The Holocaust: Difference between revisions
Content deleted Content added
Tawkerbot2 (talk | contribs) m BOT - Reverted edit by User talk:87.36.58.130 (45702079) - reverted to User talk:Musical Linguist (45700328) |
No edit summary |
||
| Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
Lots of dumb jews died. |
|||
{{dablink|This article deals with the Holocaust committed by the [[Nazi Germany|Nazis]]. For other meanings of the word Holocaust see [[Holocaust (disambiguation)]]}} |
|||
[[image:Selection Birkenau ramp.jpg|right|thumb|250px|Selection at the [[Auschwitz-Birkenau|Auschwitz]] ramp in 1944, where the Nazis chose whom to kill immediately and whom to use as [[slavery|slave labor]] or for [[Nazi human experimentation|medical experimentation]], such as those of the infamous Dr. [[Josef Mengele]]. The entrance to the main camp is in the background. Between 1.1 and 1.6 million people were killed at Auschwitz; over 90% of the victims were Jews.]] |
|||
The end, lol. |
|||
The '''Holocaust''' is the name applied to the systematic state-sponsored [[persecution]] and [[genocide]] of the [[Jew]]s of Europe and North Africa along with other groups during [[World War II]] by [[Nazi Germany]] and [[Non-German cooperation with nazis during World War 2|collaborators]]{{ref|whatis}}. Early elements of the Holocaust include the [[Kristallnacht]] [[pogrom]] of the 8th and 9th November 1938 and the [[T-4 Euthanasia Program]], progressing to the later use of [[Einsatzgruppen|killing squads]] and [[extermination camps]] in a massive and centrally organized effort to exterminate every possible member of the populations targeted by the [[Nazis]]. |
|||
The [[Jew]]s of Europe were the main victims of the Holocaust in what the Nazis called the "[[Final Solution|Final Solution of the Jewish Question]]". The commonly used figure for the number of Jewish victims is [[6000000 (number)|six million]], so much so that the phrase "six million" is now almost universally interpreted as referring to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, though estimates by historians using, among other sources, records from the [[Nazism|Nazi]] regime itself, range from five million to seven million. |
|||
About 220,000 [[Sinti]] and [[Roma people|Roma]] were killed in the Holocaust (some estimates are as high as 800,000), between a quarter to a half of the European population. Other groups deemed "racially inferior" or "undesirable": [[Soviet]] military [[prisoners of war]] and civilians on occupied territories including [[Russians]] and other [[Slavs]], [[Poles]] (3 million Polish Jews, and 2 million Polish gentiles, total 5 million Poles killed in Holocaust), the mentally or physically [[disability|disabled]], [[homosexuality|homosexuals]], [[Jehovah's Witnesses]], [[Communist]]s and political [[dissident]]s, [[trade union]]ists, [[Freemasonry|Freemasons]], and some [[Catholic]] and [[Protestant]] clergy, were also [[persecution|persecuted]] and killed. Many scholars do not include the Nazi persecution of all of these groups in the definition of the Holocaust, with some scholars limiting the Holocaust to the genocide of the Jews; some to genocide of the Jews, Roma, and disabled; and some to all groups targeted by Nazi racism.{{ref|whichgroups}} Taking all these other groups into account, however, the total death toll rises considerably, estimates generally place the total number of Holocaust victims at 9 to 11 million, though some estimates have been as high as 26 million.{{ref|totalkilled}} |
|||
{{-}} |
|||
{{The Holocaust}} |
|||
== Etymology and usage of the term == |
|||
{{main|Names of the Holocaust}} |
|||
The word ''holocaust'' originally derived from the [[Greek Language|Greek]] word ''[[Holocaust (sacrifice)|holokauston]]'', meaning "a completely (holos) burnt (kaustos) sacrificial offering" to a god. Since the late 19th century, "holocaust" has primarily been used to refer to disasters or catastrophes. According to the [[Oxford English Dictionary]], the word was first used to describe Hitler's treatment of the Jews from as early as 1942, though it did not become a standard reference until the 1950s. By the late 1970s, however, the conventional meaning of the word became the Nazi genocide. The term is also used by many in a narrower sense, to refer specifically to the unprecedented destruction of European Jews in particular. |
|||
The biblical word '''''Shoa''''' (שואה), also spelled '''''Shoah''''' and '''''Sho'ah''''', meaning "calamity" in [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]], became the standard Hebrew term for the Holocaust as early as the early 1940s.{{ref|shoah}} ''Shoa'' is preferred by many [[Jew]]s and a growing number of others for a number of reasons, including the potentially [[theologically]] offensive nature of the original meaning of the word ''holocaust''. |
|||
[[Image:Children in the Holocaust concentration camp liberated by Red Army.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Child survivors of the Holocaust filmed during the liberation of [[Auschwitz concentration camp]] by the [[Red Army]]. January, 1945]] |
|||
==Features of the Nazi Holocaust== |
|||
There were several characteristics to the Nazi Holocaust which, taken together, distinguish it from other [[genocides in history]]. |
|||
===Efficiency=== |
|||
[[Image:Ghettos.gif|thumb|200px|right|[[Ghettos]] established in Europe in which Jews were confined, in ghettos and later in temporary concentration locations and later shipped to extermination camps.]] |
|||
The Holocaust was characterized by the efficient and systematic attempt on an industrial scale to assemble and kill as many people as possible, using all of the resources and technology available to the Nazi state. |
|||
[[Image:Hoefletelegram.jpg|right|thumb|left|250px|The Nazis methodically tracked the progress of the Holocaust in thousands of reports and documents. Pictured is the [[Höfle Telegram]] sent to [[Adolf Eichmann]] in January, 1943, that reported that 1,274,166 Jews had been killed in the four [[Aktion Reinhard]] camps during 1942.]] |
|||
For example, detailed lists of potential victims were made and maintained using [[Dehomag]] statistical machinery, and meticulous records of the killings were produced. As prisoners entered the death camps, they were made to surrender all personal property to the Nazis, which was then precisely catalogued and tagged, and for which receipts were issued. In addition, considerable effort was expended over the course of the Holocaust to find increasingly efficient means of killing more people; for example, by switching from [[carbon monoxide]] poisoning in the [[Aktion Reinhard]] death camps of [[Belzec extermination camp|Belzec]], [[Sobibór extermination camp|Sobibór]], and [[Treblinka extermination camp|Treblinka]] to the use of [[Zyklon B]] at [[Majdanek]] and [[Auschwitz concentration camp|Auschwitz]]. |
|||
In his book ''Russia's War'', British historian [[Richard Overy]] describes how the Nazis sought more efficient ways to kill people. In 1941, after occupying [[Belarus]], they used mental patients from [[Minsk]] [[Psychiatric hospital|asylum]]s as guinea pigs. Initially, they tried shooting them by having them stand one behind the other, so that several people could be killed with one bullet, but it was too slow. Then they tried [[dynamite]], but few were killed and many were left wounded with hands and legs missing, so that the Germans had to finish them off with machine guns. In October 1941, in [[Mogilev]], they tried the ''Gaswagen'' or "gas car". First they used a light military car, and it took more than 30 minutes for people to die. Then they used a larger truck exhaust and it took only eight minutes to kill all the people inside.{{ref|overy}} |
|||
Alleged corporate involvement in the Holocaust has created significant controversy in recent years. [[Rudolf Hoess]], Auschwitz camp commandant, said that far from having to advertise their slave labour services, the concentration camps were actually approached by various large German businesses, some of which are still in existence. Technology developed by [[IBM]] also played a role in the categorization of prisoners, through the use of index machines. A book on IBM's role in the holocaust called [http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/ IBM and the Holocaust] gives more details on this. |
|||
===Scale=== |
|||
[[Image:Massdeportations.gif|thumb|200px|right|Major deportation routes to the [[extermination camps]] in Europe.]] |
|||
The Holocaust was geographically widespread and systematically conducted in virtually all areas of Nazi-occupied territory, where Jews and other victims were targeted in what are now 35 separate European nations, and sent to labor camps in some nations or [[extermination camps]] in others. The mass killing was at its worst in Central and Eastern Europe, which had more than 7 million Jews in 1939; about 5 million Jews were killed there, including 3 million in Poland and over 1 million in the Soviet Union. Hundreds of thousands also died in the Netherlands, France, Belgium, Yugoslavia, and Greece. |
|||
Documented evidence suggests that the Nazis planned to carry out their 'final solution' in other regions if they were conquered, such as [[Britain]] and [[Ireland]]. {{ref|gilbert1}}. The extermination continued in different parts of Nazi-controlled territory until the end of [[World War II]], only completely ending when the Allies entered Germany itself and forced the Nazis to surrender in May 1945. |
|||
===Cruelty=== |
|||
The Holocaust was carried out without any mercy or reprieve for children or babies, and victims were often made to suffer before finally being killed. Nazis carried out cruel and deadly [[Nazi human experimentation|medical experiments]] on prisoners, including children. Dr. [[Josef Mengele]], medical officer at Auschwitz and chief medical officer at [[Birkenau]], was known as the "Angel of Death" for his cruel and bizarre medical and [[eugenics|eugenical]] experiments, e.g., trying to change people's eye colour by injecting dye into their eyes. Many of these experiments were intended to produce 'racially pure' babies and as research into weapons and techniques of war. Nazis killed Jews by putting them in tanks and dropping gas on them for short periods of time. Many of these prisoners did not survive. Day to day life in the [[concentration camp]]s was also brutal, with the guards regularly carrying out beatings and acts of torture. |
|||
== Victims == |
|||
The victims of the Holocaust were [[Jew]]s, [[Poles]], [[Russians]], [[Communist]]s, [[homosexuality|homosexuals]], [[Roma (people)|Roma]] (also known as gypsies), the [[mentally ill]] and the physically [[disabled]], [[intelligentsia]] and political activists, [[Jehovah's Witnesses and the Holocaust|Jehovah's Witnesses]], some [[Catholic]] and [[Protestant]] clergy, [[trade union]]ists, [[psychiatric]] patients, some [[African]]s, common [[criminal]]s and people labeled as "enemies of the state". These victims all perished alongside one another in the camps, according to the extensive documentation left behind by the Nazis themselves (written and photographed), eyewitness testimony (by survivors, perpetrators, and bystanders), and the statistical records of the various countries under occupation. |
|||
=== Jews === |
|||
[[Image:Vienna 1938 pavement scrub.jpg|thumb|150px|left|Nazis in uniform in Vienna, Austria 1938 mock Jews forced to scrub streets]] |
|||
[[Anti-Semitism]] was common in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s (though its roots go back much further). [[Adolf Hitler]]'s fanatical brand of racial anti-Semitism was laid out in his 1925 book ''[[Mein Kampf]]'', which, though largely ignored when it was first printed, became a bestseller in Germany once Hitler acquired political power. This Anti-Semitism was echoed by Nazi groups such as the [[Sturmabteilung]] by songs like "When Jewish blood drips off the blade" and the rallying cry "Juda verrecke" (Perish the Jew). |
|||
On [[April 1]], [[1933]], shortly after Hitler's [[Machtergreifung|accession to power]], the [[Nazism|Nazis]], led mainly by [[Julius Streicher]], and the [[Sturmabteilung]], organized a one-day boycott of all Jewish-owned businesses in [[Germany]]. A series of increasingly harsh racist laws were soon passed in quick succession. Under the “[[Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service]]”, passed by the [[Reichstag]] on [[April 7]] [[1933]], all Jewish civil servants at the ''Reich'', ''Länder'', and municipal levels of government were fired immediately. The "Law for the Restoration of a Professional Civil Service" marked the first time since Germany's unification in 1871 that an anti-Semitic law had been passed in Germany. This was followed by the [[Nuremberg Laws]] of 1935 that prevented marriage between any Jew and non-Jew, and stripped all Jews of German citizenships (their official title became "[[subject of the state]]") and of their basic civil rights, e.g., to vote. |
|||
In 1936, Jews were banned from all professional jobs, effectively preventing them exerting any influence in education, politics, higher education and industry. On [[15 November]] of 1938, Jewish children were banned from going to normal schools. By April 1939, nearly all Jewish companies had either collapsed under financial pressure and declining profits, or had been forced to sell out to the Nazi-German government as part of the "Aryanization " policy inaugurated in 1937. |
|||
[[Image:Himmler Hitler.jpg|frame|100px|right|[[Heinrich Himmler]] (left), leader of the [[Schutzstaffel|SS]] (responsible for rounding up Jews), with [[Adolf Hitler]] (right).]] |
|||
As the war started, large massacres of Jews took place, and, by December 1941, Hitler decided to completely exterminate European Jews. In January 1942, during the [[Wannsee conference]], several Nazi leaders discussed the details of the "[[final solution|Final Solution of the Jewish question]]" (''Endlösung der Judenfrage''). [[Dr. Josef Bühler]] urged [[Reinhard Heydrich]] to proceed with the Final Solution in the [[General Government]]. They began to systematically deport Jewish populations from the ghettos and all occupied territories to the seven camps designated as ''Vernichtungslager,'' or [[extermination camp]]s: [[Auschwitz concentration camp|Auschwitz]], [[Belzec extermination camp|Belzec]], [[Chelmno concentration camp|Chelmno]], [[Majdanek]], [[Maly Trostenets extermination camp|Maly Trostenets]], [[Sobibór extermination camp|Sobibór]] and [[Treblinka extermination camp|Treblinka II]]. [[Sebastian Haffner]] published the analysis in 1978 that Hitler from December 1941 accepted the failure of his goal to dominate Europe forever on his declaration of war against the [[United States]], but that his withdrawal and apparent calm thereafter was sustained by the achievement of his second goal—the extermination of the Jews.{{ref|Haffner}} |
|||
Even as the Nazi war machine faltered in the last years of the war, precious military resources such as fuel, transport, munitions, soldiers and industrial resources were still being heavily diverted away from the war and towards the death camps. |
|||
By the end of the war, much of the Jewish population of Europe had been killed in the Holocaust. Poland, home of the largest Jewish community in the world before the war, had had over 90% of its Jewish population, or about 3,000,000 Jews, killed. Greece, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Lithuania, Bohemia, the Netherlands, Slovakia, and Latvia each had over 70% of their Jewish population destroyed. [[Belgium]], [[Romania]], [[Luxembourg]], [[Norway]], and [[Estonia]] lost around half of their Jewish population, the Soviet Union over one third of its Jews, and even countries such as France and Italy had each seen around a quarter of their Jewish population killed. Some [[Jews outside Europe under Nazi occupation]] were also affected by the Holocaust and treatment from the Nazis. |
|||
=== Slavs === |
|||
[[Poles]] were one of the first targets of extermination by Hitler, as outlined in the [[Armenian quote|speech]] he gave the Wehrmacht commanders before the [[Polish September Campaign|invasion of Poland]] in 1939. The [[intelligentsia]] and socially prominent or influential people were primarily targeted, although there were some [[mass murder]]s committed [[World War II atrocities in Poland|against the general population]], as well as against other groups of Slavs. The Nazi occupation of Poland ([[General Government]], [[Reichsgau Wartheland]]) was one of the most brutal episodes of World War Two, resulting in 1.8-1.9 million non-Jewish deaths in addition to three million Polish [[Jew]]s. Scholars disagree as to what proportion of these non-Jewish Polish civilian deaths during the Nazi conquest and occupation of Poland were part of the Holocaust, though there is no doubt of the eventual genocidal intentions of the Nazis towards the Poles. At least 140,000 Poles were sent to Auschwitz, and the [[Intelligentsia#Intelligentsia in Poland|Polish intelligentsia]] were the first targets of the [[Einsatzgruppen]] death squads.{{ref|polesauschwitz}} |
|||
During [[Operation Barbarossa]], the [[Axis Powers|Axis]] invasion of the Soviet Union, hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of [[Red Army]] [[prisoners of war]] were arbitrarily executed in the field by the invading German armies (in particular by the notorious [[Waffen SS]]), died under inhuman conditions in German prisoner-of-war camps, or were shipped to extermination camps for execution simply because they were of Slavic extraction. Thousands of Soviet (Russian, Belarusian, Ukrainian) peasant villages were annihilated by German troops for more or less the same reason. During occupation, Russia's Leningrad, Pskov and Novgorod region lost around a quarter of its population. Bodan Wytwycky estimated that as many as one quarter of all Soviet civilian deaths at the hands of the Nazis and their allies were racially motivated, or 5 million [[Russians|Russian]] deaths, 3 million [[Ukrainian]] deaths and 1.5 million [[Belarus|Belarusian]] deaths.{{ref|soviet}} |
|||
At the same time, not all Slavs were targeted by the Nazis. The Slavs of Croatia, Slovakia and Ukrainian Galicia were allies of Nazi Germany, and participated as collaborators in the Holocaust. |
|||
=== Roma, Sinti, and Manush ('Gypsies') === |
|||
{{main|Porajmos}} |
|||
[[Image:Porajmos.jpg|thumb|250px|Gypsy arrivals in the [[Belzec]] death camp await instructions]] |
|||
Proportional to their population, the death toll of Romanies ([[Roma people|Roma]], [[Sinti]], and [[Manush]]) in the Holocaust was the worst of any group of victims. Hitler's campaign of [[genocide]] against the Romani population of Europe involved a particularly bizarre application of Nazi "[[racial hygiene]]". Although, despite discriminatory measures, some Romani groups, including some of the [[Sinti]] and [[Lalleri]] of Germany, were spared deportation and death, the remaining Romani groups suffered much like the Jews. Between a quarter and a half of the Romani population was killed, upwards of 220,000 people.{{ref|hancock}} In [[Eastern Europe]], Roma were deported to the Jewish ghettoes, shot by SS ''Einsatzgruppen'' in their villages, and deported and gassed in Auschwitz and Treblinka. |
|||
=== Freemasons === |
|||
In ''[[Mein Kampf]]'', [[Adolf Hitler]] writes that [[Freemasonry]] has "succumbed" to the Jews and has become an "excellent instrument" to fight for their aims and to use their "strings" to pull the upper strata of society into their alleged designs. He continues, "The general pacifistic paralysis of the national instinct of self-preservation begun by Freemasonry" is then transmitted to the masses of society by the press.{{ref|FM01}} |
|||
The ''Enabling Act'' (''[[:de:Ermächtigungsgesetz|Ermächtigungsgesetz]]'' in [[German language|German]]) was passed by Germany's parliament (the ''[[Reichstag (institution)|Reichstag]]'') on [[March 23]], [[1933]]. Using the "Act", on [[January 8]], [[1934]] the [[Nazi Germany|German]] [[Ministry of the Interior]] ordered the disbandment of Freemasonry, and confiscation of the property of all Lodges; stating that those who had been members of Lodges when Hitler came to power, in January 1933, were prohibited from holding office in the Nazi party or its paramilitary arms, and were ineligible for appointment in public service. {{ref|FM02}} Consistently considered an ideological foe of Nazism in their world perception (''Weltauffassung''), special sections of the Security Service (SD) and later the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) were established to deal with the Freemasonry. Freemasonic Concentration Camp inmates were graded as “Political” prisoners, and wore an inverted, (point down), ''[[Nazi concentration camp badges|red triangle]]''. {{ref|FM03}} |
|||
On [[August 8]], [[1935]], as [[Führer]] and [[Chancellor of Germany|Chancellor]], Adolf Hitler announced in the [[National Socialist German Workers Party|Nazi]] Party newspaper, ''[[Voelkischer Beobachter]]'', the final dissolution of all Masonic Lodges in Germany. The article accused a conspiracy of the Fraternity and “World Jewry” of seeking to create a “[[New World Order|World Republic]]”. {{ref|FM04}} |
|||
Estimates calculate that between 80,000 and 200,000 Freemasons died.{{ref|FM05}}It is impossible to arrive at a total figure as no one knows the number of Freemasons from occupied countries who were killed.{{ref|FM06}} |
|||
=== Communists === |
|||
About 100,000 [[communism|communists]] were killed. There had been earlier attempts at sterilizing them using X-rays. |
|||
===Gay men=== |
|||
{{main|History of Gays during the Holocaust}} |
|||
Gay ([[Homosexuality|homosexual]]) men were also targets of the Holocaust, as homosexuality was deemed incompatible with [[Nazism]] because of their failure to reproduce the "master race." This was combined with [[homophobia]] and the belief among the Nazis that homosexuality could be contagious. |
|||
Initially homosexuality was discreetly tolerated while officially shunned, and the early Nazi leadership included a number of known homosexuals. By 1936, however, homosexual members of the party had been purged and [[Heinrich Himmler]] led an effort to persecute gays under existing and new anti-gay laws. |
|||
More than one million gay German men were targeted, of whom at least 100,000 were arrested and 50,000 were serving prison terms as convicted gay men. An additional unknown number were institutionalized in state-run mental hospitals. Hundreds of European gay men living under Nazi occupation were castrated under court order. The deaths of at least an estimated 15,000 gay men in concentration camps were officially documented, but it is difficult to put an exact number on just how many gay men perished in death camps. Some gay men were also used in medical experiments. According to Heinz Heger, in the concentration camps gay men "suffered a higher mortality rate than other relatively small victim groups, such as Jehovah's Witnesses and political prisoners."{{ref|pinktriangle}}. Lesbians were not normally treated as harshly as gay men. They were labeled "anti-social," but were rarely sent to camps for engaging in acts of homosexuality. |
|||
===Religious groups=== |
|||
The Nazis also targeted some religious groups, though no religious group (outside of the Jews) was actually targeted for total extermination during the Holocaust. Around 1,200 [[Jehovah's Witnesses]] perished in concentration camps, where they were held for political and ideological reasons (see [[Jehovah's Witnesses and the Holocaust]]). Additionally, some members of the Catholic clergy were killed by the Nazis, many of whom were either of Jewish background, as in the case of [[Edith Stein]], or were killed as part of the Nazis campaign against the Polish intelligensia. In the countries in which [[Roman Catholic]] [[bishop]]s had openly protested and attacked Nazi policies, like in the [[Netherlands]] and [[Poland]] where bishops and priests had protested to the deportations of [[Jews]], the clergy was either threatened with deportation themselves and kept in custody (case of German bishop [[Clemens von Galen]]), or directly deportated to concentration camps, as in the cases of the Dutch [[Carmelite]] [[priest]] [[Titus Brandsma]] and Polish Fr. [[Maximillian Kolbe]]. Some dissenting Protestant clergy, such as those who founded the anti-Nazi [[Confessing Church]], were also persecuted. Plans were designed by the Nazi government to totally exterminate the hierarchy of the [[Roman Catholic Church]] and the anti-Nazi Protestant denominations. These plans were however deemed inopportune during the course of the war, and therefore postponed to after the assumed [[Endsieg|'Final Victory']] of the Axis forces. Hitler clearly spoke out in favour of the destruction of the [[Catholic Church]] when he said: ''"Ich will die Katholische Kirche zertreten wie eine Kröte!"'' ('I want to crush the Catholic Church like a toad') Goebbels for his part predicted a 'final solution' for Christianity (which was considered ''"a Jewish doctrine"'') in the future new order of European society, but stressed this would cause too many problems if brought about during the war.{{fact}} |
|||
===Disabled people=== |
|||
Several hundred thousand mentally and physically disabled people also were exterminated. The Nazis believed that the disabled were a burden to society because they needed to be cared for by others, but first and foremost, the mentally and physically handicapped were considered an affront to Nazi notions of a society peopled by a perfect, superhuman Aryan race. Around 400,000 individuals were [[compulsory sterilization|sterilized against their will]] for having mental deficiencies or illnesses deemed to be hereditary in nature. People with disabilities were among the first to be killed, and the United States Holocaust Memorial museum notes that the T-4 Program became the "model" for future exterminations by the Nazi regime.{{ref|euth}} The [[T-4 Euthanasia Program]] was established in 1939 in order to maintain the "purity" of the so-called [[Aryan race|Aryan]] race by systematically killing children and adults born with physical deformities or suffering from mental illness. |
|||
===Others=== |
|||
[[Blacks|Black]] and [[Asian]] residents in Germany, and black prisoners of war, were also victims; often being singled out in internment camps. {{ref|blacks}} However, [[Japan]] was part of the Axis Pact with Germany, and no Japanese were known to be deliberately imprisoned or killed. |
|||
== Death toll == |
|||
[[Image:Gen Eisenhower at death camp report.jpg|thumb|275px|right|General (later US President) [[Dwight Eisenhower]] inspecting prisoners' corpses at a liberated concentration camp, 1945]] |
|||
The exact number of people killed by the Nazi regime may never be known, but scholars, using a variety of methods of determining the death toll, have generally agreed upon common range of the number of victims. Recently declassified [[United Kingdom|British]] and [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] documents have indicated the total may be somewhat higher than previously believed{{ref|JP}}. However, the following estimates are considered to be highly reliable. The estimates: |
|||
* 5.1–6.0 million Jews, including 3.0–3.5 million Polish Jews{{ref|howmany}} |
|||
* 1.8 –1.9 million [[Gentile]] Poles (includes all those killed in executions or those that died in prisons, labor, and concentration camps, as well as civilians killed in the 1939 invasion and the 1944 [[Warsaw Uprising]]){{ref|polishvictims}} |
|||
* 200,000–800,000 Roma & Sinti |
|||
* 200,000–300,000 people with disabilities |
|||
* 80,000–200,000 Freemasons {{ref|FM07}} |
|||
* 100,000 communists |
|||
* 10,000–25,000 homosexual men |
|||
* 2,000 Jehovah's Witnesses |
|||
[[Raul Hilberg]], in the third edition of his ground-breaking three-volume work, ''[[The Destruction of the European Jews]]'', estimates that 5.1 million Jews died during the Holocaust. This figure includes "over 800,000" who died from "Ghettoization and general privation;" 1,400,000 who were killed in "Open-air shootings;" and "up to 2,900,000" who perished in camps. Hilberg estimates the death toll in Poland at "up to 3,000,000."{{ref|Hilberg}} } Hilberg's numbers are generally considered to be a conservative estimate, as they generally include only those deaths for which some records are available, avoiding statistical adjustment.{{ref|Hilberg2}} British historian [[Martin Gilbert]] used a similar approach in his ''Atlas of the Holocaust,'' but arrived at a number of 5.75 million Jewish victims, since he estimated higher numbers of Jews killed in Russia and other locations.{{ref|Gilbert}} |
|||
[[Image:Coffinmap.jpg|thumb|275px|right|Map titled "Jewish Executions Carried Out by [[Einsatzgruppe]] A" from the December 1941 [[Einsatzgruppen#The Jager Report|Jager Report]] by the commander of a [[Einsatzgruppen|Nazi death squad]]. Marked "Secret Reich Matter," the map shows the number of Jews shot in the [[Baltic countries|Baltic region]], and reads at the bottom: ''"the estimated number of Jews still on hand is 128,000"''. [[Estonia]] is marked as ''[[judenfrei]]'' ("free of Jews").]] |
|||
[[Lucy Davidowicz]] used pre-war census figures to estimate that 5.934 million Jews died. Using official census counts may cause an underestimate since many births and deaths were not recorded in small towns and villages. Another reason some consider her estimate too low is that many records were destroyed during the war. Her listing of deaths by country is available in the article about her book, ''[[The War Against the Jews]]''.{{Ref|Davidowicz}} |
|||
One of the most authoritative German scholars of the Holocaust, Prof. Wolfgang Benz of the Technical University of Berlin, cites between 5.3 and 6.2 million Jews killed in ''Dimension des Volksmords'' (1991), while Yisrael Gutman and Robert Rozett estimate between 5.59 and 5.86 million Jewish victims in their ''Encyclopedia of the Holocaust'' (1990).{{ref|BenzGutman}} |
|||
The following groups of people were also killed by the Nazi regime, but there is little evidence that the Nazis planned to systematically target them for genocide as was the case for the groups above. |
|||
* 3.5–6 million other Slavic civilians |
|||
* 2.5–4 million Soviet [[Prisoner of war|POWs]] |
|||
* 1–1.5 million political dissidents |
|||
Additionally, the Nazis' allies, the [[Ustaša]] regime in [[Croatia]] conducted its own campaign of mass extermination against the [[Serbs]] in the areas which it controlled, resulting in the deaths of at least 330,000–390,000 Serbs. |
|||
The summary of various sources' estimates on the number of Nazi regime victims is given in Matthew White's online [http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat1.htm#Hitler atlas of 20th century history]. |
|||
===Searching for records of victims=== |
|||
Initially after [[World War II]], there were millions of members of families broken up by the war or the Holocaust searching for some record of the fate and/or whereabouts of their missing friends and relatives. These efforts became much less intense as the years went by. More recently, however, there has a been a resurgence of interest by descendants of Holocaust survivors in researching the fates of their lost relatives. [[Yad Vashem]] provides a searchable database of three million names, about half of the known direct Jewish victims. Yad Vashem's ''Central Database of Shoah Victims Names'' is searchable over the Internet at [http://www.yadvashem.org yadvashem.org] or in person at the Yad Vashem complex in [[Israel]]. |
|||
Other databases and lists of victims' names, some searchable over the Web, are listed in [[Holocaust (resources)#External links|Holocaust (resources)]]. |
|||
==Execution of the Holocaust== |
|||
===Concentration and Labor Camps (1933-1945)=== |
|||
{{main2|Nazi concentration camps | Nazi concentration camp badges}} |
|||
[[Image:MajorConcentrationCamps.gif|thumb|300px|right|Major [[concentration camps]] in Europe, 1944.]] |
|||
Starting in 1933, the Nazis set up concentration camps within Germany, many of which were established by local authorities, to hold political prisoners and "undesirables". These early concentration camps were eventually consolidated into centrally run camps, and by 1939, six large concentration camps had been established. After 1939, with the beginning of the Second World War, the concentration camps increasingly became places where the enemies of the Nazis, including Jews and POWs, were either killed or forced to act as slave laborers, and kept undernourished and tortured. |
|||
During the War, concentration camps for Jews and other "undesirables" were spread throughout Europe, with new camps being created near centers of dense "undesirable" populations, often focusing on areas with large Jewish, Polish intelligentsia, communist, or Roma populations. Most of the camps were located in the area of [[General Government]] in Poland, but there were camps in every country occupied by the Nazis. The transportation of prisoners was often carried out under horrifying conditions using rail freight cars, in which many died before they reached their destination. Concentration camps also existed in Germany itself, and while not specifically designed for systematic extermination, many concentration camp prisoners died because of harsh conditions or were executed. |
|||
===Pogroms (1938-1941)=== |
|||
Many scholars date the beginning of the Holocaust itself to the anti-Jewish riots of the Night of Broken Glass ("[[Kristallnacht]]") of November 9, 1938, in which Jews were attacked and Jewish property was vandalized across Germany. Approximately 100 Jews were killed, and another 30,000 sent to concentration camps, while over 7,000 Jewish shops and 1,574 [[synagogues]] (almost every synagogue in Germany) were damaged or destroyed. Similar events took place in Vienna at the same time. |
|||
A number of deadly [[pogrom]]s by local, non-German populations occurred during the Second World War, some with German encouragement, and some spontaneously, such as the [[Iaşi pogrom]] in Romania on June 30, 1941 in which as many 14,000 Jews were killed by Romanian residents and police and the [[Jedwabne massacre|Jedwabne pogrom]] in which between 380 and 1,600 Jews were killed by their Polish neighbors. |
|||
===Euthanasia (1939-1941)=== |
|||
{{main|T-4 Euthanasia Program}} |
|||
The [[T-4 Euthanasia Program]] was established to "maintain the genetic purity" of the German population by systematically killing citizens who were physically [[deformity|deformed]], [[disabled]], [[handicapped]], or suffering from [[mental illness]]. Between 1939 and 1941, over 200,000 people were killed. |
|||
===Ghettos (1940-1945)=== |
|||
{{main3|Ghetto | Warsaw Ghetto | Vilna Ghetto}} |
|||
[[Image:Childwarsawghetto.jpg|thumb|150px|right|A child dying in the streets of the crowded [[Warsaw Ghetto]], where hunger and disease were endemic.]] |
|||
After the invasion of Poland, the Nazis created [[ghetto]]s to which Jews (and some Roma) were confined, until they were eventually shipped to death camps and killed. The [[Warsaw Ghetto]] was the largest, with 380,000 people and the [[Łódź Ghetto]], the second largest, holding about 160,000, but ghettos were instituted in many cities ([http://www.deathcamps.org/occupation/ghettolist.htm list]). The ghettos were established throughout 1940 and 1941, and were immediately turned into immensely crowded prisons; though the Warsaw Ghetto contained 30% of the population of [[Warsaw]], it occupied only about 2.4% of city's area, averaging 9.2 people per room. From 1940 through 1942, disease (especially [[typhoid]]) and starvation killed hundreds of thousands of Jews confined in the ghettos. |
|||
On [[July 19]], 1942, [[Heinrich Himmler]] ordered the start of the deportations of Jews from the ghettos to the death camps. On [[July 22]], [[1942]], the deportations from the Warsaw Ghetto inhabitants began; in the next 52 days (until [[September 12]], [[1942]]) about 300,000 people were transported by train to the [[Treblinka extermination camp]] from Warsaw alone. Many other ghettos were completely depopulated. Though there were armed resistance attempts in the ghettos in 1943, such as the [[Warsaw Ghetto Uprising]] and the [[Białystok Ghetto Uprising]], but in every case they failed against the Nazi military, and the remaining Jews were either slaughtered or sent to the extermination camps. |
|||
===Death squads (1941-1943)=== |
|||
{{main|Einsatzgruppen}} |
|||
[[Image:Einsatz1.jpg|thumb|250px|right|The 1941 massacre at [[Babi Yar]] was similar to many other mass killings of Jews. Over 33,000 Jews were shot in the course of two days by Nazi [[Einsatzgruppen]] and local Ukrainian forces.]] |
|||
As many as 1.6 million Jews were killed in open-air shootings by Nazis and their collaborators, especially in 1941 before the establishment of the concentration camps. During the invasion of the [[Soviet Union]], over 3,000 special killing units (organized into the four ''[[Einsatzgruppen]]'') followed the [[Wehrmacht]], conducting mass killings of Poles, Communist officials, and the Jewish population that lived in Soviet territory. |
|||
Poles were an early target in the [[Außerordentliche Befriedungsaktion|AB Action]], in which 30,000 Polish intellectual and political figures were rounded up, and 7,000 eventually killed. By the summer of 1941, the Einsatzgruppen turned to targeting Jews, starting with the extermination of 2,200 Jews in [[Bialystock]] on June 21, 1941, and quickly increased in scale. 1,500 Jews were killed in [[Kaunas]] on June 26 by Lithuanian [[Non-German cooperation with nazis during World War 2|collaborators]]. 4,000 Jews killed in [[Lviv]] on June 30-July 3, 1941 by Ukrainian collaborators. From September to the end of 1941, a series of mass killings took place throughout Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine, and Latvia: over 33,000 Jews were killed at [[Babi Yar]], 25,000 at [[Rumbula]] by Latvian [[Non-German cooperation with nazis during World War 2|collaborators]] (Arajs Commando), over 36,000 at [[Odessa Massacre|Odessa]] by Romanian forces, 19,000 at the [[Ninth Fort]] of Kaunas and 40,000 (up to 100,000 by 1944) at [[Paneriai]] by Lithuanian [[Non-German cooperation with nazis during World War 2|collaborators]]. These, and similar slaughters throughout Europe, killed around 100,000 Jews per month for five months. By the end of 1943, another 900,000 Jews would be killed in this manner, but the pace was not fast enough for the Nazi leadership, who, at the end of 1941 and the beginning of 1942, began the implementation of the [[Final Solution]], the complete extermination of the Jews of Europe. |
|||
=== Extermination camps (1942-1945) === |
|||
{{main|Nazi extermination camp}} |
|||
[[Image:Holocaust-gas-hair.jpg|thumb|250px|left|Empty poison gas canisters and piles of hair shaved from the victims of Auschwitz-Birkenau.]] |
|||
In December, 1941, the Nazis opened [[Chelmno extermination camp|Celmno]], the first of what would soon be seven [[extermination camps]], dedicated entirely to mass extermination on an industrial scale, as opposed to the labor or concentration camps. Over three million Jews would die in these extermination camps. |
|||
The method of killing at these camps was by poison gas (Zyklon B), usually in "[[gas chambers]]", although many prisoners were killed in mass shootings and by other means. The bodies of those killed were destroyed in [[crematoriums|crematoria]] (except at [[Sobibór extermination camp|Sobibór]] where they were cremated on outdoor pyres), and the ashes buried or scattered. |
|||
In 1942, the Nazis began this most destructive phase of the Holocaust, with [[Aktion Reinhard]], opening the extermination camps of [[Belzec]], Sobibór, and [[Treblinka]]. More than 1.7 million Jews were killed at the three Aktion Reinhard camps by October 1943. The largest death camp built was [[Auschwitz concentration camp|Auschwitz-Birkenau]], which had both a labor camp (Auschwitz) and an extermination camp (Birkenau); the latter possessing four gas chambers and crematoria. This camp was responsible for the deaths of an estimated 1.6 million Jews (including about 438,000 Jews from Hungary in the course of a few months), 75,000 Poles and gay men, and some 19,000 Roma. At the peak of operations, Birkenau's gas chambers killed approximately eight thousand a day. |
|||
Upon arrival in these camps, prisoners were divided into two groups: those too weak for work were immediately executed in [[gas chamber]]s (which were sometimes disguised as showers) and their bodies burned, while others were first used for slave labor in factories or industrial enterprises located in the camp or nearby. The Nazis also forced some prisoners to work in the collection and disposal of corpses, and to mutilate them when required. Gold teeth were extracted from the corpses, and live men and women's hair was shaved to prevent the spreading of [[typhus]], along with shoes, stockings, and anything else of value was recycled for use in products to support the war effort, regardless of whether or not a prisoner was sentenced to death. |
|||
=== Death marches and liberation (1944-1945) === |
|||
{{main|Death marches (Holocaust)}} |
|||
As the armies of the [[Allies of World War II|Allies]] closed in on the Reich at the end of 1944, the Germans decided to abandon the extermination camps, moving or destroying evidence of the atrocities they had committed there. The Nazis marched prisoners, already sick after months or years of violence and starvation, for tens of miles in the snow to train stations; then transported for days at a time without food or shelter in freight trains with open carriages; and forced to march again at the other end to the new camp. Prisoners who lagged behind or fell were shot. The largest and best known of the death marches took place in January 1945, when the Soviet army advanced on [[Poland]]. Nine days before the Soviets arrived at the death camp at [[Auschwitz]], the Germans marched 60,000 prisoners out of the camp toward Wodzislaw, 56km (35mi) away, where they were put on freight trains to other camps. Around 15,000 died on the way. In total, around 100,000 Jews died during these death marches{{ref|gilbert2}}. |
|||
In July, 1944, the first major Nazi camp, Majdanek, was discovered by the advancing Soviets, who eventually liberated Auschwitz in January 1945. In most of the camps discovered by the Soviets, the prisoners had already been transported by death marches, leaving only a few thousand prisoners alive. Concentration camps were also liberated by American and British forces, including [[Bergen-Belsen concentration camp]] on April 15. Some 60,000 prisoners were discovered at the camp, but 10,000 died from disease or malnutrition within a few weeks of liberation. |
|||
==Resistance and rescuers== |
|||
===Resistance=== |
|||
[[Image:Ghetto Uprising Warsaw2.jpg|thumb|right|300px| [[SS]] officers walking through the destroyed Ghetto after the [[Warsaw Ghetto Uprising]].]] |
|||
Due to the careful organization and overwhelming military might of the [[Nazism|Nazi]] German state and its supporters, few [[Jew]]s and other Holocaust victims were able to resist the killings. There are, however, many cases of attempts at resistance in one form or another, and over a hundred armed Jewish uprisings. |
|||
The largest instance of organized Jewish resistance was the [[Warsaw Ghetto Uprising]], from April to May of 1943, as the final deportation from the Ghetto to the death camps was about to commence. The [[Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa|ZOB]] and smaller organizations held out against the Nazis for 27 days, before all were killed. There were also other [[Ghetto Uprising]]s, though none were successful against the German military. |
|||
There were also major resistance efforts in three of the extermination camps. In August 1943 an uprising also took place at the [[Treblinka extermination camp]]. Many buildings were burnt to the ground, and seventy inmates escaped to freedom, but 1,500 were killed. Gassing operations were interrupted for a month. In October 1943 another uprising took place at [[Sobibór extermination camp]]. This uprising was more successful; 11 SS guards were killed, and roughly 300 of the 600 inmates in the camp escaped, with about 50 surviving the war. The escape forced the Nazis to close the camp. On [[October 7]], [[1944]], the Jewish [[Sonderkommando]]s (those prisoners kept separate from the main camp and involved in the operation of the gas chambers and crematoria) at Auschwitz staged an uprising. Female prisoners had smuggled in explosives from a weapons factory, and Crematorium IV was partly destroyed by an explosion. The prisoners then attempted a mass escape, but all 250 were killed soon after. |
|||
There were a number of Jewish partisan groups operating in many countries (see [[Eugenio Calò]] for the story of a Jewish Italian partisan). Also, Jewish volunteers from the [[Palestinian Mandate]], most famously [[Hannah Szenes]], parachuted into Europe in an attempt to organize resistance. |
|||
===Rescuers=== |
|||
:''See also: [[Righteous Among the Nations]] and [[List of people who helped Jews during the Holocaust]] |
|||
[[Image:Raoul_Wallenberg.jpg|right|thumb|Swedish diplomat [[Raoul Wallenberg]] and his colleagues saved as many as 100,000 Hungarian Jews by providing them with diplomatic passes.]] |
|||
In two cases, entire countries resisted the deportation of their Jewish population. The King of [[Denmark]] and his subjects saved the lives of most of the [[Rescue of the Danish Jews|7,500 Danish Jews]] by spiriting them to safety in Sweden via fishing boats in October 1943. Moreover, the Danish government continued to work to protect the few Danish Jews captured by the Nazis. When the Jews returned home at war's end, they found their houses and possessions waiting for them, exactly as they left them. In the second case, the Nazi-allied government of [[Bulgaria]], led by [[Dobri Bozhilov]], refused to deport its 50,000 Jewish citizens, saving them as well, though Bulgaria did deport Jews to concentration camps from areas in conquered [[Greece]] and [[Macedonia (region)|Macedonia]]. In Rome, some 4,000 Italian Jews and prisoners of war avoided deportation. Many of these were hidden in safe houses and evacuated from Italy by a resistance group that was organised by an Irish priest, [[Monsignor Hugh O' Flaherty]] of the Holy Office. Once a Vatican ambassador to Egypt O' Flaherty used his political connections to great effect in helping to secure sanctuary for dispossessed Jews. |
|||
Some towns and churches also helped hide Jews and protect others from the Holocaust, such as the French town of [[Le Chambon-sur-Lignon]] which sheltered several thousand Jews. Similar individual and family acts of rescue were repeated throughout Europe, as illustrated in the famous cases of [[Anne Frank]], often at great risk to the rescuers. In a few cases, individual diplomats and people of influence, such as [[Oskar Schindler]] or [[Nicholas Winton]], protected large numbers of Jews. Swedish diplomat [[Raoul Wallenberg]], the Italian [[Giorgio Perlasca]], Chinese diplomat [[Ho Feng Shan]] and others saved tens of thousands of Jews with fake diplomatic passes. [[Chiune Sugihara]] saved several thousands of Jews by issuing them with Japanese visas against the will of his Nazi-aligned government. |
|||
There were also groups, like members of the Polish [[Zegota]] organization, that took drastic and dangerous steps to rescue Jews and other potential victims from the Nazis. [[Witold Pilecki]], member of [[Armia Krajowa]] (the Polish Home Army), organized a resistance movement in the [[Auschwitz concentration camp]] from 1940, and [[Jan Karski]] tried to spread word of the Holocaust. |
|||
Since 1963, a commission headed by an Israeli Supreme Court justice has been charged with the duty of awarding such people the honorary title [[Righteous Among the Nations]]. |
|||
==Perpetrators and collaborators== |
|||
===Who was directly involved in the killings?=== |
|||
A wide range of German soldiers, officials, and civilians were involved in the Holocaust, from clerks and officials in the government to units of the army, the police, and the SS. Many ministries, including those of armaments, interior, justice, railroads, and foreign affairs, had substantial roles in orchestrating the Holocaust; similarly, German physicians participated in medical experiments and the T-4 euthanasia program. And, though there was no single military unit in charge of the Holocaust, the [[Schutzstaffel|SS]] under Himmler was the closest. From the SS came the [[Totenkopfverbände]] concentration camp guards, the [[Einsatzgruppen]] killing squads, and many of the administrative offices behind the Holocaust. The [[Wehrmacht]], or regular German army, participated directly less than the SS in the Holocaust (though it did directly massacre Jews in Russia, Serbia, Poland, and Greece), but it supported the Einsatzgruppen, helped form the ghettos, ran prison camps, some were concentration camp guards, transported prisoners to camps, had experiments performed on prisons, and used substantial slave labor. German police units also directly participated in the Holocaust, for example Reserve Police Battalion 101 in just over a year shot 38,000 Jews and deported 45,000 more to the extermination camps.{{ref|perp}} |
|||
In addition to the direct involvement of Nazi forces, most European countries allied with or occupied by the [[Axis Powers]] collaborated with the [[Nazism|Nazis]] in the Holocaust. Collaboration took the form of either rounding up of the local [[Jew]]s for deportation to the German [[extermination camps]] or a direct participation in the killings. |
|||
The [[Romania|Romanian]] [[Ion Antonescu|Antonescu]] regime was directly responsible for the deaths of between 280,000 and 380,000 Jews. An official report[http://www.ushmm.org/research/center/presentations/programs/presentations/2005-03-10/pdf/english/executive_summary.pdf]. released by the Romanian government concluded, "Of all the allies of Nazi Germany, Romania bears responsibility for the deaths of more Jews than any country other than Germany itself. The exterminations committed in [[Iasi pogrom|Iasi]], [[Odessa massacre|Odessa]], [[Bogdanovka]], [[Domanovka]], and [[Peciora]], for example, were among the most hideous acts committed against Jews anywhere during the Holocaust."{{ref|Romania}}In cooperation with German [[Einsatzgruppen]] and Ukrainian auxiliaries, Romanians killed hundreds of thousands of Jews in [[Bessarabia]], northern [[Bukovina]], and [[Transnistria]]. Some of the larger massacres included 54,000 Jews killed in [[Bogdanovka]], a Romanian concentration camp along the [[Bug River]] in Transnistria, between 21 and 31 December 1941. Nearly 100,000 Jews were killed in occupied [[Odessa Massacre|Odessa]] and over 10,000 were killed in the [[Iasi pogrom]]. The Romanians also massacred [[Jew]]s in the Domanevka and Akhmetchetka concentration camps. |
|||
In [[Italy]] a law from 1938 restricted civil liberties of Jews, but after the fall of [[Mussolini]] and his creation of the [[Italian Social Republic]], Jews started being deported to German camps. The deported numbered about 8,369, and only about a thousand survived. Several small camps were built in Italy and the so-called [[Risiera di San Sabba]] hosted a crematorium; from 3,000 to 5,000 people were killed in San Sabba, only a few of whom were Jews. |
|||
[[Bulgaria]], despite saving its own Jewish population, deported 11,000 Jews from occupied [[Greece|Greek]] and [[Yugoslavia]]n territories. In France, the [[Vichy France|Vichy French]] government, police, secret police ([[Milice]]), and collaborationist thugs of the [[Parti Populaire Français]] rounded up 75,000 Jews for deportation to concentration camps. The [[Netherlands]] civilian administration and police participated in the roundups of the Jewish population. A [[Netherlands|Dutch]] group, [[Henneicke Column]], hunted and "delivered" 9,000 Jews for deportation{{ref|price}}.[[Norway|Norwegian]] police rounded up 750 Jews. [[Slovakia|Slovakia's]] [[Josef Tiso|Tiso]] regime deported approximately 70,000 Jews, of whom 65,000 were killed.{{ref|victims}} |
|||
The [[Hungary|Hungarian]] [[Miklós Horthy|Horthy]] regime deported 20,000 Jews from annexed [[Transcarpathian Ukraine]] in 1941 to [[Kamianets-Podilskyi]] in the German-occupied [[Ukraine]], where they were shot by the German [[Einsatzgruppen]] detachments. Hungarian army and police units killed several thousand [[Jew]]s and [[Serb]]s in [[Novi Sad]] in January 1942. However Horthy resisted German demands for mass deportation of Hungarian Jews, and most survived until 1944, when the Horthy fell from power and was replaced by the [[Arrow Cross]] regime. At this late date in the war with German defeat appearing likely, Hungarian police nevertheless participated fully with [[Schutzstaffel|SS]] in the roundups of 440,000 Jews for deportation to the [[extermination camps]]. Moreover, 20,000 [[Budapest]] Jews were shot by the banks of the [[Danube]] by Hungarian forces. 70,000 Jews were forced on a death march to [[Austria]]—thousands were shot and thousands more died of starvation and exposure. {{ref|hungary}} |
|||
[[Image:Kovnopogrom.jpg|thumb|250px|right|Killing of 5,000 Jews in Kaunas by Lithuanian nationalists in June 1941. The SS urged anti-communist partisan leader Klimajtis to attack the Jews to show that "the liberated population had resorted to the most severe measures against the ... Jewish enemy."]] |
|||
The [[Croatia]]n [[Ustaše]] regime killed hundreds of thousands of Serbs (estimates vary widely, but a minimum of 330,000-390,000 is generally accepted), over 20,000 Jews and 26,000 Roma, primarily in the Ustase's [[Jasenovac concentration camp]] near [[Zagreb]]. The Ustase also deported 7,000 more Jews to German [[extermination camps]].{{ref|croats}} |
|||
In the German-occupied Soviet territories local units represented over 80% of the available German forces providing a total of nearly 450,000 personnal organised in so-called "Schutzmanschaft" formations. Practically all of these units participated in the round-ups and mass-shootings. The overwhelming majority were recruited in the western Ukraine and the Baltic region, areas recently occupied by the Soviets for which the Jews were typically scapegoated, exacerbating existing anti-Semitic attitudes. Thus for instance, [[Ukraine|Ukrainian]] nationalists killed 4,000 [[Lviv]] Jews in July 1941, and an additional 2,000 in late July 1941 during the so-called [[Symon Petliura|Petliura]] Days [[pogrom]] German [[Einsatzgruppen]], together with Ukrainian auxiliary units, killed 33,000 [[Kiev]]an [[Jew]]s in [[Babi Yar]] in September 1941. Ukrainian auxiliaries participated in a number of killings of Jews, among them in Romanian concentration camps in [[Bogdanovka]] and in [[Latvia]]. |
|||
[[Baltic collaborators|Lithuanian and Latvian auxiliary military units]](''Schutzmannschaft'') with German [[Einsatzgruppen]] detachments participated in the extermination of the Jewish population in their countries, as well as assisting the Nazis elsewhere, such as deportations from the [[Warsaw Ghetto]]. The [[Arajs Commando]], a Latvian volunteer police unit, for example, shot 26,000 Latvian Jews, at various locations after they had been brutally rounded-up for this purpose by the regular police and auxilaries and was responsible for assisting in the killing of 60,000 more Jews.{{ref|latvia}} |
|||
About 75% of [[Estonia|Estonia's]] Jewish community, aware of the fate that otherwise awaited them, managed to escape to the Soviet Union; virtually all the remainder (between 950 and 1000 people) were killed by Einsatzgruppe A and local collaborators before the end of 1941.{{ref|estonia}} |
|||
===Who authorized the killings?=== |
|||
Hitler authorized the mass killing of those labelled by the Nazis as "undesirables" in the [[T-4 Euthanasia Program]]. Hitler encouraged the killings of the Jews of Eastern Europe by the ''[[Einsatzgruppen]]'' death squads in a speech in July, 1941, though he almost certainly approved the mass shootings earlier. A mass of evidence suggests that sometime in the fall of 1941, Himmler and Hitler agreed in principle on the complete mass extermination of the Jews of Europe by gassing, with Hitler explicitly ordering the "annihilation of the Jews" in a speech on December 12, 1941 (see [[Final Solution]]). To make for smoother intra-governmental cooperation in the implementation of this "Final Solution" to the "Jewish Question", the [[Wannsee conference]] was held near Berlin on [[January 20]] [[1942]], with the participation of fifteen senior officials, led by [[Reinhard Heydrich]] and [[Adolf Eichmann]], the records of which provide the best evidence of the central planning of the Holocaust. Just five weeks later on [[February 22]], Hitler was recorded saying "We shall regain our health only by eliminating the Jews" to his closest associates. |
|||
Arguments that no documentation links Hitler to "the Holocaust" ignore the records of his speeches kept by Nazi leaders such as [[Joseph Goebbels]] and rely on artificially limiting the Holocaust to exclude what we do have documentation on, such as the [[T-4 Euthanasia Program]] and the [[Kristallnacht]] [[pogrom]]. |
|||
===Who knew about the killings?=== |
|||
Some claim that the full extent of what was happening in German-controlled areas was not known until after the war. However, numerous rumors and eyewitness accounts from escapees and others gave some indication that Jews were being killed in large numbers. Since the early years of the war the [[Polish government-in-exile]] published documents and organised meetings to spread word of the fate of the Jews. By early 1941, the British had received information via an intercepted Chilean memo that Jews were being targeted, and by late 1941 they had intercepted information about a number of large massacres of Jews conducted by German police. In the summer of 1942 a Jewish labor organization (the Bund) got word to London that 700,000 Polish Jews had already died, and the BBC took the story seriously, though the United States State Department did not take the news seriously{{ref|Archives}}. By the end of 1942, however, the evidence of the Holocaust had become clear and on December 17, 1942 the Allies issued a statement that the Jews were being transported to Poland and killed. The US State Department was aware of the use and the location of the gas chambers of extermination camps, but refused pleas to bomb them out of operation. On [[May 12]], [[1943]], Polish government-in-exile and Bund leader [[Szmul Zygielbojm]] committed [[suicide]] in London to protest the inaction of the world with regard to the Holocaust, stating in part in his suicide letter: |
|||
:''I cannot continue to live and to be silent while the remnants of Polish Jewry, whose representative I am, are being killed. My comrades in the [[Warsaw ghetto]] fell with arms in their hands in the last heroic battle. I was not permitted to fall like them, together with them, but I belong with them, to their mass grave. |
|||
:''By my death, I wish to give expression to my most profound protest against the inaction in which the world watches and permits the destruction of the Jewish people. |
|||
Debate also continues on how much average Germans knew about the Holocaust. Recent historical work suggests that the majority of Germans knew that Jews were being indiscriminately killed and persecuted, even if they did not know of the specifics of the death camps. [[Robert Gellately]], a historian at [[Oxford University]], conducted a widely-respected survey of the German media before and during the war, concluding that there was "substantial consent and active participation of large numbers of ordinary Germans" in aspects of the Holocaust, and documenting that the sight of columns of slave laborers were common, and that the basics of the concentration camps, if not the extermination camps, were widely known{{ref|Gallately}}. |
|||
== Historical interpretations == |
|||
===Why did people participate in, authorize, or tacitly accept the killing?=== |
|||
==== Obedience ==== |
|||
[[Stanley Milgram]] was one of a number of post-war psychologists and sociologists who tried to address why people obeyed immoral orders in the Holocaust. [[Milgram experiment|Milgram's findings]] demonstrated that [[reasonable person|reasonable people]], when instructed by a person in a position of authority, [[obedience|obeyed]] commands entailing what they believed to be the death or suffering of others. These results were confirmed in other experiments as well, such as the [[Stanford prison experiment]]. |
|||
==== Functionalism versus intentionalism ==== |
|||
{{main|Functionalism versus intentionalism}} |
|||
A major issue in contemporary Holocaust studies is the question of ''functionalism'' versus ''intentionalism''. The terms were coined in a 1981 article by the British [[Marxist]] historian [[Timothy Mason]] to describe two schools of thought about the origins of the Holocaust. Intentionalists hold that the Holocaust was the result of a long-term masterplan on the part of Hitler's and that Hitler was the driving force behind the Holocaust. Functionalists hold that Hitler was anti-Semitic, but that he did not have a masterplan for genocide. Functionalists see the Holocaust as coming from below in the ranks of the German bureaucracy with little or no involvement on the part of Hitler. Functionalists stress that the Nazi anti-Semitic policy was constantly evolving in ever more radical directions and the end product was the Holocaust. |
|||
Intentionalists like [[Lucy Dawidowicz]] argue that the Holocaust was planned by Hitler from the very beginning of his political career, at very least from 1919 on, if not earlier. Later Dawidowicz was to date the decision for genocide back to [[November 11]], [[1918]]. Other Intentionalists like [[Andreas Hillgruber]], [[Karl Dietrich Bracher]] and [[Klaus Hildebrand]] suggested that Hitler had decided upon the Holocaust sometime in the early 1920s. More recent intentionalist historians like [[Eberhard Jäckel]] continue to emphasize the relative earliness of the decision to kill the Jews, although they are not willing to claim that Hitler planned the Holocaust from the beginning. Yet another group of intentionalist historians such as the American [[Arno J. Mayer]] claimed Hitler only ordered the Holocaust in December 1941. |
|||
Functionalists like [[Hans Mommsen]], [[Martin Broszat]], [[Götz Aly]], [[Raul Hilberg]] and [[Christopher Browning]] hold that the Holocaust was started in 1941-1942 as a result of the failure of the Nazi deportation policy and the impending military losses in [[Russia]]. They claim that what some see as extermination fantasies outlined in Hitler's ''[[Mein Kampf]]'' and other Nazi literature were mere [[propaganda]] and did not constitute concrete plans. In ''Mein Kampf'' Hitler repeatly states his inexorable hatred of the Jewish people, but no-where does he proclaim his intention to exterminate the Jewish people. |
|||
Furthermore, Functionalists point to the fact that in the 1930s, Nazi policy aimed at trying to make life so unpleasant for German Jews that they would leave Germany. [[Adolf Eichmann]] was in charge of faciliating Jewish emigration by whatever means possible from 1937 on, until October 3, 1941 were German Jews forbidden to leave, when [[Reinhard Heydrich]] issued a order to that effect. Functionalists point to the [[SS]]'s support for a time in the late 1930s for [[Zionism|Zionist]] groups as the preferred solution to the "Jewish Question" as another sign that there was no masterplan for genocide. The SS only ceased their support for German Zionist groups in May 1939 when [[Joachim von Ribbentrop]] informed Hitler of this, and Hitler ordered Himmler to cease and desist as the creation of Israel was not a goal Hitler thought worthy of German foreign policy. |
|||
In particular, Functionalists have noted that in German documents from 1939 to 1941, the term "Final Solution to the Jewish Question" was clearly meant to be a "territorial solution", that is the entire Jewish population was to be expelled somewhere far from Germany and not allowed to come back. At first, the SS planned to create a gigantic "Jewish Reservation" in the [[Lublin]], [[Poland]] area, but the so-called "Lublin Plan" was vetoed by [[Hans Frank]], the Governor-General of Poland who refused to allow the SS to ship any more Jews to the Lublin area after November, 1939. The reason why Frank vetoed the "Lublin Plan" was not due to any humane motives, but rather because he was opposed to the SS "dumping" Jews into the Government-General. In 1940, the SS and the German Foreign Office had the so-called "[[Madagascar Plan]]" to deport the entire Jewish population of Europe to a "reservation" on [[Madagascar]]. The "Madagascar Plan" was cancelled because Germany could not defeat Britain and until the British [[blockade]] was broken, the "Madagascar Plan" could not be put into effect. Finally, Functionalist historians have made much of a memorandum written by Himmler in May, 1940 explicitly rejecting extermination of the entire Jewish people as "un-German" and going on to recommend to Hitler the "Madagascar Plan" as the preferred "territorial solution" to the "Jewish Question". Not until July 1941 did the term "Final Solution to the Jewish Question" come to mean extermination. |
|||
Recently, a synthesis of the two schools has emerged that has been championed by such diverse historians such as the Canadian historian [[Michael Marrus]], the Israeli historian [[Yehuda Bauer]] and the British historian [[Ian Kershaw]] that contends that Hitler was the driving force behind the Holocaust, but that he did not have a long-term plan and that much of the initiative for the Holocaust came from below in an effort to meet Hitler's perceived wishes. |
|||
Another controversy was started by the sociologist [[Daniel Goldhagen]], who argues that ordinary Germans were knowing and willing participants in the Holocaust, which he claims had its roots in a deep eliminationist German [[anti-Semitism]]. Most other historians have disagreed with Goldhagen's thesis, arguing that while anti-Semitism undeniably existed in Germany, Goldhagen's idea of a uniquely German "eliminationist" anti-Semitism is untenable, and that the extermination was unknown to many and had to be enforced by the dictatorial Nazi apparatus. |
|||
=== Revisionists and deniers === |
|||
{{main|Holocaust denial}} |
|||
[[Holocaust denial]], also called ''Holocaust revisionism'', is the belief that the Holocaust did not occur, or, more specifically: that far fewer than around six million Jews were killed by the Nazis (numbers below one million, most often around 300,000 are typically cited); that there never was a centrally-planned Nazi attempt to exterminate the Jews; and/or that there were not mass killings at the extermination camps. Those who hold this position often further claim that Jews and/or [[Zionist]]s know that the Holocaust never occurred, yet that they are engaged in a massive conspiracy to maintain the illusion of a Holocaust to further their political agenda. As the Holocaust is generally considered by historians to be one of the best documented events in recent history, these views are not accepted as credible by scholars, with organizations such as the [[American Historical Association]], the largest society of historians in the United States, stating that Holocaust denial is "at best, a form of academic fraud."{{ref|documented}}. |
|||
Holocaust ''deniers'' almost always prefer to be called Holocaust ''revisionists''. Most scholars contend that the latter term is misleading. [[Historical revisionism]] is a well-accepted and mainstream part of the study of [[history]]; it is the reexamination of accepted history, with an eye towards updating it with newly discovered, more accurate, and/or less biased information, or viewing known information from a new perspective. In contrast, Holocaust deniers typically willfully misuse or ignore historical records in order to attempt to prove their conclusions, as [[Gordon McFee]] writes: |
|||
:'' 'Revisionists' depart from the conclusion that the Holocaust did not occur and work backwards through the facts to adapt them to that preordained conclusion. Put another way, they reverse the proper methodology [...], thus turning the proper historical method of investigation and analysis on its head.'' {{ref|Gord}} |
|||
[[Public Opinion Quarterly]] summarized that: "No reputable historian questions the reality of the Holocaust, and those promoting Holocaust denial are overwhelmingly anti-Semites and/or neo-Nazis,". Holocaust denial has also become popular in recent years among [[Islamic fundamentalists]]: in late 2005 [[Iran|Iranian]] president [[Mahmoud Ahmadinejad]] denounced the Holocaust of European Jewry as a "myth". [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4527142.stm]{{ref|Public}} Public espousal of Holocaust denial is a crime in ten European countries (including [[France]], [[Poland]], [[Austria]], [[Switzerland]], [[Belgium]], [[Romania]], and [[Germany]]). |
|||
== Aftermath == |
|||
{{main|Sh'erit ha-Pletah}} |
|||
===Displaced Persons and the State of Israel=== |
|||
The Holocaust and its aftermath left millions of refugees, including many Jews who had lost most or all of their family members and possessions, and often faced persistent anti-Semitism in their home countries. The original plan of the Allies was to repatriate these "Displaced Persons" to their country of origin, but many refused to return, or were unable to as their homes or communities had been destroyed. As a result, more than 250,000 languished in [[DP Camp|DP camps]] for years after the war ended. |
|||
[[Image:Brihah.gif|right|thumb|250px|Jews were smuggled into Palestine by [[Berihah]] using a number of routes.]] |
|||
While [[Zionism]] had been prominent before the Holocaust, afterwards it became almost universally accepted among Jews. Many Zionists, pointing to the fact that Jewish refugees from Germany and Nazi-occupied lands had been turned away by other countries, argued that if a Jewish state had existed at the time, the Holocaust could not have occurred on the scale it did. With the rise of Zionism, [[British Mandate of Palestine|Palestine]] became the destination of choice for Jewish refugees, but local Arabs opposed the immigration, Britain refused to allow Jewish refugees into the Mandate, and many countries in the Soviet Bloc made any emigration illegal. Former Jewish partisans in Europe, along with the [[Haganah]] in Palestine, organized a massive effort to smuggle Jews into Palestine, called [[Berihah]], which eventually transported 250,000 Jews (both DPs and those who hid during the war) to the Mandate. By 1952, the Displaced Persons camps were closed, with over 80,000 Jewish DPs in the United States, about 136,000 in Israel, and another 20,000 in other nations, including Canada and South Africa. |
|||
===Legal proceedings against Nazis=== |
|||
[[Image:NurembergTrials.jpg|left|thumbnail|150px|Defendants at the [[Nuremberg Trials]] - Front row: Göring, Heß, von Ribbentrop, and Keitel. Second row: Dönitz, Raeder, Schirach, Sauckel.]] |
|||
There were a number of legal efforts established to bring Nazis and their collaborators to justice. Some of the higher ranking Nazi officials were tried as part of the [[Nuremberg Trials]], presided over by an Allied court; the first international tribunal of its kind. In total, 5,025 Nazi criminals were convicted between 1945-1949 in the American, British and French zones of Germany. Other trials were conducted in the countries in which the defendants were citizens -- in West Germany and Austria, many Nazis were let off with light sentences, with the claim of "following orders" ruled a mitigating circumstance, and many returned to society soon afterwards. An ongoing effort to [[Pursuit of Nazi collaborators|pursue Nazis and collaborators]] resulted, famously, in the trial of Holocaust organizer [[Adolf Eichmann]] in Israel in 1961. |
|||
===Legal action against genocide=== |
|||
The Holocaust also galvanized the international community to take action against future genocide, including the [[Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide]] in 1948. While international human rights law moved forward quickly in the wake of the Holocaust, international criminal law has been slower to advance; after the Nuremberg trials and the Japanese war crime trials it was over forty years until the next such international criminal procedures, in [[International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia|1993 in Yugoslavia]]. |
|||
==Impact on culture== |
|||
===Holocaust theology=== |
|||
On account of the magnitude of the Holocaust, many theologians have re-examined the classical theological views on God's goodness and actions in the world. Some believers and [[apostate]]s question whether people can still have any faith after the Holocaust, and some of the theological responses to these questions are explored in [[Holocaust theology]]. |
|||
===Art and literature=== |
|||
{{main|The Holocaust in Art and Literature}} |
|||
German philopsopher [[Theodor Adorno]] famously commented that "writing poetry after [[Auschwitz]] is barbaric," and the Holocaust has indeed had a profound impact on art and literature, for both Jews and non-Jews. Some of the more famous works are by Holocaust survivors or victims, such as [[Elie Wiesel]], [[Primo Levi]], and [[Anne Frank]], but there is a substantial body of literature and art in many languages. Indeed, [[Paul Celan]] wrote his poem ''Todesfuge'' as a direct response to Adorno's dictum. |
|||
The Holocaust has also been the subject of many films, including Oscar winners ''[[Schindler's List]]'' and ''[[Life is Beautiful]]''. With the aging population of Holocaust survivors, there has been increasing attention in recent years to preserving the memory of the Holocaust. The result has included extensive efforts to document their stories, including the Survivors of the Shoah project, as well as [[Holocaust memorials|institutions devoted to memorializing and studying the Holocaust]], including [[Yad Vashem]] in Israel and the [[United States Holocaust Memorial Museum|US Holocaust Museum]]. |
|||
===Holocaust Memorial Days=== |
|||
{{main|Yom HaShoah}} |
|||
In a unanimous vote, the [[United Nations]] General Assembly voted on [[November 1]], [[2005]], to designate [[January 27]] as the "International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust." January 27, 1945 is the day that the former Nazi concentration and extermination camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau was liberated. Even before the UN vote, January 27 was already observed as [[Holocaust Memorial Day (UK)|Holocaust Memorial Day in the United Kingdom]] since 2001, as well as other countries, including Sweden, Italy, Germany, Finland, Denmark and Estonia. Israel observes [[Yom HaShoah|Yom Hashoah]], the "Day of Rememberence of the Holocaust," on the 27th day of the Hebrew month of [[Nisan]], which generally falls in April. |
|||
=== Forget Me Not as a symbol=== |
|||
The little blue [[Forget-me-not|Forget Me Not]] {{ref|FMN01}} flower, or badge, is worn in the coat lapel to remember all those that have suffered in the name of Freemasonry, and specifically those during the Nazi era, to counter [[Holocaust denial]]. {{ref|FMN02}} {{ref|FMN03}} |
|||
In [[1948]] this emblem was adopted as an official Masonic emblem at the first Annual Convention of the United Grand Lodges of Germany, Ancient Free & Accepted Masons.{{ref|FMN04}} |
|||
==Notes== |
|||
#{{note|whatis}} Donald L Niewyk, ''The Columbia Guide to the Holocaust,'' Columbia University Press, 2000, p.45: "The Holocaust is commonly defined as the murder of more than 5,000,000 Jews by the Germans in World War II." Niewyk than explains that there is a debate among scholars over whether the Holocaust only refers to Jewish victims, or to all groups targeted by the Nazis, or to some subset of those groups. All scholars agree that other groups were targeted by the Nazis, but not all believe that the victims are part of the Holocaust. This article uses a wide definition of the Holocaust to include all groups systematically targeted by the Nazis. |
|||
#{{note|whichgroups}} Among the historians arguing that the Holocaust should refer only to Jews are Yehuda Baur and Guenter Levy. Those arguing the Holocaust includes Jews and Roma include Ian Hancock, Sybil Milton, and Donald Kendrick. Henry Friedlander argues that the definition should include Jews, Roma, and the handicapped. Richard Lukas and Ihor Karmenetsky include Poles among the Holocaust victims. Bodan Wytwycky includes Poles and Soviets. Richard Plant and F. Rector argue that homosexuals should be included, while Gunter Grau and Rodiger Lautmann argue against including gay men in the Holocaust. |
|||
#{{note|totalkilled}} [http://www.holocaustforgotten.com/non-jewishvictims.htm Holocaust Forgotten] lists 5 million non-Jewish victims of the Holocaust, Niewyk suggests that the broadest definitions of the Holocaust would have as many as 17 million victims. The 26 million number is given in Service d'Information des Crimes de Guerre: Crimes contre la Personne Humain, Camps de Concentration (Paris, 1946), 197. For details on the number of victims given in the introduction, please see the death toll section. |
|||
#{{note|shoah}}"[http://www1.yadvashem.org/Odot/prog/index_before_change_table.asp?gate=0-2 The Holocaust: Definition and Preliminary Discussion]," Yad Vashem (accessed June 8, 2005) And www.berkeleyinternet.com/holocaust/ |
|||
#{{note|overy}} Richard Overy, ''Russia's War.'' Penguin Books; 1998. |
|||
#{{note|gilbert1}} Martin Gilbert, ''The Oxford Companion to World War II'' Oxford: Oxford UP, 1995 |
|||
#{{note|trdd}} [http://www.trdd.org/EUGBR_4E.HTM Euthanasia and Eugenics], trdd.org (accessed June 8, 2005) |
|||
#{{note|others}}"[http://www.uca.edu/divisions/academic/history/cahr/holocaust.htm The Forgotten Holocaust] Karen Silverstrim,Univeristy of Central Arkansas |
|||
#{{note|Haffner}} Sebastain Haffner, ''The Meaning of Hitler'' ISBN 0674557751, translated from Anmerkungen zu Hitler, Publishing house. Fischer Taschenbuch, Frankfurt am Main. ISBN 3-596-23489-1. |
|||
#{{note|hancock}}"[http://www.chgs.umn.edu/Histories__Narratives__Documen/Roma___Sinti__Gypsies_/Jewish_Responses_to_the_Porraj/jewish_responses_to_the_porraj.html Jewish Response to the Porrajmos (The Romani Holocaust)]," Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, University of Minnesota (accessed June 24, 2005). Death tolls given at [http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/index.php?ModuleId=10005219&Type=normal+article United States Holocaust Museum] |
|||
#{{note|FM01}} A. Hitler, ''Mein Kampf'', pages 315 and 320. |
|||
#{{note|FM02}} [http://www.nationalsozialismus.de/index.php? ''The ''Enabling Act''] Accessed [[February 23]] [[2006]]. |
|||
#{{note|FM03}} ''The Encyclopedia of the Holocaust'', volume 2, page 531, citing Katz, ''Jews and Freemasons in Europe''. |
|||
#{{note|FM04}} Bro. E Howe, ''Freemasonry in Germany'', Quatuor Coronati Lodge, No 2076 (UGLE), 1984 Yearbook. |
|||
#{{note|FM05}} Freemasons for Dummies, by [http://members.aol.com/brlodge/whymasons.html Christopher Hodapp], Wiley Publishing Inc., Indianapolis, 2005, p.85, sec. ''Hitler and the Nazi'' |
|||
#{{note|FM06}} [http://www.grandlodgescotland.com/glos/Holocaust_Memorial_Day/FQAs.htm Grand Lodge of Scotland ''Holocaust FAQs'' ], “It is impossible to arrive at a total figure as no one knows the number of Freemasons from occupied countries who were murdered.” Accessed [[March 22]] [[2006]]. |
|||
#{{note|polesauschwitz}} Yisrael Gutman, Michael Berenbaum, Raul Hilberg, [[Franciszek Piper]], Yehuda Baur, ''Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp'', Indiana University Press, 1998, p.70 |
|||
#{{note|soviet}} Donald L Niewyk, ''The Columbia Guide to the Holocaust,'' Columbia University Press, 200, p 49 |
|||
#{{note|pinktriangle}} Heinz Heger, ''Men with the Pink Triangle,'' Alyson Publishing: 1994 |
|||
#{{note|euth}} "[http://www.ushmm.org/outreach/euthan.htm Euthenasia Program]" from the US Holocaust Museum's Encyclopedia of the Holocaust |
|||
#{{note|blacks}} [http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005479 Blacks during the Holocaust]from the US Holocaust Museum's Encyclopedia of the Holocaust |
|||
#{{note|JP}}Douglas Davis, "[http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/jpost/abstract/64152996.html?did=64152996&FMT=ABS&FMTS=FT&date=May+20%2C+1997&author=DOUGLAS+DAVIS&desc=7+million+died+in+Holocaust 7 million died in Holocaust]," ''Jerusalem Post'', May 20, 1997 (accessed June 8, 2005). |
|||
#{{note|FM07}} Freemasons for Dummies, by [http://members.aol.com/brlodge/whymasons.html Christopher Hodapp], Wiley Publishing Inc., Indianapolis, 2005, p.85, sec. ''Hitler and the Nazi'' |
|||
#{{note|howmany}} "[http://www1.yadvashem.org/about_holocaust/faqs/answers/faq_3.html How many Jews were murdered in the Holocaust? How do we know? Do we have their names?]," Yad Vashem (accessed June 8, 2005). A detailed breakdown of various estimates of the victims is available from the [http://www1.ushmm.org/research/library/index.php?content=faq/index.php%23topic01-question02 Online Library of the United States Holocaust Museum] (accessed August 10, 2005) |
|||
#{{note|polishvictims}} [http://www.ushmm.org/education/resource/poles/poles.php?menu=/export/home/www/doc_root/education/foreducators/include/menu.txt&bgcolor=CD9544 Poles: Victims of the Nazi Era] at the US Holocaust Museum |
|||
#{{note|Hilberg}} Hilberg, Raul. The destruction of the European Jews (Yale Univ. Press, 2003, c1961). |
|||
#{{note|Hilberg2}} Yisrael Gutman, Michael Berenbaum, Raul Hilberg, Franciszek Piper, Yehuda Baur, ''Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp'', Indiana University Press, 1998, p.71. |
|||
#{{note|Gilbert}}Gilbert, Martin, Atlas of the Holocaust, New York: William Morrow and Compnay, Inc, 1993. |
|||
#{{note|Dawidowicz}} Lucy Dawidowicz, The War Against The Jews, 1933-1945, New York : Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1975 ISBN 003013661X |
|||
#{{note|BenzGutman}} Wolfgang Benz in Dimension des Volksmords: Die Zahl der Judischen Opfer des Nationalsocialismus (Munich: Deutscher Taschebuch Verlag, 1991). Israel Gutman, ''Encyclopedia of the Holocaust,'' MacMillan Reference Books; Reference edition (October 1, 1995) |
|||
#{{note|gilbert2}} Gilbert, ''The Oxford Companion to World War II'' |
|||
#{{note|perp}} Donald L Niewyk, ''The Columbia Guide to the Holocaust,'' Columbia University Press, 200, p 83-87. For Reserve Police 101 see Browning, Christopher R., Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland, New York, Harper Collins, 1992 |
|||
#{{note|Romania}}"[http://www.ushmm.org/research/center/presentations/index.php?content=programs/presentations/2005-03-10/ Romania: Facing the Past]" available in Romanian and English, published online March, 2005. |
|||
#{{note|price}}Ad van Liempt, ''[http://www.nlpvf.nl/Book/NLPVF_BooktxtDB.php?Book=84 A Price on Their Heads, Kopgeld, Dutch bounty hunters in search of Jews, 1943]'', NLPVF (accessed June 8, 2005). |
|||
#{{note|victims}}"[http://www.pbs.org/auschwitz/40-45/victims/perps.html#kabac Victims and Perpetrators, Michal Kabác: Slovak Hlinka Guard]," PBS (accessed June 8, 2005). |
|||
#{{note|baltics}} "[http://depts.washington.edu/baltic/papers/holocaust.html The Holocaust in the Baltics]" |
|||
#{{note|hungary}} "[http://hist.academic.claremontmckenna.edu/jpetropoulos/arrow/holocaust/holocaust.htm The Holocaust in Hungary]" Prof. Jonathan Petropoulos, Claremont McKenna College. See also the [http://www.hdke.hu/en/facts_hungholo.html Hungarian Holocaust Museum], also |
|||
#{{note|croats}}"[http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/Jasenovac.html Jasenovac]" at the Jewish Virtual Library |
|||
#{{note|estonia}} Max Jakobson Commission Investigation of Crimes Against Humanity, "[http://www.historycommission.ee/temp/conclusions.htm#crimiger1] Report" |
|||
#{{note|latvia}} "[http://vip.latnet.lv/LPRA/EZERG_intr.html The Holocaust in Latvia]: An introduction" by Andrew Ezergailis, book excerpt, The Historical Institute of Latvia, 1996. |
|||
#{{note|Archives}}Richard Breitman, "[http://www.archives.gov/iwg/research-papers/breitman-chilean-diplomats.html What Diplomats Learned about the Holocaust]," US National Archives (accessed August 30, 2005). |
|||
#{{note|Gallately}} John Ezard, "[http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,439168,00.html Germans knew of Holocaust Horror about Death Camps]," Guardian, February 17, 2001. |
|||
#{{note|documented}}Donald L. Niewyk, ed. ''The Holocaust: Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation'', D.C. Heath and Company, 1992. |
|||
#{{note|Gord}}Gord McFee, "[http://www.holocaust-history.org/revisionism-isnt/ why 'Revisionism' isn't]," The Holocaust History Project (accessed June 8, 2005). |
|||
#{{note|Public}} Tom Smith, "The Polls--A Review: The Holocaust Denial Controversy." Public Opinion Quarterly 59 (Summer 1995): 269-295. |
|||
#{{note|FMN01}} [http://www.galenlodge.co.uk/forgetmenot.htm ''Das Vergissmeinnicht The Forget-Me-Not''] Accessed [[February 6]] [[2006]]. |
|||
#{{note|FMN02}} [http://www.galenlodge.co.uk/forgetmenot.htm''Flower Badge as told by Galen Lodge No 2394 (UGLE)''] Accessed [[March 4]] [[2006]]. |
|||
#{{note|FMN03}} [http://www.mastermason.com/monlou522/forget~me~not.html ''Flower Badge''] Accessed [[March 4]] [[2006]]. |
|||
#{{note|FMN04}} [http://www.galenlodge.co.uk/forgetmenot.htm ''Das Vergissmeinnicht The Forget-Me-Not''] Accessed [[March 22]] [[2006]]. |
|||
==See also== |
|||
{{sisterlinks|The Holocaust}} |
|||
* [[Rescue of the Danish Jews]] |
|||
* [[Anti-Semitism]] |
|||
* [[Bereavement in Judaism]] |
|||
* [[Genocide]] |
|||
* [[Historikerstreit]] |
|||
* [[Death marches (Holocaust)|Death marches]] |
|||
* [[Grand Mufti of Jerusalem]] |
|||
* [[International response to the Holocaust]] |
|||
* [[Phases of the Holocaust]] |
|||
* [[Jews outside Europe under Nazi occupation]] |
|||
* [[History of gays in Nazi Germany and the Holocaust]] |
|||
* [[Porajmos|History of the Roma and Sinti during the Holocaust]] |
|||
* [[Holocaust memorials]] |
|||
* [[Involvement of Croatian Catholic clergy with the Ustaša regime]] |
|||
* [[Henneicke Colonne]] (involvement of the Dutch population in the Holocaust) |
|||
* [[Sh'erit ha-Pletah]] (Jewish Holocaust survivors) |
|||
* [[Wiedergutmachung]] (reparations to individual survivors) |
|||
* [[War crimes of the Wehrmacht]] |
|||
===Nazi plans related to the Holocaust=== |
|||
* [[Final Solution|Endlösung]] ("Final Solution") |
|||
* [[Generalplan Ost]] |
|||
* [[Operation Reinhard]] |
|||
* [[Lublin Plan]] |
|||
* [[Madagascar Plan]] |
|||
===Eugenics=== |
|||
* [[Rhineland Bastard]] |
|||
===Individuals and the Holocaust=== |
|||
* [[List of famous Holocaust survivors]] |
|||
* [[List of famous Holocaust victims]] |
|||
* [[List of people who helped Jews during the Holocaust]] (see also [[Righteous Among the Nations]]) |
|||
===Nazi concentration camps=== |
|||
''See'' [[List of Nazi concentration camps]], [[Nazi extermination camp]] |
|||
*[[Auschwitz]] |
|||
*[[Belzec]] |
|||
*[[Bergen-Belsen concentration camp|Bergen-Belsen]] |
|||
*[[Chełmno extermination camp|Chełmno]] |
|||
*[[Dachau concentration camp|Dachau]] |
|||
*[[Flossenbürg concentration camp|Flossenbürg]] |
|||
*[[Grini]] |
|||
*[[Klooga concentration camp|Klooga]] |
|||
*[[Majdanek]] |
|||
*[[Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp|Mauthausen-Gusen]] |
|||
*[[Ravensbrück concentration camp|Ravensbrück]] |
|||
*[[Treblinka]] |
|||
===Ghettos=== |
|||
* [[Warsaw Ghetto]] |
|||
* [[Judenrat]] (Jewish administrative bodies established in the ghettos by order of the Nazis) |
|||
===Massacres and pogroms=== |
|||
* in [[Białystok]] |
|||
* [[Babi Yar]] Massacre |
|||
* [[Jedwabne Pogrom]] |
|||
* in [[Paneriai]] |
|||
* [[Odessa Massacre]] |
|||
===Jewish resistance=== |
|||
====Poland==== |
|||
* Resistance groups |
|||
** [[Żydowski Związek Walki]] |
|||
** [[Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa]] |
|||
* Uprisings |
|||
** [[Warsaw Ghetto Uprising|Warsaw Ghetto]] |
|||
** [[Białystok Ghetto Uprising|Białystok]] |
|||
** [[Marcinkance Ghetto Uprising|Marcinkace]] |
|||
== External links, references, resources == |
|||
External links, references, books and other resources are listed [[Holocaust (resources)|here]]. |
|||
[[Category:Holocaust|*]] |
|||
{{Link FA|ar}} |
|||
{{Link FA|pt}} |
|||
[[ar:هولوكوست]] |
|||
[[ast:Holocaustu]] |
|||
[[be:Галакост]] |
|||
[[bn:হলোকস্ট]] |
|||
[[br:Loskaberzh]] |
|||
[[ca:Holocaust]] |
|||
[[cs:Holocaust]] |
|||
[[da:Holocaust]] |
|||
[[de:Holocaust]] |
|||
[[et:Holokaust]] |
|||
[[el:Ολοκαύτωμα]] |
|||
[[es:Holocausto]] |
|||
[[eo:Holokaŭsto]] |
|||
[[fa:همهسوزی]] |
|||
[[fr:Holocauste]] |
|||
[[gl:Holocausto]] |
|||
[[ko:유대인 대학살]] |
|||
[[hr:Holokaust]] |
|||
[[id:Holocaust]] |
|||
[[it:Olocausto]] |
|||
[[he:השואה]] |
|||
[[lt:Holokaustas]] |
|||
[[lb:Holocaust]] |
|||
[[hu:Holokauszt]] |
|||
[[nl:Holocaust]] |
|||
[[nds:Schoah]] |
|||
[[ja:ホロコースト]] |
|||
[[no:Holocaust]] |
|||
[[nn:Holocaust]] |
|||
[[pl:Holocaust]] |
|||
[[pt:Holocausto]] |
|||
[[ro:Holocaust]] |
|||
[[ru:Холокост]] |
|||
[[simple:The Holocaust]] |
|||
[[sk:Holokaust]] |
|||
[[sl:Holokavst]] |
|||
[[sr:Холокауст]] |
|||
[[fi:Holokausti]] |
|||
[[sv:Förintelsen]] |
|||
[[zh:猶太人大屠殺]] |
|||
Revision as of 16:34, 27 March 2006
Lots of dumb jews died.
The end, lol.