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The Holocaust :
Night by Elie Wiesel
Ms. Kinner
English 4
How it began…
• Few would have thought that the Nazi Party, starting as a gang of
unemployed soldiers in 1919, would become the legal government of
Germany by 1933. In fourteen years, a once obscure corporal, Adolf
Hitler , would become the Chancellor of Germany.
• World War I ended in 1918 with a grisly total of 37 million casualties,
including 9 million dead combatants. German propaganda had not
prepared the nation for defeat, resulting in a sense of injured German
national pride.
• When a new government, the Weimar Republic , tried to establish a
democratic course, extreme political parties from both the right and
the left struggled violently for control. The new regime could neither
handle the depressed economy nor the rampant lawlessness and
disorder.
How it Began
The Nazification of Germany
• during the next six years, Hitler completely
transformed Germany into a police state. Germany
steadily began rearmament of its military, in
violation of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles
• Internationally, Hitler engaged in a "diplomatic
revolution" by skillfully negotiating with other
European countries and publicly expressing his
strong desire for peace.
The Ghettos
• The Nazis revived the medieval
term ghetto to describe their
device of concentration and
control, the compulsory "Jewish
Quarter." Ghettos were usually
established in the poor sections
of a city, where most of the
Jews from the city and
surrounding areas were
subsequently forced to reside.
Often surrounded by barbed
wire or walls, the ghettos were
sealed. Established mostly in
eastern Europe (e.g., Lodz,
Warsaw, Vilna, Riga, or Minsk),
the ghettos were characterized
by overcrowding, malnutrition,
and heavy labor. All were
eventually dissolved, and the
Jews murdered
The Ghettos
World War II
• Starting in 1938, Hitler began his aggressive quest
for Lebensraum ,or more living space. Britain,
France, and Russia did not want to enter into war
and their collective diplomatic stance was to
appease the bully Germany. Without engaging in
war, Germany was able to annex neighboring
Austria and carve up Czechoslovakia. At last, a
reluctant Britain and France threatened war if
Germany targeted Poland and/or Romania.
• In September 1939, Germany invaded Poland.
Britain and France had no choice but to declare
war on Germany. World War II had begun.
The Star of David
• Nazi occupation authorities officially told the story that Jews
were natural carriers of all types of diseases, especially
typhus, and that it was necessary to isolate Jews from the
Polish community. Jewish neighborhoods thus were
transformed into prisons. The five major ghettos were located
in Warsaw , Lódz, Kraków, Lublin, and Lvov.
• 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.
Singled Out
The Camps
• 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-ofwar camps. The living conditions of all camps were brutal.
• 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.
The Camps
• 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 Camps
The Camps
The Camps