Question

1. Describe the overall plan to conceal the Final Solution, from the days prior to the Wannsee Conference through the death march and liberation of the camps.

Answer 1

The Wannsee Conference was a meeting from Nazi senior government officials that was held in Berlin in 1942. The reason for this meeting was the implementation of the Final Solution Plan.

The Final Solution plan consisted of two phases - the first phase was to catch victims across territories that were occupied by Germany. The second phase consisted of sending all victims to extermination camps.

The Final Solution plan started with the occupation of Poland, that brought 3.5 million polish jews to the Nazi’s control. With Operation Barbarossa against USSR, Nazis changed the plan - that began as an idea to expel Jews - and decided to eradicate Jews. At first, they shot Jewish men, women, and children, later after - they had time to build up special facilities - transported jews by trains to concentration camps. It is said that 1 million Jews were killed before the Final Solution plan was fully implemented.

This system continued until the Allied forces approached the Nazi concentrations camps. With the advance, Heinrich Himmler, an SS chief ordered that all prisoners in all concentration camps should be evacuated so they didn’t fall into Allied’s hands. With this The Death March began, forcing  prisoners who were all in bad shape to walk many miles per day.

As this happened, Allied forces advanced into Germany and liberated concentration camps full of prisoners. In march 8th of 1945 was Allied Victory was proclaimed.