THE HOLOCAUST

What is Genocide?• Genocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction, in

whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group.

• According to the United Nations "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."

8 Stages of Genocide• Classification

• Symbolization

• Dehumanization

• Organization

• Polarization

• Identification

• Extermination

• Denial

Other examples of genocide Transatlantic Slave Trade, 1450-1860 Black War, Australia, 1800’s

The Circassian Genocide, Russia, 1800’s Native American “Trail of Tears”, U.S., 1830-1860

Herero and Namaqua Genocide, Namibia, 1904-1907

Armenian Genocide, Turkey, 1915-1923

Stalin’s regime of terror, USSR, 1924-1953 (including Ukraine)

“The Rape of Nanking”, Manchuria, and Xiangyang, Japan, 1937-1945

Serbian Genocide, Croatia, 1941-1945 Partition of India and Pakistan, India, 1947

Mae Zedong rule, China, 1949-1975 East Timor, Indonesia, 1965 and 1975-1993

Kurdish minority, Iraq, 1965-1975 and 1987-1992

Guatemalan Civil War, Guatemala 1968-1996

Burundi Genocide, Burundi, 1972 Muslim Moro people, Philippines, 1972-1976

Khmer Rouge, Cambodia, 1975-1979 Civil War, Angola, 1975-1995 and 1998-2002

Civil War, El Salvador, 1980-1990 Ikhwan citizens (Sunni), Syria, 1982

Bosnian Genocide, Bosnia & Herzegovina, 1992-1995

Burma/Myanmar, 1970’s-current

Bangladesh, 1971 Rwandan Genocide, Rwanda, 1994

Darfur Conflict, Sudan, 2003-present

What is The Holocaust

• The destruction of some 6 million Jews by the Nazis and their followers in Europe between the years 1933-1945. Other individuals and groups were persecuted and suffered grievously during this period, but only the Jews were marked for complete and utter extinction. The term "Holocaust" - literally meaning "a completely burned sacrifice" - tends to suggest a sacrificial connotation to what occurred.

Holocaust Vocabulary1. Allies - The nations fighting Nazi Germany, Italy, and Japan during World

War II; primarily the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union.

2. Aryan Race - "Aryan" was originally applied to people who spoke any Indo-European language. The Nazis, however, primarily applied the term to people of Northern European racial background. Their aim was to avoid what they considered the "worst of the German race" and to preserve the purity of European blood.

3. Auschwitz - Concentration and extermination camp in upper Silesia, Poland, 37 miles west of Krakow. Established in 1940 as a concentration camp, it became an extermination camp in early 1942. Eventually, it consisted of three sections: Auschwitz I, the main camp; Auschwitz II (Birkenau), an extermination camp; Auschwitz III (Monowitz), the I.G. Farben labor camp, also known as Buna. In addition, Auschwitz had numerous sub-camps.

Holocaust Vocabulary Cont’d4. Axis - the Axis powers originally included Nazi Germany, Italy, and

Japan who signed a pact in Berlin on September 27, 1940. They were later joined by Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, and Slovakia.

5. commandant - a commanding officer of a military organization

6. concentration camps - Immediately upon their assumption of power on January 30, 1933, the Nazis established concentration camps for the imprisonment of all "enemies" of their regime: actual and potential political opponents (e.g. communists, socialists, monarchists), Jehovah's Witnesses, gypsies, homosexuals, and other "asocials." Beginning in 1938, Jews were targeted for internment solely because they were Jews. Before then, only Jews who fit one of the earlier categories were interned in camps. The first three concentration camps established were Dachau (near Munich), Buchenwald (near Weimar) and Sachsenhausen (near Berlin).

Holocaust Vocabulary Cont’d7. Final Solution - The cover name for the plan to destroy the Jews of Europe - the

"Final Solution of the Jewish Question." Beginning in December 1941, Jews were rounded up and sent to extermination camps in the East. The program was deceptively disguised as "resettlement in the East."

8. ghetto - The Nazis revived the medieval ghetto in creating their compulsory "Jewish Quarter" (Wohnbezirk). The ghetto was a section of a city where all Jews from the surrounding areas were forced to reside. Surrounded by barbed wire or walls, the ghettos were often sealed so that people were prevented from leaving or entering. Established mostly in Eastern Europe (e.g. Lodz, Warsaw, Vilna, Riga, Minsk), the ghettos were characterized by overcrowding, starvation and forced labor. All were eventually destroyed as the Jews were deported to death camps.

Holocaust Vocabulary Cont’d• 9. Mein Kampf (My Struggle) - This autobiographical book (My Struggle) by Hitler

was written while he was imprisoned in the Landsberg fortress after the "Beer-Hall Putsch" in 1923. In this book, Hitler propounds his ideas, beliefs, and plans for the future of Germany. Everything, including his foreign policy, is permeated by his "racial ideology." The Germans, belonging to the "superior" Aryan race, have a right to "living space" (Lebensraum) in the East, which is inhabited by the "inferior" Slavs. Throughout, he accuses Jews of being the source of all evil.

• 10. Nuremberg Laws - Two anti-Jewish statutes enacted September 1935 during the Nazi party's national convention in Nuremberg, taking away the Jews' civil rights. The first, the Reich Citizenship Law, deprived German Jews of their citizenship and all pertinent, related rights. The second, the Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honor, outlawed marriages of Jews and non-Jews, forbade Jews from employing German females of childbearing age, and prohibited Jews from displaying the German flag. Many additional regulations were attached to the two main statutes, which provided the basis for removing Jews from all spheres of German political, social, and economic life. The Nuremberg Laws carefully established definitions of Jewishness based on bloodlines. Thus, many Germans of mixed ancestry, called "Mischlinge," faced antisemitic discrimination if they had a Jewish grandparent.

Holocaust Vocabulary Cont’d11. Resistance - the "underground" organizations

working to help the Jews against Hitler/Nazi army

12. SS - Abbreviation usually written with two lightning symbols for Schutzstaffel (Defense Protective Units). Originally organized as Hitler's personal bodyguard, the SS was transformed into a giant organization by Heinrich Himmler. Although various SS units fought on the battlefield, the organization is best known for carrying out the destruction of European Jewry.

HOLOCAUST STATISTICS

01,000,0002,000,0003,000,0004,000,0005,000,0006,000,0007,000,0008,000,0009,000,000

10,000,000

BE

FO

RE

KIL

LE

D

SUR

VIV

OR

S

JEWISHPOPULATION

In 1933, the Jewish population of Europe stood at over 9 million. By 1945, close to 2 out of every 3 European Jews had been killed as part of the “Final Solution.”

Pre-War

• Jews were living in every country in Europe before the Nazis came into power in 1933

• Approximately 9 million Jews• Poland and the Soviet Union had the largest

populations• Jews could be found in all walks of life: farmers,

factory workers, business people, doctors, teachers, and craftsmen

Antisemitism• Jews have faced prejudice and discrimination

for over 2,000 years.• Political leaders who used antisemitism as a tool

relied on the ideas of racial science to portray Jews as a race instead of a religion.

• Nazi teachers began to apply the “principles” of racial science by measuring skull size and nose length and recording students’ eye color and hair to determine whether students belonged the the “Aryan race.”

Antisemitism

• FYI: Today, most scholars regard race as a meaningless scientific concept; human beings, regardless of their so-called race, are more genetically alike than different. Genetic differences within “races” are greater than those between the races.

Weimar Republic

• After Germany lost World War I, a new government formed and became the Weimar Republic.

• Many Germans were upset not only that they had lost the war but also that they had to repay (make reparations) to all of the countries that they had “damaged” in the war.

Weimar Republic

• The total bill that the Germans had to “pay” was equivalent to nearly $70 billion.

• The German army was limited in size.• Extremists blamed Jews for Germany’s

defeat in WWI and blamed the German Foreign Minister (a Jew) for his role in reaching a settlement with the Allies.

Weimar Republic

• The German mark became worth less than the paper it was printed on—hyperinflation occurred.

• Nearly 6 million Germans were unemployed.

A ten million mark Reichsbanknote [paper

currency] that was issued by the German national

bank during the height of the inflation in 1923.

Totalitarian State• Totalitarianism is the total control of a country in the

government’s hands

• It subjugates individual rights.

• It demonstrates a policy of aggression.

Totalitarian State

• In a totalitarian state, paranoia and fear dominate.• The government maintains total control over the

culture.• The government is capable of indiscriminate

killing.• During this time in Germany, the Nazis passed

laws which restricted the rights of Jews: including the Nuremberg Laws.

1934• Jews are not allowed

to have national health insurance

• the SS (Schutzstaffel) is formed

• Hitler becomes Der Fuherer and receives a 90% approval rating from the people

Totalitarian State

The Nuremberg Laws stripped Jews of their German citizenship. They were prohibited from marrying or having sexual relations with persons of “German or related blood.”

Totalitarian StateJews, like all other German citizens, were required to

carry identity cards, but their cards were stamped with a red “J.” This allowed

police to easily identify them.

Persecution

The Nazi plan for dealing with the “Jewish

Question” evolved in three steps:

1. Expulsion: Get them out of Germany

2. Containment: Put them all together in one place – namely ghettos

3. “Final Solution”: annihilation

Persecution

Nazis targeted other individuals and groups in addition to the Jews:

• Gypsies (Sinti and Roma)

• Homosexual men• Jehovah’s Witness• Handicapped Germans• Poles• Political dissidents

U.S. and World Response

• Some American congressmen proposed the Wagner-Rogers Bill, which offered to let 20,000 endangered Jewish refugee children into the country, but the bill was not supported in the Senate.

• Antisemitic attitudes played a role in the failure to help refugees.

U.S. and World ResponseThe SS St. Louis, carrying refugees with Cuban visas, were denied admittance both in Cuba and in Florida. After being turned back to Europe, most of the passengers perished in the Holocaust.

Final Solution

• The Nazis aimed to control the Jewish population by forcing them to live in areas that were designated for Jews only, called ghettos.

• Ghettos were established across all of occupied Europe, especially in areas where there was already a large Jewish population.

Final Solution

• Many ghettos were closed by barbed wire or walls and were guarded by SS or local police

• Life in the ghettos was hard: food was rationed; several families often shared a small space; disease spread rapidly; heating, ventilation, and sanitation were limited.

• Many children were orphaned in the ghettos.

Final Solution

Einsatzgruppen were mobile killing squads made up of Nazi (SS) units and

police. They killed Jews in mass shooting actions throughout eastern Poland and the western Soviet Union

Final Solution

• On January 20, 1942, 15 high-ranking Nazi officials met at the Wannsee Conference to learn about how the Jewish Question would be solved.

• The Final Solution was outlined by Reinhard Heydrich who detailed the plan to establish death camps with gas chambers.

Final Solution

• Death camps were the means the Nazis used to achieve the “final solution.”

• There were six death camps: Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, Chelmno, Sobibor, Majdanek, and Belzec.

• Each used gas chambers to murder the Jews. At Auschwitz prisoners were told the gas chambers were “showers.”

Final Solution

• Most of the gas chambers used carbon monoxide from diesel engines.

• In Auschwitz and Majdanek “Zyklon B” pellets, which were a highly poisonous insecticide, supplied the gas.

• After the gassings, prisoners removed hair, gold teeth and fillings from the Jews before the bodies were burned in the crematoria or buried in mass graves.

Final Solution

There were many concentration and labor camps where many people died from

exposure, lack of food, extreme working conditions, torture, and executions.

Resistance• Despite the high risk, some individuals

attempted to resist Nazism.• The “White Rose” movement protested

Nazism, though not Jewish policy, in Germany.

Resistance

• The White Rose movement was founded in June 1942 by Hans Scholl, 24-year-old medical student, his 22-year-old sister Sophie, and 24-year-old Christoph Probst.

• The White Rose stood for purity and innocence in the face of evil.

• In February 1943, Hans and Sophie were caught distributing leaflets and were arrested.

• They were executed with Christoph 4 days later.

Resistance

Other famous acts of resistance include: the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (Uprising)Sobibor escape (Escape from Sobibor)Sonderkommando blowing up Crematorium IV at Birkenau (The Grey Zone) Jewish partisans who escaped to fight in the forests.

Rescue

• In Denmark 7,220 of the 8,000 Jews were saved by ferrying them to neutral Sweden.

• The Danes proved that widespread support for Jews could save lives.

Rescue

Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg worked in Hungary

to protect thousands of Jews by distributing

protective Swedish (a neutral country)

passports.

Aftermath

• Soviet soldiers were the first to liberate camp prisoners on July 23, 1944, at Maidanek in Poland.

• British, Canadian, American, and French troops also liberated camp prisoners.

• Troops were shocked at what they saw.

THE SS AT AUSCHWITZORDERED TO TAKE ALL POSSESSIONS FROM

JEWS

TEETH WITH GOLD

PILES OF GLASSES

MEDICAL EXPERIMENTS

• Sterilization of men and women

• endurance of pain to high and low temperatures and pressure

• experiments on twins to increase number of multiple births to Aryan women

• injections of phenol to kill patients

• Dr. Mengele attempted to sew children together to make Siamese twins

Aftermath

• Most prisoners were emaciated to the point of being skeletal.

• Many camps had dead bodies lying in piles “like cordwood.”

• Many prisoners died even after liberation.

Aftermath

• Many of the camp prisoners had nowhere to go, so they became “displaced persons” (DPs).

• These survivors stayed in DP camps in Germany, which were organized and run by the Allies.

• Initially, the conditions were often very poor in the DP camps.

Aftermath

• Jewish displaced persons, eager to leave Europe, pushed for the founding of a Jewish state in British-controlled Palestine.

• U.S. President Harry Truman issued an executive order allowing Jewish refugees to enter the United States without normal immigration restrictions.

Aftermath

•

• The Nuremberg Trials brought some of those responsible for the atrocities of the war to justice.

• There were 22 Nazi criminals tried by the Allies in the International Military Tribunal.

• Twelve subsequent trials followed as well as national trials throughout formerly occupied Europe.

Aftermath

• The International Military Tribunal took place in Nuremberg, Germany in 1945 and 1946.

• 12 prominent Nazis were sentenced to death.

• Most claimed that they were only following orders, which was judged to be an invalid defense.

Former prisoners of the "little camp" in Buchenwald stare out from the wooden bunks in which they slept three to a "bed." Elie Wiesel is pictured in the second row of bunks, seventh from the left, next to the

vertical beam.

Why study the Holocaust?

Aftermath

Camp Totals

0200,000400,000600,000800,000

1,000,0001,200,0001,400,0001,600,000

Aus

chw

itz

Tre

blin

ka

Bel

zec

Sobi

bor

Che

lmo

Maj

dane

k

killed in camp

STATISTICS BY COUNTRY

0

500,000

1,000,000

1,500,000

2,000,000

2,500,000

3,000,000

3,500,000

POLAND USSR HUNGARY GERMANY

BEFOREAFTER

Jewish population before, Jewish population after Holocaust