"Forget
You Not":
H o l o c a u s t
S u r v i v
o r s a n d
R e m e m b r a n c
e P r o j e
c t
-
Part I
-
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T A B L E
O F
C O N T E N T S
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< iSurvived.org >
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.
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< ForgetYouNot.org >
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<
HolocaustProject.org
>
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<
HolocaustRemembrance.net
>
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< ForgetYouNot.net >
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< HolocaustProject.net
>
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"In
a world of absurdity, we must
invent reason..."
Elie
Wiessel
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I.
Holocaust Background Information:
An Introduction
Whenever
a study of the Nazis is undertaken, there
is one burning question that emerges:
How could a cultured nation, at the heart
of Europe, be responsible for acts so
horrible, so inhuman?
.
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1.
Overviews
of
the Nazi Holocaust
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2.
Timeline
and
Chronology
of
the Nazi
Holocaust
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3.
Notable
Events Preluding
the Holocaust
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4.
The
Jewish Holocaust (the Shoah)
1939-1945
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5.
The
Children of the
Holocaust
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6.
The
Infamous
Medical Experiments
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7.
European
Romanies/"Gypsies", Victims of the
Holocaust
--the Porrajmos
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8.
The
Handicapped,
Part of the
Final Solution
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9.
Nazi
Persecution of
Homosexuals
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10.
Nazi
Holocaust in the Occupied
Europe
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11.
Forced
Slave Labor
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12.
The
Nazi
Ghettos
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13.
The
Concentration and Extermination
Camps
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14.
Holocaust
Revealed Through Original, Primary
Evidence
"I
myself never shot a single Jew; I
only
gassed them..."
--Erich Gnewuch
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15. Nazi
Plundering
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"Those
of you who may survive, bear witness, let
the world know
what has happened here."
--
Aleksander Aronowich
Pechersky
(leader
of the Sobibor revolt, seconds before the
outbreak)
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.
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1.
Overviews of The Nazi Holocaust --this
Ultimate Example of Man's Inhumanity to
Man
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"Though
not all victims were Jews, all Jews were
victims." --Elie Wiesel
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..
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.A
member of Einsatzgruppe D
prepares to shot an Ukrainian Jew.
|
.The
hanging punishment of prisoners
at Buchenwald.
(The SS officer is Buchenwald's chief
warden, Martin Sommer known as the
Hangman of Buchenwald. He was responsible
for the deaths of hundreds of
prisoners.).
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.
The
Einsatzgruppen -- Mobile Killing
Units
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2.
Timeline and Chronology of the Nazi
Victimization Process Culminating with the
Holocaust
3.
Notable Events Marking the Beginning of the
Holocaust:
Through
an orchestrated policy of both
social and economic
discrimination, Jews were
increasingly dehumanized and
isolated from the mainstream
German community. As
book-burning, Aryanization of
Jewish-owned businesses and
public humiliation became more
common, this victimization of
their Jewish neighbors was
viewed by the general
population with complacency or
even approval. On
November 9, 1938,
Kristallnacht (the Night of
Broken Glass) began. A
supposedly spontaneous
demonstration by German
citizens, it was in fact
carefully planned Pogrom
(Action against Jews) and
resulted in the destruction of
more than one thousand
synagogues and 7,000 Jewish
owned businesses, and the
arrest of 30,000 Jews. It is
generally considered to mark
the beginning of the
Holocaust.
--Florida Holocaust Museum
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Picture
A
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Picture
B
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ANTI-JEWISH
LEGISLATION IN PREWAR
GERMANY
A).
Enforcing the German
Boycott
During
the April 1933 boycott, two SA members
guard the entrance to a Jewish-owned
leather-goods shop.
The
sign reads "No respectable German
shops here!"
B). All Jewish
Stores are being marked in the Nazi
Germany.
Additional
Source: U.S. Holocaust Memorial
Museum
<jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/boycott1933.html>
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C).
Anti-Jewish boycott signs
SA
storm troopers pasting anti-Jewish
boycott signs on a kiosk, Berlin,
April 1933.
Photo
Credit: BPK
<www.holocaust-education.de/?site=pr_import_A007&lp=en>
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Picture
C
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D).
SA pickets distribute
boycott
pamphlets
to German pedestrians. The sign held
by one of them reads:
"Attention
Germans. These Jews (Five and Dime
Stores) are the parasites and
gravediggers of German craftsmen.
They pay starvation wages to German
workers. The chief owner is the Jew,
Nathan Schmidt."
Photo
Courtesy:
U.S. Holocaust Memorial
Museum
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Picture
D
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Anti-
Jewish Boycott, Dresden, Germany
(1933)
E).
SA members force a Jewish merchant
to wear a boycott sign around his
neck and have his picture taken in
front of his store,
The sign reads:
"Germans
Defend Yourselves
- Do not buy from Jews!"
Photo
Credit: Peter Richard; Sächsische
Landesbibliothek,
Deutsche Fotothek, Archive no.
256039
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Picture
E
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F).
A German mass rally in 1935
featuring Anti-Semitic speeches and
slogans stating:
"The
Jews are our Misfortune"
and
"Women
and Girls, the Jews are Your
Ruin."
<historyplace.com/pointsofview/goldhagen.htm>
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Picture
F
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G).
Jewish lawyer carrying
self-Insulting sign
"I will not complain to the police
again."
NOTE:
A
new German law invoked a clause to
all Jewish businesses stating that
any contract involving a Jew would
be terminated if the man became
incapacitated due to illness.
The German court then ruled
that his racial characteristics of
being a Jew were considered the same
as illness and therefore his
contract was no longer valid.
From
Yad Vashem Photo
Archives.
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Picture
G
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H).
Humiliation of Jewish Children in the
Schools
1935:
Jewish students are made fun of by
their class. The writing on the
blackboard says,
"The Jew is our greatest enemy!
Beware of the Jew!".
Source:
The Pictorial History of the
Holocaust,
Edited by Yitzhak Arad, Macmillan
Publishing Company,
NY, 1990,
p.37.
<members.aol.com/dhs11/remember.html>
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Picture
H
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I).
Writing on the Wall. Vienna, 1938.
A
young boy is forced to paint "Jew"
on the wall of his father's store.
Photo
Credit: AKG.
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Picture
I
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J).
Humiliation of Jews, Vienna (March
1938)
After
the incorporation of Austria,
offenses against Jews began there.
Jews
are forced to scrub the
sidewalks,
Courtesy:
Documentation Archives
of the Austrian Resistance Foundation,
Vienna.
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Picture
J
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K).
In Vienna, Austria of 1938:
Shortly
after the German annexation of
Austria, Nazi Storm Troopers stand
guard outside a Jewish-owned
business. Graffiti painted on the
window states:
"You
Jewish pig may your hands rot
off!"
Vienna,
Austria, March 1938.
Courtesy:
USHMM
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Picture
K
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Public Campaigns of Humiliating
Jews:
.
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Jews
Forced To Carry Anti-Jewish
Signs
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In
Nazi Germany, Jews
are being paraded,
ridiculed, and
spitted on
as other German
bystanders watch the
spectacle. (Nov.
1938).
Dr.
Andreas Angerstorfer:
Jüdische
Gemeinde Regensburg
-- Die Geschichte bis
zum
<jg-regensburg.de/Geschichte2.html>
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Jewish
businessmen are forced to
march on Bruehl Strasse, one
of the main commercial streets
in central Leipzig,
carrying signs that read,
"Don't buy from Jews. Shop in
German businesses!" 1935.
Photo
credit: William Blye
Collection, courtesy of USHMM
Photo Archives
<fcit.usf.edu/holocaust/gallery/20210.htm>
From
Yad Vashem Archives -- The
Holocaust Remembrance
Authority
Public
Humiliation of Polish Jews
After
Germany invades Poland in
September, 1939,
German soldiers enjoyed the
public humiliation of Polish
Jews.
Humiliation was a part of the
psychological warfare that
Nazis used against Jews.
.
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One
Jew is forced to cut
the beard of another
under German
supervision
as the local
population of
Tomaszow Mazowiecki,
Poland, watches with
delight.
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Photo
Credit: Main
Commission for the
Investigation of Nazi
War Crimes,
courtesy of USHMM
Photo
Archives.
|
<fcit.usf.edu/HOLOCAUST/gallery/50978.htm>
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A
German soldier is
having fun cutting
the beard of an
elderly Jew in
Poland.
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Photo
credit: The Pictorial
History of the
Holocaust, Yitzak
Arad,
Ed., Macmillan Publ.
Co., N.Y., 1990, p.
78,
<fcit.usf.edu/HOLOCAUST/gallery/Sh09.htm>
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In
Poland, a soldier
tutors two Jewish men
on how to give the
Nazi salute
correctly.
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Photo
credit: Meczenstwo
Walka, Zaglada
Zydów Polsce
1939-1945. Poland.
No. 37.
<fcit.usf.edu/HOLOCAUST/gallery/p037.htm>
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Jews
of Minsk Mazowiecki,
Poland, forced to
ride on each
other
to "compete" in
running in the Market
Square.
Source: Encyclopedia
of the Holocaust,
Editor: Israel
Gutman, Yad Vashem,
1990,
Volume III, Pp.
711-713
<zchor.org/minsk.htm>
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.
.
+Enlarge
this
Image
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May
10,1933:
Nazis
burning "un-German"
books
Some
of the authors
whose books were
in the flames:
Bertolt
Brecht, Lion
Feuchtwanger, and
Alfred Kerr were
consigned to
flames in a book
burning ceremony
in Berlin. The
promotion of
"Aryan" culture
and the
suppression of
other forms of
artistic
production was yet
another Nazi
effort to "purify"
Germany. Other
writers included
on the blacklists
were American
authors Ernest
Hemingway and
Helen Keller as
well as Albert
Einstein, Sigmund
Freud,
Jack London,
Thomas Mann, Upton
Sinclair,
H.G. Wells,
and
many others.
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Kristallnacht
("The Night of Broken
Glass")
Night of Nov. 9
-10,
1938.
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The
very
first
Kindertransport
(Children's
Transport)
Dec.1,
1938
--
©KTA
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Oldenburg Synagogue
Destroyed
(November 10,
1938)
The
synagogue in
Oldenburg the
morning after the
Kristallnacht
pogrom.
Photo
Credit: Gustav
Meyer;
Copyright: Private
Collection of
Magdalene Meyer,
Oldenburg
<www.holocaust-education.de/?site=pr_import_A007&lp=en>
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The Great Synagogue
of Frankfurt,
Germany
Set on on Fire
(November 11,
1938)
Photo
Credit:
<bobi.net/helabo/projekte/antisem.htm>
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Kristallnacht:
A National
Pogrom,
Nov. 9-10,
1938
.
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Arrest
of Jews After
Kristallnacht
After
the
Kristallnacht
(Nov. 10,
1938),
the SS dragged
Jews through the
streets as local
Germans ridiculed
them with
anti-Semitic
slogans. Jews were
first brought to
the synagogue and
then transported
to Dachau
concentration
camp.
Source:
Simon Wiesenthal
Multimedia Learning
Center
<motlc.wiesenthal.com/gallery/pg01/pg2/pg01283.html>
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.Nazi
vandalization of
Jewish owned
businesses
during the pogrom of
Nov. 9-10,
1938
.
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4.
The
Jewish Holocaust (the Shoah)
1939-1945
"Once
I really am in power, my first and
foremost task will be the annihilation
of the Jews..." --Adolf
Hitler --1922
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.
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[Photo
Credit:
www.um.oswiecim.pl/anniversary]
+
ENLARGE
PICTURE
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The
Final Solution
|
Early
attempts to remove Jews from
Nazi occupied Europe included
a plan for resettlement into a
"reservation" in the
Lublin-Nisko region of
southeast Poland. The first
transport to this area took
place on October 26, 1939,
when 600 Jews from
Czechoslovakia were relocated.
The final deportation took
place in early February of
1940. An estimated 78,000 Jews
were deported to this
"reservation" where there was
little or no accommodation for
their needs. As a result,
thousands died in the winter
of 1939-1940. The program was
discontinued due to the lack
of rail transport and
administrative
support.
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In
the summer of 1940, the Nazis
began considering a plan to
remove all Jews from the
continent and relocate them on
the French controlled island
of Madagascar. The plan was
contingent on the Nazi's
ability to have access to a
large fleet of ships, which it
intended to acquire through
victory over Great Britain. It
was abandoned when it seemed
clear that a timely defeat of
Britain was
unlikely.
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As
the Nazis used Einsatzgruppen
to carry out various Aktionen
[special operations]
against Jews and other
"undesirables" in the East,
neither the army nor the local
populations voiced any
protest. By the end of 1941,
almost 400,000 Jews had been
murdered as a result of this
program. It appeared that the
Jewish question could be
answered by direct action
instead of by emigration or
deportation. However, concern
developed among the Nazi
hierarchy that the murders
were providing to be too
stressful for their men, and a
more efficient program was
needed.
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On
July 31, 1941 Reinhard
Heydrich received
authorization from Herman
Goering directing the SS to
prepare a "complete solution"
to the Jewish problem.
Heydrich subsequently convened
the conference at Wannsee to
formalize the plans for that
solution.
|
Florida
Holocaust
Museum
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.
It
began with a simple boycott of
Jewish shops and ended in the
gas chambers at Auschwitz as
Adolf Hitler and his Nazi
followers attempted to
exterminate the entire Jewish
population of
Europe.
|
A
History of the Jewish
Holocaust
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Hungarian
Jews waiting to be taken away...
Photo
Credit: László Karsai,
Ph.D.
.
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Deportation
of Jews (1942) from Drohobycz,
Poland
Photo
Credit: Yad Vashem
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In
1942 Germany,
Jews are being rounded up for
deportation.
<bobi.net/helabo/projekte/antisem.htm>
.
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Jews carried whatever personal
belongings they could as they left in
mass deportations from Plonsk, a town
50 miles northwest of Warsaw,
Poland.
(Photo
credit: Meczenstwo Walka, Zaglada
Zydów Polsce 1939-1945.
No.65.)
.
Deportation
of Jews...
.
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To the Death
Camps...
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... And
to the crematoria with piles of remains
with ashes and human bones.
(From
the crematoria at Majdanek,
extermination
camp.)
|
Between
mid-1941 and early 1942 the
Nazi's formalized their plan
for the annihilation of the
Jews. "The Final Solution of
the Jewish Question" was the
code name given by the German
bureaucracy to this genocide.
This was to be accomplished
through deportation,
ghettoization, "special
operations (Aktions)," the
work of the Einsatzkommandos,
and mass-murder in the killing
fields of the occupied East
and Soviet Union as well as at
specially designed killing
centers.
--Florida Holocaust Museum
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5.
The
Children of the
Holocaust
."Never
before in history had children been singled out
for destruction for no other reason than having
been born."
Dr.
Paldiel Mordecai, Yad Vashem.
|
"We
came to the question:
what to do with the
women and
children?
I decided to find a
clear solution here
as well. I did not
consider myself
justified to
exterminate the men
-- that is, to kill
them or have them
killed -- and allow
the avengers of our
sons and grandsons in
the form of their
childreen to grow up.
The difficult
decision had to be
taken to make this
people disappear from
the
earth."
|
Heinrich
Himmler, October
1943
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<====
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Although
the Nazi plan for the murder
of all Jews was introduced in
each occupied country at
different times, the steps in
this ruthless scheme were
essentially the same. The mass
annihilation was always
preceded by a carefully
coordinated sequence:
violation of human rights,
expropriation of property,
removal from employment and
ejection to designated areas,
usually sealed ghettos or
transitory camps. Everywhere,
throughout this tragic period,
Jewish children were
confronted by overpowering,
destructive
forces.
|
.Two
Hungarian brothers on
the"Death Ramp" at Birkenau
(Auschwitz II), shortly before
they were escorted
to the gas chamber.
.
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Some
of the very few children that survived
imprisonment in Birkenau.
[Photo
Archive: Yad Vashem]
Jewish
children arriving at Chelmno
Concentration Camp from
Lodz Ghetto
|
|
These
emaciated children survived
the Ravensbrück, Germany,
concentration camp. Though
Ravensbrück imprisoned
mostly women, it also included
a children's camp at Uckermark
and a separate section for
men. In December 1944 and
January 1945, Uckermark was
recognized as a selection and
extermination camp for
Ravensbrück.
At
the end of January 1945, a
large selection took place;
old, sick, or weak women were
taken to Uckermark and
murdered, many by gassing.
These selections continued
into spring, leading to the
deaths of at least 5000
women.
Photo
Credit: Musée de la
Resistance
Nationale
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<vaniercollege.qc.ca/events/holocaust04/children10.html>
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6.
The
Infamous Medical
Experiments
During
World War II, Nazi doctors
conducted as many as 30
different types of experiments
on concentration-camp inmates.
They performed these studies
without the consent of the
victims, who suffered
indescribable pain,
mutilation, permanent
disability, or in many cases
death as a result. At the
Nuremberg "doctor's trial,"
which brought 23 German
doctors to trial immediately
after the war, prosecutors
found 15 defendants guilty of
war crimes and crimes against
humanity; seven were hung.
Some of the most notorious
experiments are presented
herein.
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During
the Third Reich, in a step by
step process, the Nazi doctors
went from racial theory, to
sterilization of the unfit, to
euthansia, and eventually
arrived at the Final Solution
of the Jewish question
--genocide. The doctors
were integrally involved with
these decisions in every way,
from racial laws and diagnoses
to selections and unethical
experimentation.
|
Deadly
Medicine: Creating the Master
Race
(An
Online Exhibition from the
United States Holocaust
Memorial
Museum)
Our
starting point is not
the individual:
We do not subscribe
to the view that one
should feed the
hungry, give drink to
the thirsty, or
clothe the
naked...
Our
objectives are
different:
We must have a
healthy people in
order to prevail in
the
world.
Joseph
Goebbels, Minister of
Propaganda,
1938
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The Infamous
Dr. Joseph Mengele
|
- Dr.
Josef Mengele -- the Angel of
Death
Dr
Josef Mengele, known as the
Angel of Death, was a Nazi
German SS officer and a
physician in Auschwitz Nazi
concentration camp. He
gained notoriety chiefly
for being one of the SS
physicians who supervised
the selection of arriving
transports of prisoners,
determining who was to be
killed and who was to
become a forced laborer,
and for performing human
experiments of dubious
scientific value on camp
inmates including attempts
to change eye color by
injecting chemicals into
children's eyes, various
amputations of limbs, and
shock treatments. Most of
those Mengele experimented
on died, either due to the
experiments or later
infections. On several
occasions, he killed
subjects simply to be able
to dissect them afterwards.
--
<evilscale.com/evilscale/vote.aspx?nomineeid=92>
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Selection
of inmates at Auschwitz.
Mengele is in foreground at far
right with cigarette in hand
Some
four hundred thousand souls
--babies, small children,
young girls, mothers,
fathers, and grandparents--
weree casually waved by
Dr. Mengele to the
left-hand side with a
simple flick of his cane
clasped in a gloved
hand.
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When
it was reported that one
block was infected with
lice, Dr. Mengele
solved the problem by
gassing all the 750 women
assigned to it. Mengele did
a number of medical
experiments of unspeakable
horror at Auschwitz, using
twins. These twins as young
as five years of age were
usually murdered after the
experiment was over and
their bodies
dissected.
|
<shoah.dk/Pics/new_page_6.htm>
|
- A
Synopsis of Dr. Mengele's Infamous
Medical
Experiments
|
.A
Romani ("Gypsy") in
a Nazi medical experiment
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.
7.
European Romanies/Roma/Sinti (commonly
referred as "Gypsies"), victims of the Holocaust
--the Porrajmos
In
1933, after Adolf Hitler
became chancellor of Germany,
the Nazis introduced a law to
legalize eugenic
sterilization, to control
population growth among
"Gypsies and most of the
Germans of black colour." In
1939, the Nazi's Office of
Racial Hygiene issued a
statement saying "All Gypsies
should be treated as
hereditarily sick
[...] the aim should
therefore be the elimination
--without hesitation-- of this
defective element in the
population."
---
<incentraleurope.radio.cz/ice/issue/62886>
|
"It
was the wish of the
all-powerful Reichsführer
Adolf Hitler to have the
Gypsies disappear from the
face of the
earth"
|
(SS
Officer Percy Broad, Auschwitz
Political
Division)
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Rounding-up
Romanies ("Gypsies") for Deporatation,
Asperg, Germany, May 22, 1940.
Source:
Deutsches Bundesarchiv (German Federal
Archive)
<commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bundesarchiv_R_165_Bild-244-47,_Asperg,_Deportation_von_Sinti_und_Roma.jpg>
|
A
Romani female at Auschwitz, name
unknown,
prisoner no. Z-63598, imprisoned
October 1, 1943.
The letter 'Z' stands for 'Zigeuner'
or
"Gypsy."
[Auschwitz Memorial
Archives]
|
|
A
Romani ("Gypsy") being searched.
His disheveled appearance suggests that
he was forced to pull his pants down to
prove that he was not a Jew. (Poland
around 1940.)
[United
States Holocaust Memorial
Museum]
|
|
Marzahn,
the first internment camp for "Gypsies"
(Roma/Sinti) in the Third Reich.
Germany. Marzahn camp was situated near
a sewage dump and cemetery, and
contagious diseases flourished. 1936.
[Courtesy
Landesarchiv Berlin]
|
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Romani
("Gypsy") women and children interned
in the Rivesaltes transit camp. France,
spring 1942.
[Courtesy
USHMM]
|
.
8.
The
Handicapped and the Dissabled, Part of
the Final Solution
|
According
to the racial rules of the
Nazi regime in Germany, the
worthiness of a human being to
be allowed to reproduce or
even to exist could be
determined by measurable
racial characteristics. First
by means of sterilization, and
later through mass-murder, the
Nazi regime practiced this
"racial science" (through its
T-4 program) to assure the
purity of the Aryan race as
well as to gauge the world's
reaction to genocide.
-- Florida Holocaust Museum
|
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Cemetery
at Hadamar,Germany, where victims of
"euthanasia" at the Hadamar
"euthanasia" killing center were
buried. (Photo April
1945)
|
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|
..
9.
Nazi
Persecution of Homosexuals
(USHMM
Exhibit)
"Just
as we today have gone back to the
ancient Germanic view of the
question of marriage mixing
different races, so too in our
judgment of homosexuality a symptom
of degeneracy that could destroy our
race, we must return to the guiding
Nordic principle:
extermination."
|
Heinrich
Himmler, 1935.
|
|
From:
"Exhibit
Unmasking the Nazi Persecution
of
Gays"
|
Homosexuals,
whose "degeneracy" Nazis
believed would taint the Aryan
German race, suffered horrors
equal to Jews and Romanies
before and during
World War II:
arrest, imprisonment, torture,
castration, murder.
|
.
|
Heydrich
Himmler,
1938.
|
"We
must exterminate these people, root and
branch
We can't permit such danger to
the country; the homosexuals must be
entirely eliminated."
.
|
.
.10.
Nazi
Holocaust in the German-Occupied
Europe
The
Jews of Central and Western
Europe saw themselves as an
integral part of society. Yet,
the Nazi occupation created a
reality where the Jews were
cut off from society in their
countries of residence, thus
casting the initial acts of
persecution upon the Jews.
Following the occupation, the
Jews of France, the
Netherlands, and other
countries were subjected to
discriminatory legislation
that revoked their citizenship
and banished them from
economic life. Consequently,
the Jews had to reorganize
themselves separately in order
to function as a
self-sufficient group. In the
course of time, the Jews in
these countries, like those in
Germany itself, were forced to
wear the yellow star or the
equivalent of such.
Ultimately, Nazi policy became
more extreme and Jews of
Central and Western Europe
were deported to death camps
in Eastern Europe.
--Yad
Vashem Resource Center,
<yad-vashem.org.il/odot/prog/index_before_change_table.asp?gate=2-22&type_id=22>
|
|
Throughout
German-occupied Europe, the
Germans arrested those who
resisted their domination and
those they judged to be
racially inferior or
politically unacceptable.
People arrested for resisting
German rule were mostly sent
to forced-labor or
concentration camps. The
Germans deported Jews from all
over occupied Europe to
extermination camps in Poland,
where they were systematically
killed, and also to
concentration camps, where
they were used for forced
labor. Transit camps such as
Westerbork, Gurs, Mechelen,
and Drancy in western Europe
and concentration camps like
Bolzano and Fossoli di Carpi
in Italy were used as
collection centers for Jews,
who were then deported by rail
to the extermination camps.
According to SS reports, there
were more than 700,000
prisoners registered in the
concentration camps in January
1945.
--Jewish
Virtual Library,
<jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/campmap.html>
|
.
|
.
- The
German Occupation of
Europe
- Austria
During the Holocaust
Years
- The
Holocaust in
Belgium
Between
1942 and 1944, some 28 convoys of
25,257 prisoners were shipped from
Malines to Auschwitz.
Two-thirds of them died upon
arrival. Of the other third, only
1,207 prisoners survived under
inhuman captivity conditions.
|
|
The
partition of
Czechoslovakia
at the Munich Conference
presided by Hitler
|
|
|
|
Hitler
with his Generals in 1941
Planning for the Attack
Against the
Soviet Union
|
|
- The
Holocaust and Denmark --A Country of Blessed
Memory
This
is one of the great untold stories
of World War II: In 1943, in the
German occupied Denmark, the Danes
found out that all 7,500 Danish Jews
were about to be rounded up and
deported to German death camps. The
Danish people made their own
decision:
it's not going to happen ...
|
- Estonia
and the
Holocaust
- France
During the Holocaust Years
|
<<<=== Picture
Left (Paris, France; c. May
1941):
Foreign
Jews arrested in Paris at
the Austerlitz train
station before deportation
to the French-administered
internment camps Pithiviers
and Beaune-la-Rolande in
the Loire region.
[Courtesy:
United States Holocaust
Memorial
Museum]
|
|
.
Finland
During World War
II
|
Finland
was allied to Germany for one
reason only: to fight against
the Soviet occupation of a
large part of their country.
Around 2,000 Jews lived in
Finland, and the Finns had no
intention to surrender them to
the Germans. Probably due to
the very small number of Jews,
the Germans refrained from
pushing the issue in the face
of Finnish opposition. All
Finnish Jews survived the
war.
--The
Danish Center for Holocaust
and Genocide Studies
<holocaust-education.dk/holocaust/deportationer.asp>
|
|
The
Jews of
Finland
|
.The
Jews of Finland found
themselves in a bizarre
situation with the outbreak of
World War II. Despite the
Nazis' war on Europe's Jews,
Finland's alliance with
Germany caused over 300
Finnish Jews to fight
alongside German soldiers on
the Eastern Front, while
Jewish women served in the
country's civil defense
corps.
.Finland's
Jewish community numbered only
about 2000 (including almost
300 refugees from Germany and
Austria), and antisemitism was
practically nonexistent in the
country. Finnish Jews had full
rights as equal citizens. Most
of the refugees were housed in
labor camps, where they lived
in barracks.
.When
Heinrich Himmler broached the
subject of Finnish Jews, the
country's prime minister,
Johann Wilhelm Rangell, curtly
replied that Finland had no
"Jewish problem." Valuing
Finland's military cooperation
against the Soviet Union, the
Nazis applied no further
pressure.
.In
the autumn of 1942, however,
eight Jewish refugees were
handed over to the Gestapo.
Transported to the
extermination camp at
Auschwitz, Poland, all but one
of the refugees perished.
Lengthy negotiations with the
Swedish government secured the
transfer of 160 other refugees
to that neutral country. The
remaining refugees, along with
almost all Jewish-Finnish
citizens, survived the
war--except for a few Jewish
soldiers who died in battle
fighting for the German cause.
|
<holocaustchronicle.org/StaticPages/281.html>
|
|
|
Carl
Mannerheim, Adolf Hitler and Risto Ryti
on June 6, 1942.
|
.
- The
Holocaust in
Grece
(from
USHMM)
|
|
- Even
though deportations did not start
until March of 1943, Greece lost
at least 81 percent of its Jewish
population during the
Holocaust.
- Between
60,000 and 70,000 Greek Jews
perished, most of them at
Auschwitz-Birkenau.
- Only
5,000 Jews presently live in
Greece, mostly in Athens and
Thessaloniki.
Deportation
of Jews of Ioaninna, Greece,
on March 25, 1943,
to Auschwitz-Birkenau
<======
Ioaninna
Deportation
Photographs
<kkjsm.org/holocaust/more_pictures.html>
|
|
|
|
Photos
Left:
Jewish
Deportations in Thrace, March
1943
(Jewish
Museum of Greece)
and
(Yad Vashem Archives)
|
|
<yadvashem.org/Odot/prog/image_into.asp?id=951&lang=EN&type_id=&addr=/IMAGE_TYPE/951.JPG>
|
.
H
U
N
G
A
R
Y
|
The
Holocaust in Hungary
|
H
U
N
G
A
R
Y
|
|
The
SS Rounding up the Hungarian Jews
of Budapest, October, 1944, at
the Delight of non-Jewish
Civilians
|
|
|
|
Guards
check the identification papers
of women entering the ghetto in
Munkacs, in a part of
Czechoslovakia annexed by Hungary
in 1938. Czechoslovakia, 1944.
Photo
Credit:
Beit
Lohamei
Haghettaot
|
Deportation
of Hungarian Jews. Koszeg,
Hungary, May 1944.
Photo
Credit: Magyar Nemzeti Muzeum
Torteneti
Fenykeptar
|
.
|
|
|
Members
of the fascist Arrow Cross Party
arrest Jews.
Budapest, Hungary,
October-December 1944.
United
States Holocaust Memorial
Museum
|
Arrow
Cross Party members execute Jews
along the banks
of the Danube River. Budapest,
Hungary, 1944.
National
Archives and Records
Administration, College Park,
Md., USA.
|
|
.
|
.
- Italy
and the
Holocaust
|
|
Mussolini
and Hitler ride in an
open car through the streets
of Munich during the Italian
dictator's
visit to Germany
|
|
- The
Holocaust in Luxembourg
(from
USHMM)
Only
36 Jews from Luxembourg are known to
have survived the Nazi
camps.
|
Estimates
of the total number of Luxembourg Jews
murdered during the Holocaust range
from 1,000 to 2,500. These figures
include those killed in Nazi camps, in
Luxembourg, or after deportation from
France.
|
- The
Holocaust in Macedonia: Deportation of Monastir
Jewry
- Introductory
Note on "The Destruction of the Jews of The
Netherlands"
T
H
E
N
E
T
H
E
R
L
A
N
D
S
A
N
D
T
H
E
H
O
L
O
C
A
U
S
T
|
On
May 10, 1940, German
troops invaded The
Netherlands. Five
days later, Dutch
forces surrendered
and the German
occupation of
The Netherlands
officially began.
Five years later, The
Netherlands would be
liberated. The
persecution and the
destruction of the
Jews during those
five years was
enormous
indeed.
|
Dutch
Jews are marched under heavy
guard to the Amersfoot
Internment Camp in 1942.
[Photo
credit: Rijksinstituut voor
Oorlogsdocumentatie]
<historyplace.com/worldwar2/holocaust/h-dutch.htm>
Anti-Semitic
Graffiti in the Amsterdam of
1942.
<lib.usc.edu/~anthonya/holo.htm>
.
|
A
railway station in
Amsterdam
Dutch
Jews being led to the
trains that will take
them to a transit
camp.
Between
July 1942 and
September 1944,
115,000 people were
deported, mainly to
Auschwitz and
Sobibor.
Almost
all were
killed.
|
|
|
<friends-partners.org/partners/beyond-the-pale/eng_captions/52-3.html>
|
Dutch Jewish men rounded up by German
soldiers at the height of theNazi
terror
in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
<project-roots.com/warmemories.html>
70%
of the Jews in Holland
perished in the Holocaust.
This 70% figure represents the
highest loss in any country
occupied by the Germans in
western Europe.
|
|
.
N
A
Z
I
N
O
R
W
A
Y
|
Norway
During the Holocaust
Years
|
H
O
L
O
C
A
U
S
T
|
|
|
On
a Jewish-owned shop,
Norwegian fascists painted the slogan:
"Palestine is calling. Jews are not
tolerated in Norway."
|
Antisemitic
graffiti on the window of a Jewish-owned
store.
|
Norway,
after April 1940.
|
United
States Holocaust Memorial
Museum
|
.
|
|
The
Anti-Semitic Poland and the
Holocaust
The
Catholic Church in Poland and the
Holocaust, 1939 -
1945
An
examination of the behavior of the
Polish Church leaders in Occupied
Poland. -- from Yad Vashem
The
Holocaust in
Poland:
On
the Extermination of Jews in
Poland
Nazi
German Camps on Polish Soil During World
War II
Aktion
Reinhard (Operation
Reinhard)
From
Yad Vashem: Aktion Reinhard
"Operation
Reinhard":
The
Extermination Camps of Belzec, Sobibor
and
Treblinka
The
Jews of Tarnow, Poland During the
Holocaust
.
|
Jewish Poles being rounded up
(USHMM
Photo Archive )
<holocaust.cz/cz2/history/jew/general/general7>
+
|
.
|
.
|
.
|
|
The
first deportation of Jews from
Krakow,
30 May -- 8 June 1942.
They were shipped in cattle
trucks to Belzec death camp in
Eastern Poland, where 500,000
died or were killed until the
camp was decommissioned in March
1943.
(The Ghetto wall is in
background.)
<birdbattlefieldtours.com/sub_holocaust.htm>
|
|
|
P
O
L
A
N
D
|
Under
guard, Jewish men, women, and children
board trains during deportation from
Siedlce to the Treblinka extermination
camp. Siedlce, Poland, August
1942.
|
--
Dokumentationsarchiv des Oesterreichischen
Widerstandes
|
.
|
|
A
village execution of Jewish Poles by a
German squad
Dokumentationarchiv
des Oesterreicheischen Widerstandes --
<britannica.com/eb/art-58217>
.
|
.
.
.Spain
During the Holocaust
Years
|
Generalissimo
Francisco Franco, Spain and the
Holocaust
|
Although
Spain's head of state, Generalissimo
Francisco Franco, sympathized with the
Axis powers, his political policies saved
an estimated 17,000 Jews from death camps.
Franco refused to enter the war. Instead,
he declared Spain a "nonbelligerent," and
during the latter half of the war changed
the country's status to "neutral."
Franco frustrated the SS
by declaring descendants of Sephardic Jews
eligible for Spanish citizenship, and thus
entitled to asylum in Spanish embassies.
Spain consequently became a main avenue of
escape for Europe's Jews. Some hoped to
find asylum within the country, but most
intended to embark from Spanish ports for
sanctuary overseas.
The fall of France in
1940 unleashed a flood of refugees seeking
entry into Spain. Initially, the Spanish
government willingly granted transit
visas, but then authorities became more
hesitant to open frontiers. Still, many
refugees slipped across the northern
border illegally, trekking over hazardous
mountain routes. By the summer of 1942,
Jewish aid organizations helped an
estimated 7500 pass through Spain to
continue their journeys.
Spanish authorities
worked to discourage refugees from
remaining in the country, and established
internment camps for those who did. When
border crossings increased again in 1943,
refugees were permitted to live in Spanish
cities.
|
The
Holocaust Chronicle, page 331
<holocaustchronicle.org/staticpages/331.html>
|
- Sweden
and the Holocaust
.
.
|
|
From
the Eizenstat
Report:
|
|
"Switzerland
was a critical
trading partner of
Nazi Germany. Its
exports of ball
bearings to Germany
were vitally
important during the
war, and for a time
Switzerland supplied
Germany with 40
percent of its iron
ore until other
European sources
reduced that
dependency."
|
|
.
|
.
The
Holocaust In Yugoslavia:
|
|
.
|
.
.
12.
The
Nazi Ghettos: The Ghettoization of European
Jewry
.
|
Hundreds
and thousands of Jews were
confined in ghettos throughout
Europe as the Nazis sought to
contain the Jewish population
in preparation for the Final
Solution. While Ghetto
inhabitants tried to sustain a
certain degree of normalcy in
their lives, (through cultural
and social activities) living
conditions were terrible, and
thousands died from hunger and
disease.
|
--Florida
Holocaust Museum
|
|
.
|
The
Daily Struggle for Survival in the
Ghettos
|
Individual
Jews and the society as a
whole struggled to maintain
some quality of life even
under the most difficult
circumstances. In Eastern
Europe, this was known as
Iberleben --which is Yiddish
for survival. Many Jews tried
to survive by holding on to
jobs beneficial to the Nazi
regime. This concept of
'rescue by labor' was
perceived as something that
could keep people alive for a
while. It also gave these Jews
a minimal livelihood, but this
was always dependent on the
willingness of the German
authorities. At the same time
the Jews in the ghettos were
contending with physical
difficulties such as
starvation. They combatted
this by smuggling in food and
medicine to the
ghetto.
|
--Source:
Yad Vashem --
<yad-vashem.org.il/odot/prog/index_before_change_table.asp?gate=2-49>
|
|
.
|
Bialystok,
Brody, Czestochowa, Grodno, Jaworow,
Kielce, Kolomyja, Krakow, Krasnystaw,
Lodz, Lubartow, Lublin, Lvov,
Miedzyrzec Podlaski, Minsk, Piotrkow
Trybunalski, Przemysl, Radom, Radomsko,
Rawa Ruska, Rzeszow, Siedlce Tarnow,
Tomaszow Mazowiecki, Vilnius, Warszawa
(Warsaw), Zamosc, Zwolen.
|
.
|
|
Jews
being brought to Kosice, Czechoslovakia
from surrounding villages on April 17,
1944. Deportations to Auschwitz began
on May 15; the final transport of Jews
from Kosice was sent on June 3, 1944.
[Yad
Vashem
Archive]
|
.
Jews
from the Lodz ghetto are
loaded onto freight trains
for deportation to the Chelmno
extermination camp. Lodz,
Poland, between 1942 and
1944.
[National
Museum of American Jewish
History, Philadelphia,
USA]
.
|
[Yad
Vashem Archives #
40AO4]
|
- The
Lodz
Ghetto
This
is a photograph of children
standing behind the ghetto
fence in Lodz, Poland, on
August 15, 1944. From
January to May, 1942,
55,000 Jews were sent to
their deaths in Chelmno
death camp. From September
1942 until May 1944 there
were no more deportations.
After May, the deportations
to Chelmno were renewed. In
early August, the Nazis
rerouted the deportations
to Auschwitz. By August 30,
1944 about 70,000 Jews from
Lodz were sent to
Auschwitz.
|
.
|
|
|
|
Survivors,
near to their death, at Wöbbelin
-- <frihed.natmus.dk/rundvisninger/kz3.htm>
|
13.
.The
Concentration and Extermination
Camps
There
were 11 major Concentration
Camps:
|
Dachau
Sachsenhausen
Ravensbruck
Buchenwald
Flossenburg
Neungamme Gross Rosen
Natzweiler
Mauthausen
Stutthof
Dora / Nordhausen
|
There
were 4 main Killing
Centres:
|
Belzec
Chelmno Sobibor
Treblinka
|
There
were 2 main Labor / Extermination
Camps:
|
Auschwitz/
Birkenau Majdanek (KZ
Lublin)
|
There
were 2 main Holding Centres:
|
Bergen-Belsen
Theresienstadt
(Terezin)
|
There
were hundreds of Labor
Camps:
|
Over
400 Labor Camps only in the occupied
Poland, such as
Poniatowa, Trawniki, Budzyn,
Plaszow
|
|
|
<martinfrost.ws/htmlfiles/holocaust.html>
.
|
Auschwitz
was never conceived as a place to
kill Jews. It developed in step
with fundamental Nazi values,
constantly changing in response
to new 'needs' as the German war
effort ebbed and flowed. The
Auschwitz complex served as a
concentration camp and an
industrial centre for the
exploitation of brutal slave
labour --but it was the
perpetration of genocide that
became, in the end, its
pre-eminent purpose.
[BBC
]
|
.
|
|
Hungarian
Jewish women selected for slave
labor at
Birkenau.
|
Auschwitz-Birkenau
Extermination Complex --The Largest Nazi
Concentration
Camp
Auschwitz
--
Birkenau
from
Jewish Virtual
Library
.
.
|
|
View
of the electrified fence and main
entrance to the Auschwitz I
concentration camp.
[1945
Picture credit: Main Commission
for the Investigation of Nazi War
Crimes in Poland.]
-- USHMM # 50689
|
The Auschwitz Complex:
Auschwitz I, Auschwitz II
(Birkenau), Auschwitz III
(Monowitz)
Auschwitz
I --Concentration Camp; Birkenau
(Auschwitz II) --Extermination
Camp
(Credit:
Dutch Holocaust website
<cympm.com>
of Hans Vanderwerff and Sion
Soeters.)
BIRKENAU
DETAILED MAP
|
|
|
Jews
from Carpathian Ruthenia get off the deportation
train and assemble on the ramp at
Auschwitz-Birkenau.
[From
Yad Vashem --The
Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance
Authority.]
<kcl.ac.uk/depsta/iss/library/speccoll/bomarch/bomaug06.html>
..
|
.A
new Jewish transport that just arrived at
Birkenau-Auschwitz in 1944
Crematorium II (Krema II) can be seen in
the rear at right.
.
|
|
.At
Birkenau Selected, Upon Arrival, For the
Gas Chamber
(Their
only "crime" was the they were born
Jewish.)
|
|
|
Meet
the infamous
SS Maria
Mandel .
|
Crematorium
IV (Krema IV) in Birkenau-Auschwitz. The
gas chambers are in the back; in the
foreground, the morgue and the
crematorium.
|
.
|
Belzec,
one of the Nazis death
camps associated with
Action Reinhard, was
opened in November 1941.
Belzec was in the
southeast corner of
Poland, and like
Auschwitz-Birkenau,
Treblinka and Sobibor,
was in a remote sight,
away from prying eyes.
Belzec began its murders
in March 1942 and it
closed in December 1942.
Belzec was responsible
for up to 600,000 deaths
in the Holocaust.
.The
original camp at Belzec
has been a labour camp
and had been opened in
1940. Labourers held
here and local Jews were
used to convert the camp
into a death camp. The
first commander of
Belzec death camp was
Christian Wirth, a SS
officer.
.
Initially
at Belzec there were
three gas chambers in
use. This was later
increased to six to cope
with the increased human
traffic that was being
sent to the camp. Unlike
Auschwitz, which covered
a large area, Belzec was
reasonably small. A rail
spur led directly to the
camp. One part of the
camp was used to store
the clothes and
valuables taken from the
victims sent there.
Another separate part of
the camp held the gas
chambers and burial
pits. The two sections
were connected by what
was known as "The Tube"
--a narrow passageway
topped with barbed wire.
Branches, taken off
nearby trees, were
interwoven into the
barbed wire to screen it
off from the camp's
other section.
.
Wirth
ensured that the guards
there worked
effectively. When a
train arrived at Belzec,
it would usually have
2000 to 2,500 Jews in
the trucks. When they
had disembarked from the
trucks, the Jews were
split into two to three
groups. They were then
made to enter the camp.
Having been told that
they needed to shower
before starting labour
duties, the Jews were
forced through "The
Tube" and then to the
gas chambers. The
process of mass murder
took about 30 minutes
--Belzec used carbon
monoxide gas piped in
from a diesel engine.
Other Jewish prisoners
-- the Sonderkommando--
were made to clear the
gas chamber of bodies
and to extract gold
teeth etc. Other teams
of Jews were used to
tidy and sort the huts
where the victims had
taken off their clothes
etc. It took about three
hours to kill and then
clean up one trainload
of Jews.
.
When
the number of gas
chambers at Belzec was
doubled, a whole
trainload of Jews could
be split in two and then
"processed" (Wirth). The
six gas chambers could
take 1,200 Jews; the
three-hour process was
greatly reduced in time.
However, as more were
being murdered at one
time, the SS needed more
Jews to work as
Sonderkommandos. At
Belzec, in the second
stage of its existence
with six gas chambers,
there were 1000
Sonderkommado. Those
still alive when the
camp stopped being used
were sent to Sobibor to
be murdered.
.
As
with all the death
camps, exact figures of
deaths are impossible to
acquire. Many documents
of what went on at
Belzec were either
destroyed at the camp or
sent to Berlin where
they were also lost. It
is thought that 600,000
Jews were murdered at
Belzec along with 12,000
Romanies (Gypsies).
.
When
it stopped operating in
December 1942, the area
where Belzec had been
was ploughed over and
turned into a
farm.
|
<.historylearningsite.co.uk/belzec.htm>
|
|
.
|
|
Photo:
A new arrival of Jews at Belzec
Death Camp
Photo
Credit:
<clas.ufl.edu/llc/Sommerschule/Myers.htm>
|
|
|
- Berga
Concentration Camp, Weimar, Germany
.Bergen-Belsen
on April 15, 1945.
<kz-zuege.de/kapitel_05.htm>
|
|
One
of the Very Few
Survivors
of the Bergen-Belsen
Death Camp
|
|
|
|
.
- Bogdanovka
|
(in
Romanian, Bogdanovca), camp located on
the Bug River, in the village of
Bogdanovka in Transnistia. It was
established in October 1941 by the
Romanian occupation authorities. By
December 1, 1941, over 54,000 Jews from
Bessarabia and Odessa were imprisoned
in the camp. In mid-December, typhus
broke out in Bogdanovka. At that point,
the Romanians and Germans decided to
destroy the entire camp population. The
extermination began on December 21.
Romanian soldiers and police, Ukrainian
police, and local civilians took part,
under the command of the local
Ukrainian police chief. Approximately
5,000 sick and handicapped prisoners
were locked into two stables which were
then burnt down. The rest of the
prisoners were marched in groups of
300--400
to the river. They were forced to
remove their clothing and kneel. Then
they were shot or hit with hand
grenades. The killing continued for
four days, during which 30,000 Jews
were murdered. The killing was stopped
temporarily on Christmas Eve, while the
remaining Jews were left outside,
freezing and waiting to die. The
massacre began again on December 28;
11,000 Jews were killed by December 31.
Two hundred were kept alive to burn the
bodies, after which most of them were
either killed or died from
exposure.
[Source:
Yad Vashem]
|
.
A
New Arrival of Jews at
Buchenwald
<www.gesch.med.uni-erlangen.de/gewissen/ausstell/hinter/text_02.htm>
(United
States Holocaust Memorial
Museum)
Buchenwald's
main camp taken secretly by
detainee Georges Angéli in
June, 1944.
[spegel.de]
|
<secondeguerre.net/hisetpo/bh/hp_campsconext.html>
|
<kriegsende.ard.de/pages_magnifier/0,3273,OID1145578_CON1157224_POS3,00.html>
|
|
Margaret
Bourke-White's photo for
Life magazine at
Buchenwald,
1945
|
Margaret
Bourke-White
was with
General
Patton's third
amy when they
reached
Buchenwald on
the outskirts
of Weimar.
Patton was so
incensed by
what he saw
that he ordered
his police to
get a thousand
civilians to
make them see
with their own
eyes what their
leaders had
done. The MPs
were so enraged
they brought
back 2,000.
Bourke-White
said,
"I saw and
photographed
the piles of
naked, lifeless
bodies, the
human skeletons
in furnaces,
the living
skeletons who
would die the
next day... and
tattoed skin
for lampshades.
Using the
camera was
almost a
relief. It
interposed a
slight barrier
between myself
and the horror
in front of
me." LIFE
published in
their May 7,
1945 issue many
photographs of
these
atrocities,
saying,
|
"Dead
men will have
indeed died in
vain if live
men refuse to
look at
them."
|
.
|
<www.uiowa.edu/policult/politicalphotos/holocaust2.html>
|
|
Buchenwald
at Liberation, April
1945.
|
|
- "Operation
Reinhard":
The
Extermination Camps of Belzec, Sobibor and
Treblinka
.
|
Jewish
deportees from the Lodz Ghetto arrive
in Chelmno Extermination
Camp.
|
- Chelmno
- Death Camp for Total
Extermination
Dachau
Slave
Laborers at Dachau, 1938
<kz-gedenkstaette-dachau.de/englisch/content/history/arbeipic.htm>
|
|
|
|
A
Dachau
Survivor
|
"Dachau
-- the significance
of this name
will never be erased
from German
history.
It stands for all
concentration
camps
which the Nazis
established in their
territory."
(Eugen
Kogon)
|
|
|
--
Dachau Inmates at
Liberation --
<mmonceaux.free.fr/16956.jpg>
|
...
|
.Kaufering,
A Network of Subsidiary Camps
of the Dachau Concentration
Camp
Photo
Credit: US National Archives
and Records Administration
Digging
for Making a New Mass Grave in
the Landsberg Camp (part of
the Dachau Network)
Photo
Credit: Pfc. Bertram Sanders,
cameraman, US Army, 103rd
Division
|
.
|
.
.Gusen
|
Prisoners
at
Gusen
--
<gusen.org>
|
KZ
Gusen II: The "Hell of
Hells"
The
Jews belonged to the lowest
group in the KZ Gusen
hierarchy. They had to do the
worst jobs and often survived
just for a few working-days in
that
"Hell of Hells."
|
The
inmates lacked housing, food
and clothing, as well as
drinking water in the
KZ Gusen II. The
only water was pumped in from
the nearby Danube River
and it was suicidal to drink
it.
|
In
winter 1944/45 so many
transports came to
KZ Gusen II via its
direct railway-connections,
that the SS decided to
exterminate the transportees,
who were possibly from
KZ Auschwitz, by keeping
them inside the railway-cars
at below zero temperatures. In
a matter of a days all of them
were frozen to death on the
rails between St.Georgen and
KZ Gusen II Station.
|
"As
a resident of many camps, I
can say that Guzen was the
worst. This is not to say that
the conditions at the other
camps were not dreadful.
Compared to Guzen, however,
one might almost say that
those camps were paradises.
The proof of this might be
that Guzen was one of the
least known camps. This was
not because it was smaller
than the others - it might
even have been the largest. It
was unknown simply because
very few of the tens of
thousand of prisoners sent
there remained alive to tell
the story of its horrors."
--Rabbi
RAV YECHEZKEL HARFENES --
<gusen.org>
|
.
|
.
.
|
The
prisoners of
Mauthausen-Gusen
concentration camp
climb the infamous
Stairs of Death with
heavy stones on their
backs.
<answers.com/topic/mauthausen-gusen-concentration-camp>
|
.
|
|
Mauthausen
Pile of Corpses at
Liberation
|
|
.
Neuengamme
(Germany) Concentration
Camp
|
|
|
Prisoners
at forced labor in the Neuengamme
concentration camp
building the Dove-Elbe canal. (1941 -
1942)
(The
Kapos wear white and black armbands in
the 1st picture above.)
|
[Photographs
from the KZ-Gedenkstatte Neuengamme,
courtesy of USHMM Photo
Archives]
<history1900s.about.com/library/holocaust/blneuen1.htm>
<history1900s.about.com/library/holocaust/blneuen9.htm>
|
- Nordhausen
Concentration
Camp
(A
Sub-camp of Dora-Mittelbau)
-
Ohrdruf
Camp
(subcamp of the Buchenwald Concentration
Camp)
--the
first Nazi camp liberated by U.S. troops
- Gross-Rosen
Concentration
Camp
(established in 1940 as a subcamp of the
Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp)
.
- Sachsenhausen
Concentration Camp
--Oranienburg (Germany)
Just
outside the city limits stands a
reminder of the darkest days of
Berlin's history: Sachsenhausen.
Built in 1936 by slave laborers from
other early camps, Berlin's
concentration camp became a model of
the designed efficiency for all
those to follow, and by the end of
WWII, over 50,000 people had lost
their lives to the Nazi death
machine. Sachsenhausen was more than
just a camp: it was a school of
brutality training guards for
positions at all other camps.
|
Homosexual
prisoners
at
Sachsenhausen.
|
|
.
..
<historyplace.com/pointsofview/goldhagen.htm>
|
|
|
Ukrainian
Jews assembled for mass
execution
|
Hungarian
women and children to be gassed in
Auschwitz
after having been deemed unfit for
work
|
- Shoah
(Holocaust): Primary Documents
- JewishGen's
Holocaust
Database
- Defendants
in the Major War Figures
Trial
- Convicting
the Nazis on their Own
Evidence
Comprehensive
Index:
- The Nazis / Nuremberg War Crimes Trial -
Testimony / Documents and Other
sources
"A
thousand years will pass and the
guilt of Germany will not be
erased."
--Oct 16, 1946.
|
|
Hans
Frank [Governor of occupied
Poland], convicted of major Nazi
war criminal at
Nuremberg.
|
- The
Auschwitz
Trials
- Auschwitz
Concentration Camp
by
SS Pery Broad --Member of the SS Personnel in
Auschwitz Concentration Camp
- First-Hand
Documents of the Holocaust in Poland from Yad
Vashem
- Nazi's
Euthanasia files are made
public
- Legendary
American Reporter Edward R. Murrow Describes
Buchenwald
(when he entered the camp after
liberation)
- United
States War Refugee Board Receives Report on
Final
Solution
- The
"Captured German Records" Holocaust
Collection
- German/Austrian
Holocaust Related Databases on the
Web
- Photographs
Documenting the Holocaust in
Hungary
- Heinrich
Himmler' Speech of October 4,
1943
- Large
Theresienstadt documentation,
1943-1945
- More
Theresienstadt Ghetto
Documents
- Minutes
of the Wannsee
Conference
- The
Execution of Children and
Women
- Photographs
Documenting the Holocaust in
Hungary
by
László Karsai, Ph.D.
- The
Hadamar Trial. Trial of Alfons Klein and Six
Others. United Nations War Crimes Commission,
1947
- Eyewitness
Accounts: Description of Concentration
Camps
- Diary
of Dr. Johann Paul
Kremer
- Testimony
of Saraleh Batscha (née Mondula) of
Cluj, Transylvania (now, part of Romania) of
the life in
Auschwitz
- Photographs
from Belsen Concentration Camp: Victims,
Perpetrators,
Liberators
- Excerpts
From Testimonies of SS Men, with
Sources
- Primary
Documents:
Nazi
Extermination of People with Mental
Disabilities
- Documentation
of The Mass Murder of Lithuanian Jewry by the
SS Einsatzgruppen -- "Action Groups"
from a Secret Reich Letter
- The
Jaeger Report: A Chronicle of Nazi Mass
Murder:
One Unit, One Area, Five Months - and 137,000
Victims
- Letter
from SS-Sturmbannfuehrer Jahrling to
SS-General Kammler
where
the
cremating capacity of the five Auschwitz
crematoriums is specified as 4,756 per 24
working
hours
|
|
"I
myself never shot a single
Jew;
I only gassed them..."
Erich
Gnewuch
|
.
|
|
Polish
survivor Jadwiga Dzido shows her
scarred leg to the court, while
expert witness Dr. Alexander
explains the nature of the
medical experiment performed on
her in the Ravensbrück
concentration camp. Dzido and
Alexander were appearing as
witnesses at the Doctors
Trial.
|
..
|
|
Nuremberg
Trials [Harvard
University Law Library]
(Repository
of some one million Trial
pages)
|
Two
United States Historic Photographs:
.Dwight
D. Eisenhower with other US Officers at
Ohrdruf, a subcamp of the Buchenwald
concentration camp,
After Liberation
|
A
collection of over 4,300
videotaped interviews
with witnesses and
survivors of
the Holocaust that
is part of
|
Sterling
Memorial Library, Yale
University,
New Haven,
Connecticut,
USA.
|
|
|
.
.15.
Nazi Plundering
|
A
painting by the French impressionist
Edouard Manet, titled "Wintergarden",
discovered in the vault at Merkers.
April 25, 1945
[+Enlarge Picture]
|
European
Center of Military History -
Belgium
|
Documentation
from the United States National
Archives and Records Administration
(NARA):
|
|
General
Dwight D. Eisenhower,
Supreme Allied
Commander,
accompanied by General Omar
Bradley and
Lt. Gen. George
Patton, Jr., inspects
stolen art
treasures.
|
.
|
|
.
|
|
THE
RAPE OF
EUROPA
tells the epic story of the systematic
theft, deliberate destruction and
miraculous survival of Europe's art
treasures during the Third Reich and
World War II. In a journey through
seven countries, the film takes viewers
into the violent whirlwind of
fanaticism, greed, and warfare that
threatened to wipe out the artistic
heritage of Europe. For twelve long
years, the Nazis looted and destroyed
art on a scale unprecedented in
history. But heroic young art
historians and curators from America
and across Europe fought back with an
extraordinary campaign to rescue and
return the millions of lost, hidden and
stolen treasures. Now, more than sixty
years later, the legacy of this tragic
history continues to play out as
families of looted collectors recover
major works of art, conservators repair
battle damage, and nations fight over
the fate of ill-gotten spoils of
war.
|
.
|
Suggestions
for further material to be included in here are
welcome.
|
|
Holocaust
Remembrance, Sanctuary, and Beyond
...
|
.
|