State Standard: Analyze the Nazi policy of pursuing racial purity, especially against the European Jews; its transformation into the Final Solution; and the Holocaust that resulted in the murder of six million Jewish civilians.

Objective: Students will be able to analyze the stages of the Holocaust by writing diary entries.

Pair-Share How do you feel when someone treats you different? How would you feel if the state took away your citizenship? IF you saw someone getting discriminated what would you do?

Student Directions Your teacher will hand you a short biography of an actual person who lived during the Holocaust. Read the information quietly and keep it to refer to during this activity. You will assume the role of that person and write diary entries after you learn about each stage of the Holocaust. Predict how your victim felt, what they saw, what they heard, etc. when writing your diary entries. Be sure to include important information about what you have learned about each stage. Before we begin, make sure you have a diary booklet. Be sure to include pictures on the cover and throughout the diary to help the reader understand what you are writing about. TEACHER: Hand out a Holocaust Victim Biography to each student. You may want to match girls with girls and boys with boys.

Essential Vocabulary Terms The Holocaust The mass slaughter European civilians – especially the Jews (6 million) by the Nazis during WWII.

Essential Vocabulary Terms Anti –Semitism This is the term given to political, social and economic agitation against Jews. In simple terms it means ‘Hatred of Jews’.

Essential Vocabulary Terms Aryan Race This was the name of what Hitler believed was the perfect race. These were people with full German blood, blonde hair and blue eyes.

Essential Vocabulary Terms Extermination Camps Nazi camps for the mass killing of Jews and others. Known as “death camps”. All were located in occupied Poland.

Essential Vocabulary Terms Gypsies A nomadic people that spread throughout Europe during the 16th century. They were persecuted almost as relentlessly as the Jews. About 500,000 died during the Holocaust.

Essential Vocabulary Terms The German defense protective units (Schutzstaffeln) responsible for carrying out the Holocaust.

Background Information The Holocaust

For hundreds of years Christian Europe had regarded the Jews as the Christ -killers. At one time or another Jews had been driven out of almost every European country. The way they were treated in England in the thirteenth century is a typical example. In 1275 they were made to wear a yellow badge. In 1287 269 Jews were hanged in the Tower of London. Jews were a SCAPEGOAT This deep prejudice against Jews was still strong in the twentieth century, especially in Germany, Poland and Eastern Europe, where the Jewish population was very large. After the First World War hundreds of Jews were blamed for the defeat in the War. Prejudice against the Jews grew during the economic depression which followed. Many Germans were poor and unemployed and wanted someone to blame. They turned on the Jews, many of whom were rich and successful in business.

German Propaganda Hitler wanted the Germans to “follow me with your hearts, not your minds.” Goebbels – minister of propaganda Rallies emphasized the Nazi ideals of racial purity and set the stage for attacks on Non-German ethnic groups as “impure” and as threats to the nation. Newspapers printed fabricated stories of Jews.

Anti-Semitic Propaganda Jews pictured in German propaganda as dark-haired and fat with hooked nose Jews depicted as an evil, lurking, money-grubbing figure or as vermin, rats, or insects.

Propaganda Analysis Describe what you see in the poster. What is the purpose of this propaganda poster? Poster that reads, "The Jew: The inciter of war, the prolonger of war." It is from 1943 or 1944, during the height of the Holocaust. .

Propaganda Analysis Describe what you see in the poster. What is the purpose of this propaganda poster? This poster is translated from Russian by a colleague:  "Red Army man! You go to 'release' people? Release first yourself from your oppressors!"  It was obviously meant as a response to the Bolsheviks' own propaganda tactics used to sway the Russian people. In spite of the media propaganda, Russia, like the west, is still under the heel of the Jew.

Propaganda Analysis Describe what you see in the poster. Nazi anti-semitic propaganda frequently linked Jews to the fears of their German and foreign audiences. This poster, displayed in the German-occupied Soviet Union to foment both anti-Soviet and antisemitic fervor, uses the stereotype of the bloodthirsty “Jewish Bolshevik commissar” to associate “the Jew” with the murder of more than 9,000 Soviet citizens in Vinnitsa, Ukraine, an atrocity committed by Stalin’s secret police in 1937–38. German forces uncovered the massacre in May 1943. Unknown artist, 1943. Credit: Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C. Describe what you see in the poster. What is the purpose of this propaganda poster?

German Youth Boys ages 6-10 joined the “Pimpf” or “little fellow” organization. After age 10 joined the “Hitler Youth” Purpose of schools = train people that the State is more important than individual and they must be willing to sacrifice themselves to the Nation and Fuhrer. Students required to “Heil Hitler” 50-150 times a day.

German Youth Organizations

Film Clip: WWII and the Holocaust https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gQawPAsZwI

Stages of the Holocaust

1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 In 1935 Hitler introduces the Nuremburg Laws. Jews lose their citizenship and marriages between Jews and non-Jews was banned. Jews were forced to wear yellow Stars of David. In 1938 Nazis start campaign of terror against Germany’s Jewish population. Many Jews are killed and hundreds of Jewish shops and synagogues destroyed. 30,000 Jews are arrested and sent to prison. Hitler announces a boycott of Jewish businesses. This isolates Jews both socially and economically Between 1942 and 1945 Nazis rounded up Jews throughout Europe and transported them to death camps in Eastern Europe. In 1939, Jews throughout Europe were forced to leave their homes and live in special areas known as Ghettos. Between 1942 and 1945 Nazi officials agree to move forward with a plan to kill all European Jews. Death camps are built and Jews are transported to them. In all, about 6 million Jews were killed. In 1945 Allied troops liberated 300,000 Jews from concentration and death camps.

STAGE 1 1933 -Boycott of Jewish Businesses The Nazi’s sponsored “Day of Boycott” on April 1, 1933. “Good” Germans were not to buy from Jewish stores. Isolated Jews both socially and economically from the German society Burned Jewish books Jews banned from universities

Nazi Storm Troopers holding signs calling for a boycott of Jewish businesses.

German students and Nazis burn “un-German” books in Berlin, May 1933

Diary Entry #1 When you receive your biographical information about your assigned holocaust victim – write in your diary about the Boycott of Jewish Businesses as if you were there.

STAGE 2 1935 - The Nuremberg Laws Jews were not citizens Jews could not marry Germans Jews could not employ non-Jews Social relationships were forbidden between Jews and Germans Restricted from public places Forced to wear the “Star of David” Hitler’s intent was to make Jews “subjects” and non-citizens to make them feel less than human

German Jews being stopped by police and having their papers examined.

A Jewish storefront the day after anti-Jewish riots

Diary Entry #2 Write in your diary about The Nuremberg Laws as if you were there.

1938; Kristallnacht (Night of the Broken Glass) STAGE 3: 1938; Kristallnacht (Night of the Broken Glass) Nazi’s unleash a nationwide campaign of terror against Jews. Many Jews killed Jewish shops and synagogues destroyed. 30,000 arrested and sent to prison camps. Over 200 Synagogues were destroyed. 7500 stores were looted Jewish homes were destroyed Jews had to give businesses to Aryans and were expelled from schools

Diary Entry #3 Write in your diary about Night of the Broken Glass as if you were there.

STAGE 4: 1939: Jewish Ghettos Ghettos, or confined areas within a city, were established. Jews forced from their homes to live in ghettos. Ghettos were very unsanitary and crowded Used for experiments by the Nazis with mass hunger and heat deprivation.

Jews being moved from a ghetto

Diary Entry #4 Write in your diary about Jewish Ghettos as if you were there.

1942-1945: Deportations Throughout Europe STAGE 5: 1942-1945: Deportations Throughout Europe Nazis systematically round up Jews throughout Europe and transport them to camps in Eastern Europe. The first camps were detention and labor camps. The aims of the camps was punishment and “reeducation” Labor was used as torture. Some camps were designed for mass killings of hundreds of thousands of people at each one. Often prisoners were subject to inhumane medical experiments by Nazi doctors. The doctors tested the extremes of human endurance such as the ability to withstand cold, heat or pain. The prisoners who could not work, especially children were killed first.

The Barracks in a concentration camp.

A MAP OF THE CONCENTRATION CAMPS AND DEATH CAMPS There were concentration camps and death camps. If you went to a death camp the chances of coming out alive were virtually nil. Even at concentration camps though you were likely to die from the appalling conditions. Or, if you were very young, old, or incapable of hard labour, it was likely you would be transferred to a death camp too. Anne Frank died at Belsen from Typhoid. Leonard Leher's mother and sisters were sent to Sobibor. YOU MAY ASK "WHO WERE THESE PEOPLE WHO WERE SENT TO PLACES LIKE THIS?" THEY WERE CHILDREN JUST LIKE YOU. THE ONLY DIFFERENCE WAS THEIR RACE AND THE RELIGION THEY FOLLOWED.

Diary Entry #5 Write in your diary about Deportations as if you were there.

STAGE 6: 1942-1945: Final Solution The “Final Solution” was the Germans’ cover name for the plan to kill all European Jews. Hitler’s plan to restore Germany’s purity and greatness. 70,000 “unfit” Germans had been gassed in showers. A pesticide gas, Cyclon B, was tried at Auschwitz and became the gas of choice. The bodies were burned and their ashes scattered in such a manner that it would be impossible for someone in the future to determine the number of deaths. 6 million Jews are killed 6 million non-Jews killed

Prisoners being shot in front of mass graves.

A concentration camp shower

Part of a stockpile of Zyklon-B poison gas pellets found at Majdanek death camp. Before poison gas was used , Jews were gassed in mobile gas vans. Carbon monoxide gas from the engine’s exhaust was fed into the sealed rear compartment. Victims were dead by the time they reached the burial site. THIS IS THE GAS THAT WAS INTRODUCED IN 1942. JEWS WERE SENT INTO SEALED SHOWER UNITS ON THE PRETENCE THAT THEY WERE GOING TO BE SHOWERED. PELLETS WERE THEN PLACED INTO THE SHOWER HEADS AND GAS CAME FROM THE SHOWERS INSTEAD OF WATER. 15 MINUTES LATER THE SHOWER ROOM WOULD BE EMPTIED, BODIES WERE ALWAYS IN A PYRAMID SHAPE, PEOPLE TRIED TO CLIMB ON TOP OF ONE ANOTHER TO ESCAPE THE GAS. BEFORE THIS TYPE OF KILLING METHOD WAS INTRODUCED THOUGH A MORE PRIMITIVE GASSING METHOD WAS USED.... I DON'T KNOW HOW, OR EVEN WHY THIS PHOTO WAS TAKEN, BUT IT SHOWS SOME MEN AWAITING DEATH ON THEIR WAY TO THEIR BURIAL PLACE. DID THEY ALWAYS BURY THE DEAD?

Concentration camp crematoriums

Diary Entry #6 Write in your diary about Final Solution as if you were there.

STAGE 7: 1944-1945: Liberation Allied troops liberate, or free, approximately 300,000 Jews from the concentration and death camps.

Smoke rises as the bodies are burnt. NO. MORE OFTEN THAN NOT, ESPECIALLY WHEN THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE MURDERED GREW ESPECIALLY HIGH, NAZIS BURNED THE BODIES. SO WHAT OTHER METHODS WERE USED TO SYSTEMATICALLY MURDER THESE PEOPLE?

Between 1939 and 1945 six million Jews were murdered, along with hundreds of thousands of others, such as Gypsies, Jehovah’s Witnesses, disabled and the mentally ill.

Percentage of Jews killed in each country AUSTRIA 35% POLAND 91% USSR 36% NORWAY 45% BELGIUM 45% LUXEMBOURG 55% A Total of 6,000,000 Jews ESTONIA 44% ROMANIA 84% HUNGARY 74% YUGOSLAVIA 81% BOHEMIA 60% How did they manage to get together all these Jews to kills them? How did they kill them when they had them? To begin with there were concentration camps. LATVIA 84% NETHERLANDS 71% LITHUANIA 85% GERMANY 36% FRANCE 22% GREECE 87%

16 of the 44 children taken from a French children’s home. They were sent to a concentration camp and later to Auschwitz. ONLY 1 SURVIVED HOW DID THEY KILL THESE INNOCENT CHILDREN, ALONG WITH THEIR PARENTS, GRANDPARENTS, FRIENDS ETC.. YOU WILL ALL HAVE PROBABLY HEARD OF THE WAY NAZiS GASSED THE JEWS. A group of children at a concentration camp in Poland.

Jewish women, some holding infants, are forced to wait in a line before their execution by Germans and Ukrainian collaborators. MASS EXECUTION USING A FIRING SQUAD WAS COMMON. THESE WOMEN HAVE BEEN ORDERED TO REMOVE EVERYTHING, CLOTHES, JEWELLERY, EVEN WEDDING RINGS AND ARE BEING FORCED TO LINE UP AND WAIT FOR THEIR TURN TO BE KILLED. SOME TIME LATER...

A German policeman shoots individual Jewish women who remain alive in the ravine after the mass execution. THEY HAVE BEEN ORDERED TO LIE, FACE DOWN ON THE GROUND AND HAVE BEEN SHOT. THE GERMAN POLICEMAN IS SHOOTING INDIVIDUALS WHO HAVE ESCAPED DEATH FROM THE INITIAL ROUND OF BULLETS. THIS IS HORRIFIC BUT WE CANNOT SEE THE INDIVIDUAL FACES OF THOSE KILLED, WE DON'T REALLY KNOW WHO THEY ARE OR WHAT THEY REALLY LOOKED LIKE. SO TAKE A LOOK AT THIS NEXT PICTURE...

Portrait of two-year-old Mania Halef, a Jewish child who was among the 33,771 persons shot by the SS during the mass executions at Babi Yar, September, 1941. THIS PICTURE TELLS US A LOT. HER PARENTS ARE OBVIOUSLY WEALTHY ENOUGH TO HAVE HAD A PORTRAIT DONE, SO IT SHOWS US THAT THE STATUS OF THE JEWS DID NOT MATTER TO THE NAZIS. IT WAS NOT JUST THE POOR WHICH WERE KILLED. THEY WERE KILLED REGARDLESS OF WEALTH OR STATUS, THEIR DEATH WAS DETERMINED BY RELIGION AND RACE.

Nazis sift through a huge pile of clothes left by victims of the massacre. Two year old Mani Halef’s clothes are somewhere amongst these. GIVES SOME IDEA OF THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE. BUT WHY DID THE NAZI WANT THEM TO REMOVE THEIR CLOTHES? WHAT DID THEY WANT WITH THEIR JEWELLERY, CLOTHES, EVEN HAIR?

In 1943, when the number of murdered Jews exceeded 1 million In 1943, when the number of murdered Jews exceeded 1 million. Nazis ordered the bodies of those buried to be dug up and burned to destroy all traces. OBVIOUSLY TOWARDS THE END OF THE WAR THEY TRIED TO COVER THEIR TRACKS. IT WAS NOT GUILT THOUGH AND THEY DID NOT DO THE WORK THEMSELVES. THEY MADE JEWS AND OTHER PRISONERS OF WAR DIG UP THE BODIES AND BURN THEM INSTEAD. Soviet POWs at forced labor in 1943 exhuming bodies in the ravine at Babi Yar, where the Nazis had murdered over 33,000 Jews in September of 1941.

Bales of hair shaven from women at Auschwitz, used to make felt-yarn. After liberation, an Allied soldier displays a stash of gold wedding rings taken from victims at Buchenwald. THESE PICTURES SHOW WHAT THEY WANTED. WERE THE NAZI'S NOT WORRIED ABOUT THE CONSEQUENCES OF THEIR ACTIONS? DID THEY NOT THINK ABOUT WHAT MIGHT HAPPEN IF ALLIED COUNTRIES DISCOVERED WHAT WAS HAPPENING?

“Until September 14, 1939 my life was typical of a young Jewish boy in that part of the world in that period of time. I lived in a Jewish community surrounded by gentiles. Aside from my immediate family, I had many relatives and knew all the town people, both Jews and gentiles. Almost two weeks after the outbreak of the war and shortly after my Bar Mitzvah, my world exploded. In the course of the next five and a half years I lost my entire family and almost everyone I ever knew. Death, violence and brutality became a daily occurrence in my life while I was still a young teenager.” Leonard Lerer, 1991 WHY? THIS PICTURE IS IMPORTANT BECAUSE IT SHOWS A FAMILY WHOSE LIVED THROUGH THIS AWFUL TIME. WE WILL BE LOOKING AT A BOOK CALLED THE SOAPMAKER WHICH TELLS THE STORY OF A YOUNG POLISH BOY'S LIFE THROUGHOUT THE WAR. AFTER ALL THAT HORRIFIC EVIDENCE OF WHAT HAPPENED THERE SHOULD ONLY BE ONE QUESTION ON YOUR MINDS. A QUESTION WHICH WE WILL TRY TO ANSWER OVER THE NEXT FEW LESSONS.... (MOUSE CLICK) WHY.

Diary Entry #7 When you receive you’re information about what actually happened to your assigned victim at the end of the Holocaust – write in your diary about how you felt to be liberated and what you have learned about the Holocaust. If you didn’t survive write information about what you learned about the Holocaust and what we could do to prevent future genocides from ever happening again.