Transcript The Holocaust WWII

The Holocaust
WWII
Before World War II
Before WWII began, there were 600,000
Germans who were Jewish
Jewish people had lived in Europe for over
2,000 years before the Holocaust (including
1,600 years in Germany)
Jewish Germans were well-integrated into
German culture, even more so than in other
parts of Europe
Why did the Germans do this?
Anti-Semitism is prejudice,
discrimination or persecution against
Jews.
The Nazis used anti-Semitism for their
own purposes and unjustly blamed the
Jews for causing many of Germany’s
problems-unemployment, the
Depression, and even Germany’s
defeat in WWII
Why did the Germans do this?
Hitler hoped to create a common enemy for other
Germans. This hatred would draw them closer
together and make them more loyal and obedient.
Any person or group that opposed the Nazis-such
as Communists, political opponents, and cultural
groups-were also victims of the Nazis
For the Nazis, the process of forging the “national
community” meant the elimination of groups they
considered to be “outsiders”
A Timeline of the Events…
When Hitler was elected to power in 1933, he
started immediately to persecute German Jews
1933-Jewish-owned business were boycotted;
books written by Jewish authors were condemned
and burned in public
1935-Nuremberg laws-Jews forbidden to marry
other Germans and their German citizenship was
revoked (a Jew was anyone who had one Jewish
grandparent)
November 9, 1939-Kristallnacht
(“the Night of the broken glass”)
Jewish businesses were
smashed and
synagogues were burned
Jews were forced to
wear yellow Star of
David to identify them
as Jews
Jewish children were
not able to attend school
Jews were not allowed
to have pets, radios, or
drivers licenses
A Timeline of Events…
By 1939 the remaining
German Jews (80,000)
were forced into ghettos
(designated areas in the
city where Jews were
compelled to live)
The Nazis wanted
physical control of the
Jews to make it easier to
humiliate, torture, and
murder them
A Timeline of Events…
Later, Hitler began the creation of
concentration camps
Initially these were designed to incarcerate
political prisoners (enemies of the regime),
criminals, and security risks
Jews were herded from the ghettos onto freight
cars, which took them to concentration camps
where Jews were forced into slave labour
A Timeline of events…
While conditions in these camps were
horrible and the death rates were high, there
is no evidence that they were used for
extermination purposes
By the 1930s there were hundreds of camps
scattered throughout Nazi territory
A Timeline of Events…
As Hitler’s armies invaded other countries, the
removal of Jews became a problem
Nearly 2 million Jews were rounded up, stripped
of their clothing and valuables, and then shot. This
method considered too slow.
January 30, 1939-Hitler announced to the
Reichstag that the result of the anticipated war
would be the “annihilation of the Jewish race in
Europe”-this would be his “final solution”
A Timeline of Events…
The “final solution”
was to establish a
number of
extermination camps
where the Jews could
be killed en masse,
known as genocide
By the end of 1941, 1
million Jews had been
massacred
A Timeline of Events…
The murders of Jews
began, first in mobile
vans, using carbon
monoxide gas, then in the
concentration camp of
Auschwitz in Poland,
which was built near the
Warsaw ghetto
By 1942, Treblinka, also
in Poland, and a number
of other camps surrounded
by barbed wire, electrified
fences, and watchtowers,
had been turned into death
camps
A Timeline of Events…
Many Jews died en
route because of a lack
of food, water, and air
on trains
Those who were not
killed as soon as they
arrived were used as
slave labour until they
were too weak to work
Then they, too, were
exterminated
Did they rebel? Why or why not?
Several significant
factors worked against
the possibility of
organized resistance:
The first was
disbelief-few victims
actually
comprehended their
fate
Did they rebel? Why or why not?
The second was the relative lack of aid by either
the local population, who were also brutalized by
the occupation, or by the Allies
Third was the cohesion of the family and the
group in the ghettos and the camps. Resistance or
flight meant leaving one’s parents or comrades
Finally, punishment was swift and severe. In
Dolhynov, two Jews escaped from the prison and
hid in the ghetto where they could not be found. In
retaliation, 1,540 Jews were killed
What did Canada do?
In 1938, thirty-two nations, including Canada,
attended the Evian Conference to discuss the
problem of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany,
but refused further Jewish immigration.
In 1939, a shipload of German Jewish refugees
aboard the S.S. St. Louis were refused sanctuary in
Canada and forced to return to Europe.
The S.S. St. Louis carried 937 Jewish men,
women, and children who were desperately trying
to escape Nazi persecution
What did Canada do?
The ship was eventually able to dock in
Antwerp, Belgium and the refugees were
able to flee to Belgium, France, Holland,
and Britain
During the Holocaust, Canada admitted
only about 5,000 Jews — one of the worst
records of any of the refugee receiving
countries.
In Conclusion…
Altogether, 6 million Jews were murdered by the
Nazis
Millions of other people were executed in the
same manner because of their beliefs, race, and
sexual orientation
When the Allies liberated the occupied areas, they
were shocked at what they found in concentration
camps
Many who survived died of malnutrition, disease,
and the horrors suffered during their ordeal
“Work Makes You Free”
Auschwitz, Poland
Gas Chamber
Crematorium
So What?
Why is it
important to
remember and
discuss events
such as the
Holocaust?
Videos and Maps
http://archive.org/details/DeathMills
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OFvjgeP
fkI
http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/focus
/maps/