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The Holocaust
Presenter: William Hill
Subject:
Persecution of the Jewish
People During WWII
Class:
6th Period
The Holocaust
The Holocaust
 The
Holocaust is the name applied to
describe the attempted genocide of
Europe's Jewish population during World
War II.
 It was part of a program of ridding Europe
of "undesirables" by the National Socialist
regime in Germany led by Adolf Hitler.
Events Leading to Horrific
Tragedy
Growth of Nazi Party


Nazi is a short term
for the National
Socialist German
Workers Party, a
right-wing political
party formed in 1919.
It consisted of
primarily unemployed
German veterans of
World War I.
The Nazi Party Ideology



.
The Nazi party beliefs
based on nationalism and
racism.
They promoted Germany
as superior to all other
nations.
They promised to restore
it to greatness, while
championing a scientific
theory of racism.
The Nazi Party Ideology
• They even created a
league table of 'races'
with the Aryans at the
top and with
Jews, Gypsies and
black people at the
bottom.
• These 'inferior' people
were seen as a threat
to the purity and
strength of the German
nation.
Nazi Movement lead by Adolf
Hitler



In 1933, Hitler assumed
power in Germany.
He ended German
democracy and
severely restricted basic
rights, such as freedom
of speech, press, and
assembly.
Eventually decided that
the Jewish people
should be exterminated.
The Nuremberg Laws
 The
Nuremberg Laws were the beginning of
Hitler's master plan for the perfect race.
 They took away Jewish natural rights and
citizenship.
 The Nuremberg Laws formalized the
unofficial and particular measures taken
against Jews leading up to 1935.
The Wannsee Conference



The Wannsee Conference was a
meeting of senior Nazi German
officials held in Wannsee on
January 20, 1942.
German successes of the
opening weeks of the invasion of
the Soviet Union considered how
to handle the four million Jews of
the western Soviet Union coming
under German control.
The conference proposed the
"Final solution to the Jewish
question" - the killing of all the 11
million Jews of Europe, a process
now known as the Holocaust.
Reinhard Heydrich the main
police authority in Hitler's
Reich headed up what was
called “the Jewish problem.”
The Nazi Camp System
• In the early years of the
Third Reich, the Nazis
imprisoned primarily
Communists and
Socialists.
• In about 1935, the
regime also began to
imprison those whom it
designated as racially
or biologically inferior,
especially Jews.
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.
The Camps


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.
The Camps


Of the approximately 6
million Jews murdered
in the Holocaust, more
than half were
systematically
exterminated in the
highly rationalized gas
chamber/crematorium
system of the Nazi
Death Camps between
1942 and 1945.
The names of Treblinka,
Auschwitz-Birkenau,
Dachau, Chelmno,
Sobibor, Belzek and
Majdanek are indelibly
stamped on history.
The Camps



The guards carried out
beatings and acts of torture
on a daily basis.
Some women worked in
brothels for the guards and
privileged prisoners. It has
been argued that some
were forced to do so.
Russian prisoners of war
were used for experiments,
such as being immersed in
ice water or being put into
pressure chambers.
Extent of the Holocaust
• The exact number of people killed by the
Nazi regime is still subject to further
research. However, the following estimates
are considered to be highly reliable.
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5.6–6.1 million Jews
3.5–6 million Slavic civilians
2.5–4 million POWs
1–1.5 million political dissidents
200,000–800,000 Roma & Sinti
200,000–300,000 handicapped
10,000–250,000 homosexuals
2,000 Jehovah's Witnesses
Ramifications
The Holocaust has had a number of political
and social ramifications which reach to the
present.
The need to find a homeland for many
Jewish refugees led to a great many Jews
emigrating to Palestine, most of which was
soon to become the modern State of Israel.
This immigration had a direct effect on the
Arabs of the region.
Historical Interpretations
• As with any historical event, scholars
continue to argue over what, exactly,
happened, and why. Among the major
questions historians have sought to answer
are:
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how many people were killed in the Holocaust?
who was directly involved in the killing?
who authorized the killing?
who knew about the killing?
why did people directly participate in, authorize,
or tacitly accept the killing?
Camp Liberator
Shares Memories at 60th Reunion


In 1944, Martin Weiss
was 15 years old when
he was shipped from
his native Hungary and
eventually imprisoned
at Gunskirchen, a
concentration camp in
Austria.
Edgar Edelsack was 21
when he arrived at the
Mauthausen camp as
part of the 11th Armored
Division in Gen.
Patton's 3rd Army.
Camp liberator Edgar Edelsack, left, in
a 1945 photo and Holocaust survivor
Martin Weiss, in an undated photo
Edelsack, left, and Weiss at 60th
Reunion in Washington, D.C.