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The
truth of the photos of the crimes and atrocities included
in this Holocaust project needs to be shown. The photos may be
of graphic nature and disturbing - before providing access to
younger learners, parents and teachers should preview the sites
and guide through what they may read and see.
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The
Holocaust was the
systematic annihilation of 6 million Jews by the Nazis during
World War 2. In 1933 approximately 9 million Jews lived in the
21 countries of Europe that would be occupied by Germany during
the war. By 1945 two out of every three European Jews had been
killed. The European Jews were the primary victims of the
Holocaust.
But the Jews were not the only group singled out for persecution
by Hitler's Nazi regime. As many as one-half million Gypsies, at
least 250,000 mentally or physically disabled persons, and more
than three million Soviet prisoners-of-war also fell victim to
Nazi genocide. Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, Social
Democrats, Communists, partisans, trade unionists, Polish
intelligentsia and other undesirables were also victims
of the hate and aggression carried out by the Nazis.
The number of children
killed during the Holocaust is not fathomable and full
statistics for the tragic fate of children who died will never
be known. Some estimates range as high as 1.5 million murdered
children. This figure includes more than 1.2 million Jewish
children, tens of thousands of Gypsy children and thousands of
institutionalized handicapped children who were murdered under
Nazi rule in Germany and occupied Europe.
Dachau was the first concentration camp established in Nazi
Germany - the camp was opened on March 22, 1933. The first
inmates were primarily political prisoners, Social Democrats,
Communists, trade unionists, habitual criminals, homosexuals,
Jehovah's Witnesses, beggars, vagrants, hawkers.
In the late 1930's the Nazis killed thousands of handicapped
Germans by lethal injection and poisonous gas. After the German
invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, mobile killing units
following in the wake of the German Army began shooting massive
numbers of Jews and Gypsies in open fields and ravines on the
outskirts of conquered cities and towns.
Eventually Adolf
Hitler and his Nazis created a more secluded and organized
method of killing. Extermination centers were established in
occupied Poland with special apparatus especially designed for
mass murder. Giant death machines.
Six such death camps existed: Auschwitz-Birkenau,
Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibor,
and Treblinka.
Large-scale murder by gas and body disposal through cremation
were conducted systematically by the Nazis and Adolf Hitler's SS
men.
Victims were deported to these centers from Western Europe and
from the ghettos in Eastern Europe which the Nazis had
established. In addition, millions died in the ghettos and
concentration camps as a result of forced labor, starvation,
exposure, brutality, disease, and execution.
- Louis Bülow
www.auschwitz.dk
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