Crimes Against Humanity:

The HolocaustMay 15th, 2017

Crimes Against Humanity: Learning Objectives

• 6.1.1 Define: anti-Semitism

• 6.1.2 Know, understand and be able to explain

the progression of the Holocaust from 1933 until

1945

• 6.1.3 Examine international response to Jewish

refugees during and after the Second World War

• 6.1.4 Identify international action and human rights legislation resulting from this period

Key Terms

• Anti-Semitism – hatred and/or discrimination against Jews

• The Aryan Race – Term misused by Hitler identify what he considered “The Master Race” – people of Nordic or Germanic ethnicity

• Genocide – The deliberate killing of a large group of people, esp. those of a particular race or nation

• Holocaust – The systemic, state-sponsored persecution and annihilation of European Jews by the Nazis between 1933 and 1945

The Holocaust A Timeline

• 1933 – Hitler leads campaigns of hate filled propaganda, begins to purge the civil service of Jews, the first people are sent to concentration camps

• 1935 : The Nuremberg Laws are passed• 1938 : Kristallnacht• 1939 : Ghettoization• 1939 : Einsatzgruppen Death Squads• 1942 : Wanssee Conference• 1942 – 1945 : Millions killed in concentration and

death camps

Concentration Camps

• First ones were built in 1933• First prisoners were Jewish

civil servants fired from their jobs under the new Nazi government

• Forced labour camps, strenuous work was demanded from prisoners

• Prisoners were underfed and malnourished

• Disease and sickness were widespread

Heinrich Himmler at

Dachau Concentration

Camp - 1936

Liberation of Mauthausen - 1945

Nazi Concentration & Death Camps

The Nuremberg Laws1935

• Jews could not have German citizenship

• Jews could not marry non-Jews

• People were not allowed to play the music of Jewish Composers

• Jews could not work for non-Jews

• Jews could not teach, practice law, work in hospitals, or banks

• All Jews had to wear a yellow star on their clothing

KristallnachtNovember 9th, 1938

• Nazi’s began to encourage public violence against Jews

• Many non-Jewish German citizens ransacked Jewish businesses and Synagogues.

• This act of terrorism had been ordered by the SS

• This event is known as “The Night of the Broken Glass” or Kristallnacht and represents a violent turning point

Aftermath

• 7000 businesses destroyed

• 100 Jews killed

• 30,000 sent to concentration camps

• Jews were now banned from using public transit

• Banned from public buildings

• Forced to clean up the mess

• Jews were strongly encouraged to emigrate from Germany, the fortunate ones did…

Jewish Ghettos1939

• WWII begins with the invasion and quick defeat of Poland in September

• Polish Jews are subsequently rounded up and forced into crowded, unsanitary housing compounds called Ghettos

• Food supply to the ghettos was restricted in attempt to starve people to death

• Disease was rampant, medical care scarce

• The Judenrat were administrative “town councils” that the Jews were forced to form

• Kept track of Ghetto populations

• Appointed Jewish Ghetto police

Warsaw Ghetto

• The biggest Jewish Ghetto, in Poland’s capital

• 3.4 km2 (1.3 sq mi) in size

• 400,000 residents

• Saw an uprising in January 1943

• 17 SS were killed as a result

• The Ghetto was then liquidated

History on Film

• 1993

• Directed by Steven Spielberg

• Won Oscar for Best Picture

• Based on the true story of German war profiteer, Oskar Schindler

Einsatzgruppen Death Squads1939 - 1941

• Mobile killing units, followed the (Wehrmacht) regular army into Soviet Russia

• Under the command of Reichsfuhrer-SS Heinrich Himmler

• Rounded up and executed Jews & Communists

• Buried them in mass graves• Killed about 1 million Jews

The Wanssee Conference1942

• A meeting of senior officials of the Nazi Regime

• The goal of the conference was to find a “Final Solution” to the “Jewish Question”

• That solution was to use Jews as slave labour in concentration camps, working them to death.

• Survivors would then be executed in death camps

• The goal was to eliminate all Jews from Europe

Concentration Camps & Death Camps

Concentration Camps

• Provided cruel and crowded living conditions

• Insufficient food

• Forced labour

• Death from exhaustion, malnutrition and exposure were common

• Eg. Buchenwald, Dachau

Extermination Camps

• Main purpose was industrial-scale mass murder of people.

• Eg. Auschwitz-Birkenau

Crematoriums

• My job was to cut off their hair and check for any gold teeth, and remove those. Then we’d load them into the ovens. 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, this was my job– Shlomo Venezia, Jewish Prisoner at

Auschwitz-Birkenau

"The smell of death overwhelmed us even before we passed through the stockade....More than 3,200 naked, emaciated bodies had been flung into shallow graves. Others lay in the streets where they had fallen. Lice crawled over the yellowed skin of their sharp, bony frames."

- Omar Bradley, U.S. Army, on remembering seeing Ohrdruf, April 12, 1945

Elie Wiesel

• Holocaust Survivor

• Imprisoned in Buchenwald and Auschwitz

• Won the Pulitzer Prize for his book Night

Josef Mengele

• SS Doctor

• Preformed grotesque and inhumane “experiments”

– Infection studies

– Hypothermia studies

– Head injury studies

– Twin studies

• Escaped to South America after the war

Liberation

• As the war was ending, many prisoners endured death marches from the camps into the interior of Poland

• In other camps the SS hurried to destroy evidence of their crimes

• The Soviets were among the first Allied forces to discover some of these camps

• Americans, British and Canadian forces would discover others and be shocked by what they saw.

“...Here over an acre of ground lay dead and dying people. You could not see which was which... The living lay with their heads against the corpses and around them moved the awful, ghostly procession of emaciated, aimless people, with nothing to do and with no hope of life, unable to move out of your way, unable to look at the terrible sights around them ... Babies had been born here, tiny wizened things that could not live ... A mother, driven mad, screamed at a British sentry to give her milk for her child, and thrust the tiny mite into his arms, then ran off, crying terribly. He opened the bundle and found the baby had been dead for days. This day at Belsen was the most horrible of my life”

- BBC reporter Richard Dimbleby with Canadian & British troops at the liberation of Belsen

Holocaust Focus Questions

1. In what instances is Schindler emotionally effected by the goings-on around him?

2. What are the attitudes of various Jewish characters? How do they cope with the hardships and atrocities inflicted upon them?

3. One of the themes of Schindler’s List is the “banality of evil.” What is meant by this and how is it demonstrated in the film

4. Describe the reactions/attitudes of different individuals as described by Wiesel

5. Compare and contrast Nicholas Winton with Oskar Schindler

Holocaust Test Review

Essay Question

• Describe the progression of events of the Holocaust between the years 1933 – 1946.

People1. Adolf Hitler2. Josef Goebbels3. Herman Goering4. Oskar Schindler5. Amon Goeth6. Heinrich Himmler7. Reinhard Heydrich8. Adolf Eichmann9. Josef Mengele10.Elie Wiesel11.Mackenzie King

Organizations and Groups

• The Nazis• The Jews• The SA• The SS• The Gestapo• Einsatzgruppen• Judenrat• Slavs• Communists/Bolsheviks• The Roma

Events

• Hitler become Fuhrer• Purge of civil service• Night of the Long Knives• Kristallnacht• The M.S. St. Louis• Invasion of Poland/beginning of WWII• Ghettoization• The Wannsee Conference• Liqudation of the ghettos• Genocide in concentration/death camps• Liberation• Nuremberg Trials

Concepts

• Anti-Semitism

• Genocide

• The Holocaust

• Lebensraum

• Blitzkrieg

• The Aryan Race

• The Nuremberg Laws

Places

• Germany• Poland• Ghettos• Warsaw• Concentration Camps• Death Camps• Auschwitz• Buchenwald• Dachau

Nuremberg Trials (1945 – 46)

• Military tribunals held by the Allies after WWII

• Prosecuted high ranking Nazi Party officials for crimes against humanity

• Most were sentenced to death, very few, lengthy terms of imprisonment

• Herman Goering• Commander of Luftwaffe• Highest Ranking Nazi at Nuremberg• Sentenced to death, took cyanide night

before execution

• Rudolf Hess• Had been Hitler’s deputy Fuhrer• Attempted unauthorized diplomatic

mission to England• Spent the rest of the war in a British

prison• Sentenced to life in prison at

Nuremberg• Committed suicide in 1987