The Holocaust (1938-1945)

Antisemitism

The Jews have faced prejudice and discrimination for over 2,000 years, and they have played the role of scapegoats for many issues (that are unrelated to them)

Weimar Republic

Extremists blamed Jews for Germany’s defeat in World War 1

  • Myth: The belief that the Jews and Communists betrayed Germany and brought up a left-leaning government

  • Nuremberg Laws: Took Jews’ citizenship and prohibited marriage and sexual relations with German people

  • Propaganda: The Poisonous Mushroom, read to children

Jewish Question

  1. Expulsion: Get them out of Germany (most Jews go to the surrounding areas because they are too poor to go elsewhere, and other countries have quota acts

  2. Containment: Nazis rounded them up in ghettos

  3. Final Solution: Annihilation

Persecution/Targetted Groups

  • Gypsies

  • Homosexual men → Treated with chemical castration

  • Jehovah’s Witness

  • Hanicapped people

    • The belief that people were born with certain behaviors, so they need to kill people with those traits.

  • Poles (the Polish)

  • Political dissidents → ANY opposition

Kristallnacht

November 9th to 10th, 1938, Germans attacked synagogues, homes, and businesses owned by Jews.

Final Solution

Food was rationed (1000 kcal), many families shared a small space, disease spread easily, and there was no hygiene.

Mass shootings led to psychological issues, and they wasted bullets, so they went to using gas as a form of execution.

In Auschwitz, gas chambers used Zyklon B pellets, which were HIGHLY toxic.

Angel of Death: Dr. Josef Mengle

  • Arrived in Auschwitz in May of 1943

Performed medical experiments on Jewish children (especially twins)

Before and After

  1. Poland had the highest number of Jews. After, only half of them survived.

  2. Soviet Union had the second-highest

  3. Hungary had the third-highest

  4. Germany had the fourth-highest

Resistance

White Rose was a movement that protested Nazism (not Jewish policy specifically).

Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in Poland (April 19th to May 16th 1943)

  • People found that trains carrying people out of the ghetto came back empty (the passengers were being exterminated). So they hid weaponry inside food bags to help with the attack.

Aftermath

Soviet soldiers were the first to liberate camp prisoners on July 23, 1944, at Maidanek, Poland.

Many prisoners had no place to go, and their homes were sold, so they became Displaced Persons (DPs).

  • DPs stayed in camps which were organized by the Allies.

The Jewish community wanted a secluded state. The British gave them an area in Palestine, which would be called Israel.

President Harry Truman issued an executive order allowing Jews to enter the US without normal immigration restrictions.