1. Overviews of The Nazi Holocaust --this Ultimate Example of Man's Inhumanity to Man

"Though not all victims were Jews, all Jews were victims." --Elie Wiesel

Editor's Introductory Definition of the Holocaust Overview of The Third Reich Summary of the Holocaust Five Basic Facts on the Holocaust The Holocaust FactFile The Nazi Racial State by Peter Longerich History of the Holocaust --An Introduction A Historical Overview of the Holocaust From Knesset (The Israel's Parliament Historical Overview of the Holocaust Official Website of the State of Israel The Holocaust by H.E.A.R.T. Mapping the Holocaust World War II and the Holocaust NOTE: This page contains graphic images of extreme brutality, cruelty, and unspeakable horrors. Hitler's Plans for Eastern Europe An Introduction to the Einsatzgruppen The Einsatzgruppen --The Killing Squads The Einsatzgruppen -- Mobile Killing Units Einsatzgruppen Action The SS Einsatzgruppen Mobile Killing Units --the Einsatzgruppen The Mobile Killing Squads The Nizkor Project Ben S. Austin's Holocaust Page Mr. Heitmann's Holocaust Page The Wannsee Conference and the "Final Solution" Labour as a Method of Extermination ..	.A member of Einsatzgruppe D prepares to shot an Ukrainian Jew.	.The hanging punishment of prisoners at Buchenwald. (The SS officer is Buchenwald's chief warden, Martin Sommer known as the Hangman of Buchenwald. He was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of prisoners.).
	From Yad Vashem -- The Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority: The Holocaust: Definition and Preliminary Discussion Some Factual Statements About the Holocaust Synopsis of Some Factual Statements from New England Holocaust Memorial, Boston, Mass., USA
	. The Einsatzgruppen -- Mobile Killing Units

2. Timeline and Chronology of the Nazi Victimization Process Culminating with the Holocaust

A Timeline of the Nazi Era, 1933-1945 Persecution and Genocide Under the Nazis 1933 - 1945 From Persecution to Genocide by Professor David Cesarani A Timeline of the Holocaust A Chronology of Events that Led to the Holocaust From PBS, USA: A Timeline of Nazi Abuses The Nuremberg Laws (1935) The Holocaust Timeline The Danish Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies Detailed Time Line of the Holocaust: Day by Day, Year by Year Adolf Hitler's Timeline Holocaust in the Context of Both American and World History

 

3. Notable Events Marking the Beginning of the Holocaust:

Through an orchestrated policy of both social and economic discrimination, Jews were increasingly dehumanized and isolated from the mainstream German community. As book-burning, Aryanization of Jewish-owned businesses and public humiliation became more common, this victimization of their Jewish neighbors was viewed by the general population with complacency or even approval.  On November 9, 1938, Kristallnacht (the Night of Broken Glass) began. A supposedly spontaneous demonstration by German citizens, it was in fact carefully planned Pogrom (Action against Jews) and resulted in the destruction of more than one thousand synagogues and 7,000 Jewish owned businesses, and the arrest of 30,000 Jews. It is generally considered to mark the beginning of the Holocaust. --Florida Holocaust Museum

Picture A +Enlarge this Image Picture B +Enlarge this Image	ANTI-JEWISH LEGISLATION IN PREWAR GERMANY   A. Enforcing the German Boycott During the April 1933 boycott, two SA members guard the entrance to a Jewish-owned leather-goods shop. The sign reads "No respectable German shops here!"    B. All Jewish Stores are being marked in the Nazi Germany. Additional Source: U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum   <jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/boycott1933.html>
	C. Anti-Jewish boycott signs   SA storm troopers pasting anti-Jewish boycott signs on a kiosk, Berlin, April 1933.   Photo Credit: BPK   <www.holocaust-education.de/?site=pr_import_A007&lp=en>
Picture C
	D. SA pickets distribute boycott pamphlets to German pedestrians. The sign held by one of them reads: "Attention Germans. These Jews (Five and Dime Stores) are the parasites and gravediggers of German craftsmen. They pay starvation wages to German workers. The chief owner is the Jew, Nathan Schmidt." Photo Courtesy: U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
Picture D
	Anti- Jewish Boycott, Dresden, Germany (1933) E. SA members force a Jewish merchant to wear a boycott sign around his neck and have his picture taken in front of his store,     The sign reads: "Germans Defend Yourselves - Do not buy from Jews!" Photo Credit: Peter Richard; Sächsische Landesbibliothek,    Deutsche Fotothek, Archive no. 256039
Picture E
	F. A German mass rally in 1935 featuring Anti-Semitic speeches and slogans stating: "The Jews are our Misfortune" and "Women and Girls, the Jews are Your Ruin." <historyplace.com/pointsofview/goldhagen.htm>
Picture F
	G. Jewish lawyer carrying self-Insulting sign "I will not complain to the police again."    NOTE: A new German law invoked a clause to all Jewish businesses stating that any contract involving a Jew would be terminated if the man became incapacitated due to illness. The German court then ruled that his racial characteristics of being a Jew were considered the same as illness and therefore his contract was no longer valid. From Yad Vashem Photo Archives.
Picture G
	H. Humiliation of Jewish Children in the Schools 1935: Jewish students are made fun of by their class. The writing on the blackboard says, "The Jew is our greatest enemy! Beware of the Jew!".   Source: The Pictorial History of the Holocaust, Edited by Yitzhak Arad, Macmillan Publishing Company, NY, 1990, p.37.    <members.aol.com/dhs11/remember.html>
Picture H
I. Writing on the Wall. Vienna, 1938. A young boy is forced to paint "Jew" on the wall of this father's store. Photo Credit: AKG.
	Picture I
	J. Humiliation of Jews, Vienna (March 1938) After the incorporation of Austria, offenses against Jews began there. Jews are forced to scrub the sidewalks,   Courtesy: Documentation Archives   of the Austrian Resistance Foundation, Vienna.
Picture J
	K. In Vienna, Austria of 1938: Shortly after the German annexation of Austria, Nazi Storm Troopers stand guard outside a Jewish-owned business. Graffiti painted on the window states: "You Jewish pig may your hands rot off!" Vienna, Austria, March 1938. Courtesy: USHMM
Picture K
Public Campaigns of Humiliating Jews: .
Jews Forced To Carry Anti-Jewish Signs In Nazi Germany, Jews are being paraded, ridiculed, and spitted on as other German bystanders watch the spectacle. (Nov. 1938). Dr. Andreas Angerstorfer: Jüdische Gemeinde Regensburg -- Die Geschichte bis zum <jg-regensburg.de/Geschichte2.html> Jewish businessmen are forced to march on Bruehl Strasse, one of the main commercial streets in central Leipzig, carrying signs that read, "Don't buy from Jews. Shop in German businesses!" 1935. Photo credit: William Blye Collection, courtesy of USHMM Photo Archives <fcit.usf.edu/holocaust/gallery/20210.htm> From Yad Vashem Archives -- The Holocaust Remembrance Authority Public Humiliation of Polish Jews After Germany invades Poland in September, 1939, German soldiers enjoyed the public humiliation of Polish Jews. Humiliation was a part of the psychological warfare that Nazis used against Jews. . One Jew is forced to cut the beard of another under German supervision as the local population of Tomaszow Mazowiecki, Poland, watches with delight. Photo Credit: Main Commission for the Investigation of Nazi War Crimes, courtesy of USHMM Photo Archives. <fcit.usf.edu/HOLOCAUST/gallery/50978.htm> . A German soldier is having fun cutting the beard of an elderly Jew in Poland. Photo credit: The Pictorial History of the Holocaust, Yitzak Arad, Ed., Macmillan Publ. Co., N.Y., 1990, p. 78, <fcit.usf.edu/HOLOCAUST/gallery/Sh09.htm> . In Poland, a soldier tutors two Jewish men on how to give the Nazi salute correctly. Photo credit: Meczenstwo Walka, Zaglada Zydów Polsce 1939-1945. Poland. No. 37. <fcit.usf.edu/HOLOCAUST/gallery/p037.htm> . Jews of Minsk Mazowiecki, Poland, forced to ride on each other to "compete" in running in the Market Square. Source: Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, Editor: Israel Gutman, Yad Vashem, 1990, Volume III, Pp. 711-713 <zchor.org/minsk.htm> . .

.  +Enlarge this Image	May 10,1933: Nazis burning "un-German" books Some of the authors in the flames: Bertolt Brecht, Lion Feuchtwanger, and Alfred Kerr were consigned to flames in a book burning ceremony in Berlin. The promotion of "Aryan" culture and the suppression of other forms of artistic production was yet another Nazi effort to "purify" Germany. Other writers included on the blacklists were American authors Ernest Hemingway and Helen Keller as well as Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Jack London, Thomas Mann, Upton Sinclair, H.G. Wells, and many others.
Kristallnacht ("The Night of Broken Glass") Night of Nov. 9 -10, 1938.	Kindertransport (Children's Transport), 1938-1940 The very first Kindertransport: Dec.1, 1938 -- ©KTA
	Oldenburg Synagogue Destroyed (November 10, 1938) The synagogue in Oldenburg the morning after the Kristallnacht pogrom. Photo Credit: Gustav Meyer; Copyright: Private Collection of Magdalene Meyer, Oldenburg <www.holocaust-education.de/?site=pr_import_A007&lp=en>
	The Great Synagogue of Frankfurt, Germany Set on on Fire (November 11, 1938) Photo Credit: <bobi.net/helabo/projekte/antisem.htm>
Kristallnacht: A National Pogrom, Nov. 9-10, 1938 .	Arrest of Jews After Kristallnacht After the Kristallnacht (Nov. 10, 1938), the SS dragged Jews through the streets as local Germans ridiculed them with anti-Semitic slogans. Jews were first brought to the synagogue and then transported to Dachau concentration camp. Source: Simon Wiesenthal Multimedia Learning Center   <motlc.wiesenthal.com/gallery/pg01/pg2/pg01283.html>
.Nazi vandalization of Jewish owned businesses during the pogrom of Nov. 9-10, 1938 .

• Voyage of the S.S. St. Louis
  
  • The Tragedy of the S.S. St. Louis
    
  • The S.S. St. Louis after 60 Years
    
• Decisions Taken at the Evian Conference on Jewish Refugees (July 14, 1938)
  
  • The Evian Conference: Hitler's Green Light for Genocide
    
  • The Sinking of the Struma
    

 

  
 4. The Jewish Holocaust (the Shoah) 1939-1945

"Once I really am in power, my first and foremost task will be the annihilation of the Jews..." --Adolf Hitler --1922

.

[Photo Credit: www.um.oswiecim.pl/anniversary]  + ENLARGE PICTURE

The Final Solution Early attempts to remove Jews from Nazi occupied Europe included a plan for resettlement into a "reservation" in the Lublin-Nisko region of southeast Poland. The first transport to this area took place on October 26, 1939, when 600 Jews from Czechoslovakia were relocated. The final deportation took place in early February of 1940. An estimated 78,000 Jews were deported to this "reservation" where there was little or no accommodation for their needs. As a result, thousands died in the winter of 1939-1940. The program was discontinued due to the lack of rail transport and administrative support. In the summer of 1940, the Nazis began considering a plan to remove all Jews from the continent and relocate them on the French controlled island of Madagascar. The plan was contingent on the Nazi's ability to have access to a large fleet of ships, which it intended to acquire through victory over Great Britain. It was abandoned when it seemed clear that a timely defeat of Britain was unlikely. As the Nazis used Einsatzgruppen to carry out various Aktionen [special operations] against Jews and other