The Holocaust, Elie Wiesel, and Night

Auschwitz

Timeline

• 1933 – Hitler elected Chancellor of Germany

• Hitler given “emergency powers” • 1933- 1st concentration camps opened.• Throughout 1933 Jews begin to be

stripped of their rights: owning land, health insurance, etc.

• Hitler orders sterilization of people with genetic defects.

Adoph Hitler

• 1935 – Nuremburg race laws passed against Jews.

• Nazis force abortions on women who might pass on hereditary diseases.

• Jews can no longer serve in the military.

• 1936 – Olympics begin in Berlin – Hitler sought to use Olympics to support his theories of racial superiority.

American Jesse Owens at Berlin Olympics

• 1937 – Jews are banned from many professions including dentistry.

• 1938 – Nazis enter Austria

• Jews cannot “front” their own business, ordered to register wealth and property.

• Krystallnacht – Night of the Broken Glass

• Herman Goring – placed in charge of handling the “Jewish Question”

Prisoners at Auschwitz

• 1939 – Nazis invade Czechoslovakia and Poland

• Jews are placed in “ghettos” near railway stations awaiting “final solution.”

• Nazis begin euthanasia on the sick and old

• Nazis force Jews to wear yellow star.

Map of Concentration Camps

Dr. Josef Mengele – The Angel of Death

1940-45

• Major concentration camps – Auschwitz, Buchenwald, etc. – become operational

• U.S. enters the war – Dec. 7, 1941• Mass killings of Jews begin in 1942 using

Zyklon B gas.• June 6, 1944 – D-Day – Allied Victory• Allied forces begin closing in on Germany

in late 1944 and begin liberating camps in Jan. of 1945

The Battle of the Bulge (1944-1945)

Mengele’s Infamous Twin StudiesNow 84, these women survived.

Zyklon B Cannisters

• April 30, 1945- Hitler commits suicide.

• An estimated 6 million Jews were executed in concentration camps.

Crematorium

Liberated Jews

Americans Liberating Concentration Camps

Americans Liberating Concentraiton Camps

The Yellow Star

Holocaust Shoe Exhibit

Gold Fillings Taken from Jews

Elie Wiesel

• Born in Romania

• Sent to Concentration Camp

• Wrote Night about his experiences there.

Elie Wiesel