The Holocaust
Day 0.5 - Homework One: Overview of Adolf Hitler
World War One’s Effects
Hitler was a soldier in WW1 and it was such a traumatic and painful experience that he met it with denial
He refused to believe that humans could actually be so destructive
He found it impossible to demobilize mentally so acted like a soldier of the rest of his life
This is why he was so insistent on war
He blamed Germany’s defeat on the Jews who weren’t affected
Jews weren’t affected due to their close-knit community and being seperate from Germans while living in the country
Hitler’s Talent - Hypnotism
Hitler was able to persuade a crowd by capturing the desperation of the people
THey were willing to do anything to survive and Hitler amplified this idea
By the 1920s, he had grown a crowd of supporters
His Goals
He wanted to overturn the Treaty of Versailles by starting a dictatorship
Rebuild the military
Gain to power in Europe and take total control
His Defeat
As the Soviet Union advanced Hitler realized he had been defeated
He took his life in order to avoid the consequences
Day One: Build Up
The Holocaust was the genocide of the jewish people in World War Two by the Nazi Party
Genocide is the act of targeting and killing a race or ethincity
The Germans took a lot of time and effort in killing the jewish people during the war
They were wasting their resources when they needed them most
They could’ve waited until after the war
Anti-Semitism
The belief that jews are monsters, and deserve to be hated
A group of people that hated jews
German Anti-Semistims
They believed the jewish were the reason they lost World War One
They were enraged that the Jewish weren’t effect by the war as much as the rest of Germany
It has existed for hundreds of years
Almost every European country at some point the government would hate on the jews
They would kick them out or just straight up kill them
Identity
While being a jewish person isn’t a religion but a race, they stay inside their own little circle
Their traditions are very specific, and they keep themselves
People didn’t agree with this and thought the jewish were scheming as they believed a “crazy” god
Their "weird" practices separated them from everyone else even if they were the same race
The jewish still had national pride for their country, but no one recgonized this
Jewish Stereotypes
They have a lot of money
People believed that because they were able to keep to themselves, they must be rich enough to provide
They control the media
People believed that they were the reasons that the media had failed them in WW2
Us vs Them Mentality
The government farmed the jewish as enemies to their countries
Everyone would join together to bring down the enemy
Timeline of German Anti-Sentism
1933 - Nazi’s Gain Power
They immediately remove the jewish people from the government and the teaching profession
1935 - Nuremberg Laws
It banned the marriage between thee Jewish and Germans
It stripped the jewish of citizenship, as they weren’t “true Germans”
Life Under Nazi Rule
The Jewish faced growing harassment as they lost their jobs, and social status
They became more and more isolated from the rest of the country
They were depicted as demons, and they saw this every single day as Germans were being brainwashed
Many people were trying to run away from religious persecution
Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass)
An organized terrorist pogrom on their own German Jews
Businesses were destroyed
Jews were beaten and killed
Synagogues were burned down
30,000 Jewish men arrested and sent to camps
Others were executed by fireman in public
This is when the attempts of running away increased significantly as things were getting bad
Laws →Violence – Eventually Genocide
A lot of people didn’t want to leave as everything the had ever loved was in Germany
Seen as the beginning of the Holocaust
Day Two: Kristallnacht and PLanning
Kristallnacht (In Depth)
The Trigger
A German diplomat was killed inside of Paris and the Germans blamed it on the Jewish
This gave them “justification” for the violence that would soon follow
They used misinformation, and twist of words to convince the Germans to hate the Jewish
The German government turned a blind eye to the following violence
The police were ordered not intervene
November 9th-10th of 1938
With the help of the brownshirts they destroyed Jewish cultures through violence
Destroyed the Jewish churches and attacked them publicly
Over 30,000 Jewish were either killed or sent away to camps
Auschwitz
They sent a train across the entire of Europe to kill the Jewish
German controlled all of Europe at the time so wanted to eliminate all the Jewish
Instead of using the materials for everything on the war they used it to kill their own people
Many Germans complained about it but they were powerless
The Jewish Question
As Germany expanded millions of Jewish came under Nazi control
They had answer to more Jewish people than ever before, and they didn’t like it
Initial Plan
Generalplan Ost
They wanted to remove every single Jewish from Eastern Europe and move them to siberia
They would deport them to distance regions so they wouldn’t have to deal with them at all
It was complicated as Siberia was a remote region where many people would die
“If they were going to die anyway if they got kicked out, then why don't they just kill them there?”
The war made these plans difficult
Starvation
They wanted to starve the Jewish to death as they wouldn’t lose any resources and would get more resources
Hilter believed that it was taking too long as there were too many survivors
Industrialized Execution
After months of debate, they decided to efficiently kill millions of Jewish people
They wanted to “mass-produce” the executions and wanted to get it over with as fast as possible
This is the moment they went from treating Jewish as human beings they didn’t like to treating them as disposable objects
The Jews were no longer seen as living, breathing humans
While, Joseph Stalin almost killed more people than Hitler during the Holocaust he didn’t do it the most efficient way making it less horrific
Day Three: Auschwitz - The Symbol of the Holocaust
This is the most recognizable site of the genocide as it was the largest
It is located in Poland near a city called Krakow
It had over 40 sub-camps
Three Camps
Auschwitz 1
The main building
Auschwitz II
If you were sent to this camp then you would die in 2 weeks maximum
Its sole purpose was to kill the Jews
It was mostly hidden from the rest of the world as no one who went to Auschwitz ever made it out alive
They would trick people into going into a room and they would be harassed with Zyklon B
Ou were directly sent to to death
In hours of your arrival you would be burned in a crematoria
Everything was systematic, efficient and industrialized
Auschwitz III
If you were sent to this camp you would be forced to work in Industrialization
Benefited Germany as they got more mass-produced goods
The people in the factories had to make the poison that ended up killing them
Poor Conditions
Almost every single one of the camps besides the deathcamp had the jewish working inhumane conditions
They had to work on factories, railroads, while dealing with overcrowding and disease
IG Farben
It was normal for the Jewish to be treated like livestock
They were starved as they had little to no food
They were beat, and faced brutal discipline
There was a constant fear of selection
Structure
The whole camps were treated like huge factory system
You were forced into a line, and went through certain steps
This led to psychological torture
Liberation
In January 1945, the Soviet Union liberated Auschwitz
You can still got to Auschwitz and see the museum and memorial
Symbolism
The dangers of racism and hatred
The consequences of industrialized violence