Learning from the past ~ lessons for today - Holocaust Education ...

The Holocaust
The Holocaust did not begin with gas chambers and crematoria, it began with whispers, taunts, humiliation,
discrimination, segregation, restrictions, rules and laws. It began with attitudes, bigotry and prejudice.
When Adolf Hitler became leader of the Nazi party in 1921, he stated clearly that his ultimate aim was: the removal of the
Jews from German society. By the time he became Chancellor of Germany in 1933, he was planning to remove the Jews
from Germany by expulsion and evacuation. With the annexation of Austria in 1938 and the subsequent absorption of
Czechoslovakia in 1939, Hitler was in control of more territory and more Jews. The invasion of Poland in 1939, which
heralded the beginning of World War II, brought a further three million Jews under German control. The persecution of
the Jews went through several stages. The words ‘expulsion’ and ‘evacuation’ soon became euphemisms for annihilation.
It is estimated that 9.6 million Jews lived in what became Nazi-controlled Europe in 1939. By the end of the war in 1945,
3.2 million had survived the Holocaust. Millions of other victims were also murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators.
Nazi Persecution of the Jews
Humiliation
Identification
Segregation
Concentration
Extinction
6