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The Holocaust
 Genocide
is the deliberate and
systematic destruction of a racial,
political, or cultural group.
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What was it?
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When was it?
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Where was it?
◦ The murder of 6 million European Jews
◦ (1.1 million children)
◦ Began with Hitler’s election in 1933
◦ Continued through WWII (1939-1945)
◦ Jewish citizens of European countries were sent
to death camps or murdered
◦ www.yadvashem.org
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Why did it happen?
1) Long history of Religious anti-Semitism
 Prejudice & discrimination against people of
Semite descent
 Belief that Sanhedrin
had a hand in the
death of Jesus
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Why did it happen?
2) Economic anti-Semitism
 Resentment of Jews for economic reasons
 Negative stereotypes:
 Control business world
 Stingy, greedy, etc.
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Accelerators
 German desire to expand territory (Mitteleuropa)
 Great Depression
 Increases economic resentment
 Instability =Hitler
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Platform:
Territorial expansion
Less immigration
Power of the volk
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Hitler Plan & Nuremberg Laws (1933-1938)
◦ A series of bills which laid the foundation
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Boycott of Jewish Businesses
German Jews lose citizenship, respected jobs
Prohibits Jews from owning property
The yellow star
Gathered and grouped
into Ghettos
6) Krystallnacht
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World War II & The Final Solution
Hitler’s “Final Solution” was extermination
1) Concentration camps
2) Death camps (i.e. Auschwitz)
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How did they get away with this?
Propaganda (Joseph Goebbels)
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Who were some key people? What did they do?
◦ Raoul Wallenberg
◦ Giovanni Palatucci
◦ Oskar Schindler
◦ Andre Trocmé
◦ Irena Sendler
◦ Nicholas Winton
◦ Chiune Sugihara
◦ Varian Fry
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"In Germany they came first for the
Communists, and I didn't speak up
because I wasn't a Communist. Then they
came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up
because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for
the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up
because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then
they came for the Catholics, and I didn't
speak up because I was a Protestant. Then
they came for me, and by that time no one
was left to speak up."
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Reflection Questions
Have you ever witnessed an injustice, and not
stepped in? What held you back? Would your help
have changed things? What would you do
differently now?
Reflect on what you have learned about the
Holocaust. What lessons can modern society
learn from this tragedy?
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Nazis had no official policy or intention of exterminating
Jews.
Nazis did not use gas chambers to mass murder Jews.
The figure of 5 to 6 million Jewish deaths is a gross
exaggeration,
Myth created by the Allies to demonize Germans. Jews
spread this myth to help in the creation of a Jewish
homeland in Palestine,
Documentary evidence from photographs to the Diary of
Anne Frank, is fabricated.
Survivor testimonies are filled with errors and
inconsistencies, and are thus unreliable.
Interrogators obtained Nazi prisoners' confessions of war
crimes through the use of torture.
The Nazi treatment of Jews was no different from what
the Allies did to their enemies in World War I