Download Dachau Concentration Camp

'Those that cannot remember the
past are condemned to repeat it.'
(George Santayana)
-is impossible to ascertain the exact number of Jewish victims,
statistics indicate that the total was over 5.8 million
How many Jews were murdered in each country and what percentage
of the prewar Jewish population did they constitute?
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%
Romania 287,000 -- 47.1%
Soviet Union 1,100,000 -- 36.4%
Finland 7 -- 0.3%
Norway 762 -- 44.8%
Poland 3,000,000 -- 90.9%
Estonia 2,000 -- 44.4%
France 77,320 -- 22.1%
Slovakia 71,000 -- 79.8%
Greece 67,000 -- 86.6%
Yugoslavia 63,300 -- 81.2%
Germany 141,500 -- 25.0%
Hungary 569,000 -- 69.0%
'..the Holocaust was not the murder of six million Jews, but the
murder of one, then another, then another.' (Stephen Smith, cofounder and director of the Beth Shalom Holocaust Centre)
Anti- Semitism
-means ‘Hatred of Jews’
-religious (Jew as Christ-killer),
-economic (Jew as banker, usurer, money-obsessed),
-social (Jew as social inferior, "pushy," vulgar, therefore
excluded from personal contact),
-racist (Jews as an inferior "race"),
-ideological (Jews regarded as subversive or revolutionary),
-cultural (Jews regarded as undermining the moral and structural
fiber of civilization)
Anti- Semitism
-for hundreds of years Christian Europe
had regarded the Jews as the Christ -killers.
-had been driven out of almost every
European country at one time or another
1275- were made to wear a yellow badge
1287- 269 Jews were hanged in the Tower
of London
painting from 1515
(note the yellow badges)
Anti- Semitism
-in medieval times, were ostracized from most professions by local
rulers, the church and the guilds
-were pushed into marginal occupations considered socially inferior,
such as tax and rent collecting and moneylending
-Natural tensions between creditors and debtors were added to social,
political, religious, and economic strains
-became an element in a vicious circle
-peasants were forced to pay their taxes to Jews who were economically
coerced into becoming the "front men" for the lords
-Jews would then be identified as the people taking their earnings, while
peasants remained loyal to the lords
Anti- Semitism
-after WWI, hundreds of Jews were blamed
for the defeat
-prejudice grew during the economic
depression which followed
-many
Germans
were
poor
and
unemployed and wanted someone to
blame
-turned on the Jews, many of whom were
rich and successful in business
-1929, urging Germans to avoid buying from Jewish shops
“One can do anything to those Goyim. Our people crucified their Christ
on the cross, and we do a great business on his birthday....”
Anti- Semitism
-Nazis' saw history as a racial struggle
-considered the Jews a race whose goal was world domination and
who, therefore, were an obstruction to Aryan dominance
-considered it their duty to eliminate the Jews, whom they
regarded as a threat
-the Jews' racial origin made them habitual criminals who
could never be rehabilitated and were, therefore, hopelessly corrupt
and inferior
Nazi Propaganda
-April 1, 1933- boycott of Jewish shops and businesses by the Nazis
-April 7, 1933- The law for the Re-establishment of the Civil Service
expelled all non-Aryans (defined on April 11, 1933 as anyone with a
Jewish parent or grandparent) from the civil service
-April 7, 1933- prohibited the admission of lawyers of non-Aryan
descent to the Bar. It also denied non-Aryan members of the Bar the
right to practice law. Similar laws were passed regarding Jewish law
assessors, jurors, and commercial judges
-April 22, 1933- The decree regarding physicians' services with the
national health plan denied reimbursement of expenses to those
patients who consulted non-Aryan doctors
Nazi Propaganda
-April 25, 1933- restricted Jewish enrollment in German high schools to
1.5% of the student body. In communities where they constituted more
than 5% of the population, Jews were allowed to constitute up to 5% of
the student body
From a German schoolbook:
Inge sits in the doctor’s waiting room…Again and again her mind dwells
on the warning of the BDM leader (League of German Girls): ‘A German
must not consult a Jew doctor! And particularly not a German girl! Many
a girl who has gone to a Jew doctor to be cured has found disease and
disgrace.’ The door opens. Inge looks in. There stands the Jew. She
screams…she jumps in terror. Her eyes stare into the Jewish Doctor’s
face. His face is the face of the devil. In the middle of the devil’s face is a
huge crooked nose. Behind the spectacles two criminal eyes. And thick
lips that are grinning. A grin that says ‘Now I’ve got you at last, little
German girl.
Nazi Propaganda
May 1939
-Page from antisemitic newspaper, "Der Stürmer,"
-illustration from a medieval book depicting ritual murder, a medieval antisemitic myth, is
reproduced
Nazi Propaganda
"The Scourge of God, Polish Jews"
Nazi Propaganda
Nuremberg Laws
-November 1935- Nazis issued the following
definition of a Jew:
-anyone with three Jewish grandparents
-someone with two Jewish grandparents who
belonged to the Jewish community on
September 15, 1935, or joined thereafter
-was married to a Jew or Jewess on September
15, 1935, or married one thereafter
-was the offspring of a marriage or extramarital
liaison with a Jew on or after September
15, 1935
Nuremberg Laws
-Mischlinge (hybrids) were divided into two groups:
-Mischlinge of the first degree--those with two Jewish grandparents
-Mischlinge of the second degree--those with one Jewish grandparent
-were officially excluded from membership in the Nazi Party and all
Party organizations (e.g. SA, SS, etc.)
-were drafted into the Germany Army, they could not attain the rank of
officers
-were also barred from the civil service and from certain professions
-were plans to sterilize Mischlinge, but this was never done
-many were sent to concentration and death camps
Nuremberg Laws
-1940- all Jews had to have their
passports stamped with the letter ‘J’
-also had to wear the yellow Star of
David on their jacket or coat
Kristallnacht
-November 9, 1938
-”Night of Broken Glass”
-91 Jews were killed
-30,000 arrested and incarcerated in
concentration camps
Interior of Berlin's
Fasanenstrasse Synagogue
-Jewish homes, hospitals, and schools
were ransacked
-over 1,000 synagogues were burned
-over 7,000 Jewish businesses destroyed
or damaged
Kristallnacht
-pretext for the attacks was the
assassination of German diplomat
by a German-born Polish Jew in
Paris, France
-was followed by further economic
and political persecution of Jews
-is viewed by historians as the
beginning of the Final Solution and
The Holocaust
synagogue in Munich
Kristallnacht
The Daily Telegraph, 12/11/1938
An eyewitness account of Kristallnacht
Mob law ruled in Berlin throughout this afternoon and evening, and
hordes of hooligans indulged (took part in) an orgy of destruction. I have
seen several anti-Jewish outbreaks during the last five years, but never
anything as sickening as this.
Racial hatred and hysteria seemed to have taken complete hold of
otherwise decent people. I saw fashionably dressed women clapping
their hands and screaming with glee, while respectable mothers held
their babies to see the ‘fun’.
The fashionable shopping centre of the capital has been reduced to a
shambles, with the streets littered with the wreckage of sacked Jewish
shops and offices. No attempt was made by the police to stop the
rioters.
The St. Louis
May 13-June 17, 1939
-German transatlantic liner sailed from
Hamburg, Germany, for Havana, Cuba.
-938 passengers
-almost all were Jews fleeing from the
Third Reich. Most were German
citizens, some were from Eastern
Europe, and a few were officially
"stateless."
The St. Louis
-majority of the passengers had applied for U.S. visas, and had
planned to stay in Cuba only until they could enter the United
States
-political instability in Cuba meant that they could not leave the
ship and were told to go back to Europe
-was forced to return to Europe in June 1939
-US (and Canada) refused to accept any refugees- were
eventually accepted by Great Britain, France, Belgium, and the
Netherlands
-many were eventually caught up in the Final Solution, the Nazi
plan to murder the Jews of Europe
Wannsee Conference
-Berlin, January 20, 1942
-lasted only about ninety minutes
-is where German officials discussed the
implementation of the “Final Solution”
(Germany's plan to murder all the Jews
of Europe)
-systematic murder of Jews did not begin
until the German invasion of the Soviet
Union in June 1941
-aimed to kill 11 million Jews
Wannsee Conference
Organization of the Final Solution:
Women, children, the old & the sick were to be sent for ‘special
treatment.’
On arrival the Jews would go through a process called ‘selection.’
The remaining Jews were to be shipped to ‘resettlement areas’ in the
East.
The young and fit would go through a process called ‘destruction
through work.’
Conditions in the Ghettos were designed to be so bad that many die
whilst the rest would be willing to leave these areas in the hope of
better conditions
Shooting was too inefficient as the bullets were needed for the war
effort
Jews were to be rounded up and put into transit camps called Ghettoes
The Jews living in these Ghettos were to be used as a cheap source of
labour.
Ghettos
Ghettos
Tactics used by the Nazis to get the Jews to leave the Ghettos:
Deception- were told that they were going to ‘resettlement areas’
in the East
-In some Ghettos the Jews had to purchase their own train tickets
-They were told to bring the tools of their trade and pots and pans
-New arrivals at the Death camps were given postcards to
send to their friends
Terror- SS publicly shot people for smuggling food or for any act of
resistance
Starvation- Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto were only fed a 1000 calories a
day (we need 2400 calories a day to maintain our weight)
-hungry people are easier to control
Ghettos
-Warsaw ghetto
-created autumn 1940
-had housed 240,000 Jews and 80,000
Christians
-Christians were given an order of
eviction, and a month later the ghetto
was sealed off by a wall
-March 1941- 445,000 Jews were living
in the ghetto, and conditions
deteriorated rapidly
Ghettos
-summer 1942- 265,000 Jews were sent to
Treblinka
-vast majority were to die in the gas
chambers. These sudden evictions, coupled
with the news of Nazi crimes which were
filtering in through the underground,
laid the foundations for the Ghetto Uprising,
which began in earnest in April 1943.
-led to the further slaughter of some 55, 000
Jews
-area was liquidated in May 1943
-entire ghetto was razed to the ground
Ghettos
-Judenrat -council of Jews, appointed by
the Nazis in each Jewish community or
ghetto
-were led by noted community leaders
-enforcement of Nazi decrees affecting
Jews and administration of the affairs of
the Jewish community were the
responsibilities of the Judenrat
-were guided, for the most part, by
a sense of communal responsibility, but
lacked the power and the means to
successfully thwart Nazi plans for
annihilation of all Jews
Concentration Camps
Concentration Camps
-first concentration camp, Dachau, opened on
March 22, 1933
-approximately 5,000,000 non-Jews were killed
-Gypsies, Serbs, Polish intelligentsia, resistance
fighters from all the nations, German opponents of
Nazism, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses,
habitual criminals, and the "anti-social," e.g.
beggars, vagrants, and hawkers
Concentration Camps
Concentration Camps
Concentration Camps
“Destruction Through Work”
(fed 200 calories per day)
Concentration Camps
Same group six weeks later
Concentration Camps
Ovens at Dachau
Concentration Camps
A German policeman shoots individual Jewish women who
remain alive in the ravine after the mass execution
Concentration Camps
-stash of gold wedding rings taken from victims at Buchenwald
Concentration Camps
An American soldier stands near a wagon loaded with corpses
outside the crematorium of the Buchenwald concentration camp,
Germany, following its liberation
Death Camps
Death Camps
-a concentration camp with special
apparatus specifically designed for
systematic murder
-six such camps existed:
Auschwitz-Birkenau, Belzec,
Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibor,
Treblinka
-all were located in Poland. Why?
Death Camps
-were transported in cattle cars in terrible
conditions
-naked, dirty and half starved people look
like animals, which helped to reinforce the
Nazi propaganda
-SS used to train their new guards by
encouraging them to set fire to a pit full of
live victims – usually children
-all new arrivals went through a process
known as ‘selection.’ Mothers, children,
the old & sick were sent straight to the
‘showers’ which were really the gas
chambers
Death Camps
-at Auschwitz the trains pulled into a
mock up of a normal station.
-were helped off the cattle trucks by
Jews who were specially selected to
help the Nazis
-at some death camps the Nazis would
play records of classical music to help
calm down the new arrivals
-at Auschwitz the new arrivals were
calmed down by a Jewish orchestra
playing classical music
Death Camps
Notice how the Death camp is
set out like a factory complex
Death Camps
-the SS would try and pack up to
2000 people into this gas
chamber
-dropped canisters of Zyklon B,
or prussic acid, in its crystal form
through small holes in the roof
-gas chambers were sometimes
disguised as showers or bathing
houses
Death Camps
-one day's collection at the peak of the
gassings, about twenty five thousand pairs
Death Camps
-”Processing the bodies”
-sonderkommando -specially
selected Jews were used to remove
the gold fillings and hair of people
who had been gassed
-were also forced to feed the dead
bodies into the crematorium
Death Camps
Death Camps
Death Camps
Bales of hair shaven from women at
Auschwitz, used to make felt-yarn
Human Experiments
-called "der weiße Engel" ("the White Angel") by
camp inmates because when he stood on the
platform inspecting and selecting new arrivals his
white coat and white arms outstretched evoked
the image of a white angel
Josef Mengele
“Angel of Death”
“The White Angel”
-met incoming prisoners at the camp, where it
was determined who would be retained for work
and who would be sent to the gas chambers
immediately
-also appeared there frequently in search of
twins, for his experimentation; he would wade
through the incoming prisoners shouting Zwillinge
heraus! (Twins out!), Zwillinge heraustreten!
(Twins step forward!)
Human Experiments
-attempts to change eye colour by injecting
chemicals into children's eyes, various
amputations of limbs, and other surgeries
-would experiment on the chosen girls,
performing sterilization and shock treatments
Josef Mengele
“Angel of Death”
“The White Angel”
"Once Mengele's assistant rounded up 14 pairs
of Roma twins during the night. Mengele placed
them on his polished marble dissection table
and put them to sleep. He then injected
chloroform into their hearts, killing them
instantly. Mengele then began dissecting and
meticulously noting each piece of the twins'
bodies."
Human Experiments
-supervised an operation by which two
children were sewn together to create
conjoined twins
-the hands of the children became badly
infected where the veins had been
resected; this also caused gangrene
Josef Mengele
“Angel of Death”
“The White Angel”
-also sought out pregnant women, on
whom he would perform vivisections
before sending them to the gas chambers
Anne Frank
-moved from Germany to Amsterdam in 1933
-July 1942 -went into hiding in the hidden
rooms of Anne's father, Otto Frank's, office
building
-after two years, the group was betrayed
-Anne and her sister, Margot, were eventually
transferred to the Bergen-Belsen concentration
camp, where they both died of typhus in March
1945
Anne Frank
-for her 13th birthday, received an autograph book she had shown
her father in a shop window a few days earlier
-decided she would use it as a diary, and began writing in it almost
immediately
-Achterhuis (a Dutch word denoting the rear part of a house,
translated as the "Secret Annexe" in English editions of the diary)
-was a three-story space entered from a landing above the Opekta
offices. Two small rooms, with an adjoining bathroom and toilet,
were on the first level, and above that a larger open room, with a
small room beside it. From this smaller room, a ladder led to the
attic. The door to the Achterhuis was later covered by a bookcase to
ensure it remained undiscovered
Anne Frank
Elie Wiesel
-author of 57 books, including Night
-based on his experiences as a
prisoner in the Auschwitz, Buna, and
Buchenwald concentration camps
-was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
in 1986
Buchenwald, 1945. Wiesel is in the second row from the bottom, seventh from the left
Elie Wiesel
Buchenwald, 1945. Wiesel is in the second row from the bottom,
seventh from the left
Simon Wiesenthal
-activities led to the capture of over one
thousand Nazi criminals
-spent four and a half years in the German
concentration camps such as Janowska,
Plaszow, and Mauthausen
-dedicated most of his life to tracking down and
gathering information on fugitive Nazis so that
they could be brought to justice for war crimes
and crimes against humanity
-1947, he co-founded the Jewish Historical
Documentation Center in Linz, Austria, in order
to gather information for future war crime trials
Nuremberg Trials
-November 20, 1945 to October 1,
1946
-5,025 Nazi criminals were convicted
between 1945-1949 in the American,
British and French zones, in addition
to an unspecified number of people
who were tried in the Soviet zone
-about 80,000 Germans have been
convicted for committing crimes
against humanity
Defendant Hermann Goering was the former head of the Luftwaffe
and was at one time second in command to Hitler
Creation of Israel
1948
Final Words
First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out –
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the communists and I did not speak out -because I
was not a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out
for me.
Martin Niemöller spent the second world war in Dachau
Concentration Camp. He was sent there for criticising Hitler’s regime.
Final Words
'In a world where humans are free to do right and to do wrong there
will always be evil actions. If the Holocaust is to teach us anything, it
must be a realisation that one has to speak out against evil. Even a
limited, uncertain, anguished fight against the darkness is better than
surrendering to the evils of the past and the present day.'
(Rabbi Albert Friedlander)
Questions?