Holocaust



** Things we've learned about prejudice, genocide, and the Holocaust: **


 * Poland had the largest population of Jewish people.
 * Many Jews were forced into ghettos.
 * Jews were not the only ones being forced into concentration camps.
 * Around 6 million Jews were killed.
 * About 5 million non-Jews were killed also.
 * By 1945, two out of every three Jews had been killed.
 * The Nazis used propaganda to spread their Anti-Seminist beliefs against the non-Aryans.
 * Hitler believed that there was one perfect race, the Aryans.
 * The first organized attack on Jews was //Kristallnacht,// "The Night of Broken Glass."
 * During //Kristallnacht,// Nazi officials disguised themselves as civilians. They killed over 1000 Jews and dragged 20,000 Jews to concentration camps.
 * Some of the non-Jewish victims were homosexuals and people who were physically or mentally handicapped.
 * There were three main types of camps; Work Camps, Death Camps, and Transit Camps.
 * In the death camps they used gas chambers and crematories to exterminate the non-Aryans.
 * People also died from starvation and disease.
 * After the people were saved from the camps, many of them still died.
 * Jews were transported to concentration camps in boxcars.
 * Since Poland had the largest population of Jewish people, most of the concentration camps were located in Poland.
 * There were three steps to Hitler's extermination process.
 * Many families were separated in the camps and never saw each other again.
 * There were only six death camps across Europe.
 * Joseph Mengele was called "The Angel of Death" during the Holocaust.
 * Auschwitz was the biggest death camp during the Holocaust.
 * __The Diary of Anne Frank__ was one the most widely read stories about the Holocaust.
 * One of the camps was frequently visited by the Red Cross to check on the prisoners.
 * When the Red Cross visited the camps, the SS would set up a fake scenery to say they didn't abuse the Jews.
 * The term "Final Solution" referred to the extermination of Jews.
 * Jews were stripped from their citizenship, possessions, and expelled from Germany.
 * Other non-Jewish victims were Gypsies, blacks, and Jehovah's witness.
 * Genocide-the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group.
 * The Holocaust lasted from around 1941 until 1945.
 * "Zyklon B" was an extremely toxic pesticide used to exterminate vast numbers of Jews.
 * Death camps were built to kill, not hold, prisoners.
 * Heinrich Himmler was the second most powerful Nazi behind Hitler
 * 1.5 million children were killed during the Holocaust
 * Some Jews had passports to go to another country, but were sent back because their were to many of them.
 * The Jews got a piece of bread for three days.
 * "I Never Saw Another Butterfly" was a song sang by young boys in the Holocaust.
 * In the Warsaw ghetto 43,000 were killed from disease and starvation alone in 1941.
 * "Einsatzgruppen" or "task groups" killed Jews, Gypsies, and active communists.
 * Many countries, including America, barred the emigration of many Jews.
 * They barred Jewish emigration to not excede their emigration quotas.
 * More than half the Jews in the Holocaust were systematically exterminated by either gas chambers or a crematorium system.
 * The Wansee conference in Berlin thought up the "Final Solution" on January 20, 1942.
 * Often to pass time, Jews would play games. The games consisted of their lice infestation. They would see who could pick the most nits out of each others hair. It was kind of like a race.
 * When they were taken to the camps, women and young children would go to one side, and men and strong, older children would go to the other. Often, the women and young children were sent to the crematory.
 * If women had babies during the Holocaust, then the babies were taken and killed because they couldn't work.
 * Babies were often thrown up in the air and shot, like target practice.
 * The German would have the sick, injured or old people who couldnt work,strip their clothes and tell them that they were going to go take a shower,but really they were sent into gas chambers to suffocate and die.
 * If the jews that were in the camps had families sometimes they would give a family member a peice of their bread.
 * Oskar Schindler saved 1,100 Jews in his "ammo" factory.
 * Many of the Nazis used visous German Shepherd dogs to both frighten and attack the Jews.
 * The camps had very bad conditions such as mud mixed with human fecies.
 * Palestine barred refugees just as America and other countries did the same.
 * There were 14 Concentration camps in Europe.
 * There were 7 Death camps in Europe.
 * I have learned that the Red Cross already knew what was going on at Terezin when they had arrived to inspect it.
 * I learned that more than just Jews were killed in the Holocaust.
 * I learned about the "Perfect Race", blonde hair and blue eyes.
 * I learned that they entertained themselves by seeing who could pick the most lice eggs out of their hair.
 * I learned that there are still Nazi followers being punished.
 * I learned that Jews had to wear a star to show that they were Jews, and if the were caught not wearing it, they would get killed.
 * Ms. Bogart travels to teach people about the Holocaust and the result of being prejudice so that nothing like that would happen again.
 * Some Jews in concentration camps secretly wrote a Jewish prayer on the walls of the place where they were being held.
 * Anything that was of any value to the Jews was taken away such as their home, hair, jewelry, money and their family.
 * Victims of genocide would hide money and anything of value in hiding places such as cups with fake bottoms, so no one would find them.
 * Some Catholics were put into concentration camp even though Hitler had an agreement with the Pope.
 * Lisl Bogart was seperated from her family. Her family was sent to Auschwits. Her whole family was killed.
 * The camp Mrs. Bogart was at had to pretend it was a good village type place when the Red Cross came in.
 * To keep their sanity, Jews played games, such as seeing who could pick the most lice off each other.
 * Jews did not have toliets in the camp, they had a bucket in their room that hundreds of people used.
 * Anne Frank and her family were hidden from the Nazi`s in WWII.
 * Anne Frank was killed in a factort by Nazi`s.
 * In some camps if you were sick the would kill you by putting you in gas chambers.
 * I learned that when many Jews were held in concentration camps they only had one bowl to keep for food or anything else they needed.
 * Many people starved to death and looked like nothing but skeletons.
 * Nazis would throw babies into the air and shoot them!
 * Nazis would sometimes burn people alive!
 * Zyklon B, the above mentioned pesticide used to kill Jews was mainly used for rats.
 * To the Germans, Jews were just like rats, a waste of space and things that needed to be killed.
 * The Germans killed all of these Jews without one care in the world because they were "bettering the world."
 * The German soldiers would search for anything the Jews would write on.
 * When they took the Jews to the gas chambers they told them that they were taking them to the showers.
 * Homosexuals and handicapped people were also killed.
 * They operated on certain people without anesthesia.
 * Adolf Hitler was the leader of the Nazi Party
 * Many soldiers taken hostage by the Germans were put in concentration camps.
 * The Nazis had samples of hair and skulls and nose length to identify Jews.
 * Auschwitz had many smaller camps under its ruling.
 * Jews were transported in cattle cars with not even hardly enough room to move.
 * Auschwitz had many sub camps.
 * Lisl Bogart and Elie Wiesel were two of the few survivors.
 * During the Holocaust, German authorities also targeted other groups because of their perceived "racial inferiority".
 * In the final months of the war, SS guards moved camp inmates by train or on forced marches, often called "death marches".
 * There was a German industrialist named Oskar Schindler who was known for saving 1200 Jews.
 * Hitler killed himself.
 * There were about 5 million non-Jewish victims

Even though that the Holocaust is a great tragedy in the world's history, and most who found out about it were mortified, similar situations are still going on involving horrific acts of genocide. Genocide is far from dead, especially in parts of Africa