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Deportation and genocide
• WW2 had ideological and racial aspect to ot.
• Jews and Slavs were considered inhuman- existing
population in Poland and USSR was destroyed or
displaced.
• Russian population to be withered away bycontraception, sterilization and abortion
• Jews to be exterminated
• Poles and Russians to be deported to German factories
and mines
Defining the Holocaust
 HOLOCAUST (Heb.,
sho'ah) which originally
meant a sacrifice totally
burned by fire
 the annihilation of the
Jews and other groups of
people of Europe under the
Nazi regime during World
War II
 GENOCIDE: the
systematic
extermination of a
nationality or group
European Jewish Population in 1933
was 9,508,340
Methods of killing
 Masses herded to remote locations and shot-
expensive and time-consuming methods
 Later in concentration camps – poison gas or overwork
and starvation
They were shot,
starved, gassed and
burned…
Estimated Jewish Survivors of
Holocaust: 3,546,211
The Stages of Isolation
The Holocaust was a progression of
actions
leading to the annihilation of
millions by:
 1: Stripping of Rights
 2: Segregation
 3: Concentration
 4: Extermination
Stage 1: Stripping of Rights
1935: Nuremberg Laws stated that all
JEWS were :
 stripped of German citizenship
 fired from jobs & businesses
boycotted
 banned from German schools and
universities
 Marriages between Jews and
Aryans forbidden
 Forced to carry ID cards
 Passports stamped with a “J”
 forced to wear the arm band of the
Yellow “Star of David”
 Jewish synagogues destroyed
 forced to pay reparations and a
special income tax
Stage 2: Segregation
GHETTOS
 Jews were forced to live in
designated areas called
“ghettos” to isolate them from
the rest of society
 Nazis established 356 ghettos in
Poland, the Soviet Union,
Czechoslovakia, Romania, and
Hungary during WWII
 Ghettos were filthy, with poor
sanitation and extreme
overcrowding
 Disease was rampant and food
was in such short supply that
many slowly starved to death
 Warsaw, the largest ghetto, held
500,000 people and was 3.5
square miles in size
Stage 3: Concentration Camps
 essential to Nazi’s systematic oppression and eventual




mass murder of enemies of Nazi Germany (Jews,
Communists, homosexuals, opponents)
Slave labor “annihilation by work”
Prisoners faced undernourishment and starvation
Prisoners transported in cattle freight cars
Camps were built on railroad lines for efficient
transportation
Life in the Camps
 possessions were







confiscated
heads were shaved
arms tattooed
Prison uniforms
Men, women and
children were
separated
Survival based on
trade skills /
physical strength
Unsanitary, disease
ridden and lice
infested barracks
inhumane medical
experiments
Stage 4: Extermination
 Einsatzgruppen (mobile
killing units) had began
killing operations aimed at
entire Jewish communities
in the 1930s
 DEATH FACTORIES: Nazi
extermination camps
fulfilled the singular
function of mass murder
 Euthanasia program: Nazi
policy to eliminate “life
unworthy of life” (mentally
or physically challenged)
to promote Aryan “racial
integrity”
 Wannsee
“FINAL SOLUTION”
Conference
(Berlin -1942 )
established the
“complete
solution of the
Jewish question”
 called for the
complete and
mass
annihilation and
extermination
of the Jews as
well as other
groups
 Zyklon B gas
became the
agent in the
Gas Chambers & Crematoriums
 Prisoners were sent to gas
chambers disguised as
showers
 Zyklon B gas used to gas
people in 3 – 15 minutes
 Up to 8000 people were
gassed per day at AuschwitzBirkenau, the largest death
camp with 4 operating gas
chambers
 Gold fillings from victims
teeth were melted down to
make gold bards
 Prisoners moved dead bodies
to massive crematoriums
Holocaust Art
Aftermath
 Yom ha-Shoah:
Holocaust
Remembrance Day
established in 1951
 Nuremberg Trials:
1945-1949 were trials
for war crimes of Nazi
officials (24 Nazi
leaders tried)
 Displaced Persons
 Anti-Semitism in the
 Russian govt deported minorities in the west as it
assumed they were disloyal- Germans on the Volga,
Tartars in Crimea, Estonians, Lithuanians and Poles
dispersed to Siberia
 Japanese considered the Chinese as ‘bacterias infesting
world civilizations’ and adopted ‘purification by
elimination’ tactics- Rape of Nanjing
Civilians as part of the war effort
 Britain
 1. military conscription- carefully controlled so that
key workers were left in important industries- coal
mining
 2. Industrial conscription- for women
 Women played a bigger role in british industry,
agriculture and administration
• Germany
• Regional and police authorities did not accept Albert
Speer’s national schemes in their regions
• Hitler was against women working as he believed they
should focus on Children, Church and kitchen-Kinder,
kirche, kuche
• Hitler insisted that consumer goods production
remain a priority so workers in non-essential
industries could not be transferred.
 Soviet Union
 Centralised nature of state helped to mobilise civilians
effectively
 Workers forced to move to regions where they were
most needed, hours of work increased, crash training
programmes, slackening or absentism could be
punished by labour camps or death
 Also worked in civil defence and fire-watching
operations
 Worked under long hours, poor nutrition and political
scrutiniy
America
 Women played a key role in war industries doing semi-
skilled jobs such as crane operators, tool makers, shell
loaders, aircraft makers and lumberjacks
 3,50,000 women joined in Women’s army Auxillary
corps, Marine Corps Women’s Reserve and the navy
Nurse Corps
Japan
 Japanese Govt was reluctant to use women in the
workforce
 Conscripted students
The growth of Government Power
Britain
 Churchill formed a
coalition government
and exercised supreme
military and political
power.
 Ernest Bevin –Minister
of Labor and national
Service
Britain
 Mines, shipping and railways came under state control
 Rationing was introduced
 Conscription for both men and women
 Improving health care, setting up nurseries to look
after children of working mothers
 All factories employing more than 250 workers must
have a canteen and a welfare officer
 Making food rations and vitamin supplements
available to young children and mothers
 Public transport was under the public sector
Germany
 A single-party state and decentralized
 Germany focused on high quality and technical
sophistication rather than mass production thus failed
to produce weapons on a large scale
Soviet Union
 Centralised all-powerful state
 Careful planning and mass production
 War production was given priority
 A single national war plan was drawn up in 1943
 Planners given freedom and powers to accomplish
their objectives
 Large numbers of weapons to be produced as simply
and quickly as possible.
USA
 Government took control of industrial production
 War production Board was established
 Production priorities were changed as per military
requirements
 -car factories produced tanks and planes
 -workers were recruited where they were needed most
 -new industries created
 USA granted contracts to the big industries to produce
what was needed
Japan
 Military government
 Main political parties went into voluntary dissolution
 Monolithic party set up- the imperial rule assistance
Association
 Trade unions were closed down
 Difficult for the government to maintain tight control
of war production to the independent positions of the
Zaibatsu and the rivalries between the army and the
navy
Propaganda
 n : information that is spread for the purpose of
promoting some cause
In WWII, propaganda was used more than any other
time this world has seen. With new technological
inventions such as photography, radio and film,
manipulative messages bombarded every day life
in an attempt to persuade a person to believe in a
specific cause.
Propaganda in Figures
Since the beginning of the War, the
Reichspropagandaleitung has produced:
 more than 2 million brochures
 more than 7 million posters
 more than 60 million newspapers, wall posters,
leaflets, etc.
It carried out:
 about 30,000 slide shows
 about 45,000 film evenings every month
 about 200,000 meetings and public or factory mass
meetings
Mein Kampf
- This poster promotes
Hitler's book Mein Kampf,
announcing that four million
copies have been sold.
This book is what really put
Hitler on the map. After this,
more political opportunities
presented themselves.
Treaty of Versailles (Germany alone against the world) - This visual from the
mid-1930's shows Germany in white, with the 100,000-man army permitted by
the Treaty of Versailles, surrounded by heavily armed neighbors.
Propaganda
 Propaganda remained a key weapon of all
governments
 Germany and USSR convinced their poulations of the
justification of their actions
 Goebbels stoked the German fear of communism in
the East
 Stalin dubbed the war as the ‘Great Patriotic War’
where the defence of the ‘motherland’ was a driving
force
 The change in the public opinion in the western
democracies like Britain and USA was due to the
actions of the Axis Powers.
 1. Britain- after a war scare in 1938 they were ready to
fight in 1939
 2. USA- attack on Pearl harbor
 Churchill established the Political Warfare executive
 USA- The Office of War Information was set-up
 Propaganda and censorship was used to 1. encourage civilians
 2. get women to work
 3. stress the evil nature of the enemy regime
 4. to fight against the Nazis
 Radio was the most important weapon- BBC news
broadcast was seen as reliable
The Technical Team "Germany" assisted in about 50 major
events and drove over 360,000 kilometers (nine times around
the earth).
Radio Propaganda - The text translates:
"All Germany hears the Führer on the
People's Receiver." The Nazis, eager to
encourage radio listening, developed an
inexpensive radio receiver to make it
possible for many people to hear Nazi
propaganda.
Recruitment
Beginning early on in the war and continuing until its
end, countries used propaganda to persuade young
men to join the military. The various forms of
propaganda glorified the war effort and used short
catchy phrases that were easy to understand and hard
to forget. Why?
United States – Uncle Sam: I Want You!
Russia – Look familiar?
Britain – Join your country’s
army…God save the King.
Norway - ALARM! The slogan at that
time was: "Finland's fight is our fight."
Whoever fights for Finland also fights for
his own country"...Norway.
Germany - This is an SS recruiting
poster. I'm not sure of the date. It says
one can join at 18, and sign up for shorter
or longer periods of service. It gives the
address of the recruiting office in Munich.
Germany - This looks to be a late-war
recruiting poster for the SS, a time at which
the Nazis were recruiting younger and
younger soldiers. The caption doesn't
translate directly, but means: "Enlist now!"
Unification
It is important for any government in war that all the people be united in the war
effort. Even black people and women were targeted by propaganda in the United
States. How might this create lasting effects after the war?
More Homefront Propaganda
War Bonds weren’t the only way a person
could help in the effort. As men left to fight,
women took over the jobs in the factories.
Rosie Riveter is one of the most popular
posters ever created in the United States.
Think about what the arm symbolizes. What
about her facial appearance/expression?
United States
Propaganda
U.S. Homefront Propaganda
When the United States finally entered the war, it was Total War. Everyone
was affected and as many resources possible went to the war effort.
Buy War Bonds!
What is being symbolized here?
Think about how fear can be used in
propaganda.
Notice the two unknowing kids and the
oldest who seems to be looking at
something up in the sky.
Saving Gas
Nazi Propaganda
Women’s Roles in Germany
-The Germans worked to gather as much
old material for the war effort as possible.
This poster is for a 1943 clothing drive.
The text translates as: "Get rid of old
cloth and shoes!”
Any similarities between German and
American propaganda?
What does her appearance suggest
about what Germans value?
More Desperate
Propaganda
Women
- Late in the war. The text translates
as: "Mothers! Fight for your children!"
Note that the mother portrayed
has four children, consistent with
the Nazi goal of encouraging as
many births as possible.
Interesting how every side says
God is on our side. In Germany,
Hitler is shown ordained by God,
but in America, the portrayal is
quite different. Who is right?
Research
 1. Compare Art during WWI and WWII (PPT)
 2. Jiang Jieshi
 3. Mao Zedong
 4. The Nuremberg Tribunal