Transcript Holocaust PowerPoint

What is the Holocaust?
ho·lo·caust noun
1 : a sacrifice consumed by fire,
2 : a thorough destruction especially by fire. (i.e. a
nuclear holocaust)
3 a often cap. : the mass slaughter of European civilians
and especially Jews by the Nazis during World War II -usually used with the b : a mass slaughter of people;
especially genocide.
The first two definitions explain the meaning of the word,
the third shows that it has become a proper noun in the
English language. So is that all there is to it? Of course not.
Beyond the mere definition
The Holocaust is generally regarded as the
systematic slaughter of not only 6 million
Jews, (two-thirds of the total European
Jewish population), but also 5 million
others. That is 11 million individuals
mercilessly killed by the Nazi regime in a
period of 11 years (1933-1945) due to
racism and hate.
I bet you are
wondering…
How could this happen?
Adolf hitler
dictator of germany
(1933-1945)
Looking for a Scapegoat
The Great Depression began in 1929 and
Germany was cast into even deeper poverty
than from the Treaty of Versailles and began
looking for a solution.
Adolf Hitler knew his opportunity had
arrived.
The rise of the Nazi party
• The Great Depression brought disunity to the
political parties in the Reichstag, Germany’s
parliament.
• With the economy in ruins, communism started to
appeal to many Germans.
• Hitler, being part of a workers’ party (or Nazi party),
was determined to return Germany to its former
glory, and therefore was extremely anti-communism.
• Hitler’s chief assets were his speech-making ability
and a keen sense of what the people wanted to hear,
which made him hugely popular among Germans.
• To prevent communism from rising to power, the
Nazis burned down the Reichstag and blamed it on
the Communists, which allowed Hitler to win the
1932 election by a landslide.
• In 1933, Hitler is sworn in as chancellor of Germany.
The Growth of Anti-Semitism
• Anti-Semitism is hostility toward or prejudice
against Jewish people, which can range from
individual hatred to institutionalized, violent
persecution.
• Hitler hated Jewish people because he saw
their successes where others had failed (like
the art school he got rejected from), and
therefore blamed them for the Great
Depression and for Germany’s economic
problems (rather than the Treaty of
Versailles).
Propaganda
Information, ideas, or rumors deliberately spread widely to help or
harm a person, group, movement, institution, nation, etc..
Illustration from a
children's book that
says, "Jews are our
misfortune" and "How
the Jew cheats."
Germany, 1936.
This cartoon shows a
Jew persecuting
women.
This demonstrates an Aryan
man conquering a Jew.
German
Propaganda:
“When you see this
symbol…”
"Remember what the
Jews have done to our
people. You must
ensure through your
behavior that Jewry
never again has even
the slightest influence
on our people."
Vienna, 1938:
A young boy is
forced to paint
"Jew" on the wall
of his father's
store.
1935: Jewish students are
made fun of by their class. The
writing on the blackboard says,
“The Jew is our greatest
enemy! Beware of the Jew!"
*Humiliation was a part of
the psychological warfare
that Nazis used against
Jews.
The Process
• Jewish people were forced to
wear the yellow Star of David
patches and were highly
persecuted by society.
• They were taken from their
homes to live in fenced,
disease-ridden ghettos (like
Warsaw).
• From the ghettos, they were
then shipped to concentration
camps in crowded railroad
cars for either forced labor or
extermination.
• Camps were designed to
eventually kill laborers
through disease & starvation.
Starting in 1933, the Nazis enforced persecution
against Jews. Firstly, they forbade Jews from holding
public office. In 1935, they enforced the Nuremberg
Laws, which took away from the Jewish their German
citizenship, their jobs, and also their property. To identify
the Jews, the Nazis forced the Jews to wear the yellow
Star of David. As a result, the Jews were heavily
discriminated against.
Kristallnacht: "Night of Broken Glass"
On November 7, 1938, a Jewish youth named
Herschel Grynszpan shot an employee of the German
Embassy in Paris to avenge his father's deportation,
which caused Nazi leaders to launch a violent attack
on the Jewish community, murdering 91 Jews and
deporting 30,000 Jewish men to concentration camps.
Jewish homes were ransacked, as were shops, towns
and villages, as SA Stormtroopers and civilians
destroyed buildings and synagogues with
sledgehammers, leaving the streets covered in pieces
of smashed windows—the origin of the name "Night of
Broken Glass." Kristallnacht became a big step-up in
the Nazi policy of Jewish persecution.
Concentration Camps
• The first Nazi camps were within Germany, and
were primarily labor camps.
• Millions of concentration camp prisoners were
killed through mistreatment, disease, starvation,
overwork, or executed as unfit for labor.
• The majority were killed in gas chambers and
crematoriums, although other means were used.
• The harsh conditions of the labor camps were
intended to eventually kill those who weren’t
selected to die in the death camps.
Map of the Concentration Camps
A view from the inside…
Jews waiting to be sorted into
groups (as laborers or to be
immediately executed).
Being herded to their deaths.
Typical sleeping
arrangements
within the camps.
These children were the victims
of cruel medical experiments
performed in the camps.
Twins were particularly targeted
for these brutal experiments.
The bodies of victims
carelessly stacked in a cart.
2000 prisoners a
week died from
starvation.
Victims’ clothes
outside of a gas
chamber.
A crematorium used to burn
the bodies of victims.
The first gas chamber
at Auschwitz. Victims
were told they were
being showered and
deloused.
Nazi Atrocities
Children awaiting
execution by the
Einsatzgruppen, or
Mobile Killing Units.
SS soldiers often
took large
groups out into
open fields to be
shot.
There were six death
camps: Auschwitz,
Belzec, Chelmno,
Majdanek,
Sobibor, and T.II.
The concentration camps
were Bergen-Belsen,
Buchenwald, Dachau,
Sachsenhausen,
Treblinka, and
Theresienstadt, which
were forced work camps
and not killing camps.
A mass grave.
LIBERATION OF NAZI CAMPS
• As Allied troops moved across Europe in a series of
offensives against Nazi Germany, they began to
encounter tens of thousands of concentration camp
prisoners in July of 1944.
• Surprised by the rapid advance by the Allied forces,
the Germans attempted to hide the evidence of mass
murder by demolishing the camps and forcing
remaining prisoners to go on Death Marches.
• The Soviet, U.S., and British forces liberated all of the
camps, but only after the liberation of these camps
was the full scope of Nazi horrors exposed to the
world.
The Aftermath
• Nazi officers were taken to court and charged as
criminals of war in the infamous Nuremburg Trials.
• Most were executed by public hanging or
sentenced to serve life sentences in prison.
• Hitler committed suicide in a war bunker along with
his long-time girlfriend, Eva Braun.
Citizens of Linz, Austria view
photos of Nazi atrocities.
SS men forced to
crawl as survivors
and US soldiers
watch.
Why was this able to happen?
The correlation between the remains of the camp and
millions dead could not be grasped even on personal inspection.
This "double vision" was as much a story as the discovery of the
camp itself. The term came from the first Great War when false
propaganda about German atrocities was widely reported. Many
remembered this and thought perhaps the reports coming from
Europe to the United States were false too.
However, most attributed the disbelief to simply the inability to
conceive the magnitude and detail of the horror. "Double vision“
was typical of many American officers in France, who infuriated
local populations by doubting and sometimes even scoffing at
stories of German inhumanity.
Why study the
Holocaust?
“If we don't learn from history, we are bound
to repeat it."
Author Unknown
Nuremburg Trial Charges
• Charge 1: Responsible for the murder of millions of Jews.
• Charge 2: Placing these Jews, before they were
murdered, in living conditions designed to kill them.
• Charge 3: Causing them grave physical and mental harm.
• Charge 4: Taking actions which resulted in the
sterilization of Jews and otherwise preventing childbirth.
• Charge 5: Causing the enslavement, starvation, and
deportation of millions of Jews.
• Charge 6: Causing general persecution of Jews based on
national, racial, religious and political grounds.
• Charge 7: Spoiling Jewish property by inhuman
measures involving compulsion, robbery, terrorism and
violence.
• Charge 8: That all of the above were punishable war
German Aftermath
For breaking the Treaty of Versailles:
Germany was divided into four zones: the
American, British, French, and Soviet Union.
The first three zones were grouped together
as West Germany (the Federal Republic of
Germany), and the Soviet Zone became East
Germany (the German Democratic Republic).
West Germany became capitalistic and
democratic, while East Germany became
communistic.
• http://history1900s.about.com/od/coldwa1/a/berlinwall.htm
Websites to Explore
• The Holocaust Explained:
http://www.theholocaustexplained.org/ks4/
what-was-the-holocaust/#.VO5LHE1AR1s