The Holocaust Test Flashcards
what was the background of the holocaust?
- anti-semitism spreads throughout Germany and Europe
- Germans blamed the Jews for the German defeat in WW1 and Germany’s economic problems
- hitler and the nazis made the targeting of Jews a government policy
what were the Nuremberg laws?
- passed in 1935
- only affected Jews living in Germany
- deprived rights of German citizenship
- prohibited marriage to non-Jews
- limited kinds of work they could do
what were pogroms?
- most common form of anti-semitism
- violent riots launched against Jews that were encouraged by the government
what does Kristallnacht mean?
“night of broken glass”
describe Kristallnacht
- November 9, 1938
- marked a major increase of jew persecution from the nazis
who was Hershel grynszpan?
- 17 years old
- shot a German diplomat in Paris to avenge his fathers deportation
- nazis retaliated by killing close to 100 Jews and destroying Jewish buildings
what were the 3 phases to get rid of the Jews?
- Deportation- including the ship St. Louis that came to Cuba and then to Florida, but was forced to take Jews back to Europe
- Placement in Ghettos
- Concentration camps
describe the Jewish ghettos
- city neighborhoods in which Europeans and Jews were forced to live
- sealed off with barbed wire and stone walls
- hitler hoped Jews would starve or die from disease
- Jews tried to preserve their traditions and culture
what was the “final solution”?
- hitlers program of systematically killing the entire Jewish race
- program of genocide
- to protect racial purity of aryans
- hitler need to eliminate those who were inferior of subhuman (Jews, gypsies, poles, Russians, homosexuals, insane, and the disabled)
explain what happens when the killings first begin
- SS units begin rounding up Jews
- took them to concentration camps located mainly in Germany and Poland
- prisoners worked 7 days a week
- severely beaten by guards because they didn’t work fast enough
- fed scraps of food
describe “the final stage”
- extermination camps were built equipped with gas chambers and crematoriums
- Auschwitz was the largest extermination camp
what were the results of the holocaust?
- 6 million European Jews died
- 5 million other subhumans died
what were the Nuremberg trials?
- series of court proceedings held in Nuremberg, Germany
- trial if nazi leaders for crimes against humanity
what was the holocaust?
the systematic murder of millions of Jews and others by the nazis during WW2
