In just 90 minutes at the Wannsee Conference, a decision was made that led to the murder of millions of Jews during World War II
On January 20, 1942, SS chief Reinhard Heydrich convened a conference at the house on Wannsee in southern Berlin. Here, top Nazis were to decide what to do about the so-called Jewish question. The meeting proved fateful for millions of Jews.
The meeting lasted only 90 minutes, and then they had arrived at the Final Solution to the Jewish Question., what we know today as the Holocaust or Shoah.
The beginning of the Holocaust
Heydrich had been given the task by Aviation Minister Hermann Göring, and Heydrich wanted to rid Europe of Jews from west to east. First, Germany had to be free of Jews, and then the occupied territories.
The murder of Europe’s Jews had already begun the year before on Hitler’s direct orders. After Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, the Einsatzgruppen began mass executions of Soviet Jews by shooting.
The mass shootings demoralized the soldiers, and therefore a more effective plan was needed to rid Europe of Jews. That is why Göring had asked Heydrich to come up with a plan, and that is why Heydrich had convened the Wannsee Conference.
And they arrived at the Final Solution to the Jewish Question.
It wasn’t until later in 1942 that the plan to establish extermination camps such as Auschwitz, Sobibor, Belzec and Treblinka in German-occupied Poland and the train transportation of Jews to the camps was laid and executed.
Read about the Platform 17 memorial at Grunewald train station here
House of the Wannsee Conference is a museum
Today, the Wannsee house where the fateful conference was held is a museum. It is a documentation center that you can visit free of charge and experience where Europe’s darkest chapter in history began.
You can stand in the magnificent living rooms where powerful men without conscience discussed the mass murder of millions of innocent adults and children.
Here you can read about the Wannsee Conference and its participants. You can see pictures of the powerful men. And you can see pictures of the consequences and their cold-blooded decision.
The evil stands in stark contrast to the beautiful house where the exhibition is located and where the Holocaust began.
Location:
Am Grossen Wannsee 56-58
14109 Berlin
Family friendly: Not really
Price: Free
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