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The Nazis had concentrated on silencing their political opponents - communists, socialists, liberals, and anyone else who spoke out against the government. -
Hitler took power in Germany he ordered all "non - Aryans" to be removed from government jobs -
The Nuremberg Laws stripped Jews of their German citizenship, jobs, and property. To make it easier for the Nazis to identify them, Jews had to wear a bright yellow Star of David attached to their clothing. -
November 9-10 1938, became known as Kristallnacht or "Night of Broken Glass." Nazi storm troopers attacked Jewish homes, businesses, and synagogues across Germany and Austria. -
Official indifference to the plight of Germany's Jews was in evidence in case of the ship St. Louis. The German ocean liner passed Miami in 1939. Although 740 of the liner's 943 passengers had U.S. immigration papers, the Coast Guard followed the ship to prevent anyone from disembarking in America. The ship was force to return to Europe. -
Only about a quarter million Jews remained in Germany but the other countries that were occupied had millions more. Obsessed with a desire to rid Europe of its Jews. There was a genocide targeting Jews, gypsies, Freemasons, Jehovah's Witness, non-Aryans, homosexuals, the mentally deficient, disabled, and incurably ill -
The Germans built 6 death camps in Poland. The first, Chelmno, began operating in 1941 before the meeting at Wannsee. When prisoners arrived at Auschwitz, the largest of the death camps, they had to parade by several SS doctors. With a wave of the hand, the doctors separated those strong enough to work from those whose would die that day. -
At a meeting held in Wannsee, Hitler's top officials agreed to begin a new phase of the mass murder of Jews. To mass slaughter and starvation they would add a third method of killing - murder by poison gas.