Hitler

By the end of the 19th century,

antisemitism became more widespread, antisemitic parties were established all over Europe. In Germany, the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP, Nazi Party) was formed, and in 1920 they declared the Jews to be expelled from German society. In 1922 the Nazi propaganda machine began to work. Hitler wrote Mein Kampf (1924–1926) and the Nazi representatives claimed the limitation of Jewish activity.

1933

– Hitler became the Chancellor of Germany; in Dachau, the first concentration camp was set up. The anti-Semitic orders started to come into effect, Jews were losing their jobs, shops; pogroms were raging, Jewish books were burnt. The Nurnberg Laws in 1935 declared that the Jews are inferior species and second-class citizens.

The Nazis burn Jewish books
and Jewish-owned businesses

1938

– The German Empire invaded Austria in March. Thus, the exclusion of the Jews from society and the robbery of Jewish properties began there too. In Evian, France, an international migration conference was held which turned out to be unsuccessful: no country was willing to accept the large number of Jews. On November 9-10, on the so-called “Kristallnacht” in German areas, synagogues were burnt, destroyed and Jewish shops were robbed. The Germans started mass deportation. In March 1939, the Czech Republic was under German occupation, and the German racial laws were extended to Czech Jews.

September 1, 1939

– The Second World War broke out, the Germans invaded Poland. The Western part of the country was annexed, on the areas left, the Polish General Government was set up. In the same month, wearing a yellow star was ordered in the German Empire. The Germans began to build ghettos in Polish areas. In 1940, they started the building of the concentration camp in Auschwitz and the internment of the Jews into camps. In this year, Germany occupied Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Luxemburg, Belgium and the Northern part of France. A Fascist dictatorship was established in Romania.

The burning of the Frankfurt synagogue

Deportations and the obligatory yellow star

1942

– At the Wannsee Conference, to solve the Jewish problem, the “final solution” and its execution were ordered. Its place was the Polish General Government and Adolf Eichmann was commissioned to settle the Jewish matters. Gas cars and gas chambers were used for mass extermination of Jews, and extermination camps were set up in several places. The center of massacres is the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp. In many camps, under the title of “medical experiment”, hundreds of healthy men were tortured, while elsewhere brothels were operated. In this year, the deportation of the Jews was started from many occupied areas.

Auschwitz

Warsaw Ghetto

1943

– A riot broke out on April 19 in a ghetto in Warsaw but was calmed down quickly. German troops occupied Northern and Middle Italy, the deportation of Italian and Austrian Jews began.

1944

– Two Jewish fugitives managed to escape from Auschwitz in May who reported about the death-camps, crematories, gas chambers (Auschwitz Protocols). Their accounts were received unbelievably and helplessly. Hungary was occupied by the Germans on 19th March. The Puppet Government of Sztójay served German demands without resistance: between 15th May and 8th July, 437,000 Jews were deported from the countryside, most of them were killed in Auschwitz. In the capital, Jews were centralized into Yellow Star Houses. In October, the Arrow Cross Party, led by Ferenc Szálasi came into power, the “arrow-terror” began. The Jews in the capital were closed into a ghetto, some of them were forced to march to the West, the rest were liberated with the invasion of Pest by the Red Cross Army on 18th January 1945.

House of Stars in Budapest

1945

– On January 27, the Soviet troops liberated the camp complex in Auschwitz. On April 30, Hitler committed suicide in his bunker in Berlin. On the 8th of May, Germany capitulated, on the 9th, the Second World War officially ended. To prevent wars in the future, the United Nations (UN) was formed. After the war, the Allies military court condemned the Nazi criminals in the Nurnberg trials (November 1945 – October 1946).

More than half of the European-Jewish population

was destroyed. The devastation was received silently by the majority of the international public, but resistance movements and rescue actions have taken place in many places among the citizens.

Raul Wallenberg, Consul in Sweden and Carl Lutz Consul of Switzerland. They both made rescue missions in Budapest

Danish Jewry was saved almost single-handedly by a popular resistance movement.

The number of Jews in Europe before and after the Second World War
(source: Lucy S. Dawidowitz)

Country	Number of the Jews before the war (person)	Loss (person)	Loss (percent)
Poland	3 350 000	3 000 000	90%
Baltic States	253 000	228 000	90%
Germany/Austria	240 000	210 000	90%
Czech-Moravian Protectorate	90 000	80 000	89%
Slovakia	90 000	75 000	83%
Greece	70 000	54 000	77%
The Netherlands	140 000	105 000	7%
Hungary	900 000	600 000	67%
Belarus	375 000	245 000	65%
Ukraine	1 500 000	900 000	60%
Belgium	65 000	40 000	60%
Yugoslavia	43 000	26 000	60%
Norway	1 800	900	50%
Romania	750 000	310 000	41%
France	350 000	90 000	26%
Luxemburg	5 000	1 000	20%
Italy	40 000	8 000	20%
Soviet Union	975 000	107 000	11%
Denmark	8 000	–	–
Finnland	2 000	–	–
Total number of European-Jews	8 861 800	5 933 900	67%

Nazi camps

Nazi Germany activated several types of camps between 1933 and 1945, such as concentration camps, extermination camps, forced labor camps, collection points, transit camps, prison camps, prisoner of war camp, ghettos, “care centers” and brothels. According to the latest research, the number of camps was around 42,500 – out of which 30,000 were forced labor camps, 1150 ghettos, 980 concentration camps, 1000 prisoner of war camps, 500 brothels, and thousands of other types – the number of deaths was 15-20 million altogether (mainly Jews but Gypsies, Homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses etc. were victims also). There were deaths in every kind of camps, but the largest number of murders were in extermination camps (death-camps) where crematories, gas cars and gas chambers were used (e.g., in Birkenau during the peak of the deportations, 6000 Jews were gassed in four gas chambers daily). In the table below, the camps claiming most deaths are shown:

Extermination camp	Type of camp	Operation	Number of deaths
Auschwitz-Birkenau	extermination and forced labor camp	1940–1945	1-1,5 million
Belzec	extermination camp	1942–1943	600 000
Bergen-Belsen	concentration camp	1943–1945	70 000
Buchenwald	concentration camp	1937–1945	56 000
Chelmno	extermination camp	1941–1945	340 000
Dachau	concentration camp	1933–1945	Min. 30 000
Flossenbürg	concentration camp	1938–1945	30 000
Gross-Rosen	concentration camp	1940–1945	40 000
Jasenovac	extermination camp	1941–1945	700 000
Kaufering/Landsberg	concentration camp	1944–1945	Min. 14 500
Lwów	extermination camp	1941–1943	Min. 40 000
Majdanek	extermination camp	1941–1944	78 000
Malij Trosztenec	extermination camp	1941–1944	200 000 – 500 000
Mauthausen-Gusen	concentration camp	1938–1945	Min. 95 000
Mittelbau-Dora	concentration camp	1943–1945	Min. 20 000
Neuengamme	concentration camp	1938–1945	55 000
Ravensbrück	concentration camp	1939–1945	Min. 90 000
Sachsenhausen	concentration camp	1936–1945	100 000
Sobibór	extermination camp	1942–1943	250 000
Stutthof	concentration and extermination camp	1939–1945	65 000
Theresienstadt	transit camp and ghetto	1941–1945	35 000
Treblinka	extermination camp	1942–1943	Min. 800 000
Warsaw ghetto		1940–1944	Max. 200 000