1. Daniel W. Blackmon IB HL History Coral Gables Sr. High
The Holocaust Part V
Daniel W. Blackmon
IB HL History
Coral Gables Sr. High

2. Gentile rescue operations
Individuals who assisted
Some Gentiles assisted Jews for mundane or selfish reasons. Bernard Weiss, a local survivor, describes in his book Entombed how a man hid Jews in a special underground room for money.

3. Gentile rescue operations
. When my students asked him what he thought of the man, he said he regarded him as a hero.

4. Gentile rescue operations
)Oscar Schindler’s motives appear to have been quite complex. It is noteworthy that he was supported throughout the rest of his life, quite voluntarily, by those whom he had saved.

5. Gentile rescue operations
A Hungarian survivor told my students, “There is no price for a Gentile who helped a Jew. There is no price. If you helped a Jew, it was not just you who would be sent to the concentration camp, it was your family and everyone you loved.”

6. Le Chambon sur Ligne
This Huguenot village in Vichy France, led by their pastors, actively protected and assisted Jews.

7. Denmark
The Danes boldly smuggled many of their Jews out of the country
The Germans were aware of these efforts and brought dogs to search the boats used for smuggling.

8. Denmark
The Danes fooled the dogs by putting rags soaked in rabbit blood and cocaine on the boats.
The dogs would go straight for the blood, and the cocaine would numb their sense of smell.

9. Sweden
Sweden also attempted to save Jews. Raoul Wallenberg issued passports to Hungarian Jews until the fall of Budapest to the Red Army. He was taken into custody by the Soviets and never returned.

10. The Death Marches
As the Allies re-conquered Europe, the Nazis began evacuating camps and moving the inmates back to Germany. Since the Red Army was entering Poland in 1944, and since most of the camps were in the East, these death marches were generally in the East.

11. The Death Marches
.The evacuation of Auschwitz began in July 1944

12. The Death Marches
.A survivor of the Auschwitz death march has described the conditions to me in the starkest terms. Dressed in rags, with little food, they were marched out and kept at a forced pace.

13. The Death Marches
Deaths were commonplace. These marches brought the Jews (and other nationalities) into German villages–photographs of them were taken from the windows of houses.

14. Death March From Dachau

15. Death March From Dachau

16. Liberation
As Allied soldiers discovered the camps, there was a universal reaction of horror and revulsion.

17. Corpses: Gusen

18. Survivors at Dachau

19. Survivors: Mauthausen

20. Mass Grave at Nordhausen

21. Liberated Prisoners: Auschwitz
Middle tier, 7 from left, next to post is Elie Wiesel

22. Liberation
As the Third Reich collapsed, conditions became chaotic. In some cases, camp guards simply abandoned the camps without word or warning. In other cases, attempts were made to kill all the prisoners before liberation could occur.

23. Liberation
One survivor told me that she escaped from a train when US P-51 Mustangs strafed the train and halted it.
.Another told me that the women SS-guards, before fleeing to save their own skins, poisoned as many prisoners as they could, including her sister.

24. Captured Female Guards

25. Liberation
A Liberator has told me about discovering a camp, and watching prisoners literally die at his feet from malnutrition, starvation, and dysentery. Even after liberation, the condition of the victims was such that many died.