The Holocaust

Holocaust

• Greek origin meaning “Sacrifice by Fire”

Nazism • It was the practice of the Nazi Party and of

Nazi Germany• It was a unique variety of fascism that involved

anti-Semitism

The Nazis

• The Nazis came into power in January of 1933• The Nazis believed that they were racially superior

and that the Jew was deemed Inferior • They also believed that Jews were an alien threat to

the “German Racial Community”

Aryan Race

• The Aryans were Hitler’s idea of the superior (and “perfect”) race– Blue Eyes, Blonde Hair, High Cheek Bones and full

German Blood

Anti-Semitism

• Hostility toward or discrimination against Jews as a religious, ethnic, or racial group.

What was The Holocaust?• The Holocaust was the

murder of over 6 million Jews

• Also… 5 million other people:– Roma (Gypsies)– The disabled– Other groups were

persecuted for ideological, political, and behavioral grounds

• Communists• Socialists• Homosexuals

A 2 year old girl that was killed with the 33,000 Jews that were shot dead in Kiev at the Babi Yar ravine in September 1941 when the Nazis invaded. Her name is Mania Halef.

The massacre was the largest single mass killing for which the Nazi regime and its collaborators were responsible during its campaign against the Soviet Union.

Germans sifting through clothes of the dead Jews after they were all shot dead…

When was the Holocaust?

• The period from January 30th 1933, when Adolf Hitler became Chancellor to May 8th 1945 (V-E Day)

Stages of the Holocaust

1. Define as OtherBased on long-held stereotypes, Jewish people were thought of as differentNazis used stereotypes to enhance the mistrust some Germans felt about the Jews

Mein Kampf. Hitler blamed the Jews for Germany's problems Nazis defined the Jews as a separate race

Violence Kristallnacht, November 9-10, 1938 Attack on Jewish homes, businesses and synagogues; killed

many Jews Began to send people to concentration camps.

Began centuries before the Holocaust and lasted throughout the Holocaust because of propaganda

This was a chart posted in elementary classrooms entitled "German Youth, Jewish Youth“; its purpose was to help Aryan children distinguish friend from foe.

Why?

Why, for what purpose is the

blood flowing? Behind the scenes,

the Jew grins. That makes the answer clear:

They bleed for the Jews.

2. Removal of Civil Rights

Nuremberg Laws: laws were passed to deny Jewish people equal rights.Denied citizenship, prohibited from public office and denied marriage rights to non-Jews

Step 3: Deportation

• The Jews were sent to Concentration Camps, and Extermination Camps

• They were also sent to Ghettos (Warsaw Ghetto)

Step 4: Extermination

• Jews were sent to Extermination camps (Auschwitz, Treblinka….)

Cremation Pit at AuschwitzMass grave at Belsen Camp

Steps taken against Jews

• 1933 Boycott Jewish businesses

Their signs read: "Germans, defend yourselves against the Jewish atrocity propaganda, buy only at German shops!" and "Germans, defend yourselves, buy only at German shops!"

• 1935 Nazi’s pass what was called the Nuremberg laws– Jews and Germans cannot marry– Jews and Germans cannot have sexual relations– Made sure German blood wasn’t tainted by mixing races– Jews cannot have a German flag or wear the national

colours • On the other hand Jews were allowed to wear Jewish

colours, had to wear the Star of David

• Germans had to make up a family tree to prove that there were no Jews in their family

The Germans settled that a “full Jew” has three Jewish grandparents

Eugenics Program

• This person suffering from hereditary defects costs the community 60,000 Reichsmark during his lifetime. Fellow German, that is your money, too.

• 1936 The Olympics came to Germany– In the 1936 Olympics an African American wins

the Gold in 100 metres, 200 metres, the long jump, and part of the 4x100 metre relay team

– It is said that Hitler would not shake his hand when handing out his medal

Jesse Owen

• 1938 Night of Broken Glass (Kristallnacht) • Nazi’s become violent against the Jews

(homes, businesses, synagogues were destroyed)

• 1939 The Germans started removing Jews and putting them in ghettos– Their properties were confiscated– They were forced to move to new areas– They lost their German citizenship

Germans built walls to separate the Jews and the Germans

• 1941 The Jews were to be moved to concentration camps

Concentration & Death Camps

• Concentration Camps were camps that Jewish or other people were forced to go to, to be tortured or forced to do work.

• After being in the Concentration camps they would be shipped off to the…

• Extermination camps were built by the Nazis to kill millions of Jewish people and also non-Jews such as Poles and Soviet Prisoners of war.

Death Camps

• Auschwitz – Birkenau – Nazi Killing Centre

• Sobibor • Treblinka • Belzec• Bergen – Belzen

Auschwitz

Inside the freight wagon to Treblinka

Concentration and Death Camps used by the Nazis

Auschwitz

• All over the world Auschwitz has become a symbol of terror, genocide, and the Holocaust

• Auschwitz was the biggest of the German concentration camps

• It consisted of 4 parts– Auschwitz I (The main Camp)– Auschwitz II (The Extermination Camp)– Auschwitz III (A Labour Camp)– And 45 Satellite Camps

• These camps are smaller camps, some of them were tens of kilometers away from the main camps.

Auschwitz Main Camp

• Auschwitz was located in Poland which was occupied by Germany.

Auschwitz I (The Main Camp)

• This part of the camp was serve as Administrative purposes, it had 16 one story buildings.

Auschwitz II• This extermination camp began in October of

1941 to ease the congestion of the main camp• It was also larger than Auschwitz one.

• The first gas chambers was built at Auschwitz they named it “The little red house”, it was a brick cottage which was converted into a gassing facility, it was operational by March 1942

• The Second gas chamber “The little white house” was converted some weeks later.

• With the gas chambers they also made crematoriums so they could burn the bodies

• The type of gas they used was called Zyklon B• It consisted of Hydrogen Cyanide, a stabilizer,

a warning odorant, and one of several absorbents

Auschwitz III• This camp was the largest of the Auschwitz work camps • It started its operations in May of 1942• 11,000 Slaves worked in this camp• Doctors from Auschwitz II come to visit to pick the weak and

sick out too put them in gas chambers

Medical Experiments• German doctors performed wide variety of experiments.• SS doctors tested the ability of X-Rays as a sterilization device

by administering large doses to females• Prof. Dr. Carl Clauberg injected chemicals

in the females uteruses in an effort to glue them shut.

This is the building where most experiments took place

• The most infamous doctor at Auschwitz was Josef Mengele, known as the “Angel of Death”

• He was particularly interested on identical twins, Mengele performed cruel expirements on them.– Such as inducing a disease in one twin and killing the other when the

first one died, he would perform comparative autopsies on them.

August Hirt dissecting a corpse

Bergen-Belsen

Bergen-Belsen• Bergen-Belsen was a Nazi concentration camp in

northwestern Germany.• It was originally a Prisoner of War camp, but in 1943 it

became a concentration camp

• The camp was liberated on April 15 1945, by British Armored Division

• When the British and Canadian troops entered the camp they found thousands of unburied bodies and approximately 55,000 inmates

• Most of them were sick and starving

• This is a quote from a British solider describing what he saw.

• “...Here over an acre of ground lay dead and dying people. You could not see which was which... The living lay with their heads against the corpses and around them moved the awful, ghostly procession of emaciated, aimless people, with nothing to do and with no hope of life, unable to move out of your way, unable to look at the terrible sights around them ... Babies had been born here, tiny wizened things that could not live ... A mother, driven mad, screamed at a British sentry to give her milk for her child, and thrust the tiny mite into his arms, then ran off, crying terribly. He opened the bundle and found the baby had been dead for days. This day at Belsen was the most horrible of my life.”

• After the liberation, the total number of deaths was about 50,000

Auschwitz (Now)

Bergen-Belsen (Now)

Bergen-Belsen is filled with marked graves, and monuments.

Statistics

The Holocaust – Assessing Guilt

Read over the following paragraphs concerning people who were in some way connected with the mass murder of the Jews in the 1940s. Use a scale from 0 (which means no guilt whatsoever) to 5 (total guilt) to assess how much of the guilt for the holocaust can be applied in each of the following cases. Justify your assessment with two to four points of explanation (for each case).

A - Rudolph HoessHoess was the commandant of the Auschwitz death

camp in Poland, which presided over the killing of more than 2 million people. Although Hoess maintained that “he was not suited to this sort of service,” he stated that he performed the task because, firstly, he didn’t want to admit his weakness to superior officers in the S.S., for fear of being discharged, and secondly, he was trained to follow orders without question. He stated at his war crimes trial in 1945 that “the basic orders of the Fuehrer were sacred. They allowed no consideration, no argument, and no interpretation.”

B – Emil Boeschner

A foreman in a chemical plant in Hamburg, he was approached by one of his workers, who claimed that the cyanide crystals they were producing were being used to kill prisoners at Auschwitz. The worker said the factory should not be part of it, and proposed a slowdown in production. Emil reported him to the Gestapo (police).

C – Adolf Hitler

Although the holocaust was a basic plank in Hitler’s platform, it must be remembered that Hitler himself killed no Jews. He pulled no triggers, administered no gassings, and tortured no one. All the killings were performed by subordinates.

D – Hans Schmidt

Schmidt had been in and out of prison for most of his adult life, serving time for crimes as varied as robbery and assault. In 1932, he had joined the Nazi party and volunteered for duty as a Storm Trooper. He was given the job of picking up Jews for identification, and on several occasions for a part of a team which administered beating to Jews with a dog-whip. During the war, he was posted at Treblinka concentration camp, where he performed guard duty.

E – Helmut von LossHe was a train engineer for the state railroad with 20 years

experience. He had been under considerable pressure ever since 1933, when Adolph Hitler came to power. The work load for engineers had increased, and fines were levied against railroad personnel when trains failed to meet their schedule. Helmut was openly critical of this policy, stating that the railroad people were already overworked and underpaid. In 1935, Helmut was taken off his route in the Ruhr Valley, and given a new post. He was responsible for driving the trains of captured Jews, and delivering them to concentration camps. He was aware that the Jews were often so crammed in closed box cars that many died of heat exhaustion or asphyxiation along the way.

F – Traudi Hoffman

Mrs. Hoffman was a 50-year-old house wife living two miles from Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. She claimed after the war to have no knowledge of what went on in the camp, but, when the wind was blowing the right way, the smell of dead bodies often washed over her property.