Jewish History ch. 22 and packet – Flashcards
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what did Hitler believe the Jews were responsible for?
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he believed that the jewish race was responsible for all the ills of the world, but in particular Germany. he believed that the jews had betrayed the fatherland: in forcing the Armistice upon it in 1918; they had destroyed the german economy after the war and were actively planning either a communitst takeover or a imposing capitalism on germany.
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how did Hitler gain power in the beginning?
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in the early 1920s he gained control of a tiny, insignificant group, the National Socialist Party which was viewed by most as a lunatic, right-wing, fringe group. in 1923, he attempted to overthrow the Munich city government, but failed in what was called the Beer Hall Putsch. he was arrested, convicted of resistance against lawful authority, and sentenced to a five year prison term but was released after 9 months.
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what did Germany do in the beginning when Hitler was in power?
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first in 1938, it annexed the neighboring country of Austria with its two hundred thousand Jews. Then, in 1939 it seized Czechoslovakia, home to 360,000 jews.
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when did World War II begin? what did it begin with?
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it began on September 1, 1939 when German forces struck east into poland, home of Europe's largest jewish community (more than three million jews). in 1940 Hitler counquered Denmark, Norway, Holland, Belgium and France. the next year he drove deep into the Soviet Union. by the end of 1941, hitler controlled the fate of nearly nine million jews.
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when was Kristallnact? what was it?
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on November 9, 1938. it was a government supported pogrom. Kristallnact is translated into "night of broken glass". synagouges and homes were destroyed, stores were looted, and thousands of jewish men were rounded up and taken to concentration camps.
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how did many jews respond to Kristallnact?
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those jews who could left germany immediatey. they sought refuge elsewhere in europe, in palestine, or in the United States.
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what was the Holocaust?
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it was known as Shoah in Hebrew. it was the Nazi's deadly international campaign against the jews.
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what did Germany and the Soviet Union agree upon before WWII began? what were Hitler's intentions with keeping this promise?
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before WWII began, Germany and the Soviet Union had agreed not to go to war against each other. hitler had no intention of keeping his pact with Joseph Stalin; he simply wanted to defeat other european armies before confronting the Soviets. germany counquered most of europe in 1939 and 1940. by early 1941, great britain stood alone against Hitler. then in june 1941, hitler broke germany's pact with the soviet union and attacked russia.
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what were the axis powers in WWII? who were the Allied powers? how did the U.S. get involved in the war?
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Axis powers= Germany, Italy, and Japan. after japan attacked the U.S. at Pearl harbor in December 1941, the U.S. entered the war. Allied Powers= Great Britain, U.S., and the Soviet Union. but the allied forces were not strong enough to attack Nazi-controlled Europe. hitler ruled the continent, and that dominance allowed him to carry out his plan to eliminate the jews of europe.
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what did the Nazis do towards the Jews as soon as the war began?
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first they evicted Jews from their homes, taking most of their belongings from them. then, in an effort to isolate them, they packed may of them into overcrowded ghettos. other jews were forced into concentration camps, which had been quickly built all over German-held eatern europe. jews healthy enough to work were used as slave labor for german war industries. others were beated, starved to death, or shot.
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who did the Germans also persecute along with the Jews? why? who did the Nazis consider Jewish?
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Romanies (gypsies), homo-sexuals, communists, and anyone else considered an opponent of the state. the jews were attacked with special feriocity. even non-jewish descendants of jews were considered to be jews by race and were persecuted. these people were persecuted beacuse they were not seen as part of the German Aryan race (blonde hair and blue eyes).
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what travelled behind the german army as it stormed into the soviet union?
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special mobile killing forces. after the germans counquered an area, the killing units would gather all the jews and murder them. sometimes the nazis used gas vans (mobile has chambers mounted on cargo trucks) to kill their victims. more commonly, they collected the jewish population og an entire town, drove the people into the woods, had them dig a mass grave, and shot them dead on the spot. in a period of less than 48 hours at Babi Yar, a ravine northwest of Kiev, thirty three thousand jews were robbed of their valuables, stripped, lined up, and shot.
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how many jews on an estimate did the Nazis kill by the end of 1941?
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about one million jews.
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how did many jews leave germany in 1939?
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they left on the ocean liner St. Louis, hoping to find a safe haven from nazi persecution. but most were turned away from cuba and the U.S. and forced to return to europe. many of them eventually died in the concetration camps.
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what made it hard for many jews to escape from germany and find homes elsehwere?
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many nations of the world, including the U.S. and Canada had quotas limiting the number of jews they permitted to enter.
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what was one reason for the U.S. and Canada having strict quotas on how many jews they would let in?
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the american economy was still suffering from the great depression and antisemetism was on the rise. two thirds of americans in 1938 believed that jewish refugees should be kept out of the country. even a bill to admit twenty thousand refugee children was defeated. when asked how many jews should be admitted to canada, Fredrick Charles Blair, the director of the immigration branch of the canadian department of mines and resources, responded "none is too many".
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what other countries closed their doors to jewish refugees?
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england refused to allow jews to enter palestine. latin american nations admitted some but then closed their doors. cuba actually revoked the entry permts of many jews already in cuba.
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what did Jewish-run factories in palestine produce during the war? what did many jews voulnteer to do?
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they produced weapons, chemicals, and supplies for the british military. thousands of jews volunteered to join the allied forces, some serving with the british in the Jewish Brigade Group, which contributed to the effort to liberate europe from nazi control. other members of the yishuv joined british-trained commando units and parachuted into Nazi-held territory.
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who was Hannah Senesh? what did she do?
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she was a hungarian-born poet and was among the heros of the yishuv. she immigrated to palestine in 1939 where she soon joined a group of jewish parachutists who were dedicated to helping the allies fight the germans. in march 1944, she was captured in hungary while on a misson to free prisoners of war. on november 7, 1944, at age 23, she was executed. in her poem "Blessed is the Match" which was written in 1944 while she was awaiting her execution, she spoke of the sacrifice that was required in those desperate times: "blessed is the heart with strength to stop it's beating for honor's sake".
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what made Hitler come up with the Final Solution?
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when he saw the no country would accept masses of jewish refugees, he became even bolder in his plans. in 1941, after the invasion of the soviet union, he and other high-level nazi officials began discussing what they eventually called the final solution to the jewish problem: a plan to murder all the jews.
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what had the nazis built by the spring of 1942?
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they had built a series of extermination camps in such places as Sobibor, Treblinka, and Auscwitz. these death camps were designed as efficient factories of mass murder. railroad tracks ran directly into the camp entrances. huge gas chambers were built, enabling camp officials to use poison gas to murder hundreds of jews at once.
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why did the Germans prefer the death camps to any other methods of mass murder?
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the camps produced the most efficient results. most of the jews of greece (sephardic jews) were deported to Auschwitz in the spring of 1943 and killed. a year later some 437,000 jews from hungary were sent to auschwitz in just two months. most of them were murdered too.
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what was the result of WWII?
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by 1944, germany was clearly losing the war. in june, after the unknown landing at Normandy, allied forces began driving east toward germany. soviet forces, meanwhile, had pushed the germans out of soviet territory and were rolling west toward germany. on april 30, 1945, with the soviet army closing in on Berlin, Hitler shot and killed himself. germany surrendered on May 7.
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how did the jews resist the Nazis?
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for some, resistance meant struggling to survive in the camos. for others, it involved a spiritual act: practicing judaism in the face of the Nazi threat. for still others, resistance meant taking up arms. beginning in 1942, as jews learned more about the nazi death camps, some escaped to the forests of europe to join the underground movement. others, determined to fight to the death, gathered weapons in jewish ghettos.
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what happened in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising?
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in Warsaw, a german effort to deport jews to concentration camps on the night before passover 1943 met with massive resistance. most of the resisters died and the ghetto was destroyed, but the story inspired jews and non-jews.
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what was an act of resistance that was done at Auschwitz?
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on October 7, 1944, jews dynamited one of the crematoriums and killed several guards. more than 23 other jewish uprisings in ghettos, labor camps, and death camps have been documented.
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what is the story of Anne Frank?
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Anne Frank was born in germany in 1929. her family fled to holland to escape the nazis when she was four years old. their safety was short-lived because the Nazis took control of the netherlands in 1940 and began sending jews to concentration camps in 1942. unable to secure exit visas, anne's family chose to go into hiding. they found refuge in a secret set of rooms adjacent to anne's father's business in amsterdam. there they lived with several other jews- the Van Pels family and Fritz Pfeffer until August 4, 1944 when the police discovered them and sent them to a concentration camp. anne died less than a year later at 15.
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what did Anne Frank keep all through hiding?
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from June 12, 1942, to August 1, 1944, Anne kept a diary. she wrote that after the war she would publish a book based on the diary. her father, Otto Frank, did survive the war and published the diary.
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what did the germans try to do as they retreated?
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they tried to destroy evidence of their crimes, blowing up gas chambers and burning documents. but they didn't have time to complete the massive task. the first extermination camo to be liberated by the allies was Majdanek, in Lublin, poland in july 1944. over the following year, the rest of the camps were liberated.
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what were the Rleigious Gentiles? what did they do for children?
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heroic non-jews who showed great courage and humanity by risking their lives to save the lives of jews. tens of thousands of jewish children, known as hidden children were saved by religious gentiles. the children were hidden in such places as convents or were "adopted" by chirsitan families who pretended that they were their own children.
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Who was Raoul Wallenberg? what did he do?
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in budapest a swedish diplomat named Raoul Wallenberg issued swedish citizeship papers to hungarian jews. sweden was neutral in the war, making swedish citizens off-limits to nazi forces. wallenberg also set up swedish houses= buildings flying the swedish flag, where Jews could live in safety. his efforts saved tens of thousands of hungarian jews.
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where did many jews in europe go after the war?
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after the war, europe was no longer the spiritual center of world Jewry; far more jews now lived in north america. many of the sruvuving european jews left for non-european jewish communities, especially in the United States, canada, and Australia. those jews who did return to their homes found themselves part of much smaller jewish communities or found nothing at all. other survivors let for palestine, convinced that they jewish future lay in Israel.
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what conditions were in germany that caused Hitler to come to power?
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Lack of confidence by the German people in the post-WW1 Weimar Republic—and consequently in democracy, traditional views of parliamentary constitutions, elections, free speech, free press and free market economics Bad economic conditions of unemployment and hyperinflation combined with territorial division of Germany led to a yearning for strong, militaristic and vindictive leadership
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what did the Nazi Party want to do? when did Hitler become chancellor of germany?
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An obscure but demagogic Adolf Hitler takes control of a fringe, right-wing National Socialist German Workers Party ("Nazi Party") that wishes to reverse the setbacks of WW1, create an empire for all the German "race" and eliminate "inferior" peoples, especially the Jews In January, 1933 Hitler becomes the Chancellor of Germany and quickly moves to dominate the German state with his Nazi Party
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what did Hilter do when he came to power?
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1. Hitler noted that the democratic powers and League of Nations did nothing when Fascist Italy under Benito Mussolini invaded and occupied Libya, Abyssinia and other parts of northern Africa that Mussolini believed that was part of a revival of the Roman Empire 2. Hitler ends reparations required by the Treaty of Versailles 3. Hitler rebuilds Germany's armed forces and military capabilities in defiance of the Versailles treaty 4. Remilitarization of Germany helps to restore the German economy 5. Hitler destroys all opposition parties within Germany and creates a secret police, the Gestapo, and soldiers dedicated primarily to Hitler and the Nazi Party, the "SS" troops
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what did the England and France think of hitler?
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1. People dismiss Hitler as all bluster. The Times of London minimizes Hitler's rhetoric and intentions as "ferocious statements were mere rhetoric intended for home consumption" 2. English political leaders up until 1939 under Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain believe that Hitler's ambitions were limited and could be managed—through a policy of appeasement 3. Leon Blum, the Jewish premiere of France, believes that peace can be made with Hitler
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what did America think of Hitler?
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4. American leaders including President Franklin Roosevelt and both Democrats and Republicans were mainly concerned with economic depression and a domestic reform agenda, "The New Deal". Moreover, Americans had been eager to stay out of European conflicts before WW1 and remain isolated from intrigues and military activity in Europe 5. In the 1930s many Americans and people in other Western democracies had some sympathy for Hitler and his goals for Germany
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what are some examples of hitler's words turning into action?
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Hitler occupies the Saar region in 1935. No Western response 2. Hitler retakes the Rhineland in 1936-1937. No Western response 3. Hitler annexes Austria to Germany in 1938. No Western response
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what did Hitler claim that he needed to do in the Sudentland region of czechoslovakia?
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. Hitler claims he needs to protect the German-speaking people in the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia and invades the northern region of Czechoslovakia in 1938. Although concerned, both the English and French Prime Ministers reach a "peace agreement" with Hitler at the Munich Conference and declare that "Herr Hitler is a reasonable man who wants peace."
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what did British prime minister Neville Chamberlain declare about Hitler after the Munich conference?
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. After the Munich Conference, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain declares that his accord with Hitler will guarantee "peace for our time"
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what did Hilter do with the Munich conference? what did Hitler and Mussoline enter in?
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he breaks agreement with the Munich conference and invades the remainder of Czechoslovakia. In May 1939, Hitler and Mussolini enter "The Pact of Steel" creating a Fascist/Nazi alliance
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what did the european axis allies come into alliance with?
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3. The European Axis allies itself with a militaristic Imperial Japan that sought to conquer China and the Far East. Japan also served to threaten the Soviet Union's Asian territories
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what pact did Hitler and Stalin enter into?
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Hitler and Stalin agree to the Russo-German Treaty that is a "non-aggression pact" that divides Poland between Germany and the Soviet Union and allows the Soviet Union to annex the independent Baltic states 5. The treaty is signed on August 25, 1939. Hitler invades Poland on September 1, 1939
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what did England and France do against Germany?
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England and France uphold their defense treaty with Poland and declare war against Germany. World War Two begins—covering Europe, North Africa and the Far East...just 21 years after The Great War (WW1)
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what did Hitler begin in June 1941?
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. In June 1941, Hitler began "Operation Barbarossa"—the invasion of the Soviet Union 3. Stalin and the Soviets are totally caught by surprise. German armies nearly conquer Moscow and Leningrad within months and retain control over massive areas of the Soviet Union—including the areas most heavily populated by Jews
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what did the Nazi Third Reich include?
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The Nazi "Third Reich" includes the centers of European Jewish life from Vienna to Prague to Budapest to the cities of the Baltic states, Poland, Ukraine, Romania and Russia.
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what was centeral to Nazi ideology?
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Central to Nazi ideology was to make Europe "Judenrein"—a Europe without Jews 6. The Germans saw the elimination of Jews as a principal war aim and had to determine the logistics of "rounding up" Jews and find methods of mass murder
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what happenned in january 1942 that the germans did? what was done in order to execute the final solution?
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In January 1942 the Germans convene a meeting in Wannsee to plan the "Final Solution" to the Jewish problem. 11,000,000 Jews are planned for extermination 2. Jews were to be sent to central locations in the East to death camps 3. Railroad lines gave priority to this program—even at the cost of German military needs 4. Intelligence reports were known to Allied powers at the earliest stages 5. Railway lines to the death camps were clearly mapped out 6. Decisions were made not to stop the "death trains" by Allied aerial bombardment
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what was seen from WWII?
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World War Two was preventable 2. Appeasement did not work 3. Knowledge of German intentions with respect to the Jews was widely known by intelligence communities 4. The World remains silent
