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THE NAZI EUTHANASIA PROGRAM
In October 1939 Hitler ordered the secret "mercy killing" of patients suffering from specified mental illnesses' or disorders, ranging from schizophrenia to senile dementia. Originally the patients were given lethal injections or starved to death. Then the gas chamber disguised as showers were invented but shut down after protests in 1941 after 200,000 people had been killed. -
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THE FIRST GHETTOS AND FORCED LABOUR
On September 21 1939, Heydrich issued instructions to the SS Einsatzgruppen (Operational Task Forces) in Poland, which functioned as mobile units for the rounding up and mass killing of Jews. Heydrich ordered all Polish Jews to be concentrated in Ghettos in the major cities, where they would be put to work for the German war industry. The ghettos would be located on railway junctions so that in Heyrdichs words, "Future measures can be accomplished more easily" -
Hitlers Threat
Addressing the Reichstag in Berlin, the 6th anniversary of his appointment as chancellor, Hitler explicitly foreshadowed that war would result in the annihilation of the Jewish race not only in Germany but in Europe as a whole. -
The British White Paper
From 1920 Britain had governed Palestine under a mandate granted by the league of nations, under which britain made a commitment to facilitate in palestine "national home for the Jewish people." In 1939 the British governemnt issued a white paper imposing a limit of 75,000 jews to palestine from 1940-1944. -
The Invasion of Poland
German forces invaded Poland advancing in a blitzkrieg (lightning war) to Warsaw, halting at the line agreed with the soviet union in the secret annex act. On September 3rd 1939 Australia, France, Canada, South Africa, Britain and New Zealand declared war on Germany. Germany governed western Poland, the jews where concentrated and the remaining forcibly removed. -
AUSCHWITZ ESTABLISHED
The SS were tasked with finding a site to establish a concentration camp for the polish resistance and the mass arrests anticipated. It was a former military barracks which was chosen due to the accessibility of rail. The construction team was made partly of forced jews. The first 10,000 of 30,000 prisoners were sent in 1941. -
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THE LARGE GHETTOS
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/list-of-major-jewish-ghettos
The warsaw ghettos was established on 15 october 1940 380,000 jews. 30% of polish jews were put into 2.4% of the city area.