Holocaust: One of the greatest crimes in the history of mankind

The Holocaust was the systematic, state-sanctioned persecution and extermination of approximately six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators. The term “holocaust” stems from an ancient Greek word meaning “fully burnt sacrificial offering” to God.

Introduction

Anti-Semitism had already taken root in Germany’s conservative circles by the end of the nineteenth century. This sentiment is evident in the Tivoli Programme of 1892, a conservative party manifesto, which declared, “We fight against the corrosive and undermining Jewish influence in our country’s public life. We demand a Christian government for a Christian nation and Christian teachers for Christian pupils.”

The Nazi party was founded in Germany on February 24, 1920. Out of the twenty-five articles in its programme, four specifically addressed the “Jewish question”. Article 4 exemplifies the Nazis’ intent: “Only members of the nation can be citizens of the state. Only those with German blood, regardless of their religion, can be members of the nation. Therefore, no Jew can be a member of the nation.”

The 1930s and the Struggle for Dominance in Eastern Europe

By the 1930s, the policy of exterminating Jews within the Third Reich was well underway and intensifying. As historian Timothy Snyder outlined in his book Bloody Lands, Germany had been at war with the USSR for dominance in Eastern Europe since 1933. With Poland at the heart of the dispute, the Jewish population found themselves in the crossfire of this “bloody field” of conflict. Their presence, like that of other nationalities, did not align with the Nazi’s ambitions of territorial expansion and population replacement.

The “de-Germanization” of Jews involved a series of prohibitions, deprivations, and restrictions, including a targeted policy of ghettoization and confinement to specific social spheres. This strategy of stigmatizing Jews in every possible way ultimately led to one solution: their extermination and final expulsion from Europe.

In 1933, the Nazis began implementing their ethno-racial policy within Germany:

– Prohibition on the entry of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe into Germany.

– Expulsion of Jews from Eastern Europe who were residing in Germany.

– Revocation of citizenship for Jews from Eastern Europe.

The “de-Germanization” of Jews involved a series of prohibitions, deprivations, and restrictions, as well as a targeted policy of ghettoization and confinement to specific social spheres.

The policy of relentlessly stigmatizing Jews was destined to lead to a single, inevitable outcome: their extermination and permanent expulsion from Europe.

Nazi Germany.

The night of November 9-10, 1938, marked the official commencement of the Nazi regime’s pogrom against the Jews. This night has been etched in history as the “Night of the Crystals”. The trigger, as is often the case in such large-scale persecutions, was a relatively insignificant event. In the days leading up to this, 17,000 Jews of Polish descent had been deported under deplorable conditions to the neighbouring country.

In response, a Jewish-Polish man assassinated Ernst von Rat, the secretary of the German Embassy in France. The retaliation was swift and brutal:

– 30,000 Jews of German descent were sent to concentration camps, with around 2,000 subsequently released after several months, on the condition that they left the country.

– 200 Jews were murdered that same weekend – either shot or beaten to death.

– All synagogues in the country, approximately 1,600, were destroyed, along with 7,000 Jewish-owned shops.

Moreover, the Jewish community was forced to pay a billion marks as compensation for the murder of the embassy secretary.

Kristallnacht (Night of Crystals).

In the 18 months between the occupation of Poland in September 1939 and the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, the policy of Jewish genocide, under Nazi administration, became increasingly severe and was eventually fully implemented. The German forces were engaged in a “race war”, devoid of any semblance of legitimacy, and all previous restrictions were lifted.

The German forces saw the extermination of Jews as a necessary step towards triumph over the USSR. Although the initial plan involved transporting thousands of Jews to Soviet territories for extermination, it was ultimately decided that the “Final Solution”, their total extermination, would occur on Polish soil, primarily in concentration camps, most notably Treblinka and Auschwitz.

The “Final Solution”

Between 1933 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its allies established over 42,000 camps and other detention sites, such as ghettos. By late 1941, Hitler had reached the chilling conclusion that the extermination of millions of Jews was the necessary course of action, and the systematic implementation of this plan began.

To expedite the “Final Solution,” the Nazis established extermination centers in Poland, the country with the largest Jewish population. These centers were designed to conduct mass killings with ruthless efficiency. Helmno, the first of these centers, opened its doors in December 1941. Jews and Gypsies were executed in gas-chamber trucks. In 1942, the Nazis inaugurated the Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka extermination centers, further escalating the systematic extermination of Jews in the Generalgouvernement region (the territories within occupied Poland).

To increase the efficiency of the extermination process and minimize the direct, personal involvement of the soldiers, the Nazis constructed gas chambers. These were specially designed rooms filled with lethal gases that would kill the people inside. In the Auschwitz camp complex, the Birkenau extermination center housed four gas chambers. During the deportations to the camp, up to 6,000 Jews were gassed daily.

Jews in Nazi-occupied countries were often initially transported to relocation camps, such as Westerbock in the Netherlands or Drancy in France, before being sent to extermination camps in occupied Poland. These transit camps were usually the last stop before transfer to an extermination center.

Millions of people were imprisoned and subjected to abuse in all types of Nazi camps. Under SS supervision, the Germans and their accomplices murdered more than three million Jews in the extermination centers alone. Only a tiny fraction of the prisoners in the Nazi camps survived. This figure does not account for local exterminations, particularly in Eastern Europe, or horrific mass murders such as the one at Babi Yar.

Babi Yar

Babi Yar is a natural ravine with running water near Kiev. Over the course of just one weekend, 29-30 September 1941, an estimated 33,771 Jews living in Kiev were murdered. The executions in the area continued unabated throughout the two-year German occupation (September 1941-1943). It is estimated that over 100,000 people were murdered in total: Jews, Slavs, Roma, the mentally ill, and Soviet prisoners. Of the 160,000 Jews remaining in Kiev, nearly all of the 60,000 who did not leave before the Germans arrived were exterminated.

The methodology was chillingly consistent: the victims would be gathered and forced to undress in a place where they could not see the executions. They were then divided into small groups, moved forward, and executed with machine guns or a single bullet to the back of the head, causing bodies to pile atop one another. Bodies would often end up in small ravines or open graves, with streams running red with blood. Babi Yar is widely recognized as one of the most significant civilian execution sites of the Second World War and is a focal point in the ongoing dispute over sovereignty in Eastern Europe.

The Hitler Factor

What ultimately precipitated the genocide of six million people? Esteemed British historian Ian Kershaw provides a compelling explanation rooted in Hitler’s “charismatic leadership”, which operated in three key ways, contributing significantly to the Third Reich’s extermination of the Jews. According to Kershaw, Hitler’s leadership worked by:

– Unifying competing factions within the Nazi party

– Energizing and offering a “vision” embodied in his persona, promoting the narrative of “national redemption” to mitigate the damage of the Weimar era

– Most importantly, facilitating, by providing cover for even the most heinous acts, as long as they served to propagate Nazi ideals and defend their regime. This led to the enactment of policies that are unthinkable today, such as sterilization laws and euthanasia. Furthermore, it fostered an atmosphere among Hitler’s inner circle that they could act with impunity in his name. The extermination of 100,000 Jews in Wartagau, marking the onset of the Holocaust, was executed after Arthur Grazer (the orchestrator of the Holocaust in Poland) consulted with Himmler, without notifying the “leader.”

Reasons

Can the Nazis’ genocidal rage against the Jews be reasonably contextualized? Scholars like Evans and Kershaw agree on certain points. Firstly, they point to the catalytic influence of the Protocols of Zion on Hitler. This fabricated text played a significant role in fostering anti-Semitic sentiments over time and convinced Hitler of a global Zionist conspiracy. Evans describes this text as the license for the extermination of the Jews. Moreover, Hitler, a veteran of World War I who had witnessed the fallout of Germany’s defeat, was convinced that the Jews were behind it, a belief that was widely held. His goal was not just to exterminate the Jews, but to expel them from Europe permanently.

Inertia and Complicity

Despite the Nazis’ aggressive policies, there was a notable inaction in the 1930s from both the international community and the Jews themselves, with only a few thousand managing to flee abroad. The prevailing belief was that the persecution would be confined to measures of ghettoization and segregation. Indeed, the Holocaust could not have been perpetrated without the involvement of hundreds of thousands of individuals who organized, planned, implemented, and executed it. Richard Evans characterizes Hitler’s entire trajectory as a campaign to “conquer the heart and mind of a nation.”

A poignant quote from Auschwitz survivor Primo Levi encapsulates this: “Monsters exist, but they are too few to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions.”

Bibliography:

Saul Friedlander, “Nazi Germany and the Jews”, Polis, 2013

Ian Kershaw, “Hitler, the Germans and the ‘Final Solution'”, Patakis, 2009

Timothy Snyder, “Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning”, Vintage, 2016

Timothy Snyder, “Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin”, Papadopoulos, 2017

Richard Evans, “The Third Reich in Power”, Alexandria, 2014

Richard Evans, “The Hitler Conspiracies”, Allen Lane, 2020