the quest for racial purity - United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

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at Auschwitz had died. In Bergen-Belsen, hundreds of prisoners died every day for three weeks. During the first month after liberation, 13,000 of the camp’s approximately 50,000 surviving prisoners died. Even at the sites of the killing centers, which the SS and police had dismantled, forensic evidence, such as buried ash and bone fragments, bore witness to the crimes committed there. World War II ended in Europe with the unconditional surrender of the German armed forces to the Western Allies on May 7, 1945, and to the Soviets on May 9, 1945. May 8, 1945, was proclaimed Victory in Europe Day (V-E Day). One week earlier, as Soviet forces neared his command bunker in central Berlin on April 30, 1945, Adolf Hitler committed suicide. It is no exaggeration to say that Europe lay in ruins. War and genocide, displace- ment and upheaval left the continent in a state of chaos. Although trials of the perpetrators began within months of the German surrender, western European Jewish communities would take decades to partially restore themselves. The Jewish communities of central and eastern Europe disappeared, culturally and physically, except for remnants in Hungary and Romania and small groups of survivors elsewhere in the region. Indeed, what was destroyed during the 12 years of Nazi rule—human life, culture, history, community, and collective memory—could be never be rebuilt or repaired. Shortly following the liberation in April 1945, emaciated survivors (right) rest in a group at the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany. buchenwald, germany, c. april 11, 1945. ushmm, courtesy of hadassah bimko rosensaft According to Nazi ideology, the Jews of Europe represented the priority “racial” enemy who by their very existence threatened the survival of the “Aryan” German race. Drawing 154 | nazi ideology and the holocaust
Despite Nazi efforts to hide their traces thousands of starved and diseased prisonors had been left behind to testify —both in words and by their physical condition— about their experiences in the camps
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the quest for racial purity: German
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ideology into practice. The persecu
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conditions were by definition “he
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granted exemptions to people who we
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a distracted population from what t
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Doctors marked each name with a red
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in white coats and rode along in th
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and leadership had moved to other p
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scientists, physicians, nurses, aca
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and other racial minorities. The la
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popular prejudices (in Germany and
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Many insisted that who did not meri
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with “feeblemindedness” and oth
Page 29 and 30: In the camps, Roma were made to wea
Page 31 and 32: German physicians also used Roma co
Page 33 and 34: arracks. The SS refrained from carr
Page 35 and 36: end with Germany’s acknowledgment
Page 37 and 38: he nazis reserved their most viciou
Page 40 and 41: In 1933, the approximately 530,000
Page 43 and 44: marked the beginning of a pattern t
Page 45 and 46: this a “racial” definition for
Page 47 and 48: the army; and, in early 1934, forba
Page 49 and 50: Most German Jews who managed to emi
Page 51 and 52: - Close relatives of the prospectiv
Page 53: instigated and carried out by Nazi
Page 56 and 57: Night of Broken Glass,” German Je
Page 59 and 60: context of the do-or-die struggle b
Page 61 and 62: The ghettos were conceived ... as a
Page 63 and 64: The Nazis, and many other Germans u
Page 65: police officials and, in particular
Page 68 and 69: The tactics used by the German auth
Page 70 and 71: forced the inhabitants into certain
Page 72 and 73: the war, the Germans had deported a
Page 75 and 76: Unlike the Operation Reinhard camps
Page 77 and 78: their efforts could not save Jewish
Page 79: Auschwitz-Birkenau until November 1
Page 83 and 84: epilogue | the aftermath of the hol
Page 85 and 86: The Nuremberg Trial brought major N
Page 87 and 88: viduals—from all religious backgr
Page 89 and 90: polish and soviet civilians, and so
Page 91 and 92: Morse, Arthur. While Six Million Di
Page 93 and 94: Dalliare, Roméo, 161-62 Darfur, Su
Page 95 and 96: Jewish resistance, 150-52 Jewish st
Page 97 and 98: Polish civilians, 54, 55 children,
Page 99: design Studio A, Alexandria, Va. ww
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