Warm Up

Students will take notes on the Holocaust from this PPT, lecture, and vocabulary. You WILL be able to use that paper on the exam.

Read the poem. What does it mean to be a silent bystander? How does this poem show the consequences of being just that?

First they came for the Jewsand I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for the Communistsand I did not speak out—because I was not a communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak out for me.

Pastor Niemoeller

Antisemitism

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

Nazi teachers began to apply the “principles” of racial science by measuring skull size and nose length and recording students’ eye color and hair to determine whether students belonged to the “Aryan race.”

Totalitarian State Paranoia and fear dominate Government has total control over the culture

-Aggressive -Capable of indiscriminate killing

Nazis passed laws which restricted the rights of Jews—Nuremberg Laws

Totalitarian State

The Nuremberg Laws stripped Jews of their German citizenship. They were prohibited from marrying or having sexual relations with persons of “German or related blood.”

Totalitarian State

Jews, like all other German citizens, were required to carry identity cards, but their cards were stamped with a red “J.” This allowed police to easily identify them.

Totalitarian State

The Nazis used propaganda to promote their anti-Semitic ideas.

One such book was the children’s book, The Poisonous Mushroom.

How did the Nazi decide who was Jewish?

At the Wannsee conference it was decided that if all three or four of the person’s grandparents were Jewish, then they were Jewish.

However, if only one or two of their grandparents had been Jewish then they were classified as a crossbreed.

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.

Persecution

The Nazi plan for dealing with the “Jewish

Question” evolved in three steps:

1. Expulsion: Get them out of Germany

2. Containment: Put them all together in one place – namely ghettos

3. Annihilation: “Final Solution”

Persecution

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

Gypsies (Sinti and Roma)

Homosexual men Jehovah’s Witness Handicapped

Germans Blacks Political dissidents

Persecution

Kristallnacht was the “Night of Broken Glass” on November 9-10, 1938

Germans attacked synagogues and Jewish homes and businesses

Prelude to the Final Solution

Einsatzgruppen were mobile killing squads made up of Nazi (SS) units and police. They killed Jews in mass shooting actions throughout eastern Poland and the western Soviet Union.

Change of Tactics: Einsatzgruppen

Victims were taken to deserted areas where they were made to dig their own graves and shot.

When the SS ran out of bullets they sometimes killed their victims using flame throwers.

The “Final Solution”

In January 1942, Himmler decided to change tactics once again and called a special conference at Wannsee.

At this conference, it was decided that the existing methods were too inefficient and that a new “Final Solution” was necessary.

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.

Ghettos were established across all of occupied Europe, especially in areas where there was already a large Jewish population.

Final Solution Many ghettos were closed by barbed wire or walls and

were guarded by SS or local police. Jews sometimes had to use bridges to go over Aryan

streets that ran through the ghetto.

Children Dying of Starvation in the Warsaw Ghetto

Final Solution

Life in the ghettos was hard: food was rationed; several families often shared a small space; disease spread rapidly; heating, ventilation, and sanitation were limited.

Many children were orphaned in the ghettos.

Final Solution

Death camps were the means the Nazis used to achieve the “final solution.”

There were six death camps: Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, Chelmno, Sobibor, Majdanek, and Belzec.

Each used gas chambers to murder the Jews. At Auschwitz prisoners were told the gas chambers were “showers.”

Where were the Death Camps built?

Why do you think that they located them here?

The work of the Einsatzgruppen

Auschwitz-Birkenau

Auschwitz-Birkenau

500 to 2,000 people

Zyklon-B

Pellets

Map of Auschwitz

New Arrivals

‘Destruction Through Work’

‘Showers’

Auschwitz from the air

Notice 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 2,000 people into this gas chamber.

The Outside of the Gas Chamber

Notice the ovens are located near the gas chambers

Processing the Bodies

Specially selected Jews known as the Sonderkommando were used 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 off the Jews by feeding

them 200 calories a day

Destruction Through Work

Same group of Jews 6 weeks later

Final Solution

There were many concentration and labor camps where many people died from exposure to the elements, lack of food, extreme working conditions, torture, and execution.

Death Marches

Number by Number—6 years

1939: WWII begins when Germany invades Poland

6,000,000+ Jews were murdered-1,500,000+ Jewish children were murdered

5,000,000+ others were killed1945: WWII ends when Germany (May 8)

and Japan (August 14) surrender

Was the Final Solution successful?

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

The Nazis managed to kill at least 6 million Jews.

Today there are only 2,000 Jews living in Poland (before WWII there were more than 3 million).

Jewish Death Statistics

Genocides

Armenia 1915-1923Darfur 2003-PresentCambodia 1975-1979Rwanda 1994Native Americans 1492-1900Bosnia 1992-1995Nanking 1937-1938Ukraine (Stalin) 1932-1933Pygmie 1998-PresentNorth Korea 1990-PresentYemen 2011Libya 2011Syria 2011-Present