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How did the Nazis use Persecution?
- The Nazis believed that Aryans (whites) were the
'master race' & people of other ethnicities, like Jewish
or Slavic people were inferior. The Nazis blamed the
Jewish people for problems in German society.
- The Nazis wanted a German population of
only 'pure' Aryan people who fitted their ideal.
They wanted to eliminate people who were
disabled, homosexual, held different beliefs,
or weren't 'Aryan'.
- Hitler was angry when
African-American Jessie Owens
won four gold medals at the
1936 Berlin Olympics & when a
German boxer was beaten by an
African- American.
- Persecution of the Jews increased through the 1930's.
In 1935, Hitler passed the Nuremberg Laws. These
laws stopped Jews being German citizens. They
banned marriage & sexual relationships between Jews
& non-Jews in Germany.
- In 1938, Kristallnacht occurred- the night of broken
glass. This led to a Jew murdering a diplomat in
Paris in November 1938. Also there was rioting
throughout Germany, thousands of Jewish shops
were smashed & thousands of Jews were arrested.
- After the invasions of Poland & Russia more Jews
came under Nazi control. From 1940, Jewish people
were forced to move into ghettos. These separate
districts of cities were usually walled & policed by
armed guards. The largest was in Warsaw.
- Conditions in the ghettos were terrible.
Starvation & disease killed thousands. A
rebellion in the Warsaw ghetto in 1943
was ruthlessly put down. When Russia
was invaded in 1941, soldiers followed
orders to kill every Jew they cam across
in the occupied towns & villages.
- The Final Solution began in
1942, it was the Wannsee
Conference (Nazis authorities')
plan to destroy the Jewish
people. Death camps were
built in Eastern Europe. Gas
chambers were built for mass
murder.
- Mainly Jewish people were killed but other
groups were targeted too. Heinrich Himmler,
head of the SS, was overall in charge of this
'final solution'. The Germans did not publicise
their actions & Himmler (in charge of the camps)
ordered for secrecy.
- Propaganda films showing good conditions in the
camps & talk of 'resettlement' of the Jews gave the
impression that they were being treated well. Soon the
Jewish community come to learn what was really
happening & began to react with horror to names like
Auschwitz, Dachau & Bergen-Belsen.
- The Jews hoped that the Allies would bomb the
camps. To speed up the killing, The Germans had
railway lines built running directly into the camps.
There was no disguising what had been done-
especially as the Allied soldiers found thousands
of Jews abandoned to die of starvation or
diseases such as tuberculosis.
- Homosexuals had curfews, were castrated, & later used in medical
experiments. People of Eastern European descent also received
harsh treatment, lost their citizenship in the Nuremberg laws & had
to live on specially designated sites. Gypsies & tramps were
sterilised. Mentally & physical disabled people were euthanised.
Approx 6 million Jews were killed by the Nazis.
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