Part 2 Key Questions1. How is the decision made and

implemented to commit a European-wide genocide?

2. What were the major effects of WWII on American society including minorities and women?

A. Early Jewish Persecution• 1935 Nuremburg laws in Germany

stripped German Jews of citizenship and rights

• 1938 Kristellnacht Nazis unleashed wave of violence against Jews attacking them in their homes, synagogues and businesses

• Tens of thousands of European Jews fled for countries that would admit them

III. The Jewish Genocide

• Among them distinguished musicians, architects, writers, scholars who enriched the cultural life of their adopted nation

• Refugee physicists like Enrique Ferme contributed to developing the atomic bomb for the U.S.

• Discriminatory Immigration laws in place at time

• Congress refused to change the quotas for Jews• FDR would not exert pressure on lawmakers to

do so• Majority of Americans opposed letting in more

Jews (isolationist, anti-immigrant, anti-semitic sentiments)

B. America and the Jewish refugees

Jewish refugees on board MS St Louis in 1939

while docked in Havana, Cuba

Stopped by US Authorities and

forced to return to Europe

Video: Jewish Refugees – The

Roosevelts

C. The Jewish Genocide• Onset of the war accelerates the

process of elimination– Deportation of “undesirables” into

concentration camps– In Eastern Europe (esp. Poland) , forced

relocation of Jews into Ghettoes• Mandatory wearing of clothing to identify

them as Jews• Forced labor• Not allowed to leave• Hunger, fatigue, disease kill thousands of

Jews by month

Other Victims of the Holocaust• Political opponents– Communists, Socialists, Social Democrats,

and trade union leaders• Roma (Gypsies)– On racial grounds - Accused of being work-

shy/asocial, 1st victims of gas chambers• Poles/Slavic peoples (considered

racially inferior)• Jehovah Witnesses, homosexuals,

mentally + physically disabled• Video: The Path to Nazi Genocide

Radicalization after USSR invasion• German movement East places much

larger Jewish population under Nazi control

• Einsatzgruppen follow troops and exterminate all racial and political enemies– 1 million people gunned down 1941-1943

• Method eventually considered too inefficient and wearing on assassins

First Extermination Camps Fall 1941

• Built in East (e.g. Belzec, Poland)• December 1st gassings occur in

Chelmno, Poland in trucks• Turning Point of conscious policy of

total extermination

CAMPS IN

EUROPE

1933 -1945

Mass Extermination• The Final Solution– Genocide on European scale as of 1941–Made official at Wannsee Conference Jan

20, 1942– SS Reinhard Heydrich defines

administrative and practical methods to exterminate all Jews in Europe

– Physically capable Jews used in the German war effort, all others eliminated

– Gypsies sent to death camps from 1943

Planned and methodical organization

• 2 sorts of camps, overseen by the SS– Concentration Camps• Work camps created after 1933, • e.g. Dachau, stone quarry: Mauthausen

(Austria), chemical plant: Auschwitz• Conditions variable: death more or less

frequent from overwork, abuse, starvation• Detainees diverse, resistance members

progressively sent, some camps only female• Systematic treatment of humiliation to make

prisoners feel a loss of humanity

Death Camps• In Poland– Auschwitz-Birkenau, Belzec, Chalmno,

Majdanek, Sobibor & Treblinka• Death organized in an industrial fashion• Populations throughout Europe

transported like animals in wagon cars– Apt workers separated from the weak who

are killed in gas chambers– Bodies burned or buried in communal graves– Detainees used as guinea pigs for medical

experiments under authority of doctors like Josef Mengele in Auschwitz

Outcome• 10 million people killed from Nazi

extermination policy• Jewish victims the most numerous: – 5.1 – 5.8 million deaths– Half Jewish population in 1939– Gypsies suffer 240,000 deaths (1/3

population)• Regions Unevenly affected– Extermination more systematic in the East– The Polish Jewish population decreased by

89% between 1939 and 1945

Local Reactions to Nazi Extermination Policy

• Occupied territories of Nazi Germany reacted differently– Local governments and civilian populations cooperated

differently depending on the country• Resistance of Danish & Swedish authorities and

populations saved Jewish population of the country• French collaboration (state and people) led to

extermination of 28% of Jewish population• Opposition of Finnish and Bulgarian governments (Nazi

allies) led to end of deporting their Jewish citizens to extermination camps

• Jewish populations resisted policies in some areas– Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

• Video: To Live and Die with Honor Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (4’45)• Video: Holocaust Survivor Barbara Steiner

Country Number of Deaths

% of Jewish population

exterminatedGermany 120,000 50%Austria 50,000 83%Belgium 24,000 27%Estonia 2,000 44%France 75,000 28%Greece 60,000 81%Hungary 180,000 45%Italy 9,000 18%Leetonia 70,000 74%Lithuania 130,000 90%Norway 1,000 50%The Netherlands 100,000 71%Poland 3,000,000 89.5%Romania 270,000 36%Czechoslovakia 260,000 82.5%USSR 700,000 23%Yugoslavia 60,000 80%

Survivors of the Concentration Camp of Dachau celebrate their release

IV. The U.S. Home Front• Selective Service Act–Men ages 18-65 have to register after

PH• War Productions Board–½ production goes to the war effort

• Funding the War– Increased taxes–War bonds

• Video: Propaganda income taxes

Women during the War• Women in the military–WACs (Women’s Army Corps)–WAVES (Women Appointed for Voluntary

Emergency Service)• Female Mobility– Some women moved to new

communities to work in aircraft, munitions, automobile industries

Of all the images of working women during World War II, the image of women in factories predominates. Rosie the Riveter--the strong, competent woman dressed in overalls and bandanna--was introduced as a symbol of patriotic womanhood. The accoutrements of war work--uniforms, tools, and lunch pails--were incorporated into the revised image of the feminine ideal

Video: Rosie the Riveter on the assembly line

WWII and African Americans• Nearly 1 million African Americans

served in segregated units– Tuskegee airmen – First African

American aviators in the U.S. Army• Double V Campaign– Victory at home and Victory abroad

• Video: FDR’s EO 8802 affect on minorities

WWII and Native Americans• Navajo volunteers used as “code

talkers”• Japan unable to crack their code

used for military communication

WWII and Mexican Americans• Bracero Program

– 1942 need for farm labor leads US govt to issue short-term work permits to Mexican workers

– About 150,000 Braceros worked in agriculture and the railroads

• Zoot Suit Riots, 1943 (L.A.)– Young Mexican Americans become object of

frequent violent attacks by white sailors and marines

– In June, riots break out in East L.A.– 150 were injured, 500 Mexican Americans arrested

The Home Front and Japanese Americans

• Executive Order 9006– Passed by FDR, required relocation of Japanese

Americans living on West Coast to internment camps

• Korematsu vs. US (1944)– Japanese American sued the US govt for EO 9006– Went to the Supreme Court which upheld the

internment camps• Significance? – Civil liberties decrease during war-time

• Video: Japanese Internment The Roosevelts• Video: Superman 1:25 – 2:10

HOMEWORKReading Material

The Unfinished NationChapter 28 America in a World

War (pp. 720-749) CHAPTER SCANNED ON BLOG