The HOLOCAUST By: Mrs. Chapman

World War II http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/media_nm.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005137&MediaId=3376 Adolf Hitler salutes the crowd from his open car during the Reichsparteitag (Reich Party Day) parade in Nuremberg. (September 4-10, 1934)

What is the Holocaust? The Holocaust refers to a specific genocidal event in twentieth-century history: the state-sponsored, systematic persecution and annihilation of European Jews 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. http://www.ushmm.org/education/foreducators/guidelines/index.utp?content=guide1.htm

Holocaust (cont.) The Holocaust (also called Shoah in Hebrew) refers to the period from January 30, 1933, when Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany, to May 8, 1945 (V­E Day), when the war in Europe ended. During this time, Jews in Europe were subjected to progressively harsh persecution that ultimately led to the murder of 6,000,000 Jews (1.5 million of these being children) and the destruction of 5,000 Jewish communities. These deaths represented two-thirds of European Jewry and one-third of world Jewry. The Jews who died were not casualties of the fighting that ravaged Europe during World War II. Rather, they were the victims of Germany's deliberate and systematic attempt to annihilate the entire Jewish population of Europe, a plan Hitler called the “Final Solution” (Endlosung).

Jewish Population Distribution

Casualties During Holocaust USSR- 1,100,000 Poland- 3,000,000 Romania- 287,000 Greece- 67,000 Czech- 260,000 Austria- 50,000 Italy- 7,680 Yugoslavia- 63,300 Lithuania- 143,000 Hungary- 569,000 Latvia- 71,500 Denmark- 60 Belgium- 28,900 France- 77,320 Estonia- 1,100 Finland- 7

Holocaust History In 1933, the Jewish population of Europe stood at over nine million. Most European Jews lived in countries that Nazi Germany (the Third Reich) would occupy or influence during World War II. The Nazis established concentration camps to imprison Jews, other people targeted on ethnic or “racial” grounds, and political opponents. Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, beginning World War II. Over the next two years, German forces conquered most of Europe.

Outline of Holocaust Propaganda: “The Jews Are Our Misfortune” (1933) The Jews Are Isolated from Society (1935) Kristallnacht (1938) The Jews Are Confined to Ghettos (1939) The “Final Solution” (1941) Liberation (1945) Auschwitz memorial service in Poland. Over 1.1 million died in Auschwitz during the Holocaust.

Nazi Propaganda Cover of the anti-Semitic German children’s book, Der Giftpilz (The Poisonous Mushroom). United States Holocaust Memorial Museum #40000

Kristallnacht Kristallnacht--literally, "Crystal Night"--is usually translated from German as the "Night of Broken Glass"; it refers to the violent anti-Jewish pogrom of November 9 and 10, 1938. The pogrom occurred throughout Germany, which by then included both Austria and the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia. Hundreds of synagogues all over the German Reich were attacked, vandalized, looted, and destroyed. Many were set ablaze.

Jewish Ghettos Before WWII, Warsaw was the center of Jewish life and culture in Poland. During the war, the Nazis established 400 ghettos and forced Jews to live in miserable and crowded conditions. The largest ghetto was in Warsaw where over 400,000 Jews struggled to survive. Warsaw Ghetto in Poland

Concentration Camps- Final Solution Following the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, Einsatzgruppen (mobile killing units) carried out mass-murder operations against Jews, Roma, and Soviet state and Communist party officials. More than a million Jewish men, women, and children were murdered by these units, usually in mass shootings. Between 1942 and 1944, Nazi Germany deported millions more Jews from occupied territories to extermination camps, where they murdered them in specially developed killing facilities using poison gas. At the largest killing center, Auschwitz-Birkenau, transports of Jews arrived almost daily from across Europe.

Concentration Camp Pictures Jewish women at forced labor on "Industry Street" in the Plaszow concentration camp. Newly arrived prisoners, with shaven heads, stand at attention in their civilian clothes during a roll call in the Buchenwald concentration camp. Former prisoners of the "little camp" in Buchenwald stare out from the wooden bunks in which they slept three to a "bed." Elie Wiesel is pictured in the second row of bunks, seventh from the left, next to the vertical beam. (April 16, 1945) Auschwitz “danger” sign by an electric fence.

Auschwitz-Birkenau Auschwitz played a central role in the Final Solution, the Nazis plan to annihilate the Jews in Europe. The Nazis exported Jews from nearly every country in Europe to Auschwitz II (Birkenau) killing center in Poland. In all, at 1.1 million Jews were killed and tens of thousands of others were killed here. View of the entrance to the main camp of Auschwitz (Auschwitz I). The gate bears the motto "Arbeit Macht Frei" (Work makes one free).

Auschwitz-Birkenau Photos Jews from Carpathian Ruthenia undergo a selection on the ramp at Auschwitz-Birkenau. View of the entrance to Auschwitz-Birkenau; taken from inside the camp. Belongings of Auschwitz inmates: suitcases found after liberation (the suitcases had not been shipped to Germany). Corpses of Auschwitz prisoners in block 11 of the main camp (Auschwitz I).

Liberation of Auschwitz The Soviets liberated Auschwitz, the largest extermination and concentration camp, in January 1945. The Nazis had forced the majority of Auschwitz prisoners to march westward (in what would become known as "death marches"), and Soviet soldiers found only several thousand emaciated prisoners alive when they entered the camp. There was abundant evidence of mass murder in Auschwitz. The retreating Germans had destroyed most of the warehouses in the camp, but in the remaining ones the Soviets found personal belongings of the victims. They discovered, for example, hundreds of thousands of men's suits, more than 800,000 women's outfits, and more than 14,000 pounds of human hair. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/media_oi.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005131&MediaId=1100

Liberation Notes Liberators confronted unspeakable conditions in the Nazi camps, where piles of corpses lay unburied. Only after the liberation of these camps was the full scope of Nazi horrors exposed to the world. The small percentage of inmates who survived resembled skeletons because of the demands of forced labor and the lack of food, compounded by months and years of maltreatment. Many were so weak that they could hardly move. Disease remained an ever-present danger, and many of the camps had to be burned down to prevent the spread of epidemics. Survivors of the camps faced a long and difficult road to recovery. Soon after liberation, camp survivors from Buchenwald's "Children's Block 66"--a special barracks for children. Germany, after April 11, 1945.

We Shall Never Forget!