1. The Holocaust Begins
As part of their vision for Europe, the Nazis proposed a new racial order
They proclaimed that the where Germanic peoples or the Aryans were the “master race”
Strange because Aryan refers to Indo-European peoples who began to migrate into the Indian Subcontinent around 1500 B.C.
They claimed all non-Aryans, particularly Jews were inferior – they believed something must be done about these groups in German society
To gain support for these ideas, Hitler tapped into the hatred for Jews that had deep roots in European history
They were often targeted when there were mass failures or widespread calamities (Black Plague, Potato Famine, etc.)
Germans in particular blamed them for the failure of World War I – didn’t make sense because they also served (100,000)

3. The Night of Broken Glass
Early November 1938, 17 year old Herschel Grynszpan a Jewish youth from Germany was visiting in Paris
He received a postcard stating that his father was deported to Poland after living in Germany for 27 years
To avenge his father, Herschel shot a German diplomat in Paris (Ernest von Rath)
Nazi leaders heard the news and launched a violent attack on the Jewish community (had been promoted by Hitler, who sent his personal doctors)
On November 9th, Nazi storm troopers attacked Jewish buildings across Germany and Austria – killed 100 Jews (9 hours after news of Rath’s death)
Rounded up 30,000 Jews and sent them to concentration camps where many died
“Jewish shop windows were smashed…the main streets of the city were a positive litter of shattered plate glass” (Kristallnacht)

4. Ernest Von Rath
Herschel Grynszpan
Kristallnacht

5. Running and Isolation
After Kristallnacht, some Jews realized that violence against them was bound to increase
By 1939, 115,000 German Jews had fled to other countries
At first, Hitler favored emigration to what he saw as the “Jewish Problem”
After a while, countries like Great Britain, France and the United States started closing their doors to Jews
Hitler came up with another plan – He ordered all Jews in countries under his control to be moved to designated cities
In those cities, Hitler had the Jews kept in ghettos – segregated Jewish neighborhoods that were overcrowded, filthy, dismal
The Ghettos were sealed off with barbed wire and stone walls – hope was that the Jews would starve or die off from disease
Jews survived and produced plays, concerts; teachers taught lesson sin secret schools, scholars kept records so that one day people would learn the truth

7. Start of the Final Solution
Hitler soon grew impatient and decided to take more direct action – his plan was called the Final Solution
Program of systematic Murder of the unwanted by sending them to concentration camps – worked to death
Hitler believed that his plan of conquest depended on the purity of the Aryan race – to protect it, inferior peoples had to be eliminated
Groups of people that needed to be axed were Gypsies, homosexuals, the disabled, the Jews, Russians, Poles, terminally ill, etc.

8. The Mass Killings Begin
As Nazi troops swept across Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union mass killings began
Units from the Schutzstaffel (SS – Hitler’s elite security force) moved from town to town to hunt down Jews – rounded up men, women, children and even babies
The victims were taken to isolated spots and shot – bodies were put into pits which became their graves
Many “disappeared” Jews are still unaccounted for (outside of the concentration camps)
Jews not killed were sent to concentration camps – slave labor prisons where they were forced to into construction, mining, etc.
Guards regularly beat the prisoners for not working enough
Meals consisted of imitation coffee in the morning, watery soup in the afternoon, and bread for dinner
Prisoners would hide food to prevent theft – would take food from those who died over night

11. The Final Stage
The Nazis built extermination camps equipped with huge gas chambers that could kill as many as 6,000 human beings a day
The largest of the camps was Auschwitz; prisoners were paraded in front of SS doctors (with no clothes on)
Doctors would separate the weak (usually women and children and elderly) form the strong (mostly men)
Those who were considered weak were told to undress because they were going to take a shower
Taken to gas chambers which leaked Zyklon B gas – killed in minutes –
SS officers would look for gold fillings, cut off hair, etc.
Bodies were then burned in crematoriums –
In total, 6 million European Jews died in the camps; 5 million others including homosexuals, gypsies, etc.