D. Banks

Remembrance of the Holocaust

On January 20, 1942, Hitler came up with the plan to slaughter every European Jew; this plan was called the Final Solution. On October 4 all European Jews in concentration camps were to be sent to Auschwitz- Birkenau. An estimated 1,100,000 Jews were murdered in Auschwitz. Mass executions of Jews were used by poisonous gases. Full scale gassings did not occur until June 23. Auschwitz is a place that should be remembered for all those who died there

Lace, William W. “Military Opposition.” The Nazis. 1998. Print

Auschwitz- Birkenau

Auschwitz- Birkenau

Main entrance to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp.

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/media_ph.php?MediaId=1051mp.

In Germany 1933 started the beginning of book burning. Book burning was the burning of bibles, prayer books, and traditional Jewish works. Non-Jewish poets, writers, and thinkers books were burned as well. Hitler thought that these books were “corrupting” the Aryan race. The burning of these books were made to look like spontaneous actions. “Where they would burn a book, they will burn people.” was a saying that meant where there was a Jewish work, there was a Jewish person.

Wigoder, Geoffery. “Book Burning” The Holocaust. 1997. Print

Book Burning

Book Burning

Scene during the book burning in Berlin's Opera Square

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/media_ph.php?MediaId=8194

Thousands of people were sent down the path Himmelfanrtstrass. Prisoners were tricked into going to the gas chamber by being told they were going to go take a shower. Upon entering the chamber, males and females were separated and the males were killed first. Females had to get their head and body hair shaved off before going into the chamber. Gas chambers were only used if they were available and 700 people could go in at once. Zyklon B were used to kill the prisoners. Gas chambers were a cruel way to the Jews.

Downing, David. The Nazi Death Camps. Milwaukee, WI: World Almanac Library, 2006. Print

Gas Chamber

Gas Chambers

A postwar view of the gas chambers at Stutthof

http://digitalassets.ushmm.org/photoarchives/detail.aspx?id=1047073

During the Holocaust Jews were not the only people who were murdered. Gypsies were among the group of people whom Hitler thought of as a lower race. Gypsies were disliked mainly because they were thought of as stealers and dishonest people. Numberg laws deprived many gypsies of their civil rights. 30,000 gypsies were transported to Generalgouvernement. 90,000 were sent to Yugoslavia. Over 90% of the gypsies were considered to be mischlionge (of mixed blood), so why were so many being killed?

“Gypsies.” Holocaust. 2001. Print

Gypsies

Gypsies

A Romani (Gypsy) victim of Nazi medical experiments to make seawater potable

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/media_ph.php?MediaId=917

Kristallnacht is known as the night of broken glass. Kristallnacht occurred in the late 1938s. Kristallnacht was about three years after Hitler passed the Anti-Semitic laws. Almost 100 Jews were murdered and 30,00 were arrested. Synagogues, Jewish homes, and businesses were burned. Many say that Kristallnacht was not the end of Jewish suffering, but it was more like the beginning.

Mara, Wil. Kristallnacht. Tarrytown, NY: Marshall Cavendish Corporation. 2010. Print

Kristallnacht

Kristallnacht

The Boerneplatz synagogue in flames during Kristallnacht (the "Night of Broken Glass")

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/media_ph.php?MediaId=3158

The Warsaw Ghetto held about half a million Jews. 45,00 were employed for slave labor, while in the ghetto. Jews were malnourished, cold, beaten, and they were kept in disease filled apartments. Each apartment could hold up to 15 people and six to seven per room. In the Warsaw ghetto 6,000-9,000 Jews were killed by Zylon B, but many died before being executed. Jews were forbidden to teach, study or even do religious ceremonies. On April 19, 1943 the final attack on the Warsaw Ghetto began. All Jews that were still alive were liberated.

Stewart, Gail. Life in the Warsaw Ghetto. Sand Diego: Lucent Books, Inc., 1995. Print.Keller, Ulrich. The Warsaw Ghetto in Photographs. Canada:

General Publishing Company, LTD, 1984. Print

Warsaw Ghetto

Warsaw Ghetto

An emaciated child eats in the streets of the Warsaw ghetto.

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/media_ph.php?MediaId=1041