Europe and WWII — the Holocaust and responses
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Flip to reveal answersWhat triggered the shift from Nazi discrimination to mass shooting of Jews?
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All 12 Flashcards — Europe and WWII — the Holocaust and responses
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Question
What triggered the shift from Nazi discrimination to mass shooting of Jews?
Answer
The invasion of the USSR (June 1941, Operation Barbarossa), which Hitler framed as racial-ideological war and which brought in the Einsatzgruppen.
Question
Einsatzgruppen
Answer
Mobile SS killing squads that followed the German army into the USSR from 1941, shooting over 1.5 million people, mostly Jews.
Question
Wannsee Conference
Answer
Meeting of senior Nazi/government officials on 20 January 1942, chaired by Heydrich, that coordinated the 'Final Solution' — deportation to death camps across occupied Europe.
Question
Babyn Yar
Answer
Site near Kyiv where Einsatzgruppen shot over 33,000 Jews in two days in September 1941 — an example of mass shooting before the death camps existed.
Question
Give one example of state-level collaboration in the Holocaust.
Answer
The Vichy regime in France, which passed its own antisemitic laws and organised roundups such as the Vel' d'Hiv (July 1942).
Question
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
Answer
April–May 1943 armed uprising by Jewish fighters (the ZOB) against German deportations; held out for nearly a month despite having almost no weapons.
Question
Name two individuals or examples of rescue during the Holocaust.
Answer
Oskar Schindler (saved Jewish workers in his factories) and the Danish rescue of Jews to Sweden (1943).
Question
Why was the international response to the Holocaust limited?
Answer
Allied governments knew of mass killing from 1942 but prioritised military victory over rescue; the 1943 Bermuda Conference achieved little concrete action.
Question
Nuremberg Trials
Answer
1945–46 Allied trials of 22 senior Nazis, which created the new legal category of 'crimes against humanity' but tried only a small number of top leaders.
Question
Intentionalist vs functionalist debate
Answer
Intentionalists argue Hitler always planned genocide from the 1920s; functionalists argue it 'evolved' from radicalising wartime decisions and bureaucratic momentum.
Question
How did Nazi ideology set the long-term stage for genocide (1933–38)?
Answer
Through the Nuremberg Laws (1935) stripping Jews of citizenship and Kristallnacht (1938) — legal exclusion and violence, not yet mass murder.
Question
What role did the invasion of Poland (1939) play in the Holocaust?
Answer
Brought about 2 million Jews under Nazi rule and began ghettoisation and forced labour, setting up the population later targeted for deportation.
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Topic 13.9 hub
Europe and the Second World War (1918–1949)
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