within the Foreign Office in February 1942. British forces took the island from Vichy France in the Battle of Madagascar in November 1942 and control was transferred to the Free French. Once planning for Operation Barbarossa commenced, Hitler asked Himmler to draft a new plan for the elimination of the Jews of Europe, and Himmler passed along the task to Heydrich. His draft proposed the deportation of the Jews to the Soviet Union via Poland. The later Generalplan Ost (General Plan for the East), prepared by Professor Konrad Meyer and others, called for deporting the entire population of occupied Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union to Siberia, either for use as slave labour or to be murdered after the Soviet defeat. The plan hinged on the rapid defeat of the Soviet forces. Once it became apparent that the war against the Soviet Union would drag on much longer than expected, Heydrich revised his plans to concentrate on the Jewish population then under Nazi control. Since transporting masses of people into a combat zone would be impossible, Heydrich decided that the Jews would be killed in extermination camps set up in occupied areas of Poland. The total number of Jews murdered during the resulting Holocaust is estimated at 5.5 to 6 million people. See also Proposals for a Jewish state Uganda Scheme Nisko Plan Jewish Autonomous Oblast References Informational notes Citations Bibliography Further reading External links by the German historian Magnus Brechtken Text of the Madagascar Plan Abandoned projects of Nazi Germany Jewish emigration from Nazi Germany History of Madagascar Settlement schemes in Africa Germany–Madagascar relations Adolf Eichmann Jewish settlement schemes Jewish Madagascar history Abandoned expulsions of Jews