1. The Holocaust
Unit 4
Section 3

2. Why the Jews?
Hitler blamed Jews for Germany’s defeat in WWI and the subsequent economics problems.
Many Germans, also looking for scapegoat, supported him.
Nuremburg Laws stripped Jews of civil rights and property.

3. Hitler’s philosophy is supported by many.

4. Kristallnacht “Crystal Night” (Broken glass) – November 9,1938
Gangs of Nazi stormtroopers attacked Jewish homes, businesses, and synagogues.
20,000 Jews were arrested and sent to concentration camps.

6. Jewish Refugees –
German foreign minister, “We want to get rid of all our Jews, but no country will receive them.”
40,000 fled to France.
500/week to Britain.
60,000, fled to U.S.
Feared competition for jobs
Feared enemy agents

8. The Final Solution
Unable to rid Germany of Jews through forced emigration, Nazis adopted “Final Solution” (genocide)
Jews, Soviets, Poles, Gypsies, Disabled, Mentally Retarded, Homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Labor camps or extermination camps.

9. Auschwitz

10. Horrors of the Holocaust
Murder squads rounded up Jews, stripped, and shot them.
Others were rounded up in ghettos and left to starve or die from disease.
Concentration camps – hunger, humiliation, and work. Goal was death.

11. Firing Squads
Rounding up the Jews

12. Horrors of the Holocaust, cont.
Extermination camps – 5 camps in Poland.
Prisoners were led to the “showers,” given soap, and poisoned with cyanide gas.
Horrific medical experiments, shooting, hanging, or poisonous injections.
6,000 per day.

14. Piles of Jewish shoes
Women on the way to gas chamber
Bodies discovered by US soldiers
Crematoriums
Women and children awaiting transport to concentration camps.

15. Survivors 6 million Jews died.
Many survived by being hid by sympathizers or helped to neutral countries.
Survivors were plagued with horrific images forever.

16. Survivors of Buchenwald

17. A chart of prisoner markings. — KZ Gedenkstaette Dachau
Yellow
Jew
A chart of prisoner markings. — KZ Gedenkstaette Dachau
Brown
Gypsy
Violet
Jehovah's Witness
Pink
Homosexual
Green
Habitual criminal
Red
Political prisoner
Black
Asocial
Blue
Emigrant

20. The Silent Scream
First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the Communists and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.
Pastor Martin Niemöller