THE HOLOCAUST

BACKGROUND INFORMATION  The Holocaust was the systematic annihilation of six million Jews by the Nazis during World War 2.  In 1933 nine million Jews lived in the 21 countries of Europe that would be military occupied by Germany during the war.  By 1945 two out of every three European Jews had been killed.  This figure includes more than 1.2 million Jewish children, tens of thousands of Gypsy children and thousands of handicapped children. Copy Slide

6 MILLION JEWS 11 MILLION PEOPLE (TOTAL)

EUROPEAN JEWISH POPULATION IN 1933 WAS 9,508,340

ESTIMATED JEWISH SURVIVORS OF HOLOCAUST: 3,546,211

THEY WERE SHOT, STARVED, GASSED AND BURNED…

DEFINING THE HOLOCAUST HOLOCAUST (Heb., sho'ah) which originally meant a sacrifice totally burned by fire the annihilation of the Jews and other groups of people of Europe under the Nazi regime during World War II GENOCIDE : the systematic extermination of a nationality or group POGROM : An organized and often officially encouraged massacre or attack on Jews. Copy Slide

COLD HARD FACTS Casualties of the Holocaust: 63% of Jewish population in Europe killed 91% of Jewish population in Poland killed Auschwitz-Birkenau was liberated by Soviet troops on Jan. 27, The Soviets found 836, 255 women’s dresses, 348, 000 men’s suits, 38, 000 pairs of men’s shoes and 14, 000 pounds of human hair. But only 7, 650 live prisoners

WHY DID THIS HAPPEN? The Nazis believed that Germans were "racially superior" and that there was a struggle for survival between them and "inferior races. Jews, Roma (Gypsies) and the handicapped were seen as a serious biological threat to the purity of the "German (Aryan) Race" and therefore had to be "exterminated.“ The Nazis blamed the Jews for Germany's defeat in World War I, for its economic problems and for the spread of Communist parties throughout Europe Copy Slide

For hundreds of years Christian Europe had regarded the Jews as the Christ - killers. At one time or another Jews had been driven out of almost every European country. The way they were treated in England in the thirteenth century is a typical example. In 1275 they were made to wear a yellow badge. In Jews were hanged in the Tower of London. This deep prejudice against Jews was still strong in the twentieth century, especially in Germany, Poland and Eastern Europe, where the Jewish population was very large. After the First World War hundreds of Jews were blamed for the defeat in the War. Prejudice against the Jews grew during the economic depression which followed. Many Germans were poor and unemployed and wanted someone to blame. They turned on the Jews, many of whom were rich and successful in business. Jews were a SCAPEGOAT

WHO ELSE WAS TARGETED?  Slavic peoples (Poles, Russians and others) were also considered "inferior" and destined to serve as slave labor for their German masters.  Communists, Socialists, Jehovah's Witnesses, homosexuals and Free Masons were persecuted, imprisoned and often killed on political and behavioral (rather than racial) grounds  Millions more, including Soviet prisoners of war and political dissidents suffered grievous oppression and death under Nazi tyranny Copy Slide

HOW DID IT HAPPEN?  In the late 1930's the Nazis killed thousands of handicapped Germans by lethal injection and poisonous gas.  After the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, mobile killing units following in the wake of the German Army began shooting massive numbers of Jews and Roma (Gypsies) in open fields and ravines on the outskirts of conquered cities and towns.  Eventually the Nazis created a more secluded and organized method of killing enormous numbers of civilians -- six extermination centers were established in occupied Poland Copy Slide

AUSCHWITZ All over the world, Auschwitz has become a symbol of terror, genocide, and the Holocaust. It was established by Germans in 1940, in the suburbs of Oswiecim, a Polish city that was annexed to the Third Reich by the Nazis. Throughout the existence of the camp, the authorities there treated Jews with the most ruthless, and often quite refined, cruelty Copy Slide

AUSCHWITZ CON’T SS men regarded a Jewish life as the least valuable of all. To the greatest possible extent, Jews fell victim to starvation, cold, hard labor, constant harassment and abuse, and various kinds of cyclical extermination operations. Through the middle of July 1942, some of the transports arriving in Auschwitz were sent directly to the gas chambers, while other Jews, classified before deportation as fit for labor, were placed in the camp. Copy Slide

AUSCHWITZ CON’T By the second half of 1942, Jews made up a majority of the prisoner population. Auschwitz was also the final destination for about 300,000 Jews from occupied Poland, 73,000 from Slovakia, 69,000 from France, 60,000 from the Netherlands, 55,000 from Greece, 25 from Belgium, 23,000 from Germany and Austria, 10,000 from Yugoslavia, 7.5,000 thousand from Italy, and 690 from Norway. Copy Slide

AUSCHWITZ PHOTOS

After liberation, an Allied soldier displays a stash of gold wedding rings taken from victims at Buchenwald. Bales of hair shaven from women at Auschwitz, used to make felt-yarn.

Nazis confiscated property of prisoners in storerooms nicknamed “Kanada” because the sheer amount of loot stored there was associated with the riches of Canada

This Nazi propaganda poster reads, ‘Behind the enemy powers: the Jew. “ The Eternal Jew” Depiction of a Jew holding gold coins in one hand and a whip in the other. Under his arm is a map of the world, with the imprint of the hammer and sickle. Posters like this promoted a sharp rise in anti-Semitic feelings, and in some cases violence against the Jewish community. Copy Slide

MARTIN NIEMOLLER  When the Nazis came for the communists, I remained silent; I was not a communist.  Then they came for the trade unionists, I did not speak out; I was not a trade unionist.  Then they came for the Jews, I did not speak out; I was not a Jew.  When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me.

HANUKKAH DURING THE HOLOCAUST Rabbi Hugo Gryn, a leader of the Jewish community in Britain wrote this in his memories of the concentration camp during the Second World War as a boy of 14: ‘It was the cold winter of 1944 and although we had nothing like calendars, my father, who was a fellow prisoner there, took me and some of my friends to the corner of the barrack. He announced that it was the eve of Hanukkah, produced a curious shaped bowl, and began to light a wick immersed in his precious, now melted margarine ration. Before he could recite the blessing, I protested at the waste of food. He looked at me, then at the lamp, and finally said,’ You and I have seen that it is possible to live up to three weeks without food. We once lived almost three days without water, but you cannot live properly for three minutes without hope.