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The
Holocaust
A History and Portrait
The beginning . . .
World War I
• 1914-1917
(Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey)
vs.
(France, Great Britain, Russia, Italy, Japan, & the
United States)
Central Powers:
Germany,
Austria-Hungary,
Turkey
Allied Powers:
France,
Great Britain,
Russia, Italy,
Japan, &
United States
November 1918


The Allied Powers defeat Germany, AustriaHungary, and Turkey
Germany is in ruins. Its economy and political
system are destabilized, several thousand
German soldiers are dead, and millions of
German citizens are homeless, unemployed, and
starving.
Resurrecting from the Ruins
Germans. . .
humiliated,
starving,
homeless,
and desperate in the wake of WWI
. . . find hope in the words and leadership of
one man.
Adolf Hitler
Powered by his charisma and ambition, Hitler vowed to
rejuvenate Germany’s economy and restore Germany to
a position of world leadership.
• He was appointed Chancellor of Germany
in 1933.
• By 1934 he became a dictator. Hitler and
his Nazi regime ruled over Germany with
ABSOLUTE power.
Hitler’s Plan
Step #1:
Expand Germany’s political
power by invading neighboring
nations.

1936: Hitler invades the Rhineland.

1938: Hitler invades Austria and
Czechoslovakia

1939: Hitler invades Poland
Germany Expands Its Power
Hitler’s Plan
Step #2:
Remove several million
“undesirables” from Germany
and the surrounding areas.
• Hitler believed that the Jews, Jehovah’s Witnesses, criminals,
and other groups of “undesirables” were responsible for
Germany’s hardships.
“Removal”
Jews were identified and forced to leave
their homes. They were sent to the ghettos
located within the city.
• Ghettos: fenced-in communities where residents
were given little food and medicine and were forced
to live in crowded spaces.
• Several thousand Jews did not survive the ghettos.
They died from starvation and disease.
• By 1939 the ghettos were overcrowded
and the Nazis no longer had room to
house the “undesirables.”
• The Nazi Regime needed to implement a
new plan for “removing” the Jews and
other groups from Germany.
• The Solution . . .
DEATH CAMPS
Jews who had been living in the Ghettos
were forced to board freight cars.
When the freight cars arrived at the Death
Camps, the Jews were stripped of their
belongings . . .
Their shoes . . .
Their glasses . . .
. . . and their jewelry .
They were divided into
two groups:
Group #1: Prisoners who were old enough
and healthy enough to work.
Group #2: Prisoners who were too young,
too old, or too weak to work.
Group #1 was given prison uniforms and
trained to work as forced laborers in
German factories and mines.
Group #2 was stripped of their
clothing . . .
. . . shaved . . .
Bales of hair cut from female prisoners, discovered at Auschwitz
following its liberation in January 1945.
. . . and herded into a gas chamber.
During the early years, SS guards buried the
dead bodies in mass graves.
However, as the number of bodies
increased, the guards ran out of room to
bury the dead . . .
The SS guards decided to cremate the
bodies to conserve space.
Survivors of the Holocaust oftentimes talked
about the horrible stench of death that
permeated the air throughout the camps.
Liberation!
• In 1944, the Allied forces (Soviet Union,
Great Britain, & United States) forced
Germany to retreat from its occupied
territories.
• As British and American troops advanced,
they discovered several Nazi death
camps. They were horrified by their
discovery . . .
Thousands of starving prisoners . . .
A storehouse filled with 800,000 shoes . . .
…and gas chambers equipped to
kill up to 250 people at once.
• Historians estimate that 5,370,000 people
died at Nazi Death Camps located
throughout Europe.
• Add to this total the millions of Jews and
other “undesirables” who died before they
even arrived at the death camps.