What Was The Holocaust?

Submitted By Veti-Hughes
Words: 1256
Pages: 6

What was the Holocaust?
In pairs jot down anything you already know about the
Holocaust

Holocaust
• Under the cover of the Second World War the
Nazis tried to kill every Jewish person in
Europe this event is know as the Holocaust.
• Six million Jews, including 1,500,000 children were murdered: this is called the Holocaust
The Nazis were responsib le Political
&
religious prisoner Concentratio n/ Death camps Gas chambers Steps to Genocide
• When Hitler came to power he wanted to drive the Jews out of Germany.

• By 1940 he wanted to force the Jews out of Europe.

• By 1942 death camps were being built in Poland to murder every Jewish person the Nazis could lay their hands on.

In 1942, the Nazis began the systematic deportation of Jews from all over Europe to six extermination camps Chelmno, Belzec,
Sobibor, Treblinka, Auschwitz-Birkenau, and
Majdanek.

Deportation

• Trains from every country under Hitler’s control were crowded with men, women and children to death camps located in Poland.
• This final journey could take days in crowded trucks.

What happened at the Killing centres? • The victims then went through a selection process. Men were separated from women and children.
• The SS officer’s then pointed to the left or the right; victims did not know that individuals were being selected to live or die.

Nazi deception
These women and children are waiting in a small birch grove outside one of the gas chambers

Those who had been selected to die were led to gas chambers.
In order to prevent panic, camp guards told the victims that they were going to take a shower.

Auschwitz

Auschwitz was the largest camp established by the
Germans. It was a complex of camps, including a concentration, extermination, and forced-labour camp

Extermination by gas Extermination through work

•Jews not selected for murder in the gas chambers were to be worked to death.
• More than 2 million men, women and children were forced into labour.
• Most prisoners only survived a few weeks or months.

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Source 1 — Estimates of Jewish populations pre- and post-Holocaust (1939–1945)
Derived from Chartock, R & Spencer, J (Eds) 1978, The Holocaust Years; Society on Trial, Bantam Books, New York

Country

Jews pre-holocaust

Jews annihilated

Estimated %

Poland

3,300,000

3,000,000

90

Baltic countries

253,000

228,000

90

Germany/Austria

240,000

210,000

90

Bohemia/Moravia

90,000

80,000

89

Slovakia

90,000

75,000

83

Greece

70,000

54,000

77

The Netherlands

140,000

105,000

75

Hungary

650,000

450,000

70

SSR White Russia

375,000

245,000

65

1,500,000

900,000

60

Belgium

65,000

40,000

60

Yugoslavia

43,000

26,000

60

Rumania

600,000

300,000

50

Norway

1,800

900

50

France

350,000

90,000

26

Bulgaria

64,000

14,000

22

Italy

40,000

8,000

20

Luxembourg

5,000

1,000

20

975,000

107,000

11

Denmark

8,000

-

Finland

2,000

-

8,861,800

5,933,900

67

SSR Ukraine

Russia

Total

Source 2 — Holocaust Europe

Polish Jews.org, http://polishjews.org/shoah/shoahcmp.htm

Source 3 — Extract from The Diary of Anne Frank, 1942

Anne Frank and her family lived in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The Franks were Jews and were forced into hiding in July 1942 as persecutions of the Jews by the Nazis increased. After 2 years in hiding, they were found and transported to concentration camps. Anne and her sister Margot were sent to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp where they both died of typhus in early 1945. Anne was 16 years old. During their time in hiding, Anne kept a diary.
Anne’s diary was recovered after the war and was later published.
19 November 1942
Mr. Dussel has told us so much about the outside world we’ve missed for so long. He had sad news. Countless friends and acquaintances have been taken off to a dreadful fate. Night after night, green and gray military vehicles cruise the streets. They knock on every door, asking whether