1. Road to Hitler’s “Final Solution”
The Holocaust
Road to Hitler’s “Final Solution”

2. History of Anti-Semitism
Early animosity because they were first monotheistic faith
13th Century BC – Enslaved in Egypt
722 BC – Assyrians took them into captivity
586 BC – Babylonians invaded & destroyed their temple in Jerusalem & took them in captivity

3. Anti-Semitism continued…
198 BC – Syrian Greeks turned their temple into a shrine for Greek God Zeus & executed Jews
19 CE – Romans expelled Jews from Rome; heavily taxed them & forced them to move (Diaspora)
Approx. 200 CE – Blamed for Jesus’s death & creates tensions with Christians (followers of Jesus)

4. Anti-Semitism continued…
1096 CE – Christians on the way to the crusades against the Muslims, attacked Jewish areas (10,000 slaughtered in 6 months during First Crusade)
12th Century CE – Jews had very limited way of making $ because they couldn’t own land, so they become moneylenders. The Catholic Church considered it a sin to charge interest for lending $  stereotype of Jews

5. Anti-Semitism continued…
Mid-14th Century CE – Blamed for deliberately poisoning the wells causing the Black Death plague
1480 CE – Spanish Inquisition – religious courts that punished non - Christians. Spanish forced Jews to convert, or must leave.
Late 1800s – In Poland & Russia, Jews were murdered in organized gov’t mass killings called pogroms

6. How the Holocaust began
1933 Hitler gains control of Germany
Hitler used the history of European anti-Semitism (discrimination against Jews)
Blamed Jews for problems
Used propaganda to get support
Persecution became Nazi gov’t policy in 1933

7. Nuremberg Laws 1935 Banned Jews from gov’t jobs
Deprived German Jews of their rights of citizenship
Jews could not have relationships with Aryans
Charts were created to determine who was Jewish

8. A “full Jew” was someone with 3 Jewish grandparents

9. Laws continued…
Gov’t contracts could not be given to Jewish businesses
“Aryan” doctors could only treat “Aryan” patients
Jews had to wear a bright yellow Star of David on their clothes at all times
A large letter “J” had to be imprinted on their passports

10. “Germans! Defend Yourselves! Do not buy from Jews!”

12. Kristallnacht November 9, 1938 “Night of Broken Glass”
Nazi violent attack on the homes, businesses, & synagogues within the Jewish communities across Germany
Around 100 Jews killed
Hitler blamed the Jews for the violence

17. Refugees
As Jews realized that violence would only increase, many went to other countries
France accepted 25,000
Britain accepted 80,000
40,000 to Latin America
100,000 to the U.S.
Then all refused Jews

18. Ghettos
Hitler ordered Jews in all countries under his control to be moved into ghettos (segregated Jewish areas)
Ghettos were closed in with barbed wire, wooden fences, and brick or stone walls
They were very overcrowded, filthy, & disease ridden
The goal was for the Jews inside to starve or die from diseases

19. Ghettos continued… Guards were stationed at all openings
Jews were not allowed to leave the “Jewish residential districts”
Penalty for leaving was death
Nazis established 356 ghettos between 1939 – 1944
Warsaw was the largest ghetto, it held 400,000 Jews

20. Forceful move to a Ghetto

21. Forceful move to a Ghetto

22. Entrance to a Ghetto

23. Guards for the ghetto

24. The wall around a ghetto

25. The wall around a Ghetto

26. The “Final Solution”
Hitler decided to implement a faster way to kill Jews
“Final Solution” was Hitler’s program of genocide (systematic killing of an entire people)
Hitler sent SS killing squads to round up the Jewish people
Took them to isolated areas, and shot them into mass graves

28. “Final Solution”…
However, bullets were too costly and the process was not fast enough SO….
Others were taken to two types of camps
Concentration camps were the forced labor camps
Extermination camps were designed for mass murder
Doctors determined who would die that day
Used gas chambers and ovens for mass killings

31. “Work Will Set You Free” Gates at Auschwitz

32. Forced Labor on 200 calories per day

33. …6 weeks later

34. Gas Chambers

35. Wedding Rings

36. Ovens

37. Jewish population before, and after the Holocaust

38. Victims 6 million Jews (1.5 million were children under 12)
5 million “other undesirables”
TOTAL: 11 Million