The Final Solution
Genocide of The Jews and 'Unwanted'
Relocation into camps
The Nazi party desired that the Jews leave Germany. The removal of the Jews would assure the 'purity' of the Aryan race. Hitler wanted the expulsion of all the Jews into a southeastern area in Poland. This plan failed, as well as the plan to deport all Jews to Madagascar. In response, the Nazis created Ghettos, which often led to mass starvation, diseases, and death. By 1940 it became clear that the deportation of Jews would be impossible; an idea had began to form that the best solution was to kill them. In 1942 numerous death and concentration camps had already been set up, and the Nazis began to deport Jews in the countries they occupied to the death camps.
Holocaust documentary
This video has an overview describing when the Nazi's came into power and their views of how society should be. It gives information about the exportation of people into camps, and includes the daily life inside of the concentration/death camps. This video not only shows a few of the horrors during the Holocaust, but also highlights a happier side showing a few normal people who had come to the aid of the Jews.
Concentration Camp Life
Concentration camp commandants deployed prisoners as forced laborers for the benefit of SS construction projects, such as expanding the camps themselves. Even with the need of the labor, the SS authorities continued to undernourish and mistreat the prisoners, deploying them ruthlessly and without regard to safety, with rates of such high mortality that many prisoners believed that were being annihilated through work. Those low on the social ladder had much more physically demanding tasks such as factory work, mining, and construction. The daily routine might have looked like something like this; an early awakening, followed by the lineup (where prisoners were forced to stand completely still, oftentimes for hours, exposed to the cold and elements), then forced labor, then waiting for the daily meager meal, usually consisting of watery vegetable soup and a small portion of bread that was insufficient for people working hard labor, return to camp, another lineup, then returning to the barracks.
Death Camps
Unlike concentration camps, the death camps were created with one purpose; to mass murder Jews and other 'unwanted'. When the men, women, and children arrived at these camps, they were told to get undressed. The SS men kept the people fated to die unaware. These people were told that they were being sent to a camp, but they first had to disinfect and bathe. After they got undressed, they were taken to the gas chamber, locked in, and killed with Zyklon B gas. The corpses were then dragged out of the chambers and had all jewelry removed and dental work. The corpses were then burned in crematoriums.
Gas Chamber
They were often made to look like showers to prevent hysteria.
Crematorium
In Auschwitz it is said that in one chamber 1,140 people could be burned every 24 hours. There were 5 crematoriums in Auschwitz.
Corpses
By the end, the death total was in the millions.
Einstatzgruppen
The Einstatzgruppen were a special task force made of SS personnel who were responsible for mass killings. They went directly to the home communities of Jews and massacred them. At first they only killed Jewish men, but as time went on they began shooting men, women, and children. After being transported to an execution site, they were made to undress and hand over valuables, then shot in the prepared pit. Shooting had been the Einstatzgruppen's primary method of execution, until Heinrich Himmler had requested a more convenient style of killing to be developed. The result was the gas van, a mobile gas chamber in which a car had a sealed cabin and the carbon monoxide from the exhaust was fed through a pipe into the cabin. The gassing process took 15 to 30 minutes. During this time the van be driven from the loading site to prepared graves.
Works Cited
"Concentration Camps, 1933–1939." Holocaust Encyclopedia. United States Holocaust
Memorial Council, 20 June 2014. Web. 10 Dec. 2014.
"Einsatzgruppen (Mobile Killing Units)." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United
States Holocaust Memorial Council, 20 June 2014. Web. 13 Dec. 2014.
"The Holocaust." Holocaust History. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Dec. 2014.
"Holocaust." World History: The Modern Era. ABC-CLIO, n.d. Web. 12 Dec. 14.
Piper, Franciszek. "Auschwitz-Birkenau." Auschwitz-Birkenau - Auschwitz and Shoah. N.p.,
n.d. Web. 11 Dec. 2014.