Transcript What does the term “Holocaust” mean?

What does the term
“Holocaust” mean?
What does the term mean?
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A specific genocidal event
in 20th century history
The “state sponsored”
systematic persecution
and annihilation of Jewry
by Nazi Germany between
1933 and 1945
Targeted for destruction
based on racial, ethnic and
national reasons
Greek origin meaning
"sacrifice by fire."
Who were persecuted?
► Over
6 Million
murdered and
millions others effected
► The Jews
► Gypsies
► Poles
► Disabled
► Homosexuals
► Jehovah’s
Witnesses
► Soviet War prisoners
► Political dissidents
Why?
► Fueled
by bigotry and hatred…
Not only by the present but by the past
► Anti-Semitism and Hitler’s ideals
► Scapegoats for Germany’s defeat in WWI
► Economic hardships
► Boosted by propaganda and leadership
Generalizations and Misconceptions
► “All
concentration camps were killing
centers”
► All Germans were persecutors (Nazi’s)
Ghettos
► The
term "ghetto" originated from the name
of the Jewish quarter in Venice (1500’s)
► During World War II, ghettos were city
districts (often enclosed) in which the
Germans concentrated the municipal
and sometimes regional Jewish
population and forced them to live
under miserable conditions
Ghettos continued…
To control and segregate Jews while the Nazi leadership in
Berlin deliberated upon options to realize the goal of
removing the Jewish population.
► In many places ghettoization lasted a relatively short time.
Some ghettos existed for only a few days, others for
months or years.
► With the implementation of the "Final Solution" (the plan
to murder all European Jews) beginning in late 1941, the
Germans systematically destroyed the ghettos. The
Germans and their auxiliaries either shot ghetto residents
in mass graves located nearby or deported them, usually
by train, to killing centers where they were murdered.
German SS and police authorities deported a small minority
of Jews from ghettos to forced-labor camps and
concentration camps.
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Concentration Camps
► Designed
to exploit the labor of prisoners
for economic profit. In September 1939, the
war provided a convenient excuse to ban
releases from the camps, thus providing the
SS with a readily available labor force.
► Literally worked to death under a program
called "Annihilation through Work"
(Vernichtung durch Arbeit).
Killing Centers
► The
Nazis established killing centers for
efficient mass murder. Unlike
concentration camps, which served primarily
as detention and labor centers, killing
centers (also referred to as "extermination
camps" or "death camps") were almost
exclusively "death factories." German SS
and police murdered nearly 2,700,000 Jews
in the killing centers either by asphyxiation
with poison gas or by shooting.
Death Marches
(1) SS authorities did not want prisoners to fall into enemy
hands alive to tell their stories to Allied and Soviet
liberators
► (2) the SS thought they needed prisoners to maintain
production of armaments wherever possible
► (3) some SS leaders, including Himmler, believed
irrationally that they could use Jewish concentration camp
prisoners as hostages to bargain for a separate peace in
the west that would guarantee the survival of the Nazi
regime.
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