The Holocaust

Chapter 24 Section 3

Introduction

As part of their vision for Europe, the Nazis proposed a new racial order. They proclaimed that the Germanic peoples, or Aryans, were

a “master race.” (a misuse of the term Aryan, which actually refers to the Indo-European peoples who began to migrate into the Indian subcontinent around 1500 B.C.)

The Nazis claimed that all non-Aryan peoples, particularly Jewish people, were inferior.

This racist message would eventually lead to the Holocaust, the systematic mass slaughter of Jews and other groups judged inferior by the Nazis.

The Holocaust Begins

Hitler knowingly tapped into a hatred for Jews that had deep roots in European history. Jews as scapegoats for

personal failures. Germany’s defeat in World War I

Targeting Jews government policy 1935 Nuremberg Laws made it illegal to marry a

Jew. Other laws limited the work of Jews.

1935- Nuremberg Race Laws

M arry o r h ave sexw ith A ryan s

h ire A ryan w om enas m a id s

h ave rig h ts o fc it izen sh ip

Jew s a re n o t a llow ed to :

“Night of Broken Glass”

On November 7, 1938, Herschel Grynszpan (pictured) a Jewish youth from Germany, shot a German diplomat living in Paris to avenge his father’s deportation to Poland.

November 9, 1938: In retaliation Nazi leaders in Germany launched a violent attack on the Jewish community on November 9, 1938. This attack was carried out by the SA (storm troopers) and SS, who attacked Jewish homes, businesses, and synagogues. This night was called Kristallnacht.

Burning Synagogue on Kristallnacht

Did you know? Kristallnacht was not just staged without planning, but served a specific purpose in Nazi policy toward the Jews. The SA was under strict orders to confiscate any firearms owned by Jews when ransacking Jewish homes and businesses. This would prevent any significant armed resistance to Nazi policies in the future.

This picture is typical of the smashed windows of Jewish businesses on Kristallnacht.

A Flood of Refugees

By the end of 1939, a number of German Jews had fled to other countries.

At first, Hitler favored emigration as a solution to what he called “the Jewish problem.”

After admitting tens of thousands of Jewish refugees, France, Britain, and the United States abruptly closed their doors to further immigration. The St. Louis is turned away from the US.

Isolating the Jews

Hitler then ordered Jews in all countries under his control to be moved to designated cities called ghettos.

After 1941, all Jews in German controlled areas had to wear a yellow Star of David patch (pictured).

The “Final Solution”

Hitler’s plan called the “Final Solution” was a genocide plan to systematically kill an entire people.

Hitler wanted to purify the “Aryan” race. He tried to eliminate other groups he viewed as

“subhuman.” Roma (gypsies), Poles, Russians the insane the disabled the incurably ill

The Killings Begin

As the Nazis moved across Europe the SS killing squads rounded up men, women, children, and even babies and shot them in pits where they were buried.

Other Jews were rounded up and herded into concentration camps where they were slave labor.

Inmates would work seven days a week for the SS or for German businesses. Food consisted of thin soup, scraps of bread, and potato peelings. Most inmates lost 50 lbs quickly.

Phase 1 = Shooting

Jews were rounded up and told they were to be relocated

They were taken to the woods and were shot one by one

their bodies were buried in mass graves

Phase 2 = Gas Vans

Again, Jews were rounded up and told they were to be relocated in vans

The vans were equipped so that the van’s exhaust was piped back into the van 700,000 Jews killed in Vans

Problems with Phases 1,2

The Nazis encountered several problems with the executions and gas vans

First, they were both taking to much time Second, resources such as gas and

munitions were becoming scarce Third, soldiers involved were beginning to

have psychological problems with what they were doing.

Phase 3 = The Camps

Nazi leaders decided to drastically speed up the Final Solution

there were two different types of camps: CONCENTRATION CAMPS EXTERMINATION CAMPS

Jews from all over occupied Europe were to be brought here.

The Final Stage

In 1942 the Germans built huge exterminations camps equipped with gas chambers that could kill as many as 6,000 people in a day.

Committees of Nazi doctors separated the strong (mostly men) from the weak (women, children, and elderly). The weak went to their deaths in the gas chambers usually that day.

The victims were told to undress and head into the gas chambers under the guise they were taking showers. Cyanide gas from Zyklon B granules came through the fake showerheads.

CAMPS IN POLAND

CHELMNO

Jews from the Lodz ghetto in Poland sent hereFirst death camp built = 1941

First to use Gas Vans on Jews

MAJDANEK

Established in 1941 as a POW camp

started its part in the Final Solution in 1942

Jews, Poles and Soviet POW’s sent here

had two gas chambers to exterminate

AUSCHWITZ

Started operations in January 1940 (Poland)

Himmler chose Auschwitz as the place for the Final Solution

had 4 gas chambers/crematories by 1943 mass killings with Zyklon B gas commanded by Rudolph Hoess recorded 12,000 kills in one day

Auschwitz Death Camp, Poland.

This wheeled table helped transport the bodies of the gassed victims to the ovens for cremation.

This mechanism rotated the table upon which the bodies of the gassed victims were transferred to

the ovens for cremation.

There was once a building standing here, but this is the area where the Nazis themselves burned this building down

to attempt to destroy evidence of the death camps.

These are burned down barracks where the Nazis again tried to destroy evidence of

atrocities in the Auschwitz camp.

Zyklon B granules on display at Auschwitz

Empty Zyklon B canisters found by the Allies at Auschwitz at the end of World War II

Dr. Josef Mengele

Arrived in Auschwitz in May of 1943

SS Doctor who had power of life/death

performed medical experiments on Jewish children

“ANGEL OF DEATH”

MEDICAL EXPERIMENTS

Sterilization of men and women endurance of pain to high and low

temperatures and pressure experiments on twins to increase number

of multiple births to Aryan women injections of phenol to kill patients Dr. Mengele attempted to sew children

together to make Siamese twins

MEDICAL EXPERIMENTS

EXTRACTED HUMAN ORGANS

EXPERIMENTS ON CHILDREN IN AUSCHWITZ

OPERATION REINHARD

Largest single massacre of Holocaust March 1942-November 1943 named after Reinhard Heydrich carried out at three camps, run by the SS every Jew that arrived at one of the

camps would be dead in 2 hours. Total of 1,700,000 Jews killed

BELZEC

MARCH 1942 JEWS FROM LUBIN

GHETTO- POLAND OPERATIONS STOP

DECEMBER 1942 CAMP WAS

DISMANTLED AND PLOWED OVER AND PLANTED ON

SOBIBOR

MAY 1942 3 GAS CHAMBERS ESCAPE OF 300

JEWS AND SOVIET POW’S

ONLY 50 LIVE GAS CHAMBERS

SHUT DOWN AFTER ESCAPE

TREBLINKA

JEWS FROM WARSAW GHETTO

10 GAS CHAMBERS LOCATED EAST OF

WARSAW BODIES WERE

BURNED IN OPEN PITS AUGUST 1943

Camp Totals

0

200,000

400,000

600,000

800,000

1,000,000

1,200,000

1,400,000

1,600,000

Auschwitz Belzec Chelmo

killed in camp

A Total of 6,000,000 Jews

Percentage of Jews killed in each country

Jews Killed Under Nazi Rule*

Original Jewish Population

Jews Killed Percent Surviving

Poland 3,300,000 2,800,000 15%

Soviet Union (area occupied by Germans)

2,100,000 1,500,000 29%

Hungary 404,000 200,000 49%

Romania 850,000 425,000 50%

Germany/Austria 270,000 210,000 22%

*Estimates Source: Hannah Vogt, The Burden of Guilt

STATISTICS BY COUNTRY

0

500,000

1,000,000

1,500,000

2,000,000

2,500,000

3,000,000

3,500,000

POLAND USSR HUNGARY GERMANY

BEFOREAFTER

Jewish population before, Jewish population after Holocaust

The Survivors

About six million European Jews were killed during the Holocaust.

Less than four million European Jews survived. Some Jews were helped by non-Jews who

risked there lives, hid Jews in their homes, and helped them escape to neutral countries. One such family was the Ten Boom family of Harlem in the Netherlands. The book and film The Hiding Place tells this story.

“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