The Holocaust 1933-1945. Who were the Victims of The Holocaust?.

The Holocaust1933-1945

Who were the Victims of The Holocaust?

.

Who were the Victims of The Holocaust?

o The Jews- used as scapegoats for everything that had gone wrong in Germany since WWI. They were seen by the Nazis as subhuman & worth less than animals.

o Roma & Sinti Gypsies- like the Jews they were seen by the Nazis as racially inferior, degenerate & worthless.

o Slavs, Poles & Russians- viewed as inferior & subhuman.

o Mentally & physically disabled- thought of as useless & a financial burden on the state.

o Homosexuals- seen as degenerate & against the Aryan ideal.

o Political opponents- e.g. Communists, Socialists. These were people who disagreed with Nazi politics & policies.

o Jehovah’s Witnesses- their religious beliefs made them refuse to pledge their allegiance to the Third Reich.

T-4 Euthanasia Programo Designed to kill physically, mentally & emotionally

handicapped people. The name comes from the address of the headquarters at Tiergartenstrasse 4 in Charlottenburg.

o The process was carried out by doctors, nurses & physicians.o Children were killed by medication or were starved to death.o Adults were given lethal injections or gassed.o Doctors & nurses were given supplementary payments

known as ‘Schmutzgeld’ (dirty money).o In 1941 Hadamar celebrated the cremation of its ten

thousandth patient in a special ceremony where everyone (secretaries, nurses & psychiatrists) received a bottle of beer.

o Hitler ordered the program for adults to end in August 1941 but it continued as the ‘wild’ euthanasia program.

o Approximately 200,000 people were killed under the T-4 program.

T-4 Euthanasia Program

Hartheim Castle, Austriaa euthanasia killing centre where people with physical and mental disabilitieswere killed by gassing and lethal injection.

Buses used to transport patients to HadamarThe windows were painted to prevent people from seeing those inside..

This image originates from a film produced by the Reich Propaganda Ministry. It shows patients in an unidentified asylum. Their existence is described as "life without hope." The Nazis sought, through propaganda, to develop public sympathy for the Euthanasia Program.

Emmi G., a 16-year-oldhousemaid diagnosed asschizophrenic. She wassterilized and sent to theMeseritz-Obrawaldeeuthanasia centrewhere she was killed withan overdose of tranquilizerson December 7, 1942.

A victim of the NaziEuthanasia Program:hospitalized in apsychiatric ward for hernonconformist beliefsand writings, she wasmurdered onJanuary 26, 1944.

Friedrich Mennecke,a Euthanasia Programphysician who was responsible for sendingmany patients to be gassed.

Nazi physicianKarl Brandt,director of the

Euthanasia Program.

Head nurse of the children's wardat the Kaufbeuren-Irsee euthanasia

facility.

Concentration Camps & Death Camps

Chelmno

Treblinka

SobiborMajdane

k Belzec

Auschwitz

Concentration Camps & Death Camps

Chelmnoo Constructed in Nov. 1941

o Victims were killed in gas

vans . (one large gas van for 150

victims and two smaller ones for 80 - 100

victims) o Until spring of 1942, the

bodies were buried in four long mass graves.

o After that time the corpses were cremated. (Two crematoria were built, which were probably complemented by two mobile field ovens.)

o 1st phase: 7th Dec 1941- March 1943.

o 2nd phase: June and July 1944

o Death Toll: 155,000-320,000

Jews of the Lodz Ghetto being marched to

Chelmno death camp, 1942 A convoy arrives in Chelmno

Chelmno: One of the three gas vans

Chelmno: Jews before beingsent to the gas chamber.

Belzec

o Construction began on 1st Nov. 1941 and was completed by the end of Feb. 1942.

o Initially, there were three gas chambers using carbon monoxide housed in a wooden building. They were later replaced by six gas chambers in a brick and concrete building

o Corpses were then dragged to burial pits.o During the early months of 1943, the corpses of the

murdered Jews were disinterred and burned in open air pits.

o 1st phase: mid-March 1942 to mid-May 1942.o 2nd phase: mid-July 1942 to the end of December

1942

o Death Toll: 600,000

Jews of the Lublin Province of Poland are deported to the Belzec death camp, March 1942.

Gipsies in Belzec before being sent to the gas chamber Two Jews before execution in Belzec death camp

A woman about to be executed in Belzec extermination camp. The soldier on the left is an SS guard, the soldiers in the background are Ukrainian guards.

Picture found on an SS prisoner.

Treblinka

  Transports to the Camp

Deportation from Siedlce, 22nd August 1942

One of the very rare photographic documentsof Treblinka: prisoners of the "Straflager“

preparing a pyre for the burning of the victims

oEstablished in 1941 as a forced labor camp.oA second camp was built, opening for operation on July 23, 1942. This was to be the extermination camp.oTreblinka opened with three gas chambers in operation but quickly expanded to at least six. oThe bodies would be dragged to mass graves for burial. oStarting in the Autumn of 1942, the corpses were disinterred and stacked on a grid of old railway tracks for burning. oAutumn of 1943 evacuation of the camp was begun & orders were given to destroy the camp.

oDeath Toll: 750,000- 850,000

Auschwitz Birkenau

Birkenau arrival platform, known as the ‘ramp’.

Auschwitz Birkenau

Awaiting the ‘Selektion’.

Auschwitz Birkenau

The ‘Selektion’ process.

Auschwitz Birkenau

Deemed "unfit for work“ & sent almost immediately to the gas chambers. 

Auschwitz Birkenau

Jews who were classified as“not fit for work” waiting in a groveoutside Crematorium IV before theywere to be gassed. At this point, theJews were exhausted and in a stateof shock from the horrors of thejourney and the selection processthat they had just endured. The vastmajority had no idea what fateAwaited them.

Auschwitz Birkenau

Men & women fit for work, after the delousing process.

Auschwitz Birkenau

Sorting out the personalBelongings of the recentarrivals at Auschwitz in aspecial section of the campknown as "Canada."

Auschwitz Birkenau

Jewish children, kept alive in the Auschwitz II (Birkenau) concentration camp, pose in concentration camp uniforms between two rows of barbed wire fencing after liberation

Sacks of human hair packed for dispatch to Germany.

A warehouse full of shoes and clothing confiscated fromthe prisoners and deportees gassed upon their arrival.

One of the warehouses in Auschwitz, which is stuffed tooverflowing with clothes confiscated from prisoners.

Corpses of women piled up on the floor of Block 11. (February 1945)

Prisoner badges at Auschwitz

The same colored triangles were used throughout the camp system.

On arrival each prisoner was registered & given a number that replaced his or her name. This number was tattooed on the prisoner’s forearm. A scrap of fabric with this number was worn at chest height on the left of the jacket. Below this was a coloured triangle which showed the prisoner’s category. This triangle or ‘winkel’ was also worn on the hem of the right trouser leg.

‘Re-education prisoners’, whose

sentences were officially limited to

46-52 days but often lasted 3-6

months, were identified by a large

‘E’ rather than a triangle.

political criminalanti-social

e.g. lesbian,

prostitute

Jehovah’s

Witness

emigrant

Sinti &

Roma gypsy

homosexual

Jew, with a different triangle over the yellow one according to reason of imprisonment, making a Star of David

e.g. Red & Yellow – political Jew

From mid-1944 a yellow strip replaced the yellow triangle

Prisoners in the punishment units also wore a black dot.

Prisoners suspected of planning an escape wore a red dot & the letters iL for im Lager (in the camp)