The Holocaust

Question 1

How long did the Holocaust go for?

Answer 1

Between 1933 to 1945 (12 years)

Question 2

How many Jewish people died?

Answer 2

6 million, two-thirds of European Jews

Question 3

What is anti-semitism?

Answer 3

hostility or prejudice against Jewish people

Question 4

What is the Aryan Race?

Answer 4

A term used to describe the ideal German person, those who weren’t Jewish and especially those with blue eyes and blonde hair.

Question 5

What were concentration camps?

Answer 5

Places were persecuted minorities or political prisoners were held, usually in harsh conditions.

Question 6

What was the “Final Solution”?

Answer 6

The Nazi policy to kill all Jewish people.

Question 7

What were Ghettos?

Answer 7

An area of the city where the minority groups, especially Jewish people were held. They were often poor and overcrowded.

Question 8

What was Kristallnacht?

Answer 8

Two nights on the 9th and 10th of November 1938 where Nazi’s planned a series of attacks against Jewish people including smashing business windows and burning down synagogs. Translated to the “Night of broken glass”.

Question 9

What was the SS?

Answer 9

The German abbreviation for Schutzstaffel (protection squads) which served as bodyguards to Hitler but also ran the concentration camps and were the ones who were killing the Jews.

Question 10

When did Hilter become Chancellor?

Answer 10

1933

Question 11

What happened in 1935?

Answer 11

The Nuremberg Laws

Question 12

What were the Nuremberg Laws?

Answer 12

They were a group of laws which banned Jews from being German citizens, including not being able to marry Aryan Germans, they could no longer vote and eventually were refused treatment at hospitals.

Question 13

When did Hitler start releasing laws banning Jews from participating in public life and what did this include?

Answer 13

1933-1934. Called the ‘Law of Restoration of the Professional Civil Service’, Jewish people were called unreliable and unfit for office and so were fired, restricted the number of Jewish kids in schools and universities and limit the amount of Jewish people in the medical and legal field.

Question 14

When was the first Ghetto opened and where?

Answer 14

1939, and was established in Poland.

Question 15

When was Auschwitz opened?

Answer 15

1940

Question 16

When did the “Final Solution” commence?

Answer 16

1941

Question 17

What happened in 1942?

Answer 17

The mass deportation of Jews from occupied countries to death camps in Poland?

Question 18

When did Soviet troops begin releasing concentration camps?

Answer 18

1944

Question 19

How were people defined as Jewish?

Answer 19

Anyone who had Jewish grandparents, regardless of religious views.

Question 20

What was so significant about Kristallnacht?

Answer 20

30,000 Jewish men were arrested and placed in concentration camps, which became the first instance that the Nazi’s detaining a mass of people based on their race and signified the beginning of the systematic violence which became the Holocaust.

Question 21

What was propaganda?

Answer 21

The spreading of false ideas and misleading information to convince people of certain points of views.

Question 22

Who was Joseph Goebbels?

Answer 22

Hitler’s minister of propaganda and was controlling the school education system.

Question 23

What were the conditions of Ghettos?

Answer 23

They were miserable, there wasn’t enough food or medical supplies, they were forced to work for German authorities, education was forbidden, anyone who disobeyed orders was shot. Some people defied the Nazis and smuggled in food, but that was very dangerous. Those who fell ill had very little chance of recovery.

Question 24

What were the Einsatzgruppen?

Answer 24

They were 4 specialised mobile killing squads; A, B, C & D. They were ordered to execute anyone who was an enemy to the Nazis. They shot Jewish men, women and children in mass graves. They tried to organise pogroms, which were organised massacres of Jewish people by local communities, so they wouldn’t blame the widespread murders on German units.

Question 25

When was the gas chamber introduced?

Answer 25

Late 1941

Question 26

When were concentration camps built?

Answer 26

Between 1933 to 1945

Question 27

What were the types of concentration camps?

Answer 27

Forced labour camps
Transit camps
Extermination camps

Question 28

When did the death marches start and what were they?

Answer 28

From 1944, people were forced to do death marches to other camps deeper in Germany killing many people. Those who couldn’t march were shot or left to die.

Question 29

What happened to Jewish people when they reached the concentration camps?

Answer 29

They were forced to remove their shoes, separated by sex, they were shaved, forced to remove jewellery and any gold teeth, and were then undressed then separated into groups of who would die, and who would become workers.

Question 30

In how many Ghettos did Jewish civilians offered armed resistance? And where?

Answer 30

Over 100 in Poland and the Soviet Union.

Question 31

Where were the largest uprisings?

Answer 31

Warsaw, Vilna and Bialystok.

Question 32

When did the Warsaw uprising occur?

Answer 32

1943

Question 33

How many residents of Warsaw were rounded up as part of Operation Reinhard?

Answer 33

254,000. Leaving the population between 55,000 and 60,000

Question 34

What happened in Warsaw January 1943?

Answer 34

The Jews learnt that they were going to be transported to Treblinka and killed so they formed a Jewish Fighting Organisation calling for Jewish resistance.

Question 35

When was Warsaw’s first battle and what happened?

Answer 35

January 1943. They used a small supply of weapons they smuggled into the Ghetto and fired on the guards as they tried to round up the Jews for deportation. After a few days, the German’s retreated.

Question 36

What happened to the Warsaw Ghetto after the first battle?

Answer 36

April 19, 1943, SS officers and police units moved into the ghetto to deport the residents. 750 Jewish fighters were against 2,000 officers. Again the German’s were forced to retreat.
May 8, 1943, the headquarters were taken by German officers. Leader killed in the fight.
May 16, 1943, 56,065 Jews were transported to Treblika and thousands of others were killed in the uprising. The Jews lost.

Question 37

Why did so many Jews try to escape?

Answer 37

It offered them the chance of revenge and a purposeful and dignified death.

Question 38

What were partisan groups?

Answer 38

Groups of Jews who escaped from concentration camps and ghettos and ran resistance groups in the forest. Many Jews joined these if they escaped. “Revenge & rescue”.

Question 39

What were some spiritual ways the Jews resisted?

Answer 39

They set up underground religious schools and prayer groups, they set up libraries of books they hid in the Holocaust, they gathered documentary evidence of the events, they refused to do whatever they were told by the Germans, they tried survive as best they could, they shared food and water with each other, covering for sick people in rollcall and doing their duties.