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| location = [[German-occupied Europe]] | | location = [[German-occupied Europe]] | ||
| date = 1941–1945 | | date = 1941–1945 | ||
| incident_type = [[ | | incident_type = [[Genocide]] | ||
| perpetrators = {{ubl|[[Adolf Hitler]]|[[Nazi Germany]]}} | | perpetrators = {{ubl|[[Adolf Hitler]]|[[Heinrich Himmler]]| [[Reinhard Heydrich]]| [[Adolf Eichmann]]|[[Nazi Germany]]}} | ||
| participants = {{ubl|[[Schutzstaffel]] (SS)| [[Sicherheitspolizei|Security Police]] (SiPo)| [[Gestapo]]| [[Kriminalpolizei]] (Kripo)| [[Sicherheitsdienst|SD]]| [[Order Police battalions]]| [[Waffen-SS]]| [[Wehrmacht]]}} | | participants = {{ubl|[[Schutzstaffel]] (SS)| [[Sicherheitspolizei|Security Police]] (SiPo)| [[Gestapo]]| [[Kriminalpolizei]] (Kripo)| [[Sicherheitsdienst|SD]]| [[Order Police battalions]]| [[Waffen-SS]]| [[Wehrmacht]]}} | ||
| organizations = <!-- Organizations --> | | organizations = <!-- Organizations --> | ||
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| notes = <!-- Notes --> | | notes = <!-- Notes --> | ||
}} | }} | ||
The '''Final Solution'''{{efn|{{langx|de|die Endlösung}} {{IPA|de|diː ˈʔɛntˌløːzʊŋ||De-Endlösung.ogg}}}} or the '''Final Solution to the Jewish Question'''{{efn|{{langx|de|Endlösung der Judenfrage}} {{IPA|de|ˈɛntˌløːzʊŋ deːɐ̯ ˈjuːdn̩ˌfʁaːɡə||De-Endlösung der Judenfrage.ogg}}}} was a plan orchestrated by [[Nazi Germany]] during [[World War II]] for the [[genocide]] of individuals they defined as [[Jews]]. The "Final Solution to the [[Jewish question]]" was the official [[code name]] for the murder of all Jews within reach, which was not restricted to the European continent.<ref>{{cite book |last=Browning |first=Christopher |year=2007 |title=The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939 – March 1942|publisher= University of Nebraska Press |quote=In a brief two years between the autumn of 1939 and the autumn of 1941, Nazi Jewish policy escalated rapidly from the pre-war policy of forced emigration to the Final Solution as it is now understood—the systematic attempt to murder every last Jew within the German grasp.}}</ref> This policy of deliberate and systematic genocide starting across [[German-occupied Europe]] was | The '''Final Solution'''{{efn|{{langx|de|die Endlösung}} {{IPA|de|diː ˈʔɛntˌløːzʊŋ||De-Endlösung.ogg}}}} or the '''Final Solution to the Jewish Question'''{{efn|{{langx|de|Endlösung der Judenfrage}} {{IPA|de|ˈɛntˌløːzʊŋ deːɐ̯ ˈjuːdn̩ˌfʁaːɡə||De-Endlösung der Judenfrage.ogg}}}} was a plan orchestrated by [[Nazi Germany]] during [[World War II]] for the [[genocide]] of individuals they defined as [[Jews]]. The "Final Solution to the [[Jewish question]]" was the official [[code name]] for the murder of all Jews within reach, which was not restricted to the European continent.<ref>{{cite book |last=Browning |first=Christopher |year=2007 |title=The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939 – March 1942|publisher= University of Nebraska Press |quote=In a brief two years between the autumn of 1939 and the autumn of 1941, Nazi Jewish policy escalated rapidly from the pre-war policy of forced emigration to the Final Solution as it is now understood—the systematic attempt to murder every last Jew within the German grasp.}}</ref> This secret [[Government of Nazi Germany|Nazi]] policy of deliberate and systematic genocide starting across [[German-occupied Europe]] was formally revealed to non-Nazi leaders in January 1942 at the [[Wannsee Conference]] held near Berlin,<ref name=Wannsee>{{cite web |title=Wannsee Conference and the Final Solution |url=https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-wannsee-conference-and-the-final-solution |access-date=30 March 2026 |publisher=[[United States Holocaust Memorial Museum]] }}</ref> and culminated in [[the Holocaust]], which saw [[The Holocaust in Poland|the murder of 90% of Polish Jews]],<ref name="Wyman">{{cite book |title=The World Reacts to the Holocaust |author1=David S. Wyman |author2=Charles H. Rosenzveig |publisher=JHU Press |year=1996 |page=99 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=U6KVOsjpP0MC&q=%2290+percent%22 |isbn=0801849691}}</ref> and two-thirds of the Jewish population of Europe.<ref name=Museum>{{cite web |title='Final Solution': Overview |url=http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005151 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130302130042/http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005151 |archive-date=2 March 2013 |access-date=5 February 2016 |publisher= United States Holocaust Memorial Museum |author=Holocaust Encyclopedia}}</ref> | ||
The nature and timing of the decisions that led to the Final Solution is an intensely researched and debated aspect of the Holocaust. The program evolved during the first 25 months of war leading to the attempt at "murdering every last Jew in the German grasp".{{r|Browning424}} [[Christopher Browning]], a historian specializing in the Holocaust, wrote that most historians agree that the Final Solution cannot be attributed to a single decision made at one particular point in time.{{r|Browning424}} "It is generally accepted the decision-making process was prolonged and incremental."<ref name=Browning213>{{harvp|Browning|2004|p=213}}.</ref> In 1940, following the [[Fall of France]], [[Adolf Eichmann#Transition from emigration to deportation|Adolf Eichmann]] devised the [[Madagascar Plan]] to move Europe's Jewish population to the French colony, but the plan was abandoned for logistical reasons, mainly [[Blockade of Germany ( | The nature and timing of the decisions that led to the Final Solution is an intensely researched and debated aspect of the Holocaust. The program evolved during the first 25 months of war leading to the attempt at "murdering every last Jew in the German grasp".{{r|Browning424}} [[Christopher Browning]], a historian specializing in the Holocaust, wrote that most historians agree that the Final Solution cannot be attributed to a single decision made at one particular point in time.{{r|Browning424}} "It is generally accepted the decision-making process was prolonged and incremental."<ref name=Browning213>{{harvp|Browning|2004|p=213}}.</ref> In 1940, following the [[Fall of France]], [[Adolf Eichmann#Transition from emigration to deportation|Adolf Eichmann]] devised the [[Madagascar Plan]] to move Europe's Jewish population to the French colony, but the plan was abandoned for logistical reasons, mainly the [[Blockade of Germany (1939–1945)|Allied naval blockade]].<ref name="CRB/Path"/> There were also preliminary plans to deport Jews to [[Palestine (region)|Palestine]] and [[Siberia]].{{sfn|Niewyk|Nicosia|2000|p=76}} [[Raul Hilberg]] wrote that, in 1941, in the first phase of the mass-murder of Jews, the [[Einsatzgruppen|mobile killing units]] began to pursue their victims across occupied eastern territories; in the second phase, stretching across all of German-occupied Europe, the Jewish victims were sent on [[Holocaust trains|death trains]] to centralized [[extermination camp]]s built for the purpose of systematic murder of Jews.{{r|Hilberg273}} | ||
==Background== | ==Background== | ||
[[File:Adolf Hitler's speech in the Reichstag, 30 January 1939.jpg|thumb|left|[[30 January 1939 Reichstag speech|Hitler's prophecy speech]] in the Reichstag, 30 January 1939]] | [[File:Adolf Hitler's speech in the Reichstag, 30 January 1939.jpg|thumb|left|[[30 January 1939 Reichstag speech|Hitler's prophecy speech]] in the Reichstag, 30 January 1939]] | ||
The term "Final Solution" was a [[euphemism]] used by the Nazis to refer to their plan for the annihilation of the [[ | The term "Final Solution" was a [[euphemism]] used by the Nazis to refer to their plan for the annihilation of the [[Jewish people]].<ref name=Museum/> Euphemisms were the party's "normal mode of communicating about murder".{{sfnp|Roseman|2002|p=87}} However, Nazi leaders also made direct threats against Jews.{{sfn|Herf|2005|p=54}} For example, during his [[30 January 1939 Reichstag speech|speech of 30 January 1939]], Hitler threatened "[[Hitler's prophecy|the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe]]".{{sfn|Herf|2005|p=56}} | ||
From gaining power | From gaining power on 30 January 1933 until the [[World War II|outbreak of war]] on 1 September 1939, the Nazi persecution of the Jews in Germany was focused on intimidation, expropriating their money and property, and encouraging them to emigrate.<ref name=MRo12/> According to the [[Nuremberg Laws|Nazi Party policy statement]], Jews and the [[Romani people]]{{r|Browning181}} were the only "alien people in Europe".<ref name="Hancock">{{cite book |title=The Routledge History of the Holocaust |author=Ian Hancock |editor=[[Jonathan C. Friedman]] |publisher=Taylor & Francis |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vsrJLASVC3QC&q=Menace+Bureau |page=378 |year=2010 |isbn=978-1136870606|author-link=Ian Hancock }} ''Also in:'' {{cite book |title=The Gypsies of Eastern Europe |author1=David M. Crowe |author2=John Kolsti |author3=Ian Hancock |publisher=Routledge |year=2016 |isbn=978-1315490243 |page=16 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jyC3DAAAQBAJ&q=Nuremberg+anti-Gypsyism|author1-link=David M. Crowe }}</ref> In 1936, the Bureau of Romani Affairs in [[Munich]] was renamed to the Center for Combating the Gypsy Menace.<ref name="Hancock"/> Introduced at the end of 1937,<ref name=Browning181>{{harvp|Browning|2004|loc=(2007 ed.: pp. 179, 181–12}}). [https://books.google.com/books?id=d9Wg4gjtP3cC&q=Gypsy+question+final "The Gypsy question"].</ref> the "[[Porajmos|final solution of the Gypsy Question]]" entailed [[Roundup (history)|round-ups]], expulsions, and incarceration of Romani in concentration camps built at, until this point, [[Dachau concentration camp|Dachau]], [[Buchenwald]], [[Flossenbürg concentration camp|Flossenbürg]], [[Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp|Mauthausen]], [[Natzweiler]], [[Ravensbruck]], [[List of subcamps of Buchenwald|Taucha]] and [[Westerbork]]. After the [[Anschluss|Anschluss with Austria]] in 1938, [[Central Office for Jewish Emigration|Central Offices for Jewish Emigration]] were established in [[Vienna]] and [[Berlin]] to increase Jewish emigration, without covert plans for their forthcoming annihilation.<ref name=MRo12>{{harvp|Roseman|2002|pp=11–12}}.</ref> | ||
The outbreak of war and the [[History of Poland#World War II and its violence|invasion of Poland]] brought a population of 3.5 million Polish Jews under the control of [[Gestapo–NKVD Conferences|the Nazi and Soviet security forces]],<ref name="Lukas">{{cite book |last1=Lukas |first1=Richard |author-link1=Richard C. Lukas |url=https://archive.org/details/outofinferno00rela |url-access=registration |quote=Nazi terror. |title=Out of the Inferno: Poles Remember the Holocaust |publisher=[[University Press of Kentucky]] |year=1989 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/outofinferno00rela/page/5 5], 13, 111, 201|isbn=0813116929 }}; also in {{cite book |orig-year=1986 |year=2012 |last1=Lukas |first1= Richard |author-link1=Richard C. Lukas |publisher=University of Kentucky Press/Hippocrene Books |isbn=978-0-7818-0901-6 |title=The Forgotten Holocaust: Poles Under Nazi Occupation 1939–1944 |location=New York |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Lv1mAAAAMAAJ&q=editions:lC7HhINUjXIC}}</ref> and marked the start of [[the Holocaust in Poland]].{{r|Browning213}} In the German-occupied zone of Poland, Jews were forced into [[Jewish ghettos in German-occupied Poland|hundreds of makeshift ghettos]], pending other arrangements.<ref name="HEnc">{{cite web |title=German Invasion of Poland: Jewish Refugees, 1939 |author=Holocaust Encyclopedia |publisher=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum |location= Washington, DC |url=http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005593}}</ref> | The outbreak of war and the [[History of Poland#World War II and its violence|invasion of Poland]] brought a population of 3.5 million Polish Jews under the control of [[Gestapo–NKVD Conferences|the Nazi and Soviet security forces]],<ref name="Lukas">{{cite book |last1=Lukas |first1=Richard |author-link1=Richard C. Lukas |url=https://archive.org/details/outofinferno00rela |url-access=registration |quote=Nazi terror. |title=Out of the Inferno: Poles Remember the Holocaust |publisher=[[University Press of Kentucky]] |year=1989 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/outofinferno00rela/page/5 5], 13, 111, 201|isbn=0813116929 }}; also in {{cite book |orig-year=1986 |year=2012 |last1=Lukas |first1= Richard |author-link1=Richard C. Lukas |publisher=University of Kentucky Press/Hippocrene Books |isbn=978-0-7818-0901-6 |title=The Forgotten Holocaust: Poles Under Nazi Occupation 1939–1944 |location=New York |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Lv1mAAAAMAAJ&q=editions:lC7HhINUjXIC}}</ref> and marked the start of [[the Holocaust in Poland]].{{r|Browning213}} In the German-occupied zone of Poland, Jews were forced into [[Jewish ghettos in German-occupied Poland|hundreds of makeshift ghettos]], pending other arrangements.<ref name="HEnc">{{cite web |title=German Invasion of Poland: Jewish Refugees, 1939 |author=Holocaust Encyclopedia |publisher=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum |location= Washington, DC |url=http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005593}}</ref> | ||
[[File:Carta Göring.JPG|thumb|Letter from Göring to Heydrich, concerning the "total solution of the Jewish question"]] | [[File:Carta Göring.JPG|thumb|Letter from Göring to Heydrich, concerning the "total solution of the Jewish question"]] | ||
In April 1941, the German [[Reich Ministry of Food and Agriculture|agriculture]] and [[Reichsministerium des Innern|interior]] ministries designated the [[Schutzstaffel|SS]] as an authorized applier of [[Zyklon B]], which meant they were able to use it without any further training or governmental oversight.<ref name=hayes>{{cite book | last = Hayes | first = Peter | author-link=Peter Hayes (historian) |title = From Cooperation to Complicity: Degussa in the Third Reich | year = 2004 | publisher = Cambridge University Press | location = Cambridge; New York; Melbourne | isbn = 0-521-78227-9 }}</ref> The launch of [[Operation Barbarossa]] | In April 1941, the German [[Reich Ministry of Food and Agriculture|agriculture]] and [[Reichsministerium des Innern|interior]] ministries designated the [[Schutzstaffel|SS]] as an authorized applier of [[Zyklon B]], which meant they were able to use it without any further training or governmental oversight.<ref name=hayes>{{cite book | last = Hayes | first = Peter | author-link=Peter Hayes (historian) |title = From Cooperation to Complicity: Degussa in the Third Reich | year = 2004 | publisher = Cambridge University Press | location = Cambridge; New York; Melbourne | isbn = 0-521-78227-9 }}</ref> The launch of [[Operation Barbarossa]] on 22 June 1941 coincided with the German top echelon's newfound intent to pursue [[Adolf Hitler|Hitler's]] new plan to eradicate, rather than expel, Jews.<ref>{{cite book |title=God, Greed, and Genocide: The Holocaust Through the Centuries |first=Arthur |last=Grenke |publisher=New Academia Publishing |year=2005 |isbn=097670420X |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iBaGO8Ue2NMC&q=eradication+rather+than+expulsion |page=92}}</ref> Hitler's earlier ideas about forcible removal of Jews from the German-controlled territories to achieve ''[[Lebensraum]]'' were abandoned after the failure of the [[Battle of Britain|air campaign against Britain]] and the [[Blockade of Germany (1939–1945)|Allied naval blockade]] of Germany.<ref name="CRB/Path">{{cite book |last=Browning |first=Christopher R. |author-link=Christopher Browning |title=The Path to Genocide: Essays on Launching the Final Solution |year=1995 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=L1O2ZvS29DYC |via=Google Books |isbn=978-0-521-55878-5 |pages=18–19, 127–28}}</ref> ''[[Reichsführer-SS]]'' [[Heinrich Himmler]] became the chief architect of a new plan, which came to be called ''The Final Solution to the [[Jewish question]]''.{{sfnp|Browning|2004|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=d9Wg4gjtP3cC&q=Lebensraum+1941 pp. 35–36]}} On 31 July 1941, ''[[Reichsmarschall]]'' [[Hermann Göring]] wrote to [[Reinhard Heydrich]] (Himmler's deputy and chief of the [[Reich Security Main Office|RSHA]]),{{sfnp|Roseman|2002|pp=14–15}}{{sfnp|Hilberg|1985|p= 278}} authorising him to make the "necessary preparations" for a "total solution of the Jewish question" and coordinate with all affected organizations. Göring also instructed Heydrich to submit concrete proposals for the implementation of the new projected goal.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=d9Wg4gjtP3cC&pg=PA315|title=The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939 – March 1942|last=Browning|first=Christopher R.|year=2007|publisher=University of Nebraska Press|isbn=978-0803203921|page=315|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.ghwk.de/fileadmin/user_upload/pdf-wannsee/engl/goering.pdf |title=Authorization letter of Hermann Göring to Heydrich, 31 July 1941 |last=Göring |first=Hermann |date=31 July 1941 |access-date=3 June 2014 |publisher=House of the Wannsee Conference |archive-date=19 February 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180219024305/http://www.ghwk.de/fileadmin/user_upload/pdf-wannsee/engl/goering.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref> | ||
Broadly speaking, the extermination of Jews was carried out in two major operations. With the onset of [[Operation Barbarossa]], mobile killing units of the [[Schutzstaffel|SS]], the ''[[Einsatzgruppen]]'', and [[Order Police battalions]] were dispatched to the occupied Soviet Union for the express purpose of murdering all Jews. During the early stages of the invasion, Himmler himself visited [[Białystok]] at the beginning of July 1941, and requested that, "as a matter of principle, any Jew" behind the [[German-Soviet Frontier Treaty|German-Soviet frontier]] was to be "regarded as a partisan". His new orders gave the [[SS and police leader]]s full authority for the mass-murder behind the front lines. By August 1941, all Jewish men, women, and children were shot.{{sfnp|Longerich|2012|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=GBQchepZ-7EC&q=Bialystok%2Bprinciple&pg=PA525 525–33]}} In the second phase of annihilation, the Jewish inhabitants of central, western, and south-eastern Europe were transported by [[Holocaust trains]] to camps with newly built gassing facilities. [[Raul Hilberg]] wrote: "In essence, the killers of the occupied USSR moved to the victims, whereas outside this arena, the victims were brought to the killers. The two operations constitute an evolution not only chronologically, but also in complexity."<ref name=Hilberg273>{{harvp|Hilberg|1985|p=273}}.</ref> Massacres of about one million Jews occurred before plans for the Final Solution were fully implemented in 1942, but it was only with the decision to annihilate the entire Jewish population that [[extermination camp]]s such as [[Auschwitz concentration camp|Auschwitz II Birkenau]] and [[Treblinka extermination camp|Treblinka]] were fitted with permanent [[gas chamber]]s to murder large numbers of Jews in a relatively short period of time.{{sfnp|Browning|2004|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=d9Wg4gjtP3cC&q=gas+chambers pp. 352–56]}}<ref name=Feig8112/> | Broadly speaking, the extermination of Jews was carried out in two major operations. With the onset of [[Operation Barbarossa]], mobile killing units of the [[Schutzstaffel|SS]], the ''[[Einsatzgruppen]]'', and [[Order Police battalions]] were dispatched to the occupied Soviet Union for the express purpose of murdering all Jews. During the early stages of the invasion, Himmler himself visited [[Białystok]] at the beginning of July 1941, and requested that, "as a matter of principle, any Jew" behind the [[German-Soviet Frontier Treaty|German-Soviet frontier]] was to be "regarded as a partisan". His new orders gave the [[SS and police leader]]s full authority for the mass-murder behind the front lines. By August 1941, all Jewish men, women, and children were shot.{{sfnp|Longerich|2012|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=GBQchepZ-7EC&q=Bialystok%2Bprinciple&pg=PA525 525–33]}} In the second phase of annihilation, the Jewish inhabitants of central, western, and south-eastern Europe were transported by [[Holocaust trains]] to camps with newly built gassing facilities. [[Raul Hilberg]] wrote: "In essence, the killers of the occupied USSR moved to the victims, whereas outside this arena, the victims were brought to the killers. The two operations constitute an evolution not only chronologically, but also in complexity."<ref name=Hilberg273>{{harvp|Hilberg|1985|p=273}}.</ref> Massacres of about one million Jews occurred before plans for the Final Solution were fully implemented in 1942, but it was only with the decision to annihilate the entire Jewish population that [[extermination camp]]s such as [[Auschwitz concentration camp|Auschwitz II Birkenau]] and [[Treblinka extermination camp|Treblinka]] were fitted with permanent [[gas chamber]]s to murder large numbers of Jews in a relatively short period of time.{{sfnp|Browning|2004|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=d9Wg4gjtP3cC&q=gas+chambers pp. 352–56]}}<ref name=Feig8112/> | ||
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===''Reichskommissariat Ukraine''=== | ===''Reichskommissariat Ukraine''=== | ||
{{see also|Reichskommissariat Ukraine}} | {{see also|Reichskommissariat Ukraine}} | ||
Within one week from the start of [[Operation Barbarossa]], Heydrich issued an order to his ''Einsatzgruppen'' for the on-the-spot execution of all Bolsheviks, interpreted by the SS to mean all Jews. One of the first indiscriminate massacres of men, women, and children in [[Reichskommissariat Ukraine]] took the lives of over 4,000 Polish Jews in [[Łuck Ghetto|occupied Łuck]] on 2–4 July 1941, murdered by ''Einsatzkommando'' 4a assisted by the [[Ukrainian People's Militia]].<ref name="jz193">{{cite book |first=Joshua D. |last=Zimmerman |author-link=Joshua D. Zimmerman |year=2015 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=w4dsCQAAQBAJ&q=%22%C5%81uck+ghetto%22 |title=The Polish Underground and the Jews, 1939–1945 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |via=Google Books |page=193|isbn=978-1107014268 }}</ref> Formed officially on 20 August 1941, the ''Reichskommissariat Ukraine''—stretching from prewar east-central Poland to Crimea—had become operational theatre of the ''Einsatzgruppe'' C. Within the Soviet Union proper, between 9 July 1941 and 19 September 1941 the city of [[Zhytomyr]] was made ''[[Judenfrei]]'' in three murder operations conducted by German and Ukrainian police in which 10,000 Jews perished.<ref name="YV1941"/> In the [[Kamianets-Podilskyi massacre]] of 26–28 August 1941 some 23,600 Jews were shot in front of open pits (including 14,000–18,000 people expelled from Hungary).<ref name="YV1941"/><ref name=RLB>{{cite book |title=The Politics of Genocide |first=Randolph L. |last=Braham |author-link=Randolph L. Braham |publisher=Wayne State University Press |year=2000 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ATpHs6fgr_YC&q=Kamenets+Report |isbn=0814326919 |page=34}}</ref> After an [[1941 Bila Tserkva massacre|incident in Bila Tserkva]] in which 90 small children left behind had to be shot separately, [[Paul Blobel|Blobel]] requested that Jewish mothers hold them in their arms during mass shootings.<ref name="WLo">{{cite book |title=Nazi Empire-Building and the Holocaust in Ukraine |first=Wendy |last=Lower | author-link=Wendy Lower | publisher=Univ of North Carolina Press |year=2006 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UwDmUJWdcJkC&q=Radomyshl%27+Bila+Tserkva+Ukrainians |isbn=0807876917 |page=253}}</ref><ref name="ESt">{{cite book |title=Life In The Ghettos During The Holocaust |first=Eric |last=Sterling |publisher=Syracuse University Press |year=2005 |isbn=0815608039 |page=127 |via=Google Books |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ywZG1TwqHwoC&q=Bila+Tserkva+4a%2C+Ukrainian}}</ref> Long before the conference at Wannsee, 28,000 Jews were shot by SS and Ukrainian military in [[Vinnytsia]] on 22 September 1941, followed by the 29 September massacre of 33,771 Jews at [[Babi Yar]].<ref name="YV1941">{{cite web |title=Goering orders Heydrich to prepare the plan for the Final Solution of the Jewish Problem |work=The Holocaust Timeline 1940–1945 |author=Yad Vashem |year=2016 |publisher=The Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority |url=http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/holocaust/timeline/timeline_40.asp |access-date=26 January 2016 |archive-date=15 July 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180715001155/http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/holocaust/timeline/timeline_40.asp |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref name="Desbois">{{cite web |title=Places of Massacres by German Task Forces between 1941–1943 |year=2009 |publisher=TOS Gemeinde Tübingen |location=Germany |first=Patrick |last=Desbois |author-link=Patrick Desbois |url=http://www.marchoflife.org/fileadmin/data/_TOS-info/2010/downloads/map_ukraine_english.pdf |access-date=26 January 2016 |archive-date=9 October 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161009213903/http://www.marchoflife.org/fileadmin/data/_TOS-info/2010/downloads/map_ukraine_english.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref> In [[ | Within one week from the start of [[Operation Barbarossa]], Heydrich issued an order to his ''Einsatzgruppen'' for the on-the-spot execution of all Bolsheviks, interpreted by the SS to mean all Jews. One of the first indiscriminate massacres of men, women, and children in [[Reichskommissariat Ukraine]] took the lives of over 4,000 Polish Jews in [[Łuck Ghetto|occupied Łuck]] on 2–4 July 1941, murdered by ''Einsatzkommando'' 4a assisted by the [[Ukrainian People's Militia]].<ref name="jz193">{{cite book |first=Joshua D. |last=Zimmerman |author-link=Joshua D. Zimmerman |year=2015 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=w4dsCQAAQBAJ&q=%22%C5%81uck+ghetto%22 |title=The Polish Underground and the Jews, 1939–1945 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |via=Google Books |page=193|isbn=978-1107014268 }}</ref> Formed officially on 20 August 1941, the ''Reichskommissariat Ukraine''—stretching from prewar east-central Poland to Crimea—had become operational theatre of the ''Einsatzgruppe'' C. Within the Soviet Union proper, between 9 July 1941 and 19 September 1941 the city of [[Zhytomyr]] was made ''[[Judenfrei]]'' in three murder operations conducted by German and Ukrainian police in which 10,000 Jews perished.<ref name="YV1941"/> In the [[Kamianets-Podilskyi massacre]] of 26–28 August 1941 some 23,600 Jews were shot in front of open pits (including 14,000–18,000 people expelled from Hungary).<ref name="YV1941"/><ref name=RLB>{{cite book |title=The Politics of Genocide |first=Randolph L. |last=Braham |author-link=Randolph L. Braham |publisher=Wayne State University Press |year=2000 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ATpHs6fgr_YC&q=Kamenets+Report |isbn=0814326919 |page=34}}</ref> After an [[1941 Bila Tserkva massacre|incident in Bila Tserkva]] in which 90 small children left behind had to be shot separately, [[Paul Blobel|Blobel]] requested that Jewish mothers hold them in their arms during mass shootings.<ref name="WLo">{{cite book |title=Nazi Empire-Building and the Holocaust in Ukraine |first=Wendy |last=Lower | author-link=Wendy Lower | publisher=Univ of North Carolina Press |year=2006 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UwDmUJWdcJkC&q=Radomyshl%27+Bila+Tserkva+Ukrainians |isbn=0807876917 |page=253}}</ref><ref name="ESt">{{cite book |title=Life In The Ghettos During The Holocaust |first=Eric |last=Sterling |publisher=Syracuse University Press |year=2005 |isbn=0815608039 |page=127 |via=Google Books |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ywZG1TwqHwoC&q=Bila+Tserkva+4a%2C+Ukrainian}}</ref> Long before the conference at Wannsee, 28,000 Jews were shot by SS and Ukrainian military in [[Vinnytsia]] on 22 September 1941, followed by the 29 September massacre of 33,771 Jews at [[Babi Yar]].<ref name="YV1941">{{cite web |title=Goering orders Heydrich to prepare the plan for the Final Solution of the Jewish Problem |work=The Holocaust Timeline 1940–1945 |author=Yad Vashem |year=2016 |publisher=The Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority |url=http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/holocaust/timeline/timeline_40.asp |access-date=26 January 2016 |archive-date=15 July 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180715001155/http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/holocaust/timeline/timeline_40.asp |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref name="Desbois">{{cite web |title=Places of Massacres by German Task Forces between 1941–1943 |year=2009 |publisher=TOS Gemeinde Tübingen |location=Germany |first=Patrick |last=Desbois |author-link=Patrick Desbois |url=http://www.marchoflife.org/fileadmin/data/_TOS-info/2010/downloads/map_ukraine_english.pdf |access-date=26 January 2016 |archive-date=9 October 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161009213903/http://www.marchoflife.org/fileadmin/data/_TOS-info/2010/downloads/map_ukraine_english.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref> In [[Dnipro]]petrovsk, on 13 October 1941 some 10,000–15,000 Jews were shot.<ref name=AEi92/> In [[Chernihiv]], 10,000 Jews were murdered and only 260 Jews were spared.<ref name=AEi92/> In mid-October, during the [[Kryvyi Rih|Krivoy-Rog]] massacre of 4,000–5,000 Soviet Jews the entire [[Ukrainian Auxiliary Police|Ukrainian auxiliary police]] force actively participated.<ref name=MBer>{{cite book |title=The Holocaust and History: The Known, the Unknown, the Disputed, and the Reexamined |author-link=Michael Berenbaum |first=Michael |last=Berenbaum |publisher=Indiana University Press |year=2002 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zkZC6bp3upsC&q=Krivoy-Rog |isbn=0253215293 |page=257}} ''Also in:'' {{cite book |title=The Encyclopedia of Jewish Life Before and During the Holocaust: K-Se |author1=Shmuel Spector |author2=Geoffrey Wigoder |publisher=NYU Press |year=2001 |isbn=0814793770 |page=679 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MZzY8sG8yNsC&q=KRIVOY+ROG}}</ref> In the first days of January 1942 in [[Kharkiv]], 12,000 Jews were murdered, but smaller massacres continued in this period on daily basis in countless other locations.<ref name=AEi92>{{cite book |title=The trial of Adolf Eichmann: record of proceedings in the District Court of Jerusalem |isbn=0317058401 |id=Volume 1 |author1=Adolf Eichmann |author2=Bet ha-mishpaṭ ha-meḥozi |author3=Miśrad ha-mishpaṭim |publisher=Trust for the Publication of the Proceedings of the Eichmann Trial, in co-operation with the Israel State Archives, and Yad Vashem |year=1992 |pages=522, 93 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=i-7zAAAAMAAJ&q=Dnepropetrovsk}} ''Also in:'' {{cite book |title=Stalin and Europe: Imitation and Domination, 1928–1953 |author1=Timothy Snyder |author2=Ray Brandon |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2014 |isbn=978-0199945573 |page=194 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fZBtAwAAQBAJ&q=Dnipropetrovsk+15%2C000 |quote=Quoted 15,000 dead at [[Dnipro]]petrovsk and 12,000 Jews murdered in [[Kharkiv]].}}</ref> In August 1942 in the presence of only a few German SS men over 5,000 Jews were massacred in Polish [[Zofjówka]] by the Ukrainian Auxiliary Police leading to the town's complete sweep from existence.<ref>{{cite web |author=Beit Tal |year=2010 |title=Zofiówka |publisher=[[POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews]] |url=http://www.sztetl.org.pl/pl/article/zofiowka/5,historia/ |access-date=27 November 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141230081456/http://www.sztetl.org.pl/pl/article/zofiowka/5,historia/ |archive-date=30 December 2014 |url-status=dead }} Also in: {{cite web |author=Beit Tal |year=2014 |title=Truchenbrod – Lozisht |publisher=The Nahum Goldmann Museum of the Jewish Diaspora |url=http://www.bet-tal.com/index.aspx?id=2421 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140810091732/http://www.bet-tal.com/index.aspx?id=2421 |archive-date=10 August 2014 }}</ref> | ||
===''Distrikt Galizien''=== | ===''Distrikt Galizien''=== | ||
| Line 89: | Line 89: | ||
Construction work on the first killing centre at [[Bełżec extermination camp|Bełżec]] in occupied Poland began in October 1941, three months before the Wannsee Conference. The new facility was operational by March the following year.<ref name="M/MPwB">{{cite web |title=Historia Niemieckiego Obozu Zagłady w Bełżcu |trans-title=History of the Belzec extermination camp |publisher=Muzeum-Miejsce Pamięci w Bełżcu |author=National Bełżec Museum |url=http://www.belzec.eu/articles.php?acid=77 |language=pl |access-date=24 January 2016 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151029003413/http://www.belzec.eu/articles.php?acid=77 |archive-date=29 October 2015}}</ref> By mid-1942, two more death camps had been built on Polish lands: [[Sobibór extermination camp|Sobibór]] operational by May 1942, and [[Treblinka extermination camp|Treblinka]] operational in July.<ref name="JVL-Reinhard">{{cite web |url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/reinhard.html#5 |title=The Construction of the Treblinka Extermination Camp |publisher=Jewish Virtual Library.org |work=Yad Vashem Studies, XVI |year=1984 |access-date=3 November 2013 |author=McVay, Kenneth}}</ref> From July 1942, the mass murder of Polish and foreign Jews took place at [[Treblinka extermination camp|Treblinka]] as part of [[Operation Reinhard]], the deadliest phase of the Final Solution. More Jews were murdered at Treblinka than at any other Nazi [[extermination camp]] apart from [[Auschwitz concentration camp|Auschwitz]].<ref name="Berenbaum">{{cite encyclopedia |last=Berenbaum |first=Michael |title=Treblinka |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica |year=2016 |publisher=Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. |location=Chicago }}</ref> By the time the mass killings of Operation Reinhard ended in 1943, roughly two million Jews in German-occupied Poland had been murdered.<ref name =Reinhard/> The total number of people murdered in 1942 in [[Majdanek concentration camp|Lublin/Majdanek]], [[Bełżec extermination camp|Bełżec]], [[Sobibor extermination camp|Sobibór]], and [[Treblinka]] was 1,274,166 by [[Höfle Telegram|Germany's own estimation]], not counting [[Auschwitz concentration camp|Auschwitz II Birkenau]] nor ''[[Chełmno extermination camp|Kulmhof]]''.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Holocaust Encyclopedia |author1=Walter Laqueur |author2=Judith Tydor Baumel |publisher=Yale University Press |year=2001 |isbn=0300138113 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nPbr0XzlTzcC&q=Chelmno+graveyard |page=178 |author1-link=Walter Laqueur }}</ref> Their bodies were buried in mass graves initially.{{sfnp|Arad|1987|p=640}} Both Treblinka and Bełżec were equipped with powerful [[crawler excavator]]s from Polish construction sites in the vicinity, capable of most digging tasks without disrupting surfaces.<ref name="ushmm-belzec">{{cite encyclopedia |url=http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005191 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120107184303/http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005191 |archive-date=7 January 2012 |encyclopedia=The Holocaust Encyclopedia |title=Belzec |publisher=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum |access-date=24 January 2016}}</ref> Although other methods of extermination, such as the cyanic poison [[Zyklon B]], were already being used at other Nazi killing centres such as Auschwitz, the ''[[Aktion Reinhard]]'' camps used [[carbon monoxide poisoning|lethal exhaust gases]] from captured tank engines.<ref>{{cite book |first=K. |last=Carol Rittner, Roth |title=Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=t2AjlkSlMa8C&q=captured-soviet+tank+engines+holocaust&pg=PA2 |publisher=Continuum International Publishing Group |year=2004 |page=2 |isbn=978-0-8264-7566-4}}</ref> | Construction work on the first killing centre at [[Bełżec extermination camp|Bełżec]] in occupied Poland began in October 1941, three months before the Wannsee Conference. The new facility was operational by March the following year.<ref name="M/MPwB">{{cite web |title=Historia Niemieckiego Obozu Zagłady w Bełżcu |trans-title=History of the Belzec extermination camp |publisher=Muzeum-Miejsce Pamięci w Bełżcu |author=National Bełżec Museum |url=http://www.belzec.eu/articles.php?acid=77 |language=pl |access-date=24 January 2016 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151029003413/http://www.belzec.eu/articles.php?acid=77 |archive-date=29 October 2015}}</ref> By mid-1942, two more death camps had been built on Polish lands: [[Sobibór extermination camp|Sobibór]] operational by May 1942, and [[Treblinka extermination camp|Treblinka]] operational in July.<ref name="JVL-Reinhard">{{cite web |url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/reinhard.html#5 |title=The Construction of the Treblinka Extermination Camp |publisher=Jewish Virtual Library.org |work=Yad Vashem Studies, XVI |year=1984 |access-date=3 November 2013 |author=McVay, Kenneth}}</ref> From July 1942, the mass murder of Polish and foreign Jews took place at [[Treblinka extermination camp|Treblinka]] as part of [[Operation Reinhard]], the deadliest phase of the Final Solution. More Jews were murdered at Treblinka than at any other Nazi [[extermination camp]] apart from [[Auschwitz concentration camp|Auschwitz]].<ref name="Berenbaum">{{cite encyclopedia |last=Berenbaum |first=Michael |title=Treblinka |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica |year=2016 |publisher=Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. |location=Chicago }}</ref> By the time the mass killings of Operation Reinhard ended in 1943, roughly two million Jews in German-occupied Poland had been murdered.<ref name =Reinhard/> The total number of people murdered in 1942 in [[Majdanek concentration camp|Lublin/Majdanek]], [[Bełżec extermination camp|Bełżec]], [[Sobibor extermination camp|Sobibór]], and [[Treblinka]] was 1,274,166 by [[Höfle Telegram|Germany's own estimation]], not counting [[Auschwitz concentration camp|Auschwitz II Birkenau]] nor ''[[Chełmno extermination camp|Kulmhof]]''.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Holocaust Encyclopedia |author1=Walter Laqueur |author2=Judith Tydor Baumel |publisher=Yale University Press |year=2001 |isbn=0300138113 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nPbr0XzlTzcC&q=Chelmno+graveyard |page=178 |author1-link=Walter Laqueur }}</ref> Their bodies were buried in mass graves initially.{{sfnp|Arad|1987|p=640}} Both Treblinka and Bełżec were equipped with powerful [[crawler excavator]]s from Polish construction sites in the vicinity, capable of most digging tasks without disrupting surfaces.<ref name="ushmm-belzec">{{cite encyclopedia |url=http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005191 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120107184303/http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005191 |archive-date=7 January 2012 |encyclopedia=The Holocaust Encyclopedia |title=Belzec |publisher=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum |access-date=24 January 2016}}</ref> Although other methods of extermination, such as the cyanic poison [[Zyklon B]], were already being used at other Nazi killing centres such as Auschwitz, the ''[[Aktion Reinhard]]'' camps used [[carbon monoxide poisoning|lethal exhaust gases]] from captured tank engines.<ref>{{cite book |first=K. |last=Carol Rittner, Roth |title=Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=t2AjlkSlMa8C&q=captured-soviet+tank+engines+holocaust&pg=PA2 |publisher=Continuum International Publishing Group |year=2004 |page=2 |isbn=978-0-8264-7566-4}}</ref> | ||
The ''Holocaust by bullets'' (as opposed to the ''Holocaust by gas'')<ref>{{cite AV media |url=http://natgeotv.com/ca/world-war-ii-the-apocalypse/videos/the-holocaust-by-bullets |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100309133810/http://www.natgeotv.com/ca/world-war-ii-the-apocalypse/videos/the-holocaust-by-bullets |url-status=dead |archive-date=9 March 2010 |author=[[National Geographic Channel]] |title=The Holocaust by bullets |publisher=NGC Europe Limited |year=2013 |work=Excerpt from episode "Apocalypse: The Second World War"}}</ref> went on in the territory of occupied Poland in conjunction with the [[ghetto uprising]]s, irrespective of death camps' quota. In two weeks of July 1942, the [[Słonim Ghetto#The revolt|Słonim Ghetto revolt]], crushed with the help of Latvian, Lithuanian, and Ukrainian ''[[Schutzmannschaft]]'', cost the lives of 8,000–13,000 Jews.<ref>{{harvp|Longerich|2010|pp=198, 238, 347}}. See also {{cite web |author=Lawrence Bush |date=28 June 2010 |title=June 29: The Slonim Massacres |website=Jewish Currents |url=http://jewishcurrents.org/june-29-the-slonim-massacres/ |access-date=1 May 2017 }}</ref> The second largest mass shooting (to that particular date) took place in late October 1942 when the insurgency was suppressed in the [[Pińsk Ghetto]]; over 26,000 men, women and children were shot with the aid of [[Belarusian Auxiliary Police]] before the ghetto's closure.<ref name="stats">{{cite book |editor1=Ray Brandon |editor2=Wendy Lower |editor-link=Wendy Lower |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hyYGOyX1IQUC&dq=Pinsk+massacre+in+the+RKU&pg=PA290|first=Karel C. |last=Berkhoff |title=The Shoah in Ukraine: History, Testimony, Memorialization |date=28 May 2008 |publisher=Indiana University Press |page=290 |isbn=978-0-253-00159-7 }} Also in: {{cite web |author1=Barbara N. Łopieńska |author2-link=Ryszard Kapuściński |author2=Ryszard Kapuściński |work=Interview |date=2003 |url=http://kapuscinski.info/czlowiek-z-bagna.html |title=Człowiek z bagna |trans-title=A man from the marshes |publisher=[[Przekrój]] nr 28/3029. Reprint: Ryszard Kapuściński.info }} Further info: {{cite web |url=http://www.sztetl.org.pl/en/selectcity/ |title=Glossary of 2,077 Jewish towns in Poland |author=Virtual Shtetl |publisher=[[POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews]] |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160208215116/http://www.sztetl.org.pl/en/selectcity/ |archive-date=8 February 2016 |author-link=Virtual Shtetl }} {{cite web |url=http://www.izrael.badacz.org/historia/szoa_getto.html |title=Getta Żydowskie |author=Gedeon }} {{cite web |url=http://www.deathcamps.org/occupation/ghettolist.htm |title=Ghetto List |author=Michael Peters |publisher=Deathcamps.org }}</ref> During the suppression of the [[Warsaw Ghetto Uprising]] (the largest single revolt by Jews during World War II), 13,000 Jews were killed in action before May 1943.<ref name="stroop">{{cite encyclopedia |url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/nowarsaw.html |title=Stroop Report |author=SS [[Gruppenführer]] Jürgen Stroop |encyclopedia=Jewish Virtual Library |date=May 1943}}</ref> Numerous other uprisings were quelled without impacting the pre-planned Nazi deportations actions.<ref name="ushmm4">{{cite web |url=http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005407 |title=Resistance in Ghettos |author=The Holocaust Encyclopedia |work=Jewish Uprisings in Ghettos and Camps, 1941–1944 |date=2013 |publisher=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum}} Notable examples include the [[Łuck Ghetto#Jewish uprising and the ghetto liquidation|Łuck Ghetto uprising]] quelled on 12 December 1942 with the help of the [[Ukrainian Auxiliary Police]], see: [[Yad Vashem]], {{YouTube |id=1k7v0VPOKnw |title=Łuck, December 1942}}; testimony of {{cite web |url=http://www.berdichev.org/the_forgotten_december.html |archive-date=22 July 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150722232607/http://www.berdichev.org/the_forgotten_december.html |url-status=dead |title=The forgotten December |author=Shmuel Shilo|author-link=Shmuel Shilo }} The [[Łachwa Ghetto#Uprising and massacre|Łachwa Ghetto uprising]] was suppressed on 3 September 1942, the [[Częstochowa Ghetto uprising]] on 30 June 1943, the [[Sosnowiec Ghetto#The uprising|Sosnowiec Ghetto uprising]] on 3 August 1943, and the [[Białystok Ghetto uprising]] on 17 August 1943.</ref> | The ''Holocaust by bullets'' (as opposed to the ''Holocaust by gas'')<ref>{{cite AV media |url=http://natgeotv.com/ca/world-war-ii-the-apocalypse/videos/the-holocaust-by-bullets |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100309133810/http://www.natgeotv.com/ca/world-war-ii-the-apocalypse/videos/the-holocaust-by-bullets |url-status=dead |archive-date=9 March 2010 |author=[[National Geographic Channel]] |title=The Holocaust by bullets |publisher=NGC Europe Limited |year=2013 |work=Excerpt from episode "Apocalypse: The Second World War"}}</ref> went on in the territory of occupied Poland in conjunction with the [[ghetto uprising]]s, irrespective of death camps' quota. In two weeks of July 1942, the [[Słonim Ghetto#The revolt|Słonim Ghetto revolt]], crushed with the help of Latvian, Lithuanian, and Ukrainian ''[[Schutzmannschaft]]'', cost the lives of 8,000–13,000 Jews.<ref>{{harvp|Longerich|2010|pp=198, 238, 347}}. See also {{cite web |author=Lawrence Bush |date=28 June 2010 |title=June 29: The Slonim Massacres |website=Jewish Currents |url=http://jewishcurrents.org/june-29-the-slonim-massacres/ |access-date=1 May 2017 }}</ref> The second largest mass shooting (to that particular date) took place in late October 1942 when the insurgency was suppressed in the [[Pińsk Ghetto]]; over 26,000 men, women and children were shot with the aid of [[Belarusian Auxiliary Police]] before the ghetto's closure.<ref name="stats">{{cite book |editor1=Ray Brandon |editor2=Wendy Lower |editor-link=Wendy Lower |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hyYGOyX1IQUC&dq=Pinsk+massacre+in+the+RKU&pg=PA290 |first=Karel C. |last=Berkhoff |title=The Shoah in Ukraine: History, Testimony, Memorialization |date=28 May 2008 |publisher=Indiana University Press |page=290 |isbn=978-0-253-00159-7 }} Also in: {{cite web |author1=Barbara N. Łopieńska |author2-link=Ryszard Kapuściński |author2=Ryszard Kapuściński |work=Interview |date=2003 |url=http://kapuscinski.info/czlowiek-z-bagna.html |title=Człowiek z bagna |trans-title=A man from the marshes |publisher=[[Przekrój]] nr 28/3029. Reprint: Ryszard Kapuściński.info }} Further info: {{cite web |url=http://www.sztetl.org.pl/en/selectcity/ |title=Glossary of 2,077 Jewish towns in Poland |author=Virtual Shtetl |publisher=[[POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews]] |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160208215116/http://www.sztetl.org.pl/en/selectcity/ |archive-date=8 February 2016 |author-link=Virtual Shtetl }} {{cite web |url=http://www.izrael.badacz.org/historia/szoa_getto.html |title=Getta Żydowskie |author=Gedeon |access-date=3 September 2016 |archive-date=15 October 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141015055255/http://www.izrael.badacz.org/historia/szoa_getto.html |url-status=dead }} {{cite web |url=http://www.deathcamps.org/occupation/ghettolist.htm |title=Ghetto List |author=Michael Peters |publisher=Deathcamps.org }}</ref> During the suppression of the [[Warsaw Ghetto Uprising]] (the largest single revolt by Jews during World War II), 13,000 Jews were killed in action before May 1943.<ref name="stroop">{{cite encyclopedia |url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/nowarsaw.html |title=Stroop Report |author=SS [[Gruppenführer]] Jürgen Stroop |encyclopedia=Jewish Virtual Library |date=May 1943}}</ref> Numerous other uprisings were quelled without impacting the pre-planned Nazi deportations actions.<ref name="ushmm4">{{cite web |url=http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005407 |title=Resistance in Ghettos |author=The Holocaust Encyclopedia |work=Jewish Uprisings in Ghettos and Camps, 1941–1944 |date=2013 |publisher=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum}} Notable examples include the [[Łuck Ghetto#Jewish uprising and the ghetto liquidation|Łuck Ghetto uprising]] quelled on 12 December 1942 with the help of the [[Ukrainian Auxiliary Police]], see: [[Yad Vashem]], {{YouTube |id=1k7v0VPOKnw |title=Łuck, December 1942}}; testimony of {{cite web |url=http://www.berdichev.org/the_forgotten_december.html |archive-date=22 July 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150722232607/http://www.berdichev.org/the_forgotten_december.html |url-status=dead |title=The forgotten December |author=Shmuel Shilo|author-link=Shmuel Shilo }} The [[Łachwa Ghetto#Uprising and massacre|Łachwa Ghetto uprising]] was suppressed on 3 September 1942, the [[Częstochowa Ghetto uprising]] on 30 June 1943, the [[Sosnowiec Ghetto#The uprising|Sosnowiec Ghetto uprising]] on 3 August 1943, and the [[Białystok Ghetto uprising]] on 17 August 1943.</ref> | ||
About two-thirds of the overall number of victims of the Final Solution were murdered before February 1943,<ref name="GHDI">{{cite journal |publisher=German History in Documents and Images, GHDI |volume= 7. Nazi Germany, 1933–1945 |title=Statistical Report on the "Final Solution", known as the Korherr Report of 23 March 1943 |author=Paula Lerner |year=2007 |journal=Die Endlösung by Gerald Reitlinger |url=http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/pdf/eng/English42.pdf}}</ref> which included the main phase of the extermination programme [[Military Administration in Belgium and Northern France|in the West]] launched by [[Eichmann]] on 11 June 1942 from Berlin.<ref name="Yahil389">{{cite book |title=The Holocaust: The Fate of European Jewry, 1932–1945 |author=Leni Yahil |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1991 |isbn=0195045238 |page=389 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=e_aRvKpLUf0C&q=West+European&pg=PA389}}</ref> The [[Holocaust trains]] run by the [[Deutsche Reichsbahn#Holocaust|Deutsche Reichsbahn]] and several other national railway systems delivered condemned Jewish captives from as far as Belgium, Bulgaria, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Moravia, Netherlands, Romania, Slovakia, and even Scandinavia.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WRFG-HKoBgEC&q=Reichsbahn+Railways&pg=PA57 |author=Ronald J. Berger |year=2002 |title=Fathoming the Holocaust: A Social Problems Approach |publisher=Transaction Publishers |isbn=0202366111 |pages=57–58 |quote=Bureaucrats in the Reichsbahn performed important functions that facilitated the movement of trains. They constructed and published timetables, collected fares, and allocated cars and locomotives. In sending Jews to their death, they did not deviate much from the routine procedures they used to process ordinary train traffic.}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |first1=Ben|last1=Hecht|first2=Julian|last2=Messner|date=31 December 1969 |url=http://www.aish.com/ho/o/48970811.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140222020235/http://www.aish.com/ho/o/48970811.html |archive-date=22 February 2014 |title=Holocaust: The Trains |work=aishcom |publisher=Aish.com Holocaust Studies}}</ref> The cremation of exhumed corpses to destroy any evidence left behind began in early spring and continued throughout summer.{{sfnp|Arad|1987|pp=300–01}} The nearly completed clandestine programme of murdering all deportees was explicitly addressed by Heinrich Himmler in his [[Posen speeches]] made to the leadership of the Nazi Party on 4 October and during a conference in Posen ([[Poznań]]) of 6 October 1943 in occupied Poland. Himmler explained why the Nazi leadership found it necessary to murder Jewish women and children along with the Jewish men. The assembled functionaries were told that the Nazi state policy was "the extermination of the Jewish people" as such.<ref>Letter written by [[Albert Speer]] who attended Posen Conference.{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/mar/13/secondworldwar.kateconnolly |title=Letter proves Speer knew of Holocaust plan |last=Connolly |first=Kate |date=13 March 2007 |access-date=29 May 2014 |newspaper=The Guardian |location=London}}</ref> | About two-thirds of the overall number of victims of the Final Solution were murdered before February 1943,<ref name="GHDI">{{cite journal |publisher=German History in Documents and Images, GHDI |volume= 7. Nazi Germany, 1933–1945 |title=Statistical Report on the "Final Solution", known as the Korherr Report of 23 March 1943 |author=Paula Lerner |year=2007 |journal=Die Endlösung by Gerald Reitlinger |url=http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/pdf/eng/English42.pdf}}</ref> which included the main phase of the extermination programme [[Military Administration in Belgium and Northern France|in the West]] launched by [[Eichmann]] on 11 June 1942 from Berlin.<ref name="Yahil389">{{cite book |title=The Holocaust: The Fate of European Jewry, 1932–1945 |author=Leni Yahil |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1991 |isbn=0195045238 |page=389 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=e_aRvKpLUf0C&q=West+European&pg=PA389}}</ref> The [[Holocaust trains]] run by the [[Deutsche Reichsbahn#Holocaust|Deutsche Reichsbahn]] and several other national railway systems delivered condemned Jewish captives from as far as Belgium, Bulgaria, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Moravia, Netherlands, Romania, Slovakia, and even Scandinavia.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WRFG-HKoBgEC&q=Reichsbahn+Railways&pg=PA57 |author=Ronald J. Berger |year=2002 |title=Fathoming the Holocaust: A Social Problems Approach |publisher=Transaction Publishers |isbn=0202366111 |pages=57–58 |quote=Bureaucrats in the Reichsbahn performed important functions that facilitated the movement of trains. They constructed and published timetables, collected fares, and allocated cars and locomotives. In sending Jews to their death, they did not deviate much from the routine procedures they used to process ordinary train traffic.}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |first1=Ben|last1=Hecht|first2=Julian|last2=Messner|date=31 December 1969 |url=http://www.aish.com/ho/o/48970811.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140222020235/http://www.aish.com/ho/o/48970811.html |archive-date=22 February 2014 |title=Holocaust: The Trains |work=aishcom |publisher=Aish.com Holocaust Studies}}</ref> The cremation of exhumed corpses to destroy any evidence left behind began in early spring and continued throughout summer.{{sfnp|Arad|1987|pp=300–01}} The nearly completed clandestine programme of murdering all deportees was explicitly addressed by Heinrich Himmler in his [[Posen speeches]] made to the leadership of the Nazi Party on 4 October and during a conference in Posen ([[Poznań]]) of 6 October 1943 in occupied Poland. Himmler explained why the Nazi leadership found it necessary to murder Jewish women and children along with the Jewish men. The assembled functionaries were told that the Nazi state policy was "the extermination of the Jewish people" as such.<ref>Letter written by [[Albert Speer]] who attended Posen Conference.{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/mar/13/secondworldwar.kateconnolly |title=Letter proves Speer knew of Holocaust plan |last=Connolly |first=Kate |date=13 March 2007 |access-date=29 May 2014 |newspaper=The Guardian |location=London}}</ref> | ||
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Unlike Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, and [[Lublin-Majdanek]],<ref>{{cite journal |author1=Peter Witte |author2=Stephen Tyas |title=A New Document on the Deportation and Murder of Jews during "Einsatz Reinhardt" 1942 |journal=Holocaust and Genocide Studies |volume=15 |issue=3 |year=2001 |pages=468–86 |doi=10.1093/hgs/15.3.468 |doi-access=free }} See also: {{cite web |author=Oxford Journals |publisher=Oxford University Press |title=Abstract of article |url=http://www3.oup.co.uk/holgen/current/150468.sgm.abs.html |year=2002 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20020212003049/http://www3.oup.co.uk/holgen/current/150468.sgm.abs.html |archive-date=12 February 2002}}</ref> which were built in the occupied [[General Government]] territory inhabited by the largest concentrations of Jews,<ref name="katz">{{cite book |chapter=Poland's Ghettos at War |publisher=Ardent Media |page=35 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=m-q2qdBzfowC&q=largest+concentrations |title=The Establishment of Ghettos in [occupied] Poland |first=Alfred |last=Katz |location=Twayne Publishers, New York |year=1970 |oclc=141597}}</ref> the killing centre at Auschwitz subcamp of [[Auschwitz concentration camp#Auschwitz II-Birkenau|Birkenau]] operated directly in [[Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany]]. The new gas chambers at Bunker I were finished around March 1942 when the Final Solution was officially launched at Belzec. Until mid June, around 20,000 Silesian Jews were murdered there using [[Zyklon B]]. In July 1942, Bunker II became operational. In August, another 10,000–13,000 Polish Jews from Silesia were murdered,{{r|Browning544}} along with 16,000 French Jews declared 'stateless',<ref name=PLong10>{{harvp|Longerich|2010|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=cxYqYIn73SgC&q=Auschwitz+Stammlager+1942 344, 360, 380, 391]}}.</ref> and 7,700 Jews from Slovakia.<ref name=Browning544>{{harvp|Browning|2004|loc=(2007 ed.: [https://books.google.com/books?id=d9Wg4gjtP3cC&pg=PA544 p. 544]}}).</ref> | Unlike Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, and [[Lublin-Majdanek]],<ref>{{cite journal |author1=Peter Witte |author2=Stephen Tyas |title=A New Document on the Deportation and Murder of Jews during "Einsatz Reinhardt" 1942 |journal=Holocaust and Genocide Studies |volume=15 |issue=3 |year=2001 |pages=468–86 |doi=10.1093/hgs/15.3.468 |doi-access=free }} See also: {{cite web |author=Oxford Journals |publisher=Oxford University Press |title=Abstract of article |url=http://www3.oup.co.uk/holgen/current/150468.sgm.abs.html |year=2002 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20020212003049/http://www3.oup.co.uk/holgen/current/150468.sgm.abs.html |archive-date=12 February 2002}}</ref> which were built in the occupied [[General Government]] territory inhabited by the largest concentrations of Jews,<ref name="katz">{{cite book |chapter=Poland's Ghettos at War |publisher=Ardent Media |page=35 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=m-q2qdBzfowC&q=largest+concentrations |title=The Establishment of Ghettos in [occupied] Poland |first=Alfred |last=Katz |location=Twayne Publishers, New York |year=1970 |oclc=141597}}</ref> the killing centre at Auschwitz subcamp of [[Auschwitz concentration camp#Auschwitz II-Birkenau|Birkenau]] operated directly in [[Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany]]. The new gas chambers at Bunker I were finished around March 1942 when the Final Solution was officially launched at Belzec. Until mid June, around 20,000 Silesian Jews were murdered there using [[Zyklon B]]. In July 1942, Bunker II became operational. In August, another 10,000–13,000 Polish Jews from Silesia were murdered,{{r|Browning544}} along with 16,000 French Jews declared 'stateless',<ref name=PLong10>{{harvp|Longerich|2010|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=cxYqYIn73SgC&q=Auschwitz+Stammlager+1942 344, 360, 380, 391]}}.</ref> and 7,700 Jews from Slovakia.<ref name=Browning544>{{harvp|Browning|2004|loc=(2007 ed.: [https://books.google.com/books?id=d9Wg4gjtP3cC&pg=PA544 p. 544]}}).</ref> | ||
The infamous 'Gate of Death' at [[Auschwitz II]] for the incoming freight trains was built of brick and cement mortar in 1943, and the three-track rail spur was added.<ref name=ARaw/> Until mid-August, 45,000 Thessaloniki Jews were murdered in a mere six months,{{r|PLong10}} including over 30,000 Jews from [[Sosnowiec Ghetto|Sosnowiec]] (Sosnowitz) and [[Bendzin Ghetto]]s.{{sfnp|Longerich|2010|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=cxYqYIn73SgC&q=Sosnowitz p. 380: Extermination].}} The spring of 1944 marked the beginning of the last phase of the Final Solution at Birkenau. The new big ramps and sidings were constructed, and two freight elevators were installed inside Crematoria II and III for moving the bodies faster. The size of the ''[[Sonderkommando]]'' was nearly quadrupled in preparation for the Special Operation Hungary (''Sonderaktion Ungarn'').<ref>{{cite book |last1=Greif |first1=Gideon |title=Im Zentrum der Endlösung – Alltag in der Todesfabrik Auschwitz |date=2022 |publisher=Tuebingen, TOS Verlag |pages=528 |url=https://www.kulturkaufhaus.de/de/detail/ISBN | The infamous 'Gate of Death' at [[Auschwitz II]] for the incoming freight trains was built of brick and cement mortar in 1943, and the three-track rail spur was added.<ref name=ARaw/> Until mid-August, 45,000 Thessaloniki Jews were murdered in a mere six months,{{r|PLong10}} including over 30,000 Jews from [[Sosnowiec Ghetto|Sosnowiec]] (Sosnowitz) and [[Bendzin Ghetto]]s.{{sfnp|Longerich|2010|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=cxYqYIn73SgC&q=Sosnowitz p. 380: Extermination].}} The spring of 1944 marked the beginning of the last phase of the Final Solution at Birkenau. The new big ramps and sidings were constructed, and two freight elevators were installed inside Crematoria II and III for moving the bodies faster. The size of the ''[[Sonderkommando]]'' was nearly quadrupled in preparation for the Special Operation Hungary (''Sonderaktion Ungarn'').<ref>{{cite book |last1=Greif |first1=Gideon |title=Im Zentrum der Endlösung – Alltag in der Todesfabrik Auschwitz |date=2022 |publisher=Tuebingen, TOS Verlag |pages=528 |url=https://www.kulturkaufhaus.de/de/detail/ISBN%209783965890022/Greif-Gideon/Im-Zentrum-der-Endl%C3%B6sung |access-date=22 May 2022 |isbn=978-3-96589-002-2 }}{{Dead link|date=August 2025 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> In May 1944, Auschwitz-Birkenau became the site of one of the two largest mass murder operations in modern history, after the ''[[Grossaktion Warsaw (1942)|Großaktion Warschau]]'' deportations of the [[Warsaw Ghetto]] inmates to Treblinka in 1942. It is estimated that until July 1944 approximately 320,000 Hungarian Jews were gassed at Birkenau in less than eight weeks.<ref name=ARaw>{{cite book |title=Auschwitz: The Nazi Solution |author=Andrew Rawson |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=izigBwAAQBAJ&q=%22Gate%20of%20Death%22 |publisher=Pen and Sword |year=2015 |isbn=978-1473855410 |pages=69, 87, 123}} While the numbers considerably reduced through June and July [1944], nearly 440,000 Hungarian Jews were transported to Auschwitz in less than eight weeks; 320,000 were murdered. — [https://books.google.com/books?id=9zegBwAAQBAJ&q=Sonderaktion+Hungary+1944&pg=PT144 Rawson, 144.] ''Also in:'' {{cite web |title=The Destruction of the Jews of Hungary |year=2007 |author1=S.J. |author2=Carmelo Lisciotto |url=http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/othercamps/DestructionofHungarianJews.html |publisher=H.E.A.R.T |quote=Of the 381,600 Jews who left Hungary between 15 May 1944 and 30 June 1944 it is probable that 200,000 – 240,000 were gassed or shot on 46 working days.}}</ref> The entire operation was [[Auschwitz Album|photographed by the SS]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hellman |first1=Peter |last2=Meier |first2=Lili |last3=Klarsfeld |first3=Serge |author-link3=Serge and Beate Klarsfeld |title=The Auschwitz Album |year=1981 |publisher=Random House |location=New York; Toronto |isbn=0-394-51932-9 |url=http://www.abebooks.com/book-search/isbn/0394519329/}}</ref> In total, between April and November 1944, Auschwitz II received over 585,000 Jews from over a dozen regions as far as Greece, Italy, and France, including 426,000 Jews from Hungary, 67,000 from [[Łódź]], 25,000 from [[Theresienstadt]], and the last 23,000 Jews from the General Government.<ref name="Anatomy">{{cite book |title=Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp |first1=Israel |last1=Gutman |first2=Michael |last2=Berenbaum |author3=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum |publisher=Indiana University Press |year=1998 |page=89 |isbn=025320884X |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mub823JQrdUC&q=Arrival+Specific+Regions+November+1944 }}</ref> Auschwitz was liberated by the Red Army on 27 January 1945, when the gassing had already stopped.{{sfnp|Yahil|1991|p=637}} | ||
==Historiographic debate about the decision== | ==Historiographic debate about the decision== | ||
{{see also|Responsibility for the Holocaust}} | {{see also|Responsibility for the Holocaust|Functionalism–intentionalism debate}} | ||
{{The Holocaust sidebar}} | {{The Holocaust sidebar}} | ||
Historians disagree as to when and how the Nazi leadership decided that the European Jews should be exterminated. The controversy is commonly described as the [[functionalism versus intentionalism]] debate which began in the 1960s, and subsided thirty years later. In the 1990s, the attention of mainstream historians moved away from the question of top executive orders triggering the Holocaust and focused on factors that were overlooked earlier, such as personal initiative and ingenuity of countless functionaries in charge of the killing fields. No written evidence of Hitler ordering the Final Solution has ever been found to serve as a "smoking gun", and therefore, this one particular question remains unanswered.<ref name="hist">{{cite book |title=Holocaust Historiography in Context: Emergence, Challenges, Polemics and Achievements |first1=David |last1= Bankier |first2= Dan |last2= Mikhman |publisher=Berghahn Books |year=2008 |isbn=978-9653083264 |page=330 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aNzjTUT6jdYC&q=smoking%2Bgun}}</ref> | Historians disagree as to when and how the Nazi leadership decided that the European Jews should be exterminated. The controversy is commonly described as the [[functionalism versus intentionalism]] debate which began in the 1960s, and subsided thirty years later. In the 1990s, the attention of mainstream historians moved away from the question of top executive orders triggering the Holocaust and focused on factors that were overlooked earlier, such as personal initiative and ingenuity of countless functionaries in charge of the killing fields. No written evidence of Hitler ordering the Final Solution has ever been found to serve as a "smoking gun", and therefore, this one particular question remains unanswered.<ref name="hist">{{cite book |title=Holocaust Historiography in Context: Emergence, Challenges, Polemics and Achievements |first1=David |last1= Bankier |first2= Dan |last2= Mikhman |publisher=Berghahn Books |year=2008 |isbn=978-9653083264 |page=330 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aNzjTUT6jdYC&q=smoking%2Bgun}}</ref> | ||
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==See also== | ==See also== | ||
<!---♦♦♦ Please keep the list in alphabetical order ♦♦♦---> | <!---♦♦♦ Please keep the list in alphabetical order ♦♦♦---> | ||
* [[Höfle | * [[Höfle telegram]] with arrivals for the camps of ''[[Einsatz Reinhardt]]'' | ||
* [[History of the Jews during World War II]] | * [[History of the Jews during World War II]] | ||
* [[Korherr Report]] written in 1943 on the progress of the Final Solution | * [[Korherr Report]] written in 1943 on the progress of the Final Solution | ||
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{{Authority control}} | {{Authority control}} | ||
{{DEFAULTSORT:Final Solution}} | |||
[[Category:1941 establishments in Germany]] | [[Category:1941 establishments in Germany]] | ||
[[Category: | [[Category:Ethnic cleansing in Europe]] | ||
[[Category: | [[Category:Holocaust historiography]] | ||
[[Category:Holocaust terminology]] | [[Category:Holocaust terminology]] | ||
[[Category:Military-related euphemisms]] | [[Category:Military-related euphemisms]] | ||
[[Category:Nazi terminology]] | |||
[[Category:Projects established in 1941]]{{DEFAULTSORT:}} | |||
[[Category:The Holocaust]] | |||
[[Category:Genocidal intent]] | |||