Transcript Presentation

Holocaust
A Brief History of one of the
most Horrific Events in
Modern Times.
Who were the people involved?
Some were forced
Some were chosen
Some were willing participants
Adolf Hitler and Heinrich Himmler review SS troops during Reich Party
Day ceremonies.
Millions were victimized by the Nazi’s during the
Holocaust: Jews, Gypsies, political enemies,
Jehovah's Witnesses, homosexuals, and
people with disabilities
People who the Nazi’s considered sub-human
(socially or racially inferior to the Aryan race) or
imperfect, were forced to wear the badge of
their imperfection.
Hitler created an atmosphere of terror that
was maintained by force.
Flag of the
Nazi Party
The National Socialist German Workers' Party or
NSDAP, known as the Nazi Party, controlled
Germany from 1933 to 45.
Legal Policies - Nazis began to whittle
away at the rights of Jews and other party
enemies soon after Hitler became
Chancellor in January of 1933. Jews were
no longer considered German citizens, their
businesses were taken away and their
children were banned from schools.
Nuremberg Laws
The first law, The Law for the Protection of
German Blood and German Honor, prohibited
marriages between “Jews ” (the name was now
officially used in place of “non-Aryans ”) and
“Germans ” and also the employment of
“German ” females under forty-five in Jewish
households. The second law, The Reich
Citizenship Law, stripped Jews of their German
citizenship and introduced a new distinction
between “Reich citizens ” and “nationals.”
Believe Me!
Propaganda - Propaganda relies on
emotion rather than on logic,
concentrates on a few ideas which
are presented in simple terms, and
then hammers those ideas
repeatedly. Hitler had total control of
radio, press, publishing, cinema, and
the other arts.
The caption:
"The Jew:
The inciter of
war, the
prolonger of
war." This
poster was
released in
late 1943 or
early 1944.
Violence, Terror and Death
The SS, the SA, the SD (security
service of the SS) and the Gestapo
were all Nazi organizations, which
were used as instruments of terror.
The SA was founded in 1921 as the Nazi
Party militia. It lured new recruits with
promises of adventure: participating in
parades and secret meetings, painting
slogans on buildings, fighting with
opponents, and wearing the Brown Shirt
uniforms. The SA recruited 15,000
members by 1923, and by the end of 1933,
the SA was 4.5 million men strong.
The SS began in 1925 as a small
personal guard unit to protect Hitler
and other party leaders. It developed
into the elite corps, the Black Shirts,
under the direction of Heinrich
Himmler.
The Gestapo was composed of professional
police agents, unlike the SS or SA. The
Gestapo, in addition to their own agents, had
block wardens, who kept close watch on the
tenants of their block. The Gestapo was
everywhere. Even a hint of criticism of the Nazi
Party could result in arrest.
Bystanders were ordinary people who
played it safe. As private citizens, they
obeyed with the laws and tried to avoid the
terrorizing activities of the Nazi party. They
wanted to get on with their daily lives.
Bystanders may have remained unaware,
or perhaps were aware of what was going
on around them, but, being fearful of the
consequences, chose not to risk helping
Nazi victims.
First they came for the communists, and I did not
speak out
because I was not a communist.
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not
speak out
because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the labor leaders, and I did
not speak out
because I was not a labor leader.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not
speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me, and there was no one
left to speak out for me.
--The Reverend Martin Niemöller, a pastor in the German Confessing Church who
spent seven years in a concentration camp.
Underground resistance organizations
existed to provide food, receive and
transmit news and information, and boost
morale. Opposition newspapers were
forbidden, but almost every underground
party published one. The penalty for
possession of a radio was death.
Rescuers are those who, at great personal
risk, actively helped members of
persecuted groups, primarily Jews, during
the Holocaust in defiance of Third Reich
policy. They were ordinary people who
became extraordinary people because
they believed what the Nazi’s were doing
to innocent people was wrong. Thousands
survived the Holocaust because of the
bravery of these rescuers.
Allied troops liberated prisoners of
concentration camps. Although these
soldiers had witnessed all the horrors of
war, the condition of the prisoners in the
camps was even more shocking. It was
beyond any war scene the soldiers had
experienced. There were rows upon rows
of bodies stacked up like cordwood.
Auschwitz
Located in Oswiecim, Poland
This is one of the Nazi death, or extermination
camps that the Allies liberated.
The camp Kommandant was Rudolf Höss
Men’s
barracks
This photo was taken by an SS photographer. It is part of an
album discovered after liberation by a female prisoner. Most
people create family albums containing photos of their
children, wives, husbands, mementos of places visited...
Evidently this SS photographer was proud of the work he and
his comrades were doing. The people in the photo had only just
been brought from the trains where they had been crammed in
cattle cars with no food, water or sanitation. Look closely at
them, these were the people the Nazis considered dangerous.
Not long after this photo was taken they were gassed, and their
bodies burned.
Prisoner
identification
badges for Dachau
Concentration
Camp
The chances of surviving the war in any of the
Nazi death, concentration, or labor camps were
slim to none. Those who did survive are the sole
witnesses to the horrors put into action behind
the barbed electric fences surrounding Nazi
compounds. Their stories remind us of the
atrocities humans are capable of when led to
believe those who are different from them are
sub-human or otherwise undesirable.
Survivors of
the camps
were in very
poor health.
"When a train goes through a tunnel
and it gets dark, you don’t throw
away the ticket and jump off. You
sit still and trust the engineer."
Corrie Ten Boom
Author and Holocaust survivor
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References
•
http://fcit.usf.edu/holocaust/people/people.htm
•
http://history1900s.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http%3A%2F%2F
www.schoolhistory.co.uk%2Fgames%2Fwalk%2Fwalk_nazipropaganda.ht
ml
•
http://history1900s.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http%3A%2F%2F
www.calvin.edu%2Facademic%2Fcas%2Fgpa%2Fposters2.htm
•
http://windsormedia.blogs.com/lipsticking/2004/10/jane_focuses_on.html
•
http://fcit.coedu.usf.edu/holocaust/GALL31R/05459.htm
Created by: Debra Harrington