Chapter 16: World War Looms Section 3: The Holocaust

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Chapter 16World War LoomsSection 3The
Holocaust
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Standards

• 11.7.5
• Discuss the constitutional issues and impact of
  events on the U.S. home front, including the
  response of the administration to Hitler's
  atrocities against Jews and other groups.

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Objectives

• Following lecture and reading of this section,
  students will be able to
• Explain the reasons behind the Nazis persecution
  of Jews and the problems facing Jewish refugees
• Describe the Nazis Final Solution to the
  Jewish problem and the horrors of the Holocaust
• Identify and describe the profound and lasting
  effects of the Holocaust on surviviors

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Overview

• During the Holocaust, the Nazis systematically
  executed 6 million Jews and 5 million other
  non-Aryans.
• 11 million people total killed
• Millions other imprisoned in work camps

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Jews Targeted

• Hitler ordered all non-Aryans to be removed
  from government jobs (1933)
• Europe has long history of anti-Semitism
• Hatred of Jews
• Hitler claimed Jews were the cause of the
  failures of Germanys economy and loss of WWI
• Germans believe Hitlers claims, blame Jews for
  problems
• Genocide-systematic extermination of a group

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Kristallnacht

• Nuremburg Laws
• Nazis take away from Jews
• Citizenship
• Jobs
• Property
• Require all Jews to wear Star of David (yellow)
• Kristallnacht (11/9/38)-Nazis attacked Jewish
  homes, businesses, synagogues
• About 100 Jews killed, hundreds injured, 30,000
  arrested
• Goal get Jews to leave
• Jews blamed for destroying their own property

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A Flood of Jewish Refugees

• 1938, Nazis try to speed up Jewish emigration
• Jews cannot find any nations to take them.
• France takes 40,000 refugees, Britain takes
  80,000 30,000 in Palestine both refuse more
• U.S. takes 100,000 persons of exceptional merit
  as refugees
• Americans feared economic strain of refugees,
  entrance of enemy agents anti-Semitism developed

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The Plight of the St. Louis

• The St. Louis was a Jewish ocean liner
• Headed for U.S.
• Full of Jewish refugees from Germany
• Coast Guard prevented passengers on St. Louis
  from disembarking
• Would not let the Jews into America
• Ship forced to return to Europe most passengers
  killed in Holocaust

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The Condemned

• Hitlers Final Solution
• Slavery
• Genocide of inferior groups
• Genocide- deliberate, systematic killing of an
  entire population
• Nazi death squads rounded up Jews shot them (SS)

• Targeted
• Jews
• Gypsies
• Freemasons
• Jehovahs Witnesses
• unfit Germans
• Homosexuals
• Mentally retarded

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Forced Relocation

• Jews were forced into ghettos
• segregated areas in Polish cities
• Inside the ghettos, some formed resistance
  movements
• Underground newspapers
• Others maintain Jewish culture
• Education
• Theater
• Music

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Concentration Camps

• Many Jews taken to concentration camps, or labor
  camps
• Families often were separated
• Camps were originally prisons
• Camps were given to SS to warehouse
  undesirables
• Prisoners crammed into wooden barracks, given
  little food, most died
• Worked dawn to dusk, 7 days per week
• Those too weak to work are killed

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Mass Exterminations

• Germans built death camps gas chambers used to
  kill thousands
• On arrival, SS doctors separated those who could
  or could not work
• Those who cant work immediately killed in gas
  chamber
• At first bodies buried in pits
• Later cremated to cover up evidence
• Some are shot, hanged, poisoned, or die from
  experiments

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The Survivors

• About 6 million Jews killed in death camps,
  massacres
• Some escape, many with help from ordinary people
• Some survive concentration camps
• Survivors forever changed by experience