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Silence
The Nazis concentrated on silencing their political opponents- communists, socialists, liberals, and anyone else who spoke out against the government. -
Persecution Begins
On April 7, 1933, shortly after Hitler took power in Germany, he ordered all "non-Aryans" to be removed from government jobs. -
Jews targeted
The Nuremberg Laws stripped Jews of their German citizenship, jobs, and property. Jews were forced to wear a bright yellow Star of David attached to their clothing. -
KRISTALLNACHT
Was also known as the "Night of Broken Glass." Nazi storm troopers attacked Jewish homes, businesses, and synogogues across Germany and Austria. Around 100 Jews were killed, and hundreds more were injured. Some 30,000 Jews were arrested and hundreds of synogogues were burned. Afterward, the Nazis blamed the Jews for the destruction. -
The Plight of the St.Louis
Official indifference to the plight of Germany's Jews was in evidence in the case of the ship St.Louis. This German ocean liner passed Miami in 1939. Although 740 of the liner's 943 passengers 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. -
Hitler's Final Solution
The Nazis targeted Jews,Gypsies, Freemasons, Jehovah Witnesses, and other Germans who they found unfit to be the "master race".Such victims included homosexuals, mentally deficient and ill. Jews in communities not reached by killing squads were dragged from their homes and herded into vehicles to be hauled to concentration camps.Nazi concentration camps were set up to imprison political opponents and protesters.Life in camps was a cycle of hunger, humiliation and work that usually caused death. -
Death Camps
The Germans built six death camps in Poland.The first was Chelmno. Each camp had several huge gas chambers in which as many as 12,000 people could be killed a day. When prisoners arrived at Auschwitz, the largest of the death camps, they had to walk by several SS doctors.With just a wave of their hand,the doctors separated those strong enough to work from those who could die that day. Those destined to die were then led into a room outside the gas chamber and told to shower but then were gassed. -
The Final Stage (methods of killing)
At a meeting held in Wannsee, near Berlin, Hitler's top officials agreed to begin a new phase of the mass murder of Jews. To mass slaughter and starvation they would add a third method of killing - murder by poison gas. This is what they used in most concentration camps.
