1. The Holocaust—Final Step

2. The final step in Hitler’s effort to rid Europe of Jews was the DEATH CAMP.

3. The DEATH CAMP represented something new in history—a literal factory of death.

4. The SS refined the murder process so that a person could arrive at Birkenau- Auschwitz at 10 am ……

5. ……and be dumped into the river as ash by 4 pm the same day.

6. The process was cold-blooded and methodical. Calm must always prevail.

7. The first step was loading people into cattle cars.

9. People are allowed to take a single suitcase and are packed into the cattlecars. The journey might take hours or days.

10. Men and women were separated into two lines, four abreast.

11. A Nazi doctor made a quick decision and person was sent right or left.

12. One way gave the strongest a chance to survive—at least for a while—as a worker.

13. The other way went directly to the gas chamber. Children under 14 and their mothers were always sent to the gas.

14. Victims were told they were going to have a shower to kill lice. They had to undress. People were told to remember the number of the peg on which they hung their clothing. Some knew what was about to happen. Many had no idea. Some walked in quietly. Others resisted but the Germans had guns and overwhelming numbers.

15. Gas chambers were made to look like showers. The last ones built could hold 1000 people at a time.

16. Once everyone was crowded in, an poison gas called ZYKLON B was poured in from the top.

18. Rudolf Hoess-the commandant of Auschwitz-testified at his trial after the war that it took “between 15 and 30 minutes, depending upon the weather, before the screaming stopped.”

19. Slave laborers untangled the bodies and drug them to the ovens of the crematorium.

23. In another section of the camp, the clothes & belongings of the victims were sorted and sent back to Germany.

28. In 1944, Himmler became worried that Germany would lose the war. He ordered the mass graves in Russia and Poland dug up and the bodies burned.

30. After the war, the United Nations (the Allies) put major Nazis still alive on trial at Nuremberg. They were found guilt of war crimes, crimes against peace and crimes against humanity. They were hanged, their bodies creamated and ashes scattered at sea.

32. Many lower level SS men were returned to the countries in which they had committed their crimes and put on trial there.

33. Amazingly, a very small but hated filled group denies that the Holocaust ever took place

34. Most people prefer the lesson that hatred and prejudice against fellow human beings cannot be allowed to go on.