"holocaust" is a greek word meaning "sacrifice by fire."

The Holocaust

"Holocaust" is a Greek word meaning "sacrifice by fire."

Holocaust

Anti-Semitism DefinedPrejudice or hatred

against JewsIncreases during times of

crisis (Great Depression 1930’s)

During hard times, people look to find scapegoats

Jewish people, because they are an isolated minority, became popular targets

The sign reads "Jews are not wanted here."

The Holocaust

1933-1945Nazi Germany’s

systematic persecution and annihilation of European Jews

6 million Jews murdered & 5 million non-Jews Gypsies Handicapped Poles Homosexuals Jehovah’s Witnesses Free Masons Soviet prisoners of war

Why He Hated Them?

Hitler picked up his anti-Semitism while he was in Vienna

He became friends with the mayor, Karl Lueger, who was an anti-Semite

Anti-Semitic propaganda was rampant in Vienna at the time

Hardship In Vienna

Hitler lived there 1907-1913

Most difficult years of his life

Twice rejected from Vienna Academy of Fine Arts

2nd rejection most traumatic experience in his life – his dreams were shattered

Final Diagnosis

In Anti-Semitism, Hitler found an explanation for his failures and sufferings – the Jews

The Jews were the single cause of his unhappiness and humiliation – they were the source of all evil in the world

Hitler found his purpose in life – cleansing the German race of the Jews

Jews In Germany

525,000 (64 million Germans)

Less than 1% of total population

Jews, Gypsies and the handicapped were seen as a serious biological threat to the purity of the German Aryan race

Jews blamed for Germany’s economic depression and its defeat in World War 1

The Master Race

Nazi scientists promoted “selective breeding” to improve the human race

1933-1935 – laws passed to reduce the future number of genetically “inferior” people

320,000 – 350,000 mentally & physically handicapped sterilized

Taking care of them was seen as a burden to Germany

Master Race Propaganda

(left) Billboard showing the different stages of growth for members of the Nordic race

(right) A racial hygienist with calipers measuring the forehead of a young man

Stage 1Social discrimination

1935 – Nuremberg laws made Jews 2nd class citizens

1937-1939 – Jews banned from schools, restaurants, vacation spots and certain sections of German cities

Law For The Protection of German Blood & Honor No sexual relations or marriage

between Jews and persons of German blood and you were publicly humiliated if it was found out

"Jews are not wanted here.”

Social Discrimination

A woman who is concealing her face sits on a park bench marked "Only for Jews."

Social Discrimination

German-Jewish couple with a “J” for Jude stamped on their passport

An Austrian Nazi forces a young man to paint Jude on his father’s store

Stage 1 Continued

Economic discrimination1933 – Jews forced out

of government, university, law , medical and school positions

Jewish businesses boycotted

Jewish businesses and property were seized or they were forced to sell at bargain prices“Don’t buy from Jews”

Economic Discrimination

(left) "Germans! Defend Yourselves! Do Not Buy From Jews!“

(right) Jewish businessmen forced to carry signs that say “Don’t buy from Jewish shops! Buy from German businesses”

Economic Discrimination

(left) Nazi Storm Troopers stand guard outside a Jewish-owned business. Graffiti painted on the window states: "You Jewish pig may your hands rot off!"

(right) SA troops riding in a truck with the sign “Defend yourselves! Don’t buy from Jews”

Kristallnacht

1938 - Night of the Broken Glass

7,000 Jewish businesses, 1,000 synagogues and homes were destroyed by Nazi thugs

91 Jews were murdered 30,000 Jewish men

arrested and imprisoned Business owners were

ordered by the Nazi government to pay for damages

Pictures from Kristallnacht

Jewish Response

Mass emigration out of Germany

United States, Palestine, other parts of Europe and South America

Those left behind did not want to leave or could not obtain a visa, sponsors or $ for emigration

U.S, Canada, Britain and France did not admit large number of Jewish refugees

German Jews wait in an emigration office in Berlin. On the wall is a map of South America and a sign about emigration to Palestine.

Jewish EmigrationJewish Emigration from Germany, 1933-

1938 Year                 Number of Emigrants        

Total 1933                    

37,000                              37,0001934                    

23,000                              60,0001935                    

21,000                              81,0001936                     25,000                            

106,0001937                     23,000                            

129,0001938 (1st 6 mos.) 20,000                            

149,000

Accepting Jewish Refugees

1933-1945 U.S accepted

+200,000 Britain 70,000Brazil 27,000Canada – less than

5,000

Welcome To America?

June 1939 – Cuba & U.S refuse to accept more than 900 Jewish refugees

All were aboard the ocean liner St. Louis

It was forced to return to Europe

Start Of War

September 1939 – Germany invades Poland

Poland would be new living space for German families

50,000 Aryan-looking Polish children kidnapped and sent to Germany for adoption

The Nazi Juggernaut German forces occupy much of

EuropePoland (3 million)DenmarkNorwayNetherlandsBelgiumLuxembourg FranceYugoslavia Greece Soviet Union (5 million)

German army’s success = inherit more Jews What do we do with them?

Stage 2

Jews deported from all German occupied countries

Sent to ghettoesGhettos were city

districts in which the Jewish population was forced to live in (often under miserable conditions)

800+ set up throughout eastern Europe

Isolation from rest of population

Life In The GhettoA foot bridge connecting two parts of

the Warsaw ghetto (bottom) Jewish children with their small soup

rations (left)

Ghetto Life

OvercrowdedChronic shortage of food starvation

Lack of medical supplies and adequate clothing to deal with extreme cold

Plumbing broke downHuman waste and

garbage thrown in the streets epidemic outbreaks, high death rate amongst residents

A Slow Death

People weakened by cold and hunger easy victims for disease

Thousands died from illness, starvation or cold

Some killed themselves to escape the horror

Every day, children became orphaned lived on the streets & begged for food, most froze to death in the winter

Slaves

Residents of the ghettos were a source of forced labor for the German war effort

Barbed wire

separating a

ghetto from the

rest of Krakow

Poland

Survival

(left) Jews buying and selling on the ghetto streets(right) Child vendors in the Polish streets.

Children had to be resourceful to help their families survive.

Children In The Ghetto

Small children in the Warsaw ghetto sometimes helped smuggle food to their families by crawling through narrow openings in the ghetto wall

If caught, they would be severely punished

Average of 5,000 – 6,000 dying each month

Leaving The Ghettos

• 100 or more people were packed into the boxcars

• Trips took a few hours to a few days

• Inside there were no seats or bathrooms

• The old, young and sick died along the way

Inside The Cattle Cars“We suffered from thirst and cold; at every stop

we clamoured for water, or even a handful of snow, but we rarely heard; the soldiers of the escort drove off anybody who tried to approach the convoy. Two young mothers, nursing their children, groaned night and day, begging for water…the hours of darkness were nightmares without end.”

The Conference

January 20, 194290 minute meeting in the

Wannsee district of Berlin15 high ranking Nazi

party leaders gather to coordinate how to carry out “the final solution to the Jewish question”

“The final solution” was the code name for the deliberate, planned mass murder of all European Jews

How was the Final Solution going to be

organised?

Women, children, the old & the sick were to be sent

for ‘special treatment.’

The young and fit would go through a process

called ‘destruction through work.’

Shooting was too inefficient as the

bullets were needed for the war

effort

Jews were to be rounded up and put into transit camps called Ghettoes

The Jews living in these Ghettos

were to be used as a cheap

source of labour.

Conditions in the Ghettos were designed to be so bad that many die whilst

the rest would be willing to leave these areas in the hope of better conditions

The remaining Jews were to be

shipped to ‘resettlement areas’ in the

East.

On arrival the Jews would go

through a process called

‘selection.’

How It Would Work

Stage 3 4 Mobile firing squads

(each with 400-900 men) used extensively in the Soviet Union

Einsatzgruppen followed advancing German army

Made up of SS soldiers and criminals

The Einsatzgruppen

(left) Jewish civilians arrive in a ravine just before they are executed in the Soviet Union

(right) A group of children just before their execution by the Einsatzgruppen

Mass Murders

(left) Members of a mobile killing squad before shooting a Jewish youth. The boy's murdered family lies in front of him.

(right) Eisatzgruppen soldiers sift through the possessions of Jews who were just executed

Stage 4

Mobile gas vans Airtight in the backPumped carbon monoxide gas

to suffocate human cargo in the sealed cabin at the back

Resembled an ambulance or refrigerator truck

The gassing took 15-30 minutes

Van drove from the loading site to prepared graves

Small vans held 80-100 people Larger vans held 130-150

people

Camp Differences

Concentration camps held Jews, Gypsies, political and religious opponents, homosexuals and other Germans considered “enemies of the state”

Those in concentration camps performed labor

They died by starvation, disease and maltreatment

Death camps were extermination camps where people were murdered in assembly-line style

Concentration Camps

(left) Prisoners dig ditches to install centralheating pipes

(right) Women used as forced labor

Stage 5

6 death campsClose to railway

lines Set up in semi-rural

areas Supervised by SS

troops

Death Camps

Death camps located in PolandBelzec Sobibor TreblinkaMajdanekChelmno Auschwitz-Birkenau

Concentration camps were located in Germany

The Camps

Camp Procedures Arrival & Selection Men separated from women &

childrenQuickly sorted visually by Nazi

doctorsDeath – left (90%) / Right – life

(10%)Young & healthy used as forced laborRemove a sense of identityShaved off hair

Socks for Navy, stuffing for pillows, waterproof ropes for Navy

Registration number tattooed on left forearm

Undress & hand over valuables

How One Person Felt“The shaving off of our hair was the most

traumatic experience. It made me feel utterly vulnerable and reduced to a complete nobody. I had relinquished my clothes as well, and I stood there stark naked, bald, and with a number on my arm. In the space of a few minutes, I had been stripped of every vestige of human dignity and become indistinguishable from everyone around me.”

- Anit Lasker-Wallfisch (Holocaust survivor)

Procedures• Children, pregnant women, elderly,

handicapped and the sick sent to die• Undress and enter shower rooms• 200 capacity • Shower room doors locked • Carbon monoxide (1/2 hour)• Zyklon B (insecticide) used to suffocate

(10-15 minutes)• Processed 3,800 at one time• 1 day = 15,000• The Sonderkommando

Remove bodies Gold teeth Ovens (20 minutes to burn 2-3 bodies,

ashes) Identification disposed of – no trace left

The Showers

Another Survivor “It was early evening when the train

stopped and the doors opened. As I came off the train, I saw on the left huge chimneys belching forth thick, black smoke. There was a strange smell, like burning the feathers off a chicken before it was cooked. I didn’t know that the smoke and the smell were not from chickens. I didn’t know, until I found out later on, that I was smelling our own flesh, our own families burning.”

-Ernest Honig (Holocaust survivor)

Most Famous Death Camp

Auschwitz was the largest camp

Consisted of a series of both concentration & death camps

More than 1 million people died there

Had 4 large gas chambers, each capable of holding 2,000 people at one time

Facts About Auschwitz

A sign over the entrance to the camp read “Arbeit Macht Frei”

The storage warehouses located near the crematoriums were called “Canada” because the Poles believed it was a country of great riches

Life In Auschwitz

Men wore ragged, stripped pants and jackets

Women wore work dresses

Issued ill-fitting work shoes, sometimes clogs

No change of clothing

Sleeping Quarters

Barracks had no insulation from heat or cold

No bathroom, only a bucket

Each barrack held 36 wooden bunk beds

Inmates squeezed in 5-6 across the wooden plank

Approx 500 lived in a barrack

Forced to work 12 hours or more a day

The Walking Dead

Constant hunger Food =

watery soup made with rotten vegetables and little meat

Few ounces of bread A bit of margarine, tea or

bitter drink resembling coffee Diarrhea was commonThose weakened by

dehydration and hunger contracted contagious diseases

15 – 40 of every 100 people in the labor camps died

Children In The Camps

At Auschwitz, children were often killed upon arrivalChildren born in the camp were generally killed on

the spotNear the end of the war, in order to cut expenses and

save gas, the SS guards were ordered to place living children directly into the ovens or throw them into open burning pits

Medical ExperimentsCruel medical experiments done at

the camps Men, women and children were

used as subjects Inmates were put into pressure

chambers, tested with drugs, castrated, frozen to death, and exposed to various other traumas

Experiments - find better medical treatments for German soldiers & airmen

Many died during the experiments, others were killed after the research was over and their organs removed for further study

The Angel Of Death Dr. Josef Mengele - Senior SS physician

at Auschwitz One of many doctors who carried out

“selections” of new arrivals Carried out cruel research on twins

deported to the camp Disappeared after the war 1979 - Died in a swimming accident, his

body was found in 1985 in Brazil

Heroes Of The Holocaust 1943 – Danish

resistance rescued 7,200 of Denmark’s 8,000 Jews

Smuggled via boats into neutral Sweden

Le Chambon-Sur-LignonProtestant village in

southern France that sheltered 5,000 Jews

The town hid their Jews for 4 years

The town educated the Jewish children

Not one Jew that hid in the town was taken by the Nazis

They were eventually taken to the Swiss border to safety

Nazi Efficiency

1933 - Jewish population of Europe stood at over 9 million

During the Holocaust, nearly two out of every three European Jews were murdered as part of the "Final Solution"

Liberation Of Camps

Horrific Discoveries

As Allied troops made their way through Poland and discovered the horrors of the death camps, word spread quickly

Gory Discovery

On The Run “War criminals” were

rounded up Hitler commits suicide

along with many of his henchmen

1945 Nuremberg Trials11 months 1st war crimes trial ever Lawyers & judges from Britain,

France, Soviet Union and U.SNazis were tried for

crimes against peace (plan, prepare, starting a war)

war crimes (murder, deportations)

crimes against humanity (murder based on political, racial or religious grounds)

All 21 Nazis plead not guiltyCommon defence – “just

following orders” or “this court has no jurisdiction”

Nazi Defendants

Hermann Goring (2nd in command)

Rudolf Hess (3rd in command)

Joachim von Ribbentrop (foreign minister)

13 - death by hanging

7 - life in prison or 10-20 years

3 – acquitted

You Can Run, But You Can’t Hide

Adolf Eichmann Head of the Gestapo

department dealing with Jewish affairs

He organized the transportation of Jews to the death camps

After the war, escaped to Latin America

Captured in Argentina by Israeli Nazi-hunters

Put on trial in Israel 1961Convicted & executed 1962

Nuremberg Trial pictures

% of Jews Exterminated

1. Poland 88%

2. Soviet Union 48%

3. Romania 49%

4. Czechoslovakia 83%

5. Germany 83%

6. Hungary 50%

7. Lithuania 87%

8. France 43%

9. Holland 80%

10. Latvia 89%

11. Yugoslavia 87%

12. Greece 80%

13. Austria 67%

14. Belgium 40%

15. Italy 26%

Remembering The Holocaust

Holocaust museum Yad Vashem is located in Israel

Preserves the memories of those who died and to honor the “righteous Gentiles” who helped save the lives of countless Jews

21,300 righteous Gentiles

Not Just the JewishOther groups were also persecuted and

killed, including ethnic Poles, the Romani, Soviet civilians, Soviet prisoners of war, the disabled, homosexual men and political and religious opponents.

Total number of victims of Nazi genocide policies, including Poles, Romani, Soviet POW, and the handicapped is generally agreed to be between 9 and 11 million.

HolocaustConsidering what you know about Germany

during World War Two and the Holocaust itself...In what ways was the Holocaust a powerful

tool for Hitler and the leaders of Nazi Germany?

Why do you think the Holocaust is a significant event, even today?