Introduction to The Holocaust
Steps to Genocide
1933 to 1945
CHC 2D0
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holocaust (noun):
Greek word meaning “sacrifice by fire”
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.
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genocide (noun):
The crime of destroying a group of people because of their ethnic, national, racial, or religious identity
Nazi target groups:
Ethnicities: Jews & Gypsies (Roma),
Nationalities: Slavs (Poles & Russians)
“Degenerates”: homosexuals,
the mentally & physically disabled
Political rivals: communists & socialists
Religions: Jehovah Witnesses & Jews
Asocials: Anybody else who opposed the Nazis
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Genocide was NOT the first step!
Concentration Camp:
Upon their ascent to power on January 30, 1933, the Nazis established concentration camps for the imprisonment of all “enemies” of their regime. Sentences could be a few months or a few years.
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They came for the Communists,
and I didn't object
- For I wasn't a Communist;
They came for the Socialists,
and I didn't object
- For I wasn't a Socialist;
They came for the labour leaders,
and I didn't object
- For I wasn't a labour leader;
They came for the Jews,
and I didn't object
- For I wasn't a Jew;
Then they came for me
- And there was no one left
to object.
Martin Niemoller, (1892-1984 )
German Protestant Pastor,
& Nazi Political Prisoner from 1937 to 1945
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Concentration camp prisoners wearing triangles and inmate numbers.
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- 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
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You cannot live among us as Jews.
You cannot live among us.
You cannot live.
Burning of Jewish books, including the Torah, 1934
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Institutionalized, government sponsored racism
Genocide
Discrimination
Prejudice
Stereotyping
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Prejudiced Attitudes: Stereotyping
Discrimination & Harassment
Systemic Racism
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anti-semitism (noun):
hostility toward or discrimination against Jews as a religious, ethnic, or racial group
Jewish caricature for anti-semitic Viennese magazine, Kikeriki, 1900 – The Jews try to conquer the world through a black market in grain.
You cannot live among us as Jews.
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Hitler’s minister of propaganda Joseph Goebbels, links love of Germany with hatred of the Jews
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You cannot live among us as Jews.
Eugenics:
Based loosely on early 20th 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”.
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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”.
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You cannot live among us as Jews.
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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”
- What do all these quotations have in common?
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All were said by Adolf Hitler…
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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”
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How did they know who was Jewish?
- November 1935 German churches begin to collaborate with Nazis by supplying records indicating who is Christian
- State of the art data processing was used to take a census in all German territory. Early on the Nazis included questions on religious heritage
- The machine allowed Nazi officials to tabulate huge amounts of data very quickly
German Hollenith Machine – a subsidiary of IBM
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You cannot live among us as Jews.
In 1934, Nazi scientists developed
This kit, which contained 29 samples of human hair. The samples were used by geneticists, anthropologists, and doctors to determine ancestry. Hair colour also became a means to prove the supposed superiority of Aryans and the inferiority of Jews, Gypsies, and those of “mixed breeds”.
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You cannot live among us as Jews.
“The Eternal Jew” – a degenerate-art exhibition in Munich opened on November, 1937. The largest prewar anti-semitic exhibit produced by the Nazis, it depicted Jews as vile, subhuman creatures. The exhibit featured photographs pointing out the typically “Jewish” traits. The Jew was stereotyped as having a large hooked nose, enormous lips and sloping forehead.
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You cannot live among us as Jews.
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You cannot live among us as Jews.
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You cannot live among us as Jews.
Germans were suspicious of Jews who were seen as conspiring
(with the help of communists) to take over the world.
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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
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You cannot live among us as Jews.
May 1933, Jewish books were burned in public bonfires
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You cannot live among us as Jews.
“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
Below: Aerial view of Nuremberg, Germany,
prewar period
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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
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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”
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You cannot live among us as Jews.
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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.
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You cannot live among us.
British officials arrested the 850 European Jewish immigrants and interned them in a detention center near Haifa.
- Similarly, in 1939 the German refugee ship St. Louis attempted to find safe harbour for its Jewish passengers in Cuba & the US. Most end up back in Belgium & the Netherlands.
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You cannot live among us.
Ghetto:
Evacuating the Jews from Germany, the Nazis created compulsory “Jewish Quarters” in most Polish cities and towns. The ghetto was a section of a city where all Jews from the surrounding areas were forced to reside, surrounded by barbed wire or walls
Left: Jewish labourers are forced to build a wall around the Warsaw ghetto
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Nazi ghettos were a preliminary step in the annihilation of the Jews. Ghettos became transition areas, used as collection points for deportation to concentration & death camps
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You cannot live among us.
By spring of 1941, conditions inside Poland’s Warsaw Ghetto were hellish: Food was scarce, clothing consisted many of old rags, and medical supplies were virtually non-existent. Child mortality rates skyrocketed
Left: Orphan sleeping in Warsaw ghetto, 1941
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You cannot live among us.
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You cannot live among us.
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You cannot live among us.
In 1941, German Jews were taken into “protective custody” and deported to concentration camps, build in eastern Germany & Poland.
Left: Jews being deported from German city of Baden-Baden
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You cannot live among us.
In response to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the Nazis destroyed the ghetto and moved the residents farther east “to safety”.
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You cannot live among us.
Jews carried their few remaining possessions to train stations. They were then transported in freight and cattle cars. Not only were there no chairs, but the trains also lacked sanitation, food, water, and air.
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Concentration Camps
- Camps were built on railroad lines for efficient transportation
- On arrival, all are given numbers- some have this tattooed on their wrist
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You cannot live among us
In 1941, Romania also began to deport its Jews. The 2500 occupants of the lasi train were allowed to disembark for a few minutes. Burning and dehydrated, they immediately sought refuge in the cool mud before returning to the torture of the sealed railcars.
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Step 3: You Cannot Live
Law for the Protection of Hereditary Health
- Idea was to improve the quality of the German race
- Nazi policy to eliminate those “unworthy of life” (mentally or physically challenged) to promote Aryan “racial integrity”
- Policy halted in 1941 due to outcry within Germany
- (mobile killing units) had began killing operations aimed at entire Jewish communities in the 1930s.
- Thought to have killed as many as 1 million people in six months
- Vigorous participation of local police helped facilitate the killing
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You cannot live
Final Solution:
The code name for the plan to destroy the Jews of Europe. In December, 1941, Jews were rounded up -- under the excuse of a “resettlement” program -- and sent to death camps in the East.
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You cannot live.
- At the Wannsee Conference, SS Officer Adolf Eichmann (1906 - 1962) was given the task of implementing the “Final Solution”.
- An extremely efficient bureaucrat, Eichmann organized the round-ups and the train convoys to the extermination camps
- Eichmann observed that poison gas was already being used to exterminate the mentally handicapped. He devised the gassing procedures and set the death quotas in the extermination camps.
- Eichmann fled Germany for Buenos Aires after the war.
- In the 1960, the Isreali government found him, kidnapped him, tried him in Isreal, and hanged him.
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You cannot live.
Leader of the SS and head of all police forces – including the Gestapo --, Heinrich Himmler (1900 – 1945) spent much of 1943 implementing the “final Solution” by using his control over the courts and civil service to advance the racial reordering of Europe.
Himmler paid particular attention to the fate of the 600,000 Jews of France.
When trying to pass a British checkpoint in May 1945, the fugative was recognised & arrested; he bit a cyanide pill, dying in moments.
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You cannot live.
Many SS guards claimed after the war that they had just “been following orders.”
Rudolf Hoess, Commander at Auschwitz said, “We were all so trained to obey orders without even thinking....”
Left: SS guards at Sobibor Death Camp, 1942
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You cannot live
The sign over the entrance to Auschwitz said “Work makes one free.” However, Auschwitz was NOT a labour camp. It was actually the largest of the death camps.
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You cannot live
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You cannot live
This pile of clothes belonged to prisoners of the Dachau concentration camp
Most of it would be resold to German civilians.
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You cannot live
Mauthausen labour camp at liberation in 1945
Note how relatively well-fed and well-dressed the inmates look.
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You cannot live
Compare the previous picture to this one showing the inmates of a death camp. Many who were not immediatedly taken to the gas chambers, died more slowly from malnutrition & overwork.
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Once selected, you began the
process of extermination
Your luggage would be left for collection later
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First you removed your valuables
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Then you removed your shoes and clothes
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Eyeglasses
Confiscated property from prisoners was kept in storerooms nicknamed “Kanada”. The sheer amount of loot stored there was associated with the riches of Canada
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Then they removed your hair
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Finally
- Prisoners were sent to gas chambers disguised as showers
- Zyklon 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
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You cannot live among us
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.
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Major Death Factories
- Sobibor - 250 000
- Chlemno - 255 000
- Majdanek 360 000
- Belzec 601 500
- Treblinka 750 000 - 870 000
- Auschwitz-Birkenau 1 100 000 – 1 600 000
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Nearing the End of the War
- On January 27, 1945, the Soviet army entered Auschwitz (largest camp) and liberated more than 7,000 remaining prisoners, who were mostly ill and dying.
- By 1945, the Nazis’ began to destroy crematoriums and camps as Allied troops closed in
- Death Marches (Todesmarsche): Between 1944-1945, Nazis ordered marches over long distances. Approximately 250 000 – 375 000 prisoners perished in Death Marches
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Works Cited
Chartock, Roselle and Jack Spencer. The Holocaust Years: Society on Trial. New York: Bantam Books, 1978.
Harran, Marilyn, et. al. The Holocaust Chronicle: Ahistory in Words and Pictures. Lincolnwood: Publications International, Ltd., 2000.
Schumacher, Julie A. Voices of the Holocaust. Logan: Perfection Learning Corporation, 2000.
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