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Chapter 18: Section 3
The Holocaust
Setting the
Scene
German children read an
anti-Jewish propaganda
book titled DER GIFTPILZ
("The Poisonous
Mushroom"). The girl on the
left holds a companion
volume, the translated title of
which is "Trust No Fox."
Germany, ca. 1938.
• Jewish prejudice had existed in Europe for centuries
• some thinkers claimed that Germanic peoples whom
they called “Aryans” were superior to Middle Eastern
peoples called Semites
– Semites included Arabs and Jews
• used ideas to persecute any “non-Aryans”
• anti-Semitism – used to describe the
discrimination or hostility, often violent, directed
at Jews
A Jewish family in the Piotrkow Trybunalski ghetto.
All those pictured died in the Holocaust. Poland, 1940.
• the suffering and
hardships brought on
by WW I and the Great
Depression caused
many to look for
someone to blame for
their problems
• in Mein Kampf, Hitler
revived the idea and he
particularly despised
the mixing of the two
races
– Aryan and Jewish
A Nazi propaganda poster encourages
healthy Germans to raise a large family.
The caption, in German, reads: "Healthy
Parents have Healthy Children."
Germany, date uncertain.
Persecution in Germany
• Hitler made antiSemitism the official
policy of the nation
• Holocaust – Nazi
Germany’s systematic
murder of European
Jews
– some 6 million Jews
– 5 to 6 million other
people would also die
in Nazi captivity
Nazi
Policies
• early forms of persecution aimed to exclude
Germany’s Jews from all aspects of their
country’s political, social, and economic life
– April 1933 – Germany orders a one-day boycott of
businesses owned by Jews
– 1935 Nuremberg Laws strip Jews of their
German citizenship & outlaw marriage
between Jews and non-Jews
• used newspapers and radio to attack and
caricature Jews as enemies of Germany
A Roundup
of Jews
• 1938 – Nazis forced Jews to surrender their
own businesses to Aryans for a fraction of their
value
– Jewish doctors and lawyers were forbidden to serve
non-Jews
– Jewish students were expelled from public schools
• What is a Jew?
– any person who had three or four Jewish
grandparents, regardless of their current religion
– any person who had two Jewish grandparents
and practiced the Jewish faith
• identity cards were marked with a red letter “J”
• Jews also received new middle names “Sarah”
for women and “Israel” for men
• forced to sew yellow stars marked “Jew” on
their clothing
– practices exposed Jews to public attacks and police
harassment
Passports issued to a German
Jewish couple, with "J" for
"Jude" stamped on the cards.
Karlsruhe, Germany,
December 29, 1938.
Hitler’s Police
• Gestapo – Germany’s
new secret state police
– pursued enemies of the
Nazi regime
• SS ~ Schutzstaffel –
elite guard that
developed into a
private army of the
Nazi party
– Gestapo became part
of the SS
April 12, 1945: Nordhausen
Concentration Camp,
where 20,000 inmates were
believed to have died.
• duties included guarding concentration
camps – places where political prisoners are
confined, usually under harsh conditions
– held Communists and other “undesirables”
• Jews, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Gypsies,
and the homeless
Kristallnacht
• many believed they could endure until Hitler lost
power or that staying in Germany was better
than going to a foreign country with no money
• views changed on November 9, 1938
– Nazi thugs throughout Germany and Austria looted
and destroyed Jewish stores, houses, and
synagogues
• Kristallnacht – “Night
of the Broken Glass”
– referencing the broken
windows of the Jewish
shops
– nearly every
synagogue was
destroyed
– thousands of Jews
were arrested and sent
to concentration
camps
– then, the Jews were
fined to pay for the
damages of the night
Destroyed
Synagogues
Refugees Seek an Escape
Two young
cousins shortly
before they were
smuggled out of
the Kovno
ghetto. A
Lithuanian family
hid the children
and both girls
survived the war.
Kovno,
Lithuania,
August 1943.
• Germany’s
remaining Jews
sought any
means possible
to leave the
country
• 1933-1937 –
130,000 Jews
fled Germany
• many moved to
neighboring
countries
• began to seek protection in the United States, Latin
America, and British-ruled Palestine
– few countries welcomed newcomers during the hard
times of Depression
• President Roosevelt – called for an international
conference to discuss the growing number of
refugees
German Jews, seeking to
emigrate, wait in the office of the
Hilfsverein der Deutschen Juden
(Relief Organization of German
Jews). On the wall is a map of
South America and a sign about
emigration to Palestine. Berlin,
Germany, 1935.
German Jews crowd the Palestine Emigration Office in an attempt to leave Germany.
Berlin, Germany, 1935.
Scene during the Evian
Conference on Jewish
refugees. On the far right
are two of the U.S.
delegates: Myron Taylor
and James McDonald of
the President's Advisory
Committee on Political
Refugees. Evian-lesBains, France, July 1938.
• Evian Conference – France July 1938, failed
to deal with the situation
– each of the 32 nations represented (with the
exception of the Dominican Republic); including
the United States refused to open its doors to
more immigrants
From Murder to Genocide
A sign, in both
German and
Latvian, warning
that people
attempting to cross
the fence or to
contact inhabitants
of the Riga ghetto
will be shot. Riga,
Latvia, 1941-1943.
• as German armies overran more and more territory,
more Jews came under German control
– there were 2 million Jews in Poland alone
• began establishing ghettos – self-contained areas,
usually surrounded by a fence, wall, or armed
guards, where Jews were forced to live
• Warsaw Ghetto
– 400,000 Jews, 30% of the
population of the Polish
capital were forced to live
in an area less than 3% of
the entire city
– sealed with a wall, topped
with barbed wire, and
armed guards
– received little food;
hunger, overcrowding,
and a lack of sanitation
brought on disease
• thousands died in the
ghettos, but the Nazis
wanted more efficient ways
of killing Jews
An emaciated child eats in the
streets of the Warsaw ghetto.
Warsaw, Poland, between 1940
and 1943.
The Einsatzgruppen
Members of an Einsatzkommando
(mobile killing squad) before
shooting a Jewish youth. The boy's
murdered family lies in front of him;
the men to the left are ethnic
Germans aiding the squad. Slarow,
Soviet Union, July 4, 1941.
• Einsatzgruppen – mobile killing squads
– ordered to shoot Communist political leaders
as well as all Jews in German-occupied
territory
Over one thousand Jews from the
Ukrainian town of Lubny, ordered to
assemble for "resettlement," in an
open field before they were
massacred by Einsatzgruppen.
Lubny, Soviet Union, October 16,
1941.
Ukrainian Jews who were forced to
undress before they were massacred
by Einsatzgruppe detachments. This
photo, originally in color, was part of a
series taken by a German military
photographer. Copies from this
collection were later used as
evidence in war crimes trials. Lubny,
Soviet Union, October 16, 1941.
– rounded up their victims and drove them to
gullies or freshly dug pits where they were shot
• Babi Yar – outside Kiev, Nazis killed more than
33,000 Jews in two days
Soviet investigators (at left) view an
opened grave at Babi Yar. Kiev, Soviet
Union, 1944
At Babi Yar, members of Einsatzgruppe
(mobile killing unit) C force groups of Jews
to hand over their possessions and undress
before being shot in the ravine. Near Kiev,
Soviet Union, September 29 or 30, 1941.
• Wannsee Conference –
German officials met for
a more suitable approach
– developed what came to
be known as the “final
solution to the Jewish
question”
– would lead to the
construction of special
camps in Poland where
genocide – the deliberate
destruction of an entire
ethnic or cultural group;
was to be carried out
against Europe’s Jews
Reinhard Heydrich, chief of the
SD (Security Service) and Nazi
governor of Bohemia and
Moravia, held meeting to
develop the “final solution”.
Place uncertain, 1942.
The Death Camps
• chose poison gas as the
most effective way to kill
people
– pesticide called Zyklon B
• developed a specially
designed gas chamber
disguised as a shower
room at Auschwitz in
western Poland
– outfitted six camps
• death camps – existed
primarily for mass murder
The valuables displayed here were
confiscated from prisoners by
German guards at the Buchenwald
concentration camp and later found
by American forces after the
liberation of the camp. Buchenwald,
Germany, after April 1945.
Human remains found in the Dachau
concentration camp crematorium after
liberation. Germany, April 1945.
• Jews were crowded into train cars built for
cattle and transported to these extermination
centers
– nearly all were murdered soon after they arrived
Deportation of Jews
from Kovno Ghetto
to Auschwitz
- October 26, 1943
• at Auschwitz and Majdanek they were
organized into a line and quickly inspected
– elderly, women with children, and those who looked
too weak to work were headed into gas chambers
and killed
• prisoners then transported the dead to the crematoria –
huge ovens where the bodies were burned
• those who survived the initial inspection worked
– average life expectancy at Auschwitz was a few months
• men and women had their heads shaved and a
registration number tattooed on their arms
• given one set of clothes and slept in crowded
unheated barracks on hard wooden pallets
• daily food was imitation coffee, a small piece of
bread, and thin, foul-tasting soup made with
rotten vegetables
• disease swept through camps and claimed those
who were weak from harsh labor and starvation
– others died from medical experiments or periodic
“selections” where the weak were sent to the gas
chambers
• Auschwitz
– 12,000 could be gassed and cremated daily
– total of 1.5 million people were killed there
Fighting Back
• some Jews resisted and joined underground
resistance groups
– staged violent uprisings
• August 1943 – rioting Jews damaged the Treblinka
death camp so badly it had to be closed
SS and Police Leader Juergen
Stroop interrogates two Jews
arrested during the Warsaw
ghetto uprising. Poland, April 19May 16, 1943.
Jewish partisans,
survivors of the
Warsaw ghetto
uprising, at a
family camp in
Wyszkow forest.
Poland, 1944.
• escape was the most common form of
resistance
• most were later caught, but some managed
to spread word of the death camps
• those in the Warsaw ghetto
learned the fate of 300,000
Jews who had been sent to
Treblinka
– April 1943 – 50,000 Jews
still in the ghetto rose up
against final deportation
– for 27 days they held off the
Germans with pistols and
homemade bombs
– those who survived were
severely punished by the
Germans
Three participants in the Treblinka uprising
who escaped and survived the war. Warsaw,
Poland, 1945.
Jewish resistance fighters
captured by SS troops
during the Warsaw ghetto
uprising. Warsaw, Poland,
April 19-May 16, 1943.
Ruins of the Warsaw ghetto
after the Warsaw ghetto
uprising. Poland, May 1943.
German soldiers direct artillery
against a pocket of resistance
during the Warsaw ghetto uprising.
Warsaw, Poland, April 19-May 16,
1943.
Jews captured during the Warsaw
ghetto uprising. Poland, April 19May 16, 1943.
Deportation of Jews from the
Warsaw ghetto during the ghetto
uprising. Warsaw, Poland, May
1943.
Jews captured during the
Warsaw ghetto uprising. Poland,
April 19-May 16, 1943.
German soldiers arrest Jews
during the Warsaw ghetto
uprising. Poland, May 1943.
German soldiers lead Jews
captured during the Warsaw
ghetto uprising to the assembly
point for deportation. Poland,
May 1943.
Photo taken in Secretary of State Cordell
Hull's office on the occasion of the third
meeting of the War Refugee Board. Hull is
at the left, Secretary of the Treasury Henry
Morgenthau, Jr., is in the center, and
Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson is at
the right. Washington, D.C., United States,
March 21, 1944.
Rescue and
Liberation
• US government knew about the mass murder
as early as November 1942
• January 1944 – Roosevelt creates the War
Refugee Board (WRB) to try to help people
threatened by the Nazis
– helped save some 200,000 Swedish Jews
• thousands of Jews died on death marches
from camp to camp as their German guards
moved them ahead of advancing armies
• in 1945 the first American troops witnessed
the horrors of the Holocaust for the first time
Prisoners on a death march
from Dachau move towards
the south along the
Noerdliche Muenchner street
in Gruenwald. German
civilians secretly
photographed several death
marches from the Dachau
concentration camp as the
prisoners moved slowly
through the Bavarian towns.
Few civilians gave aid to the
prisoners on the death
marches. Germany,
April 29, 1945.
• “The odor was so bad
I backed up, but I
looked at a bottom
bunk and there I saw
one man. He was too
weak to get up; he
could just barely turn
his head…He looked
like a skeleton; and
his eyes were deep
set. He didn’t utter a
sound; he just looked
at me with those
eyes, and they still
haunt me today.”
– Leon Bass
– American Soldier
Soon after liberation, surviving
children of the Auschwitz
camp walk out of the
children's barracks. Poland,
after January 27, 1945.
Soon after liberation, camp
survivors from Buchenwald's
"Children's Block 66"--a
special barracks for children.
Germany, after April 11, 1945.
• Allies put former Nazi leaders on trial
• charged with crimes against peace, against
humanity, and war crimes
• International Military Tribunal conducted the
Nuremberg Trials – 12 of the 24 Nazi
defendants received the death sentence
– trials established the important principle that
individuals must be responsible for their own
actions
• firmly rejected the claim by the defendants that they
were only “following orders”