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Two German Jewish women wearing the yellow Star of David. Germany, September 27, 1941. See more photographs |
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GERMAN JEWS DURING THE HOLOCAUST, 1939-1945 |
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Despite the emigration of approximately 300,000 German Jews in the years following the Nazi assumption of power, almost 200,000 Jews were still in Germany at the start of World War II. During the war, Jews in Germany, as in all areas of German-occupied Europe, were deported and killed as part of the "Final Solution". Following the outbreak of war in September 1939, the government imposed new legislative restrictions on Jews remaining in Germany. Jews became subject to a strict curfew and were excluded from certain areas of cities. Once food rationing began, Jews received reduced rations and were forbidden to buy certain foods. Further restrictions limited the time periods in which Jews could purchase food and other supplies. German authorities also ordered Jews to turn in their radios, electrical appliances, bicycles, and cars to the police. As of September 1941, the Nazis forbade Jews to use public transportation and required all Jews over the age of six to wear yellow star badges. While ghettos were generally not established in Germany, strict residence ordinances forced Jews into certain areas of German cities, concentrating them in "Jewish buildings." |
The first deportations of Jews from the German Reich took place in February 1940 as part of the Nisko and Lublin Plan. The plan called for a Jewish reservation in the Lublin region of the Generalgouvernement, a territory in the interior of Nazi-occupied Poland. This plan failed since the designated destination, the town of Nisko, was not fully prepared to receive the deportees and German officials in the Generalgouvernement likewise complained that there were so many Jews in Poland that it was impossible to absorb still more from Germany. A second deportation of German Jews occurred in October 1940, when district leader Josef Buerckel decided to clear his region of Jews. Some 7,500 Jews from the Baden and the Saar regions of southwestern Germany were deported to France. Most were interned in the Gurs camp, administered by French collaborators. Systematic deportations of Jews from Germany began in late September 1941, even before the extermination camps were established in occupied Poland. Between October and December 1941, nearly 50,000 Jews were deported from Germany, mostly to ghettos in Lodz, Warsaw, Minsk, Kovno, and Riga. German Jews sent to Lodz and Warsaw were later deported along with Polish Jews to the extermination camps at Chelmno and Treblinka, and Auschwitz. |
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Some Jews deported from the German Reich (including Jews from Austria and the annexed Czech lands of Bohemia and Moravia) to ghettos in the Baltic states and Belorussia were shot shortly after arrival, by Einsatzgruppen (mobile killing units). Jews surviving the initial slaughter were enclosed in special "German sections" of eastern ghettos, where they were segregated from local Jews. Such sections were established, for example, in Riga and Minsk. Most of the Jews from Germany were killed during the destruction of these ghettos. In 1942 and 1943, the majority of Jews remaining in Germany were deported directly to the extermination camps, mainly Auschwitz-Birkenau. |
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The Nazis deported elderly or prominent Jews from Germany, as well as Jews from Austria, the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, and western Europe, to the Theresienstadt ghetto. For most, deportation to Theresienstadt was a prelude to deportation to the east. Jews were routinely transported from Theresienstadt to ghettos in Poland and the Baltic states, and also directly to the extermination camps in occupied Poland. Tens of thousands died in the Theresienstadt ghetto itself, mostly from starvation or during epidemics. Only about 15,000 Jews officially remained in Germany after mass deportations ended in early 1943. Almost all Jews deported from Germany were murdered. Most of the remaining Jews were married to non-Jews or were racially classified as part Jews and were thus exempt from deportation until 1944-1945. Several thousand Jews remained in hiding until the end of the war. The Nazis killed some 170,000 German Jews during the Holocaust. |
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