Transcript The Holocaust

The Holocaust
Hitler’s Final Solution
Jews in Germany
● Had been part of the German citizenry for
centuries
● Considered themselves German nationals
and Jewish solely by religion
● Had fought in wars for Germany
● 1933 Census ~500,000 Jews <1% of
population
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Hitler’s Jewish Problem
Anti-semitism common
early 1900s Germany
and Austria
Blamed Jews for loss in
WWI
Blamed for post-WWI
economic problems
o
Worldwide Depression
Hitler’s Master Race (Aryans)
● Light Skin, Blonde Hair, Blue Eyes
First steps
1933 Hitler Takes Control
By April all Jews removed
from Government
*Boycott Jewish Businesses
*Remove from medical,
legal, and tax professions
*Restrict # allowed to attend
schools, and colleges
*1st concentration camp
opens at Dachau
*Revoked citizenship of
immigrant Jews and other
non-Aryans
*Bans Jews from editorial
jobs in publishing
-Public book burning
Joseph Goebbels
Propaganda Minister - Anti-Semitic material in
newspapers, posters, movies, radio, speeches.
Caption
states: “The
Jew is a
Bastard”
Links Jews to
other groups
that Nazi’s
deem inferior.
Propaganda
Goebbels’ propaganda focused on
stereotypes
-Lazy, Immoral, Greedy, Unattractive, etc.
Helped devise “The Final Solution”
-Was named Hitler’s successor in his will
-Blamed Jews for his inability to get published
as a writer before the Nazi takeover
Identification
Any person with 3 Jewish
Grandparents Identified
as Jewish
-Required a Yellow Star of
David on outside of clothing
-First step towards the
“Final Solution”
German expansion and the Jews
As Hitler expanded
his influence into
Austria and Poland it
was more of the
same
-Jews forced to scrub
sidewalk in Austria
Nuremberg Race Laws
2 Pieces of Legislation passed 9/15/1935
1. Reich Citizenship Law
Revoked citizenship of Jews
Defined Jews as anyone with at least 3 Jewish
Grandparents (not by religious affiliation)
2. Law for the Protection of German Blood and German
Honor
Restricts marriage between German Aryans and nonAryans including Jews, Blacks, and Gypsies
1936 Olympics
Summer and Winter Olympics held in
Germany
-Few Restrictive laws passed
-Removed anti-Semitic signs and restrained
activities
-No German Jews participated in Games
-Lifted anti-Homosexuality laws for foreigners
Jesse Owens at the Olympics
Won 4 Gold Medals
100m, 200m, 4x100m, long jump
Embarrassed Hitler
-beat all German and white
competitors
-credited long-jump to advice from
Luz Long(German Competitor)
Kristallnacht 11/9/1938
First widespread violent anti-Jewish Demonstration
-Nazi’s justified reaction to murder of low-level official
-Spurred by Nazi officials mobs destroyed ~ 7,500 Jewish
homes, businesses, schools, and synagogues
-Stole all valuables and murdered 91 people
-30,000 Jews taken to Concentration camps
-Nazi’s immediately blamed Jews for destruction and
fined the Jewish community 1 Billion Reichsmarks
Attempt to Flee
● Many Jews try to get out of
Germany after Kristallnacht
● In may of 1939 The St. Louis set
sail for Cuba
● The St. Louis with 937 passengers,
mostly Jewish refugees, was
turned away by Cuba, and the U.S.
● Western Nations had strict
immigration quotas
○ Little interest in taking refugees
The Ghettos
Over 1000 Ghettos set up in Germany,
Poland And Russia
Largest were at Lodz, Krakow, and Warsaw
● Separated Jews from non-Jews
● Over 400,000 lived in Warsaw Ghetto
● (3 Sq. Miles)
○ Horrible living conditions
○ Many died of disease and starvation
○ Many murdered by Nazis sent to
forced-labor or concentration camps
Hitler in Russia
● Executed all Russian Jews
● Experiment with Portable
gas chambers
● Primary method was
shooting
33,000 Jews shot in Babi Yar
Ravine, near Kiev, in 2 days
Wannsee Conference
“The Final Solution” approved January 1942
Genocide- Deliberate extermination of an
entire racial, political, or cultural group.
-Hitler’s top aides meet 15 miles outside
Berlin. *Decision made to kill all Jews
-Initially Hitler had tried deportation but other
countries would not accept Jews
Concentration Camps
Estimated that
1,885,000 to
2,045,000
Jews
Murdered
Nearly
1,000,000 at
Auschwitz
alone
Extermination Centers Ready
1942 - millions of jews
rounded up across Europe
-Put on trains to camps
-Horrible conditions on trains
-Told camp was a routine
stop
-Separated into 2 groups
-laborers(~20%)
-gas chamber victims(~80%)
Auschwitz
Extermination Camp
established in 1940
-expanded twice in1942
-4 gas chambers with crematoriums
attached
-Held ~1,000,000 million Jews & ~200,000
other victims between 1940 & 1944
-Primary extermination center for the
“Final Solution”
Told Gas Chamber
was to get rid of lice
Heads Shaved
Clothes Removed
Valuables taken
Headed to “Showers”
Used either CO or
Zyklon-B gas
Bodies were then
removed by other
prisoners and burned
in crematoriums
Crematoriums and Fire Pits
Bodies disposed of in mass
Found at Auschwitz
Vast quantities of confiscated glasses,
shoes, clothing, suitcases, diaries, and
artificial limbs. Huge piles of hair to make
cloth and boots made of human skin.
Medical experimentation
Done on Twins, Gypsies,
Dwarves and others
-Experiments included
pharmaceutical, high-altitude,
hypothermia, infectious
disease, mass sterilization,
trauma treatment, amputation,
genetics, chemicals in the
eyes, and attempting to create
siamese twins
News of Camps & Genocide outside
the Reich
● Camps were top secret
○
Some information got out
● Shootings in Soviet Union received attention
○
Relatively little was done
● Auschwitz and others Never made military
target
Victims fight back
Many cases
● 28-day rebellion in Warsaw Ghetto
○ 750 Jews Fight >2,000 Nazi
soldiers
● Rebellion at Treblinka
○ Himmler had it dismantled
● Rebellion at Auschwitz Birkenau
○ Destroyed Crematory 4 using
explosives smuggled in by women
● Non-Jews mostly inactive
due to fear of Nazis
● Oskar Schindler saved
more than1200 Jews By
employing them at his
factory
● Denmark was able to
evacuate most of its Jewish
Population
Continued Genocide
● Killing did not stop
● Early 1944 more being
killed than ever
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Auschwitz over 9,000
killed in one day
As Allies moved in
Prisoners marched
elsewhere
Other Examples of Genocide
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Armenia 1915-18 / 1.5 million
Ukraine 1932-33 / 7 million
Nanjing 1937-38 / 300,000
Cambodia 1975-79 / 2 million
Bosnia 1992-95 / 200,000
Rwanda 1994 / 800,000
Further Reading
The Diary of Anne Frank, Anne Frank
Night, Elie Wiesel
Man’s Search For Meaning, Viktor Frankl
Torn Thread, Anne Isaacs
All But My Life: a Memoir, Gerda Weissmann Klein
And many more
Resources
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
http://www.ushmm.org/
Youtube
Kristallnacht video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrombDUtOYY