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Hitler's "Final Solution"
After taking power, the Nazis turned their attention on silencing their political opponents. After they accomplished this, they turned against other groups in Germany. In addition to Jews, some included: Gypsies, Freemasons, and Jehovah's Witnesses. Along with those, they also targeted Germans who found unfit to be part of the "master race", such as victims of homosexuals, the mentally deficient, disabled, and the incurably ill. He did all of this with his special death squads. -
The Persecution Begins
A very short time after Hitler took power in Germany, he ordered all "non-Aryans" to be removed from government jobs. This was only the first order that Hitler will make in his campaign for racial purity that soon led to the Holocaust. -
Jews Targeted
As the Nazis tightened their hold on Germany, their persecution of the Jews increased. The Nuremberg Laws stripped Jews of their German citizenship, jobs, and property. To make it easier to identify the Jews, they had to wear a bright yellow Star of David attached to their clothing. -
Kristallnacht
This night became known as Kristallnacht, or better known as "Night of Broken Glass." Nazi storm troopers attacked Jewish homes, businesses, and synagogues across Germany and Austria. Some 30,000 Jews were arrested and hundreds of synagogues were burned. Afterwards, the Nazis blamed the Jews for the destruction. -
St. Louis
The "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. -
The Comdemned and Concentration Camps
The groups targeted during this time were the Gypsies, Freemasons, Jehovah's Witnesses and most of all, the Jews. During the "Final Solution" time, they were put into these camp called Concentration Camps, which are labor camps. -
Death Camps
In 1941, the Germans built six death camps in Poland. The first being, Chelmno. These camps had several huge gas chambers in which as many as 12,000 people could be killed a day. -
The Final Stage
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. To mass slaughter and starvation they would add a third method of killing-- murder by poison gas.
