Download Other 6 million

The Other 6 Million
Key Terms
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Jehovah’s Witnesses
Sinti
Roma
“Law for the Prevention of Progeny with Hereditary
Diseases”
• Eugenics
Lecture Outline
• I. The Other Six Million
A. Jehovah’s Witnesses
B. Sinti and Roma
C. Homosexuals
D. Handicapped
E. Poles
Jehovah’s Witnesses
• Jehovah’s Witnesses was founded in the United
States in the 1870s and they sent missionaries to
Germany seeking converts in the 1890s.
• By the early 1930s, only 20,000 Germans were
Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Jehovah’s Witnesses (con.)
• Jehovah’s Witnesses refused to swear allegiance
to any worldly government.
• In April 1933, four months after Hitler became
chancellor, Jehovah’s Witnesses were banned in
Bavaria and by the summer in most of Germany.
Jehovah’s Witnesses (con.)
• In 1936 a special unit of the Gestapo began
compiling a registry of all persons believed to be
Jehovah’s Witnesses.
• By 1939, an estimated 6,000 Witnesses were
detained in prisons or camps.
Jehovah’s Witnesses (con.)
• In the Nazi years about 10,000 Witnesses were
imprisoned in concentration camps.
• An estimated 2,500 to 5,000 Witnesses died in
camps or prisons.
Sinti and Roma
• In 1939, 30,000-50,000 “Gypsies” lived in
Germany and Austria.
• Gypsies are believed to have arrived in Europe
from Northern India in the 1400s. They were
called Gypsies because Europeans thought they
came from Egypt.
Sinti and Roma (con.)
• Under the July 1933 “Law for Prevention of
offspring with Hereditary Defects,” physicians
sterilized against their will an unknown number of
Gypsies.
• Under the “Law against Dangerous Habitual
Criminal” of November 1933, the police arrested
many Gypsies along with others the Nazis viewed
as “asocial.”
Sinti and Roma (con.)
• During the war Gypsies were sent to ghettos in
Poland and then to death camps.
• Many children died as a result of cruel medical
experiments performed by Dr. Josef Mengele and
other SS physicians.
Sinti and Roma (con.)
• Approximately 225,000-500,000 Sinti and Roma
were killed.
• After the war discrimination against Sinti and
Roma in Europe continued.
Homosexuals
• In 1934, a special Gestapo division on
homosexuals was set up.
• An estimated 1.2 million men were homosexuals
in Germany in 1928.
Homosexuals (con.)
• Between 1933 and 1945 an estimated 100,000
men were arrested as homosexuals and of these
some 50,000 officially defined homosexuals were
sentenced.
• Most of these spent time in regular prisons, and
an estimated 5,000-15,000 were incarcerated in
concentration camps.
Homosexuals (con.)
• Some homosexuals were also victims of cruel
medical experiments.
• After the war, homosexual concentration camp
prisoners were not acknowledged as victims of
Nazi persecution, and reparations were refused.
The Handicapped
• The “Law for the Prevention of Progeny with
Hereditary Diseases,” proclaimed July 14, 1933,
forced the sterilization of all persons who suffered
from diseases considered hereditary.
The Handicapped (con.)
• Nazi Germany was not the first or only country to
sterilized people considered “abnormal.” Before
Hitler, the United States led the world in forced
sterilizations.
The Handicapped (con.)
• Advocated of sterilization policies in both Germany
and the United States were influenced by
eugenics.
• Eugenics is the study of hereditary improvement
of the human race by controlled selective
breeding.
The Handicapped (con.)
• The forced sterilizations began in January 1934,
and altogether an estimated 300,000-400,000
people were sterilized under the law.
The Handicapped (con.)
• In October 1939, Hitler initiated a decree which
empowered physicians to kill patients considered
incurable.
• Between 200,000 and 250,000 mentally and
physically handicapped people were murdered
from 1939-1945.
Poles
• It is believed that between 1.8 and 1.9 million
Polish civilians were victims of German occupation
policies and the war.
AP p. 880-897
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Causes and effects of US prosperity
Yalta Conference
“containment doctrine”
Truman doctrine
Marshall Plan
AP p. 897-905
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National Security Act
NATO
General Douglas MacArthur
Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC)
NSC-68
Korean War