Did You Know?

• The Holocaust was the state-sponsored, systematic persecution and annihilation of European Jewry by the Nazi Germany and its collaborators between 1933 and 1945.

• In 1933 NINE million Jews lived in the 21 countries of Europe that would be occupied by Germany during World War II.

•Did

You

Know?

• By 1945 two out of every three European Jews had been killed. Six million Jews were murdered along with Roma (Gypsies), the handicapped, and Poles.

Millions more who were Soviet prisoners of war,

political dissidents, homosexuals,

and Jehovah’s Witnesses became targets for suffering and death.

Did

» You

» Know?

“Nazi” is a short term for the National Socialist

German Workers Party, a right-wing political party formed in 1919 by

Unemployed

German veterans of World War I.

Adolf Hitler became head of the party in 1921.

The Nazi Party doctrine was strongly

Anti-Communist, Antisemitic, Racist,

Nationalistic, Imperialistic, and

Militaristic.

In 1933, the Nazi Party assumed power in Germany

and Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor.

He ended democracy and the reign of terror began.

Did You Know?

The Nazis believed that Germans were

“racially superior”

and

There was a struggle for survival between them and “inferior races”.

Jews, Roma (Gypsies) and the handicapped

Were perceived to be a threat to the purity of the German (Aryan) Race and had to be

Destroyed…

In the late 1930’s the Nazis killed thousands of handicapped Germans by lethal injection an poisonous gas.

Nazis eventually created secluded and organzied extermination centers where large scale murder by gas and body disposal by cremation were conducted.

In addition millions died in the ghettos and concentration camps as a result of forced labor, starvation, exposure, brutality, disease, and execution.

Did You Know?

Treblinka

was one Death Camp mentioned by Gerda Weismann Klein. It was located in Poland.

in operation for only 18 months (548 days)

During its operation 850,000 people were killed or about 1,551 people every single day . Equates to

something close to wiping out the entire town of Morrice every single day for

548 days in a row.

Did You Know?

Some people risked their lives to save or hide those in trouble?

.

Varian Fry worked in France to get the intellectually targeted people out. He was supposed to be there for 3 months and helped for 13 months.

His recognition did not come until AFTER

He died. The war ended in 1945 and his recognition came in 1967.

Corrie ten Boom’s family hid people and helped get them out of occupied areas. They were sent to a concentration camp for their reward.

Check for Yourself

• “Learning about the Holocaust.” the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

• Assignment Rescue: the story of Varian Fry and the Emergency Rescue Committee.” Video. Richard Kaplan Film and Varian Fry Foundation, 1967.

• Keep Checking

• “One Survivor Remembers.” Video. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and Gerda and Kurt Klein Foundation, 1994.