-
Groups targeted in the Holocaust
After taking power in 1933, the Nazis had concentrayed on silencing their political oponents--communists, socialists, liberals, and anyone else who spoke out against the government. Once the Nazis eleminated these groups they turned against others: Jews, Gypsies, Freemasons, Jehovah's Witnesses, homosexuals, the mentally deficient, the mentally ill, the physically disabled, and the incurably ill. Hitlers "security squadrons" hunted down Jews and shot them on the spot. -
Removing of non-Aryans
After Hitler took power in Germany, he ordered all non-Aryans to be removed from all government jobs. This oder was one of the first moves in a campaign for radical purity. -
Nureberg Laws
In 1935, the Nurenberg Laws stripped Jews of their German citizenships, jobs, and property. To make it easier to identify them Jews had to wear a bright yellow Star of David attaced to their clothing. -
Period: to
Kristallnacht
This became known as Kristallnacht (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 Nazi blamed the Jews for the destruction. -
St. Louis
The St. Louis, a German ocean liner, passed Miami in 1939. The U.S. forced the liner to return back to Europe, even though many of the passengers had U.S. immagration papers. Later more than half of the passengers were killed in the holocaust. -
The final solution
Hitler obsessed with a desire to rid Europe of its Jews, imposed what he called the "Fianl Solution." It was a policy of genocide, the deliberate and systematic killing of an entire population. -
Death Camps
The Germans built six death camps in Poland. The first, Chelmno, began pperating in 1941--before the meeting of Wannsee. Each camp had several huge gas chambers in which as many as 12,000 people could be killed a day. In Auschwitz, the largest of the death camps, they had to parade by several SS doctors. These doctors decided who was strong enough to work and who was weak and would die that day. Those who were to die were led to gas chambers and poisoned with cyanide gas. -
The Final Stage
At a meeting held in Wannsee, Hitler's top officials agreed to begin a new phase of the mass murder or Jews. To mass slaughter and starvation they would add a third method of killing--murder by poison gas.
