When did the Holocaust happen?

Question

from the beginning to the end.

Answer 1

It all depends on what, exactly, you consider to be part of the Holocaust.

Overt anti-Semitic action began on April 1, 1933 when a boycott of Jewish businesses by the Nazi party (then in power). On April 7, it was made illegal for Jews to hold political office. In May 1935 they were forbidden to serve in the military. On September 15, 1935 a law was passed making it illegal for Jews to marry non-Jews. In 1936 they were banned from all professional jobs.

The first massive, violent, anti-Semitic action was probably Kristallnacht, which started on November 8, 1938. That involved massive intimidation and vandalism, destroying buildings with sledgehammers, setting fire to synagogues, and killing and imprisoning many, many Jews.

As early as 1933 the government began sterilizing people with 'undesirable' characteristics. In 1939 these people began to be put to death instead.

On May 19, 1943, Germany declared 'Judenrein' (freedom from Jews) and began putting to death all the Jews that had been up until then been just worked to death in concentration camps. But by 1945 they began covering up the evidence of their extermination camps, and many of the prisoners started being marched around (usually to death) to avoid their discovery, often days ahead of Allied troops.

On May 7, 1945, all German forces were surrendered, mostly because it was a fiat at that point. What fighting remained after that date was scattered at best.

So if you start counting from the very first anti-Semitic measure, the Holocaust was from April 1, 1933 to May 7, 1945. Many date the 'official' beginning to Kristallnacht. Some only include the desperate, large-scale slaughter that occurred at the end of the war. I suppose what you consider to be 'Holocaust' depends on where you draw the line on abuse of power.

I think I'd include just about everything, on that basis.

Answer 2

January of 1942, the Wannsee Conference convened to formally discuss the treatment of Jews during the war and to debate the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question". all earlier actions mentioned above can be found in any country and didn't result in the wholesale extermination of European Jewry (which is the Holocaust that we know).

The real holocaust began after the Wannsee Conferece. The end of the Holocaust was from Feb-May 1945 as the Russians and Western allies started over-running the death camps.

The meeting was with all the top brass of the Reich and was chaired by Heydrich, or at least coordinated by him.

Answer 3

The Holocaust occurred gradually, as a German effort to clear out all the Jews. The Germans first forced the Jews into ghettos, and then caused them to wear a star of David as a mark on their clothes. Eventually, Hitler decided to just eliminate the Jews by executing them. This effort to isolate, capture, enslave, and execute the Jews was known as "the Holocaust" and it ended with Hitler's suicide in (I think) 1945. But, for many, antisemitism continues today...so is the Holocaust "over?"

Answer 4

There were two Holocausts in the 20th century.
The first when was in 1915 when the Turks tried to eliminate all Armenians and got away with it, nobody was ever punished.
This gave Hitler the idea for his Holocaust against Communists, Social Democrats, Jews,Gypsies and Homosexuals which took place between 1933 and 1945.
The germans have apoligised for their Holocaust, the Turks have always denied theirs.

Answer 5

"Early elements of the Holocaust include the Kristallnacht pogrom of the 8th and 9th November 1938 and the T-4 Euthanasia Program, leading to the later use of killing squads and extermination camps in a massive and centrally organized effort to exterminate every possible member of the populations targeted by Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. . . The extermination continued in different parts of Nazi-controlled territory until the end of World War II, only completely ending when the Allies entered Germany itself and forced the Nazis to surrender in May 1945."

Answer 6

In ancient Greece the victors wiped out all the population of the defeated state. Killing all the men and boys and taking the women and girls as slaves back to Athens in particular who were very successful at it may I add
For example Alexander the Great ordered an entire civilization to be destroyed because they stole his horse.
But the Nazi one was the most famous for us today. not forgetting the genocide in Rwanda in the 1990's when we let it happen again, and don't forget Cambodia who were only saved from there own Holocaust by the Vietnamese invasion. After they got the Americans out of Veitnam.

Answer 7

World War 2 dear.