World War 2: The Holocaust

World War 2: The Holocaust World War 2 Note Packet April 7, 2014 The Final Solution Hilters rise to power was influenced by finding a scapegoat (someone to blame for Germanys problems

The Final SolutionEncouragement of Jewish discriminationNuremburg Laws

Sign says no respected German shops here4Seizure of Jewish property, homes, businesses Kristallnacht (night of broken glass)

1942 Nazi Party set a primary goal of the extermination (genocide) of all Jewish people

European Jewish PopulationJewish population killedJewish population survived 9,508,3405,962,129 63%3,546,211The term "genocide" was coined in 1943 by a Jewish-Polish lawyer who survived the Nazi Holocaust only with his brother (everyone else in his family was slaughtered).

6The Horror of Death Camps

The term concentration camp refers to a camp in which people are detained or confined, usually under harsh conditions and without regard to legal norms of arrest and imprisonment that are acceptable in a constitutional democracy. 7The Horrors of Death Camps

Gradually, most of these early camps were disbanded and replaced by centrally organized concentration camps under the exclusive jurisdiction of the SS8The Horrors of Death Camps - Arrival

Roll call for newly arrived prisoners, mostly Jews arrested during Kristallnacht (the "Night of Broken Glass"), at the Buchenwald concentration camp. Buchenwald, Germany, 1938.

Auschwitz concentration camp, arrival of Hungarian Jews, Summer 1944.

9The Horrors of Death Camps Forced labor

Prisoners at forced labor. Photo taken during an SS inspection. Dachau concentration camp, Germany, June 28, 1938.View of the stone quarry in the Gross-Rosen camp, where prisoners were subjected to forced labor. Gross-Rosen, Germany, 1940-1945.

10The Horror of Concentration Camps gas chambers

The Nazis began experimenting with poison gas for the purpose of mass murder in late 1939 with the killing of mental patients ("euthanasia"). A Nazi euphemism, "euthanasia" referred to the systematic killing of those Germans whom the Nazis deemed "unworthy of life" because of mental illness or physical disability. Six gassing installations were established as part of the Euthanasia Program: Bernburg, Brandenburg, Grafeneck, Hadamar, Hartheim, and Sonnenstein.These killing centers used pure, chemically manufactured carbon monoxide gasAs victims were "unloaded" from cattle cars, they were told that they had to be disinfected in "showers." The Nazi and Ukrainian guards sometimes shouted at and beat the victims, who were ordered to enter the "showers" with raised arms to allow as many people as possible to fit into the gas chambers. The tighter the gas chambers were packed, the faster the victims suffocated. At the height of the deportations, up to 6,000 Jews were gassed each day at Auschwitz.

11The Horror of Concentration Camps crematoriums

Crematorium I operated [at Auschwitz] from August 15, 1940 until July 1943. According to calculations by the German authorities, 340 corpses could be burned every 24 hours after the installation of the three furnaces.

12Horrors of Concentration Camps - Living

Bunks in Auschwitz Dormitory: This photo from 1981 shows the interior of one of the dormitory houses at the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland.Survivors of Buchenwald Concentration Camp: Survivors at Buchenwald Concentration Camp remain in their barracks after liberation by Allies on April 16, 1945. Elie Wiesel, the Nobel Prize winning author of Night, is on the second bunk from the bottom, seventh from the left.13Horrors of Concentration Camps - Living

During World War II, a number of German physicians conducted painful and often deadly experiments on thousands of concentration camp prisoners without their consent.

The first category consists of experiments aimed at facilitating the survival of Axis military personnelIn Dachau, physicians from the German air force and from the German Experimental Institution for Aviation conducted high-altitude experiments, using a low-pressure chamber, to determine the maximum altitude from which crews of damaged aircraft could parachute to safety. Scientists there carried out so-called freezing experiments using prisoners to find an effective treatment for hypothermia. They also used prisoners to test various methods of making seawater potable.

The second category of experimentation aimed at developing and testing pharmaceuticals and treatment methods for injuries and illnesses which German military and occupation personnel encountered in the field. At the German concentration camps of Sachsenhausen, Dachau, Natzweiler, Buchenwald, and Neuengamme, scientists tested immunization compounds and sera for the prevention and treatment of contagious diseases, including malaria, typhus, tuberculosis, typhoid fever, yellow fever, and infectious hepatitis. The Ravensbrueck camp was the site of bone-grafting experiments A Jewish child is forced to show the scar left after SS physicians removed his lymph nodes. This child was one of 20 Jewish children injected with tuberculosis germs as part of a medical experiment. All were murdered on April 20, 1945.

14Liberation of Concentration Camps

Soviet forces were the first to approach a major Nazi camp, reaching MajThe Soviets liberated Auschwitz, the largest killing center and concentration camp, in January 1945. The Nazis had forced the majority of Auschwitz prisoners to march westward (in what would become known as "death marches"), danek near Lublin, Poland, in July 1944. They discovered, for example, hundreds of thousands of men's suits, more than 800,000 women's outfits, and more than 14,000 pounds of human hair. US forces liberated the Buchenwald concentration camp near Weimar, Germany, on April 11, 1945, a few days after the Nazis began evacuating the camp. On the day of liberation, an underground prisoner resistance organization seized control of Buchenwald to prevent atrocities by the retreating camp guards. American forces liberated more than 20,000 prisoners at Buchenwald15Liberation of Concentration Campshttp://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/nuremberg-trials/videos/concentration-camp-liberation

American military personnel view corpses in the Buchenwald concentration camp. This photograph was taken after the liberation of the camp. Germany, April 18, 1945.A mass grave soon after camp liberation. Bergen-Belsen, Germany, May 194516War Crimes Trials at Nuremburg step forward in establishing international law for crimes against humanity

Held for the purpose of bringing Nazi war criminals to justice, the Nuremberg trials were a series of 13 trials carried out in Nuremberg, Germany, between 1945 and 1949.Judges from the Allied powers -- Great Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and the United States -- presided over the hearings of twenty-two major Nazi criminals.The defendants, who included Nazi Party officials and high-ranking military officers along with German industrialists, lawyers and doctors, were indicted on such charges as crimes against peace and crimes against humanity.the Nuremberg trials are now regarded as a milestone toward the establishment of a permanent international court, and an important precedent for dealing with later instances of genocide and other crimes against humanity.In the end, the international tribunal found all but three of the defendants guilty. Twelve were sentenced to death, one in absentia, and the rest were given prison sentences ranging from 10 years to life behind bars.18