E. The World since 1900 · The World since 1900The Holocaust
E2 E3 A1.2 A1.3 A1About 75 minutes
Learning goals- I can define the Holocaust and explain how persecution escalated into genocide.
- I can identify the groups the Nazis persecuted and murdered.
- I can describe Jewish resistance and the actions of rescuers.
- I can analyse a perpetrator document and explain how historians interpret the Holocaust.
Words to know
Holocaust (Shoah)
The systematic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million Jews by Nazi Germany and its allies and collaborators, 1933–1945.
antisemitism
Hostility to or prejudice against Jewish people.
pogrom
An organized violent attack on a minority group, especially Jews.
ghetto
A sealed-off part of a city where Jews were forced to live under Nazi rule.
killing centre
A camp built mainly to murder people on a mass scale.
euphemism
A mild word used in place of a harsh or criminal one.
Righteous Among the Nations
Yad Vashem's title for non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews.
Why we study the Holocaust
The Holocaust (in Hebrew, the Shoah) was the systematic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million Jews by Nazi Germany and its allies and collaborators between 1933 and 1945. About two out of every three Jews living in Europe were murdered, including about 1.5 million children.
This lesson deals with deeply painful history. Take it slowly. The goal is not to shock, but to understand how a modern, educated society carried out genocide, to honour the victims and survivors as people, and to recognize the warning signs of hatred today.
Before you start
Some of this material is distressing. It is fine to pause, talk with a parent or another trusted adult, and come back later. Focus on people's names and stories, not on graphic images; you do not need to look at photographs of atrocities to learn this history well.
Antisemitism and the Nazi state
Antisemitism, hatred of Jews, was centuries old in Europe. The Nazis turned it into a racial ideology: they falsely claimed Jews were a separate, dangerous "race" responsible for Germany's defeat in 1918, for communism and for the Depression.
Once in power in 1933, the Nazis moved step by step:
- April 1933: a national boycott of Jewish shops; Jews were pushed out of the civil service, universities and professions.
- September 1935: the Nuremberg Laws took away German Jews' citizenship and banned marriage between Jews and non-Jews.
- November 9–10, 1938: Kristallnacht ("Night of Broken Glass"), an organized pogrom: synagogues were burned, Jewish homes and shops were attacked, about 30 000 Jewish men were sent to concentration camps.
Many German Jews tried to leave. But other countries, including Canada, admitted very few Jewish refugees. At the Évian Conference in July 1938, most of the 32 countries attending refused to take more. In 1939, the ship MS St. Louis carried 937 passengers, almost all Jewish refugees, from Germany. Cuba, the United States and Canada refused them entry, and the ship returned to Europe. 254 of its passengers were later murdered in the Holocaust. In 2018, the Government of Canada formally apologized for turning them away.
From persecution to genocide
After Germany invaded Poland in 1939, millions more Jews came under Nazi rule. They were forced into ghettos, sealed-off districts such as those in Warsaw and Łódź, where hunger and disease killed tens of thousands.
When Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, mobile killing units (Einsatzgruppen), with German police, soldiers and local collaborators, shot Jews in mass executions. At Babyn Yar, near Kyiv, they murdered 33 771 Jews in two days in September 1941.
At the Wannsee Conference on January 20, 1942, senior Nazi officials coordinated what they called the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question": the murder of all Jews in Europe. Jews from across Europe were deported by train to killing centres in occupied Poland, including Chełmno, Bełżec, Sobibór, Treblinka, Majdanek and Auschwitz-Birkenau, where about 1.1 million people were murdered, about one million of them Jews.
The Nazis and their collaborators also persecuted and murdered other groups, shown in the diagram below. Roma and Sinti were targeted for genocide on racial grounds. Disabled people were murdered in so-called "euthanasia" programs. Millions of Polish and Soviet civilians and Soviet prisoners of war were killed or starved.
Resistance, rescue and survival
Jews were not passive victims. They resisted in many ways:
- Armed resistance: the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising began on April 19, 1943; fighters held out for about a month. Prisoners revolted at Treblinka and Sobibór (1943), and Jewish partisans fought in the forests of Eastern Europe.
- Spiritual and cultural resistance: in the Warsaw ghetto, the historian Emanuel Ringelblum organized a secret archive called Oneg Shabbat, collecting diaries, reports and artwork. Parts were buried in metal boxes and milk cans and dug up after the war. It is one of the most important sources we have.
Rescuers risked their lives. In October 1943, people in Denmark helped about 7200 Jews escape by boat to neutral Sweden. The Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara issued thousands of transit visas in Lithuania in 1940. Israel's Holocaust memorial, Yad Vashem, honours rescuers as Righteous Among the Nations.
Soviet soldiers reached Auschwitz on January 27, 1945. That date is now International Holocaust Remembrance Day. After the war, about 40 000 survivors made new lives in Canada, and many spent their lives teaching others about what they had lived through.
How historians explain the Holocaust
Historians debate how the Holocaust happened:
- Intentionalists stress Hitler's long-held aim to destroy the Jews.
- Functionalists (or structuralists) stress that competing Nazi officials and agencies radicalized policy step by step, especially after the invasion of the USSR.
- Most historians today combine both: Hitler's hatred set the direction, and many officials, soldiers and ordinary people carried it out.
In Ordinary Men (1992), the historian Christopher Browning studied a German police battalion of middle-aged men who shot thousands of Jews in Poland. Most were not committed Nazis. Browning found that conformity, career pressures and the way the killing was organized mattered more than ideology for many of them. His work asks a hard question: what made ordinary people into killers, and why did some refuse?
Worked exampleModelled example: Reading a perpetrator document (A1.3)
The Wannsee Protocol, the minutes of the January 1942 meeting, was found by Allied investigators after the war. It never uses the word "murder". It speaks of "evacuation to the East" and lists the Jewish populations of European countries, including countries Germany did not control, adding up to about 11 million people. How should a historian read it?
- Who made it and why? It was written for a small circle of senior officials, as an internal record. Its purpose was coordination, not persuasion.
- Notice the language: words such as "evacuation" (and, in other Nazi documents, "special treatment") were euphemisms: mild words used to hide criminal acts. Historians know this by corroborating with other records, testimony and what actually happened to the people deported.
- What does the list tell us? Including Jews in Britain, Ireland and neutral countries shows the scale of the intent: all the Jews of Europe.
- Limits: minutes summarize; they do not record every word or show what each participant thought. The document must be read with others.
The protocol is powerful evidence that the murder of European Jews was a planned, bureaucratic program, and its euphemisms are themselves evidence that the perpetrators knew their actions were crimes.
Hands-on activityLearn from a survivor's testimony
You need: a device with internet access and about 30 minutes, with a parent or trusted adult nearby if you would like.
- Visit one of these Canadian institutions online: the Montreal Holocaust Museum, the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, or the Toronto Holocaust Museum. Each shares short, age-appropriate survivor testimonies.
- Choose one survivor. Write down their name, where they were born and how they survived.
- Write three short notes: one thing their life was like before the war, one thing that happened during it, and one thing they did after it (for example, building a life in Canada or speaking to students).
- Reflect in four or five sentences: What does this person's story show that statistics cannot?
What to look for: a correct citation (survivor's name, institution, title of the testimony, date accessed) and a reflection that treats the survivor as a whole person, not only as a victim.
Your turn
The systematic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million Jews by Nazi Germany and its allies and collaborators, 1933–1945.
2What were the Nuremberg Laws (1935)?
Laws that took away German Jews' citizenship and banned marriage between Jews and non-Jews.
3What happened to the passengers of the MS St. Louis?
Cuba, the U.S. and Canada refused them entry; the ship returned to Europe, and 254 passengers were later murdered in the Holocaust.
4What was decided at the Wannsee Conference?
Senior Nazi officials coordinated the "Final Solution": the murder of all European Jews.
5Give two examples of Jewish resistance.
Any two: the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, revolts at Treblinka and Sobibór, partisans, the Oneg Shabbat archive, keeping religious and cultural life going.
6Why is January 27 International Holocaust Remembrance Day?
Soviet soldiers reached Auschwitz on January 27, 1945.
More practice: warm-up
1About how many Jews were murdered in the Holocaust?
2What is the Hebrew word for the Holocaust?
An organized pogrom against Jews in Germany and Austria on November 9–10, 1938.
4What does Yad Vashem call people who rescued Jews?
Righteous Among the Nations.
5Who organized the Oneg Shabbat archive?
The historian Emanuel Ringelblum.
More practice: on your own
1Why is it important that persecution escalated in stages?
It shows genocide did not happen all at once; each step was tested, met little resistance, and made the next one easier. Recognizing early stages can help prevent genocide.
2Explain the difference between intentionalist and functionalist interpretations.
Intentionalists stress Hitler's long-term plan to murder the Jews; functionalists stress step-by-step radicalization by competing officials, especially after 1941. Most historians combine both.
3Why did Canada admit so few Jewish refugees?
Antisemitism in government and society, Depression-era fears about jobs, and restrictive immigration policy; officials actively kept Jewish refugees out.
4What does Christopher Browning's Ordinary Men suggest about perpetrators?
Many killers were not fanatical Nazis; conformity, peer pressure, careerism and the organization of killing pushed ordinary men to participate, though some refused.
5Why is the Oneg Shabbat archive such a valuable source?
It was created inside the ghetto at the time by Jews themselves, recording their own lives, suffering and resistance, rather than through perpetrators' eyes.
Challenge
1Use the roles diagram: why is it important to study bystanders and rescuers as well as perpetrators?
Genocide depends on the participation or silence of many people. Bystanders show how indifference enables crimes; rescuers prove that choices existed even under terror. Together they help us think about responsibility today.
2Holocaust denial and distortion still exist. Using the Wannsee Protocol as an example, explain how historians answer deniers with evidence.
Historians corroborate many independent sources: perpetrator documents such as the protocol, train records, camp records, perpetrators' own testimony at trials, survivors' testimony, the Oneg Shabbat archive, Allied reports and physical evidence. These sources agree, and their euphemisms reveal intent.
3Assess: "The Holocaust was the result of one man's hatred."
Hitler's antisemitism was central, but the Holocaust needed bureaucrats, police, soldiers, railways, industry, collaborators in occupied countries, and the indifference of many people and governments abroad. The claim is too narrow; responsibility was widespread.
Quiz
1. What were the Nuremberg Laws of 1935?
2. Which country's people helped about 7200 Jews escape by boat to Sweden in 1943?
3. What happened at the Wannsee Conference in January 1942?
4. Why did the MS St. Louis return to Europe in 1939?
5. What did Christopher Browning's Ordinary Men study?
6. Which event is remembered on January 27?
Big idea: The Holocaust as the central case of genocide in the twentieth century (E2), its victims, rescuers and resisters (E3), and how historians use evidence (A1.2, A1.3, A1).
How to help: Be available. Some teens want to talk; others want space. Watching a survivor testimony together can be powerful. Avoid graphic images: they are not needed to learn this history well.
Sensitive content: This lesson deals with genocide. There is deliberately no humour block. If your family has a personal connection to the Holocaust or to another genocide, your teen may find the lesson especially hard; that is normal. If your teen encounters Holocaust denial or antisemitism online, talk about how historians answer it with evidence.
Common difficulties:
- Confusing the Nuremberg Laws (1935) with the Nuremberg trials (1945–1946).
- Thinking the Holocaust happened all at once, rather than in stages.
- Thinking Jews did not resist.
- Treating victims only as numbers; encourage using names and stories.