The Holocaust

Brief Timeline of Holocaust

• 1933• Hitler and Nazis take control of Government.• First concentration camp established at

Dachau.• Nazi laws remove Jews from German courts

and civil service positions, limit the number of Jews who can attend German universities, remove Jews from German college faculties, and expel Jews from German cultural life (i.e., film, theater, literature, music, journalism).

• Nazi laws require involuntary sterilization of mixed race children, the physically or mentally handicapped, Gypsies, Blacks, and others deemed racially or genetically "inferior.

• 1935• The Nazi's "Nuremburg Laws" prohibit marriage

and extramarital relations between Jews and non-Jews, revoke the citizenship and civil rights of German Jews, and forbid Jews to display the German flag.

• 1938• Nazi laws require Jews to report their financial

assets and property.• Nazi laws require Jews to carry special

identification cards at all times.• Jews are ordered to turn in their passports so

they can be stamped "Jew.“• Kristallnacht• The Nazi government closes all Jewish businesses

and prohibits further Jewish business activity.

Timeline Continued

• 1939• Invasion of Poland• Nazi forces round up approximately 3

million Polish Jews and confine them in urban ghettos.

• Polish Jews are required to wear the Star of David.

• 1940• Anti-Jewish policies are imposed in

Nazi-occupied Denmark, Norway, Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, and in other European countries under Nazi domination.

• 1941• Extermination camps with gas chambers for

mass executions are constructed in Poland at Auschwitz-Birkenau, Chelmno, Belzec, Sobibor, Majdanek, and Treblinka.

• 1942• Nazi leaders, meeting in Wansee outside Berlin,

adopt a policy of mass execution as "the final solution of the Jewish question.“

• Deportation of Jews from Nazi-occupied and Nazi-dominated countries across Europe to the extermination camps in Poland begins.

• 1945• The Nazi's extermination camps, concentration

camps, and forced labor camps remain in operation until Germany surrenders on May 7.

Final Solution

• This slide will be for you to come up with your own research• What is the Final Solution?• On your handout, please indicate the website from which you obtained your

information.

• Final Statistics from the entire Holocaust• http://faculty.ucc.edu/egh-damerow/Statistics.htm

SS/ Einsatzgruppen/ Gestapo

• http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007328• http://www.ushmm.org/outreach/en/article.php?ModuleId=1000767

5

Nuremberg Laws

• Read the Nuremberg Laws here:• http://www.pbs.org/wnet/heritage/episode8/documents/documents_9.html

• An article about them:• http://www.ushmm.org/outreach/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007695

Kristallnacht

• Read this section on Kristallnacht• http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/holocaust/peopleevents/pandeAMEX99.ht

ml

• Then, read this section and watch the video testimonial from a witness to these events. (Only need to watch the first one)• http://www.ushmm.org/learn/timeline-of-events/1933-1938/kristallnacht

Ghettos

• Jews were placed into quarantined areas of the city.• These areas were often small and the worst parts of cities to begin

with. • Often there was far more people placed in the ghetto than could be

sustained.• Starvation, disease, crime, and ultimately death were rampant.• Warsaw, Poland is the primary example of a Ghetto.

• http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/media_nm.php?ModuleId=10005069&MediaId=3375

Concentration Camps

• Concentration camps are designed for “undesirable people” to be placed together, or concentrated, in one area to be under surveillance.• Dachau

• Liberated USA• Political prisoner camp• http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/media_nm.php?ModuleId=10005214&MediaId

=7825

• Auschwitz• Liberated by Soviet Union• Major site for the “Final Solution”• http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/media_nm.php?ModuleId=10005189&MediaId

=3371

Methods of Genocide

• Gas chambers• Human

experiments• Killing

squads• Starvation

Reflections on Life in the Camp

• “Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, that turned my life into one long night seven times sealed.Never shall I forget that smoke.Never shall I forget the small faces of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky.Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever.Never shall I forget the nocturnal silence that deprived me for all eternity of the desire to live.Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes.Never shall I forget those things, even were I condemned to live as long as God Himself.Never.” • Elie Wiesel – Night

• http://tellingstories.org/holocaust/wlowenberg/index.html• William Lowenberg – Survivor (Select Chapter 9)

Liberation

• Warning. Graphic footage from actual video during the liberation of camps.• http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/gallery.php?ModuleId=10005131&MediaType=FI

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHcJtU9dr6I• Watch this video from Band of Brothers• A recreation of events from American perspective in World War II, specifically

following one regiment of troops. • This is near the end of the series, after most of Germany has been taken back by

the Allied forces. • Concentration camp was a subsidiary camp of Dachau. • There is minimal dramatization in this recreation, it is very similar to what troops

saw upon liberation of camps.

Quotes• “I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure

suffering and humiliation. We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”• Elie Wiesel (Night)

• “Consider why Germany, fighting a war on two fronts, desperate for fuel and materiel of every sort, would bother to load millions of Jews on railroad cars and transport them hundreds, even thousands, of miles to concentration camps. Camps built specifically to house them, where they would be fed, clothed, even tattooed so they could be inventoried...just to kill them.” • Edgar J. Steele (Defensive Racism)

• On the Weebly Blog (World History Blog Tab) please give a reaction to these two quotes in a minimum of 100 words.