Background to the Holocaust In his autobiography Mein Kampf, Hitler claimed the “Jewish question” needed to be answered once and for all Nazi ideology promoted the idea of “Aryan” superiority over other races When the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, anti-Semitism became official policy

Persecution Begins The Nazis encouraged Germans to stop patronizing Jewish businesses The Nuremberg Laws of 1935 segregated Jews and did not allow intermarriage Kristallnacht destroyed Jewish stores, houses and synagogues in 1938 in an attempt to drive Jews from Germany

The German invasion of Poland in 1939 led to the creation of “ghettos” where Jews confined

Typical Conditions in the Warsaw Ghetto

The Einsatzgruppen were created to murder Jews and Hitler’s political enemies throughout Poland and Russia

Jews are shot and dumped in mass graves

Mobile gas van used by the Einsatzgruppen

Genocide By 1942, the Nazis had decided they needed a more efficient and depersonalized system of mass murder At the Wannsee Conference of 1942, the Nazis decided it would be much more efficient to murder people by the millions

Extermination camps were established throughout Eastern Europe to kill primarily Jews, but also gypsies, the handicapped, and others the Nazis considered “subhuman”

At Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland, 1 At Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland, 1.5 m people were gassed and about 90% of these were Jews

Cylinder Containing Zyklon B Gas

Aerial photo taken by the Allies in 1944 showing a plume of smoke near Birkenau death camp

About 6 million Jews and 5 million others were murdered during the Holocaust Allies insisted the best way to end the genocide was to win the war When the concentration camps were liberated in 1945, the world saw the true extent of Nazi horrors

The Nuremberg Trials After the war, many demanded that the perpetrators of Nazi genocide be punished The Nuremberg Trials were established to bring Nazi war criminals to justice