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