Understanding The Holocaust 8th grade English
Understanding the Holocaust
Important Holocaust Terms
A stereotype is an unjustified and overgeneralization about a group of people.
Understanding the Holocaust
Important Holocaust Terms
In the 1930’s in Germany, the Nazis used stereotypes of Jews to turn other Germans against them. Understanding the Holocaust
Important Holocaust Terms
To come to power, the Nazis used Jews as scapegoats, blaming Germany’s problems on Jews everywhere including: the devastating economic conditions and losing WWI.
Understanding the Holocaust
Important Holocaust Terms
Prejudice is a strong, and often hateful, feeling against a particular group that is difficult to change. Understanding the Holocaust
Important Holocaust Terms
Discrimination is acting out against that group based on one’s prejudice.
Understanding the Holocaust
Important Holocaust Terms
Under the Nazis, the goal of the German government was to kill all the Jewish people, and others considered unworthy, in Europe systematically. (according to a fixed plan or system; methodically)
Understanding the Holocaust
Important Holocaust Terms
CHECK FOR UNDERSTANDING: 1. The German people used the Jewish people as ________(1)________ by blaming the Jews for their problems. 2. Many Germans felt _________(2)__________ against the Jewish people and The Nazis used this to gain power. 3. The Holocaust occurred ________(3)_____________, meaning that it was accomplished in steps. 4. A _______(4)_____________ regarding a group of people is an unjust overgeneralization against a group. 5. The major difference between prejudice and discrimination is that _________(5)__________ requires action. A. discrimination B. stereotype C. scapegoat D. prejudice E. Systematically
Timeline • Hitler’s Rule: 1933-1945 • World War II 1939 - 1945
What allowed Nazi control? • After its defeat in World War I, Germany was humiliated by the Versailles Treaty, which reduced its prewar territory, drastically reduced its armed forces, demanded the recognition of its guilt for the war, and stipulated it pay reparations to the allied powers. With the German Empire destroyed, a new parliamentary government called the Weimar Republic was formed. The republic suffered from economic instability, which grew worse during the worldwide depression after the New York stock market crash in 1929. Massive inflation followed by very high unemployment heightened existing class and political differences and began to undermine the government.
Background continued… • On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler, leader of the National Socialist German Workers (Nazi) Party, was named chancellor of Germany after the Nazi party won a significant percentage of the vote in the elections of 1932. The Nazi Party had taken advantage of the political unrest in Germany to gain an electoral foothold. The Nazis incited clashes with the communists and conducted a vicious propaganda campaign against its political opponents and the Jews whom the Nazis blamed for Germany's ills.
Hitler: Anti-Semitism • By the end of 1934 Hitler was in absolute control of Germany, and his campaign against the Jews was in full swing. The Nazis claimed the Jews corrupted pure German culture with their "foreign" and "mongrel" influence. They portrayed the Jews as evil and cowardly, and Germans as hardworking, courageous, and honest. The Jews, the Nazis claimed, who were heavily represented in finance, commerce, the press, literature, theater, and the arts, had weakened Germany's economy and culture. The massive government-supported propaganda machine created a racial anti-Semitism (hostility or prejudice against Jews)
The Holocaust was the systematic approach for killing off the “unworthy people,” which is literally translated as death by fire. Understanding the Holocaust
Four Stages of The Holocaust
The First Stage (Persecution) of the Holocaust, during the early 1930s, required all Jews to register with the government and, later, to wear the Star of David. Also, all Germans were to boycott any Jewish business.
Understanding the Holocaust
Four Stages of The Holocaust
Nuremburg Laws
The Second Stage (Expropriation) took place during the late 1930s as Jews were required to give up their belongings and freedoms such as: jobs, businesses, wealth, schooling, cameras, phones, and pets. Understanding the Holocaust
Four Stages of The Holocaust
It is very important to understand that none of these stages were absolute--people could decide whether or not to enforce the laws and whether or not to comply with them; but people who were caught, were generally killed or imprisoned. Understanding the Holocaust
Four Stages of The Holocaust
Famous Quote from Martin Niemöller First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out -Because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out -Because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out -Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me -- and there was no one left to speak for me.
Martin was an outspoken opponent of Hitler and the Nazi Regime. How can we apply this to our life? Understanding the Holocaust
Four Stages of The Holocaust
Kristallnacht: the official beginning of the Holocaust
AFTER KRISTALLNACHT
BEFORE KRISTALLNACHT
Kristallnacht • “Nazis smash, loot, and burn Jewish shops and temples,” screamed the headline on the front page of The New York Times on November 11, 1938. • Kristallnacht-“Night of Broken Glass” took place on November 9 and 10, 1938 in Austria and Germany. The night was filled with a “mass frenzy of destruction,” wrote one historian. The destruction of Jewish-owned property may have seemed like random acts of vandalism. It wasn’t. During Kristallnacht, synagogues were set on fire or destroyed completely. Mobs attacked Jewish shops and homes, smashing windows and looting contents. Jews were taunted, beaten, humiliated in the streets and in their homes. Many Jewish people died. Kristallnacht was used as an excuse to round up Jews who have been singled out for arrest earlier. More than 30,000 were taken to concentration camps at Dachau, Buchenwald, and Sachsenhausen. The arrest lists had been drawn up in advance. The camps had been made larger in preparation.
Burning synagogue in Rostock the morning after Kristallnacht Residents of the mid-size city of Rostock watch the burning Augustenstrasse synagogue the morning after Kristallnacht, November 1938. Friedrich Best, a non-Jewish teenager who lived near the synagogue, took the photograph. As he ate his breakfast, he saw from the kitchen window that a crowd was gathering. Suddenly, flames leaped from the roof of the synagogue. Best ran and got his camera. He snapped two photographs, which he later developed and showed to his parents. Fearing that he would be arrested if the police found out that he had recorded the event, his parents insisted that he destroy both prints and negatives. Best secretly saved the negatives and sold them to the city archive in 1958 after a call for Nazi-era artifacts was published in the Rostock newspaper.
The Third Stage of the Holocaust, known as the Deportation/ Concentration Stage, moved Jews into Ghettos (small areas where Jews were isolated), and later, to concentration camps. Understanding the Holocaust
Four Stages of The Holocaust
Life in the Jewish ghettos meant, for many, a slow death because of starvation and disease. Understanding the Holocaust
Four Stages of The Holocaust
The Lvov ghetto was established in late 1941 with 106,000 people; however, by May of 1942, only 84,000 residents were left.
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Understanding the Holocaust
Four Stages of The Holocaust
A sign posted outside a ghetto warns that people attempting to cross the fence or to contact inhabitants of the ghetto will be shot. Understanding the Holocaust
Four Stages of The Holocaust
March, 1943: Guards oversee a column of Jews with bundles walking down a main street in Krakow during the final liquidation of the ghetto
Understanding the Holocaust
Four Stages of The Holocaust
The Fourth Stage of the Holocaust is called “The Final Solution” and included the mass murder of any person deemed unfit including: anybody who speaks out, Communists, Democracy, Gypsies, Homosexuals, Blacks, Jehovah’s witnesses, those with mental and/or physical disabilities and Jews. Understanding the Holocaust
Four Stages of The Holocaust
Prisoner Badges
These pictures were taken of death marches.
Picture of Dachau concentration camp, one of the early camps to be created.
Picture of a stable-like barracks in a concentration camp.
"We…shall be compelled to destroy a third of the population in the adjacent lands. We can achieve this by systematic undernourishment which in the end gives a better result than machine guns do. Physically breaking them will be more effective especially among the young.” —German Officer Gerd Von Rundstedt, 1942
Understanding the Holocaust
Four Stages of The Holocaust
Pictures of Auschwitz.
After taking over one of the concentration camps in Poland, these Soviet soldiers are overwhelmed by the number of shoes they find.
Quote from “Walking with Living Feet”: Here each shoe is different, a different size and shape: a high heel, a sandal, a baby’s shoe so tiny that its owner couldn’t have been old enough to walk, and shoes like mine. Each pair of those shoes walked a path all its own, guided its owner through his or her life and to all of their deaths. Thousands and thousands of shoes, each pair different, each pair silently screaming someone’s murdered dreams.
Picture taken of corpses of Auschwitz prisoners in block 11, discovered by Soviet war crimes investigators.
http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/the-holocaust/videos/concentrationcamp-liberation
Allied soldiers react to a scene of death after liberating a camp.
What event triggered the beginning of World War II? • Poland was invaded by Germany during 1939. – Why did Germany choose Poland as its first target? • Poland had the largest population of Jews. • The Jewish population of Poland just before the start of the second world war was about 3.3 million.
How long did it take Germany to take over the rest of Europe? • Less than two years… by 1941, Germany controlled most of Europe, including France, and Germany had begun to invade North Africa and Great Britain. • By 1942, Germany even controlled part of Africa.
What really happened to Hitler?
• http://www.history.c om/topics/worldwar-ii/adolfhitler/videos/deathof-hitler
A Holocaust Survivor’s Story • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fhng2FyQs0
