Why do genocides happen? 2.4a In this lesson How did the Nazis try to you will: kill all European Jews? ■ explore what When they joined the German army, some officers might never have imagined they happened to Jews would order the shooting of defenceless women and children. But from 1941 to ■ The Nazi Party under Nazi control 1945 many did; they saw it as their duty to ensure that the German nation survived. controlled the media – newspapers, radio and ■ use pictorial cinema. It produced lots of anti-Semitic information to Sowing seeds of hatred propaganda like this investigate a problem. Source a is clear evidence of just one act of murder. The Nazis, and those film, The Eternal Jew. who they got to help them, killed 6 million people, mostly Jewish men, women and children, between 1939 and 1945. In fact, the Nazis wanted to ■ Anti-Semitism was taught at school, especially in history and biology lessons. Here, two Jewish children are forced to stand by a blackboard that Weigh the evidence! kill all 11 million Jews in Europe. It is very difficult to understand the reason reads ‘The Jews are our greatest enemy! Beware of Jews.’ Jewish children for this. Germany was a modern country with an educated population. were eventually excluded from German schools in 1938. 2 Look again at sources b–e. Which two do you What caused some otherwise ordinary people to become killers? Anti-Semitism think give the best evidence that Nazis were trying Hatred of Jews. There were a number of ways in which the Nazi government tried to to make ordinary Germans hate the Jews? As you encourage anti-Semitism between 1933 and 1945, including: make your decision remember to think about: Deportation ● the content of the source Forced removal from your ● propaganda In pairs, look at ? ● the nature, origin and purpose of the source. home or country. ● use of laws to exclude Jews from public life source a. Why might this soldier Genocide ● threat of arrest for those who disagreed with Nazi views Deliberate attempt to have carried out murder an entire national ● removing Jews from Germany and forcing them to live this shooting? Why did so few people help the Jews? or ethnic group of people. elsewhere in terrible conditions. Try to list three In Germany, the Nazis tried to control every single possible reasons. aspect of people’s lives – the books they read, the Ghetto music they listened to and who they could marry. If you Part of a town walled off from the rest where Jews ■ A German soldier in the did not fit in, you could become a victim of a powerful Ukraine about to shoot a police state. Many people were arrested, imprisoned were forced to live. ■ Ninety-one Jews were killed and 30,000 Jews were sent to woman and child, 1942. and even killed without a fair trial, because all the concentration camps in November 1938 after a Jew murdered a German diplomat in Paris. All German Jews had to wear a Star of David badge judges were Nazis. after 1 September 1941. Going undercover! The Social Democrat Party (SPD) was banned in 1933, shortly after the Nazis came to power. The SPD leaders Use your eyes! fled from Germany to Prague to escape arrest, but they kept spies in the country to send reports about what 1 Look at sources b–e. was going on. For each one: 3 Imagine you are an SPD spy in 1939. You are told a) decide which method to send a report about how the Nazis are trying to of anti-Semitism this encourage anti-Semitic attitudes. In your report, source best shows use the evidence you have seen to make clear what b) explain your decision you think are the most important pressures. using details from the ■ German Jews were deported to ghettos in Polish towns from Give lots of details about these pressures. source. October 1941. Living conditions in these ghettos were hellish. 98 History in Progress: 1901–Present Ruling:Living 1.1 What and working: did the suffragettes2.4 Why do genocides do to get happen?the vote? 99 Why do genocides happen? 2.4b Who was to blame for the ‘Final Solution’? Dear reader In this lesson Read for you will: Between 1940 and 1942 the Nazis shot more than 1 million Jews in Poland and yourself I am writing these words in the hour of my greatest ■ investigate who was Russia. However, Nazi leaders worried that shooting was too slow and had a bad despair. I hope that you will take revenge on the impact on the morale of soldiers. At some point in 1941, leaders began to talk about 1 Read source a. responsible for the a ‘Final Solution’ to the ‘Jewish problem’, but it was not clear what this would be. ‘Final Solution’ a) What images do murderers! You must give my life some meaning! There were plans to send the Jews to Siberia or Madagascar. Siberia is a huge, flat you find the most ■ use written sources to plain in central Russia where temperatures can plunge as low as minus 50 degrees powerful in this letter? In the large room, deep underground, a sign tells support an argument. Celsius in winter. Madagascar is a large island off the east coast of Africa where b) Why do you think the victims to undress because they are now in the malaria is a common disease. Zalmen Gradowski wrote this letter? Try ‘showers’. They look terrified; they know, they Why would the Nazis want to send the Jews to such places? to list three reasons. ? understand: they will be wiped out. It will be as if Crematoria Furnaces or ovens used Camps and killing they were never born. These are not real showers: not to burn corpses into ash. Failure to defeat Russia in the war meant that plans to send Jews to Siberia were water but gas comes out of them. After the gassing, Modern cremations are not possible. So the Nazis experimented with quicker ways to kill Jews within nothing like the ones used by the areas they controlled. Explosives and exhaust fumes from vans were tried the dead bodies are dragged from the tangle to the the Nazis. before a gas called Zyklon B was found to be a quick killer. Between 1941 and Extermination crematoria 1944, extermination camps were built where all European Jews, gypsies and ■ The extermination camp at . Children are piled up like logs at the To destroy completely; to kill. homosexuals could be murdered in huge gas chambers. Auschwitz, Poland, 1944. side then added afterwards, thrown on top of each pair of adults on an iron stretcher. The furnace is opened and the stretcher pushed in. The hair catches light first. The skin swells and blisters, bursting open after a few seconds. Arms and legs twist, veins and nerves seize up and cause the limbs to jerk. By now the whole body is on fire, the skin splits open, fat spills out and you hear the fire sizzle. The stomach bursts. The intestines pour out and within a few minutes no trace remains. The whole process takes 20 minutes, a body, a world, is reduced to dust … ■ Letter found buried near the gas chambers in Auschwitz extermination camp in Poland. It was written by Zalmen Gradowski, a Polish Jew forced to work at the extermination camp. 100 History in Progress: 1901–Present Living and working: 2.4 Why do genocides happen? 101 Who was to blame? Extermination camp SOVIET UNION Zalmen Gradowski wanted revenge on the murderers, but who was to blame? NORWAY ESTONIA If the Jews start another Concentration camp (RUSSIA) Almost 5 million people were taken from their homes to camps like Auschwitz world war, the result will be where they were either murdered straight away or worked to death in what the destruction of the Jews Axis Country/annexed LATVIA became known as the Holocaust. Many Germans who lived through the Second in Europe! by Axis N World War claimed they did not know what was happening to the Jews. Some Occupied by Axis SWEDEN ■ From a speech by Adolf Hitler in the Italy (Axis) at height OCCUPPIED historians doubt this claim and think that pressure for the ‘Final Solution’ came German Parliament, 30 January DENMARK LITHUANIA of occupation Baltic RUSSIA from ordinary people as much as from the Nazi leaders. 1939. Sea Allied Country North In 1996, an American historian called Daniel Goldhagen published a book called Sea EAST Neutral PRUSSIA Hitler’s Willing Executioners. In this book, he argued that most ordinary Germans BELARUS The Jews were removed from Bialystok wanted the Holocaust to happen because they hated Jews; the Nazi leaders Major transportation the region without the local routes just ‘unleashed’ this hatred. This caused lots of arguments in Germany: some people noticing. The action Warsaw Berlin WEST went very smoothly. UNITED thought that he unfairly insulted the German people; others thought he made NETH. PRUSSIA KINGDOM POLAND true points that were difficult to accept. What will you think? UKRAINE ■ Extract from a letter between two leading Nazis who went on to run the BELGIUM GERMANY Auschwitz Lwow ‘Final Solution’, 29 October 1940. LUX. CZECH REP. Paris Your turn … What’s the confusion? Following the orders of OCCUPIED FRANCE Vienna HUNGARY Budapest 31 July 1941, it was agreed Cluj 2 Use sources b–g and Despite years of research, many historians still that work should be done to SWITZ. AUSTRIA the map to make a do not agree who was ultimately to blame prepare for the ‘Final Solution’, SLOVENIA list of the people who for the Holocaust.