The Holocaust

Chapter 32, Section 3

Introduction

As part of their vision for Europe, the Nazis proposed a new racial order. They proclaimed that the Germanic peoples, or Aryans, were

a “master race.” (a misuse of the term Aryan, which actually refers to the Indo-European peoples who began to migrate into the Indian subcontinent around 1500 B.C.)

The Nazis claimed that all non-Aryan peoples, particularly Jewish people, were inferior.

This racist message would eventually lead to the Holocaust, the systematic mass slaughter of Jews and other groups judged inferior by the Nazis.

The Holocaust Begins

Hitler knowingly tapped into a hatred for Jews that had deep roots in European history. Jews as scapegoats for

personal failures. Germany’s defeat in World War I

Targeting Jews government policy 1935 Nuremberg Laws made it illegal to marry a

Jew. Other laws limited the work of Jews.

“Night of Broken Glass”

On November 7, 1938, Herschel Grynszpan (pictured) a Jewish youth from Germany, shot a German diplomat living in Paris to avenge his father’s deportation to Poland.

November 9, 1938: In retaliation Nazi leaders in Germany launched a violent attack on the Jewish community. This attack was carried out by the SA (storm troopers) and SS, who attacked Jewish homes, businesses, and synagogues. This night was called Kristallnacht.

Burning Synagogue on Kristallnacht

Did you know? Kristallnacht was not just staged without planning, but served a specific purpose in Nazi policy toward the Jews. The SA was under strict orders to confiscate any firearms owned by Jews when ransacking Jewish homes and businesses. This would prevent any significant armed resistance to Nazi policies in the future.

This picture is typical of the smashed windows of Jewish businesses on Kristallnacht.

A Flood of Refugees

By the end of 1939, a number of German Jews had fled to other countries.

At first, Hitler favored emigration as a solution to what he called “the Jewish problem.”

After admitting tens of thousands of Jewish refugees, France, Britain, and the United States abruptly closed their doors to further immigration.

Isolating the Jews

Hitler then ordered Jews in all countries under his control to be moved to designated cities called ghettos.

After 1941, all Jews in German controlled areas had to wear a yellow Star of David patch (pictured).

The “Final Solution”

Hitler’s plan called the “Final Solution” was a genocide plan to systematically kill an entire people.

Hitler wanted to purify the “Aryan” race. He tried to eliminate other groups he viewed as

“subhuman.” Roma (gypsies), Poles, Russians the insane the disabled the incurably ill

War Against the Disabled:Nazi Propaganda

The text in red at the bottom: “The genetically ill are a burden for the people.”

The title: "Costs for the genetically ill — social consequences."

The left frame notes that an institution that houses 130 feeble-minded costs about 104,000 Reichsmarks a year.

The right frame notes that that is enough to build 17 houses for healthy working class families.

War Against the Disabled: Action T4

Action T4 was Nazi Germany’s euthanasia program in which physicians killed people they deemed incurably sick or “life unworthy of life.”

Records during the official run of the program from 1939 to 1942 show more than 70,000 children and adults killed.

The Nuremburg Trials uncovered evidence that the program continued unofficially, and that an estimated 275,000 were killed

Viktor Brack was the organizer of Action T4. He was tried in the Nuremburg Trials and executed by hanging in 1948.

War Against the Disabled: Action T4

Dr. Karl Brandt: Tried and Executed at Nuremburg for criminal experiments on human beings as a part of Action T4

SS officer Philipp Bouhler headed Action T4 to euthanize the disabled. When captured by the American military, he and his wife committed suicide before he could be tried.

War Against the Disabled:Pope Benedict XVI’s cousin

War Against the Disabled:Pope Benedict XVI’s cousin

War Against the Disabled:Pope Benedict XVI’s cousin

SOURCE: http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/archive//ldn/2008/apr/08041107

The Killings Begin

As the Nazis moved across Europe the SS killing squads rounded up men, women, children, and even babies and shot them in pits where they were buried.

Other Jews were rounded up and herded into concentration camps where they were slave labor.

Inmates would work seven days a week for the SS or for German businesses. Food consisted of thin soup, scraps of bread, and potato peelings. Most inmates lost 50 lbs quickly.

The Final Stage

In 1942 the Germans built huge exterminations camps equipped with gas chambers that could kill as many as 6,000 people in a day.

Committees of Nazi doctors separated the strong (mostly men) from the weak (women, children, and elderly). The weak went to their deaths in the gas chambers usually that day.

The victims were told to undress and head into the gas chambers under the guise they were taking showers. Cyanide gas from Zyklon B granules came through the fake showerheads.

Zyklon B granules on display at Auschwitz

Empty Zyklon B canisters found by the Allies at Auschwitz at the end of World War II

Camp Markings

Political Enemies

Professional Criminals

Foreign Forced

Laborers

Jehovah’s Witnesses

Sex Offenders and homo-

sexuals

“Asocials” Roma (Gypsies)

Nazi concentration camp badges, primarily triangles, were part of the system of identification in Nazi camps. They were used in the concentration camps in the Nazi-occupied countries to identify the reason the prisoners had been placed there. The triangles were made of fabric and were sewn on jackets and trousers of the prisoners. These mandatory badges of shame had specific meanings indicated by their colour and shape.

Special Markings

Race defiler Female Race defiler Escape Suspect

Pole Czech Enemy POWSpecial Inmate (brown armband)

A poster in German explaining the marking system

Dutch Jews wearing the yellow star with an “N” superimposed over it meaning they were from the Netherlands.

Auschwitz Death Camp, Poland Except for the picture on this slide, all other Auschwitz

pictures are by Elisabeth Yankey taken in 2001.

This wheeled table helped transport the bodies of the gassed victims to the ovens for cremation.

This mechanism rotated the table upon which the bodies of the gassed victims were transferred to the ovens for cremation.

There was once a building standing here, but this is the area where the Nazis themselves burned this building down to attempt to destroy evidence of the death camps.

inmate barracks

These are burned down barracks where the Nazis again tried to destroy evidence of atrocities in the Auschwitz camp.

Jews Killed Under Nazi Rule*

Original Jewish Population

Jews Killed Percent Surviving

Poland 3,300,000 2,800,000 15%

Soviet Union (area occupied by Germans)

2,100,000 1,500,000 29%

Hungary 404,000 200,000 49%

Romania 850,000 425,000 50%

Germany/Austria 270,000 210,000 22%

*Estimates Source: Hannah Vogt, The Burden of Guilt

The Survivors

About six million European Jews were killed during the Holocaust.

Less than four million European Jews survived.

Some Jews were helped by non-Jews who risked there lives, hid Jews in their homes, and helped them escape to neutral countries.

“Righteous Among the Nations”

The Righteous Among the Nations is a list used by the State of Israel to describe non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to save Jews from extermination by the Nazis.

Those recognized for this receive medal and certificate from Israel, and have received honorary citizenship in the State of Israel.

The total of the Righteous Among the Nations recognized by Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, as of January 1, 2012 is 24,356 from 47 countries.

Miep and Jan Gies

Miep Gies (pictured), and her husband Jan, hid Anne Frank and her family. She discovered Anne Frank’s diary and returned it to Anne Frank’s father who published it after the war. Miep Gies recently passed away in January 2010.

Corrie Ten Boom and her family

The Ten Boom family of Harlem in the Netherlands built a false room in Corrie’s room in order to hide Dutch Jews during the Holocaust. The book and film The Hiding Place tells this story. You may have read this in some freshman English classes.

Ten Boom Museum Photos

Outside theTen Boom

watch shop

Photo credit: Jerusalem Prayer Team via Flickr

View from inside the secret room.

Photo credit: Jerusalem Prayer Team via Flickr

The hiding place is accessible through a sliding door located in the bottom of the linen closet inside Corrie Ten Boom's room.

Photo credit: Jerusalem Prayer Team via Flickr

Photo credit: Jerusalem Prayer Team via Flickr

View of the ceiling to see how narrow the room is. 

Photo credit: Jerusalem Prayer Team via Flickr

View from inside the secret room looking toward the secret entrance.

Photo credit: Jerusalem Prayer Team via Flickr

Photo credit: Jerusalem Prayer Team via Flickr

Photo credit: Jerusalem Prayer Team via Flickr

Charles Coward (U.K.) Known as the "Count of Auschwitz", was a British

soldier captured during World War II who rescued Jews from Auschwitz.

He was transferred to a labor camp near Auschwitz. Because he knew the German language well, Coward was appointed Red Cross liaison officer for the 1,200-1,400 British prisoners. In this trusted role he was allowed to move fairly freely throughout the camp and often to surrounding towns.

Coward and the other British prisoners smuggled food and other items to the Jewish inmates, even supplying dynamite to the Sonderkommando in a partially successful attempt to blow up the gas chambers and crematoria.

Using Red Cross supplies he bribed SS guards to buy corpses of the dead in order to fool the Germans into thinking live prisoners had died along the roads between the camps when they had actually escaped.

Jewish Resistance:Bielski partisans

Tuvia Bielski Defiance (2008 film)The Bielski Partisans were an organization of Jewish partisans who rescued Jews from extermination and fought against the Nazi German occupiers and their collaborators in German-occupied Poland (now western Belarus). Under their protection, 1,236 Jews survived the war. The group spent more than two years living in the forests.

Bielski partisans