The Holocaust was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews during World War II. The Holocaust was a planned event by Nazi Germany to deliberately exterminate the Jewish people under the leadership of Adolf Hitler. The “Final Solution” was the Nazi policy and idea of exterminating European Jews. This plan was introduced by Heinrich Himmler and administered by Adolf Eichmann, and ultimately resulted in the murder of 6 million Jews in concentration camps between 1941 and 1945. The Nazis used concentration camps, death strategies, food, treatment, labor, gas chambers, clothing, and age and gender as major elements that reflected the treatment of those captured. Students will understand the stages that initiated the extermination, such as the legislation to remove the Jewish population from civil society which was enacted years before the outbreak of World War II. Slave labor by the Jews was used until they died of exhaustion, disease, or punishment. Constant trips were made by freight train to the extermination camps and the conditions faced during this trip were deadly, suffocating, and unsanitary. Relationships towards Nazi Germans and the Jewish people played a major role in the Holocaust and caused for both positive and negative effects. With victims having to leave their families and soldiers having to kill, many people made very diverse choices in how they planned to survive or treat them system.
While most Nazi soldiers were so brainwashed and frightened of Hitler and his elite associates that they killed and did what they were told, some German Nazis strayed from the pack to help the Jewish people.
Students will look at propaganda used that portrayed a typical Jew and explore how this added and affected the perception and opinion of other people. Students will analyze Hitler’s tactics and see how his ability to speak and hold an audience’s attention helped with gaining a majority of his power. Students will inspect the typical dress that had to be worn by Jews such as the yellow star and other ways they were differentiated from the rest. The students will understand the importance of having the pieces of clothing and the repercussions that can happen from not displaying it. Students will look at how the lack of food destroyed the victims both physically and mentally and was used as a way to control and manipulate the victims.
With Jews in Germany were being persecuted, the United States Department's attitude was influenced mostly by the economic hardships of the Depression occurring during this time. Because of the economic problems being faced in the United States, people began to ignorantly intensify their anti-semitic ideology and separated themselves from the problem of the Jews with racist thought being a major cause. The number of entry visas was further limited by the Department's inflexible application of a restrictive Immigration Law passed by the US Congress in 1924.
In the start of the 1940s, the United States further limited immigration by ordering US representatives to postpone visa approvals on the grounds of national security. After entering World War II in December 1941, the already low amount of immigration virtually dried up just as the Nazi regime began systematically to murder the Jews of Europe. Despite many obstacles, however, more than 200,000 Jews found refuge in the United States from 1933 to 1945, most of them before the end of 1941. While American anti-semitism occurred towards the Jews, it was no where close to the intense hatred that was seen in Nazi Germany.
While most Nazi soldiers were so brainwashed and frightened of Hitler and his elite associates that they killed and did what they were told, some German Nazis strayed from the pack to help the Jewish people.
Students will look at propaganda used that portrayed a typical Jew and explore how this added and affected the perception and opinion of other people. Students will analyze Hitler’s tactics and see how his ability to speak and hold an audience’s attention helped with gaining a majority of his power. Students will inspect the typical dress that had to be worn by Jews such as the yellow star and other ways they were differentiated from the rest. The students will understand the importance of having the pieces of clothing and the repercussions that can happen from not displaying it. Students will look at how the lack of food destroyed the victims both physically and mentally and was used as a way to control and manipulate the victims.
With Jews in Germany were being persecuted, the United States Department's attitude was influenced mostly by the economic hardships of the Depression occurring during this time. Because of the economic problems being faced in the United States, people began to ignorantly intensify their anti-semitic ideology and separated themselves from the problem of the Jews with racist thought being a major cause. The number of entry visas was further limited by the Department's inflexible application of a restrictive Immigration Law passed by the US Congress in 1924.
In the start of the 1940s, the United States further limited immigration by ordering US representatives to postpone visa approvals on the grounds of national security. After entering World War II in December 1941, the already low amount of immigration virtually dried up just as the Nazi regime began systematically to murder the Jews of Europe. Despite many obstacles, however, more than 200,000 Jews found refuge in the United States from 1933 to 1945, most of them before the end of 1941. While American anti-semitism occurred towards the Jews, it was no where close to the intense hatred that was seen in Nazi Germany.