HOLOCAUST BACKGROUND Holocaust Greek word

HOLOCAUST

BACKGROUND • Holocaust • Greek word meaning “sacrifice by fire” • The term given to the genocide committed by the Germans. • Germans believed they were “racially superior” • Jews and other groups were deemed “racially inferior” • Seen as a threat to the German racial community

1935 • Hitler announced the Nuremberg Laws in 1935. • stripped Jews of their civil rights as German citizens • separated them from Germans legally, socially, and politically. • Jews were also defined as a separate race under "The Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honor. " • Forbade marriages between Jews and Germans • Being Jewish was now determined by ancestry • Race, not religious beliefs or practices defined Jewish people • Many thousands of Germans who had not previously considered themselves Jews found themselves defined as “non Aryans”. • Hitler warned that if this law did not resolve the “problem”, he would turn to the Nazi party for a final solution.

1936 • In 1936, Berlin hosted the Olympics. • Hitler viewed this as a perfect opportunity to promote a favorable image of Nazism to the world. • Monumental stadiums and other Olympic facilities were constructed as Nazi showpieces. • International political unrest preceded the games. It was questioned whether the Nazi regime could really accept the terms of the Olympic Charter of participation unrestricted by class, creed, or race. • The great irony of these Olympics was that, in the land of "Aryan superiority, " it was Jesse Owens, the African-American track star, who was the undisputed hero of the games.

1936

NOVEMBER 9, 1938 • In Germany, open antisemitism became increasingly accepted, climaxing in the "Night of Broken Glass" (Kristallnacht) on November 9, 1938. • Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels initiated this free-for-all against the Jews, during which nearly 1, 000 synagogues were set on fire and 76 were destroyed. • More than 7, 000 Jewish businesses and homes were looted, about one hundred Jews were killed and as many as 30, 000 Jews were arrested and sent to concentration camps to be tormented, many for months.

NOVEMBER 9, 1938 • Within days, the Nazis forced the Jews to transfer their businesses to Aryan hands and expelled all Jewish pupils from public schools. • With brazen arrogance, the Nazis further persecuted the Jews by forcing them to pay for the damages of Kristallnacht

1939 • Confining Jews in ghettos was not Hitler's brainchild. For centuries, Jews had faced persecution, and were often forced to live in designated areas called ghettos • As the war against the Jews progressed, the ghettos became transition areas, used as collection points for deportation to death camps and concentration camps • Hitler incorporated the western part of Poland into Germany according to race doctrine. • He intended that Poles were to become the slaves of Germany and that the two million Jews therein were to be concentrated in ghettos in Poland's larger cities. • Later this would simplify transport to the death camps.

1939 • Nazi occupation authorities officially told the story that Jews were natural carriers of all types of diseases, especially typhus, and that it was necessary to isolate Jews from the Polish community. • Jewish neighborhoods thus were transformed into prisons. • The five major ghettos were located in Warsaw , Lódz, Kraków, Lublin, and Lvov.

NOVEMBER 23, 1939 • General Governor Hans Frank issued an ordinance that Jews ten years of age and older living in the General Government had to wear the Star of David on armbands or pinned to the chest or back. • This made the identification of Jews easier when the Nazis began issuing orders establishing ghettos.

TARGETED GROUPS • 6 million Jews • 2/3 of all Jews in Europe • Only 1% of Germany’s population were Jews • Most Jews killed lived in countries that the Axis conquered • Another 5 million • Some were considered “racially inferior” groups • 200, 000 Roma (gypsies) • Russians and Poles (Slavic people) • 200, 000 Disabled (mental or physical) • This included Germans • Some were persecuted for politics, ideas, or behaviors • • Communists and Socialists Jehovah's Witness Homosexuals 2 -3 million Soviet prisoners of war

ROMA (GYPSIES)

DISABLED

SLAVIC PEOPLES (POLES, RUSSIANS, AND OTHERS).

COMMUNISTS, SOCIALISTS, JEHOVAH’S WITNESS AND HOMOSEXUALS

• In 1933, the Jewish population of Europe stood at over nine million. Most European Jews lived in countries that Nazi Germany would occupy or influence during World War II. • By 1945, the Germans and their collaborators killed nearly two out of every three European Jews as part of the "Final Solution, " the Nazi policy to murder the Jews of Europe. • Hitler’s idea to kill anyone he deemed unfit for his “Master Race. ”

• In the early years of the Nazi regime, the National Socialist government established concentration camps to detain real and imagined political and ideological opponents.

A MAJOR PROBLEM… • Hitler blamed Jews for Germany’s problems. • Because Germany was forced to pay reparations for WW I money was almost worthless. • US $ vs. German Mark through time • • • 1914: $1 = 4. 2 Marks 1919 : $1 = 14 Marks 1921 : $1 = 76. 7 Marks Aug. 1923 : $1 = 4, 620, 455 Marks Nov. 1923 : $1 = 4, 200, 000, 000 Marks

ADMINISTRATION • Jews (and others) were sent to many different places: • Ghettos, transit camps, forced-labor camps, extermination camps • These places were meant to concentrate and monitor “inferior” populations. • Transit and forced labor camps – throughout Europe • Extermination Camps - Poland • At the camps: • Forced to work if able. • If not, you were killed. • Specially developed gassing facilities. • Infamous extermination camp: Auschwitz

All ghettos had the most appalling, inhuman living conditions. The smallest ghetto housed approximately 3, 000 people. Warsaw, the largest ghetto, held 400, 000 people. In total, the Nazis established 356 ghettos in Poland, the Soviet Union, the Baltic States, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Hungary between 1939 and 1945. • Larger cities had closed ghettos, with brick or stone walls, wooden fences, and barbed wire defining the boundaries. Guards were placed strategically at gateways and other boundary openings. Jews were not allowed to leave the socalled "Jewish residential districts, " under penalty of death. • •

• Ghetto life was wretched. The ghettos were filthy, with poor sanitation. • Extreme overcrowding forced many people to share a room. Disease was rampant. • Staying warm was difficult during bitter cold winters without adequate warm clothes and heating fuel. • Food was in such short supply that many slowly starved to death.

1945 -1946 • Hitler is defeated and WWII ends in Europe. • The Holocaust is over and the death camps are emptied. • SS guards moved camps to prevent their liberation. • Moved by train or forced marches (Death Marches) • Many survivors are placed in displaced persons facilities led by the Allies. • An International Military Tribunal (Judicial Assembly) is created by Britain, France, the United States and the Soviet Union. • At Nuremburg, Nazi leaders are tried for war crimes by the Judicial Assembly • The guilty verdict in the Nuremberg trials declared that people are always responsible for their own actions no matter what.

1947 • Where did DP go after 1957? • The United Nations establishes a Jewish homeland in British controlled Palestine, which becomes the state of Israel in 1948. • Emigrated to America and other countries