Final Solution
The Final Solution (German: Die Endlösung) was a plan made by Nazi Germany to kill millions of European Jews (along with Roma and Sinti people) during World War II.[1] The Final Solution was part of the Holocaust.[2]
On July 31 1941, Nazi Luftwaffe leader Hermann Goering ordered the Schutzstaffel (SS) to make plans for a "Final Solution to the Jewish question."[1][2] Nazi leaders planned a large part of the Final Solution at the Wannsee Conference on January 20, 1942.[3]
Methods
changeShootings and gas vans
changeEarly on, the Nazis killed Jews in a variety of ways, including mass shootings by death squads like the Einsatzgruppen.[4]
Starting in the autumn of 1941, SS and police forces also began using mobile gas vans to kill people by carbon monoxide poisoning.[1][5] The Nazis had already been using gas to execute people with disabilities in their T-4 Euthanasia Program, but had never used mobile gas chambers before.[5]
In the gas vans, victims were sealed into the back passenger compartment. The vans had been changed so their exhaust gases (such as carbon monoxide) would enter the back. Victims suffered and then died from gas poisoning.[5]
Death camps
changeIn 1942 Heinrich Himmler proposed Operation Reinhard, a plan to exterminate all Polish Jews.[6] The operation was named after SS General Reinhard Heydrich, who had been killed by Czech soldiers.[6]
The Nazis first set up three death camps in Poland: Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka.[7] Their purpose was to kill as many people as possible, and these camps had their own permanent gas chambers.[1][6] In 1942 more death camps were set up in Poland at Auschwitz (which also had its own gas chamber), Majdanek, and Chelmno.[1]
By the end of World War II, the Nazis had killed about six million Jews and millions of others.[1][8][9][10]
Related pages
changeReferences
change- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. ""Final Solution": Overview". Holocaust Encyclopedia.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Volle, Adam (2024-08-02). "Final solution: Definition, Holocaust, & Third Reich". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2024-09-24.
- ↑ Berenbaum, Michael (2024-08-30). "Wannsee Conference: Definition, Date, Attendees, & Significance". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2024-09-24.
- ↑ International Military Tribunal. "Trials of war criminals before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals under Control Council law no. 10 Nuernberg, October -April 1949". Library of Congress. Retrieved 2024-09-24.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. "Gassing Operations". Holocaust Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2024-09-24.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Arad, Yitzhak. ""Operation Reinhard": Extermintation Camps of Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka". Yad Vashem. Retrieved 2024-09-24.
- ↑ Berenbaum, Michael (2024-09-14). "Extermination camp: History, Map, & Facts". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2024-09-24.
- ↑ United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. "How Many People did the Nazis Murder?". Holocaust Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2024-09-24.
- ↑ "Holocaust Misconceptions". Illinois Holocaust Museum. Retrieved 2024-09-24.
- ↑ Berenbaum, Michael (2024-09-23). "Holocaust: Definition, Concentration Camps, History, & Facts". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2024-09-24.