1. Holocaust
World War II

2. April 7, 1933
Shortly after Hitler took power in Germany, he ordered all “non-Aryans” to be removed from government jobs
This order was one of the first moves in a campaign for racial purity that eventually led to the Holocaust
Holocaust: the systematic murder of 11 million people across Europe, more than half of whom were Jews

3. Anti-Semitism
Not only victims of the Holocaust but were center of the Nazis’ target
Anti-Semitism: hatred of Jews
For decades many Germans looking for a scapegoat had blamed the Jews as the cause of their failures
What failures?

4. Nuremberg Laws
In 1935, the Nuremberg Laws stripped Jews of their German citizenship, jobs, and property.
To make it easier for the Nazis to identify them, Jews had to wear a bright yellow Star of David attached to their clothing.

5. Nuremberg Worksheet
What is the problem with the Nuremberg Laws?

6. Kristallnacht November 9-10th, 1938
Kristallnacht means “Night of Broken Glass”
Nazi storm troopers attacked Jewish homes, businesses, and synagogues across Germany
Around 100 Jews were killed and hundreds more injured
Some 30,000 Jews were arrested and hundreds of synagogues were burned

7. Kristallnacht
Who was blamed for all of the broken glass in the streets, synagogues burned to the ground, and injuries?

10. Floods of Jewish Refugees
Kristallnacht caused many German Jews to try and flee to another country
Nazis tried to speed up the process of emigration
Jews fleeing Germany had trouble finding nations that would accept them
The United States only took about 100,000 refugees of “exceptional merit”

11. Why would countries not be willing to accept a lot of Jews trying to escape from Germany?

12. Who were those “exceptional merit” refugees allowed to enter the United States?

13. Albert Einstein

14. Thomas Mann (Author)

15. Walter Gropius (architect)

16. Paul Tillich (theologian)

17. What would you do?

18. Plight of St. Louis German ocean liner passed Miami in 1939
740 of the 943 passengers had U.S. immigration papers, however the U.S. Coast Guard would not allow anyone to disembark in America
The St. Louis Sent back to Germany

19. Hitler’s “Final Solution”
Obsessed with a desire to rid Europe of its Jews, Hitler imposed what he called the “Final Solution”
A policy of Genocide
GENOCIDE: the deliberate and systematic killing of an entire population

20. Hitler’s “Final Solution”
What caused Hitler to get rid of an entire population?
(Hint: Think of his goals)

21. Hitler’s “Final Solution”
His “solution” rested on the belief that Aryans were a superior people and that the strength and purity of this “master race” must be preserved
To accomplish this Hitler condemned them to slavery and death
Jews were not the only group viewed as inferior or unworthy or as “enemies of the state”
What other groups would be deemed “inferior”?

22. Inferior Races Gypsies
Freemasons—because they were charged as supporters of the “Jewish conspiracy” to rule the world
Jehovah’s Witnesses— they refused to join the army or salute Hitler
Homosexuals
Mentally deficient
Mentally ill
Physically disabled
Incurably ill

23. Gypsies
Many Gypsy groups have preserved elements of their traditional culture, including an itinerant existence and the Romany language. Many tend to reject traditional life styles and are nomadic

24. Physically Disabled

25. Jehovah’s Witnesses
Jehovah’s Witnesses are followers of which believe that the end of the present world system of government is near, that all other Churches and religions are false or evil, that all war is unlawful, and that the civil law must be resisted whenever it conflicts with their Church's own religious principles

26. Freemasons
A member of the Free and Accepted Masons, an international fraternal and charitable organization with secret rites and signs.

27. Hitler’s “Final Solution”
Implemented in Poland with special Nazi death squads
Elite Nazi “security squadrons” (SS)
The SS rounded up Jews—men, women, children, and babies—and shot them on the spot

29. Forced Relocation Jews were ordered to relocate to ghettos
Segregated Jewish areas in certain polish cities
Nazis typically sealed off the ghettos from the rest of the city with barbed wire and stone walls

30. Life in the Ghettos Bodies lined the streets
Factories located near the ghetto had free labor from the Jews living in the ghetto
Jews published underground newspapers
Set up secret schools to educate Jewish children
Theater and music groups put on shows within the ghetto

32. Video

33. Concentration Camps Concentration camps: labor camps
Families were often separated and sometimes the separation would be forever
Life in the camps was a cycle of hunger, humiliation, and work that almost always ended in death

34. Concentration Camps
They were forced to do intensive manual labor from dawn to dusk, seven days a week
If they were too weak to work they were killed
Some jobs included burning dead bodies of other prisoners or digging ditches for bodies

35. Labor

36. Labor

37. Labor

38. Concentration Camps
Food rations for inmates were often small

39. Concentration Camps
Prisoners were crammed into small wooden barracks in which they put about 1,000 prisoners into
Their beds were often planks of wood that had mice, fleas, rats and other rodents living among the prisoners

40. Final Stage
Early 1942 A meeting held in Wannsee, Hitler’s top officials agreed to begin a new phase of the mass murder of Jews
To mass slaughter and starvation they would add a third method of killing
Murder by poison gas

41. Mass Extermination
The Nazis could not kill the Jews fast enough to satisfy them
Germans built six death camps in Poland
Each camp had huge gas chambers in which as many as 12,000 people could be killed in a day

42. Selection
When prisoners arrived at death camps they were paraded by several SS doctors that would separate those strong enough to work from those who would die that day
Both groups were told to leave all their belongings behind with a promise that they would be returned later

43. Selection
Those destined to die were led into a room outside the gas chamber and were told to undress and shower
To add to the deception some were given soap
When led into the chambers cyanide gas poured from vents on the wall as cheerful music played

44. Methods Gassing was not the only method of extermination
Prisoners were:
Shot
Hanged
Injected with poison
Others died as a result from horrible medical experiments

45. Test Subjects Some were used as medical experiments by camp doctors
These victims were injected with deadly germs in order to study the effect of disease on different groups of people
Many were used to test methods of sterilization
Sterilization was of great interest to some Nazi doctors as they searched for ways to improve the master race

46. Survivors Some Jews survived the horrors of the concentration camps
Those who made it out of the camps alive were changed forever by what they had witnessed