The Holocaust

Journaling our way through the events of the Holocaust

Project Introduction

• Read your ID card on the inside cover of your journal. You will be this person for this remainder of this unit. Every day that we learn about a new aspect of the Holocaust, I want you to think about how it might have affected your character. These are real people who lived during the Holocaust. Realistically and sadly, not all of them survived.

• In this project you will respond “in character” to the events that are discussed in class each day.

• Be sure to include descriptions of the event as well as how it might have affected your character. Refer to your ID Card for clues that might help you make guesses as to how these events impacted your character.

Day 1 Journal

• You will learn about the following today:– Anti-Semitic Propaganda– Boycotts of Jewish business

German Surrender Reveals the Horrors of the Holocaust

Anti-Semitic Propaganda

• Anti-Semitism is a hatred for Jews• Propaganda is information, ideas, or rumors

deliberately spread widely to help or harm a person, group, movement, institution, or nation.

• A scapegoat is when blame is placed on someone or a group for a larger problem that was probably not their fault

• Hitler blamed the Jews for WWI and the current economic depression they were experiencing.

• Hitler's ideas were quickly accepted.

Day 1

Nazi Anti-Semitism

Boycotts of Jewish business

• Hitler announced a boycott of all Jewish shops, good, doctors, and lawyers.

• The purpose was to isolate Jews both socially and economically from German society.

• The laws were meant to show the world that Hitler was in control of Germany.

• Signs were posted saying "Don't Buy from Jews" and "The Jews Are Our Misfortune."

• Three Jewish businessmen are forced to march down a crowded Leipzig street while carrying signs reading: "Don't buy from Jews; Shop in German businesses!" Leipzig, Germany, 1935

Boycotts

Sign on truck carrying Storm Troopers (SA) urges ."Germans! Defend yourselves. Don't buy from Jews." Berlin, Germany,

April 1, 1933.

Results of the Boycotts of Jewish business

• 10,000’s of Jews were fired from their jobs and banned from universities.

• Jewish businesses were marked with stars in the windows and often attacked and terrorized by hooligans.

• Because the boycott caused an uproar in other countries, the Nazis quickly ended it.

Journal Instructions

• Respond “in character” to the following events that were discussed in class today.

• Be sure to include descriptions of the event as well as how it might have affected your character.

• Refer to your ID Card for clues that might help you make guesses as to how these events impacted your character.

• Example: Each entry should start like…

“Dear Diary,

Today I noticed even more anti-Semitic propaganda posters as I walked home from school. It hurts to see these posters all around me. Telling people to hate me. I am just a girl. What have I done to deserve all of this hate. I just don’t understand. It is a scary time for me and my family. “

Day 2 Journal

• You will learn about the following today:– Nuremburg Laws– Kristallnacht

Nuremburg Laws

Nuremburg Laws

• Between 1933 and 1935, 100’s of laws were passed by the Nazis that restricted the freedom of Jews living in Germany.

• Some examples of these were:– Forbidden to enter movie houses,

restaurants, public swimming pools, and other recreation sites.

– Laws to encourage Jewish emigration– Expropriating (stripping of property rights)

More Nuremburg Laws• More aggressive action against Jews

• Designed to separate Aryans from non-Aryans and define the rights of a citizen of the Third Reich (Nazi Germany)

• A “subject” is: person who enjoys the protection of the German Reich who has specific obligations to it.

• A “citizen” is: of German or related blood

Jews had to…

• Register with the government

• Wear a Star of David on their clothing so they could easily be identified

• Be subject to severe penalties for violation of any of its provisions

Kristallnacht(Night of the Broken Glass)

• By 1938, nearly half of the Jews of Germany emigrated

• Nazi officials unleashed a savage nationwide campaign of terror against German’s Jewish population known as Kristallnacht, the night of shattered glass.

• They claimed they did this in retaliation for the assassination of a German official by a Jewish student, thousands of SS storm troopers and non-Jewish German sympathizers armed with hammers, axes, crowbars, and fire bombs went on an anti-Jewish rampage. They looted and smashed windows of Jewish owned stores, destroyed synagogues, and killed and arrested Jews.

Kristallnacht

Nazi officials attempted to portray Kristallnacht as a spontaneous and popular demonstration of anger but the uprising had been planned for weeks in Berlin by senior government officials and was intended to escalate the ongoing Nazi effort to dehumanize and bring misery to the Jews.

Eyewitness Report

• “Jews were being thrown from windows into streets littered with shattered glass…three synagogues in Leipzig had been fire bombed and all sacred objects and records had been destroyed…and that tactics which approached the ghoulish took place at the Jewish cemetery, including uprooting tombstones and violating graves.”

What was the damage of one night of 15 hours?

• 101 synagogues destroyed by fire

• 76 others were demolished

• 7,500 Jewish-owned stores were destroyed

• 100+ Jews were killed• 30,000 more were

arrested and interned in camps

As if the damage the Nazi’s had done wasn’t bad enough, they enacted a fine of $400,000,000 on the Jewish community to pay for the damage caused by the mobs

Kristallnacht leads to the HolocaustSome of these scenes are very graphic.

in PolandDay 3

Essential Question:

What were the characteristics of life in the Ghettos of Poland during the Holocaust?

Vocabulary

Review: •Anti-Semitism•Scapegoat•Nuremburg Laws•Kristallnacht

New Terms:•Ghettos•Warsaw Ghetto•Lodz Ghetto•Occupied Poland•Yiddish

Suitcase Activity• A soldier at gun point bursts into your home screaming obscenities and

calling you names. He tells you the following,

“You have 20 minutes to pack. It cannot weigh more than 20lbs. One bag per person.”

• You ask questions and try to argue, but he just yells and fires off a round into the air. You do not know where you are going or for how long. 1. What do you pack and why?

2. What is the most meaningful and prized possession that you own? Is this something you will bring

You may draw or write out your response. Be prepared to discuss it with the class. Once you have completed your response, place your paper in the suitcase in the middle of the room.

What was it like to be forced to move to the ghettos?

• All Jews were forced to leave their homes and required to live in ghettos

• Jews were given minutes to gather their belongings before being kicked out of their homes, often at gunpoint.

• The rest of their property was left to looters and thieves.

• German authorities set up warehouses for collecting the goods that had been confiscated from Jewish businesses and homes once the Jews were removed.

What were Jewish Ghettos?• Because the Germans aimed to

control a large Jewish population they forced Jews to live in marked-off sections of towns and cities the Nazis called "ghettos" or "Jewish residential quarters."

• Ghettos were small areas within a city that were sealed off with barbed-wire or high walls.

• Inhabitants were forbidden from leaving the compound

• No one can enter from the outside• They had curfews and other

restrictions for daily life

Jewish Ghettos• What was the reason the Nazi’s gave for moving

Jews into the ghetto?– Danger that a typhus epidemic would spread

through the city (Nazi claim) [Typhus is a bacterial disease spread by lice or fleas.]

• What was the real reason?– Ghettos were a temporary way to keep track of

the Jews until it proved possible to achieve the Nazi party’s stated goal of eliminating, or kill them all of them (THE TRUTH)

Where did Nazi’s establish Ghettos?

• 1000’s of Ghettos were established in 1939 in occupied eastern Europe

• Jews from northern and western Europe were transported to eastern European ghettos

• Ghettos were set up in cities and towns where Jews were already living in large concentrations.

• The Germans usually marked off the oldest, most run-down sections of cities for the ghettos.

Map: Ghettos in Occupied Poland

There were 16 Ghettos in Occupied Poland

Characteristics of Life in the Ghettos

• German-induced overcrowding and food shortages led to an extremely high mortality rate in the ghetto.

• The Germans set a food ration for Jews at just 181 calories a day.

– [that is equal to 2 Tablespoons of peanut butter or 15 saltine crackers]

• By August 1941, more than 5,000 people a month succumbed to starvation and disease.

• Jews lived in a state of chaos and immense anxiety in the ghettos• People were sick and malnourished• Lived in crowded conditions and had few resources• 45,000 Jews died there in 1941 due to overcrowding, hard labor,

lack of sanitation, starvation, and disease.

Oral HistoriesTechnology: As you watch and listen to the three Oral Histories of Holocaust Survivors, complete the graphic organizer on the next page. For each survivor, answer the following questions:•How do they each describe life in the ghetto? •What ways were survivors able to still find "good" in the world around them?•What surprised or shocked the survivors?•With a partner, compare your descriptions. Then fill in the “SAME” section with characteristics that each survivor/ghetto shared.

[Analyzing perspectives is great practice for the

Regents exam]

Abraham Lewent, Warsaw Ghetto

Born: 1924, Warsaw, Poland

Describes conditions in the Warsaw ghetto [Interview: 1989]

Jews work on the construction

of a wall around the Warsaw

ghetto area.

---Instytut Pamieci Narodowej

OCTOBER 12, 1940WARSAW JEWS ORDERED INTO GHETTO

• All Jewish residents of Warsaw, the Polish capital, were ordered into the designated area, which was to be sealed off from the rest of the city in November 1940.

• Construction of a wall, more than 10 feet high and topped with barbed wire, began.

• The Germans guard the ghetto boundary closely to prevent movement between the ghetto and the rest of Warsaw.

• The Warsaw ghetto was the largest of the ghettos in both area and population.

• More than 350,000 Jews--about 30 percent of the city's population--are confined in about 2.4 percent of the city's total area.

Beno Helmer, Lodz Ghetto

Born: 1923, Teplice-Sanov, Czechoslovakia Describes conditions in the Lodz ghetto [Interview: 1990]

Jews forced to move into the Lodz ghetto. Lodz, Poland, date uncertain.— Instytut Pamieci Narodowej

Gerda Weissmann Klein

Born: 1924, Bielsko, Poland

Describes her birthday celebration in the Bielsko ghetto [Interview: 1990]

In 1939, Gerda's brother was deported for forced labor. In June 1942, Gerda's family was deported from the Bielsko ghetto.While her parents were transported to Auschwitz, Gerda was sent to the Gross-Rosen camp system, where for the remainder of the war she performed forced labor in textile factories.Gerda was liberated after a death march, wearing the ski boots her father insisted would help her to survive.She married her American liberator.

After you have completed each section

[1, 2, 3]

Please turn to a partner near you and create a list of 4-6 characteristics that you think

each survivor shared in common.

Document Analysis: Primary Source: Diary Entries by an anonymous young girl

In July 1945, a partial diary was found in the area of the ghetto of Lodz, Poland. The diary had no identifiable author. The only clue to her name comes from a note copied into the diary, which reads "Dear Esterka and Minia."

[Document Analysis is great practice for the Regents

exam, especially the DBQ]

1. According to the diary entries, how could life in the ghettos be described?

Document Analysis-Primary Source: Song by Mordecai Gebirtig

Gebirtig is a Yiddish folk poet and songwriter who was confined in the Krakow ghetto in March 1942.

He wrote "Our Springtime" in April 1942. The lyrics describe the bleakness and despair of ghetto life.— Mr. Daniel Kempin; Mordecai Gebirtig

Listen to the song in Yiddish and read the English Lyrics.

2. Based on the lyrics of the song, how would you describe life in the ghetto?

 

 

3. Based on the mood/tone of the music, how would you describe life in the ghetto?

 

What happened to the Ghettos?

• Jews who don’t die in the ghettos were transported to concentration camps to be murdered at the hands of Nazis

• Eventually all ghettos were emptied and destroyed

Deportations and Camps

Railway Car• Railroads were essential to the killing process. • Deportations out of German-occupied Europe were by

train. • Killing centers were deliberately situated along major

rail lines in Poland. • 44 parallel tracks led to the Auschwitz station alone; a

special railroad spur ran directly into the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp.

• Jews endured the torturous journey to death camps in ordinary freight cars under conditions of starvation, extreme overcrowding, and horrible sanitation.

• In winter they were exposed to freezing temperatures, while in summer they were enveloped in suffocating heat and stench.

• Many died during the journey.

Day 2

•This authentic 15-ton freight car is one of several types that were used to deport Jews. Its cramped interior would have held 80 to 100 people. Deportation trains usually carried between 1,000 and 2,000 people whose crushing weight slowed the speed of travel to about 30 mph, greatly prolonging the ordeal.

For educational purposes only. Courtesy of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Photographed by Arnold Kramer.

Camps• Prisoner-of-war camps

• Forced-labor camps

• Concentration camps

• Mass-extermination camps

As Hitler and the Nazi regime conquered new territory, they set up thousands of camps.

Day 2

Deportations

Terrors of Camp

• Prisoners were starved, tortured, worked to death, and in most cases murdered

• Conditions varied widely, but killing occurred in all camps to some degree

• All prisoners could be tortured or killed for ANY offense

Going to Auschwitz

Day 2

Who did they hurt?Anyone considered an enemy of

the Nazi State• Jews• Poles• Gypsies• Prostitutes• Beggars• Homosexuals• Clergy –various faiths• Socialists • Physically and mentally handicapped

Day 2

Arrival to the Camps

• Examination of prisoners by SS doctors to determine with the wave of a hand their fate

• Many prisoners were unaware of what was to come

• Families were broken up; many young children were sent right to death because they could not work.

• Their fate was completely in the hands of the camp’s command and staff

Day 2

They faced…• Chronic hunger• Disease• Unsanitary living

conditions• Physical exhaustion• Breakup of families• Loss of home and livelihood• Demoralization• Losing their humanity• Losing their livesDay 2

Day 2

Extermination Camps in Occupied Poland

Day 2

Day 2

ShoesThe “Final Solution” was not onlysystematic murder, but systematic plunder. Before victims were gassed at Belzec,Sobibor, Treblinka, Chelmno, Majdanek,and Auschwitz-Birkenau, the SSconfiscated all their belongings. First to gowere money and other valuables; clotheswere next. This mass pillage yieldedmountains of clothing. Auschwitz-Birkenauand Majdanek together generated nearly300,000 pairs of shoes, which weredistributed among German settlers inPoland and among the inmates of otherconcentration camps. The shoes in thisphoto were confiscated from prisoners inMajdanek. The “Final Solution” producedover 2,000 freight carloads of stolengoods.. Day 2

For educational purposes only. Courtesy of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.Photographed by Arnold Kramer

“The Final Solution” to the “Jewish problem”

• It would take more than the terror and violence of Kristallnacht to drive all of the Jews out of Germany

Day 2

Timeline for Nazi Extermination Camps

Chelmno _________December 7, 1941 Gas Vans

_________Killed 320,000

Auschwitz- Birkenau_________September, 1941Zyklon-B

_________Killed 1,200,000

*Belzek ______March 17, 1942Carbon Monoxide gas

________Killed 600,000

*Sobibor_______March, 1942Carbon Monoxide gas

________Killed 250,000

*Treblinka ________July 23, 1942Carbon Monoxide gas

__________Killed 700,000

Majdanek ________October, 1942Carbon Monoxide and Zyklon B gas _________Killed 1,380,000

Stutthof_______June, 1944 Zyklon-B gas

_______Killed 65,000

Day 2

Day 2

Hitler’s Final Solution

Einsatzgruppen• Mobile Killing Squads• Followed German

armies into Russia and set out to kill all Jews as well as Soviet officials, the handicapped, and Gypsies.

• Mass shootings, buried in mass graves

• Einsatzgruppen and the SS killed more than 1.3 million Jews in open-air shootings.

Day 2

Einsatzgruppen• Nazi gas van

used to murder people at Chelmno extermination camp.

Day 2

Wannsee Conference

• January, 20, 1942, convened the Wannsee Conference in Berlin with 15 top Nazi bureaucrats to coordinate the Final Solution in which the Nazis would attempt to exterminate the entire Jewish population of Europe, an estimated 11 million persons.

Ways to solve the “Jewish problem”

• Registration of Jews• Nuremburg Laws• Emigration• Able-bodied Jews for

labor• Old age Ghetto• Mixed blood treated as

Jews• Transition Ghettos

Day 2

The Effects of the Holocaust

Day 2

Learning from the past

Day 2