1. & N A Z I A T R O C I T I E S

2.  Not counting military related deaths, 11 million people were murdered by the Nazis between 1933 and 1945  The Nazis targeted Jews, Foreign Workers, Homosexuals, the Disabled, Communists, Gypsies, Poles and Russian P.O.W.s  The Holocaust is a specific term to describe the treatment of Jewish people during this period  Approximately 6 million Jews were killed by the Nazis  The term Holocaust means “an act of mass destruction and loss of life (especially in war or by fire)” or “A religious animal sacrifice that is completely consumed by fire.”

3.  Undesirables were alienated by the Nazis when they assumed power  They were physically and mentally abused, fired from their jobs, harassed and imprisoned in concentration camps  In one case, Jewish people were rounded up and forced to cut the grass of a soccer field with their teeth  Undesirables were forced to wear badges to distinguish them from good “Aryans”  Euthanasia program: Nazi doctors secretly murdered disabled babies and children

11.  In 1935, the Nazis passed a series of laws which denied Jews: 1. Citizenship 2. Jobs (banking, Acting, the arts, Politics, Law) 3. Marriage with Germans

12.  1938: After the murder of a Nazi official in France, Hitler’s S.A. Goes on a rampage in Germany  One night orgy of destruction and mayhem  Destruction of Jewish homes, businesses and synagogues  Jews beaten and murdered in the streets  Kristallnacht literally means “The Night of Broken Glass”

16.  The Jews were then removed from their homes and forced into ghettos (mostly in Poland)  Their property was stolen  Were forced into “fenced in” neighborhoods  Extremely crowded, unsanitary, little food and often people were taken to be used as slave laborer in nearby factories  German soldiers would often tour the ghettos on their way to the Front – as if it was a zoo – they shot people randomly, took pictures, broke up funerals etc.

20.  After the invasion of Poland, a special S.S. unit was sent in to eliminate “undesirables”  They went from town to town and searched for Jews, Gypsies, Communists and intellectuals  They brought them to the edge of town and forced them to dig a large pit  Afterwards, the crowd would be shot and buried  This continued with the invasion of the USSR  In total, the Einsatzgruppen killed almost 2 million people

27.  Although the Einsatzgruppen was effective, it was time consuming, messy and inefficient  In 1942 at the “Wansee conference” it was decided that special camps were to be built in order to offer the “Final Solution” to the Jewish Question  The camps allowed the Nazis to fully exploit the Jews and murder them in the most efficient way possible