DEPTH STUDY 6: SCHOOL-DEVELOPED TOPIC

TOPIC 6a
The Holocaust
6a.1 Overview
Numerous videos and interactivities are embedded just where you need them, at the point of learning, in
your learnON title at www.jacplus.com.au. They will help you to learn the content and concepts covered
in this topic.

6a.1.1 Introduction
Anti-Semitism (prejudice against Jews) dates back to ancient times. In the early twentieth century,
right-wing groups in many European countries practised and encouraged anti-Semitism. In the 1920s and
1930s, anti-Semitism also gained support in the United States and a number of other countries. This was
the background against which one country, Germany, took anti-Semitism to an extreme that people had not
thought possible.
From around 1938 to 1945,
SOURCE 1 Photo of the railway track leading towards the main
Germany’s Nazi government carried entrance to the Auschwitz–Birkenau extermination camp
out a massive crime against humanity –
the murder of over six million Jewish
men, women and children, two-thirds
of Europe’s Jewish population. These
people died throughout Nazi-controlled
Europe and especially in the Nazis’
purpose-built death camps. This was
the Holocaust, also called the Shoah. It
was the culmination of years in which
the Nazi party had created anti-Jewish
laws, denying Jews, and those classified
as Jews, their rights as humans and as
citizens. The Nazi government made
these people social outcasts within
their own homelands.

Starter questions
1. Why is it important to learn about negative aspects of the past rather than just focus on the positive?
2. Imagine the government declared that people with brown eyes should have priority over people with blue
eyes. List ten examples of ways in which you and your family might be advantaged or disadvantaged by
decisions made by other people.
3. What is prejudice? List three things societies could do to protect people from prejudice.
4. Auschwitz–Birkenau was an extermination camp in which the Nazis killed one million people, mainly Jews.
Why might people think it important that such places remain open for people to visit?

Jacaranda Retroactive 2 NSW Australian curriculum History Stage 5, Topic 6a

6a.2 The Nazi threat
6a.2.1 The Nazis gain power
In June 1933, Jews comprised about 0.75 per cent of Germany’s 67 million people. Jews belonged to all classes
of German society and participated in most aspects of German life. They had varying levels of education,
from basic schooling up to doctorate level at universities. They were engaged in many different forms of work
including as accountants, business owners, doctors, engineers, factory workers, tailors and teachers.
German Jews did not follow Jewish cultural and religious traditions as strictly as Eastern European Jews, who
tended to be more conservative and insular. This latter group, which had residency status, not citizenship status,
comprised 20 per cent of Germany’s Jewish population. Some experienced discrimination in job applications
and promotions. None expected that a German government would enact laws to persecute them.
In two elections in 1932, no party was able to win a majority in the German parliament (the Reichstag). This
was partly because the German electoral system was based on proportional representation. The National
Socialist German Workers’ Party, (also known as the NSDAP or Nazi Party) gained 40 per cent of the vote in
the first election and 37 per cent in the second. It was the largest party in the Reichstag and its leader, Adolf
Hitler, used this to justify his demand to become Chancellor of Germany.
In January 1933, German President Paul von Hindenburg reluctantly appointed Hitler to the position of
Chancellor. Hitler headed a coalition government in which there were only two other Nazi ministers. Within
months he turned Germany into a one-party state and, on Hindenburg’s death in August 1934, he combined the
positions of President and Chancellor. Having acquired and consolidated their power, the Nazis were able to
implement their policies on race.

6a.2.2 Nazi racial beliefs

The NSDAP was determined to see Germany overcome the
humiliation of its defeat in World War I and the restrictions SOURCE 1 Image c.1935 by Wolfgang
that the Treaty of Versailles had placed on it. It felt that Willrich (1897–1948) portraying the ideal
one way of doing this was to improve the ‘quality’ of its Aryan family. Willrich created posters and
postcards for the Nazi Party’s Office of
population.
Racial Politics.
The Nazis believed in the idea of an Aryan master race as
the superior group in a hierarchy of different racial groups.
They viewed the ‘typical Aryan’ as tall, with light brown
or blonde hair and blue or light-coloured eyes. The Nazis
expected Aryan women to devote themselves to motherhood
so that the master race would multiply.
The Nazis believed that untermenschen (sub-humans) were
at the bottom of this racial hierarchy. According to this theory,
Slavic peoples (such as Russians, Poles and Serbs) were
sub-human and useful as slave labour for their superiors. Hitler
talked of a group who were lower again, those who he said were
‘life unworthy of life’ – criminals, homosexuals, the mentally
ill, gypsies and, especially, Jews. The Nazis viewed Jews as a
racial group, not as people who supported a particular religion.
Eugenics was another component of Nazi racial policy.
Nazis claimed that for Germany to regain its position as a
world power, it had to recreate its master race and ‘remove’
the people it saw as racially inferior or, at least, to prevent
them from having children. That meant forcing people it
judged unsuitable for parenting to be sterilised, and making
the others victims of euthanasia (mercy killing).

Jacaranda Retroactive 2 NSW Australian curriculum History Stage 5, Topic 6a

 Teachers taught these racial ideas as scientific ‘fact’. Nazi propaganda encouraged people to feel pride
in belonging to a master race and to be suspicious and fearful of Jews, whom it portrayed in a stereotypical
and negative way. From 1933 onwards, Nazi laws began to separate Jews from mainstream German society.

SOURCE 2 Photo from the cover of Neue Illustriete SOURCE 3 Illustration from the 1936 children’s
Zeitung, 1 June 1933. It shows a measuring device book Trust No Fox on his Green Heath And No Jew
that Nazi ‘race scientists’ used to check whether on his Oath. The sign reads ‘Jews are not wanted
someone was Aryan or non-Aryan. here’.

6a.2 Activities
To answer questions online and to receive immediate feedback and sample responses for every question,
go to your learnON title at www.jacplus.com.au. Note: Question numbers may vary slightly.

Check knowledge and understanding

1. Explain how the Nazis came to power without winning an election.
2. Explain why the Nazis’ racial beliefs were a threat to the Jews.
3. How did the Nazis encourage other Germans to accept these racial beliefs?

Develop source skills

4. Identify the aspects of Nazi racial policy that SOURCE 1 exemplifies.
5. What values and attitudes are shown in SOURCE 3?

ONLINE ONLY

Complete this digital doc: Worksheet 6a.2 The nazi threat (doc-23178)

6a.3 Using the law 1933–38

6a.3.1 The Nazis take power
Throughout February 1933, Hitler’s SA troops (storm troopers) engaged in a campaign of violence against
members of the Communist and Social Democratic parties – the main parties who opposed them.
On 27 February, just four weeks after Hitler became Chancellor, the Reichstag building caught fire. Its
interior was destroyed. Police arrested young Communist activist, Martin van der Lubbe. Nazi interrogators
got him to confess to having started the fire. This gave Hitler the excuse to claim that Germany’s Communists
were trying to destroy the government. It led to the arrest of leaders of the German Communist Party
(KPD) and any of its members who were candidates in the forthcoming elections on 5 March.

Jacaranda Retroactive 2 NSW Australian curriculum History Stage 5, Topic 6a

 Once again, the Nazis did not gain a majority. They did manage to intimidate most of their remaining
opponents sufficiently to get parliament to pass the Enabling Bill on 23 March. This gave Hitler the power
to rule as a dictator. A law passed on 14 July 1933 banned all political parties other than the Nazi Party.

SOURCE 1 Schutzstaffel (SS) officers are sworn in as auxiliary police officers at Potsdam, Germany, 3rd
March 1933, two days before the election.

6a.3.2 Policies and laws SOURCE 2 Photo from 1 April 1933 showing Nazi troops in
1933–35 Berlin imposing a boycott of Jewish shops. The sign reads
‘Germans! Defend yourselves! Do not buy from Jews’.
The Nazi government exerted its
influence in all areas of German life. It
controlled the police and the judiciary and
had its own secret police, the Gestapo, to
instil fear among the general population.
This meant that Jews had little chance
of having their rights protected or of
achieving justice. One of the first things
the Nazis did was to impose a one-day
boycott of Jewish shops and department
stores. Later, people were encouraged to
boycott Jewish lawyers and doctors.
The Nazi government used the law as
‘cover’ for its persecution of a minority
group. From April 1933 to 1935, it made
multiple anti-Semitic laws.

Jacaranda Retroactive 2 NSW Australian curriculum History Stage 5, Topic 6a

 SOURCE 3 Table showing the nature of some of Germany’s anti-Jewish laws 1933–35

Date Law Result

1933

7 April Law for the Restoration of the Jews were excluded from the civil service (and thus from
Professional Civil Service many upper level positions in German society) on the
grounds that they were ‘unreliable’.
Law on the Admission to the Legal Jewish lawyers could no longer be admitted to the bar.
Profession
25 April Law against Overcrowding in Public schools and universities had to limit the numbers of
Schools and Universities non-Aryan students they would accept.
4 October Law on Editors Jews could no longer work as editors on newspapers.

1935

21 May Army law The Army dismissed its Jewish officers.

RETROFILE
During 1933 and into 1934, Hindenburg, as German President, was Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces
and also the only person with the power to dismiss Hitler. The army respected Hindenburg as a war hero and
was likely to support him if there was any conflict with Hitler. This made Hitler more cautious than he might
otherwise have been.

President Hindenburg insisted that the proposed law expelling Jews from the civil service would not
disadvantage Jewish veterans of World War I.

SOURCE 4 An extract from an English translation of the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil
Service, 7 April 1933

The Reich government has enacted the following Law, promulgated herewith:
§1
1. To restore a national professional civil service and to simplify administration, civil servants may be dismissed
from office in accordance with the following regulations, even where there would be no grounds for such
action under the prevailing Law.
2. For the purposes of this Law the following are to be considered civil servants: direct and indirect officials
of the Reich, direct and indirect officials of the Laender, officials of Local Councils, and of Federations
of Local Councils, officials of Public Corporations as well as of Institutions and Enterprises of equivalent
status … The provisions will apply also to officials of Social Insurance organisations having the status of
civil servants …
§3
1. Civil servants who are not of Aryan descent are to be retired; if they are honorary officials, they are to be
dismissed from their official status.
2. Section 1 does not apply to civil servants in office from August 1, 1914, who fought at the Front for the
German Reich or its Allies in the World War, or whose fathers or sons fell in the World War.

The Nuremberg laws 1935

On 15 September 1935, in response to Nazis demanding further action against the Jews, Hitler announced
the Nuremberg laws. These laws denied Jews their citizenship and voting rights and showed that the Nazis
were intensifying their anti-Jewish campaign.

Jacaranda Retroactive 2 NSW Australian curriculum History Stage 5, Topic 6a

The Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour
This law created legal distinctions between ‘full-blooded’ Germans (Deutsche-blutige) and Jews (Juden) and
the Mischlinge (mixed race), who did not fit into either category. It classified them according to whether they
had any Jewish grandparents. Anyone
with four non-Jewish grandparents
was German; anyone with three or SOURCE 5 A 1935 chart explaining the categories of people under
four Jewish grandparents – regardless the Nuremberg laws
of whether or not the person
themselves practised Judaism – was
Jewish. The Mischlinge were those
with one or two Jewish grandparents.
The government issued charts
explaining how to judge someone’s
category. The law also outlawed:
• marriage between Jews and those
of ‘German blood’
• sex between Jews and those of
German blood
• the employment of German maids
under the age of 45 in a Jewish
household
• Jews flying the national flag.

The Reich Citizenship Law

This law stated that ‘pure Aryans’ were German citizens; Jews were Staatsangehoriger – people subject
to state law, but not German citizens. The Mischlinge could keep their German citizenship as long as they
became practising Christians.

The First Decree to the Reich Citizenship Law

Some Nazis thought the Nuremberg laws needed to be more explicit. On 14 November 1935, the government
issued the first of a number of additional decrees addressing this (see Source 6).

SOURCE 6 An extract from the First Decree to the Reich Citizenship Law, 14 November 1935

Article 5
2. A Jew is also one who is descended from two full Jewish parents, if (a) he belonged to the Jewish religious
community at the time this law was issued, or joined the community later, (b) he was married to a Jewish
person, at the time the law was issued, or married one subsequently, (c) he is the offspring of a marriage with
a Jew, in the sense of Section I, which was contracted after the Law for the Protection of German Blood and
German Honor became effective, (d) he is the offspring of an extramarital relationship with a Jew, according to
Section I, and will be born out of wedlock after July 31, 1936.

Significance of the Nuremberg laws

The Nuremberg laws:
• created a broad definition of who was Jewish that did not necessarily relate to whether or not they
practised the Jewish religion
• made it easier for the government to target individual Jews

Jacaranda Retroactive 2 NSW Australian curriculum History Stage 5, Topic 6a

•• created a legal basis for the ongoing segregation and persecution of Jews – for example, the banning
of Jews from taking university doctorates; courts’ refusing to cite the opinions of Jewish legal experts;
removing Jewish names from war memorials; denying Jews access to cafés, transport and public
facilities such as swimming pools; refusing Jews entry to theatres and exhibitions; refusing Jews the
right to a driver’s licence
•• brought Germany and Germany’s Jewish population a step closer to the Holocaust.

6a.3.3 Policies and laws 1936–38

From the mid 1930s to the early 1940s, Germany’s national, state and municipal governments issued about
2000 laws and regulations violating Jewish people’s human rights. To begin with, these segregated the Jews
from mainstream German life. Then, using the slogan ‘Germany for the Germans’, the government moved
towards trying to force Jews to leave Germany altogether.

The Berlin Olympics – August 1936

Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels was determined that the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games would
demonstrate the supremacy of the Aryan Germans. He wanted to give the general population a sense of pride
in Nazi efficiency and strength and in the state of the art facilities they created for their international guests.
The Nazis wanted to ban Jews and black people from competing, but had to back down when the United
States and other nations threatened to boycott the Games. For a while they also had to tone down evidence
of the restrictions on Jews. They removed signs saying ‘Jews not welcome’ from public buildings and
allowed one Jewish competitor, fencing champion Helene Mayer, to represent Germany. Once the Olympics
were over, the persecution resumed.

Why stay?
With the benefit of hindsight, we might ask why people didn’t just get out while they could. At the same time,
it is no easy decision to leave behind one’s home to try to start again somewhere else. It is an emotional and
an economic decision, made harder if you have not got much you can take with you, do not speak another
language, cannot find another country that will take you and do not know how you will manage if you can go
elsewhere. Between 1933 and 1934, at least 23 000 Jews left Germany; in early 1935, 10 000 returned, perhaps
because of some of the reasons mentioned above. In 1938, about 36 000 Jews left Germany and Austria.

SOURCE 7 Table showing the nature of some of Germany’s anti-Jewish laws 1936–39

Date Law/Decision Result

1936
11 January Executive Order on the Jews could no longer work as tax consultants.
Reich Tax Law
3 April Reich Veterinarians Law Jews could no longer work as vets.
15 October Reich Ministry of Education Jews could no longer teach in public schools.
1938
5 January Law on the Alteration of Jews could no longer change their first or last names.
Family and Personal Names
5 February Law on the Profession of Jews could no longer work as auctioneers.
Auctioneer
18 March The Gun Law Jews were not allowed to sell guns.
22 April Decree against the Jews could not change the names of their businesses.
Camouflage of Jewish Firms
26 April Order for the Disclosure of Jews had to report ownership of any property worth more than
Jewish Assets 5000 Reichsmarks.

(continued )

Jacaranda Retroactive 2 NSW Australian curriculum History Stage 5, Topic 6a

Date Law/Decision Result
11 July Reich Ministry of the Interior Jews were not allowed to go to health spas.
17 August Second Decree for the Jews could choose names only from an official list;
Implementation of the Law Jewish males had to adopt the extra name ‘Israel’;
Regarding Changes of Jewish females had to add ‘Sarah’ to their name.
Family Names
3 October Decree on the Confiscation This began the process of transferring Jewish
of Jewish Property assets to non-Jewish Germans.
5 October The Reich Interior Ministry Jewish passports were declared invalid until they
had the letter ‘J’ stamped on them.
12 November Decree on the Exclusion All Jewish-owned businesses were closed down as Jews were
of Jews from German banned from owning or running a business.
Economic Life
15 November Reich Ministry of Education Jewish children were expelled from public schools.
29 November Reich Ministry of the Interior Jews were not allowed to keep carrier pigeons.
14 December Executive Order on the Government contracts with Jewish-owned
Law on the Organization of businesses were cancelled.
National Work
21 December Law on Midwives Jews could no longer work as midwives.

SOURCE 8 Photo showing Nazis ready to prevent SOURCE 9 Photo of the passport issued to
Jewish students entering the University of Vienna a German Jewish girl on 10 February 1939,
(Austria) in 1938 stamped with a ‘J’.

RETROFILE
Ernest Weiss spent his early years in Vienna. His family thought of themselves as Austrians first and Jews
second; they kept up some Jewish traditions and also celebrated Christmas and other festivals of Catholic
Austria. In March 1938, Hitler made Austria part of German territory.
Ernest’s father, Otto, was an engineer, working for a company that continued to employ him despite Nazi law
against this. During a business trip in 1935, Otto Weiss had visited his uncle in Sydney. He learned of the business
opportunities available to him there and made a number of friends and contacts. After March 1938, it made sense for
the family to emigrate. Otto’s Viennese employers supplied the machinery for him to market on its behalf in Australia.
The Weiss family left Austria in July 1938. Nazi law allowed them to take out only 10 Reichsmarks (about
A$50) per person. They travelled via Brussels, where a family friend loaned them a large sum of money to help
with the expenses that lay ahead.
The Weisses were lucky that they had contacts on the other side of the world willing to help them, a country
willing to take them and machinery with which to start a new business.
Ernest’s maternal grandparents joined them in Sydney in 1939; his paternal grandparents left their decision
too late. They perished in the Holocaust.

Jacaranda Retroactive 2 NSW Australian curriculum History Stage 5, Topic 6a

Significance
Much of the legislation enforced between 1936 and 1938 excluded Jews from Germany’s economic life and
provided opportunities for Aryans to purchase Jewish businesses at well below their market value. It created
a climate in which Jews could not compete with their non-Jewish competitors, could not attract or keep
employees and moved closer to bankruptcy. Of approximately 100 000 Jewish businesses that existed in 1933,
less than a third were still in business in 1938. By the end of 1938, the majority of those had gone too.

6a.3 Activities
To answer questions online and to receive immediate feedback and sample responses for every question,
go to your learnON title at www.jacplus.com.au. Note: Question numbers may vary slightly.

Check knowledge and understanding

1. Write 3–5 lines to explain how life changed for Jews in the first three years of Nazi rule.
2. Explain why life was worse for Jews by 1938.

Develop source skills

3. Police and SS officers, such as those shown in SOURCE 1, patrolled the streets of Berlin on election day,
5 March 1933. What do you think was the purpose of such patrols?
4. How does clause 3 of SOURCE 4 show that Hitler did not want to offend Hindenburg?
5. Who else did the decree in SOURCE 6 classify as Jewish?
6. Study the SOURCE 7 table and identify and record what the Nazis achieved through each of these laws in terms of:
(a) making Jews more easily identifiable
(b) segregating Jews from contact with Aryans
(c) excluding Jews from the Germany economy.

ONLINE ONLY

Complete this digital doc: Worksheet 6a.3 Anti-Jewish laws (doc-23179)

6a.4 The Kristallnacht, 9–10 November 1938

6a.4.1 The context
Throughout 1938, Nazis were talking about the need to carry out a ‘public punishment’ of the Jews. From September
onwards, Nazi officials began to increase the number and intensity of their attacks on Jews, their property and the
synagogues that were the centres of Jewish community life. A murder in Paris gave them the excuse to go further.
On 7 November 1938, 17-year-old Jewish student Hershel Grynszpan shot Ernst vom Rath, a German
diplomat, in Paris. Grynszpan’s goal was to avenge his parents’ expulsion from Germany a few weeks
earlier and to draw world attention to the treatment of Jews under Nazi rule.

6a.4.2 The Kristallnacht

The Kristallnacht is the German name for the event described as the ‘night of broken glass’. It was a series
of Nazi-organised pogroms that, on the night of 9 November 1938 and throughout the following day,
unleashed 24 hours of violence in cities throughout Germany, Austria and the Sudetenland. During this
time, Nazi military groups armed with sledgehammers and axes:
• attacked Jews and killed 91 of them
• trashed and looted more than 7000 Jewish businesses, leaving the smashed windows of Jewish shops
and stores scattered across streets and footpaths
• set fire to over 900 synagogues and destroyed 267 of them
• set fire to Jewish homes
• damaged hospitals and schools

Jacaranda Retroactive 2 NSW Australian curriculum History Stage 5, Topic 6a

• desecrated Jewish graves
• arrested 25 000–30 000 German Jewish men, having targeted those who were young and fit, and sent
them to concentration camps.

SOURCE 1 Map showing some of the cities where Nazis destroyed synagogues during the Kristallnacht
pogroms

B A LT I C S E A
NORTH
Königsberg
SEA Kiel Danzig
EAST PRUSSIA
0 100 200 300 Lübeck Allenstein
kilometres Hamburg
Emden Stettin
Bremen

Berlin
NETHERLANDS Hanover

GERMANY POLAND
Dusseldorf Kassel Leipzig
Dresden Breslau
Cologne Chemnitz
BELGIUM Bonn Oppeln
Koblenz Neustadt Gleiwitz
Wiesbaden Karlsbad
Frankfurt Ratibor
SUDETENLAND
CZEC
Nuremberg H O S LOV
FRANCE Saarbrücken AKIA
Stuttgart
Ulm Augsburg Linz
Munich Vienna
Freiburg
Key Salzburg
Destroyed synagogues
Innsbruck AUSTRIA
Germany HUNGARY
German-occupied SWITZERLAND
ITALY Klagenfurt

The SA and SS attackers wore ordinary clothes to give the impression that they were civilians
spontaneously engaging in violence to avenge vom Rath’s death. In the main, police and firemen intervened
only to protect non-Jewish property against fires or looting.

SOURCE 2 Photo from 10 November 1938 SOURCE 3 Photo of the damage done to the interior
showing the aftermath of the Kristallnacht in of Berlin’s Fasanenstrasse synagogue during the
Berlin’s Potsdamerstrasse. It was the shattered Kristallnacht
glass covering footpaths and streets that gave the
event its name.

Jacaranda Retroactive 2 NSW Australian curriculum History Stage 5, Topic 6a

 RETROFILE
Four weeks after the Kristallnacht, activist William Cooper (c.1860–1941), along with other members of the
Aboriginal League, marched down Collins Street in Melbourne to try to present the German Consul with a petition
of protest against Germany’s ‘cruel persecution of the Jewish people’. Seventy years later, in 2008, the Israeli
government honoured William Cooper by planting 70 Australian trees outside Jerusalem. His was the only private
protest against Kristallnacht anywhere in the world.

Why did it happen?

The Nazis claimed that the pogroms resulted from people taking the law into their own hands to avenge
vom Rath’s murder. In fact, Nazi officials ordered the pogroms in response to a rousing anti-Jewish speech
which Propaganda Minister Josef Goebbels delivered in Munich, not long after learning of vom Rath’s
death on 9 November. In reference to vom Rath’s murder, Goebbels stated that Hitler ‘has decided that
such demonstrations [against the Jews] are not to be prepared or organised by the party, but so far as they
originate spontaneously, they are not to be discouraged either’. The not-so-subtle message was that Hitler
expected Nazi officials to take action against the Jews.

International responses
The violence and destruction that took place on the Kristallnacht was front page news around the world.
Many people were horrified. Some journalists portrayed it as a means for the German government to gain
financially from the Jews’ stolen property rather than as evidence of the extent to which Nazi anti-Semitism
could go. Others reported on the Kristallnacht in the context of Germany’s anti-Jewish laws and policies
over the six years since Hitler came to power.
Governments discussed whether or not they
should change their country’s immigration policies SOURCE 4 Photo showing the first batch of
so as to accept more Jewish refugees. Two US Kindertransport children arriving in Harwich (England)
politicians advocated allowing an additional in December 1938
20 000 child refugees. Mindful that polls showed
there was not much public support for this
proposal, President Franklin Roosevelt did not
give it his support either, but did get Congress to
allow 12 000–15 000 Jewish refugees to remain in
the US on their tourist visas. Britain introduced
the Kindertransport, a program that took in 10 000
Jewish child refugees over the next nine months.
Some governments broke off diplomatic
relations with Germany; the US government
recalled its ambassador but maintained diplomatic
relations with Germany. There was no coordinated
international response to the Kristallnacht and no
economic sanctions.

Jews made responsible

The Jews themselves had to accept responsibility
for the damage that others caused to their property.
They had to pay the government one billion
Reichsmarks (US$400 000 000) as compensation.
The government claimed all the insurance payouts
owed to Jews for the damage to their property.

Jacaranda Retroactive 2 NSW Australian curriculum History Stage 5, Topic 6a

Significance
The Kristallnacht was a turning point. It marked the beginning of a new stage in the German government’s
anti-Semitism. After six years marked by the steady erosion of the social, economic and political rights
of Jews within German society – with only occasional anti-Jewish violence – the Nazis had shown that
they were ready to subject Jews and Jewish property to a widespread campaign of physical abuse. The
Kristallnacht showed that Jews living under Nazi rule were no longer physically safe.
This, the Decree on the Exclusion of Jews from German Economic Life, and the expulsion of Jewish
children from schools which followed only days later (see subtopic 6a.3) were the government’s message
that it was time for Jews to leave German territory and that it would not tolerate any support for them.
People realised what could happen if they offered protection to the Jews.
The Nazis’ intention was that the November 1938 pogroms should continue for some time. The fact that
they ended within 24 hours indicated that the Nazis were unwilling to act outside what the public as a whole
found acceptable. The ordinary civilian population demanded an end to the violence. This was because many
people were horrified by what they had witnessed, because they did not like the lawlessness the violence
unleashed, and also because they did not want such disruptions to Germany’s social and economic life.
In late 1938, the Nazis ordered Jews to wear the Star of David on their clothing, In the twelve months
following the Kristallnacht 77 000 Jews left Germany and Austria, but by this time it had become much more
difficult for them to find refuge in other countries. During the following two years, the Nazis sent many
Jews to concentration camps and labour camps and then, ultimately, to extermination camps.

SOURCE 5 The Star of David – the Nazis made it compulsory for all Jews to wear this from late 1938.

6a.4 Activities
To answer questions online and to receive immediate feedback and sample responses for every question,
go to your learnON title at www.jacplus.com.au. Note: Question numbers may vary slightly.

Check knowledge and understanding

1. What was the Kristallnacht?
2. How did the Nazis explain the Kristallnacht?

Jacaranda Retroactive 2 NSW Australian curriculum History Stage 5, Topic 6a

 3. What did the Kristallnacht reveal about:
(a) the power of the Nazis in late 1938
(b) the situation of the Jews in late 1938?
4. If such an incident was to occur in Germany today, do you think the international response would be the
same or different? Give reasons for your answer.

Develop source skills

5. What aspects of the Kristallnacht do SOURCES 1–3 provide evidence of?

ONLINE ONLY

Complete this digital doc: Worksheet 6a.4 The Kristallnacht (doc-23180)

6a.5 The ghettos 1939–45

6a.5.1 The Jewish ‘problem’
By September 1939, when World War II began, the Nazis had taken Austria and Czechoslavakia within Germany’s
borders. By mid 1941, German troops had occupied Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium and parts of
France and Poland. For the Nazis, this created the ‘problem’ of what to do with more Jewish subjects.
To begin with, the Nazis thought forced emigration seemed to be the best option. Some Nazis supported
the idea of deporting the Jews to Madagascar. To do this, they needed to assemble Jews in one or more
central locations so that they could be easily transported once a decision was made.
SA and SS troops rounded up Jews, forcibly evicted them from their homes and transported them to
overcrowded and unsanitary conditions in ghettos. In Poland and the Soviet Union, there were probably as
many as 1000 ghettos. Many ghettos had walls around them, both to segregate the inhabitants and to prevent

SOURCE 1 Map showing the cities where the Nazis established ghettos during World War II

SWEDEN
Riga
Liepaja OCCUPIED
NORTH Siauliai Dvinsk
EASTERN
SEA EAST Kovno Vilna
TERRITORY
UNITED PRUSSIA Mogilev
Grodno Lida Minsk
KINGDOM
Bialystok
NETHERLANDS Brest- Pinsk Gomel
Warsaw Lachva
Lodz Litovsk
GERMANY POLAND Kovel
BELGIUM Czestochowa Kielce
Theresienstadt Rovno
C ZEC Krakow Tarnow Lvov
H O S LO Chortkov
VA K I A Stry Vinnitsa
Kosice
Mogilev-Podolski
AUSTRIA Miskolc Kolomyia Chernivtsy
Budapest HUNGARY
FRANCE Dej Kishinev Kherson
SWITZERLAND Cluj
Kaposvar Tirgu-Mures
Szeged
Odessa
ROMANIA
YUGOSLAVIA

ITALY BULGARIA
0 250 500 750 Corsica
kilometres
ALBANIA
Salonika
Key Sardinia
Ghetto GREECE
MEDITERRANEAN SEA

Jacaranda Retroactive 2 NSW Australian curriculum History Stage 5, Topic 6a

the spread of epidemics, such as typhus, that could develop within the area. Some ghettos had no walls; Jews
could move in and out of them during the day, but had to be back by the time of the evening curfew.

SOURCE 2 A German postcard from c.1941 showing the entry to the Lodz
ghetto, and a sign which reads ‘Jewish residential area – entry forbidden’

RETROFILE
The largest ghetto was in Warsaw, Poland. Established in October–November 1940, the Warsaw ghetto contained
the equivalent of 30 per cent of Warsaw’s population in an area 2.4 per cent of Warsaw’s size – that is, 400 000 Jews,
living with an average of 7.2 people in a room, in an area of 3.4 square kilometres. A three-metre-high wall topped
with barbed wire enclosed the ghetto. In 1943, its inhabitants staged an uprising against the Nazis.

6a.5.2 Inside the ghettos

Nazis created all-Jewish councils (Judenrat) and police forces to organise ghetto life in accordance with
Nazi orders. Council members had a more privileged position than other Jews, but they could also be first
in the firing line if the Nazis were displeased.
Typical features of ghetto existence included the following.
•• Food supplies were inadequate and people struggled to avoid starvation.
•• Overcrowding was common, with several families sharing each apartment.
•• Human waste and garbage accumulated in the streets.
•• Unsanitary conditions made diseases common and hard to control.

SOURCE 3 An extract from Edith Birkin’s account of her experiences in the Lodz ghetto in 1941

So when you came to the ghetto there was this dreadful, dreadful smell … cabbages and beetroot … And
what we were given was beetroot soup, which I couldn’t eat at first, it was so awful … it was just water with
bits of beetroot swimming in it. And I couldn’t eat it for a few days, but then I was so hungry I ate it and
didn’t get enough of it. Or it was cabbage soup made of rotted cabbage, and I think we got a loaf of bread a
week … when people died they came and collected all the dead people from the rooms, or out in the street,
and just shoved them onto this … cart … And people standing outside wailing you know, if a relative died …
That was our first day in the ghetto. It was a very very severe winter, and people didn’t have fuel, they didn’t
have food enough. They got diseases, they got typhus and typhoid and dysentery and all kinds of diseases.
And lots and lots of them died, thousands of people. There were a lot of children my own age whom I knew
in that same building, and … we used to gather in the attic … sing songs and make up plays, and talk, and
played games, you know, all kinds of games … In the spring then we used to go for walks … And there were
a few trees, yes. So we used to go there, and through the barbed wires you could see a bit of countryside …

Jacaranda Retroactive 2 NSW Australian curriculum History Stage 5, Topic 6a

•• There was not enough fuel for winter heating needs.
•• People did not have the clothing they needed to withstand cold weather.
People tried to provide for their food and other survival needs while keeping up some semblance of
normal life for themselves and for their children. Children played. People got married, participated in
religious ceremonies and celebrated important events. People went to work. As the war went on, ghetto
inhabitants provided a workforce for the Nazis in areas such as maintenance of uniforms, road and bridge
building, arms production and the production of other goods needed for the German war effort.

6a.5.3 Resistance efforts

Ghetto inhabitants broke whatever rules they thought they could get away with. Some Jews, often children,
found ways in and out of the ghettos so that they could smuggle in much-needed food, medical supplies and
also weapons. They then sold these supplies on the black market that developed within the ghetto. Some
people conducted classes so that children could continue their education; some planned revolts against their
captors. Guards might shoot on the spot anyone they caught breaking the rules.
The Warsaw ghetto uprising
Fearing deportation to areas with even worse conditions,
people staged violent revolts in a number of ghettos. The SOURCE 4 Photo showing Jews whom
German troops captured during the 1943
best known was the Warsaw ghetto uprising of spring 1943. uprising in the Warsaw ghetto
Between July and September 1942, the Nazis killed
or deported 300 000 people from the Warsaw ghetto and
then declared that only 35 000 Jews would be allowed to
remain there. About 20 000 Jews went into hiding within
the ghetto, which still left tens of thousands threatened with
deportation. Two groups formed and joined forces to mount
armed resistance to prevent this happening. This had some
success and gave people time to build more hiding places in
case the Germans then decided to deport everyone.
On 19 April 1943, the SS and police came to liquidate
the ghetto (kill or deport its inhabitants). Jews began an
armed uprising. They fought for a month, until the ghetto was in ruins. About 7000 Jews died and Nazi
authorities deported over 50 000 to the Treblinka extermination camp.

SOURCE 5 Photo c.1942 of Jews from the Lodz ghetto being

deported to the Chelmno extermination camp, the first where the
Nazis made large-scale use of gas to kill Jews.

Jacaranda Retroactive 2 NSW Australian curriculum History Stage 5, Topic 6a

 6a.5 Activities
To answer questions online and to receive immediate feedback and sample responses for every question,
go to your learnON title at www.jacplus.com.au. Note: Question numbers may vary slightly.

Check knowledge and understanding

1. What was the original purpose of the ghettos?
2. How did ghettos affect those forced to live there?

Develop source skills

3. What information does SOURCE 1 provide about the ghettos?
4. What information does SOURCE 2 provide about the treatment of the Jews in Lodz?
5. What does SOURCE 3 reveal about the effect of ghetto life on someone experiencing it for the first time?
6. The photo shown in SOURCE 4 has become a symbol of the Holocaust. Why do you think that is?

6a.6 The ‘Final Solution’

6a.6.1 The Wannsee Conference
The Holocaust was underway by mid 1941 when the SS began to systematically kill Jews by means of a
series of mass shootings in the Soviet Union. By late 1941, Hitler had decided that mass extermination of
all the Jews in Nazi-controlled territory would be the ‘Final Solution’ to the Jewish ‘problem’. Existing
concentration and labour camps were already being converted into extermination (death) camps.

RETROFILE
The term Holocaust, meaning ‘a burnt offering to God’, has been used since the 1970s; today Jews generally
use the term Shoah, meaning ‘calamity’, to describe this event.

On 20 January 1942, senior Nazi officials met in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee. Here, SS General
Reinhard Heydrich outlined his plan for implementing the Final Solution. All Jews in Nazi-occupied
Europe and North Africa would be sent to Eastern Europe. There, the fitter Jews could provide hard labour
on road-building projects until the work killed them, while others would die in mass gassings.

RETROFILE
In 1992, on the fiftieth anniversary of the conference, the Wannsee villa re-opened as a memorial site and an
education centre for school and youth groups. It houses a permanent exhibition on the Wannsee Conference
and the genocide of Jews.

6a.6.2 The death camps

Over the next three years, SS death squads rounded up Jews from ghettos and other areas throughout
Nazi-controlled territory and sent them to death camps in Poland – Auschwitz–Birkenau, Treblinka,
Belzec, Sobibor, Chelno and Majdanek. The process involved the use of the army, local police forces
(some of which refused to cooperate), trains and train drivers. Private companies built the gas chambers
and the ovens in which bodies were cremated and also supplied the Zyklon B gas which would eventually
kill the Jews.
People disembarked from overcrowded and unsanitary freight trains to face a selection process that
decided who would die immediately and who would live a little longer.

Jacaranda Retroactive 2 NSW Australian curriculum History Stage 5, Topic 6a

SOURCE 1 Photo of the crematorium in Auschwitz camp 1

SOURCE 2 A photo from the album of an SS officer, showing SS troops selecting

which Jews to send straight to the gas chambers and which they would keep for
some other purpose

Deepen and check your understanding of the topic with the following resources and
auto-marked questions:
 World War II in Europe

Jacaranda Retroactive 2 NSW Australian curriculum History Stage 5, Topic 6a

 SOURCE 3 An extract from the account of survivor Barbara Stimler describing her memories of the Auschwitz–
Birkenau camp

When we got to Auschwitz, which I didn’t know it was Auschwitz, I didn’t know nothing about it; I did
not know about concentration camps, I did not know what was going on at all … they told us, ‘Raus,
raus, raus!’ They didn’t let us take the clothes at all, they started separating women from men. Cries.
It was just terrible. The husbands were from wives, the mothers from sons, it was just a nightmare …
We started going through the … through the gate; the SS men were on both sides. And the girls, young
people that could see what state I was in, they had a bit of sugar and they started putting sugar in my
mouth to revive me. And when they were going through the gates, they were just holding me up, and
was left and right, left and right. I went to the right, they told me to go to the right, the SS men … And
can you imagine the screams, the … the mother was going to the left, the daughter was going to the
right, the babies going to the left, the mothers going to the right, or the mothers went together with
the babies … I cannot explain to you the cries and the screams, and tearing their hair off. Can you
imagine?

Some camp inmates were given a temporary reprieve (for about four months) to serve as
Sonderkommandos – members of a special unit charged with the task of calming and deceiving other
Jews as they led them into the gas chambers. They then had to dispose of the bodies by dumping them
in mass burial pits or cremating them in ovens. They also collected money, jewellery or any other
valuables that victims had brought with them. The SS would kill anyone who refused to carry out
these tasks.

SOURCE 4 An extract from the account of survivor Edith Birkin describing her memories of the Auschwitz–
Birkenau camp

Auschwitz was very frightening … because it was full of Germans … Germans with dogs, and there were
these barbed wires, with electricity in it you know. Discipline, very strict discipline. This feeling of death,
all these people going in the gas chamber … and this unbelievable situation of people being … you could
smell, you could smell these people being burnt. All the time you smelt this … You had volunteers who
would go with the Germans you know, and get a bit of food, and they were what was called the kapo …
you could recognise them because they were not starved … they looked normal in their faces, in their
bodies, they weren’t hungry, they had enough to eat, and they had reasonable clothes on … So, you knew
who they were, and they were very sadistic and very cruel, and they treated us, the other prisoners, very
very badly. They were prisoners like us, but they had privileged positions you see.

Some people also gained temporary reprieves from the gas chambers because the Nazis wanted to use
them as forced labour. Many died from starvation, diseases such as typhus, forced labour conditions, or
torture, or as victims of medical experiments and individual shootings.
By the time the Nazis implemented the Final Solution, their actions had already caused tens of
thousands of Jewish deaths. What had begun in the early 1930s as persecution and discrimination
had, from 1941, become mass killings of entire Jewish communities in Nazi-occupied territory in the
Soviet Union.
By the time Germany surrendered in May 1945, one million Jews had died at Auschwitz and the Nazis
were responsible for the deaths of six million Jews throughout Europe. Gassings were one part of a Final
Solution that also used shootings, disease and starvation to achieve its goals.

Jacaranda Retroactive 2 NSW Australian curriculum History Stage 5, Topic 6a

 SOURCE 5 Photo c.2010 showing the interior of one of the SOURCE 6 Photo showing bags that
barracks where people were imprisoned at Auschwitz once belonged to Jews deported to
Auschwitz

RETROFILE
Hitler used similar methods to target all his enemies – criminals,
homosexuals, the mentally ill, gypsies and political opponents. They
too were victims of concentration, labour and extermination camps.

6a.6 Activities
To answer questions online and to receive immediate feedback and sample responses for every question,
go to your learnON title at www.jacplus.com.au. Note: Question numbers may vary slightly.

Check knowledge and understanding

1. What questions do you think we should be asking about the Holocaust/Shoah?
2. What decision did the Nazis make at the 1942 Wannsee Conference?
3. List the names of six death camps in Poland.

Develop source skills

4. Refer to SOURCE 1. Why might someone in our time take a photo like this?
5. What is the author of SOURCE 3 trying to convey about the situation?
6. In SOURCE 4 the writer is very hostile towards the ‘kapo’. Who do you think these people were?

6a.7 Aftermath and contestability

6a.7.1 Liberating the survivors
As Allied troops moved across Europe in 1944–45, they liberated the camp survivors. From 1945 to 1952,
up to 250 000 survivors went to displaced persons’ (DP) camps. There, they hoped for news of other family
members and tried to find ways to resume normal life. Around 136 000 DPs emigrated to Israel, the Jewish
state created in 1947 from the division of Palestine. About 80 000 Jews emigrated to the United States and
about 20 000 emigrated to other countries, including Australia.

6a.7.2 Contestability
Historians debate a number of issues related to the Holocaust and explore questions such as those below.
1. Did the Nazis intend from the beginning to implement the Final Solution? Those known as
intentionalists argue that they did. They claim that Hitler made this decision in mid 1941, at a time

Jacaranda Retroactive 2 NSW Australian curriculum History Stage 5, Topic 6a

 when it appeared likely that Germany would defeat the Soviet Union and
SOURCE 1 Photograph
be in a strong position to achieve his ambition to rid Europe of Jews. showing a young girl in a DP
Their opponents, the structuralists, argue that Hitler decided on camp, hoping to be reunited
the Final Solution in October 1941, when Nazi resources were under with her relatives
severe strain. The Soviet Union had not capitulated; the ghettos could
no longer cope with the newly captured Jews being sent there; SS
leaders were murdering Jews to relieve the pressure on resources.
According to the structuralists, Hitler continued a policy that came
about only as a result of the SS needing to achieve this.
2. To what extent were other groups – ordinary Germans, other
governments – responsible for the Holocaust? Connected to this are
the questions:
– How much did the Germans know?
– Why didn’t people and governments take more decisive action to
protect the Jews?
– How significant was anti-Semitism in people’s responses to the
plight of the Jews?
3. How did the Jews respond to Nazism? Historians have focused so
much on Jews as victims of the Holocaust that there is still much to
investigate in relation to this side of the story.
Holocaust denial
Some people deny that the Holocaust happened. As evidence, they cite errors made by camp liberators in
their original reports of the death camps. At the same time, the deniers also dismiss the evidence provided
by survivors, perpetrators, film, photographic and administration records and the remains of a number of
camps. Historians accuse the deniers of distorting the historical evidence. Holocaust denial is a criminal
offence in a number of European countries.

6a.7 Activities
To answer questions online and to receive immediate feedback and sample responses for every question,
go to your learnON title at www.jacplus.com.au. Note: Question numbers may vary slightly.

Check knowledge and understanding

1. World War II ended in 1945 and the state of Israel was established in 1948. How do you think the two events
are related?
2. Much debate surrounds the decision of the Nazis to implement the ‘Final Solution’. Complete the following
table to summarise the conflicting theories.

Name of theory Summary of theory

Intentionalism
Structuralism

Comprehension and communication

3. The response of ordinary Germans to the Nazi campaign has also stirred significant debate. List three
questions involving this issue.
4. What is Holocaust denial?
5. The Holocaust is one of the darkest events in human history. What can be gained by studying the Holocaust?

ONLINE ONLY

Complete this digital doc: Worksheet 6a.7 Aftermath and contestability (doc-23181)

Jacaranda Retroactive 2 NSW Australian curriculum History Stage 5, Topic 6a

6a.8 Review
6a.8.1 Review

KEY TERMS
anti-Semitic a term describing hostility and prejudice towards Jews
black market the business of buying or selling goods illegally, often during times of rationing
boycott a form of protest that punishes people by imposing a ban or refusing to have contact with them or
their businesses
concentration (or labour) camps initially, camps the Nazis created to imprison their enemies, especially Jews.
From 1939, these became camps in which inmates were used as slave labour and worked to death producing
war materials for the Nazis.
eugenics the belief in improving a human population, especially by controlling who is or is not allowed to have
children; it seeks to prevent people with genetic defects or undesirable traits from reproducing. The idea started in
the United States and was very popular worldwide in the early twentieth century.
ghetto an area within which Jews were confined and segregated from the rest of a city and its population. The
term originated in Venice in 1516 when the Venetians forced the city’s Jews to live separately from the rest of
their society.
Holocaust the systematic killing of more than six million of Europe’s nine million Jews by the Nazis in the
period c.1939–45
pogrom organised, and often government-approved, violent attacks on the people and property of a minority
group, especially Jews
proportional representation a voting system in which every party that gains votes obtains seats in parliament
in proportion to the number of votes people cast for it. This can result in votes being divided among so many
small parties that no one party can gain a majority.

6a.8.2 What next?

What next? That is for you to decide. The Holocaust/Shoah is an important part of history for you to
understand. It provides an insight into crimes against humanity, the roles of people who took part in them
or allowed them to happen, and the laws and behaviours you would expect from governments that show the
least (or most) respect for human rights.
There are thousands of resources for this topic. Some deal with the event itself; some see it in the context
of its impact on today’s world. Think about the gaps in your knowledge and the areas about which you have
the most questions.

What else do you want to learn about this topic?

Here are some possibilities.
•• What life was like inside the Warsaw or Lodz ghettos
•• International responses to Jewish refugees – the voyage of the St Louis, Kindertransport to Great
Britain
•• The round-up of Paris Jews, known as the Vel d’Hiv
•• The Warsaw ghetto uprising
•• Initiatives taken to protect people’s human rights. Why do some people oppose a Declaration of Human
Rights for Australia? What are the arguments in favour?

How do you want to find out more and what resources can help you?
•• Through books – some autobiographies you could read include: Auschwitz to Australia by Olga Horak;
Outwitting Hitler by Marian Pretzel, and The Pianist by Władysław Szpilman. You might also be
interested in the novel The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne.
•• Through films based on real events – for example, Europa Europa, The Pianist, Schindler’s List;
The Round-up (Le Rafle)

Jacaranda Retroactive 2 NSW Australian curriculum History Stage 5, Topic 6a

•• Through internet sources – there is no shortage of these, you just need to check for reputable sites.
•• Through a virtual site study of a museum – for example, the Sydney Jewish Museum, the Holocaust History
Museum at Yad Vashem, Israel, the Danish Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, the United States
Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Imperial War Museum in London or the Jewish Museum in Berlin.

What do you want to do with what you have learned?

Learning more about the Holocaust/Shoah will provide plenty of information and ideas you can discuss,
share and debate. Suggestions on how you could use your knowledge include:
•• a photo essay
•• a mini exhibition
•• a comparison with another genocide — for example, the Armenian genocide (1915–c.1922) or the
Rwandan genocide (1994)
•• a debate
•• a class discussion.

6a.8 Activities
To answer questions online and to receive immediate feedback and sample responses for every question,
go to your learnON title at www.jacplus.com.au. Note: Question numbers may vary slightly.

ONLINE ONLY

6a.8 Activity 1: Check your understanding

6a.8 Activity 2: Practise your historical skills
6a.8 Activity 3: Multiple choice quiz
Go online to access additional end of topic resources such as interactivities and printable worksheets.

Jacaranda Retroactive 2 NSW Australian curriculum History Stage 5, Topic 6a