What is the Holocaust?ho·lo·caust noun

1 : a sacrifice consumed by fire,2 : a thorough destruction especially by fire. (i.e. a nuclear holocaust)3 a often cap. : the mass slaughter of European civilians and especially Jews by the Nazis during World War II -- usually used with the b : a mass slaughter of people; especially genocide.

The first two definitions explain the meaning of the word, the third shows that it has become a proper noun in theEnglish language. So is that all there is to it? Of course not.

Beyond the mere definition

The Holocaust is generally regarded as the

systematic slaughter of not only 6 million Jews, (two-thirds of the total European Jewish population), but also 5 million others. That is 11 million individuals mercilessly killed by the Nazi regime in a period of 11 years (1933-1945) due to racism and hate.

How could this happen?

I bet you are wondering…

Adolf hitlerdictator of germany

(1933-1945)

Looking for a Scapegoat

The Great Depression began in 1929 and

Germany was cast into even deeper poverty than from the Treaty of

Versailles and began looking for a solution.

Adolf Hitler knew his opportunity hadarrived.

The rise of the Nazi party• The Great Depression brought disunity to the political

parties in the Reichstag, Germany’s parliament. • With the economy in ruins, communism started to

appeal to many Germans.• Hitler, being part of a workers’ party (or Nazi party),

was determined to return Germany to its former glory, and therefore was extremely anti-communism.

• Hitler’s chief assets were his speech-making ability and a keen sense of what the people wanted to hear, which made him hugely popular among Germans.

• To prevent communism from rising to power, the Nazis burned down the Reichstag and blamed it on the Communists, which allowed Hitler to win the 1932 election by a landslide.

• In 1933, Hitler is sworn in as chancellor of Germany.

The Growth of Anti-Semitism

• Anti-Semitism is hostility toward or prejudice against Jewish people, which can range from individual hatred to institutionalized, violent persecution.

• Hitler hated Jewish people because he saw their successes where others had failed (like the art school he got rejected from), and therefore blamed them for the Great Depression and for Germany’s economic problems (rather than the Treaty of Versailles).

Propaganda  Information, ideas, or rumors deliberately spread widely to help or

harm a person, group, movement, institution, nation, etc..

This demonstrates an Aryan man conquering a Jew.

This cartoon shows a Jew persecuting

women.

Illustration from a children's book that says, "Jews are our

misfortune" and "How the Jew cheats." Germany, 1936.

"Remember what the Jews have done to our

people. You must ensure through your behavior that Jewry

never again has even the slightest influence

on our people."

German Propaganda:

“When you see this symbol…”

1935: Jewish students aremade fun of by their class. Thewriting on the blackboard says,“The Jew is our greatestenemy! Beware of the Jew!" Vienna, 1938:

A young boy is forced to paint

"Jew" on the wall of his father's

store.

*Humiliation was a part of the psychological warfare that Nazis used against

Jews.

• Jewish people were forced to wear the yellow Star of David patches and were highly persecuted by society.

• They were taken from their homes to live in fenced, disease-ridden ghettos (like Warsaw).

• From the ghettos, they were then shipped to concentration camps in crowded railroad cars for either forced labor or extermination.

• Camps were designed to eventually kill laborers through disease & starvation.

The Process

Starting in 1933, the Nazis enforced persecutionagainst Jews. Firstly, they forbade Jews from holdingpublic office. In 1935, they enforced the Nuremberg

Laws, which took away from the Jewish their Germancitizenship, their jobs, and also their property. To identifythe Jews, the Nazis forced the Jews to wear the yellow

Star of David. As a result, the Jews were heavily discriminated against.

Kristallnacht: "Night of Broken Glass"

On November 7, 1938, a Jewish youth named Herschel Grynszpan shot an employee of the German Embassy in

Paris to avenge his father's deportation, which caused Nazi leaders to launch a violent attack on the Jewish community,

murdering 91 Jews and deporting 30,000 Jewish men to concentration camps.

Jewish homes were ransacked, as were shops, towns and villages, as SA Stormtroopers and civilians destroyed

buildings and synagogues with sledgehammers, leaving the streets covered in pieces of smashed windows—the origin of the name "Night of Broken Glass." Kristallnacht became a

big step-up in the Nazi policy of Jewish persecution.

Concentration Camps• The first Nazi camps were within Germany,

and were primarily labor camps.

• Millions of concentration camp prisoners were killed through mistreatment, disease, starvation, overwork, or executed as unfit for labor.

• The majority were killed in gas chambers and crematoriums, although other means were used.

• The harsh conditions of the labor camps were intended to eventually kill those who weren’t selected to die in the death camps.

Map of the Concentration Camps

A view from the inside…

Jews waiting to be sorted into

groups (as laborers or to be immediately executed).

Being herded to their deaths.

Typical sleeping arrangements

within the camps.

These children were the victims of cruel medical experiments

performed in the camps.

Twins were particularly targeted for these brutal experiments.

The bodies of victims carelessly stacked in a cart.

2000 prisoners a week died from

starvation.

Victims’ clothes outside of a gas

chamber.

A crematorium used to burn the bodies of victims.

The first gas chamber at Auschwitz. Victims were told they were being showered and

deloused.

Nazi Atrocities

SS soldiers often took large

groups out into open fields to be

shot.

Children awaiting execution by the

Einsatzgruppen, or Mobile Killing Units.

A mass grave.There were six deathcamps: Auschwitz,Belzec, Chelmno,

Majdanek,Sobibor, and T.II.

The concentration camps were Bergen-Belsen, Buchenwald, Dachau,

Sachsenhausen, Treblinka, and

Theresienstadt, which were forced work camps

and not killing camps.

LIBERATION OF NAZI CAMPS• As Allied troops moved across Europe in a

series of offensives against Nazi Germany, they began to encounter tens of thousands of concentration camp prisoners in July of 1944.

• Surprised by the rapid advance by the Allied forces, the Germans attempted to hide the evidence of mass murder by demolishing the camps and forcing remaining prisoners to go on Death Marches.

• The Soviet, U.S., and British forces liberated all of the camps, but only after the liberation of these camps was the full scope of Nazi horrors exposed to the world.

The Aftermath• Nazi officers were taken to court and charged as

criminals of war in the infamous Nuremburg Trials.• Most were executed by public hanging or

sentenced to serve life sentences in prison.

• Hitler committed suicide in a war bunker along with his long-time girlfriend, Eva Braun.

Citizens of Linz, Austria view photos of Nazi atrocities.

SS men forced to crawl as survivors

and US soldiers watch.

Why was this able to happen?

The correlation between the remains of the camp andmillions dead could not be grasped even on personal inspection.This "double vision" was as much a story as the discovery of thecamp itself. The term came from the first Great War when falsepropaganda about German atrocities was widely reported. Manyremembered this and thought perhaps the reports coming fromEurope to the United States were false too.

However, most attributed the disbelief to simply the inability to

conceive the magnitude and detail of the horror. "Double vision“

was typical of many American officers in France, who infuriatedlocal populations by doubting and sometimes even scoffing atstories of German inhumanity.

Why study the Holocaust?

“If we don't learn from history, we are bound to repeat it."

Author Unknown

Nuremburg Trial Charges• Charge 1: Responsible for the murder of millions of Jews.• Charge 2: Placing these Jews, before they were murdered,

in living conditions designed to kill them.• Charge 3: Causing them grave physical and mental harm.• Charge 4: Taking actions which resulted in the sterilization

of Jews and otherwise preventing childbirth.• Charge 5: Causing the enslavement, starvation, and

deportation of millions of Jews.• Charge 6: Causing general persecution of Jews based on

national, racial, religious and political grounds.• Charge 7: Spoiling Jewish property by inhuman measures

involving compulsion, robbery, terrorism and violence.• Charge 8: That all of the above were punishable war crimes.

German AftermathFor breaking the Treaty of Versailles:

Germany was divided into four zones: the American, British, French, and Soviet Union.

The first three zones were grouped together as West Germany (the Federal Republic of Germany), and the Soviet Zone became East Germany (the German Democratic Republic).

West Germany became capitalistic and democratic, while East Germany became communistic.

• http://history1900s.about.com/od/coldwa1/a/berlinwall.htm

Websites to Explore

• The Holocaust Explained: http://www.theholocaustexplained.org/ks4/what-was-the-holocaust/#.VO5LHE1AR1s