Transcript Historical Background Info for Night

Background info for Night by
Elie Wiesel
Choose Agree or Disagree and tell why
• 1. He who forgets the past is condemned to
repeat it.
• 2. We should stop talking so much about the
Holocaust and other historical tragedies. What’s
past is past.
• 3. There are no evil people, just misguided ones.
• 4. You can get used to anything.
World War II (1939-1945)
• Important Dates leading up to the war:
▫ January 30, 1933: President Hindenburg appoints
Adolf Hitler Chancellor of Germany.
▫ April 1, 1933: Boycott of Jewish-owned shops and
businesses in Germany.
▫ Hitler becomes Führer in 1934
▫ September 15, 1935: Nuremberg Race Laws.
 Nuremburg Laws removed all civil rights from all
Jews (ability to vote, publish, own property, etc)
WWII Important Dates
• November 9/10, 1938: Kristallnacht
▫ Vocab Word! Night of the Broken Glass
• September 1, 1939: Germany invades Poland,
starting World War II in Europe.
• December 7, 1941: Japan bombs Pearl Harbor
and the United States declares war the next day.
End dates of WWII
• April 30, 1945: Adolf Hitler commits suicide.
• May 7, 1945: Germany surrenders to the western
Allies.
• May 9, 1945: Germany surrenders to the Soviets.
When was the Holocaust happening?
• October 8, 1939: Germans establish a ghetto for
Jews in Piotrków Trybunalski, Poland.
• July 15, 1942: Germans begin mass deportations
of nearly 100,000 Jews from the occupied
Netherlands to the east (primarily to Auschwitz).
• July 22, 1942: Germans begin the mass
deportation of over 300,000 Jews from the
Warsaw ghetto to the Treblinka killing center.
Who was a victim of the Holocaust?
• Hitler wished to cleanse Germany and believed
Arians were the superior race.
• Jews were the largest group, but there were
others Hitler wished to exterminate:
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Gypsies
Homosexuals
Physically or mentally handicapped people
Roman Catholics
Political Enemies
Polish Citizens
How many people died as a direct
result of the Holocaust?
•11 million.
• Real number may be higher due to the fact that
many deaths went unknown
Concentration Camp Pictures:
Dachau
Groups
Imprisoned
Conditions
Concentration
Camp
Locations in
WWII
Movies and
Books about