Can you tell what a person is like from their appearance? What qualities do each of the following characters have? What is it about them that makes you reach that particular decision?

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What were these people really like?

Reinhard Heydrich Picture 1 Heydrich was responsible for organising the murder of every Jewish man, woman and child in Europe. 1939 Heydrich ordered Jews in Poland to be put into Ghettos (areas of town sealed off by walls). Heydrich told the Einsatzgruppen (special killing squads) to murder the Jews in the Soviet union. He set up the sites for the camps to kill the Jews. Picture 1

Pope Pius XII The major Church leaders did not speak out against the murder of Jews. Centuries of Christian hostility to the Jews had created a climate of anti-Semitism throughout Europe. Pope Pius remained silent about the murders despite detailed knowledge about the murder of millions of Jews. However, this was not the case for all Christians as many risked their lives to help Jews. Picture 2

Manfred Bernhardt Picture 3 Manfred was born with a mental disability and later diagnosed with epilepsy. His parents loved him very much and tended to spoil him. In 1942 his parents reluctantly sent him to a Alperbeck asylum, a children’s care home where they thought he would receive help. They visited regularly. Alperbeck was actually part of a secret ‘euthanasia’ programme in which doctors and nurses killed patients. Six months later Manfred was deemed ‘unworthy of life’ and murdered. He was one of 70,000 mentally and physically disabled murdered by the Nazis. Picture 3

Kurt Gerstein Kurt was not in the SS, he joined to find out if the rumours about the murder of patients with disabilities was true. When he saw it was true to wanted to tell the world so the killing might be stopped. He told Swedish officials, but they ignored him because they did not want to anger Germany. When the British found out they thought it was exaggerated, so ignored it, even though they knew it was true. Kurt was in such despair about not helping the Jews he committed suicide in 1945. Picture 4

Heinrich Himmler Picture 5 Head of the SS and the most powerful man in Germany after Hitler. The SS carried out and organised the Holocaust. SS Einsatzgruppen helped shoot one and a half million Jews in Europe. SS doctors carried out fatal experiments on the Jewish people in the camps. Picture 5

Leopold Socha Picture 6 A criminal turned sewer worker. Jews from Poland hid in the sewers to avoid Nazi capture. Leopold knew that helping Jews against the Nazis was punishable by death. Everyday he took food and water to the hiding Jews and washed their clothes. Perhaps 200,000 Jews survived thanks to those people who helped the Jews. About 1,000 people were executed for helping Jews. Picture 6

Irma Grese Born 1923 to a working class family, she was raised by her father after her mother died when she was 13. Irma’s father would not allow her to join the Nazi Party but she disobeyed him and joined the SS. She became a vicious guard at Auschwitz who enjoyed inflicting pain on camp inmates, beating them with a whip and a walking stick. She also shot prisoners and helped to select victims for the gas chamber. Picture 7

Amalie Schaich Picture 8 Amalie was a Gypsy. The Nazis saw gypsies as racially inferior and believed they were criminals. The Nazis sent her father to a concentration camp and her mother was deported. Amalie and her brothers and sisters were taken into care. In May 1944 Amalie was sent to Auschwitz. Amalie was one of 2,000 Gypsies to survive the war. During the Holocaust the Nazis murdered 200,000 Gypsies from across Europe. Picture 8

Albrecht Becker Picture 9 Albrecht was a designer living in Bavaria. He was a homosexual and, although homophobia was widespread, attitudes were changing. The Nazis were opposed to gay men and women. They persecuted them after they came to power and sent many to prison (including Albrecht) where thousands died. Even after the war the anti-homosexual laws stayed in place. Picture 9