Essential Questions
  • Why did Christians, followers of a religion stressing 
    love and forgiveness, so often turn in hatred against 
    innocent Jews?
  • Why did Germany, a powerful, industrial society with 
    a well-educated population, accept a form of anti-
    Semitism so extreme and cruel as to lead to the effort 
    to destroy an entire group of human beings by 
    the millions?
  • Why were the democratic nations unable to find a 
    way to stop Hitler and his Nazis from starting World 
    War II and launching the Holocaust?
 Essential Questions (continued)
  • Why did the Nazis organize the Holocaust in the form 
    it took, of ghettos, railroad transportation to the death 
    camps, gas chambers, and crematoria?
  • In what ways, if any, was the Holocaust different 
    from other genocidal events in history?
  • Could or should the Allies have done more to rescue 
    Jews and to stop the Holocaust once they realized it 
    was being carried out?
           Reflections
  • What do you know about the Holocaust?
  • What do you want to know about the Holocaust?
               Studying the Holocaust
            History of Jewish Persecution                  Nazis’ Anti-Jewish Ideology 
                                                                and Rise to Power
           Nazi Persecution of the Jews and                         Aftermath
                  the “Final Solution”
                   Who Are the Jews?
      •  Descendants of Abraham 
         and Sarah
      •  The Jewish tribes conquered 
         Caanan (Israel) in ~1000 
         BCE after leaving Egypt 
         (the Exodus)
      •  Set up independent kingdom 
         under King David
      •  Conquered by Romans in                        Sculpture of Moses
         70 CE, which began the 
         dispersion of Jews 
         throughout Europe and 
         Middle East (the Diaspora)