1. Prelude to the Holocaust Only after we assimilate the history of the Holocaust can we transform the future. – Alan Rosenberg, Professor of Philosophy, Queens College
2. The State sponsored, systematic persecution and annihilation of European Jewry by Nazi Germany and its collaborators between 1933 and 1945. Jews were the primary victims – 6 million were murdered. From the Greek word meaning “a sacrifice by burning.” In Hebrew the term “shoah” is used, meaning “catastrophe.” The Holocaust
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4. Never before had a government harnessed the immense power of technology for such destructive ends, culminating in the horror of Auschwitz – a death camp that, at its peak, “processed” 10,000 Jews a day.
5. Never before had a government summoned their best and brightest people to mobilize destruction and used mobile killing units (Einsatzgruppen) to systematically kill approximately 1.5 million individuals in 2 years.
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7. A Comparison –Jews in the World in the Early 19th Century & Early 20th Century
8. Jewish Life Before the War Remember always that you not only have the right to be an individual, you have an obligation to be one. - Eleanor Roosevelt A group of Jewish children pose in their bathing suits while vacationing in the resort town of Swider, near Warsaw. The two girls on the right are Gina and ZiutaSzczecinski. Both perished during the war. MalkaOrkin (left) and her friend Tusia Goldberg. Tusia, whose father later became a member of the Bialystok ghetto Jewish council, survived the war. Malka did not survive. LovaWarszawczyk rides his tricycle in the garden of his home in Warsaw shortly before the start of World War II. He survived.
9. Jewish family celebration in Radomsko, Poland. Almost all of this town’s 12,000 Jews were deported to the death camp at Treblinka. Group portrait of the extended family of Mottle Leichter in JanowPodlaski, Poland. Only 3 in the picture survived.
10. Sisters Hanneke and JennekeLeydesdorff as small children one year before the German occupation. The sisters survived, both parents died. JankelStiel and his child. Both were killed in Belzec. YosefGinzberg watches his granddaughter Tamar play with a ball. Yosef was murdered in Ponar outside of Vilna. Tamar survived the war in Siberia. Two young children play outside next to a baby carriage in Bogdan, Transcarpathia. In 1944, the children and their mother were deported from Bogdan to Auschwitz, where they all perished.
11. Bertha Gruneberg with her son, Rene, at a park in Boekelo. The child survived the war, but both his parents were killed. Portrait of a Jewish bride and groom in Telsiai, Lithuania. Both perished. Portrait of Mina Nattel and BenoSchmelkis on a balcony in Rzeszow, Poland during their engagement party. During the war Mina, Beno and their daughter Rachel were killed by the Germans. A Jewish mother (Regina) with her children in Naleczow, Poland between 1934-1937. All perished.
25. The Perpetrators History teaches us to beware of demagogues who wrap themselves in the flag in an attempt to appeal to the worst aspects of nationalism. - Alistair Nicholson ReinhardHeydrich Joseph Goebbels Heinrich Himmler Hermann Goering Adolf Eichmann Rudolf Hess
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27. Crucial Divisions of Nazi Party SA (Storm Troopers, Brown Shirts, Sturmabteilungen) – 1921 SS(Protective Squad, Schutzstaffel) SD(Security Service, Sicherheitsdienst) – 1931 Gestapo(Secret State Police, GeheimeStaatspolizei) – 1933 Death’s Head Units (Totenkopfverbande) – 1936 Special Action Groups(Einsatzgruppen) – 1938 Waffen SS(ArmedSS) - 1940 Mass roll-call of SA and SS troops. Nuremberg, November 11, 1935
35. Racial Science The law of existence requires uninterrupted killing, so that the better may live. – Adolf Hitler Nazi physicians conducted “bogus” medical research in an effort to identify physical evidence of Aryan superiority & non-Aryan inferiority. The Nazis could not find evidence for their theories of biological racial differences among human beings. This kit contains 29 hair samples used by doctors, anthropologists, and geneticists to determine racial makeup of individuals. Establishing racial descent by measuring an ear at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology. Caliper to measure skull width.
41. Laws Restricting Civil Rights The Law for the Protection of German Blood & German Honor forbade either marriage or sexual relations between Jews and Germans.
42. Laws Restricting Personal Rights Sign on a phone booth in Munich prohibiting Jews from using the public telephone. Jews were only permitted to purchase products between 3-5 p.m. This was one step in the overall Nazi scheme of eliminating Jews from economic, social and cultural life. Bench with inscription “Only for Jews.” Sign forbidding Jews in public pool.
43. Jews are forced to walk in the street. The original photo caption read, "Jews in gutter." Belgium, 1943
44. October 5, 1938 All Jewish passports must be marked with the letter "J“ for Jew.
45. Laws Restricting Education Political Cartoon from DerStürmerentitled: “Away with Him” The long arm of the Ministry of Education pulls a Jewish teacher from his classroom. March 1933.
46. Laws Restricting Occupation With the rise of Nazism, nothing the Jews had done for their country made any difference … - Alfred Gottschalk, Jewish Survivor Erich Remarque, author. Sigmund Freud, psychoanalyst, Albert Einstein, Nobel Prize winner. Otto Klemperer, conductor.
48. Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, “regretted,” that, unless one were detached from the whole process from the beginning, unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these “little measures” that no “patriotic German” could resent must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing. One day it is over his head. Heinrich Hildebrandt, non-Jewish German high school teacher during the Nazi years, interviewed in 1952. They Thought They Were Free by Milton Mayer
49. Boycott of Jewish ShopsApril 1, 1933 SA soldiers stood at the entrances to Jewish shops and professional offices discouraging non-Jewish patrons from entering. Signs were posted warning: “Germans! Beware! Don’t Buy from Jews!”
50. Nazi Book Burnings May 10, 1933 Where books are burned, in the end, people will be burned. - Heinrich Heine (19th century German poet) Uniformed Nazi party officials carrying confiscated books. Hamburg, Germany The public burning of "un-German" books by members of the SA and university students.
56. Nazi Propaganda How can such a monstrous crime as the Holocaust occur? It begins when people start thinking of themselves as “us” and of others as “them”. -Ted Gottfried, Deniers of the Holocaust The Hitler Youth Education in Nazi Germany Media 1936 Olympics in Berlin
57. The Hitler Youth GIRLS German Girl’s League, Bund DeutscherMädel (BDM) BOYSHitler Youth, Hitlerjügend (HJ) "Youth Serves the Fuëhrer. All ten-year-olds join the Hitler Youth." “All girls join us.”
58. Education in Nazi Germany The foundation of every state is the education of its youth. - Diogenes “The Jewish Question is the Key to World History.”
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60. The students raise their right arms and respond Heil Hitler.” Raising the Swastika Flag at a school in Berlin.
61. Changes in the Curriculum Math Problems Twisted to Promote Nazi Ideology According to careful estimates there are 300,000 mentally ill persons, epileptics, etcetera in long-term care facilities in Germany. What is the total yearly cost of their care assuming daily costs of 4 RM per person? How many marriage loans for 1,000 RM each could be made yearly with this money? The Jews are aliens in Germany. In 1933 there were 66,060,000 inhabitants of the German Reich, of whom 499,682 were Jews. What is the percentage of aliens?
62. The German National Catechism for Young Germans in School and on the Job: “Which race must the National Socialist race fight against? The Jewish race. Why? The goal of the Jew is to make himself the ruler of humanity. Wherever he comes, he destroys works of culture. He is not a creative spirit, rather a destructive spirit.” Werner May, Deutscher National-Katechismus 2nd edition (Breslau: Verlag von Heinrich Handel, 1934), pp. 22-26
63. Excerpt from a Nazi Biology Textbook for Middle School Students: As we have already noted, people do not live as individuals like animals and plants, but as peoples, which largely have come together as ethnic states. We know something similar only with insects. Bees and ants are not only the sum of individuals; each individual shares a united drive in service of the entire group…. The ethnic state must demand of each individual citizen that he does everything for the good of the whole, each in his place and with his abilities. See Marie Harm and Hermann Wiehle, LebenskundefürMittelschulen. FünfterTeil. (Halle: Hermann SchroedelVerlag, 1942), pp. pp. 168-173.
65. The Poisonous Mushroom “The Experience of Hans and Else with a Strange Man” “The Poisonous Mushroom” “How To Tell A Jew “ “How Jewish Traders Cheat”
66. Popular children’s board game, “JudenRaus!” (Jews Out). By throwing dice, the winner manages to get six Jews out of their homes and businesses (the circles) and on the road to Palestine. It sold over a million copies in 1938, when Nazi policy was forced Jewish emigration.
67. Additions to the Curriculum:Teaching Nazi Racial Ideology Classroom chart entitled "German Youth, Jewish Youth." Published in a textbook on heredity, genealogy, and racial studies. Two Jewish children humiliated in front of the classroom. The blackboard reads: "The Jews are our greatest enemy! Beware of Jews." Racial instruction is to begin with the youngest pupils (six years of age) in accordance with the Führer’s instruction that no boy or girl should leave school without complete knowledge of the necessity and meaning of blood purity. - Bernhard Rust, Reich Minister for Science & Education
68. Additions to the Curriculum:Teaching War Oriented Sports Education in a general way is to be the preparation for later army service. The Army will then not need, as has hitherto been the case, to give the young man a grounding in the simplest exercises and rules…. it should rather change the young man, already physically perfect, into a soldier. - Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Throwing grenades as a school sport. Battle Ball (Kampfball)
69. Media-Newspaper “DerStürmer“, an antisemitic tabloid, was posted on billboards for all to read, under the heading: Die JudensindunserUnglück (The Jews are our Misfortune). VölkischerBeobachter, (“People's Observer”), daily newspaper published by the Nazi Party in Germany from the 1920’s until 1945.
70. Media-Radio Free distribution of radios in honor of Joseph Goebbel’s birthday. Berlin, October 29, 1938. "All Germany hears the Führer on the People's Receiver.“ The Nazis, eager to encourage radio listenership, developed an inexpensive radio receiver to make it possible for as many as possible to hear Nazi propaganda.
71. Media-Film The Eternal Jew, the most famous Nazi propaganda film. Jew Pests, a film aimed at influencing audiences to hate Jews. A propaganda film designed by Nazis for Nazis.
72. Media-Posters "Healthy Parents have Healthy Children." Nazi propaganda poster encouraging healthy Germans to have large families. For young men, service to the totalitarian state meant fighting the Fuhrer's wars, but for women service meant producing racially pure children for the Reich.
73. 1936 Olympics in Berlin German spectators spell out the phrase, directed at Adolf Hitler, "Wirgehoeren Dir" [We belong to you]. The torch lighting ceremony. Jesse Owens' medal ceremony for the long jump. Spectators salute Adolf Hitler during the games.
75. Hitler put people back to work through public works projects and grants to private construction companies.
76. Hitler put people back to work through public works projects and grants to private construction companies.
77. He also embarked on a massive rearmament program to stimulate the economy.
78. Hitler ignored the unfair provisions of the Treaty of Versailles that had ended the Great War. In March of 1935, he created a new air force, the Luftwaffe, and began a military draft.
80. France, Great Britain, and Italy condemned Hitler’s moves, but due to the Great Depression, they took no action. Hitler became convinced they would not stop him from breaking further provisions of the Treaty of Versailles.
83. German forces enter Aachen, on the border with Belgium, following the remilitarization of the Rhineland. Aachen, Germany, March 18, 1936. German civilians salute German forces crossing the Rhine River. Mainz, Germany, March 7, 1936.
84. France would not oppose Germany without British support. Great Britain saw Hitler’s actions as reasonable and did not call for military response. Appeasement: if the reasonable demands of dissatisfied states were met, peace could be preserved
85. As Hitler’s power grew, he gained new allies. In 1935, with the support of German troops, Benito Mussolini, the Fascist leader of Italy ordered the invasion of Ethiopia.
86. In 1936, Germany and Italy supported the Fascist dictator General Francisco Franco during the Spanish Civil War.
89. Late 1936: Hitler and Mussolini formalized their alliance with the Rome-Berlin Axis.
90. Germany also signed the Anti-Comintern Pact with Japan forming an alliance against communism, aimed against the Soviet Union.
91. Anschluss of AustriaMarch 13, 1938 Germany neither intends nor wishes to interfere in the internal affairs of Austria, to annex Austria, or to conclude an Anschluss. - Adolf Hitler, May 21, 1935 A public building in Vienna, adorned with decorations and a large banner bearing a quote from Hitler, "Those of the same blood belong in the same Reich!" Such banners were hung throughout Austria in the weeks preceding the April 10th plebiscite on the incorporation of Austria into the German Reich.
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95. In 1938, Hitler demanded that the German-speaking Sudetenland of northwestern Czechoslovakia be given to Germany.
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97. Munich Conference: British, French, and Italian diplomats gave in to all of Hitler’s demands. German troops moved into Czechoslovakia.
98. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain announced that the settlement meant “peace for our time.”
99. Sudetenland FallsSeptember 1938 Refugees from the Sudetenland, following its annexation by Germany, arrive in Prague, Czechoslovakia, a month later. Signing of the Munich Agreement. From left to right: Chamberlain, Daladier (French), Hitler, Mussolini (Italian), and Ciano (Italian), pictured before signing. German troops march into the town square of Friedland.
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101. Hitler was even more convinced that France and Great Britain would not fight. In March of 1939, Hitler occupied Czech lands of Bohemia and Moravia and made a Nazi puppet state out of Slovakia.
102. Kristallnacht“Night of the Broken Glass” November 9-10, 1938 Their synagogues should be set on fire…their homes should likewise be broken down and destroyed…let us drive them out of the country for all time. - Martin Luther, 1542 Synagogue in Aachen, Germany, built 1862. Synagogue in Aachen after its destruction.
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104. I myself could scarcely believe that such things could occur in a 20th century civilization. - Franklin D. Roosevelt
105. Destruction of Property During Kristallnacht, SA men and Hitler Youth plundered Jewish shops and apartments. By terrorizing the Jews, ruining their businesses and destroying their places of worship, the Nazis hoped to force Jews to leave.
106. Victims of Kristallnacht The arrest of Jews by the SS on Kristallnacht. The deportation of Jewish men on Kristallnacht.
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110. Jewish Emigration The pessimists went into exile, and the optimists went to the gas chamber.
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112. Why Not Leave? The Wallach Family, Munich, 1928. Moritz (dad), Meta (mom), Lotte, Annelise, Fritz, Rolf
113. Evian ConferenceJuly 6 - 15, 1938 Chief American delegate, Myron C. Taylor, addresses delegates. Hotel Royal in Evian-les-Bains, site of the conference.
116. Kindertransport1938-1940 A rescue effort which brought thousands of refugee children to Great Britain from Nazi controlled Europe between December 1938 and 1940.
117. The S.S. St. Louis“Voyage of the Damned” May 13, 1939
