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Click on an image to see a larger, more detailed picture.
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| 1939: The War Against The Jews |
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pg. 168 |
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The invading German Army passes through a burning city in Poland. The overwhelmingly superior firepower of the Germans crushed cities and towns alike. The wood-framed houses common in Poland went up in flames like matchboxes. While the German military machine relied on its air force and tank divisions to annihilate the enemy, many Poles utilized horse-drawn wagons to escape the advancing armies. Speed was critical, however, and whole Polish divisions that attempted to pull back were surrounded and wiped out. By September 3, just two days after the Wehrmacht crossed the Polish border, Poland's air force had ceased to exist.
Photo: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archive
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Before the Nazi invasion, Warsaw, Poland, was one of Eastern Europe's centers of Jewish culture, with a vibrant population of well over 350,000 Jews. This is a photograph taken in the city's Jewish Quarter. Polish Jews had heard about Nazi atrocities against their German co-religionists and were justifiably concerned about the future.
Photo: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archive
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Hitler authorized the "euthanasia" program known as Operation T-4 with this letter signed in October 1939, but backdated to September 1. Reichsleiter Philip Bouhler and Dr. Karl Brandt administered the program, in which doctors identified individuals as incurable and, after superficially examining them, put them to death. Operation T-4, which went into effect immediately, exemplified the radicalization of Nazi racial policies: Those deemed unworthy of life were systematically destroyed.
Photo: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archive
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September 1939: Nazis intern tens of thousands of Spanish Republicans in France before sending them to slave labor at stone quarries at Mauthausen, Austria.
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September 1939: Leading Jewish-German jurist Gerhard Leibholz, stripped of his position at the University of Göttingen in 1936, escapes to Switzerland with his wife and two daughters.
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September 1, 1939: German forces overrun western Poland, instigating World War II. Three thousand Jewish civilians die in the bombing of Warsaw. German troops enter Danzig, trapping more than 5000 Jews. Throughout Germany and Austria, Jews may not be outside after 8:00 p.m. in the winter and 9:00 p.m. in the summer.
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| 1939: The War Against The Jews |
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pg. 168 |
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The Holocaust Chronicle
© 2009 Publications International, Ltd.
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