Holocaust

Research Paper The Final Solution

Sam Hendrickson

College English Mr. Neuburger March 9, 2009

Hendrickson

2

The code name by the Germans and Adolf Hitler for the extermination of the Jews before and during World War II became known as the Final Solution. The Final Solution also included the Roma Gypsies, homosexuals, people with physical or mental disabilities, prisoners of war, artists, Russians, Poles, Catholic Priests, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and anyone against the political power of Adolf Hitler. In the book Hitler and the Final Solution Hitler says, “Once I am in power my first and foremost task will be the annihilation of the Jews.” (qtd. in When did Hitler Decide on the Solution, page 1) In order to understand the Final Solution one needs to know about the Anti-Semitism. The process at which the extermination happened and how it happened. Also the number of innocent people murdered to fulfill one mans hatred. According to the Third Reich: Overview, the Nazi rise to power brought an end to the Weimar Republic, a Parliamentary democracy established in Germany after World War I. Following the appointment of Adolf Hitler as chancellor on January 30, 1933, the Nazi state quickly became a regime in which Germans enjoyed no guaranteed basic rights. After a suspicious fire in the German Parliament on February 28, 1933, the government issued a decree which suspended constitutional civil rights and created a state of emergency in which official decrees could be enacted without parliamentary confirmation. Upon the death of German president Paul von Hindenburg in August 1934, Hitler assumed the powers of the Presidency. The army swore and oath of personal loyalty to him. Hitler’s dictatorship rested on his position as Reich President (head of state), Reich Chancellor (head of government), and Fuehrer (head of the Nazi party). According to the “Fuehrer principle,” Hitler stood outside the legal state and determined matters of policy himself. There were no checks and balances. He alone decided policy. (Page 1)

Hendrickson

3

In an article from United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the origin of the Final Solution, the plan to exterminate the Jewish people, remains uncertain. What is clear is the genocide of the Jews was the culmination of a decade of Nazi Policy, under the rule of Adolf Hitler. The Final Solution was implemented in stages. After the Nazi party rises to power in June 1933, state-enforced racism resulted in anti-Jewish legislation, boycotts, Aryanization, and finally the Night of Broken Glass all of which aimed to remove the Jews form German Society. After the beginning of World War II, anti-Jewish policy evolved into a comprehensive plan to concentrate and eventually annihilate European Jewry. (Page 2) In the article from the IB Holocaust Project The Final Solution, Adolf Hitler’s plan to exterminate the Jews of Europe. His anti-Semitic ideas were so strong that he released his hatred by murdering them. The first step taken for this was the Wannsee Conference (1942), in which everything was planned. Hitler asked Rhinhard Heydrich, an aide to Heinrich Himmler, to organize this conference. Furthermore, Concentration camps were of top priority to discuss during the conference. First of all, the Nazis would trap the Jews in ghettos; then they were taken to death camps. The main and most important concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz, located in southern Poland. About one to three million people were killed here, which is about one-third of all the Jews killed in the Holocaust. The other important camp was Treblinka, located 80km from Warsaw, Poland. First it was established as a slave labor camp in 1941, then in 1942, it became a death camp. From July to September of 1942, 300,000 Jews had been taken from Warsaw to Treblinka. By May of 1943 the entire population of the Warsaw ghetto had been transported to Treblinka and other camps. Two years later by, July 11, 1945, 800,000 Jews had been murdered in Treblinka, including men, women and children. Jews got transported to camps

Hendrickson

4

by trains. An incoming train generally consisted of fifty to sixty cars (6000-7000 people). Twenty cars were brought in at a time it initially took three to four hours to liquidate all the people in the cars. As they gained experience, it took them one to two hours. There were many different ways in which the Nazis massacred the people. The Nazis used crematoriums, electrocution, and phenol injections, flame-throwers, hand grenades, and gas chambers— hydrocyanic gas, carbon monoxide gas. The most common ones were the crematoriums and the gas chambers. The IB Holocaust Project further explains how the process of killing became routine, the prisoners had to leave all their personal belongings and were made to form two lines, men and women separately. These lines advanced towards an SS officer who would conduct the selection, directing people either to one side, for the gas chambers, or the other, which meant designation for forced labor. Those who were sent to the gas chambers were killed the same day and their corpses were burned in the crematoriums or, if there were too many for the crematorium to process they were burned in an open surface. Victims not sent to the gas chambers were sent to the quarantine. Inside the quarantine Jewish prisoners shaved their heads and removed personal property. The average life expectancy of the prisoners who went to labor camps instead of the gas chambers lasted only a few months. They had dreaded roll calls that would last for hours. If anyone fainted or fell down, they had to rise quickly or they would be shot. (Page 1-2) According to statistics from IB Holocaust Project: The Final Solution, the Jewish population in September, 1939, in the following countries, Poland, Occupied USSR, Romania, Hungary, Latvia, Belgium, Greece, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, France, Germany, Lithuania, Holland, Austria, Italy, Bulgaria, and other countries, numbered at 8,301,000. The number of Jews murdered was 5,978,000, 72% of the population. (Page 3)

Hendrickson

5

From The Holocaust-A Guide for Teachers by Gary M. Grobman, questions have been raised whether or not the Jews were like sheep led to the slaughter. For most of the Jews who died in the gas chamber the issue of resistance was not an issue at all. The Jews were unaware that the Final Solution was being implemented. Stripped of weapons, facing starvation and disease, the prospect of deportation combined with offers of food was incentive for Jews to board the trains which took them to the ir deaths. Most believed what they were told that they were going to be relocated to work. For virtually all, the reality that they faced immediate death did not occur until the doors of the gas chambers were sealed, the lights turned off, and the smell of gas was perceived. By then, it was too late. Those who did resist, either by running from the trains or attacking their captors faced certain death. For others deciding not to fight or commit suicide, but rather, to make an attempt at survival amidst the hopelessness and despair of this situation was their resistance. Those that did resist found that the Nazi’s practiced the doctrine of collective responsibility. Thus, if a Nazi solider was murdered by a Jew, not only was that Jew executed, but also his family, and perhaps a hundred other Jews. As a result, few Jews even considered carrying out this active resistance for fear of reprisals. (Page 1) My grandfather’s, grandparents moved from Germany to Russia and then to the United States. The first wave of his family went to Russia during the period of Catherine the Great. His grandparents decided to move from the wheat fields in Russia to the United States during the First World War because the Russians began to crack down on the people. A cousin of his during that time watched while the Russians burned his wife and daughter alive. So the decision was made to immigrate to the United States. John’s Aunt went to Russia a few years ago to try to find their family. But when Hitler went through Russia everything was bombed or plowed under. Many records were lost during that time.

Hendrickson

6

John Kraft set up many ports for King Van Lines in Germany, during that time he became good friends with two German men that had been in Hitler’s army. He asked the question “How could they allow this to happen to the Jewish people?” The former solders told him they had no idea what was happening. The camps were very isolated with only one road leading to them. John has been to the concentration camp Buchenwald, and he described it as being silent, stark, no birdsong, or sounds whatsoever. He says the silence was of death, and he has never felt of or heard that silence before or after that day. He calls it the sound of silence, it was deafening. There were no smells that he could recall, but he remembers the long hallway of concrete leading to the crematoria’s. They are still there. He believes that the camps are an embarrassment to the German people, they are trying to put them into the past, and while keeping things intact as a reminder so they wouldn’t forget. There are still crates left where they sorted the clothes and valuables of the Jews. Once you are there you never forget. It was an uncomfortable tour. He asked the tour guide why no one raised their voices when they saw the atrocities. The German guide told him that the Germans got rid of any dissidents quickly. The Germans have planted pine trees where the mass graves were located. He describes the breeze that went through the trees gave him goosebumps. The guide that day told John that the ground was all blood soaked. John stayed at a chateau that Hitler had stayed to have conferences with his Generals. He said it was very beautiful on a lake a very fabulous place. Hitler had many places that he went to so that he could stay very well hidden. So no one could find him during the War. John talked to a man that had been there at that time. He was probably eighty years old with a long pipe and gray beard and hair. He had seen Hitler during that time and was still working at the same chateau. John didn’t make judgments about the war because he had family and friends that had fought on both sides of the war. He himself had been in the Korean War and was shot down

Hendrickson twice over Korea. So it became a friendship with fellow solders that, led him to the concentration camps and to see things that other tourists never see, because of his attitude of acceptance. We must be viligant so another Hitler never has the power to take over our basic rights and privileges. We have to express ourselves and take a side, and are not led like sheep to the slaughter.

Works Cited

7

Hendrickson

8

"Mosaic of victims overview." United States Holocaust memorial museum. 20 May 2008. 2 Sep. 2008 <www.ushmm.org/wlc/article>;. "The Final Solution." The IB Holocaust Project. 4 Sep. 2008 ;. Dougherty, Jon E. "Less than one million jews died in the holocaust." Rense. 4 Sep. 2008 ;. Grobman, Gary M. "Armed Resistance in Death Camps." 27 Aug. 2008 <www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/holocaust/grobres.html>;. Kraft, John. Personal Interview. 6 Sep. 2008.

20

McFee, Gord. "When did Hitler decide on the solution?." When did Hitler decide on the solution? 2 Jan. 1999. 4 Sep. 2008 ;. McFee, Gordon. "Are Jews Central To The Holocaust?." Are Jews Central To The Holocaust? 27 Aug. 2008 <www.holocaust-history.org/jews-central>;. Third Reich Overview. 4 Sep. 2008 <www.holocaust-overview.org>;.