Nazi Germany and the Holocaust

The roots of Nazism sprang from the ashes of Germany's perceived humiliating deafeat in WWI. This clip examines the rise of Nazism and how it was able to quickly gain followers.

People often wonder how ordinary citizens could blindly follow the Nazi Party. This clip details how Hitler was able to build a society dedicated to its Fuhrer.

Nazi ideology  claimed to explain everything about the world and how it functioned. This video answers the questions: What is Nazi Ideology? What were its roots? From where did the Nazis derive the ideas which served as the basis of their ideology? 

The Nuremberg Race Laws were introduced in 1935 and provided a legal basis for the anti-Jewish policy in Germany. The laws also created a legal definition of a "Jew," as well as revoked their citizenship. 

Ways of denoting Jews as the "other" have existed throughout history. This short video provides an overview of the Jewish Badge during the Holocaust and its historical antecedents. 
 

On November 9-10, 1938, Nazi leaders unleashed a series of violent pogroms targeting the Jewish population of Germany and incorporated territories. The pogrom came to be known as Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass), due to the shards of glass that littered the streets from the vandalized Jewish homes, businesses, and synagogues. An estimated 7,500 Jewish businesses and 267 synagogues were destroyed. Up to 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and deported to concentration camps, such as Dachau, Sachsenhausen, and Buchenwald. Kristallnacht marks the first time that the Nazi Party arrested Jews on a massive scale based solely on their ethnicity. The events of November 9-10 also served as a catalyst of immigration for many Jews.

Ghettos were often enclosed districts that served to isolate Jews by separating Jewish communities from the non-Jewish population and from other Jewish communities. This short video describes how ghettos were a key step in the Nazi process of separating, persecuting and destroying the Jews of Europe. 

Westerbork

Westerbork was the main transit camp in the Netherlands. From here, prisoners would be deported to concentration and extermination camps. View footage of prisoner arrival to Westerbork transit camp (via the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum).

Bergen-Belsen

Bergen-Belsen was a large camp complex in northern Germany. By 1944, it became a collection camp for thousands of Jewish prisoners evacuated from camps closer to the front. View footage of life in the camp after liberation (GC; via the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum).

Of the 2,819 inmates liberated at Auschwitz, 180 were children. Most were subjected to medical experimentation, including Eva Mozes Kor (circled in the above thumbnail), the founder of CANDLES Holocaust Museum in Terre Haute, IN. View full liberation footage (GC, via the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum).

The Auschwitz album refers to a series of photographs which documents the process of mass murder. The photos were taken of Hungarian Jews by two SS guards at the end of May or beginning of June 1944. The album was found by in an abandoned barracks by survivor Lilly Jacob-Zelmanovic Meier on her liberation day.

This short video shows drone footage of the vastness of the Auschwitz complex as it looks today.

This full-length documentary follows Auschwitz survivor Kitty Hart-Moxon as she returns to the infamous camp with two high school students 70 years after it was liberated. 

Resistance during the Holocaust ranged from going about daily life to leading an armed resistance. This short video outlines the various forms of resistance and uprisings, including the Warsaw ghetto uprising.

After the end of WWII and the surrender of Nazi Germany, an International Military Tribunal put senior Nazis on trial in Nuremberg for crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Eleven subsequent trials were held in Nuremberg between 1946 and 1949. 

Chief Prosecutor Justice Robert H. Jackson cross-examines Hermann Goering, Commander in Chief of the Luftwaffe (German Air Force) and Hitler's successor. Goering would be convicted on all four counts of the indictment: war crimes, crimes against humanity, conspiracy, and crimes against peace. He was sentenced to death but committed suicide in his cell before his judgment could be carried out.