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Nazis Take Power
The Nazis took power and had concentrated on silencing their political opponents-communists, socialists, liberals, and anyone else who spoke out against the government. Once the Nazis had eliminated these enemies, they turned against other groups in Germany. In addition to Jews, there were Gypsies, Freemasons, and Jehovah's Witnesses. -
Holocaust
Shortly after Hitler took power in Germany, he ordered all "non-Aryans" to be removed from government jobs. This order was one of the first moves in a campaign for racial purity that eventually led to the Holocaust-the systemic murder of 11 million people across Europe, more than half of whom were Jews. -
Jews Targeted
As the Nazis tightened ther hold on Germany, their persecution of the Jews increased. The Huremberg 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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Kristallnacht
Known as Kristallnacht, or "Night of Broken Glass." Nazi storm troopes attacked Jewish homes, businesses, and synagogues across Germany. Around 100 Jews were killed, and hundreds more were injured. 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 St. Louis, a German ocean liner that was passed. 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. This ship was forced to return to Europe. More than half of the passengers were later killed in the Holocaust. -
The Final Solution
The Nazis took power and had concentrated on silencing their political opponents-communists, socialists, liberals, and anyone who spoke out against the government. Once the Nazis had eliminated these enemies, they turned against other groups in Germany. In addition to Jews, there were Gypsies, Freemasons, and Jehovah's Witnesses. Also, the Nazis targeted unfit for "master race." Hitler's elite Nazi "security squadrons," rounded up Jews-men women, children, and babies-and shot them on the spot. -
Mass Exterminations
As deadly as the overwork, starvation, beatings, and bullets were, they did not kill fast enough to satisfy the Nazis. The Germans built six death camps in Poland. Chelmno was the first one that began operating-before the meeting at Wannsee. Each camp had several huge gas chambers in which as many as 12,000 people could be killed each day. -
The Final Stage
Final stage of Final Solution. At a meeting held in Wannsee, a lakeside suburb near Berlin, 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.
