Night Background notes

1. "...to remain silent and indifferent is the greatest sin of all..." Elie Wiesel at 15 Night Background notes

2. Holocaust Dates to Remember • Jan 1933 – Adolf Hitler appointed Chancellor of Germany • March 1933 – Dachau concentration camp opened • April 1933 – Nazi’s boycott Jewish businesses • Gestapo is born • August 1934 – Hitler becomes Fuhrer • September 1935 – Nuremberg Race Laws decreed • http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/holocaust/timeline.html

3. Dates continued . . . • February 1936 – Gestapo placed above the laws • March 1936 – SS Deathshead division is established to guard concentration camps • March 1938 – Nazi troops enter Austria – Anschluss (union with Germany) • April 1938 – Jews forced to register wealth and property • July 1938 – US calls Evian Conference to house refugees – only Dominican Republic agrees to increase immigration quota • November 1938 – Kristallnacht – Night of Broken Glass – Jews fined for damages

4. More Dates . . . • March 1939 – Nazi troops seize Czechoslovakia • September 1939 – Nazis invade Poland • England and France declare war on Germany • Soviet Troops invade eastern Poland • All But My Life – Arthur complies with Summons to appear • In My Hands – Irene fights with the Resistance and is captured by the Soviets • April 1940 – Lodz Ghetto sealed off from outside world. • May 1940 – Germany invades France, Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg

5. November 1940 – Krakow and Warsaw Ghettos are sealed off • June 1941 – Nazis invade Soviet Union • Summer 1941 – Final Solution • September 1941 – first test of Zyklon-B gas at Auschwitz • December 7, 1941 – Japanese attack Pearl Harbor. • United States joins WWII declaring war on Japan and later on Germany

6. Spring of 1942 – Massive Deportations begin • All But My Life – Gerda is sent to Dulag • April 1942 – • In My Hands – Irene and Major Rugemer move to Lvov • Jan 1943 – First resistance by Jews in Warsaw Ghetto • March and April 1943 – New gas chambers opened at Auschwitz • June 6, 1944 – D-Day, Allied landings in Normandy • August 1944 – Last Jewish ghetto in Poland is liquidated with 60,000 Jews sent to Auschwitz

7. October 30, 1944 – Last use of gas chambers at Auschwitz • November 1944 – Nazis force 25,00 0 Jews to walk over 100 miles in rain and snow from Budapest to the Austrian border • November 25th – Himmler orders the destruction of the crematories at Auschwitz • Late 1944 – Oskar Schindler saves 1200 Jews.

8. Early 1945 – Nazis conduct death marches to move inmates away from camps • Jan 14, 1945 - Invasion of eastern Germany by Soviet Troops • Jan 17 – Liberation of Warsaw by Soviets • Jan 18 – Nazis evacuate 66,000 from Auschwitz • Jan 27 – Soviet troops liberate Auschwitz - app. 2 million killed there

9. 1945 • April 4 – General Eisenhower visits the liberated Ohrdruf camp • April 10 - Allies liberate Buchenwald • April 15 – app. 40,000 prisoners freed at Bergen-Belsen • April 30 – Hitler commits suicide - Americans free 33,000 inmates from camps

10. Definitions • Prejudice – An irrational hatred of a person, group or race based upon a preconceived opinion or judgment • Scapegoat – an innocent person, group or race who is blamed for the general problems of society and punished harshly for them • Genocide – The mass extermination of a very large group of people because of their nationality, race or religion. • Anti-Semitism – ill feeling or hatred toward the Jews • Stereotype – a generalization of a person who is regarded not as an individual but as a member of a group or nationality

11. Definitions, cont . . . • Holocaust - a burnt offering; the destruction of 6 million Jews in death camps from 1941-1945 • Nazi – The National Socialist German Workers Party • S.S. – The elite guard, or special force, of the Nazis headed by Himmler • Gestapo – The German secret police • Kapo – Brutal Jewish prisoners, controlled concentration camp inmates for Germans in exchange for special treatment

12. Elie Wiesel’s Lifehttp://www.eliewieselfoundation.org/eliewiesel.aspx • Born in 1928 in Sighet, Transylvania (now Romania) • 15 years old when he and family were deported to Auschwitz • Studied to become a journalist after war • Persuaded by French writer to write about his experiences

13. Since 1976 he has been a professor at Boston University • Member of the faculty in the department of Religion and Philosophy • 1986 won Nobel Peace Prize • Established The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity • American Citizen since 1963, lives with his wife in Connecticut • Night is the most widely read book detailing the events of the Holocaust.

14. Nobel Prize Speech I remember: it happened yesterday, or eternities ago. A young Jewish boy discovered the Kingdom of Night. I remember his bewilderment, I remember his anguish. It all happened so fast. The ghetto. The deportation. The sealed cattle car. The fiery altar upon which the history of our people and the future of mankind were meant to be sacrificed.I remember he asked his father: "Can this be true? This is the twentieth century, not the Middle Ages. Who would allow such crimes to be committed? How could the world remain silent?"And now the boy is turning to me. "Tell me," he asks, "what have you done with my future, what have you done with your life?" And I tell him that I have tried. That I have tried to keep memory alive, that I have tried to fight those who would forget. Because if we forget, we are guilty, we are accomplices. And then I explain to him how naïve we were, that the world did know and remained silent. And that is why I swore never to be silent whenever wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must take sides.