What does ‘Holocaust’ mean?
o Holocaust n 1 a sacrificial offering consumed by fire 2 an instance of
wholesale destruction or loss of life 3 often capthe genocidal persecution of the
European Jews by Hitler and the Nazi party duringWWII
o Shoah or Ha Shoah (literally denoting a "catastrophic upheaval") is the
Hebrew term for the Holocaust
o The Final Solution of the Jewish Question - the German Nazis' plan
to engage in systematic genocide against the European Jewish population during
World War II. The term was coined by Adolf Eichmann, a top Nazi official who
supervised the genocidal campaign.
o The Porajmos (also Porrajmos) - literally Devouring, or Samudaripen
(Mass killing) is a term coined by the Roma (Gypsy) people to describe attempts by
the Nazi regime to exterminate most of the Roma peoples of Europe during the
Holocaust.
Who were the Victims of The Holocaust?
o The Jews- used as scapegoats for everything that had gone wrong in Germany since WWI. They
were seen by the Nazis as subhuman & worth less than animals.
o Roma & Sinti Gypsies- like the Jews they were seen by the Nazis as racially inferior,
degenerate & worthless.
o Slavs, Poles & Russians- viewed as inferior & subhuman.
o Mentally & physically disabled- thought of as useless & a financial burden on
the state.
o Homosexuals- seen as degenerate & against the Aryan ideal.
o Political opponents- e.g. Communists, Socialists. These were people who disagreed with
Nazi politics & policies.
o Jehovah’s Witnesses- their religious beliefs made them refuse to pledge their allegiance
to the Third Reich.
T-4 Euthanasia Programme o Designed to kill physically, mentally & emotionally
handicapped people. The name comes from the address of the headquarters at Tiergartenstrasse 4 in Charlottenburg.
o The process was carried out by doctors, nurses & physicians.
o Children were killed by medication or were starved to death.
o Adults were given lethal injections or gassed.
o Doctors & nurses were given supplementary payments known as ‘Schmutzgeld’ (dirty money).
o In 1941 Hadamar celebrated the cremation of its ten thousandth patient in a special ceremony where everyone (secretaries, nurses & psychiatrists) received a bottle of beer.
o Hitler ordered the program for adults to end in August 1941 but it continued as the ‘wild’ euthanasia program.
o Approximately 200,000 people were killed under the T-4 program.
T-4 Euthanasia Programme
Hartheim Castle, Austria a euthanasia killing centre where people
with physical and mental disabilities
were killed by gassing and lethal injection.
Buses used to transport
patients to Hadamar The windows were painted to prevent
people from seeing those inside..
This image originates from a film produced by
the Reich Propaganda Ministry. It shows patients
in an unidentified asylum.
Their existence is described as "life without hope." The Nazis sought, through propaganda, to develop
public sympathy for the Euthanasia Program.
Emmi G., a 16-year-old
housemaid diagnosed as
schizophrenic. She was
sterilized and sent to the
Meseritz-Obrawalde
euthanasia centre
where she was killed with
an overdose of tranquilizers
on December 7, 1942.
A victim of the Nazi
Euthanasia Program:
hospitalized in a
psychiatric ward for her
nonconformist beliefs
and writings, she was
murdered on January 26, 1944.
Friedrich Mennecke, a Euthanasia Program
physician who was
responsible for sending many patients to be gassed.
Nazi physician
Karl Brandt, director of the
Euthanasia Program.
Head nurse of the children's ward
at the Kaufbeuren-Irsee euthanasia facility.
The Ghettos
A line of people wait to get a drink of water in the overcrowded
Warsaw ghetto which housed about half a million Jews. Living
conditions were miserable; insufficient food and water, unsanitary
conditions, and overcrowding led to starvation and rampant disease.
Children scale a wall to smuggle food into the ghetto. Conditions were
so extreme that they engaged in this activity despite the proclamation
issued by Dr. Ludwig Fischer (Governor of the Warsaw District from
October, 1939 to January, 1945), imposing a death penalty on Jews
who left the ghetto and on those who helped them. Warsaw ghetto, 1941. Homeless children.
A typical room in a ghetto. This scene of a makeshift market place in the Lódz ghetto shows how
some people tried to sell personal belongings for a little extra money.
The Lvov ghetto, shown here in the spring of 1942, was established in late
1941 with 106,000 people. By May of 1942, only 84,000 residents were left.
Ghettos were established to confine Jews into tightly packed areas of the cities of Eastern
Europe. Starting in 1939, Polish Jews were systematically moved into designated areas of
large Polish cities. The Ghettos were walled off, and any Jew found leaving them was shot.
The Warsaw Ghetto was the largest of these Ghettos, with 380,000 people and the Łódź
Ghetto, the second largest, holding about 160,000.
The Ghettos
The bodies of Jewish resisters lie in front of the ruins of a building where they were shot by
the SS during the suppression of the Warsaw ghetto uprising.
SS officers interrogate a captured resistance fighter
during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
began on April 19,1943, and ended on May 16,
1943. SS troops suppressed the uprising under
the command of General JŸrgen Stroop.
Jews captured during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising are led by German
soldiers to the assembly point for deportation.
One way Nazis suppressed the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was to burn
blocks of buildings. German stormtroopers force Warsaw ghetto dwellers of all ages to move,
hands up, during the Jewish Ghetto Uprising in April-May 1943.
Jews captured during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising are marched
off through a debris-covered street to the Umschlagplatz for
deportation.
The Einsatzgruppen
o The Einsatzgruppen were death squads sent into Eastern Europe to murder Jews, gypsies & political opponents of the Nazis.
o They operated from 1941-1943.
o Their standard killing method was to gather Jews from surrounding areas and then shoot them in front of mass graves.
o In some areas they also took gas vans to poison their victims with exhaust fumes.
A member of Einsatzgruppe D prepares to
shoot a Ukrainian Jew kneeling on the edge
of a mass grave filled with the bodies of previous
victims.
Over one thousand Jews from the Ukrainian town of Lubny, ordered to
assemble for "resettlement," in an open field before they were massacred by
Einsatzgruppen. Lubny, Soviet Union, October 16, 1941.
A young mother with her two children,
sitting among a large group of Jews from
Lubny who have been assembled for mass
execution by the Germans. (October 16,
1941)
Members of an
Einsatzkommando
before shooting a
Jewish youth.
The boy's murdered
family lies in front
of him; the men to
the left are ethnic
Germans aiding the
squad.
Slarow, Soviet
Union, July 4, 1941.
Men with an unidentified unit
execute a group of Soviet civilians
kneeling by the side of a mass grave.
(June 22 - September 1941)
A German policeman shoots
individual Jewish women who
remain alive in the ravine after
a mass execution of Jews from
the Mizocz ghetto. (October 14, 1942)
Death toll approx. 1.6 million Jews
Chelmno
o Constructed in Nov. 1941
o Victims were killed in gas
vans . (one large gas van for 150 victims
and two smaller ones for 80 - 100 victims) o Until spring of 1942, the
bodies were buried in four
long mass graves.
o After that time the corpses
were cremated. (Two crematoria
were built, which were probably
complemented by two mobile field ovens.)
o 1st phase: 7th Dec 1941-
March 1943.
o 2nd phase:June and July
1944
o Death Toll: 155,000-320,000
Jews of the Lodz Ghetto being marched to
Chelmno death camp, 1942 A convoy arrives in Chelmno
Chelmno: One of the three gas vans
Chelmno: Jews before being
sent to the gas chamber.
Belzec
o Construction began on 1st Nov. 1941 and was completed
by the end of Feb. 1942.
o Initially, there were three gas chambers using carbon monoxide housed in a wooden building. They were later replaced by six gas chambers in a brick and concrete building
o Corpses were then dragged to burial pits.
o During the early months of 1943, the corpses of the murdered Jews were disinterred and burned in open air pits.
o 1st phase: mid-March 1942 to mid-May 1942.
o 2nd phase: mid-July 1942 to the end of December 1942
o Death Toll: 600,000
Jews of the Lublin Province of Poland are
deported to the Belzec death camp, March 1942.
Gipsies in Belzec before being
sent to the gas chamber
Two Jews before execution in Belzec death camp
A woman about to be executed in Belzec extermination
camp. The soldier on the left is an SS guard, the
soldiers in the background are Ukrainian guards. Picture found on an SS prisoner.
Treblinka
Transports to the Camp
Deportation from Siedlce, 22nd
August 1942
One of the very rare photographic documents
of Treblinka: prisoners of the "Straflager“
preparing a pyre for the burning of the victims
oEstablished in 1941 as a forced
labour camp.
oA second camp was built,
opening for operation on July 23,
1942. This was to be the
extermination camp.
oTreblinka opened with three gas
chambers in operation but
quickly expanded to at least six.
oThe bodies would be dragged to
mass graves for burial.
oStarting in the Autumn of 1942,
the corpses were disinterred and
stacked on a grid of old railway
tracks for burning.
oAutumn of 1943 evacuation of
the camp was begun & orders
were given to destroy the camp.
oDeath Toll: 750,000- 850,000
Auschwitz Birkenau
Jews who were classified as
“not fit for work” waiting in a grove
outside Crematorium IV before they
were to be gassed. At this point, the
Jews were exhausted and in a state
of shock from the horrors of the
journey and the selection process
that they had just endured.The vast
majority had no idea what fate
Awaited them.
Auschwitz Birkenau
Sorting out the personal
Belongings of the recent
arrivals at Auschwitz in a
special section of the camp
known as "Canada."
Auschwitz Birkenau
Jewish children, kept alive in the Auschwitz II (Birkenau) concentration
camp, pose in concentration camp uniforms between two rows of
barbed wire fencing after liberation
Sacks of human hair packed for dispatch to Germany.
A warehouse full of shoes and clothing confiscated from
the prisoners and deportees gassed upon their arrival.
One of the warehouses in Auschwitz, which is stuffed to
overflowing with clothes confiscated from prisoners.
Corpses of women piled up on the floor of Block 11. (February 1945)
Prisoner badges at Auschwitz The same coloured triangles were used throughout the camp system.
On arrival each prisoner was registered & given a number that replaced his or her name. This number was tattooed on
the prisoner’s forearm.
A scrap of fabric with this number was worn at chest height on the left of the jacket. Below this was a coloured triangle
which showed the prisoner’s category. This triangle or ‘winkel’ was also worn on the hem of the right trouser leg.
‘Re-education
prisoners’, whose
sentences were
officially limited to
46-52 days but often
lasted 3-6 months,
were identified by a
large ‘E’ rather than
a triangle.
political criminal anti-social
e.g. lesbian,
prostitute
Jehovah’s
Witness
emigrant Sinti &
Roma
gypsy
homosexual
Jew, with a different triangle over the
yellow one according to reason of
imprisonment, making a Star of David
e.g. Red & Yellow – politicall Jew
From mid-1944 a yellow strip
replaced the yellow triangle
Prisoners in the
punishment units also
wore a black dot.
Prisoners suspected of
planning an escape
wore a red dot & the letters iL for im Lager (in
the camp)