Download Basic Introduction to the Holocaust

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The Holocaust
The Holocaust was the systematic mass slaughter of millions of innocent people by the Nazis
during WWII.
The Jewish people of Europe were the most numerous of the victims of the Holocaust.
Most data indicates that approximately six million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust. Jewish
people are a religious group that dates back to the ancient Israelites in approximately 2000 BCE.
Judaism is a monotheistic faith and is one of the oldest religions still practiced today. The Star of
David is a widely used and recognized symbol of the Jewish faith. This symbol took on a special
significance during World War II, when Jews being persecuted by the German government were
forced to wear a yellow Star of David with the word “Jude” (Jew) written in the middle. This star
was required to be attached to the clothing of all Jews, and led to widespread discrimination
against the Jewish population.
Millions of other minority members also perished in the Holocaust. About
220,000 Sinti and Roma [gypsies from Central and Eastern Europe] were
murdered — between a quarter to a half of their European population. Other
groups deemed by the Nazis to be "racially inferior" included Poles (6 million
killed, of whom 3 million were Christian, and the rest Jewish), Serbs (estimates
vary between 500,000 and 1.2 million killed), around 500,000 Bosnians, Soviet
military prisoners of war and civilians in occupied territories including Russians
and other East Slavs, the mentally or physically disabled, homosexuals, Africans,
and other ethnic and religious groups were also persecuted and killed.
In December 1941, the Nazis opened Chelmno, the first of what would soon be seven
extermination camps, dedicated entirely to the mass killing of human beings on a wide spread
scale, as opposed to the labor or concentration camps. Over three million Jews would die in
these extermination camps. The method of killing at these camps was by poison gas, usually in
"gas chambers", although many prisoners were killed in mass shootings and by other means. The
bodies of those killed were burned in furnaces, and the ashes buried or scattered. The
concentration and death camps were run by SS Officers who were like the Nazis police force.
The largest death camp built was Auschwitz-Birkenau, which had both a labor camp (Auschwitz)
and an extermination camp (Birkenau). At the peak of operations, Birkenau's gas chambers killed
approximately 8,000 people a day.
Upon arrival in these camps, all valuables were taken from the prisoners, and the women
had to have their hair cut off. According to a Nazi document, the hair was to be used for the
manufacture of stockings. Prisoners were then divided into two groups during a process called
‘selection’: those too weak for work were immediately executed in gas chambers (which were
sometimes disguised as showers) and their bodies burned, while others were used for slave labor
in factories or industrial enterprises located in the camp or nearby. Shoes, stockings, and
anything else of value was recycled for use in products to support the war effort, regardless of
whether or not a prisoner was sent to death. Some prisoners were forced to work in the collection
and disposal of corpses, and to extract gold teeth from the dead.
In some concentration camps and death camps doctors forcibly performed experiments
on the prisoners. Josef Mengele was an SS Officer and doctor at Auschwitz-Birkenau who
performed many questionably human medical experiments. For example, he tried to change
children’s’ eye color by injecting chemicals in to their eyes, he transferred blood from one twin to
another twin without anesthesia, and he also amputated prisoners limbs and sometimes killed
patients just to dissect them.
The prisoners who survived were freed from the camps by the Allied Soldiers at the end of World
War II.
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World War II
World War II (abbreviated WWII) was a worldwide conflict fought between the Allied
Powers and the Axis Powers, from 1939 until 1945. Armed forces from over seventy nations
engaged in aerial, naval, and ground-based combat. Spanning much of the globe, World War II
resulted in the deaths of over sixty million people, making it the deadliest conflict in human
history. The war ended with an Allied victory.
On September 1, 1939, Germany, led by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party, invaded Poland
according to a secret agreement with the Soviet Union, which joined the invasion on September
17. On September 3, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, followed six hours later by
France, responded by declaring war on Germany, initiating a widespread naval war. Germany
rapidly overwhelmed Poland, then Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium and France in 1940, and
Yugoslavia and Greece in 1941. Italian, and later German, troops attacked British forces in North
Africa. By summer of 1941, Germany had conquered France and most of Western Europe, but it
failed to subdue the United Kingdom due to the resistance of the Royal Air Force and Royal
Navy.
The Russian Front - Adolf Hitler then turned on the Soviet Union, launching a surprise attack on
June 22, 1941. Despite enormous gains, the invasion bogged down outside of Moscow in late
1941 as winter set in and made further advances difficult. The Soviets later launched a massive
counterattack encircling and then forcing the surrender of the German Sixth Army at the Battle of
Stalingrad (1942-43), decisively defeated the Axis during the Battle of Kursk, and broke the Siege
of Leningrad. The Red Army then pursued the retreating Wehrmacht all the way to Berlin, and
won the street-by-street Battle of Berlin, as Hitler committed suicide in his underground bunker on
April 30, 1945.
Linkup of the Allied Armies in Germany - Meanwhile, the Western Allies (United States and
United Kingdom) invaded Italy in 1943 and then liberated France in 1944, following amphibious
(water) landings in the Battle of Normandy. Repulsing a German counterattack at the Battle of the
Bulge in December, the Western Allies crossed the Rhine River and linked up with their Soviet
counterparts at the Elbe River in central Germany.
The Holocaust - During the war, six million Jews, as well as Roma (Gypsies), Slavs,
Communists, homosexuals, the disabled and several other groups, were murdered by Germany
in a state-sponsored genocide that has come to be known as The Holocaust.
Aftermath - About 62 million people, or 2.5% of the world population, died in the war, though
estimates vary greatly (see World War II casualties). Large swathes of Europe and Asia were
devastated and took years to recover. The war had political, sociological, economic and
technological consequences that last to this day.
Questions:
1. How many European Jews were killed by the Nazis?
2. Besides the Jews, what are three other groups that were targeted and killed by the Nazis?
3. What did the Nazis open in December 1941?
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4. What happened to the prisoners when they arrived at a death camp?
5. Who was Josef Mengele?
6. When was WWII?
7. Who lead Germany and the Nazi party?
8. Where did Germany invade to start the war?
9. Which countries declared war on Germany in September 1939?
10. How many people died in WWII?
11. Which side of the war was the United States and England on? (Allied or Axis)