10 th American History Unit IV- A Champion of Democracy

1. 10th American HistoryUnit IV- A Champion of Democracy Chapter 14 – Section 2 - The Holocaust

2. 10th American HistoryUnit IV- A Champion of Democracy Chapter 14 – Section 2 - The Holocaust

4. White Rose Society • In 1942, Five German students at the University of Munich joined together with one of their professors to protest the Nazi government. • The group began to distribute leaflets that condemned the actions of Hitler and of any German who did not object to Hitler’s actions: “[The White Rose] will not be silent. We are your bad conscience. The White Rose will not leave you in peace.” • The Gestapo, or Nazi police, quickly discovered the uprising and killed the leaders. • A 1983 German film commemorated the bravery of the members of the White Rose Society.

5. The Shanghai Ghetto • At a time when many countries were turning away Jewish refugees, China welcomed them. • Some 20,000 mostly German Jews came to the Chinese port city of Shanghai. • During the war Shanghai was occupied by Japan. • Japan began to imprison Jews and established a Jewish Ghetto. • At the end of the war, most Jewish refugees left to try to rebuild their lives elsewhere.

6. The History of Nazi Anti-Semitism Anti- Semitism • Hostility toward or prejudice against Jews • Told Germans that they came from a superior race – the Aryans • Used the Jews as a scapegoat – someone to blame for Germany’s woes after World War I Hitler’s Views • Jews lived in Germany for 1,600 years. • Hostility toward Jews existed since the Middle Ages. • Anti-Jewish Nazi laws mirrored medieval efforts to humiliate Jews. • Anti-Semitism changed from prejudice based on religion to hatred based on ancestry. History of Jews in Germany

7. The Holocaust • The Main Idea • During the Holocaust, Germany’s Nazi government systematically murdered some 6 million Jews and 5 million others in Europe. • Reading Focus • What was the history of the Nazi anti-Semitism? • What was the Nazi government’s Final Solution? • How did the United States respond to the Holocaust?

8. Hitler Comes to Power: The Rise of Anti-Semitism (05:46)

9. Nazi Anti-Semitism • Hitler in Power • Began campaign against Jews soon after becoming chancellor • Established a series of anti-Semitic laws intended to drive Jews from Germany • Laws stripped Jews of their citizenship and took away most civil and economic rights. • Laws defined who was a Jew. • Fleeing Germany • Over 100,000 managed to leave Germany after Kristallnacht. • Others found it difficult to leave the country as Nazi laws had left many without money or property. • Many countries were unwilling to take in poor immigrants. • The United States limited the number of Germans immigrants. • Attacks on Jews • Many Germans supported Hitler’s anti-Semitic ideas. • Discrimination and violent attacks against Jews continued. • Anti-Jewish riots broke out in an attack called Kristallnacht. • Jews were sent to concentration camps, killed, and fined for the attack.

10. Kristallnacht • Name given to the first major attack on the Jewish population of Germany and Austria, on November 9-10, 1938. The “Night of the Broken Glass” • Both the SS and general population participated in burning hundreds of synagogues, shops, and houses. • Jewish-owned assets were attacked: shop windows were shattered, merchandise was looted, assets were demolished, synagogues were destroyed • Thirty thousand Jews were arrested and deported. • Strong protests from the West had no effect on Nazi policy

11. Nazi Anti-Semitism • What was the history of Nazi anti-Semitism? • Define – What were the Nuremberg Laws? • Summarize – Why was it difficult for Jews to leave Germany?

12. The Nazi Government’s Final Solution • World War II brought many of Europe’s 9 million Jews under the control of the Nazi SS. • Concentration camps were built in Germany and in other countries that the Germans occupied. • The camps were prisons for Jews and others considered enemies of Hitler’s regime. • Conditions in the camps were horrific. • The Nazis also established ghettos to control and punish Jews. • Ghettos are neighborhoods in a city to which a group of people are confined. • Life in the Jewish ghettos was desperate. • The worst ghetto was in Warsaw, Poland. • In 1941 Hitler called for the total destruction of all of Europe’s Jews. • At first mobile killing units—Einsatzgruppen—massacred Jews. • Then, Nazi officials adopted a plan known as the Final Solution.

13. The Nuremberg Race Laws - 1935 • The laws excluded German Jews from Reich citizenship. • Prohibited them from marrying or having sexual relations with persons of "German or related blood.“ • Anyone who had three or four Jewish grandparents was defined as a Jew. Even people with Jewish grandparents who had converted to Christianity were defined as Jews. • Jewish workers and managers were dismissed, and the ownership of most Jewish businesses was taken over by non-Jewish Germans. • Jews were required to carry identity cards, but the government added special identifying marks to theirs: a red "J" stamped on them and new middle names for all those Jews who did not possess recognizably "Jewish" first names -- "Israel" for males, "Sara" for females.

14. EINSATZGRUPPEN (MOBILE KILLING UNITS)  •  Squads of German SS and police personnel who murdered over one million Jews and other victims, usually though mass shootings. • The Einsatzgruppen had among their tasks the mass murder of those perceived to be racial or political enemies found behind the front lines in the occupied Soviet Union. These victims included Jews (men, women, and children), Roma (Gypsies), and officials of the Soviet state and the Soviet Communist party. • The Einsatzgruppen also murdered thousands of residents of institutions for the mentally disabled. Many scholars believe that the systematic killing of Jews in the occupied Soviet Union by Einsatzgruppen and German Order Police (Ordnungspolizei) battalions was the first step of the so-called “Final Solution,” the Nazi program to murder all of the European Jews.

15. Transport to the Concentration Camps (04:26)

16. Arrival at the Concentration Camps (02:28)

18. Life in the Concentration Camps (04:52)

19. Concentration Camps, Ghettos, and the Final Solution • Camps • Prisons for Jews, prisoners-of-war, and enemies of the Nazi regime • Inmates received little food and were forced to labor. • The combination of overwork and starvation was intended to kill. • Punishment for minor offenses was swift, sure, and deadly. • Ghettos • Walls or fences kept the Jews inside and those trying to leave were shot. • Food was scarce; starvation was rampant. • Diseases spread rapidly. • The worst ghetto was in Warsaw, Poland. • Some Jews in the Warsaw ghetto—the Jewish Fighting Organization—fought back. • The Final Solution • Genocide – the killing of an entire people • Involved building 6 new extermination camps for Jews • Inmates were exposed to poison gas in specially built chambers. • 3 million Jews died in extermination camps. • 3 million Jews and 5 million others were killed by the Nazi using other means.

20. Arriving at Auschwitz • Most people arrested and transported to death camps by the Nazis knew the terrible fate that awaited them. • Victor Frankl, a doctor from Austria, described his terror upon arriving at Auschwitz. • “The train shunted, obviously nearing the main station. Suddenly a cry broke from the ranks of the anxious passengers. ‘There is a sign, Auschwitz!’ Everyone’s heart missed a beat at that moment. Auschwitz- the very name stood for all that horrible: gas chambers, crematoriums, massacres…. My imagination led to see gallows with people dangling on them. I was horrified.”

21. Operation Reinhard (Killing Centers) • Operation Reinhard German camp workers were not told of the program goals and their precise duties until they reached the centers. Then the SS swore them to absolute secrecy. Each worker signed a pledge that contained the following commitments: 1. I have been instructed that under no circumstances will I discuss with anyone outside of OR co-workers anything dealing with the operation. 2. I understand the top secrecy of "any of the occurrences of the so-called Jewish Relocation" 3. I may not take any pictures. 4. "I promise to keep my word to the best of my ability." 5. I understand that after completion of my service, this oath of secrecy will still apply.[38] • Himmler replaced the mobile killing units with stationary death factories, and the gas chamber period began. The authorities had no intention of accommodating prisoners in the killing centers for any length of time -they exterminated them almost immediately upon arrival.. • The Nazis built Sobibor, Belzec, Treblinka, and Chelmno as killing centers for the sole purpose of extermination the Jews of Europe and as many Gypsies as could be found. All four were constructed on Polish soil primarily because of the widespread Polish railway system, which had stations in the smallest towns. • In addition, the Polish countryside, which was densely forested and thinly populated, made secrecy possible. • Not one killing center existed longer than seventeen months. The SS obliterated each of them, intending to remove all traces. • Polish scholars estimate conservatively that in these four camps, 2,000,000 Jews and 52,000 Gypsies, one third of whom were children, were killed. Yes, the concentration camps had their gas vans, their gas chambers, their crematoria, and their mass graves. People were shot in them, given injections, gassed, and hundreds of thousands died of starvation and disease. But even in Birkenau, where some have estimated that 1,000,000 Jews were killed, there was a chance of life. In the killing centers the only inmates kept alive for a short time were those selected to process the bodies of their fellow Jews.

23. The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, 1943 (04:56)

24. The Annihilation of the Jews: The "Final Solution" Begins (06:08)

25. Death in the Concentration Camps (2:56)

26. Toward the Final Solution • What was the Nazi governments Final Solution? • Describe – What were conditions in the Nazi concentration camps like? • Develop – Why do you think the Nazis were determined to exterminate Jews and other groups?

27. The American response to the Holocaust • Despite knowing about Hitler’s policies toward the Jews and events such as Kristallnacht, American immigration limited the number of Jews who could move to the United States. • In 1942, Americans officials began to hear about what was happening to the Jews in Europe and specifically about Hitler’s Final Solution. • The Americans were doubtful at first and thought the reports might just be war rumors. • Finally in 1944, Roosevelt created the War Refugee Board. • This includes the establishment of safe havens, evacuation of endangered people from Nazi-occupied territories, and delivery of relief supplies into concentration camps. • Through this board, the United States was able to help 200,000 Jews.

28. The Death March from the Concentration Camps (04:08)

29. Liberation (05:56)

30. Liberating the Nazi Camps In 1944, Soviet troops began to discover some of the Nazi death camps. By 1945 they reached the huge extermination camp at Auschwitz. Their reports gave proof of Hitler’s terrible plan. Also in 1945, American soldiers came upon concentration camps. Many camp inmates died after being rescued, but some were still strong enough to survive. The Nuremberg trials Many Nazis faced trial for their roles in the Holocaust. The court was located at Nuremberg, Germany. The court was called the International Military Tribunal. Twenty two Nazis were tried for war crimes, including Hermann Göering. Since Nuremberg, several Nazis have been captured and tried in different courts, including Israel. The American Response

31. Military Leaders Face Trial for War Crimes (01:20)

32. The Nuremburg Trials and the Lessons of World War II (00:49)

33. The Nuremburg Trials and the Lessons of World War II (00:49)

34. The American Response • How did the United States respond to the Holocaust? • Recall – How did Americans first get proof of Hitlers Final Solution? • Summarize – What conditions did American and British forces discover at the Nazi concentration camps? • Evaluate – Considering the number of deaths in the concentration camps, do you think justice was carried out when only 22 Nazis were tried for war crimes?

35. ¡ IT SEEMS IMPOSSIBLE ! GENERAL DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER WAS RIGHT WHEN HE GAVE THE ORDER TO MAKE AS MANY FILMS AND PHOTOGRAPHS

36. THE HOLOCAUST TOOK PLACE EXACTLY AS PLANNED BY THE NAZIS NEARLY SIXTY YRS AGO…

37. Supreme Comander of the Allied Forces, Gen. DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER ordered to have as many photographs taken as possible, and had the german population of the surrounding cities taken to the concentration camps to see the HORROR, and in some cases had them bury the dead.

38. AND THE REASON FOR THIS ? HE EXPLAINED IT THIS WAY; ``TO COLLECT AS MUCH PROOF, FILMS, TESTIMONIES, BECAUSE THE DAY WILL COME WHEN SOMEONE WILL SAY THAT THIS NEVER HAPPENED´´

39. ‘ALL THAT IS NEEDED FOR EVIL TO SUCCEED IS, THAT DECENT HUMAN BEINGS DO NOTHING’. (Edmund Burke)

41. THIS IS AN INTIMIDATING OMEN CONCERNING THE FEAR THAT IS AFFECTING THE WORLD, AND EACH COUNTRY IS ALLOWING ITSELF TO BE CARRIED AWAY TOO EASILY. MORE THAN 60 YRS HAVE PASSED SINCE THE END OF W.W. II.

42. A REMINDER FOR ALL HUMANITY, IN MEMORY OF 6 MILLION JEWS, 20 MILLION RUSSIANS, 10 MILLION CHRISTIANS, PRIESTS, MURDERED, SLAUGHTERED, RAPED, BURNT, HUMILIATED, IN THE MEANTIME GERMANY AND RUSSIA HAD OTHER PRIORITIES....