The Holocaust

Civilians on the British mainland never had to go through the ordeal of occupation by the enemy. Most of Europe was not so lucky. Civilians were regularly taken hostage by the Germans and shot as a reprisal for the activities of resistance groups. Whole villages were wiped out, such as Lidice in Czechoslovakia.

Of the 30 million civilians who died in the war, 6 million were Jews. These Jewish men, women, children, and babies were not the 'accidental' victims of bombing or street fighting but the victims of deliberate German policy. Hitler had always hated Jews and the 500,000 Jews in Germany in the 1930s had always been treated badly. By 1942, millions of Polish and Soviet Jews had fallen into Hitler's hands and he decided on the policy known as the 'Final Solution'.

This policy required the total destruction of the Jews of Europe. Along with 3 million Polish and 1.25 million Soviet Jews, 450,000 Jews from Hungary and 210,000 German Jews perished in the death camps. The 250,000 Jews who found themselves in the areas occupied by the Italian army in south-eastern France and Yugoslavia were, for a while, more fortunate. The Italians refused to hand them over to the Germans, but they were seized once Italy surrendered in 1943.

At Lodz in Poland, Jewish babies were thrown from a hospital window while an SS soldier below caught them on the point of his bayonet. These methods proved too slow and 'inefficient' for the SS. Eventually, in 1942, death camps such as Auschwitz and Maidenek were set up. Here Jewish men, women and children were told to undress and take a shower on arrival at the camp. Out of the shower came not water but cyanide gas. Death could take up to 15 minutes. The dead children and their mothers, still clinging to one another, were wrenched apart by the guards. The bodies were then burnt, after any gold teeth and hidden valuables had been removed.

Neil Demarco: The era of the Second World War; Oxford University Press, 1993/2000, page 68 f.