the holocaust “burnt alive” the attempted extermination of an entire race of people
TRANSCRIPT
The Holocaust“Burnt Alive”
The attempted extermination of an entire race of people
Over the next few days, our class discussions will contain photographs of those who suffered through the Holocaust. Some of the images are difficult to look at; however, it is important to recognize the atrocities the Nazis committed so we, as human beings, can prevent such violence from occurring again.
When you come to a slide that contains the following sign: then the image(s) that follow may be disturbing. If you are made uncomfortable by disturbing images, please use your best judgment and look away.
Hitler’s Anti-Semitism “Once I really am in power, my first and foremost task will
be the annihilation of the Jews. As soon as I have the power to do so, I will have gallows built in rows—at the Marienplatz in Munich, for example—as many as traffic allows. Then the Jews will be hanged indiscriminately, and they will remain hanging until they stink; they will hang there as long as the principles of hygiene permit. As soon as they have been untied, the next batch will be strung up, and so on down the line, until the last Jew in Munich has been exterminated. Other cities will follow suit, precisely in this fashion, until all Germany has been completely cleansed of Jews”
Aryan Race Aryan Race: Germans with blonde hair and
blue eyes were believed to be the “master race”
Eugenics: Hierarchy of race (racism) Forced sterilization of those who were inferior Many of Hitler’s views on eugenics came from
the United States For example, Woodrow Wilson supported
eugenics
Hitler believed they were “super human”
Eugenics in the United States
Anti-Semitism 1933: Hitler begins anti-
Jewish propaganda Gestapo: Nazi secret police
could arrest, torture, and kill anyone they wanted to
Kristallnacht: On November 9, 1938, a thousand synagogues were burned and tens of thousands of Jewish shops were ransacked. The following morning 30,000 Jewish men were shipped to Concentration Camps “The Eternal Jew”
Began when a 17-year-old Polish Jewkilled a German diplomat living in Paris.Kristallnacht was the German’s response to the murder.
“The Night of Broken Glass”
The Ghetto The Ghetto: Walled up
section of town where Jewish people were forced to live.
Starvation
Public Executions
The Jews were led from their homes
They were forced to march
They were told to line up
And they were executed
Portrait of two-year-old Mania Halef, a Jewish child who was among the 33,771 persons shot by the SS during the mass executions at Babi Yar, September, 1941.
Marching to the Trains
Being Transported to Death Camps
Concentration Camps Concentration Camps: Originally used to
house political criminals, these became the home of millions of Jews, Jewish sympathizers, gypsies, Soviets, criminals, and homosexuals
The SS: Hitler’s personal bodyguards who controlled the Concentration Camps
“Work is Liberty”
Stripped of their PossessionsPiles of shoes
Glasses
Gold wedding rings
Poisoning of the Prisoners
Zyklon B Burning the bodies
Roll Call
Selection
The Final Solution The Final Solution: Hitler’s decision to
completely annihilate all Jews Dr. Josef Mengele a.k.a “The Angel of
Death” Ruthless killer Conducted gruesome research (mostly on
children) Fascination with twins
Dr. Josef Mengele "Dr. Mengele had always been more interested in
Tibi. I am not sure why - perhaps because he was the older twin. Mengele made several operations on Tibi. One surgery on his spine left my brother paralyzed. He could not walk anymore. Then they took out his sexual organs. After the fourth operation, I did not see Tibi anymore. I cannot tell you how I felt. It is impossible to put into words how I felt. They had taken away my father, my mother, my two older brothers - and now, my twin .."
Dr. Josef Mengele “I remember one set of twins in particular: Guido
and Ina, aged about four. One day, Mengele took them away. When they returned, they were in a terrible state: they had been sewn together, back to back, like Siamese twins. Their wounds were infected and oozing pus. They screamed day and night. Then their parents—I remember the mother's name was Stella—managed to get some morphine and they killed the children in order to end their suffering”
Typhus If one was lucky enough to survive selection
and starvation, then they would likely suffer from the rapid spread of sickness
Typhus: spread through lice and results in an abnormally high fever Without medicine, most sufferers died
• 16 of the 44 children taken from a French children’s home.
• They were sent to a concentration camp and later to Auschwitz.
Of the 44 children, only 1 survived.
“Until September 14, 1939 my life was typical of a young Jewish boy in that part of the world in that period of time.
I lived in a Jewish community surrounded by gentiles. Aside from my immediate family, I had many relatives and knew all the town people, both Jews and gentiles. Almost two weeks after the outbreak of the war and shortly after my Bar Mitzvah, my world exploded.
In the course of the next five and a half years I lost my entire family and almost everyone I ever knew. Death, violence and brutality became a daily occurrence in my life while I was still a young teenager.”
Leonard Lerer, 1991
Liberating the Camps
“It was a graveyard”
Freedom? “Here over an acre of ground lay dead and dying people. You
could not see which was which ... The living lay with their heads against the corpses and around them moved the awful, ghostly procession of emaciated, aimless people, with nothing to do and with no hope of life, unable to move out of your way, unable to look at the terrible sights around them ... Babies had been born here, tiny wizened things that could not live ... A mother, driven mad, screamed at a British sentry to give her milk for her child, and thrust the tiny mite into his arms ... He opened the bundle and found the baby had been dead for days. This day at Belsen was the most horrible of my life”
Taking care of the SS
Taking care of the SS
Aftermath Death Marches:
Prisoners of the camps were forced to march dozens of miles without rest, food, or water
Genocide: The attempted extermination of an entire race of people
Death Toll Final death toll
6 million Jewish people 5 million Slavic civilians 3 million Soviet prisoners of war 2 million Polish Christians 1 million political enemies 500,000 Romanians 200,000 people with disabilities 20,000 homosexuals 2,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses
By 1945, nearly 72% of all Jewish people living in Europe prior to World War II were dead