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World History
Ms. Avar
Point Value:
/5
Holocaust
Q&A
KEY
Instructions: Use your book (p. 502-505), and info from Ms. Avar to write the questions to the answers provided
below. (If absent, make an appointment to see the sample binder for answers or visit the class webpage)
1. What is “genocide”: Systematic killing of an entire people
What was “The Holocaust”?
Systematic mass killing of Jews and other groups considered inferior by Nazis
2. When speaking about the Holocaust what time period are we referring to?
1933 Hitler chancellor to 1945 V-E Day (“Victory in Europe” – end of war)
3. How many Jews were murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust?
Roughly 6 million
Jews murdered in each country / percentage of the pre-war Jewish population:
Austria 50,000 -- 27.0%
Italy 7,680 -- 17.3%
Belgium 28,900 -- 44.0%
Latvia 71,500 -- 78.1%
Bohemia/Moravia 78,150 -- 66.1%
Lithuania 143,000 -- 85.1%
Bulgaria 0 -- 0.0%
Luxembourg 1,950 -- 55.7%
Denmark 60 -- 0.7%
Netherlands 100,000 -- 71.4%
Estonia 2,000 -- 44.4%
Norway 762 -- 44.8%
Finland 7 -- 0.3%
Poland 3,000,000 -- 90.9%
France 77,320 -- 22.1%
According to the chart, in how many countries were Jews murdered during the Holocaust?
From which country were the most Jews killed? Poland
How many? 3 million What percentage of its Jewish population was that? 90.9%
Romania 287,000 -- 47.1%
Germany 141,500 -- 25.0%
Slovakia 71,000 -- 79.8%
Greece 67,000 -- 86.6%
Soviet Union 1,100,000 -- 36.4%
Hungary 569,000 -- 69.0%
Yugoslavia 63,300 -- 81.2%
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4. What are Aryans? Germanic peoples / non-Jewish Caucasians (often blonde hair, blue eyes)
What is Anti-Semitism?
Prejudice against or hostility towards Jews, often rooted in hatred of their ethnic background
(Nazis implemented master race (Aryan) policy everywhere Nazis conquered)
5. What was the “SS”? Hitler’s mobile killing squads
6. What were the first measures taken by the Nazi’s against the Jews?
Boycotting of businesses, barred from civil service and law, kept out schools “quotas”
7. What were the Nuremburg Laws?
Deprived Jews of citizenship and prohibited marriage between Jews and other Germans.
8. What happened on Kristallnacht? (“Night of Broken Glass”) November 9-10, 1938?
Nazi attack on Jewish people & their property. 91 murdered, 25-30 thousand sent to concentration camps
9. What are Ghettos? Neighborhoods in which European Jews were forced to live.
1939- Jews are gathered into Ghettos where they could be easily gathered and sent to camps. Forced to
wear the Star of David.
10. What were concentration camps?
Germany set them up early in the 1930s (before World War II ever started) / People beaten, tortured. After
war started – camps supplied labor to factories / Many died from exhaustion / Medical Experimentation…
torture / Auschwitz, Chelmo, Belzec, Majdanek, Sobibor, Treblinka / All railroads throughout Europe lead
to Auschwitz / Eventually, some labor camps turned into death camps: Installed gas chambers. / 10,000
people killed every day / Jews were told they were going to labor camps or resettlement farms / Herded,
stripped, inspected, sorted, shaved, poisoned, burned…
11. Other than Jews, which groups in Germany were sent to the concentration camps and considered
enemies of the state?
Mentally and physically ill, Gypsies, Polish intelligentsia, resistance fighters, opponents of Nazism,
homosexuals, criminals, beggars, vagrants… (appx. 5 million of these non-Jewish people also killed)
12. What does the term “Final Solution” mean, and when did it begin?
“Final Solution to the Jewish problem”
The problem = the existence of the Jews (they must be eliminated/killed) - 1941
13. Why were the Jews singled out for extermination?
Distorted world view, prejudice, hatred, saw Jewish race as trying to take over the world, propaganda
showing Jews as an obstruction to Aryan dominance, duty to eliminate the Jews, scapegoating (false blame)
for losing WWI & Great Depression, etc.
14. What did people in Germany know about the persecution of the Jews?
First measures and ideas were common knowledge – discrimination, boycotting, ghettos, deportation,
concentration camps, Kristallnacht. However, the Final Solution was not publicized. Rumors spread about
the gas chambers and people disappearing.
15. Did all Germans support Hitler’s plan for the persecution the Jews?
Although the entire German population was not in agreement with Hitler’s persecution of the Jews, there is
no evidence of large scale protest regarding their treatment. People who did not follow the Nazi plan and
ways risked deportation and persecution themselves.
16. What was the response of the Allies to the persecution of the Jews? Could they have done more?
It was inadequate: Allies condemned Nazi persecution but only made a declaration – no action was taken.
One agency – the War Refugee Board - was established for the purpose of saving the Jews. Few efforts
were successful. Yes, they could have done more… aid, large scale efforts… but they didn’t.
17. Did the Jews in Europe realize what was going to happen to them?
Every attempt was made to fool the Jews – resettlement – about the Final Solution. They believed the
conditions in the places they were being deported to would be better than the ghettos and they would be
reacquainted with family. Inmates in concentration camps were forced to write home describing the
wonderful conditions.
18. How many Jews were able to escape from Europe prior to the Holocaust?
Very few records of this – secret, hiding, etc. It is thought that fewer than 500,000 were able to escape.
Some of those escaped to areas that were later conquered by Hitler and captured. Some organizations aided
in the escape of the Jews in Europe, but many countries had closed their borders to the immigrants – no
place to go.
19. Did the Jews fight against the Nazis? To what extent were efforts successful?
Some escaped / Some organized forces in camps – BUT, it was difficult – weak and risky
20. What were the Nuremberg Trials?
Held in Nuremberg, Germany, from 1945 to 1946, judges from the Allied powers -- Great Britain, France,
the Soviet Union, and the United States -- presided over the hearings of 22 major Nazi criminals and
leaders. (Twelve prominent Nazis were sentenced to death. Most of the defendants admitted to the crimes of
which they were accused, although most claimed that they were simply following the orders of a higher
authority. Adolf Hitler had committed suicide in the final days of the war, as had several of his closest
aides. Many more criminals were never tried. Some fled Germany to live abroad, including hundreds who
came to the United States.