They came first for the Communists And I

“They came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist; And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist; And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew; And then. . . they came for me. . . And by that time there was no one left to speak up. “ Pastor Martin Niemoller

Persecution Begins -Anti-Jewish sentiments for centuries • Death of Jesus, having money -Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” blamed Jews for Germany’s problems • Blamed Jews for losses during WWI and Germany’s economic problems -Nuremburg Laws – 1935 took away civil rights of Jews Star of David • No citizenship, property, or gov. jobs; must wear star at all times to identify Jewish -Kristallnacht, 1938 • Nov. 9 -10, “Night of Broken Glass” destruction of Jewish property • Destroyed Jewish homes, businesses, and synagogues As part of his purification of Germany for the Aryan race, Hitler passed the Nuremberg Laws, which stripped Jews of citizenship rights and forced them to wear an armband with the yellow Star of David on it at all times.

During Kristallnacht, the “Night of Broken Glass, ” Nazi storm troopers attacked Jewish homes, businesses, and synagogues across Germany. An American who witnessed the violence wrote, “Jewish shop windows by the hundreds were systematically and wantonly smashed…The main streets of the city were a positive litter of shattered plate glass. ”

Around 100 Jews were killed, and hundred more were injured during Kristallnacht. Some 30, 000 Jews were arrested and hundreds of synagogues were burned. Afterward, the Nazis blamed the Jews for the destruction.

Damage from Kristallnacht

Damage from Kristallnacht

Jewish Refugees -after Hitler’s election, many Jews fled Germany • Nazis wanted them to leave to purify Germany -U. S. was one of many nations not accepting many Jewish refugees Albert Einstein • Many nations would not take any more German refugees Jews fleeing Germany had trouble finding nations that would accept them. France already had 40, 000 Jewish refugees and did not want more. The British worried about fueling anti-Semitism and refused to admit more than 80, 000. Germany’s foreign minister observed, “We all want to get rid of our Jews. The difficulty is that no country wishes to receive them. ” • Einstein one of 100, 000 accepted in the U. S. because he had “exceptional merit” -Why did others not leave? ? ? • Families, tradition, dignity

Final Solution -1939 decision to rid Europe of all Jews and other undesirables • Political opponents (Communists and Socialists), gypsies, Free Masons, Jehova’s Witnesses, homosexuals, invalids -concentration camps set up across Europe • Ghettos created first, but when they were overcrowded they began building concentration camps -many sent to slave labor camps • To work for German industry or the German war effort -others were simply killed or experimented upon • Killing squads

To rid the Third Reich of all invalids, Adolf Hitler's authorized the Euthanasia Program, signed in October 1939, which destroyed all who had physical, mental, and emotional disabilities.

Buses used to transport patients to euthanasia center

“Because God cannot want the sick and ailing to reproduce. ” Used as propaganda for the Euthanasia Program

Two pages of the death registry at Hadamar. These pages listed false causes of death, but all were killed there as part of the Euthanasia Program.

Concentration Camps -Jews gathered from ghettos and separated • Those who could work were kept alive and shipped to camps; others were killed -crude wooden barracks held thousands who were fit to work “The brute Schmidt was our guard; he beat and kicked us if he thought we were not working fast enough. He ordered his victims to lie down and gave them 25 lashes with a whip, ordering them to count out loud. If the victim made a mistake, he was given 50 lashes… 30 or 40 of us were shot every day. A doctor usually prepared a daily list of the weakest men. During the lunch break they were taken to a nearby grave and shot. They were replaced the following morning by new arrivals from the transport of the day…It was a miracle if anyone survived for five or six months. ” • Barracks held up to 1, 000 people each; worked from dawn until dusk, 7 days a week, until they collapsed; they were then killed -hunger and disease killed thousands

Death Camps -as war went badly for Germany, they tried to speed Final Solution • In 1942, the Nazis build 6 death camps in Poland alone -building of several death camps to execute Jews with poison gas • Killed as many as 12, 000 Jews a day by using Zyklon B pellets -bodies were then buried in mass graves or burned • Also shot, hung, or experimented on • Twin studies -Auschwitz -Belzec -Buchenwald -Dachau

Jews loaded onto freight trains to Chelmno extermination camp. The Jewish people merely thought they were moving ghettos, and most of them took their belongings with them to the concentration camps.

Some Jewish people (and others forced into concentration camps) never made it to the camps. Mobile killing units took them to nearby fields, as they were “waiting for the trains to arrive, ” and shot them, stealing their valuables once dead.

Main entrance to Auschwitz extermination camp

Corpses lie in one of the open rail cars on the Dachau death train. The conditions on the trains were so harsh, and the state of those deported so helpless, that many did not survive the journey

Suitcases that belonged to people deported to Auschwitz

Valuables confiscated from Jewish prisoners by German guards

View of the moat and barracks at Dachau. The prisoners were constantly guarded by the watchtowers, and just on the other side of the drawbridge, there were two crematoriums and various mass graves.

Between the barracks at Dachau

Every morning in a concentration camp started with roll call. Thousands of prisoners would stand, sometimes for hours, while roll was taken and punishments were dealt.

Uniformed prisoners sent to work in the concentration camp factories. Each prisoner wore a badge to symbolize the reason why he/she was in the camp. The SS guards would treat them differently based on this badge.

Forced laborers build canal

The prisoners in the camps were forced to work to aid the German war effort. These men, in Auschwitz, are making uniforms for German soldiers.

Prisoners work in an armaments factory at Dachau

Some prisoners, when they have ceased to be of use to the German war effort and were healthy enough for testing, would be used for medical testing. This prisoner, in a compression chamber, loses consciousness before dying during a medical experiment stimulating high altitudes for German pilots.

This Roma Gypsy is a victim of Nazi medical experiments, to test whether or not seawater is potable, at Dachau.

Zyklon B pellets found after liberation of camp. One of these pellets, placed into a gas chamber, would be enough to kill an entire room full of people within two minutes.

Once the bodies were dead and removed from the gas chambers, they were placed into mass graves or more simply cremated in the concentration camps. This is the crematorium at Majdanek extermination camp.

Survivors demonstrate how to use the crematorium in Dachau

Survivors demonstrate how to use the crematorium in Dachau

Survivors demonstrate how to use the crematorium in Dachau

Survivors demonstrate how to use the crematorium in Dachau

Human remains in Dachau after the camps were liberated

Dachau prisoners on a death march

Former prisoners taken to a hospital for medical attention

Soviet physician examines Auschwitz camp survivors

Warehouse of clothes that belonged to women murdered in Auschwitz

Pile of shoes from prisoners

Corpses found when U. S. troops liberated Mauthausen

American soldier tends to former prisoner lying among corpses of victims

Bodies piled in the crematorium mortuary in Dachau death camp

Mass grave found soon after camp liberation

Survivors -6 million were killed in the Holocaust -some were liberated by Allied armies • Led away from camps on Death Marches to try and hide evidence • Camps liberated by Soviets first in late 1944, then by all Allies in 1945 Never shall I forget that night, the first night in the camp, which has turned my life into one long night…Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky. Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. ” ~Elie Wiesel, Night -others were helped to hide or escape from capture -Elie Wiesel “Night” -Oscar Schindler