The Nazi Holocaust

1. The Nazi Holocaust Extermination of the Jews

2. The Holocaust • Holocaust is is a Greek word that means “sacrifice by fire” • The Holocaust began in 1933 when Hitler and his Nazi party ruled Germany. It ended in 1945 when Germany lost World War II. • The Allied Powers (US, Russia, Britain, and France) defeated (won) the The Axis Powers (Germany, Italy and Japan)

3. Pyramid of Hate • This pyramid shows how hate can escalate into something more than just discrimination but into extermination.

4. So how did this all happen?After losing World War I, Germany had to pay a lot of money in damages and the Germans experienced terrible poverty.Unemployment in Germany 1928-1933

5. Racial Superiority • Hitler knew that high unemployment following World War I made Germany an easy target to take over. Hitler wrote about restoring Germany to glory. He said in order to this, Germany had to eliminate undesirable people. Jews, Africans, and Gypsies were among those he considered undesirable.

6. A Great Public Speaker • In his speeches, he spoke about how Germans would one day be outnumbered by inferior people and idealized a time when a perfect group of Aryans (blonde hair and blue eyes) would take over.!

7. The War Against the Jews • In order to keep the German people on his side, Hitler needed someone to blame. He blamed the Jews for the economic problems in Germany . From an anti-Semitic children's book. The sign reads "Jews are not wanted here"

8. Minor Harassment at first • Harassment of Jews began. German Jews saw themselves as Germans before Jews and never believed their homeland would turn against them. This is why they tolerated this “minor harassment.” Jewish children humiliated in the classroom.

9. Followed by Registration… • At first Jews were required to register and to wear yellow stars as identification.  

10. Followed by The Nuremberg Race Laws • The Nuremberg Race Laws of 1935:  • Took away the Jews of rights of citizenship • Didn’t allow them to marry or date Aryans • Limited where Jews could work, live, and travel to. • This was the beginning of Hitler’s “Final Solution,” which was his plan to eliminate all Jews as well as others he thought were undesirable.

11. Followed by Demands for Euthanasia and Sterilization • Hitler called the mentally ill, the terminally ill, and the physically and mentally handicapped the "useless eaters." He wanted to kill them all (euthanasia). • To further purify the race, women of mixed blood were to be sterilized. • Those with ideal Aryan characteristics were bred like livestock.

12. Then came the Ghettos… • Towards the beginning of World War II, Nazis began ordering all Jews to live within certain, specific areas. These were called ghettos. • Jews were forced out of their homes, many of their belongings were taken, and they were forced into areas confined with barbed wire and guarded by Nazis.

13. Kristallnacht“Night of Broken Glass” • During the night of November 9-10, 1938, Nazis attacked Jews in Austria and Germany in what has been named “Kristallnacht” • This night of violence included the burning of Jewish temples and breaking the windows of Jewish-owned business. In addition, many Jews were physically attacked • Over thirty thousand Jews were arrested on this one night.

14. A map of temples burned on the night of Kristallnacht

15. From bad to worse: Deportation • Nazis then ordered deportations from the ghettos • A thousand people per day were loaded up in trains and sent to concentration camps. • To get them to cooperate, the Nazis told the Jews they were being relocated.

16. What was Deportation Like? Boxcars/Cattle Cars • These were called cattle cars because people were treated like cattle. • 100+ people in one car • Doors were bolted shut • No place to sit down • There were no bathroom stops. • No food or water given. • Trips often took 3-7 days and nights.

17. The Destination:Concentration Camps • In the next phase of the "final solution" Nazis separated out the young, the old, and the ill and sent them to their deaths. Those who could work were put to work and given scraps of food. The average life span in a camp was 3-6 months. Inmates at a concentration camp wearing identifying badges

18. More about Concentration Camps • Nazi Germany established about 20,000 camps to imprison its millions of victims • The extermination camps were designed for efficient mass murder. They were essentially factories of death • Jews and other “undesirables” were initially gassed in mobile gas vans there • To make these factories of death more efficient, The Nazis constructed gas chambers . They were designed to kill as many people as possible in as short a period of time as possible.

19. The final destination for those who could not work, the gas chamber. This is the gas chamber at Flossenburg.

20. More about Gas Chambers… • Prisoners were ordered to strip naked before entering the gas chambers, so their clothes could be given to new arrivals at the camps and the corpses could be burned in crematoriums, which were built next to the gas chambers. According to calculations by the German authorities, 1,440 corpses could be burned in a crematorium every 24 hours. • Zyklon B – (a poison) was used in the gas chambers.

21. Liberation (Freedom) • In 1945, Germany surrendered and admitted to loosing in WW II. Hitler killed himself to avoid being captured. • The camps were liberated. Soldiers who freed the prisoners described them as walking corpses. • Mass graves were discovered where the bones of the dead had been dumped.

22. The impact of The Holocaust… • It is estimated that 11 million people were killed during the Holocaust; 6 million of these were Jews • The Nazis killed approximately two-thirds of all Jews living in Europe • An estimated 1.1 million children were murdered in the Holocaust