Hitler & The Holocaust

Learning Objectives Hitler’s philosophy of Aryan superiority led to the Holocaust and the death of 25 million people

Aryan Racial State Nazi regime stretched from the English Channel to the outskirts of Moscow Heinrich Himmler – given the job of moving the Slavic people in the East and replacing them with Germans Slavic people = Czechs, Polish, Serbo- Croatian, Slovene, & Ukrainian By 1944, Europeans made up 20% of Germany’s work force

Final Solution Genocide or extermination of the Jewish people Reinhard Heydrich – head of SS security – formed death squads to kill Jews Einatzgruppen – mobile killing units Six extermination centers (concentration camps) were built in Poland – largest was Auschwitz

Children in the War Children as young as age 13 fought Jewish children were sent to the gas chambers because too young to work Children were evacuated from cities to be bombed – many were never reunited with their families –Germans created 9,000 camps for children in the countryside –15,000 children were evacuated from Hiroshima before its destruction

“Asia for the Asiatics” Worked with the anticolonialists & promised local governments would be established under Japanese control Treated the colonist horribly & used their resources Colonies hated Japanese, but did not want to return to colonial rule

Death Toll Germans killed 5-6 million Jews (2 out of 3 European Jews) 1 million Jews were killed by Einsatzgruppen 1.2 million children 9-10 non-Jewish people 4 million slaves laborers 3-4 million Soviet prisoners of war Japanese killed 100 thousand workers Death Toll = approximately 25 million people

The Holocaust Chapter 18, section 3

Hitler Comes to Power Hitler makes anti- Semitism the official policy of the Nazi State Constant attacks on the “Jewish Image” from mass media Jewish children were expelled from school Jews were forced to sell their business to “Aryans” at extremely low prices

Boycotts of Jewish owned business "Attention Germans. These Jews (five and dime) stores are the parasites and gravediggers of German craftsmen. They pay starvation wages to German workers. The chief owner is the Jew, Nathan Schmidt.

Forced to wear badges identifying them as being Jewish –Opens people up to attacks from Brown shirts, Police, SS

Nuremburg Laws Defines “Jewishness” –Non-practicing Jew + 3 or more Jewish Grandparents = Jew –Practicing Jew + 2 or more Jewish Grandparents = Jew Strips Jews of German citizenship

Outlaws marriages between Jews and Non-Jews

1938 – “Kristallnacht” “The Night of the Broken Glass” Mass looting and destruction of Jewish business and Synagogues

Thousands of Jews were arrested Convinced many Jews that they could not outlast the Nazis –Hundreds of thousands of German Jews began to seek refuge outside of Germany

Evian Conference  32 countries convened to discuss opening their borders to Jewish refugees. Only the Dominican Republic did

Warsaw Ghetto 400k Polish Jews were rounded up and confined to a small part of the city of Warsaw. Disease and Starvation ran rampant. Most would later be deported to Death Camps

“Einsatzgruppen”  Mobile killing squads patrolled Nazi occupied Russia killing Jews

 33,000 in two days at Babi Yar

Wannasee Conference Nazi leaders came together to discuss “the Jewish Problem” The “Final Solution” – Death camps would be constructed to exterminate all European Jews –Also – Gypsies, the homeless, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, intellectuals, and dissidents

Different Camps Labor Camps – workers were slowly starved to death while working for the Nazi Death Camps (Concentration Camps) – People were sent to death camps for the extermination POW Camps – Russian POWs were worked to death in labor camps

Concentration Camps

 Most prisoners were killed immediately on arrival in gas chambers

The healthiest would be left alive to carry the bodies to the crematoriums –Most of these people did within of starvation or disease within months of arrival

Jewish Resistance A few prisoners escaped to alert Jews in concentration camps of the Nazi’s plan Warsaw uprising – Nazis lost control of the Warsaw Ghetto for nearly a month

United States Role US knew about the ongoing Holocaust as early as 1942 Press gave little coverage to the story Roosevelt form the War Refugee Board in 1944 –Saves 200k Jews

1944 – 1945 Liberation  As Allied troops advanced through Germany, they discovered the Nazi atrocities and liberated camps

November Nuremburg Trials “We were just following orders” German Citizens “We didn’t know” 12 Nazi leaders were executed

Final Toll of the Holocaust 5 to 6 million Jews 1.8 – 1.9 million Christian Poles 200,000–800,000 Roma & Sinti (Gypsies) 200,000–300,000 people with disabilities 80, ,000 Freemasons 100,000 Communists 10,000–25,000 homosexual men 2,500–5,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses