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1933- The Nazis taking power!
After the Nazis took power, they concentrated to silence off their political opponents- communists, socialists, liberals, and anyone else who spoke out against other groups the government. As soon as Germany was done eliminating all their political opponents, the Nazis once again turned against other groups in Germany. Besides Jews, they tried to eliminate "Gypsies" (interior race), "Freemasons" (Supporters of Jewish conspiracy), Jehovah's Witnesses. -
April 7th, 1933
Shortly before this event, Hitler took power in Germany. He ordered all "non-Aryans" to be removed from government jobs. This order was one of the first moves in the campaign for racial purity that led to the Holocaust. -
1935- discrimination of the Jews
As the Nazis tightened their hold on Germany, their persecution of the Jews increased. In 1935, the Nazis passed the "Nuremberg" laws, that stripped Jews of their German citizenship, jobs, and property. In addition, the Nazis made Jews wear a bright yellow Star of David attached to their clothes, for an easier identification. Worse thing were coming. -
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Kristallnacht
November 9-10, 1938, became know as Kristallnacht, or "Night of Broken Glass." Jewish homes, businesses, and synagogues across Germany were stormed by Nazi troopers. An American witness wrote, "Jewish shop windows by the hundreds were systematically and wantonly smashed.... The main streets of the city were a positive litter of shattered plate glass." About 100 Jews were killed, and hundreds were injured. 30,000 Jews were arrested and hundreds of synagogues were burned. -
St. Louis
The German ocean liner passed Miami in 1939. Although 740 of liner's 943 passenger had U.S. immigration papers, the Coast Guard followed the ship to prevent anyone from disembarking in America. The ship was forced to return to Europe. More than half of the passengers were later killed in the Holocaust. -
The Final Solution
Hitler's Final Solution rested on the belief that Aryans were a superior people and that strength and purity of this "master race" must be preserved. To accomplish this, the Nazis condemned to slavery and death not only to the Jews but other groups that were "enemies of the state". Such groups were Gypsies, Freemasons, Jehovah's Witnesses and also some political opponents. These groups were sent to concentration camps (prison camps, where inmates were enslaved and murdered). -
Death Camps
Nazi concentration camps were originally set up to imprison political opponents and protesters.The prisoners were crammed into crude wooden barracks that held up to a thousand people each. They shared their crowded quarters, as well as their meager meals, with hordes of rats and fleas. Inmates in the camps worked from dawn to dust, seven days a week. Those too weak to work were killed. First Camp build was Chelmno, followed by Auschwitz. Each had huge gas chambers, able to kill 12,000 a day. -
The Final Stage
The Final Solution reached its final stage in early 1942. At a meeting held in Wannsee, a lakeside suburb near Berlin, Hitler's top officials agreed to begin a new phase of the mass murder of Jews. Besides mass slaughter and starvation, the Nazis created a new method of killing: murder by poison gas. Ususally, when the Jews were on their way to the gas chamber, they were told to put off their clothes, gave them some soap, and made it sound as if they were about to shower.
