In 1275 they were made to wear a yellow badge.

2. Historical Background • For hundreds of years Christian Europe had regarded the Jews as the Christ -killers. At one time or another Jews had been driven out of almost every European country. In Londonin the 13th Century: In 1275they were made to wear a yellow badge. In1287269 Jews were hanged in the Tower of London. • Deep prejudice against Jews was strong in the twentieth century, • especially in Germany, Poland and Eastern Europe, where the • Jewish population was very large. • Jews were blamed for the defeat in the WWI. Prejudice against • the Jews grew during the economic depression which followed. • Many Germans were poor and unemployed and wanted someone • to blame. They turned on the Jews, many of whom were rich and • successful in business.

3. Timeline of the Events That Led to the Holocaust

4. 1933 • Hitler and Nazi party seize power and begin there program against the Jews • Nazis order boycott of Jewish businesses • Hermann Goering creates the Gestapo • 1st Concentration camps are built (Dachau 3/22/1933)

5. 1934 • Reichstagdeclares that Jews are not entitled to national healthcare • The SS (Schutzstaffel) led by Henrich Himmler take control of concentration camps • Hitler’s approval rating from German citizens is 90%

6. 1935 • Nuremberg Laws passed= defined who was Jewish and set guidelines for their lives • Jews were not allowed to: • - marry or have sex with Aryans • - have any civic involvement • - have citizenship rights

7. 1936 • Heinrich Himmler is appointed Chief of the German Police • Olympic Games held in Berlin = Nazi’s briefly loosen restrictions

8. 1937 • New Law: Jews are not allowed to teach Germans • New Law: Jews are not allowed to be accountants or dentists • Eternal Jew exhibit opens in Germany • - warns Germans about the • “Jewish problem”

9. 1938 • New Law: Jews are not allowed to practice medicine • League of Nations seeks to aide Jews fleeing Nazi’s but no nation will take them • Kristallnacht (November) • - Jewish stores, shops, and synagogues vandalized • and burned • - retaliation for a Jew killing German Diplomat • in Paris France

10. 1939 • New Law: Jews must hand over all gold and silver • SS General ReinhardHeydrich orders speed up to emigration of Jews from German lands • Nazi order: All Jews must wear a “yellow Star of David”

11. 1940 Forced labor in the Warsaw Ghetto Deportation of Jews to Kutno Ghetto Jewish children in the Warsaw Ghetto • Nazi Order: All Jews in Germany are to be deported to “Ghettos” in Poland

12. 1941 • Hitler’s “Commissar Oder”: Any Soviet politician captured is to be shot immediately “Liquidate all Communist officials you encounter”! - Hitler’s order to advancing Nazi Army into Soviet Union

13. 1942 • Wannsee Conference: • - meeting of senior • Nazi officials where • ReinhardHeydrich • presented the plan for • “the Final Solution to • the Jewish Question” • The Plan: • - deport all Jews from Europe and North Africa to • concentration camps in German controlled land • - Jews will be placed into either labor camps or • death camps (according to Wannsee Protocol

14. Phase 1 • Jews rounded up and taken into the woods and shot one by one • Their bodies buried in mass grave

15. Phase 2 • Jews were rounded up and told they were be relocated into vans • The vans were equipped so that the van’s exhaust piped back into the van • Estimated 700,000 killed

16. Phase 3 • Jews were rounded up, told to bring one piece of luggage, placed on trains, and deported to….

17. Either a Concentration Camp or a Death Camp!

18. Nazi Medical Experiments • Dr. Josef Mengele • “the Angel of Death” • Performed medical experiments on men, women, and children • Sterilization of men and women • Endurance of pain to high and low temperatures and pressure • Experiments on twins to increase number of multiple births • Injections of phenol to kill patients • Dr. Mengele attempted to sew children together to make Siamese twins

19. Portrait of two-year-old Mania Halef, a Jewish child who was among the 33,771 persons shot by the SS during the mass executions at BabiYar, September, 1941.

20. Nazis sift through a huge pile of clothes left by victims of the massacre. Two year old Mani Halef’s clothes are somewhere amongst these.

21. “Until September 14, 1939 my life was typical of a young Jewish boy in that part of the world in that period of time. I lived in a Jewish community surrounded by gentiles. Aside from my immediate family, I had many relatives and knew all the town people, both Jews and gentiles. Almost two weeks after the outbreak of the war and shortly after my Bar Mitzvah, my world exploded. In the course of the next five and a half years I lost my entire family and almost everyone I ever knew. Death, violence and brutality became a daily occurrence in my life while I was still a young teenager.” Leonard Lerer, 1991 “Until September 14, 1939 my life was typical of a young Jewish boy in that part of the world in that period of time. I lived in a Jewish community surrounded by gentiles. Aside from my immediate family, I had many relatives and knew all the town people, both Jews and gentiles. Almost two weeks after the outbreak of the war and shortly after my Bar Mitzvah, my world exploded. In the course of the next five and a half years I lost my entire family and almost everyone I ever knew. Death, violence and brutality became a daily occurrence in my life while I was still a young teenager.” Leonard Lerer, 1991