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The Holocaust. Definition / Alternative Names. The Holocaust (from the Greek) meaning ‘all-encompassing fire’ The Shoah (from the Hebrew) meaning ‘catastrophy’ The events describe the specific effort to exterminate a group of people in during World War II (specifically targeting the Jews).
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Definition / Alternative Names • The Holocaust (from the Greek) meaning ‘all-encompassing fire’ • The Shoah (from the Hebrew) meaning ‘catastrophy’ • The events describe the specific effort to exterminate a group of people in during World War II (specifically targeting the Jews).
Hitler’s Final Solution • The Allied countries went to war with Hitler because they refused to tolerate Germany’s political aggression in Europe. • Hitler’s Anti-Semitism was hardly a secret, but it was not a cause of war nor was it of great concern to the Allies. • It was not until the German retreat and the Allied Advance did Hitler’s Final Solution became evident to the world.
Hitler’s Final Solution • As the Allies began to take over land that was previously conquered by the Nazis, the Allies discovered strange prisons. • These prisons were populated by extremely malnourished inmates and the prisons were scattered with dead/rotting bodies. • These ‘death camp’ inmates had but one thing in common - they were The German Empire’s ‘undesirables’.
What Happened There? • A concentration camp was not a new concept. The idea of using prisoners as a workforce has long since been used by many countries (Canada included). • However, these were not typical concentration camps: • these camps were not full of prisoners of war • these camps were working people to death or outright killing them.
There were 6 Extermination Camps • Auschwitz – Birkenau • Chermno • Belzec • Maidanek • Sobibor • Treblinka
Death Camps • While other concentration camps may have brutalized and killed their inmates with little remorse, those ‘death camps’ sole purpose was the extermination of their inmates. • At first, all Jews/Undesirables were sent to concentration camps but from 1942 onward, most were sent directly to the extermination camps.
Methodical Genocide • Under Hitler’s orders, the Jewish people (along with Gypsies, Blacks, Homosexuals, Mentally Challenged, Physically Disabled, and other) were targeted for extermination. • His goal was to complete eliminated those that he felt did not fit into his definition of a master Aryan race.
Methods • Over the course of the war, Hitler was successful in exterminating over half of the Jews living in Europe: 6 million. • The extermination began in 1942. • Heinrich Himmler ordered the first extermination camp to be built in Poland to eliminate all Jews in this newly acquired territory.
The Evidence • In the beginning, the dead were buried in mass graves. • However, as the numbers grew to massive amounts, this proved to cumbersome and the dead were then cremated. • When enemy forces were advancing, the German’s began exhuming the corpses and burning them too to destroy any evidence of the genocide.
The Showers • The most common way exterminate the Jews was to use gas. • Jews were brought into a shower room and told they would receive a much needed shower. • However, instead of water coming through the shower-heads, poisonous gas dropped descended. • All those in the shower slowly shocked to death. • Those were managed to survive when the doors were opened were shot.
Efficiency • Some able-bodied Jews were sent to extermination camps to work in the extermination process. It was their job to carry the dead bodies from the gas chambers to the crematoriums. • The camps operated with minimal Nazi supervision. • The Nazis were very efficient in their extermination
Extermination Camps • The German forces surrendered shortly after Hitler’s suicide. • For their crimes against humanity, the Allies (lead by France, Britain, America and the Soviet Union) held Nazis responsible for their war crimes. • At Nuremberg (the location where Hitler stripped away the civil rights of all Jews) the Allies selected 25 high ranking Nazi members.
The Accused • Notable members include: • Hermann Goring - Head of Gestapo, Highest Ranking Nazi on trail (sentenced to death - committed suicide) • Hans Fritzsche - Worked in the ministers of Propaganda (Aquitted)
The Judges • There were a panel of 8 Judges: 2 American, 2 British, 2 Soviet and 2 French. • There were 4 prosecutors - one from each of the 4 Allied countries. • This military tribunal was designed to punish and humiliate a select few Germans (rather than all Germany, a lesson learned from Versailles)
The Defence • All defendants had the same plea of ‘Not Guilty’ as thy were just following orders. • Such a tribunal had never been attempted before – people had never been tried and convicted by the opposing army for crimes committed during the course of a war. • Some defendants were found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging. Other given term or life prison sentences. Others were acquitted. • Was this a good defence?
More Than Extermination • While the horrors of 6 000 000 Jews being killed is something impossible to fully comprehend, the Nazi’s crimes were even more evil than that. • Since the Jews were considered ‘less-than-human’ (though still kinda human), a few scientists were anxious to experiment on them.
Aribert Hiem Eduard Wirths Carl Vaernet
The Experiments • Twins • Muscle/Nerve Transplantation • Head injury • Freezing/Hypothermia • High Altitude Sickness • Experiments with poison • Malaria
Examples: • In research of how best to treat hypothermia, Jews were thrown in ice water and taken out after longer and longer intervals. This was done for up to 5 hours. • A boy of eleven of twelve was strapped to a chair so he could not move. Above him a mechanized hammer struck him on the head ever few seconds. The boy was driven insane from the torture.
Examples • In an effort to better understand transplantation, healthy subjects underwent bone, nerve and muscle transplant (usually without anesthesia) often leaving the subjects in agony, disfigured or dead. • Twins had dyes injected into their eyeballs in order to change their colour. • Twins were literally sewn together to create conjoined twins.
Examples • 90 Romanian subjects were only given sea water (salt water) to drink. They succumbed to licking newly mopped floors for hydration. • Subjects had injuries inflicted upon them (incendiary bomb, mustard gas, etc.) just to test possible treatments
Moral Implications • While these atrocities were committed by Nazi’s over 65 years ago (all those involved have long since died), it is still an a moral debate. • A lot of contemporary knowledge that science possesses is as a result of this Nazi research. • Is it right to use this knowledge?
