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123-710: The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum ( USHMM ) is the United States' official memorial to the Holocaust . Adjacent to the National Mall in Washington, D.C. , the USHMM provides for the documentation, study, and interpretation of Holocaust history. It is dedicated to helping leaders and citizens of the world confront hatred, prevent genocide , promote human dignity, and strengthen democracy. In 2008,

246-580: A German colonial empire overseas, leading to the Herero and Nama genocide and subsequent racial apartheid regime in South West Africa . World War I (1914–1918) intensified nationalist and racist sentiments in Germany and other European countries. Jews in eastern Europe were targeted by widespread pogroms . Germany had two million war dead and lost a substantial territory ; opposition to

369-484: A belief it was hopeless. George Washington University Hospital The current 400,000 sq ft (37,200 m ) facility opened on August 23, 2002. It has 371 beds, holds more than $ 45 million of medical equipment, and costs over $ 96 million to construct. The hospital is licensed by the District of Columbia Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs and accredited by the U.S. Joint Commission . Founded in 1824 as

492-479: A concentration camp. Despite many deaths, as many as 200,000 Jews survived the war inside the concentration camps. Although most Holocaust victims were never imprisoned in a concentration camp, the image of these camps is a popular symbol of the Holocaust. Including the Soviet prisoners of war, 13 million people were brought to Germany for forced labor. The largest nationalities were Soviet and Polish and they were

615-463: A few kilometers from a town. Victims were rounded up and marched to the execution site, forced to undress, and shot into previously dug pits. The favored technique was a shot in the back of the neck with a single bullet. In the chaos, many victims were not killed by the gunfire but instead buried alive . Typically, the pits would be guarded after the execution but sometimes a few victims managed to escape afterwards. Executions were public spectacles and

738-553: A food shortfall and planned the mass starvation of Soviet cities and some rural areas. Although the starvation policy was less successful than planners hoped, the residents of some cities, particularly in Ukraine, and besieged Leningrad , as well as the Jewish ghettos, endured human-made famine, during which millions of people died of starvation. By mid-June 1941, about 30,000 Jews had died, 20,000 of whom had starved to death in

861-555: A higher chance of survival. Although conditions varied widely between camps, Jewish forced laborers were typically treated worse than non-Jewish prisoners and suffered much higher mortality rates. In mid-1943, Himmler sought to bring surviving Jewish forced laborers under the control of the SS in the concentration camp system. Some of the forced-labor camps for Jews and some ghettos, such as Kovno, were designated concentration camps, while others were dissolved and surviving prisoners sent to

984-480: A learning site for students. Organized by theme, the site uses text, photographs, maps, artifacts, and personal histories to provide an overview of the Holocaust. The USHMM had partnered with Apple Inc. to publish free podcasts on iTunes about the Holocaust, antisemitism, and genocide prevention. It also had its own channel on YouTube , an official account on Facebook , a Twitter page, and an e-mail newsletter service. The Genocide Prevention Mapping Initiative

1107-792: A medical department in Columbian College (now called the George Washington University ), the GW Medical School was the 11th in the United States and the first in the nation's capital. At George Washington University, the Ronald Reagan Institute of Emergency Medicine was established in 1991. The department cares for nearly 85,000 patients each year, including serious injuries, as a level 1 trauma center. GW's emergency department consists of: The George Washington University Hospital

1230-820: A nationwide pogrom in November 1938. After Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, occupation authorities began to establish ghettos to segregate Jews. Following the June 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union , 1.5 to 2 million Jews were shot by German forces and local collaborators. Later in 1941 or early 1942, the highest levels of the German government decided to murder all Jews in Europe . Victims were deported by rail to extermination camps where, if they survived

1353-687: A professional and democratic manner. The Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933–1945 is a seven-part encyclopedia series that explores the history of the concentration camps and the ghettos in German-occupied Europe during the Nazi era . The series is produced by the USHMM and published by the Indiana University Press . The work on the series began in 2000 by the researchers at the USHMM's Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies . Its general editor and project directory

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1476-659: A result of local and popular pressure, many small towns became entirely free of Jews and as many as a third of Jewish businesses may have been forced to close. Anti-Jewish violence was even worse in areas annexed by Nazi Germany . On 9–10 November 1938, the Nazis organized Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass), a nationwide pogrom . Over 7,500 Jewish shops (out of 9,000) were looted, more than 1,000 synagogues were damaged or destroyed, at least 90 Jews were murdered, and as many as 30,000 Jewish men were arrested , although many were released within weeks. German Jews were levied

1599-525: A significant number of other European countries abandoned democracy for some kind of authoritarian or fascist rule. Many countries, including Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia, passed antisemitic legislation in the 1930s and 1940s. In October 1938, Germany deported many Polish Jews in response to a Polish law that enabled the revocation of citizenship for Polish Jews living abroad. The German Wehrmacht (armed forces) invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, triggering declarations of war from

1722-438: A similar or larger number of non-Jewish civilians and prisoners of war (POWs); the term Holocaust is sometimes used to refer to the persecution of these other groups . The Nazis developed their ideology based on racism and pursuit of "living space" , and seized power in early 1933. Meant to force all German Jews to emigrate , regardless of means, the regime passed anti-Jewish laws, encouraged harassment, and orchestrated

1845-551: A slight increase in rations to non-Jewish Poles, and combat the black market . In March 1942, killings began in Belzec, targeting Jews from Lublin who were not capable of work. This action reportedly reduced the black market and was deemed a success to be replicated elsewhere. By mid-1942, Nazi leaders decided to allow only 300,000 Jews to survive in the General Governorate by the end of the year for forced labor; for

1968-628: A special tax that raised more than 1 billion Reichsmarks (RM). The Nazi government wanted to force all Jews to leave Germany . By the end of 1939, most Jews who could emigrate had already done so; those who remained behind were disproportionately elderly, poor, or female and could not obtain a visa. The plurality, around 110,000, left for the United States, while smaller numbers emigrated to South America, Shanghai , Mandatory Palestine , and South Africa. Germany collected emigration taxes of nearly 1 billion RM, mostly from Jews. The policy of forced emigration continued into 1940. Besides Germany,

2091-511: A symbol of the ultimate human evil. The term Holocaust , derived from a Greek word meaning ' burnt offering ', has become the most common word used to describe the Nazi extermination of Jews in English and many other languages. The term Holocaust is sometimes used to refer to the persecution of other groups that the Nazis targeted, especially those targeted on a biological basis, in particular

2214-455: A variety of measures, including imprisonment in concentration camps . The Nazis forcibly sterilized 400,000 people and subjected others to forced abortions for real or supposed hereditary illnesses. Although the Nazis sought to control every aspect of public and private life, Nazi repression was directed almost entirely against groups perceived as outside the national community. Most Germans had little to fear provided they did not oppose

2337-587: A view to their ultimate disappearance from the country. Jewish students were gradually forced out of the school system. Some municipalities enacted restrictions governing where Jews were allowed to live or conduct business. In 1938 and 1939, Jews were barred from additional occupations, and their businesses were expropriated to force them out of the economy. Anti-Jewish violence, largely locally organized by members of Nazi Party institutions, took primarily non-lethal forms from 1933 to 1939. Jewish stores, especially in rural areas, were often boycotted or vandalized. As

2460-514: Is an ACS verified level I trauma center GWUH receives the most critically-injured trauma patients from Washington, D.C., and the Northern Virginia area, as well as hospital transfers from Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia. In 2018, the hospital was approved to construct a helipad after a many year battle to change a DC law prohibiting the construction of new helipads. The addition of this ability to receive helicopters greatly shortens

2583-731: Is controversial. Romanian soldiers killed tens of thousands of Jews from Odessa by April 1942. Prior to the invasion, the Einsatzgruppen were reorganized in preparation for mass killings and instructed to shoot Soviet officials and Jewish state and party employees. The shootings were justified on the basis of Jews' supposed central role in supporting the communist system, but it was not initially envisioned to kill all Soviet Jews. The occupiers relied on locals to identify Jews to be targeted. The first German mass killings targeted adult male Jews who had worked as civil servants or in jobs requiring education. Tens of thousands were shot by

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2706-630: Is here; the annihilation of the Jews must be the necessary consequence." It took the Nazis several months after this to organize a continent-wide genocide. Reinhard Heydrich , head of the Reich Main Security Office (RSHA), convened the Wannsee Conference on 20 January 1942. This high-level meeting was intended to coordinate anti-Jewish policy. The majority of Holocaust killings were carried out in 1942, with it being

2829-836: Is overseen by the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, which includes 55 private citizens appointed by the President of the United States , five members of the United States Senate , and five members of the House of Representatives , and three ex-officio members from the Departments of State , Education , and the Interior . Since the museum opened, the council has been led by the following officers: The council has appointed

2952-615: Is recommended for visitors 11 years of age and older. To enter the Permanent Exhibition between March and August, visitors must acquire free timed passes from the Museum on the day of the visit, or online for a service fee. Remember the Children: Daniel's Story is an exhibition designed to explain the Holocaust to elementary and middle school children. Opened in 1993, it follows true stories about children during

3075-607: Is the American historian Geoffrey P. Megargee . As of 2017, two volumes have been issued, with the third being planned for 2018. Volume I covers the early camps that the SA and SS set up in the first year of the Nazi regime, and the camps later run by the SS Economic Administration Main Office and their numerous sub-camps. The volume contains 1,100 entries written by 150 contributors. The bulk of

3198-669: The George Washington University Hospital . Special Police Officer Johns later died of his injuries; he is permanently honored in an official memorial at the USHMM. Von Brunn, who had a previous criminal record, died before the conclusion of his federal criminal trial, in Butner federal prison in North Carolina . Designed by the architect James Ingo Freed of Pei Cobb Freed & Partners , in association with Finegold Alexander & Associates ,

3321-631: The German occupation of Italy in September 1943, there were no serious attempt to deport Italian Jews, and Italy refused to allow the deportation of Jews in many Italian-occupied areas . Nazi Germany did not attempt the destruction of the Finnish Jews and the North African Jews living under French or Italian rule . An estimated 200,000 to 250,000 Germans were directly involved in killing Jews, and if one includes all those involved in

3444-497: The German–Soviet pact . The Soviet Union deported hundreds of thousands of Polish citizens to the Soviet interior, including as many as 260,000 Jews who largely survived the war. Although most Jews were not communists, some accepted positions in the Soviet administration, contributing to a pre-existing perception among many non-Jews that Soviet rule was a Jewish conspiracy. In 1940, Germany invaded much of western Europe including

3567-815: The Lublin District of the General Governorate. 45,000 Jews were deported by November and left to fend for themselves, causing many deaths. Deportations stopped in early 1940 due to the opposition of Hans Frank , the leader of the General Governorate, who did not want his fiefdom to become a dumping ground for unwanted Jews. After the conquest of France, the Nazis considered deporting Jews to French Madagascar , but this proved impossible. The Nazis planned that harsh conditions in these areas would kill many Jews. In September 1939, around 7,000 Jews were killed, alongside thousands of Poles, however, they were not systematically targeted as they would be later, and open mass killings would subside until June of 1941. During

3690-492: The Roma and Sinti , as well as Soviet prisoners of war and Polish and Soviet civilians . All of these groups, however, were targeted for different reasons. By the 1970s, the adjective Jewish was dropped as redundant and Holocaust, now capitalized, became the default term for the destruction of European Jews. The Hebrew word Shoah ('catastrophic destruction') exclusively refers to Jewish victims. The perpetrators used

3813-576: The Soviet threat. Hitler believed that Jews controlled the Soviet Union , as well as the Western powers, and were plotting to destroy Germany . Amidst a worldwide economic depression and political fragmentation , the Nazi Party rapidly increased its support, reaching a high of 37 percent in mid-1932 elections , by campaigning on issues such as anticommunism and economic recovery. Hitler

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3936-675: The Washington Monument for construction. Under the founding director Richard Krieger, and subsequent director Jeshajahu Weinberg and chairman Miles Lerman , nearly $ 190 million was raised from private sources for building design, artifact acquisition, and exhibition creation. In October 1988, President Ronald Reagan helped lay the cornerstone of the building, designed by architect James Ingo Freed . Dedication ceremonies on April 22, 1993, included speeches by American President Bill Clinton , Israeli President Chaim Herzog , Chairman Harvey Meyerhoff , and Elie Wiesel. On April 26, 1993,

4059-571: The Wola Massacre , or deported to extermination camps for fear of additional Jewish resistance developing. Nevertheless, in early 1944, more than 70,000 Jews were performing forced labor in the General Governorate. Unlike the killing areas in the east, the deportation from elsewhere in Europe was centrally organized from Berlin, although it depended on the outcome of negotiations with allied governments and popular responses to deportation. Beginning in late 1941, local administrators responded to

4182-606: The ghettos . Soviet prisoners of war in the custody of the German Army were intended to die in large numbers. Sixty percent—3.3 million people—died, primarily of starvation, making them the second largest group of victims of Nazi mass killing after European Jews. Jewish prisoners of war and commissars were systematically executed. About a million civilians were killed by the Nazis during anti-partisan warfare , including more than 300,000 in Belarus. From 1942 onwards,

4305-399: The postwar settlement united Germans across the political spectrum. The military promoted the untrue but compelling idea that, rather than being defeated on the battlefield, Germany had been stabbed in the back by socialists and Jews. The Nazi Party was founded in the wake of the war, and its ideology is often cited as the main factor explaining the Holocaust. From the beginning,

4428-404: The rise of nationalism in Europe and industrialization that increased economic conflicts between Jews and non-Jews. Some scientists began to categorize humans into different races and argued that there was a life or death struggle between them . Many racists argued that Jews were a separate racial group alien to Europe . The turn of the twentieth century saw a major effort to establish

4551-444: The 2014–2015 fiscal year, the museum reported total revenues of $ 133.4 million; $ 81.9 million and $ 51.4 million from private and public sources, respectively. Nearly the entirety of private funds come from donations. Expenses totaled of $ 104.6 million, with a total of $ 53.5 million used to pay 421 employees. Net assets tallied $ 436.1 million as of September 30, 2015, of which $ 319.1 million is classified as long-term investments, including

4674-681: The Commission presented its report to the President, recommending the establishment of a national Holocaust memorial museum in Washington, D.C., with three main components: a national museum/memorial, an educational foundation, and a Committee on Conscience. After a unanimous vote by the United States Congress in 1980 to establish the museum, the federal government made available 1.9 acres (0.77 ha) of land adjacent to

4797-653: The German Jews out of public life by the end of 1934, the regime passed the Nuremberg Laws in 1935. The laws reserved full citizenship rights for those of "German or related blood", restricted Jews' economic activity, and criminalized new marriages and sexual relationships between Jews and non-Jewish Germans . Jews were defined as those with three or four Jewish grandparents; many of those with partial Jewish descent were classified as Mischlinge , with varying rights. The regime also sought to segregate Jews with

4920-587: The German occupiers and other non-Jews. Although the majority of Holocaust victims died in 1942, the killing continued at a lower rate until the end of the war in May 1945. Many Jewish survivors emigrated outside of Europe after the war. A few Holocaust perpetrators faced criminal trials. Billions of dollars in reparations have been paid, although falling short of the Jews' losses. The Holocaust has also been commemorated in museums, memorials , and culture . It has become central to Western historical consciousness as

5043-547: The Germans and their allies targeted villages suspected of supporting the partisans, burning them and killing or expelling their inhabitants. During these operations, nearby small ghettos were liquidated and their inhabitants shot. By 1943, anti-partisan operations aimed for the depopulation of large areas of Belarus. Jews and those unfit for work were typically shot on the spot with others deported. Although most of those killed were not Jews, anti-partisan warfare often led to

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5166-850: The Holocaust, as well as profiting from unclaimed deposits made by Holocaust victims. Beginning in 1938—especially in Germany and its annexed territories—many Jews were drafted into forced-labor camps and segregated work details. These camps were often of a temporary nature and typically overseen by civilian authorities. Initially, mortality did not increase dramatically. After mid-1941, conditions for Jewish forced laborers drastically worsened and death rates increased; even private companies deliberately subjected workers to murderous conditions. Beginning in 1941 and increasingly as time went on, Jews capable of employment were separated from others—who were usually killed. They were typically employed in non-skilled jobs and could be replaced easily if non-Jewish workers were available, but those in skilled positions had

5289-435: The Holocaust. Daniel is named after the son of Isaiah Kuperstein, who was the original curator of the exhibit. He worked together with Ann Lewin and Stan Woodward to create the exhibit. Because of its popularity with families, it is still open to the public today. In October 2009, the USHMM unveiled a memorial plaque in honor of Special Police Officer Stephen Tyrone Johns. In response to the outpouring of grief and support after

5412-432: The Jews killed in the Holocaust died by poison gas. Thousands of Romani people were also murdered in the extermination camps. Prisoner uprisings at Treblinka and Sobibor meant that these camps were shut down earlier than envisioned. Plans to kill most of the Jews in the General Governorate were affected by various goals of the SS, military, and civil administration to reduce the amount of food consumed by Jews, enable

5535-598: The Museum published the Holocaust Encyclopedia —an online, multilingual encyclopedia detailing the events surrounding the Holocaust. It was published in all six of the official languages of the United Nations — Arabic , Mandarin , English , French , Russian , and Spanish , as well as in Greek , Portuguese , Persian , Turkish , and Urdu . It contained thousands of entries and includes copies of

5658-668: The National Civic Commemoration, ceremonies and educational programs during the week of the Days of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holocaust (DRVH) were regularly held throughout the country, sponsored by Governors, Mayors, veterans groups, religious groups, and military ships and stations throughout the world. Each year, the USHMM designated a special theme for DRVH observances, and prepares materials available at no charge to support observances and programs throughout

5781-827: The Nazis—not unlike other nation-states in Europe—dreamed of a world without Jews , whom they identified as "the embodiment of everything that was wrong with modernity ". The Nazis defined the German nation as a racial community unbounded by Germany's physical borders and sought to purge it of racially foreign and socially deficient elements. The Nazi Party and its leader, Adolf Hitler , were also obsessed with reversing Germany's territorial losses and acquiring additional Lebensraum (living space) in Eastern Europe for colonization. These ideas appealed to many Germans. The Nazis promised to protect European civilization from

5904-631: The Netherlands , Belgium , Luxembourg , France , and Denmark and Norway . In 1941, Germany invaded Yugoslavia and Greece . Some of these new holdings were fully or partially annexed into Germany while others were placed under civilian or military rule . The war provided cover for " Aktion T4 ", the murder of around 70,000 institutionalized Germans with mental or physical disabilities at specialized killing centers using poison gas. The victims included all 4,000 to 5,000 institutionalized Jews. Despite efforts to maintain secrecy, knowledge of

6027-528: The Netherlands was higher than neighboring countries, which scholars have attributed to difficulty in hiding or increased collaboration of the Dutch police. The German government sought the deportation of Jews from allied countries. The first to hand over its Jewish population was Slovakia , which arrested and deported about 58,000 Jews to Poland from March to October 1942. The Independent State of Croatia had already shot or killed in concentration camps

6150-496: The President's Commission on the Holocaust, chaired by Elie Wiesel , a prominent author, activist, and Holocaust survivor. Its mandate was to investigate the creation and maintenance of a memorial to victims of the Holocaust and an appropriate annual commemoration to them. The mandate was a joint effort of Wiesel and Richard Krieger (the original papers are on display at the Jimmy Carter Museum ). On September 27, 1979,

6273-531: The USHMM also provided public service professionals, including law enforcement officers, military personnel, civil servants, and federal judges with ethics lessons based in Holocaust history. In partnership with the Anti-Defamation League , more than 21,000 law enforcement officers from worldwide and local law enforcement agencies such as the FBI and local police departments have been trained to act in

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6396-421: The USHMM is created to be a "resonator of memory". (Born to a Jewish family in Germany, Freed came to the United States at the age of nine in 1939 with his parents, who fled the Nazi regime.) The outside of the building disappears into the neoclassical , Georgian , and modern architecture of Washington, D.C. Upon entering, each architectural feature becomes a new element of allusion to the Holocaust. In designing

6519-713: The USHMM one of the world's principal venues for Holocaust scholarship. The Museum contains the offices of the Committee on Conscience (CoC), a joint United States government and privately funded think tank , which by presidential mandate engages in global human rights research. Using the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide , approved by the United Nations in 1948 and ratified by

6642-584: The USHMM. Researchers from all over the world come to the USHMM Library and Archives and the Benjamin and Vladka Meed Registry of Holocaust Survivors . In March 2024, the museum announced that it acquired the Centropa collection, a collection that contains rare testimonies of Holocaust survivors living in post-war communist countries. The USHMM operates on a mixed federal and private revenue budget. For

6765-509: The United Kingdom and France . During the five weeks of fighting, as many as 16,000 civilians, hostages, and prisoners of war may have been shot by the German invaders; there was also a great deal of looting. Special units known as Einsatzgruppen followed the army to eliminate any possible resistance. Around 50,000 Polish and Polish Jewish leaders and intellectuals were arrested or executed . The Auschwitz concentration camp

6888-593: The United States and, since 1994, almost 400 university fellows from 26 countries. Researchers at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum have documented 42,500 ghettos and concentration camps created by the Nazis throughout German-controlled areas of Europe from 1933 to 1945. The museum is located geographically in the same cluster as the Smithsonian museums. On November 1, 1978, President Jimmy Carter established

7011-596: The United States for teachers to learn about the Holocaust, to participate in the Museum Teacher Fellowship Program (MTFP), and to join a national corps of educators who served as leaders in Holocaust education in their schools, communities, and professional organizations. Some MTFP participants also participated in the Regional Education Corps, an initiative to implement Holocaust education on a national level. Since 1999,

7134-564: The United States in 1988, the CoC has established itself as a leading non-partisan commenter on the Darfur Genocide , as well as the war-torn region of Chechnya in Russia , a zone that the CoC believes could produce genocidal atrocities. The CoC does not have policy-making powers and serves solely as an advisory institution to the American and other governments. In addition to coordinating

7257-541: The Wartheland and General Governorate in 1939 and 1940 on the initiative of local German administrators. The largest ghettos, such as Warsaw and Łódź , were established in existing residential neighborhoods and closed by fences or walls. In many smaller ghettos, Jews were forced into poor neighborhoods but with no fence. Forced labor programs provided subsistence to many ghetto inhabitants, and in some cases protected them from deportation. Workshops and factories were operated inside some ghettos, while in other cases Jews left

7380-510: The assistance of local collaborators and rewards offered for their denunciation. The death penalty was sometimes enforced on people hiding them, especially in eastern Europe. Rescuers' motivations varied on a spectrum from altruism to expecting sex or material gain; it was not uncommon for helpers to betray or murder Jews if their money ran out. Gerlach argues that hundreds of thousands of Jews may have died because of rumors or denunciations, and many others never attempted to escape because of

7503-499: The beginning of September, all German Jews were required to wear a yellow star, and in October, Hitler decided to deport them to the east and ban emigration. Between mid-October and the end of 1941, 42,000 Jews from Germany and its annexed territories and 5,000 Romani people from Austria were deported to Łódź, Kovno, Riga, and Minsk . In late November, 5,000 German Jews were shot outside of Kovno and another 1,000 near Riga, but Himmler ordered an end to such massacres and some in

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7626-526: The building, Freed researched post- World War II German architecture and visited Holocaust sites throughout Europe. The Museum building and the exhibitions within are intended to evoke deception, fear, and solemnity, in contrast to the comfort and grandiosity usually associated with Washington, D.C., public buildings. Other partners in the construction of the USHMM included Weiskopf & Pickworth, Cosentini Associates LLP, Jules Fisher , and Paul Marantz, all from New York City. The structural engineering firm

7749-409: The country's population in 1933. They were wealthier on average than other Germans and largely assimilated, although a minority were recent immigrants from eastern Europe. Various German government agencies, Nazi Party organizations, and local authorities instituted about 1,500 anti-Jewish laws . In 1933, Jews were banned or restricted from several professions and the civil service . After hounding

7872-489: The deaths of Jews. The systematic murder of Jews began in the Soviet Union in 1941. During the invasion, many Jews were conscripted into the Red Army . Out of 10 or 15 million Soviet civilians who fled eastwards to the Soviet interior , 1.6 million were Jews. Local inhabitants killed as many as 50,000 Jews in pogroms in Latvia, Lithuania , eastern Poland , Ukraine, and the Romanian borderlands. Although German forces tried to incite pogroms, their role in causing violence

7995-438: The decision to switch to other methods of killing. Most historians agree that Hitler issued an explicit order to kill all Jews across Europe, but there is disagreement as to when. Some historians cite inflammatory statements by Hitler and other Nazi leaders as well as the concurrent mass shootings of Serbian Jews , plans for extermination camps in Poland, and the beginning of the deportation of German Jews as indicative of

8118-643: The deportation of Jews to their area by massacring local Jews in order to free up space in ghettos for the deportees. If the deported Jews did not die of harsh conditions, they were killed later in extermination camps. Jews deported to Auschwitz were initially entered into the camp; the practice of conducting selections and murdering many prisoners upon arrival began in July 1942. In May and June, German and Slovak Jews deported to Lublin began to be sent directly to extermination camps. In Western Europe, almost all Jewish deaths occurred after deportation. The occupiers often relied on local policemen to arrest Jews, limiting

8241-440: The early twentieth century, most Jews in central and western Europe were well integrated into society, while in eastern Europe, where emancipation had arrived later, many Jews continued to live in small towns , spoke Yiddish , and practiced Orthodox Judaism . Political antisemitism positing the existence of a Jewish question and usually an international Jewish conspiracy emerged in the eighteenth and nineteenth century due to

8364-404: The end of 1941, more than 80 percent of the Jews in central Ukraine, eastern Belarus, Russia, Latvia, and Lithuania had been shot, but less than 25 percent of those living farther west where 900,000 remained alive. By the end of the war, around 1.5 to 2 million Jews were shot and as many as 225,000 Roma. The murderers found the executions distressing and logistically inconvenient, which influenced

8487-494: The end of July. The vast majority of civilian victims were Jews. In July and August Heinrich Himmler , the leader of the SS ( Schutzstaffel ), made several visits to the death squads ' zones of operation, relaying orders to kill more Jews. At this time, the killers began to murder Jewish women and children too. Executions peaked at 40,000 a month in Lithuania in August and September and in October and November reached their height in Belarus . The executions often took place

8610-417: The extermination camps later dug up human remains in search of valuables. The property of deported Jews was also appropriated by Germany's allies and collaborating governments. Even puppet states such as Vichy France and Norway were able to successfully lay claim to Jewish property. In the decades after the war, Swiss banks became notorious for harboring gold deposited by Nazis who had stolen it during

8733-454: The final decision having been made before December 1941. Others argue that these policies were initiatives by local leaders and that the final decision was made later. On 5 December 1941, the Soviet Union launched its first major counteroffensive . On 11 December, Hitler declared war on the United States after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor . The next day, he told leading Nazi party officials , referring to his 1939 prophecy , "The world war

8856-487: The following as directors of the museum: The museum was criticized for refusal to address alleged incidents of genocide in non-Jewish contexts, such as the Syrian civil war . In June 2019, the USHMM took part in a public debate about the inappropriate use of Holocaust-related terminology after U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called the detention camps along the southern U.S. border "concentration camps", and used

8979-523: The ghetto after a final selection, and around 20,000 or 25,000 managed to hide in the ghetto. Misdirection efforts convinced many Jews that they could avoid deportation until it was too late. During a six-week period beginning in August, 300,000 Jews from the Radom District were sent to Treblinka. At the same time as the mass killing of Jews in the General Governorate, Jews who were in ghettos to

9102-550: The ghetto to work outside it. Because the ghettos were not segregated by sex some family life continued. A Jewish community leadership ( Judenrat ) exercised some authority and tried to sustain the Jewish community while following German demands. As a survival strategy, many tried to make the ghettos useful to the occupiers as a labor reserve. Jews in western Europe were not forced into ghettos but faced discriminatory laws and confiscation of property. Rape and sexual exploitation of Jewish and non-Jewish women in eastern Europe

9225-604: The ghetto would be raided without warning, usually in the early morning, and the extent of the operation would be concealed as long as possible. Trawniki men would cordon off the ghetto while the Order Police and Security Police carried out the action. In addition to local non-Jewish collaborators, the Jewish councils and Jewish ghetto police were often ordered to assist with liquidation actions, although these Jews were in most cases murdered later. Chaotic, capriciously executed selections determined who would be loaded onto

9348-603: The ghetto, and set it on fire. These ghetto uprisings were only undertaken when the inhabitants began to believe that their death was certain. In 1943, larger uprisings in Warsaw , Białystok , and Glubokoje necessitated the use of heavy weapons. The uprising in Warsaw prompted the Nazi leadership to liquidate additional ghettos and labor camps in German-occupied Poland with their inhabitants massacred, such as

9471-425: The identification card profiles that visitors receive at the Permanent Exhibition. The encyclopedia is organized by the following topics: It includes a number of articles and other resources: Holocaust Encyclopedia materials and other resources are available in multiple languages: Arabic, Greek, Spanish, French, Italian, Korean, Russian, Urdu, Farsi, Bahasa Indonesia, Portuguese, Turkish, and Chinese. It includes

9594-535: The invasion, synagogues were burned and thousands of Jews fled or were expelled into the Soviet occupation zone. Various anti-Jewish regulations were soon issued. In October 1939, adult Jews in the General Governorate were required to perform forced labor. In November 1939 they were ordered to wear white armbands. Laws decreed the seizure of most Jewish property and the takeover of Jewish-owned businesses. When Jews were forced into ghettos, they lost their homes and belongings. The first Nazi ghettos were established in

9717-457: The journey, most were killed with poison gas. Other Jews continued to be employed in forced labor camps where many died from starvation, abuse, exhaustion, or being used as test subjects in deadly medical experiments . Although many Jews tried to escape, surviving in hiding was difficult due to factors such as the lack of money to pay helpers and the risk of denunciation. The property, homes, and jobs belonging to murdered Jews were redistributed to

9840-484: The killings leaked out and Hitler ordered a halt to the centralized killing program in August 1941. Decentralized killings via denial of medical care, starvation, and poisoning caused an additional 120,000 deaths by the end of the war. Many of the same personnel and technologies were later used for the mass murder of Jews. Germany gained control of 1.7 million Jews in Poland. The Nazis tried to concentrate Jews in

9963-461: The largest number of Jews . Romania deported about 154,000–170,000 Jews from Bessarabia and Bukovina to ghettos in Transnistria from 1941 to 1943. Jews from Transnistria were also imprisoned in these ghettos, where the total death toll may have reached 160,000. Hungary expelled thousands of Carpathian Ruthenian and foreign Jews in 1941, who were shortly thereafter shot in Ukraine . At

10086-439: The majority of its Jewish population (along with a larger number of Serbs ), and later deported several thousand Jews in 1942 and 1943. Bulgaria deported 11,000 Jews from Bulgarian-occupied Greece and Yugoslavia , who were murdered at Treblinka, but declined to allow the deportation of Jews from its prewar territory . Romania and Hungary did not send any Jews, which were the largest surviving populations after 1942. Prior to

10209-437: The most part, only those working in armaments production were spared. The majority of ghettos were liquidated in mass executions nearby, especially if they were not near a train station. Larger ghettos were more commonly liquidated during multiple deportations to extermination camps. During this campaign, 1.5 million Polish Jews were murdered in the largest killing operation of the Holocaust. In order to reduce resistance,

10332-606: The museum had an operating budget of $ 120.6 million. a staff of about 400 employees, 125 contractors, 650 volunteers, 91 Holocaust survivors, and 175,000 members. It had local offices in New York City , Boston , Boca Raton , Chicago , Los Angeles , and Dallas . Since its dedication on April 22, 1993, the museum has had nearly 40 million visitors, including more than 10 million school children, 99 heads of state, and more than 3,500 foreign officials from over 211 countries and territories. The museum's visitors came from all over

10455-527: The museum opened to the general public. Its first visitor was the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet . In 2002, a federal jury convicted white supremacists Leo Felton and Erica Chase of planning to bomb a series of institutions associated with American black and Jewish communities, including the USHMM. On June 10, 2009, 88-year-old James von Brunn , an antisemite , shot Museum Special Police Officer Stephen Tyrone Johns . Special Police Officer Johns and von Brunn were seriously wounded and transported by ambulance to

10578-876: The museum's endowment. In 1998, the museum established the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies (CAHS). Working with the Academic Committee of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, the CAHS supports research projects and publications about the Holocaust (including a partnership with Oxford University Press to publish the scholarly journal Holocaust and Genocide Studies ), helps make accessible collections of Holocaust-related archival material, supports fellowship opportunities for pre- and post- doctoral researchers, and hosts seminars, summer research workshops for academics, conferences, lectures, and symposia. The CAHS's Visiting Scholars Program and other events have made

10701-405: The nation, and in the United States military. Days of Remembrance themes have included: The USHMM conducted several programs devoted to improving Holocaust education. The Arthur and Rochelle Belfer Conference for Teachers , conducted in Washington, D.C., attracted around 200 middle school and secondary teachers from around the United States each year. The Education Division offered workshops around

10824-457: The new regime. The new regime built popular support through economic growth, which partly occurred through state-led measures such as rearmament . The annexations of Austria (1938), Sudetenland (1938), and Bohemia and Moravia (1939) also increased the Nazis' popular support. Germans were inundated with propaganda both against Jews and other groups targeted by the Nazis. The roughly 500,000 German Jews made up less than 1 percent of

10947-541: The number who were deported. In 1942, nearly 100,000 Jews were deported from Belgium , France , and the Netherlands . Only 25 percent of the Jews in France were killed; most of them were either non-citizens or recent immigrants. Si Kaddour Benghabrit and Abdelkader Mesli saved hundreds of Jews by hiding them in the basements of the Grand Mosque of Paris and other resistance efforts in France. The death rate in

11070-442: The organization of extermination, the number rises to 500,000. Genocide required the active and tacit consent of millions of Germans and non-Germans. The motivation of Holocaust perpetrators varied and has led to historiographical debate. Studies of the SS officials who organized the Holocaust have found that most had strong ideological commitment to Nazism. In addition to ideological factors, many perpetrators were motivated by

11193-646: The past almost impossible." The Holocaust The Holocaust ( / ˈ h ɑː l ə k ɔː ˈ s t / , HAW -lə-kawst ) was the genocide of European Jews during World War II . Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe , around two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population. The murders were carried out primarily through mass shootings and poison gas in extermination camps , chiefly Auschwitz-Birkenau , Treblinka , Belzec , Sobibor , and Chełmno in occupied Poland . Separate Nazi persecutions killed

11316-426: The peak of the genocide, as over 3 million Jews were murdered, with 20 or 25 percent of Holocaust victims dying before early 1942 and the same number surviving by the end of the year. Gas vans developed from those used to kill mental patients since 1939 were assigned to the Einsatzgruppen and first used in November 1941; victims were forced into the van and killed with engine exhaust. The first extermination camp

11439-480: The phrase " Final Solution " as a euphemism for their genocide of Jews. Jews have lived in Europe for more than two thousand years. Throughout the Middle Ages in Europe, Jews were subjected to antisemitism based on Christian theology , which blamed them for killing Jesus . In the nineteenth century many European countries granted full citizenship rights to Jews in hopes that they would assimilate . By

11562-445: The phrase "Never Again". The USHMM published a statement declaring that it "unequivocally rejects efforts to create analogies between the Holocaust and other events , whether historical or contemporary." A group of historians and scholars responded with an open letter portraying the stance of the museum as "a radical position that is far removed from mainstream scholarship on the Holocaust and genocide." They claimed it "made learning from

11685-406: The possibility of better treatment from the occupiers, or ideological motivations such as nationalism and anti-communism. According to historian Christian Gerlach , non-Germans "not under German command" caused 5 to 6 percent of the Jewish deaths, and their involvement was crucial in other ways. Millions of Germans and others benefited from the genocide. Corruption was rampant in the SS despite

11808-832: The previous Aktion T4 programme —amid increasing talk among German administrators in Poland of large-scale murder of Jews in the General Governorate. In late 1941 in East Upper Silesia , Jews in forced-labor camps operated by the Schmelt Organization deemed "unfit for work" began to be sent in groups to Auschwitz where they were murdered. In early 1942, Zyklon B became the preferred killing method in extermination camps after gassing experiments were conducted on Russian POWs in late August 1941. The camps were located on rail lines to make it easier to transport Jews to their deaths, but in remote places to avoid notice. The stench caused by mass killing operations

11931-440: The proceeds of the Holocaust being designated as state property. Different German state agencies vied to receive property stolen from Jews murdered at the death camps. Many workers were able to obtain better jobs vacated by murdered Jews. Businessmen benefitted from eliminating their Jewish competitors or taking over Jewish-owned businesses. Others took over housing and possessions that had belonged to Jews. Some Poles living near

12054-439: The prohibition of relationships, including fraternization, between German and foreign workers, which imposed the penalty of imprisonment and death. Gerlach estimates that 200,000 Jews survived in hiding across Europe. Knowledge of German intentions was essential to take action, but many struggled to believe the news. Many attempted to jump from trains or flee ghettos and camps, but successfully escaping and living in hiding

12177-542: The prospect of material gain and social advancement. German SS, police, and regular army units rarely had trouble finding enough men to shoot Jewish civilians, even though punishment for refusal was absent or light. Non-German perpetrators and collaborators included Dutch, French, and Polish policemen , Romanian soldiers, foreign SS and police auxiliaries , Ukrainian Insurgent Army partisans, and some civilians. Some were coerced into committing violence against Jews, but others killed for entertainment, material rewards,

12300-498: The senior Nazi leadership voiced doubts about killing German Jews. Executions of German Jews in the Baltics resumed in early 1942. After the expansion of killings to target the entire Soviet Jewish population, the 3,000 men of the Einsatzgruppen proved insufficient and Himmler mobilized 21 battalions of Order Police to assist them. In addition, Wehrmacht soldiers, Waffen-SS brigades, and local auxiliaries shot many Jews. By

12423-1012: The shooting on June 10, 2009, it has also established the Stephen Tyrone Johns Summer Youth Leadership Program . Each year, 50 outstanding young people from the Washington, D.C. area will be invited to the USHMM to learn about the Holocaust in honor of Johns' memory. Notable special exhibitions have included A Dangerous Lie : The Protocols of the Elders of Zion (2006) . The Museum's holdings included art, books, pamphlets, advertisements, maps, film and video historical footage, audio and video oral testimonies, music and sound recordings, furnishings, architectural fragments, models, machinery, tools, microfilm and microfiche of government documents and other official records, personal effects, personal papers, photographs, photo albums, and textiles. This information can be accessed through online databases or by visiting

12546-599: The situation" when dealing with human rights abuses, enabling more effective prevention and response by the world. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Award, established in 2011, "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." It has been renamed the Elie Wiesel Award in honor of its first recipient. Winners include: The museum

12669-411: The story of a person such as a random victim or survivor of the Holocaust. Upon exiting these elevators on the fourth floor, visitors walk through a chronological history of the Holocaust, starting with the Nazi rise to power led by Adolf Hitler , 1933–1939. Topics dealt with include Aryan ideology, Kristallnacht , antisemitism , and the American response to Nazi Germany . Visitors continue walking to

12792-631: The third floor, where they learn about ghettos and the Final Solution  – the Nazis's plan for the genocide of the Jews of Europe – during which the Nazis murdered six million Jews, many in gas chambers . The Permanent Exhibition ends on the second floor with the liberation of Nazi concentration camps by Allied forces; it includes a continuously looped film of Holocaust survivor testimony. First-time visitors spend an average of two to three hours in this self-guided exhibition. Due to certain images and subject matter, it

12915-458: The time needed to transfer critically ill patients from another hospital, or directly from an emergency scene, to receive the highest level of care for critically ill patients. GWUH is home to a comprehensive program for advanced treatment of heart disease and vascular disorders, noninvasive diagnostics, 24-hour interventional cardiologist and cath lab, cardiac catheterization, heart rhythm disorders and treatments and cardiovascular surgery. GWUH

13038-428: The trains. Many Jews were shot during the action, often leaving ghettos strewn with corpses. Jewish forced laborers had to clean it up and collect any valuables from the victims. The Warsaw Ghetto was cleared between 22 July and 12 September. Of the original population of 350,000 Jews, 250,000 were killed at Treblinka, 11,000 were deported to labor camps, 10,000 were shot in the ghetto, 35,000 were allowed to remain in

13161-446: The victims and survivors of the Holocaust. Visitors can light candles and view the eternal flame in the hexagonal hall. Using more than 900 artifacts, 70 video monitors, and four theaters showing historic film footage and eyewitness testimonies, the USHMM's Permanent Exhibition is the most visited exhibit at the Museum. Upon entering large industrial elevators on the first floor, visitors are given identification cards, each of which tells

13284-401: The victims were robbed of their remaining possessions, forced to undress, had their hair cut, and were chased into the gas chamber. Death from the gas was agonizing and could take as long as 30 minutes. The gas chambers were primitive and sometimes malfunctioned. Some prisoners were shot because the gas chambers were not functioning. At other extermination camps, nearly everyone on a transport

13407-454: The victims' property was looted both by the occupiers and local inhabitants. Around 200 ghettos were established in the occupied Soviet Union, with many existing only briefly before their inhabitants were executed. A few large ghettos such as Vilna, Kovno , Riga , Białystok , and Lwów lasted into 1943 because they became centers of production. Victims of mass shootings included Jews deported from elsewhere. Besides Germany, Romania killed

13530-629: The volume is dedicated to cataloguing the camps, including locations, duration of operation, purpose, perpetrators and victims. Volume II is dedicated to the ghettos in German-occupied Eastern Europe and was published in 2012. In some cases, archival material now housed at the Center has allowed the post-mortem reconstruction of considerable achievements, such as the work of Lodz ghetto artist Melania Fogelbaum and others, which would otherwise have been lost to Nazi extermination and total war terror. Through its online exhibitions,

13653-683: The west and east were targeted. Tens of thousands of Jews were deported from ghettos in the Warthegau and East Upper Silesia to Chełmno and Auschwitz. 300,000 Jews—largely skilled laborers—were shot in Volhynia , Podolia , and southwestern Belarus. Deportations and mass executions in the Bialystok District and Galicia killed many Jews. Although there was practically no resistance in the General Governorate in 1942, some Soviet Jews improvised weapons, attacked those attempting to liquidate

13776-540: The world, and less than 10 percent are Jewish. In 2008, its website had 25 million visits, from an average of 100 countries daily. Thirty-five percent of these visits were from outside the United States. The USHMM's collections contain more than 12,750 artifacts, 49 million pages of archival documents, 85,000 historical photographs, a list of over 200,000 registered survivors and their families, 1,000 hours of archival footage, 93,000 library items, and 9,000 oral history testimonies. It also has teacher fellows in every state in

13899-576: The worst-treated groups except for Roma and Jews. Soviet and Polish forced laborers endured inadequate food and medical treatment, long hours, and abuse by employers. Hundreds of thousands died. Many others were forced to work for the occupiers without leaving their country of residence. Some of Germany's allies, including Slovakia and Hungary, agreed to deport Jews to protect non-Jews from German demands for forced labor. East European women were also kidnapped, via lapanka , to serve as sex slaves of German soldiers in military and camp brothels despite

14022-588: Was Chełmno in the Wartheland, established on the initiative of the local civil administrator Arthur Greiser with Himmler's approval; it began operations in December 1941 using gas vans. In October 1941, Higher SS and Police Leader of Lublin Odilo Globocnik began work planning Belzec —the first purpose-built extermination camp to feature stationary gas chambers using carbon monoxide based on

14145-487: Was Severud Associates . The Museum's Meyerhoff Theatre and Rubenstein Auditorium were constructed by Jules Fisher Associates of New York City. The Permanent Exhibition was designed by Ralph Appelbaum Associates . The USHMM houses two exhibitions open continuously since 1993 as well as rotating exhibitions on topics related to the Holocaust and human rights . The Hall of Remembrance is the USHMM's official memorial to

14268-529: Was a collaboration between the USHMM and Google Earth . It sought to collect, share, and visually present to the world critical information on emerging crises that may lead to genocide or related crimes against humanity . While this initiative focused on the Darfur Conflict , the Museum wishes to broaden its scope to all human rights violations. The USHMM wanted to build an interactive "global crisis map" to share and understand information quickly, to "see

14391-540: Was appointed chancellor in January 1933 in a backroom deal supported by right-wing politicians. Within months, all other political parties were banned, the regime seized control of the media, tens of thousands of political opponents—especially communists—were arrested, and a system of camps for extrajudicial imprisonment was set up. The Nazi regime cracked down on crime and social outsiders—such as Roma and Sinti , homosexual men , and those perceived as workshy—through

14514-411: Was common . Germany and its allies Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Italy invaded the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941. Although the war was launched more for strategic than ideological reasons, what Hitler saw as an apocalyptic battle against the forces of Jewish Bolshevism was to be carried out as a war of extermination with complete disregard for the laws and customs of war . A quick victory

14637-606: Was established to hold those members of the Polish intelligentsia not killed in the purges. Around 400,000 Poles were expelled from the Wartheland in western Poland to the General Governorate occupation zone from 1939 to 1941, and the area was resettled by ethnic Germans from eastern Europe . The rest of Poland was occupied by the Soviet Union , which invaded Poland from the east on 17 September pursuant to

14760-403: Was expected and was planned to be followed by a massive demographic engineering project to remove 31 million people and replace them with German settlers . To increase the speed of conquest the Germans planned to feed their army by looting, exporting additional food to Germany, and to terrorize the local inhabitants with preventative killings. The Germans foresaw that the invasion would cause

14883-460: Was extremely difficult and often unsuccessful. The support, or at least absence of active opposition, of the local population was essential but often lacking in Eastern Europe. Those in hiding depended on the assistance of non-Jews. Having money, social connections with non-Jews, a non-Jewish appearance, perfect command of the local language, determination, and luck played a major role in determining survival. Jews in hiding were hunted down with

15006-535: Was killed on arrival, but at Auschwitz around 20–25 percent were separated out for labor, although many of these prisoners died later on through starvation, mass shooting, torture, and medical experiments. Belzec, Sobibor , and Treblinka reported a combined revenue of RM 178.7 million from belongings stolen from their victims, far exceeding costs. Combined, the camps required the labor of less than 3,000 Jewish prisoners, 1,000 Trawniki men (largely Ukrainian auxiliaries), and very few German guards. About half of

15129-419: Was noticeable to anyone nearby. Except in the deportations from western and central Europe, people were typically deported to the camps in overcrowded cattle cars . As many as 150 people were forced into a single boxcar . Many died en route , partly because of the low priority accorded to these transports. Shortage of rail transport sometimes led to postponement or cancellation of deportations. Upon arrival,

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