Transcript The Holocaust - Net Start Class

The Holocaust
and
The Sunflower
by Simon Wiesenthal
The Holocaust
• Nazi Party
–Hitler
Elected
Chancellor
of
Germany:
30 January,
1933
Hitler
• Became popular by
using:
–Propaganda
–Nationalism
–Anti-Semitism
–was incredibly charismatic
Propaganda
• Posters, films, books
• Children easier to influence
– Hitler Youth
– Teaching “racial theory” in classrooms
– Children’s Books
• More than 100,000 copies sold in 1930s
• “Don’t Trust a Fox in a Green Meadow
Or the Word of a Jew”
• Slogans like “Judas the Jew betrayed
Jesus the German to the Jews” recited in
the classroom
History of Swastika
• Ancient symbol • Countries that
used the
>3000 years old
Swastika as a
• Original word
symbol:
“svastika” comes – China
from Sanskrit
– England
meaning: To be
– Germany
Good
– Greece
• Used mostly with – India
positive meanings – UNITED STATES
The Nazis & The Swastika
• Nazi Party formally
adopted symbol in 1920.
• Hitler designed the flag,
choosing red, black and white
because those were the colors
of the original German flag.
• Symbolized the “Aryan
(Master) Race” since the mid19th century
Kristallnacht
• “Night of Broken
Glass”
• Throughout
Germany
• November 9-10,
1938
Jewish
stores
destroyed
Jewish holy
texts
destroyed
during
Kristallnacht
Oberramstadt,
Germany
• Local synagogue
burns during
Kristallnacht while
firefighters ignore
it to “save” a nearby
house. Bystanders
watch as it is
destroyed.
Boerneplatz:
burning ; one
wall remaining
Concentration Camps
• 6 acknowledged • Almost
German camps
complete Jewish
• Located in
population of
occupied Poland
Poland.
• 3.6-4.6 million
killed
• 80% Jews
• ½ of all Jews
killed during
Holocaust
Ruins at Birkenau: chimneys
Why Poland?
• Poland=highest
population of
Jews in Europe
• Easier to hide
their crimes
from German
citizens and
others
• Easier to
transport there
~Plaque at Birkenau
Who was targeted?
• Gypsies (300,000-500,000)
• Mentally or Physically
Handicapped
• Homosexuals
• Political Opposition Leaders
– Socialists
– Communists
• Jehovah's Witnesses
• ANYONE who disagreed with
Hitler’s beliefs or was different
than their ideal
Camp Death Tolls
Maly Trostenets: >60,000
Chelmno: >152,000
Majdanek: 78,000-235,000
SobibÓr: >250,000
Belzec: >436,000
Jasenovac: 500,000-840,000
Treblinka: >800,000
Auschwitz:
~1,400,000
Auschwitz Complex
• Auschwitz I
– Administrative Regional Headquarters
– Torture Camp (~70,000 killed)
• Auschwitz II Birkenau
– Death Camp (>1 million killed)
• Auschwitz III Monowitz (BunaWerke)
– Work Camp
• ~40 Additional Satellite Camps
Execution Wall
Gas
Chambers &
Crematorium
Block 11
Loot
Storage
Camp Kitchen
A Section of
Barracks Buildings
To Birkenau
Smoke from
Execution Area
Crematoria V
Railway Cars
Trenches
Prisoner Formations
Auschwitz
Front gate of Auschwitz I.
“Work makes one free.”
Door to Gas Chamber. “Harmful Gas!
Entering endangers your life!”
Auschwitz II
Entrance to
Auschwitz II;
commonly
known as
“Auschwitz.”
Main purpose
of the camp:
extermination
~700 prisoners attempted
to escape from Auschwitz
~300 were successful
1 revolt was planned…
…Hundreds
If an escape was made, escaped…
10 people would be
randomly selected by SS
…All were
officers… …and killed to
captured,
discourage others tortured, then
from attempting an killed.
escape.
Photos from Auschwitz
Corpses of
women on
Block 11
(torture
block)
Execution Wall:
20,000 killed
Mountain of
shoes taken
from new
arrivals
Barracks (TL)--Prisoners’ Clothes (BL)--Bathroom
Facilities (TR)--Bunks (BR)
Ruins of Crematory II
Ruins of Crematory III
Crematory
Simon Wiesenthal
(1908-2005)
• Born on December 31, 1908 in
Buczacz, Ukraine
• Wiesenthal’s father was killed in WWI;
mother remarried
• Was denied admission into the
Polytechnic Institute in Lvov due to
“quota restrictions on Jewish
Students”
• Earned his Architectural Engineering
degree from the Technical University
of Prague in 1932
Wiesenthal Background, cont.
• Married Cyla Mueller in 1936
• Step-father arrested by secret police,
died in prison and step-brother shot
• Simon saved himself, mother and wife
from deportation to Siberia by bribing
a guard
• Escaped execution by the Nazis with
the help of a former employee
Concentration Camps
• First: Janowska (with Cyla)
– Forced labor: repair Eastern Railroad
• Mother sent to Belzec (death camp)
• By 1942, most of Simon and Cyla’s
family were dead (total of 89 family
members killed)
• Simon was able to get false papers for
Cyla to escape the camp in 1942
– Since she was blonde, she was never
identified as a Jew or sent back to a camp
Simon’s Camps, Cont.
• Escaped Janowska in 1943
• Caught and sent back in 1944
• 1 of 34 prisoners (out of 149,000
originally) to move west with Nazis
as they abandoned Janowska
• Trek west took Simon to:
– Plaszow
– Gross-Rosen
– Buchenwald
– Mauthausen
4th Camp:
Buchenwald
3rd Camp:
Gross-Rosen
5th Camp:
Liberated
Mauthausen
Where
Mother was
2nd Camp:sent & killed
Plaszow
1st Camp:
Janowska
Lvov—
where he lived
Liberated
• From: Mauthausen
• By: 11th Armored Division of
the Third U.S. Army on May 5,
1945
• Weighed less than 100 pounds
After the Holocaust
• Both Cyla and Simon thought the
other was dead…
– Found each other late in 1945
– Daughter was born in 1946
• Became known as the “Nazi
Hunter”
Life’s Work
• Devoted himself to finding Nazis and
getting them convicted for their
crimes
• Responsible for bringing almost 1,100
Nazis to justice
– Including:
• Adolf Eichmann (administrator of the slaughter of
the Jews)
• Franz Murer (“The Butcher of Wilno”)
• Erich Rajakowitsch (in charge of “death
transports” in Holland)
Novels
• The Murderers Among Us
– Simon’s memoir; made into a movie
• Sails of Hope
• The Sunflower: On The Possibilities and
Limits of Forgiveness
• Max and Helen
• Krystyna
• Every Day Remembrance Day
• Justice Not Vengeance
“I want people to know the Nazis
Achievements
weren’t able to kill millions of
people and get away with it.”
• Honorary British Knighthood
~Simon Wiesenthal
• Presidential Medal of Freedom
“…You
believe
in
God
and
life
after
death.
I
• Dutch Freedom Medal
also believe. Who we come to the other world
• UN
the Help
of Refugees
andLeague
meet thefor
millions
of Jews
who died in the
Award
camps and they ask us, ‘What have you
• US
Congressional
Medal You will
done?,’
there will be Gold
many answers.
say, ‘I became
a jeweler,’
Another will say, ‘I
• French
Legion
of Honor
have smuggled coffee and American
• Founded the Simon Wiesenthal Center
cigarettes,’ Another will say, ‘I built houses,’
–
Museum
of
Tolerance
But I will say, ‘I did not forget you’.”
To name a few…
~Wiesenthal
(Day 2)
Terms You Should Know
There are many words and terms
in The Sunflower that might be
unfamiliar to you…here’s a
glossary of what they mean, so
when you see them, you will
understand what they are talking
about…you will be tested over
these words!
Holocaust
• Literally
means
“Destruction
by Fire”
• Also used to
refer to Nazi’s
ethnic
cleansing from
1933-1945
Theology
• The study of
divine
things or
religious
truth;
divinity
Michelangelo: The Sistine Chapel
Judaism
• Monotheistic (one
God) religion of the
Jews, having its
ethical,
ceremonial, and
legal foundation in
the precepts of the
Old Testament and
in the teachings
and commentaries
of the rabbis as
found chiefly in the
Talmud
Anti-Semitism
• Prejudice
against Jews
– “Semite”=Jewish
person
– “Anti”-Against
• Nazi Germany
had an official
policy against
Jewish people
Gentile
• A person
who is a
“non-Jew”
• A Christian
is a Gentile
Agnostic
• Believes there
could be a higher
power, but is not
sure; doesn’t
know what to
believe
Sadists
• Enjoyment of
being cruel;
taking pleasure
in causing pain
SS
• An elite quasimilitary unit
that served as
Hitler’s
personal
guard and as a
special
security force
Gestapo
• Nazi Secret
Police (organized
in 1933);
notorious for its
brutal methods
Kapo
• Nazi concentration
camp prisoner who
was given
privileges in
return for
supervising
prisoner work
gangs; often brutal
to fellow inmates
Askari
• Russian
deserters or
prisoners who
had enlisted of
service under the
Germans; used
as a derogatory
term.
Aryan
• A non-Jewish
Caucasian;
“master race”;
blonde, blue
eyed, athletic
Hmm…
Ghetto
• a section of
a city in
which all
Jews were
required to
live
Building a wall in Warsaw to divide the “Aryan side” from the Jewish Ghetto
All that’s left of the Wall
Hitler Youth
• “HJ” (Hitler
Jugend)
• Future “Aryan
supermen”
• Teaches young
boys to fight for
the Third Reich
and be loyal to
Nazi Germany
Ideology
• The study of
nature and the
origin of ideas
• The body of
doctrine, myth,
belief, etc., that
guides an
individual