The Holocaust

The Holocaust is the name applied to the systematic state-sponsored persecution and genocide of various ethnic, religious and political groups during World War II by Nazi Germany and its collaborators. Early elements of the Holocaust include the Kristallnacht pogrom and the T-4 Euthanasia Program, progressing to the later use of killing squads and extermination camps in a massive and centrally-organized effort to murder every possible member of the populations targeted by the Nazis.

Victims

The victims of the Holocaust were Jews, Communists, homosexuals, Roma and Sinti (also known as gypsies), the mentally ill and the physically disabled, Soviet prisoners of war, Polish, Russian and other Slavic intelligentsia, political activists, Jehovah's Witnesses, some Catholic and Protestant clergy, trade unionists, psychiatric patients, common criminals and people labeled as "enemies of the state". These victims all perished alongside one another in the camps, according to the extensive documentation left behind by the Nazis themselves (written and photographed), eyewitness testimony (by survivors, perpetrators, and bystanders), and the statistical records of the various countries under occupation.

Related Topics:
Jew - Communist - Homosexuals - Roma - Sinti - Gypsies - Mentally ill - Disabled - Soviet - Polish - Russian - Slavic - Intelligentsia - Jehovah's Witnesses - Catholic - Protestant - Trade union - Psychiatric - Criminal

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Jews

Anti-Semitism was common in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s (though its history extends far back throughout many centuries during the course of Judaism). Adolf Hitler's fanatical anti-Semitism was laid out in his 1925 book Mein Kampf, which, though largely ignored when it was first printed, became popular in Germany once Hitler acquired political power.

Related Topics:
Anti-Semitism - 1920s - 1930s - Judaism - Adolf Hitler - 1925 - Mein Kampf

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On April 1, 1933, shortly after Hitler's accession to power, the Nazis, led mainly by Julius Streicher, and the Sturmabteilung, organized a one-day boycott of all Jewish-owned businesses in Germany. By the ?Law for the Restoration of a Professional Civil Service?, passed by the Reichstag on April 7 1933, all Jewish civil servants at the Reich, Länder, and municipal levels of government were fired immediately. This was followed by the Nuremberg Laws of 1935 that prevented marriage between any Jew and non-Jew, and made it that all Jews, even quarter- and half-Jews, were no longer citizens of their own country (their official title became "subject of the state"). This meant that they had no basic citizens' rights, e.g., to vote. In 1936, Jews were banned from all professional jobs, effectively preventing them having any influence in education, politics, higher education and industry. On 15 November of 1938, Jewish children were banned from going to normal schools. By April 1939, nearly all Jewish companies had either collapsed under financial pressure and declining profits, or had been persuaded to sell out to the Nazi-German government.

Related Topics:
April 1 - 1933 - Nazis - Julius Streicher - Sturmabteilung - Germany - Reichstag - April 7 - Nuremberg Laws - Subject of the state - 15 November

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By December 1941, Hitler decided to completely exterminate European Jews. In January 1942, during the Wannsee conference, several Nazi leaders discussed the details of the "Final Solution of the Jewish question" (Endlösung der Judenfrage). Dr. Josef Bühler urged Reinhard Heydrich to proceed with the Final Solution in the General Government. They began to systematically deport Jewish populations from the ghettos and all occupied territories to the seven camps designated as Vernichtungslager, or extermination camps: Auschwitz, Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Maly Trostenets, Sobibór and Treblinka II. Sebastian Haffner published the analysis in 1978 that Hitler from December 1941 accepted the failure of his goal to dominate Europe forever on his declaration of war against the United States, but that his withdrawal and apparent calm thereafter was sustained by the achievement of his second goal?the extermination of the Jews.

Related Topics:
1941 - 1942 - Wannsee conference - Final Solution of the Jewish question - Dr. Josef Bühler - Reinhard Heydrich - General Government - Extermination camp - Auschwitz - Belzec - Chelmno - Majdanek - Maly Trostenets - Sobibór - Treblinka II - Sebastian Haffner - United States

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Slavs

Poles were one of the first targets of extermination by Hitler, as outlined in the speech he gave the Wehrmacht commanders before the invasion of Poland in 1939. The intelligentsia and socially prominent or powerful people were primarily targeted, although there were some mass murders committed against the general population, but other groups of Slavic people were targeted as well. The Nazi occupation of Poland (General Government, Reichsgau Wartheland) was one of the most brutal episodes of World War Two, resulting in over six million Polish deaths (over twenty percent of the country's inhabitants), including the mass murder of three million Polish Jews, many in extermination camps like Auschwitz.

Related Topics:
Speech he gave the Wehrmacht commanders - Invasion of Poland - 1939 - Intelligentsia - Mass murder - Slavic - General Government - Reichsgau Wartheland - Jew - Extermination camp - Auschwitz

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During Operation Barbarossa, the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union, hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of Red Army prisoners of war were arbitrarily executed in the field by the invading German armies (in particular by the notorious Waffen SS), died under inhuman conditions in German prisoner-of-war camps, or were shipped to extermination camps for execution simply because they were of Slavic extraction. Thousands of Soviet peasant villages were annihilated by German troops for more or less the same reason. During World War Two, every fourth person was killed in Belarus (and according to the latest data, some researchers say up to thirty percent). The Jewish population of Belarus was almost totally exterminated.

Related Topics:
Operation Barbarossa - Axis - Red Army - Prisoners of war - Waffen SS - Belarus

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The Nazis considered various ranks of Slavic peoples, e.g., it was thought that Russians were inferior to Ukrainians and Belarusians, and that the latter were inferior to Poles.

Related Topics:
Ukrainians - Belarusians

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Romany ('Gypsies')

Main article: Porajmos

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Proportional to their population, the death toll of Romany in the Holocaust was the worst of any group of victims. Hitler's campaign of genocide against the Roma and Sinti people of Europe involved a particularly bizarre application of Nazi "racial hygiene". Although, despite discriminatory measures, some groups of Roma, including the Sinti and Lalleri tribes of Germany, were spared deportation and death, the remaining Romany groups suffered much like the Jews. Between a quarter and a half of the Romany population was killed, upwards of 220,000 people.{{ref|hancock}} In Eastern Europe, Gypsies were deported to the Jewish ghettoes, shot by SS Einsatzgruppen in their villages, and deported and gassed in Auschwitz and Treblinka.

Related Topics:
Genocide - Roma and Sinti - Racial hygiene - Lalleri - Eastern Europe

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Gay men

Gay men were another group targeted during the period of the Holocaust. Homosexuality was deemed incompatible with National Socialism and its desire for the rapid population growth of the master race. At the same time, some historians argue that there was a closeted homosexual subculture within the Nazi party. Ernst Röhm, the leader of the SA, who played an important role in Hitler's rise to power, was a homosexual - a fact Hitler later used against him.

Related Topics:
Gay men - National Socialism - Master race - Nazi party - Ernst Röhm - SA

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Some leaders clearly wanted gays exterminated, while others wanted enforcement of laws banning sex between gay men or lesbians. More than one million German men who were or were believed to be gay were targeted, of whom at least 100,000 were arrested and 50,000 served prison terms. An additional unknown number were institutionalized in state-run mental hospitals. Hundreds of European gay men living under Nazi occupation were castrated under court order.

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The deaths of at least an estimated 15,000 gay men in concentration camps were officially documented. Larger numbers include those who were Jewish and gay, or even Jewish, gay and Communist. In addition, records as to the specific reasons for internment are non-existent in many areas, making it hard to put an exact number on just how many gay men perished in death camps.

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Conditions for gay men in the camps were especially difficult. They faced persecution not only from German soldiers but also from other prisoners, and many gay men were beaten to death. Additionally, gay men in forced labour camps routinely received more grueling and dangerous work assignments than other non-Jewish inmates, under the policy of "Extermination Through Work". German soldiers also were known to use gay men for target practice, aiming their weapons at the pink triangles their human targets were forced to wear.

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Lesbians were not treated as harshly as gay men. They were labeled "anti-social," but not sent to camps.

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Others

The Nazis also targeted some religious groups. Around 2,000 Jehovah's Witnesses perished in concentration camps, where they were held for political and ideological reasons. They refused involvement in politics, would not say "Heil Hitler", and did not serve in the German army. See Jehovah's Witnesses and the Holocaust.

Related Topics:
Jehovah's Witnesses - Heil Hitler - Jehovah's Witnesses and the Holocaust

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Several hundred thousand mentally and physically disabled people also were exterminated. The Nazis believed that the disabled were a burden to society because they needed to be cared for by others, but first and foremost, the mentally and physically handicapped were considered an affront to Nazi notions of a society peopled by a perfect, superhuman Aryan race. Around 400,000 individuals were sterilized against their will for having mental deficiencies or illnesses deemed to be hereditary in nature. People with disabilities were among the first to be killed, and the United States Holocaust Memorial museum notes that the T-4 Program became the "model" for future exterminations by the Nazi regime.http://www.ushmm.org/outreach/euthan.htm The T-4 Euthanasia Program was established in 1939 in order to maintain the "purity" of the so-called Aryan race by systematically killing children and adults born with physical deformities or suffering from mental illness.

Related Topics:
Sterilized against their will - T-4 Euthanasia Program - 1939 - Aryan

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Black and Asian residents in Germany, and black prisoners of war, were also victims; often being singled out in internment camps. {{ref|blacks}}

Related Topics:
Black - Asian

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About 100,000 communists were killed. There had earlier been attempts at sterilising them using x-rays.

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