Holocaust
By: Abby Green, Reagan Webb, Jordy Gleason
Adolf Hitler
General Facts
- The holocaust was the genocide (mass killing) of the Jewish people, homosexuals, gypsies, disabled people, people with mental illnesses, and people he felt racially inferior to.
- Ironically, Hitler had this perfect human race in his mind, the Aryan race, (blonde hair, blue eyes) and if you didn't meet the look of an Aryan, you were killed by the Nazi soldiers. Yet he didn't meet the Aryan Race description himself.
- One of the most famous ways to kill people during the holocaust was through medical experiments preformed by Dr. Josef Mengele and any Nazi soldier that Dr.Mengele taught his practices to, and through gas chambers.
- The most violent concentration camp, and most famous, was Auschwitz in Poland, where nearly 190,000 people were killed.
Concentration Camps
- There are 751 known concentration camps that were used during the holocaust
- 5.5 million Jewish people were killed in the camps.
- Death camps are where the Jewish people were sent, after they were taken from the ghettos they were put in by the German soldiers. They were not allowed to bring anything with them but some brought what little food they had. They got to the death camps by cattle cars that had way too many people in them at one time. Some would die on the way to the camps from dehydration, or being starved to death. The cattle cars were so crowded that they could not sit for the four day ride, people were forced to use the cattle cars that they had to stay in as bathrooms. When they got to the death camps they were separated into two groups, women and children together and men. Families were broken up and most likely that was the last time that you saw your loved ones.
- In death camps the prisoners were starved to death, and slept in small rooms on the hard floor or multiple people would stack onto bunk beds made from shelves and hay.
Nazi Soldiers
Their motto was "Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer" in English that translates to "One People, one Reich, one Leader"
They were taken from their homes on Sundays at a young age and were brainwashed by Hitlers propaganda, their parents had no idea what they were being taught. They were taught to have judgment over people that were not the "perfect human" and that those people needed to be killed and not to have feeling about what they were doing.
"Labor makes you free"
A sign at the entrance of a concentration camp
Gas chamber
A gas chamber where the prisoners would go into and suffocate from poisonous gasses
Cattle cars
This is a picture of a cattle car that the Jewish people would be put in to be taken to the concentration camps
Nazi eugenics
Nazi eugenics were the Nazi's racially based social policies that placed the improvement and expandment of the Aryan race. The people targeted by this policy were identified as "life unworthy of life", or in simpler terms, people not worthy of living, included criminals, degenerates (immoral people), slow-minded people, homosexuals, insane people, and people who were disabled, for elimination from the chain of heredity, in other words, killed so they couldn't have kids like themselves.
More than 400,000 people were taken against their will to concentration camps where medical experiments were preformed on them or they were shot because of these policies.
Medical Experiments
Experiments in the Ravensbrück concentration camp were to study bone, muscle, and nerve regeneration, and bone transplantation from one person to another. Sections of bones, muscles, and nerves were removed from the subjects without use of anesthesia. As a result of these operations, many victims suffered intense agony, mutilation, and permanent disability.
Other experiments preformed on prisoners were things like malaria experiments (given the disease and then given different type of treatments to see if they would cure it), sulfur gas experiments (victims skin would be blistered and burned), sea water experiments (given sea water with different chemicals to try and make it drinkable), experiments with poison, and high altitude experiments. Dr. Mengele would also do experiments on pregnant women. If they survived the experimentation they were usually sent to the gas chambers after wards, if the camp that they were at didn't have gas chambers then they were shot.
Anne Frank
In her diary she wrote, "Despite everything, I believe that people are really good at heart."
Essential questions
2. what did Hitler do to get childern to become Nazi soliers?