“For the dead and the living we must bear witness” Eli Wiesel
This power point was completed from the work of
Dr. Karl Schleunes
UNC- Greensboro
And
The North Carolina Council on the Holocaust
Audio clips courtesy of WWII German Veteran,
Gerd Hans Marohm, February 22, 2014
1) Separation of “us” and “them”
2) Idea that “us” are better than “them”
3) “us” is superior and “ them” is inferior – less than,
unworthy of life
These three factors lead to things like prejudice,
discrimination, and stereotypes
 Bystander – one who stands by and does nothing when
injustice takes place
 The majority of people were bystanders often out of
fear or because they considered Jews and others
affected to be “not us”
 Opposite of a bystander: upstander – those who are
willing to stand up
 “The longest hatred in Western culture”
 Pagan Era – Jews introduce monotheism into a
polytheistic world… what does that mean?
 Jews became defined as the “other”, a peculiar people –
they were telling polytheistic believers (by
implication) that their religion was wrong.
 Early Christianity defines and shapes the new
European world… Jews seen as evil
 Church decrees that loaning money at interest is a
mortal sin – stereotype – Jews as money lenders,
stingy, people who will cheat you
 1215 – Pope decrees that Jews must wear a star so that
they can be avoided
 1300s – Blamed for the spread of the bubonic plague
 1290-1500s – Jews constantly expelled from Western
Europe
 Martin Luther originally wrote a pamphlet that
said he understood why the Jews didn’t want to
convert (when Rome was in charge)
 Later on, after Luther reformed the church, he
published “The Jews and Their Lies” (1543)
“First, their synagogues or churches should be set on fire… Secondly, their homes
should likewise be broken down and destroyed…They ought to be put under one
roof or in a stable, like gypsies…
Thirdly, they should be deprived of their prayer books…
Fourthly, their rabbis must be forbidden under threat of death to teach anymore.”
He went on to suggest that Jews should be placed into work camps…
 Revolution = the idea of legal EQUALITY of men
 Rousseau wrote an essay on the origin of the inequality
of man – these inequalities were created by men, not a
higher power, and can be undone
 Jews began to assimilate into 19th century German
society
 Entry into business world (Industrial Revolution)
 Entry into German cultural world (art, literature, music,
etc.)
 Entry into medicine, law, journalism
 High rate of marriage between Jewish and Germans
**People began to resent the success of the Jews
 The threat of this century – The birth of Modern
Racism: suggested that inequalities among humans are
made by biology
There are superior (Aryan) and inferior races…Science
says it, so it must be true… Right?
 Darwin’s concepts in “On the Origin of Species” (1859)
of survival of the fittest and natural selection applied
to nations and races
 Social Darwinism was especially popular in Germany
 1879 – the term Anti-Semitism is introduced
 Jews = Semitic race, Anti = against
 Jews were assimilating into German culture and life,
while doing this, they were also infusing into the
German race (Jews and Germans marrying)
 Jews = inferior race
 Germans = superior, Aryan race
This will drag the superior people down…
 Notion that nations can be superior because of their
social composition = they have been naturally selected
by nature to control
 So what’s the problem with Jews being in Germany
and infusing into their race, culture, daily life,
government, etc.?
 Breed a superior race
 Root out “inferior stock”
 Solve social problems – crime, poverty, disease
How?
 Selective breeding/sterilization, and eventually much
worse
Birth of a new science = Eugenics “good breeding”
 1900 – Germany had become the world’s leading power
What went wrong?
 WWI – Germans did not believe that they were
responsible for WWI starting – they had been attacked
unfairly by the Allies who were jealous
 Rush to defend the motherland, millions of young
men volunteer
 Many thought it would be over by Christmas, but it
was not over by Christmas 1914…1915…1916… or 1917
 Tremendous sacrifices demanded on the battlefield
and the home front – Turnip winter – turnips replaced
essential foods
 German leaders insist that Germany is winning –
demand more sacrifices
 October 1918 – Germans are told that they are losing
the war = shock “How could we be winning for four
years and then suddenly surrender?”
 November 1918 – Revolution – monarchy overthrown
 1919 – Versailles Treaty – German Guilt Clause
 1919-1933 The shock continues…
 Hyperinflation - $$ worth less
 Brutalization of German politics – assassinations, roving
political armies
Big Question: Who is to blame for all of this?
 1929: The Great Depression begins
 1930s: Failure of democratic politics in Germany
Situation is ripe for a manipulator to come in and save
the day… Wonder who that could be?
** Pressure on the political system allowed Hitler to
come to power, he had an answer to the problems…
 Hitler was extremely charismatic - remarkable
speaking abilities
 Hitler’s promises:
1. Restore Germany to world leadership
2. Restore the economy
3. Purify the Aryan race (eugenics)
4. Solve the “Jewish Problem”
AUDIO: 6:42-8:39 Hitler’s charisma/ Plan for Germany
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvEMvuJiwTU
 “Big Lie” Theory of Propaganda
 Jews are responsible for all of Germany’s troubles
 Jews are revolutionaries, communists, run the world




capitals
Jews are responsible for the Versailles treaty and the
war guilt clause
Jews “stabbed the German army in the back”
Jews are responsible for $$ inflation
Jews are responsible for Germany’s racial decline
Illustration from a children's book. The headlines say
"Jews are our misfortune" and "How the Jew cheats."
Germany, 1936. — US Holocaust Memorial Museum
The Eternal Jew
“The God of the Jews is money. To earn
money, he commits the greatest
crimes…”
"The Jew: The inciter of war, the
prolonger of war."
 January 1933 – Hitler becomes Chancellor and soon
established a total dictatorship
One of the many speeches:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nH0Et56Hxt4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFNUdCtMXWE
 Hitler’s racial policies – purifying the German race
1933 – sterilization law – people with hereditary
problems were sterilized so that they could not
reproduce
1935 – Nuremburg Laws – brings an end to race mixing
1939 – euthanasia of the physically and mentally
handicapped
The Gestapo’s Helpers: poster
justifying the prohibition of
“interracial” relationships between
Jews and Non-Jews under the
Nuremburg Laws. Many Germans
reported suspicions of the “crime” to
the police, who needed the public to
be their eyes and ears in this and
other matters. Informers were
variously motivated by political
beliefs, personal prejudices, and
desire to settle petty quarrels, or the
patriotic desire to be a “good citizen”
“Everyone cringes with fear… No
letter, no telephone conversation , no
word on the street is safe anymore.
Everyone fears that the next person
might be an informer.” – Jewish
professor, Victor Klemperer, 1933
Photo of poster and information taken from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
 Hitler’s racial policies – Jewish Policies
 Segregation of Jews – March 1933 Concentration
Camps – starting with Dachau
 Aryanization – Jews robbed of property and assets
Aryan paragraph, 1933
“prevented Jews from becoming members of German
political parties, social clubs, student groups, sports
groups and others and included in constitutions of
nationalist and racist student associations.”
 Six Jews in the middle of the board game… you had to
get yours out first…
 It was nearly impossible …
 Emigration – where to?
 Difficult due to the Depression
 Restrictive immigration laws in the U.S. and elsewhere
 FDR calls a conference to discuss Jewish Refugees –
countries would come ONLY if they didn’t have to take
any Jews
Jews can’t stay anywhere and can’t go anywhere…
“The whole
function of all
education is to
create a Nazi” Bernhard Rust, Reich Minister of
Science and Education
Poster promoting the League of
German Girls
 At that time we are now in the beginning of the war --
announcements preceded by march music, we learned
about the number of ships the u boasts sunk
constantly. During that time, I got excited … you have
to take into the context that we were taught to support
Hitler. At 10 a boy became a member of the Hitler
youth. You went to weekly meetings, any time things
were going on politically in Berlin we had to be present
there. I laugh about that fact that me and the Pope
were both the same age and were both Hitler youths.
He grew up like I did, not in Berlin, but a smaller city,
but he was a Hitler youth too.
 National Socialist Teacher’s League – aligning all
teachers with Nazi ideology – 97% of all teachers were
members, 32% were also Nazi party members
 Removal of Jewish
teachers
AWAY WITH HIM
The long arm of the
ministry of education
pulls the Jewish
teacher from his
classroom.
 Ghettoes for Jews Created by Nazis
 Death camps built in Poland –
Auschwitz, Belzec, Chelmno,
Majdanek, Sobibor, Treblinka
 Hundreds of Concentration camps
across occupied Europe
 Heinrich Himmler in charge of
operation
 Hitler’s hatred of Jews led to his “final solution”
 Holocaust – the killing of millions of Jews and
anyone else considered undesirable
 between 9 and 12 million people were murdered, 6
million were Jews
 Video about the US Holocaust Museum
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uf2u17yKR0Q&s
afe=active
Child of the Holocaust
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWneASsotkc&
safe=active
After deportation trains arrived at the killing centers,
guards ordered the deportees to get out and form a line.
The victims then went through a selection process. Men
were separated from women and children. A Nazi, usually
an SS physician, looked quickly at each person to decide if
he or she was healthy and strong enough for forced labor.
This SS officer then pointed to the left or the right; victims
did not know that individuals were being selected to live or
die. Babies and young children, pregnant women, the
elderly, the handicapped, and the sick had little chance of
surviving this first selection.
Selection at Auschwitz
Those who had been selected to die were led to gas
chambers. In order to prevent panic, camp guards
told the victims that they were going to take
showers to rid themselves of lice. The guards
instructed them to turn over all their valuables and
to undress. Then they were driven naked into the
"showers." A guard closed and locked the steel
door. In some killing centers, carbon monoxide
was piped into the chamber. In others, camp
guards threw "Zyklon B" pellets down an air shaft.
Zyklon B was a highly poisonous insecticide also
used to kill rats and insects.
Gas Chamber at Auschwitz
Usually within minutes after entering the gas chambers,
everyone inside was dead from lack of oxygen. Under
guard, prisoners were forced to haul the corpses to a nearby
room, where they removed hair, gold teeth, and fillings.
The bodies were burned in ovens in the crematoria or
buried in mass graves.
Many people profited from the pillage of corpses. Camp
guards stole some of the gold. The rest was melted down
and deposited in an SS bank account. Private business
firms bought and used the hair to make many products,
including ship rope and mattresses.
Crematorium at Auschwitz
A Glimpse
of those
affected
Indeed this was another universe; the very laws of
nature had been transformed. Children looked like
old men, old men whimpered like children. Men
and women from every corner of Europe were
suddenly reduced to nameless and faceless
creatures desperate for the same ration of bread or
soup, dreading the same end. Even their silence
was the same for it resounded with the memory of
those who were gone. Life in this accursed universe
was so distorted, so unnatural that a new species
had evolved. Waking among the dead, one
wondered if one were still alive...
AUDIO: 33:10- 34:12 (Intro) resume at 35:09- 40:34 “That Jewish
Question is a terrible question”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvEMvuJiwTU
 Allied troops moved
across Europe
 Encountered tens of
thousands of
concentration camp
prisoners
 Many of these prisoners
had survived forced
marches (Nazis moved
them and destroyed
camps)
 “Never shall I forget that night, the first night in
camp, which has turned my life into one long
night, seven times cursed and seven times
sealed....Never shall I forget those moments
which murdered my God and my soul and turned
my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these
things, even if I am condemned to live as long as
God Himself. Never.” – Elie Wiesel
6 million Jews were killed as a result of Hitler’s final
solution. The question now is, who will be held
responsible?
“We were just following orders…”
 Winston Churchill did not want a trial
 Thought all should be hung
 Americans and Russians wanted a trial
 How do you try people for the murder of millions of
people that had been made “legal” under Hitler?
 Crime of conspiracy
 Leaders, organizers, instigators, and accomplices in the
formulation or execution of a common plan, or a
conspiracy to commit any of the following crimes are
responsible for all acts performed by any persons in
executing such a plan.
 Crimes against peace
 Planning, preparing or initiating a war of
aggression.
 War Crimes
 This meant breaking the rules of war. It included killing
prisoners or war and destroying homes and property
 Crimes against humanity
 The murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation,
and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian
population before or during the war.
 The first job facing the court
at Nuremberg was to decide
who should be tried.
 24 Nazi’s were indicted
 22 stood trial
 The rest were turned over to
local trials
 Allies formed the International Military Tribunal
(IMT) to bring the Nazi leaders to trial
 Tribunal is a court of justice
 The defendants were made aware of all charges, each
was entitled to a lawyer and had the right to plead his
own case, offering witnesses and evidence on his
behalf.
 Began Nov. 20, 1945
and lasted 10 months
 Chief prosecutor was
Robert H. Jackson,
justice on United
States Supreme Court
 Opening Statement by
Jackson
 “We must never forget that the record on which we
judge these defendants today is the record on which
history will judge us tomorrow. To pass these
defendants a poisoned chalice is to put it to our own
lips as well.”
 Used the Nazi’s own records
 Tried to show the Nazis planned a war and planned to
conquer the world if they could
 A crime against peace
 A minor part of the prosecution was documents and
witnesses of the Holocaust
 Too much evidence to claim the Holocaust didn’t
happen
 Had to make case on other issues
 Said tribunal had no legal authority
 Said they were just following orders
 Vehemently denied responsibility for crimes against
humanity
 Used the argument Fuhrer-prinzip
 Nazi “leadership principal”
 All orders given in Germany were Hitler’s orders and the
punishment for not obeying was death.
The details of what the Nazi’s had done became vivid to
the rest of the world
PBS Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsOpcMFkrFs
AUDIO: 52:12-end Lasting Impression about Germany, German people
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvEMvuJiwTU
 Audio from Morris Glass, a Holocaust survivor:
https://vimeo.com/44009592