The Holocaust

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The Holocaust

• WWII

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Before World War II

• Before WWII began, there were 600,000 Germans who
  were Jewish
• Jewish people had lived in Europe for over 2,000
  years before the Holocaust (including 1,600 years
  in Germany)
• Jewish Germans were well-integrated into German
  culture, even more so than in other parts of
  Europe

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Why did the Germans do this?

• Anti-Semitism is prejudice, discrimination or
  persecution against Jews.
• The Nazis used anti-Semitism for their own
  purposes and unjustly blamed the Jews for causing
  many of Germanys problems-unemployment, the
  Depression, and even Germanys defeat in WWII

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Why did the Germans do this?

• Hitler hoped to create a common enemy for other
  Germans. This hatred would draw them closer
  together and make them more loyal and obedient.
• Any person or group that opposed the Nazis-such
  as Communists, political opponents, and cultural
  groups-were also victims of the Nazis
• For the Nazis, the process of forging the
  national community meant the elimination of
  groups they considered to be outsiders

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A Timeline of the Events

• When Hitler was elected to power in 1933, he
  started immediately to persecute German Jews
• 1933-Jewish-owned business were boycotted books
  written by Jewish authors were condemned and
  burned in public
• 1935-Nuremberg laws-Jews forbidden to marry other
  Germans and their German citizenship was revoked
  (a Jew was anyone who had one Jewish grandparent)

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November 9, 1939-Kristallnacht (the Night of the
broken glass)

• Jewish businesses were smashed and synagogues
  were burned
• Jews were forced to wear yellow Star of David to
  identify them as Jews
• Jewish children were not able to attend school
• Jews were not allowed to have pets, radios, or
  drivers licenses

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A Timeline of Events

• By 1939 the remaining German Jews (80,000) were
  forced into ghettos (designated areas in the city
  where Jews were compelled to live)
• The Nazis wanted physical control of the Jews to
  make it easier to humiliate, torture, and murder
  them

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A Timeline of Events

• Later, Hitler began the creation of concentration
  camps
• Initially these were designed to incarcerate
  political prisoners (enemies of the regime),
  criminals, and security risks
• Jews were herded from the ghettos onto freight
  cars, which took them to concentration camps
  where Jews were forced into slave labour

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A Timeline of events

• While conditions in these camps were horrible and
  the death rates were high, there is no evidence
  that they were used for extermination purposes
• By the 1930s there were hundreds of camps
  scattered throughout Nazi territory

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A Timeline of Events

• As Hitlers armies invaded other countries, the
  removal of Jews became a problem
• Nearly 2 million Jews were rounded up, stripped
  of their clothing and valuables, and then shot.
  This method considered too slow.
• January 30, 1939-Hitler announced to the
  Reichstag that the result of the anticipated war
  would be the annihilation of the Jewish race in
  Europe-this would be his final solution

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A Timeline of Events

• The final solution was to establish a number of
  extermination camps where the Jews could be
  killed en masse, known as genocide
• By the end of 1941, 1 million Jews had been
  massacred

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A Timeline of Events

• The murders of Jews began, first in mobile vans,
  using carbon monoxide gas, then in the
  concentration camp of Auschwitz in Poland, which
  was built near the Warsaw ghetto
• By 1942, Treblinka, also in Poland, and a number
  of other camps surrounded by barbed wire,
  electrified fences, and watchtowers, had been
  turned into death camps

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A Timeline of Events

• Many Jews died en route because of a lack of
  food, water, and air on trains
• Those who were not killed as soon as they arrived
  were used as slave labour until they were too
  weak to work Then they, too, were exterminated

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Did they rebel? Why or why not?

• Several significant factors worked against the
  possibility of organized resistance
• The first was disbelief-few victims actually
  comprehended their fate

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Did they rebel? Why or why not?

• The second was the relative lack of aid by either
  the local population, who were also brutalized by
  the occupation, or by the Allies
• Third was the cohesion of the family and the
  group in the ghettos and the camps. Resistance or
  flight meant leaving ones parents or comrades
• Finally, punishment was swift and severe. In
  Dolhynov, two Jews escaped from the prison and
  hid in the ghetto where they could not be found.
  In retaliation, 1,540 Jews were killed

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What did Canada do?

• In 1938, thirty-two nations, including Canada,
  attended the Evian Conference to discuss the
  problem of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany,
  but refused further Jewish immigration.
• In 1939, a shipload of German Jewish refugees
  aboard the S.S. St. Louis were refused sanctuary
  in Canada and forced to return to Europe.
• The S.S. St. Louis carried 937 Jewish men, women,
  and children who were desperately trying to
  escape Nazi persecution

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What did Canada do?

• The ship was eventually able to dock in Antwerp,
  Belgium and the refugees were able to flee to
  Belgium, France, Holland, and Britain
• During the Holocaust, Canada admitted only about
  5,000 Jews one of the worst records of any of
  the refugee receiving countries.

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In Conclusion

• Altogether, 6 million Jews were murdered by the
  Nazis
• Millions of other people were executed in the
  same manner because of their beliefs, race, and
  sexual orientation
• When the Allies liberated the occupied areas,
  they were shocked at what they found in
  concentration camps
• Many who survived died of malnutrition, disease,
  and the horrors suffered during their ordeal

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Work Makes You Free
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Auschwitz, Poland
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Gas Chamber
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Crematorium
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So What?

• Why is it important to remember and discuss
  events such as the Holocaust?

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Videos and Maps

• http//archive.org/details/DeathMills
• https//www.youtube.com/watch?v7OFvjgePfkI
• http//www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/focus/maps/