The Holocaust

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The Holocaust

• Donna Thomas

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What was the Holocaust?

• The Holocaust was the murder on six million Jews
  and millions of others by the Nazis and their
  collaborators during World War II.

• Anne Frank

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More Targets

• During the era of the Holocaust, the Nazis also
  targeted other groups because of their perceived
  "racial inferiority" the handicapped, Gypsies,
  and some Slavic peoples.
• Other groups were targeted for political and
  behavioral reasons, among them were Communists,
  Socialists, and Jehovahs Witnesses.

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Where were the Jews?
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Genocide

• Mass killings began in 1941 when the Germans
  invaded the Soviet Union.
• By the end on 1941 the Germans began deporting
  Jews to concentration camps.
• By May 1945, about two out of every three Jews in
  Europe had been murdered.

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Concentration Camps

• Gas chambers killed millions of people
• Bodies were cremated to destroy the evidence
• Those that were not gassed were worked and
  starved to death

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The Ghettos

• They took all the Jews from different parts of
  the country and moved them into one section of a
  city called the ghetto.
• The Ghettos became overcrowded causing illness,
  starvation, and dirtiness.
• The largest ghetto in Poland was the Warsaw
  ghetto, where approximately 450,000 Jews were
  crowded into an area of 1.3 square miles.

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What about the children?
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The Children

• Children were especially vulnerable victims of
  the Nazis. It is estimated that over one million
  children were murdered.
• In the ghettos, many died from lack of food,
  clothing, and shelter.
• The majority of children were sent straight to
  the gas chambers. A number of children in the
  camps, especially twins, were used in Nazi
  medical experiments.

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Liberation

• On June 6, 1944 (known as D-Day), the western
  Allies launched the single largest amphibious
  invasion force in world history, landing almost
  150,000 soldiers under the command of U.S.
  General Dwight D. Eisenhower on the beaches of
  Normandy, France. By the end of the month, more
  than 850,000 American, British, and Canadian
  troops had come ashore to embark upon what
  Eisenhower called the Great Crusade, the
  destruction of the German war machine, the
  elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed
  peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in
  a free world.
• On May 8, 1945, less than one year after D-Day,
  Nazi Germany's unconditional surrender became
  official, and the world could celebrate the
  liberation of Europe from Nazi rule.

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Liberation Continued

• As Allied troops moved across Europe, they
  encountered concentration camps, mass graves, and
  numerous other sites of Nazi crimes.

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Survivors
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Reference

• United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
• http//www.ushmm.org/