The Holocaust Chapter 18, section 3

1933 - 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

1935 - 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

1938 - Evian Conference 32 countries convened to discuss opening their borders to Jewish refugees. Only the Dominican Republic did

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 1939 - Warsaw Ghetto

1941 - “Einsatzgruppen” Mobile killing squads patrolled Nazi occupied Russia killing Jews

33,000 in two days at Babi Yar

1942 - 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 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 to deport them to Treblinka 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

Witness to the aftermath… “The same day, I saw my first horror camp. It was near the town of Gotha. I have never felt able to describe my emotional reactions when I first came face to face with indisputable evidence of Nazi brutality and ruthless disregard of every shred of decency. Up to that time I had known about it only generally or through secondary sources… I visited every nook and cranny of the camp because I felt it my duty to be in a position from then on to testify at first hand about these things in case there ever grew up at home the belief or assumption that “the stories of Nazi brutality were just propaganda.”. I not only did so but as soon as I returned to Patton’s headquarters that evening I sent communications to both Washington and London, urging the two governments to send instantly to Germany a random group of newspaper editors and representative groups from the national legislatures. I felt that the evidence should be immediately placed before the American and British publics in a fashion that would leave no room for cynical doubt.”

November 1945 - Nuremburg Trials Nazi officers - “We were just following orders” German Citizens - “We didn’t know” 24 Nazi leaders were prosecuted in the first trial There were 12 subsequent trials as well as additional trials where hundreds of high ranking Nazis were prosecuted, executed, jailed, or committed suicide Hermann Göring (1893-1946), Hitler’s successor and head of the “Luftwaffe”

Final Toll of the Holocaust 5 to 6 million Jews 1.8 – 2 million Christian Poles Soviet POWS – 2 to 3 Million 200,000–800,000 Roma & Sinti (Gypsies) 200,000–300,000 people with disabilities 80,000-200,000 Freemasons 100,000 Communists 5,000–15,000 homosexual men 2,500–5,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses Slovenes 20,000–25,000