The Final Solution

The Oprah Winfrey Show | May 24, 2006

Auschwitz, Poland (1945), Associated Press, AP

Desperate after the Great Depression, Germans embraced Adolf Hitler's promise of riches to those he dubbed "the master race"—Aryans of pure German blood. On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland and started World War II. The German army immediately began isolating the Jewish population in ghettos.

In 1942, Nazis declared "The Final Solution," a plan to murder all European Jews. The widespread deportation of Jewish families from the ghettos to concentration camps began.