Hitler targeted Jews and others he deemed "undesirable" for persecution and genocide. His Nazi regime enacted racist laws that stripped Jews of citizenship and rights, and violence against Jews escalated. Hitler's "Final Solution" was the systematic extermination of Jews in concentration and death camps, where millions were killed through gas chambers, medical experiments, starvation, and disease. Though reports of the atrocities reached Allied leaders, they did not take significant action to stop the genocide until liberating the camps at the end of the war. The Holocaust resulted in the deaths of 6 million Jews and 5 million others.

1. TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.
The Holocaust

2. TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.
• Trace the roots and progress of Hitler’s
campaign against the Jews.
• Explore the goals of Hitler’s “final solution” and
the nature of the Nazi death camps.
• Examine how the United States responded to the
Holocaust.
Objectives

3. TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.
Terms and People
• Holocaust − name now used to describe the
systematic murder by the Nazis of Jews and others
• anti-Semitism − prejudice and discrimination
against Jewish people
• Nuremberg Laws − laws enacted by Hitler that
denied German citizenship to Jews
• Kristallnacht − November 9, 1938 – night of
organized violence in which Jews were arrested
and killed and synagogues and Jewish businesses
destroyed

4. TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.
• genocide − willful annihilation of a racial,
political, or cultural group
• concentration camp − camps used by the Nazis
to imprison “undesirable” members of society
• death camp − Nazi camp designed for the
extermination of prisoners
• War Refugee Board − U.S. government agency
founded in 1944 to save Eastern European Jews
Terms and People (continued)

5. TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.
How did the Holocaust develop and
what were its results?
Hitler found a target for his anger and
hatred in Jews and other “undesirables.”
Nazi persecution resulted in the deaths of
6 million Jews and 5 million other people.

6. TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.
Roots of the Holocaust
• Racist belief that proclaimed Aryans
superior to other people
• Desire by Hitler and others to blame
someone for Germany’s problems following
World War I
Hitler found someone to blame: the Jews.
The Nazi movement trafficked in hatred and
anti-Semitism.

7. TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.
• Jewish businesses were boycotted.
• Jews were fired from their jobs.
• Jews were barred from working in fields
such as banking, law, and medicine.
At first, the focus of persecution
was economic.

8. TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.
In time, laws were passed that broadened
the persecution.
Nuremberg Laws, passed in 1935
• Denied Jews German citizenship
• Banned marriage between Jews and non-Jews
• Segregated Jews at every level of society

9. TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.
The hatred directed against Jews soon
turned violent.
During the 1938
night known as
Kristallnacht,
hundreds of Jews
were killed and
Jewish businesses
and synagogues
burned.
Hitler’s secret
police carried out
vicious attacks.

10. TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.
Political opponents and
anyone labeled
“undesirable” also were
imprisoned.
Hitler’s “final
solution to the
Jewish
question” was
genocide—
extermination
of all Jews.
Beginning in the
1930s, Jews were
forced from their
homes, put onto
trains, and taken to
concentration
camps.

11. TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.
Some
concentration
camps were
death camps.
There, prisoners
were killed in
gas chambers or
shot, and their
bodies burned.

12. TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.
Prisoners in other camps were forced to perform
heavy labor, often brutalized by the guards.
Some were tortured or subjected to horrible
medical experiments.
Death by starvation and disease was common.
Millions of people died in concentration camps.

13. TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.
• A 1943 conference to discuss possible rescue plans
ended with no concrete action being taken.
• The United States and other countries blocked
fleeing Jews from immigrating.
For years, the Allies
had received reports
of Jews being killed
in Nazi camps.
Yet little was
done to stop it.

14. TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.
Though they
expressed concern,
American leaders
remained focused
on their war plans.
Some suggested they
bomb the rail lines
leading to the camps.
But the military
hesitated to divert
battle resources.
In 1944, Roosevelt created the War Refugee Board
in an attempt to help Jews in Eastern Europe.
Sadly, too few were saved.

15. TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.
When Allied soldiers liberated the camps at
war’s end, they were stunned by the horror
before them.
Americans reacted
with an outpouring
of sympathy and a
desire to help.
Many survivors
eventually found
homes in the
United States.

16. TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.
• The state of Israel was founded in 1948.
• Truman immediately recognized the new nation,
and the United States became a staunch ally.
The enormity of the Nazi crime led to renewed
calls for an independent Jewish state.