Atrocities of WWII

The Holocaust

Holocaust• Step 1: Hitler told the Jews to leave• Step 2: Take all rights from the Jews• Step 3: Ghettos for the Jews• Step 4: Concentration camps• Step 5: Death camps

• Nuremberg Laws – removal of rights• Ghettos

– Jews crowed for Nazi propaganda– Judenrat decide who leaves

• Jews in charge• Pick who goes 1st to camps

• Warsaw ghetto uprising– Over 400K in Ghetto– 1942 ghetto being liquidated

• Spring of 1943 about 100K– B-day present for Hitler (4/20)

» Want liquidate ghetto – Uprising lasted until May 10

» Luftwaffe drop incendiary bombs» Soldiers march in w/ flamethrowers

• 1938; 7 Concentration Camps• 1945; ~200 Camps

• Work Camps– Industry & Agriculture

• No gas chambers• Serve term & go home

– 3 strikes & you’re out

– Badges in camp... • Red, Green, Blue, Purple, Pink, Black, or Yellow

– Red: Political prisoners– Green: Habitual criminals– Blue: Emigrants– Purple: Jehovah’s Witnesses– Pink: Homosexuals– Black: Vagrants– Yellow: Jews {Also wore criminal triangle}– Star of David later– Gypsies given brown triangle at some camps

• 1938 increase Jews sent to camps for being Jews

– What does it mean to be a Jew?• Shakespeare

– Jewish faith• Dickens

– The way you look• 19th Century

– Racial & Ethnic background

• Nazi’s – Jew is a Jew is a Jew

» 1 Jewish grandparent

• Terezin (Czechoslovakian show camp)

– Red Cross visits...told all camps like Terezin– Not terrible...just can’t leave

• Death Camps– Wannsee Conference {1942} 15 Nazi officials

• Led by Reinhard Heydrich (Head of Gestapo)• Goal: answer “Jewish Question”

– Mandatory sterilization too time consuming– Endlosung chosen (Final Solution)

» Developed by Adolf Eichmann– Method

• Deportation to killing centers• Immediate death; can’t work

– Very young, old, weak• Segregation by gender• Decimation through forced labor and little food• Eventual Death

• Death camps designed for genocide– Deliberate annihilation entire group people– German’s genocide

• Almost 6 million Jews • Major death camps• Auschwitz, Dachau, & Treblinka

• Railways important for transport– Postcard stop– No railroad...call in troops

• Camp Life– Separated upon arrival

• Mornings roll call...jobs assigned– Learn to be chosen & stay alive

• Gas chambers– Gas pellets brought in Red Cross trucks

» Zyklon B» Cyanide based insecticide» Hydrocyanic acid/Hydrogen Cyanide

• Testing/Experiments– Dr Josef Mengele worked at Auschwitz

• Preformed experiments– Known as “The Angel of Death”

• Studies on twins

• Liberation– Prisoners; Many mentality child-like

• Malnutrition, & treatment/torture

• Einsatzgruppen = mobile killing squads– All S.S. members

• Relocate• Jews in vans; divert exhaust

• Shoot Jews & others & leave bodies lay or in pit