The Holocaust: a great or complete devastation or
destruction, especially by fire; any mass slaughter or
reckless destruction of life
1933-1945
Historical Context
of The Holocaust
1933-1945
1933-1945
Anti-Semitism
Salarino: Why, I am sure, if he forfeit, thou wilt not take his
flesh? What’s that good for?
Shylock: To bait fish withal; if it will feed nothing else, it will
feed my revenge. He hath disgraced me and hindered me half a
million; laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains, scorned my
nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine
enemies; and what’s his reason? I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew
hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed
with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the
same diseases, healed by the same winter and summer, as a
Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us,
do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you
wrong us, shall we not revenge? If a Jew wrong a Christian,
what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew,
what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why,
revenge. The villainy you teach me I will execute; and it shall
go hard but I will better the instruction.
1933-1945
Karl Lueger
(1844-1907)
Mayor of Vienna
“If Dr. Karl Lueger
had lived in
Germany, he would
have been ranked
among the great
minds of our
people.”
-Adolf Hitler in Mein
Kampf
1933-1945
Beer Hall Putsch
Nov. 9, 1923
“In 1935, the sixteen dead
were moved from separate
graves to a pair of “Honor
Temples” in Munich where
they took up “eternal watch.”
It was as if they had been
born again. Flags that
formerly had flown at half
mast were now at full mast.
The New York Times
correspondent observed that
Munich was celebrating “not
a funeral but a triumph.” As
the names of the sixteen were
called in a last roll call before
the Honor Temples, the
assembled crowd of
thousands answered “here” to
each name.” Bending Spines
p. 21
Hitler’s MEIN KAMPF
Hitler’s MEIN KAMPF
• “Mein Kampf” means “My Struggle”;
Hitler wrote it while in prison in the 1920’s
• Still banned in most European countries
• Given to every newly married German
couple from the late 1930’s onward
Hitler’s MEIN KAMPF
Hitler’s MEIN KAMPF
• “The relation of the Jews to prostitution and, even
more, to the white-slave traffic, could be studied
in Vienna…When thus for the first time I
recognized the Jew as the cold-hearted, shameless,
and calculating director of this revolting vice
traffic in the scum of the big city, a cold shudder
ran down my back.” (p. 59)
• “Hence today I believe that I am acting in
accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator:
by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting
for the work of the Lord.” (p. 65)
Hitler’s MEIN KAMPF
Hitler’s MEIN KAMPF
“On this first and greatest lie, that the
Jews are not a race, but a religion,
more and more lies are based in
necessary consequence.” (p. 307)
1933-1945
1933-1945
1933-1945
1933
Hitler becomes
Chancellor
1933-1945
Night of the Long Knives
June 30-July 2, 1934
"If anyone reproaches me and asks why I did not resort to the regular courts of
justice, then all I can say is this: In this hour I was responsible for the fate of the
German people, and thereby I became the supreme judge of the German people."
"It was no secret that this time the revolution would have to be bloody; when we
spoke of it we called it 'The Night of the Long Knives.' Everyone must know for
all future time that if he raises his hand to strike the State, then certain death is his
lot."
1933-1945
March 1933
Dachau
Concentration Camp
1933-1945
May 10, 1934
Book Burnings
1933-1945
Sept. 10, 1935
Nuremberg Laws
1933-1945
July 1938
Evian Conference
1933-1945
October 1938
Deportations
Begin
1933-1945
November 7, 1938
Assassination of
Ernst Vom Rath
'Being a Jew is not a crime. I
am not a dog. I have a right to
live and the Jewish people
have a right to exist on this
earth. Wherever I have been I
have been chased like an
animal.'9
--Herchel
Grynszpan
1933-1945
November 9, 1938
Kristallnacht
1933-1945
May 1939
S.S. St. Louis
1933-1945
Sept. 1, 1939
WWII Begins
Heinrich Himmler on Polish Education
Hitler’s MEIN KAMPF
• “The sole goal of this schooling is to teach
them simple arithmetic, nothing above the
number 500; writing one’s name; and the
doctrine that it is divine law to obey the
Germans…I do not think that reading is
desirable.”
• --May 1940
1933-1945
1940
Euthanasia Program
Adolf Hitler's
authorization for
the Euthanasia
Program
(Operation T4),
signed in October
1939 but dated
September 1, 1939.
__________
National Archives
and Records
Administration,
College Park, Md.
This photo originates from a film produced by the Reich
Propaganda Ministry. It shows two doctors in a ward in an
unidentified asylum. The existence of the patients in the ward
is described as "life only as a burden." Such propaganda
images were intended to develop public sympathy for the
Euthanasia Program.
__________
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Slide taken from a
Nazi propaganda
filmstrip, promoting
"euthanasia,"
prepared for the Hitler
Youth. The caption
says: "Mentally ill
Negro (English) 16
years in an institution
costing 35,000 RM
[Reichsmarks]."
__________
United States Holocaust
Memorial Museum
German Education: Math Problems
Hitler’s MEIN KAMPF
“The construction of a lunatic asylum
costs 6 million marks. How many
houses at 15,000 marks each could
have been built for that amount?”
Buses used to
transport patients
to Hadamar
euthanasia center.
The windows
were painted to
prevent people
from seeing those
inside. Germany,
between May and
September 1941.
__________
Hessisches
Hauptstaatsarchiv
Wiesbaden
1933-1945
Summer 1941
Killing Squads
“Einsatzgruppen”
1933-1945
December 7, 1941
Pearl Harbor
1933-1945
February 19, 1942
Executive Order
9066
1933-1945
January 20, 1942
Wannsee
Conference
Reinhard Heydrich, chief of SD (Security) Service
1933-1945
Summer 1942
Deportations to
camps begin
1933-1945
1942-1945
Camp Life… and
Death
1933-1945
April-October 1943
Rebellion
Treblinka under attack
Train tracks leading into Sobibor
Warsaw ghetto uprising
1933-1945
Death Marches
1933-1945
1945: Liberation
1933-1945
October 18, 1945October 1, 1946
Nuremberg Trials
Nuremberg Trial Convictions
Hitler’s MEIN KAMPF
Guilty: 12- sentenced to
death; 3- life imprisonment;
four- 10-20 years in prison
Innocent: 3 were acquitted
1933-1945
November 13December 14, 1945
Dachau Trials
Dachau Trial Convictions
Hitler’s MEIN KAMPF
Guilty: 40 Nazi
war criminals
found guilty and
sentenced to death
by hanging
Innocent: none
1933-1945
Israel: A New State
Number of Jews Murdered:
Hitler’s MEIN KAMPF
5, 900, 000
Number of Gypsies Murdered:
Hitler’s MEIN KAMPF
220, 000
Number of Handicapped Murdered:
Hitler’s MEIN KAMPF
200,000
Number of Polish People Murdered:
Hitler’s MEIN KAMPF
1,900,000
Number of Soviet Prisoners of War Murdered:
Hitler’s MEIN KAMPF
3, 300, 000
Number of Homosexuals Murdered:
Hitler’s MEIN KAMPF
15,000 (estimate only)
Number of Jehovah’s Witnesses Murdered:
Hitler’s MEIN KAMPF
1,800
1933-1945
“Only guard yourself and guard your
soul carefully, lest you forget the
things your eyes saw, and lest these
things depart your heart all the days
of your life, and you shall make them
known to your children, and to your
children’s children.”
Deuteronomy 4:9