The Holocaust Notes

The Holocaust

By Mayana Joseph, Yasmeen Albanna, Tatiana Deoliveira, Daniella

Persecution in Germany Life for Jews was a much simpler time, until Hitler became Germany’s leader in

1933, he made an anti-Semitism the official policy of the nation. No other persecution of the Jews equals the extent and brutality of the holocaust,

Nazi Germany’s systematic murder of European Jews. Six million Jews, about two thirds of Europe’s Jewish population would lose

their life! 5 to 6 million other people would also die in Nazi captivity. CAN YOU SAY CRUEL AND INHUMANE!!!!

Nazi Policies Early Nazi persecution aimed to exclude Germany‘s Jews from all aspects of

the country’s political, social, and economic life. On April 1, 1933, the Nazis ordered a one-day boycott of businesses owned by

Jews. In, 1935, the Nuremburg laws stripped the Jews citizenship, and outlawed

marriage between Jews and non-Jews. In 1938, the Nazis enacted new policies to make life even more difficult for

the Jewish people. Jews lost their jobs, surrender their own business for a fraction of what is what

worth, Jewish doctors and lawyer were forbidden to serve non-Jews, and Jewish students were suspended from public schools.

Jews were defined as those who had 3 or 4 Jewish grandparents and whom ever practice the Jewish religion.

They were also given new middle names Sarah(females) and Israel(males).

Hitler’s Policies When Hitler first came to power, the Gestapo, Germany’s new secret state

police, was formed to identify and pursue enemies of the Nazi regime. Hitler also formed the SS, or Schutzstaffel, an elite guard that developed into

the private army of the Nazi party. By 1939, the Gestapo had become part of the SS. The duties of the SS were guarding the concentration camps. In addition to Communist, the camp held “undesirable”, mainly Jews, but also

homosexual, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Gypsies, and the homeless.

Kristallnacht November 9, 1938, Nazi thugs throughout Germany and Austria looted and

destroyed Jewish stores, houses, and synagogues. This incident became known as Kristallnacht, or “Night of the Broken Glass”. Nearly every synagogues was destroyed. The Nazis arrested thousands of Jews, and shipped them off to the

concentration camp. The damages of the Kristallnacht, were put upon the Jews to pay for. The leftover Jews, sought any means possible to leave the country.

Refugees Seek an Escape From 1933 through 1937, about 130,000 Jews, or one in four, fled Germany

with Nazi encouragement. Most refugees moved to neighboring European nation, they began seeking

protection in the U.S., Latin America, British-ruled Palestine. Few countries, welcomed Jewish refugees as long as the Depression prevented

their citizens from finding work. President Roosevelt, called the International conference, held in France in July

1938, failed to deal with the situation. With the exception of the Dominican Republic, each 32 nations represented,

including the United States, refused to open its doors to more immigrants.

From Murder To Genocide As German armies overran most of Europe, more and more Jews, including

many who had fled Germany, came under their control. In 1939, the invasion of Poland brought 2 million additional Jews under

German control. Nazi plans for dealing with these Jews including the establishment of ghettos,

self-contained areas, usually surrounded by a fence, wall, or armed guard, where Jews were forced to live.

In Warsaw, Nazis rounded up more than 400,000 Jews and confined them in an area of less than 3% of the entire city.

They sealed the Warsaw ghetto with a wall topped with barbed wire and guarded by Germans.

The Jews were starved and a lack of sanitation brought on disease. Thousands of Jews died in the ghettos, but the Germans found more efficient way of killing Jews.

The Einsatzgruppen During the invasion of the Soviet Union, Hitler ordered Einsatzgruppen, or

mobile killing squads, to shoot Communist political leaders as well as all Jews in German-occupied territory.

They would round up their victims, and drove them to freshly dug pits, and shot them.

In a ravine called Babi Yar outside Kiev, the Nazis killed more than 33,000 Jews in two days.

In January 1942, Nazi officials met at the Wannsee Conference outside Berlin to agree on a new approach.

They developed a plan to achieve what one Nazi leader called the “final solution to the Jewish question”.

This ultimate plan would lead to construction of special camps in Poland where genocide, or deliberate destruction of an entire ethnic or cultural group, was to be carried out against Europe’ Jewish population.

The Death Camps The Nazis chose poison gas as a more effective way to kill people. A pesticide

called Zyklon B proved to be most efficient killer. In January 1942, the Nazis opened a specially designed gas chamber disguised

as a shower room at the Auschwitz camp in western Poland. Nazis outfitted six such camps, concentration camp, which functioned as

prisons and centers of forced labor, these death camps existed primarily for mass media.

Jews in Poland, the Netherlands, Germany were crowded into train cars used for transporting cattle.

After moving them, they were quickly inspected and women who were too old or children that were too weak were immediately killed.

Jewish prisoners carried the dead to the crematoria, or huge ovens where the bodies were burned.

Those selected to work endure unbearable conditions.

continued The life expectancy of a Jewish prisoner was a few months. Men and women alike had their head shaven and a registered number tattooed

to their arms. They were given one set of clothes and slept in crowded bunkers, there daily

meals were a cup of imitation coffee, piece of bread, and a soup made of rotten vegetables.

Diseases swept through the camp and claimed many weak for harsh labor, and starvation.

Others died from torture or cruel medical experiment. The number of people killed in the labor and death camps is staggering. At Auschwitz, 12,000 victims could be gassed and cremated in a single day,

the Nazis killed as many as 1.5 million people, 90% of Jews!

Fighting Back Some Jews resisted the Nazis. In Poland, France, and elsewhere, Jews joined

underground resistance groups. Jews in several ghettos and camps took part in violence uprising. In August 1934, rioting Jews damaged the Treblinka death camp so badly it

had to be closed. Although, many of the uprising came too late to save many people, and were

crushed by the Germans. Escape was the most common form of resistance, but most of the attempts

failed, or they were caught later. The were able to bring word of the death camp to the outside world.

For 27 days, Jews were armed with little more than pistols and homemade bombs held out against more than 2,000 Germans with tanks and artillery. Although the Germans defeated the rebellion, Warsaw’s Jew had brought the deportation drive to a standstill, if only for a time.

Rescue and Liberation The United States government knew about the mass murder of Jews by the Nazis

as early as November 1942. Congress did not raise immigration quotas, and even the existing quotas for Jews

went unfilled. Finally, in January 1944, over the objection of the State Department , Roosevelt

created the War Refugees Board (WRB) to try to help threatened by the Nazis. The WRB’s programs helped save some 200,000 lives. As allied armies advanced in late 1944, the Nazis abandoned the camps outside of

Germany and moved onto their soils. On that eve, thousand of Jews died on the death marches from camp to camp. In 1945, Americans troops were able to witness the horrors of the holocaust for

the first time. The U.S, Great Britain, Soviet Union, and France known as(International Military

Tribunal)conducted the Newburg Trails in Nov 1945. Of 24 Nazis, 12 of them receive the death sentence, and they were all held responsible for their actions.

Team:Get It Done!!!!

Props to Mayana, Yasmeen, Tatiana, and Daniela