Chapter 18 : Section 3
The Holocaust
Anti-Semitism
Hatred of Jews It was easier for Hitler
to blame others for the problems of Germany. The Jews MEIN KAMPF – filled
with anti-semitism.
From MEIN KAMPF
“Let the desolation which Jewish hybridization daily visits on our nation be clearly seen, this blood-poisoning that can be removed from our body national.”
The Holocaust
Official Nazi policy. 6 million European Jews
killed. 2/3 the total population.
5-6 million others died in the concentration camps. Gypsies, Gays, people that
opposed Hitler and Nazism, mentally ill, homeless, Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Nazi Policies about Jews
Exclude and isolate Jews. Laws to keep them from
participating in political, social or economic life. Urged people to boycott
Jewish businesses. Have no Jewish
employees. No marriage or mixing
between Jews and Aryans.
What made a person a Jew in Hitler’s Germany?
A person who had three or four Jewish grandparents – DESPITE their current religion.
Any person with two Jewish grandparents that practiced the Jewish religion.
Identifying Jews
Forced to have “J” on all identity cards.
Wear yellow stars on all clothing.
Made Jews open to public attack and police harassment.
Kept Jews from going to Switzerland.
Hitler’s Police
Gestapo Secret Police Identify and pursue
enemies of the Nazis SS
Schutzstaffel Private army of the
Nazis Guarded and collected
information on prisoners
Kristallnacht
November 9, 1938 “Night of Broken
Glass” Nazi destruction of
Jewish homes, businesses, synagogues
Thousands arrested and shipped off to Concentration Camps
Jewish Refugees
Sought to get away from Hitler and the Nazis.
Escapes to other European countries.
Depression and anti-semitism prevented the US from taking in many.
Evian Conference:1938
Meant to find solution for Jewish refugees.
Meant to stop Jewish refugees from going to Palestine.
Out of 32 nations attending ONLY the Dominican Republic agreed to take refugees.
From Murder to Genocide
As the Nazis moved into European countries the SS and Gestapo found many Jews. 2 million in Poland Many were refugees
from Germany
The Warsaw Ghetto
400,000 Jews confined to a few blocks.
Sealed off with brick and barbed wire.
Little food, overcrowded, no medical and no sanitation.
The Warsaw Ghetto
Thousands died every month.
But that was “too inefficient” for the Nazis
The Einsatzgruppen
Other ways to kill Jews.
Mobile execution squads.
Babi Yar – 33,000 Jews killed in 2 days.
STILL not efficient enough for the Nazis.
Wannsee Conference
“The Final Solution” for the Jews.
Special camps in Poland to commit GENOCIDE.
Deliberate destruction of an entire ethnic or cultural group.
The Death Camps
Poison gas to be used to kill.
Zyklon B most effective gas.
Built 6 camps for primary purpose of mass murder.
The Death Camps
Jews from Poland, Netherlands, Germany and other occupied lands were sent to the camps.
Transported in cattle cars.
4 of 6 camps sent everyone directly to death.
Auschwitz: The worst
Prisoners herded off the transport and put into two lines.
Elderly, women with children, those who were sick or looked weak were taken to the “showers”
Auschwitz
Jewish prisoners who were “healthy” had the job of carrying out the bodies and putting them in the crematoria.
Sorted clothing, belongings, any gold fillings from bodies.
Auschwitz
Life expectancy for prisoners was months.
12,000 victims could be gassed a day.
Some used for medical experiments.
1.5 million died in Auschwitz. 90% were Jews
Fighting Back
Some Jews joined Resistance networks and fought the Nazis.
Violent uprisings in some ghettos
Death camp Treblinka was so damaged in rioting, it closed.
All rebellions were crushed
Rescue and Liberation
The US had a good idea of what was happening at Death Camps in 1942 Disbelief No interest in the
media or in Washington.
Problem wasn’t here.
Rescue and Liberation
1944 FDR created the War Refugee Board to help Jews escape the Nazis
Funded Raoul Wallenberg to save thousands of Hungarian Jews.
Rescue and Liberation
April 1945 : Liberation of the camps.
US and Allied forces arrived.
Nuremberg Trials
After the war 24 Nazi defendants were put on trial for “crimes against humanity” for WWII atrocities.
12 received death sentences.
Importance of the Nuremberg Trials
People couldn’t use the excuse they were “just following orders” as a defense for what they did.
Individuals are responsible for their own actions.
