Using the newspaper archives from the British Columbian newspaper archive at: http://www.hopesite.ca/remember/history/news_archives/archive_to c.html
Chose and read at least 4 articles about the early years of the
Holocaust. After reading all of the articles, use that information to answer the following questions.
1) Was the coverage of the events accurate? Was it complete?
2) Could the media have done more to bring attention to the
Holocaust or help its victims?
3) What should the role of newspapers and magazines be in reporting events such as this?
4) How do you think this trend played out in the American newspapers of the same time period?
A. Pope Pius XII
1. Started as indifferent a. Separated Politics &
Religion i. 1933 Concordat:
Hitler allowed open practice of
Catholics
2. 1939: began to aid Jews a. 3,000 visas for Jews b. Ordered Catholic institutions to hide Jews & provide money
3. No public denouncement of Nazi actions
B. Zegota
1. Helped Jews escape Ghettos in Poland: 1942-45 a. Saved estimated 400,000-500,000
2. Funded by the Polish Government in exile a. Money, medical attention, forged documents, and foster homes
3. Headed by Julian Grobelny: code name “Trojan” a. Found hiding places for Jews
4. Irena Sendler: code name “Jolanta” a. Saved 2,500 children, hid them with Christian families
C. Raoul Wallenburg
1. Swedish diplomat a. Gave fake documents to
Hungarian Jews b. Saved 100,000 between
1944-45
2. Arrested by Soviets & died in a labor camp
D. Varian Fry
1. American Journalist
2. Head of the American Rescue
Committee
3. Traveled to Vichy France a. Rescued Gestapo’s most wanted i. Intellectuals, artists, unionists, British &
French soldiers b. Saved 2,000 people
E. Oskar Schindler
1. Nazi Party member
2. Entrepreneur & businessman from Brennlitz, Czechoslovakia a. Black market deals b. Set up a factory for
Jewish workers
3. Made cookware & later ammunition for Germany
4. Bribed Nazi officials to save 2,000 Jews
A survivor stated:
Schindler answered this question however after the war:
F. Chiune Sugihara
1. Japanese consul in Lithuania a. Polish refugees & Lithuanian
Jews came to him for help b. Soviets allowed safe passage with passes c. Japanese refused to give visas i. Signed 300/day until he was called home ii. Gave the papers & stamp to a Jew to continue d. Saved 6,000 Jews
II. Resistance Movements
A. Operation Valkyrie
1. July 20, 1944: failed assassination attempt on Hitler a. Col. Stauffenberg left a bomb under a table at the Wolf’s Lair b. Several Military & Civilian leaders were involved i. To get better surrender terms c. Hitler had 4,000 killed for involvement
B. The White Rose: Summer 1942-43
1. University of Munich student organization a. Convince Germany that Hitler had used them b. Led by Hans & Sophie Scholl & Christopher
Probst i. Published pamphlets calling for resistance ii. Tried for treason & beheaded: February 22,
1943
C. Rosenstrasse: Jewish Community Center, Berlin
1. February 27, 1943 a. Goebbels ordered the SS & Gestapo to clean the city of Jews i. 8,000 sent to Auschwitz ii. 2,000 men married to non-Jews held in the center a. Wives came for information, but did not get it b. 6,000 came for a week in protest
2. March 6: men held were released
Community Center
SS vs. Protestors
1) If you were imprisoned by the Nazis in a concentration or death camp, in what ways would your try to resist? (Try to name at least five ways)
2) If you were a Nazi officer assigned to a concentration or death camp, what would you do to ensure resistance efforts by prisoners failed? (Try to name at least five ways)
III. Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
A. September 5, 1942: Jews moved into the Ghetto
1. Deportations began: 10,000 per day
2. Jewish Combat Organization (ZOB)(Zydowska
Organizacja Bojowa ): formed to resist SS a. Gained weapons from outside the wall
Founder:
Mordecai
Anielewicz
b. Built secret bunkers with tunnels to connect them c. Destroyed factories before they could be moved by
Nazis d. Weed out the informants and traitors e. Stop the deportations at all costs
3. January 18, 1943: SS surrounded the area a. 3 days of fighting = SS pushed back i. Gained weapons from the Polish resistance & created smaller fighting teams ii. Himmler ordered it taken with extreme violence
4. April 19, 1942: 2,000 troops & tanks entered a. ZOB fighters forced them back b. SS brought in artillery & more tanks c. Forced out by small arms, homemade mines & gasoline bombs
5. SS set the Ghetto on Fire a. ZOB set fire to the warehouse with stolen Jewish property
6. Germans cut the gas, water, and power
7. May 8: SS found the ZOB headquarters a. Leaders committed suicide
8. May 16: fighting ended a. Remaining were killed or deported b. Ghetto burned to the ground
Option 1:
After discussing the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and watching the film Uprising, you will be creating a visual memorial for the events and participants of the uprising.
This memorial may be either created by hand with your own artwork, lettering, and physical cut and pasting, or it can be created using a digital media application/software and submitted digitally.
Two things that you need to consider when preparing for this:
1) What images will accurately and appropriately memorialize this event?
2) What is the most effective way to organize and display these images?
Option 2:
After discussing the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and watching the film Uprising, you will be creating 2 diary entries pertaining to daily life in the ghetto or relating to events during the uprising. (1 page, typed, double spaced,
Times New Roman 12 font each). Grammar and content are equal components in the grade.
Two things that you need to consider when preparing for this:
1) What information/events will accurately and appropriately depict this event/these conditions?
2) What is the most effective way to organize these entries so that they are easy to read and make sense to the reader?
Option 3:
After discussing the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and watching the film Uprising, you will be creating an underground ghetto newspaper/newsletter. (1 page, typed, double spaced,
Times New Roman 12 font using the newsletter template in MS
Word). Grammar and content are equal components in the grade.
Two things that you need to consider when preparing for this:
1) What information/events would Jews in the ghetto need to know, what rumors would they try to start or stop to keep people at ease, and what news would they likely get from the outside?
2) The publishers were also in the ghetto, so they got limited outside information, and only published these about once a month, so include news for the month.
IV. Resistance in the Camps
A. Sabotage
1. Slow work, break machines, too sick to work, mistakes & defects in products
B. Daily Life
1. Smuggled food, made items, religious services, education, hid children/pregnant women
C. Rebellion
D. Escape
1. Had to survive with no help
2. Constantly being hunted
E. Treblinka: (2 nd largest death camp)
1. Sonderkommando knew the end was near = planned an uprising
2. August 2, 1943 a. Took axes, wire cutters, weapons, & grenades b. Sprayed buildings with gasoline c. Attack started early and fell into chaos i. 400 killed in the camp, 400 escaped (100 survived) ii. 30 guards killed
3. Remaining prisoners dismantled the camp & then killed a. Site was turned into a farm
F. Sobibor
1. October 14, 1943 a. Sonderkommando killed SS guards & returned to the camp b. Plan: walk through the main gates after roll call c. Plan fell apart i. Women screamed during the violence & guards were alerted ii. Escape went through fences = minefields iii. 300 fled: 200 survived d. 48 guards killed
2. Camp dismantled & replaced with a farm
G. Auschwitz
1. 300 sonderkommandos knew their death was near a. Stole weapons & attacked Crematorium 4 i. Destroyed it with SS explosives b. Workers in Crematorium 2 cut the fence & escaped i. 500 escaped: all caught & killed
2. January 17, 1944: inmates moved to other camps or killed before the Russians arrived
3. January 20: SS destroyed the other crematoriums
& much of the camp
V. Liberation
A. Allied forces began to break into Nazi controlled nations in 1944
1. Russians found Majdanek & other death camps
2. Americans & British began to find labor camps
B. Germans rushed to hide their atrocities
1. Kill the inmates & burn the bodies & camps
C. Allies began to film/record what they had found & help the survivors
VI. Displaced Persons (DP) Camps
A. May 7, 1945: V-E Day
1. United Nations Relief & Rehabilitation Agency a. Helped to get people home & reunite families
2. Allied forces took care of the health & food needs of the survivors
a. Many died from eating: sugar & caloric shock i. West: 60,000 liberated: 20,000 died in a week b. Most weighed 60-80 lbs: down 50-60% body weight c. Numbers increased to 300,000 as more arrived
B. Some returning home were killed by Nazi sympathizers
11,000,000 murdered!
* Jews
* Gypsies
* Handicapped
* Slavs - Russians, Poles, Serbs,
Croats, Byeloruss, Bulgarians,
Romanians, Moldavians, Slovenes,
Slovaks, etc.
* Anyone who opposed the Nazis
OVER 11 MILLION PEOPLE MURDERED
Special Action Squads, Ghettos, Labor Camps,
& Death Camps
Jews
Russian POWs
Poles
Gypsies
6 million
3 million
2 million
200,000
National Holocaust
Museum: Tower of Life
Actions have consequences. Some consequences are short term, such as not studying for a test leads to a lower grade. Some are longer reaching, such as poor grades in school can lead to lower/slower career advancement or increased chances of ending up in prison.
What about the Holocaust? What are its short term and long term consequences? Take a minute and try to brainstorm possible consequences.
Now working with a partner, create a list of at least three short term and three long term consequences for the Holocaust. We will be discussing your ideas and creating a diagram of them in approximately five minutes, so work fast.
Think about each of the following questions and discuss them with the person sitting beside you.
1) What kind of behavior should be allowed in war? Explain what you mean.
2) How should a government treat its citizens? Should it protect all citizens or just some?
3) How should a government treat people who reside in their country, but are not citizens?
4) Should SS officials who said that they followed Hitler’s orders be held responsible for the murder of the Jews and the mistreatment of the other groups targeted in the Holocaust?
5) Should people who did nothing to help the Jews be held morally responsible for murder? Why or why not?
VII. Nuremberg Trials
A. United Nations War Crimes Commission
1. Investigate the crimes of individuals & organizations of the Reich
2. 3 categories of crimes a. Crimes Against Peace: starting or participating in a war b. War Crimes: murder, ill-treatment, targeting civilians c. Crimes Against Humanity: inhuman acts committed against people based on race, religion or politics
B. International Military Tribunal:, October 1 to November
20, 1945
1. Trials held at the Palace (Halls) of Justice in
Nuremberg a. 22 leaders put on trial: 20 claimed not guilty i. 12 executed, 3 life, 4 shorter terms, 3 innocent
C. Other trials held from 1945-49
D. Some escaped to other countries
1. Josef Mengele: Paraguay (died in 1977 of a swimming accident)
2. Nacelles Scoffer (camp Guard): Pennsylvania
(returned to Romania for trial in January 2000)
*pg 202-212 more examples
VIII. Creation of Israel/Zionism
A. Allied nations did not welcome large numbers of
Jewish refugees
1. Nazi controlled nations were too weak to provide for or protect them
2. Americans, UN, & Red Cross did what they could in
DP Camps
B. 200,000 moved to Palestine between 1945-48
1. 1948: British and Americans created Israel & vowed to protect them
C. May 14, 1948: Israel was a nation: flew the Star of
David in pride
*
Is it possible for another Holocaust to occur?
*
What events or conditions would be needed?
*
What role do white supremacist groups or
Palestinian liberation groups play in persecuting or discriminating against Jews today?
IX. Holocaust Denial
A. Disguises for Denial
1. Revisionists: claim new evidence or a new interpretation
2. Relativism: point to minor “inconsistencies” or other conditions as reason to ignore
3. Reversal: Jews are as bad as the Nazis
(treatment of Palestinians)
B. Origins: the Nazis
1. Nazis hid their actions from the beginning a. No written orders from Hitler on the Final Solution b. Use of code words in orders pertaining to it c. Unit 1005: exhume mass graves and burn the bodies d. Dismantling of Belzec, Treblinka, & Sobibor e. Himmler’s speech in Poznan October 1943:
“The destruction of the Jews is a glorious page in history, which has not been recorded and will never be.”
C. Paul Rassinier: created the main arguments in 1948
1. No plan for systematic annihilation of Jews
2. Only 1 million Jews killed
3. Jews declared war on Germany
4. Survivor Testimonies were exaggerated
D. Arthur Butz: Electrical Engineering
Professor
1. The Hoax of the Twentieth Century a. 6 million is a false number b. Jews spread stories as propaganda c. Auschwitz documents did not mention gas chambers d. Zyklon B was only a disinfectant e. Eichmann plead guilty because he could not win f. Testimony = lies, use only documents g. Jews created it to get Israel
E. David Irving: British Military
Historian
1. Hitler’s War, 1977 a. Hitler never ordered Jews to be killed b. Hitler never knew about the Final Solution or the death camps
F. Holocaust Truth is based on the following sources
1. German military, civil, & personal documents
2. Jewish documents & testimonies
3. Documents & recollections of those who lived near the camps & resistance members
4. Documents captured by the Russians in the east
5. Testimony and evidence presented at the Nuremberg
Trials
6. Declassified military intelligence from the war
7. Film & photos taken by allied forces
German Word
Ausgemertz
Liquidiert
Erledigit
Aktionen
Sonderaktionen
Sonderbehandlung
Sauberung
Ausschaltung
Aussiedlung
Umsiedlung
ExekutivemaBnahme
Entsprechend Behandelt
Losung der Judenfrage
Judenfrei Gemacht
Spezialeinrichtungen
Badenastalten
Leichenkeller
“Sanitary” Language Used by the Nazis
Literal Meaning
Exterminate (pest)
Liquidated
Finished (off)
Actions
Special Actions
Special Treatment
Cleansing: Purge
Elimination
Evacuation
Resettlement
Executive Measure
Treated Appropriately
Solution of the Jewish Question
Made Free of Jews
Special Installations
Bath Installations
Corpse Cellar
Real Meaning
Murder
Murder
Murder
Missions to seek & kill
Special Killing Missions
Camp’s Death Process
Sent through the Process
Murder
Murder
Murder
Order for Murder
Murder
Murder of Jewish People
All Jews killed in the area
Gas chambers and Crematoria
Gas Chambers
Crematorium
• On January 30, 1941,
• Hitler said the following:
• “Today I will once more be a prophet. If the international Jewish financiers in and outside Europe should succeed in plunging nations once more into a world war, then the result will not be the
Bolshevization of the earth and thus the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe!
• Hitler threatened the Jews again in September 1942:
• “In my speech before the Reichstag on the first of September
1939, 1 spoke of two matters: first, since we are forced into war, neither the threat of weapons nor a period of transition shall conquer us; second, if world Jewry launches another war in order to destroy the Aryan nations of Europe, it will not be the Aryan nations that will be destroyed, but the Jews. “
• In late July 1941, Himmler gave explicit orders to kill the Jews and to drive the
Jewish women into the marshes near
Baranowicze.
• In August 1941, Himmler visited Arthur
Nebe in Minsk. After observing a mass execution of Jews, Himmler delivered a brief speech to those present, stressing the need to carry out these orders, which came directly from the Fuhrer.
• On Oct. 2, 1941, Himmler visited Otto
Ohlendorf, commander of Einsatzgruppe
D. Again Himmler stressed to his soldiers that he and Hitler bore sole responsibility for these orders; he emphasized the need to eliminate all Jews and political commissars.
• In July 1942, Himmler visited
Auschwitz and Sobibor; he observed the murder of Jews in gas chambers.
• On September 29, 1942,
Himmler reported to Hitler on combat against the partisans and the elimination of Jews.
In his report, which refers only to August-November,
Himmler spoke of the liquidation of 363,211 Jews.
• The Einsatzgruppen reports are the largest set of documents that refer to the annihilation of the Jews.
• The murder of Jews in Kiev (Babi Yar) in late September 1941 — Report No.
101 of October 2, 1941.
• “ Sonderkommando 4-A, in cooperation with the
Einsatzgruppen command and two police units from the southern region, executed
33,771 Jews in Kiev on
September 30, 1941.”
• With these lines, Paul Blobel reported the first mass slaughter of Jews on such a scale after Germany invaded the Soviet Union on June 22,
1941.
• A report by Karl Jaeger, of
on the murder of Lithuanian
Jews on December 1,
specified the dates and locations of the murders; at the end, Jaeger added up the number of victims
137,346
• Einsatzgruppe D reported on April 8, 1942, a total of 92,000 dead. Himmler reported to Hitler on December 20, 1942, the following numbers of Jews shot in the Ukraine, Russia and
Bialystok –
• August 1942 - 31,246
• September 1942 - 165,282
• October 1942 - 95,735
• November 1942 - 70,948
• Total - 363,211
• According to these reports,
900,000 Jews were murdered.
Other reports speak of another
250,000 Jews murdered, bringing the total murdered according to these reports to
1,150,000.
• Other German Documents Used Euphemisms
• 1. A document from Goering to Heydrich on
July 31, 1941, on the preparation of a plan for the Final Solution to the Jewish problem.
• “In completion of the task which was entrusted to you in the Edict dated January 24,
1939, of solving the Jewish question by means of emigration or evacuation in the most convenient way possible, given the present conditions, I herewith charge you with making all necessary preparations for an overall solution ( Gesamtloesung ) of the Jewish question in the German sphere of influence in
Europe… I further charge you with submitting to me promptly an overall plan of the preliminary organizational, practical and financial measures for the execution of the intended final solution ( Endloesung ) of the
Jewish question
A document dated March 1943 by Richard Korherr, chief statistician of the Third Reich.
In late 1942, Himmler asked
Korherr to prepare an interim report on the implementation of the Final Solution to the
Jewish question. According to his 16-page document, about four million Jews had been
the end of 1942
• Reports from the German railway authority
(
), composed by various bureaucrats in the German transport ministry.
One of the many reports, dated January 6, 1943, contains the dates of deportations, point of departure, destinations, and number of deportees.
This report speaks of 16,000 Polish Jews who were taken to Auschwitz or Treblinka in February 1943
X. Other Genocidal Events
A. Native Americans
1. US expansion: led to removal to reservations or extermination
B. Armenians: Early 20 th century
1. 2.5 million Christian Armenians in Muslim Turkey a. Turkey expelled them across the deserts i. Thirst, exposure, starvation, disease killed many b. Rounded up all educated & able-bodied men & slaughtered them c. 1.5 million killed
C. The Rape of Nanking: December
13, 1937
1. Japanese captured: Capital of
China a. Killed all Chinese POWs b. Attacked civilians i. Murder, decapitation, torture ii. 80,000+ cases of rape c. 200-300,000 killed in 7 weeks
D. Tibet
1. Buddhist rule until Chinese invasion in 1950 a. People revolted led by monks in 1959
2. Chinese used harsh tactics to restore their control a. Killed priests, monks, & nuns, & destroyed temples & shrines b. Cruelty continues (2-6 million killed)
E. Cambodia: 1975
1. Khmer Rouge Communist take over:
Pol Pot a. Urban life is destructive = must end i. Massacred Westernized & educated ii. Expelled city dwellers to rural b. Outlawed Buddhism i. Executed priests & destroyed temples c. 2 million killed in 4 years
F. Rwanda
1. 2 social groups: Hutu (majority) &
Tutsi (minority) a. Tutsi were in control until 1962
2. 1973: Juvenal Habayarimana became president a. Gave Hutus the power & excluded
Tutsi from positions of power or education
3. April 6, 1994: Presidential plane shot down a. Hutus blamed Tutsis & attacked
(100 days) b. By mid-July 1994: 1 million
Tutsis killed (1/3)
G. Yugoslavia: “Ethnic Cleansing”
1. Created after WWI: joined 6 republics together = tensions
2. 1989: Slobodan Milosevic became president a. Wanted Serbia to be dominant & would not allow independence
3. Croatia tried to break away 1991-92 a. Ethnical cleansing of Serbs
4. Bosnia declared independence: 1992 a. Milosevic invaded and removed all Muslims from the area
5. Milosevic voted out in 2000 & stood trial for war crimes a. 250,000 killed in Bosnia, 3 million refugees