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The Holocaust

Learn about the background, timeline, and impact of the Holocaust, as well as examples of anti-Semitism in Canada and the Japanese Internment.

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The Holocaust

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  1. The Holocaust “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing!” – Edmund Burke

  2. Background to Holocaust • For thousands of years Jews in Europe had suffered persecution and discrimination • Blamed by Christians for the crucifixion of Jesus • Maintained separate and distinct cultural communities throughout Europe • Before Hitler came to power, the Jewish community in Germany was well established and well integrated into German society • Significant contributions to German life and culture (literature, music, art, medicine, philosophy, science, etc…) • many thousand Jewish men fought in the WWI for the German Empire! • Irrationally Hitler blamed the Jews for the failure of WWI and the subsequent economic collapse of the German economy → “The Jews are our misfortune!”

  3. Holocaust Timeline • 1933 – general discrimination (burning Jewish books, advocates boycotting Jewish business • 1935 – The Nuremberg Laws → Official Laws specifically targeting the Jewish community • Legally defines a Jew → one Jewish grandparent • Jews are declared non-citizens – no legal rights • Forbids marriage of Jews and non-Jews • 1938 – The government sanctions the destruction of Jewish property • Kristallnacht – “Night of the Shattered Glass” – marks the true beginning of outright violence against Jews in Germany • Jews are forced to where Yellow Star, their businesses and property are confiscated • 1939 – Jews are forced into ghettos – most notorious was the Warsaw ghetto, established in Poland

  4. The “Final Solution” • 1941 – the Final Solution begins → genocide of Jews in Europe • Mass deportation of Jews to concentration camps begin • Mass murder of Jews in gas chambers • Bodies are cremated → holocaust (Greek word: Holos (whole) Kaustos (burnt) • As the German army advance through Europe, the Einsatzgruppen (elite SS death squads) would identify and execute Jews, communists and homosexuals • In total, over 6 million Jews were murdered and over 10 million people died in Nazi death camps!

  5. Executions of Kiev Jews by German army mobile killing units (Einsatzgruppen) near Ivangorod Ukraine.

  6. Selection of Jews at the ramp in Auschwitz-II (Birkenau), May/June 1944.

  7. Anti-Semitism in Canada • Canada also displayed racist & anti-Semetic attitudes at the official level • In 1939 the Canadian government sends Jewish refugees on board the St. Louis back to Germany to certain death • In 1945, a senior official, when asked how many Jews Canada would bring in after the war, responded “none is too many”

  8. The "St. Louis," carrying Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany

  9. Japanese and Chinese Canadians have a presence in Canada going back well before 1900 Asians have suffered a long history of prejudice and discrimination 1907 – race riots in Vancouver targeted Japanese and Chinese Canadians Japanese & Chinese Canadians were denied the right to vote or join armed forces Japanese Internment

  10. Japan became an enemy of Canada after the attack on Pearl Harbor 1941 22,000 Japanese Canadians living in B.C., 14,000 born here War Measures Act permitted the Canadian government to seize the property of Japanese Canadians, remove them from their homes and relocate them into “internment Camps” All their property was auctioned off to pay for the cost of their “internment”! Japanese Internment

  11. Does this sound familiar? • Japanese Canadians were… • Photographed and fingerprinted • Issued identification numbers • Required to carry their identification cards at all times • Sent to interment camps where they were forced to do labour • All resisters were sent to a “concentration camp” in Ontario where they were forced to wear “uniforms” bearing a large red circle – the emblem of Japan • Could not legally refuse to obey these regulations • During war years not one Japanese Canadian was ever charged with treason or sabotage!

  12. Japanese Interment

  13. Dr. David Suzuki – Former interment camp inmate

  14. Genocide Post WWII • After WWII the world community vowed it would never again tolerate such a hateful treatment of humanity • Since WWII attempted genocides have occurred in: • Cambodia • Kosovo • Rwanda • Darfur

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