In order to preserve their identities, humanity, and lives, Jews resisted the Nazis and Nazi collaborators in ghettos*, concentration camps, and death camps. 2.5 million people, who had been transported from all over Europe in cattle cars, were murdered in gas chambers. In order to carry it out, the Nazis created six death camps: Auschwitz, Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibor, and Treblinka, all of which were located in occupied Poland. The extermination of a group of people became official government policy. It may be offensive to some viewers.Īt the Wannsee Conference on January 20, 1942, Nazi leaders decided on the “Final Solution* to the Jewish Question”. Please be aware, this video contains the testimony of a person who survived a round up and shooting. Deeming this method inefficient, Nazi authorities undertook the creation of gas chambers.
The mass murder of Jews began in 1941 with “mobile killing units” (Einsatzgruppen*), which executed 1.3 million Jews in Eastern Europe. To listen to survivors of the concentration camps, visit the page devoted to survivors’ stories, theme of the camps. They facilitated the deportation of Jews to camps.īetween 19, Nazi Germany established over 20,000 camps and sub-camps in order to imprison “enemies of the State.” Death, disease, starvation, overpopulation, torture, and unsanitary conditions were part of everyday life in the camps. Hundreds of ghettos were established throughout Central and Eastern Europe. The Jews in German-occupied Poland were confined to ghettos*, where they often died from starvation, disease, and mistreatment. Out of 3.3 million Polish Jews, approximately 2 million found themselves under German control while the other 1.3 million were under Soviet control. In September 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union occupied and divided Poland. The war began with the German invasion of Poland on Septemand ended with Germany’s surrender on May 8, 1945.Ĭlick on the picture below to access an interactive map. The history of the Holocaust is directly linked to the history of the Second World War. While the persecution of the Jews intensified, reactions throughout the rest of the world were minimal and ineffective.
More than 30,000 Jews were sent to concentration camps. On November 9 and 10, 1938, the Nazis organised a pogrom* against the Jews of Germany and Austria, referred to as the Night of Broken Glass (Kristallnacht*). They divided human beings into two categories: Aryans* (the Germanic people), whom they considered “genetically superior” and the “inferior races” composed of Jews, Slavs, Roma and Sinti*, and Blacks.įollowing this classification, a number of measures against Jews were introduced in Germany between 19. The Nazi party was both antisemitic* and racist. This instability facilitated the Nazis rise to power in 1933.Ĭlick on the picture below to access an interactive timeline. To find out more about antisemitism: A Brief History of Antisemitism in Canada The Birth of the Nazi Party (and Its Rise to Power) 1919-1939įollowing its humiliating defeat in the First World War (1914-1918), Germany suffered an economic and political crisis. Erika Urbach, with her teddy bear, Poland, 1927.Īntisemitism, or hostility towards Jews, had existed in Europe since the first millennium AD.