Life during WW2

Holocaust
 The Holocaust, as the mass murders became known,
shocked the world as its gruesome details were
discovered.
 The Nazis had deliberately set out to destroy the
Jews for no other reason than their religious and
ethnic heritage.
 The record of the Holocaust's mass murders serves
as a reminder of the monstrous results of prejudice
and intolerance.
 In 1945 and 1946, the Allies held war crime trials in
Nuremberg. (explained later)
 Thousands of other Nazis were found guilty of war
crimes. One such Nazi war criminal was Adolf
Eichmann.
 Holocaust
 When the Allies entered Germany, they discovered more than
100 concentration camps like Auschwitz and Maidanek, and
death camps like Treblinka and and their horrifying truth.
 These concentration camps served as death prisons and death
camps, or killing centers, with large gas chambers and
crematoriums, or ovens, to burn the bodies of the victims.
 By 1945 two out of every three European Jews had been
tortured, gassed, shot or burned.
 Over 11 million people had died - six million of them were
Jews, and between one and a half million and two million
were Jewish children.
 The Jews were not the only victims of Hitler but the only
group the Nazis wanted to destroy entirely.
 Most of the systematic genocide, or deliberate killing of a
particular group of people, took place in only four years.
 Resistance movements
 Resistance movements were organized around the
world to oppose the occupying regimes.
 The most important were in Europe - Poland,
France, Yugoslavia.
 Even in concentration camps, Jews rose up and
fought against the Nazis.
 In Treblinka and Sobibor in 1943. small groups of
Jews rebelled. They killed the guards, stole
weapons and grenades, and then fled. In both
uprisings, about 300 prisoners escaped.
 Most were unfortunately killed soon after.
 Of those who survived, many joined partisan
groups and continued to fight until the end of the
war.
 At the end of 1944, prisoners in Auschwitz also
rebeled.
 Like the refugees near Treblinka and Sobibor, most
were captured and killed.
 The trial of Nazi criminals
 After the war, the Allies captured 22 surviving
leaders of the Nazi Third Reich and accused them of
"crimes against humanity" and killing 11 million
people.
 Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler and Propaganda
Minister Josef Goebbels escaped trial by committing
suicide.
 Many war criminals are thought to have fled to
South America.
 They were tried in 1946 by the International Military
Tribunal (representing 23 states in Nuremberg),
where Hitler organized mass rallies in the 1930s.
 Twelve leading Nazis were sentenced to death.
Seven Nazi leaders received long prison sentences
and three were released.
 War economy
 Entire national economies were directed
towards war efforts.
 As a result, civilians are not only potential
victims of the struggle, but have become real
targets.
 Civilians also became active participants,
producing weapons, food, vehicles and other
goods needed for the war.
 Many factories stopped producing consumer
goods and began producing exclusively for
military needs.
 The global nature of World War II led to levels of
unknown destruction.
 National economies were exhausted; agricultural
land, towns and villages were destroyed.
 Consequences of the war
 Country Men in war Battle deaths Wounded
WW2 was one of the most devastating conflicts
in human history. Australia 1,000,000 26,976 180,864

Austria 800,000 280,000 350,117

 Both the Allies and the Axis Powers used new
Belgium 625,000 8,460 55,5131
methods of mass destruction.
Bulgaria 339,760 6,671 21,878
 Hundreds of thousands of people, women and Canada 1,086,3437 42,0427 53,145
children were killed in bomb attacks on cities. China3 17,250,521 1,324,516 1,762,006

 Finland 500,000 79,047 50,000

This terrible loss of human life was the
greatest in the Soviet Union. France — 201,568 400,000

Germany 20,000,000 3,250,0004 7,250,000

 The number of people killed in World War II is
India 2,393,891 32,121 64,354
unimaginable, approximately 50 million.
Italy 3,100,000 149,4964 66,716
 The Soviet Union alone lost over 20 million Japan 9,700,000 1,270,000 140,000
people. Netherlands 280,000 6,500 2,860

 Poland — 664,000 530,000

Nearly two million Japanese were killed, and
nearly eight million Germans. Romania 650,0005 350,0006 —

South Africa 410,056 2,473 —

 Many who died during World War II were
U.S.S.R. — 6,115,0004 14,012,000
civilians; they were not soldiers on active duty.
United Kingdom 5,896,000 357,1164 369,267