The Holocaust

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• The Holocaust

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Vocab

• Concentration Camps detention centers, prisons,
  for civilians considered enemies of the state.
• Holocaust Nazi massacre of approx. 6 million
  Jews. About 5 million other people Gypsies,
  Poles, Homosexuals, people with handicap, and
  political dissenters were also killed.
• Genocide the murder of a group of people based
  on their race.
• Nuremburg Trials European trials for Nazis who
  committed crimes against humanity

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Prelude to the Final Solution

• In 1935 Nuremberg laws limit the Jews rights
• In 1938, the Nazi attack on the Jews changed and
  became more violent with Himmler launching
  Kristallnacht on 11th November 1938.
• By 1939, half of Germanys 500,000 Jews had
  emigrated to escape Nazi persecution.

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Prelude to the Final Solution

• In 1939, Germany invaded Poland which had a much
  larger population of 3 million Jews.
• Jews were forced into Ghettos, walled off
  sections of town and given very little food.
  (starve them out)

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Children Dying of Starvation in the Warsaw Ghetto
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• Read Ghetto (folder 5)
• Watch clip
• Pt 1
• Pt 2 (ch 5)

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Change of Tactics Einsatzgruppen

• In 1941, Germany invaded Russia which had a
  population of 5 million Jews.
• Himmler sent four specially trained SS units
  called Einsatzgruppen battalions into German
  occupied territory and shot at least 1 million
  Jews.
• Victims were taken to deserted areas where they
  were made to dig their own graves and shot.
• When the SS ran out of bullets they sometimes
  killed their victims using flame throwers.

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Change of Tactics Einsatzgruppen
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The Final Solution

• In January 1942, Himmler decided to change
  tactics once again.
• It was decided that the existing methods were too
  inefficient and that a new Final Solution was
  necessary.

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Where were the Death Camps built?
The work of the Einsatzgruppen
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SS Tactics

• Deception
• The Jews were told that they were going to
  resettlement areas in the East.
• In some Ghettos the Jews had to purchase their
  own train tickets.
• They were told to bring the tools of their trade
  and pots and pans.
• New arrivals at the Death camps were given
  postcards to send to their friends.

• Terror and Starvation
• The SS publicly shot people for smuggling food or
  for any act of resistance
• The Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto were only fed a
  1000 calories a day .

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More SS Tactics Dehumanisation

• The SS guards who murdered the Jews were
  brainwashed with Anti-Semitic propaganda.
• The Jews were transported in cattle cars in
  terrible conditions.
• Naked, dirty and half starved people look like
  animals, which helped to reinforce the Nazi
  propaganda.
• The SS used to train their new guards by
  encouraging them to set fire to a pit full of
  live victims usually children.

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Entrance to Auschwitz
Notice how it has been built to resemble a
railway station
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Auschwitz Orchestra
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Map of Auschwitz
New Arrivals
Showers
Destruction Through Work
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Auschwitz from the air
Notice how the Death camp is set out like a
factory complex
The Nazis used industrial methods to murder the
Jews and process their dead bodies
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The Gas Chambers

• The Nazis would force large groups of prisoners
  into small cement rooms and drop canisters of
  Zyklon B, or prussic acid, in its crystal form
  through small holes in the roof.
• These gas chambers were sometimes disguised as
  showers or bathing houses.

The SS would try and pack up to 2000 people into
this gas chamber
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The outside of the Gas Chamber
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Processing the bodies

• Specially selected Jews known as the
  sonderkommando were used to to remove the gold
  fillings and hair of people who had been gassed.
• The Sonderkommando Jews were also forced to feed
  the dead bodies into the crematorium.

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The Ovens at Dachau
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Dead bodies waiting to be processed
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Shoes waiting to be processed by the
sonderkommando
Taken inside a huge glass case in the Auschwitz
Museum. This represents one day's collection at
the peak of the gassings, about twenty five
thousand pairs.
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Destruction Through Work
This photo was taken by the Nazis to show just
how you could quite literally work the fat of the
Jews by feeding them 200 calories a day
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Destruction Through Work
Same group of Jews 6 weeks later
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Watch clip Final Solution part 1, part 3
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Was the Final Solution successful?

• The Nazis aimed to kill 11 million people
• Today there are only 2,000 Jews living in Poland.
• The Nazis managed to kill at least 6 million Jews.

• Not all Jews went quietly into the gas cambers.
• In 1943, the Warsaw Ghetto, like many others
  revolted against the Nazis when the Jews realized
  what was really happening.

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• Evil is when a few good men decide to do nothing.

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Resistance Movements

• Resistance existed in almost every concentration
  camp and ghetto of Europe.
• Unfortunately very few of them had any kind of
  impact due to the force of the Nazis.
• In general, rescue or aid to Holocaust victims
  was not a priority the focus was to fight the
  war against Nazism.

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• First They Came for the Jews
• By Pastor Martin Niemoller
•  
• First they came for the Jews
• and I did not speak out
• because I was not a Jew.
• Then they came for the communists
• and I did not speak out
• because I was not a communist.
• Then they came for the trade unionists
• and I did not speak out
• because I was not a trade unionist.
• Then they came for me
• and there was no one left
• to speak out for me.

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Examples of successful resistance

• Churches hiding Jews in the basements and closets
  of their churches
• Oskar Schindler A Nazi who changed his ways
  during the war and started to help Jews survive
• Non-Jewish families that would adopt Jewish
  children as their own
• Corrie ten-Boom a woman and her family that hid
  hundreds of Jews in their house and would ruin
  train tracks so the Nazi trains full of Jews
  could not get through to the Concentration Camps

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The Beginning of the End

• In 1944, the war started turning against Germany.
  
• To cover up the evidence of genocide, outlying
  concentration camps were evacuated.
• Prisoners were moved to camps within Germany so
  they would not be liberated by the Allied Forces.

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The Beginning of the End

• Concentration camps were evacuated through long
  journeys on foot known as death marches.
• Even camps unintended for extermination became
  deadly as their conditions worsened.

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The End of Nazi Tyranny

• In May 1945, Nazi Germany collapsed, the guards
  fled, and the camps ceased to exist.
• Trials were conducted for war crimes.
• Millions of Holocaust survivors were liberated
  from Nazi rule, but had nowhere to go.
• We are free, but how will we live without our
  families? Anton Mason (survivor)

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Add to your timeline

• January 30, 1933 Adolph Hitler named chancellor
  of Germany
• 1935 Nuremburg Laws
• 1939 -in Poland, Jews were required to wear
  patches or armbands at all times with the Star of
  David on them.
• 1939-1942-Jews lived in Ghettos

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• January 1942-Final Solution
• Jews are sent to labor camps or death camps
• 1944-German starts losing WWII and camps are
  evacuated
• 1945-Germany loses WWII, all Jewish people are
  liberated (free)
• November 21, 1945 to October 1, 1946-Nuremburg
  Trials (for Nazi leaders)

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Journal

• Put yourself (as who you are now) in Nazi
  Germany. What would your life have been like?
• Jewish?
• Helping people escape?
• Political Dissenter?
• Supporting the Nazis?
• Hitler Youth
• 1-2 paragraphs describing what the reality of
  your life would have been like and what you would
  have liked it to be like (if they are different).