The Holocaust Flashcards
What does genocide mean
Genocide is the attempt to eliminate entire peoples, or religious or ethnic groups.
Tell me about the Armenian genocide
From 1915 to 1923, lots of massacres and forced deportations of the Armenian people occurred. They were brutality killed in concentration camps is estimated to have killed more than 1.5 million ethnic Armenians. The Turks demolished all traces of Armenian cultural heritage, including masterpieces of ancient architecture and remarkable libraries and archives.
Causes of the holocaust
Anti-Semitism
Jews had historically been seen as outsiders in many European countries.
• The Nuremberg Laws were passed in 1935. They were made ‘for the protection of German blood and honour’. These laws removed the rights of Jews.
• Hitler’s treatment of the Jews worsened. In November 1938, a Jewish teenager murdered a German diplomat in Paris. This was followed by a two-day riot across Germany and parts of Austria called the Night of the Broken Glass. Thousands of Jewish-owned buildings, including businesses, synagogues and cemeteries, were destroyed and at least 100 Jews were killed. Thousands more were sent to concentration camps.
Jewish ghettos
After the outbreak of war, life became even harder for Jews. The Nazis established more than 400 ghettos to isolate Jews from the non-Jewish population. A ghetto is a part of a city where a minority group lives, due to social, legal or economic pressure. The ghettos were closed off by high walls and barbed-wire fences and the gates were guarded. Food and fuel shortages led to a high mortality rate, especially in winter, and the overcrowding and unsanitary conditions encouraged the outbreak of disease.
Course of the holocaust
From 1941, as the German army advanced eastwards, it was followed by Einsatzgruppen - special mobile killing squads that executed ‘anti-German elements’ in the occupied territories. In 1942, the Nazis formulated their official plan to exterminate the Jewish population of Europe. This was called the Final Solution. Approximately 11 million Jews lived in wider Europe at the time. From then on, the Germans began to empty the ghettos by deporting the Jewish population to concentration camps. By the summer of 1943, it is estimated that 395,000 had either died or had been deported to camps.
Tell me about the concentration camps during the holocaust
Concentration camps had been in use since 1933; at first they were forced labour camps. The first labour camp in Germany was at Dachau. Germany, Poland, Austria, Latvia, the USSR, France, Czechoslovakia and the Netherlands all contained concentration camps. From 1942, special extermination camps were built, all outside Germany.
List the consequences of the holocaust
The mass murder of six million Jews
The mass murder of Slavic people, Roma, LGBTQ+ people, communists, prisoners of war and others
Jewish emigration, especially to the USA, Canada, France and South Africa
Strengthening of a shared Jewish identity
Tell me about the aftermath of the holocaust
It is estimated that six million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust - over one million in Auschwitz alone. Millions of others were also killed in the camps. Many Jews survivors left Europe for good
How many people died the armerica genocide
1.5 million
How many people died during the Rwandan geocide
500,000-800,000
Name 2 groups that the Nazis decrimemated against
LGBTQ+ and disabled people
