the holocaust unit 4 Flashcards

Question

* Ukrainians as perpetrators at Babi Yar massacre

Answer 1

Ukrainian ‘police’: * Support from Ukrainian nationalist militias, press and members of the auxiliary police force contributed to rampant antisemitic violence in the early days of the Nazi invasion. * Ukrainian prisoners recruited from a nearby prisoner-of-war camp were recruited to serve the Nazi’s as local police. * There job was to serve the Nazis, including rounding Jewish people together, robbing Jews of their money, possessions and documents. * They made the Jews wait in the meadow, from where, behind a mound of earth, they could hear the relentless sound of machine gun fire. as well as Ukranianian citizens who ensured that jewish people couldnt escape, rounded them up and stole their possesions

Answer 2

September 28th police put a notice was posted arounds cities and suburbs ordering all Jewish residents to appear at an intersection in the cities Lukianivka district with all of their documents, money, valuables and warm clothing. 30,000 Jews arrived to be relocated – Germany expected 5-6,000 Jews were forced to march in columns to cordoned off area: * Once in area = no escape (guards on gates) * Forced to undress and place ‘valuables’ in certain areas * Once undressed – led to the ravine 15m deep at least * Direction pointed out by Ukrainians & Ger soldiers * Jews – could not see what was going to happen until too late * See pit of dead bodies – could not run – many gave up * The Jewish infants, children, women and men were ordered to lie down – on already dead bodies – await fate * Shot with a machine gun – (Einsatzgruppen) * Not everyone died straight away * Einsatzgruppen soldier – stood on corpses * Shot those ‘moaning’ to ensure death * Local police/population (Ukrainians) – loaded trucks with the Jews’ belongings. This murdering process continued for two days – bodies later covered with mud to hide the murder 29th -30th Sept = 33,771 Jews assassinated (Einsatzgruppen left, but local police continued massacre until early October)

Answer 3

“All the Yids of the city of Kiev and its vicinity must appear on Monday September 29, 1941 by 8 a.m. at the corner of Melnikova and Dokhterivskaya streets (next to the cemetery). Bring documents, money and valuables, and also warm clothing, bed linen etc. Any Yids who do not follow this order and are found elsewhere will be shot. Any civilians who enter the dwellings left by Yids and appropriate the things in them will be shot”. essentially they told them to bring 2 weeks of valuables this made them think that they were being relocated instead of getting massacred

Answer 4

Ukraine was forced into being part of the USSR after a failed struggle for independence in the 1920s. * This led to many ordinary Ukrainians welcoming Nazi invasion in September 1941 as they had been treated harshly e.g. during collectivization 1932-1934 4.5 million Ukrainians died as a result of famine. * Stalin was responsible for this and therefore some saw Nazis as liberators from Soviet oppression.

Answer 5

* The Wannsee Conference did not mark the beginning of the "Final Solution." The mobile killing squads were already slaughtering Jews in the occupied Soviet Union. The Wannsee Conference was the place where the "Final Solution” was formally revealed to noNazi higher ups who would help arrange for Jews to be transported from all over German-occupied Europe to SS-operated killing centers ("extermination" camps) in occupied Poland.

Answer 6

Towards the end of 1941, s as a response to the psychological impacts created by the shootings and the realisation that a more methodical approach was needed if Germany were to eliminate the 11 million Jews of Europe. German High Command authorised SS General Reinhard Heydrich to create a plan to find a ‘complete solution to the Jewish question‘ → ‘Final Solution’ * He was told to develop a plan that would cover “all necessary preparations with regard to organisational, practical, and financial aspects for an overall solution to the Jewish question”

Answer 7

Death camps and concentration camps aren't the same. Death camps were used for the primary purpose of efficiently massacring Jewish people whereas concentration camps were labor camps with really bad maintenance if Jews died Those were isolated incidents Killing centers were established primarily or exclusively for the assembly-line style murder of large numbers of people immediately upon arrival to the site. * The first mass exterminations began with Jews in Lodz ghetto who were sent to the Chelmno using gas vans * Himmler – used death camps = less psychological impact & more efficient: * E.g. Treblinka – had only 120 staff (20-30 were SS) * Gas = just pull lever – never have to see victims * Fitter Jews were used to carry dead bodies + sort the possessions 6 Killing centres/Extermination Camps in Poland = Chelmno, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Majdanek * Jews transported to camps using railway system * Auschwitz & Majdanek = also labour camp (selection process – 20% sent for forced labour) where they would be worked to death or killed later * Others = gassed upon arrival or within a couple days → few survivors * Mass killing centres: * Gas – carbon monoxide (gas vans or chambers) or Zyklon B (at Auschwitz) * Auschwitz – 2,000 gassed at one time (12,000 a day – gassed and cremated

Answer 8

* Ghettos liquidated → Jews packed into trains * 150 into each carriage/ cart journey often took weeks as a result of Ghetto trains being low maintenance * No food/water/windows * Bucket for toilet * Sometimes packed in train days before left for camp * Many died from heat & suffocation * Belzec: 45 wagon with 6,700 people – upon arrive 1,450 already dead * Long journey = average four days * Trains = low priority * (priority for railways = war effort/supply transportation

Answer 9

When train doors open – met by SS guards – ordered off train * Had to step over dead bodies on train * Immediately split into two groups: * Women & younger children * Men & older boys * Taken to camp doctor – judged those able to work on sight * Children under 16 & those unfit to work = gas chambers * Those fit to work = sent to sex segregated accommodation ‘blocks’ * 1.1 million taken to Auschwitz – 200,000 = forced labour

Answer 10

Those who were forced to work = strict timetable they had to live by * Morning: * Began 4:00-4:30am * 2,000 prisoners forced to share 100 toilets * Wash – dirty water & no new/clean clothes * Daily roll (Appell) – prisoners forced to stand outside in rows whilst roll taken – often in extreme weather * Guards deliberately often get roll wrong so it had be recounted – could take hours * Ration for breakfast = piece of bread (from previous evening) & watery soup * Meals: * Given just enough to be kept ‘alive’ (keep workers & prolong suffering) * Food = most important – took from dead bodies & slept with it at night = black bread/watery soup & fake coffee * Hunger = greatest problem (too weak = gas chamber)

Answer 11

Forced to work in the gas chambers: * Carry dead bodies out of chambers * Removed any metal works in victims’ teeth * Shave hair of female victims * Placed victims in the crematorium & ensured fires were continually burning * Collected fat from crematorium – used as soap * Placed bones in bone crusher – attempt to hide evidence * Important role = better living conditions than other prisoners * Slept in own barracks * Allowed to keep goods brought in by gassed prisoners (medicines; food etc) * Not usually subject to random killing by SS guards * Geheimnistraeger = bearer of secrets b/c knew the most about FS * Not allowed to mix with other prisoners * Every three/four months – killed and replaced with new group * First job of new Sonderkommando = disposed of their predecessors * Very few survived the war – 20/30

Answer 12

Work: * ‘Arbeit Macht Frei’ – Work makes you free adorned the entrance to Auschwitz-Birkenau * Outside camp = worked in all conditions & often walk kilometers to ‘work’ = forced manual labour – support war effort * Inside camp = If got trade – used to support Nazi agenda within camp eg if blacksmith worked on building weapons, accountants accounted for german budget,etc * Jewish Doctors = taken blood from prisoners to keep Ger soldiers alive

Answer 13

Preparation before entry to the gas chambers: * Focus on calmness – Jews could not know what was going to happen – or else chaos * Jews forced to undress – told they were going for a shower * Told to leave clothes in place to remember – told they will return * Those struggling – supported by those who have already undressed * Some mothers attempted to hide babies in clothes * Told to go into showers in large groups: * Stories of parents recognizing what was going to happen – hide fear from children * Children unknowingly leading younger siblings to their death * Once inside – entrance = locked * Gas administered by press of button or pull of lever – did not see victims * Himmler’s attempt to reduce psychological impact on soldiers * Gas used = Zyklon B (at Auschwitz) * After gassing – bodies removed by Sonderkommandos

Answer 14

many of the nations either allied or occupied buy nazi control either were involved in the direct killing of Jews or in aiding the round up and transportation of Jews to the ghettos, and later, killing centres and some had their own brutal methods independent from the nazis e.g: croatia and romania as they had their own historys of anti semitism against jewish people

Answer 15

-After Germany invaded Yugoslavia in April 1941 they helped to create the Independent State of Croatia, by helping their equivalent to the nazi party take control,= became allies ruled by an ultra-nationalist fascist movement known as Ustaša. --Ustaša immediately embarked upon a campaign “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. * By June 1941, 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. * The 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. (essentailly concentration camps yet they actively brutally murdered either by given the order or randomly without reason) * 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. essentailly from its implementation Jews and other minorites were immediately facing persecution

Answer 16

-Vichy france( a puppet government in france for the nazis) -* The Vichy government quickly enacted laws that restricted the rights of Jews and defined them by their race. * A process of ‘Aryanisation’ spread across France where businesses and property owned by Jews were handed over to non-Jewish ‘administrators’. * The Vichy government also established internment camps in southern France, arresting foreign Jews and French Jews, before organising their deportation to killing centres in the east. * Vichy France initially adopted the policy of only deporting Jewish adults and splitting families apart, but by late 1942 they began deporting whole families when this policy was met with criticism from the Catholic Church and French population.(they didnt know that they were being sent to be gassed to death) -by the time of frances liberation around 77,000 Jews who had been living in French territory in June 1940 had either perished in French internment camps or at Nazi killing centres, especially Auschwitz

Answer 17

They either actively persecuted jewish people through murder imprisonment in concentration camps or other methods OR sent them to the concentration or death camps List of countries with the number of Jews killed during the Holocaust: * Austria (65,459) * Belgium (24,387) * Czechoslovakia (260,000) * Denmark (116) * Estonia (963) * France (74,000) * Germany (165,200) * Greece (65,000) * Hungary (564,507) * Italy (7858) * Latvia (70,000) * Luxembourg (1200) * Netherlands (102,000) * Poland (3,000,000) * Romania (260,000) * Soviet Union (1,340,000) * Yugoslavia (67,228

Answer 18

Romania was home to some of the most brutal persecution outside of what was carried out directly by the Nazis. * Anti-semitism had been rampant in Romania for a long time and there was evidence that it was ramping up even before the Final Solution began to be implemented. * In January 1941, a brutal pogrom was unleashed on the Jewish population of Bucharest by government forces and the fascist paramilitary group, the Iron Guard. This pogrom resulted in the deaths of over 1000 Jews. * Report from the World Jewish Congress on the Bucharest pogrom: * “Wild animals bite and kill, but never think of defiling dead bodies, as was the case for all these innocent beings. Tongues cut out, eyes plucked out, fingers and hands chopped off, bodies mistreated, hacked and wounded, hung on slaughterhouse hooks with a label attached marked ‘kosher’.” The Romanian government decided that the best approach to the ‘Jewish problem’ was to isolate the Jews, refuse to provide them with any of the resources necessary to sustain life and drive them into unpaid or minimally paid forced labour. * 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’. * As a result, 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. * Furthermore, Transnistria was also the site of the single largest massacre of Jews throughout the entire Holocaust at Bogdanovka where 54,000 Jews were killed between December 1941 and mid-January 1942. * Between 280 and 380,000 Jews were killed by Romanian authorities in Transnistria between 1941 and 1944

Answer 19

by early 1943 down from 450,000 to only 70-80000 remaining deportations to Treblinka start again hearing rumours that if moved to treblinka(death camp) U won't come back alive * Jewish rebels attacked Nazis during deportation * leading to only Jews to 5-6,000 Jews deported * → Nazis stopped deportations until 21st Jan * Jewish resistance groups created bunkers ready for a full uprising 19th April 1943 (Passover Eve) = start of uprising * German soldiers + police sent to deport remaining residents * Commanded by SS Police Leader Jurgen Stroop * Ghetto was deserted as the Jews had gone into hiding all over the camp * Surprise attack from ZOB + ZZW fighters → forced to retreat out of the Ghetto with 12 dead fced with shame by through his defeatStroop returned with a larger force * 2,054 soldiers + police, reinforced with artillery + tanks. * Razed the ghetto setting fire to each building to smoke out rebels + civs * Jewish forces = app. 700 fighters * Poorly armed + lack proper military training * Guerilla strikes from buildings, bunkers + tunnels. * Assisted by ghetto population who refused to assemble for deportation

Answer 20

The Jewish people hid everywhere, and used guerrilla warfare surprise attacks they had to burn the innards of the camp to force them out however they many were inexperienced and lacked arms despite the long search

Answer 21

Warsaw uprising = largest + most important Jewish uprising * First urban uprising against the Germans in occupied Europe. * Inspired other uprisings in Ghettos + concentration/death camps including at Treblinka itself in Aug 1943 * Showed that Jews would resist the Germans even when it was hopeless * Despite horrible treatment, their spirits had not been broken

Answer 22

June –Sept 1942: There was a decline in the number arriving → rumours the Killing Centre would be dismantled + all prisoners killed. * → Polish Jews led by Leon Feldhander formed a secret committee to plan a mass escape h/w lacked any military experience * Sept: Jewish Soviet POW’s had been transported from Minsk → worked with the POWs * It took Lieutenant Alexander Pechersky 3 weeks to develop the following detailed plan: * The revolt was set for a day when Sobibor's commandant and several of its leading officials would be away 1. The Soviet POWS would secretly kill some of the SS officials, taking their weapons and uniforms. 2. When the approximately 600 prisoners assembled for evening roll call, the POWs dressed as camp personnel would kill the guards at the gate and on the towers and urge the prisoners to flee

Answer 23

Around 4pm in the afternoon prisoners invited the deputy commandant, Johann Niemann, into the tailor shop to be fitted for a suit where they then killed him with an axe. * In another camp, prisoners lured SS officer Josef Wulf to try on a coat in the warehouse of victims' belongings→ killed him with an axe. * In the course of the next hour or so, nine more SS personnel were killed in a similar manner. * At Roll call, the guards became alarmed and opened fire on the prisoners + those prisoners with weapons returned fire * → 300 prisoners fled and broke out of the prison with many being shot or dying from a mines surrounding the camp after which a manhunt was conducted to round up everyone and kill them only 50 from that death camp survived the whole war

Answer 24

* Some prisoners didn’t try and escape Sobibor whilst others continued to fight with guns and axes throughout the night. All were shot by the end of the following day on October 15. * In the following days At least 100 others were caught and killed during the massive manhunt conducted by SS, police, and German army units * Of the 200 escapees who were not immediately caught, only about 50 survived the war, often with the help of the local population or by joining partisan groups. * Many of the escapees who did not survive were betrayed to the Germans or killed by Polish civilians or partisans. * The prisoners killed eleven SS staff + two or more Ukrainian guards * Soon afterward, the SS brought in a group of Jewish prisoners from Treblinka to dismantle the killing facilities and erase the traces of Sobibor's true function. → Nov 1943: those Jewish prisoners were murdered as well. * The site was plowed, had crops planted + a Ukrainian guard camp set up. and the sobibor death camp was erased.

Answer 25

Germany begin evacuating camps in Poland * ‘Healthy’ prisoners forced to walk to camps still under control * Long death marches in freezing weather with little food. Many who were ill or fell over from weakness were shot and left behind → 15,000 deaths

Answer 26

1. SS authorities did not want prisoners to fall into Allied and Soviet liberators and telling their stories, needed prisoners 2.to maintain production of armaments, due to lack of manpower 3.believed they could use Jewish concentration camp prisoners as hostages to bargain for a separate peace in the west that would guarantee the survival of the Nazi regime.

Answer 27

As the Soviets marched closer and closer the SS decided to evacuate Auschwitz. Jan 1945: Red army begin liberating Death Camps in Poland as they heads towards Germany. 27th Jan: 9000 prisoners at Auschwitz liberated * At first the camp appeared abandoned, soldiers soon realised they were filled people left to die. * The survivors greeted the soldiers as their liberators. * No food, fuel or water left for the prisoners * Most prisoners = weak, malnourished + ill * Warehouses full of goods stolen from Jewish inmates * 40km of eyeglasses, 100s of prosthetic limbs, 12000 pots + pans * 44,000 pairs of shoes, 3800 suitcases, children’s clothes + toys

Answer 28

The conditions at Bergen-Belsen got even worse when tens of thousands of prisoners arrived in early 1945, after horrific death marches from camps in the east that had been evacuated by the Germans. On 12 April 1945, the Nazis agreed to surrender the Bergen-Belsen camp. 15 April 1945, British and Canadian troops of the 11th Armoured Division liberated Bergen-Belsen after the Nazi’s agreed to surrender it. * Nothing could have prepared them for what they found; 60,000 in critical conditions starving, sick and brutalised prisoners. * Thousands of corpses were laying unburied. * Belsen did not have gas chambers and did not conduct mass executions as were done at Auschwitz and others, but by the end of the war it was suffering from a terrible epidemic of typhus and was as deadly as any other camp. * Many died after liberation due to disease and from the re-introduction of food. One of the first British soldiers to enter the camp, Major Leonard Berney, recalled: “I remember being completely shattered. The dead bodies lying down beside the road, the starving emaciated prisoners still mostly behind barbed wire, the open mass graves containing hundreds of corpses, the stench, the sheer horror of the place, were indescribable. None of us who entered the camp had any warning of what we were about to see or had ever experienced anything remotely like it before.” In the immediate aftermath of the liberation, over 500 people died each day as a result of the extremely poor sanitation and widespread disease. they had to be isolated within the camp Once the original camp was empty all the buildings were burned to the ground to stop the spread of disease

Answer 29

The small percentage of inmates who survived resembled skeletons because of the forced labor and the lack of food, compounded by months and years of cruel abuse and torment. * In the first five days following liberation of Bergen-Belsen, fourteen thousand persons died; another fourteen thousand succumbed in the following weeks. * Allied troops, physicians, and relief workers tried to provide nourishment for the surviving prisoners, but many of them were too weak to recover and digest food resulting in many camp survivors dying. Half of the prisoners discovered alive in Auschwitz died within a few days of being freed. For survivors, the idea of rebuilding their lives after the Holocaust was scary. Many tried to return home after liberation in order to search for missing children, family, their previous community and property. Many feared to return to their former homes because of antisemitism. Following liberation, many determined to leave Europe found themselves in refugee centers and displaced persons camp for years until more emigration opportunities became available and legal. Some returned home feared for their lives again. In Poland more than 1,000 Jews were killed during the first year after liberation. The postwar pogroms were carried out not by Nazis but by the local populations in various countries. The largest of these occurred in the town of Kielce in 1946 when Polish rioters killed at least 42 Jews and beat many others.

Answer 30

* The first of the Nuremberg Trials were labelled “The greatest trial in history…” for the number of people on trial as well as the scale of the crimes commited First international war crimes tribunal in history – changed international law in long term * War crimes now became international precedent * Created new crime: Crimes against humanity = established that all of humanity was guarded by international legal shield * Even head of state could be held responsible & punished for crimes against humanity

Answer 31

1.Only Axis soldiers on trials Allied forces also technically coommited similar crimes to nazis such as the atomic bombs dresden firebombings executing POW's (Victors justice) 2.New laws were created after the fact just so they can punish the nazis such as crimes against humanity and war crimes(Geneva convention) 3.Lawyers did not need proof of facts of common knowledge – e.g. death camps 4.* Defendants not allowed to appeal selection of judges, many were clearly biased

Answer 32

Trials = attempt to bring Nazi war criminals to justice: * Nazi officials/high military officials/major industrialists/Einsatzgruppen * Thirteen separate trials held for different groups – 1945-48 * Aug 8, 1945= Charter of International Military Tribunal (IMT) announced in London * Laws created which accused would be tried in front of a panel of judges * Each allied country – sent two judges (one main judge & alternative judge) * Tribunal would include one judge from each of four Allied nations * Persons of Axis nations could be prosecuted for breaches of international law * Allied personnel would not be tried for war crimes in Nuremberg * Given the one sided nature of the charter, it was considered very controversial at the time * Charged with at least one of four crimes: 1. Conspiracy to wage war 2. Crimes against peace (waging an aggressive war) 3. War crimes = attacking civilians / ill treatment of POWs (Soviet) 4. Crimes against humanity: * Extermination camps * Horrors committed in eastern Europe * “murder, extermination, enslavement…inhumane acts…” The first of the Nuremberg Trials were labelled “The greatest trial in history…” * 24 individuals tried * 18 found guilty on one or more charges * 4 acquitted / 1 died + 1 declared mentally unfit * Major War Criminals = Goering, Hess (major Nazi officials) * Defense arguments used by accused: * Actions committed before laws were made. * Victors justice therefore unfair * State not individuals could be found guilty of war crimes * Following superiors’ orders * Fear of reprisal if orders were not followed * Those involved in killing received most severe punishments: * 12 sentenced to death * Goering = sentenced to death (took cyanide night before execution) * Hess = 10-20 years in prison (Nazi Deputy who flew to Scotland in 1941 to try and make peace)

the holocaust unit 4 Flashcards

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