Transcript Night Background notesx

Elie Wiesel at 15
"...to remain silent and
indifferent is the greatest sin of all..."
NIGHT BACKGROUND NOTES
Holocaust Dates to Remember
 Jan 1933 – Adolf Hitler appointed Chancellor of
Germany
 March 1933 – Dachau concentration camp
opened
 April 1933 – Nazi’s boycott Jewish businesses
 Gestapo is born
 August 1934 – Hitler becomes Fuhrer
 September 1935 – Nuremberg Race Laws
decreed
 http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/holocaust/timel
ine.html
Dates continued . . .
 February 1936 – Gestapo placed above the laws
 March 1936 – SS Deathshead division is established
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to guard concentration camps
March 1938 – Nazi troops enter Austria – Anschluss
(union with Germany)
April 1938 – Jews forced to register wealth and
property
July 1938 – US calls Evian Conference to house
refugees – only Dominican Republic agrees to
increase immigration quota
November 1938 – Kristallnacht – Night of Broken
Glass – Jews fined for damages
More Dates . . .
 March 1939 – Nazi troops seize Czechoslovakia
 September 1939 – Nazis invade Poland
 England and France declare war on Germany
 Soviet Troops invade eastern Poland
 All But My Life – Arthur complies with Summons to appear
 In My Hands – Irene fights with the Resistance and is captured by
the Soviets
 April 1940 – Lodz Ghetto sealed off from outside
world.
 May 1940 – Germany invades France, Belgium,
Holland and Luxembourg
 November 1940 – Krakow and Warsaw
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Ghettos are sealed off
June 1941 – Nazis invade Soviet Union
Summer 1941 – Final Solution
September 1941 – first test of Zyklon-B gas at
Auschwitz
December 7, 1941 – Japanese attack Pearl
Harbor.
 United States joins WWII declaring war on Japan
and later on Germany
 Spring of 1942 – Massive Deportations begin
 All But My Life – Gerda is sent to Dulag
 April 1942 –
 In My Hands – Irene and Major Rugemer move to Lvov
 Jan 1943 – First resistance by Jews in Warsaw Ghetto
 March and April 1943 – New gas chambers opened at
Auschwitz
 June 6, 1944 – D-Day, Allied landings in Normandy
 August 1944 – Last Jewish ghetto in Poland is
liquidated with 60,000 Jews sent to Auschwitz
 October 30, 1944 – Last use of gas chambers
at Auschwitz
 November 1944 – Nazis force 25,00 0 Jews to
walk over 100 miles in rain and snow from
Budapest to the Austrian border
 November 25th – Himmler orders the
destruction of the crematories at Auschwitz
 Late 1944 – Oskar Schindler saves 1200 Jews.
 Early 1945 – Nazis conduct death marches to
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move inmates away from camps
Jan 14, 1945 - Invasion of eastern Germany
by Soviet Troops
Jan 17 – Liberation of Warsaw by Soviets
Jan 18 – Nazis evacuate 66,000 from
Auschwitz
Jan 27 – Soviet troops liberate Auschwitz
- app. 2 million killed there
1945
 April 4 – General Eisenhower visits the
liberated Ohrdruf camp
 April 10 - Allies liberate Buchenwald
 April 15 – app. 40,000 prisoners freed at
Bergen-Belsen
 April 30 – Hitler commits suicide
- Americans free 33,000 inmates from camps
Definitions
 Prejudice – An irrational hatred of a person, group or
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race based upon a preconceived opinion or judgment
Scapegoat – an innocent person, group or race who is
blamed for the general problems of society and punished
harshly for them
Genocide – The mass extermination of a very large
group of people because of their nationality, race or
religion.
Anti-Semitism – ill feeling or hatred toward the Jews
Stereotype – a generalization of a person who is
regarded not as an individual but as a member of a group
or nationality
Definitions, cont . . .
 Holocaust - a burnt offering; the destruction of
6 million Jews in death camps from 1941-1945
 Nazi – The National Socialist German Workers
Party
 S.S. – The elite guard, or special force, of the
Nazis headed by Himmler
 Gestapo – The German secret police
 Kapo – Brutal Jewish prisoners, controlled
concentration camp inmates for Germans in
exchange for special treatment
Elie Wiesel’s Life
http://www.eliewieselfoundation.org/eliewiesel.aspx
 Born in 1928 in Sighet, Transylvania (now
Romania)
 15 years old when he and family were
deported to Auschwitz
 Studied to become a journalist after war
 Persuaded by French writer to write about his
experiences
 Since 1976 he has been a professor at Boston
University
 Member of the faculty in the department of
Religion and Philosophy
 1986 won Nobel Peace Prize
 Established The Elie Wiesel Foundation for
Humanity
 American Citizen since 1963, lives with his wife in
Connecticut
 Night is the most widely read book detailing the
events of the Holocaust.
Nobel Prize Speech
I remember: it happened yesterday, or eternities ago. A young Jewish boy discovered the
Kingdom of Night. I remember his bewilderment, I remember his anguish. It all happened so
fast. The ghetto. The deportation. The sealed cattle car. The fiery altar upon which the
history of our people and the future of mankind were meant to be sacrificed.
I remember he asked his father: "Can this be true? This is the twentieth century, not the
Middle Ages. Who would allow such crimes to be committed? How could the world remain
silent?"
And now the boy is turning to me. "Tell me," he asks, "what have you done with my future,
what have you done with your life?" And I tell him that I have tried. That I have tried to keep
memory alive, that I have tried to fight those who would forget. Because if we forget, we are
guilty, we are accomplices.
And then I explain to him how naïve we were, that the world did know and remained silent.
And that is why I swore never to be silent whenever wherever human beings endure suffering
and humiliation. We must take sides.