Download World War II and the Holocaust

World War II and the
Holocaust
Holocaust
• “The state-sponsored, systematic
persecution and annihilation of European
Jewry by Nazi Germany and its
collaborators between 1933 and 1945.
– United States Holocaust Museum
The Road to War
• Germany’s defeat in WWI brought about the
formation of a new government: The Weimar
Republic
• Treaty of Versailles-ended WWI
– Germany had to acknowledge responsibility for the
war
– Forced to make reparations to all of the countries they
“damaged” in the war
– Total bill was equivalent to nearly $70 billion
– German army was dramatically limited in size
The Road to War
• Many Germans protested not only the loss of the
war, but the restrictions and reparations placed
on them
• Extremists blamed Jews for Germany’s defeat
and blamed the German Foreign Minister, a
Jewish man, for reaching a settlement
• Ultimately, many aspects of the treaty were
violated or ignored, with little enforcement from
the rest of Europe
The Road to War
• Despite the flouting of the treaty,
Germany’s post-war economy collapsed
• The German mark’s value plummeted,
causing hyperinflation
• Nearly 6 million Germans were
unemployed
Rise of the Nazi Party
• Weakened economy and ineffective
Weimar Republic led to rise of Adolf Hitler
and the National Socialist German
Worker’s Party
• Hitler voted chancellor
– Promised to restore law & order
– Promised to revive economy
– Restore German greatness &
save country from Communism
Totalitarianism
• The total control of a country and
its culture by the government
• Subjugates individual rights
• Demonstrates policy of aggression
• Domination by paranoia and fear
Anti-Semitism
• Prior to 1933, Jews were living in every country
in Europe (approx. 9 million total)
• Poland and the Soviet Union had the largest
Jewish populations
• The long history of Anti-Semitism
and persecution of Jews dates
back over 2,000 years
• Germans used propaganda
to promote their anti-semitic ideas.
This included children’s books
used in schools
The Nuremberg Laws
• During the first few years of Nazi rule, laws were passed
restricting the rights of Jews
• Nuremberg Laws of 1935
– Stripped Jews of German citizenship
– Prohibited them from marrying or
having sexual relations with persons
of “German or related blood.”
– Jews were deprived of most political
rights and were excluded from
economic and educational spheres
– Forced to carry identity cards with red “J” stamp, to
allow for easy identification by police
Persecution
• The Nazi plan for dealing with the “Jewish
problem” evolved in three steps:
– 1. Expulsion-Get them out of Germany
– 2. Containment-Put them together in one placenamely, the ghettos
– 3. “Final Solution”-Annihilation
Other groups targeted included Gypsies, Homosexual
men, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Physically and mentally
handicapped Germans (Euthanasia Program), Poles,
and Political dissidents
Kristallnacht
• “Night of the Broken Glass”
• November 9-10, 1938
• Germans attacked
synagogues and Jewish
homes and businesses
• 91 murdered, 30,000
deported and sent to
concentration camps
• By 1939, half of Germany’s
500,000 Jews had
emigrated to escape Nazi
persecution
Invasion and War
• 1939-Germany invaded Poland, beginning
World War II
– Pop. 3 million Polish Jews
• 1941-Germany invaded Russia
– Pop. 5 million Russian Jews
Einsatzgruppen
• Specially trained SS
units-essentially
“mobile killing squads”
• Sent by Heinrich
Himmler into German
occupied territory to
shoot Jews, Gypsies,
and Russian political
dissidents
• Estimated to have
killed 1.3 million Jews
between 1941 and
1945
• Victims were taken to
deserted areas where
they were forced to dig
their own graves and
shot
Final Solution
• January 1942-Himmler called conference to
discuss tactics against Jews and other “threats
to the race”
• Existing methods were deemed inefficientbullets were needed for war effort
• Jews would be rounded up and moved to
ghettos, or used as cheap labor
• Other Jews sent to “resettlement areas” where
they would go through “selection”
– Young and fit– “destruction through work”
– Women, children, old, and sick– “special treatment”
Final Solution
• Ghettos were established across occupied
Europe, usually in areas with a large Jewish
population
• Life was very difficult-lack of food, overcrowding,
limited heating and sanitation
• Conditions designed so many would die and
others would be willing to leave in the hope of
better conditions
• How were people determined to be Jewish?
– If one parent was Jewish
– If three or four grandparents were Jewish (if only one,
they could be classified as German)
Concentration Camps
• Three types of camps: transit,
labor, extermination
• First camp (Dachau) opened
in 1933 for political dissidents
and prisoners
• There were six death camps,
all located in Poland:
Auschwitz-Birkenau (also a
labor camp), Treblinka,
Chelmno, Sobibor, Majdanek,
and Belzec
– Treblinka had a staff of 80
guards, 20-30 SS
– 850,000 killed in 14 months
Great Deception
• Deception
– Jews told they were going to “resettlement areas” in
the East
– Told to bring tools, pots and pans, etc.
– New arrivals at death camps given postcards to send
to friends
• Starvation
– Jews in Warsaw ghetto fed only 1000 calories a day
• Terror
– SS publicly shot people for smuggling food/supplies
or engaging in any act of resistance
Gas Chambers
• Designed for efficient mass
execution
• Those “selected” would be
given soap and sent to gas
chambers sometimes
disguised as showers
• Nazis would force large
groups of prisoners into
small cement rooms and
drop canisters of Zyklon B
or carbon monoxide through
holes in the roof
• Nazis would try to pack as
many as 2000 into a gas
chamber like the one
pictured
Gas Chambers
• Jews selected as sonderkommando were ordered to
remove gold fillings and hair of victims and feed bodies
into crematorium.
• About 25,000 pairs of shoes-one day’s collection at the
peak of gassing
Resistance Movements
• Despite extremely high risk, some individuals and groups
attempted to resist Nazism and Nazi policies
–
–
–
–
–
The “White Rose” movement
The Warsaw Ghetto uprising
Sobibor escape
Sonderkommando blowing up Crematorium IV at Birkenau
Jewish partisans who escaped to fight in the forests
• Still, less than 1% of non-Jewish European population
helped in rescue operation
• Denmark and Bulgaria demonstrated most successful
national resistance movements against attempts to
deport their Jewish citizens
Liberation
• July 23, 1944—Soviet
soldiers liberated first
camp prisoners at
Majdanek
• British, Canadian,
American, and French
troops also liberated
camp prisoners
• Troops were shocked at
what they saw
– Prisoners emaciated to
the point of being skeletal
– Many camps had dead
bodies stacked in huge
piles
– Many prisoners died even
after liberation
Aftermath
• The Nazis killed at least 6 million Jews
–
–
–
–
2-3 million Soviet P.O.W.’s
About 1.9 million non-Jewish Poles
220,000-500,000 Roma Gypsies
200,000 physically/mentally handicapped
• Camp prisoners became “displaced persons”
– Many stayed in camps in Germany run by the Allies
– Jewish DPs pushed for the founding of a Jewish state
in British-controlled Palestine
– Jewish refugees allowed to enter U.S. without normal
immigration restrictions
Nuremberg Trials
• Brought to justice some
responsible for the atrocities
of the war
• 22 Nazi war criminals tried
by the Allies in the
International Military
Tribunal
• 12 prominent Nazis were
sentenced to death
– Most claimed they were
only following orders; this
was judged to be an
insufficient defense
– Unfortunately, many
perpetrators have never
been tried or punished
Maus
Art Spiegelman
• Celebrated cartoonist
• Work published in
numerous journals and
other media (The New York
Times, The Village Voice)
• Drawings have been
exhibited in museums
around the world
• He lives in NYC with wife
and daughter
• He has won numerous
awards for his work,
including the 1992 Pulitzer
Prize for Maus
Maus
• Maus: A Survivor’s Tale is
a graphic memoir
• It recounts Spiegelman’s
father’s struggle to survive
the Holocaust as a Polish
Jew
• It draws largely on his
father’s recollections of
events he personally
experienced
• It also follows the author’s
troubled relationship with
his father and the way the
effects of war continue to
reverberate through
generations of a family