Unit 11: WW2 and AftermathIII: AFTERMATH OF WAR: THE HOLOCAUST

1. As the Allies liberated Europe from the Nazi’s, they came across a horrible discovery: the Nazi’s, in attempting to create the “master race” had exterminated close to ___________________ people. Most of these people were those of _______________ descent.

11 millionJewish

2. Ideologically, ___________________, the hatred of anyone of Jewish descent, existed for centuries in central Europe. However, in the latter half of the 1800s, racial discrimination became more and more prominent in Europe. While some of it dealt with ____________________ and the colonization of Africa, a good portion of it focused on the different racial groups in Europe. In Germany, it was believed that humans of German descent (____________________) were far superior to anyone else, but especially Jews, who were considered their mortal enemy. As Social Darwinism became more prominent, the belief began that different groups were biologically more valuable than others. This was a central idea to the Nazi ideology regarding Jews.

antisemitism

Imperialism

Volkisch

3. Hitler was very open about his disdain for the Jews. In Mein Kampf, Hitler openly talked about forcing Jews to leave Germany all together. During his rise to power, he used different groups, but especially the Jews, as scapegoats for all the problems Germany had been experiencing. This ideology saturated German social beliefs, and, along with Nazi propaganda, allowed for the exploitation of the Jews. Even before the war started, there were signs that Jews were being hunted:

a. Right after the establishment of the Third Reich in January 1933, society was divided into __________________________________: the “National Comrades”, those of pure German descent, and the ______________________________, anyone who did not fit into Hitler’s racial attitudes. This included so-called “blood” enemies, like Jews and Gypsies, “political” enemies, like Marxists, liberals, and Christians, and “moral” enemies like homosexuals and habitual criminals.

b. In March 1933, the one of the first concentrations camp opened in ________________, where _____________________ (blamed for the Reichstag Fire) and other political opponents were taken. In the first six months of Hitler’s reign, new laws were put into place that restricted the jobs that Jews were allowed to have, and even removed Jews from jobs that they previously had.

two racial groupings“Community Aliens”

Dachaucommunists

c. In 1935, the _____________________ were instituted. Essentially, all German Jews had their ________________ taken away. They also were forced to wear the __________________, to carry ______________ to identify them as Jews, and had their ___________________________ stripped. It also became illegal for anyone of German descent to marry or have relations with someone of Jewish blood. This became the “Blood Law” and was Hitler’s first attempt to eliminate Jewish people from Europe.

Nuremberg Laws

civil rightsStar of David

ID badgesGerman citizenship

d. The Nazi’s attempted to ship all Jews out of Germany by encouraging Jews to immigrate to other nations. However, due to laws restricting immigration, many Jews were forced back to Germany, as the Allied nations (including the US) refused entry to them. Usually, immigrants needed to possess a special skill, therefore, men such as _______________________ and ________________________ came to America.

Albert Einstein Sigmund Freud

e. Then, in November 1938, __________________________, the Night of Broken Glass, occurred. During this 2-day event, gangs of Hitler youth roamed the streets of Germany, smashing Jewish shops and synagogues. Their reasoning came from when a Jewish teenager assassinated a minor Nazi official in Paris. While the German government said it was “public outcry”, essentially it was orchestrated by the ___________. 1200 Jewish synagogues and over 7000 Jewish shops were vandalized. Basically, all Jews lived in fear for their lives. To add insult to injury, all German Jews were forced to pay for the damages (which amounted to several hundred thousand marks) and an additional tax of one billion marks to deal with the fallout.

Kristallnacht

SS

f. Numerous relocation plans were created by the Nazis as the war came closer. The Nazi’s attempted to deport Jews to different places, including _____________, ___________________, and _________________________ as a way to getting Jews out of Europe.

3. Once the war started, Jews in the occupied countries were herded into _______________, areas of major cities which were shut off from the rest of the society. The most famous of these was the _____________________. As the war deepened, Hitler and the Nazi’s began to take all Jews, Poles, Slavs, and anyone else that they felt was inferior to the concentration camps. By 1941, Hitler and his minions had developed the “________________________” to the Jewish problem: ____________________, or the systematic killing of all inferior Europeans.

SiberiaPalestine Madagascar

ghettosWarsaw Ghetto

Final Solution genocide

a. To accomplish this goal, Hitler created ________________________ across Europe. Some of the more infamous ones were _____________________ and __________________, both of which were in Eastern Europe.

extermination campsAuschwitz-Birkenau Treblinka

Birkenau today

Franz Stangel, commandant of Treblinka

Arrival Station for Jews deported to Treblinka

b. In these death camps, the Jews were herded from across occupied Europe. Once they arrived, the Nazi’s stripped them of all their _____________ and shaved their heads. Targeting the young, old, and sick for immediate execution, the Nazi guards would force them into “shower rooms” and then _______________ them to death. Nazi doctors also performed perverse experiments on people of all types (twins, Jews, Women, children, etc.) In total, almost 6 million people died in the Nazi Death camps.

belongings

poison gas

Arrival at Auschwitz

Bales of human hair, found at the liberation of Auschwitz

The Gas Chamber at Auschwitz

c. One reason that the Nazi’s succeeded was because there were many _________________________ in Europe. Just about every part of the Third Reich participated in the massacre from the beginning: Colleges kicked Jews out, German companies bid to build the crematoriums, the Post Office delivered eviction notices, and even Catholic Churches would turn in those who attempted to convert, to just name a few parts of society. However, some people did attempt to hide the Jews and help them to escape Nazi brutality. A famous savior was ________________________, who saved hundreds of Jews from Nazi brutality.

collaborators

Oskar Schindler

4. After the war, the Allies put all the Nazi leaders they captured during the war on trial for “___________________________________.” At the ___________________________, many Nazi’s tried to claim they were only “following orders” when they committed their crimes. This did not hold up in court. ________ Nazi leaders were sentenced to death. However, some did escape from the Allies and hid in other countries that were sympathetic to their plight. The most famous was _______________________, leader of the Gestapo’s Jewish Division, who hid in Argentina until 1960, where he was finally captured by bounty hunters.

crimes against humanity Nuremberg Trials

20Adolf Eichmann