The New Order
By 1942 Germany controlled most of Europe
2 kinds of control:
Direct control = annexation
These areas, like Poland, became part of Germany
Occupation = German military (SS) + local supporters keep control over the area
Remember, Hitler's goal was to create a perfect Aryan state
He viewed many different types of people as inferior and unfit to be part of this empire.
This included the Slavic people, who lived in Poland, Croatia, Czechoslovakia, and the rest of Eastern Europe.
As Hitler took over, he moved these people from their land into concentration camps & farms to be used as slave labor
As Hitler took over, he moved these people from their land into concentration camps & farms to be used as slave labor
He moved Germans in to populate these areas
Other Groups Hitler didn’t feel were good enough to be in his Empire
Jews
Gypsies (Romany)
Slavic People
Jehovah’s Witnesses
Homosexuals
The Mentally Handicapped
Socialists
These are the groups that ended up in Nazi camps
Hitler, with many other Germans, blamed the democrats, the radicals, the communists, the liberals, and the Jews for Germany losing the war in 1918.
Those who signed the surrender papers and the Versailles Treaty and set up the Weimar Republic were traitors.
Hitler accused the Jews of trying to destroy his Aryan Nation
To remove the “threat” that the Jews posed, Hitler and his top officials came up with a plan that would later be known as the “Final Solution”
What was the final solution?
Genocide
It was not an overnight decision, but one that evolved slowly over time
Step 1: the Ghettos
In Poland, all Jewish people were taken from their homes and placed in specific areas of the city known as ghettos.
separated from the rest of the city by fences of barbed wire or walls
They were not allowed to leave exept to work (under supervision) and got very little supplies
Life in the Ghetto
People lived in cramped quarters
Many Jews died from starvation
diseases such as typhoid and tuberculosis lead to many deaths
Any Jew attempting to leave the ghetto was shot.
They began to give away their clothing in exchange for food.
To survive, the Jews resorted to smuggling food into the ghetto through the black market.
Step 2: Einsatzgruppen
The SS created the Einsatzgruppen, a special military unit that was responsible for following the army through Eastern Europe & Russia
They rounded up the Jews in each town together and shot them.
Step 3: The Camps
All over Eastern Europe and within Germany, the Nazis set up concentration camps, labor camps where the prisoners were used as workers in factories and performed other jobs.
Who was in these camps?
Political prisoners
P.O.W.s
Communists & socialists
All other targeted groups
In Poland, 6 special camps were set up.
These were death camps, specially made to kill people.
When the ghettos were emptied towards the end of the war, this is where the are sent
The camps:
Chelmno
Auschwitz II
Treblinka II
Majdanek
Belzec
Sobibor
The Death Toll
6 million Jews
40% of the Gypsy population in Europe (400,000)
4 million Eastern Europeans
3-4 million Russian prisoners of war (P.O.W.s)
Total: around 13 million people died in the concentration & death camps
Resistance
There were people that took a stand and fought back against the Nazis
In the ghettos, the people held uprisings
Most famous: Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
The largest single revolt during the war
The people in the Warsaw ghetto held off soldiers for almost a month in 1943 when the Nazis were trying to ship them all off to Treblinka
Resistance fighters who fought back against the Nazis throughout Russia, Poland, Italy, France, and Eastern Europe
They used guerrilla tactics
Lived in the woods
Attacked rail cars, shipping convoys, destroyed railroad tracks
Mussolini was killed by partisans
Some people hid Jews from the Nazis
Others helped them escape to other countries
New Order in Japan
Japan took over Southeast Asia and created the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere
They put the military in charge in every country they took over
The native people were treated very badly
Forced to work for the Japanese
Their food was given to the soldiers so they starved
Their traditions were ignored
Many died
Kids in WWII
In England, when the bombing started, a lot of kids were sent to the US
In Germany & England, many kids were sent to the countryside to avoid the bombing of cities
In the camps, children were the first killed
Many kids became soldiers, as young as 13
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