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This video is a powerpoint presentation of unification and nationalism. In this video, how nationalism effected germany, politics, people, and the world. How nationalism started WW2 is also discussed.

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Kaddish is a meaningful, Jewish prayer that reflects their values. Kaddish is mostly said by a mourner at a funeral.

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If you do not have experience reading transliteration
please see the Guide to Transliteration.

The Kaddish prayer is mostly Aramaic, not Hebrew, but the alphabet is the same, and the language is similar. For example, you'll see the Aramaic word shlama, which is related to shalom (peace) in Hebrew, and the response b'rikh hu, which is related to the Hebrew barukh hu (blessed is He).

There are several forms of the Kaddish prayer recited at different times during religious services. This one is reserved specifically for mourners, and is recited daily for 11 months after a parent's death, then annually on the anniversary of the parent's death on the Hebrew calendar. For more information, see Life, Death and Mourning.

There are several communal responses in this prayer. The parts that are recited by both the mourner and the congregation are highlighted in yellow.

יִתְגַּדַּל וְיִתְקַדַּשׁ שְׁמֵהּ רַבָּא

Yitgadal v'yitkadash sh'mei raba.
May His great Name grow exalted and sanctified

בְּעָלְמָא דִּי בְרָא כִרְעוּתֵהּ

b'alma di vra khirutei
in the world that He created as He willed.

v'yamlikh malkhutei
May He give reign to His kingship

b'chayeikhon uvyomeikhon
in your lifetimes and in your days

וּבְחַיֵּי דְכָל בֵּית יִשְׂרָאֵל

uv'chayei d'khol beit Yisra'eil
and in the lifetimes of the entire Family of Israel,

בַּעֲגָלָא וּבִזְמַן קָרִיב, וְאִמְרוּ

ba'agala uvizman kariv v'imru:
swiftly and soon. Now say:

יְהֵא שְׁמֵהּ רַבָּא מְבָרַךְ

לְעָלַם וּלְעָלְמֵי עָלְמַיָּא

יִתְבָּרַךְ וְיִשְׁתַּבַּח וְיִתְפָּאַר

Yitbarakh v'yishtabach v'yitpa'ar
Blessed and praised and glorified

v'yitromam v'yitnasei
and exalted and extolled

וְיִתְהַדָּר וְיִתְעַלֶּה וְיִתְהַלָּל

v'yit-hadar v'yit-aleh v'yit-halal
and mighty and upraised, and lauded

sh'mei d'kud'sha
be the Name of the Holy One

לְעֵֽלָּא מִן כָּל בִּרְכָתָא וְשִׁירָתָא

l'eila min kol birkhata v'shirata
beyond any blessing and song

tooshb'chatah v'nechematah
praise and consolation

דַּאֲמִירָן בְּעָלְמָא, וְאִמְרוּ

da'ameeran b'almah, v'eemru:
that are uttered in the world. Now say:

יְהֵא שְׁלָמָא רַבָּא מִן שְׁמַיָּא

Y'hei shlama raba min sh'maya
May there be abundant peace from Heaven

וְעַל כָּל יִשְׂרָאֵל וְאִמְרוּ

v'al kol Yisra'eil v'imru
and upon all Israel. Now say:

Oseh shalom bimromav
He Who makes peace in His heights

עָלֵֽינוּ וְעַל כָּל יִשְׂרָאֵל וְאִמְרוּ

aleinu v'al kol Yisra'eil v'imru
upon us and upon all Israel. Now say:

Related Pages

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prayers blessings mourner's kaddish hebrew judaism jewish judaica jewfaq

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The full text of the Mourner's Kaddish prayer, in Hebrew, English and transliterated Hebrew.

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Allies of the holocaust.

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View an animated map describing some of the challenges survivors faced in the aftermath of the Holocaust, when many feared returning to their former homes.

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In today's news synagogues are being reportedly "attacked" by terrorist.

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A building in which Jewish worship ceremonies take place

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Examples of synagogue in a Sentence

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'synagogue.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

Middle English synagoge, from Anglo-French, from Late Latin synagoga, from Greek synagōgē assembly, synagogue, from synagein to bring together, from syn- + agein to lead - more at agent

13th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1

The first known use of synagogue was in the 13th century

Dictionary Entries Near synagogue

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More from Merriam-Webster on synagogue

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Merriam-Webster unabridged

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a Jewish congregation; the house of worship and communal center of a Jewish congregation... See the full definition

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In this picture, nationalism is shown by a man trying to eat the world or possibly destroy it. Before and after WW2, Nazis and also Hitler tried to use nationalism to not just control the world but everything that effected it(politics, economy, etc). Adolf and his followers tried controlling politics through propaganda. Propaganda was a type of advertising for someones cause, and it was produced by supporters and/or opponents of the cause.

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The Jews were forced to die in terrible ways, the Nazi germans just wanted to rid them.

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Prior to the start of the Second World War, Jews, Roma and those viewed as ' a-social ' by the Nazis faced escalating persecution in Germany and its recently incorporated territories.

More than four hundred antisemitic laws were enacted by the Nazis between 1933 and 1938. In November 1938, the situation worsened, as hundreds of Jews were tortured and arrested and thousands of businesses were destroyed in a targeted pogrom known as Kristallnacht .

The persecution of Jews intensified as the Nazis invaded Poland on 1 September 1939 at the start of the Second World War.

This section will explore the main events of the Holocaust in chronological order.

The Einsatzgruppen were mobile killing squads that were a part of the SS . Members were chosen for their fanatical belief in Nazi ideology and absolute commitment to Hitler.

The Einsatzgruppen were created by Reinhard Heydrich in 1939 to liquidate the Polish Intelligentsia and prevent them from coordinating a response to the German invasion of Poland.This was called Operation Tannenberg . The Einsatzgruppen were brutally efficient in their task.

When the Nazis began to plan for the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, the Einsatzgruppen were actively factored into the plans. Members of the Einsatzgruppen were informed that their role in the operation was to put down resistance behind enemy lines. Several types of enemies were specifically named by Himmler to be targeted: middle and high ranking communists, Jews in service of party or government and other 'extremist' elements. The Einsatzgruppen were also instructed to secretly encourage antisemitic or anticommunist pogroms .

General Keitel's order

The Einsatzgruppen's power increased in advance of the invasion of the Soviet Union.

On 13 March 1941, General Wilhelm Keitel signed a directive which stated that Himmler had been entrusted with 'special tasks' and gave him (and, therefore, the Einsatzgruppen) the authority to 'act independently and on his own his own responsibility' within the context of these tasks.

This order was an attempt to resolve previous issues of friction between the German Army and the SS in Poland and allow the Einsatzgruppen to combat what the Nazis saw as the 'Jewish Bolshevik' threat in the Soviet Union.

The Nazis associated Soviet communism, their ideological enemy, with Jews, their so-called racial enemy. They also regarded most Soviet citizens as racially inferior, even if they were not Jewish.

This order increased the power of the Einsatzgruppen and, in turn, their ability to carry out tasks independently. However, the Einsatzgruppen still worked closely with the German Army.

ADVANCED CONTENT

The Einsatzgruppen 's main training for the invasion of the Soviet Union took place in the spring of 1941 at a police training academy at Pretzsch, fifty miles southwest of Berlin. The course took just three weeks and involved lectures on Nazi racial theory and basic military training.

In order to avoid soldiers being prosecuted under military law (as had happened previously in Poland), and to encourage complete ruthlessness when dealing with the enemy, military personnel were given legal immunity prior to the invasion of the Soviet Union. This action cleared the way for further escalation and more intense persecution of those deemed to be enemies.

Before the invasion began, the Einsatzgruppen were split into four groups (A, B, C and D). Each group covered a different territory, following behind the German Army's invasion lines.

Initial invasion
The Nazis regarded Soviet citizens as racially and ideologically inferior, partly due to the Soviet Union's communist system of rule (which the Nazis saw as the ideological enemy of fascism . The Nazis viewed communists and Jews as key enemies, who needed to be detained and eliminated in order to allow the Nazis to win the war and ensure the survival of the ' Aryan ' race. In many Nazis' minds, Jews and communists were inseparable.

The mass executions of those deemed to be enemies started almost instantly after the invasion. An indication of this violence can be seen in the actions of Einsatzkommando 9, a sub unit of Einsatzgruppe B, who, following the occupation of Vilnius on 30 June 1941, shot 500 Jews a day.
Collaboration
The Einsatzgruppen did not act alone. In many cases the German Army or local collaborators participated in the murders, either actively (in the shootings), by identifying Jews or other enemies, or by assisting in security roles, such as guards for camps. One example of this collaboration can be seen shortly after the invasion in the first week of July 1941, where 5000 Jews in the cities of Riga and Daugavpils were detained and murdered by ethnic Germans and the Lithuanian Activist Front .
Further escalation
By late July 1941, the German Army's advance on the eastern front had slowed and there were significant food and military shortages in Germany. This resulted in a low morale on the German home front. The Nazis blamed Jews for these shortages and this lack of military success in the Soviet Union, and suggested that Jews were not only sabotaging the war efforts through partisan activity, but were also unnecessarily draining the food supply.

Amid these growing problems on the home front, Himmler paid a series of visits to the Einsatzgruppen units across the Soviet Union in mid-August 1941. During these visits, Himmler orally issued instructions which encouraged the complete annihilation of Jews, regardless of age, gender or a proven connection to communism. After each visit, murders of Jews in that area quickly escalated.

Himmler's visits further encouraged the widespread mass murder of Jews across the Soviet Union. There were few restrictions on the actions of the Einsatzgruppen, and they accordingly acted with little restraint or uniformity. In many areas, whole Jewish communities were swiftly murdered. In others, some were placed in ghettos. In others, some were spared, although in most cases this was only a temporary measure.

Following the Wannsee Conference, five additional extermination camps were adapted or established with the primary purpose of efficiently murdering the Jewish population of Europe.

This brought the total number of Nazi extermination camps to six. These extermination camps were:

Chełmno (in operation December 1941-January 1945)

Bełżec (in operation March-December 1942)

Sobibór (in operation May-July 1942 and October 1942-October 1943)

Treblinka (in operation July 1942-August 1943)

Majdanek (in operation September 1942-July 1944)

Auschwitz-Birkenau (in operation March 1942-January 1945)

In extermination camps, victims were murdered by being poisoned by gas. The process of murder was developed and adapted as each camp was built. For example, initially, at Chełmno, gas vans were used, but as the purpose-built extermination camps were established stationary gas chambers were found to be more effective.

Once they had arrived at the extermination camp, groups of Jews were typically separated into women and children, and then men. Some of the strongest were occasionally chosen for slave labour, but typically the majority were sent straight to the gas chambers where they were murdered.

In camps such as Auschwitz, most of those sent immediately to the gas chambers were told to leave their luggage and get undressed ready for disinfection in a shower. Approximately 1000 people were then shepherded into the false showers and an airtight door was closed. Carbon monoxide gas or Zyklon B was pumped into the room, and suffocated those inside. The bodies were then removed from the gas chamber and sent to the crematoria, and the lethal process began again.

The creation of the extermination camps marked the final, fatal, step in the Nazis' journey towards genocide. In total, approximately three million people were murdered in the extermination camps. The deadliest extermination camp was Auschwitz-Birkenau, where approximately one million people were murdered.

From the summer of 1941 onwards, the situation for Jews and others viewed as inferior by the Nazis continued to rapidly deteriorate.
Poland
In Poland, the invasion of the Soviet Union meant that many of those incarcerated in ghettos were put to work manufacturing a variety of items for the war effort. However, as soon as it became clear that the war would not be over quickly, the fate of the Jews trapped in the ghettos of Poland and eastern Europe was sealed. On 16 January 1942, the first set of deportations departed from the Łódź Ghetto, swiftly followed over the next two weeks by thirteen more transports, totalling 10,103 Jews. Almost all of them, except the 50-60 Jews who formed the Sonderkommado, were gassed shortly after arrival.

Four days after the first transport left Łódź, the Wannsee Conference took place, leading to the establishment of five more extermination camps. Genocide was unleashed as ghettos across Poland were emptied and Jews were sent to the extermination camps. In Warsaw, between July and September 1942, approximately 300,000 inhabitants of the Warsaw Ghetto were deported to Treblinka and murdered.
The Soviet Union
Following the Einsatzgruppen 's initial advance into the Soviet Union and the resulting widespread massacres, many of the Jews who had been initially spared were forced into ghettos and used as slave labour. Those incapable of carrying out hard labour were murdered.

As Germany's military advances slowed, the ruthlessness of the actions against the Jews and others seen as racial enemies of the Nazis radically increased. An example of this ruthlessness can be seen in the city of Kauna, Lithuania, where, on 4 October 1941, 1985 Jews were killed by Einsatzgruppen and local Lithuanian collaborators. Karl Jäger , leader of Einsatzkommando 3A, later reported that the massacre was in retaliation for the murder of a German policeman in the ghetto. Just under four weeks later, on 29 October 1941, a further 9,200 Jews were murdered in the city. They were forced to strip naked, with their belongings and valuables taken away, pushed into large pre-prepared mass graves, and then shot with machine guns. This time, Jäger reported that those murdered were surplus to requirements.

The murders in Kauna show the escalation of the Einsatzgruppen's actions in the Soviet Union in late 1941, which continued to intensify and spiral out of control as war efforts struggled throughout the following years. By 1945, centuries of Jewish culture had been destroyed and thousands upon thousands of Jewish communities had been decimated .

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Prior to the start of the Second World War, Jews, Roma and those viewed as ' a-social ' by the Nazis faced escalating persecution in Germany and its recently incorporated territories. More than four hundred antisemitic laws were enacted by the Nazis between 1933 and 1938.

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Hitler decided to install the

final solution. This was seating all the Jews on a train and making them travel 1,000s of miles to other camps. This is where they were sent to gas chambers. Millions of people died.

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There are many historical forms of the Jewish Mysticism.  For example, there are Prophetic Judaism, which was from 800-500s BCE. After that, there is the Apocalyptic Judaism which was from the beginning 500s BCE and 300-100 BCE. There are many more to follow.

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The Cabbla Tree of Life is a descriptive term for the central mystical symbol used in Cabbala over esoteric Judism

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kabbalah tree of life in english - Google Search

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There are three aims in the Jewish Mysticism: the Theosophical/Speculative Kabbalah (seeking to understand and describe the divine realm), the Meditative/Ecstatic Kabbalah (seeking to achieve a mystical union with God), and the Practical/Magical Kabbalah (seeking to theurgically alter the divine realms and the World).

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in 1939 Germany attacks Poland starting the World War II. Himmler becomes a security police and the SD . He creates the Reich Security main office, which is the agency that was entrusted with coordinating the annihilation of the Jews in Europe.

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Summer 1919
Himmler graduates from high school in Landshut.

August 1922
Himmler receives his degree in agriculture from the Technical University in Munich.

1928
Himmler marries Margarete Boden.

January 1929
Adolf Hitler appoints Himmler Reichsführer SS, chief of the SS.

Summer 1931
Himmler creates the Security Service ( Sicherheitsdienst; SD) of the Nazi Party.

December 1931
Himmler establishes the SS Race and Settlement Office, which determines eligibility for entry into the SS and establishes the SS as a so-called racial elite.

March 9, 1933
Himmler is appointed provisional president of police in Munich.

1933-1934
Himmler obtains command of all state political police departments in Germany and centralizes them within the Secret State Police (the Gestapo).

June 17, 1936
Adolf Hitler appoints Himmler as the commander of all German police. Himmler is now both Reichsführer SS and Chief of German Police ( Chef der Deutschen Polizei).

September 1, 1939
Germany invades Poland, starting World War II.

October 7, 1939
Adolf Hitler appoints Himmler Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of German Ethnic Stock. This appointment gives Himmler leading authority to plan and implement population policy in German-occupied Poland.

July 1943
Hitler appoints Himmler Minister of the Interior.

December 1944
Hitler appoints Himmler commander-in-chief of Army Group Upper Rhine.

April 28-29, 1945
Himmler attempts to transmit an offer of surrender to the commander-in-chief of the Allied forces. When Hitler hears of the attempt, he strips Himmler of all his offices and orders his arrest.

April 30, 1945
Hitler commits suicide.

May 7, 1945
Nazi Germany signs a surrender document.

May 20, 1945
Russian soldiers capture Himmler and turn him over to the British.

May 23, 1945
Himmler commits suicide.

Last Edited: Oct 27, 2023

Author(s): United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC

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Heinrich Himmler was the leader of the dreaded SS of the Nazi Party from 1929 until 1945. Learn more about key dates in the life of Heinrich Himmler.

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There was one event that was similar to the holocaust. It is called the Rwandan genocide. During this genocide approximately 800,000 to one million tutus and Hutus were massacred from April 6th to July 16th (100 days). Here is a short video I found on the background of this genocide

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Himmler was Hitlers body guard. when he gained control over the SS and began expanding the SS from a little below 300 members to over 50,000 members in 1933. the SS is short for Schutzstaffel, German " protective echelon" which are corps of the Nazi party. 1933 is when the Nzai officially took over

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SS, the black-uniformed elite corps and self-described "political soldiers" of the Nazi Party. Founded by Adolf Hitler in April 1925 as a small personal bodyguard, the SS grew with the success of the Nazi movement and, gathering immense police and military powers, became virtually a state within a state.

From 1929 until its dissolution in 1945, the SS was headed by Heinrich Himmler, who built up the SS from fewer than 300 members to more than 50,000 by the time the Nazis came to power in 1933. Himmler, a racist fanatic, screened applicants for their supposed physical perfection and racial purity but recruited members from all ranks of German society. With their sleek black uniforms and special insignia (lightninglike runic S's, death's head badges, and silver daggers), the men of the SS felt superior to the brawling brown-shirted Storm Troopers of the SA, to which initially they were nominally subordinate.

When Hitler, with SS help, purged the SA in 1934 and reduced it to political impotence, the SS became an independent group responsible, via Himmler, to Hitler alone. Between 1934 and 1936 Himmler and his chief adjutant, Reinhard Heydrich, consolidated SS strength by gaining control of all of Germany's police forces and expanding their organization's responsibilities and activities. At the same time, special military SS units were trained and equipped along the lines of the regular army. By 1939 the SS, now numbering about 250,000 men, had become a massive and labyrinthian bureaucracy, divided mainly into two groups: the Allgemeine-SS (General SS) and the Waffen-SS (Armed SS).

The Allgemeine-SS dealt mainly with police and "racial" matters. Its most important division was the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA; Reich Security Central Office), which oversaw the Sicherheitspolizei (Sipo; Security Police), which, in turn, was divided into the Kriminalpolizei (Kripo; Criminal Police) and the dreaded Gestapo under Heinrich Müller. The RSHA also included the Sicherheitsdienst (SD; Security Service), a security department in charge of foreign and domestic intelligence and espionage.

The Waffen-SS was made up of three subgroups: the Leibstandarte, Hitler's personal bodyguard; the Totenkopfverbände (Death's-Head Battalions), which administered the concentration camps and a vast empire of slave labour drawn from the Jews and the populations of the occupied territories; and the Verfügungstruppen (Disposition Troops), which swelled to 39 divisions in World War II and which, serving as elite combat troops alongside the regular army, gained a reputation as fanatical fighters.

SS men were schooled in racial hatred and admonished to harden their hearts to human suffering. Their chief "virtue" was their absolute obedience and loyalty to the Führer, who gave them their motto: "Thy honour is thy loyalty." During World War II the SS carried out massive executions of political opponents, Roma (Gypsies), Jews, Polish leaders, communist authorities, partisan resisters, and Russian prisoners of war. Following the defeat of Nazi Germany by the Allies, the SS was declared a criminal organization by the Allied Tribunal in Nürnberg in 1946.

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SS (abbreviation of Schutzstaffel [German: 'Protective Echelon']), the black-uniformed elite corps and self-described 'political soldiers' of the Nazi Party. Founded by Adolf Hitler in 1925 as a small personal bodyguard, the SS grew with the success of the Nazi movement and became virtually a state within a state.

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"history of the holocaust"continued:

In 1938, after world war two started, the Nazis began to order Jews to wear the yellow star of David on their clothing so they could be easily recognized. Soon after, the Nazis began to order Jews to live within certain areas called "ghettos". Jews were moved from the ghettos into concentration camps such as Dachau, the first camp to open. In the camp they were put to work that was life threatening and if they couldn't work they were killed anyways. the concentration camps were the Nazis way to have the Jew suffer and to genocide the whole Jewish population. The leader of the Nazis was Adolf Hitler. Hitler was reasponsible for the death of more than half of the jewish population and was the leader of the Holocaust.

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There are four basic principles of Cabbala:

1) We all live in an upper force.

2) Who are we? ( what's our role in this "upper force"

3) We are one soul. (Every soul made by the upper force had one purpose. And by dividing this soul, we get our individual souls, and our goal is to unify as one soul.)

4) When we reach the emense destructive ego of our time, we see just how bad the era is.

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Important Dates:

June 22nd, 1941: killing squads accompany German invasion of the Soviet Union.

December 18th, 1941: First killing center begins operation.

January 20th, 1942: Wannsee Conference and the "Final Solution".

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The origin of the "Final Solution," the Nazi plan to exterminate the Jewish people, remains uncertain. What is clear is that the genocide of the Jews was the culmination of a decade of Nazi policy, under the rule of Adolf Hitler. The "Final Solution" was implemented in stages.

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There were three Auchwitz camps along with 45 sub-camps. 1.1 million prisoners were murdered, of those were primarily Jewish.

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Built by the Nazis as both a concentration and death camp, Auschwitz was the largest of the Nazi's camps and the most streamlined mass killing center ever created. It was at Auschwitz that 1.1 million people were murdered, mostly Jews. Auschwitz has become a symbol of death, the Holocaust, and the destruction of European Jewry.

Dates: May 1940 - January 27, 1945

Camp Commandants: Rudolf Höss, Arthur Liebehenschel, Richard Baer

On April 27, 1940, Heinrich Himmler ordered the construction of a new camp near Oswiecim, Poland (about 37 miles or 60 km west of Krakow). The Auschwitz Concentration Camp ("Auschwitz" is the German spelling of "Oswiecim") quickly became the largest Nazi concentration and death camp. By the time of its liberation, Auschwitz had grown to include three large camps and 45 sub-camps.

Auschwitz I (or "the Main Camp") was the original camp. This camp housed prisoners, was the location of medical experiments, and the site of Block 11 (a place of severe torture) and the Black Wall (a place of execution). At the entrance of Auschwitz, I stood the infamous sign that stated "Arbeit Macht Frei" ("work makes one free"). Auschwitz I also housed the Nazi staff that ran the entire camp complex.

Auschwitz II (or "Birkenau") was completed in early 1942. Birkenau was built approximately 1.9 miles (3 km) away from Auschwitz I and was the real killing center of the Auschwitz death camp. It was in Birkenau where the dreaded selections were carried out on the ramp and where the sophisticated and camouflaged gas chambers laid in waiting. Birkenau, much larger than Auschwitz I, housed the most prisoners and included areas for women and Gypsies.

Auschwitz III (or "Buna-Monowitz") was built last as "housing" for the forced laborers at the Buna synthetic rubber factory in Monowitz. The 45 other sub-camps also housed prisoners that were used for forced labor.

Jews, Gypsies (Roma), homosexuals, asocials, criminals, and prisoners of war were gathered, stuffed into cattle cars on trains, and sent to Auschwitz. When the trains stopped at Auschwitz II: Birkenau, the newly arrived were told to leave all their belongings on board and were then forced to disembark from the train and gather upon the railway platform, known as "the ramp."

Families, who had disembarked together, were quickly and brutally split up as an SS officer, usually, a Nazi doctor, ordered each individual into one of two lines. Most women, children, older men, and those that looked unfit or unhealthy were sent to the left; while most young men and others that looked strong enough to do hard labor were sent to the right.

Unbeknownst to the people in the two lines, the left line meant immediate death at the gas chambers and the right meant that they would become a prisoner of the camp. (Most of the prisoners would later die from starvation, exposure, forced labor, and/or torture.)

Once the selections had been concluded, a select group of Auschwitz prisoners (part of "Kanada") gathered up all the belongings that had been left on the train and sorted them into huge piles, which were then stored in warehouses. These items (including clothing, eyeglasses, medicine, shoes, books, pictures, jewelry, and prayer shawls) would periodically be bundled and shipped back to Germany.

The people who were sent to the left, which was the majority of those who arrived at Auschwitz, were never told that they had been chosen for death. The entire mass murder system depended on keeping this secret from its victims. If the victims had known they were headed to their death, they would most definitely have fought back.

But they didn't know, so the victims latched onto the hope that the Nazis wanted them to believe. Having been told that they were going to be sent to work, the masses of victims believed it when they were told they first needed to be disinfected and have showers.

The victims were ushered into an ante-room, where they were told to remove all their clothing. Completely naked, these men, women, and children were then ushered into a large room that looked like a big shower room (there were even fake shower heads on the walls).

When the doors shut, a Nazi would pour Zyklon-B pellets into an opening (in the roof or through a window). The pellets turned into poison gas once it contacted air.

The gas killed quickly, but it was not instantaneous. Victims, finally realizing that this was not a shower room, clambered over each other, trying to find a pocket of breathable air. Others would claw at the doors until their fingers bled.

Once everyone in the room was dead, special prisoners assigned this horrible task (Sonderkommandos) would air out the room and then remove the bodies. The bodies would be searched for gold and then placed into the crematoria.

Although Auschwitz I did have a gas chamber, the majority of the mass murdering occurred in Auschwitz II: Birkenau's four main gas chambers, each of which had its own crematorium. Each of these gas chambers could murder about 6,000 people a day.

Those that had been sent to the right during the selection process on the ramp went through a dehumanizing process that turned them into camp prisoners.

All of their clothes and any remaining personal belongings were taken from them and their hair was shorn completely off. They were given striped prison outfits and a pair of shoes, all of which were usually the wrong size. They were then registered, had their arms tattooed with a number, and transferred to one of Auschwitz's camps for forced labor.

The new arrivals were then thrown into the cruel, hard, unfair, horrific world of camp life. Within their first week at Auschwitz, most new prisoners had discovered the fate of their loved ones that had been sent to the left. Some of the new prisoners never recovered from this news.

In the barracks, prisoners slept cramped together with three prisoners per wooden bunk. Toilets in the barracks consisted of a bucket, which had usually overflowed by morning.

In the morning, all prisoners would be assembled outside for roll call (Appell). Standing outside for hours at roll call, whether in intense heat or below freezing temperatures, was itself a torture.

After roll call, the prisoners would be marched to the place where they were to work for the day. While some prisoners worked inside factories, others worked outside doing hard labor. After hours of hard work, the prisoners would be marched back to camp for another roll call.

Food was scarce and usually consisted of a bowl of soup and some bread. The limited amount of food and extremely hard labor was intentionally meant to work and starve the prisoners to death.

Also on the ramp, Nazi doctors would search among the new arrivals for anyone they might want to experiment upon. Their favorite choices were twins and dwarves, but also anyone who in any way looked physically unique, such as having different colored eyes, would be pulled from the line for experiments.

At Auschwitz, there was a team of Nazi doctors who conducted experiments, but the two most notorious were Dr. Carl Clauberg and Dr. Josef Mengele. Dr. Clauberg focused his attention on finding ways to sterilize women, by such unorthodox methods as X-rays and injections of various substances into their uteruses. Dr. Mengele experimented on identical twins, hoping to find a secret to cloning what Nazis considered the perfect Aryan.

When the Nazis realized that the Russians were successfully pushing their way toward Germany in late 1944, they decided to start destroying evidence of their atrocities at Auschwitz. Himmler ordered the destruction of the crematoria and the human ashes were buried in huge pits and covered with grass. Many of the warehouses were emptied, with their contents shipped back to Germany.

In the middle of January 1945, the Nazis removed the last 58,000 prisoners from Auschwitz and sent them on death marches. The Nazis planned on marching these exhausted prisoners all the way to camps closer or within Germany.

On January 27, 1945, the Russians reached Auschwitz. When the Russians entered the camp, they found the 7,650 prisoners who had been left behind. The camp was liberated; these prisoners were now free.

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Inside Auschwitz, the Infamous Death Camp

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Built by the Nazis as both a concentration and death camp, Auschwitz was the largest of the Nazi's camps and the most streamlined mass killing center ever created. It was at Auschwitz that 1.1 million people were murdered, mostly Jews. Auschwitz has become a symbol of death, the Holocaust, and the destruction of European Jewry.

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Nazi Germany's control made them able to claim the Aryan race as superiority, which cause torture and extermination of "sub-human" races. This soon led to the Holocaust.

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During World War 2 in 1943, a group of 400 Rabbis went to Washington to try to rescue the Jews from being executed from the Nazis.

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In 1986 Elie Wiesel won the Nobel Prize for Peace and after that him and him wife Marion created the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity to help take action in the world around us and hear different views

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Elie Wiesel was born in 1928 in Sighet, Transylvania, now a part of Romania. He was fifteen years old when he and his family were deported by the Nazis to Auschwitz. His mother and younger sister perished, his two older sisters survived. Elie and his father were later transported to Buchenwald, where his father died shortly before the camp was liberated in April 1945.

After the war, Elie Wiesel studied in Paris and later became a journalist. During an interview with the distinguished French writer, Francois Mauriac, he was persuaded to write about his experiences in the death camps. The result was his internationally acclaimed memoir, La Nuit or Night, which has since been translated into more than thirty languages.

In 1978, President Jimmy Carter appointed Elie Wiesel as Chairman of the President's Commission on the Holocaust. In 1980 he became the Founding Chairman of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council. He is also the Founding President of the Paris based Universal Academy of Cultures. Elie Wiesel has received over one hundred honorary degrees from institutions of higher learning.

A devoted supporter of Israel, Elie Wiesel has also defended the cause of Soviet Jews, Nicaragua's Miskito Indians, Argentina's Desaparecidos, Cambodian refugees, the Kurds, victims of famine in Africa, victims of apartheid in South Africa, and victims of war in the former Yugoslavia.

Teaching has always been central to Elie Wiesel's work. Since 1976, he has been the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Boston University, where he also holds the title of University Professor.

Elie Wiesel is the author of more than sixty books of fiction and non-fiction. For his literary and human rights activities, he has received numerous awards including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the U.S. Congressional Gold Medal and the Medal of Liberty Award, and the rank of Grand Officer in the French Legion of Honor. In 1986, Elie Wiesel won the Nobel Prize for Peace. A few months later, Marion and Elie Wiesel established The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity.

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Elie Wiesel z"l (1928-2016) | The Genesis Prize

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Elie Wiesel was born in 1928 in Sighet, Transylvania, now a part of Romania. He was fifteen years old when he and his family were deported by the Nazis to Auschwitz. His mother and younger sister perished, his two older sisters survived.

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In history many cultures have practiced cremation in Rome it was common and often done for soldiers. However it all but disappeared when Christianity became popular as they disapprove of the practice.

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The history of cremation goes back to prehistoric times. See how Christianity, Buddhism, hygiene and more influenced the history of cremation.

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More recently cremation has become a popular alternative to the traditional burial. It is more environmentally friendly and cheaper than a traditional burial. About 30% of deaths in the US had a cremation instead of a burial in 2003.

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Although increasing numbers of people are turning to cremation in general, not everyone is so hot to cremate. There is still a wide variety of cultural, religious, economic and regional factors that influence the decision, as shown by a quick look at cremation rates around the world from 2002:

Cremation is the dominant form of final disposal in Switzerland (75 percent), Hong Kong (83 percent), the Czech Republic (77 percent), Singapore (77 percent) and the United Kingdom (72 percent). China and the Netherlands cremate about half their dead.

Argentina (14 percent), Ireland (6 percent), Italy (7 percent) and South Africa (6 percent) have very low rates of cremation.

[source: Davies]

About 30 percent of deaths in the U.S. were handled through cremation in 2003, compared to only 6 percent in 1975. In the United States, people who choose cremation are more likely to be from the West than the South and are more likely to be white or Protestant than black or Baptist [source: Davies].

A cremation-based funeral can cost thousands of dollars less than a burial funeral, which runs an average of $10,000 [source: Harris]. Funeral directors noted that in a society where people are often transient and move away from their hometown, cremation allows for easier transportation and storage of the remains and lets family members schedule services at a more convenient time.

People are also becoming more aware of the environmental impact of traditional burials, which use an enormous amount of resources, such as rare woods and metals in the casket and cement for a required bunker to line the grave sites, and release toxins from embalmed bodies. The open space used for cemeteries is also a concern for crowded urban areas and countries, such as Japan and Taiwan, where any open space is at a premium.

However, other experts point out that cremations are frequently popular in countries that have plenty of land and open space available, and that funeral homes in America didn't see a jump in cremations during much deeper economic hard times such as the Great Depression [source: Sullivan].

Next, a look at cremation through the ages.

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The Choice to Cremate - The choice to cremate is a personal one - some people even cremate their pets! See the countries that most take the choice to cremate and why.

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The gas chamber was first adopted in the U.S. state of Nevada in 1921 to provide a more humane form of capital punishment. On February 8, 1924, Gee Jon became the first person to be executed by lethal gas. By 1955, 11 U.S. states had adopted the gas chamber as their way of execution, but by the early 21st century it was available in only two states (California and Missouri), where prisoners were allowed to choose between lethal injection  and lethal gas. In Arizona, people sentenced to death before They were allowed to choose.

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There were many ways in which the Jews were killed but this was a very sad and miserable way because the Nazi army wanted them to die in horrific ways.

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Prior to the start of the Second World War, Jews, Roma and those viewed as ' a-social ' by the Nazis faced escalating persecution in Germany and its recently incorporated territories.

More than four hundred antisemitic laws were enacted by the Nazis between 1933 and 1938. In November 1938, the situation worsened, as hundreds of Jews were tortured and arrested and thousands of businesses were destroyed in a targeted pogrom known as Kristallnacht .

The persecution of Jews intensified as the Nazis invaded Poland on 1 September 1939 at the start of the Second World War.

This section will explore the main events of the Holocaust in chronological order.

The Einsatzgruppen were mobile killing squads that were a part of the SS . Members were chosen for their fanatical belief in Nazi ideology and absolute commitment to Hitler.

The Einsatzgruppen were created by Reinhard Heydrich in 1939 to liquidate the Polish Intelligentsia and prevent them from coordinating a response to the German invasion of Poland.This was called Operation Tannenberg . The Einsatzgruppen were brutally efficient in their task.

When the Nazis began to plan for the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, the Einsatzgruppen were actively factored into the plans. Members of the Einsatzgruppen were informed that their role in the operation was to put down resistance behind enemy lines. Several types of enemies were specifically named by Himmler to be targeted: middle and high ranking communists, Jews in service of party or government and other 'extremist' elements. The Einsatzgruppen were also instructed to secretly encourage antisemitic or anticommunist pogroms .

General Keitel's order

The Einsatzgruppen's power increased in advance of the invasion of the Soviet Union.

On 13 March 1941, General Wilhelm Keitel signed a directive which stated that Himmler had been entrusted with 'special tasks' and gave him (and, therefore, the Einsatzgruppen) the authority to 'act independently and on his own his own responsibility' within the context of these tasks.

This order was an attempt to resolve previous issues of friction between the German Army and the SS in Poland and allow the Einsatzgruppen to combat what the Nazis saw as the 'Jewish Bolshevik' threat in the Soviet Union.

The Nazis associated Soviet communism, their ideological enemy, with Jews, their so-called racial enemy. They also regarded most Soviet citizens as racially inferior, even if they were not Jewish.

This order increased the power of the Einsatzgruppen and, in turn, their ability to carry out tasks independently. However, the Einsatzgruppen still worked closely with the German Army.

ADVANCED CONTENT

The Einsatzgruppen 's main training for the invasion of the Soviet Union took place in the spring of 1941 at a police training academy at Pretzsch, fifty miles southwest of Berlin. The course took just three weeks and involved lectures on Nazi racial theory and basic military training.

In order to avoid soldiers being prosecuted under military law (as had happened previously in Poland), and to encourage complete ruthlessness when dealing with the enemy, military personnel were given legal immunity prior to the invasion of the Soviet Union. This action cleared the way for further escalation and more intense persecution of those deemed to be enemies.

Before the invasion began, the Einsatzgruppen were split into four groups (A, B, C and D). Each group covered a different territory, following behind the German Army's invasion lines.

Initial invasion
The Nazis regarded Soviet citizens as racially and ideologically inferior, partly due to the Soviet Union's communist system of rule (which the Nazis saw as the ideological enemy of fascism . The Nazis viewed communists and Jews as key enemies, who needed to be detained and eliminated in order to allow the Nazis to win the war and ensure the survival of the ' Aryan ' race. In many Nazis' minds, Jews and communists were inseparable.

The mass executions of those deemed to be enemies started almost instantly after the invasion. An indication of this violence can be seen in the actions of Einsatzkommando 9, a sub unit of Einsatzgruppe B, who, following the occupation of Vilnius on 30 June 1941, shot 500 Jews a day.
Collaboration
The Einsatzgruppen did not act alone. In many cases the German Army or local collaborators participated in the murders, either actively (in the shootings), by identifying Jews or other enemies, or by assisting in security roles, such as guards for camps. One example of this collaboration can be seen shortly after the invasion in the first week of July 1941, where 5000 Jews in the cities of Riga and Daugavpils were detained and murdered by ethnic Germans and the Lithuanian Activist Front .
Further escalation
By late July 1941, the German Army's advance on the eastern front had slowed and there were significant food and military shortages in Germany. This resulted in a low morale on the German home front. The Nazis blamed Jews for these shortages and this lack of military success in the Soviet Union, and suggested that Jews were not only sabotaging the war efforts through partisan activity, but were also unnecessarily draining the food supply.

Amid these growing problems on the home front, Himmler paid a series of visits to the Einsatzgruppen units across the Soviet Union in mid-August 1941. During these visits, Himmler orally issued instructions which encouraged the complete annihilation of Jews, regardless of age, gender or a proven connection to communism. After each visit, murders of Jews in that area quickly escalated.

Himmler's visits further encouraged the widespread mass murder of Jews across the Soviet Union. There were few restrictions on the actions of the Einsatzgruppen, and they accordingly acted with little restraint or uniformity. In many areas, whole Jewish communities were swiftly murdered. In others, some were placed in ghettos. In others, some were spared, although in most cases this was only a temporary measure.

Following the Wannsee Conference, five additional extermination camps were adapted or established with the primary purpose of efficiently murdering the Jewish population of Europe.

This brought the total number of Nazi extermination camps to six. These extermination camps were:

Chełmno (in operation December 1941-January 1945)

Bełżec (in operation March-December 1942)

Sobibór (in operation May-July 1942 and October 1942-October 1943)

Treblinka (in operation July 1942-August 1943)

Majdanek (in operation September 1942-July 1944)

Auschwitz-Birkenau (in operation March 1942-January 1945)

In extermination camps, victims were murdered by being poisoned by gas. The process of murder was developed and adapted as each camp was built. For example, initially, at Chełmno, gas vans were used, but as the purpose-built extermination camps were established stationary gas chambers were found to be more effective.

Once they had arrived at the extermination camp, groups of Jews were typically separated into women and children, and then men. Some of the strongest were occasionally chosen for slave labour, but typically the majority were sent straight to the gas chambers where they were murdered.

In camps such as Auschwitz, most of those sent immediately to the gas chambers were told to leave their luggage and get undressed ready for disinfection in a shower. Approximately 1000 people were then shepherded into the false showers and an airtight door was closed. Carbon monoxide gas or Zyklon B was pumped into the room, and suffocated those inside. The bodies were then removed from the gas chamber and sent to the crematoria, and the lethal process began again.

The creation of the extermination camps marked the final, fatal, step in the Nazis' journey towards genocide. In total, approximately three million people were murdered in the extermination camps. The deadliest extermination camp was Auschwitz-Birkenau, where approximately one million people were murdered.

From the summer of 1941 onwards, the situation for Jews and others viewed as inferior by the Nazis continued to rapidly deteriorate.
Poland
In Poland, the invasion of the Soviet Union meant that many of those incarcerated in ghettos were put to work manufacturing a variety of items for the war effort. However, as soon as it became clear that the war would not be over quickly, the fate of the Jews trapped in the ghettos of Poland and eastern Europe was sealed. On 16 January 1942, the first set of deportations departed from the Łódź Ghetto, swiftly followed over the next two weeks by thirteen more transports, totalling 10,103 Jews. Almost all of them, except the 50-60 Jews who formed the Sonderkommado, were gassed shortly after arrival.

Four days after the first transport left Łódź, the Wannsee Conference took place, leading to the establishment of five more extermination camps. Genocide was unleashed as ghettos across Poland were emptied and Jews were sent to the extermination camps. In Warsaw, between July and September 1942, approximately 300,000 inhabitants of the Warsaw Ghetto were deported to Treblinka and murdered.
The Soviet Union
Following the Einsatzgruppen 's initial advance into the Soviet Union and the resulting widespread massacres, many of the Jews who had been initially spared were forced into ghettos and used as slave labour. Those incapable of carrying out hard labour were murdered.

As Germany's military advances slowed, the ruthlessness of the actions against the Jews and others seen as racial enemies of the Nazis radically increased. An example of this ruthlessness can be seen in the city of Kauna, Lithuania, where, on 4 October 1941, 1985 Jews were killed by Einsatzgruppen and local Lithuanian collaborators. Karl Jäger , leader of Einsatzkommando 3A, later reported that the massacre was in retaliation for the murder of a German policeman in the ghetto. Just under four weeks later, on 29 October 1941, a further 9,200 Jews were murdered in the city. They were forced to strip naked, with their belongings and valuables taken away, pushed into large pre-prepared mass graves, and then shot with machine guns. This time, Jäger reported that those murdered were surplus to requirements.

The murders in Kauna show the escalation of the Einsatzgruppen's actions in the Soviet Union in late 1941, which continued to intensify and spiral out of control as war efforts struggled throughout the following years. By 1945, centuries of Jewish culture had been destroyed and thousands upon thousands of Jewish communities had been decimated .

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Prior to the start of the Second World War, Jews, Roma and those viewed as ' a-social ' by the Nazis faced escalating persecution in Germany and its recently incorporated territories. More than four hundred antisemitic laws were enacted by the Nazis between 1933 and 1938.

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This shows a lot of the people in the army and what they are doing in the War

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The deportation of kids was huge. They believed the less kids the less trouble.

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A Generation Hexed

"The first to perish were the children, abandoned orphans

The world's best, the bleak earth's brightest

These children might have been our comfort

From these sad, mute, bleak faces

Our new dawn might have risen"

- From " Song of the Murdered Jewish People "
by Yitzhak Katzenelson, murdered with his son Zvi on May 1, 1944 in the Auschwitz Camp.

Childhood is a time of innocence, a cloak of protection under which the future generation may experience the gifts of life. At this stage, individuals discover their self, and formulate the basic attitude and perception through which they view the world. Because they comprise the future generation of humanity and are gaining the experience they will need to lead our world, children are the most prized possession of our population. However, 1.5 million children experienced a different form of childhood. They were stripped from their families, forced to work in concentration camps, and eventually murdered during a period of utmost evil, the Holocaust.

Whereas children are usually excited about attending school, to see friends and join in socially with classmates, the victims of the Holocaust, under state authorization, attended school under deplorable conditions. As the general public assembled their prejudice towards the Jewish believers under the blame placed on them by the Nazi regime, their attitude eventually extended into the school system.

The first noticeable act of an attack on Jewish students occurred on April 25, 1933, when the "Law against Overcrowding in German Schools and Universities" was put into effect (Daniel's Story).

The new order restricted the Jewish constituent of the student body to a maximum of 1.5 percent of the total student body, a clear attempt to filter the unjustly persecuted Jewish children out of German sight (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum). This harsh measure was only a precursor of stricter orders to come, and an escalating prejudice towards Jewish students.

The mental pain experienced by the children would only worsen, for after Kristallnacht in 1938, when Jewish businesses were smashed and vandalism was supported by the state, actions against the Jews became increasingly physical. Nazi troops began arresting Jewish men and taking them to undisclosed locations, leaving the rest of their families behind. In some cases, women were also taken, and children left orphaned, scared, and confused. If any physical resistance arose from the Jewish family, they were murdered in cold blood, sometimes in front of the children's eyes. These children were prone to haunting memories of their family being ripped from their grasp, and in extreme cases, murdered. The effect of this trauma on the child's mind was immense, for parents represent safety and stability, and the loss of these attributes, especially to a young child, is devastating. Imagine a six year old girl, hearing the doorbell, and rushing downstairs to see her father answer the door. An officer seizes him, and tells him he must go with them. Her father fights back, as her mother rushes to the scene. The Nazi official, drawing his gun, shoots the father and drags the mother outside. What is this young girl, who has just witnessed the death of a parent and the end of her known protection, to do? Unfortunately, this experience happened to many children during the years of persecution, producing thousands of forlorn orphans with an unjustly destroyed family.

Children in the
Warsaw Ghetto

RACHEL AND THE BUTTERFLY
Rachel is more light than the butterfly,
but frozen into the cobble stone
she will not fly, though it is a spring.

She can not move her swollen feet,
her palms are like a cobble stone.
She closes her eyes,
the blue dress is on the meadow
scattered with marigolds,
the bare feet are in the grass
and a buttterfly is like a song.

And you can no longer see Rachel
in the pile of dirty rugs,
she flew away from the ghetto street.

Yvonna Opoczynska-Goldberg, 1999.
<zwoje-scrolls.com/shoah/wghetto.html>

As the numbers of children left alone increased, their helpless bodies encountered many struggles. Illness and starvation in the streets emaciated the children, and forced them to beg for food, which was rarely given to the poor youth merely because they were Jewish. Yet these children were soon to face even greater hardships, as the Nazis began seizing the youth, and deporting them to concentration camps and the ghettos, where they stood little chance at survival.
The whole world seemed to be against the innocent children during the Holocaust, but a few kind souls aided some fortunate children. One child, named Stefan Georg Zweig, was one of these lucky few. Born in the Cracow ghetto, Stefan was concealed in a backpack, and transported secretly through the Plaszow concentration camp to Buchenwald in 1944, at the age of only three years old. Upon arrival, Stefan was cared for by the communist prisoners of the Nazis, who compassionately raised the child and cared for him, allowing this young soul to survive the war and the Holocaust (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum). Such acts of faith were rare, but each one deserves recognition, as the daring souls who sought to save Jewish lives were risking their own, and rejected the popular attitude of society that living Jews were wasting German air.

The impact of the horrible experiences the persecuted children encountered during the Holocaust is immeasurable. Of the few survivors who lived their childhood through the war years, many were understandably emotionally paralyzed by the trauma, and others cannot stand to relate the pain of their memories in words. The child is a precious object, a clean slate ready to absorb the breath of life and experience, and a bundle of potential waiting to be unleashed upon the world. Yet over a million possessors of youth were erased from our world, killed because of their race, and helpless victims of intense hatred. We must look at their deaths as witness of the cruelty hidden in humans, which may be released if a future Holocaust was to arise. Only by understanding the potential of evil in all of us may we prevent another tragedy. Youth is priceless, and we must remember the children who were sacrificed for an evil ideal, and insure that this ideal stays buried with time.

Works Cited:

Auerbacher, Inge. I am a Star: Child of the Holocaust. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1986.

"Children in the Holocaust." Washington, D.C.: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum 1993.

Daniel's Story Videotape: Teacher Guide. Washington, D.C.: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum 1993.

Katzenelson, Yitzhak. "Song of the Murdered Jewish People."

Leitner, Isabella and Irving A. Leitner. Isabella: From Auschwitz to Freedom. New York: Doubleday. 1994.

Tatelbaum, Itzhak. Through Our Eyes: Children Witness the Holocaust. Chicago: I.B.T. Publishing, 1985.

Volavkova, Hana, ed. I Never Saw Another Butterfly: Children's Drawings and Poems from the Terezin

Concentration Camp 1942-1944. New York: Schocken, 1993.

Photo Credit: USHM M

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Memorial Album Honoring 1.5 Million Children that Never Returned

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A Generation Hexed "The first to perish were the children, abandoned orphans The world's best, the bleak earth's brightest These children might have been our comfort From these sad, mute, bleak faces Our new dawn might have risen" - From " Song of the Murdered Jewish People " by Yitzhak Katzenelson, murdered with his son Zvi on May 1, 1944 in the Auschwitz Camp.

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There were three Auchwit camps established.

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Anti-Semitism is racism and the prejudice of the Jewish population. Israel gave way to racist slogans and actions against Jews causing uprise's in the Middle East.

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These are Germans that are working for Adolf Hitler and his army.

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Current event of Hasidic:

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The international confrences discuss topics that have to do with things that they are able to change such as peace, education, health, the environment, and terrorism

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Fascist goverments today

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Even in today’s modern world, where freedom is prized and respected, you will still find examples of dictatorship governments around the globe. In a dictatorial government, power rests with one supreme ruler. In military dictatorships, it is the military that exerts complete or substantial control…

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Very sad but also interesting.

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Yankel Rosenbaum, a visiting student from Australia, is stabbed to death by a mob in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, New York. The crowd, consisting of young Black men, had been intent on seeking revenge for the death of seven-year-old Gavin Cato, who had been struck by a car driven by a Hasidic Jew three hours earlier. Following Rosenbaum's murder, violence continued for four days in Crown Heights, while many complained that the response by police and Mayor David Dinkins was inadequate.

In October, 16-year-old Lemrick Nelson was charged with the murder of Rosenbaum but was acquitted after a racially charged trial the following year. But the case did not end there. Due in part to lobbying by the victim's brother, Norman Rosenbaum, the federal government charged Nelson with violating Rosenbaum's civil rights in 1994. In the meantime, a state report criticized Mayor Dinkins and the police for their lack of action during the riots-a claim that helped Rudolph Giuliani defeat Dinkins in the next mayoral election.

In 1996, a videotape of the Crown Heights incident came to light, showing Charles Price inciting a mob to assault Jewish people in retaliation for Cato's death. He shouted, "Kill the Jews!" and, "An eye for an eye!" In February 1997, a jury convicted both Nelson and Price for their roles in Rosenbaum's murder. Nelson was sentenced to 19 years in prison, while Price received 21 years, despite his claim that he had been exercising his right to freedom of speech.

Later, Mayor Giuliani apologized and blamed his predecessor for the city's lack of action and offered a $1.1 million settlement from the City of New York to Jewish people who claimed they were unprotected during the riots. Norman Rosenbaum continued to push Attorney General Janet Reno to reopen the case and go after the others in the mob, but no further arrests were made.

The driver of the car that killed Gavin Cato was cleared of any wrongdoing, and he returned to Israel.

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Yankel Rosenbaum, a visiting student from Australia, is stabbed to death by a mob in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, New York. The crowd, consisting of young Black men, had been intent on seeking revenge for the death of seven-year-old Gavin Cato, who had been struck by a car driven by a Hasidic Jew [...]

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After the German conquest of Poland and France, they made a choice that spelled their doom. Germany, on June 22nd, 1941, declared war on the Soviet Union. Nazi Germany tried to capture Moscow, but were slowed by freezing temperatures, the U.S.S.R.'s army, and lack of communication. They never reached Moscow, and were pushed back and later invaded by the U.S.S.R. The last, and final great mistake of the Axis was when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, a U.S. naval base. This enticed the U.S. to join the war against Japan and Germany. With U.S. production and Soviet armies, the fall of the Axis Powers was inevitable. After the Allies invaded Italy, they soon forced Italy to surrender. Germany soon followed, along with Japan after the dropping of the Atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

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Germany's Führer Adolf Hitler (right) beside Italy's Duce Benito Mussolini (left)

Japan's Prime Minister Hideki Tojo (center) with fellow government representatives of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. To the left of Tojo, from left to right: Ba Maw from Burma, Zhang Jinghui, Wang Jingwei from China. To the right of Tojo, from left to right, Wan Waithayakon from Thailand, José P. Laurel from the Philippines, and Subhas Chandra Bose from India.

The Axis powers, originally called the Rome-Berlin Axis and also Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis, was a military coalition that initiated World War II and fought against the Allies. Its principal members were Nazi Germany, the Kingdom of Italy and the Empire of Japan. The Axis were united in their far-right positions and general opposition to the Allies, but otherwise lacked comparable coordination and ideological cohesion.

The Axis grew out of successive diplomatic efforts by Germany, Italy, and Japan to secure their own specific expansionist interests in the mid-1930s. The first step was the protocol signed by Germany and Italy in October 1936, after which Italian leader Benito Mussolini declared that all other European countries would thereafter rotate on the Rome-Berlin axis, thus creating the term "Axis". The following November saw the ratification of the Anti-Comintern Pact, an anti-communist treaty between Germany and Japan; Italy joined the Pact in 1937, followed by Hungary and Spain in 1939. The "Rome-Berlin Axis" became a military alliance in 1939 under the so-called " Pact of Steel", with the Tripartite Pact of 1940 formally integrating the military aims of Germany, Italy, Japan, and later followed by other nations. The three pacts formed the foundation of the Axis alliance.

At its zenith in 1942, the Axis presided over large parts of Europe, North Africa, and East Asia, either through occupation, annexation, or puppet states. In contrast to the Allies, there were no three-way summit meetings, and cooperation and coordination were minimal; on occasion, the interests of the major Axis powers were even at variance with each other. The Axis ultimately came to an end with its defeat in 1945.

Particularly within Europe, the use of the term "the Axis" sometimes refers solely to the alliance between Italy and Germany, though outside Europe it is normally understood as including Japan.

Origins and creation

The term "axis" was first applied to the Italo-German relationship by the Italian prime minister Benito Mussolini in September 1923, when he wrote in the preface to Roberto Suster's La Germania Repubblicana that "there is no doubt that in this moment the axis of European history passes through Berlin" ( non v'ha dubbio che in questo momento l'asse della storia europea passa per Berlino). At the time, he was seeking an alliance with the Weimar Republic against Yugoslavia and France in the dispute over the Free State of Fiume.

The term was used by Hungary's prime minister Gyula Gömbös when advocating an alliance of Hungary with Germany and Italy in the early 1930s. Gömbös' efforts did affect the Italo-Hungarian Rome Protocols, but his sudden death in 1936 while negotiating with Germany in Munich and the arrival of Kálmán Darányi, his successor, ended Hungary's involvement in pursuing a trilateral axis. Contentious negotiations between the Italian foreign minister, Galeazzo Ciano, and the German ambassador, Ulrich von Hassell, resulted in a Nine-Point Protocol, signed by Ciano and his German counterpart, Konstantin von Neurath, in 1936. When Mussolini publicly announced the signing on 1 November, he proclaimed the creation of a Rome-Berlin axis.

Initial proposals of a German-Italian alliance

Italy under Benito Mussolini had pursued a strategic alliance of Italy with Germany against France since the early 1920s. Prior to becoming head of government in Italy as leader of the Italian Fascist movement, Mussolini had advocated alliance with defeated Germany after the Paris Peace Conference (1919-1920) settled World War I. He believed that Italy could expand its influence in Europe by allying with Germany against France. In early 1923, as a goodwill gesture to Germany, Italy secretly delivered weapons for the Reichswehr, which had faced major disarmament under the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles.

Since the 1920s Italy had identified the year 1935 as a crucial date for preparing for a war against France, as 1935 was the year when Germany's obligations under the Treaty of Versailles were scheduled to expire. Meetings took place in Berlin in 1924 between Italian General Luigi Capello and prominent figures in the German military, such as von Seeckt and Erich Ludendorff, over military collaboration between Germany and Italy. The discussions concluded that Germans still wanted a war of revenge against France but were short on weapons and hoped that Italy could assist Germany.

However at this time Mussolini stressed one important condition that Italy must pursue in an alliance with Germany: that Italy "must ... tow them, not be towed by them". Italian foreign minister Dino Grandi in the early 1930s stressed the importance of "decisive weight", involving Italy's relations between France and Germany, in which he recognized that Italy was not yet a major power, but perceived that Italy did have strong enough influence to alter the political situation in Europe by placing the weight of its support onto one side or another, and sought to balance relations between the three.

Danube alliance, dispute over Austria

Adolf Hitler, Führer and Reich Chancellor of the German People, 1933-1945

In 1933, Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party came to power in Germany. Hitler had advocated an alliance between Germany and Italy since the 1920s. Shortly after being appointed Chancellor of Germany, Hitler sent a personal message to Mussolini, declaring "admiration and homage" and declaring his anticipation of the prospects of German-Italian friendship and even alliance. Hitler was aware that Italy held concerns over potential German land claims on South Tyrol, and assured Mussolini that Germany was not interested in South Tyrol. Hitler in had declared that South Tyrol was a non-issue considering the advantages that would be gained from a German-Italian alliance. After Hitler's rise to power, the Four Power Directorate proposal by Italy had been looked at with interest by Britain, but Hitler was not committed to it, resulting in Mussolini urging Hitler to consider the diplomatic advantages Germany would gain by breaking out of isolation by entering the Directorate and avoiding an immediate armed conflict. The Four Power Directorate proposal stipulated that Germany would no longer be required to have limited arms and would be granted the right to re-armament under foreign supervision in stages. Hitler completely rejected the idea of controlled rearmament under foreign supervision.

Mussolini did not trust Hitler's intentions regarding Anschluss nor Hitler's promise of no territorial claims on South Tyrol. Mussolini informed Hitler that he was satisfied with the presence of the anti-Marxist government of Engelbert Dollfuss in the First Austrian Republic, and warned Hitler that he was adamantly opposed to Anschluss. Hitler responded in contempt to Mussolini that he intended "to throw Dollfuss into the sea". With this disagreement over Austria, relations between Hitler and Mussolini steadily became more distant.

Hitler attempted to break the impasse with Italy over Austria by sending Hermann Göring to negotiate with Mussolini in 1933 to convince Mussolini to press Austria to appoint Austrian Nazis to the government. Göring claimed that Nazi domination of Austria was inevitable and that Italy should accept this, as well as repeating to Mussolini of Hitler's promise to "regard the question of the South Tyrol frontier as finally liquidated by the peace treaties". In response to Göring's visit with Mussolini, Dollfuss immediately went to Italy to counter any German diplomatic headway. Dollfuss claimed that his government was actively challenging Marxists in Austria and claimed that once the Marxists were defeated in Austria, that support for Austria's Nazis would decline.

In June 1934, Hitler and Mussolini met for the first time, in Venice. The meeting did not proceed amicably. Hitler demanded that Mussolini compromise on Austria by pressuring Dollfuss to appoint Austrian Nazis to his cabinet, to which Mussolini flatly refused the demand. In response, Hitler promised that he would accept Austria's independence for the time being, saying that due to the internal tensions in Germany (referring to sections of the Nazi Sturmabteilung that Hitler would soon kill in the Night of the Long Knives) that Germany could not afford to provoke Italy. Galeazzo Ciano told the press that the two leaders had made a "gentleman's agreement" to avoid interfering in Austria.

Several weeks after the Venice meeting, on 25 July 1934, Austrian Nazis assassinated Dollfuss. Mussolini was outraged as he held Hitler directly responsible for the assassination that violated Hitler's promise made only weeks ago to respect Austrian independence. Mussolini rapidly deployed several army divisions and air squadrons to the Brenner Pass, and warned that a German move against Austria would result in war between Germany and Italy. Hitler responded by both denying Nazi responsibility for the assassination and issuing orders to dissolve all ties between the German Nazi Party and its Austrian branch, which Germany claimed was responsible for the political crisis.

Italy effectively abandoned diplomatic relations with Germany while turning to France in order to challenge Germany's intransigence by signing a Franco-Italian accord to protect Austrian independence. French and Italian military staff discussed possible military cooperation involving a war with Germany should Hitler dare to attack Austria.

Relations between Germany and Italy recovered due to Hitler's support of Italy's invasion of Ethiopia in 1935, while other countries condemned the invasion and advocated sanctions against Italy.

Development of German-Italian-Japanese alliance

Interest in Germany and Japan in forming an alliance began when Japanese diplomat Hiroshi Ōshima visited Joachim von Ribbentrop in Berlin in 1935. Although at the time Japan was unwilling to make an alliance against the United Kingdom and France, Oshima informed von Ribbentrop of Japan's interest in forming a German-Japanese alliance against the Soviet Union. Von Ribbentrop expanded on Oshima's proposal by advocating that the alliance be based in a political context of a pact to oppose the Comintern. The proposed pact was met with mixed reviews in Japan, with a faction of ultra-nationalists within the government supporting the pact while the Imperial Japanese Navy and the Japanese Foreign Ministry were staunchly opposed to the pact. There was great concern in the Japanese government that such a pact with Germany could disrupt Japan's relations with Britain, endangering years of a beneficial Anglo-Japanese accord, that had allowed Japan to ascend in the international community in the first place. The response to the pact was met with similar division in Germany; while the proposed pact was popular amongst the upper echelons of the Nazi Party, it was opposed by many in the Foreign Ministry, the Army, and the business community who held financial interests in the Republic of China to which Japan was hostile.

On learning of German-Japanese negotiations, Italy also began to take an interest in forming an alliance with Japan. Italy had hoped that due to Japan's long-term close relations with Britain, that an Italo-Japanese alliance could pressure Britain into adopting a more accommodating stance towards Italy in the Mediterranean. In the summer of 1936, Italian Foreign Minister Galeazzo Ciano informed Japanese Ambassador to Italy, Sugimura Yotaro, "I have heard that a Japanese-German agreement concerning the Soviet Union has been reached, and I think it would be natural for a similar agreement to be made between Italy and Japan." Initially Japan's attitude towards Italy's proposal was generally dismissive, viewing a German-Japanese alliance against the Soviet Union as imperative while regarding an Italo-Japanese alliance as secondary, as Japan anticipated that an Italo-Japanese alliance would antagonize Britain that had condemned Italy's invasion of Ethiopia. This attitude by Japan towards Italy altered in 1937 after the League of Nations condemned Japan for aggression in China and faced international isolation, while Italy remained favourable to Japan. As a result of Italy's support for Japan against international condemnation, Japan took a more positive attitude towards Italy and offered proposals for a non-aggression or neutrality pact with Italy.

The Tripartite Pact was signed by Germany, Italy, and Japan on 27 September 1940, in Berlin. The pact was subsequently joined by Hungary (20 November 1940), Romania (23 November 1940), Slovakia (24 November 1940), and Bulgaria (1 March 1941).

The Axis powers' primary goal was territorial expansion at the expense of their neighbors. In ideological terms, the Axis described their goals as breaking the hegemony of the plutocratic Western powers and defending civilization from Communism. The Axis championed a number of variants on fascism, militarism, conservatism and autarky. Creation of territorially contiguous autarkic empires was a common goal of all three major Axis powers.

Economic resources

The Axis population in 1938 was 258.9 million, while the Allied population (excluding the Soviet Union and the United States, which later joined the Allies) was 689.7 million. Thus the Allied powers outnumbered the Axis powers by 2.7 to 1. The leading Axis states had the following domestic populations: Germany 75.5 million (including 6.8 million from recently annexed Austria), Japan 71.9 million (excluding its colonies), and Italy 43.4 million (excluding its colonies). The United Kingdom (excluding its colonies) had a population of 47.5 million and France (excluding its colonies) 42 million.

The wartime gross domestic product (GDP) of the Axis was $911 billion at its highest in 1941 in international dollars by 1990 prices. The GDP of the Allied powers was $1,798 billion. The United States stood at $1,094 billion, more than the Axis combined.

The burden of the war upon participating countries has been measured through the percentage of gross national product (GNP) devoted to military expenditures. Nearly one-quarter of Germany's GNP was committed to the war effort in 1939, and this rose to three-quarters of GNP in 1944, prior to the collapse of the economy. In 1939, Japan committed 22 percent of its GNP to its war effort in China; this rose to three-quarters of GNP in 1944. Italy did not mobilize its economy; its GNP committed to the war effort remained at prewar levels.

Italy and Japan lacked industrial capacity; their economies were small, dependent on international trade, external sources of fuel and other industrial resources. As a result, Italian and Japanese mobilization remained low, even by 1943.

Among the three major Axis powers, Japan had the lowest per capita income, while Germany and Italy had an income level comparable to the United Kingdom.

Romania's oil gave the country a disproportionate importance in the global conflict. In 1940 and 1941, Romania supplied 94% and 75% of Germany's oil imports respectively. Italy - which lacked both natural and synthetic output - was even more reliant on Romanian oil than Germany. The loss of Romania's oil - following the country's defection from the Axis in August 1944 - resulted in Hitler's first admission that the war was lost.

Major Axis powers

German submarine U-118 under air attack in June 1943

War justifications

Hitler in 1941 described the outbreak of World War II as the fault of the intervention of Western powers against Germany during its war with Poland, describing it as the result of "the European and American warmongers". Hitler had designs for Germany to become the dominant and leading state in the world, such as his intention for Germany's capital of Berlin to become the Welthauptstadt ("World Capital"), renamed Germania. The German government also justified its actions by claiming that Germany inevitably needed to territorially expand because it was facing an overpopulation crisis that Hitler described: "We are overpopulated and cannot feed ourselves from our own resources". Thus expansion was justified as an inevitable necessity to provide lebensraum ("living space") for the German nation and end the country's overpopulation within existing confined territory, and provide resources necessary to its people's well-being. Since the 1920s, the Nazi Party publicly promoted the expansion of Germany into territories held by the Soviet Union.

Germany justified its war against Poland on the issues of German minority within Poland and Polish opposition to the incorporation of the ethnically German-majority Free City of Danzig into Germany. While Hitler and the Nazi party before taking power openly talked about destroying Poland and were hostile to Poles, after gaining power until February 1939 Hitler tried to conceal his true intentions towards Poland, and signed a 10-year Non-Aggression Pact in 1934, revealing his plans to only to his closest associates. Relations between Germany and Poland altered from the early to the late 1930s, as Germany sought rapprochement with Poland to avoid the risk of Poland entering the Soviet sphere of influence, and appealed to anti-Soviet sentiment in Poland. Hitler even tried to convince Poland to join the Anti-Comintern Pact. The Soviet Union in turn at this time competed with Germany for influence in Poland. At the same time Germany was preparing for a war with Poland and was secretly preparing the German minority in Poland for a war.

A diplomatic crisis erupted following Hitler demanding that the Free City of Danzig be annexed to Germany, as it was led by a Nazi government seeking annexation to Germany. Germany used legal precedents to justify its intervention against Poland and annexation of the Free City of Danzig (led by a local Nazi government that sought incorporation into Germany) in 1939. Poland rejected Germany's demands and Germany in response prepared a general mobilization on the morning of 30 August 1939.

Germany justified its invasion of the Low Countries of Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands in May 1940 by claiming that it suspected that Britain and France were preparing to use the Low Countries to launch an invasion of the industrial Ruhr region of Germany. When war between Germany versus Britain and France appeared likely in May 1939, Hitler declared that the Netherlands and Belgium would need to be occupied, saying: "Dutch and Belgian air bases must be occupied ... Declarations of neutrality must be ignored". In a conference with Germany's military leaders on 23 November 1939, Hitler declared to the military leaders that "We have an Achilles heel, the Ruhr", and said that "If England and France push through Belgium and Holland into the Ruhr, we shall be in the greatest danger", and thus claimed that Belgium and the Netherlands had to be occupied by Germany to protect Germany from a British-French offensive against the Ruhr, irrespective of their claims to neutrality.

Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 involved issues of lebensraum, anti-communism, and Soviet foreign policy. After Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, the Nazi regime's stance towards an independent, territorially-reduced Russia was affected by pressure beginning in 1942 from the German Army on Hitler to endorse a " Russian Liberation Army" led by Andrey Vlasov. Initially the proposal to support an anti-communist Russian army was met with outright rejection by Hitler, however by 1944 as Germany faced mounting losses on the Eastern Front, Vlasov's forces were recognized by Germany as an ally, particularly by Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler.

After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the outbreak of war between Japan and the United States, Germany supported Japan by declaring war on the US. During the war Germany denounced the Atlantic Charter and the Lend-Lease Act that the US adopted to support the Allied powers prior to entry into the alliance, as imperialism directed at dominating and exploiting countries outside of the continental Americas. Hitler denounced American President Franklin D. Roosevelt's invoking of the term "freedom" to describe US actions in the war, and accused the American meaning of "freedom" to be the freedom for democracy to exploit the world and the freedom for plutocrats within such democracy to exploit the masses.

At the end of World War I, German citizens felt that their country had been humiliated as a result of the Treaty of Versailles, which included a war guilt clause and forced Germany to pay enormous reparations payments and forfeit territories formerly controlled by the German Empire and all its colonies. The pressure of the reparations on the German economy led to hyperinflation during the early 1920s. In 1923 the French occupied the Ruhr region when Germany defaulted on its reparations payments. Although Germany began to improve economically in the mid-1920s, the Great Depression created more economic hardship and a rise in political forces that advocated radical solutions to Germany's woes. The Nazis, under Hitler, promoted the nationalist stab-in-the-back legend stating that Germany had been betrayed by Jews and Communists. The party promised to rebuild Germany as a major power and create a Greater Germany that would include Alsace-Lorraine, Austria, Sudetenland, and other German-populated territories in Europe. The Nazis also aimed to occupy and colonize non-German territories in Poland, the Baltic states, and the Soviet Union, as part of the Nazi policy of seeking Lebensraum ("living space") in Central and Eastern Europe.

On 23 August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which contained a secret protocol dividing eastern Europe into spheres of influence. Germany's invasion of its part of Poland under the Pact eight days later triggered the beginning of World War II. By the end of 1941, Germany occupied a large part of Europe and its military forces were fighting the Soviet Union, nearly capturing Moscow. However, crushing defeats at the Battle of Stalingrad and the Battle of Kursk devastated the German armed forces. This, combined with Western Allied landings in France and Italy, led to a three-front war that depleted Germany's armed forces and resulted in Germany's defeat in 1945.

Occupied territories

In Norway, under Reichskommissariat Norwegen, the Quisling regime, headed by Vidkun Quisling, was installed by the Germans as a client regime during the occupation, while king Haakon VII and the legal government were in exile. Quisling encouraged Norwegians to serve as volunteers in the Waffen-SS, collaborated in the deportation of Jews, and was responsible for the executions of members of the Norwegian resistance movement. About 45,000 Norwegian collaborators joined the pro-Nazi party Nasjonal Samling (National Union), and some police units helped arrest many Jews. However, Norway was one of the first countries where resistance during World War II was widespread before the turning point of the war in 1943. After the war, Quisling and other collaborators were executed. Quisling's name has become an international eponym for traitor.

War justifications

The Duce Benito Mussolini in an official portrait

Benito Mussolini described Italy's declaration of war against the Western Allies of Britain and France in June 1940 as the following: "We are going to war against the plutocratic and reactionary democracies of the West who have invariably hindered the progress and often threatened the very existence of the Italian people". Italy condemned the Western powers for enacting sanctions on Italy in 1935 for its actions in the Second Italo-Ethiopian War that Italy claimed was a response to an act of Ethiopian aggression against tribesmen in Italian Eritrea in the Walwal incident of 1934. Italy, like Germany, also justified its actions by claiming that Italy needed to territorially expand to provide spazio vitale ("vital space") for the Italian nation.

In October 1938 in the aftermath of the Munich Agreement, Italy demanded concessions from France to yield to Italy in Africa. Relations between Italy and France deteriorated with France's refusal to accept Italy's demands. France responded to Italy's demands with threatening naval manoeuvres as a warning to Italy. As tensions between Italy and France grew, Hitler made a major speech on 30 January 1939 in which he promised German military support in the case of an unprovoked war against Italy.

Italy entered World War II on 10 June 1940. Italy justified its intervention against Greece in October 1940 on the allegation that the Kingdom of Greece was being used by Britain against Italy, Mussolini informed this to Hitler, saying: "Greece is one of the main points of English maritime strategy in the Mediterranean".

Italy justified its intervention against Yugoslavia in April 1941 by appealing to both Italian irredentist claims and the fact of Albanian, Croatian, and Macedonian separatists not wishing to be part of Yugoslavia. Croatian separatism soared after the assassination of Croatian political leaders in the National Assembly of Yugoslavia in 1928 including the death of Stjepan Radić, and Italy endorsed Croatian separatist Ante Pavelić and his fascist Ustaše movement that was based and trained in Italy with the Fascist regime's support prior to intervention against Yugoslavia.

The intention of the Fascist regime was to create a " New Roman Empire" in which Italy would dominate the Mediterranean. In 1935-1936 Italy invaded and annexed Ethiopia and the Fascist government proclaimed the creation of the " Italian Empire". Protests by the League of Nations, especially the British, who had interests in that area, led to no serious action, although The League did try to enforce economic sanctions upon Italy, but to no avail. The incident highlighted French and British weakness, exemplified by their reluctance to alienate Italy and lose her as their ally. The limited actions taken by the Western powers pushed Mussolini's Italy towards alliance with Hitler's Germany anyway. In 1937 Italy left the League of Nations and joined the Anti-Comintern Pact, which had been signed by Germany and Japan the preceding year. In March/April 1939 Italian troops invaded and annexed Albania. Germany and Italy signed the Pact of Steel on May 22.

Italy was ill-prepared for war, in spite of the fact that it had continuously been involved in conflict since 1935, first with Ethiopia in 1935-1936 and then in the Spanish Civil War on the side of Francisco Franco's Nationalists. Mussolini refused to heed warnings from his minister of exchange and currency, Felice Guarneri, who said that Italy's actions in Ethiopia and Spain meant that Italy was on the verge of bankruptcy. By 1939 military expenditures by Britain and France far exceeded what Italy could afford. As a result of Italy's economic difficulties its soldiers were poorly paid, often being poorly equipped and poorly supplied, and animosity arose between soldiers and class-conscious officers; these contributed to low morale amongst Italian soldiers.

Italian battleships Vittorio Veneto and Littorio during the war

By early 1940, Italy was still a non-belligerent, and Mussolini communicated to Hitler that Italy was not prepared to intervene soon. By March 1940, Mussolini decided that Italy would intervene, but the date was not yet chosen. His senior military leadership unanimously opposed the action because Italy was unprepared. No raw materials had been stockpiled and the reserves it did have would soon be exhausted, Italy's industrial base was only one-tenth of Germany's, and even with supplies the Italian military was not organized to provide the equipment needed to fight a modern war of a long duration. An ambitious rearmament program was impossible because of Italy's limited reserves in gold and foreign currencies and lack of raw materials. Mussolini ignored the negative advice.

By 1941, Italy's attempts to run an autonomous campaign from Germany's, collapsed as a result of military setbacks in Greece, North Africa, and Eastern Africa; and the country became dependent and effectively subordinate to Germany. After the German-led invasion and occupation of Yugoslavia and Greece, that had both been targets of Italy's war aims, Italy was forced to accept German dominance in the two occupied countries. Furthermore, by 1941, German forces in North Africa under Erwin Rommel effectively took charge of the military effort ousting Allied forces from the Italian colony of Libya, and German forces were stationed in Sicily in that year. Germany's insolence towards Italy as an ally was demonstrated that year when Italy was pressured to send 350,000 "guest workers" to Germany who were used as forced labour. While Hitler was disappointed with the Italian military's performance, he maintained overall favorable relations with Italy because of his personal friendship with Mussolini.

On 25 July 1943, following the Allied invasion of Sicily, King Victor Emmanuel III dismissed Mussolini, placed him under arrest, and began secret negotiations with the Western Allies. An armistice was signed on 8 September 1943, and four days later Mussolini was rescued by the Germans in Operation Oak and placed in charge of a puppet state called the Italian Social Republic ( Repubblica Sociale Italiana/RSI, or Repubblica di Salò) in northern Italy. In order to liberate the country from the Germans and Fascists, Italy became a co-belligerent of the Allies; as result, the country descended in Civil War, with the Italian Co-Belligerent Army and the partisans, supported by the Allies, contended the Social Republic's forces and its German allies. Some areas in Northern Italy were liberated from the Germans as late as May, 1945. Mussolini was killed by Communist partisans on 28 April 1945 while trying to escape to Switzerland.

Colonies and dependencies

Every territory ever controlled by the Italian Empire at some point in time during World War II

Possessions/colonies of Italy

Occupied territory and protectorates

The Dodecanese Islands were an Italian dependency known as the Italian Islands of the Aegean from 1912 to 1943.

Politically and economically dominated by Italy from its creation in 1913, Albania was occupied by Italian military forces in 1939 as the Albanian king Zog l fled the country with his family. The Albanian parliament voted to offer the Albanian throne to the King of Italy, resulting in a personal union between the two countries.

Italian East Africa was an Italian colony existing from 1936 to 1943. Prior to the invasion and annexation of Ethiopia into this united colony in 1936, Italy had two colonies, Eritrea and Somalia since the 1880s.

Libya was an Italian colony existing from 1912 to 1943. The northern portion of Libya was incorporated directly into Italy in 1939; however the region remained united as a colony under a colonial governor.

War justifications

The Japanese government justified its actions by claiming that it was seeking to unite East Asia under Japanese leadership in a Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere that would free East Asians from domination and rule by clients of Western powers. Japan invoked themes of Pan-Asianism and said that the Asian people needed to be free from Western influence.

The United States opposed the Second Sino-Japanese War, and recognized Chiang Kai-Shek's Nationalist Government as the legitimate government of China. As a result, the United States sought to bring the Japanese war effort to a halt by imposing an embargo on all trade between the United States and Japan. Japan was dependent on the United States for 80 percent of its petroleum, and as a consequence the embargo resulted in an economic and military crisis for Japan, as Japan could not continue its war effort against China without access to petroleum.

In order to maintain its military campaign in China with the major loss of petroleum trade with the United States, Japan saw the best means to secure an alternative source of petroleum in the petroleum-rich and natural-resources-rich Southeast Asia. This threat of retaliation by Japan to the total trade embargo by the United States was known by the American government, including American Secretary of State Cordell Hull who was negotiating with the Japanese to avoid a war, fearing that the total embargo would pre-empt a Japanese attack on the Dutch East Indies.

Japan identified the United States Pacific Fleet based in Pearl Harbor Naval Base as the principal threat to its designs to invade and capture Southeast Asia. Thus Japan initiated the attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941 as a means to inhibit an American response to the invasion of Southeast Asia, and buy time to allow Japan to consolidate itself with these resources to engage in a total war against the United States, and force the United States to accept Japan's acquisitions. On 7 December 1941 Japan declared war on the United States and the British Empire.

Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighter aircraft and other aircraft preparing for takeoff on the aircraft carrier Shōkaku on 7 December 1941, for the attack on Pearl Harbor

Thailand (cooperated with Japan)

All are members of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.

The Empire of Japan, a constitutional monarchy with Hirohito as its Emperor, was the principal Axis power in Asia and the Pacific. Under the emperor were a political cabinet and the Imperial General Headquarters, with two chiefs of staff. By 1945 the Emperor of Japan was more than a symbolic leader; he played a major role in devising a strategy to keep himself on the throne.

At its peak, Japan's Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere included Manchuria, Inner Mongolia, large parts of China, Malaysia, French Indochina, the Dutch East Indies, the Philippines, Burma, a small part of India, and various Pacific Islands in the central Pacific.

Japan entered into conflict against the Chinese in 1937. The Japanese invasion and occupation of parts of China resulted in numerous atrocities against civilians, such as the Nanjing Massacre and the Three Alls Policy. The Japanese also fought skirmishes with Soviet- Mongolian forces in Manchukuo in 1938 and 1939. Japan sought to avoid war with the Soviet Union by signing a non-aggression pact with it in 1941.

IJN Yamato-class Battleships Yamato and Musashi moored in Truk Lagoon, in 1943

Japan's military leaders were divided on diplomatic relationships with Germany and Italy and the attitude towards the United States. The Imperial Japanese Army was in favour of war with the United States, but the Imperial Japanese Navy was generally strongly opposed. When Prime Minister of Japan General Hideki Tojo refused American demands that Japan withdraw its military forces from China, a confrontation became more likely. War with the United States was being discussed within the Japanese government by 1940. Commander of the Combined Fleet Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto was outspoken in his opposition, especially after the signing of the Tripartite Pact, saying on 14 October 1940: "To fight the United States is like fighting the whole world. But it has been decided. So I will fight the best I can. Doubtless I shall die on board Nagato [his flagship]. Meanwhile, Tokyo will be burnt to the ground three times. Konoe and others will be torn to pieces by the revengeful people, I [shouldn't] wonder. " In October and November 1940, Yamamoto communicated with Navy Minister Oikawa, and stated, "Unlike the pre-Tripartite days, great determination is required to make certain that we avoid the danger of going to war. "

With the European powers focused on the war in Europe, Japan sought to acquire their colonies. In 1940 Japan responded to the German invasion of France by occupying northern French Indochina. The Vichy France regime, a de facto ally of Germany, accepted the takeover. The allied forces did not respond with war. However, the United States instituted an embargo against Japan in 1941 because of the continuing war in China. This cut off Japan's supply of scrap metal and oil needed for industry, trade, and the war effort.

Colonies and dependencies

The South Seas Mandate were territories granted to Japan in 1919 in the peace agreements of World War I, that designated to Japan the German South Pacific islands. Japan received these as a reward by the Allies of World War I, when Japan was then allied against Germany.

Other Tripartite Pact signatories

In addition to the three major Axis powers, six other countries signed the Tri-Partite Pact as its member states. Of the additional countries, Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria, the Independent State of Croatia, and Romania participated in various Axis military operations with their national armed forces, while the sixth, Yugoslavia, saw its pro-Nazi government overthrown earlier in a coup merely days after it signed the Pact, and the membership was reversed.

Political instability plagued the country until Miklós Horthy, a Hungarian nobleman and Austro-Hungarian naval officer, became regent in 1920. The vast majority of the Hungarians desired to recover former territories of the Lands of the Crown of Saint Stephen lost through the Treaty of Trianon. During the government of Gyula Gömbös, Hungary drew closer to Germany and Italy largely because of a shared desire to revise the peace settlements made after World War I. Many people sympathized with the anti-Semitic policy of the Nazi regime. Hungary refused to participate in Nazi Germany's planned invasion of Czechoslovakia during the Sudenten Crisis, but after the Munich Agreement carried out a diplomatic rapprochement in order to avoid Germany developing too close of an alliance with Hungary's rival Romania. Due to its supportive stance towards Germany and the new efforts in the international policy, Hungary gained favourable territorial settlements by the First Vienna Award, after the breakup of Czechoslovakia occupied and annexed the remainder of Carpathian Ruthenia and in 1940 received Northern Transylvania from Romania via the Second Vienna Award. Hungarians permitted German troops to transit through their territory during the invasion of Yugoslavia, and Hungarian forces joined the military operations after the proclamation of the Independent State of Croatia. Parts of the former Yugoslavia were annexed to Hungary; the United Kingdom immediately broke off diplomatic relations in response.

On 25 November 1941, Hungary was one of thirteen signatories to the renewed Anti-Comintern Pact. Hungarian troops, like their Axis counterparts, were involved in numerous actions against the Soviets. By the end of 1943, the Soviets had gained the upper hand and the Germans were retreating. The Hungarian Second Army was destroyed in fighting on the Voronezh Front, on the banks of the Don River.

Prior to the German occupation within the area of Hungary around 63,000 Jews perished. Afterwards, in late 1944, 437,000 Jews were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, most of them to their deaths. Overall, Hungarian Jews suffered close to 560,000 casualties.

Relations between Germany and the regency of Miklós Horthy collapsed in 1944 when Horthy attempted to negotiate a peace agreement with the Soviets and jump out of the war without German approval. Horthy was forced to abdicate after German commandos, led by Colonel Otto Skorzeny, held his son hostage as part of Operation Panzerfaust. Hungary was reorganized following Horthy's abdication in December 1944 into a totalitarian regime called the Government of National Unity, led by Ferenc Szálasi. He had been Prime Minister of Hungary since October 1944 and was leader of the Hungarist Arrow Cross Party. Its jurisdiction was effectively limited to an ever-narrowing band of territory in central Hungary, around Budapest since by the time they took power the Red Army was already far inside the country. Nonetheless, the Arrow Cross rule, short-lived as it was, was brutal. In fewer than three months, Arrow Cross death squads killed as many as 38,000 Hungarian Jews. Arrow Cross officers helped Adolf Eichmann re-activate the deportation proceedings from which the Jews of Budapest had thus far been spared, sending some 80,000 Jews out of the city on slave labour details and many more straight to death camps. Most of them died, including many who were murdered outright after the end of the fighting as they were returning home. Days after the Szálasi government took power, the capital of Budapest was surrounded by the Soviet Red Army. German and Hungarian forces tried to hold off the Soviet advance but failed. After fierce fighting, Budapest was taken by the Soviets. A number of pro-German Hungarians retreated to Italy and Germany, where they fought until the end of the war.

In March 1945, Szálasi fled to Germany as the leader of a government in exile, until the surrender of Germany in May 1945.

The Slovak Republic under President Josef Tiso signed the Tripartite Pact on 24 November 1940.

Slovakia had been closely aligned with Germany almost immediately from its declaration of independence from Czechoslovakia on 14 March 1939. Slovakia entered into a treaty of protection with Germany on 23 March 1939.

Slovak troops joined the German invasion of Poland, having interest in Spiš and Orava. Those two regions, along with Cieszyn Silesia, had been disputed between Poland and Czechoslovakia since 1918. The Poles fully annexed them following the Munich Agreement. After the invasion of Poland, Slovakia reclaimed control of those territories. Slovakia invaded Poland alongside German forces, contributing 50,000 men at this stage of the war.

Slovakia declared war on the Soviet Union in 1941 and signed the revived Anti-Comintern Pact in 1941. Slovak troops fought on Germany's Eastern Front, furnishing Germany with two divisions totaling 80,000 men. Slovakia declared war on the United Kingdom and the United States in 1942.

Slovakia was spared German military occupation until the Slovak National Uprising, which began on 29 August 1944, and was almost immediately crushed by the Waffen SS and Slovak troops loyal to Josef Tiso.

After the war, Tiso was executed and Slovakia once again became part of Czechoslovakia. The border with Poland was shifted back to the pre-war state. Slovakia and the Czech Republic finally separated into independent states in 1993.

Bulgaria participated in the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia and Greece by letting German troops attack from its territory and sent troops to Greece on April 20. As a reward, the Axis powers allowed Bulgaria to occupy parts of both countries-southern and south-eastern Yugoslavia ( Vardar Banovina) and north-eastern Greece (parts of Greek Macedonia and Greek Thrace). The Bulgarian forces in these areas spent the following years fighting various nationalist groups and resistance movements. Despite German pressure, Bulgaria did not take part in the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union and actually never declared war on the Soviet Union. The Bulgarian Navy was nonetheless involved in a number of skirmishes with the Soviet Black Sea Fleet, which attacked Bulgarian shipping.

Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the Bulgarian government declared war on the Western Allies. This action remained largely symbolic (at least from the Bulgarian perspective), until August 1943, when Bulgarian air defense and air force attacked Allied bombers, returning (heavily damaged) from a mission over the Romanian oil refineries. This turned into a disaster for the citizens of Sofia and other major Bulgarian cities, which were heavily bombed by the Allies in the winter of 1943-1944.

On 2 September 1944, as the Red Army approached the Bulgarian border, a new Bulgarian government came to power and sought peace with the Allies, expelled the few remaining German troops, and declared neutrality. These measures however did not prevent the Soviet Union from declaring war on Bulgaria on 5 September, and on 8 September the Red Army marched into the country, meeting no resistance. This was followed by the coup d'état of 9 September 1944, which brought a government of the pro-Soviet Fatherland Front to power. After this, the Bulgarian army (as part of the Red Army's 3rd Ukrainian Front) fought the Germans in Yugoslavia and Hungary, sustaining numerous casualties. Despite this, the Paris Peace Treaty treated Bulgaria as one of the defeated countries. Bulgaria was allowed to keep Southern Dobruja, but had to give up all claims to Greek and Yugoslav territory.

Independent State of Croatia

On 10 April 1941, the so-called Independent State of Croatia ( Nezavisna Država Hrvatska, or NDH), an installed German-Italian puppet state, co-signed the Tripartite Pact. The NDH remained a member of the Axis until the end of Second World War, its forces fighting for Germany even after its territory had been overrun by Yugoslav Partisans. On 16 April 1941, Ante Pavelić, a Croatian nationalist and one of the founders of the Ustaše ("Croatian Liberation Movement"), was proclaimed (leader) of the new regime.

The Ustaše regime lacked general support among Croats and never accrued any significant support among the populace. The Ustaše regime was backed by parts of the Croat population that during the interwar period had felt oppressed in the Serb-led Yugoslavia. Most of the support it had initially gained by creating a Croatian national state was lost because of the brutal practices it used.

Upon coming to power, Pavelić formed the Croatian Home Guard ( Hrvatsko domobranstvo) as the official military force of the NDH. Originally authorized at 16,000 men, it grew to a peak fighting force of 130,000. The Croatian Home Guard included an air force and navy, although its navy was restricted in size by the Contracts of Rome. In addition to the Croatian Home Guard, Pavelić was also the supreme commander of the Ustaše militia, although all NDH military units were generally under the command of the German or Italian formations in their area of operations.

The Ustaše government declared war on the Soviet Union, signed the Anti-Comintern Pact of 1941, and sent troops to Germany's Eastern Front. Ustaše militia were garrisoned in the Balkans, battling the communist partisans.

The Ustaše government applied racial laws on Serbs, Jews, and Romani people, as well as targeting those opposed to the fascist regime, and after June 1941 deported them to the Jasenovac concentration camp or to Nazi concentration camps in Poland. The racial laws were enforced by the Ustaše militia. The exact number of victims of the Ustaše regime is uncertain due to the destruction of documents and varying numbers given by historians. According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., between 320,000 and 340,000 Serbs were killed in the NDH.

With the exception of Germany and Italy, Romania was the only country where a Fascist movement came to power without foreign assistance. When war erupted in Europe, the economy of the Kingdom of Romania was already subordinated to the interests of Nazi Germany through a treaty signed in the spring of 1939. Nevertheless, the country had not totally abandoned pro-British sympathies. Romania had also been allied to the Poles for most of the interwar era. Following the invasion of Poland by Germany and the Soviet Union, and the German conquest of France and the Low Countries, Romania found itself increasingly isolated; meanwhile, pro-German and pro-Fascist elements began to grow.

The August 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between Germany and the Soviet Union contained a secret protocol ceding Bessarabia, and Northern Bukovina to the Soviet Union. On June 28, 1940, the Soviet Union occupied and annexed Bessarabia, as well as part of northern Romania and the Hertsa region. On 30 August 1940, as a result of the German- Italian arbitrated Second Vienna Award Romania had to cede Northern Transylvania to Hungary. Southern Dobruja was ceded to Bulgaria in September 1940. In an effort to appease the Fascist elements within the country and obtain German protection, King Carol II appointed the General Ion Antonescu as Prime Minister on September 6, 1940.

Ion Antonescu and Adolf Hitler at the Führerbau in Munich (June 1941)

Two days later, Antonescu forced the king to abdicate and installed the king's young son Michael (Mihai) on the throne, then declared himself Conducător ("Leader") with dictatorial powers. The National Legionary State was proclaimed on 14 September, with the Iron Guard ruling together with Antonescu as the sole legal political movement in Romania. Under King Michael I and the military government of Antonescu, Romania signed the Tripartite Pact on November 23, 1940. German troops entered the country on 10 October 1941, officially to train the Romanian Army. Hitler's directive to the troops on 10 October had stated that "it is necessary to avoid even the slightest semblance of military occupation of Romania". The entrance of German troops in Romania determined Italian dictator Benito Mussolini to launch an invasion of Greece, starting the Greco-Italian War. Having secured Hitler's approval in January 1941, Antonescu ousted the Iron Guard from power.

Romania joined the German-led invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941. Antonescu was the only foreign leader Hitler consulted on military matters and the two would meet no less than ten times throughout the war. Romania re-captured Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina during Operation Munchen before conquering further Soviet territory and establishing the Transnistria Governorate. After the Siege of Odessa, the city became the capital of the Governorate. Romanian troops fought their way into the Crimea alongside German troops and contributed significantly to the Siege of Sevastopol. Later, Romanian mountain troops joined the German campaign in the Caucasus, reaching as far as Nalchik. After suffering devastating losses at Stalingrad, Romanian officials began secretly negotiating peace conditions with the Allies.

Romania's military industry was small but versatile, able to copy and produce thousands of French, Soviet, German, British, and Czechoslovak weapons systems, as well as producing capable original products. The Romanian Navy also built sizable warships, such as the minelayer NMS Amiral Murgescu and the submarines NMS Rechinul and NMS Marsuinul. Hundreds of originally-designed Romanian Air Force aircraft were also produced, such as the fighter IAR-80 and the light bomber IAR-37. The country had built armored fighting vehicles as well, most notably the Mareșal tank destroyer, that likely influenced the design of the German Hetzer. Romania had also been a major power in the oil industry since the 1800s. It was one of the largest producers in Europe and the Ploiești oil refineries provided about 30% of all Axis oil production. British historian Dennis Deletant has asserted that Romania's crucial contributions to the Axis war effort, including having the third largest Axis army in Europe and sustaining the German war effort through oil and other materiel, meant that it was "on a par with Italy as a principal ally of Germany and not in the category of a minor Axis satellite". Another British historian, Mark Axworthy, believes that Romania could even be considered to have had the second most important Axis army of Europe, even more so than that of Italy.

Under Antonescu Romania was a fascist dictatorship and a totalitarian state. Between 45,000 and 60,000 Jews were killed in Bukovina and Bessarabia by Romanian and German troops in 1941. According to Wilhelm Filderman at least 150,000 Jews of Bessarabia and Bukovina, died under the Antonescu regime (both those deported and those who remained). Overall, approximately 250,000 Jews under Romanian jurisdiction died.

By 1943, the tide began to turn. The Soviets pushed further west, retaking Ukraine and eventually launching an unsuccessful invasion of eastern Romania in the spring of 1944. Romanian troops in the Crimea helped repulse initial Soviet landings, but eventually all of the peninsula was re-conquered by Soviet forces and the Romanian Navy evacuated over 100,000 German and Romanian troops, an achievement which earned Romanian Admiral Horia Macellariu the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross. During the Jassy-Kishinev Offensive of August 1944, Romania switched sides on August 23, 1944. Romanian troops then fought alongside the Soviet Army until the end of the war, reaching as far as Czechoslovakia and Austria.

Germany's main European ally (September 1943 - August 1944)

After the September 1943 Armistice of Cassibile with Italy, Romania became the second Axis Power in Europe. The Romanians shared in the spoils of Operation Achse, Regia Marina's 5 CB-class midget submarines in the Black Sea being transferred to the Romanian Navy. Romania also captured 496 Italians, mostly naval personnel (2 of them later died). Before the month was out, Germany had agreed to systematically supply the Romanian Army with German military vehicles, via the Olivenbaum I-III and Quittenbaum I programs. Deliveries started in November 1943, and by August 1944, Germany had supplied Romania with 10 times more armored vehicles ( Panzer III, Panzer IV and Sturmgeschütz III) than during the entire pre-Cassibile period. Having acquired the license to produce the Messerschmitt Bf 109, Romania planned to assemble 75 from German parts. Deliveries began in May 1944, but only 6 were completed before Romania left the Axis in August 1944. Eleven more were completed by the end of the war with the remaining 58 completed after the war. In 1944, Romania had also gained access to certain Wunderwaffen, such as the Werfer-Granate 21. The first Romanian-made Fiesler Storch was completed in October 1943, followed by 9 more by May 1944. From March 1944, Germany also contributed to the design and construction of the M-05 and M-06 prototypes of the Mareșal tank destroyer: Alkett contributed to the Romanian design team and Telefunken radios along with Böhler armor were provided. The 75 mm Reșița gun (production started at the end of 1943) used the projectile chamber of the German Pak 40. Technology transfers between the two countries were not necessarily one-way, however. On 6 January 1944, Antonescu showed Hitler the plans of the M-04 prototype of the Mareșal tank destroyer. In May 1944, Lieutenant-Colonel Ventz from the acknowledged that the Hetzer had followed the Romanian design. German-led Army Group South Ukraine could not take major operational decisions without securing Ion Antonescu's approval, even as late as 22 August 1944 (the day before he was dismissed). An entire German army ( the 6th) came under Romanian command in May 1944, when it became part of Romanian general Petre Dumitrescu's Armeegruppe. For the first time in the war, German commanders came under the actual (rather than nominal) command of their foreign allies. This Romanian-led army group had 24 divisions of which 17 were German.

Yugoslavia (two-day membership)

Anti-Comintern Pact signatories

Some countries signed the Anti-Comintern Pact but not the Tripartite Pact. As such their adherence to the Axis may have been less than that of Tripartite Pact signatories. Some of these states were officially at war with members of the Allied powers, others remained neutral in the war and sent only volunteers. Signing the Anti-Comintern Pact was seen as "a litmus test of loyalty" by the Nazi leadership.

China (Reorganized National Government of China)

During the Second Sino-Japanese War, Japan advanced from its bases in Manchuria to occupy much of East and Central China. Several Japanese puppet states were organized in areas occupied by the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces, including the Provisional Government of the Republic of China at Beijing, which was formed in 1937, and the Reformed Government of the Republic of China at Nanjing, which was formed in 1938. These governments were merged into the Reorganized National Government of China at Nanjing on 29 March 1940. Wang Jingwei became head of state. The government was to be run along the same lines as the Nationalist regime and adopted its symbols.

The Nanjing Government had no real power; its main role was to act as a propaganda tool for the Japanese. The Nanjing Government concluded agreements with Japan and Manchukuo, authorising Japanese occupation of China and recognising the independence of Manchukuo under Japanese protection. The Nanjing Government signed the Anti-Comintern Pact of 1941 and declared war on the United States and the United Kingdom on 9 January 1943.

The government had a strained relationship with the Japanese from the beginning. Wang's insistence on his regime being the true Nationalist government of China and in replicating all the symbols of the Kuomintang led to frequent conflicts with the Japanese, the most prominent being the issue of the regime's flag, which was identical to that of the Republic of China.

Denmark was occupied by Germany after April 1940 and never joined the Axis. On 31 May 1939, Denmark and Germany signed a treaty of non-aggression, which did not contain any military obligations for either party. On April 9, Germany attacked Scandinavia, and the speed of the German invasion of Denmark prevented King Christian X and the Danish government from going into exile. They had to accept "protection by the Reich" and the stationing of German forces in exchange for nominal independence. Denmark coordinated its foreign policy with Germany, extending diplomatic recognition to Axis collaborator and puppet regimes, and breaking diplomatic relations with the Allied governments-in-exile. Denmark broke diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union and signed the Anti-Comintern Pact in 1941. However the United States and Britain ignored Denmark and worked with Henrik Kauffmann Denmark's ambassador in the US when it came to dealings about using Iceland, Greenland, and the Danish merchant fleet against Germany.

In 1941 Danish Nazis set up the Frikorps Danmark. Thousands of volunteers fought and many died as part of the German Army on the Eastern Front. Denmark sold agricultural and industrial products to Germany and made loans for armaments and fortifications. The German presence in Denmark included the construction of part of the Atlantic Wall fortifications which Denmark paid for and was never reimbursed.

The Danish protectorate government lasted until 29 August 1943, when the cabinet resigned after the regularly scheduled and largely free election concluding the Folketing's current term. The Germans imposed martial law following Operation Safari, and Danish collaboration continued on an administrative level, with the Danish bureaucracy functioning under German command. The Royal Danish Navy scuttled 32 of its larger ships; Germany seized 64 ships and later raised and refitted 15 of the sunken vessels. 13 warships escaped to Sweden and formed a Danish naval flotilla in exile. Sweden allowed formation of a Danish military brigade in exile; it did not see combat. The Danish resistance movement was active in sabotage and issuing underground newspapers and blacklists of collaborators.

Although Finland never signed the Tripartite Pact, it fought against the Soviet Union alongside Germany in the 1941-44 Continuation War, during which the official position of the wartime Finnish government was that Finland was a co-belligerent of the Germans whom they described as "brothers-in-arms". Finland did sign the revived Anti-Comintern Pact of November 1941. Finland signed a peace treaty with the Allied powers in 1947 which described Finland as having been "an ally of Hitlerite Germany" during the continuation war. As such, Finland was the only democracy to join the Axis. Finland's relative independence from Germany put it in the most advantageous position of all the minor Axis powers.

Whilst Finland's relationship with Nazi Germany during the Continuation War remains controversial within Finland, in a 2008 Helsingin Sanomat survey of 28 Finnish historians, 16 agreed that Finland had been an ally of Nazi Germany, with only 6 disagreeing.

The August 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between Germany and the Soviet Union contained a secret protocol dividing much of eastern Europe and assigning Finland to the Soviet sphere of influence. After unsuccessfully attempting to force territorial and other concessions on the Finns, the Soviet Union invaded Finland in November 1939, launching the Winter War, intending to establish a communist puppet government in Finland. The conflict threatened Germany's iron-ore supplies and offered the prospect of Allied interference in the region. Despite Finnish resistance, a peace treaty was signed in March 1940, wherein Finland ceded some key territory to the Soviet Union, including the Karelian Isthmus, containing Finland's second-largest city, Viipuri, and the critical defensive structure of the Mannerheim Line. After this war, Finland sought protection and support from the United Kingdom and non-aligned Sweden, but was thwarted by Soviet and German actions. This resulted in Finland being drawn closer to Germany, first with the intent of enlisting German support as a counterweight to thwart continuing Soviet pressure, and later to help regain lost territories.

Manchuria (Manchukuo)

Manchukuo, in the northeast region of China, had been a Japanese puppet state in Manchuria since the 1930s. It was nominally ruled by Puyi, the last Chinese Emperor of the Qing Dynasty, but was in fact controlled by the Japanese military, in particular the Kwantung Army. While Manchukuo ostensibly was a state for ethnic Manchus, the region had a Han Chinese majority.

Manchukuo signed the Anti-Comintern Pact in 1939, but never signed the Tripartite Pact.

Francisco Franco (centre) and Serrano Súñer (left) meeting with Mussolini (right) in Bordighera, Italy in 1941. At Bordighera, Franco and Mussolini discussed the creation of a Latin Bloc.[73]

Caudillo Francisco Franco's Spanish State gave moral, economic, and military assistance to the Axis powers, while nominally maintaining neutrality. Franco described Spain as a member of the Axis and signed the Anti-Comintern Pact in 1941 with Hitler and Mussolini. Members of the ruling Falange party in Spain held irredentist designs on Gibraltar. Falangists also supported Spanish colonial acquisition of the Tangier International Zone, French Morocco and northwestern French Algeria. In addition, Spain held ambitions on former Spanish colonies in Latin America. In June 1940 the Spanish government approached Germany to propose an alliance in exchange for Germany recognizing Spain's territorial aims: the annexation of the Oran Province of Algeria, the incorporation of all Morocco, the extension of Spanish Sahara southward to the twentieth parallel, and the incorporation of French Cameroons into Spanish Guinea. Spain invaded and occupied the Tangier International Zone, maintaining its occupation until 1945. The occupation caused a dispute between Britain and Spain in November 1940; Spain conceded to protect British rights in the area and promised not to fortify the area. The Spanish government secretly held expansionist plans towards Portugal that it made known to the German government. In a communiqué with Germany on 26 May 1942, Franco declared that Portugal should be annexed into Spain.

Franco had previously won the Spanish Civil War with the help of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Both were eager to establish another fascist state in Europe. Spain owed Germany over $212 million for supplies of matériel during the Spanish Civil War, and Italian Corpo Truppe Volontarie combat troops had actually fought in Spain on the side of Franco's Nationalists.

When Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, Franco immediately offered to form a unit of military volunteers to join the invasion. This was accepted by Hitler and, within two weeks, there were more than enough volunteers to form a division - the Blue Division ( División Azul) under General Agustín Muñoz Grandes.

The possibility of Spanish intervention in World War II was of concern to the United States, which investigated the activities of Spain's ruling Falange Espanola Tradicionalista y de las JONS in Latin America, especially Puerto Rico, where pro-Falange and pro-Franco sentiment was high, even amongst the ruling upper classes. The Falangists promoted the idea of supporting Spain's former colonies in fighting against American domination. Prior to the outbreak of war, support for Franco and the Falange was high in the Philippines. The Falange Exterior, the international department of the Falange, collaborated with Japanese forces against the United States Armed Forces and the Philippine Commonwealth Army in the Philippines through the Philippine Falange.

Bilateral Pacts with the Axis Powers

Some countries colluded with Germany, Italy, and Japan without signing either the Anti-Comintern Pact, or the Tripartite Pact. In some cases these bilateral agreements were formalised, in other cases it was less formal. Some of these countries were puppet states established by the Axis Powers themselves.

Burma (Ba Maw government)

As an ally of Japan during the war that deployed troops to fight on the Japanese side against Allied forces, Thailand is considered to have been part of the Axis alliance, or at least "aligned with the Axis powers". For example, writing in 1945, the American politician Clare Boothe Luce described Thailand as "undeniably an Axis country" during the war.

Thailand waged the Franco-Thai War in October 1940 to May 1941 to reclaim territory from French Indochina. Japanese forces invaded Thailand an hour and a half before the attack on Pearl Harbor (because of the International Dateline, the local time was on the morning of 8 December 1941). Only hours after the invasion, Prime Minister Field Marshal Phibunsongkhram ordered the cessation of resistance against the Japanese. An outline plan of Japan-Thailand joint military operations, whereby Thai forces would invade Burma to defend the right flank of Japanese forces, was agreed on 14 December 1941. On 21 December 1941, a military alliance with Japan was signed and on 25 January 1942, Sang Phathanothai read over the radio Thailand's formal declaration of war on the United Kingdom and the United States. The Thai ambassador to the United States, Mom Rajawongse Seni Pramoj, did not deliver his copy of the declaration of war. Therefore, although the British reciprocated by declaring war on Thailand and considered it a hostile country, the United States did not.

The Thais and Japanese agreed that the Burmese Shan State and Karenni State were to be under Thai control. The rest of Burma was to be under Japanese control. On 10 May 1942, the Thai Phayap Army entered Burma's eastern Shan State, which had been claimed by Siamese kingdoms. Three Thai infantry and one cavalry division, spearheaded by armoured reconnaissance groups and supported by the air force, engaged the retreating Chinese 93rd Division. Kengtung, the main objective, was captured on 27 May. Renewed offensives in June and November saw the Chinese retreat into Yunnan.

In November 1943 Thailand signed the Greater East Asia Joint Declaration, formally aligning itself with the Axis Powers. The area containing the Shan States and Kayah State was annexed by Thailand in 1942, and four northern states of Malaya were also transferred to Thailand by Japan as a reward for Thai co-operation. These areas were ceded back to Burma and Malaya in 1945. Thai military losses totalled 5,559 men during the war, of whom about 180 died resisting the Japanese invasion of 8 December 1941, roughly 150 died in action during the fighting in the Shan States, and the rest died of malaria and other diseases. The Free Thai Movement ("Seri Thai") was established during these first few months. Parallel Free Thai organizations were also established in the United Kingdom. The king's aunt, Queen Rambai Barni, was the nominal head of the British-based organization, and Pridi Banomyong, the regent, headed its largest contingent, which was operating within Thailand. Aided by elements of the military, secret airfields and training camps were established, while American Office of Strategic Services and British Force 136 agents slipped in and out of the country.

Soviet Union

In 1939 the Soviet Union considered forming an alliance with either Britain and France or with Germany. When negotiations with Britain and France failed, they turned to Germany and signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in August 1939. Germany was now freed from the risk of war with the Soviets, and was assured a supply of oil. This included a secret protocol whereby territories controlled by Poland, Finland, Estonia, Romania, Latvia and Lithuania were divided into spheres of interest of the parties. The Soviet Union sought to re-annex some of territories that were under control of those states, formerly acquired by the Russian Empire in the centuries prior and lost to Russia in the aftermath of World War I; that included land such as the Kresy (Western Belarus and Western Ukraine) region ceded to Poland after losing the Soviet-Polish War of 1919-1921.

On 1 September, barely a week after the pact had been signed, Germany invaded Poland. The Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east on 17 September and on 28 September signed a secret treaty with Nazi Germany to coordinate fighting against the Polish resistance. The Soviets targeted intelligence, entrepreneurs and officers with mass arrests, with many victims sent to the Gulag in Siberia, committing a string of atrocities that culminated in the Katyn massacre. Soon after the invasion of Poland, the Soviet Union occupied the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, and annexed Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina from Romania. The Soviet Union attacked Finland on 30 November 1939, which started the Winter War. Finnish defenses prevented an all-out invasion, resulting in an interim peace, but Finland was forced to cede strategically important border areas near Leningrad.

The Soviet Union provided material support to Germany in the war effort against Western Europe through a pair of commercial agreements, the first in 1939 and the second in 1940, which involved exports of raw materials ( phosphates, chromium and iron ore, mineral oil, grain, cotton, and rubber). These and other export goods transported through Soviet and occupied Polish territories allowed Germany to circumvent the British naval blockade. In October and November 1940, German-Soviet talks about the potential of joining the Axis took place in Berlin. Joseph Stalin later personally countered with a separate proposal in a letter on 25 November that contained several secret protocols, including that "the area south of Batum and Baku in the general direction of the Persian Gulf is recognized as the center of aspirations of the Soviet Union", referring to an area approximating present day Iraq and Iran, and a Soviet claim to Bulgaria. Hitler never responded to Stalin's letter. Shortly thereafter, Hitler issued a secret directive on the invasion of the Soviet Union. Reasons included the Nazi ideologies of Lebensraum and Heim ins Reich

Vichy France

The German army entered Paris on 14 June 1940, following the battle of France. Pétain became the last Prime Minister of the French Third Republic on 16 June 1940. He sued for peace with Germany and on 22 June 1940, the French government concluded an armistice with Hitler and Mussolini, which came into effect at midnight on 25 June. Under the terms of the agreement, Germany occupied two-thirds of France, including Paris. Pétain was permitted to keep an " armistice army" of 100,000 men within the unoccupied southern zone. This number included neither the army based in the French colonial empire nor the French Navy. In Africa the Vichy regime was permitted to maintain 127,000. The French also maintained substantial garrisons at the French-mandate territory of Syria and Greater Lebanon, the French colony of Madagascar, and in French Somaliland. Some members of the Vichy government pushed for closer cooperation, but they were rebuffed by Pétain. Neither did Hitler accept that France could ever become a full military partner, and constantly prevented the buildup of Vichy's military strength.

After the armistice, relations between the Vichy French and the British quickly worsened. Although the French had told Churchill they would not allow their fleet to be taken by the Germans, the British launched naval attacks intended to prevent the French navy being used, the most notable of which was the attack on the Algerian harbour of Mers el-Kebir on 3 July 1940. Though Churchill defended his controversial decision to attack the French fleet, the action deteriorated greatly the relations between France and Britain. German propaganda trumpeted these attacks as an absolute betrayal of the French people by their former allies.

On 10 July 1940, Pétain was given emergency "full powers" by a majority vote of the French National Assembly. The following day approval of the new constitution by the Assembly effectively created the French State ( l'État Français), replacing the French Republic with the government unofficially called "Vichy France," after the resort town of Vichy, where Pétain maintained his seat of government. This continued to be recognised as the lawful government of France by the neutral United States until 1942, while the United Kingdom had recognised de Gaulle's government-in-exile in London. Racial laws were introduced in France and its colonies and many foreign Jews in France were deported to Germany. Albert Lebrun, last President of the Republic, did not resign from the presidential office when he moved to Vizille on 10 July 1940. By 25 April 1945, during Pétain's trial, Lebrun argued that he thought he would be able to return to power after the fall of Germany, since he had not resigned.

In September 1940, Vichy France was forced to allow Japan to occupy French Indochina, a federation of French colonial possessions and protectorates encompassing modern day Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. The Vichy regime continued to administer them under Japanese military occupation. French Indochina was the base for the Japanese invasions of Thailand, Malaya, and the Dutch East Indies. On 26 September 1940, de Gaulle led an attack by Allied forces on the Vichy port of Dakar in French West Africa. Forces loyal to Pétain fired on de Gaulle and repulsed the attack after two days of heavy fighting, drawing Vichy France closer to Germany.

During the Anglo-Iraqi War of May 1941, Vichy France allowed Germany and Italy to use air bases in the French mandate of Syria to support the Iraqi revolt. British and Free French forces attacked later Syria and Lebanon in June-July 1941, and in 1942 Allied forces took over French Madagascar. More and more colonies abandoned Vichy, joining the Free French territories of French Equatorial Africa, Polynesia, New Caledonia and others who had sided with de Gaulle from the start.

In November 1942 Vichy French troops briefly resisted the landing of Allied troops in French North Africa for two days, until Admiral François Darlan negotiated a local ceasefire with the Allies. In response to the landings, German and Italian forces invaded the non-occupied zone in southern France and ended Vichy France as an entity with any kind of autonomy; it then became a puppet government for the occupied territories. In June 1943, the formerly Vichy-loyal colonial authorities in French North Africa led by Henri Giraud came to an agreement with the Free French to merge with their own interim regime with the French National Committee ( Comité Français National, CFN) to form a provisional government in Algiers, known as the French Committee of National Liberation ( Comité Français de Libération Nationale, CFLN) initially led by Darlan.

In 1943 the Milice, a paramilitary force which had been founded by Vichy, was subordinated to the Germans and assisted them in rounding up opponents and Jews, as well as fighting the French Resistance. The Germans recruited volunteers in units independent of Vichy. Partly as a result of the great animosity of many right-wingers against the pre-war Front Populaire, volunteers joined the German forces in their anti-communist crusade against the USSR. Almost 7,000 joined Légion des Volontaires Français (LVF) from 1941 to 1944. The LVF then formed the cadre of the Waffen-SS Division Charlemagne in 1944-1945, with a maximum strength of some 7,500. Both the LVF and the Division Charlemagne fought on the eastern front.

Deprived of any military assets, territory or resources, the members of the Vichy government continued to fulfil their role as German puppets, being quasi-prisoners in the so-called " Sigmaringen enclave" in a castle in Baden-Württemberg at the end of the war in May 1945.

In April 1941 the Arab nationalist Rashīd ʿAlī al-Gaylānī, who was pro-Axis, seized power in Iraq. British forces responded by deploying to Iraq and in turn removing Rashi Ali from power. During fighting between Iraqi and British forces, Axis forces were deployed to Iraq to support the Iraqis. However, Rashid Ali was never able to conclude a formal alliance with the Axis.

Anti-British sentiments were widespread in Iraq prior to 1941. Rashid Ali al-Gaylani was appointed Prime Minister of Iraq in 1940. When Italy declared war on Britain, Rashid Ali had maintained ties with the Italians. This angered the British government. In December 1940, as relations with the British worsened, Rashid Ali formally requested weapons and military supplies from Germany. In January 1941 Rashid Ali was forced to resign as a result of British pressure.

In April 1941 Rashid Ali, on seizing power in a coup, repudiated the Anglo-Iraqi Treaty of 1930 and demanded that the British abandon their military bases and withdraw from the country.

Hitler issued Order 30: "The Arab Freedom Movement in the Middle East is our natural ally against England. In this connection special importance is attached to the liberation of Iraq ... I have therefore decided to move forward in the Middle East by supporting Iraq. "

Puppet states

Various nominally-independent governments formed out of local sympathisers under varying degrees of German, Italian, and Japanese control were established within the territories that they occupied during the war. Some of these governments declared themselves to be neutral in the conflict with the allies, or never concluded any formal alliance with the Axis powers, but their effective control by the Axis powers rendered them in reality an extension of it and hence part of it. These differed from military authorities and civilian commissioners provided by the occupying power in that they were formed from nationals of the occupied country, and that the supposed legitimacy of the puppet state was recognised by the occupier de jure if not de facto.

The collaborationist administrations of German-occupied countries in Europe had varying degrees of autonomy, and not all of them qualified as fully recognized sovereign states. The General Government in occupied Poland was a fully German administration. In occupied Norway, the National Government headed by Vidkun Quisling - whose name came to symbolize pro-Axis collaboration in several languages - was subordinate to the Reichskommissariat Norwegen. It was never allowed to have any armed forces, be a recognized military partner, or have autonomy of any kind. In the occupied Netherlands, Anton Mussert was given the symbolic title of "Führer of the Netherlands' people". His National Socialist Movement formed a cabinet assisting the German administration, but was never recognized as a real Dutch government.

Albania (Albanian Kingdom)

After the Italian armistice, a vacuum of power opened up in Albania. The Italian occupying forces were rendered largely powerless, as the National Liberation Movement took control of the south and the National Front ( Balli Kombëtar) took control of the north. Albanians in the Italian army joined the guerrilla forces. In September 1943 the guerrillas moved to take the capital of Tirana, but German paratroopers dropped into the city. Soon after the battle, the German High Command announced that they would recognize the independence of a greater Albania. They organized an Albanian government, police, and military in collaboration with the Balli Kombëtar. The Germans did not exert heavy control over Albania's administration, but instead attempted to gain popular appeal by giving their political partners what they wanted. Several Balli Kombëtar leaders held positions in the regime. The joint forces incorporated Kosovo, western Macedonia, southern Montenegro, and Presevo into the Albanian state. A High Council of Regency was created to carry out the functions of a head of state, while the government was headed mainly by Albanian conservative politicians. Albania was the only European country occupied by the Axis powers that ended World War II with a larger Jewish population than before the war. The Albanian government had refused to hand over their Jewish population. They provided Jewish families with forged documents and helped them disperse in the Albanian population. Albania was completely liberated on November 29, 1944.

Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia

The Government of National Salvation, also referred to as the Nedić regime, was the second Serbian puppet government, after the Commissioner Government, established on the Territory of the (German) Military Commander in Serbia during World War II. It was appointed by the German Military Commander in Serbia and operated from 29 August 1941 to October 1944. Although the Serbian puppet regime had some support, it was unpopular with a majority of Serbs who either joined the Yugoslav Partisans or Draža Mihailović's Chetniks. The Prime Minister throughout was General Milan Nedić. The Government of National Salvation was evacuated from Belgrade to Kitzbühel, Germany in the first week of October 1944 before the German withdrawal from Serbia was complete.

Racial laws were introduced in all occupied territories with immediate effects on Jews and Roma people, as well as causing the imprisonment of those opposed to Nazism. Several concentration camps were formed in Serbia and at the 1942 Anti-Freemason Exhibition in Belgrade the city was pronounced to be free of Jews (Judenfrei). On 1 April 1942, a Serbian Gestapo was formed. An estimated 120,000 people were interned in German-run concentration camps in Nedić's Serbia between 1941 and 1944. However the Banjica Concentration Camp was jointly run by the German Army and Nedic's regime. 50,000 to 80,000 were killed during this period. Serbia became the second country in Europe, following Estonia, to be proclaimed Judenfrei (free of Jews). Approximately 14,500 Serbian Jews - 90 percent of Serbia's Jewish population of 16,000 - were murdered in World War II.

Nedić was captured by the Americans when they occupied the former territory of Austria, and was subsequently handed over to the Yugoslav communist authorities to act as a witness against war criminals, on the understanding he would be returned to American custody to face trial by the Allies. The Yugoslav authorities refused to return Nedić to United States custody. He died on 4 February 1946 after either jumping or falling out of the window of a Belgrade hospital, under circumstances which remain unclear.

Italy (Italian Social Republic)

Italian Fascist leader Benito Mussolini formed the Italian Social Republic ( Repubblica Sociale Italiana in Italian) on 23 September 1943, succeeding the Kingdom of Italy as a member of the Axis.

Mussolini had been removed from office and arrested by King Victor Emmanuel III on 25 July 1943. After the Italian armistice, in a raid led by German paratrooper Otto Skorzeny, Mussolini was rescued from arrest.

Once restored to power, Mussolini declared that Italy was a republic and that he was the new head of state. He was subject to German control for the duration of the war.

Joint German-Italian client states

Greece (Hellenic State)

The Empire of Japan created a number of client states in the areas occupied by its military, beginning with the creation of Manchukuo in 1932. These puppet states achieved varying degrees of international recognition.

The Kingdom of Kampuchea was a short-lived Japanese puppet state that lasted from 9 March 1945 to 15 August 1945. The Japanese entered the French protectorate of Cambodia in mid-1941, but allowed Vichy French officials to remain in administrative posts while Japanese calls for an "Asia for the Asiatics" won over many Cambodian nationalists.

In March 1945, in order to gain local support, the Japanese dissolved French colonial rule and pressured Cambodia to declare independence within the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. King Sihanouk declared the Kingdom of Kampuchea (replacing the French name) independent. Son Ngoc Thanh who had fled to Japan in 1942 returned in May and was appointed foreign minister. On the date of Japanese surrender, a new government was proclaimed with Son Ngoc Thanh as prime minister. When the Allies occupied Phnom Penh in October, Son Ngoc Thanh was arrested for collaborating with the Japanese and was exiled to France.

The Arzi Hukumat-e-Azad Hind, the "Provisional Government of Free India" was a state that was recognized by nine Axis governments, and accepted as part of the axis by the Japanese.

It was led by Subhas Chandra Bose, an Indian nationalist who rejected Mahatma Gandhi's nonviolent methods for achieving independence. The First Indian National Army faltered after its leadership objected to being a propaganda tool for Japanese war aims, and the role of Japanese liaison office. It was revived by the Indian Independence League with Japanese support in 1942 after the ex-PoWs and Indian civilians in South-east Asia agreed to participate in the INA venture on the condition it was led by Bose. From occupied Singapore Bose declared India's independence on October 21, 1943 . The Indian National Army was committed as a part of the U Go Offensive. It played a largely marginal role in the battle, and suffered serious casualties and had to withdraw with the rest of Japanese forces after the siege of Imphal was broken. It was later committed to the defence of Burma against the Allied offensive. It suffered a large number of desertions in this latter part. The remaining troops of the INA maintained order in Rangoon after the withdrawal of Ba Maw's government. The provisional government was given nominal control of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands from November 1943 to August 1945.

Inner Mongolia (Mengjiang)

The Inner Mongolians had several grievances against the central Chinese government in Nanjing, including their policy of allowing unlimited migration of Han Chinese to the region. Several of the young princes of Inner Mongolia began to agitate for greater freedom from the central government, and it was through these men that Japanese saw their best chance of exploiting Pan-Mongol nationalism and eventually seizing control of Outer Mongolia from the Soviet Union.

Japan created Mengjiang to exploit tensions between ethnic Mongolians and the central government of China, which in theory ruled Inner Mongolia. When the various puppet governments of China were unified under the Wang Jingwei government in March 1940, Mengjiang retained its separate identity as an autonomous federation. Although under the firm control of the Japanese Imperial Army, which occupied its territory, Prince Demchugdongrub had his own independent army. Mengjiang vanished in 1945 following Japan's defeat in World War II.

French Indochina, including Laos, had been occupied by the Japanese in 1941, though government by the Vichy French colonial officials had continued. The liberation of France in 1944, bringing Charles de Gaulle to power, meant the end of the alliance between Japan and the Vichy French administration in Indochina. On 9 March 1945 the Japanese staged a military coup in Hanoi, and on 8 April they reached Luang Phrabang. King Sīsavāngvong was detained by the Japanese, and forced to issue a declaration of independence, albeit one that does not appear to have ever been formalised. French control over Laos was re-asserted in 1946.

Philippines (Second Republic)

After the surrender of the Filipino and American forces in Bataan Peninsula and Corregidor Island, the Japanese established a puppet state in the Philippines in 1942. The following year, the Philippine National Assembly declared the Philippines an independent Republic and elected José Laurel as its President. There was never widespread civilian support for the state, largely because of the general anti-Japanese sentiment stemming from atrocities committed by the Imperial Japanese Army. The Second Philippine Republic ended with Japanese surrender in 1945, and Laurel was arrested and charged with treason by the US government. He was granted amnesty by President Manuel Roxas, and remained active in politics, ultimately winning a seat in the post-war Senate.

Vietnam (Empire of Vietnam)

German, Italian and Japanese World War II cooperation

German-Japanese Axis-cooperation

On 7 December 1941, Japan attacked the US naval bases in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. According to the stipulation of the Tripartite Pact, Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy were required to come to the defense of their allies only if they were attacked. Since Japan had made the first move, Germany and Italy were not obliged to aid her until the United States counterattacked. Nevertheless, expecting the US to declare war on Germany in any event, Hitler ordered the to formally declare war on the United States. Hitler had agreed that Germany would almost certainly declare war when the Japanese first informed him of their intention to go to war with the United States on 17 November 1941. Italy also declared war on the US.

Historian Ian Kershaw suggests that this declaration of war against the United States was a serious blunder made by Germany and Italy, as it allowed the United States to join the war in Europe and North Africa without any limitation. On the other hand, American destroyers escorting convoys had been effectively intervening in the Battle of the Atlantic with German and Italian ships and submarines, and the immediate war declaration made the Second Happy Time possible for U-boats. Franklin D. Roosevelt had said in his Fireside Chat on 9 December 1941, 2 days before the European Axis powers formally declared war on America, that Germany and Italy already considered themselves to be in a state of war with the United States. Plans for Rainbow Five had been published by the press early in December 1941, and Hitler could no longer ignore the amount of economic and military aid the US was giving Britain and the USSR.

Italian pilots of a Savoia-Marchetti SM.75 long-range cargo aircraft meeting with Japanese officials upon arriving in East Asia in 1942

German and Japanese direct spheres of influence at their greatest extents in Autumn 1942. Arrows show planned movements to an agreed demarcation line at 70° E, which was, however, never approximated.

References

Print sources

Jokipii, Mauno (1987). Jatkosodan synty: tutkimuksia Saksan ja Suomen sotilaallisesta yhteistyöstä 1940-41 [Birth of the Continuation War: Analysis of the German and Finnish Military Co-operation, 1940-41] (in Finnish). Helsinki: Otava. ISBN 978-951-1-08799-1.

Online sources

Further reading

External links

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The Axis powers, originally called the Rome-Berlin Axis and also Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis, was a military coalition that initiated World War II and fought against the Allies. Its principal members were Nazi Germany, the Kingdom of Italy and the Empire of Japan.

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The Nobel Peace Prize is given to thw winners of these five categories they are peace, economics, medicine Pohysiology, literature, physics, and chemistry.

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During the holocaust, the allies - headed by Great Britain, the USSR , and the United States - were chiefly preoccupied with the strategic developments of the war. Throughout 1940 and 1941, the British waged the war alone against the Nazis.

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The Nazi Party had beliefs that there were to follow all of Adolf Hitler's rulings. They were to think all other people were below him.

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Hitler was the ruler of the Aryan race, but he himself wasn't Aryan.

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Rabbi literally means teacher. Rabbi's are seen to the Jewish community as a spiritual leader, a counselor, a role model, and a educator. Rabbi's are the ones that lead Jewish spiritual events such as Shabbat services and High Holy Day services on Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur.

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An ally is a state formally cooperating with another for a military or other purpose, typically by treaty

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A building in which Jewish worship ceremonies take place.

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Himmler made the plans and schemes for the killing of 6 million Jews.

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History of the Hollocaust:

On April 1, 1933, the Nazis instigated their first action against German Jews by announcing a boycott of all Jewish-run businesses.  On Septemeber 15, 1935, the Nuremberg Laws began to exclude Jews from public life. These included laws that stripped Jews of their citizenship

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Adolf Hitler was the leader of Nazi Germany from 1934 to 1945. He is the reason World War 2 happened and is responsible for the death of millions of Jewish people. Born in Austria in 1889, he rose to power in German politics as the head of the National Socialist German Workers Party (Nazi Party). His philosophy was the Germans were the master race of Earth and that all that opposed him should die. The holocaust unfolded in response to this and because of it, Jews and many others died in concentration camps. He eventually committed suicide with his wife Eva Braun on April 30, 1945 in an underground bunker out of fear that Soviet forces would catch him

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Wiesel was born in Transylvania, had to survive the Holocaust and later became a Boston University proffesor as well as a Nobel prize winning writer. He is mostly known for his book, Night, but also has many other works out.

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Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky. Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never.

Elie Wiesel (1928-2016) was born in Sighet, Romania, on September 30, 1928.

A Nobel Peace Prize winner and Boston University professor, Wiesel worked on behalf of oppressed people for much of his adult life. His personal experience of the Holocaust led him to use his talents as an author, teacher, and storyteller to defend human rights and peace throughout the world.

Elie Wiesel A native of Sighet, Transylvania ( Romania, from 1940-1945 part of Hungary), Wiesel and his family were deported by the Nazis to Auschwitz when he was 15 years old. His mother and younger sister perished there, his two older sisters survived. Wiesel and his father were later transported to Buchenwald, where his father died.

After the war, Wiesel studied in Paris and later became a journalist in that city, yet he remained silent about what he endured as an inmate in the camps. During an interview with the French writer Francois Mauriac, Wiesel was persuaded to end that silence. He subsequently wrote La Nuit (Night). Since its publication in 1958, La Nuit has been translated into 30 languages and millions of copies have been sold. In Night, Wiesel describes his experiences and emotions at the hands of the Nazis during the Holocaust: the roundup of his family and neighbors in the Romanian town of Sighet; deportation by cattle car to the concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau; the division of his family forever during the selection process; the mental and physical anguish he and his fellow prisoners experienced as they were stripped of their humanity; and the death march from Auschwitz-Birkenau to the concentration camp at Buchenwald.

In 1978, President Jimmy Carter appointed him Chairman of the President's Commission on the Holocaust. In 1980, he became Founding Chairman of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council. Wiesel was also the founding president of the Paris-based Universal Academy of Cultures.

Wiesel's efforts to defend human rights and peace throughout the world earned him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States Congressional Gold Medal and the Medal of Liberty Award, the rank of Grand-Croix in the French Legion of Honor, and in 1986, the Nobel Peace Prize. He received more than 100 honorary degrees from institutions of higher learning.

Three months after he received the Nobel Peace Prize, Elie Wiesel and his wife Marion established The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity. Its mission is to advance the cause of human rights and peace throughout the world by creating a new forum for the discussion of urgent ethical issues confronting humanity.

His more than 40 books have won numerous awards, including the Prix Medicis for A Beggar in Jerusalem, the Prix Livre Inter for The Testament, and the Grand Prize for Literature from the City of Paris for The Fifth Son. The first volume of Wiesel's memoirs, All Rivers Run to the Sea, was published in New York (Knopf) in December 1995. The second volume, And the Sea is Never Full, was published in New York (Knopf) in November 1999.

Elie Wiesel was Distinguished Professor of Judaic Studies at the City University of New York (1972-1976), and first Henry Luce Visiting Scholar in the Humanities and Social Thought at Yale University (1982-1983). In 1976, he became the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Boston University where he also held the title of University Professor.

The Elie Wiesel Award recognizes internationally prominent individuals whose actions have advanced the Museum's vision of a world where people confront hatred, prevent genocide, and promote human dignity. Established in 2011 as the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Award and renamed for inaugural recipient Elie Wiesel, it is the Museum's highest honor.

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Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky.

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Th Nazi policy (1941-1945) executed 6 billion people. the Nazi policy was introduced by Heinrich Himmler and administered in concentration camps by Adolf Eichmann.

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The term "ghetto" is defined in the Merriam Webster Dictionary as "a part of the city in which members of a particular group or race live in usually poor conditions." There are still many "Ghettos" in America today. Many ghettos in America are associated with violence and crime. Some of the violent ghettos in America are located in Chicago.

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Dangerous Neighborhoods: 25 Worst Focus on Single-Family Areas, Not Inner-Cities

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You’re more likely to be the victim of violent crime in Detroit—specifically, in the neighborhood near the intersection of Livernois Avenue and West Chicago Street—than in any other neighborhood in the United States, according to a new study by NeighborhoodScout.com.
Your chances of becoming a victim there are 1 in 7, as compared to 1 in 15 for the least-bad neighborhood of the 25 on the list, near the intersection of South Indiana Avenue and East 60th Street in Chicago.The study analyzed real estate data and crime statistics from some 72,000 neighborhoods to find the 25 most plagued by violent crime--murder, forcible rape, armed robbery and aggravated assault.

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Belzec is one of the lesser known concentration camps because there were only two survivors. It was one of the first concentration camps to be made and it killed over 500,000 people.

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With the President's recent faux-pas concerning Nazi concentration camps, these horrific places are once again in the news.

Many Nazi concentration camps were located in Poland, but to call them "Polish death camps" is an error that the President of the United States should have known not to make. These Nazi-run camps were designed as prisons, labor camps, death camps, and human experiment laboratories.

Not every concentration camp was considered a death camp, meaning that not all were specifically designed and built to kill hundreds of thousands of Jews and other "undesirables," but every camp was riddled with death and disease.

Below is a list of some of the most infamous Nazi concentration camps.

The 10 Worst Nazi Concentration Camps of WWII

1. Auschwitz-Birkenau. Also known as Auschwitz I and II, these camps are probably the most infamous camps of World War II. The complex was made up three smaller sub-camps. One was a work camp. When the prisoner was too old or too sick to work, he was sent to the death camp. Once murdered, slain prisoners were sent to the final facility - a crematorium. Auschwits had the capacity to murder 20,000 prisoners per day. It is estimated that at least 1.1 million people died there.

2. Treblinka. This complex was another extermination camp. Like Auschwitz, one portion of the facility was a forced labor camp while the other was death camp. The workers were forced to work in the gravel pits and irrigation areas. When they could no longer work, the prisoners were sent to the death camp; Treblinka II. It is estimated that at least 870,000 Jews and Roma people were killed at Treblinka.

3. Ebensee. This camp was established in November of 1943 in Austria. This was another forced labor camp that provided slave labor to build underground tunnels for Nazi armaments. The prisoners were literally worked to death. Due to the death rates there, Ebensee was considered to be one of the worst concentration camps in the Nazi network.

4. Sobibor. Sobibor was another Nazi extermination camp located in Poland. It is estimated that 200,000 to 250,000 prisoners were murdered there. On October 14, 1943, the prisoners revolted, killing several guards. Nearly 600 prisoners were able to escape. Almost immediately after the revolt occurred, the Nazis destroyed the camp and planted a huge number of trees in its place in an effort to conceal the camp's former location.

Lesser-Known Concentration Camps

5. Majdanek. Located near Lubin, Poland, Majdanek was considered to be a forced labor camp. However, it is estimated that nearly 80,000 people died there. The prisoners were forced to work the Steyr-Daimler-Puch weapons/munitions factory. However, the camp was also used a morbid sorting facility. Prisoners were forced to sort the property and valuables taken from the murder victims located at the Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka extermination camps.

6. Belzec. This camp is another Nazi extermination camp located in Poland. It is one of the first camps built and used in Operation Reinhard, the Nazi's systematic plan to exterminate Polish Jews. It is estimated that more than 500,000 Jews were murdered at Belzec; however, little is known about the facility because there are only two known survivors of the death camp.

7. Chelmno. This extermination camp was infamous for its use of gas vans. Prisoners were herded into air-tight compartments located in the back of vans. The doors were sealed and the van's exhaust system was pumped into the air-tight compartment until the prisoners died of carbon monoxide poisoning. It has been estimated that more than 150,000 people were killed at Chelmno.

8. Bergen-Belsen. This prisoner of war camp was located in Germany was used primarily for hostage exchanges. It is estimated that about 50,000 prisoners died in the camp, mainly of typhus, which caused the prisoners to become feverish and often deteriorate into a state of delirium.

Final Camps of Death

9. Buchenwald. Buchenwald was a forced labor camp located in Germany. Prisoners were forced to work in weapons and armament facilities. However, the camp was also used as a Nazi research facility for typhus. While at the camp, prisoners were commonly exposed to the disease to allow Nazi scientists to test various experimental vaccines. It is estimated that more than 55,000 prisoners were killed at Buchenwald.

10. Dachau - Dachau was located in Germany and was the first concentration camp of the Nazi regime. This camp was also the longest operating camp in the Nazi network and was used as a prototype facility that all future camps would be designed after. It also served as a training facility for concentration camp guards.

Scientists at Dachau experimented on the prisoners as well. Their terrible research covered high altitude effects on the human body, and making sea water drinkable; among other experiments. These experiments usually resulted in the crippling, disfiguring, or death of the subjects.

These are only glimpses into the horrific events that took places in the Nazi concentration camps. There were about 15,000 Nazi extermination, forced labor, and concentration camps throughout Germany. The full extent of the atrocities that took place in those camps may never fully be known.
Originally published on TopSecretWriters.com

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10 of the Worst Nazi Concentration Camps

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With the President's recent faux-pas concerning Nazi concentration camps, these horrific places are once again in the news. Many Nazi concentration camps were located in Poland, but to call them "Polish death camps" is an error that the President of the United States should have known not to make.

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Auschwitz functioned as a place of forced labor.

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The Axis Powers in the 1940's made many world-altering decisions. The first of these decisions was made by Japan when they declared war on China in July 1937. Japan soon triumphed over China, and captured most of China's major cities and ports. The second decision was on Spetember 1st, 1939 with Germany's declaration of war against Poland. Germany defeated Poland, and soon declared war on France, who soon surrendered. However, Italy joined the European theatre when the fall of France was inevitable. Some of these decisions were beneficial to the Axis, while most of them spelled that their demise was inevitable as well.

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The three principal partners in the Axis alliance were Germany, Italy, and Japan. Learn more about the Axis powers in WW2.

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A gas chamber is used as punishment in the U.S. to execute criminals and convicted murderers. The most common used poisonous is hydrogen cyanide, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide have been used also.

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A gas chamber is an apparatus for killing humans or other animals with gas, consisting of a sealed chamber into which a poisonous or asphyxiant gas is introduced. The most commonly used poisonous agent is hydrogen cyanide; carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide have also been used.

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One of Hitlers commanders was Heinrich Himmler. Himmler joined the Nazi in Germany. He commited suicide to escape being captured after World War II.

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Living in a Jewish ghetto was very hard, with the crowded, dirty, streets and contagious disease. To escape this tough life style many people committed suicide.

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There was more than one type of concentration camp. There were labor camps, transit camps, prisoner of war camps, and extermination camps.

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Concentration camps were a large part of the Holocaust. Although this general term is used to refer to the camps set up in Germany where Jews and other 'inferiors' were taken for imprisonment and death, there were actually many different kinds of camps that were built during the Holocaust era. Labor camps existed where inferiors were forced into slave labor, starved, and tortured. There were also transit camps for those being shuttled between various other camps. There were prisoner-of-war camps for war criminals and other prisoners that were against the German military, and extermination, or death, camps that were built specifically as a place to take people to die.

Most of the prisoners that were held in concentration camps between 1933 and 1938 were actually political prisoners. These included anyone who spoke out against the Nazi party or Hitler himself. As the discrimination against Jews became more organized in 1938, Nazis began taking Jews and other inferiors to these camps. Prisoners were tortured, forced to work in slave labor, sleep in small spaces, starved for food, used for medical experiments, and held against their will. They were also killed, often for no reason and in mass executions.

There were six extermination camps that were created by the Nazis, which are some of the most popular concentration camps that people speak of today:

-Auschwitz-Birkenau
-Majdanek
-Chelmno
-Sobibor
-Belzec
-Treblinka

When prisoners were taken to these camps, they usually knew they were being taken to their death. Upon arrival at extermination camps, it was common practice to order prisoners to remove their clothing and head to the "shower". The shower was actually a gas chamber, where Jews were locked inside and suffocated with toxic gases until they died.

Auschwitz was the largest of the concentration camps, and today remains the most famous. This camp was home to some of the most famous survivor and hero stories from World War II and the Holocaust, as well as some of the biggest tragedies. There were an estimated 1.1 million 'inferiors' killed at Auschwitz alone. While the Nazis attempted to make Auschwitz 'disappear' before the Allied forces moved in, there were a few survivors that made it out and lived to tell their story.

Concentration camps were generally thought to be the end of the line for Jews and other inferiors. If they weren't brought immediately to die, they were killed through work, medical experimentation, torture, starvation, exposure, disease, or in time by gas, cremation, or execution-style shootings. These camps are the most harrowing part of the entire Holocaust for most people because of the sheer bloodshed and lack of humanity that existed within them.

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All you need to know about the concentration camps during WW2. From Auschwitz-Birkenau to Treblinka. Read about what horrors took place in these labour camps.

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the term "holocaust," origninated from the greek word "holokauston" which means "sacrifice by fire". this refers to the nazi's planning to slaughter the jewish people.

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Who Was Adolf Hitler?

Adolf Hitler was chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, serving as dictator and leader of the Nazi Party, or National Socialist German Workers Party, for the bulk of his time in power.

Hitler's fascist policies precipitated World War II and led to the genocide known as the Holocaust, which resulted in the deaths of some six million Jews and another five million noncombatants.

Family

The fourth of six children, Hitler was born to Alois Hitler and Klara Polzl. As a child, Hitler clashed frequently with his emotionally harsh father, who also didn't approve of his son's later interest in fine art as a career.

Following the death of his younger brother, Edmund, in 1900, Hitler became detached and introverted.

Young Hitler

Hitler showed an early interest in German nationalism, rejecting the authority of Austria-Hungary. This nationalism would become the motivating force of Hitler's life.

In 1903, Hitler's father died suddenly. Two years later, Hitler's mother allowed her son to drop out of school. After her death in December 1907, Hitler moved to Vienna and worked as a casual laborer and watercolor painter. He applied to the Academy of Fine Arts twice and was rejected both times.

Lacking money outside of an orphan's pension and funds from selling postcards, he stayed in homeless shelters. Hitler later pointed to these years as the time when he first cultivated his anti-Semitism, though there is some debate about this account.

In 1913, Hitler relocated to Munich. At the outbreak of World War I, he applied to serve in the German army. He was accepted in August 1914, though he was still an Austrian citizen.

Although Hitler spent much of his time away from the front lines (with some reports that his recollections of his time on the field were generally exaggerated), he was present at a number of significant battles and was wounded at the Battle of the Somme. He was decorated for bravery, receiving the Iron Cross First Class and the Black Wound Badge.

Hitler became embittered over the collapse of the war effort. The experience reinforced his passionate German patriotism, and he was shocked by Germany's surrender in 1918. Like other German nationalists, he purportedly believed that the German army had been betrayed by civilian leaders and Marxists.

He found the Treaty of Versailles degrading, particularly the demilitarization of the Rhineland and the stipulation that Germany accepts responsibility for starting the war.

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Nazi Germany and Speeches

After World War I, Hitler returned to Munich and continued to work for the German military. As an intelligence officer, he monitored the activities of the German Workers' Party (DAP) and adopted many of the anti-Semitic, nationalist and anti-Marxist ideas of party founder Anton Drexler.

In September 1919, Hitler joined the DAP, which changed its name to the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP) - often abbreviated to Nazi.

Hitler personally designed the Nazi party banner, appropriating the swastika symbol and placing it in a white circle on a red background. He soon gained notoriety for his vitriolic speeches against the Treaty of Versailles, rival politicians, Marxists and Jews. In 1921, Hitler replaced Drexler as the Nazi party chairman.

Hitler's fervid beer-hall speeches began attracting regular audiences. Early followers included army captain Ernst Rohm, the head of the Nazi paramilitary organization the Sturmabteilung (SA), which protected meetings and frequently attacked political opponents.

Beer Hall Putsch

On November 8, 1923, Hitler and the SA stormed a public meeting featuring Bavarian prime minister Gustav Kahr at a large beer hall in Munich. Hitler announced that the national revolution had begun and declared the formation of a new government.

After a short struggle that led to several deaths, the coup known as the Beer Hall Putsch failed. Hitler was arrested and tried for high treason and sentenced to nine months in prison.

'Mein Kampf'

During Hitler's nine months in prison in 1924, he dictated most of the first volume of his autobiographical book and political manifesto, Mein Kampf ("My Struggle"), to his deputy, Rudolf Hess.

The first volume was published in 1925, and a second volume came out in 1927. It was abridged and translated into 11 languages, selling more than five million copies by 1939. A work of propaganda and falsehoods, the book laid out Hitler's plans for transforming German society into one based on race.

In the first volume, Hitler shared his Anti-Semitic, pro-Aryan worldview along with his sense of "betrayal" at the outcome of World War I, calling for revenge against France and expansion eastward into Russia.

The second volume outlined his plan to gain and maintain power. While often illogical and full of grammatical errors, Mein Kampf was provocative and subversive, making it appealing to the many Germans who felt displaced at the end of World War I.

Rise to Power

With millions unemployed, the Great Depression in Germany provided a political opportunity for Hitler. Germans were ambivalent to the parliamentary republic and increasingly open to extremist options. In 1932, Hitler ran against 84-year-old Paul von Hindenburg for the presidency.

Hitler came in second in both rounds of the election, garnering more than 36 percent of the vote in the final count. The results established Hitler as a strong force in German politics. Hindenburg reluctantly agreed to appoint Hitler as chancellor in order to promote political balance.

Hitler as Führer

Hitler used his position as chancellor to form a de facto legal dictatorship. The Reichstag Fire Decree, announced after a suspicious fire at Germany's parliament building, suspended basic rights and allowed detention without trial.

Hitler also engineered the passage of the Enabling Act, which gave his cabinet full legislative powers for a period of four years and allowed for deviations from the constitution.

Anointing himself as Führer ("leader") and having achieved full control over the legislative and executive branches of government, Hitler and his political allies embarked on a systematic suppression of the remaining political opposition.

By the end of June, the other parties had been intimidated into disbanding. On July 14, 1933, Hitler's Nazi Party was declared the only legal political party in Germany. In October of that year, Hitler ordered Germany's withdrawal from the League of Nations.

Night of the Long Knives

Military opposition was also punished. The demands of the SA for more political and military power led to the infamous Night of the Long Knives, a series of assassinations that took place from June 30 to July 2, 1934.

Rohm, a perceived rival, and other SA leaders, along with a number of Hitler's political enemies, were hunted down and murdered at locations across Germany.

The day before Hindenburg's death in August 1934, the cabinet had enacted a law abolishing the office of president, combining its powers with those of the chancellor. Hitler thus became head of state as well as head of government and was formally named leader and chancellor. As the undisputed head of state, Hitler became supreme commander of the armed forces.

Hitler the Vegetarian

Hitler's self-imposed dietary restrictions towards the end of his life included abstinence from alcohol and meat.

Fueled by fanaticism over what he believed was a superior Aryan race, he encouraged Germans to keep their bodies pure of any intoxicating or unclean substances and promoted anti-smoking campaigns across the country.

Hitler's Laws and Regulations Against Jews

From 1933 until the start of the war in 1939, Hitler and his Nazi regime instituted hundreds of laws and regulations to restrict and exclude Jews in society. These anti-Semitic laws were issued throughout all levels of government, making good on the Nazis' pledge to persecute Jews.

On April 1, 1933, Hitler implemented a national boycott of Jewish businesses. This was followed by the "Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service" of April 7, 1933, which excluded Jews from state service.

The law was a Nazi implementation of the Aryan Paragraph, which called for the exclusion of Jews and non-Aryans from organizations, employment and eventually all aspects of public life.

Photo: Bundesarchiv, Bild 102-14469 / CC-BY-SA 3.0 [CC BY-SA 3.0 de (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en)], via Wikimedia Commons

Additional legislation restricted the number of Jewish students at schools and universities, limited Jews working in medical and legal professions, and revoked the licenses of Jewish tax consultants.

The Main Office for Press and Propaganda of the German Student Union also called for "Action Against the Un-German Spirit," prompting students to burn more than 25,000 "Un-German" books, ushering in an era of censorship and Nazi propaganda. By 1934, Jewish actors were forbidden from performing in film or in the theater.

On September 15, 1935, the Reichstag introduced the Nuremberg Laws, which defined a "Jew" as anyone with three or four grandparents who were Jewish, regardless of whether the person considered themselves Jewish or observed the religion.

The Nuremberg Laws also set forth the "Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour," which banned marriage between non-Jewish and Jewish Germans; and the Reich Citizenship Law, which deprived "non-Aryans" of the benefits of German citizenship.

In 1936, Hitler and his regime muted their Anti-Semitic rhetoric and actions when Germany hosted the Winter and Summer Olympic Games, in an effort to avoid criticism on the world stage and a negative impact on tourism.

After the Olympics, the Nazi persecution of Jews intensified with the continued "Aryanization" of Jewish businesses, which involved the firing of Jewish workers and takeover by non-Jewish owners. The Nazis continued to segregate Jews from German society, banning them from public school, universities, theaters, sports events and "Aryan" zones.

Jewish doctors were also barred from treating "Aryan" patients. Jews were required to carry identity cards and, in the fall of 1938, Jewish people had to have their passports stamped with a "J."

Kristallnacht

On November 9 and 10, 1938, a wave of violent anti-Jewish pogroms swept Germany, Austria and parts of the Sudetenland. Nazis destroyed synagogues and vandalized Jewish homes, schools and businesses. Close to 100 Jews were murdered.

Called Kristallnacht, the "Night of Crystal" or the "Night of Broken Glass," referring to the broken window glass left in the wake of the destruction, it escalated the Nazi persecution of Jews to another level of brutality and violence. Almost 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and sent to concentration camps, signaling more horrors to come.

Persecution of Homosexuals and People with Disabilities

Hitler's eugenic policies also targeted children with physical and developmental disabilities, later authorizing a euthanasia program for disabled adults.

His regime also persecuted homosexuals, arresting an estimated 100,000 men from 1933 to 1945, some of whom were imprisoned or sent to concentration camps. At the camps, gay prisoners were forced to wear pink triangles to identify their homosexuality, which Nazis considered a crime and a disease.

The Holocaust and Concentration Camps

Between the start of World War II, in 1939, and its end, in 1945, Nazis and their collaborators were responsible for the deaths of at least 11 million noncombatants, including about six million Jews, representing two-thirds of the Jewish population in Europe.

As part of Hitler's "Final Solution," the genocide enacted by the regime would come to be known as the Holocaust.

Photo: Gustav Hille [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Deaths and mass executions took place in concentration and extermination camps including Auschwitz-Birkenau, Bergen-Belsen, Dachau and Treblinka, among many others. Other persecuted groups included Poles, communists, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses and trade unionists.

Prisoners were used as forced laborers for SS construction projects, and in some instances they were forced to build and expand concentration camps. They were subject to starvation, torture and horrific brutalities, including gruesome and painful medical experiments.

Hitler probably never visited the concentration camps and did not speak publicly about the mass killings. However, Germans documented the atrocities committed at the camps on paper and in films.

World War II

In 1938, Hitler, along with several other European leaders, signed the Munich Pact. The treaty ceded the Sudetenland districts to Germany, reversing part of the Versailles Treaty. As a result of the summit, Hitler was named Time magazine's Man of the Year for 1938.

This diplomatic win only whetted his appetite for a renewed German dominance. On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland, sparking the beginning of World War II. In response, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later.

In 1940 Hitler escalated his military activities, invading Norway, Denmark, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Belgium. By July, Hitler ordered bombing raids on the United Kingdom, with the goal of invasion.

Germany's formal alliance with Japan and Italy, known collectively as the Axis powers, was agreed upon toward the end of September to deter the United States from supporting and protecting the British.

On June 22, 1941, Hitler violated the 1939 non-aggression pact with Joseph Stalin, sending a massive army of German troops into the Soviet Union. The invading force seized a huge area of Russia before Hitler temporarily halted the invasion and diverted forces to encircle Leningrad and Kiev.

The pause allowed the Red Army to regroup and conduct a counter-offensive attack, and the German advance was stopped outside Moscow in December 1941.

On December 7, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. Honoring the alliance with Japan, Hitler was now at war against the Allied powers, a coalition that included Britain, the world's largest empire, led by Prime Minister Winston Churchill; the United States, the world's greatest financial power, led by President Franklin D. Roosevelt; and the Soviet Union, which had the world's largest army, commanded by Stalin.

Stumbling Toward Defeat

Initially hoping that he could play the Allies off of one another, Hitler's military judgment became increasingly erratic, and the Axis powers could not sustain his aggressive and expansive war.

In late 1942, German forces failed to seize the Suez Canal, leading to the loss of German control over North Africa. The German army also suffered defeats at the Battle of Stalingrad (1942-43), seen as a turning point in the war, and the Battle of Kursk (1943).

On June 6, 1944, on what would come to be known as D-Day, the Western Allied armies landed in northern France. As a result of these significant setbacks, many German officers concluded that defeat was inevitable and that Hitler's continued rule would result in the destruction of the country.

Organized efforts to assassinate the dictator gained traction, and opponents came close in 1944 with the notorious July Plot, though it ultimately proved unsuccessful.

Hitler's Bunker

By early 1945, Hitler realized that Germany was going to lose the war. The Soviets had driven the German army back into Western Europe, their Red Army had surrounded Berlin and the Allies were advancing into Germany from the west.

On January 16, 1945, Hitler moved his center of command to an underground air-raid shelter near the Reich Chancellery in Berlin. Known as the Führerbunker, the reinforced concrete shelter had about 30 rooms spread out over some 2,700 square feet.

Hitler's bunker was furnished with framed oil paintings and upholstered furniture, fresh drinking water from a well, pumps to remove groundwater, a diesel electricity generator and other amenities.

At midnight, going into April 29, 1945, Hitler married his girlfriend, Eva Braun, in a small civil ceremony in his underground bunker. Around this time, Hitler was informed of the execution of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. He reportedly feared the same fate could befall him.

Death

Hitler committed suicide on April 30, 1945, fearful of being captured by enemy troops. Hitler took a dose of cyanide and then shot himself in the head. Eva Braun is believed to have poisoned herself with cyanide at around the same time.

Their bodies were carried to a bomb crater near the Reich Chancellery, where their remains were doused with gasoline and burned. Hitler was 56 years old at the time of his death.

Berlin fell to Soviet troops on May 2, 1945. Five days later, on May 7, 1945, Germany surrendered unconditionally to the Allies.

A 2018 analysis of the exhumed remains of Hitler's teeth and skull, secretly preserved for decades by Russian intelligence agencies, have confirmed that the Führer was killed by means of cyanide and a gunshot wound.

Legacy

Hitler's political programs brought about a horribly destructive world war, leaving behind a devastated and impoverished Eastern and Central Europe, including Germany.

His policies inflicted human suffering on an unprecedented scale and resulted in the death of tens of millions of people, including more than 20 million in the Soviet Union and six million Jews in Europe.

Hitler's defeat marked the end of Germany's dominance in European history and the defeat of fascism. A new ideological global conflict, the Cold War, emerged in the aftermath of the devastating violence of World War II.

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Adolf Hitler was chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, serving as dictator and leader of the Nazi Party, or National Socialist German Workers Party, for the bulk of his time in power. Hitler's fascist policies precipitated World War II and led to the genocide known as the Holocaust, which resulted in the deaths of some six million Jews and another five million noncombatants.

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Alfred Nobel (born October 21, 1833, Stockholm, Sweden-died December 10, 1896, San Remo, Italy) was a Swedish chemist, engineer, and industrialist who invented dynamite and other more powerful explosives and who also founded the Nobel Prizes.

Alfred Nobel was the fourth son of Immanuel and Caroline Nobel. Immanuel was an inventor and engineer who had married Caroline Andrietta Ahlsell in 1827. The couple had eight children, of whom only Alfred and three brothers reached adulthood. Alfred was prone to illness as a child, but he enjoyed a close relationship with his mother and displayed a lively intellectual curiosity from an early age. He was interested in explosives, and he learned the fundamentals of engineering from his father. Immanuel, meanwhile, had failed at various business ventures until moving in 1837 to St. Petersburg in Russia, where he prospered as a manufacturer of explosive mines and machine tools. The Nobel family left Stockholm in 1842 to join the father in St. Petersburg. Alfred's newly prosperous parents were now able to send him to private tutors, and he proved to be an eager pupil. He was a competent chemist by age 16 and was fluent in English, French, German, and Russian as well as Swedish.

Alfred Nobel left Russia in 1850 to spend a year in Paris studying chemistry and then spent time in the United States working under the direction of John Ericsson, the builder of the ironclad warship Monitor. Upon his return to St. Petersburg, in 1852, Nobel worked in his father's factory, which made military equipment during the Crimean War. After the war ended in 1856, the company had difficulty switching to the peacetime production of steamboat machinery, and it went bankrupt in 1859.

Alfred and his parents returned to Sweden, while his brothers Robert and Ludvig stayed behind in Russia to salvage what was left of the family business. Alfred soon began experimenting with explosives in a small laboratory on his father's estate. At the time, the only dependable explosive for use in mines was black powder, a form of gunpowder. A recently discovered liquid compound, nitroglycerin, was a much more powerful explosive, but it was so unstable that it could not be handled with any degree of safety. Nevertheless, Nobel in 1862 built a small factory to manufacture nitroglycerin, and at the same time he undertook research in the hope of finding a safe way to control the explosive's detonation. In 1863 he invented a practical detonator consisting of a wooden plug inserted into a larger charge of nitroglycerin held in a metal container; the explosion of the plug's small charge of black powder serves to detonate the much more powerful charge of liquid nitroglycerin. This detonator marked the beginning of Nobel's reputation as an inventor as well as the fortune he was to acquire as a maker of explosives. In 1865 Nobel invented an improved detonator called a blasting cap; it consisted of a small metal cap containing a charge of mercury fulminate that can be exploded by either shock or moderate heat. The invention of the blasting cap inaugurated the modern use of high explosives.

Nitroglycerin itself, however, remained difficult to transport and extremely dangerous to handle. So dangerous, in fact, that Nobel's nitroglycerin factory blew up in 1864, killing his younger brother Emil and several other people. Undaunted by this tragic accident, Nobel built several factories to manufacture nitroglycerin for use in concert with his blasting caps. These factories were as safe as the knowledge of the time allowed, but accidental explosions still occasionally occurred. Nobel's second important invention was that of dynamite in 1867. By chance, he discovered that nitroglycerin was absorbed to dryness by kieselguhr, a porous siliceous earth, and the resulting mixture was much safer to use and easier to handle than nitroglycerin alone. Nobel named the new product dynamite (from Greek dynamis, "power") and was granted patents for it in Great Britain (1867) and the United States (1868). Dynamite established Nobel's fame worldwide and was soon put to use in blasting tunnels, cutting canals, and building railways and roads.

In the 1870s and '80s Nobel built a network of factories throughout Europe to manufacture dynamite, and he formed a web of corporations to produce and market his explosives. He also continued to experiment in search of better ones, and in 1875 he invented a more powerful form of dynamite, blasting gelatin, which he patented the following year. Again by chance, he had discovered that mixing a solution of nitroglycerin with a fluffy substance known as nitrocellulose results in a tough, plastic material that has a high water resistance and greater blasting power than ordinary dynamites. In 1887 Nobel introduced ballistite, one of the first nitroglycerin smokeless powders and a precursor of cordite. Although Nobel held the patents to dynamite and his other explosives, he was in constant conflict with competitors who stole his processes, a fact that forced him into protracted patent litigation on several occasions.

Nobel's brothers Ludvig and Robert, in the meantime, had developed newly discovered oilfields near Baku (now in Azerbaijan) along the Caspian Sea and had themselves become immensely wealthy. Alfred's worldwide interests in explosives, along with his own holdings in his brothers' companies in Russia, brought him a large fortune. In 1893 he became interested in Sweden's arms industry, and the following year he bought an ironworks at Bofors, near Varmland, that became the nucleus of the well-known Bofors arms factory. Besides explosives, Nobel made many other inventions, such as artificial silk and leather, and altogether he registered more than 350 patents in various countries.

Nobel's complex personality puzzled his contemporaries. Although his business interests required him to travel almost constantly, he remained a lonely recluse who was prone to fits of depression. He led a retired and simple life and was a man of ascetic habits, yet he could be a courteous dinner host, a good listener, and a man of incisive wit. He never married, and apparently preferred the joys of inventing to those of romantic attachment. He had an abiding interest in literature and wrote plays, novels, and poems, almost all of which remained unpublished. He had amazing energy and found it difficult to relax after intense bouts of work. Among his contemporaries, he had the reputation of a liberal or even a socialist, but he actually distrusted democracy, opposed suffrage for women, and maintained an attitude of benign paternalism toward his many employees. Though Nobel was essentially a pacifist and hoped that the destructive powers of his inventions would help bring an end to war, his view of mankind and nations was pessimistic.

By 1895 Nobel had developed angina pectoris, and he died of a cerebral hemorrhage at his villa in San Remo, Italy, in 1896. At his death his worldwide business empire consisted of more than 90 factories manufacturing explosives and ammunition. The opening of his will, which he had drawn up in Paris on November 27, 1895, and had deposited in a bank in Stockholm, contained a great surprise for his family, friends, and the general public. He had always been generous in humanitarian and scientific philanthropies, and he left the bulk of his fortune in trust to establish what came to be the most highly regarded of international awards, the Nobel Prizes.

We can only speculate about the reasons for Nobel's establishment of the prizes that bear his name. He was reticent about himself, and he confided in no one about his decision in the months preceding his death. The most plausible assumption is that a bizarre incident in 1888 may have triggered the train of reflection that culminated in his bequest for the Nobel Prizes. That year Alfred's brother Ludvig had died while staying in Cannes, France. The French newspapers reported Ludvig's death but confused him with Alfred, and one paper sported the headline "Le marchand de la mort est mort" ("The merchant of death is dead.") Perhaps Alfred Nobel established the prizes to avoid precisely the sort of posthumous reputation suggested by this premature obituary. It is certain that the actual awards he instituted reflect his lifelong interest in the fields of physics, chemistry, physiology, and literature. There is also abundant evidence that his friendship with the prominent Austrian pacifist Bertha von Suttner inspired him to establish the prize for peace.

Nobel himself, however, remains a figure of paradoxes and contradictions: a brilliant, lonely man, part pessimist and part idealist, who invented the powerful explosives used in modern warfare but also established the world's most prestigious prizes for intellectual services rendered to humanity.

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Alfred Nobel | Biography, Inventions, & Facts

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Alfred Nobel, Swedish chemist, engineer, and industrialist who invented dynamite and other explosives. He also founded the Nobel Prizes, which were supported by his fortune after his death. He made other inventions, such as artificial silk and leather, and registered hundreds of patents in various countries.

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A meaningful Jewish prayer that reflects thier values. This prayer is said by mourners at funerals.

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A mystic is a person who believes in their religious mysteries. A person who commits to studying the Torah can experience a mystical transformation. Jewish mysticism is in may forms, one is called the kabbalah, which is the ac=ncient tradition of mystical interpretation of the Bible.

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Anti-Semitism is the hatred and discrimination of Jews. Anti-Semitism has decreased greatly since the ending of World War II but is now on the rise in the Islamic World and Middle-Eastern countries due to political support.

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Antisemitism: The Longest Hatred - United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

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In many Middle Eastern countries, antisemitism is promoted in state-controlled media and educational systems, and militant groups with political power, such as Hamas, use genocidal language regarding Jews and the State of Israel. The former president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, repeatedly declared the Holocaust a "myth" and that Israel should be "wiped off the map."

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Death marches have been used before. They we were used back in 1941. Hundreds of thousands of prisoners were herded on highways back and fourth to concentration camps. They were usually walked in the dead of winter where the the people were starved to death and many people got weak and died. If you lagged behind, you got shot right on the spot. It was a terrible thing the Germans did, they did it to lower the popultion on the way to the camps.

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deportation was the easy way to kill thousands at a time.

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Holocaust Survivor Testimonies: The Mass Deportation from the Warsaw Ghetto

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An example of a fascist government:

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Contents

1. Nazi Party Origins

2. Beer Hall Putsch Sends Hitler to Prison

3. Hitler and the Nazis Come to Power: 1933

4. Nazi Foreign Policy: 1933-39

5. Nazis Fight to Dominate Europe: 1939-45

6. The Holocaust

7. Denazification

The National Socialist German Workers' Party, or Nazi Party, grew into a mass movement and ruled Germany through totalitarian means from 1933 to 1945 under the leadership of Adolf Hitler (1889-1945). Founded in 1919 as the German Workers' Party, the group promoted German pride and anti-Semitism, and expressed dissatisfaction with the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, the 1919 peace settlement that ended World War I (1914-1918) and required Germany to make numerous concessions and reparations. Hitler joined the party the year it was founded and became its leader in 1921. In 1933, he became chancellor of Germany and his Nazi government soon assumed dictatorial powers. After Germany's defeat in World War II (1939-45), the Nazi Party was outlawed and many of its top officials were convicted of war crimes related to the murder of some 6 million European Jews during the Holocaust.

Nazi Party Origins

In 1919, army veteran Adolf Hitler, frustrated by Germany's defeat in World War I, which had left the nation economically depressed and politically unstable, joined a fledgling political organization called the German Workers' Party. Founded earlier that same year by a small group of men including locksmith Anton Drexler (1884-1942) and journalist Karl Harrer (1890-1926), the party promoted German nationalism and anti-Semitism, and felt that the Treaty of Versailles, the peace settlement that ended the war, was extremely unjust to Germany by burdening it with reparations it could never pay. Hitler soon emerged as a charismatic public speaker and began attracting new members with speeches blaming Jews and Marxists for Germany's problems and espousing extreme nationalism and the concept of an Aryan "master race." In July 1921, he assumed leadership of the organization, which by then had been renamed the Nationalist Socialist German Workers' (Nazi) Party.

Did you know? Sales of Hitler's political autobiography "Mein Kampf," sometimes referred to as the bible of the Nazi Party, made him a millionaire. From 1933 to 1945, free copies were given to every newlywed German couple. After World War II, the publication of "Mein Kampf" in Germany became illegal.

Through the 1920s, Hitler gave speech after speech in which he stated that unemployment, rampant inflation, hunger and economic stagnation in postwar Germany would continue until there was a total revolution in German life. Most problems could be solved, he explained, if communists and Jews were driven from the nation. His fiery speeches swelled the ranks of the Nazi Party, especially among young, economically disadvantaged Germans.

Many dissatisfied former army officers in Munich joined the Nazis, including Ernst Röhm, the man responsible for recruiting the Sturmabteilung (SA) ("strong arm" squads) Hitler used to protect party meetings and attack opponents.

Beer Hall Putsch Sends Hitler to Prison

In 1923, Hitler and his followers staged the Beer Hall Putsch in Munich, a failed takeover of the government in Bavaria, a state in southern Germany. Hitler had hoped that the "putsch," or coup d'etat, would spark a larger revolution against the national government. In the aftermath of the Beer Hall Putsch, Hitler was convicted of treason and sentenced to five years in prison but spent less than a year behind bars (during which time he dictated the first volume of Mein Kampf, or My Struggle, his political autobiography). The publicity surrounding the Beer Hall Putsch and Hitler's subsequent trial turned him into a national figure. After his release from prison, he set about rebuilding the Nazi Party and attempting to gain power through the election process.

Hitler and the Nazis Come to Power: 1933

In 1929, Germany entered a period of severe economic depression and widespread unemployment. The Nazis capitalized on the situation by criticizing the ruling government and began to win elections. In the July 1932 elections, they captured 230 out of 608 seats in the "Reichstag," or German parliament. In January 1933, Hitler was appointed German chancellor and his Nazi government soon came to control every aspect of German life.

Under Nazi rule, all other political parties were banned. In 1933, the Nazis opened their first concentration camp in Dachau, Germany, to house political prisoners. Dachau evolved into a death camp where countless thousands of Jews died from malnutrition, disease and overwork or were executed. In addition to Jews, the camp's prisoners included members of other groups Hitler considered unfit for the new Germany, including artists, intellectuals, Gypsies, the physically and mentally handicapped and homosexuals.

Nazi Foreign Policy: 1933-39

Once Hitler gained control of the government, he directed Nazi Germany's foreign policy toward undoing the Treaty of Versailles and restoring Germany's standing in the world. He railed against the treaty's redrawn map of Europe and argued it denied Germany, Europe's most populous state, "living space" for its growing population. Although the Treaty of Versailles was explicitly based on the principle of the self-determination of peoples, he pointed out that it had separated Germans from Germans by creating such new postwar states as Austria and Czechoslovakia, where many Germans lived.

From the mid- to late 1930s, Hitler undermined the postwar international order step by step. He withdrew Germany from the League of Nations in 1933, rebuilt German armed forces beyond what was permitted by the Treaty of Versailles, reoccupied the German Rhineland in 1936, annexed Austria in 1938 and invaded Czechoslovakia in 1939. When Nazi Germany moved toward Poland, Great Britain and France countered further aggression by guaranteeing Polish security. Nevertheless, Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, and Great Britain and France declared war on Germany. Six years of Nazi Party foreign policy had ignited World War II.

Nazis Fight to Dominate Europe: 1939-45

After conquering Poland, Hitler focused on defeating Britain and France. As the war expanded, the Nazi Party formed alliances with Japan and Italy in the Tripartite Pact of 1940, and honored its 1939 Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact with the Soviet Union until 1941, when Germany launched a massive blitzkrieg invasion of the Soviet Union. In the brutal fighting that followed, Nazi troops tried to realize the long-held goal of crushing the world's major communist power. After the United States entered the war in 1941, Germany found itself fighting in North Africa, Italy, France, the Balkans and in a counterattacking Soviet Union. At the beginning of the war, Hitler and his Nazi Party were fighting to dominate Europe; five years later they were fighting to exist.

The Holocaust

When Hitler and the Nazis came to power in 1933, they instituted a series of measures aimed at persecuting Germany's Jewish citizens. By late 1938, Jews were banned from most public places in Germany. During the war, the Nazis' anti-Jewish campaigns increased in scale and ferocity. In the invasion and occupation of Poland, German troops shot thousands of Polish Jews, confined many to ghettoes where they starved to death and began sending others to death camps in various parts of Poland, where they were either killed immediately or forced into slave labor. In 1941, when Germany invaded the Soviet Union, Nazi death squads machine-gunned tens of thousands of Jews in the western regions of Soviet Russia.

In early 1942, at the Wannsee Conference near Berlin, the Nazi Party decided on the last phase of what it called the " Final Solution" of the "Jewish problem" and spelled out plans for the systematic murder of all European Jews in the Holocaust. In 1942 and 1943, Jews in the western occupied countries including France and Belgium were deported by the thousands to the death camps mushrooming across Europe. In Poland, huge death camps such as Auschwitz began operating with ruthless efficiency. The murder of Jews in German-occupied lands stopped only in last months of the war, as the German armies were retreating toward Berlin. By the time Hitler committed suicide in April 1945, some 6 million Jews had died.

Denazification

After the war, the Allies occupied Germany, outlawed the Nazi Party and worked to purge its influence from every aspect of German life. The party's swastika flag quickly became a symbol of evil in modern postwar culture. Although Hitler killed himself before he could be brought to justice, a number of Nazi officials were convicted of war crimes in the Nuremberg trials, which took place in Nuremberg, Germany, from 1945 to 1949.
READ MORE: The 7 Most Notorious Nazis Who Escaped to South America

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Nazi Party Origins Beer Hall Putsch Sends Hitler to Prison Hitler and the Nazis Come to Power: 1933 Nazi Foreign Policy: 1933-39 Nazis Fight to Dominate Europe: 1939-45 The Holocaust Denazification The National Socialist German Workers' Party, or Nazi Party, grew into a mass movement and ruled Germany through totalitarian means from 1933 to 1945 under the leadership of Adolf Hitler (1889-1945).

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An essential oral presentation that is the Jewish interpretation of the Old Testament. This presentation is essential to the intitation  into doctrines and practices of the Jewish religion to avoid the dangers of mystical expirenences.

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Also spelled:

Kabala, Kabbalah, Cabala, Cabbala, or Cabbalah

This article was most recently revised and updated by

Kabbala, esoteric Jewish mysticism as it appeared in the 12th and following centuries. Kabbala has always been essentially an oral tradition in that initiation into its doctrines and practices is conducted by a personal guide to avoid the dangers inherent in mystical experiences. Esoteric Kabbala is also "tradition" inasmuch as it lays claim to secret knowledge of the unwritten Torah (divine revelation) that was communicated by God to Moses and Adam. Though observance of the Law of Moses remained the basic tenet of Judaism, Kabbala provided a means of approaching God directly. It thus gave Judaism a religious dimension whose mystical approaches to God were viewed by some as dangerously pantheistic and heretical.

The earliest roots of Kabbala are traced to Merkava mysticism. It began to flourish in Palestine in the 1st century ce and had as its main concern ecstatic and mystical contemplation of the divine throne, or "chariot" ( merkava), seen in a vision by Ezekiel, the prophet (Ezekiel 1). The earliest known Jewish text on magic and cosmology, Sefer Yetzira ("Book of Creation"), appeared sometime between the 3rd and the 6th century. It explained creation as a process involving the 10 divine numbers ( sefirot; see sefira) of God the Creator and the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Taken together, they were said to constitute the "32 paths of secret wisdom."

A major text of early Kabbala was the 12th-century Sefer ha-bahir ("Book of Brightness"), whose influence on the development of Jewish esoteric mysticism and on Judaism in general was profound and lasting. The Bahir not only interpreted the sefirot as instrumental in creating and sustaining the universe but also introduced into Judaism such notions as the transmigration of souls ( gilgul) and strengthened the foundations of Kabbala by providing it with an extensive mystical symbolism.

Spanish Kabbala

In the following century, the Sefer ha-temuna ("Book of the Image") appeared in Spain and advanced the notion of cosmic cycles, each of which provides an interpretation of the Torah according to a divine attribute. Judaism, consequently, was presented not as a religion of immutable truths but as one for which each cycle, or eon, was said to have a different Torah.

Spain also produced the famous Sefer ha-zohar ("Book of Splendour"), a book that in some circles was invested with a sanctity rivaling that of the Torah itself. It dealt with the mystery of creation and the functions of the sefirot, and it offered mystical speculations about evil, salvation, and the soul.

Following their expulsion from Spain in 1492, the Jews were more than ever taken up with messianic hopes and eschatology, and Kabbala found wide favour.

By the mid-16th century the unchallenged centre of Kabbala was Safed, Galilee, where one of the greatest of all Kabbalists, Isaac ben Solomon Luria, spent the last years of his life. According to Gershom Gerhard Scholem, a modern Jewish scholar of Kabbala, Luria's influence was surpassed only by that of the Sefer ha-zohar. Lurianic Kabbala developed several basic doctrines: the "withdrawal" ( tzimtzum) of the divine light, thereby creating primordial space; the sinking of luminous particles into matter ( qellipot: "shells"); and a "cosmic restoration" ( tiqqun) that is achieved by the Jew through an intense mystical life and unceasing struggle against evil. Lurianic Kabbalism was used to justify Shabbetaianism, a Jewish messianic movement of the 17th century.

Lurianic Kabbala also profoundly influenced the doctrines of modern Ḥasidism, a social and religious movement that began in the 18th century and still flourishes today in small but significant Jewish communities.
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Adam Augustyn.

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Kabbala, esoteric Jewish mysticism as it appeared in the 12th and following centuries. Kabbala has always been essentially an oral tradition in that initiation into its doctrines and practices is conducted by a personal guide to avoid the dangers inherent in mystical experiences.

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Wiesel has been rewarded many different awards for his bravery. He was also the president of the Elie Wiesel Foundation, as well as founding chairman of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, and appointed chairman of President's commision on the Holocaust

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It is with profound grief that we share that Elie Wiesel - teacher, husband, father and grandfather - passed away on July 2, 2016 in Manhattan. A public memorial will be announced at a later date. Those seeking to honor his memory can make charitable donations including to the Elie Wiesel Foundation's work supporting children in Israel or the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation.

Marion Wiesel said: "My husband was a fighter. He fought for the memory of the six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust, and he fought for Israel. He waged countless battles for innocent victims regardless of ethnicity or creed. But what was most meaningful to him was teaching the innumerable students who attended his university classes. We are deeply moved by the outpouring of love and support we have already seen in the wake of his passing."

Elisha Wiesel said: "My father raised his voice to presidents and prime ministers when he felt issues on the world stage demanded action. But those who knew him in private life had the pleasure of experiencing a gentle and devout man who was always interested in others, and whose quiet voice moved them to better themselves. I will hear that voice for the rest of my life, and hope and pray that I will continue to earn the unconditional love and trust he always showed me."

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Home - Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity

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It is with profound grief that we share that Elie Wiesel - teacher, husband, father and grandfather - passed away on July 2, 2016 in Manhattan. A public memorial will be announced at a later date. Those seeking to honor his memory can make charitable donations including to the Elie Wiesel Foundation's work supporting children in Israel or the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation.

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Corps of troops formed from the German Nazi party for Adolf Hitler and leaders led by Heinrich Himmler.

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Elie Wiesel is the author of 57 books, one of which is Night, a book that is based on his own experiences in Auschwitz as prisoner.

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Eliezer " Elie" Wiesel ( EL-ee vee-ZEL or EE-ly VEE-səl; Yiddish: אליעזר "אלי" װיזל, Eliezer "Eli" Vizl; September 30, 1928 - July 2, 2016) was a Romanian-born American writer, professor, political activist, Nobel laureate, and Holocaust survivor. He authored 57 books, written mostly in French and English, including , a work based on his experiences as a Jewish prisoner in the Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps.

In his political activities Wiesel became a regular speaker on the subject of the Holocaust and remained a strong defender of human rights during his lifetime. He also advocated for many other causes like the state of Israel and against Hamas and victims of oppression including Soviet and Ethiopian Jews, the apartheid in South Africa, the Bosnian genocide, Sudan, the Kurds and the Armenian genocide, Argentina's Desaparecidos or Nicaragua's Miskito people.

He was a professor of the humanities at Boston University, which created the Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies in his honor. He was involved with Jewish causes and human rights causes and helped establish the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.

Wiesel was awarded various prestigious awards including the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986. He was a founding board member of the New York Human Rights Foundation and remained active in it throughout his life.

The house in which Wiesel was born in Sighet

Eliezer Wiesel was born in Sighet (now Sighetu Marmației), Maramureș, in the Carpathian Mountains of Romania. His parents were Sarah Feig and Shlomo Wiesel. At home, Wiesel's family spoke Yiddish most of the time, but also German, Hungarian, and Romanian. Wiesel's mother, Sarah, was the daughter of Dodye Feig, a Vizhnitz Hasid and farmer from the nearby village of Bocskó. Dodye was active and trusted within the community.

Wiesel's father, Shlomo, instilled a strong sense of humanism in his son, encouraging him to learn Hebrew and to read literature, whereas his mother encouraged him to study the Torah. Wiesel said his father represented reason, while his mother Sarah promoted faith. Wiesel was instructed that his genealogy traced back to Rabbi Schlomo Yitzhaki (Rashi), and was a descendant of Rabbi Yeshayahu ben Abraham Horovitz ha-Levi.

Wiesel had three siblings-older sisters Beatrice and Hilda, and younger sister Tzipora. Beatrice and Hilda survived the war, and were reunited with Wiesel at a French orphanage. They eventually emigrated to North America, with Beatrice moving to Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Tzipora, Shlomo, and Sarah did not survive the Holocaust.

Imprisonment and orphaning during the Holocaust

Buchenwald concentration camp, photo taken April 16, 1945, five days after liberation of the camp. Wiesel is in the second row from the bottom, seventh from the left, next to the bunk post.[19]

In March 1944, Germany occupied Hungary, thus extending the Holocaust into Northern Transylvania as well. Wiesel was 15, and he, with his family, along with the rest of the town's Jewish population, was placed in one of the two confinement ghettos set up in Máramarossziget ( Sighet), the town where he had been born and raised. In May 1944, the Hungarian authorities, under German pressure, began to deport the Jewish community to the Auschwitz concentration camp, where up to 90 percent of the people were murdered on arrival.

Immediately after they were sent to Auschwitz, his mother and his younger sister were murdered. Wiesel and his father were selected to perform labor so long as they remained able-bodied, after which they were to be murdered in the gas chambers. Wiesel and his father were later deported to the concentration camp at Buchenwald. Until that transfer, he admitted to Oprah Winfrey, his primary motivation for trying to survive Auschwitz was knowing that his father was still alive: "I knew that if I died, he would die." After they were taken to Buchenwald, his father died before the camp was liberated. In Night, Wiesel recalled the shame he felt when he heard his father being beaten and was unable to help.

Wiesel was tattooed with inmate number "A-7713" on his left arm. The camp was liberated by the U.S. Third Army on April 11, 1945, when they were just prepared to be evacuated from Buchenwald.

Post-war career as a writer

After World War II ended and Wiesel was freed, he joined a transport of 1,000 child survivors of Buchenwald to Ecouis, France, where the Œuvre de secours aux enfants (OSE) had established a rehabilitation center. Wiesel joined a smaller group of 90 to 100 boys from Orthodox homes who wanted kosher facilities and a higher level of religious observance; they were cared for in a home in Ambloy under the directorship of Judith Hemmendinger. This home was later moved to Taverny and operated until 1947.

Afterwards, Wiesel traveled to Paris where he learned French and studied literature, philosophy and psychology at the Sorbonne. He heard lectures by philosopher Martin Buber and existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre and he spent his evenings reading works by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Franz Kafka, and Thomas Mann.

By the time he was 19, he had begun working as a journalist, writing in French, while also teaching Hebrew and working as a choirmaster. He wrote for Israeli and French newspapers, including Tsien in Kamf (in Yiddish).

In 1946, after learning of the Irgun's bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, Wiesel made an unsuccessful attempt to join the underground Zionist movement. In 1948, he translated articles from Hebrew into Yiddish for Irgun periodicals, but never became a member of the organization. In 1949, he traveled to Israel as a correspondent for the French newspaper L'arche. He then was hired as Paris correspondent for the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, subsequently becoming its roaming international correspondent.

Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky. Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never.

For ten years after the war, Wiesel refused to write about or discuss his experiences during the Holocaust. He began to reconsider his decision after a meeting with the French author François Mauriac, the 1952 Nobel Laureate in Literature who eventually became Wiesel's close friend. Mauriac was a devout Christian who had fought in the French Resistance during the war. He compared Wiesel to " Lazarus rising from the dead", and saw from Wiesel's tormented eyes, "the death of God in the soul of a child". Mauriac persuaded him to begin writing about his harrowing experiences.

Wiesel first wrote the 900-page memoir Un di velt hot geshvign ( And the World Remained Silent) in Yiddish, which was published in abridged form in Buenos Aires. Wiesel rewrote a shortened version of the manuscript in French, La Nuit, in 1955. It was translated into English as in 1960. The book sold few copies after its initial publication, but still attracted interest from reviewers, leading to television interviews with Wiesel and meetings with writers such as Saul Bellow.

As its profile rose, Night was eventually translated into 30 languages with ten million copies sold in the United States. At one point film director Orson Welles wanted to make it into a feature film, but Wiesel refused, feeling that his memoir would lose its meaning if it were told without the silences in between his words. Oprah Winfrey made it a spotlight selection for her book club in 2006.

United States

In 1955, Wiesel moved to New York as foreign correspondent for the Israel daily, Yediot Ahronot. In 1969, he married Austrian Marion Erster Rose, who also translated many of his books. They had one son, Shlomo Elisha Wiesel, named after Wiesel's father.

Wiesel in 1987

In the U.S., he eventually wrote over 40 books, most of them non-fiction Holocaust literature, and novels. As an author, he was awarded a number of literary prizes and is considered among the most important in describing the Holocaust from a highly personal perspective. As a result, some historians credited Wiesel with giving the term its present meaning, although he did not feel that the word adequately described that historical event. In 1975, he co-founded the magazine with writer Leonard Fein.

The 1979 book and play The Trial of God are said to have been based on his real-life Auschwitz experience of witnessing three Jews who, close to death, conduct a trial against God, under the accusation that He has been oppressive towards the Jewish people.

Wiesel also played a role in the initial success of The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinski by endorsing it before it became known the book was fiction and, in the sense that it was presented as all Kosinski's true experience, a hoax.

Wiesel published two volumes of memoirs. The first, All Rivers Run to the Sea, was published in 1994 and covered his life up to the year 1969. The second, titled And the Sea is Never Full and published in 1999, covered the years from 1969 to 1999.

Political activism

Wiesel and his wife, Marion, started the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity in 1986. He served as chairman of the President's Commission on the Holocaust (later renamed the US Holocaust Memorial Council) from 1978 to 1986, spearheading the building of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. Sigmund Strochlitz was his close friend and confidant during these years.

The Holocaust Memorial Museum gives the Elie Wiesel Award to "internationally prominent individuals whose actions have advanced the Museum's vision of a world where people confront hatred, prevent genocide, and promote human dignity". The Foundation had invested its endowment in money manager Bernard L. Madoff's investment Ponzi scheme, costing the Foundation $15 million and Wiesel and his wife much of their own personal savings.

A staunch foe of the death penalty, Wiesel stated that he thought that even Adolf Eichmann should not have been executed.

Support for Israeli government policy

In 1982, at the request of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, Wiesel agreed to resign from his position as chairman of a planned international conference on the Holocaust and the Armenian genocide. Wiesel then worked with the Foreign Ministry in its attempts to get the conference either canceled or to remove all discussion of the Armenian genocide from it, and to those ends he provided the Foreign Ministry with internal documents on the conference's planning and lobbied fellow academics to not attend the conference.

During his lifetime, Wiesel had deflected questions on the topic of the Israeli settlements, claiming to abstain from commenting on Israel's internal debates. According to Hussein Ibish, despite this position, Wiesel had gone on record as supporting the idea of expanding Jewish settlements into the Palestinian territories conquered by Israel during the 6 Day War; such settlements are considered illegal by the international community.

Wiesel was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986 for speaking out against violence, repression, and racism. The Norwegian Nobel Committee described Wiesel as "one of the most important spiritual leaders and guides in an age when violence, repression, and racism continue to characterize the world" and called him a "messenger to mankind". It also stressed that Wiesel's commitment originated in the sufferings of the Jewish people but that he expanded it to embrace all repressed peoples and races.

In his acceptance speech he delivered a message "of peace, atonement, and human dignity". He explained his feelings: "Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant."

He received many other prizes and honors for his work, including the Congressional Gold Medal in 1985, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and The International Center in New York's Award of Excellence. He was also elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1996.

Wiesel co-founded magazine with Leonard Fein in 1975. They founded the magazine to provide a voice for American Jews. He was also a member of the International Advisory Board of NGO Monitor.

In April 1999, Wiesel delivered the speech "The Perils of Indifference" in Washington D.C., criticizing the people and countries who chose to be indifferent while the Holocaust was happening. He defined indifference as being neutral between two sides, which, in this case, amounts to overlooking the victims of the Holocaust. Throughout the speech, he expressed the view that a little bit of attention, either positive or negative, is better than no attention at all.

In 2003, he discovered and publicized the fact that at least 280,000 Romanian and Ukrainian Jews, along with other groups, were massacred in Romanian-run death camps.

In 2005, he gave a speech at the opening ceremony of the new building of Yad Vashem, the Israeli Holocaust History Museum:

I know what people say - it is so easy. Those that were there won't agree with that statement. The statement is: it was man's inhumanity to man. NO! It was man's inhumanity to Jews! Jews were not killed because they were human beings. In the eyes of the killers they were not human beings! They were Jews!

In early 2006, Wiesel accompanied Oprah Winfrey as she visited Auschwitz, a visit which was broadcast as part of The Oprah Winfrey Show. On November 30, 2006, Wiesel received a knighthood in London in recognition of his work toward raising Holocaust education in the United Kingdom.

In September 2006, he appeared before the UN Security Council with actor George Clooney to call attention to the humanitarian crisis in Darfur. When Wiesel died, Clooney wrote, "We had a champion who carried our pain, our guilt, and our responsibility on his shoulders for generations."

In 2007, Wiesel was awarded the Dayton Literary Peace Prize's Lifetime Achievement Award. That same year, the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity issued a letter condemning Armenian genocide denial, a letter that was signed by 53 Nobel laureates including Wiesel. Wiesel repeatedly called Turkey's 90-year-old campaign to downplay its actions during the Armenian genocide a double killing.

President George W. Bush, joined by the Dalai Lama and Wiesel, October 17, 2007, to the ceremony at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., for the presentation of the Congressional Gold Medal to the Dalai Lama

In 2009, Wiesel criticized the Vatican for lifting the excommunication of controversial bishop Richard Williamson, a member of the Society of Saint Pius X. The excommunication was later reimposed.

In June 2009, Wiesel accompanied US President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel as they toured the Buchenwald concentration camp. Wiesel was an adviser at the Gatestone Institute. In 2010, Wiesel accepted a five-year appointment as a Distinguished Presidential Fellow at Chapman University in Orange County, California. In that role, he made a one-week visit to Chapman annually to meet with students and offer his perspective on subjects ranging from Holocaust history to religion, languages, literature, law and music.

In July 2009, Wiesel announced his support to the minority Tamils in Sri Lanka. He said that, "Wherever minorities are being persecuted, we must raise our voices to protest ... The Tamil people are being disenfranchised and victimized by the Sri Lanka authorities. This injustice must stop. The Tamil people must be allowed to live in peace and flourish in their homeland."

In 2009, Wiesel returned to Hungary for his first visit since the Holocaust. During this visit, Wiesel participated in a conference at the Upper House Chamber of the Hungarian Parliament, met Prime Minister Gordon Bajnai and President László Sólyom, and made a speech to the approximately 10,000 participants of an anti-racist gathering held in Faith Hall. However, in 2012, he protested against "the whitewashing" of Hungary's involvement in the Holocaust, and he gave up the Great Cross award he had received from the Hungarian government.

Wiesel was active in trying to prevent Iran from making nuclear weapons, stating that, "The words and actions of the leadership of Iran leave no doubt as to their intentions". He also condemned Hamas for the "use of children as human shields" during the 2014 Israel-Gaza conflict by running an ad in several large newspapers. refused to run the advertisement, saying, "The opinion being expressed is too strong, and too forcefully made, and will cause concern amongst a significant number of Times readers."

Wiesel often emphasized the Jewish connection to Jerusalem, and criticized the Obama administration for pressuring Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to halt East Jerusalem Israeli settlement construction. He stated that "Jerusalem is above politics. It is mentioned more than six hundred times in Scripture-and not a single time in the Koran ... It belongs to the Jewish people and is much more than a city".

Wiesel held the position of Andrew Mellon Professor of the Humanities at Boston University from 1976, teaching in both its religion and philosophy departments. He became a close friend of the president and chancellor John Silber. The university created the Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies in his honor. From 1972 to 1976 Wiesel was a Distinguished Professor at the City University of New York and member of the American Federation of Teachers.

In 1982 he served as the first Henry Luce Visiting Scholar in Humanities and Social Thought at Yale University. He also co-instructed Winter Term (January) courses at Eckerd College, St. Petersburg, Florida. From 1997 to 1999 he was Ingeborg Rennert Visiting Professor of Judaic Studies at Barnard College of Columbia University.

Personal life

Wiesel and wife Marion at the 2012 Time 100

In 1969 he married Marion Erster Rose, who originally was from Austria and also translated many of his books. They had one son, Shlomo Elisha Wiesel, named after Wiesel's father. The family lived in Greenwich, Connecticut.

Wiesel was attacked in a San Francisco hotel by 22-year-old Holocaust denier Eric Hunt in February 2007, but was not injured. Hunt was arrested the following month and charged with multiple offenses.

In May 2011, Wiesel served as the Washington University in St. Louis commencement speaker.

In February 2012, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints performed a posthumous baptism for Simon Wiesenthal's parents without proper authorization. After his own name was submitted for proxy baptism, Wiesel spoke out against the unauthorized practice of posthumously baptizing Jews and asked presidential candidate and Latter-day Saint Mitt Romney to denounce it. Romney's campaign declined to comment, directing such questions to church officials.

Death and aftermath

Wiesel died on the morning of July 2, 2016, at his home in Manhattan, aged 87. After a private funeral service was conducted in honor of him at the Fifth Avenue Synagogue, he was buried at the Sharon Gardens Cemetery in Valhalla, New York, on July 3.

Utah senator Orrin Hatch paid tribute to Wiesel in a speech on the Senate floor the following week, in which he said that "With Elie's passing, we have lost a beacon of humanity and hope. We have lost a hero of human rights and a luminary of Holocaust literature."

In 2018, antisemitic graffiti was found on the house where Wiesel was born.

Awards and honors

Prix de l'Université de la Langue Française (Prix Rivarol) for The Town Beyond the Wall, 1963.

National Jewish Book Award for Souls on Fire: Portraits and Legends of Hasidic Masters, 1973.

Jewish Heritage Award, Haifa University, 1975.

Holocaust Memorial Award, New York Society of Clinical Psychologists, 1975.

Jabotinsky Medal, State of Israel, 1980.

Prix Livre Inter, France, for The Testament, 1980.

Grand Prize in Literature from the City of Paris for The Fifth Son, 1983.

Four Freedoms Award for the Freedom of Worship, 1985.

Nobel Peace Prize, 1986.

Presidential Medal of Freedom, 1992

Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement, 1996, presented by Awards Council member Rosa Parks at the Academy's 35th annual Summit in Sun Valley, Idaho.

Norman Mailer Prize, Lifetime Achievement, 2011.

Kenyon Review Award for Literary Achievement, 2012

Honorary degrees

Wiesel had received more than 90 honorary degrees from colleges worldwide.

References

Informational notes

Citations

Speeches and interviews

Elie Wiesel Video Gallery

Nobel Peace Prize Winner Elie Wiesel Examines 'Building a Moral Society' in Ubben Lecture, DePauw University, September 21, 1989, archived from the original on June 26, 2011

"Facing Hate with Elie Wiesel". Bill Moyers. November 27, 1991. Archived from the original on February 8, 2012.

"Elie Wiesel Biography and Interview". achievement.org. American Academy of Achievement. June 29, 1996. Archived from the original on January 3, 2019.

"Perils of Indifference" Speech by Elie Wiesel Archived January 19, 2019, at the Wayback Machine, Washington, D.C., Transcript (as delivered), Audio, Video, April 12, 1999.

"Perils of Indifference" Speech by Elie Wiesel Archived November 6, 2020, at the Wayback Machine, Washington, D.C., Text and Audio, April 12, 1999.

The Kennedy Center Presents: Speak Truth to Power: Elie Wiesel Archived October 18, 2017, at the Wayback Machine, PBS, October 8, 2000.

An Evening with Elie Wiesel Archived November 28, 2020, at the Wayback Machine. Herman P. and Sophia Taubman Endowed Symposia in Jewish Studies. UCTV (University of California). August 19, 2002

Elie Wiesel: First Person Singular Archived December 22, 2010, at the Wayback Machine, PBS, October 24, 2002.

Diamante, Jeff (July 29, 2006), "Elie Wiesel on his beliefs", The Star, Toronto, archived from the original on June 2, 2008.

Voices on Antisemitism Interview with Elie Wiesel from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, May 24, 2007.

"'We must not forget the Holocaust'". Today (BBC Radio 4). September 15, 2008. BBC. BBC Radio 4. Archived from the original on September 14, 2020.

"A conversation with Elie Wiesel". Charlie Rose. June 8, 2009. PBS. Archived from the original on June 13, 2009.

"Unmasking Evil - Elie Wiesel, featuring Soledad O'Brien, 2009". Oslo Freedom Forum 2009. 2010. Oslo Freedom Forum. Archived from the original on June 8, 2019.

"Elie Wiesel on the Leon Charney Report (Segment)". The Charney Report. 2006. WNYE-TV. Archived from the original on September 14, 2020.

"Elie Wiesel on the Leon Charney Report". The Charney Report. 2006. WNYE-TV. Archived from the original on February 2, 2017.

Further reading

Berenbaum, Michael. The Vision of the Void: Theological Reflections on the Works of Elie Wiesel. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1979. ISBN 0-8195-6189-4

Burger, Ariel (2018). Witness: Lessons from Elie Wiesel's Classroom. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 978-1328802699. Archived from the original on November 14, 2018.

Chighel, Michael (2015). "Hosanna! Eliezer Wiesel's Correspondence with the Lubavitcher Rebbe" (online book). Archived from the original on March 4, 2016.

Davis, Colin. Elie Wiesel's Secretive Texts. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 1994. ISBN 0-8130-1303-8

Doblmeier, Martin (2008). The Power of Forgiveness (Documentary). Alexandria, VA: Journey Films. Archived from the original on September 8, 2008.

Downing, Frederick L. Elie Wiesel: A Religious Biography. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2008. ISBN 978-0-88146-099-5

Fine, Ellen S. Legacy of Night: The Literary Universe of Elie Wiesel. New York: State University of New York Press, 1982. ISBN 0-87395-590-0

Fonseca, Isabel. Bury Me Standing: The Gypsies and Their Journey. London: Vintage, 1996. ISBN 978-0-679-73743-8

Friedman, John S. (Spring 1984). "Elie Wiesel, The Art of Fiction No. 79". The Paris Review. Spring 1984 (91). Archived from the original on October 28, 2010.

Rota, Olivier. Choisir le français pour exprimer l'indicible. Elie Wiesel, in Mythe et mondialisation. L'exil dans les littératures francophones, Actes du colloque organisé dans le cadre du projet bilatéral franco-roumain " Mythes et stratégies de la francophonie en Europe, en Roumanie et dans les Balkans ", programme Brâcuşi des 8-9 septembre 2005, Editura Universităţii Suceava, 2006, pp. 47-55. Re-published in Sens, dec. 2007, pp. 659-668.

External links

The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity

Elie Wiesel's acceptance speech of the Nobel Peace Prize (Archived 23 October 2023 at archive.today)

Works by Elie Wiesel at Open Library

Appearances on C-SPAN

Biography on The Elie Wiesel Foundation For Humanity

Elie Wiesel on Nobelprize.org

"Free At Last: Elie Wiesel, Plainclothes Nuns, and Breakthroughs - Or Witnessing a Witness of History", pp. 19-21 in 'Spirit of America, Vol. 39: Simple Gifts', La Crosse, WI: DigiCOPY, 2017, Essay by David Joseph Marcou about his meeting Mr. Wiesel and being official Viterbo U. Photographer for Elie Wiesel Day at Viterbo U., 9-26-06, in Book by DJ Marcou on Missouri J-School Library Web-page of David Joseph Marcou's works [1]

Elie Wiesel, Nobel Luminaries - Jewish Nobel Prize Winners, on the Beit Hatfutsot-The Museum of the Jewish People Website.

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Eliezer " Elie" Wiesel ( EL-ee vee-ZEL or EE-ly VEE-səl ; Yiddish: אליעזר "אלי" װיזל, Eliezer "Eli" Vizl; September 30, 1928 - July 2, 2016) was a Romanian-born American writer, professor, political activist, Nobel laureate, and Holocaust survivor.

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Mein Kampf is Hitler's autobiography. It depicts his life and shows his political views.

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A Rabbi is a Jewish teacher that studies and teaches Jewish law

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Death marches refer to the forcible movements of prisoners in Nazi Germany.

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Late in the war, the tide had turned against the Germans. The Soviet Red Army was reclaiming territory as they pushed the Germans back. As the Red Army was heading for Poland, the Nazis needed to hide their crimes.

Mass graves were dug up and the bodies burned. The camps were evacuated. Documents were destroyed.

The prisoners who were taken from the camps were sent on what became known as "Death Marches" ( Todesmärsche). Some of these groups were marched hundreds of miles. The prisoners were given little to no food and little to no shelter. Any prisoner who lagged behind or who tried to escape was shot.

Evacuation

By July 1944, Soviet troops had reached the border of Poland.

Although the Nazis had attempted to destroy evidence, in Majdanek (a concentration and extermination camp just outside of Lublin on the Polish border), the Soviet Army captured the camp nearly intact. Almost immediately, a Polish-Soviet Nazi Crimes Investigation Commission was established.

The Red Army continued to move through Poland. The Nazis started to evacuate and destroy their concentration camps from east to west.

The first major death march was the evacuation of approximately 3,600 prisoners from a camp on Gesia Street in Warsaw (a satellite of the Majdanek camp). These prisoners were forced to march over 80 miles in order to reach Kutno. About 2,600 survived to see Kutno. The prisoners who were still alive were packed onto trains, where several hundred more died. Out of the 3,600 original marchers, less than 2,000 reached Dachau 12 days later.

When the prisoners were evacuated, they weren't told where they were going. Many wondered whether they going out to a field to be shot. Would it be better to try to escape now? How far would they be marching?

The SS organized the prisoners into rows - usually five across - and into a large column. The guards were on the outside of the long column, with some in the lead, some on the sides, and a few in the rear.

The column was forced to march - often at a run. For prisoners who were already starved, weak, and ill, the march was an incredible burden. An hour would go by. They kept on marching. Another hour would go by. The marching continued. As some prisoners could no longer march, they would fall behind. The SS guards in the rear of the column would shoot anyone who stopped to rest or collapsed.

Elie Wiesel Recounts

I was putting one foot in front of the other mechanically. I was dragging with me this skeletal body which weighed so much. If only I could have got rid of it! In spite of my efforts not to think about it, I could feel myself as two entities - my body and me. I hated it. (Elie Wiesel)

The marches took prisoners on back roads and through towns.

Isabella Leitner Remembers

I have a curious, unreal feeling. One of almost being part of the grayish dusk of the town. But again, of course, you will not find a single German who lived in Prauschnitz who ever saw a single one of us. Still, we were there, hungry, in rags, our eyes screaming for food. And no one heard us. We ate the smell of smoked meats reaching our nostrils, blowing our way from the various shops. Please, our eyes screamed, give us the bone your dog has finished gnawing. Help us live. You wear coats and gloves just like human beings do. Aren't you human beings? What is underneath your coats? (Isabella Leitner)

Surviving the Holocaust

Many of the evacuations occurred during the winter. From Auschwitz, 66,000 prisoners were evacuated on January 18, 1945. At the end of January 1945, 45,000 prisoners were evacuated from Stutthof and its satellite camps.

In the cold and snow, these prisoners were forced to march. In some cases, the prisoners marched for a long duration and were then loaded onto trains or boats.

Elie Wiesel, Holocaust Survivor

We were given no food. We lived on snow; it took the place of bread. The days were like nights, and the nights left the dregs of their darkness in our souls. The train was traveling slowly, often stopping for several hours and then setting off again. It never ceased snowing. All through these days and nights we stayed crouching, one on top of the other, never speaking a word. We were no more than frozen bodies. Our eyes closed, we waited merely for the next stop, so that we could unload our dead. (Elie Wiesel)

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The WWII Nazi Death Marches From Concentration Camps

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As World War II drew to a close, the Nazis evacuated their concentration camps and forced the prisoners on long punishing death marches.

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The term "holocaust," originated from the greek word "holokauston" which means "sacrifice by fire". this refers to the nazis plan to slaughter the jewish people.

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The Nobel Peace Prize is named after a Swedish Inventor who created dynamite. His name is Alfred Nobel.

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Relating to the Jewish. Founded in the 18th century. Baal Shem-Tov founded it in Poland.

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The Nazi Party, which was also known as National Socialist German Workers' Party, ruled Germany under Adolf Hitler. This was started after Germany's defeat in World War. The defeat upset Adolf so he began publicly speaking out against Jewish and others blaming them for the issues of Germany. He eventually became the leader of the Nazi Party.

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Contents

1. Nazi Party Origins

2. Beer Hall Putsch Sends Hitler to Prison

3. Hitler and the Nazis Come to Power: 1933

4. Nazi Foreign Policy: 1933-39

5. Nazis Fight to Dominate Europe: 1939-45

6. The Holocaust

7. Denazification

The National Socialist German Workers' Party, or Nazi Party, grew into a mass movement and ruled Germany through totalitarian means from 1933 to 1945 under the leadership of Adolf Hitler (1889-1945). Founded in 1919 as the German Workers' Party, the group promoted German pride and anti-Semitism, and expressed dissatisfaction with the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, the 1919 peace settlement that ended World War I (1914-1918) and required Germany to make numerous concessions and reparations. Hitler joined the party the year it was founded and became its leader in 1921. In 1933, he became chancellor of Germany and his Nazi government soon assumed dictatorial powers. After Germany's defeat in World War II (1939-45), the Nazi Party was outlawed and many of its top officials were convicted of war crimes related to the murder of some 6 million European Jews during the Holocaust.

Nazi Party Origins

In 1919, army veteran Adolf Hitler, frustrated by Germany's defeat in World War I, which had left the nation economically depressed and politically unstable, joined a fledgling political organization called the German Workers' Party. Founded earlier that same year by a small group of men including locksmith Anton Drexler (1884-1942) and journalist Karl Harrer (1890-1926), the party promoted German nationalism and anti-Semitism, and felt that the Treaty of Versailles, the peace settlement that ended the war, was extremely unjust to Germany by burdening it with reparations it could never pay. Hitler soon emerged as a charismatic public speaker and began attracting new members with speeches blaming Jews and Marxists for Germany's problems and espousing extreme nationalism and the concept of an Aryan "master race." In July 1921, he assumed leadership of the organization, which by then had been renamed the Nationalist Socialist German Workers' (Nazi) Party.

Did you know? Sales of Hitler's political autobiography "Mein Kampf," sometimes referred to as the bible of the Nazi Party, made him a millionaire. From 1933 to 1945, free copies were given to every newlywed German couple. After World War II, the publication of "Mein Kampf" in Germany became illegal.

Through the 1920s, Hitler gave speech after speech in which he stated that unemployment, rampant inflation, hunger and economic stagnation in postwar Germany would continue until there was a total revolution in German life. Most problems could be solved, he explained, if communists and Jews were driven from the nation. His fiery speeches swelled the ranks of the Nazi Party, especially among young, economically disadvantaged Germans.

Many dissatisfied former army officers in Munich joined the Nazis, including Ernst Röhm, the man responsible for recruiting the Sturmabteilung (SA) ("strong arm" squads) Hitler used to protect party meetings and attack opponents.

Beer Hall Putsch Sends Hitler to Prison

In 1923, Hitler and his followers staged the Beer Hall Putsch in Munich, a failed takeover of the government in Bavaria, a state in southern Germany. Hitler had hoped that the "putsch," or coup d'etat, would spark a larger revolution against the national government. In the aftermath of the Beer Hall Putsch, Hitler was convicted of treason and sentenced to five years in prison but spent less than a year behind bars (during which time he dictated the first volume of Mein Kampf, or My Struggle, his political autobiography). The publicity surrounding the Beer Hall Putsch and Hitler's subsequent trial turned him into a national figure. After his release from prison, he set about rebuilding the Nazi Party and attempting to gain power through the election process.

Hitler and the Nazis Come to Power: 1933

In 1929, Germany entered a period of severe economic depression and widespread unemployment. The Nazis capitalized on the situation by criticizing the ruling government and began to win elections. In the July 1932 elections, they captured 230 out of 608 seats in the "Reichstag," or German parliament. In January 1933, Hitler was appointed German chancellor and his Nazi government soon came to control every aspect of German life.

Under Nazi rule, all other political parties were banned. In 1933, the Nazis opened their first concentration camp in Dachau, Germany, to house political prisoners. Dachau evolved into a death camp where countless thousands of Jews died from malnutrition, disease and overwork or were executed. In addition to Jews, the camp's prisoners included members of other groups Hitler considered unfit for the new Germany, including artists, intellectuals, Gypsies, the physically and mentally handicapped and homosexuals.

Nazi Foreign Policy: 1933-39

Once Hitler gained control of the government, he directed Nazi Germany's foreign policy toward undoing the Treaty of Versailles and restoring Germany's standing in the world. He railed against the treaty's redrawn map of Europe and argued it denied Germany, Europe's most populous state, "living space" for its growing population. Although the Treaty of Versailles was explicitly based on the principle of the self-determination of peoples, he pointed out that it had separated Germans from Germans by creating such new postwar states as Austria and Czechoslovakia, where many Germans lived.

From the mid- to late 1930s, Hitler undermined the postwar international order step by step. He withdrew Germany from the League of Nations in 1933, rebuilt German armed forces beyond what was permitted by the Treaty of Versailles, reoccupied the German Rhineland in 1936, annexed Austria in 1938 and invaded Czechoslovakia in 1939. When Nazi Germany moved toward Poland, Great Britain and France countered further aggression by guaranteeing Polish security. Nevertheless, Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, and Great Britain and France declared war on Germany. Six years of Nazi Party foreign policy had ignited World War II.

Nazis Fight to Dominate Europe: 1939-45

After conquering Poland, Hitler focused on defeating Britain and France. As the war expanded, the Nazi Party formed alliances with Japan and Italy in the Tripartite Pact of 1940, and honored its 1939 Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact with the Soviet Union until 1941, when Germany launched a massive blitzkrieg invasion of the Soviet Union. In the brutal fighting that followed, Nazi troops tried to realize the long-held goal of crushing the world's major communist power. After the United States entered the war in 1941, Germany found itself fighting in North Africa, Italy, France, the Balkans and in a counterattacking Soviet Union. At the beginning of the war, Hitler and his Nazi Party were fighting to dominate Europe; five years later they were fighting to exist.

The Holocaust

When Hitler and the Nazis came to power in 1933, they instituted a series of measures aimed at persecuting Germany's Jewish citizens. By late 1938, Jews were banned from most public places in Germany. During the war, the Nazis' anti-Jewish campaigns increased in scale and ferocity. In the invasion and occupation of Poland, German troops shot thousands of Polish Jews, confined many to ghettoes where they starved to death and began sending others to death camps in various parts of Poland, where they were either killed immediately or forced into slave labor. In 1941, when Germany invaded the Soviet Union, Nazi death squads machine-gunned tens of thousands of Jews in the western regions of Soviet Russia.

In early 1942, at the Wannsee Conference near Berlin, the Nazi Party decided on the last phase of what it called the " Final Solution" of the "Jewish problem" and spelled out plans for the systematic murder of all European Jews in the Holocaust. In 1942 and 1943, Jews in the western occupied countries including France and Belgium were deported by the thousands to the death camps mushrooming across Europe. In Poland, huge death camps such as Auschwitz began operating with ruthless efficiency. The murder of Jews in German-occupied lands stopped only in last months of the war, as the German armies were retreating toward Berlin. By the time Hitler committed suicide in April 1945, some 6 million Jews had died.

Denazification

After the war, the Allies occupied Germany, outlawed the Nazi Party and worked to purge its influence from every aspect of German life. The party's swastika flag quickly became a symbol of evil in modern postwar culture. Although Hitler killed himself before he could be brought to justice, a number of Nazi officials were convicted of war crimes in the Nuremberg trials, which took place in Nuremberg, Germany, from 1945 to 1949.
READ MORE: The 7 Most Notorious Nazis Who Escaped to South America

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Nazi Party Origins Beer Hall Putsch Sends Hitler to Prison Hitler and the Nazis Come to Power: 1933 Nazi Foreign Policy: 1933-39 Nazis Fight to Dominate Europe: 1939-45 The Holocaust Denazification The National Socialist German Workers' Party, or Nazi Party, grew into a mass movement and ruled Germany through totalitarian means from 1933 to 1945 under the leadership of Adolf Hitler (1889-1945).

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This is a sealed chamber used to kill humans or animals introducing poisonous gas.

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The foundation's mission is to combat indifference through international views that promote equality. Also, the confrences serve as a base for change.

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Crematories were buildings with furnaces used to burn the bodies of victims of the holocaust to dispose of them.

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Crematorium I

Crematorium I operated [at Auschwitz] from August 15, 1940 until July 1943. According to calculations by the German authorities, 340 corpses could be burned every 24 hours after the installation of the three furnaces.

The largest room in this building was designated as a morgue. It was adapted as the first provisional gas chamber in the autumn of 1941. The SS used Zyklon B to kill thousands of Jews upon arrival, as well as several groups of Soviet prisoners of war.

Prisoners selected in the hospital as unlikely to recover their health quickly were also killed in the gas chamber. Poles sentenced to death by the German summary court.

After the establishment in Auschwitz II-Birkenau of two more provisional gas chambers, Bunkers No. 1 and 2 (the so-called "little red house" and "little white house"), the camp authorities shifted the mass murder of the Jews there and gradually stopped using the first gas chamber.

After the completion of four crematoria with gas chambers in Auschwitz II-Birkenau, the burning of corpses in Crematorium I was halted. The building was used for storage, and then designated as an SS air-raid shelter. The furnaces, chimney, and some of the walls were demolished, and the openings in the roof through which the SS poured Zyklon B were plastered.

After the war, the Museum carried out a partial reconstruction. The chimney and two incinerators were rebuilt using original components, as were and several of the openings in the gas chamber roof.

When larger Jewish transports were sent to Auschwitz concentration camp in the first half of 1942, the Nazis began using - in addition to the first operational gas chamber - two provisional gas chambers set up in farmhouses whose owners had been evicted from the village of Brzezinka.

Jewish men, women, and children, as well as Polish political prisoners selected by physicians in the camp hospital, were killed with poison gas in Bunker No. 1, which was also known as "the little red house" (because of its brick walls). The bunker contained two provisional gas chambers. It operated from the early months of 1942 until the spring and summer of 1943, when four new buildings with gas chambers and crematorium furnaces came into use in Birkenau concentration camp. At that time, Bunker No. 1 was demolished and the adjacent burning pits were filled in and landscaped.

When larger Jewish transports were sent to Auschwitz concentration camp in the first part of 1942, the Nazis began using - in addition to the first operational gas chamber - two provisional gas chambers set up in farmhouses belonging to people who had been expelled from the village of Brzezinka.

Jewish men, women, and children, as well as Polish political prisoners selected by physicians in the camp hospital, were killed with poison gas in Bunker No. 2, which was also known as "the little white house" (because of the color of the plaster covering its walls). The bunker contained four provisional gas chambers, which operated from 1942 four new buildings with gas chambers and crematorium furnaces came into use in Birkenau concentration camp in the spring and summer of 1943. In the period when the Germans needed additional gas chambers for the destruction of the Jews deported from Hungary in 1944, they temporarily put Bunker No. 2 back into operation.

The Crematorium II building, which contained a gas chamber and furnaces for burning corpses. Several hundred thousand Jewish men, women and children were murdered here with poison gas, and their bodies burned. The bodies of Jewish and non-Jewish prisoners who died in the concentration camp were also burned here. According to calculations by the German authorities, 1,440 corpses could be burned in this crematorium every 24 hours. According to the testimony of former prisoners, the figure was higher.

The gas chamber and Crematorium II functioned from March 1943 through November 1944.

At the end of the war, in connection with the operation intended to remove the evidence of their crimes, the camp authorities ordered the demolition of the furnaces and crematorium building in November 1944. On January 20, 1945, the SS blew up whatever had not been removed.

The Crematorium III building, which contained a gas chamber and furnaces for burning corpses. Several hundred thousand Jewish men, women and children were murdered here with poison gas, and their bodies burned. The bodies of Jewish and non-Jewish prisoners who died in the concentration camp were also burned here. According to calculations by the German authorities, 1,440 corpses could be burned in this crematorium every 24 hours. According to the testimony of former prisoners, the figure was higher.

The gas chamber and Crematorium III functioned from June 1943 through November 1944.

At the end of the war, in connection with the operation intended to remove the evidence of their crimes, the camp authorities ordered the demolition of the furnaces and crematorium building in November 1944. On January 20, 1945, the SS blew up whatever had not been removed.

The Crematorium IV building, which contained a gas chamber and furnaces for burning corpses.

Thousands of Jewish men, women and children were murdered here with poison gas, and their bodies burned.

The bodies of Jewish and non-Jewish prisoners who died in the concentration camp were also burned here. According to calculations by the German authorities, 768 corpses could be burned in this crematorium every 24 hours. According to the testimony of former prisoners, the figure was higher.

The apparatus of mass murder in this building functioned, with interruptions, from March 1943 until October 7, 1944. The building was burned down on the day of the mutiny of the Jewish prisoners from the Sonderkommando.

The Crematorium V building contained a gas chamber and furnaces for burning corpses. Thousands of Jewish men, women and children were murdered here with poison gas, and their bodies burned.

The bodies of Jewish and non-Jewish prisoners who died in the concentration camp were also burned here. According to calculations by the German authorities, 768 corpses could be burned in this crematorium every 24 hours. According to the testimony of former prisoners, the figure was higher.

At times, the bodies of the people who had been murdered were also burned on pyres in pits located near Crematorium V and the so-called bunkers.

The apparatus of mass murder in this building functioned, with interruptions, from April 1943 until January 1945. In connection with the operation intended to remove the evidence of their crimes, the SS blew up the building on January 26, 1945.

Sources: The State Museum of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Reprinted with permission.

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Crematoria & Gas Chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau

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Encyclopedia of Jewish and Israeli history, politics and culture, with biographies, statistics, articles and documents on topics from anti-Semitism to Zionism.

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A Fascist is a government headed by a Dictator.

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a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible... See the full definition

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Known as The Night of Broken Glass. On this night, November 9, 1938, almost 200 synagogues were destroyed, over 8000 Jewish shops were sacked and looted, and tens of thousands of Jews were removed to concentration camps.

Happened during an attack on the Jews at Berlin in 1931

occured early in the morning and was the first showing of racial discrimacy in the country due to Hitler wanting to kill all of the Jews

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The Axis Powers were a group of nations primarily consisted of Germany, Japan, and Italy. In 1936, Germany and Italy signed a declaration of friendship and later told the world about a Rome-Berlin axis that connected the two nations. The Axis Powers officially formed by the signing of the Tripartite Pact in 1940, but by then two-thirds of the major nations in the Axis Alliance had already began wars.

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The three principal partners in the Axis alliance were Germany, Italy, and Japan. Learn more about the Axis powers in WW2.

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The term "ghetto" goes all the way back to medieval times, as a place for Jewish families to reside. The Nazis drove Jews into these ghettos before an "initial killing spree."

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The ghetto was not a Nazi invention. Its origins can be traced back to medieval times, when restrictions on the places where Jews were allowed to reside were commonplace throughout Europe. Although this restriction is usually perceived as relating to towns or cities, it even applied in certain cases to entire countries.

For example, in 1791, Catherine the Great created the Pale of Settlement in western Russia. Most Jews were only allowed to reside within the Pale, and even there some cities were prohibited to them. Even earlier, in 1290, Edward I had expelled all Jews from England. They were not to be officially permitted to return until the time of Oliver Cromwell in 1655.

To an extent, only being allowed to live in specified parts of a city presented no great problems to an almost wholly Orthodox community. Judaism, with its many religious requirements, encouraged Jews to live in close proximity to each other and their religious institutions. Whilst they were generally free to come and go within the towns in which they dwelt, until the mid-19 th century there were special Jewish districts called "Jewish towns" in many larger Polish towns and cities.

This was especially true of places that until the end of the 18th century were the property of Polish kings. Jews could only live in these specified districts. They were not permitted to live inside the towns' walls, in the so-called "Christian towns", although Jews were permitted to trade with Christians and to even rent small shops within the Christian sector. In towns belonging to the church, Jews were not allowed to settle at all until 1861-1862 . By way of contrast, in smaller provincial towns which were the private property of aristocratic families, Jews were unreservedly welcomed because of the economic benefits they brought.

It was frequently a less than idyllic existence, but it was bearable. Anti-Semitism was endemic, based upon religious bigotry and economic envy. From time to time it erupted in pogroms, most notoriously under the leadership of Bogdan Chmielnicki, who between1648-1656 is estimated to have murdered 500,000 Jews in Poland and central and eastern Ukraine - a loss of Jewish life not to be exceeded until the years of the Holocaust.

The assassination of Czar Alexander II in 1881 unleashed a wave of anti-Jewish violence that resulted in the start of the great emigration from Russia and Congress Poland to the west, a process that continued largely uninterrupted until the outbreak of the First World War. An even bloodier outbreak of pogroms in 1903-1906 only served to increase the flood of eastern European Jews seeking shelter from persecution.

Having immigrated to new countries, Jews tended to congregate in particular areas of a town or city even when no longer forced to do so, for the reasons already stated. That was a matter of choice. The Nazis eliminated that choice. Although ghettoisation as such was never introduced in the Reich itself, and only slowly appeared in the countries occupied by Germany, its effect was intentionally lethal. As will be detailed, whilst ghettos might be "open", permitting some communication with the outside world, or "closed", virtually sealed off from all exterior contact, almost all of them shared certain features in common.

Dilapidated housing, appalling sanitary conditions, inadequate and poor quality food, absence of medical supplies and facilities - this was the lot of the ghetto dweller. And most of those ghetto dwellers also shared a common end. They died of starvation, disease and exhaustion within the ghetto, or at shooting pits and death camps outside of it.

The first Nazi ghettos were never intended to be more than temporary, an interim concentration of Jews pending a decision concerning what the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question" was going to be. That decision went through many convoluted changes before its ultimate determination.

The policy towards the incarcerated Jews also changed as the realisation dawned on the Germans that a captive labour force could be put to better use than sweeping snow, or breaking rocks. Later, the ghettos served as convenient points at which to concentrate that Jewish labour force prior to its liquidation.

Not every town had a ghetto. Reinhard Heydrich's strategy was to remove Jews from small villages and towns to larger conurbations. In some cases, ghettos were formed before the initial killing spree, in other cases afterwards. Hundreds of ghettos were established in Nazi occupied Europe, ranging in size from the 445,000 inhabitants of the Warsaw ghetto to those containing just a few families in rural quasi-ghettos.

In short, despite Heydrich's instructions, there was no consistently discernible pattern to ghettoisation, and policy decisions were frequently taken at a local level. As it became increasingly apparent where Nazi policy towards the Jews led, underground movements began to form in the ghettos. They were not always successful in organising resistance, and even if they did, none had a hope of success, but their dignity, courage and sacrifice were to provide an inspiration to generations as yet unborn.

Today, the term "ghetto" has acquired a somewhat different meaning. It is no longer applied solely, if at all, to Jews. Any ethnic minority residing near to each other in a specific area of a city create what is often described as a "ghetto." It may be that the choice of accommodation is forced upon them for economic reasons, but by and large, these communities congregate for the same reasons that Jews once did.

It is comforting to be surrounded by one's peers, religious or racial. But in no way can these modern "ghettos" be compared to the Nazi version. The ghettos of the Holocaust were described by one inmate as "a prison without a roof."

But they were much worse than that. A prison sentence offered at least the prospect of survival. For those interned in the ghettos, there was no such prospect. Slow and lingering, or swift and brutal, their fate was likely to be the same.

There were of course survivors, and it is from their evidence and the extraordinarily detailed archives and personal diaries of those who did not survive, that it is possible to construct some kind of historical record of individual ghettos. No writing can begin to adequately describe the misery and despair of life in the ghettos established by the Nazis.

But compelled by an ancient tradition to "Schreibt un farschreibt!" - "Write and record!" a legacy was left which at least enables us to attempt to do so.

Hilberg, Raul. The Destruction of the European Jews, Yale University Press, New Haven, 2003

SJ & CW Archive

COPYRIGHT: BJF H.E.A.R.T 2006

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The ghetto was not a Nazi invention. Its origins can be traced back to medieval times, when restrictions on the places where Jews were allowed to reside were commonplace throughout Europe. Although this restriction is usually perceived as relating to towns or cities, it even applied in certain cases to entire countries.

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Nationalism is an extreme form of patriotic feelings. A synonym for nationalism is patriotism. German citizens sympathized with one other because of German nationalism. One of the most probable reasons WW 2 started was because of nationalism. Hitler wanted the old land back but he believed he could only get it with force. Anger caused Hitler and other Germans, because of there anger towards their situation in 1920, to blame other nationalities (Jews, Slavs, etc.) other then themselves or the League of Nations. Adolf was brought to power because of the support he got for his strong nationalistic speeches in 1933.

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Aryan is a person who spoke Indo-European. In Nazi doctrine, a Aryan is a non-Jewish Caucasian, which is especially used in Nordic stock.

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Concentration camps are used to detain people, usually in harsh conditions.

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The concentration camps increasingly became sites where the SS authorities could kill targeted groups of real or perceived enemies of Nazi Germany. They also came to serve as holding centers for a rapidly growing pool of forced laborers used for SS construction projects, SS-commissioned extractive industrial sites, and, by 1942, the production of armaments, weapons, and related goods for the German war effort.

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Auchwitz was one of the most brutal concentration camps, killing 60,000 prisoners within a year. The first use of Zyklon B in gas chambers was at Auschwitz.

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A Walk Through Auschwitz I Concentration Camp | In 1080p HD

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Anti-Semitism is a belief surrounding the hatred and oppression of Jews. Hostility against the Jews increased with the rise of Christianity.