Liberation of the Camps

 

   The Soviets liberated Auschwitz, the largest killing center and concentration camp, in January 1945. The Nazis had forced the majority of Auschwitz prisoners to march westward in "death marches". Soviet soldiers found several thousand emaciated prisoners alive when they entered the camp. There was a lot of evidence of mass murder in Auschwitz. They discovered, for example, hundreds of thousands of men's suits, more than 800,000 women's outfits, and more than 14,000 pounds of human hair.

A pile of clothes from the concentration camps

   In the following months, the Soviets liberated additional camps in the Baltic states and in Poland. Shortly before Germany's surrender, Soviet forces liberated the Stutthof, Sachsenhausen, and Ravensbrueck concentration camps.

   US forces liberated the Buchenwald concentration camp near Weimar, Germany, on April 11, 1945, a few days after the Nazis began evacuating the camp. American forces liberated more than 20,000 prisoners at Buchenwald. They also liberated Dora-Mittelbau, Flossenbürg,Dachau, and Mauthausen.

American military officials view corpses in the Buchenwald concentration camp. This photograph was taken after the liberation of the camp. Germany, April 18, 1945.

British forces liberated concentration camps in northern Germany, including Neuengamme and Bergen-Belsen. They entered the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, near Celle, in mid-April 1945. 60,000 prisoners were found alive. More than 10,000 of them died from the effects of malnutrition or disease within a few weeks of liberation.

 



Two men deprived of food

   Liberators confronted unspeakable conditions in the Nazi camps, where piles of corpses lay unburied. Only after the liberation of these camps was the full scope of Nazi horrors exposed to the world. The small percentage of inmates who survived resembled skeletons because of the demands of forced labor and the lack of food, compounded by months and years of maltreatment. Many were so weak that they could hardly move. Disease remained a danger, and many of the camps had to be burned down to prevent the spread of epidemics. Survivors of the camps faced a long and difficult road to recovery.

Prisoners inside the camp

dachau prisoners (from the sub-camp called Allach) cheer the liberating US Army.

 

 

Liberated prisoners demonstrate the overcrowded conditions at the Buchenwald concentration camp, Germany, April 23, 1945.

 

 A mass grave soon after camp liberation. Bergen-Belsen, Germany, May 1945.

 

 

Piles of corpses, soon after the liberation of the mauthausen camp. Austria, after May 5, 1945.

 

1. What was the date the US liberated  the Buchenwald camp?

2. How do you think the people who came to free the prisoners reacted to what they saw at the camps?

 

 

 

 

Crystal Night By; Hailey, Alyssa and Austin

Crystal Night

Kristallnacht is the German term for "night of broken glass" or "Crystal Night". The event occurred on November 9th and 10th, 1938.

 

In October, 1938, Polish Jews were forced to leave their homes, leave everything behind except for one suitcase. When a 17 year old Jewish boy, named Herschel Grynszpan, learned of this he became furious. He got a gun and went to the German embassy and shot Ernst vom Rath.

 

The assassination allowed Joseph Goebbles, Hitler's Chief of Propaganda, with a reason to start a pogrom against German Jews. This was the beginning of Kristallnacht.

 

 

 

 

The Zerrennerstrasse synagogue with a shattered window

 

Nazi officials, Hitler Youth and the SA went around and attacked any building related to Jews. They broke glass and set fire to everything in site. More than a thousand synagogues, many homes, and lots of Jewish-owned businesses were plundered and destroyed during the violence. There were about 96 deaths recorded and about 30,000 men were arrested and deported.

Just some of the damage done on Crystal Night

There were many consequences that night including confiscation of Jewish factories and new curfew restrictions for Jews. A Nazi leadership meeting was later held by Hermann Goering. The goal of the meeting was to make Jews responsible for Crystal Night and to set some laws that, in effect, removed Jews from the German economy.

 

Jewish owned business destroyed that night.

1. Who was assassinated that sparked Crystal Night?

2. Do you think that  this night was inevitable? Would they have found something else to spark a mass destruction and what do you think that thing would be?

Jewish Mysticism
By: Hailey, Austin, and Alyssa



 The Torah refers to the first five books of the Bible. It includes all Jewish law and tradition and was given to Moses in written form with oral commentary (the oral component is now written in the Talmud)

"Torah" refers to the Five Books of Moses:

Genesis

Exodus

Leviticus
Numbers
Deuteronomy

KABBALAH: The ancient Jewish tradition of mystical interpretation of the Bible. It was first transmitted orally and using esoteric methods (including ciphers). It reached the height of its influence later in the Middle Ages and is still important in Hasidism today.

 

 

 

 

Kabbalah Tree of Life

The tree, visually or conceptually, represents as a series of divine emanations God's creation itself, the nature of revealed divinity, the human soul, and the spiritual path of ascent by man.

This is an example of the style of writing found in the Torah and Kabbalah.

QUESTIONS
1. What  does the Kabbalah Tree of Life represent?
2. Why would some Christians find the Kabbalah to be evil?