The Escalation to the Holocaust

How the Unthinkable Came About

The Holocaust was the murder of six million Jewish people, and of many others, by the Nazi regime. Before we ask how it happened, we hold in mind that each was a person, with a name and a life. This module asks one question: how did it escalate? Persecution did not begin as genocide. This looks at how, step by step and above all under cover of war, persecution radicalised into systematic murder. The genocide itself is studied more fully elsewhere. ⚠️ We study this to understand it, and so that it is never repeated. It is held here soberly and without graphic detail.

Before the war, and under it

The persecution changed in kind as well as in scale when the war came. Hold both.

Order the steps of the escalation

Put the steps by which persecution escalated into genocide into the order they happened.

• Before the war, Jewish people are persecuted by exclusion and stripped of rights
• The invasions bring millions more Jewish people under Nazi control
• Jewish people are forced into ghettos in appalling conditions
• Mass shootings begin in the occupied East after the invasion of the USSR
• The regime moves to systematic murder in death camps

Why the war made it far more deadly

Why did the war make the persecution far more deadly?

• It removed restraints and brought the huge Jewish populations of eastern Europe under Nazi control, so persecution radicalised into mass murder
• The war caused the persecution to stop
• It moved the persecution to countries with no Jewish people
• The war made no difference to the persecution

Words for the escalation

Five words that let you explain how the persecution escalated, rather than only describe it.

Spot the steps of the escalation

Three of these show the persecution escalating during the war. Choose the three.

• Jewish people forced into ghettos
• Mass shootings by the killing squads in the East
• The building of death camps for systematic murder
• The return of full rights to Jewish people
• The end of all persecution

A driven escalation, not an accident

The sharpest answers explain the escalation as driven and cumulative, and never lose sight of the people behind each step. The war drove it. War removed restraints, offered cover, and brought millions more Jewish people under Nazi control after the invasions, above all of the USSR. Each step made the next thinkable. Exclusion, then confinement, then mass shooting, then systematic murder: the choices of the regime carried it forward stage by stage. It was neither a single plan set in 1933 nor an accident that no one intended. Explaining why it escalated, while remembering that behind every step were real people, is the grade 9 move.

Match each term of the escalation to what it was

Find the sentence that explains the escalation

A student writes about the Holocaust. Select the ONE sentence that explains it as a driven, step-by-step escalation.

• Driven above all by the war, which removed restraints and brought millions more Jewish people under Nazi control, persecution radicalised step by step, through the ghettos and mass shootings, into systematic murder.
• It happened all at once, with no earlier steps of any kind.
• It was an accident that no one in the regime ever intended.
• It had nothing whatever to do with the war.

Why we trace the steps

Historians trace the steps of the Holocaust with great care, and for two reasons that belong together. The first is understanding. A catastrophe on this scale did not appear from nowhere; it was reached through choices, one after another, each making the next seem a smaller step to those who took them. To see how the unthinkable became possible is to be better able to recognise its warning signs. The second is memory. Behind every stage were people, each with a name and a life. We study the steps not to reduce them to a process, but so that what happened to them is understood and never repeated. Hold both together. Understand how it escalated, and remember the people it was done to.

Complete the account of the escalation

The growth of the persecution step by step into something far worse was the _____. The measures of the regime growing ever more extreme was _____. Jewish people were first confined in a sealed-off area called a _____. In the occupied East, mass shootings were carried out by the _____. The persecution reached its most terrible form in a _____.

Judge the escalation

Which is the soundest understanding of how the Holocaust came about?

• The end point of a driven, step-by-step escalation, radicalising above all under cover of war through the choices of the regime, from exclusion into systematic genocide
• A sudden event with no earlier steps
• An accident that no one intended
• Something unconnected to the war

What drove it, and the steps it took

The strongest answers hold both together: why the escalation happened, and how it advanced.

Judge the escalation like an examiner

You are marking three claims about how the Holocaust came about. For each, choose the soundest judgement.

• An essay says the Holocaust happened suddenly, with no earlier steps. Is that safe?
• An essay says it was an accident that no one intended. Is that safe?
• An essay says the war made no difference to the persecution. Is that safe?

Write: how persecution escalated into the Holocaust

How and why did Nazi persecution escalate into the Holocaust? Explain the steps, weigh what drove the escalation, and reach a judgement, keeping the people it was done to at the centre. This is written in English and is not auto-marked.

• Explain the pre-war persecution by exclusion as the starting point
• Explain how the war and the invasions drove the radicalisation
• Explain the steps: the ghettos, the mass shootings, the death camps
• Explain that it was driven by the deliberate choices of the regime
• Reach a supported judgement, remembering the people at the centre