1. Outcome: Background to the Murder
The Holocaust
Outcome: Background to the Murder

2. Constructive Response Question
Other than the Holocaust, what other hardships have Jewish people experienced in their existence?

3. Background to the Murder
Setting the Stage
Holocaust: a thorough destruction involving extensive loss of life often through fire
Genocide: the deliberate & systematic destruction of a racial/political/cultural group
In the late 1930’s and early 1940’s, the Nazis led by Adolf Hitler attempted to wipe out the Jewish population of Europe ---> in the end they killed over 6 million Jews

4. Background to the Murder
A Rocky Past: The Hebrew People
The Ancient Hebrew people were led by Abraham --> became the father of the Hebrew people

5. Background to the Murder
A Rocky Past: The Hebrew People
Eventually the Hebrews migrated to Egypt --> better land --> were enslaved for hundreds of years until Moses led the Hebrews out of Egypt through the Exodus
The Hebrews later became known as Jews and follow Judaism as a religion

6. Background to the Murder
A Rocky Past: The Hebrew People
Jews have been targets of persecution by the Romans, Crusaders during the 11th and 12th centuries, and many others.
Anti-Semitism is hatred or prejudice against Jews

7. Background to the Murder
Rise of Adolf Hitler & Nazism
Germany had been hit hard by the Depression
Hitler came to power by promising to return Germany to glory
He also promised to get rid of the Jews
Fact: In times of need, people will follow those who will lead; Hitler delivered on his promises and this made him very popular

8. Background to the Murder
Why did Hitler hate the Jewish people?
Unclear; there are many theories but no clear answer
Hitler used the Jews as a scapegoat to strengthen his own power

9. Background to the Murder
The Treaty of Versailles
Hitler was outraged by the end of WWI; felt Germany could still fight
The Allied Powers punished Germany for WWI
The Treaty of Versailles fueled Hitler’s motivation to create a new German empire called The Third Reich; started World War II (Sept ’39)

10. The Final Solution Setting the Stage
Adolf Hitler made several promises to the German people as his power grew:
Will return Germany to its former glory
Will give people jobs
Will get rid of the “Jewish Problem”
In the late 1930’s to early 1940’s, the Nazis had rounded up and killed over 1 million Jews, but “The Final Solution,” the plan to exterminate all Jews from Europe, was not decided upon until 1942

11. Background to the Murder
Anti-Semitism
Hitler was not the only person in Europe that disliked the Jews
Anti-Semitism existed within a lot of people in and around Germany
Hitler began passing laws stripping Jews of their citizenship; Germans believed in him and these laws
Propaganda was also used to help dehumanize Jews
In the early days of the Holocaust, Jews were removed from their homes and businesses and most German people were not upset
Most Nazis who rounded up or killed Jews did so out of orders, but many did so because they didn’t see the Jews as humans anymore

12. Background to the Murder
Result: The Nazis systematically made Jews the enemy and began removing them to create more “lebensraum” or living space. The Final Solution or decision to exterminate/kill millions of Jews would not be made for several more years, but through Nazi propaganda and law, life was very dangerous for Jews in Europe by the end of the 1930’s.

13. 1936 Berlin Olympics
Hitler wanted to display the German superiority in athletics
Hitler believed in racial superiority and the theory of Eugenics.
Eugenics is a belief that a certain race of people are superior to all other by having desirable traits
US Runner Jesse Owens won 4 gold medals to show how Germany wasn’t so great.
Detroit born Joe Louis defeats German to win Gold medal in Boxing

14. 1936 Olympics

15. Transportation
Jews and other “unclean” citizens were subject to systematic deportation
Boxcar
100+ people in one car
Doors were bolted shut
No place to sit down
Often people were forced to pay for their transportation
No food or water given.

16. Ghetto
Jews are transported from homes to an area within a city that all Jews were forced to live.
Food rations and living conditions were very poor.
Major Ghettos
Warsaw
Lodz
Kovno

17. 1941 Nazis invade the Soviet Union- Operation Barbarossa
Jewish population of 3 million
Hitler issues infamous “Commissar Order” to kill all communists and anyone you encounter
SS Einsatzgruppen follow advance of German Army, their job was to kill Jews where they lived
“Liquidate all Communist officials you encounter!

18. Joseph Goebbels- Hitler’s Propaganda minister, responsible for spreading anti-Semitic ideas

19. Nazi Propaganda

20. Nazi Propaganda

21. The Final Solution Kristallnacht
The Night of Broken Glass- Anti-Semitic riots in Germany and Austria.
30,000 Jews rounded up and taken to concentration camps
Homes, businesses, and synagogues destroyed
Jews were rounded up and sent to walled off sections of cities called ghettos

22. The Final Solution Concentration Camps
Thousands of Jews were transported to work camps around Poland, Austria, and Germany to work as slave labor for the Nazis
Railroad boxcars were filled with people with no food or water as transport
Thousands starved, worked to death, or were killed in these camps
Death Camps (The Final Solution)
Once the Final Solution was decided upon, many camps became extermination camps aimed solely at killing Jews
Heinrich Himmler was the chief engineers and overseers of the Final Solution
At first bodies were buried in shallow graves; the stench could be smelled for miles --> neighboring Germans were either ignorant or ignored the atrocity
The Nazis forced Jews to transport dead bodies, exhume bodies, and even kill

23. FINAL SOLUTION
The Final Solution was the solution to kill all of the Jews in the world
“Now judgement has begun and it will reach its conclusion only when the knowledge of the Jews has been erased from the earth!” Nazi Newspaper
there were 3 phases of the Nazi plan to wipe out the Jewish population of Europe

24. Phase 1 = Shooting
Jews were rounded up and told they were to be relocated
They were taken to the woods and were shot one by one
their bodies were buried in mass graves

25. Phase 2 = Gas Vans
Again, Jews were rounded up and told they were to be relocated in vans
The vans were equipped so that the van’s exhaust was piped back into the van
700,000 Jews killed in Vans

26. Problems with Phases 1,2
The Nazis encountered several problems with the executions and gas vans
First, they were both taking to much time
Second, resources such as gas and munitions were becoming scarce
Third, soldiers involved were beginning to have psychological problems with what they were doing.

27. Phase 3 = The Camps
Nazi leaders decided to drastically speed up the Final Solution
there were two different types of camps:
CONCENTRATION CAMPS- work camps
EXTERMINATION CAMPS- death camps
Jews from all over occupied Europe were to be brought here.
First camp (Dachau) was opened in 1933, right after Nazis came to power

29. The Final Solution Thousands could be killed in mere minutes
Zyklon B gas pellets were dropped in
Bodies were moved to crematoriums were bodies were quickly burned
Often times, Sonderkommandos were used; Jews forced to put dead Jews into crematoriums

30. The Final Solution Auschwitz was the worst of the death camps
Located in Poland
1,100,000 killed at Auschwitz; 200,000 children killed
Joseph Megele- “the angel of death” did medical experiments on Jews and children
He would try to sew twins together, change eye color, and tested extreme cold and heat on human body

31. ORDERED TO TAKE ALL POSSESSIONS FROM JEWS
THE SS AT AUSCHWITZ
ORDERED TO TAKE ALL POSSESSIONS FROM JEWS
TEETH WITH GOLD
PILES OF GLASSES

32. ZYKLON-B
GAS USED TO KILL VERMIN. IT WAS INEXPENSIVE COMPARED TO GAS. DROPPED FROM CEILINGS

33. MEDICAL EXPERIMENTS EXTRACTED HUMAN ORGANS
EXPERIMENTS ON CHILDREN IN AUSCHWITZ

34. The Final Solution Other Camps were Mauthausen, Dachau, Birkenau
Others targeted in the Final Solution:
Gypsies
Communists
Political Prisoners
Homosexuals
Jehovah’s Witnesses
Soviet Prisoners of War

35. The Final Solution
Result: The Nazis were organized, systematic, and merciless. Most of the death camps were in Poland and over 11 million people were killed of which 6 million were Jews. Most of the world had no idea and those who did know, were powerless to stop Hitler and the Nazis.

36. Band of Brothers