Download The Holocaust

The Holocaust
Nazi Anti-Semitism
• Anti-Semitism- hostility or prejudice against
Jewish people
• Hitler rose to power in part by promising
Germany to its former glory
• Hitler provided a scapegoat to blame all of
Germany’s woes Jews
• Hitler told Germans they had descended from
the mythical Aryan people
Anti-Jewish Policy(1933-1945)
• Broken into four periods:
• The first period, 1933-1934, included boycotts
against Jews and the civil Service Law that
dismissed Jews from govt jobs.
• The second period began in the spring of 1935
with Nuremburg Laws.
Nuremberg Laws
• The Nazi government established a series of
anti-Semitic laws Nuremberg Laws (1935)
▫ Purpose was to drive the Jews out of German
▫ stripped Jews of German citizenship and took
away most civil and economic rights
▫ Also defined who was a Jew and who was an
Aryan German
Nazi Forced Sterilization and
Execution
• Hitler believed the nation had
become weak, corrupted by the
infusion of degenerate
elements into its bloodstream.
• These “weak” elements of
society had to be removed
• Hitler believed that the strong
and the racially pure had to be
encouraged to have more
children
"This person suffering from hereditary defects costs the
community 60,000 Reichsmark during his lifetime. Fellow
German, that is your money, too."
• The third period, (1933-1939) – time of
increasing anti-Jewish violence, confiscation of
Jewish property, and the forbidding of Jewish
ownership of business concerns. The turning
point of thisperiod was the Kristallnacht
Pogram
Kristallnacht
• November 9-10, 1938- antiJewish riots broke out across
Germany
• The attack came to be called
Kristallnacht (night of broken
glass)
• During the rampage, thousand
of Jewish businesses and places
of worship were damaged
• 100 killed, 26,000 sent to
concentration camps
• The Nazis blamed the Jews for
Kristallnacht and held them
responsible.
▫ Fined over a billion marks
• When Hitler came to power, Europe was home
to 9 million Jews
• The first concentration camps were created in
Germany before the start of WWII
▫ These were for political enemies of Hitler
• The Nazis established many more camps to hold
Jews from the countries that Germany invaded
The Final Solution
• The German invasion of the
Soviet Union raised the killing
of Jews to a new level
• Hitler now called for the total
destruction of all of Europe’s
Jews
• At first, the bloody work was
carried out by mobile killing
units “Einsatzgruppen”
▫ 1941, over 33,000 people
were massacred in two days
The Final Solution (cont)
• Nazi leaders were not satisfied  the killing was
not going quickly enough
• Adopted a new plan known (Wannasee
Conference) as the Final Solution
▫ 6 new camps were established
▫ Sole purpose was to kill on a massive scale (men,
women, and children)
• 3 million Jews died in Nazi extermination camps
• 3 million died at Nazi hands by other means
• 5 million others killed (prisoners of war,
homosexuals, disabled people, and gypsies)
The Camps
• Conditions were terriblereceived little food and forced
to perform grueling labor
• Combination of overwork and
starvation was deliberately
designed to kill
American Response
• Many Americans were
doubtful of the horrific reports
coming from Europe
• 1944, Soviet troops started to
reach concentration camps in
Poland  now America knew
the truth
The Nuremberg Trials
• After the end of WWII, many
Nazis faced trial for their role
in the Holocaust
• The court, located at
Nuremberg, Germany, was
called the International
Military Tribunal
• Organized by the U.S., Great
Britain, France, and the Soviet
Union
• 22 Nazi were tried
• 12 were sentenced to death