Bradley Veile

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Overview of the Holocaust
Bradley Veile Holocaust Museum Fellow Alfred
Lerner Fellow veile.brad_at_lakesidesch.org
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Holocaust

• Refers to a specific genocidal event in the 20th
  century history
• Defined
• the state-sponsored systematic persecution and
  annihilation of European Jewry by Nazi Germany
  and its collaborators between 1933 and 1945 -
  USHMM

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Hitler Rise
Germany

• Multi-party system
• National Elections
• Nazi party wins plurality of 33
• Hindenburg names Hitler chancellor
• Constitutional freedoms suspended

• Rejected Austrian artist
• WW I veteran
• Treaty of Versailles
• Beer Hall Putchz
• Leader of the National Socialist German Workers
  Party (Nazi)

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Targeted Groups

• Jews
• Soviet Prisoners
• Sinti and Roma
• Handicapped
• Jehovah Witnesses
• Communists and enemies of the state
• Homosexuals and a-socials

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But wont there be a negative outcry from world
leaders?

• Who, after all, speaks of the annihilation of
  the Armenians? Adolf Hitler

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Selected Nazi Legislation - 1930s

• 1933
• One day boycott of Jewish shop
• 1935
• Nuremberg Laws
• Jews lost citizenship
• Jew/Aryan marriage outlawed
• 1938
• Jews carry ID cards
• Jewish street names replaced
• Passports marked with J

• Jews barred from streets on Nazi holidays
• 1939
• Curfew for Jews
• Jews turn in radios
• Polish Jews required to wear Star of David
• All Jews must have a Jewish first name Sarah or
  Israel added if necessary

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Selected Nazi Legislation 1940s

• 1940
• German Jews into protective custody
• Income tax to support Nazi party
• 1941
• German Jews wear Star of David
• Police permission needed to leave residence
• Friendly relations with Jews prohibited

• 1942
• Turn in all wool and fur clothing
• Apartments marked as Jewish
• Not use public transportation
• Not buy meat, eggs, milk
• Not have birds, dogs, cats, etc.
• Blind deaf not wear identifying armbands in
  traffic
• 1943
• Jewish criminals sent to extermination camps

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KristallnachtNovember 1938

• 91 people killed others beaten, 30,000 arrested
• 1 billion RM fine on Jews
• Jews pay own repairs
• FDR recall US Ambassador to Germany

• Attache von Rathe shot and killed by Grynszpan, a
  Jew
• Demonstrations end with Jewish shops destroyed
  and looted
• 267 Synagogues burned or desecrated

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Nazi Propaganda
The Poisonous Mushroom
"The result! A loss of racial pride."
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Eugenics

• Selective breeding basis for Master Race
• Sterilize unfit parents and potential parents
• Euthanize life unworthy of life
• Operation T-4
• Disabled killed
• Starve, injections, gassings

Cemetery at Hadamar
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Refugee Issue

• So who will take in the Jews?

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Kinder Transports December 1938 September 1939

• 10,000 unaccompanied Jewish children enter Great
  Britain
• Children from Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia
• Most never see parents again
• Many were converted to Christianity

Children in the Netherlands shortly before
evacuation to London
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Voyage of the St. LouisMay 1939

• Departed Hamburg for Havana - May 15, 1939
• 937 passengers almost all Jewish
• 29 allowed into Cuba
• Ship forced to leave Cuba
• Passengers eventually divided between
• England Netherlands
• France Belgium
• Most killed by Nazis

Passengers attempt to communicate with friends
and relatives in Cuba
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EvianJuly 1939

• Meeting called by FDR
• Resort on Lake Geneva
• 32 Countries attend
• Discuss Jewish Refugees
• No country was willing to accept refugees
• Costa Rica and Dominican Republic would accept a
  small number for a large sum of money

postcard of Evian-les-Bains
Green Light Go New York Times
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Nazi Goal Expansion for Lebensraum Living
Space

• Rhineland
• Austrian Anschluss
• Sudetenland
• Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact
• Invasion of Poland WW II begins

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Wannsee Conference January 20, 1942

• Villa in a affluent suburb of Berlin
• Meeting lasts less than 90 minutes
• 15 officials 8 have PHDs
• Euphemisms
• Special treatment
• Bath house
• Arbeit Macht Frei
• Final solution

Villa at Wannsee
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Resettlement to the East

• Crowded cattle cars
• One suitcase of belongings
• People gathered
• volunteers
• forced
• actions
• transit centers
• ghettos
• Destination
• ghettos
• camps

Train car used in transport - Yad Vashem
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Ghettos

• Ghettos established by decree on Sept. 21, 1939
• Goals
• Isolation
• Forced labor
• Access murder/deportation
• Conditions
• Life directed by Judenrat
• Overcrowded
• Unsanitary/disease infested
• Starvation rations

Warsaw Ghetto Wall
Street in Warsaw Ghetto
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Types of Camps

• Concentration
• Forced-labor
• Transit
• Extermination or Death Camps

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Dachauestablished March 22, 1933
Barracks with beautification project line
of trees on the right
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Mauthausenestablished August 8, 1938
Stairs of Death
Carrying stones up the Stairs of Death
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WesterborkGerman control July 21 , 1942
Train depot inside the camp
Camp blueprint
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Auschwitz-Birkenauestablished May 20, 1940
Zyklon B Label used for gassings
Aerial view of Birkenau
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Perpetrators

• Nazi SS Schutzstaffel
• Death Heads Unit
• Heinrich Himmler
• Adolf Eichmann
• Joseph Mengele
• Einsatzgruppen
• Special action group
• 3000 troops in 4 units
• Goal make German controlled areas judenrein

Heinrich Himmler
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Einsaztgruppen
Execution of a group of Soviet civilians
Execution of a Ukrainian Jew
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Collaborators

• Indigenous police forces in France and
  Netherlands
• Hungarian troops/fascists
• Slovakian Hlinka Guard
• Ustasa Croatian Nationalists
• Anti-Soviet elements in
• Ukraine
• Estonia
• Latvia
• Lithuania

Ustasa militia execute prisoners near Jasenovac
camp
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Bystanders

• Person who is present, without being involved, at
  an incident where another life or dignity is in
  danger
• Did people living near camps know what was
  happening?
• What actions could have been taken to stop the
  Holocaust?
• What risks were involved in taking a stand
  against the Nazis?

Two German women file past corpses at newly
liberated Buchenwald
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Victims

• Not all victims were Jews but, all Jews were
  victims Wiesel
• 6,000,000 Jews
• 3,000,000 Soviet POWs
• 3,000,000 Catholic Poles
• 700,000 Serbs
• 250,000 Sinti Roma
• 70,000 Handicapped
• 12,000 Homosexual
• 2,500 Jehovah Winesses
• Each number is an INDIVIDUAL with goals, dreams,
  and families

Mania Halef, age 2 killed at Babi Yar
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Resistance

• Opposition to Hitler and Nazi ideology took many
  different paths which shared a common
  destination.

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Partisans

• Underground
• Oppose Nazis
• Many were anti-Semitic
• Selective membership
• Bielski Brigade
• Open Jewish membership
• Included all ages and genders
• White Rose
• Students at University of Munich
• Various Political Factions

Kalinin Jewish partisan unit (Bielski group)
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Spiritual

• Prayer Groups
• Torah Studies
• Religious Services
• Kosher Tradition
• Observance of Holidays
• Religious Literature
• Maintain the will to live

clandestine school in the Kovno ghetto
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Cultural

• Art
• Music
• Concerts
• Cabarets
• Operas
• Plays
• Literature
• Schools/Libraries
• Language
• Yiddish
• Hebrew

prisoners' orchestra in Buchenwald
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Hiding

• Bunkers
• Concerns
• Health
• Age
• Supplies
• Secrecy
• Assistance
• Denouncing
• Generosity of Others

hiding place for Dutch Jews
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Passing

• Physical appearance
• Cultural norms
• Language
• New residency
• Name
• Family history
• Societal expectations

Vladka Meed in Warsaw
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Righteous Among the Nations

• Gentiles who risked their own lives to save Jews
  honored at Yad Vashem
• Raoul Wallenberg
• Oskar Schindler
• Corrie Ten Boom
• Miep Gies
• Varian Fry (only American)

Raoul Wallenberg
Oskar Schindler with Ludmila Pfefferberg-Page
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Hiding/Destroying Evidence

• Distribution of confiscated belongings
• Transport stockpiled belongings and valuables
• Dismantle camps
• Physical destruction of Auschwitz-Birkenau
  crematoriums

Destroyed Crematorium in Birkenau
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Death Marches

• Forced marches to interior of the German Reich
• killed for impeding progress
• Death toll 250,000 - 375,000
• Starvation Wounded
• Sick Exposure
• Those considered unable to survive the march left
  behind
• Otto Frank in Auschwitz

death march from Dachau to Wolfratshausen
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Now the world knows

• Russia Majdanek July 23, 1944
• Auschwitz January 27, 1945
• British Bergen-Belsen April 15, 1945
• America Dachau April 29, 1945
• Germany Hitler suicide April 30, 1945
• America Mauthausen May 5, 1945
• VE Day WW II Ends May 8, 1945

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After the War
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Displaced persons

• Those who did not want to be repatriated placed
  in DP Camps
• German Army barracks
• POW camps
• Concentration Camps
• Bergen-Belsen
• Dachau
• 1957 Last DP Camp closed - located in Belgium

vocational training in displaced persons camp
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Bringing perpetrators to justice
Nuremberg defendants
Eichmann receives death sentence in Jerusalem
Amon Goeth Plaszow camp

• International military tribunal
• Crimes against humanity peace War
  crimes Conspiracy
• 161 convictions
• Trials within individual countries

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Some Holocaust Legacies

• Anti-Semitism
• Common tie between hate groups
• White supremacist organizations
• Political ideologies tied to Nazi Philosophy
• Hate Crimes

• Establishment of Israel
• UN acknowledgement of genocidal issues
• Importance of civil rights and individual
  freedoms
• Human Rights Organizations
• Holocaust Centers and Museums

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Share the lessons so Never AgainTRULY
meansNever Again