“The Final Solution”

1. “The Final Solution”

2. Nazis frequently talked about “solving the Jewish question” but what they meant by these words changed over time. • Slandering Jews • Stigmatize them as a pariah group • Curtailing the role of Jews in German society • Denial of citizenship and civil rights • Forced emigration

4. Nuremburg Laws 1935 • At the annual party rally held in Nuremberg in 1935, the Nazis announced new laws which institutionalized many of the racial theories prevalent in Nazi ideology.  • Anyone with 3-4 Jewish Grandparents is considered Jewish • Deprived Jews of citizenship • Prohibited marriages and sexual relations between Aryan and non-Aryans • Boycott of Jewish businesses • Nov 1935, the laws were extended to Gypsies and Blacks

5. Kristallnacht 1938 • Night of broken glass – shards of broken glass from Jewish businesses, synogogues, homes, and hospitals • Pogrom - series of coordinated attacks against Jews through Nazi Germany and Austria. • 30, 000 sent to concentration camps • Pre-text for the attacks was the death of a German diplomat in Paris by a Polish Jewish resident in Paris.

6. Ghettos and segregation • Nazis considered a sort of “reservation” for the Jews – Poland or Madagascar. • Became the policy of enclosing Jews in restricted ghettos – overcrowding led to mass death • Next step was small and logical: Nazis began to kill the Jews directly.

7. Lodz, Poland Ghetto • Feb 1942: A bridge that connected the two sections of the Lodz Ghetto

8. Nazis decided to implement the “Final Solution” in the occupied territories to the east of Germany because • Majority of Jews lived in this region • Easier to conceal the evidence (In Germany they created gas chambers in hospitals to kill handicapped people but they were unable to maintain secrecy and faced opposition in Germany). • History of violent anti-Semitism. Pogroms and killings within the last 60 years

10. Nazi tactics to make Jewish resistance difficult • Deception • Terror • Separation of family members • Collective Responsibility • Slave labour

11. Mass Murder Program • Upon the invasion of the Soviet Union, four mobile firing squads were used. • Mass shootings were inefficient, gruesome, difficult to keep hidden and considered too stressful on the killers. • 1-1.5 million people were murdered in this way • In response, the SS leadership decided to rely on poison gas. First in mobile gassing vans then they est. “Death Camps”

15. Gas chamber used at Auschwitz during 1941-1942.

16. Cremation chambers at Auschwitz

17. Mass grave

18. 6 Million Jews were killed in the Holocaust. Blacks, Roma, Homosexuals, handicapped, political opponents were also targeted, bringing the total to 11 million.

19. Artwork by Felix Nussbaum • Felix Nussbaum (11 December 1904 – 2 August 1944) was a German-Jewishsurrealist painter. Nussbaum’s artwork gives a rare glimpse into the essence of one individual among the victims of the Holocaust.