The Holocaust
The Holocaust
Macaulay with Claggett, Gladovic, Goodsell, Kurtz, and Lawrance
The Holocaust
1. Introduction to the Holocaust
2. Judaism
3. Antisemitism
4. The Odessa Pogrom
5. Pre Nazi Jewish culture
6. Rise of Nazism
7. Hitler's ideas
8. Film Study: The book thief
9. Jewish persecution
10. Wearing the star
11. War in the East
12. Einsatzgruppen
13. Concentration camps 1 slave labour
14. Ghettos
15. Himmler and the SS
16. Resistance/Warsaw uprising etc
17. Anne Frank
18. Concentration camps 2 life in
19. Other victims/symbols
20. Auschwitz Research Assignment
21. Film Study: Auschwitz
22. Killing centres: Treblinka
23.Death marches
24. Liberation
25. Nuremburg Trials
26. Reflection
Version 2. November 2018
Created at Bonnyrigg High School by Warren Macaulay
With help from Claggett, Gladovic, Goodsell, Kurtz, and Lawrance
Questions, comments to
warren.macauley@det.nsw.edu.au
The Holocaust
Macaulay with Claggett, Gladovic, Goodsell, Kurtz, and Lawrance
1
Introduction to The Holocaust
In the middle of the twentieth Century, in an advanced, enlightened country in the
heart of Europe an event took place that would come to symbolise the worst that humanity
is capable of. It is known as The Holocaust.
During the years between 1933 and
1945, Germany was ruled by the Nazi
Party, and led by Adolf Hitler. Hitler
and the Nazis defined themselves by a
racist policy toward people of Jewish
heritage. They initially enacted laws
which removed the rights of anyone in
Germany considered Jewish. Jewish
people were restricted from working in
certain professions, not allowed to
marry non-Jewish Germans, lost their
rights to own businesses, even
forbidden from using parks, public
transport, or owning radios. This
persecution would become more violent as the Nazi Party held its grip on Germany and
hundreds of people would die in anti-Jewish boycotts and vandalism.
These persecutions, while terrible, were only the beginning of what many people consider
to be the worst crime in history. In 1939 the Nazis would take Europe into a second world
war, only 20 years after the first, and under the cover of this warfare would attempt to
eliminate all Jewish people wherever they could be found. As the Nazis conquered different
parts of Europe, they took control of millions of Jewish people. Nazi racial policy forced Jews
to wear identifying symbols on their clothes, and endure further persecution such as
deportations to concentration camps and the confinement of Jews into ghettos. Finally, the
decision was taken to exterminate all Jewish people in Europe.
This decision was a policy that led to the mass killing of millions people. This was done by
shooting, starving to
death, and by gassing at
extermination centres. By
the end of World War Two
the Nazis had
exterminated 6 million
Jews. No one was spared
this industrialised killing
process. Men, women, and
children of all ages, from
babies, to the elderly were
caught up in The
Holocaust.
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Introduction to The Holocaust
The Language of the Holocaust
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Anti-Semitism
Arbeit Macht Frei
Aryan
Auschwitz
Concentration Camp
Crematorium
Einsatzgruppen
Final Solution
Ghetto
Holocaust
Jude
Judenrat
Kristallnacht
Lebensraum
Nazi
Nuremberg Laws
Pogrom
Shoah
Sonderkommando
SS
Swastika
Third Reich
Zyklon-B
Thinking Questions
1. Why do you think people feel the
study of the holocaust is still relevant
today?
2. Do you think something like this could
happen today? Give reasons for your
answer.
Understanding
1. Define each of the words and phrases
from the language of the holocaust list
in bold.
2. When was the holocaust?
3. Where did it take place?
4. What restrictions were placed on
Jewish people by Nazi laws?
5. How many Jewish people died in the
holocaust?
Research
1. What do each of the three pictures on
this sheet represent?
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Introduction to The Holocaust
Teacher’s notes
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Anti-Semitism : The hatred of people who are either of the Jewish faith or
descended from Jewish people ad are considered to be of a Jewish “race”
Arbeit Macht Frei : German for “Work Will Make You Free”, a cynical message
above the gates of Auschwitz and elsewhere
Aryan : German’s considered the Germanic groups of white European to be this
Auschwitz : The largest concentration camp of the Nazis and the place of the most
deaths
Concentration Camp : A prison or labour camp where people the Nazis didn’t like
were sent to work under horrendous conditions. Most died
Crematorium : A building used for the burning of corpses in ovens
Einsatzgruppen : German word for “mobile killing squad. They followed the army
into war zones and were used to shoot and gas civilians
Final Solution : The name given to the policy of the extermination all of the Jews of
Europe by the Germans
Ghetto : An enclosed area of a city where Jewish people were confined in cramped
and unhygienic conditions
Holocaust : The word used for the killing of 6 million Jews during WW2
Jude : German word for Jew
Judenrat : German word for a committee of Jews who were ordered by the
Germans to help run the ghettoes
Kristallnacht : German word for “The “Night of Broken Glass” was a government
encouraged riot against the Jews of Germany where shop windows were smashed,
synagogues burnt, and Jews bashed and sometimes killed
Lebensraum : German word for “Living Space” the land that Hitler thought
Germans needed to take from countries in Eastern Europe
Nazi Party : Short for Nationalist Socialist German Worker’s Party, the political
party that was led by Hitler
Nuremberg Laws : Laws enacted by the Nazi Party in 1934 which were aimed at
persecution of Jews and to protect the “purity” of Aryan Germans.
Pogrom : A violent attack on a community of Jews
Shoah : The Hebrew word for The Holocaust
Sonderkommando : A German word for a work detail of Jews in the camps who
were responsible for collecting and disposing bodies
SS : Hitler’s personal Nazi guard unit which grew into a powerful military
organisation. Was responsible for running the concentration and extermination
camps
Swastika : The symbol of the Nazis
Third Reich : The name given to the period of Nazi government
Zyklon B : The poison used at Auschwitz to kill Jews in the gas chambers
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Judaism and Jewishness
Judaism is the word used for the religious faith of people who call themselves
Jewish. But defining Jewishness is not a simple matter. Being Jewish is not dependent upon
only having a particular faith, it is also intertwined with cultural values, nationhood, and
ethnicity. The ideas that Jewish people are of a particular race is
the defining characteristic used by the Nazis to persecute, and
them attempt to exterminate the Jews in Europe.
As a religion
A Jewish Menorah
Millions of people around the world have Judaism as their religion,
majority of whom live in Israel today, with other large populations
in America and Britain. Judaism is a monotheistic religion, one of
the oldest in the world, which means they believe in a single God.
Part of their religious beliefs can be found in the Old Testament of
the Christian Bible, and many of the names of Jewish historical
legends and figures can be found there. The main book of
scripture for Jewish people is called the Torah.
Jewish faith is similar to other religions in that it has rules for its believers to follow, some
foods are forbidden such as pork, boys are circumcised, and on the day of rest believers are
not supposed to do any work. The Jewish day of rest is called the Shabbat, or the Sabbath.
Children who are born to a Jewish mother are considered Jewish, but non-Jews, called
Gentiles can convert to Judaism.
Some Orthodox Jews follow rules about clothing and
hairstyles which has meant they stand out in a
community.
Many people who call themselves Jewish have little or no
religious belief. These secular Jews follow the customs
and traditions such as holidays and food rules without
feeling the need for faith.
Nazi Racial theory
The Torah Scroll
During the late 19th Century science became interested in learning about what they called
the different races. Seen as pseudo-science now, there was a common view that races of
people have special skills or deficits, and that some races were naturally better than others.
Often, Charles Darwin’s theory of Survival of the Fittest was used for racist policies. The
Nazis had the view that Jewishness was a race, and an inferior, and dangerous one. The
Nazis believed that Germans had their own “Aryan” race and the people from the Jewish
race were corrupting German purity. This view of Jewishness as a racial trait meant that
anyone with Jewish grandparents were considered Jewish, even non-believers, and people
who had converted to other religions from Judaism. Jewishness was in the blood. This idea
of an inferior race of Jewish people in Europe would lead to the persecutions,
imprisonment, and eventual killing of millions of Jewish people throughout Europe.
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Judaism and Jewishness
Understanding
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Thinking
Define the words in bold.
What is Judaism?
What factors make up Jewishness?
Where do most Jewish people live
today?
List 5 facts about the Jewish
religion.
What does a Jewish person without
faith call themselves?
What was the pseudo-scientific
view of races in the 19th Century?
How did the Nazis view Jewishness?
Creativity
1. How do you think people of the
following faiths see themselves, as
a religious group, a cultural group,
an ethnic group, or a race?
a. Buddhists?
b. Hindus?
c. Christians?
d. Muslims?
2. Give a reason for your answers to
question 1.
3. Is religion an important part of the
world today? Give a reason and an
example for your answer.
Research
1. Draw the Menorah, and the Star of
David in your book.
1. What do each of the two pictures
on this sheet represent?
2. Visit the website below. Draw and
describe 5 symbols of Judaism.
The Star of David
http://www.jewfaq.org/signs.htm
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Historical Anti-Semitism
Anti-Semitism is a prejudice against, or a hatred of Jews. While the worst aspects
of this racial hatred took place took place in holocaust of the twentieth century, it has a long
and ugly past going back thousands of years. Although the word anti-Semitism was only
coined in the 19th Century, it has become the term used for hatred of Jews throughout
history.
Jewish people have been forced to leave their traditional homeland, Israel, many times,
beginning in the 8th Century BC. The leaving of Israel because of invaders and the spreading
throughout the world is known as the diaspora.
The resettling of Jewish community into new lands has brought them into conflict with
different groups, and this has resulted in resentment, racism, and prejudice. Jewish
communities have been
frequently attacked,
sometimes by the local legal
system, other times violently
by mobs, in displays of antiSemitic behaviour known as
pogroms.
In Ancient times Jews came
into conflict with the Roman
Empire when Israel was taken
over by the Romans. When
the Romans became Christian,
Jews became the victims of
religious intolerance, they
were banned from
occupations and heavily taxed.
Medieval Drawing showing Jews collecting blood
During the Middle Ages antiSemitic feeling led to Jews
being blamed for the Black Death which killed millions. Jews
were falsely accused of spreading the plague by poisoning
wells. Jews were also accused of making a pact with the Devil,
and of partaking in rituals involving the drinking of Christian
children’s blood. These false rumours led to the destruction of
hundreds of Jewish communities in Europe. All Jews were
expelled from England during this time, but anti-Semitism
lingered on in the writings of Shakespeare and the
interpretation of a Jew as an underhanded moneylender in the
form of Shylock. Scholarly writers such as the reformer of the
Christian church Martin Luther would write on the subject of
Jews in a predominately Christian Western world. In 1543
Luther published a pamphlet titled “The Jews and Their Lies”
which called for the burning of Jewish schools and synagogues
The Holocaust
Shylock remains a difficult stereotype for
modern audiences
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Historical Anti-Semitism
and described Jews as "full of the devil's feces... which they wallow in like swine."
Writings such as this would be the beginning of modern anti-Semitism.
The 18th Century in Europe was called the “Age of Enlightenment”. It was an age where
societies tried to break free of traditions and live life, and organise society, based on science
and reason. But this era of freedom gave rise to the notion of “The Jewish question", what
was to be done with the Jews in this new age? Anti-Semitism flourished during these years
throughout Europe. Britain, France and Germany all debated “The Jewish Question”, the
question seeking to ask what should be the economic, legal, spiritual, and moral answer.
This question would lead to the Nazis in
Germany answering by using the phrase “The
Final Solution to the Jewish Question,”
ultimately the attempt to exterminate all the
Understanding
Jews of Europe.
1. Define the words in bold.
2. How long has anti-Semitism been
part of human history?
3. What brought Jewish people into
conflict with others?
4. What happened to Jews during the
Roman Empire?
5. Name two things the Jews were
blamed for during the Middle Ages.
6. What happened to Jews because of
these rumours?
7. Who was Shylock?
8. Who was Martin Luther and what
did say about Jews?
9. When at what was the Age of
Enlightenment?
10.How were Jews affected by debates
during this time?
Thinking
1. Why do you think the portrayal of
Jews in the two pictures could be
considered anti-Semitic?
2. Why do you think anti-Semitism
and racism has been part of human
culture for so long?
3. Does racism still exist in the world
today?
Extension
1. Visit the link below.
2. Describe what happened at the
siege of Masada.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11iPrDv8aBE
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The Odessa Pogrom
In the late 19th century and early 20th century the majority of Jews lived in Eastern Europe,
in what is now Poland and the Ukraine, but which then was a part of the Russian Empire. For
decades the Russian Empire had faced problems under the rule of the Tsars, poverty,
uprisings, and violence were part of everyday life. Under the Tsars the Jews had varying
degrees of acceptance, however,
when tensions were high, just like
elsewhere in Europe, Jews were
often made the scapegoats. In
Odessa, in 1905, the worst Jewish
pogrom up to that time took place.
From The Times Newspaper 5
November, 1905
Every Jewish bakery has been destroyed,
and 600 families have been rendered
homeless. Some of the ruffians put their
victims to death by hammering nails into
their heads. Eyes were gouged out, ears
cut off, and tongues were wrenched out
with pincers. Numbers of women were disemboweled. The aged and sick, who were found hidden in
the cellars, were soaked in petroleum and burnt alive in their homes… The police would not allow any
assistance to be given to the wounded, actually firing upon the Red Cross workers.
From the Wenatchee, Washington Newspaper 6 November, 1905
The latest estimates of the casualties in Odessa proper, which are founded on statements made by
police authorities, are that 3500 persons were killed and 12,000 were wounded. In the suburbs of
Moldavanka 1000 dead lay in the streets from midnight until noon Sunday, when the authorities dug
large pits in the graveyards and buried them without coffins or regard to age or sex, simply throwing
them into a hole and shovelling
dirt over them in order to
conceal the number of dead. In
Brokhorva a neighbourhood in
the Jewish quarters, men,
women and children, and even
women with infants in their
arms, were butchered
ruthlessly by marauders…. It is
alleged that the police and
soldiers everywhere marched at
the head of the mobs, inciting
them to destroy the Jews…
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The Odessa Pogrom
From Robert Weinberg, "The Pogrom of 1905 in Odessa: A Case Study" 1992
In the port city of Odessa alone, the police reported that at least 400
Jews and 100 non-Jews were killed and approximately 300 people,
mostly Jews, were injured, with slightly over 1,600 Jewish houses,
apartments, and stores incurring damage. These official figures
undoubtedly underestimate the true extent of the damage, as other
informed sources indicate substantially higher numbers of persons killed
and injured. For example, Dmitri Neidhardt, City Governor of Odessa
during the pogrom and brother-in-law of the future Prime Minister Peter Stolypin, estimated the
number of casualties at 2,500, and the Jewish newspaper Voskhod reported that over 800 were killed
and another several thousand were wounded. Moreover, various hospitals and clinics reported
treating at least 600 persons for injuries sustained during the pogrom. Indeed, no other city in the
Russian Empire in 1905 experienced a pogrom comparable in its destruction and violence to the one
unleashed against the Jews of Odessa.
Understanding
1. Define the words in bold.
2. Where did the majority of Jews live
in the 19th and early 20th Century?
3. Why were the Jews scapegoated?
4. What occurred in Odessa in 1905?
Extension
1. What sources exist for people get
news about atrocities today?
2. Are modern day news sources more
reliable or not?
3. Why might the use of mobile
phones and the internet be a
positive thing in places where
atrocities happen?
Source Questions
1. Make a list of the number of victims
from each source.
2. Why do you think the casualty
reports differ?
3. Which is the most sensationalised
of the two newspaper reports? Give
examples.
4. What is happening in the drawing?
5. Which source do you think would
be the most accurate? Give reasons
for your answer.
6. What do you think the response
would be from the public reading
the newspaper articles at the time?
Give reasons for your answer.
https://odessasecrets.wordpress.com/2015/06/23/how-many-may-have-died-in-the-odessa-pogrom/
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Jewish life before the Nazis
The Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933 and began persecution of the Jews almost
immediately, as promised in the rhetoric of Hitler’s campaign speeches. Prior to Hitler’s rise,
and the destruction of Jewish culture all over Europe, the Jewish communities had a thriving
place in various part of European society. The largest group of Jews were living in Poland.
When the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939 over 3,000,000 of the approximately 11,000,000
Jews of Europe lived there. Within 5 years this community, which had survived for over 800
years, was destroyed. Today, there are approximately 80,000 Jews remaining in Poland.
An extract from Stolen Youth, a collection of Jewish memoirs published by Yad Vashem, 2005.
Our Life Before the War
I was born in 1924 on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the holiest and most solemn day of the Jewish
calendar. Like most of the Jewish population in Będzin, a city in southwest Poland, my parents Hadassa and
Meyer Joseph Szpigelman fasted and prayed all day long in the synagogue. They sat apart from one another,
because according to orthodox Jewish tradition, women did not pray near the Ark and the Torah or sit with the
men in the main sanctuary. Rather, my mother and the other women prayed from the floor above, where they
could clearly hear the men chanting and observe the Torah being lifted out from the Ark.
In the late afternoon Hadassa felt her first contractions. Not wishing to disturb her husband, she
stepped quietly down the stairs and slipped unnoticed out of the prayer house. She headed home with the
knowledge that she could call upon the local midwife, who lived in our building and who came to her at once.
Meyer Joseph prayed through Ne’ilah, the day’s closing service, as the early October sun dipped
below the horizon. It was only afterward that he found out, while waiting for his wife by the stairwell, that she had
left hours earlier. By the time he arrived home and heard my cry from the bedroom, I had already been cleaned
up and a red ribbon tied in my wispy blond hair to protect me from the evil eye.
I came into my parents’ lives rather late. My mother had delivered five children before me, of whom
three were alive at the time of my birth. My brother Poldek was 15 years old, my sister Helen was 13 and Hania
was 6. Even though my parents were probably hoping for another son, having lost two, they were happy with the
healthy newborn daughter that God had given them.
They named me Jadzia, after an aunt, Jachet, who had died when she was over 100 and supposedly
had been very clever as well as hardy. For the rest of their lives, my parents called me their Yom Kippur girl,
although I could never celebrate my birthday with a party, because everyone would be fasting, meditating and
asking forgiveness of God on that holy day. Come to think of it, my family never had birthday parties, and I don’t
remember going to any, so maybe it simply wasn’t the custom.
We lived in an enormous, five-story, double-courtyard building on Kołątaja Street, one of three main boulevards
that ran through the city. More than a hundred families resided in the building’s one- to four-room apartments.
Even the basements and attics were occupied by tenants, except on the side of the attic where everyone hung
their laundry to dry. Professional people, such as doctors, lawyers, professors, and schoolteachers, lived in the
front apartments where the windows faced the street. The rear apartments were mostly occupied by trades
people, including tailors, seamstresses, shoemakers, brassiere and underwear makers, and milliners, all of
whom worked at home. The building also housed a bakery, a hair mattress factory, a chicken wire fence factory,
and a blacksmith, as well as a school for ballroom dancing, a trumpet school, a merchant’s organization, a
private school for girls that my oldest sister Helen attended, a sports club called Hakoach, where I exercised
when I was grammar school age, and a cheder (a small religious school), where a rabbi taught young boys to
read the Torah. There seemed to be a whole city within the confines of this one urban dwelling, a city densely
populated with vivid sounds, smells and characters that I have never forgotten.
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Jewish life before the Nazis
Understanding
1. Define the words in bold.
2. When did the Nazis come to
power?
3. How many Jews lived in Poland and
Europe in 1939?
Use the extract to answer the following
4. What is Yom Kippur?
5. Describe what happened on the
day of the author’s birth.
6. How do we know Jewish life could
be superstitious?
7. Describe the building the author
lived in as a child.
8. What occupations did the
occupants of the building have?
9. What services were available in the
building?
Thinking
1. Why do you think a Jewish
community might be self contained
in the way the extract describes the
“whole city within…this one
dwelling”?
2. What inferences can you make
about Jewish life in Poland before
1939? Give evidence to support
your answer.
3. The war ended over 70 years ago
why do you think the Jewish
population has not revived?
Research
1. Visit the website below.
Creativity
1.
What does the video show us about
life before the holocaust?
Create a table showing a
comparison between your
childhood and the author of the
extract.
http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/education/video/hevt_life_before.asp
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Rise of Nazism
Germany in the early 1930’s was a deeply troubled nation. The Great Depression of 1929
meant that millions were unemployed and many people had become disillusioned with the
democratic governments of the day. Losing faith in the mainstream parties’ ability to help
ordinary people caused many people to look to extreme politicians who promised to make
Germany great again. One such politician was the leader of the National Socialist German
Worker Party (or Nazi Party), Adolf Hitler.
Hitler had been leader of the Nazi Party and involved in
politics throughout the 1920’s. In 1923 he had attempted a
violent takeover of the government, known as a Putsch.
This attempt failed, and Hitler spent 9 months in prison
where he wrote a book about his ideas for Germany called
“Mein Kampf” or “My Struggle”.
Upon release from prison Hitler began to rebuild the Nazi Hitler practised his moves in front of a camera
before giving speeches.
Party into a legitimate political organisation. He was
convinced he could use democracy to get himself and his
party into power. Throughout the 1920’s the Nazis
remained a small fringe party, extremely anti-communist
and anti-Semitic, and very few people took them seriously. They were mostly seen as a
radical right wing party supported by brown shirted thugs, who roamed the streets beating
up opponents. For the Nazis to gain power and popularity something had to change.
In November 1929 the Great Depression began with the Wall Street Crash in New York. The
Great Depression caused millions of people worldwide to lose their jobs. Germany was hit
particularly hard by the Great Depression. People who were now destitute, and reliant on
handouts, looked to a strong leader for guidance. Hitler gave people someone to blame for
their problems (the Jews and Communists) and promised bread and work for all the hungry,
unemployed Germans.
Hitler flew across Germany in one of the earliest aeroplanes giving speeches, and made use
of the radio to get his message to as many Germans as he could. His angry speeches
matched the mood of the
people and the Nazis
became the largest party in
the Reichstag (the
parliament). With a large
percentage of the votes
Hitler was able to control
politics in Germany, banning
other parties, and soon there
was no one to stand in the
way of his racist policies.
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Rise of Nazism
Understanding
1. Define the words in bold.
2. What occurred in 1929 which made
millions of people unemployed?
3. How did it affect people’s view of
politicians in Germany?
4. What had Hitler attempted in
1923?
5. What was the result of the 1923
putsch?
6. How influential were the Nazis
during the 1920’s?
7. How badly was Germany affected
by the Great Depression? (Give 2
examples)
8. Name 4 ways in which Hitler tried
to win support of Germans.
Source Questions
1. What does the photo tell us about
Hitler’s character?
2. Describe the election results in
Germany using percentages for
a) May 1928
b) September 1930
c) November 1933
3. Describe in your own words the
reasons for the change in
percentages for the Nazi Party in
the years above.
Research
Creativity
1. Draw a graph which visually
represents the changing elections
in German from 1928 to 1933. You
could use a column graph, a bar
graph, or a pie chart.
1. Using the link below, describe how
the Nazis came to power. The
information you need is in the
menu on the left of the web page.
http://www.theholocaustexplained.org/ks3/the-nazi-rise-to-power/how-did-nazis-gainpower/#.WKKGRWc0M5s
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Hitler’s Ideas
Hitler was a man with many ideas about how Germany should be run, the kinds of people
who were good for Germany, and about those people who were not welcome. Before he
came to power he often gave speeches talking about the problems of Germany, and his
solutions. Hitler spent 9 months in prison during
1923 and 1924 for an attempted violent takeover of
the Government where he wrote a book about his
ideas. The book was called Mein Kampf (My
Struggle) and the thoughts he had about Germany,
other countries, war, nationalism and race. Very few
people bought his book to begin with, and fewer
people took it seriously. But within a decade these
ideas would lead to World War 2 and to the
Holocaust. Once he was leader of Germany the book
sold millions of copies. Mein Kampf even became
the official wedding present of Germany.
Hitler believed that race was a factor in the quality
and character of a person. His race, the Aryan race
was to him, the Master Race, the best race of all.
Other races, even ones he was allied with during the
war, were inferior. But the most inferior races
according to Hitler were the Gypsies and the Jews.
He referred to them as “untermenschen”, a German
word meaning sub human. It was this idea that Jews were not even human which eventually
allowed for the thinking that they could be exterminated.
Hitler also believed strongly
that the nations to the east
SOURCE A
of Germany were filled with
In the course of my life I have very often been a prophet, and have
inferior races and that
usually been ridiculed for it. During the time of my struggle for power it
Germany should take their
was in the first instance only the Jewish race that received my
land to give Germans more
prophecies with laughter when I said that I would one day take over the
“lebensraum” – living space. leadership of the State, and with it that of the whole nation, and that I
This idea that the people of
would then among other things settle the Jewish problem. Their laughter
was uproarious, but I think that for some time now they have been
countries such as Poland,
Czechoslovakia, Ukraine and laughing on the other side of their face. Today I will once more be a
prophet: if the international Jewish financiers in and outside Europe
Russia were inferior led
should succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war, then
Hitler to send his armies
the result will not be the Bolshevizing of the earth, and thus the victory
into the East. This attack
of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe!
towards, and into Russia
Hitler, speech to the Reichstag, 30 January 1939,
meant that millions of
people would be under the
control of the Nazis, and millions of people, especially Jewish people would be killed.
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Hitler’s Ideas
Understanding
1. Define the words in bold.
2. What were Hitler’s speeches
about?
3. Why was Hitler in prison and what
did he do there?
4. What was his book Mein Kampf
about?
5. What did Hitler believe about race?
6. Why did Hitler’s views on race
affect Jews and Gypsies?
7. How did Hitler’s idea of
“lebensraum” affect people of
Eastern Europe?
Creativity
1. Germany had banned Mein Kampf
from being sold in Germany from
1945 until 2017 when a new edition
with annotations from scholars
pointing out the book’s errors and
fallacies was released. Write a
letter to the publisher stating why
the book should, or shouldn’t still
be banned.
Source
1. When was the speech in Source A
given?
2. What is the intended audience of
Source A?
3. What are the two prophecies that
Hitler makes reference to in the
speech?
4. Who does Hitler think are trying to
plunge the world into war?
5. What is important about the year
of the speech?
6. Why is the answer to question 4
ironic?
Research
1. Visit the link below.
2. What other ideas did Hitler have
that are not mentioned on this
sheet.
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/modern-world-history-1918-to-1980/weimargermany/mein-kampf/
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Film Study : The Book Thief
The Book Thief is 2014 film based on a novel by Markus Zusak. The film takes place in
Germany during the time of the Nazis. We meet a young German girl who has been sent to a
foster family because of
political troubles faced by her
mother. Throughout the film
we follow her experiences as
she learns to love reading, but
we also see a society that is
increasingly under the control
of the Nazis. The events of the
film occur before the
holocaust, but show the
growing persecution of the
Jews in Germany, and the
attitudes of Germans to the
Nazi policies.
Kristallnacht, 1938
Before/After you watch the film
1. Research
•
Book Burning in Germany
•
Kristallnacht
•
Hitler Youth
•
Jessie Owens
Write a paragraph describing each of the above
points.
2. Make a list of any other films you have
seen or heard about that takes place
during The Holocaust
The Holocaust
Jesse Owens, Berlin Olympics 1936
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8
Film Study : The Book Thief
While you watch the film
1. What character is narrating the
film?
2. What is your impression of Leisel’s
new foster mother and father?
3. Name two difficulties faced by
Leisel at school.
4. What happens at the book burning
ceremony?
5. Who is Max and why is he being
hidden?
6. How does Max help Leisel?
7. Name 3 ways Leisel acquires books
to read
8. What finally happens to
a. Rudy?
b. Max?
c. Leisel?
After you watch the film
1. Write a 100 word review of the
film.
2. Describe what you can learn about
the treatment of Jews in Germany
from watching the film.
3. Illustrate the section of the film you
liked the best
4. Create a poster for the film, you
can use the images below for
inspiration.
The Book Thief
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Persecution in Nazi Germany
The Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933. Anti-Semitic laws were passed, Jews were
stripped of their rights and citizenship, and violence became more common. Boycotts of
Jewish stores occurred, and in 1938 a violent and destructive night would see synagogues
burn and Jewish owned windows smashed. Finally, in the last few years of Hitler’s rule, the
policies of persecution would change to extermination.
Dozens of laws were passed, each designed to remove Jews from everyday German life, and
actions were taking by Hitler’s thugs, the SA to
intimidate them.
In 1933 the SA encouraged boycotts of Jewishowned businesses. Jewish stores were painted with
anti-Semitic slogans
In 1935 two new laws were passed
•The Law for the Protection of German Blood and
German Honour. This defined a Jew as a person
with either three or four Jewish grandparents.
Marriages or sex between Jews and Aryans was
forbidden.
Jewish store with Star of David
Between 1935 and 1940 life for Jews in Germany were increasing restricted
•Banned from working in the Army, as Veterinarians, Tax Advisors, in government schools,
as auctioneers, as doctors for Aryans, or being a student or a lecturer at university.
•No longer allowed to change their
surname and had to add either “Israel”
or “Sara” to their given names, and
must have a large ‘J’ stamped on their
passports.
•Prohibited from owning gun stores or
weapons, moving around Germany
without permission, having carrier
pigeons, owning a car or a driver’s
license, having a telephone or a radio
banned from health spas and resorts,
forbidden from buying lottery tickets.
In November 1938, after a German
diplomat had been shot by a Jew in
Paris, people were encouraged to form mobs, and led by the SA a night of vandalism,
violence, and murder occurred, almost 100 Jews died. Synagogues were burnt down all over
Germany. Shop windows of Jewish businesses were smashed and because of this it became
known as the night of broken glass, or Kristallnacht.
Passport with J stamp
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Persecution in Nazi Germany
SOURCE A
A Letter by a Firefighter
This letter was written by a retired fireman, who remembered "Kristallnacht in Laupheim (Germany)
The alarm went off between 5-5:30 A.M., and as usual, I jumped on my bicycle towards the
firehouse. I had a strange feeling when I got there and saw many people standing in front of it. I was
not allowed to go into the firehouse to take the engines out, or even to open the doors. One of my
friends, who lived next to the Synagogue, whispered to me, "Be quiet - the Synagogue is burning; I
was beaten up already when I wanted to put out the fire."
Eventually we were allowed to take the fire engines out, but only very slowly. We were ordered not
to use any water till the whole synagogue was burned down. Many of us did not like to do that, but
we had to be careful not to voice our opinions, because "the enemy is listening."
SOURCE B
Personal Memoir by Michael Bruce about Kristallnacht
The object of the mob's hate was a hospital for sick Jewish children, many of them cripples or
consumptives. In minutes the windows had been smashed and the doors forced. When we arrived,
the swine were driving the wee mites out over the broken glass, bare-footed and wearing nothing
but their nightshirts. The nurses, doctors, and attendants were being kicked and beaten by the mob
leaders, most of whom were women.
Understanding
1. What was the underlying reason for
anti-Semitic laws being passed by
the Nazis?
2. Make a list of restrictions placed on
Jews in Germany between 1935
and 1940.
3. What happened in November
1938?
4. What is the difference in
perspective of each of the sources
about Kristallnacht?
5. What can we learn about differing
attitudes of Germans from the 2
sources? (Give reasons for your
answer)
The Holocaust
Research and extension
1. Visit the website below.
2. Describe the responses to
Kristallnacht
3. Why do you think there was a lack
of empathy around the world for
Jews who wanted to flee Germany.
http://www.history.com/topics/kristallnacht
Essay Question
Describe how anti-Semitism has impacted
Jewish people throughout history.
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Wearing the Star
During the rise to power of Hitler it was still possible for
many Jewish people to fit in with the rest of German and
European society. Some Jews in Eastern Europe wore
clothes and had lifestyles that separated them from the
rest of society, but in Western Europe most Jews had
assimilated and unless someone already knew they were
Jewish, they could live their lives in relative anonymity.
This anonymity was to change during
Nazi propaganda leaflet: "Whoever bears this sign is an
Hitler’s rule, in Germany, and in the places
enemy of our people"
that the German’s conquered.
From 1939 in Poland, and increasingly elsewhere in
Europe, Jews were forced to wear the Star on their
clothes prominently whenever they were in public.
Jews were to be marked, never being allowed to go
out in public without being clearly identified.
Leslie Meisels’ Suddenly the Shadow Fell
The German army occupied Hungary on March 19, 1944.
Within weeks, they decreed that Jewish people put a
cloth yellow Star of David on their garments, which had
to be visible so that everybody could see that we were
Jews.
My paternal grandfather, sadly, experienced this degradation. This same Hungarian-looking
gentleman whose forefathers were born in the town and who had lived respectful lives there, said
that he wouldn’t be humiliated, he wouldn’t wear the yellow star. He brooded about it for two days,
not leaving the house. Then, he had a heart attack and passed away a couple of days later. He died
without ever putting that symbol on his clothing.
Anna Molnár Hegedűs, As the Lilacs Bloomed
We kept hearing about people being attacked, beaten up, bullied and mobbed while wearing the
yellow star. A few days later, my husband had to take the train back to Szatmár. Other travellers
insulted Jews with yellow stars on the trains, so I was worried about him all day until his return… That
morning, he had left as a gentleman, composed, but he returned as a broken, wan and dejected
man… I could tell that he had some bad news to deliver. I started quizzing him, wanting him to tell
me what had happened, to share his troubles with me. I told him it would ease his heart, but he
wouldn’t say a word. We went to bed, but I could hear him tossing, turning, sighing. I implored him
to tell me what had upset him so much. At last, he related to me that he had heard rumours that the
Jewish population would be confined to a ghetto.
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Wearing the Star
From Eva Meisels’ memoir
By this time, we were wearing the yellow star on our clothing, according to a law that had been
enforced a few weeks after the Nazi occupation on March 19, 1944. My mother took it off me once
and explained how to leave our building and get to the nearby small market. There, I had to look
amongst the stalls for our former neighbour. I saw her at a counter and when she noticed me, she
reached down behind the counter and gave me some bread to take home to my mother. She must
have liked us and cared about us, to risk being caught and punished for giving bread to a Jewish girl.
She certainly didn’t want anyone to know I was Jewish. I had no right being out without the yellow
star and if anyone had recognized me and turned me in, that would have been the end of both of us.
Understanding and Source Questions
1. Define the words in bold.
2. How did the lives of Jews in Eastern
and Western Europe change under
Hitler’s rule?
3. What was the Nazi propaganda?
4. What are the three types of
sources?
Leslie
1. What can this source tell us about
how Jews were forced to dress?
2. Why might Leslie’s Grandfather
have refused to wear the star?
Anna
1. What can this source tell us about
the treatment of the Jews who
were forced to wear the star?
Eva
1. Why would Eva have to hide her
Jewishness to buy bread?
Thinking Questions
1. What are the purposes of the three
types of sources?
2. Using the sources, and your own
knowledge, describe the
experiences of those forced to wear
the Star of David.
Use PEEL paragraphs and quotes
from the sources as evidence.
Research and extension
1. Visit the link below to hear an audio
recording and other written
memoirs about the wearing the
star.
2. Describe the experience of these
Hungarian Jews of 1944.
https://medium.com/@azrielimemoirs/death-was-in-the-stars-1af2b8d80aa5#.7o94fhcxv
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War in the East
After annexing Poland in 1939, Hitler quickly sent his armies to the west, conquering most
of western Europe during 1940. From this point Hitler was ready to pursue his dream of
“lebensraum” for Germans. During 1941, the seemingly unstoppable Nazis, would invade
the USSR, and for the next 4 years a bloody war of annihilation and attempted subjugation
would take place in the East.
Hitler’s plans included the forced starvation of millions of Russians and Slavic people, and
the colonisation of the land by Germans to create a Greater Germany.
The early part of this offensive, during the summer of 1941, saw Hitler’s armies take huge
areas of land from the USSR. Ultimately Hitler would not be able to defeat the Soviet Union,
but during the 3
years that the Nazis
occupied this
territory, millions
would die. The
racial ideology of
the Nazis meant
that the ethnic
groups most
affected by the
occupation would
be the Jews and the
Roma.
As Hitler’s armies
moved east they
encountered large
Jewish populations,
throughout
countries like
Poland, the
Ukraine, Russia,
and Hungary. These
countries had been home to Jewish culture for centuries, with the arrival of war these
communities would be devastated, most communities would never recover from the
horrors that were about to be unleashed.
Source A Hitler speaking in 1941
The war against Russia will be such that it cannot be conducted in a knightly fashion. This struggle is
one of ideologies and racial differences and will have to be conducted with unprecedented,
unmerciful, and unrelenting harshness. All officers will have to rid themselves of obsolete ideologies.
I know that the necessity for such means of waging war is beyond the comprehension of you generals
but . . . I insist absolutely that my orders be executed without contradiction.
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War in the East
Understanding
1. Define the words in bold.
2. What was Hitler doing between
1939 and 1940?
3. Where did Hitler attack during
1941?
4. What were Hitler’s plans for the
land he intended to conquer in the
East?
5. Why were Jews and the Roma
affected?
6. What did the armies encounter as
they marched east?
Creativity
1. Use a blank map of Europe and an
atlas to label the countries and
territories under Nazi occupation
during WW2.
Source and extension
1. Who is the intended audience for
Source A?
2. What is meant by “knightly
fashion”?
3. Why does Hitler ue the words
“unprecedented, unmerciful, and
unrelenting”?
4. What are the “obsolete ideologies”
that he refers to?
5. Why would he need to make such a
speech?
Research
1. Use the link below to research the
evolution of the idea of
Lebensraum in Germany.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwtwo/hitler_lebensraum_01.shtml
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War in the East
Europe 1942
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Einsatzgruppen
Einsatzgruppen is the name of the special killing groups deployed by Hitler whose job was to
follow the army (Wehrmacht) into newly conquered areas of Eastern Europe and kill large
groups of people thought to be undesirable. Communists, Polish intellectuals, and male
Jews were targeted first, but soon the Einsatzgruppen would be tasked to clear areas
completely of Jews, the women and children included. Areas that were declared free of
Jews were called Judenfrei, or the term Judenrein was used,
clean of Jews.
At first the killings were done via mass shootings, over pits
where the bodies would be buried, or in secluded wooded
areas. The work, shooting thousands of naked, unarmed
Jewish women (Judinnen), children (judenkinder), and babies,
was deemed to be too stressful a task. A transition to gassing
was made, victims were loaded into vans which had poisonous
exhaust pumped into the hold, suffocating all inside. The gas
vans were not popular with the German officers, it could take twenty minutes for the
people inside the van to die, and screams could be heard by the drivers of the van.
Although the holocaust is more remembered
for the camps such as Auschwitz and
extermination sites such as Treblinka, the
Einsatzgruppen were responsible for almost a
quarter of the overall numbers of Jewish
victims, approximately 1.3 million out of 6
million.
Source B - Felix Landau, Einsatzgruppen Officer
12 July 1941... At 6:00 in the morning I was suddenly
awoken from a deep sleep. Report for an execution.
Fine, so I'll just play executioner and then gravedigger,
why not?... Twenty-three had to be shot, amongst them
... two women ... We had to find a suitable spot to shoot
and bury them. After a few minutes we found a place.
The death candidates assembled with shovels to dig
their own graves. Two of them were weeping. The
others certainly have incredible courage... Strange, I am
completely unmoved. No pity, nothing. That's the way it
is and then it's all over... Valuables, watches and
money are put into a pile... The two women are lined up
at one end of the grave ready to be shot first... As the
women walked to the grave they were completely
composed. They turned around. Six of us had to shoot
them. The job was assigned thus: three at the heart,
three at the head. I took the heart. The shots were fired
and the brains whizzed through the air. Two in the head
is too much. They almost tear it off..."
Source A - Einsatzgruppen report showing one unit's
death tally over 11 days
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Einsatzgruppen
Understanding
1. Define the words in bold
2. What was the role of the
Einsatzgruppen?
3. Who were the first targets of the
Einsatzgruppen?
4. What was the eventual task of the
Einsatzgruppen?
5. Why was the work stressful?
6. What was done to try to make the
work less stressful?
7. Was this method a success?
8. What were the total number of
victims of the Einsatzgruppen?
Creativity
1. Imagine you are an officer in the
Wehrmacht witnessing the work of
the Einsatzgruppen and feeling
outraged, as some ordinary, non
Einsatzgruppen soldiers were.
Write a short, half page letter to
your superiors explaining how you
feel about what is going on.
Sources
1. What is the purpose and audience
of Source A?
2. What occurred on 23rd August
1941?
3. What does Source A tell us about
the kind of people who worked in
the Einsatzgruppen?
4. Who is the intended audience for
Source B?
5. Describe the emotions of the
writer, use examples from the
writing to support your answer.
6. What suggests the writer of Source
B has seen other horrible things
during the war?
7. How useful are these sources in
showing Nazi attitudes towards
Jews?
Research
1. Visit the link below
2. Describe the four Einsatzgruppen
units.
3. What happened to the
Einsatzgruppen leaders after the
war?
http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/einsatz/
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The Camps : Slave Labour
There are names of places that existed during the holocaust so horrifying that even the
names have come to symbolise suffering and a lack of humanity. One of these names is
Auschwitz.
Auschwitz is often known as the place where gas chambers and mass exterminations took
place, indeed more Jews died here during the holocaust than at any other place. But its
function as a concentration camp, as with
many other camps around Germany and
Eastern Europe, was also to provide slave
labour for the Nazis war effort. These camps
were known as Arbeitslager, or forced labour
camps.
Survivors of the Nordhausen factory
where V2 rockets were made.
The conditions for the workers varied
throughout Europe. Some living in the camps
worked nearby as clothes makers, armaments
workers or other industrial work. Some were
forced on marches to worksites in forests,
mines and caves. At some camps a sign hung
over the entrance with the lie saying “work
will make you free”, arbeit macht frei,
encouraging compliance.
Regardless of the work and how essential it
was to the war effort, the workers were
treated as expendable. “Extermination through labour” was a principle the Nazis had.
Workers were underfed and ill-treated, often beaten to death. Most worked until they died
from exhaustion after a few months. Slave labour was one of the methods used to
exterminate the six million jews during the holocaust.
The slave labourers would be used in a variety of industries, for companies that are well
known even today such as Volkswagen, Philips, and the Ford Motor Company. During the
war, as a consequence of the
massive loss of working men to
the war effort, Jewish slave
labourers made up as much as
1/5 of the German workforce.
Over 2000 companies profited
from slave labour, and there is
still debate today in Germany
about the question of
compensation for the survivors
and families of the exploited.
IG Farben chemical factory Monowitz
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The Camps : Slave Labour
During the long hike to the "work site," two-legged beasts in handsome human skins struck their
charges left and right at random, just for fun. Their dogs, enormous, well-trained German
shepherds, trotted after their masters, eagerly awaiting a command. At the slightest hint they
leapt at the victim and tore him limb from limb; just as senselessly and randomly as their masters
did; just for fun…
We plunged the rakes into the mud, wincing at their weight when we tried to lift them. Then, as
we approached the wheelbarrow, the mud leaked away between the prongs until little was left.
Again we bent, aiming for the thickest mud. Even so, little of it reached the wheelbarrow. Again
and again we strained our emaciated bodies.
I observed my friends at this hopeless, disgusting, senseless work, whose only purpose was to
torment, and another tragic scene from long ago came to mind: a picture from a history book,
masses of broken Jewish slaves in Egypt building cities for Pharaoh. The caption was: "And
straw for brick-making they did not supply."
Extract from “To Vanquish The Dragon," by Pearl Benisch
Understanding
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Define the words in bold.
What was Auschwitz?
Auschwitz is usually known as?
What was its secondary function?
Use arbeitslager in a sentence.
What type of work was done in
forced labour camps?
7. What sign hung over the entrance
of camps? Why?
8. What is meant by extermination
through labour and how was it
applied by the Nazis?
9. How many companies profited
from slave labour? Name three.
10.What is the debate today in
Germany about labour camps?
Thinking and extension
1. Describe the Nordhausen survivors
in source 1.
2. Read source 3. Make up a list of
adjectives that describe the
treatment the Jewish labourers.
3. Create a one paragraph cloze
passage with a word bank about
Jewish slave labour. Ask your friend
to complete it.
4. Visit the site below and investigate
three of the companies that
profited from the Holocaust.
http://www.11points.com/News-Politics/11_Companies_That_Surprisingly_Collaborated_With_the_Nazis
The Holocaust
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The Ghettos
With the Nazis conquering large Jewish populations in Europe as their armies marched East,
it was decided that Jews should be segregated from the rest of society. In 1939 and 1940 no
decision had yet been made as to what the answer to the “Jewish Question” or Judenfrage
would be. The Nazis would soon create what they called the final solution, but in the
meantime the Jews were herded into separate areas from the rest of the European
population. These areas were known as ghettos.
The Germans established thousands of ghettos in
Eastern Europe. Some would last only a few days
before the inhabitants were taken elsewhere. Some
would last for years and become squalid, vermin
infested places where people would often die from
disease or starvation. People would be forced to
live in cramped conditions, dozens of people to a
room, without access to proper medical care, and
with a starvation level food supply.
SOURCE A. Jewish children in the Warsaw Ghetto
The Nazis filmed these deplorable conditions to use
as propaganda. Having created the conditions of the Ghetto, the Nazis would use these poor
conditions as proof that Jews were not fit to live among other people.
Eventually the ghettos would be emptied of their inhabitants as the Nazis expanded and
industrialised the killing centres in places like Auschwitz and Treblinka.
SOURCE B Professor Ludwik Hirszfeld, an escapee from the Warsaw Ghetto in 1943 described what
he saw.
Often there is something lying on the pavement, covered with newspaper. Emaciated limbs or
morbidly swollen legs usually stick out from underneath. These are the corpses of the spotted typhus
victims. The other people living in the house simply carry them outside because they cannot afford
the burial expenses. Or it may be one of the homeless paupers who has collapsed in the street.
All Jews must wear the armband with its Star of David. The children are the only exceptions, and this
makes it easier for them to smuggle food in.
The thousands of ragged beggars are reminiscent of a famine in India. Horrifying sights are to be
seen every day. Here a half-starved mother is trying to suckle her baby at a breast that has no milk.
Beside her may lie another, older child, dead. One sees people dying, lying with arms and legs
outstretched in the middle of the road. Their legs are bloated, often frost-bitten, and their faces
distorted with pain. I hear that every day the beggar children’s frost-bitten fingers and toes, hands
and feet are amputated…
I once asked a little girl: “What would you like to be?” “A dog,” she answered, “because the sentries
like dogs.”
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The Ghettos
SOURCE C. One of thousands of poems which were
buried in the ghetto and found after the war, the
writers mostly having been exterminated.
Girl Without Soap
by Miriam Ulinover
And as I sit so desolate
worn out by poverty,
the inspiration came to me
to create a song of need. –
Heavy is my shirt with worries,
one has to do the wash
the weave’s becoming yellowed
(close to _________________)
It bends my brain with worry
and presses like a canker.
If only the storekeeper
would give me soap on credit
No, he did not give it!
Stiff as starch he was!
For my beautiful dark eyes
he will not give away his soap
I am estranged from fresh white wash
my laundry’s gray with dirt,
But my body longs to sing the song
of a clean and fresh white shirt.
Creativity
1. Imagine what life would have been
like living in a ghetto.
Write a short poem or journal entry
to describe the experience.
The Holocaust
Understanding
1. Define the words in bold.
2. What does Judenfrage translate to?
3. How were the Jews treated in the
lead up to the ‘Final Solution’?
4. Describe the living conditions in the
ghettos.
5. How did the Nazi’s use the poor
conditions in the ghettos to their
advantage?
6. Why were the ghettos eventually
emptied?
Source Questions:
Source A
1. What type of source is this?
2. Describe what you see in this
source.
Source B
3. List 3 things you might see on the
street in a ghetto.
4. Why were there so many dead
bodies on the streets?
5. To what/ where does the author
compare the situation?
6. Explain why you think the little girl
wished to be a dog. How might her
life be different if she was one?
Source C
7. Describe what this source can tell
us about hygiene in the ghettos.
Macaulay and Claggett
15
Himmler and the SS
Hitler created a special bodyguard unit in the 1925 known as
the SS, the Schutzstaffel (Protection Squad). From a small
group of around 300 members, the SS grew into an
organisation that employed over a million men. The SS took on
many roles, especially during World War 2 - security, military,
executions, but are infamously known as the group that ran
the concentration and extermination camps. Their leader was
failed chicken farmer, and devoted Nazi, Heinrich Himmler.
Himmler was a fanatical follower of Nazi racial theory,
believing in the need for the purity of the German race. He
organised the SS into an elite Aryan example, complete with
their own mythology about blood and race purity. Himmler had
a castle built for special SS ceremonies, and encouraged
breeding of the SS men with the purest of Aryan women in an
Heinrich Himmler
attempt to create a master race. This fanaticism made Himmler
the ideal candidate to found the Einsatzgruppen early in WW2, and then to run the
extermination camp system in which millions of Jews would die. The camps under
Himmler’s control, were known as “Aktion Reinhard” camps.
In August 1941 Himmler attended a shooting of 100 Jews at Minsk. At the execution some
blood and brain sprayed onto Himmler’s uniform. Himmler was horrified and reportedly ill.
He became worried that the close up shooting of civilians – men, women, children, even
babies, would be mentally distressing for his men. From this point he ordered that a more
humane way of killing be devised, humane for the killers, not for the victims. Within
months, at his order, Auschwitz had expanded to become an extermination centre and the
gas made from Zyklon B (a pesticide) was being used to kill Jews by the thousands per day.
Himmler Speech to SS men October 1943
I want to mention another very difficult matter here before you in all frankness. Among ourselves, it
ought to be spoken of quite openly for once – yet we shall never speak of it in public. Just as little as
we hesitated to do our duty as ordered on June 30th 1934, when we placed comrades who had failed
against the wall and shot them, just as little did we ever speak of it, and we shall never speak of it. It
was a matter of course, of duty for us; thank God, never to speak of it, never to talk of it. It made
everybody shudder. Yet everyone was clear in his mind that he would do it again if ordered to do so,
and if it was necessary… I am referring now of the evacuation of the Jews, the extermination of the
Jewish people… To have gone through this [the extermination of the Jews] and at the same time to
have remained decent, that has made us hard. This is a chapter of glory in our history which has
never been written, and which never shall be written, since we know how hard it would be for us if
we still had the Jews, living among us as secret saboteurs, agitators, and slander-mongers. Among
us now, in every city — during the bombing raids, with the suffering and deprivations of the war. We
would probably already be in the same situation as in 1916 and 1917 if we still had the Jews in the
body of the German people.
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Himmler and the SS
Understanding
1. Define the words in bold
2. What did Hitler create in 1925?
3. What were the various roles of the
SS?
4. Who was the leader of the SS?
5. What was Himmler fanatic about?
6. How do we know he was fanatical
about it?
7. What event occurred in 1941
involving Himmler?
8. Why was he horrified?
9. How did he respond?
10.What gas was introduced?
Source Work
1. What does the source tell us about
Himmler and the SS?
2. How is this source useful to an
historian studying the Holocaust?
3. Explain how this source is reliable
or unreliable as piece of historical
evidence for an Historian studying
the Holocaust.
Thinking
1. Why do you think ‘fanaticism’ of
any kind can be dangerous?
2. What are some synonyms for
‘fanatical’ or ‘fanaticism’?
3. Why do you think people can
become so ‘fanatic’?
4. Can you think of anything people
are fanatic about in today’s
society?
Research
1. Visit the link below.
2. Create a timeline of Himmler’s
involvement in the Nazi Party.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007407
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Resistance
Resistance against the Nazi attempt to
persecute and murder the Jews of Europe took
many forms, both by Jews and non-Jews. Many
Jews defied Nazi laws, hid themselves under
occupation, or took up arms and actively
fought the Nazi military. Many fought back
against overwhelming odds despite knowing it
would mean certain death. Some non-Jews
risked their own lives and freedom to help
their Jewish neighbours escape the terror of
the holocaust.
Warsaw uprising
In the largest Jewish ghetto, in Warsaw, rumours began
to circulate in early 1943 that every Jew was about to be
deported and killed. Between April and May 1943, the
inhabitants of the ghetto decided to fight back,
attacking German tanks with Molotov cocktails and
small weapons that had been smuggled in. The Germans
quickly put down the major resistance, with their
superior forces and weapons. The soldiers went house
to house burning down buildings, but it would take
months to hunt down, and in many cases burn out with
flamethrowers the Jews who had hidden in sewers and
bunkers. 13,000 Jews were shot, burnt to death, or
suffocated before the uprising was crushed and the
remaining 50,000 Jews captured
Jurgen Stroop, SS General Account of the uprising
May 4th 1943. Countless Jews who appeared on the roof-tops during the fire have perished in
the flames. Others did not make an appearance on the top storeys until the last minute and could
only save themselves from being burned to death by jumping down. Today a total of 2283 Jews
have been caught, 204 of which shot, countless Jews destroyed in bunkers and in the fire. The
total number of the Jews caught so far has increased to 44,089.
The Righteous Among the Nations
Most people in Germany, and in occupied Europe were either perpetrators, or bystanders
during the holocaust, with few become actively involved in resisting the actions of the Nazis
against the Jews. Righteous Among the Nations is a special honour bestowed upon nonJewish people who risked their own lives to assist Jews during the period of the holocaust.
The award is given by the State of Israel and gives honorary citizenship, welfare, and other
benefits to the recipients if they wish to live in Israel. To date 26,157 people have been
recognised from 51 separate countries.
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Resistance
Understanding
1. Define the words in bold.
2. What are 3 ways that Jews resisted
the Nazis?
3. What rumours were circulating in
the Warsaw ghetto in 1943?
4. How did the inhabitants resist the
Germans?
5. Explain how the Germans
responded to the resistance.
6. How many Jews were killed and
how many captured during this
event?
7. Explain the purpose and benefits of
the ‘Righteous Among the Nations’
award.
Creativity
1. Imagine you are a Jew living in
Warsaw in 1943. You have heard
rumours that every Jew is about to
be deported and killed. You need to
rise up and resist the Germans!
Design a pamphlet urging your
fellow Jews to take action.
Thinking
1. Discuss whether you think Jewish
resistance during WWII was
effective or not. Do you think it
achieved any positive outcomes?
Use examples to support your
views.
2. If an extreme and violent
government took over Australia
and your life was at risk, would you
resist them? Why/ why not?
Explain your answer.
Research
1. Visit the first link below.
2. Describe what Oskar Schindler did
to earn the title Righteous Among
the Nations.
3. Visit the second link.
4. Find 3 more examples of people
named Righteous Among the
Nations and what they did.
https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005787
http://www.yadvashem.org/righteous
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Anne Frank
Anne Frank is possibly the most famous victim of the holocaust. She was a young Jewish girl
born in Germany 1929 who fled along with her family
to the Netherlands when Hitler came to power and
began persecuting Jews. Her family hoped to remain
safe in Amsterdam and Anne’s father, Otto Frank
established a business there. Anne and her older
sister Margot enrolled in a local school. They, along
with their mother Edith hoped to avoid the war but
the Nazis invaded The Netherlands in 1940 and in
1942, and when Margot was called up to report for a
Nazi work camp, the family were forced to go into
hiding.
For two years the Frank family and 4 other Jews were
hidden and supported by friends in a secret annex
behind a bookcase hidden in Otto Frank’s business. It
was quite spacious, and there is room enough for the 8 people to live together comfortably
but they could not leave for fear of being caught and deported to a concentration camp.
They relied on Dutch friends to keep them hidden and to supply them with food, necessities,
and news of the war. While hidden Anne began writing a diary for which she became
famous.
Tragically for the Frank family, their hiding place was discovered in 1944 and they were
arrested and deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp. Separated from their father,
who Anne believed was killed in the gas chambers, Anne and her sister were able to survive
with the help of her mother, who refused to eat, and passed on her rations to her
daughters. After a few weeks, Anne and her
sister were selected to move to Bergen
"Of all the multitudes who throughout history have spoken
Belsen concentration camp. Their mother,
for human dignity in times of great suffering and loss, no
left behind, died from starvation. Anne,
voice is more compelling than that of Anne Frank”
already emaciated and suffering from
– John F Kennedy 1961
scabies, contracted Typhus and died only a
few weeks before the camp liberation by
Allied forces.
Anne’s father, Otto, with Anne never knowing, had managed to survive Auschwitz and
learned a few weeks after the war that he had lost his daughters. Returning to the Dutch
friends who had helped to hide his family he was given a collection of papers, which
included Anne’s writings about their time in hiding. Anne wrote extensively about her family
and the people she was hidden with, the harrowing times she lived in, and in her writings
expressed a desire to be a published author one day. Fulfilling his daughters wish Otto had
the writings published as “A Diary of a Young Girl” in 1950.
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Anne Frank
The impact of Anne Frank’s diary has been
extraordinary. Having sold over 30 million
copies in many languages, it has been able
to humanise the everyday life of a victim of
the holocaust. The Anne Frank
"people identified with this child. This was the impact of the
Holocaust, this was a family like my family, like your family
and so you could understand this."
- Simon Wiesenthal
Understanding
1. Define the words in bold.
2. Who was Anne Frank?
3. Why were the Franks forced to go
into hiding?
4. Where did they hide?
5. How did we learn of their
experiences while in hiding?
6. How long did they spend in the
secret annex?
7. What happened to each of the
family members after they were
uncovered in 1944?
8. Who was responsible for the
publishing of Anne’s diary in 1950?
Thinking
1. How do you think the Nazis
discovered the secret annex?
2. Why do you think Anne Frank’s
diary has become so famous and
important?
3. Why do you think it was important
for Otto Frank to publish his
daughter’s diary?
Research
Creativity
1. Imagine that you were Anne Frank
living in hiding. Write a one-page
diary entry expressing your
thoughts and feelings.
1. Visit the website below. Take a
virtual tour of Anne Frank’s hiding
place.
2. Describe what it might have been
like to live in the secret annex for
two years
http://www.annefrank.org/en/Subsites/Home/
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The Camps : Daily Life
Life in the camps varied greatly from person to person. Some jobs, such as being a cook, or
sorting belongings of the arrivals made it easier to survive by stealing a little extra food.
However, there were few survivors of the camps, and the experience generally was one of
brutality, torture, and death.
An account by Pfeffer, a survivor of daily life at the Majdanek camp
You get up at 3am. You have to dress quickly, and make the ‘bed’ so that it looks like a matchbox. For
the slightest irregularity in bed-making the punishment was 25 lashes, after which it was impossible
to lie or sit for a whole month. Everyone had to leave the barracks immediately. Outside it is still
dark, unless the moon is shining. People are trembling because of lack of sleep and the cold.
There was what was called a washroom, where everyone in the camp was supposed to wash — there
were only a few faucets — and we were 4,500 people in that section. Of course there was neither
soap nor towel or even a handkerchief, so washing was theoretical rather than practical…
At 5am we would get half a litre of black bitter coffee. That was all
we got for what was called “breakfast.” At 6am a headcount.
After the headcount: work. We went in groups, some to build
railway tracks or a road, some to the quarries to carry stones or
coal, some to take out manure, or for potato-digging, latrinecleaning, barracks or sewer—repairs. During work the SS men beat
up prisoners mercilessly, inhumanly and for no reason. They were
like wild beasts and, having found their victim, ordered him to
present his backside, and beat him with a stick or a whip, usually
until the stick broke. The victim screamed only after the first blows,
afterwards he fell unconscious and the SS man then kicked at the
ribs, the face, at the most sensitive parts of a man’s body.
Another customary SS habit was to kick a Jew with a heavy boot.
The Jew was forced to stand to attention and all the while the SS
man kicked him until he broke some bones. People who stood near
enough to such a victim, often heard the breaking of the bones. The
pain was so terrible that people receiving that treatment died in
agony.
Work was actually unproductive, and its purpose was exhaustion and torture. At noon there was a
break for a meal. Standing in line, we received half a litre of soup each. Usually it was cabbage soup,
or some other watery liquid, without fats, tasteless. One had to drink the soup out of the bowl and
lick it like a dog.
From 1pm until 6pm there was work again… There were ‘days of punishment’, when lunch was given
together with the evening meal, and it was cold and sour, so our stomach was empty for a whole
day. Afternoon work was the same: blows and blows again. At 6pm there was the evening
headcount. Usually we were left standing at attention for an hour or two, while some prisoners were
called up for ‘punishment parade’, for those who (in the Germans’ eyes) had transgressed in some
way during the day or had not been punctilious in their performance. They were stripped naked
publicly, laid out on specially constructed benches and whipped with 25 or 50 lashes. All prisoners
had to watch the brutal beating and listen to the heart-rending cries.
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The Camps : Daily Life
Understanding
1. Define the words in bold.
2. Make a list of the words from the
passage that suggest negative
treatment of the prisoners.
3. How would some people survive
the hardships of the camps?
4. Describe what would happen at
3am.
5. What was “breakfast”?
6. What were the different kinds of
work people would do?
7. How did the SS men treat the
prisoners?
8. Describe one way people could die.
9. How important was the work?
10.What were punishment days?
11.What happened at 6pm?
Thinking
1. Why do you think the prisoners put
up with the treatment?
2. What do you think was the
motivation for the brutality?
3. Do you think is it impossible to ever
imagine a circumstance that could
justify anyone treating people in
this way? Give a reason for your
answer.
4. What do you think should happen
to the perpetrators of the
treatment of the prisoners?
Research
Creativity
1. Imagine you were a prisoner.
In your own words describe your
day.
1. Visit the website below.
2. Describe the selection and
processing of newly arrived
deportees.
http://www.wollheim-memorial.de/en/ankunft_im_kz_bunamonowitz
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More Victims
Although the holocaust specifically refers to the persecution and the attempted
extermination of Jews of Europe, there were other groups in Europe who suffered under the
Nazis. Another ethnic group that were particularly hated by the Nazis were the Roma
people, or gypsies. The Nazis also hated communists, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses,
alcoholics, and the disabled. These groups were
persecuted, sent to concentration camps, or killed
because of the Nazi belief in racial purity.
The Nazis passed laws in 1933 to try to keep the
German people racially pure, and also healthy.
Disabled people began to be sterilised by force so
they could not have children. Soon, a program of
euthanasia began, starting with disabled children,
later adults as well. Doctors would sign a form that
would allow patients of mental hospitals to be
killed, the family of the patient would be sent a
letter saying their loved one had died of illness.
SOURCE A.
A propaganda poster from 1938, encouraging people to
accept euthanasia for disabled people. It says "60,000
Reichsmark (about $420,000 in Australia today) is what
this person suffering from a hereditary defect costs the
People's community during his lifetime. Fellow citizen,
that is your money too.”
The Roma (or gypsies) were a
traditionally nomadic ethnic group originally from India
who were seen by the Nazis as racially inferior. Around a
million Roma has settled in Europe before WW2. The
Roma were captured and deported to concentration
camps as the Nazis marched across Europe. It is
estimated that 200,000 to 500,000 of the Roma were
killed in pogroms, shootings, or in the gas chambers, but
due to poor record keeping this number may be as high
as 800,000. In Romani, this genocide is known as
Porajmos.
SOURCE B
A poster showing the triangular badges worn by inmates of the
camps, colours were different for political prisoners like
communists, homosexuals, Roma, Jehovah’s witnesses and
others. The yellow triangle would be added to make the Star of
David for Jews.
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More Victims
Understanding
1. Define the words in bold.
2. What were the other groups
besides Jews that suffered under
the Nazis?
3. Why did the Nazis persecute these
groups?
4. What laws did the Nazis pass?
5. Why was a program of euthanasia
begin?
6. What is Source A about?
7. What happened to the Roma?
8. What is shown in Source B?
Creativity
1. Use link 1 below to create a colour
version in English of SOURCE B.
Thinking
1. Why do you think Nazis had their
beliefs about race?
2. How effective do you think the
propaganda in Source A would have
been?
3. How do you think the public would
react if euthanasia was suggested
for disabled people today?
4. Why do you think the Nazis
physically labelled the people they
were persecuting?
Research
1. Visit link 2.
2. Use the link to describe the
experiences of the Forgacs and
Prigmore children during the
holocaust.
Link 1 https://s14.postimg.org/xtx6fld8h/IDs.jpg
Link 2 https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/voices/two-survivors-roma-genocideshare-their-stories
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Auschwitz : Research Projec t
Auschwitz is synonymous with the holocaust, it
is the place where more Jews died than
anywhere else. Both a slave labour camp and
an extermination camp, over 1 million Jews
were starved, worked, or beaten to death, died
from disease, or were killed in the gas
chambers. The stories and images of Auschwitz
have come to symbolize the worst that
humanity is capable of.
SOURCE A : The Gate at Auschwitz
SOURCE B : Extract from Night by Elise Wiesel
The afternoon went by slowly. Then the doors of the wagon slid
open. Two men were given permission to fetch water. When
they came back, they told us that they had learned, in exchange
for a gold watch, that this was the final destination. We were to
leave the train here. There was a labor camp on the site. The
conditions were good. Families would not be separated. Only
the young would work in the factories. The old and the sick
would find work in the fields.
Through the windows, we saw barbed wire; we understood that
this was the camp. As the train stopped we saw
flames rising from a tall chimney into a black sky.
SOURCE C : A freight car used to transport Jews
We stared at the flames in the darkness. A
wretched stench floated in the air. Abruptly, our doors opened. Strange-looking creatures, dressed in
striped jackets and black pants, jumped into the wagon. Holding flashlights and sticks, they began to
strike at us left and right, shouting: “Everybody out! Leave everything inside. Hurry up!”
We jumped out. In the air, the smell of burning flesh. It must have been around midnight. We had
arrived. In Birkenau.
SOURCE D : Scott Jenkins in the Salisbury Post Newspaper
So fierce was Hitler's hatred, trains carrying Jews to the death camps were given priority even over
troop trains carrying soldiers to battle, Cernyak-Spatz said. When she stepped off the train and onto
the platform at Birkenau, the results assaulted her senses.
"The first thing you noticed was an absolutely incredible stink," she said. The noxious, sickly sweet
odor hung in the air with a dusky vapor billowing from smokestacks and staining the distant sky, she
said.
(Continued next page)
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Auschwitz : Research Projec t
SOURCE D continued
Then, the selection began. The Nazis separated families, those who could work to one side, those
who couldn't to another. The second group loaded onto trucks.
The women on the trucks asked where they
were going. Don't worry the drivers told
them, you will be reunited with your
families.
SOURCE E : The selections at the Auschwitz ramp
After a nice hot shower.
"Then they took them directly in the
direction of that smoke," Cernyak-Spatz
said. Soon, those who survived learned
what burned in those buildings.
Guards led prisoners into the large
buildings, told them to take off their
clothes, hang them on hooks. And
remember, tie your shoe laces together,
they said, so you don't lose a shoe.
The Nazis had told Jews to dress in their warmest clothes for the journey to the "work" camps,
Cernyak-Spatz said. After the gas chambers, they gathered those clothes for their own use.
For the years during the war, "that is how the whole German nation was clothed ... in the clothing
and property of dead Jews," she said.
SOURCE F : An extract from "Mengele, the Complete Story" by Gerald L. Posner
and John Ware
The memory of this slightly built man, scarcely a hair out of place, his dark green
tunic neatly pressed, his face well scrubbed, his Death's Head SS cap tilted
rakishly to one side, remains vivid for those who survived his scrutiny when they
arrived at the Auschwitz railhead. Polished boots slightly apart, his thumb resting
on his pistol belt, he surveyed his prey with those dead gimlet eyes, Death to the
left, life to the right. Four hundred thousands souls -- babies, small children,
young girls, mothers, fathers, and grandparents -- are said to have been
SOURCE G : Josef Mengele
casually waved to the lefthand side with a flick of the cane clasped in a
gloved hand. Mengele was the chief provider for the gas chambers and
their crematoria. He had a look that said 'I am the power,' said one survivor. At
the time, Mengele was only 32 years old.
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Auschwitz : Research Projec t
SOURCE H : In May 1943 an SS officer conducted an inspection of Auschwitz and compiled this
report, for the attention of SS leader Heinrich Himmler
The Auschwitz camp plays a special role in the resolution of the Jewish question. The most advanced
methods permit the execution of the Fuhrer’s order in the shortest possible time and without
arousing much attention.
The so-called “resettlement action” runs the following course: The Jews arrive in special trains
(freight cars) toward evening and are driven on special tracks to areas of the camp specifically set
aside for this purpose. There the Jews are unloaded and examined for their fitness to work by a team
of doctors, in the presence of the camp commandant and several SS officers.
At this point anyone who can somehow be incorporated into the work program is put in a special
camp. The unfit go to cellars in a large house which are entered from outside. They go down five or
six steps into a fairly long, well-constructed and well-ventilated cellar area, which is lined with
benches to the left and right. It is brightly lit, and the benches are numbered. The prisoners are told
that they are to be cleansed and disinfected for their new assignments. They must therefore
completely undress to be bathed. To avoid panic and to prevent disturbances of any kind, they are
instructed to arrange their clothing neatly under their respective numbers, so that they will be able to
find their things again after their bath.
Everything proceeds in a perfectly orderly fashion. Then they pass through a small corridor and enter
a large cellar room which resembles a shower bath. In this room are three large pillars, into which
certain materials can be lowered from outside the cellar room. When three- to four-hundred people
have been herded into this room, the doors are shut, and containers filled with the substances are
dropped down into the pillars. As soon as the containers touch the base of the pillars, they release
particular substances that put the people to sleep in one minute.
A few minutes later, the door opens on the other side, where the elevator is located. The hair of the
corpses is cut off, and their teeth are extracted (gold-filled teeth) by specialists (Jews). It has been
discovered that Jews were hiding pieces of Jewelry, gold, platinum etc., in hollow teeth. Then the
corpses are loaded into elevators and brought up
to the first floor, where ten large crematoria are
located. (Because fresh corpses burn particularly
well, only 50-100 lbs. of coke are needed for the
whole process.) The job itself is performed by
Jewish prisoners, who never step outside this
camp again.
The results of this “resettlement action” to date:
500,000 Jews. Current capacity of the
“resettlement action” ovens: 10,000 in 24 hours.
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Auschwitz : Research Projec t
SOURCE I : Smuggled out photo of the burning of bodies at Auschwitz
SOURCE J : The Crematorium at Auschwitz
Research Activity
1. Using the Sources above and the links below as a starting point you are to create
and submit a report on various aspects of the Auschwitz concentration camp. You
should have a paragraph about each of the following things
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Transportation of Jews
The entrance to the camp
Selection at the ramp
Layout of the camp
Collection and use of Jewish belongings
Slave labour
Daily Life
Dr Mengele
Extermination methods
Disposal methods
https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/media_nm.php?ModuleId=10005189&MediaId=3371
http://alphahistory.com/holocaust/auschwitz/
http://alphahistory.com/holocaust/whos-who-in-the-holocaust/#mengele
http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/auschwitz
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/history-and-overview-of-auschwitz-birkenau
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Film Study : Auschwitz Episode 3
This documentary is one of a six part BBC series about Auschwitz called The Nazis and the
Final Solution. This documentary looks at the evolution and use of concentration camps
across Europe, especially Auschwitz. In 1939, Auschwitz was initially established as a
detention centre for political
prisoners, protestors, and any
other group perceived as
enemies of the Nazi regime.
Once Hitler had determined
what the Final Solution to the
Jewish Question was and made
it the party’s key policy,
Auschwitz was deemed as the
ideal location to enact this new
rule. Aushwitz, along with
multiple other sites throughout
Europe would go on to see the
death of more than 6 million
Jews, 1 million Roma, and hundreds of thousands of political prisoners.
The BBC has an interactive map of Auschwitz, which you can view below to get a better
understanding of the Aucshwitz camp.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/interactive/animations/auschwitz_map/index_embed.shtml
Before/After you watch the film
1. Research children during the holocaust
https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005142
2. Write a paragraph about each of the following points with respect to children
a.
b.
c.
d.
In the Ghettos
In the Killing Centres
As forced labour
In the Resistance
3. Research the role of Joseph Mengele during his time at Auschwitz Concentration Camp.
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/josef-mengele
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Film Study : Auschwitz Episode 3
While you watch the film
The following questions are for minutes 1-13
1.
2.
3.
4.
Which Western European countries were the first Jews deported from?
How did the French police help?
Which Nazi figure organised the deportations?
Describe the experience of the children at Drancy Internment Camp and after.
The following questions are for minutes 14-23
5. How does Oskar Groening describe the arrival of the transport?
6. How were the children killed?
7. How many were sent without their parents?
8. How does Oskar Groening justify killing children?
9. What was Oskar Groening’s job?
10. What happened to Theresa Steiner?
The following questions are for minutes 23-29
11.
12.
13.
14.
What did Himmler see at Auschwitz?
Why was his gas chamber visit kept secret?
How does Kazimierz Piechovski describe living in the camp?
Describe his escape attempt.
The following questions are for minutes 29-34
15. What was Himmler’s order regarding Polish Jews?
16. Where did Himmler want to kill the Polish Jews?
17. Describe Treblinka.
The following questions are for minutes 34-43
18.
19.
20.
21.
How did Hoess dispose of the bodies at first?
How was Auschwitz made more efficient?
Describe what Albert Battel did at Przemysl.
How was he honoured?
The following questions are for minutes 43-45
22. Describe Treblinka after Franz Stangl arrived.
23. How many people were killed at Treblinka?
The following questions are for minutes 45 and onwards
24. How was Auschwitz modified?
25. Who was the notorious new arrival at Auschwitz?
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Extermination Camps
During the holocaust, there were different types of camps built by the Nazis. There were
concentration camps to hold political or ethnic undesirables, POW camps for captured
soldiers, labour camps for slave workers, transit camps for temporary holding, and then
there were the extermination camps. Some camps were a combination of the above. The
extermination camps had one purpose, to kill as many human beings, mostly Jews, as
efficiently as possible.
Aside from Auschwitz, where over a million people died in just over 5 years , the deadliest
killing centre of the Nazis was Treblinka where 800,000 people were killed in just 15 months
between July 1942 and October 1943. Other killing centres included Belzec and Chelmno
where 600,000 and 320,000 were killed respectively. With places like Treblinka the Nazis
had enacted a policy unseen in human history, industrialised genocide.
Treblinka was a secluded place, and its construction was designed to deceive. Jews were
brought on railways and disembarked on what was disguised to look like an ordinary railway
platform, complete with flower beds, fake timetables, and painted clocks. The deportees
were told they were going to a delousing and a shower and to leave their belongings to be
collected later. Most arrivals would be dead within 30 minutes of arriving.
A rare survivor Oscar Strawczynski, who worked in a slave labour section as a tinsmith
reported the killing process.
…the people leave all their belongings in Camp 1. Everyone is undressed there. The women already
naked, are seated on a long bench and their hair is cut off. This is accomplished by about forty
“hairdressers.”
The victims come into Camp 2 already naked and shorn, and are immediately squeezed into the
cubicles.
The doors are hermetically sealed, the motors start to work. The air from inside is sucked out and
fumes from burnt gasoline forced in. The cries from inside can be heard for about for about ten
minutes and then it becomes quiet.
The entire process, from the arrival at the camp to the oven lasts only about half an hour. Most of the
victims in the cubicles start to
haemorrhage. A German controls the
progress of the work through the little
window in the ceiling.
When he is sure that everyone inside is
dead, he opens the side panels, and the
corpses fall out onto the cement platform.
An elderly Jew from Czestochowa called
“the dentist” checks the bodies for gold or
metal teeth, which he pulls out. “
Once the Nazis realised they would
soon lose the war, Treblinka was
destroyed, bricks removed from the
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Extermination Camps
buildings, and ashes from cremated bodies were spread out around the local area.
Archaeological finds, including bones and personal items, and eyewitness testimonies are
the only evidence that remain.
Understanding
1. Define the words in bold.
2. Identify the purpose of:
a. Concentration camps
b. POW camps
c. Labour camps
d. Transit camps
e. Extermination camps
3. Which was the deadliest killing
centre of the Nazis? Why?
4. Explain the ways that Treblinka’s
construction was meant to deceive.
5. What were deportees told when
they got off the train?
6. What did the Nazis do to Treblinka
once they realised they would lose
the war? Why would they do this?
Creativity
1. Draw a diagram of the railway
platform at Treblinka described
above. Label its features.
2. What would you be thinking as a
Jew arriving at Treblinka? Write a
journal entry to describe your
arrival.
Source
1. Who is the author of this source?
2. What was his role?
3. What happened to prisoners at
camp 1?
4. What type of gas was used in the
extermination chamber?
5. How long does the entire process
take from arrival to extermination?
6. Describe what happens once
everyone inside is dead?
7. Is this a reliable source? Why/ why
not? Write a PEEL paragraph to
explain your answer (3-4
sentences).
Research
1. Visit the link below and watch the
video of the animated
reconstruction of Treblinka.
2. Using information from the video
and your own knowledge describe
what happened from arrival to
cremation.
https://vimeo.com/98382049
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Death Marches
By 1944, it was clear even to the most fanatical of Nazis that the War would be lost. As the
Russians approached and overran German occupied territories in Eastern Europe the SS
began doing their best to hide their genocidal crimes. In many cases, such as Treblinka,
building were destroyed, bodies exhumed and
cremated, and ashes and evidence spread far and wide.
Source A
In some places, such as Auschwitz, the still large camp
populations were forced on death marches. In these last
A secretly
months of the war many thousands would die from
photographed march
exhaustion, exposure, and starvation as the Nazis
through a German
evacuated the camps and forced their victims into the
town.
heart of Germany. It was thought that these prisoners
might tell the stories of the atrocities if they were left
behind, and some prisoners could still be used as slave
labour. Any prisoner too weak to walk would be shot.
Himmler would eventually order 59 marches, most
taking place during the brutal winter at the end of 1944,
or early 1945, just 4 months before the Nazis would
surrender. Around 250,000 Jews would die on these
death marches.
Source B
From Gerta Solan’s My Heart Is At Ease
Auschwitz was liquidated on January 18, 1945. The Soviet
front was moving closer every day but the Nazis delayed
our liberation as long as they could. This was the beginning
of the end for them. The very ill had to stay behind and
later we were told that at the end they were all shot, but it
wasn’t true. The rest of us were dragged along with the SS
officers running from the camp. I, along with Eva Stern and
many others, started the long march across the country at
night, slipping through villages so as few people as possible
would see us. Some did spot us and tried to give us food,
which was brave of them. Many inmates were unable to
walk the long hours. It was the most exhausting race of our
lives — for everyone a matter of life or death. We were
weak, undernourished, miserable. People gave up and
were shot when they sat down on the road, preferring
death to such an unbearable struggle. Many times, I too
thought of doing this, but some inner voice told me — no!
Gerta Solan, 1941
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We went for days with nothing to eat but snow. I moved
like a robot. Surprisingly, though, my feet continued to
carry me forward.
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Death Marches
Understanding
1. Define the words in bold.
2. What was clear by 1944?
3. What were the SS doing as the
Russians approached?
4. How did they attempt to do this at
Treblinka?
5. What happened to the camp
inhabitants at Auschwitz?
6. Why did the guards not want to
leave them behind?
7. What were conditions like on the
marches?
8. How many Jews would die on these
marches?
Sources
1. What does Source A tell you about
the knowledge of the holocaust
amongst ordinary Germans?
2. How do you think ordinary
Germans would have felt about
seeing these prisoners marching
through their town?
3. Using evidence/quotes from Source
B to support your answers, what
does Source B tell you about
a. The secrecy of the marches?
b. The attitude of the villagers?
c. The resilience of the
survivors?
Creativity
1. Imagine you are a German teenager
watching a death march pass by
your window.
2. Write a short description of what
you can see and illustrate your
description.
Research
1. Visit the website below.
2. Describe Freddie’s experience on
the death march from Auschwitz
http://www.theholocaustexplained.org/ks3/survival-and-legacy/liberation-thesurvivors/freddie-remembers-the-death-march/#.WSuHt2dU2po
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Liberation
In 1944 and 1945 Nazi Germany was on the retreat and the war would soon be over.
Despite the Nazi attempts to cover up their genocidal crimes, as the Allies took over German
occupied lands they found what was left behind of the
camps and the horror. For millions the Allies had
arrived too late, 6 million Jews had already been killed
by Nazi racial policy. For a few the arrival of the Allies
meant liberation, but for many, they were so close to
death from illness and starvation that they would not
survive to enjoy their freedom. At Bergen-Belsen
60,000 survivors were found, many suffering from
typhus and dysentery, over 10,000 would shortly die.
Source A Sign at Belsen
Anne Frank had died from disease here just weeks before liberation.
At Buchenwald Camp, the local German civilians were forced to enter to see what the Nazi
regime had done in their name. Supervised by Allied soldiers the population of the nearby
town were taken on a tour of the huts, the sick and dying victims, and were made to help
bury the corpses of the already dead.
Source B
American war correspondent William Frye, April 20, 1945
I saw Belsen—its piles of lifeless dead and its aimless swarms of living dead. Their great eyes were
just animal lights in skin-covered skulls of famine. Some were dying of typhus, some of typhoid, some
of tuberculosis, but most were just dying of starvation. Starvation—the flesh on their bodies had fed
on itself until there was no flesh left, just skin covering bones and the end of all hope, and nothing left
to feed on.
Tragically, there is still hope inside these still-breathing cadavers. As long as eyes can stare from the
bodies scattered everywhere on the floors and on the ground there is hope. Hope in these for whom
there is no hope. They are living but they cannot live. No food, no care can save them. Ahead of them
is nothing—nothing but that pit with the bulldozer waiting to cover them with earth.
I saw the living beside these dead. Living—they still walked and talked and stared curiously,
unemotionally at visitors and snipped cigarette butts tossed from a passing army car, went to the
cookhouse for food and knelt around fires. There were supposed to be 29,000 of them alive when the
British arrived. Living—but hardly men and women now, their spirits so broken and degraded that
the nameless horror around them was without meaning or
significance. I saw there was no sex, no shame, no modesty,
no self-respect among these people—driven in a few months
backward a million years towards primordial scum. Some
habits remained. Women stood naked cleaning themselves
with cans of water, unconscious of their flat, empty
nakedness.
Source C Liberated Survivors of
Mauthausen Camp, 1945
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Liberation
Source D German civilians at Buchenwald after
liberation
Understanding
1. What was left behind as the Nazis
retreated?
2. What did the arrival of the Allies
mean?
3. What were the survivors suffering
from?
4. What happened to many survivors?
5. What did the Allies force the local
German civilians to do?
6. Who wrote source B?
7. What did the author of source B
witness?
Creativity
1. Write a diary entry for one of the
German civilians in Source D.
Extension
1. Make a list of the descriptive
phrases used by the author of
source B. e.g.”piles of lifeless dead”
2. Why do you think the author used
these descriptive terms instead of
just writing plain facts?
3. What impact would the images in
Sources A, C, and D have on
a. Ordinary Germans?
b. The rest of the world?
4. How do you think the international
community would respond to the
information being reported from
the liberated camps such as that
from Source B?
5. Write a brief description of the
audio testimonies of Bergen-Belsen
from the link below.
http://www.iwm.org.uk/history/the-liberation-of-bergen-belsen
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Nuremberg Trials
On April 30, 1945, with the Soviet Army surrounding his Berlin bunker, Hitler committed
suicide, effectively ending the war in Europe. The victorious Allies, Britain, USA, France, and
the Soviet Union decided to put 24 of the surviving Nazi leadership on trial for the crimes
committed during the war and the holocaust.
The site of the trial was Nuremberg, home to Hitler’s largest Nazi rallies in the 1930’s, and
the trials would last for almost a year between October 1945 and November 1946. Many
high ranking Nazis responsible who had survived the war, and who had not committed
suicide, were put in front of a panel of judges and were found guilty for crimes including the
holocaust. Those found guilty included the head of the Luftwaffe, Herman Goring (pictured
below), was the highest ranking Nazi to stand trial. Some were executed; others were given
prison sentences in an attempt to show that the civilised world finds some things
intolerable and unforgiveable. Goring would commit suicide the day before his execution.
Twelve more trials were held at Nuremberg in the next 3 years. Altogether 1416 people
were found guilty of crimes, with less than 200 being executed, most would be released
from prison in the 1950’s.
The trials were also intended to show the
world the horrors of the holocaust,
because the details and rumours that had
been published around the world were
difficult for many to believe. Hearing
testimony from those who were
perpetrators, as well as victims, was a way
of proving to the world that the events of
the holocaust, as unimaginable as they
sounded, actually happened. The phrase
the world would learn after these trials was
“Never Forget.
The trial did not only see justice served to
the war criminals, it also led to the creation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in
1948.
Extract from American prosecutor Robert Jackson’s opening address at the Nuremberg war crimes
tribunal
The conspiracy or common plan to exterminate the Jew was so methodically and thoroughly pursued
that despite the German defeat and Nazi prostration, this Nazi aim largely has succeeded. Only
remnants of the European Jewish population remain in Germany, in the countries which Germany
occupied, and in those which were her satellites or collaborators. Of the 9,600,000 Jews who lived in
Nazi dominated Europe, 60 percent are authoritatively estimated to have perished. 5,700,000 Jews
are missing from the countries in which they formerly lived, and over 4,500,000 cannot be accounted
for by the normal death rate nor by immigration; nor are they included among displaced persons.
History does not record a crime ever perpetrated against so many victims or one ever carried out
with such calculated cruelty.
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Nuremberg Trials
Understanding
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Define the words in bold.
Why did Hitler commit suicide?
What did the Allies decide to do?
Where was the trial?
How long did the trial take?
What happened to those found
guilty?
7. What happened at the subsequent
12 trials?
8. What were the trials intended to
show?
9. What does Robert Jackson say the
aim of the Nazi’s was?
10.How successful were the Nazis
according to Robert Jackson? (Give
figures)
11.What does Jackson say about the
holocaust’s place in History?
Creativity
1. Imagine you are a prosecutor at
Nuremberg. Write an opening
speech explaining what the Trials
are for and their importance.
Thinking
1. Why do you think the Nuremberg
Trial was important?
2. Explain how you think holocaust
survivors would have felt during
and after the trials.
Research
Use the link below to find out who the
following were and what happened to
them?
1. Nazis
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
g.
Rudolf Hess
Joseph Goebbels
Adolf Eichmann
Joseph Mengele
Reinhard Heydrich
Heinrich Himmler
Rudolf Hoess
2. Resisters and victims
a. Mordechai Anielewicz
b. Oskar Schindler
c. Elie Wiesel
d. Simon Wiesenthal
http://alphahistory.com/holocaust/whos-who-in-the-holocaust/
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Reflection
Use this page to think about the work we that have done this semester.
List 10 things that you have learned during the Holocaust topic
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Choose one thing from your list and describe it below.
Describe something that surprised, shocked, or saddened you during this topic.
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Reflection
What do you think the worst thing about the holocaust was? Give reasons for your answer.
Do you think the holocaust could ever happen again? Why/Why not?
Complete the following.
It is important to learn about the holocaust because…
Use this space to write or draw something about how the holocaust makes you feel
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