The greatest crime in the history of the world

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The greatest crime in the history of the world

• Why is it so important to remember the Holocaust?

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Meanings
Freedom through work

• Holocaust means destruction by fire
• Jews prefer term Shoah meaning calamity
• Anti-Semitism
• Concentration camp
• 1942-45 Nazis exterminated 6 million Jews
  100,000s gypsies, trade unionists, deviants

Arriving at Auschwitz
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Beginnings
Luther

• 1290, all Jews expelled from England
• 1543, Martin Luther, On the Jews and Their Lies
• 1881, Tsar Alexander II assassinated, riots
  burning of synagogues

Tsar Alexander II
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Nazi anti-Semitism
Click here to find out what Hitler thought about
Jewish people

• Hitlers personal hatred Jews
• Treaty of Versailles
• Fear of communism

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Nazi anti-Semitism

• 1933, Jews excluded from civil service
  education
• 1935, Nuremberg Laws
• 1938, Kristallnacht
• 1940, Warsaw Ghetto
• 1942, Final Solution

A Jewish shopkeeper clears up after the horrors
of Kristallnacht
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? Your task
Source

• Read the account of Dora Volkel, a Jewish woman
  who experienced the horrors of Auschwitz at first
  hand.
• What does the source tell us about the attitudes
  of the Jewish people in the camp the Nazi
  guards?

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Allied reactions

• 1942, British American governments received
  reports of concentration camps
• Reports from journalists, e.g. Martin Gilbert

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Why do you think the Allies did so little to help
Jewish people during the War?
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German reactions

• Nazis controlled media
• Public fear of speaking out
• Disbelief in extermination policy
• Ignorance

Click here to find out what Albert Speer knew
about the death camps
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Remembering

• 1945, Allies liberated camps
• Germans forced to visit
• 1948, UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights

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What rights do you think the UN included in its
Declaration?
Click here for some examples
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Remembering

• Museums, e.g. Auschwitz Dachau
• Spiro Institute
• Books, Diary of Anne Frank
• Films, Schindlers List

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? Your task

• Draw a Star of David in your books or on your
  computer. Inside the star write down as many
  reasons as you can why it is important to
  remember the Holocaust. Your stars will form the
  basis of a Wall of Remembrance we create after
  this Focus Day.

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? Your task

• Write a letter to one of the survivors of the
  Holocaust explaining that you have just studied
  the Holocaust at school. Include the following
• what you know and understand about the Holocaust
• how you feel about the Holocaust
• why we should remember the Holocaust

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Hitlers views on Jews

• The aim of Jews is the complete destruction of
  the German Reich and the spread of revolution.
• The whole of Germany is governed by Jews. The
  Jew sits in government and swindles and smuggles.
  Therefore, Germans be united and fight against
  the Jews, because they will gobble up our last
  crumbs.

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Albert Speer on the death camps

• People have often asked me what I knew about
  the extermination of the Jews. As armaments
  minister I really only concerned myself with
  armaments and was isolated from what else was
  going on. But that is really only an excuse. I
  did not know exactly what was going on at the
  camps, but I have worked it out from the little I
  did know. I should have done. No apologies are
  possible.

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Freedom through work
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Arriving at Auschwitz
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UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights

• Article 3
• Everyone has the right to life, liberty
  security of person
• Article 5
• No one shall be subjected to torture or to
  cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or
  punishment