When and where was the Holocaust?

Answer 1

Basic when and where of the HolocaustTimespan of genocide (mass murder): 1941-1945.Locations: in Nazi occupied Europe. The extermination camps were nearly all in Nazi occupied Poland.

• Mass open air shootings of Jews began in June and July 1941 behind German lines in Lithuania, eastern Poland, Belarus, Latvia and the Ukraine (in the then Soviet Union). Obviously, persecution, oppression and enforced ghettoization had started earlier and had already taken their toll.
• Routine (as opposed to experimental) gassings of Jews began on 8 December 1941 at Chelmno.
• The extermination camps - Auschwitz II (Birkenau), Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibor and Treblinka - were all situated in Nazi-occupied Poland.
• The Holocaust affected Jews throughout Nazi controlled territory between 1941 and 1945.
• The Holocaust took place in Germany and German-occupied Europe. It was not confined to any particular town or city.
• Two of Germany's allies - Romania and Croatia - carried out their own holocausts.
• The Holocaust ended in May 1945, but some camps and some areas were liberated earlier.

Start of the HolocaustThe Holocaust refers to genocide. Persecution and pogroms by the Nazis prior to the mass killings that started in 1941 do not have the obvious uniqueness of the Holocaust in the more precise sense. Even the events of the Night of the Broken Glass (Kristallnacht) - a massive pogrom - seem to have been designed to bully Jews in Germany into leaving the country. (One might regard the events of 1938-41 as a 'prelude' to the Holocaust).

Mass killings of Jews began in June 1941 as the death squads (SD-Einsatzgruppen) that followed the German armies into the Soviet Union began to operate behind the German lines.

The deportation of Jews from Berlin to Theresienstadt, to Riga (Latvia) and Maly Trostenets (Minsk, Belarus) started on 15 October 1941. Riga in Latvia and Maly Trostenets soon became a vast killing field for deported Berlin Jews.

The first large scale gassings took place at Chelmno on 8 December 1941. Further administrative details of Holocaust were worked out at the Wannsee Conference on 20 January 1942. (The actual 'conference' lasted only 90 minutes and was mainly concerned with co-ordinating the activities of the various agencies involved. Apart from a brief discussion of what to do about half-Jews and quarter-Jews, the meeting was not concerned with matters of policy).

AnswerThere's timeline at this link: ushmm.org Location of the HolocaustThe Holocaust did not happen in any one place. Everywhere the Germans conquered they exterminated the Jewish population and any other 'undersireables'. In the Soviet Union and parts of eastern Poland there were large scale mass executions throughout Nazi held territory. The extermination camps were nearly all in Poland.

The killings took place in:

1. Mass open air shootings (especially in the Soviet Union)

2. Exceptionally harsh concentration camps, where the prisoners were literally worked to death: they had to do heavy manual labour (such as quarrying and mining) on insufficient food.

3. Extermination camps, mainly located in Poland:

• Auschwitz-Birkenau
• Belzec
• Chelmno
• Majdanek (used mainly as a back-up)
• Sobibor
• Treblinka

The above camps were all in Poland. In addition, Maly Trostenets in Belarus is generally regarded as an extermination camp.

In Poland, Jews were herded into ghettos (such as the Warsaw Ghetto and the Lodz Ghetto) and given grossly insufficient food and not allowed medication. Many died of stavation and disease.

Two of Germany's allies, Romania and Croatia, carried out their own national holocausts.

Here is more input:

• In my opinion, the Holocaust happened in every town, every house, every heart that knew what was happening and did nothing. Most of the killing was done in Eastern Europe, as the previous post mentioned, especially Poland and Russia. But other countries all over Europe participated, shipping out their Jewish populations, out of fear or to get rid of undesirable peoples. Some of Germany's allies, such as Croatia and Romania conducted their own holocausts. As countries began closing their borders to Jewish refugees, including the US, they contributed indirectly to the death toll in the camps.

End of the HolocaustThe short answer: the Holocaust ended in 1945. Here are some longer answers:

• The holocaust ended in 1945 when World War 2 was about to end.
• The holocaust ended in specific places when the Allies liberated the camps in 1944-1945. The holocaust did not end completely till the end of WWII in Europe and the surrender of all German troops.
• The Holocaust ended a few days after Hitler committed suicide in 1945. However, even when camps were liberated the Death Rate from disease remained high for several weeks.