The Holocaust

Nuremberg Laws

• 1935 Nuremburg Laws strip Jews of civil rights– Jewish race is defined

through ancestry, not self-identity or religious practice

Nuremburg Laws

• Jews are banned from owning land, publishing newspapers, serving in the military, marrying non-Jews, teaching, and practicing medicine or law

Nuremburg Laws

• Nazis begin a boycott of Jewish businesses

• Businesses are marked with window signs, SS troops guard Jewish stores to discourage shoppers

Nuremburg Laws

• Jews are forced to register with the government & receive identity cards

• All Jewish passports are stamped with red “J”s

Nuremburg Laws

• German schools teach “Racial Hygiene” classes that spread myths about Jews

The Final Solution

• Nazis plan to separate and exterminate Jewish Europeans

• Nov. 23, 1939 Jews are ordered to identify themselves by wearing the yellow Star of David at all times

The Final Solution• Jews are stripped of

their homes and property and sent to live in ghettos in the major Polish cities – Ghettos are walled

off and Jews are permitted to leave only during prescribed times

The Final Solution

• The Germans struggle with a way to rid Germany of “impure” elements so that a master race of Aryans can be created

The Final Solution

• Killings start with mentally & physically handicapped patients in hospitals; forced sterilization and abortions are performed on those who aren’t killed

The Final Solution

• Others deemed impure to the Aryan master race include:– Homosexuals– Communists– Catholics– Jehovah's Witnesses– Gypsies– Polish & Soviet

POWs

Einsatzgruppen

• Units of 500-900 soldiers follow invading German troops and execute the Jewish population by gunfire – Approx. 1.5 million

Jews are executed– The slow pace and

mental toll on the soldiers requires a new method

Gas Vans

• 1941 the Germans switch to massive box trucks where re-circulated exhaust kills Jews locked in the cargo hold

• The trucks are wasteful and unreliable and are put out of use when Chelmno, the 1st death camp opens at the end of 1941

Concentration Camps

• Concentration camps provide a place to locate prisoners to be used as slave labor

• Factories are often built adjacent to the camps for prisoners to work in

Concentration Camps

• Healthy are sorted from unhealthy (sick, elderly, children, etc.) upon arrival– Property & clothes

are taken– Prisoners are shaved– Dentists extract

gold/silver fillings

Concentration Camps

• Healthy prisoners are housed in barracks and used for slave labor in nearby factories or on government projects

Death Camps

• Jan. 1942 Wannasee Conference sets a goal of killing all 11 million European Jews

• Will then move on to other groups (i.e. 30 million Slavs) to make a pure Aryan Germany

Death Camps

• Several death camps were constructed throughout eastern Europe, and industrialized models were used to quickly transport, destroy, and dispose of the Jewish population

Death Camps

• Those too unhealthy or unable to work (elderly, children) are sent to gas chambers disguised as “showers”

Death Camps

• The corpses are burnt in crematory built within the camps

• The ashes are used to make soap and other products for the camps or are dumped in pits and waterways

Total Costs• Holocaust Dead:

– Jews – 6,000,000– Soviet POWs – 3,000,000– Polish Catholics – 3,000,000– Serbians – 700,000– Gypsies – 250,000– German Political Prisoners –

80,000– German Handicapped –

70,000– Homosexuals – 12,000– Jehovah’s Witnesses –

2,500• Total – 13.1 Million