“The only thing necessary for the triumph ofEvil is for good men to do nothing.”

Edmund Burke

The Holocaustand

Hitler’s war on the Jews

WHAT IS ANTI-SEMITISM?

• HATRED OF JEWS – and it existed long before Hitler came to

power

• IT EXISTED IN EUROPE 1000 YEARS

BEFORE HITLER

• IT STILL EXISTS TODAY

WHO ARE JEWS?• Jews are Semitic people who came out of the Middle East • history of expulsion and migration they settled in various countries • Jews were always viewed as outsiders in the countries they settled in even though

their ancestors lived in each place for hundreds or thousands of years.

ANTI-SEMITISM IN EUROPE PRIOR TO NAZI GERMANY 1. RELIGIOUS • Jews were accused of Deicide by the Church• It wasn’t until 1965 that the Vatican (Pope) rejected this myth of Jewish responsibility for the death

of Jesus Christ

2. SOCIAL • Life was centered around the Church (outcasted) • Jews were not allowed to own land• Jews were forced to live in restricted ghettoes of many countries dependent

upon the ruler (1300-1800)

3. ECONOMIC• Jews were only allowed to hold certain jobs that were considered sins to

Christians• Ex: Finance, money-lending (since Usury is a sin…)

4. RACIAL • SOCIAL DARWINISM : lead to new ideas about inferior vs superior peoples• JEWS WERE CONSIDERED AN “ALIEN RACE” (NOT RELIGION : 1879)

When Hitler took power in 1933, most Jews lived in Eastern Europe (Russia, Poland) NOT Germany!

“Make the lie big,make it simple,Keep saying it, and eventually they

will believe it.”

Adolf HitlerGerman Chancellor, leader of the Nazi Party, 1889-1945

THE BIG LIEHitler knew the POWER of the BIG LIE.

Big lies about Jews existed throughout history and were scapegoated because of them:

1. BLOOD LIBEL: Jews killed Christian children and used theirBlood to make Matzah (Bread without yeast) Middle Ages

2. Jews were responsible for the BLACK PLAGUE The idea that Jews were poisoning the well water.

3. Protocols of the Elders of Zion An anti-Semitic forgery written by the Czar’s secret police that said Jews were planning to destroy Christianity, take over governments and control the world (Henry Ford used it in America in the 1920s; Used even today)

THE LIES WERE BELIEVED!!• OVER 200 JEWISH COMMUNITIES

DISAPPEARED BETWEEN 1348-1351 BECAUSE JEWS WERE BLAMED FOR THE SPREAD OF THE BLACK PLAGUE

OR FOR POISONING WELLS.

• JEWS WERE SENSELESSLY BLAMED FOR CHILDREN KIDNAPPINGS AND MURDERS. LIES WERE SPREAD THAT JEWS KILLED CHILDREN AND USED THEIR BLOOD TO MAKE MATZAH.

• JEWS WERE BLAMED FOR DISEASE BECAUSE PEOPLE DID NOT UNDERSTAND WHERE THE PLAGUE CAME FROM.

THE PROTOCOLS OF THE ELDERS OF ZION

• Has been written in many languages and spread across the world as an attempt to spread anti-Semitism and lies about the Jewish people

Treatment of Jews Throughout History

• Thousands of Jews were murdered and Persecuted (Crusades)

• Forced to convert

• Expelled over and over again from countries they called home

• Scapegoated (blamed for events such as WWI)

• POGROMS: government sanctioned killing raids that began in the 1880s and lasted after WWII was over

Hitler’s Rise to Power

• Kaiser Wilhelm II – Emperor of Germany,

abdicates after WWI

• Weimar Republic, a democratic republic, is established

Hitler with the Nazi Party

The Weimar Republic was unpopular for several reasons:1. It was associated with the Treaty of Versailles which was extremely unpopular in Germany2. It was associated with the massive inflation and economic ruin of the 20’s3. Democracy was not running smoothly in Germany, there were too many parties and no clear majority

The Rise of Adolf Hitler and Nazism

• In 1920 Hitler, a former German soldier, joined the German Workers Party and soon became it’s leader.

• Nationalist Socialist German Workers Party (Nazis)

• He created the Brownshirts to serve as his stormtroopers

HITLER and Anti-Semitism

• Anti Semitism was well engrained in European beliefs before Hitler wrote Mein Kampf.

• Coupled with economic depression the “Jewish outsider” was blamed for all that had gone wrong In Germany:

• Depression and inflation• Losing WWI (Jews betrayed Germany)• Communism (Socialism, Bolsheviks…all blamed on Jews)• Versailles Treaty (Punishment of Germany and war reparations)

Hitler Gains Power• In 1923 Hitler miscalculated his strength and

organized an ill fated attempt at taking power. The ‘Munich Beer Hall Putsch’ was put down andHitler was imprisoned where he wrote “Mein Kampf”, which outlined the goals of Nazism

“My Struggle”

• Anti-Semitism

• Aryan superiority

• Denial of communism

• Lebensraum

• Living space

• Expansion East

• Madagascar

Goals of Hitler in Mein Kampf

Hitler and the Reichstag

• The Nazis gradually turned the increase in popularity into a stronger political presence

• In 1930 the Nazis’ gained the second most seats in the Reichstag, 107 out of 647 seats

• 1932 - Nazis elect 230 seats, the most of any party

Nazi gains 1924 - 1933

1932 – Nazi’s are the largest Political Party in Germany

Great Depression Allows Nazi Party to Rise

1933

President Hindenburg

appoints Hitler to the

chancellorship

Hitler Becomes Dictator

• Frustrated by his lack of majority Hitler calls another election for February 1933

• The would be dictator, required a majority to pass laws which would allow him absolute control over Germany

• The Brownshirts were unleashed on the population of Germany and the opposition in particular

• German peoples lost the freedom of the press and freedom of speech during this election

• Hitler used the attempt to burn the Reichstag by acommunist as an excuseto convince the Reichstag to pass legislation knownas the Enabling Acts

1934 – Night of Long KnivesSS – Schutzstaffel- Shield Squadron to replace

Brown Shirts and enforce Enabling Acts

Nazi Germany: the

Totalitarian State• Hitler targeted the youth of

Germany• He created the Hitler youth

for all Germans under the age of eighteen

• Hitler also changed the education system to suit the needs of the Nazi party

• He also created the Gestapo, the ruthless secret police

• Nuremberg Laws were a series of laws passed between 1933-38 which stripped Jewish citizens of almost all rights and revoked their rights as citizens

– Prohibited mixed race marriages and relationships

– Limited names that Jewish children could be given

– Forced segregation in schools, public places– Set curfew hours

1936 Olympics

• 1936 Summer Olympics were held in Berlin

• The rest of the world was unsure of what to expect from Hitler’s Germany

• Hitler was on his best behavior as they removed much of the propaganda and toned down the anti-Semitism

• Hitler hoped the Aryan race would dominate the Olympics but they were dominated by a black man from Ohio, Jesse Owens, won four gold medals much to the Furher’s dismay

KRISTALLNACHT November 10,1938(Night of Broken Glass)

• Jewish communities, businesses, and Synagogues were attacked, burned and looted• Many Jews were sent to the first concentration camps in Dachau which were first used for political prisoners

Kristallnacht was agovernment endorsedattack on the Jews ofGermany (pogrom)

NAZI Propaganda Against the Jews

• Taught in schools• Children’s literature• Hitler Youth Movement• Government Policy• Newspapers (Der Stuermer)• Speeches and Rallies

Leni Riefenstahl

"Dagger-stab-in-the-back Legend"

1. What does this cartoon say about Jews in Germany?

2. How does this help explain the power of propaganda and the big lie?

Leni Riefenstahl (German Film Director)With Joseph Goebbels (Minister of Propaganda)

“Why would you be afraid of being sent to a camp if you didn’t think they existed?”-how Nazis made their citizens believe one thing, when they were in turn doing something else…

• Nazi propaganda as “documentary style” films

• Triumph of the Will• The Eternal Jew• Jew Suess• Olympics Opening

As you view clips of these films, answer the following questions:1. What do these film clips reveal about

Nazi Germany? 2. What emotions do you think they are

trying to instill in the German people?3. What is the overall message of these

films?

Power of Film

Triumph of the Will (1934)

Opening Scene

Power of Education and Literature

Background: This story comes from Der Giftpilz, an anti-Semitic children’s book published by Julius Streicher, the publisher of Der Stürmer. He was executed as a war criminal in 1946.

The Poisonous Mushroom  A mother and her young boy are gathering mushrooms in the German forest. The boyfinds some poisonous ones. The mother explains that there are good mushrooms and poisonous ones, and, as they go home, says:

“Look, Franz, human beings in this world are like the mushrooms in the forest. There are good mushrooms and there are good people. There are poisonous, bad mushrooms and there are bad people. And we have to be on our guard against bad people just as we have to be on guard against poisonous mushrooms. Do you understand that?”

“Yes, mother,” Franz replies. “I understand that in dealing with bad people trouble may arise, just as when one eats a poisonous mushroom. One may even die!”

“And do you know, too, who these bad men are, these poisonous mushrooms of mankind?” the mother continued.

Franz slaps his chest in pride: “Of course I know, mother! They are the Jews! Our teacher has often told us about them.”

The mother praises her boy for his intelligence, and goes on to explain the different kindsof “poisonous” Jews: the Jewish pedlar, the Jewish cattle-dealer, the Kosher butcher, theJewish doctor, the baptised Jew, and so on.

“However they disguise themselves, or however friendly they try to be, affirming a thousand times their good intentions to us, one must not believe them. Jews they are andJews they remain. For our Volk they are poison.”

The Poisonous Mushroom, cont.“Like the poisonous mushroom!” says Franz.

“Yes, my child! Just as a single poisonous mushrooms can kill a whole family, so a solitary Jew can destroy a whole village, a whole city, even an entire Volk.”

Franz has understood. “Tell me, mother, do all non-Jews know that the Jew is as dangerous as a poisonous mushroom?”

Mother shakes her head. “Unfortunately not, my child. There are millions of non-Jews who donot yet know the Jews. So we have to enlighten people and warn them against the Jews. Our young people, too, must be warned. Our boys and girls must learn to know the Jew. They mustlearn that the Jew is the most dangerous poison-mushroom in existence. Just as poisonousmushrooms spring up everywhere, so the Jew is found in every country in the world. Just as poisonous mushrooms often lead to the most dreadful calamity, so the Jew is the cause ofmisery and distress, illness and death.”

The author then concludes this story by pointing the moral:

German youth must learn to recognise the Jewish poison-mushroom. They must learn what a danger the Jew is for the German Volk and for the whole world. They must learn that the Jewish problem involves the destiny of us all.

The following tales tell the truth about the Jewish poison-mushroom. They show the many shapes the Jew assumes. They show the depravity and baseness of the Jewish race. They show the Jew for what he really is:

The Devil in human form.

Hitler Youth MovementWhy would Hitler target the youth of Germany?

What does this clip from The Book Thief tell you about Hitler Youth?

WHO WAS A JEW?• CONCEPT OF JEWISH BLOOD

– ONE JEWISH GRANDPARENT (EVEN IF RAISED A CHRISTAIN) MADE YOU A JEW.

– This meant Jews were considered a RACE, not RELIGION (Wilhelm Marr, 1879)

– ASSOCIATING WITH JEWS WOULD GET YOU SENT TO A CONCENTRATION CAMP OR MURDERED

– CONVERSION DID NOT MATTER

Who were the Targets of the Holocaust?

• “Undesirables” – people that Hitler thought would taint Aryan blood and superiority– CATHOLICS– GYPSIES– COMMUNISTS– PEOPLE WITH DISABILITES (T4 Program)– HOMOSEXUALS– JEWS

• WERE THE ONLY ONES TARGETS FOR TOTAL DESTRUCTION

QUICK FACTS ABOUT THE HOLOCAUST

• 10-11 Million Total Killed• 6 MILLION WERE JEWS

– 2/3RDS OF ALL EUROPEAN JEWRY WERE KILLED BY:• DISEASE• WORK• STARVATION• MURDER

– These camps were primarily in Poland since majority of Jews resided there and so that the German civilians could be removed from the death centers

WAR AGAINST THE JEWS

1. YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO LIVE AMONGST US AS JEWS. (Nuremberg Laws, 1933-1938)2. YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO LIVE AMONGST US. (Formation of the Ghettoes, 1939-1944)3. YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO LIVE. (Extermination and other Camps, 1941-1945)

The Holocaust was a systematic process designed by the Nazis that did not happen overnight. It evolved in stages:

NAZI EUPHEMISMS A word or phrase used in place of a term that might be

considered too direct, harsh, unpleasant or offensive

Nazi’s used this type of language to keep as much order as possible, even though the following terms all meant the same thing: MURDER.

• Liquidation - Destruction or murder• Special Treatment - murder

• Move East - Send to concentration camps to be murdered

NAZI EUPHEMISMS, CONT.

• Selection -A decision who will live and who will die (Dr. Mengele, “Angel of Death”)

• Aktion - Rounding up Jews to murder them.

• THE FINAL SOLUTION - GENOCIDE

WHAT WAS THE FINAL SOLUTION?

• THE SYSTEMATIC MURDER OF THE JEWS• BUT…

– EVEN BEFORE THE FINAL SOLUTION JEWS WERE BEING MURDERED IN THE USSR BY GERMAN MOBIL KILLING UNITS CALLED EINSATZGRUPPEN MADE UP OF BANDS OF SS.

– LATER ON THE NAZIS EXPERIEMENTED WITH MORE EFFICIENT AND QUICKER WAYS TO MURDER LARGE NUMBERS OF PEOPLE.

THE EINSATZGRUPPEN

• KILLED 1.4 MILLION RUSSIAN JEWS

• FORCED WHOLE VILLAGES TO DIG LARGE PITS THAN EXECUTED AND BURIED THE PEOPLE IN THE PIT AS A MASS GRAVE.

THE HOLOCAUST WAS A SYSTEMATIC, THOUGH-OUT, MASS

EXTERMINATION OF THE JEWS AND OTHER UNDESIRABLES

THIS IS WHAT MADE IT UNIQUE IN COMPARISON TO OTHER GENOCIDES

HIDE– STEP 1:

• HUMILIATION (Nuremberg Laws)– Jews were eventually stripped of their German citizenship.

Jews were prohibited to:

- Go to school - Be teachers- Be police officers - Practice law- Be in politics - Own bicycles- Own businesses - Own radios- Fly the German flag - Associate with- Go to public parks non-Jews

Humiliation, cont.- Publically beaten - Walk in the street- Tip hat to Aryans - Wash the street

- Wear a special armband or patch publically identifying a Jew

- Identification papers marked with a J (for Juden)- Jewish patients evicted from hospitals- Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass…a pogrom)

(This is the short list)

HIDE• Step 2:

– ISOLATION:– Jews were forced to leave the homes. They could only

take what they could carry. (20 lbs)

– Their property was seized and re-sold to Non-Jews (Aryanization)

– Jews were forced to live in over-crowed areas which were walled and sealed and of which Jews were not allowed to leave. (Ghettoes)

– In the ghettoes, people died from disease and starvation…This was all part of the plan.

Germany invaded Poland in 1939, then again in 1941. This is when they forced Jews into the

ghettoes.

WARSAW GHETTO

400,000 Jews in an area 3.5 mile in area.

A Resident of the Lodz Ghetto(1942) is abused, ridiculed and humiliated as was part of everyday life for the Jewish inhabitants of Lodz and other ghettos and camps.

THE FINAL SOLUTION

• WANNSEE CONFERENCE held on January 20, 1942 discussed the Final Solution.

• Reinhard Heydrich was the chief architect of the plan.

• Hitler did not attend – why?

• Prior to 1941 Jews, if they had the means and a place to go, could leave Germany territory. Now immigration was prohibited.

HIDE

• Step 3:– Deportation

• The ghettoes were destroyed (liquidated) and the people in them were put in cattle cars on trains and sent to concentration camps

• Trains were over-crowed with no sanitation faculties. The typical length of time in a train car was 3 days.

• The weak and sick usually died enroot (or some chose to end their lives or the lives of their children)

HIDE• Step 4:

– Extermination (Murder)

• EINSATZGRUPPEN (Mobile killing units of Nazi soldiers prior to the creation of Concentration camps)

• TYPES OF CAMPS– LABOR CAMPS– PRISON CAMPS- WORK CAMPS : Worked to death slowly, starvation- DEATH CAMPS : Usually the walking dead (sick, dying, old) and the young were

immediately gassed or sent to crematoria

6 MAJOR DEATH CAMPS

• AUSCHWITZ-BIRKENAU (I million) • BELZEC• CHELMNO• MAJDANEK• SORBIBOR• TREBLINKA

In total, there were over 42,000 camps in countries such as Poland, Germany, and France

Life in Concentration Camps

• Surrounded by death

• Process off Trains

• Friendship was • survival

• Selections

• Factories

• Jobs

Resistance during Holocaust

• Warsaw Ghetto Uprising• Bielski Partisans (Defiance)

• Prayer in Barracks• Black Market

• Speaking Hebrew• Marriage

Rescuers during Holocaust

• Sir Nicholas Winton (Kindertransport)• Oskar Schindler (Factory Workers)• Those who hid Jews or helped them escape

• Holocaust Museums have been made in Israel and Washington, D.C.

• Monuments have been built around the world• Germany has apologized• Memorial Day in Israel (Yom Hazikaron)• Holocaust Education: only mandatory in 6 states…• Not the only Holocaust – genocides have occurred

elsewhere, ex. Turkey, Rwanda, Cambodia…

We Will Always Remember: Never Forget

COULD IT HAVE BEEN PREVENTED?

WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE DONE?

WHAT IF……..?Scenario #1: You’re traveling on a subway car in NYC when a

tough looking gang comes on the car and attacks the passenger nearest you. Only a few other people are in the car- no conductor or police in sight. The passenger is a stranger. Would you get involved? Why?

WHAT IF……?…the passenger being attacked was your friend. Would you get involved? Why?

WHAT IF…….?…the passenger getting attacked was your mother or father? Would you get involved? Why?

Scenario #2

• You and a friend are in the school cafeteria when a group of bigger students corner you and make fun of the way your friend is dressed. There are no teachers or principals around. Would you speak out?

• What if they insult your friend’s religion?• What if they insult your friend’s nationality? What if

they insult your friend’s family?• Now they insult you. Would you speak out?

Stand Up, Don’t Stand By

RaceReligion

Sexual OrientationPhysical Appearance

Social ClassGender

Being an UPSTANDER is important because…

HOLOCAUST DENIERS

Held a meeting December 11,2006 in Iran. 67

representativesfrom 30 countries attended

this conference.

(AKA: REVISIONISTS)

Anti-Semitism is still alive and well in 2015!

Question, research and spread the TRUTH!