Transcript 1939-1945 - Thompson Falls Schools

The Holocaust
◦ Murder program which called for the systematic
killing mentally and physically disabled patients
living in institutions
◦ First mass-murder that pre-dated the genocide of
European Jewry
◦ Aimed to eliminate “life unworthy of life”
◦ severe psychiatric, neurological, or physical
disabilities represented at once a genetic and a
financial burden upon German society and the state
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August 1939: doctors, nurses & midwives
compelled to report any newborn infants and
children under the age of 3 who showed signs of
severe mental or physical disability
October 1939: parents of children with
disabilities encouraged to admit their children to
a specially designated pediatric clinics
◦ Killing wards with specially recruited medical staff
murdered their young children by lethal overdoses of
medication or by starvation
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Scope widened from infants & toddlers to up to
17 years old
Estimates of at least 5,000 perished as a result of
this program
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Fall 1939 killing program extended to adults with
disabilities living in institutions
Hitler signed a secret authorization which
protected participating physicians, medical staff
and administrators from prosecution
Code named “T4”
Sent questionnaire to all public health officials,
public and private hospitals, mental institutions
and nursing home under the guise of gathering
statistical information
Beginning January 1940, selected patients for the
euthanasia program were removed and
transported to one of the central gassing
installations for killing
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Within hours of arrival the victims perished in
specially designed gas chambers, disguised as
shower facilities, using pure carbon monoxide
gas
Bodies were then burned in crematoriums
Ashes were sent back to families along with
fictitious causes of death (natural death being
very common)
Secret program became public and protests
ensued causing a halt to the program in August
1941
Estimated 70,273 died at the six gassing centers
between January 1940 and August 1941
Adolf Hitler's authorization for the Euthanasia Program (Operation
T4), signed in October 1939 but dated September 1, 1939.
Oral history
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Second Phase
◦ Continued on a more concealed manner
◦ Drug overdose & lethal injection
◦ Many adults & children were starved to death
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Program extended until end of the war
◦ Expanded range of victims: geriatric patients,
bombing victims, foreign forced laborers
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Historians estimate that the “Euthanasia”
Program in all its phases claimed the lives of
200,000 individuals
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Outside Germany others were killed due to
being designated “life unworthy of life”
Killing carried out by SS and police forces
Mass killings, mobile gas vans
Seen as a rehearsal for subsequent genocidal
policies
P. 60
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Policy in Poland to subdue the people then
intensify the terror
“Poles will become slaves to the German Empire”
Daily executions throughout Poland of groups
perceived as being a threat: University
professors, politicians, clergy. WHY?
18% of all Polish priests were killed 1939-1945
◦ Chelmno-47.8%, Lodz-36.8%, Poznan-31.1%
◦ Within 4 months of German invasion 80% of priests in
one region were killed
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Polish children that were sufficiently
considered “German” were kidnapped and
sent to be raised by German families
SS doctors examine
Polish children judged
"racially valuable" for
adoption by Germans.
Poland, October 1942.
German officers examine Polish
children to determine whether they
qualify as "Aryan." Poland, wartime.
Polish babies, chosen for their "Aryan"
features, to be adopted and raised as
ethnic Germans. Poland, wartime.
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Gypsies (Roma): exterminated to prevent racial
mixing
Jehovah’s Witnesses: would not enlist in army,
participate in air-raid drills, or give up meetings,
would not salute Hitler. They were “voluntary
prisoners” – would be freed if they renounced
their faith
Homosexuals: against the law, identified by pink
triangles in camps. Seen as a threat to Aryan
breeding policy
Freemasons: secret fraternal order that did not
ban Jews. By 1935 all Masonic Lodges were
closed and/or destroyed
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The term “ghetto” originated from the name
of the Jewish quarter in Venice established in
1516
During WWI Ghettos were city districts in
which the Germans concentrated the Jewish
population and forced them to live under
miserable conditions
There were at least1,000 ghettos in German
controlled Poland and the Soviet Union
First ghetto established in October 1939
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Ghettos segregated and controlled the Jewish
population as the Nazi leadership deliberated
over options to realize the goal of removing
the Jewish population
Some lasted a few days, others for months or
years
Largest ghetto – Warsaw ghetto, 400,000 in
1.3 square miles
Map of Ghettos
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Types of ghettos
◦ Closed
 (situated primarily in German-occupied Poland and the
occupied Soviet Union) were closed off by walls, or by
fences with barbed wire
 large number of Jews living in the surrounding areas
to move into the closed ghetto, thus exacerbating the
extremely crowded and unsanitary conditions.
Starvation, chronic shortages, severe winter weather,
inadequate and unheated housing, and the absence of
adequate municipal services led to repeated outbreaks
of epidemics and to a high mortality rate.
 Most ghettos were of this type.
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Open ghettos
◦ had no walls or fences, but there were restrictions
on entering and leaving.
◦ These existed in German-occupied Poland and the
occupied Soviet Union
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Destruction ghettos
◦ were tightly sealed off and existed for between two
and six weeks before the Germans and/or their
collaborators deported or shot the Jewish
population concentrated in them.
◦ These existed in German-occupied Soviet Union
(especially in Lithuania and the Ukraine), as well as
Hungary
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Ghettos became holding pens
Jewish labor was exploited, goods and property were
confiscated
Ghetto life was one of squalor, disease, and despair
10-15 people lived in spaces that previously housed 4
Daily calorie allotments rarely exceeded 1100 (even with
smuggling)
Summer 1942 Germans began liquidating the ghettos.
Within 18 months almost all ghettos of Poland were
emptied
Late summer 1944 nearly 3 million Jews had been
transported to concentration camps and killing centers
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ABRAHAM LEWENT
BENO HELMER
BLANKA ROTHSCHILD
JUDITH MEISEL
LEOPOLD PAGE
LEAH HAMMERSTEIN SILVERSTEIN
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One of the largest pre-war Jewish populations
375,000 or 30% of city’s total population
November 1940 became a closed ghetto
Germans practiced “clean violence” – death by
starvation
In 1941 nearly 1 in 10 ghetto residents died of
starvation – 43,000
Orphanage run by Janusz Korczak. August 6,
1942 the Germans lined the 192 children up in
rows of 4. Silently the children waited to board
the trains. Korczak was offered a way to avoid
the trains-he refused. He and the children were
taken to Treblinka and gassed
Polish civilians walk by a section of the wall that
separated the Warsaw ghetto from the rest of the
city. Warsaw, Poland, 1940–1941
The type of "Aryan" identification card which
Vladka Meed had used from 1940–1942 on the
Aryan side of Warsaw, smuggling arms to Jewish
fighters and helping Jews escape from the ghetto.
Ethel was born to a Jewish family living in Warsaw. When she was 9,
her family moved to the town of Mogielnica, about 40 miles southwest
of Warsaw. Ethel's father spent much of his time studying religious
texts. His wife managed the family liquor store. Ethel attended public
school during the day and was tutored in religious studies in the
evening.
Ethel Stern
Born: Warsaw,
Poland
1919
1933-39: Ethel had always wanted to be a teacher. At age 14, after
attending religious school in Lodz, she began to teach in the town of
Kalisz, where her brother lived. There she was introduced by a
matchmaker to Zalman Brokman, who first asked his rabbi and then
Ethel's father for permission to marry her. In March 1939 they were
married. When war began in September, Ethel returned to Mogielnica,
six months pregnant.
1940-44: Ethel gave birth to a baby boy in January 1940 in Warsaw. By
November, the Jews in Warsaw were confined to a ghetto. Ethel's
husband traded gold pieces for food and goods. When mass
deportations began in late 1942, those with sewing machines were
allowed to remain in a factory to sew military garments, so Ethel's
husband bought two machines. Ethel worked at the factory until it was
liquidated in 1943.
In May 1943 the garment factory workers were deported to the
Trawniki labor camp near Lublin. Ethel was never heard from again.
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Roundup in the ghetto link
Lack of burial for the corpses link
Conditions in the ghetto link
Film footage conditions film 2
After the Germans established the Warsaw ghetto in October 1940, conditions deteriorated rapidly. The
Germans strictly controlled the movement of goods into and out of the ghetto. There was not enough food
to feed the ghetto residents. At great personal risk, many Jews attempted to smuggle in food. The German
food ration for Warsaw ghetto inhabitants amounted to less than 10 percent of the ration for a German
citizen. Thousands of Jew died in Warsaw each month because of starvation or disease.
The Nazis sealed the Warsaw ghetto in mid-November 1940. German-induced overcrowding and food shortages
led to an extremely high mortality rate in the ghetto. Almost 30 percent of the population of Warsaw was packed
into 2.4 percent of the city's area. The Germans set a food ration for Jews at just 181 calories a day. By August
1941, more than 5,000 people a month succumbed to starvation and disease.
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Industrial center of Poland
Jews were 1/3 of the Lodz population
Ghetto was sealed in April 1940, 164,000
Jews lived in 48,100 rooms most without
running water or sewer connections
In operation until 1944, longest running of all
the ghettos
A German postcard showing the entrance to the
Lodz ghetto. The sign reads "Jewish residential
area—entry forbidden." Lodz, Poland, 1940-1941
Jews deported to the Lodz ghetto.
Poland, 1941 or 1942
German police raid a vandalized Jewish home in
the Lodz ghetto. Lodz, Poland, ca. 1942
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Lodz had a group of journalists and
historians who formally recorded the details
of ghetto life
Kovno had several photographic chroniclers
Personal diaries and journals
Photograph taken by George Kadish: a member of
the Kovno ghetto underground hides supplies in a
well used as the entrance to a hiding place in the
ghetto. Kovno, Lithuania, 1942.
One of the two milk cans in which portions of the
Ringelblum Oneg Shabbat archives were hidden
and buried in the Warsaw ghetto.
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Germany invaded the Soviet Union
Advanced to the outskirts of Moscow
Fighting a war on 2 fronts
Saw the Slavs as inferior to the German Aryan
race – made the killing of these inferior races
essential
Turning point of the Holocaust
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Mobile killing units that traveled with the German
Army, 13,000 men
They were a unit of the SS and police
In the Soviet Union their assignment was to
murder those perceived to be racial or political
enemies behind German combat lines in the
occupied Soviet Union
At first the Einsatzgruppen shot primarily Jewish
men. By late summer 1941, however, wherever
the Einsatzgruppen went, they shot Jewish men,
women, and children without regard for age or
sex, and buried them in mass graves.
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Locals helped identify Jews to the
Einsatzgruppen
Jews were marched or transported by truck to
the execution site, where trenches had been
prepared. In some cases the captive victims
had to dig their own graves.
After the victims had handed over their
valuables and undressed, men, women, and
children were shot, either standing before the
open trench, or lying face down in the
prepared pit
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Shooting was the most common form of
killing
The psychological burden that mass
shootings produced on the men prompted
the Germans to find a more convenient mode
Gas vans – enclosed cargo van that piped the
carbon monoxide from the van’s exhaust into
the sealed cargo area, killing all inside
By spring 1943 they had killed over 1 million
Soviet Jews
Mobile units proved inefficient and
psychologically burdensome to the killers
Killing centers created
Members of an Einsatzkommando
(mobile killing squad) before
shooting a Jewish youth. The boy's
murdered family lies in front of him;
the men to the left are ethnic
Germans aiding the squad. Slarow,
Soviet Union, July 4, 1941
Over one thousand Jews from
the Ukrainian town of Lubny,
ordered to assemble for
"resettlement," in an open
field before they were
massacred by
Einsatzgruppen. Lubny,
Soviet Union, October 16,
1941.
Roundup of the Jews of Lubny,
shortly before they were massacred
by Einsatzgruppe detachments.
This photo, originally in color, was
part of a series taken by a German
military photographer. Copies from
this collection were later used as
evidence in war crimes trials.
Lubny, Soviet Union, October 16,
1941.
Ukrainian Jews who were forced to
undress before they were massacred
by Einsatzgruppe detachments. This
photo, originally in color, was part of
a series taken by a German military
photographer. Copies from this
collection were later used as
evidence in war crimes trials. Lubny,
Soviet Union, October 16, 1941
Jewish men and boys await their extermination in an
athletic field near Lomazy in August 18, 1942. They were
marched from this place for about 1000 yds (into the
woods) where 50 or so Jews had been forced to dig a large
pit earlier in the day. 1600 Jews were shot this day and
details of them being tortured and brutalized while being
murdered are documented. The pit filled with water (being
below the waterline) and many died from suffocation and
drowning as the heap of bodies above them forced them
downwards.
Einsatzkommandos lining women & children after having
them undress. Notice pregnant woman to the right. No
one, not even infants & children were spared. The
extreme antisemitism of the German's dictated the
doctrine that Jewish women and children must be
destroyed because they represented the future of
European Jewry. This action took place on the outskirts of
the Mizoc Ghetto on October 14, 1942
Afterwards. After being made to lie down, each person was
shot in the neck at the base of the head. Notice adults
shielding their children. During roundups, any Jew unable for
any reason not to show up in the market place or designated
assembly area was shot onsite. Any Jew found after a
roundup action was immediately shot In the beginning,
graves were not even dug, natural pits and depressions in
the earth were used and the burial detail was left for the
locals to handle. Most non-Jewish locals were anti-Semitic to
the point that they helped the Germans. Anti-semitism had
reached a boiling-point in Europe, and no where was it
worse than in Germany, Poland, the Ukraine & Lithuania.
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Map
Video
Oral history
Typical massacre as described by an
Einsatzgruppen commander: “The Einsatz unit
would enter a village or town and order the
prominent Jewish citizens to call together all
Jews for the purpose of “resettlement”. They
were requested to hand over their valuables and
shortly before execution to surrender their outer
clothing. They were transported to the place of
executions, usually an antitank ditch, in trucksalways only as many as could be executed
immediately….Then they were shot, kneeling or
standing….and the corpses thrown into the
ditch.”
From a survivor: “I saw them do the killing. At 5:00 pm they
gave the command “Fill the pits.” Screams and groans were
coming from the pits. Suddenly I saw my neighbor Ruderman
rise from under the soil….His eyes were bloody and he was
screaming: “Finish me off!”…..A murdered woman lay at my
feet. A boy of five years crawled out from under her body and
began to scream desperately, “Mommy!” That was all I say
since I fell unconscious.”
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Historians are divided about their motivations
◦ One…they are ordinary men in extraordinary
circumstances who gradually overcame their moral
inhibitions
◦ Two….they are Germans who became willing
executioners, sharing in the same vision of
exterminationist anti-Semitism
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What do you think?
Either way – they chose to become killers
either willingly or reluctantly
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One leader claims “he never permitted the
shooting of individuals but ordered that several
of the men should shoot at the same time in
order to avoid direct personal responsibility”
Others “demanded the victims lie down flat on
the ground to be shot through the nape of the
neck”
◦ When asked why “It was psychologically an immense
burden to bear”
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Heavy drinking was common among the men of
Einsatzgruppen
To relieve this psychological burden on the men,
killing centers were created
1.2 millions Jews were killed by the
Einsatzgruppen one by one
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Sept 1941 the city of Kiev was under Nazi
control. An order was issued to kill all the
Jews in Kiev
Remaining Jews (about 60,000) were marched
to the Babi Yar Ravine and executed
This was one of the largest mass murders at
an individual location during World War II
33,771 Jews were massacred in two days
In the months following the massacre over
100,000 were killed at Babi Yar
Map
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P. 97 witness
P. 98 survivor
August 1943 in the face of defeat by the
Soviets, the mass graves at Babi Yar were dug
up and the bodies burned in an attempt to
get rid of the evidence of mass murder
Work was done by concentration camp
workers. After more than a month of digging
and burning – the workers were killed. 25
escaped and 15 survived to tell the story
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No monument or headstone was erected at
the site of the massacre until 1974 with no
victim names nor was the word Jew used on
the memorial
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January 20, 1942
15 high ranking Nazi officials meet in
Wansee, a suburb of Berlin
SS General Reinhard Heydrich, SS Lieutenant
Colonel Adolf Eichmann,
Purpose: Discuss & coordinate the
implementation of what they called “The Final
Solution of the Jewish Question”
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Code name for the systematic, deliberate,
physical annihilation of the European Jews
Authorized by Hitler sometime in 1941
Heydrich convened conference not to
deliberate whether such a plan should be
undertaken, but instead discussed the
implementation of a policy decision that had
already been made at the highest level of the
Nazi regime
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Objectives of meeting:
◦ (1) to inform and secure support from government
ministries and other interested agencies relevant to
the implementation of the “Final Solution”
◦ (2) to disclose to the participants that Hitler himself
had tasked Heydrich and the RSHA with
coordinating the operation
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None of the officials present at the meeting
objected to the Final Solution policy that
Heydrich announced.
Heydrich indicated that approximately
11,000,000 Jews in Europe would fall under
the provisions of the "Final Solution"