Transcript The Holocaust “For the dead and the living, we must bear witness.”

The Holocaust
“For the dead and the living, we must
bear witness.”
-Elie Wiesel
What was the Holocaust?
• The Holocaust was the systematic,
bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and
murder of about 12 million people
• The Nazis believed that Germans were racially
superior – they sought to kill anyone who
threatened this superiority
Who were the victims?
• 6 million of those who died were Jewish
• Another estimated 6 million non-Jews were
killed
• Some of the remaining victims were targeted
because of their “racial inferiority”: Gypsies,
the disabled, Slavic peoples (Poles, Russians,
etc.)
• Others were killed due to their political,
ideological, or behavioral groups:
Communists, Socialists, Jehovah’s Witnesses,
and homosexuals
“the Master Race”
• Nazi ideology taught that the German people
were part of the “master race”
• to be ethnically pure, anyone that weakened the
race needed to be eliminated
• this included mentally or physically disabled
adults or children
Right: Often people, like these children,
were victims of medical experiments before
they were killed
The Jews
• in 1933, the Jewish population of Europe was over 9
million
• as a part of the “Final Solution,” 2 out of every 3 Jews
would be killed by the end of the war
• to tell them apart, Jews were required to wear the
yellow star of David on their clothing
Who was a Jew?
People with
at least one
Jewish
grandparent
were
considered
Jewish
Flood of Refugees
• after Kristallnacht, many Jews realized the seriousness
of the worsening situation and tried to leave for other
countries
• many countries, including France, Britain, and the
United States, closed their borders after admitting tens
of thousands of Jewish refugees
• many Jews were left trapped in Germany
The SS St. Louis was to take
many Jews from Europe to the
US – they were denied docking
in the US and Cuba and
returned to Europe
Ghettos
• after Kristallnacht, many Jews were deprived of their
businesses and jobs
• after Hitler couldn’t get rid of the Jews through
immigration, he decided to isolate Jews in ghettos
• Jews were forced from their homes into segregated
sections of cities
• the hope was that Jews in ghettos would starve or die
from disease
Right: Resistance leaders led an
uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto
The “Final Solution”
• the “Final Solution” was
Hitler’s plan for the genocide of
the Jews
• genocide – systematic killing of
an entire people
• The SS (Hitler’s elite security
force) moved from town to
town, hunting Jews, marching
them into the woods, and
shooting them
• this proved too time
consuming, so many began to
be sent to concentration camps
Concentration Camps
• from ghettos, those still alive were rounded up and
taken to concentration camps, usually by long trips on
train boxcars with little food and poor sanitation
• once they arrived at the camps, victims were usually
divided into two groups – one group of the weak for
instant execution (children, the elderly, the sick, etc), the
second group of strong people for work detail before
their deaths
These people are being divided at
Birkenau Camp
Death camps
• Camps like Auschwitz were known as death camps
• Prisoners designated for instant execution were told to
undress for a shower
• Once they were inside the “shower room,” poison gas
canisters were dropped, killing the prisoners
• Their bodies were burned in crematoriums
• Prisoners chosen to work were usually moved to other
camps for work in factories, fields, etc.
Map of Concentration Camps
Identification Symbols
• Nazis used triangular badges or patches to
identify prisoners in the concentration camps
Emigrant
Homosexuals
Asocial – most Political Prisoner –
diverse – criminals,
Communist,
homeless
Socialist, Etc.
Bible
Researcher often
Jehovah’s
Witnesses
Gypsies
Habitual
Criminal
Jews
Life in a concentration camp
• life in a concentration camp was harsh – food was at a
minimum – usually thin soup, a scrap of moldy bread, or
potato peelings
• most prisoners lost 50 pounds in the first few months
• prisoners worked seven days a week as slaves
Prisoners were tattooed with a number
Concentration camp prisoners
Liberation
• As Allied troops moved
across Europe, they
began to discover the
concentration camps
• They discovered
starving prisoners,
many at the brink of
death due to disease,
and mounds of
unburied dead bodies
The Survivors
• Those who survived faced many obstacles:
– Most were seriously ill and needed medical
attention
– Where were their families?
– Where should they go? Their homes, possessions,
and families were gone
– What should they do now? How do you move on?