Spreading and Development of Anti-Semitic Policies

In August 1939, Hitler and Stalin signed the Nazi-Soviet Pact, which was intended to be a temporary truce. In October 1940, Hitler began planning for the conquest of the USSR, and in June 1941, he launched Operation Barbarossa. German armies were sent to control all territories in Poland, the Baltic states, Western Russia, and Ukraine. These events had an impact on the development of Nazi anti-Semitic policy since the war in the east was to be a war of racial annihilation, and it immediately brought more than three million Soviet Jews under German rule. Although there were no explicit orders given in June 1941 to kill the Jews of the Soviet Union, the atmosphere in the troops was to kill in order to eliminate the passing of information of the Bolshevik Jewish intelligentsia. The war with Soviet Russia intensified the pressure on Hitler to deal with the Jewish question in Germany as well as in the occupied territories, and a series of further isolationist measures were implemented on the Jews in German society.

Ghettoization

The Nazi regime needed a clear plan to deal with the huge Jewish populations that were displaced by military conquest and Germanization. One solution they turned to was the creation of ghettos. In February 1940, the first ghetto was set up in Lodz, where 320,000 Jews were living. As the Nazis started, they could not evacuate them all, so they closed the ghetto and made the Jews build a surrounding wall. Jews sent to the ghetto had their homes confiscated, and most had to sell their valuables to survive. There was further economic exploitation in the form of forced labor. The Nazis restricted the amount of food, medical supplies, and other goods to the overcrowded ghettos. There was a black market, along with many more ways around these awful conditions. The ghettos had illegal schools and illegal printing presses, and although the Elders did their best to relieve suffering, some were accused of corruption or collaboration with the Nazis.

Einsatzgruppen

Special groups or Einsatzgruppen were sent in to eliminate communist officials, Red Army commissars, partisans, and the Jewish Bolshevik intelligentsia. Their activities went far beyond their original remit as they carried out numerous mass killings. Possibly up to 0.5 million Soviet Jews were killed in this way. There were temporary units made up of police and regular troops. They were commanded by men from the Gestapo, who were used extensively to support military operations. They played an important role in the ethnic cleansing of the territories in Western Poland that were incorporated into greater Germany. It is estimated that 7,000 Jews were killed in Poland in 1939. The Einsatzgruppen were supported by police reserve units, who were made up of many ordinary men conscripted into the police instead of the regular army. Jewish men were routinely being shot, and with the extra manpower, Jewish women and children were now also to be shot.