The Holocaust
The genocide of approximately 6 million European Jews during WWII. (genocide-the targeting and killing of a certain people)
A program of systematic state-sponsored extermination by Nazi Germany throughout Nazi-occupied territory.
Approximately 2/3 of the population of 9 million Jews who had lived in Europe before the Holocaust died.
The range of people killed during the Holocaust is between 11 million and 17 million people.
- Jews (6 million)
- Gypsies (500,000-1.5 million)
- Mentally/physically handicapped (75,000-250,000)
- Soviet Slavs/POWs/troops (16.5 million (about 7 million in Holocaust, others in hands of Germans))
- Poles (2.5 million)
- Homosexuals (5,000-15,000)
- Communists/socialists
- Dark-skinned people
- Mixed races
- Jehovah's Witnesses (2,500-5,000)
The Aryan Race
Misued by the Nazis to mean a so-called master race that originated around Germany
Perfect Aryan (Hitler's definition) was blonde, blue-eyed, tall, muscular
Lebensborn
Program aimed to promote the growth of the superior Aryan race.
Hitler's Jewish Question 1933
What to do with the Jews?
Nazis "temporarily" took away civil liberties
Nazis set up first concentration camp at Dachau in 1933 (not a death camp)
Jews prohibited from working as civel servants, doctors in the National Health Service, teachers in high schools.
Nuremburg Laws 1935
Took away German citizenship from Jews
3 or 4 Jewish grandparents makes you a Jew (eventually at least 1 Jewish grandparent)
Jews can only marry Jews
1936
Nazis boycott Jewish owned businesses
Kristallnacht-1938 "Night of the Broken Glass"
Nazis roamed through Jewish neighborhoods breaking windows of businesses and homes
All Jewish children expelled from public schools in Germany and Austria
Nazis take control of Jewish owned businesses
Ghettos
1939
Hitler orders the systematic murder of mentally/physically handicapped
Jews required to wear armbands or yellow stars
1940
Nazis begin deporting German Jews to Poland
Jews forced into ghettos
Nazis begin first mass murder of Jews in Poland
Death camps begin (mainly in 1941)
1942
Nazi officials announce "Final Solution"- their plan to kill all European Jews
5 death camps begin operation in Poland: Majdanek, Sobibor, Treblinka, Belzec, Auschwitz-Birkenau
Ghettos are emptied as thousands of Jews are shipped to death camps
1943
Jews fight back in Warsaw-hold out for nearly a month
1945
Hitler defeated in WWII
Holocaust ends
1947
Many Jewish people go to Isreal
Russia/Soviet Union/USSR
Russia dropped out of WW I due to the Bolshevik Revolution
Economically, it was in terrible shape
Vladimir Ulyanov(Lenin)
Lenin emerged as the leader of the communists.
Lenin was a big Marxist supporter
-Marx never outlined how exactly to reach a classless society so Lenin and the government took control of the economy and farms with a promise to eventually give it back to the peasants.
Lenin organized the country into a federation of republics
-The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
Lenin died in 1924
Power struggled ensued between Leon Trotsky and Josef Stalin.
Stalin would win.
Josef Stalin
Wanted to focus on building up the Soviet Union’s economy
Eliminated political opponents in great purges(800,000)
Wanted nationalization and collectivization of the economy
-gov’t took control of industry(nationalization)
-abolished private ownership(upset Kulaks)
-forced peasants to merge their land into large collective farms(collectivization)
The Kulaks resisted and Stalin used the secret police to kill them
Stalin admitted that at least 10 million people died due to collectivization and famine
Five Year Plans
-Stalin’s idea of economic growth for industry and agriculture
-Goals were to be met in a five year time frame
-Wasn’t until the third 5 Year Plan did the economy start to improve
Kellog-Briand Pact
Outlawed war
Japanese Invasion of Manchuria (Northern China)
Japan needed resources during Great Depression
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