the holocaust 1933-1945. who were the victims of the holocaust?
TRANSCRIPT
The Holocaust1933-1945
Who were the Victims of 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 Programo 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 Program
Hartheim Castle, Austriaa euthanasia killing centre where people with physical and mental disabilitieswere killed by gassing and lethal injection.
Buses used to transport patients to HadamarThe 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-oldhousemaid diagnosed asschizophrenic. She wassterilized and sent to theMeseritz-Obrawaldeeuthanasia centrewhere she was killed withan overdose of tranquilizerson December 7, 1942.
A victim of the NaziEuthanasia Program:hospitalized in apsychiatric ward for hernonconformist beliefsand writings, she wasmurdered onJanuary 26, 1944.
Friedrich Mennecke,a Euthanasia Programphysician who was responsible for sendingmany patients to be gassed.
Nazi physicianKarl Brandt,director of the
Euthanasia Program.
Head nurse of the children's wardat the Kaufbeuren-Irsee euthanasia
facility.
Concentration Camps & Death Camps
Chelmno
Treblinka
SobiborMajdane
k Belzec
Auschwitz
Concentration Camps & Death Camps
Chelmnoo 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 beingsent 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 documentsof Treblinka: prisoners of the "Straflager“
preparing a pyre for the burning of the victims
oEstablished in 1941 as a forced labor 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
Birkenau arrival platform, known as the ‘ramp’.
Auschwitz Birkenau
Awaiting the ‘Selektion’.
Auschwitz Birkenau
The ‘Selektion’ process.
Auschwitz Birkenau
Deemed "unfit for work“ & sent almost immediately to the gas chambers.
Auschwitz Birkenau
Jews who were classified as“not fit for work” waiting in a groveoutside Crematorium IV before theywere to be gassed. At this point, theJews were exhausted and in a stateof shock from the horrors of thejourney and the selection processthat they had just endured. The vastmajority had no idea what fateAwaited them.
Auschwitz Birkenau
Men & women fit for work, after the delousing process.
Auschwitz Birkenau
Sorting out the personalBelongings of the recentarrivals at Auschwitz in aspecial section of the campknown 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 fromthe prisoners and deportees gassed upon their arrival.
One of the warehouses in Auschwitz, which is stuffed tooverflowing with clothes confiscated from prisoners.
Corpses of women piled up on the floor of Block 11. (February 1945)
Prisoner badges at Auschwitz
The same colored 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 criminalanti-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 – political 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)