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Summary of the Holocaust
Important Links
For 12 years, from 1933 to 1945, Adolph Hitler led the Nazi political party in trying to achieve their goals: to conquer the world, to establish the German “Master Race,” and to rid the world of undesirable minorities including Jews, Gypsies, the physically and mentally disabled, and political opponents.
As a result of Germany’s economic depression following World War I, Hitler’s speeches and promises excited people, particularly young people, and he began enlisting members in the National Socialist (Nazi) Party. He promised them jobs, a better life, a stronger country and personal superiority, and invited them to help achieve these goals. After seizing power in Germany in 1933, the Nazis eliminated other political parties and the democratic form of government. They changed laws, took away individual rights and freedom of speech, and systematically attacked the rights and property of certain citizens the Nazis considered undesirable, including the Jews.
Hitler established youth camps where children and teens were indoctrinated to unquestioning loyalty to Nazism and to Hitler, and taught to report any opposition to the party, even if it was by their parents. The Nazi movement was followed enthusiastically by thousands of Germans, initially because of the economic success Hitler promised and achieved.
As the Nazis invaded and annexed other countries to the German regime, they built more than a dozen concentration camps and hundreds of smaller labor camps and prison centers. Here, presumed opponents of the regime were imprisoned for months, even years. Later, during World War II, the Nazis redesigned these camps and established new ones for the destruction of unwanted citizens. Auschwitz was one of the larger camps which contained gas chambers and, eventually, crematoria - huge ovens designed to burn, or cremate, hundreds of bodies at once.
Following each invasion, trucks and sealed railroad cattle-cars loaded with Jewish people and non-Jewish citizens the Nazis deemed “undesirable” were shipped to secret destinations. A number of Germans and citizens of the invaded countries tried to protect Jews by hiding them in their homes. Those discovered to be harboring a Jew were shot in public or sent to concentration camps as prisoners.
For a long time, very few individuals outside the camps knew where the prisoners were taken or what happened in the camps because the Nazis withheld and concealed information from public knowledge.
Civil rights were denied, and innocent human beings were arrested and sent to concentration camps where they were starved, tortured, experimented on, and cremated. However, many people were aware of the unjustness, the torture, and the sickness yet did nothing to stop it. The Nazis believed they were a superior "master race" and this justified to them the extermination of others they saw as inferior or less valuable.
As the war escalated, the influx of “undesirables” increased and crematoriums were installed to dispose of bodies more quickly. Mass murders of several thousand Jews took place every day. Some Jews managed to escape and to survive. But by the end of the war, the Nazis had ruthlessly murdered two-thirds of all European Jews. Over six million people of the Jewish heritage were killed outside the lines of battle by the Nazis. In addition, approximately 5,000,000 others including Gypsies, Serbs, Polish intelligensia, resistance fighters and opponents of Nazism, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, habitual criminals, the physically and mentally disabled, and the poor and homeless were killed.
After the war, when the War Crime Trials were held by the International Military Tribunal, a small number of the top Nazi leaders pleaded “not guilty,” saying they were simply following Hitler’s orders. Some were found guilty and executed. However, many others who had collaborated with the Nazi regime escaped to live as free men. The search for these men is still progressing to this day.
To Watch a low resolution version of:
Auschwitz: If You Cried, You Died
Click Below
U.S. Holocaust Museum
www.ushmm.org/education
Southern Poverty Law Center
Combats hate, intolerance and discrimination through education and litigation "Teaching Tolerance" magazine can be downloaded.
http://www.splcenter.org
FBI hate crime stats
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/hatecm.htm
Facing History and Ourselves
Helps students find meaning in the past and recognize the need for participation and responsible decision-making.
Museum of Tolerance-Online Learning Center
Check out all of the additional sites located in the menu bar. "Tools for Tolerance", and the "Simon Wiesenthal Center" site selection are excellent resources
http://www.museumoftolerance.com
The Southern Institute for Education and Research
The Southern Institute is a non-profit race relations center dedicated to improving ethnic relations in the Deep south through tolerance education and communications training. The programs help young people understand the causes and consequences of prejudice by examing the past.
http://www.southerninstitute.info/