holocaust & rape of nanking

schutzstaffel

Roots of Antisemitism

• Jews persecuted for centuries in Europe

• mid-1800s belief (Middle Eastern) arose citing Aryans (India/Africa) as superior & Semites as inferior (Syria)

• Germans used old theories abt Jews to pin blame & regain national pride

  • Christ killers (blamed for death of Jesus)

  • Usury (forced to be bankers)

  • blood libel (killed Christian boys & used blood in Passover bread)

6 camps

• Auschwitz-Birkenau (Poland):

• Treblinka (Poland):

• Belzec (Poland):

• Sobibor (Poland):

• Chelmno (Poland):

• Majdanek (Poland): Dual-purpose camp (labor and extermination); 78,000 killed.

• Auschwitz-Birkenau

• (Poland)

• 12K per day, 1.5 million killed;

• liberated by Russians in 1945

• Treblinka (Poland):

• Primarily for Jews; estimated 800,000 killed.

• riot in Aug. 1943

• Belzec (Poland):

• Over 500,000 killed.

• Chelmno (Poland):

• First death camp;

• 150,000–300,000 killed.

• Majdanek (Poland):

• Dual-purpose camp (labor and extermination);

• 78,000 killed.

Holocaust

mass murder of ‘undesirables’ by the Nazis during WWII

Heinrich Himmler

Head of the Schutzstaffel

Schutzstaffel

"Protection Squadron"

• elite guard to hunt enemies of the state

• guarded concentration camps, mainly prisoners of undesired

Enabling Act (1933)

Passed by the Reichstag (German parliament) after the Reichstag Fire, granting Adolf Hitler dictatorial powers.

• Allowed Hitler to enact laws without parliamentary approval.

Latin Origin of the Term Genocide

• Definition: Coined by Raphael Lemkin in 1944, combining the Greek genos (race, tribe) and Latin cide (killing).

• Meaning: The deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, ethnic, religious, or national group.

Concentration Camp

• Definition: Detention centers where individuals (political prisoners, Jews, Roma, etc.) were imprisoned under harsh conditions.

• Purpose: Forced labor, punishment, and eventual extermination.

Dachau

• First Nazi concentration camp, established in 1933 near Munich, Germany.

• Initially for political prisoners (Communists, Social Democrats, trade unionists).

• Later expanded to include Jews, Roma, homosexuals, and other "undesirables."

Extermination Camp

• Camps designed specifically for mass murder, primarily of Jews, during the Holocaust..

• Methods: Gas chambers, mass shootings, forced labor.

• elderly, women w/ kids, killed immediately b/c too weak to work

• workers carry bodies to ovens (no proof)

Operation Reinhard

• (1942-1943)

• Named after Reinhard Heydrich, a key architect of the Holocaust.

• Established death camps (Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka).

• Resulted in the murder of 2 million Jews.

Kristallnacht

• Definition: "Night of Broken Glass"

• (November 9-10, 1938)

• Nazis throughout Germany & Austria looted stores, homes & synagogues

• Jews had to pay for damage

• exodus begins by any means necessary

Lebensraum

• Definition: "Living space"

• Nazi ideology advocating territorial expansion to provide land for the Aryan race.

Einsatzgruppen

• Definition: Mobile killing units of the SS

• Methods: Mass shootings, often in open pits.

• Victims: Over 1 million killed.

• invaded USSR

Mein Kampf

• Definition: "My Struggle"; autobiographical manifesto by Adolf Hitler (1925).

• Content: Outlined Nazi ideology, including antisemitism, Aryan supremacy, and Lebensraum.

• expresed hatred of Jews & view of mixing 2 races

Juden

• Definition: German word for "Jews."

Der Untermensch

• Definition: "The Subhuman"

• Nazi propaganda term used to dehumanize Jews, Roma, Slavs, and others.

Joseph Goebbels

• Head of the Ministry of Enlightenment & Propaganda

• Role: Controlled media, arts, and information to promote Nazi ideology and antisemitism.

Adolf Hitler

• Definition: Leader of Nazi Germany (1933-1945).

• Role: Architect of the Holocaust and World War II.

Warsaw Ghetto

• Definition: Largest Jewish ghetto in Nazi-occupied Poland.

• 500k in area meant for 50k

• Apr. 1943: revolt against deportation to death camps

  • molotov cocktails used against Germans

Wannsee Conference

• Definition: Meeting of Nazi officials (January 20, 1942) to coordinate the "Final Solution."

• outside of Berlin

Nuremberg Laws (1935)

• Stripped Jews of citizenship, prohibited intermarriage, and classified Jews as state subjects.

• Mischling: Term for mixed-race individuals, categorized under the laws.

Anschluss

• Definition: Annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany (1938).

• subjected Austrian Jews to persecution.

Appeasement

• Definition: Policy of making concessions to avoid conflict.

• Example: Britain and France allowing Hitler to annex the Sudetenland (1938).

Sudetenland

• Definition: Region of Czechoslovakia with a large German-speaking population.

• Annexation: Seized by Nazi Germany in 1938.

Zyklon-B

• Definition: Poison gas used in Nazi gas chambers to murder Jews and others.

Dehumanization of Jews in Society

• April 1, 1933: 1-day boycott of Jewish stores (litmus test)

• 1938: Jewish owned stored has to be turned over for a % of value (limit immigration)

• lost jobs as lawyers & doctors

• students expelled from public

• identified as Sarah & Israel

• Yellow stars marked Jew sewn on

Dehumanization of Jews in Ghettos

• Segregated areas in cities

• Overcrowded, unsanitary, and starved populations.

• Transition points before deportation to death camps.

• Examples: Warsaw Ghetto, Lodz Ghetto.

Dehumanization of Jews in Camps

• Definition: Systematic degradation through forced labor, starvation, torture, and extermination.

refugees seek an escape

• 1933-1937: jews fled germany w/ nazi encouragement (130k; 1 in 4)

• most moved to neighboring countries

• Jews sought protection in USA, Latin America, Palestine

• few countries openly welcomed jews

  • USA has St. Louis (ship) turn around

• Evian Conference (July 1938): complete sham

War Refugee Board

• USA knew abt death camps in 1942 but no stories by press & Congress had quotas

• liberation of Jews in late 1944

Hitler’s Undesirables

• Definition: Groups targeted by the Nazis for persecution and extermination.

• Included: Jews, Roma, disabled individuals, homosexuals, political dissidents.

“The Final Solution to the Jewish Question”

• Definition: Nazi plan to systematically exterminate Jews during the Holocaust.

• Implementation: Death camps, gas chambers, mass shootings.

Gestapo (SA)

• “brown shirts”

• Gestapo: Nazi secret police.

• SA: Stormtroopers (paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party).

• by 1939, no Gestapo, just SS

  • night of long knives: all gestapo killed b/c the leader was a homosexual

Rape of Nanking – Acts of Brutality

• Context: During the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Imperial Japanese Army captured Nanking (Nanjing), the capital of Nationalist China.

• Definition: Massacre and atrocities committed by Japanese troops in Nanking, China (1937-1938).

• Acts: Mass killings, rape, looting, and destruction.

• Victims: Estimated 200,000–300,000 Chinese civilians and soldiers.

Herman Goering

head of the german luftwaffe

Luftwaffe

“Air Weapon"

• Played a key role in the Blitzkrieg ("lightning war") strategy, which relied on coordinated air and ground attacks.

Belsen

Concentration camp in Germany liberated by the British in 1945

Babi Yar

• Location of mass pogrom in Kiev, Ukraine

• 33,000 killed in 2 days

Warsaw

largest ghetto in Poland;

site of uprising in 1943

Resistance

French ‘underground’ forces that fought against Nazi occupation

Nuremberg

Site of huge Nazi rallies

Pogrom

organized violence against Jews

Nazi Party

National Socialist German Worker’s Party

What was one of the main goals of the nazis in the 1930s?

get rid of Jews

Wht action did the Nazis take to strip Jews of their German citizenship?

passed the Nuremberg laws

What was the final solution to the Jewish question, announced by the Nazis at the Wannsee Conference?

kill all the Jews

In April 1943, how did Jews in Warsaw react against deportation to Treblinka?

month-long revolt

What did Roosevelt finally create, in Jan. 1944, to try to help the Jews?

War Refugee Board

What important idea came out of the Nuremberg Trials?

Individuals must be responsible for their own actions.

Euthanasia Program

• Aktion T4

• Nazis begin gassing mental patients in Jan. 1940