The term "Holocaust" refers to the genocide of European Jews organized by the German Nazis during World War II. Discussing the initial events of such an event is perhaps problematic. After settling on the topic I realized I could not answer a presumably fundamental question: When did the Holocaust begin? Did it begin when the first brick of the first death camp was laid? Did it begin with the genocidal activities of the Einsatzgruppen in eastern Europe? Or did it commence upon the organization of the first persecutory measures taken against Jews following Hitler’s assumption of the Reich Chancellorship in 1933; measures whose consequences, it might be argued, rendered the Holocaust possible, or even likely? The question of when the Holocaust begins is not addressed in the literature I have studied so I therefore have simply adopted what I previously took for granted as the beginning: when the Nazis began to implement widespread killing of Jews.
I rely primarily upon Daniel Goldhagen’s Hitler’s Willing Executioners, and Laurence Rees’ Auschwitz: A New History, although Robert Service’s Stalin: A Biography is also referenced.
The Invasion of Poland and the Nisko Plan
On August 24, 1939 the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany signed the Treaty of Non-Aggression. Among other things, it stipulated that neither would make war on the other, nor assist those with whom the other became at war. A secret provision of the treaty agreed to the division of Poland between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Hitler intended to invade Poland before winter set in and knew that he must first neutralize Stalin. (Service, 399, 400, 402)
On September 1, 1939 Germany invaded Poland. France and Britain immediately sent an ultimatum to Germany, which Hitler ignored. On September 3, France and Britain declared war on Germany. By the end of the month Germany and the Soviet Union occupied "their" respective portions the country.
Hitler had come to power in Germany in January of 1933, and throughout the 1930s German Jews faced ever-escalating persecutory measures. Some of the most infamous anti-Semitic measures adopted by the Nazis before the Second World War include the April 1933 nationwide boycott of Jewish shops; the 1935 Nuremburg Laws which, among other things, proscribed marriage between Jews and non-Jews; Kristallnacht--or Crystal Night; or The Night of Broken Glass--during which, on the night of November 9, 1938, more than a thousand synagogues and many thousands of Jewish shops were destroyed. In addition, “during the 1930s German Jews were subjected probably to more frequent and intensive verbal attacks, more concentrated verbal violence, than any group has ever been by its own society.” (Goldhagen, 124)
Germany was home to approximately half a million Jews in 1933. While by the time of Germany’s invasion and occupation of Poland half of these had emigrated, the occupation brought millions of Jewish people under the direct governance of the Nazis. “The opportunities inflamed the imaginations of those fashioning proposed 'solutions' to consider more extreme and permanent policy measures...”. (Goldhagen, 144)
Nazi policy toward Polish Jews was initially guided by the “Nisko Plan” devised by Adolf Eichmann. (Rees, 13) The plan was named for the Polish town of Nisko in Lublin district where, under the plan, Jews were to be settled. Poland was to be divided into three parts, running west to east: a German portion, a Polish portion, and a Jewish portion.
By spring 1940 the Nazis recognized that the settlement of Jews in the far-eastern portion of Nazi-occupied Poland had been unsuccessful, largely as a result of the confusion inherent in such a drastic ethnographic reorganization.
The Development of Ghettos
A major institution of the Nazi persecution of European Jews was the “ghetto.” According to Daniel Goldhagen, ghettos have received insufficient scholarly attention, partially displaced from historical memory perhaps by the horrors of wholesale massacres, death camps, and death marches.
“The Germans created 399 ghettos in Poland...”. (Goldhagen, 167) Ghettos were walled or fenced in areas marked by overcrowding and poor sanitation. Jews were not permitted to leave without German consent, and the denizens of ghettos survived on rations provided by those who had interned them--predictably meager and atrociously insufficient.
According to Daniel Goldhagen, the ghettoization of Polish Jews was authorized by Reinhard Heydrich on September 21, 1939, “immediately upon Poland’s capitulation...”. (Goldhagen, 145) Evidently, then, ghettoization took place while Nazi policy toward Polish Jews was still governed by the Nisko plan. Yet, by the spring of 1940 the Nisko plan had been scrapped in favor of a division of Poland into two halves: a western German half, and an eastern Polish half. (Rees, 14, 15) Ghettos, it seems, were the only areas designated for settlement by Jews during this period, from the spring of 1940 to the invasion of the Soviet Union in June, 1941.
And yet, ghettos were never intended as anything other than a temporary “solution” to the “Jewish problem.” Rees and Goldhagen are in harmony on this point, both providing quotes that illustrate Nazi sentiment in regard to ghettos. (Rees, 15; Goldhagen, 145) Nazis believed Jews to possess diabolical powers; concentrating them into ghettoes within European cities was not considered a sufficient “solution.”
In May of 1940, Heinrich Himmler composed a memorandum in which he addressed Nazi policy in occupied Poland. He proposed to turn the Polish into a “leaderless laboring class.” (Rees, 17; quote from Himmler) In addition, he addressed Nazi policy toward Polish Jews. He now proposed they be sent to Africa. (Rees, 18) In May, the Nazis had initiated the military campaign that would culminate in the swift defeat of France. Himmler and others were hoping that a British surrender would soon follow. This provided the context for the serious consideration by Nazi leaders of the sending of European Jews to Africa after the war. Hitler assented to Himmler’s proposals, and Madagascar was soon settled upon as a suitable destination.
With the Nazi invasion and occupation of the western half of Poland, approximately three million Jews were under Nazi domination (about two million in Nazi-occupied Europe, and an additional million in the rest of Nazi-controlled Europe). (Goldhagen, 144) I found myself grappling with this question as I looked at the development of the Holocaust: Why doesn't the Holocaust begin in September 1939 when the Nazis find themselves ruling over millions of Europe's Jews? Why don't the Nazis begin systematically killing Jews as soon as they have millions of them under their control?
Goldhagen provides potential answers to this question. (Goldhagen, 144) He explains that the Nazis would have conceived of the killing of "only" three million European Jews as a "partial" "solution" to what they considered the "Jewish problem." Plus, Hitler at this time may have been considering a separate peace with Britain and may have feared that genocidal activities would have made such a peace less likely.
In addition, from September 1939 until the invasion of the Soviet Union, Soviet soldiers were just across the border of the German-occupied portion of Poland. These soldiers would have inevitably become aware of such a massive genocidal undertaking by the Nazis. Goldhagen suggests that this would have potentially deterred Hitler because the Nazis believed there existed a link between Judaism and Communism and that the Soviet Union would have retaliated in order to defend Polish Jews.
The Invasion of the Soviet Union and the Initial Events of the Holocaust
Hitler had determined as early as July 1940 that the most effective way of defeating Britain would be to crush the Soviet Union. Hitler believed that Britain only remained in the war because it hoped for the Soviet Union to break the August 1939 non-aggression pact that it had signed with Nazi Germany. (Rees, 35)
"The prospect of war against the Soviet Union clearly unleashed the most radical ideas imaginable in the minds of leading Nazis." (Rees, 37) The Nazis believed that the Jews secretly controlled the Soviet Union, and so "to deal with the perceived threat from the Jews of the Soviet Union, four Einsatzgruppen were formed." (Rees, 38) More than 2,800 men were involved. According to Goldhagen, proposals for “solutions” to “the Jewish problem” ceased in early 1941 as Hitler settled upon the “Final Solution”. (Goldhagen, 147)
Rees refers on page 39 to "the infamous Barbarossa decree and commissar order," Operation Barbarossa being the German codename for their invasion of the Soviet Union. Under it, "partisan fighters were shot out of hand, collective reprisals against whole communities were ordered, and Soviet political officers--the commissars--were killed even after being captured as prisoners of war." (Rees, 39) The German army would allow the Einsatzgruppen into the POW camps to make sure that the army did not miss any commissars or Communists. “The armed forces, the Einsatzgruppen...and the other security forces all understood that this war was not to be a war like other wars; it was not to be a war of mere military conquest, but one in which the opponents--for the armed forces, the Soviet army and state; for the Einsatzgruppen, the Jewish people--were to be vanquished utterly, destroyed, obliterated from the face of the earth.” (Goldhagen, 148)
Operation Barbarossa began in June 1941. The Einsatzgruppen followed behind the German army. They were tasked with murdering Communist politicians and political commissars in addition to Jews. (In the Soviet Union, military units were accompanied by "commissars," responsible for the ideological indoctrination of the unit and for keeping an eye on the officers.) The German army initially made swift progress across the Soviet Union, and the Einsatzgruppen were inciting pogroms in former Soviet territory within a day. The first Einsatzgruppen massacre occurred on the third day of the invasion, "when a Kommando of Einsatzgruppe A shot 201 people in the Lithuanian border town of Garsden, most of whom were Jews." (Goldhagen, 150) Goldhagen writes that “the first large mass shooting that the Einsatzkommandos carried out by themselves was probably” the massacre of 1,100 Jews in the Ukrainian city of Lutsk on July 2.
Because of Nazi concern for preserving the psychological conditions of the Germans tasked with implementing the massacre of Jews, the initial Einsatzgruppen genocidal orders were for the killing of “only” adult male Jews. In addition, Einsatzgruppen commanders were encouraged to recruit locals to commit the crimes. The orders were quickly expanded to include women and children.
I rely primarily upon Daniel Goldhagen’s Hitler’s Willing Executioners, and Laurence Rees’ Auschwitz: A New History, although Robert Service’s Stalin: A Biography is also referenced.
The Invasion of Poland and the Nisko Plan
On August 24, 1939 the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany signed the Treaty of Non-Aggression. Among other things, it stipulated that neither would make war on the other, nor assist those with whom the other became at war. A secret provision of the treaty agreed to the division of Poland between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Hitler intended to invade Poland before winter set in and knew that he must first neutralize Stalin. (Service, 399, 400, 402)
On September 1, 1939 Germany invaded Poland. France and Britain immediately sent an ultimatum to Germany, which Hitler ignored. On September 3, France and Britain declared war on Germany. By the end of the month Germany and the Soviet Union occupied "their" respective portions the country.
Hitler had come to power in Germany in January of 1933, and throughout the 1930s German Jews faced ever-escalating persecutory measures. Some of the most infamous anti-Semitic measures adopted by the Nazis before the Second World War include the April 1933 nationwide boycott of Jewish shops; the 1935 Nuremburg Laws which, among other things, proscribed marriage between Jews and non-Jews; Kristallnacht--or Crystal Night; or The Night of Broken Glass--during which, on the night of November 9, 1938, more than a thousand synagogues and many thousands of Jewish shops were destroyed. In addition, “during the 1930s German Jews were subjected probably to more frequent and intensive verbal attacks, more concentrated verbal violence, than any group has ever been by its own society.” (Goldhagen, 124)
Germany was home to approximately half a million Jews in 1933. While by the time of Germany’s invasion and occupation of Poland half of these had emigrated, the occupation brought millions of Jewish people under the direct governance of the Nazis. “The opportunities inflamed the imaginations of those fashioning proposed 'solutions' to consider more extreme and permanent policy measures...”. (Goldhagen, 144)
Nazi policy toward Polish Jews was initially guided by the “Nisko Plan” devised by Adolf Eichmann. (Rees, 13) The plan was named for the Polish town of Nisko in Lublin district where, under the plan, Jews were to be settled. Poland was to be divided into three parts, running west to east: a German portion, a Polish portion, and a Jewish portion.
By spring 1940 the Nazis recognized that the settlement of Jews in the far-eastern portion of Nazi-occupied Poland had been unsuccessful, largely as a result of the confusion inherent in such a drastic ethnographic reorganization.
The Development of Ghettos
A major institution of the Nazi persecution of European Jews was the “ghetto.” According to Daniel Goldhagen, ghettos have received insufficient scholarly attention, partially displaced from historical memory perhaps by the horrors of wholesale massacres, death camps, and death marches.
“The Germans created 399 ghettos in Poland...”. (Goldhagen, 167) Ghettos were walled or fenced in areas marked by overcrowding and poor sanitation. Jews were not permitted to leave without German consent, and the denizens of ghettos survived on rations provided by those who had interned them--predictably meager and atrociously insufficient.
According to Daniel Goldhagen, the ghettoization of Polish Jews was authorized by Reinhard Heydrich on September 21, 1939, “immediately upon Poland’s capitulation...”. (Goldhagen, 145) Evidently, then, ghettoization took place while Nazi policy toward Polish Jews was still governed by the Nisko plan. Yet, by the spring of 1940 the Nisko plan had been scrapped in favor of a division of Poland into two halves: a western German half, and an eastern Polish half. (Rees, 14, 15) Ghettos, it seems, were the only areas designated for settlement by Jews during this period, from the spring of 1940 to the invasion of the Soviet Union in June, 1941.
And yet, ghettos were never intended as anything other than a temporary “solution” to the “Jewish problem.” Rees and Goldhagen are in harmony on this point, both providing quotes that illustrate Nazi sentiment in regard to ghettos. (Rees, 15; Goldhagen, 145) Nazis believed Jews to possess diabolical powers; concentrating them into ghettoes within European cities was not considered a sufficient “solution.”
In May of 1940, Heinrich Himmler composed a memorandum in which he addressed Nazi policy in occupied Poland. He proposed to turn the Polish into a “leaderless laboring class.” (Rees, 17; quote from Himmler) In addition, he addressed Nazi policy toward Polish Jews. He now proposed they be sent to Africa. (Rees, 18) In May, the Nazis had initiated the military campaign that would culminate in the swift defeat of France. Himmler and others were hoping that a British surrender would soon follow. This provided the context for the serious consideration by Nazi leaders of the sending of European Jews to Africa after the war. Hitler assented to Himmler’s proposals, and Madagascar was soon settled upon as a suitable destination.
With the Nazi invasion and occupation of the western half of Poland, approximately three million Jews were under Nazi domination (about two million in Nazi-occupied Europe, and an additional million in the rest of Nazi-controlled Europe). (Goldhagen, 144) I found myself grappling with this question as I looked at the development of the Holocaust: Why doesn't the Holocaust begin in September 1939 when the Nazis find themselves ruling over millions of Europe's Jews? Why don't the Nazis begin systematically killing Jews as soon as they have millions of them under their control?
Goldhagen provides potential answers to this question. (Goldhagen, 144) He explains that the Nazis would have conceived of the killing of "only" three million European Jews as a "partial" "solution" to what they considered the "Jewish problem." Plus, Hitler at this time may have been considering a separate peace with Britain and may have feared that genocidal activities would have made such a peace less likely.
In addition, from September 1939 until the invasion of the Soviet Union, Soviet soldiers were just across the border of the German-occupied portion of Poland. These soldiers would have inevitably become aware of such a massive genocidal undertaking by the Nazis. Goldhagen suggests that this would have potentially deterred Hitler because the Nazis believed there existed a link between Judaism and Communism and that the Soviet Union would have retaliated in order to defend Polish Jews.
The Invasion of the Soviet Union and the Initial Events of the Holocaust
Hitler had determined as early as July 1940 that the most effective way of defeating Britain would be to crush the Soviet Union. Hitler believed that Britain only remained in the war because it hoped for the Soviet Union to break the August 1939 non-aggression pact that it had signed with Nazi Germany. (Rees, 35)
"The prospect of war against the Soviet Union clearly unleashed the most radical ideas imaginable in the minds of leading Nazis." (Rees, 37) The Nazis believed that the Jews secretly controlled the Soviet Union, and so "to deal with the perceived threat from the Jews of the Soviet Union, four Einsatzgruppen were formed." (Rees, 38) More than 2,800 men were involved. According to Goldhagen, proposals for “solutions” to “the Jewish problem” ceased in early 1941 as Hitler settled upon the “Final Solution”. (Goldhagen, 147)
Rees refers on page 39 to "the infamous Barbarossa decree and commissar order," Operation Barbarossa being the German codename for their invasion of the Soviet Union. Under it, "partisan fighters were shot out of hand, collective reprisals against whole communities were ordered, and Soviet political officers--the commissars--were killed even after being captured as prisoners of war." (Rees, 39) The German army would allow the Einsatzgruppen into the POW camps to make sure that the army did not miss any commissars or Communists. “The armed forces, the Einsatzgruppen...and the other security forces all understood that this war was not to be a war like other wars; it was not to be a war of mere military conquest, but one in which the opponents--for the armed forces, the Soviet army and state; for the Einsatzgruppen, the Jewish people--were to be vanquished utterly, destroyed, obliterated from the face of the earth.” (Goldhagen, 148)
Operation Barbarossa began in June 1941. The Einsatzgruppen followed behind the German army. They were tasked with murdering Communist politicians and political commissars in addition to Jews. (In the Soviet Union, military units were accompanied by "commissars," responsible for the ideological indoctrination of the unit and for keeping an eye on the officers.) The German army initially made swift progress across the Soviet Union, and the Einsatzgruppen were inciting pogroms in former Soviet territory within a day. The first Einsatzgruppen massacre occurred on the third day of the invasion, "when a Kommando of Einsatzgruppe A shot 201 people in the Lithuanian border town of Garsden, most of whom were Jews." (Goldhagen, 150) Goldhagen writes that “the first large mass shooting that the Einsatzkommandos carried out by themselves was probably” the massacre of 1,100 Jews in the Ukrainian city of Lutsk on July 2.
Because of Nazi concern for preserving the psychological conditions of the Germans tasked with implementing the massacre of Jews, the initial Einsatzgruppen genocidal orders were for the killing of “only” adult male Jews. In addition, Einsatzgruppen commanders were encouraged to recruit locals to commit the crimes. The orders were quickly expanded to include women and children.
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