- In the first half of the 20th century,
Germany was the preeminent intellectual
and cultural capital of the world.
And Jews were well-integrated citizens.
(air whooshing)
The emergence of Nazism and its leader, Adolph Hitler,
changed Europe and led to the greatest destruction
that the Jewish people have ever faced, the Holocaust.
(energetic music)
During the 1920s and 1930s,
despite continuing anti-Semitism and occasional pogroms,
Jewish communities were a large component
of European society.
Cities, villages, and towns across Europe
boasted significant Jewish populations.
In Germany, Jews were leading academics,
artists, and politicians, as well as teachers,
doctors, farmers, and shopkeepers.
During this time,
a fringe political movement began gaining ground in Germany
promoting an extremely racist nationalism.
They were called
the National Socialist Workers' Party or Nazis.
And their leader was a man named Adolph Hitler.
Anti-Semitism was foundational to their ideology.
In his infamous book "Mein Kampf,"
Hitler called the Jewish people,
"a noxious bacillus
that lives as a parasite in the body of other nations."
"Once I really am in power," Hitler declared in 1922,
"my first and foremost task will be
the annihilation of the Jews."
In spite of rising support,
Hitler and the Nazis initially failed to gain much ground
in German parliament.
It was not until after the economic collapse of 1929
that the party began to gain real political power.
Social turmoil and strife led to a polarized
and unstable political climate,
and very quickly the Nazi Party became
the largest faction in the Reichstag.
In January of 1933,
Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany.
One month later,
the Nazis claimed that a fire at the Reichstag was started
by communists planning an insurrection
and used the fear of a communist takeover
to abolish constitutional protections.
Shortly thereafter, Hitler was given the right to govern
without the consent of parliament,
effectively establishing a Nazi dictatorship in Germany.
On September 15th, 1935, the Nazis passed a series
of notoriously racist laws called the Nuremberg Laws,
which stripped Jews of their German citizenship,
removed all of their political rights,
and legally institutionalized their persecution.
Many Jews attempted to flee the country,
though their options of where to go were very limited.
In September of 1939, Germany invaded Poland,
officially beginning World War II.
In the wake of German military expansion,
a campaign of mass murder was carried out
on the Jewish population.
In towns and villages occupied by the German Army,
German military and police units,
the most infamous being the SS,
were instructed to carry out
a war of annihilation on the Jews.
Nazi soldiers, often with the help of local collaborators,
rounded up Jewish men, women, children, and the elderly,
took them to mass graves and shot them to death,
murdering roughly 2 million Jews within just a few years.
To separate and control the Jewish population,
the Nazis forced Jews into ghettos,
small areas of cities and towns that were walled off
from the rest of society.
In 1941, it became law that Jews were required
to wear a Star of David to identify them at all times.
Disease in the ghetto spread like wildfire
and starvation was rampant.
In January of 1942, Nazi leadership and representatives
from various government ministries met
at what came to be known as the Wannsee Conference
to coordinate their efforts
toward the efficient annihilation of the Jewish people,
known as the Final Solution.
Deportations to the death camps became
the Nazi regime's primary tactic of mass murder.
Jews were sent in cattle cars to places like
Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka,
forced into chambers they were told were showers
and gassed to death.
Some camps, such as the infamous Auschwitz-Birkenau complex,
doubled as labor and death camps
where Jews were forced to work
and were then sent to the gas chambers to be murdered.
This assembly line of mass murder continued for years
with thousands of Jews murdered every day.
In the midst of this mass murder and destruction,
despite impossible odds and relentless brutality,
many Jews resisted.
In the ghettos and camps,
prisoners carried out acts of sabotage,
smuggled weapons, and organized uprisings.
Some fled to the forests where they formed partisan units,
bands of guerilla fighters that often included
both Jewish and non-Jewish fighters united against Nazism.
These partisan units blew up trains,
sabotaged Nazi operations,
and fought head-to-head against German soldiers.
Uprisings were waged in numerous ghettos,
including in Krakow, Vilna, Bialystok, and Minsk.
Spiritual resistance was also present
throughout the ghettos and camps.
Through observing holidays, studying Torah,
upholding Jewish values, creating art, writing poetry,
singing songs, spiritual resistors maintained dignity
and upheld the strength of the human spirit
even in the face of violent hatred,
cruelty, and dehumanization.
Throughout 1943 and 1944,
cruelty and humanization throughout 1943 in 1944
Ghettos were liquidated
and Jews from all corners of Nazi-occupied Europe
were deported to death camps and murdered.
Finally in 1945,
the Russian Army reached and liberated Auschwitz.
US forces crossed the Rhine.
And by April, Berlin was surrounded.
Hitler committed suicide,
and Germany unconditionally surrendered to the allies.
By the end of the tragic war,
roughly 6 million Jews and 5 million others,
including Roma, Poles, homosexuals,
the disabled, communists,
and political dissidents had been murdered by Nazis.
Villages, cities, and towns throughout Europe
that were once home to flourishing Jewish communities
were now empty of them.
Survivors of the concentration and death camps
who tried to return home,
often found their properties seized
by their non-Jewish neighbors.
With no recourse for reclaiming their homes or possessions,
they became refugees,
many ending up in displaced persons camps
before moving on to form what have since become
flourishing Jewish communities
in the Americas and the land of Israel.
The Holocaust was a brutal campaign of persecution
and mass murder carried out
by the Nazis and their collaborators
in an effort to systematically annihilate
the entire European Jewish population.
The scale of death and destruction is unfathomable,
but Jewish communities have since worked tirelessly
to care survivors, name the lost,
build and strengthen Jewish life around the world
and educate younger generations
about the horrors of the Holocaust
so that it never happens again.
(gentle music)