1. To gain support for his racist ideas, Hitler knowingly tapped into a hatred for Jews that had deep roots in European history. For generations, many Germans targeted and blamed the Jews for losing World War I and creating the Great Depression. The Nazi's felt that, due to their ideology of anti - semitism, the Jews should be to blame, and therefore killed. People followed by creating propaganda and spreading rumors of the Jews, how they were the source of Germany's economic problems after the war. In time, the Nazis made the targeting of Jews a government policy, and since the citizens of Germany were on board, the Nazi's were more eager to turn in the Jews, making it easier to commit genocide. Hitler utilized Nazi racist ideology to commit this genocide through the Nuremberg Laws, Kristallnacht, the Ghettos, and the "Final Solution".
2. Kristallnacht
2.1. "Night of Broken Glass"
2.1.1. Anti - Semitic riots in Germany and Austria.
2.2. A turning point for many
2.2.1. Kristallnacht marked a major step - up in the Nazi policy of Jewish persecution. The future for Jews in Germany looked truly grim.
2.3. 30,000 Jews were rounded up and taken to concentration camps.
2.4. Homes, businesses, and synagogues were destroyed by Nazi storm troopers(300 acres across Germany and Austria).
2.5. Jews were fined 1 billion German marks for the damage done.
2.6. Jews could not own or drive cars and children could not attend public schools among other heavily restrictive policies.
2.7. Novermber 9th, 1938
3. Ghettos - Warsaw
3.1. The Nazi's wanted to creat more living space or "lebensraum".
3.1.1. As a result, Jews were rounded up and sent to walled off sections of cities called ghettos
3.1.2. When Hitler learned he could not get rid of Jews through emmigration.
3.1.2.1. He demanded all Jews living in countries under his control to be moved to designated cities.
3.1.2.1.1. It was considered that Jews would be sent to Madagascar, but because the British controlled the seas, this was no longer an option.
3.2. Multiple families occupied small, cramped, dirty apartments.
3.3. The Nazi's hoped that the Jews held behind the barb wire would starve to death or die from disease.
3.4. Some Jewish people, particularly those in Warsaw, Poland, formed resistance organizations within the ghettos
3.4.1. The struggled to keep their traditions.
3.4.1.1. Theaters produced plays and concerts.
3.4.1.2. Teachers taught lessons to Jews in secret schools.
3.4.2. Records from scholars help us understand the truth.
4. The Nuremberg Laws
4.1. Laws which allowed for legal discrimination and terrorism against Jews.
4.1.1. Between 1933 - 1937, more than 129,000 Jews fled the country.
4.1.2. Gypsies, those with physical and mental disabilities, Jehovah's witnesses and homosexual men were also targeted.
4.2. Passed in 1935
4.3. Deprived the Jewish people of their rights.
4.3.1. Jews were stripped of German citizenship (they could no longer vote).
4.3.2. Marriage between Jews and Germans was forbidden.
4.3.3. Jews were excluded from public office, practicing law, medicine, and teaching.
4.3.4. Jews had curfews and had to wear the yellow star of David for public I.D.
5. The "Final Solution"
5.1. Hitler grew impatient as he waited for the Jews held within the ghettos to die of starvation or diease
5.1.1. He decided to take more direct action.
5.2. A program of genocide - the systematic killing of an entire people.
5.3. Hitler believed his program depended on the purity of the Aryan race.
5.3.1. In order to protect it, other races, nationalities, or groups he considered inferior had to be eliminated.
5.3.1.1. These included Roma (Gypsies), Poles, Russians, homosexuals, the insane, the disabled and the incurably ill.
5.3.1.2. The Nazi's specifically focused on the Jews.
5.4. Units from the SS (Hitler's elite security force) marched from town to town, hunting for Jews. They had no remorse, rounding up men, women and children alike, moving them to isolated areas.
5.4.1. These victims were then shot in pits.
5.4.2. Jews in communities that were located beyond the reach of the killing squads were sent to various concentration camps, or slave - labor prisons.
5.4.2.1. Located in Germany and Poland.
5.4.2.2. Hitler hoped that the horrible conditions of the camps/prisons would speed the process of elimination of the Jews.
5.4.2.3. SS officered were cruel, beating and even killing the prisoners for not working fast enough.
5.4.2.4. Rashons were incredibly low.
5.4.2.4.1. Prisoners lived off of meals of thin soup, scraps of bread, and potato pealings.
5.5. The Final Stage - 1942
5.5.1. The Nazi's built extermination camps with huge gas chambers that were capable of killing as many as 6,000 Jews in a single day.
5.5.1.1. Auschwitz - the largest extermination camp and one of the most popular.
5.5.1.1.1. Doctors seperated the strong from the weak, the men from the women, the sick, and the elderly.
5.6. A total of six million European Jews died in those death camps and by Nazi massacres.
5.6.1. Fewer than four million survived.
5.6.1.1. Some escaped through the help of non - Jewish people. They, at great risk, held these prisoners in their homes and helped them escape to neutral countries.