Stages of Genocide

1. Stages of Genocide CLASSIFICATION: “Us & Them.” People are categorized or distinguished by ethnicity, race, religion or nationality. SYMBOLIZATION: Names or symbols are given to the classifications. DEHUMANIZATION: One group denies the humanity of another (usually through propaganda). Adapted from Gregory H. Stanton, President, Genocide Watch

2. Stages of Genocide ORGANIZATION: Militias, mobs, police forces, etc., many times trained and armed, are organized, sometimes by the government. POLARIZATION: Extremists drive the groups apart using propaganda, intimidation and laws. PREPARATION: Victims are identified and separated out. Death lists may be made, property confiscated and segregation forced. Adapted from Gregory H. Stanton, President, Genocide Watch

3. Stages of Genocide EXTERMINATION: Once this begins, it quickly becomes the mass killing legally called ‘genocide.’ DENIAL: Attempts made to cover up or destroy evidence, denial of crimes by perpetrators, blame placed on victims, investigations blocked. Adapted from Gregory H. Stanton, President, Genocide Watch

4. The Holocaust Entrance gate to the main Auschwitz camp – the sign reads “Works makes one free.”

5. A homosexual couple. Berlin, Germany, ca. 1930. — Schwules Museum Romani (Gypsy) women and children interned in the Rivesaltes transit camp. France, spring 1942. — United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Jews were not the only people persecuted during the Holocaust. “Others” – Gypsies (Roma), homosexuals, political enemies, mentally or physically handicapped, Slavs and Jehovah’s Witnesses were among the Nazis other victims.

6. EARLY STAGES OF JEWISH PERSECUTION

7. During the first 6 years of Hitler's dictatorship, from 1933-1939, more than 400 decrees and regulations restricted all aspects of Jewish public and private life. Many of those laws were national ones that had been issued by the German administration and affected all Jews. But state, regional, and municipal officials, on their own initiative, also issued decrees in their own communities. Hundreds of individuals in all levels of society throughout Germany were involved in the persecution of Jews as they conceived, discussed, drafted, adopted, enforced, and supported anti-Jewish legislation.

8. German laws restricted the number of Jewish students at German schools and universities, curtailed "Jewish activity" in the medical and legal professions, fired Jewish civilian workers from the army, and forbade Jewish actors to perform on the stage or screen. Nazis block Jews from entering the University of Vienna. Austria, 1938. — National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Md.

9. At their annual party rally held in Nuremberg in September 1935, the Nazi leaders announced new laws . These laws, known as the Nuremberg Laws, excluded German Jews from citizenship and prohibited them from marrying or having sexual relations with persons of "German or German-related blood." Further additions deprived them of most political rights, including running for office and even voting.

10. The Nuremberg Laws also defined anyone who had three or four Jewish grandparents as a Jew, regardless of whether that individual recognized himself or herself as a Jew or belonged to the Jewish religious community. Even people with Jewish grandparents who had converted to Christianity could be defined as Jews. Nuremberg race laws chart USHMM Collection, Gift of the Hillel at Kent State University, Ohio Click 

11. A teacher explains racial definitions according to the Nuremberg Laws, September 1939. - SüddeutscheZeitung Photo / Scherl, Munich

12. Jewish patients were no longer admitted to municipal hospitals, German court judges could not cite legal commentaries or opinions written by Jewish authors, Jewish officers were expelled from the army, and Jewish university students were not allowed to sit for doctoral exams. Wroclow, Poland, A Hebrew lesson in a Jewish school, 20/09/1946​.- YadVashem Photo Archive

13. Government agencies at all levels aimed to exclude Jews from the economic sphere of Germany by preventing them from earning a living. SA men post signs demanding that Germans boycott Jewish-owned businesses. Berlin, Germany, April 1, 1933. — BildarchivPreussischerKulturbesitz

14. A sign on a store owned by German Jews: “Protect Yourselves, Don’t Buy from Jews”- YadVashem Antisemitic graffiti on a Jewish-owned shop. Danzig, 1939. — Wide World Photo

15. On the night of Nov. 9-10, 1938, across Germany, violent anti-Jewish pogroms occurred. The night became known as Kristallnacht -- literally, "Night of Crystal," and often referred to as the "Night of Broken Glass." Nazis and others smashed windows and ransacked thousands of Jewish shops in numerous German cities and villages. The coordinated attacks were the first large-scale, openly anti-Semitic act of the Third Reich.

16. The German government made an immediate pronouncement that the Jews were to blame for the pogrom and imposed a punitive fine of one billion Reichsmark (about US$400 million at 1938 rates) on the German Jewish community. Jewish owners were personally responsible for the cost of all repairs. Kassel, Germany, Clean-up work following Kristallna​cht, 10/11/1938​. - BPK - Bildarchiv Preussisch​er Kulturbesi​tz, Berlin

17. Shortly after, German education officials expelled Jewish children still attending German schools. German Jews lost their right to hold a driver's license or own an automobile; legislation fixed restrictions on access to public transport. Jews could no longer gain admittance to German theaters, movie cinemas, or concert halls. A Jewish women carries her radio into a police station after a German order (August 8, 1941) demanded the confiscation of all radios owned by Jews. Paris, France, 1941. — BibliothequeHistorique de la Ville de Paris

18. In August 1938, German authorities decreed that by January 1, 1939, Jewish men and women bearing first names of "non-Jewish" origin had to add "Israel" and "Sara," respectively, to their given names. All Jews were obliged to carry identity cards that indicated their Jewish heritage, and, in the autumn of 1938, all Jewish passports were stamped with an identifying letter "J". — United States Holocaust Memorial Museum — United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

19. Concentration Camps Arrival of a transport at the Westerbork camp. Westerbork, the Netherlands, 1942. — United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

20. "First they came for the Communists but I was not a Communist so I did not speak out; then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists but I was not one of them, so I did not speak out; then they came for the Jews but I was not Jewish so I did not speak out. And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me." Martin Niemoller Martin Neimoller (1892-1984)was a German theologian and Lutheran pastor. Though he initially supported the Nazis and Hitler, he quickly became vocal in his opposition to them. Because of this opposition, he spent time at concentration camps from 1937-1945, narrowly escaping execution. — United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; USHMM, courtesy of Herman M. Leitner

22. The first concentration camps in Germany were established soon after Hitler's appointment as chancellor in January 1933. The SA, SS, the police, and local civilian authorities organized numerous detention camps to incarcerate real and perceived political opponents of Nazi policy.

23. FURTHER JEWISH PERSECUTION

24. Ghettos had existed for centuries before WWII. During WWII, the Germans used ghettos in city districts (often enclosed) to concentrate the Jewish population and force them to live under miserable conditions. Ghettos isolated Jews by separating Jewish communities from the non-Jewish population and from other Jewish communities. Entrance gate to the Riga ghetto. This photograph was taken from outside the ghetto fence. Riga, Latvia, 1941-1943. — United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

25. The Germans regarded the establishment of ghettos as a provisional measure to control and segregate Jews Scene in the Lodz ghetto marketplace. Lodz, Poland, between 1940 and 1944. — Instytut Pamieci Narodowej

26. Ghetto residents, wearing mandatory yellow stars, at forced labor in a clothing factory. Lodz ghetto, Poland, 1941. — BeitLohameiHaghettaot Poverty in the ghetto: residents wait for soup at a public kitchen. Lodz ghetto, Poland, between 1940 and 1944. — United States Holocaust Memorial Museum The ghettos were a central step in the Nazi process of control, dehumanization, and mass murder of the Jews.

27. The Germans ordered Jews residing in ghettos to wear identifying badges or armbands and also required many Jews to perform forced labor for the German Reich. An emaciated woman sells the compulsory Star of David armbands for Jews. In the background are concert posters; almost all are destroyed. Warsaw ghetto, Poland, September 19, 1941. — Guenther Schwarberg Hungarian Jews with yellow stars, at the time of the liberation of the Budapest ghetto. Hungary, January 1945. — Magyar NemzetiMuzeumTortenetiFenykeptar A Jewish boy wearing the compulsory Star of David. Prague, Czechoslovakia, between September 1941 and December 1944. — Czechoslovak News Agency

28. Once the Final Solution was decided upon, the Germans systematically destroyed the ghettos. They either shot ghetto residents in mass graves located nearby or deported them, usually by train, to killing center where they were murdered. German SS and police authorities deported a small minority of Jews from ghettos to forced-labor camps and concentration camps. Prisoners at forced labor on a construction project in the Flossenbürg concentration camp. Flossenbürg, Germany, date uncertain. — KZ Gedenkstaette Dachau A Jewish man deported from Vienna, Austria, performs forced labor in the Opole Lubelskie ghetto. Poland, date uncertain. — Dokumentationsarchiv des OesterreichischenWiderstandes

29. In which countries were the ghettos located? Why do you think there were no ghettos in western Europe?

30. View of Lodz ghetto residents crossing a pedestrian bridge over Zgierska street, 1941. - United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of ZydowskiInstytutHistorycznyimieniaEmanuelaRingelbluma Deportation of Jews from the Lodz ghetto. Poland, August 1944. — BeitLohameiHaghettaot In August 1944, German SS and police completed the destruction of the last major ghetto, in Lodz.

31. EXPANSION OF CONCENTRATION CAMPS & KILLCENTERS

33. The concentration camps were also sites of hideous and perverted medical experiments conducted on prisoners against their will and often with lethal results. Medical personnel experiment on a prisoner at the Buchenwald concentration camp. Buchenwald, Germany, date uncertain. — La Documentation Francaise Victim of Nazi medical experiment immersed in freezing water at Dachau concentration camp. SS doctor Sigmund Rascher oversees the experiment. Germany, 1942. — DIZ Muenchen GMBH, SueddeutscherVerlagBilderdienst

34. A prisoner in a compression chamber loses consciousness before dying during a medical experiment simulating high altitudes. Dachau Concentration Camp, Germany, 1942. — National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Md. Victims of Dr. Josef Mengele's medical experiments at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Poland, 1944. — National Museum of Auschwitz-Birkenau

35. Unlike concentration camps, which served primarily as detention and labor centers, killing centers (also referred to as "extermination camps" or "death camps") were almost exclusively death factories. German SS and police murdered nearly 2,700,000 Jews in the killing centers either by asphyxiation with poison, gas or by shooting. Gas chamber in the main camp of Auschwitz immediately after liberation. Poland, January 1945. — Dokumentationsarchiv des OesterreichischenWiderstandes

36. The largest killing center was Auschwitz-Birkenau, which by spring 1943 had four gas chambers (using Zyklon B poison gas) in operation. At the height of the deportations, up to 6,000 Jews were gassed each day at Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland. Over a million Jews and tens of thousands of Roma, Poles, and Soviet prisoners of war were killed there by November 1944.

37. German railroad officials used both freight and passenger cars for the deportations. German authorities generally did not give the deportees food or water for the journey, even when they had to wait for days on railroad spurs for other trains to pass. Along the route from Iasi to either Calarasi or PodulIIoaei, Romanians remove corpses from a train carrying Jews deported from Iasi following a pogrom. Romania, late June or early July 1941. — HistorischesArchivderStadt Koln

38. Lacking food and water, many of the deportees died before the trains reached their destinations. Armed police guards accompanied the transports; they had orders to shoot anyone who tried to escape. Along the route from Iasi to either Calarasi or PodulIIoaei, Romanians remove corpses from a train carrying Jews deported from Iasi following a pogrom. Romania, late June or early July 1941. — HistorischesArchivderStadt Koln

39. This photograph shows the accused and their defense attorneys in the International Military Tribunal courtroom, Nuremberg. - National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Md. After World War II, both international and domestic courts conducted trials of accused war criminals. Beginning in the winter of 1942, the governments of the Allied powers announced their determination to punish Axis war criminals.