The Holocaust

1. The Holocaust • The State sponsored, systematic persecution and annihilation of European Jewry by Nazi Germany and its collaborators between 1933 and 1945. Jews were the primary victims – 6 million were murdered. • From the Greek word meaning “a sacrifice by burning.” • In Hebrew the term “shoah” is used, meaning “catastrophe.”

2. The Holocaust was Unique: • Never before had a government, one that had prided itself on its own citizens’ high level of education and culture, sought to define a religious group as a race that must be eliminated throughout an entire continent, not just within a single country. • Never before had a government harnessed the immense power of technology for such destructive ends, culminating in the horror of Auschwitz – a death camp that, at its peak, “processed” 10,000 Jews a day. • Never before had a government summoned their best and brightest people to mobilize destruction and used mobile killing units (Einsatzgruppen) to systematically kill approximately 1.5 million individuals in 2 years. • Never before had a government sought to dehumanize a group through such a devastatingly thorough and systematic use of propaganda that included the use of film, education, public rallies, indoctrination of the youth, radio, newspapers, art and literature.

4. Bystanders (85%) Victims Rescuers (< 0.5%) Perpetrators (< 10%)

5. The Victims It is true that not all victims were Jews, but all Jews were victims.- Elie Wiesel, 1995

6. Extermination Deportation Ghettoization Confiscation Exclusion Identification

7. Unemployment in Germany 1928-1933

8. Inflation in Germany

9. Birth of the Nazi Party • In 1919 Hitler joined the fledgling “German Worker’s Party.” • In 1920 he took control of the group and changed the name to the National Socialist German Worker’s Party, National Sozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter Partei, NSDAP, or Nazi for short. • It was here that Hitler discovered two remarkable talents: public speaking and inspiring personal loyalty. German propaganda postcard showing an early Hitler preaching to the fledgling Nazi Party. Assembly of the Nazi Party, 1922, Coburg, Germany

10. The Nazi Party, political unknowns, promised the German people a solution to their hunger and poverty: Work & Bread. • After the Nazis came to power, public works programs similar to those initiated by FDR’s “New Deal” stimulated the German economy. • Prior to World War II, average Germans credited the Nazis with their improved standard of living. “Work and Bread!” Nazi Party election poster from the early 1930’s.

11. Enabling ActMarch 23, 1933 • Hitler won the office of Chancellor in a legal fashion, but he was determined to rule Germany without the restraints of a democratically elected parliament. • The Enabling Act was a special power allowed by the Weimar Constitution that gave the Chancellor and his cabinet the power to pass laws by decree for a specified period of time, without Reichstag involvement. It was only to be used in times of emergency. • Because it altered the constitution, passing the Enabling Act required a 2/3 majority vote of the Reichstag. This was achieved by Nazi maneuvering. • The Enabling Act gave Hitler’s government dictatorial powers for four years. German Reichstag in session.

12. Crucial Divisions of Nazi Party SA (Storm Troopers, Brown Shirts, Sturmabteilungen) – 1921 SS(Protective Squad, Schutzstaffel) • SD(Security Service, Sicherheitsdienst) - 1931 • Gestapo(Secret State Police, Geheime Staatspolizei) - 1933 • Death’s Head Units (Totenkopfverbande) - 1936 • Special Action Groups(Einsatzgruppen) - 1938 • Waffen SS(ArmedSS) - 1940 Mass roll-call of SA and SS troops. Nuremberg, November 11, 1935

13. Anti-Jewish Policies How can such a monstrous crime as the Holocaust occur? It begins when people start thinking of themselves as ‘us’ and of others as ‘them’. - Ted Gottfried, Deniers of the Holocaust Goals: • social death of Jews • removal of Jewish presence/influence from German society Means of Accomplishment: • verbal assaults • physical assaults • legal/administrative restrictions

14. Nuremberg LawsSeptember 15, 1935 Reich Flag Law • Official colors of the Nazi state are black, red, and white. • The national flag is the swastika flag. • Jews are forbidden from flying the German flag. Reich Citizenship Law • German citizenship is denied to Jews. They are given the status of “subjects.” • Jews can not vote, own property, operate a business, or be paid wages as employees. Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honor • Forbids marriage or sexual relations between Jews and Germans. • Bans employment in Jewish homes of any German female under 45 years of age.

15. The November DecreeNovember 14, 1935 * 1st Degree Mischlingewould be considered Jews if they met any of the following criteria: - practiced the Jewish religion - were married to a Jew - or were children born after September 15, 1935 to one Jewish parent and one German parent

18. American Immigration1820-2000

21. The Ghettos • Definition: any section of a city or town in which members of a minority group live or are restricted by economics or discrimination. • The first ghetto was established in Venice in 1516 when the Church ordered that walls be built around the Jewish Quarter. • The word “ghetto” means “foundry” or “iron works.” In Venice, the ghetto was near a foundry that produced cannon balls. • The establishment of ghettos was the first step in the Nazi extermination plan for the Jews of Eastern Europe. They served as assembly and collection points for Jews.

22. More than 800 ghettos were established by the Nazis in Eastern Europe.

24. Jews at forced labor constructing the wall around the Krakow ghetto. 1941 Polish and Jewish laborers construct a section of the wall that separated the Warsaw ghetto from the rest of the city.

25. Invasion of France: May 13, 1940 • Dunkirk Dunkirk Evacuation at Dunkirk, June 4, 1940 Ardennes Forest • France was the country Hitler most wanted to conquer and humiliate. • France’s military was larger and more technologically advanced than Germany’s. • The German army entered France just north of the Maginot Line through Luxembourg and the dense Ardennes Forest of Belgium. • The Allied forces in Belgium found themselves surrounded and were forced to retreat to Dunkirk.

26. The Armistice with was signed on June 22, 1940 on the very spot of Germany’s humiliating surrender at the end of World War I. • A separate agreement was reached with Italy, which had entered the war against France on June 10, well after the outcome of the battle was beyond doubt. • France was divided into 2 zones: - An occupied zone in the north, under German control, with Paris as the official capital. - An unoccupied zone in the south under the control of a collaborative French government led by Marshal Pétain, with the town of Vichy as the administrative center.

28. List of countries presented at the Wannsee Conference, with the number of Jews who were to be deported to their deaths. Almost half of these countries never came under German rule or control.

29. Types of Concentration Camps • Labor Camps • Prisoner of War Camps • Transit Camps • Extermination Camps

30. Extermination Camps 100,000 Victims

31. Obstacles to Resistance • Superior armed power of the Germans. • German tactic of “collective responsibility.” • Secrecy and deception of deportations. • Family ties and responsibilities. • Absence of a non-Jewish population willing to help.

32. Jewish Resistance To smuggle a loaf of bread – was to resist. To teach in secret – was to resist. To cry out in warning and shatter illusions – was to resist. To rescue a Torah Scroll – was to resist. To forge documents – was to resist. To smuggle people across borders – was to resist. To chronicle events and conceal the records – was to resist. To hold out a helping hand to the needy – was to resist. To contact those under siege and smuggle weapons – was to resist. To fight with weapons in streets, mountains, and forests – was to resist. To rebel in death camps – was to resist. To rise up in ghettos, among the crumbling walls, in the most desperate revolt – was to resist. Taken from a wall on resistance at the Ghetto Fighters House.

33. Jewish Losses TOTAL :5,596,029 * *These are minimum losses as reported by Yehuda Bauer and Robert Rozett, "Estimated Jewish Losses in the Holocaust," in Encyclopedia of the Holocaust (New York: Macmillan, 1990), p.1799. The estimated number of Jewish fatalities during the Holocaust is usually given between 5.1 and 6 million victims. Despite the availability of numerous scholarly works and archival sources on the subject, Holocaust related figures may never be definitely known.

34. Nuremberg Defendants 1. Conspiracy to Commit Crimes 2. Crimes Against Peace 3. War Crimes 4. Crimes Against Humanity

35. 1. Conspiracy to Commit Crimes 2. Crimes Against Peace 3. War Crimes 4. Crimes Against Humanity

36. 1. Conspiracy to Commit Crimes 2. Crimes Against Peace 3. War Crimes 4. Crimes Against Humanity

37. What Motivated Rescuers? • Some sympathized with the Jews. • Some were actually antisemitic, but could not sanction murder or genocide. • Some were bound to those they saved by ties of friendship and personal loyalty, while some went out of their way to help total strangers. • Some were motivated by their political beliefs or religious values. • Some felt ethically that life must be preserved in the face of death. • For some there was no choice, what they did was natural and instinctive. Many rescuers felt they were simply acting out of elemental human decency. They later insisted that they were not heroes, that they never thought of themselves as doing anything special or extraordinary.

38. Methods of Rescue • Hiding a Jew in one’s house or on one’s property. • Supplying forged ID’s or ration cards. • Finding employment. • Smuggling people from one place to another. • Providing food or clothing.

39. Individuals Who Rescued Irena Sendler Miep Gies Oskar Schindler with some of those he rescued. 1946. Betsie, Corrie, Nollie and Willem Ten Boom American Friends Service Committee (Quakers) Andre Trocmé and his wife Magda

40. Governments that Rescued Bulgaria Denmark Finland Hungary Italy Vatican United States Danish fishermen ferry Jews to safety in neutral Sweden during the German occupation of Denmark. 1943.

41. Antisemitism in the U.S. Emergency Rescue Committee: May 1940 November 1938 After Kristallnacht, an overwhelming majority of the American public was shocked by Nazi actions, but according to polling data, 85% of the public still opposed any change in our restrictive immigration quotas. 1939 Roper Poll 39% Jews should be treated like everyone else 53% Jews are different & should be restricted 10% Jews should be deported Varian Fry, on assignment for the Emergency Rescue Committee, briefs rescuees on escape routes.

42. America & the Holocaust The Nazis were the murderers, but we were the all too passive accomplices. - David Wyman, Holocaust Scholar • Antisemitism in the U.S. Emergency Rescue Committee: May 1940 • The Bund Report: June 2, 1942 The Riegner Telegram: August 8, 1942 • The Bergson Group: 1942/43 • Jan Karski: July 1943 War Refugee Board: January 22, 1944 • Why Auschwitz Was Not Bombed? • The New York Times Theodor Seuss Geisel February 24, 1942

43. The New York Times • The Times deliberately de-emphasized news of the Holocaust, reporting it in isolated, inside stories. • During the six years of World War II, The New York Times published 1,186 stories about what was happening to the Jews of Europe; however, these stories only made thefront page 26 times out of 24,000 front-page stories, June 27, 1942 The Times made a statement with their editorial judgments. Other news organizations took their cues from The Times.