Anti-Semitism / Stages of the Holocaust

World History

History of Anti-Semitism• Cultural differences made the Jews

standout• Jews generally lived in close-knit

communities• Have been demonized,

discriminated against by Christians for 2000 years

• Christianity needed Judaism as a contrast - to make Christianity look better, to act as a scapegoat

History of Anti-Semitism• 30 CE - Christ is killed.• 325 CE - Christianity becomes

official religion of the Roman Empire. Jews negatively portrayed.

• 5th-7th Centuries - Violence escalates

• Middle Ages - Jews less than human, killed in the Crusades, demonized, blamed for Black Death

History of Anti-Semitism• Renaissance/Reformation - Jews

had to wear badges or cones on head, in Italy and Germany they were separated into ghettos

• Spanish Inquisition• 17th-18th Century tensions eased

Anti-Semitism in Germany• .08% of population (~500,000)• Fully integrated into Germany

society• Supported WWI and the German

Empire• Mostly lived in large cities

Anti-Semitism in Germany• Hitler blamed Jews/Marxists for

loss of WWI• The Aryan Race - “Pure Germans”

superior• Incorrectly names Jews as a race• Struggle for world domination• History and biology changed to

match anti-Semitic views

Boycott of Jewish Businesses

• 1933 - Germany• Sets up idea that

Jews are not Germans and isolates them

SA pickets, wearing boycott signs, block the entrance to a Jewish-owned shop. The signs read: "Germans, defend yourselves against the Jewish atrocity propaganda, buy only at German shops!" and "Germans, defend yourselves, buy only at German shops!"

Two Nazi stormtroopers stand guard in front of the H. L. Heimann store in Bopfingen, to prevent would-be shoppers from violating the Nazi boycott of Jewish-owned businesses.

Nuremberg Laws• Germany - 1935• Defined who was a

Jew• Deprived Jews of

political rights

Kristallnacht• 1938 - Germany• “Night of the Broken Glass”• Organized violence against Jews

throughout Germany and Austria

The fire department only made sure the fire did not spread to the building next to the synagogue

View of the interior of the Essenweinstrasse synagogue in Nuremberg following its destruction during Kristallnacht.

Ghettos• 1939-45 - German occupied

territories• Small areas of a city where Jews

were isolated

Einsatzgruppen• 1941 - Poland and Russia• Mobile Killing Squads

Deportations• 1939-1945 - Throughout Europe• Movement of Jews to ghettos and

then to camps

Jews board a deportation train at the railroad station in Würzburg.

Hundreds of Jews wait to board deportation trains at the railroad station in Würzburg. Their luggage and bed rolls are piled in the center of the platform.

Jews from the Lodz ghetto board deportation trains for the Chelmno death camp

Camps• 1939-1945 - Throughout Europe• Different types: labor camps,

concentration camps, and death camps

“Work makes one free”

Human remains found in the Dachau concentration camp crematorium after liberation. Germany, April 1945.

Liberation• 1944-45 - Throughout Europe• Allies liberate camps