Transcript Building Background to “The Diary of Anne Frank”

Short Story
For sale, baby carriage. Never
used.
From Terse Tales of the Town,
written in 1906
Building Background
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v
=aS98MAN3Xtg
Star of David
(Jewish Symbol)
Building Background to
“The Diary of Anne Frank”
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WORLD WAR II: 1939-1945
Swastika
(Nazi Symbol)
Who Was Involved?
• WWII was fought between the AXIS POWERS and the
ALLIED POWERS. At one point more than 70 nations
were involved in the war!
• The major Axis Powers were made up of Germany,
Italy, and Japan. These three countries were
considered enemies of the world. The major Allied
Powers were made up of The USA, United Kingdom,
Soviet Union, France, and The Republic of China
Flag of
Germany
The Axis Powers
• The main goal of the Axis Powers was to
dominate as much of the world as possible.
• Today we are going to focus mostly on
Germany during this time.
• We are going to look at the Nazi Government in
Germany, Hitler (Germany’s leader at the time),
and the genocide of the Jewish people (AKA
The Holocaust).
Germany Before The War
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In the early 1930s, Germany was going
through a terrible Economic Depression.
Many people lost their jobs and the
country was becoming very poor.
Germans lost faith in their government, so
they quickly elected the Nazis into power
because they promised the people great
economic opportunities.
In 1933, six years before WWII officially
began, Germany was governed by the
Nazi party (National Socialist German
Worker’s Party).
The party was formed in 1920. A
nationalist party like this one, is one that
strongly believes that the country is the
single most important principle above all
else.
In this belief system, no matter how unfair
an idea might seem to people, if it is
considered to serve the country itself, then
it is accepted by the government.
Nazi Government
• The Nazis planned to assert FULL control over
the people of Germany.
• Over the next many years, Nazis gained big
power by convincing the people of Germany that
Communists were trying to take over. Nazis also
made the people very dependent on them
because of the Economic Depression.
• Once the Nazis established themselves, they
were able to swiftly get rid of those that opposed
them by arresting them, or in some cases,
torturing and killing them.
The Rise of Hitler
• Adolf Hitler, the leader of
Germany during World
War II, was an influential
member of the German
government before he
became their leader.
• In 1934, president
Hindenburg died. Soon
afterwards, Hitler was
made the country’s new
president. He gave
himself the new title,
fuhrer, which means
“leader” in German.
Hitler
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Hitler’s vision of Germany
consisted of a country whose
people were all of the same race.
He wanted Germany to consist
only of Aryans (White Christian
Germans). He believed the Aryan
race was the master race and all
other people were inferior, and
not worthy of living in the world.
Hitler was a charismatic man, and
a brilliant speaker filled with big
ideas for the wealth and success
of the German people. He was
very powerful and persuasive.
Huge crowds would gather to
listen to him speak. Watch and
listen as he addresses the
German nation shortly before
being appointed Germany’s new
leader.
Hitler and Nazis
• Hitler began his process of creating a master race by
having his Nazi Party begin killing those considered
“impure.”
• He developed a sophisticated propaganda machine to
portray Jews as evil, inferior and unpatriotic.
• He targeted groups such as Gypsies, disabled and sick
people, communists, and individuals opposed to the
Nazi regime.
• These groups were used as a “scapegoat,” in other
words, they were weaker groups that Germans blamed
for their problems so that the people would feel better.
Anne Frank
When we meet the Frank family, they are in hiding
because of the following reasons:
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Jews have been stripped of their citizenship
Nazis have forced the closing down of Jewish businesses
Jews must hand over driver’s license and other identification cards
Jews are forced to wear the Star of David to identify themselves
Jews are forced out of their homes and into ghettos
Jews are eventually brought to concentration camps for mass
extermination.
• World War II has started
The Jewish People
• Throughout the 1900s, millions of Jews lived throughout
Europe, North America, and across the Middle East.
• This may seem like a large group of people, but in
reality, they represented less than 1% of the world’s
population.
• Anne Frank, our story’s main character, was a Jewish
girl born in Germany. Soon after Hitler and the Nazi’s
took full control of the country, she and part of her family
fled to Holland in hopes of escaping Jewish persecution.
• Today, Jews continue to live all across the world. Their
home country is called Israel, located in the Middle East.
Flag of Israel 
The Holocaust
• The Holocaust is the name given to the
genocide of minority groups throughout
Europe during WWII. From 1939-1945,
approximately six million Jews were killed
by members of the Nazi party.
• Jews were not only killed in Germany.
Jews were also targeted in other
neighboring countries such as Russia,
Poland, Holland and Hungary.
How Did the Nazis do it?
• Before the Nazis began rounding up Jews, they set up
concentration camps and death camps in some of
these countries.
• A concentration camp is a huge area of land where
Jews were held. It is basically a prison camp where Jews
did work and were eventually tortured and killed by
Nazis. From the outside, concentration camps simply
looked like a large landscape designed for people to
work in. In reality, they were the equivalent of a death
camp.
• In 1941, Jews were rounded up by Nazis across Europe,
put on trains, and sent off to these camps. The Jews did
not want to leave their homes, but they had no idea they
were being sent off to die.
Concentration Camps
• Jews were killed in many different ways.
• The Nazis tried to keep it a secret that Jews
were really there to die.
• At the end of a long work day, many Jews were
sent off to “shower” in a small building, which
was actually a gas chamber designed to large
groups of people.
• More than two million were gunned down beside
mass graves.
• Others were worked to death, or simply starved
to death.
Photographs
• Jews were packed
into these small bunk
beds to sleep.
Horrors of
the
Holocaust
• A starved child of The
Holocaust
Gas
Chamber
• One of the many gas
chambers used to put
large groups of Jews
to death.
Iconic Picture
• Famous photograph
of a group of Jews
being held up by a
Nazi Officer