Name: ________________________________________ Date: __________ Period: ____
Holocaust and WWII Test Study Guide
Test Date: __________
Not everything on the test is reviewed on this study guide, so be sure to review all of the
handouts, notes, and activities from the unit.
Handouts to Review: The Holocaust Overview articles, Holocaust vocabulary, “How Did Hitler
Happen” article and activities, Elie Wiesel video notes, Nazi propaganda handout, Brainpop notes
and quizzes, and any other papers/activities you may have in your social studies section.
1919-1939 – Hitler’s Rise to Power
At the end of WWI, Germany had to sign the Treaty of Versailles. This document blamed
Germany for starting the war and said they needed to be punished. The treaty took away German
land, required them to pay billions of dollars in reparations, and left them a poor and weak country.
Adolph Hitler became the leader of the Nazi Party. Hitler used Jewish people as scapegoats,
blaming them for Germany’s problems. In 1929, the stock market crashed, launching the United
States and Europe into the Great Depression. This caused even more economic problems and
anxiety among the German people, and more people began to follow Hitler and the Nazis.
In 1933, President von Hindenburg, the leader of the Weimar Republic, which was a
democratic government, was struggling. He decided to name Hitler chancellor of Germany, his
second in command. He needed the rising popularity of the Nazi party to help him. When he died in
1934, Hitler and his party easily took control of Germany. He discriminated against the Jewish
people and excluded them from public life. Anyone who was Jewish was forced to wear the Star of
David on their clothing. The German government denied German citizenship to anyone who was
Jewish. During Kristallnacht in November of 1938, Jewish businesses were vandalized and many
synagogues were burned.
Although Hitler had already annexed Austria and taken part of Czechoslovakia, WWII didn’t
officially begin until September 1939 when Germany invaded Poland_. Germany, Italy, and
Japan formed the Axis Powers. The Soviet Union, the United States, and Great Britain were
known as the Allied Powers. The U.S. did not enter the war until after the bombing of Pearl Harbor
on December 7, 1941. President Franklin Roosevelt called it “a date which will live in infamy”.
1940-1945 – The “Final Solution” and Liberation
Hitler’s plan to murder all of the Jews in Europe as well as other groups he saw as inferior
was known as the Final Solution. Many Jews were forced to leave their homes and live in ghettos
under horrible conditions. Many people were taken on cattle cars to concentration camps where they
were either murdered or forced to work in a labor camp. Auschwitz was the largest and most
notorious concentration camp. The average life span of a person sent there was four months.
Although many people committed terrible crimes against other human beings, and others were
bystanders who didn’t notice, or pretended not to notice, that groups were being wrongly and unfairly
persecuted, there are some stories of hope. The citizens of Denmark worked together to try to save
their Jewish citizens, and many people throughout countries in Europe were part of resistance groups
that worked to fight against Hitler and the Nazis. There are even stories of former Nazis, or members
of the Hitler Youth, the Nazi party’s training group for kids, who realized the wrongness of what
was happening and risked their lives to fight the Nazis, using their own propaganda as well as
sabotage.
At the end of WWII, the Allied troops liberated, or freed, the remaining prisoners at the
concentration camps. Over 11 million people, 6 million Jews and 5 million others, had perished in the
Holocaust.
“For the dead and the living, we must bear witness.”
Ellie Wiesel (survivor of Auschwitz)
Why is it important to study the Holocaust? What important lessons can we learn from this
time period?
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