The Holocaust
Part I
From Anti-Semitism to the Final Solution
Anti-Semitism• Who are the Jews?• An Ancient Nomadic people who first
called themselves the Israelites. Travel from Mesopotamia to Egypt and settle in Canaan. Live in Palestine (Canaan) until they are forced out by the Romans in 70 AD, beginning the Diaspora.
• For the next 2000 years they settle into countries where they believe that they will be accepted and through some historic events, were often forced to flee for another country. From Spain to Poland to Ancient Babylon to Germany.
Hitler’s Rise to Power
• The Treaty of Versailles (which ended World War I) imposed harsh penalties on a defeated Germany. Adolf Hitler, a WWI veteran, blamed Germany’s defeat on Marxists, Jews, and others.
• Hitler organized the National Socialist German Workers Party or the Nazis.
• Hitler laid out his set of beliefs for the future of Germany in his autobiography Mein Kampf. He believed that Germans belonged to a superior “master race” of Aryans whose greatest enemy were the Jews.
Hitler’s Rise to Power• On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler was named Chancellor
of the German government. Once in power, Hitler moved to end German democracy. By March, 1933, Hitler was given full status as dictator of Germany.
• “Extremes must be fought by extremes. Against the infection of [Marxism], against the Jewish pestilence, we must hold aloft a flaming ideal. And if others speak of the World and Humanity, we must say the Fatherland-and only the Fatherland.”
The Nuremberg Laws• Hitler set to drive out all Jews from
Germany.• The Nuremberg Laws (1935) placed
severe restrictions on Jews lives.– The Laws defined who was Jewish by a
persons parents/grandparents.– Jews were forced to wear patches on
their clothes which identified them as Jews.
– Could not marry non-Jews
The Nuremberg Laws• The Nuremberg Laws (1935)
Jews could not: (continued)– Attend or teach at German
schools or universities– Hold Government jobs– Practice Law or Medicine– Publish Books– Attend Theaters, Cinemas,
Vacation Resorts.
• By 1937, the Nazis began to seize Jewish businesses.
• Many prominent German Jews, including Albert Einstein, fled at this time.
Kristallnacht• Kristallnacht or the Night of Broken Glass took
place on November 7, 1938.• Nazi led mobs attacked Jewish communities
throughout Germany. They smashed windows, looted shops, and burned synagogues. Many Jews were dragged from their homes and beaten in the streets.
The Third Reich• In his attempts to create a
larger German empire or Third Reich, Hitler invaded and conquered most of Europe. With each new country Germany occupied, its population of Jews increased.
• When Hitler and the Nazis invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, World War II officially began.
• By 1941, Germany occupied most of the European continent and then turned towards Russia.
The Ghettos• After conquering Poland, the Nazis closed off small areas of
major cities (Warsaw, Lodz) and sealed in large Jewish populations to those small areas.
• A Jewish teacher from Warsaw said “Ghetto life does not flow – rather it is stagnant and frozen. Around us – are walls! We have no space, we have no freedom of movement and action.”
The Ghettos
• In the Warsaw ghetto, 30% of the city’s population was forced to live in 2.4% of the city’s area. That’s approximately 7.2 people per room. Most people lived on 253 calories of food per day, the average American consumes 2000 calories per day.
• Hundreds of thousands of Jews in the ghettos died of starvation, disease, and malnutrition.
The Final Solution
• As Hitler and the Nazis empire grew and their war efforts increased, they were faced with a dilemma over “The Jewish Question.”
