"The Final Solution"
Overview:
The genocide of the Jews was the culmination of a decade of Nazi policy, under the rule of Adolf Hitler. The "Final Solution" was implemented in stages. After the Nazi party rise to power, state-enforced racism resulted in anti-Jewish legislation, boycotts, "Aryanization," and finally the "Night of Broken Glass" pogrom, all of which aimed to remove the Jews from German society. After the beginning of World War II, anti-Jewish policy evolved into a comprehensive plan to concentrate and eventually annihilate European Jewry.
STAGE 1: Nuremberg laws
Stage 2: Boycotting / "Aryanization"
Stage 3: Kristallnacht
Stage 4: concentration camps and annihilation
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IMAGE 1: From the GHETTOS to CAMPS "Major deportations from ghettos across Europe to killing centers began in early 1942, when camps first began gassing Jews. This image shows Jews being deported from the Łódź ghetto. Many of these people would die at Chelmno; later on, the Nazis would ship Jews from the Łódź ghetto to Auschwitz." Photo source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archives. IMAGE 2: LOOTING the VICTIMS The Nazis stole everything they could from their victims, including clothing, shoes, linens, jewelry, watches, and even women’s hair. These items were shipped by train from the concentration camps and death camps back to Germany. Some camp prisoners worked collecting the personal property of victims. They had to sort, count, and pack the items, then prepare them for shipment back to Germany. In addition to shoes, these prisoners also took clothing, coats, wristwatches, and other personal possessions. Camp prisoners known as Goldjuden or “Gold Jews” were required to check the teeth of all victims and extract any gold fillings; the Germans would then melt down the gold. IMAGE 3: LABOR CAMPS
The Nazis subjected millions of people (both Jews and other victim groups) to forced labor under brutal conditions. From the establishment of the first Nazi concentration camps and detention facilities in the winter of 1933, forced labor—often pointless and humiliating, and imposed without proper equipment, clothing, nourishment, or rest—formed a core part of the concentration camp regimen. SOURCE: https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005180 IMAGE 4: EXTERMINATION CAMPS / "Killing Centers" The Nazis established killing centers for efficient mass murder. Unlike concentration camps, which served primarily as detention and labor centers, killing centers (also referred to as "extermination camps" or "death camps") were almost exclusively "death factories." German SS and police murdered nearly 2,700,000 Jews in the killing centers either by asphyxiation with poison gas or by shooting. Source: https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005145 |