The Holocaust

Beware of those who burn books• The Nazis had book burning

campaigns for books they deemed “un-German”

• Heinrich Heine, a German poet in the 1800s predicted…. “Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings”

• "Holocaust" is a word of Greek origin meaning "sacrifice by fire."

Anti-Semitism in Europe

• Anti-Semitism – hatred or discrimination of Jews• The Jewish people had be discriminated against for

over 2000 years• Especially by Christians in Europe from the Middle Ages to

the years prior to WWII• Prior to the early 1800s Jews could not own businesses • They turned to lending money as a way to earn a living = the

reason why stereotypes of Jews are bankers or money hoarders (no other option for work)

Adolf Hitler

• Mein Kampf outlined his goals: one of the main ones being to get rid of non-Aryans especially Jews

• Hitler also wanted to enforce racial “purification”• In his view, Germans—especially blue-eyed, blond-

haired “Aryans”—formed a “master race” that was destined to rule the world. • Jews, Gypsies, Slavs and all nonwhites are “inferior

races”• These people along with homosexuals, the disabled and

communists will be targeted during the Holocaust• He was not the first person to say this, the idea was

around since the 1850s

Hitler had no clue what he was talking about

• The historical Aryan people came from the Middle East and then to India• So they weren’t white to begin with

• He claimed they then came back from India and became the Greeks, Romans, Vikings and then the German people and were basically responsible for most of humanity’s achievements

• Ahnenerbe – scientific group to verify this myth• Of course they couldn’t because IT ISN’T TRUE

The Swastika

•  The word is derived from the Sanskrit svastika, meaning “conducive to well-being

•  it is a sacred symbol in Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Odinism

• Heinrich Schliemann discovered the hooked cross on the site of ancient Troy. He connected it with similar shapes found on pottery in Germany and speculated that it was a “significant religious symbol of our remote ancestors• This was taken by the Nazis (and others) to be used as a

symbol Aryan race

So… Why does Hitler hate the Jews

• Historians do not all agree• Some say because of his childhood in Vienna• Some say because of WWI and the economic collapse in

Germany• Most banks were in Germany were ran by Jews

• Others that his mother died because of a Jewish doctor• The fact is that the Jewish people were easy to

scapegoat and blame all the problems of Germany on them because many people already disliked them

Beginning the Persecution

• Citizens are encouraged to stop going to Jewish businesses• This became the official policy of the Nazi

party• The Nuremberg Laws – passed in 1935

• Stripped Jews of their German citizenship and said Jews could not marry non-Jews

Jews fleeing Germany

• From 1933 – 1937 about 130,000 Jews fled Germany– This was encouraged by the Nazis

– The most famous of these Jews of Albert Einstein who fled to the US in 1933

The Persecution Continued

• 1937 and 1938 – the Nazis began to “Aryanize” Jewish businesses• “Aryanized” businesses – Jews had to register their property and

dismissed Jewish employees and managers. Jewish doctors were banned from treating non-Jews

• Germans had to carry ID cards, Jews cards were marked with a big red J

• Jews also got new middle names – Sarah for women &Israel for men

The Persecution Continued

• Kristallnacht• “Night of the Broken Glass”• November 9-10, 1938 – The Nazis in Germany and

Austria destroyed Jewish stores, houses and synagogues

From Persecution to Genocide

• Genocide - the deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group

• In 1939 Germany took over Poland and everything changed• 2 million Jews lived in Poland• The solution, at first, was to put Jews in ghettos by the Gestapo

• Gestapo – Nazi secret police force that would round up Jewish populations in Germany and conquered territory to first be put in Ghettos then eventually Concentration Camps

Identifying Jews

The Warsaw Ghetto

Most Famous Ghetto in the capital of Poland

Invasion of the Soviet Union

• During the invasion of the Soviet Union special SS Death Squads were sent behind the advancing army to kill the Jewish populations

“The Final Solution”

• Nazi officials met at the Wannsee Conference outside Berlin in 1942

• The plan they came up with was to build special concentration camps

• It is in these concentration camps that the Jews will be systematically murdered

Work makes you free

Death Camps

• The Nazis built death camps for mass murder• Jews were crammed into trains shipped to the camps• These camps had gas chambers disguised as showers • When the Jews got to the camps, they didn’t really know where

they were going or what would happen to them, the elderly, most women and children and those too weak to work were sent to the gas chambers and killed

Death Camps (continued)

• Those who were not killed immediately were forced to live in unbearable conditions

• Men and women were forced to have their heads shaved and a registration number tattooed on their arms

• After Jews were killed other prisoners were forced to carry the bodies to the crematorium

Medical Experiments

• At many of the camps Nazi doctors performed inhumane medical experiments• Josef Mengele was the most infamous doctor at

Auschwitz. Called the “Angel of Death”• Escaped captured and was never brought to

justice

AuschwitzMost Infamous Death Camp

Fighting back

• Some Jews fought back against the Nazis• In April 1943 the Warsaw ghetto revolted against being

moved to a death camp and held off the Nazis for 27 days• In August 1943 the prisoners at the Treblinka camp

revolted so badly that it had to be shut down

Saving People

• Oskar Schindler– saved over 1000 Jews from being sent to Auschwitz by convincing the SS that they were necessary to run his factory for the war effort

• Chiune Sugihara – a Japanese diplomat in Lithuania who helped save thousands of Jews by issuing visas for them to leave Europe for Japan

• Gino Bartali – famous Italian cyclist. Used the handlebars on his bike to hide counterfeit identity papers, Bartali would ride to Jews in hiding and deliver their exit visas he is credited with saving the lives of 800 people.

Liberation

• American and British leaders learned what was happening at Auschwitz and other camps, but they rejected pleas to bomb the gas chambers or the roads and rail lines leading to the camps.

• Military officials opposed the bombing because it would divert "considerable air support essential to the success of our forces now engaged in decisive operations."

Liberation

• Even after it was a foregone conclusion that Germany would lose the war they continued to run these camps

• Advancing Allied troops found the camps and liberated the prisoners

Dachau

• Some of the American troops who liberated Dachau were so appalled by conditions at the camp that they machine-gunned at least two groups of captured German guards.

• It is officially reported that 30 SS guards were killed in this fashion

• The German citizens of the town of Dachau were later forced to bury the 9,000 dead inmates found at the camp

Nazi Camps

Justice• Before the Holocaust individuals were rarely held

accountable for state policies • After the Holocaust top Nazi leaders were put on trial for

Crimes against Humanity• As well as others who participated

Justice at Nuremburg

• Nuremberg was where it was decided to first start persecuting Jews

• Nuremberg Trials• Major War Criminals

• 24 were indicted 12 were given the death penalty• 12 Additional trials were held for doctors, judges,

industrialists and army and SS officers • 185 indicted 12 received the death sentence

Adolf Eichmann

• Eichmann took part in the Wannsee Conference and was responsible for the deportations to the camps (a main architect of the Holocaust)

• He along with many other Nazis escaped after the war• He made his way to Venezuela, who would not extradite

him • Mossad, yes the same group NCIS has talked about, sent

people to kidnap him and bring him to Israel• Executed in Israel in 1962

Israel

• Formation of Israel• With the victory the Allies controlled the area that is now

Israel• They formed the nation so that Jews would have a country

of their own so this did not happen again• Mossad – an agency formed to hunt down Nazi war

criminals who escaped

StatisticsCountry Estimated Min Died Percentage of Jewish

Population lostPoland 2,900,000 88-91%

Soviet Union 1,000,000 33-36%

Hungary 550,000 67-69%

Romania 271,000 44-47%

Czechoslovakia 146,150 71%

Lithuania 140,000 83-85%

Germany 134,000 24-25%

Netherlands 100,000 71%

France 77,320 22%

Latvia 70,000 77-78%

Greece 60,000 78-87%

Yugoslavia 56,200 72-81%

Austria 50,000 27%

Belgium 28,900 44%

Italy 7680 17%

Some people say the Holocaust didn’t happen

Tell That to them