Transcript Holocaust Unit – PowerPoints

Prejudice, Discrimination,
and Eventually Genocide
Anti-Semitism: What is it?
Holocaust History Power Point # 1
Anti-Semitism:
The History Behind the Term
• First used in 19th century by Walter Marr, a German.
• Today the term means “hatred of Jews and Judaism” but that was not the
original meaning.
• Semitic – a group of languages (Arabic, Aramaic, Amharic, and Hebrew)
• Because Jews speak Hebrew, it somehow came to mean “anti-Jewish”
through the years
• Semite – any member of ancient and modern people speaking any of the
Semitic languages
• In reaction to anti-Semitism based on race, many Jews insisted that Judaism
was a religion.
• Stated they were as French, Russian, or German as any other citizen
• Jews were blamed for Germany’s defeat in WW I, even though they fought
bravely for their country.
• Anti-Semitism later became the Nazi Party policy
Early Prejudice Against Jews
• Began way before the Holocaust
• 1179—1215
– Lateran Councils put restrictions on
all non-Catholics
Pope Alexander III, who
presided over the third
Lateran Council in 1179
– Required to wear yellow
badges
– Supposed to live a part from
Christians
– Forced to listen to sermons
– Books were censored
More Early Examples of Prejudice
•
•
•
•
England
– King Edward I seized the possessions of 16,000 Jews and
expelled them
France
– King Philip robbed his Jewish subjects
France
– Napoleon’s armies marched across Europe
– He asked for Jews to become part of French civilization
Austria
– Really bad for Jews here
– Queen Maria Theresa (1760)
• Required all unbearded Jews to wear yellow badge
• Not allowed to buy vegetables until 9 a.m., or cattle
before 11 a.m.
• Taxed 3 million florins each year for ten years to live in
Austria
– Joseph II
• Abolished the tax
• Let Jews attend schools
• Serve in the army
– Francis II
• Put Maria Theresa’s restrictions back in place
• 1867 all rules removed
King Edward I
Pogroms were started to relieve public unrest
A time when mobs attacked Jews or stole their property
without punishment
Anti-Semitism in Germany
• Jews became isolated over the years
– Could not speak or write in German
– Moses Mendelssohn
• Brilliant Jewish scholar
• Translated Torah into German
so Jews could learn the language
– Jewish restrictions lifted in 1870
– Gentile (non-Jewish) community reacted
Moses Mendelssohn
• Jew was only “slightly” different and mostly accepted
• “Anti-Semites” saw Jews as a threat
–
–
–
–
–
Used medieval accusations to support their theories
Jews were Christ-killers
Drew blood from Gentile children
Plotted against Gentiles
Looked to race theories to prove inferiority
WW I & Building Turmoil in Germany
• By November 1918, German
defeat in the war seemed certain.
• Nov. 10th – Kaiser gave up his
throne
• Germany signed armistice on Nov.
11th
• Officially ended WW I
• German colonies taken away
• Alsace and Lorraine returned
to France
Three Provisions
1) German army reduced to 100,000
and they lost their navy and air
force
2) Germany was expected to pay
heavy fines
3) Germany signed War Guilt clause
Marks needed
to buy
one US dollar
Year
Month
1919
April
12
December
47
1921
November
263
1922
July
493
1923
August
1,000
October
3,000
December
7,000
January
17,000
April
24,000
July
353,000
August
September
4,621,000
98,860,000
October
25,260,000,000
November
2,193,600,000,
000
December
4,200,000,000,
000
After World War I
New Government = Weimar Republic (1918-1933)
• Poor start because lots of groups were vying for
power (The NSDAP, or Nazis was one of them)
• The Great Depression and Wall Street Crash
caused the Republic to collapse
• The mark was now worthless
• Unemployment was at an all time high
• Crime and suicide rates rose sharply and
many lost hope.
• People deserted the democratic parties in
droves and turned to either the Communists
or the Nazis.
• In the election of 1930, the Nazis made their
electoral breakthrough winning 107 votes while
the Communists won 77. Both parties were
opposed to the democratic system and used
violence against their political opponents.
Inflation in the Weimar Republic made it cheaper
for this woman to burn money than firewood.
So Who Was Hitler?
A Waffen-SS-42 helmet.
• Born in Austria 1889
• As a boy he hated anyone who
tried to control him
• Only knew one Jewish boy and
didn’t really have an opinion at
that point
• Dropped out of school in 1915
• Went to Vienna and painted postcards
• Began to read anti-Semitic books
• Served in German army in WW I
• Sent to spy on The German Worker’s Party
• Joined as member 55
• Soon became member 7 of the
executive committee
• He really liked the group
• He changed the name to NSDAP
(Nazis)
• Made Swastika the symbol and
“Heil,” the greeting
• Organized a militia (brown-shirted SA)
• Formed bodyguards (the SS)
Put in jail after “Beer Garden
Putsch” in 1923 (an attempt to
overthrow the government)
Hitler’s Race Ideas
He was possessed by the idea of race
Hitler’s book Mein Kampf (My
Struggle) offered a blueprint for
Germany’s future.
– Few took it seriously at
first, but by 1939 its
effects were being seen
– He blamed Germany’s crisis
on outsiders:
• The French
• The “international Jewish
conspiracy”
• The Communists
– His solution was to wipe out
the Jews, destroy the
republic, and unite Germans
through racial superiority
doctrines.
Aryan Race
• No such thing; Aryan refers to
certain languages spoke in some
parts of the world, or to people
mostly in northern Europe who
tend to be tall, blond, and blueeyed
• Wanted to create a pure,
“Master” race
Hitler believed the duty of the
government was to protect the Volk
(national race)
The Volk needed a leader, a Fuhrer,
to guide them and he would be that
person.
How the Nazis Gained Power…
•
•
•
•
•
After the failed garden putsch Hitler realized the
only way to gain power was through politics, not
revolution.
He allied the Nazis with the Nationalist party,
which was closer to the business leaders, financial
support, and respectability.
– The Nazis gained 107 seats in the Reichstag
If Communists and Socialists had united, they
could have ruled over the Nazis.
Chancellor Von Papen, who was not liked by many,
offered a deal to the Nazis
– Hitler would become chancellor
– Von Papen would become vice-chancellor
– Von Papen’s friends were to have important
jobs
January 30, 1933 — President Hindenburgh
reluctantly accepted the arrangement and
appointed Hitler as chancellor (This was a BIG
MISTAKE!)
President Hindenburgh
Chancellor Von Papen
Hermann Goering
– Hitler’s designated successor
– Second man in the Third Reich
– In charge of the SA Brownshirts
– Creator of the Secret Police
– Set up early concentration camps for political
opponents
– Nazism offered the swashbuckling Goering the
promise of action, adventure, comradeship and
an outlet for his unreflective, elemental hunger
for power.
Hitler’s Men
Joseph Goebbels
– Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda
– His hatred for many stemmed from his own physical
deformity (crippled foot) and the fact that many
people excluded him from things because of it (military
in particular)
– Hitler had indeed cause to be grateful to his
Propaganda Leader, who was the true creator and
organizer of the Fuhrer myth, of the image of the
Messiah-redeemer, feeding the theatrical element in
the Nazi leader while at the same time inducing the
self-surrender of the German masses through skilful
stage management and manipulation.
– Responsible for the Kristallnacht Pogrom that began
the physical rage of the Nazis in November 1938
Heinrich Himmler
– Hitler’s personal bodyguard (the SS, which
went from a mere 200 members to over
50,000)
– In 1936 he became leader of the Gestapo
– A very able organizer and administrator,
meticulous, calculating and efficient,
Himmler's astonishing capacity for work
and irrepressible power-lust showed itself
in his accumulation of official posts and his
perfecting of the methods of organized
State terrorism against political and other
opponents of the regime.
– In 1933 he set up the first concentration
camp, Dachau, and with Hitler’s consent,
greatly increased the reasons why people
could be sent there.
Reinhard Heydrich
– Was originally an intelligence officer in the
SS under Himmler
– Spent two years creating and developing
the SD (a Nazi intelligence agency)
– Under Heydrich the party watched for
dissent (going against) within the party and
created files on Jews
– A bomb was dropped near his car and he
was fatally wounded.
– Himmler blamed the Jews (even though it
was two Czech patriots)
• As punishment the entire village of
Lidice in the Czech was wiped out
Prejudice in the 1930s
• Nazis used propaganda to
spread their beliefs.
• Can’t successfully
implement a change of this
magnitude without the
support of the public.
• Needed to gain their trust
quickly – reminded them
how great Germany used
to be (a country of
warriors) and now they
needed to get back to
that status.
Der Sturmer was running contests encouraging
German children to write in. One little girl wrote, "People
are so bothered by the way we’re treating the Jews. They
can’t understand it, because they are God’s creatures.
But cockroaches are also God’s creatures, and we
destroy them."
Words can create an attitude. If a person says
something loud enough and often enough, he creates a
climate. And under that climate, all sorts of things can
happen.
• Nazi propaganda utilized
different forms:
–
–
–
–
–
–
Radio
Newspapers
Speeches
Posters
Books and pamphlets
Children’s Books (The
Poisonous Mushroom)
“One people, one Reich,
one Fuhrer”
The Nazi film “The Eternal Jew,” served to
dehumanize the German Jews. The film “The
Eternal Jew” itself compares the Jewish
people to rats. By dehumanizing Jews, the
Nazi leaders began to prepare for Hitler’s
“Final Solution.”
Propaganda Used to Glorify Hitler
and Dehumanize the Jews
“The God of the Jews is
money. To earn money, he
commits the greatest crimes.
He will not rest until he can sit
on a huge money sack, until he
has become the king of
money.”
“Just as it is often hard to tell a
toadstool from an edible mushroom,
so too it is often very hard to
recognize the Jew as a swindler and
criminal...”
The US Had Propaganda Too!
This was the US trying to
spread the truth about the
Nazis and their ideas. It was
done in one of the purest
forms of entertainment:
cartoons watched mainly by
children.
4 Stages of the Holocaust
Holocaust – great destruction of life, especially by fire
Definition (Early 1930s)
- Defining who a Jew was & forced to register
- Had to wear the Yellow Star of David
- Had “Jew” stamped on their passport
- Had to put a sign in the window of the shop saying “Jew”
Expropriation (Mid 1930s)
-Meaning to “take away”
-No longer allowed to have bank accounts
-Can’t hold certain jobs
-Couldn’t live in certain places
Concentration (Late 1930s – 1939)
-Travel was restricted
-Couldn’t own phones, cameras, radios, or pets
-Ghettos opened and Jews were forced to move there
-Slave labor
-Little food, shelter and heat
-No longer allowed to attend school
Annihilation (1940 – 1945)
-The Nazis organized and carried out large-scale killing of Jews and others
-Some were shot or gassed by mobile killing units in part of Russia, Latvia and Lithuania
-In the rest of Europe, victims were transported to killing centers