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DEATH CAMPS

DEATH CAMPS. All Polish death camps linked by rail to those parts of Europe marked to send Jews to their death Zyklon B gas was most efficient chemical killing agent First tried out on Russian pows in fall of 1941. COMMANDANTS SPEAK. Rudolf Hoess Commandant of Auschwitz

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DEATH CAMPS

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  1. DEATH CAMPS • All Polish death camps linked by rail to those parts of Europe marked to send Jews to their death • Zyklon B gas was most efficient chemical killing agent • First tried out on Russian pows in fall of 1941

  2. COMMANDANTS SPEAK • Rudolf Hoess • Commandant of Auschwitz • Demonstrated “pride” in his work • People who lived nearby knew what was going on • Everyone was destined to die • Some could postpone this fate by being in good enough shape to work • Proud of deception practiced at Auschwitz • Grossly corrupt Rudolf Hoess Franz Stangle Commandant of Treblinka

  3. OSKAR SCHINDLER • German from Sudetenland • Saved 1100 Jews by bribing SS officer • Made famous in movie “Schindler’s List” by Steven Speilburg

  4. BANALITY OF EVIL • Orchestra played at Auschwitz as people were marched to their deaths • Orchestra members chosen from camp inmates • Ordered to play “snappy tunes”

  5. IMAGES OF HORROR I

  6. IMAGES OF HORROR II

  7. IMAGES OF HORROR III

  8. IMAGES OF HORROR IV

  9. SONDERKOMMANDO • Some Jews had the job of accompanying victims to gas chambers, removing bodies and extracting gold from teeth and hair from bodies • Had little choice • Alternative would have been their own deaths • Normal standards of decency did not apply in camps

  10. JEWISH RESISTANCE I • Generational difference within Jewish community about issue of resistance • Each ghetto had a Judenrate • Made up of Jewish elders • Given limited power of self-government by Nazis • Selected those to go to death camps • Regarded resistance as useless and pointless • Younger Jews believed that Nazis should be resisted at all costs • Created tensions between younger and older generations in camps and ghettos

  11. JEWISH RESISTANCE II • Warsaw Ghetto Uprising • Sparked by decision by Himmler to destroy ghetto • From April 19-May 15, 1943 • Finally forced to surrender • Survivors joined Polish resistance

  12. JEWISH RESISTANCE III • Some Jews formed resistance bands • Others joined the Polish resistance • Often a problem because Jewish resisters were not always welcome by Poles • Other Poles took great risks to hide and help Jews • Roman Polanski

  13. EDUCATIONAL EFFORTS • Jewish culture and language preserved in ghettos • Set up special schools • Taught Yiddish • Jewish history • Hebrew • And other subjects • 4000 students attended Warsaw schools between 1940 and 1941 • No schools in the death camps

  14. THERESIENSTADT • “Model” camp, the only one where foreign observers were allowed • Reality was that it was a stopping place for Jews on their way to Treblinka or Auschwitz • Children’s art preserved in museum • Usually only days separated the production of these drawings and the death of the child artist in the gas chambers

  15. HUNGARY • Germans occupy Hungary because the dictator Miklos Horthy resisted Nazi demands to transport 400,000 Hungarian Jews to the death camps • March 1944 • Eichmann forces Jews to march to Auschwitz • Many die along the way • Remainder gassed at Auschwitz • 70% of Hungarian Jews killed

  16. TWO GLIMMERS OF HUMANITY Anne Frank Raoul Wallenberg

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