World War II: The Holocaust

The Holocaust was the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of approximately six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators. "Holocaust" is a word of Greek origin meaning "sacrifice by fire." The Nazis, who came to power in Germany in January 1933, believed that Germans were "racially superior" and that the Jews, deemed "inferior," were an alien threat to the so-called German racial community.

During the era of the Holocaust, German authorities also targeted other groups because of their perceived "racial inferiority": Roma (Gypsies), the disabled, and some of the Slavic peoples (Poles, Russians, and others). Other groups were persecuted on political, ideological, and behavioral grounds, among them Communists, Socialists, Jehova´s Witnesses, and homosexuals.

WHAT WAS THE HOLOCAUST?

In 1933, the Jewish population of Europe stood at over nine million. Most European Jews lived in countries that Nazi Germany would occupy or influence during World War II. By 1945, the Germans and their collaborators killed nearly two out of every three European Jews as part of the "Final Solution," the Nazi policy to murder the Jews of Europe. Although Jews, whom the Nazis deemed a priority danger to Germany, were the primary victims of Nazi racism, other victims included some 200,000 Roma (Gypsies). At least 200,000 mentally or physically disabled patients, mainly Germans, living in institutional settings, were murdered in the so-called Euthanasia Program.

As Nazi tyranny spread across Europe, the Germans and their collaborators persecuted and murdered millions of other people. Between two and three million Soviet prisoners of war were murdered or died of starvation, disease, neglect, or maltreatment. The Germans targeted the non-Jewish Polish intelligentsia for killing, and deported millions of Polish and Soviet civilians for forced labor in Germany or in occupied Poland, where these individuals worked and often died under deplorable conditions. From the earliest years of the Nazi regime, German authorities persecuted homosexuals and others whose behavior did not match prescribed social norms. German police officials targeted thousands of political opponents (including Communists, Socialists, and trade unionists) and religious dissidents (such as Jehovah's Witnesses). Many of these individuals died as a result of incarceration and maltreatment.

ADMINISTRATION OF THE "FINAL SOLUTION"

In the early years of the Nazi regime, the National Socialist government established concentration camps to detain real and imagined political and ideological opponents. Increasingly in the years before the outbreak of war, SS and police officials incarcerated Jews, Roma, and other victims of ethnic and racial hatred in these camps. To concentrate and monitor the Jewish population as well as to facilitate later deportation of the Jews, the Germans and their collaborators created ghettos, transit camps, and forced-labor camps for Jews during the war years. The German authorities also established numerous forced-labor camps, both in the so-called Greater German Reich and in German-occupied territory, for non-Jews whose labor the Germans sought to exploit.

Following the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, Einsatzgruppen (mobile killing units) and, later, militarized battalions of Order Police officials, moved behind German lines to carry out mass-murder operations against Jews, Roma, and Soviet state and Communist Party officials. German SS and police units, supported by units of the Wehrmacht and the Waffen SS, murdered more than a million Jewish men, women, and children, and hundreds of thousands of others. Between 1941 and 1944, Nazi German authorities deported millions of Jews from Germany, from occupied territories, and from the countries of many of its Axis allies to ghettos and to killing centers, often called extermination camps, where they were murdered in specially developed gassing facilities.

THE END OF THE HOLOCAUST

In the final months of the war, SS guards moved camp inmates by train or on forced marches, often called “death marches”, in an attempt to prevent the Allied liberation of large numbers of prisoners. As Allied forces moved across Europe in a series of offensives against Germany, they began to encounter and liberate concentration camp prisoners, as well as prisoners en route by forced march from one camp to another. The marches continued until May 7, 1945, the day the German armed forces surrendered unconditionally to the Allies. For the western Allies, World War II officially ended in Europe on the next day, May 8 (V-E Day), while Soviet forces announced their “Victory Day” on May 9, 1945.

In the aftermath of the Holocaust, many of the survivors found shelter in displaced persons (DP) camps administered by the Allied powers. Between 1948 and 1951, almost 700,000 Jews emigrated to Israel, including 136,000 Jewish displaced persons from Europe. Other Jewish DPs emigrated to the United States and other nations. The last DP camp closed in 1957. The crimes committed during the Holocaust devastated most European Jewish communities and eliminated hundreds of Jewish communities in occupied eastern Europe entirely.

The Holocaust that changed the World

Holocaust, Hitler´s Concentration Camp

The Holocaust in  Color

WW1: Life in the Trenches

Trench Warfare in the First World War

When the Germans attacked in Belgium they quickly beat the armies defending the borders and managed to get into France very quickly. The British and French generals, uncertain about how to stop the German advance decided to ‘dig in’ and ordered the construction of Trenches to act as a barrier against the attack.

The soldiers dug a hole about a meter wide at the bottom and two meters

deep. Boards were placed on the ground to act as drainage. On the side of

the trench facing the enemy a ‘fire step’ was cut into the wall. This was for

soldiers to shoot from. Sandbags were placed at the top of the trench. This

would stop the trench caving in if a bomb went off nearby. It also provided

more protection from bullets. In front of the trench Barbed wire was rolled out.

This was to stop soldiers being able to charge at the trench.

Both sides soon found that they could stop an enemy attack by digging trenches and setting up machine guns. Trenches soon became a permanent feature of warfare and the trench lines changed little in three and a half years. Sandbags protected the soldiers from bullets and shrapnel. Barbed wire was set up to delay any enemy advance. The ground between the trench lines became pock-marked with shell craters.

The British developed the tank to destroy machine gun positions, cross rough ground and go through belts of barbed wire.

Why the Trenches stayed

Barbed wire

This was difficult to cut. Shelling usually only tangled it up. It spread men out in a line.

Machine guns

These mowed down men with intersecting crossfire.

Gas

This was very effective in slowing down heavily-laden attackers. It was not so effective against troops in trenches.

Shells

The best trenches saved soldiers from all but a direct hit. Shells churned up the ground, destroyed drainage systems and made attack very difficult.

Lack of secrecy

The enemy could easily see when extra supplies were brought up for an attack.

Railway

These could rush reinforcements to a threatened spot very quickly. Aeroplanes were not powerful enough then to delay rail traffic by any great amount.

Attack at walking pace

Men could only advance at walking pace.

Lack of experience

Generals had never fought this way before and could not think of ways of

breaking through the trenches

Zigzagging Trenches

These were to stop enemy artillery destroying a whole line of trench and to

prevent successful attackers being able to fire along a long length of a trench.

Communication trenches

These joined lines of trenches.

Blind Alleys

These led nowhere and they were built to confuse and slow down the enemy in the event of a successful attack.

Forward positions

These were built for miners and snipers.

Underground 'Saps"

These were tunnels driven under enemy trenches so that explosives could be placed under them and detonated.

No Man's Land

This was very difficult to cross because of the belts of barbed wire, shell holes and very swampy conditions when it rained.

The Trench: Important points

Advantages: easy to make, easy to defend, cheap to build, don’t need lots of men to defend them.

Disadvantages: wet, cold, hard to get in an out of without being seen by the enemy. Trenches were very dirty and unhygienic as there was no running water or flushing toilets.

Some of the problems faced inside the trenches.

1-   Body Lice

Men in the trenches suffered from lice. One soldier writing after the war described them as "pale fawn in color, and they left blotchy red bite marks all over the body."

They also created a sour, stale smell. Various methods were used to remove the lice.

A lighted candle was fairly effective but the skill of burning the lice without burning your clothes was only learnt with practice. Where possible the army arranged for the men to have baths in huge vats of hot water while their clothes were being put through delousing machines. Unfortunately, this rarely worked. A fair proportion of the eggs remained in the clothes and within two or three hours of the clothes being put on again a man's body heat had hatched them out.

As well as causing frenzied scratching, lice also carried disease. This was known as pyrrexhia or trench fever. The first symptoms were shooting pains in the shins and was followed by a very high fever. Although the disease did not kill, it did stop soldiers from fighting and accounted for about 15% of all cases of sickness in the British Army.

Source B: Private George Coppard, With A Machine Gun to Cambrai (1969)

A full day's rest allowed us to clean up a bit, and to launch a full scale attack on lice. I sat in a quiet corner of a barn for two hours delousing myself as best I could.

We were all at it, for none of us escaped their vile attentions. The things lay in the seams of trousers, in the deep furrows of long thick woolly pants, and seemed impregnable in their deep entrenchments. A lighted candle applied where they were thickest made them pop like Chinese crackers. After a session of this, my face would be covered with small blood spots from extra big fellows which had popped too vigorously. Lice hunting was called 'chatting'. In parcels from home it was usual to receive a tin of supposedly death-dealing powder or pomade, but the lice thrived on the stuff.

Source C: Private Stuart Dolden wrote about his experiences in the

trenches after the war.

We had to sleep fully dressed, of course, this was very uncomfortable with the pressure of ammunition on one's chest restricted breathing; furthermore, when a little warmth was obtained the vermin used to get busy, and for some unexplained reason they always seemed to get lively in the portion of one's back, that lay underneath the belt and was the most inaccessible spot. The only way to obtain relief was to get out of the dugout, put a rifle barrel between the belt and rub up and down like a donkey at a gatepost. This stopped it for a bit, but as soon as one got back into the dugout, and was getting reasonably warm so would the little brutes get going again.

2. Trench Feet

After the war, Captain G. H. Impey, 7th Battalion, Royal Sussex Regiment, wrote about his experiences of trench life.

The trenches were wet and cold and at this time some of them did not have duckboards and dug-outs. The battalion lived in mud and water. Altogether about 200 men were evacuated for trench feet and rheumatism. Gum boots were provided for the troops in the most exposed positions. Trench feet was still a new ailment and the provision of dry socks was vitally important. Part of the trench was reserved for men to go two at a time, at least once a day, and rub each other's feet with grease.

3. Trench Rats

Many men killed in the trenches were buried almost where they fell. If a trench subsided, or new trenches or dugouts were needed, large numbers of decomposing bodies would be found just below the surface. These corpses, as well as the food scraps that littered the trenches, attracted rats. One pair of rats can produce 880 offspring in a year and so the trenches were soon swarming with them.

Some of these rats grew extremely large. One soldier wrote: "The rats were huge.

They were so big they would eat a wounded man if he couldn't defend himself." These rats became very bold and would attempt to take food from the pockets of sleeping men. Two or three rats would always be found on a dead body. They usually went for the eyes first and then they burrowed their way right into the corpse. One soldier described finding a group of dead bodies while on patrol: "I saw some rats running from under the dead men's greatcoats, enormous rats, fat with human flesh. My heart pounded as we edged towards one of the bodies. His helmet had rolled off. The man displayed a grimacing face, stripped of flesh; the skull bare, the eyes devoured and from the yawning mouth leapt a rat."

Source A: Punch, 1916

Source B: Stuart Dolden, 1920

The outstanding feature of the trenches was the extraordinary number of rats. The area was infested with them. It was impossible to keep them out of the dugouts. They grew fat on the food that they pilfered from us, and anything they could pick up in or around the trenches; they were bloated and loathsome to look at.

Some were nearly as big as cats. We were filled with an instinctive hatred of them, because however one tried to put the thought of one's mind, one could not help feeling that they fed on the dead.

Source C: George Coppard, With A Machine Gun to Cambrai (1969)

Rats bred by the tens of thousands and lived on the fat of the land. When we were sleeping in funk holes the things ran over us, played about, copulated and fouled our scraps of food, their young squeaking incessantly. There was no proper system of waste disposal in trench life. Empty tins of all kinds were flung away over the top on both sides of the trench. Millions of tins were thus available for all the rats in France and Belgium in hundreds of miles of trenches. During brief moments of quiet at night, one could hear a continuous rattle of tins moving against each other. The rats were turning them over.

What happened to the rats under heavy shell-fire was a mystery, but their

powers of survival kept place with each new weapon, including poison gas.

Source D: Richard Beasley, interviewed in 1993.

If you left your food the rats would soon grab it. Those rats were fearless.

Sometimes we would shoot the filthy swines. But you would be put on a charge for

wasting ammo, if the sergeant caught you.

Source E: Frank Laird writing after the war.

Sometimes the men amused themselves by baiting the ends of their rifles with pieces of bacon in order to have a shot at them at close quarters.

THE COLD WAR

So what exactly was the Cold War?

In diplomatic terms there are three types of war.

Hot War : this is actual warfare. All talks have failed and the armies are fighting.

Warm War : this is where talks are still going on and there would always be a chance of a peaceful outcome but armies, navies etc. are being fully mobilized and war plans are being put into operation ready for the command to fight.

Cold War : It is a war fought mostly with words and money instead of soldiers.

COLD WAR 1945-1960

Cold War is the conflict between the Communist nations led by the Soviet Union and the democratic nations led by the United States. It is fought by all means - propaganda, economic war, diplomatic haggling and occasional military clashes. It is fought in all places - in neutral states, in newly independent nations in Africa, Asia and even in outer space.

The historians have so far not reached any agreement on the time in which the Cold War began. It is, however, quite safe to say that since 1947 when President Truman of the United States declared an anti-communist policy, the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union has begun.

 CAUSES OF THE COLD WAR

There were deep-rooted ideological, economic and political differences between the United States and the Soviet Union before the Second World War. These differences were intensified as a result of their mutual suspicions immediately after the Second World War.

1.    Ideological:

The United States and the Soviet Union represent two opposing systems of government. In the United States, the government is elected by free elections. The people can form political parties to voice their political opinions. They also possess the right of assembly, of speech and of the press. In the Soviet Union, the government is formed by the Communist Party. The people do not have the right to form their own political parties. They do not enjoy the right of assembly, of speech and of the press. Since these two systems of government are diametrically opposed to one another, there can be little compromise between the United States and the Soviet Union.

2.    Economic:

The United States wanted to encourage free trade throughout the world. The Soviet Union wanted to shield off her own sphere from international commerce. Russia feared that trade with the West would involve the risk of Russia being opened to western influences which would have eroded the strength of the totalitarian regime. These differences led to much ill feeling between the United States and the Soviet Union.

3.    Power rivalry:

After the Second World War, with the decline of Europe, power was largely shared between the Soviet Union and the United States. As one wanted 'to dominate the other, conflicts were inevitable.

THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PAJAMAS

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is a fictional story that offers a unique perspective on how prejudice, hatred and violence affect innocent people, particularly children, during wartime. Through the lens of an eight-year-old boy largely shielded from the reality of World War II, we witness a forbidden friendship that forms between Bruno, the son of Nazi commandant at a concentration camp, and Shmuel, a Jewish boy held captive in a concentration camp.

 Though the two are separated physically by a barbed wire fence, their lives become inescapably intertwined.

Set during World War II, a story seen through the innocent eyes of Bruno, whose forbidden friendship with a Jewish boy on the other side of the camp fence has startling and unexpected consequences.

After watching the movie, answer the following questions:

1. What did Bruno see through his window?

2. Who was Pavel? How had his life changed during the war?

3. What atrocities against the Jews could you observe in the movie?

4. What changes did you observe in Gretel?

5. Why did Gretel change?

6. What is a concentration camp for you?

7. What did the teacher teach to Bruno and Gretel?

8. What happened to Pavel?

9. What do you think about the Holocaust?

10. Who was your favorite character and why?

The Axis Powers

The Axis powers (Germany, Italy and Japan) also known as the Axis alliance, Axis nations, Axis countries, or just the Axis, was an alignment of great powers during the mid-20th century that fought World War II against the Allies. They shared a political philosophy that advocates giving total power to a dictator and denying individual freedoms. This philosophy is called fascism.

DICTATORS OF THE AXIS POWERS

                             

1.  Adolph Hitler

Nazi Dictatorship

Hitler was elected chancellor of Germany in 1933 and then took complete control of Germany, declaring himself Fuhrer. Fuhrer means leader or guide. He enacted laws stripping Jews of their citizenship and barring them from most businesses. His foreign policy was aggressive and Germany rapidly expanded a lot having a great militarism and taking Austria, conquering Czechoslovakia, and finally invading Poland.

Legacy

Hitler is widely regarded as the most evil man in history. What is baffling is how he could have come to power in a sophisticated, advanced, civilized place like Germany

2.   Benito Mussolini

 

Benito Mussolini was a fascist dictator who ruled Italy from the 1920's until he was deposed in 1943. Following that, he was rescued by the Germans and ruled Northern Italy until the end of World War II, when he was captured by partisans, killed, and strung up along with his mistress, Clara Petacci.

3.    Hideki Tojo

Hideki Tojo was a Japanese general and the 40th Prime Minister of Japan (October 18, 1941-July 22, 1944). Tojo was a member of the military clique that pushed Japan into war in the late 1930s. As War Minister in 1940 he was instrumental in leading Japan into the Axis Alliance with Nazi Germany and Italy. Among his decisions was the approval of government-sanctioned biological experiments on POWs.

By 1941, Tojo was premier and in command of the entire Japanese military, which so dominated Japan at the time that he was virtually the nation's dictator. He resigned in 1944 following a series of military disasters. After the war, he shot himself in the chest in an unsuccessful suicide attempt.