During Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass, a synagogue burns in Siegen, Germany. November 10, 1938.
Jewish children just before they are told that they can no longer attend the same school as other “German" children.
A group of Jewish civilians being held at gunpoint by German SS troops after being forced out of a bunker where they were sheltering during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in German-occupied Poland, World War II, 19th April - 16th May 1943.
Photo of wedding bands found during the liberation of Buchenwald concentration camp.
Sachsenhausen concentration camp was built in the summer of 1936 by internees from the camps in the Emsland region. More than 200,000 people were interned in Sachsenhausen concentration camp between 1936 and 1945. They included political opponents of the Nazi regime, members of groups declared by the Nazis to be racially or biologically inferior, such as Jews, Sinti and Roma, and people persecuted as homosexuals, as well as so-called “career criminals” and “antisocials”
In many cities and regions, Jewish communities were forced into ghettos. They had to move from their homes and lost their freedom of movement. Many had to labor for the Germans. Hunger and disease were common. In this photo, taken in summer 1941, Jews in the Warsaw ghetto in German-occupied Poland attempt to earn money at an open air market.
The first mass transport to Auschwitz Concentration Camp.
"These are slave labourers in the Buchenwald concentration camp near Jena; many had died from malnutrition." 04/16/1945
A group of child survivors behind a barbed wire fence at the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau in southern Poland, on the day of the camp’s liberation by the Red Army, 27th January 1945.
The crematoria at Dachau concentration camp, soon after the liberation of the camp. Germany, after April 29, 1945.
This picture shows the barbed wire double fences at Auschwitz. The Auschwitz complex was a series of camps that included several different types of camps: a concentration camp, an extermination camp, and a forced labour camp.
An emaciated 18-year-old Russian girl looks into the camera lens during the liberation of Dachau concentration camp in 1945. More than 200,000 people were detained between 1933 and 1945, and 31,591 deaths were declared, most from disease, malnutrition and suicide.
Settela Steinbach was one of 574 Roma and Sinti arrested in 1944 and taken to Camp Westerbork. Settela was put on a freight train to Auschwitz and was killed within the next few months, together with her mother, two brothers, two sisters, her aunt, her two nephews and her niece.
Former inmates of German concentration camps who later became citizens of Israel.
Image from an illuminated manuscript, drawn around 1353, showing Jews being burned. During the Black Plague epidemic in Europe, Jews were wrongfully accused of poisoning water wells and spreading disease.
Anti-Semitism – Discrimination and hatred of Jewish people.
Aryan- Term used by the Nazis to describe northern European physical characteristics (such as blonde hair and blue eyes) as racially “superior”.
Concentration Camp- Camps in which Jews were imprisoned by the Nazis, located in Germany and Nazi-occupied Europe. There were three different kinds of camps: transit, labor and extermination. Many prisoners in concentration camps died within months of arriving from violence or starvation
Empathy – Being able to understand the feelings and experiences of others. Putting yourself in “someone else’s shoes”.
Holocaust- The destruction or slaughter on a mass scale, especially caused by fire or nuclear war.
Juden – The German word for Jew.
Kristallnacht – “Night of Broken Glass”- A series of violent actions against Jewish people and their property. Included smashing business premises, burning synagogues and arresting innocent Jewish men.
Nuremburg Laws – Created in 1935. These are “anti-Jewish” laws. The laws excluded German Jews from Reich citizenship (meaning they weren’t officially German anymore) and stopped them from marrying or having sexual relations with persons of "German blood." They also took away their right to vote.
Persecution – Hostility and ill-treatment, especially on the basis of ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation or political beliefs.
Propaganda - A form of communication or advertising aimed towards influencing the attitude of the public.
Nuremberg was a series of trials held in Nurenberg Germany in 1945-1946 in which former Nazi leaders were indicted and tried as was criminals by the International Military Tribunal.
Judges from the Allied powers—Great Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and the United States—presided over the hearings of twenty-two major Nazi criminals.
On November 20, the trial began with 21 defendants appearing before the court. The United States held 12 additional trials in Nuremberg after the initial International Military Tribunal. In all, 199 defendants were tried, 161 were convicted, and 37 were sentenced to death.
On October 1, 1946, the Tribunal convicted 19 of the defendants and acquitted three. Of those convicted, 12 were sentenced to death. Three defendants were sentenced to life imprisonment and four to prison terms ranging from 10 to 20 years. On October 16, executions were carried out by hanging in the gymnasium of the courthouse. Hermann Göring committed suicide the night before his execution. In 1947, the prisoners sentenced to incarceration were sent to Spandau Prison in Berlin.
Night by
Born into a Jewish ghetto in Hungary, as a child, Elie Wiesel was sent to the Nazi concentration camps at Auschwitz and Buchenwald. This is his account of that atrocity: the ever-increasing horrors he endured, the loss of his family and his struggle to survive in a world that stripped him of humanity, dignity and faith. Describing in simple terms the tragic murder of a people from a survivor's perspective, Night is among the most personal, intimate and poignant of all accounts of the Holocaust. A compelling consideration of the darkest side of human nature and the enduring power of hope, it remains one of the most important works of the twentieth century.
Elie Wiesel (b. 1928) was fifteen years old when he and his family were deported by the Nazis to Auschwitz. After the war, Wiesel studied in Paris and later became a journalist. During an interview with the distinguished French writer, Francois Mauriac, he was persuaded to write about his experiences in the death camps. The result was his internationally acclaimed memoir, La Nuit or Night, which has since been translated into more than thirty languages.
The Tattooist of Auschwitz by
This novel is based on the true story of Lale and Gita Sokolov, two Slovakian Jews, who survived Auschwitz and eventually made their home in Australia. In that terrible place, Lale was given the job of tattooing the prisoners marked for survival - literally scratching numbers into his fellow victims' arms in indelible ink to create what would become one of the most potent symbols of the Holocaust. Lale used the infinitesimal freedom of movement that this position awarded him to exchange jewels and money taken from murdered Jews for food to keep others alive. If he had been caught he would have been killed; many owed him their survival.
The Holocaust was the systematic, state-sponsored persecution by the Nazi Party and its collaborators of groups perceived as biologically and racially inferior. Six million European Jews, at least five million Soviet prisoners of war, as well as minority groups including Roma (Gypsies), Jehovah's Witnesses, homosexuals, and people with disabilities, were targeted by the Government of Nazi Germany due to being seen as inferior.
This genocide which took place from 1933-1945 was a central part of the Nazi's broader plan to create a new world order based on their ideology. The prosecution of the targeted minority groups began when Hitler came to power in 1933. Initially, the Nazi party used antisemitic legislation and restrictions alongside vicious propaganda to create a culture of segregation and hostility. The process of persecution escalated in the late 1930s, before developing into a campaign of mass murder during the course of the Second World War.
Primary sources containing the laws pertaining to Jewish people under the premise of "Laws for the protection of German blood and German honour".
Living in Nazi-Occupied Europe
The Holocaust did not only happen in Germany. The Nazis occupied, invaded and annexed large parts of Eastern and Western Europe, spreading terror and death. This article includes testimony of survivors from different countries, remembering what happened when the Nazis invaded.
Statements by leading Nazi's on the "Jewish Question
"I mean the evacuation of the Jews, the extermination of the Jewish race. It's one of those things it is easy to talk about, "the Jewish race is being exterminated", says one member, "that's quite clear, it's in our program, the elimination of the Jews, and we are doing it, exterminating them".
Antisemitism was the foundation of the Holocaust. Antisemitism, the hatred prejudice against Jews, was a basic tenet of Nazi ideology. Nazi Germany's prosecution of Jews evolved and became increasingly more radical between 1933 and 1945.
Nazi Anti-Semitism and the Origins of the Holocaust
Hitler's worldview revolved around the the concept of territorial expansion and (Lebensraum- living space for the German people) and racial supremacy. Nazi antisemitism was rooted in religious antisemitism and enhanced by political antisemitism. Nazi racial ideology characterised the Jews as Untermenschen (Subhuman). Hitler further developed the idea of the Jews as an evil race and struggling for world domination.
Holocaust Narrative through Historical photos
A timeline of the Holocaust told through primary sources. Strating with Medieval antisemitism the resource covers key historical events including Germany becoming a democracy in 1919 with the establishment of the "Weimar Republic" to the liberation of prisoners headed to the newly formed state of Israel in 1948.
After the war, Allied powers—United States, Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union—came together to form the International Military Tribunal (IMT). From 1945 to 1946, Nazi Germany leaders stood trial for crimes against peace, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and conspiracy to commit any of the foregoing crimes.
Behind Every Name a Story consists of essays describing survivors’ experiences during the Holocaust, written by survivors or their families.
From the 1938 antisemitic children’s book The Poisonous Mushroom. The boy is drawing a nose on the chalkboard, and the caption reads: “The Jewish nose is crooked at its tip. It looks like a 6.”
Women examining a display at the Der Ewige Jude (The Eternal Jew) exhibition in the Reichstag building in November 1938.
An issue of the antisemitic propaganda newspaper Der Stürmer (The Attacker) is posted on the sidewalk in Worms, Germany, in 1935. The headline above the case says, "The Jews Are Our Misfortune."
Cover of a German antisemitic book for children, Der Giftpilz (The Poisonous Mushroom), published in Germany by Der Stuermer-Verlag.
Propaganda cartoon by Seppla (Josef Plank) warning of a worldwide Jewish conspiracy. The cartoon depicts an octopus with a Star of David over its head and tentacles encompassing a globe. Germany, date uncertain.
Illustration from an antisemitic children's book. The sign reads "Jews are not wanted here." Books such as this one used antisemitic caricatures in an attempt to promote Nazi racial ideology. Germany, 1936.
Cartoon depicting Jews, communists, and other enemies of the Nazis hanging on gallows, 1935.
Antisemitic speeches made by Adolf Hitler.
Antisemitic speeches made by Adolf Hitler.
Propaganda for Nazi Germany's T-4 Euthanasia Program: "This person suffering from hereditary defects costs the community 60,000 Reichsmark during his lifetime. Fellow German, that is your money, too." from the Office of Racial Policy's Neues Volk.
This 1930s propaganda poster reads “Behind the Enemy Powers: The Jew,”.
Documentary- Auschwitz: One Day (2020)
