“The only thing necessary for the triumph of
Evil is for good men to do nothing.”
Edmund Burke
The Holocaust
and
Hitler’s war on the Jews
WHAT IS ANTI-SEMITISM?
• HATRED OF JEWS and it existed long before
Hitler came to power
• IT EXISTED IN EUROPE 1000 YEARS
BEFORE HITLER.
• IT STILL EXISTS TODAY!
Jews are Semitic people who came out of the Middle East .Through a history of
expulsion and migration they settled in various countries throughout the world
early on. Even so Jews were always viewed as outsiders in the countries they
settled in even though their ancestors lived in each place
for hundreds or thousands of years.
ANTI-SEMITISM IN EUROPE
PRIOR TO NAZI GERMANY
• RELIGIOUS (ACCUSED OF DEICIDE BY CHURCH) IN 1965 IN VATICAN ii THE
CHURCH REJECTS JEWISH RESPONSIBILITY FOR KILLING JESUS
• SOCIAL
LIFE CENTERED AROUND CHURCH.
JEWS WERE NOT ALLOWED TO OWN LAND.
JEWS WERE FORCED TO LIVE IN RESTRICTED
AREAS (GHETTOES). (1300-1800) Whim of ruler.
• ECONOMIC ( ALLOWED ONLY TO DO CERTAIN JOBS CHURCH
FOUND AS DISTASTEFUL…BANKING, MONEY
LENDING ,TAX COLLECTING…….)
• RACIAL
SOCIAL DARWINISM LEAD TO NEW IDEAS OF
INFERIOR AND SUPERIOR PEOPLES. JEWS
WERE CONSIDERED AN “ALIEN RACE”
“Make the lie big,make it simple,
Keep saying it, and eventually they
will believe it.”
Adolf Hitler
German Chancellor, leader of the Nazi Party, 1889-1945
THE BIG LIE
Hitler knew the POWER of the BIG LIE. Big lies about
Jews existed throughout history:
BLOOD LIBEL: Jews killed Christian children and used their
Blood to make Matzah (Bread without yeast) Middle Ages
Jews were responsible for the BLACK PLAGUE (Bubonic)
The idea that Jews were poisoning the well water.
(scapegoating)
Protocols of the Elders of Zion An Anti-semitic forgery
written by the Czar’s secret police that said Jews were
planning to destroy Christianity,
take over governments and control the world (Used even
today)
THE LIES WERE BELIEVED
• OVER 200 JEWISH
COMMUNITIES
DISAPPEARED
BETWEEN 1348-51
BECAUSE JEWS
WERE BLAMED FOR
THE SPREAD OF
THE BLACK
PLAGUE OR FOR
POISONING WELLS.
THE PROTOCOLS OF THE
ELDERS OF ZION
•
THIS WAS A BOOK WRITTEN BY THE CZAR’S SECRET POLICE WHICH
WAS A LIE ABOUT THE JEWS. It was passed off as a plan by the
JEWS TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD.
BLOOD LIBEL
• JEWS WERE SENSELESSLY
BLAMED FOR CHILDREN
KIDNAPPINGS AND
MURDERS. LIES WERE
SPREAD THAT JEWS KILLED
CHILDREN AND USED
THEIR BLOOD TO MAKE
MATZAH.
• JEWS WERE BLAMED FOR
DISEASE BECAUSE PEOPLE
DID NOT UNDERSTAND
WHERE THE PLAGUE CAME
FROM.
Throughout History
• Thousands of Jews
were murdered
• Scapegoated
• Forced to convert
• Pogroms…destruction
• Persecuted (Crusades) of Jewish towns
• Expelled over and over sanctioned by
again from countries
the government .
they called home.
HITLER
•Anti Semitism was well engrained in European beliefs
before Hitler wrote Mein Kampf. It was not a far stretch to
accept many of the ideas that Hitler expounded.
•Coupled with economic depression the “Jewish outsider”
was blamed for all that had gone wrong In Germany:
Hitler blamed Jew for:
Depression and inflation
Losing WWI (Jews betrayed Germany)
Communism (Socialism, Bolsheviks…all blamed on Jews)
Versailles Treaty (Punishment of Germany and war reparations)
NAZI PROPAGANDA
against the Jews
•
•
•
•
•
•
Taught in schools
Children’s literature
Hitler Youth Movement
Government Policy
Newspapers (Der Stuermer)
Speechs and Rallies
The "Dagger-stab-in-the-back Legend": Austrian right-wing caricature of a Jew
stabbing the German Army in the back with a dagger. The capitulation was
blamed upon the unpatriotic populace, the Socialists, Bolsheviks, the Weimar
Republic, and especially the Jews. (1919)
Using a documentary style,
the Nazi propaganda film,
The Eternal Jew, paints Jews
as greedy, dirty, corrupted
people, who are not human
and descended from rats It is
produced with false historical
explanations, pseudo
scientific explanations and
claims that Jews breed
disease and want to take
over the world.
http://www.youtube.com/watc
h?v=RfnzDhZzI6s (from rats to 4:46)
From a children’s book
Translated “Trust no fox in
The green meadow and no Jew
on his oath. (Trau Keinem)
The Poison Mushroom
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Background: This story comes from Der Giftpilz, an anti-Semitic children’s book published by Julius Streicher, the publisher of Der Stürmer. He was
executed as a war criminal in 1946. This summary and partial translation is taken from a 1938 publication issued by the “Friends of Europe” in London,
an organization to which I have not been able to find a successor to request permission to reprint.
The Poisonous Mushroom
A mother and her young boy are gathering mushrooms in the German forest. The boy finds some poisonous ones. The mother explains that there are
good mushrooms and poisonous ones, and, as they go home, says:
“Look, Franz, human beings in this world are like the mushrooms in the forest. There are good mushrooms and there are good people. There are
poisonous, bad mushrooms and there are bad people. And we have to be on our guard against bad people just as we have to be on guard against
poisonous mushrooms. Do you understand that?”
“Yes, mother,” Franz replies. “I understand that in dealing with bad people trouble may arise, just as when one eats a poisonous mushroom. One may
even die!”
“And do you know, too, who these bad men are, these poisonous mushrooms of mankind?” the mother continued.
Franz slaps his chest in pride:
“Of course I know, mother! They are the Jews! Our teacher has often told us about them.”
The mother praises her boy for his intelligence, and goes on to explain the different kinds of “poisonous” Jews: the Jewish pedlar, the Jewish cattledealer, the Kosher butcher, the Jewish doctor, the baptised Jew, and so on.
“However they disguise themselves, or however friendly they try to be, affirming a thousand times their good intentions to us, one must not believe them.
Jews they are and Jews they remain. For our Volk they are poison.”
“Like the poisonous mushroom!” says Franz.
“Yes, my child! Just as a single poisonous mushrooms can kill a whole family, so a solitary Jew can destroy a whole village, a whole city, even an entire
Volk.”
Franz has understood.
“Tell me, mother, do all non-Jews know that the Jew is as dangerous as a poisonous mushroom?”
Mother shakes her head.
“Unfortunately not, my child. There are millions of non-Jews who do not yet know the Jews. So we have to enlighten people and warn them against the
Jews. Our young people, too, must be warned. Our boys and girls must learn to know the Jew. They must learn that the Jew is the most dangerous
poison-mushroom in existence. Just as poisonous mushrooms spring up everywhere, so the Jew is found in every country in the world. Just as
poisonous mushrooms often lead to the most dreadful calamity, so the Jew is the cause of misery and distress, illness and death.”
The author then concludes this story by pointing the moral:
German youth must learn to recognise the Jewish poison-mushroom. They must learn what a danger the Jew is for the German Volk and for the whole
world. They must learn that the Jewish problem involves the destiny of us all.
“The following tales tell the truth about the Jewish poison-mushroom. They show the many shapes the Jew assumes. They show the depravity and
baseness of the Jewish race. They show the Jew for what he really is:
The Devil in human form.
Hitler Youth
Movenment
WHO WAS A JEW?
• CONCEPT OF JEWISH BLOOD
– ONE JEWISH GRANDPARENT (EVEN IF RAISED
A CHRISTAIN) MADE YOU A JEW.
– ASSOCIATING WITH JEWS WOULD GET
YOU SENT TO A CONCENTRATION CAMP
OR MURDERED.
– CONVERSION DID NOT MATTER.
WHO WAS TARGETED DURING
THE HOLOCAUST?
•
•
•
•
•
•
CATHOLICS
GYPSIES
COMMUNISTS
PEOPLE WITH DISABILITES
HOMOSEXUALS
JEWS…..WERE THE ONLY ONES
TARGETS FOR TOTAL DESTRUCTION..
IN OTHER WORDS GENOCIDE
FACTS ABOUT THE HOLOCAUST
• 10 MILLION MURDERED…. 6 MILLION
WERE JEWS…2/3RDS OF ALL
EUROPEAN JEWRY WERE KILLED BY:
– DISEASE
– WORK
– STARVATION
– MURDER
WAR AGAINST THE JEWS
A SYSTEMATIC PROCESS
YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO LIVE
AMONGST US AS JEWS.
YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO LIVE
AMONGST US.
YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO LIVE.
EUPHEMISMS
• A word or phrase used in place of a term
that might be considered too direct, harsh,
unpleasant or offensive. All the terms on this page mean
to murder)
• Liquidation
Destruction or murder
• Special Treatment murder
• Move East
Send to concentration
camps
CONTINUED
• Selection
A decision who will live
and who will die.
* Aktion
Rounding up Jews to
murder them.
THE FINAL SOLUTION
GENICIDE
HOW IS THE HOLOCAUST
DIFFERENT FROM OTHER
GENOCIDES?
• ORGANIZED, PLANNED AND
SYSTEMATIC
• 1942 NAZI LEADERS HELD A MEETING
TO DISCUSS “THE JEWISH PROBLEM”
• AT THE MEETING CALLED THE
WANNASEE CONFERENCE THE FINAL
SOLUTION WAS AGREED UPON.
THE FINAL SOLUTION
• WANNSEE CONFERENCE held on
January 20, 1942 discussed the Final
Solution.
• Reinhard Heydrich was the chief architect
of the plan.
• Prior to 1941 Jews, if they had the means
and a place to go, could leave Germany
territory. Now immigration was prohibited.
WHAT WAS THE FINAL
SOLUTION?
• THE SYSTEMATIC MURDER OF THE
JEWS……..BUT
• EVEN BEFORE THE FINAL SOLUTION JEWS
WERE BEING MURDERED IN THE USSR BY
GERMAN MOBIL KILLING UNITS CALLED
EINSATZGRUPPEN MADE UP OF BANDS OF
SS.
• LATER ON THE NAZIS EXPERIEMENTED
WITH MORE EFFICIENT AND QUICKER
WAYS TO MURDER LARGE NUMBERS OF
PEOPLE.
WHAT DID THE
EINSATZGRUPPEN DO?
• KILLED 1.4 MILLION
RUSSIAN JEWS
• FORCED WHOLE
VILLAGES TO DIG
LARGE PITS THAN
EXECUTED AND
BURIED THE
PEOPLE IN THE PIT
AS A MASS GRAVE.
HIDE
– HUMILIATION (Nuremberg Laws)
• Jews were eventually stripped of their German
citizenship. Jews were prohibited to:
-
Go to school
Be police officers
Be in politics
Own businesses
Fly the German flag
Go to public parks
-
Be teachers
Practice law
Own bicycles
Own radios
Associate with
non-Jews
CONTINUED
- Publically beaten
- Walk in the street
- Tip hat to Aryans
- Wash the street
- Wear a special armband or patch
publically identifying a Jew
- Jewish patients evicted from hospitals
- Identification papers marked with a J (for Juden)
- Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass…a pogrom)
(This is the short list)
KRISTALLNACHT
November 10,1938
Night of Broken
Glass
Kristallnacht was a
government endorsed
attack on the Jews of
Germany.
Jewish communities, businesses,
and Synagogues were attacked
Burned and looted. Many Jews were
sent to concentration camps
• ISOLATION:
HIDE
• Jews were forced to leave the homes. They could only
take what they could carry. (20 lbs)
• Their property was seized and re-sold to Non-Jews
(Aryanization)
• Jews were forced to live in over-crowed areas which
were walled and sealed and of which Jews were not
allowed to leave. (Ghettoes)
• In the ghettoes, people died from disease and
starvation…This was all part of the plan.
Because the Nazis wanted to keep Chlodna Street (an important thoroughfare) open, the ghetto was divided into two; originally joined by a street-crossing, the two parts of the ghetto were later conne
WARSAW GHETTO
400,000 Jews in an area 3.5 mile in
area.
A Resident of the
Lodz Ghetto
(1942) is abused,
ridiculed and
humiliated as
was part of
everyday life for
the Jewish
inhabitants of
Lodz and other
ghettos and
camps.
HIDE
• Deportation
The ghettoes were destroyed (liquidated) and
the people in them were put in cattle cars on
trains and sent to concentration camps.
Trains were over-crowed with no sanitation
faculties. The typical length of time in a train car
was 3 days. The weak and sick usually died
enrooted.
HIDE
• Extermination (Murder)
•
•
•
•
•
EINSATZGRUPPEN
Mobile killing units of
Nazi soldiers prior
To the creation of
Concentration camps
- TWO TYPES OF CAMPS;
- WORK CAMPS (Worked to death slowly)
- DEATH CAMPS (Gassed Immediately) Usually the
walking dead( sick, dying, old) and the young.
.
Polnary (Lithuanian) 1943 near Vilna
German soldiers, along with members
of the Waffen-SS and the Reich Labor
Service look on as a man with SS
-Einsatzgruppe D prepares to shoot a
Ukrainian Jew kneeling before a mass
grave. On Right: Detail of this photo shows
a young member of the Reich Labor
Service,
a product of the Hitler Youth system,
casually watching.
Concentration camps
• Work Camps
– Extermination thru
work…
(approximately nine
months or sent to
– Death camp when
too weak or sick to be
of any use to the
Nazis
• Death Camps
– Immediately gassed
or murdered.
Sick
Dying
Old
Young
People were first
segregated by sex.
MAJOR DEATH CAMPS
• AUSCHWITZ-BIRKENAU (I million)
BELZEC
• CHELMNO
• MAJDANEK
• SORBIBOR
• TREBLINKA
Buchenwald Roll Call 1937
SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENTS
TWINS
Life in concentration camps
• Surrounded by death
• Selections
• Process off Trains
• Factories
• Friendship was
survival
• Jobs
WHAT WOULD YOU BE?
VICTIM
PERPETRATOR
COLLABORATOR
BY-STANDER
RESCUERS
HOW COULD IT HAVE BEEN
PREVENTED?
WHAT IF……..?
You’re traveling on a subway car in NYC
when a tough looking gang comes on the
car and attacks the passenger nearest
you. Only a few other people are in the
car- no conductor or police in sight. The
passenger is a stranger. Would you get
involved? Why?
WHAT IF……?
the passenger being attacked was your
friend. Would you get involved? Why?
WHAT IF…….?
• The passenger getting attacked was your
mother or father? Would you get
involved? Why?
#2
• You and a friend are in the school cafeteria
when a group of bigger students corner you and
make fun of the way your friend is dressed.
There are no teachers or principals around.
Would you speak out?
• What if they insult your friend’s religion?
• What if they insult your friend’s nationality? What
if they insult your friend’s family?
• Now they insult you. Would you speak out?
Stand Up, Don’t Stand By
Race
Religion
Sexual Orientation
Physical Appearance
Social Class
Gender
Holocau
st
denial.
6. Are
there
laws
regulatin
g
Holocau
st
denial?
In
Canada
and
Western
Europe,
Holocau
st
deniers
have
been
success
fully
prosecut
ed under
racial
defamati
on or
hate
crimes
laws. In
the
United
States,
however
, the
First
Amend
ment
guarante
es the
right of
free
speech,
regardle
ss of
political
content.
Nonethe
less,
though
the First
Amend
ment
guarante
es
Holocau
st
deniers
the right
to
produce
and
distribut
e their
propaga
nda, it in
no way
obligate
s
newspa
pers or
other
media
outlets
to
provide
them
with a
forum
for their
views.
7. What
do
America
n legal
precede
nts
indicate
about
such
propaga
nda?
The
U.S.
Suprem
e Court
ruled in
a 1974
decision
, Miami
Herald
Publishi
ng
Compan
y v.
Tornillo
, that "A
newspa
per is
more
than a
passive
receptac
le or
conduit
for
news,
comme
nt and
advertisi
ng. The
choice
of
material
to go
into a
newspa
per...
[constitu
tes] the
exercise
of
editorial
control
and
judgmen
t."
Simply
stated,
to
require
newspa
per
editors
or
broadca
sters to
provide
Smith,
or any
other
individu
al, with
a forum
would
deny the
newspa
per or
other
media
their
own
First
Amend
ment
rights to
operate
a free
press,
without
govern
ment
coercion
; such
require
ments
would
also
diminish
the
public's
ability to
distingui
sh
historica
l truth
from
propaga
nda.
Like the
editor of
a private
newspa
per, the
editors
of all
private
and
most
public
college
newspa
pers
have a
First
Amend
ment
right to
exercise
editorial
control
over
which
advertis
ements
appear
in their
newspa
per. The
only
situation
in which
an editor
of a
state
universit
y
newspa
per
would
not have
this right
would
be if the
universit
y
administ
ration
controlle
d the
content
of the
campus
newspa
per and
set
editorial
policy.
In such
a case,
the
universit
y would
essentia
lly
function
as an
arm of
the
govern
ment,
and
prohibiti
on of
newspa
per
advertis
ements
based
on
content
would
violate
the First
Amend
ment.
There
are few
universit
ies,
however
, where
the
administ
ration
exercise
s this
type of
control
over the
student
paper.
At public
element
ary and
seconda
ry
schools,
the
administ
ration
has the
right to
refuse to
print
Holocau
st-denial
advertis
ements
in a
student
newspa
per; the
U.S.
Suprem
e Court
ruled in
a 1988
decision
,
Hazelw
ood
School
District
v.
Kuhlmei
er, that
"educato
rs do not
offend
the First
Amend
ment by
exercisi
ng
editorial
control
over. . .
the
content
of
student
speech
in
schoolsponsor
ed
expressi
ve
activitie
s so
long as
their
actions
are
reasona
bly
related
to
legitimat
e
pedagog
ical
concern.
" Based
on that
decision
, it is
clear
that
public
school
officials
have the
same
right as
student
editors
to reject
Holocau
st-denial
advertis
ements,
since
this
propaga
nda
encoura
ges bias
and
prejudic
e,
offends
many
individu
als and
has a
negative
educatio
nal
value.
The one
case
directly
involvin
g the
substan
ce of
Holocau
st-denial
propaga
nda in
an
America
n court
was a
1985
lawsuit
brought
against
the IHR
by Mel
Mermel
stein, a
Holocau
st
survivor
living in
Long
Beach,
Californi
a. In the
early
'80s,
Mermel
stein
had
respond
ed to a
cynical
IHR
publicity
campaig
n which
offered
$50,000
to
anyone
who
HOLOCAUST DENIERS
(AKA: REVISIONISTS)
Held a meeting
December 11,2006
in Iran. 67
representatives
From 30 countries
attend this conference.
DENY, DENY, DENY
IT NEVER HAPPENED !
IT NEVER HAPPENED BECAUSE THERE
IS NO OBJECTIVE DOCUMENTATION !
IT IS EXAGGERATED!
BE CARE OF WHAT YOU READ
ON THE INTERNET
• A PLACE WHERE ANYONE CAN SAY
ANYTHING….EVEN UNTRUE AND
DISTORTED REVISIONIST AND DENIERS,
WHO MAKE MANY CLAIMS AGAINST THE
JEWS.
• MANY OF THESE PUBLICATIONS LOOK
AUTHENTIC AND EDUCATIONAL BUT IN
REALITY THAT IS JUST A TACTIC THEY USE
TO MAKE THEIR FALSE ARGUMENT
BELIEVABLE.