ghettos and later in temporary concentration locations and later shipped to extermination camps.]] |
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The Holocaust was characterized by the efficient and systematic attempt on an [[industrial]] scale to assemble and kill as many people as possible, using all of the resources and technology available to the Nazi state. |
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===Persecution of Jews=== |
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For example, detailed lists of potential victims were made and maintained using [[Dehomag]] statistical machinery, and meticulous records of the killings were produced. As prisoners entered the death camps, they were made to surrender all personal property to the Nazis, which was then precisely catalogued and tagged, and for which receipts were issued. In addition, considerable effort was expended over the course of the Holocaust to find increasingly efficient means of killing more people; for example, by switching from [[carbon monoxide]] poisoning in the [[Aktion Reinhard]] death camps of [[Belzec extermination camp|Belzec]], [[Sobibór extermination camp|Sobibór]], and [[Treblinka extermination camp|Treblinka]] to the use of [[Zyklon B]] at [[Majdanek]] and [[Auschwitz concentration camp|Auschwitz]]. |
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{{main|The Holocaust in Germany}} |
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{{further|Anti-Jewish legislation in pre-war Nazi Germany}} |
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The roughly 500,000 [[German Jews]] made up less than 1 percent of the country's population in 1933. They were wealthier on average than other Germans and largely assimilated, although a minority were recent immigrants from eastern Europe.{{sfn|Cesarani|2016|p=7}}{{sfn|Longerich|2010|p=43}}{{sfn|Beorn|2018|p=96}} Various German government agencies, Nazi Party organizations, and local authorities instituted [[Anti-Jewish legislation in prewar Nazi Germany|about 1,500 anti-Jewish laws]].{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|pp=39, 41}} In 1933, Jews were banned or restricted from several professions and the [[civil service]].{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=40}} After hounding the German Jews out of public life by the end of 1934, the regime passed the [[Nuremberg Laws]] in 1935.{{sfn|Longerich|2010|p=52}} The laws reserved full citizenship rights for those of "German or related blood", restricted Jews' economic activity, and criminalized new marriages and [[Race defilement|sexual relationships between Jews and non-Jewish Germans]].{{sfn|Longerich|2010|pp=52, 60}}{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=41}} Jews were defined as those with three or four Jewish grandparents; many of those with partial Jewish descent were classified as ''[[Mischlinge]]'', with varying rights.{{sfn|Cesarani|2016|p=106}} The regime also sought to segregate Jews with a view to their ultimate disappearance from the country.{{sfn|Longerich|2010|p=52}} Jewish students were gradually forced out of the school system. Some municipalities enacted restrictions governing where Jews were allowed to live or conduct business.{{Sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=42}} In 1938 and 1939, Jews were barred from additional occupations, and their businesses were expropriated to force them out of the economy.{{Sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=41}} |
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[[File:View of the old synagogue in Aachen after its destruction during Kristallnacht 03.jpg|thumb|upright|left|alt=A building that has been ransacked with debris strewn around|View of the old synagogue in [[Aachen]] after its destruction during ''[[Kristallnacht]]'']] |
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[[Image:Hoefletelegram.jpg|right|thumb|left|250px|The Nazis methodically tracked the progress of the Holocaust in thousands of reports and documents. Pictured is the [[Höfle Telegram]] sent to [[Adolf Eichmann]] in January, 1943, that reported that 1,274,166 Jews had been killed in the four [[Aktion Reinhard]] camps during 1942.]] |
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Anti-Jewish violence, largely locally organized by members of Nazi Party institutions, took primarily non-lethal forms from 1933 to 1939.{{Sfn|Gerlach|2016|pp=43–44}} Jewish stores, especially in rural areas, were often boycotted or vandalized.{{Sfn|Gerlach|2016|pp=44–45}} As a result of local and popular pressure, many small towns became entirely [[Judenfrei|free of Jews]] and as many as a third of Jewish businesses may have been forced to close.{{Sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=45}} Anti-Jewish violence was even worse in [[areas annexed by Nazi Germany]].{{Sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=46}} On 9–10 November 1938, the Nazis organized ''[[Kristallnacht]]'' (Night of Broken Glass), a nationwide pogrom. Over 7,500 Jewish shops (out of 9,000) were looted, more than 1,000 [[synagogue]]s were damaged or destroyed,{{sfn|Cesarani|2016|pp=184–185}} at least 90 Jews were murdered,{{sfn|Cesarani|2016|pp=184, 187}} and as many as [[mass arrests after Kristallnacht|30,000 Jewish men were arrested]],{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=44}}{{sfn|Longerich|2010|p=112}} although many were released within weeks.{{sfn|Cesarani|2016|p=200}} German Jews were [[Judenvermögensabgabe|levied a special tax]] that raised more than 1 billion [[Reichsmarks]] (RM).{{sfn|Longerich|2010|pp=117, 119}}{{efn|name=1billion|Equivalent to $400 million at the time,{{sfn|Foreign Claims Settlement Commission|1968|p=655}} or ${{formatnum:{{Inflation|US|0.4|1942|r=0}}}} billion in {{Inflation/year|US}}.<ref name=inflation>{{cite web |title=Consumer Price Index, 1800– |url=https://www.minneapolisfed.org/about-us/monetary-policy/inflation-calculator/consumer-price-index-1800- |publisher=Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis |access-date=29 November 2019 |ref={{sfnref|Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis|2019}}}}</ref>}} |
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In his book ''Russia's War'', British historian [[Richard Overy]] describes how the Nazis sought more efficient ways to kill people. In 1941, after occupying [[Belarus]], they used mental patients from [[Minsk]] [[Psychiatric hospital|asylum]]s as guinea pigs. Initially, they tried shooting them by having them stand one behind the other, so that several people could be killed with one bullet, but it was too slow. Then they tried [[dynamite]], but few were killed and many were left wounded with hands and legs missing, so that the Germans had to finish them off with machine guns. In October 1941, in [[Mogilev]], they tried the ''Gaswagen'' or "gas car". First they used a light military car, and it took more than 30 minutes for people to die. Then they used a larger truck exhaust and it took only eight minutes to kill all the people inside.<ref>Richard Overy, ''Russia's War.'' Penguin Books; 1998.</ref> |
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The Nazi government wanted to [[Emigration of Jews from Nazi Germany and German-occupied Europe|force all Jews to leave Germany]].{{Sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=48}} By the end of 1939, most Jews who could emigrate had already done so; those who remained behind were disproportionately elderly, poor, or female and could not obtain a visa.{{Sfn|Gerlach|2016|pp=49, 53}} The plurality, around 110,000, left for the United States, while smaller numbers emigrated to South America, [[Shanghai Ghetto|Shanghai]], [[Mandatory Palestine]], and South Africa.{{Sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=52}} Germany collected [[Reich Flight Tax|emigration taxes]] of nearly 1 billion RM,{{efn|name=1billion}} mostly from Jews.{{Sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=50}} The policy of forced emigration continued into 1940.{{Sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=51}} |
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Alleged corporate involvement in the Holocaust has created significant controversy in recent years. [[Rudolf Hoess|Rudolf Höß]], Auschwitz camp commandant, said that far from having to advertise their slave labour services, the concentration camps were actually approached by various large German businesses, some of which are still in existence. Technology developed by [[IBM]] also played a role in the categorization of prisoners, through the use of index machines. A book on IBM's role in the holocaust called [http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/ IBM and the Holocaust] gives more details on this. |
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Besides Germany, a significant number of other European countries abandoned democracy for some kind of authoritarian or fascist rule.{{sfn|Stone|2010|p=17}} Many countries, including Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia, passed antisemitic legislation in the 1930s and 1940s.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|pp=332–334}} In October 1938, [[Polenaktion|Germany deported many Polish Jews]] in response to a Polish law that enabled the [[denaturalization|revocation of citizenship]] for Polish Jews living abroad.{{Sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=49}}{{sfn|Longerich|2010|pp=109–110}} |
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===Scale=== |
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[[Image:Massdeportations.gif|thumb|200px|right|Major deportation routes to the [[extermination camps]] in Europe.]] |
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The Holocaust was geographically widespread and systematically conducted in virtually all areas of Nazi-occupied territory, where Jews and other victims were targeted in what are now 35 separate European nations, and sent to labor camps in some nations or [[extermination camps]] in others. The mass killing was at its worst in Central and Eastern Europe, which had more than 7 million Jews in 1939; about 5 million Jews were killed there, including 3 million in Poland and over 1 million in the Soviet Union. Hundreds of thousands also died in the Netherlands, France, Belgium, Yugoslavia, and Greece. |
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==Start of World War II== |
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Documented evidence suggests that the Nazis planned to carry out their 'final solution' in other regions if they were conquered, such as the [[United Kingdom]] and the [[Republic of Ireland]]. <ref>Martin Gilbert, ''The Oxford Companion to World War II'' Oxford: Oxford UP, 1995</ref>. The extermination continued in different parts of Nazi-controlled territory until the end of [[World War II]], only completely ending when the Allies entered Germany itself and forced the Nazis to surrender in May 1945. |
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[[File:Danzigers cheer for Adolf Hitler 2.jpg|thumb|alt=A large crowd of people with swastika banners|Danzigers rallying for Hitler, shortly after the [[Free City of Danzig|free city]]'s [[Danzig crisis|annexation into Germany]]]] |
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The German ''[[Wehrmacht]]'' (armed forces) [[Invasion of Poland|invaded Poland]] on 1 September 1939, triggering declarations of war [[United Kingdom declaration of war on Germany (1939)|from the United Kingdom]] and [[French declaration of war on Germany (1939)|France]].{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=56}} During the five weeks of fighting, as many as 16,000 civilians, hostages, and [[German atrocities committed against Polish prisoners of war|prisoners of war]] may have been shot by the German invaders;{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=57}} there was also a great deal of looting.{{sfn|Beorn|2018|p=98}} Special units known as ''[[Einsatzgruppen]]'' followed the army to eliminate any possible resistance.{{sfn|Beorn|2018|pp=99, 101}} Around 50,000 Polish and Polish Jewish leaders and intellectuals [[Intelligenzaktion|were arrested or executed]].{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|pp=57–58}}{{sfn|Beorn|2018|pp=102–103}} The [[Auschwitz concentration camp]] was established to hold those members of the Polish intelligentsia not killed in the purges.{{sfn|Hayes|2017|p=241}} Around 400,000 Poles were expelled from the [[Wartheland]] in western Poland to the [[General Governorate]] occupation zone from 1939 to 1941, and the area was [[Heim ins Reich|resettled]] by [[Volksdeutsche|ethnic Germans from eastern Europe]].{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=58}} |
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The rest of Poland was [[Territories of Poland annexed by the Soviet Union#Soviet annexation of eastern Poland, 1939–1941|occupied by the Soviet Union]], which [[Soviet invasion of Poland|invaded Poland from the east]] on 17 September pursuant to the [[German–Soviet pact]].{{sfn|Beorn|2018|pp=46, 73}} The Soviet Union [[Population transfer in the Soviet Union|deported hundreds of thousands of Polish citizens]] to the Soviet interior, including as many as 260,000 Jews who largely survived the war.{{sfn|Beorn|2018|p=86}}{{sfn|Cesarani|2016|p=362}} Although most Jews were not communists, some accepted positions in the Soviet administration, contributing to a pre-existing perception among many non-Jews that Soviet rule was a Jewish conspiracy.{{sfn|Beorn|2018|pp=89–90}} In 1940, Germany invaded much of western Europe including [[German invasion of the Netherlands|the Netherlands]], [[German invasion of Belgium (1940)|Belgium]], [[German invasion of Luxembourg|Luxembourg]], [[German invasion of France (1940)|France]], and [[Operation Weserübung|Denmark and Norway]].{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=56}} In 1941, Germany [[German invasion of Yugoslavia|invaded Yugoslavia]] and [[German invasion of Greece|Greece]].{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=56}} Some of these new holdings were [[Areas annexed by Nazi Germany|fully or partially annexed into Germany]] while others were placed under [[Reichskommissariat|civilian]] or [[Military Administration (Nazi Germany)|military rule]].{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=57}} |
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===Cruelty=== |
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The Holocaust was carried out without any mercy or reprieve even for children or babies, and victims were often made to suffer before finally being killed. Nazis carried out cruel and deadly [[Nazi human experimentation|medical experiments]] on prisoners, including children. Dr. [[Josef Mengele]], medical officer at Auschwitz and chief medical officer at [[Birkenau]], was known as the "Angel of Death" for his cruel and bizarre medical and [[eugenics|eugenical]] experiments, e.g., trying to change people's eye color by injecting dye into their eyes. Many of these experiments were intended to produce 'racially pure' babies and as research into weapons and techniques of war. Day to day life in the [[concentration camp]]s was also brutal, with the guards regularly carrying out beatings and acts of torture. |
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The war provided cover for "[[Aktion T4]]", the murder of around 70,000 institutionalized Germans with mental or physical disabilities at specialized killing centers using poison gas.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=58}}{{sfn|Kay|2021|p=38}}{{sfn|Bergen|2016|p=162}} The victims included all 4,000 to 5,000 institutionalized Jews.{{sfn|Kay|2021|p=37}} Despite efforts to maintain secrecy, knowledge of the killings leaked out and Hitler ordered a halt to the centralized killing program in August 1941.{{sfn|Cesarani|2016|p=284}}{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=59}}{{sfn|Kay|2021|pp=37–38}} Decentralized killings via denial of medical care, starvation, and poisoning caused an additional 120,000 deaths by the end of the war.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=59}}{{sfn|Kay|2021|p=254}} Many of the same personnel and technologies were later used for the mass murder of Jews.{{sfn|Beorn|2018|p=207}}{{sfn|Kay|2021|p=40}} |
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== Victims == |
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The victims of the Holocaust were [[Jew]]s, [[Poles]], [[Russians]], [[Communist]]s, [[homosexuality|homosexuals]], [[Roma (people)|Roma]] (also known as gypsies), the [[mentally ill]] and the physically [[disabled]], [[intelligentsia]] and political activists, [[Jehovah's Witnesses and the Holocaust|Jehovah's Witnesses]], some Catholic and Protestant clergy, [[trade union]]ists, psychiatric patients, some [[African]]s, common [[criminal]]s and people labeled as "enemies of the state". These victims all perished alongside one another in the camps, according to the extensive documentation left behind by the Nazis themselves (written and photographed), eyewitness testimony (by survivors, perpetrators, and bystanders), and the statistical records of the various countries under occupation. |
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===Ghettoization and resettlement=== |
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{{further|The Holocaust in Poland}} |
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[[Image:Vienna 1938 pavement scrub.jpg|thumb|150px|left|Nazis in uniform in Vienna, Austria 1938 mock Jews forced to scrub streets]] |
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[[File:Unpaved steet in the Frysztak Ghetto.jpg|thumb|alt=People and buildings with an unpaved street|Unpaved street in the [[Frysztak Ghetto]], [[Krakow District]]]] |
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[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 101I-134-0771A-39, Polen, Ghetto Warschau, Kind in Lumpen.jpg|thumb|alt=People walking on a paved surface around a still body|A body lying in the street of the [[Warsaw Ghetto]] in the [[General Governorate]]]] |
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Germany gained control of 1.7 million Jews in Poland.{{sfn|Beorn|2018|p=96}}{{sfn|Longerich|2010|p=148}} The Nazis [[Nisko Plan|tried to concentrate Jews]] in the [[Lublin District]] of the General Governorate. 45,000 Jews were deported by November and left to fend for themselves, causing many deaths.{{sfn|Beorn|2018|p=108}} Deportations stopped in early 1940 due to the opposition of [[Hans Frank]], the leader of the General Governorate, who did not want his fiefdom to become a dumping ground for unwanted Jews.{{sfn|Beorn|2018|pp=107–109}}{{sfn|Bartov|2023b|p=201}} After the conquest of France, the Nazis considered [[Madagascar Plan|deporting Jews]] to [[French Madagascar]], but this proved impossible.{{sfn|Longerich|2010|p=164}}{{sfn|Beorn|2018|pp=109, 117}} The Nazis planned that harsh conditions in these areas would kill many Jews.{{sfn|Longerich|2010|p=164}}{{sfn|Bartov|2023b|p=201}} In September 1939, around 7,000 Jews were killed, alongside thousands of Poles, however, they were not systematically targeted as they would be later, and open mass killings would subside until June of 1941.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=63, 437}} |
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[[Anti-Semitism]] was common in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s (though its roots go back much further). [[Adolf Hitler]]'s fanatical brand of racial anti-Semitism was laid out in his 1925 book ''[[Mein Kampf]]'', which, though largely ignored when it was first printed, became a bestseller in Germany once Hitler acquired political power. |
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During the invasion, synagogues were burned and thousands of Jews fled or were expelled into the Soviet occupation zone.{{sfn|Beorn|2018|pp=87, 103}} Various anti-Jewish regulations were soon issued. In October 1939, adult Jews in the General Governorate were required to perform forced labor.{{sfn|Beorn|2018|p=116}} In November 1939 they were ordered to wear white armbands.{{sfn|Beorn|2018|p=115}} Laws decreed the seizure of most Jewish property and the takeover of Jewish-owned businesses. When Jews were forced into ghettos, they lost their homes and belongings.{{sfn|Beorn|2018|p=116}} |
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On [[April 1]], [[1933]], shortly after Hitler's [[Machtergreifung|accession to power]], the [[Nazism|Nazis]], led mainly by [[Julius Streicher]], and the [[Sturmabteilung]], organized a one-day boycott of all Jewish-owned businesses in [[Germany]]. A series of increasingly harsh racist laws were soon passed in quick succession. Under the “[[Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service]]”, passed by the [[Reichstag]] on [[April 7]] [[1933]], all Jewish civil servants at the ''Reich'', ''Länder'', and municipal levels of government were fired immediately. The "Law for the Restoration of a Professional Civil Service" marked the first time since Germany's unification in 1871 that an anti-Semitic law had been passed in Germany. This was followed by the [[Nuremberg Laws]] of 1935 that prevented marriage between any Jew and non-Jew, and stripped all Jews of German citizenships (their official title became "[[subject of the state]]") and of their basic civil rights, e.g., to vote. |
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The first [[Nazi ghettos]] were established in the Wartheland and General Governorate in 1939 and 1940 on the initiative of local German administrators.{{sfn|Miron|2020|pp=247, 251, 254}}{{sfn|Beorn|2018|p=117}} The largest ghettos, such as [[Warsaw Ghetto|Warsaw]] and [[Łódź Ghetto|Łódź]], were established in existing residential neighborhoods and closed by fences or walls. In many smaller ghettos, Jews were forced into poor neighborhoods but with no fence.{{sfn|Miron|2020|p=252}} Forced labor programs provided subsistence to many ghetto inhabitants, and in some cases protected them from deportation. Workshops and factories were operated inside some ghettos, while in other cases Jews left the ghetto to work outside it.{{sfn|Miron|2020|p=253}} Because the ghettos were not segregated by sex some family life continued.{{sfn|Miron|2020|pp=253–254}} A Jewish community leadership ({{lang|de|[[Judenrat]]}}) exercised some authority and tried to sustain the Jewish community while following German demands. As a survival strategy, many tried to make the ghettos useful to the occupiers as a labor reserve.{{sfn|Miron|2020|p=254}}{{sfn|Engel|2020|p=240}} Jews in western Europe were not forced into ghettos but faced discriminatory laws and confiscation of property.{{sfn|Longerich|2010|p=272}}{{sfn|Cesarani|2016|pp=314–315}}{{sfn|Miron|2020|pp=247–248}} |
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In 1936, Jews were banned from all professional jobs, effectively preventing them exerting any influence in education, politics, higher education and industry. On [[15 November]] of 1938, Jewish children were banned from going to normal schools. By April 1939, nearly all Jewish companies had either collapsed under financial pressure and declining profits, or had been forced to sell out to the Nazi-German government as part of the "Aryanization" policy inaugurated in 1937. |
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Rape and sexual exploitation of Jewish and non-Jewish women in eastern Europe [[Sexual violence during the Holocaust|was common]].{{sfn|Westermann|2020|pp=127–128}} |
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[[Image:Himmler Hitler.jpg|frame|100px|right|[[Heinrich Himmler]] (left), leader of the [[Schutzstaffel|SS]] (responsible for rounding up Jews), with [[Adolf Hitler]] (right).]] |
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As the war started, large massacres of Jews took place, and, by December 1941, Hitler decided to completely exterminate European Jews. In January 1942, during the [[Wannsee conference]], several Nazi leaders discussed the details of the "[[final solution|Final Solution of the Jewish question]]" (''Endlösung der Judenfrage''). [[Dr. Josef Bühler]] urged [[Reinhard Heydrich]] to proceed with the Final Solution in the [[General Government]]. They began to systematically deport Jewish populations from the ghettos and all occupied territories to the seven camps designated as ''Vernichtungslager,'' or [[extermination camp]]s: [[Auschwitz concentration camp|Auschwitz]], [[Belzec extermination camp|Belzec]], [[Chelmno concentration camp|Chelmno]], [[Majdanek]], [[Maly Trostenets extermination camp|Maly Trostenets]], [[Sobibór extermination camp|Sobibór]] and [[Treblinka extermination camp|Treblinka II]]. [[Sebastian Haffner]] published the analysis in 1978 that Hitler from December 1941 accepted the failure of his goal to dominate Europe forever on his declaration of war against the [[United States]], but that his withdrawal and apparent calm thereafter was sustained by the achievement of his second goal—the extermination of the Jews.<ref>Sebastain Haffner, ''The Meaning of Hitler'' ISBN 0674557751, translated from Anmerkungen zu Hitler, Publishing house. Fischer Taschenbuch, Frankfurt am Main. ISBN 3-596-23489-1.</ref> |
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==Invasion of the Soviet Union== |
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Even as the Nazi war machine faltered in the last years of the war, precious military resources such as fuel, transport, munitions, soldiers and industrial resources were still being heavily diverted away from the war and towards the death camps. |
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Germany and its allies Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Italy [[Operation Barbarossa|invaded the Soviet Union]] on 22 June 1941.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=67}}{{sfn|Bartov|2023b|p=201}} Although the war was launched more for strategic than ideological reasons,{{sfn|Cesarani|2016|p=351}} what Hitler saw as an apocalyptic battle against the forces of [[Jewish Bolshevism]]{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=172}} was to be carried out as a [[war of extermination]] with [[Barbarossa decree|complete disregard]] for the [[laws and customs of war]].{{sfn|Beorn|2018|pp=121–122}}{{sfn|Bartov|2023b|pp=201–202}} A quick victory was expected{{sfn|Longerich|2010|p=179}} and was planned to be followed by a massive [[demographic engineering]] project to [[Generalplan Ost|remove 31 million people and replace them with German settlers]].{{sfn|Beorn|2018|pp=63–64}} To increase the speed of conquest the Germans planned to feed their army by looting, exporting additional food to Germany, and to terrorize the local inhabitants with preventative killings.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=68}}{{sfn|Longerich|2010|p=180}} The Germans foresaw that the invasion would cause a food shortfall and [[Hunger Plan|planned the mass starvation]] of Soviet cities and some rural areas.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|pp=67–68}}{{sfn|Beorn|2018|p=67}}{{sfn|Longerich|2010|pp=181–182}} Although the starvation policy was less successful than planners hoped,{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|pp=221–222}} the residents of some cities, particularly in Ukraine, and [[Siege of Leningrad|besieged Leningrad]], as well as the Jewish ghettos, endured human-made famine, during which millions of people died of starvation.{{sfn|Bloxham|2009|pp=182–183}}{{sfn|Kay|2021|pp=142, 294}} |
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By the end of the war, much of the Jewish population of Europe had been killed in the Holocaust. Poland, home of the largest Jewish community in the world before the war, had had over 90% of its Jewish population, or about 3,000,000 Jews, killed. Greece, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Lithuania, Bohemia, the Netherlands, Slovakia, and Latvia each had over 70% of their Jewish population destroyed. [[Belgium]], [[Romania]], [[Luxembourg]], [[Norway]], and [[Estonia]] lost around half of their Jewish population, the Soviet Union over one third of its Jews, and even countries such as France and Italy had each seen around a quarter of their Jewish population killed. [[Denmark]] was able to evacuate almost all of the Jews in their country to nearby [[Sweden]], which was neutral during the war. Using everything from fishing boats to private yachts, the Danes whisked the Danish Jews out of harm's way. Some [[Jews outside Europe under Nazi occupation]] were also affected by the Holocaust and treatment from the Nazis. |
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By mid-June 1941, about 30,000 Jews had died, 20,000 of whom had starved to death in the [[Jewish ghettos established by Nazi Germany|ghettos]].{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|pp=65}} |
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=== Slavs === |
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<!--NOTE: Slavs is NOT a mispelling of "slaves". It is a short term for Slavic people. --> |
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[[Poles]] were one of the first targets of extermination by Hitler, as outlined in the [[Armenian quote|speech]] he gave the Wehrmacht commanders before the [[Polish September Campaign|invasion of Poland]] in 1939. The [[intelligentsia]] and socially prominent or influential people were primarily targeted, although there were some [[mass murder]]s committed [[World War II atrocities in Poland|against the general population]], as well as against other groups of Slavs. The Nazi occupation of Poland ([[General Government]], [[Reichsgau Wartheland]]) was one of the most brutal episodes of World War Two, resulting in 1.8-1.9 million non-Jewish deaths in addition to three million Polish [[Jew]]s. Scholars disagree as to what proportion of these non-Jewish Polish civilian deaths during the Nazi conquest and occupation of Poland were part of the Holocaust, though there is no doubt of the eventual genocidal intentions of the Nazis towards the Poles. At least 140,000 Poles were sent to Auschwitz, and the [[Intelligentsia#Intelligentsia in Poland|Polish intelligentsia]] were the first targets of the [[Einsatzgruppen]] death squads.<ref>Yisrael Gutman, Michael Berenbaum, Raul Hilberg, [[Franciszek Piper]], Yehuda Baur, ''Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp'', Indiana University Press, 1998, p.70</ref> |
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[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1972-026-43, Minsk, Widerstandskämpfer vor Hinrichtung.jpg|thumb|Public execution of [[Masha Bruskina]], a Belarusian Jew who helped Soviet prisoners escape]] |
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During [[Operation Barbarossa]], the [[Axis Powers|Axis]] invasion of the Soviet Union, hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of [[Red Army]] [[prisoners of war]] were arbitrarily executed in the field by the invading German armies (in particular by the notorious [[Waffen SS]]), died under inhuman conditions in German prisoner-of-war camps, or were shipped to extermination camps for execution simply because they were of Slavic extraction. Thousands of Soviet (Russian, Belarusian, Ukrainian) peasant villages were annihilated by German troops for more or less the same reason. During occupation, Russia's Leningrad, Pskov and Novgorod region lost around a quarter of its population. Bodan Wytwycky estimated that as many as one quarter of all Soviet civilian deaths at the hands of the Nazis and their allies were racially motivated, or 5 million [[Russians|Russian]] deaths, 3 million [[Ukrainians|Ukrainian]] deaths and 1.5 million [[Belarus|Belarusian]] deaths.<ref>Donald L Niewyk, ''The Columbia Guide to the Holocaust,'' Columbia University Press, 200, p 49</ref> |
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[[German mistreatment of Soviet prisoners of war|Soviet prisoners of war in the custody of the German Army]] were intended to die in large numbers. Sixty percent—3.3 million people—died, primarily of starvation,{{sfn|Beorn|2018|p=125}}{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=72}} making them the second largest group of victims of Nazi mass killing after European Jews.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=5}}{{sfn|Kay|2021|p=294}} Jewish prisoners of war and [[commissar order|commissars]] were systematically executed.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|pp=231–232}}{{sfn|Kay|2021|p=161}} About a million civilians were killed by the Nazis during [[anti-partisan warfare]], including more than 300,000 in Belarus.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=288}}{{sfn|Kay|2021|p=190}} From 1942 onwards, the Germans and their allies targeted villages suspected of supporting the partisans, burning them and killing or expelling their inhabitants.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|pp=297–298}} During these operations, nearby small ghettos were liquidated and their inhabitants shot.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|pp=298–299}} By 1943, anti-partisan operations aimed for the depopulation of large areas of Belarus.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=298}}{{sfn|Kay|2021|pp=182–183}} Jews and those unfit for work were typically shot on the spot with others deported.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|pp=298–299}}{{sfn|Kay|2021|p=182}} Although most of those killed were not Jews,{{sfn|Kay|2021|p=190}}{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=298}} anti-partisan warfare often led to the deaths of Jews.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|pp=300, 310}} |
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===Mass shootings of Jews{{anchor|Mass shootings|Einsatzgruppen|Mass shootings}}=== |
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The other major group that were victims of Holocaust were Serbs in the [[Independent State of Croatia]]. Estimates for the number of Serbs killed vary widely and are a matter of controversy. Most Serb sources cite numbers as high as 1,000,000, but many others, such as [[United States Holocaust Memorial Museum]], give estimates in the range of 330,000 to 390,000, with 45,000 to 52,000 Serbs murdered in [[Jasenovac concentration camp]]. The [[Ustasha]] genocide of Serbs is perhaps the only chapter in Holocaust where Germans (as well as Italians), including SS troups, acted to protect the group from the actions of their collaborators - over-enthusiastic Croat Ustashas, who started mass killings at the rate unseen by that time (from the onset of the puppet regime in 1941), prompting appalled Germans to restrain the puppet government. The chief architect of Croatian holocaust against Serbs was [[Mile Budak]] (both Croats and Serbs are Slavs). |
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{{Further|The Holocaust in the Soviet Union|The Holocaust in Romania}} |
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[[File:Lviv pogrom (June - July 1941).jpg|thumb|upright=0.7|left|alt=Half naked woman running, and a man carrying a bat|At least 3,000 Jews were killed during the 1941 [[Lviv pogroms (1941)|Lviv pogroms]], mainly by local Ukrainians.{{sfn|Beorn|2020|pp=162–163}}]] |
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The systematic murder of Jews began in the Soviet Union in 1941.{{sfnm|Kay|2021|1pp=13–14|Beorn|2018|2p=128}} During the invasion, many Jews were conscripted into the [[Red Army]]. Out of 10 or 15 million Soviet civilians who [[Evacuation in the Soviet Union|fled eastwards to the Soviet interior]], 1.6 million were Jews.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|pp=72–73}}{{sfn|Miron|2020|p=254}} Local inhabitants killed as many as 50,000 Jews in pogroms in Latvia, [[1941 pogroms in Lithuania|Lithuania]], [[1941 pogroms in eastern Poland|eastern Poland]], Ukraine, and the Romanian borderlands.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|pp=69, 440}}{{sfn|Kopstein|2023|pp=105, 107–108}} Although German forces tried to incite pogroms, their role in causing violence is controversial.{{sfn|Kopstein|2023|p=107}}{{sfn|Bartov|2023b|p=202}} [[Romanian Armed Forces|Romanian soldiers]] [[1941 Odessa massacre|killed tens of thousands of Jews from Odessa]] by April 1942.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=69}}{{sfn|Beorn|2018|p=185}} |
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At the same time, not all Slavs were targeted by the Nazis. The Slavs of Croatia, Slovakia and Ukrainian Galicia were allies of Nazi Germany, and participated as collaborators in the Holocaust. |
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Prior to the invasion, the ''Einsatzgruppen'' were reorganized in preparation for mass killings and instructed to shoot Soviet officials and Jewish state and party employees.{{sfn|Beorn|2018|p=129}} The shootings were justified on the basis of Jews' supposed central role in supporting the communist system, but it was not initially envisioned to kill all Soviet Jews.{{sfn|Longerich|2010|p=190}}{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=66}} The occupiers relied on locals to identify Jews to be targeted.{{sfn|Beorn|2018|pp=259–260}} The first German mass killings targeted adult male Jews who had worked as civil servants or in jobs requiring education. Tens of thousands were shot by the end of July. The vast majority of civilian victims were Jews.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=69}} In July and August [[Heinrich Himmler]], the leader of the [[Schutzstaffel|SS]] (''Schutzstaffel''), made several visits to the [[death squads]]' zones of operation, relaying orders to kill more Jews.{{sfn|Beorn|2018|p=132}} At this time, the killers began to murder Jewish women and children too.{{sfn|Beorn|2018|p=132}}{{sfn|Longerich|2010|p=207}} Executions peaked at 40,000 a month [[The Holocaust in Lithuania|in Lithuania]] in August and September and in October and November reached their height [[The Holocaust in Belarus|in Belarus]].{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|pp=69–70}} |
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=== Roma, Sinti, and Manush ('Gypsies') === |
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{{main|Porajmos}} |
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[[Image:Porajmos.jpg|thumb|250px|Gypsy arrivals in the [[Belzec]] death camp await instructions]] |
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[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1994-092-18A, Sowjetunion, Festnahme von Juden.jpg|thumb|alt=Men rounded up and walking|Original Nazi propaganda caption: "Too bad even for a bullet... The Jews shown here were shot at once." 28 June 1941 in [[Rozhanka, Shchuchyn District|Rozhanka]], Belarus]] |
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Proportional to their population, the death toll of Romanies ([[Roma people|Roma]], [[Sinti]], and [[Manush]]) in the Holocaust was the worst of any group of victims. Hitler's campaign of [[genocide]] against the Romani population of Europe involved a particularly bizarre application of Nazi "[[racial hygiene]]". Although, despite discriminatory measures, some Romani groups, including some of the [[Sinti]] and [[Lalleri]] of Germany, were spared deportation and death, the remaining Romani groups suffered much like the Jews. Between a quarter and a half of the Romani population was killed, upwards of 220,000 people.<ref>"[http://www.chgs.umn.edu/Histories__Narratives__Documen/Roma___Sinti__Gypsies_/Jewish_Responses_to_the_Porraj/jewish_responses_to_the_porraj.html Jewish Response to the Porrajmos (The Romani Holocaust)]," Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, University of Minnesota (accessed June 24, 2005). Death tolls given at [http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/index.php?ModuleId=10005219&Type=normal+article United States Holocaust Museum] </ref> In [[Eastern Europe]], Roma were deported to the Jewish ghettoes, shot by SS ''Einsatzgruppen'' in their villages, and deported and gassed in Auschwitz and Treblinka. |
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[[File:Men with an unidentified unit execute a group of Soviet civilians kneeling by the side of a mass grave.jpg|thumb|alt=Men execute at least four Soviet civilians kneeling by the side of a mass grave|Shooting from behind became popular because killers did not have to look at their victims' faces and the dead were likely to fall into the grave.{{sfn|Russell |2018|pp=135–136}}]] |
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The executions often took place a few kilometers from a town. Victims were rounded up and marched to the execution site, forced to undress, and shot into previously dug pits.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=70}} The favored technique was a shot in the back of the neck with a single bullet.{{sfn|Bloxham|2009|p=203}} In the chaos, many victims were not killed by the gunfire but instead [[buried alive]]. Typically, the pits would be guarded after the execution but sometimes a few victims managed to escape afterwards.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=70}} Executions were public spectacles and the victims' property was looted both by the occupiers and local inhabitants.{{sfn|Bartov|2023b|p=203}} Around 200 ghettos were established in the occupied Soviet Union, with many existing only briefly before their inhabitants were executed. A few large ghettos such as Vilna, [[Kovno Ghetto|Kovno]], [[Riga Ghetto|Riga]], [[Białystok Ghetto|Białystok]], and [[Lwów Ghetto|Lwów]] lasted into 1943 because they became centers of production.{{sfn|Miron|2020|p=254}} |
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Victims of mass shootings included Jews deported from elsewhere.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=79}} Besides Germany, Romania [[The Holocaust in Romania|killed the largest number of Jews]].{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=372}}{{sfn|Bartov|2023b|p=207}} Romania deported about 154,000–170,000 Jews from [[Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina|Bessarabia and Bukovina]] to ghettos in [[Transnistria Governorate|Transnistria]] from 1941 to 1943.{{sfn|Stone|2010|p=36}} Jews from Transnistria were also imprisoned in these ghettos, where the total death toll may have reached 160,000.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=371}} Hungary expelled thousands of [[The Holocaust in Carpathian Ruthenia|Carpathian Ruthenian]] and foreign Jews in 1941, who were shortly thereafter [[Kamianets-Podilskyi massacre|shot in Ukraine]].{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=380}}{{sfn|Longerich|2010|p=224}} At the beginning of September, all German Jews were required to wear a yellow star, and in October, Hitler decided to [[The Holocaust in Germany|deport them to the east]] and ban emigration.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|pp=75–77}}{{sfn|Longerich|2010|pp=284–285}} Between mid-October and the end of 1941, 42,000 Jews from Germany and its annexed territories and 5,000 [[Romani people in Austria|Romani people from Austria]] were deported to Łódź, Kovno, Riga, and [[Minsk Ghetto|Minsk]].{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=76}}{{sfn|Longerich|2010|p=286}} In late November, [[Ninth Fort massacres of November 1941|5,000 German Jews were shot]] outside of Kovno and [[Rumbula massacre|another 1,000]] near Riga, but Himmler ordered an end to such massacres and some in the senior Nazi leadership voiced doubts about killing German Jews.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=79}}{{sfn|Longerich|2010|pp=298–299}} Executions of German Jews in the Baltics resumed in early 1942.{{sfn|Longerich|2010|p=300}} |
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=== Freemasons === |
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In ''[[Mein Kampf]]'', [[Adolf Hitler]] writes that [[Freemasonry]] has "succumbed" to the Jews and has become an "excellent instrument" to fight for their aims and to use their "strings" to pull the upper strata of society into their alleged designs. He continues, "The general pacifistic paralysis of the national instinct of self-preservation begun by Freemasonry" is then transmitted to the masses of society by the press.<ref>A. Hitler, ''Mein Kampf'', pages 315 and 320.</ref> |
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After the expansion of killings to target the entire Soviet Jewish population, the 3,000 men of the ''Einsatzgruppen'' proved insufficient and Himmler mobilized 21 battalions of [[Order Police]] to assist them.{{sfn|Beorn|2018|p=132}} In addition, Wehrmacht soldiers, [[Waffen-SS]] brigades, and local auxiliaries shot many Jews.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=70}}{{sfn|Beorn|2018|p=142}}{{sfn|Bartov|2023b|pp=205–206}} By the end of 1941, more than 80 percent of the Jews in central Ukraine, eastern Belarus, Russia, Latvia, and Lithuania had been shot, but less than 25 percent of those living farther west where 900,000 remained alive.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=71}} By the end of the war, around 1.5 to 2 million Jews were shot{{sfn|Beorn|2018|p=128}} and as many as 225,000 Roma.{{sfn|Bergen|2016|p=200}} The murderers found the executions distressing and logistically inconvenient, which influenced the decision to switch to other methods of killing.{{sfn|Beorn|2018|pp=146–147}} |
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The ''Enabling Act'' (''[[:de:Ermächtigungsgesetz|Ermächtigungsgesetz]]'' in [[German language|German]]) was passed by Germany's parliament (the ''[[Reichstag (institution)|Reichstag]]'') on [[March 23]], [[1933]]. Using the "Act", on [[January 8]], [[1934]] the [[Nazi Germany|German]] [[Ministry of the Interior]] ordered the disbandment of Freemasonry, and confiscation of the property of all Lodges; stating that those who had been members of Lodges when Hitler came to power, in January 1933, were prohibited from holding office in the Nazi party or its paramilitary arms, and were ineligible for appointment in public service. <ref>[http://www.nationalsozialismus.de/index.php? ''The ''Enabling Act''] Accessed [[February 23]] [[2006]].</ref> Consistently considered an ideological foe of Nazism in their world perception (''Weltauffassung''), special sections of the Security Service (SD) and later the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) were established to deal with the Freemasonry. Freemasonic Concentration Camp inmates were graded as “Political” prisoners, and wore an inverted, (point down), ''[[Nazi concentration camp badges|red triangle]]''. <ref>''The Encyclopedia of the Holocaust'', volume 2, page 531, citing Katz, ''Jews and Freemasons in Europe''.</ref> |
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==Systematic deportations across Europe== |
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On [[August 8]], [[1935]], as [[Führer]] and [[Chancellor of Germany|Chancellor]], Adolf Hitler announced in the [[National Socialist German Workers Party|Nazi]] Party newspaper, ''[[Völkischer Beobachter]]'', the final dissolution of all Masonic Lodges in Germany. The article accused a conspiracy of the Fraternity and “World Jewry” of seeking to create a “[[New World Order|World Republic]]”. <ref>Bro. E Howe, ''Freemasonry in Germany'', Quatuor Coronati Lodge, No 2076 (UGLE), 1984 Yearbook.</ref> |
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Most historians agree that Hitler issued an [[Hitler order|explicit order]] to kill all Jews across Europe,{{sfn|Evans|2019|p=120}} but there is disagreement when.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=78}}{{sfn|Bartov|2023b|p=204}} Some historians cite inflammatory statements by Hitler and other Nazi leaders as well as the concurrent [[The Holocaust in German-occupied Serbia|mass shootings of Serbian Jews]], plans for [[extermination camps]] in Poland, and the beginning of the deportation of German Jews as indicative of the final decision having been made before December 1941.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=78}}{{sfn|Longerich|2010|p=303}} Others argue that these policies were initiatives by local leaders and that the final decision was made later.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=78}} On 5 December 1941, the Soviet Union [[Winter campaign of 1941–42|launched its first major counteroffensive]]. On 11 December, [[German declaration of war on the United States|Hitler declared war on the United States]] after Japan [[attack on Pearl Harbor|attacked Pearl Harbor]].{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|pp=79–80}}{{sfn|Kay|2021|p=199}} The next day, he [[Reich Chancellery meeting of 12 December 1941|told leading Nazi party officials]], referring to his [[Hitler's prophecy|1939 prophecy]], "The world war is here; the annihilation of the Jews must be the necessary consequence."{{sfn|Kay|2021|p=199}}{{sfn|Longerich|2010|p=306}} |
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It took the Nazis several months after this to organize a continent-wide genocide.{{sfn|Kay|2021|p=199}} [[Reinhard Heydrich]], head of the [[Reich Main Security Office]] (RSHA), convened the [[Wannsee Conference]] on 20 January 1942. This high-level meeting was intended to coordinate anti-Jewish policy.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|pp=84–85}} The majority of Holocaust killings were carried out in 1942, with it being the peak of the genocide, as over 3 million Jews were murdered, with 20 or 25 percent of Holocaust victims dying before early 1942 and the same number surviving by the end of the year.{{sfn|Beorn|2018|p=202}}{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=99}} |
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Estimates calculate that between 80,000 and 200,000 Freemasons died.<ref>Freemasons for Dummies, by [http://members.aol.com/brlodge/whymasons.html Christopher Hodapp], Wiley Publishing Inc., Indianapolis, 2005, p.85, sec. ''Hitler and the Nazi''</ref>It is impossible to arrive at a total figure as no one knows the number of Freemasons from occupied countries who were killed.<ref>[http://www.grandlodgescotland.com/glos/Holocaust_Memorial_Day/FQAs.htm Grand Lodge of Scotland ''Holocaust FAQs''], “It is impossible to arrive at a total figure as no one knows the number of Freemasons from occupied countries who were murdered.” Accessed [[March 22]] [[2006]].</ref> |
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===Extermination camps=== |
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{{Main|Extermination camp}} |
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About 100,000 [[communism|communists]] were killed. There had been earlier attempts at sterilizing them using X-rays. |
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[[File:Przeładunek Żydów do wagonów kolejki wąskotorowej do Chełmna.jpg|thumb|Deportation to Chełmno]] |
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[[Gas vans]] developed from those used to kill mental patients since 1939 were assigned to the ''Einsatzgruppen'' and first used in November 1941; victims were forced into the van and killed with engine exhaust.{{sfn|Longerich|2010|p=279}} The first extermination camp was [[Chełmno extermination camp|Chełmno]] in the Wartheland, established on the initiative of the local civil administrator [[Arthur Greiser]] with Himmler's approval; it began operations in December 1941 using gas vans.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=74}}{{sfn|Beorn|2018|p=209}}{{sfn|Longerich|2010|pp=290–291}} In October 1941, [[Higher SS and Police Leader]] of Lublin [[Odilo Globocnik]]{{sfn|Beorn|2018|p=210}} began work planning [[Belzec extermination camp|Belzec]]—the first purpose-built extermination camp to feature stationary [[gas chamber]]s using carbon monoxide based on the previous [[Aktion T4]] programme<ref>[[Peter Longerich]], ''Holocaust, the Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews'', p. 280</ref><ref name="Nazi Genocide pp. 96, 99">[[Henry Friedlander]] ''The Origins of Nazi Genocide, From Euthanasia to the Final Solution'', pp. 96, 99</ref>—amid increasing talk among German administrators in Poland of large-scale murder of Jews in the General Governorate.{{sfn|Longerich|2010|pp=280, 293–294, 302}}{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=74}} In late 1941 in [[The Holocaust in East Upper Silesia|East Upper Silesia]], Jews in forced-labor camps operated by the [[Schmelt Organization]] deemed "unfit for work" began to be sent in groups to Auschwitz where they were murdered.{{sfn|Longerich|2010|pp=280–281, 292}}{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|pp=208–209}} In early 1942, [[Zyklon B]] became the preferred killing method in extermination camps{{sfn|Longerich|2010|pp=281–282}} after gassing experiments were conducted on Russian POWs in late August 1941.{{sfn|Browning|2004|pp=526–527}}<ref name="Nazi Genocide pp. 96, 99"/> |
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===Homosexuals=== |
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{{main|History of gays in Nazi Germany and the Holocaust}} |
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The camps were located on rail lines to make it easier to transport Jews to their deaths, but in remote places to avoid notice.{{sfn|Beorn|2018|p=210}} The stench caused by mass killing operations was noticeable to anyone nearby.{{sfn|Bergen|2016|pp=247, 251}} Except in the deportations from western and central Europe, people were typically deported to the camps in [[Holocaust trains|overcrowded cattle cars]]. As many as 150 people were forced into a single [[boxcar]]. Many died ''en route'', partly because of the low priority accorded to these transports.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|pp=286–287}}{{sfn|Kay|2021|p=204}} Shortage of rail transport sometimes led to postponement or cancellation of deportations.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=283}} Upon arrival, the victims were robbed of their remaining possessions, forced to undress, had their hair cut, and were chased into the gas chamber.{{sfn|Kay|2021|pp=204–205}} Death from the gas was agonizing and could take as long as 30 minutes.{{sfn|Longerich|2010|p=330}}{{sfn|Kay|2021|p=199}} The gas chambers were primitive and sometimes malfunctioned. Some prisoners were shot because the gas chambers were not functioning.{{sfn|Stone|2010|pp=153–154}} At other extermination camps, nearly everyone on a transport was killed on arrival, but at Auschwitz around 20–25 percent were separated out for labor,{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=199}} although many of these prisoners died later on{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=211}} through starvation, mass shooting, torture,<ref>{{cite book |last=Borkin |first=Joseph |url=https://archive.org/details/crimepunishmento0000bork |title=The Crime and Punishment of IG Farben |publisher=Free Press |year=1978 |isbn=978-0-02-904630-2 |location=New York City |url-access=registration}}</ref> and medical experiments.<ref name="Weindling von Villiez Loewenau Farron 2016 pp. 1–6">{{cite journal |last1=Weindling |first1=Paul |last2=von Villiez |first2=Anna |last3=Loewenau |first3=Aleksandra |last4=Farron |first4=Nichola |year=2016 |title=The victims of unethical human experiments and coerced research under National Socialism |journal=Endeavour |publisher=Elsevier BV |volume=40 |issue=1 |pages=1–6 |doi=10.1016/j.endeavour.2015.10.005 |issn=0160-9327 |pmc=4822534 |pmid=26749461}}</ref> |
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Homosexuals were also targets of the Holocaust, as homosexuality was deemed incompatible with [[Nazism]] because of their failure to reproduce the "[[master race]]." This was combined with [[homophobia]] and the belief among the Nazis that homosexuality could be contagious. |
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Belzec, [[Sobibor extermination camp|Sobibor]], and [[Treblinka extermination camp|Treblinka]] reported a combined revenue of RM 178.7 million from belongings stolen from their victims, far exceeding costs.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=273}}{{sfn|Kay|2021|p=209}} Combined, the camps required the labor of less than 3,000 Jewish prisoners, 1,000 [[Trawniki men]] (largely Ukrainian auxiliaries), and very few German guards.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=274}}{{sfn|Kay|2021|p=204}} About half of the Jews killed in the Holocaust died by poison gas.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=121}} Thousands of Romani people were also murdered in the extermination camps.{{sfn|Kay|2021|p=247}} Prisoner uprisings at [[Treblinka uprising|Treblinka]] and [[Sobibor uprising|Sobibor]] meant that these camps were shut down earlier than envisioned.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=111}}{{sfn|Kay|2021|p=208}} |
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Initially homosexuality was discreetly tolerated while officially shunned, and the early Nazi leadership included a number of known homosexuals. By 1936, however, homosexual members of the party had been purged and [[Heinrich Himmler]] led an effort to persecute homosexuals under existing and new anti-homosexual laws. |
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{| class="wikitable" style="float:center; margin-left:1.0em" |
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More than one million homosexual German men were targeted, of whom at least 100,000 were arrested and 50,000 were serving prison terms as convicted homosexual men. An additional unknown number were institutionalized in state-run mental hospitals. Hundreds of European homosexual men living under Nazi occupation were castrated under court order. The deaths of at least an estimated 15,000 homosexual men in concentration camps were officially documented, but it is difficult to put an exact number on just how many homosexual men perished in death camps. Some homosexual men were also used in medical experiments. According to Heinz Heger, in the concentration camps homosexual men "suffered a higher mortality rate than other relatively small victim groups, such as Jehovah's Witnesses and political prisoners."<ref>Heinz Heger, ''Men with the Pink Triangle,'' Alyson Publishing: 1994</ref>. Homosexual women were not normally treated as harshly as homosexual men. They were labeled "anti-social," but were rarely sent to camps for engaging in acts of homosexuality. |
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|+Major extermination camps{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=120}} |
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|- |
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!scope="col"| Camp |
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!scope="col"| Location |
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!scope="col"| Number of Jews killed |
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!scope="col"|Killing technology |
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!scope="col"| Planning began |
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!scope="col"| Mass gassing duration |
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|- |
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|scope="row"| [[Chełmno extermination camp|Chełmno]] |
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| [[Wartheland]]{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=120}} || 150,000{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=120}} || [[Gas vans]]{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=120}} || July 1941{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=120}} <!-- construction in November 1941{{sfn|Beorn|2018|p=209}} --> || 8 December 1941 – April 1943 and April–July 1944{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|pp=74, 120}} |
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|- |
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|scope="row"| [[Belzec extermination camp|Belzec]] |
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| [[Lublin District]]{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=120}} || 440,823–596,200{{sfn|Lehnstaedt|2021|p=63}} || Stationary [[gas chamber]], engine exhaust{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=120}} ||October 1941{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|pp=74, 120}} || 17 March 1942 – December 1942{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|pp=74, 120}} |
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|- |
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|scope="row"| [[Sobibor extermination camp|Sobibor]] |
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| [[Lublin District]]{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=120}} || 170,618–238,900{{sfn|Lehnstaedt|2021|p=63}} || Stationary [[gas chamber]], engine exhaust{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=120}} || Late 1941 or March 1942{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|pp=93–94, 120}} || May 1942 – October 1942{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|pp=93–94, 120}} |
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|- |
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|scope="row"| [[Treblinka extermination camp|Treblinka]] |
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| [[Warsaw District]]{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=120}} || 780,863–951,800{{sfn|Lehnstaedt|2021|p=63}} || Stationary [[gas chamber]], engine exhaust{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=120}} || April 1942{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=120}} <!-- construction in May<ref name=Treblinkadates>{{harvnb|Gerlach|2016|p=94}}; also see {{harvnb|Cesarani|2016|p=504}}.</ref> --> || 23 July 1942 – October 1943{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=120}} |
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|- |
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|scope="row"| [[Auschwitz II–Birkenau]] |
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| [[The Holocaust in East Upper Silesia|East Upper Silesia]]{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=120}} || 900,000–1,000,000{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=120}} || Stationary [[gas chamber]], [[Zyklon B|hydrogen cyanide]]{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=120}} || September 1941<br /><small>(built as POW camp)</small>{{sfn|Longerich|2010|pp=281–282}}{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=120}} || February 1942 – October 1944{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=120}} |
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|} |
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===Liquidation of the ghettos in Poland=== |
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===Religious groups=== |
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{{further|Operation Reinhard}} |
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{{main|Jehovah's Witnesses and the Holocaust}} |
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[[File:Cumulative murders at Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka from January 1942 to February 1943.jpg|thumb|alt=See caption|Cumulative murders of Jews from the [[General Governorate]] at [[Belzec]], [[Sobibor]], and [[Treblinka]] from January 1942 to February 1943]] |
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The Nazis also targeted some religious groups, though no religious group (outside of the Jews) was actually targeted for total extermination during the Holocaust. Around 1,200 [[Jehovah's Witnesses]] perished in concentration camps, where they were held for political and ideological reasons. Additionally, some members of the Catholic clergy were killed by the Nazis, many of whom were either of Jewish background, as in the case of [[Edith Stein]], or were killed as part of the Nazis campaign against the Polish intelligentsia. In the countries in which Roman Catholic [[bishop]]s had openly protested and attacked Nazi policies, like in the [[Netherlands]] and [[Poland]] where bishops and priests had protested to the deportations of [[Jews]], the clergy was either threatened with deportation themselves and kept in custody (case of German bishop [[Clemens von Galen]]), or directly deported to concentration camps, as in the cases of the Dutch [[Carmelite]] [[priest]] [[Titus Brandsma]] and Polish Fr. [[Maximillian Kolbe]]. Some dissenting Protestant clergy, such as those who founded the anti-Nazi [[Confessing Church]], were also persecuted. |
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<!-- [[File:Sosnowiec Ghetto liquidation.jpg|thumb|Liquidation of [[Sosnowiec Ghetto]] to [[Auschwitz concentration camp]], 1943]] --> |
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Plans to kill most of the Jews in the General Governorate were affected by various goals of the SS, military, and civil administration to reduce the amount of food consumed by Jews, enable a slight increase in rations to non-Jewish Poles, and combat the [[black market]].{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=91}} In March 1942, killings began in Belzec, targeting Jews from Lublin who were not capable of work. This action reportedly reduced the black market and was deemed a success to be replicated elsewhere.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=243}}{{sfn|Kay|2021|p=200}} By mid-1942, Nazi leaders decided to allow only 300,000 Jews to survive in the General Governorate by the end of the year for forced labor;{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=91}} for the most part, only those working in [[Military production during World War II|armaments production]] were spared.{{sfn|Longerich|2010|p=342}} The majority of ghettos were liquidated in mass executions nearby, especially if they were not near a train station. Larger ghettos were more commonly liquidated during multiple deportations to extermination camps.{{sfn|Beorn|2018|p=220}}{{sfn|Kay|2021|p=200}} During this campaign, 1.5 million [[Polish Jews]] were murdered in the largest killing operation of the Holocaust.{{sfn|Longerich|2010|p=340}} |
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In order to reduce resistance, the ghetto would be raided without warning, usually in the early morning, and the extent of the operation would be concealed as long as possible.{{sfn|Longerich|2010|p=339}} [[Trawniki men]] would cordon off the ghetto while the [[Order Police]] and [[Sicherheitsdienst|Security Police]] carried out the action.{{sfn|Longerich|2010|p=338}} In addition to local non-Jewish collaborators, the Jewish councils and [[Jewish ghetto police]] were often ordered to assist with liquidation actions, although these Jews were in most cases murdered later.{{sfn|Bartov|2023b|p=209}} Chaotic, capriciously executed selections determined who would be loaded onto the trains. Many Jews were shot during the action, often leaving ghettos strewn with corpses. Jewish forced laborers had to clean it up and collect any valuables from the victims.{{sfn|Longerich|2010|p=339}} |
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===Disabled people=== |
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[[File:Stroop Report - Warsaw Ghetto Uprising 06c.jpg|link=Warsaw Ghetto boy|alt=A young boy surrounded by other unarmed civilians holds his hands over his head while a man in uniform points a submachine gun in his direction|thumb|left|The [[Warsaw Ghetto uprising]] became significant as a symbol of [[Jewish resistance in German-occupied Europe|Jewish resistance against the Nazis]].{{sfn|Bartov|2023b|p=209}}]] |
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Several hundred thousand mentally and physically disabled people also were exterminated. The Nazis believed that the disabled were a burden to society because they needed to be cared for by others, but first and foremost, the mentally and physically handicapped were considered an affront to Nazi notions of a society peopled by a perfect, superhuman Aryan race. Around 400,000 individuals were [[compulsory sterilization|sterilized against their will]] for having mental deficiencies or illnesses deemed to be hereditary in nature. People with disabilities were among the first to be killed, and the United States Holocaust Memorial museum notes that the T-4 Program became the "model" for future exterminations by the Nazi regime.<ref>"[http://www.ushmm.org/outreach/euthan.htm Euthanasia Program]" from the US Holocaust Museum's Encyclopedia of the Holocaust</ref> The [[T-4 Euthanasia Program]] was established in 1939 in order to maintain the "purity" of the so-called [[Aryan race|Aryan]] race by systematically killing children and adults born with physical deformities or suffering from mental illness. |
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The Warsaw Ghetto [[Grossaktion Warsaw|was cleared]] between 22 July and 12 September. Of the original population of 350,000 Jews, 250,000 were killed at Treblinka, 11,000 were deported to labor camps, 10,000 were shot in the ghetto, 35,000 were allowed to remain in the ghetto after a final selection, and around 20,000 or 25,000 managed to hide in the ghetto. Misdirection efforts convinced many Jews that they could avoid deportation until it was too late.{{sfn|Longerich|2010|pp=335–336}} During a six-week period beginning in August, 300,000 Jews from the [[Radom District]] were sent to Treblinka.{{sfn|Kay|2021|p=203}}{{sfn|Longerich|2010|p=337}} |
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At the same time as the mass killing of Jews in the General Governorate, Jews who were in ghettos to the west and east were targeted. Tens of thousands of Jews were deported from ghettos in the Warthegau and East Upper Silesia to Chełmno and Auschwitz.{{sfn|Longerich|2010|p=343}} 300,000 Jews—largely skilled laborers—were shot in [[Volhynia]], [[Podolia]], and southwestern Belarus.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|pp=93, 249}}{{sfn|Longerich|2010|p=352}} Deportations and mass executions in the [[Bialystok District]] and Galicia killed many Jews.{{sfn|Longerich|2010|pp=338, 352–353}} Although there was practically no resistance in the General Governorate in 1942, some Soviet Jews improvised weapons, attacked those attempting to liquidate the ghetto, and set it on fire.{{sfn|Longerich|2010|pp=341, 353–354}} These [[ghetto uprisings]] were only undertaken when the inhabitants began to believe that their death was certain.{{sfn|Engel|2020|pp=241–242}} In 1943, larger uprisings in [[Warsaw Ghetto uprising|Warsaw]], [[Białystok Ghetto uprising|Białystok]], and [[Hlybokaye|Glubokoje]] necessitated the use of heavy weapons.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=110}} The uprising in Warsaw prompted the Nazi leadership to liquidate additional ghettos and labor camps in German-occupied Poland with their inhabitants massacred, such as the [[Wola massacre|Wola Massacre]], or deported to extermination camps for fear of additional Jewish resistance developing.{{sfn|Longerich|2010|pp=378–380}} Nevertheless, in early 1944, more than 70,000 Jews were performing forced labor in the General Governorate.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=214}} |
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===Others=== |
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[[Blacks|Black]] and [[Asian]] residents in Germany, and black prisoners of war, were also victims; often being singled out in internment camps. <ref>[http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005479 Blacks during the Holocaust] from the US Holocaust Museum's Encyclopedia of the Holocaust</ref> However, [[Japan]] was part of the Axis Pact with Germany, and no Japanese were known to be deliberately imprisoned or killed. |
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===Deportations from elsewhere=== |
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== Death toll == |
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[[File:Deportation of Jews from Würzburg to the Lublin district, 25 April 1942 (USHMM 46207).jpg|thumb|alt=A column of people marching with luggage|Jews are deported from [[Würzburg]], [[Nazi Germany|Germany]] to the [[Lublin District]] of the [[General Governorate]], 25 April 1942.]] |
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[[Image:Gen Eisenhower at death camp report.jpg|thumb|275px|right|General (later US President) [[Dwight Eisenhower]] inspecting prisoners' corpses at a liberated concentration camp, 1945]] |
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Unlike the killing areas in the east, the deportation from elsewhere in Europe was centrally organized from Berlin, although it depended on the outcome of negotiations with allied governments and popular responses to deportation.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=99}} Beginning in late 1941, local administrators responded to the deportation of Jews to their area by massacring local Jews in order to free up space in ghettos for the deportees.{{sfn|Longerich|2010|pp=299–300, 331}} If the deported Jews did not die of harsh conditions, they were killed later in extermination camps.{{sfn|Longerich|2010|p=321}} Jews deported to Auschwitz were initially entered into the camp; the practice of conducting selections and murdering many prisoners upon arrival began in July 1942.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=97}} In May and June, German and Slovak Jews deported to Lublin began to be sent directly to extermination camps.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=97}} |
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The exact number of people killed by the Nazi regime may never be known, but scholars, using a variety of methods of determining the death toll, have generally agreed upon common range of the number of victims. Recently declassified [[United Kingdom|British]] and [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] documents have indicated the total may be somewhat higher than previously believed<ref>Douglas Davis, "[http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/jpost/abstract/64152996.html?did=64152996&FMT=ABS&FMTS=FT&date=May+20%2C+1997&author=DOUGLAS+DAVIS&desc=7+million+died+in+Holocaust 7 million died in Holocaust]," ''Jerusalem Post'', May 20, 1997 (accessed June 8, 2005).</ref>. However, the following estimates are considered to be highly reliable. The estimates: |
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In Western Europe, almost all Jewish deaths occurred after deportation.{{sfn|Welch|2020|p=460}} The occupiers often relied on local policemen to arrest Jews, limiting the number who were deported.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|pp=375–376}} In 1942, nearly 100,000 Jews were deported [[The Holocaust in Belgium|from Belgium]], [[the Holocaust in France|France]], and [[The Holocaust in the Netherlands|the Netherlands]].{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|pp=96–97}} Only 25 percent of the Jews in France were killed;{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=366}} most of them were either non-citizens or recent immigrants. [[Si Kaddour Benghabrit]] and [[Abdelkader Mesli]] saved hundreds of Jews by hiding them in the basements of the [[Grand Mosque of Paris]] and other resistance efforts in France.<ref name="lep1">{{cite web |last1=De Bengy |first1=Raphael |title=Mohamed Mesli : « Mon père, l'imam sauveur de juifs » |url=https://www.leparisien.fr/week-end/mohamed-mesli-mon-pere-l-imam-sauveur-de-juifs-18-02-2015-4543709.php |website=leparisien.fr |access-date=26 May 2024 |language=fr-FR |date=18 February 2015}}</ref>{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|pp=95–96, 387}} The death rate in the Netherlands was higher than neighboring countries, which scholars have attributed to difficulty in hiding or increased collaboration of the Dutch police.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=257}} |
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* 5.1–6.0 million Jews, including 3.0–3.5 million Polish Jews<ref>"[http://www1.yadvashem.org/about_holocaust/faqs/answers/faq_3.html How many Jews were murdered in the Holocaust? How do we know? Do we have their names?]," Yad Vashem (accessed June 8, 2005). A detailed breakdown of various estimates of the victims is available from the [http://www1.ushmm.org/research/library/index.php?content=faq/index.php%23topic01-question02 Online Library of the United States Holocaust Museum] (accessed August 10, 2005)</ref> |
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* 1.8 –1.9 million non-Jewish Poles (includes all those killed in executions or those that died in prisons, labor, and concentration camps, as well as civilians killed in the 1939 invasion and the 1944 [[Warsaw Uprising]])<ref>[http://www.ushmm.org/education/resource/poles/poles.php?menu=/export/home/www/doc_root/education/foreducators/include/menu.txt&bgcolor=CD9544 Poles: Victims of the Nazi Era] at the US Holocaust Museum</ref> |
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* 200,000–800,000 Roma & Sinti |
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* 200,000–300,000 people with disabilities |
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* 80,000–200,000 Freemasons <ref>Freemasons for Dummies, by [http://members.aol.com/brlodge/whymasons.html Christopher Hodapp], Wiley Publishing Inc., Indianapolis, 2005, p.85, sec. ''Hitler and the Nazi''</ref> |
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* 100,000 communists |
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* 10,000–25,000 homosexual men |
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* 2,000 Jehovah's Witnesses |
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The German government sought the deportation of Jews from allied countries.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=97}}{{sfn|Longerich|2010|pp=324, 360}} The first to [[The Holocaust in Slovakia|hand over its Jewish population was Slovakia]], which [[List of Holocaust transports from Slovakia|arrested and deported about 58,000 Jews]] to Poland [[first mass transport of Jews to Auschwitz concentration camp|from March]] to October 1942.{{sfn|Stone|2010|pp=33–34}}{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|pp=373, 379}}{{sfn|Longerich|2010|pp=325–326}} The [[Independent State of Croatia]] had already [[The Holocaust in Croatia|shot or killed in concentration camps]] the majority of its Jewish population (along with a [[Genocide of Serbs in the Independent State of Croatia|larger number of Serbs]]),{{sfn|Stone|2010|p=35}}{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|pp=306, 368, 372}} and later deported several thousand Jews in 1942 and 1943.{{sfn|Longerich|2010|pp=366, 389}} Bulgaria deported 11,000 Jews from [[The Holocaust in Bulgarian-occupied Greece|Bulgarian-occupied Greece]] and [[The Holocaust in North Macedonia|Yugoslavia]], who were murdered at Treblinka, but [[The Holocaust in Bulgaria|declined to allow the deportation of Jews from its prewar territory]].{{sfn|Longerich|2010|p=392}} Romania and Hungary did not send any Jews, which were the largest surviving populations after 1942.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|pp=97, 102, 371–372}} Prior to the [[Italian Social Republic|German occupation of Italy]] in September 1943, there were no serious attempt to deport Italian Jews, and Italy refused to allow the deportation of Jews in many [[Italian-occupied Europe (disambiguation)|Italian-occupied areas]].{{sfn|Longerich|2010|p=396}}{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=387}} Nazi Germany did not attempt the destruction of the [[Finnish Jews]]{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=105}} and the [[Jews outside Europe under Axis occupation|North African Jews living under French or Italian rule]].{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|pp=115–116, 382}} |
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[[Raul Hilberg]], in the third edition of his ground-breaking three-volume work, ''[[The Destruction of the European Jews]]'', estimates that 5.1 million Jews died during the Holocaust. This figure includes "over 800,000" who died from "Ghettoization and general privation;" 1,400,000 who were killed in "Open-air shootings;" and "up to 2,900,000" who perished in camps. Hilberg estimates the death toll in Poland at "up to 3,000,000."<ref>Hilberg, Raul. The destruction of the European Jews (Yale Univ. Press, 2003, c1961).</ref> Hilberg's numbers are generally considered to be a conservative estimate, as they generally include only those deaths for which some records are available, avoiding statistical adjustment.<ref>Yisrael Gutman, Michael Berenbaum, Raul Hilberg, Franciszek Piper, Yehuda Baur, ''Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp'', Indiana University Press, 1998, p.71.</ref> British historian [[Martin Gilbert]] used a similar approach in his ''Atlas of the Holocaust,'' but arrived at a number of 5.75 million Jewish victims, since he estimated higher numbers of Jews killed in Russia and other locations.<ref>Gilbert, Martin, Atlas of the Holocaust, New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc, 1993.</ref> |
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==Perpetrators and beneficiaries== |
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[[Image:Coffinmap.jpg|thumb|275px|right|Map titled "Jewish Executions Carried Out by [[Einsatzgruppe]] A" from the December 1941 [[Einsatzgruppen#The Jäger Report|Jäger Report]] by the commander of a [[Einsatzgruppen|Nazi death squad]]. Marked "Secret Reich Matter," the map shows the number of Jews shot in the [[Baltic countries|Baltic region]], and reads at the bottom: ''"the estimated number of Jews still on hand is 128,000"''. [[Estonia]] is marked as ''[[judenfrei]]'' ("free of Jews").]] |
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{{further|Responsibility for the Holocaust}} |
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[[File:Photographie prise à Solahütte en juillet 1944 - collections USHMM - 34585A.jpg|thumb|alt=Men and women in uniform smiling and posing with musical instruments|Auschwitz [[Schutzstaffel|SS]] guards and female staff auxiliaries enjoying themselves on vacation in [[Solahütte]]]] |
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An estimated 200,000 to 250,000 Germans were directly involved in killing Jews, and if one includes all those involved in the organization of extermination, the number rises to 500,000.{{sfn|Kay|2021|p=2}} Genocide required the active and tacit consent of millions of Germans and non-Germans.{{sfn|Westermann|2020|p=117}}{{sfn|Burzlaff|2020|p=1055}} The motivation of [[Holocaust perpetrators]] varied and has led to historiographical debate.{{sfn|Westermann|2020|p=117}}{{sfn|Bloxham|2009|p=264}} Studies of the SS officials who organized the Holocaust have found that most had strong ideological commitment to Nazism.{{sfn|Westermann|2020|pp=124–125}}{{sfn|Bloxham|2009|p=265}} In addition to ideological factors, many perpetrators were motivated by the prospect of material gain and social advancement.{{sfn|Westermann|2020|p=121}}{{sfn|Bloxham|2009|p=269}}{{sfn|Bartov|2023b|p=213}} German SS, police, and regular army units rarely had trouble finding enough men to shoot Jewish civilians, even though punishment for refusal was absent or light.{{sfn|Bartov|2023b|p=211}}{{sfn|Bloxham|2009|p=280}} |
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Non-German perpetrators and collaborators included Dutch, French, and [[Blue Police|Polish policemen]], Romanian soldiers, [[Waffen-SS foreign volunteers and conscripts|foreign SS and police auxiliaries]], [[Ukrainian Insurgent Army]] partisans, and some civilians.{{sfn|Westermann|2020|p=117}}{{sfn|Beorn|2018|p=260}}{{sfn|Burzlaff|2020|pp=1064, 1066}} Some were coerced into committing violence against Jews, but others killed for entertainment, material rewards, the possibility of better treatment from the occupiers, or ideological motivations such as nationalism and anti-communism.{{sfn|Bloxham|2009|p=281}}{{sfn|Beorn|2018|pp=259, 264}}{{sfn|Burzlaff|2020|p=1067}} According to historian [[Christian Gerlach]], non-Germans "not under German command" caused 5 to 6 percent of the Jewish deaths, and their involvement was crucial in other ways.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=13}} |
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[[Lucy Davidowicz]] used pre-war census figures to estimate that 5.934 million Jews died. Using official census counts may cause an underestimate since many births and deaths were not recorded in small towns and villages. Another reason some consider her estimate too low is that many records were destroyed during the war. Her listing of deaths by country is available in the article about her book, ''[[The War Against the Jews]]''.<ref>Lucy Dawidowicz, The War Against The Jews, 1933-1945, New York : Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1975 ISBN 003013661X</ref> |
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Millions of Germans and others benefited from the genocide.{{sfn|Westermann|2020|p=117}} Corruption was rampant in the SS despite the proceeds of the Holocaust being designated as state property.{{sfn|Wachsmann|2015|pp=340, 376–377}} Different German state agencies vied to receive property stolen from Jews murdered at the death camps.{{sfn|Wachsmann|2015|p=379}} Many workers were able to obtain better jobs vacated by murdered Jews.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=340}} Businessmen benefitted from eliminating their Jewish competitors or taking over Jewish-owned businesses.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=450}} Others took over housing and possessions that had belonged to Jews.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=349}} Some Poles living near the extermination camps later dug up human remains in search of valuables.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=349}}{{sfn|Beorn|2020|p=166}} The property of deported Jews was also appropriated by Germany's allies and collaborating governments. Even [[puppet state]]s such as [[Vichy France]] and [[Quisling government|Norway]] were able to successfully lay claim to Jewish property.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|pp=334–335}} In the decades after the war, Swiss banks [[World Jewish Congress lawsuit against Swiss banks|became notorious]] for harboring gold deposited by Nazis who had stolen it during the Holocaust, as well as profiting from unclaimed deposits made by Holocaust victims.{{sfn|Messenger|2020|p=383}} |
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One of the most authoritative German scholars of the Holocaust, Prof. Wolfgang Benz of the Technical University of Berlin, cites between 5.3 and 6.2 million Jews killed in ''Dimension des Volksmords'' (1991), while Yisrael Gutman and Robert Rozett estimate between 5.59 and 5.86 million Jewish victims in their ''Encyclopedia of the Holocaust'' (1990).<ref>Wolfgang Benz in Dimension des Volksmords: Die Zahl der Judischen Opfer des Nationalsocialismus (Munich: Deutscher Taschebuch Verlag, 1991). Israel Gutman, ''Encyclopedia of the Holocaust,'' MacMillan Reference Books; Reference edition (October 1, 1995)</ref> |
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==Forced labor== |
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The following groups of people were also killed by the Nazi regime, but there is little evidence that the Nazis planned to systematically target them for genocide as was the case for the groups above. |
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{{further|Forced labor in Nazi Germany}} |
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[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 101I-138-1084-19, Russland, Mogilew, Zwangsarbeit von Juden.jpg|thumb|alt=People collecting refuse in a wagon|Jews of [[Mogilev]], Belarus, forced to clean a street, July 1941]] |
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[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 146-2007-0074, IG-Farbenwerke Auschwitz.jpg|thumb|alt=See caption|Woman with {{lang|de|[[Ostarbeiter]]}} badge at work at [[IG-Farben]]werke in Auschwitz]] |
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Beginning in 1938—especially in Germany and its annexed territories—many Jews were drafted into [[Zwangsarbeitslager für Juden|forced-labor camps]] and segregated work details. These camps were often of a temporary nature and typically overseen by civilian authorities. Initially, mortality did not increase dramatically.{{sfn|Dean|2020|pp=265, 267}}{{sfn|Spoerer|2020|pp=141–143}} After mid-1941, conditions for Jewish forced laborers drastically worsened and death rates increased; even [[Private sector participation in Nazi crimes|private companies]] deliberately subjected workers to murderous conditions.{{sfn|Spoerer|2020|pp=142–143}} Beginning in 1941 and increasingly as time went on, Jews capable of employment were separated from others—who were usually killed.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|pp=196–197}}{{sfn|Spoerer|2020|p=142}} They were typically employed in non-skilled jobs and could be replaced easily if non-Jewish workers were available, but those in skilled positions had a higher chance of survival.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=207}}{{sfn|Spoerer|2020|p=143}} Although conditions varied widely between camps, Jewish forced laborers were typically treated worse than non-Jewish prisoners and suffered much higher mortality rates.{{sfn|Dean|2020|p=270}} |
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* 3.5–6 million other Slavic civilians |
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* 2.5–4 million Soviet [[Prisoner of war|POWs]] |
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* 1–1.5 million political dissidents |
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In mid-1943, Himmler sought to bring surviving Jewish forced laborers under the control of the SS in the concentration camp system.{{sfn|Longerich|2010|pp=379, 383}}{{sfn|Dean|2020|pp=271–272}}{{efn|The [[Nazi concentration camp]] system administered by the [[SS Main Economic and Administrative Office]] (SS-WVHA){{sfn|Wachsmann|2015|p=290}} was [[Types of Nazi camps|administratively separate]] from other forced-labor camps{{sfn|Wachsmann|2015|p=456}}{{sfn|Dean|2020|p=274}} and from the single-purpose extermination camps.{{sfn|Wachsmann|2015|p=293}}}} Some of the forced-labor camps for Jews and some ghettos, such as Kovno, were designated concentration camps, while others were dissolved and surviving prisoners sent to a concentration camp.{{sfn|Dean|2020|pp=265, 272}} Despite many deaths, as many as 200,000 Jews survived the war inside the concentration camps.{{sfn|Dean|2020|p=265}} Although most Holocaust victims were never imprisoned in a concentration camp, the image of these camps is a popular symbol of the Holocaust.{{sfn|Dean|2020|pp=264–265}} |
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Additionally, the Nazis' allies, the [[Ustaša]] regime in [[Croatia]] conducted its own campaign of mass extermination against the [[Serbs]] in the areas which it controlled, resulting in the deaths of at least 330,000–390,000 Serbs. |
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Including the Soviet prisoners of war, 13 million people were brought to Germany for forced labor.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=194}} The largest nationalities were Soviet and Polish{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=187}} and they were the worst-treated groups except for Roma and Jews.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=189}} Soviet and Polish forced laborers endured inadequate food and medical treatment, long hours, and abuse by employers. Hundreds of thousands died.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|pp=189–190}} Many others were forced to work for the occupiers without leaving their country of residence.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=195}} Some of Germany's allies, including Slovakia and Hungary, agreed to deport Jews to protect non-Jews from German demands for forced labor.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|pp=392–393}} East European women were also kidnapped, via ''[[Łapanka|lapanka]]'', to serve as sex slaves of German soldiers in [[German military brothels in World War II|military]] and [[German camp brothels in World War II|camp brothels]]<ref name="Herbermann">{{cite book |author1=Nanda Herbermann |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3JM3AdnmE18C&q=%22it+is+impossible+to+speak+of+free+will+when+considering+the+circumstances%22&pg=PA34 |title=The Blessed Abyss |author2=Hester Baer |author3=Elizabeth Roberts Baer |publisher=[[Wayne State University]] Press |year=2000 |isbn=0-8143-2920-9 |location=Detroit |pages=33–34 |format=[[Google Books]] |access-date=January 12, 2011}} </ref><ref name="Lenten">{{cite book |last=Lenten |first=Ronit |title=Israel and the Daughters of the Shoah: Reoccupying the Territories of Silence |publisher=Berghahn Books |year=2000 |isbn=1-57181-775-1 |pages=33–34}}.</ref><ref name="polityka">{{cite news |last1=Ostrowska |first1=Joanna |last2=Zaremba |first2=Marcin |date=May 30, 2009 |title=Do burdelu, marsz! |language=pl |trans-title=To the brothel, march! |volume=22 |page= |pages=70–72 |work=[[Polityka]] |number=2707 |url=https://www.polityka.pl/archiwumpolityki/1912104,1,do-burdelu-marsz.read |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101205003034/http://archiwum.polityka.pl/art/do-burdelu-marsz,424445.html |archive-date=2010-12-05}}</ref> despite the prohibition of relationships, including fraternization, between German and foreign workers,<ref>{{cite web |title='Sonderbehandlung erfolgt durch Strang' |trans-title=Special treatment is done by train |url=https://www.ns-archiv.de/imt/ps3001-ps3200/3040-ps.php |work=ns-archiv.de}}</ref><ref name="hertzstein2">{{cite book |last=Hertzstein |first=Robert Edwin |title=The War That Hitler Won: The Most Infamous Propaganda Campaign in History |year=1978 |publisher=Putnam |isbn=9780399118456}}</ref> which imposed the penalty of imprisonment<ref name="hertzstein2"/> and death.<ref>Robert Gellately, ''Backing Hitler: Consent and Coercion in Nazi Germany'', p. 155</ref><ref name="Majer2">Majer, ''"Non-Germans" Under the Third Reich'', p. 369</ref> |
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The summary of various sources' estimates on the number of Nazi regime victims is given in Matthew White's online [http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat1.htm#Hitler atlas of 20th century history]. |
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==Escape and hiding== |
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===Searching for records of victims=== |
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[[File:Stroop Report - Warsaw Ghetto Uprising - 26559.jpg|thumb|alt=A bunker with a bed and other supplies|A bunker where Jews attempted to hide during the [[Warsaw Ghetto uprising]]]] |
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Initially after [[World War II]], there were millions of members of families broken up by the war or the Holocaust searching for some record of the fate and/or whereabouts of their missing friends and relatives. These efforts became much less intense as the years went by. More recently, however, there has a been a resurgence of interest by descendants of Holocaust survivors in researching the fates of their lost relatives. [[Yad Vashem]] provides a searchable database of three million names, about half of the known direct Jewish victims. Yad Vashem's ''Central Database of Shoah Victims Names'' is searchable over the Internet at [http://www.yadvashem.org yadvashem.org] or in person at the Yad Vashem complex in [[Israel]]. |
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{{further|Rescue of Jews during the Holocaust}} |
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Gerlach estimates that 200,000 Jews survived in hiding across Europe.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=117}} [[Knowledge of the Holocaust in Nazi Germany and German-occupied Europe|Knowledge of German intentions]] was essential to take action, but many struggled to believe the news.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|pp=424–425}} Many attempted to jump from trains or flee ghettos and camps, but successfully escaping and living in hiding was extremely difficult and often unsuccessful.{{sfn|Beorn|2018|p=236}}{{sfn|Burzlaff|2020|p=1064}}{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=413}} |
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Other databases and lists of victims' names, some searchable over the Web, are listed in [[Holocaust (resources)#External links|Holocaust (resources)]]. |
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The support, or at least absence of active opposition, of the local population was essential but often lacking in Eastern Europe.{{sfn|Beorn|2018|pp=236–237}} Those in hiding depended on the assistance of non-Jews.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=419}} Having money,{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=420}} social connections with non-Jews, a non-Jewish appearance, perfect command of the local language, determination, and luck played a major role in determining survival.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=423}} Jews in hiding were hunted down with the assistance of local collaborators and rewards offered for their denunciation.{{sfn|Longerich|2010|p=382}}{{sfn|Beorn|2018|p=260}}{{sfn|Burzlaff|2020|p=1066}} The death penalty was sometimes enforced on people hiding them, especially in eastern Europe.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=360}}{{sfn|Bartov|2023b|p=206}}{{sfn|Beorn|2018|p=269}} Rescuers' motivations varied on a spectrum from altruism to expecting sex or material gain; it was not uncommon for helpers to betray or murder Jews if their money ran out.{{sfn|Beorn|2018|pp=269–270}}{{sfn|Bartov|2023b|p=206}}{{sfn|Burzlaff|2020|pp=1065, 1075}} Gerlach argues that hundreds of thousands of Jews may have died because of rumors or denunciations, and many others never attempted to escape because of a belief it was hopeless.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=417}} |
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==Execution of the Holocaust== |
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===Concentration and Labor Camps (1933-1945)=== |
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{{main articles|[[Nazi concentration camps]] and [[Nazi concentration camp badges]]}} |
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[[Jewish resistance in German-occupied Europe|Jews participated]] in [[Resistance in World War II|resistance movements]] in most European countries, and often were overrepresented.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=290}} Jews were not always welcome, particularly in nationalist resistance groups—some of which killed Jews.{{sfn|Cesarani|2016|p=648}}{{sfn|Beorn|2018|p=242}} Particularly in Belarus, with its favorable geography of dense forests, many Jews joined the [[Soviet partisans]]—an estimated 20,000 to 25,000 across the Soviet Union.{{sfn|Beorn|2018|pp=237, 242–243}} An additional 10,000 to 13,000 Jewish non-combatants lived in [[Jewish partisan|family camps]] in Eastern European forests, of which the most well known was the [[Bielski partisans]].{{sfn|Beorn|2018|p=243}}{{sfn|Burzlaff|2020|p=1074}} |
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[[Image:MajorConcentrationCamps.gif|thumb|300px|right|Major [[concentration camps]] in Europe, 1944.]] |
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Starting in 1933, the Nazis set up concentration camps within Germany, many of which were established by local authorities, to hold political prisoners and "undesirables". These early concentration camps were eventually consolidated into centrally run camps, and by 1939, six large concentration camps, located in Poland, had been established. After 1939, with the beginning of the Second World War, the concentration camps increasingly became places where the enemies of the Nazis, including Jews and POWs, were either killed or forced to act as slave laborers, and kept undernourished and tortured. |
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==International reactions== |
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During the War, concentration camps for Jews and other "undesirables" were spread throughout Europe, with new camps being created near centers of dense "undesirable" populations, often focusing on areas with large Jewish, Polish intelligentsia, communist, or Roma populations. Most of the camps were located in the area of [[General Government]] in Poland, but there were camps in every country occupied by the Nazis. The transportation of prisoners was often carried out under horrifying conditions using rail freight cars, in which many died before they reached their destination. Concentration camps also existed in Germany itself, and while not specifically designed for systematic extermination, many concentration camp prisoners died because of harsh conditions or were executed. |
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{{main|International response to the Holocaust}} |
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The Nazi leaders knew that their actions would bring international condemnation.{{sfn|Evans|2019|p=140}} On 26 June 1942, [[BBC World Service|BBC services]] in all languages publicized [[1942 Bund report|a report]] by the [[General Jewish Labour Bund in Poland|Jewish Social-Democratic Bund]] and other resistance groups and transmitted by the [[Polish government-in-exile]], documenting the killing of 700,000 Jews in Poland. In December 1942, [[Allies of World War II|the Allies]], then known as the United Nations, adopted a [[Joint Declaration by Members of the United Nations|joint declaration]] condemning the systematic murder of Jews.{{sfn|Láníček|2012|pp=74–75, 81}} Most neutral countries in Europe maintained a pro-German foreign policy during the war. Nevertheless, some Jews were able to escape to neutral countries, whose policies ranged from rescue to non-action.{{sfn|Messenger|2020|p=393}} |
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===Pogroms (1938-1941)=== |
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Many scholars date the beginning of the Holocaust itself to the anti-Jewish riots of the Night of Broken Glass ("[[Kristallnacht]]") of November 9, 1938, in which Jews were attacked and Jewish property was vandalized across Germany. Approximately 100 Jews were killed, and another 30,000 sent to concentration camps, while over 7,000 Jewish shops and 1,574 [[synagogues]] (almost every synagogue in Germany) were damaged or destroyed. Similar events took place in Vienna at the same time. |
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During the war the [[American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee]] (JDC) raised $70 million and in the years after the war it raised $300 million. This money was spent aiding emigrants and providing direct relief in the form of parcels and other assistance to Jews living under German occupation, and after the war to [[Holocaust survivors]]. The United States banned sending relief into German-occupied Europe after entering the war, but the JDC continued to do so. From 1939 to 1944, 81,000 European Jews emigrated with the JDC's assistance.<ref>{{cite web |title=American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and Refugee Aid |url=https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/american-jewish-joint-distribution-committee-and-refugee-aid |website=[[United States Holocaust Memorial Museum]] |access-date=28 April 2023 |language=en}}</ref> |
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A number of deadly [[pogrom]]s by local, non-German populations occurred during the Second World War, some with German encouragement, and some spontaneously, such as the [[Iaşi pogrom]] in Romania on June 30, 1941 in which as many 14,000 Jews were killed by Romanian residents and police and the [[Jedwabne massacre|Jedwabne pogrom]] in which between 380 and 1,600 Jews were killed by their Polish neighbors. |
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Throughout the war, no detailed photo intelligence study was carried out on any of the major concentration or extermination camps.{{sfn|Neufeld|Berenbaum|2000|p=55}} Appeals from Jewish representatives to the American and British governments to bomb rail lines leading to the camps or crematoriums was rejected, with little to no input from the War Departments of the United States or United Kingdom.{{sfn|Neufeld|Berenbaum|2000|p=61}} However, debate exists on whether a military response would have impacted on the Holocaust.{{sfn|Neufeld|Berenbaum|2000|p=2}} |
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===Euthanasia (1939-1941)=== |
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{{main|T-4 Euthanasia Program}} |
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==Second half of the war== |
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The [[T-4 Euthanasia Program]] was established to "maintain the genetic purity" of the German population by systematically killing citizens who were physically [[deformity|deformed]], [[disabled]], handicapped, or suffering from [[mental illness]]. Between 1939 and 1941, over 200,000 people were killed. |
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===Continuing killings=== |
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[[File:Selection on the ramp at Auschwitz II-Birkenau, 1944 (Auschwitz Album) 3a.jpg|thumb|alt=see caption|Jews from [[Carpathian Ruthenia]], annexed by Hungary in 1938,{{sfn|Longerich|2010|p=408}} on the selection ramp at [[Auschwitz II]] in May or June 1944. Men are lined up to the right, women and children to the left. About 25 percent were selected for work and the rest gassed.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=199}}]] |
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After German military defeats in 1943, it became increasingly evident that Germany would lose the war.{{sfn|Bergen|2016|p=266}}{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=196}} In early 1943, 45,000 Jews [[The Holocaust in Greece#Salonica (March–August 1943)|were deported]] from [[Occupation of Greece|German-occupied northern Greece]], primarily [[History of the Jews in Thessaloniki|Salonica]], to Auschwitz, where nearly all were killed.{{sfn|Longerich|2010|p=391}} After [[Armistice of Cassibile|Italy switched sides]] in late 1943, Germany deported several thousand Jews from Italy and the former Italian occupation zones of France, Yugoslavia, Albania, and [[The Holocaust in Greece#Passover roundup (March 1944)|Greece]], with limited success.{{sfn|Longerich|2010|pp=402–403}}{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=113}} Attempts to continue deportations in Western Europe after 1942 often failed because of Jews going into hiding and the increasing recalcitrance of local authorities.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=102}} [[Rescue of the Danish Jews|Most Danish Jews escaped to Sweden]] with the help of the [[Danish resistance]] in the face of a half-hearted German deportation effort in late 1943.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=302}} Additional killings in 1943 and 1944 eliminated all remaining ghettos and most surviving Jews in Eastern Europe.{{sfn|Beorn|2018|p=128}} Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka were shut down and [[Sonderaktion 1005|destroyed]].{{sfn|Longerich|2010|pp=410–412}}{{sfn|Beorn|2018|p=221}} |
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===Ghettos (1940-1945)=== |
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{{main articles|[[Ghetto]], [[Warsaw Ghetto]] and [[Wilna Ghetto]]}} |
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The largest murder action after 1942 was that against the Hungarian Jews.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=103}} After the [[German invasion of Hungary (1944)|German invasion of Hungary]] in 1944, the Hungarian government cooperated closely in the [[The Holocaust in Hungary|deportation of 437,000 Jews in eight weeks]], mostly to Auschwitz.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|pp=114, 368}}{{sfn|Longerich|2010|p=408}}{{sfn|Beorn|2018|p=193}} The expropriation of Jewish property was useful to achieve Hungarian economic goals and sending the Jews as forced laborers avoided the need to send non-Jewish Hungarians.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=114}} Those who survived the selection were forced to provide construction and manufacturing labor as part of [[Jägerstab|a last-ditch effort]] to increase the production of [[fighter aircraft]].{{sfn|Spoerer|2020|p=142}}{{sfn|Wachsmann|2015|p=457}} Although the Nazis' goal of eliminating any Jewish population from Germany had largely been achieved in 1943, it was reversed in 1944 as a result of the importation of these Jews for labor.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=188}} |
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[[Image:Childwarsawghetto.jpg|thumb|150px|right|A child dying in the streets of the crowded [[Warsaw Ghetto]], where hunger and disease were endemic.]] |
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After the invasion of Poland, the Nazis created [[ghetto]]s to which Jews (and some Roma) were confined, until they were eventually shipped to death camps and killed. The [[Warsaw Ghetto]] was the largest, with 380,000 people and the [[Łódź Ghetto]], the second largest, holding about 160,000, but ghettos were instituted in many cities ([http://www.deathcamps.org/occupation/ghettolist.htm list]). The ghettos were established throughout 1940 and 1941, and were immediately turned into immensely crowded prisons; though the Warsaw Ghetto contained 30% of the population of [[Warsaw]], it occupied only about 2.4% of city's area, averaging 9.2 people per room. From 1940 through 1942, disease (especially [[typhoid fever]]) and starvation killed hundreds of thousands of Jews confined in the ghettos. |
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===Death marches and liberation=== |
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On [[July 19]], 1942, [[Heinrich Himmler]] ordered the start of the deportations of Jews from the ghettos to the death camps. On [[July 22]], [[1942]], the deportations from the Warsaw Ghetto inhabitants began; in the next 52 days (until [[September 12]], [[1942]]) about 300,000 people were transported by train to the [[Treblinka extermination camp]] from Warsaw alone. Many other ghettos were completely depopulated. Though there were armed resistance attempts in the ghettos in 1943, such as the [[Warsaw Ghetto Uprising]] and the [[Białystok Ghetto Uprising]], but in every case they failed against the Nazi military, and the remaining Jews were either slaughtered or sent to the extermination camps. |
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[[File:Mass Grave at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp - Fritz Klein - IWM BU4260.jpg|thumb|alt=see caption|A mass grave at [[Bergen-Belsen]] after the camp's liberation, April 1945]] |
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Following Allied advances, the SS deported concentration camp prisoners to camps in Germany and Austria, starting in mid-1944 from the Baltics.{{sfn|Longerich|2010|pp=414–418}} Weak and sick prisoners were often killed in the camp and others were forced to travel by rail or on foot, usually with no or inadequate food.{{sfn|Longerich|2010|p=414}}{{sfn|Kay|2021|p=234}} Those who could not keep up were shot.{{sfn|Longerich|2010|p=415}} The evacuations were ordered partly to retain the prisoners as forced labor and partly to avoid allowing any prisoners to fall into enemy hands.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=116}}{{sfn|Kay|2021|p=234}} In October and November 1944, 90,000 Jews were deported from Budapest to the Austrian border.{{sfn|Longerich|2010|pp=409–410}}{{sfn|Dean|2020|p=272}} The transfer of prisoners from Auschwitz began in mid-1944, the gas chambers were shut down and destroyed after October, and in January most of the remaining 67,000 Auschwitz prisoners were sent on a death march westwards.{{sfn|Longerich|2010|p=415}}{{sfn|Kay|2021|p=233}} |
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===Death squads (1941-1943)=== |
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{{main|Einsatzgruppen}} |
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In January 1945, more than 700,000 people were imprisoned in the concentration camp system, of whom as many as a third died before the end of the war.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=117}} At this time, most concentration camp prisoners were Soviet and Polish civilians, either arrested for real or supposed resistance or for attempting to escape forced labor.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=117}} The death marches led to the breakdown of supplies for the camps that continued to exist, causing additional deaths.{{sfn|Longerich|2010|p=414}} Although there was no systematic killing of Jews during the death marches,{{sfn|Kay|2021|p=235}} around 70,000 to 100,000 Jews died in the last months of the war.{{sfn|Longerich|2010|p=418}} Many of the death march survivors ended up in other concentration camps that were liberated in 1945 during the [[Western Allied invasion of Germany]]. The liberators found piles of corpses that they had to bulldoze into mass graves.{{sfn|Stone|2020|p=69}}{{sfn|Priemel|2020|p=178}}{{sfn|Bartov|2023b|p=215}} Some survivors were freed there{{sfn|Bartov|2023b|p=215}} and others had been liberated by the Red Army during its march westwards.{{sfn|Bartov|2023b|p=214}} |
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[[Image:Einsatz1.jpg|thumb|250px|right|The 1941 massacre at [[Babi Yar]] was similar to many other mass killings of Jews. Over 33,000 Jews were shot in the course of two days by Nazi [[Einsatzgruppen]] and local Ukrainian forces.]] |
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As many as 1.6 million Jews were killed in open-air shootings by Nazis and their collaborators, especially in 1941 before the establishment of the concentration camps. During the invasion of the [[Soviet Union]], over 3,000 special killing units (organized into the four ''[[Einsatzgruppen]]'') followed the [[Wehrmacht]], conducting mass killings of Poles, Communist officials, and the Jewish population that lived in Soviet territory. |
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==Death toll== |
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Poles were an early target in the [[Außerordentliche Befriedungsaktion|AB Action]], in which 30,000 Polish intellectual and political figures were rounded up, and 7,000 eventually killed. By the summer of 1941, the Einsatzgruppen turned to targeting Jews, starting with the extermination of 2,200 Jews in [[Bialystock]] on June 21, 1941, and quickly increased in scale. 1,500 Jews were killed in [[Kaunas]] on June 26 by the German SS forces. 4,000 Jews killed in [[Lviv]] on June 30-July 3, 1941 by Ukrainian collaborators. From September to the end of 1941, a series of mass killings took place throughout Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine, and Latvia: over 33,000 Jews were killed at [[Babi Yar]], 25,000 at [[Rumbula]] by Latvian [[Non-German cooperation with nazis during World War 2|collaborators]] (Arajs Commando), over 36,000 at [[Odessa Massacre|Odessa]] by Romanian forces, 19,000 at the [[Ninth Fort]] of Kaunas and 40,000 (up to 100,000 by 1944) at [[Paneriai]] by the German SS forces[http://www.holocaustrevealed.org/_domain/holocaustrevealed.org/lithuania/lithuanian_history.htm]. These, and similar slaughters throughout Europe, killed around 100,000 Jews per month for five months. By the end of 1943, another 900,000 Jews would be killed in this manner, but the pace was not fast enough for the Nazi leadership, who, at the end of 1941 and the beginning of 1942, began the implementation of the [[Final Solution]], the complete extermination of the Jews of Europe. |
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{{main|Holocaust victims}} |
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[[File:Holocaust death rate.svg|thumb|Holocaust deaths as an approximate percentage of the 1939 Jewish population: |
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Around six million Jews were killed.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Landau |first=Ronnie S. |url=https://archive.org/details/the-nazi-holocaust-its-history-and-meaning-9780755624225-9780857728432_compress |title=The Nazi Holocaust: Its History and Meaning |publisher=I.B. Tauris |year=2016 |isbn=978-0-85772-843-2 |edition=3rd |pages=3, 124, 126, 265–266 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Benz |first=Wolfgang |author-link=Wolfgang Benz |url=https://archive.org/details/9783406811081 |title=Der Holocaust |publisher=[[C. H. Beck]] |year=2023 |isbn=978-3-406-80881-4 |edition=10th |location=Munich, Germany |pages=14, 111–112 |language=de}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Herf |first=Jeffrey C. |author-link=Jeffrey Herf |url=https://archive.org/details/the-routledge-history-of-antisemitism-1138369446-9781138369443_compress |title=The Routledge History of Antisemitism |publisher=[[Routledge]] |year=2024 |isbn=978-1-138-36944-3 |editor-last=Weitzman |editor-first=Mark |edition=1st |location=Abingdon and New York |pages=278 |language=en |chapter=The Long Term and the Short Term: Antisemitism and the Holocaust |doi=10.4324/9780429428616 |editor-last2=Williams |editor-first2=Robert J. |editor-last3=Wald |editor-first3=James}}</ref> Of the six million victims, most of those killed were from Eastern Europe, and with half from Poland alone.{{sfn|Beorn|2018|p=1}}{{sfn|Bergen|2016|p=155}} Around 1.3 million Jews who had once lived under Nazi rule or in one of Germany's allies survived the war.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=404}} One-third of the Jewish population worldwide, and two-thirds of European Jews, had been wiped out.<ref>{{cite web |title=Jewish Population of Europe in 1945 |url=https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/remaining-jewish-population-of-europe-in-1945 |website=[[United States Holocaust Memorial Museum]] |access-date=10 May 2023 |language=en}}</ref> Death rates varied widely due to a variety of factors and approached 100 percent in some areas.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=407}} Some reasons why survival chances varied was the availability of emigration{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|pp=407–408}} and protection from Germany's allies—which saved around 600,000 Jews.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|pp=118, 409–410}} [[Children in the Holocaust|Jewish children]] and the elderly faced even lower survival rates than adults.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|pp=428–429}} It is considered to be the single largest genocide in human history.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Rosenberg |first=Alan |date=1979 |title=The Genocidal Universe: A Framework for Understanding the Holocaust |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41442658 |journal=European Judaism: A Journal for the New Europe |volume=13 |issue=1 |pages=29–34 |jstor=41442658 |issn=0014-3006}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Richie |first=Alexandra |date=2024-01-27 |title=The Origins of International Holocaust Remembrance Day |url=https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/origins-international-holocaust-remembrance-day |access-date=2024-04-11 |website=The National WWII Museum {{!}} New Orleans |language=en}}</ref> |
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The deadliest phase of the Holocaust was [[Operation Reinhard]], which was marked by the introduction of extermination camps. Roughly two million Jews were killed from March 1942 to November 1943. Around 1.47 million Jews were murdered in just 100 days from late July to early November 1942, a rate approximately 83% higher than the commonly suggested figure for the [[Rwandan genocide]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Stone |first=Lewi |date=2019 |title=Quantifying the Holocaust: Hyperintense kill rates during the Nazi genocide |journal=Science Advances |volume=5 |issue=1|pages=eaau7292 |doi=10.1126/sciadv.aau7292 |pmid=30613773 |pmc=6314819 |bibcode=2019SciA....5.7292S }}</ref> Between July to October 1942, two million Jews were murdered, including Operation Reinhard and other killings, with over three million Jews killed in 1942 alone, as stated by historian [[Christian Gerlach]].{{Sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=100}} On the other hand, historian [[Alex J. Kay]] states that over two million Jews were murdered from late July to mid-November, stating that "these three-and-a-half months were the most intense, the deadliest of the entire Holocaust".{{sfn|Kay|2021|p=207}} It was the fastest rate of genocidal killing in history.{{sfn|Stone|2023|p=191}} |
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=== Extermination camps (1942-1945) === |
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{{main|Nazi extermination camp}} |
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[[Image:Holocaust-gas-hair.jpg|thumb|250px|left|Empty poison gas canisters and piles of hair shaved from the victims of Auschwitz-Birkenau.]] |
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On 3 November 1943, around 18,400 Jews were murdered at [[Majdanek concentration camp|Majdanek]] over the course of nine hours, in what was the largest number ever killed in a death camp on a single day.{{sfn|Stone|2023|p=210}} It was part of [[Operation Harvest Festival]], the murder of some 43,000 Jews, the single largest massacre of Jews by German forces, occurring from 3 to 4 November 1943.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Aktion "Erntefest" (Operation "Harvest Festival") |url=https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/aktion-erntefest-operation-harvest-festival |access-date=2024-04-12 |website=encyclopedia.ushmm.org |language=en}}</ref> |
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In December, 1941, the Nazis opened [[Chelmno extermination camp|Chelmno]], the first of what would soon be seven [[extermination camps]], dedicated entirely to mass extermination on an industrial scale, as opposed to the labor or concentration camps. Over three million Jews would die in these extermination camps. |
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The method of killing at these camps was by poison gas ([[Zyklon B]]), usually in "[[gas chambers]]", although many prisoners were killed in mass shootings and by other means. The bodies of those killed were destroyed in [[crematoriums|crematoria]] (except at [[Sobibór extermination camp|Sobibór]] where they were cremated on outdoor pyres), and the ashes buried or scattered. |
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Separate Nazi persecutions killed a similar or larger number of non-Jewish civilians and POWs; estimated by Gerlach at 6 to 8 million, at more than 10 million by [[Martin Gilbert|Gilbert]]<ref>{{cite book |author1=Martin Gilbert |author1-link=Martin Gilbert |title=The Holocaust: The Human Tragedy |date=2014 |publisher=Rosetta Books |isbn=978-0-7953-3719-2 |chapter=Epilogue - "I will tell the world" |quote=As well as the six million Jews who were murdered, more than ten million other non-combatants were killed by the Nazis.}}</ref> and at over 11 million by the [[United States Holocaust Memorial Museum]].<ref>[[United States Holocaust Memorial Museum]]: [https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/documenting-numbers-of-victims-of-the-holocaust-and-nazi-persecution Documenting numbers of victims of the Holocaust and Nazi persecution]; [https://books.google.com/books?id=nzJAXkfozW8C&pg=PT67 Niewyk & Nicosia 2000] give a total of 17 million (including more than 5 million Jews).</ref> In some countries, such as Hungary, Jews were a majority of civilian deaths; in Poland, they were either a majority{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=3}} or about half.{{sfn|Bergen|2016|p=155}} In other countries such as the Soviet Union, France, Greece, and Yugoslavia, non-Jewish civilian losses outnumbered Jewish deaths.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=3}} |
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In 1942, the Nazis began this most destructive phase of the Holocaust, with [[Aktion Reinhard]], opening the extermination camps of [[Belzec]], Sobibór, and [[Treblinka]]. More than 1.7 million Jews were killed at the three Aktion Reinhard camps by October 1943. The largest death camp built was [[Auschwitz concentration camp|Auschwitz-Birkenau]], which had both a labor camp (Auschwitz) and an extermination camp (Birkenau); the latter possessing four gas chambers and crematoria. This camp was responsible for the deaths of an estimated 1.6 million Jews (including about 438,000 Jews from Hungary in the course of a few months), 75,000 Poles and gay men, and some 19,000 Roma. At the peak of operations, Birkenau's gas chambers killed approximately eight thousand a day. |
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==Aftermath and legacy== |
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Upon arrival in these camps, prisoners were divided into two groups: those too weak for work were immediately executed in [[gas chamber]]s (which were sometimes disguised as showers) and their bodies burned, while others were first used for slave labor in factories or industrial enterprises located in the camp or nearby. The Nazis also forced some prisoners to work in the collection and disposal of corpses, and to mutilate them when required. Gold teeth were extracted from the corpses, and live men and women's hair was shaved to prevent the spreading of [[typhus]], along with shoes, stockings, and anything else of value was recycled for use in products to support the war effort, regardless of whether or not a prisoner was sentenced to death. |
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{{Main|Aftermath of the Holocaust}} |
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=== |
===Return home and emigration=== |
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<!-- [[File:Jewish displaced persons receive bread rations at the Bindermichl displaced persons' camp in Linz.jpg|thumb|Jewish displaced persons (DPs) at a camp in [[Linz]], late 1940s|alt=People collecting bread in a cafeteria]] --> |
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{{main|Death marches (Holocaust)}} |
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After liberation, many Jews attempted to return home. Limited success in finding relatives, the refusal of many non-Jews to return property,{{sfn|Beorn|2018|pp=273–274}} and violent attacks such as the [[Kielce pogrom]] convinced many survivors to leave eastern Europe.{{sfn|Beorn|2018|pp=275–276}}{{sfn|Bartov|2023b|p=215}} Antisemitism was reported to increase in several countries after the war, in part due to conflicts over property restitution.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|pp=353–355}} When the war ended, there were less than 28,000 German Jews and 60,000 non-German Jews in Germany. By 1947, the number of Jews in Germany had increased to 250,000 owing to emigration from eastern Europe allowed by the communist authorities; Jews made up around 25 percent of the population of [[Displaced persons camps in post–World War II Europe|displaced persons camps]].{{sfn|Kochavi|2010|p=509}} Although many survivors were in poor health, they attempted to organize self-government in these camps, including education and rehabilitation efforts.{{sfn|Kochavi|2010|pp=512–513}} Due to the reluctance of other countries to allow their immigration, many survivors remained in Germany until the establishment of Israel in 1948.{{sfn|Kochavi|2010|p=509}} Others moved to the United States around 1950 due to loosened immigration restrictions.{{sfn|Kochavi|2010|p=521}} |
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===Criminal trials=== |
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As the armies of the [[Allies of World War II|Allies]] closed in on the Reich at the end of 1944, the Germans decided to abandon the extermination camps, moving or destroying evidence of the atrocities they had committed there. The Nazis marched prisoners, already sick after months or years of violence and starvation, for tens of miles in the snow to train stations; then transported for days at a time without food or shelter in freight trains with open carriages; and forced to march again at the other end to the new camp. Prisoners who lagged behind or fell were shot. The largest and best known of the death marches took place in January 1945, when the Soviet army advanced on [[Poland]]. Nine days before the Soviets arrived at the death camp at [[Auschwitz]], the Germans marched 60,000 prisoners out of the camp toward Wodzislaw, 56km (35mi) away, where they were put on freight trains to other camps. Around 15,000 died on the way. In total, around 100,000 Jews died during these death marches<ref>Gilbert, ''The Oxford Companion to World War II''</ref>. |
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{{further|Category:Holocaust trials}} |
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[[File:Defendants in the dock at nuremberg trials.jpg|thumb|right|Defendants in the dock at the [[International Military Tribunal]], November 1945|alt=Rows of men sitting on benches]] |
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Most Holocaust perpetrators were never put on trial for their crimes.{{sfn|Bartov|2023b|p=214}} During and after World War II, many European countries launched [[Purges of Nazi collaborators|widespread purges of real and perceived collaborators]] that affected possibly as much as 2–3 percent of the population of Europe, although most of the resulting trials did not emphasize crimes against Jews.{{sfn|Priemel|2020|p=174}} Nazi atrocities led to the United Nations' [[Genocide Convention]] in 1948, but it was not used in Holocaust trials due to the [[non-retroactivity]] of criminal laws.{{sfn|Wittmann|2010|p=524}} |
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In 1945 and 1946, the [[International Military Tribunal]] tried [[List of defendants at the International Military Tribunal|23 Nazi leaders]] primarily for [[crimes against peace|waging wars of aggression]], which the prosecution argued was the root of Nazi criminality;{{sfn|Priemel|2020|p=176}} nevertheless, the systematic murder of Jews came to take center stage.{{sfn|Priemel|2020|p=177}} This trial and others held by the Allies in occupied Germany—the United States Army alone charged 1,676 defendants in 462 war crimes trials{{sfn|Wittmann|2010|p=525}}—were widely perceived as an unjust form of political revenge by the German public.{{sfn|Wittmann|2010|p=534}} [[West Germany]] later investigated 100,000 people and tried more than 6,000 defendants, mainly low-level perpetrators.{{sfn|Priemel|2020|p=184}}{{sfn|Wittmann|2010|pp=534–535}} The high-level organizer [[Adolf Eichmann]] was kidnapped and [[Eichmann trial|tried in Israel]] in 1961. Instead of convicting Eichmann on the basis of documentary evidence, Israeli prosecutors asked many Holocaust survivors to testify, a strategy that increased publicity but has proven controversial.{{sfn|Priemel|2020|pp=182–183}}{{sfn|Bartov|2023b|pp=215–216}} |
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In July, 1944, the first major Nazi camp, Majdanek, was discovered by the advancing Soviets, who eventually liberated Auschwitz in January 1945. In most of the camps discovered by the Soviets, the prisoners had already been transported by death marches, leaving only a few thousand prisoners alive. Concentration camps were also liberated by American and British forces, including [[Bergen-Belsen concentration camp]] on April 15. Some 60,000 prisoners were discovered at the camp, but 10,000 died from disease or malnutrition within a few weeks of liberation. |
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===Reparations=== |
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==Resistance and rescuers== |
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===Resistance=== |
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[[Image:Ghetto Uprising Warsaw2.jpg|thumb|right|300px|[[SS]] officers walking through the destroyed Ghetto after the [[Warsaw Ghetto Uprising]].]] |
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[[Image:Jewish warrior memorial.jpg|thumb|300px|right|The Jewish warrior memorial monument, [[Haifa]], [[Israel]]]] |
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Due to the careful organization and overwhelming military might of the [[Nazism|Nazi]] German state and its supporters, few [[Jew]]s and other Holocaust victims were able to resist the killings. There are, however, many cases of attempts at resistance in one form or another, and over a hundred armed Jewish uprisings. |
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Historians estimate that property losses to Jews of Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, France, Poland, and Hungary amounted to around 10 billion in 1944 dollars,{{sfn|Goschler|Ther|2007|p=7}} or ${{Inflation|US|start_year=1944|value=10|r=-1}} billion in {{Inflation/year|US}}.<ref name=inflation/> This estimate does not include the value of labor extracted.{{sfn|Hayes|2010|p=548}} Overall, the amount of Jewish property looted by the Nazis was about 10 percent of the total stolen from occupied countries.{{sfn|Hayes|2010|p=548}} Efforts by survivors to receive reparations for their losses began immediately after World War II. There was an additional wave of restitution efforts in the 1990s connected to the [[fall of Communism]] in eastern Europe.{{sfn|Goschler|Ther|2007|pp=13–14}} |
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The largest instance of organized Jewish resistance was the [[Warsaw Ghetto Uprising]], from April to May of 1943, as the final deportation from the Ghetto to the death camps was about to commence. The [[Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa|ZOB]] and smaller organizations held out against the Nazis for 27 days. Nearly all of the resistors were killed, but the few who did survive are currently residing in Israel. There were also other [[Ghetto Uprising]]s, though none were successful against the German military. |
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Between 1945 and 2018, [[Wiedergutmachung|Germany paid $86.8 billion]] in restitution and compensation to Holocaust survivors and heirs. In 1952, West Germany negotiated [[Reparations Agreement between Israel and the Federal Republic of Germany|an agreement]] to pay [[Deutsche Mark|DM]] 3 billion (around $714 million) to Israel and DM 450 million (around $107 million) to the [[Claims Conference]].<ref>{{cite web |title=The JUST Act Report: Germany |url=https://www.state.gov/reports/just-act-report-to-congress/germany/ |website=[[United States Department of State]] |access-date=2 May 2023}}</ref> Germany paid pensions and other reparations for harm done to some Holocaust survivors.{{sfn|Hayes|2010|pp=549–550}} Other countries have paid restitution for assets stolen from Jews from these countries. Most Western European countries restored some property to Jews after the war, while communist countries [[nationalized]] many formerly Jewish assets, meaning that the overall amount restored to Jews has been lower in those countries.{{sfn|Bazyler ''et al.''|2019|pp=482–483}}{{sfn|Hayes|2010|p=552}} Poland is the only member of the [[European Union]] that never passed any restitution legislation.{{sfn|Bazyler ''et al.''|2019|p=487}} Many restitution programs fell short of restoration of prewar assets, and in particular, large amounts of immovable property was never returned to survivors or their heirs.{{sfn|Bazyler ''et al.''|2019|p=485}}{{sfn|Hayes|2010|p=556}} |
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There were also major resistance efforts in three of the extermination camps. In August 1943 an uprising also took place at the [[Treblinka extermination camp]]. Many buildings were burnt to the ground, and seventy inmates escaped to freedom, but 1,500 were killed. Gassing operations were interrupted for a month. In October 1943 another uprising took place at [[Sobibór extermination camp]]. This uprising was more successful; 11 SS guards were killed, and roughly 300 of the 600 inmates in the camp escaped, with about 50 surviving the war. The escape forced the Nazis to close the camp. On [[October 7]], [[1944]], the Jewish [[Sonderkommando]]s (those prisoners kept separate from the main camp and involved in the operation of the gas chambers and crematoria) at Auschwitz staged an uprising. Female prisoners had smuggled in explosives from a weapons factory, and Crematorium IV was partly destroyed by an explosion. The prisoners then attempted a mass escape, but all 250 were killed soon after. |
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===Remembrance and historiography=== |
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There were a number of Jewish partisan groups operating in many countries (see [[Eugenio Calò]] for the story of a Jewish Italian partisan). Also, Jewish volunteers from the [[Palestinian Mandate]], most famously [[Hannah Szenes]], parachuted into Europe in a failed attempt to organize resistance. |
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[[File:Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europeabove.jpg|thumb|[[Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe]] in Berlin, 2016|alt=A memorial of many square concrete blocks]] |
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In the decades after the war, Holocaust memory was largely confined to the survivors and their communities.{{sfn|Assmann|2010|p=97}} The popularity of Holocaust memory peaked in the 1990s after the fall of Communism, and became central to Western historical consciousness{{sfn|Assmann|2010|pp=98, 107}}{{sfn|Rosenfeld|2015|pp=15, 346}} as a symbol of the ultimate human evil.{{sfn|Assmann|2010|p=110}} Genocide scholar [[A. Dirk Moses]] asserted that "the Holocaust has gradually supplanted genocide as modernity's icon of evil",<ref>{{Cite book |last=Moses |first=A. Dirk |author-link=A. Dirk Moses |title=The Problems of Genocide: Permanent Security and the Language of Transgression |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2021 |isbn=978-1-107-10358-0 |edition=1st |pages=481–482 |language=en}}</ref> while political scientist [[Scott Straus]] declared that "the Holocaust, perhaps more than any other event in the past century, represents the pinnacle of evil".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Straus |first=Scott |author-link=Scott Straus |url=https://archive.org/details/genocide-the-power-and-problems-of-a-concept-9780228009511_compress_202404 |title=Genocide: The Power and Problems of a Concept |publisher=McGill-Queen's University Press |year=2022 |isbn=978-0-2280-0951-1 |editor-last=Graziosi |editor-first=Andrea |pages=240 |language=en |editor-last2=Sysyn |editor-first2=Frank E.}}</ref> The Holocaust has been described as "perhaps the most savage and significant single crime in recorded history" and that of the most barbaric events in the twentieth century "the Holocaust probably ranks as the very worst".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Landau |first=Ronnie S. |url=https://archive.org/details/the-nazi-holocaust-its-history-and-meaning-9780755624225-9780857728432_compress |title=The Nazi Holocaust: Its History and Meaning |publisher=I.B. Tauris |year=2016 |isbn=978-0-85772-843-2 |edition=3rd |pages=3, 287 |language=en}}</ref> Renowned German historian [[Wolfgang Benz]] described it as the "singularly most monstrous crime committed in the history of mankind".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Benz |first=Wolfgang |author-link=Wolfgang Benz |url=https://archive.org/details/holocaustgermanh0000benz |title=The Holocaust: A German Historian Examines the Genocide |publisher=Columbia University Press |year=1999 |isbn=0-231-11215-7 |edition=1st |location=New York |pages=2 |language=en}}</ref> [[Holocaust education]], in which its advocates argue promotes citizenship while reducing prejudice generally, became widespread at the same time.{{sfn|Stone|2010|p=288}}{{sfn|Sutcliffe|2022|p=8}} [[International Holocaust Remembrance Day]] is commemorated each year on 27 January, while some other countries have set a [[Holocaust memorial days|different memorial day]].{{sfn|Assmann|2010|p=104}} It has been commemorated in [[Holocaust memorials|memorials]], [[Holocaust museums|museums]], and speeches, as well as [[The Holocaust in the arts and popular culture|works of culture such as novels, poems, films, and plays]].{{sfn|Rosenfeld|2015|p=14}} [[Holocaust denial|Denial of the Holocaust]] is a [[Legality of Holocaust denial|criminal offense]] in some countries;{{sfn|Priemel|2020|p=185}} while denials of the Holocaust have been promoted by various Middle Eastern governments, figures and media. |
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===Rescuers=== |
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:''See also: [[Righteous Among the Nations]] and [[List of people who assisted Jews during the Holocaust]] |
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[[Image:Raoul_Wallenberg.jpg|right|thumb|Swedish diplomat [[Raoul Wallenberg]] and his colleagues saved as many as 100,000 Hungarian Jews by providing them with diplomatic passes.]] |
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In two cases, entire countries resisted the deportation of their Jewish population. The King of [[Denmark]] and his subjects saved the lives of most of the [[Rescue of the Danish Jews|7,500 Danish Jews]] by spiriting them to safety in Sweden via fishing boats in October 1943. Moreover, the Danish government continued to work to protect the few Danish Jews captured by the Nazis. When the Jews returned home at war's end, they found their houses and possessions waiting for them, exactly as they left them. In the second case, the Nazi-allied government of [[Bulgaria]], led by [[Dobri Bozhilov]], refused to deport its 50,000 Jewish citizens, saving them as well, though Bulgaria did deport Jews to concentration camps from areas in conquered [[Greece]] and [[Macedonia (region)|Macedonia]]. In Rome, some 4,000 Italian Jews and prisoners of war avoided deportation. Many of these were hidden in safe houses and evacuated from Italy by a resistance group that was organised by an Irish priest, [[Monsignor Hugh O' Flaherty]] of the Holy Office. Once a Vatican ambassador to Egypt, O' Flaherty used his political connections to great effect in helping to secure sanctuary for dispossessed Jews. |
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Although many are convinced that [[Lessons of the Holocaust|there are lessons or some kind of redemptive meaning]] to be drawn from the Holocaust, whether this is the case and what these lessons are is disputed.{{sfn|Rosenfeld|2015|p=93}}{{sfn|Bartov|2023b|pp=190–191}}{{sfn|Stone|2010|p=288}} Communist states marginalized the topic of antisemitic persecution while eliding their nationals' collaboration with Nazism, a tendency that continued into the post-communist era.{{sfn|Rosenfeld|2015|p=22}}{{sfn|Bartov|2023b|p=191}} In West Germany, a self-critical memory of the Holocaust developed in the 1970s and 1980s, and spread to some other western European countries.{{sfn|Kansteiner|2017|pp=306–307}} The national memories of the Holocaust were extended to the European Union as a whole, in which Holocaust memory has provided both shared history and an emotional rationale for committing to [[human rights]]. Participation in this memory is required of countries [[Enlargement of the European Union|seeking entry]].{{sfn|Kansteiner|2017|p=308}}{{sfn|Assmann|2010|pp=100, 102–103}} In contrast to Europe, in the United States the memory of the Holocaust tends to be more abstract and universalized.{{sfn|Assmann|2010|p=103}} Whether Holocaust memory actually promotes human rights is disputed.{{sfn|Stone|2010|p=288}}{{sfn|Kansteiner|2017|p=305}} In Israel, the memory of the Holocaust has been used at times to justify the use of force and violation of international human rights norms, in particular as part of the [[Israeli–Palestinian conflict]].{{sfn|Kansteiner|2017|p=308}} |
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Some towns and churches also helped hide Jews and protect others from the Holocaust, such as the French town of [[Le Chambon-sur-Lignon]] which sheltered several thousand Jews. Similar individual and family acts of rescue were repeated throughout Europe, as illustrated in the famous cases of [[Anne Frank]], often at great risk to the rescuers. In a few cases, individual diplomats and people of influence, such as [[Oskar Schindler]] or [[Nicholas Winton]], protected large numbers of Jews. Swedish diplomat [[Raoul Wallenberg]], the Italian [[Giorgio Perlasca]], Chinese diplomat [[Ho Feng Shan]] and others saved tens of thousands of Jews with fake diplomatic passes. [[Chiune Sugihara]] saved several thousands of Jews by issuing them with Japanese visas against the will of his Nazi-aligned government. |
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The Holocaust is the most well-known genocide in history, and is considered to be the single most infamous case of genocide in [[History of Europe|European history]] as well.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Lieberman |first=Benjamin |title=The Holocaust and Genocides in Europe |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |year=2013 |isbn=978-1-4411-4655-7 |edition=1st |pages=9, 138, 161, 230 |language=en}}</ref> It is the single most documented and studied genocide in history.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Rummel |first=R.J. |author-link=R. J. Rummel |date=1998 |title=The Holocaust in Comparative and Historical Perspective |url=https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/HOLO.PAPER.HTM |journal=The Journal of Social Issues |volume=3 |issue=2}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Aharon |first=Eldad Ben |url=https://www.prif.org/fileadmin/HSFK/hsfk_publikationen/PRIF0620.pdf |title=How Do We Remember the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust? A Global View of an Integrated Memory of Perpetrators, Victims and Third-party Countries |year=2020 |isbn=978-3-946459-59-0 |location=Frankfurt am Main |pages=3 |language=en}}</ref> It is also seen as the archetype of genocide and the benchmark in [[genocide studies]].<ref>{{Cite book |title=The Holocaust and Other Genocides: An Introduction |publisher=Amsterdam University Press |year=2012 |isbn=978-90-8964-381-0 |editor-last=Boender |editor-first=Barbara |edition=1st |location=Amsterdam |pages=7–10 |language=en |editor-last2=ten Have |editor-first2=Wichert}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Moses |first=A. Dirk |author-link=A. Dirk Moses |title=The Problems of Genocide: Permanent Security and the Language of Transgression |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2021 |isbn=978-1-107-10358-0 |edition=1st |pages=18–19, 34, 204, 396, 452, 480 |language=en}}</ref> |
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There were also groups, like members of the Polish [[Żegota]] organization, that took drastic and dangerous steps to rescue Jews and other potential victims from the Nazis. [[Witold Pilecki]], member of [[Armia Krajowa]] (the Polish Home Army), organized a resistance movement in the [[Auschwitz concentration camp]] from 1940, and [[Jan Karski]] tried to spread word of the Holocaust. |
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The [[Holocaust studies|scholarly literature on the Holocaust]] is massive, encompassing thousands of books.{{sfn|Stone|2010|p=6}} The tendency to see the [[Holocaust uniqueness debate|Holocaust as a unique or incomprehensible event]] continues to be popular among the broader public after being largely rejected by historians.{{sfn|Stone|2010|pp=206–207}}{{sfn|Rosenfeld|2015|p=119}}{{sfn|Sutcliffe|2022|p=2}} Scholar [[Omer Bartov]] points out how the Holocaust was unique in that it was "the industrial killing of millions of human beings in factories of death, ordered by a modern state, organized by a conscientious bureaucracy, and supported by a law-abiding, patriotic "civilized" society."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bartov |first=Omer |author-link=Omer Bartov |title=Germany's War and the Holocaust |publisher=Cornell University Press |year=2003 |isbn=978-0801486814 |pages=135 |language=en}}</ref> Another debate concerns whether the Holocaust emerged from [[Western civilization]] or was an aberration of it.{{sfn|Stone|2010|pp=163, 219, 239}} |
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Since 1963, a commission headed by an Israeli Supreme Court justice has been charged with the duty of awarding such people the honorary title [[Righteous Among the Nations]]. |
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The Jewish population still remains below pre-Holocaust levels. According to the [[Israel Central Bureau of Statistics|Central Bureau of Statistics of Israel]], the world Jewish population reached 15.2 million by the end of 2020 – approximately 1.4 million less than on the eve of the Holocaust in 1939, when the number was 16.6 million.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2022-04-25 |title=World Jewish population nears pre-Holocaust numbers at 15.2 million |url=https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/article-705065 |access-date=2024-06-30 |website=The Jerusalem Post {{!}} JPost.com |language=en}}</ref> |
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==Perpetrators and collaborators== |
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===Who was directly involved in the killings?=== |
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A wide range of German soldiers, officials, and civilians were involved in the Holocaust, from clerks and officials in the government to units of the army, the police, and the SS. Many ministries, including those of armaments, interior, justice, railroads, and foreign affairs, had substantial roles in orchestrating the Holocaust; similarly, German physicians participated in medical experiments and the T-4 euthanasia program. And, though there was no single military unit in charge of the Holocaust, the [[Schutzstaffel|SS]] under Himmler was the closest. From the SS came the [[Totenkopfverbände]] concentration camp guards, the [[Einsatzgruppen]] killing squads, and many of the administrative offices behind the Holocaust. The [[Wehrmacht]], or regular German army, participated directly less than the SS in the Holocaust (though it did directly massacre Jews in Russia, Serbia, Poland, and Greece), but it supported the Einsatzgruppen, helped form the ghettos, ran prison camps, some were concentration camp guards, transported prisoners to camps, had experiments performed on prisons, and used substantial slave labor. German police units also directly participated in the Holocaust, for example Reserve Police Battalion 101 in just over a year shot 38,000 Jews and deported 45,000 more to the extermination camps.<ref>Donald L Niewyk, ''The Columbia Guide to the Holocaust,'' Columbia University Press, 200, p 83-87. For Reserve Police 101 see Browning, Christopher R., Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland, New York, Harper Collins, 1992</ref> |
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In addition to the direct involvement of Nazi forces, most European countries allied with or occupied by the [[Axis Powers]] collaborated with the [[Nazism|Nazis]] in the Holocaust. Collaboration took the form of either rounding up of the local [[Jew]]s for deportation to the German [[extermination camps]] or a direct participation in the killings. |
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The [[Romania|Romanian]] [[Ion Antonescu|Antonescu]] regime was directly responsible for the deaths of between 280,000 and 380,000 Jews. An official report[http://www.ushmm.org/research/center/presentations/programs/presentations/2005-03-10/pdf/english/executive_summary.pdf]. released by the Romanian government concluded, "Of all the allies of Nazi Germany, Romania bears responsibility for the deaths of more Jews than any country other than Germany itself. The exterminations committed in [[Iasi pogrom|Iasi]], [[Odessa massacre|Odessa]], [[Bogdanovka]], [[Domanovka]], and [[Peciora]], for example, were among the most hideous acts committed against Jews anywhere during the Holocaust."<ref>"[http://www.ushmm.org/research/center/presentations/index.php?content=programs/presentations/2005-03-10/ Romania: Facing the Past]" available in Romanian and English, published online March, 2005.</ref>In cooperation with German [[Einsatzgruppen]] and Ukrainian auxiliaries, Romanians killed hundreds of thousands of Jews in [[Bessarabia]], northern [[Bukovina]], and [[Transnistria]]. Some of the larger massacres included 54,000 Jews killed in [[Bogdanovka]], a Romanian concentration camp along the [[Bug River]] in Transnistria, between 21 and 31 December 1941. Nearly 100,000 Jews were killed in occupied [[Odessa Massacre|Odessa]] and over 10,000 were killed in the [[Iasi pogrom]]. The Romanians also massacred [[Jew]]s in the Domanevka and Akhmetchetka concentration camps. |
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In [[Italy]] a law from 1938 restricted civil liberties of Jews, but after the fall of [[Mussolini]] and his creation of the [[Italian Social Republic]], Jews started being deported to German camps. The deported numbered about 8,369, and only about a thousand survived. Several small camps were built in Italy and the so-called [[Risiera di San Sabba]] hosted a crematorium; from 3,000 to 5,000 people were killed in San Sabba, only a few of whom were Jews. |
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[[Bulgaria]], despite saving its own Jewish population, deported 11,000 Jews from occupied [[Greece|Greek]] and [[Yugoslavia]]n territories. In France, the [[Vichy France|Vichy French]] government, police, secret police ([[Milice]]), and collaborationist thugs of the [[Parti Populaire Français]] rounded up 75,000 Jews for deportation to concentration camps. The [[Netherlands]] civilian administration and police participated in the roundups of the Jewish population. A [[Netherlands|Dutch]] group, [[Henneicke Column]], hunted and "delivered" 9,000 Jews for deportation<ref>Ad van Liempt, ''[http://www.nlpvf.nl/Book/NLPVF_BooktxtDB.php?Book=84 A Price on Their Heads, Kopgeld, Dutch bounty hunters in search of Jews, 1943]'', NLPVF (accessed June 8, 2005).</ref>.[[Norway|Norwegian]] police rounded up 750 Jews. [[Slovakia|Slovakia's]] [[Josef Tiso|Tiso]] regime deported approximately 70,000 Jews, of whom 65,000 were killed.<ref>"[http://www.pbs.org/auschwitz/40-45/victims/perps.html#kabac Victims and Perpetrators, Michal Kabác: Slovak Hlinka Guard]," PBS (accessed June 8, 2005).</ref> |
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The [[Hungary|Hungarian]] [[Miklós Horthy|Horthy]] regime deported 20,000 Jews from annexed [[Transcarpathian Ukraine]] in 1941 to [[Kamianets-Podilskyi]] in the German-occupied [[Ukraine]], where they were shot by the German [[Einsatzgruppen]] detachments. Hungarian army and police units killed several thousand [[Jew]]s and [[Serb]]s in [[Novi Sad]] in January 1942. However Horthy resisted German demands for mass deportation of Hungarian Jews, and most survived until 1944, when the Horthy fell from power and was replaced by the [[Arrow Cross]] regime. At this late date in the war with German defeat appearing likely, Hungarian police nevertheless participated fully with [[Schutzstaffel|SS]] in the roundups of 440,000 Jews for deportation to the [[extermination camps]]. Moreover, 20,000 [[Budapest]] Jews were shot by the banks of the [[Danube]] by Hungarian forces. 70,000 Jews were forced on a death march to [[Austria]]—thousands were shot and thousands more died of starvation and exposure. <ref>"[http://hist.academic.claremontmckenna.edu/jpetropoulos/arrow/holocaust/holocaust.htm The Holocaust in Hungary]" Prof. Jonathan Petropoulos, Claremont McKenna College. See also the [http://www.hdke.hu/en/facts_hungholo.html Hungarian Holocaust Museum], also </ref> |
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[[Image:Kovnopogrom.jpg|thumb|250px|right|Killing of 5,000 Jews in Kaunas by Lithuanian nationalists in June 1941. The SS urged anti-communist partisan leader Klimajtis to attack the Jews to show that "the liberated population had resorted to the most severe measures against the ... Jewish enemy."]] |
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The [[Croatia]]n [[Ustaše]] regime killed hundreds of thousands of Serbs (estimates vary widely, but a minimum of 330,000-390,000 is generally accepted), over 20,000 Jews and 26,000 Roma, primarily in the Ustase's [[Jasenovac concentration camp]] near [[Zagreb]]. The Ustase also deported 7,000 more Jews to German [[extermination camps]].<ref>"[http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/Jasenovac.html Jasenovac]" at the Jewish Virtual Library </ref> |
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In the German-occupied Soviet territories local units represented over 80% of the available German forces providing a total of nearly 450,000 personnel organised in so-called "Schutzmanschaft" formations. Practically all of these units participated in the round-ups and mass-shootings. The overwhelming majority were recruited in the western Ukraine and the Baltic region, areas recently occupied by the Soviets for which the Jews were typically scapegoated, exacerbating existing anti-Semitic attitudes. Thus for instance, [[Ukraine|Ukrainian]] nationalists killed 4,000 [[Lviv]] Jews in July 1941, and an additional 2,000 in late July 1941 during the so-called [[Symon Petliura|Petliura]] Days [[pogrom]] German [[Einsatzgruppen]], together with Ukrainian auxiliary units, killed 33,000 [[Kiev]]an [[Jew]]s in [[Babi Yar]] in September 1941. Ukrainian auxiliaries participated in a number of killings of Jews, among them in Romanian concentration camps in [[Bogdanovka]] and in [[Latvia]]. |
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[[Baltic collaborators|Lithuanian and Latvian auxiliary military units]](''Schutzmannschaft'') with German [[Einsatzgruppen]] detachments participated in the extermination of the Jewish population in their countries, as well as assisting the Nazis elsewhere, such as deportations from the [[Warsaw Ghetto]]. The [[Arajs Commando]], a Latvian volunteer police unit, for example, shot 26,000 Latvian Jews, at various locations after they had been brutally rounded-up for this purpose by the regular police and auxiliaries and was responsible for assisting in the killing of 60,000 more Jews.<ref>"[http://vip.latnet.lv/LPRA/EZERG_intr.html The Holocaust in Latvia]: An introduction" by Andrew Ezergailis, book excerpt, The Historical Institute of Latvia, 1996.</ref> |
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About 75% of [[Estonia|Estonia's]] Jewish community, aware of the fate that otherwise awaited them, managed to escape to the Soviet Union; virtually all the remainder (between 950 and 1000 people) were killed by Einsatzgruppe A and local collaborators before the end of 1941.<ref>Max Jakobson Commission Investigation of Crimes Against Humanity, "[http://www.historycommission.ee/temp/conclusions.htm#crimiger1] Report"</ref> |
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===Who authorized the killings?=== |
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Hitler authorized the mass killing of those labelled by the Nazis as "undesirables" in the [[T-4 Euthanasia Program]]. Hitler encouraged the killings of the Jews of Eastern Europe by the ''[[Einsatzgruppen]]'' death squads in a speech in July, 1941, though he almost certainly approved the mass shootings earlier. A mass of evidence suggests that sometime in the fall of 1941, Himmler and Hitler agreed in principle on the complete mass extermination of the Jews of Europe by gassing, with Hitler explicitly ordering the "annihilation of the Jews" in a speech on December 12, 1941 (see [[Final Solution]]). To make for smoother intra-governmental cooperation in the implementation of this "Final Solution" to the "Jewish Question", the [[Wannsee conference]] was held near Berlin on [[January 20]] [[1942]], with the participation of fifteen senior officials, led by [[Reinhard Heydrich]] and [[Adolf Eichmann]], the records of which provide the best evidence of the central planning of the Holocaust. Just five weeks later on [[February 22]], Hitler was recorded saying "We shall regain our health only by eliminating the Jew" to his closest associates. |
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Arguments that no documentation links Hitler to "the Holocaust" ignore the records of his speeches kept by Nazi leaders such as [[Joseph Goebbels]] and rely on artificially limiting the Holocaust to exclude what we do have documentation on, such as the [[T-4 Euthanasia Program]] and the [[Kristallnacht]] [[pogrom]]. |
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===Who knew about the killings?=== |
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Some claim that the full extent of what was happening in German-controlled areas was not known until after the war. However, numerous rumors and eyewitness accounts from escapees and others gave some indication that Jews were being killed in large numbers. Since the early years of the war the [[Polish government-in-exile]] published documents and organised meetings to spread word of the fate of the Jews. By early 1941, the British had received information via an intercepted Chilean memo that Jews were being targeted, and by late 1941 they had intercepted information about a number of large massacres of Jews conducted by German police. In the summer of 1942 a Jewish labor organization (the Bund) got word to London that 700,000 Polish Jews had already died, and the BBC took the story seriously, though the United States State Department did not<ref>Richard Breitman, "[http://www.archives.gov/iwg/research-papers/breitman-chilean-diplomats.html What Diplomats Learned about the Holocaust]," US National Archives (accessed August 30, 2005).</ref>. By the end of 1942, however, the evidence of the Holocaust had become clear and on December 17, 1942 the Allies issued a statement that the Jews were being transported to Poland and killed. The US State Department was aware of the use and the location of the gas chambers of extermination camps, but refused pleas to bomb them out of operation. On [[May 12]], [[1943]], Polish government-in-exile and Bund leader [[Szmul Zygielbojm]] committed [[suicide]] in London to protest the inaction of the world with regard to the Holocaust, stating in part in his suicide letter: |
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:''I cannot continue to live and to be silent while the remnants of Polish Jewry, whose representative I am, are being killed. My comrades in the [[Warsaw ghetto]] fell with arms in their hands in the last heroic battle. I was not permitted to fall like them, together with them, but I belong with them, to their mass grave. |
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:''By my death, I wish to give expression to my most profound protest against the inaction in which the world watches and permits the destruction of the Jewish people. |
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Debate also continues on how much average Germans knew about the Holocaust. Recent historical work suggests that the majority of Germans knew that Jews were being indiscriminately killed and persecuted, even if they did not know of the specifics of the death camps. [[Robert Gellately]], a historian at [[Oxford University]], conducted a widely-respected survey of the German media before and during the war, concluding that there was "substantial consent and active participation of large numbers of ordinary Germans" in aspects of the Holocaust, and documenting that the sight of columns of slave laborers were common, and that the basics of the concentration camps, if not the extermination camps, were widely known<ref>John Ezard, "[http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,439168,00.html Germans knew of Holocaust Horror about Death Camps]," Guardian, February 17, 2001. </ref>. |
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== Historical interpretations == |
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===Why did people participate in, authorize, or tacitly accept the killing?=== |
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==== Obedience ==== |
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[[Stanley Milgram]] was one of a number of post-war psychologists and sociologists who tried to address why people obeyed immoral orders in the Holocaust. [[Milgram experiment|Milgram's findings]] demonstrated that [[reasonable person|reasonable people]], when instructed by a person in a position of authority, [[obedience|obeyed]] commands entailing what they believed to be the death or suffering of others. These results were confirmed in other experiments as well, such as the [[Stanford prison experiment]]. |
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==== Functionalism versus intentionalism ==== |
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{{main|Functionalism versus intentionalism}} |
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A major issue in contemporary Holocaust studies is the question of ''functionalism'' versus ''intentionalism''. The terms were coined in a 1981 article by the British [[Marxist]] historian [[Timothy Mason]] to describe two schools of thought about the origins of the Holocaust. Intentionalists hold that the Holocaust was the result of a long-term masterplan on the part of Hitler's and that Hitler was the driving force behind the Holocaust. Functionalists hold that Hitler was anti-Semitic, but that he did not have a masterplan for genocide. Functionalists see the Holocaust as coming from below in the ranks of the German bureaucracy with little or no involvement on the part of Hitler. Functionalists stress that the Nazi anti-Semitic policy was constantly evolving in ever more radical directions and the end product was the Holocaust. |
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Intentionalists like [[Lucy Dawidowicz]] argue that the Holocaust was planned by Hitler from the very beginning of his political career, at very least from 1919 on, if not earlier. Later Dawidowicz was to date the decision for genocide back to [[November 11]], [[1918]]. Other Intentionalists like [[Andreas Hillgruber]], [[Karl Dietrich Bracher]] and [[Klaus Hildebrand]] suggested that Hitler had decided upon the Holocaust sometime in the early 1920s. More recent intentionalist historians like [[Eberhard Jäckel]] continue to emphasize the relative earliness of the decision to kill the Jews, although they are not willing to claim that Hitler planned the Holocaust from the beginning. Yet another group of intentionalist historians such as the American [[Arno J. Mayer]] claimed Hitler only ordered the Holocaust in December 1941. |
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Functionalists like [[Hans Mommsen]], [[Martin Broszat]], [[Götz Aly]], [[Raul Hilberg]] and [[Christopher Browning]] hold that the Holocaust was started in 1941-1942 as a result of the failure of the Nazi deportation policy and the impending military losses in [[Russia]]. They claim that what some see as extermination fantasies outlined in Hitler's ''[[Mein Kampf]]'' and other Nazi literature were mere [[propaganda]] and did not constitute concrete plans. In ''Mein Kampf'' Hitler repeatedly states his inexorable hatred of the Jewish people, but nowhere does he proclaim his intention to exterminate the Jewish people. |
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Furthermore, Functionalists point to the fact that in the 1930s, Nazi policy aimed at trying to make life so unpleasant for German Jews that they would leave Germany. [[Adolf Eichmann]] was in charge of facilitating Jewish emigration by whatever means possible from 1937 until October 3, 1941, when German Jews were forbidden to leave, [[Reinhard Heydrich]] issuing an order to that effect. Functionalists point to the [[SS]]'s support for a time in the late 1930s for [[Zionism|Zionist]] groups as the preferred solution to the "Jewish Question" as another sign that there was no masterplan for genocide. The SS only ceased their support for German Zionist groups in May 1939 when [[Joachim von Ribbentrop]] informed Hitler of this, and Hitler ordered Himmler to cease and desist as the creation of Israel was not a goal Hitler thought worthy of German foreign policy. |
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In particular, Functionalists have noted that in German documents from 1939 to 1941, the term "Final Solution to the Jewish Question" was clearly meant to be a "territorial solution", that is the entire Jewish population was to be expelled somewhere far from Germany and not allowed to come back. At first, the SS planned to create a gigantic "Jewish Reservation" in the [[Lublin]], [[Poland]] area, but the so-called "Lublin Plan" was vetoed by [[Hans Frank]], the Governor-General of Poland who refused to allow the SS to ship any more Jews to the Lublin area after November, 1939. The reason why Frank vetoed the "Lublin Plan" was not due to any humane motives, but rather because he was opposed to the SS "dumping" Jews into the Government-General. In 1940, the SS and the German Foreign Office had the so-called "[[Madagascar Plan]]" to deport the entire Jewish population of Europe to a "reservation" on [[Madagascar]]. The "Madagascar Plan" was cancelled because Germany could not defeat the United Kingdom and until the British [[blockade]] was broken, the "Madagascar Plan" could not be put into effect. Finally, Functionalist historians have made much of a memorandum written by Himmler in May, 1940 explicitly rejecting extermination of the entire Jewish people as "un-German" and going on to recommend to Hitler the "Madagascar Plan" as the preferred "territorial solution" to the "Jewish Question". Not until July 1941 did the term "Final Solution to the Jewish Question" come to mean extermination. |
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Recently, a synthesis of the two schools has emerged that has been championed by such diverse historians such as the Canadian historian [[Michael Marrus]], the Israeli historian [[Yehuda Bauer]] and the British historian [[Ian Kershaw]] that contends that Hitler was the driving force behind the Holocaust, but that he did not have a long-term plan and that much of the initiative for the Holocaust came from below in an effort to meet Hitler's perceived wishes. |
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Another controversy was started by the sociologist [[Daniel Goldhagen]], who argues that ordinary Germans were knowing and willing participants in the Holocaust, which he claims had its roots in a deep eliminationist German [[anti-Semitism]]. Most other historians have disagreed with Goldhagen's thesis, arguing that while anti-Semitism undeniably existed in Germany, Goldhagen's idea of a uniquely German "eliminationist" anti-Semitism is untenable, and that the extermination was unknown to many and had to be enforced by the dictatorial Nazi apparatus. |
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===Holocaust denial=== |
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{{main|Holocaust denial}} |
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[[Holocaust denial]], also called ''Holocaust revisionism'', is the belief that the Holocaust did not occur, or, more specifically: that far fewer than around six million Jews were killed by the Nazis (numbers below one million, most often around 30,000 are typically cited); that there never was a centrally-planned Nazi attempt to exterminate the Jews; and/or that there were not mass killings at the extermination camps. Those who hold this position often further claim that Jews and/or [[Zionist]]s know that the Holocaust never occurred, yet that they are engaged in a massive conspiracy to maintain the illusion of a Holocaust to further their political agenda. As the Holocaust is generally considered by historians to be one of the best documented events in recent history, these views are not accepted as credible by scholars, with organizations such as the [[American Historical Association]], the largest society of historians in the United States, stating that Holocaust denial is "at best, a form of academic fraud."<ref>Donald L. Niewyk, ed. ''The Holocaust: Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation'', D.C. Heath and Company, 1992.</ref>. |
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Holocaust ''deniers'' almost always prefer to be called Holocaust ''revisionists''. Most scholars contend that the latter term is misleading. [[Historical revisionism]] is a well-accepted and mainstream part of the study of [[history]]; it is the reexamination of accepted history, with an eye towards updating it with newly discovered, more accurate, and/or less biased information, or viewing known information from a new perspective. In contrast, Holocaust deniers typically willfully misuse or ignore historical records in order to attempt to prove their conclusions, as [[Gordon McFee]] writes: |
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:'' 'Revisionists' depart from the conclusion that the Holocaust did not occur and work backwards through the facts to adapt them to that preordained conclusion. Put another way, they reverse the proper methodology [...], thus turning the proper historical method of investigation and analysis on its head.'' <ref>Gord McFee, "[http://www.holocaust-history.org/revisionism-isnt/ why 'Revisionism' isn't]," The Holocaust History Project (accessed June 8, 2005).</ref> |
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[[Public Opinion Quarterly]] summarized that: "No reputable historian questions the reality of the Holocaust, and those promoting Holocaust denial are overwhelmingly anti-Semites and/or neo-Nazis,". Holocaust denial has also become popular in recent years among [[Islamic fundamentalists]]: in late 2005 [[Iran|Iranian]] president [[Mahmoud Ahmadinejad]] denounced the Holocaust of European Jewry as a "myth". [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4527142.stm]<ref>Tom Smith, "The Polls--A Review: The Holocaust Denial Controversy." Public Opinion Quarterly 59 (Summer 1995): 269-295.</ref> Public espousal of Holocaust denial is a crime in ten European countries (including [[France]], [[Poland]], [[Austria]], [[Switzerland]], [[Belgium]], [[Romania]], and [[Germany]]). |
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== Aftermath == |
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Until recently, Germany refused to allow access to massive Holocaust-related archives located in [[Bad Arolsen]] due to, among other factors, privacy concerns. However, in [[May 2006]] a 20-year effort by the [[United States Holocaust Memorial Museum]] led to the announcement that 30-50 million pages would be made accessible to historians and survivors.[http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/8633EA3D-1AC2-41DF-9B7B-D2C385B1E10F.htm] |
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===Displaced Persons and the State of Israel=== |
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{{main|Sh'erit ha-Pletah}} |
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The Holocaust and its aftermath left millions of refugees, including many Jews who had lost most or all of their family members and possessions, and often faced persistent anti-Semitism in their home countries. The original plan of the Allies was to repatriate these "Displaced Persons" to their country of origin, but many refused to return, or were unable to as their homes or communities had been destroyed. As a result, more than 250,000 languished in [[DP Camp|DP camps]] for years after the war ended. |
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[[Image:Brihah.gif|right|thumb|250px|Jews were smuggled into Palestine by [[Berihah]] using a number of routes.]] |
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While [[Zionism]] had been prominent before the Holocaust, afterwards it became almost universally accepted among Jews. Many Zionists, pointing to the fact that Jewish refugees from Germany and Nazi-occupied lands had been turned away by other countries, argued that if a Jewish state had existed at the time, the Holocaust could not have occurred on the scale it did. With the rise of Zionism, [[British Mandate of Palestine|Palestine]] became the destination of choice for Jewish refugees, but local Arabs opposed the immigration, the United Kingdom refused to allow Jewish refugees into the Mandate, and many countries in the Soviet Bloc made any emigration illegal. Former Jewish partisans in Europe, along with the [[Haganah]] in Palestine, organized a massive effort to smuggle Jews into Palestine, called [[Berihah]], which eventually transported 250,000 Jews (both DPs and those who hid during the war) to the Mandate. By 1952, the Displaced Persons camps were closed, with over 80,000 Jewish DPs in the United States, about 136,000 in Israel, and another 20,000 in other nations, including Canada and South Africa. |
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===Legal proceedings against Nazis=== |
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[[Image:NurembergTrials.jpg|left|thumbnail|150px|Defendants at the [[Nuremberg Trials]] - Front row: Göring, Heß, von Ribbentrop, and Keitel. Second row: Dönitz, Raeder, Schirach, Sauckel.]] |
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There were a number of legal efforts established to bring Nazis and their collaborators to justice. Some of the higher ranking Nazi officials were tried as part of the [[Nuremberg Trials]], presided over by an Allied court; the first international tribunal of its kind. In total, 5,025 Nazi criminals were convicted between 1945-1949 in the American, British and French zones of Germany. Other trials were conducted in the countries in which the defendants were citizens — in West Germany and Austria, many Nazis were let off with light sentences, with the claim of "following orders" ruled a mitigating circumstance, and many returned to society soon afterwards. An ongoing effort to [[Pursuit of Nazi collaborators|pursue Nazis and collaborators]] resulted, famously, in the capture of Holocaust organizer [[Adolf Eichmann]] in [[Argentina]] (an operation led by [[Rafi Eitan]]) and to his subsequent trial in Israel in 1961. |
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===Legal action against genocide=== |
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The Holocaust also galvanized the international community to take action against future genocide, including the [[Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide]] in 1948. While international human rights law moved forward quickly in the wake of the Holocaust, international criminal law has been slower to advance; after the Nuremberg trials and the Japanese war crime trials it was over forty years until the next such international criminal procedures, in [[International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia|1993 in Yugoslavia]]. |
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==Survivors welfare== |
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As of [[2005]], of the nearly 400,000 Holocaust survivors residing in Israel, 40% live below the [[poverty line]], increasing significantly since [[1999]] and resulting in heated and dramatic protests on the part of survivors against the [[Government of Israel|Israeli government]] and related agencies. The average rate of [[cancer]] among survivors is nearly two and a half times that of the national average. The average cases of [[colon cancer]] among survivors are nine times higher than the national average, which is attributed to the conditions of starvation experienced by survivors as well as extreme stress. <ref>[http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:fMg4sINHVxwJ:www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/663880.html+%2240+percent+of+Holocaust+survivors+living+in+Israel+today+live+below+the+poverty+line,+Israel+Radio+reported+Thursday%22&hl=en&gl=ca&ct=clnk&cd=1&client=firefox-a "40% of Holocaust survivors in Israel live below poverty line"], ''[[Haaretz]]'', December 29, 2005. </ref> <ref>[http://www.claimscon.org/forms/allocations/Social%20Safety%20Nets.pdf "Social Safety Nets" (PDF)], In ''Re Holocaust Victim Assets Litigation (Swiss Banks)'', September 11, 2000.</ref> |
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==Impact on culture== |
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===Holocaust theology=== |
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On account of the magnitude of the Holocaust, many theologians have re-examined the classical theological views on God's goodness and actions in the world. Some believers and [[apostate]]s question whether people can still have any faith after the Holocaust, and some of the theological responses to these questions are explored in [[Holocaust theology]]. |
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===Art and literature=== |
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{{main|The Holocaust in art and literature}} |
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German philosopher [[Theodor Adorno]] famously commented that "writing poetry after [[Auschwitz concentration camp|Auschwitz]] is barbaric," and the Holocaust has indeed had a profound impact on art and literature, for both Jews and non-Jews. Some of the more famous works are by Holocaust survivors or victims, such as [[Elie Wiesel]], [[Primo Levi]], and [[Anne Frank]], but there is a substantial body of literature and art in many languages. Indeed, [[Paul Celan]] wrote his poem ''Todesfuge'' as a direct response to Adorno's dictum. |
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The Holocaust has also been the subject of many films, including Oscar winners ''[[Schindler's List]]'' and ''[[Life Is Beautiful]]''. With the aging population of Holocaust survivors, there has been increasing attention in recent years to preserving the memory of the Holocaust. The result has included extensive efforts to document their stories, including the Survivors of the Shoah project, as well as [[Holocaust memorials|institutions devoted to memorializing and studying the Holocaust]], including [[Yad Vashem]] in Israel and the [[United States Holocaust Memorial Museum|US Holocaust Museum]]. |
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===Holocaust Memorial Days=== |
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{{main|Yom HaShoah}} |
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In a unanimous vote, the [[United Nations]] General Assembly voted on [[November 1]], [[2005]], to designate [[January 27]] as the "International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust." January 27, 1945 is the day that the former Nazi concentration and extermination camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau was liberated. Even before the UN vote, January 27 was already observed as [[Holocaust Memorial Day (UK)|Holocaust Memorial Day in the United Kingdom]] since 2001, as well as other countries, including Sweden, Italy, Germany, Finland, Denmark and Estonia. Israel observes [[Yom HaShoah|Yom Hashoah]], the "Day of Remembrance of the Holocaust," on the 27th day of the Hebrew month of [[Nisan]], which generally falls in April. |
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=== Forget Me Not as a symbol=== |
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[[Image:Forgetmenotflower.JPG |thumb|right|80px|'''[[Forget-me-not]]s''']] |
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The little blue [[Forget-me-not|Forget Me Not]] flower, or badge, is worn in the coat lapel to remember all those that have suffered in the name of Freemasonry, and specifically those during the Nazi era, to counter [[Holocaust denial]].<ref>[http://www.mastermason.com/monlou522/forget~me~not.html ''Flower Badge''] Accessed [[March 4]] [[2006]].</ref> |
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In [[1948]] this emblem was adopted as an official Masonic emblem at the first Annual Convention of the United Grand Lodges of Germany, Ancient Free & Accepted Masons.<ref>[http://www.galenlodge.co.uk/forgetmenot.htm ''Das Vergissmeinnicht The Forget-Me-Not''] Accessed [[March 22]] [[2006]].</ref> |
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==Notes== |
==Notes== |
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{{notelist}} |
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<div style="font-size:90%"> |
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<references /> |
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<!-- No longer referenced: #{{note|trdd}} [http://www.trdd.org/EUGBR_4E.HTM Euthanasia and Eugenics], trdd.org (accessed June 8, 2005) --> |
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<!-- No longer referenced: #{{note|others}}"[http://www.uca.edu/divisions/academic/history/cahr/holocaust.htm The Forgotten Holocaust] Karen Silverstrim, University of Central Arkansas--> |
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<!-- No longer referenced: #{{note|baltics}} "[http://depts.washington.edu/baltic/papers/holocaust.html The Holocaust in the Baltics]"--> |
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</div> |
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==See also== |
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{{sisterlinks|The Holocaust}} |
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* [[Holocaust in Poland]] |
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* [[Rescue of the Danish Jews]] |
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* [[Anti-Semitism]] |
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* [[Bereavement in Judaism]] |
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* [[Genocide]] |
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* [[Historikerstreit]] |
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* [[Death marches (Holocaust)|Death marches]] |
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* [[Grand Mufti of Jerusalem]] |
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* [[International response to the Holocaust]] |
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* [[Phases of the Holocaust]] |
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* [[Jews outside Europe under Nazi occupation]] |
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* [[History of gays in Nazi Germany and the Holocaust]] |
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* [[Porajmos|History of the Roma and Sinti during the Holocaust]] |
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* [[Holocaust memorials]] |
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* [[Involvement of Croatian Catholic clergy with the Ustaša regime]] |
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* [[Henneicke Colonne]] (involvement of the Dutch population in the Holocaust) |
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* [[Sh'erit ha-Pletah]] (Jewish Holocaust survivors) |
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* [[Wiedergutmachung]] (reparations to individual survivors) |
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* [[War crimes of the Wehrmacht]] |
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* [[Extermination through labour]] |
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===Eugenics=== |
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* [[Rhineland Bastard]] |
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===Individuals and the Holocaust=== |
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* [[List of famous Holocaust survivors]] |
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* [[List of famous Holocaust victims]] |
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* [[List of people who helped Jews during the Holocaust]] (see also [[Righteous Among the Nations]]) |
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*[[Rudolf Vrba]] |
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===Nazi concentration camps=== |
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''See'' [[List of Nazi concentration camps]], [[Nazi extermination camp]] |
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*[[Auschwitz]] |
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*[[Belzec]] |
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*[[Bergen-Belsen concentration camp|Bergen-Belsen]] |
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*[[Chełmno extermination camp|Chełmno]] |
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*[[Dachau concentration camp|Dachau]] |
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*[[Flossenbürg concentration camp|Flossenbürg]] |
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*[[Grini]] |
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*[[Klooga concentration camp|Klooga]] |
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*[[Majdanek]] |
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*[[Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp|Mauthausen-Gusen]] |
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*[[Ravensbrück concentration camp|Ravensbrück]] |
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*[[Treblinka]] |
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===Ghettos=== |
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* [[Warsaw Ghetto]] |
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* [[Judenrat]] (Jewish administrative bodies established in the ghettos by order of the Nazis) |
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===Massacres and pogroms=== |
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* in [[Białystok]] |
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* [[Babi Yar]] Massacre |
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* [[Iaşi pogrom]] |
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* [[Jedwabne Pogrom]] |
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* [[Kaunas]] Pogrom |
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* [[Kristallnacht]] |
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* [[Lviv#Lviv_pogroms_and_the_Holocaust | Lviv pogroms]] |
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* in [[Paneriai]] |
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* [[Odessa Massacre]] |
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==References== |
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===Jewish resistance=== |
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{{reflist|20em}} |
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====Poland==== |
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* Resistance groups |
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** [[Żydowski Związek Walki]] |
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** [[Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa]] |
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* Uprisings |
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** [[Warsaw Ghetto Uprising|Warsaw Ghetto]] |
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** [[Białystok Ghetto Uprising|Białystok]] |
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** [[Marcinkance Ghetto Uprising|Marcinkace]] |
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** [[Sobibór extermination camp|Sobibór]] |
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===Works cited=== |
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== External links, references, resources == |
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====Books==== |
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External links, references, books and other resources are listed [[Holocaust (resources)|here]]. |
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{{Refbegin|30em|indent=yes}} |
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* {{Cite book |last=Bartrop |first=Paul R. |authorlink=Paul R. Bartrop |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kU6fDwAAQBAJ |title=The Holocaust: The Basics |date=2019 |publisher=[[Routledge]] |isbn=978-1-351-32989-7 |language=en}} |
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* {{Cite book |last=Bartov |first=Omer |authorlink=Omer Bartov |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ci3WEAAAQBAJ |title=Genocide, the Holocaust and Israel-Palestine: First-Person History in Times of Crisis |date=2023a |publisher=[[Bloomsbury Publishing]] |isbn=978-1-350-33234-8 |language=en}} |
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* {{cite book |last1=Bazyler |first1=Michael J. |last2=Boyd |first2=Kathryn Lee |last3=Nelson |first3=Kristen L. |author1-link=Michael Bazyler |title=Searching for Justice After the Holocaust: Fulfilling the Terezin Declaration and Immovable Property Restitution |date=2019 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |isbn=978-0-19-092306-8 |language=en|ref={{sfnref|Bazyler et al.|2019}}}} |
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*{{cite book |last1=Beorn |first1=Waitman Wade |author1-link=Waitman Wade Beorn |title=The Holocaust in Eastern Europe: At the Epicenter of the Final Solution |date=2018 |publisher=[[Bloomsbury Academic]] |isbn=978-1-4742-3219-7 |language=en}} |
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* {{cite book |last=Bergen |first=Doris |author-link=Doris Bergen |year=2016 |title=War & Genocide: A Concise History of the Holocaust |publisher=[[Rowman & Littlefield]] |isbn=978-1-4422-4228-9}} |
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* {{cite book |last=Bloxham |first=Donald |author-link=Donald Bloxham |year=2009 |title=The Final Solution: A Genocide |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-955034-0}} |
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*{{ cite book | title= I Nomi dello sterminio: Definizioni di una tragedia| last = Calimani| first =Anna Vera Sullam |
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| publisher =Marietti 1820| year = 2018| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QegCEAAAQBAJ&pg=PT6 | isbn =978-8-821-19615-7}} |
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* {{Cite book |last=Browning |first=Christopher R. |author-link=Christopher Browning |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=d9Wg4gjtP3cC |title=The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939–March 1942 |date=2004 |publisher=[[University of Nebraska Press]] and [[Yad Vashem]] |isbn=978-0-8032-0392-1 |language=en}} |
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* {{cite book |last=Cesarani |first=David |author-link=David Cesarani |year=2016 |title=[[Final Solution: The Fate of the Jews 1933–1949]] |publisher=[[St. Martin's Press]] |isbn=978-0-230-76891-8}} |
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* {{Cite book |last=Engel |first=David |authorlink=David Engel (historian) |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aI8kEAAAQBAJ |title=The Holocaust: The Third Reich and the Jews |date=2021 |publisher=[[Routledge]] |isbn=978-0-429-77837-7 |language=en}} |
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* {{cite book |author1=Foreign Claims Settlement Commission |title=Foreign Claims Settlement Commission of the United States: Decisions and Annotations |date=1968 |publisher=[[U.S. Government Printing Office]] |location=Washington, D.C. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cX5AAAAAIAAJ |oclc=1041397012|author1-link=Foreign Claims Settlement Commission }} |
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* {{cite book | last=Gilbert | first=Martin | title=Never Again: A History of the Holocaust | publisher=RosettaBooks | year=2015 |orig-year=2000 | isbn=978-0-7953-4674-3 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wWhsDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT22}} |
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* {{cite book |last=Gerlach |first=Christian|author-link=Christian Gerlach |year=2016 |title=The Extermination of the European Jews |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |isbn=978-0-521-70689-6}} |
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* {{cite book |last=Hayes |first=Peter |author-link=Peter Hayes (historian) |title=Why? Explaining the Holocaust |date=2017 |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company |location=New York}} |
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* {{Cite book |last=Hayes |first=Peter |authorlink=Peter Hayes (historian) |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6synBgAAQBAJ |title=How Was It Possible?: A Holocaust Reader |date=2015 |publisher=[[University of Nebraska Press]] |isbn=978-0-8032-7491-4 |language=en}} |
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* {{Cite book |last=Jackson |first=Timothy P. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NF8tEAAAQBAJ |title=Mordecai Would Not Bow Down: Anti-Semitism, the Holocaust, and Christian Supersessionism |date=2021 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |isbn=978-0-19-753807-4 |language=en}} |
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*{{cite book |last1=Kay |first1=Alex J.|author-link=Alex J. Kay |title=Empire of Destruction: A History of Nazi Mass Killing |date=2021 |publisher=[[Yale University Press]] |isbn=978-0-300-26253-7 |language=en|title-link=Empire of Destruction}} |
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* {{cite book |last=Longerich |first=Peter |author-link=Peter Longerich |year=2010 |title=Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-280436-5 }} |
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* {{cite book |last1=Neufeld |first1=Michael |last2=Berenbaum |first2=Michael |title=The Bombing of Auschwitz: Should the Allies have attempted it? |date=2000 |publisher=University Press of Kansas |location=New York |isbn=0-7006-1280-7}} |
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*{{cite book |last1=Niewyk |first1=Donald L. |title=The Columbia Guide to the Holocaust |last2=Nicosia |first2=Francis R. |author2-link=Francis R. Nicosia| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nzJAXkfozW8C |publisher=Columbia University Press |year=2000 |isbn=978-0-231-52878-8 |language=en}} |
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* {{cite book |editor-last1=Peck |editor-first1=Abraham J. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zkZC6bp3upsC&pg=PA311 |title=The Holocaust and History: The Known, the Unknown, the Disputed, and the Reexamined |editor-last2=Berenbaum |editor-first2=Michael |publisher=Indiana University Press |year=2002 |isbn=978-0-253-21529-1 |language=en |editor-link2=Michael Berenbaum}} |
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* {{cite book |last1=Rosenfeld |first1=Gavriel D. |author1-link=Gavriel D. Rosenfeld |title=Hi Hitler! How the Nazi Past is Being Normalized in Contemporary Culture |date=2015 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-107-07399-9 |language=en}} |
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*{{cite book |last1=Russell |first1=Nestar |title=Understanding Willing Participants|volume= 2: Milgram's Obedience Experiments and the Holocaust |date=2018 |publisher=Springer |doi=10.1007/978-3-319-97999-1 |isbn=978-3-319-97999-1 |s2cid=151138604 |url=https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-319-97999-1 |language=en}} |
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* {{Cite book |last=Smith |first=Stephen D. |authorlink=Stephen D. Smith |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yPqhEAAAQBAJ |title=The Trajectory of Holocaust Memory: The Crisis of Testimony in Theory and Practice |date=2023 |publisher=[[Taylor & Francis]] |isbn=978-1-000-83062-0 |language=en}} |
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* {{cite book |last=Stone |first=Dan |author-link=Dan Stone (historian) |title=Histories of the Holocaust |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2010 |isbn=978-0-19-956679-2}} |
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*{{cite book |last1=Stone |first1=Dan |title=The Holocaust: An Unfinished History |date=2023 |publisher=Penguin Publishing Group |isbn=978-0-241-38870-9 |language=en}} |
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* {{cite book |last=Wachsmann |first=Nikolaus |author-link=Nikolaus Wachsmann |year=2015 |title=KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps |publisher=[[Farrar, Straus and Giroux]] |isbn=978-0-374-11825-9}} |
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{{refend}} |
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====Book chapters==== |
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[[Category:Holocaust|*]] |
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{{refbegin|30em|indent=yes}} <!-- {{cite book |last1= |first1= |author-link= |title=The Oxford Handbook of Holocaust Studies |date=2010 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-921186-9|pages= |chapter=}} --> |
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*{{cite book |last1=Assmann |first1=Aleida |author1-link=Aleida Assmann |title=Memory in a Global Age: Discourses, Practices and Trajectories |date=2010 |publisher=[[Palgrave Macmillan UK]] |isbn=978-0-230-28336-7 |pages=97–117 |language=en |chapter=The Holocaust – a Global Memory? Extensions and Limits of a New Memory Community}} |
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*{{cite book |last1=Bartov |first1=Omer |author1-link=Omer Bartov |title=The Oxford History of the Third Reich |date=2023b |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-288683-5 |pages=190–216 |language=en |chapter=The Holocaust}} |
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*{{cite book |last1=Beorn |first1=Waitman Wade |author1-link=Waitman Wade Beorn |title=A Companion to the Holocaust |date=2020 |publisher=[[Wiley (publisher)|Wiley]] |isbn=978-1-118-97052-2 |pages=153–172 |language=en |chapter=All the Other Neighbors: Communal Genocide in Eastern Europe}} |
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*{{cite book |last1=Dean |first1=Martin C.|author-link=Martin C. Dean |title=A Companion to the Holocaust |date=2020 |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |isbn=978-1-118-97049-2 |pages=263–277 |language=en |chapter=Survivors of the Holocaust within the Nazi Universe of Camps}} |
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*{{cite book |last1=Engel |first1=David |author1-link=David Engel (historian) |title=A Companion to the Holocaust |date=2020 |publisher=Wiley |isbn=978-1-118-97052-2 |pages=233–245 |language=en |chapter=A Sustained Civilian Struggle: Rethinking Jewish Responses to the Nazi Regime}} |
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*{{cite book |last1=Evans |first1=Richard J. |author-link=Richard J. Evans |title=The Jews, the Holocaust, and the Public: The Legacies of David Cesarani |date=2019 |publisher=[[Springer International Publishing]] |isbn=978-3-030-28675-0 |pages=117–143 |language=en |chapter=The Decision to Exterminate the Jews of Europe}} |
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*{{cite book |last1=Goschler |first1=Constantin |last2=Ther |first2=Philipp |author2-link=Philipp Ther |title=Robbery and Restitution: The Conflict over Jewish Property in Europe |date=2007 |publisher=[[Berghahn Books]] |isbn=978-0-85745-564-2 |pages=1–18 |language=en |chapter=Introduction: A History Without Boundaries: the Robbery and Restitution of Jewish Property in Europe}} |
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*{{cite book |last1=Hayes |first1=Peter|author-link1=Peter Hayes (historian) |last2=Roth |first2=John K. |title=The Oxford Handbook of Holocaust Studies |date=2010 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-921186-9|pages=1–20 |chapter=Introduction}} |
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*{{cite book |last1=Hayes |first1=Peter |title=The Oxford Handbook of Holocaust Studies |date=2010 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-921186-9|pages=540–559 |chapter=Plunder and Restitution}} |
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*{{cite book |last1=Kansteiner |first1=Wulf |title=The Twentieth Century in European Memory: Transcultural Mediation and Reception |date=2017 |publisher=Brill |isbn=978-90-04-35235-3 |pages=305–343 |language=en |chapter=Transnational Holocaust Memory, Digital Culture and the End of Reception Studies}} |
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* {{cite book |first=Charles |last=King |authorlink=Charles King (professor of international affairs) |chapter=Can – or Should – There Be a Political Science of the Holocaust? |editor-last1=Kopstein |editor-first1=Jeffrey S. |editor-link=Jeffrey Kopstein |title=Politics, Violence, Memory: The New Social Science of the Holocaust |date=2023 |publisher=[[Cornell University Press]] |isbn=978-1-5017-6676-3 |language=en}} |
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*{{cite book |last1=Kochavi |first1=Arieh J. |title=The Oxford Handbook of Holocaust Studies |date=2010 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-921186-9 |pages=509–523 |chapter=Liberation and Dispersal}} |
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*{{cite book |last1=Kopstein |first1=Jeffrey S. |author-link=Jeffrey Kopstein |title=Politics, Violence, Memory: The New Social Science of the Holocaust |date=2023 |publisher=[[Cornell University Press]] |isbn=978-1-5017-6676-3 |pages=104–123 |language=en |chapter=A Common History of Violence?: The Pogroms of Summer 1941 in Comparative Perspective}} |
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*{{cite book |last1=Messenger |first1=David A. |title=A Companion to the Holocaust |date=2020 |publisher=Wiley |isbn=978-1-118-97052-2 |pages=381–396 |language=en |chapter=The Geopolitics of Neutrality: Diplomacy, Refuge, and Rescue during the Holocaust}} |
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*{{cite book |last1=Miron |first1=Guy |title=A Companion to the Holocaust |date=2020 |publisher=Wiley |isbn=978-1-118-97052-2 |pages=247–261 |language=en |chapter=Ghettos and Ghettoization – History and Historiography}} |
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*{{cite book |last1=Priemel |first1=Kim Christian |author1-link=Kim Christian Priemel |title=A Companion to the Holocaust |date=2020 |publisher=Wiley |isbn=978-1-118-97052-2 |pages=173–189 |language=en |chapter=War Crimes Trials, the Holocaust, and Historiography, 1943–2011}} |
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* {{cite book |last=Sahlstrom |first=Julia |chapter=Recognition, Justice, and Memory: Swedish-Jewish Reactions to the Holocaust and the Major Trials |date=2021 |title=Early Holocaust Memory in Sweden: Archives, Testimonies and Reflections |pages=287–313 |editor-last=Heuman |editor-first=Johannes |chapter-url=https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55532-0_11 |access-date=2024-01-28 |series=The Holocaust and its Contexts |publisher=[[Springer International Publishing]] |language=en |doi=10.1007/978-3-030-55532-0_11 |isbn=978-3-030-55532-0 |s2cid=229432191 |editor2-last=Rudberg |editor2-first=Pontus}} |
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*{{cite book |last1=Spoerer |first1=Mark |title=A Companion to the Holocaust |date=2020 |publisher=Wiley |isbn=978-1-118-97052-2 |pages=135–151 |language=en |chapter=The Nazi War Economy, the Forced Labor System, and the Murder of Jewish and Non-Jewish Workers}} |
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*{{cite journal |last1=Stone |first1=Dan |title=Ideologies of Race: The Construction and Suppression of Otherness in Nazi Germany |journal=A Companion to the Holocaust |date=2020 |pages=59–74 |doi=10.1002/9781118970492.ch3 |publisher=Wiley |language=en}} |
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*{{cite book |last1=Weitz |first1=Eric D. |author-link=Eric D. Weitz |title=The Oxford Handbook of Holocaust Studies |date=2010 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-921186-9|pages=54–67 |chapter=Nationalism}} |
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*{{cite book |last1=Westermann |first1=Edward B. |author-link=Edward B. Westermann |title=A Companion to the Holocaust |date=2020 |publisher=Wiley |isbn=978-1-118-97052-2|pages= 117–133 |chapter=Old Nazis, Ordinary Men, and New Killers: Synthetic and Divergent Histories of Perpetrators}} |
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* {{cite book |last1=Wittmann |first1=Rebecca |author-link=Rebecca Wittmann |title=The Oxford Handbook of Holocaust Studies |date=2010 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-921186-9|pages=524–539 |chapter=Punishment}} |
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{{refend}} |
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====Journal articles==== |
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*{{cite journal |last1=Burzlaff |first1=Jan |title=Confronting the Communal Grave: a Reassessment of Social Relations During the Holocaust in Eastern Europe |journal=The Historical Journal |date=2020 |volume=63 |issue=4 |pages=1054–1077 |doi=10.1017/S0018246X19000566|s2cid=<!-- --> }} |
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*{{cite journal |last1=Láníček |first1=Jan |author-link=Jan Láníček|title=Governments-in-exile and the Jews during and after the Second World War |journal=[[Holocaust Studies (journal)|Holocaust Studies]] |date=2012 |volume=18 |issue=2–3 |pages=73–94 |doi=10.1080/17504902.2012.11087307|s2cid=<!-- --> }} |
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*{{cite journal |last1=Lehnstaedt |first1=Stephan |author1-link=Stephan Lehnstaedt |title=Aktion Reinhardt – Sources, Research and Commemoration in the last 30 years |journal=Témoigner. Entre histoire et mémoire. Revue pluridisciplinaire de la Fondation Auschwitz |date=2021 |issue=132 |pages=62–70 |doi=10.4000/temoigner.9886 |s2cid=256347577 |url=https://journals.openedition.org/temoigner/9886 |language=en |issn=2031-4183|doi-access=free }} |
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*{{cite journal |last1=Sutcliffe |first1=Adam |title=Whose Feelings Matter? Holocaust Memory, Empathy, and Redemptive Anti-Antisemitism |journal=[[Journal of Genocide Research]] |date=2022 |volume=26 |issue=2 |pages=222–242 |doi=10.1080/14623528.2022.2160533|s2cid=<!-- --> |doi-access=free }} |
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*{{cite journal |last1=Welch |first1=Susan |title=Gender and Selection During the Holocaust: Transports of Western European Jews to the East |journal=Journal of Genocide Research |date=2020 |volume=22 |issue=4 |pages=459–478 |doi=10.1080/14623528.2020.1764743|s2cid=<!-- -->|url=https://scholarsphere.psu.edu/resources/68efc96d-e75e-48d2-a5c2-1aba2e1cb28e }} |
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Revision as of 19:46, 30 June 2024
The Holocaust | |
---|---|
Part of World War II | |
Jews arriving at Auschwitz II in German-occupied Poland, May 1944. Most were selected to go to the gas chambers. | |
Location | Europe, primarily German-occupied Poland and the Soviet Union |
Date | 1941–1945 |
Attack type | Genocide, ethnic cleansing, mass murder, mass shooting, death marches, poison gas, hate crime |
Deaths | Around 6 million Jews |
Perpetrators | Nazi Germany along with its collaborators and allies |
The Holocaust was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe, around two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population. The murders were carried out primarily through mass shootings and poison gas in extermination camps, chiefly Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, Belzec, Sobibor, and Chełmno in occupied Poland. Separate Nazi persecutions killed a similar or larger number of non-Jewish civilians and POWs; the term Holocaust is sometimes used to refer to the persecution of these other groups.
The Nazis developed their ideology based on racism and pursuit of "living space", and seized power in early 1933. Meant to force all German Jews regardless of means to attempt to emigrate, the regime passed anti-Jewish laws, encouraged harassment, and orchestrated a nationwide pogrom in November 1938. After Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, occupation authorities began to establish ghettos to segregate Jews. Following the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, 1.5 to 2 million Jews were shot by German forces and local collaborators.
Later in 1941 or early 1942, the highest levels of the German government decided to murder all Jews in Europe. Victims were deported by rail to extermination camps where, if they survived the journey, most were killed with poison gas. Other Jews continued to be employed in forced labor camps where many died from starvation, abuse, exhaustion, or being used as test subjects in deadly medical experiments. Although many Jews tried to escape, surviving in hiding was difficult due to factors such as the lack of money to pay helpers and the risk of denunciation. The property, homes, and jobs belonging to murdered Jews were redistributed to the German occupiers and other non-Jews. Although the majority of Holocaust victims died in 1942, the killing continued at a lower rate until the end of the war in May 1945.
Many Jewish survivors emigrated outside of Europe after the war. A few Holocaust perpetrators faced criminal trials. Billions of dollars in reparations have been paid, although falling short of the Jews' losses. The Holocaust has also been commemorated in museums, memorials, and culture. It has become central to Western historical consciousness as a symbol of the ultimate human evil.
Terminology and scope
The term Holocaust, derived from a Greek word meaning "burnt offering",[1] has become the most common word used to describe the Nazi extermination of Jews in English and many other languages.[a] The term Holocaust is sometimes used to refer to the persecution of other groups that the Nazis targeted,[b] especially those targeted on a biological basis, in particular the Roma and Sinti, as well as Soviet prisoners of war and Polish and Soviet civilians.[2][3][4] All of these groups, however, were targeted for different reasons.[5] By the 1970s, the adjective Jewish was dropped as redundant and Holocaust, now capitalized, became the default term for the destruction of European Jews.[6] The Hebrew word Shoah ("catastrophic destruction") exclusively refers to Jewish victims.[7][8][2] The perpetrators used the phrase "Final Solution" as a euphemism for their genocide of Jews.[9]
Background
Jews have lived in Europe for more than two thousand years.[10] Throughout the Middle Ages in Europe, Jews were subjected to antisemitism based on Christian theology, which blamed them for killing Jesus.[11][12] In the nineteenth century many European countries granted full citizenship rights to Jews in hopes that they would assimilate.[13] By the early twentieth century, most Jews in central and western Europe were well integrated into society, while in eastern Europe, where emancipation had arrived later, many Jews still lived in small towns, spoke Yiddish, and practiced Orthodox Judaism.[14] Political antisemitism positing the existence of a Jewish question and usually an international Jewish conspiracy emerged in the eighteenth and nineteenth century due to the rise of nationalism in Europe and industrialization that increased economic conflicts between Jews and non-Jews.[15][16] Some scientists began to categorize humans into different races and argued that there was a life or death struggle between them.[17] Many racists argued that Jews were a separate racial group alien to Europe.[18][19]
The turn of the twentieth century saw a major effort to establish a German colonial empire overseas, leading to the Herero and Nama genocide and subsequent racial apartheid regime in South West Africa.[20][21] World War I (1914–1918) intensified nationalist and racist sentiments in Germany and other European countries.[22] Jews in eastern Europe were targeted by widespread pogroms.[23] Germany had two million war dead and lost a substantial territory;[22] opposition to the postwar settlement united Germans across the political spectrum.[24][25] The military promoted the untrue but compelling idea that, rather than being defeated on the battlefield, Germany had been stabbed in the back by socialists and Jews.[24][26]
The Nazi Party was founded in the wake of the war,[27] and its ideology is often cited as the main factor explaining the Holocaust.[28] From the beginning, the Nazis—not unlike other nation-states in Europe—dreamed of a world without Jews, whom they identified as "the embodiment of everything that was wrong with modernity".[5] The Nazis defined the German nation as a racial community unbounded by Germany's physical borders[29] and sought to purge it of racially foreign and socially deficient elements.[24][30] The Nazi Party and its leader, Adolf Hitler, were also obsessed with reversing Germany's territorial losses and acquiring additional Lebensraum (living space) in Eastern Europe for colonization.[31][32] These ideas appealed to many Germans.[33] The Nazis promised to protect European civilization from the Soviet threat.[34] Hitler believed that Jews controlled the Soviet Union, as well as the Western powers, and were plotting to destroy Germany.[35][36][37]
Rise of Nazi Germany
Amidst a worldwide economic depression and political fragmentation, the Nazi Party rapidly increased its support, reaching a high of 37 percent in mid-1932 elections,[38][39] by campaigning on issues such as anticommunism and economic recovery.[40][41] Hitler was appointed chancellor in January 1933 in a backroom deal supported by right-wing politicians.[38] Within months, all other political parties were banned, the regime seized control of the media,[42] tens of thousands of political opponents—especially communists—were arrested, and a system of camps for extrajudicial imprisonment was set up.[43] The Nazi regime cracked down on crime and social outsiders—such as Roma and Sinti, homosexual men, and those perceived as workshy—through a variety of measures, including imprisonment in concentration camps.[44] The Nazis forcibly sterilized 400,000 people and subjected others to forced abortions for real or supposed hereditary illnesses.[45][46][47]
Although the Nazis sought to control every aspect of public and private life,[48] Nazi repression was directed almost entirely against groups perceived as outside the national community. Most Germans had little to fear provided they did not oppose the new regime.[49][50] The new regime built popular support through economic growth, which partly occurred through state-led measures such as rearmament.[42] The annexations of Austria (1938), Sudetenland (1938), and Bohemia and Moravia (1939) also increased the Nazis' popular support.[51] Germans were inundated with propaganda both against Jews[42] and other groups targeted by the Nazis.[46]
Persecution of Jews
The roughly 500,000 German Jews made up less than 1 percent of the country's population in 1933. They were wealthier on average than other Germans and largely assimilated, although a minority were recent immigrants from eastern Europe.[52][53][54] Various German government agencies, Nazi Party organizations, and local authorities instituted about 1,500 anti-Jewish laws.[55] In 1933, Jews were banned or restricted from several professions and the civil service.[51] After hounding the German Jews out of public life by the end of 1934, the regime passed the Nuremberg Laws in 1935.[56] The laws reserved full citizenship rights for those of "German or related blood", restricted Jews' economic activity, and criminalized new marriages and sexual relationships between Jews and non-Jewish Germans.[57][58] Jews were defined as those with three or four Jewish grandparents; many of those with partial Jewish descent were classified as Mischlinge, with varying rights.[59] The regime also sought to segregate Jews with a view to their ultimate disappearance from the country.[56] Jewish students were gradually forced out of the school system. Some municipalities enacted restrictions governing where Jews were allowed to live or conduct business.[60] In 1938 and 1939, Jews were barred from additional occupations, and their businesses were expropriated to force them out of the economy.[58]
Anti-Jewish violence, largely locally organized by members of Nazi Party institutions, took primarily non-lethal forms from 1933 to 1939.[61] Jewish stores, especially in rural areas, were often boycotted or vandalized.[62] As a result of local and popular pressure, many small towns became entirely free of Jews and as many as a third of Jewish businesses may have been forced to close.[63] Anti-Jewish violence was even worse in areas annexed by Nazi Germany.[64] On 9–10 November 1938, the Nazis organized Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass), a nationwide pogrom. Over 7,500 Jewish shops (out of 9,000) were looted, more than 1,000 synagogues were damaged or destroyed,[65] at least 90 Jews were murdered,[66] and as many as 30,000 Jewish men were arrested,[67][68] although many were released within weeks.[69] German Jews were levied a special tax that raised more than 1 billion Reichsmarks (RM).[70][c]
The Nazi government wanted to force all Jews to leave Germany.[73] By the end of 1939, most Jews who could emigrate had already done so; those who remained behind were disproportionately elderly, poor, or female and could not obtain a visa.[74] The plurality, around 110,000, left for the United States, while smaller numbers emigrated to South America, Shanghai, Mandatory Palestine, and South Africa.[75] Germany collected emigration taxes of nearly 1 billion RM,[c] mostly from Jews.[76] The policy of forced emigration continued into 1940.[77]
Besides Germany, a significant number of other European countries abandoned democracy for some kind of authoritarian or fascist rule.[34] Many countries, including Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia, passed antisemitic legislation in the 1930s and 1940s.[78] In October 1938, Germany deported many Polish Jews in response to a Polish law that enabled the revocation of citizenship for Polish Jews living abroad.[79][80]
Start of World War II
The German Wehrmacht (armed forces) invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, triggering declarations of war from the United Kingdom and France.[81] During the five weeks of fighting, as many as 16,000 civilians, hostages, and prisoners of war may have been shot by the German invaders;[82] there was also a great deal of looting.[83] Special units known as Einsatzgruppen followed the army to eliminate any possible resistance.[84] Around 50,000 Polish and Polish Jewish leaders and intellectuals were arrested or executed.[85][86] The Auschwitz concentration camp was established to hold those members of the Polish intelligentsia not killed in the purges.[87] Around 400,000 Poles were expelled from the Wartheland in western Poland to the General Governorate occupation zone from 1939 to 1941, and the area was resettled by ethnic Germans from eastern Europe.[88]
The rest of Poland was occupied by the Soviet Union, which invaded Poland from the east on 17 September pursuant to the German–Soviet pact.[89] The Soviet Union deported hundreds of thousands of Polish citizens to the Soviet interior, including as many as 260,000 Jews who largely survived the war.[90][91] Although most Jews were not communists, some accepted positions in the Soviet administration, contributing to a pre-existing perception among many non-Jews that Soviet rule was a Jewish conspiracy.[92] In 1940, Germany invaded much of western Europe including the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, and Denmark and Norway.[81] In 1941, Germany invaded Yugoslavia and Greece.[81] Some of these new holdings were fully or partially annexed into Germany while others were placed under civilian or military rule.[82]
The war provided cover for "Aktion T4", the murder of around 70,000 institutionalized Germans with mental or physical disabilities at specialized killing centers using poison gas.[88][93][94] The victims included all 4,000 to 5,000 institutionalized Jews.[95] Despite efforts to maintain secrecy, knowledge of the killings leaked out and Hitler ordered a halt to the centralized killing program in August 1941.[96][97][98] Decentralized killings via denial of medical care, starvation, and poisoning caused an additional 120,000 deaths by the end of the war.[97][99] Many of the same personnel and technologies were later used for the mass murder of Jews.[100][101]
Ghettoization and resettlement
Germany gained control of 1.7 million Jews in Poland.[54][102] The Nazis tried to concentrate Jews in the Lublin District of the General Governorate. 45,000 Jews were deported by November and left to fend for themselves, causing many deaths.[103] Deportations stopped in early 1940 due to the opposition of Hans Frank, the leader of the General Governorate, who did not want his fiefdom to become a dumping ground for unwanted Jews.[104][105] After the conquest of France, the Nazis considered deporting Jews to French Madagascar, but this proved impossible.[106][107] The Nazis planned that harsh conditions in these areas would kill many Jews.[106][105] In September 1939, around 7,000 Jews were killed, alongside thousands of Poles, however, they were not systematically targeted as they would be later, and open mass killings would subside until June of 1941.[108]
During the invasion, synagogues were burned and thousands of Jews fled or were expelled into the Soviet occupation zone.[109] Various anti-Jewish regulations were soon issued. In October 1939, adult Jews in the General Governorate were required to perform forced labor.[110] In November 1939 they were ordered to wear white armbands.[111] Laws decreed the seizure of most Jewish property and the takeover of Jewish-owned businesses. When Jews were forced into ghettos, they lost their homes and belongings.[110]
The first Nazi ghettos were established in the Wartheland and General Governorate in 1939 and 1940 on the initiative of local German administrators.[112][113] The largest ghettos, such as Warsaw and Łódź, were established in existing residential neighborhoods and closed by fences or walls. In many smaller ghettos, Jews were forced into poor neighborhoods but with no fence.[114] Forced labor programs provided subsistence to many ghetto inhabitants, and in some cases protected them from deportation. Workshops and factories were operated inside some ghettos, while in other cases Jews left the ghetto to work outside it.[115] Because the ghettos were not segregated by sex some family life continued.[116] A Jewish community leadership (Judenrat) exercised some authority and tried to sustain the Jewish community while following German demands. As a survival strategy, many tried to make the ghettos useful to the occupiers as a labor reserve.[117][118] Jews in western Europe were not forced into ghettos but faced discriminatory laws and confiscation of property.[119][120][121]
Rape and sexual exploitation of Jewish and non-Jewish women in eastern Europe was common.[122]
Invasion of the Soviet Union
Germany and its allies Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Italy invaded the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941.[123][105] Although the war was launched more for strategic than ideological reasons,[124] what Hitler saw as an apocalyptic battle against the forces of Jewish Bolshevism[125] was to be carried out as a war of extermination with complete disregard for the laws and customs of war.[126][127] A quick victory was expected[128] and was planned to be followed by a massive demographic engineering project to remove 31 million people and replace them with German settlers.[129] To increase the speed of conquest the Germans planned to feed their army by looting, exporting additional food to Germany, and to terrorize the local inhabitants with preventative killings.[130][131] The Germans foresaw that the invasion would cause a food shortfall and planned the mass starvation of Soviet cities and some rural areas.[132][133][134] Although the starvation policy was less successful than planners hoped,[135] the residents of some cities, particularly in Ukraine, and besieged Leningrad, as well as the Jewish ghettos, endured human-made famine, during which millions of people died of starvation.[136][137]
By mid-June 1941, about 30,000 Jews had died, 20,000 of whom had starved to death in the ghettos.[138]
Soviet prisoners of war in the custody of the German Army were intended to die in large numbers. Sixty percent—3.3 million people—died, primarily of starvation,[139][140] making them the second largest group of victims of Nazi mass killing after European Jews.[141][142] Jewish prisoners of war and commissars were systematically executed.[143][144] About a million civilians were killed by the Nazis during anti-partisan warfare, including more than 300,000 in Belarus.[145][146] From 1942 onwards, the Germans and their allies targeted villages suspected of supporting the partisans, burning them and killing or expelling their inhabitants.[147] During these operations, nearby small ghettos were liquidated and their inhabitants shot.[148] By 1943, anti-partisan operations aimed for the depopulation of large areas of Belarus.[149][150] Jews and those unfit for work were typically shot on the spot with others deported.[148][151] Although most of those killed were not Jews,[146][149] anti-partisan warfare often led to the deaths of Jews.[152]
Mass shootings of Jews
The systematic murder of Jews began in the Soviet Union in 1941.[154] During the invasion, many Jews were conscripted into the Red Army. Out of 10 or 15 million Soviet civilians who fled eastwards to the Soviet interior, 1.6 million were Jews.[155][117] Local inhabitants killed as many as 50,000 Jews in pogroms in Latvia, Lithuania, eastern Poland, Ukraine, and the Romanian borderlands.[156][157] Although German forces tried to incite pogroms, their role in causing violence is controversial.[158][159] Romanian soldiers killed tens of thousands of Jews from Odessa by April 1942.[160][161]
Prior to the invasion, the Einsatzgruppen were reorganized in preparation for mass killings and instructed to shoot Soviet officials and Jewish state and party employees.[162] The shootings were justified on the basis of Jews' supposed central role in supporting the communist system, but it was not initially envisioned to kill all Soviet Jews.[163][164] The occupiers relied on locals to identify Jews to be targeted.[165] The first German mass killings targeted adult male Jews who had worked as civil servants or in jobs requiring education. Tens of thousands were shot by the end of July. The vast majority of civilian victims were Jews.[160] In July and August Heinrich Himmler, the leader of the SS (Schutzstaffel), made several visits to the death squads' zones of operation, relaying orders to kill more Jews.[166] At this time, the killers began to murder Jewish women and children too.[166][167] Executions peaked at 40,000 a month in Lithuania in August and September and in October and November reached their height in Belarus.[168]
The executions often took place a few kilometers from a town. Victims were rounded up and marched to the execution site, forced to undress, and shot into previously dug pits.[170] The favored technique was a shot in the back of the neck with a single bullet.[171] In the chaos, many victims were not killed by the gunfire but instead buried alive. Typically, the pits would be guarded after the execution but sometimes a few victims managed to escape afterwards.[170] Executions were public spectacles and the victims' property was looted both by the occupiers and local inhabitants.[172] Around 200 ghettos were established in the occupied Soviet Union, with many existing only briefly before their inhabitants were executed. A few large ghettos such as Vilna, Kovno, Riga, Białystok, and Lwów lasted into 1943 because they became centers of production.[117]
Victims of mass shootings included Jews deported from elsewhere.[173] Besides Germany, Romania killed the largest number of Jews.[174][175] Romania deported about 154,000–170,000 Jews from Bessarabia and Bukovina to ghettos in Transnistria from 1941 to 1943.[176] Jews from Transnistria were also imprisoned in these ghettos, where the total death toll may have reached 160,000.[177] Hungary expelled thousands of Carpathian Ruthenian and foreign Jews in 1941, who were shortly thereafter shot in Ukraine.[178][179] At the beginning of September, all German Jews were required to wear a yellow star, and in October, Hitler decided to deport them to the east and ban emigration.[180][181] Between mid-October and the end of 1941, 42,000 Jews from Germany and its annexed territories and 5,000 Romani people from Austria were deported to Łódź, Kovno, Riga, and Minsk.[182][183] In late November, 5,000 German Jews were shot outside of Kovno and another 1,000 near Riga, but Himmler ordered an end to such massacres and some in the senior Nazi leadership voiced doubts about killing German Jews.[173][184] Executions of German Jews in the Baltics resumed in early 1942.[185]
After the expansion of killings to target the entire Soviet Jewish population, the 3,000 men of the Einsatzgruppen proved insufficient and Himmler mobilized 21 battalions of Order Police to assist them.[166] In addition, Wehrmacht soldiers, Waffen-SS brigades, and local auxiliaries shot many Jews.[170][186][187] By the end of 1941, more than 80 percent of the Jews in central Ukraine, eastern Belarus, Russia, Latvia, and Lithuania had been shot, but less than 25 percent of those living farther west where 900,000 remained alive.[188] By the end of the war, around 1.5 to 2 million Jews were shot[189] and as many as 225,000 Roma.[190] The murderers found the executions distressing and logistically inconvenient, which influenced the decision to switch to other methods of killing.[191]
Systematic deportations across Europe
Most historians agree that Hitler issued an explicit order to kill all Jews across Europe,[192] but there is disagreement when.[193][194] Some historians cite inflammatory statements by Hitler and other Nazi leaders as well as the concurrent mass shootings of Serbian Jews, plans for extermination camps in Poland, and the beginning of the deportation of German Jews as indicative of the final decision having been made before December 1941.[193][195] Others argue that these policies were initiatives by local leaders and that the final decision was made later.[193] On 5 December 1941, the Soviet Union launched its first major counteroffensive. On 11 December, Hitler declared war on the United States after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor.[196][197] The next day, he told leading Nazi party officials, referring to his 1939 prophecy, "The world war is here; the annihilation of the Jews must be the necessary consequence."[197][198]
It took the Nazis several months after this to organize a continent-wide genocide.[197] Reinhard Heydrich, head of the Reich Main Security Office (RSHA), convened the Wannsee Conference on 20 January 1942. This high-level meeting was intended to coordinate anti-Jewish policy.[199] The majority of Holocaust killings were carried out in 1942, with it being the peak of the genocide, as over 3 million Jews were murdered, with 20 or 25 percent of Holocaust victims dying before early 1942 and the same number surviving by the end of the year.[200][201]
Extermination camps
Gas vans developed from those used to kill mental patients since 1939 were assigned to the Einsatzgruppen and first used in November 1941; victims were forced into the van and killed with engine exhaust.[202] The first extermination camp was Chełmno in the Wartheland, established on the initiative of the local civil administrator Arthur Greiser with Himmler's approval; it began operations in December 1941 using gas vans.[203][204][205] In October 1941, Higher SS and Police Leader of Lublin Odilo Globocnik[206] began work planning Belzec—the first purpose-built extermination camp to feature stationary gas chambers using carbon monoxide based on the previous Aktion T4 programme[207][208]—amid increasing talk among German administrators in Poland of large-scale murder of Jews in the General Governorate.[209][203] In late 1941 in East Upper Silesia, Jews in forced-labor camps operated by the Schmelt Organization deemed "unfit for work" began to be sent in groups to Auschwitz where they were murdered.[210][211] In early 1942, Zyklon B became the preferred killing method in extermination camps[212] after gassing experiments were conducted on Russian POWs in late August 1941.[213][208]
The camps were located on rail lines to make it easier to transport Jews to their deaths, but in remote places to avoid notice.[206] The stench caused by mass killing operations was noticeable to anyone nearby.[214] Except in the deportations from western and central Europe, people were typically deported to the camps in overcrowded cattle cars. As many as 150 people were forced into a single boxcar. Many died en route, partly because of the low priority accorded to these transports.[215][216] Shortage of rail transport sometimes led to postponement or cancellation of deportations.[217] Upon arrival, the victims were robbed of their remaining possessions, forced to undress, had their hair cut, and were chased into the gas chamber.[218] Death from the gas was agonizing and could take as long as 30 minutes.[219][197] The gas chambers were primitive and sometimes malfunctioned. Some prisoners were shot because the gas chambers were not functioning.[220] At other extermination camps, nearly everyone on a transport was killed on arrival, but at Auschwitz around 20–25 percent were separated out for labor,[221] although many of these prisoners died later on[222] through starvation, mass shooting, torture,[223] and medical experiments.[224]
Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka reported a combined revenue of RM 178.7 million from belongings stolen from their victims, far exceeding costs.[225][226] Combined, the camps required the labor of less than 3,000 Jewish prisoners, 1,000 Trawniki men (largely Ukrainian auxiliaries), and very few German guards.[227][216] About half of the Jews killed in the Holocaust died by poison gas.[228] Thousands of Romani people were also murdered in the extermination camps.[229] Prisoner uprisings at Treblinka and Sobibor meant that these camps were shut down earlier than envisioned.[230][231]
Camp | Location | Number of Jews killed | Killing technology | Planning began | Mass gassing duration |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Chełmno | Wartheland[232] | 150,000[232] | Gas vans[232] | July 1941[232] | 8 December 1941 – April 1943 and April–July 1944[233] |
Belzec | Lublin District[232] | 440,823–596,200[234] | Stationary gas chamber, engine exhaust[232] | October 1941[233] | 17 March 1942 – December 1942[233] |
Sobibor | Lublin District[232] | 170,618–238,900[234] | Stationary gas chamber, engine exhaust[232] | Late 1941 or March 1942[235] | May 1942 – October 1942[235] |
Treblinka | Warsaw District[232] | 780,863–951,800[234] | Stationary gas chamber, engine exhaust[232] | April 1942[232] | 23 July 1942 – October 1943[232] |
Auschwitz II–Birkenau | East Upper Silesia[232] | 900,000–1,000,000[232] | Stationary gas chamber, hydrogen cyanide[232] | September 1941 (built as POW camp)[212][232] |
February 1942 – October 1944[232] |
Liquidation of the ghettos in Poland
Plans to kill most of the Jews in the General Governorate were affected by various goals of the SS, military, and civil administration to reduce the amount of food consumed by Jews, enable a slight increase in rations to non-Jewish Poles, and combat the black market.[236] In March 1942, killings began in Belzec, targeting Jews from Lublin who were not capable of work. This action reportedly reduced the black market and was deemed a success to be replicated elsewhere.[237][238] By mid-1942, Nazi leaders decided to allow only 300,000 Jews to survive in the General Governorate by the end of the year for forced labor;[236] for the most part, only those working in armaments production were spared.[239] The majority of ghettos were liquidated in mass executions nearby, especially if they were not near a train station. Larger ghettos were more commonly liquidated during multiple deportations to extermination camps.[240][238] During this campaign, 1.5 million Polish Jews were murdered in the largest killing operation of the Holocaust.[241]
In order to reduce resistance, the ghetto would be raided without warning, usually in the early morning, and the extent of the operation would be concealed as long as possible.[242] Trawniki men would cordon off the ghetto while the Order Police and Security Police carried out the action.[243] In addition to local non-Jewish collaborators, the Jewish councils and Jewish ghetto police were often ordered to assist with liquidation actions, although these Jews were in most cases murdered later.[244] Chaotic, capriciously executed selections determined who would be loaded onto the trains. Many Jews were shot during the action, often leaving ghettos strewn with corpses. Jewish forced laborers had to clean it up and collect any valuables from the victims.[242]
The Warsaw Ghetto was cleared between 22 July and 12 September. Of the original population of 350,000 Jews, 250,000 were killed at Treblinka, 11,000 were deported to labor camps, 10,000 were shot in the ghetto, 35,000 were allowed to remain in the ghetto after a final selection, and around 20,000 or 25,000 managed to hide in the ghetto. Misdirection efforts convinced many Jews that they could avoid deportation until it was too late.[245] During a six-week period beginning in August, 300,000 Jews from the Radom District were sent to Treblinka.[246][247]
At the same time as the mass killing of Jews in the General Governorate, Jews who were in ghettos to the west and east were targeted. Tens of thousands of Jews were deported from ghettos in the Warthegau and East Upper Silesia to Chełmno and Auschwitz.[248] 300,000 Jews—largely skilled laborers—were shot in Volhynia, Podolia, and southwestern Belarus.[249][250] Deportations and mass executions in the Bialystok District and Galicia killed many Jews.[251] Although there was practically no resistance in the General Governorate in 1942, some Soviet Jews improvised weapons, attacked those attempting to liquidate the ghetto, and set it on fire.[252] These ghetto uprisings were only undertaken when the inhabitants began to believe that their death was certain.[253] In 1943, larger uprisings in Warsaw, Białystok, and Glubokoje necessitated the use of heavy weapons.[254] The uprising in Warsaw prompted the Nazi leadership to liquidate additional ghettos and labor camps in German-occupied Poland with their inhabitants massacred, such as the Wola Massacre, or deported to extermination camps for fear of additional Jewish resistance developing.[255] Nevertheless, in early 1944, more than 70,000 Jews were performing forced labor in the General Governorate.[256]
Deportations from elsewhere
Unlike the killing areas in the east, the deportation from elsewhere in Europe was centrally organized from Berlin, although it depended on the outcome of negotiations with allied governments and popular responses to deportation.[201] Beginning in late 1941, local administrators responded to the deportation of Jews to their area by massacring local Jews in order to free up space in ghettos for the deportees.[257] If the deported Jews did not die of harsh conditions, they were killed later in extermination camps.[258] Jews deported to Auschwitz were initially entered into the camp; the practice of conducting selections and murdering many prisoners upon arrival began in July 1942.[259] In May and June, German and Slovak Jews deported to Lublin began to be sent directly to extermination camps.[259]
In Western Europe, almost all Jewish deaths occurred after deportation.[260] The occupiers often relied on local policemen to arrest Jews, limiting the number who were deported.[261] In 1942, nearly 100,000 Jews were deported from Belgium, France, and the Netherlands.[262] Only 25 percent of the Jews in France were killed;[263] most of them were either non-citizens or recent immigrants. Si Kaddour Benghabrit and Abdelkader Mesli saved hundreds of Jews by hiding them in the basements of the Grand Mosque of Paris and other resistance efforts in France.[264][265] The death rate in the Netherlands was higher than neighboring countries, which scholars have attributed to difficulty in hiding or increased collaboration of the Dutch police.[266]
The German government sought the deportation of Jews from allied countries.[259][267] The first to hand over its Jewish population was Slovakia, which arrested and deported about 58,000 Jews to Poland from March to October 1942.[268][269][270] The Independent State of Croatia had already shot or killed in concentration camps the majority of its Jewish population (along with a larger number of Serbs),[271][272] and later deported several thousand Jews in 1942 and 1943.[273] Bulgaria deported 11,000 Jews from Bulgarian-occupied Greece and Yugoslavia, who were murdered at Treblinka, but declined to allow the deportation of Jews from its prewar territory.[274] Romania and Hungary did not send any Jews, which were the largest surviving populations after 1942.[275] Prior to the German occupation of Italy in September 1943, there were no serious attempt to deport Italian Jews, and Italy refused to allow the deportation of Jews in many Italian-occupied areas.[276][277] Nazi Germany did not attempt the destruction of the Finnish Jews[278] and the North African Jews living under French or Italian rule.[279]
Perpetrators and beneficiaries
An estimated 200,000 to 250,000 Germans were directly involved in killing Jews, and if one includes all those involved in the organization of extermination, the number rises to 500,000.[280] Genocide required the active and tacit consent of millions of Germans and non-Germans.[281][282] The motivation of Holocaust perpetrators varied and has led to historiographical debate.[281][283] Studies of the SS officials who organized the Holocaust have found that most had strong ideological commitment to Nazism.[284][285] In addition to ideological factors, many perpetrators were motivated by the prospect of material gain and social advancement.[286][287][288] German SS, police, and regular army units rarely had trouble finding enough men to shoot Jewish civilians, even though punishment for refusal was absent or light.[289][290]
Non-German perpetrators and collaborators included Dutch, French, and Polish policemen, Romanian soldiers, foreign SS and police auxiliaries, Ukrainian Insurgent Army partisans, and some civilians.[281][291][292] Some were coerced into committing violence against Jews, but others killed for entertainment, material rewards, the possibility of better treatment from the occupiers, or ideological motivations such as nationalism and anti-communism.[293][294][295] According to historian Christian Gerlach, non-Germans "not under German command" caused 5 to 6 percent of the Jewish deaths, and their involvement was crucial in other ways.[296]
Millions of Germans and others benefited from the genocide.[281] Corruption was rampant in the SS despite the proceeds of the Holocaust being designated as state property.[297] Different German state agencies vied to receive property stolen from Jews murdered at the death camps.[298] Many workers were able to obtain better jobs vacated by murdered Jews.[299] Businessmen benefitted from eliminating their Jewish competitors or taking over Jewish-owned businesses.[300] Others took over housing and possessions that had belonged to Jews.[301] Some Poles living near the extermination camps later dug up human remains in search of valuables.[301][302] The property of deported Jews was also appropriated by Germany's allies and collaborating governments. Even puppet states such as Vichy France and Norway were able to successfully lay claim to Jewish property.[303] In the decades after the war, Swiss banks became notorious for harboring gold deposited by Nazis who had stolen it during the Holocaust, as well as profiting from unclaimed deposits made by Holocaust victims.[304]
Forced labor
Beginning in 1938—especially in Germany and its annexed territories—many Jews were drafted into forced-labor camps and segregated work details. These camps were often of a temporary nature and typically overseen by civilian authorities. Initially, mortality did not increase dramatically.[305][306] After mid-1941, conditions for Jewish forced laborers drastically worsened and death rates increased; even private companies deliberately subjected workers to murderous conditions.[307] Beginning in 1941 and increasingly as time went on, Jews capable of employment were separated from others—who were usually killed.[308][309] They were typically employed in non-skilled jobs and could be replaced easily if non-Jewish workers were available, but those in skilled positions had a higher chance of survival.[310][311] Although conditions varied widely between camps, Jewish forced laborers were typically treated worse than non-Jewish prisoners and suffered much higher mortality rates.[312]
In mid-1943, Himmler sought to bring surviving Jewish forced laborers under the control of the SS in the concentration camp system.[313][314][d] Some of the forced-labor camps for Jews and some ghettos, such as Kovno, were designated concentration camps, while others were dissolved and surviving prisoners sent to a concentration camp.[319] Despite many deaths, as many as 200,000 Jews survived the war inside the concentration camps.[320] Although most Holocaust victims were never imprisoned in a concentration camp, the image of these camps is a popular symbol of the Holocaust.[321]
Including the Soviet prisoners of war, 13 million people were brought to Germany for forced labor.[322] The largest nationalities were Soviet and Polish[323] and they were the worst-treated groups except for Roma and Jews.[324] Soviet and Polish forced laborers endured inadequate food and medical treatment, long hours, and abuse by employers. Hundreds of thousands died.[325] Many others were forced to work for the occupiers without leaving their country of residence.[326] Some of Germany's allies, including Slovakia and Hungary, agreed to deport Jews to protect non-Jews from German demands for forced labor.[327] East European women were also kidnapped, via lapanka, to serve as sex slaves of German soldiers in military and camp brothels[328][329][330] despite the prohibition of relationships, including fraternization, between German and foreign workers,[331][332] which imposed the penalty of imprisonment[332] and death.[333][334]
Escape and hiding
Gerlach estimates that 200,000 Jews survived in hiding across Europe.[335] Knowledge of German intentions was essential to take action, but many struggled to believe the news.[336] Many attempted to jump from trains or flee ghettos and camps, but successfully escaping and living in hiding was extremely difficult and often unsuccessful.[337][338][339]
The support, or at least absence of active opposition, of the local population was essential but often lacking in Eastern Europe.[340] Those in hiding depended on the assistance of non-Jews.[341] Having money,[342] social connections with non-Jews, a non-Jewish appearance, perfect command of the local language, determination, and luck played a major role in determining survival.[343] Jews in hiding were hunted down with the assistance of local collaborators and rewards offered for their denunciation.[344][291][345] The death penalty was sometimes enforced on people hiding them, especially in eastern Europe.[346][347][348] Rescuers' motivations varied on a spectrum from altruism to expecting sex or material gain; it was not uncommon for helpers to betray or murder Jews if their money ran out.[349][347][350] Gerlach argues that hundreds of thousands of Jews may have died because of rumors or denunciations, and many others never attempted to escape because of a belief it was hopeless.[351]
Jews participated in resistance movements in most European countries, and often were overrepresented.[352] Jews were not always welcome, particularly in nationalist resistance groups—some of which killed Jews.[353][354] Particularly in Belarus, with its favorable geography of dense forests, many Jews joined the Soviet partisans—an estimated 20,000 to 25,000 across the Soviet Union.[355] An additional 10,000 to 13,000 Jewish non-combatants lived in family camps in Eastern European forests, of which the most well known was the Bielski partisans.[356][357]
International reactions
The Nazi leaders knew that their actions would bring international condemnation.[358] On 26 June 1942, BBC services in all languages publicized a report by the Jewish Social-Democratic Bund and other resistance groups and transmitted by the Polish government-in-exile, documenting the killing of 700,000 Jews in Poland. In December 1942, the Allies, then known as the United Nations, adopted a joint declaration condemning the systematic murder of Jews.[359] Most neutral countries in Europe maintained a pro-German foreign policy during the war. Nevertheless, some Jews were able to escape to neutral countries, whose policies ranged from rescue to non-action.[360]
During the war the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) raised $70 million and in the years after the war it raised $300 million. This money was spent aiding emigrants and providing direct relief in the form of parcels and other assistance to Jews living under German occupation, and after the war to Holocaust survivors. The United States banned sending relief into German-occupied Europe after entering the war, but the JDC continued to do so. From 1939 to 1944, 81,000 European Jews emigrated with the JDC's assistance.[361]
Throughout the war, no detailed photo intelligence study was carried out on any of the major concentration or extermination camps.[362] Appeals from Jewish representatives to the American and British governments to bomb rail lines leading to the camps or crematoriums was rejected, with little to no input from the War Departments of the United States or United Kingdom.[363] However, debate exists on whether a military response would have impacted on the Holocaust.[364]
Second half of the war
Continuing killings
After German military defeats in 1943, it became increasingly evident that Germany would lose the war.[366][367] In early 1943, 45,000 Jews were deported from German-occupied northern Greece, primarily Salonica, to Auschwitz, where nearly all were killed.[368] After Italy switched sides in late 1943, Germany deported several thousand Jews from Italy and the former Italian occupation zones of France, Yugoslavia, Albania, and Greece, with limited success.[369][370] Attempts to continue deportations in Western Europe after 1942 often failed because of Jews going into hiding and the increasing recalcitrance of local authorities.[371] Most Danish Jews escaped to Sweden with the help of the Danish resistance in the face of a half-hearted German deportation effort in late 1943.[372] Additional killings in 1943 and 1944 eliminated all remaining ghettos and most surviving Jews in Eastern Europe.[189] Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka were shut down and destroyed.[373][374]
The largest murder action after 1942 was that against the Hungarian Jews.[375] After the German invasion of Hungary in 1944, the Hungarian government cooperated closely in the deportation of 437,000 Jews in eight weeks, mostly to Auschwitz.[376][365][377] The expropriation of Jewish property was useful to achieve Hungarian economic goals and sending the Jews as forced laborers avoided the need to send non-Jewish Hungarians.[378] Those who survived the selection were forced to provide construction and manufacturing labor as part of a last-ditch effort to increase the production of fighter aircraft.[309][379] Although the Nazis' goal of eliminating any Jewish population from Germany had largely been achieved in 1943, it was reversed in 1944 as a result of the importation of these Jews for labor.[380]
Death marches and liberation
Following Allied advances, the SS deported concentration camp prisoners to camps in Germany and Austria, starting in mid-1944 from the Baltics.[381] Weak and sick prisoners were often killed in the camp and others were forced to travel by rail or on foot, usually with no or inadequate food.[382][383] Those who could not keep up were shot.[384] The evacuations were ordered partly to retain the prisoners as forced labor and partly to avoid allowing any prisoners to fall into enemy hands.[385][383] In October and November 1944, 90,000 Jews were deported from Budapest to the Austrian border.[386][387] The transfer of prisoners from Auschwitz began in mid-1944, the gas chambers were shut down and destroyed after October, and in January most of the remaining 67,000 Auschwitz prisoners were sent on a death march westwards.[384][388]
In January 1945, more than 700,000 people were imprisoned in the concentration camp system, of whom as many as a third died before the end of the war.[335] At this time, most concentration camp prisoners were Soviet and Polish civilians, either arrested for real or supposed resistance or for attempting to escape forced labor.[335] The death marches led to the breakdown of supplies for the camps that continued to exist, causing additional deaths.[382] Although there was no systematic killing of Jews during the death marches,[389] around 70,000 to 100,000 Jews died in the last months of the war.[390] Many of the death march survivors ended up in other concentration camps that were liberated in 1945 during the Western Allied invasion of Germany. The liberators found piles of corpses that they had to bulldoze into mass graves.[391][392][393] Some survivors were freed there[393] and others had been liberated by the Red Army during its march westwards.[394]
Death toll
Around six million Jews were killed.[395][396][397] Of the six million victims, most of those killed were from Eastern Europe, and with half from Poland alone.[398][399] Around 1.3 million Jews who had once lived under Nazi rule or in one of Germany's allies survived the war.[400] One-third of the Jewish population worldwide, and two-thirds of European Jews, had been wiped out.[401] Death rates varied widely due to a variety of factors and approached 100 percent in some areas.[402] Some reasons why survival chances varied was the availability of emigration[403] and protection from Germany's allies—which saved around 600,000 Jews.[404] Jewish children and the elderly faced even lower survival rates than adults.[405] It is considered to be the single largest genocide in human history.[406][407]
The deadliest phase of the Holocaust was Operation Reinhard, which was marked by the introduction of extermination camps. Roughly two million Jews were killed from March 1942 to November 1943. Around 1.47 million Jews were murdered in just 100 days from late July to early November 1942, a rate approximately 83% higher than the commonly suggested figure for the Rwandan genocide.[408] Between July to October 1942, two million Jews were murdered, including Operation Reinhard and other killings, with over three million Jews killed in 1942 alone, as stated by historian Christian Gerlach.[409] On the other hand, historian Alex J. Kay states that over two million Jews were murdered from late July to mid-November, stating that "these three-and-a-half months were the most intense, the deadliest of the entire Holocaust".[410] It was the fastest rate of genocidal killing in history.[411]
On 3 November 1943, around 18,400 Jews were murdered at Majdanek over the course of nine hours, in what was the largest number ever killed in a death camp on a single day.[412] It was part of Operation Harvest Festival, the murder of some 43,000 Jews, the single largest massacre of Jews by German forces, occurring from 3 to 4 November 1943.[413]
Separate Nazi persecutions killed a similar or larger number of non-Jewish civilians and POWs; estimated by Gerlach at 6 to 8 million, at more than 10 million by Gilbert[414] and at over 11 million by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.[415] In some countries, such as Hungary, Jews were a majority of civilian deaths; in Poland, they were either a majority[416] or about half.[399] In other countries such as the Soviet Union, France, Greece, and Yugoslavia, non-Jewish civilian losses outnumbered Jewish deaths.[416]
Aftermath and legacy
Return home and emigration
After liberation, many Jews attempted to return home. Limited success in finding relatives, the refusal of many non-Jews to return property,[417] and violent attacks such as the Kielce pogrom convinced many survivors to leave eastern Europe.[418][393] Antisemitism was reported to increase in several countries after the war, in part due to conflicts over property restitution.[419] When the war ended, there were less than 28,000 German Jews and 60,000 non-German Jews in Germany. By 1947, the number of Jews in Germany had increased to 250,000 owing to emigration from eastern Europe allowed by the communist authorities; Jews made up around 25 percent of the population of displaced persons camps.[420] Although many survivors were in poor health, they attempted to organize self-government in these camps, including education and rehabilitation efforts.[421] Due to the reluctance of other countries to allow their immigration, many survivors remained in Germany until the establishment of Israel in 1948.[420] Others moved to the United States around 1950 due to loosened immigration restrictions.[422]
Criminal trials
Most Holocaust perpetrators were never put on trial for their crimes.[394] During and after World War II, many European countries launched widespread purges of real and perceived collaborators that affected possibly as much as 2–3 percent of the population of Europe, although most of the resulting trials did not emphasize crimes against Jews.[423] Nazi atrocities led to the United Nations' Genocide Convention in 1948, but it was not used in Holocaust trials due to the non-retroactivity of criminal laws.[424]
In 1945 and 1946, the International Military Tribunal tried 23 Nazi leaders primarily for waging wars of aggression, which the prosecution argued was the root of Nazi criminality;[425] nevertheless, the systematic murder of Jews came to take center stage.[426] This trial and others held by the Allies in occupied Germany—the United States Army alone charged 1,676 defendants in 462 war crimes trials[427]—were widely perceived as an unjust form of political revenge by the German public.[428] West Germany later investigated 100,000 people and tried more than 6,000 defendants, mainly low-level perpetrators.[429][430] The high-level organizer Adolf Eichmann was kidnapped and tried in Israel in 1961. Instead of convicting Eichmann on the basis of documentary evidence, Israeli prosecutors asked many Holocaust survivors to testify, a strategy that increased publicity but has proven controversial.[431][432]
Reparations
Historians estimate that property losses to Jews of Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, France, Poland, and Hungary amounted to around 10 billion in 1944 dollars,[433] or $170 billion in 2023.[72] This estimate does not include the value of labor extracted.[434] Overall, the amount of Jewish property looted by the Nazis was about 10 percent of the total stolen from occupied countries.[434] Efforts by survivors to receive reparations for their losses began immediately after World War II. There was an additional wave of restitution efforts in the 1990s connected to the fall of Communism in eastern Europe.[435]
Between 1945 and 2018, Germany paid $86.8 billion in restitution and compensation to Holocaust survivors and heirs. In 1952, West Germany negotiated an agreement to pay DM 3 billion (around $714 million) to Israel and DM 450 million (around $107 million) to the Claims Conference.[436] Germany paid pensions and other reparations for harm done to some Holocaust survivors.[437] Other countries have paid restitution for assets stolen from Jews from these countries. Most Western European countries restored some property to Jews after the war, while communist countries nationalized many formerly Jewish assets, meaning that the overall amount restored to Jews has been lower in those countries.[438][439] Poland is the only member of the European Union that never passed any restitution legislation.[440] Many restitution programs fell short of restoration of prewar assets, and in particular, large amounts of immovable property was never returned to survivors or their heirs.[441][442]
Remembrance and historiography
In the decades after the war, Holocaust memory was largely confined to the survivors and their communities.[443] The popularity of Holocaust memory peaked in the 1990s after the fall of Communism, and became central to Western historical consciousness[444][445] as a symbol of the ultimate human evil.[446] Genocide scholar A. Dirk Moses asserted that "the Holocaust has gradually supplanted genocide as modernity's icon of evil",[447] while political scientist Scott Straus declared that "the Holocaust, perhaps more than any other event in the past century, represents the pinnacle of evil".[448] The Holocaust has been described as "perhaps the most savage and significant single crime in recorded history" and that of the most barbaric events in the twentieth century "the Holocaust probably ranks as the very worst".[449] Renowned German historian Wolfgang Benz described it as the "singularly most monstrous crime committed in the history of mankind".[450] Holocaust education, in which its advocates argue promotes citizenship while reducing prejudice generally, became widespread at the same time.[451][452] International Holocaust Remembrance Day is commemorated each year on 27 January, while some other countries have set a different memorial day.[453] It has been commemorated in memorials, museums, and speeches, as well as works of culture such as novels, poems, films, and plays.[454] Denial of the Holocaust is a criminal offense in some countries;[455] while denials of the Holocaust have been promoted by various Middle Eastern governments, figures and media.
Although many are convinced that there are lessons or some kind of redemptive meaning to be drawn from the Holocaust, whether this is the case and what these lessons are is disputed.[456][457][451] Communist states marginalized the topic of antisemitic persecution while eliding their nationals' collaboration with Nazism, a tendency that continued into the post-communist era.[458][459] In West Germany, a self-critical memory of the Holocaust developed in the 1970s and 1980s, and spread to some other western European countries.[460] The national memories of the Holocaust were extended to the European Union as a whole, in which Holocaust memory has provided both shared history and an emotional rationale for committing to human rights. Participation in this memory is required of countries seeking entry.[461][462] In contrast to Europe, in the United States the memory of the Holocaust tends to be more abstract and universalized.[463] Whether Holocaust memory actually promotes human rights is disputed.[451][464] In Israel, the memory of the Holocaust has been used at times to justify the use of force and violation of international human rights norms, in particular as part of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.[461]
The Holocaust is the most well-known genocide in history, and is considered to be the single most infamous case of genocide in European history as well.[465] It is the single most documented and studied genocide in history.[466][467] It is also seen as the archetype of genocide and the benchmark in genocide studies.[468][469]
The scholarly literature on the Holocaust is massive, encompassing thousands of books.[470] The tendency to see the Holocaust as a unique or incomprehensible event continues to be popular among the broader public after being largely rejected by historians.[471][472][473] Scholar Omer Bartov points out how the Holocaust was unique in that it was "the industrial killing of millions of human beings in factories of death, ordered by a modern state, organized by a conscientious bureaucracy, and supported by a law-abiding, patriotic "civilized" society."[474] Another debate concerns whether the Holocaust emerged from Western civilization or was an aberration of it.[475]
The Jewish population still remains below pre-Holocaust levels. According to the Central Bureau of Statistics of Israel, the world Jewish population reached 15.2 million by the end of 2020 – approximately 1.4 million less than on the eve of the Holocaust in 1939, when the number was 16.6 million.[476]
Notes
- ^ Bartov 2023a, pp. 18–19, "Much of this debate curiously boils down to a very specific historical question, namely, did the Nazis target the Jews for genocide in a manner that was essentially different from their treatment of any other group under their rule? [...] There can be little doubt that the Jews played a singular role in the Nazi imaginaire and that German Jewish policies distinguished them within the Nazi universe of murder and fantasy; but other groups clearly have been similarly targeted in other genocides [...] 'the extent of the 'final solution' was ... shaped by an antisemitism that was colored by a different element over and above the racism and ethno-nationalism that explains the murder of other groups by Nazi Germany—that element being the view of 'the Jews' as an implacable, collective world enemy.' To be sure, this makes the Holocaust unique only within the context of the Nazi empire ..."; Smith 2023, p. 36, "The Holocaust is particular to Jews and yet has had increasing relevance for those who do not identify as Jewish. ... All Jews everywhere were to be murdered because of their racial heritage was 'put into state policy' on January 20, 1942 at the Wannsee conference (Bazyler 2017, 29). Witness to the genocide of the Jews is a uniquely Jewish experience, because only Jews were targeted by that policy, even if other groups were targeted for genocide under other policies. The Nazi regime committed genocide against the Roma and Sinti, governed by separate policies. They also committed war crimes against Soviet Prisoners of War under other policies. So too the mass murder of disabled and the mentally ill had their own policies. The Nazis committed multiple genocides and crimes against humanity, at the same time, sometimes in the same place, governed by different laws, policies, and practices. It is not correct to say that there were many victim types during 'the Holocaust,' if by 'the Holocaust' we mean the genocide of the Jews."; Stone 2023, Introduction: What is the Holocaust?, "This is why the focus here is on the Jews. Roma, the disabled, Soviet POWs, homosexuals and other groups were victims of the Nazis, and it is entirely legitimate to study their fate alongside one another. But using the term 'Holocaust' to encompass all of these groups with the aim of being inclusive and not prioritizing one group's suffering, actually does a disservice to groups other than Jews. For the Nazis persecuted these groups for different reasons, reasons we fail to appreciate if we collapse them all together."; Engel 2021, pp. 3 ("This book is about an encounter between two sets of human beings: on one hand, the people who acted on behalf of the German state, its agencies, or its almost 66 million citizens between 30 January 1933 and 8 May 1945; on the other, the more than 9 million Jews ...") and 5 ("Those discoveries about the encounter between the Third Reich and the Jews made that encounter stand out in the minds of many from other instances of Nazi persecution and encouraged observers to assign it its own special name."); Jackson 2021, pp. 199–200, "The Nazis killed some people almost exclusively due to their supposed genetic inferiority (the mentally and physically handicapped, Slavs, Roma); they killed others almost exclusively due to their perceived cultural decadence (communists, democrats, modernist authors and artists); but only the Jews were indicted on both grounds simultaneously and with equal vigor. ... This is not to say that Roma, communists, and others were not hated and murdered by the Nazis, but it is to note that the Jews were unique in being despised and assaulted in every dimension of their identity, corporeal and psychic."; Sahlstrom 2021, p. 291, "the established understanding of the Holocaust today as the genocide of six million Jews"; Bartrop 2019, p. 50, "Given this, it must always be remembered that the Holocaust was a premeditated action by the Nazis to permanently eradicate a Jewish presence in Europe. Others—the disabled, Roma, Poles and other Slavs, Jehovah's Witnesses, homosexuals, dissenting clergy, communists, socialists, "asocials," and political opponents of all sorts—were also persecuted and in many cases murdered in huge numbers; however, it was the campaign against the Jews that was the ideological "ground zero" for Nazi racial ideology. Others besides Jews were murdered, often on a genocidal scale, and should be remembered and acknowledged: but it was only the Jews who were all to be killed as part of a calculated policy of genocide."; Beorn 2018, p. 4, "I will use the term 'Holocaust' to refer mainly to the Nazi attempt to murder the Jews of Europe; however, I will also use the more inclusive term 'Nazi genocidal project' to capture the larger murderous vision of which the Jews were such a large part. This includes Sinti/Roma (gypsies), the handicapped, political 'enemies,' Soviet prisoners of war, and—particularly in the East—entire ethnic groups such as the Slavs. One cannot understand the Holocaust in Eastern Europe without placing it in the context of this larger Nazi genocidal project that foresaw murder and demographic engineering on a colossal scale."; Cesarani 2016, p. xxxix, "This book deals with the fate of the Jews, not of 'other victims' of Nazi political repression and racial-biological policies. Several other groups endured social exclusion, incarceration in concentration camps, and mass murder. However, the rationale for the persecution of these groups differed radically from the intentions that underlay anti-Jewish policy. Even though homosexual men and women, Germans of African descent, and the severely mentally and physically disabled were all disparaged in Nazi racial thinking, and depicted as a threat to the strength and purity of the Volk, only the Jews were characterized as an implacable, powerful, global enemy that had to be fought at every turn and finally eliminated."; Hayes 2015, p. xiii, "This book also reflects another of its editor's convictions: the Holocaust was National Socialist Germany's assault on the Jews of Europe. Nazism attacked many groups, but none for the same reason that it attacked the Jews, none with the same urgency, and none to the same extent."; Hayes & Roth 2010, p. 2, "Other groups—for example, Sinti and Roma, homosexuals, and Slavs—were swept up in the maelstrom of the Holocaust, but not for the same reasons as Jews and not with the same consequences ... In none of these cases, however, was the target group considered dangerous or coherent enough to warrant complete or immediate extirpation. This circumstance constitutes a significant difference from policies pursued toward the Jews, a difference that helps to clarify and define the Holocaust itself."; Stone 2010, pp. 1–2, "For the purpose of this book, the Holocaust is understood as the genocide of the Jews ... 'Holocaust', then, refers to the genocide of the Jews, which by no means excludes an understanding that other groups—notably Romanies and Slavs—were victims of genocide."; Bloxham 2009, p. 1, "Between 5,100,000 and 6,200,000 Jews were murdered during the Second World War, an episode the Nazis called the 'final solution of the Jewish question'. The world today knows it as the Holocaust."; Niewyk & Nicosia 2000, pp. 45 ("The Holocaust is commonly defined as the mass murder of more than 5,000,000 Jews by the Germans during World War II. Not everyone finds this a fully satisfactory definition.") and 51 ("the traditional view that it was the genocide of the Jews alone")
- ^ King 2023, pp. 26–27, "Rather than one big thing, the Holocaust might now be described as an array of event categories. In Christopher Browning's terms, the Holocaust involved three separate "clusters of genocidal projects": euthanasia and "racial purification" directed against the disabled and Sinti and Roma (at the time referred to collectively as "Gypsies") within the Third Reich; the eradication of Slavic populations living in countries east of Germany; and the Final Solution proper—that is, the attempted mass murder of every Jew residing anywhere within Germany's sphere of influence (Browning 2010, 407). (The list of persecuted categories—people targeted by the Nazis in ways short of genocide—would of course be longer.)"; Engel 2021, p. 6, "Echoing this view, some have contended that the expression 'the Holocaust' ought to refer not only to the encounter between the Third Reich and the Jews but also to 'the horrors that Poles, other Slavs, and Gypsies endured at the hands of the Nazis' (Lukas, 1986: 220). Others have extended the term to encompass the Third Reich's treatment of homosexuals, the mentally ill or infrm, and Jehovah's Witnesses, speaking of 11 or 12 million victims of the Holocaust, half of whom were Jews. Still others have employed the word 'holocaust' also when referring to cases of mass murder not perpetrated by the Third Reich."; Kay 2021, pp. 1–2, "For perhaps the first time, all major victim groups where the death tolls reached at least into the tens of thousands will be considered together: Jewish and non-Jewish ... it makes a great deal of sense to consider the different strands of Nazi mass killing together rather than in isolation from one another. This of course means going against the grain of most scholarship on the subject by examining the genocide of the European Jews alongside other Nazi mass-murder campaigns."; Gerlach 2016, pp. 14–15, "There are a number of words I will try to avoid because of the serious misconceptions they might lead to. The terms 'Holocaust' and 'Shoah' are not useful since neither has any analytical value. 'Holocaust' (derived from the Greek holókauton, or burned sacrifice) has a religious connotation unbefitting of the event it is supposed to refer to, and users of this term may mean by it either the persecution and murder of Jews alone, or Nazi German violence against any group more generally ... Importantly, 'Holocaust' and 'Shoah' have also been criticized as 'teleological and anachronistic' terms that convey a retrospective view that makes complex processes appear 'as a single event.'"; Niewyk & Nicosia 2000, p. 51, "The authors of this volume have adopted the third approach to a working definition: The Holocaust—that is, Nazi genocide—was the systematic, state-sponsored murder of entire groups determined by heredity. This applied to Jews, Gypsies, and the handicapped. This section also makes it clear that other definitions are defended by scholars who deserve a respectful hearing."
- ^ a b Equivalent to $400 million at the time,[71] or $7 billion in 2023.[72]
- ^ The Nazi concentration camp system administered by the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office (SS-WVHA)[315] was administratively separate from other forced-labor camps[316][317] and from the single-purpose extermination camps.[318]
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As well as the six million Jews who were murdered, more than ten million other non-combatants were killed by the Nazis.
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{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ Boender, Barbara; ten Have, Wichert, eds. (2012). The Holocaust and Other Genocides: An Introduction (1st ed.). Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. pp. 7–10. ISBN 978-90-8964-381-0.
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