Holocaust remembrance

The Holocaust was a campaign of deportation, forced labour and mass murder during World War II, carried out by Germany's Nazi regime and several other Axis states. Among the victims were Jews; Roma people; Slavs, especially Poles, Serbs and Soviet prisoners of war; homosexuals; political opponents; and people with disabilities. About 6 million Jews were killed, along with at least 5 million people of other ethnic origins.

Though the Nazis and their allies tried to destroy the death camps at the end of the war, the remnants function as museums and monuments of this dark period of Europe's modern history. As of the 2020s, the few remaining Holocaust survivors are getting old and the very last perpetrators are facing justice, emphasizing the importance of continuing to educate people about the Holocaust.

Understand
"Tell it to your children, and let your children tell it to their children, and their children to the next generation."

- Bible, Book of Joel, 1:3

The Holocaust was a complex series of events, with roots in Europe's long history of racism and antisemitism. Political prisoners and other perceived enemies of the state were rounded up in concentration camps starting in 1933, shortly after Hitler's rise to power. The Nuremberg Laws, introduced in 1935, stripped Jews of many of their civil rights. Organized mass murder started in 1941, and on January 20, 1942, the notorious Wannsee Conference took place, in which Nazi officials met in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee to plan the "final solution" (Endlösung) to the "Jewish question" (Judenfrage).

While the mass murder was planned by the Nazi government and most of the killing was done by German soldiers and SS, some occupied countries and allies of the Nazis also contributed in the killings and in some cases (such as the Ustase in Croatia) actually went farther or targeted other groups than the Nazis did. While some people helped Jews and other persecuted people escape, often risking their own lives and safety and those of their families, the overwhelming majority ignored the killings, and some even collaborated with the Nazis, making the acts of resistance and human decency all the more laudable and celebrated to this day, both in the countries where they happened and in Israel. In the context of the mass murder of the European Jews, the Hebrew word Shoah (meaning "catastrophe") is frequently used and is preferred by some people, as the term Holocaust originally meant a sacrificial burnt offering at an altar of a temple.

As the war ended in 1945, the camps were liberated by Allied forces. They found the camps to be filled with diseases like typhus, typhoid, and cholera, and starving emaciated people. As punishment, the Allies made nearby Germans view the camps, to show them what happened with their permission right next door to their homes. Some of the surviving Nazi leaders were held responsible in a series of criminal trials in Nuremberg. While they were also tried for war crimes, participation in the Holocaust brought the most attention and the harshest punishments. As the Allied governments, and later West Germany and the reunified Germany, have tried and imprisoned perpetrators of the Holocaust well into the 21st century, they have established a precedent of international law. Most of the surviving Jews would flee Europe following their liberation and settle in Israel or the United States. While the Holocaust was neither the first nor the last genocide in world history, it is arguably the most thoroughly documented and researched crime against humanity.

Sites
The Holocaust was carried out in most Axis-occupied territory in Europe, with a few exceptions, such as Denmark (where almost the entire Jewish population were helped to escape and those who couldn't to stay alive), Finland and Albania. Even Jews in North Africa were rounded up for murder.

After the Nazis seized power in 1933, they started setting up prison camps around Germany (which included what is today western Poland), first for political prisoners and later for Jews and other people considered undesirable. As the camp system evolved into a mass murder campaign, extermination camps were set up, most of them in Poland. In the Soviet Union, much of the killing took place in the field, without camps. See below for details about the Holocaust in each country.

Aside from the camps and other sites in Europe, there are Holocaust museums and monuments around the world, including in Israel, the United States, Germany and France.

Austria
Austria's role in the war, and the Holocaust, is a bit complicated. While Austria was annexed by Germany in 1938 and ceased to exist as a nation, many high-ranked Nazis, including Hitler himself, were Austrians. In addition, during that period, most Austrians considered themselves to be Germans and supported the annexation, with a distinct Austrian national identity only developing in the second half of the twentieth century after World War II ended.

As an alternative of Austria's compulsory military service, young Austrians have the option to work with a memorial service instead in order to inform the public about the horrors of the war.

Germany
The concentration camps in Germany proper were set up before the war, for internment and forced labour of criminals and political opponents. Since these prisoners were not set up for mass murder, the camps had comparably many survivors. From 1942, many prisoners, especially Jews, were transported from these camps to extermination camps in Poland.


 * Nuremberg, site of the Nuremberg Party Rallies and the Nuremberg Trials
 * Munich is the birthplace of the Nazi Party.
 * Nuremberg, site of the Nuremberg Party Rallies and the Nuremberg Trials
 * Munich is the birthplace of the Nazi Party.
 * Nuremberg, site of the Nuremberg Party Rallies and the Nuremberg Trials
 * Munich is the birthplace of the Nazi Party.
 * Nuremberg, site of the Nuremberg Party Rallies and the Nuremberg Trials
 * Munich is the birthplace of the Nazi Party.
 * Nuremberg, site of the Nuremberg Party Rallies and the Nuremberg Trials
 * Munich is the birthplace of the Nazi Party.
 * Nuremberg, site of the Nuremberg Party Rallies and the Nuremberg Trials
 * Munich is the birthplace of the Nazi Party.

Poland
As Germany and the Soviet Union occupied Poland in 1939, the country ceased to exist by name, as the Nazis intended to use the land for German settlement (Lebensraum). Germany annexed the western provinces and the area around Białystok, and central Poland became the General Government, essentially a colony ruled by the Nazis. As the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, the General Government was extended to most of eastern Poland. While a few Polish people were among the perpetrators, around three million Polish Jews and two million other Poles were killed in the Holocaust.

In contrast to the German prison camps, the sites in Poland were typically extermination camps (Vernichtungslager), where prisoners (mostly Jews from all parts of Europe, but also non-Jewish Poles and other perceived enemies of the German state) were sent to die, either in gas chambers, or through forced labour, weakened by starvation and epidemics. The extermination policy makes the notorious slogan Arbeit macht frei — "Work makes (you) free" which was displayed on many camp gates — a bitterly ironic statement, given that very few were ever freed from the camps and most were killed.

For the death camps, the word "camp" was a misnomer, since nearly all prisoners were killed in gas chambers on arrival; the only inhabitants were guards and Sonderkommandos — prisoners assigned for disposal of bodies. The Sonderkommandos were regularly killed and replaced; some camps had more of a dozen "generations" of them. The very few who survived were valuable as witnesses to the final stage of the Holocaust.

Some of these sites have both a German and a Polish name. By convention, the German names (Auschwitz etc) are used to describe the concentration camp, while the Polish names (Oświęcim etc) are used to describe the civilian settlements.



Sweden
In the early years of the war, Sweden made many concessions to Germany and was reluctant to receive refugees, but did accept almost the entire Danish Jewish community and some Norwegian Jews. The Holocaust became widely known partially through Swedish diplomats and journalists. In the late stages of the war, Sweden made humanitarian efforts, with Raoul Wallenberg most famous for his work saving Hungarian Jewish lives. As Sweden was one of the few European countries safe from the Holocaust, the Jewish Stockholm tour has a showcase of a surviving Jewish community.

Ukraine
Ukraine is often considered to be the place where the Holocaust started in earnest. In Ukraine, with the help of local collaborators, Jews, as well as other "undesirable" minorities like Poles, Hungarians, Russians and Roma people were rounded up and shot, then buried in pits, as gas chambers had not yet been set up at this early stage of Nazi genocide.



United States
The United States is home to the world's largest or second-largest Jewish community, depending on what figures you trust, and many Holocaust survivors migrated here after their liberation. Many American Jews lost family members to the Holocaust, so the topic is especially sensitive there.



Respect
While the heritage of the Holocaust, and the political and cultural forces behind it, are serious matters, they can appear very different between the countries where it happened. Especially in Germany and Austria, the events are thoroughly gone through in the school curriculum. In Poland, the government's stance is that the Polish people were victims, not perpetrators, of the Holocaust. Calling concentration camps and death camps Polish, even if they are in modern-day Poland, is illegal in Poland.

In many parts of Europe, anti-Semitism, antiziganism (bigotry against Romani/Sinti people) and other kinds of racism are common, and usually entangled with current events.

Denial of the Holocaust has been a political issue to the extent that it is criminalized in Germany and several other European countries.

Cope
Visiting Holocaust museums and sites can be emotional, upsetting, and sometimes surreal. You'll see and learn things that are difficult to grapple with, and it's hard to anticipate exactly how you'll react. You may find yourself hurrying to get away from the site as quickly as you can, morose and weary as you physically feel the weight of what you're seeing, or unexpectedly detached and distant—or some combination of these.

Given the evil nature of the crimes committed in the Holocaust, you would be forgiven for thinking the places where the crimes were perpetrated would look in some way evil too, or be in isolated locations tucked out of sight. This is not always the case, and the surroundings may often be positively mundane, and be in close proximity to roads, homes and workplaces filled with people going about their daily lives. The sun may be shining. It is this contrast between expectation and reality, or between horror and banality, that can cause you to feel strangely disoriented.

Be prepared for complicated and heavy emotions, and do not expect to just move on cheerfully to your next activity once you leave. Conversely, you may need to do just that. It is not uncommon for visitors to Holocaust sites to plan some form of relaxation or entertainment immediately afterwards in order to not be completely overwhelmed by negative emotion. Your experience at the site may weigh on you for the rest of the day and beyond.