Question: What do you Question: What do you already know about the already know about the Holocaust?Holocaust?

Definition: Holocaust = the mass slaughter or reckless destruction of life…

“The Holocaust” happened in Europe from 1933 to 1945.

Only 70 years ago…

Millions killed including Jews and non-Jews alike

What do you see?

What does it tell you?

Before 1933 and at the start of the Holocaust, Germany was unstable in a lot of different ways:

A. Upset about losing WW1

B. Hard to find jobs

C. Hoped Government would solve problems

D. Suspicious of outsiders

In 1929, Stock Market crash leads to Great Depression

Massive Unemployment (42%) and inflation

In 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany.

Promised a proud new Germany, and blamed the Jews

Translation:“Germans defend yourselves

against Jewish atrocity (evilness), buy only at

German shops!”

-Hitler later declared himself “The Fuhrer” (Leader) which allowed him to act without limit.

-Hitler believed in “Master Race” called “Aryan”

-Characteristics: Blond hair, Blue eyes, Tall, Strong, Perfect

Look at a photograph of Adolf Hitler. How are his beliefs ironic?

The Nazis thought some people were inferior, including:

JewsGypsiesPolesAfrican-GermansJehovah’s WitnessesCommunistsPeople who were mentally or physically handicappedHomosexuals

Why do you think Hitler targeted these groups?

Citizenship was revoked; Kicked out of schools

Doctors, lawyers, or people who owned businesses were forbidden to do their work.

Park benches and the beaches had signs saying, “No Jews Allowed.”

Life improved for Nazis

Jobs were taken from “Non-aryans” and given to Nazis

Nazi sympathizes were given

more food and supplies

Offered a sense of pride and belonging

They convinced some Germans that people who were different were sub-human.

They used the mass media, like radios and newspapers, to spread Propaganda.

How is this poster propaganda for the Nazis?

In November 1938, Nazis began to use violence.

For two days all over the country, they destroyed Jewish businesses, and burnt down the synagogues.

Homes were broken into. People were beaten. About 30,000 people were arrested, and many were never seen again.

Hitler and the Nazis wanted to control all of Europe, so in 1939, Germany invaded Poland, and World War II began.

Soon Germany invaded many other countries. By 1941, they had over taken Poland, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Denmark, and Norway.

The Nazis made all Jews move out of their homes and into ghettos…gated areas to live. The ghettos in Europe were dirty and crowded. Food was scarce, and many people were sick and dying.

In January 1942, The “Final Solution was created”

Goal: Kill all 11 million Jews in Europe

The Nazis built death camps. They wanted to keep their homeland “pure,” so most of the death camps were in Poland.

The largest death camp was called Auschwitz.

The War ended in 1945 when Allied (American) forces invaded Berlin

By then, 6 million people had already been killed

Motto: “Never Again”

Born September 30, 1928 in Sighet, Romania.

Grew up in a small village where his life revolved around the following: Family Religious Study Community God

In 1944, when Elie was 15, he was deported to Auschwitz.When they arrived at the camp, he and his father were

warned to lie about their ages. Elie said he was 18 and his father said he was 40 instead of 50.They were sent to be slave laborers.His mother and youngest sister were sent to the gas

chambers.

Elie and his father survived first Auschwitz and then the Buna labor camp for eight months.They endured beatings,

excessive work, starvation, and other torture.

In the winter 1944-45, Wiesel’s right knee swelled up and a doctor performed surgery on it. Two days later, the

inmates were forced to go on a death march.

For ten days they were forced to run, then crammed into freight cars, and sent to Buchenwald.

After he was freed from the camp on April 11, Wiesel became sick with intestinal problems.

After several days in the hospital, Wiesel wrote an outline for a book describing the Holocaust.He wasn’t ready to publicize his experience, but

promised he would in ten years.

After Elie was released from the hospital, he had no family to return to. He went with 400 other

orphan children to France.

From 1945-1947, he moved from house to house found for him by Children’s Rescue Society.

By 1947, he was reunited with both of his surviving sisters, Bea and Hilda.Hilda found his picture

in a newspaper.He found Bea in

Antwerp.

In 1948, Elie enrolled in the Sorbonne University where he studied literature, philosophy, and psychology.

He was extremely poor and very depressed. He considered suicide

often.

Over time, he became involved with the Irgun, a Jewish militant organization in Palestine, and translated materials from Hebrew to Yiddish for the Irgun’s newspaper.

He began working as a reporter, and in 1949, he traveled to Israel as a correspondent for the French newspaper, L’Arche.

In Israel, he found a job as a Paris correspondent for the Israeli newspaper Yediot Achronot. He traveled the world in the 1950’s. He also became involved in the argument whether Israel should

accept reparations payments from West Germany.

Weisel’s turning point came when he interviewed the Catholic writer, Francois Mauriac.

During the interview, everything was centered around Jesus and Wiesel ended up saying the following; "…ten years ago, not very far from here, I knew Jewish

children every one of whom suffered a thousand times more, six million times more, than Christ on the cross. And we don’t speak about them." Wiesel ran out of the room, but Mauriac followed and advised

Wiesel to write down his experience.

Elie spent a year working on the 862 page manuscript he called And the World Was Silent. He gave it to his publisher who returned it as a 258 page

book called Night.The book was published first in France in 1958 and then in

the U.S. in 1960.The book is autobiographical and told of his experiences

during the Holocaust.It also is his personal account of his loss of religious faith.

In 1955, Wiesel moved to New York as foreign correspondent for Yediot Ahronot.

It was around this time that he decided to stop attending synagogue, except on the High Holidays, as a protest against what he concluded was divine injustice.

Wiesel was outspoken about the suffering of all people, not only Jews. In the 1970s, he protested against South African apartheid. In 1980, he delivered food to starving Cambodians In 1986, he received the Nobel Peace Prize as “a

messenger to mankind,” and “a human being dedicated to humanity.” He explained his actions by saying the whole world knew what

was happening in the concentration camps, but did nothing. “That is why I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation.”

From 1972 to 1978, Wiesel was a Distinguished Professor of Judaic Studies at the City University of New York.

1978, he became a Professor of Humanities at Boston University.

In 1978, President Jimmy Carter asked him to head the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council, which he did for six years.

In 1985, Wiesel was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal of Achievement.

In 1993, Wiesel spoke at the dedication of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. His words, which echo his

life’s work, are carved in stone at the entrance to the museum: “For the dead and the

living, we must bear witness.”

A destruction, an annihilation that only man can provoke, only man can prevent.

Hope is like peace. It is not a gift from God. It is a gift only we can give one another.

I decided to devote my life to telling the story because I felt that having survived I owe something to the dead and anyone who does not remember betrays them again.

I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.