HIS CH 16-3 HOLOCAUST

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Multiple Choice
Identify the choice that best completes the statement or answers the question.

The Persecution Begins

On April 4, 1933, barely three months after Hitler took power in Germany, he ordered all "non-Aryans" to be removed from government jobs. This order was one of the first moves in a campaign for racial purity that would become the Holocaust-the systematic murder of 11 million people across Europe, more than half of whom were Jews

WHY THE JEWS?

Although Jews were not the only victims of the Holocaust, they were the center of the Nazis' target . Anti-Semitism, or hatred of Jews, had deep roots in European history. For decades, many Germans looking for a scapegoat, or someone to blame for their failures and frustrations, had targeted the Jews . As a result, when Hitler blamed the Jews for Germany's defeat in World War I and for its economic problems following the war, many Germans were more than ready to support him

As the Nazis tightened their hold on Germany, their persecution of Jews increased. In 1935, the Nuremberg Laws stripped Jews of their civil rights and property if they tried to leave Germany. To make identification easier, Jews over the age of six had to wear a bright yellow Star of David on their clothing

Kristallnacht

Worse was to come. On November 9, 1938, a night that came to be known as Kristallnacht, or "crystal night"-the night of broken glass-gangs of Nazi storm troopers attacked Jewish homes, businesses, and synagogues across Germany. An American who witnessed the violence in Leipzig wrote, "Jewish shop windows by the hundreds were systematically and wantonly smashed. . . . The main streets of the city were a positive litter of shattered plate glass." Afterward, the Nazis blamed the Jews for the destruction. More than 20,000 Jews were arrested and sent to concentration camps. At the same time, a German official announced, "The Jews will pay a collective fine of one billion marks, 20 percent of their property."

What were the laws called that took away the civil rights of the Jews?

a.	Berlin Doctrine	c.	Nuremberg Laws
b.	anti-Semitic laws	d.	Nazi Laws

When did hatred of the Jews start in Europe?

a.	1910	c.	throughout European history
b.	World War I	d.	1930

What did they call November 9, 1938 when Jewish shops were destroyed throughout Germany and Jews were harassed

a.	Kristallnacht	c.	Nuremberg Night
b.	Storm Trooper Night	d.	Anti-Semitic Night

Who did the Nazi’s blame for the night of the broken glass?

a.	out of control teens	c.	the Jews
b.	the Communists	d.	the Brown Shirts

THE PLIGHT OF JEWISH REFUGEES

Beginning in 1933, tens of thousands of Jews fled Germany each year. After Kristallnacht, the Nazis tried to speed Jewish emigration but encountered difficulty. France already had 40,000 Jewish refugees and did not want more. The British, who were already admitting about 500 Jewish refugees a week, worried about fueling anti-Semitism if that number were to increase . Late in 1938, Germany's foreign minister observed, "We all want to get rid of our Jews. The difficulty is that no country wishes to receive them ."

About 60,000 refugees-including such distinguished people as physicist Albert Einstein, author Thomas Mann, architect Walter Gropius, and theologian Paul Tillich-fled to the United States . More could have come if the United States had been willing to relax its strict immigration quotas . This was not done, partly because of widespread anti-Semitism among Americans and partly because many Americans feared that letting in more refugees during the Great Depression would mean competition for scarce jobs.

After war broke out in Europe in 1939, Americans also feared that opening the door to refugees from Germany would allow "enemy agents" to enter the United States . President Roosevelt said that while he sympathized with the Jews, he would not "do anything which would conceivably hurt the future of present American citizens ."

Official indifference to the plight of Germany's Jews was so strong that when the St. Louis-a German luxury liner filled with refugees passed Miami in 1939, the Coast Guard followed it to prevent the passengers from attempting to leave the ship for the United States . This decision was made even though 740 of the liner's 943 passengers had U.S . immigration papers . Passenger Liane Reif-Lehrer, who was just four years old at the time, recalled, "My mother and brother and I were among the passengers who survived, about a fourth of those on the ship. We were sent back to Europe and given haven in France, only to find the Nazis on our doorstep again a few months later."

The Nazi’s tried to deport Germany’s Jews. Why did they have trouble doing so?

a.	It was too hard to get them to the U.S. who had agreed to take them	c.	There were not enough trains to do so
b.	No other countries wanted them	d.	The concentration camps were full

What reason did Roosevelt give for not allowing more Jews to enter the U.S. after war broke out in Europe

a.	he did not want to anger the Germans	c.	he said that America was a Christian nation
b.	he said we already had too many Jews	d.	he was afraid it would opened the door for foreign agents to enter the U.S.

What did the St. Louis-a German luxury liner situation show ?

a.	Cuba and the United States hated the Jews	c.	North and South America did not care about the Jews
b.	The world though the Jews deserved what they were getting from the Nazi’s	d.	North and South America were afraid of the Nazi’s

In addition to anti-semitisim, what other reason did Americans have for not wanting additional immigrants in the country?

a.	Americans thought the Jews might spread their religion	c.	Most Americans supported Hitler
b.	Americans were afraid that Jews might take jobs away from Americans	d.	Americans were afraid that Germany would open concentration camps in the U.S.

	The Final Solution Unable to rid Germany of its Jews by forcing them to emigrate, the Nazis adopted a new approach following Kristallnacht . Jews healthy enough to work were sent to labor camps to perform slave labor. The rest would be sent to extermination camps. This horrifying plan amounted to genocide, or the deliberate and systematic killing of an entire people . THE CONDEMNED The Nazis' "final solution" rested on their belief that "Aryans" were a superior people and that the strength and purity of this "master race" must be preserved. To accomplish this, the Nazis condemned to slavery and death not only the Jews but other groups that they viewed as inferior or unworthy or as "enemies of the stat
After taking power in 1933, the Nazis had concentrated on silencing their political opponents-Communists, Socialists, liberals, and anyone else who spoke out against the government. Once the Nazis had eliminated these enemies, they turned against other groups in Germany. In addition to Jews, these groups included " Gypsies-whom the Nazis believed to be an "inferior race" " Freemasons-whom the Nazis charged to be supporters of the "Jewish conspiracy" to rule the world " Jehovah's Witnesses-who refused to join the army or salute Hitler The Nazis also targeted other Germans whom they found unfit to be part of the "master race," such as homosexuals. Beginning in 1939, the German government rounded up these individuals and shipped them off to "special treatment" centers, where they were "accorded a mercy death." By 1941, children near one of these centers had become so used to seeing the special buses that were used to transport victims that they would call out to each other, "Look, there's the murder box coming again." As the Nazis moved eastward, they added Poles, Ukrainians, and Russians to their growing list of Untermenschen, or "subhumans," who were standing in the way of the expanding "master race." After the invasion of Poland, for example, hundreds of thousands of Poles were killed or shipped to Germany to perform slave labor. The emptied Polish towns and farms were resettled with Germans seeking lebensraum

What is the formal name for killing an entire race or nation of people?

a.	Kristallnacht	c.	genocide
b.	emigration	d.	pesticide

10.

Why did the Nazi’s imprison homosexuals, the mentally retarded, the insane, the disabled, the incurably ill and the Jews?

a.	They believed they were costing the German economy too much money	c.	They wanted to maintain the purity of the Aryan race
b.	They thought these groups could become spies for Britain	d.	These groups would not join the Nazi party.

11.

The Jehovah's Witnesses are Christians. Why were they sent to concentration camps?

a.	They would not say, “Heil Hitler”	c.	They were anti-German
b.	They were pro Israel	d.	They were different

12.

Which statement below would compare to a statement a Nazi might make?

a.	There are no good Jews	c.	We must maintain the purity of our race
b.	Your group is responsible for the problems of my group	d.	All of these attitudes are typical of Nazi attitudes

13.

Why did the Nazi’s create the “Final Solution” to the Jewish problem?

a.	they were unable to get all of the Jews to emigrate to other countries	c.	The Jews refused to serve in the German military
b.	they did not want to use the Jews as slave labor in German factories	d.	the Jews were lazy and just wanted to attend school

14.

The Nazi’s deported Jews from Germany to other countries in Europe. But as they conquered these European countries the Jews ended up in German territory again. What was the plan called to rid Europe of all Jews?

a.	Kristallnacht	c.	The Genocide Plan
b.	The Final Solution	d.	Mien Kampf

	CONCENTRATION CAMPS The Nazis began implementing their "final solution" in Poland. Nazi murder squads were assigned to round up Jews, strip them of their clothing, and then shoot them in cold blood. Other Jews were herded into dismal ghettos, or Jewish sections, in Polish cities and were left to starve or die from disease . Still others were dragged from their homes and herded into trains and trucks for shipment to concentration camps. In this process, families were often separated, sometimes forever
Life in the camps was a cycle of hunger, humiliation, and work that only ended with death. The prisoners were crammed into crude wooden barracks that held up to a thousand people each. They shared their crowded quarters- as well as their meager meals of thin soup and occasional scraps of bread or potato-with hordes of rats and fleas. Hunger was so intense, recalled one survivor, "that if a bit of soup spilled over, prisoners would converge on the spot, dig their spoons into the mud and stuff the mess into their mouths ." The prisoners worked from dawn to dusk, seven days a week, until they collapsed . Those too weak to work were killed. Some, like Rudolf Reder, endured. He was one of only two Jews to survive the camp at Belzec, Poland.

15.

What were sections of Polish cities, were Jews were imprisoned called?

a.	urban war camps	c.	slums
b.	city prisons	d.	ghetto’s

16.

Which statement is true about the concentration camps?

a.	if a Jewish person worked hard there was a good chance he or she would survive the camps	c.	none of these statements are true
b.	only Jewish children were able to survive the camps	d.	very few Jews survived the camps

	EXTERMINATION As deadly as overwork, starvation, beatings, and bullets were, they did not kill fast enough to satisfy the Nazis. Late in 1941, the Germans built six death camps in Poland. Each camp had several huge gas chambers in which as many as 6,000 lives could be snuffed out daily.
When prisoners arrived at Auschwitz, the largest of the death camps, they had to parade by several SS doctors . With a wave of the hand, the doctors separated those strong enough to work from those who would die that day. Both groups were told to leave all their belongings behind, with a promise that they would be returned later. Those destined to die were then led into a room outside the gas chamber and were told to undress for a shower. To complete the deception, they were even given pieces of soap. Finally, they were led into the chamber and poisoned with cyanide gas that spewed from vents in the walls. This orderly mass extermination was sometimes carried out to the accompaniment of cheerful music played by an orchestra of camp inmates who had temporarily been spared execution At first the bodies were buried in huge pits. At Belzec, Rudolf Reder was part of a 500-man death brigade that labored all day, he said, "either at grave digging or emptying the gas chambers." But the decaying corpses gave off a stench that could be smelled for miles around. Worse yet, mass graves left evidence of the mass murder. At some camps, to try to cover up the evidence of their slaughter, the Nazis installed huge crematoriums, or ovens in which to burn the dead. At other camps, the bodies were simply thrown into a pit and set on fire . Gassing was not the only method of extermination used in the camps. Prisoners were also shot, hanged, or injected with poison. Still others died as a result of horrible medical experiments carried out by camp doctors . Some of these victims were injected with deadly germs in order to study the effect of disease on different groups of people. Others were forced to exist only on seawater in experiments to determine how long shipwrecked seamen could survive . Many more were used to test methods of sterilization, a subject of great interest to some Nazi doctors in their search for ways to improve the "master race."

17.

Why did the Jews march into the gas chambers without protest?

a.	they did not go into the gas chambers quietly	c.	they wanted to die because there was no hope
b.	they thought they were going to take showers after the long train trip	d.	they thought gas chambers were dining rooms

18.

It was possible to kill up to ____ persons a day in each death camp.

a.	1000	c.	6000
b.	2000	d.	15000

19.

Which method did the Nazi’s use to exterminate Jews in the concentration camps?

a.	gassing	d.	poison injections
b.	shooting	e.	all of these methods were used
c.	hanging

20.

Why did the Nazi’s prefer to burn the dead bodies of Jews in crematoriums?

a.	they wanted to get rid of evidence of genocide	c.	they wanted to insult the Jewish religion
b.	they used the ovens to create electricity	d.	they did not prefer to burn the dead bodies and left them to rot because it was too much trouble

Elie Wiesel

THE SURVIVORS

Six million Jews died in the death camps and in Nazi massacres . But some miraculously escaped the worst of the Holocaust . Many had help from ordinary people who were appalled by the Nazis' treatment of Jews. These people risked death by hiding Jews in their homes or by helping them escape to neutral countries such as Sweden and Switzerland .

Some Jews even survived the horrors of the concentration camps. In Gerda Weissmann Klein's view, survival depended as much on one's spirit as on getting enough to eat . "I do believe that if you were blessed with imagination, you could work through it," she wrote. "If, unfortunately, you were a person that faced reality, I think you didn't have a chance." Those who did come out of the camps alive were forever changed by what they had witnessed . For survivor Elie Wiesel, who entered Auschwitz in 1944 at the age of 14, the sun had set forever.

21.

About how many Jews died in the Nazi death camps?

a.	11 million	c.	6 million
b.	20 million	d.	2 million

22.

Most Jews who survived the concentration camps were able to put it out of their minds and lead normal lives

true

false