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ELA 5: I Did What I Was Told: Holocaust Background and Context 418 Views
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Description:
No jokes today, Shmoopers. This is a serious topic and should be viewed respectfully. Oh and do make sure to check out one of our sillier videos afterwards if you start feeling down.
Transcript
- 00:04
[Coop and Dino singing]
- 00:13
All right, guys, we’re gonna take a break from being our usual silly selves for a second [People playing around in a meeting room]
- 00:17
because we have to talk about something pretty serious.
- 00:20
Unfortunately, human history has some very dark chapters, when people did incredibly
- 00:26
horrible things to each other.
Full Transcript
- 00:27
One of the worst chapters in our history was the Holocaust.
- 00:31
The Holocaust was a mass genocide -- a deliberate killing of a large group of people -- [Coop discussing the history of the holocaust]
- 00:36
that took place between 1934 and 1945.
- 00:39
The man primarily responsible was Adolf Hitler.
- 00:42
He believed that non-Jewish Germans were "a superior race" and that Jewish people were [Coop discussing Hitler's philosophy]
- 00:47
the enemies of the rest of the Germans, so he developed and carried out a plan that was
- 00:51
meant to kill all Jews.
- 00:53
In 1933, Hitler was the leader of the Nazi party, which had become an important force in German politics. [Girl watching video of Germany Army soldiers]
- 00:59
That year, Paul von Hindenburg was re-elected as President of Germany. Hindenburg wanted
- 01:04
nothing to do with the Nazi party…or Hitler… but he gave in to rising pressures and appointed
- 01:09
Hitler as chancellor of Germany.
- 01:11
Great time to cave, buddy.
- 01:13
When Hindenburg died in 1934, Hitler claimed the presidency and the Nazis became the ruling [Nazi army marching on a TV]
- 01:18
political party in Germany until the end of World War II in 1945.
- 01:23
During their rule, the Nazis imprisoned millions of Jewish people and anyone else they considered [Jewish people holding their hands up]
- 01:28
inferior, including homosexuals, Gypsies, and the disabled.
- 01:32
Hitler called his plan "The Final Solution to the Jewish Question."
- 01:36
He organized the extermination of the Jewish people in Germany, Poland, and other Eastern
- 01:40
European countries, shipping many to concentration camps.
- 01:43
Millions of Jews and other minorities were imprisoned in these camps, where they were [Photographs of concentration camps]
- 01:48
starved, tortured, and murdered.
- 01:50
People imprisoned in concentration camps usually didn't last a year. Some only lived for a
- 01:53
few days or weeks. Over ten million men, women, and children were killed during this period.
- 02:00
The Nazis were highly organized and feared. Still, the behavior of the rest of the German [Woman walks up to fence of a concentration camp]
- 02:04
population is a mystery. Why didn't they try and stop the mass killings?
- 02:08
After World War II, many German people said that they didn't even know what Hitler was doing.
- 02:12
Nazi soldiers in charge of the imprisonment, deportation, and murder of the concentration
- 02:17
camp victims said that they were forced to do what they did, and would have been murdered [Nazi leader shouts at Nazi soldiers]
- 02:21
themselves if they disobeyed. Meaning…they were kinda prisoners themselves.
- 02:25
Although the Holocaust is long over, the questions about why it happened are still very much
- 02:29
worth asking, if just to make sure an event like it never happens again. [Human history book closes]
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