THE HOLOCAUST: 1933-1945

Civitella

Introduction

• Holocaust – Greek for sacrifice by fire– systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored

persecution and murder of approximately 6 million Jews by the Nazi regime

• 1933 European Jewish population = roughly 9 million

• By 1945 2/3 Jews had been killed & 1.5 million children had died

Introduction continued…• Why Jews? (According to Nazi’s)

– Goal = world domination (resulting in direct threat to the Aryan idea)

– Belief in Social Darwinism• survival of the fittest; natural selection

– Seen as greedy; evil; cowardly; backstabbing– Politically responsible for German failures post-WWI– Seen as slayers of Christ; witches– Overall anti-Semitism

• Hatred of Jewish people/heritage

• Hitler believed in eugenics and adopted the idea of genocide resulting in the Final Solution– Improving a race by selective breeding – Systematic killing of a race or group– Total extermination of Jewish people

See visual overview of Holocaust here.

The Holocaust: A Timeline 1933

• Hitler becomes German chancellor • Der Sturmer

– Anti-Semitic news publication “Jews are our misfortune”

• SS sets up concentration camps for political prisoners – Dachua

• Enabling Act passed– Separate Jews from Germans

• Jews in public office are ordered to “retire”• Establishment of the Gestapo

– Secret state police

The Holocaust: A Timeline 1934-1939

• 1934 - Hitler becomes Fuhrer of Germany• 1935 – Nuremburg Laws

– Jews are no longer German citizens/marry non-Jews• 1936 – SS Deathshead Unit put in charge of

concentration camps• 1938 – Night of Broken Glass

– Anti-Semitic attacks on Jewish businesses, people, and synagogues

– 200,000 sent to camps

See video regarding the Night here.

• 1939 - Euthanasia program begins; Jews forced to wear yellow star; mass use of ghettos– Mercy killing– Urban living areas where Jews would be sent pre-concentration

camps

The Holocaust: Ghetto’s

• Originally created as a provisional measure to control and segregate Jews

• Creation of Final Solution (1941) made ghetto’s relatively useless & many were destroyed

• Largest ghetto in Poland = Warsaw– Over 400,000 Jews in 1.3 square miles

See Warsaw ghetto history here.

The Holocaust: Camps

• Concentration camps & Death camps (extermination camps)– Primarily detention and labor centers, as well

as sites for the murder of smaller, targeted groups of individuals

• Dachau = first

– Death factories • Auschwitz-Berkenau (II) = largest

– Height of operation 6,000 Jews killed/day

See video regarding Auschwitz here.

The Holocaust: Camps continued…• Transporting prisoners

– Trains• Germany constructed a very sophisticated railway

system– Reaching into Spain, Italy and Russia

• Prisoners would be transported from CC to DC in Eastern Europe

• Trip was a nightmare– Jammed into cars like cattle– Seldom received food or water during journey– Extreme weather conditions– No sanitary facilities

See video regarding transport here.

The Holocaust: Camps continued…• Camp life?

– Mistreatment of prisoners• Medical experiments/testing• Work detail

– Building, excavating, production, general labor under harsh conditions

• Death– Hanging, shooting, gassing

» Zyklon B (Cyanide based pesticide)

• Psychological abuse– Belittling, stripping of human rights, suicide, living in constant fear

• Physical abuse– Beatings, starvation, sickness, over-crowdedness

See video regarding hunger in camps here.

See video regarding labor in camps here.

See video regarding daily life in camps here.

The Holocaust: Special Stories

• Oscar Schindler– Nazi; womanizer; war profiteer; saved 1,200 Jews

from death during Holocaust by putting them to work in factories; reason for only shipment out of Auschwitz (300 women); died penniless; Schindler’s List

• List of 1,200 Jewish names Schindler purchased for factory work

• Anne Frank– German Jew; moved to Amsterdam; spent 2 years

hiding in father’s office building; died of typhus at age 15 at Bergen-Belsen CC; talented writer (Diary of a Young Girl)

• Book written by Frank detailing her 2 years in hiding

See flash site regarding Anne and her writing here.

The Holocaust: Liberation

Russian forces reached Poland July 1944 starting liberation of camps– Setting free

• Germans tried to destroy all evidence of camps and began mass evacuation of prisoners to the interior (death marches)– Destruction of documents, personal belongings and buildings;

burning of bodies

• Only after the liberation of camps was the full scope of Nazi horrors exposed to the world

See video regarding liberation here.See video regarding liberation of Auschwitz here.See pics regarding liberation of Auschwitz here.

The Holocaust: War Crimes

• By 1942 the allied powers announce their determination to punish war criminals – Allies officially note the mass murder of European Jews

• Moscow Declaration (1943)– War criminals would be punished by joint decisions of the

Allied governments – the International Military Tribunal• US, GB, R and FR supplied a judge and a prosecution team• Defined crimes against humanity as "murder, extermination,

enslavement, deportation...or persecutions on political, racial, or religious grounds.”

• Declared that “following orders” was not a legitimate defense

The Holocaust: War Crimes continued…

• Nuremberg Trials– Held in Nuremberg, Germany 1945-1946– 21 defendants (13 sentenced to death; 6 prison

terms; 3 acquitted)• Hermann Goering

– Commander of Luftwaffe; un-sympathetic during trials; committed suicide in his cell night before execution

• Albert Speer– Architect; minister of armaments and war production; very

cooperative during trials; sentenced to 20 years

• Rudolf Hess – Deputy head of Nazi party; claimed amnesia during trials;

sentenced to life in prison

See video regarding trials here.

The Holocaust: War Crimes continued…

– Legacy?• first time a nation's leaders were prosecuted by the international

community for crimes committed by the state• The rules created during the trial formed the future of principles for

war

• ODESSA– Organization to help former SS members avoid capture/trial

• Nazi Hunters– People who track down/gather information on former

Nazi/SS who were involved in the Holocaust• Found Adolf Eichmann; tried and executed in 1962

– Gestapo head for Jewish affairs

• Simon Wiesenthal – Holocaust survivor; Nazi hunter

» “When history looks back I want people to know the Nazis weren't able to kill millions of people and get away with it.”

The Holocaust: Denial?

• What is Holocaust Denial?– Claims that the genocides that took place during

WWII never occurred– against the law in Israel, France, Germany, Austria

and now Hungary to deny the Holocaust• Punished with stiff fines and prison sentences

• Types of denial?– Incorrect number– Issues with gassing– Doctored photos– Why single out the Jews (i.e. why not the Russians or

thousands of others who died?)?

See video regarding the denial here.

The Holocaust: Denial? continued…

• “The Holocaust was the murder of six million Jews, including two million children. Holocaust denial is a second murder of those same six million. First their lives were extinguished; then their deaths. A person who denies the Holocaust becomes part of the crime of the Holocaust itself.”

– David Matas, Senior Counsel for the “League for Human Rights”

The Holocaust: Aftermath

• What was the aftermath?– Migration – Creation of state of Israel 1948– International war laws– Psychological effect on survivors– Resurgence of anti-Semitism– War criminals brought to justice– Remembrance

• memorials

See flash video regarding aftermath here.