Armenian genocide :The Armenian refugee camp in aleppo 1922-1936
Holocaust vs. Armenian...
Transcript of Holocaust vs. Armenian...
Holocaust vs. Armenian
GenocideWorld War I and II
The Persecution Begins
Shortly after Hitler took power, he ordered “non-
Aryans” to be removed from government positions
This was one of the first moves in a campaign for racial
purity that eventually led to the…. Holocaust: The systematic murder of 6 million Jews across Europe
Nazis also murdered 5 million other people
Jews Targeted
Jews were centers of Nazi targets
◦ Anti-Semitism: hatred towards Jews
◦ Hitler and some Germans used Jews as a scapegoat to blame
them for WWI and the economic troubles in Germany
Nuremberg Laws stripped Jews of their German
citizenship, jobs, and property
◦ Jews had to wear a bright yellow Star of David on their clothing
to identify them
Kristallnacht
November 9-10 1938 became known as
Kristallnacht
◦ “Night of Broken Glass”
◦ Nazi storm troopers attacked Jewish homes, businesses,
and synagogues across Germany and Austria
100 Jews were killed and 30,000 were arrested and
hundreds of synagogues were burned
◦ The Jews were blamed for the destruction
A Flood of Jewish Refugees
After Kristallnacht many Jews tried to flee Germany
but had difficulty finding places that would take
them
◦ France had 40,000 and didn’t want more
◦ Britain refused to admit more than 80,000
◦ The Palestine mandate accepted 30,000
◦ America accepted 100,000
Americans didn’t want them coming because of the
Great Depression and fear of losing jobs
Hitler’s Final Solutions
Obsessed with the desire to rid Europe of its Jews,
Hitler imposed what he called the Final Solution ---
◦ A policy of GENOCIDE: the deliberate and systematic killing of
an entire population
His Final Solution rested on the belief that Aryans were
a superior people and that the strength and purity of
this “master race” must be preserved
◦ Not only Jews, but other groups that were views as inferior or
unworthy or as “enemies of the state”
The Condemned
After taking power, the Nazis had concentrated on silencing their political opponents – communists, socialists, liberals, and anyone else who spoke out against the government
◦ Gypsies (inferior), Freemasons (supporters of the “Jewish Conspiracy”), Jehovah’s Witnesses (Refused to join the army or salute Hitler)
Also targeted Germans who they found unfit for the “master race”
◦ Homosexuals, mentally deficient, mentally ill, physically disabled, incurably ill
First implemented the Final Solution in Poland with special Nazi death squads
◦ Security squadrons (SS) rounded up Jews – men, women, children, and babies on the spot
Forced Relocation
Many Jews had to live in crowded ghettos which were segregated Jewish areas in certain Polish cities
◦ Nazis sealed off the ghettos with barbed wire and stone walls
Bodies of victims piled up in the streets faster than they could be removed
◦ Factories were built near ghettos so the Jews had to work for German industries
◦ Jews resisted the movement by published secret magazines, secret schools to educate Jewish children, and theater and music groups continued to operate
Concentration Camps
Jews who weren’t reached by killing squads were dragged from their homes and herded onto trains or trucks for shipment to concentration camp, or labor camps◦ Families were separated
The prisoners were crammed into crude wooden barracks that held up to a thousand people each◦ Shared their crowed quarters and meager meals with flees
and rats
◦ Hunger was very intense
◦ Inmates worked from dawn to dusk seven days a week until they collapsed
◦ Those too weak to work were killed
The Final Stage
Starvation, beatings, and bullets did not kill fast enough for the Nazis
◦ Germans built six death camps in Poland
◦ Each camp had several huge gas chambers --- 12,000 people could be killed a day
The largest of the death camps was Auschwitz
◦ Doctors separated those who were strong enough to work and the ones that would die that day – They had to leave their belongings behind
◦ Those that would die were led into a room outside the gas chamber and were told to undress for a shower – they were even given soap
◦ They were led into the chamber and poisoned by cyanide gas that spewed from vents
◦ Sometimes they played cheerful music by an orchestra of inmates
The Final Stage
At first, the bodies were buried in huge pits but the decaying corpses gave off a stench that could be smelled for miles….but also --- they left evidence of mass murder◦ Tried to cover by making huge crematoriums to burn the
dead
They were also shot, hanged, or injected with poison
Others died from horrific medical experiments◦ Injected with deadly germs in order to study the effects of
disease on different groups of people
◦ Test methods of sterilization – searching for ways to improve the “master race”
Survivors
Six million Jews died in the death camps
and in the Nazi massacres
Some Jews did survive the concentration
camps
Those who did survive were changed
forever by the event
Armenian Genocide
The Ottoman Empire which once
included parts of eastern Europe, the
Middle East, and North Africa had been
growing weaker upon the arrival of WWI
Decline of the Ottoman Empire
1876 Ottoman reformers seized control
of the empire’s government and adopted
a constitution that set up a legislature
◦ The sultan suspended the constitution
◦ Suspended constitution became a symbol of
change to a group of young reformers named
the Young Turks
◦ Abandoned the sultan but lacked strong
support for their government
Impact of WWI
After the Ottoman government allied
with Germany, the British sought to
undermine the Ottoman rule in the
Arabian Peninsula by supporting Arab
nationalist activities there
◦ The nationalists were aided by the British
adventurer T.E. Lawrence
Lawrence of Arabia
Impact of WWI
In 1916, Arabia declared its independence
from Ottoman rule
British troops advanced from Egypt and
seized Palestine
The Ottoman Empire then made peace
with the Allies
The Armenia Genocide
During the war, the Ottoman Turks alienated
the Allies with their policies towards minority
subjects, especially the Armenians
The Christian Armenian minority had been
pressing the Ottoman government for its
independence for years
◦ In 1915, the Ottoman government accused the
Armenians of supporting the Russians and used those
allegations to kill or exile all Armenians
The Armenian Genocide
Within seven months, 600,000 Armenians were killed and 500,000 were deported
400,000 died while marching through the deserts and swamps of Syria and Mesopotamia
September 1915, 1 million Armenians were dead
◦ They were victims of genocide
The Armenian Genocide
By 1918, another 400,000 Armenians
were massacred
Russia, France, and Britain denounced the
Turkish actions as being “crimes against
humanity and civilization.”
Because of the war, the killings continued..