The Holocaust

The Holocaust explained

By Gideon Gort (foto taken at the ramp of Auschwitz-Birkenau)

The Holocaust was the systematic murder of innocent Jewish men, women and children during the Second World War by Nazi Germany and their allies. Before 1939 the Jews suffered from discrimination, exclusion, plunder, violence and a lot of laws to minimize their public life. Jews were not allowed to study at universities, Jewish officiary were fired, Jews could not have shops and own business anymore. Many more rules and discrimination followed. Only 1 % of the German inhabitants were Jew. Why were they discriminated against and hated?

Antisemitism was not invented by the Nazis. General opinions of Jews were that they are the murderers of Jesus Christ. Jews were responsible for the Black Dead in the Middle Ages. Jews were not welcome in a lot of countries and the catholic church tried to baptize them for ages. It became worse: The Nazis accused the Jews for the loss of World War one. They also accused the Jews of political, social and economic problems. A recipe for hate was born.

In the beginning the Nazis started to murder `the useless eaters` such as psychic patients, handicapped children and other “unworthy” people. The codename for the operation was T4, named after the address of the headquarters at the Tiergartenstraße 4 in Berlin. It started in October 1939 by direct order of Adolf Hitler. An estimated 200,000 people were murdered in Germany. Gas chambers at so-called “euthanasia centers” such as Grafeneck or Brandenburg were used to kill innocent men, women and children. Due to resistance by the public the operation stopped at the end of 1941. The victims were not particularly Jews, but it was the start for a (maybe in the future) good organized mass murder. This experience was very welcome for the later mass murder in the extermination camps.

It was not the start for the murder of the European Jews. There was not even a plan to kill the Jews at that time (1939). Hitler and the Nazis dreamed of a Europe without Jews. One of the ideas was called The Madagascar Plan. A logistic impossible plan to deport all the European Jews to Madagascar and let them die of starvation and diseases. Another option was the deportation to the east, far away near the Ural in the Soviet Union. Both options lost attention when the Nazis invaded Poland in September 1939.

With the Wehrmacht (the German army) so called Einsatzgruppen (special action groups), followed them to the east. There were four Einsatzgruppen: A, B, C and D. At least 3000 men were members of those Einsatzgruppen. By order of Reinhard Heydrich, head of the RSHA (Reichssicherheitshauptamt or Reich security main office), the Einsatzgruppen murdered all the Jewish men and other innocent civilians like priests, communist, intellectuals and other potentially dangerous people on their way. In August 1941 the order became: kill all Jews, which meant all men, women and children of all ages. The murders reached to the (current) Baltic states, the Soviet Union, (current) Belarus and (current) Ukraine. This episode is called the Holocaust by bullets and an estimated 1,5 but more likely 2 million Jews were brutally shot.

The shootings were often conducted in broad daylight in full view in open fields, forest and other suitable locations. Excessive murders took place at Kamenets-Podolsk, southwest (current) Ukraine. From 26 till 28 August, 23600 Jews were killed. Babi Yar near Kiev with 33771 Jews murdered on 29 and 30 September 1941 and the murder of at least 25000 Jews in the Rumbula forest near Riga (current) Latvia in November and December 1941. Don't forget the Romanians led by Ion Antonescu. In Transnistria (southwest current Ukraine) they killed an estimated 280000 to 380000 Jews in mass shootings and terrible violence.

A more humanic and faster method was needed to kill all the European Jews. Humanic for the perpetrators, not the victims. All the mass shootings and murder of innocent men, women and children were grievous for the shooters who had most often children by themselves. The plan changed. Bring the victims to their murderers instead of the murderers to the victims. The extermination camps developed.

There were five extermination camps in occupied Poland. The first one was Chelmno, opened in December 1941, on the northwest side of Lodz.

Here, the Nazis gassed approximately 150,000 men, women and children. Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka were part of Action Reinhard (named after Reinhard Heydrich). It was the massmurder of the Jews in the General-Government, an occupied territory in Poland. 1,7 million people were killed in less than 1,5 years starting in March 1942. Most of them fell victim to the gas chambers at Treblinka. An estimated 800000 people (but 900000 is more likely) lost their lives in this small village at the northeast side of Warsaw. More than 150,000 were killed in Sobibor and 434,508 in Belzec. There were only a handful of survivors.

Auschwitz-Birkenau was the largest one. More than 1,1 million people were murdered at the concentration and extermination camp. The largest operation was called Aktion Höss. (named after Rudolf Höss, camp commandant of Auschwitz-Birkenau). It was the mass murder of the Hungarian Jews in the summer of 1944. In eight weeks 438000 Jews were sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau. 75% of them died within hours after arrival. The other victims were selected for forced labor at the camp complex.

Majdanek, close to Lublin, can be considered (but not every scholar agrees) as the sixth extermination camp. Although it was different in size and purpose as the other extermination (and concentration) camps, it was used to deport and prison Jews for forced labor and later kill them in the gas chambers. Aktion Erntefest (Operation Harvest Festival) took place in this camp in November 1943 and in Trawniki and Poniatowa. The two day massmurder of 42000 Jews by direct order of Heinrich Himmler. It is the largest mass shooting operation of the Holocaust and in human history. The victims were shot in pits special dug for the massmurder.

In total the Nazis and their allies killed six million Jews: all innocent men, women and children. One third of the Jewish victims were shot by the Einsatzgruppen and their allies. At least 1,5 million children were murdered by the Nazis. Brutally killed in gas chambers, by starvation in the ghetto’s or shot in mass shootings. Don't forget that the Nazis also killed many Roma, Sinti, Poles, Soviet POW and many, many other innocent men, women and children.

With success the Nazis erased almost every trace of their crimes. Chelmno, Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka were destroyed. A special action, Aktion 1005, was organized to dig up all the bodies and to burn them to erase evidence. Paul Blöbel, one of the commanders of the mass shooting at Babi Yar, was in charge of this enormous task. Aktion 1005 was carried out in the extermination camps, but also in the areas where the mass shootings took place. Jews were forced to do these horrific tasks. They dug up thousands of bodies and burned them in open pits. When the job was done these Jews were also murdered. To this day the exact number of victims of the Holocaust is still unknown.

References:

Raoul Hilberg, the Destruction of the European Jews part two

Dieter Pohl, Holocaust

Patrick Desbois, Holocaust by bullets

Ton Roozeboom, The Nazi murder factories

Stephan Lehnstaedt, The Core of the Holocaust

Bartlomeij Grzanka, The Shadow of the Holocaust

The Auschwitz Album, Yad Vashem, Verbum Publishers

USHMM encyclopedia

Own visit and research at Museum Chelmno (Kulmhof) (2023), Museum Treblinka (2023),

Museum Majdanek, (2018, 2023), Sobibor (2018) and Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau

(2015,2018,2023)

Chelmno

Our trip to the first exterminationcamp in Poland.

Photo: Gideon Gort, Rzuchowforrest 2023