The Holocaust
World War II
Agenda
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Warm up
Suit case
Holocaust Guided Notes
Found Poem
HW: Red Scarf Girl Ch. 12-14
Warm Up
• What options do you think Russia, the U.S.,
and the European Union have concerning the
Crimea vote? What consequences might each
option have?
• Why might an object remaining after a
disaster become a symbol for survivors? Do
you think that images of these kinds of objects
are powerful? Explain.
The Suite Case
•You will receive a picture of an empty suitcase
•Write down the items you choose to take with you
•You only can choose (10) ten items!
•You are going to an unknown place
•You have no idea how long you will be there
Suit Case Discussion Questions
• What will you take with you, and why?
• How does it feel to be under such a time limit
and such pressure?
• What did you feel when you were asked to
pack those items?
• What do you think that people felt when they
had to leave their home?
Key Vocabulary
• Genocide
– the deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially
those of a particular ethnic group or nation
• Holocaust
– a word of Greek origin meaning "sacrifice by fire.“
– the systematic destruction of the Jewish population by
Nazi Germany
– More than 6 million European Jews, as well as members of
other persecuted groups, such as gypsies and
homosexuals, were murdered
• Death Camps or Concentration Camps
– a place where large numbers of people are imprisoned
sometimes to provide forced labor or to await mass
execution
Background Information
• In 1933, less than 1% of the German
population was Jewish.
• Jews contributed significantly to German
culture. Many served in World War I and
thought of themselves as Germans first and
Jews second.
• They considered Germany a home.
Why did Hitler target the Jews?
• Hitler publicly blamed the Jews for Germany’s
loss of WWI and its failing economy.
• Hitler used the Jews as a scapegoat for
Germany’s problems.
How does this Nazi propaganda
poster depict Jewish people?
The Master Race
• The Master Race
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Nazi ideology
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Nordic race
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Aryan race

Racially superior
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Ancestry originated in the Germanic plains
Think blond hair and blue eyes!
Believed they were superior because they were less racially mixed.
Nazis decided to exterminate those who posed a threat to the
Aryan Race
Labeled: “The Jewish Problem”
The New Order
• “The year 1941 will be, I am convinced, the
historical year of a great European New Order.” Adolf Hitler, 1941
• It would:
-Ensure the master race was supreme
-Expansion into Eastern Europe through
colonization
-Annihilation of Jews and others that were
“unworthy” to live
Kristallnact
• Hitler preached that Germans belonged to a
race that was superior to Jews
• Kristallnact: The night of broken glass:
November 9-10, 1938
• A planned series of attacks on Jewish stores,
buildings, and synagogues in Germany &
Austria
Classification
• Nuremberg Laws(1935)
 Anti-Semitic Laws that
determined German
Citizenship.
• Classified society
-Germans
-Mix Blood
-Jews
Chart that indicates whether you are Jewish or not.
• Pronounced mix blood or
Jewish, Nuremberg Laws
restricted your citizenship
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Banned marriages and
sexual acts between Jews
and non-Jews.
Discrimination
• Nazis took away their
citizenship & rights
• Moved into ghettos:
 Sections of the city in
which all Jews were
required to live
• Forced to wear the
Jewish star
Jewish Ghettos
• Ghetto:
Jewish Quarters of a city
Used to segregate Jews from the supreme
race
Required by law to live there
Usually the most undesirable parts of a city
Ghettos- Nazi Germany
Rounded up and put in
concentration camps
6 million Jews were tortured
• Forced labor
and murdered
• Extermination
Approximately 6 million Poles,
• Medical
Slavs, Gypsies, and prisoners
of war were killed
experimentation
The “Final Solution”
Concentration Camps
• First built in Germany in 1933
• Used to hold political opponents and union
leaders
• Held 45,000 prisoners by 1933 all across
central Europe
• Then used to purge German society of socalled "racially undesirable elements" such as
Jews, criminals, homosexuals, and Romani
people.
Concentration Camps- Continued
• During World War II
 Number of camps exploded to more than 300
• Political prisoners and "undesirable elements"
from across Europe were mass-incarcerated
generally without judicial process.
• Concentration Camps
 Used to re-educate according to Nazi values, held
POWs, or were labor camps
 People were treated like slaves
Concentration Camps
Extermination Camps
• Camps during World War II built primarily but
not exclusively by Nazi Germany
• To systematically kill millions of people by
execution (primarily by gassing)
• Extreme work under starvation conditions
• Most were a combination of Extermination
and Concentration Camps
Auschwitz
• Polish
• Auschwitz I: the base camp
• Auschwitz II–Birkenau: the extermination
camp
• Auschwitz III–Monowitz: a labor camp
• At least 1.1 million prisoners died at Auschwitz
• around 90 % of them Jewish
• Approximately 1 in 6 Jews killed in the
Holocaust died at the camp
Auschwitz
Zyclon B Granules
Gas Chamber at
Auschwitz
Liberation
• The first major camp, Majdanek, was liberated by
the Soviets on July 23, 1944.
• Most others followed soon after
Results of the Holocaust
 6 million Jews died, about 5.7 million other
individuals (homosexuals, gypsies, mentally
disabled)
 Jewish Diaspora: In 1900, 81 percent of all the
Jews in the world lived in Europe
 Today, only a few sparse communities remain –
the Jews have ceased to be a European people
altogether
Holocaust
By Barbara Sonek
Found Poem:
We played, we laughed, and we were loved.
We were ripped from the arms of our parents and thrown into the fire.
We were nothing more than children.
We had a future.
We were going to be lawyers, rabbis, wives, teachers, and mothers.
We had dreams, and then we had no hope.
We were taken away in the dead of night like cattle in cars, no air to breathe
smothering, crying, starving, dying.
Separated from the world to be no more, from the ashes, hear our plea.
This atrocity to mankind cannot happen again.
Remember us, for we were the children whose dreams and lives were stolen away.
Found Poem Practice
• Read the passage
 As you are reading, please underline or
(highlight) significant, moving, or vivid words
or phrases within the text
You will then write out all those
words/phrases in the space provided
You are going to use these words to create a
unique Poem, that captures the mood of the
passage
Holocaust
By Barbara Sonek
Let’s Practice:
We played, we laughed, and we were loved.
We were ripped from the arms of our parents and thrown into the fire.
We were nothing more than children.
We had a future.
We were going to be lawyers, rabbis, wives, teachers, and mothers.
We had dreams, and then we had no hope.
We were taken away in the dead of night like cattle in cars, no air to breathe
smothering, crying, starving, dying.
Separated from the world to be no more, from the ashes, hear our plea.
This atrocity to mankind cannot happen again.
Remember us, for we were the children whose dreams and lives were stolen away.
Found Poem Activity
• I would like you now to create a Found poem on the following
text. Your instructions are to:
1.) Read the passage.
2.) As you are reading, please underline or (highlight) significant,
moving, or vivid words or phrases within the text.
3.) Next, write out all those words/phrases in the space
provided.
4.) You are going to use these words to create a unique Poem,
that captures the mood of the passage.
5.) You will then arrange the words to create a new and powerful
Poem.
• The poem does not have to rhyme, I just ask that you be
creative and try your best.
Your Found Poem
“Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp,
which has turned my life into one long night, seven times
cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that
smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children,
whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke
beneath a silent blue sky.
Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my
faith forever.
Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived
me, for all eternity, of the desire to live. Never shall I
forget those moments which murdered my God and my
soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget
these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as
God Himself. Never.”
• Elie Wiesel “Night