The Racial State

Question 1

What was Lebensborn?

Answer 1

A group of policies to increase the number of “Racially Pure” children and facilitate the adoption of children by “healthy” parents

Question 2

Who were women encouraged to have children with under Lebensborn?

Answer 2

SS Officers

Question 3

What is the literal translation of “Lebensborn”?

Answer 3

“Fount of Life”

Question 4

During what period were children kidnapped and sent to Germany under Lebensborn?

Answer 4

1939-1945

Question 5

What is Social Darwinism?

Answer 5

The theory that humans are subject to the same ‘survival of the fittest’ rules of natural selection as plants and animals.

Question 6

What was Kristallnacht?

Answer 6

An attack on the Jewish Population by the German people, involving the destruction of businesses and physical assaults on Jewish people.

Question 7

When was Kristallnacht?

Answer 7

November 9th-10th, 1938

Question 8

What was the German Government’s response to Kristallnacht?

Answer 8

The government refused to intervene to end the violence, and many out-of-uniform SS and police officers joined in.

Question 9

Which law made the sterilisation of disabled people compulsory?

Answer 9

Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Progeny (July 1933)

Question 10

How many Jewish businesses were destroyed during Kristallnacht?

Answer 10

Over 7,000

Question 11

What is the literal meaning of “Kristallnacht”?

Answer 11

“Night of the broken glass”

Question 12

When was euthanasia of mentally and physically disabled people authorised?

Answer 12

October 1939

Question 13

Aktion T4

Answer 13

Mass murder through involuntary euthanasia. Conservative estimates suggest that at least 10,000 physically and mentally disabled German children perished as a result of the child “euthanasia” program during the war years.

Question 14

When did the German invasion of Poland begin?

Answer 14

September 1st, 1939

Question 15

What were the Jewish Ghettos?

Answer 15

Designated areas of cities where Jews were forced to relocate to. These areas were extremely cramped, with the Warsaw Ghetto containing 30% of the city’s population in 2.4% of its land.

Question 16

What problems did Jews in Ghettos face?

Answer 16

Physical and economic isolation - The Jewish people were enclosed in the Ghettos with walls/barbed wire, and did not have access to essential goods such as food and medicine.

Harsh restrictions - Jews were only permitted in shops from 16:00-17:00, and were not permitted to purchase radios or chocolate. Furthermore, from 1941, they were required to wear an armband bearing the star of David to identify themselves as Jews, and required a permit to travel.

Starvation - The average Polish Jew subsisted off only 300 calories a day.

Overcrowding - Ghettos averaged 6 people per room, leading to widespread disease among the weakened population.

Exclusion - Jews were not permitted rations of clothing and shoes.

Question 17

How many institutionalized mentally and physically disabled persons died at the six gassing facilities between January 1940 and August 1941?

Answer 17

According to T4’s own internal calculations, the “euthanasia” effort claimed the lives of 70,273 people

Question 18

When were the Nuremberg Laws introduced?

Answer 18

September 15th, 1935

Question 19

What were the two laws within the Nuremberg Laws?

Answer 19

The Reich Citizenship Law and the Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honour.

Question 21

What did the Reich Citizenship Law state?

Answer 21

Someone could only be a German citizen if they had purely German blood. Jews and non-Aryans had fewer rights than citizens.

Question 22

What did the Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honour do?

Answer 22

Outlawed the marriage between Aryans and non-Aryans and German citizens and Jews. It was also made illegal for Jews to have any sexual relations with a German citizen.

Question 23

Where was the first Ghetto established?

Answer 23

Łódź

Question 24

Why were the Jewish Ghettos established?

Answer 24

The Jewish Ghettos were established as a result of Germany’s logistical difficulties preventing them from enacting the Madagascar Plan or transporting the Jewish population over the Eastern border.

Question 25

Where did the idea of using the gas chambers to kill the Jews come from

Answer 25

Planners of the “Final Solution” later borrowed the gas chamber and accompanying crematoria, specifically designed for the T4 campaign, to murder Jews in German-occupied Europe.

Question 26

What happened to the Ghettos starting in 1942?

Answer 26

Under Operation Reinhard, Jewish people were deported from the Ghettos to extermination camps and used as slave labour.

Question 27

What did the First Supplementary Decree on the Reich Citizenship Law do?

Answer 27

Defined what constituted a ‘full Jew’ - someone who had three Jewish grandparents, or had two Jewish grandparents and was married to a Jew.
‘Half Jews’ were labelled Mischlinge.

Question 28

What was the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising?

Answer 28

An attempt by the people of the Warsaw Ghetto to resist deportation by armed force. This resulted in the Nazi forces levelling the Ghetto and killing every Jew they could find.