World History 2010

 Make a list of everything you know about the
Holocaust.
 How would you define it in your own words?

 According to the United States Holocaust Memorial
Museum, the Holocaust is
 “…the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of approximately six million
Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators.
“Holocaust” is a word of Greek origin meaning
“sacrificed by fire.””

 Targets of Nazis – Jews, Roma (Gypsies), disabled, some Slavic peoples, Soviet P.O.W.s, Communists,
Socialists, Jehovah’s Witnesses and homosexuals
 1933 – Jewish population in Europe –9.5 million

 1945 – Germans and their collaborators killed almost 2 out of 3 European Jews

 http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/media_nm.php?lang=en
&ModuleId=10005143&MediaId=3372






Euthanasia – “good death…refers to the inducement of a painless death for a chronically or terminally ill individual who would otherwise suffer.”
Nazi Euthanasia Program – clandestine murder program targeting mentally and physically disabled patients living in institutions in Germany and its territories
Nazis’ 1 st program of mass murder
Began 2 yrs before the Holocaust
Eugenics measure aimed at restoring racial “integrity” of Germans




Wanted eliminate what eugenicists called “life unworthy of life”
Believed these individuals represented a genetic and financial burden on the state
Practice for widespread institution of the Holocaust




Spring and summer 1939 – organization of secret killing operation targeting disabled children
Aug. ‘39 – issued decree mandating all physicians, nurses & midwives to report newborns and children under 3 with signs of severe disability (physical or mental)
Oct. ‘39 – encouraged parents of children with disabilities to admit their children to special clinics
 Children were murdered here by starvation or lethal overdoses of medication



At first, only infants and toddlers, but eventually included youth up to 17 yrs old
At least 5,000 dead as result of this program







Used child program as model to extend to adults
Hitler signed authorization to protect all participating physicians, backdated it
6 gassing installations in Germany and Austria
Sent out questionnaires – looked liked they were gathering statistical data
Identified based on the following: schizophrenia, epilepsy, dementia, encephalitis, those not of German or “related” blood, criminally insane, those who had been committed for more than 5 yrs
Doctors in teams of 3




T4 workers removed patients and transported them to gassing facilities
Patients gassed immediately
Cremated and dumped into common grave where ashes where put into urns to be sent to families







Death certificate sent
Records falsified
Became open secret, protests
Program “halted,” until 2 nd phase
Far East – SS – shooting squads, used hospitals for German soldiers and military barracks
200,000 lives claimed









November 9-10, 1938
“Night of Crystal” or “Night of Broken Glass”
Violent Anti-Jewish pogrom throughout Germany, Austria,
Czechoslovakia
Pogrom – organized persecution of an ethnic group
Carried out by Storm Troopers and Hitler Youth
Shards of shattered glass littered the streets from synagogues, homes and Jewish-owned businesses
Violence in response to the assassination of Ernst vom
Rath, German embassy official Kristallnacht al stationed in
Paris
Killed by 17 yr old Polish Jew

 Not a spontaneous outburst, but planned by German officials
 Orders were as follows:




Harm no non-Jewish German
No foreigners were to be subjected to violence
Remove all synagogue archives before vandalizing and move it to the Security Service
Arrest as many Jews as jails could hold – young, healthy men










267 synagogues destroyed
Burned throughout the night – watched by firefighters who were ordered not to intervene
7,500 Jewish-owned businesses destroyed and looted
Cemeteries desecrated
Forced ppl into streets – public humiliation
91 ppl killed
30,000 males arrested and transferred to camps
Blamed and fined the Jews
Denied and confiscated all insurance claims

 In the following weeks laws and decrees passed
 Denied property and means of livelihood
 Transferred Jewish owned properties to “Aryan” ownership
 Made ineligible for employment in private sector
 Expelled Jewish children from all public schools
 No right to hold driver’s license or own car
 Restricted access to public transportation
 No longer allowed at theaters, movies or concert halls





Term originated from Jewish quarter in Venice
During WWII ghettos were city districts, often enclosed in which
Jewish people were concentrated and forced to live in miserable conditions
Purposeful isolation of Jewish community
At least 1,000 ghettos in Poland and USSR – Poland – 1 st
1939 ghetto,
 After “Final Solution” was passed most Jews were either shot, or deported to killing centers, or camps







3 types – closed, open and destruction
Largest ghetto – Warsaw, Poland –
400,000 crowded into 1.3 square miles
Residents had to wear identifying badges or armbands
Many forced to perform forced labor
Daily life administered by Jewish councils
Ghetto police force – authority



Enforced orders
Deported people to killing centers
Killed Jewish police officials they perceived as failed to carry out orders



http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/media_ph.php?lang=en&ModuleId
=10005059&MediaId=671
Ghetto police force – authority



Enforced orders
Deported people to killing centers
Killed Jewish police officials they perceived as failed to carry out orders

 Millions subjected
 Camps first established winter 1933
 Labor often pointless, humiliating, no proper equipment, clothing, nourishment or rest
 “annihilation through work”