The Holocaust
Resources
1. Conspiracy: A Film about the Wannasee Conference in 1942 – the conference where the plan for the Final Solution was drawn up. The film delves into the psychology of the Nazi perpetrators responsible for the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question”. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPIctGbAZEQ
1. Conspiracy: A Film about the Wannasee Conference in 1942 – the conference where the plan for the Final Solution was drawn up. The film delves into the psychology of the Nazi perpetrators responsible for the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question”. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPIctGbAZEQ
2. The Last Days: Documentary by Steven Spielberg featuring the heart wrenching stories of Hungarian Jew survivors of the Holocaust. Explains the motives and reasons for the massive exodus of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz in 1944, when Nazi Germany was already losing the war. Also available on Netflix. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtKhjry_nGs
3. Night by Elie Wiesel
http://lisajolly.wikispaces.com/file/view/Elie%20Wiesel%20-%20Night%20FULL%20TEXT.pdf/418017210/Elie%20Wiesel%20-%20Night%20FULL%20TEXT.pdf
Night is the terrifying record of Elie Wiesel’s memories of the Holocaust. The book tells of the death of his family, the death of his own innocence, and his despair as a deeply observant Jew confronting the absolute evil of man.
4. Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl
http://worldtracker.org/media/library/Psychology/Man's%20Search%20For%20Meaning%20-%20Viktor%20E.%20Frankl.pdf
“Called ‘one of the great books of our time’ Man’s Search for Meaning has riveted generations of readers with its descriptions of life in Nazi death camps and its lessons for spiritual survival. Between 1942 and 1945 psychiatrist Viktor Frankl labored in four different camps, including Auschwitz, while his parents, brother, and pregnant wife perished. Based on his own experience and the stories of his many patients, Frankl argues that we cannot avoid suffering but we can choose how to cope with it, find meaning and move forward with renewed purpose.”
5. Ordinary Men: The Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the final solution in Poland. By Christopher Browning
Review: http://www.nytimes.com/1992/04/12/books/the-men-who-pulled-the-triggers.html
This book explain how a unit of average, middle aged Germans became cold blooded murderers of tens of thousands of Jews. Browning argues that the perpetrators of the Final solution in Poland were without doubt ordinary men: in this group of 500 policeman, most were in their 30's and 40's -- too old for conscription into the army -- and of middle- or lower-class origins. They included men who, before the war, had been professional policemen as well as businessmen, dockworkers, truck drivers, construction workers, machine operators, waiters, druggists and teachers. Only a minority were members of the Nazi Party, and only a few belonged to the SS. During their stay in Poland they participated in the shootings, or the transport to the Treblinka gas chambers, of at least 83,000 Jews. The book also documents the fact that had the police officers refused to partake in the shootings they would have been excused from duty, without repercussions, but because they were so convinced of the ethical merits of their cause, most participated in the killings of innocent men, women , children, and elderly. After reading the book, the reader is faced with the glaring truth, a chilling encounter with the awful banality of evil. For, if the men of Reserve Police Battalion 101 could become killers under such circumstances, what group of men cannot?
6. Yad Vashem, an excellent resource website dedicated to the four pillars of remembrance of the Holocaust: Commemoration, documentation, research and education. Provides in-depth information about the Holocaust and also includes a special segment on the “righteous among the nations”, those who helped save or rescue Jews from their oppressors.
http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/about/index.asp
7. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: very informative website with many class applicable resources including films and primary sources.
http://www.ushmm.org/learn
8. Anti-Semitism from Mein Kampf
"The Jew is a race, but not at all human…
For hours the black-haired Jewish boy lies in wait, with satanic joy on his face, for the unsuspecting girl whom he disgraces with his blood and thereby robs her from her people
The Jew is the big rabble-rouser for the complete destruction of Germany. Wherever in the world we read about attacks on Germany, Jews are the source…
If our people and our state become the victims of blood thirsty and money- thirsty Jewish tyrants, the whole world will be enmeshed in the tentacles of this octopus."
9. Brutality of the SS guards in the work camps :
"During work the SS men beat up the prisoners mercilessly, inhumanly, and for no reason. They were like wild beasts and, having found their victim, ordered him to present his backside, and beat him with a stick or a whip, usually until the stick broke. The victim screamed only after the first blows, afterwards he fell unconscious and the SS man then kicked at the ribs, the face, at the most sensitive parts of a man’s body and then, finally convinced that the victim was at the end of his strength, he ordered another Jew to pour one pail of water after the other over the beaten person until he woke and got up.
Another customary SS habit was to kick a Jew with a heavy boot. The Jew was forced to stand to attention, and all the while the SS man kicked him until he broke some bones. People who stood near enough to such a victim, often heard the breaking of bones. The pain was so terrible that people, having undergone that treatment, died in agony. "
From “Concentration Camp Life and Death” by Y. Pfeffer
http://lisajolly.wikispaces.com/file/view/Elie%20Wiesel%20-%20Night%20FULL%20TEXT.pdf/418017210/Elie%20Wiesel%20-%20Night%20FULL%20TEXT.pdf
Night is the terrifying record of Elie Wiesel’s memories of the Holocaust. The book tells of the death of his family, the death of his own innocence, and his despair as a deeply observant Jew confronting the absolute evil of man.
4. Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl
http://worldtracker.org/media/library/Psychology/Man's%20Search%20For%20Meaning%20-%20Viktor%20E.%20Frankl.pdf
“Called ‘one of the great books of our time’ Man’s Search for Meaning has riveted generations of readers with its descriptions of life in Nazi death camps and its lessons for spiritual survival. Between 1942 and 1945 psychiatrist Viktor Frankl labored in four different camps, including Auschwitz, while his parents, brother, and pregnant wife perished. Based on his own experience and the stories of his many patients, Frankl argues that we cannot avoid suffering but we can choose how to cope with it, find meaning and move forward with renewed purpose.”
5. Ordinary Men: The Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the final solution in Poland. By Christopher Browning
Review: http://www.nytimes.com/1992/04/12/books/the-men-who-pulled-the-triggers.html
This book explain how a unit of average, middle aged Germans became cold blooded murderers of tens of thousands of Jews. Browning argues that the perpetrators of the Final solution in Poland were without doubt ordinary men: in this group of 500 policeman, most were in their 30's and 40's -- too old for conscription into the army -- and of middle- or lower-class origins. They included men who, before the war, had been professional policemen as well as businessmen, dockworkers, truck drivers, construction workers, machine operators, waiters, druggists and teachers. Only a minority were members of the Nazi Party, and only a few belonged to the SS. During their stay in Poland they participated in the shootings, or the transport to the Treblinka gas chambers, of at least 83,000 Jews. The book also documents the fact that had the police officers refused to partake in the shootings they would have been excused from duty, without repercussions, but because they were so convinced of the ethical merits of their cause, most participated in the killings of innocent men, women , children, and elderly. After reading the book, the reader is faced with the glaring truth, a chilling encounter with the awful banality of evil. For, if the men of Reserve Police Battalion 101 could become killers under such circumstances, what group of men cannot?
6. Yad Vashem, an excellent resource website dedicated to the four pillars of remembrance of the Holocaust: Commemoration, documentation, research and education. Provides in-depth information about the Holocaust and also includes a special segment on the “righteous among the nations”, those who helped save or rescue Jews from their oppressors.
http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/about/index.asp
7. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: very informative website with many class applicable resources including films and primary sources.
http://www.ushmm.org/learn
8. Anti-Semitism from Mein Kampf
"The Jew is a race, but not at all human…
For hours the black-haired Jewish boy lies in wait, with satanic joy on his face, for the unsuspecting girl whom he disgraces with his blood and thereby robs her from her people
The Jew is the big rabble-rouser for the complete destruction of Germany. Wherever in the world we read about attacks on Germany, Jews are the source…
If our people and our state become the victims of blood thirsty and money- thirsty Jewish tyrants, the whole world will be enmeshed in the tentacles of this octopus."
9. Brutality of the SS guards in the work camps :
"During work the SS men beat up the prisoners mercilessly, inhumanly, and for no reason. They were like wild beasts and, having found their victim, ordered him to present his backside, and beat him with a stick or a whip, usually until the stick broke. The victim screamed only after the first blows, afterwards he fell unconscious and the SS man then kicked at the ribs, the face, at the most sensitive parts of a man’s body and then, finally convinced that the victim was at the end of his strength, he ordered another Jew to pour one pail of water after the other over the beaten person until he woke and got up.
Another customary SS habit was to kick a Jew with a heavy boot. The Jew was forced to stand to attention, and all the while the SS man kicked him until he broke some bones. People who stood near enough to such a victim, often heard the breaking of bones. The pain was so terrible that people, having undergone that treatment, died in agony. "
From “Concentration Camp Life and Death” by Y. Pfeffer
Images:
The Ghetto
The Ghetto
1941-1942: The first phase of the Final Solution in the Soviet Union: Here a group of Jewish women are in the process of undressing before they are shot by members of the Einsatzgruppen
Final Solution (1941-42): A women and child are shot by a member of the German killing squad (Einsatzgruppen)
The Final Solution in German occupied regions of the Soviet Union (1941-1942)
Shoes and other belongings from Jews at the Auschwitz extermination camp, 1945.
Image of the crematoria used to burn bodies the Zonderkommandos removed from the gas chambers
Map of the network of Concentration and Death camps during the Final Solution (1942-1945)