THE HOLOCAUST(SHOAH)

WHAT ARE EXAMPLES IN HISTORY, IN WHICH PEOPLE WERE DISCRIMINATED AGAINST, HATED BECAUSE OF THEIR RACE, RELIGION OR POLITICAL TIES?

What is Genocide?

“The Systematic and purposeful destruction of a racial, political, religious, or cultural group.”

The Who’s Who of the Nazi Party

Anti-Semitism

Jews have faced prejudice and discrimination for over 2,000 years.

Jews were scapegoats for many problems. (ex. Killing of Jesus Christ, the “Black Death”)

Political leaders who used anti-Semitism as a tool relied on the ideas of racial science to portray Jews as a race instead of a religion.

The Plan…

The Nazi plan for dealing with the “JewishQuestion” evolved in three steps:

1. Expulsion: Get them out of Germany2. Containment: Put them all together in

one place – namely ghettos3. “Final Solution”: annihilation

Persecution

Nazis targeted other individuals and groups in addition to the Jews:

Gypsies (Sinti and Roma)

Homosexual men Jehovah’s Witness Handicapped

Germans Poles Political dissidents

NAZI PROPAGANDA

The Effective Propagandist

"The effective propagandist must be a master of the art of speech, of writing, or journalism, of the poster and of the leaflet. He must have the gift to use the major methods of influencing public opinion such as the press, film and radio to serve his ideas and goals, above all in an age of advancing technology. . .   It may be good to have power based on weapons. It is better and longer lasting, however, to win and hold the heart of a nation." -- Joseph Goebbels 1934

Master Race

Used in Nazism to designate a supposed master race of Non-Jewish Caucasians usually having Nordic features. Blond hair and Blue

eyes Known as the Aryan

Race

Chart Showing the Races of Germany

Nuremberg Laws

The Eternal Jew

The film The Eternal Jew was created to justify the separation, exclusion, and ultimately the destruction, of the Jewish people. The narrator describes the Jews of Poland as filthy, sly and ugly and juxtaposes images of Jews with rats. The goal of propaganda is ultimately action. What does one do to rats? Exterminate them. This was the unstated message of the hate film.  Poster From the Nazi

Anti-Semitic Hate Film, The Eternal Jew

Racial Superiority

Nazi pseudo-science proclaimed the "Aryan race" to be the superior, culture producing race. Of the Aryans, the fair Nordic type was considered best.

German Propaganda Poster for the Hitler Youth Organization

German Youth

By 1939, about 90% of the "Aryan" children in Germany belonged to Nazi youth groups. A massive propaganda campaign was aimed at Germany's youth. The Nazis indoctrinated boys and girls in their duties to the state from a young age. They saw education as critical to the new Germany.

“All girls join us" "Youth serves the Fuhrer. All ten-year-olds join the Hitler Youth."

For young men, service to the totalitarian state meant fighting the Fuhrer's wars, but for women service meant producing racially pure children for the Reich.

U.S. and World Response

Evian Conference 1938

SS St. Louis

The Final Solution

The Nazis aimed to control the Jewish population by forcing them to live in areas that were designated for Jews only, called ghettos.

Wannsee Conference (1942)

The Final Solution was outlined by Reinhard Heydrich who detailed the plan to establish death camps with gas chambers.

What tactics did the Nazis use to get the Jews to leave the Ghettos?

Tactics

Starvation

The Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto were

only fed a 1000 calories a day .

A Human being needs 2400 calories a day to maintain their weight

Terror

The SS publicly shot people for smuggling food or for

any act of resistance

Deception

The Jews were told that they were going

to ‘resettlement areas’ in the East.

In some Ghettos the Jews had to purchase their

own train tickets.

They were told to bring the tools of their

trade and pots and pans.

Hungry people are easier to control

New arrivals at the Death camps were given postcards to

send to their friends.

How did the Nazi decide who was Jewish?

At the Wannsee conference it was decided that if one of person’s parents was Jewish, then they were Jewish.

However, if only one of their grandparents had been Jewish then they could be classified as being German.

In 1940, all Jews had to have their passports stamped with the letter ‘J’ and had to wear the yellow Star of David on their jacket or coat.

Einsatzgruppen

were mobile killingsquads made up of

Nazi(SS) units and police.They killed Jews in

massshooting actionsthroughout easternPoland and the

westernSoviet Union.

Where were the Death Camps built?

Why do you think that they located them here?

The work of the Einsatzgruppen

Tactics: What happened to new arrivals?

Deception & Selection

At Auschwitz the trains pulled into a mock up of a normal station.

The Jews were helped off the cattle trucks by Jews who

were specially selected to help the

Nazis

At some death camps the Nazis would play records of classical music to help calm

down the new arrivals.

At Auschwitz the new arrivals were calmed

down by a Jewish orchestra playing classical music.

All new arrivals went through a process

known as ‘selection.’

Mothers, children, the old & sick were sent

straight to the ‘showers’ which were

really the gas chambers.

The able bodied were sent to work camp

were they were killed through a process

known as ‘destruction through work.’

Operation Reinhard

Entrance to Auschwitz

Notice how it has been built to resemble a railway station

Auschwitz Orchestra

Auschwitz from the airNotice how the Death camp is set out like a

factory complex

The Nazis used industrial methods to murder the Jews and

process their dead bodies

The Gas Chambers The Nazis would force

large groups of prisoners into small cement rooms and drop canisters of Zyklon B, or prussic acid, in its crystal form through small holes in the roof.

These gas chambers were sometimes disguised as showers or bathing houses.

The SS would try and pack up to 2000 people into this gas chamber

The outside of the Gas Chamber

Notice the Ovens easy located near the Gas Chambers

Processing the bodies

Specially selected Jews known as the sonderkommando were used to to remove the gold fillings and hair of people who had been gassed.

The Sonderkommando Jews were also forced to feed the dead bodies into the crematorium.

Dead bodies waiting to be processed

Shoes waiting to be processed by the sonderkommando

Taken inside a huge glass case in the Auschwitz Museum. This represents one day's collection at the peak of the gassings, about twenty five thousand

pairs.

Destruction Through Work

This photo was taken by the Nazis to show just how you could quite literally work the fat of the Jews by feeding

them 200 calories a day

Was the Final Solution successful?

The Nazis aimed to kill 11 million Jews at the Wannsee Conference in 1941

Today there are only 2000 Jews living in Poland.

The Nazis managed to kill at least 6 million Jews.

Men like Schindler helped Jews escape the Final Solution.

Not all Jews went quietly into the gas cambers.

In 1943, the Warsaw Ghetto, like many others revolted against the Nazis when the Jews realised what was really happening.

Aftermath

The Nuremberg Trials

brought some of those responsible for the atrocities of the war to justice.

There were 22 Nazi criminals tried by the Allies in the International Military Tribunal.

Twelve subsequent trials followed as well as national trials throughout formerly occupied Europe.

Der Sturmer

The most notorious of the Nazi anti-Semitic newspapers was Der Sturmer (The Attacker). It began in 1923 as a political paper, but as the Nazis gained in influence, the paper became more and more anti-Semitic. By the time Hitler took power in 1933, the paper was strongly anti-Semitic and was a very popular Nazi publication.

Der Sturmer Ritual Murder Issue, May 1, 1934