“First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist so I did not speak out.
Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists, but I was neither, so I did not speak out.
Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew so I did not speak out.
And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me.”
Pastor Martin Niemoller
HOLOCAUSTTHE THREE STAGES OF NAZI PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS
Background
Anti-Semitism (words or actions that are anti-Jewish) goes back thousands of years to the times of the IsraelitesDuring the Middle Ages, Jews in Europe were restricted to certain sections of cities called ghettos
The Nazi government used anti-Semitic propaganda
Stage I: Anti-Semitic measures and laws
Propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels (above right) orchestrated these measures which also included book burnings by Jewish writers, boycotting Jewish stores, banning Jews from many professions
1936 Olympics - Berlin - Jesse Owens
Boycotts
The Nuremberg Laws were passed in 1936 which denied Jews any rights to German citizenship and forbade mixed marriages between Jews and Germans
Kristalnacht
In 1937, the Nazi storm troopers (SA) destroyed many Jewish shops and synagogues in an event called Kristalnacht (Night of the Broken Glass)
Stage II: Deportations
At the beginning of World War II, the Nazis developed a territorial solution by deporting Jews to Nazi occupied countries in Eastern Europe (mostly in Poland)
Jewish families were forced to live in ghettos such as the Warsaw Ghetto (above right)
The Babi Yar Massacre occurred where 30 000 Jews were killed in two days and buried in a ravine
Stage III: (The Final Solution)
SS officer Adolf Eichmann was in charge of the elimination of all European Jews
Executions (done by the Einzatsgruppen) began in experimental gas vans which used a cyanide gas called Zyklon B
Many concentration camps were converted to death camps such as Auschwitz (right), Treblinka, Belzec and others; most of these were in Poland
European Jews were rounded up told they were being deported by train
The selection process
Their hair was cut and they were told to undress before they showered
The gas chambers (lower right) were disguised as showers
The dead bodies would be transported to the crematoriums where they would beincinerated
Other images of Auschwitz
Jews were not the only victims; others included Poles, Gypsies and HomosexualsSome camps had doctors such as Josef Mengele (right) who did medical experiments, mostly on twins
There were some sympathizers who helped Jewish families such as Oskar Schindler (top) and Raoul Wallenberg (bottom), Wallenberg helped 700 Hungarian Jews emigrate to Sweden
Towards the end of the war in 1945, the Soviet Red Army liberated the death camps and found a small number of survivors such as Simon Wiesenthal (right)
Following the war, dozens of Nazi officials were prosecuted for war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Nuremberg Trials
Images: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
