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Historical Background for night by Elie Wiesel. English 9, Parson. World War II. At the End. At the Beginning. September 1, 1939 Hitler invades Poland December 7, 1941 Japan bombed Pearl Harbor U.S. enters the war “A day that will live in infamy.” – Pres. FDR. January 1945
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Historical Background for night by Elie Wiesel English 9, Parson
World War II At the End At the Beginning • September 1, 1939 • Hitler invades Poland • December 7, 1941 • Japan bombed Pearl Harbor • U.S. enters the war • “A day that will live in infamy.” – Pres. FDR • January 1945 • Prisoners freed • August 14, 1945 • War is over.
Who was on each side? Axis Allies • Germany • Japan* • Italy • United States • Soviet Union • France • United Kingdom • England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland *Japan, a small island, joined Germany because they needed oil, raw materials, and food from inland countries.
The location and military death tolls • Most fighting took place in • France, Germany, Russia, England • the Pacific Islands • No fighting took place on inland US soil. • Military deaths • 405,400 American military • ~22,060,000 total
Vocabulary for night by Elie Wiesel Fill in the correct words on your Night vocabulary sheet and keep this resource nearby as you read.
Night: Vocabulary to know • Anschluss: means “joining together” or annexation; on March 12, 1938, Hitler annexed Austria to Germany. • Anti-semitism: systematic prejudice against Jews • Deportation: the removal of people from their area of residency for purposes of settling elsewhere; Jews were relocated to ghettos, concentration camps, or extermination centers.
Night: Vocabulary to know • ghetto: a walled section of the city in which Jews were required to live • SS: originally a group of Hitler’s elite guard and later the group in charge of death camps • kabbalah: Jewish thinking that links everyday and spiritual life • Beadle: a caretaker or “man of all work” in a synagogue
Night: Vocabulary to know • Aryan: the Germanic (Nordic, Caucasian) race that Nazis believed to be superior to other races • Capo or Kapo: prisoners forced to oversee other prisoners • death marches: conducted in order to prevent liberation of camp prisoners; Nazis forced prisoners to leave their camps and run/walk west.
Night: Vocabulary to know • final solution: a euphemism for the extermination of all European Jews • Gestapo: German internal security police or secret police • Selection: the process Nazis used to separate those prisoners who would be assigned to forced labor camps from those who would be killed immediately • Zyklon B: hydrogen cyanide, a poisonous gas originally developed as a pesticide; used to kill millions of Jews in Nazi death camps.