The Mass Murder of Jews and Its Stages Chart2
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THE MASS subject MURDER OF JEWS AND ITS STAGES Context2. Although anti-Semitism was a main shelved due to inability to defeat Great original tenet of the Nazi party programme, Britain which ruled the seas at the time. the idea of physically eliminating Jews from German and other societies after the In the autumn of 1939, Adolf Eichmann put outbreak of the Second World War crystallised forth another concept: the establishment of only gradually until mid-1941. When attacking Jewish colonies in occupied Poland (The General Poland in September 1939 and thereby starting Government). The scheme, codenamed the the Second World War, the Germans did not yet Nisko Plan, entailed the creation of a ‘reservation’ have a coherent plan for what was called the ‘final for Jews under SS control in the basin of the San solution to the Jewish question’. River near the town of Nisko. The selected area was swampy and required enormous manpower Anti-Jewish measures adopted by the Nazis after to construct the necessary infrastructure. In taking power in the form of stripping Jews of October, first groups of Jews were deported from citizen rights, exclusion and discrimination proved the Third Reich and the Protectorate of Bohemia insufficient to rid of them from Germany and and Moravia. Resettlement of successive groups subsequently from other countries in occupied was suspended because trains were needed for Europe. Other solutions to that ‘problem’ were military transport to the front. Therefore, that plan therefore sought. One of them was a mandatory was also scrapped in the spring of 1940. Reinhard resettlement of Jews, as conceived by Adolf Heydrich concluded, however, that Jews should be Eichmann, the head of the unit called the Jewish concentrated in occupied Poland to ‘work’ for the section in the Reich Main Security Office (RSHA), Reich until the end of the war. The initial plan had been drafted before the war In the first phase of the war, drastic orders restrict- and entailed the settlement of European Jews in ing the rights of Jews were introduced in the Gen- Madagascar, then a French colony controlled by the eral Government. Already on 26 October 1939, Vichy regime collaborating with Germany during General Governor Hans Frank issued an order on the war. According to the Nazis, means to execute forced labour of the Jewish population age 14 to that ‘Madagascar Plan’ were to be provided by 60 across the territory under his authority. The the Jews themselves, as it was planned to resettle document initiated a series of regulations intend- them to the island by the spring of 1941. However, ed to discriminate against Jews. They intruded into the German attack on Great Britain which required nearly every aspect of Jewish life. They also intro- enormous engagement of air and naval forces duced the obligation for Jews to wear a Star of Da- forestalled its implementation. As a consequence, vid armband and limited free movement on public the Madagascar Plan was delayed and ultimately transport. 1 Over time, Jews were concentrated in ghettos, stage in their ‘intermediate extermination’. Some where – especially if closed – appalling living Jews, mainly young men and women, were con- and sanitary conditions frequently prevailed with fined in labour camps built in occupied Polish ter- completely inadequate provisions. The Germans ritories, where they served as slave labour for the established ghettos in occupied Polish territories German economy. starting from the autumn of 1939. In October of that year, the first one appeared in Piotrków Trybunalski Ghettos were created not only in occupied Poland and most followed in 1940–1941. According to but, starting from 1941, also Lithuania and Latvia, estimates, approximately 400 ghettos existed in as well as in Belarus, Ukraine and the Protectorate the General Government in the short or long term, of Bohemia and Moravia (Theresienstadt). In 1944, with approximately 680 in entire occupied Poland. they also appeared in Hungary and Romania The creation of ghettos in territories incorporated (Bukovina and Bessarabia). Areas where Jews were into the Reich was accompanied by deportation concentrated prior to deportation to death camps of Jews to the General Government (between were also established in West European countries January 1940 and March 1941). The largest ghetto (e.g. in Amsterdam). However, they were organised there was that in Łodz (Litzmanstadt ghetto). It differently than ghettos in East-Central Europe and was created on 8 February 1940 and isolated from conditions there were considerably better than the rest of the city on 30 April. It is estimated that those, for example, in occupied Poland. approximately 200,000 Jews passed through it. The Germans created the largest and most populous After the Third Reich launched its attack on the ghetto of the General Government in Warsaw, USSR on 22 June 1941, plans to resettle Jews where nearly 450,000 people were crowded in were scrapped and the decision was made to an area of approximately 300 ha. Ghettos were commence another stage of the Holocaust known also created in 1942 after the mass killing of Jews as direct extermination. In the summer of 1941, the was launched under Operation Reinhardt. Its aim mass murder of Jews began as the German army was to murder Jews in the GG and Bezirk Bialystok advanced eastwards. Four main groups, called (Białystok district). Ghettos then took on a different Einsatzgruppen, were created for that purpose task: not to isolate the Jewish population and and systematically executed Jews in occupied use it as free labour but rather to assemble Jews territories. Usually, Einsatsgruppen members in a single location prior to a planned execution ordered their victims to dig ditches and strip naked or transport to a death camp. In many localities, after which all of them were shot, regardless of mainly smaller ones, no separate ghettos were age or gender. One of the largest mass executions created and Jews lived in their own homes until took place in Babi Yar at the outskirts of Kiev in deportation or on-the-spot execution. occupied Ukraine. Over the course of just few days (29 September–3 October 1941), more than 33,000 Ghetto boundaries were delineated in various Jews were murdered. forms – with barbed wire, a fence or erected bor- ders. Some ghettos were separated with a wall It is estimated that at least 1.5 million Jews died (e.g. Warsaw and Krakow). The enclosure of Jews as a result of Einsatzgruppen actions. As the image in a ghetto, according to the Nazis, was of a final, of defenceless victims, particularly women and absolute and irreversible nature. Justification of children, had a negative psychological impact on ghettos, regardless of whether economic, social the shooting German soldiers, other forms of mass or sanitary, was merely a step in the process of murder of Jews were found. In the late summer eliminating Jews from society. The conditions cre- of 1941, experiments were conducted in Block 11 ated in what was known as Jewish quarters were at KL Auschwitz on the killing of its inmates with adapted to plans for their economic exploitation. poisonous gases (Zyklon B). Soviet and Polish Behind ghetto walls and cut off from the world, prisoners were the first to be gassed. Over time, gas hundreds of thousands of people were forced began to be used on a mass scale. In addition to into slave and debilitating labour causing many stationary gas chambers, mobile units were used Jews to perish. A particular example is the War- to kill Jews in death camps poisoning them with saw ghetto, where, as a result of hunger, disease exhaust fumes from diesel engines. The officer and horrendous living conditions, approximately tasked with ‘resolving the Jewish question’ was 100,000 people died. Those actions constituted a Marshall Reich Herman Göring. On 31 July 1941, Subject 2. 2 CONTEXT he ordered Reinhard Heydrich to prepare details continued to function. Built in December 1941, of the execution of his plan. the first-mentioned served mainly to murder Jews from Warthegau, or Warta Lands. The other one, On 20 January 1942, a conference of Nazi leaders the largest concentration and death camp, became and state officials took place at a villa in the the killing site of Jews from throughout Europe Berlin suburb of Wannsee. It was of enormous as of 1942. During the liquidation of ghettos and significance for adopting the ‘final solution to deportation of most Jews to death camps, the the Jewish question’, which was most likely Germans spared a small number of Jews still able sealed in the summer of 1941. Logistical details to work, who were sent to labour and concentration were worked out on a plan for mass genocide of camps. European Jews. As a consequence, the Germans launched their operation codenamed ‘Reinhardt’ Some Jews, although their number is not certain, in the General Government and Bezirk Bialystok left ghettos prior to their liquidation. Others on the night of 16/17 March 1942. Its purpose was escaped from labour and concentration camps. the extermination of Jews residing there, whose All of them sought shelter on what was called number is estimated at approximately 2,284,000. the Aryan side. That was thethat turning point Three death camps were constructed for that determined their further fate as well as relations purpose in 1942: in Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka to with the non-Jewish population whose attitudes which the Jewish population was deported. Jewish at the time became a vital factor in ensuring their communities in the General Government were survival. The period following the liquidation of successively liquidated. Jews were also murdered en more ghettos and deportation of their residents to masse at KL Lublin (Majdanek), which operated as a death camps in 1942/43–1944/45 is considered to concentration and death camp.