Topic 2: The Holocaust: past paper questions
Real questions on topic 2: the holocaust
The newest 13 of 13 written questions. Open one to see it on the real paper.
- 9489/31 · October/November 2025 · Q2[40]
Read the extract and then answer the question. The significance of the ‘Night of Broken Glass’ both in the development of Nazi antisemitism, and the history of the persecution of the Jews by the Nazi state, was not that it marked the completion of a phase whose focus from 1936 to 1938 had been ‘Jews out of the economy’...
See it on the paper → - 9489/33 · October/November 2025 · Q2[40]
Read the extract and then answer the question. The precondition for starting up the machinery of destruction was not the development of the varied schemes of economic and population planning, but their repeated and utter failure. With the arrival in German-controlled territory of the first tens of thousands of ethnic G...
See it on the paper → - 9489/31 · May/June 2025 · Q2[40]
Read the extract and then answer the question. The signs are that ‘Kristallnacht’ had a profound impact upon Hitler. Content removed due to copyright restrictions. the outcome of any new conflict. But, somehow, he was certain that this would be What can you learn from this extract about the interpretation and approach...
See it on the paper → - 9489/33 · May/June 2025 · Q2[40]
Read the extract and then answer the question. There is general agreement that there was never an official order to begin ‘the Final Solution’. Similarly, before 1940 there was no long-range goal that went beyond a compulsory exodus of the Jewish part of the population, something that became less and less attainable as...
See it on the paper → - 9489/32 · February/March 2025 · Q2[40]
Read the extract and then answer the question. From the outset Nazi ideology and practice linked attacks on Jews with preparations for war. In March 1935, Hitler announced full German rearmament. Within weeks, German Jews were banned from military service. This exclusion implied that Jews were dishonourable, unfit to b...
See it on the paper → - 9489/33 · October/November 2024 · Q2[40]
Read the extract and then answer the question. By 1941 the Nazis saw at least three connected aspects of the ‘Jewish problem’: the German, the ‘eastern’ and the European. They had come to power vowing to rid Germany of its Jews, and forced emigration from the Reich and its newly conquered territories remained their pre...
See it on the paper → - 9489/33 · May/June 2024 · Q2[40]
Read the extract and then answer the question. In London and Washington, the facts about the ‘Final Solution’ were known within government circles from an early date. But the facts were not considered to be of great interest or importance, and at least some of the officials either did not believe them, or at least thou...
See it on the paper → - 9489/32 · February/March 2024 · Q2[40]
Read the extract and then answer the question. What can we conclude from the evidence contained in Hitler’s speeches? It would appear that Hitler did not openly state his intention to exterminate the Jews until 1936, and given his tendency for the over-dramatic, even his comments at that time might be interpreted as me...
See it on the paper → - 9489/21 · October/November 2023 · Q8a[10]
Explain why Hitler doubted that Britain and France would go to war in support of Poland in September 1939.
See it on the paper → - 9489/31 · May/June 2023 · Q2[40]
Read the extract and then answer the question. The Final Solution became psychologically possible because Hitler’s phrase concerning ‘the destruction of the Jewish race in Europe’ was adopted as a direct programme for action, particularly by Himmler. Content removed due to copyright restrictions. Then, despite all oppo...
See it on the paper → - 9489/32 · February/March 2023 · Q2[40]
Read the extract and then answer the question. Once war began in September 1939, genocide soon made its way from theory to practice. First and foremost, Hitler saw far more possibilities for radical solutions to all kinds of problems, chief amongst them from his point of view being the ‘Jewish question’. He had repeate...
See it on the paper → - 9489/31 · October/November 2021 · Q2[40]
Read the extract and then answer the question. We do not know for sure when Hitler finally made up his mind to exterminate the Jews in order to ‘solve’ the Jewish problem. It may be assumed that he considered such a prospect from the beginning of his political career, as suggested by many of his speeches and by his wel...
See it on the paper → - 9489/31 · May/June 2021 · Q2[40]
Read the extract and then answer the question. The evidence confirms the impression that the various authorities of the National Socialist regime were ready in late 1941 for the extermination process aimed at reducing the number of Jews. There existed no real capacity to absorb the mass deportations which everybody urg...
See it on the paper →
What examiners said
Explain why Hitler doubted that Britain and France would go to war in support of Poland in September 1939. Successful answers displayed good knowledge and understanding which allowed them to identify and explain a number of reasons, with many seeing the connections between them. Answers which were less successful identified a reason or reasons.
— Examiner report, October/November 2023, 9489/21 Q8(a) (Cambridge)
The central argument of the historian who wrote this extract is that there was no original intention to exterminate the Jewish race and that the decision to murder all Jews was contingent on the circumstances brought about by the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 (or on the declaration of war on the USA). The best answers recognised these aspects of the interpretation and illustrated them using...
— Examiner report, February/March 2023, 9489/32 Q2 (Cambridge)
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