The Holocaust

Emily Sandstrom
World Literature -Block A
Miss Figueroa
May 27, 2014

1. What is it?
The genocide of European Jews executed by the Nazi

regime
Took place between 1933 and 1945
Total of 12 million people were killed
They were forced to live in ghettos
Political rebels, the disabled, those with genetic

diseases, Gypsies, Poles, Soviet POWs, male

homosexuals, and Jehovahs Witnesses were also
targeted
The camps were liberated in 1945 by American troops
Nazi war criminals were put on trial at the Nuremburg

Trials but many of them did not carry heavy sentences

2. What is it known
for?
Mainly known for the persecution of millions of

Jews during World War II

It is also known for the labor and death camps or
concentration camps
Prisoners were mainly executed by gas chambers
Other ways to die
Shot
Burned alive
Buried alive
Tortured through medical experiments

The Gas Chambers

One of the ways millions were

executed in the concentration

camps
Most chambers only had two
doors: the entrance into the
chamber and the entrance
into the crematorium
Opening on the ceiling was
where the Nazis poured
Zyklon B gas pellets through
The gas pellets were usually
stored in metal containers in a
building next to the gas
chamber or crematorium

3. What is its
history?
Hostility towards Jews dates back to the

ancient world
Adolf Hitler was born in Austria, 1889
and served in the German army during
World War I
Blamed Jews for Germanys defeat in
1918
Later joined the National Socialist
German Workers Party or the Nazis
and became the leader of the party
He wanted a pure German race
Aryan
In the 1930s, Hitler withdrew Germany
from the League of Nations and rebuilt
the German military
Great Britain and France declared war

The Ghettos
Jews were forced to live in ghettos
There were at least 1,000 ghettos

in

Poland and the Soviet Union alone

The first ghetto was established in
Piotrkw Trybunalski, Poland in October
1939
Three types of ghettos: closed, open, and
destruction
The largest ghetto in Poland was the
Warsaw ghetto which held 400,000 Jews
who had to live in 1.3 square miles
Star of David
The
Germans
forbade
any
form
of
schooling but the Jews had underground

The Camps
There were three different types of camps: forced-labor,

transit, and extermination

concentration camps were called this because those
imprisoned there were physically concentrated in one
location
After 1939, forced-labor camps opened; many died here
from exhaustion, starvation, and exposure
Killing centers were designed for efficient mass murder
Chelmno was the first killing center and it opened in
December 1941
Major killing centers
Belzec
Sobibor
Treblinka
Auschwitz
Birkenau

4. What culture is
associated with it?
European Jews were living mostly in Eastern Europe in

Poland, Hungary, Romania, and the Soviet Union

Lived in predominantly Jewish towns or villages called
shtetls
Spoke Yiddish, read Yiddish books and attended
Yiddish theater and movies
Usually wore traditional dress
Eastern European Jews made up more of the Jewish
population than the Western European Jews
Lived in Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, and
Belgium
Dressed and talked like the people around them;
traditional culture was of less importance
Lived in towns or cities and tended to have a more

5. What group is
associated with it?

Hitler Youth
From the 1920s onwards, the Nazi Party

targeted German youth for its propaganda

messages
The messages emphasized that the Party was a
movement of youth: dynamic, resilient, forwardlooking, and hopeful
Beginning of 1933, Hitler Youth only had 50,000
members which grew to 2,000,000 at the end of
the year; by 1936, there was 5.4 million
Hitler Youth became mandatory between 1936
and 1939 outlawing all other youth
organizations
The goal was to produce race-conscious,

6. What are the practices

and traditions of the group
associated with it?
Anti-Semitism prejudice against or hatred of Jews
Propaganda
Posters
Mass rallies
Books
For kids board games and toys

1936 became mandatory for children between the

ages of 10 to 17 to be a part of Nazi youth groups

Hitler Youth incorporated ideology with sports and
outdoor activities

Propaga
nda
First used to spread the ideals of

Nazism
Reich Ministry of Public
Enlightenment and Propaganda
was formed in 1933 and was
headed by Joseph Goebbels
Aimed to ensure the Nazi message
was successfully communicated
through art forms, media, and
educational materials
Propaganda was used to extract
political loyalty and race
consciousness among ethnic
German populations
Jews were usually portrayed to be
subhuman, fat, ugly, and
dangerous which went against the

7. Is it associated with a
religion, philosophy, belief
system or other devotion?
The Nazis belief system was the superiority of the

White, Germanic, Aryan or Nordic races

They practiced Anti-Semitism and Anti-Slavism
degrading both Jews and Slavic peoples
Hitler and the Nazis drew upon the ideas of the
German social Darwinists of the late 19th century
Adopted Darwinist survival of the fittest

According to Hitler and others, mixing races would

eventually lead to bastardization and degeneration of

a race to the point where it lost its distinguishing
characteristics and eventually become extinct
Jews, Roma, Africans, and Slavs were considered
inferior races

8. What impact has it had on

the world?
1948 the United Nations adopted the Genocide

Convention
Nuremburg Trials
The Declaration of Human Rights
The Nuremburg Code was established and stated
that the voluntary consent of the human subject is
absolutely essential
1965 Pope John Paul II apologized for any antiSemitism acts done by Christians towards Jews
Increase of anti-Semitic incidents in Europe and
Islamic countries especially within the most recent
years
Palestine was divided after World War II

9. How would you feel if

you were involved? Why?
If I were a Jew would be scared out of my mind. If I

were to be deported I would hide as best I could

and create a strategy that would help multiple
people hide. I would work and trade items for
money so I can buy food for my family.
If I were on the Aryan side of a ghetto, I would help
any Jew. I would smuggle food to them and I would
hide some in my house.
Either way I would be terrified, but I would try to use
all my connections with people to help others the
best I could.

Lets take a
tour!
Destination: Auschwitz
concentration camp
Depart: May 27, 2014. 10:57
a.m.
Arrival: May 27, 2014. 11:00 a.m.
http://www.remember.org/auschwi

Work
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