THE FINAL SOLUTION

“Endlösung der Judenfrage”

(“I am the Child of a Holocaust Survivor”)

The Holocaust was an abhorrent and evil crime against humanity; it came about after years of gradual and systematic racist policies against Jews, and was devised by the Nazi government as a “final solution” to rid Europe of all Jews. Although the Nazi government was responsible for devising and implementing this inhumane “solution”, the world knew what was happening to the Jews in German controlled Europe in the 30s and yet was shockingly indifferent. Therefore, we all must shoulder some of the responsibility. It must never happen again.

The Nuremberg Laws classified people with four German grandparents as "German or kindred blood", while people were classified as Jews if they descended from even just one Jewish grandparent. These laws •deprived Jews of German citizenship•prevented Jews from participating in German civic life•prohibited marriage between Jews and other Germans.•included a ban on sexual intercourse between people defined as Jews and non-Jewish Germans.

(“Reichsgesetzblatt”) (“Nürnberg Laws”)

KRISTALLNACHTNight of the Broken Glass

From November 9 to10 in 1938, the Nazi government sanctioned and organized a concerted attack on Jewish owned businesses, schools, hospitals, synagogues and homes all over Germany and Austria. Bent on destruction, they broke through the windows, littering the streets with glass(which is how the night got its name), kilIing over 90 Jews in the process. Over 30 000 Jews were imprisoned. (“Nationwide Pogram”)

(“Kristallnacht”)

This headline of The New York Times of November 11, 1938 reveals that the wide spread attack on Jews and their property on the 9th and 10th of November 1938 was witnessed and reported beyond German and Austrian borders. The world knew what was happening.

(“Front Page Kristallnacht”)

In a speech, called “The Eternal Jew”, which Hitler delivered to the Reichstag on January 30, 1939, he stated,Europe will not have peace until the Jewish question has been disposed of. The world has sufficient capacity for settlement, but we must finally break away from the notion that a certain percentage of the Jewish people are intended, by our dear God, to be the parasitic beneficiary of the body, and of the productive work, of other people… (Hornshoj-Moller)

This is a Nazi propaganda poster; the text reads “The Eternal Jew” which alludes to the fact they have been responsible for the world’s ills from time immemorial. The map of Europe with the Soviet hammer and sickle under the Jew’s arm, implies that the Jews are conniving with the communists to take over Europe. The money in the Jew’s right hand, points to the age old belief that the Jews held immense wealth, and used it undermine the world’s stability. The money in hand, playing upon the stereotype of the wealthy Jew, would have also fed the resentment of the ordinary German populace, who had been struggling for the two decades after WWI to earn a decent living.

(“Der ewige Jude”)

A Nazi poster in 1942, translates as: “He is guilty for the war”. Hitler follows through with his plan, blaming the Jews for the war.

In this same speech, Hitler went to say:

…If the international finance-Jewry inside and outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations into a world war yet again, then the outcome will not be the victory of Jewry, but rather the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe! (Hornshoj-Moller)

(“Der ist schuld”)

A memo written July 31, 1941 from Göring to Heydrich said:

    “In completion of the task which was entrusted to you…of solving the Jewish Problem by means of emigration or evacuation in the most convenient way possible, given the present conditions, I herewith charge you with making all necessary preparations with regard to organizational, practical and financial aspects for a total solution of the Jewish Problem in the German sphere of influence in Europe…     I further charge you with submitting to me promptly an overall plan of the preliminary organizational, practical and financial measures for the execution of the intended final solution of the Jewish Problem.” (“Order from Hermann Göring”)

Hermann Göring was the Reichsmarschall (senior commander of the German armed forces), and asked Reinhard Heydrich to create the plan. Otto Adolf Eichmann was charged with carrying it out.(“Auschwitz”)

(“Jewish Problem”)

In his diary entry of December 13, 1941, Joseph Goebbels wrote:

“Regarding the Jewish Question, the Führer is determined to clear the table. He warned the Jews that if they were to cause another world war, it would lead to their own destruction. Those were not empty words. Now the world war has come. The destruction of the Jews must be its necessary consequence. We cannot be sentimental about it. It is not for us to feel sympathy for the Jews. We should have sympathy rather with our own German people. If the German people have to sacrifice 160,000 victims in yet another campaign in the east, then those responsible for this bloody conflict will have to pay for it with their lives.”(McFee)

(“Goebbels”)

Dr. Joseph Goebbels was put in charge of Hitler’s propaganda ministry. (McFee)

Jews were shot on sight, as shown in this picture. There is a person lying on the ground at the soldier’s feet, and you can see two other guns coming into the frame on the left hand side. There was nowhere to run. It is particularly haunting in that we see a mother shielding her child with her own body.

(“Kiev Jews”)

“’There are eighty of you in the car,’ the German officer added. ‘If any of you go missing, you will all be shot, like dogs.’ The doors clanked shut. We had fallen into the trap, up to our necks. The doors were nailed, the way back irrevocably cut off. The world had become a hermetically sealed cattle car”(Wiesel 24)

TRANSPORTATION

(“Cattletrain to Auschwitz”)

“Work Will Set You Free” These words hung above the entrance gate to Auschwitz.

(“Arbeit Macht Frei”)

“Selection”: the old, the young, the sick, and the crippled were sent to their deaths immediately. Only the “fittest” were “selected” to live. (“Auschwitz”)

When they arrived at the camp, families were sundered apart. Elie Wiesel describes this in Night: “Women to the left. Men to the right. Eight words spoken quietly, indifferently, without emotion….I didn’t know that this was the moment in time and the place where I was leaving my mother and Tzipora forever.``(Wiesel 29)

(“Selection”)

A present-day picture of a gas chamber in Auschwitz; Jews were told they were walking into showers. Instead of water, the Germans released poison gas. In this manner, the Germans were able to kill many Jews at a time. (“Auschwitz”)

(``Auschwitz Gas Chambers``)

Either through slave labour or by poison gas, the Jews were killed in horrifying numbers. (“Auschwitz”)

(``The Cost``)

The Germans were killing so many, so quickly, cremation was deemed the most efficient method of disposing of the

bodies. (“Auschwitz”)

(“Cremation Oven Room at Auschwitz”)

This cartoon was published in the New York times in 1943. The report reads, “100,00 Jews killed monthly by Nazis”. The senator passes it to a disinterested member of the state department. The caption and cartoon as a whole reveals the bureaucratic and slow moving nature of a seemingly indifferent government.

(Gold)

Note the high concentration of death camps (in red) in Poland and Hungary. There were very few death camps in Germany itself. This could be a partial explanation for the high death rate of Polish and Hungarian Jews.

(“Map of Concentration/Death Camps”)

This bar graph clearly shows that while ¼ of the German Jewish population was

decimated, almost ¾ of Jews living in Holland were killed. Perhaps the lower number in Germany can be explained by the fact that many Jews left Germany in mass numbers in the late 30s to escape persecution.

(``Jewish Victims during the Holocaust-Western Europe and North Africa”)

60% of the Jews living in Hungary, the home country of Elie Wiesel, were slaughtered. 90% of the Jews living in Poland were killed. Almost the entire Jewish population was decimated. Almost half of all the Jews murdered in the Holocaust had lived in Poland. The numbers are staggering.

“Estimated Loss to European Jewry”

And yet the numbers can make us forget something important: there is a story, a person, a loved one, a life cut short, and a dream unfilled behind each statistic.

Lest we forget…

(``In Memoriam``)