The Holocaust During WWII

World History

A “Master Race” Nazis claimed that Non-Germanic

people were inferior• They specifically targeted Jews who were

blamed for the failures of the German people.

Nuremberg Laws (1935)• Deprived Jews of their right to German

Citizenship and forbade marriages between Jews and Non-Jews.

Kristallnacht November 9, 1938 – Nazi Storm

Troopers attacked Jewish Homes, Businesses, and Synagogues across Germany.

Aftermath – Some Jews realized that violence against them would increase so they fled to other countries• Others stayed in Germany

Isolation Ghettos – Hitler realized he could not

get rid of the Jews by encouraging immigration• He created a plan to have all Jews living in

Germany to move to designated cities.• Ghettos were sealed with barbed wire and

stone walls

The “Final Solution” Hitler was becoming impatient

waiting for Jews to starve or contract diseases in the ghettos.

Genocide – The Systematic Killing of an entire people• The SS (Hitler’s Elite Security Force) moved

from town to town to hunt down Jews. • Jews in communities not reached by the SS

were taken to concentration camps.

Concentration Camps Slave-labor camps/prisons Prisoners worked 7 days a week

within the camps Guards severely beat or killed

prisoners for not working fast enough Prisoners were fed only thin soup, a

scrap of bread, and potato peelings

The Final Stage Extermination Camps

• Equipped with large gas chambers that could kill as many as 6,000 human beings in one day.

Auschwitz – One of the most famous extermination camps• Prisoners would be presented before a

committee of SS Doctors• Doctors separated the strong from the weak

and the weak would die in the gas chamber

Survivors Less than 4 million Jews survived

• Some survived the concentration/extermination camps

• Some survived with the help of Non-Jewish people

Around 6 million were killed