Transcript The Nazi Attack on German Jews Begins

Life Under Nazi Rule
Holocaust History
Power Point #2
Nazi Beliefs
• (1) Germany had lost World War I because
Jews and Communists undermined morale
• (2) They were racists who believed inferior
races threatened the Volk’s blood line
• (3) Jews were not German; they were only
“guests”
• (4) The feeble-minded and deformed must
be prevented from producing more of their
kind
• (5) Traditional religious teaching about duty
to God and brotherhood weakened the
nation
Defining Who was Jewish
• The Nazi newspaper Der
Sturmer (The Attacker)
reported stereotypes of Jews
such as: they were repulsive,
fat men who tried to lure
Aryan children into their cars;
rich bankers, traitors, and
trade union leaders
• Jews dressed, looked, and
acted like any other German
• This similarity caused a
problem for the Nazis in
deciding who was Jewish
• In the early days, Nazis were not sure how to solve
problems like mixed marriages and tracing ancestry
• Worked out the complicated formula in The
Nuremberg Laws of 1935
– Jews and Mischlenges (mongrels or mixed
bloods) were those who had practiced Judaism,
had Jewish grandparents, or were married to Jews
Right: A complicated
chart detailing the
Nuremberg Laws of
1935.
The Nuremberg Laws
• Law passed on September 15, 1935
– “The Law for Protection of German Blood and
German Honor”
• Marriages between Jews and citizens of
Germany or related blood are forbidden
• Jews are not permitted to display the
German flag
• Jews may not employ in their households
female citizens of German or related blood
under 45 years
– “The Reich Citizenship Law”
• A citizen of the Reich is only that subject of
German or related blood who proves by his
conduct that he is ready and able to serve
the German people and the Reich faithfully
• Only the full citizen of the Reich enjoys full
political rights
• A Jew cannot be a citizen of the Reich
• Jews cannot vote or hold public office
Restrictions Begin
• All non-Aryan government
officials were to retire
• All Jewish newspaper workers
were fired
• Jews expelled from the guilds
of musicians, writers, and
artists
• Businesses pressured to fire
Jewish executives
• Companies and banks owned
by Jews were hit by SAsponsored boycotts
Restrictions continued…
• April 1933 “The Law Against
Overcrowding of German Schools” was
issued to separate Jews from Aryan
school children
• By 1938, Jews were no longer allowed to
use swimming pools
• SA or SS would stand outside a Jewish
shop to warn patrons
1936 Olympics
A Dutch poster protesting
the 1936 Olympics
• The 1936 Olympic games were
being held in Berlin
• Hitler did not want the foreign
press writing vicious truths about
his Jewish policy
• During the games, the only
indication of Nazi hatred for
“subhumans” was Hitler’s
snubbing of black athletes.
• After the foreign games were
gone, gangs of young bullies
returned to beating up helpless
Jews
Austria
• Hitler wanted to expand into Austria
• He sent Nazis into Austria to create
enthusiasm for the union (Anschluss) of
the two countries.
• About 90 percent of Austrians favored
uniting with Germany
• This was tragic for Austrian Jews, where
there was already long standing AntiSemitism
– To show their support for Hitler,
Austrians outdid the Germans in
This woman was reduced
persecuting Jews
to tears when the Austrians
• Dragged from homes and shops, decided to follow Hitler.
forced to clean latrines, sidewalks,
and grafitti
– Concentration camp was established in
Mauthausen
Kristallnacht
“Night of Broken Glass”
Herschel Grynszpan was
17 years old when he killed
Ernest vom Rath, a German
embassy official, in retaliation
for his family’s deportation
to Poland.
• In 1938 a German-born Jew killed Ernst vom Rath
when he learned his family was being deported to
Poland
– Goebbels used to event to justify Kristallnacht
• November 9, 1938 became known as Kristallnacht
– Jewish property was destroyed or damaged
and more than 90 Jews were killed
– Police ordered not to interfere as mobs
smashed, looted, and burned stores,
synagogues, and homes
– Estimated $400 million worth of damage
– Because this was the result of German
“righteous indignation,” the Jews had to pay to
repair everything as punishment for Rath’s
murder
• In January of 1939, all Jewish shops were closed.
Left: An example of some of the physical
damage done to Jewish businesses on
November 9, 1938, now called
Krystallnacht.
• In 1933 there were about 700,000 Jews in Germany
and Austria.
• In 1938 and 1939, 403,000 were left.
• In 1940, the U.S. embassy in Berlin had 248,000
immigration applications on file
– The U.S. quota allowed on 27,000 Germans a year into the
country.
“The Ghettos”
Was there Jewish Resistance?
• Ghettos were not a new invention
– Existed back in Middle Ages
– Been confined several times before in history
• Hitler believed Jews were a “cancer” that needed to be
destroyed
– Strong Jews who could survive and spread Judaism must
be killed
• Jews were not fighters by nature; few owned guns
• Community and family were very strong in Jewish culture
• Thought reason was a way to convince the Nazis
• Thought by cooperating the SS would ease up
• Jews were too scattered in isolated towns to put up
resistance.
The Order to Move
• Little warning, came early in the
morning
• Could only take one suitcase
• Homes and valuables had to be left
behind; scavengers came in and stole
unattended property
• At the ghetto, family was assigned a
room (12 to 20 people in one room)
• No privacy, few toilets, little food,
streets filled with beggars
• Ghettos were located in the oldest,
most run-down sections of town. The
buildings were in bad condition, often
near collapse.
• Most of the ghettos were enclosed –
surrounded by fences, barbed wire or a
large wall
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Jews were forbidden to leave without a special permit, under penalty of death.
Jews began to develop a system of schools, newspapers, and cultural and religious
organizations
Jews worked whenever they could. They repaired old uniforms and clothes,
produced such things as wooden and leather shoes, mattresses, ammunition boxes,
baskets, and brooms. Their best costumers were the Germans, particularly the
army. They also produced most of what kept the ghetto functioning.
– German-owned and SS businesses functioned both inside and outside the larger
ghettos
– They took their workforce to and from the ghetto population
– Mean a back-breaking ten- or twelve-hour day
– The work permit came with a very small extra bit of money and a slightly larger
food ration
Underground libraries sprang up; ghetto orchestras secretly performed
Religious life went on despite Nazi efforts to stop it
– Rabbis had to alter some of the rules concerning non-Kosher food or clothing
options
Government Within the Ghetto
• Judenrat was the Jewish
government that took orders
from the Nazis
• 12 men were chosen from each
ghetto to form a Jewish Council
– Responsible for the day-today running of the ghetto
– In charge of health, housing,
and public order
– Responsible for carrying out
any and all Nazi orders
• People were the only thing not
in short supply in the ghetto
A Few of the Ghettos
Lodz
• The first ghetto that was
established
• A little over 1.5 miles square (the
size of about twenty city blocks
• Over 150,000 Jews lived seven or
eight to a room.
• Mordechai Rumkowski (leader)
wanted to keep Nazis happy at
all costs
• Believed if ghetto was productive
the Nazis would leave them
alone
• In 1942 Nazis began “resettling”
Lodz Jews, sending them to
Chelmno death camp
• Rumkowski told parents to give
him their children
• He was killed in August 1944
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Warsaw, Poland
– Took up 1.6 square miles.
– It held anywhere from 400,000 to 600,000 Jews
– The largest ghetto
– Eight to ten people lived in a room; went up to
fourteen towards the end when the ghetto was
reduced in space
– Adam Czerniakow (leader)
– Made little effort to stop smuggling
– Begged the Nazis to let children go free; this was
denied and he killed himself
Vilna
– 25,000 people lived here
– Seventy-two buildings on five streets
– The crowding was so intense that each person had
about seven feet to call his or her own—a space “as
narrow as the grave”
“The creation of the ghetto is obviously only a temporary
measure. When and by what means the ghetto, and the
town of Lodz, will be cleansed of Jews I reserve to myself.
Our final objective must be, in any case, to burn out this
plague boil completely.”
– SS Brigadier General Friedrich Uelbehoer
Daily Life in the Ghettos
• Starvation
– Starvation was a deliberate Nazi
policy
– At its best 1,100 calories a day
– At its worst 220 calories a day
– Bread (14 oz.) Meat Products
(4.5 oz.) Sugar (1.75 oz.) Fat (.9
oz.)
– Killed approximately 500 a week
– It was the Jews’ greatest torture--it was endless and could not be
escaped.
– The elderly and sick suffered the
most and died the soonest.
• The Cold
– Temperatures could drop to 20
below (Warsaw, Poland)
– Warm clothing was taken away
– Did not provide them with
enough kerosene, coal, or wood
• Disease
– Breeding grounds for bacteria
• Limited sanitary facilities
• Sewage pipes froze and burst
• Little soap and water available
– Typhus, a disease directly
connected with overcrowding and
filth, took by far the greatest
number of people
• In 1941 almost 100,000 people died
of typhus in the Warsaw ghetto
Smuggling
• If it had not been for the smugglers, the Nazis would have succeeded in
starving the ghettos to death.
• There was some large-scale smuggling, but most of it day by day was
small.
• Those who could afford it bribed guards to not notice smuggling.
• If the Jews were caught smuggling anything—no matter how small—the
penalty was death, sometimes by being shot immediately.
• Sometimes smugglers were hanged and then left for days “as a lesson to
all who would learn”
• Most of the smugglers were children ten to fourteen years old.
The End of the Ghettos
• It was estimated that one-fifth of ghetto
inhabitants died of disease and hunger-related
illnesses.
– At this rate it would have taken five or six years to kill
all ghetto inhabitants…that was too long for the
deranged Nazis
So began the Final Solution…