History UsefulNotes / TheHolocaust

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Like the rest of the world, Europe had ancient traditions of in-group promotion and out-group destruction which were strengthened and radicalised by the European "New Imperialism" period. By the time Europe entered the modern era, its major in-group out-group distinctions had crystalised into the concepts of Religion/Ideology, Nation, and Race.

For a list of works that depict and address the Holocaust, see [[WorksSetInWorldWarII/WorksAboutTheHolocaust here]].

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!! List of Works that Depict and Address the Holocaust

[[foldercontrol]]
[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
[[index]]
* ''Manga/{{Adolf}}''
* ''Anime/FullmetalAlchemistTheConquerorOfShamballa''
[[/index]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Comic Books]]
* ''ComicBook/Block109'': In this AlternateHistory comic book, due to [[AlternateHistoryNaziVictory Nazi Germany surviving longer than it did in real life]], Jewish presence has been totally wiped out from Europe. Hochmeister Zytek, one of Hitler's successors at the head of the state, has all the main Nazi leaders gathered in a room [[spoiler:and has them machine-gunned for planning and allowing the genocide, as well as for the countless other real life war crimes the comics turned up to eleven.]][[index]]
* ComicBook/ChickTracts: The Holocaust comes up in some strips, notably "Holocaust", [[ConspiracyTheorist and is usually portrayed as part of a Satanic conspiracy by the Vatican to destroy the Jews and suppress the Gospel]].
* ''Creator/ECComics'': Stories like ''Master Race'' (art by Bernard Krigstein) and ''Desert Fox'' and many others.
* ''Judenhass'', by Dave Sim, creator of ''ComicBook/CerebusTheAardvark.'' It's a one-issue work that postulates that the Holocaust was the end result of a slowly-growing historical trend of anti-Semitism, and featured many recreations of photographs of the camps and their prisoners, done by Sim in the photorealistic drawing style he'd started working with in later issues of ''Cerebus''.
* ''ComicBook/{{Maus}}'', written by Art Spiegelman, tells the story of how his parents Vladek and Anja Spiegelman survived the Holocaust.
* ''ComicBook/XMen'': [[ComicBook/{{Magneto}} Erik Lehnsherr / Magneto]] is famously a Holocaust survivor and several issues by Creator/ChrisClaremont deal with his memories in the camps. Despite being an AntiVillain, Magneto detests Nazism and loathes the Red Skull.
** The Holocaust shapes Erik Lehnsherr's personality in the ''[[Film/XMenFilmSeries X-Men]]'' film series as well, fueling his hatred of mankind. Both the first ''Film/XMen1'' and ''Film/XMenFirstClass'' open in 1944 with him being deported to Auschwitz with his family, with his metal-controlling powers starting to manifest as he is separated from his parents. ''First Class'' expands this part of his backstory as it is a Nazi scientist and mutant, Dr. Klaus Schmidt/Sebastian Shaw, who kills his mother, triggering his thirst of revenge. In ''Film/XMenApocalypse'', Apocalypse transports adult Erik to the empty camp in TheEighties to convince him to join his side. Erik ends up ''destroying'' the camp when his powers are amplified by Apocalypse.
[[/index]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Fan Works]]
[[index]]
* ''Fanfic/{{Heimatfront}}''
[[/index]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Films - Animation]]
[[index]]
* ''WesternAnimation/Charlotte2021''
* ''Animation/WhereIsAnneFrank''
[[/index]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Films - Live-Action]]
[[index]]
* ''Film/AllMyLovedOnes''
* ''Film/{{Amen}}''
* ''Film/AngryHarvest''
* ''Film/AnneFrankRemembered'' -- documentary about the famous teenaged diarist who died in Belsen
* ''Film/AuRevoirLesEnfants''
* ''Film/{{Bent}}''
* ''Film/TheBigRedOne''
* ''Film/BlackBook''
* ''Film/TheBoatIsFull''
* ''Film/TheBoyInTheStripedPyjamas''
* ''Film/ButterfliesDoNotLiveHere'' -- documentary short about 4,000 drawings left by children in the Theresienstadt ghetto, found after the war.
* ''Film/ComeAndSee'' -- 1985 Soviet film about the Nazi plunder of Belarus and the resistance of the partisans.
* ''Film/{{Conspiracy|2001}}''
* ''Film/TheCounterfeiters''
* ''Film/TheDayTheClownCried''
* ''Film/DeNurembergANuremberg'' -- 1989 French documentary
* ''Film/{{Defiance}}''
* ''Film/{{Denial}}'' -- about [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irving_v_Penguin_Books_Ltd the libel trial between Holocaust historian Deborah Lipstadt (and her publisher) and Holocaust denier David Irving]]
* ''Film/TheDiaryOfAnneFrank''
* ''Film/EscapeFromSobibor''
* ''Film/EuropaEuropa''
* ''Film/TheGardenOfTheFinziContinis'' -- the lead-up anyway, ends with the Jews of Ferrara being rounded up for deportation
* ''Film/{{Genocide|1981}}'' -- 1981 documentary
* ''Film/GodOnTrial''
* ''Film/TheGreyZone''
* ''Film/HiddenInSilence''
* ''Film/{{In Darkness|2011}}'' -- A Pole in Lviv hides twelve Jews in the sewers after the ghetto is liquidated.
* ''Film/InThePresenceOfMineEnemies''
* ''Film/IntoTheArmsOfStrangersStoriesOfTheKindertransport'' -- documentary about the rescue of German children to England in the months between Kristallnacht and the outbreak of war.
* ''Film/JacobTheLiar'' -- 1975 East German film
** ''Film/JakobTheLiar'' -- 1999 Hollywood ForeignRemake with Creator/RobinWilliams
* ''Film/JojoRabbit''
* ''Film/JudgmentAtNuremberg''
* ''Film/{{Kapo}}'' -- A teenaged Jewish girl escapes Auschwitz only to become a despised "kapo" (prisoner guarding other prisoners) in a different labor camp.
* ''Film/TheLastDays'' -- documentary about the Holocaust in Hungary, perpetrated by the Germans in the last year of the war.
* ''Film/DerLetzteZug'' (''The Last Train'')
* ''Film/LifeIsBeautiful''
* ''Film/TheLongWayHome''
* ''Film/TheManWithTheIronHeart'' -- Depicts the life of UsefulNotes/ReinhardHeydrich, one of the architects of the Holocaust
* ''Film/MiracleAtMidnight''
* ''Film/LesMiserables1995''
* ''Film/NightAndFog''
* ''Film/TheNinthCircle'' -- a Christian family in Yugoslavia attempts to save a young Jewish woman by marrying her off to their son
* ''Film/NoneShallEscape''
* ''Film/{{Olga}}''
* ''Film/OperationFinale'' -- the capture of Adolf Eichmann, the "Architect of the Holocaust".
* ''Film/Phoenix2014'' -- a Holocaust survivor is the protagonist; she tries to go back to her Gentile husband after the end of the war, [[spoiler:only to discover he was the one who sold her to the Nazis.]]
* ''Film/ThePianist''
* ''Film/{{Remember}}''
* ''Film/RescuersStoriesOfCourage''
* ''Film/Resistance2020''
* ''Film/TheRevoltOfJob''
* ''Film/{{Rosenstrasse}}'' -- Non-Jewish women gather in protest outside the Rosenstrasse detention center, after their Jewish husbands are mass-arrested, in preparation for sending them to the concentration camps.
* ''Film/SarahsKey''
* ''Film/{{Sandra}}''
* ''Film/SchindlersList''
* ''Film/{{Shoah}}''
* ''Film/TheShopOnMainStreet''
* ''Film/ShutterIsland''
* ''Film/SonOfSaul''
* ''Film/SophiesChoice''
* ''Film/TheSorrowAndThePity''
* ''Film/{{Sterne}}''
* ''Film/TheStranger''
* ''Film/Sunshine1999''
* ''Film/{{Toyland}}''
* ''Film/TheUnborn''
* ''Film/VisasAndVirtue'' -- about a Japanese diplomat in Lithuania who issued thousands of entrance visas to Jewish refugees from Poland
* ''Film/WomanInGold''
* ''Film/XMen1''
** ''Film/XMenFirstClass''
[[/index]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Literature]]
[[index]]
* ''Literature/TheAngloAmericanNaziWar''
* ''Literature/BondisBrother''
* ''Literature/TheBookThief''
* ''Literature/TheBoyInTheStripedPyjamas''
* ''Literature/BriarRose''
* ''Literature/DeathIsMyTrade'': Fictionalized biography of Rudolf Höss, the Nazi commandant in charge of Auschwitz.
* ''Literature/TheDevilsArithmetic''
* ''Literature/TheDiaryOfAYoungGirl'': Anne Frank's autobiography.
* ''Literature/{{Fatherland}}''
* ''Literature/TheFinalSolution''
* ''Literature/TheFootprintOfMussolini'': The Nazi efforts to exterminate the Jews are a major theme during the World War II segments.
* ''Literature/GotzAndMeyer''
* ''Literature/HorribleHistories'' -- the book about World War II has a chapter on the Holocaust [[MoodWhiplash largely devoid of humour]].
* ''Literature/IfThisIsAMan'': Written by Primo Levi, an Italian Jew who survived Auschwitz. Adapted into the one-man teleplay ''Primo'' by Antony Sher, broadcast on Creator/{{HBO}} and Creator/TheBBC.
* ''Literature/MakingHistory'': A Holocaust survivor and a history student attempt to change history to prevent the Holocaust. Events at Auschwitz have a major impact on the plot.
* ''Literature/{{Night}}'': Written by Elie Wiesel, a survivor of Auschwitz.
* ''Literature/TheOdessaFile'': The plot is kicked off by the suicide of a concentration camp survivor, and follows a German reporter who tries to track down an ex-Nazi officer who figures heavily in the diary the survivor leaves behind.
* ''Literature/OttoAutobiographyOfATeddyBear'': A [[ChildrensLiterature children's]] {{picture book|s}} about the odyssey of a teddy bear that belonged to a young Jewish boy before, during and after World War II.
* ''Literature/TheReader''
* ''Literature/RoseUnderFire'': A novel about a young American woman who ends up in a concentration camp.
* ''Literature/TheWindsOfWarAndWarAndRemembrance''
* ''Literature/TheZoneOfInterest''
[[/index]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
[[index]]
* ''Series/BandOfBrothers'' -- One episode has Easy Company stumble across the concentration camp of Kaufering, a sub-camp of Dachau.
* ''Series/TheCherryQueen'' -- Persecutions of Jews (and other people such as homosexuals) after the Nazis take power in 1933. The Jewish woman protagonist goes into hiding during World War II, and her older sister perishes in a Death Camp.
* ''Series/{{Holocaust}}'' -- This 1978 miniseries portrays the events of the Holocaust through the eyes of two German families, one Jewish and the other non-Jewish. Notably, the series is often credited for popularizing "Holocaust" as the most common name for the Nazi genocide.
* ''Series/{{Hunters}}''
* ''Series/Numb3rs'' -- The third season episode "Provenance" that deals with a stolen painting that was once owned by a Holocaust survivor's (Creator/GenaRowlands) family before the Nazis came and the legal battles that soon followed.
* ''Series/{{Nuremberg}}''
* ''Series/TheOuterLimits1995'' -- The episode "[[Recap/TheOuterLimits1995S5E12Tribunal Tribunal]]" revolves around a time traveller and the son of a Holocaust survivor trying to bring an old Nazi to justice.
* ''Series/ASmallLight'' -- Focuses on the Dutch couple who helped [[Literature/TheDiaryOfAYoungGirl Anne Frank]]'s family to hide.
* ''Series/SovietStormWorldWarIIInTheEast'' -- The Soviets, during their advance into Poland, discover several concentration camps, including Auschwitz.
* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'': The episodes "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E74DeathsHeadRevisited Deaths-head Revisited]]" and "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS4E106HesAlive He's Alive]]" both involve the Holocaust.
* ''Film/UnderTheRomanSky''
* ''Series/UnsereMuetterUnsereVaeter''
* ''Series/TheWorldAtWar''
[[/index]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Music]]
[[index]]
* In Music/KateBush's [[Music/FiftyWordsForSnow "Snowed in at Wheeler Street"]], the Holocaust is implied to be the event in 1942 where the song's StarCrossedLovers meet the second time around; the narrator notes how they "were on different sides" and how she hid her lover under her bed, only for him to be found and taken away.
* The track "Dachau Blues" from Music/CaptainBeefheart's album ''Music/TroutMaskReplica''.
* "Dance Me to the End of Love" by Music/LeonardCohen was inspired by the Holocaust, regardless of what the title might imply, and details the use of inmate orchestras by the SS during mass executions. Cohen himself was Jewish, and was just 11 years old when the Holocaust was widely publicized in the wake of Germany's defeat.
* "Never Again" by ''Music/{{Disturbed}}'' is a combination of a song about the Holocaust and an anthem about not letting something like it happen again.
* "This Train" by Music/IndigoGirls.
* "No Love Lost" by Music/JoyDivision is a loose adaptation of the novel they took their name from, ''House of Dolls'', detailing the Nazis' use of female concentration camp prisoners as sex slaves. The song's bridge even quotes a passage from the book.
* Several songs by Music/TheMonolithDeathcult, such as "Master of the Bryansk Forests" and "The Cruel Hunters".
* "Herb Girls of Birkenau" by cello rock band Rasputina.
* "The Final Solution" by ''Music/{{Sabaton}}''. "Inmate 4859" is also set during the Holocaust, and "Rise of Evil", about the rise of the Nazis, references it several times.
* "Belsen Was a Gas" by the Music/SexPistols is narrated by an SS officer manning the titular extermination camp, and features a photo of concentration camp prisoners as its single cover. Frontman Music/JohnLydon went on to regret writing the song, stating in a 1996 interview that it shouldn't have been released.
* The songs "Angel of Death" and "SS-3" by Music/{{Slayer}} from ''Music/ReignInBlood'' and ''Music/DivineIntervention'' respectively.
[[/index]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Sports]]
[[index]]
* This is the setting of Canadian figure skater Roman Sadovsky's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EybhBi5TsHc long program]] from the 2018-2019 and 2019-2020 competitive seasons, which features music from ''Film/SchindlersList''. His costume evokes the filth and blood of a concentration camp prisoner, and the jumps represent hard labour. It's the darkest program in the sport to date because Sadovsky maintains a haunting, grim tone throughout his performance. It ends on a hopeless note, as his character doesn't get rescued. His final pose consists of looking up to the sky (or the ceiling of his cell) with his arms outstretched as if pleading for help from the heavens, but the only response he receives is an ominous-sounding wind gust. It's TruthInTelevision because for nearly all victims of genocide, there is no happy ending.
[[/index]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
[[index]]
* ''Charnel Houses of Europe: the Shoah'', a supplement for ''TabletopGame/WraithTheOblivion'', outlines the Holocaust and describes its effects on the realms of the dead. It's worth a mention that the supplement, and all other mentions in other games of the ''World of Darkness'', make it clear that the Holocaust was ''not'' part of any supernatural being's plot; it was all human madness and evil from start to finish.
[[/index]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Theatre]]
[[index]]
* ''And Then They Came For Me'': A multimedia production, combining tapes of interviews with Anne Frank's friends who survived the Holocaust – Helmuth "Hello" Silberberg, now known as "Ed" and Eva Geiringer Schloss - live actors recreating scenes from their lives.
* ''Theatre/{{Cabaret}}'' is set in Berlin around 1930. It ends before the Holocaust gets going, but the fact that the main characters are the kind of people likely to end up its victims is foreshadowed with more or less subtlety depending on the production.
* ''Theatre/TheDiaryOfAnneFrank''
[[/index]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]
[[index]]
* ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyWWII'': The epilogue has soldiers of the 1st Infantry Division discovering both concentration and labor camps during their advance into Germany.
* ''VideoGame/KZManager'': A ''very'' controversial game where you play as the director of a Nazi concentration camp.
* ''Videogame/WolfensteinTheNewOrder'' -- Set in an AlternateHistory in which the Nazis won WWII, the player character is sent undercover to a forced labour camp, he mentions the camps of Auschwitz and Treblinka other examples of the place he is in.
[[/index]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Original]]
[[index]]
* ''WebVideo/BedtimeStoriesYoutubeChannel'' has the episode "Secrets of Celle Neues Rathaus", which features the titular HauntedHeadquarters used by the SS to torture and conduct unethical experiments on Jewish prisoners.
* ''WebAnimation/WartimeStories'' has the "Depraved Doctors of the Third Reich" two-parter, discussing in detail the role Nazi Germany's SS doctors had in their systematic extermination of Jews and other "undesirables".
[[/index]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/TheLongLongHoliday''
[[/index]]
[[/folder]]

* ''Series/{{Holocaust}}''

These Nationalistic measures, under which Germany was fed through the deprivation of occupied territories, set a precedent for the treatment of occupied territories in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. Perhaps more importantly, they made it clear that the German people at large were willing to accept the death of "worse-than-useless" German citizens if it was "necessary" to advance national goals. Accordingly, in the mid-to-late [=1930s=] German medical associations were encouraged to make plans for the "euthanasia" of "useless eaters" in the event of a wartime blockade which would once more place a strain upon food supply.

But of all the problems UsefulNotes/WorldWarI created, the biggest of all was related to Nationalism and Social Darwinism. You see, when Germany lost UsefulNotes/WorldWarI there were only two ways to go about rationalising that. Either:

* The French charged 2107 Germans, executed 104, sentenced 44 to Life in Prison, imprisoned 1475, and acquitted 404.
* The USA charged 1857 Germans and freed them all by 1952 after having sentenced 450 to death (but not executed all of them), sentenced 219 to Life in Prison, sentenced 889 to five years in prison or less, and acquitted 1416.
* The UK tried 1085 Germans and freed all survivors by 1952 after having executed 240, sentenced 549 to various times in prison, and acquitted 348.

The British and Americans honoured many Polish, Czechoslovak, etc extradition requests before the re-institution of the German court system on the 1st of September 1948. However, in many instances, feeling that the Polish government (now under Soviet control) would not accord the accused a fair trial, the Anglo-American governments refused to send them over. In Greece, despite the fact that the Greek government-in-exile had reestablished themselves after the war, extradition requests for wanted Germans in Anglo-American custody were similarly refused on the basis that the new Greek government was similarly unable to provide the accused with a fair trial. Many of these wanted Germans would be eventually released by the Allies due to a lack of evidence or medical conditions.

Though they were far from the only ones to do so, ''T-4'' personnel were uniquely suited to making the argument that they had been 'forced' into wrongdoing: it had technically been an act of treason to refuse a job offer from the ''T-4'' programme, because it enacted a Reich Chancellor's Emergency Executive Order. Of course, this fact was a moot point since in practice no job offers were given to people who didn't want them and it was possible to leave the programme at any time (given two weeks' notice).

The trials were complicated by the impending tensions between the so-called "Western Bloc" (led by the United States) and the "Eastern Bloc" (led by the Soviet Union). By this point, many of the Western Allies felt that a potential conflict with the Soviet Union was inevitable, and the German military (with all it's military experience) was a vital tool in the upcoming conflict. Thus, many of them felt the need to re-instate former German generals into the military, irregardless of their actions during the war. Eisenhower, who had previously described the Wehrmacht as Nazis, changed his mind to facilitate their rearmament. Churchill became reluctant to pursue further trials and released already convicted criminals early. All imprisoned War Criminals were released from Anglo-American custody by 1956 at the very latest.

Less than half the perpetrators from all agencies actually survived to be captured by the Soviets or other Allied countries, the rest having died in combat or committed suicide. Reserve Order Police Battalion 101 had the greatest proportion of members who were put on trial, with fourteen of the (500-member) Battalion's 210 surviving members being charged with murder and other crimes by the West German government in the period 1962-7. Nine of these were convicted, with seven receiving no sentence and the remaining two serving 3.5 and 4 years in prison. German nationalists and Veterans, and British and American military leaders, decried what they saw as the 'Victor's Justice' and 'Politics of Vengeance' [[note]] the idea that the people put on trial were actually being tried for supposed 'crimes' against their military enemies - such as putting up a good defense - rather than because they had committed atrocities against helpless people who hadn't deserved it [[/note]] behind putting the perpetrators on trial, dubbing them such things as 'atrocities of injustice' and 'crimes against freedom'. Despite their sincerity in many cases, these calls were somewhat ironic. For instance (Reserve) Order Police Battalion 101 shot at least 7500 people, supervised the shooting (by Hiwis) of at least 30 000, and deported 45 000 to the Treblinka Work/Extermination camp complex. Yet judging these people for their actions was apparently 'the real crime'.

* 6487 individuals were convicted, of whom 6197 were imprisoned for the duration of the trial (which could take many weeks, months, or even years) or longer.

All 20 defendants in the ''Einsatzgruppen'' leadership trials were convicted and fifteen of them spent up to ten years in jail, the other five being executed. The leaders of one of the private sector organisations were also tried, with several of the I.G. Farben chemical conglomerate's executives spending several years in jail and the corporation itself being split up into its constituent companies. I.G. Farben wasn't singled out because its constituent companies used slave labor and work many of its slaves to death, as it would be both impractical to try the leadership of every major company which had done this (i.e. every major German company) and would generate massive moral indignation (as the use of slave labor and mistreatment of slaves had been entirely legal at the time). Rather, I.G. Farben received special treatment because it had manufactured the nerve gas utilised at the Auschwitz-II/Birkenau extermination facility, which made the Polish-Soviet calls for trials almost impossible to deny (as I.G. Farben had effectively helped murder numerous German citizens, a crime under German law at the time). Ultimately, 520 of The Holocaust's more than 10,000 surviving voluntary authority figures were executed, and many hundreds more served served prison terms of up to several years.

Before the widespread public exposure of the Holocaust, the image of the Nazis prominent in wartime films and cartoons had been [[ThoseWackyNazis silly fanatics in strange costumes]]. The actual evidence of Nazi brutality challenged that conception and, at least in Europe (where the Nazis were never exactly a joke), helped people realize how the scale of evil embodied in the Holocaust couldn't be restricted to a single man like Hitler or Heydrich.

The Holocaust was implemented by 300,000 opportunists, racists, anti-communists, anti-semites, fascists, collaborationists, sadists, [[TheLastOfTheseIsNotLikeTheOthers and normal people who'd rather not have been involved in it]]. These included 9000 German and 'Foreign-born German' (Volksdeutsch) Security Police personnel, 11,000 Order Police personnel, and more than 200,000 'Hiwis' ('Volunteers' recruited from Soviet POW). Amongst the Order Police contingent were 2000 'Reserve' Order Police troops whom experts agree were a basically ordinary, representative cross-section of German society. Their conduct offers great insights into the behaviour of normal people in extreme circumstances.

The Reserve Order Police troops of Battalion 101 were among the most ambivalent to Nazism to ever be fielded in service to the regime. Family men in their '30s and '40s who had grown up under Weimar and Wilhelmine Germany, their city (Hamburg) was infamous as a hotbed of Socialist and Communist sentiment. Despite having respect for authority and Law and Order, they had little respect for Nazism or right-wing politics in general. They were slightly racist (by modern standards), which was typical of the age they'd grown up in, but remained civil and law-abiding in their prejudice [[note]] They might not want to have coffee with a Pole if they could help it, for instance, but they wouldn't rather beat him up than go through with it [[/note]]. Propaganda encouraging racist, anti-leftist, and anti-semitic sentiment had been ubiquitous since the Nazis had come to power nine or more years ago, but these men found it lacklustre and uninspiring as it was aimed at a younger and more indoctrinated generation (egregiously, it touted some obvious lies as truth). They were not given any special training or instruction or counselling for killing, something most of them would never dream of doing in their normal lives and found repulsive.

In the summer of 1942 the Lublin District SSPF (Regional Security Chief) Odilo Globocnik successfully made a bid to fulfil the Generalgouvernement's desires for an earlier end to its food crisis. While Globocnik was already sure to make a name for himself by constructing ''two'' of the ''Operation Reinhard'' facilities, including the biggest one, he saw no reason to content himself with this victory. Globocnik boosted his district's productivity by using his garrison units for ad-hoc disposals of 'in-house' problems - freeing the specialist facilities to focus on imports. On the 20th of June 1942, Reserve Order Police Battalion 101 was transferred to the Lublin district. On the 11th of July, Globocnik ordered the Battalion's Commander - [[AFatherToHisMen the fatherly Major Trapp]] - to clear the village of Józefów of Undesirables. He made the arrangements and got them to the village on the 13th, but upon arrival no fewer than eight witnesses testified that he had become extremely agitated and wept openly, saying something to the effect of "Oh, God, why did I have to be given these orders?" (testimony of Friedrich E.) Trapp managed to compose himself long enough to relay his orders to his assembled troops, which he said came from 'the highest authority'. He said that he understood totally if the men did not want to participate in the 'frightful business' of the action, and assured them that they would not be punished in any way if they took his offer. About a dozen of the Battalion's roughly 500 men, including Lieutenant Buchmann, opted out before the entire Battalion. A couple dozen more refused later on, before the action had started but when fewer eyes were upon them, or snuck away to avoid participating.

The Battalion made a number of mistakes in the action which followed. Firstly, the Reserve Order Policemen were explicitly offered the choice of opting out of the action, free of consequences - which made made those who stayed feel responsible for their actions. Secondly, the policemen made no use of Hiwis and handled the entire procedure by themselves. Thirdly, they were personally assigned to an Undesirable whom they would escort from the village to the site and then dispose of - a process which could take several minutes in close proximity, and was in some cases compounded by select Undesirables' ability to speak their language. Fourthly, and worst of all, there was no 'division of labour': the policemen were offered the choice of killing or opting out entirely. Fifthly, the quotas were far too high (20) and the timespan on execution duty far too long (several hours) - allowing ample time for anticipation of and reflection upon their actions. And finally, the Battalion's physician had advised that the most humane way to conduct the executions was to shoot the condemned in the neck - whether at very close range or (in the event of an attack of nerves which made aiming difficult) with their rifles' bayonets pressed against the victims' necks.

The dynamics of Peer Pressure in a genocide are at once unique and universal. The greatest pressure is to participate. Unless you think you're 'too good' for us. Too high and mighty. Too pure. Too ''saintly''. Or maybe it's because you're a snivelling coward? Weakling or not, you're supposed to be a soldier now. And a man. Are you not 'man' enough for this, is that it? ARealManIsAKiller. So why aren't you? You're only here because you were too old and feeble to be a ''proper'' soldier in the military like everyone else. They're doing their part to defend their loved ones right now. Each and every one has probably killed a whole heap of enemies by now. And what'll you tell them when ''you'' get home? That you didn't kill ''anyone''?

Some Jews call the measures taken against their people the ''Ha Shoah'' or ''Shoah'' ("the catastrophe"). Some Roma & Sinti call the measures taken against their own the ''Porajmos'' ("the devouring"), the Pharrajimos ("Cutting up", "Fragmentation", "Destruction"), and the Samudaripen ("Mass killing"). The Greek word ''holocaust'' (hólos, "whole" and kaustós, "burnt") actually refers to an animal sacrifice to the Gods, though a European tradition of using the word to describe massacres in historic chronicles had existed well before World War II. The inadequacy of prior words to succinctly describe these actions led to the contemporary creation of the noun "genocide", from the Greek ''genos'' (γένος, "race, people") and Latin ''caedere'' ("to kill"). The Rwandan Genocide of 1994 later led to the creation of a noun for one who perpetrates genocide, ''génocidaire''.

Wartime killing also reduced the workload in the (planned) post-victory period. For although the specific programmes of the Holocaust were rooted in short-term practical benefits, in the long-term these genocides were means to greater ends: the purging of 'sick' elements from and promotion of 'strong' elements within the national body politic, and the consolidation of ethnic claims to greatly expanded national territories. Of all the Axis powers, Germany's programmes were the most extensive, as German ultranationalists' vision of a ''Drang nach Osten'' or 'Drive to the East' had long inspired them to conquer and replace the entire population of eastern Europe with Germans. In time, this would empower Germany to lead the European peoples in a grand crusade against the Asiatic Hordes of the Barbarous Orient and destroy the last bastion of the 'Judeo-Bolshevik' puppetmasters (North America) — making Germany not just the undisputed master of the European world, but of the world entire. Today, UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler is the best-known/most infamous person to have held these hopes for Germany's wartime killing programmes.

Since antiquity, Christians' relationship with Jews had been marked by an unstable dichotomy of inferiority/superiority, with some rare instances of tolerance. Hatred of Jews, which was later termed 'Antisemitism', had at the very least been part of Christian culture since TheMiddleAges between UsefulNotes/TheCrusades and the Black Death (11th-13th centuries). At that time, Europe's largest Jewish community in the Rhineland was expelled by the UsefulNotes/HolyRomanEmpire and fled to The Kingdom of Poland (their language, Rhineland-German, becoming known as 'Yiddish'). This mentality faded over time and in the wake of the UsefulNotes/ThirtyYearsWar and UsefulNotes/TheEnlightenment, religion, while important, was no longer the ''sole'' cause of anti-semitism. This pre-modern state of affairs was filled with instances of persecution and violence, but for the most part, the medieval era was characterised by acceptance and favour, albeit as second-class citizens constantly pressured — or even coerced — into conversion.

In the 19th Century, antisemitism evolved in the nationalist, imperialist, and racist climate of the times. Indeed, this was when the term 'Anti-Semitism' was invented. It had the appearance of being 'cold' and 'rational' since it was upon the, now-discredited, principles of Scientific Racialism — the classification and distinction of 'racial' groups based upon identifiable differences. For you see, Scientific Racialism was ''predicated upon the idea that races existed''. It was not until the early 20th century that anyone started serious enquiries into whether they actually did (spoiler: they don't).

Since antiquity, Christians' relationship with Jews had been marked by an unstable dichotomy of inferiority/superiority, with some rare instances of tolerance. Hatred of Jews, which was later termed 'Anti-Semitism', had at the very least been part of Christian culture since TheMiddleAges between UsefulNotes/TheCrusades and the Black Death (11th-13th centuries). At that time, Europe's largest Jewish community in the Rhineland was expelled by the UsefulNotes/HolyRomanEmpire and fled to The Kingdom of Poland (their language, Rhineland-German, becoming known as 'Yiddish'). This mentality faded over time and in the wake of the UsefulNotes/ThirtyYearsWar and UsefulNotes/TheEnlightenment, religion, while important, was no longer the ''sole'' cause of anti-semitism. This pre-modern state of affairs was filled with instances of persecution and violence, but for the most part, the medieval era was characterised by acceptance and favour, albeit as second-class citizens constantly pressured — or even coerced — into conversion.

In the 19th Century, anti-Semitism evolved in the nationalist, imperialist, and racist climate of the times. Indeed, this was when the term 'Anti-Semitism' was invented. It had the appearance of being 'cold' and 'rational' since it was upon the, now-discredited, principles of Scientific Racialism — the classification and distinction of 'racial' groups based upon identifiable differences. For you see, Scientific Racialism was ''predicated upon the idea that races existed''. It was not until the early 20th century that anyone started serious enquiries into whether they actually did (spoiler: they don't).

Ironically, this era of renewed anti-Semitism was in part a backlash to an era of even greater acceptance. Emerging nationalism in the newer European states (such as Serbia and other Balkan States) insisted upon exclusive religious-ethnic definitions[[note]]Achieved via ethnic cleansing of their large Muslim minorities (perhaps 10% of total pop)[[/note]]. However, others, like the Austro-Hungarian Empire did not, since it simply ''couldn't'' because it was just so heterogenous. In the wake of UsefulNotes/TheFrenchRevolution and the conquests of Napoleon, Jewish de-ghettoization had been achieved in Western Europe, even in places such as Austria, where it was legally possible for a Jew to be a full citizen of a nation. Austria-Hungary, France, Germany, and the USA were the four countries in which the treatment of Jews improved the most during the 19th century. But the anti-Semitic backlash became even more extreme as a result, with some [[FeelingOppressedByTheirExistence feeling disempowered and oppressed by the elevation of ethnic minorities such as Jews to full citizenship]], since it wiped the sheen of "first-class citizenship" and was a harbinger of full equality.

The facilities at Chełmno (Warthegau) and Majdanek (Warthegau) had been approved in October 1941 by District [=SSPFs=] as ad-hoc solutions to local productivity problems caused by 'Useless Mouths' (Jewish elderly, women, children), and were the first ones used in the new campaign. Construction of a further three facilities began between February and April 1942, when [=SSPFs=] were informed of the change in the nature of the Deportation Plan and eagerly competed to participate in ''Reinhard'' (Sobibor, Bełżec, and Treblinka). The Lublin District SSPF Odilo Globocnik crowded out his rivals to play host to two of the five facilities - including the jewel of ''Treblinka'', by far the most productive facility of the entire war bar Auschwitz-II. Treblinka handled about half ([=900k=]) of the individuals [[DeadlyEuphemism processed]] in ''Operation Reinhard'' (c. [=2m=]). At most attached extermination facilities Carbon Monoxide was used, whether as a byproduct of industrial processes (as in the T-4 programme and early camps) or from modified vans designed to kill the passengers (as at Riga, Latvia, Reichskommisariat Ostland). In Belzec and Treblinka, petrol engines from captured Russian tanks were used as a source of carbon monoxide in exhaust fumes. It was initially considered to use a technical CO in steel bottles, but the logistics of carrying vast amounts of heavy and bulky metal cylinders over hundreds of kilometres into the East made it impossible (both because of cost and because the trains/cars were heavily involved in the Russian campaign), while petrol was cheap and readily available. Auschwitz-II and Majdanek used Zyklon B, hydrogen cyanide absorbed on diatomaceous earth, which took much less space and was much easier to transport.

* ''Series/ASmallLight''

At its narrowest definition, The Holocaust entailed the murder of 150–300 thousand disabled people, 200–500 thousand UsefulNotes/{{Romani}} (or even 1.5 million according to the highest estimates[[note]]It's hard to get definite numbers, because Romani were often shot on sight by the death squads, instead of bothering to capture and ship them to camps.[[/note]]), 3.3 million Soviet [=POWs=], and about 5.5–6 million European people categorized as Jews by Germany or her allies. At its broadest definition, The Holocaust encompassed the more than 5 million Polish and 20 million Soviet (Latvian, Lithuanian, Estonian, Belarussian, Ukrainian, and Russian) civilians killed to prevent or in retaliation for partisan attacks, indirectly through the seizure of food or clothing or housing desired by Axis forces, or for no particular reason. Note that these figures overlap, such as the 90% reduction in Poland's pre-war Jewish population of 3 million.

* ''Series/BandOfBrothers'' -- One episode has Easy Company stumble across a concentration camp.

* ''Series/TheCherryQueen'' -- Persecutions of Jews (and other people such as homosexuals) after the Nazis take power in 1933. The Jewish woman protagonist goes into hiding during World War II.

* ''Series/TheCherryQueen'' -- Persecutions of Jews after the Nazis take power. The Jewish woman protagonist goes into hiding during World War II.

[[index]]
* ''ComicBook/Block109'': In this AlternateHistory comic book, due to [[AlternateHistoryNaziVictory Nazi Germany surviving longer than it did in real life]], Jewish presence has been totally wiped out from Europe. Hochmeister Zytek, one of Hitler's successors at the head of the state, has all the main Nazi leaders gathered in a room [[spoiler:and has them machine-gunned for planning and allowing the genocide, as well as for the countless other real life war crimes the comics turned up to eleven.]]

[[folder:Films]]

[[caption-width-right:350: Entrance to the concentration camp Auschwitz I. The lettering says "[[BlatantLies Work will set you free]]." [[note]]The letter "B" in "arbeit" (German for work) was installed upside down for embedding the truth.[[/note]]]]