World War II and the Holocaust

1. World War II and the Holocaust What led up to it and what actually occurred

2. The Aftermath of WWI: 1918 • The Treaty of Versailles: As the big loser in WWI, Germany had to pay many consequences. • Reparations: the payments Germany had to make for the loss and damage it had caused other countries– this plunged Germany into economic ruin.

3. The Aftermath of WWI:1918 and on • National Socialist German Workers Party: the Nazi Party, slowly came to power as a result of Germany’s economic ruin.

4. The Aftermath of WWI:1918 and on • Adolf Hitler: leader of the Nazi Party. He claimed Germans were a superior race and they should raise Germany out of economic ruin by remembering their great heritage. He also blamed the Jews for the misfortune of the German people.

5. The Aftermath of WWI:1918 and on • Anti-Semitism: the prejudice and hostility towards Jews as a racial, religious, or ethnic group. This prejudice had existed in Europe for hundreds of years. Hitler played on this prejudice to help further his causes.

6. 1933 • The Nazis became the strongest power in Germany and started changing the laws. • They eliminated democracy and established a dictatorship under Hitler. • A dictatorship is when one man rules with whatever means he has.

7. 1933 continued • Boycotts of Jewish businesses began this year. • Hitler locked up and tortured political opponents, and he spread propaganda about the benefits the Nazi party was bringing to Germany. • Propaganda is the deliberate method of trying to influence the beliefs and behaviors or large numbers of people through speeches, pictures, political cartoons, and other means.

8. Examples of propaganda against the Jews

9. 1934-1937 • By 1934, Hitler had absolute control of Germany. • He began changing Germany’s laws to make Jews second-class citizens. They could not own land or enter most professions. This forced many to leave their important positions in areas such as schools, banks, and politics.

10. 1934-1937 continued • By 1935, Hitler’s laws, called the Nuremburg laws, formally removed Jews from high-ranking positions and prevented marriage between Jews and Christian Germans. • Hitler’s law enforcement included: • The Gestapo: plain clothed police that had absolute power • The SS (Special Defense for Hitler) – the Nazi police (Darth Vadar suit)

11. 1938 • Jews had to start wearing a yellow badge on their clothing: a six-pointed star, otherwise known as the Star of David. • Germans started rounding up Jews and placing them in ghettos. • Ghettos were characterized by the lack of basic necessities and great number of people living in a small space. Disease and starvation were rampant.

12. Pictures of Jewish Ghettos A German policeman checks the identification papers of Jews in the Krakow ghetto. A typical room in a ghetto. The Lvov ghetto, shown here in the spring of 1942, was established in late 1941 with 106,000 people.

13. 1938 continued: Kristallnacht(Night of Broken Glass) • Nov. 9. 1938- Nov. 10, 1938 • In retaliation for the poor treatment his Jewish family received at the hands of the Nazis, a 17-year old boy in Paris shot and killed a member of the German Embassy staff. • In return: -7500 Jewish businesses are destroyed -101 synagogues are ruined -100 Jews are killed -Thousands are sent to first camps

14. 1939 • Germany invades Poland despite warnings from the League of Nations and Britain. • Britain and France (the Allies) declare war on Germany. • Japan, the Soviet Union, and Italy enter the war on the side of Germany. They became known as the Axis powers.

15. During the war:1941-1943 • The United States enters the war. • Germany attacks the Soviet Union (although on the same side) and initiates the Final Solution. • The Final Solution is the Nazis’ plan to destroy all of the Jewish people in Europe.

16. During the war:1941-1943 continued • Some of these concentration camps, such as Auschwitz, were death camps. The prisoners there were forced to go through selections to determine who would be killed in the gas chambers.

17. During the war:1941-1943 continued • Sometimes these selections were random, but they often depended on whether the prisoner was strong and fit to work, despite the lack of food and medical care. • The dead bodies were incinerated in the crematoriums, or furnaces. • The term Holocaust meansburnt whole, or complete destruction.

18. During the war – continued • Dr. Mengele: a Nazi war doctor that performed gruesome experiments on humans – such as how much pain they could withstand. Medical personnel experiment on a prisoner at the Buchenwald Concentration camp.

19. Resistance • Resistance against the German Nazis was difficult because Jews were isolated as a result of anti-Semitism in Europe and German propaganda. • However, some Jews did resist, including: • Armed resistance in the ghettos • Jews who hid or passed themselves off as Aryans • Subtle forms such as trying to stay alive and clean, and holding on to their beliefs and hope.

20. Physical Resistance

21. The tides start to turn: 1944 • Germany invaded Hungary and Romania and began shipping the Jews of those countries to death camps. • However, Germany was also losing territory in 1944, and the Allies were gaining ground.

22. 1944 continued • Hitler was turned back in the Soviet Union, and the Russians began reclaiming territory, such as Poland. • Since many of the camps were in Poland, the Nazis had to move the prisoners west through the snow. Many Jews died on these death marches.

23. The end: 1945 • In 1945, the Allies liberate the camps and Germany surrenders. • The whole world finally sees the enormous atrocities committed by the Nazis. • 6 million Jews died in the Holocaust, one fifth of the European Jewish population. • At least 5-9 million other people were also killed because of the Holocaust, including Gypsies, Poles, Slavs, Jehovah’s Witnesses, disabled, political prisoners, gays, and lesbians.

25. Night by Elie Wiesel

26. Elie Wiesel • Born in 1928 in Sighet (part of Romania) • In 1945 he is freed from Buchenwald by Allied forces. • 1958: he publishes Night • Since 1976, a literature professor, teaching "Literature of Memory.“ • Nobel Peace Prize 1986