3-31-10 notes.docx

c. US use of atomic bomb in Japan 1945 ? Japan surrendered and the war ended Hiroshima and Nagasaki IV. The Holocaust This idea is not new to WWII ? Things like this have happened before Anti-Semitic ideas and notions of ?racial purity? Anti-Semitic countries: France, Austria ? they deplored a lot of Jews but didn?t have own death camps Extreme right wing leaders Hitler takes it to a different level ? because of scientific technologies: gas chambers, mobile gas units ? Hitler took advantage of science Hitler had been working out this idea of racial purity so legistlation was not a surprise Legislation - Nuremberg Laws of 1935, Kristallnacht, Nov. 9, 1938, ?Night of the broken glass 1935 Nuremberg laws stripped citizenship if you were a Jew forbid marriages between Jews and Gentiles(non Jews) dehumanize the Jews Kristallnacht ? 1938 Jewish places (shops, homes)are vandalized and destroyed Government sanction are the ones that are vandalizing Violence against Jews Beginnings of deportation of Jews in Germany Jews paid for rebuild Ghettos Where there is high population of Jews, Germans forcefully make Jews live together in small cities Dehumanizing No matter their class or social status must leave their residence Mostly throughout eastern Europe ?Final Solution,? Wannsee Conference, 1942 Hitler not at meeting Wannsee is a part of Berlin High ranking Nazi officials met to discuss the details with the final solution Final solution: get rid of the Jews ? annihilate them and destroy their population 1942: US is involved in war 1942: Germany had invaded Russia a couple of months before ? most Jews reside in Russia Building orchestration of labor and death camps thought central and eastern Europe Entire Jewish population, not just German Jews Final solution implies that Germany cannot do this on their own. ? they need help from local authorities when they are deploying Jews from other counties Plan ? round up all Jews, send them on Train (cattle car not passanger) Camps ? Auschwitz in Southern Poland, Dachau, Buchenwald (both in Germany) Auschwitz ? most active death camp Die in gas chamber Ability to Kill 12,000 people a day Women and men were separated Women were at Birkenau camp ? 28,000 sent and at end of the year 5,400 left People sent to camps: Jews, other races, people with special needs, mostly men who were gay, collaborators that helped Jews, scholars who speak out of Nazi regimes, communists, socialists, Jehovah witnesses (they do not recognize heads of state, did not pledge allegiance to Hitler) Polish Catholics Dachau, Buchenwald ? labor camps War time so the work they did was: Military industry work, agricultural labor Life in camps Unsanitary and stressful living conditions Gas chambers and medical experimentation Medical experimentation ? kept alive and worked in laboratory Olga Lengyel Divided into healthy and not healthy Post war issues 6,000,000 (2/3s of European population) were killed 90% of Russian Jews killed High civilian involvement and suffering Jewish refugees Russia still under dictatorship (Stalin) ? they had changed to Allie side so they came out on top Hitler dies in 1945 ? end of dictatorship ? how to deal with rebuilding country and redefine nation Browning writes: Germans are forced into collaboration Goldhager ? Hitler?s willing executions