You will need a sheet of Cornell Paper on your desk Turn your desk to face the screen First and last name next to the
Bulldog Class period next to your name Title of notes across from
Bulldog=Anti-Semitism: A Brief History
The HolocaustThe Literature
Anti-Semitism:A Brief
History •Definition: prejudice against Jews
– Social, economic, and political discrimination
•In the early Roman empire it was only very rarely that a Jew was granted Roman citizenship
Anti-Semitism:A Brief
History •Early Christians blamed all Jews for the crucifiction of Christ
•Jews were labled as “Christ Killers”
•Label persisted for centuries •Officially repudiated by Vatican II
Council in 1964
Pogroms
•Prejudice against Jews persisted throughout Europe
•Local communities often persecuted Jews
The Inquisition •15th Century Spain put Jews on
trial •Jews were
– forced to convert to Christianity– expelled– killed
Ghetto Laws--1800’s
•Jews were forced to live in walled off sections of cities
•Jews were required to wear badges identifying them as Jews
•Jews could not own property or hold public office
Early 1900’s
•The Rise of Nationalism– Unity created by demonizing a
common enemy •PsuedoScience
– Supposedly “Scientific” theories proving Jews and other minorities were inferior to whites
– Stephen Jay Gould’s reanalysis of skull volume data
A Long History…Hitler did not invent the wheel! •Hitler based his
popular support on these centuries of prejudice
•His genius was to guide and intensify this prejudice
A Stunning Fact:
6 million Jews were killed in less than ten years during Hitler’s reign...
…more than in all of the centuries of anti-semitism that preceded it!
Nazi Anti-Semitism
Jewish/Non-Jewish marriage forbidden
Jewish Property Seized Concentration Camps
Kristallnacht, 1938--things take an uglier
turn •Jewish conspiracy blamed for assassination of minor German official
•7500 Jewish businesses destroyed •237 Synagogues were burned •26,000 Jews were arrested, many
beaten, 91 died •Jews were fined $400 million for
damage done to their own property
A Synagogue burns that awful night…
The Final Solution…
Auschwitz and the Death Camps... Factories designed to kill the largest
number of people possible as cheaply as possible and as fast as possible
Methods of Extermination:
Cyanide Gas Carbon Monoxide Gas Machine Guns Flamethrowers Lethal Injections Medical “Experiments”
Jewish prisoner submerged in ice water…
The Ovens… The gruesome attempt to hide the evidence
The Literature of the HolocaustThe stories of the survivors… Lest We Forget!
end