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The Persecution Begins
Shortly after Hitler took power in Germany, he ordered all "non-Aryans" to be removed from government jobs. -
The Condemned
After taking power in 1933, the Nazis had concentrated on silencing their political opponents; communists, socialists, liberals, and anyone else who spoke out against he government. -
Jews Targeted
In 1935, 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. -
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Night of Broken Glass
The dates November 9th and 10th 1938, became know as Kristallnacht, or "Night of Broken Glass." Nazi Storm troopers attacked Jewish homes, businesses, and synagogues across Germany. Around 100 Jews were killed, and hundreds more were injured. Some 30,000 Jews were arrested and hundreds of synagogues were burned. Afterward, the Nazis blamed the Jews for the destruction. -
The Plight of the St. Louis
Official indifference to the plight of Germany's Jews was in evidence in the case of the ship "St. Louis." This 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 forced to return to Europe. -
The Final Solution-Part 2
who expanded the concentration camp and used it to warehouse other "undesirables." Life in the camps was a cycle of hunger, humiliation, and work that almost always ended in death. The prisoners were crammed into crude wooden barracks that held up to a thousand people each. They shared their crowded quarters, as well as their meager meals, with hordes of rats and fleas -
The Final Solution
Obsessed with a desire to rid Europe of its Jews, Hitler imposed what he called the "Final Solution"-a policy of genocide, the deliberate and systematic killing of an entire population. The Nazis eliminated their political opponents; communists, socialists, and liberals as well as other groups in Germany such as Gypsies, Freemasons, and Jehovah's Witnesses. Nazi concentration camps were originally set up to imprison political opponents and protesters. The camps were later turned over to the SS. -
Death Camps
The Germans built six death camps in Poland. The first, Chelmno, began operating in 1941-before the meeting at Wannsee. Each camp had several huge gas chambers in which as many as 12,000 people could be killed a day. 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 who would die that day. Those destined to die were then led into a room outside -
Death Camps-Part 2
the gas chamber and were told to undress for a shower. To complete the deception, the prisoners were even given pieces of soap. Finally, they were led into the chamber and poisoned with cyanide gas that spewed from vents in the walls. -
The Final Stage
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. As deadly as overwork, starvation, beating, and bullets were, they did not kill fast enough to satisfy the Nazis. The Germans built 6 death camps in Poland. These death camps could kill up to 12,000 minorities a day.
