The Holocaust was the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored

persecution and murder of approximately six million Jews by the

Nazi regime and its collaborators. "Holocaust" is a word of Greek origin

meaning "sacrifice by fire."

- In the early years of the third Reich Hitler promised to "free" Germany from Jews.

- But their was no clear-cut policy for getting rid of the German Jewish population.

Before the War (1933-1938)

Steps taken by Nazis to free Germany

1. stripping Jews of their German citizenship

2. using harsh discrimination laws to pressure them to leave the country

3. finally expelling them from Germany

Jews in Pre-WWII Germany

- only made up 1 percent of the German population

- 66 million Germans and only 525,000 Jews

 

1933 - Boycott of Jewish Businesses

1935 - Nuremberg Laws

1935-1938 - Pressure forces Jews from

Germany

Three Jewish businessmen are forced to march down a crowded Leipzig street while carrying signs reading: "Don't buy from Jews; Shop in

German businesses!" Leipzig, Germany

Sign on truck carrying Storm Troopers urges "Germans! Defend yourselves. Don't buy from

Jews." Berlin, Germany, April 1, 1933.

Legal Definition of Jew

- any child born to a Jewish parent after 1935

- a person with three Jewish grandparents

- a person married to a Jew and who had two Jewish grandparents

Nuremberg Race Laws of 1935 • Deprived German Jews of their rights of citizenship,

giving them the status of "subjects" in Hitler's Reich. – The laws also made it forbidden for Jews to marry or have sexual

relations with Aryans.

• The Nuremberg Laws had the unexpected result of causing confusion and heated debate over who was a "full Jew." – The Nazis settled on defining a "full Jew" as a person with three

Jewish grandparents. Those with less were designated as MischlingeMischlinge.– After the Nuremberg Laws of 1935, a dozen supplemental Nazi

decrees were issued that eventually outlawed the Jews completely, depriving them of their rights as human beings.

The white figures represent Aryans; the black figures represent Jews; and the shaded figures represent Mischlinge.

Economic Segregation German takeover of Jewish property

1938 - Nazi law required Jews to register all

their belongings (eventually taken by

Nazis)

Oct. 1938 - Jews were stripped of their

businesses, lost their livelihood.

Social Segregation - Jews became public outcasts

- banned from all place of entertainment

- beaches, theaters, park, public restrooms

- Jews were forced to wear a yellow star

(easy to identify)

Nazis invade Poland and begin WWII

- Poland had the largest Jewish population in Europe

- 3.3 million Jews

2nd SolutionSept. 1939 - June 22, 1941

Hitler ordered all Jews to be moved to Poland and held in

Ghettos.Ghetto - separate section of a city where

members of a minority group forced

to live.

 

Cattle Trains were used to transport Jews from all over Europe to Poland.

Cattle Cars - Jews were packed so

tight, they had no room to sit or breath

- unheated, windowless train cars

- the only bathroom was a bucket or barrel

- many died before even arriving at the Ghettos

                                                                                                                                                    

The Nazi Ghettos

- isolated Jewish communities

- located in cities of Eastern Europe

- a section of the city would be sealed off, no one could enter or leave

- The largest Ghetto was Warsaw, Poland

- 650,000 Jews living on a 1-mile stretch of land

Reasons Nazis set up Ghettos

1. To concentrate Jews in small areas

2. Stations for forced labor and eventually for death camps

Forced Slave Labor - Nazi decree in 1939 - All Jewish Men and Women between 14-65

years of age were to become slave laborers for the Third Reich

- Jews worked in German industries (12 hr days)

The Final Solution(1941-1945)

 - no European Jew was to

remain alive- genocide (elimination of an entire race of people)

 

Evolution of Methods used to eliminate the

Jews  1. Firing squads

- Jews were gathered together and shot- On Sept. 29/30, 1941 over 34,000

Jews were gunned down in a 36 hour

period.

The ‘Final Solution’

• In January 1942, Himmler decided to change tactics once again and called a special conference at Wannsee.

• At this conference it was decided that the existing methods were too inefficient and that a new ‘Final Solution’ was necessary.

Wannsee Conference

How was the Final Solution going to

be organised?

Shooting was too inefficient as the bullets were needed for the war

effort

Jews were to be rounded up and put into transit camps called Ghettoes

The Jews living in these Ghettos were to

be used as a cheap source of labour.

Conditions in the Ghettos were designed to be so bad that many

die whilst the rest would be willing to leave these areas in the

hope of better conditions

On arrival the Jews would go through a

process called ‘selection.’

The remaining Jews were to be

shipped to ‘resettlement areas’ in the

East.

Women, children, the old & the sick were to

be sent for ‘special treatment.’

The young and fit would go through a process called

‘destruction through work.’

2. Gas Vans - trucks specially built with

a hose empting the exhaust fumes into the back of the truck.

- Trucks could hold 90 people in the back and it took around 15 minutes for them to succumb the fumes.

3. Gas Chambers and Crematoriums

Groups targeted for extermination:

1. Jews2. Gypsies“Contaminated” Germans:3. Mentally ill4. Physical Deformities 5. Criminals 6. Homosexual

The Death Camps - SS engineers designed death camps in

Poland- A Death camp was NOT a concentration

camp - Death camps had no facilities to house

prisoners, just gas chambers- These camps were capable of doing

murder in assembly-line fashion- Gassing was the main murder method in

these camps

Auschwitz - the largest Nazi Death Camp- it had 4 giant-sized gas chambers designed

to hold 2,000 people at once- This camp used a new type of gas known as

Zyklon BZyklon B- This chemical could kill 2,000 people in 5-6

minutes - Auschwitz "processed" 12,000 Jews every

day- They murdered, reduced to ashes, and

shipped all their belongings (glasses, tools, clothing, jewelry, money, etc) to collection centers within 24-hrs.

Gas Chambers

- most victims walked willingly into the gas chambers because they had no idea they were going to die.

- prisoners were given work permits and told they were being transported to work camps

- The Nazis would put food on the trains to trick prisoners to get on board

Tricking prisoners into the Chambers

- after arriving at the camps weak/sick prisoners were told to board "Red cross" trucks for transport to hospitals (they were taken to the gas chambers)

- Massive gas chamber buildings were labeled BATHS

 - Prisoners were told they would be taking showers to freshen up before going into the work camps

- Prisoners would undress and enter large rooms with shower head, towels and soap

- Once the doors were shut and sealed the lights were turned out and the gas was pumped in

- After 10 - 30 minutes exhaust fans would be turned on to empty out the gas and prepare for clean up

 -Bodies would be taken to elevators which carried the corpses to the crematoria below

The outside of the Gas Chamber

Notice the Ovens easy located near the Gas Chambers

Shoes waiting to be processed by the sonderkommando

Taken inside a huge glass case in the Auschwitz Museum. This represents one day's collection at the peak of the gassings, about twenty five thousand

pairs.

Nazi Medical Experiments

- SS doctors used prisoners as guinea pigs for medical experimentation

Purpose of medical experiments:1. survival of military personnel

- experiments tested human endurance- How long can a man survive in freezing

seawater? - At what altitude do lungs burst under pressure?- experimental treatments for wounds

2. Testing New Medication- what treatments work best on infectious disease?

3. Genetic Experiments - How do we speed up production of the

"master race"?- How do we eliminate genetic flaws? (dwarfs)

Dr. Josef Mengele

- known as the “Angel of Death”

- based at Auschwitz- in charge of genetic

experiments- he would be there when

the trains arrived to select his subjects for testing

Twins experiments at Auschwitz

- Mengele had twin shipped here for study

- they wanted to understand multiple births and how they could use it to speed up the master race

- twins were measured, killed (injection), and dissected for the purpose of gaining "scientific data"

Jewish Resistance

Why didn't all the Jews resist the Nazi's?

- remember the Jews had no weapons

- they wanted to live, so they dared not rebel

- violence was against the religious beliefs of the strict Orthodox Jews

Passive Resistance

- some Jews defied the Germans, without using force

- Jews committed sabotage in the factories

- making faulty parts or ammunition

In Hiding

- a number of Jews escaped capture by hiding

- attics, closets, cellars, barns

- most received help in the form of food and shelter from non-Jewish citizens

Armed Resistance

Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (April - May 1943)

- Jews resist attempt to liquidate the ghetto

- used stolen weapons and homemade explosives to attack Nazi troops

- 15,000 Jews were killed in the battle and the

remaining 50,000 were shipped to death camps

Sobibor Concentration Camp

- October 1943

- several hundred prisoners attacked the guards with stolen weapons and ran out the front gate into the woods.

- many were captured but 200 did escape

- the camp was ordered closed after this incident

Liberation of the Camps