Transcript January 5 American

The Holocaust
January 5, 2016
• Holocaust: Nazi attempt to kill all Jews
• Includes all Jews & “undesirables”
– Gay; twin; gypsy; disabled (mental/
physical); criminal; dated/ married Jewish
– Speak out against Hitler
• Genocide: Mass elimination of entire group of
people
WHY???
• Racist Nazi Ideas
– Aryan myth - superior to all/ keep pure
• Blame Jews for EVERYTHING
– World War I loss; Depression
Holocaust begins as soon as Hitler takes power
(1933)
1. Hitler urged Germans to boycott Jewish owned
businesses
2. 1933: Dachau built (work camp)
3.
No gov’t jobs or jobs in banking, stock exchange,
law, journalism, or medicine
4. Nuremburg Laws
– Deny citizenship to Jews
– Ban marriage between Jews & non-Jews
– Segregated Jews at every level
5. Propaganda
– Newspapers attack on Jews
– Children taught in schools that Jews
“polluting” Germany
– Comic books
•
Between 1933 - 1937
– 130,000 Jews flee Germany & Austria (artists,
doctors, scientists)
Why didn’t others leave too???
•
Great Depression: Not welcome in other
countries
– Immigration limits
Concentration Camps
• Tattoo numbers on arm/vertical striped clothes
• Torture/ kill with no fear of reprimand
• Starve/ disease
• Medical experiments
– No anesthesia
1942 - Wannsee Conference
– New design for camps to kill more
Auschwitz (Poland)
• Gas: carbon monoxide or insecticide, OR
• Mass execution with guns
• Take what want & burn in crematory
– Human fat - soap
– Hair - wigs, slippers, mattresses, etc.
– Cash, gold fillings, wedding rings, etc.
• How many died???
– MILLIONS
• Bodies in ashes/ records burned
Could the Holocaust have been
prevented?
1. Immigration policies strict
– Great Depression
– Worry about selves
2. Apathy: don’t care
– North America: Europe is far away
• Can’t relate
3. Underestimate Hitler
– Big fear was Soviet Union/
communism
4. 1940s: news does NOT travel fast
– No TV/ internet in homes
• No specific details known about
Holocaust during WWII
– Specifics not known until allies
liberated camps after WWII
Allies heard some stories about camps
• Stalin: no concern
• Churchill & FDR: sympathy but thought
focus should be on defeating Hitler
– If war ends, they can get the people
out of the camps
• No pressure on countries to NOT send
Jews
• Don’t know magnitude
– Internment camps in U.S. for
Japanese
• ENORMITY of Holocaust became real
when camps liberated (freed)
– Piles of bodies
– Warehouses full of hair, jewelry, shoes,
etc.
– Ashes
• Lieutenant Winters (Band of Brothers)
– “The memory of starved, slaved men,
who dropped their eyes and heads when
we looked at them through the chain link
fence, in the same manner that a beaten,
mistreated dog would cringe, leaves
feelings that cannot be described and will
never be forgotten. The impact of seeing
those people behind that fence left me
saying, ‘Now I know why I’m here.’”