1. Introduction to the Holocaust

2. What thoughts and feelings come to mind when you hear reference to “the Holocaust”? What do you know about this event and how have you learned your information?

3. The Holocaust was the systematic, bureaucratic, state- sponsored persecution and murder of approximately six million Jews by the Nazi regime and Its collaborators. 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.

4. 10 million people died during the Holocaust.
People just like you and me.

5. Why Study the Holocaust?
The Holocaust was a watershed event, not only for the 20th century but also in the entire history of humanity. It was an unprecedented attempt to murder a whole people and to extinguish its culture. The Holocaust should be studied because it fundamentally challenged the foundations of civilization.
The Holocaust demonstrated how a modern nation could utilize its technological expertise and bureaucratic infrastructure to implement destructive policies ranging from social engineering to genocide.
There has only been one Holocaust.
There have been many genocides.

6. The Holocaust provides a context for exploring the dangers of remaining silent and indifferent in the face of the oppression of others.

7. The Beginnings
From the time the Nazis came to power in 1933, they began isolating Jews in Germany, and passed many laws to that effect.
In the first half of 1938, additional laws were passed in Germany restricting Jewish economic activity and occupational opportunities.
In July 1938, a law was passed requiring all Jews to carry identification cards.
During the nights of November 9 and 10, Nazi officers carried out the Kristallnacht pogrom

8. Almost 100 Jews were killed and hundreds more injured
Approximately 7000 Jewish businesses and homes were damaged and looted
1400 synagogues were burned
Cemeteries and schools were vandalized
Jews were arrested and sent to concentration camps

9. Kristallnacht Go through the documents in the envelopes
Consider the following questions:
Which of these materials are primary source documents?  Which are secondary source documents?
What were some of the things your group noticed while studying the two photographs?  What questions, if any, did the photographs raise for your group?
How is studying photographs different from studying other types of material?

10. What did you learn about the Kristallnacht Pogrom by reading Heydrich’s instructions?
What argument does Margarete Drexler use in her letter to the Gestapo to try to get her money returned?  Why is this information important to know?
How does the Description of the Riot in Dinslaken make the story of the Kristallnacht Pogrom a “human story”?
What, if anything, did you learn from the textbook description of the Kristallnacht Pogrom that you didn’t learn from any of the primary sources?

15. Survivor & Witness Testimony
Survivor and witness testimonies, unlike documents or words from a book, communicate the crucial role of the individual’s experiences through his or her stories.
The interviewees in these testimonies are not “simply” Holocaust survivors and other witnesses. They are students, teachers, brothers, sisters, friends, and family members. They tell stories that recount anger, frustration, humor, surprise, relief, and fear.
Viewing first-person, visual history testimony is a personal experience—no two people necessarily react to hearing a particular clip of testimony exactly the same way.
Kurt Messerschmidt

16. Kurt Messerchmidt
How do you feel after listening to Kurt Messerschmidt talk about his experiences?
What is meant by the term “testimony”?
What role, if any, does memory play when giving testimony?
What, if anything, do you learn about the Kristallnacht Pogrom from Kurt’s testimony that you didn’t learn from any of the other materials studied?
How does Kurt’s testimony reinforce what you learned from other sources?
What are the benefits and challenges of using visual history testimony?
What role does the testimony collected by the Shoah Foundation play in the study of the Holocaust? How is this role different from the role and responsibility of historians? How is each important?

17. In his testimony, Kurt Messerschmidt talks of helping the cigar shop owner pick up pieces of glass from the street. He says that he was sure some of the people disapproved of what was happening that night, but their disapproval was only silence. Why do you think that people are often unwilling to speak out when they see something wrong happening? What are the dangers of being silent in the face of injustice?

18. Reflect & Respond: Kristallnacht 3-2-1 Assessment
List THREE things you learned during this lesson
Name TWO things that surprised you
Identify ONE question you still have

19. Badges of Hate
The Nazis persecuted those people they considered to be racially inferior.
The Nazis promoted hate for Roma (Gypsies) and blacks.
Criminals were another group targeted.
The categories of prisoners were easily identified by a marking system combining a colored inverted triangle with lettering.

20. Criminals were marked with green inverted triangles
Political prisoners with red inverted triangles.
Asocials (Roma, nonconformists, vagrants and other groups) black triangles
Gypsies brown triangles
Homosexuals pink triangles
Jehovah’s Witnesses purple triangles
Jews yellow Star of David

21. Yellow Jew
Brown Gypsy
Violet Jehovah’s Witness
Pink Homosexual
Green Habitual Criminal
Red Political Prisoner
Black Asocial*
Blue Emigrant
*The “Asocial” category was, perhaps, the most diverse, including prostitutes, vagrants, murderers, thieves, lesbians, and those who violated laws prohibiting sexual intercourse between Aryans and Jews. In addition, while the brown triangle was used for gypsies under certain circumstances, they were more often forced to wear the black triangle categorizing them as asocials.

26. Concentration Camps

30. Concentration camps were an integral feature of the Nazi regime between 1933 and 1945.
The term concentration camp refers to a camp in which people are detained or confined, usually under harsh conditions and without regard to legal norms of arrest and imprisonment that are acceptable in a constitutional democracy.
The first concentration camps in Germany were established soon after Hitler's appointment as chancellor in January 1933.
In the weeks after the Nazis came to power, the SS, the police, and local civilian authorities organized numerous detention camps to incarcerate real and perceived political opponents of Nazi policy.

32. The years 1939–1942 saw a marked expansion in the concentration camp system. In 1938, SS authorities had begun to exploit the labor of concentration camp prisoners for economic profit. In September 1939, the war provided a convenient excuse to ban releases from the camps, thus providing the SS with a readily available labor force.
Prisoners at forced labor in the brick factory at Neuengamme concentration camp. Germany, date uncertain.

33. After the beginning of the war, the concentration camps also became sites for the mass murder of small targeted groups deemed dangerous for political or racial reasons by the Nazi authorities.
During this period, the German authorities constructed gas chambers for use to kill people at several of the concentration camps. Gas chambers were constructed at Mauthausen, Sachsenhausen, Auschwitz I, and other camps. A gas chamber was constructed later at Dachau, but it was never used.

34. In 1944–1945, the Allied armies liberated the concentration camps
In 1944–1945, the Allied armies liberated the concentration camps. Tragically, deaths in the camps continued for several weeks after liberation. Some prisoners had already become too weak to survive.
According to SS reports, there were more than 700,000 prisoners left in the camps in January It has been estimated that nearly half of the total number of concentration camp deaths between and 1945 occurred during the last year of the war.

35. Mauthausen, May 5, 1945

36. Buchenwald, 1945

38. Liberation of Nazi Camps
Liberation (History Channel)
Soviet Forces liberate Auschwitz
Belsen

40. Elie Wiesel Born September 30,1928 in Transylvania (now Romania)
In 1944, his family was placed in a ghetto in the town of Sighet
May 6, 1944, the ghetto was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau
He and his father were sent to a work camp
January 28, 1945, they were marched to Buchenwald
His father later beaten and killed

41. Elie Wiesel…After the War
Became a journalist and writer
For 10 years after the war, he refused to write about, or discuss his experiences during the Holocaust
In 1960, a publisher bought and released Night
Was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986 for speaking out against violence, repression, and racism
Acceptance Speech

44. Thou shalt not be a victim. Thou shalt not be an oppressor
Thou shalt not be a victim. Thou shalt not be an oppressor. But most of all, thou shalt not be a bystander. -Yehuda Bauer, Jewish historian