Background on the Holocaust

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Background on the Holocaust
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The Holocaust

• State-sponsored, systematic persecution and
  annihilation of European Jews by the Nazi party
• Took place from 1933-1945.
• 6 million Jews died during the Holocaust.
• Gypsies, the handicapped, Poles, Jehovahs
  Witnesses, Soviet prisoners of war, political
  dissidents, and homosexuals were also persecuted.

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1933-1937

• Jan. 30, 1933-Adolf Hitler named Chancellor of
  Germany.
• Hitler was the leader of the National Socialist
  German Workers Party (Nazi Party).
• Hitler ended German democracy.
• On March 23, 1933 Hitler was given dictatorial
  powers.

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1933-1939 continued

• Nazis put their racial ideology into practice and
  identified inferior races.
• Nazis blamed the Jews for Germanys economic
  depression and their countrys defeat in WWI.
• Created new German laws that limited Jews
  rightscalled Nuremberg Laws which identified
  Jews by their grandparents religious affiliation.

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1933-1937 continued

• Jews were forced from Germanys economic life.
• Involuntarily sterilized genetic inferiors.
• Between 1933-1939 about half of the German Jewish
  population and 2/3 of Austrian Jews fled Nazi
  persecution.
• Most foreign countries were unwilling to admit
  very large numbers of refugees.

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1939-1945

• September 1, 1939 Germany invades Poland and WWII
  begins.
• In 1939, Hitler began to kill institutionalized,
  handicapped patients deemed incurable.
• After public protest in 1941, the euthanasia
  program was kept secret.

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1939-1945 continued

• In 1940, German forces defeated Denmark, Norway,
  the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France.
• On June 22, 1941 Germany invaded the Soviet
  Union.
• Mass executions begin.
• Nazis create ghettos, transit camps, and forced
  labor camps to house their prisoners.

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1939-1945 continued

• Between 1942-1944 Germans begin to eliminate
  ghettos, deporting residents to extermination
  camps.
• In late 1944 Germans started death marches in
  an attempt to avoid the Allied forces.
• May 1945-Nazi Germany collapses.

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There were approximately 200 concentration camps

• This is FALSE.
• In reality there were over 1,000 camps, not all
  of which were killing centers.
• There were really only six killing camps.

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The Killing Centers

• Chelmno-320,000 people were killed between Dec.
  1941-March 1943 and June to July 1944.
• Belzec-600,000 people were killed between May
  1942 and August 1943.
• Sobibor-200,000 people were killed from
  1942-1943.
• Treblinka-750,000 people were killed from July
  1942 and November 1943.
• Auschwitz-Birkenau-1.25 million people were
  killed.
• Majdanek-42,200 to 1,380,000 killed in 3 years.

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Auschwitz was the first and most horrific
concentration camp.

• Also FALSE. Although one of the most horrific
  camps it was not the first. Dachau, which housed
  mostly political prisoners, was the first opened
  on March 22, 1933.
• The first death camp was Chelmno.

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The Holocaust against Jews resulted in the death
of more people than any other event in the 20th
century.

• Again, this is FALSE.
• The Holocaust is unique in its horror, but it did
  not create the most deaths. More people were
  killed by Stalin between 1929 and 1939 (almost 20
  million) and the Chinese Communist regime kill
  over 20 million people from 1949 to 1975.

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By in large, Jews offered little, if any,
resistance against the Nazis.

• Take a wild guess, yep, this is also FALSE.
• There were numerous forms of resistance.
• Many people (including the Jews, the 2.5 million
  Russian war prisoners, and 3 million non-Jewish
  Poles) offered little resistance because they did
  not realize the magnitude of what was happening.

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At best, two percent of the total population of
Non-Jews under Nazi occupation helped rescue Jews.

• Sadly, this is also FALSE.
• At best, less than ONE HALF of ONE PERCENT of the
  total population helped rescue Jews according to
  Samuel Totten.

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Elie Wiesel

• the author of Night

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• Born September 30, 1928
• Grew up in a small village in Romania called
  Singhet.
• His world revolved around family, religious
  study, community and God. Wiesel is Jewish.
• In 1944 he was sent to a Jewish ghetto later, he
  was deported to Auschwitz .

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• Wiesel survived Auschwitz, Buna, Buchenwald, and
  Gleiwitz (all concentration camps) until his
  liberation from the camps in 1945.
• Francios Mauriac convinced Wiesel to break his
  vowed silence and begin writing about his
  experiences in the concentration camps.

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Wiesel has

• published over 30 books
• earned the Nobel Peace Prize
• appointed to chair the Presidents Commission on
  the Holocaust
• become a U.S. citizen
• and so much more

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• Let us remember, let us remember the heroes of
  Warsaw, the martyrs of Treblinka, the children of
  Auschwitz. They fought alone, but they did not
  die alone, for something in all of us died with
  them.
• Elie Weisel