The Holocaust – Causes, Course and Consequences

1. The Holocaust – Causes, Course and Consequences Chapter 20

2. What Will I Learn? • Discuss the significance of genocide • Explore the causes, course and consequences of the Holocaust • Explore the Nature of History

3. What is the Significance of Genocide? What is genocide? Genocide is the deliberate killing of a large number of people, particularly from a different nation or ethnic group. Do you think all of the examples in this cartoon are genocides? See Skills Book p. 176

4. Are All These Examples of Genocide in the Modern World? The Holocaust Armenian Genocide Select one of the genocides of the 20th or 21st centuries (except the Holocaust) and research its causes (why it happened) and consequences (the results of what happened).

5. The Khmer Rouge in Cambodia

6. Rwandan Massacre

7. Darfur Genocide Bosnian Genocide

8. What were the Causes of the Holocaust? Holocaust – the deliberate killing of millions of Jews and others by the Nazis before and during World War II See Skills Book p. 177

9. The Nazis and the Jews Source 3 Nazi propaganda The Jewish race is much inferior to the Negro race. All Jews have crooked legs, fat bellies, curly hair and a suspicious look The Jews were responsible for the [First] World War All Jews are communists German school textbook Source 1 Nazi racial ideas The Nazis based their hatred of the Jews on racial ideas or racism. They said all characteristics were handed down through race. …. Source 2 What is anti-Semitism? Anti-Semitism is the term used when people are prejudiced against Jews just because they are Jewish. Anti-Semitism is a modern racial term that was invented in 1879 by a German journalist called Wilhelm Marr. However, anti-Jewish feelings are much older than that. … (www.theholocaustexplained.org)

10. The Nazis and the Jews Source 5 Hitler’s views Hitler remarked: ‘Out with the Jews from all the professions and into the ghetto with them; fence them in somewhere they can perish as they deserve while the German people look on, the way people stare at wild animals.’ General Wiedemann, Hitler’s adjutant, 1935

11. Steps towards the Holocaust Source 7 Jewish population in Europe in 1933 Source 6 The Évian Conference 1938 From July 6 to 15, 1938, representatives from 32 countries met at the resort town of Évian, France, to discuss the issue of Jewish immigration from Nazi Germany. …. In the end, the Évian Conference showed Germany that no one wanted the Jews, leading the Nazis to a different solution to the ‘Jewish question’ – extermination. (www.thoughtco.com/evian-conference-jewish-immigration-1779274) Source 8 The Final Solution The Wannsee Conference was held in January, 1942, near Berlin. It brought together 15 high-ranking Nazi Party and German government officials to discuss and implement the so-called ‘Final Solution of the Jewish Question’ (mass killing). … (www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005477)

12. The Extermination Camps

13. How was the Holocaust Carried Out? • Jews confined to ghettoes • e.g. Warsaw ghetto • Sent to concentration camps • Plan to send Jews to island of Madagascar • Use of killing squads of SS in Soviet Union • Final Solution – exterminate all Jews • Wannsee Conference to organise the killings • Six extermination camps • e.g. Auschwitz • Use of exhaust fumes • Use of poisonous gas – Zyklon-B • Death marches Anne Frank

14. The Extermination Camps Source 2 Belzec After the train arrived, a loudspeaker gave instructions: ‘Strip, even artificial limbs and glasses. Hand all money and valuables in at the ‘valuables’ window. Women and young girls are to have their hair cut in the ‘barber’s hut’…’ Stark naked men, women, children and cripples passed by. SS pushed them into the gas chambers. ‘Fill it up’, (Captain) Wirth ordered. 700 to 800 people in 93 square metres. All were dead after thirty-two minutes [from the exhaust gases of the diesel engine]. … (Kurt Gerstein, a Nazi officer in Belzec extermination camp, giving evidence at the war crimes trials after the war) Source 1 Auschwitz At Auschwitz the incoming prisoners would be marched past one of the doctors, who would make spot decisions as they walked by. Those who were fit for work were sent into the camp. Others were sent immediately to the extermination plants. Children were always exterminated since because of their youth they were unable to work. (Rudolf Höss, commandant of Auschwitz extermination camp, captured by the British at the end of the war) See Skills Book p. 178

15. The Extermination Camps The entrance to Auschwitz Source 3 Deaths in the Extermination Camps Glasses collected from Jews before they were gassed.

16. How was the Holocaust Carried Out? See Skills Book p. 182

17. What were the Consequences of the Holocaust? Create your own mind map on the Consequences of the Holocaust using the above features See Skills Book p. 183