February 13—What is the
difference between genocide and
ethnic cleansing?
A Brief History of the
Holocaust
Key Terms
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Genocide
Holocaust
SS
General Reinhard Heydrich
“Final Solution”
Nuremberg Laws
Roma
Auschwitz-Birkenau
Lecture Outline
I.
Holocaust
A. Definitions
B. An Overview
II. Summary of the Holocaust
A. 1933-1939
B. 1939-1945
C.Aftermath of the Holocaust
Quotes
 “What luck for the rulers that men do not
think.”—Adolf Hitler
First They Came for the Jews
 First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.
Definitions
 What is genocide?
Definitions
 What is genocide?
- Genocide is the systematic and planned
extermination of an entire national, racial,
or ethnic group.
Definitions
 What is the Holocaust?
Definitions
 What is the Holocaust?
– The Holocaust is the state-sponsored
systematic persecution and annihilation of
European Jewry by Nazi Germany and its
collaborators between 1933 and 1945.
An Overview
 On January 20, 1942 fifteen high ranking
Nazi Party and German government
leaders met at Wannsee district of Berlin to
coordinate the carrying out of the “final
solution.”
 The leader of the meeting was SS
Lieutenant Reinhard Heydrich.
An Overview
 The “Final Solution” was the Nazi
regime’s code name for the deliberate,
planned mass murder of all European Jews.
An Overview
 Six weeks before the Wannsee meeting,
the Nazis began to murder Jews at
Chelmno, an agricultural estate located in a
part of Poland annexed to Germany.
An Overview
 During 1942,
trainloads of Jewish
men, women, and
children were
transported from
countries all over
Europe to the six
major killing centers
in German-occupied
Poland.
Summary of the Holocaust
1933-1939
 525,000 Jews, less than 1% of the
population, lived in Germany.
 In 1933 new German laws forced Jews out
of civil service jobs, university and law
positions, and other areas of public service.
 In April 1933, a boycott of Jewish business
was instituted.
February 16—Do you think the
Holocaust was inevitable or do
you think it could have been
prevented? Why?
1933-1939
 In 1935, laws proclaimed at Nuremberg
made Jew’s second-class citizens.
 These Nuremberg laws defined Jews, not
by their religion or by how they wanted to
be identified, but by the religious
affiliation of their grandparents.
1933-1939
 Between 1932 and 1939, anti-Jewish
regulations segregated Jews further.
 Between 1933 and 1939, about half the
German-Jewish population and more than
two-thirds of Austrian Jews fled Nazi
persecution.
1939-1945
 On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded
Poland and WWII began.
 Within weeks the Polish army was
defeated and the Nazis began their
campaign to destroy Polish culture and
enslave the Polish people whom they
viewed as “subhuman.”
1939-1945
 As the war began in 1939, Hitler initiated
an order to kill institutionalized,
handicapped, and patients deemed
“incurable.”
1939-1945
 In the months following Germany’s
invasion of the Soviet Union, Jews,
political leaders, Communists, and many
Roma (Gypsies) were killed in mass
shootings.
1939-1945
 During the war, ghettos, transit camps, and
forced labor camps, in addition to the
concentration camps, were created by the
Germans to imprison Jews, Roma, and
other victims.
Statistics
 There were 10,005 “camps”
 941 were forced labor camps
 230 were especially made for Hungarian
Jews
 399 Ghettos in Poland
 52 main concentration camps with 1,202
satellite camps
1939-1945
 Between 1942 and 1945, the Germans
moved to eliminate the ghettos in occupied
Poland and elsewhere.
 They deported ghetto residents to
“extermination camps”—killing centers
equipped with gassing facilities.
1939-1945
 Auschwitz-Birkenau, which also served as
a concentration camp, became the killing
center were the largest numbers of
European Jews and Roma were killed.
 The killing centers were operated by the
SS.
1939-1945
 There were instances of organized
resistance in almost every concentration
camp and ghetto.
 An estimated 20,000 to 30,000 Jews fought
bravely as partisans in resistance groups.
 Organized armed resistance was the most
direct form of opposition.
Resistance
 Armed Jewish
resistance took
place in 5 major
ghettos, 45 small
ghettos, 5 major
concentration
camps and
extermination
camps, and 18
forced labor
camps.
Obstacles to Resistance
 Superior armed power of the Germans
 German tactic of “collective responsibility”
 Isolation of Jews and lack of weapons
 Secrecy and deception of deportations
1939-1945
 By the summer of 1944, the Nazis had
emptied all ghettos in eastern Europe and
killed most of their former inhabitants.
 After the war turned against Germany and
the Allied armies approached German soil
in late 1944, the SS decided to evacuate
outlying concentration camps.
1939-1945
 In May 1945, Nazi Germany collapsed, the
SS guards fled, and the camps ceased to
exist.
Aftermath of the Holocaust
 Following the war, the trials of “major”
war criminals was held at the palace of
Justice in Nuremberg, Germany between
November 1945 and August 1946.
 These trials were conducted by the
International Military Tribunal.
Aftermath of the Holocaust
 Trials and investigations continue today.