Naomi

**//__World War II__//**
====World War The 2nd World War began between 1937 ( started as Second Sino Japanese War) and September 1939 (Germany invading Poland) and ended in August 15, 1945.====

Opposing sides of the war! The Allies - Western ( Soviet Union, china, Poland, Indonesia, India, Yugoslavia, French Indochina, France, United Kigndom, United States, British Dominions) The Axis-European (Germany, Japan, Romania, Hungary, Italy)

The Westerners were know as the Allies

The Nazi regime in Germany ended with WW II 



__Nazi Party in Germany (is originally a political party in Germany)__ The Nazi's do not called themselves Nazi's but National Socialists.
They reigned in Government of Nazi Germany 1933-1945 (Third Reich). They follow Adolf Hitlers beliefs established in Mein Kampf. These beliefs are that the Aryans "honourable, superior race, non-jewish Caucasian (light skinned)" are a master race where they are at the top and Jews and Gypsies are at the bottom. He believes that homosexuals are defilers of German blood. Most beliefs are opposite to Christianity.

*demand land and territory so the people are sustained, the big population of people is colonised

 * only a member of the race can be a citizen. A member of the race can only be one who is of German blood, without a confession of religious belief. Consequently no Jew can be a member of the race....

__Concentration camps__
==Concentration camps began in Germany under Hitler's leadership. The camps were set up to kill the "undesirables" and those who were outspoken against the Nazis. They were to keep people who were political and opponents of the regime. Camps were orgininally called prisons, and held in basements until in 1939 there was 6 large camps. In 1938 during the war they used the people in the camps for forced labour. During the war Hitler sent his enemies to the camps.During the war Hitler sent his enemies to the camps.The mentally ill and handicapped were locked up and gassed to death. This is where they trialled the final solution onto Germans. The camps grew as the Nazi Party took over countries and the "undesirables" were put into carts and sent to concentration cams. The carts were rail freight cars, for days and weeks they would travel going without food or water. Many people died. In the camps the "undesirables" wore identifying overalls with coloured badges.==
 * Red Triangles for Communists/Political prisoners
 * Green Triangles for common criminals
 * Pink Triangles for homosexual men
 * Purple Triangles for Jehovah's Witness
 * Black Triangles for gypsies
 * Yellow Triangles for Jews.

In 1941 they began the killing of concentration camp prisoners "Operation 14f13" Some prisoners were given special treatment 14f13 based on physical condition or race. The Jews were immediately arrested though without doctors even looking at them. They were said to have physicians "diagnosis". In 1942 small subcamps were made for forced labour ( the ones who passed the first selection worked here). If they didn't work fast enough they were sent to gas chamber. The people at camps were used for medical experiments, such as seing if pilots would freeze at different altitudes by freezing people. The women were raped and degraded. In 1943 the gas chambers in Auschwiz were operational and Heinrich Himmler stopped "Operation 14f13" Between 1943=1945 The Allies came and stopped the camps.


 * Directly from answers.com**

** //Nazi Germany's largest// [|//concentration camp//] //and extermination camp, located in southern Poland (modern O__s__wi__e__cim). It consisted of three camps (prison, extermination, and forced labour), established in 1940, 1941 (Birkenau), and 1942. Able-bodied Jewish prisoners were sent to a slave-labour camp, while the aged, the weak, and children and their mothers were killed. Some prisoners were also subjected to medical experiments, conducted by// [|//Josef Mengele//]//. The camp was gradually abandoned in 1944 – 45 as Soviet troops advanced. The total number who died at Auschwitz is estimated at between 1.1 million and 1.5 million, 90% of which were Jews; also among the dead were some 19,000 Roma (Gypsies), who were killed in July 1944, and some 83,000 Poles//.
 * // Auschwitz //

 __Vocabulary__
 **Holocaust**- The genocide of European Jews and others by the Nazis during World War II

 **Ghetto**
==== The Ghettos were designed to confine jews in tightly packed areas. 700 people lived in an area which was previously lived in by 5 families, where 12-30 people were in each room. Her they relied on replenishments from the Nazis. Althouhg many died of starvation and disease. It was not enough food to sustain them. ==== ==== **Persecution**- the act or practise of persecuting on the basis or race, religion, gender, sexual orientation of beliefs that differ from those of the persecutor. ====

 **Genocide**-the systemateic and planned extermination of an entire national, racial, political or ethic group.
====  **Kristallnacht-** The night of November 9, 1938 where the Nazis attakcked Jewish people and property in Germany and German controlled-lands)  ====

**"Final Solution"**
The Nazi plan to exterminate the Jewish population during the Third Reich ( 1933-1945). This was because the Nazi's wanted an anti-Jwish legislation aiming to remove Jews from German society. To exterminate the Jews they built ghettos in Poland and the Plisha dn wstern Europena Jews were deported to the ghettos. The Jews were killed there by shotting or gas vans. But because this caused so much psychological burden onto the killers. They systematically moved the Jews to six etermination camps Chelmno, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Auschwitz-Birkenay and Majdanek. Here the genocide took place. The "Final Solution" killed six million Jews. The age of enlightenment is marked by political aspiration towards governmental consolidation, nation-creation and greater rights for common people, attempting to supplant the arbitrary authority of aristocracy and established churches. The Jews were also accepted more into society. they call this haskalah. from wikipedia

__Bibliography__

http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/riseofhitler/odeon.htm - Hitler at the beginning and proclaimation of war in Germany on August 2, 1914
A good website http://www.answers.com/topic/man-s-search-for-meaning about another man in a concentration camp. very interesting blurb

//__ In the text ‘Night’, what does night mean? __//  The story of Night follows Elie Wiesel, a young Jewish boy from Sighet ; who was sent to the Nazi Concentration Camps at Auschwitz and Buchenwald. Night was a very important theme in this book because many of the crucial, pivotal events happened at night time. Night resembles many important parts during Elie’s journey. The time he was separated from his family and friends and became faithless. Night is resembled as depression, abuse and never ending pain, Elie felt that he was in a Kingdom of Night since the time he was in the ghetto. Elie found his family very important to him and when he was separated from them he was very distressed. On entering the Concentration camps the men and women were forced to separate. This was the last time Elie would ever see his mother, sisters and female friends. “ Disappear in a furnace filled by living creatures” (xviii). Elie was very attached to his family and didn’t want to leave his mother and sisters. Elie still felt guilty for his father’s death because he didn’t draw near at his father’s last call. This scene represents the anguish and shattering of hearts during the nights in the concentration camps. Another significant event which happened during the night, was when Elie saw the crematorium he lost his faith in God. The crematorium was the place people were burnt to death; it also burnt Elie’s faith as he watch the pain and suffering of innocent Jews. “Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever” (xix). Live babies were thrown into a burning furnace, children were hung ; where was God? Elie concluded God died in that furnace and on the gallows with that child. That night his faith was ravaged. As Elie believed, he lived in the Kingdom of Night from within the Ghetto until long after the war had finished. The Kingdom of Night included the ghetto, deportation, sealed cattle car and crematorium. This was the pain and suffering in which Elie lived in during that time. “A corpse was contemplating me” (115). After the release from camp, Elie looked at himself in the mirror. Inside himself was corpse, this showed the darkness of night’s pain in his heart. He was held captive by his dark experiences and Night was inside Elie’s heart. Throughout Elie’s journey in the concentration camps in Buchenwald and Auschwitz he experienced night. Night was the guilt and pain from separation of his family and loss of faith from stumbling over the crematorium. Elie lived in the Kingdom of Night for the duration of his time in the concentration camps. Night explained his journey of loss, pain, faithlessness, depression and fight for life. Elie Weisel quote // Every Jew, somewhere in his being, should set apart a zone of hate - healthy, virile hate -- for what the German personifies and for what persists in the German. To do otherwise would be a betrayal of the dead. //