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Line 120: − + − [[Image:Heydrich.jpg|right|150px|thumb|''Obersturbanfuhrer'' Reinhard Heydrich, the man who convened the Wannsee Conference with the intention of determining a "final solution to the Jewish question".]] − :''To Gruppenführer Heydrich:'' − :''Supplementing the task assigned to you by the decree of January 24, 1939, to solve the Jewish problem by means of emigration and evacuation in the best possible way according to present conditions, I hereby charge you to carry out preparations as regards organizational, financial, and material matters for a total solution (Gesamtlösung) of the Jewish question in all the territories of Europe under German occupation.'' − :''Where the competency of other central organizations touches on this matter, these organizations are to collaborate.'' − :''I charge you further to submit to me as soon as possible a general plan of the administrative material and financial measures necessary for carrying out the desired final solution (Endlösung) of the Jewish question.'' (Order from Hermann Göring to Reinhard Heydrich, July 31, 1941) − − − [[Image:Hgdye56.jpg|right|200px|thumb|''Selektion'' of Hungarian Jews at the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp in May/June 1944. To be sent to the right meant slave labor; to the left, the gas chambers.]] − In the early years of Nazi Germany concentration camps were built with the expressed purpose of housing political prisoners; this was quickly expanded to Jews and other people the Nazis considered undesirable. But by 1942 new camps were built in eastern Poland as death camps; the victims, once targeted by the Einsatzgruppen coming to them, had been rounded up by units of the Army and Waffen S.S., and forced to travel to their own destruction. The victims were packed tightly into cattle cars - so tight in fact that many would die standing up – and transported by rail to the new extermination camps of Chelmno, Treblinka, Sobibor, [[Majdanek]], and Belzec. The camps were essentially factories which specialized in death, making the process from arrival to counting to shower to disposal coldly efficient. − − As they arrived the victims were divided in two: those fit for work, usually young to middle aged men, or possessed a special skill needed in the camp, and the remainder sent for delousing in the showers. Deceived to the end, the “showers” was actually a sealed room in which a chemical tablet known as “[[Zyklon B]]” was dropped through a hole in the ceiling. The cyanide-based vapors would kill the entire room within minutes; within thirty, the room was emptied by the ''sonderkomandos'', cleaned, and ready for another group of victims. − − Of the death camps, the one at Osweicim, Poland - Auschwitz - was perhaps the most notorious. Auschwitz was three camps: a prisoner-of-war camp (Auschwitz I), a slave-labour camp (Auschwitz III–Buna-Monowitz) and the extermination camp (Auschwitz II–Birkenau). The arrivals would disembark the trains at Auschwitz II, where the old, handicapped, infirm, sick, and pregnant women would face a German doctor (among them the notorious [[Joseph Mengele]]) in the ''selektion'', where a flick of a thumb could mean the difference between slave labor in the nearby factory run by I.G. Farben (which took advantage of the forced labor by investing some 700 million Reichsmarks in the project), or to their immediate deaths. Those selected for labor would be worked to death by a combination of hard labor and inadequate food and medical care; a second ''selektion'' of their numbers, if they had survived, would mean a trip to the gas chambers. − − ==Resistance== − Jews stood virtually alone against the Nazi war machine and those who collaborated with them, receiving no aid or assistance from outside, as well as having no access to arms with which to defend themselves. Further, the Nazis took great care to prevent their victims from knowing their true plans right up to the moment of their deaths; at Babi Yar many had believed they were being transported to a “family work camp” right up to the point of standing before their own mass grave. There was also the fear of reprisals against large numbers of Jews within the ghettos, which also prevented resistance. But word of the unbelievable atrocities of the death camps filtered into places like Warsaw, and as the trains were leaving packed with Jews many saw that resistance was preferable to the death that awaited them. − − Nine months after the Warsaw deportations had commenced, and after confirmation that their destination was the Treblinka extermination camp, 24-year-old [[Mordecai Anielewicz]] and his Jewish Resistance began the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising on April 19, 1943, which lasted just over a month. Jews would fight alongside partisans elsewhere in France, the Balkans, and Soviet Russia during the last three years of the war. Uprisings also occurred in two of the death camps, Treblinka and Sobibor; the latter was closed as a result and the site razed to hide the evidence. − − But the killing continued unabated, even to the last week of the war. As territory was regained by Soviet forces, the death camps were evacuated of survivors and destroyed as much as possible in a futile attempt to hide the evidence. The survivors were moved west into Germany, usually in hellish death marches, and interned in concentration camps where death still awaited them; such killing by the S.S. took priority over military matters at times. − − ==Aftermath== Line 258:
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organize
===Stage 6: 1944-45===
===Stage 6: 1944-45===
Stage 6 arrived when the Soviet armies overran the Polish camps in 1944–45 and, liberated the survivors. In all, six million Jews were murdered; most of the 300,000 survivors emigrated to the United States or Israel.
Stage 6 arrived when the Soviet armies overran the Polish camps in 1944–45 and, liberated the survivors.
But the killing continued unabated, even to the last week of the war. As territory was regained by Soviet forces, the death camps were evacuated of survivors and destroyed as much as possible in a futile attempt to hide the evidence. The survivors were moved west into Germany, usually in hellish death marches, and interned in concentration camps where death still awaited them; such killing by the S.S. took priority over military matters at times.
In all, six million Jews were murdered; most of the 300,000 survivors emigrated to the United States or Israel.
==The people involved==
==The people involved==
Millions were victimized by the Nazi regime during the Holocaust. The Jews were always the principal targets;. However, the Nazis also systematically hunted down and murdered the Roma people (“Gypsies”). They also targeted special enemies, including Communist activists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, and people with disabilities. The last group was the target of euthanasia programs carried out in German hospitals in 1939–1941., and These programs were stopped when German Christian leaders mobilized public opinion against them.
Millions were victimized by the Nazi regime during the Holocaust. The Jews were always the principal targets;. However, the Nazis also systematically hunted down and murdered the Roma people (“Gypsies”). They also targeted special enemies, including Communist activists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, and people with disabilities. The last group was the target of euthanasia programs carried out in German hospitals in 1939–1941., and These programs were stopped when German Christian leaders mobilized public opinion against them.
===Perpetrators===
===Perpetrators===
Under the guidance of an all-powerful führer (Hitler), the Nazis believed fervently in force, violence, and terror as their best weapons. The most fanatical Nazis joined the [[SS]], which carried out most of the executions. The Final Solution was directed by [[Heinrich Himmler]], commander of the SS and Minister of the Interior. He was captured in 1945 and committed suicide before his war crimes trial began. His top aide was [[Reinhard Heydrich]], head of the Gestapo and, after 1939, of all the secret police agencies grouped into the RSHA; he was assassinated by Czech commandos with British help in 1942. [[Adolph Eichmann]] was the senior SS bureaucrat in charge of handling deportation and transportation. However, regular German army police units also systematically killed large numbers of civilians and POWs on the Eastern Front. After the war, West Germany recognized its guilt and made large financial payments to Israel., but However Communist East Germany refused to do the same.
Under the guidance of an all-powerful führer (Hitler), the Nazis believed fervently in force, violence, and terror as their best weapons. The most fanatical Nazis joined the [[SS]], which carried out most of the executions. The Final Solution was directed by [[Heinrich Himmler]], commander of the SS and Minister of the Interior. He was captured in 1945 and committed suicide before his war crimes trial began. His top aide was [[Reinhard Heydrich]], head of the Gestapo and, after 1939, of all the secret police agencies grouped into the RSHA; he was assassinated by Czech commandos with British help in 1942. [[Adolph Eichmann]] was the senior SS bureaucrat in charge of handling deportation and transportation. However, regular German army police units also systematically killed large numbers of civilians and POWs on the Eastern Front.<ref> After the war, West Germany recognized its guilt and made large financial payments to Israel; Communist East Germany refused to do the same.</ref>
====Endlösung====
[[Image:Heydrich.jpg|right|150px|thumb|''Obersturbanfuhrer'' Reinhard Heydrich, the man who convened the Wannsee Conference with the intention of determining a "final solution to the Jewish question".]]
:''To Gruppenführer Heydrich:''
:''Supplementing the task assigned to you by the decree of January 24, 1939, to solve the Jewish problem by means of emigration and evacuation in the best possible way according to present conditions, I hereby charge you to carry out preparations as regards organizational, financial, and material matters for a total solution (Gesamtlösung) of the Jewish question in all the territories of Europe under German occupation.''
:''Where the competency of other central organizations touches on this matter, these organizations are to collaborate.''
:''I charge you further to submit to me as soon as possible a general plan of the administrative material and financial measures necessary for carrying out the desired final solution (Endlösung) of the Jewish question.'' (Order from Hermann Göring to Reinhard Heydrich, July 31, 1941)
====The death camps====
[[Image:Hgdye56.jpg|right|200px|thumb|''Selektion'' of Hungarian Jews at the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp in May/June 1944. To be sent to the right meant slave labor; to the left, the gas chambers.]]
In the early years of Nazi Germany concentration camps were built with the expressed purpose of housing political prisoners; this was quickly expanded to Jews and other people the Nazis considered undesirable. But by 1942 new camps were built in eastern Poland as death camps; the victims, once targeted by the Einsatzgruppen coming to them, had been rounded up by units of the Army and Waffen S.S., and forced to travel to their own destruction. The victims were packed tightly into cattle cars - so tight in fact that many would die standing up – and transported by rail to the new extermination camps of Chelmno, Treblinka, Sobibor, [[Majdanek]], and Belzec. The camps were essentially factories which specialized in death, making the process from arrival to counting to shower to disposal coldly efficient.
As they arrived the victims were divided in two: those fit for work, usually young to middle aged men, or possessed a special skill needed in the camp, and the remainder sent for delousing in the showers. Deceived to the end, the “showers” was actually a sealed room in which a chemical tablet known as “[[Zyklon B]]” was dropped through a hole in the ceiling. The cyanide-based vapors would kill the entire room within minutes; within thirty, the room was emptied by the ''sonderkomandos'', cleaned, and ready for another group of victims.
Of the death camps, the one at Osweicim, Poland - Auschwitz - was perhaps the most notorious. Auschwitz was three camps: a prisoner-of-war camp (Auschwitz I), a slave-labour camp (Auschwitz III–Buna-Monowitz) and the extermination camp (Auschwitz II–Birkenau). The arrivals would disembark the trains at Auschwitz II, where the old, handicapped, infirm, sick, and pregnant women would face a German doctor (among them the notorious [[Joseph Mengele]]) in the ''selektion'', where a flick of a thumb could mean the difference between slave labor in the nearby factory run by I.G. Farben (which took advantage of the forced labor by investing some 700 million Reichsmarks in the project), or to their immediate deaths. Those selected for labor would be worked to death by a combination of hard labor and inadequate food and medical care; a second ''selektion'' of their numbers, if they had survived, would mean a trip to the gas chambers.
===Bystanders===
===Bystanders===
In recent years much controversy has arisen over when President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] learned what about the Nazis, and what he did or did not do. Switzerland was neutral and accepted in some refugees, but it also made large profits by trading and banking with Germany;, and was in the 1990s the Swiss were forced in the 1990s to make reparation payments.
In recent years much controversy has arisen over when President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] learned what about the Nazis, and what he did or did not do. Switzerland was neutral and accepted in some refugees, but it also made large profits by trading and banking with Germany;, and was in the 1990s the Swiss were forced in the 1990s to make reparation payments.
===Resisters===
===Resisters===
Resistance took many forms, from individual acts to hundreds of examples of organized, armed resistance. The most famous episode was the month-long uprising of 60,000 remaining Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto in April 1943. At the Sobibor death camp, an uprising in October 1943 allowed 600 prisoners to escape.
Resistance took many forms, from individual acts to hundreds of examples of organized, armed resistance. The most famous episode was the month-long uprising of 60,000 remaining Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto in April 1943. At the Sobibor death camp, an uprising in October 1943 allowed 600 prisoners to escape.
Jews stood virtually alone against the Nazi war machine and those who collaborated with them, receiving no aid or assistance from outside, as well as having no access to arms with which to defend themselves. Further, the Nazis took great care to prevent their victims from knowing their true plans right up to the moment of their deaths; at Babi Yar many had believed they were being transported to a “family work camp” right up to the point of standing before their own mass grave. There was also the fear of reprisals against large numbers of Jews within the ghettos, which also prevented resistance. But word of the unbelievable atrocities of the death camps filtered into places like Warsaw, and as the trains were leaving packed with Jews many saw that resistance was preferable to the death that awaited them.
Nine months after the Warsaw deportations had commenced, and after confirmation that their destination was the Treblinka extermination camp, 24-year-old [[Mordecai Anielewicz]] and his Jewish Resistance began the [[Warsaw Ghetto Uprising]] on April 19, 1943, which lasted just over a month.
Jews fought alongside partisans elsewhere in France, the Balkans, and Soviet Russia during the last three years of the war. Uprisings also occurred in two of the death camps, Treblinka and Sobibor; the latter was closed as a result and the site razed to hide the evidence.
===Rescuers===
===Rescuers===
Rescuers hid potential victims as best they could; the tragic story of [[Anne Frank]] is the most famous. The Danish people managed to ferry their entire Jewish population to neutral Sweden in one night, under the noses of the Nazis. The pope helped protect some Italian Jews; it is still being debated whether or not he could have done much more. The most famous rescuer was Oskar Schindler; —“Schindler’s List” the movie is a tells the true story about of how he saved 1,100 Jews from the Nazis by setting up factories that produced defective munitions.<ref> For further information, see [http://www.teachwithmovies.org/guides/schindlers-list.html] </ref>.
Rescuers hid potential victims as best they could; the tragic story of [[Anne Frank]] is the most famous. The Danish people managed to ferry their entire Jewish population to neutral Sweden in one night, under the noses of the Nazis. The pope helped protect some Italian Jews; it is still being debated whether or not he could have done much more. The most famous rescuer was Oskar Schindler; —“Schindler’s List” the movie is a tells the true story about of how he saved 1,100 Jews from the Nazis by setting up factories that produced defective munitions.<ref> For further information, see [http://www.teachwithmovies.org/guides/schindlers-list.html] </ref>.
The killings were done in first and second waves, with the bodies buried in mass graves. When the Soviets threatened and carried out counter-offensives to reclaim lost territory, special units made up of concentration camp inmates (''sonderkomandos'') would return to the sites, dig up the bodies, and burn them in mass pyres, destroying the evidence of their crimes. The number of individual persons killed by the Einsatzgruppen has been estimated at a bare minimum of one million.
The killings were done in first and second waves, with the bodies buried in mass graves. When the Soviets threatened and carried out counter-offensives to reclaim lost territory, special units made up of concentration camp inmates (''sonderkomandos'') would return to the sites, dig up the bodies, and burn them in mass pyres, destroying the evidence of their crimes. The number of individual persons killed by the Einsatzgruppen has been estimated at a bare minimum of one million.
==Endlösung==
===Deaths===
====The death camps====
The number of Jews put to death were staggering. Beginning in the summer of 1942 a bare minimum of 960,000 were believed killed at Auschwitz during its three years in operation. At Treblinka, between 750,000-900,000 Jews were killed within 17 months, considering the staff and guards there numbered 120. 600,000 Jews died at Belzac within 10 months by a staff numbering 104. In the eighteen months of its operation, Sobibor killed 250,000.
The number of Jews put to death were staggering. Beginning in the summer of 1942 a bare minimum of 960,000 were believed killed at Auschwitz during its three years in operation. At Treblinka, between 750,000-900,000 Jews were killed within 17 months, considering the staff and guards there numbered 120. 600,000 Jews died at Belzac within 10 months by a staff numbering 104. In the eighteen months of its operation, Sobibor killed 250,000.
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[[Image:Ike at Ordruf.jpg|left|150px|thumb|General Dwight D. Eisenhower saw for himself the carnage wrought by the Nazis when he toured the Ordruf concentration camp on April 12, 1945. These prisoners were executed prior to the camp's liberation.]]
[[Image:Ike at Ordruf.jpg|left|150px|thumb|General Dwight D. Eisenhower saw for himself the carnage wrought by the Nazis when he toured the Ordruf concentration camp on April 12, 1945. These prisoners were executed prior to the camp's liberation.]]
==Aftermath==
More than nine million people were discovered by the [[Allies]] to have been displaced throughout the European Theater of the war; of these, six million were returned to their native lands. One million refused, citing either a fear of communist persecution or a fear of being discovered to have collaborated with the enemy. The remainder, more than three and a half million Jews, had nothing. For these survivors, life after the war meant searching for loved ones, as well as recovering from the severe effects of malnutrition and disease at the hands of the Nazis.
More than nine million people were discovered by the [[Allies]] to have been displaced throughout the European Theater of the war; of these, six million were returned to their native lands. One million refused, citing either a fear of communist persecution or a fear of being discovered to have collaborated with the enemy. The remainder, more than three and a half million Jews, had nothing. For these survivors, life after the war meant searching for loved ones, as well as recovering from the severe effects of malnutrition and disease at the hands of the Nazis.
* [[Heinrich Himmler]], in charge of the [[SS]]
* [[Heinrich Himmler]], in charge of the [[SS]]
* [[SS]], in charge of the killing
* [[SS]], in charge of the killing
==Notes==
====Notes====
<references/>
<references/>