Introduction to The Holocaust

1. Introduction to The Holocaust Steps to Genocide 1933 to 1945

2. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs,dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed withthe same food, hurt with the same weapons, subjectto the same diseases, heal'd by the same means,warm'd and cool'd by the same winter and summeras a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed?If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us,do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? - Shylock Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice Act III Scene I

3. Night

5. holocaust (noun): Greek word meaning “sacrifice by fire” The Holocaust (proper noun): The Holocaust was the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of approximately six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators.

6. The Holocaust (from the Greek ὁλόκαυστοςholókaustos: hólos, "whole" and kaustós, "burnt") Also known as the Shoah (Hebrew : השואה, HaShoah, "catastrophe"; Yiddish : חורבן, Churben or Hurban, Hebrew for "destruction")

7. genocide (noun): The crime of destroying a group of people because of their ethnic, national, racial, or religious identity Nazi target groups: Ethnicities: Jews & Gypsies (Roma), Nationalities: Slavs (Poles & Russians) “Degenerates”: homosexuals, the mentally & physically disabled Political rivals: communists & socialists Religions: Jehovah Witnesses & Jews Asocials: Anybody else who opposed the Nazis

8. Life Before the Holocaust Kielce's Market: Kielce Museum, Jewish artist P.Schultz

9. Anti-Semitism before the Holocaust • Jew as ‘the Other’ under Rome & early Christianity • Persecution during the Crusades • Creation of the ghetto (Venice 1517) • Blood libel charges • Martin Luther • Emphasis on conversion • Issue of Usury • Mass expulsions throughout Europe (1500-1900) • Prominence of the Other (professional accomplishments) • Change from Anti-Semitism based on religion to ethnic discrimination

10. Pale of Settlement in Russia • Est. 1791 by Czar Elizabeth II, under pressure to rid Moscow of Jewish business & ‘evil’ influence • 90% of Jews lived in 4% of land

11. Pogroms (E. Europe) Yiddish/Russian term for ‘devastation’

12. Jewish Reaction • Sought complete assimilation • Fought to be accepted at local and national levels (e.g. WWI service) • Maintained separate Jewish lifestyle Excerpt: Norman Salsitz, A Jewish Boyhood in Poland: Remembering Kolbuszowa

13. Four-tiered Social Structure Eastern Europe • Poles (Catholic) • Ukranian peasant (Russian Orthodox) • Volksdeutsch/Ethnic German – descendant of German settlers brought in during 18th century • Jews (Yiddish)

14. After World War I • Largest Jewish community was in Poland • Ukraine: Petlura Gang – 60,000 Jews killed • Germany: Weimar Constitution = democracy • Walter Rathenau, Minister of Reconstruction • Jews blamed for Germany’s humiliation • National Socialist German Workers’ Party

15. 25 Point Program • (Munich, 25 February 1920) • Creation of a Greater Germany • Return of Germany’s lost colonies • POINT FOUR: • None but members of the Nation may be members of the State. None but those of German blood, whatever creed, may be members of the Nation. No Jew therefore may be members of the Nation.

16. Adolf Hitler • 1920 #7 in the Nazi party • 1925 jailed for treason • 1925 first installment of Mein Kampf • Marxism & Judaism greatest threats • Redefined Aryan and Semitic • Excerpt: Mein Kampf • 1933 Chancellor of Germany

17. 1925-1933 Germany • Military organization within Nazi party established (SA, SS, Gestapo) • 1926 Hitler Youth • Inflation & unemployment began to rise • 1931 Rosh HaShanah – attack on Jews returning from synagogue; symbolic

18. 1933 • 5 February 1933 Emergency Decree • 27 February 1933 Reichstag fire • 28 February 1933 Emergency Order • March 1933 Dachau opened • 23 March 1933 Enabling Act • Einzeloperationen“individual operations” • Boycott of Jewish shops • Windows marked with Star of David or Jude • 7 April 1933 Order retirement (all non-Aryans) • Sachsenhausen & Esterwegen camps • Jews expelled from Universities (Einstein) • 10 May 1933 book burning, Berlin Opera House • October 1933 Law of Revolution at Dachau (hanging)

19. Jewish Reaction • Despair • Suicide • Some left Germany to W. Europe • 5000 emigrated to Palestine • Others waited

20. 1934-1935 • Intensified campaign to create Judenfrei villages • May 1934 Der Sturmer

21. Attempted legislation to prevent sexual relations between Jews and non-Jews • Redefinition of who is Jewish • New term: Christian non-Aryans • 15 September 1935 Nuremberg Laws • 1. Citizenship only belong to a national of German or kindred blood • 2. Jews were not of German blood; intermarriages forbidden • 3. forbid relations outside marriage between Jew and German • 4. Jews forbidden to fly German flag

22. 1936-August 31, 1939 • Assassination of Wilhelm Gustloff, head of Nazi party in Switzerland, THUS all police power centralized under Gestapo • One of events later used to justify Kristallnacht • March 1936 Przytyk pogrom, s. of Warsaw • Poles would be accustomed to such actions • Palestinian Arabs begin General Strike • Because British allowed Jews to emigrate in Palestine • Hitler into Rhineland (violating Versailles) • half of German Jews find refuge • Polish Jewry (c. 4 million) too extensive

23. The Eternal Jew 8 November 1937

24. 1938 • March 1938 Austria annexed (Anschluss) • Buchenwald opens • June 1938 burning of synagogues • 6 July 1938 International Conference at Evian – issue of refugees & avoid having a Jewish problem • September 1938 Sudetenland to Germany

25. Kristallnacht • 9 November 1938 • Impetus: Grynszpan affair (Paris) • 191 synagogues damaged • Jews fined for damage done Berlin, Germany Dortmund, Germany

26. December 1938 first train to Britain with German Jewish children • 3 May 1938 second ‘Jewish Law’: Hungary • Forbid Jews to be judge, lawyer, teacher … • 17 May 1939 Palestine White Paper • 75,000 Jews to Palestine in next 5 years • May 1939 plight of the St. Louis Canada • 23 August 1939 non-aggression pact between Nazi Germany & Soviet Union • If invade Poland, Soviet Union would do nothing 1 September 1939: Germany invades Poland: World War II begins

27. They came for the Communists, • and I didn't object • - For I wasn't a Communist; • They came for the Socialists, • and I didn't object • - For I wasn't a Socialist; • They came for the labour leaders, • and I didn't object • - For I wasn't a labour leader; • They came for the Jews, • and I didn't object • - For I wasn't a Jew; • Then they came for me • And there was no one left • to object. Martin Niemoller, (1892-1984 ) • German Protestant Pastor, & Nazi Political Prisoner from 1937 to 1945

30. Concentration camp prisoners wearing triangles and inmate numbers.

31. 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

32. Three Steps on the Road to Genocide: • You cannot live among us as Jews. • You cannot live among us. • You cannot live. Burning of Jewish books, including the Torah, 1934

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

34. You cannot live among us as Jews. Prejudiced Attitudes: Stereotyping Discrimination & Harassment Systemic Racism

35. You cannot live among us as Jews. anti-semitism (noun): hostility toward or discrimination against Jews as a religious, ethnic, or racial group Jewish caricature for anti-semitic Viennese magazine, Kikeriki, 1900 – The Jews try to conquer the world through a black market in grain.

36. 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

37. You cannot live among us as Jews. Eugenics: Based loosely on early 20th century understanding of the science of genetics, eugenicists believed that people should be bred as farmers breed animals: deliberately weeding out “inferior” traits through genetic selection. The Nazis believed that they could create a “a master race”.

38. You cannot live among us as Jews. Aryan race: The Nazis believed that people of Northern European ancestry – especially those with blue eyes and blonde hair – were superior to all other people, including people of African, Asian, and Middle-Eastern ancestry. In 1933, there were few people of African or Asian ancestry living in Germany. There were, however, 500,000 Jews who seemed to threaten “racial purity”.

39. You cannot live among us as Jews.

40. 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?

41. All were said by Adolf Hitler…

42. You cannot live among us as Jews. Above: “Juden Rause” (“Jews Get Out”), Nazi children’s board game A group at exit 2 are “off to Palestine”

43. 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

44. You cannot live among us as Jews. In 1934, Nazi scientists developed This kit, which contained 29 samples of human hair. The samples were used by geneticists, anthropologists, and doctors to determine ancestry. Hair colour also became a means to prove the supposed superiority of Aryans and the inferiority of Jews, Gypsies, and those of “mixed breeds”.

45. You cannot live among us as Jews. “The Eternal Jew” – a degenerate-art exhibition in Munich opened on November, 1937. The largest prewar anti-semitic exhibit produced by the Nazis, it depicted Jews as vile, subhuman creatures. The exhibit featured photographs pointing out the typically “Jewish” traits. The Jew was stereotyped as having a large hooked nose, enormous lips and sloping forehead.

46. You cannot live among us as Jews.

47. You cannot live among us as Jews.

48. You cannot live among us as Jews. Germans were suspicious of Jews who were seen as conspiring (with the help of communists) to take over the world.

49. You cannot live among us as Jews. On April 1, 1933, Hitler declared a one-day boycott of Jewish shops Many German citizens voluntarily participated

50. You cannot live among us as Jews. May 1933, Jewish books were burned in public bonfires