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| location = [[German-occupied Europe]]
| date = 1941–1945
| incident_type = [[Incitement to Genocide]]
| perpetrators = {{ubl|[[Adolf Hitler]]|[[Nazi Germany]]}}
| participants = {{ubl|[[Schutzstaffel]] (SS)| [[Sicherheitspolizei|Security Police]] (SiPo)| [[Gestapo]]| [[Kriminalpolizei]] (Kripo)| [[Sicherheitsdienst|SD]]| [[Order Police battalions]]| [[Waffen-SS]]| [[Wehrmacht]]}}
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| notes = <!-- Notes -->
}}
The '''Final Solution''' ({{lang-langx|de|die Endlösung}}, {{IPA-|de|diː ˈʔɛntˌløːzʊŋ|pron|De-Endlösung.ogg}}) or the '''Final Solution to the Jewish Question''' ({{lang-langx|de|Endlösung der Judenfrage}}, {{IPA-|de|ˈɛntˌløːzʊŋ deːɐ̯ ˈjuːdn̩ˌfʁaːɡə|pron|De-Endlösung der Judenfrage.ogg}}) was a [[Nazi Germany|Nazi]] plan for the [[genocide]] of individuals they defined as [[Jews]] during [[World War II]]. The "Final Solution to the [[Jewish question]]" was the official [[code name]] for the murder of all Jews within reach, which was not restricted to the European continent.<ref>{{cite book |last=Browning |first=Christopher |year=2007 |title=The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939 – March 1942|publisher= University of Nebraska Press |quote=In a brief two years between the autumn of 1939 and the autumn of 1941, Nazi Jewish policy escalated rapidly from the pre-war policy of forced emigration to the Final Solution as it is now understood—the systematic attempt to murder every last Jew within the German grasp.}}</ref> This policy of deliberate and systematic genocide starting across [[German-occupied Europe]] was formulated in procedural and geopolitical terms by [[Government of Nazi Germany|Nazi leadership]] in January 1942 at the [[Wannsee Conference]] held near Berlin,<ref name=Wannsee>{{cite web |title=Wannsee Conference and the Final Solution |url=http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005477 |access-date=30 March 2015 |publisher=[[United States Holocaust Memorial Museum]] }}</ref> and culminated in [[the Holocaust]], which saw [[The Holocaust in Poland|the murder of 90% of Polish Jews]],<ref name="Wyman">{{cite book |title=The World Reacts to the Holocaust |author1=David S. Wyman |author2=Charles H. Rosenzveig |publisher=JHU Press |year=1996 |page=99 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=U6KVOsjpP0MC&q=%2290+percent%22 |isbn=0801849691}}</ref> and two-thirds of the Jewish population of Europe.<ref name=Museum>{{cite web |title='Final Solution': Overview |url=http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005151 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130302130042/http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005151 |archive-date=2 March 2013 |access-date=5 February 2016 |publisher= United States Holocaust Memorial Museum |author=Holocaust Encyclopedia}}</ref>
 
The nature and timing of the decisions that led to the Final Solution is an intensely researched and debated aspect of the Holocaust. The program evolved during the first 25 months of war leading to the attempt at "murdering every last Jew in the German grasp".{{r|Browning424}} [[Christopher Browning]], a historian specializing in the Holocaust, wrote that most historians agree that the Final Solution cannot be attributed to a single decision made at one particular point in time.{{r|Browning424}} "It is generally accepted the decision-making process was prolonged and incremental."<ref name=Browning213>{{harvp|Browning|2004|p=213}}.</ref> In 1940, following the [[Fall of France]], [[Adolf Eichmann#Transition from emigration to deportation|Adolf Eichmann]] devised the [[Madagascar Plan]] to move Europe's Jewish population to the French colony, but the plan was abandoned for logistical reasons, mainly [[Blockade of Germany (1939–45)|a naval blockade]].<ref name="CRB/Path"/> There were also preliminary plans to deport Jews to [[Palestine (region)|Palestine]] and [[Siberia]].{{sfn|Niewyk|Nicosia|2000|p=76}} [[Raul Hilberg]] wrote that, in 1941, in the first phase of the mass-murder of Jews, the [[Einsatzgruppen|mobile killing units]] began to pursue their victims across occupied eastern territories; in the second phase, stretching across all of German-occupied Europe, the Jewish victims were sent on [[Holocaust trains|death trains]] to centralized [[extermination camp]]s built for the purpose of systematic murder of Jews.{{r|Hilberg273}}
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From gaining power in January 1933 until the [[World War II|outbreak of war]] in September 1939, the Nazi persecution of the Jews in Germany was focused on intimidation, expropriating their money and property, and encouraging them to emigrate.<ref name=MRo12/> According to the [[Nuremberg Laws|Nazi Party policy statement]], Jews and the [[Romani people]]{{r|Browning181}} were the only "alien people in Europe".<ref name="Hancock">{{cite book |title=The Routledge History of the Holocaust |author=Ian Hancock |editor=[[Jonathan C. Friedman]] |publisher=Taylor & Francis |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vsrJLASVC3QC&q=Menace+Bureau |page=378 |year=2010 |isbn=978-1136870606|author-link=Ian Hancock }} ''Also in:'' {{cite book |title=The Gypsies of Eastern Europe |author1=David M. Crowe |author2=John Kolsti |author3=Ian Hancock |publisher=Routledge |year=2016 |isbn=978-1315490243 |page=16 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jyC3DAAAQBAJ&q=Nuremberg+anti-Gypsyism|author1-link=David M. Crowe }}</ref> In 1936, the Bureau of Romani Affairs in [[Munich]] was taken over by [[Interpol#History|Interpol]] and renamed the Center for Combating the Gypsy Menace.<ref name="Hancock"/> Introduced at the end of 1937,<ref name=Browning181>{{harvp|Browning|2004|loc=(2007 ed.: pp. 179, 181–12}}). [https://books.google.com/books?id=d9Wg4gjtP3cC&q=Gypsy+question+final "The Gypsy question"].</ref> the "[[Porajmos|final solution of the Gypsy Question]]" entailed [[Roundup (history)|round-ups]], expulsions, and incarceration of Romani in concentration camps built at, until this point, [[Dachau concentration camp|Dachau]], [[Buchenwald]], [[Flossenbürg concentration camp|Flossenbürg]], [[Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp|Mauthausen]], [[Natzweiler]], [[Ravensbruck]], [[List of subcamps of Buchenwald|Taucha]] and [[Westerbork]]. After the [[Anschluss|Anschluss with Austria]] in 1938, [[Central Office for Jewish Emigration|Central Offices for Jewish Emigration]] were established in [[Vienna]] and [[Berlin]] to increase Jewish emigration, without covert plans for their forthcoming annihilation.<ref name=MRo12>{{harvp|Roseman|2002|pp=11–12}}.</ref>
 
The outbreak of war and the [[History of Poland#World War II and its violence|invasion of Poland]] brought a population of 3.5 million Polish Jews under the control of [[Gestapo–NKVD Conferences|the Nazi and Soviet security forces]],<ref name="Lukas">{{cite book |last1=Lukas |first1=Richard |author-link1=Richard C. Lukas |url=https://archive.org/details/outofinferno00rela |url-access=registration |quote=Nazi terror. |title=Out of the Inferno: Poles Remember the Holocaust |publisher=[[University Press of Kentucky]] |year=1989 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/outofinferno00rela/page/5 5], 13, 111, 201|isbn=0813116929 }}; also in {{cite book |orig-year=1986 |year=2012 |last1=Lukas |first1= Richard |author-link1=Richard C. Lukas |publisher=University of Kentucky Press/Hippocrene Books |isbn=978-0-7818-0901-6 |title=The Forgotten Holocaust: Poles Under Nazi Occupation 1939–1944 |location=New York |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Lv1mAAAAMAAJ&q=editions:lC7HhINUjXIC}}</ref> and marked the start of [[the Holocaust in Poland]].{{r|Browning213}} In the German-occupied zone of Poland, Jews were forced into [[Jewish ghettos in German-occupied Poland|hundreds of makeshift ghettos]], pending other arrangements.<ref name="HEnc">{{cite web |title=German Invasion of Poland: Jewish Refugees, 1939 |author=Holocaust Encyclopedia |publisher=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum |location= Washington, DC |url=http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005593}}</ref>

In TwoApril years later1941, with the launchGerman [[Reich Ministry of Food and Agriculture|agriculture]] and [[OperationReichsministerium Barbarossades Innern|interior]], ministries designated the invasion[[Schutzstaffel|SS]] as an authorized applier of [[Zyklon B]], which meant they were able to use it without any further training or governmental oversight.<ref name=hayes>{{cite book | last = Hayes | first = Peter | author-link=Peter Hayes (historian) |title = From Cooperation to Complicity: Degussa in the SovietThird UnionReich | year = 2004 | publisher = Cambridge University Press | location = Cambridge; New York; Melbourne | isbn = 0-521-78227-9 }}</ref> The launch of [[Operation Barbarossa]] in June 1941, coincided with the German top echelon's newfound beganintent to pursue [[Adolf Hitler|Hitler's]] new anti-Semitic plan to eradicate, rather than expel, Jews.<ref>{{cite book |title=God, Greed, and Genocide: The Holocaust Through the Centuries |first=Arthur |last=Grenke |publisher=New Academia Publishing |year=2005 |isbn=097670420X |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iBaGO8Ue2NMC&q=eradication+rather+than+expulsion |page=92}}</ref> Hitler's earlier ideas about forcible removal of Jews from the German-controlled territories to achieve ''[[Lebensraum]]'' were abandoned after the failure of the [[Battle of Britain|air campaign against Britain]], initiating a [[Blockade of Germany (1939–45)|naval blockade]] of Germany.<ref name="CRB/Path">{{cite book |last=Browning |first=Christopher R. |author-link=Christopher Browning |title=The Path to Genocide: Essays on Launching the Final Solution |year=1995 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=L1O2ZvS29DYC |via=Google Books |isbn=978-0-521-55878-5 |pages=18–19, 127–28}}</ref> ''[[Reichsführer-SS]]'' [[Heinrich Himmler]] became the chief architect of a new plan, which came to be called ''The Final Solution to the [[Jewish question]]''.{{sfnp|Browning|2004|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=d9Wg4gjtP3cC&q=Lebensraum+1941 pp. 35–36]}} On 31 July 1941, ''[[Reichsmarschall]]'' [[Hermann Göring]] wrote to [[Reinhard Heydrich]] (Himmler's deputy and chief of the [[Reich Security Main Office|RSHA]]),{{sfnp|Roseman|2002|pp=14–15}}{{sfnp|Hilberg|1985|p= 278}} authorising him to make the "necessary preparations" for a "total solution of the Jewish question" and coordinate with all affected organizations. Göring also instructed Heydrich to submit concrete proposals for the implementation of the new projected goal.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=d9Wg4gjtP3cC&pg=PA315|title=The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939 – March 1942|last=Browning|first=Christopher R.|year=2007|publisher=University of Nebraska Press|isbn=978-0803203921|page=315|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.ghwk.de/fileadmin/user_upload/pdf-wannsee/engl/goering.pdf |title=Authorization letter of Hermann Göring to Heydrich, 31 July 1941 |last=Göring |first=Hermann |date=31 July 1941 |access-date=3 June 2014 |publisher=House of the Wannsee Conference |archive-date=19 February 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180219024305/http://www.ghwk.de/fileadmin/user_upload/pdf-wannsee/engl/goering.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref>
 
Broadly speaking, the extermination of Jews was carried out in two major operations. With the onset of [[Operation Barbarossa]], mobile killing units of the [[Schutzstaffel|SS]], the ''[[Einsatzgruppen]]'', and [[Order Police battalions]] were dispatched to the occupied Soviet Union for the express purpose of murdering all Jews. During the early stages of the invasion, Himmler himself visited [[Białystok]] at the beginning of July 1941, and requested that, "as a matter of principle, any Jew" behind the [[German-Soviet Frontier Treaty|German-Soviet frontier]] was to be "regarded as a partisan". His new orders gave the [[SS and police leader]]s full authority for the mass-murder behind the front lines. By August 1941, all Jewish men, women, and children were shot.{{sfnp|Longerich|2012|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=GBQchepZ-7EC&q=Bialystok%2Bprinciple&pg=PA525 525–33]}} In the second phase of annihilation, the Jewish inhabitants of central, western, and south-eastern Europe were transported by [[Holocaust trains]] to camps with newly built gassing facilities. [[Raul Hilberg]] wrote: "In essence, the killers of the occupied USSR moved to the victims, whereas outside this arena, the victims were brought to the killers. The two operations constitute an evolution not only chronologically, but also in complexity."<ref name=Hilberg273>{{harvp|Hilberg|1985|p=273}}.</ref> Massacres of about one million Jews occurred before plans for the Final Solution were fully implemented in 1942, but it was only with the decision to annihilate the entire Jewish population that [[extermination camp]]s such as [[Auschwitz concentration camp|Auschwitz II Birkenau]] and [[Treblinka extermination camp|Treblinka]] were fitted with permanent [[gas chamber]]s to murder large numbers of Jews in a relatively short period of time.{{sfnp|Browning|2004|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=d9Wg4gjtP3cC&q=gas+chambers pp. 352–56]}}<ref name=Feig8112/>
 
[[File:Haus der Wannsee-Konferenz 02-2014.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|The villa at 56–58 Am Großen Wannsee, where the [[Wannsee Conference]] was held, is now a memorial and museum.]]
The plans to exterminate all the Jews of Europe were formalized at the [[Wannsee Conference]], held at an SS guesthouse near Berlin,{{sfnp|Longerich|2012|p=555}} on 20 January 1942. The conference was chaired by Heydrich and attended by 15 senior officials of the Nazi Party and the German government. Most of those attending were representatives of the [[Ministry of the Interior (Germany)|Interior Ministry]], the [[Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Germany)|Foreign Ministry]], and the [[Ministry of Justice (Germany)|Justice Ministry]], including Ministers for the Eastern Territories.{{sfnp|Roseman|2002|pp=65–67}} At the conference, Heydrich indicated that approximately 11,000,000 Jews in Europe would fall under the provisions of the "Final Solution". This figure included not only Jews residing in Axis-controlled Europe, but also the Jewish populations of the United Kingdom and of neutral nations (Switzerland, Ireland, Sweden, Spain, Portugal, and European Turkey).<ref name=Wannsee/> Eichmann's biographer [[David Cesarani]] wrote that Heydrich's main purpose in convening the conference was to assert his authority over the various agencies dealing with Jewish issues. "The simplest, most decisive way that Heydrich could ensure the smooth flow of deportations" to death camps, according to Cesarani, "was by asserting his total control over the fate of the Jews in the Reich and the east" under the single authority of the [[RSHA]].{{sfnp|Cesarani|2005|pp=110–11}} A copy of the minutes of this meeting (later called the Wannsee Conference Protocol) was found by the [[Allies of World War II|Allies]] in March 1947;<ref>{{cite web |title=Protocol of Conference on the final solution (Endlösung) of the Jewish question |url=https://www.ghwk.de/fileadmin/Redaktion/PDF/Konferenz/texte/English_translation_wannsee_protocol_2020.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230409112828/https://www.ghwk.de/fileadmin/Redaktion/PDF/Konferenz/texte/English_translation_wannsee_protocol_2020.pdf |archive-date=9 April 2023 |access-date=7 August 2023 |publisher=House of the Wannsee Conference}}</ref> it was too late to serve as evidence during the first [[Nuremberg Trials|Nuremberg Trial]], but was used by prosecutor General [[Telford Taylor]] in the [[subsequent Nuremberg Trials]].{{sfnp|Roseman|2002|pp=1–2}}
 
After the end of World War II, surviving archival documents provided a clear record of the Final Solution policies and actions of Nazi Germany. They included the Wannsee Conference Protocol, which documented the co-operation of various German state agencies in the SS-led Holocaust, as well as some 3,000 tons of original German records captured by Allied armies,<ref name=Feig8112>{{cite book |first=Konnilyn G. |last=Feig |title=Hitler's death camps: the sanity of madness |year=1981 |publisher=Holmes & Meier |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CNqEAAAAIAAJ&q=soldiers%2C+railroad+and+factory+workers%2C+chemists%2C+pharmacists%2C+foremen |pages=12–13 |isbn=0841906769 |quote=Hitler exterminated the Jews of Europe. But he did not do so alone. The task was so enormous, complex, time-consuming, and mentally and economically demanding that it took the best efforts of millions of Germans.}}</ref><ref name="evidence"/> including the [[Einsatzgruppen reports|''Einsatzgruppen'' reports]], which documented the progress of the mobile killing units assigned, among other tasks, to murder Jewish civilians during the attack on the Soviet Union in 1941. The evidential proof which documented the mechanism of [[the Holocaust]] was submitted [[Nuremberg trial|at Nuremberg]].<ref name="evidence">{{cite web |title=Combating Holocaust Denial: Evidence of the Holocaust Presented at Nuremberg |url=http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007271 |publisher=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum |access-date=8 November 2013}}</ref>
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Construction work on the first killing centre at [[Bełżec extermination camp|Bełżec]] in occupied Poland began in October 1941, three months before the Wannsee Conference. The new facility was operational by March the following year.<ref name="M/MPwB">{{cite web |title=Historia Niemieckiego Obozu Zagłady w Bełżcu |trans-title=History of the Belzec extermination camp |publisher=Muzeum-Miejsce Pamięci w Bełżcu |author=National Bełżec Museum |url=http://www.belzec.eu/articles.php?acid=77 |language=pl |access-date=24 January 2016 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151029003413/http://www.belzec.eu/articles.php?acid=77 |archive-date=29 October 2015}}</ref> By mid-1942, two more death camps had been built on Polish lands: [[Sobibór extermination camp|Sobibór]] operational by May 1942, and [[Treblinka extermination camp|Treblinka]] operational in July.<ref name="JVL-Reinhard">{{cite web |url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/reinhard.html#5 |title=The Construction of the Treblinka Extermination Camp |publisher=Jewish Virtual Library.org |work=Yad Vashem Studies, XVI |year=1984 |access-date=3 November 2013 |author=McVay, Kenneth}}</ref> From July 1942, the mass murder of Polish and foreign Jews took place at [[Treblinka extermination camp|Treblinka]] as part of [[Operation Reinhard]], the deadliest phase of the Final Solution. More Jews were murdered at Treblinka than at any other Nazi [[extermination camp]] apart from [[Auschwitz concentration camp|Auschwitz]].<ref name="Berenbaum">{{cite encyclopedia |last=Berenbaum |first=Michael |title=Treblinka |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica |year=2016 |publisher=Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. |location=Chicago }}</ref> By the time the mass killings of Operation Reinhard ended in 1943, roughly two million Jews in German-occupied Poland had been murdered.<ref name =Reinhard/> The total number of people murdered in 1942 in [[Majdanek concentration camp|Lublin/Majdanek]], [[Bełżec extermination camp|Bełżec]], [[Sobibor extermination camp|Sobibór]], and [[Treblinka]] was 1,274,166 by [[Höfle Telegram|Germany's own estimation]], not counting [[Auschwitz concentration camp|Auschwitz II Birkenau]] nor ''[[Chełmno extermination camp|Kulmhof]]''.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Holocaust Encyclopedia |author1=Walter Laqueur |author2=Judith Tydor Baumel |publisher=Yale University Press |year=2001 |isbn=0300138113 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nPbr0XzlTzcC&q=Chelmno+graveyard |page=178 |author1-link=Walter Laqueur }}</ref> Their bodies were buried in mass graves initially.{{sfnp|Arad|1987|p=640}} Both Treblinka and Bełżec were equipped with powerful [[crawler excavator]]s from Polish construction sites in the vicinity, capable of most digging tasks without disrupting surfaces.<ref name="ushmm-belzec">{{cite encyclopedia |url=http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005191 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120107184303/http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005191 |archive-date=7 January 2012 |encyclopedia=The Holocaust Encyclopedia |title=Belzec |publisher=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum |access-date=24 January 2016}}</ref> Although other methods of extermination, such as the cyanic poison [[Zyklon B]], were already being used at other Nazi killing centres such as Auschwitz, the ''[[Aktion Reinhard]]'' camps used [[carbon monoxide poisoning|lethal exhaust gases]] from captured tank engines.<ref>{{cite book |first=K. |last=Carol Rittner, Roth |title=Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=t2AjlkSlMa8C&q=captured-soviet+tank+engines+holocaust&pg=PA2 |publisher=Continuum International Publishing Group |year=2004 |page=2 |isbn=978-0-8264-7566-4}}</ref>
 
The ''Holocaust by bullets'' (as opposed to the ''Holocaust by gas'')<ref>{{cite AV media |url=http://natgeotv.com/ca/world-war-ii-the-apocalypse/videos/the-holocaust-by-bullets |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100309133810/http://www.natgeotv.com/ca/world-war-ii-the-apocalypse/videos/the-holocaust-by-bullets |url-status=dead |archive-date=9 March 2010 |author=[[National Geographic Channel]] |title=The Holocaust by bullets |publisher=NGC Europe Limited |year=2013 |work=Excerpt from episode "Apocalypse: The Second World War"}}</ref> went on in the territory of occupied Poland in conjunction with the [[ghetto uprising]]s, irrespective of death camps' quota. In two weeks of July 1942, the [[Słonim Ghetto#The revolt|Słonim Ghetto revolt]], crushed with the help of Latvian, Lithuanian, and Ukrainian ''[[Schutzmannschaft]]'', cost the lives of 8,000–13,000 Jews.<ref>{{harvp|Longerich|2010|pp=198, 238, 347}}. See also {{cite web |author=Lawrence Bush |date=28 June 2010 |title=June 29: The Slonim Massacres |website=Jewish Currents |url=http://jewishcurrents.org/june-29-the-slonim-massacres/ |access-date=1 May 2017 }}</ref> The second largest mass shooting (to that particular date) took place in late October 1942 when the insurgency was suppressed in the [[Pińsk Ghetto]]; over 26,000 men, women and children were shot with the aid of [[Belarusian Auxiliary Police]] before the ghetto's closure.<ref name="stats">{{cite book |editor1=Ray Brandon |editor2=Wendy Lower |editor-link=Wendy Lower |url=https://wwwbooks.google.com/searchbooks?qid=%22PinskhyYGOyX1IQUC&dq=Pinsk+massacre+in+the+RKU%22 &pg=PA290|first=Karel C. |last=Berkhoff |title=The Shoah in Ukraine: History, Testimony, Memorialization |date=28 May 2008 |publisher=Indiana University Press |page=290 |isbn=978-0-253-00159-7 }} Also in: {{cite web |author1=Barbara N. Łopieńska |author2-link=Ryszard Kapuściński |author2=Ryszard Kapuściński |work=Interview |date=2003 |url=http://kapuscinski.info/czlowiek-z-bagna.html |title=Człowiek z bagna |trans-title=A man from the marshes |publisher=[[Przekrój]] nr 28/3029. Reprint: Ryszard Kapuściński.info }} Further info: {{cite web |url=http://www.sztetl.org.pl/en/selectcity/ |title=Glossary of 2,077 Jewish towns in Poland |author=Virtual Shtetl |publisher=[[POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews]] |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160208215116/http://www.sztetl.org.pl/en/selectcity/ |archive-date=8 February 2016 |author-link=Virtual Shtetl }} {{cite web |url=http://www.izrael.badacz.org/historia/szoa_getto.html |title=Getta Żydowskie |author=Gedeon }} {{cite web |url=http://www.deathcamps.org/occupation/ghettolist.htm |title=Ghetto List |author=Michael Peters |publisher=Deathcamps.org }}</ref> During the suppression of the [[Warsaw Ghetto Uprising]] (the largest single revolt by Jews during World War&nbsp;II), 13,000 Jews were killed in action before May 1943.<ref name="stroop">{{cite encyclopedia |url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/nowarsaw.html |title=Stroop Report |author=SS [[Gruppenführer]] Jürgen Stroop |encyclopedia=Jewish Virtual Library |date=May 1943}}</ref> Numerous other uprisings were quelled without impacting the pre-planned Nazi deportations actions.<ref name="ushmm4">{{cite web |url=http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005407 |title=Resistance in Ghettos |author=The Holocaust Encyclopedia |work=Jewish Uprisings in Ghettos and Camps, 1941–1944 |date=2013 |publisher=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum}} Notable examples include the [[Łuck Ghetto#Jewish uprising and the ghetto liquidation|Łuck Ghetto uprising]] quelled on 12 December 1942 with the help of the [[Ukrainian Auxiliary Police]], ''see:'' [[Yad Vashem]], {{YouTube |id=1k7v0VPOKnw |title=Łuck, December 1942}}; testimony of {{cite web |url=http://www.berdichev.org/the_forgotten_december.html |archive-date=22 July 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150722232607/http://www.berdichev.org/the_forgotten_december.html |url-status=dead |title=The forgotten December |author=Shmuel Shilo|author-link=Shmuel Shilo }} The [[Łachwa Ghetto#Uprising and massacre|Łachwa Ghetto uprising]] was suppressed on 3 September 1942, the [[Częstochowa Ghetto uprising]] on 30 June 1943, the [[Sosnowiec Ghetto#The uprising|Sosnowiec Ghetto uprising]] on 3 August 1943, and the [[Białystok Ghetto uprising]] on 17 August 1943.</ref>
 
About two-thirds of the overall number of victims of the Final Solution were murdered before February 1943,<ref name="GHDI">{{cite journal |publisher=German History in Documents and Images, GHDI |volume= 7. Nazi Germany, 1933–1945 |title=Statistical Report on the "Final Solution", known as the Korherr Report of 23 March 1943 |author=Paula Lerner |year=2007 |journal=Die Endlösung by Gerald Reitlinger |url=http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/pdf/eng/English42.pdf}}</ref> which included the main phase of the extermination programme [[Military Administration in Belgium and Northern France|in the West]] launched by [[Eichmann]] on 11 June 1942 from Berlin.<ref name="Yahil389">{{cite book |title=The Holocaust: The Fate of European Jewry, 1932–1945 |author=Leni Yahil |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1991 |isbn=0195045238 |page=389 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=e_aRvKpLUf0C&q=West+European&pg=PA389}}</ref> The [[Holocaust trains]] run by the [[Deutsche Reichsbahn#Holocaust|Deutsche Reichsbahn]] and several other national railway systems delivered condemned Jewish captives from as far as Belgium, Bulgaria, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Moravia, Netherlands, Romania, Slovakia, and even Scandinavia.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WRFG-HKoBgEC&q=Reichsbahn+Railways&pg=PA57 |author=Ronald J. Berger |year=2002 |title=Fathoming the Holocaust: A Social Problems Approach |publisher=Transaction Publishers |isbn=0202366111 |pages=57–58 |quote=Bureaucrats in the Reichsbahn performed important functions that facilitated the movement of trains. They constructed and published timetables, collected fares, and allocated cars and locomotives. In sending Jews to their death, they did not deviate much from the routine procedures they used to process ordinary train traffic.}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |first1=Ben|last1=Hecht|first2=Julian|last2=Messner|date=31 December 1969 |url=http://www.aish.com/ho/o/48970811.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140222020235/http://www.aish.com/ho/o/48970811.html |archive-date=22 February 2014 |title=Holocaust: The Trains |publisher=Aish.com Holocaust Studies}}</ref> The cremation of exhumed corpses to destroy any evidence left behind began in early spring and continued throughout summer.{{sfnp|Arad|1987|pp=300–01}} The nearly completed clandestine programme of murdering all deportees was explicitly addressed by Heinrich Himmler in his [[Posen speeches]] made to the leadership of the Nazi Party on 4 October and during a conference in Posen ([[PoznanPoznań]]) of 6 October 1943 in occupied Poland. Himmler explained why the Nazi leadership found it necessary to murder Jewish women and children along with the Jewish men. The assembled functionaries were told that the Nazi state policy was "the extermination of the Jewish people" as such.<ref>Letter written by [[Albert Speer]] who attended Posen Conference.{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/mar/13/secondworldwar.kateconnolly |title=Letter proves Speer knew of Holocaust plan |last=Connolly |first=Kate |date=13 March 2007 |access-date=29 May 2014 |newspaper=The Guardian |location=London}}</ref>
 
{{blockquote|We were faced with the question: what about the women and children?–I have decided on a solution to this problem. I did not consider myself justified to exterminate the men only—in other words, to kill them or have them killed while allowing the avengers, in the form of their children, to grow up in the midst of our sons and grandsons. The difficult decision had to be made to have this people disappear from the earth.|Heinrich Himmler, 6 October 1943<ref>Bradley F. Smith & Agnes Peterson (1974), ''Heinrich Himmler. Speeches'' Frankfurt/M., pp. 169 f. {{OCLC|1241890}}; {{cite web |url= http://holocaustcontroversies.yuku.com/topic/1825/Himmlers-Speech-in-Posen-on-6-October-1943 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20160127090051/http://holocaustcontroversies.yuku.com/topic/1825/Himmlers-Speech-in-Posen-on-6-October-1943 |archive-date=27 January 2016 |title=Himmler's Speech in Posen on 6 October 1944 |date= 12 March 2012 |access-date=28 February 2015 |publisher=Holocaust Controversies Reference Section }}; also (with differing translation) in {{cite web |url=http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007407 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131214192421/http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007407 |archive-date=14 December 2013 |title=Heinrich Himmler |access-date=28 February 2015 |publisher=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum }}</ref>}}
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[[Category:Ethnic cleansing in Europe]]
[[Category:EuphemismsMilitary-related euphemisms]]
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