THE HOLOCAUST. WHAT WAS THE HOLOCAUST? The Nazi slaughter of 6 million Jews Nazis killed another 3 to 5 million others which included homosexuals, disabled,

THE HOLOCAUST

WHAT WAS THE HOLOCAUST?

• The Nazi slaughter of 6 million Jews

• Nazis killed another 3 to 5 million others which included homosexuals, disabled, Soviet POW’s, Polish civilians, Communists and political prisoners

• Took place all over Europe

• Final Solution (1942 Wannsee Conference)

DIFFERENTIATING PRISONERS• Red triangle—political prisoners: liberals, communists, trade unionists, social democrats,

socialists, Freemasons, and anarchists.

• Green triangle— "professional criminals" (convicts, often working in the camps as Kapos).

• Blue triangle—foreign forced laborers, emigrants.

• Purple triangle—Bible Students, a term taken from a name of, and primarily referring to, Jehovah's Witnesses, though a very small number of pacifists and members of other religious organizations were also imprisoned under this classification

• Pink triangle—sexual offenders, mostly homosexual men but rarely rapists, zoophiles and pedophiles]

• Black triangle—people who were deemed "asocial elements" and "work shy" including

• Roma (Gypsies), who were later assigned a brown triangle

• The mentally ill

• Alcoholics

• Vagrants and beggars

• Pacifists

• Conscription resisters

• Prostitutes

• Some anarchists

• Drug addicts

• Brown triangle—Roma (Gypsies) (previously wore the black triangle).

• Uninverted red triangle—an enemy POW, spy or a deserter.

DIFFERENTIATING PRISONERS• Double-triangle badges resembled two superimposed triangles forming a

Star of David, a Jewish symbol.

• Two superimposed yellow triangles, the "Yellow badge"—a Jew

• Red inverted triangle superimposed upon a yellow one—a Jewish political prisoner

• Green inverted triangle upon a yellow one—a Jewish "habitual criminal"

• Purple inverted triangle superimposed upon a yellow one—a Jehovah's Witness of Jewish descent

• Pink inverted triangle superimposed upon a yellow one—a Jewish "sexual offender"

• Black inverted triangle superimposed upon a yellow one—"asocial" and "work shy" Jews

• Voided black inverted triangle superimposed over a yellow triangle—a Jew convicted of miscegenation and labeled as a "race defiler"

• Yellow inverted triangle superimposed over a black triangle—an Aryan (woman) convicted of miscegenation and labeled as a "race defiler"

• Like those who wore pink and green triangles, people in the bottom two categories would have been convicted in criminal courts.

NAZI EXPERIMENTS

• Hypothermia-inmates were placed in freezing water or in brutal cold for hours

• Made inmates sterile by exposing them to radiation

• Some were injected with malaria

NAZI EXPERIMENTS

• This women was deliberately cut on her leg and the wound was infected with:• Bacteria• dirt • glass • (simulates war injury)

• Sulfonamide

NAZI EXPERIMENTS• Placed in a low pressure chamber to

simulate 68,000 feet in Altitude

• As pressure gets lower, oxygen gets thinner

NAZI EXPERIMENTS

CONCENTRATION CAMPS & DEATH CAMPS

• What is the difference?• Concentration camp is where anyone is detained under harsh

conditions• Prisoners are put into forced labor and generally die of disease or

malnutrition

• Death camps are where Jews and other “undesirables” are sent to be exterminated

• Those sent directly to death camps were the elderly and very young • WHY?

SELECTION• To the right went workers

• To the left was the gas chamber

AUSCHWITZ

• By far the largest death camp• Located in Poland (3 camps)

• Believed that 1.6 million Jews murdered here

• Most were killed with a gas called Zyklon-B

• 20,000 bodies could be gassed and cremated a day

EMPTY ZYKLON-B CANISTERS

GAS CHAMBER

DID THE JEWS FIGHT BACK?• Yes, there were some resistance movements

• The biggest being in the Warsaw Ghetto in April 1943

• About 750 Jews rebelled for a month

• Almost all of those that took part were capture/killed

RESULTS• Holocaust ends as camps are liberated by Allies

• Half of Europe’s Jewish population is killed

• Israel, a homeland for many Jews, will be created 1948

• Some Nazi doctors are put on trial

LIBERATION

• 761st Tank Battalion

• African-American unit that liberated a sub-camp of Mauthausen