Documenting the Holocaust - Lake County the Holocaust ... you will be examining several documents related to the Nazi Holocaust. Look carefully at each document and answer the ...

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Documenting the Holocaust In this activity, you will be examining several documents related to the Nazi Holocaust. Look carefully at each document and answer the questions.

Document 1: Map of the Holocaust

Dennis Nilsson [CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons



1. Jews from France, Belgium and the Netherlands were sent to what major camp?

___________________________ 2. Look at all of the cities identified as having ghettos. Which ghetto was the furthest West: ______________________________________ East: ______________________________________ North: ______________________________________ South: ______________________________________ 3. Auschwitz is near what major Polish city? ______________________________________ 4. Most of the major death camps were located in what Nazi-occupied country?

______________________

Document 2: Nazi Beer Coaster This beer coaster reads, “Whoever buys from a Jew is a traitor to his people.”



5. What was the purpose of this beer coaster in Nazi Germany? 6. What does this tell you about life in Nazi Germany?

Document 3: Age of European Jewish Communities in 1939

Map: Bell, Book and Camera Productions Data source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum



7. Which country had the oldest Jewish population as of 1939? _______________________ 8. How long had Jewish people been living in Germany as of 1939? ___________________ 9. Describe, in one complete sentence, the main idea of this document:

Document 4: Nazi Camp Patches Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Nazi_concentration_camp_badges, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License

Red Green Blue Purple Pink Black Brown



10. Based on this chart, what people were kept in Nazi concentration camps? 11. If you were someone who spoke out against the Nazis, but were not Jewish, what kind of patch

would you be forced to wear? 12. If you were a POW (Prisoner of War), what kind of patch would you wear? 13. What do you think a “race defiler” was?

Document 5: Warsaw Ghetto This is one of the most famous photographs from World War II. It was taken in March of 1943. The German caption on the photo reads, “Forcibly pulled out of dugouts.”

Photograph: Public domain



14. Who are the people in this picture? 15. What is happening in this picture? 16. Based on the picture, what do you think was the “Warsaw Ghetto”?

Document 6: Birkenau Extermination Camp Birkenau was part of the Auschwitz concentration camp complex. This photograph was taken by a plane from Squadron 60 of the South African Air Force on August 25, 1944.

Photograph: Public domain



17. What does this photograph show? 18. In the context of the Holocaust, what is the significance of this image?

Document 7: The Gas Chambers at Auschwitz English translation of a report written by SS-Sturmbannführer Gricksch for SS-Col. von Herff and Reichsführer-SS Himmler, after inspection of Auschwitz camp on 14-16 May 1943.

19. Why do the gas chambers look like showers? 20. How many people could the gas chamber hold? 21. How many people had been killed here as of May, 1943?

The Auschwitz camp plays a special role in the resolution of the Jewish question. The most advanced methods permit the execution of the Führer-order in the shortest possible time and without arousing much attention. The so-called "resettlement action" runs the following course: The Jews arrive in special trains (freight cars) toward evening and are driven on special tracks to areas of the camp specifically set aside for this purpose. There the Jews are unloaded and examined for their fitness to work by a team of doctors, in the presence of the camp commandant and several SS officers. At this point anyone who can somehow be incorporated into the work program is put in a special camp…. The unfit go to cellars in a large house which are entered from outside. They go down five or six steps into a fairly long, well-constructed and well-ventilated cellar area, which is lined with benches to the left and right. It is brightly lit, and the benches are numbered. The prisoners are told that they are to be cleansed and disinfected for their new assignments. They must therefore completely undress to be bathed. To avoid panic and to prevent disturbances of any kind, they are instructed to arrange their clothing neatly under their respective numbers, so that they will be able to find their things again after their bath. Everything proceeds in a perfectly orderly fashion. Then they pass through a small corridor and enter a large cellar room which resembles a shower bath. In this room are three large pillars, into which certain materials can be lowered from outside the cellar room. When three- to four-hundred people have been herded into this room, the doors are shut, and containers filled with the substances are dropped down into the pillars. As soon as the containers touch the base of the pillars, they release particular substances that put the people to sleep in one minute. A few minutes later, the door opens on the other side, where the elevator is located. The hair of the corpses is cut off, and their teeth are extracted (gold-filled teeth) by specialists (Jews). It has been discovered that Jews were hiding pieces of Jewelry, gold, platinum etc., in hollow teeth. Then the corpses are loaded into elevators and brought up to the first floor, where ten large crematoria are located. (Because fresh corpses burn particularly well, only 50-100 lbs. of coke are needed for the whole process.) The job itself is performed by Jewish prisoners, who never step outside this camp again. The results of this "resettlement action" to date: 500,000 Jews. Current capacity of the "resettlement action" ovens: 10,000 in 24 hours.



Document 8: European Jewish Populations

Map: Bell, Book and Camera Productions Data source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and Judaism: History, Belief and Practice by Dan Cohn-Sherbok



22. Before World War II, what country had the largest Jewish population? ___________________ 23. What was Germany’s Jewish population in 1939? ____________________________ 24. Which country had the largest overall population in 1939? _____________________ 25. What was Poland’s Jewish population after World War II? _________________________ 26. Compare both maps. How many Jewish people were killed in the USSR from 1939-1945? ______________________________ 27. Some countries, such as Great Britain and Sweden, saw a Jewish population increase after

World War II. Why do you think that is?

Putting it all together: What You Learned Based on the documents, list THREE facts about the Holocaust that you learned. Remember, a fact is something specific. Write in complete sentences. A. B. C.

Documenting the Holocaust - Lake County the Holocaust ... you will be examining several documents related to the Nazi Holocaust. Look carefully at each document and answer the ...

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