United States History Student Edition

Starved prisoners, nearly dead from hunger, pose in a concentration camp in Ebensee, Austria on May 7, 1945. 1. Explaining What treatment led to the condition of the prisoners shown here? 2. Speculating What emotions might the liberators of this camp have felt upon encountering this camp’s survivors?

By the spring of 1942, the death camps were in full operation. The Nazis’ first priority was to eliminate Jews who were still living in the Polish ghettos. By the summer of 1942, Jews also were being shipped to camps from France, Belgium, and Holland. As the Allies were winning the war in 1944, Jews were brought from Greece and Hungary. In spite of Germany’s desperate military needs, even late in the war when Germany was facing defeat, the “Final Solution” often had priority in using railroad cars to ship Jews to the death camps. The Nazis killed approximately 6 million Jews, more than 3 million of them in the death camps. Even in concentration camps not designed specifically for mass murder, large numbers of inmates were worked to death, died from disease or starvation, or were subjected to deadly medical experiments. About 90 percent of the Jewish populations of Poland, the Baltic countries, and Germany were killed. Overall, the Holocaust was responsible for the death of nearly two out of every three European Jews. The Nazis also were responsible for the deliberate death by execution, starvation, or overwork of 9 to 10 million non-Jewish people. The Nazis considered the Roma, sometimes called Gypsies, to be an alien race. About 40 percent of Europe’s Roma were killed in the death camps. The Nazis also targeted those with disabilities, murdering more than 250,000 people. Political activists, homosexuals, and Jehovah’s Witnesses were also persecuted and killed by Nazis. Leading Slavic citizens were

arrested and killed. An estimated 4 million Poles, Ukrainians, and Belorussians lost their lives as slave laborers. Finally, at least 3 to 4 million Soviet prisoners of war were killed. Why did ordinary people go along with the Holocaust? This was possible because ordinary people went along with horrific acts. Nazi propaganda fed Germans’ fears of a changing world and appealed to their patriotism and long-held anti-Semitic feelings. The incomprehensibly large number of murders carried out by the Nazis was possible only through calculated planning. The desire for “racial purity” led to the creation of the infrastructure, military, and economy designed to support the state-sanctioned killing of millions of people. Such tactics caused Germans and other Europeans to remain silent when Jewish friends and neighbors were sent to probable death. They may have feared that they, too, could face imprisonment or murder if they spoke out. Most Germans were aware of the killings but became desensitized to the horrors around them. Many thought that if the government supported these actions, they must be right. Anti-Semitic views led some to truly believe that Jews were responsible for all of Germany’s problems. Many benefited from the economic changes, such as the confiscation of Jewish property and closing of Jewish businesses. Some earned their living deporting, detaining, or killing Jews. Still others refused to believe that such cruel events were truly taking place.

desensitize to make insensitive or emotionless A12

National Archives and Records Administration (NWDNS-111-SC-204480)