Transcript Facing the Holocaust

Facing the Holocaust:
Why Genocide?
The Aftermath of World War I:
A Devastated Germany
German citizens experiencing economic troubles – c. 1925
German Pride Suffers
Loss of WWI was a shock to
Germans – promised victory by
government
Severe terms of Treaty of
Versailles were hard for Germans
to accept
Money worthless – one billion
marks to equal one dollar
Hitler’s Early Years
Portrait of Adolph Hitler entitled “Our Leader”
Hitler’s Early Years
 Close to mother – she died of cancer in
1907, he blamed her Jewish doctor
 Chose the swastika as the Nazi symbol
 Said that Jews were responsible for the
defeat in WWI because they didn’t fight
for Germany – untrue – German Jews had
casualty rate 11 times higher than general
population
 Blamed economy on Jews – Jewish
businessmen prolonged the war so they
could profit from it
Hitler Rises to Power
Head of the S.S. –
Heinrich Himmler
S.S. Chief –
Viktor Lutze
Deputy Fuhrer –
Rudolf Hess
Nazi Ideology Permeates German Society
Nazi Propaganda
 Used posters, movies, rallies, and
organizations to spread idea of superiority
of German race; Jews seen as “impure”
 All newspapers had to support Nazis
 Foreign papers banned
 Textbooks rewritten
 Children’s stories taught the dangers of
Jews – “Trust No Fox and No Jew”
 Board games had Jewish monsters that
attacked German children
Jews are Isolated and Attacked
"The Jew: He instigates war, he extends war.”
Anti-Semitic Propaganda
 Jews were pictured as dark-haired, fat, and evil.
They were often depicted as rats or insects.
 Hitler ordered “good” Germans to boycott
Jewish businesses
 Nuremburg laws – systematically stripped Jews
of rights – weren’t allowed to marry Germans,
they weren’t citizens, their property was taken
away, and they were restricted from public
places
 Required to wear yellow Stars of David on their
clothing
 Jews provided a rationale, in Hitler’s mind, for
his military invasions
Attacks on Jews Escalate
Damaged storefront after Kristallnacht
Kristallnacht
 Said to be in retaliation for assassination of
a German embassy official in Paris by a
Jewish student
 Jews forced to pay for the damage
($400,000,000)
 Germans portrayed as “spontaneous,” but it
was planned for weeks
 Many Jews realized they weren’t safe and
fled to places like Britain, Palestine,
Canada, and the U.S.
Jews Are Forced into Ghettos and Camps
Captive Jewish boy from the Warsaw Ghetto marches off in 1943
Jews Pushed into Ghettos
 Jews were sent to live in sealed-off areas
called ghettos. Conditions were unsanitary
and crowded; executions were common
 Ghettos were temporary housing until
extermination could begin
 By 1939, Jews from northern and western
Europe were moved to ghettos in eastern
Europe
 Jews tried to revolt, but none were
successful
The Horrors of Concentration Camps
Prisoners at work at Dachau, 10 miles outside Munich, Germany
Concentration Camps Established
 First camp established at Dachau in 1933
 Inmates were used to support the war
industry
 Workers were starved, tortured, worked to
death, and, most often, murdered
 Nazi doctors used Jews for human
experimentation
 Conditions at the camps varied, but killings
occurred at all camps
 Auschwitz-Birkenau was designed as a death
camp
 Physicians would examine prisoners and
decide who could work. Young children
were usually sent to death because they
could not work.
 Belongings were seized and sold by the
Germans – watches were sent to German
troops, gold from teeth was melted into bars,
hair was cut and used to make mattresses
 Performed physical labor, like mining –
period of three months – deprived of
necessities, many died while working
Resistance in the Camps
Ella Gärtner and Róza Robota, two women who
took part in the Auschwitz Revolt. Both were killed
for their involvement.
Resistance in the Camps
Resistance was difficult in the
camps
Civilians in surrounding areas were
subject to death with no trial for
assisting a prisoner
Prisoners who attempted resistance
were always executed
Many prisoners engaged in acts of
resistance
The “Final Solution”
Crematoriums used to burn bodies in a concentration camp
The Systemization of Killing
 According to Hitler, the “Final
Solution,” the extermination of all
Jewish people, would restore
Germany’s greatness
 At the beginning, Jews were executed
in mass shootings – rounded up,
transported to a ditch, and shot in
groups of 500
 Decided this wasn’t an efficient system
– decided to construct death camps
Arrival at Auschwitz
 Prisoners separated into two groups:
workers, and those to be killed
 Those to be killed were told they needed to
bathe and were led to gas chambers that
looked like bath houses – could hold 3,000 at
a time
 They were told to fold their clothes and
remember where they put them and given
towels and bars of soap
 Once locked inside, Cyclon B was used to
asphyxiate them
Special units of prisoners removed
the bodies
Taken to crematoriums, where the
bodies were burned – Nazis wanted
it to be impossible for someone in
the future to determine the number
of deaths
In the end, 6 million Jews and 4-6
million non-Jewish civilians, such
as Gypsies, handicapped, and
homosexuals, were killed
Liberation
Dachau prisoners cheer the liberating U.S. Army
Attempt to Hide Atrocities
 At the end of the war, Hitler was determined
to continue his killing of the Jews and cover
up evidence.
 Several thousand prisoners were killed in the
last days.
 In some cases, Nazis had altered camps, but
in many, the remains of bodies were left in
ovens and the killing process could be seen.
 The Allied nations all made films of what
they found in the concentration camps.
The Nuremberg Trials
 Trials were a part of an aim to establish a
record of what the Nazis did during the war
and to punish individuals who were
involved.
 Many Nazi records were captured, so there
was plenty of evidence, like minutes from
meetings, photographs, and film.
 22 were tried – 12 sentenced to death, 3 to
life in prison, 4 to lesser terms, and 3 were
acquitted
Bodies of prisoners in the Buchenwald camp. The bodies were about to be
burned when the camp was captured by the U.S. Army.
Wedding rings of captured Jews
The arrival and processing of a transport of Jews
at Auschwitz-Birkenau, Poland in May 1944
Prisoners in their bunks at Dachau
German soldier killing a Jewish mother
and her child
A German policeman shoots Jewish women who
remain alive after a mass execution.
Mass grave in the Belsen camp
German soldiers torture a Jew in Poland
German soldiers cut off the beard of a Jew in Poland
Two Jewish pupils are humiliated before their
classmates. The inscription on the blackboard reads "The
Jew is our greatest enemy, beware of the Jew".
A synagogue burns in Siegen, Germany, on Kristallnacht
Children subjected to medical experiments in Auschwitz
Medical experiments in Dachau. In order to test how
pilots who have to eject from their planes will fare,
doctors simulated high-altitude conditions and
exposed people to these conditions. Many prisoners
died during such experiments.
The main entrance of Auschwitz Camp, with its
motto "Work Will Set You Free."
Jewish women - Some are holding infants as they are
forced to wait in a line before their execution.
At Dachau concentration camp, two U.S. soldiers
gaze at Jews who died on board a death train.
Dachau survivor on the day of liberation.
Dachau survivors on the day of liberation.
Chart of prisoner markings from Dachau
concentration camp
SS officer Eichelsdoerfer stands among the corpses of
prisoners killed in his camp
Interior of the barracks at Auschwitz
Corpses of women in Barrack 11 at Auschwitz
An American soldier stands above the corpses of
children that are to be buried in a mass grave
Two survivors lie among corpses on the straw-covered floor