The Holocaust
Beware of those who burn
books
• The Nazis had book burning
campaigns for books they
deemed “un-German”
• Heinrich Heine, a German poet
in the 1800s predicted….
“Where they have burned
books, they will end in burning
human beings”
• "Holocaust" is a word of Greek
origin meaning "sacrifice by
fire."
• Anti-Semitism – hatred or discrimination of Jews
• The Jewish people had be discriminated against for
over 2000 years
• Especially by Christians in Europe from the Middle Ages to
the years prior to WWII
• Prior to the early 1800s Jews could not own businesses
• They turned to lending money as a way to earn a living = the
reason why stereotypes of Jews are bankers or money
hoarders (no other option for work)
Anti-Semitism in Europe
• Mein Kampf outlined his goals: one of the main ones
being to get rid of non-Aryans especially Jews
• Hitler also wanted to enforce racial “purification”
• In his view, Germans—especially blue-eyed, blondhaired “Aryans”—formed a “master race” that was
destined to rule the world.
• Jews, Gypsies, Slavs and all nonwhites are “inferior
races”
• These people along with homosexuals, the disabled and
communists will be targeted during the Holocaust
• He was not the first person to say this, the idea was
around since the 1850s
Adolf Hitler
• The historical Aryan people came from the Middle East
and then to India
• So they weren’t white to begin with
• He claimed they then came back from India and became
the Greeks, Romans, Vikings and then the German people
and were basically responsible for most of humanity’s
achievements
• Ahnenerbe – scientific group to verify this myth
• Of course they couldn’t because IT ISN’T TRUE
Hitler had no clue what he
was talking about
• The word is derived from the Sanskrit svastika, meaning
“conducive to well-being
• it is a sacred symbol in Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and
Odinism
• Heinrich Schliemann discovered the hooked cross on the site
of ancient Troy. He connected it with similar shapes found
on pottery in Germany and speculated that it was a
“significant religious symbol of our remote ancestors
• This was taken by the Nazis (and others) to be used as a
symbol Aryan race
The Swastika
• Historians do not all agree
• Some say because of his childhood in Vienna
• Some say because of WWI and the economic collapse in
Germany
• Most banks were in Germany were ran by Jews
• Others that his mother died because of a Jewish doctor
• The fact is that the Jewish people were easy to
scapegoat and blame all the problems of Germany on
them because many people already disliked them
So… Why does Hitler hate
the Jews
• Citizens are encouraged to stop going to
Jewish businesses
• This became the official policy of the Nazi
party
• The Nuremberg Laws – passed in 1935
• Stripped Jews of their German citizenship and
said Jews could not marry non-Jews
Beginning the Persecution
• From 1933 – 1937 about 130,000 Jews fled
Germany
– This was encouraged by the Nazis
– The most famous of these Jews of Albert Einstein
who fled to the US in 1933
Jews fleeing Germany
• 1937 and 1938 – the Nazis began to “Aryanize” Jewish
businesses
• “Aryanized” businesses – Jews had to register their property and
dismissed Jewish employees and managers. Jewish doctors were
banned from treating non-Jews
• Germans had to carry ID cards, Jews cards were marked
with a big red J
• Jews also got new middle
names – Sarah for women &
Israel for men
The Persecution Continued
• Kristallnacht
• “Night of the Broken Glass”
• November 9-10, 1938 – The Nazis in Germany and
Austria destroyed Jewish stores, houses and
synagogues
The Persecution
Continued
• Genocide - the deliberate and systematic extermination of
a national, racial, political, or cultural group
• In 1939 Germany took over Poland and everything
changed
• 2 million Jews lived in Poland
• The solution, at first, was to put Jews in ghettos by the Gestapo
• Gestapo – Nazi secret police force that would round up
Jewish populations in Germany and conquered territory
to first be put in Ghettos then eventually Concentration
Camps
From Persecution to Genocide
Identifying Jews
The Warsaw Ghetto
Most Famous Ghetto in the capital of Poland
Invasion of the Soviet Union
• During the invasion of the Soviet Union special SS Death
Squads were sent behind the advancing army to kill the
Jewish populations
• Nazi officials met at the Wannsee Conference
outside Berlin in 1942
• The plan they came up with was to build special
concentration camps
• It is in these concentration camps that the Jews will
be systematically murdered
“The Final Solution”
Work makes you free
• The Nazis built death camps for mass murder
• Jews were crammed into trains shipped to the camps
• These camps had gas chambers disguised as showers
• When the Jews got to the camps, they didn’t really know where
they were going or what would happen to them, the elderly,
most women and children and those too weak to work were sent
to the gas chambers and killed
Death Camps
• Those who were not killed immediately were
forced to live in unbearable conditions
• Men and women were forced to have their heads
shaved and a registration number tattooed on their
arms
• After Jews were killed other prisoners were forced
to carry the bodies to the crematorium
Death Camps (continued)
• At many of the camps Nazi doctors
performed inhumane medical experiments
• Josef Mengele was the most infamous doctor at
Auschwitz. Called the “Angel of Death”
• Escaped captured and was never brought to
justice
Medical Experiments
Auschwitz
Most Infamous Death Camp
• Some Jews fought back against the Nazis
• In April 1943 the Warsaw ghetto revolted against being
moved to a death camp and held off the Nazis for 27 days
• In August 1943 the prisoners at the Treblinka camp
revolted so badly that it had to be shut down
Fighting back
• Oskar Schindler– saved over 1000 Jews from being sent
to Auschwitz by convincing the SS that they were
necessary to run his factory for the war effort
• Chiune Sugihara – a Japanese diplomat in Lithuania who
helped save thousands of Jews by issuing visas for them
to leave Europe for Japan
• Gino Bartali – famous Italian cyclist. Used the handlebars
on his bike to hide counterfeit identity papers, Bartali
would ride to Jews in hiding and deliver their exit visas
he is credited with saving the lives of 800 people.
Saving People
• American and British leaders learned what was
happening at Auschwitz and other camps, but they
rejected pleas to bomb the gas chambers or the roads and
rail lines leading to the camps.
• Military officials opposed the bombing because it would
divert "considerable air support essential to the success of
our forces now engaged in decisive operations."
Liberation
• Even after it was a foregone conclusion that Germany
would lose the war they continued to run these camps
• Advancing Allied troops found the camps and liberated
the prisoners
Liberation
• Some of the American troops who
liberated Dachau were so appalled
by conditions at the camp that they
machine-gunned at least two groups
of captured German guards.
• It is officially reported that 30 SS
guards were killed in this fashion
• The German citizens of the town of
Dachau were later forced to bury the
9,000 dead inmates found at the
camp
Dachau
Nazi Camps
Justice
• Before the Holocaust individuals were rarely held
accountable for state policies
• After the Holocaust top Nazi leaders were put on trial for
Crimes against Humanity
• As well as others who participated
• Nuremberg was where it was decided to first start
persecuting Jews
• Nuremberg Trials
• Major War Criminals
• 24 were indicted 12 were given the death penalty
• 12 Additional trials were held for doctors, judges,
industrialists and army and SS officers
• 185 indicted 12 received the death sentence
Justice at Nuremburg
• Eichmann took part in the Wannsee Conference and was
responsible for the deportations to the camps (a main
architect of the Holocaust)
• He along with many other Nazis escaped after the war
• He made his way to Venezuela, who would not extradite
him
• Mossad, yes the same group NCIS has talked about, sent
people to kidnap him and bring him to Israel
• Executed in Israel in 1962
Adolf Eichmann
• Formation of Israel
• With the victory the Allies controlled the area that is now
Israel
• They formed the nation so that Jews would have a country
of their own so this did not happen again
• Mossad – an agency formed to hunt down Nazi war
criminals who escaped
Israel
Statistics
Country
Estimated Min Died
Percentage of Jewish
Population lost
Poland
2,900,000
88-91%
Soviet Union
1,000,000
33-36%
Hungary
550,000
67-69%
Romania
271,000
44-47%
Czechoslovakia
146,150
71%
Lithuania
140,000
83-85%
Germany
134,000
24-25%
Netherlands
100,000
71%
France
77,320
22%
Latvia
70,000
77-78%
Greece
60,000
78-87%
Yugoslavia
56,200
72-81%
Austria
50,000
27%
Belgium
28,900
44%
Italy
7680
17%
Some people say the
Holocaust didn’t happen
Tell That to them