The Holocaust

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The Holocaust
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Holocaust (holocaust) n -    1. Great
destruction resulting in the extensive loss of
life, especially by fire 2. Greek word that
means burnt whole or consumed by fire
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Pre-War

• Jews were living in every country in Europe
  before the Nazis came into power in 1933
• Approximately 9 million Jews
• Poland and the Soviet Union had the largest
  populations
• Jews could be found in all walks of life
  farmers, factory workers, business people,
  doctors, teachers, and craftsmen

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Anti-Semitism

• Jews have faced prejudice and discrimination for
  over 2,000 years.
• Jews were scapegoats for many problems. For
  example, people blamed Jews for the Black Death
  that killed thousands in Europe during the Middle
  Ages.

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Anti-Semitism

• Russian in the late 1800s - the government
  incited attacks on Jewish neighborhoods called
  pogroms. Mobs murdered Jews and looted their
  homes and stores.
• Hitler idolized an Austrian mayor named Karl
  Lueger who used antisemitism as a way to get
  votes in his political campaign.

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PROGRESSION OF DISCRIMINATION TOWARDS JEWS

• The NAZI party and Adolf Hitler seized power in
  1933 and slowly began their program against the
  Jews of Germany
• In 1933 there were 566,000 Jews living in
  Germany.
• Each new year in Germany led to harsher policies
  directed towards the Jews.

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• Used antisemitism as a tool relied on the ideas
  of racial science to portray Jews as a race
  instead of a religion.
• Nazi teachers began to apply the principles of
  racial science by measuring skull size and nose
  length and recording students eye color and hair
  to determine whether students belonged the the
  Aryan race.

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• The Nazis used propaganda to promote their
  anti-Semitic ideas.
• One such book was the childrens book, The
  Poisonous Mushroom.

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Persecution

• The Nazi plan for dealing with the Jewish
• Question evolved in three steps
• 1. Expulsion Get them out of Germany
• 2. Containment Put them all together in one
  place namely ghettos
• 3. Final Solution annihilation

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Persecution

• Nazis targeted other individuals and groups in
  addition to the Jews
• Gypsies (Sinti and Roma)
• Homosexual men
• Jehovahs Witness
• Handicapped Germans
• Poles
• Political dissidents (communists)

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1933

• NAZIS boycott Jewish businesses
• issue decree that defines non-Aryans
• first concentration camps are built
• Dachau - 3/22/33

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BADGES OF HATE!
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Jews, like all other German citizens, were
required to carry identity cards, but their cards
were stamped with a red J. This allowed police
to easily identify them.
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1935- Nuremberg Race Laws
Full Jew a person with 3 Jewish grandparents.
Those with less were Mischlinge.
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1939 KRISTALLNACHT

• Night of Broken Glass
• Jewish stores, shops and synagogues burned down
• Took place because a German official was killed
  in Paris by a Jew
• November 9, 1939

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Kristallnacht
Photo credits Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart,
courtesy of USHMM Photo Archives
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POLAND 1939

• Sept. 1, 1939 Nazis invade Poland
• 3.35 million Jews
• Hans Frank becomes governor of Poland
• Forced labor decree issued and all Jews must wear
  yellow stars

I ask nothing of Jews except that they should
disappear
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1940

• German Jews are deported to Poland
• Ghettos of Lodz, Krakow and Warsaw are sealed
  off.
• Total of 600,000 Jews
• These ghettos will be liquidated starting in 1942

German soldiers rounding up Jews to be placed in
ghettos
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• Life in the ghettos was hard food was rationed
  several families often shared a small space
  disease spread rapidly heating, ventilation, and
  sanitation were limited.
• Many children were orphaned in the ghettos.

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Family being forced into Ghettos
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Ghetto Star
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• Many ghettos were closed by barbed wire or walls
  and were guarded by SS or local police.
• Jews sometimes had to use bridges to go over
  Aryan streets that ran through the ghetto.

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Wannsee Conference

• Reinhard Heydrich was ordered to prepare a final
  solution to the Jewish question
• Heydrich organized a meeting with 15 top Nazi
  officials in Berlin Jan. 20, 1942
• Nazis would attempt to exterminate the entire
  Jewish population of Europe, an estimated 11
  million persons

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FINAL SOLUTION

• Now judgement has begun and it will reach its
  conclusion only when the knowledge of the Jews
  has been erased from the earth! Nazi Newspaper
• There were 3 phases of the Nazi plan to wipe out
  the Jewish population of Europe

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Phase 1 Shooting

• Jews were rounded up and told they were to be
  relocated
• They were taken to the woods and were shot one by
  one
• their bodies were buried in mass graves

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Phase 2 Gas Vans

• Jews were rounded up and told they were to be
  relocated in vans
• The vans were equipped so that the vans exhaust
  was piped back into the van

700,000 Jews killed in Vans
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Problems with Phases 1,2

• The Nazis encountered several problems with the
  executions and gas vans
• First, they were both taking to much time
• Second, resources such as gas and munitions were
  becoming scarce
• Third, soldiers involved were beginning to have
  psychological problems with what they were doing.

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Phase 3 The Camps

• Nazi leaders decided to drastically speed up the
  Final Solution
• there were two different types of camps
• CONCENTRATION CAMPS
• EXTERMINATION CAMPS
• Jews from all over occupied Europe were to be
  brought here.

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CONCENTRATION

• 100 of these in Nazi-occupied Europe
• prisoners used for forced labor
• prisoners usually lasted less than 1/2 year
• communists, homosexuals, criminals,
  social-democrats, artists.
• First camp was opened in 1933, right after Nazis
  came to power

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Prisoners arriving at the camps
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AUSCHWITZ

• Started operations in January 1940 (Poland)
• Himmler chose Auschwitz as the place for the
  Final Solution
• had 4 gas chambers/crematories by 1943
• mass killings with Zyklon B gas
• commanded by Rudolph Hoess
• recorded 12,000 kills in one day

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Entrance to Auschwitz Work will set you free
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THE SS AT AUSCHWITZ
ORDERED TO TAKE ALL POSSESSIONS FROM JEWS
TEETH WITH GOLD
PILES OF GLASSES
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ZYKLON-B
GAS USED TO KILL VERMIN. IT WAS INEXPENSIVE
COMPARED TO GAS. DROPPED FROM CEILINGS
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MEDICAL EXPERIMENTS

• Sterilization of men and women
• endurance of pain to high and low temperatures
  and pressure
• experiments on twins to increase number of
  multiple births to Aryan women
• injections of phenol to kill patients
• Dr. Mengele attempted to sew children together to
  make Siamese twins

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MEDICAL EXPERIMENTS
EXTRACTED HUMAN ORGANS
EXPERIMENTS ON CHILDREN IN AUSCHWITZ
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One of the most famous photos taken during the
Holocaust shows Jewish families arrested by Nazis
during the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto in
Poland, and sent to be gassed at Treblinka
extermination camp.
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Camp Totals
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Crowded Conditions
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Even the very young
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Photo credit German National Archives
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Shoes
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Nazis sift through the enormous pile of clothing
left behind by the victims of a massacre. (1941)
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Soviet POWs at forced labor in 1943, exhuming
bodies in the ravine at Babi Yar. Nazis had
murdered over 33,000 Jews in September of 1941.
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Survivors in Mauthausen open one of the
crematoria ovens for American troops who are
inspecting the camp.
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A warehouse full of shoes and clothing
confiscated from the prisoners and deportees
gased upon their arrival. The Nazis shipped
these goods to Germany.
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A mass grave in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
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Young survivors behind a barbed wire fence in
Buchenwald.
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Holocaust Chronology

• Jan 27, 1945 - Soviet troops liberate Auschwitz.
  By this time, an estimated 2,000,000 persons,
  including 1,500,000 Jews, have been murdered
  there.
• April 29, 1945 - U.S. 7th Army liberates Dachau.

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Aftermath

• Most prisoners were emaciated to the point of
  being skeletal.
• Many camps had dead bodies lying in piles like
  cordwood.
• Many prisoners died even after liberation.

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Former prisoners of the "little camp" in
Buchenwald stare out from the wooden bunks in
which they slept three to a "bed." Elie Wiesel is
pictured in the second row of bunks, seventh from
the left, next to the vertical beam.
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Aftermath

• Many of the camp prisoners had nowhere to go, so
  they became displaced persons (DPs).
• These survivors stayed in DP camps in Germany,
  which were organized and run by the Allies.
• Initially, the conditions were often very poor in
  the DP camps.

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Aftermath

• Jewish displaced persons, eager to leave Europe,
  pushed for the founding of a Jewish state in
  British-controlled Palestine.
• Zionism-a Jewish homeland. This is what is now
  Israeli ( the religious unit Holy Land Wars b/w
  Israelis and Muslims)

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Aftermath

• The International Military Tribunal took place
  in Nuremberg, Germany in 1945 and 1946.
• 12 prominent Nazis were sentenced to death.
• Most claimed that they were only following
  orders, which was judged to be an invalid defense.

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STATISTICS BY COUNTRY

• 6 million Jews
• 1.5 million children under 12
• Other Undesirables
• 5 million
• 11 MILLION KILLED

Jewish population before, Jewish population after
Holocaust
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Where the Germans the only ones?

• During WWII
• Japan
• America (Japanese and German POW)
• Rounded up anyone that was Japanese, Japanese
  descendent or supporter and placed them in
  interment camps
• All German POWs where brought to America and put
  into camps (most of which were located in Texas)

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Japanese interment camps
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American POW camps
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German POW camps in the United States
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Processing

• Write a page talking about how you feel about the
  Holocaust and/or about concentration camps. You
  can discuss the ones that were in America or
  Japan as well.
• OR
• Draw a political cartoon that shows German/Jewish
  tensions and relations.