Transcript Document 7303257

The Holocaust: a great or complete devastation or
destruction, especially by fire; any mass slaughter or
reckless destruction of life
“An abnormal reaction to an abnormal
situation is normal behavior.”
- a survivor
1933-1945
Historical Context
of The Holocaust
Judaism
•Dates back nearly 4,000 years
•Shares many ideas with Christianity and Islam – all
originated in the Middle East.
•Sacred texts of all 3 overlap. For example, the Hebrew
Bible is what Christians call the Old Testament. Many of
the Bible stories also appear in the Islamic sacred text, the
Qur’an.
1933-1945
Who was Hitler?
As a young man he had a crush on a Jewish girl, and her
father forbid the relationship because he did not think Hitler
was good enough for his daughter.
Part of his antisemitism in this case is psychological, news
of the war's end and Germany's loss came to Hitler when he
was half blind in Pasewalk hospital, which would have
increased the blow.
Ludendorff's stab in the back theory (the belief that the Jews
were responsible for the end of the war) had a big impact on
Hitler (what soldier wouldn't be influenced by his top
commander?)
The Jewish involvement in the communist uprisings and the
later hated Weimar Republic would have cemented this in
Hitler's mind.
And for a guy who was pretty much a homeless failure before
the war, a hero during it, and probably would return to the
homeless failure afterwards unless he did something, Hitler
would have been looking for someone to blame.
Germany was in an economic depression (enormous debt
following WWI – had been forced to borrow to pay
reparations to the victorious European powers, as demanded
by the Treaty of Versailles in 1919.
Existing prejudices and blame were already held by some
people aimed toward Jews, some of whom held wealth
through banking and ownership of property.
The Role of Propaganda
Salarino: Why, I am sure, if he forfeit, thou wilt not take his
flesh? What’s that good for?
Shylock: To bait fish withal; if it will feed nothing else, it will
feed my revenge. He hath disgraced me and hindered me half a
million; laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains, scorned my
nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine
enemies; and what’s his reason? I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew
hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed
with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the
same diseases, healed by the same winter and summer, as a
Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us,
do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you
wrong us, shall we not revenge? If a Jew wrong a Christian,
what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew,
what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why,
revenge. The villainy you teach me I will execute; and it shall
go hard but I will better the instruction.
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Why did the Nazis Come to Power in
Germany?
Nazis
Come
to Power
Hitler’s charisma and
leadership
seduced
the massesin
Germany was resentful
about the Treaty of
Germany?
Versailles(signed at end of WW1, in 1919, and ended state
of war between Allied Powers and Germany) and its
perceived attempt at emasculating the German people.
Nazism was the logical outgrowth of a history of
authoritarianism and militarism in Germany. Nazis
represented the anti-democratic values in German history
2000 year old tradition of anti-semitism
Germany’s declining economy, inflation and depression
Revolt against the Englightenment Movement of the 19th
Century – individualism, mass rule, mankind can change its
own nature.
NazisNazis Advocated:
•Community
•Unity
•The Fuhrer
•Order/discipline – opposed to Democracy
•Aryan race
•Physical labor
•War
•Patriotism/Nationalism
•Social Darwinism
•Force/violence
•Eugenics - Improving genetic composition of a
group of people
Nazis opposed:
•
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Democracy
Individual freedom
Jews
Internationalism
Birth control
Integration of races
Spreading Nazism
•
Complete control of the mass media
• Frequent fanatical speeches spreading
Nazism and Antisemitism
• Standard symbols, like swastika, Nazi
flag, uniforms, armbands
• Nazi slogans on banners/posters
• Organization of the Hitler Youth
• Well organized spy system to identify
enemies of the Party
1933-1945
Karl Lueger
(1844-1907)
Mayor of Vienna
“If Dr. Karl Lueger
had lived in Germany,
he would have been
ranked among the
great minds of our
people.”
-Adolf Hitler in Mein
Kampf
Beer Hall Putsch
1933-1945
Also known as the Munich Putsch - a failed attempt at
revolution that occurred between the evening of 8 November
and the early afternoon of 9 November 1923, when Nazi Party
leader Hitler, Ludendorff, and other heads of the Kampfbund
(a league of patriotic fighting societies) unsuccessfully tried to
seize power in Munich, Bavaria, and Germany in Nov. 9, 1923
Hitler’s MEIN KAMPF
Hitler’s MEIN KAMPF
• “Mein Kampf” means “My Struggle;”
Hitler wrote it while in prison in the 1920’s
• Still banned in most European countries
• Given to every newly married German
couple from the late 1930’s onward
Hitler’s MEIN KAMPF
Hitler’s MEIN KAMPF
• “The relation of the Jews to prostitution and, even
more, to the white-slave traffic, could be studied
in Vienna…When thus for the first time I
recognized the Jew as the cold-hearted, shameless,
and calculating director of this revolting vice
traffic in the scum of the big city, a cold shudder
ran down my back.” (p. 59)
• “Hence today I believe that I am acting in
accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator:
by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting
for the work of the Lord.” (p. 65)
Hitler’s MEIN KAMPF
Hitler’s MEIN KAMPF
“On this first and greatest lie, that the
Jews are not a race, but a religion,
more and more lies are based in
necessary consequence.” (p. 307)
Elections
• Hindenburg 49.6 percent
Hitler 30.1 percent
Hindenburg 49.6 percent
Hitler 30.1 percent
Thaelmann 13.2 percent
Duesterberg 6.8 percen
1933-1945
1933
Hitler becomes
Chancellor
1933-1945
1933-1945
1933-1945
May 10, 1934
Book Burnings
1933-1945
Night of the Long Knives
June 30-July 2, 1934
3 nights of political murders
"If anyone reproaches me and asks why I did not resort to the regular courts of
justice, then all I can say is this: In this hour I was responsible for the fate of the
German people, and thereby I became the supreme judge of the German people."
"It was no secret that this time the revolution would have to be bloody; when we
spoke of it we called it 'The Night of the Long Knives.' Everyone must know for
all future time that if he raises his hand to strike the State, then certain death is his
lot."
1933-1945
March 1933
Dachau
Concentration Camp
(Da kau)
1933-1945
Sept. 10, 1935
Nuremberg Laws
The as "German Way to Define Who was a Jew
4 German granparents – Kindred Blood
Descended from 3 or 4 Jewish grandparents – Jewish
Descended from 1 or 2 Jewish grandparents – Mixed blood
Mixed blood who were Christians – retained their German
citizenship
Banned sexual intercourse between a German and Jew
Banned involvement in German civic life
Prohibited marriage between a German and Jew
Deprived Jews of German citizenship
Boycott of Jewish businesses
Barred from employment, from use of state hospitals, parks, libraries, beaches, schools
(past age of 14)
War Memorials were to have Jewish names expunged
Passports were stamped with a “J,” as Jews could leave Germany, but not return.
Jews who didn’t have a Jewish first name had to adopt a Jewish middle name:
Sara for women/Israel for men
between people defined as "Jews" and non-Jewish Germans and
prevented "Jews" from participating in German civic life.
July
1933-1938
1945
Evian Conference
Jews met with Britain and U.S. to discuss the situation in
Germany, only to leave disheartened as neither country was
willing to take in Jews.
1933-1945
October 1938
Deportations
Begin
1933-1945
November 7, 1938
Assassination of
Ernst Vom Rath
Triggered Kristallnacht
'Being a Jew is not a crime. I
am not a dog. I have a right to
live and the Jewish people
have a right to exist on this
earth. Wherever I have been I
have been chased like an
animal.'9
--Herchel
Grynszpan
1933-1945
November 9, 1938
Kristallnacht
1933-1945
May 1939
S.S. St. Louis
1933-1945
Sept. 1, 1939
WWII Begins
Heinrich Himmler on Polish Education
Hitler’s MEIN KAMPF
• “The sole goal of this schooling is to teach
them simple arithmetic, nothing above the
number 500; writing one’s name; and the
doctrine that it is divine law to obey the
Germans…I do not think that reading is
desirable.”
• --May 1940
1933-1945
1940
Euthanasia Program
Adolf Hitler's
authorization for
the Euthanasia
Program
(Operation T4),
signed in October
1939 but dated
September 1, 1939.
__________
National Archives
and Records
Administration,
College Park, Md.
This photo originates from a film produced by the Reich
Propaganda Ministry. It shows two doctors in a ward in an
unidentified asylum. The existence of the patients in the ward
is described as "life only as a burden." Such propaganda
images were intended to develop public sympathy for the
Euthanasia Program.
__________
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Slide taken from a
Nazi propaganda
filmstrip, promoting
"euthanasia,"
prepared for the Hitler
Youth. The caption
says: "Mentally ill
Negro (English) 16
years in an institution
costing 35,000 RM
[Reichsmarks]."
__________
United States Holocaust
Memorial Museum
German Education: Math Problems
Hitler’s MEIN KAMPF
“The construction of a lunatic asylum
costs 6 million marks. How many
houses at 15,000 marks each could
have been built for that amount?”
Buses used to
transport patients
to Hadamar
euthanasia center.
The windows
were painted to
prevent people
from seeing those
inside. Germany,
between May and
September 1941.
__________
Hessisches
Hauptstaatsarchiv
Wiesbaden
1933-1945
Summer 1941
Killing Squads
“Einsatzgruppen”
PPogroms: Organized massacre of helpless people
1933-1945
December 7, 1941
Pearl Harbor
1933-20,
1945
January
1942
Wannsee
Conference
Final Solution to the Jewish
question
Reinhard Heydrich, chief of SD (Security) Service
1933-1945
Summer 1942
Deportations to
camps begin
1933-1945
1942-1945
Camp Life… and
Death
1933-1945
April-October 1943
Rebellion
Treblinka under attack
Train tracks leading into Sobibor
Warsaw ghetto uprising
White Rose Movement: Most famous youth resistance movement
Students from Munich University secretly passed out anti-Nazi
leaflets – were eventually caught and beheaded.
1933-1945
Death Marches
1933-1945
1945: Liberation
1933-1945
October 18, 1945October 1, 1946
Nuremberg Trials
Nuremberg Trial Convictions
Hitler’s MEIN KAMPF
Guilty: 12- sentenced to
death; 3- life imprisonment;
four- 10-20 years in prison
Innocent: 3 were acquitted
1933-1945
November 13December 14, 1945
Dachau Trials
Dachau Trial Convictions
Hitler’s MEIN KAMPF
Guilty: 40 Nazi
war criminals
found guilty and
sentenced to death
by hanging
Innocent: none
1933-1945
Israel: A New State
Number of Jews Murdered:
Hitler’s MEIN KAMPF
5, 900, 000
Number of Gypsies Murdered:
Hitler’s MEIN KAMPF
220, 000
Number of Handicapped Murdered:
Hitler’s MEIN KAMPF
200,000
Number of Polish People Murdered:
Hitler’s MEIN KAMPF
1,900,000
Number of Soviet Prisoners of War Murdered:
Hitler’s MEIN KAMPF
3, 300, 000
Number of Homosexuals Murdered:
Hitler’s MEIN KAMPF
15,000 (estimate only)
Number of Jehovah’s Witnesses Murdered:
Hitler’s MEIN KAMPF
1,800
1933-1945
“Only guard yourself and guard your
soul carefully, lest you forget the
things your eyes saw, and lest these
things depart your heart all the days
of your life, and you shall make them
known to your children, and to your
children’s children.”
Deuteronomy 4:9
eElie Weisel’s Night
•Setting: Sighet – Northwestern Romania
(located in Southeastern Europe)
Home to 15,000 Jews
Hasidic Jews (a branch of Orthodox Judaism)
LLife in Sighet
•Poor people whose lives focused on family, religion,
and learning
•Young Weisel spent evenings and weekends studying
sacred texts, such as the Torah and Talmud
•At age 12, Weisel began to explore Cabbala or Jewish
mysticism – an approach to Bible study that analyzes
hidden meanings in the text.