Learning Target:
Today I will be able to discuss the major causes of the Holocaust.
-I will be able to connect the conformity and aggression of fascism with hostility to outsiders.
-I will be able to analyze the historic oppression of Jews living in Europe.
-I will be able to explain Jewish acts of resistance to the Holocaust.
-I will be able to use the terms 'Einsatzgruppen' and 'Holocaust' in a piece of writing.
Today I will be able to discuss the major causes of the Holocaust.
-I will be able to connect the conformity and aggression of fascism with hostility to outsiders.
-I will be able to analyze the historic oppression of Jews living in Europe.
-I will be able to explain Jewish acts of resistance to the Holocaust.
-I will be able to use the terms 'Einsatzgruppen' and 'Holocaust' in a piece of writing.
Google Doc: The Holocaust Webquest, Part I
Google Doc: The Holocaust Webquest, part II
Google Doc: The Holocaust Webquest Addendum
Google Doc: The Holocaust Webquest, part II
Google Doc: The Holocaust Webquest Addendum
The Holocaust
The Holocaust is perhaps history’s greatest crime: 12 million people would eventually be killed in the death camps created by the Nazi regime. The targeted peoples consisted of the mentally/physically handicapped, homosexuals, Jews, Romani Gypsies, Slavs, Political Opponents (notably Communists, Socialists, and Liberals) and Soviet POWs.
The Nazi Party’s views on race and ethnicity were hostile to all non-German peoples.
However, it took nearly a decade for the mass exterminations to begin. In 1933, the year in which the Nazis came to power in Germany, a law was passed called the “Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring.” This law created a number of Hereditary Health Courts, whose job was to look into the “racial purity” of the German people. If the court determined that a person was “racially inferior,” these people were forcibly sterilized, which meant that they were unable to have children. 400,000 people were sterilized under this policy.
Some of the first targets of the Nazi race laws were Afro-Germans: the children of German women and their African husbands. At the end of World War I, a number of French colonial soldiers from West Africa were stationed in Germany during the peace process. Many of these soldiers married local women and had children. Hitler referred to these children as a contamination of the white race “by Negro blood on the Rhine (western Germany) in the heart of Europe… Jews were responsible for bringing Negroes into the Rhineland with the ultimate idea of bastardising the white race which they hate and thus lowering its cultural and political level so that the Jew might dominate.” Many of these people were forcibly sterilized. Further, Jazz was banned as “corrupt negro music” and romantic relationships/marriage between Africans and Germans were expressly forbidden. In 1935, the Nazi regime passed the “Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honor.” This law prevented sexual relationships between Germans and Jews, “Gypsies, Negroes and their bastard offspring.”
New laws were introduced during the mid-to-late-1930s which banned Jews and other “racial undesirables” from holding a number of professional jobs in Germany, especially in education, politics, higher education, medicine, and industry. On November 9, 1938, German stormtroopers carried out what is referred to as “Kristallnacht” or The Night of Broken Glass.” This was a campaign of attacks on Jewish communities, which included the killing of 91 Jews, many more being injured, 30,000 arrested and shipped off to concentration camps. By the time the war began, Jewish populations in Germany and its conquered territories were forced into ghettos. Ghettos are segregated communities, often physically walled off from other neighborhoods.
In January of 1940, the Nazis chose the town of Auschwitz in Poland to establish their first death camp. Soon Jews and other “racial undesirables” from across conquered Europe would be being sent to the camp to be murdered. Many more camps were constructed, mostly in Poland. Most of these murders were the result of starvation or the use of gas. Zyklon-B, a cyanide-based pesticide that was invented in the 1920s, was used to murder millions in specially-constructed “gas chambers” at these camps. In total, more than 1.1 million people were killed at Auschwitz alone.
Dr. Josef Mengele, the head of the Institute for Hereditary Biology and Racial Hygiene, oversaw the Nazi human experiments in the camps. These experiments included exposing victims to extreme cold, extreme heat, high pressures, and other terrible conditions to judge the durability of the human body. Due to his deliberate and inexcusable cruelty, Mengele did manage to learn a lot about the human body, much of which informs modern medicine today. Other experiments seemed to have no purpose other than human cruelty, including sewing a pair of twins together in an attempt to create conjoined twins, injecting various dyes into victim’s eyes to see if their eye color could be changed, binding the knees of women who were giving birth together to see how long until the child died, and other horrors. After World War II ended, Mengele’s son Rolf said that his father showed no remorse for his crimes.
The German invasion of the Soviet Union dramatically increased the number of victims being killed. Mobile groups of exterminators, known as SS Einsatzgruppen, followed behind advancing German armies, rounding up “racial undesirables” and exterminating them. They often burned the bodies to remove all evidence of their crimes. Mobile “gas vans” were built, which victims were forced into, gassed with zyklon b, their bodies removed and burned. Eventually members of the Einsatzgruppen had to be given regular breaks away from the front due to the high rate of suicides amongst its members.
After the war turned against Germany, Soviet forces began to advance westwards. The Auschwitz’s leader, Rudolf Hoss, frantically attempted to cover up the crimes they had committed, by destroying records of what was being done there. Even the crematories were blown up. January 27, 1945, Soviet troops captured the camp at Auschwitz, with Hoss escaping westward just ahead of Soviet soldiers. At first, Soviet troops didn’t actually know what the camp was, as it was clear that the victims were not POWs. Vasily Gromadsky, an officer in the 60th Red Army finally decided to open the camp. Gromadsky recalled:
“I realized that they were prisoners and not workers so I called out, ‘You are free, come out!’ They [the prisoners] began rushing towards us, in a big crowd. They were weeping, embracing us and kissing us. I felt a grievance on behalf of mankind that these fascists had made such a mockery of us. It roused me and all the soldiers to go and quickly destroy them [the Nazi guards] and send them to hell."
Eva Mozes, a 10 year old prisoner in Auschwitz who had been experimented on by Dr. Mengele, described being liberated by the Soviets:
“We ran up to them and they gave us hugs, cookies, and chocolate. Being so alone a hug meant more than anybody could imagine because that replaced the human worth that we were starving for. We were not only starved for food but we were starved for human kindness. And the Soviet Army did provide some of that.”
84 days later, with Soviet troops overrunning Berlin, the Adolf Hitler committed suicide in a bunker beneath the city. Rudolf Hoss was later arrested by British soldiers and forced to stand trial at Nuremburg with other Nazi criminals. One American prosecutor at the trials said of Hoss:
“He struck me as a normal person, that was the horrible thing about it. He was cool, objective, matter of fact. ‘This is my war duty. I did my war duty.’ It was like I had to go out and cut down so many trees. So I went out and took my saw and cut the trees down. He was just acting like a normal, unimportant individual. He simply answered the questions, and as far as I could tell, told what happened without emotion. Without emotion. Without a sense of guilt. Not in the slightest apologetic, not in the remotest degree was he apologetic. In a sense, I think he showed a certain pride in his accomplishment.”
Hoss was executed for his crimes.
Other high ranking Nazi officials were able to escape Germany. Many fled to South America, including Josef Mengele. Mengele would live until 1979, when he drowned while swimming off the coast of Brazil. Other Nazi officials were able to hide in Argentina and Brazil, eluding capture.
The Holocaust is perhaps history’s greatest crime: 12 million people would eventually be killed in the death camps created by the Nazi regime. The targeted peoples consisted of the mentally/physically handicapped, homosexuals, Jews, Romani Gypsies, Slavs, Political Opponents (notably Communists, Socialists, and Liberals) and Soviet POWs.
The Nazi Party’s views on race and ethnicity were hostile to all non-German peoples.
However, it took nearly a decade for the mass exterminations to begin. In 1933, the year in which the Nazis came to power in Germany, a law was passed called the “Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring.” This law created a number of Hereditary Health Courts, whose job was to look into the “racial purity” of the German people. If the court determined that a person was “racially inferior,” these people were forcibly sterilized, which meant that they were unable to have children. 400,000 people were sterilized under this policy.
Some of the first targets of the Nazi race laws were Afro-Germans: the children of German women and their African husbands. At the end of World War I, a number of French colonial soldiers from West Africa were stationed in Germany during the peace process. Many of these soldiers married local women and had children. Hitler referred to these children as a contamination of the white race “by Negro blood on the Rhine (western Germany) in the heart of Europe… Jews were responsible for bringing Negroes into the Rhineland with the ultimate idea of bastardising the white race which they hate and thus lowering its cultural and political level so that the Jew might dominate.” Many of these people were forcibly sterilized. Further, Jazz was banned as “corrupt negro music” and romantic relationships/marriage between Africans and Germans were expressly forbidden. In 1935, the Nazi regime passed the “Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honor.” This law prevented sexual relationships between Germans and Jews, “Gypsies, Negroes and their bastard offspring.”
New laws were introduced during the mid-to-late-1930s which banned Jews and other “racial undesirables” from holding a number of professional jobs in Germany, especially in education, politics, higher education, medicine, and industry. On November 9, 1938, German stormtroopers carried out what is referred to as “Kristallnacht” or The Night of Broken Glass.” This was a campaign of attacks on Jewish communities, which included the killing of 91 Jews, many more being injured, 30,000 arrested and shipped off to concentration camps. By the time the war began, Jewish populations in Germany and its conquered territories were forced into ghettos. Ghettos are segregated communities, often physically walled off from other neighborhoods.
In January of 1940, the Nazis chose the town of Auschwitz in Poland to establish their first death camp. Soon Jews and other “racial undesirables” from across conquered Europe would be being sent to the camp to be murdered. Many more camps were constructed, mostly in Poland. Most of these murders were the result of starvation or the use of gas. Zyklon-B, a cyanide-based pesticide that was invented in the 1920s, was used to murder millions in specially-constructed “gas chambers” at these camps. In total, more than 1.1 million people were killed at Auschwitz alone.
Dr. Josef Mengele, the head of the Institute for Hereditary Biology and Racial Hygiene, oversaw the Nazi human experiments in the camps. These experiments included exposing victims to extreme cold, extreme heat, high pressures, and other terrible conditions to judge the durability of the human body. Due to his deliberate and inexcusable cruelty, Mengele did manage to learn a lot about the human body, much of which informs modern medicine today. Other experiments seemed to have no purpose other than human cruelty, including sewing a pair of twins together in an attempt to create conjoined twins, injecting various dyes into victim’s eyes to see if their eye color could be changed, binding the knees of women who were giving birth together to see how long until the child died, and other horrors. After World War II ended, Mengele’s son Rolf said that his father showed no remorse for his crimes.
The German invasion of the Soviet Union dramatically increased the number of victims being killed. Mobile groups of exterminators, known as SS Einsatzgruppen, followed behind advancing German armies, rounding up “racial undesirables” and exterminating them. They often burned the bodies to remove all evidence of their crimes. Mobile “gas vans” were built, which victims were forced into, gassed with zyklon b, their bodies removed and burned. Eventually members of the Einsatzgruppen had to be given regular breaks away from the front due to the high rate of suicides amongst its members.
After the war turned against Germany, Soviet forces began to advance westwards. The Auschwitz’s leader, Rudolf Hoss, frantically attempted to cover up the crimes they had committed, by destroying records of what was being done there. Even the crematories were blown up. January 27, 1945, Soviet troops captured the camp at Auschwitz, with Hoss escaping westward just ahead of Soviet soldiers. At first, Soviet troops didn’t actually know what the camp was, as it was clear that the victims were not POWs. Vasily Gromadsky, an officer in the 60th Red Army finally decided to open the camp. Gromadsky recalled:
“I realized that they were prisoners and not workers so I called out, ‘You are free, come out!’ They [the prisoners] began rushing towards us, in a big crowd. They were weeping, embracing us and kissing us. I felt a grievance on behalf of mankind that these fascists had made such a mockery of us. It roused me and all the soldiers to go and quickly destroy them [the Nazi guards] and send them to hell."
Eva Mozes, a 10 year old prisoner in Auschwitz who had been experimented on by Dr. Mengele, described being liberated by the Soviets:
“We ran up to them and they gave us hugs, cookies, and chocolate. Being so alone a hug meant more than anybody could imagine because that replaced the human worth that we were starving for. We were not only starved for food but we were starved for human kindness. And the Soviet Army did provide some of that.”
84 days later, with Soviet troops overrunning Berlin, the Adolf Hitler committed suicide in a bunker beneath the city. Rudolf Hoss was later arrested by British soldiers and forced to stand trial at Nuremburg with other Nazi criminals. One American prosecutor at the trials said of Hoss:
“He struck me as a normal person, that was the horrible thing about it. He was cool, objective, matter of fact. ‘This is my war duty. I did my war duty.’ It was like I had to go out and cut down so many trees. So I went out and took my saw and cut the trees down. He was just acting like a normal, unimportant individual. He simply answered the questions, and as far as I could tell, told what happened without emotion. Without emotion. Without a sense of guilt. Not in the slightest apologetic, not in the remotest degree was he apologetic. In a sense, I think he showed a certain pride in his accomplishment.”
Hoss was executed for his crimes.
Other high ranking Nazi officials were able to escape Germany. Many fled to South America, including Josef Mengele. Mengele would live until 1979, when he drowned while swimming off the coast of Brazil. Other Nazi officials were able to hide in Argentina and Brazil, eluding capture.