3/14/2012
1
The Holocaust
10.8.5 Analyze the Nazi policy of pursuing racial purity, especially against the European
Jews; its transformation into the Final Solution; and the Holocaust that resulted in the
murder of six million Jewish civilians
2
3
• For many centuries, primitive Christian Europe had regarded the Jews as the ‘ChristKillers’: an enemy and a threat to be converted and so be ‘saved’, or to be killed; to be
expelled, or to be put to death with sword and fire.
4
• In 1543, Martin Luther set out his ‘honest advice’ as to how Jews should be treated.
‘First’ he wrote, ‘their synagogues should be set on fire, and whatever does not burn up
should be covered or spread over with dirt so that no one may ever be able to see a
cinder or stone of it.’ Jewish homes, he urged, should likewise be ‘broken down and
destroyed.’
5
• Jews should then be ‘put under one roof, or in a stable, like Gypsies, in order that they
may realize that they are not masters of the land.’ They should be put to work, to earn
their living ‘by the sweat of their noses’, or, if regarded even then as too dangerous,
these ‘poisonous bitter worms’ should be stripped of their belongings ‘which they have
extorted usuriously from us’ and driven out of the country ‘for all time’.
6
• Luther’s advise was typical of the anti-Jewish venom of his time. Mass expulsion was a
commonplace or medieval policy. Jews had been driven out of almost every European
country including England, France, Spain, Portugal, and Bohemia. In Italy they were to
be confined to a special part of town, the ghetto, and in tsarist Russia, to a special
region of the country, the ‘Pale’. Expulsions and oppression continued until the 19th
century.
7
• Even when Jews were allowed growing participation in national life, however, no decade
passed without Jews in one European state or another being accused of murdering
Christian children, in order to use their blood in baking Passover bread. This ‘blood libel’,
coming as it did with outburst of popular violence against Jews, reflected deep
prejudice with no amount of modernity of liberal education seemed able to overcome
Jew- hatred, with its 2000 year-old history, could arise as a spontaneous outburst of
popular instincts, as a deliberately fanned instrument of scapegoat politics.
8
• In the 19th century seemed to offer the Jews a change for better: emancipation spread
throughout Western Europe, Jews entered politics and parliament, and became
integrated into the cultural, scientific, and medical life of every land.
9
• Anti-Semitism was remained common in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s. During this
time Germany was experiencing high unemployment (during the 1920s as much as 7
million Germans were unemployed), humiliation, hyperinflation, and hunger. Hitler
“welcomed the misery,” wrote one analyst, “…declaring the need for pride, will, defiance
and ‘hate, hate, and again hate!’” He soon realized that his all-encompassing hatreds
were confusing and he began to narrow them down. He concluded that actions
“against the Jews would be popular and successful… they are totally defenseless, no
one will stand up to protect them.”
1
3/14/2012
10
• Adolf Hitler's fanatical anti-Semitism view was laid out in his 1925 book Mein Kampf,
which became popular in Germany once he acquired political power. In 1933
Hindenburg allowed Hitler to become chancellor and create a new government. Within
two months he had laid out the foundation for complete control over Germany.
•
11
• The crowning step of Hitler’s “legal seizure” of power came on March 23, 1933, when
the Reichstag passed the Enabling Act. This law gave the government the power to
ignore the constitution for four years. Once in power, the Nazis translated anti-Semitic
ideas into action. With this new source of power, the Nazis purged the civil service of
the Jews and democratic elements and concentration camps were set up for people that
opposed the regime.
12
• On April 1, 1933 the recently elected Nazis under Julius Streicher organized a one-day
boycott of all Jewish-owned businesses in Germany (the last remaining Jewish
enterprises in Germany were closed on July 6, 1939). This policy helped to usher-in a
series of anti-Semitic acts that would eventually culminate in the Jewish Holocaust. In
1934, Hitler became the sole dictator of Germany with the death of Hindenburg. He was
the ultimate decision maker and absolute ruler.
13
• For those that needed coercion, the Nazi totalitarian state used terror and repression.
The Schutzstaffeln, simply known as the SS were set up under the strict direction of
Heinrich Himmler. The SS came to control not only the secret police but also the regular
police.
• The SS was based on two principals: terror and ideology. Terror included the
instruments of repression and murder—secret police, criminal police, concentration
camps, and later execution squads and death camps. For Himmler, the chief goal of the
SS was to further the group they saw as the German master race.
14
• In September 1935, the Nazis announced new racial laws at the annual party rally in
Nuremburg. These Nuremburg laws excluded Jews from German citizenship. A Jew was
defined not by religion but by whether he or she has a Jewish grandparent. Marriages
between Jews and German citizens were forbidden. Jews were also required to wear
yellow Stars of David and to carry identification cards saying they were Jewish.
15
• A more violent phase of anti-Jewish activity began on the night of November 9, 1938—
Kristallnaht, or the “night of shattered glass.” In a destructive rampage against the
Jews, Nazis burned synagogues and destroyed some seven thousand Jews businesses.
At least a hundred Jews were killed. Thirty thousand Jewish males were rounded up
and sent to concentration camps.
16
• Kristallnacht led to further drastic steps. Jews were barred from all public transportation
and all public buildings, including schools and hospitals. They were prohibited from
owning, managing, or working in any retail store. Jews were forced to clean up all the
debris and damage due to Kristallnacht. Finally under the direction of the SS, Jews were
encouraged to “emigrate from Germany”
•
17
2
3/14/2012
• In many cities throughout Europe, Jews had been living in concentrated areas. During
the first years of World War II, the Nazis formalized the borders of these areas and
restricted movement, creating modern ghettos to which Jews were confined. The
ghettos were, in effect, prisons, in which many Jews died from hunger and disease;
others were executed by the Nazis and their collaborators.
•
18
19
20
• The word 'Holocaust', from the Greek word 'holokauston' meaning "a burnt sacrifice
offered to God", originally referred to a sacrifice Jews were required to make by the
Torah, and later to large scale catastrophes or massacres. Due to the theological
meaning that this word carries, many Jews find the use of this word problematic, as it
could imply that the six million Jews were a sacrifice not murdered.
•
21
• Instead of the word holocaust many Jews prefer the Hebrew word Shoah. Spelled
Shoa, Shoah, or Sho'ah. This hebrew word Shoah means “destruction or catastrophe”. It
is used by many Jews and a growing number of Christians due to theological discomfort
with the literal meaning of the word Holocaust; it is considered offensive to imply that
the Jews of Europe were a sacrifice to God.
22
• Similarly, many Roma (Gypsy) people use the word Porajmos, meaning "Devouring" to
describe the Nazi attempt to exterminate that group.
•
23
• Nowadays, the term “Holocaust” usually refers to the large-scale killings of Jews. It is
also sometimes used to refer to other occurrences of genocide (The systematic killing of
a racial or cultural group), especially the Armenian and Hellenic Holocausts, the murder
of about 2.5 million Christians by the Young Turk government between 1915 and 1923.
•
24
• The Turkish government officially denies that there was any genocide of these people.
They claim that most of these deaths resulted from armed conflict, disease, and/or
famine during the turmoil of World War I. This is despite the fact that most casualties
occurred in villages far from the battlefield and that there is historical proof this was a
systematic attempt to wipe out all non-Muslims.
•
25
• In some circles, the term holocaust is used to describe the systematic murder of the
other groups which were exterminated in the same circumstances as the Jews by the
Nazis, including ethnic Roma and Sinti (also known as Gypsies), political dissidents,
communists, homosexuals, mental patients, Jehovah's Witnesses, Russians, Poles, and
other Slavs, raising the total number of victims of Nazis to between ten and fourteen
million civilians, and up to 4 million POWs (Prisoners of war).
26
• Today, the term Holocaust is also used to describe other attempts at genocide, both
before and after World War II, or more generally, for any overwhelmingly massive
3
3/14/2012
deliberate loss of life, such as that which would result from nuclear war, hence the
phrase "Nuclear Holocaust".
•
27
• One feature of the Nazi Holocaust that distinguishes it from other mass murders was
the systematic method with which the mass killings were conducted. Detailed lists of
present, and future (potential victims) were made and meticulous records of the killings
have been found.
•
28
• In addition, considerable effort was expended over the course of the Holocaust to find
increasingly efficient means of killing more people, for example, by switching from
carbon monoxide poisoning in the Aktion Reinhard death camps of Belzec, Sobibor,
Treblinka to the use of Zyklon-B at Majdanek and Auschwitz; gas vans using carbon
monoxide for mass killings were used in the Chelmno death camp.
•
29
• In addition to mass killings, Nazis conducted many experiments with prisoners, children
included. Dr. Josef Mengele, one of the most widely known Nazis, was known as the
"Angel of Death" by the inmates of Auschwitz, for his experiments.
•
30
31
• His experiments including placing subjects in pressure chambers, testing drugs on
them, freezing them,, attempting to change eye color with chemical injections into
children's eyes and various amputations and other brutal surgeries often per formed
without the use of anesthesia. The doctor's seemed particularly keen on working with
Roma and Jewish Children.
•
32
• Twin experiments were a particular favorite of Josef Mengele. He carried out twin-totwin transfusions, stitched twins together, castrated or sterilized twins. Many twins had
limbs and organs removed in macabre surgical procedures, performed without using an
anesthetic.
• Only a few of the children survived Auschwitz. They later recalled how they were visited
by a smiling Uncle Mengele who brought them candy and clothes and sometimes played
with them. Then he had them delivered to his medical laboratory either in trucks
painted with the Red Cross emblem or in his own personal car.
• The victims were usually murdered after the experiment was over.
33
One Survivor Remembers
“One day, my twin brother, Tibi, was taken away for some special experiments. Dr.
Mengele had always been more interested in Tibi. I am not sure why - perhaps because
he was the older twin.
Mengele made several operations on Tibi. One surgery on his spine left my brother
paralyzed. He could not walk anymore. Then they took out his sexual organs. After the
fourth operation, I did not see Tibi anymore.
I cannot tell you how I felt. It is impossible to put into words how I felt. They had taken
away my father, my mother, my two older brothers - and now, my twin.”
•
4
3/14/2012
•
34
• The full extent of what was happening in German-controlled areas was not known until
after the war. However, numerous rumors and eye-witness accounts from escapees and
others did give some indication that Jews were being killed in large numbers. Some
protests were held. For example, on October 29, 1942 in the United Kingdom, leading
clergymen and political figures held a public meeting to register outrage over Germany's
persecution of Jews.
35
36
Concentration and Extermination Camps
• Concentration camps for, "undesirables," were spread throughout Europe, with new
camps being created near centers of dense "undesirable" populations, often focusing on
heavily Jewish, Polish intelligentsia, communists, or Roma groups.
•
37
• Concentration camps for Jews and other, "undesirables," also existed in Germany itself,
and while not specifically designed for systematic extermination, many concentration
camp prisoners died because of harsh conditions or were executed.
•
38
• Some camps, such as Auschwitz-Birkenau, combined slave labor with systematic
extermination. Upon arrival in these camps, prisoners were divided into three groups:
those too weak for work and women with small children were immediately murdered in
gas chambers (which were sometimes disguised as showers) and their bodies burned,
while others were first used for slave labor in factories or industrial enterprises located
in the camp or nearby.
•
39
• The Nazis also forced some prisoners to work in the removal of the corpses and to
harvest elements of the bodies. Gold teeth were extracted from the corpses and
women's hair (shaved from the heads of victims before they entered the gas chambers)
was recycled for use in products such as rugs and socks.
•
40
• Three camps--Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka II--were used exclusively for
extermination. Only a small number of prisoners were kept alive to work at the task of
disposing of the bodies of people murdered in the gas chambers.
• The transport was often carried out under horrifying conditions using rail freight cars.
•
41
• During the invasion of the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa) over 3,000 special killing
units (Einsatzgruppen) followed the Armed Forces and conducted mass killings of the
Jewish population that lived on Soviet territory. Entire communities were wiped out by
being rounded up, robbed of their possessions and clothing, and shot at the edges of
ditches.
•
42
• By December 1941 Hitler had decided to exterminate the Jews of Europe. The plan to
5
3/14/2012
•
exterminate the Jews would be known as the “Final Solution”. In January of 1942,
during the Wannsee conference, several Nazi leaders discussed the details of the “final
solution of the Jewish question" (Endlsung der Judenfrage).
•
43
• Dr. Josef Buhler pushed Reinhard Heydrich a top SS officer to start the Final Solution.
The Nazis began to systematically deport the Jewish populations of the ghettos and
from all occupied territories to extermination camps, such as Auschwitz and Treblinka II.
•
44
Homosexuals
• Homosexuals were another of the groups targeted during the time of the Holocaust.
However, the Nazi party made no attempt to exterminate all homosexuals; according to
Nazi law, being homosexual itself was not grounds for arrest. Some prominent members
of the Nazi leadership were known to other Nazi leaders to be homosexual, which may
account for the fact that the leadership offered mixed signals on how to deal with
homosexuals. Some leaders clearly wanted homosexuals exterminated; others wanted
them left alone, while others wanted laws against homosexual acts enforced, but
otherwise allowed homosexuals to live as other citizens did.
•
45
• Estimates vary wildly as to the number of homosexuals killed. They range from as low
as 10,000 to as high as 600,000. The large variance is partly dependent on how
researchers tally those who were Jewish and homosexual, or even Jewish, homosexual
and communist. In addition, records as to the reasons for internment remain nonexistent in many areas.
•
46
Gypsies
• Hitler's campaign of genocide against the Roma people of Europe was seen by many as
a particularly bizarre application of Nazi racial science. German anthropologists were
forced to concede the fact that Gypsies were descendants of the original Aryan invaders
of India, who made their way back to Europe. Ironically, this made them no less Aryan
than the German people itself, in practice if not in theory. This dilemma was resolved by
Professor Hans Gunther, a leading racial scientist, who wrote:
•
47
• "The Gypsies have indeed retained some elements from their Nordic home, but they are
descended from the lowest classes of the population in that region. In the course of
their migration, they absorbed the blood of the surrounding peoples, thus becoming an
Oriental, West-Asiatic racial mixture with an addition of Indian, mid-Asiatic, and
European strains."
•
48
• As a result, however, and despite discriminatory measures, some groups of Roma,
including the Sinti and Lalleri tribes of Germany, were spared deportation and death.
Remaining Gypsy groups suffered much like the Jews (and in some instances, were
degraded even more than Jews). In Eastern Europe, Gypsies were deported to the
6
3/14/2012
Jewish ghettoes, shot by SS Einsatzgruppen in their villages, and deported and gassed
in Auschwitz and Treblinka
49
Others
• Slavic people were targeted by the Nazis, mostly intellectuals and prominent people,
although there were some mass murders and instances of genocide (Croatian Ustashe
as the most notorious example).
•
50
• During Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union 1941-1944,
hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of Russian army POWs were arbitrarily executed
in the field by the invading German armies, in particular by the notorious Waffen S.S.,
or were shipped to the many extermination camps for execution simply because they
were of Slavic extraction. Thousands of Russian peasant villages were killed by German
troops for more or less the same reason
51
52
• Around 2000 Jehovah's Witnesses perished in concentration camps, where they were
held for political and ideological reasons, as they refused involvement in politics, would
not say "Heil Hitler" and did not serve in the German army.
•
53
• On August 18, 1941, Adolf Hitler ordered an end to the systematic euthanasia of
mentally ill and handicapped people due to protests within Germany.
54
Extent of the Holocaust
• The exact number of people killed by the Nazi regime is still subject to further research.
Recently declassified British and Soviet documents have indicated the total may be
somewhat higher than previously believed. However, the following estimates are
considered to be highly reliable
55
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
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
56
The Triangles
• The triangle markings system was designed to identify prisoners in the camps
according to their "offense", they were required to wear colored triangles on their
clothing. Although the colors used differed from camp to camp, the colors most
commonly were:
•
7
3/14/2012
•
•
57
• Yellow: Jews -- two overlaid to form a Star of David, with the word "Jude" (Jew)
inscribed
• Red: political dissidents, including communists
• Green: common criminals
• Purple: Jehovah's Witnesses
• Blue: immigrants
• Brown: Roma and Sinti (Gypsies)
• Black: Lesbians and "anti-socials"
• Pink: Gay men
58
Liberation
59
The War Crimes Trials
• By the summer of 1945, the Allies had agreed to hold a trial of Nazi war leaders for
committing aggressive war and crimes against humanity. A whole series of war
holocaust trials were held. One of the most famous trials was the Nuremburg Trials held
in Germany between 1945 and 1946. This included 22 people including some of the
Nazi higher ups like Herman Goering. Of these 10 were hanged. War crime trials were
also held in Japan and Italy.
60
61
Revisionists and Deniers
• Some groups, commonly referred to as "Holocaust deniers", deny that the Holocaust
happened. Many of the Holocaust deniers are neo-Nazis or just anti-Semites.
• Holocaust revisionism claims that far fewer than 5-6 million Jews were killed, and that
the killing was not a result of deliberate Nazi policy. Although Holocaust revisionists
claim to present documentary evidence to support their claims, critics argue that the
evidence is flawed, the research is specious, and the conclusions are pre-determined.
Many claim that such revisionism is a form of Anti-Semitism and tantamount to denial.
•
62
Political 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 that were
displaced by this Jewish migration and is the root of the Arab-Jewish conflicts of the
Middle East .
•
8