Persecution of Jews in Europe: A Historical Perspective

2. For hundreds of years Christian Europe had regarded the Jews as the Christ -killers. At one time or another Jews had been driven out of almost every European country. In 1275 they were made to wear a yellow badge. In 1287 269 Jews were hanged in the Tower of London. Deep prejudice against Jews was strong in the twentieth century, especially in Germany, Poland and Eastern Europe, where the Jewish population was very large. In London in the 13 th Century: Jews were blamed for the defeat in the WWI. Prejudice against the Jews grew during the economic depression which followed. Many Germans were poor and unemployed and wanted someone to blame. They turned on the Jews, many of whom were rich and successful in business. Historical Background Historical Background

3. Timeline of the Timeline of the Events That Led Events That Led t o the t o the Holocaust Holocaust

4. x Hitler and Nazi party seize power and begin there program against the Jews x Nazis order boycott of Jewish businesses x Hermann Goering creates the Gestapo x 1 st Concentration camps are built (Dachau 3/22/1933)

5. x Reichstag declares that Jews are not entitled to national healthcare x The SS (Schutzstaffel) led by Henrich Himmler take control of concentration camps x Hitlers approval rating from German citizens is 90%

6. x Nuremberg Laws passed = d efined who was Jewish and set guidelines for their lives x Jews were not allowed to : - marry or have sex with Aryans - have any civic involvement - have citizenship rights

7. x Heinrich Himmler is appointed Chief of the German Police x Olympic Games held in Berlin = Nazis briefly loosen restrictions

8. x New Law : Jews are not allowed to teach Germans x Eternal Jew exhibit opens in Germany - warns Germans about the Jewish problem x New Law : Jews are not allowed to be accountants or dentists

9. x Kristallnacht (November) - Jewish stores, shops, and synagogues vandalized and burned - retaliation for a Jew killing German Diplomat in Paris France x New Law : Jews are not allowed to practice medicine x League of Nations seeks to aide Jews fleeing Nazis but no nation will take them

10. x SS General Reinhard Heydrich orders speed up to emigration of Jews from German lands x Nazi order : All Jews must wear a yellow Star of David x New Law : Jews must hand over all gold and silver

11. x Nazi Order : All Jews in Germany are to be deported to Ghettos in Poland Forced labor in the Warsaw Ghetto Deportation of Jews to Kutno Ghetto Jewish children in the Warsaw Ghetto

12. x Hitlers Commissar Oder : Any Soviet politician captured is to be shot immediately Liquidate all Communist officials you encounter ! - Hitlers order to advancing Nazi Army into Soviet Union

13. x Wannsee Conference : - meeting of senior Nazi officials where Reinhard Heydrich presented the plan for the Final Solution to the Jewish Question x The Plan : - deport all Jews from Europe and North Africa to concentration camps in German controlled land - Jews will be placed into either labor camps or death camps (according to Wannsee Protocol

14. x Jews rounded up and taken into the woods and shot one by one x Their bodies buried in mass grave Phase 1 Phase 1

15. x Jews were rounded up and told they were be relocated into vans x The vans were equipped so that the vans exhaust piped back into the van x Estimated 700,000 killed Phase 2 Phase 2

16. Phase 3 Phase 3 x Jews were rounded up, told to bring one piece of luggage, placed on trains, and deported to.

17. x Either a Concentration Camp or a Death Camp!

18. x Nazi Medical Experiments x Dr. Josef Mengele the Angel of Death x Performed medical experiments on men, women, and children Sterilization of men and women E ndurance of pain to high and low temperatures and pressure E xperiments on twins to increase number of multiple births I njections of phenol to kill patients Dr. Mengele attempted to sew children together to make Siamese twins

19. Portrait of two-year- old Mania Halef, a Jewish child who was among the 33,771 persons shot by the SS during the mass executions at Babi Yar, September, 1941.

20. Nazis sift through a huge pile of clothes left by victims of the massacre. Two year old Mani Halefs clothes are somewhere amongst these.

21. Until September 14, 1939 my life was typical of a young Jewish boy in that part of the world in that period of time. I lived in a Jewish community surrounded by gentiles. Aside from my immediate family, I had many relatives and knew all the town people, both Jews and gentiles. Almost two weeks after the outbreak of the war and shortly after my Bar Mitzvah, my world exploded. In the course of the next five and a half years I lost my entire family and almost everyone I ever knew. Death, violence and brutality became a daily occurrence in my life while I was still a young teenager. Leonard Lerer, 1991 Until September 14, 1939 my life was typical of a young Jewish boy in that part of the world in that period of time. I lived in a Jewish community surrounded by gentiles. Aside from my immediate family, I had many relatives and knew all the town people, both Jews and gentiles. Almost two weeks after the outbreak of the war and shortly after my Bar Mitzvah, my world exploded. In the course of the next five and a half years I lost my entire family and almost everyone I ever knew. Death, violence and brutality became a daily occurrence in my life while I was still a young teenager. Leonard Lerer, 1991