<u>Factors that contributed to how the nazis treated the various conquered peoples in Europe:</u>
A political party, the Nazis, came to power in Germany in the early 1930s. It was post World War I. There were still resentments and social unrest in continental Europe. There was an economic depression. And so the Nazis rose to power at a time where people were unhappy with their government and the status quote that was at the time.
And so the Nazis put forth at the time an ideology of racial superiority. It scapegoated the Jews and other groups, such as Roma, homosexuals, sometimes the infirmed, or sick and old people. Building on hundreds of years of ingrained anti-Semitism across Europe, in tandem with economic depression these fantasies about the Jews took hold.
In 1939, Hitler's Germany enacted a war of conquest in the east that ultimately morphed into World War II. At that time, the Nazi ideology radicalized. And so we see that kind of radicalization of ideology is what led to the Holocaust. This didn't happen overnight.
The Nazis came to power in 1933, and it wasn't until 1941 that Jews and others were shipped into concentration camps and gassed or murdered. Some would call it exterminated. Over these 10 years, the Nazis instituted a very slow but steady set of social, economic, and physical barriers and restrictions under the noses of society against the Jews, mostly.
It started first in Germany, but then it spread across Europe, and importantly, they also instilled fear in those sort of conquered nations. So often those who stood up, let's say, in defense of the Jews or their neighbors were dealt some kind of punishment.
So the combination of deteriorating social standing of the Jews that was socially sanctioned with discrimination, and then ultimately fear led to the factors that allowed for the killing of Jews.
