The Jews The Holocaust

►. How would you react if you saw the enemy soldiers appear suddenly on your street? ► What would you do if your neighborhood was surrounded by the enemy troops blocking your way out?

► What would you do if soldiers with rifles and sub-machine guns knocked on your door ordering you to come out?

► Would you have helped the Jews in such dangerous times? ► Would you have hidden the Jews in your house?

Prelude to the Final Solution ► When Hitler seized power in 1933 he used his new powers under the ‘Enabling Law’ to begin his attack on the Jews. ► In 1938, the Nazi attack on the Jews changed and became more violent with Himmler launching Kristallnacht on 11 th November ► By 1939, half of Germany’s 500,000 Jews had emigrated to escape Nazi persecution.

Prelude to the Final Solution ► In 1939, Germany invaded Poland which had a much larger population of 3 million Jews. ► In 1941, Germany invaded Russia which had a population of 5 million Jews.

Change of Tactics: Einsatzgruppen ► Eichman sent four specially trained SS units called “Einsatzgruppen battalions” into German occupied territory and shot at least 1 million Jews. ► Victims were taken to deserted areas where they were made to dig their own graves and shot. ► When the SS ran out of bullets they sometimes killed their victims using flame throwers.

How did the Nazi decide who was Jewish? ► At the Wannsee conference it was decided that if one of person’s parents was Jewish, then they were Jewish. ► However, if only one of their grandparents had been Jewish then they could be classified as being German. ► In 1940, all Jews had to have their passports stamped with the letter ‘J’ and had to wear the yellow Star of David on their jacket or coat.

Defining Jew as a racial Group ► Labeled property and businesses ► Non Aryan= anyone w/Jewish parents or grandparents.

Reich Citizenship Law 1935 ► 4 categories ► Fully Jewish (at least 3 Jewish grandparents regardless of faith) ► Mischling of the 1 st Degree (2 Jewish Grandparents) treated as Jews ► Mischling of the 2 nd Degree 1 Jewish Grandparent (treated as Aryans) ► Non-Jewish

Also targeted ► Homosexuals ► Slavs ► Gypsies ► Political Dissidents ► Physical Handicaps

Madagascar Plan ► French would give Madagascar to Germany ► Germany would be given the right to install military bases on Madagascar ► The 25,000 Europeans (mostly French) living on Madagascar would be removed ► Jewish emigration was to be forced, not voluntary ► The Jews on Madagascar would operate most local governmental functions but would be responsible to a German police governor ► The entire emigration and colonization of Madagascar would be paid by Jewish possessions confiscated by the

T-4 Euthanasia Plan 1939 ► “mercy Killing” ► NUREMBERG LAWS: forced sterilization of the unfit ► Carbon-monoxide chambers ► Dec – Aug , ,000 Germans secretly killed by lethal injection or gassing

Jewish women, some holding infants, are forced to wait in a line before their execution by Germans and Ukrainian collaborators.

A German policeman shoots individual Jewish women who remain alive in the ravine after the mass execution.

Eichmann and the Jews ► Suggested use of ghettos ► Developed special units called Einsatzgruppen Units: Came behind German units to exterminate Jews ► Kept Records ► End of War was finally tried and executed in 1962

Change of Tactics: Einsatzgruppen

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.

The ‘Final Solution’ ► In January 1942, Eichman decided to change tactics once again and called a special conference at Wannsee. ► At this conference it was decided that the existing methods were too inefficient and that a new ‘Final Solution’ was necessary.

What was Known? ► Info about the Nazi atrocities was known in great detail ► 3,000 soldiers knew about killings and talked ► German railway system was aware of the Jewish Transports ► Private industries built; crematoriums, supplied gas

Nazis in charge ► Adolph Eichmann: in charge of logistics, worked with foreign governments

► Bankers and business leaders processed confiscated Jewish property ► Populations around the camps saw prisoners and death marches ► Italian officers witnessed ► Resistance movements supplied info ► Stream of intelligence

Where were the Death Camps built? Why do you think that they located them here? The work of the Einsatzgruppen

Types of Camps ► Labor camps: concentration camps where interned inmates had to do hard physical labor under inhumane conditions and cruel treatment. Some of these camps were sub- camps of bigger camps, or "operational camps", established for a temporary need. ► Transit and collection camps: camps where inmates were collected and routed to main camps, or temporarily held

► POW camps: concentration camps where prisoners of war were held after capture. These POW's endured torture and liquidation on a large scale. ► Camps for rehabilitation and re- education of Poles: camps where the intelligents of the ethnic Poles were held, and "re-educated" according to Nazi values as slaves

► Hostage camps (or death camps): camps where hostages were held and killed as reprisals. ► Extermination camps: These camps differed from the rest, since not all of them were also concentration camps. Of these, four were extermination camps, where all new-arrivals were simply killed Extermination camps Extermination camps

Children Dying of Starvation in the Warsaw Ghetto

SS Tactics: Dehumanisation ► The SS guards who murdered the Jews were brainwashed with Anti-Semitic propaganda. ► The Jews were transported in cattle cars in terrible conditions. ► Naked, dirty and half starved people look like animals, which helped to reinforce the Nazi propaganda. ► The SS used to train their new guards by encouraging them to set fire to a pit full of live victims – usually children.

Tactics: What happened to new arrivals? Deception & Selection At Auschwitz the trains pulled into a mock up of a normal station. The Jews were helped off the cattle trucks by Jews who were specially selected to help the Nazis At some death camps the Nazis would play records of classical music to help calm down the new arrivals. At Auschwitz the new arrivals were calmed down by a Jewish orchestra playing classical music. All new arrivals went through a process known as ‘selection.’ Mothers, children, the old & sick were sent straight to the ‘showers’ which were really the gas chambers. The able bodied were sent to work camp were they were killed through a process known as ‘destruction through work.’

A MAP OF THE CONCENTRATION CAMPS AND DEATH CAMPS USED BY THE NAZIS.

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 A group of children at a concentration camp in Poland.

Entrance to Auschwitz Notice how it has been built to resemble a railway station

Why inaction? ► Caution – US had been burned in WWI on false propaganda of atrocities ► Option of emigrating to British Palestine was cut off by Arab pressures ► US reluctance to publicize the atrocities against Jews ► No dedicated administrative structure dedicated to rescue Europe’s Jews.

Auschwitz Orchestra

Map of Auschwitz New Arrivals ‘Destruction Through Work’ ‘Showers’

Auschwitz from the air Notice how the Death camp is set out like a factory complex The Nazis used industrial methods to murder the Jews and process their dead bodies

The Gas Chambers ► The Nazis would force large groups of prisoners into small cement rooms and drop canisters of Zyklon B, or prussic acid, in its crystal form through small holes in the roof. ► These gas chambers were sometimes disguised as showers or bathing houses. The SS would try and pack up to 2000 people into this gas chamber

The outside of the Gas Chamber Notice the Ovens easy located near the Gas Chambers

After liberation, an Allied soldier displays a stash of gold wedding rings taken from victims at Buchenwald. Bales of hair shaven from women at Auschwitz, used to make felt-yarn.

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 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.

Processing the bodies ► Specially selected Jews known as the sonderkommando were used to to remove the gold fillings and hair of people who had been gassed. ► The Sonderkommando Jews were also forced to feed the dead bodies into the crematorium.

The Ovens at Dachau

Dead bodies waiting to be processed

Shoes waiting to be processed by the sonderkommando Taken inside a huge glass case in the Auschwitz Museum. This represents one day's collection at the peak of the gassings, about twenty five thousand pairs.

A Total of 6,000,000 Jews Percentage of Jews killed in each country

Destruction Through Work This photo was taken by the Nazis to show just how you could quite literally work the fat of the Jews by feeding them 200 calories a day

Destruction Through Work Same group of Jews 6 weeks later

Josef Mengele ► “Angel of Death” Mengele's experiments also included attempts to take one twin's eyeballs and attach them to the back of the other twin's head, changing eye colour by injecting chemicals into children's eyes, various amputations of limbsamputations

Allied Inaction ► Immigration quotas not increased ► Refugees not taken in (St. Louis) ► Rail lines to death camps were never disrupted

Was the Final Solution successful? ► The Nazis aimed to kill 11 million Jews at the Wannsee Conference in 1941 ► Today there are only 2000 Jews living in Poland. ► The Nazis managed to kill at least 6 million Jews. ► Men like Schindler helped Jews escape the Final Solution. ► Not all Jews went quietly into the gas cambers. ► In 1943, the Warsaw Ghetto, like many others revolted against the Nazis when the Jews realised what was really happening.

Nuremberg Trials ► The Nuremberg trials were a series of trials held between 1945 and 1949 in which the Allies prosecuted German military leaders, political officials, industrialists, and financiers for crimes they had committed during world war II