2. 11 million people were exterminated

3. 6 million Jews 5 million non-Jews 1933 - 1945

4. They were shot,
starved,
gassed
and burned

5. Definitions
Genocide: The systematic annihilation of a political, racial, religious or cultural group
Holocaust: Wide spread complete destruction; especially by fire. It’s used to describe the catastrophe that be fell the Jews in W.W.II .
Sho’ah: A Hebrew word meaning mass slaughter. Use began once the term Holocaust began to be used more often outside of referencing the Jewish experience in W.W.II

6. How Can the Holocaust Happen?
The escalation of hate
The power of words and images
Steps to genocide

7. Escalation of Hate Genocide
Institutionalized, government sponsored racism
Genocide
Discrimination
Prejudice
Stereotyping

8. The Power of Words…
“The great masses of the people will more easily fall victim to a big lie than a small one”
“How fortunate for leaders that men do not think”
The victor will never be asked if he told the truth”
“ I believe today I am acting in the sense of the Almighty Creator. By warding off the Jews I am doing the Lord’s work”
What do all these quotations have in common?

9. All were said by Adolf Hitler…

10. The personification of the devil as the symbol of all evil assumes the living shape of the Jew”~Adolf Hitler
Hitler’s minister of propaganda Joseph Goebbels, links love of Germany with hatred of the Jews

11. How did they know who was Jewish?
November 1935 German churches begin to collaborate with Nazis by supplying records indicating who is Christian
State of the art data processing was used to take a census in all German territory. Early on the Nazis included questions on religious heritage
The machine allowed Nazi officials to tabulate huge amounts of data very quickly
German Hollenith Machine – a subsidiary of IBM

12. The Steps to Genocide Step 1
You can not live among us as Jews: Stripping of Rights
Step 2
You can not live among us : Segregation and Concentration
Step 3
You can not live: Extermination

13. Step 1: Stripping of Rights
1935: Nuremberg Laws – put restrictions on all aspects of
Jewish life. Some of the laws:
Ones you already know:
Outlined who was a Jew under the law
Stripped Jews of German citizenship
Marriages between Jews and Aryans forbidden
Some other restrictions:
Jewish holidays are removed from the German calendar
Forced to carry ID cards & passports stamped with a “J”
Forced to wear the arm band of the Yellow “Star of David”
Fired from jobs & businesses boycotted
Banned from German schools and universities
What impact will this have on Jewish life?

14. Step 2: Segregation & Concentration
GHETTOS- a confined area in a city or state in which Jews are forced to live
356 ghettos are established in Eastern Europe during WWII
Purpose
To separate, isolate and effectively control the Jewish population of Europe
Conditions
filthy, with poor sanitation and extreme overcrowding
Disease was rampant and food was in such short supply that many slowly starved to death
Warsaw, the largest ghetto, held 500,000 people and was 3.5 square miles in size

15. Nazi ghettos were a preliminary step in the annihilation of the Jews
Nazi ghettos were a preliminary step in the annihilation of the Jews. Ghettos became transition areas, used as collection points for deportation to concentration & death camps

16. Concentration Camps - Arrival
Camps were built on railroad lines for efficient transportation
Prisoners transported in cattle freight cars
All are given numbers- some have this tattooed on their wrist
All prisoners wore some kind of badge indicating their prisoner status

17. Concentration Camps - Life
heads were shaved
Prison uniforms worn
Men, women and children were separated
Limited food – about calories a day
Up to 10 people per bed
Unsanitary, disease ridden and lice infested barracks
inhumane medical experiments performed

19. Why Have Camps?
Essential to Nazi’s systematic oppression and eventual mass murder of enemies of Nazi Germany
Slave labor moved them towards their ultimate goal- “annihilation by work”
What was taken from Jews was used to provide goods for the German People

20. Step 3: Extermination Law for the Protection of Hereditary Health
Idea was to improve the quality of the German race
Nazi policy to eliminate those “unworthy of life” (mentally or physically challenged) to promote Aryan “racial integrity”
Policy halted in 1941 due to outcry within Germany
Einsatzgruppen
(mobile killing units) had began killing operations aimed at entire Jewish communities in the 1930s.
Thought to have killed as many as 1 million people in six months
Vigorous participation of local police helped facilitate the killing

22. “THE FINAL SOLUTION”
DEATH FACTORIES: Nazi extermination camps fulfilled the singular function of mass murder
Wannsee Conference (Berlin ) established the “complete solution of the Jewish question”
Called for the complete and mass annihilation and extermination of the Jews as well as other groups
Zyklon B gas became the most commonly used agent in the mass extermination
Reinhard Heydrich (right), who chaired the Wannsee conference, here with Heinrich Himmler.

23. Once selected, you began the process of extermination
Your luggage would be left for collection later

24. First you removed your valuables

25. Then you removed your shoes and clothes

26. Eyeglasses
Confiscated property from prisoners was kept in storerooms nicknamed “Kanada”. The sheer amount of loot stored there was associated with the riches of Canada

27. Then they removed your hair

28. Finally Prisoners were sent to gas chambers disguised as showers
Zyklon B gas used to gas people in 3 – 15 minutes
Up to 8000 people were gassed per day at Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest death camp with 4 operating gas chambers
Gold fillings from victims teeth were melted down to make gold bars
Prisoners moved dead bodies to massive crematoriums

29. Major Death Factories Sobibor - 250 000 Chlemno - 255 000
Majdanek
Belzec
Treblinka
Auschwitz-Birkenau –

30. Nearing the End of the War
By 1945, the Nazis’ began to destroy crematoriums and camps as Allied troops closed in
Death Marches (Todesmarsche): Between , Nazis ordered marches over long distances. Approximately – prisoners perished in Death Marches
On January 27, 1945, the Soviet army entered Auschwitz (largest camp) and liberated more than 7,000 remaining prisoners, who were mostly ill and dying.

31. European Jewish Population in 1933 was 9,508,340

32. Estimated Jewish Survivors of Holocaust: 3,546,211