1. Thinking About Genocide
The holocaust

2. Background Long history of anti-Semitism Rise of Nationalism
Hatred of Jews
Blamed them for any failures or problems in society
Scapegoats
Responsible for the defeat in WWI and depression afterward
Rise of Nationalism
Be loyal to your nation above all else - Israel

3. Step by Step Toward Genocide
1933 – non-Aryans are not permitted to work government jobs
1935 – Nuremburg Laws are passed
Jews are no longer citizens
No rights, can’t own property or hold jobs
1938 – Kristallnacht
“the night of broken glass”
Nazis attack Jewish homes, businesses and synagogues
100 Jews killed, 30,000 arrested, hundreds injured
Germans later blame the Jews for the destruction of that night

5. Step by Step Toward Genocide
Jews try leave Germany but other countries are reluctant to take them in
France 40,000
Great Britain 80,000
Palestine 30,000
United States 100,000
Often the US only took “exceptional” people
Such as Einstein
MS St. Louis – refused access to the US
More refugees mean less jobs for Americans during the Great Depression

6. Step by Step Toward Genocide
1939 – The Final Solution
250,000 Jews in Germany at the time – millions more in the newly occupied territories
To preserve the purity of the Aryan race a policy of genocide was adopted by the government
Organized “Death Squads” that rounded up Jews and undesirables and shot them on the spot
Einsatzgruppen

7. The Final Solution
Ghettos – segregated areas in cities where Jews were forced to live
Were enclosed by fences and barbed wire
Groups with proper documentation were let out each day for forced labor factories
Shindler’s List
Very bad living conditions
Jewish resistance movements emerge

8. The Final Solution Concentration Camps –
Jews were rounded up from ghettos and sent by truck or train to labor camps
Crammed in like livestock
Most families were separated forever
In the camps were crude barracks that housed 1,000 people each
Horrible living conditions
Starvation, fleas, rats, disease, work
Forced to work until they collapsed – then shot

9. Death Camps – six camps were built in Poland specifically as extermination sites
1942 – extermination was ordered by the government
Belongings were taken and turned over to the government
Gas chambers disguised as group showers and then filled with poison gas – killed 12,000 people per day
Could be hanged, shot or injected with poison
Crematoriums to burn the bodies – ash would cover the camps
The Final Solution

11. The Final Solution
Some were kept to dig mass graves and haul bodies for disposal
Others were separated to be in medical experiments
Purposefully injected with germs to study disease
Practice methods of sterilization, amputation or experimental surgeries
Study how far the body can be mutilated and still survive
There were survivors! People with hope and spirit held on until the end of the war and camps were liberated by the Allied forces
Elie Wiesel – author
Wrote Night to share his experience

12. Effects 11 million people were killed during the Holocaust
6 million Jews
5 million other non-Aryan peoples
Other ‘inferior’ races or ‘undesirable’ peoples
Gypsies, freemasons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, mentally deficient, mentally ill, disabled/handicapped, Slavic peoples, prisoners of war and incurably ill
Decline in anti-Semitism
2/3 of Europe’s Jewish population was killed
Increased determination in the Jewish community to establish the nation of Israel

13. A New Order in Asia
Japan wanted to use its captured territories for raw materials to fuel the war (tin, oil, rubber)
Severe extraction policies
Forcibly took rice and shipped it abroad  over a million Vietnamese starve to death

14. A New Order in Asia
Set up indirect rule through local governments who would cooperate and work under Japanese control
Arrogance and contempt for local populations
No respect for the lives of occupied peoples or prisoners of war
Must bow in the direction of Tokyo, recognize the divinity of the Japanese emperor, local holy places used as latrines
Forced local people to serve in the military or work on public works projects
800,000 Koreans were sent to Japan as slave labor