Hitler’s doctrine was based on evaluating people according to their race. According to the Nazi hierarchy of races and nations, the highest position was held by the Nordic race, of which the most important were the Germans, defined as the ‘master race’ (Herrenvolk) or ‘overmen’ (Übermenschen). Slavs were considered to be ‘people of limited organisational and creative abilities’. The lowest position, according to this ideology, was held by the Jews, who the Nazis blamed for all the wrongs perpetrated against the Germans and were therefore regarded as the nation’s greatest enemies.

In 1935 the Nazis issued an anti-Jewish legislation, the Nuremberg Laws, and launched a propaganda campaign against the Jews, which aroused and fuelled anti-Semitism in parts of German society. Such emotions stemmed from religious prejudice, cultural differences and economic rivalry. The effect was an outburst of hatred towards the Jews and repressions, as a result of which hundreds of thousands of people, chiefly representatives of the worlds of science and culture, were forced to emigrate or were sent to concentration camps. Jewish property was confiscated by the German state and German citizens.

In face of these new laws the international community remained passive and did not hurry to help the persecuted. In July 1938 an international conference was held in Evian-les-Bains, France, during which the representatives of 31 states decided not to open their borders to Jewish refugees. This decision contributed to the fact that as many as 6 million of Europe’s 11 million Jews were murdered during the Holocaust.

The assassination of a German diplomat in Paris by a Jewish immigrant became the pretext for direct persecutions of the Jews to begin in Germany. Shortly afterwards, on the night of 9/10 November, a pogrom of Jews was organised throughout Germany, known as the Reich Crystal Night (Reichskristallnacht). The persecution of the Jews which began in the Third Reich towards the late 1930s spread to states that were allied with Germany: Italy, Romania, Hungary and Slovakia.

To the KL Auschwitz were deported at least 1.1 milion of Jews, at least 960 thousand of them perished there.