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Female Leadership during the Holocaust: History of the Holocaust

This LibGuide showcases women as central figures in the Jewish resistance movement during World War II.

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What was the Holocaust?



Why did the Nazis target Jews?

Members of the Storm Troopers with boycott signs during Nazi Germany

Members of the Storm Troopers (SA), with boycott signs, block the entrance to a Jewish-owned shop. One of the signs exhorts: "Germans! Defend yourselves! Don't buy from Jews!" Berlin, Germany, April 1, 1933.

National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD



Where did the Holocaust take place?


Nazi Germany’s territorial expansion began in 1938–1939. During this time, Germany annexed neighboring Austria and the Sudetenland (territory comprising the western, northern, and southern border regions of the former Czechoslovakia, long inhabited by ethnic Germans.) and occupied the Czech lands. On September 1, 1939, Nazi Germany began World War II (1939–1945) by attacking Poland. Over the next two years, Germany invaded and occupied much of Europe, including western parts of the Soviet Union. Nazi Germany further extended its control by forming alliances with the governments of Italy, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria. It also created puppet states in Slovakia and Croatia. Together these countries made up the European members of the Axis alliance, which also included Japan.


The Nazis and their allies and collaborators murdered six million Jews.

How did Germany and its allies and collaborators persecute Jewish people?

Anti-Jewish policies and measures

  • Physical Displacement. Perpetrators used forced emigration, resettlement (a Nazi euphemism for deportation and murder), expulsion, deportation and ghettoization to physically displace Jewish individuals and communities.


Dachau Concentration Camps, Germany

Dachau was the first Nazi concentration camp. Dachau, Germany, May 24th, 1933.

Nazi concentration camps served three main purposes:

  1. To incarcerate people whom the Nazi regime perceived to be a security threat. These people were incarcerated for indefinite amounts of time.

What was the "Final Solution" to the Jewish question?


Killing Centers



The Nazis constantly searched for more efficient means of extermination. At the Auschwitz camp in German-occupied Poland, they conducted experiments with Zyklon B (previously used for fumigation) by gassing some 600 Soviet prisoners of war and 250 ill prisoners in September 1941. Zyklon B pellets, converted to lethal gas when exposed to air. They proved the quickest gassing method and were chosen as the means of mass murder at Auschwitz.


Russian doctor examines Auschwitz camp survivors

A Soviet physician examines Auschwitz camp survivors. Poland, February 18th, 1945.

This photograph is a still image from Soviet film of the liberation of Auschwitz.


Hungarian Jews at Auschwitz

Arrival of Hungarian Jews at Auschwitz. Poland, May 1944.

In mid-May 1944, the Hungarian authorities, in coordination with the German Security Police, began to systematically deport the Hungarian Jews.  The Hungarian police carried out the roundups and forced the Jews onto the deportation trains.  In less than two months, nearly 440,000 Jews were deported from Hungary in more than 145 trains. 

Yad Vashem Photo Archives


LibGuide Author:  Liliana Ramirez

LibGuide Contributor:  Stephanie Garcia



The Purpose of the Ghettos




There were three types of ghettos:

Closed ghettos (situated primarily in German-occupied Poland and the occupied Soviet Union) were closed off by walls, or by fences with barbed wire. The German authorities compelled Jews living in the surrounding areas to move into the closed ghetto, thus exacerbating the extremely crowded and unsanitary conditions. Starvation, chronic shortages, severe winter weather, inadequate and unheated housing, and the absence of adequate municipal services led to repeated outbreaks of epidemics and to a high mortality rate. Most ghettos were of this type.

Open ghettos had no walls or fences, but there were restrictions on entering and leaving. These existed in German-occupied Poland and the occupied Soviet Union, as well as in Transnistria, that province of Ukraine occupied and administrated by Romanian authorities.

Destruction ghettos were tightly sealed off and existed for between two and six weeks before the Germans and/or their collaborators deported or shot the Jewish population concentrated in them. These existed in German-occupied Soviet Union (especially in Lithuania and the Ukraine), as well as Hungary.


Hungry children in the Warsaw ghetto

Children eating at a Warsaw ghetto street. Warsaw, Poland, between 1940 and 1943.  In the Warsaw ghetto more than 400,00 Jews were crowded into an area of 1.3 square miles.

Picture: US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Rafael Scharf

Liquidating the Ghettos


Assembly point in the Warsaw ghetto

An assembly point (the Umschlagplatz) in the Warsaw ghetto for Jews rounded up for deportation. Warsaw, Poland, 1942–43.

Yad Vashem Photo Archives

Conditions in the Warsaw ghetto film

The Nazis sealed the Warsaw ghetto in mid-November 1940. German-induced overcrowding and food shortages led to an extremely high mortality rate in the ghetto. Almost 30 percent of the population of Warsaw was packed into 2.4 percent of the city's area. The Germans set a food ration for Jews at just 181 calories a day. By August 1941, more than 5,000 people a month succumbed to starvation and disease.

National Center for Jewish Film



Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler addresses a SA rally. Dortmund, Germany 1933.

Many people were responsible for carrying out the Holocaust and the Final Solution.   At the highest level, Adolf Hitler inspired, ordered, approved, and supported the genocide of Europe’s Jews. However, Hitler did not act alone. Nor did he lay out an exact plan for the implementation of the Final Solution. Other Nazi leaders were the ones who directly coordinated, planned, and implemented the mass murder. Among them were Hermann GöringHeinrich HimmlerReinhard Heydrich, and Adolf Eichmann



Who were the other victims of Nazi persecution and mass murder?

People with disabilities were also victimized by the Nazi regime, especially those living in institutions.  They were considered both a genetic and a financial burden on Germany. These people were targeted for murder in the so-called Euthanasia Program.


Emmi G was a victim of the Nazi Euthanasia program

Emmi G. was a 16-year-old housemaid diagnosed as schizophrenic.  She was sterilized and sent to the Meseritz-Obrawalde euthanasia center where she was killed with an overdose of tranquilizers on December 7th, 1942. 

Place and date of picture:  Uncertain

How did the Holocaust end?


On May 8, 1945, Nazi Germany’s unconditional surrender became official.

US troops enter Buchenwald, Germany

US soldiers enter the Buchenwald concentration camp following the liberation of the camp. Buchenwald, Germany, after April 11, 1945.

US Holocaust Memorial Museum

Liberation of Auschwitz: Child survivors film


National Archives - Film