Holocaust

The Holocaust is the general term for one of the most horrific chapters in Europe's history and that of humanity. The word describes the systematic extermination of the Jewish population during National Socialism in Germany. In this explanation, we'll explain the background and history of the Holocaust, what happened, and what its consequences were.

Holocaust Definition

The term "Holocaust" originates from Ancient Greek, meaning "totally incinerated" in translation. In Judaism and in Hebrew, one can also say "Shoah", which means "the great unholiness" in Hebrew. Whereas the term Holocaust was also used in the past about rituals of sacrifice and other genocides, today we use the term mainly about the 5-6-6-3 million Jews who were systematically murdered under National Socialism in Germany. The term sometimes includes the Porajmos, a term describing the genocide of the Romani people. Typically, though, when we speak of the Holocaust, we are referring to the genocide of the Jewish population.

The map below features all the extermination camps, concentration camps, and ghettos in Europe during World War ll.

Fig. 1- Holocaust Map

Holocaust History

This definition is the lens through which we'll look at the Holocaust. To get a grip on the facts, we must look at the roots of antisemitism within the National Socialist party.

Goals of the National Socialists

The NSDAP of Adolf Hitler had aspired to either exterminate or expel the Jews from Germany since its inception in 1920. The party explicitly laid out this goal as part of the 25-point program that was one of their main elements. Hitler had been jailed earlier for his attempted coup, also known as the Munich Beer Hall Putsch. While serving his sentence, the future leader wrote his autobiography and one further unpublished work. These critical texts laid out Hitler's racist and antisemitic theories.

The ultimate goal of Hitler and his NSDAP was the extermination of what they termed "Judeo-Bolshevism", here referring to the revolutionary coup that had overtaken the Soviet Union, that in their view, had been masterminded by the Jews. Hitler had also said in an interview that the best solution to the Jewish "problem" would be to kill all the Jews in Germany. As that was presumably impossible, the Jews should at least be subject to mass expulsion.

Holocaust - Persecution of the Jews

At the beginning of Hitler's takeover of power, the National Socialists wanted to banish the Jews from their areas. So began the sub-organization of the first assault on the freedoms of Jewish people. Those tasked with this project included the SA, SS, and the Hitler Youth. First stop, Dachau, for the construction of the first concentration camp.

Hitler himself quickly passed several laws restricting the freedoms of Jewish folks. He did this with the help of the Enabling Act of 1933, which granted him almost unlimited power.

A prime example of the racist legislation Hitler enacted was the Law for the Restoration of Professional Civil Service (1933-1945). This new law forbade anyone not of Aryan descent from assuming positions as civil servant in Germany.

Fig. 2- Heinrich Himmler

The Nuremberg Laws

Further dire consequences arrived in the summer of 1935 with a boycott of the National Socialists for their actions against Jews. This backfired when the government swiftly passed the Nuremberg Laws, which even further restricted the rights of Jews. The following two years saw no additional measures taken, as Hitler's attention had shifted to administrative matters. However, in 1938, a whole raft of drastically intensified measures was taken to persecute this vulnerable group during World War II. In the interim period before the war began, up to 315,000 Jews fled Germany.

The Beginning of Systematic Murder

With the start of World War ll and the German invasion of Poland, the Nazis undertook the systematic murder of Polish Jewry. There the Brownshirts were able to test new methods of mass destruction. And here, the first mass extermination of Jews took place. Since this new territory lay outside the officially controlled region of the German Kingdom, Hitler ordered the deportation of German Jews to this region of Poland, where they would live monitored on reservations.

Fig. 3- Warsaw Ghetto Map

Jewish Ghettos

By 1938, the National Socialist regime had begun to place Jews in tenements or "Jew Houses," as the Nazis called them. Therefore, they could be more easily separated from the population, making deportation much easier. Once the war had begun, the Nazis began to designate Jewish ghettos in occupied territories. They designed these places to maximize the suffering, terrorization, and starvation of Jews. Residents were walled in and patrolled by police, so they could not flee. A prime example of these areas is the Warsaw ghetto, where up to 500,000 Jews were imprisoned in May 1941.

Death Camps

The plan was always to deport the Jews to the newly acquired Soviet territory. Soon it was clear, however, that reaching this aim would not be so simple. The National Socialist Regime instead decided to murder the Jews in the ghettos en masse. Starting in 1941, the regime built extermination camps in occupied areas. These camps had the sole and exclusive purpose of killing Jews as quickly and efficiently as possible and completely cremating their corpses.

The likely best-known extermination camp was also the largest: Auschwitz-Birkenau. Most Jews were sent here from German-occupied territories like France and Belgium to be immediately killed. In these extermination camps (also known as concentration camps), the Germans killed over 3,000,000 Jews. From these, between 900,000 and 1,100,000 perished at Auschwitz alone.

Fig. 4- Selection of prisoners for either work or gas chamber at Auschwitz

Holocaust Timeline

Below you will find a timeline tracing the Holocaust from post-World War ll antisemitic stirrings to the full-blown seismic catastrophe it became.

Holocaust Fact

Although the Jewish population had already been excluded from the general population, what was happening in the extermination camps was largely unknown to the public at the time. SS soldiers in the camps were sworn to secrecy under the death penalty. Publicly, the Jews had been subjected simply to relocation measures.

Holocaust Survivors

There are up to 50,000 Holocaust survivors in the United States today. Holocaust Memorial Day is a worldwide day where moments of silence are observed along with candlelight vigils. Buildings all over the US and the UK are illuminated in purple, the official memorial color of the Holocaust. Citizens adorn themselves with Stars of David or pink triangles to commemorate the horror.

The survivors carry on the legacy of the Holocaust, which states simply, "Never again." These folks bore witness to the pure hatred and evil in the most cataclysmic event of the 20th century and somehow lived to tell the tale. In the absence of six million souls who cannot tell their stories, it is more important than ever to pass on this legacy.

Fig. 5 -Eli Weisel