This week marks the 79th anniversary of the Wannsee Conference, the infamous meeting that laid the groundwork for the massextermination of the Jews. On 20 January 1942, 15 top Nazi officials, among them 8 holders of Ph.d's, activated the bureaucratic mechanism which led to the systematic program to murder Europe'sJews.
In rememberance of the diabolical evil that took place on this infamous day, we present two unique photos from the SimonWiesenthal Archives.
Pictured right: List of the numbers of Jews to be exterminated in each country, totaling about 11,000,000. The list was preparedby Eichmann in preparation for the Wannsee Conference. The countries are listed in two groups, labelled "A" and "B." Those countries in group "A" were already under Nazi rule at the time of theConference, while those in group "B" were planned for future conquest and included neutral countries such as Switzerland and Spain, as well as enemies of the Third Reich such as England.
Pictured left: The villa in Wannsee where the Conference was held to plan the logistics of the Final Solution. Courtesy ofBildarchiv preussichen Kulturbesitz.
These two photos are part of the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s rich archival holdings culled from around the globe.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewishhuman rights organizations with over 400,000 member families in the United States. It is an NGO at international agencies including the United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, the OAS, the Council ofEurope and the Latin American Parliament (Parlatino).