IV. The Holocaust (Brief Review)

The Holocaust is covered in detail in Unit 10.5. Maria should review that material in conjunction with this unit. The basic outlines:

• Nazi Germany systematically murdered approximately 6 million European Jews between 1933 and 1945

• Stages: legal persecution (1933-1939), ghettos in occupied Poland (1939-1941), mobile killing squads in occupied USSR (1941-1942), industrial extermination camps in Poland (1942-1945)

• Wannsee Conference (January 1942) coordinated the Final Solution

• Major extermination camps: Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, Sobibor, Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek

• Other Nazi victims: approximately 3 million Polish civilians, 2-3 million Soviet POWs, 250,000-500,000 Roma, 250,000 disabled people, and others

• Total deaths under Nazi policies: approximately 11 million

The Holocaust forced the international community to create the legal framework discussed in this unit: the Nuremberg Trials established that obedience was not a defense, the UN was founded to prevent recurrence, the Genocide Convention and Universal Declaration of Human Rights established norms, and the State of Israel was created partly in response. The Holocaust is the canonical case for the enduring issue of human rights violations.