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How to Navigate PowerPoint 1 Normal View Allows a thumbnail view of all slides on the left. Select a slide on the left to bring an enlarged version to the center of the screen. 2 Slide Sorter View Thumbnail images of each slide in the presentation are seen. From this view you can get an overview of what the entire presentation will look like. 3 Slide Show Clicking this button will begin the slide show from the current slide. Use arrow keys to navigate the slide show. To return to Normal View hit <Esc>. 1 3 4 Notes for Each Slide 2 4 (Sample of Normal View Screen) Notes for each slide are below the center screen slide. Simply slide the cursor to the bottom of the slide until the “open-up” symbol appears. Click and drag the bottom border upward to reveal the notes. The Holocaust Only after we assimilate the history of the Holocaust can we transform the future. – Alan Rosenberg, Professor of Philosophy, Queens College A teaching resource created by the Birmingham Holocaust Education Committee. July 2007 www.bhamholocausteducation.org The Holocaust • The State sponsored, systematic persecution and annihilation of European Jewry by Nazi Germany and its collaborators between 1933 and 1945. Jews were the primary victims – 6 million were murdered. • From the Greek word meaning “a sacrifice by burning.” • In Hebrew the term “shoah” is used, meaning “catastrophe.” The Holocaust was Unique: Never before had a government, one that had prided itself on its own citizens’ high level of education and culture, sought to define a religious group as a race that must be eliminated throughout an entire continent, not just within a single country. Never before had a government harnessed the immense power of technology for such destructive ends, culminating in the horror of Auschwitz – a death camp that, at its peak, “processed” 10,000 Jews a day. Never before had a government summoned their best and brightest people to mobilize destruction and used mobile killing units (Einsatzgruppen) to systematically kill approximately 1.5 million individuals in 2 years. Never before had a government sought to dehumanize a group through such a devastatingly thorough and systematic use of propaganda that included the use of film, education, public rallies, indoctrination of the youth, radio, newspapers, art and literature. Two Thousand Years of Jewish Life in Europe by 1933 A Comparison Jews in the World in the Early 19th Century & Early 20th Century Jewish Life Before the War Remember always that you not only have the right to be an individual, you have an obligation to be one. - Eleanor Roosevelt Malka Orkin (left) and her friend Tusia Goldberg. Tusia, whose father later became a member of the Bialystok ghetto Jewish council, survived the war. Malka did not survive. Lova Warszawczyk rides his tricycle in the garden of his home in Warsaw shortly before the start of World War II. He survived. A group of Jewish children pose in their bathing suits while vacationing in the resort town of Swider, near Warsaw. The two girls on the right are Gina and Ziuta Szczecinski. Both perished during the war. Jewish family celebration in Radomsko, Poland. Almost all of this town’s 12,000 Jews were deported to the death camp at Treblinka. Group portrait of the extended family of Mottle Leichter in Janow Podlaski, Poland. Only 3 in the picture survived. Sisters Hanneke and Jenneke Leydesdorff as small children one year before the German occupation. The sisters survived, both parents died. Yosef Ginzberg watches his granddaughter Tamar play with a ball. Yosef was murdered in Ponar outside of Vilna. Tamar survived the war in Siberia. Jankel Stiel and his child. Both were killed in Belzec. Two young children play outside next to a baby carriage in Bogdan, Transcarpathia. In 1944, the children and their mother were deported from Bogdan to Auschwitz, where they all perished. Bertha Gruneberg with her son, Rene, at a park in Boekelo. The child survived the war, but both his parents were killed. Portrait of Mina Nattel and Beno Schmelkis on a balcony in Rzeszow, Poland during their engagement party. During the war Mina, Beno and their daughter Rachel were killed by the Germans. Portrait of a Jewish bride and groom in Telsiai, Lithuania. Both perished. A Jewish mother (Regina) with her children in Naleczow, Poland between 1934-1937. All perished. Bystanders (85%) Victims Rescuers (< 0.5%) Perpetrators (< 10%) The Victims It is true that not all victims were Jews, but all Jews were victims. - Elie Wiesel, 1995 Jews Political Opponents Habitual Criminals Handicapped Homosexuals Jehovah’s Witnesses Roma & Sinti (Gypsies) Poles Freemasons Immigrants Soviet P.O.W.’s American P.O.W.’s African-Germans Extermination Deportation Ghettoization Confiscation Exclusion Identification Who was Hitler? • Born in Austria. • Reared Catholic. • Aspired to be an artist. Rejected by Vienna Academy of Arts on two occasions. Never attended college. • Exposed to antisemitic influences while in Vienna. • Moved to Germany to avoid Austrian draft. Fought for Germany in World War I. Born in Austria Braunau-am-Inn Insert Hitler Family tree Who Was Hitler? • Born in Austria. • Reared Catholic. • Aspired to be an artist. Rejected by Vienna Academy of Arts on two occasions. Never attended college. • Exposed to antisemitic influences while in Vienna. • Moved to Germany to avoid Austrian draft. Fought for Germany in World War I. Reared Catholic Adolf (center) with schoolmates, 1900. St. Michael’s Catholic Church attended by Hitler as a child. Leonding, Austria Who Was Hitler? • Born in Austria. • Reared Catholic. • Aspired to be an artist. Rejected by Vienna Academy of Arts on two occasions. Never attended college. • Exposed to antisemitic influences while in Vienna. • Moved to Germany to avoid Austrian draft. Fought for Germany in World War I. Aspired to be an Artist Rejected by Vienna Academy of Arts Never Attended College Oedensplatz (Feldherrnhalle), Munich, 1914 Artist: Adolf Hitler The Rotterdam Cathedral Munich, 1930 Artist: Adolf Hitler Who Was Hitler? • Born in Austria. • Reared Catholic. • Aspired to be an artist. Rejected by Vienna Academy of Arts on two occasions. Never attended college. • Exposed to antisemitic influences while in Vienna. • Moved to Germany to avoid Austrian draft. Fought for Germany in World War I. Exposed to antisemitic influences while in Vienna. Hitler’s description in Mein Kampf of how he had become an antisemite in Vienna: For me this was a time of the greatest spiritual upheaval I have ever had to go through. I had ceased to be a weak-kneed cosmopolitan and become an antisemite. Vienna, he said, had significantly contributed to his becoming antisemitic: At the time of this bitter struggle between spiritual education and cold reason, the visual instruction of the Vienna streets had performed invaluable services. Vienna Opera House by Adolf Hitler Who Was Hitler? • Born in Austria. • Reared Catholic. • Aspired to be an artist. Rejected by Vienna Academy of Arts on two occasions. Never attended college. • Exposed to antisemitic influences while in Vienna. • Moved to Germany to avoid Austrian draft. Fought for Germany in World War I. Moved to Germany to avoid Austrian draft. Fought for Germany in World War I. Hitler served in the Bavarian contingent of the German Army. Factors Contributing to the Rise of the Nazis All that is necessary for the forces of evil to win is for good men to do nothing. - Edmund Burke, British Philosopher, 1729-1797 • • • • Treaty of Versailles Economics German Nationalism Antisemitism Treaty of Versailles European alliances on the eve of World War I After World War I, the need for security on the continent led France to support a buffer zone of new nations between Russia and Germany, carved out of the former Austrian Empire: Yugoslavia, Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania were created. German territory along the French border was demilitarized out of the same concern for protection. Europe after World War I German territorial losses as dictated by the Treaty of Versailles. Factors Contributing to the Rise of the Nazis Hunger makes a thief of any man. - Pearl S. Buck • • • • Treaty of Versailles Economics German Nationalism Antisemitism Economics 1. Unemployment 2. Inflation 3. Worldwide Depression of 1929 Unemployment in Germany 1928-1933 September 1928 650,000 September 1929 1,320,000 September 1930 3,000,000 September 1931 4,350,000 September 1932 5,102,000 January 1933 6,100,000 Economics 1. Unemployment 2. Inflation 3. Worldwide Depression of 1929 Inflation in Germany DATE GERMAN MARKS U.S. DOLLARS 1919 4.2 1 1921 75 1 1922 400 1 Jan. 1923 7,000 1 July 1923 160,000 1 Aug. 1923 1,000,000 1 Nov. 1, 1923 1,300,000,000 1 Nov. 15, 1923 1,300,000,000,000 1 Nov. 16, 1923 4,200,000,000,000 1 German children with stacks of inflated currency, virtually worthless in 1923. Economics 1. Unemployment 2. Inflation 3. Worldwide Depression of 1929 Worldwide Depression, 1929 Bread lines for the unemployed in the U.S. Factors Contributing to the Rise of the Nazis No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible. - Voltaire • • • • Treaty of Versailles Economics German Nationalism Antisemitism German Nationalism 1st Reich 800 - 1806 Charlemagne 800-814 His vast realm encompassed what are now France, Switzerland, Belgium, Netherlands, half of present-day Italy and Germany, and parts of Austria and Spain. 2nd Reich 3rd Reich Otto von Bismarck 1871-1890 Engineered the unification of the numerous states of Germany. Adolf Hitler 1933 - 1945 1871 - 1918 1933 - ? Hitler promised to return Germany to its previous glory with an empire that would last 1000 years. In reality, the 3rd Reich lasted only 12 years. Factors Contributing to the Rise of the Nazis The Jews are our misfortune. - Heinrich von Treitschke, 1834 - 1896 • Treaty of Versailles • Economics • German Nationalism • Antisemitism Antisemitism Recognizing public support for his antiJewish comments, Hitler capitalized on these anti-Jewish feelings that had existed for centuries in the German population and offered the Jews as a scapegoat for the country’s current financial woes. He would claim that Germany had lost World War I because of the Jews, that democracy and communism were Jewish inventions, and that the Jews were engaged in a conspiracy for world domination. It was the Jews who controlled society and made Germans suffer. Antisemitic political cartoon entitled "Rothschild" by the French caricaturist, C. Leandre, 1898. Hitler’s Rise to Power The world is too dangerous to live in – not because of the people who do evil, but because of the people who sit and let it happen. – Albert Einstein • Birth of the Nazi Party • The Weimar Republic • Beer Hall Putsch (November 8-9, 1923) • Nazis Become a Legitimate Party • Hitler Appointed Chancellor (January 30, 1933) • Reichstag Fire (February 27, 1933) • Emergency Decree (February 28, 1933) • Enabling Act (March 23, 1933) • Night of the Long Knives (June 30, 1934) • Hitler Becomes Führer (August 2, 1934) Birth of the Nazi Party • In 1919 Hitler joined the fledgling “German Worker’s Party.” German propaganda postcard showing an early Hitler preaching to the fledgling Nazi Party. • In 1920 he took control of the group and changed the name to the National Socialist German Worker’s Party, National Sozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter Partei, NSDAP, or Nazi for short. • It was here that Hitler discovered two remarkable talents: public speaking and inspiring personal loyalty. Assembly of the Nazi Party, 1922, Coburg, Germany Hitler’s Rise to Power The world is too dangerous to live in – not because of the people who do evil, but because of the people who sit and let it happen. – Albert Einstein • Birth of the Nazi Party • The Weimar Republic • Beer Hall Putsch (November 8-9, 1923) • Nazis Become a Legitimate Party • Hitler Appointed Chancellor (January 30, 1933) • Reichstag Fire (February 27, 1933) • Emergency Decree (February 28, 1933) • Enabling Act (March 23, 1933) • Night of the Long Knives (June 30, 1934) • Hitler Becomes Führer (August 2, 1934) The Weimar Republic How the New Government Was to Be Run PRESIDENT Publicly elected to 7-year term. CHANCELLOR Appointed by President CABINET REICHSTAG Unlimited number of political parties. Elected to 4-year term by proportional representation. (e.g., 10% of the vote equals 10% of the seats) 421 members (1919) 647 members (1932) Hitler’s Rise to Power The world is too dangerous to live in – not because of the people who do evil, but because of the people who sit and let it happen. – Albert Einstein • Birth of the Nazi Party • The Weimar Republic • Beer Hall Putsch (November 8-9, 1923) • Nazis Become a Legitimate Party • Hitler Appointed Chancellor (January 30, 1933) • Reichstag Fire (February 27, 1933) • Emergency Decree (February 28, 1933) • Enabling Act (March 23, 1933) • Night of the Long Knives (June 30, 1934) • Hitler Becomes Führer (August 2, 1934) Beer Hall Putsch November 8-9, 1923 Part of a photo-card collection used by the Nazis to indoctrinate German children. This beer hall was the scene of the failed Nazi Putsch. It symbolized the birth pangs of Nazi power. Munich, Germany, 1923, Masses in the streets during the Putsch. • Historical experience … shows with terrifying clarity that in every mingling of Aryan blood with that of lower peoples the result was the end of the cultured people. • Those who want to live, let them fight, and those who do not want to fight in this world of eternal struggle do not deserve to live. • The [Nazi party] should not become a constable of public opinion, but must dominate it. It must not become a servant of the masses, but their master! • The personification of the devil as the symbol of all evil assumes the living shape of the Jew. - Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Hitler’s Rise to Power The world is too dangerous to live in – not because of the people who do evil, but because of the people who sit and let it happen. – Albert Einstein • Birth of the Nazi Party • The Weimar Republic • Beer Hall Putsch (November 8-9, 1923) • Nazis Become a Legitimate Party • Hitler Appointed Chancellor (January 30, 1933) • Reichstag Fire (February 27, 1933) • Emergency Decree (February 28, 1933) • Enabling Act (March 23, 1933) • Night of the Long Knives (June 30, 1934) • Hitler Becomes Führer (August 2, 1934) Number of Reichstag Deputies Elected Total Deputies Jan 1919 423 Jun 1920 459 May 1924 472 Dec 1924 493 May 1928 491 Sept 1930 577 July 1932 608 Nov 1932 584 Mar 1933 647 SPD, Social Democrats 165 102 100 131 153 143 133 121 120 USPD, Independent Socialists 22 84 4 62 45 54 77 89 100 81 64 65 69 62 68 75 70 74 21 16 19 16 19 22 20 18 Date KPD, Communists Centre Party (Catholics) 91 BVP, Bavarian People’s Party DDP, Democrats 75 39 28 32 25 20 4 2 5 DVP, People’s Party 19 65 45 51 45 30 7 11 2 Wirtschafts Partei, Economy Party 4 4 10 17 23 23 2 1 DNVP, Nationalists 44 71 95 103 73 41 37 52 52 32 14 12 107 230 196 288 19 12 28 49 9 11 7 NSDAP, Nazis Others 3 5 Nazi propaganda poster illustrating the Nazi’s desire to break the shackles of the Treaty of Versailles. • The Nazi Party, political unknowns, promised the German people a solution to their hunger and poverty: Work & Bread. • After the Nazis came to power, public works programs similar to those initiated by FDR’s “New Deal” stimulated the German economy. • Prior to World War II, average Germans credited the Nazis with their improved standard of living. “Work and Bread!” Nazi Party election poster from the early 1930’s. Hitler’s Rise to Power The world is too dangerous to live in – not because of the people who do evil, but because of the people who sit and let it happen. – Albert Einstein • Birth of the Nazi Party • The Weimar Republic • Beer Hall Putsch (November 8-9, 1923) • Nazis Become a Legitimate Party • Hitler Appointed Chancellor (January 30, 1933) • Reichstag Fire (February 27, 1933) • Emergency Decree (February 28, 1933) • Enabling Act (March 23, 1933) • Night of the Long Knives (June 30, 1934) • Hitler Becomes Führer (August 2, 1934) Hitler Appointed Chancellor January 30, 1933 Adolf Hitler greets a crowd of enthusiastic Germans from a window in the Chancellery building on the day of his appointment. Hitler in Berlin as new Chancellor of Germany, January, 1933 Newly appointed Chancellor Adolf Hitler shakes hands with German President Paul von Hindenburg. Hitler’s Rise to Power The world is too dangerous to live in – not because of the people who do evil, but because of the people who sit and let it happen. – Albert Einstein • Birth of the Nazi Party • The Weimar Republic • Beer Hall Putsch (November 8-9, 1923) • Nazis Become a Legitimate Party • Hitler Appointed Chancellor (January 30, 1933) • Reichstag Fire (February 27, 1933) • Emergency Decree (February 28, 1933) • Enabling Act (March 23, 1933) • Night of the Long Knives (June 30, 1934) • Hitler Becomes Führer (August 2, 1934) Reichstag Fire February 27, 1933 The Nazis accused the Communists of the arson as well as attempting to overthrow the state. The Nazis would use this event to eliminate all political opposition. Emergency Decree February 28, 1933 President Hindenburg was persuaded to issue an Emergency Decree invoking Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution. This gave the Chancellor the authority to impose dictatorial power to protect the democratic order from being overthrown. Members of the Communist Party were arrested. Hitler’s Rise to Power The world is too dangerous to live in – not because of the people who do evil, but because of the people who sit and let it happen. – Albert Einstein • Birth of the Nazi Party • The Weimar Republic • Beer Hall Putsch (November 8-9, 1923) • Nazis Become a Legitimate Party • Hitler Appointed Chancellor (January 30, 1933) • Reichstag Fire (February 27, 1933) • Emergency Decree (February 28, 1933) • Enabling Act (March 23, 1933) • Night of the Long Knives (June 30, 1934) • Hitler Becomes Führer (August 2, 1934) Enabling Act March 23, 1933 • Hitler won the office of Chancellor in a legal fashion, but he was determined to rule Germany without the restraints of a democratically elected parliament. • The Enabling Act was a special power allowed by the Weimar Constitution that gave the Chancellor and his cabinet the power to pass laws by decree for a specified period of time, without Reichstag involvement. It was only to be used in times of emergency. • Because it altered the constitution, passing the Enabling Act required a 2/3 majority vote of the Reichstag. This was achieved by Nazi maneuvering. •The Enabling Act gave Hitler’s government dictatorial powers for four years. German Reichstag in session. Hitler’s Rise to Power The world is too dangerous to live in – not because of the people who do evil, but because of the people who sit and let it happen. – Albert Einstein • Birth of the Nazi Party • The Weimar Republic • Beer Hall Putsch (November 8-9, 1923) • Nazis Become a Legitimate Party • Hitler Appointed Chancellor (January 30, 1933) • Reichstag Fire (February 27, 1933) • Emergency Decree (February 28, 1933) • Enabling Act (March 23, 1933) • Night of the Long Knives (June 30, 1934) • Hitler Becomes Führer (August 2, 1934) Night of the Long Knives “The Roehm Putsch” June 30, 1934 Ernst Roehm, Leader of the SA Political Cartoon by David Low, July 3, 1934 Hitler’s Rise to Power The world is too dangerous to live in – not because of the people who do evil, but because of the people who sit and let it happen. – Albert Einstein • Birth of the Nazi Party • The Weimar Republic • Beer Hall Putsch (November 8-9, 1923) • Nazis Become a Legitimate Party • Hitler Appointed Chancellor (January 30, 1933) • Reichstag Fire (February 27, 1933) • Emergency Decree (February 28, 1933) • Enabling Act (March 23, 1933) • Night of the Long Knives (June 30, 1934) • Hitler Becomes Führer (August 2, 1934) Hitler Becomes Führer August 2, 1934 With President Paul von Hindenburg's death, Hitler consolidated power by joining the offices of Chancellor and President. He assumed the title of Führer (leader) and Reich Chancellor of the German nation. "One People, One Empire, One Führer." Placing one hand upon the Nazi flag and raising the other in obedience, these German soldiers swear their allegiance to the Führer. What the Nazis Believed Anyone who interprets National Socialism as merely a political movement knows almost nothing about it. It is more than a religion. It is the determination to create the new man. - Adolf Hitler •What the Nazis Believed •Racial Science •Nazi Platform •Symbols What the Nazis Believed The Nazis valued authority and order. The Nazis valued emotion more than reason. The Nazis valued the community rather than the individual. The Nazis had a strong belief in the traditional family. The Nazis were strong nationalists. The Nazis saw politics as a religion. The Nazis valued the concept of a select race. “Second Creation” Theodor Seuss Geisel, April 3, 1942 What the Nazis Believed Anyone who interprets National Socialism as merely a political movement knows almost nothing about it. It is more than a religion. It is the determination to create the new man. - Adolf Hitler •What the Nazis Believed •Racial Science •Nazi Platform •Symbols Racial Science The law of existence requires uninterrupted killing, so that the better may live. – Adolf Hitler Nazi physicians conducted “bogus” medical research in an effort to identify physical evidence of Aryan superiority & non-Aryan inferiority. The Nazis could not find evidence for their theories of biological racial differences among human beings. This kit contains 29 hair samples used by doctors, anthropologists, and geneticists to determine racial makeup of individuals. Establishing racial descent by measuring an ear at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology. Caliper to measure skull width. What the Nazis Believed Anyone who interprets National Socialism as merely a political movement knows almost nothing about it. It is more than a religion. It is the determination to create the new man. - Adolf Hitler •What the Nazis Believed •Racial Science •Nazi Platform •Symbols Nazi Platform We demand: 1. A union of Germans to form a great Germany. 2. Abolition of the Treaty of Versailles. 3. Lebensraum (living space) for Germans as well as surplus populations. 4. German blood as a requirement for citizenship. No Jew can be a citizen. 5. Non-citizens live in Germany as foreigners only, subject to the law of aliens. 6. Only citizens can vote or hold public office. 7. The state insures that every citizen live decently and earn his livelihood. 8. No further immigration of non-Germans. Any non-German who arrived after August 2, 1914, shall leave immediately. 9. Revision of the national system of education with citizenship being taught. 10. All newspapers must be published in the German language by German citizens. What the Nazis Believed Anyone who interprets National Socialism as merely a political movement knows almost nothing about it. It is more than a religion. It is the determination to create the new man. - Adolf Hitler •What the Nazis Believed •Racial Science •Nazi Platform •Symbols Symbols Bystanders (85%) Victims Rescuers (< 0.5%) Perpetrators (< 10%) The Perpetrators History teaches us to beware of demagogues who wrap themselves in the flag in an attempt to appeal to the worst aspects of nationalism. - Alistair Nicholson Reinhard Heydrich Joseph Goebbels Hermann Goering Adolf Eichmann Rudolf Hess Heinrich Himmler Name Age:1933 Profession Position(s) Hans Frank 33 Lawyer Governor General of Poland Victor Capesius 26 Physician Headed camp pharmacy at Auschwitz Helmut Knochen 23 Professor of Literature Colonel, SS; Commander of Security Police, Paris, ’40-44 Otto Ohlendorf 26 Economist In Einsatzgruppen Werner Best 30 Lawyer First legal advisor to SD & Gestapo Albert Speer 28 Architect Minister of Armaments & War Production August Hirt 35 Anthropologist & Surgeon SS Director of Anatomical Research; studied skulls Willi Frank 30 Physician Chief of Dental Station at Auschwitz Bernhart Rost 40 Secondary Teacher Reich Minister of Science, Education & Culture Wilhelm Frick 56 Lawyer Reich Minister of Interior; close friend of Hitler Heinz Kammler ---- Engineer Head of SS Works Department; built gas chambers at Auschwitz Joseph Goebbels 36 PhD Literature & Philosophy Propaganda Minister of the Reich Fritz Ter Meer ---- Scientist w/ doctorate Chief executive of I.G Farben Crucial Divisions of Nazi Party SA (Storm Troopers, Brown Shirts, Sturmabteilungen) – 1921 SS (Protective Squad, Schutzstaffel) • SD (Security Service, Sicherheitsdienst) - 1931 • Gestapo (Secret State Police, Geheime Staatspolizei) - 1933 • Death’s Head Units (Totenkopfverbande) - 1936 • Special Action Groups (Einsatzgruppen) - 1938 Mass roll-call of SA and SS troops. Nuremberg, November 11, 1935 • Waffen SS (Armed SS) - 1940 Nazi Intentions Revealed Since when do you have to agree with people to defend them from injustice? - Lillian Hellman •Anti-Jewish Policies •Boycott of Jewish Shops: April 1, 1933 •Nazi Book Burnings: May 10, 1933 •Nuremberg Laws: September 15, 1935 •The November Decree: November 14, 1935 Anti-Jewish Policies How can such a monstrous crime as the Holocaust occur? It begins when people start thinking of themselves as „us‟ and of others as „them‟. - Ted Gottfried, Deniers of the Holocaust Goals: • social death of Jews • removal of Jewish presence/influence from German society Means of Accomplishment: • verbal assaults • physical assaults • legal/administrative restrictions Laws Restricting Civil Rights The Law for the Protection of German Blood & German Honor forbade either marriage or sexual relations between Jews and Germans. Laws Restricting Personal Rights Jews were only permitted to purchase products between 3-5 p.m. This was one step in the overall Nazi scheme of eliminating Jews from economic, social and cultural life. Bench with inscription “Only for Jews.” Sign on a phone booth in Munich prohibiting Jews from using the public telephone. Sign forbidding Jews in public pool. Jews are forced to walk in the street. The original photo caption read, "Jews in gutter." Belgium, 1943 October 5, 1938 All Jewish passports must be marked with the letter "J“ for Jew. Laws Restricting Education Political Cartoon from Der Stürmer entitled: “Away with Him” The long arm of the Ministry of Education pulls a Jewish teacher from his classroom. March 1933. Laws Restricting Occupation With the rise of Nazism, nothing the Jews had done for their country made any difference… - Alfred Gottschalk, Jewish Survivor Erich Remarque, author. Albert Einstein, Nobel Prize winner. Sigmund Freud, psychoanalyst, Otto Klemperer, conductor. Laws Restricting Private Property and Business "Aryanization" announcements in a newspaper. Aryanization was the process of transferring Jewish businesses to German control. Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, “regretted,” that, unless one were detached from the whole process from the beginning, unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these “little measures” that no “patriotic German” could resent must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing. One day it is over his head. Heinrich Hildebrandt, non-Jewish German high school teacher during the Nazi years, interviewed in 1952. They Thought They Were Free by Milton Mayer Nazi Intentions Revealed Since when do you have to agree with people to defend them from injustice? - Lillian Hellman •Anti-Jewish Policies •Boycott of Jewish Shops: April 1, 1933 •Nazi Book Burnings: May 10, 1933 •Nuremberg Laws: September 15, 1935 •The November Decree: November 14, 1935 Boycott of Jewish Shops April 1, 1933 SA soldiers stood at the entrances to Jewish shops and professional offices discouraging non-Jewish patrons from entering. Signs were posted warning: “Germans! Beware! Don’t Buy from Jews!” Nazi Intentions Revealed Since when do you have to agree with people to defend them from injustice? - Lillian Hellman •Anti-Jewish Policies •Boycott of Jewish Shops: April 1, 1933 •Nazi Book Burnings: May 10, 1933 •Nuremberg Laws: September 15, 1935 •The November Decree: November 14, 1935 Nazi Book Burnings May 10, 1933 Where books are burned, in the end, people will be burned. - Heinrich Heine (19th century German poet) Uniformed Nazi party officials carrying confiscated books. Hamburg, Germany, The public burning of "un-German" books by members of the SA and university students. Nazi Intentions Revealed Since when do you have to agree with people to defend them from injustice? - Lillian Hellman •Anti-Jewish Policies •Boycott of Jewish Shops: April 1, 1933 •Nazi Book Burnings: May 10, 1933 •Nuremberg Laws: September 15, 1935 •The November Decree: November 14, 1935 Nuremberg Laws September 15, 1935 Reich Flag Law • Official colors of the Nazi state are black, red, and white. • The national flag is the swastika flag. • Jews are forbidden from flying the German flag. Reich Citizenship Law • German citizenship is denied to Jews. They are given the status of “subjects.” • Jews can not vote, own property, operate a business, or be paid wages as employees. Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honor • Forbids marriage or sexual relations between Jews and Germans. • Bans employment in Jewish homes of any German female under 45 years of age. Nazi Intentions Revealed Since when do you have to agree with people to defend them from injustice? - Lillian Hellman •Anti-Jewish Policies •Boycott of Jewish Shops: April 1, 1933 •Nazi Book Burnings: May 10, 1933 •Nuremberg Laws: September 15, 1935 •The November Decree: November 14, 1935 The November Decree November 14, 1935 German: Mischlinge, 2nd Degree: 4 “German” grandparents 1 Jewish grandparent Mischlinge, 1st Degree: * 2 Jewish grandparents Jew: 3+ Jewish grandparents * 1st Degree Mischlinge would be considered Jews if they met any of the following criteria: - practiced the Jewish religion - were married to a Jew - or were children born after September 15, 1935 to one Jewish parent and one German parent Nazi Propaganda How can such a monstrous crime as the Holocaust occur? It begins when people start thinking of themselves as “us” and of others as “them”. -Ted Gottfried, Deniers of the Holocaust • The Hitler Youth • Education in Nazi Germany • Media • 1936 Olympics in Berlin The Hitler Youth GIRLS German Girl’s League, Bund Deutscher Mädel (BDM) BOYS Hitler Youth, Hitlerjügend (HJ) "Youth Serves the Fuëhrer. All ten-year-olds join the Hitler Youth." “All girls join us.” Nazi Propaganda German educators were warping pliable young minds in order to mold obedient young monsters. - Erika Mann, School for Barbarians • The Hitler Youth • Education in Nazi Germany • Media • 1936 Olympics in Berlin Education in Nazi Germany The foundation of every state is the education of its youth. - Diogenes “The Jewish Question is the Key to World History.” The German National Catechism for Young Germans in School and on the Job: “Which race must the National Socialist race fight against? The Jewish race. Why? The goal of the Jew is to make himself the ruler of humanity. Wherever he comes, he destroys works of culture. He is not a creative spirit, rather a destructive spirit.” Werner May, Deutscher National-Katechismus 2nd edition (Breslau: Verlag von Heinrich Handel, 1934), pp. 22-26 Typical School Day The teacher begins and ends the instruction by leading the assembled students in the greeting: The teacher raises the right arm and declares “Heil Hitler.” The students raise their right arms and respond Heil Hitler.” Raising the Swastika Flag at a school in Berlin. Changes in the Curriculum Math Problems Twisted to Promote Nazi Ideology According to careful estimates there are 300,000 mentally ill persons, epileptics, etcetera in long-term care facilities in Germany. The Jews are aliens in Germany. What is the total yearly cost of their care assuming daily costs of 4 RM per person? What is the percentage of aliens? How many marriage loans for 1,000 RM each could be made yearly with this money? In 1933 there were 66,060,000 inhabitants of the German Reich, of whom 499,682 were Jews. Excerpt from this Nazi Biology Textbook for Middle School Students: As we have already noted, people do not live as individuals like animals and plants, but as peoples, which largely have come together as ethnic states. We know something similar only with insects. Bees and ants are not only the sum of individuals; each individual shares a united drive in service of the entire group…. The ethnic state must demand of each individual citizen that he does everything for the good of the whole, each in his place and with his abilities. See Marie Harm and Hermann Wiehle, Lebenskunde für Mittelschulen. Fünfter Teil. (Halle: Hermann Schroedel Verlag, 1942), pp. pp. 168-173. Math Book for First Grade, Hirt Publishing, 1937. The Poisonous Mushroom “The Poisonous Mushroom” “How Jewish Traders Cheat” “The Experience of Hans and Else with a Strange Man” “How To Tell A Jew “ Popular children’s board game, “Juden Raus!” (Jews Out). By throwing dice, the winner manages to get six Jews out of their homes and businesses (the circles) and on the road to Palestine. It sold over a million copies in 1938, when Nazi policy was forced Jewish emigration. Additions to the Curriculum: Teaching Nazi Racial Ideology Classroom chart entitled "German Youth, Jewish Youth." Published in a textbook on heredity, genealogy, and racial studies. Two Jewish children humiliated in front of the classroom. The blackboard reads: "The Jews are our greatest enemy! Beware of Jews." Racial instruction is to begin with the youngest pupils (six years of age) in accordance with the Führer‟s instruction that no boy or girl should leave school without complete knowledge of the necessity and meaning of blood purity. - Bernhard Rust, Reich Minister for Science & Education Additions to the Curriculum: Teaching War Oriented Sports Throwing grenades as a school sport. Education in a general way is to be the preparation for later army service. The Army will then not need, as has hitherto been the case, to give the young man a grounding in the simplest exercises and rules…. it should rather change the young man, already physically perfect, into a soldier. - Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Battle Ball (Kampfball) Nazi Propaganda Any lie, frequently told, will gradually gain acceptance. – Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf • The Hitler Youth • Education in Nazi Germany • Media • 1936 Olympics in Berlin Media-Newspaper “Der Stürmer,” (“The Great Storm”), an antisemitic tabloid, was posted on billboards for all to read, under the heading: Die Juden sind unser Unglück (The Jews are our Misfortune). Völkischer Beobachter, (“People's Observer”), daily newspaper published by the Nazi Party in Germany from the 1920’s until 1945. Media-Radio Free distribution of radios in honor of Joseph Goebbel’s birthday. Berlin, October 29, 1938. "All Germany hears the Führer on the People's Receiver." The Nazis, eager to encourage radio listenership, developed an inexpensive radio receiver to make it possible for as many as possible to hear Nazi propaganda. By 1939, 70% of German homes had at least one radio. Media-Film The Eternal Jew, the most famous Nazi propaganda film. Jew Pests, a film aimed at influencing audiences to hate Jews. A propaganda film designed by Nazis for Nazis. Media-Posters For young men, service to the totalitarian state meant fighting the Fuhrer's wars, but for women service meant producing racially pure children for the Reich. "Healthy Parents have Healthy Children." Nazi propaganda poster encouraging healthy Germans to have large families. Nazi Propaganda Propaganda has absolutely nothing to do with the truth. - Josef Goebbels • The Hitler Youth • Education in Nazi Germany • Media • 1936 Olympics in Berlin 1936 Olympics in Berlin The torch lighting ceremony. Spectators salute Adolf Hitler during the games. German spectators spell out the phrase, directed at Adolf Hitler, "Wir gehoeren Dir" [We belong to you]. Jesse Owens' medal ceremony for the long jump. Violations of Treaty of Versailles Violations of Treaty of Versailles History shows us that appeasement does not lead to peace. It invites an aggressor to test the will of a nation unprepared to meet that test. - Ronald Reagan •The Rhineland Falls: March 1936 •The Anschluss of Austria: March 13, 1938 •Sudetenland Falls: September 1938 The Rhineland Falls March 1936 German forces enter Aachen, on the border with Belgium, following the remilitarization of the Rhineland. Aachen, Germany, March 18, 1936. German civilians salute German forces crossing the Rhine River in open violation of the Treaty of Versailles. Mainz, Germany, March 7, 1936. Violations of Treaty of Versailles We seem to be moving toward some hideous catastrophe. - Churchill, April 1937 •The Rhineland Falls: March 1936 •The Anschluss of Austria: March 13, 1938 •Sudetenland Falls: September 1938 Anschluss of Austria March 13, 1938 Germany neither intends nor wishes to interfere in the internal affairs of Austria, to annex Austria, or to conclude an Anschluss. Adolf Hitler, May 21, 1935 A public building in Vienna, adorned with decorations and a large banner bearing a quote from Hitler, "Those of the same blood belong in the same Reich!" Such banners were hung throughout Austria in the weeks preceding the April 10th plebiscite on the incorporation of Austria into the German Reich. Austrian Antisemitism A group of SA hold hands on the steps of the University of Vienna in an attempt to prevent Jews from entering the building. Jews forced to erase slogans from the streets of Vienna during the period following the Anschluss. Violations of Treaty of Versailles History shows us that appeasement does not lead to peace. It invites an aggressor to test the will of a nation unprepared to meet that test. - Ronald Reagan •The Rhineland Falls: March 1936 •The Anschluss of Austria: March 13, 1938 •Sudetenland Falls: September 1938 Sudetenland Falls September 1938 Signing of the Munich Agreement. From left to right: Chamberlain, German troops march Daladier (French), Hitler, Mussolini into the town square of (Italian), and Ciano (Italian), pictured Friedland. before signing. Refugees from the Sudetenland, following its annexation by Germany, arrive in Prague, Czechoslovakia, a month later. Kristallnacht “Night of the Broken Glass” November 9-10, 1938 Their synagogues should be set on fire…their homes should likewise be broken down and destroyed…let us drive them out of the country for all time. - Martin Luther, 1542 Synagogue in Aachen, Germany, built 1862. Synagogue in Aachen after its destruction. I myself could scarcely believe that such things could occur in a 20th century civilization. - Franklin D. Roosevelt Destruction of Property During Kristallnacht, SA men and Hitler Youth plundered Jewish shops and apartments. By terrorizing the Jews, ruining their businesses and destroying their places of worship, the Nazis hoped to force Jews to leave. Victims of Kristallnacht The arrest of Jews by the SS on Kristallnacht. The deportation of Jewish men on Kristallnacht. Jews Sent to Concentration Camps, November 10, 1938 Jewish Emigration The pessimists went into exile, and the optimists went to the gas chamber. • Jewish Emigration from Nazi Territories • Why Not Leave? • Evian Conference: July 6-15, 1938 • German Jews Find Refuge: 1933-1938 • American Immigration • Kindertransport: 1938-1940 • The S.S. St. Louis: May 13, 1939 • Palestine Shuts its Doors Jewish Emigration The pessimists went into exile, and the optimists went to the gas chamber. • Jewish Emigration from Nazi Territories • Why Not Leave? • Evian Conference: July 6-15, 1938 • German Jews Find Refuge: 1933-1938 • American Immigration • Kindertransport: 1938-1940 • The S.S. St. Louis: May 13, 1939 • Palestine Shuts its Doors Why Not Leave? Many German Jews thought of themselves as Germans who happened to be born Jewish. The Wallach Family, Munich, 1928. Moritz (dad), Meta (mom), Lotte, Annelise, Fritz, Rolf Jewish Emigration The pessimists went into exile, and the optimists went to the gas chamber. • Jewish Emigration from Nazi Territories • Why Not Leave? • Evian Conference: July 6-15, 1938 • German Jews Find Refuge: 1933-1938 • American Immigration • Kindertransport: 1938-1940 • The S.S. St. Louis: May 13, 1939 • Palestine Shuts its Doors Evian Conference July 6 - 15, 1938 Chief American delegate, Myron C. Taylor, addresses delegates. Hotel Royal in Evian-les-Bains, site of the conference. The New York Times, July 3, 1938 Jewish Emigration The pessimists went into exile, and the optimists went to the gas chamber. • Jewish Emigration from Nazi Territories • Why Not Leave? • Evian Conference: July 6-15, 1938 • German Jews Find Refuge: 1933-1938 • American Immigration • Kindertransport: 1938-1940 • The S.S. St. Louis: May 13, 1939 • Palestine Shuts its Doors Jewish Emigration The pessimists went into exile, and the optimists went to the gas chamber. • Jewish Emigration from Nazi Territories • Why Not Leave? • Evian Conference: July 6-15, 1938 • German Jews Find Refuge: 1933-1938 • American Immigration • Kindertransport: 1938-1940 • The S.S. St. Louis: May 13, 1939 • Palestine Shuts its Doors American Immigration 1820-2000 Jewish Emigration The pessimists went into exile, and the optimists went to the gas chamber. • Jewish Emigration from Nazi Territories • Why Not Leave? • Evian Conference: July 6-15, 1938 • German Jews Find Refuge: 1933-1938 • American Immigration • Kindertransport: 1938-1940 • The S.S. St. Louis: May 13, 1939 • Palestine Shuts its Doors Kindertransport 1938-1940 A rescue effort which brought thousands of refugee children to Great Britain from Nazi controlled Europe between December 1938 and 1940. Jewish Emigration The pessimists went into exile, and the optimists went to the gas chamber. • Jewish Emigration from Nazi Territories • Why Not Leave? • Evian Conference: July 6-15, 1938 • German Jews Find Refuge: 1933-1938 • American Immigration • Kindertransport: 1938-1940 • The S.S. St. Louis: May 13, 1939 • Palestine Shuts its Doors The S.S. St. Louis “Voyage of the Damned” May 13, 1939 Jewish Emigration The pessimists went into exile, and the optimists went to the gas chamber. • Jewish Emigration from Nazi Territories • Why Not Leave? • Evian Conference: July 6-15, 1938 • German Jews Find Refuge: 1933-1938 • American Immigration • Kindertransport: 1938-1940 • The S.S. St. Louis: May 13, 1939 • Palestine Shuts its Doors Palestine Shuts its Doors Palestine Restricted, 1944, Arthur Szyk. German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact August 23, 1939 Soviet Foreign Minister, Molotov, signs pact. German Foreign Minister, Ribbentrop (back center) and Josef Stalin (back right). World War II: 1939-1942 World War II Begins Close your eyes to pity! Eighty million people (the population of Germany) must obtain what is their right! The stronger man is right! Be harsh and remorseless! - Adolf Hitler, August 31, 1939 • The Invasion of Poland: September 1, 1939 • Poland’s Largest Jewish Communities on the Eve of War • The Blitzkrieg of Poland • The Division of Poland • The Germanization of Polish Gentiles • The Isolation of Polish Jews World War II Begins Close your eyes to pity! Eighty million people (the population of Germany) must obtain what is their right! The stronger man is right! Be harsh and remorseless! - Adolf Hitler, August 31, 1939 • The Invasion of Poland: September 1, 1939 • Poland’s Largest Jewish Communities on the Eve of War • The Blitzkrieg of Poland • The Division of Poland • The Germanization of Polish Gentiles • The Isolation of Polish Jews Poland’s Largest Jewish Communities on the Eve of War World War II Begins Close your eyes to pity! Eighty million people (the population of Germany) must obtain what is their right! The stronger man is right! Be harsh and remorseless! - Adolf Hitler, August 31, 1939 • The Invasion of Poland: September 1, 1939 • Poland’s Largest Jewish Communities on the Eve of War • The Blitzkrieg of Poland • The Division of Poland • The Germanization of Polish Gentiles • The Isolation of Polish Jews The Blitzkrieg of Poland September 1 - 27, 1939 World War II Begins Close your eyes to pity! Eighty million people (the population of Germany) must obtain what is their right! The stronger man is right! Be harsh and remorseless! - Adolf Hitler, August 31, 1939 • The Invasion of Poland: September 1, 1939 • Poland’s Largest Jewish Communities on the Eve of War • The Blitzkrieg of Poland • The Division of Poland • The Germanization of Polish Gentiles • The Isolation of Polish Jews The Division of Poland World War II Begins Close your eyes to pity! Eighty million people (the population of Germany) must obtain what is their right! The stronger man is right! Be harsh and remorseless! - Adolf Hitler, August 31, 1939 • The Invasion of Poland: September 1, 1939 • Poland’s Largest Jewish Communities on the Eve of War • The Blitzkrieg of Poland • The Division of Poland • The Germanization of Polish Gentiles • The Isolation of Polish Jews Germanization of Polish Gentiles Two masters cannot exist side by side, and that is why all members of the Polish intelligentsia must be killed. -Adolf Hitler Poles with Aryan features were allowed to remain in Poland. Some Aryanlooking children were kidnapped & taken to Germany to be raised as German. Some Polish men were drafted into the German army, others were deported to the Reich for slave labor. Monuments to Polish history and culture were destroyed. Valuable collections of art and science were transported out of the country. Museums and libraries were demolished. Polish press and theaters were closed. Polish cities and streets were renamed with German names. Universities and secondary schools were closed. Education after the 4th grade was forbidden as Poles would need little education as slave laborers. Use of the Polish language in public and private life was forbidden. Gentile Poles assembled for forced labor. June 1943 A German soldier stands on a toppled Polish monument. Krakow, Poland Polish boys imprisoned in Auschwitz look out from behind the barbed wire fence. Approximately 40,000 Polish children were kidnapped and imprisoned in the camp before being transferred to Germany during "Heuaktion" (Hay Action), The children were used as slave laborers in Germany. World War II Begins Close your eyes to pity! Eighty million people (the population of Germany) must obtain what is their right! The stronger man is right! Be harsh and remorseless! - Adolf Hitler, August 31, 1939 • The Invasion of Poland: September 1, 1939 • Poland’s Largest Jewish Communities on the Eve of War • The Blitzkrieg of Poland • The Division of Poland • The Germanization of Polish Gentiles • The Isolation of Polish Jews Isolation of Polish Jews 1. Humiliation & Terror 2. Forced Labor 3. Expulsion 4. The Jewish Badge Humiliation & Terror Harassment of a Jewish man. German soldiers cutting the beard of a Jew. A soldier tutors two Jewish men on how to give Jewish men are forced to race against the Nazi salute correctly. one another while riding on the backs of their fellows. Isolation of Polish Jews 1. Humiliation & Terror 2. Forced Labor 3. Expulsion 4. The Jewish Badge Forced Labor Jews rounded up for forced labor October, 1939 Jews forced to sweep the streets. Isolation of Polish Jews 1. Humiliation & Terror 2. Forced Labor 3. Expulsion 4. The Jewish Badge Expulsion Polish Exiles, 1941 Arthur Szyk Isolation of Polish Jews 1. Humiliation & Terror 2. Forced Labor 3. Expulsion 4. The Jewish Badge The Jewish Badge Belgium Romania Parts of Bulgaria (a button) France Germany, Alsace, Bohemia-Moravia Parts of Greece, Serbia, Belgrade, Sofia (armband) Parts of Bulgaria, Poland, Hungary, Greece, Lithuania, Latvia Holland Part of Slovakia Parts of Poland, East & Upper Silesia The Ghettos • Definition: any section of a city or town in which members of a minority group live or are restricted by economics or discrimination. • The first ghetto was established in Venice in 1516 when the Church ordered that walls be built around the Jewish Quarter. • The word “ghetto” means “foundry” or “iron works.” In Venice, the ghetto was near a foundry that produced cannon balls. • The establishment of ghettos was the first step in the Nazi extermination plan for the Jews of Eastern Europe. They served as assembly and collection points for Jews. More than 800 ghettos were established by the Nazis in Eastern Europe. MAJOR JEWISH GHETTOS COUNTRY POPULATION Amsterdam Netherlands 100,000 Bedzin Poland 27,000 Bialystok Poland 35 - 50,000 Budapest Hungary 70,000 Chernovtsy Romania 50,000 Grodno Poland 25,000 Kovno / Kaunas Lithuania 40,000 Krakow Poland 19,000 Lida Belorussia 9,000 Lodz Poland 205,000 Lublin Poland 34,000 Lvov Ukraine 110,000 Minsk Belorussia 100,000 Radom Poland 30,000 Riga Latvia 43,000 Salonika Greece 56,000 Shanghai China 10,000 Ternopol Ukraine 12,500 Theresienstadt Czechoslovakia 90,000 Vitebsk Belorussia 16,000 Vilna Lithuania 41,000 Warsaw Poland 400 – 500,000 Ghetto Life The horror is not in the executions. It is in the life that came before the executions. Abba Kovner, partisan fighter from the Vilna Ghetto • Judenrat • Arrival • Daily Life • Jewish Life • Conditions • Smuggling • Forced Labor • “Liquidation/Resettlement” - Judenrat The Judenrat members in Krakow, Poland. Ghetto Life The horror is not in the executions. It is in the life that came before the executions. - Abba Kovner, partisan fighter from the Vilna Ghetto • Judenrat • Arrival • Daily Life • Jewish Life • Conditions • Smuggling • Forced Labor • “Liquidation/Resettlement” Arrival Jews at forced labor constructing the wall around the Krakow ghetto. 1941 Polish and Jewish laborers construct a section of the wall that separated the Warsaw ghetto from the rest of the city. Ghetto Life The horror is not in the executions. It is in the life that came before the executions. - Abba Kovner, partisan fighter from the Vilna Ghetto • Judenrat • Arrival • Daily Life • Jewish Life • Conditions • Smuggling • Forced Labor • “Liquidation/Resettlement” Daily Life A brother feeds his young sister in the Lodz Ghetto. Children selling books to earn money. Nazi officer terrorizes elderly woman with a whip. Jewish men remove loaves of bread from a wagon at the soup kitchen in the Kielce ghetto. Jew chopping up furniture to use as fuel. Girls eating in soup kitchen, Warsaw. Lodz Ghetto. The ghetto orchestra, Lodz. Communal kitchen for children, Warsaw Ghetto. Jews using a wooden bridge to cross from one section of the Lodz Ghetto to the other. Burials, a part of daily life. Street scene, Warsaw Ghetto. Ghetto Life The horror is not in the executions. It is in the life that came before the executions. - Abba Kovner, partisan fighter from the Vilna Ghetto • Judenrat • Arrival • Daily Life • Jewish Life • Conditions • Smuggling • Forced Labor • “Liquidation/Resettlement” Jewish Life Jewish women baking matzos for Passover in the Warsaw Ghetto. Celebrating the Passover Seder in the Warsaw Ghetto. Reading the Torah. Jewish men praying in the Krakow Ghetto. Celebrating the beginning of the Sabbath in the Lodz Ghetto. Ghetto Life The horror is not in the executions. It is in the life that came before the executions. - Abba Kovner, partisan fighter from the Vilna Ghetto • Judenrat • Arrival • Daily Life • Jewish Life • Conditions • Smuggling • Forced Labor • “Liquidation/Resettlement” Conditions With little food and diseases rampant in the crowded ghettos, the living conditions became unbearable. Food ration card. Ghetto Life The horror is not in the executions. It is in the life that came before the executions. - Abba Kovner, partisan fighter from the Vilna Ghetto • Judenrat • Arrival • Daily Life • Jewish Life • Conditions • Smuggling • Forced Labor • “Liquidation/Resettlement” Smuggling Ghetto Life The horror is not in the executions. It is in the life that came before the executions. - Abba Kovner, partisan fighter from the Vilna Ghetto • Judenrat • Arrival • Daily Life • Jewish Life • Conditions • Smuggling • Forced Labor • “Liquidation/Resettlement” Forced Labor Jewish women press Nazi military uniforms in the Glubokoye Ghetto. Making shoes. Kovno, Lithuania. Jewish children making boxes in the Glubokoye Ghetto. A workshop in the Warsaw Ghetto. Jewish women moving human excrement, Lodz, Poland. Child in a ghetto factory, Kovno, Lithuania. Ghetto Life The horror is not in the executions. It is in the life that came before the executions. - Abba Kovner, partisan fighter from the Vilna Ghetto • Judenrat • Arrival • Daily Life • Jewish Life • Conditions • Smuggling • Forced Labor • “Liquidation/Resettlement” “Liquidation/Resettlement” Jews are forced into a truck which is taking them to their execution. Jews from the Lodz ghetto board trains for the death camp at Chelmno. Deportation of the elderly and sick from the Lodz Ghetto to Chelmno. Passengers in a train car. Lodz, Poland Deportations in and out of the Lodz Ghetto. Round-ups in the Warsaw Ghetto. Jews from Lublin ghetto being hustled to the trains to be sent to Sobibor death camp. Deportation of Children from the Lodz Ghetto. A woman writing a letter before boarding a deportation train. Lodz, Poland Final farewell: A child about to be sent to death camp. Jews parting from their relatives before their deportation. Lodz, Poland “The Ghetto” by Samuel Bak Attack in the West With the invasion of each country in Western Europe, anti-Jewish policies followed patterns seen previously in Germany between 1933-1939. Jews were categorized. Civil liberties were restricted and property confiscated. Jews were dismissed from universities and civil service jobs. Jewish businesses taken over. Jews were isolated and forced to wear a star. Jews were assembled in large cities. Jews were deported to camps in the east. Attack in the West Denmark & Norway: April 9, 1940 The Lowlands: May 10, 1940 France: May 13, 1940 Great Britain: July 10, 1940 Invasion of Denmark & Norway April 9, 1940 • With the outbreak of war, Scandinavia had proclaimed itself strictly neutral. • With Poland now secured and the Soviet Union safely on hold, Hitler was eager to attack in the west. • Russia attacked Finland in November 1939, making Norway and Denmark vulnerable to a Russian takeover. Germany recognized the need to advance into Scandinavia first. • The Norwegians and Danes were seen as fellow Aryans and offered a “partnership” with Nazi Germany. Attack in the West Denmark & Norway: April 9, 1940 The Lowlands: May 10, 1940 France: May 13, 1940 Great Britain: July 10, 1940 Invasion of the Lowlands May 10, 1940 • All hoped to remain neutral after World War II began. • Germany attacked without declaring war. • Allied assistance was requested, but it was too late. British and French forces were able to rush into Belgium, but fell into a German trap. • Luxembourg surrendered in 1 day, the Netherlands surrendered in 5 days, and Belgium surrendered in 18 days. (Yellow lines are borders of countries.) Attack in the West Denmark & Norway: April 9, 1940 The Lowlands: May 10, 1940 France: May 13, 1940 Great Britain: July 10, 1940 Invasion of France: May 13, 1940 • Dunkirk Dunkirk Evacuation at Dunkirk, June 4, 1940 Ardennes Forest ● France was the country Hitler most wanted to conquer and humiliate. ● France’s military was larger and more technologically advanced than Germany’s. ● The German army entered France just north of the Maginot Line through Luxembourg and the dense Ardennes Forest of Belgium. ● The Allied forces in Belgium found themselves surrounded and were forced to retreat to Dunkirk. June 14, 1940 German troops enter Paris as French and Allied forces retreat. June 22, 1940 Armistice is signed. June 23, 1940 Hitler tours Paris. The conquest of France was the zenith of Hitler’s career and the peak of popularity for the Nazis among the German people. ● The Armistice with was signed on June 22, 1940 on the very spot of Germany’s humiliating surrender at the end of World War I. ● A separate agreement was reached with Italy, which had entered the war against France on June 10, well after the outcome of the battle was beyond doubt. ● France was divided into 2 zones: - An occupied zone in the north, under German control, with Paris as the official capital. - An unoccupied zone in the south under the control of a collaborative French government led by Marshal Pétain, with the town of Vichy as the administrative center. “Stamps” drawn on the blank borders of a sheet of postage stamps by Karl Schwesig, a non-Jew interred in Gurs concentration camp in France. The words “Liberty, Equality and Fraternity” were the motto of the French Revolution. The founding principle’s of the state. The stamps tell ironically what Schwesig believed had become of these noble ideas. Italy Joins the Axis June 10, 1940 Benito Mussolini with Adolf Hitler. Italy enters World War II as a Germany ally hoping to establish a “New Roman Empire.” Although allied with Germany, Mussolini did not willingly cooperate in the Nazi plan to kill the Jews of Europe. Mussolini called himself “Il Duce“ (the leader). He was Prime Minister & Dictator of fascist Italy, 1922-1943. Attack in the West Denmark & Norway: April 9, 1940 The Lowlands: May 10, 1940 France: May 13, 1940 Great Britain: July 10, 1940 The Battle of Britain July 10, 1940 ● This was the first major battle to be fought entirely in the air. ● Britain’s survival was crucial for the Allied war effort. ● Hitler’s plan was to take London by August 1940. ● In October 1940, unable to accomplish his goals, Hitler had to postpone the invasion. “The Painter and the Clipper”, 1940 Arthur Szyk The Tripartite Pact September 27, 1940 Adolf Hitler, Nazi Germany Emperor Hirohito, Japan Benito Mussolini, Italy Attack in the South April 1941 Nov. 20, 1940 Nov. 23, 1940 June 10, 1940 March 1, 1941 ● In October 1940, the Italians had attacked Greece unsuccessfully and were trapped by British and Greek forces. ● Worried the British might establish a stronghold in the south, Hitler ordered German forces to the Balkans in April 1941. ● The Axis powers were successful in Greece, but this caused a fatal delay in Hitler’s plans for a Soviet invasion. ● Believing that he could defeat the Soviet Union during the 3 summer months, Hitler planned a campaign for the spring of 1941. Attack in the East The Invasion, June 22, 1941 Soviet P.O.W.’s Einsatzgruppen Bialystock Massacre, June 27, 1941 Babi Yar Massacre, September 28-29, 1941 The Invasion, June 22, 1941 The invasion of the Soviet Union was an “ideological battle and a struggle of races” according to Heinrich Himmler. The war against Russia will be such that it cannot be conducted in a knightly fashion. This struggle is one of ideologies and racial differences and will have to be conducted with unprecedented, unmerciful and unrelenting harshness. - Adolf Hitler, 1941 German soldiers in the Soviet Union. December 1943 Attack in the East The Invasion, June 22, 1941 Soviet P.O.W.’s Einsatzgruppen Bialystock Massacre, June 27, 1941 Babi Yar Massacre, September 28-29, 1941 Soviet P.O.W.’s Soviet P.O.W.’s from the Ukrainian front. Kharkov, Soviet Union, June 18, 1942 Camp for Soviet P.O.W.’s. Shelter was minimal, consisting of rough dug outs. Wietzendorf, Germany, 1941-1942. Attack in the East The Invasion, June 22, 1941 Soviet P.O.W.’s Einsatzgruppen Bialystock Massacre, June 27, 1941 Babi Yar Massacre, September 28-29, 1941 Einsatzgruppen Once I really am in power, my first and foremost task will be the annihilation of the Jews. - Adolf Hitler Estonia Latvia Lithuania Four Einsatzgruppen units followed the 4-pronged German army invasion of the Soviet Union. The Einsatzgruppen killed more than 1.2 million Jews between July 1941 and March 1942 Part of a report detailing murder of Jews in the Nazi-occupied Baltic states and White Russia by Einsatzgruppe A. Submitted February 1, 1942. Marched to the forest. Forced to dig their own grave. Forced to undress. Shot into a ditch. Nazis executing a Jew at the edge of a mass grave. Ukraine, January 1942 Attack in the East The Invasion, June 22, 1941 Soviet P.O.W.’s Einsatzgruppen Bialystock Massacre, June 27, 1941 Babi Yar Massacre, September 28-29, 1941 Bialystok Massacre June 27, 1941 The Great Synagogue of Bialystok, built in 1908, was the largest wooden synagogue in Eastern Europe. On June 27, 1941 the Germans forced 500-700 Jews into the synagogue and burned it to the ground. Attack in the East The Invasion, June 22, 1941 Soviet P.O.W.’s Einsatzgruppen Bialystock Massacre, June 27, 1941 Babi Yar Massacre, September 28-29, 1941 Babi Yar Massacre September 28 - 29, 1941 Top of the Babi Yar ravine, where 33,771 Jews were massacred in two days. This was the largest mass murder at an individual location during World War II. Soviet P.O.W.’s level the ground over the mass grave in the Fall 1941 A 1936 portrait of 2 year-old Mania Halef, a Jewish child who was later killed at Babi Yar. Elegy for the Jewish Villages Gone now are those little towns where the shoemaker was a poet The watchmaker a philosopher, the barber a troubadour. Gone now are those little towns where the wind joined Biblical songs with Polish tunes and Slavic rue, Me and My Village by Marc Chagall Where old Jews in orchards in the shade of cherry trees Lamented for the holy walls of Jerusalem. - Antoni Slonimski Rain by Marc Chagall Japanese Attack Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941 Yesterday, December 7, 1941 – a date which will live in infamy – the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. As Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense. With confidence in our armed forces – with the unbounded determination of our people – we will gain the inevitable triumph – so help us God. - President Franklin D. Roosevelt, December 8, 1941 U.S.S. Maryland and capsized U.S.S. Oklahoma. View down “Battleship Row.” Wannsee Conference January 20, 1942 ● SS Lieutenant General Reinhard Heydrich called together 15 high ranking Nazi officials to discuss and coordinate the implementation of the “Final Solution.” ● This did not mark the beginning of the “Final Solution,” rather it was the place where the “Final Solution” was formally revealed to Nazi leaders ● Within ninety minutes, the implementation of the “Final Solution” had been planned and the death sentence of 11 million Jews had been passed down. The Wannsee Villa outside of Berlin. ● Never before had a modern state committed itself to the murder of an entire people. List of countries presented at the Wannsee Conference, with the number of Jews who were to be deported to their deaths. Almost half of these countries never came under German rule or control. The Evolution of Death In mid-March 1942, 75-80% of all victims of the Holocaust were still alive, while 20-25% had perished. Merely eleven months later, in mid-February 1943, the percentages were exactly the reverse. - Christopher R. Browning, Holocaust historian A “hell” van. The first carbon monoxide experiments using cars. Zyklon-B crystals. Deportations A child’s drawing showing a German soldier shooting at a train of deportees. A 1942 transport to Treblinka. Corpses lie in an open railcar at Dachau. “Im Wagon” (In the Railway Car) by Ella Liebermann-Shiber Written in Pencil in a Sealed Railway Car here in this carload i am eve with abel my son if you see my other son cain son of man … tell him I Deportation Routes to Auschwitz • A complex network of rail lines was necessary to accomplish the vast deportations. • Shown here are the deportation routes leading to only one camp, Auschwitz. • • • • The Camps Types of Concentration Camps Extermination Camps Treblinka Auschwitz 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Arrival Selection “Canada” Registration Daily Life – – – – – – Barracks Roll Call Food Slave Labor Brutality Survival 6. Medical Experiments 7. Extermination – – – – – – Gassings Crematorium I Crematorium II Crematorium III Crematorium IV Crematorium V • The Value of Life Types of Concentration Camps ● Labor Camps ● Prisoner of War Camps ● Transit Camps ● Extermination Camps Buchenwald, Germany. (labor camp) Westerbork, Netherlands. Lighting Chanukah candles. (transit camp) Dachau, Germany. (labor camp) Bergen-Belsen, Germany. (labor camp) Drancy, France. Courtyard used to round up Jews for deportation. (transit camp) Theresienstadt, Czechoslovakia. Production of opera Brundibar. (ghetto/transit camp) Ravensbruck, Germany. (labor camp for women) Dora-Mittelbau, Germany. Camouflaged entrance to the underground rocket factory. (labor camp) Flossenburg, Germany. The quarry. (labor camp) Mauthausen, Austria. Main entrance to the camp. (labor camp) Oranienburg, Germany. Political prisoners in the camp yard. (POW/labor camp) Neuengamme, Germany. On the left is the camp brick factory. (labor camp) • • • • The Camps Types of Concentration Camps Extermination Camps Treblinka Auschwitz 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Arrival Selection “Canada” Registration Daily Life – – – – – – Barracks Roll Call Food Slave Labor Brutality Survival 6. Medical Experiments 7. Extermination – – – – – – Gassings Crematorium I Crematorium II Crematorium III Crematorium IV Crematorium V • The Value of Life Extermination Camps 100,000 Victims Camp Deaths Survivors Auschwitz-Birkenau 1.1 – 1.6 million 7,000 Belzec * 434,500 2 Chelmno 152,000 2 Majdanek 170-235,000 <600 Sobibor * > 167,000 50 Treblinka * 870,000-925,000 <100 • • • • The Camps Types of Concentration Camps Extermination Camps Treblinka Auschwitz 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Arrival Selection “Canada” Registration Daily Life – – – – – – Barracks Roll Call Food Slave Labor Brutality Survival 6. Medical Experiments 7. Extermination – – – – – – Gassings Crematorium I Crematorium II Crematorium III Crematorium IV Crematorium V • The Value of Life Treblinka Living Area 1. Main entrance 2. Commandant's living quarters 3. Ukranian guards' living quarters 4. Zoo 5. Service buildings for the SS 6. Barracks for the domestic staff 7. Building for sorting valuables 8. SS living quarters 9. Service Storage Buildings 10. Stables and livestock area 11. Barracks for women prisoners 12. Barracks for male prisoners 13. Latrine 14. Assembly area for prisoners 15. Entrances to reception area 16. Entrance for the guards Living Area Reception Area 17. Station platform, ramp, and square 18. Storehouse for victims' property (disguised as a train station) 19. Burial pits 20. Execution site (disguised as a hospital) 21. Reception square (sorting area) 22. Latrine 23. Cremation pyres 24. Deportation area 25. Barracks where women undressed, surrendered their valuables, and had heads shaved 26. Barracks where men undressed 27. Approach to the gas chambers (the tube, der Schlauch) Extermination Area 28. New gas chambers 29. Old gas chambers 30. Cremation pyres 31. Prisoners barracks Reception Area Extermination Area • • • • The Camps Types of Concentration Camps Extermination Camps Treblinka Auschwitz 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Arrival Selection “Canada” Registration Daily Life – – – – – – Barracks Roll Call Food Slave Labor Brutality Survival 6. Medical Experiments 7. Extermination – – – – – – Gassings Crematorium I Crematorium II Crematorium III Crematorium IV Crematorium V • The Value of Life Auschwitz At Auschwitz, not only did man die, but the image of man died. - Elie Wiesel Auschwitz I A House of camp commandant B Main guardhouse C Offices of camp commandant D Offices of camp administration E Hospital for SS F Offices of Gestapo G Registration of new prisoners H Entrance gate w/ inscription: Arbeit macht frei I Kitchen K1 Gas Chamber & Crematorium I L Stores, stables, garages & workshops M Warehouse for belongings from prisoners and Zyklon-B N Gravel pit (site of executions) O Where camp orchestra played P Laundry R SS guardroom S Wall where prisoners executed 1-28 Blocks Housing Prisoners Auschwitz II (Birkenau) A BI BII BIII B1a B1b BIIa BIIb BIIc BIId BIIe BIIf C D E F G H I J KII KIII KIV KV L Main gate & guardhouse Sector I Sector II Sector III, under construction Camp for women Initially camp for men; after 1943 camp for women Quarantine area Family camp for Jews from Terezin Camp for Jews from Hungary Camp for men Camp for gypsies Infirmary Camp HQ & SS barracks “Canada” Ramp where “selection” occurred Showers Pits where corpses burned Mass graves of Soviet POW’s 1st improvised gas chamber 2nd improvised gas chamber Gas Chamber & Crematorium I Gas Chamber & Crematorium II Gas Chamber & Crematorium IV Gas Chamber & Crematorium V Latrines & washrooms Lane separating barracks in the main camp. On the left, in the distance, is crematorium #1. The camp's double, electrified, barbed wire fence and barracks. Row of barracks in Auschwitz II. • • • • The Camps Types of Concentration Camps Extermination Camps Treblinka Auschwitz 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Arrival Selection “Canada” Registration Daily Life – – – – – – Barracks Roll Call Food Slave Labor Brutality Survival 6. Medical Experiments 7. Extermination – – – – – – Gassings Crematorium I Crematorium II Crematorium III Crematorium IV Crematorium V • The Value of Life Arrival Entrance to Auschwitz I. Entrance to Auschwitz II (Birkenau). Jews on “the ramp”. • • • • The Camps Types of Concentration Camps Extermination Camps Treblinka Auschwitz 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Arrival Selection “Canada” Registration Daily Life – – – – – – Barracks Roll Call Food Slave Labor Brutality Survival 6. Medical Experiments 7. Extermination – – – – – – Gassings Crematorium I Crematorium II Crematorium III Crematorium IV Crematorium V • The Value of Life Selection Men on the right. Women & children on the left. Those “fit” for work were registered as prisoners. Those “unfit” for work were exterminated. Around us, everyone was weeping. Someone began to recite the Kaddish, the prayer for the dead. I do not know if it has ever happened before, in the long history of the Jews, that people have ever recited the prayer for the dead for themselves. - Elie Wiesel in Night, recalling what he experienced as a teenager fresh off the transport train at Auschwitz, 1944. Unable to Work by David Olère. • • • • The Camps Types of Concentration Camps Extermination Camps Treblinka Auschwitz 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Arrival Selection “Canada” Registration Daily Life – – – – – – Barracks Roll Call Food Slave Labor Brutality Survival 6. Medical Experiments 7. Extermination – – – – – – Gassings Crematorium I Crematorium II Crematorium III Crematorium IV Crematorium V • The Value of Life “Canada” • • • • The Camps Types of Concentration Camps Extermination Camps Treblinka Auschwitz 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Arrival Selection “Canada” Registration Daily Life – – – – – – Barracks Roll Call Food Slave Labor Brutality Survival 6. Medical Experiments 7. Extermination – – – – – – Gassings Crematorium I Crematorium II Crematorium III Crematorium IV Crematorium V • The Value of Life Registration They will even take away our name: and if we want to keep it, we will have to find in ourselves the strength to do so, to manage somehow so that behind the name something of us, of us as we were, still remains. – Primo Levi, Survival at Auschwitz Registration: Camp Badges Political Jewish Political Criminal Jewish Criminal F P Political (French) Political (Polish) Antisocial Jewish Antisocial Homosexual Jewish Homosexual Political Second-Time Offender Wehrmacht Prisoner Emigrant Jehovah’s Witness Gypsy Jewish Emigrant Penal Company Prisoner Under Special Surveillance • • • • The Camps Types of Concentration Camps Extermination Camps Treblinka Auschwitz 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Arrival Selection “Canada” Registration Daily Life – – – – – – Barracks Roll Call Food Slave Labor Brutality Survival 6. Medical Experiments 7. Extermination – – – – – – Gassings Crematorium I Crematorium II Crematorium III Crematorium IV Crematorium V • The Value of Life Barracks Six people slept on a plank of wood, on top of us another layer. And if one of us had to turn, all the others had to turn because it was so narrow. One cover, no pillow, no mattress. Alice Lok, Survivor • • • • The Camps Types of Concentration Camps Extermination Camps Treblinka Auschwitz 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Arrival Selection “Canada” Registration Daily Life – – – – – – Barracks Roll Call Food Slave Labor Brutality Survival 6. Medical Experiments 7. Extermination – – – – – – Gassings Crematorium I Crematorium II Crematorium III Crematorium IV Crematorium V • The Value of Life Roll Call Life is not important at the roll call. Numbers are important. Numbers tally. - Salmen Gradowski, Auschwitz Survivor Amidst a Nightmare of Crime Appell (roll call). • • • • The Camps Types of Concentration Camps Extermination Camps Treblinka Auschwitz 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Arrival Selection “Canada” Registration Daily Life – – – – – – Barracks Roll Call Food Slave Labor Brutality Survival 6. Medical Experiments 7. Extermination – – – – – – Gassings Crematorium I Crematorium II Crematorium III Crematorium IV Crematorium V • The Value of Life Food A fortnight after my arrival, I already had the prescribed hunger, that chronic hunger unknown to free men, which makes one dream at night, and settles in all the limbs of one‟s body. - Primo Levi, Survival at Auschwitz A DAY’S RATIONS Breakfast 2 cups coffee or tea (often nothing more than dried leaves or bark,usually birch, in hot water) Midday 3 cups turnip and potato soup , a scrap of meat or Avo (yeast extract) added Evening 10 oz. of bread, less than 1 oz. sausage or cheese, and a teaspoon of margarine and beet jam Drawings of Ella Liebermann Shiber Soup Distribution “Juden bekommen zuletzt!” (Jews are last!) Hunger - Looking for Food “Auf der Suche nach Kartoffelschalen” (Looking for potato peels ) Hunger – Stealing Bread “Der Dieb” (The Thief ) • • • • The Camps Types of Concentration Camps Extermination Camps Treblinka Auschwitz 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Arrival Selection “Canada” Registration Daily Life – – – – – – Barracks Roll Call Food Slave Labor Brutality Survival 6. Medical Experiments 7. Extermination – – – – – – Gassings Crematorium I Crematorium II Crematorium III Crematorium IV Crematorium V • The Value of Life Slave Labor Leaving for Work by David Olère. Camp inmates are marched out to work past victims of Nazi camp discipline. Buna Factory, Auschwitz III (Monowitz). Jewish women pulling cars of quarried stones, Plaszlow, 1944. Assembly line at the Bavarian Motor Works (BMW) aircraft engine factory, Allach, Germany. • • • • The Camps Types of Concentration Camps Extermination Camps Treblinka Auschwitz 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Arrival Selection “Canada” Registration Daily Life – – – – – – Barracks Roll Call Food Slave Labor Brutality Survival 6. Medical Experiments 7. Extermination – – – – – – Gassings Crematorium I Crematorium II Crematorium III Crematorium IV Crematorium V • The Value of Life Brutality If you can be cruel to one, you are capable of being cruel to many. - Auschwitz: If You Cried You Died • • • • The Camps Types of Concentration Camps Extermination Camps Treblinka Auschwitz 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Arrival Selection “Canada” Registration Daily Life – – – – – – Barracks Roll Call Food Slave Labor Brutality Survival 6. Medical Experiments 7. Extermination – – – – – – Gassings Crematorium I Crematorium II Crematorium III Crematorium IV Crematorium V • The Value of Life Survival Just as despair can come to one only from other human beings, hope, too, can be given to one only by other human beings. - Elie Wiesel Prisoner throwing himself onto an electrified fence, Mauthausen. “Muselmann” German term describing prisoners who were near death due to exhaustion, starvation or hopelessness. • • • • The Camps Types of Concentration Camps Extermination Camps Treblinka Auschwitz 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Arrival Selection “Canada” Registration Daily Life – – – – – – Barracks Roll Call Food Slave Labor Brutality Survival 6. Medical Experiments 7. Extermination – – – – – – Gassings Crematorium I Crematorium II Crematorium III Crematorium IV Crematorium V • The Value of Life Medical Experiments Survivor shows scar of a wound deliberately infected with dirt, bacteria and slivers of glass. Low pressure experimentation resulting in death from burst lungs. Immersed in freezing water at Dachau. Medical experiment at Buchenwald. • • • • The Camps Types of Concentration Camps Extermination Camps Treblinka Auschwitz 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Arrival Selection “Canada” Registration Daily Life – – – – – – Barracks Roll Call Food Slave Labor Brutality Survival 6. Medical Experiments 7. Extermination – – – – – – Gassings Crematorium I Crematorium II Crematorium III Crematorium IV Crematorium V • The Value of Life Extermination Women and children awaiting the gas chambers in the “Little Wood” adjacent to the gas chambers at Auschwitz II (Birkenau). • • • • The Camps Types of Concentration Camps Extermination Camps Treblinka Auschwitz 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Arrival Selection “Canada” Registration Daily Life – – – – – – Barracks Roll Call Food Slave Labor Brutality Survival 6. Medical Experiments 7. Extermination – – – – – – Gassings Crematorium I Crematorium II Crematorium III Crematorium IV Crematorium V • The Value of Life Gassings SS camp guards with Zyklon-B canisters. Gas chamber in Crematorium I, Auschwitz I. The camp orchestra played to calm fears en route to the gas chambers. Gassings Gassing, David Olère. We acknowledge receipt of your order for five triple furnaces, including two electric elevators for raising the corpses and one emergency elevator. Contract acceptance letter, J.A. Topf & Sons • • • • The Camps Types of Concentration Camps Extermination Camps Treblinka Auschwitz 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Arrival Selection “Canada” Registration Daily Life – – – – – – Barracks Roll Call Food Slave Labor Brutality Survival 6. Medical Experiments 7. Extermination – – – – – – Gassings Crematorium I Crematorium II Crematorium III Crematorium IV Crematorium V • The Value of Life Crematorium I The first killing center was located at Auschwitz I. It was built partially underground and housed a primitive gas chamber along with several crematory ovens. View of the walled entrance. April 1945. Note the small access lids in the roof through which Zyklon-B crystals were dropped. Metal slide for placing bodies into oven. Crematory as found at liberation. Artwork by Jan Komski, survivor. • • • • The Camps Types of Concentration Camps Extermination Camps Treblinka Auschwitz 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Arrival Selection “Canada” Registration Daily Life – – – – – – Barracks Roll Call Food Slave Labor Brutality Survival 6. Medical Experiments 7. Extermination – – – – – – Gassings Crematorium I Crematorium II Crematorium III Crematorium IV Crematorium V • The Value of Life Crematorium II One of the two main crematoria at Auschwitz II (Birkenau). All of the combined gas chambers/crematoria at Birkenau were systematically dismantled and then dynamited by the Germans in late 1944. • • • • The Camps Types of Concentration Camps Extermination Camps Treblinka Auschwitz 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Arrival Selection “Canada” Registration Daily Life – – – – – – Barracks Roll Call Food Slave Labor Brutality Survival 6. Medical Experiments 7. Extermination – – – – – – Gassings Crematorium I Crematorium II Crematorium III Crematorium IV Crematorium V • The Value of Life Crematorium III Crematorium II and III were the largest gassing and cremating facilities in the Nazi extermination system. • • • • The Camps Types of Concentration Camps Extermination Camps Treblinka Auschwitz 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Arrival Selection “Canada” Registration Daily Life – – – – – – Barracks Roll Call Food Slave Labor Brutality Survival 6. Medical Experiments 7. Extermination – – – – – – Gassings Crematorium I Crematorium II Crematorium III Crematorium IV Crematorium V • The Value of Life Crematorium IV • • • • The Camps Types of Concentration Camps Extermination Camps Treblinka Auschwitz 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Arrival Selection “Canada” Registration Daily Life – – – – – – Barracks Roll Call Food Slave Labor Brutality Survival 6. Medical Experiments 7. Extermination – – – – – – Gassings Crematorium I Crematorium II Crematorium III Crematorium IV Crematorium V • The Value of Life Crematorium V Located in a remote corner of the camp, this facility was the last in operation at Auschwitz II (Birkenau). In Memory of the Czech Transport to the Gas Chambers Yehuda Bacon 1945, Charcoal on paper. • • • • The Camps Types of Concentration Camps Extermination Camps Treblinka Auschwitz 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Arrival Selection “Canada” Registration Daily Life – – – – – – Barracks Roll Call Food Slave Labor Brutality Survival 6. Medical Experiments 7. Extermination – – – – – – Gassings Crematorium I Crematorium II Crematorium III Crematorium IV Crematorium V • The Value of Life The Value of a Life Rings These shoes represent one day's collection at the peak of the gassings, about twenty-five thousand pairs. Calculation by the SS of Profit Value in the Utilization of Prisoners in the Concentration Camps - Official SS Document, March 11, 1941 Daily “farming-out” wage, average 6.00 Reichsmark, RM Food, daily <0.60> RM Clothing depreciation <0.10> RM Balance 5.30 RM / day Approximate life span X 9 month (270 days) NET PROFIT 1,431.00 RM / prisoner Efficient utilization of prisoner’s body, i.e. dental gold, clothing, valuables, money 202.00 RM Cremation cost <2.00> RM AVERAGE NET PROFIT 200.00 RM TOTAL PROFIT AFTER 9 MONTHS 1631.00 RM Plus additional revenue from utilization of bones and ashes. (1941: 1 RM = $.40, or 2.5 RM = $1.00) We say „hunger,‟ we say „tiredness,‟ „fear,‟ „pain,‟ we say „winter‟ and they are different things. They are free words, created and used by free men who lived in comfort and suffering in their homes. If the (camps) had lasted longer, a new, harsh language would have been born; and only this language could express what it means to toil the whole day in the wind with the temperature below freezing, and wearing only a shirt, underpants, cloth jacket and trousers, and in one‟s body nothing but weakness, hunger and knowledge of the end drawing nearer. - Primo Levi, Survival in Auschwitz Resistance There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, there must never be a time when we fail to protest. Elie Wiesel • Obstacles to Resistance • Jewish Resistance • Non-Jewish Resistance • Resistance in the Ghettos and Camps • Partisan Activity but - Obstacles to Resistance 1. Superior armed power of the Germans. 2. German tactic of “collective responsibility.” 3. Secrecy and deception of deportations. 4. Family ties and responsibilities. 5. Absence of a non-Jewish population willing to help. Resistance Anything could be resistance, because everything was forbidden. Every activity that created the impression that the prisoner retained something of his former personality and individuality represented resistance. - Andrea Devoto, Italian Psychiatrist • Obstacles to Resistance • Jewish Resistance • Non-Jewish Resistance • Resistance in the Ghettos and Camps • Partisan Activity Jewish Resistance To smuggle a loaf of bread – was to resist. To teach in secret – was to resist. To cry out in warning and shatter illusions – was to resist. To rescue a Torah Scroll – was to resist. To forge documents – was to resist. To smuggle people across borders – was to resist. To chronicle events and conceal the records – was to resist. To hold out a helping hand to the needy – was to resist. To contact those under siege and smuggle weapons – was to resist. To fight with weapons in streets, mountains, and forests – was to resist. To rebel in death camps – was to resist. To rise up in ghettos, among the crumbling walls, in the most desperate revolt – was to resist. Taken from a wall on resistance at the Ghetto Fighters House. Resistance Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope. - Robert F. Kennedy • Obstacles to Resistance • Jewish Resistance • Non-Jewish Resistance • Resistance in the Ghettos and Camps • Partisan Activity Non-Jewish Resistance First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists, but I was neither, so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew so I did not speak out. And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me. Hans Scholl (left), Sophie Scholl (center), and Christoph Probst (right), leaders of The White Rose resistance organization. Munich, Germany, 1942. - Pastor Martin Niemoeller Resistance Jewish armed resistance … , when it came, did not spring from a sudden impulse; it was not an act of personal courage on the part of a few individuals or organized groups: it was the culmination of Jewish defiance, defiance that had existed from the advent of the ghetto. - Vladka Meed, Holocaust Survivor, participant in Warsaw Ghetto Uprising • Obstacles to Resistance • Jewish Resistance • Non-Jewish Resistance • Resistance in the Ghettos and Camps • Partisan Activity Resistance in the Ghettos and the Camps Sniper during Warsaw Ghetto uprising. Oneg Shabbat archives being examined in Warsaw, 1950. Participants of the uprising at the Sobibór. concentration camp. Execution Of Jewish resistance fighters from the Warsaw Ghetto. The Battle of the Warsaw Ghetto, 1945 Arthur Szyk Resistance Blessed is the heart with the strength to stop Its beating for honor‟s sake. Blessed is the match consumed in kindling flame. - Hannah Senesh • Obstacles to Resistance • Jewish Resistance • Non-Jewish Resistance • Resistance in the Ghettos and Camps • Partisan Activity Partisan Activity Jewish partisans who fought in the vicinity of Vilna, Poland. A hanged Jewish partisan with a sign: "We are partisans and have shot at German soldiers." Poland 1941 – 1944. A Jewish partisan plants dynamite on a railroad track. Vilna, 1943 or 1944. Jewish partisans in the Lithuanian forests. Yugoslav partisans with Jewish parachutists from Palestine. Yugoslavia, 1944. The Final Stages of War • Allied Invasion at Normandy: June 6, 1944 • The Allies Close In • Death Marches • Liberation • Yalta (Crimea) Conference: February 4-11, 1945 • Hitler’s Last Days • The Fall of Berlin: May 2, 1945 • Surrender in the West: May 8, 1945 • Allied Occupation and Denazification The Final Stages of War • Allied Invasion at Normandy: June 6, 1944 • The Allies Close In • Death Marches • Liberation • Yalta (Crimea) Conference: February 4-11, 1945 • Hitler’s Last Days • The Fall of Berlin: May 2, 1945 • Surrender in the West: May 8, 1945 • Allied Occupation and Denazification Allied Invasion at Normandy D-Day: June 6, 1944 “A Memory of June 6, 1944” Simon Jeruchim’s image of the Allied invasion of Normandy. The Final Stages of War • Allied Invasion at Normandy: June 6, 1944 • The Allies Close In • Death Marches • Liberation • Yalta (Crimea) Conference: February 4-11, 1945 • Hitler’s Last Days • The Fall of Berlin: May 2, 1945 • Surrender in the West: May 8, 1945 • Allied Occupation and Denazification The Allies Close In The war against the Jews continued as the Allies closed in on the crumbling Nazi empire. Extermination of the Jews was so efficient that by the time the Soviet army re-crossed the Polish border in 1944 and D-Day occurred on June 6, most of the approximately 6 million Jews who died in the Holocaust were already dead. The Final Stages of War • Allied Invasion at Normandy: June 6, 1944 • The Allies Close In • Death Marches • Liberation • Yalta (Crimea) Conference: February 4-11, 1945 • Hitler’s Last Days • The Fall of Berlin: May 2, 1945 • Surrender in the West: May 8, 1945 • Allied Occupation and Denazification Death Marches As the Allied armies closed in on the Nazi concentration camps, every effort was made to conceal the crimes that had been committed. Camps were dismantled or abandoned. In the dead of winter, prisoners were taken by train and/or foot toward the heartland of Germany with hopes of preserving the slave labor force for the Reich. Thousands froze to death or died. “Death March” by Ella Liebermann Shiber Dachau, Germany Camp prisoners marching through a village. Photo was taken through upstairs window of a private home along the route. Few civilians gave aid to prisoners on the death marches. April 1945, Dachau, Germany. German civilians, under direction of U.S. medical officers, walk past a group of 30 Jewish women starved to death by SS troops in a 300 mile march across Czechoslovakia. The Final Stages of War • Allied Invasion at Normandy: June 6, 1944 • The Allies Close In • Death Marches • Liberation • Yalta (Crimea) Conference: February 4-11, 1945 • Hitler’s Last Days • The Fall of Berlin: May 2, 1945 • Surrender in the West: May 8, 1945 • Allied Occupation and Denazification Liberation We are free, but how will we live our lives without our families. - Anton Mason, Survivor Survivors eagerly pull down the Nazi eagle over entrance to the Mauthausen. Survivors in Allach, a sub-camp of Dachau, greet arriving U.S. troops. C O N D I T I O N S Survivors of Auschwitz, wearing adult-size prisoner jackets. Jewish survivors at Ebensee gathered outside on the day after liberation. Survivor sitting outside a barrack, Bergen-Belsen, April 1945. Young survivors at Buchenwald, April 1945. F O O D M E D I C I N E Survivors, too weak to eat solid food, suck on sugar cubes to give them strength. The sick are evacuated to an American field hospital. Survivors in Dachau distribute bread to their comrades after liberation. American medical personnel at work in a typhus ward in a hospital for survivors. Witness to the Atrocities General Dwight D. Eisenhower and other members of the Army view the bodies of executed prisoners. Ohrdruf, April 12, 1945. German civilians under U.S. military escort are forced to see a wagon loaded with corpses in Buchenwald. The Final Stages of War • Allied Invasion at Normandy: June 6, 1944 • The Allies Close In • Death Marches • Liberation • Yalta (Crimea) Conference: February 4-11, 1945 • Hitler’s Last Days • The Fall of Berlin: May 2, 1945 • Surrender in the West: May 8, 1945 • Allied Occupation and Denazification Yalta (Crimea) Conference February 4 - 11, 1945 Roosevelt & Churchill “How are we feeling today?” – a 1945 British cartoon shows Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin as doctors, working together to heal the world. The "Big Three": Winston Churchill, D. Roosevelt , Joseph Stalin Franklin The Final Stages of War • Allied Invasion at Normandy: June 6, 1944 • The Allies Close In • Death Marches • Liberation • Yalta (Crimea) Conference: February 4-11, 1945 • Hitler’s Last Days • The Fall of Berlin: May 2, 1945 • Surrender in the West: May 8, 1945 • Allied Occupation and Denazification Hitler’s Last Days One of the last pictures taken of Hitler in his bunker before he committed suicide. On the left is Col. Gen. Ferdinand Schoerner who was appointed commander-in-chief of the Wehrmacht in Hitler’s will. In the garden outside his bunker, Hitler decorates Hitler Youth who have been newly recruited as soldiers. After the ceremony, he returns to his underground refuge. The Final Stages of War • Allied Invasion at Normandy: June 6, 1944 • The Allies Close In • Death Marches • Liberation • Yalta (Crimea) Conference: February 4-11, 1945 • Hitler’s Last Days • The Fall of Berlin: May 2, 1945 • Surrender in the West: May 8, 1945 • Allied Occupation and Denazification The Fall of Berlin May 2, 1945 Soviet soldiers celebrate the fall of Berlin by hoisting the Red Flag over the ruined Reichstag. As his last significant official act, Hitler appointed Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz to succeed him as führer. The Reichstag lies in ruins as did most of Berlin. The Final Stages of War • Allied Invasion at Normandy: June 6, 1944 • The Allies Close In • Death Marches • Liberation • Yalta (Crimea) Conference: February 4-11, 1945 • Hitler’s Last Days • The Fall of Berlin: May 2, 1945 • Surrender in the West: May 8, 1945 • Allied Occupation and Denazification Surrender in the West May 8, 1945 With this signature the German people and the German Armed Forces are, for better or worse, delivered into the hands of the victors … In this hour I can only express the hope that the victor will treat them with generosity. - General Alfred Jodl (during the signing of the unconditional surrender), Reims, France. Move to last days?????????? General Alfred Jodl, Chief of the Operations Staff in the German High Command, signs the document of unconditional German surrender on May 7. Left is Admiral Von Friedeburg of the German Navy. Right is Major Wilhelm Oxenius of the German General Staff. German Field Marshall Wilhelm Keitel signs a surrender document at Soviet headquarters in Berlin, May 9, 1945. The Soviets had insisted that a second ceremonial signing take place in Sovietoccupied Berlin. The Final Stages of War • Allied Invasion at Normandy: June 6, 1944 • The Allies Close In • Death Marches • Liberation • Yalta (Crimea) Conference: February 4-11, 1945 • Hitler’s Last Days • The Fall of Berlin: May 2, 1945 • Surrender in the West: May 8, 1945 • Allied Occupation and Denazification Allied Occupation & Denazification The Aftermath •Jewish Losses •Displaced Persons (DP’s) •Potsdam Conference: July 17 – August 2, 1945 •The Nuremberg Trials Nov. 20, 1945 – Oct. 1, 1946 Poland 88% 2,900,000 Soviet Union 33% 1,000,000 Hungary 70% 550,000 Romania Lithuania Germany Netherlands Bohemia & Moravia France Latvia Slovakia Greece Yugoslavia Austria Belgium Italy Luxembourg Estonia Norway Denmark Finland Albania Bulgaria Spain Sweden Switzerland 35% 90% 27% 75% 84% 24% 75% 76% 80% 72% 27% 44% 20% 50% 33% 55% 1.3% 2.8% 0 0 0 0 0 271,000 140,000 134,500 100,000 78,150 77,320 70,000 68,000 60,000 56,200 50,000 28,900 7,680 1,950 1,500 762 60 7 0 0 0 0 0 Jewish Losses TOTAL : 5,596,029 * * These are minimum losses as reported by Yehuda Bauer and Robert Rozett, "Estimated Jewish Losses in the Holocaust," in Encyclopedia of the Holocaust (New York: Macmillan, 1990), p.1799. The estimated number of Jewish fatalities during the Holocaust is usually given between 5.1 and 6 million victims. Despite the availability of numerous scholarly works and archival sources on the subject, Holocaust related figures may never be definitely known. The Aftermath •Jewish Losses •Displaced Persons (DP’s) •Potsdam Conference: July 17 – August 2, 1945 •The Nuremberg Trials Nov. 20, 1945 – Oct. 1, 1946 Displaced Persons (DP’s) Portraits of children in Germany holding name cards, in search of their families. Their photographs were published in newspapers. Jewish refugees in Shanghai look for names of relatives and friends who may have survived the war. A child lights a Hannukah menorah during a celebration in a DP camp. Wedding ceremony at a DP camp. The Aftermath •Jewish Losses •Displaced Persons (DP’s) •Potsdam Conference: July 17 – August 2, 1945 •The Nuremberg Trials Nov. 20, 1945 – Oct. 1, 1946 Potsdam Conference July 17 – August 2, 1945 POLAND Churchill, Truman, Stalin The "Big Three" pose with their principal advisors. Seated (left to right): British Prime Minister Clement Atlee; U.S. President Harry S. Truman; Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin. Standing (left to right): Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy, USN, Truman's Chief of Staff; British Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin; U.S. Secretary of State James F. Byrnes; Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov. Europe after World War I The Aftermath •Jewish Losses •Displaced Persons (DP’s) •Potsdam Conference: July 17 – August 2, 1945 •The Nuremberg Trials Nov. 20, 1945 – Oct. 1, 1946 Nuremberg Trials Nov. 20, 1945 – Oct. 1, 1946 Palace of Justice in Nuremberg. Front: Hermann Goering, Rudolf Hess, Joachim von Ribbentrop, and Wilhelm Keitel. The defendants at Nuremberg. Julius Streicher, Front: Rudolf Hess, Joachim von Editor-in-Chief of Der Ribbentrop Back: Karl Doenitz, Erich Stürmer. Raeder and Balder von Schirach. Nuremberg Defendants DEFENDANT POSITION CHARGES SENTENCE Martin Bormann Head of main Nazi office, Hitler’s secretary. 3,4 Death (in absentia). Found to have been killed in Battle of Berlin. Karl Doenitz Supreme Commander of Navy, Chosen by Hitler to succeed him as führer. Negotiated surrender following Hitler’s suicide. 2,3 Served 10 years. Died 1981. Hans Frank Governor General of Nazi-occupied Poland. Known as the “Jew butcher of Krakow.” 3,4 Death. Hanged 1946. Wilhelm Frick Reich Minister of the Interior; Responsible for exclusionary Jewish laws including Nuremberg Laws. 2,3,4 Death. Hanged 1946. Hans Fritzsche Head of Radio Division (one of 12 divisions) of Propaganda Ministry Walter Funk Minister of Economics. President of Reichsbank 2,3,4 Life in prison. Released in 1957 because of poor health. Died 1959. Hermann Goering Commander-in-Chief of Luftwaffe, President of Reichstag, creator of Gestapo. Hitler’s chosen successor. 1,2,3,4 Death by hanging. Committed suicide the day before his scheduled hanging by taking a cyanide pill that was smuggled into his cell. 1946. Acquitted. Later tried & convicted by a German court, freed 1950. Died 1953. 1. Conspiracy to Commit Crimes 2. Crimes Against Peace 3. War Crimes 4. Crimes Against Humanity DEFENDANT POSITION CHARGES SENTENCE Rudolf Hess Reich Minister Without Portfolio. Helped Hitler write Mein Kampf. Ranked 3rd behind Goering. 1,2 Life in prison. Committed suicide by hanging in 1987 at age 93. Alfred Jodl Army General & Chief of Staff to General Keitel 1,2,3,4 Death. Hanged 1946. Ernst Kaltenbrunner Chief of Security Police. Head of Reich Security Main Office after Heydrich’s assassination. Controlled Gestapo, camp system and administration of Final Solution. 3,4 Death. Hanged 1946. Wilhelm Keitel Chief of the High Command of the Armed Forces. Second to Hitler in command of the armed forces 1,2,3,4 Death. Hanged 1946. Konstantin von Neurath Minister of Foreign Affairs ’32-’38. Reich Protector of Bohemia & Moravia ’39-’43. 1,2,3,4 15 years. Released because of poor health in 1954 and died 2 years later. Franz von Papen Reich Chancellor prior to Hitler, Reich ViceChancellor under Hitler, Ambassador in Vienna & Turkey Erich Raeder Supreme Commander of the Navy 1,2,3 Life in prison. Served 9 years before release in 1955. Died 1960 at age 84. Joachim von Ribbentrop Foreign Minister 1,2,3,4 Death. Hanged 1946. Acquitted 1. Conspiracy to Commit Crimes 2. Crimes Against Peace 3. War Crimes 4. Crimes Against Humanity DEFENDANT POSITION CHARGES SENTENCE Alfred Rosenberg Nazi Party Philosopher, Reich Minister of Occupied Eastern Territories 1,2,3,4 Death. Hanged 1946. Fritz Sauckel Chief of slave labor recruitment. Responsible for extermination of tens of thousands of Jewish workers in Poland. 3,4 Death. Hanged 1946. Hjalmar Schacht Reichsbank President & Minister of Economics before the war. Baldur von Schirach Leader of Hitler Youth. Gauleiter of Vienna. 4 20 years. Freed 1966. Died 1974 at age 67. Artur von SeyssInquart Governor of Austria, Deputy to Hans Frank in Nazi-occupied Poland, Commissioner of German-occupied Netherlands. 2,3,4 Death. Hanged 1946. Albert Speer Reich minister for Armament & Munitions. Responsible for slave labor in factories under his control. 3, 4 20 years. Freed 1966. Died 1981 at age 76. Julius Streicher Editor of Der Stürmer 4 Death. Hanged 1946. Acquitted. Later convicted by a German court and sentenced to 8 years. Freed in 1950. Died in 1970 at age 93. 1. Conspiracy to Commit Crimes 2. Crimes Against Peace 3. War Crimes 4. Crimes Against Humanity I am entirely normal. Even while I was doing this extermination work, I led a normal family life and so on…Don’t you see, we SS men were not supposed to think about these things; it never even occurred to us. And besides, it was something already taken for granted that the Jews were to blame for everything … You can be sure that it was not always a pleasure to see those mountains of corpses and smell the continual burning. But Himmler had ordered it and had even explained the necessity and I really never gave much thought to whether it was wrong. It just seemed a necessity … For me as an old fanatic National Socialist, I took It all as fact – just as a Catholic believes in his Church dogma. It was just truth without questions; I had no doubt about that … That was the picture I had in my head, so when Himmler called me to him I just accepted it as the realization of something I had already accepted – not only I, but everybody. I took it so much for granted that … this crass order to exterminate thousands of people (I did not know then how many) – even though it did frighten me momentarily – it fitted in with all that had been preached to me for years. The problem itself, the extermination of Jewry, was not new – but only that I was to be the one to carry it out, frightened me at first. But after getting the clear direct order and even an explanation with it – there was nothing left but to carry it out … Don’t you see, we SS men were not supposed to think about these things; it never occurred to us … We were all so much trained to obey orders without even thinking, that the thought of disobeying an order would simply never have occurred to anybody, and somebody else would have done just as well if I hadn’t. Rudolf Hoess, Commandant of Auschwitz, sentenced to death & hung at Auschwitz. (From: Gilbert, G.M. Nuremberg Diary. New York: Farrar, Strauss & Company, 1947, pp. 258-59) Bystanders (85%) Victims Rescuers (< 0.5%) Perpetrators (< 10%) Bystanders Prisoners were forced to wear these carriers on their backs to haul stones from the quarry. Carrying granite boulders on wooden “backpacks” up the “stairs of death.” Mauthausen, Austria. Mauthausen Wiener Graben Quarry Letter of complaint from Mrs. Eleonore Gusenbauer of Ried (the village above Mauthausen), September 1941. Inmates of the Mauthausen concentration camp are constantly being shot at the Vienna Ditch work site. Those who are badly struck still live for some time and lie next to the dead for hours and in some cases for half a day. My property is situated on an elevation close to the Vienna Ditch and therefore one often becomes the unwilling witness of such misdeeds. I am sickly in any case and such sights make such demands on my nerves, that I will not be able to bear it much longer. I request that it be arranged that such inhuman deeds will cease or else be conducted out of sight. Dokumentationsarchiv des österreichischen Widerstand., or Gordon J. Horwitz, In the Shadow of Death – Living Outside the Gates of Mauthausen, p. 35. Bystanders (85%) Victims Rescuers (< 0.5%) Perpetrators (< 10%) Rescue It was a reign which, nearly half a century later, still challenges our understanding. Evil was rewarded and good acts were punished. Bullies were aggrandized and the meek trampled. In this mad world, most people lost their bearings. Fear disoriented them, and self-protection blinded them. A few, however, did not lose their way. A few took their direction from their own moral compass. - Dr. Eva Fogelman, social psychologist • What Motivated Rescuers? •Methods of Rescue •Individuals Who Rescued •Diplomats Who Rescued •Governments that Rescued •Righteous Among the Nations What Motivated Rescuers? Some sympathized with the Jews. Some were actually antisemitic, but could not sanction murder or genocide. Some were bound to those they saved by ties of friendship and personal loyalty, while some went out of their way to help total strangers. Some were motivated by their political beliefs or religious values. Some felt ethically that life must be preserved in the face of death. For some there was no choice, what they did was natural and instinctive. Many rescuers felt they were simply acting out of elemental human decency. They later insisted that they were not heroes, that they never thought of themselves as doing anything special or extraordinary. Rescue Remember that it is easy to save human lives. One did not need to be crazy to feel pity for an abandoned child. It was enough to open a door, to throw a piece of bread, a shirt, a coin; it was enough to feel compassion … In those times, one climbed to the summit of humanity by simply remaining human. - Elie Wiesel, 1984 • What Motivated Rescuers? •Methods of Rescue •Individuals Who Rescued •Diplomats Who Rescued •Governments that Rescued •Righteous Among the Nations Methods of Rescue Hiding a Jew in one’s house or on one’s property. Supplying forged ID’s or ration cards. Finding employment. Smuggling people from one place to another. Providing food or clothing. Rescue I may have disobeyed my government, but if I hadn‟t I would have been disobeying God. - Chiune Sugihara • What Motivated Rescuers? •Methods of Rescue •Individuals Who Rescued •Diplomats Who Rescued •Governments that Rescued •Righteous Among the Nations Individuals Who Rescued Irena Sendler Betsie, Corrie, Nollie and Willem Ten Boom Oskar Schindler with some of those he rescued. 1946. American Friends Service Committee (Quakers) Miep Gies Andre Trocmé and his wife Magda Rescue It is a fantastic comment on the inhumanity of our times that for thousands and thousands of people a piece of paper with a stamp on it is the difference between life and death. - Dorothy Thompson, journalist • What Motivated Rescuers? •Methods of Rescue •Individuals Who Rescued •Diplomats Who Rescued •Governments that Rescued •Righteous Among the Nations Diplomats Who Rescued Feng Shan Ho Aristides de Sousa Mendes Chiune Sugihara Hiram Bingham Jan Zwartendijk Raoul Wallenberg Rescue You read what was accomplished by a handful of men and women, and you try to imagine what could have been accomplished if more people had shown that they cared. - Elie Wiesel • What Motivated Rescuers? •Methods of Rescue •Individuals Who Rescued •Diplomats Who Rescued •Governments that Rescued •Righteous Among the Nations Governments that Rescued Bulgaria Denmark Finland Hungary Italy Vatican United States Danish fishermen ferry Jews to safety in neutral Sweden during the German occupation of Denmark. 1943. Rescue Whosoever saves a single life, saves the entire universe. - The Talmud • What Motivated Rescuers? •Methods of Rescue •Individuals Who Rescued •Diplomats Who Rescued •Governments that Rescued •Righteous Among the Nations Righteous Among the Nations Poland 6,135 Czech Republic 108 Slovenia 6 Netherlands 4,947 Croatia 102 Spain 4 France 2,991 Austria 85 Estonia 3 Ukraine 2,246 Moldova 78 United States 3 Belgium 1,512 Albania 68 China 2 Lithuania 761 Romania 56 Brazil 2 Hungary 725 Switzerland 45 Chile 1 Belarus 602 Bosnia 40 Vietnam 1 Slovakia 489 Norway 42 Montenegro 1 Italy 468 Denmark 22 Japan 1 Germany 427 Bulgaria 19 Luxembourg 1 Greece 282 Great Britain 14 Portugal 1 Russia 163 Armenia 13 Turkey 1 Yugoslavia (Serbia) 125 Sweden 10 Georgia 1 Latvia 120 Macedonia 9 TOTAL 22,765 American Righteous Gentiles Varian Fry Marseilles, France, 1940-1941. Waitstill and Martha Sharp Avenue of the Righteous Yad Vashem I will give them in My house and in My walls, a monument and name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall never be effaced. - Isaiah 56:5 A tree and plaque placed in memory of Corrie ten Boom. America & the Holocaust The Nazis were the murderers, but we were the all too passive accomplices. - David Wyman, Holocaust Scholar • Antisemitism in the U.S. Emergency Rescue Committee: May 1940 • The Bund Report: June 2, 1942 The Riegner Telegram: August 8, 1942 • The Bergson Group: 1942/43 • Jan Karski: July 1943 War Refugee Board: January 22, 1944 • Why Auschwitz Was Not Bombed? • The New York Times Theodor Seuss Geisel December 16, 1942 Antisemitism in the U.S. Emergency Rescue Committee: May 1940 November 1938 After Kristallnacht, an overwhelming majority of the American public was shocked by Nazi actions, but according to polling data, 85% of the public still opposed any change in our restrictive immigration quotas. 1939 Roper Poll 39% Jews should be treated like everyone else 53% Jews are different & should be restricted 10% Jews should be deported Varian Fry, on assignment for the Emergency Rescue Committee, briefs rescuees on escape routes. America & the Holocaust The Nazis were the murderers, but we were the all too passive accomplices. - David Wyman, Holocaust Scholar • Antisemitism in the U.S. Emergency Rescue Committee: May 1940 • The Bund Report: June 2, 1942 The Riegner Telegram: August 8, 1942 • The Bergson Group: 1942/43 • Jan Karski: July 1943 War Refugee Board: January 22, 1944 • Why Auschwitz Was Not Bombed? • The New York Times Theodor Seuss Geisel February 24, 1942 The Bund Report June 2, 1942 The first detailed account of mass murder to reach the West. The Riegner Telegram August 8, 1942 The first official source of information regarding the mass murder of the Jews. The report, prepared by the Bund (Jewish socialist party) leadership in Poland, said that the Germans had “embarked on the physical extermination of the Jewish population on Polish soil.” The number of victims was estimated at 700,000. Telegram from Sidney Silverman to Stephen S. Wise, August 29, 1942. America & the Holocaust The Nazis were the murderers, but we were the all too passive accomplices. - David Wyman, Holocaust Scholar • Antisemitism in the U.S. Emergency Rescue Committee: May 1940 • The Bund Report: June 2, 1942 The Riegner Telegram: August 8, 1942 • The Bergson Group: 1942/43 • Jan Karski: July 1943 War Refugee Board: January 22, 1944 • Why Auschwitz Was Not Bombed? • The New York Times Theodor Seuss Geisel September 25, 1941 The Bergson Group: 1942/43 We Will Never Die Pageant: March 9, 1943 A pageant produced by the Bergson Group as a “Mass memorial dedicated to the two million Jewish dead of Europe.” “We Will Never Die” program cover, 1943. Artwork: Tears of Rage by Arthur Szyk The mass recitation of "Kaddish," the Jewish memorial prayer for the dead, by hundreds of rabbis in the final scene from "We Will Never Die." America & the Holocaust The Nazis were the murderers, but we were the all too passive accomplices. - David Wyman, Holocaust Scholar • Antisemitism in the U.S. Emergency Rescue Committee: May 1940 • The Bund Report: June 2, 1942 The Riegner Telegram: August 8, 1942 • The Bergson Group: 1942/43 • Jan Karski: July 1943 War Refugee Board: January 22, 1944 • Why Auschwitz Was Not Bombed? • The New York Times Theodor Seuss Geisel April 29, 1941 Jan Karski July 1943 War Refugee Board January 22, 1944 Ruth Gruber, special envoy for the War Refugee Board, with a group of Jewish DP’s, with whom she sailed from Europe to the U.S. Karski, an officer in the Polish underground, reports to Roosevelt that 1.8 million Jews had already been killed in Poland and that in the next year and a half, the Jews of Poland would “cease to exist.” Photo by Ruth Gruber. Typical day on the ship Henry Gibbins as it heads west across the Atlantic Ocean. America & the Holocaust The Nazis were the murderers, but we were the all too passive accomplices. - David Wyman, Holocaust Scholar • Antisemitism in the U.S. Emergency Rescue Committee: May 1940 • The Bund Report: June 2, 1942 The Riegner Telegram: August 8, 1942 • The Bergson Group: 1942/43 • Jan Karski: July 1943 War Refugee Board: January 22, 1944 • Why Auschwitz Was Not Bombed? • The New York Times Theodor Seuss Geisel July 14, 1942 Why Auschwitz Was Not Bombed? Main Disinfection Building U.S. Bombs Gas Chamber IV & V Gas Chamber II & III Loot Storage Area Transports An aerial reconnaissance photograph of Auschwitz II (Birkenau) showing bombs intended for the Buna Factory at Auschwitz III. These bombs hit their intended target and a number of strays actually caused light damage at Auschwitz II. The location of the bombs in the photo indicate that it would have been possible to have destroyed the gas chambers at Auschwitz II. September 13, 1944 America & the Holocaust The Nazis were the murderers, but we were the all too passive accomplices. - David Wyman, Holocaust Scholar • Antisemitism in the U.S. Emergency Rescue Committee: May 1940 • The Bund Report: June 2, 1942 The Riegner Telegram: August 8, 1942 • The Bergson Group: 1942/43 • Jan Karski: July 1943 War Refugee Board: January 22, 1944 • Why Auschwitz Was Not Bombed? • The New York Times Theodor Seuss Geisel October 1, 1941 The New York Times The Times deliberately de-emphasized news of the Holocaust, reporting it in isolated, inside stories. During the six years of World War II, The New York Times published 1,186 stories about what was happening to the Jews of Europe; however, these stories only made the front page 26 times out of 24,000 front-page stories, The Times made a statement with their editorial judgments. Other news organizations took their cues from The Times. June 27, 1942 Monuments & Memorials Yad Vashem: Memorial to the Deportees Janusc Korscak Janusz Korczak Square at Yad Vashem, The Warsaw Jewish Cemetery. Treblinka Plaszow Memorial Sculpture of Love and Anguish Miami Beach, Florida Shoes on the Danube Bank Budapest, Hungary Rosenstrasse Memorial Berlin, Germany Valley of the Communities Yad Vashem / Jerusalem, Israel Survivors Photo by Becky Seitel, “Darkness Into Life” Exhibit Nine of Birmingham’s Holocaust Survivors: Ilse Nathan, Max Herzel, Ruth Siegler, Jack Bass, Henry Aizenman, Aisic Hirsch, Martin Aaron, Riva Hirsch, Max Steinmetz NON SEQUITUR BY WILEY The Children “A Loss of Infinite Possibility” “Listen, listen well to the tale Of what they have seen What they have gone through. For you are the new spring In the forrest of the world.” Promise of a New Spring by Gerda Weissmann Klein, Survivor Chaim Hersh Kirschenbaum. Both he and his mother perished in Auschwitz. 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