Holocaust 4 phases (short version)

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Holocaust

Holocaust

The term holocaust comes from ancient Greek and means 'burnt offering'.

The Hebrew (Jewish) name of the same genocide is Shoah meaning 'catastrophe'.

Genocide: 

The crime of genocide is characterised by the specific intent to destroy in whole or in part a national, ethnic, racial or religious group by killing its members or by creating living conditions that prevent the group from surviving.

Holocaust: 

The systematic state-sponsored killing of six million Jewish men, women, and children and millions of others by Nazi Germany and its collaborators during World War II. The Germans called this “the final solution (Endlösung) to the Jewish question".

Four phases that led to the Holocaust: 

1. discrimination
2. isolation
3. deportation
4. elimination

Phase 1: discrimination

Jews are defined as the “other” through legalized discrimination.

How?

• Through racism: categorizing people into fixed categories based on (supposed) bloodlines.
• Through laws: The Nuremberg laws (1935) defined who was a Jew and who was not a Jew.
• Through propaganda: Cartoons, books, movies, and posters portrayed Jews as different from (and inferior to) their Aryan neighbors.

Phase 2. Isolation: 

Once individuals are labeled as Jews, they are separated from mainstream society

How?

• Through laws: Jews were not allowed to attend German schools or universities.They could not go to public parks or movie theaters. 
• Through social practices: Many Germans stopped “being friends” with Jews. 
• Through the economy: Jews were excluded from the civil service and Jewish businesses were taken over by Germans. Jewish doctors and lawyers lost their license.

Phase 2 Isolation (2)

Jews are forcibly removed to segregated sections of Eastern 

European cities called ghettos

How?

• Ghettos were walled-off areas of a city where Jews were forced to live. They were not allowed to leave their ghetto without permission from Nazi officials. 
• Conditions in the ghettos were crowded and filthy. Many families were forced to share one small apartment. There was limited access to proper waste disposal. Jews had to give up their property and valuables. There were very few jobs in a ghetto. Food and medicine was scarce.

Phase 3. Deportation

Jews are sent to camps. In the Netherlands they were sent to Westerbork. Westerbork was a transit camp. From there they were transported to concentration camps.

Phase 4: Elimination

On arrival in the death camps the Jews went through a

selection process: those who could work and those who could not work. The latter group was immediately killed in the gas chambers.

How?

Victims were told to undress for a disinfection shower. Once in the shower, which had actual shower heads, gas was poured into the room, killing everybody inside.

The gas was Zyklon B, a pesticide. These are crystals that, when mixed with oxygen, spread a poisonous gas.

Afterwards, the bodies were cremated in ovens.

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