Learning Activity: Document Analysis Activity, The Nazi Holocaust

Provide students with copies of the following documents about the Nazi Holocaust and ask them to prepare short classroom presentations which describe what the Holocaust was and how it led to the murder of millions of European Jews, Poles and other Slavs, Gypsies, the mentally ill, homosexuals, and others deemed “undesirable.” Students can continue their research online at the United States Holocaust Museum at www.ushmm.org/, the Anne Frank Center at www.annefrank.com/ and the Houston Holocaust Museum at www.hmh.org/.



DOCUMENT A

What was the Holocaust?*

Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party came to power in Germany in 1933 and were vanquished in 1945 - just 12 years. By the end of the Hitler regime, the world had been plunged into a global world war, Europe was in shambles, and millions had died. Among those lost were over six million Jews - men, women, and children -who were singled out because of their ethnicity and their religion.

This event has come to be called THE HOLOCAUST or the destruction and martyrdom of the European Jews under the Nazi occupation. The word "holocaust" literally means "massive destruction by fire." Millions of people died under the Nazi regime, including political opponents, Poles, other slaves, Gypsies, the mentally ill, homosexuals, and other "undesirables."

Document analysis questions:

(*Adapted from: Robert H. Jackson Center, What was the Holocaust? Robert H. Jackson Center: Jamestown, New York, 2006. www.robertjackson.org.)

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DOCUMENT B

The Holocaust: A Chronology of Events*

1933:
January 30- President Hindenburg appoints Adolf Hitler as Reich Chancellor of the German Republic.
March 23- Dachau, first concentration camp opens outside Munich, Germany.
April 1- Nazis declare a general boycott of all Jewish-owned businesses.
May 10- Nazis burn books owned by Jews and other opponents of Nazism.
1934:
August 2- President Hindenburg dies and Hitler becomes Head of German State and Commander-in-Chief of armed forces.
1935:
September 15- Reichstag (German Parliament) passes anti-Semitic “Nuremberg Laws” which discriminated against Jews and denied them their rights as German citizens.
1936:
October 25- Hitler and Mussolini of Italy form the Rome-to-Berlin Axis (alliance).
November 25- Germany and Japan sign a military pact
1937:
July 16- Buchenwald concentration camp opens in Germany.
1938:
November 9- Kristallnacht (Night of the Broken Glass) anti-Jewish riots in Germany and Austria, synagogues are destroyed and Jewish-owned businesses are looted and destroyed.
November 12- 26,000 Jews are arrested and sent to concentration camps.
November 15- Jewish children are expelled from German schools.
1939:
September 1- German army invades Poland beginning World War II.
September 3- Britain and France declare war on Germany.
October 12- First deportation of Jews from Austria and Moravia to Nazi concentration camps in occupied-Poland.
November 23- Wearing of Judenstern (Jewish six-pointed Star of David) is made compulsory in Nazi-occupied Poland.
1940:
June 14- First Polish political prisoners arrive at Auschwitz concentration camp, in Nazi-occupied Poland.
October- Majdanek concentration camp opens in Nazi-occupied Poland. It becomes an extermination camp in 1942.
1941:
July 31- Reinhard Heydrich is appointed to carry out the “Final Solution” (extermination of all European Jews).
October 14- Deportation of German Jews to concentration camps begins.
December 7- Japanese attack Pearl Harbor; United States enters World War II the following day.
1942:
July 22- Deportation of 300,000 Jews from Warsaw Ghetto (Poland) to Treblinka death camp begins.
1943:
April 19- Jews in Warsaw Ghetto launch an uprising.
May 16- Nazis destroy Warsaw Ghetto.
June 11- Heinrich Himmler orders destruction of all Polish Jewish ghettos.
October 20- United Nations War Crimes Commission is established.
1944:
May 15-June 8- 476,000 Jews are deported from Hungary to Auschwitz.
June 6- D-Day, Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe begins.
November 24- Himmler orders destruction of Auschwitz crematoria as Nazis try to hide evidence of their death camps.
1945:
January 27- Soviet troops liberate Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps.
April 11- American troops liberate Buchenwald concentration camp.
April 29- American troops liberate Dachau concentration camp.
May 8- Germany surrenders and ends World War II in Europe.
September 2- Japan surrenders.
November 22- Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal begins. It concludes its work on October 1, 1946. Twelve defendants were sentenced to death; three to life imprisonment; four to various prison terms; and three were acquitted.

Document analysis questions:

(*Adapted from: Teaching About the Holocaust and Genocide: The Human Rights Series, Volume II (The State Education Department, 1985), pp. 85-87. For copies of this publication contact: www.emsc.nysed.gov/ciai/social.html.]

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DOCUMENT C

Holocaust Vocabulary*

Aryan Race
The Nazis applied the term to people of Northern European racial background. Their aim was to preserve the purity of European blood.
Concentration Camps
Immediately upon their assumption of power on January 30, 1933, the Nazis established concentration camps for the imprisonment of all "enemies" of their regime: Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, and anyone who was considered to be a political opponent of the Nazi regime.
Final Solution
The cover name for the plan to destroy the Jews of Europe: the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question."
Genocide
The deliberate and systematic destruction of a religious, racial, national, or cultural group.
Ghetto
A section of a city where Jews and other unwanted minorities, including gypsies from surrounding areas, were forced to reside. Surrounded by barbed wire or walls, the ghettos were sealed so that people were prevented from leaving or entering. Ghettos were characterized by overcrowding, disease, starvation, and forced labor.
Nuremberg Laws
These were anti-Jewish statutes enacted in 1935 during the Nazi party's national convention in Nuremberg, taking away the civil rights of Jewish citizens. The laws provided the basis for removing Jews from all spheres of German political, social, and economic life.
Resistance
The Resistance is the name given to movements throughout Europe, which worked secretly, and "underground" to oppose Nazi occupations in their countries.
Star of David
A six-pointed star that is the symbol of Judaism. Jews were required by the Nazis to wear the Star of David on their sleeves or the fronts and backs of their shirts and jackets.

Document analysis questions:

(*Taken from: Robert H. Jackson Center, What was the Holocaust? Robert H. Jackson Center: Jamestown, New York, 2006. www.robertjackson.org.)

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DOCUMENT D

Holocaust Telegrams: United States Department of State

TELEGRAM 1:

Telegram 1


TELEGRAM 2:

Telegram 2


TELEGRAM 3:

Telegram 3, part 1


TELEGRAM 3: continued...

Telegram 3, part 2


TELEGRAM 3 (transcribed)

Dr. Stephen Wise, President, American Jewish Congress
330 West 42nd Street; Room 809
New York

Receiving alarming report stating that in Fuehrers headquarters a plan has been discussed and being under consideration according which total of Jews in countries occupied controlled by Germany numbering three and half to four millions should after deportation and concentrated in the East be at one blow exterminated in order to resolve once for all Jewish question in Europe. Action is reported to be planned for autumn ways of execution still discussed. It has been spoken of prussic acid. In transmitting information with all necessary reservation as exactitude cannot be controlled by us beg to state that informer is reported have close connections with highest German authorities and his reports to be generally reliable.

World Jewish Congress

Gerard Riegner



Document analysis activities and questions:

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