The Holocaust1933 -1945

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Hitler’s Master Race

Hitler wanted to conquer Europe and get

rid of undesirable races like the Jews,

Slavs, and Africans as well as Jehovah’s

Witnesses and all handicapped people.

He believed that if people could not

provide for themselves they should not

live.

Wanted to populate Germany with

**Aryans (Whites) who had pure

bloodlines.

All German people went through a

background (genealogy) check to make

sure they had no undesirable blood in

their family.

Hitler immediately began to remove Jews

& undesirable people from the German

economy. Next, he started deporting

them.

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Hitler and the **Holocaust

Hitler blamed the Jews for all of Germany’s problems, including the loss of

WWI and the Versailles Treaty. Hitler thought removal of the Jews would

allow Germany to be successful again.

**Hitler focused the German people’s anger for the loss of WWI and the

Versailles Treaty on the Jews. This allowed him to unify the German people

politically.

The 1st Solution = remove Jews from the economy & isolate them within

Germany.

The 2nd Solution = deport the Jews from Germany.

The Final Solution = kill all the Jews. This started with the beginning of WWII,

in 1939.

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**Heinrich Himmler – was head of

the Nazi SS and the person that

ordered the “Final Solution.”

Carrying Out the Holocaust

1. Political opponents of the Nazis

were put in concentration camps

starting in 1933, when Hitler

became Chancellor.

2. Laws were passed to remove

Jews from the government & the

economy. An example is:

**Nuremberg Laws of 1935:

A) Marriage between Jews & Aryans

was forbidden.

B) Intercourse betw. Jews & Aryans

forbidden.

C) Citizenship taken away from

Jews. They can NOT vote or hold

a gov’t job.

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Carrying Out the Holocaust

1938 – All passports of Jews must be marked with a “J” for easy

identification.

1939 – All Jews must wear a yellow Star of David on their clothing.

September 1, 1939 – Nazis invade Poland. In many larger cities, Jews are

forced into **ghettos. This means large numbers of people are forced into a

small area of the city which is walled off and surrounded by military guards.

Jews are allowed out to work, but must go back to the ghetto immediately

after work.

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Warsaw Ghetto – was

surrounded with a brick wall

that had barbed wire on top of

it. There were 400,000 Jews

crammed into a 1.3 square

mile area.

Stairs were built to allow

Jews to get over the wall to

go to work. They could only

exit or enter the ghetto in a

few highly guarded places.

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Living conditions in the ghettos were bad. Large

numbers of people were jammed in an area that

was often only a couple blocks wide. There was a

shortage of food and clean water. Disease spread

rapidly. The people were slowly being starved to

death.

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**The Holocaust

The **Einsatzgrupen were mobile

killing units that followed Nazi

troops and killed undesirable

people. The Nazis tried to use

trucks that vented the exhaust into

the cargo area and killed people by

carbon monoxide. This took too

long and people scratched their

fingernails on the sides of the truck

and screamed.

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Most Einsatzgrupen killing was done

by firing squads. Nazi soldiers could

not handle killing so many people, day

after day. Himmler had to find a better

way to kill the undesirables.

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There were over 5,000 **concentration camps in Europe. Prisoners were forced to work to

support the German war effort and they were slowly starved to death. Prisoners were fed

small pieces of bread and a bowl of chicken or beef broth at most meals.

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**1942 Wannsee Conference – Nazis decided on the **Final Solution {of how to

kill so many undesirable people}. They built 6 extermination camps, all in

Poland. Prisoners were identified by a tattoo on their forearm. This was to

keep Nazi guards from getting to know people that would soon die. Guards

were required to refer to prisoners by number, not name.

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The final solution involved dropping

a **Zyklon B container into a hatch

in the roof of the gas chamber. This

released cyanide gas and killed all

the people inside.

This is the hole in the gas chamber

roof, where the Zyklon B container

would land. This square would have

wire over it to keep the container

from falling to the floor.

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The gas

chambers

and

crematorium

at

Auschwitz.

Dead bodies at Dachau.

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Dead bodies in a burial

pit. You can see lime

piled beside the pit.

This was put on top of

the dead bodies to help

control the smell and

stop the spread of

disease.

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**Auschwitz - was the largest of

6 **extermination camps the

Nazis built. Prisoners got off the

train and waited on a concrete

platform for **the selection.

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**Dr. Josef Mengele was in charge of medical research at Auschwitz. He made the

decisions in the selection. Prisoners who were too young or too old were sent to

the left - - which meant the gas chambers. People who were able to provide labor

were sent to the right - - the concentration camp, where they would work and be

slowly starved to death.

Mengele did all kinds of horrible experiments on the prisoners at Auschwitz. He

often used twins for his experiments. He was trying to create a fertility drug to

help create the master race, but did not succeed.