1. The Holocaust

2. Common Misconception
As you saw in the video, not all victims of the Holocaust were Jewish.
Along with the Jewish peoples, the Nazis also targeted Gypsies and Jehovah’s Witnesses…
Gypsies were a wandering group of nomads whose origins were in India.
Further targets were the disabled, and some of the Slavic peoples (Poles, Russians, and others).
Still more groups were targeted based on political, ideological, and behavioral grounds.
These included Communists, Socialists, and homosexuals.

3. Hitler’s Ideal
Hitler’s racial theories asserted that Germans with fair skin, blond hair and blue eyes were the supreme or master race.
Does Hitler fit this description?

4. What Does Holocaust Mean?
The definition of holocaust means: a great or complete devastation or destruction, esp. by fire. (dictionary.com)
The Holocaust was a genocide which means: the deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group. (dictionary.com)

5. The First Concentration Camp
Shortly after being appointed Chancellor in 1933, Hitler established Dachau, which was the first Nazi concentration camp.
It was originally used to house political prisoners, but as time went on more and more victims (as listed earlier) were sent to this camp.

6. Dachau
Dachau was a training camp for SS guards and the camp would serve as a model for the other Nazi concentration camps.
It consisted of two main sections… the camp area (this held the barracks) and the crematoria area.
The crematoria area had two crematoriums and a gas chamber.
Also, “the SS used the firing range and the gallows in the crematoria area as killing sites for prisoners.” (ushmm.org)

7. Subjected to high altitude experiment
Dachau
Not unlike other Nazi camps, German physicians conducted medical experiments on prisoners.
Examples of these experiments: “high-altitude experiments using a decompression chamber, malaria and tuberculosis experiments, hypothermia experiments, and experiments testing new medications. Prisoners were also forced to test methods of making seawater potable and of halting excessive bleeding. Hundreds of prisoners died or were permanently disabled as a result of these experiments“ (ushmm.org)
Subjected to high altitude experiment

8. Nuremberg Laws In 1935 Hitler presented the Nuremberg Laws.
These laws took away Jewish rights as German citizens and worked to separate Jews from the Germans “legally, socially, and politically.” (A teacher’s guide to the Holocaust)
Being Jewish was no longer a matter of religious practice but of ancestry.
So without any rights do you think it would have been hard for the Jewish people to be able to stop their persecution at least legally? (Think of African Americans with Jim Crow Laws)
Do you think that perhaps it was easier for the Germans to view the Jews as lesser people because they had no rights?

9. The First Jewish Ghetto
The first Jewish ghetto created by the Nazis was established in Poland in September of 1939.
The ghettos served as a way to gather up the Jewish people.
The Jews had to wear an armband that identified them as being Jewish.
They lived under German control and were often forced to do labor.
The biggest ghetto was the Warsaw ghetto in Poland. It had over 400,000 Jews living in a 1.3 square mile area.
As the war went on the ghettos served more as a stepping stone for the Jews who were easily gathered up only to be shipped off to concentration camps.

10. The First Extermination Camp
Chelmno was the first extermination center used to annihilate Jewish people (it was established in December of 1941).
It was also the first camp where poison gas was used.
The extermination camps were built towards the end as part of the “Final Solution” to their plan.
Gas van used at Chelmno

11. The Process Transportation from ghetto to camp.
This was done by train. Hundreds of individuals would be stuffed into boxcars like these.
They were given only sparing rations of water and food if they received anything at all
Many died during this transportation process alone.

12. The Process
Upon arrival at the camps prisoners would go through a selection process.
In most instances those who were deemed fit for slave labor were allowed to live and all others were killed (through gas chambers, crematoriums, etc)

13. Life in Camps
Prisoners were subjected to forced labor where they constructed various projects for the benefit of the German Army.

14. Life in Camps
On top of back breaking labor, prisoners had other hardships to endure…
They were exposed to the elements (many were forced to wear clothes and shoes that did not fit)
Pile of shoes from Holocaust victims that were redistributed among arriving prisoners

15. Life in Camps
The vast majority of prisoners also suffered from starvation and dehydration.
Further prisoners suffered through the mental strain and anguish that was associated with camp life (what do you think were some of the mental stressors for prisoners?)
Soviet POWs

16. Death Marches
As Allied forces closed in on the German front towards the end of the war, Hitler tried to eliminate evidence of his concentration/death camps by burning them down and by evacuating prisoners by boat, train, and by foot.

17. Liberation
“Soviet forces were the first to approach a major Nazi camp, reaching Majdanek near Lublin, Poland, in July Surprised by the rapid Soviet advance, the Germans attempted to hide the evidence of mass murder by demolishing the camp. Camp staff set fire to the large crematorium used to burn bodies of murdered prisoners, but in the hasty evacuation the gas chambers were left standing.” (ushmm.org)

18. Liberation
As allied troops continued to advance on Germany they came across more and more of the Nazi concentration camps.
What the allied soldiers discovered horrified them…

19. Numbers…
It has been estimated that the Nazis established 15,000-20,000 camps (not all of these were permanent camps though).
Selected chart of Nazi camps --

20. Total Deaths from Nazi Genocidal Policies
Numbers
Total Deaths from Nazi Genocidal Policies
By the end of the war seven to nine million people were displaced from their homes.
Group
Deaths
European Jews
5,600,000 to 6,250,000
Soviet prisoners of war
3,000,000
Polish Catholics
Serbians
700,000 (Croat Ustasa persecution)
Roma, Sinti, and Lalleri
222,000 to 250,000
Germans (political, religious, and Resistance)
80,000
Germans (handicapped)
70,000
Homosexuals
12,000
Jehovah’s Witnesses
2500

21. Who Carried These Atrocities Out?
The SS officers
Gestapo

22. Who Carried These Atrocities Out?
Kapos

23. The SS Gestapo were secret police force
Schutzstaffel (means protective squadron in German)
They were viewed as elite loyalists to Hitler.
Were originally a small guard unit for Hitler.
Selected on basis of racial purity.
By 1933 there were over 200,000 members.
They ran the camps and carried out much of the crimes against humanity.
Gestapo were secret police force

24. The Kapos
The SS often relied on inmates to supervise their fellow prisoners.
Kapos were prisoners themselves but carried out the will of the SS and in many instances ended up being just as harsh.
There was the fear/reality that if they did not do the will of the SS that they would be severely punished and or killed.
There were some Kapos who were tried as war criminals alongside members of the SS…
How do you all feel about this?

25. Relevant Sites For More Info
ushmm.org
(a teacher’s guide to the Holocaust)