History of the Holocaust End of WWII January May of 1945 Still many camps related to Auschwitz large camp with sub camps and work camps A lot of labor camps throughout Poland SS decree that prisoners should be evacuated into Europe do this for 2 reasons Soviets start to make a lot of propaganda about Germans atrocities There was every belief on the part of the German leadership that some how the far should still be fought because German might win by some final battle They wanted slave laborers Forced marched in coldest winters after a long period of being in camps Become known as death marches anyone who falls out or stumbles is shot mortality rate is high Dora Mittelbau concentration camp Underground factory German was subjective to massive bombing campaign German railways and factories were destroyed Germans tried to build factories underground after bombing so protect it Made Rockets V2 rockets the Nazi miracle weapon Attempt of Germans to keep war economy going to the very last minute exploit everything to the very end May 1945 war ends What happens to survivors Difficulty that international organizations had in thinking about how to understand who these survivors were Survivors classified as displaced persons in international law Repatriation Sending people back to the place they had been at the start of the war their former lives For Jewish survivors this was a difficult thing Survivors found few traces of People associated Jews with communist party very easily Wave of violence against Jews Going back to Eastern Europe for most Jews was not going to be an option Most of them are in displaced persons camps in Western part of Germany initially together Could have Jewish survives of holocaust in Poland together with Ukrainians etc Camps are chaotically run and great deal of concern about the Eleanor Roosevelt visits a DP camp in Germany International philanthropy aid from the U S JDC to Jewish DPs In response to all of this attention Jews received nationality and over time house in separate camps Peoples understanding of what had happened during the war changed over time from 1945 till today First years after 1945 Nuremburg trials and the way people thought about getting justice of crimes that were committed The Demand for Justice Germany was occupied by four allied powers USSR US UK and France Collectively these four powers are trying to figure out how to de Nazify Germany The tactic taken by allies especially the US was try to force Germans to confront what they have done directly show them the suffering that had took place in their name and use confrontation and suffering to make them realize they obeyed a criminal regime for 12 years They wanted to change them to become democrats in society At the same time the allies tried to de Nazify Germany go through party records and figure out who did what and who was involved they also wanted to see if they had risen to high and were compromised that they were unable to keep their jobs in the German government US troops force a German Women to walk by bodies of slave laborers murdered by the SS in 1945 picture in slides A Lot of camps by the end of the war A lot of prisoners in Germany in may 1945 had not been in Germany for long many prisoners were in Poland and were marched to Germany The US military office you had to come and have an officer review your papers and decide whether or not you were too much of a Nazi they would look at when they joined the party their position rank etc Allies were clear that the trials that were going to take place were not only deciding the fate of individual people but these trials should have an educational purpose and teach a lesson to people Set certain precedents for international law Nulla poena sine lege Latin there can be no punishment without a law you cannot be punished for something unless you broke an existing law Problem is that according to Nazi law very little of what people did was illegal the things the army and shooting squads did were not subject to war crime trials In German law the SS existed outside So the allies had to impose new laws and then punish So what you did didn t break a law at the time but what you did was so heinous we will punish you International law trumps national law Charges in Trials Idea of a crime against humanity used at Nuremberg trials o Definition are particularly odious offenses in that they constitute a serious attack on human dignity or grave humiliation or a degradation of one or more human being These crimes were committed because a certain group of people was identified politically racially or religiously Genocide related to Raphael Lemkin he drafted convention on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide 1948 later taught at Rutgers school of law o Any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy in whole or in part a national ethnical racial or religious group such as a Killing members of the group b Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group c Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group d e Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group International Military tribunal Trial against the highest Criminals 1945 46 the higher ranked Nazi officials that were caught The Einsatzgruppen trial Otto Ohlendorf commander of the mobile killing squads pled not guilty said he was just following German orders but he committed crimes against international law The doctors trial Germans follow the Nuremberg trials Trials Create Backlash in Germany Most Germans were fine with some of the top leaders being put on trial about 22 With the trials going on Germans thought everything was a smoke screen for the fact that the allies won war and they were treating the defeated power as a defeated power Some Germans felt they had their own right to try their own criminals Various things have happened before war ended that allowed Germans to feel as though they were victims of the war Germans were kicked out of their homes in 1945 and forced to flee west Towards the end of the war Germany had been heavily bombed by allied power German cities were destroyed example the city of cologne A lot of people were bitter about losing their homes and family members Behavior of the Red army who had fought a brutal war against Germany they basically wanted revenge now Germans feel as