1. WARM UP #7: Read the poem. What does it mean to be a silent bystander
WARM UP #7: Read the poem. What does it mean to be a silent bystander? How does this poem show the consequences of being just that?
First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out—
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
because I was not a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me—
and there was no one left to speak out for me.
Pastor Niemoeller

2. Antisemitism: hostility to or prejudice against Jews.
Political leaders who used antisemitism as a tool relied on the ideas of racial science to portray Jews as a race instead of a religion.
Nazi teachers began to apply the “principles” of racial science by measuring skull size and nose length and recording students’ eye color and hair to determine whether students belonged to the “Aryan race.”

3. Totalitarian State Paranoia and fear dominate
Government has total control over the culture
-Aggressive
-Capable of indiscriminate killing
Nazis passed
laws which
restricted the
rights of Jews—
Nuremberg
Laws

4. Totalitarian State The Nuremberg Laws:
stripped Jews of their German citizenship.
They were prohibited from marrying or having sexual relations with persons of “German or related blood.”

5. Totalitarian State
Jews, like all other German citizens, were required to carry identity cards, but their cards were stamped with a red “J.” This allowed police to easily identify them.

6. Totalitarian State
The Nazis used propaganda to promote their anti-Semitic ideas.
One such book was the children’s book, The Poisonous Mushroom.
After presenting this slide, teacher will provide handout with timeline of events during the Totalitarian State.

7. How did the Nazi decide who was Jewish?
At the Wannsee conference it was decided that if all three or four of the person’s grandparents were Jewish, then they were Jewish.
However, if only one or two of their grandparents had been Jewish then they were classified as a crossbreed.
In 1940, all Jews had to have their passports stamped with the letter “J” and had to wear the yellow Star of David on their jacket or coat.
Some historians believe that Hitler’s grandfather was Jewish. His Grandmother used to work for a rich Jewish landowner in Austria and it is believed that she had an affair whilst she worked as his house keeper. He later helped his son get a job as a civil servant. Some Psychologist but this down as being one of the possible reasons why Hitler hated Jews. However, it is interesting to note that the Jewish doctor who helped his mother whilst she was dying of cancer was dropped off at the Swiss boarder by the SS in 1940!

8. Persecution The Nazi plan for dealing with the “Jewish
Question” evolved in three steps:
1. Expulsion: Get them out of Germany
2. Containment: Put them all together in one place – namely ghettos
3. Annihilation: “Final Solution”

9. Persecution
Nazis targeted other individuals and groups in addition to the Jews:
Gypsies (Sinti and Roma)
Homosexual men
Jehovah’s Witness
Handicapped Germans
Blacks
Political dissidents
Teacher will now instruct and lead students in the “Other Victims” cooperative Learning Activity.

10. Persecution
Kristallnacht was the “Night of Broken Glass” on November 9-10, 1938
Germans attacked synagogues and Jewish homes and businesses

11. Prelude to the Final Solution
Einsatzgruppen were mobile killing squads made up of Nazi (SS) units and police. They killed Jews in mass shooting actions throughout eastern Poland and the western Soviet Union.

12. Change of Tactics: Einsatzgruppen
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.

13. The “Final Solution”
In January 1942, Himmler decided to change tactics once again and called a special conference at Wannsee.
At this conference, it was decided that the existing methods were too inefficient and that a new “Final Solution” was necessary.

14. Final Solution
The Nazis aimed to control the Jewish population by forcing Jewish people to live in areas that were called ghettos.
Ghettos were established across all of occupied Europe, especially in areas where there was already a large Jewish population.

15. Final Solution
Many ghettos were closed by barbed wire or walls and were guarded by SS or local police.
Jews sometimes had to use bridges to go over Aryan streets that ran through the ghetto.

16. Children Dying of Starvation in the Warsaw Ghetto
Evil is when a few good men decide to do nothing.

17. Final Solution
Life in the ghettos was hard: food was rationed; several families often shared a small space; disease spread rapidly; heating, ventilation, and sanitation were limited.
Many children were
orphaned in the
ghettos.

18. Final Solution
Death camps were the means the Nazis used to achieve the “final solution.”
There were six death camps: Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, Chelmno, Sobibor, Majdanek, and Belzec.
Each used gas chambers to murder the Jews. At Auschwitz prisoners were told the gas chambers were “showers.”

19. Where were the Death Camps built?
The work of the Einsatzgruppen
Why do you think that they located them here?
Remember that the black dots represent the work of the Einsatzgruppen; train rides took anywhere from 4.5 days to 18 days; train cars held anywhere from 50 to 200 people (depending on how many people there were); many died; used quick lime on the bottom of trains to avoid contamination (it would burn the feet of human cargo); Jews often had to pay to be transported

20. Auschwitz-Birkenau
Hair was used to cushion mechanical parts; however, when Germany was losing the war, they used it to weave blankets for the army; Elie Weisel

21. Auschwitz-Birkenau 500 to 2,000 people Zyklon-B Pellets
Zyklon-B: Cyanide pesticide was dropped in solid pellet form through pipes and released the gas when the pellets got wet; took 20 minutes for all to die; those closest to the gas died almost immediately; caused foaming from the mouth, bleeding from the ears, skin turned pink with red and green spots, half squatting; screaming and crying could be heard outside and scratch marks were found inside
Zyklon-B
Pellets

22. ‘Destruction Through Work’
Map of Auschwitz
New Arrivals
‘Showers’
‘Destruction Through Work’

23. Notice how the Death camp is set out like a factory complex
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
It is important t emphasis that the Death Camps were basically factories

24. The SS would try and pack up to 2,000 people into this gas chamber.
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 2,000 people into this gas chamber.

25. The Outside of the Gas Chamber
Notice the ovens are located near the gas chambers

26. Processing the Bodies
Specially selected Jews known as the Sonderkommando were used 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.

27. Dead bodies waiting to be processed

28. 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.

29. Destruction Through Work
This photo was taken by the Nazis to show just how you could quite literally work the fat off the Jews by feeding them 200 calories a day

30. Destruction Through Work
Same group of Jews 6 weeks later

31. Final Solution
There were many concentration and labor camps where many people died from exposure to the elements, lack of food, extreme working conditions, torture, and execution.

32. Death Marches

33. Number by Number—6 years
1939: WWII begins when Germany invades Poland
6,000,000+ Jews were murdered
-1,500,000+ Jewish children were murdered
5,000,000+ others were killed
1945: WWII ends when Germany (May 8) and Japan (August 14) surrender

34. Was the Final Solution successful?
The Nazis aimed to kill 11 million Jews at the Wannsee Conference in 1941
The Nazis managed to kill at least 6 million Jews.
Today there are only 2,000 Jews living in Poland (before WWII there were more than 3 million).

35. Jewish Death Statistics

36. Genocides Armenia 1915-1923 Darfur 2003-Present Cambodia 1975-1979
Rwanda 1994
Native Americans
Bosnia
Nanking
Ukraine (Stalin)
Pygmie 1998-Present
North Korea 1990-Present
Yemen 2011
Libya 2011
Syria 2011-Present