Lesson 10: The Holocaust: A continent-wide crime

Question 1

Overview of role played by occupied nations during the Holocaust. (Why did they follow Germany? and how did they contribute to the holocaust?)

Answer 1

WHY THEY DID IT (generalized reason) This was due to the influence of ultra-nationalist or fascist
governments in these regions and a long-standing history
of antisemitism. This essentially means that nations saw Germany prioritizing their own German ppl so then other countries became “ultra-nationalist” and did the same to their own people.

HOW THEY CONTRIBUTED (generally): Fascist paramilitary organisations terrorising, robbing and
murdering Jews in their own nations, either under German
guidance or on their own initiative.
* Government officials, military personnel and local police
units playing a key role in the expropriation, concentration
and deportation of Jewish residents from their countries to
the Nazi gas chambers.

Question 2

• Role of Vichy France in supporting the development of the Holocaust

Answer 2

• ‘Aryanisation’ spread across France where businesses and
  property owned by Jews were handed over to non-Jewish
  ‘administrators’

internment camps in
southern France, arresting foreign Jews and French Jews, before

adopted policy of only deporting Jewish adults
splitting families apart,

France = liberated from Nazi rule, 77,000 either perished in French internment camps or Nazi killing
centres e.g: Auschwitz

Question 3

• Role of Croatia in supporting the development of the Holocaust

Answer 3

ultra-nationalist fascist movement known
as Ustaša

“to purge Croatia of foreign
elements”.
* To do this, Ustaša targeted multiple groups but one of these was the Jews.
* The policies they introduced were based on those introduced by the Nazi’s in Germany.

Ustaša had established their own concentration camp system.
* By the end of 1942, two-thirds (approx. 25,000) of Croatia’s Jews had died in these
camps.

most brutal of this camp system were the camps that made up the Jasenovac
complex.
* Jasenovac was notorious for its horrendous conditions, including limited food, shelter
and sanitary facilities. Additionally, the guards in the camp were known for being
especially brutal towards the inmates, using torture and randomly killings prisoners.
* By the end of the war, 80% of the Jewish population in Croatia had been killed. Most
of these were killed at the orders of the Croatian authorities but several thousand
were killed at Auschwitz after being deported there in 1942

Question 4

Overview of role played by Axis powers during the Holocaust

Answer 4

implemented
similar anti-Jewish legislation in their own nations
prior to the outbreak of WWII.
* This was due to the influence of ultra-nationalist or fascist
governments in these regions and a long-standing history
of anti-semitism.
* Fascist paramilitary organisations terrorising, robbing and
murdering Jews in their own nations, either under German
guidance or on their own initiative.
* Government officials, military personnel and local police
units playing a key role in the expropriation, concentration
and deportation of Jewish residents from their countries to
the Nazi gas chambers.

Question 5

• Role of Romania in the Holocaust

Answer 5

Between the autumn of 1941 and the summer of 1942, the Romanian authorities began deporting Romanian Jews to
its far eastern province of Transnistria.
* The Romanian authorities abandoned the Jews in makeshift camps and ghettos, most of which were open spaces,
with no shelter or resources

In the middle of the 1941-42 winter, they were left to fend for themselves, often living in animal barns and pigsties.
* Head of Golta County in Transnistria wrote that ‘11,000 Yids (were living) in state farm pigsties, where there was not
sufficient space for 7000 pigs’.

tens of thousands died due to exposure, starvation and disease.
* Left with no resources, many had to barter their clothes for food with the local residents. This meant that most were
clothed in newspapers and rags in -40⁰c

single largest massacre of Jews throughout the entire Holocaust at
Bogdanovka where 54,000 Jews

Between 280 and 380,000 Jews were killed by Romanian authorities in Transnistria between 1941 and 1944.