1. World War II ( )
Lesson 7 The Holocaust

2. World War II (1931-1945) Lesson 7 The Holocaust Learning Objectives
Trace the roots and progress of Hitler’s campaign against the Jews.
Explain the goals of Hitler’s “final solution” and the nature of Nazi death camps.
Examine how the United States responded to the Holocaust.
Holocaust
anti-Semitism
Nazism
Kristallnacht
genocide
concentration camps
death camps
War Refugee Board

3. Roots of the Holocaust
From the time he came to power, Adolf Hitler had targeted Jews for persecution. By the end of the war, the Nazis had murdered 6 million Jews and 5 million other people they considered inferior. In 1945, there was no word for Hitler’s murderous plan of extermination. Today, it is called the Holocaust. We continue to remember this tragedy and seek ways to prevent anything like it from ever happening again.

4. Roots of the Holocaust
This propaganda poster from 1935 glorifies the image of what the Nazis saw as the ideal Aryan youth. At the same time, posters and comic books viciously caricatured people the Nazis considered “inferior.”

5. Roots of the Holocaust
Analyze Data Based on this timeline, did Hitler’s anti-Semitic campaign develop quickly or over time?

6. Hitler’s “Final Solution”
Since 1933, the Nazis had denied Jews the rights of citizenship and committed acts of brutality against them. These acts of persecution were steps toward Hitler's 'Final Solution to the Jewish question': nothing short of the systematic extermination of all Jews living in the regions controlled by the Third Reich. Today, we use the word genocide to describe such willful annihilation of a racial, political, or cultural group.

7. Hitler’s “Final Solution”
Analyze Maps How did the locations of death camps differ from the location of concentration camps?

8. Hitler’s “Final Solution”
Prisoners in Nazi concentration camps were identified by triangular color-coded patches. Some prisoners might be forced to wear combinations of patches.

9. Hitler’s “Final Solution”
In this photograph, Nazi troops remove Jewish residents from the Warsaw ghetto after a failed uprising in This has become one of the most famous images associated with the Holocaust.

10. Allied Response to the Holocaust
Could the Holocaust have been prevented? Could western democracies—especially Britain, France, and the United States—have intervened to stop the slaughter of millions of innocent people? There are no simple answers. However, many people today believe that the West could have done more than it did.

11. Allied Response to the Holocaust
In 1939, the United States refused asylum to Jewish refugees on board the St. Louis. These children were among more than 900 passengers who were returned to Germany.