In September 1st, 1939, Hitler sent troops into Poland, in what became known as a "blitzkrieg" - a lightning war. Two days later, France and Britain declared war on Germany and World War II had begun.

Fatefully, they did not attack, although Germany's Western Front was undefended. Russia instead invaded Finland, and Hitler moved his forces to the north, to secure the Scandinavian countries against Russia. Not until May, 1940 did Hitler move west, swiftly conquering Belgium and Holland. German forces moved south into France and the French and British armies were cut off from their supply lines. Instead of moving in for the kill, Hitler called off his tank divisions, and over 300,000 Allied soldiers were ferried back to England and safety. Later it was discovered that Hitler had a grudging admiration for the British, whom he considered "Aryans." This sympathy kept him from what could have been a most significant victory.

By June, 1940, France had surrendered. Hitler controlled most of continental Europe, with Spain and Italy as Hitler's allies. He now turned his forces back to Russia. But soon the tide turned. Russia held the Germans back from Moscow as the Russian winter set in. By December, 1941, Germany's ally, Japan, had bombed Pearl Harbor and dragged the U.S. into the war. Hitler's military fortunes were now on the wane.

While the war with the Allied armies raged on, another war was being fought in all of the lands Hitler conquered -- the War on the Jews.

Hitler had always been straightforward about his plans for the Jews. His dream of a racially "pure" empire would tolerate no Jews. After he saw that there was no way to expel them all, he and his generals sought other means.

Awaiting the Einsatzgruppen

In the beginning of the war, German methods were still haphazard. Jewish men were rounded up for slave labor, and intermittent violence kept the population terrified. In Russia, special squads called Einsatzgruppen followed the advancing German armies. They called a special roundup of Jews in each community they conquered. The Jews were marched out of the town and shot to death in special actions, called Aktions. Either natural ditches were used to bury the bodies, or else the Jews were made to dig their own graves before they were shot. Incredibly, 800,000 Russian Jews were killed this way, including 33,000 in one single Aktion in Babi Yar, Russia.

But the hard work and the manpower and ammunition necessary for this type of murder was not efficient enough for the Germans. By January, 1942, Adolf Eichmann presented his essay called "The Final Solution" at the Wannsee Conference. This outlined strategies that had already been implemented and plans outlining further objectives.

Deportations and Resettlement There was a basic methodology that was followed throughout the war, with some variation. First the Jews would be rounded up from the countryside and cities and concentrated into ghettos which were situated along rail lines. From there they could be administered, taken for slave labor, and eventually "resettled" to extermination camps.

Deportations

Tiny Victim of Starvation

The Ghettos The ghettos themselves were nightmare zones. Apartments were shared by several families. Starvation rations of 800 calories per day were allotted to the adults in the ghetto. The able-bodied marched out to work at slave labor each day. Smugglers died trying to obtain bread. Thousands died of starvation and disease. Within the ghetto there was still some light. Teachers taught children, prayer services continued and Torah was studied.

People met in the evening to talk and dream, and to some extent there was comfort being amongst one's people and with some autonomy and privacy left. Life in the ghetto was paradise compared to the camps. Eventually the ghettos were liquidated, one by one. The population was told that it was being resettled to labor camps in the East. The Jews were packed into cattle cars and transported to the death camps or labor camps, or those like Auschwitz that were both.

Learning Torah in the Warsaw Ghetto

In Auschwitz, all arriving Jews were subjected to a selection process, where some (usually 20-40%) were chosen for slave labor. The "lucky ones" had their arms tattooed, their heads shaven and were crammed into the barracks. When they asked where their children or parents were, the veteran prisoners pointed to the smoke rising from Birkenau, the adjacent extermination compound.

Those that were sent to the other side, were taken to the gas chambers. They were undressed, shaved and told that they were going to be disinfected. Part of the German genius was the subterfuge that they were able to keep up, which kept their victims hoping until the last minute. The gas chambers were fitted with shower heads, through which the poisonous gas was emitted. After the gassing, the Sonderkommandos, Jewish prisoners who worked the gas chambers, went in to bring the bodies up for cremation, but not before stripping the bodies of gold teeth, any last bits of jewelry, false limbs or other valuables. The Germans were very conscientious about "recycling" and collected thousands of pounds of hair, hundreds of thousands of shoes, toothbrushes, pairs of eyeglasses and the like from their victims.

It is estimated that 2 million people died at Auschwitz alone. Although many reports managed to leak back to the Allies, they refused to bomb the crematorium, the railway lines leading to Auschwitz.

As the tide of war turned against Hitler, he stepped up the pace in the death camps. Against the economics of war, he allocated resources to continue to transfer and murder Jews. Even as he retreated from the Russian front beginning in 1943, Hitler was planning the extermination of Hungary's Jews. Rescue efforts floundered, largely because of the Allied insistence not to pay money to the Germans that might aid in the war effort. In May, 1943, the Germans offered to stop deportations of Jews for 3 million dollars. Although 4 million had already been killed, over one million more could have been spared for a price of $3 per head. But the pleas of the Jewish Rescue Team, led by Rabbi Ber Weissmandl, fell on deaf ears. The money was not attained, and the deportations continued.

Eventually, the Nazis withdrew from the Polish camps into Germany, and tried to cover up the traces of their mass murder. Prisoners were forced on death marches to Germany, during which as much as 4/5ths died en route. Sometimes they shot all the remaining prisoners when the Russian armies were only a few miles off.

By the time the war was over and Hitler dead in his bunker, one third of the Jews in the world had been murdered.

Go on to the Aftermath: Returning to Life.