The Holocaust: Key Topics

On 27 October 1938, Nazi Germany carried out the brutal eviction of Jews with Polish citizenship. SS men drove children, the elderly and the sick across the Polish border; most of them were concentrated in abandoned stables near the border town of Zbąszyń, Poland. The deportation to Zbąszyń was directly connected with the November Pogrom, a violent anti-Jewish attack that took place on 9-10 November 1938.

Operation Reinhard was a codename for the Nazi scheme to exterminate the 2,284,000 Jews living in the five districts of the Generalgouvernement. The scheme was named after Reinhard Heydrich, the main coordinator of the "Final Solution" in Europe, who had been assassinated by Czech resistance fighters. Three extermination camps were established for its implementation: Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka.

In their implementation of the "Final Solution," the Nazis forcibly uprooted millions of Jews from their homes and sent them to their deaths. This systematic campaign marked a tragic and devastating chapter in history, annihilating Jewish communities that had thrived for centuries across areas occupied by Nazi Germany.

Jews from across Europe were deported to the camp. Upon arrival, they underwent a selection process. Most were sent directly to the gas chambers, and a small number were selected for forced labor, either within the main camp or in Auschwitz’s sub-camps. Some prisoners were also subjected to brutal medical experiments.

Operation Barbarossa began on 22 June 1941 with the massive military invasion of the Soviet Union. Four special operations divisions (Einsatzgruppen) – A, B, C and D – operated behind the corps that took part in the campaign against the USSR. The units were made up of SS, police and auxiliaries mobilized from the local population.

The occupation of France and the establishment of the antisemitic Vichy regime brought 415,000 North African Jews into the orbit of persecution.

Jewish organizations attempted to rescue Jews by getting them out of the camps, by ransoming them for money, by placing them in children’s institutions or private homes, and by organizing their emigration. 

The partisan movement refers to resistance groups and fighters who opposed occupying forces during World War II. Wide-scale partisan warfare was waged against the Germans in the occupied territories of the Soviet Union. The vast areas with thick forests and marshland were well-suited for partisan combat.

The family camps were one of the unique phenomena of the partisan movement in the occupied areas of the Soviet Union. These units began to emerge in 1942 as a result of the mass extermination of the Jews and the escape of some survivors into the forests. Later, with the expansion of German punitive policies, the phenomenon of family camps ceased to be exclusively Jewish.

Towards the end of the war, as the German army was retreating on all fronts, Nazi Germany began to evacuate the camps near the Eastern Front and march the inmates westward. Not yielding despite their visible defeat, the Nazis were determined to prevent the survivors from falling into Allied hands.

With Nazi Germany’s surrender on 8 May 1945, joy spread worldwide. Yet, for the Jewish people, liberation had come too late. The scale of destruction was staggering — six million Jews, about one-third of world Jewry, had been murdered.

After World War II, an International Military Tribunal put senior Nazis on trial in Nuremberg for crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity. The Nuremberg trials were the first in history where regime, government and military leaders responsible for crimes committed in their countries, were judged.

After World War II, an International Military Tribunal put senior Nazis on trial in Nuremberg for crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity. The Nuremberg trials were the first in history where regime, government and military leaders responsible for crimes committed in their countries, were judged.

The Eichmann trial was held in 1961 in Jerusalem. Unlike the Nuremberg trials, which relied extensively on written documents, the Eichmann Trial put survivors at center stage.