The Holocaust
QUESTIONNAIRE - Page 4
7. You are now standing on the outside on a cold and bitter morning, listening for the sound of
a truck that will take you to an extermination camp for certain death because you have not
asked for mercy and none has been given. After standing about fifteen minutes you hear the
sound of a truck approaching and you know what that means. Suddenly, and without even
being aware of it, you begin to concentrate hard on not being sent to an extermination camp
because you want to live and someday return home again.
As you are concentrating you become aware that the person in charge of the camp is
walking in your direction. He stops right in front of you and, without saying a word, motions
his right hand, signaling you to get back to the work group. You cannot understand why he
is doing this when he seemed so determined that you should be sent to an extermination
camp.
Now your spirits are uplifted again because as long as you can remain in a work group there
is hope of surviving this ordeal.
Do you believe that your own mental concentration caused it to happen?
8. After staying in a work group for about six weeks, the person in charge of the camp changes
his mind and orders that you be shipped out to an extermination camp. This time you begin
to accept death as inevitable because you can no longer remain in a work group. You are
taken to a railroad station and ordered to enter an open type freight car with about 150
others who are no longer able to perform the heavy physical work. The journey lasts about
seven days and during those seven days you are given no food or water. When you arrive
at the extermination camp, only three of the 150 are still alive, and you are one of the three.
Why do you suppose you were able to survive?
The Holocaust
QUESTIONNAIRE - Page 5
9. After over fourteen months of imprisonment, you are finally liberated and have returned home.
Upon arrival you find out that you are the only one from your family who survived the horrors
in captivity. All others perished in the death camps.
What actions would you take?
THE HOLOCAUST
GLOSSARY OF TERMS
These are some of the terms used in the audio-visual program.
Anti-Semitism
Aryan
Crematorium
Expressed hostility to Jews as individuals, to Judaism as a religion, and
to the Jewish people as a group. It manifests itself through social
ostracism, economic boycotts, legislative restrictions, physical attacks,
exile and murder.
A term used by the Nazis to mean a superior, Nordic type Caucasian
Gentile who would bring about Hitler's "master race." It has no
validity as a racial term.
Ovens or furnaces where concentration camp inmates' gassed
bodies were disposed of.
Concentration
A place where those considered fit for heavy physical work were
Camp
sent. If a person could no longer carry out the heavy physical work
required to remain in a concentration camp, he or she was then sent
to an extermination camp for certain death. Some camps, like
Auschwitz in Poland, were a combination of extermination camp and
concentration camp.
Displaced
Persons
Term generally used for people who survived the concentration
camps and were left homeless.
Extermination
Began as an instrument of intimidation for political opponents of
Camps
Nazism. Later became a standing weapon of terror. Ultimately over
100 camps were set up where people who were driven out of their
homes were taken by freight trains for murder. Some were worked
to death, others were starved to death, beaten to death, shot, or
gassed. The larger camps included: Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen,
Belzec, Chelmo, Dachau, Maidanek, Sobibor, Treblinka.
Gas Chamber
A unit or room where ventilation was sealed so that death could be
induced through the use of gas.
Genocide
The deliberate and systematic destruction of a social, political,
cultural or religious group.
Gestapo
The secret police organization in Nazi Germany. The Gestapo used
terror and torture to subjugate any opposition to the regime and to
any of its policies.
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GLOSSARY OF TERMS - PAGE 2
Ghetto
The Nazi
Holocaust
The walled-off section of a city to which Jews were restricted. This
enabled governments to maintain strict control over all Jewish
activities and effectively prevented any from evading Nazi roundups. The ghettos became a stopping place before deportation to
concentration and extermination camps.
The term that refers to the systematic, planned extermination of six
million European Jews by the Nazis during World War I!. Many
non-Jews perished in the Holocaust. The word is derived from the
Greek, meaning "burnt whole."
Nazi
Name used to identify members of the German Fascist political
movement (the Nationalist Socialist German Workers Party) which ruled
Germany from 1933-1945 under Adolf Hitler.
Nazism
The political system in Germany from 1933-1945. It was a
totalitanan dictatorship based on the use of political terror as the means
of maintaining control.
Nuremberg
Legalized persecution. In 1935 Hitler put anti-semitism on
Race Laws
Germany's legal books. Jews were ostracized from German society.
They were not permitted to own property; they could not attend a
university; they were required to wear a yellow star identifying them
as Jews. This process of dehumanization marked the beginning of
the Holocaust.
Persecution
^
Pogrom
Processing
Camp
Scapegoat
The Holocaust
The practice of oppressing or harming individuals or groups,
especially for reasons of religion, politics, or race.
An attack on Jews by mobs of non-Jews. These attacks involved the
destruction of Jewish property, looting, rape, and murder. In some
cases pogroms were staged with government approval as a means
of diverting the attention of the populace from the real causes of their
problems.
Persons that were considered fit for heavy physical work, but
were not assigned to a particular work camp were sent to a
processing camp for screening and for subsequent distribution to a
concentration camp. Gross Rosen is a typical example of one of those
processing camps.
A person, group, or thing that bears the blame for the mistakes or
crimes of others. Jews have been scapegoats throughout history.
Hitler blamed the Jews for the defeat of World War I and the
post-war troubles in Germany.
©1991 Remembrance Educaoonat Meda
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GLOSSARY OF TERMS - PAGE 3
Swastika
An ancient symbol, often used as an ornament or religious sign by
Buddhists, Celtics, Greeks, and North and South American Indians.
It is in the form of a cross with the ends of the arms bent at the right
angles in a given direction, usually clockwise. In 1920 it was
adopted as the symbol of the National Socialist Party of Germany
and came to stand for all the evils associated with the Nazis. It is
now banned in Germany.
Synagogue
A sanctuary where Jews assemble to worship. The building is also
used for educational purposes and social gatherings.
10
THE HOLOCAUST IMPORTANT
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
1. What was The Holocaust?
The Holocaust refers to a period of time (1939-1945) and to a series of events involving
wholesale persecution, enslavement, and murder of millions of Jews by Nazi Germany.
'The Final Solution"-a genocidal decree against the Jews-gave the Nazis their "legal"
basis for everything which occurred.
2. How many people were murdered?
The precise number will never be known since most of the records were destroyed by the
Nazis. It has been determined, however, from records which fell into Allied hands after
World War II, that more than eleven million men, women and children were murdered
dunng the Nazi reign of terror.
3. How many Jewish people were murdered?
Six million Jewish men, women and children were destroyed and more than
30,000 Jewish communities were totally wiped out.
4. Of the six million Jewish people murdered, how many were children? One
and a half million.
5. What was the difference between the persecution and murder of Jews and the
persecution and murder of Christians and other groups, classified as enemies of the
Third Reich?
The Jews were the only people singled out for total and systematic annihilation as a
people. According to the Nazi plan (The Rnal Solution), every Jew-man, woman and childwas to be killed. This was not true of any other people victimized by the Nazis. If a nonJew was found to be an enemy of the Third Reich and sentenced to a concentration camp
or to death, his family did not necessarily meet the same fate. Chnstian victims included
Austrians, Sudeten Germans, Poles, Yugoslavs, Ukranians, Russians, French, Belgians,
and Dutch. Over 3,000 Catholic pnests and a great number of Protestant clergymen
perished in the death camps for opposing Nazism. Thousands of Gypsies were killed
because they were members of an "inferior" group. And many Christians, suspected of
Jewish ancestry, were similarly disposed of.
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IMPORTANT QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS - Page 2
7. When and what were the first measures taken by the Nazis against the Jews?
The first German measures against the Jews can be traced back to the 1930's. While
anti-semitism had existed in Germany and in other European countries for hundreds of
years, it was not until the growth of the National Socialist (Nazi) Party and the rise of
Adolf Hitler to power that anti-semitism was adopted as a national policy.
8. What were some of the anti-semitic decrees imposed upon the Jews in Germany?
Jewish shops and businesses were boycotted; Jewish property was looted; and Jewish
people were deported to labor camps.
9. When did the murders actually begin?
The actual physical extermination of the Jewish people took place from 1941 to 1945.
10. How were the murders accomplished?
Initially the Nazis throughout Europe evicted the victims from their homes and contained
them in isolated areas called ghettos. From the ghettos, they were shipped to
extermination camps in Poland and Germany. When families arrived in the extermination
camps, they were immediately separated-husbands from wives, and parents from
children. Those adults considered able were sent to work camps to perform heavy
physical work under brutally cruel conditions. Those considered unfit for work were
marched into what looked like bath houses under the pretext of taking a shower. All the
doors were tightly shut, and a poisonous gas called "Cyclon B" was dispersed through
the shower heads. The deadly poison could asphyxiate about 2,000 children and adults
within twenty minutes. This method, repeated over and over, resulted in the deaths of
approximtely four million women and children in Auschwitz alone.
11. When did the murders finally end?
The murders came to an end when Germany was militarily defeated in May of
1945.
12. What happened to the people who survived the atrocities ?
Most of the Christian survivors returned to their homes; others sought haven in various
countries throughout the world. Most of the surviving Jewish people emigrated to
Palestine (now Israel). Still others came to the United States or any other country that
would accept them.