Transcript Understanding the Holocaust

Understanding the Holocaust:
Europe in 1920’s
Hitler’s rule as dictator from 1933-1945
How was this possible? Who was
involved and when did the
Holocaust take place?
WW I 1914-1918, 1929:The Great Depression
 Millions were unemployed, poor, hungry and angry
 Hitler promised Germans a better life-restored
employment
 Hitler was a very powerful speaker and had
government officials on his side.
 Used publicity to promote these views
 Led Germans to increasingly view Jews not only as
different but also as threatening
Combined anti-Semitism with
racism
 Hitler believed that
Jews had negative,
inferior characteristics
transmitted by blood,
that could never be
changed (religious
conversion could not
save a Jew)
Why discriminate against the
Jews? Historical connection?
 Three things that the Jewish people contributed to the German society
were:
 Most valuable source of industrial man power
 25% of the medical professions
 Highest contributors to the research institutions
 Previous Jewish discrimination
 4th century- in Greece and Egypt, Jews’ belief in monotheism-one God clashed with
prevailing pagan belief in many gods
 Discrepancy who crucified Jesus…Jews or Roman soldiers
 11th century, 15th century during the Spanish Inquisition
 16th century, Pope Paul IV ordered Jews in Italy to live in walled-in overcrowded
neighborhoods called ghettos
 Contradicting Hitler’s view: Christianity taught followers to have contempt for
Jews, it never encouraged Jews should be killed (instead it encouraged religious
conversion)
What effect does Hitler’s early
life and accomplishments have on
the Holocaust?
 Born in Austria on April 20, 1889
 Never completed high school
 Gave up Austrian citizenship
 Enlisted in the German army
 Inprisoned for treason
 served only 9 months
 Jewish hate writing in autobiography :
 Mein Kampf (My Struggle)
 Appointed Chancellor/prime minister of Germany in 1933
 Takes on role as a dictator
 Communicates The Final Solution plan with commandants
 Nazi youth organization gathers a child support team
 German business and church leaders accepted anti-Jewish prejudice and as these
institutions remained silent during Hitler’s verbal attacks, hatred of Jews began to
seem legitimate
 Viewed world as locked in struggle between “superior” and “inferior” races of
people
 Identified superior Aryan race-blond, blue-eyed
In the beginning,
restricting Jews
 Star of David issued
 No working Jewish adults
 Curfew, in by 8p
 Handicapped Jews are taken away
 Imposed government censorship
 Directed Nazi propaganda dominate radio
 Gestapo and commandants helped to identify
Jews and enforce rules
Why not escape?
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Many Jews did leave.
No money to travel
No place to go
Lacked stamina to give up their
home, way of life, language, country
U.S.A. and other countries
tightened restrictions on
immigration to help deal with
unemployment
No country was willing to open
doors to Jewish refugees
Some Jews considered themselves
more German than Jewish, they
believed they had little fear, having
lived in Germany for generations
Why not resist?
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Arms not available to Jews
Jews faced “collective punishment”German policy of killing MANY Jews
for the actions of few
The Jewish goal was survival
They had endured and survived this
traditional anti-Semitism before
Didn’t know of Hitler’s secret plan to
kill all the Jews-unimaginable
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**Some resistance-Warsaw ghetto
uprising in Poland in 1943(smuggled
in arms, made own weapons) as well
as many groups of people in
concentration camps
The Final Solution
 def.-Camp in which people are
detained or confined, usually
under harsh conditions and
without regard to legal norms
 Deliberately undernourish and
mistreat prisoners, without
regards to safety
 Aushwitz is one of the best
known camps
 Barbed wire fenced
 Labor intensive-expansion of
camps
Life at the concentration camps
 Jews were restricted
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from eating and drinking
Jews were asked to work
in bad conditions
Jews heads were shaved
and were tattooed
Given a uniform they
were not given adequate
sleeping quarters
Restricted from leaving
Number tattoo
Auschwitz Survivor Leon
Greenman 98288
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Auschwitz survivor Mr Leon Greenman,
prison number 98288, displays his prison
number tattoo on December 9, 2004 at
the Jewish Museum in London, England.
Mr. Greenman O.B.E age 93 and a British
citizen, spent three years of his life in six
different concentration camps during
World War II and since 1946 he has
tirelessly recounted his life through his
personal exhibition at the museum
where he conducts educational events to
all age groups
What do you know about the term Holocaust?
Were Jews making a sacrifice?
 Holocaust is defined as:
The destruction of some 6 million Jews by the
Nazis and their followers in Europe between the years
1933-1945.
However, other individuals and groups were
persecuted and suffered grievously during this period,
but only the Jews were marked for complete and utter
extinction. The term “Holocaust”-literally meaning “a
completely burned sacrifice”-tends to suggest a
sacrificial connotation to what occurred.
The word Shoah, originally a Biblical term
meaning widespread disaster, is the modern Hebrew
equivalent.
How is the term
Holocaust
controversial?
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Over 6 million European Jews were killed in the Holocaust.
Total number of victims falls between 11-17 million people.
10 Million non-Jews were killed as well.
The definition implies that only European Jews were slaughtered during this time period.
The Holocaust also affected these different groups:
1. people with disabilities
2. people that are homosexuals
3. people that practice the Johova’s Witnesses faith
4. people involved in politics
5. Gypsies-people that traveled from Northern India, they were also known as Roma, many were
Christians
6. And more
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Polish children adopted by Germans because of their similar features
Anyone you assisted Jews were also killed
What next..
 Allies- the nations fighting Nazi Germany
 Italy and japan during WWII
 U.S., Great Britain and the Soviet Union
 Axis-originally included Nazi Germany, Italy and Japan who signed a
pact in Berlin on Sept. 27, 1940
 Later joined by Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, and Slovakia
 In 1939 Germany invaded Poland as well as the Netherlands and
Belgium.
 The two countries that declared war on Germany were:
1. France
2. England
 1941 Attack on Pearl Harbor
 U.S.A. entered WWII
 April 30, 1945, Hitler and his new wife committed suicide
What does the Holocaust have to
do with us today?
 Holocaust has become the standard by which
ethical responses are judged/compared
 What is our responsibility to a neighbor in need—
or to a stranger?
 Will we (U.S.A.) remain bystanders in the face of
evil again?
 How can we use this information to ease racial
and ethnic tensions and teach tolerance and
respect for human rights?
 Asks everyone to think carefully about who we
are, as individuals and as a nation.
Resources:
 http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?M
oduleId=10005263
 U.S.A. Holocaust museum
 Children in the Holocaust
 Understanding the Horror
 By: Karen Shawn