world war ii 1939 - 1945 the holocaust. what is genocide? “genocide” is a greek word that means...
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WORLD WAR II1939 - 1945
THE HOLOCAUST
WHAT IS GENOCIDE?
“Genocide” is a Greek word that means “group-killing”
The intent of genocide is to deliberately destroy an
entire racial, ethnic, or religious group of people
The perpetrators inflict serious bodily harm,
prevent new births, or create conditions that will
result in death
There have been numerous genocides throughout history
THE CENTURY OF HATREDThere have been more genocides in the 20th
Century than in all other centuries combined
Genocides in the past were carried out to maintain empires, obtain wealth, and terrorize enemies
During the 20th Century, nations lose money carrying out genocides, but choose to do so out of hatred
REASONS TO COMMIT GENOCIDE
One group blaming another for social or economic problems
A group being seen as a threat during times of war
Extreme racism or patriotism
Anti-immigration policies or xenophobia (fear of foreigners)
Religious extremism
WHAT WAS THE HOLOCAUST?“Holocaust” means “burnt offering” The Holocaust
refers to the systematic murder in
Europe of the Jewish people
and other groups deemed
“inferior” before and
during World War II
The extermination was carried out by the
German Nazis at the order of Adolf Hitler
THREE STEPS OF THE HOLOCAUST#1. IDENTIFICATION: marking all Jews in German society
#2. CONCENTRATION: taking away Jews’ freedom, removing Jews from society and placing them together
#3. EXTERMINATION: mass murder of the Jews in the death camps
Killing the Jews was the Nazis’ main
priority, more so than fighting the war
NAZI RACIAL THINKINGAccording to
German nationalists,
pure-blooded Germans were
part of a superior
master race called “Aryans”
Those not of pure German
blood were considered “inferiors”
Some races were considered to be
subhumansThe Jews were at the top of
the Nazis’ list as “subhumans”
ROOTS OF ANTI-SEMITISM
Anti-Semitism is hatred for Jewish people
Europe’s mainly Christian population were anti-Jewish for the Jews’ perceived role
in Jesus Christ’s death
During the days of the Roman Empire, the Romans forcibly removed the rebellious Jews from of their homeland (modern day Israel)
and spread them throughout the world
ROOTS OF ANTI-SEMITISMScattered all over Europe and North Africa, Jews were usually seen as unwelcome strangers
To survive, some Jews became skilled in finance and business
When times were tough economically, people would view the Jews with jealousy
Jealousy, dislike of foreigners, and the link to Christ’s death made for much anti-Semitism in Europe
ANTI-SEMITISM IN GERMANY
When Germany lost World War I, German soldiers (like Adolf Hitler)
could not accept defeat and looked for someone to blame
The already-disliked Jews made a perfect scapegoat for the
Germans, who said the war was lost because German Jews
“stabbed soldiers in the back” by not supporting the war effort
GERMANY’S VICIOUS ANTI-SEMITISM
In this German children’s book, a pious mother teaches
her little son,
“The Jew is the most poisonous mushroom in existence.” The children’s book “Der Giftpilz”
(The Poisonous Mushroom)
“DER PUDELMOPSDACKELPINSCHER”OR “THE MONGREL”
Hitler predicted genetic disaster if Jews were allowed to marry “pure-blooded” Aryans.
The title of this children’s book describes the genetically absurd poodle-pug-daschsund-pinscher mutt that adorns the cover.
This collection of 11 fable-like short stories about lazy, parasitic creatures such as hyenas, serpents, locusts, leeches, tapeworms and others link each creature to the “parasitic” Jews, who must be destroyed.
HITLER IN POWER
When Hitler became leader of Germany in 1933, he began to persecute German Jews, taking away their freedoms and rights
The Nuremberg Laws were passed, which limited the work
Jewish lawyers, doctors, and teachers could do in Europe
Marriage between Germans and Jews was forbidden
Those Germans identified as Jewish by law had to have a letter “J” stamped on
their IDs and had to wear the yellow Star of David on their jackets at all times
RACIAL PURITYGermans were
instructed to have nothing to do with
“inferior” races
Race charts like this educated Germans on who was “pure” and who was “der
untermensch” (inferior subhumans)
The Nazis described all Jews, Slavs, Turks, Mongols,
Gypsies, Africans, homosexuals, prostitutes, beggars, the physically or
mentally disabled, or those with certain political or religious views (such as
Communists and Jehovah’s Witnesses) as
“Untermenschen” (biologically inferior
subhumans)
NAZI VIEWPOINT OF THEIR VICTIMS
This book contrasts carefully selected
pictures of depraved “inferiors” with
“beautiful Aryans”.
The book warned that inferiors
would overrun Europe, giving the Nazis justification
for genocide
NAZI EUTHANASIA PROGRAMHitler started a
program to euthanize (ending life to stop pain)
people with disabilities and
deformities
This Nazi policy’s purpose was to remove those
“unworthy of life”
The Nazis’ goal was to eliminate “useless eaters”: those who were a drain on
German resources
"60,000 marks is what this person with genetic defects costs the community during his lifetime. Fellow German, that's your money, too…"
KRISTALLNACHTTaking away Jews’ rights
was not enough: the
Nazis wanted the Jews removed
The Nazis organized violent attacks on Jewish businesses,
homes, and synagogues to make Jews want to
leave Germany
The most infamous incident was in November 1938: the “Night of the Broken Glass”
(Kristallnacht). This was a major step towards the genocide that would eventually happen
NEW TERRITORIES BRING NEW JEWISH VICTIMS
When World War II began, Germany
conquered countries that were populated by Jews (like Poland)
Hitler was determined to
also rid these new territories of Jews
JEWISH REFUGEESSome Jews in Germany and
these new territories tried
to leave and live elsewhere;
Hitler was in favor of this emigration
However, not ALL Jews could or would leave, so Hitler planned another way to deal with them
THE NAZIS’ NEW PLAN: ISOLATION
GERMAN SOLDIERS ROUND UP JEWS INTO THE WARSAW GHETTO
ISOLATION IN THE GHETTOSHitler ordered all Jews in his territories to be moved to certain cities, then herded
into segregated
areas
These segregated areas of the cities were overcrowded and filthy; they were called ghettos
STARVATION IN THE GHETTOS
The Nazis sealed off the ghettos with barbed wire and concrete walls
The idea was for the trapped Jews to die of
starvation and disease in
these ghettos
CHILDREN DYING OF STARVATION IN THE WARSAW GHETTO
SCENES FROM THE GHETTOS
ANOTHER NEW PLAN: MOBILE DEATH SQUADS
Hitler grew impatient waiting for the Jews to starve to
death; he wanted them to die faster
The SS (Hitler’s personal guards) sent special units
called “Einsatzgruppen” into German-occupied territory
The victims of Einsatzgruppen (death
squads) were taken into deserted areas, shot, and
buried in mass graves
These death squads rounded up and killed at
least one million Jews
HEINRICH HIMMLERCommander of
the SS and Executor of
the Holocaust
EINSATZGRUPPEN DEATH SQUADS
A UKRAINIAN JEW IN KIEV TRIES TO SHIELD HER DAUGHTER AS ONE OF THE SS
PREPARES TO SHOOT THEM TO DEATH
EINSATZGRUPPEN DEATH SQUADS
A UKRAINIAN JEW ABOUT
TO BE EXECUTED
HIS CORPSE WILL JOIN
OTHER MURDERED JEWS IN A
MASS GRAVE
EINSATZGRUPPEN DEATH SQUADS
EINSATZGRUPPEN DEATH SQUADS
One of the SS executioners takes aim at a wounded survivor during a massacre of Russian-Jewish women
EINSATZGRUPPEN DEATH SQUADS
THE SS EXPERIMENTED WITH ALTERNATIVES TO SHOOTING PRISONERS. ONE WAS “GAS VANS”, WHICH HAD A SEALED CABINS. JEWS WOULD BE PACKED INTO THE VANS AND KILLED BY CARBON
MONOXIDE FUMES PUMPED INTO THE CABINS.
THE WANNSEE CONFERENCEHitler grew impatient
again, thinking that the death squads were too
inefficient at eliminating the Jews
In 1941, a meeting of top Nazis was held in the town of Wannsee, led by SS chief Heinrich
Himmler, to decide what to do
At the Wannsee Conference, the Nazis
decided on a “Final Solution” to their “Jewish problem”
A high-ranking Nazi, Reinhart Heydrich, proposed that Jews
should be worked to death, a method
known as “destruction through work”
Those Jews not strong enough for work would
be immediately executed in death camps
After the Conference, several
concentration camps (which already had
enslaved prisoners) were converted
into death camps
Death camps were different in that the main
purpose was to exterminate people and dispose of their remains
Prisoners dying certainly occurred in the concentration camps, but the death camps were
DESIGNED to kill on an industrialized scale
WHERE WERE THE DEATH CAMPS LOCATED?
Why do you think the camps were primarily built here?
The work of the Einsatzgruppen
WHAT TACTICS DID THE NAZIS USE TO GET THE JEWS TO LEAVE THE GHETTOS AND GO TO DEATH CAMPS?
TACTICS
STARVATION
The Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto
were only fed 1000 calories a day
A human being needs 2400 calories a day to maintain their weight
TERROR
The SS publicly shot people for smuggling food or for any act of resistance
DECEPTION
The Jews were told that they were going
to “resettlement areas” in the East
In some Ghettos, the Jews had to purchase their
own train tickets
They were told to bring the tools of their
trade and pots and pans
Hungry people are easier to control
New arrivals at the death camps were given postcards to
send to their friends
SS TACTICS: DEHUMANIZATION The SS guards who murdered the Jews were indoctrinated
with Anti-Semitic propaganda; they were trained to think of Jews as less than human
The Jews were transported in cattle cars in terrible conditions (no food, no water, no room to lay down, standing in their own waste; especially sadistic SS men would spray the walls and floor of the cars with chemicals to irritate and burn skin)
Naked, dirty, and half starved people were made to look like animals, which helped to reinforce the Nazi propaganda
The SS used to train the death camp guards by encouraging them to set fire to a pit full of live victims: usually children
ENTRANCE TO AUSCHWITZ
The worst of these death camps was Auschwitz
The front gate of Auschwitz, as well as other death camps, had the words “Arbeit Macht Frei” above it. This
translates to “Work Sets You Free”. In reality, any prisoner entering these gates would not be set free; they
would be murdered outright or worked to death
AUSCHWITZ ORCHESTRA
When trains arrived at the camps, the prisoners would be split into two lines
Guards and camp doctors selected which line each prisoner went to…
LEFTImmediate death in a gas chamber
ORRIGHT
Life as a slave being slowly worked and starved to death
“LIFE” IN A CONCENTRATION CAMP
Daily life in a concentration camp was miserable at best
The Jews knew they were there to die a horrible death
There was the daily drudgery of twelve hours of hard labor, disgusting food, and sleepless nights made hideous by screams and the sounds of crematoriums
“LIFE” IN A CONCENTRATION CAMP Rats, lice, and other vermin
infested the camps and afflicted the prisoners
The SS and prison guards were scum of the earth: murderers, rapists, and sadists, had run of the camps
These guards would take sick pleasure in torturing, beating, humiliating, and killing their victims (no adult, child, or baby was safe)
The SS men and the guards (both men and women) that
ran the death camps spared no one, not even the youngest children
THE GAS CHAMBERSAN EXTERIOR VIEW
The ovens conveniently located near the gas chambers
THE GAS CHAMBERSAN INTERIOR VIEW
• The Nazis would force large groups of prisoners into small cement rooms and drop canisters of lethal Zyklon B in its crystal form through small holes in the roof
• These gas chambers were sometimes disguised as showers or bathing houses
The SS would try to pack up to 2000 people into
this gas chamber
When captives died, their bodies would be processed. If they had gold or silver teeth, they would be smashed out of their mouths. The gold and silver would then be melted down and reused. Some Nazis often used their hair to stuff pillows and their skin to make various products, including jackets, gloves, and lampshades. The remains were then thrown into crematoriums. Ashes from the crematoriums were used as fertilizer for farms and gardens
THE OVENS AT DACHAU
Once the bodies had everything of value taken from them, the remains were reduced
to ashes in the crematoriums (ovens)
THE OVENS AT AUSCHWITZ
PROCESSING THE BODIES
Specially selected Jews known as the
“Sonderkommando” were used to
remove the gold teeth and hair of people who died
The Sonderkommando Jews were also forced to feed the dead bodies into the crematoriums
SHOES WAITING TO BE PROCESSED
BY THE “SONDERKOMMANDO”
This photo was taken inside a huge glass case in the Auschwitz Museum. This represents one day's collection at
the peak of the gassings, about 25,000 pairs.
MEDICAL EXPERIMENTS
THE ANGEL OF DEATH
Cruel (and often deadly) medical experiments were done on prisoners of all ages in the concentration camps
Dr. Josef Mengele, also known as the “Angel of Death”, was the most infamous Nazi doctor, working at Auschwitz
Mengele often made selections of new
prisoners, deciding who would be used as slaves and who would
die immediately
Mengele also selected prisoners that would become his “human
mice”, unwilling subjects for medical
experiments
MEDICAL EXPERIMENTSDr. Mengele was most interested with genetics and
twins; he was determined to find ways to create more twin births, so the Nazis could populate the world with more “pure-blooded” Aryans at a faster rate
Mengele was also interested in finding ways to sterilize “inferior” races, preventing births
He also performed experiments to look for “battlefield cures”, new methods to help heal wounded soldiers (Of course, to research these “battlefield cures”, the wounds would have to be applied to the helpless prisoners first)
It is believed that Dr. Josef Mengele was personally responsible for the murders of 400,000 prisoners, either by his own hand during his “experiments” or by ordering them into the gas chambers
NAZI DOCTORS CALCULATE HOW LONG IT TAKES PEOPLE TO FREEZE TO DEATH BY IMMERSING THEM IN ICY WATER
HORRIFYING ATROCITIESThe full list of atrocities committed by Josef Mengele and several other Nazi
doctors is difficult to fathomSome of the horrors they inflicted on their victims include: Surgery and amputations without anesthesia Tests of endurance (seeing how long it took prisoners to die through
freezing or boiling victims, sleep deprivation, high altitude exposure) Testing drugs on wounds; cuts would be deliberately infected with
gangrene or irritated with ground glass Testing of poisons to see which were most effective Sterilization through injecting drugs into uteruses and exposure of
reproductive organs to radiation Infecting prisoners with tuberculosis and searching for cures; those who did
not die from the disease were killed so they could be dissected Bone, muscle, and joint transplantation; doctors trying to find out if body
parts could be transplanted would cut off parts of prisoners’ bodies and try to attach them to other prisoners’ bodies. They would also cut out bodily organs and try to re-grow them outside the body.
Injecting chemicals into eyes to change their color Taking two healthy twins and attempting to create conjoined twins out of
them by fusing their skin, bones, and organs together
THE WORST DEATH CAMPS
Auschwitz 1,400,000
Belzec 600,000Chelmno
320,000Jasenovac
600,000 Majdanek
360,000 Maly Trostinets
65,000 Sobibór
250,000 Treblinka
870,000
CAMP DEATHS
LIBERATION
When Germany was invaded and fell to the Allies (British, American, and Russian troops), the
prisoners at the death camps were liberated. The Russians uncovered the worst of them in Poland.
LIBERATION
THE INMATES OF DACHAU ARE FREED BY THE ALLIES
MANY OF THOSE LIBERATED WOULD NOT SURVIVE
For many prisoners, help arrived too late Even after liberation, prisoners were
dying daily by the hundreds
THE ALLIES ARE UNPREPARED FOR WHAT THEY SEE
Battle-hardened soldiers were shocked at what they witnessed. General Dwight Eisenhower and General George Patton visited a liberated camp in April 1945. Patton, as tough a military leader as there has ever been, became physically sick from the sights and smells of death at the camp.
ABSOLUTE HORROR
Eisenhower addressed officers around him, “I want every American unit not actually in the front lines to see this place. We are told that the American soldier does not know what he is fighting for. Now, at least, he will know what he is fighting AGAINST.”
Eisenhower arranged for soldiers, politicians, reporters, and photographers to visit the liberated camps. He wanted many people to have first-hand evidence of what happened, in case people tried to claim that the stories of genocide were “propaganda”.
VENGEANCE ON THE OPPRESSORS
☼The depth of the Nazi barbarism outraged the Allied soldiers
☼Furious at what they found at Dachau, young GIs executed many of the guards and SS men immediately
☼Allied military commanders mostly ignored instances of revenge beatings and killings of camp guards by former inmates still strong enough to do so
FREED INMATES BEAT AND TAUNT A CAMP GUARD
VENGEANCE ON THE OPPRESSORS
A FREED INMATE POINTS OUT A PARTICULARLY SADISTIC GUARD TO ALLIED TROOPS FEMALE GUARDS AT
BERGEN-BELSEN ARE HUNG OUTSIDE THE CAMP
VENGEANCE ON THE OPPRESSORS
THE BODIES OF SS MEN AFTER A RAMPAGE BY FREED PRISONERS
GERMAN CITIZENS FACE THE TRUTH
Despite their protests of innocence and ignorance, local German civilians
were forced to view the camps that were near them; in some cases, Allied soldiers forced the Germans
to bury the dead bodies
VICTIMS OF THE HOLOCAUST:
THE STATISTICS
COUNTRY INITIAL POPULATION
ESTIMATED % KILLED
ESTIMATED NUMBER KILLED
NUMBER OF SURVIVORS
POLAND 3,300,000 91% 3,000,000 300,000
USSR 3,020,000 36% 1,100,000 1,920,000
HUNGARY 800,000 74% 596,000 204,000
GERMANY 566,000 36% 200,000 366,000
FRANCE 350,000 22% 77,320 272,680
ROMANIA 342,000 84% 287,000 55,000
AUSTRIA 185,000 35% 65,000 120,000
LITHUANIA 168,000 85% 143,000 25,000
NETHERLANDS 140,000 71% 100,000 40,000
BOHEMIA-MORAVIA(CZECH TERRITORY) 118,310 60% 71,150 47,160
LATVIA 95,000 84% 80,000 15,000
SLOVAKIA 88,950 80% 71,000 17,950
YUGOSLAVIA 78,000 81% 63,300 14,700
GREECE 77,380 87% 67,000 10,380
BELGIUM 65,700 45% 28,900 36,800
ITALY 44,500 17% 7,680 36,820
BULGARIA 50,000 0% 50,000
DENMARK 7,800 .8% 60 7,740
ESTONIA 4,500 44% 2,000 2,500
LUXEMBOURG 3,500 55% 1,950 1,550
FINLAND 2,000 .03% 7 1,993
NORWAY 1,700 45% 762 938
TOTAL 9,508,340 63% 5,962,129 3,546,211
These numbers represent the number of Jews murdered by the Nazis during World War II
The estimated number of murdered Jews in all of these European nations
is NEARLY SIX MILLION
Not only Jews were exterminated by the Nazis
In addition to the SIX MILLION murdered Jews, the Nazis also killed FIVE MILLION other “undesirables”
They included: Poles Russians Gypsies Homosexuals Disabled Jehovah’s Witnesses Germans who protested against Nazism
ALTOGETHER, THE NAZIS MURDERED ABOUT
ELEVEN MILLION PEOPLE
“I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”
Elie Wiesel
CREDIT WHERE IT IS DUE
Created by Christopher J. Jaskowiak
Special thanks to Rachel Mychajluk, David Muldoon, Lance Cayea, Eric Zastrow, Susan Pojer, and Professor Scott Masters for some of the images and information
Some of the books used in creating this presentation: World War II Chronicles, Delivered From Evil, The Nazi Doctors, The Rise And Fall of the Third Reich
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