The Holocaust

The HolocaustHistorical Context

World War IIGermany defeated in WWI.

Economic collapse. Mass inflation.

Versailles treaty sought to punish Germany for aggressions. Demilitarization. Japan, Italy not included in talks. German moral LOW.

Hitler sought renewed vision of Germany.

Stacks of German Marks, which were practically worthless due to super inflation 

World War II, Cont’d. •Promoted Lebensraum –vision of vast new

empire in Eastern Europe.

•1939: Germany invades Poland. Quick loss.

•Britain and France respond by declaring war.

• Invades Norway and Denmark; neutral countries: Belgium, Luxembourg, Netherlands.

WW II, Cont’d.

• Invades France, Italy, Britain.•Britain repels attack (1940). •Germans conquer Baltic region (Greece)

1941.•Germany breaks Soviet non-aggression

pact.•December 7, 1941 – Japan bombs Pearl

Harbor –US immediately declares war on Japan.

•Germany and Italy declare war on US.

Pearl Harbor Attack, 7 December 1941

WW II Cont’d.•Allied and Axis powers are at war.•Next 3 years: systematic bombing by

Allies of German industrial plants.•Germany invades parts of N. Africa.•D-Day: Massive military operation. (June

6, 1944)▫150,000 soldiers land in France.

•55,000,000 deaths total –greatest loss of human life in history.

(World War II In Europe)

U.S. troops wade ashore at Normandy on D-Day, the beginning of the Allied invasion of France to establish a

second front against German forces in Europe. Normandy, France, June 6, 1944.

Adolf Hitler and the Nazi PartyAppointed Chancellor of Germany Jan. 30,

1933.Extremely charismatic.

◦ Articulated vision of a better Germany. Aligned himself w/ Nazi (National Socialist)

goals.Reichstag decree suspended basic civil rights

of German citizens after the suspicious Reichstag fire.

Became police state. Totalitarian –Top down…Persecution of minority groups.

Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party, Cont’d.

Used propaganda to spread goals of regime.

Nazi party ideology guided by racist belief that Germans were biologically “superior”.

“Racially pure” German women were told to

breed.

Peacetime policy was intended to prepare for war.

Gestapo used to quell dissent. (Introduction to the Holocaust)

The Eternal Jew: Propaganda portrayed Jews as undesirable,

evil, suspicious.

German children read an anti-Jewish propaganda book titled DER GIFTPILZ ( "The Poisonous Mushroom"). The girl on the

left holds a companion volume, the translated title of which is "Trust No Fox." Germany, ca. 1938.

The Holocaust: A Definition

• The Holocaust was the “systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of approximately six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators.”

• A word of Greek origin meaning “sacrifice by fire”

(INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLOCAUST)

Nuremburg Laws• Anti-Jewish legislation.• As early as 1920, the Nazi party publicly

declares their intent to separate Jews from the “Aryan” population. • From 1933-1940, over 400 decrees and

regulations restricted Jews from normalized public life in Germany.• Removed Jews from state government.• Placed severe limitations on doctors,

lawyers, notaries, tax consultants and the like.

Nuremberg Laws, Cont’d.• 1935: Jews prevented from Reich citizenship.• Prevented from having sexual relations w/

Germans.• No right to vote; could not hold public office.• “Jew” defined as someone with 3 or 4 Jewish

grandparents. • Led to a new wave of Anti-Semitism.

(ANTI-JEWISH LEGISLATION IN PREWAR GERMANY)

Sign excluding Jews from public places.

PogromsMeans “to wreak havoc, to demolish

violently”. Anti-Semitism throughout Europe and Russia

had occurred for centuries. ◦ Raped, murdered Jewish victims.◦ Destroyed property.

Tens of thousands killed between 1918-1920.Even though Hitler denounced “disorder”

against population, acts still continued. Kristallnacht.

Kristallnacht

•“The Night of Broken Glass”•November 9 and 10, 1935.•A wave violent anti-Jewish pogroms.•Refers to shards of broken glass from

Jewish businesses, synagogues, and homes destroyed during the pogrom.

•267 synagogues; 7,500 businesses; 91 deaths.

•Cemeteries desecrated.

A Synagogue Destroyed, November 1938

Jewish Synagogue

“Night of Crystal”, Cont’d.• Where? In Germany, annexed Austria, and

other German occupied lands.• Ernest Vom Rath embassy official

assassinated by 17 year old Polish Jew on Nov. 7, 1938.• Joseph Goebbels Propaganda Minister; SA

and Hitler Youth, instigated pogrom: "the Führer has decided that … demonstrations should not be prepared or organized by the Party, but insofar as they erupt spontaneously, they are not to be hampered.“

“Night of Crystal”, Cont’d.

• Basically claimed as “retaliation” for assassination.

• Jews in end blamed for pogroms. No insurance settlements were given them, and owners made to pay for their own repairs.

(KRISTALLNACHT: A NATIONWIDE POGROM, NOVEMBER 9-10, 1938)

Targeted GroupsNazis deemed the “Aryan Race” “superior”

and other groups racially “inferior”.

Main ideas coming from American “eugenics” movement.

Groups seen as threat to German community.◦ Jews◦ Roma (Gypsies)◦ The disabled◦ Some of the Slavic people (Poles, Russians)

Targeted Groups, Cont’d. Some groups persecuted on behavioral,

ideological, or political grounds: Communists, Socialists, Jehova’s Witnesses,

homosexuals.

(Introduction to the Holocaust)

The Ghettos•Date as far back as 1516 in Venice, Italy –

from which the name is derived. •Often enclosed municipal districts in which

Jews were forced to live. •Separated Jews from non-Jewish population.•Miserable conditions: lack of food,

medicine, sanitary conditions. •1,000 ghettos in Germany alone.•Placed in ghettos while Nazi party officials

decided a “solution” to the “Jewish problem”.

Sign in Riga ghetto, Latvia warns inhabitants that they will be shot if

they attempt to cross the fence.

Warsaw Ghetto and Uprising• 400,000 Jews in 1.3 square miles. • Warsaw, Poland. • Required to wear Jewish “badge”: Star of

David (part of Nuremburg decrees).• Forced labor. • Jewish police were forced to abide by

German authority orders –would be killed if not. • Officials did not hesitate to murder any

perceived “threat”. (Warsaw Ghetto Uprising)

Hungarian Jews with yellow stars, at the time of the liberation of the Budapest ghetto. Hungary, January

1945.

German soldiers burn residential buildings to the ground, one by one, during the Warsaw ghetto uprising. Poland, April 19-

May 16, 1943.

Warsaw Ghetto, Cont’d.

•July 22nd, November 12, 1942.•300,000 deported or murdered. •Only 35,000 granted permission to stay. •Resistance efforts: smuggling medicine,

food, weapons and intelligence across walls.

•Two armed resistance groups in ghetto worked together to stop the destruction of the ghetto. (750 fighters in total.)

Warsaw Ghetto and Uprising, Cont’d.

January 18, 1943.

Halted deportations.

April 19, 1943 = new deportations.

Lasted until May 8, 1943.

Few remained after. Most sent to killing centers such as Treblinka.

Deportation from Warsaw in Cattle Trains

Deportation from Lodz Ghetto to Chelmno Extermination Camp

Extermination CampsFinal measure taken to rid Germany of its

Jewish population.

Called the “Final Solution” to the “Jewish Question”

Pogroms ghettos mobile killing units

Established killing centers: ◦ Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka

(Ghettos)

Nazi Extermination Camps in Europe

View of Gurs Camp from Water Tower

View of Auschwitz Camp

Extermination Camps, Cont’d.

•Auschwitz-Birkenau = Main killing center.▫Approximately 1,000,000 Jews

•Asphyxiation w/ gas or by shooting

•Jewish population prior to war: 9,000,000.

•After war – loss of 2/3.(Killing

Centers)

Former prisoners of Wöbbelin, a subcamp of Neuengamme, are taken to a hospital for medical

attention. Germany, May 4, 1945.

Suitcases that belonged to people deported to the Auschwitz camp. This photograph was taken after Soviet forces liberated

the camp. Auschwitz, Poland, after January 1945.

One of many piles of ashes and bones found by U.S.

Dr. Fritz Klein, a former camp doctor who conducted medical experiments on prisoners, stands among

corpses in a mass grave. Bergen-Belsen, Germany, after April 15, 1945.

Death MarchesRapid Soviet and Allied advanced forced Nazi’s

to order evacuation of camps to interior of Reich.

Mostly done by foot; some train, boat. Strict orders to kill prisoners who could not

walk or travel. 3 purposes

◦ Prevent prisoners from telling stories of what occurred in camps.

◦ Thought they needed prisoners to maintain manufacturing of armaments.

◦ SS leaders believed they could use prisoners as “hostages” to guarantee survival of Nazi regime.

(Death Marches)

Prisoners on a Death March from Dachau

End of the WarAllies began liberating concentration camps in the

months in and around 1945. Nazi SS guard began “death marches” to

eliminate remaining Jews and move further away from the front.

May 7, 1945: German forces surrender unconditionally to Allied forces.

Survivors moved to displaced persons camps throughout Europe.

Nazi officials later prosecuted in Nuremburg Trials.

Hitler commits suicide in bunker. (April 30, 1945)

The defendants rise as the judges enter the courtroom at the International Military Tribunal trial

of war criminals at Nuremberg.

Works Cited

“Holocaust Encyclopedia”. Various Articles. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. 25 Nov. 2011. Web. 6 Jan. 2011. USHMM.org.