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Holocaust: Completely burnt

Yom Hashoah: Holocaust Remembrance

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The Holocaust: Topics of Discussion• Questions Students Ask• Significant Dates• Maps of Jewish Population• What is Propaganda and how was it used?• Groups targeted by the Hitler and the Third Reich• The Master Race: Racism, Eugenics, & Lebensborn• Methodology of the Third Reich or German Empire• Sho’ah: A Calamity (Historical Photo Essay)• What the Allies and Liberators found• Children in Crisis: Voices of the Holocaust• Righteous Among the Nations: The Rescuers• Holocaust-related Themes• Holocaust-related Literature & film• Proactive: What can you do?• References

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Questions Students Often Ask

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Why is it Important to Remember the Holocaust?

• Apathy – indifference, disinterest, or lack of concern can bring about a repetition of historical mistakes

• As stated by Martin Niemoller (1892-1964), a German pastor, summarizing a lesson we all can learn, “In Germany, the Nazis came for the Communists and I didn’t speak up because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the Jews and I didn’t speak up because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the labor unionists and I didn’t speak up because I was not a labor unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I was a Protestant so I didn’t speak up. Then they came for me….By that time there was no one to speak up for anyone.”

• Denial – because there are individuals and groups who do not want to face the truth, even when evidence is overwhelming; so we need to confront denial and teach those who are willing to learn the truth, hoping that these horrors will not happen again.

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What does “Holocaust” mean?

•Holocaust (from the Greek holókauston from olon “completely” and kauston “burnt.”) Holocaust means a “burnt sacrifice” or “complete destruction by fire,” “a mass destruction of any kind,” “a sacrifice that is totally consumed by fire.” Another term is Sho’ah (A Calamity).

• The Holocaust refers to a specific genocidal event in twentieth-century history: the state-sponsored, systematic persecution and annihilation of European Jewry by Nazi Germany and its collaborators between 1933 and 1945. Jews were the primary victims.

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Were there other groups targeted by the Nazis?

• Roma (Gypsies) – targeted on racial grounds as Roma or “work shy” and asocial, unproductive & socially unfit (among the first to be transported to the Lodz ghetto & the first to be killed in mobile gas vans) one million gypsies lived in Europe, 220,000 were killed by the Germans & their allies.

• Poles & Slavic peoples – Nazis considered them inferior; they were slated for subjugation, forced labor, and eventual annihilation. Poles who were considered ideologically dangerous, including thousands of intellectuals and Catholic priests. Between 1939 to 1945 1.5 million Poles were deported to German territory for forced labor. Estimate is 1.9 million non-Jewish Polish citizens were killed.

• Jehovah’s Witnesses – refusing to salute Hitler—a part of their religious beliefs, thousands were killed (Helene Gotthold beheaded on Dec. 8, 1944 for her beliefs)

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Other Groups Targeted by the Nazis

• The Mentally & physically challenged (or disabled)—Euthanasia Program- “In Nazi usage, ‘euthanasia’ was a euphemistic term for a clandestine program which targeted for systematic killing institutionalized mentally and physically disabled patients, without the knowledge or consent of themselves or their families.” – the Nazis murdered 200,000 individuals with physical & mental disabilities.

• Homosexuals - “The Nazis also persecuted male homosexuals, whose behavior they considered a hindrance to the preservation of the German nation. “Chronic" homosexuals, between 5,000 and 15,000 gay men, were sent to concentration camps; thousands of other individuals accused of so-called "asocial" or criminal behavior.” These prisoners were marked by pink triangle badges and, according to many survivor accounts, were among the most abused groups in the camps. (below: a writer)

• Political & religious dissidents

(intellectual/conscientious objectors)

“Nazi ideology identified a multitude of enemies and led to the systematic persecution and murder

of many millions of people, both Jews and non-Jews.”

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Other Groups Targeted by the Nazis• Antisemitism and racism

pervaded the Nazi world view. • Hitler emphasized racial purity

and the superiority of the "Germanic race" -- the so-called Aryan master race. As part of the drive to "purify" and strengthen the German population, a 1933 law permitted physicians to perform forced sterilizations of psychiatric patients and congenitally handicapped persons, Gypsies, and Blacks… Some 500 teenagers--pejoratively called the ‘Rhineland bastards’--were forcibly sterilized after 1937.”

• Buses were used to transport physically & mentally disabled to Euphanasia Centers (bus windows were painted so no one could see in).

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First Concentration Camps (1933-1939)• First concentration camps

in which people were confined in harsh conditions (disregarding their human or legal rights) began in 1933 after Hitler’s rise to power.

• The first victims were political & intellectual dissidents (communists, socialists) and Roma (gypsies, homosexuals, Jehovah Witnesses)

• (Right) Political Prisoners arrive at Oranienburg concentration camp. Oranienburg, Germany, 1933.

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What is Genocide?• The term "genocide"

did not exist before 1944. It is a very specific term, referring to violent crimes committed against groups with the intent to destroy the existence of the group. Human rights, as laid out in the U.S. Bill of Rights or the 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, concern the rights of individuals.

• Etymology of the word ‘Genocide’: Greek word genos (race, tribe) and the Latin cide (killing).

• Post WWII, on December 9, 1948, the United Nations approved the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide.

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Why didn’t all of them (Jews) just leave?

• Jews had been assimilated (absorbed, taken in) into German society for hundreds of years, many over a thousand years; “over 10 thousand fought in WWI and were honored with medals for their valor & service—whether lower, middle, or upper class,” they thought of themselves as Germans first, then Jews, & were well-assimilated by the 20th century.

• The oppressive prewar measures targeting Jews, e.g., the 1933 Nuremburg Laws, were passed & enforced gradually.

• No one at the time could foresee or predict killing squads and killing centers.

• Permission had to be obtained for passports, selling their homes, leaving the country, etc.

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Kristallnacht: A Nationwide Pogrom November 9-10, 1938 • On the evening of November 9-10, 1938 -- Kristallnacht, "The Night of Broken Glass,” rioters

• burned over 1,000 synagogues, • vandalized and looted 7,000

Jewish businesses and homes, and

• killed dozens of Jews in an assault instigated by Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels.

• What is a pogrom? An organized killing of a minority; a planned campaign of persecution or extermination sanctioned by a government and directed against an ethnic group, especially against the Jewish people in tsarist Russia, later in Nazi Germany.

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Kristallnacht: A Nationwide Pogrom—November 9-10, 1938

• View of the destroyed interior of the Hechingen synagogue the day

after Kristallnacht. Photos of broken windows of businesses, broken windows of synagogues, synagogues on fire.

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The St. Louis a.k.a. The Voyage of the Damned

Hope Deferred – May 13, 1939, the St. Louis, a

ship carrying over 900 Jewish passengers, trying to escape Nazi Germany, left Hamburg, Germany to find safety in Cuba; they were turned away by Cuba, and then the United States. They were compelled to return to Nazi-controlled , thus sentencing more than half of them to death. A film was later made of this tragic event entitled Voyage of the Damned.

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“How it is possible that all these people followed Hitler; he was just a little man they say. So why did they allow this to happen?”

(The response from a survivor of the Terezin Ghetto in

Czechoslovakia): “…I try to explain how easy it can be to get

drawn into a group and blindly follow. Not just the extremist groupings that some young people join. But even to follow the example of a class leader or bully that they do not always agree with.”

So I say, “Well, why do you fall in line?"

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How did Hitler kill millions of people?• Hitler did not do this by himself, although he had “a

tremendous amount of responsibility”—he and his colleagues (Heinrich Himler, Josef Goebbel, Hermann Goering, Reinhard Heydrich, Adolf Eichmann, & more) & organizations (Der Strümer, the Einsatzgruppen [mobile killing units], the Gestapo [Secret State police] SD [security service of the Nazis], propaganda, etc.) had willing participants to help, which made the “machinery” of the Third Reich operate so efficiently. It was systematic.

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What is the Third Reich?• the German state or empire,

especially the Holy Roman Empire (926–1806) or First Reich; the German Empire (1871–1919) or Second Reich; or the Nazi state (1933–1945) or the Third Reich.

• Adolf Hitler became Chancellor in 1933 and instituted a policy of “coordination” of Nazi Goals (culture, economy, education, & law came under the control of the Nazis).

• After President Paul von Hindenburg died in August 1934, Hitler became the Reich President (head of state);

Reich Chancellor (head of government); & Fuehrer (head of the Nazi party)—essentially, a megalomaniac (the enjoyment of having power over people & a craving for it) and dictator.

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Was Hitler’s grandmother Jewish?• Adolf Hitler’s father Alois Schickelgruber Hitler (52 years old) was

an Austrian customs official. He was registered as illegitimate and his mother (Adolf Hitler’s grandmother) worked in the home of a wealthy Jew—(thus unproven rumors that Adolf Hitler’s grandfather was Jewish).

• Hitler’s mother, Klara Poelzl, was the third wife of Alois; both were from the backwoods of lower Austria.

• One of Hitler's henchmen, Hans Frank, declared (hearsay) during the Nuremberg Trials in 1945-46, that Hitler's grandmother had worked in the town of Graz as a servant in the home of a Jewish family named Frankenberger, claiming that she was seduced by the head of the household and that Hitler's grandfather was the result of that liaison.

• A subsequent analysis of Frank's statement by Simon Wiesenthal “there was no evidence of any Jewish family named Frankenberger ever living in Graz. What is more, Jews had been driven out of Graz in the 15th century and had not been allowed to return until 1856, nearly twenty years after Hitler's grandfather had been born.

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How was the Third Reich systematic in implementing their “Final Solution”?

The Final Solution: The Nazis often used “euphemistic language” (Euphemism-a word or phrase used in place of a term that might be considered too harsh, direct, or offensive) as codes for their covert (hidden) intentions.

The Final Solution was a code phrase for the annihilation (extinction, eradication, extermination, total destruction) of European Jews.

“In the 25-point Party Program, published in 1920, Nazi party members publicly declared their intention to segregate Jews from "Aryan" society and to abrogate (abolish or appeal) Jews' political, legal, and civil rights” (USHMM, 2007)

The first law to curtail the rights of Jewish citizens was the "Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service" of April 7, 1933, according to which Jewish and "politically unreliable" civil servants and employees were to be excluded from state service.

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Significant Dates & Events that Gave Rise to the Holocaust

• 9/29/1928 – Munich Agreement – Hitler and Mussolini convinced Great Britain (Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain) and France to give Germany the Sudentenland (part of Czechoslovakia) in order to pacify Hitler and keep him from carrying out his threat to join forces with the Soviet Union (he had already made a pact with the USSR) and invade Czechoslovakia. Many Brits were happy with the decision (to avoid war), even though it was a violation of the Versailles Treaty (a Treaty made after WWI, which ended in 1918)

• 1933- Hitler is named Chancellor of Germany, giving rise to his dictatorship and the “birth” of the Third Reich

• 1935 – the Nuremburg Laws, identifying “who was a Jew,” excluding them from German citizenship, slowly taking away their rights

• 1936 – Germany hosted the Olympic Games, hoping to demonstrate the superiority of the Third Reich—during this event, “Jews Unwelcome” signs were removed & anti-Jewish attacks were stopped to avoid criticism from the international community

• 1938 – Germany violates the Versailles Treaty as well as the Munich Agreement and annexes the rest of Czechoslovakia

• 1939 – Germany invades Poland• 1939-1945 - WWII in Europe• 1941 (December 8) US declares war on Japan (one of the Axis Powers:

Japan, Germany, Italy) after the December 7th bombing of Pearl Harbor; Germany, in return, declares war on the United States

• May 7, 1945 Hitler committed suicide in his underground bunker

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Holocaust Photo Essay

Mauthausen Camp in Austria-January, 1942

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Methodology of the Third Reich• Increasing physical isolation and

segregation - “Jews were barred from all public schools and universities, as well as from cinemas, theaters, and sports facilities. In many cities, Jews were forbidden to enter designated ‘Aryan’ zones. Nazi decrees and ordinances expanded the ban on Jews in professional life.” (Sign excluding Jews from public places)

• Registering & Identifying Jews - In January 1939, Jewish men and women bearing first names of "non-Jewish" origin were required to add "Israel" and "Sara," respectively, to their given names. All Jews were obliged to carry identity cards that indicated their Jewish heritage, and by October 1939, all Jewish passports were stamped with the letter "J". (Jews six and older had to wear Stars of David patches.)

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On May 10, 1933, student groups at universities

participate in Book Burnings, books of "un-German spirit." • Enthusiastic crowds witnessed

the burning of books by Brecht, Einstein, Freud, Mann and Remarque, among many other well-known intellectuals, scientists and cultural figures, many of whom were Jewish.

• The largest of these book bonfires occurred in Berlin, where an estimated 40,000 people gathered to hear a speech by the propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, in which he pronounced that "Jewish intellectualism is dead" and endorsed the students' "right to clean up the debris of the past."

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Boycott of Jewish-owned businesses & Public Humiliation

• Nazi leaders organized a nationwide boycott of Jewish stores on April 1, 1933. Here, a passerby looks on as a Nazi storm trooper plasters a display window with signs urging German citizens not to buy from Jews

• The September 1935 Nuremberg laws deprived Jews of citizenship and prohibited sexual relations and intermarriage between Jews and "persons of German or related blood."

• A couple is publicly humiliated. The non-Jewish woman carries a sign reading "I am the greatest swine and sleep only with Jews." The man's sign reads, "As a Jew, I only take German girls up to my room."

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Methodology of the Third Reich• Relying on the social & political climate to

propagate their ideology & instill public resentment of Jews & other groups (e.g., world-wide depression, Post WWI German indebtedness due to reparations) Hitler’s speeches 1932-33 (1933 Goebbels telling Germans to boycott Jewish businesses)

• Inciting public opinion against groups, using propaganda in speeches, posters, film, radio, publications; on the other hand, removing “dissenting” opinions from public awareness (political & religious dissidents; intellectuals) & events such as “book burnings.”

• Identifying & isolating groups (e.g., Jews labeled with Star of David, disenfranchised from public places, & eventually, isolated them in ghettos). Enactment of Nuremberg Laws (1935) Kovno ghetto in Lithuania; Riga ghetto in Latvia; child-forced labor in Kovno ghetto; starving child in Warsaw ghetto.

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Methodology of the Third Reich• Deportation / Relocation to

forced labor camps, transit camps, extermination camps;

• Westerbork transit in the Netherlands (right);

• Jews carrying their possessions to Chelmno extermination camp in Lodz, Poland;

• young German officers assist in deportation;

• Ludlin, Poland (1942) Jews are forced into boxcars;

• men, women, children deportation to Treblinka concentration camp;

• Hungarian Jews line up for Auschwitz concentration camp

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Methodology of the Third Reich• Selection as they

entered the camps: the very young, the very old, the sick were not fit for work; therefore, they were immediately sent to the gas chambers / ovens

• Those who could work became the ‘labor force’ for the Nazis until they could no longer work, then they became part of the Final Solution.

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European Jewish Populations Distribution Circa 1933

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What is Propaganda?• "Propaganda attempts to force a doctrine on the whole

people... Propaganda works on the general public from the standpoint of an idea and makes them ripe for the victory of this idea." Adolf Hitler wrote these words in his book Mein Kampf (1926), in which he first advocated the use of propaganda to spread the ideals of National Socialism--among them racism, antisemitism, & anti-Bolshevism.

• “Following the 1933 Nazi party rise to power, Hitler established a Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda headed by Joseph Goebbels. The Ministry's aim was to ensure that the Nazi message was successfully communicated through art, music, theater, films, books, radio, educational materials, and the press.”

USHMM.org

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Newspaper, Film, & Poster Propaganda, which Incited Hatred & Heinous Acts

• “Jews are our misfortune”a poster printed by the infamous German newspaper Der Strumer—The Attacker, published by Julius Streicher; (he would later be indicted, & charged with War Crimes against Humanity during theNuremberg Trials—His sentence,Hanged on October 16, 1946). The Poster was designed to dehumanize, distort & humiliate Jews. • Favored filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl

was commissioned by the Nazi regime to produce a film of the 1936 Summer Games. The propaganda documentary Olympia won first prize at the Venice Film Festival in 1938. Her earlier propaganda film, Triumph of the Will, documented the 1934 Nazi Party Congress in Nuremberg

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Propaganda Targeting Children

• From anti-semitic children’s books: 1) “Jews are not wanted here” 2) The expulsion of Jewish students & teachers from German Schools (1933 Nuremburg Laws).

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Propaganda in Film—The Jew as a Scapegoat

• Der Ewige Judeor the “Eternal Jew” for the character of the wandering Jew, a Propaganda film directed by Fritz Hippler, Commissioned by Joseph Goebbels (Minister of Propaganda)• The Jew as the “inciterOf war, the prolonger ofWar.” (propaganda to blameJews for Social problems)• Goebbels claims “Jews willDestroy culture.”

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19th Century Definition of Aryan

• Aryan – 1. Indo-Iranian or member of a people who spoke Indo-Iranian languages (no longer in technical use); 2. In Nazism and neo-Nazism, a non-Jewish Caucasian, especially of Nordic type, supposed to be part of a master race. (American Heritage Dictionary); 3. A term used in so-called “racial science”. This mistaken theory divided humanity into different groups with fixed inherited characteristics. The concept of an Aryan (German, Germanic) race arose in the 19th century. Members of this race were called Aryans. The Nazis put forth the idea that the Aryan race was superior than others.

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Hitler’s Agenda• One of the first steps in the

creation of the Nazi police state was the elimination of dissent. Opponents of Hitler's regime, including liberals, socialists, Communists, trade unionists, and intellectual, political, & religious dissidents, were imprisoned in concentration camps. The first camp was at Dachau, a small town near Munich.

• To "purify" and strengthen the Germanic "Aryan" population.

• Hitler reviews (2/1936) 35,000 Storm (Sturmabteilung or SA) troops.

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Nazi Regime’s Racial Hygiene & Eugenics• Eugenics- the proposed

improvement of the human species by encouraging or permitting reproduction of only those individuals with genetic characteristics judged desirable. It has been regarded with disfavor since the Nazi period. (Right bottom, Maria Bihari, a gypsy girl: victim of the Holocaust)

• “Racial Hygeine—Nazi Eugenics”

– “In 1904, Alfred Ploetz founded the German Eugenics Society. Sixteen years later, a work seminal to the development of the German eugenics movement, The Permission to Destroy Life Unworthy of Life, was published.”

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Nazis Promoted their Agenda,Emphasizing a Superior Aryan Race

• “In August 1936, Adolf Hitler's Nazi dictatorship camouflaged its racist, militaristic character while hosting the Summer Olympics. This site (USHMM) examines some of the controversy surrounding the 1936 Games.” - http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/olympics/

• “Hitler authorized a brief relaxation in anti-Jewish activities (including the removal of signs barring Jews from public places)”. USHMM

• At a ceremony during the 1936 Olympic Games, German spectators spell out the phrase, directed at Adolf Hitler, "Wir gehoeren Dir" [We belong to you]. Berlin, Germany, August 1936.

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Nazi’s Viewpoint & Treatment of Blacks

• “The fate of Black people from 1933 to 1945 in Nazi Germany and in German-occupied territories ranged from isolation to persecution, sterilization, medical experimentation, incarceration, brutality, and murder. The number of Black people living in Nazi-occupied Europe was relatively small and there was no systematic program for their elimination.”

• In the 1936 Nazi Olympics, Jesse Owens (winner of 4 gold Olympic medals, 100 meter dash, long jump, 200 meter dash, 400

meter relay, bottom left) and John Woodruff (bottom right), who won the 800 meter run, stated that “we destroyed his [Hitler’s] master race theory…”

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Persecution of Roma (Gypsies)

Gypsy arrivals in the Belzec death camp await instructions

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Racism: German Youth vs. Jewish Youth

• A German elementary school class in race hygiene is an illustration from the Nazi magazine Neues Volk 1934.

• A classroom chart entitled "German Youth, Jewish Youth," published in a textbook on heredity, genealogy, and racial studies. Alfred Vogel, Erblehre, Abstammungs, und Rassenkunde in bildlicher Darstellung (Stuttgart, 1938)

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European Rail System 1939: Another Way the Nazis Systematically

Implemented their Agenda

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Creating the Master Race• “Youth serves the Fuhrer” &

“German Sporting Youth”

• The Lebensborn Kinder-Blond hair, blue eyes: the Third Reich's sinister plan to boost the "master race" has left behind an emotionally charged legacy that lingers to this day, were born in special maternity homes, places where mostly unmarried women and the wives of SS men gave birth to children with "good Aryan" blood.

• “A girl getting her face measured: the Nazis wanted "racially and genetically valuable children."

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Lebensboren• Lebensborn – “source of life,"

was a program created by Heinrich Himmler, Adolf Hitler's right-hand man.

• Designed to boost the German population by encouraging citizens, especially SS members, to have more children (four or more, inside or outside marriage).

• Ten maternity homes were set up across Germany where 8,000 to 12,000 Lebensborn Kinder were born. Some stayed with their mothers, but many were adopted by families of SS officers. About 60% were born to unmarried mothers, the rest to wives of SS men.

• Lebensborn homes were set up across Europe. In Norway some 10,000 babies were born, most fathered by SS officers to Norwegian mothers.

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Railcars to deport Jews to the Ghettos & Prisoner Bunks When they Arrived (USHMM)

• View of the railcar on display in the permanent exhibition of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Washington D.C., June 19, 1991.

• The railcar is of the Karlsruhe model, one of several types of freight cars used to deport Jews to ghettos and concentration camps.

• Prisoner Bunks (USHMM) and food bowls in the reconstructed Auschwitz prisoner barracks displayed on the third floor of the permanent exhibition at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

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Methods• Before the mass gassings, special

killing units (Einsatzgruppen) killed as many as 1.6 million Jews

in open-air killings

• Empty Zyklon B poison gas canisters at  Auschwitz-Birkenauallowed the Nazis to kill en masse, more efficiently.

• Two ovens at Dachau

• American soldiers inspecting ovens at Buchenwald

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Sho’ah (A Calamity): • Identifying, disenfranchising, Isolation

• Deportation (relocation)—Work & Death Camps

• Selection (the healthy to work; infants, very young, old—to be gassed)

• Mass killings at the massacre of Babi Yar (1941)

• A child dying in the street of Warsaw ghetto

• “British military veterans were greeted with gasps, tears and murmured thanks as they marched into Bergen-Belsen concentration camp yesterday to mark the 60th anniversary of its liberation.”

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What the Liberators Found…• General Eisenhower inspecting prisoners’ corpses at concentration camp (right top, 1945)

• Survivors at Buchenwald (bottom left)

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Were there any Jews or groups who resisted the Nazis?

• May 1943 Warsaw GhettoUprising—Nazis lead JewsOut of ghetto, transporting toConcentration camps.• Jewish Partisans (Abba Kovner (left) & Shmerke Kaczerginski after the liberation of Vilna. 1945). • NonJewish Partisans• Resistance groups in everyCountry as conscientious objectors

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United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) Themes

• 2007 - Children in Crisis: Voices of the Holocaust

• 2008 - Remember Kristallnacht

• 2009 – Never Again: What You Do Matters

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Holocaust Theme 2007 Children in Crisis: Voices of

the Holocaust

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Yad Vashem (Hand & Name)

• The origin of the name is from a Biblical verse: "And to them will I give in my house and within my walls a memorial and a name … that shall not be cut off."

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Children’s & Young People’s Drawings and Poems: from Terezin Concentration Camp 1942–1944. Hana

Volavkova (Editor) The Butterfly

The last, the very last,So richly, brightly, dazzlingly yellow.Perhaps if the sun’s tears would sing against a white stone.... Such, such a yellowIs carried lightly ’way up high.It went away I’m sure because it wished to kiss the world good-bye.For seven weeks I’ve lived in here,Penned up inside this ghetto.But I have found what I love here.The dandelions call to meAnd the white chestnut branches in the court.Only I never saw another butterfly.  

That butterfly was the last one.Butterflies don’t live in here, in the ghetto. 

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Children in Crisis: Voices of the Holocaust

“The Butterfly” was written by Pavel Friedman, April 6, 1942

Born in Prague on January 7, 1921.Deported to the Terezin Concentration Camp on

April 26, 1942. Died in Auschwitz on September 29, 1944.

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Children in Crisis: Voices of the Holocaust

• Children were a target because they were useless and “the root of the problem.”

• Children, unless they were teenagers, could not provide forced labor.

• Children, infants, & pregnant women were immediately sent to the gas chambers.

• Some survived in the camps (Buchenwald); some survived because prisoners hid them; some survived because they were chosen for medical experiments.

• Some children survived because they were hidden by families, in orphanages, convents, and monasteries.

• In 1939 there were 1.6 million Jewish children in countries occupied by the Nazis—

• Some looked away; some helped.(About 1 out of 10 survived, many due to Rescuers).

• Over one million children (1,000,000) were killed by the end of the WWII.

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Brundibar by Sendak & Kushner • Based on a Czech opera in 1938 by a Jewish

composer. An allegory of resistance to Hitler.

• It was staged 55 times by children in the Terezin concentration camp—with the approval of Nazi officials. “They recognized the propaganda value of permitting, and even publicizing, a kiddie performance about two penniless siblings who go in search of milk for their sick mother.”

• Kushner and Sendak use the opera and its grim history for these dark ironies—and for lessons for our own time. Setting: Old Town Prague.

• “Sendak dreamed up several garish new ogres (with truly awful tongues and in the case of the Hitlerian organ grinder, Brundibar, a telltale mustache).”

• “The siblings (with the help of animals) rally a chorus of townschildren. A haunting ballad about the brevity of blissful mother-baby bonding melts the mercenary hearts of the adults, who join the kids in a communal assault on Brundibar.”

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Theme of Courage: Theme of Hope

“The Wicked Never Win!We Have Our Victory YetTyrants Come Along,

But You Just Wait And See!They Topple One-Two-ThreeOur Friends Make Us Strong!And Thus We End Our Song.”

Text copyright © by Tony Kushner,

pictures copyright ©

by Maurice Sendak

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Holocaust Themes• Tolerance & Acceptance• Courage & Heroism• The Nature of Man• Man’s inhumanity to Man• Man’s humanity to Man (The Rescuers – film)• Choices• Integrity: Who is Watching?• Personal & Collective Morality• Responsibility: Am I My Brother’s Keeper?• Compassion & Action, not Apathy• Persistence• Family• Hope• “The heart of the problem is—the problem of the heart.”• “A Reign of Terror; A Rain of Tears” – SM Yellin

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The U.S.H.M.M. has designated "Do Not Stand Silent: Remembering Kristallnacht

1938" as the focus for the 2008 observance.• 70 years ago, November 9-10, 1938, the Nazis

staged a state-sanctioned anti-Jewish riot against the Jewish community in Germany. It would come to be called…

Kristallnacht, Night of Crystal or Night of Broken Glass. Synagogues, businesses by the thousands, homes were burned, windows were shattered, and destroyed (as well as Jewish victims). People joined the “mob mentality” and others “stood and watched”. Jewish artifacts, torah scrolls, and cemeteries were desecrated.

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Outcome of Kristallnacht : Nazi Propaganda & Blame

• Over 100 Jews lost their lives in this demonstration of violence and inhumanity to man.

• Nazis proclaimed the Jews were responsible for the riots.

• A collective fine of 1 Billion Reich marks (about $400 million in 1938 rates) was imposed upon the Jewish population.

• “Acting on orders from Gestapo (secret state police) headquarters, police officers did nothing to prevent the destruction. Instead, they arrested nearly 30,000 Jewish men aged 16 to 60 and deported them to concentration camps simply because they were Jewish.” - USHMM

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Acts of Hate vs. Acts of Kindness

• For over 48 hours, violent mobs—made up of Nazi Party officials, Nazi storm troopers, and Hitler Youth dressed in street clothes and joined by some civilians— rampaged through the streets of German cities assaulting Jews and vandalizing their property.

• Many “ordinary people” stood by and watched the destruction

• Some, especially young men, joined the mobs in destruction

• Over 1,000 synagogues desecrated, destroyed &/or burned; over 4,000 businesses destroyed; homes destroyed; over 100 Jewish lives taken.

• A few individuals attempted to aid the victims, showing compassion and concern, endangering their own families

• Lieutenant Wilhelm Krützfeld, commander of a police precinct in Berlin, rushed to the scene of the Oranienburger Strasse synagogue to order the mob away. He explained that the synagogue had been a protected historical landmark for decades, drawing his pistol, he protected the synagogue. Krützfeld ordered the fire brigade to stand guard to ensure the integrity of the synagogue.

• Civic leaders in other cities in Germany came to the aid of Jews and preservation of the synagogues.

• Other citizens found out names of Jews put on a list for deportation and informed them so they could be hidden or escape.

• Father Bernhard Lichtenberg, a Catholic priest at St Hedwig's Cathedral in Berlin, closed each evening service after Kristallnacht with public prayers for Jews and those held in concentration camps.

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Other Holocaust Related Themes:Based on Anne Frank’s Diary

• Freedom – ‘The sun is shining, the sky is deep blue, there's a magnificent breeze, and I’m longing - really longing– for everything: conversation, freedom, friends, being alone.’ – Feb. 12, 1944

• Usefulness - ‘I want to be useful or bring enjoyment to all people. And therefore I am so grateful to God for giving me this gift of writing, of expressing all that is in me!’ – March 25, 1944

• Goodness - ‘Why should you be nicer to a rich lady than to a poor one? Human greatness does not lie in wealth or power, but in character and goodness.’ - March 26, 1944

• Giving - ‘Give whatever there is to give! You can always give something, even if it's a simple act of kindness. People who give will never be poor!’ – March 26, 1944

• Courage - ‘I'll make my voice heard, I'll go out into the world and work for mankind! I know now that courage and happiness are needed first!’ – April 11, 1944

• Humanity - ‘The time will come when we will be people again and not just Jews! We can never be just Dutch, or just English, or whatever, we will always be Jews as well. But then, we'll want to be.’ – April 11, 1944

• Happiness - ‘We're all alive, but we don't know why or what for: we're all searching for happiness, we're all leading lives that are different and yet the same.’ – July 6, 1944

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Hope: “…I still believe that people are really good at heart.”

Anne (picture 13 years old)

• “It’s really a wonder that I haven’t dropped all my ideals because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.” –Anne Frank, July 15, 1944 (two weeks before she was forcibly taken from the Secret Annex in Amsterdam, Holland.)

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“Work & Hope”

• “Our chestnut tree is in full blossom. It is covered with leaves and is even more beautiful than last year...” - Anne Frank, 13 May 1944

• Go to the Anne Frank Tree and place your leaf in the tree (an interactive moment) http://www.annefranktree.com/index.aspx

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Other Holocaust-Related Literature

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Other Holocaust-Related Literature

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Holocaust-Related Film & Resources

• The Diary of Anne Frank • The Rescuers• Schindler’s List• Secret Lives: Hidden Children & Their Rescuers during WWII• Holocaust: the Liberation of Auschwitz• The Voyage of the Damned• Swing Kids (German Youth who rebel against the Third

Reich)• The Exodus by Leon Uris• Night by Elie Wiesel• “At the Edge of the Forest” Performed by Theodore Bikel

with Daniel Kempin, guitar; Lyrics by Petr Mamaichuk & Shmerke KaczerginskiMusic by Leonid Shokhin; Language: Yiddish

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Rescuers “Righteous Among the Nations”

• Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg and his colleagues saved as many as 100,000 Hungarian Jews by providing them with diplomatic passes.

• In two cases, entire countries resisted the deportation of their Jewish population. The King of Denmark, Christian X, and his subjects by resisting the implementation of the Nuremberg Laws & saving the lives of most of the 7,500 Danish Jews by spiriting them to safety in Sweden via fishing boats in October 1943. Moreover, the Danish government continued to work to protect the few Danish Jews captured by the Nazis.

• Oscar Schindler desperately spends every penny he has bribing and paying off Nazi officials to protect and save his Jews (worked in his factory). Later accounts have revealed that Schindler spent something like 4 million German marks keeping his Jews out of the death camps - an enormous sum of money for those times.

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Rescuers “Righteous Among the Nations”

• Miep Gies, Mr. Kleiman, Bep Vosquijl,& Mr. Kugler (Amsterdam)

• Corrie ten Boom (Amsterdam)• Father Bruno (Belgium)• Village of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon. France • Calvinist minister Gerardus Pontier and his wife, Dora Wartema (The Netherlands)

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Get Involved• E-mail your drawing, photo, poem or story to expo@annefrank.nl (max. 2 MB)

Is your picture or photo too big? Put it on CD and send it to:

Anne Frank StichtingPostbus 7301000 AS AmsterdamThe Netherlands

• In your e-mail please mention:

• Your first and last name • When you were born • Your residence and country • Whether you are a boy/man or a girl/woman • Also, please answer the following two questions:

• What theme is your contribution about? • Why did you do your drawing, make your photo or write your story or poem? • We will contact you before placing your entry.

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Human Rights Violations: Let Your Voices Speak Out Against Atrocities

• Genocide & Human Rights:• Violations in Darfur; • Chad; • the Eastern Congo; • in Sudan (an Estimated 2 million people

died as a result of civil war), a genocide watch;

• also, The Committee on Conscience issued a Genocide Watch for Chechnya in 2001.

• Go to “The Committee on Conscience” at http://www.ushmm.org/conscience/ to stay informed

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Responding to Threats of Genocide Today: Voices on Genocide Prevention

• “A bi-weekly audio series and podcast service, hosted by Committee on Conscience Project Director Bridget Conley-Zilkic, that brings you the voices of human rights defenders, experts, advocates, and government officials. Vital voices addressing one of humanity's most vital issues. The opinions expressed in these interviews do not necessarily represent those of the Museum.” – Go to http://blogs.ushmm.org/COC2/242

• American Jewish World Service - http://www.ajws.org/

(Ending genocide in Darfur – go to site to listen to podcast)

• Genocide Intervention Network - http://www.genocideintervention.net/educate/monitor

• Human Rights Watch (focus: educate children of North Korean women)

http://www.hrw.org/

• Go to http://blogs.ushmm.org/COC2/242 to access other web links and blogs to become aware of human rights abuses and needs globally.

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A GeoBlog: The World is a Witness

Kibumba, Democratic Republic of the Congo

“They Stole My Grandson: A Man Discusses His Morning Abduction by Soldiers.”

http://blogs.ushmm.org/worldiswitness

• “Walking through the Kibumba displaced camp today, a dozen miles south of the front line, we happened across an old man carrying a blanket, tools and some food.  He had fled the fighting yesterday with his 14 year old grandson.  But this morning, the Congolese army surrounded them and forced the boy to join the battle against Nkunda’s rebels.  The grandfather had no choice but to continue on to Goma”.

Learn about the campaign to end the use of child soldiers.

• Want to learn more about what it is like to be a child soldier?  We (geoblog) recommend Ishmael Beah’s book, A long Way Gone.

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References• 2008 Days of Remembrance (USHMM). “Do Not Stand Silent: Remembering Kristallnacht in 1938.”

Retrieved on 3/24/08 at http://www.ushmm.org/remembrance/dor/years/detail.php?content=2008

• Anne Frank USA website Retrieved at http://www.annefrank.com/

• Boas, J. (1995). We Are Witnesses: Five Diaries of Teenagers Who Died in the Holocaust. New York: Scholastic, Inc.

• Bytwerk, Randall (2004) “German Propaganda Archive.” Calvin: Minds in the Making Retrieved at www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/posters2.htm

• History Wiz (1999-2005) Retrieved at www.historywiz.com/antisemitic.htm

• The Holocaust: A Historical Reader (2000). Illinois: McDougal Littell Publishing Company, A Houghton Mifflin Company.

• USHMM (2008). “The Nazi Olympics: Berlin 1936.” Retrieved on 4/15/08 at http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/olympics/

• United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (2007) Washington, D.C. Retrieved at http://www.ushmm.org/

• “Virtual tour of Yad Vashem” http://www1.yadvashem.org/new_museum/virtual.html

• “Music of the Holocaust” Retrieved on 5/3/07 at http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/music/detail.php?content=forest