Transcript The Holocaust - Martin Luther Church

The Holocaust
1933-1945
Why?
 Hitler considered Jews an “internal
enemy”
 Felt they did not support Germany in
WWI
 Hitler wanted a “pure” Germany
 Belief in the superiority of the Aryan
Race
Who
 Who?
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Jews
Slavs
Roma
Disabled and Mentally ill
Homosexuals
Freemasons and Jehovah’s Witnesses
Political activists
Christians
What?
 Jews removed from society
 Lost jobs
 Forbidden to own farms
 Lawyers were disbarred
 Newspaper editors
 Excluded from schools and universities
 Nuremberg Laws
 Lost their citizenship
 Lost all civil rights
Cont.
 Kristallnacht – Night of broken glass
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Nov. 9, 1938
Jews attacked and property vandalized
100 killed, 30,000 sent to camps
Shops and synagogues destroyed
 Madagascar Plan
 Move all Jews to island of Madagascar
 Was not carried out
Concentration Camps
 Auschwitz
 Largest of the camps
 Located in Poland
 1.1-1.6 million deaths
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Gas chambers
Starvation
Forced labor
Disease
Executions
Medical experiments
Medical Experiments
 Used human subjects
 Pressure chambers – study effect of high
and low air pressure on humans
 Drug testing
 Effects of freezing/cold temperatures
 Attempted to change children’s eye color
by injecting chemicals into eyes
 Amputations
 Other surgeries – including at least 1
attempt to “create” Siamese twins
Total Deaths
6 million Jews
2-3 million Slavs
2 million Poles
100,000-200,000 Romas
100,000 Mentally ill
10,000 homosexuals, 1000s more were
“rehabilitated”
 Freemasons and Jehovah’s Witnesses
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 80,000-200,000
 Political activists – unknown
 5 million Christians
 Total – 15-16 million people
People Responsible
 Hitler
 Heinrich Himmler
 Oversaw camps and death squads
 Committed suicide after being arrested
 Ernst Kaltenbrunner
 Highest ranking SS leader to face trial
 Adolf Eichmann
 “the architect of the Holocaust”
 Was in charge of transportation of Jews
 Fled to Argentina after war – Israeli agents
tracked him down and arrested him
 Tried, convicted, and hanged for 15 criminal
charges
Claims that it did not happen
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Nazis had no official policy on exterminating Jews
Nazis did not use gas chambers
5-6 million deaths is “grossly” exaggerated
Survivor testimonies are filled with incosistencies
Nazi confessions extracted through torture
Documentary evidence is fabricated
Stories were a myth created by Allies to “de monize”
Germans
Treatment of Jews no different than what Allies did to their
enemies
 “The Holocaust — the alleged extermination of some
six million Jews (most of them by gassing) — is a
hoax and should be recognized as such by Christians
and all informed, honest and truthful men
everywhere."
Proof it did happen
Written documents
Eyewitness testimony
Photographs
The camps themselves
Inferential evidence – if they were not
killed, where did they go?
 Holocaust denial is illegal in 13
countries
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Auschwitz
Auschwitz
Auschwitz