Schindler's List: A Powerful Film about the Holocaust

2. It won 7 Oscars and 7 BAFTAs when it was released 20 years ago. Schindler’s List is one of the most famous films ever made.

3. View Schools Film Montage Watch the trailer

4. What could you work out from the clips?

5. What do you know about the Holocaust?

6. The Holocaust, also known as Shoah (from the Hebrew for ‘the catastrophe’), was the systematic, bureaucratic, state sponsored persecution and slaughter of approximately 6 million Jews by the Nazis and their collaborators during World War II (1939-45). There were about 1.6 million Jewish children, ranging from infants to teens, living in Europe at the start of World War II. Of these, only about 11 percent survived the war.

7. Communists Socialists Gypsies Homosexuals Disabled – physically and mentally. It was not just Jews who were persecuted. Other minorities who were targets of the Nazis included:

8. The Nazis, led by Adolf Hitler, believed that anyone who could be labelled as ‘racially inferior’ needed to be ‘cleansed’ in order to protect the ‘Aryan race’. Racial Superiority

9. Anti-Semitism Anti-Semitism, that is prejudice, hatred of, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage, has existed for centuries. • One of the four sources on the next slides comes from Hitler’s book “Mein Kampf” (My Struggle) published in 1925. Can you tell which one? • The others were written in - 1543, 1881 and 1920. Can you sort out the different sources into their correct order? • Finally, one of them appeared in an English newspaper. Can you tell which one?

10. ATheir synagogues should be set on fire and whatever does not burn up should be covered or spread over with dirt so that no one may ever be able to see a stone of it... Their homes should be broken down and destroyed passport and travelling privileges should be absolutely forbidden to the Jews ... all their cash and valuables should be taken from them. To sum up ... if this advice of mine does not suit you, then find a better one and we may all be free of this insufferable devilish burden - the Jews. BI must certainly regard the Jewish race as the born enemy of pure man and of all nobility in them and am convinced that we Germans in particular will be destroyed by them.

11. CThis worldwide Jewish conspiracy for the overthrow of civilisation and for the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development ... has been steadily growing. D Should the Jew ... triumph over the people of this world, his crown will be the funeral wreath of mankind, and this planet will once again follow its orbit through ether, without any human life on its surface, as it did millions of years ago. And so I believe that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty creator. In standing guard against the Jew I am defending the handiwork of the Lord.

12. When were they written? 1543, 1881, 1920 or 1925 (from Hitler’s “Mein Kampf”) A Their synagogues should be set on fire and whatever does not burn up should be covered or spread over with dirt so that no one may ever be able to see a stone of it... Their homes should be broken down and destroyed passport and travelling privileges should be absolutely forbidden to the Jews ... all their cash and valuables should be taken from them. To sum up ... if this advice of mine does not suit you, then find a better one and we may all be free of this insufferable devilish burden - the Jews. BI must certainly regard the Jewish race as the born enemy of pure man and of all nobility in them and am convinced that we Germans in particular will be destroyed by them. CThis worldwide Jewish conspiracy for the overthrow of civilisation and for the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development ... has been steadily growing. D Should the Jew ... triumph over the people of this world, his crown will be the funeral wreath of mankind, and this planet will once again follow its orbit through ether, without any human life on its surface, as it did millions of years ago. And so I believe that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty creator. In standing guard against the Jew I am defending the handiwork of the Lord.

13. Answers A Their synagogues should be set on fire and whatever does not burn up should be covered or spread over with dirt so that no one may ever be able to see a stone of it... Their homes should be broken down and destroyed passport and travelling privileges should be absolutely forbidden to the Jews ... all their cash and valuables should be taken from them. To sum up ... if this advice of mine does not suit you, then find a better one and we may all be free of this insufferable devilish burden - the Jews. Martin Luther 1543 B I must certainly regard the Jewish race as the born enemy of pure man and of all nobility in them and am convinced that we Germans in particular will be destroyed by them. Richard Wagner 1881

14. Answers C This worldwide Jewish conspiracy for the overthrow of civilisation and for the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development ... has been steadily growing. Illustrated Sunday Herald 1920 D Should the Jew ... triumph over the people of this world, his crown will be the funeral wreath of mankind, and this planet will once again follow its orbit through ether, without any human life on its surface, as it did millions of years ago. And so I believe that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty creator. In standing guard against the Jew I am defending the handiwork of the Lord. Adolf Hitler 1925

15. Propaganda is the use of the Media to aggressively promote one point of view. It involves ‘brainwashing’ of the public and convincing them of an ideological viewpoint. Anti-Jewish Propaganda The Nazis used anti-Semitic propaganda over a long period of time to influence the German population into regarding the Jews as untrustworthy and subhuman. This made their persecution of them much easier.

16. A front page caricature from Der Sturmer, No.7, 1935, showing Jewish butchers making sausages from rats.

17. Poster: "Behind the enemy powers: the Jews" Nazi propaganda often portrayed Jews as engaged in a conspiracy to provoke war. Here, a stereotyped Jew conspires behind the scenes to control the Allied powers, represented by the British, American, and Soviet flags.

18. "The Eternal Jew" exhibition Through their control of cultural institutions such as museums, under the Reich Chamber of Culture the Nazis created new opportunities to disseminate anti-Jewish propaganda. Most notably, an exhibition entitled Der ewige Jude (The Eternal Jew) attracted 412,300 visitors, more than 5,000 per day, during its run at the Deutsches Museum in Munich from November 1937 to January 1938. Special performances by the

19. Poster advertising the antisemitic film Derewige Jude ("The Eternal Jew"), ca. 1940 Fritz Hippler, the president of the Reich Film Chamber, directed this film with input from German Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels. A pseudo-documentary, it included scenes of Jews shot in the Warsaw and Lodz ghettos by propaganda company crews attached to the German military.

20. The education system was used to promote anti-Semitism: ‘In my great educational work I am beginning with the young. My magnificent youngsters! With them I can make a new world!’ Adolf Hitler

21. Teachers in Nazi Germany Membership of the Nazi Teachers’ Association became compulsory after 1933. MeinKampf This made the process of indoctrination much easier for the Nazi Party, with teacher’s being only too willing to pass on Nazi Ideas within the classroom. 32% of teachers by 1936 were also members of the Nazi Party itself. Those teachers who were thought to be lacking in loyalty and not willing to ‘defend without reservation the National-Socialist state’ were sacked.

22. Virtually all Jewish teachers were dismissed in 1933 as it was deemed ‘undesirable’ to allow Jewish teachers to teach ‘Aryan’ pupils. This was made possible by the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service. Some teachers remained as teachers in Jewish schools until these schools were banned altogether in 1942. Those teachers who taught in ‘Aryan’ schools, however, suffered increasing levels of harassment and by 1935 no Jewish teachers were left in these schools at all.

23. Michael Burleigh and Wolfgang Wippermann, ‘The Racial State’, 1991 ‘Jewish children were often insulted by teachers and pupils, and subjected to malevolent injustices. They had to sit at separate desks, and were often forbidden to play with ‘Aryan’ children during breaks…Jewish children could only escape harassment if they had the chance to attend a Jewish school. Jewish communities, and the Reich Representation of German Jews, did everything possible to expand the existing Jewish schools or to create new ones. In 1942, these were forbidden too.’

24. Children’s books were also used to spread anti-Semitism.

25. Cover of an antisemitic children's book published by DerStürmer-Verlag in 1936, entitled Traukeinem Fuchs auf grünerHeid und keinem Jud beiseinemEid (Trust No Fox in the Green Meadow and No Jew on His Oath). The book contains page after page of anti-semitic verses and illustrations. It was widely read and typical of publications used in German classrooms to teach Nazi racial theories.

26. Page from The Poisonous Mushroom This photograph shows a page from one of several anti-semitic children's books published by Julius Streicher'sDerStürmer-Verlag. The text reads, "The Jewish nose is crooked at its tip. It looks like the number 6."

27. Page from an anti-semitic colouring bookOne page of an anti-semitic colouring book widely distributed to children with a portrait of a Jew drawn by the German caricaturist known as Fips. In the upper left hand corner is the DerStürmer logo featuring a Star of David superimposed over a caricature of a Jewish face. The caption under the star reads: "Without a solution to the Jewish question, there will be no salvation for mankind."

28. What was happening to Jewish children in school should not be viewed in isolation. The persecution of Jewish people within Germany accelerated alarmingly between the years 1933-45. Kristallnacht Lack of Civil Rights Violence Boycott Nuremberg Laws Identity Badges Sacked from Jobs Property Confiscated

29. 1933 Boycott of Jewish shops, Jewish Civil Servants were dismissed, a ban introduced stopping Jews from inheriting land. Many school text books were altered to contain anti-Semitic messages. 1935 The Nuremberg Laws made it illegal for Aryans to have sexual relations with, or marry, Jews. Jews were no longer allowed to attend public swimming baths, parks and restaurants. Public buildings were closed to Jews and no Jew was allowed to join the army. Jews are to be known as ‘subjects’ not citizens of Germany. 1938Kristallnacht – Jewish shops, homes and synagogues attacked and some destroyed. Many Jewish people were killed and injured. Jews no longer had the right to choose their child’s name (it had to be chosen from an approved list) and they were no longer allowed to trade. 1941 All Jews had to wear the Star of David (a large yellow six pointed star) on their coats. Ghettoes were set up where Jewish families were forced to settle before being moved on between 1941-45 to Concentration Camps.

30. Jews were not the only group excluded from the vision of the “national community”. The Nazi regime also singled out people with intellectual and physical disabilities. This poster is promoting the Nazi monthly Neues Volk.

31. The caption reads: "This hereditarily ill person will cost our national community 60,000 Reichmarks over the course of his lifetime. Citizen, this is your money." This publication, put out by the Nazi Party's Race Office, emphasised the burden placed on society by those deemed unfit.

32. This marginalisation of those considered undesirable by the Nazi regime led to genocide, murder on a mass scale.

33. Genocide Genocide, as defined by the United Nations in 1948, means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national ethnic, racial, or religious group, including: • Killing members of the group; • Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; • Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; • Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; • Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

34. The Nazis used a variety of methods to carry out genocide against the Jews, including: Einsatzgruppen (mobile killing squads), gas vans and gas chambers.

35. These were mobile killing units that carried out mass murder operations in Eastern Europe. Large groups of people were rounded up and forced to dig trenches. They would then stand on the side, or be forced to lie down on top of other bodies in the trenches, and were shot. Einsatzgruppen

36. The Einsatzgruppen kept meticulous records of many of their massacres, and one of the most infamous of these official records is the Jager Report, covering the operation of Einsatzkommando 3 over five months in Lithuania. Written by the commander of Einsatzkommando 3, Karl Jager, it includes a detailed list summarising each massacre, totalling 137,346 victims, and states: "…I can confirm today that Einsatzkommando 3 has achieved the goal of solving the Jewish problem in Lithuania. There are no more Jews in Lithuania, apart from working Jews and their families.“

37. There seems to be general agreement that the Einsatzgruppen killed about 1.25 million people in the period 1941-42 in Nazi occupied Poland and the USSR. • You are going to watch a film about the Einsatzgruppen. • You are now going to watch a clip of ‘Friends’ actress Lisa Kudrow talking about what she discovered about her family’s experiences in the Holocaust when making her episode of the TV programme ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’

38. Victims were herded into converted lorries and vans and taken for a drive. The carbon monoxide produced by the engine was then pumped into the van killing all the people inside. The vans were used to kill around 500,000 people, primarily Jews, but also Romani and others. Gas Vans

39. You are going to watch a clip(from 3.46) from Jerry Springer’s episode of ‘Who Do You Think You Are’ which shows what he learned about his grandmother’s death in the Holocaust.

40. Transport trains delivered Jews, and others, to extermination camps from all over Nazi-occupied Europe, the most infamous of which was Auschwitz in Poland.. When the trains arrived selections took place and about 3/4 of the total were selected to die immediately in the gas chambers. Gas Chambers

41. This included almost all children, women with children, all the elderly, and all those who appeared on brief and superficial inspection by an SS doctor not to be completely fit.

42. To prevent panic, the Nazis told them they would be taking a shower. Instead, the disguised showerheads gassed the prisoners to death using Zyklon-B pellets.

43. Zyklon B, a poisonous gas made from hydrogen cyanide crystals, was originally manufactured as a strong disinfectant and for pest control. The SS used Zyklon B for mass extermination in the gas chambers in an effort to satisfy Hitler's demand to annihilate all European Jews.

44. Those inside the gas chambers died within 20 minutes, the speed of death depending on how close the inmate was standing to a gas vent. During the deportation of Hungarian Jews in the spring of 1944, Auschwitz-Birkenau reached peak killing capacity: as many as 6,000 Jews each day. 

45. Many of those not killed on arrival in the gas chambers died of starvation, forced labour, lack of disease control, individual executions, and medical experiments. 1.1 million people are thought to have died in Auschwitz (in Poland) alone.

46. Jewish prisoners were forced to work in the crematoria, burning the bodies in ovens. To cover up the workings of the crematoria, the Nazis would kill these workers, known as the Sonderkommando, every few months. According to camp survivors, the smell of burning bodies from the crematoria was constantly in the air.

47. The gas chambers and crematoria enabled the Nazi regime to murder huge numbers of Jews, and others whom they considered enemies such as gypsies, political prisoners, ordinary criminals and Russian POWs. You are going to watch some testimonies of survivors from Auschwitz II Birkenau.

48. 4.9 to 6.2 million Jewish people were systematically exterminated during the Holocaust. Estimates of other victims: Soviet POWs 2–3 million Ethnic Poles 1.8–2 million Romani 220,000–1,500,000 Disabled 200,000–250,000 Freemasons 80,000 Homosexuals 5,000–15,000 Jehovah's 2,500–5,000 Witnesses Holocaust - Total estimated victims

49. ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’ The events of the Holocaust took place over 70 years ago, so why should we care? George Santayana - philosopher, essayist, poet and novelist. What do you think this means? Watch this interview with Rina Finder, a Holocaust survivor. Can you summarise her message?

50. “It’ll never happen again...”? Genocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group. Can you name any cases of genocide which have taken place since the Holocaust, or which are taking place now?