Holocaust Dictionary

Katelyn A.

Picture of people at a concentration camp.www.ushmm.org

Gas Chambers

In the death camps the main way of killing was using and creating gas chambers. At Chelmo, the people in charge attempted new ways of killing. One way they tried was creating gas vans which blew out the poisonous gas towards the back of the bus. They found that way insufficient. A more deadly form of gas was used at Auschwitz. That gas was Zyklon B, which was originally made for killing insects, but now it was used for killing people. The victims were told that they were going to take a shower, they left their clothes on numbered hooks in dressing rooms. The victims were given bars of soap, and when they walked into the "shower rooms" there were shower heads on all four walls. Then an SS member dropped cans of Zyklon B through special windows in the roof, those windows were quickly sealed shut. The death took no longer that three to five minutes. After the death, their bodies were removed then burned in the crematories.

Hill, Jeff. The Holocaust.Detroit:Omnigraphics,Inc,2006.Print

Rossel,Seymour.The Holocaust.West Orange:Behrman House,Inc.,1992.Print.

Gas Chambers

deathcamps.org

A picture of an old gas

chamber at a concentration

camp during WWII

Gestapo

The Gestapo during World War II, was Germany's secret state police. They were founded in 1933 and by 1936, Adolf Hitler declared that the Gestapo was the national police force for Germany. Also, Hitler outlawed judicial appeals against decisions the Gestapo made. The head of the Gestapo was Heinrich Himmler. During Kristallnacht the Gestapo did nothing to stop the fires. When people were found for helping Jews the Gestapo sent them to concentration camps to be punished. A few last events the Gestapo did was kill more innocent people. On April 25, 200 Jewish women were taken from Shuttof to the seashore, and were shot. The Gestapo loaded 1,500 Jews onto boats to cross the Baltic, half of them were drowned and shot, and six more were executed at Cuneo, Italy. During the Nuremburg Trials, the Gestapo were convicted of the crimes.

Rossel, Seymour. The Holocaust. West Orange: Behrman House, Inc.,1992. Print.

Spagenburg, Ray. The Crime Of Genocide. Berkely Heights: Enslow Publishers,Inc., 2000. Print.

Gestapo

scrapetv.com

This is a picture of the Gestapo

headquarters.

Kristallnacht

Kristallnacht or the night of broken glass began on November 8, 1938, and lasted two days. Kristallnacht was the first major action of the Holocaust. During those two days there was rioting, people set fires to synagogues, windows of Jewish stores were broken, and Germans broke into Jewish stores taking whatever they could grab. Anyone who tried to stop the fires and theft were arrested. The regular police just stood by and watched. Fire brigades were set up to keep the fires from spreading to non-Jewish stores and homes. The Gestapo broke into Jewish homes arresting fathers and husbands. The Jews were accused of starting the riots. After all of the damage, it would take plate glass factories in Belgium two years to make and replace all of the broken windows. After Kristallnacht events moved quickly, and a few years later six million Jews were murdered. Kristallnacht was hint to what was to come in their near future.

Rossel ,Seymour. The Holocaust. West Orange: Behrman House Inc.,1992.Print.

Kristallnacht

cojs.org

Kristallnacht, Nov. 9-10, 1938

A burning building during Krystallnacht

Death Marches

When allied troops began moving in on concentration and death camps in early 1945 on the east and west, the Germans marched thousands of Jews towards central camps as a last minute attempt to move them, and to cover up evidence of the camps. In January 1945 Nazis led 54,650 prisoners from Auschwitz towards the west. When Jews fell along roadsides they were shot and killed. Another case a thousand women were marched towards the south, and forty two days later only 200 of them survived. Sometimes as Jews were moved around family members reunited with each other. On some marches Jews heard the artillery from allied armies. Jews were sometimes caught in crossfire, and they were sometimes killed by stray bombsRossel, Seymour. The Holocaust. West Orange: Behrman House, Inc., 1992. Print.

Death Marches

Picture of the death marches

during the Holocaust.

ushmm.org

Book Burning

In the beginning of the Holocaust, Germans started to boycott Jewish materials. On April 1, 1933 German Nazis collected books written by non-Aryans, and threw them into a large bonfire. The book burning lasted only one day. Book burning created a lot of negative attention. It also had little effect on Germany, the event happened to frighten and worry German Jews even more than they were before. Book burning stimulated the anti- Semetic feeling. After this event individual acts of violence grew larger, such as vandalizing and destroying Jewish shops, homes, and synagogues. On April 7, only six days later the first anti- Semetic law passed. It was called the Law For The Restoration of the Civil Service.Rogasky, Barbara. Smoke And Ashes. New York: Holiday House, Inc.,2002.Print

Book Burning

Book burning in Opera Square,

ushmm.org

Crematories

In the death cams after Jews were killed by the gas chambers their bodies were burned in what they called ovens. The guards often became actors. Before the bodies were burned, their bodies had to be prepped. All of the hair was shaven off of their bodies, and jewelry and gold teeth were removed from the bodies. After the bodies were put into the ovens, incineration took half an hour to complete. Once the incineration was complete the ashes were removed from the ovens and dumped into a ditch or near by river.

Ragaksy, Barbara. Smoke And Ashes. New York: Holiday House, Inc., 2002. Print.

Rossel, Seymour. The Holocaust. West Orange: Behrman House, Inc., 1992. Print.

Crematories

history1900s.about.com

Crematorium furnaces in the

Gusen concentration camp after

the liberation. (May 6-30, 1945)