Holocaust

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Holocaust
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Background

• Holocaust
• Greek word meaning sacrifice by fire
• The term given to the genocide committed by the
  Germans.
• Germans believed they were racially superior
• Jews and other groups were deemed racially
  inferior
• Seen as a threat to the German racial community

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1935

• Hitler announced the Nuremberg Laws in 1935.
• stripped Jews of their civil rights as German
  citizens
• separated them from Germans legally, socially,
  and politically.
• Jews were also defined as a separate race under
  "The Law for the Protection of German Blood and
  Honor."
• Forbade marriages between Jews and Germans
• Being Jewish was now determined by ancestry
• Race, not religious beliefs or practices defined
  Jewish people
• Many thousands of Germans who had not previously
  considered themselves Jews found themselves
  defined as non Aryans.
• Hitler warned that if this law did not resolve
  the problem, he would turn to the Nazi party
  for a final solution.

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1936

• In 1936, Berlin hosted the Olympics.
• Hitler viewed this as a perfect opportunity to
  promote a favorable image of Nazism to the world.
• Monumental stadiums and other Olympic facilities
  were constructed as Nazi showpieces.
• International political unrest preceded the
  games. It was questioned whether the Nazi regime
  could really accept the terms of the Olympic
  Charter of participation unrestricted by class,
  creed, or race.
• The great irony of these Olympics was that, in
  the land of "Aryan superiority," it was Jesse
  Owens, the African-American track star, who was
  the undisputed hero of the games.

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1936
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November 9, 1938

• In Germany, open antisemitism became increasingly
  accepted, climaxing in the "Night of Broken
  Glass" (Kristallnacht) on November 9, 1938.
• Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels initiated
  this free-for-all against the Jews, during which
  nearly 1,000 synagogues were set on fire and 76
  were destroyed.
• More than 7,000 Jewish businesses and homes were
  looted, about one hundred Jews were killed and as
  many as 30,000 Jews were arrested and sent to
  concentration camps to be tormented, many for
  months.

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November 9, 1938

• Within days, the Nazis forced the Jews to
  transfer their businesses to Aryan hands and
  expelled all Jewish pupils from public schools.
• With brazen arrogance, the Nazis further
  persecuted the Jews by forcing them to pay for
  the damages of Kristallnacht

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1939

• Confining Jews in ghettos was not Hitler's
  brainchild. For centuries, Jews had faced
  persecution, and were often forced to live in
  designated areas called ghettos
• As the war against the Jews progressed, the
  ghettos became transition areas, used as
  collection points for deportation to death camps
  and concentration camps
• Hitler incorporated the western part of Poland
  into Germany according to race doctrine.
• He intended that Poles were to become the slaves
  of Germany and that the two million Jews therein
  were to be concentrated in ghettos in Poland's
  larger cities.
• Later this would simplify transport to the death
  camps.

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1939

• Nazi occupation authorities officially told the
  story that Jews were natural carriers of all
  types of diseases, especially typhus, and that it
  was necessary to isolate Jews from the Polish
  community.
• Jewish neighborhoods thus were transformed into
  prisons.
• The five major ghettos were located in Warsaw ,
  Lódz, Kraków, Lublin, and Lvov.

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November 23, 1939

• General Governor Hans Frank issued an ordinance
  that Jews ten years of age and older living in
  the General Government had to wear the Star of
  David on armbands or pinned to the chest or
  back.
• This made the identification of Jews easier when
  the Nazis began issuing orders establishing
  ghettos.

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Targeted Groups

• 6 million Jews
• 2/3 of all Jews in Europe
• Only 1 of Germanys population were Jews
• Most Jews killed lived in countries that the Axis
  conquered
• Another 5 million
• Some were considered racially inferior groups
• 200,000 Roma (gypsies)
• Russians and Poles (Slavic people)
• 200,000 Disabled (mental or physical)
• This included Germans
• Some were persecuted for politics, ideas, or
  behaviors
• Communists and Socialists
• Jehovah's Witness
• Homosexuals
• 2-3 million Soviet prisoners of war

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Roma (Gypsies)
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Disabled
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Slavic peoples (Poles, Russians, and others).
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Communists, Socialists, Jehovahs Witness and
homosexuals
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• In 1933, the Jewish population of Europe stood at
  over nine million. Most European Jews lived in
  countries that Nazi Germany would occupy or
  influence during World War II.
• By 1945, the Germans and their collaborators
  killed nearly two out of every three European
  Jews as part of the "Final Solution," the Nazi
  policy to murder the Jews of Europe.
• Hitlers idea to kill anyone he deemed unfit for
  his Master Race.

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• In the early years of the Nazi regime, the
  National Socialist government established
  concentration camps to detain real and imagined
  political and ideological opponents.

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A Major Problem

• Hitler blamed Jews for Germanys problems.
• Because Germany was forced to pay reparations for
  WW I money was almost worthless.
• US vs. German Mark through time
• 1914 1 4.2 Marks
• 1919 1 14 Marks
• 1921 1 76.7 Marks
• Aug. 1923 1 4,620,455 Marks
• Nov. 1923 1 4,200,000,000,000 Marks

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Administration

• Jews (and others) were sent to many different
  places
• Ghettos, transit camps, forced-labor camps,
  extermination camps
• These places were meant to concentrate and
  monitor inferior populations.
• Transit and forced labor camps throughout
  Europe
• Extermination Camps - Poland
• At the camps
• Forced to work if able.
• If not, you were killed.
• Specially developed gassing facilities.
• Infamous extermination camp Auschwitz

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• All ghettos had the most appalling, inhuman
  living conditions.
• The smallest ghetto housed approximately 3,000
  people.
• Warsaw, the largest ghetto, held 400,000 people.
• In total, the Nazis established 356 ghettos in
  Poland, the Soviet Union, the Baltic States,
  Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Hungary between 1939
  and 1945.
• Larger cities had closed ghettos, with brick or
  stone walls, wooden fences, and barbed wire
  defining the boundaries. Guards were placed
  strategically at gateways and other boundary
  openings. Jews were not allowed to leave the
  so-called "Jewish residential districts," under
  penalty of death.

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• Ghetto life was wretched. The ghettos were
  filthy, with poor sanitation.
• Extreme overcrowding forced many people to share
  a room. Disease was rampant.
• Staying warm was difficult during bitter cold
  winters without adequate warm clothes and heating
  fuel.
• Food was in such short supply that many slowly
  starved to death.

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1945-1946

• Hitler is defeated and WWII ends in Europe.
• The Holocaust is over and the death camps are
  emptied.
• SS guards moved camps to prevent their
  liberation.
• Moved by train or forced marches (Death Marches)
• Many survivors are placed in displaced persons
  facilities led by the Allies.
• An International Military Tribunal (Judicial
  Assembly) is created by Britain, France, the
  United States and the Soviet Union.
• At Nuremburg, Nazi leaders are tried for war
  crimes by the Judicial Assembly
• The guilty verdict in the Nuremberg trials
  declared that people are always responsible for
  their own actions no matter what.

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1947

• Where did DP go after 1957?
• The United Nations establishes a Jewish homeland
  in British controlled Palestine, which becomes
  the state of Israel in 1948.
• Emigrated to America and other countries