Holocaust: Nazi Persecution, Genocide, Concentration Camps

Quick Facts

• Hebrew: Shoah (Catastrophe)
• Yiddish and Hebrew: urban (Destruction)

Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass)

• Date: Evening of November 9, 1938.
• Orchestrated anti-Jewish violence across the Reich, including Austria.
• Over 1,000 synagogues burned/damaged, 7,500 businesses vandalized.
• 30,000 Jewish men arrested and sent to concentration camps.
• Police and firemen were passive; firemen aimed to protect Aryan properties.
• Marked the end of Jewish hopes in Germany.

Economic Aftermath

• November 12, 1938: Meeting of Nazi officials led by Hermann Gring.
• Jewish community fined 1 billion Reichsmarks for damages.
• Jews responsible for cleanup; barred from collecting insurance.
• New restrictions included:
  • Exclusion from theatres, separate train compartments, and German schools.
  • Previous prohibitions included bans on university degrees, owning businesses, practicing law, or medicine.
• Gring's ironic note: "I would not like to be a Jew in Germany!"

Victims of Nazism

Primary Victims

• Jews were the central victims of Nazi ideology.
• Other victimized groups included:
  • Political dissidents and trade unionists: arrested and placed in concentration camps.
  • Homosexuals: especially targeted; forced to wear special armbands.
  • Jehovah's Witnesses: imprisoned for refusing allegiance to the state.
  • Africans in Germany: faced forced sterilization and internment.
  • Roma and Sinti: victims of systematic killings in gas chambers.

T4 Program

• Initiated in 1939; a euphemism for the euthanasia program targeting the disabled.
• Seen as economic burden; termed "life unworthy of life."
• Used gas chambers and crematoria; led to staff training for future death camps.
• Public protests halted the program, but secret killings persisted.

World War II Context

German Occupation of Poland

• Targeted Jews, brutalized non-Jewish Poles.
• Systematic destruction of Polish society in pursuit of Lebensraum.
• Polish leadership and priests were killed; children kidnapped for German families.

Expansion and Ghettos

• Germany expanded territories (e.g., Austria, Sudetenland) before WWII.
• More Jews came under German control, increasing urgency of the Jewish question.
• Plans for deportation to Madagascar were deemed impractical.
• Establishment of Jewish Councils (Judenrte) under Reinhard Heydrich's orders.
• Warsaw Ghetto: 400 ghettos in total, with extreme population density and suffering.

Ghetto Life and Resistance

• Ghettos viewed as temporary holding until decisions on Jewish fate were made.
• Life in ghettos included clandestine schools and hidden religious practices.
• Humor and song became forms of defiance; armed resistance emerged late.

The Final Solution

• Date of the decision for systematic murder debated among historians.
• Increased killings began with the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941.
• Transition from forced removal to systematic extermination of the Jewish population.