1. The Holocaust & Nazi Racial Ideology
Ch. 11.3
The Holocaust & Nazi Racial Ideology

2. The Holocaust
State-sponsored systematic murder of six million Jews, more than two million Soviets, and 3 million people belonging to other identified groups, including: political prisoners, Gypsies, Poles, homosexuals, mentally & physically disabled, Jehovah's Witnesses, among others.
Term: “genocide” coined in 1943 to describe the specific targeting of ethnic/racial groups.

3. Life Before the Nazis Jews were integrated into German society
0.07% of the population in Germany
Less integrated in Eastern Europe
Anti-Semitism more “intellectual” in Western Europe; more violent/aggressive in E. Europe: Pogroms

4. 1933 – 1939 Dictatorship under the Third Reich
Early Stages of Persecution
The First Concentration Camps

5. 1939 - 1945 World War II Murder of the Disabled
Persecution & Murder of Jews
Ghettos
Einsatzgruppen (Mobile Killing Squads)

6. Post-1945 Postwar Trials Displaced Persons Camps and Emigration
Pogroms
Palestine & the British Response
United Nations, May 18, 1948
Middle East Turmoil

7. The Holocaust & Nazi Racial Ideology: Basic Assumptions
Survival of the race depends on:
Race purity: there is a hierarchy of races; some are more valuable than others
Seizure of territory to expand population
“Race Defilement: Women & Girls, the Jews are your ruin!” (1936)

8. The Image of Jews in Nazi Racial Ideology
Jews are a race
Jews were special enemies of the German people
Unlike other races, Jews had no living space of their own
Jews sought to dominate host peoples by destroying the nation-state and establishing Jewish world domination
The goals of Jews, by definition, were the genetic bastardization of all peoples and the elimination of all states

9. Anti-Semitic Propaganda
Nazi stereotype depicting Jews as both money lenders and communists
Throughout history the nations defended themselves against Jewish usury! (1936)
Vote Christian Socialist: German Christians Save Austria! (1920)

10. 1933 – 1939: Early Stages of Persecution
1933:
Hitler appointed Chancellor
Dachau opens
April 1, 1933 Boycott
1935: Nuremberg Laws
Took away Jewish citizenship & civil rights; intermarriage prohibited; all Jews forced to wear yellow Star of David for identification
1938: Kristallnacht
Nazi campaign of terror against German Jews; shops & synagogues destroyed; Jews killed & injured; 30,000 Jewish males sent to concentration camps
1939: Invasion of Poland (Sept. 1) marks WWII in Europe
Only 500,000 Jews in Germany; to have access to European Jews – Hitler must have a war; seen as an opportunity to progress Nazi racial ideology

12. Emigration
Passengers aboard the “St. Louis”. These refugees from Nazi Germany were forced to return to Europe after both Cuba & the United States denied them entry. The passengers were sent to France, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Britain. Early summer, 1939 – by 1940 all those countries except Britain were under Nazi occupation & many passengers of the St. Louis died.

13. 1939 – 1941: Ghettoization & Concentration of Jews (Stage 2)
Continuation of identification by racial criteria
Expulsion to E. Europe
1939: 1st Ghetto established in Poland after invasion
1940: Lodz & Warsaw are largest ghettos
Loss of dignity, dehumanization, loss of privacy, inability to protect family or earn living

15. Ghettos
Ghettos, or confined areas within a city, are established in occupied eastern Europe (1939). Jews from throughout Europe are forced from their homes and required to live in ghettos.

16. 1942 Wannsee Conference
In January 1942, 15 top Nazi officials met to discuss plans for extermination of Europe’s 11 million Jews.
At that time, 80% of Jews that were to die were still alive; 15 mos. Later they were dead.
Year of mass deportations from ghettos to camps.

17. Deportations

18. Deportations & Implementation of the Final Solution: 1942 – 1945(Stage 3)
Nazis systematically round up Jews throughout Europe and transport them to death camps in Eastern Europe as part of implementation of the “Final Solution”. Six million are killed.
The Nazis called this “resettlement”
Prior to building of death camps, Nazis used mobile killing squads: Einsatzgruppen
Between June 1941 – Dec they killed 1mn. Jews, but Himmler, head of SS, was concerned about how long it was taking & the toll on the shooters; led to the Death Camps

20. Death Camps: Poland Chelmno opened in Dec. ‘41
After Wannsee Conference 5 new death camps opened
Sobibor, March ’42, 250,000
Belzec, March ’42, 500,000+
Treblinka, June ’42, 700,000+
Majdenek, June ’42, 125,000
Auschwitz, 1942, 1,500,000+

21. Auschwitz-Birkenau
This was the largest camp & was actually 3 camps; 1st for Polish political prisoners, 2nd built for Final Solution, 3rd (BUNA) for slave labor. The only camp that tattooed. Most prisoners survived only a few weeks or maybe months at Auschwitz. Died of gas chambers, dehydration, starvation, labor, disease, medical experiments, and some by suicide. It was the deadliest camp.

22. Hungarian prisoners arrive at Auschwitz for selection, May 1944
Prisoners at forced labor at the Siemens factory, Auschwitz
Hungarian Jews on their way to the gas chambers, May 1944
Bombing Raid on Auschwitz, August 1944

23. Stage IV: Liberation 1945
Allies liberated survivors of camps; approximately 300,000 Jews

24. Liberation
An American soldier liberates prisoners at Mauthausen
Multitudes interned in Displaced Persons Camps in Germany & Italy to find family members
Return to home or immigration and resettlement to other countries, especially of those wanting to avoid Soviet regimes: Israel (Palestine), the United States, Canada, Australia, South America
Integration into new host countries: struggle & re-adjustment
Children being liberated by Soviet soldiers from Auschwitz, January 1945

25. DP Camps
British soldiers guard Jewish refugees on their way to a DP Camp, Germany 1947
As early as 1943, Allied forces began drafting plans to meet the challenge of liberating, rehabilitating, and repatriating the millions of displaced persons (DPs) who would come under Allied control.
6mn. refugees were successfully repatriated; but 1mn. refused to return to their pre-war homes
By 1948, the majority settled in the new state of Israel and in the U.S. The last DP Camp closed in 1952.
Dining Room at a DP Camp, Germany 1945
Jewish orphans at a DP Camp, Germany 1947

26. War Crimes Trials
International Military Tribunals were held throughout Europe; the most famous were the Nuremberg Trials for Nazi Party Officials judged by each of the 4 Allies
The IMT tried 22 "major" German war criminals on charges of conspiracy, crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The IMT defined crimes against humanity as "murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation...or persecutions on political, racial, or religious grounds."
Witness testifies to being kidnapped by Germans from Czechoslovakia
Opening statements at the IMT in Nuremberg, 1945
Nazi Karl Brandt testifies
Defendant’s Dock

27. Resistance Armed Resistance: Acts of Sabotage Spiritual resistance
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
Sobibor & Treblinka Uprisings
Jews joined resistance fighters in occupied countries
Acts of Sabotage
Disrupting war effort in forced labor camps
Document forgers, food smugglers
Hiding & escape
Spiritual resistance
Attempts to maintain Jewish identity, history, and culture despite attempts of Nazis to eradicate Jewish life from human memory
Underground schools and libraries
Documenting the Holocaust
L: Survivors of Treblinka Uprising. B: Resistance fighters living/hiding in forest

28. Quiz Study Guide Vocabulary: Aryan
Lebensraum (as 1st “solution” to the “Jewish problem”
Genocide
Auschwitz
Concentration & Death camps (where were they built & why there)
Einsatzgruppen
Events:
Kristallnacht, Nov. 1938
Targets of the Holocaust
Final Solution,
Two tactics used to implement
Types of Resistance
Three Stages of the Holocaust
Identify each stage by time period & major events
What conditions allowed an event like the Holocaust to occur (consider historical stereotypes, political policies & laws, and military situation of the time)