1. America
And The
Holocaust

2. Hitler believed that German “volk”, the German people were the best in the world.
From a Social Darwinist perspective he argued they possessed the best genes of any race.

3. Thus, one of the reasons Hitler hated the Jews was because he believed their inferior genes threatened the dominance of German genetics.

4. He, and the Nazis believed that if Jewish blood was allowed to mix with German, Aryan blood, the awesomeness of the German people would be destroyed.

5. The Nazis were forced to deal with “the Jewish Question
The Nazis were forced to deal with “the Jewish Question.” What should be done with the Jews to prevent them from destroying the German race? ?

6. In 1935, the Nazi Party passed the Nuremberg Laws
In 1935, the Nazi Party passed the Nuremberg Laws. These laws were designed:
To stop Jews and Germans from marrying.
To stop Jews and Germans from having sexual relations
To make sure that German blood was not tainted by mixing with other races

7. While Jews were seen as the primary problem, they weren’t the only group that might pollute German blood.

8. The Nazis also targeted:
Gypsies
Homosexuals
Jehovah’s Witnesses
Mentally and physically handicapped Germans
Teacher will now instruct and lead students in the “Other Victims” cooperative Learning Activity.
People of Slavic background (Eastern Europeans / Soviets

9. 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. “Final Solution”: annihilation

10. Expulsion
In order to convince Jewish business owners to leave, the Nazis encouraged Germans to destroy Jewish property.
The most famous example came on November 10, 1938 on Kristallnacht, or night of broken glass.

11. As a result of such violence and open hostility, those that could leave, got out. They left Germany for any place they could find.
Tillich

13. Expulsion
The U.S. accepted between 90,000 and 100,000 refugees including Albert Einstein, and Edward Teller. Why are these two important?

15. However, many Americans feared Jewish refugees would take jobs from Americans at a time when unemployment was already high. Remember in the U.S. was still dealing with the Great Depression.

16. An example of the dominant American attitude toward German Jews can be seen in the case of the ship St. Louis.

17. The St. Louis set sail from Hamburg Germany in May 1939 with 930 Jewish refugees. Their destination was Cuba.

18. In 1938 they could not enter the U. S
In 1938 they could not enter the U.S. under the quota system that had been established in 1924.
Thus, most planned to live in Cuba, only until they could legally enter the U.S. under the quota system.

19. Cuba, like the U.S., was still dealing with its own great depression in 1938 and did not want to admit more unemployed workers. Thus, the Cuban government denied the St. Louis the right to land in Cuba.

20. Having been denied entrance into Cuba, some passengers sent telegrams to the U.S. government, including President Roosevelt, asking for admission to the U.S. regardless of the quota law.

21. The American government refused, suggesting that those on the ship add their names to list of those from Germany hoping to be admitted under the existing quota law.
The U.S. Coast Guard was dispatched to make sure the St. Louis did not try to land in a U.S. port.

22. Having no other choice, the ship’s captain Gustav Schroeder turned the ship back towards Europe.
On the journey, Schroeder, a non-Jewish German, personally negotiated with various governments of Europe to allow those on the St Louis access to their nations.

23. The passengers aboard the St Louis resettled across Western Europe
The passengers aboard the St Louis resettled across Western Europe. However, as the Nazis began to expand in late 1939 into 1940, many of them were rounded up.

24. Those Jews who had not left were rounded up and forced to move into ghettos. This isolated them and got them out of Germany, as most ghettos were set up in Polish cities.
Containment

25. Containment

26. Containment
Maintaining these ghettos became too expensive for the Nazis to sustain. Another solution to the Jewish problem was needed.

27. Hitler placed Heinrich Himmler in charge of planning the final solution to the Jewish problem.
On January 20, 1942 Himmler called top Nazi officials to the German town of Wannsee to discuss his plans.

28. The Final Solution
At the Wannsee Conference Himmler set out the plan for the ultimate extermination of Jews in Europe.
The plan was to construct a series of concentration and extermination camps that would destroy European Jews with the utmost industrial efficiency.
Teacher will now show the clip from “Conspiracy.”

29. The Final Solution

30. The Final Solution
As the extermination of Jews accelerated, word began to spread to the Allies about the horrors of the camps.

31. As early as August, 1942, only eight months after the Nazis began the Final Solution, the U.S. State Department received information outlining Nazi plans.

32. By the spring of 1944, U.S. officials had been informed of the mass killings at camps like Auschwitz.

33. In 1944, President Roosevelt created the War Refugee Board to plan the rescue of those whose lives were at risk.
However, before the Board was organized to carry out any such action, 4/5th of those killed in the Holocaust were already dead.

34. Most Jews arrived at Auschwitz and the other camps by train.

35. To cripple the Nazi ability to exterminate Jews, all it would have taken would have been a few Allied bombers taking out the railroad tracks that fed the death camps.

36. As the camps were not military targets, the Army Air Corp refused to order any such bombing.

37. As Allied forces moved toward Berlin in 1945, they also began to liberate the camps. Only then, did the world really understand the horror of the Holocaust.

38. Fin.