My social studies presentation. Disturbing Images.

1. The History of Jewish Persecution
Every religious group has suffered but none has
suffered as much as the Jewish Religion.
They have been exiled in nearly every country that
they have lived in, starting with Israel, Germany,
France, Spain, England, and Russia. They have
also suffered hundreds of years of torture,
punishment and murder. Due to all this hate and
resentment, they have become a very resilient
people, carrying their faith throughout country to
country without ever losing it. They have travelled
from eastern Europe to the United States and have
finally settled in north America. They have suffered
tremendously through out the years and it hasn’t
become any easier.

3. The Ancient Crimes.
• It started with King Nebuchadnezzar, who exiled them
from Jerusalem and were forced into Babylon. They
were not treated poorly, but were still bitter at having
being taken away from their beloved Jerusalem. After 70
years of exile they were allowed to return to Jerusalem.
Many gave up this option and stayed in Babylon. Due to
the prospering trade routes in the region many started
their professions and became merchants, traders, and
bankers. This peace lasted for 300 years, then came the
crusades…

4. The Crusades
Because of the conflict between
Christianity and Islam they would
suffer for another 200 years or so. The
Christians were preached to regain the
“holy land”
From here on in, gangs would attack the Jewish community
destroying their cities and livelihoods. They did not believe Jesus
Christ to be the sun of god and thus were treated as enemies to
the Christians. Riots started to break out in England and grew and
nearly every European nation banned Jewish practise and were
cast out. They were forced into other countries, and of course,
these countries didn’t want them.

5. • Within Spain, however, they were accepted to be productive
members of society until they were thought of not doing what they
were supposed too. They were accepted because they accepted
and practised Christianity in the public eye but in secret they
practised Judaism. In 1479 Isabella married Ferdinand in Spain, and
this led to the Inquisition. 6 people were buried alive, 30,000 people
were burned at the stake. Eventually all Jews left Spain. Some went
to Portugal, the Ottoman empire and Sicily but finding they were
banned from there as well. Eventually, they were kicked out of
Portugal and their communities continued in the middle-east, having
already been exiled from France and England. They were
continuously prosecuted in this way throughout the 17th
18th
and 19th
centuries, even all the way up to the 2nd
world war. The
Enlightenment, which was revolutionary to the Jewish people
because it gave them places with legal equality made them a very
common site and up to the 19th
century the Jews were a large part of
economic and cultural success.

6. Here it comes….
Although the Jews were a cultural and
economical resource the Europeans
irrational fears were still there. Hitler of
course knew this and when the 2nd
world way
started (yes that’s what I meant by here it
comes) he used their fears to make
Germany a united nation against an enemy.
That enemy, of course, being the Jews.
Although many Jews were sent to Death
Camps. Many more were sent to
Extermination Camps. The Nazis thought
shooting them wasn’t good enough so they
put them in gas chambers instead. Millions
were killed.
Auschwitz Death Camp.

7. The Holocaust
• This was Hitlers ultimate plan to completely exterminate
the Jews. It was not true that every victim was Jewish,
but every Jew was a victim. Jews were deemed racially
inferior and a threat to the Nazi regime and were
therefore dealt with. Up to 6 million Jews were killed and
many more were simply broken and their lived were
shattered. They were sent to concentration camps, and
were simply worked to death. Shooting was seen as too
good for them, and gas chambers were brought into the
extermination camps, to make the suffering worse. Many
people after being worked and treated so harshly, would
simply volunteer to be sent into the gas chambers. The
Nazis were slowly but effectively wiping them out.

8. These pictures are
just those which were
able to be exposed to
the public. There
would be many more
photos hidden or
prohibited by the Nazi
Regime.

9. Stories of the Holocaust
• There were many stories of
survivors. One was of a group
of Jews hiding in a cellar, but a
very sick baby was coughing.
To save the lives of the 30
people there, the man briefly
put his hand over the baby's
mouth and nose. The body
limped lifeless to the ground.
The Holocaust survivor Abel
Herzberg has said: "There
were not six million Jews
murdered; there was one
murder, six million times.“ I
was told a story that a list of
Jewish names lost in the
Holocaust was recorded and
being said in Jerusalem
Museum. The tape is still
going. (Searched, but no
• info to prove.)

10. Alexander Kimel, What he Saw.
• On March 21,1942 the Ghetto* was raided by Einsatzgrouppen and
3700 Jews, men women and children were driven in to a ditch,
about a mile from the Ghetto and shot. A few months later, about
2000 people were caught in a so called Action loaded into cattle
cars and driven to the Belzec Death Camp, for gassing. Three
months later, on the day of Atonement of 1942, the Germans raided
the Ghetto, catching the people praying in makeshift synagogues.
Again about 1500 people were packed into cattle trains, and without
food, water taken for Gassing in Belzec. On June 8, 1943, the
Ghetto was liquidated and all Jews caught were shot. The area was
declared Judenrein, which meant that any Jews caught afterwards
was executed on the spot. I personally escaped the Ghetto a month
earlier and hid in the forest and surrounding villages. After the
Liberation I went back to school and in 1959b I emigrated to the
USA.
*, The Germans shoved the Jews into these camps and imposed harsh conditions.

11. Story Continued.
• “Life in the ghetto was dangerous
and challenging. A day in the ghetto
was like living a month under
normal conditions. A month was
like a year, and a year was a
lifetime. Never a dull moment.
Buying a quart of milk was wrought
with danger. They catch you and
you are dead. One day they caught
a Jewish family outside the ghetto,
and were shot on the spot. A
couple with two beautiful cuddly
daughters.
• Another amazing thing was the
unbelievable level of adaptation of
the human species. The will to live
was so strong. In between the
spurts of danger young people
were falling in love, women getting
pregnant, quarrels erupting
between neighbours. Even parties
were given in the ghetto. They used
to call them "barbarki."

12. The Faith Today.
• After the holocaust, many Jews
had escaped to the already
booming Jewish population of
the united states. In total there
are more Jews in New York than
any other country. The Jewish
population still exists in Europe,
though it is very dispersed. Ellie
Wiesel, a survivor of the
holocaust once said; “We
remember Auschwitz and all that
it symbolizes because we
believe that, in spit of the past
and its horrors, the world is
worthy of salvation; and
salvation, like redemption can be
found only in memory. The
Jewish faith has triumphed and
still does today despite the huge
problems in the past. Many
religions would have fallen under
this kind of treatment. They
continue to prove their strength
and probably will continue to do
so.

13. Bibliography
• http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?
lang=en&ModuleId=10005143
• The Holocaust: Survival and Resistance by Pat Levy
Published 2000 by Hodder Wayland
• The Holocaust: Causes by Pat Levy. Published 2001 by
Hodder Wayland
• http://www.ic.arizona.edu/ic/mcbride/ws200/moss-
jewc.htmhttp://history1900s.about.com/gi/o.htm?
zi=1/XJ/Ya&zTi=1&sdn=history1900s&cdn=education&t
m=4&gps=148_173_1003_619&f=11&tt=14&bt=0&bts=0
&zu=http%3A//kimel.net/autobio.html
• Kantor, Mattis The Jewish Time Line Encyclopedia,
Jason Aronson Inc New Jersey 1992