Holocaust
- Victims
Victims
The victims of the Holocaust were Jews, Communists, homosexuals, Roma
and Sinti (also known as gypsies), the mentally ill and the physically
disabled, Soviet prisoners of war, Polish, Russian and other Slavic
intelligentsia, political activists, Jehovah's Witnesses, some Catholic
and Protestant clergy, trade unionists, psychiatric patients, common
criminals and people labeled as "enemies of the state". These victims
all perished alongside one another in the camps, according to the
extensive documentation left behind by the Nazis themselves (written and
photographed), eyewitness testimony (by survivors, perpetrators, and
bystanders), and the statistical records of the various countries under
occupation.
Jews
Anti-Semitism was common in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s (though its
history extends far back throughout many centuries during the course of
Judaism). Adolf Hitler's fanatical anti-Semitism was laid out in his
1925 book Mein Kampf, which, though largely ignored when it was first
printed, became popular in Germany once Hitler acquired political power.
On April 1, 1933, the recently elected Nazis, under Julius Streicher,
organized a one-day boycott of all Jewish-owned businesses in Germany.
This policy helped to usher in a series of anti-Semitic acts that would
eventually culminate in the Holocaust. The last remaining Jewish
enterprises in Germany were closed on July 6, 1939. In many cities
throughout Europe, Jews had been living in concentrated areas. During
the first years of World War II, the Nazis formalized the borders of
these areas and restricted movement, creating modern ghettos to which
Jews were confined. The ghettos were, in effect, prisons in which many
Jews died from hunger and disease; others were executed by the Nazis and
their collaborators. Concentration camps for Jews existed in Germany
itself. During the invasion of the Soviet Union, over 3,000 special
killing units (Einsatzgruppen) followed the Wehrmacht, conducting mass
killings of Communist officials and of the Jewish population that lived
on Soviet territory. Entire communities were wiped out by being rounded
up, robbed of their possessions and clothing, and shot at the edges of
ditches.
Heinrich Himmler (left), leader of the SS (responsible for rounding up
Jews), with Adolf Hitler (right).
Heinrich Himmler (left), leader of the SS (responsible for rounding up
Jews), with Adolf Hitler (right).
In December 1941, Hitler finally decided to exterminate European Jews.
In January 1942, during the Wannsee conference, several Nazi leaders
discussed the details of the "Final Solution of the Jewish question" (Endlösung
der Judenfrage). Dr. Josef Buhler urged Reinhard Heydrich to proceed
with the Final Solution in the General Government. They began to
systematically deport Jewish populations from the ghettos and all
occupied territories to the seven camps designated as Vernichtungslager,
or extermination camps: Auschwitz, Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Maly
Trostenets, Sobibór and Treblinka II.
Slavs
Poles were one of the first targets of extermination by Hitler, as
outlined in the speech he gave the Wehrmacht commanders before the
invasion of Poland in 1939. The intelligentsia and socially prominent or
powerful people were primarily targeted, although there were some mass
murders and instances of genocide (notoriously, the Croatian Ustashe).
The Nazi occupation of Poland (General Government, Reichsgau Wartheland)
was one of the most brutal episodes of World War II, resulting in over 6
million Polish deaths (over 20% of the country's inhabitants), including
the mass murder of 3 million Polish Jews in extermination camps like
Auschwitz.
During Operation Barbarossa, the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union,
hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of Red Army POWs were
arbitrarily executed in the field by the invading German armies (in
particular by the notorious Waffen SS), or were shipped to extermination
camps for execution simply because they were of Slavic extraction.
Thousands of Soviet peasant villages were annihilated by German troops
for more or less the same reason. During World War II, every fourth
person was killed in Belarus (and according to the latest data, some
researchers say up to 30%). The Jewish population of Belarus was almost
totally exterminated.
The Nazis provided various gradations of Slavs, e.g., it was thought
that Russians were inferior to Ukrainians and Belarusians, and that the
latter were inferior to Poles.
Romany ('Gypsies')
Main article: Porajmos
Hitler's campaign of genocide against the Roma and Sinti people of
Europe was seen by many as a particularly bizarre application of Nazi
"racial hygiene". German anthropologists were forced to contend with the
fact that Romany were descendants of the original Aryan invaders of
India, who made their way back to Europe. Ironically, this made them no
less Aryan than the German people itself, in practice if not in theory.
This dilemma was resolved by Professor Hans Gunther, a leading racial
scientist, who wrote:
"The Gypsies have indeed retained some elements from their Nordic home,
but they are descended from the lowest classes of the population in that
region. In the course of their migration, they absorbed the blood of the
surrounding peoples, thus becoming an Oriental, West-Asiatic racial
mixture with an addition of Indian, mid-Asiatic, and European strains."
As a result, however, and despite discriminatory measures, some groups
of Roma, including the Sinti and Lalleri tribes of Germany, were spared
deportation and death. Remaining Romany groups suffered much like the
Jews (and in some instances, were degraded even more than Jews).
Proportionately, the Roma death toll equaled "and almost certainly
exceed[ed], that of Jewish victims."[3] In Eastern Europe, Gypsies were
deported to the Jewish ghettoes, shot by SS Einsatzgruppen in their
villages, and deported and gassed in Auschwitz and Treblinka.
Gay men
Gay men were one more group targeted during the time of the Holocaust.
More specifically, homosexuality was deemed incompatible with National
Socialism as long as gays did not reproduce and perpetuate the master
race, which was seen as a threat to the Reich. Indeed, Ernst Röhm, the
leader of the SA, who was one of the most responsible for Hitler's rise
to power, was homosexual.
Some leaders clearly wanted gays exterminated, while others wanted
enforcement of laws banning sex between gay men or lesbians. More than
one million German men who were or were believed to be gay were
targeted, of whom at least 100,000 were arrested and 50,000 served
prison terms. An additional unknown number were institutionalized in
state-run mental hospitals. Hundreds of European gay men living under
Nazi occupation were castrated under court order.
The deaths of at least an estimated 15,000 gay men in concentration
camps were officially documented. Larger numbers include those who were
Jewish and gay, or even Jewish, gay and Communist. In addition, records
as to the specific reasons for internment are non-existent in many
areas, making it hard to put an exact number on just how many gay men
perished in death camps. See History of Gays during the Holocaust for
more information.
Conditions for gay men in the camps were especially difficult. They
faced persecution not only from German soldiers but also from other
prisoners, and many gay men were beaten to death. Additionally, gay men
in forced labor camps routinely received more grueling and dangerous
work assignments than other non-Jewish inmates, under the policy of
"Extermination Through Work". German soldiers also were known to use gay
men for target practice, aiming their weapons at the pink triangles
their human targets were forced to wear.
Lesbians were not treated as harshly as gay men. They were labeled
"anti-social," but not sent to camps.
Others
Around 2,000 Jehovah's Witnesses perished in concentration camps, where
they were held for political and ideological reasons. They refused
involvement in politics, would not say "Heil Hitler", and did not serve
in the German army. See Jehovah's Witnesses and the Holocaust.
Several hundred thousand mentally and physically disabled people also
were exterminated. The Nazis believed that the disabled were a burden to
society because they needed to be cared for by others, but first and
foremost, the mentally and physically handicapped were considered an
affront to Nazi notions of a society peopled by a perfect, superhuman
Aryan race. Around 400,000 individuals were sterilized against their
will for having mental deficiencies or illnesses deemed as hereditary in
nature.
The T-4 Euthanasia Program was established in 1939 in order to maintain
the "purity" of the so-called Aryan race by systematically killing
children and adults born with physical deformities or suffering from
mental illness.
On August 18, 1941, Hitler ordered a temporary halt to T-4. Graduates of
the Aktion T4 program then were transferred to the concentration camps,
where they continued in their trade.
Euthanasia did not end in 1941, however; it still took place in
hospitals around Germany and Austria, and crept east into a few of the
occupied territories.
Maximilian Kolbe, venerated as a saint of the Roman Catholic Church, was
one member of the clergy killed in Auschwitz. He volunteered for
starvation in place of another prisoner with a family and died in 1941.
From:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust
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