Holocaust

A Brief History of one of the most Horrific Events in

Modern Times.

Who were the people involved?

Some were forced

Some were chosen

Some were willing participants

Adolf Hitler and Heinrich Himmler review SS troops during Reich Party Day ceremonies.

Millions were victimized by the Nazi’s during the Holocaust: Jews, Gypsies, political enemies,

Jehovah's Witnesses, homosexuals, and people with disabilities

People who the Nazi’s considered sub-human (socially or racially inferior to the Aryan race)

or imperfect, were forced to wear the badge of their imperfection.

Hitler created an atmosphere of terror that was maintained by force.

Flag of the Nazi Party

The National Socialist German Workers' Party or NSDAP, known as the Nazi Party, controlled

Germany from 1933 to 45.

Legal Policies - Nazis began to whittle away at the rights of Jews and other party

enemies soon after Hitler became Chancellor in January of 1933. Jews were

no longer considered German citizens, their businesses were taken away and their

children were banned from schools.

Nuremberg Laws

The first law, The Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor, prohibited

marriages between “Jews ” (the name was now officially used in place of “non-Aryans ”) and

“Germans ” and also the employment of “German ” females under forty-five in Jewish

households. The second law, The Reich Citizenship Law, stripped Jews of their German

citizenship and introduced a new distinction between “Reich citizens ” and “nationals.”

Propaganda - Propaganda relies on emotion rather than on logic,

concentrates on a few ideas which are presented in simple terms, and then

hammers those ideas repeatedly. Hitler had total control of radio, press, publishing, cinema, and the other arts.

Believe Me!

The caption: "The Jew:

The inciter of war, the

prolonger of war." This poster was released in late 1943 or early 1944.

Violence, Terror and Death

The SS, the SA, the SD (security service of the SS) and the Gestapo were all Nazi organizations, which

were used as instruments of terror.

The SA was founded in 1921 as the Nazi Party militia. It lured new recruits with promises of adventure: participating in parades and secret meetings, painting

slogans on buildings, fighting with opponents, and wearing the Brown Shirt

uniforms. The SA recruited 15,000 members by 1923, and by the end of 1933,

the SA was 4.5 million men strong.

The SS began in 1925 as a small personal guard unit to protect Hitler

and other party leaders. It developed into the elite corps, the Black Shirts,

under the direction of Heinrich Himmler.

The Gestapo was composed of professional police agents, unlike the SS or SA. The

Gestapo, in addition to their own agents, had block wardens, who kept close watch on the

tenants of their block. The Gestapo was everywhere. Even a hint of criticism of the Nazi

Party could result in arrest.

Bystanders were ordinary people who played it safe. As private citizens, they

obeyed with the laws and tried to avoid the terrorizing activities of the Nazi party. They

wanted to get on with their daily lives. Bystanders may have remained unaware, or perhaps were aware of what was going on around them, but, being fearful of the consequences, chose not to risk helping

Nazi victims.

First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out

because I was not a communist.Then they came for the socialists, and I did not

speak outbecause I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the labor leaders, and I did not speak out

because I was not a labor leader.Then they came for the Jews, and I did not

speak outbecause I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me, and there was no oneleft to speak out for me.

--The Reverend Martin Niemöller, a pastor in the German Confessing Church who spent seven years in a concentration camp.

Underground resistance organizations existed to provide food, receive and

transmit news and information, and boost morale. Opposition newspapers were

forbidden, but almost every underground party published one. The penalty for

possession of a radio was death.

Rescuers are those who, at great personal risk, actively helped members of

persecuted groups, primarily Jews, during the Holocaust in defiance of Third Reich policy. They were ordinary people who became extraordinary people because

they believed what the Nazi’s were doing to innocent people was wrong. Thousands

survived the Holocaust because of the bravery of these rescuers.

Allied troops liberated prisoners of concentration camps. Although these

soldiers had witnessed all the horrors of war, the condition of the prisoners in the camps was even more shocking. It was beyond any war scene the soldiers had

experienced. There were rows upon rows of bodies stacked up like cordwood.

Auschwitz Located in Oswiecim, Poland

This is one of the Nazi death, or extermination camps that the Allies liberated.

The camp Kommandant was Rudolf Höss

Men’s barracks

This photo was taken by an SS photographer. It is part of an album discovered after liberation by a female prisoner. Most

people create family albums containing photos of their children, wives, husbands, mementos of places visited...

Evidently this SS photographer was proud of the work he and his comrades were doing. The people in the photo had only just been brought from the trains where they had been crammed in

cattle cars with no food, water or sanitation. Look closely at them, these were the people the Nazis considered dangerous.

Not long after this photo was taken they were gassed, and their bodies burned.

Prisoner identification badges for Dachau Concentration Camp

The chances of surviving the war in any of the Nazi death, concentration, or labor camps were slim to none. Those who did survive are the sole witnesses to the horrors put into action behind the barbed electric fences surrounding Nazi compounds. Their stories remind us of the atrocities humans are capable of when led to believe those who are different from them are sub-human or otherwise undesirable.

Survivors of the camps

were in very poor health.

"When a train goes through a tunnel and it gets dark, you don’t throw away the ticket and jump off. You sit still and trust the engineer."

Corrie Ten Boom

Author and Holocaust survivor

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References

• http://fcit.usf.edu/holocaust/people/people.htm

• http://history1900s.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.schoolhistory.co.uk%2Fgames%2Fwalk%2Fwalk_nazipropaganda.html

• http://history1900s.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.calvin.edu%2Facademic%2Fcas%2Fgpa%2Fposters2.htm

• http://windsormedia.blogs.com/lipsticking/2004/10/jane_focuses_on.html

• http://fcit.coedu.usf.edu/holocaust/GALL31R/05459.htm

Created by: Debra Harrington