Download The Book Thief by Markus Zusak and Night by Eilie Wiesel

The Book Thief by Markus
Zusak and Night by Elie
Wiesel
Background Information on World
War II and the Holocaust
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The Book Thief
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Fiction
Setting: Nazi Germany,
1939
Narrated by Death
Protagonist: Liesel
Meminger
Told from perspective
of German girl during
Hitler’s rule
Night
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Setting: Sighet, a village in
the Carpathian Mountains in
northern Transylvania,
which was annexed by
Hungary in 1940
True account of a young
Jewish boy’s, Elie Wiesel,
struggle to live during the
Holocaust.
Narrated by the author in
first person, also the
protagonist of the story
Adolf Hitler: the Führer
Rise to Power Nazi Party stands for
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National Socialist German
1918-WWI ended
Worker’s Party
German propaganda had
not prepared the nation for  By 1920, Hitler was the
defeat, resulting in a sense
official leader of the Nazi
of injured German pride
Party
1919: The German Workers’
 1923 – Hitler attempted
Party (forerunner of Nazi
to overthrow authorities
Party) formed – Hitler rose
in Munich – but failed
to leadership because of his
emotional and captivating
miserably and was sent
speeches.
to prison (a hero!)
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1925 – Hitler published
Mein Kampf (My
Struggle) – written while
in prison
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In Mein Kampf, Hitler uses the main thesis of "the Jewish
peril," which speaks of an alleged Jewish conspiracy to gain
world leadership. The narrative describes the process by
which he became increasingly anti-Semitic and militaristic,
especially during his years in Vienna. Yet, the deeper origins
of his anti-Semitism remain a mystery. He speaks of not
having met a Jew until he arrived in Vienna, and that at first
his attitude was liberal and tolerant. When he first
encountered the anti-Semitic press, he says, he dismissed it
as unworthy of serious consideration. A little later and quite
suddenly, it seems, he accepted the same anti-Semitic views
whole-heartedly, which became crucial in his program of
national reconstruction. Becoming acquainted with Zionism,
which he calls a "great movement," is what Hitler claims
encouraged his view that one cannot be both a German and a
Jew.
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Mein Kampf has also been studied as a work
on political theory. For example, Hitler
announces his hatred of what he believed to
be the world's twin evils: Communism and
Judaism. The new territory that Germany
needed to obtain would properly nurture the
"historic destiny" of the German people; this
goal explains why Hitler invaded Europe,
both East and West, before he launched his
attack against Russia. Blaming Germany’s
chief woes on the Weimar Republic, he
announces that he wants to completely
destroy the parliamentary system.
Mein Kampf
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Introduction
Volume I: A Reckoning
– Chapter 1: In the House of My
Parents
– Chapter 2: Years of Study and
Suffering in Vienna
– Chapter 3: General Political
Considerations Based on My
Vienna Period
– Chapter 4: Munich
– Chapter 5: The World War
– Chapter 6: War Propaganda
– Chapter 7: The Revolution
– Chapter 8: The Beginning of My
Political Activity
– Chapter 9: The 'German Workers'
Party'
– Chapter 10: Causes of the Collapse
– Chapter 11: Nation and Race
– Chapter 12: The First Period of
Development of the German
National Socialist Workers' Party
Rise of Nazi Power
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Between 1925 and
1929, the party
grew to 108,000
members
1929: Great
Depression had a
large impact on
Germany
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On January 30,
1933, President
Paul von
Hindenburg
appointed Hitler
Chancellor
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Within months of Hitler's
appointment as Chancellor,
the Dachau concentration
camp was created. The
Nazis began arresting
Communists, Socialists,
and labor leaders. Dachau
became a training center
for concentration camp
guards and later
commandants who were
taught terror tactics to
dehumanize their
prisoners.
As part of a policy of internal
coordination, the Nazis created
Special Courts to punish
political dissent. In a parallel
move from April to October, the
regime passed civil laws that
barred Jews from holding
positions in the civil service, in
legal and medical professions,
and in teaching and university
positions. The Nazis
encouraged boycotts of
Jewish-owned shops and
businesses and began book
burnings of writings by Jews
and by others not approved by
the Reich.
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On August 2, 1934, President Hindenburg died. Hitler
combined the offices of Reich Chancellor and President,
declaring himself Führer .
Hitler announced the Nuremberg Laws in 1935. These
laws stripped Jews of their civil rights as German citizens
and separated them from Germans legally, socially, and
politically. Jews were also defined as a separate race
under "The Law for the Protection of German Blood and
Honor." Being Jewish was now determined by ancestry;
thus the Germans used race, not religious beliefs or
practices, to define the Jewish people. This law forbade
marriages or sexual relations between Jews and
Germans. Hitler warned darkly that if this law did not
resolve the problem, he would turn to the Nazi Party for
a final solution. More than 120 laws, decrees, and
ordinances were enacted after the Nuremburg Laws and
before the outbreak of World War II, further eroding the
rights of German Jews. Many thousands of Germans who
had not previously considered themselves Jews found
themselves defined as "non-Aryans."
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1936 Olympics in
Berlin hosted the Olympics.
Hitler
viewed this as a perfect
Germany
opportunity to promote a
favorable image of Nazism to
the world. Monumental
stadiums and other Olympic
facilities were constructed as
Nazi showpieces.
While two Germans with some
Jewish ancestry were invited
to be on the German Olympic
team, the German Jewish
athlete Gretel Bergmann, one
of the world's most
accomplished high jumpers,
was not.
The great irony of these
Olympics was that, in the land
of "Aryan superiority," it was
Jesse Owens, the AfricanAmerican track star, who was
the undisputed hero of the
games.
Jesse Owens
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Jesse Owens grew
up in Moulton,
Alabama
Received a
scholarship to run
at Ohio State
Won FOUR gold
medals in Germany
during the 1936
Olympics
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In Germany, open antiSemitism became
increasingly accepted,
climaxing in the "Night of
Broken Glass"
(Kristallnacht) on November
9, 1938. Basically, this was
a free-for-all against the
Jews, during which nearly
1,000 synagogues were set
on fire and 76 were
destroyed. More than 7,000
Jewish businesses and
homes were looted, about
one hundred Jews were
killed and as many as
30,000 Jews were arrested
and sent to concentration
camps to be tormented,
many for months.
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Within days, the Nazis
forced the Jews to
transfer their
businesses to Aryan
hands and expelled all
Jewish pupils from
public schools. With
brazen arrogance, the
Nazis further
persecuted the Jews by
forcing them to pay for
the damages of
Kristallnacht .
Night of Broken Glass
More Night of Broken
Glass
World War II Begins
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On September 1, 1939, Hitler invaded Poland,
officially starting World War II. Two days later,
Britain and France, now obliged by treaty to help
Poland, declared war on Germany. Hitler's armies
used the tactic of Blitzkrieg, or lightning war, a
combination of armored attack accompanied by air
assault. Before British and French power could be
brought to bear, in less than four weeks, Poland
collapsed. Germany's military conquest put it in a
position to establish the New Order, a plan to abuse
and eliminate so-called undesirables, notably Jews
and Slavs.
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A Jew is forced to cut the beard of
another Jew as a form of public
humiliation.
The Ghettos
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The Nazis' ghettos
differed, however, in that
they were a preliminary
step in the annihilation of
the Jews, rather than a
method to just isolate
them from the rest of
society. As the war against
the Jews progressed, the
ghettos became transition
areas, used as collection
points for deportation to
death camps and
concentration camps
Discrimination
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On November 23, 1939
General Governor Hans
Frank issued an
ordinance that Jews
ten years of age and
older living in the
General Government
had to wear the Star of
David on armbands or
pinned to the chest or
back. This made the
identification of Jews
easier when the Nazis
began issuing orders
establishing ghettos.
Jews were intimidated
Ghettos 1941
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Ghetto life was wretched. The ghettos
were filthy, with poor sanitation.
Extreme overcrowding forced many
people to share a room. Disease was
rampant. Staying warm was difficult
during bitter cold winters without
adequate warm clothes and heating
fuel. Food was in such short supply
that many slowly starved to death.
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Jewish ration card –
entitled the Jew to
300 calories per
day!
Children starved in the
ghettos
1941-1942: The Camps
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Camps were an essential part of the
Nazis' systematic oppression and mass
murder of Jews, political adversaries,
and others considered socially and
racially undesirable. There were
concentration camps, forced labor
camps, extermination or death camps,
transit camps, and prisoner-of-war
camps. The living conditions of all
camps were brutal.
Dachau
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Dachau, one of the first Nazi concentration
camps, opened in March 1933, and at first
interned only known political opponents
of the Nazis: Communists, Social
Democrats, and others who had been
condemned in a court of law. Gradually,
a more diverse group was imprisoned,
including Jews, Jehovah's Witnesses,
Gypsies, dissenting clergy, homosexuals, as
well as others who were denounced for
making critical remarks about the Nazis.
Death Camps
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Six death or extermination camps were
constructed in Poland. These so-called
death factories were Auschwitz-Birkenau ,
Treblinka , Belzec , Sobibór, Lublin (also
called Majdanek), and Chelmno . The
primary purpose of these camps was the
methodical killing of millions of innocent
people. The first, Chelmno, began operating
in late 1941. The others began their
operations in 1942.
The Final Solution
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In January 1942, SS official Reinhard Heydrich
held a meeting of Nazi government officials to
present the Final Solution. At this meeting,
known as the Wannsee Conference , the Nazi
officials agreed to SS plans for the transport and
destruction of all 11 million Jews of Europe. The
Nazis would use the latest in twentieth century
technology, cost efficient engineering and mass
production techniques for the sole purpose of killing
off the following racial groups: Jews, Russian
prisoners of war, and Gypsies. Their long-range
plans, unrealized, included targeting some 30
million Slavs for death.
Mass Murders
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Starting early in 1942,
the Jewish genocide
(sometimes called the
Judeocide) went into
full operation.
Auschwitz 2
(Birkenau), Treblinka,
Belzec, and Sobibór
began operations as
death camps. There
was no selection
process; Jews were
destroyed upon arrival.
Gates leading in to
Auschwitz: Work will make
you free.
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By the end of 1943 the Germans closed
down the death camps built specifically to
exterminate Jews. The death tolls for the
camps are as follows: Treblinka, (750,000
Jews); Belzec, (550,000 Jews); Sobibór,
(200,000 Jews); Chelmno, (150,000 Jews)
and Lublin (also called Majdanek, 50,000
Jews). Auschwitz continued to operate
through the summer of 1944; its final death
total was about 1 million Jews and 1 million
non-Jews. Allied encirclement of Germany
was nearly complete in the fall of 1944. The
Nazis began dismantling the camps, hoping
to cover up their crimes. By the late
winter/early spring of 1945, they sent
prisoners walking to camps in central
Germany. Thousands died in what became
known as death marches.
Death Marches
Resistance
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Resistance against the Nazis--planned and
spontaneous, armed and unarmed--took
many forms throughout WWII and the
Holocaust. For many, the resistance was a
struggle for physical existence. Some
escaped through legal or illegal emigration.
Others hid. Those who remained, struggled
to obtain life's essentials by smuggling the
food, clothing, and medicine necessary to
survive.
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On October 7, the sonderkommando
(prisoners forced to handle the bodies
of gas chamber victims) succeeded in
blowing up one of the four crematoria
at Auschwitz . All of the saboteurs
were captured and killed.
Resistance continued until the end of
the war.
Sonderkommandos
Rescue and Liberation
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Throughout the Holocaust, victims
received help from rescuers.
Courageous German citizens were able
to hide and protect thousands of Jews
and other victims of oppression until
the defeat of Nazi Germany and the
liberation of the death camps by the
Allied forces.
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Those who attempted to rescue Jews and
others from the Nazi death sentence did so
at great risk to their own safety. Anyone
found harboring a Jew, for example, was
shot or publicly hanged as a warning to
others. Sharing scarce resources with those
in hiding was an additional sacrifice on the
part of the rescuer. Despite the risks,
thousands followed the dictates of
conscience.
Heroes
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Better known rescuers include Raoul Wallenberg,
the Swedish diplomat who led the effort that saved
100,000 Hungarian Jews in 1944. Another rescuer,
Oscar Schindler, saved over 1,000 Polish Jews from
their deaths. Huguenot Pastor André Trocme led the
rescue effort in Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, France,
which hid and protected 5,000 Jews. Over 13,000
men and women who risked their lives to rescue
Jews have been honored as "Righteous Gentiles" at
the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem.
Thousands more remain unrecognized.
HEROES
Oscar Schindler
Raoul Wallenberg
1945: Horror and Shock
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As Allied troops entered Nazi-occupied territories,
the final rescue and liberation transpired. Allied
troops who stumbled upon the concentration camps
were shocked at what they found. Large ditches
filled with bodies, rooms of baby shoes, and gas
chambers with fingernail marks on the walls all
testified to Nazi brutality. General Eisenhower
insisted on photographing and documenting the
horror so that future generations would not ignore
history and repeat its mistakes. He also forced
villagers neighboring the death and concentration
camps to view what had occurred in their own
backyards.
Survivors
Elie, his mother, and two
sisters before the Holocaust
Elie today
Elie at Aushwitz
The Jews 1940 - 1945
The Holocaust
Prelude to the Final
Solution
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When Hitler seized power in 1933 he used his
new powers under the ‘Enabling Law’ to begin
his attack on the Jews.
In 1938, the Nazi attack on the Jews changed
and became more violent with Himmler
launching Kristallnacht on 11th November
1938.
By 1939, half of Germany’s 500,000 Jews had
emigrated to escape Nazi persecution.
Prelude to the Final
Solution
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In 1939, Germany
invaded Poland
which had a much
larger population of
3 million Jews.
In 1941, Germany
invaded Russia
which had a
population of
5
million Jews.
Change of Tactics:
Einsatzgruppen
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Himmler sent four specially trained SS units
called “Einsatzgruppen battalions” into
German occupied territory and shot at least 1
million Jews.
Victims were taken to deserted areas where
they were made to dig their own graves and
shot.
When the SS ran out of bullets they
sometimes killed their victims using flame
throwers.
Change of Tactics:
Einsatzgruppen
The ‘Final Solution’
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In January 1942, Himmler
decided to change tactics
once again and called a
special conference at
Wannsee.
At this conference it was
decided that the existing
methods were too
inefficient and that a new
‘Final Solution’ was
necessary.
Wannsee Conference
Women, children, the
old & the sick were to
be sent for ‘special
treatment.’
The young and fit would go
through a process called
‘destruction through work.’
On arrival the Jews
would go through a
process called
‘selection.’
How was the Final
Solution going to
be organised?
The remaining
Jews were to be
shipped to
‘resettlement
areas’ in the
East.
Conditions in the Ghettos were
designed to be so bad that many
die whilst the rest would be
willing to leave these areas in the
hope of better conditions
Shooting was too
inefficient as the bullets
were needed for the war
effort
Jews were to be
rounded up and put
into transit camps
called Ghettoes
The Jews living in
these Ghettos were to
be used as a cheap
source of labour.
How did the Nazi decide
who was Jewish?
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At the Wannsee conference it
was decided that if one of
person’s parents was Jewish,
then they were Jewish.
However, if only one of their
grandparents had been Jewish
then they could be classified as
being German.
In 1940, all Jews had to have
their passports stamped with
the letter ‘J’ and had to wear
the yellow Star of David on
their jacket or coat.
Where were the Death
Camps built?
The work of the
Einsatzgruppen
Why do you think that they located them here?
What tactics did the Nazis use to
get the Jews to leave the
Ghettos?
New arrivals at the
Deception
The Jews were told
that they were going
to ‘resettlement
areas’ in the East.
In some Ghettos
the Jews had to
purchase their
own train tickets.
They were told
to bring the
tools of their
trade and pots
and pans.
Death camps were
given postcards to
send to their friends.
Tactics
Starvation
The Jews in the
Warsaw Ghetto were
only fed a 1000
calories a day .
Terror
A Human being needs
2400 calories a day to
maintain their weight
The SS publicly shot people
for smuggling food or for
any act of resistance
Hungry people are
easier to control
Children Dying of
Starvation in the Warsaw
Ghetto
SS Tactics:
Dehumanisation
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The SS guards who murdered the Jews were
brainwashed with Anti-Semitic propaganda.
The Jews were transported in cattle cars in terrible
conditions.
Naked, dirty and half starved people look like
animals, which helped to reinforce the Nazi
propaganda.
The SS used to train their new guards by
encouraging them to set fire to a pit full of live
victims – usually children.
Tactics: What happened to new
arrivals?
All new arrivals went
through a process
known as ‘selection.’
Mothers, children, the
old & sick were sent
straight to the
‘showers’ which were
really the gas
chambers.
The able bodied were
sent to work camp
were they were killed
through a process
known as ‘destruction
through work.’
At Auschwitz the trains
pulled into a mock up
of a normal station.
Deception &
Selection
At Auschwitz the new
arrivals were calmed
down by a Jewish
orchestra playing
classical music.
The Jews were helped
off the cattle trucks
by Jews who were
specially selected to
help the Nazis
At some death camps
the Nazis would play
records of classical
music to help calm
down the new arrivals.
Entrance to Auschwitz
Notice how it has been built to resemble a railway station
Auschwitz Orchestra
Map of Auschwitz
New Arrivals
‘Showers’
‘Destruction
Through
Work’
Auschwitz from the air
Notice how the Death
camp is set out like a
factory complex
The Nazis used
industrial methods to
murder the Jews and
process their dead
bodies
The Gas Chambers
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The Nazis would force
large groups of
prisoners into small
cement rooms and drop
canisters of Zyklon B, or
prussic acid, in its
crystal form through
small holes in the roof.
These gas chambers
were sometimes
disguised as showers or
bathing houses.
The SS would try and pack up to 2000 people into this gas chamber
The outside of the Gas
Chamber
Notice the Ovens easy located near the Gas Chambers
Processing the bodies
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Specially selected Jews
known as the
sonderkommando were
used to to remove the
gold fillings and hair of
people who had been
gassed.
The Sonderkommando
Jews were also forced
to feed the dead bodies
into the crematorium.
The Ovens at Dachau
Dead bodies waiting to be
processed
Shoes waiting to be
processed by the
sonderkommando
Taken inside a huge glass case in the Auschwitz Museum. This represents one
day's collection at the peak of the gassings, about twenty five thousand pairs.
Destruction Through Work
This photo was taken by the Nazis to show just how you
could quite literally work the fat of the Jews by feeding
them 200 calories a day
Destruction Through Work
Same group of Jews 6 weeks later
Was the Final Solution
successful?
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The Nazis aimed to kill 
11 million Jews at the
Wannsee Conference in
1941
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Today there are only
2000 Jews living in
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Poland.
The Nazis managed to
kill at least 6 million
Jews.
Men like Schindler helped
Jews escape the Final
Solution.
Not all Jews went quietly
into the gas cambers.
In 1943, the Warsaw
Ghetto, like many others
revolted against the
Nazis when the Jews
realised what was really
happening.
The End
Evil is when a few good men
decide to do nothing.