The Holocaust

• The Holocaust

Nazi Policies

• Jews were one of several groups targeted by the Nazis, in addition to Slavs, homosexuals, gypsies and others who opposed their policies

• Jews were targeted for their minority religious beliefs, segregated in ghettos, and prevented from owning land

• Hitler had made clear his intentions for the Jews inMein Kampf

The Nuremberg Laws

• Passed in 1935 and did the following:

• Took citizenship away from German Jews

• Banned marriage between Germans and Jews

• Prevented Jews from voting or holding office

• Required Jews to have a red J in their passports

Discrimination against Jews

• By 1936, more than half of German Jews were unemployed because they could not work as doctors, teachers, farmers, journalists, and civil servants

• Even though conditions were harsh for German Jews, many chose to stay in the land of their birth, hoping the situation would change

Kristallnacht

• Night of broken glass (7 November, 1938)

• 90 Jews killed in Germany, hundreds injured and thousands terrorized

• 7,500 Jewish businesses destroyed

• 180 synagogues attacked

• Hitler had ordered the German police to not protect the Jews

Further abuses against Jews

• The Gestapo orders 20,000 wealthy Jews to leave Germany and surrender their possessions

• Hermann Goering forces Jews to pay for the damages of Kristallnacht in the sum of 1,000,000,000,000 Deutschmarks

Jewish emigration

• 350,000 Jews escape Germany in the late 1930s, many go to the U.S.A.

• The U.S.A. accepted some Jewish refugees but rejected many others, as did other countries around the world

The SS St. Louis

• In May 1939, a ship carrying 930 Jewish refugees was denied entry to Havana, Cuba

• The captain then appealed to the U.S. for permission to come ashore

• The U.S. refused to permit the Jewish refugees from entering the country and the ship returned to Europe

• Most of these people were killed after the Nazis occupied France, Belgium and the Netherlands

The Final Solution

• In January 1942, Nazi leaders came up with an answer as to what to do about the Jewish question

• Nazi leaders decided that Jews would be sent to concentration camps and exterminations camps

Concentration Camps

• At concentration camps, Jews worked as slave laborers until they dropped dead from exhaustion, malnutrition or disease

• Concentration camps were located in Germany, Austria, Poland and other countries conquered by the Nazis

Extermination Camps

• Elderly people, the sick and young children were sent to extermination camps to be executed in massive gas chambers

• Auschwitz, in Poland, housed 100,000 people

• 1,600,000 were murdered at Auschwitz, most of these were Jews

The final count

• Historians estimate the number of Jews killed by the Nazis to be approximately 6,000,000

• 1,000 years of Jewish presence in Europe had been obliterated by the Nazis due to severe economic problems, Hitlers ability to control the German people, Germans fear of the Gestapo, and a history of anti-Jewish feeling in Europe