THE HOLOCAUST
TEACHING LESSON 6

Transparency of Handout 6A : Concentration Camps and Death Camps

Transparency of Handout 6B : Holocaust Casualties

Vocabulary: concentration camp, death camp, swastika, Final Solution

This activity has two purposes. First, it familiarizes students with the area in which the Holocaust took place. Second, it illustrates, through map study, the total commitment of the Nazis to the Final Solution. In the final years of the war, when the Germans were clearly losing, carrying out the Final Solution continued without interruption. Hitler ordered trains carrying Jews to Auschwitz to take priority over trains carrying war materiel to the eastern front where the Germans were heavily engaged in battle with the Soviets. According to historian David Wyman, “to kill the Jews, the Nazis were willing to weaken their own capacity to fight the war.” As the Nazis began losing the war, trains, transports, and manpower were desperately needed for the German war effort. Despite the economic and military cost of doing so, the Nazis continued to use these resources in the effort to murder Jews.

Before displaying these maps, make a transparency of each to be used on an overhead projector. Then display Transparency 6A on an overhead projector, covering the key to the map with a notecard. Ask students what area of the world is shown on the map. Have students guess what the symbols on the map might represent. With the map key still covered, have students name the countries in which the swastikas are found (Germany, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Holland, France) and the country in which the skull-and-crossbones symbols are located (Poland). Encourage students to again guess what these symbols represent, based on their locations. Uncover the key. Emphasize that a death camp was specifically designed for mass murder.

Use this question to think critically about the information on the map:

• Why do you think Poland was chosen as the site for the death camps? (The Nazis chose an area that was far from western Europe. They wanted a place where their activities were less likely to be observed and had many rural and isolated areas. It also had the largest Jewish community, with over three million Jews. A long tradition of anti-Semitism existed in eastern Europe, particularly in Poland. The Germans were assured of the cooperation or at least indifference of the local people.)

Before the Holocaust, Poland had the largest Jewish community of any European nation occupied by the Nazis. About 3.3 million Jews lived there before the German invasion. Jews made up around ten percent of the population. By war’s end, more than ninety percent of Poland’s Jews had been killed by the Nazis. In prewar Poland, as in much of eastern Europe. Official government policies of anti-Semitism prevented Jews from raising their standard of living. Only a small percentage of the Jewish population were professionals or landowners. Most were small traders, craftspeople, or manual laborers.

Next, overlay Transparency 6B on top of Transparency 6A.   Explain that this map shows the number of Jews killed by the Nazis in each country.   Ask:

• What countries lost the largest number of people? (Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Germany/Austria. In each of these countries ninety percent of the Jewish population was killed.)
• Which countries lost the fewest people? (Denmark, Finland, Italy. Germany’s partner in the war, Italy, had fewer of its Jewish citizens killed than many Nazi-occupied countries whose governments had opposed the Nazis.)
• Why do you think the railroads were important to the Final Solution? (As the map indicates, the transport of captives from all parts of Europe to Poland was a massive undertaking for the Germans. It required transport trains or trucks, military personnel, and supplies.)
• What else were trains, trucks, and manpower needed for at this time? (They were needed to fight the war against the Allies.)
• What do these maps suggest about the importance of the Final Solution to Hitler? Why were the Germans willing to risk undermining the war effort? (For the Nazis, the Final Solution was an essential objective of winning the war.)

Trains moved Jews to the killing centers while troops for the front lines were shunted onto railroad sidings. In 1944 when the German army was fighting desperately to hold back the Soviet army on the eastern front, the Nazis were also engaged in a massive deportation of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz. Despite a deteriorating military situation, carrying out the Final Solution continued without interruption. Hitler ordered trains carrying Jews to Auschwitz to take priority over trains carrying was materiel to the front. When trains and other forms of transport were lacking, victims were forced to march the distance to the death camps. War plans could be changed but not the plans for the Final Solution.  

Connect to World History: Have students report on why such countries as Denmark and Italy were able to save so many of their citizens. In many countries people did not have the same hatred of Jews that the Nazis did. When anti-Semitism became the official policy of the Italian Fascist party, the party lost supporter. Although the Italians did, at the urging of the Germans, institute discriminatory laws against Italian Jews, Mussolini’s government refused to take part in the effort to exterminate Jews or deport Jewish residents. Jews in occupied areas of Yugoslavia, France, and Greece were also protected from deportation by Italian officials. When, however the Germans overthrew the Italian government in 1943, Italian Jews and Jews under their protection in occupied areas were sent to the killing centers.

Published in cooperation with the North Carolina Council on the Holocaust
Copyright © 2002 by the North Carolina Council on the Holocaust. Updated 2005.
North Carolina Department of Public Instruction
http://www.ncpublicschools.org/holocaust_council/