The Holocaust & Night by Elie Wiesel Background and introductory information

Pre-Reading discussion questions What do you know about the Holocaust (for certain)? What have you heard about the Holocaust (that you may question)? What questions do you have about the Holocaust? Why do we take time to study the Holocaust at school?

Definition of antisemitism The word “antisemitism” was coined in 1879 in Germany, in an attempt to define anti-Jewish sentiment on a scientific basis. Unlike the traditional, religiously, and emotionally based hatred of Jews, antisemitism was to justify the rejection of Jews as a different people, nation, and later race, that threatens the mere existence of the national unity and the national state. Gradually antisemitism became a political ideology embraced by political parties and organizations that were determined to protest against the so- called “Jewish influence” in political, social, economic, and cultural life. Today the term “antisemitism” refers to prejudice or discrimination against Jews, based on their religious beliefs and/or on group stereotypes.

Definition of propaganda “Scholars, journalists, and politicians have long argued about how to properly define propaganda and distinguish it from other forms of mass communication. Propaganda is biased information designed to shape public opinion and behavior.” All the major governments (Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy, the United States, Germany, and Austria-Hungary) employed writers, artists, and filmmakers to craft political messages aimed at mobilizing their populations for war, at weakening the enemy’s morale and will to fight, and at winning over audiences in neutral countries. British, American, and French publicists created potent images of the Germans as barbaric, brutal "Huns" who sought world domination and the destruction of western civilization. This portrayal reinforced reports of German atrocities, some real, others exaggerated or fabricated, which aimed to convince their populations of the righteousness of their cause and the need to continue the war until the enemy was defeated. Nazi propagandists drew upon the successful techniques and strategies used by the Allies, Socialists, Communists, and Italian Fascists to advance their political campaigns, win public support, and to wage war. Once in power, the Nazis eliminated the "marketplace of ideas" through terror and media manipulation and mobilized propaganda as a weapon to unite the German people around a "leader" and to facilitate aggression, mass murder, and genocide.

NAZI propaganda

NAZI propaganda The caption in this picture reads: “Whenever you see a crucifix, think of the horrible murder of Jesus by the Jews.” The Nazis used this common belief among Christians to further alienate Jews. Nazi ideology, however, was against all religions and viewed Christianity as a transferred form of Judaism. Some Aryan symbols appear in this picture such as the bright hair, the connection to nature, children, and the continuity of the race.

NAZI propaganda The Jew in this caricature is portrayed as ugly, greedy, and controlling the media and stock exchange (the newspaper in his pocket with the title “Burse”). His eyes are made to look suspicious. Overall he is to be seen as unproductive, exploitive, unstable, and evil. By contrast, the German or Aryan is portrayed as hard-working, strong, stable, and honest. He is tall, in good physical shape, and has a direct look in his eyes.

Nazi propaganda

Hitler’s Germany – The Third Reich Nazi foreign policy was guided by the racist belief that Germany was biologically destined to expand eastward by military force and that an enlarged, racially superior German population should establish permanent rule in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Here, women played a vital role. The Third Reich's aggressive population policy encouraged "racially pure" women to bear as many "Aryan" children as possible. Within this framework, "racially inferior" peoples, such as Jews and Gypsies, would be eliminated from the region. In the context of this ideological war, the Nazis planned and implemented the Holocaust, the mass murder of the Jews, who were considered the primary "racial" enemy. (Text direct from United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Website)

Hitler’s Germany – The Third Reich During the era of the Holocaust, German authorities also targeted other groups because of their perceived "racial inferiority": Roma (Gypsies), the disabled, and some of the Slavic peoples (Poles, Russians, and others). Other groups were persecuted on political, ideological, and behavioral grounds, among them Communists, Socialists, Jehovah's Witnesses, and homosexuals. (Text direct from United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Website)

The Holocaust (by definition) Imperial War Museum, London, UK Under the cover of the Second World War, for the sake of their “new order,” the Nazis sought to destroy all the Jews of Europe. For the first time in history, industrial methods were used for the mass extermination of a whole people. Six million were murdered, including 1,500,000 children. This event is called the Holocaust. The Nazis enslaved and murdered millions of others as well. Gypsies, people with physical and mental disabilities, Poles, Soviet prisoners of war, trade unionists, political opponents, prisoners of conscience, homosexuals, and others were killed in vast numbers. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC, USA The Holocaust refers to a specific genocidal event in twentieth-century history: the state- sponsored, systematic persecution and annihilation of European Jewry by Nazi Germany and its collaborators between 1933 and 1945. Jews were the primary victims — 6 million were murdered; Gypsies, the handicapped, and Poles were also targeted for destruction or decimation for racial, ethnic, or national reasons. Millions more, including homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Soviet prisoners of war, and political dissidents, also suffered grievous oppression and death under Nazi tyranny.

The “Final Solution” In the early years of the Nazi regime, the National Socialist government established concentration camps to detain real and imagined political and ideological opponents. Increasingly in the years before the outbreak of war, SS and police officials incarcerated Jews, Roma, and other victims of ethnic and racial hatred in these camps. (Text direct from United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Website) To concentrate and monitor the Jewish population as well as to facilitate later deportation of the Jews, the Germans and their collaborators created ghettos, transit camps, and forced-labor camps for Jews during the war years. The German authorities also established numerous forced-labor camps, both in the so-called Greater German Reich and in German- occupied territory, for non-Jews whose labor the Germans sought to exploit.

The “Final Solution” Einsatzgruppen (mobile killing units) and, later, militarized battalions of Order Police officials, moved behind German lines to carry out mass- murder operations against Jews, Roma, and Soviet state and Communist Party officials. German SS and police units, supported by units of the Wehrmacht and the Waffen SS, murdered more than a million Jewish men, women, and children, and hundreds of thousands of others. Between 1941 and 1944, Nazi German authorities deported millions of Jews from Germany, from occupied territories, and from the countries of many of its Axis allies to ghettos and to killing centers, often called extermination camps, where they were murdered in specially developed gassing facilities. (Text direct from United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Website)

Concentration camps Concentration camps refer to places in which people are confined (by force), “usually under harsh conditions” and with disregard to a country’s laws and/or regulations. Sturmabteilungen (aka Storm Troopers) were the elite polite force of Germany’s Third Reich and ran many of the concentration camps. In 1934. Hitler put Heinrich Himmler in charge of the system of concentration camps in and around Germany. SS Lieutenant General Theodor Eicke helped him with this task. From 1939-1942, as Germany took over parts of Europe with its miliary, concentration camps expanded. Many were sites for extermination of certain groups of people. These groups would either be killed outright (often in gas chambers) or worked to death in a program called Annhiliation Through Work. Toward the end of the war, concentration camp populations dwindled (because of starvation, exposure to the elements, and disease). The SS also moved prisoners (often in long, long marches), so they could not be liberated.

Concentration camps From 1942-1945, the Nazis also used prisoners to carry out horrific medical experiments. These experiments killed many prisoners. The Nazis were testing immunity to infectious disease, testing survival in harsh conditions (varied air pressure, frozen water, etc.), and testing twins (to see how they could produce more Aryan people more quickly). From 1944-1945, the Allied Forces (including America) liberated, or freed the prisoners of the concentrations camps as the war ended. The number of prisoners left in camps was approximately 700,000. However, deaths continued for weeks after camps were liberated.

Concentration camps – in photographs Dachau Camp Newly arrived prisoners at Buchenwald

Concentration camps – in photographs Forced labor at Neuengamme Himmler, inspecting a camp

Concentration camps – in photographs Uniformed prisoners at Sachenhausen View of Neuengamme camp

Concentration camps – in photographs Dauchau medical experiments

Concentration camps – in photographs Hair of women prisoners Murdered women's clothing

Concentration camps – in photographs American soldier among corpses Corpses found at Gusen

Concentration camps – in photographs Prisoners of Wobbelin at liberation American soldiers at liberation

The Holocaust (by definition) Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, Israel The Holocaust was the murder of approximately six million Jews by the Nazis and their collaborators. Between the German invasion of the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941 and the end of the war in Europe in May 1945, Nazi Germany and its accomplices strove to murder every Jew under their domination. Because Nazi discrimination against the Jews began with Hitler’s accession to power in January 1933, many historians consider this the start of the Holocaust era. The Jews were not the only victims of Hitler’s regime, but they were the only group that the Nazis sought to destroy entirely.

The Holocaust (by definition)

SOURCES United States Holocaust Memorial Museum – Online Resources: http://www.ushmm.org/propaganda/resources/ http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005141 http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005143 Echoes and Reflections Unit – Online resources: http://www.echoesandreflections.org/curriculum_components/resource_center.asp