2. The Holocaust
The Holocaust was “The Final Solution” to what the Nazi’s believed was the “Jewish problem” that haunted Europe, and specifically Germany, for hundreds of years.
What this plan amounted to was the systematic destruction of a particular ethnicity in order to create a more powerful and united Aryan race.

3. The Holocaust
The Nazi party leaders believed that the Aryan race was far superior to any other on the planet, and that the Jewish population had been diluting its purity over time.
Aryans, according to the Nazis, were of Germanic descent, with blonde hair and blue eyes; the party felt that these were “the chosen people” who had to be saved from all other races.

4. The Holocaust
The Jewish communities of Europe, however, were not the only people targeted by the Nazis.
Who else do you think would be targeted for being different from the German people?

5. The Holocaust
The Holocaust, as we have come to know it, did not occur overnight. Rather, it was a systematic process that began in the 1930s, first in Germany and then spreading throughout Europe as Nazi Germany invaded and conquered bordering nations.
There were several steps that occurred before the wholesale and dramatic killing took place that we saw in the movie, Schindler’s List.

6. The Holocaust
The road to the Holocaust first began with laws against the Jewish communities in Germany.
What do you think some of the laws against Jews pertained to? And what were the most restrictive set of laws called?

7. The Holocaust
Laws?

8. The Holocaust
The Nuremberg Laws set out exactly what Jews could and could not do – mostly what they could not.
It took away citizenship rights, the ability to own business or property, and essentially all rights and freedoms of the Jewish people.

9. The Holocaust From there, things only got worse.
Jews were forced to move from their homes, their communities, and away from their families and friends.
They were forced into ghettos throughout Germany and when the Nazis began to take over neighbouring countries, Jews in those countries began to face a similar fate.

10. The Holocaust
The condition of the ghettos was terrible. Several families would be packed into small apartments, and the communities would be walled off from the rest of the city.
Some of the more famous ghettos were in Poland, especially the Warsaw and Krakow ghettos, such as the ones as depicted in Schindler’s List.

11. The Holocaust
As the war progressed, so too did the plan for dealing with the Jewish population of Europe.
Soon, the Nazis, under orders from Hitler, began to create concentration and work camps for the Jews and other “undesirables” as they became known to those within the party.

12. The Holocaust
There were not the death camps that we associate with the Holocaust – or at least not yet.
Here, the prisoners would be put to work in factories and at jobs that would help support the German war effort at home and abroad.
They would build anything that the military needed; for the government, this made sure that supplies were very cheap and available.

13. The Holocaust
What types of companies and products do you think were made with slave labour in World War II Germany?

14. The Holocaust
As the War progressed, however, do to did the purpose of the camps.
Medical experiments were being carried out on camp prisoners, as the Germany military scientists developed theories and tried new techniques on those in the work and concentration camps.
Dr. Mengele is the most infamous of these doctors and he performed some of the most horrific experiments during the War.

15. The Holocaust
There was a move to implement “The Final Solution” as the War progressed; does anybody have any idea what was meant by “The Final Solution”?

16. The Holocaust
“The Final Solution” was the systematic and wholesale murder to people in the concentration camps. These work and concentration camps soon became the death camps that we associate with the Holocaust.

17. The Holocaust
Soon this,

18. The Holocaust
Became this,

19. Holocaust Remembrance Week
“The Final Solution” was the systematic and wholesale murder to people in the concentration camps. These work and concentration camps soon became the death camps that we associate with the Holocaust.

20. The Holocaust
It is important to remember that while the Jewish people of Europe were the most heavily persecuted during the Holocaust, other groups were targeted as well.
Victims
Killed
Soviet POWs
2–3 million
Ethnic Poles
1.8–2 million
Romani
220,000–1,500,000
Disabled
200,000–250,000
Freemasons
80,000
Homosexuals
5,000–15,000
Jehovah's Witnesses
2,500–5,000

21. The Holocaust
But it was the Jewish community of Europe that suffered most dramatically during the Holocaust. They actually refer to this as The Shoah, which in Hebrew means The Destruction.
For the Jewish people of Europe, this event was designed to wipe their existence off the earth and was responsible for millions of deaths across Europe.

23. The Holocaust Country Estimated Pre-War Jewish population
Estimated Jewish population annihilated
Percent killed
Poland
3,300,000
3,000,000 90
Baltic countries
253,000
228,000
Germany & Austria
240,000
210,000
Bohemia & Moravia
90,000
80,000 89
Slovakia
75,000 83
Greece
70,000
54,000 77
Netherlands
140,000
105,000 75
Hungary
650,000
450,000 70
Byelorussian
375,000
245,000 65
Ukrainian
1,500,000
900,000 60
Belgium
65,000
40,000
Yugoslavia
43,000
26,000
Romania
600,000
300,000 50
France
350,000 26
Russian
975,000
107,000 11
Total
8,861,800
5,933,900 67

24. The Holocaust
These seven death camps account for most of the camp deaths during the Holocaust. Causes of death were often execution by various means, but also included malnutrition and other indirect means of death.
It is believed that all of the Polish Jews who died during the War died at one of these seven camps.
Camp name
Killed
Auschwitz II
1,400,000
Belzec
600,000
Chełmno
320,000
Jasenovac
58,000-97,000
Majdanek
360,000
Maly Trostinets
65,000
Sobibór
250,000
Treblinka
870,000

25. The Holocaust This is the Holocaust Memorial at Auschwitz II
At the Auschwitz II camp, over 1.4 million Jews were killed.

26. The Holocaust
The Holocaust is a significant even that deserves to be remembered; it is not something to take lightly.
Remember – over six million Jews and over eleven million people were killed during this period. Try to imagine how many people were directly affected by the Nazi Holocaust.

27. The Holocaust
“The Final Solution” was the systematic and wholesale murder to people in the concentration camps. These work and concentration camps soon became the death camps that we associate with the Holocaust.