What was the experience of occupied countries during WW2?

Poland

• Area controlled by Germany pre-WW1, already germanised by 1939 invasion
• 1940s Himmler;s 'Generalplan Ost' was to replace Poles with German

Government

• Poles moved to are called 'General Governance' rules by Hans Frank whowould instigate terror
• Culture, education and leadership shut down in every eastern occupied country

Terror

• 1.9 million non-Jewish citizens murdered in the East
• 1.5 million deported to work camps
• Polish Jews brutally treated. 
• 3.5 million in camps by 1939, by 1945 3 million had been killed (Polish Jews)

Netherlands

• Nazis invaded 10th May 1940, Dutch government surredered and Royal Family fled to UK
• Shared ethic background with Germany
• Government remained unchanged due to their collaboration
• Education and civil servants stayed the same

Terror

• 1941 changes - 435 Jewsh men rounded up and deported. Communists went on protest, but Nazis rounded them up and killed them too

Ghettos

Developed in Warsaw and Lodz, 500,000 died as a result of rampant starvation and disease

Special operations

Einsatzgruppen, or **, gathered Jews and threw them into mass graves. 750,000 died this way

The Final Solution

Implemented by Himmler at 1942 Wansee Conference, it led to the gassing of the Jews at Auschwitz and Treblinka

Auschwitz 1 and 2

Auschwitz I was a labour camp. Auschwitz II-Birkenau was the death camp where at least 1.1million Jews were gasses using Zyklon B.

Jewish

Armed rebellion and uprising ing 5/6 ghettos in Eastern Europe e.g. Warsaw and Minsk. Jewish paramiliatry existed in Belarus and Lithuania. Many unarmed rebels also existed who would smuggle food, political material and doctors into the ghettos who would treat people.

Polish

Large, complex resistance. 1939 Polish government escaped to London. In 1944, Warsaw had an uprising and everyone was killed, evenm those in hospitals. Deaths totalled over 200,000.