Go to the website: Facts You Should Know About the Holocaust to complete the closed
notes. Fill in the blanks.
Introduction to the Holocaust
The Holocaust began in 1933 when ____________ came to power in
Germany and ended in 1945 when the __________ were defeated by the
Allied powers. The term Holocaust is derived from the Greek word
holokauston, which means sacrifice by fire. It refers to the Nazi
persecution and ____________ slaughter of the Jewish people and others
considered to be inferior to "true" Germans. The Hebrew word
Shoah—which means devastation, ruin, or waste—also refers to this
_____________.
In addition to Jews, the Nazis targeted the Roma, homosexuals, Jehovah's
Witnesses, and people with disabilities for persecution. Those who
resisted the Nazis were sent to forced __________ camps or murdered.
The word Nazi is a German acronym for Nationalsozialistishe Deutsche
Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Worker's Party). The Nazis
sometimes used the term "____________" to refer to their plan to
exterminate the Jewish people, although the origins of this are unclear,
according to historians.
Death Toll
According to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, a little over
_______________ people were killed during the Holocaust, but no single
document exists recording the total number. Six million of these were
Jews—approximately two-thirds of all Jews living in Europe.An estimated
______ million Jewish____________ and thousands of Romani, German,
and Polish children died in the Holocaust.
Group #1
Jewish Ghettos
After the beginning of World War II, Nazis began ordering all Jews to live
in small, _____________ areas of big cities, called ghettos. Jews were
forced out of their homes and moved into smaller dwellings, often shared
with one or more other families.
Some ghettos were initially open, which meant that Jews could leave the
area during the daytime but had to be back by a ____________. Later, all
ghettos became closed, meaning that Jews were not allowed to leave
under any circumstances. Major ghettos were located in the Polish cities of
Bialystok, Lodz, and Warsaw. Other ghettos were found in present-day
Minsk, Belarus; Riga, Latvia; and Vilna, Lithuania. The largest ghetto was
in Warsaw. At its peak in March 1941, some _______________ were
crammed into an area just 1.3 square miles in size.5
Record two facts about your section you would like to teach your group:
1)
2)
Group #2
Concentration Camps
Although many people refer to all Nazi camps as concentration camps, there were
actually a number of different kinds of camps, including concentration camps,
extermination camps, labor camps, prisoner-of-war camps, and transit camps. One of
the first concentration camps was in Dachau, in southern Germany. It opened on
March 20, 1933.
From 1933 until 1938, most of the people held in concentration camps were political
prisoners and people the Nazis labeled as "______________." These included the
disabled, the homeless, and the mentally __________. After Kristallnacht in 1938,
the persecution of Jews became more organized. This led to the exponential
increase in the number of Jews sent to concentration camps.
Life within Nazi concentration camps was horrible. Prisoners were forced to do hard
_____________ l labor and given little food. They slept three or more to a crowded
wooden bunk; bedding was unheard of. ___________ within the concentration
camps was common and deaths were frequent. At a number of concentration camps,
Nazi doctors conducted medical ____________ on prisoners against their will.
Record two facts about your section you would like to teach your group:
1)
2)
Group #3
Death Camps
While concentration camps were meant to work and starve prisoners to
death, _____________camps (also known as death camps) were built for
the sole purpose of ____________ large groups of people quickly and
efficiently. The Nazis built six extermination camps, all in Poland: Chelmno,
Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Auschwitz, and Majdanek.
Prisoners transported to these extermination camps were told to undress
so they could shower. Rather than a shower, the prisoners were herded
into ________________and killed. ______________ was the largest
concentration and extermination camp built. It is estimated that almost
_______ million people were killed at Auschwitz.
Record two facts about your section you would like to teach your group:
1)
2)