GenocideWhy humans kill humans

Genocide: the systematic killing of a whole people or nation

• Armenians in Turkey 1915-1918 1.5 million

• Stalin’s forced famine 1932-1933 7 million

• Rape of Nanking 1937-1938 300,000

• Nazi Holocaust:  1938-1945 - 6 million

• Poll Pot in Cambodia:  1975-1979 - 2 million

• Bosnia-Herzegovina:  1992-1995 - 200,000

• Rwanda 1994 - 800,000

"Who remembers now the extermination of the Armenians?"

Adolph Hitler

Learning from History….

Stages of Genocide

"In Germany they came first for the Communists and I didn't speak up because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the Jews and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me ... and by that time there was no one left to speak up." Martin Niemöeller (1892-1984)

Why didn’t German’s Protest?

FREE-WRITE

• How do leaders convince people to hate another group of human beings?

• What lessons can mankind learn from the Holocaust?

The Holocaust

Hitler’s View• Germanic People (Aryans) were a

“master race”

• Jews and others were inferior

• Nazi propaganda preached Anti-Semitism

Holocaust Reading

Secrecy of Camps

• “I should ask you to take pains to instruct the accompanying guards before every journey not to instill thoughts of resistance by voicing in their presence supposition about the type of quarters”

Road to Genocide

• 1933- prosecution of Jews became Gov’t Policy

• 1935- Nuremberg Laws passed which deprived Jews of German citizenship, jobs and property

• 1938 Kristallnacht-night of “broken glass---Germans attack Jewish homes & businesses

Yellow Star

Hitler’s Plan• Step 1: Immigration: tried to “export” Jews to

other countries– Britain 80,000 U.S. 100,000 France 25,000

– Latin America 40,000

• Step 2: Ghettos: Hitler turned to isolation as immigration proved limited

• Step 3: Final Solution- moved Jews to concentration camps and began mass killings

Jewish Population in 1939

Ghettos• Overcrowded areas of cities, sealed off with

barbed wire and stone walls

“Final Solution”: Concentration Camps

Mass Extermination

• Began in early 1942

• Built gas chambers-could kill 6,000 a day– Later added ovens to burn the dead

• Hitler also targeted gypsies, homosexuals and mentally ill

Concentrations camps were spread throughout Europe

The Final Numbers

• 6,000,000 Jewish deaths» Original Population Killed

• Poland 3,300,000 3,000,000• Soviet Union 2,850,000 1,252,000• Hungary 650,000 450,000• Romania 600,000 300,000• Germany 240,000 200,000

Sorting Shoes at Auschwitz

Why did this happen?

• Genocide has occurred many times throughout history (How can a leader of a country produce such hatred towards others?)

CRITICAL THINKING…

FREE-WRITE

• How do leaders convince people to hate another group of human beings?

• What lessons can mankind learn from the Holocaust?