The Road to the Holocaust

Select all that apply when it comes to Hitler's take over of Germany as "Fuhrer".

• Hitler used Kristallnacht as a way to solidify his control over Communists.

• Hitler was selected as chancellor of Germany by the Conservative President Hindenburg who feared the popularity of the Communist and socialist parties in the 1932 elections.

• President Hindenburg gave Hitler emergency powers under the "Reichstag Decree" following the burning of the Reichstag two months into Hitler's Chancellorship.

• Hitler declared himself fuhrer after President Hindenburg's death in 1934 thus taking over total control of the German Government.

Answer explanation

The actual Holocaust developed through stages starting with Adolf Hitler's selection as the Chancellor of Germany by President Hindenburg in January of 1933. About two months after Hitler became Chancellor of Germany, a fire broke out in the Reichstag which is like our Capitol building. When this happened - the President of Germany, Hindenburg called for a decree that gave Hitler authority to protect Germany from what was deemed a Communist take-over. After the Reichstag decree, democracy effectively ended in Germany but Hitler did not have full power until in 1934 when President Hindenburg died. Hitler merged the Presidency of Germany with his position as Chancellor and effectively took total power over the executive branch by calling himself "The Fuhrer" which means leader in German.

This was the first concentration camp constructed in Germany - finished in March of 1933 - Just one month after the "Reichstag decree" went into action giving Hitler broad powers to round up and detain anyone deemed "enemies of Germany" after the winter of 1933.

• Auschwitz

• Dachau

• Belgen Bersen

• Sobibor

Answer explanation

Dachau served as a prototype and model for the other German concentration camps that followed. Almost every community in Germany had members taken away to these camps. Newspapers continually reported "the removal of the enemies of the Reich to concentration camps." As early as 1935, a jingle went around: "Lieber Herr Gott, mach mich stumm, Das ich nicht nach Dachau komm'" ("Dear Lord God, make me dumb [silent], That I may not to Dachau come"). Those targeted at first we're labeled "Anti-social" or members of the communist, socialist party or openly advocating trade unions be developed to counter the National Socialist agenda of Hitler and the Nazi's.

Besides opponents to the regime, more and more persons imprisoned for reasons of racial ideology and “social hygiene” in 1936. These include sexual and ethnic minorities like homosexuals and Sinti and Roma. Persons who have repeatedly committed offences or lead a non-conformist life are labelled “criminal” and “asocial”, persecuted, and committed to concentration camps.

It was not until after Nov. 9th 1938 that Jews were first sent to Dachau for detainment for their own protection. Of course we know what happens after that...

"First they came for the Communists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Communist

Then they came for the Socialists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Socialist

Then they came for the trade unionists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a trade unionist

Then they came for the Jews

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Jew

Then they came for me

And there was no one left

To speak out for me"

Pastor Martin Niemoller

Why was this night known as Kristallnacht or "the night of the broken glass"

• Someone broke a glass cup and forgot to clean it up

• The nazi's were playing baseball and broke a window

• The nazi's broke through synagogues, schools, and other jewish buildings, and broken glass was all over the streets

• The jews threw glass at SS officers as a protest

Answer explanation

Kristallnacht or the Night of Broken Glass, also called the November pogrom, was a pogrom against Jews carried out by the Nazi Party's Sturmabteilung paramilitary and Schutzstaffel paramilitary forces. These forces were not official parts of the government but their actions were clearly pushed by the Nazi's and used later to justify moving massive numbers of Jewish German people into "protective custody" in concentration camps like Dachau.

The picture here show's Jewish German citizens marching into Dachau on November 10th, 1938. This date marks the start of the Jewish holocaust where Jews are introduced to the instrument of the final solution - the death camp that evolved out of the concentration camp model of detainment.

The Nuremberg Laws

• separated Jews from German society

• said Jews couldn't marry non-Jews

• said Jews couldn't own businesses

• all of the above

What was the main goal of the Nazi Party's "Final Solution" program during the Holocaust?

• To transport Jews to Palestine and establish a Jewish homeland

• To force Jews to convert to Christianity and assimilate into German society

• To systematically exterminate all Jewish people in Europe

• To create segregated ghettos where Jews could live under Nazi control

Please place the following in chronological order with the first event being #1 and the last being #4

• Jewish German's are sent to Concentration Camps

• Nuremberg Laws are Created and Enforced

• Kristallnacht

• Reichstag Decree

• Dachau is built

Answer explanation

Knowing that German's did not question the building and use of concentration camps early on and allowed for Adolf Hitler to take total control over Germany while using concentration camps to "socialize" people like Communists, socialists, trade unionists, gypsies, homosexual and non-binary people is important to re4cognize. Hitler and the Nazi's built the apparatus to tyranny and horror over time and all German's were fully aware of how and why it was being used.

First they came for the Communists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Communist.

Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

—Martin Niemöller

Hitler used this type of mass segregation of Jews to dehumanize them in the eyes of Germans and other Europeans. This system of segregating people did not start in Germany and would not end in 1945 with the end of World War II. We still face this systematized segregation of people and must work to undo it's influence in our minds.

• Jim Crow

• Apartheid

• Ghettoization

• Concentration Camps

Answer explanation

Ghettoization (countable and uncountable, plural Ghettoizations) The process of becoming a Ghetto, an isolated and underprivileged urban area. The process of ghettoizing (a group): the segregation/isolation of a group and placement of that group into a figurative or literal position of little power.

After Operation Barbarossa began to fail and the German army began to bog down outside Moscow and Stalingrad, Hitler and the Nazis became increasingly concerned with the threat all the Jewish ghettos' in Germany and eastern Europe presented to them. many Ghetto's began to experience uprisings of Jewish fighters and this created a need to deal with the "Jewish Question". In the late winter of 1942 the Nazi's arrived at this decision at an infamous meeting at Wannsee (a suburb of Berlin)

• The Madagascar Plan

• The Final Solution

• The Barbarosa solution

• None of these are correct

Answer explanation

the Final Solution to the Jewish Question was a Nazi plan for the genocide of individuals they defined as Jews during World War II. The "Final Solution to the Jewish question" was the official code name for the murder of all Jews within reach, which was not restricted to the European continent. This policy of deliberate and systematic genocide starting across German-occupied Europe was formulated in procedural and geopolitical terms by Nazi leadership in January 1942 at the Wannsee Conference held near Berlin and culminated in the Holocaust, which saw the murder of 90% of Polish Jews, and two-thirds of the Jewish population of Europe.