Roots: antisemitism, racism and the Nazi state
Antisemitism means hostility or hatred towards Jews. In Europe it had existed for centuries as religious prejudice, false rumours and limits on where Jews could live or work.
In the 1800s a new racial antisemitism appeared: the false claim that Jews were a separate 'race' that could not change. Pseudo-science also ranked peoples as 'higher' and 'lower'.
After the First World War and the 1929 depression, the Weimar Republic in Germany weakened. Hitler became chancellor in January 1933 and quickly built a one-party dictatorship with secret police (Gestapo), the SS, censorship and propaganda. Nazi ideology said that a pure 'Aryan' people needed 'living space' and must be 'cleansed' of Jews and others labelled as unworthy. Propaganda blamed Jews for defeat, poverty and communism.
Stages of the Holocaust, 1933–1945
- Exclusion (1933–1938): boycott of Jewish shops (April 1933); Jews removed from government jobs, schools and professions; the Nuremberg Laws (1935) took away citizenship and banned marriage with non-Jews; the November pogrom of 9–10 November 1938 ('Kristallnacht') burned synagogues and sent about 30,000 Jewish men to concentration camps. Many Jews tried to emigrate, but most countries let in few refugees.
- Ghettos (1939–1941): after Germany invaded Poland in 1939, Jews were forced into closed ghettos such as Warsaw and Łódź, with hunger, disease and forced labour.
- Mass shootings (from June 1941): when Germany attacked the USSR, mobile killing units (Einsatzgruppen) and helpers shot Jews village by village; at Babi Yar near Kyiv about 33,000 people were killed in two days.
- Death camps (1942–1944): the Wannsee Conference (20 January 1942) coordinated the 'Final Solution'. Jews from across Europe were deported by train to killing centres in occupied Poland: Chełmno, Bełżec, Sobibór, Treblinka, Majdanek and Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest, where about 1.1 million people were murdered.
- End (1944–1945): as the Allies advanced, prisoners were forced on death marches. Soviet troops reached Auschwitz on 27 January 1945; other camps were liberated in April–May 1945.
Germany's allies and collaborators took part too. For example, the Romanian regime of Ion Antonescu killed hundreds of thousands of Jews and many Roma, especially after deporting them to Transnistria.
Victims, Jewish life and resistance, rescuers and bystanders
Victims
- About 6 million Jews, around two-thirds of Europe's Jews, including about 1.5 million children.
- Roma and Sinti: an estimated 200,000–500,000 murdered (remembered as the Porajmos or Samudaripen).
- Disabled people: about 250,000–300,000 killed, starting with the 'T4' programme in 1939.
- Other nations and groups: about 3 million Soviet prisoners of war; millions of Polish and other Slav civilians, whose elites were targeted; political opponents, gay men and Jehovah's Witnesses.
Jewish life and resistance
In ghettos people kept secret schools, prayers, music and archives (the Ringelblum Archive in Warsaw). Armed revolts broke out: the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (April–May 1943), and revolts in Treblinka and Sobibór (1943). Partisans fought in forests.
Rescuers, bystanders, perpetrators
Most people were bystanders who did nothing; some profited or betrayed Jews. A few became rescuers. Israel's Yad Vashem honours more than 28,000 'Righteous Among the Nations', for example Irena Sendler, who helped smuggle about 2,500 children out of the Warsaw ghetto; Jan and Antonina Żabiński, who hid Jews in the Warsaw zoo; and the Ulma family, killed in 1944 with the eight Jews they hid. In occupied Poland helping Jews was punished by death. The Polish government-in-exile set up the Żegota council to aid Jews (1942), and its courier Jan Karski reported the killings to Allied leaders. Inside Germany, small groups such as the White Rose students resisted and were executed.
History and memory: trials, research and remembrance
- Trials: the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal (1945–46) tried top Nazi leaders for crimes against humanity; the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem (1961) let survivors speak to the world; trials continued in Germany, Poland and elsewhere.
- Law: Raphael Lemkin created the word genocide (1944). The UN Genocide Convention (1948) made genocide a crime under international law.
- Research: historians use Nazi documents, photographs, survivor diaries and video testimonies (for example the diary of Anne Frank) to show how ordinary institutions took part.
- Memory: memorials and museums (Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, Yad Vashem, Berlin's Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe). The UN marks 27 January as International Holocaust Remembrance Day; 2 August remembers Roma victims.
- Denial and distortion: some people deny or downplay the Holocaust. It is one of the best-documented events in history, and denial spreads hatred.
Try it
Make a 'pyramid of hate' on paper: at the bottom write examples of jokes and stereotypes, then discrimination, then violence, then genocide at the top. Next to each level write one thing a student can do to stop it there.
Key formulas and definitions
- Key dates: 1933 Nazis take power → 1935 Nuremberg Laws → 1938 November pogrom → 1939 ghettos → 1941 mass shootings → 1942 Wannsee and death camps → 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising → 27 Jan 1945 Auschwitz liberated
- Genocide = acts meant to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group (UN, 1948)
- Roles: perpetrators, collaborators, bystanders, victims, resisters, rescuers
- Pyramid of hate: prejudice → discrimination → violence → genocide
Worked examples
1. Why do historians call the Holocaust a process, not a single event?
It developed in stages over 12 years: propaganda and boycotts, then laws, then pogroms, then ghettos, then mass shootings and finally death camps. Each step was tested; when little protest came, the next step followed.
2. Explain two ways Jews resisted, apart from armed fighting.
1) Keeping culture alive: secret schools, prayer, music, and archives like the Ringelblum Archive that recorded the truth. 2) Escaping, hiding or forging papers to save lives.
3. What did the Nuremberg trials and the 1948 Genocide Convention change?
They established that leaders can be personally punished for crimes against humanity, and that genocide is a crime under international law that states must prevent and punish.
Common mistakes
- Thinking the Holocaust began with death camps. It began in 1933 with words, boycotts and laws.
- Thinking only Germans took part. Collaborators and helpers in many occupied and allied countries also did.
- Thinking Jews did not resist. There was spiritual, cultural and armed resistance, including the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
- Mixing up concentration camps and death (extermination) camps. Death camps such as Treblinka were built mainly for mass murder.