Transcript Introduction to the Holocaust

World War II &
The Holocaust
Important Vocabulary
• Genocide- The systematic elimination of a
people or nation.
• Anti-Semitic - hostility toward or
discrimination against Jews as a religious,
ethnic, or racial group
• Ghetto- a part of a city predominantly
occupied by a particular ethnic group that
may be looked down upon for various
reasons
What was WWII?
• 1939-1945
• 61 countries were
involved
• An Estimated 60
million deaths
Why did WWII start?
• After WWI, Germany
had to give up land and
their armed forces
• Germans elected Adolf
Hitler (Nazi party) as
Chancellor in 1933
• Hitler promised to
make Germany a great
country again
Who was Hitler?
• Absolute ruler of Germany
from 1933 until 1945
• Responsible for
Germany’s military
decisions
• Responsible for the
restrictions placed on
Jews
• Responsible for the
treatment of Jews in the
“Final Solution”
Why did Hitler dislike Jews?
• Hitler saw the world in
terms of race.
• He believed that all of
the different races were
in competition to world
domination.
• Hitler thought the
superior race were
those with fair skin,
blue eyes, and blonde
hair (Aryan race).
What the Nazis Believed
 The Nazis valued authority and order.
 The Nazis valued emotion more than reason.
 The Nazis valued the community rather than the
individual.
 The Nazis had a strong belief in the traditional family.
 The Nazis were strong nationalists.
 The Nazis saw politics as a religion.
 The Nazis valued the concept of a select race.
Symbols
Jewish Life Before the War
Remember always that you not only have the right to be an individual, you have an
obligation to be one. - Eleanor Roosevelt
Malka Orkin (left) and her
friend Tusia Goldberg.
Tusia, whose father later
became a member of the
Bialystok ghetto Jewish
council, survived the war.
Malka did not survive.
Lova Warszawczyk rides
his tricycle in the garden of
his home in Warsaw
shortly before the start of
World War II. He survived.
A group of Jewish children pose in
their bathing suits while
vacationing in the resort town of
Swider, near Warsaw.
The two girls on the right are Gina
and Ziuta Szczecinski. Both
perished during the war.
Leaving Germany
• Jews began to leave Germany because of the
persecution they were facing.
Why did some decide to stay?
Many German Jews thought of themselves as Germans who
happened to be born Jewish.
The Wallach Family, Munich, 1928.
Moritz (dad), Meta (mom), Lotte, Annelise, Fritz, Rolf
(Greek) Sacrifice by fire.
The systematic, state-sponsored persecution and
murder of Jews by the Nazi Germany and its
allies between 1933 and 1945.
The Victims
It is true that not all victims were Jews, but all Jews were victims.
- Elie Wiesel, 1995
Jews
Political Opponents
Habitual Criminals
Handicapped
Homosexuals
Jehovah’s Witnesses
Roma & Sinti (Gypsies) Poles
Freemasons
Immigrants
Soviet P.O.W.’s
American P.O.W.’s
African-Germans
Extermination
Deportation
Ghettoization
Confiscation
Exclusion
Identification
Examples of Jewish Identifications
Exclusion
Boycott of Jewish Shops
SA soldiers stood at the entrances to Jewish shops and professional offices
discouraging non-Jewish patrons from entering.
Signs were posted warning: “Germans! Beware! Don’t Buy from Jews!”
Kristallnacht
“Night of the Broken Glass”
November 9-10, 1938
During Kristallnacht, SA men and Hitler Youth stole from Jewish shops and
apartments. By terrorizing the Jews, ruining their businesses and destroying their
places of worship, the Nazis hoped to force Jews to leave.
Synagogue in Aachen,
Germany, built 1862.
Synagogue in Aachen after its destruction.
Ghettos
• Jews were forced to leave their homes and
live in ghettos
From Ghettos to Concentration Camps
Concentration Camps
• There were two kinds of concentration camps:
death and work.
The Final Solution
• The term refers to Germany's plan to murder all
the Jews of Europe. The term was used at the
Wannsee Conference (1942) where German
officials discussed its implementation.
The Final Solution
Gas chamber at Camp Auschwitz
How did WWII end?
• May 8, 1945 Germany surrenders
• August 15, 1945 Japan Surrenders
Poland
88%
2,900,000
Soviet Union
Hungary
Romania
Lithuania
Germany
Netherlands
Bohemia & Moravia
France
Latvia
Slovakia
Greece
Yugoslavia
Austria
Belgium
Italy
Luxembourg
Estonia
Norway
Denmark
Finland
Albania
Bulgaria
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
33%
70%
35%
90%
27%
75%
84%
24%
75%
76%
80%
72%
27%
44%
20%
50%
33%
55%
1.3%
2.8%
0
0
0
0
0
1,000,000
550,000
271,000
140,000
134,500
100,000
78,150
77,320
70,000
68,000
60,000
56,200
50,000
28,900
7,680
1,950
1,500
762
60
7
0
0
0
0
0
Jewish Losses
TOTAL : 5,596,029 *
* These are minimum losses as reported by
Yehuda Bauer and Robert Rozett, "Estimated
Jewish Losses in the Holocaust," in Encyclopedia of
the Holocaust (New York: Macmillan, 1990),
p.1799.
The estimated number of Jewish fatalities
during the Holocaust is usually given
between 5.1 and 6 million victims.
Despite the availability of numerous
scholarly works and archival sources on
the subject, Holocaust related figures may
never be definitely known.
Displaced Persons (DP’s)
Portraits of children in Germany holding name
cards, in search of their families. Their
photographs were published in newspapers.
Jewish refugees in Shanghai look
for names of relatives and friends
who may have survived the war.
A child lights a Hannukah menorah
during a celebration in a DP camp.
Wedding ceremony at a DP camp.
The Children
“A Loss of Infinite Possibility”
“Listen, listen well to the tale
Of what they have seen
What they have gone through.
For you are the new spring
In the forrest of the world.”
Promise of a New Spring
by Gerda Weissmann Klein, Survivor
Chaim Hersh Kirschenbaum.
Both he and his mother perished
in Auschwitz.
Comparisons
•
•
•
•
9/11
2,977
The U. S. Civil War: 620,000
Rwanda*
800,000
Holocaust*
6,000,000
* Genocide