Holocaust Webquest KEY

Go to the following website:

Click on the web links for each topic on The Holocaust: A Learning Site for Students webpage and answer the questions.

Click on Hitler Comes to Power

  1. Why was the mood grim in Germany in the 1930s?
  • A worldwide economic depression hit Germany (Great Depression), millions of people did not have jobs
  1. What percent of the vote did the Nazi party get in 1924? What percent of the vote did the Nazi party get in 1932? What did the 1933 elections allow the Nazi party to do?
  • 3%, 33%, it allowed Adolf Hitler to become chancellor of Germany

Click on The Nazi Terror Begins

  1. What rights did individuals lose in Germany under the Nazis? Why?
  • Freedom of the press, speech, and assembly, right to privacy; Germany became a dictatorship

Click on SS Police State

  1. What are the SS? What did they do to people who opposed the Nazis?
  • The SS were the German secret police and Hitler’s personal body guards. The SS would arrest and kill anyone oppose the Nazis.
  1. What did the Gestapo do? Who created/led them?
  • The Gestapo would torture and kill anyone opposed to the Nazis. SS Chief Heinrich Himmler led them
  1. What was Dachau? What did it become the ideal model for?
  • Dachau was an abandoned factory that became a prison camp. It was the model for the concentration and SS camps.

Click on Nazi Propaganda and Censorship

  1. What did the Nazis do to any viewpoint they felt threatened by?
  • They were censored or eliminated from all media
  1. Who was the Nazi Propaganda Minister?
  • Dr. Joseph Goebbels
  1. What types of books were burned by the Nazis starting in 1933?
  • Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Jewish books and any books that the Nazis disliked

Click on Nazi Racism

  1. What was the “Germanic race” called? What did the ideal person look like?
  • The Aryan master race, blond and blue eyed
  1. Explain how the Nazis began to put their racial ideology into practice.
  • Spread it through posters, on the radio, movies, schools and newspapers. They limited rights of many people.

Click on The Murder of the Handicapped

  1. Explain the euthanasia program? Who were targets? How many people died?
  • Patients were examined for disease; if they were considered inferior they were killed. The mentally ill, physically handicapped, about 200,000 people died.

Click on German Rule in Occupied Europe

  1. What was Germany planning to do with the territories they conquered in the East?
  • They were going to resettle the territory with German colonists.
  1. How were people in Poland and other Eastern European countries treated compared to those in “Germanic” countries? Why?
  • They were treated harshly and often Eastern Europeans were regarded as slave labor

Click on Jews in Prewar Germany

  1. About how many Jews lived in Germany in 1933, what percent of the German population were they?
  • 500,000; Less than 1%

Click on Jewish Life in Europe before the Holocaust

  1. How many Jews lived in areas that would be occupied by Germany during World War II? What percent of the Jewish population would be dead in these occupied countries by the end of the war?
  • 9 million Jews, 66% would be dead
  1. How were the Jews of Eastern and Western Europe different? What two European countries had the largest Jewish population just before World War II?
  • Jews in Eastern Europe lived in more separate communities; Jew in Western Europe adopted mainstream culture. Poland and the Soviet Union had the largest Jewish communities.

Click on Antisemitism

  1. What is Antisemitism? What problems have Jews been blamed for throughout history?
  • Discrimination against Jews. Blamed for the death of Jesus and the Black Death
  1. Who was Karl Lueger and what did he do? Who looked up to him?
  • A politician who preached anti-Semitism, Adolf Hitler

Click on The "Final Solution"

  1. What was the “Final Solution”?
  • The Nazi plan to exterminate the Jewish people
  1. List the 6 extermination camps. About how many Jewish people died in the Holocaust?
  • Chelmo, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Auschwitz-Birkenan, Mahdanek
  • 6 million Jewish people died

Click on Ghettos in Poland

  1. What were the Ghettos used for?
  • They were used to isolate and keep Jews in one place.

Click on Life in the Ghettos

  1. What was life like for adults in the Ghettos?
  • Life was unbearable, people begged for food.
  1. What was life like for children in the Ghettos? What did they do?
  • Children begged for food, smuggled food. They played and attended schools as well

Click on The Mobile Killing Squads

  1. What country was invaded by Germany on June 22, 1941?
  • Soviet Union
  1. Who were the victims of the SS Special action squads? How did they kill their victims?
  • Jews were, they were rounded up and shot or gassed

Click on At the Killing Centers

  1. What types of people were usually the first to die at a concentration camp?
  • Young children, babies, handicapped, pregnant woman, the sick and elderly
  1. How did people profit from the corpses of the victims?
  • Hair was made into rope, gold fillings were taken

Click on Auschwitz

  1. Explain the importance of Auschwitz to the Nazis? How many people died at Auschwitz?
  • It was a large complex, and used for forced labor. More than a million people died
  1. What type of experiments did Dr. Josef Mengele perform on people? Who were his typical victims?
  • Typical victims were twins, children. Organs, eye color, reaction to pain were compared between twins.

Click on Prisoners of the Camps

  1. What other groups of people besides Jews were victims of the Nazi concentration camp system?
  • Communists, Socialists, criminals, Jehovah Witnesses, Gypsies, homosexuals

Click on Forced Labor

  1. Explain the forced labor system. Why did Germany use forced labor?
  • They forced concentration camp workers to do hard labor, forced labor was free, the people were seen as slaves

Click on Death Marches

  1. Why did the death marches happen?
  • Germany moved concentration camp workers into Germany as the Allies started wining World War II in 1944 and 1945.

Click on Liberation

  1. What happened to half of the survivors of Auschwitz within a few days of being freed?
  • They died

Click on The Survivors

  1. How were Jewish survivors of the Holocaust treated after WWII, especially in Poland?
  • Many were physically attacked, because people did not give back Jewish homes and property.
  1. What country was created in 1948? Why?
  • Israel was created as a Jewish homeland or nation

Click on The Nuremberg Trials

  1. What were the Nuremberg Trials? What was their point?
  • They were trials of Nazis captured during and after World War II to show that Nazis would be held accountable for their crimes
  1. Did Nazis escape justice? Where did many flee?
  • Some Nazis escaped to countries like the United States

Click on The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

50. Explain what happened during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

  • On April 19, 1943, the Warsaw ghetto uprising began after German troops and police entered the ghetto to deport its surviving inhabitants. Seven hundred and fifty fighters fought the heavily armed and well-trained Germans. The ghetto fighters were able to hold out for nearly a month, but on May 16, 1943, the revolt ended. The Germans had slowly crushed the resistance. Of the more than 56,000 Jews captured, about 7,000 were shot, and the remainder were deported to camps

Click on Killing Center Revolts

51. Why do you think there were so few successful uprisings in the camps?

  • Fear, few weapons were available

52. What were the jobs of the Sonderkommando?

  • They were Jews who were forced to burn the bodies of the deceased