Part II. The 3rd Reich & the Holocaust Era, Jan 1933-May 1945
Murderous Racism and Antisemitism - Bureaucracy of Evil
Perpetrators, Collaborators, Victims, Bystanders, Resisters, Rescuers
B. World War II, Sept. 1939-May, 1945: “New Order” & Holocaust
1. 1939-41: Exporting Nazism - Lebensraum, Racism, Antisemitism & Dehumanization
2. 1941-45: Death by Design & Shoah
SG#11b The War against the Jews in Europe & North Africa; Camps (2)
Every Jew that we can lay our hands on is to be destroyed now, Himmler
Scope Bauer 227-265
Annihilation of the Jews. Expansion of the Concentration Camp System. Struma. Killing Centers - Auschwitz-Birkenau.; the world of death camps. Aim was to "literally" make vast areas under their control "Judenrein," or clear of all Jews.
I. Identify/Define
Goldhagen. New order. Night & Fog. Final Solution. Chelmno. Auschwitz-Birkenau. Treblinka. Sobibor. Zyklon B. ‘Arbeith macht frei’. Crematoria. ‘Special treatment. G. I Farben. Kapo. Sonderkommando. Musulman (Bauer 239). Gypsies. Mengele. New York Times. Allies. Stalingrad. Tunisia.
II. Multiple-Choice Questions
1. Historians agree that the Nazi antisemitic policy was carried out in 4 phases: 1) exclusion; 2) persecution; 3) __________; and 4) annihilation
a) expulsion b) conversion
2. In Hitler’s Willing Executioners, Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, laid an ample share of the blame for the mass executions on the shoulders of
a) ordinary Germans b) the SS
3. Goldhagen asserts that one has to focus on the persons who “peopled the institutions of genocidal killing. These people were overwhelmingly and most importantly ______. While members of other national groups aided in their slaughter of Jews ... no _________, no Holocaust.”
a) Germans b) Austrians
Concentration Camps
4. By 1942, Hitler & Nazis had temporarily conquered a great empire -most Europe from Atlantic Ocean almost to
a) Budapest b) Moscow
5. They instituted Hitler’s master plan for a ‘________’ -to organize the continent into a single political & economic system ruled from Berlin & dominated by the ‘Aryan race,’based on exploitation, terror & extermination. German resettlement & exploitation of agricultural areas by ‘inferior’ people who would be treated harshly
a) New Order b) New World
6. Living space, or ______________refers to a program of German expansion
a) annexation
b) Lebenstraum
7. They were an essential part of the Nazis' systematic oppression and mass murder of Jews, political adversaries, Jehovah’s Witnesses & others considered socially & racially undesirable
a) regular prisons
b) concentration camps
8. After 1933,_______ , Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen were among the first concentration camps built by the Nazis near Munich, Weimar, and Berlin respectively
a) Dora b) Dachau
9. Upon arrival at a camp, the inmates were shorn of body hair, disinfected, and issued a striped prison uniform without regard to size. Each step of the process was designed to _________the prisoners, both physically and emotionally. Each prisoner was given a number.
a) forced conversion of the Jews
b) dehumanize all prisoners
10. Numerous ______ were held to assure that no prisoners had escaped. If one did attempt an escape, all of the inmates suffered for it
a) roll calls
b) registrations
11. After 1939, the concentration camp system expanded dramatically, permeating every corner of occupied Europe. The system included slave labor as well as
a) killing centers, designed for mass murder
b) conversion centers
12. The ‘Night and Fog’ decree -’Nacht und Nebel Erlass,’ also known as ‘Keitel Erlass’ instigated by Hitler, issued on December 7, 1941, provided the methods of handling
a) Jews
b) "persons dangerous to German security."
13. Those arrested under the provisions of Nacht und Nebel decree were to vanish without trace, as if fog and night swallowed them, leaving the population in the dark about the fate of the culprit, in order to achieve
a) effective and lasting intimidation: to strike terror in potential opponents of the Nazis
b) full democracy
Death Camps
14. Starting early in ________, the Jewish genocide (the Judeocide) went into full operation. Auschwitz 2 (Birkenau), Treblinka, Belzec, and Sobibór began operations as death camps. There was no selection process; Jews were destroyed upon arrival.
a) 1945
b) 1942
15. Between 1942 & 1944, the Germans decided to eliminate the ghettos and deport the ghetto populations to ‘extermination camps,’ with gassing facilities in Poland. This was known as
a) "the final solution to the Jewish question"
b) ‘the final exit’
16. There were different types of concentration camps. In some the people were worked to death in industries such as the __________ & the V-2 rocket factories. Those who were no longer able to work were killed by gassing, shooting, or fatal injections
a) Smith chemical works
b) G.I. Farben chemical works.
17. Following the Wannsee Conference in Berlin, January 20, 1942, the ‘________________’ was an official policy and a major obsession of the Nazi regime
a) Final Solution
b) emigration
18. The __________ proved to be a better, faster, less personal method for killing Jews & other "undesirables" as well- than by the Einsatzgruppen-, one that would spare the shooters, not the victims, emotional anguish; began their operations in 1942
a) gassing trucks
b) death camps
19. Six death camps were chosen according to their closeness to rail lines (essential for shipping victims) & for their location in semi-rural areas; they were constructed in
a) Austria
b) Poland.
20. The primary purpose of these camps was the methodical killing of millions of innocent people. The locations were: Belzec, Sobibor, Chelmno, Majdanek -Lublin & Auschwitz-Birkenau
a) Dachau
b) Treblinka
21. To process the murder of thousands of people, great pains were taken to deceive the victims. Jews deported from ghettos & concentration camps to the death camps were told by the Nazi planners of the operation that they were being
a) resettled for labor
b) exiled to Madagascar
22. Once the trains arrived at the death camps, trucks were available to transport those who were too weak to walk directly to
a) the gas chambers
b) their barracks to rest
23. The others were told that they would have to be deloused & enter the baths which were
a) the gas chambers
b) regular shower
24. By March 1942 death camps operated employing ___________, a cyanide-based gas (carbon monoxide)
a) H2O
b) Zyklon-B gas
25. As a result of this technological ‘advancement,’ Auschwitz was able to ‘process’ the death of
a) 1000 victims daily b) 12,000 victims daily
26. The teeth of the victims were stripped for gold, which was melted down and shipped back to Germany. The bodies were then stripped of hair, and teeth, and burned in
a) oven
b) crematoria
27. May 1942 was the opening of _________, which did not cease killing until a successful one day revolt of the prisoners on October14, 1943
a) Sobibor
b) Dachau
28. The two death camps of Maidanek and __________also had a work camp attached
a) Dachau
b) Auschwitz
29. The German concentration camps depended on the cooperation of trustee inmates. Known as _______, these trustees carried out the will of the Nazi camp commandants and guards, and were often as brutal as their S.S. counterparts
a) kripo
b) Kapos
30. Located in Upper Silesia, __________was the largest Nazi camp combining the functions of concentration camp and killing center
a) Auschwitz-Birkenau b) Dachau
31. It is the institution responsible for the largest number of Jews murdered as well as the largest number of _______ murdered
a) political victims b) Gypsies
32. Between just under 3 months, (May 14 through July 8, 1944), 437,402 _______ Jews were deported to Auschwitz via 48 trains. This is most likely the single largest deportation of the Holocaust.
a) English b) Hungarian
33. Besides the Jews, Auschwitz-Birkenau killed Soviet POWs, ill prisoners of various nationalities .... More than a quarter of a million _______ also died there
a) Gypsies b) POW
34. Auschwitz was also used as the site for
a) medical experimentation b) a model camp
35. Sadistic and brutal medical experiments were conducted at Auschwitz-Birkenau by
a) Josef Mengele b) Joseph Goebbels
36. May 18, the ____________ reports that Nazis have machine-gunned over 100,000 Jews in the Baltic states; 100,000 in Poland & twice as many in western Russia
a) The Washington Post b) New York Times
37. __________ ignored pleas of Jewish leaders to bomb the railroad leading to Auschwitz, refusing to accept Jewish immigrants
a) Allies b) the United Nations
38. About ____ million other non-Jewish victims perished at the hands of Nazi Germany. The process was rationalized, however, by the Nazi ideology of racial superiority
a) five b) one
Course of WWII
39. June 4-7, 1942: Tide of battle turns in _____’ favor
a) Axis
b) Allies
40. Several early victories after the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, were reversed with crushing defeats at Moscow (December 1941); Germany’s defeat at _____ in 1943
a) Kiev b) Stalingrad
41. The British 8th Army, commanded by General Bernard Montgomery, stopped Rommel at the battle of El Alamein -North Africa, Oct. 1942. Montgomery’s victory over Afrika Corps. Victory followed by Anglo-American invasion of northwest Africa in Nov. 1942 & Germans’ occupation of ______
a) Tunisia b) Morocco
42. The Jews in Nazi-occupied Tunisia (Nov. 1942-May 1943) suffered during _______, under antisemitism Nazi terror by the infamous SS- Obersturmbannfuhrer Walter Rauff
a) 6 years b) 6 months
43. More than 4,000 Jews of Tunisia were sent to forced labor camps, and many died from disease. An SS unit was preparing gas chambers near Kairouan. Plans were not completed because of lack of time. Tunis was liberated
a) May 7, 1943 b) May 7, 1949
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Study Questions
1. What do we learn from Bauer about “Confronting Death” and the death camps? (SB)
2. Name the 6 death camps; Bauer 148; Where are they? Name all the concentration camps; Bauer (B) 223. Why are these two types of camps located in different countries?
3. Describe and explain the life in Majdanek. Bauer 231
4. Analyze dehumanization of the victims and the Auschwitz Sonderkommando. Bauer 244-45
5. What was the goal of the medical experiments?
6. How does the map of ‘The fate of the Roma’ B 221 reflect Nazi policy and ideology?
Copyright Fall 1999, November 2003, January 2004 Edith Shaked
Credit/source: The Holocaust - A guide for Teachers, 1990. http://www.remember.org/guide
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