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The Holocaust
Part I
From Anti-Semitism to the Final
Solution
Anti-Semitism
• Who are the Jews?
• An Ancient Nomadic people who first
called themselves the Israelites. Travel
from Mesopotamia to Egypt and settle in
Canaan. Live in Palestine (Canaan)
until they are forced out by the Romans
in 70 AD, beginning the Diaspora.
• For the next 2000 years they settle into
countries where they believe that they
will be accepted and through some
historic events, were often forced to flee
for another country. From Spain to
Poland to Ancient Babylon to Germany.
Hitler’s Rise to Power
• The Treaty of Versailles (which
ended World War I) imposed harsh
penalties on a defeated Germany.
Adolf Hitler, a WWI veteran,
blamed Germany’s defeat on
Marxists, Jews, and others.
• Hitler organized the National
Socialist German Workers Party or
the Nazis.
• Hitler laid out his set of beliefs for
the future of Germany in his
autobiography Mein Kampf. He
believed that Germans belonged
to a superior “master race” of
Aryans whose greatest enemy
were the Jews.
Hitler’s Rise to Power
• On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler was named Chancellor
of the German government. Once in power, Hitler
moved to end German democracy. By March, 1933,
Hitler was given full status as dictator of Germany.
• “Extremes must be fought by extremes. Against the
infection of [Marxism], against the Jewish pestilence, we
must hold aloft a flaming ideal. And if others speak of
the World and Humanity, we must say the Fatherlandand only the Fatherland.”
The Nuremberg Laws
• Hitler set to drive out all Jews from
Germany.
• The Nuremberg Laws (1935) placed
severe restrictions on Jews lives.
– The Laws defined who was Jewish by a
persons parents/grandparents.
– Jews were forced to wear patches on
their clothes which identified them as
Jews.
– Could not marry non-Jews
The Nuremberg Laws
• The Nuremberg Laws (1935)
Jews could not: (continued)
– Attend or teach at German
schools or universities
– Hold Government jobs
– Practice Law or Medicine
– Publish Books
– Attend Theaters, Cinemas,
Vacation Resorts.
• By 1937, the Nazis began to
seize Jewish businesses.
• Many prominent German
Jews, including Albert
Einstein, fled at this time.
Kristallnacht
• Kristallnacht or the Night of Broken Glass took
place on November 7, 1938.
• Nazi led mobs attacked Jewish communities
throughout Germany. They smashed windows,
looted shops, and burned synagogues. Many
Jews were dragged from their homes and
beaten in the streets.
The Third Reich
• In his attempts to create a
larger German empire or
Third Reich, Hitler invaded
and conquered most of
Europe. With each new
country Germany occupied,
its population of Jews
increased.
• When Hitler and the Nazis
invaded Poland on
September 1, 1939, World
War II officially began.
• By 1941, Germany occupied
most of the European
continent and then turned
towards Russia.
The Ghettos
• After conquering Poland, the Nazis closed off small areas of
major cities (Warsaw, Lodz) and sealed in large Jewish
populations to those small areas.
• A Jewish teacher from Warsaw said “Ghetto life does not flow
– rather it is stagnant and frozen. Around us – are walls! We
have no space, we have no freedom of movement and
action.”
The Ghettos
• In the Warsaw ghetto, 30%
of the city’s population was
forced to live in 2.4% of the
city’s area. That’s
approximately 7.2 people per
room. Most people lived on
253 calories of food per day,
the average American
consumes 2000 calories per
day.
• Hundreds of thousands of
Jews in the ghettos died of
starvation, disease, and
malnutrition.
The Final Solution
• As Hitler and the Nazis empire grew and
their war efforts increased, they were
faced with a dilemma over “The Jewish
Question.”