The Holocaust A look at one of history’s worst genocides

Essential QuestionEssential Question  Could the United States have done more to prevent the Holocaust?  Was WWII a ‘good’ war?

A Look at the NumbersA Look at the Numbers ~ Roughly 9 million European Jews affected by the Holocaust ~ Total of 6 million Jews were ‘exterminated’ by the Nazis (does not take into account non-Jewish deaths) ~Non-Jewish population included; Poles, Slavs, Soviets, deaf, blind, mentally ill, homosexuals, anyone with a heredity disorder, political opponents, and dissenters ~All told, nearly 17 million people (Germans included) were killed during the Holocaust

Introduction  Literal meaning= holo- “whole” and kaustos- “burnt”  Attempt by the Nazis and Hitler to kill all European Jews  Estimated 6 million Jews were exterminated in gas chambers and concentration camps  Auschwitz, Dachau, Ravensbruck

The BeginningThe Beginning  Weimar Republic is weak and ineffective  Parliament is made up of many different political parties  Huge election is held where Hitler loses  Republic votes in Hitler as Chancellor of Germany  Hitler takes control of Germany, leader of the Nazi party

Adolf HitlerAdolf Hitler  Born April 20, 1889 in Austria  Was a terrible student and eventually expelled from Realschule (Hitler’s primary school)  Well decorated Corporal in WWI  Arrested after a failed attempt to take over the Weimar Republic  In prison he wrote Mein Kampf  Became Chancellor of Germany in 1933  Married to Eva Braun

Nuremberg LawsNuremberg Laws  Included but not limited to:  Marrying non-Jewish people was forbidden  Jews may not be employ non-Jews under the age of 45  Forbidden to display the symbol of the Reich and national flag  Penalties for breaking these laws included fines and imprisonment with hard labor.

Spiraling out of ControlSpiraling out of Control  Anyone of Jewish decent or a convert from Judaism after 1871 was harassed and subject to public humiliation.  Jewish businesses were boycotted  Jewish lawyers and judges were disbarred, teachers and doctors thrown out, farmers farms seized, etc.

Eugenics  Classifying human beings through quantification of human characteristics  Used to establish the “master race” and weed out those who did not belong

Mass EmigrationMass Emigration  Jews all over Germany and occupied lands were desperately trying to get out.  Waiting lists were 53,000+ long.  300,000 Jews applied for visas~ 100,000 were granted  Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud among emigrants  All emigrants had to pay the next years taxes, many losing at least 90% of all assets

The St. LouisThe St. Louis  German cruise liner leaving Germany with 1,000 Jews aboard  Turned away by Cuba, United States, and Canada  Forced to return back to Germany  Nearly all 1,000 aboard were put into concentration camps

Kristallnacht 1938Kristallnacht 1938  Nov. 7  Nazi diplomat was murdered by a Jewish minor  “ Night of Broken Glass” began  7,000 Jewish shops and 1,700 synagogues were destroyed  30,000 Jews were sent to concentration camps

Ghettos  Parts of cities were turned into ‘staging areas’ for Jews who were to be rounded up and sent to concentration camps for hard labor and extermination  Judenrat- German appointed Jewish council  Warsaw was the largest ghetto with 400,000  Conditions were very crowded  Avg. 9.2 people per room  Deaths were high in the ghettos due to starvation, disease, and typhoid

Pogroms  Mass killings of Jews within the ghettos by either S.S. soldiers or rioting mobs let loose by the Nazis.  The Germans came, the police, and they started banging houses: "Raus, raus, raus, Juden raus."... One baby started to cry... The other baby started crying. So the mother urinated in her hand and gave the baby a drink to keep quiet... [When the police had gone], I told the mothers to come out. And one baby was dead... from fear, the mother [had] choked her own baby.” —Abraham Malik, describing his experience in the Kovno Ghetto

Concentration/Death Camps  Arrived on heavily crowded railway cars and escorted out to be decontaminated including shaving of head and separated into men and women  Stripped of all possessions and given prisoners uniform  Forced to partake in hrs of hard labor with very little rationing  Died from either exhaustion, exposure, maltreatment, firing squad, or gassed

Medical ExperimentsMedical Experiments  Effects of hypothermia  Treatment for Malaria  Effects of drinking sea water  Effects and treatment of mustard gas and poisons  Forced sterilization  Effects and treatment of explosive burns  Subject to pressurized chambers