Transcript Holocaust Presentation - mslangleysyear11englishclass

‘I ask nothing of the Jews except that they should disappear.’
Hans Frank, Nazi governor of Poland.
In 1933 there were over 9 million
Jewish people living in Germany.
By 1945, the Nazis had killed 2
out of every 3 European Jews.
The leader of the Nazi Party, Adolf
Hitler, believed that Germans
were ‘racially superior’ and that
the Jews were ‘inferior’ and
responsible for the economic
problems in the country since
World War 1.
In order to monitor the Jewish
population, areas of large
cities were closed off and
designated as an area where
all Jews must live.
The ghettos served to isolate
the Jews from the rest of the
population.
The conditions were
horrendous – in the Warsaw
ghetto in Poland, over
400,000 Jews were crowded
into an area 2Km².
The Nazi authorities created a
number of forced-labour
camps where Jewish men and
women were sent each day.
Jewish workers were given
physical tasks such as stone
quarrying as well as being
responsible for the
manufacture of weapons for
the German armies.
From 1933-1945, the Nazis
established 20,000 camps to
imprison their Jewish
prisoners.
Some of the camps were used
as labour camps, others as
holding stations until the
prisoners could be moved on,
and some as extermination
camps for mass murder.
The extermination, or killing,
camps were established to
allow efficient mass murder.
German soldiers and the
police murdered nearly
2,700,000 Jews either by
shooting them or gassing
them to death in large
chambers.
The Nazis used the term ‘The
Final Solution’ to refer to their
plans to wipe out the Jewish
people.
In 1941, massive killing
operations began. Three
centres were built in Poland
with the sole purpose of
exterminating Jews.
One of the most famous was
called Auschwitz-Birkenau.
The gates to Auschwitz
with their infamous motto.
By spring 1944, as many as
6,000 Jews were being
gassed to death each day at
Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Prisoners were stripped naked
and marched into a large
chamber where poisonous
gas was flooded in whilst they
stood under shower heads.
Most had no idea what was
happening to them.
Approximately 6 million
Jewish men, women and
children were murdered
during the holocaust.
At the killing camps, huge
furnaces were built to burn the
dead bodies of those gassed.
Jewish prisoners were often
made to dig mass graves for
the bodies that could not be
cremated.
Two-thirds of the European Jewish
population were murdered during the
holocaust.
Of the millions sent to concentration
camps during the war, it is estimated
that only 100-150,000 survived.
At least 802 prisoners attempted to
escape Auschwitz, 144 were
successful. The fates of 331 of the
escapees is still unknown.
Q. What evidence is there in
Maestro to suggest that Herr
Keller is haunted by his past?
Q. Why does Herr Keller’s
relationship with music alter?
Q. Does Paul ever appreciate the
impact of the holocaust on
Keller? Why?
Q. Why does Keller willingly
admit to being Jewish when he
wasn’t?