Handout: Nazi Germany: To what extent were average German citizens aware of or involved in the Holocaust?

Ghettos - Beginning in 1939, Jewish quarters of cities where inhabitants were forced to live in close confines. - Miserable conditions … - Starting in 1943 the Ghettos were destroyed.

Operation Barbarossa ** Operation Barbarossa is meant to accomplish what exactly? Largest military operation, land invasion, and number of casualties in the history of warfare. Consequence: Opens up the Eastern Front

Humiliation, brutality, then murder… “You are ordered to kill Jews.”

There were four special Einsatzgruppen military units who carried out the massacres of Jews in the Soviet Union.

March, 1941

A mass execution of Jews in Nazi occupied Soviet Union. [Einsatzgruppen detail]

Main entrance to Auschwitz “Work makes one free.” ** What was the purpose behind the “Final Solution?” - Nazi leadership were worried about the emotional turmoil mass shootings were having German soldiers - More “systematic way.” Main entrance to Auschwitz “Work makes one free.”

Jewish transfer

Rail entrance to Auschwitz, end of the line.

Extermination Camps Mostly located in Poland Chelmno Belzec Sobibor Treblinka Auschwitz-Birkenau Majdenak

Internees Jewish people Roma (Gypsies) Polish resistance Homosexuals Physically & Mentally Handicapped “Left” of center politicians Catholic Clergy Jehovah’s Witnesses Soviet POWs (prisoners of war)

- Extermination facilities built at many of the concentration camps - Designed to kill thousands of people daily

Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp The gas chambers are in the back; crematorium smoke stacks in the front.

“Burning pits" at Auschwitz in the summer of 1944, when so many thousands were exterminated that the furnaces couldn't handle all the corpses.

Crematorium at Auschwitz; dynamited by in an attempt to hide their extermination program that killed millions.

A pile of the victims' glasses at Auschwitz.

Mountains of shoes in Auschwitz Mountains of shoes in Auschwitz. All personal property of the victims was confiscated to be given to Germany.

384 pounds of gold and silver teeth found in a secret vault.

It began with hatred and humiliation.

"THEY CAME FIRST for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. THEN THEY CAME for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. THEN THEY CAME for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. THEN THEY CAME for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. THEN THEY CAME for me and by that time no one was left to speak up.“ - Martin Niemoller, Lutheran Pastor

Jewish Ghetto Summary You may work with a partner on this. Use the handout to complete the summary in paragraph form; don’t simply answer the questions, write in paragraphs.