The Holocaust

The Camp System

Surviving Hitler-A boy in the Nazi Death Camps

An Introduction to Tolerance

Europe Pre-World War 2

Germany had lost WW1 and had been made to pay back

France and Great Britain.

In addition, the Treaty of Versailles forced Germany to give

up thirteen percent of its land.

Germany was in a bad economical state. The currency

was worthless, many people had no jobs.

With Germany at its weakest and most vulnerable point, Hitler took the opportunity to begin his

ascent to power.

Hitler used the Jewish people as a scapegoat for all of

Germany's problems. With disproportional numbers of wealthy Jewish business owners, Hitler convinced

much of Germany that the Jews were to blame for the

poor economic state.

The Camp System

When the Nazi Party, led by Adolf Hitler, came to power in Germany in 1933, it wanted to set up the

perfect Nazi state.for holding people they saw as “undesirables”. These camps would re-educate prisoners to

accept Nazi ideas.Prisoners had not been convicted

of any crime and there was no date set for their release.

Who ran the camps?

• The camps were run by the SS (short for Schutzstaffel, or “security staff”.

• This staff was set up by Hitler’s private bodyguard and swore an oath of loyalty to Hitler, not Germany.

• Led by Heinrich Himmler, the SS grew to become a powerful empire within Nazi Germany.

Some of the earliest prisoners in Dachau were political opponents of

the Nazis

Before long, the Nazis were using the camps not only to hold political opponents but also to imprison all kinds of people that they did not want in their perfect state.

Jews were moved from being imprisoned to being killed.

The mass murder of about 6 million Jews and other so-called “undesirables” is called the HOLOCAUST.

Ghettos

• Ghettos were areas of towns walled off from the rest of the town.

• Jews were forced to live in ghettos.

• They were crowded, but families could live together and follow their religion.

In a camp…

• Families were split up

• All prisoners had to follow prison routine from morning to night

• There were regular roll calls

• Prisoners…

- ate only camp food– did the work the guards gave them– could not follow their religion

Types of Camps

• There were 3 main types of camps:

1) Concentration

2) Labor

3) Death

Similarities…

• They were fenced off from the outside, guarded and run by soldiers.

• They gave prisoners the bare minimum of food and shelter.

• People were imprisoned there without trial and were given no date for release. They were badly treated and harshly punished.

• Bigger camps had at least one CREMATORIUM (to burn the bodies of those that died.)

Concentration Camps

• Were started in 1933 (when the Nazi party came to power)

• Used to re-educate to accept Nazi beliefs

• Most prisoners died in these camps

• 30,000 deaths recorded in DACHAU between 1933-1945

By 1935, the Nazis had crushed most political opposition, so fewer politicals were sent to concentration camps, but

instead started sending different people there.

The Nazi’s invented a pure “Aryan” race for themselves-white, blonde-haired, blue-eyed, and healthy. They viewed

other races such as the Slavs (Poles and people from the Soviet Union) as sub-

human and inferior.

Labor Camps

• Built near factories or workplaces such as stone quarries

• Prisoners were used as cheap labor• Living and working conditions were awful

“…dark and dirty and full of fleas and lice. There are 75 people in a room 5 meters by 6 meters sleeping on the floor, without straw, lying on top of each other. The roofs leak, the windows have no glass. 3 out of 10 have no shoes, trousers or shirts. There is no soap or water.”

Death Camps

• Set up in 1941 to kill as many Jewish people as possible, as efficiently as possible.

• Millions of Jews were already being killed in concentration camps and labor camps. They died from starvation, disease, and exhaustion. They were worked to death and executed for “crimes”.

• However, DEATH CAMPS were specially designed with gas chambers for mass killing.

• There were 4 main Death camps: Chelmno, Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka.

• Death camps could unload and kill each transport of Jews within 2 hours.

• Barracks and buildings were not needed because the prisoners were killed right away.

• It is estimated that between 1941 and 1943 over 20,000 people were killed each day, seven days a week.

Auschwitz

• Was the most complicated of all of the camps. It had a concentration camp, a labor camp and a death camp. It also had about 40 sub-camps attached to the labor camp.

• Finally, it had prisoner-of-war camps, close to the factories.

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The Sick

• Sick people were always treated badly. If they could not work, they were of no use.

• Prisoners tried to hide illness.

• Usually left to die with no medical attention or food.

• Sometimes they were used for medical experiments.

Medical experiments

• To help the army

• To help Germany after the war

• To prove racial ideas invented by the Nazis

• To test new drugs for various companies

Examples of medical experiments…

• 1. Prisoners were given frostbite by exposing them, naked, to freezing conditions. The frostbite was allowed to develop to gangrene- a deadly infection if untreated. Doctors experimented to find the best treatments for frostbite to treat German soldiers fighting in the war.

• 2. SS doctors also used prisoners to teach nurses how to perform operations. After practicing on patients that did not matter, the nurses could use their skills to save the lives of German soldiers.

Children used in experiments at Auschwitz

• 3. Prisoners were injected with the typhus and cholera germs to test various new vaccines.

• 4. Nazis tested x-rays and chemical injections to sterilize “unfit” people from having children.

• 5. Prisoners were fed new meatless sausage to test the safety of the new food for German soldiers.

• 6. Ss doctors collected skeletons and body parts of the dead to prove that the Aryan race was truly a stronger race.

Camp Discipline

• How did the SS control prisoners? the death penalty to anyone who

discussed politics, had meetings, formed groups, loitered with others, persuaded others to commit a crime.

they put prisoners in charge of prisoners and encouraged hatred, to view them as the enemy. Being an “informer” was rewarded (better food, easier jobs)

kept everyone moving around the camps to stop resistance among groups. They could not be with friends, family, or settle into a routine.

Work groups were changed around frequently.

prisoners could be hanged to set an example to others

Selling Tickets• The Nazis insisted that

Jewish people had to have a ticket for the trains that took them to the Death Camps.

• The tickets were paid for by the people themselves. This was partly a Nazi trick to make the people believe they were being sent somewhere worthwhile but also to make as much money from them as possible.

Making Use of Everything…

• A prisoners hair was cut and the hair was used to make felt or yarn to make socks for the German soldiers.

• Possessions that had been taken from the Jewish people when they were taken was recycled or re-sold for profit.

• Teeth and fillings were also re-used.

• Babies and young children were seen as worthless and were sent straight to the gas chambers.

   

                                              

  

The Records Keeping

• Everything from the amount of hair to the amount of gold teeth fillings was meticulously counted and recorded.

• Towards the end of the war, so many prisoners were passing through the camp that the recording system was falling apart.

• Items ended up being stacked up outside, piled several feet high.

• The SS tried to destroy all of this evidence when they knew the war was being lost, but they had to leave Auschwitz in such a hurry that many of the evidence was left to see.

Arrivals to Auschwitz

• Most arrived by train (80 or more crammed into a car). No air in summer, no heat in winter. No food, no water. People died I almost every wagon, every day.

• Some arrived by truck. Armed SS guards would greet the arrivals. Even though the first orders to prisoners were given in German not their language, they would be beaten for not understanding.

People to numbers…• The prisoners were shown that they were

worthless• Families were separated into men and women• Prisoners heads were shaved to stop lice and to

humiliate them• They had to take off their clothes and shower as a

group, they were given no towel to dry off, but were herded off still wet to the next stage.

• They were given a prison uniform, usually full of lice, and did not fit. They had to be registered, they were given a number. In Auschwitz they were tattooed.

Prisoner Shirt

                              

Prisoner Shirt

Prisoner bunks at Birkenau

                                        

Prisoner Bunks at Birkenau

•

• Concentration camps are marked in red.

                                                                             

Concentration camps are marked in red.

Questions:

1. Who led the Nazi party?

2. What year did the Nazi party come to power?

3. Why did they create concentration camps?

4. Who ran the camps?

5. How were the camps used?

6. What were ghettos?

7. How were they different from the concentration camps?

8. What were the 3 different types of camps?

9. How were they similar?

10. What is the “Aryan” race?

11. What were concentration camps used for?

12. What were labor camps used for?

13. What were death camps used for?

14. What is Auschwitz?

15. How were the sick treated at camp?

16. Describe one medical experiment performed on prisoners.

17. How did the guards discipline the prisoners?

18. Why were tickets sold?

19. How did the camps make use of “everything”?

20. Describe the “arrival” process.

21. How were people turned into numbers?

The Camp System

Who ran the camps?

The Holocaust

The Ghettos and the Camps

The 3 types of camps…

Concentration camps

Death Camps

Labor Camps

Auschwitz

Treatment of the sick

Medical experiments

Camp Discipline

Selling Tickets

Making use of everything

Record Keeping

Arrivals at Auschwitz

People to numbers…