The Holocaust

Setting the Stage

•Nazis proclaimed that Aryans,Or Germanic peoples, were a“master race.” Jews and otherNon-Aryan people were Inferior.

•This racist message would Eventually lead to the Holocaust – The mass slaughter of civilians, especially Jews.

Discuss the reasons behind the Holocaust.

•Hatred for Jews had deep roots in European history

•For generations, many Germans, Along with other Europeans, hadTargeted Jews as the cause of Their failures.

•The Nazis even blamed the Jews,For Germany’s defeat in WW I andFor its economic problems.

•Nazi propaganda played into this

German soldier brutalizing a Polish Jew

•1935- The Nuremburg Laws deprived Jews of their rights to citizenship, jobs, and property

•To make it easier to identify them, Jews had to wear a bright yellow star attached to their clothing

What were the Nuremburg Laws?

1935- 2 Jewish children are humiliated by their classmates

On the Chalkboard

“The Jew is ourGreatest enemy!Beware of the Jew!”

Kristallnacht “Night of Broken Glass”

•November 1938, Nazis attacked Jewish homes, businesses, and synagogues across Germany.

•The main streets of Germany were Covered with shattered glass

Jewish Synagogue on fire Nov. 10, 1938

•After Kristallnacht, some Jews realized that violence against them was bound to increase

•Jews began leaving Germany for other countries.

France – 25,000

Britain- 80,000

Latin America- 40,000

United States- 100,000 (including Albert Einstein)

Explain the significance of Kistallnacht, or Night of Broken

Glass.

Isolating the Jews

•Hitler knew that he could not getRid of all Jews through emigration.

•So he had all Jews move into ghettos- segregated Jewish areas

•The ghettos were sealed off withBarbed wire or stone walls

•They wanted the Jews inside to starve to death or die from disease

Hitler’s Final Solution

•Hitler grew impatient waiting forThe Jews to die in the ghettos.

•He decided to take a more directAction. His plan was called the “Final solution.”

•Inferior groups were- gypsies, Poles, Russians, homosexuals, the insane, disabled, and the ill.

•But the Nazis focused on the Jews

•As the Nazis defeated its enemies,Hitler’s SS unit was sent to townsTo round up Jews and kill them.

•Those who were not killed were Sent to slave-labor camps.

•It was a program of genocide- the systematic killing of people

•To protect racial purity, the NazisNot only had to eliminate the Jews,But all other races they viewed as inferior

Mass execution of Jews from the Soviet Union

Final Stage: Mass Extermination

By 1942, the Nazis built Extermination camps for the Purpose of mass murder.

What is Hitler’s Final Solution? What were the steps taken to

accomplish it?

Arriving at Auschwitz

What was Auschwitz and why was the most infamous of the

concentration camps?

A sole survivor amongThe corpses in a freightCar being transportedTo the camps

A few hundred pounds of gold teeth

A shrunken head of a prisoner

To terrorize other prisoners,Nazis would hang shrunkenHeads in the middle of the camps

Medical Experiments

High-Altitude medical experiments in Dachau. In order to test how pilots who have to eject from their planes will fare, SS doctors simulated high-altitude conditions in a chamber, and exposed people to these conditions. Many prisoners died during such experiments. In order for the simulation to be as real as possible, the prisoner is hung by parachute straps.

A prisoner is submerged in a tank filled with cold water. The goal of this type of experiments was to check how long German pilots, who had to parachute into the cold north sea, would survive.

Open air cremation pits used to burn bodies

A pile of victim’s shoes

Jews Killed Under Nazi Rule

Original Jewish

Pop.Jews Killed

Poland 3,300,000 3,000,000

Soviet Union 2,850,000 1,252,000

Hungary 650,000 450,000

Romania 600,000 300,000

Germany/Austria 240,000 200,000

5 million non-Jews were also killed as a result of

Hitler•3 million Polish Catholics and Christians

•The rest (est. 2 million) were non-Jew citizens of Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Ukraine, Russia, Holland, France and even Germany.

The Nuremberg Trials1)Nuremberg was chosen because

it had been the scene of large rallies glorifying Nazism.

2)At Nuremberg 12 Nazi leaders were sentenced to death, 3 to life, 4 to lesser terms.

3)People who contributed to the death machinery were not punished.

What are your feelings about the Holocaust? How has it changed the

world that we live in?