Holocaust victims - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Holocaust Victims



Holocaust victims included many kinds of people, such as: (top row) Clergy (like A. Kotowska and Fr. M. Kolbe); (2nd row) The disabled; Jews; (3rd row) Poles; Sinti and Roma; (4th row) Soviet POWs; and people who fought against the Nazis (like Witold Pilecki).

During The Holocaust, millions of people died or were killed in Nazi Germany. These Holocaust victims included about six million Jewish people. They also included five million of people who were not Jewish, mainly Poles, Sinti and Roma.

Holocaust victims died in many ways. Millions were murdered by the Nazis, especially in Nazi labour camps and extermination camps (death camps). Many others died in camps and ghettoes from diseases, starvation, and freezing to death, caused by the terrible living conditions. Others in areas that Nazi Germany took over died from famine and other causes.

When all these people are added up, historians estimate that between 19 million and 22 million people died during The Holocaust.[1][2] Holocaust victims came from many different countries, religions, ethnic groups, and cultures. The Nazis wanted to kill them for many different reasons.

Ethnicity[change | change source]

The Nazis believed that some races and ethnic groups were not as good as others. They thought the "Aryan race" was the best of all. They wanted Nazi Germany to be filled only with "Aryan" people.

The Nazis thought that there were some ethnic groups that were not even human. Two of these groups were the Jews and the Sinti and Roma People. The Nazis decided to kill all of the Jews and Sinti and Roma People in Nazi Germany. The Nazis also thought that Slavic peoples were less than human, and they killed millions of Slavs because of their ethnicity.

Jewish people[change | change source]

The Nazis thought of the Jewish people as an ethnic group. This meant that even if a person did not practice the Jewish religion, the Nazis still thought of them as Jewish.[3]

Early on in World War II, the Nazis made Jewish people leave their homes and forced them to live in ghettoes. However, by 1941, Adolf Hitler had decided to kill all of the Jews in Europe. This plan was called the Final Solution.

Starting in 1942, the Nazis deported the Jews from the ghettoes to death camps like Auschwitz. At these camps, people were killed in gas chambers as soon as they arrived.[4]

By the end of The Holocaust, one out of every three Jewish people in the world had died or been killed by the Nazis.[5] Only one out of every three Jews in Europe survived The Holocaust.[4] Many countries lost most of their Jewish populations. For example:[6][7]

Over one million Jewish children died or were killed during The Holocaust.[8]

Slavs[change | change source]

Famous photo of Nazis executing Ukrainian Jews in 1942. This woman is trying to protect her child with her own body.
Polish farmers killed by Nazis in 1943

The Nazis killed millions of Slavic people during The Holocaust. These people included Poles, Russians, Serbs,[9] Ukrainians, Czechs, Bosniaks, and Sorbs. The Nazis thought Slavs were an inferior race. However, they also wanted to clear out the people in the Slavic countries, so there would be plenty of Lebensraum ("living space") for "Aryan" people.[10]

Poles[change | change source]

Poles were one of the first groups that Hitler decided to get rid of. He first shared this idea in 1939. On August 22, 1939, Hitler said:

[T]he [goal] of the war is ... to destroy the enemy. That is why I have prepared ... my 'Death's Head' [groups of soldiers] with orders to kill without pity or mercy all men, women, and children of Polish descent or language. Only in this way can we [get] the living space we need.[11]p.115

Before World War II, Poland had the largest population of Jews in Europe. By the end of The Holocaust, three million Polish Jews had died or been killed.[6]p. 403 So had between 1.8 million and three million Poles who were not Jewish.[11][12]p. 305 These victims included:

Almost 17% of Poland's population died or was killed in The Holocaust.[11]

Ukrainians[change | change source]

Originally, the Nazis planned to kill 65% of the 23.2 million people in the Ukraine (about 15 million Ukrainians).[14][15] They planned to make the survivors work as slaves.[16]

Between 1941 and 1945, the Nazis killed about three million Ukrainians.[17][18] They also deported over two million Ukrainians to Germany to be used as slave workers.[19]

More Ukrainians were killed fighting the Wehrmacht in the Soviet Red Army than American, British and French soldiers all put together.[20]

Soviets[change | change source]

Naked Soviet prisoners of war in Mauthausen concentration camp

Many Soviet prisoners of war (POWs) and civilians died during Operation Barbarossa (the Axis countries' invasion of the Soviet Union). The Nazis killed many Soviet children as well as adult civilians in the lands they took over.[8]

The Nazis killed millions of Red Army prisoners of war in many ways:

  • German soldiers (especially the Waffen-SS) executed them after they were captured
  • Many Soviet POWs died because of terrible conditions in German prisoner of war camps, or on death marches
  • The Nazis sent many Soviet POWs to concentration camps to be killed

In eight months between 1941-1942, the Nazis killed about 2.8 million Soviet POWs by execution, starvation, and freezing to death.[21]

After the Nazis occupied parts of the Soviet Union, they treated Soviet civilians terribly. During the siege of Leningrad, more than 1.2 million civilians died. Nazi soldiers destroyed thousands of peasant villages across Russia, Belarus, and the Ukraine. In 1995, the Russian Academy of Sciences reported that the Nazis caused 13.7 million civilian deaths in the occupied Soviet Union, including Jews.[22] This was 20% of the area's population. These deaths included:[22]

  • 7.4 million victims of Nazi genocide and reprisals
  • 2.2 million deaths of persons deported to Germany as forced labor
  • 4.1 million deaths from famine and disease

About three million people also died of starvation in areas that the Nazis had not taken over.[22]

Roma and Sinti people[change | change source]

Under the Nazis' Nuremberg Laws, the Sinti and Roma people were called "enemies of the race-based [Germany]," just like Jews. Like with the Jews, the Nazis wanted to kill all of the Roma and Sinti people in Europe.[23]

In 1936, the Nazis began deporting Roma and Sinti people, first to areas on the outside edges of cities, and later to the same ghettoes that Jews were sent to. In 1942, Heinrich Himmler ordered that the Roma and Sinti people (including children) should be sent to Auschwitz concentration camp.[24] The Nazis also sent many Roma and Sinti adults and children to other death camps, like Bełżec, and to other concentration camps, like Ravensbrück.[8][25]

Historians estimate that 220,000 to 500,000 Roma and Sinti were killed by the Nazis. This was about one in every four Roma and Sinti people who lived in Europe at the time.[23] However, one researcher says that as many as 1.5 million Roma and Sinti may have died during The Holocaust.[26]

After World War II, it took a long time for countries to admit that Nazi Germany had committed a genocide against the Roma and Sinti people. In 1982, West Germany admitted that a genocide of the Roma had happened.[27][28] In 2011, the Polish Government ruled that Poland would honor the Roma genocide on the 2nd of August, every year.[29]

Disabilities[change | change source]

The Nazis believed that people with disabilities were "life unworthy of life," and that they did not deserve to live. People with disabilities also did not fit into the Nazis' ideas about having a race of perfect "Aryans."

The Nazis forced about 375,000 people to be sterilized so they could not have children with disabilities.[30] These people included people with physical disabilities, mental illnesses, intellectual disabilities, and the Deaf.[31]

People with disabilities were the first people the Nazis killed in gas chambers. In 1939, the Nazis set up a program called the T-4 Euthanasia Program. As part of this program, the Nazis sent children and adults with disabilities to hospitals like Hartheim Euthanasia Centre, where they were killed with poison gas. They also killed some children with disabilities right after they were born.[8] By the end of World War II, the Nazis had killed about 275,000 people with disabilities.[32] About 5,000 to 7,000 of these victims were children.[8]

Homosexuality[change | change source]

On May 10, 1933, the Nazis burned 20,000 books about homosexuality from the Institute for Sex Research's library. They also took lists of homosexual people from the Institute so they could persecute those people[33]

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people were also victims of The Holocaust. The Nazis were especially cruel to gay men. They thought that homosexual people hurt Nazi Germany in a few ways:[34][35]

  • The Nazis thought gay men were too weak and too much like women to be able to fight for Nazi Germany
  • The Nazis wanted "Aryan" Germans to have as many children as possible, but gay men would not be creating children
  • The Nazis thought homosexuality was contagious, and that other Germans would become homosexual just by being around gay people

By 1936, Heinrich Himmler was trying to use Germany's laws, and make new laws, to persecute gay men. At least 100,000 gay German men were arrested, and 50,000 were convicted and put in prison.[36] Some were forced into state-run psychiatric hospitals. Courts ordered hundreds of European gay men living in Nazi-controlled areas to be castrated with chemicals.[37]

Between 5,000 and 15,000 gay men were imprisoned in concentration camps.[37][38] They were often treated even worse than other prisoners.[39] They had to wear a pink triangle on their shirts, just like men convicted of sexually abusing children and having sex with animals.[40]

Lesbians were not usually treated as badly as gay men. They were usually not put in prison just because they were lesbians. In the concentration camps, they usually wore a black triangle.[41]

According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, "Nazi Germany did not seek to kill all homosexuals. Nevertheless, the Nazi state, through active persecution, attempted to terrorise German homosexuals into sexual and social conformity, leaving thousands dead and shattering the lives of many more."[37]

After World War II, many homosexuals who were liberated from the concentration camps were still persecuted in Germany. They could be charged under Paragraph 175, a law which made "lewdness between men" illegal. If they were convicted, they would be sent to prison. (The time they spent in the concentration camps would be subtracted from their sentences.) This was very different from how other Holocaust victims were treated. Other victims were compensated (given money) for the loss of family members and educational opportunities.[42] Gay victims were treated like criminals.

Politics[change | change source]

The Nazis also killed many people who did not agree with the Nazis' political beliefs. They thought of these people as political enemies of Nazi Germany.

Political prisoners[change | change source]

The Nazis were especially cruel to people who spoke out or fought against the Nazi government. When they arrested these people, the Nazis often killed them right after questioning them. Sometimes, the Nazis killed their families too. People who were not killed right away were sent to the political People's Court. This court was famous for the number of death sentences it gave.[43]

Leftists[change | change source]

The Nazis thought of leftists as political enemies. Leftists included anarchist, communists, socialists, liberals, libertarians and social democrats. German communists and Social Democrats were some of the first people to be sent to Dachau concentration camp.[44][45] The Nazi Party hated communism, and was worried that German communists would be loyal to the Soviet Union, a communist country. The Nazis spread rumors about communist violence to get the Enabling Act of 1933 passed. This law gave Adolf Hitler his first powers as a dictator.

Hitler and the Nazis also hated German leftists because they did not agree with the Nazis' racism. When the Nazis took over a place, communists, socialists, liberals and social democrats were usually some of the first people they abused. Sometimes they would murder leftists right away.[46]

Religion[change | change source]

Jehovah's Witnesses[change | change source]

As part of their religious beliefs, Jehovah's Witnesses refused to serve in the German Army, salute the Nazi flag, or say "Heil Hitler" ("Hail Hitler").[47][48] They refused to go along with Nazi beliefs and laws that went against their religious beliefs.[48][49]

Because of this, many Jehovah's Witnesses were sent to concentration camps. Between 2,500 and 5,000 Witnesses died in the concentration camps.[50]

Roman Catholics[change | change source]

Public execution of Catholic priests and civilians in Poland (1939)

The Nazis also attacked the Catholic Church during The Holocaust.[51] Hitler wanted to destroy Catholicism and Christianity in Nazi Germany, and make Nazi Germany pagan instead.[52] Thousands of German clergy, nuns, and Catholic leaders were arrested after the Nazis took over.[53]

In 1939, Hitler invaded Poland, beginning World War II. Poland was mostly Catholic. The Nazis wanted to destroy Poland. They started by destroying the Catholic Church in Poland. They arrested the Church's leaders and closed churches and monasteries. In 1940, the Nazis created a special barracks just for priests at Dachau concentration camp.[54] Of 2,720 clergy imprisoned at Dachau, almost all (94.88 percent) were Catholic.[55] About 1,700 were Polish priests; half of them died or were killed at Dachau.[56] The Nazis even made it illegal for priests anywhere to give Catholic sacraments to Polish people. At least one German priest was sent to Dachau for taking a confession from a Polish Catholic.[57]

In 1933, Germany had made an agreement with the Holy See to protect Catholicism in Nazi Germany. However, the Nazis often broke this agreement.[58] They shut down the Catholic press, schools, political parties and youth groups in Germany amid murder and mass arrests.[59][60][61]

The Church was treated especially badly in lands that Germany took over. In Austria, Catholic property was taken, Catholic organizations were closed, and many priests were sent to Dachau. In Czechoslovakia, the Nazis refused to let people follow religious orders; closed schools; made religious teachings illegal; and sent priests to concentration camps.[62] Catholic people, bishops, clergy, and nuns protested and attacked Nazi policies.

In 1942, Dutch bishops protested the mistreatment of the Jews.[63] When the Dutch Archbishop refused to obey the Nazis, the Gestapo rounded up Catholic "Jews" and sent 92 to Auschwitz[64] A Dutch Catholic nun named Edith Stein was murdered at Auschwitz. So was Maximilian Kolbe, a Polish priest. Both were eventually made into Catholic saints by Pope John Paul II in the 1980s. Other Catholic victims of the Holocaust have also been beatified, including some of the Polish priests who died at Dachau.[65]

Protestants[change | change source]

Flag of the "German Christians," who supported Nazism, in 1934

Some Protestant Churches agreed with Nazi ideas. Others did not. To try to take over Protestantism in Germany, the Nazis formed the National Reich Church: an official state church that taught a state religion based on Nazism.[57] The Reich Church:[66]

  • Took away all Christian crosses and replaced them with the Nazi swastika
  • Fired all clergy members and replaced them with Nazi speakers
  • Demanded that the Bible never be printed in Germany again
  • Put Hitler's book Mein Kampf on the altars of all its churches

They fired all clergy members who were not "Aryan." Church members called themselves "German Christians" and said they had "the swastika on their chest and the cross in their heart."[47][67]

Protestant groups that disagreed with Nazi ideas formed the Confessing Church, a group of German churches. Martin Niemöller was one or their leaders. Nazis persecuted the Confessing Church.[67] In May 1936, the Confessing Church sent a letter to Hitler criticizing his actions. The Nazis reacted by:[68]

  • Arresting hundreds of pastors
  • Sending some of the Confessing Church's leaders to concentration camps
  • Taking all of the Confessing Church's money
  • Making it illegal for the Confessing Church's members to give money to the Church

Most pastors and churches were not members of either the Reich Church or the Confessing Church.[57] Pastors who spoke out against what the Nazis were doing were threatened, arrested, and sometimes sent to concentration camps.[57]

Bahá'í Faith[change | change source]

In 1937, the Nazis made it illegal to practice the Bahá'í Faith. The Nazis closed all Bahá'í organizations in Germany.[69] The Nazis did not like the Bahá'í Faith because it taught pacifism.[70]

Throughout the Holocaust, Bahá'ís were arrested and given very expensive fines. The Nazis also continued to close their organizations.[71]

Freemasons[change | change source]

The Nazis blamed Freemasonry for Germany losing World War I. They said the Freemasons' leaders were part of a conspiracy with Jewish people to take over Germany.[72] In 1941, Adolf Hitler decided that Masons were political enemies. The Nazis sent tens of thousands of Masons to concentration camps. Between 80,000 to 200,000 Freemasons were killed.[73]

Total deaths[change | change source]

This table estimates the total number of deaths caused by The Holocaust.

The diary of Tanya Savicheva, an 11-year-old Soviet girl. She wrote the diary during the siege of Leningrad. Her notes talk about the starvation and deaths of her sister, then grandmother, then brother, then uncle, then another uncle, then mother. The last three notes say "Savichevs died", "Everyone died," and "Only Tanya is left." Tanya died shortly after the siege. Her diary was shown at the Nuremberg trials.
Victims Number of Deaths Source(s)
Jews 5.93 million [74]
Soviet civilians (not including Soviet Jews) 5.7 million [75]
Ukrainians 3 million [17][18]
Soviet POWs 2 million–3 million [76]
Ethnic Poles (not including Polish Jews) 1.8 million–3 million [11][12][77][78]
Serbs 300,000–500,000 [79][80]
People with disabilities 275,000 [32]
Roma 90,000–500,000 [81][82]
Freemasons 80,000–200,000 [83][84]
Slovenes 20,000–25,000 [85]
Homosexuals 5,000–15,000 [86]
Spanish Republicans 7,000 [87]
Jehovah's Witnesses 2,500–5,000 [50]
TOTAL 19.2 million - 22.2 million

Photo gallery[change | change source]

References[change | change source]

  1. See the section "Total deaths" for references.
  2. A figure of 26.3 million is given in Service d'Information des Crimes de Guerre: Crimes contre la Personne Humain, Camps de Concentration. Paris, 1946, pp. 197–198. Other references: Christopher Hodapp, Freemasons for Dummies, 2005; Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, 2003; Martin Gilbert, Atlas of the Holocaust, 1993; Israel Gutman, Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, 1995.
  3. "Victims of the Nazi Era: Nazi Racial Ideology". Holocaust Encyclopedia. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. August 18, 2015. Retrieved February 23, 2016.
  4. 4.0 4.1 ""Final Solution"". Holocaust Encyclopedia. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. January 29, 2016. Retrieved 5 February 2016.
  5. American Jewish Committee, Harry Schneiderman and Julius B. Maller, eds. Archived 2010-12-12 at the Wayback Machine, American Jewish Year Book, Vol. 48 (1946–1947) Archived 2010-12-12 at the Wayback Machine, Press of Jewish Publication Society of America, Philadelphia, 1946, page 599
  6. 6.0 6.1 Dawidowicz, Lucy S. (1986). The War Against the Jews, 1933–1945. New York: Bantam Books. ISBN 0-553-34302-5.
  7. Laqueur, Walter (2001). The Holocaust Encyclopedia. New Haven: Yale University Press. p. 145. ISBN 0-300-08432-3.
  8. 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 8.5 "Children During the Holocaust". Holocaust Encyclopedia. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. January 29, 2016. Retrieved February 25, 2016. The Germans and their collaborators killed as many as 1.5 million children. This number included over a million Jewish children and tens of thousands of Sinti and Roma (Gypsy) children, German children with physical and mental disabilities living in institutions, Polish children, and children residing in the occupied Soviet Union.
  9. "Expert: 800,000 Serbs were killed in Croat WW2 death camp". B92.net. Retrieved 2020-10-15.
  10. Kershaw, Ian (1997). Stalinism and Nazism: Dictatorships in Comparison. Cambridge University Press. p. 150. ISBN 0-521-56521-9.
  11. 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 Piotrowski, Tadeusz (1998). Poland's Holocaust: Ethnic Strife, Collaboration With Occupying Forces and Genocide in the Second Republic, 1918–1947. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company. ISBN 9780786403714.
  12. 12.0 12.1 Polska 1939–1945. Straty osobowe i ofiary represji pod dwiema okupacjami, ed. Tomasz Szarota and pl [Wojciech Materski], Warszawa, IPN 2009, ISBN 978-83-7629-067-6 (Introduction reproduced here Archived 2013-02-01 at the Wayback Machine)
  13. 13.0 13.1 Gutman, Yisrael; Berenbaum, Michael, eds. (April 22, 1998). Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp. Indiana University Press. p. 70. ISBN 978-0253208842.
  14. Hans-Walter Schmuhl. The Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics, 1927–1945: crossing boundaries. Volume 259 of Boston studies in the philosophy of science. Coutts MyiLibrary. SpringerLink Humanities, Social Science & LawAuthor. Springer, 2008. ISBN 1-4020-6599-X, 9781402065996, p. 348–349
  15. "Демоскоп Weekly - Приложение. Справочник статистических показателей". Demoscope.ru. Retrieved 2015-09-27.
  16. Robert Gellately. Revieved works: Vom Generalplan Ost zum Generalsiedlungsplan by Czeslaw Madajczyk. Der "Generalplan Ost." Hauptlinien der nationalsozialistischen Planungs- und Vernichtungspolitik by Mechtild Rössler; Sabine Schleiermacher. Central European History, Vol. 29, No. 2 (1996), pp. 270–274
  17. 17.0 17.1 Magocsi, Paul Robert (1996). A History of Ukraine. University of Toronto Press. p. 633. ISBN 978-0-8020-7820-9.
  18. 18.0 18.1 Dawidowicz, Lucy S. (1986). The war against the Jews, 1933–1945. New York: Bantam Books. ISBN 0-553-34302-5.p. 403
  19. "Russia's War on Ukraine". Victor Rud. 5 March 2014. Archived from the original on 16 July 2014. Retrieved 27 June 2014.
  20. Snyder, Timothy. "Putin's Project". Faz.net. Timothy Snyder. Retrieved 27 June 2014.
  21. Case Study: Soviet Prisoners-of-War, Gendercide Watch.
  22. 22.0 22.1 22.2 The Russian Academy of Science Rossiiskaia Akademiia nauk. Liudskie poteri SSSR v period vtoroi mirovoi voiny:sbornik statei. Sankt-Peterburg 1995 ISBN 5-86789-023-6
  23. 23.0 23.1 "Genocide of European Roma (Gypsies), 1939-1945". Holocaust Encyclopedia. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. January 26, 2016. Retrieved February 23, 2016.
  24. Arad, Yitzhak (1999). Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka: The Operation Reinhard Death Camps. Indiana University Press. pp. 152–3. ISBN 978-0-2532-1305-1.
  25. Friedman, Ina R. (1995). "Bubili: A Young Gypsy's Fight for Survival". The Other Victims: First-Person Stories of Non-Jewish. Sandpiper. pp. 7–24. ISBN 978-0395745151.
  26. Hancock, Ian (2005), "True Romanies and the Holocaust: A Re-evaluation and an overview", The Historiography of the Holocaust, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 383–396, ISBN 1-4039-9927-9, archived from the original on 2019-06-09, retrieved 2016-02-24
  27. "Germany unveils Roma Holocaust memorial". aljazeera.com. 24 October 2012. Retrieved 8 March 2015.
  28. "Holocaust Memorial Day: 'Forgotten Holocaust' of Roma finally acknowledged in Germany". Telegraph.co.uk. 27 January 2011. Archived from the original on 2 April 2015. Retrieved 8 March 2015.
  29. "OSCE human rights chief welcomes declaration of official Roma genocide remembrance day in Poland". OSCE. 29 July 2011. Retrieved 8 March 2015.
  30. Donna F. Ryan; John S. Schuchman (1934-03-15). Deaf people in Hitler's Europe. ISBN 978-1-56368-132-5. Retrieved 2011-11-03.
  31. Friedman, Ina R. (1995). "Franziska: A Silent Protest Against Sterilization". The Other Victims: First-Person Stories of Non-Jewish. Sandpiper. pp. 63–76. ISBN 978-0395745151.
  32. 32.0 32.1 "Bibliographies". Ushmm.org. Retrieved 2011-11-03.
  33. Rector, Frank (1981). The Nazi extermination of homosexuals. Stein and Day. ISBN 0-812827295.
  34. "Persecution of Homosexuals in the Third Reich". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Retrieved 27 June 2014.
  35. "Poignant Documentary Recalls Nazis' Gay Victims". Los Angeles Times. 23 February 2001. Retrieved 27 June 2014.
  36. "Nazi Persecution of Homosexuals, US Holocaust Memorial Museum". Ushmm.org. Retrieved 2011-02-20.
  37. 37.0 37.1 37.2 "Nazi Persecution of Homosexuals, US Holocaust Memorial Museum". Ushmm.org. Retrieved 2011-02-20.
  38. "Non-Jewish Victims of Persecution in Germany". yadvashem.org. Archived from the original on 13 January 2012. Retrieved 27 June 2014.
  39. Heinz Heger, Men with the Pink Triangle, Alyson Publishing: 1994
  40. Plant, The Pink Triangle.
  41. "Badges of the Holocaust". Retrieved 27 June 2014.
  42. "Homocaust: Remembering the gay victims of the Holocaust". Archived from the original on 17 May 2014. Retrieved 28 June 2014.
  43. "Cyclopedia – German People's Court". Archived from the original on 14 July 2014. Retrieved 27 June 2014.
  44. "Ein Konzentrationslager für politische Gefangene In der Nähe von Dachau". Münchner Neueste Nachrichten ("The Munich Latest News") (in German). The Holocaust History Project. 21 March 1933. Archived from the original on 10 May 2000. Retrieved 24 February 2016. The Munich Chief of Police, Himmler, has issued the following press announcement: On Wednesday the first concentration camp is to be opened in Dachau with an accommodation for 5000 persons. 'All Communists and—where necessary—Reichsbanner and Social Democratic functionaries who endanger state security are to be concentrated here, as in the long run it is not possible to keep individual functionaries in the state prisons without overburdening these prisons, and on the other hand these people cannot be released because attempts have shown that they persist in their efforts to agitate and organise as soon as they are released.'
  45. "Holocaust Timeline: Camps". The History Place. Retrieved 2012-01-30.
  46. "Commissar Order". ushmm.org. Retrieved on 27 September 2015.
  47. 47.0 47.1 "Changing life for the German people - What effect did the Nazis' racial and religious policy have on life in Germany?". BBC Bitesize. Retrieved 27 June 2014.
  48. 48.0 48.1 Friedman, Ina R. (1995). "Elisabeth's Family: Twelve Jehovah's Witnesses Faithful Unto Death". The Other Victims: First-Person Stories of Non-Jewish. Sandpiper. pp. 47–60. ISBN 978-0395745151.
  49. Garbe, Detlef (2001). In Hans Hesse. Persecution and Resistance of Jehovah's Witnesses During the Nazi-Regime 1933–1945. Bremen: Edition Temmen. p.251
  50. 50.0 50.1 Shulman, William L. A State of Terror: Germany 1933–1939. Bayside, New York: Holocaust Resource Center and Archives.
  51. Theodore S. Hamerow; On the Road to the Wolf's Lair - German Resistance to Hitler; Belknap Press of Harvard University Press; 1997; ISBN 0-674-63680-5; p. 136
  52. *Alan Bullock; Hitler: A Study in Tyranny; HarperPerennial Edition 1991; p 219: "Once the war was over, [Hitler] promised himself, he would root out and destroy the influence of the Christian Churches, but until then he would be circumspect"
  53. Shirer, William L., Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany, pp. 234–235, Simon and Schuster, 1990
  54. Paul Berben; Dachau: The Official History 1933–1945; Norfolk Press; London; 1975; ISBN 0-85211-009-X; p.143
  55. Paul Berben; Dachau: The Official History 1933–1945; Norfolk Press; London; 1975; ISBN 0-85211-009-X; pp.276–277
  56. Richard J. Evans; The Third Reich at War; Penguin Press New York; 2009; p. 33–34
  57. 57.0 57.1 57.2 57.3 Friedman, Ina R. (1995). "Pastor Christian Reger: Barracks 26". The Other Victims: First-Person Stories of Non-Jewish. Sandpiper. pp. 31–46. ISBN 978-0395745151.
  58. * Evans, 2008, pp. 245–246
    • Shirer, 1990, pp. 234–35
    • Hamerow, 1997, p. 136
    • Gill, 1994, p. 57
    • Kershaw, 2008, p. 332
    • Paul O'Shea; A Cross Too Heavy; Rosenberg Publishing; p. 234–5 ISBN 978-1-877058-71-4
    • Ian Kershaw; The Nazi Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation; 4th ed.; Oxford University Press; New York; 2000; pp. 210–11
    • Peter Hoffmann; The History of the German Resistance 1933–1945; 3rd ed. (first English ed.); McDonald & Jane's; London; 1977; p. 14
  59. Fred Taylor; The Goebbells Diaries 1939–1941; Hamish Hamilton Ltd; London; 1982 pp. 278 & 294
  60. Evans, Richard J. (2005). The Third Reich in Power. New York: Penguin. ISBN 978-0-14-303790-3; pp. 245–246
  61. William L. Shirer; The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich; Secker & Warburg; London; 1960; p. 201
  62. Mark Mazower; Hitler's Empire - Nazi Rule in Occupied Europe; Penguin; 2008; ISBN 978-0-7139-9681-4; pp. 51–52
  63. Lehner, Ulrich L. "The Bishops Who Defied the Nazis". National Catholic Register. Archived from the original on 2013-10-05. Retrieved 2013-11-06.
  64. Richard J. Evans; The Third Reich at War; Penguin Press; New York 2009, p.385
  65. "108 Martyrs of World War II". Saints.SQPN.com. Retrieved 2013-11-06.
  66. Shirer, William L. (1990). Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany. Simon and Schuster. p. 240. ISBN 9780671728687. The National Church has no scribes, pastors, chaplains or priests, but National Reich orators are to speak in them. The National Church demands immediate cessation of the publishing and dissemination of the Bible in Germany... The National Church declares that to it, and therefore to the German nation, it has been decided that the Fuehrer's Mein Kampf is the greatest of all documents. It ... not only contains the greatest but it embodies the purest and truest ethics for the present and future life of our nation. The National Church will clear away from its altars all crucifixes, Bibles and pictures of saints. On the altars there must be nothing but Mein Kampf (to the German national and therefore to God the most sacred book) and to the left of the altar a sword. On the day of its foundation, the Christian Cross must be removed from all churches, cathedrals and chapels... and it must be superseded by the only unconquerable symbol, the swastika.
  67. 67.0 67.1 "Germany". Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs. Archived from the original on 2013-10-12. Retrieved 2011-12-29. See drop-down essay on "Unification, World Wars, and Nazism"
  68. Barnett, Victoria (1992). For the Soul of the People: Protestant Protest Against Hitler. Oxford University Press US. ISBN 0-19-512118-X.
  69. "Geschichte (100 Jahre)". Archived from the original on 2008-06-26. Retrieved 2015-09-27.
  70. Kolarz, Walter (1962). Religion in the Soviet Union. Armenian Research Center collection. St. Martin's Press. pp. 470–473. Archived from the original on 2013-10-29. Retrieved 2017-08-31 – via Questia.
  71. "Religionen in Deutschland: Mitgliederzahlen [Religions in Germany: Membership]" (in German). Archived from the original on 25 June 2008. Retrieved 10 March 2015.
  72. "World War II Documents showing the persecution of Freemasonry". Mill Valley Lodge #356. Archived from the original on 2012-02-03. Retrieved 2006-05-21.
  73. Katz (1990). "Jews and Freemasons in Europe". In Israel Gutman (ed.). The Encyclopedia of the Holocaust. p. vol. 2, p. 531. ISBN 978-0-02-897166-7. OCLC 20594356.
  74. Dawidowicz, Lucy. The War Against the Jews, Bantam, 1986. p. 403.
  75. "Documenting Numbers of Victims of the Holocaust and Nazi Persecution". Holocaust Encyclopedia. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. January 29, 2016. Retrieved February 27, 2016.
  76. Berenbaum 2005, p. 125.
  77. 1.8–1.9 million non-Jewish Polish citizens are estimated to have died as a result of the Nazi occupation and the war. Estimates are from Polish scholar, Franciszek Piper, the chief historian at Auschwitz. Poles: Victims of the Nazi Era Archived 2012-12-12 at the Wayback Machine at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
  78. Łuczak, Czesław. "Szanse i trudności bilansu demograficznego Polski w latach 1939–1945", Dzieje Najnowsze, issue 1994/2.
  79. "Croatia" (PDF). Shoah Resource Center, The International School for Holocaust Studies. Yad Vashem.
  80. "Žrtve licitiranja - Sahrana jednog mita, Bogoljub Kočović". NIN (in Serbian). 12 January 2006. Retrieved 8 May 2012.
  81. "Genocide of European Roma (Gypsies)". Holocaust Encyclopedia. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Retrieved 27 September 2012. The USHMM places the scholarly estimates at 220,000–500,000. According to Berenbaum 2005, p. 126, "serious scholars estimate that between 90,000 and 220,000 were killed under German rule."
  82. Hancock 2004, pp. 383–96
  83. "GrandLodgeScotland.com". GrandLodgeScotland.com. Archived from the original on 31 May 2013. Retrieved 31 July 2010.
  84. Freemasons for Dummies, by Christopher Hodapp Archived 2000-09-19 at the Wayback Machine, Wiley Publishing Inc., Indianapolis, 2005, page 85, sec. Hitler and the Nazis
  85. The number of Slovenes estimated to have died as a result of the Nazi occupation (not including those killed by Slovene collaboration forces and other Nazi allies) is estimated between 20,000 and 25,000 people. This number only includes civilians: Slovene partisan POWs who died and resistance fighters killed in action are not included (their number is estimated at 27,000). These numbers however include only Slovenes from present-day Slovenia: it does not include Carinthian Slovene victims, nor Slovene victims from areas in present-day Italy and Croatia. These numbers are result of a 10-year-long research by the Institute for Contemporary History (Inštitut za novejšo zgodovino) from Ljubljana, Slovenia. The partial results of the research have been released in 2008 in the volume Žrtve vojne in revolucije v Sloveniji (Ljubljana: Institute for Contemporary History, 2008), and officially presented at the Slovenian National Council ([1] Archived 2016-05-28 at the Wayback Machine
  86. The Holocaust Chronicle, Publications International Ltd., p. 108.
  87. Pike, David Wingeate. Spaniards in the Holocaust: Mauthausen, the horror on the Danube; Editorial: Routledge Chapman & Hall ISBN 978-0-415-22780-3. London, 2000.