Transcript Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust

Anti-Semitism and the
Holocaust
“First, they said we cannot live among them
as Jews…
Next, they said we cannot live among
them…
Finally, they said we cannot live.”
We must always remember…
we must never forget…
Roots of Anti-Semitism

Ancient
– Between 1200 – 1400 BCE; biblical; Diaspora

Medieval
– Jews scattered throughout former Roman Empire
– Played a key economic role
– Used as a scapegoat

Modern – many issues in the present-day
– Wilhelm Marr aka “Mr. Anti-Semitism”
 Coined the term in 1879
– Hitler used the already deep-seeded anti-Semitism and
put a race dimension to it “defined by biology”
Hilberg’s Steps

According to historian Dr. Raul Hilberg, there
were five steps used for Jewish destruction:
– 1. Definition: determine and define the target
group
– 2. Expropriation: take away their livelihood
– 3. Concentration: place the target group in a
centralized location
– 4. Slave labor: force them to work without
pay
– 5. Annihilation: kill and destroy the entire
group
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/08/07/us/07hilberg.190.jpg
Laws and Actions Against Jews

Nazi Book Burning
– May 10, 1933
– Burned “unsuitable”
books
1933, Jews banned from
certain jobs
 Nuremberg Laws aka
“Law for the Protection of
German Blood and
Honor,” 1935:

– Jews could not be
German citizens or vote
– ID cards (before yellow
stars)
– Children prevented from
going to public school
http://media-2.web.britannica.com/eb-media/41/67841-004-21BD0894.jpg
Laws and Actions Against Jews



1. Germany – over 400 regulations
against Jews; violence
2. Austria – Jews targeted; beaten,
humiliated, riots
3. Poland – Hitler saw the 3 million
Jewish Poles as the worst:
– Himmler’s idea: limit their education
and kill intellectuals
 “sort out those with valuable blood and
those with worthless blood” (“survival
of the fittest”)

http://history1900s.about.com/library/holocaust/blpkrakow27.htm
4. Children: 1.5 million kids killed
during the Holocaust
– first had restrictions (no swimming
pools, school, rationed)
– had to help parents (ex: smuggling in
food)
Evian Conference, 1938

Significance:
– 1. Called to address the Jewish refugee problem
– 2. Hitler willing to let Jews go to other countries
– 3. World shut out the Jews
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/stlouis.html
Kristallnacht

Night of the Broken
Glass, November 9/10,
1938:
– October 27, 1938  Hitler
expelled 18,000 Jews from
Germany
– Son of a victim took
revenge by killing a
German
– Murder sparked a rumor
about a Jewish-takeover

http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/holocaust/essaypics/kristallnacht.jpg
Result: night of violence
against Jews across
Germany
– destruction of stores,
synagogues, people
arrested/killed
http://www.amuseum.org/shoah/brokewin.jpg
The “Final Solution”

July 1941, the “Final
Solution” to the “Jewish
Question”:
– Reinhard Heydrich (and Adolf
Eichmann); Wannsee
Conference
– earlier thought of creating
ghettos (walled-in
neighborhoods)
 exterminated through
killings or deportations
– planned to annihilate 11
million Jews
 development of Auschwitz
and Treblinka
 Dachau the first
Concentration Camp (1933)
 1941 – mass usage of camps
Development of Gas Chambers

Einstazgruppen (mobile
killing units) did mass
shootings
– ex: Babi Yar

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http://www.sephardicstudies.org/images/auschw-crematorium-gas-chamber.jpg
Himmler (head of killing
orders) appalled by
mistakes at shootings 
led to mobile gas units
Zyklon B – pellets that
gave off cyanide fumes;
rat poison/disinfectant;
used in gas chambers in
Camps
Concentration Camps

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Selection process
Meals: watered-down
soup and 1 ounce of
bread
Lodging: barracks;
800/barrack; many to a
bed (planks of wood); no
pillow and 1 cover (thin
sheet)
After gassed, bodies
burned and buried
http://history1900s.about.com/library/holocaust/blmajdanek1.htm
http://history1900s.about.com/library/holocaust/blbergenbelsen1.htm
A Picture is Worth a Thousand
Words…
http://history1900s.about.com/library/holocaust/blpictures.htm
Acts of Resistance


3 kinds: active armed, passive unarmed, spiritual
1. Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (April and May 1943)
– Led by Mordecai Anielwicz
– Held Nazis for 28 days
2. First death camp rebellion  Treblinka, August 2,
1943
 3. Warsaw Uprising  Act of resistance; August 1, 1944

– Lasted 63 days (surrendered October 2, 1944); 250,000 killed

4. Auschwitz-Birkenau revolt, October 6, 1944
– Ala Gertner (one of the revolt organizers) 
http://www.alabamaholocaustcommission.org/images/AHCpic08518.jpg
Righteous Gentiles

Oskar Schindler
Raoul Wallenberg
Righteous Gentiles 
those who helped Jews
(rescued, hid, gave false
papers, employed, etc.)
– Righteous criteria: act on
own discretion; in
territories under German or
German collaborating
control; at risk to
themselves; without
reward or precondition;
substantiated by survivor
testimony or documents
– 17,433 recognized
Righteous Gentiles as of
January 1, 2000
And It Comes to an End…

Who knew what…………………..?
– Many key leaders and reporters knew, but….
 ignored evidence and information
 refused to publish/broadcast information because
it was “too upsetting” and “could not be
corroborated”

Camps Liberated by the Allies
– Soldiers could not believe what they saw

Send to Displaced Persons’ Camps
– Relocated to start over (America, Israel, etc.)
Nuremberg Trial

Nuremberg Trial, November 20, 1945; Significance:
– 22 high-ranking Nazis investigated for war crimes
– conducted by joint American, British, French, and Russian military
tribunal
– 4-count indictment including conspiracy, crimes against peace, war
crimes, and crimes against humanity (like murder, extermination,
enslavement, persecution on political and/or racial grounds, involuntary
deportment, and inhumane acts against civilians)
– 7 given lengthy prison terms, 3 acquitted, rest sentenced to death by
hanging (hung October 16, 1946)
– 12 other Nuremberg Trials from 1946-1949; most pardoned