The Holocaust
The Holocaust (1941-45)
Of the 60 million World War II deaths, 11
million people died in German death camps
including 3.5 million Russians, and 6
million Jews (2/3rds of all European Jews)
 The word Holocaust was given to the killing
of the 6 million Jews because it was a war
of extermination designed to wipe out an
entire group of people.
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Hitler’s “Final Solution”
 Systematic genocide
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Holocaust Chronology
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July 14, 1933 - Nazi Party is declared the only legal party
in Germany; Also, Nazis pass Law to strip Jewish
immigrants from Poland of their German citizenship.
July 1933- Nazis pass law allowing for forced sterilization
of those found by a Hereditary Health Court to have
genetic defects.
Nov 24, 1933 - Nazis pass a Law against Habitual and
Dangerous Criminals, which allows beggars, the
homeless, alcoholics and the unemployed to be sent to
concentration camps.
Sept 15, 1935 - Nuremberg Race Laws against Jews
decreed.
THE TERROR BEGINS
Communists, Socialists, and other political opponents
of the Nazis were among the first to be rounded up and
imprisoned by the regime.
Nuremberg Race Laws of
1935
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Deprived German Jews of their rights of citizenship,
giving them the status of "subjects" in Hitler's Reich.
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The laws also made it forbidden for Jews to marry or have
sexual relations with Aryans.
The Nuremberg Laws had the unexpected result of
causing confusion and heated debate over who was
a "full Jew."
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The Nazis settled on defining a "full Jew" as a person with
three Jewish grandparents. Those with less were
designated as Mischlinge.
After the Nuremberg Laws of 1935, a dozen supplemental
Nazi decrees were issued that eventually outlawed the
Jews completely, depriving them of their rights as human
beings.
Holocaust Chronology
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July 23, 1938 - Nazis order Jews over age 15 to apply for
identity cards from the police, to be shown on demand to
any police officer.
May 1939 - The St. Louis, a ship crowded with 930 Jewish
refugees, is turned away by Cuba, the United States and
other countries and returns to Europe.
Sept 1, 1939 - Nazis invade Poland (Jewish pop. 3.35
million, the largest in Europe).
Oct 1939- Nazis begin euthanasia on sick and disabled in
Germany.
March 7, 1941 - German Jews ordered into forced labor.
Oct 5, 1942 - Himmler orders all Jews in concentration
camps in Germany to be sent to Auschwitz and Majdanek.
FROM CITIZENS TO OUTCASTS
A woman reads a boycott sign
posted on the window of a Jewishowned department store. The Nazis
initiated a boycott of Jewish shops
and businesses on April 1, 1933,
across Germany.
FROM CITIZENS TO OUTCASTS
Many Germans continued to enter
the Jewish stores despite the boycott, and it was called off after 24
hours. In the subsequent weeks
and months more discriminatory
measures against Jews followed
and remained in effect.
LIFE IN THE GHETTO
In November 1940, German authorities sealed the
Warsaw ghetto, severely restricting supplies for the
more than 300,000 Jews living there.
LIFE IN THE GHETTO
Survival was a daily challenge as inhabitants struggled
for the bare necessities of food, sanitation, shelter, and
clothing.
“NIGHT OF BROKEN GLASS”
Residents of Rostock, Germany,
view a burning synagogue the
morning after Kristallnacht
(“Night of Broken Glass”). On
the night of November 9–10,
1938, the Nazi regime unleashed
orchestrated anti-Jewish violence
across greater Germany.
“NIGHT OF BROKEN GLASS”
Within 48 hours, synagogues
were vandalized and burned,
7,500 Jewish businesses were
damaged or destroyed, 96 Jews
were killed, and nearly 30,000
Jewish men were arrested and
sent to concentration camps.
“ENEMIES OF THE STATE”
Within the concentration camp system, colored, triangular badges identified various prisoner categories,
as seen in this image of a roll call at the Buchenwald
concentration camp.
“ENEMIES OF THE STATE”
Although Jews were their primary targets, the Nazis
also persecuted Roma (Gypsies), persons with mental
and physical disabilities, and Poles for racial, ethnic,
or national reasons.
“ENEMIES OF THE STATE”
Millions more, including homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Soviet prisoners of war, and political dissidents,
also suffered oppression and death.
Holocaust Chronology
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Jan 27, 1945 - Soviet
troops liberate
Auschwitz. By this
time, an estimated
2,000,000 persons,
including 1,500,000
Jews, have been
murdered there.
April 29, 1945 - U.S.
7th Army liberates
Dachau.
The
Holocaust
(1941-45)
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There have been many massacres during the
course of world history. And the Nazis murdered
many non-Jews in concentration camps.
What is unique about Hitler’s “Final Solution of the
Jewish Problem,” was the Nazi’s determination to
murder without exception every single Jew who
came within grasp, and the fanaticism, ingenuity,
and cruelty with which they pursued their goal.
One of the most effective killing methods was by forcing Jews into gas
chambers, where they were gassed to death using exhaust fumes or
Zyklon B.
A Jewish man wearing the
yellow star walks along a street
in Germany.
One of the most famous photos taken during
the Holocaust shows Jewish families arrested
by Nazis during the destruction of the Warsaw
Ghetto in Poland, and sent to be gassed at
Treblinka extermination camp.
Life in a Concentration
Camp
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A prisoner in Dachau is
forced to stand without
moving for endless hours as
a punishment. He is wearing
a triangle patch identification
on his chest.
A chart of prisoner triangle
identification markings used
in Nazi concentration camps
which allowed the guards to
easily see which type of
prisoner any individual was.
At Belzec death camp, SS Guards
stand in formation outside the
kommandant's house.
Nazis sift through the enormous
pile of clothing left behind by the
victims of a massacre. (1941)
A warehouse full of shoes and clothing
confiscated from the prisoners and
deportees gassed upon their arrival.
The Nazis shipped these goods to
Germany.
A mass grave in BergenBelsen concentration camp.
Young survivors behind a
barbed wire fence in
Buchenwald.