1
Holocaust
They came first for the Communists, And I didnt
speak up because I wasnt a Communist And then
they came for the trade unionists, And I didnt
speak up because I wasnt a trade unionist And
then they came for the Jews, And I didnt speak
up because I wasnt a Jew And then . . . they
came for me . . . And by that time there was no
one left to speak up. Pastor Martin Niemoller
2
Persecution Begins

• -Anti-Jewish sentiments for centuries
• Death of Jesus, having money
• -Hitlers Mein Kampf blamed Jews for Germanys
  problems
• Blamed Jews for losses during WWI and Germanys
  economic problems
• -Nuremburg Laws 1935
• took away civil rights of Jews
• Star of David
• No citizenship, property, or gov. jobs must wear
  star at all times to identify Jewish
• -Kristallnacht, 1938
• Nov. 9-10, Night of Broken Glass
• destruction of Jewish property
• Destroyed Jewish homes, businesses, and synagogues

As part of his purification of Germany for the
Aryan race, Hitler passed the Nuremberg Laws,
which stripped Jews of citizenship rights and
forced them to wear an armband with the yellow
Star of David on it at all times.
3
During Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken
Glass, Nazi storm troopers attacked Jewish
homes, businesses, and synagogues across Germany.
An American who witnessed the violence wrote,
Jewish shop windows by the hundreds were
systematically and wantonly smashedThe main
streets of the city were a positive litter of
shattered plate glass.
4
Around 100 Jews were killed, and hundred more
were injured during Kristallnacht. Some 30,000
Jews were arrested and hundreds of synagogues
were burned. Afterward, the Nazis blamed the
Jews for the destruction.
5
Damage from Kristallnacht
6
Damage from Kristallnacht
7
Jewish Refugees

• -after Hitlers election, many Jews fled Germany
• Nazis wanted them to leave to purify Germany
• -U.S. was one of many nations not accepting many
  Jewish refugees
• Albert Einstein
• Many nations would not take any more German
  refugees
• Einstein one of 100,000 accepted in the U.S.
  because he had exceptional merit
• -Why did others not leave???
• Families, tradition, dignity

Jews fleeing Germany had trouble finding nations
that would accept them. France already had
40,000 Jewish refugees and did not want more.
The British worried about fueling anti-Semitism
and refused to admit more than 80,000. Germanys
foreign minister observed, We all want to get
rid of our Jews. The difficulty is that no
country wishes to receive them.
8
Final Solution

• -1939
• decision to rid Europe of all Jews and other
  undesirables
• Political opponents (Communists and Socialists),
  gypsies, Free Masons, Jehovas Witnesses,
  homosexuals, invalids
• -concentration camps set up across Europe
• Ghettos created first, but when they were
  overcrowded they began building concentration
  camps
• -many sent to slave labor camps
• To work for German industry or the German war
  effort
• -others were simply killed or experimented upon
• Killing squads

9
To rid the Third Reich of all invalids, Adolf
Hitler's authorized the Euthanasia Program,
signed in October 1939, which destroyed all who
had physical, mental, and emotional disabilities.
10
Buses used to transport patients to euthanasia
center
11
Because God cannot want the sick and ailing to
reproduce. Used as propaganda for the
Euthanasia Program
12
Two pages of the death registry at Hadamar.
These pages listed false causes of death, but all
were killed there as part of the Euthanasia
Program.
13
Concentration Camps

• -Jews gathered from ghettos and separated
• Those who could work were kept alive and shipped
  to camps others were killed
• -crude wooden barracks held thousands who were
  fit to work
• Barracks held up to 1,000 people each worked
  from dawn until dusk, 7 days a week, until they
  collapsed they were then killed
• -hunger and disease killed thousands

The brute Schmidt was our guard he beat and
kicked us if he thought we were not working fast
enough. He ordered his victims to lie down and
gave them 25 lashes with a whip, ordering them to
count out loud. If the victim made a mistake, he
was given 50 lashes30 or 40 of us were shot
every day. A doctor usually prepared a daily
list of the weakest men. During the lunch break
they were taken to a nearby grave and shot. They
were replaced the following morning by new
arrivals from the transport of the dayIt was a
miracle if anyone survived for five or six
months.
14
Death Camps

• -as war went badly for Germany, they tried to
  speed Final Solution
• In 1942, the Nazis build 6 death camps in Poland
  alone
• -building of several death camps to execute Jews
  with poison gas
• Killed as many as 12,000 Jews a day by using
  Zyklon B pellets
• -bodies were then buried in mass graves or burned
• Also shot, hung, or experimented on
• Twin studies
• -Auschwitz
• -Belzec
• -Buchenwald
• -Dachau

15
Jews loaded onto freight trains to Chelmno
extermination camp. The Jewish people merely
thought they were moving ghettos, and most of
them took their belongings with them to the
concentration camps.
16
Some Jewish people (and others forced into
concentration camps) never made it to the camps.
Mobile killing units took them to nearby fields,
as they were waiting for the trains to arrive,
and shot them, stealing their valuables once dead.
17
Main entrance to Auschwitz extermination camp
18
Corpses lie in one of the open rail cars on the
Dachau death train. The conditions on the trains
were so harsh, and the state of those deported so
helpless, that many did not survive the journey
19
Suitcases that belonged to people deported to
Auschwitz
20
Valuables confiscated from Jewish prisoners by
German guards
21
View of the moat and barracks at Dachau. The
prisoners were constantly guarded by the
watchtowers, and just on the other side of the
drawbridge, there were two crematoriums and
various mass graves.
22
Between the barracks at Dachau
23
Every morning in a concentration camp started
with roll call. Thousands of prisoners would
stand, sometimes for hours, while roll was taken
and punishments were dealt.
24
Uniformed prisoners sent to work in the
concentration camp factories. Each prisoner wore
a badge to symbolize the reason why he/she was in
the camp. The SS guards would treat them
differently based on this badge.
25
Forced laborers build canal
26
The prisoners in the camps were forced to work to
aid the German war effort. These men, in
Auschwitz, are making uniforms for German
soldiers.
27
Prisoners work in an armaments factory at Dachau
28
Some prisoners, when they have ceased to be of
use to the German war effort and were healthy
enough for testing, would be used for medical
testing. This prisoner, in a compression
chamber, loses consciousness before dying during
a medical experiment stimulating high altitudes
for German pilots.
29
This Roma Gypsy is a victim of Nazi medical
experiments, to test whether or not seawater is
potable, at Dachau.
30
Zyklon B pellets found after liberation of camp.
One of these pellets, placed into a gas chamber,
would be enough to kill an entire room full of
people within two minutes.
31
Once the bodies were dead and removed from the
gas chambers, they were placed into mass graves
or more simply cremated in the concentration
camps. This is the crematorium at Majdanek
extermination camp.
32
Survivors demonstrate how to use the crematorium
in Dachau
33
Survivors demonstrate how to use the crematorium
in Dachau
34
Survivors demonstrate how to use the crematorium
in Dachau
35
Survivors demonstrate how to use the crematorium
in Dachau
36
Human remains in Dachau after the camps were
liberated
37
Dachau prisoners on a death march
38
Former prisoners taken to a hospital for medical
attention
39
Soviet physician examines Auschwitz camp survivors
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Warehouse of clothes that belonged to women
murdered in Auschwitz
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Pile of shoes from prisoners
42
Corpses found when U.S. troops liberated
Mauthausen
43
American soldier tends to former prisoner lying
among corpses of victims
44
Bodies piled in the crematorium mortuary in
Dachau death camp
45
Mass grave found soon after camp liberation
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Survivors

• -6 million were killed in the Holocaust
• -some were liberated by Allied armies
• Led away from camps on Death Marches to try and
  hide evidence
• Camps liberated by Soviets first in late 1944,
  then by all Allies in 1945
• -others were helped to hide or escape from
  capture
• -Elie Wiesel
• Night
• -Oscar Schindler

Never shall I forget that night, the first night
in the camp, which has turned my life into one
long nightNever shall I forget the little faces
of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into
wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky.
Never shall I forget those flames which consumed
my faith forever. Never shall I forget that
nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all
eternity, of the desire to live. Never shall I
forget those moments which murdered my God and my
soul and turned my dreams to dust. Elie Wiesel,
Night