The Holocaust An Introduction holocaust noun Greek word

The Holocaust An Introduction holocaust (noun): Greek word meaning “sacrifice by fire”

The Nazi Reign - The Third Reich • Reich is a German word meaning reign or empire. • The Nazis referred to their rule in Germany from 1933 to 1945 as Dritte Reich or in English The Third Reich. • They considered themselves the third group to reign over German. • Adolf Hitler was the leader of the Third Reich.

Adolf Hitler (1889 -1945) • He was a war veteran who fought in WWI. • He became the leader of the Nazi Party in 1921. • He later became the absolute dictator of Germany. • He was appointed Chancellor of Germany in 1933. • He became the President or Führer of Germany in 1934.

First They Came In Germany they first came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me — and by that time no one was left to speak up. - Pastor Martin Niemöller Date: 1959 or 1960

Hitler Youth Movement • A youth organization that formed in the 1920 s for boys aged 10 -18. • Membership became compulsory in 1936. • One aim was to instill the boys motivation as soldiers, to fight faithfully for the Third Reich. • Many of the members were drafted into the military during WWII. Some as young as 12.

The League of German Girls • Formed in the 1920 s for girls age 10 -18. It was the only organized youth group for girls in Germany. • Enrolment grew when the Nazi Party came to power in 1933. • Membership became compulsory in 1939 for all girls age 10 -18.

Hitler Youth

Pre-War • Poland the Soviet Union had the largest Jewish populations • Jews very assimilated: farmers, factory workers, business people, doctors, teachers, and craftsmen • Extremists blamed Jews for Germany’s defeat in WWI – Blamed the German Foreign Minister (a Jew) for his role in reaching a settlement with the Allies. Jewish community of Sighet, Romania in front of a wooden synagogue.

Anti-Semitism • For 2, 000 years Jews have suffered discrimination and been used as scapegoats. – people blamed Jews for the “Black Death” during Middle Ages • Hitler idolized Austrian mayor (Karl Lueger) who used anti-Semitism in his political campaign. • Political leaders used anti-Semitism as a tool - portray Jews as a race instead of a religion.

A Class Divided

The Poisonous Mushroom A mother and her young boy are gathering mushrooms in the German forest. The boy finds some poisonous ones. The mother explains that there are good mushrooms and poisonous ones, and, as they go home, says: “Look, Franz, human beings in this world are like the mushrooms in the forest. There are good mushrooms and there are good people. There are poisonous, bad mushrooms and there are bad people. And we have to be on our guard against bad people just as we have to be on guard against poisonous mushrooms. Do you understand that? ” “Yes, mother, ” Franz replies. “I understand that in dealing with bad people trouble may arise, just as when one eats a poisonous mushroom. One may even die!” “And do you know, too, who these bad men are, these poisonous mushrooms of mankind? ” the mother continued. Franz slaps his chest in pride: “Of course I know, mother! They are the Jews! Our teacher has often told us about them. ” “However they disguise themselves, or however friendly they try to be, affirming a thousand times their good intentions to us, one must not believe them. Jews they are and Jews they remain. For our Volk they are poison. ” “Like the poisonous mushroom!” says Franz. “Yes, my child! Just as a single poisonous mushrooms can kill a whole family, so a solitary Jew can destroy a whole village, a whole city, even an entire Volk. ” Franz has understood.

The Poisonous Mushroom, II “Tell me, mother, do all Gentiles know that the Jew is as dangerous as a poisonous mushroom? ” Mother shakes her head. “Unfortunately not, my child. There are millions of Gentiles who do not yet know the Jews. So we have to enlighten people and warn them against the Jews. Our young people, too, must be warned. Our boys and girls must learn to know the Jew. They must learn that the Jew is the most dangerous poison-mushroom in existence. Just as poisonous mushrooms spring up everywhere, so the Jew is found in every country in the world. Just as poisonous mushrooms often lead to the most dreadful calamity, so the Jew is the cause of misery and distress, illness and death. ” The author then concludes this story by pointing the moral: German youth must learn to recognise the Jewish poison-mushroom. They must learn what a danger the Jew is for the German Volk and for the whole world. They must learn that the Jewish problem involves the destiny of us all. “The following tales tell the truth about the Jewish poison-mushroom. They show the many shapes the Jew assumes. They show the depravity and baseness of the Jewish race. They show the Jew for what he really is: The Devil in human form.

The Holocaust (proper noun): The Holocaust was the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of approximately six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators. Nazi target groups: Ethnicities: Nationalities: “Degenerates”: Political rivals: Religions: Asocials: Jews & Gypsies (Roma), Slavs (Poles & Russians) homosexuals, the mentally & physically disabled communists & socialists Jehovah Witnesses & Jews Anybody else who opposed the Nazis

Three Steps on the Road to Genocide: 1. You cannot live among us as Jews. 2. You cannot live among us. 3. You cannot live. Burning of Jewish books, including the Torah, 1934

The Ban on Jewish Business • The signs read "Germans, defend yourselves against the Jewish atrocity propaganda, buy only at German shops!" and "Germans, defend yourselves, buy only at German shops!"

You cannot live among us as Jews. On April 1, 1933, Hitler declared a one-day boycott of Jewish shops Many German citizens voluntarily participated

You cannot live among us as Jews. May 1933, Jewish books were burned in public bonfires

You cannot live among us as Jews. Eugenics: Based loosely on early 20 th century understanding of the science of genetics, eugenicists believed that people should be bred as farmers breed animals: deliberately weeding out “inferior” traits through genetic selection. The Nazis believed that they could create a “a master race”.

You cannot live among us as Jews. Aryan race: The Nazis believed that people of Northern European ancestry – especially those with blue eyes and blonde hair – were superior to all other people, including people of African, Asian, and Middle-Eastern ancestry. In 1933, there were few people of African or Asian ancestry living in Germany. There were, however, 500, 000 Jews who seemed to threaten “racial purity”.

You cannot live among us as Jews.

The Power of Words… • “The great masses of the people will more easily fall victim to a big lie than a small one” • “How fortunate for leaders that men do not think” • The victor will never be asked if he told the truth” • “ I believe today I am acting in the sense of the Almighty Creator. By warding off the Jews I am doing the Lord’s work”

All were said by Adolf Hitler…

You cannot live among us as Jews. Above: “Juden Rause” (“Jews Get Out”), Nazi children’s board game A group at exit 2 are “off to Palestine”

Kristallnacht • “Night of the Broken Glass” November 9 -10, 1938 • Anti-Jewish rampage in Germany: Arson, arrests and beatings • Nazis attacked synagogues, homes and businesses

Public Humiliation Jewish men cleaning the streets

Identification Cards • This is the cover of a kennkarte or identification card issued during WWII. • The “J” printed on the front in black identified a Jew.

Identification Cards • The “J” was also stamped inside in red or purple ink. • Fingerprints and a photograph showing the left ear were required of all Jews. • All women were required to add the Jewish middle name “Sara” and the men “Israel”. • This woman’s name is Erna “Sara” Fromm

Wearing the Yellow Badge

You cannot live among us as Jews. Below: Aerial view of Nuremberg, Germany, prewar period “The Nuremberg Laws” turned prejudice & discrimination into systemic racism. For example: • 1935: Jewish Newspapers could no longer be sold • 1936: Jews lost the right to vote • 1938: Jews had to surrender drivers’ licences & car registrations

You cannot live among us as Jews. • The Nuremberg Laws also classified “degrees “ of Jewish blood • One use for this classification was to permit or to deny couples the right to marry (and thus to reproduce) • One proposed “solution” to the Jewish problem was sterilization

You cannot live among us as Jews. • By 1938, all Jews were required to carry identification cards • Jewish passports & papers were marked with a “J”

You cannot live among us. Many Jews attempted to leave Germany. But many nations, including Great Britain, Canada & the United States limited Jewish immigration Left: In 1939, 850 Jewish refugees attempt to enter British-controlled Palestine illegally.

You cannot live among us. British officials arrested the 850 European Jewish immigrants and interned them in a detention center near Haifa, Palestine.

The Frankfurt Ghetto

Deportation by Train to the Lodz Ghetto

List of Jewish Ghettos Biala Podlaska Bialystok Bochnia Brody Czestochowa Grodno Izbica Jozefow Kielce Krakow Krasnystaw Kovno Kutno Lodz* Lubartow Lublin Lvov Miedzyrzec Minsk Piaski Prague Przemysl Radom Riga Rzeszow Siedlce Tarnow Tluszcz Vilnius Warsaw Zamosc Zwolen

Map of Lodz Ghetto

The Lodz Ghetto

The German SS Schutzstaffel

Soup Kitchen in Lodz

A Meal in Lodz

Children Scavenging

German Police in Lodz

Deportation to Chelmno Death Camp from Lodz

Courtyard in Lodz Ghetto. Residents here await the final deportation in 1943

Cattle Cars

Why Have Camps? • Essential to Nazi’s systematic oppression and eventual mass murder of enemies of Nazi Germany • Slave labor moved them towards their ultimate goal- “annihilation by work” • What was taken from Jews was used to provide goods for the German People

Auschwitz Gates

Selection off the Birkeneau ramp

Prison Uniforms

The Barracks

Prisoners

Destruction Through Work This photo was taken by the Nazis to show just how you could quite literally work the fat of the Jews by feeding them 200 calories a day

Destruction Through Work Same group of Jews 6 weeks later.

You cannot live Compare the previous picture to this one showing the inmates of a death camp. Many who were not immediately taken to the gas chambers, died more slowly from malnutrition & overwork.

Once selected, you began the process of extermination Your luggage would be left for collection later

First you removed your valuables

Then you removed your shoes and clothes

Eyeglasses

Then they removed your hair

Finally • Prisoners were sent to gas chambers disguised as showers • Xylon B gas used to gas people in 3 – 15 minutes • Up to 8000 people were gassed per day at Auschwitz- Birkenau, the largest death camp with 4 operating gas chambers • Gold fillings from victims teeth were melted down to make gold bars • Prisoners moved dead bodies to massive crematoriums

You cannot live The gas chambers, disguised as showers, mainly used carbon monoxide and Xylon-B. To meet the daily death quota, the SS guards gassed men, & women; the elderly & children.

You cannot live Large industrial ovens were used to cremate the remains. Jewish inmates operated the ovens under SS supervision.

Dead bodies waiting to be processed

Evil is when a few good men decide to do nothing.

The Hangman Maurice Ogden

Into our town the Hangman came, smelling of gold and blood and flame. And he paced our bricks with a diffident air. And built his frame on the courthouse square. The scaffold stood by the courthouse side, only as wide as the door was wide; a frame as tall, or little more, than the capping sill of the courthouse door. And we wondered, whenever we had the time, who the criminal, what the crime, that Hangman judged with the yellow twist of knotted hemp in his busy fist. And innocent though we were, with dread we passed those eyes of buckshot lead; till one cried: "Hangman, who is he for whom you raise the gallowstree. ” Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye, and he gave us a riddle instead of reply: "He who serves me best, " said he, "Shall earn the rope on the gallowstree. ” And he stepped down, and laid his hand on a man who came from another land we breathed again, for another's grief at the Hangman's hand was our relief. And the gallows-frame on the courthouse lawn by tomorrow's sun would be struck and gone. So we gave him way, and no one spoke, out of respect for his hangman's cloak.

The next day's sun looked mildly down on roof and street in our quiet town and, stark and black in the morning air, the gallows-tree on the courthouse square. And the Hangman stood at his usual stand with the yellow hemp in his busy hand; with his buckshot eye and his jaw like a pike and his air so knowing and businesslike. And we cried: "Hangman, have you not done, yesterday, with the alien one? " Then we fell silent, and stood amazed: "Oh, not for him was the gallows raised. " He laughed a laugh as he looked at us: "Did you think I'd gone to all this fuss to hang one man? That's a thing I do to stretch the rope when the rope is new. ” Then one cried, "Murderer!" One cried, "Shame!" And into our midst the Hangman came to that man's place. "Do you hold, " said he, "With him that was meant for the gallows-tree? " And he laid his hand on that one's arm, and we shrank back in quick alarm, and we gave him way, and no one spoke out of fear of his hangman's cloak. That night we saw with dread surprise the Hangman's scaffold had grown in size. Fed by the blood beneath the chute the gallows-tree had taken root; Now as wide, or a little more, than the steps that led to the courthouse door, as tall as the writing, or nearly as tall, halfway up on the courthouse wall.

The third he took — we had all heard tell — was a usurer and infidel, And: "What, " said the Hangman, "have you to do with the gallows-bound, and he a Jew? " And we cried out: "Is this one he who has served you well and faithfully? " The Hangman smiled: "It's a clever scheme to try the strength of the gallows-beam. " The fourth man's dark, accusing song had scratched out comfort hard and long; and "What concern, " he gave us back, "Have you for the doomed - the doomed and black? ” The fifth. The sixth. And we cried again: "Hangman, is the man? " "It's a trick, " he said, "that we hangmen know for easing the trap when the trap springs slow. " And so we ceased, and asked no more, as the Hangman tallied his bloody score; and sun by sun, and night by night, the gallows grew to monstrous height. The wings of the scaffold opened wide till they covered the square from side to side; and the monster cross-beam, looking down, cast its shadow across the town.

Then through the town the Hangman came and called in the empty streets my name - and I looked at the gallows soaring tall and thought: "There is no one left at all for hanging, and so he calls to me to help pull down the gallows-tree. " And I went out with right good hope to the Hangman's tree and the Hangman's rope. He smiled at me as I came down to the courthouse square through the silent town, and supple and stretched in his busy hand was the yellow twist of the hempen strand. And he whistled his tune as he tried the trap and it sprang down with a ready snap— and then with a smile of awful command he laid his hand upon my hand. "You tricked me, Hangman!" I shouted then. "That your scaffold was built for other men. And I no henchman of yours, " I cried, "You lied to me, Hangman, foully lied!" Then a twinkle grew in his buckshot eye: "Lied to you? Tricked you? " he said, "Not I. For I answered straight and I told you true: The scaffold was raised for none but you. "For who has served me more faithfully than you with your coward's hope? " said he, "And where are the others that might have stood side by your side in the common good? " "Dead, " I whispered; and amiably "Murdered, " the Hangman corrected me; "First the alien, then the Jew. . . I did no more than you let me do. " Beneath the beam that blocked the sky, none had stood so alone as I - and the Hangman strapped me, and no voice there cried "Stay" for me in the empty