1936-1945 *This Presentation Contains Many Graphic Images The Holocaust 1936-1945 *This Presentation Contains Many Graphic Images

Nazi Ideology Racism was the central theme of Nazi ideology. It motivated German policy in occupied countries and resulted in the Holocaust. Hitler was obsessed with racial purity, his beliefs in German supremacy, and his idea of the master Aryan race. He outlined his plan for world domination in his book Mein Kampf (My Struggle), published in 1925.

The Aryan Race

Persecution of the Jews Persecution officially began on April 1, 1933. Nazis boycotted Jewish businesses, put up propaganda posters and painted Stars of David on Jewish store fronts. A series of laws was put into effect, singling out Jews. These laws defined, isolated, excluded, segregated, and impoverished German Jews.

The Nuremberg Race Laws, 1935 Jews were forbidden to hold government jobs. They were stripped of their citizenship. Jews were forbidden to marry Aryans. They had to wear the Star of David at all times. They had to give up valuables and property.

The Nazis Burned Books by “un-German” Authors Books by Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Thomas Mann (Nobel Prize winner,) and Stefan Zweig were burned. Also burned were books by Jack London, Ernest Hemingway, Upton Sinclair, Jon Dos Passos, Theodore Dreisler, Sinclair Lewis, Karl Marx, Lenin, Trotsky Helen Keller, Margaret Sanger, and Magnus Hirschfeld.

Kristallnacht or the Night of Broken Glass Berlin, Germany April 16, 1941

Broken Windows in a Jewish Business Kristallnacht. The night of broken glass. Broken Windows in a Jewish Business

A Destroyed Synagogue Burned synagogue.

Burning synagogue.

The Ghettos Ghetto - a part of a city, especially a slum area, occupied by a minority group or groups.

Guards in Front of the Warsaw Ghetto

One of the most famous photos from the Holocaust, of the unidentified little boy holding his hands in the air while a guard points a gun at him. This was in the Warsaw Ghetto in Poland. The Warsaw Ghetto

Ghetto Life This man is eating a meal of watery soup from a cooking pot. Jews were starving from lack of food. Many people were crammed into a small area and fenced in. The food ration for one day was only 300 calories.

Homeless Children in the Ghetto

The Mass Killing Begins

The Death Squads During World War II, the Nazi’s created Death Squads. These were mobile killing squads—up to 3,000 men each—usually composed of 500-1,000 functionaries of the SS and Gestapo. Their mission was to kill Jews, Polish intellectuals, Romani, communists and the collaborators in the captured territories often far behind the advancing German front.

Awaiting Execution

The Concentration Camps and Death Camps

Transport

Roll call. Standing in formation for hours on end.

Barracks

Loading an Ill Prisoner into a Truck Prisoners being loaded into a lorry.

Starving prisoners.

The Gas Chambers

Shower Head in the Gas Chamber There were shower heads in the gas chamber so it looked like a real shower. When the hermetically sealed door slammed shut, the prisoners were trapped. There are still fingernails embedded in the walls of the chambers where the dying prisoners tried to climb to the last fresh air.

This Gas Chamber Was Designed to Look Like a Shower Room in a Gymnasium..

Auschwitz Prisoner Uniforms A Gas Chamber at Auschwitz

Auschwitz Smokestack of the Crematoria The Crematoria or Oven Used to Burn Prisoners’ Bodies

The Angel of Death Dr. Josef Mengele, Camp Physician of Auschwitz He decided who lived and who died. He personally conducted terrible medical experiments at Auschwitz. He was especially interested in twins.

Medical Experiments The Nazis experimented to see what range of temperatures the human body could withstand. They also tested flight suits, parachutes, and tested to see what changes in air pressure a human being could tolerate.

Liberation

Prisoners celebrating liberation.

On April 12, 1945, Generals Dwight D. Eisenhower, Omar Bradley, and George Patton visited Ohrdruf concentration camp. Eisenhower wrote to Chief of Staff General George Marshall, to report, “….the things I saw beggar description.” The evidence of starvation and bestiality was “so overpowering as to leave me a bit sick.” Eisenhower visited “every nook and cranny.” It was his duty, he said, “to be in a position from then on to testify at first hand about these things in case there ever grew up at home the belief… ‘that the stories of Nazi brutality were just propaganda.’” Eisenhower issued an order for every American unit in the area to visit the camp.

Living skeletons.

“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out-- because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade-unionists because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me--and there was no one left to speak for me.” Pastor Martin Niemoller

More than six million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust.