Holocaust vs. Armenian

GenocideWorld War I and II

The Persecution Begins

Shortly after Hitler took power, he ordered “non-

Aryans” to be removed from government positions

This was one of the first moves in a campaign for racial

purity that eventually led to the…. Holocaust: The systematic murder of 6 million Jews across Europe

Nazis also murdered 5 million other people

Jews Targeted

Jews were centers of Nazi targets

◦ Anti-Semitism: hatred towards Jews

◦ Hitler and some Germans used Jews as a scapegoat to blame

them for WWI and the economic troubles in Germany

Nuremberg Laws stripped Jews of their German

citizenship, jobs, and property

◦ Jews had to wear a bright yellow Star of David on their clothing

to identify them

Kristallnacht

November 9-10 1938 became known as

Kristallnacht

◦ “Night of Broken Glass”

◦ Nazi storm troopers attacked Jewish homes, businesses,

and synagogues across Germany and Austria

100 Jews were killed and 30,000 were arrested and

hundreds of synagogues were burned

◦ The Jews were blamed for the destruction

A Flood of Jewish Refugees

After Kristallnacht many Jews tried to flee Germany

but had difficulty finding places that would take

them

◦ France had 40,000 and didn’t want more

◦ Britain refused to admit more than 80,000

◦ The Palestine mandate accepted 30,000

◦ America accepted 100,000

Americans didn’t want them coming because of the

Great Depression and fear of losing jobs

Hitler’s Final Solutions

Obsessed with the desire to rid Europe of its Jews,

Hitler imposed what he called the Final Solution ---

◦ A policy of GENOCIDE: the deliberate and systematic killing of

an entire population

His Final Solution rested on the belief that Aryans were

a superior people and that the strength and purity of

this “master race” must be preserved

◦ Not only Jews, but other groups that were views as inferior or

unworthy or as “enemies of the state”

The Condemned

After taking power, the Nazis had concentrated on silencing their political opponents – communists, socialists, liberals, and anyone else who spoke out against the government

◦ Gypsies (inferior), Freemasons (supporters of the “Jewish Conspiracy”), Jehovah’s Witnesses (Refused to join the army or salute Hitler)

Also targeted Germans who they found unfit for the “master race”

◦ Homosexuals, mentally deficient, mentally ill, physically disabled, incurably ill

First implemented the Final Solution in Poland with special Nazi death squads

◦ Security squadrons (SS) rounded up Jews – men, women, children, and babies on the spot

Forced Relocation

Many Jews had to live in crowded ghettos which were segregated Jewish areas in certain Polish cities

◦ Nazis sealed off the ghettos with barbed wire and stone walls

Bodies of victims piled up in the streets faster than they could be removed

◦ Factories were built near ghettos so the Jews had to work for German industries

◦ Jews resisted the movement by published secret magazines, secret schools to educate Jewish children, and theater and music groups continued to operate

Concentration Camps

Jews who weren’t reached by killing squads were dragged from their homes and herded onto trains or trucks for shipment to concentration camp, or labor camps◦ Families were separated

The prisoners were crammed into crude wooden barracks that held up to a thousand people each◦ Shared their crowed quarters and meager meals with flees

and rats

◦ Hunger was very intense

◦ Inmates worked from dawn to dusk seven days a week until they collapsed

◦ Those too weak to work were killed

The Final Stage

Starvation, beatings, and bullets did not kill fast enough for the Nazis

◦ Germans built six death camps in Poland

◦ Each camp had several huge gas chambers --- 12,000 people could be killed a day

The largest of the death camps was Auschwitz

◦ Doctors separated those who were strong enough to work and the ones that would die that day – They had to leave their belongings behind

◦ Those that would die were led into a room outside the gas chamber and were told to undress for a shower – they were even given soap

◦ They were led into the chamber and poisoned by cyanide gas that spewed from vents

◦ Sometimes they played cheerful music by an orchestra of inmates

The Final Stage

At first, the bodies were buried in huge pits but the decaying corpses gave off a stench that could be smelled for miles….but also --- they left evidence of mass murder◦ Tried to cover by making huge crematoriums to burn the

dead

They were also shot, hanged, or injected with poison

Others died from horrific medical experiments◦ Injected with deadly germs in order to study the effects of

disease on different groups of people

◦ Test methods of sterilization – searching for ways to improve the “master race”

Survivors

Six million Jews died in the death camps

and in the Nazi massacres

Some Jews did survive the concentration

camps

Those who did survive were changed

forever by the event

Armenian Genocide

The Ottoman Empire which once

included parts of eastern Europe, the

Middle East, and North Africa had been

growing weaker upon the arrival of WWI

Decline of the Ottoman Empire

1876 Ottoman reformers seized control

of the empire’s government and adopted

a constitution that set up a legislature

◦ The sultan suspended the constitution

◦ Suspended constitution became a symbol of

change to a group of young reformers named

the Young Turks

◦ Abandoned the sultan but lacked strong

support for their government

Impact of WWI

After the Ottoman government allied

with Germany, the British sought to

undermine the Ottoman rule in the

Arabian Peninsula by supporting Arab

nationalist activities there

◦ The nationalists were aided by the British

adventurer T.E. Lawrence

Lawrence of Arabia

Impact of WWI

In 1916, Arabia declared its independence

from Ottoman rule

British troops advanced from Egypt and

seized Palestine

The Ottoman Empire then made peace

with the Allies

The Armenia Genocide

During the war, the Ottoman Turks alienated

the Allies with their policies towards minority

subjects, especially the Armenians

The Christian Armenian minority had been

pressing the Ottoman government for its

independence for years

◦ In 1915, the Ottoman government accused the

Armenians of supporting the Russians and used those

allegations to kill or exile all Armenians

The Armenian Genocide

Within seven months, 600,000 Armenians were killed and 500,000 were deported

400,000 died while marching through the deserts and swamps of Syria and Mesopotamia

September 1915, 1 million Armenians were dead

◦ They were victims of genocide

The Armenian Genocide

By 1918, another 400,000 Armenians

were massacred

Russia, France, and Britain denounced the

Turkish actions as being “crimes against

humanity and civilization.”

Because of the war, the killings continued..